Slashdot Mirror


User: fyngyrz

fyngyrz's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
10,605
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 10,605

  1. Re:As someone who voted democratic... on National Intelligence Director Seeks Expansion of Spy Powers · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Did you resond when they burned up kids at Waco?

    Yes. I bitched a blue streak in numerous directions.

    Did you respond when the CIA was gutted for political correctness?

    No. We don't need secret police, extra-national or otherwise. The doings of other nations are not our business until they are made to happen on our own soil, and then we don't need spies, we need heavy weapons. Of which we have plenty, as well as the means and will to deliver them.

    Did you respond when Clinton told FBI to drop Islamic groups and focus on Americans?

    No. I wasn't aware of it. I would have, though, as I consider religion and religious groups to be one of the most dangerous and poisonous - and unavoidable - elements of any nation that wants to embrace freedom. Of course, I would have insisted that without warrants issued for cause, the FBI had no right to "focus" on anyone.

    Did you respond when the ACLU took the side of terrorists while going after Boyscouts for not allowing pervets in?

    Yes. I thanked the ACLU for protecting the rights of one of our minorities. Homophobia is a disease, specifically a mental disorder, one you apparently have in spades. You should seek help.

    Did you respond when millions of illegals were allowed to cross over with no checks and creating financial, health and security risks?

    I am pro-immigration. We are all immigrants, or the children of immigrants some generations removed. My own paternal ancestors immigrated here in 1634. That doesn't make me any better - or worse - than someone who immigrated here yesterday, or across the land bridge millennia ago. I have no objection to immigration; I don't consider it a threat on any level. I do consider the blue-collar knee-jerk response to immigrants to be one of the defining characteristics of uneducated trash. I still think of "I lift my lamp beside the golden door" as something beautiful. You might want to look that up.

    Did you respond when Clinton shot crusie missles at people to distract people from the intern whose vagina he stuck cigars in?

    To the extent that the president manages to have a sex life, I think that should between the president and the president's partners. I consider any questions by the public or any arm of the government in that regard of any citizen of the country, unemployed or employed in the public or private sectors, as a blatantly unconstitutional, unethical and immoral invasion of consensual and victimless activities.

    Regarding his use of cruise missiles, it is my impression that he was making very limited, very strategic attempts to precisely hit terrorists in direct response to hits they had made against us. I don't expect all such attempts to be successful; I do expect the executive, in its role of CinC, to attempt to defend the country and I much prefer a limited response such as a few cruise missiles, than I do the invasion of an entire country at the expense of American soldier's lives.

    People keep focusing on there little pet issues while ignoring the big picture.

    Yes, Mr. AC, they certainly do.

  2. Re:As someone who voted democratic... on National Intelligence Director Seeks Expansion of Spy Powers · · Score: 1

    I know. I've been writing and ranting for literally decades. There were too few people doing that (and that was the audience I was addressing), and now the only responses left are unconscionable. To the (very) few people who have been trying to fight this kind of national deliquescence, I apologize for using such a broad brush. It wasn't aimed at you any more than it was aimed at me. However, it is broad for the obvious reason: For very much the most part, it is on target.

  3. Re:as someone who is confused on National Intelligence Director Seeks Expansion of Spy Powers · · Score: 1
    That [commerce] clause is actually one that most conservatives dislike and think its been interpreted too widely by Liberals

    Liberals, conservatives - absolutely irrelevant. The point is, it was a blatant violation of the constituting authority, and the population let it happen, and as such, it belongs in that list just as much as anything else there does. There is nothing in the commerce clause that can possibly be construed as allowing the feds to regulate commercial and/or non-commercial activity that remains within the borders of any state.

    Export controls? Those have been around for years and years, and really aren't specific to a single party AFAIK.

    No, not export controls. Lists that forbid you and I to sell anything - from a ham sandwich to a house - to people on those lists, or people at the addresses on those lists. Didn't know about those, hey? I wonder what else you've missed? And what is this about a "party"? I didn't say a single word about a party. Or liberals/conservatives, as above. What's the message you're trying to get across here?

    In general most of your rant is on target, but you should stick to things that are true and verifiable, otherwise a casual observer might remark that both sides are equally dishonest.

    My "rant" is 100% accurate in every regard as far as I know, although there is no reason I would expect "casual observers" to recognize each and every instance in it — they, like you, are very likely indeed to have missed, or misunderstood, one or more of those items. I made it long enough so that everyone, hopefully, will at least recognize something that touches them. There are many, many things I left off because posts like that tend not to be read if they're too long anyway.

    The bottom line is that the government, the fed in particular, but the states as well, has been allowed not only to misbehave, but to put in place control mechanisms that have no controls or limits of their own, and that terminates a comfortable public's ability to counter those actions.

  4. Re:The More they add, the less I like on Apple, Opera, and Mozilla Push For HTML5 · · Score: 1
    It works on adults to.

