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User: Ferzerp

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Comments · 344

  1. Re:*SHOCK* on $60 Light Bulb Debuts On Earth Day · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but you can't rely on any LED stats from manufacturers. They're all grossly inflated. Don't even bother reading them. Find an independent review, or better yet, see one in person. Most of what you find are what are very dim, blue, spotlights.

    I've tried a quite a few. Actually, the only one worth using as more than a reading light has been a Philips model. The 12.5W "AmbientLED" model.

  2. Re:Partially Blocked View on The Laws of Physics Trump Traffic Laws · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Considering that the crux of his argument (ignoring the smoke and mirrors angular velocity aside), was that he claimed he stopped and then accelerated back to the same speed as before all while he was hidden behind the other car, yes, it really matters. You fell for the same thing the judge did. The verbosity of the whole thing was all designed to hide the core claim, which is what I have said here.

  3. Re:Partially Blocked View on The Laws of Physics Trump Traffic Laws · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem with his partially blocked view defense is he's claiming that his Yaris, is capable of over 1G accelleration from a stop. (10 m/s^2 is more than 9.8 m/s^2). That is supercar like acceleration, even to maintain only up to 20 MPH.

    His whole paper is based on breaking the laws of physics for his Yaris, and hiding it so that the judge and officer don't notice.

  4. Re:GI Joe on Matt Groening Reveals Springfield Is In His Home State of Oregon · · Score: 1

    Is that the one that runs down Cypress Hill? Or am I just being insane?

  5. Re:Fist on Nokia 900 Being Given Away Due To Software Glitch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Have fun with your five 2-year cell phone contracts which will probably cost you over $7000 over their course.

    The summary is rather inflamitory. There are no "free" cell phones, they only look free if you ignore the contract component.

  6. Re:Just wrong on all counts on DoJ Files Suit Against Apple, Ebook Publishers · · Score: 1

    We're talkign about big publishers here.

    Historically Amazon said "Ok, we want 1,000 of ebook X. What do you want for it" and then bought 1,000 of ebook X at wholesale. Apple came along and said "Hmm, tell you what, we'll let you set the price and we'll sell the books for you and keep 30%" Suddenly, the publisher can go to amazon and say "Well, sorry, we will only sell like this now, and if you don't like it too bad, we'll still be able to sell through Apple".

    Your bizarro scenario doesn't come in to play at all because Amazon was buying the books at a per unit price and then selling the books for whatever they wanted to. The price didn't impact the price amazon bought the book for.

    Maybe you're talking about some tiny little self published agreement, but that isn't what this is about at all.

  7. Re:Land of the free on Interview With TSA Screener Reveals 'Fatal Flaws' · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I take it you've never been to Bush International Airport in Houston. Over the speakers they actually threaten arrest to anyone who criticizes or makes a joke about security.

    Of course, we were so floored by that that we were making jokes about it until we left (as that's human nature for totally bizarre situations), but still. I'm saddened that whoever made that decision hasn't had a massive judicial slap down yet.

  8. Re:When people abuse prices go up on Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days · · Score: 2

    I won't argue with you there, but we cannot evaluate this policy on the assumption that your scenario is the case, as it appears that this policy is intended to cover any return or exchange. If they expect the return of defective products to be covered under this policy, they are running afoul of a few laws.

    If the policy were such that they would only refund, or swap to a different product once per 90 days it isn't an issue. They aren't obligated to allow you to change your mind. They are only obligated to insure that what you purchase is functional if it is sold as a functional item.

  9. Re:When people abuse prices go up on Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You assume that the store has the right to refuse a return if you refuse to provide this information or if you're a frequent shopper that has more than one purchase of faulty goods. The agreement with the store is to exchange your money for a working product. If the product doesn't work, and the store refuses to refund or exchange it, they may have issues.

    They may have a leg to stand on if it were refunds only, but the summary specifically includes exchanges in to this mix.

  10. Re:WOW AOL is still alive on Microsoft Buys 800 AOL Patents For $1 Billion · · Score: 1

    No satellite you say? I don't think you understand what a satellite is....

    Granted, it sucks compared to most everything else, but satellite internet is much better than dial up. It's not going to be as cheap though.

  11. It's pretty black and white on Federal Court Tosses Colorado's Amazon Tax · · Score: 5, Informative

    These laws are unconstitutional. The states are free to try to amend the constitution, but as it stands today, their inability to tax purchases like this is one of the most non-vague areas of our constitution.

