Posts by Gene Cash
796 posts • joined Thursday 22nd March 2007 15:34 GMT
Posted in Soylent days and soylent nights
Re: Feet, stones, pounds...
I've weighed 255 pounds for a while. I probably need to get rid of that 8-bit scale.
I'm no longer voting "for" but "against"
I voted for Obama because I liked his record on space and a couple other things, but especially because he wasn't a religious freakazoid like Bush or Romney.
The next election I will probably vote independent because there will probably be no one to vote for, and not voting is invisible. It's the only "f*ck 'em both" option I have.
Re: Yeah, right
Actually yes, the local paper does carry stories about lawsuits the ACLU has won *and* lost.
Posted in Google gobbles map app Waze
"data generated by some 50 million or so users to provide real-time traffic updates"
50 million... yeah, that's about the number of assholes on the road here that are texting and looking at their phone when they should be paying attention to their driving.
So I assume this is mining aggregated GPS position/velocity information from lots 'o people? Kind of like an anonymous Google Latitude of the masses? And Google couldn't write this in-house?
Re: DEPLANEING?!
I've seen "deplaning" (without the hyphen) for about 30 years now. Maybe it's more common in the US.
Won't or actually can't, port?
I'm surprised they aren't porting their OS to one of the most popular architectures out there.
I would not be surprised to discover HP no longer has the engineering expertise to do it.
I assume those folks left the company LONG ago.
Re: Hello pot, this is kettle.
You mean like emacs' spook.el?
Re: AND
I *did* scream bloody murder then. Didn't do a damned bit of good, obviously.
Re: Payload
"The ATV is the space station's largest resupply vehicle after the retirement of the space shuttle, hauling three times more cargo as Russia's Progress spacecraft and twice as much as SpaceX's commercial Dragon spaceship" - "Each ATV mission costs 450 million euros, or about $600 million, according to ESA"
http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/va213/130604preview/
Graffiti
For all of Palm's many faults, Graffiti did rock. I used it for years. If someone had coupled it with word-prediction (like the excellent stuff SwiftKey does) then I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
"single point of contact from Dell"
"Have you turned it off and back on?"
Final straw
The constant game updates that I couldn't throttle was the final straw that drove me from FB to G+
I would click "no, I don't want to see updates like these" and the next day would be another half dozen new "Joe/Buffy needs your help in Mafia Wars" spams.
Icon for what I'll be raising when Zynga goes under.
Re: Flick switch, light turns on
Eh, my wireless thermostat has been very handy, but I had to write my own damn Android app for it because the manufacturer's one was total incompetent shit.
Re: Double the power of existing Intel graphics
Hm. I use Intel graphics because on Linux it just works, as opposed to to the hassle that is ATI/Nvidia. It runs minecraft just fine and that's the most I ask.
Re: "Timely Defense" is needed...
Meh, I've always thought "we think you're infringing on our patents" w/o a court summons right behind it doesn't mean much. If they *really* think you're infringing, they wouldn't be pissing about in the dark, they'd be suing you.
Re: Best Practice Cowards
Yup, this quarter's R&D won't make a profit next quarter for the stockholders, so it's canned.
Great. Florida can grow even nastier tomatoes
Even CNN slammed them:
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/09/08/how-the-modern-day-tomato-came-to-be/?hpt=hp_bn8
Jiffy Girls!
Does anybody remember the Jiffy Girls from USENET, especially Jenny? Phwoar... they taught me the right way to say it.
Re: if you dont want to root, and
Or perhaps buy a Nexus 4, which is about as stock as it gets, plus Google's been good about updating mine - so far...
Re: 'My fucking screen is blank!'
That's Google AdWords, actually. I never knew eBay had so many items of mass destruction for sale! Are we invading them next?
Thumbs up for accurate reporting
I have to send a virtual beer to Lester, since it's well done and balls-on accurate. I can't even nitpick it. That's really rare for anything space-related.
Re: Missing
Things tried? V* didn't even get a finished vehicle. They used the tank problems as an excuse to cancel it.
Re: Don't you just love ...
