Posts by Rick Brasche 522 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Aug 2007
cancel this petition, create a new one for pardoning all of them. Though it'd be nice to name any legislation after Turing in his honor.
Just please don't turn this into a cash-grab payday of a multigenerational demand for "reparations" because someone's great grandfather was involved and it somehow means only money will make his great grandson "whole" again.
what is the point of spending time and money to create and pass a bill to increase snooping of video records? If there is a criminal case they can be subpoenaed. If there is some illicit investigation it can be gathered without legal permission.
Only thing this benefits is advertisers. Congress should not be passing laws to assist advertising companies and violating citizen privacy for that purpose. Spurious law enforcement and "think of the children" is bad enough.
each Doctor now gets younger and more spastic. If this evolution persists, we'll end up next with a Justin Bieberish lad who's strung out on too many espressos. After that, a Doctor toddler who's cursed with Tourette's bouncing off the wall spouting "fantastic" two or three times a second for the whole episode.
give me a Doctor capable of appearing and speaking with decorum again, please? the arrogance of a Time Lord is barely palatable when they're at least physically mature. Hearing that from a frat-boy class cut-up is annoying. I spend episodes awaiting more Amy in short skirts and Rory being a either a henpecked hubby or a raging God of War.
The last two Doctors, do not instill fear when they are angry. It looks like temper tantrums. When Baker went off, you felt like the Principal was going to tell your parents you misbehaved. When Ecclestone raged, you *knew* someone or some race was going to die badly. Now, you just look at the Doctors and think, "The only reason you are remotel capable of looking down on anyone is because of the giants' shoulders you have been placed upon."
so we're going to take what we've been told is a "fragile ecosystem" and introduce a massive increase of one particular life form to deal with another? Especially when, in order to get the coverage needed to be useful, large scale bee breeding programs will need to be instituted, with plenty of opportunity to "improve" the species for "economic" reasons?
or are going to be assailed by the global warming alarmists who see an increase in the "aggressive Africanized" honey bees as a sign of the Thermocalypse and not a thing to do with a massive increase of cultivation of said bees for "fencing"?
of course, still running my old 3GS. It's survived drops (while in a case, natch) been dropped in the bog (displayed a "device not compatible" message!) and subjected to eight hours or more of freezing temperatures while stashed in a motorcycle bag on a long winter ride.
But it took quite awhile for Apple to pull it's head out and address a number of issues. It was definitely *not* a reliable device right out of the box. I expect the same "we'll fix it later" philosophy that we also saw in the 4G will also be part of the 4GS and the mythical 5 in turn as well.
I'll probably still be using the 3GS until there's no more iOS support for it (I'm surprised iOS 5 didn't already cause serious performance issues). Then it'll be time to turn it into an iPod and see what's available outside of the Walled Garden...if it didn't mean losing my grandfathered "unlimited data" plan from AT&T I'd have already jumped ship to a shiny new android device.
first, battery powered motorcycles that (other than improper price/benefit balances) are useful, and now, mobile communication laser systems that are as good as fiber optics.
That's the killer app that will trickle down into the civilian world. Point to point laser datalinks that can adapt to weather and still maintain fiber speeds. It'll be like the old days of microwave all over again! :)
as in, I can "almost" afford one. The range works, the speed works. Of course, this is the marketing taking these numbers. How far does it go when at the top speed? Can I get at least 50 miles at freeway traffic (70 plus?) speeds?
also, does "topping off" at work or home count against the number of charges in the lifecycle?
Rode the Zero S, its a fun little scoot. Problem is, I ride a 600 pound, 145HP bike as my daily driver. Rode it to the Zero demo too. So the performance and response was understandably less than impressive-not having a clutch to work with was weird too. Scooter owners would be right at home with this though.
the best and worst part of all this: that military intel has had access to this information for years. The technology that was developed to locate and identify bunkers and bases is the same technology that found this settlement, as well as expanding the scope of finds in South American jungles and even adding to the Henges of Europe. Without the need to look for camoflaged military threat facilities, we would not yet have this capability to explore our past.
That being said, scans would have been made of Libyan territory ever since the technology was developed, looking for places where KaWacki would be brewing up stuff from the North Korean materials we'd intercepted a few years ago.
Some intel grognard analyzed these images and correctly interpreted them as "not a threat". Heh, it's possible it was even these same files, now released as militarily insignificant.
Military-Industrial Complex wants credit where it's due. War, Huh! what is it good for? Regime changes and discovering ancient civilizaions!
can we get details on what made the winning cars "better"? Or will we find that the controllers, batteries, solar intake efficiencies and aerodynamics were so close to identical between most of the cars that winning came down completely to driver skills or team strategy instead?
as well as compare that to the hardware from previous races and see what significant innovations were applied from last year, if any, that allowed teams to change their placement this year?
these guys can remember who they owe favors to and where money comes from, but when someone hands 'em a moon rock, it registers on their personal perception radar the same as a letter from a constituent-only to be remembered if it can be utilized for personal gain.
