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User: HyperTiger

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  1. Re:No, Technology isn't magic. on Has My Cell Number Been Cloned? · · Score: 1

    This is absolutely wrong on the Third point.

    Cell phone triangulation works not by signal strength and police running on foot. Triangulation (a wrong term to use here) works by using the differences of time the signal hits the cell phone towers (TDOA, or time difference of arrival) and calculating intersections of the hyperbolaes generated. Several cell towers are required to cooperate for this though.

    For technical reasons (bandwidth on many parts of the systems used), this cannot be done on every call, and is usually only done for 911 calls. In fact, there is an FCC requirement that this be done for all wireless 911 calls, and in the future there may be fines if this fails to happen.

    This is all automated for 911, however, and adding someone's phone number to be tracked is going to require a lot more than just escalating above customer service.

  2. Can we use this for fuel? on Astronomers Spy 288bn Mile Booze Cloud · · Score: 1

    Wonderful.. a 228 bn km equivalent of an alient oil spill. Couldn't we use this for fuel?

    Also, isn't alcahol only made by living creatures? (uncertain)

  3. Re:not using infrastructure on Telecommute Tax Relief Gathers Steam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    By this logic, offshored jobs (in India or wherever) should be paying taxes to the state where their employer is.

  4. Re:Kidding, right? on Is Evolution Predictable? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but there is a very very slim chance the exact same mutations would occur the second time. It would have been likely that another mutation which provided protection against the heat would have happened, but they are saying that since exactly the same mutations happened again, it's more likely that there were only a few pathways in the evolutionary state space possible given the same environmental changes.

    Thus if instead of trillions of possibilities, you narrow it down to a few, it may be possible to predict which molecular paths some organism is likely to go when conditions change.

  5. Re:Horde IS supposed to be evil ?!?!?! on Stereotyping the Horde · · Score: 1

    The tauren are the only race with no rogues.

  6. Re:Product's name: on Bio-Engineered Rice Uses Human Genes · · Score: 1

    As far as Halaal goes, the Koran declares pork offlimits because the pig is a dirty animal in its eating (though I don't know why chickens would then be allowed as they are maybe dirtier in eating). It has nothing to do with pig genes I would think, but in the pig behaviour, at least in the religeous sense. Practically, a lot of meat in those days wasn't cooked properly and people were likely to get sick eating pork specifically.

    I had a similar question about the meat making machines NASA had some scientists make, where they just clonoed animal cells (beef) to make meat, instead of killing animals. I did ask some religeos vegetarians, and I think the response to that would be similar to this, you'll have people on both sides of the fence because not everyone will agree to the same answer. Some will say it's ok to eat, some won't.

  7. what if you change your mind? on Light so Fast it Travels Backward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, the article says the light comes out the other end before the putting-in end has light going in, so that it goes backwards through the fiber (from the end it came out of, towards the end it came into).

    What if you are about to put the photon in, and it comes out of the fiber at the other end, but you change your mind and don't put it into the going in end?

  8. Re:Bust Buy creates business for others on Best Buy 'Geek Squad' Accused of Pirating Software · · Score: 1

    This could be related to the fact that often, it is cheaper to buy a new part than to repair an old part, ie reinstall vs pay someone to fix. If replace is cheaper, than it's not worth it to spend lots of money to have highly trained repairmen around. You'll get lower standards of fixing.

  9. old methods always get replaced on Free Net TV Threatens Telecoms · · Score: 1

    Old methods fade away to new methods. They stick around for a while as 'fun' things to do, like hunting or sailing, but new tech replace them for practical business or military uses.

    Hunting was replaced by farming, the stable replaced by the garage, the blacksmith replaced by the machinist, the crossbow replaced by the gun, sails replaced by motors, hemp was replaced by nylon, the royal page replaced by newspapers, the scribe replaced by the printing press, the passenger boat replaced by airplanes, and so on. Try to stop this and progress will work around the damage in other parts of the world.

  10. Re:I don't get it on First Digital Simulation of an Entire Life Form · · Score: 1

    I'm not too sure we should have reproduction as one of the defining factors of life, else sterile people or eunichs might not be considered alive. Not really trying to be funny, but is something I dont understand why we say should be a reason why viruses should not be considered alive. Metabolism seems more reasonable though.

    (As a side note, I'll never forget someone actually thinking I meant eunichs when I said I work with unix.)

  11. Re:It's true only in a pretty restricted sense on Was Thomas Edison Right about DC Power? · · Score: 1

    The average of the absolute value of a sine wave is 1 / sqrt (2). So if the amplitude is 2, the root mean square is going to be sqrt(2) as the squaring is going to make it all positive.

