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User: ottergoose

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  1. Re:Intel Launches Notebooks on Intel Launches Centrino Duo Notebooks · · Score: 1

    GM's press release regarding sale of EMD.

    Wikipedia could be wrong, but in this case, it isn't. It has several other links there confirming the sale.

  2. Re:Intel Launches Notebooks on Intel Launches Centrino Duo Notebooks · · Score: 1

    Did you know General Motors makes diesel locomotives, also?

    GM sold their locomotive line, EMD, in April of '05, so that is no longer true. GE, on the other hand, still manufactures them.

  3. Re:Cleary the government doesn't care about... on FEMA Demands Use of IE To File Online Katrina Claims · · Score: 1

    I apologize to everyone... it was early and I hadn't had any coffee.

    (Apology, not feeding trolls)

  4. Re:Thread over! on FEMA Demands Use of IE To File Online Katrina Claims · · Score: 1

    I agree. I tried a joke along the lines of "Educated rich Windows users..." but crap, that's really funny.

  5. Cleary the government doesn't care about... on FEMA Demands Use of IE To File Online Katrina Claims · · Score: 2, Funny

    Clearly the government doesn't care about minorities. Only educated, rich, Windows users can apply for aid online.

    (Funny, not flamebait)

  6. Re:Skeptical on Internet Explorer 7 To Be XP Only · · Score: 4, Funny

    No kidding. Why leave Netscape Navigator 3 Gold when it works just fine?

    Also, has anyone else caught the virus that prevents all of the websites they look at from working properly? I seem to have it and can't figure out how to fix it...

  7. Re:This is spectacular on One Step Away from Changing Daylight Savings Time · · Score: 4, Funny

    Next thing you know Bush will make us use a calandar based on how many days it has been since Jesus died. That would be absurd.

  8. Re:Consumer laptop on New iBooks 'Any Day Now' · · Score: 1

    I've never had a problem with my 800 12" iBook running my 19" display at 1280x1024, in addition to its own display.

  9. Re:rain != boats on Weather Radar Case Mod · · Score: 3, Informative

    He's using the radar terminal from the marine radar system as a case for a PC that downloads National Weather Service radar data from the internet, so he can display it cool fashion. That is to say, he's not actually using a marine radar.

    (And yes, I believe marine radars can detect weather, however, their use on land is illegal)

  10. Re:The answer is obvious... on Red Hat Founder Offers Help in Apple vs.Tiger Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    I looked up Liger on Wikipedia and to my surprise, a liger is a real animal - the cross between a male lion and female tiger. If you breed a male tiger and female lion, you get a tigon.

    Cray.

  11. Re:That sucks on New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a developer for a small weather software company and we rely on the NWS for a lot of information (forecasts, etc.) for one our products[/shameless plug]. If this becomes law, our software won't work anymore. 2 people cannot write 7 day forecasts for every county in the USA.

  12. Re:Contact the senator on New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data · · Score: 5, Informative
  13. Re:Nonvisible wavelenghts? on Ophthalmologists, Physicists Design Bionic Eye · · Score: 1
    • Thus, it can only stimulate what you can normally see: Red, green, and blue (and light/dark with the rods). No chip that stimulates the nerves under the retina can make us see anything that our eye can't normally see. There's no undocumented "infrared nerve" that would allow us to see something unique from our normal vision if it were stimulated.

    According to this, some women may have another "nerve" which responds to yellow, in addition to red, green, and blue.

    Also, some animals can percieve infrared.

    That isn't to say humans have plug-n-play support for infrared vision, but there are biological means for seeing more than red/green/blue.
  14. Re:Rear hazard-avoidance camera? on Mars Rovers Get Extra 18 Months · · Score: 1

    It would be so much easier to just use GPS...

    Sometimes those clowns at NASA overlook the most obvious solutions.

    [/joke]

  15. NWS Does Offer WAP Services Already... on Should Taxpayers Pay Twice For Weather Data? · · Score: 3, Informative

    The NWS offers WAP services at: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/wml

  16. Re:I never was into N-gage on N-Gage No Longer Relevant · · Score: 1

    I was more of an 027 guy myself. I used the last of my mod points today - I guess there aren't too many model train buffs on /..

