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Comment Re:You can do that right now (Score 1) 436

No, s/he's talking about the ECU dropping the injector dwell to zero because the accessories can be run from the inertia of the car. Engine revs come from the wheels/transmission, not combustion, actually a lot like a hybrid's regenerative brakes. You can actually watch this happen in reverse when you get close to stopping because the revs are too low to sustain drive and the ECU starts fuel flow again, causing a slight blip in RPM as it transitions to idle. (This is also when the transmission disengages.)

Comment Re:The future (Score 1) 345

Wait a minute, I think I've seen this before...

"The future could see smartphone's containing as much processing power as your current desktop."

"So I'll have to wait 5 minutes before my smartphone has finally booted?"

Yup. Same as it ever was. Next up: Implant boot times.

Comment Re:Why Gen Z Needs To Change for Work (Score 1) 443

Some provide a choice: company laptop with maintenance or your own device but you do the maintenance.

I can't wait for this, and the ensuing lawsuits. Am I lawsuit happy? Perhaps, but the first time client PII or similar data is lost through this practice, there will be a lawsuit faster than you can say "failure to perform due diligence".

That said I believe there are "right" ways to do this. Virtual machines, remote desktops, mobile apps, sandboxes, etc. My company has no problem buying an employee a Mac or Linux machine or iPad when the work really requires it. With apologies to MasterCard, for everything else there's VirtualBox.

Comment Re:geographic distribution (Score 1) 321

I say we fix this oversight from 30 YEARS AGO by developing a new addressing scheme, compatible to an extent with the original, that can be overlaid on the network and distributed more evenly around the world. Oh, and make it bigger, too, so we don't revisit this problem for a while. Who's in?

Comment Re:Deadlier than the terrorists (Score 1) 681

I don't like the backscatter machines OR the pat-downs, but I saw this and it raised some questions. Now I'm a Schneier fan-boy, and we even work in the same field, but let's take the NY 9/11 attack as a comparison (2819 according to NYMag).

So for the scanner to be deadlier than just that attack, it would have to kill 16 extra people a year for a bit over 176 years. Am I missing something?

For further comparison there's an 9/11-equivalent loss of life on US road every 27 days (using 2008 numbers from the 'pedia.) Maybe it's me, but I don't see it being more deadly than terrorists. That said, I'm not going in them - radiation is cumulative. RF (the MM-wave scanners) is not.

Comment Re:Lowest bidder (Score 4, Interesting) 154

There are two main approaches to government contracting: Lowest Cost and Best Value. Contrary to popular belief, Lowest Cost is not always the one chosen, by a long shot. I also previously misunderstood "Close enough for government work." Turns out most "government work" has very specific requirements and specifications, or you don't get paid. If you see something different, please call Waste, Fraud & Abuse.

Comment Different exams (Score 1) 870

Just a thought... I suggest a number of different exams (say 4, for a class size of 30?), randomly distributed to the students. This will help mitigate answer copying (unless the miscreants have the same version) - sending a question to get an answer means the answer provider has to do two or more exams, not just their own. You can't eliminate cheating, but you can raise the effort required to do it. This also means more work for you, but so would denying RF or IR comms, crib sheets, etc., and is less technically complex. Use a mix of different questions and the same questions with different parameters.

Comment Re:Protecting what? (Score 1) 100

This is correct, the SSN is an identifier. (Yes, I know the card is marked not to use as identification, but that's different. The problem is that a secure transaction (on-line or off), requires an identifier and an authenticator. An identifier is like a username - it identifies who the party is. An authenticator is like a password - it attempts to confirm the entity supplying the identifier is the real one.

The problem is that the SSN is used as both identifier and authenticator, which is an inherent flaw. The SSN is a de-facto identifier. Any attempt to use it as a shared secret authenticator is doomed.

Comment FTA & Wildfeeds (Score 1) 386

Free-To-Air (FTA) feeds and Wildfeeds are plentiful. Do some reading on http://www.satforums.com/ see if you can steer the dish, and if it's possible to enable it for Ku as well a C band (I'm guessing it's C because of the size). You can often refit a C band mesh dish to work on Ku by laying metal window screening on the surface of the reflector. Then you have to mount a KU feed at the focal point, usually offset next to the C feedhorn. Great site to find out what you can view FTA from your location: Lyngsat, for the central US try this page. To see if you can view a satellite from your location there are simple calculators on Lyngsat.

Comment Knowledge Management Tools (Score 1) 235

I haven't had to store experimental results like that. My work produces prototypes, some data, demos and support documentation. There are tons of KM tools out there to manage heterogenous data in a recoverable way. We've used document repositories like Hummingbird (acceptable) and of course SharePoint. The key (literally) is including the right metadata and tags when you check in the element. When a data set goes dormant (static) you can tarball the CVS tree or whatever and drop it in the repo. Then there's Knowledge Discovery, something we've created tools for. They let you understand how you got that idea from three hours of web/repo surfing.

Comment Re:Online schools are a scam (Score 1) 428

DeVry, Unitek, Sequoia Institute, University of Phoenix, etc, are all scams.

Perhaps an AC troll, but I believe this is a generalization. I went to DeVry (after community college) and learned a lot - in a specific area (BS Information Systems). Liberal arts was of course neglected - this is a technical school. My classmates appeared to have a similar experience, generally successful.

I was working in the field during and after school, and went on to get an MS in Computer Science (the BS transferred just fine). I'm about to start my PhD.

I'm now mid-career, still doing work I love for six-figures. Worked out fine for me, and I'm NOT the top of my class or the most successful in the group.

Job placement is always what you make of it, and especially so during hard economic times. At my DeVry campus the IS program was a feeder to places like CBIT (Cincinatti Bell IT) who sucked up programmers as fast as they could be made. I, however, went to smaller local IT shops, as I more quickly would become the "smartest guy in the room", which afforded me flexibility to learn a great deal. Right now this would be much harder; programming being outsourced, stressed economy, etc. I highly recommend professional networking, getting to know what your peers are interested in and making sure they know what YOU are looking for. I started that late, thinking I wanted to get a job on merit rather than contacts. I didn't realize you have to find the opportunity first, then get it on merit. Professional associations in your field are wonderful for this, are cheap(er) for students, and usually like having fresh blood to complement the greybeards.

I do agree with the approach of starting with a community college - often the best bang for your buck, especially for the first two years. Then transfer to a four-year school who is credible in your field (which you might have only THEN decided upon). I also agree regarding applying for grants and scholarships. In fact, DeVry was truly outstanding in this, getting me grants I'd never heard of. The rest went on the ten-year student loan program.

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