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Comment Re:And another question (Score 1) 144

dont see much real improvement in the physics of the ball itself.

That's not what the players think. Many of them come out and bitch and moan about the changes in soccer ball design because it feels and plays different. Many teams complained that the Germans had an unfair advantage in 2006 because they got to play with the new ball before everyone else and thus had more training using it. Physicists have chimed in on it too saying the 2006 ball is likely to mostly affect keeping as the smoother surface with less seams makes the balls trajectory unstable if spinning in flight.

To me? It's just a round ball, and I'd happily play with anything round that's lighter and softer than a coconut.

Comment Re:Wouldn't use a soundblaster... (Score 3, Insightful) 502

But for general gaming or home theater use? Nope. Send the audio out over the HDMI out, or SPDIF for DVI/VGA rigs, and let the amp sort it out.

This right here is a key point. Many people now don't rely on their PC to actually do any audio, just send the data somewhere else. Many hifi rigs are hooked up into digital inputs, many TVs and computer displays will support HDMI audio and do the conversion in the device. In some cases like mine people even opt for external streaming devices like a Roku to get music though that doesn't work for generic sound.

Comment Re:Solaris not well supported by OSS toolchain (Score 1) 183

I find it incredibly annoying when someone THINKS they have researched some topic and knows what they are doing.

You may be perfectly right and capable and interested only in the detail that you're asking, but unfortunately you'd be in the minority. probing questions will confirm everyone is on the same page and while it may be annoying to you, it will be a godsend for many others.

Engineers in general are terrible at solving generic problems, which is ironic because we're thought of as the great problem solvers. Our issue is that it's in our blood to solve problems and quite often we'll have solved the problem without even understanding what that problem is. It reminds me of the great Dilbert comic where Wally interrupts his boss by saying "We'll build a database" and when it was pointed out that he doesn't know the problem yet he retorts "We always build a database."

Comment Re:Who? (Score 1) 93

No it's a hazard of editors not doing their job. That is their job, to be the buffer between the reader and the source, to edit submissions so they make sense to the readership. If we palm that responsibility of to the submitted then there would be no point in hiring editors.

Comment Who? (Score 5, Insightful) 93

Come on editors! First a typo in the company name and then rattling off some guys name and saying he's an employee of some misspelt company who's been somehow involved in some games?

I clicked on the article to find out why I should give a damn. Then I was going to write about why is this news. Would it have killed you to use the words "Chief Creative Officer", or "Lead Designer of World Of Warcraft", or pointed out that he was listed in Time's 100 most influential people?

Nope apparently he's just some dude who's been working at some company too long. Much like the editors here, although it seems the word "working" in Slashdot's case would be a heck of a stretch.

Comment Re:Idiotic (Score 1) 200

So you're basically saying but someone could change the drone in the summary to something bigger and OMG DANGEROUS! Yeah good argument.
The other half of your argument is self defeating. Fires? Yeah because something that may catch fire is really going to kill you. Let me say that again, LiPo batteries do not spontaneously explode. Go get one and throw it really hard into the ground. Yes it may heat up, yes it may eventually catch fire, but if you get burnt as a result it will be because you got some really recessive genes which Darwin postulates may sort themselves out anyway.

In other news someone in my city stabbed someone else because they wanted a cab ride and they felt the cab stopped for the wrong person. Your little old lady has nothing on that, other than a case of the bat-shit insane. So let me commit the True Irish fallacy and say "No true sane person gives a shit". And that can be found by a quick Google search that shows the FAA hasn't done anything about individuals flying yet, only *attempted* to do something about a few commercial cases. So please, share with me your source on the steady stream of phoned-in tips, and the subpoenas and the cease & desist letters. No, Amazon and the guy who filmed the Tornado don't count.

By the way I like how you just pointed to the danger of drones, did you address the rest of what I was talking about? Think about it. With all those damn terrorists about we should ban fireworks and public gatherings. They are far more dangerous than drones.

Comment Re:No accountability (Score 1) 154

It's really interesting to see the lengths that fracking companies put between themselves and wastewater, basically outsourcing the wastewater manage process to entirely separate companies explicitly for the purpose of no longer being responsible for the wastewater. They've done this pretty much from the start, too.

Actually the reason for that is not as nefarious as you think, and its the same reason for outsourcing construction, operation, commissioning, maintenance and many of the other activities various companies outsource.