You or I get a moon rock, we're all "OMG a F**KIN rock from TEH MOON!!!11!! and it becomes something we only could forget in our advanced aged dementia-and even then doubtful. It'd go on a display of prominence, to the eternal annoyance of our children and significant others.
I suppose if you gave a moon rock to the average Hollywood celeb or pop music tartlet the effect would be the same. It's just not important enough to care about in their world.
Course not a lot of difference these days between politicians and entertainment industry cutouts these days. Different masters, same goals.
electronics are inexpensive and rugged these days. solid state gyros are available that can handle quite a bit of abuse. I'd recommend an active swivel nozzle on the booster to give it actual drive control that can counter for strange winds, weird release angles, or other issues.
Another problem is vehicle stability on the way down. you'll need to make sure it is stable and pointing (preferrably downward) and into thick enough air before wings deploy. there's a NASA concept about using dropped-from-orbit aircraft to explore Mars that has some concepts.
I'd suggest a very robust, active and smart control system and sensors on board the flight vehicle itself. then all that is disposed of is the balloon, enpty fuel tube and the servos involved. the glide home will be the easy part. DIYDrones.com has ya covered there already.
was all "l33t' in the early 'Oughties. Until the base station charger went out, rendering both the keyboard and mouse nonfunctional. Went back to wired and happily hack and game with a single USB cord to the PC (mouse goes into the keyboard)
Only wireless keyboard need I have is running the multimedia PC serving the living room telly. And that's wireless mostly by necessity.
Apparently, "bad" parents "let" their kids get away with crap. they're also "bad" if they make sure their kids aren't doing crap. And "bad" if they actively work to stop their kids from doing crap.
But there's no responsibility at all for children (teenagers) for their behavior. but we're supposed to give them the same freedoms as adults or we're "bad".
It seems then, the only "good parents" these days are ones that have no children, are rich enough to foist the responsibility of raising them onto others, or are absolutely lucky enough the normal human mistakes a child makes aren't serious or visible. Or raised robots.
the idea of trust is great but only if it's *earned*. If 50% of parents spy on the children (that they're legally responsible for, natch) anyone knowing teenagers knows there's a good chance most of those teenagers have not earned the trust, or worse, violated trust previously.
Worry about "freedom" and "rights" when you're responsible for "consequences". Otherwise it's all fake, selfish and immature. *Earned* respect and trust has value, respect and trust demanded just because it's entitled or "deserved" is valueless.
to try to knock one more outta the park by tackling the near impossible. Looks like it can handle a minor ding or two better than the terra fugly-o since the control surfaces are protected by bodywork. I wonder if Scaled will just make one good prototype and then add it to the museum of cool?
Sadly it's still an answer to a question only the extraordinarily well-heeled are asking. Driveable aircraft just don't have the potential for any transportation paradigm shift, any more than amphibious cars.
so when my current 3GS dies, they'll still be available so I can just get another without redoing my contract.
Plus, this seems to mean that, if the 3GS will be a current offering, they won't be able to force it to nonfunctional obsolescence with mandatory iOS updates that are only capable of being run on the newest iOfferings.
the first episode described Airwolf's techno-speak reason for defeating retreating-blade stall..that the fatter winglets helped turn the fuselage into an aerodynamic lifting body at speed (as well as weapons pods). During "turbo boost" the main rotors are disengaged, and are reengaged when "turbo" is completed and the aircraft has slowed to something more reasonable than Mach 1.
(yeah that's in the episode, not some revisionist fanfic-so there was at least some thought to address it...unlike justifications for "parsecs" being an acceptable time measurement :P )
Of course for that to work there would need to be control surfaces to use other than the rotors (none visible) and the stresses on rotor reengagement would be ferocious.
Still I wonder if the lifting body fuselage idea holds any merit.
I was thinking of adding my voice to the "too short" criticisms..then I remember those old Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom shows...and how in Nature combat for survival is often quick and brutal, with lightning-fast feints and counterfeints, where the victor is decided (and reaps the rewards) in mere moments.
or perhaps I'm just remembering Jackie Chan's older, Chinese-produced Kung Fu films..but I digress...
Ultimately, this episode was an unflinching, uncensored view into the savageness of Office Survival. The Quick and the Dead.
Perhaps a warning to the kiddies that it might be too scary would have been in order? :)
for me, it's the 2 week plus battery life on the second hand Kindle I received. still a bit niche-y but I do find some use out of it.
