Slashdot Mirror


User: rctay

rctay's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
58
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 58

  1. Why should pay? on BellSouth Will Charge Providers For Performance · · Score: 1

    I pay $50 a month for 3Mb DSL from Bellsouth. I don't want to keep paying for increased fees for someone downloading 100+ GB a month in movies and other services. Bandwidth costs, so who should pony up the cost other than those who use it. I don't want to see monthly caps or a ridiculous metered service like some countries have. I'm sure it's more cost effective to hit a single provider with fees than parsing it out over thousands of consumers.

  2. Re:$100 per child? on Preview Of The $100 Laptop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As an ex-public school teacher that ran a lab full of Apple lle's, I can honestly say very little. There was almost zero funding after the initial equipment purchase for maintenance and upgrades. Almost every teacher at the school were technophobes, and only planned class sessions in the lab to have a free period off. After four years the lab was scrapped and the computers was placed in the classrooms to gather dust. A few kids learned a few lines of basic for display tricks. The technology was just pushed too soon to inexperienced administrators.

  3. Re:No space race for US on The Why of Space Program Races · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The public wants to go somewhere. LEO isn't interesting. They don't want to hear about the science, they want a bloody space opera. The ISS is dead. There's not enough heavy lift capacity to keep it going, much less finish it. If one more shuttle is lost or even a close call that program is dead. It will be 10 years before a new crew rated vehicle flies, and several more years before rapid turn around is accomplished. China may end up the tortoise in the classic tortoise vs hare race.

  4. Get ready on Researchers Reconstruct 1918 Flu Virus · · Score: 1

    Do you poster have any idea what happens when 30% of more of a population gets an infection like this? The medical system is overwhelmed. You are instructed to stay home and deal with it, or die. You are better off at home, because the hospitals are the best bet to get sick. My grandfather lived through the 1918 epidemic. An infected house tied a white rag on their door. Once a day the fire department would fill a pot full of thin soup if left near the curb. The dead was picked up and buried in a communal grave. The state militia had orders to shoot anyone attempting to leave the town. What makes you think it would be any different today? All the meds would be gone in a few days. Can you imagine the economic fallout today of a pandemic?

  5. Re:100 KHz? on NASA Admin Says Shuttle and ISS are Mistakes · · Score: 1

    Did you ever try moving around computers before switching power supplies was used? HF AC equals tiny bits of copper in transformers. With the cost of getting mass in LEO I would guess that amounts to a lot of fuel. DC solves that problem, but very inefficient in transmission. That's why DC circuits takes smaller gauge wire, loss to friction.

  6. Re:Not suprising on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is a bit of a myth. The problem was public transportation was allowed to decay after WWII, and rail was no longer expanded to newer population centers. It's more about the love and freedom of the automobile and cheap fuel prices for 5 decades. In Europe there's bus service between rail hubs, but in the US riding a bus is synonymous with being poor and down on your luck. The real problem is it will take trillions of dollars to redevelop and deploy mass transit on a continental scale. It would probably be cheaper to develop alternative fuel sources for automobiles.

  7. Re:Miss Kate, where have you gone? on Leo Laporte Returns to G4TV · · Score: 1

    That page is a year out of date. She's no longer performing her Garland revival at Helen's. I don't get the Times anymore, so I don't see the NY area ads and notices. The last I heard about her was last year with the annual Christmas dead Hollywood movie star thing she does. I've heard Laporte say on his TWIT podcast that she hasn't replied to his emails for a call in interview.

  8. Not enough on Zotob Worm Hits CNN and Goes Global · · Score: 1

    It needs to bring Fox news down also. Of course they will declare it the first round of a new jihad aimed at American values.

  9. profits on Henrico County iBook Sale Creates iRiot · · Score: 1

    The profits, if any after this brilliant sale can be used toward legal bills to defend the county from the personal injury and negligence suits. This whole fiasco is public service mediocrity at it's best. They should have turned the things over to a private auction firm, but some brilliant manager wanted to show he could save some money.

  10. shift to right on Senator Carper Calls for Tax on Online Porn · · Score: 1

    Mainstream democrats has realized the party will die unless they shift more to the right. They can no longer win national elections if they're perceived as a party of liberal minority causes and left wing nut cases. This is one move in many that will try to shift the party back the the middle. In a year it will be very difficult to tell the difference between the DNC and republican moderates.

  11. Re:The best thing that could happen... on Space Shuttle Discovery to Launch July 26 · · Score: 1

    I don't wish the destruction of the orbiter, but I often wonder how much real Science could have been done with the budget. Robotic probes are where the Science is, not manned flight. The only reason the shuttle flew was DOD dollars. The technology is still too primitive for effective manned space flight. We can't effectively harness the energy required.