    ...apparently not.

  5. Re:As someone who voted democratic... on National Intelligence Director Seeks Expansion of Spy Powers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Too late. You didn't respond when they used Terrorism to erode many of your own rights. You didn't respond when they commenced a war against consensual, victimless "crime." You didn't respond when they redefined the commerce clause as meaning "anything we want it to mean." You didn't respond when they implemented FISA, the true beginning of legal "we don't need no warrant." You didn't respond when they put people on you-cannot-travel lists. You didn't respond when they put people on you-cannot-sell-to lists. You didn't respond when they violated the sex offender's rights, and the gun owner's rights, by imposing ex post facto punishment. You didn't respond when they began to sponsor religion. You didn't respond when they decided they could torture. You didn't respond when they put domestic internment camps into place. You didn't respond when martial law became valid for "anything the executive says it is." You didn't respond when warrants became secondary and the police became able to break and enter.

    Too late. Now any response you make will separate you from your comfort, your property, your family. And you won't do that. Too late.

  6. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    Robert, your post is so filled with misconceptions I don't even know where to start. Antimatter is completely, totally, irrelevant. Diesel and gas are irrelevant because the idea here is to get off of petrochemicals as fuels. You're wrong about recharges; ultracaps can, and do, recharge as advertised. You're wrong about power sources - current can be stored locally, just as gasoline and diesel can (the "fueling station" can pull from the utility at all times, including when it isn't providing current to its own clients.) Ultracaps are already at 1/2 LION capacities; the rate of improvement is very fast indeed, and there is no reason at all to presume this won't continue. You're wrong about how energy can be recovered from ultracaps; they're not in the same domain as standard caps, and hold *way* more energy than the examples you give would account for.You talk about new technology with regard to speed of improvement and I don't disagree, but the point is we're *already* at 1/2 LION, so one more doubling and we're there - not close, not soon, but there. And when we get there, not only will we have the same energy store, we'll have the ability to dispense it across a far greater range of power. LION designs are providing 600 HP right now; assuming we can build motors that can take it, bursts of power many times that can be provided.

    The main problem here, as with any technology, is the response from the technologies it challenges. There is no reason whatsoever to presume that ultracaps won't be able to be viable (and useful for many other things) in the market as we see it today, the question is only if the market of tomorrow will closely enough resemble today's market.

  7. Re:Wait? on In EU, Internet Use From Work May Be Protected · · Score: 1

    No, just pictures. Sorry about that.

  8. Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? on The End is Nigh for XP · · Score: 1

    [points] You are one of those despicable spelling nazis!

    Anyway, tell him, not me - maybe the quoted word is an English spelling variant. They sure do spell differently than we American folk do from time to time. S's instead of z's, ou's instead of o's, etc.

  9. Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? on The End is Nigh for XP · · Score: 1
    If the people that claim that Linux and other supposedly secure operating systems would have as much malware problems as XP if they had a similar marketshare are right

    The problem with your idea is the "if." linux isn't less subject to malware because it is less popular (it is a good deal more popular than Windows for internet servers, for instance), it is more secure because the actual design of the operating system is completely different, and does not allow for the kinds of plug-in executables that Windows does as well as the fact that it doesn't run with privileges that aren't actually needed for any one task at hand. Modern linux isn't just secure, it is downright hardened. The "popularity" argument is one that is entirely without substance. The difference between hacking into windows and linux is like the difference between getting into a gym locker and a professional bank safe. No example showing how to get into the gym locker applies to the bank safe. Even if there are a lot more gym lockers.

  10. Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? on The End is Nigh for XP · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm not normally a grammer nazi, but I assume English is not your first language, so here's a few suggestions

    I'm not normally a grammer nazi, but I assume English is not your first language, so here are a few suggestions

    :-)

  11. Re:Linux will gain!! on The End is Nigh for XP · · Score: 1

    Well, other than OSX, that is. It would be pretty silly to characterize OSX as dead or dying, and it is certainly a viable choice.

  12. Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? Not Linux on The End is Nigh for XP · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Just because XP is not going to be sold anymore does not mean that XP support is ending

    That remains to be seen. For example, a while after they stop selling it, MS will almost certainly discontinue supporting XP, just as they have Win95 and Win98. However, unlike Win95 and Win98, XP won't "just install" and work on a compatible machine, even though you have a legitimate disk. Your machine subsequently crashes, requiring a reinstall. The new install of XP promptly demands registration. MS informs you that registration for XP is no longer supported. Now what?

    This is the potential killer problem with any software that requires you to interact with the manufacturer after you buy it, regardless if it is the entire OS or just some tiny application. If you don't get a registration code that will fully enable the product with the software, as well as the ability to back up both the code and the software, you've just taken a huge risk that your investment will suddenly, at an unpredictable point in the future, cease to be of value, and any data that depends upon it, lost.

