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Comment Re:De-americanization has officially began (Score 1) 206

The ruble is so untrusted that commerce within Russia often is done in dollars as Russia is the largest holder of US banknotes in the world.

It's not the nineties anymore.

China - well let me know when their currency flows are not restricted, and they adopt some sort of internationally accepted accounting standard.

I am letting you know thus.

The Military

The Military Is About To Get New Augmented Reality Spy Glasses 58

schwit1 writes in with this story about some interesting new eyewear purchased by the Defense Department. Getting secret information to specific people, like the location of the nearest nuclear power plant, in a way that doesn't draw attention from outside is a classic spy problem. Another one is giving agents the ability to match names to faces in the real world, at blackjack tables and fancy soirees and other places spies frequent. The Defense Department is buying some new spy specs to give spooks in the field an intelligence edge over everybody else. The glasses, called simply the X6, are from San Francisco-based Osterhout Design Group. They look like the lovechild of Google Glass and the Oculus Rift, providing more information to the wearer than the small window on Google's much-maligned headset but not obstructing vision like the Oculus Rift. (Admittedly, for spy glasses, they lack a certain subtlety.)

Submission + - Employees who stay more than 2 years paid 50% less (forbes.com)

fleebait writes: According to Forbes:

The worst kept secret is that employees are making less on average every year. There are millions of reasons for this, but we’re going to focus on one that we can control. Staying employed at the same company for over two years on average is going to make you earn less over your lifetime by about 50% or more.

Comment Re:As a Motorcyclist, I Declare "Meh" (Score 1) 345

*sigh* that's a Suzuki DL-650 Vstrom, not a Honda. The new one does get about 60mpg, my 2009 only about 55.

I agree with those that say that, unfortunately, this is not going to be a successful bike. I really like the idea of an electric motorcycle, but it should come from a company that does exactly that. H-D fans aren't going to want it, and the insane high price that they will charge for the nameplate will keep others from buying it. I'd love a 60 mile-range electric bike that cost $10,000. I'd buy it tomorrow, but this isn't that.

Comment That's what I'm talkin' about! (Score 3, Informative) 79

That's science right there - all our best evidence indicates that this can be feasible, and this seems the least effort to try it. Nice plan to at least see how far we can get, before we have to revise and replan. We're testing just the principles we want to test, using established functionality where we aren't testing.

That's far more 'magical' to me, than promising another set of boots in places that won't be feasible without exactly these kinds of experiments happening first. More rovers - more measurements!

When we need to spend the big resources to send people off this gravity well, lets have it make sense, perhaps set up a semblance of an workable environment first. We can barely make earth-based closed etiologies last for long - it would be a sad excuse for a 'backup' with our current level of development. We absolutely CAN expand into the galaxy/universe - but we've still got a few mountains of puzzle pieces left unsorted still, in my particular opinion.

Ryan Fenton

Comment Re:The actual appeal (Score 1) 240

Sigma uses Foveon sensors, not Bayer, that is why there is no CFA involved. And that is why IR photography is not a mod for Sigma, the dust protector/IR filter is designed to be removable in a few seconds and you can put it back just as easy. I think the Sigma engineers designed the camera as a potential IR camera.

Comment No accounting for taste. (Score 5, Insightful) 215

While the unlocked graphics style is certainly better for screenshots, it suffers the problem of highlighting close things, while highly blurring anything at a distance. While more 'realistic', if I were testing the game, I'd definitely suggest disabling this 'feature' by default, as it really can hamper gameplay and discovery. Skyrim EMB mods frequently enter into this territory, and it can be troublesome there too.

The headlight effects are pretty cool though.

The worst middle-finger-to-the-audience has to be the mouse handling though - it's not just mouse smoothing or mouse acceleration, but a particularly nasty form of negative acceleration from capping out the maximum allowed mouse speed, presumably to match controller max speeds. This limitation is a pain in the ass if you're expecting any kind of free or accurate mouse control. I cannot imagine any tester not making this a 'show stopper' bug - it's really, REALLY bad from what I've heard/seen/tried, and can't be fixed so far (lots of half-fixes out there though).

Ryan Fenton

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