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User: tuxicle

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  1. Re:What I remember on Prof. Andy Tanenbaum Retires From Vrije University · · Score: 1

    Yes, but the TSA will want to inspect each of those flash drives, so the effective bandwidth would be quite low. At least in the US. Maybe that's why we have such atrocious broadband connectivity.

  2. Mostly vim on Ask Slashdot: Correlation Between Text Editor and Programming Language? · · Score: 1

    Mostly vim, and I have to write C, perl, shell scripts and VHDL. Sometimes use Eclipse while working on projects with ARM7 embedded CPUs, but I find myself missing vim.

  3. Re:Question about "Doppler Dilemma" on Radar Expert Explains How To Cheaply Add Radar To Your Own Hardware Projects · · Score: 1

    It's easier than that - use two blocks of different repetition frequencies (which gives two different Nyquist velocities), get two velocity readings. Some basic number theory will get you the right answer.

    Using two different carriers is going to alter the Nyquist velocity by such a small amount that it's not worth doing. Unless the carriers are very widely separated (go from say, 2.7 GHz to 5.8 GHz) but this requires a wideband (and necessarily low gain) antenna.

    That's not to say that FHSS is not used by weather radar - its purpose is to improve the quality of measurements by increasing the number of statistically independent samples that get averaged together.

  4. Re:I wonder on NSA and GHCQ Employing Shills To Poison Web Forum Discourse · · Score: 1

    I wonder how many shills make "first post"

  5. Re:It's not just the rubber parts... on The New Ethanol Blend May Damage Your Vehicle · · Score: 1

    There's also the effect of water absorption causing corrosion to metal parts, and promoting water absorption in certain plastic fuel tanks. The latter has resulted in a lawsuit with motorcycle manufacturer Ducati, where they agreed to replace the tanks that were swelling and in some cases, rupturing due to water absorption. This only happened in the US, after E-10 fuel became popular. Regular octane does not absorb water.

    My Ducati's past warranty, so the tank replacement offer doesn't cover me, once my tank swells or ruptures, I'm hosed.

  6. Re:LOL, welcome to united states of hurrdurr on Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Drilling On College Campuses · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I agree - the same is true here in Colorado, where land owned by Colorado State (a land-grant university) has been open to drilling for several years already. The university owns lots of land, often many tens of miles away from the main campus, for such things as experimental farms, aircraft hangars and radar sites. Most of them have been drilled using the "horizontal" approach, so no equipment directly on site. I know this because I work on one of the remote sites, and was around when they drilled some 500 feet away from my building. The oil company folks came over and explained that we may hear odd sounds when they did the frakking (I didn't). The university has made quite a bit of money off the wells, which translated to no student fee increases for a couple of years (this year was an exception, though).

  7. Re:Depends what you're working on... on Ask Slashdot: What Equipment and Furniture For an Electronics Hardware Lab? · · Score: 1

    Instead of isolation transformers, you could use two scope channels and the subtract function. It works well enough for low-speed work. Probably won't capture transients and anything beyond about 1 MHz, though.

  8. Re:"Simple" Solution on Scientists Speak Out Against Wasting Helium In Balloons · · Score: 1
  9. Re:still premature on Preparing For Life After the PC · · Score: 1

    I wonder what fraction of these folks will be more receptive of smartphones or tablets.

  10. Re:Replace, or augment? on Preparing For Life After the PC · · Score: 1

    Even *if* you posit a dystopian future where the $BEC controls everything, there will *still* be PCs, because *someone* will still have to produce data. They may become much less common, but a PC, or a PC-functional device, *will* be necessary.

    My worry is that this same phenomenon will lead to less data/content being produced. We're in a situation now where PCs are in virtually every home, every kid has access to one, and ones who are curious/lucky enough will stumble upon some interest of theirs that they can use this hardware to explore (examples: home recording studios, 3D modelling, CAD of various kinds, software development tools.) In a tablet-and-smartphone world, PCs will get expensive, and out of the reach of most kids/amateurs, who'd have no opportunity to explore their creativity.

  11. Re:Don't Even Need a War on Nukes Are "The Only Peacekeeping Weapons the World Has Ever Known," Says Waltz · · Score: 1

    Well shit, a nation already accused of state sponsored terrorism has nukes. I guess it's just a matter of time?

  12. Re:useful.... on US Navy's High-Resolution Radar Can See Individual Raindrops In a Storm · · Score: 1

    I'm not referring to searching through the data to make a detection, yes computers are awesome at that. Just making the measurements over an appreciable fraction of the sky with such accuracy would take a long time. It has its applications, for example when observing the space shuttle (you only need to search a small volume around the shuttle) or when tracking ballistic missles for interception (which is the original purpose for this radar system). So to obtain useful update rates (say, once every minute) at such high resolution, you will need an astronomically large number of radars. If you scale back the resolution, though, this is achievable, and has in fact already been implemented. Disclaimer: I was peripherally involved in the CASA project.

