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User: justthinkit

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  1. I'll bet it is on China Has More People Going Online With a Mobile Device Than a PC · · Score: 1

    I'll bet it is rooted cell phones, with the added security of being mobile, allowing Chinese to do what the rest of the world takes for granted.

  2. Re:Maintenance for all trains is high on The Improbable Story of the 184 MPH Jet Train · · Score: 1

    though your Wikipedia reference doesn't really support your claim

    Well, since you were the one to say that freight trains had priority over passenger trains, how about you support your claim.

    but in much of Europe, the passenger trains do have right of way, even if they're running late

    And in Canada (where I worked for CP Rail some decades back). It surprised me that the U.S. operated differently.

  3. Re:Maintenance for all trains is high on The Improbable Story of the 184 MPH Jet Train · · Score: 1

    In the US, slow cargo trains have right-of-way, slowing down passenger trains.

    Not quite. Passenger trains have priority, and only lose it when they run late and even then, it is not that freight has priority over passenger service but that it does not have to yield to passenger trains. It would be more accurate to say it becomes "first come, first served". Kind of like if you reserve a table, they hold it for you for a few minutes after the time you set, then it becomes available to all.

  4. Maintenance for all trains is high on The Improbable Story of the 184 MPH Jet Train · · Score: 2

    Railways have the highest fixed costs of any transportation system. 25%, I was told 30 years ago when I worked on one.

    High fixed, low variable cost. So adding one freight car = dirt cheap. Going one mph faster on a curve = very expensive, due to increased wear on rails, road bed, etc.

    There is also the not small problem of grade. Trains dislike hills, with a grade over 1% being excessive to them. Cars routinely handle ten times this.

    Grades dictate routes. The only way around this is tunnels & bridges. Either way, cost per mile for a track is much higher than for a road. With costs born by one company, rather than all of us.

    It is a fundamental problem, that leads to the division of bulk (slow) hauling = railways, people & fast hauling = trucks/cars.

  5. 100 to 1000 times below NOEL on Hair-Raising Technique Detects Drugs, Explosives On Human Body · · Score: 1

    100 to 1000 times below NOEL is the goal -- the standard that few come close to.

    The maximum daily dose of Paracetamol (aka Acetaminophen) is 66% of the FATAL dose.

  6. Like a Yeti? on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    I bought a Yeti some months back for the $100 you mention. I like it a lot. Running on a powered USB hub.

    Now if I can just stop whistling letters, especially "s"...

  7. By that definition on Dubai's Climate-Controlled Dome City Is a Dystopia Waiting To Happen · · Score: 1

    The Shanghai Tower has them beat in terms of being the first.

  8. Re:Call me on Android Wear Is Here · · Score: 1

    How about "miniature hula hoops"?

  9. 0-day? on Researchers Disarm Microsoft's EMET · · Score: 0

    0-day? How about a 900-day? Jan, 2012 was about 900 days ago.

  10. Solution on Ask Slashdot: Replacing Paper With Tablets For Design Meetings? · · Score: 1

    Have a request sheet for those who want copies of each document. Catch is that you get "charged" for the paper you consume, with the charges coming out of a special "Think of the Children" end-of-the-year bonus.

    Paper consumption would drop to almost zero.

  11. The biggest problem on The Higgs Boson Should Have Crushed the Universe · · Score: -1, Troll

    The biggest problem is not that the Higgs field/boson/theory is wrong. Nor that BICEP2 is wrong.

    The biggest problem is that physicists do not want a new theory. Everyone gets paid and paid well to keep doing the usual stuff -- CMB, inflation, Big Bang, String Theory, smashing particles together and looking for the oldest star.

    Physicists prefer stuff known to be wrong over stuff that might be right.

  12. The worst kind of anecdote on Are US Hybrid Sales Peaking Already? · · Score: 1

    Your's is the worst kind of anecdote -- non-typical usage.