Yes, he is, and for more than just this. Think what would have happened if Tim Berners-Lee had patented HTML? That's pretty much what Nelson did with his "Project Xanadu" - basically nowhere.
Look at xanadu.com and tell me he's not a total crackpot.
So...
The thing lands on the asteroid, perturbing the orbit just enough that it actually hits Earth. Oops! I guess that's as close as I get to a tinfoil hat icon.
Re: Understandable
"you will have to think"
That's seemingly impossible for anyone *I've* seen on the road recently. Between their texting, turning around to yell at Little Johnny, or dicking with their sat-nav, they've been doing anything but thinking about their driving.
Re: bad manners
Thanks. Much appreciated!
Re: Lobbyists Are ANTI-DEMOCRATIC
Sorry, here in the US I pay the NRA (even though I don't have any guns) and the AMA (Amer. M'cycle Assn) to lobby against things like stupid gun laws, stupid motorcycle laws, and ethanol in my gas. I have to fight big organizations like the corn farmer lobby, so my money is best spent on professional lobbyists. I do my own letter-writing (NOT emailing) as well. I also voted against that religious freak in the last election.
Lobbyists are elected by me, accountable to me through the NRA/AMA magazines, and definitely wanted. For example, the AMA defeated several Home Owners Associations trying to ban motorcycle ownership.
I can't think of anything else I can do to be more involved in the democratic process, as I don't have the time to do political volunteering/campaigning.
"third secretary of the political department"
That sounds like it belongs in the '60s era Russian embassy, not the current US one.
So are their CIA operatives giggling their asses off right now, going "oh my GOD, he ACTUALLY DID IT!"??
Takeoffs are easy, it's landings that are a bitch
*Especially* carrier landings. If you read the Wired story, (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/drone-carrier/) which is a bit more skeptical, you'll see they admit to having problems with this. When they do that autonomously, then I'll be seriously impressed.
Speaking of autonomous, I'm surprised you didn't notice (rise of the machines and all that) that this is an autonomous drone, which is more told where to go and what to do, than continuously hand-flown like the USAF vehicles. So it's a lot more robot than model airplane.
Re: Reliability??
Sorry, I've had spinning rust drives die just as dramatically. I've had a Western Digital die when I put my glasses on the external case. I've had several Western Digital and a Seagate just refuse to do anything except spin up.
For the obvious reasons I do cold backups of my system on the 1st & 15th of the month, and I've no problem taking my chances with SSD. They can't be any worse.
Re: Why...
They use rockets attached to the parachute bridle, activated by a simple altimeter just before touchdown. You can see the puff of smoke if the helicopters are close enough in time. If the rockets don't fire, it can be spinal injuries and chipped teeth, but they're pretty reliable.
Vladimir Komorov had major issues with his spacecraft, and ended up in a spin so his chutes immediately wound up when they deployed. He had a complete train of failures and misdesigned crap, so he was pretty pissed off.
I do remember there was one Soyuz that ended up surrounded by wolves, so they now carry knives & pistols.
Still, I'd ride a Soyuz, Shuttle, Dragon, or just about anything, even a Boeing product, to get into orbit. Boeing can't even keep their capsule from cracking during the pressure test though.
Hm.
I think Saturn V could have put up the American segment in 3 launches. Of course it would look very different, not being constrained to fit bits into a Shuttle cargo bay.
The best thing to note
This took only 48 hours from "oops, that looks bad" to blokes going out the airlock.
I think NASA deserves kudos for being able to get something done (and done well) on that sort of timescale with an operation this complex.
It seems a lot of people are switching away from Adobe
Just a data point. I read a lot of web comics (during off-work hours of course!) and a lot (5 out of about a dozen) of the artists are switching away from Adobe because of this.
There's a lot of contention on what they're switching to (Manga Studio being a front runner, but definitely not GIMP) but they are all switching away specifically to avoid the subscription bit. One guy remarked that he's used Photoshop ever since he learned to draw a long time ago, and never used anything else, so Adobe is scaring off some core customers here.
Re: "shot dead at his house while playing dominoes"
Ah ok. A couple daring restaurants tried the swipe-it-yourself wireless terminal and found Americans were too dumb/lazy to figure it out. It was quickly canned.
