Comment Re:I know where those particulates are... (Score 1) 159
I was there last week and there was really bad smoke from the American fire, which is still burning. You might be getting both that and the Rim fire.
Comment Re:Yes, it is impractical (Score 1) 127
To heck with that. I would have liked to see Project Orion. That is, from a distance :-)
Comment Where is it practical? (Score 1) 127
But it does not allow rockets to reenter the Earth's atmosphere at orbital velocities, slow down, and land.
How about the Moon and Mars? It seems to me that the fuel capacity of Dragon isn't enough to do both lunar descent and ascent just on the Super Draco thrusters and the trunk's fuel capacity.
Comment What's really impressive (Score 2) 127
The impressive part is that they do it with an actual rocket that is 106 feet tall, and that they have launched it 7 times with 0 failures.
Using the same engine, rather than treating the engine as a disposable object that only performs one burn in its lifetime. Most rocket engines can't be throttled, can't be shut down and then restarted in flight or otherwise.
The tricky part is going to be for any stage to have enough delta-V to return to the pad after lifting a payload to orbit. Also, as far as I can tell, this takes a drag chute for lower stages, and a re-entry shield for upper ones.
Bruce
Submission + - Russia Proposes Banning Foul Language on the Internet (pravda.ru)
eldavojohn writes: In a country where it's illegal to insult a government official, State Duma Deputy Yelena Mizulina has proposed an amendment to ban swearing on social networks, bulletin boards and all websites. The website would be blocked if the offending material had not been removed within 24 hours. The name of the law this would be added to? "On the protection of children from information harmful to their health and development." Mizulina's title in regards to this legislation? Chairwoman of the Committee on Family, Women and Children (No joke!). Of course, Yelena Mizulina is no stranger to unwarranted censorship as she was behind the law banning gay propaganda to minors and invoked laws to try to silence critics on twitter. The article also notes, 'United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov put forward a similar initiative on 25 July. He proposed to tighten control over social networks and allow people to dating sites through their passports.'
Comment Apples to Oranges (Score 5, Informative) 158
If it wasn't for all the false reporting about conditions at Foxconn, I might take this seriously.
"All the false reporting" was one nutjob who was confusing journalism with stage performance. A stark difference between Mike Daisey and China Labor Watch is their falsifiable report that, unlike Daisey's heart wrenching anecdotal stories, can be checked.
Examples:
At Pegatron, over 10,000 underage and student workers (interns), from 16 to 20 years of age, work in crowded production rooms, doing the same work as formal, adult workers. But some students are paid lower wages because schools deduct fees for the internship, while other students will not have their wages paid to them on time.
CLW’s investigations revealed at least 86 labor rights violations, including 36 legal violations and 50 ethical violations. The violations fall into 15 categories: dispatch labor abuse, hiring discrimination, women’s rights violations, underage labor, contract violations, insufficient worker training, excessive working hours, insufficient wages, poor working conditions, poor living conditions, difficulty in taking leave, labor health and safety concerns, ineffective grievance channels, abuse by management, and environmental pollution.
Did you read the report? It's got hard numbers and straight up accusations with defined conditions that can be checked. It's not like "I met a little girl who polished my iPhone." Instead it's like "A dorm room at Pegatron can accommodate 12 people. From Monday to Friday, residents have to clock-in within 24 hours or else they will be considered checked out of the dorm." or "The Pegatron factories had a list of discriminatory hiring practices, including refusing to hire people shorter than 4 foot 11 inches tall, pregnant women, those older than 35, people with tattoos, or people of the Hui, Tibetan, or Uighur ethnic groups."
Comment Re:A Better Option (Score 0) 391
Aren't these units similar to the ASUS Transformer Infinity, which sells just fine at $400 or more?
I guess that's why you won't see them with an Android load and a discount. MS has probably contracted with ASUS not to do that.
Comment Re:Play Nice (Score 1) 238
No.
