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User: PPH

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  1. Re:DOH on Do Russian Uranium Deals Threaten World Supply Security? · · Score: 1

    there was no reason for Canadian control of such mines to ring any alarm bells

    So, why wasn't our sale of US uranium mines toi Canada made with restrictions on resale or the right of a veto?

    Asked and answered: Money. Canada would likely have offered less in a deal with restrictions. We knew it and didn't ask for any, figuring we could stamp our feet and whine later on.

  2. Re:Yes on Do Russian Uranium Deals Threaten World Supply Security? · · Score: 1

    US Uranium supply

    So, why did we sell this off to a Canadian company in the first place?

  3. How about ... on Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax · · Score: 1

    ... someone develops a GPS device with an updatable region map? The device can check its coordinates against this map and determine which tax jurisdiction the vehicle is currently operating in. And accumulate mileage by tax jurisdiction. The download to the local/state authority would just be the accumulated mileage driven within each jurisdiction. No actual location information would be provided.

  4. Re:It's an accidentally-on-purpose. on Australian Law Could Criminalize the Teaching of Encryption · · Score: 1

    can't buy shit on Amazon

    Then they will set up an Amazon.au site. With no encryption and higher prices.

  5. Re:Installation problem? on Software Glitch Caused Crash of Airbus A400M Military Transport Aircraft · · Score: 1

    You would think so. But the areospace industry is a major practitioner of keeping design and manufacturing processes seperate. And that has been getting worse in the last few decades.

  6. Re:There can be only one. on Choosing the Right IDE · · Score: 1

    vi is my editor. I shall not font.

  7. I would like to have seen Montana.

  8. Re:You mean AAAA. on Why Apple Ditched Its Plan To Build a Television · · Score: 1

    Why? 24 hour listing data is broadcast in over the air streams along with the program material.

  9. Re:You mean AAAA. on Why Apple Ditched Its Plan To Build a Television · · Score: 1

    You say this as if HDTVs can't have apps...

    It can't. Unless they have embedded advertisements.

    I have an old Vizio that has a really nice 24 hour content guide for OTA broadcasts. But the TV set is getting close to it's end of life, so I started looking for the same feature in a new one. Cannot have. Now, you need an app that fetches the listing information over a broadband connection. So advertisers can attach stuff and track what you are watching.

  10. Re:if not a weapon the it's for weapon development on Robotic Space Plane Launches In Mystery Mission This Week · · Score: 1

    you know what they do on the ISS?

    Well, they can't very well do weapons research on the ISS with the Russians up there.

    "Oleg. Vat is 'pew pew pew' sound comink from American module?"

  11. Re:Boeing Engineers... on Chris Roberts Is the Least Important Part of the Airplane Hacking Story · · Score: 1

    They implemented filtering on the evil bit.

  12. Re:Boeing Engineers... on Chris Roberts Is the Least Important Part of the Airplane Hacking Story · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except that Boeing asked the FAA for a Special Condition to allow just such an interconnection.

  13. Re:Arab knowledge on Arab Mars Probe Planned For 2020 · · Score: 1

    but no one thinks that he developed anything that you would see in a modern calculus course.

    This is true. But then it was only a few weeks in my high school calculus class to get from infintesimals to full blown differentials and integrals. And this is what we credit to Leibniz in the 17th century. So yes, there's more to calculus than that. But from Leibniz to now took 400 years. Archimedes did sugest the idea of infintesimals. So it looks like that idea sat in the dustbin of learning for 2000 years before Leibniz picked it up again.

  14. Re:Why is anyone surprised? on Prenda's Old Copyright Trolls Are Suing People Again · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, it's a 'feature' of the ADA legislation. Usually, a plaintiff needs to prove damages and the settlement will be based upon that amount. But if the damage consists of some disabled person not being able to buy a greasy hamburger at some shitty restaurant with no handicapped parking, what are the damages?

    The solution is to continue to allow such suits. But to have anything awarded over actual damages be required to be placed into a compliance escrow fund. Where, once the business is sued a few times (or they get their ass in gear and pitch in some funds voluntarily) it can be used to fix the acessibility problems.

    After all, this should be the object of the law: To improve access for the disabled. Not to squeeze businesses for an amount just small enough so they'll pay instead of fixing the problem.

  15. Asset Price ... on Stock Market Valuation Exceeds Its Components' Actual Value · · Score: 2

    ... is based (among other things) on the supply of assets available to trade. So when the market is high, that means many investors value their held assets and don't make them available to trade. This reduces the supply and increases the value/price of the remaining assets still 'in the market'. There may be some other mechanisms at work that are artificially sopping up liquidity, like HFT.

