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User: Sockatume

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Comments · 5,843

  1. Re:Of course the actual copies existing is in doub on First Few Doctor Who Episodes May Fall To Public Domain Next Year · · Score: 3, Informative

    They made the right call at the time, given that the alternative to was to archive every tape and stack up a nontrivial fraction of the BBC's budget in a vault in preparation for applications that didn't exist.

    Most media go through a period where the recording format is too valuable not to reuse (magnetic tape) or too fragile to store (nitrocellulose film, early print). Some day maybe we'll invent a way to record brain patterns, but I'm inclined to expect it'll be in a medium like defect-free carbon-hassium nanocrystals that cost $500,000 each. I don't doubt that some re-recording in whatever technology we come up with.

    NASA recorded over the Moon Landing masters, at a time when they were better-funded than they have ever been. The BBC is in good company.

  2. Re:Robots to kill moon jellyfish on Unmanned 'Terminator' Robots Kill Jellyfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they wanted to live they should have stayed on the moon.

  3. Robots to kill moon jellyfish on Unmanned 'Terminator' Robots Kill Jellyfish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We are living in the future.

  4. Re:not getting mine on Finding a Tech Museum For Your Beloved Retired Computer(s) · · Score: 1

    An elegant calculator, for a more civilised age.

  5. Re:Which indicates their abuse. on First Few Doctor Who Episodes May Fall To Public Domain Next Year · · Score: 1

    If the nefarious scheme you're describing seems too diabolical to believe, maybe the destruction of the tapes has nothing to do with your postulated scheme.

  6. Re:When did on Mars Orbiter Spies Comet ISON · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's a lot easier to picture 8 million miles than 13 million kilometres.

  7. Re:Fluoride on Team of Dentists Create "The Six-Second Toothbrush" · · Score: 1

    The point of brushing (and flossing or interdental brushing) is to remove the biofilm of bacteria living on your teeth and gum margins, which:

    1) Produce acids through their metabolism which dissolve your tooth enamel
    2) Stop anything else from actually reaching your teeth

  8. Re:Now all we need... on Mars Orbiter Spies Comet ISON · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, a sequel to Armageddon then.

  9. Re:Mororns can't figure out how to Internet. on GTA Online Runs Into an Online Roadblock · · Score: 1

    That's what we need, another big console release where online performance is dependent on the average home console owner's broadband connection.

    (I say this as a home console owner. Microsoft's decision to push dedicated servers for multiplayer gaming is one of the few things they got right in the Xbox One from the start.)

  10. Re:NASA PR machine on Voyager 1 May Be Caught Inside an Interstellar Flux Transfer Event · · Score: 1

    It's almost as though this research didn't come out of NASA.

  11. Re:Brain dump summary on Researchers Show How Easy It Is To Manipulate Online Opinions · · Score: 1

    This one *is* a dupe.

  12. Re:Imagine... on Flowering Plants' Roots Pushed Back 100M Years · · Score: 1

    Exactly 243,000,050 years old, obviously.

  13. Re:Artificiality on Teaching Fractions: The Tootsie Roll Is the New Pie · · Score: 1

    I think that the fact that quantity can be expressed in many different ways is a pretty fundimental mathematical idea and trying to hide it from children would be a mistake. 1/6 isn't the "un-evaluated" version of 0.166..., it's exactly the same thing.

  14. Re:Cheap Hydrogen on Japanese Start-up Plans Hydrogen Fuel Cell For 2014 · · Score: 1

    The idea is that it gives you an energy "currency" that's fungible, like current fuels, and can be easily made from whatever energy source you have on hand, unlike current fuels. Where that energy comes from is essentially a separate issue as far as hydrogen research is concerned, although the way that it was sold to the public you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

    There is some work on making hydrogen efficiently from solar energy and water, but that tends to get lumped with the related work that aims to make carbon-based fuels from solar energy, water, and CO2.

  15. Re:First question from the kids on Teaching Fractions: The Tootsie Roll Is the New Pie · · Score: 1

    Advice for submitters: avoid writing while hungry, snack foods might not be the universal and inviolable constant you assume them to be when your stomach is growling.

    Pies? Rolls? I'm heading into a mid-afternoon blood sugar crash here and Slashdot is not helping.

  16. Re:8 years ago? on Samsung Fudging Benchmarks Again On Galaxy Note 3 · · Score: 1

    Actually in this case, the only whitelisted apps are benchmark apps. And in the previous Samsung case, the only whitelisted apps were benchmark apps and a few system functions such as the photograph viewers.

    Games have never received the Samsung speed boost.

  17. Re:Balloons on Congress Reaches Agreement ... On Helium · · Score: 1

    I get that there's a lower grade of helium, but I can't make hide nor hair of what gl4ss was trying to say.

  18. Re:Forgive my ignorance on Congress Reaches Agreement ... On Helium · · Score: 1
  19. Re:Balloons on Congress Reaches Agreement ... On Helium · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Children's balloons use recycled or low grade helium which too expensive right now be used for more worthy purposes."

    What?

  20. Re:Figured it out yet? on Sinkhole Sucks Brains From Wasteful Bitcoin Mining Botnet · · Score: 1

    By your definition, all startups are Ponzi schemes. To make the necessary correction:

    A Ponzi scheme is a system where only the revenue added by new subscribers pays the return on investment of early investors.

  21. Re:Steve Mann on Captain Cyborg Is Back! Kevin Warwick Predicts the Future · · Score: 1

    I have started a dangerous game here. I'll head it off by proposing the first man to accidentally ingest a wristwatch.

  22. Re:Steve Mann on Captain Cyborg Is Back! Kevin Warwick Predicts the Future · · Score: 2

    If we're going for pedantry - and I assume that's what this is about - someone who actually implants tech inside his body has more of a claim than somebody who just wears it as an accessory.

  23. Re:This is news? on Security Researchers Rewarded With $12.50 Voucher To Buy Yahoo T-Shirt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or paid them nothing. A small material reward is often more insulting than no reward but having done the right thing.

  24. Re:Kill the zombies on Sinkhole Sucks Brains From Wasteful Bitcoin Mining Botnet · · Score: 1

    What a modest proposal.

  25. Re:Figured it out yet? on Sinkhole Sucks Brains From Wasteful Bitcoin Mining Botnet · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's an issue they'll have to face that fiat currencies do not. It'll be interesting to see what happens, if it lasts that long.