Comment MSRP of $62,400 Though? (Score 4, Insightful) 452
For all the whining and moaning about rich people, that seems to be how society advances often. A rich person's fad then becomes a commodity.
Yeah
Comment Two Other Outspoken Politicians (Score 4, Insightful) 424
Mod parent up. We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.
What are you talking about? There are plenty of politicians speaking their minds about Snowden -- but I don't know if I'd call them "brave." Looking at just the previous administration, George W. Bush:
I think he damaged the security of the country
And Dick Cheney:
I think he's a traitor
Of course, as another poster mentioned, they've got nothing to lose same as Carter.
Jimmy Carter Calls Snowden Leak Ultimately "Beneficial" 424
eldavojohn writes "According to RT, the 39th president of the United States made several statements worth noting at a meeting in Atlanta. Carter said that 'America has no functioning democracy at this moment' and 'the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.' The second comment sounded like Carter predicted the future would look favorably upon Snowden's leaks — at least those concerning domestic spying in the United States — as he said: 'I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.' It may be worth noting that, stemming from Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, Jimmy Carter signed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 into law and that Snowden has received at least one nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize."
Submission + - Jimmy Carter Calls Snowden Leak Ultimately "Beneficial" (rt.com)
eldavojohn writes: According to RT, the 39th president of the United States made several statements worth noting. Carter said that 'America has no functioning democracy at this moment' and 'the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.' The second comment sounded like the Carter predicted the future would look favorably upon Snowden's leads — at least those concerning domestic spying in the United States — as he said: 'I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.' It may be worth noting that, stemming from Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, Jimmy Carter signed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 into law and that Snowden has received at least one nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Comment Yahoo! Mission Statement (Score 5, Funny) 91
What exactly does Yahoo sell? Do they even have a mission statement?
From several investor calls she has said:
“Yahoo is about making the world’s daily habits more inspiring and entertaining,”
Which is a little more positive and slightly better than Yahoo!'s previous mission statement:
"Now open up all your little fucking birdie mouths because Papa Yahoo!'s got a big juicy unwanted browser toolbar to slam down your goddamn throats."
Submission + - Tesla's Elon Musk Envisions 4000MPH 'Hyperloop' Transportation System (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Think the future of transportation has us all in flying cars like the Jetsons? Think again. That's not something we're likely to see in our lifetime, however we may witness the completion of several "Hyperloop" transport systems designed to get you from point A to point B at breakneck speeds. This is the dream of Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, who describes Hyperloop as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table." Alternately, you can think of it as an enclosed tube that's propped way up off the ground. It would use a magnetic levitation system similar to high-speed bullet trains, except passengers would travel in capsules across a surface with almost no friction. A Colorado company called ET3 (Evacuated Tube Transport) is already working on making Musk's dream a reality by building a similar system and is planning a 3-mile trial run before the end of the year. This is just the beginning of bigger and faster things to come, According to ET3, a six-passenger capsule about the size of an automobile could hit speeds of 4,000 miles per hour on longer distances, such as going across the country or even continents.
Comment 'Gone Their Own Way with Android'? What? (Score 1) 42
More recently, Chinese companies have gleefully gone on their own with Android,
What are you talking about? From that article they made a few comments about how they wish to move away from Google's Android. And actually here's the exact quote that sentiment was extrapolated from:
"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is heavily reliant on Android," according to a white paper from a research division of China's tech regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "Although the Android system currently remains open source, the core technologies and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."
That's a quote from some Chinese Ministry, not even a group of Chinese developers. I hear that more like "Chinese are reluctantly still installing Google's Android on most of their phones. Google's Android use still rising sharply in China with no end in sight." Can you point me to the Chinese repo for the forked source to android? Surely if it's widely distributed it must also make the source available?
'Gleefully gone their own way'? Yeah, tell you what, fork Android for China and let's compare the two code bases for support and worldwide use one year later. I suspect the glee will be entirely one-sided and it's not going to be China's Android.