    If everyone put their portfolios up for sale, prices would drop fast and far.

  16. Re:cover everything with mirrors on Navy's New Laser Weapon: Hype Or Reality? · · Score: 1

    Too expensive and difficult.

    Simply engineer a heat shield for the warhead that is ablative and outgasses enough to provide a protective layer around the object. The advantage of this over a mirror is that the laser's heat is carried away by the emitted gas.

  17. Re:What I don't understand on Feds Order Amtrak To Turn On System That Would've Prevented Crash · · Score: 1

    I haven't been involved with the PTC system. But from wht I've heard in the news, my guess is that this is intended to be far more than just a maximum speed governor system. Seeing as how Congress was involved in mandating it, there are probably requirements in the implementing law to prevent almost every kind of track switch, train conflict, temporary track restriction and conflicting traffic accident you can imagine. So the sensors and communications systems needed to support the requirements are quite complex. And the code is very complex.

    This isn't a Gogle car, where private enterprise took the initiative and developed something that just works. This is system and software requirements written by a legislative body.

  18. Re:Bluetooth on The Auto Industry May Mimic the 1980s PC Industry · · Score: 1

    My car is so old that any reference to Bluetooth could only mean the Danish king.

  19. Re:If you live in a rural area.... on Rockwell Collins To Develop Cockpit Display To Show Sonic Boom Over Land · · Score: 1

    if you live under a busy flight path

    You are probably living under an approach or departure path. In which case aircraft won't be flying supersonic. The Concorde needed several hundred miles to decelerate below Mach 1 and usually reached subsonic speeds before entering an ATC area (a flight path).

    Aircraft are increasingly moving away from point to point established routes. These date from the days when cross country navigation was done between radio beacons with direction finding receivers. Now, its based on individually planned routes which can be spread out, reducing the impact on any one point on the ground (and spacing flights apart for safety as well).

  20. Re:I was in the path of some low-level sonic event on Rockwell Collins To Develop Cockpit Display To Show Sonic Boom Over Land · · Score: 1

    I live with them every day. I'm along the approach path to SeaTac and aircraft pass overhead at about 6000 feet numerous times a day. No problem.

    What gets exciting is that this is also (sometimes) the approach path to either Boeing Field or Paine Field. And occasionally a test flight comes over at 1500 to 2000 feet if they are in trouble. Gear down 15 miles from the airport is usually trouble as in "We f*cked up the hydaulics installation again! No flaps!"

  21. Re:Unpopulated Areas on Rockwell Collins To Develop Cockpit Display To Show Sonic Boom Over Land · · Score: 0

    It's no worse than thunder. Wild animals have been living with that for millions of years.

  22. Slashdot needs ... on Men's Rights Activists Call For Boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road · · Score: 1

    ... a 'Trigger Warning' tag for all the sperglords.

  23. Re:Arab knowledge on Arab Mars Probe Planned For 2020 · · Score: 1

    It's pretty well accepted that Archimedes developed calculus and wrote about it. And then his manuscript was erased by Christians so the parchment could be used for a bible.

    History is full of Greek, Arab and other discoveries and sharing of discoveries between cultures interspersed with religious nut-jobs stepping in and messing things up, either intentionally or through ignorance.

  24. Re:Cost bigger issue than sonic boom on Rockwell Collins To Develop Cockpit Display To Show Sonic Boom Over Land · · Score: 4, Informative

    Think about it, the total energy of all the shock and sonic boom is equal to amount of jet fuel burnt.

    Um, there's a lot of air being heated as well. In fact, that's the point.

    Or 54 kilowatt, or 54,0000 joules/sec.

    More like 54 * 10^6 joules/sec

    Our eardrums and instruments are sensitive enough to pick up the sonic boom over 10mph wind, but thats about it.

    Go back and crank in that 10^3 factor. It's not that quiet. But then again, since our ears and perception are logarithmic, it's not that bad compared to other sounds.

    It's also a function of altitude. If you can keep supersonic aircraft at or above 60,000 feet (and there are reasons other than noise for doing so), the shock wave energy is spread out over a greater area and attenuated.

  25. Re:Cost bigger issue than sonic boom on Rockwell Collins To Develop Cockpit Display To Show Sonic Boom Over Land · · Score: 1

    For military flight, cost isn't such a big issue.

    But the detectability of supersonic aircraft is. So this is probably the customer at whom this technology is targeted.