  17. Simon on Top 100 Toys From The '70s or Thereabouts · · Score: 1

    My friend made a neat Simon OS X app. If the four keys aren't challenging enough, try it with 9 or 16. Who says you can't be a gamer with OS X ;-)

  18. Spelling! on Limitations in Current Breed of Palm Handhelds? · · Score: -1, Troll

    It should be the current bread of PDA's.

    Jeesh.

  19. Re:Hate to say it, but... on Digital Clock Without Electricity or Moving Parts · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's not a digital clock in any sense of the word.

    It shows the time with discrete digits, so it is digital.

    From Wikipedia: [Digital] comes from the same source as the word digit: the Latin word for finger (counting on the fingers) as these are used for discrete counting.

  20. Re:Simon rules! on Classic Toys For Christmas? · · Score: 1

    Simon for OS X.

    My friend wrote it. It's a fun little app.

  21. Diet Cigarettes on Battery-powered Cigarettes? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess it was only a matter of time before fake beer and diet pop/soda got a companion.

    This sounds like a pretty cool product. I wonder how sales would be regulated here in the US... could you sell something like this to minors?

  22. Looks like... on Medical Care Gets Outsourced Too · · Score: 2, Funny

    First World health care at Third World prices

    That really looks like it was taken from a sign on the Simpsons.

    Off topic, yes, but, it's Friday.

  23. The whole point... on A Dual Monitor Experiment · · Score: 1

    The whole point of having more than one monitor is to present you with as much information as is possible at one time. This isn't for watching movies - this is for having source on one monitor and your executing program/script/web/whatever output on the other, which does actually increase productivity. This is why all of my code monkey coworkers have at least two monitors. Sure, it's nice for AIM/MSN/ICQ/Chat and news, but the killer app for multiple displays is writing code.

  24. What about... on Gmail Begins Signing Email with DomainKeys · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What about all of those zombie machines out there that send spam via Outlook - since that email is going out with a valid account, it would be flagged as legit.

    Tell me where I'm wrong.

  25. Re:Mirror? on Probe Crash Due to Misdesigned Deceleration Sensor · · Score: 2, Informative

    Genesis crash linked to upside-down design
    17:18 15 October 04
    NewScientist.com news service


    Sensors to detect deceleration on NASA's Genesis space capsule were installed correctly but had been designed upside down, resulting in the failure to deploy the capsule's parachutes. The design flaw is the prime suspect for why the capsule, carrying precious solar wind ions, crashed in Utah on 8 September, according to a NASA investigation board.

    The sensors were a key element in a domino-like series of events designed to release the parachutes. When the capsule - which blazed into the atmosphere at 11 kilometres per second - decelerated by three times the force of gravity (3 Gs), the sensors should have made contact with a spring.

    "It's like smashing on the brakes in your car - you feel yourself being pushed forward," says NASA spokesperson Don Savage.

    The contact should have continued as the capsule peaked at a deceleration of about 30 Gs. Then, when the capsule's deceleration fell back through 3 Gs, the contact would have been broken, starting a timer that signalled the first parachute to release.

    "But it never made the initial contact because it was backwards," Savage told New Scientist.

    Wrong orientation

    The sensors, which are estimated to be less than an inch (2.5 centimetres) wide, were apparently installed in a circuit board in the wrong orientation - rotated 180 from the correct direction. But the problem stemmed not from the installation but the design, by Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland.

    They still have to find out why that design error was not caught," says Savage. The mission's Mishap Investigation Board will continue to investigate the problem.

    "This single cause has not yet been fully confirmed, nor has it been determined whether it is the only problem within the Genesis system," says the board's chairman Michael Ryschkewitsch. "The board is working to confirm this proximate cause, to determine why this error occurred, why it was not caught by the test programme and an extensive set of in-process and after-the-fact reviews of the Genesis system."

    So far, Savage says, the design flaw does not seem to be shared by NASA's Stardust mission, which will use a similar parachute system to deliver samples of a comet to Earth in January 2006.

    The $264 million Genesis mission launched in August 2001 to study the composition of the early Solar System, which is thought to be reflected in the solar wind.