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User: queazocotal

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  1. Re:I don't get it on Minecraft Creator Notch's $70 Million Mansion Recreated In Minecraft · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "You can't drive your house around" - and here is where your ambition fails.
    Several tens of large rocket engines, and sure you can.

  2. Re:I don't get it on Minecraft Creator Notch's $70 Million Mansion Recreated In Minecraft · · Score: 1

    Assuming it is a moderately large slice of $2.5B.
    To hit the top 1% of earnings in the UK, you need to be on ~150K.

    This can be hit easily at 2% or so interest on a capital of 10M.

    Arrange it properly in trusts so you can't ever touch it - and you're set for life - to a reasonable degree.

  3. Re:Try the opposite on Judge: It's OK For Cops To Create Fake Instagram Accounts · · Score: 1

    Your average cop can't authorise others to break the law.

  4. Re:fuel weight on SpaceX To Attempt Falcon 9 Landing On Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship · · Score: 1

    The Falcon 9 weighs about 500000kg on launch.
    Most of this is kerosene, and liquid oxygen.
    Both of these can be purchased for under $1/l.
    This is around $400000 or so.
    A falcon 9 launch costs $60M or so - so it's more like a percent.

  5. Re:Write a program to report crashes daily on Waze Causing Anger Among LA Residents · · Score: 2

    Caltrops.

  6. Re:How do the criminals make moeny? on Fraud Bots Cost Advertisers $6 Billion · · Score: 1

    By also controlling the website, and getting paid the ad revenue.

  7. Re:Redefined Retrofit to make that work... on LA Mayor Proposes Earthquake Retrofits On Thousands of Buildings · · Score: 3, Insightful

    House-airships..

  8. Re:Nethack needs an upgrade on NetHack: Still One of the Greatest Games Ever Written · · Score: 1

    http://nethack.alt.org/ has online play, though it is just sharing of bones, and watching other people.
    telnet nethack.alt.org.

  9. Done right - shot-down-drones may be profitable - if you outfit them with sensors to find out who's shot it down.

  10. Re:Political nonsense on France Wants To Get Rid of Diesel Fuel · · Score: 1

    'reducing the tax incentives'
    You can bet they're not lowering the tax on petrol.

  11. Re:Back to barges? on Elon Musk Talks "X-Wing" Fins For Reusable Rockets, Seafaring Spaceport Drones · · Score: 1

    Grazing the atmosphere has issues.
    The heating pulse is quite large, and radiating it to cool down again before the next encounter may be an issue.
    Plus, it places strong demands on the attitude control, and heats the tanks a lot when they're still full of volatile fuel.
    'Just' reentering normally from what will be at least LEO takes quite a lot of heatshield or reaction mass.

  12. Re:Back to barges? on Elon Musk Talks "X-Wing" Fins For Reusable Rockets, Seafaring Spaceport Drones · · Score: 1

    The second stage, for many launches - to GEO - ends up in an orbit which is very unfriendly to reentry - if it reenters, it will do at a very high speed.
    This makes reentry not simple.

  13. Re: Not quite true on UK Hotel Adds Hefty Charge For Bad Reviews Online · · Score: 1

    What the government believe is largely irrelevant to the judiciary - or at the most only a slight influence.
    The feelings of the government in interpretation of legislation are at best advisory.

  14. Re:Back to barges? on Elon Musk Talks "X-Wing" Fins For Reusable Rockets, Seafaring Spaceport Drones · · Score: 1

    Current thinking is that the second stage is probably not easily reusable, and they are not actually working on it.
    Those videos were produced at a tim when there wasn't a concrete idea as to how flyback would work in practice.

  15. Re:OS/2 on Jolla Crowdfunds Its First Tablet · · Score: 2

    To a degree.
    A 1% niche of the mobile tablet or phone market is quite large enough for a small company.
    Indeed - at that point - you're not a small company anymore.