  12. personal experince on FDA OKs Brain Pacemaker for Depression · · Score: 1

    I've suffered from major depression for 15 years. I'm one of the roughly 30% that are non-responsive to SSRI's. ECT can require up to 2 weeks hospitalization while you are treated 5 or 6 times. It's a confusing period with large memory gaps that may return over time. It's a crap shoot. Some patience require re-treatment after 6 months, some it never helps and memory loss can be permeant. The thing about VNS is early studies indicate success in the 30% range, and that can takes months. Many of those reporting success rate it as moderate. I would have to pay out of pocket for this device, $25,000, plus regular adjustments. Insurance companies aren't touching this for depression now.

  13. grandma's time on One Step Away from Changing Daylight Savings Time · · Score: 1

    I had a grandmother that lived to 96. She refused to set her clocks to DST. She kept, "Gods time". You had to always convert the time in your head when dealing with her. What really worried me is I got a quarter of her genes.

  14. Toss Hollywood on Battlestar Galactica Resurrection Effort Described · · Score: 1

    Farscape was filmed in Australia, SG1 and SGA in Canada, and BSGv2 in the UK. May be getting away from the stale LA crap helps. The point was to cut costs, but maybe it had another effect. SoCal is enough to suck the life out of anything.

  15. Re:Possible Problem on Discovery Set to Launch July 13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    People wouldn't watch a channel devoted to science. They wanted crap. These same people are doing the voting for people making the decisions about space flight. Sometimes the limitations of a representative democracy is all to apparent.

  16. Re:-1 Troll on Who Cares if Analog TV Goes Dark? · · Score: 1

    Many seniors with limited mobility and little or no transportation rely on TV as a major entertainment source. It's sad that so many posters here are so out of touch with their society. You don't realize how much of a minority you are. You may not like to be around the elderly, rabid NASCAR fans, or soccer moms, but that's America. By the way I've helped at with computer education at a Senior Center and enjoyed it much more than tutoring children.

  17. the real risk on Commission Says NASA Failed on Shuttle Safety · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they loose another ship, it will shut down NASA manned flight for 20 years. NASA has always been a difficult sell in Congress, and world is still too immature for international cooperation in projects of this magnitude. If you don't believe that, spend a day at the UN.

  18. to boldly go, not on Space Shuttle One Step Closer To July Launch · · Score: 1

    Defense spending is roughly one half trillion dollars. Things could get worse and more expensive very quickly. Oil at close to $100 a barrel will cripple the economy for some time. Economics, politics, and volatile global relations doesn't bide well for NASA funding.

  19. politics on Shuttles Can't Finish Space Station · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Look at the US states were NASA has a large presence. Count the electoral votes they represent. Do you really thing the US Congress or President is going to slash and burn that much federal pork until a substitute is found. What the hell do you thing this new trip to the moon and beyond is about? Washington has no interest in exploration, just protecting their power.

  20. spaghetti code on New MS Shell Will Not Be In Longhorn · · Score: 1

    This is more proof of how screwed up that mess of code is. Remember NT and how they kept cutting features. At some point in time you've got to say screw legacy and move on to something better. The customers will bitch, but were else are they going. Enterprise requires too much hand holding to go anywhere else.

  21. not so fast on Cringley Thinks Apple & Intel Are Merging · · Score: 1

    There's no real money left in hardware. It's about content creation and distribution. I can see Apple becoming just a software developer. That trend began to be obvious with ipods and itunes. Apple needs to evolve away from the little niche market it has, or it will slowly die. Very nice OS, but few want to develop apps for less than 5% market share.

  22. Hopeless on Arctic Warming Drying Up Lakes · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter. This civilization lacks the technology to reverse a century of industrial pollution. No government will act until economic pressures demands, and by then any large scale actions like seeding Antarctic waters with iron may make things worse. All you can do is let the planet heal itself and reduce the carbon burden as much as possible. I can't understand why some people get so upset when this species doesn't behave rationally. When has it ever?

  23. cheap on White Knight Testing X-37 · · Score: 1

    Do you know how much money it takes to maintain and fly a modified B52 as a launch platform? It may make sense for military use for quick surveillance satellite insertion, but not research. It's always about economics.

  24. Rick's idea on Trek Producers Will Provide World A Break · · Score: 1

    The ideas was to create a darker, dirtier show with weaker, near normal human characters. They thought it will appeal more to the current post 9/11 uncertainty. This might have worked, but they failed to develop the characters and kept falling into the old gung ho, can do attitude of the other series. To me the only character enjoyable to watch was Phlox, and that was due to the skills of John Billingsley.

  25. funds and public opinion on NASA Ponders Postponing Launch until July · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The simple truth is the average American just doesn't care anymore. Congress is only concerned when NASA funding will bring pork and jobs to their districts. There's no long term commitment, funding, motivation, or fascinating technology there. The average Joe would rather watch SciFi, it's cheaper, less dangerous and fits his 60 to 90 minute attention span. Maybe it is time to scrap manned exploration for now and de-orbit that international boondoggle.