    You rented a car for a week so:
    (1) you wanted to have fun driving around...in a battery-weighted car
    (2) you were not going to be spending one to two hours a day in rush hour traffic...that a Prius was designed for
    (3) because you were going to be doing more than typical amounts of highway driving...that a Prius is neutered by

    Three strikes, your anecdote is out.

  13. And on Are US Hybrid Sales Peaking Already? · · Score: 1

    And it would get better gas mileage than a hybrid Prius for those driving mostly highway (or non stop-and-go) miles.

  14. de l'autre cote on Interviews: Ask "The King of Kong" Billy Mitchell About Classic Video Games · · Score: 1

    When I first started putting games into arcades, players would play for an hour on a single quarter. My Double Dragon machine was a complete waste of money.
    Then I got smart and bought some of those arcade-killer games...

  15. I propose an experiment on After Non-Profit Application Furor, IRS Says It's Lost 2 Years Of Lerner's Email · · Score: 1

    I propose an experiment. Run one article per day that allows no moderations. I'd suggest it be a political subject, as moderations are useless in those anyway.

  16. Let's do the math, shall we? on Kids With Operators Manual Alert Bank Officials: "We Hacked Your ATM" · · Score: 2

    8B T/yr, times $2.22/T.

    I think a problem with a potential downside of $17,760,000,000 is, well, a problem.

  17. "for the masses"? on The Ethics Cloud Over Ballmer's $2 Billion B-Ball Buy · · Score: 1

    "for the masses"?

    Ah, no. Unless there is a plan to divy up $2B that I don't know about.

  18. Tick/Tock/Wow, new capacitors on Intel Announces Devil's Canyon Core I7-4790K: 4GHz Base Clock, 4.4GHz Turbo · · Score: 1

    So the new cycles are: Tick/Tock/Wow, new capacitors.

    The article, amazingly poorly written by the way, mentions exactly zero changes to the chip itself.

    We are given "new caps, new glue, and you can overclock it for more performance".

    I'm off to ask my doctor to start me on Prozac...

  19. I'm curious on Crucial Launches MX100 SSD At Well Under 50 Cents Per GiB · · Score: 1

    I'm curious if data centers are moving to SSDs.
    Also, what about hosting companies, for high traffic web sites they host. I could see this as a premium service.

  20. Re:Ye Gods, an Ad on Crucial Launches MX100 SSD At Well Under 50 Cents Per GiB · · Score: 1

    The Music Man...

  21. Quite so on 4K Displays Ready For Prime Time · · Score: 1
  22. Smaller scales on The Rule of Three Proved By Physicists · · Score: 1

    Our knowledge tends to be high in the middle of the spectrum.

    When we try to grasp the entire Universe, we end up looking at pixels of info. We know little and speculate much.

    Similarly, at the smallest scales we have to resort to atom smashing to learn a bit and speculate a lot.

    This theory suggests that life is LEGO-like after all. Once we know this underlying pattern, we can look for it, and we can use it to build better models of stuff very large and very small.

    I would add that these results are consistent with my own theory.

  23. Yes, and on Official MPG Figures Unrealistic, Says UK Auto Magazine · · Score: 1

    Yes, and still paying out. Every year we fill out a form, drive to our local dealer so they can read how many miles we drove that year and then get a proportional check for our Kia Soul. :-)

  24. The first reason to listen to new ideas on The Major Theoretical Blunders That Held Back Progress In Modern Astronomy · · Score: 1

    The first reason to listen to new ideas is that our present understanding(s) -- theories -- of the universe are majorly flawed.

    Wikipedia's List of the Unsolved Problems in Physics has hundreds of questions -- most of them just the flaws in the most "mainstream" theories.

    What is your plan for fixing these broken theories? My plan is here.

  25. Re:ok if your car is new on Has the Ethanol Threat Manifested In the US? · · Score: 1

    because MPFI additional expense on a small block is just not justified.

    Max Planck Florida Institute, for those wondering...Google got it on the first hit!