  12. Man whose job relies on the scientific method... on Lawsuit Claims NASA Specialist Was Fired Over Intelligent Design Belief · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... is demoted for rejecting the whole basis, or showing that he has a severely flawed understanding?

    Who would have thought.

  13. Re:Fucking magnets on Startram — Maglev Train To Low Earth Orbit · · Score: -1

    Don't forget the need for as of yet undiscovered/undesigned materials that can support their own weight at such lengths.

  14. Re:Effect on rude driving on Cell Phone Jamming Devices Enjoy an Increase In Popularity · · Score: 2

    No. Not abuse. Their *use* leads to much more harm than good. The only place that "use" is not abuse is turning them on in a private faraday cage on your own property.

    There is no use case for these devices that do not run afoul of extremely well reasoned laws. In fact, the laws prohibiting the use of these things are one of the few sane laws that we do have.

  15. Re:Blazing fast LTE speeds on After Complaints, AT&T Solidifies, Increases Data Limit · · Score: 1

    Every time I've used an LTE USB modem, the typical speeds I got were heavily dependent upon the city I was in, of course.

    Chicago, it was common to seed speeds of 20Mbit down/10Mbit up. San Antonio was closer to 10/2, etc. Phones, are much different due to being much more constrainted on power, of course.

  16. Re:Nonsense on Optical Memory Could Speed Up the Internet · · Score: 1

    The speed of light is a huge issue.

    Try to design a system for a synchronous data replication from, say, New York to San Francisco. You can't without killing performance because the round trip time between the two for fiber or copper connections is 40ms. Even with 0 switching time, the speed of light is too slow to do such a thing.

  17. Re:Sometime the old ways on Ask Slashdot: How To Allow Test Takers Internet Access, But Minimize Cheating? · · Score: 1

    At university, the hardest course I ever took had take home open book, open note, *open internet* tests.

    The course was abstract algebra though, so, the internet wasn't much help (c. 2001).

  18. Re:because we learned nothing from Fukushima on US Approves Two New Nuclear Reactors · · Score: 1

    The individual you were referring to obviously meant accident. Hiroshima was rather on purpose. I don't think anyone would disagree.

    You can't really compare the effects of nuclear weaponry a few generations later to the effects of power plant disasters either. They are entirely different beasts.

  19. Re:Being Google on No More SSL Revocation Checking For Chrome · · Score: 1

    You can add or remove any CA cert you want if you want to trust more (or fewer) CAs. Nothing requires you to leave the default set as is.

  20. Re:Being Google on No More SSL Revocation Checking For Chrome · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except now Google is presenting itself as an authority on the status of certificates that it has no business doing so with to the users of chrome.

    This is a bad thing.

  21. Re:Being Google on No More SSL Revocation Checking For Chrome · · Score: 1

    This. It should not be within the realm of Google's purview to rewrite standards on an adhoc basis.

  22. Reality distortion field? on New BBC Sports Website Makes Heavy Use of RDF · · Score: 4, Funny

    They had better be careful. Apple is a very lawsuit-happy corporation.

  23. Culling of the weak? on SmartCap Reads Brain Waves to Monitor Workers' Fatigue Levels · · Score: 1

    You know this will be used to fire people whose brain waves suggest that they tire (even slightly) faster than others, and replace them with more efficient humans...

    Something tells me the use of such a device will be blocked (especially in unionized industries).

  24. Re:10% Ethanol on Is E85 Dead Now? · · Score: 4, Informative

    The octane rating of fuel has less to do with the actual compounds and more to do with how much pressure you can put it under before it detonates (which, of course, does depend on the chemical makeup, but other things, such as ethanol can raise it, not just octane specifically). The higher the octane rating, the less likely it is to spontaneously combust under high pressures. This is why your higher compression engines don't allow the lower octane ratings. They're made to compress the fuel more thna 87 octane fuel can withstand. Of course, by changing the timing and the amount of fuel and air that enters the cylinder, they will work with lower fuel, but less powerfully.

  25. Re:Engineering on What a Black Box Data Dump Looks Like · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't think you understand what makes a car safe. You don't want something that is indestructable. You want something that dissipates a majority of a crash specifically by destructing. Previously, vehicles weren't designed to do this, and so the weakest area was the cabin. Now, they're designed to do that, and the cabin usually remans the most intact part of the vehicle, while most of the crash energy goes in to "shredding" (to use your terms) the rest of the vehicle. Ever seen an F1 crash? The reason they typically survive is that all that energy goes in to making the car practically disintegrate...