    You're better off with an OS that doesn't do this. At the present time, that'd probably be linux or OSX. Personally, I prefer OSX, but I've not looked at the newer linux distributions and the buzz for some of them (ubuntu in particular) is getting quite difficult to ignore. I think I'll go install that on my Mac under Parallels, in fact. [toddles off]

  13. Re:Don't Partition on Best Way to Image and Deploy Dual-Boot Macintosh? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seconded. The only reasons to use Bootcamp are:

    (1) cost [Parallels is very inexpensive, but not free]
    (2) if you have high performance graphics requirements like games
    (3) if you have multi core requirements.

    If single core, non-accellerated performance will do, Parallels is a much better choice. Aside from being able to concurrently run OSX, XP and linux, the ability to work with the XP and linux OS images is superb; they're just files in the OSX filesystem. They're sandboxed, you can even isolate XP from the network entirely, which solves a whole *bunch* of malware problems, and you can back things up trivially.

    The manufacturer also says they are looking at the multi core and accelerated 3D performance issues, and if those go away... poof to Bootcamp.

  14. Re:Am i the only one on Georgia Tech Unveils Prototype Nanogenerator · · Score: 1

    So put the nanogenerators on the backs of the keys, and design them for a decent stroke.

  15. Re:It isn't that simple. on 1080p, Human Vision, and Reality · · Score: 1

    (1) At better than 20/20, the individual can see just fine at the values for 20/20.
    (2) Not really. Your iris simply moves a range of less than 256 grey levels around.
    (3) Yes. But there is still value to approaching static image resolution. Some video presents a static milieux.

  16. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's exactly right. You'll be able to move them from vehicle to vehicle. At 300,000 charges, they'd last over 800 years if you recharged them once a day (which is a lot more often than most users probably would, even at the currently projected 1/2 LION capacity.) Also, the materials in them aren't nearly as toxic as, for instance, lead and sulphuric acid are, so they will probably be easier and safer to recycle, though you can never be certain - sometimes industrial processes can bring "unfriendly" materials into play even if those materials are not directly involved in the product. A good example of this can be found in gold mining; gold is inert, you'd think it'd be a dream to mine, but they use cyanide and sulfuric acid to mine it and it makes a hell of a mess.

  17. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    The main problem I see with this is the very short lifetime of batteries as compared to ultracaps. There are some efficiency issues as well; batteries lose energy due to a relatively high internal resistance during charge and discharge cycles. Ultracaps don't, at least, the loss is orders of magnitude lower. This is one of the factors that allows ultracaps to charge so much faster as well.

  18. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1
    Why not both?

    The main reason from a consumer standpoint is charge time. You can fully charge a dead ultracap in minutes. An experience, timewise, similar to filling your tank with gas. It takes hours to charge a battery. If you're 1/2 way to Aunt Minnie's, and you need a charge, you'll have to stop for quite a while with a system that uses batteries for the bulk of the power storage. There's a lifetime issue as well; 300,000 full charge-discharge cycles for an ultracap, a fraction of that for batteries. Then there are environmental issues - ultracaps could move from one vehicle to another, because they last a really long time. Batteries die too fast. There's a recycling cost that has to be paid a lot more often for a battery,

  19. No: 60wh/KG for ultracaps vs 120wh/KG for lithium. on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1
    The actual stored energy in Lithium is currently 20 TIMES greater by your own link.

    No; you misread the article. It said that current commercial DLC's were at 6Wh/kg; then it went on to say that the technology in the paper offered 60Wh/kg, which is 1/2 LION, not 1/20th. Also 300,000 charge cycles. You just needed to read one paragraph further. I encourage you to do so.

  20. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    I consider 1/2 lion capacity to be a very significant line in the sand; as I said, there is much going on in the field, and it is both new and expanding rapidly. My original post was clear: I said "probably", and I meant it. We're not there yet. But we certainly aren't "huge problems", as you characterize them. We're in the same zone, same order of magnitude, and honestly, I have every expectation that ultracaps will come out on top. They're just too much better on too many fronts, and they're so close in power to batteries now, that it seems more than reasonable to expect them to be right there in just a few years, perhaps 3 to 5. Just my opinion.

  21. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    "milling" s/b "million" in the paragraph about recycling, my apologies.

  22. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 5, Informative
    They [ultracaps] certainly don't have the energy density of batteries

    Actually, they're getting very close, and right now, there are projects projecting power densities three orders of magnitude higher than batteries, in the 100 KW/kg range. So I don't think the current state of affairs (batteries > ultracaps) is going to obtain for very much longer.

    and the largest problem with them is that the discharge from an ultra-capacitor is hard to deal with using normal electronics. It can be compensated for, but it isn't easy.

