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User: Radon360

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  1. Re:I have always had some issue with this on South Korea Drafting Ethical Code for Robotic Age · · Score: 1

    Yet, the Federation determined that Data's child, Lall (or however you spell it) that Data built was Federation property and ordered Data to turn her over to the Federation's custody. She "overloaded" before that happened, of course.

  2. Re:Who listens to this crap, anyway? on Major Broadcasters Hit With $12M Payola Fine · · Score: 1

    Yes, there are stations that go onto network satellite programming occasionally, or even full-time and pretend to masquerade as locally delivered. I worked several years at a locally-owned radio station that used a Westwood One program feed during the nighttime hours. My experience though, is that most radio stations that serve at least a semi-major market do at least have their own air personalities for morning drive and often the whole daytime hours as well, despite still having the crummy music rotation.

    I rember loading about a half-dozen versions of each air personality saying the radio station's tagline in a neutral inflection into the digital cart system (i.e. computer with sound cards). The idea was that none would stand out, and the "variety" would help prevent people from catching on. The satellite feed had embedded signals to trip the cart system at the appropriate time. With that said, there's very obvious clues that will tell you whether or not the programming is local. First, does the jock talk about local occurences and events, or national bits of news, especially Hollywood? Second, do they say the time, or maybe just mention so many minutes before or past the hour? Those two are the most obvious giveaways.

  3. Re:Who listens to this crap, anyway? on Major Broadcasters Hit With $12M Payola Fine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Some time ago, this was a valid remedy for substandard programming. The biggest reason being that FCC regulations prohibited an entity from owning more than one station in a market area. That has since changed. Now you have large broadcast conglomerates that own several stations in a market. Sure, they don't want to compete against themselves, so they typify each station with one of their "researched" genre formats (i.e. A.C./Top40, Country, Urban/Rap, Alternative, 70's/80's etc.).

    Of course, each one of these formats are based upon listenership tuned in, on average, 20 minutes at a time. So what happens? They put a handful of "popular songs" into heavy rotation so that there's a good chance that it will play during some 20 minute window. And, of course if the research works in one market, then why not apply it to all of the conglomerate's markets. The result, any particular format is pretty much homogeneous across their span of coverage. Stations begin to lack individuality (outside of their personalities and callsign sweeper).

    So what about the independents? Well, if they grow enough listenership in a market, they become ripe for a buyout by "big radio". One would think that new independent stations would come in to replace them, but you need to remember that "licenseable" spectrum is finite. At some point, there are no free channels left to assign, and this has already been the case for a long time in larger markets.

  4. Re:12.5? on Major Broadcasters Hit With $12M Payola Fine · · Score: 1

    My guess is that the timeslot will be 5am on Sunday morning, right before all the religious and other public service/education programming. I think it would be a hoot to order them to block out a half-hour segment of prime afternoon drive time, commercial-free, as punishment.

  5. They've already paid their settlement, unknowingly on Major Broadcasters Hit With $12M Payola Fine · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Large broadcast companies probably have paid a higher price in loss of listenership, as their tired, weary, and limited playlists have driven more and more people to alternatives such as iPods, MP3 players and satellite radio.

    Sure, go ahead, fine them, order them to allocate time to new acts, that's a small loss they can see on their balance sheets in comparison to the difficult to calculate loss of listenership.

  6. Speedtrap evasion on Reflectivity Reaches a New Low · · Score: 1

    Try painting your car with this stuff, drive past a cop shooting LIDAR, and see if you get pulled over.

    FWIW, police officers are trained to aim the LIDAR at your front license plate for best results, as the retroreflective surface provides the best return. However, this can be tricky with a moving target Of course, anything that provides a sufficient reflection will usually work.

  7. Re:I think the real value or point of the story is on Build an Environmentally-Friendly PC · · Score: 1

    Not discounting that helping the environment isn't a noble motivation in and of itself, but something that would be more universally accepted as motivation is that it will save you money. $25 a month is perhaps another night you can go eat out, or, over the course of a year or so, money for the next batch of software/hardware upgrades needed to fend off obsolesence.

    Then again, if you're a Silicon Valley/Redmond, WA multi-billionaire, you're probably more motivated by the first reason.

  8. Buy a laptop, perhaps. Quick boot, better? on Build an Environmentally-Friendly PC · · Score: 1

    Agreed. But then you'll have someone drop theirs into a dock, with a big ol' monitor, optical mouse, speakers, and whatever other peripherals are connected and you're probably no better off at that point.

    Setting aside issues such as thermal cycling for a moment. If a PC and OS architecture could be developed that would boot almost instantly, the problem of computers left sitting on "because it takes too long to boot up" could be drastically reduced.

    That's where most of the waste is occurring...when they're not in use.