  12. Re:This is why Iran wants a nuclear program on New Nuclear Power Plants in the next 5 years · · Score: 1

    Iran's oilfields are in the south, near the water, so it exports them out. Most of Iran's population (their industrial section anyways) is in the north, and it buys its oil from the Caspian. It is cheaper for Iran to buy oil from the Caspian and sell excess from the south than to pipe it from the southern oil fields. If it builds a nuclear plant, it will need to import less oil from the Caspian oil companies and still be able to sell the oil from the south.

  13. Re:Murder vs. kill on Einstein's Theory Improved? · · Score: 1

    Well, apparently Jesus spoke Aramaic and that was around 0 AD. The 10 commandments were from 3 thousand years before that. So wouldn't the Hebrew of the 10 commandments be older than the Aramiac rather than the other way around as you say?

  14. Have to follow the laws on Google's Action Makes A Mockery Of Its Values · · Score: 1

    You have to follow the laws in the country in which you operate. You could maybe try to get them changed, but breaking them will only get Google shut down.

  15. must have good crypto on First Draft of GPL Version 3 Released · · Score: 1

    Gpl'd DRM is going to have to be real real good, because it won't have the protection of the DMCA as a crutch to hide behind. If any DRM program using this license doesn't have good code, it will be almost useless. This is going to result in all popular DRM programs (gpl'd) to be far superior on average than those that aren't, because those others have used the DMCA as a crutch for bad code.

  16. Re:Parent's Fault, not Society on Mathematics Skills More in Demand Than Ever · · Score: 1

    "Then you talk about "the demand for mathematical and statistical skills." I dont see what that had to do with either my post or the GP, other than maybe the fact that I used math to figure out how little his parents must have earned." The mathematical skills comment is probably trying to relate your post to the main article.

  17. Re:Measurements on New Galactic Neighbor · · Score: 1

    They are talking about the area of sky it covers as viewed from the earth rather than real size.

  18. Re:IPO on Tapping Trees for Electricity? · · Score: 1

    Eric Drexeler disagrees with you in "Engines of Creation" when he points to covering the roads of just one country, Canada, with diamond sheathed solar panels to meet ten times the world's energy demands at the time.

  19. Re:This is great! on Capitalizing on Melting Polar Ice · · Score: 1

    You'd think so, but I know an airport where they have water fountains only in baggage claim and nowhere else. You can only buy bottled industrial tapwater (dasani) from the shops. Naturally occuring resources that you need to live can indeed be locked up unless you pay for them.

  20. Re:Left unanswered... on RNA May 'Run' Genetic Coding · · Score: 1

    DNA is like a database of basic instructions. There is no order in which they will get executed; the order depends on the triggers from the input (the environment). The language these instructions are written in is called chemistry. In this language, executing functions produces more functions, some of which will run (rna, protiens, more dna, garbage, etc.)

    Chemistry is a language not like others as every chemical interaction is an operation happening, and you can have a large number of these happening at the same time leading to high parallelism.

  21. Re:Interestingly enough... on Siberian Permafrost Melting · · Score: 1

    "However that 70 billion tonnes is nothing. With a few minutes of Googling and calculation, I get about 27.3 TRILLION metric tons of methane clathrates globally, mostly at the bottom of the ocean"

    The methane at the bottom of the ocean won't affect the greenhouse so much as the methane in the atmosphere. I think the article states that the methane released from the Siberian melting is going to release a quarter as much as is already in the air when the water drains from the lakes formed.

    A quarter of what is already in the atmosphere is quite significant.

  22. Re:Artificial? on The Fairness of Virtual Currency · · Score: 3, Informative

    There really is nothing to spend on in COH in the later half of the game that drains your money (or influence). In the first half, costs for buying upgrades for your powers (damage enhancements, accuracy enhancements, duration enhancements, etc) are a significant part of the game so much that most people don't enhance until level 33 or so (out of 50 levels) for their first characters. After that though, all money issues are over as people have much more than they know what to do with. Costume changes are the biggest drain at that point, but that is decorative and doesn't add to the numeric or power aspect of the game. Money transactions such as costume contests only transfer the money from higher levels to lower levels, so does not leave the game economy. At the high levels COH has an economy problem, but there is not much of a demand for cash, and so money plays a small part. I would say that COH suffers from the inflation as much as any other game. The problem with a balanced economy is that of the haves and the have nots. In a balanced economy you will get some people that make a lot and some that will always struggle and not be able to pay for things (repair, rent, upgrades, transportation) and thus you get people that will complain and quit. In order to keep the weakest players able to play, you end up with increasing cash in the economy either through lack of money drains, or higher incomes.

  23. I can quit anytime on When MMOGs Ruled The Quickies · · Score: 1

    I havne't had a day of not playing since I got the game recently, but I'm sure I can quit anytime...

  24. Re:Bad Wording on Japan Wants to Build 10 Petaflop Supercomputer · · Score: 1

    I wonder if low-id /. accounts have ever been sold on ebay.

  25. Re:The dupe solution on World of Warcraft For The Win · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I recently had someone that works with transactions in banking tell me just how well those are error free ;)