Untar in this context simplym means heating up the sundial with a giant magnifying glass and hoping the tar runs off . .

It wasn't what they said but the aspersions in the way they said it that they made listening to them interesting. . .

I do chemical engineering research in my spare time. I actually had to use calculus a few weeks ago to derive an equation for making a mixture of 2 solvents as similar as possible to the properties of a third solvent. For two solvents, the answer was a calculus gimme.

For three solvents, I had to break out multivariable calculus and Lagrange multipliers which didn't generate a solution but instead reduced the problem to a 4x4 matrix inversion. The inversion would have been most easily solved by feeding the matrix into the LAPACK library but a pedant could have solved it in his own code using Cramer's rule.

In my case, calculus wasn't enough, it only reduced the problem to linear algebra. Basically, you have to have taken enough math to recognize when you have transformed a problem form an intractable form to a tractable form.

Actual scientists are the most likely to mess these kinds of stuff up. They often weren't trained in the nuances of calculation. I actually head a bunch of physicists at Los Alamos arguing about whether computer science was a science!

The clinicians using it may have been honest and competent but the people designing it were anything but.

Trying to mod insightful and accidentally modded redundant. Posting to cancel

I believe that it's a lawyer and not a developer that needs to be consulted in this case as there are legal precedents. Just try googling for uniform commercial code software development

I'm blowing a couple Mod points but. . . Take a look at www.brickwall.com for surge suppressors. These are not whole house units but they are not damaged by 1000 consecutive surges at the maximum energy at which IEEE tests. They also have panel mounted ones that can be used to protect a whole circuit. They are basically an analog lowpass filter on steroids and as a result suffer no damage from surges that would completely destroy a MOV based surge protector. I've got one on my stereo. I've never looked at the results with an o-scope or anything but the engineering principle on which they are based is sound.

And it is clear as Mudd to me!

Hey I once had a software bug report on a military system I was working on that said: "Turning on master power causes cockpit to fill with smoke: Must be Resolved Immediately". Too bad we weren't in charge of the hardware.

Tried to mod you funny but missed the click. oops.

Electric cars new? Ha. See this article from the Toronto Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/tom-hawthorn/100-year-old-electric-car-offers-trip-back-in-time/article2391288/

Why? It's conceptually equivalent to operate a thermoelectric module in reverse to get electrical energy and feed it into an LED to make light. In essence, you have made a heat pump with the LED.

The security researchers inside the conference are no doubt very aware of security. The security hacks that implement the security for such conferences: not so much. Same problem with security everywhere.

I seem to remember our company had an agreement with IBM that we just had to report that the drive was bad and perhaps show evidence that it had been destroyed or something to get a replacement. I can't remember. I can remember my admins very firmly telling me to remove all drives before sending any company machines back to the vendor for repairs.