"shot dead at his house while playing dominoes"
Damn, these dudes play like my grandfather!
Seriously though, a question for the Brits: When you go to a restaurant, sit down, have your meal, In the US the waitress brings the bill, you stick the card in there, she goes back and swipes it for the amount (and possibly writes the number & for fraud later), brings it back, you take the card, note down the tip and leave. The amount goes on your card and is later updated with the tip amount.
How does that work in the UK? How would chip/pin affect it? I'd think chip/pin would kill the "go back and swipe" step. Or do I misunderstand?
Re: What on Earth is the point?
Accounting is a really tedious, boring, and sucky job, and if they wanted me to do it, they'd have to pay me those sorts of numbers.
Re: SSDs, I believe, have now overtaken memory as the single most cost-effective upgrade
Yes, a SSD completely rejuvenated an old laptop of mine. My boss stuck an SSD into his Apple thingie and complains that it was a total waste of money, so that just may be OSX vs. Linux. Perhaps OSX doesn't take that much advantage of an SSD. My boss is actually rather technical, so I don't think that's the problem.
"attack on ... Bookmarks"
WTF? EXPN? That would be "instant shitcan" in my book, if I'm interpreting this correctly.
Speaking of M1A1...
I think I see one disguised in the new floral camouflage in the middle background...
"All the data is transferred and controlled via a private cloud network"
Seriously? So if Amazon goes down (again) so do our drones?
Re: Weasel words maybe?
Pffft. I got "you're a victim of counterfeiting" about 10 minutes after I installed my store-bought copy of Windows 7. So I installed a crack. There endeth my little experiment in actually buying Microsoft software.
Re: Maybe.....
And a competent ISP to manage it. I have to have a VPN account to get any sort of throughput, and it's not just YouTube, it's also NASA TV and a whole slew of other things.
The network hauls butt when I turn VPN on, so they do have decent hardware, they've just buggered it beyond belief.
CNC milling machines are expensive as hell compared to 3D printers, and not that easy to use, even if you already have a tape describing gun parts.
Re: Getting the popcorn ready for the arrival of the shrill shills
I only recognize terrorists when they're carrying a pressure cooker....
GRANDMA!!! NO! IT'S NOT WORTH IT! NOT THE BAKED BEANS!!!!
Re: X-51
I don't think so... for a government project, it's "pick one of fast, accurate, or cheap"
Seriously though, this is a hell of an accomplishment.
Doing science while black
As a Florida resident, it's pretty obvious a white child wouldn't have had a problem. People are incredibly racist around here. Icon for what deserves to be done to the place.
"Hi-tech balloon control system"
So apparently they were two sheets to the wind?
Re: Silly Ruling
But the point he's trying to make is it's not an "obscure gotcha clause" or misleading adverting. It's a simple fact you need to repay your loan for the phone. And it's not bait and switch, T-Mobile is a lot more clear on their terms than AT&T or Verizon, in my personal experience, which is why they're now my provider.
We need to go after twats like Verizon, that refused 5 attempts to pay my ETF, to the point I had to file an FCC complaint.
Re: RE: ... is not a viable business case.
Ah yes, the same Brighthouse where the billing system has special code to defeat any attempt to paste in your checking account number and routing number, or your name (which must match their records exactly, including misspelling, punctuation and mis-capitalization)
The same Brighthouse where I filed an FCC complaint about them highjacking my DNS, causing SAMBA to break, then they said "hey, you can use Google's DNS, case closed!" and I had to reopen it.
The same Brighthouse where I couldn't view youtube videos w/o insane amounts of buffering (and other network issues) so I opened a VPN account and started naming'n'shaming on Twitter where Brighthouse started following me and anything I tweeted about suddenly stopped being an issue, despite all the tech support tickets I filed being totally ignored.
Then we can discuss Verizon, where my attempts to pay my ETF 1) in-store when I closed my account, 2) through the website, 3) over the phone, and 4) back at the store again were all rejected until I filed yet another FCC complaint.
I am watching Virgin get smacked about with no small amount of glee.