  9. Re:Use a biodegradable oil. on Scotland Building Wave Power Farms · · Score: 1

    You know what? I do listen to myself. Did you notice that I said, "much less" instead of "eliminate"? I recognize there are still problems for which solutions need to be found, and some solutions aren't completely ideal, either.

    Everything that humans do involves some degree of risk to our surroundings. It is our responsibility to mitigate those risks to the environment as much as possible. I think we can both agree that we would not want to see environmental harm come from devices like this. At the same time, compare it against the alternatives. How does the impact of a couple of hundred of these compare against one coal-burning power plant? Of course, there's another alternative of where you just drastically reduce consumption altogether. What is it going to be?

    Oh yeah, if you want to stop getting modded as Troll or Flamebait, may I suggest that you change your tone in comments? They all come off sounding negative, condescending, and generally pompus. The moderation system seems to be working just fine, IMO. It's not discrimination, it's probably your "authoring attitude".

  10. Re:Consistancy? on Scotland Building Wave Power Farms · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's no consistency to the wind, either, but it can be adapted. I would imagine that every joint has a piston pump that provides varying spurts of pressure/volume. These could force hydraulic fluid into an accumulator (basically, a pressure tank that is partially filled with a nitrogen gas bladder so that you can "compress" the fluid and keep it under pressure). Inline with the accumulator is a regulator that feeds into a hydraulic motor/turbine, which turns the generator at a relatively constant speed. On land, the generator output is likely converted to DC, then inverted back to AC (solid state) to keep the phase and voltage in synch with the grid.

  11. Use a biodegradable oil. on Scotland Building Wave Power Farms · · Score: 1

    Is it too far out of line to think about using a non-petroleum based oil? They do make special application hydraulic oils made from vegetable/tree oil. Sure, it's a lot more expensive and maybe a little inferior in comparison to its petroleum equivalent, but it's cheap insurance. That way when does leak or fail, the environmental impact would be much less.

  12. But think of the dolphins and whales! on Scotland Building Wave Power Farms · · Score: 1

    I'm just waiting for some environmental group to start whining about these, too. They complain that windmills kill too many birds. I would put money on someone coming forth and claiming one of several detriments, such as the anchor cables are entangling whales, or the anchors and power cables back to shore (shore ties) are destroying habitat, or they might leak oil, or, or....that these things are shielding too much sunlight (blocking photosynthesis in plankton or something).

    Honestly, I think it's a good idea, on par with offshore windmills and such, but I think that it's only a matter of time before some group starts a resistance movement for some idiotic and quite negligible reason.

  13. The point missed... on Using Gym Rats' Body Power to Generate Electricity · · Score: 1

    The problem is that you could make it 100% efficient and it still wouldn't matter.

    Let's say that you have 100 people at a gym all producing 0.2kW each as they are working out. That's 20kW. Now, if you were to consider that a gym of that size will be pulling somewhere around 30 - 50kW off the grid for lighting, HVAC, sauna, pool, etc. then the best that you could hope for is that as the owner of the gym, your clients might be able to make a noticeable dent in your electric bill. If we examine this system as a whole, we have a net 10 - 30kW loss.

    Now, tell these same folks to go out and run, bike, cross country ski, chop/haul wood, stone, etc. They can get some elevation in physical activity without having to consume any power from the grid.

    So, the point missed is that finding alternatives to the gym would save more energy than trying to collect energy from gym clients.

  14. Re:No great loss on A Bad Week for Symantec · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, somewhere in 1990, Peter Norton sold things to Symantec. They (Symantec) continued to associate themselves with Peter Norton up until 2001 or so. About that time is the consensus that things went downhill. I'm not certain how much involvement Norton had with Symantec up until that point, but I'm willing to speculate that when the two parted companies, that's when Symantec began their transformation into selling the crap they do now.

    Gosh, I miss the good ol' days of Norton Utilities and the like...in DOS nonetheless. Now there was a powerful piece of software that was truly easy to use. The UI actually showed you some shred of respect that you knew what you were doing.

  15. Deposit Fee? on Growth of E-Waste May Lead to National 'E-Fee' · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For something like this to have any sliver of a chance of doing any good, they'd need to set it up in some form of deposited cash refund, like soda/pop bottles in some states. For example, a retailer charges $15 up front, must accept hardware for recycling, and gives you $10 back for each computer turned in for recycling.

    Without any incentive to get stuff recycled, most people would simply prefer to hide it in the trash somehow. Yeah, I realize that a deposit fee system would be a royal PITA to administrate, but without it, you'd never even see 10 percent of computers come back for recycling.

  16. Re:China... on Huge Reservoir Discovered Beneath Asia · · Score: 1

    One could only speculate. Would it be out of line to think that if enough water were extracted, China would start falling into one gigantic sinkhole? I guess one would have to know more about the geology in the area first.