    What? ultracaps have the same discharge curve as any capacitor does; the voltage drops very smoothly as the energy in the cap is dispensed. "Dealing with it" is nothing tricky at all, the technology has been in place for this for literally decades. Modern switching power supplies are *very* efficient at creating constant voltage outputs from all manner of raggedy inputs across a wide range of input voltages, if and when required. They can be engineered to be reliable and very long lasting. This is simply a non-problem. Also, ultracaps can absorb energy (for example, from regenerative braking) at a much higher rate, leading to less wasted energy. We have all manner of high-current switching devices with such low on-resistances these days as to be utterly amazing to an old-timer like me.

    I also don't buy the "environmentally friendly" nature of them as well. While they may be better than NiCd batteries or the more traditional Lead-H2SO4 batteries in terms of what they will do to the environment, you can't call them a perfect solution either. The metals used in the construction of these types of capacitors have their own kind of impact on the environment just like any manufactured product.

    You're just hand-waving here. Recycling is one issue, toxicity is another, corrosion is another, and all of them are far less critical for ultracaps - not to mention that the lifetime of an ultracap is so much longer (up to a quarter of a milling charge/discharge cycles, or more) than that of a battery, so it is that much more seldom that recycling becomes an issue. It really isn't reasonable to say that ultracaps pose the same kind of environmental issues that batteries do. They don't. Perfect? No. But what is?

    If a "Moore's Law" were to apply to battery capacity, instead of the (presumed) 18 month half-life of procesor density and speed, it will be more like 15-20 years instead for improved energy density.

    Yes, but (a) ultracaps aren't batteries at all, and (b) ultracaps are increasing in capacity at a prodigious rate, where batteries are not. Mind you, they're coming from behind, but they're a brand new technology with tons of new research driving the improvements, while batteries are not new and many, many avenues have been tried and abandoned for increasing battery capacity for exactly the reason you cite: It is hard to improve the current battery designs.

  23. Re:Whoo Hoo on In EU, Internet Use From Work May Be Protected · · Score: 2, Interesting
    However, surfing for porn at work is just something I have never understood. If you cannot wait until you "get off" from work to surf porn, I think you should really meet some people instead of drooling over the monitor in your cubicle.

    Lady at work used to send me really funny porn pics; a lady with an n-gauge train driving up her coochie; a lobster (no, really) half-inserted, claws out, a coochie made up to look like two lips, smoking a cigarette - probably 30-40 of these pics, arriving sort of randomly attached to various emails over quite a few months. Same person joined my martial arts class and one day she retired to the back of the room during a workout, citing a headache. At a later break in the class (I work them very hard, so they need recovery time), I walked back to check on her and asked her, "how's your head?", and she said "I've never had any complaints...", deadpan. We've been a couple for over a decade now, and she's a black belt as are two of her three sons. Hooray for porn at work, sexuality at work and in class, and boo to anyone who thinks repression is the way to go.

    And as a corporate policy there are a few reasons why surfing for porn should not be allowed. The most important of which is that most p0rn sites are full of malicious scripts.

    Not a problem here. We only use Macs and linux. So no reason for such a policy. Such malware is a Windows problem (and Windows is a corporate problem - best thing we ever did was to get rid of it entirely as a working environment. Windows only runs at the hands of our engineers, in non-networked sandboxes on Macs, as a testbed for bug reports on our legacy Windows products.)

    Maybe I just have more important things "at hand".

    You have more important things on your mind than sexuality? Are you really old? Or crippled? Or in jail? :-)

  24. Re:Battery Life? on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 3, Informative
    Doesn't that mean the battery life has gone down

    It could mean that, but that isn't what is meant here. It can also mean that the battery can take in higher current during charge cycles and so reach the same state of charge sooner, and that the battery can release more current without failing or overheating due to its internal resistance, therefore making more energy available to the motors on demand - though yes, this latter capability does mean that the battery will be discharged sooner, given the same capacity battery, it is still better - because it can do what the old battery did (release at the old rate of charge) if that is what you want - but it can also give you more of a power surge for passing, towing, accelerating, getting out of (or into) trouble, etc.

    Also, because a higher safe rate of discharge usually implies a lower internal resistance, it means that the battery wastes less energy when delivering current to a client device - the more internal resistance a battery has, the more heat is generated as a direct power loss, so most higher-current capable batteries tend to be a little better in this regard.

  25. Re:The first of many stories on Nanostructured Li-ion Batteries for Electric Cars · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Battery technology will experience a sort of Moore's Law with the demand for hybrid and all-electric vehicles. This is just one of the first stories.

    Probably not. Ultra-capacitors will be hugely superior to batteries; more charge / recharge cycles by orders of magnitude, much higher current capabilities on both charge and discharge, environmentally friendly. They're just a little bit below total battery energy levels on a by weight / volume comparison right now. If and when they cross that line, batteries will become old-tech for applications like cars.