A tablet or anything capable of being rooted is a bit more sophisticated and not as battery efficient if one really just needs a reader. If one wants more, then an e-reader isn't the right device either.
but they already have their own homegrown detractors. LP rightfully goes after what he knows and where he lives. We already have thousands of wonks who wouldn't even pass Air Force basic training hating on every single military expenditure here in America. LP fills a niche that only now is being properly exploited.
they show the development of the bomb as a tiring process of experiment, observation, and testing...of trial and error in the yard and in the test tanks, done by an older, slightly weird dude with a sense of pride of his nation...and not some young prettyboy who imagines it all flawlessly all at once or was "inspired" by too much recreational chemical intake.
there was Gateway, then Tiny PC, eMachines and a slew of others. They've tried kiosks, sales desks in big stores, mall storefronts, and web based custom configuration and ordering systems.
Most have either changed greatly, scaled back mightily, or failed miserably. Something in the business model doesn't work out in the real world, apparently.
does it suck? does it not suck? does it work, fit well, fit poorly? Recommended or not? It won't take but a few characters to give the opinion if it's good, bad, a waste of time, etc.
come on, something resembling a review please? if I want regurgitated copy from interested parties I'll turn to the Associated Press.
can this be made to work with less conductive materials too? If so, we could conceivably have Neal Stephenson's "armorgel" from Snow Crash.
better armor for joints that doesn't impede comfort or flexibility, especially if it can work as well for big joints like neck or back, as well as smaller ones like fingers and wrists, are always welcome by the long distance and daily-commute motorcycle community.
it's not like the Dukester is wimping out here. Remember the Rat Pack and Frank Sinatra crooning to make the womenfolk all gooey...but also being the racecar driving, hard partying, brawling, Mafia-circle paragons of all things Manly.
Preordering on Steam tonight. To be honest, I don't care if it's a normal FPS wrapped in a universal Dukegasm. I liked Borderlands even though the hoity-toity reviewers panned that game as well.
As long as it isn't a Daikatana, or has more system-crashing bugs than Fallout 3, I'll be happy.
Sad icon is saddened by the loss of the longest running vaporware joke in history.
I'd found this script a couple of months ago after inheriting a Kindle. The default images of the Coffee Shop W@nkers Reading List annoyed me in mere minutes.
since my kindle is more likely to be packed with Peter Hamilton than Emily Dickinson, changes had to be made. I do wish I could increase the delay time until the off screen appears.
the first image I loaded was the "troll face" with the text "Problem, Amazon?" :)
now I'm gonna live like GlaDOS and find ways to perplex and baffle victims into early and hopefully comedically entertaining demises!
It beats taking up a hobby, like cloning, I suppose. And gives me a chance to do something creative with lemons...
is that Mr. Musk can run a company that makes lifting men and materiel to orbit -something so massively complex only a few national governments have been able to successfully pull it off-and do it more efficiently, cost effectively and with more agility than ever before. But when it comes to electric motorcars for public streets, a fundamental technology thats been around before the 1900's, the trend is the exact opposite- more expensive, less accessable, less adaptable than many other efforts that others have attempted to bring to market.
How long did it take Tesla to release the promised transmission to the Roadster after sale? How many times did that company kiss arse of state and national governments for subsidies and tax breaks for promises of factories that it turned around and abandoned days later? And still living off of the "early adopter" bongwater...nevermind that not a *single* major innovative technology is Tesla developed but purchased off the shelf from companies and suppliers that were selling their wares to the general public years before, so there's no true "early adopter" at this stage.
I'm guessing, the difference is in the management team. One was the usual bunch of corporate MBA's that buzz around "innovations" that can be overpriced and sold to the gullible, while the other was up against hard realities and real-world physics. Can't bulls**t your way past aerodynamics, thrust to weight ratios, stress loads or reentry plasma. But you can always find a way to sell an overrated golf cart to Californians and Floridans (ZAP, GEM,Club Car, EZ-Go, and many others). Mr. Musk had to clean house awhile ago, sent a bunch of 'execs" off to Mission Motors making (but not selling) electric motorcycles. I wonder if it's possible to turn things around after all the bad blood, mistakes and broken promises.
gets a whisk and a plunger...EXTERMINATE!
I wonder what the royalty is to MS to use their proprietary OEM hardware on something like this? Maybe even using the official SDK as well.
I wonder what happens when there are more than two people in the room?
*needs a Dalek icon for welcoming our robotic overlords
to see reason to back SpaceX. They've actually built and flown a capsule, and passed Boeing's design only offering quite a long time ago. SpaceX is down to wringing out design improvements and getting flight certification.
Makes sense to invest in the outfit that's already doing what is desired.
However, I need to get some artists together so I can make $10m or so with just a CGI graphic.
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