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User: qbwiz

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  1. Re:overengineered on New System to Counter Photo and Video Devices · · Score: 1

    I don't think that most screens are nearly as IR-reflective as they are visible-light reflective. I don't know how easy it would be to make a screen that was good at both.

  2. Re:Why bother with the FAA? on Space Elevator Gets FAA Clearance · · Score: 5, Informative

    For example, according to Chapter 14 of Federal Regulations Part 47, all trustees of a plane registered in the US must be legal residents or citizens. Since this flight is rather unconventional, something like plane (or balloon + long tether) registration would be required. This isn't just a pilot's license.
    Considering that corporations can't become legal residents (AFAIK, IANAL), whatever country they're incorporated in is where they register their planes. This, of course, assumes a certain universality of laws, but I'm sure the FAA and most other countries have laws in place to ensure that unregistered people don't go flying planes around, even in the middle of the ocean.

  3. Re:Why bother with the FAA? on Space Elevator Gets FAA Clearance · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you're a US citizen/company, you still need FAA approval, no matter where in the world you're launching from. No, I don't know why.

  4. Re:Change the default on Opening the Potential of OpenOffice.org · · Score: 2, Informative

    But if we have to work and interact, keeping track of changes is not the easiest thing to do in LaTeX.

    This sounds like a job for cvs or arch or monotone some other version management system. LaTeX files are plain text, so a proper versioning system would work with them much better than it would with ugle .doc files.

  5. Re:99.5% methanol on Toshiba to Demo New Fuel Cell MP3 Players · · Score: 2, Informative
  6. Re:.NET is a Diversion Maneuver on Mono Blocked from MS Conference · · Score: 1

    If .NET is a total failure then it will waste Linux/Java developer time, but it will waste much, much more Windows developer time.

  7. Re:Console Games? on Game Scripting With Python · · Score: 1

    The point is not that the game engine is a library providing threads, but that the game engine acts almost solely as a library, one which provides lightweight threads to be used by the game objects: tens/hundreds of threads, 1 per object/process, each interacting with the game engine. That's very different from having 10 threads, each in charge of many objects and processes.

  8. Re:Could be for managers on Best Software Writing I · · Score: 1

    Those aren't parallel. There could be operating systems and programming languages with much greater benefits than those we currently/commonly use. Linux vs. Windows. Python and Ruby vs. C. How many significantly better-than-normal ways are there of formatting programs?

  9. Re:It would be nice to get a view from the other s on Best Software Writing I · · Score: 1

    Joel has already published 2 other books with Apress. His book on User Interface design wasn't half bad.

  10. Re:haha japan!!! on XBox 360 Launching Nov 22 · · Score: 1
    (3) Multiple releases creates a psychological effect that encourages 'late' adopters to buy. More press. More games. "Holy crap, if people in Europe can buy it, should I have one by now?" By 'late', in this case, I mean the people who don't buy it at release -- not people like me, who will be buying in 2008.


    Yes, if those stone-aged Europeans, with their silly wooden shoes and yodeling, have it and I don't, how sad is that? They barely have electricity and yet they have the Xbox 360? My God, I must be behind the times.

    (j/k)
  11. Of course it'll work on The Electrocharger...Any Day Now? · · Score: 2, Funny

    That belt will obviously be able to transfer huge amounts of force. And of course, it'll be easy to retrofit and replace the existing serpentine belt.

  12. Re:Blackhole Question... on Furthest Gamma-Ray Burst Ever Observed · · Score: 1

    The burst emitted the light before the black hole collapsed. If any was created after the black hole was created, it was created in the area outside of the event horizon, so it could escape. No light can escape from inside a black hole, no matter how much energy it has.

    If the entire galaxy was trapped inside a black hole, then we would be crushed into a point.

  13. Re:The big question is... on Making Ice Without Electricity · · Score: 1

    And if you'vegot hand pumps, you could always pump air through a turbine/generator combo....

  14. Re:Don't just put the phone down! on Canada's Do-Not-Hesitate-To-Call List · · Score: 1

    Perhaps, but didn't they make her sales rate go way down?

  15. Re:Or not on Canada's Do-Not-Hesitate-To-Call List · · Score: 1

    Cellphone numbers are accepted because its a lot easier just to accept any given number than it is to screen some out. C.f. the earlier posts about a company that put their business number on the list. It was accepted, but it didn't actually help.

  16. Re:Methane doesn't replace water. on Titan Occupies A Solar System Sweet Spot · · Score: 1

    It really helps if the water's liquid. Proteins have trouble folding if they're unable to move, fixed in one configuration in the crystal lattice of ice.

  17. Re:Request for Firebird developers on Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux · · Score: 1, Informative

    It's called Thunderbird, not Firebird.

  18. Re:Sigh on Help Beta Test Slashdot CSS · · Score: 1

    What you said doesn't make any sense. It's very hard to use CSS without HTML (although it does work for XML). It, then, is very unlikely that CSS will ever become more important than (X)HTML. The great-...-grandparent was contrasting HTML and XHTML.

  19. Re:a compressed .jpg? Brillant! on LGP Announces New Competition · · Score: 1

    I'm getting a sort've question mark thing. That and a plus sign. I've recently made another program to expand out those single pixels to fill the empty space. Looking at the resulting image (sometimes with blur) shows some patterns.

  20. Re:Bad bad page design (for hight traffic) on LGP Announces New Competition · · Score: 1

    Why would you composite it client-side, and give people huge clues as to what the image is?

  21. Re:a compressed .jpg? Brillant! on LGP Announces New Competition · · Score: 1

    Theoretically, the correct pixels should be more different from those in the original, random image than the incorrect pixels. I've made a program that uses this assumption, and the image seems to be very gradually filling in. Can't be sure yet.

  22. Re:You knew it was coming... on Diamond Nanotubes Created · · Score: 1

    At the moment, yes. In ten years, maybe not.

  23. Re:You knew it was coming... on Diamond Nanotubes Created · · Score: 1

    Why not just use nanotubes? They have enough tensile strength, at least.

  24. Re:Non-Lethal? on Weapons of War Now Include Lightning Guns · · Score: 1

    The taser has a limited range, generally around 15 feet, but they want this to have a longer range, at least 30 feet, and preferably up to 100 feet. That way, you're out of "knife range."

  25. Re:Obviously, we *are* more intelligent on Report Claims Men More Intelligent Than Women · · Score: 1

    This could be the cause of the disparity in average intelligence. Those on the really low end of the scale (especially for men) are possibly more likely to be killed through their own actions than those higher on the scale. There are more men with those lower intelligences, so that happens to more men than women, raising the average IQ up more for men.