  13. Re:useful.... on US Navy's High-Resolution Radar Can See Individual Raindrops In a Storm · · Score: 1

    If you have a radar that is sensitive enough to see individual rain drops, you should easily be able to see the low-RCS (also called Stealth) aircraft. They are not invisible, just *less* visible than traditional aircraft. Notice the details in the article, though: these measurements were made at a range of 2 km from the radar, over a volume the size of a small bus. Setting aside the very short range, to search the entire sky with a resolution that high would take a very long time.

  14. Re:Obligatory XKCD on Osama Bin Laden Didn't Encrypt His Files · · Score: 1

    What part of "Obligatory" did you not understand?

  15. Re:I fail to see the innovation on Automated Dorm Room Causes a School Inquiry · · Score: 1

    I'd normally rant a bit here about lowered bars and such. Kids these days...

  16. Re:School inquiry? on Automated Dorm Room Causes a School Inquiry · · Score: 1

    For the HV stuff you better be more careful - even if stuff is off the residual charge can be enough to kill you.

    Aye, grounding sticks are your friend!

  17. Re:School inquiry? on Automated Dorm Room Causes a School Inquiry · · Score: 2

    I'm not an electrician either (I'm an EE), but if you take some decent precautions (insulated sleeve screwdriver, or a stubby), it's not so dangerous to open out a wall switch. What's a lot more dangerous is if you have anything with both hot and neutral close together - then you're in danger of arc flash, which IMO is quite a bit more dangerous than live-to-ground leakage.

    Also, don't fog machines use glycol? It does leave a residue that can, at first glance, look oily, but its not the same thing

  18. Re:obligatory... on Mastering Engineer Explains Types of Compression, Effects On Today's Music · · Score: 2

    Oh you can fix that easy - just use a Golden Sound Intelligent Chip, I'm sure they've upgraded the technology to work with SSDs too. Of course, there's always the old standby, the Altmann Tube-o-lator, I suppose it makes all the MP3 files stored on the NAND flash take on a warm "tube sound".

  19. Re:Cut back a little on Flash Memory, Not Networks, Hamper Smartphones Most · · Score: 2

    What about stories of how RAM chips today are too slow to keep up with cutting edge CPUs?

  20. Re:Decision was between Rafale vs Typhoon on India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France · · Score: 1

    The competition was called the MRCA - Multirole Combat Aircraft, for a medium weight aircraft (max takeoff weight 25 tons). The Su-30MKI has an MTOW of nearly 39 tons, and if you've ever seen one up close, they are HUGE aircraft.

  21. Re:India's defense dilemmas on India Turns Down American Fighter Jets, Buys From France · · Score: 5, Informative

    India's military relationship with the US has not always been very good. For example, when India supported the Bangladeshis during their Liberation War, Nixon's response was to send in a carrier battle group to support Pakistan, despite evidence of genocide by the West Pakistani army. Given India's closeness to the USSR, the US was always somewhat wary of military ties. Operation Smiling Buddha and Operation Shakthi didn't help very much either, but the US rather quickly learned that economic sanctions against India didn't really prove effective and withdrew them in a few years.

    The IAF also has a relatively long history of using fighter aircraft and helos of French origin. The French are not shy about sharing technology either, such as the Master AP system that's integrated into India's Ballistic Missle Defence network, or SAGEM's numerous avionics subsystems that are part of the HAL Tejas.

    Bottom line, then, is that while I'm sure US support of Pakistan would have had some influence, many other factors (much of it historical) contributed to the final decision.

  22. Re:The name of the bomb is "Massive" on Pentagon: 30,000 Pound Bomb Too Small · · Score: 1

    If they had babies, would they be bomblets?

  23. Re:Active vs passive systems on China Begins Using New Global Positioning Satellites · · Score: 1

    So what you're saying is in Soviet Russia, navigation satellite tracks you?

  24. Re:Tiny battle against the war. on Vaccine Developed Against Ebola · · Score: 1

    Ebola is a possible bio-weapon. Any vaccine developed would have an immediate market within the armed forces - quite an incentive to develop one, if you ask me.

  25. Re:There was a pretty insightful comment on What Silicon-Based Life Might Be Like · · Score: 2

    so long as they don't get too hot or in too acidic or basic of a chemical environment.

    Isn't this also true of carbon-based proteins (usually what membranes and catalysts are made of)?