  16. Re:$380,000 goal? on Jolla Crowdfunds Its First Tablet · · Score: 2

    i would perhaps agree - if it was from a company that had not produced hardware.
    I suspect this is more the case of PR and a case to purchase early at a discount a device that was coming anyway.
    I'm buying one.

  17. Re: Not quite true on UK Hotel Adds Hefty Charge For Bad Reviews Online · · Score: 2

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
    'The Act renders terms excluding or limiting liability ineffective or subject to reasonableness, depending on the nature of the obligation purported to be excluded and whether the party purporting to exclude or limit business liability, acting against a consumer.'
    In short - any provision trying to do this is probably not legal.

  18. Re:Not a security risk, but a fake risk on Ask Slashdot: Is Non-USB Flash Direct From China Safe? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course it's a security risk.
    The SD card has a 32 bit processor that does the wear leveling.
    There is nothing stopping it doing 'interesting' things to files on it, if it's so programmed.
    The extra fun part is that the user can't read out this programming.

    Obvious things might be infecting files with viruses, appending small secret files to large media files in the hope that they will later be shared, or more targeted attacks.

  19. It turned out when they actually filmed it on Discovery Claims It Will Show a Man Being "Eaten Alive" By an Anaconda · · Score: 3, Funny

    that it turned out that the anaconda had a fondness for bread products, and would not eat anything without at least some in.
    The handler turned to the director, and said 'My anaconda don't want none unless she's got buns hun'.

  20. I find this somewhat disgusting. on Space Tourism Isn't Worth Dying For · · Score: 0

    Why are pilots and astronauts and F1 racecar drivers - all of which actively picked a competitive field to enter, knowing the risks - considered more special and valuable than construction workers, loggers, or fishermen?

    I note that the recent 'space rating' specs imply that flying to space 12 times a year is safer - not than a logger or a fisherman - but than a librarian.

  21. Re:are you sure? on World War II Tech eLoran Deployed As GPS Backup In the UK · · Score: 2

    The satellites are hardened.
    And 20000km away from earth.
    As are the uplinks. (well, not the latter)

  22. Err - no. on World War II Tech eLoran Deployed As GPS Backup In the UK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The primary risk to GPS in the UK is the USA deciding to turn it off.
    That risk doesn't apply for US shipping near the US, as if GPS was turned off - rather than severely degraded - so would the local LORAN locators.
    GPS is not going away unless someone actually presses the button.
    It's not vulnerable (theoretically) to single points of failure (ideally) as it's intended to carry on even in the event of moderate wars.

  23. Re:Mo-tiv-a-tion on Elon Musk Warns Against Unleashing Artificial Intelligence "Demon" · · Score: 1

    "This is always the problem with people imagining horrifying artificial intelligences that will snuff out humanity. To do that, you have to be motivated to achieve that end."
    Well - yes.
    But - it depends on the capabilities too.

    Humans have wiped out many species, through direct resource extraction - like the passenger pigeon and dodo, to countless species wiped out through habitat destruction, to active extermination - smallpox.

    'Terminator' style 'end of the world' scenarios only happen where there is a balance of power.
    With mature AI, that has become sufficiently capable - destruction of humanity could take little effort, and only rely on a decision to do so - and the next day, everyones dead, and the resources are re-used for whatever the AI chooses to do.

    This could very easily transition from a 'caring' AI that has global oversight - and provides many services to humans, through one decision to the end.

  24. Yeah - nothing bad happens when a cop finds cash. on Law Lets IRS Seize Accounts On Suspicion, No Crime Required · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Civil Forfeiture (HBO)

  25. Re:Alternatives? Same problem.. on FTDI Removes Driver From Windows Update That Bricked Cloned Chips · · Score: 1

    This was not a case of the driver accidentally not coping with the format of the noncompatible chips.
    There would be no issue whatsoever then.
    And indeed - refusing to work with the chip would be just fine.
    Actively disabling the chip in such a manner that it does not work even in other computers without the driver installed was what happened.
    It's only fraud if the vendor of the chip claimed to their customer it was a genuine computer chip.
    A computer cannot tell if that happened automatically.