The idea is simple. The companies make their money by getting shit out of the ground and selling it. Their value lies in the exploration rights and their proven reserves. Everything else is technical details. Most upstream oil companies are staffed with geophysicists, geologists, and anyone capable of holding a divining rod, as well as a few project managers to hold the whole thing together. They then borrow shitloads from the bank and sink even more shitloads into 3rd parties who will build, maintain and run the equipment. Then they can reap massive profits without having to actually have the expertise to do anything. Ever wonder why BP's oil spill involved a platform owned by someone other than BP, run by someone other than BP, drilling a hole which was cemented by someone other than BP, yet the profits of the operation (were it to have been successful) would have gone to none other than BP?

The entire industry is like that. Wastewater isn't complicated but there are plenty of specialist contractors who are willing to do it for you, so why waste the time and resources to doing it yourself, when you can focus on other things while also partially shifting liability.

Comment Re:This and more (Score 3, Insightful) 88

Ahhh you must be one of those, "He mentioned guns so he must thing it should all be illegal, I better rebuff" types.

No, couldn't be further from the truth, you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was saying that compared to getting killed by falling drones the above list is far more dangerous to the general health of people, and THEY ARE ALL LEGAL.

So everyone needs to take a deep breath, get some perspective and realise that getting killed by a flying drone is about likely as a terrorist attack. You should worry more about driving to a ski slope than dying on it.

Comment Re:Absolutely Awesome (Score 1) 200

I don't understand the negative comments here.

I do. It's the I don't fly planes because they may crash, and there are possibly terrorists in my basement right now crowd are afraid they may end up on a TV show called "Truly bizarre ways unlucky people die".

They are probably posting the negative comments from their phones while driving down the highway, speeding of course because the government sets those speed limits to collect fines and safety has nothing to do with it.

Comment Re:Idiotic (Score 1) 200

More importantly we could all get killed by terrorists! Won't someone think of the children!!!!!

You have one of the most extreme cases of alarmism I've seen. I think we need to address your points individually in turn:

1. Flight controller may get confused and attempt to fly the thing. Or more realistically what happens when you lose a prop is the thing flips and splats straight down. Try it one day, or just jump on youtube and watch what happens when a quad suffers complete motor failure. They definitely don't come down at a nice angle, but simply fall out of the sky tumbling as they go.

2. The Phantom 2 is 1kg, this doesn't change anything but I thought I'd point it out since it'll significantly reduce the damage.

3. The Phantom 2 does not have carbon fibre blades. This is quite significant because plastic doesn't hurt when you get hit by it (spoken from experience).

4. It's night time, I think we'll be able to see the bright thing with 6 red and 6 green bright LEDs tumbling towards us, especially since we'll be looking right in its general direction.

5. LiPos aren't bombs. They burn well but they won't kill you, even if they catch fire while they are in your pocket, or on your lap (Google this if you want examples).

6. The public couldn't give a shit. They don't care about you, the drone or the FAA. What they will say is "awesome video" and hit share on Facebook. You know, kind of like everyone doing it right now. (Seriously like 6 people posted this on their wall in the past few days).

Now I wonder how many people die on the way to fireworks in car accidents, or die looking at fireworks while driving, or die getting hit by fireworks (this actually happened at one show I was at, my friend got a lovely payout and a great scar to tell war stories about). But more importantly shouldn't we be focusing on the terrorists? I mean all those people just standing there, in the dark, very little security, lots of people with backpacks. Think about it.

Comment Re:This and more (Score 3, Insightful) 88

Funny I think the same thing about people with cars and guns. Yet somehow as a species we're content with the massive injury and death rate from those activities but a petrified from the highly remote chance that we may get killed by a terrorist, attacked by a shark, or hit by a falling drone.

Comment Re:OP vs Reality (Score 1) 112

Finland's average speed to the sites in Finland may be awesome. Average speed to the sites I want to visit?

Just because the last mile is fast doesn't mean that its useful.

Really? I have yet to see a faster last mile that hasn't resulted in a faster overall experience. The sites I want to visit? Most of them host content on the likes of Akamiai.
But don't feel bad people have been saying this for years. They said it about the 56k modems, they said it about the first ADSL modems, they said it about cable, and they are saying it now.

I guess you don't realise that in the last 15 years the service providers pipe's have grown just as fast as the last mile.

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