    Hopefully, this might put an end to the silly idea that occasionally rears its head about sending supertankers into the Great Lakes to take on lake water to ship back to Asia. I never saw how something like this would be economically feasible.

  17. Re:They won't care on T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones · · Score: 1

    Absolutely nothing at all. The point is, some people will indeed judge a book by its cover, and others simply don't care, as they are just using the book to prop up that dresser with the broken leg. There is a sizeable group of customers that will buy into a company's service, uninformed, because the marketing people did their job. However, you are also correct in that there exists a fairly sizeable percentage of customers who simply don't care about anything more than making and receiving calls, as that is perhaps all they will ever do with their phone.

    Bottom line, T-Mobile has started on a path to make their data offerings inferior (secure?, proprietary?) to their competitors. Yet, they will still get customers because either 1. The "stupid customer" didn't know any better, or 2. they don't care about that aspect of the service.

  18. Re:Well crap on T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sprint does the same thing and you need to pay more to use your own phone to cover the cost of not using sprints own apps.

    Strange. Sprint never charged me a red cent more for downloading and using Google Maps. I do have an unlimited "Sprint PCS vision" plan, though. If you don't have this, you'll pay a penny a kB no matter who's content you use.

  19. Re:They won't care on T-Mobile Bans Others' Apps On Their Phones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not at first, but when their contract is up, the "stupid people" will just change to the next most appealing provider (at the time) that offers a flashy phone.

  20. Re:"switch view to camera with movement" feature? on Surveillance Cameras Get Smarter · · Score: 1

    Motion detection has been around for quite some time that it is practically a common feature on any intermediate or advanced CCTV system. The problem is when you are monitoring somewhere that has continual "hustle and bustle," this feature is essentially useless.

    There are companies that have already developed software to detect things such as the direction of movement of people (i.e. useful for detecting someone going the wrong direction around a security checkpoint at an airport), or doing color/pattern matching (i.e. detecting where on a security tape something of importance was moved/taken). Recently, a researcher has developed a means of tracking customers routes throughout a store using video cameras and translating that into a map of a store for marketing analysis purposes. I think what we're seeing here is just another application of adding "software sensors" to video cameras, much akin to machine vision systems commonly found in industry.

  21. Re:I don't believe it... on GE Announces Advancement in Incandescent Technology · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is mostly a Political Marketing statement, trying to forestall bans or taxes on incandescent bulbs, as although incandescents costs more in the long run, they are cheaper when you pay at the register so people still buy a lot of them.

    Why? General Electric is probably the largest manufacturer of CFLs. Because there's more to the manufacturing process of a CFL, they're more expensive to make. Assuming that they have a 10% profit margin on both, the CFL bulb will make them more money.

    My guess is that they know there is still a demand for incandescent technology for specialized applications and for those who demand incandescent lighting, so they have found a way to make it more efficient. Perhaps not as good as a CFL or LED, but nonetheless, its a win-win for cases where incandescent is ultimately used.

  22. Not an auction site... on Hacker May Be Exposing eBay Back Door · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...eBay is just a venue for people to exchange items, such as malicious code into an unexpecting user's browser.

    When will they learn to do something simple like disallow META tags in item descriptions to stop redirects to sites with malicious code, rather than to hide such things and disavow any responsibility.

  23. Re:Democracy on The World's First National Internet Election · · Score: 1

    Not that politicians are much better, but do you expect the public at large to have enough knowledge on a particular subject to make an informative vote for every measure they choose to participate in creating?What would prove most interesting is how discussion and amendments would be introduced in such a system. Best of all, we could have special interest groups spending money on attack ads all the time. The broadcast media receiving the ad money would be the winners every time.

    Heck, let's make it really interesting. Make the constitution and federal codes a Wiki. Let people vote on every change proposed.

    Yeah, I'm trolling on this one. (grin)

  24. Re:Supply? on Fuel Tanks Made of Corncob Waste · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you were thinking of this.

    One-third of the natural gas reserves in the United States cannot be used because of excessive contamination with nitrogen and/or carbon dioxide. Engelhard Corporation had developed some adsorption system technology to address this. However, at the time the project was conceived in 1999, it was considered too preliminary and too high risk despite its potential benefits to the natural gas market. ATP support enabled the development of this promising technology, and provided the means for Engelhard Corporation to partner with universities possessing the special scientific and engineering expertise needed to bring the adsorption system technology to commercial fruition.
  25. Re:Supply? on Fuel Tanks Made of Corncob Waste · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Biomass would be a good way to make methane renewable. However, the trick is removing all the impurities, such as carbon dioxide from the raw gas. Right now, that isn't very cost-effective, compared to some natural gas wells. Heck, the United States would have quite a bit more petroleum-derived natural gas for its use if an inexpensive way to remove carbon dioxide were developed (many sources of natural gas are contaminated with varing levels of carbon dioxide, some to the point that they are unusable).