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Comment Next year it should be less than 40M (Score 1) 398

As people learn the location of the camera's and just stop speeding because of them, the revenue will go down. I expect many people that do speed will take alternate routes. It might be more dangerous in other area's because of the new traffic patterns.

Perhaps someone could have done some actual analysis vs. relying on the company that is selling the equipment?

They have their camera's and the company has its money, time to raise taxes to make payments on the bonds.

Comment Re:RT.com? (Score 1) 540

Being older myself, how do you suggest those 30+ million folks died under stalin? How about why everyone was trying to leave before the wall was up and after? How about the cuban missle crisis that almost melted the planet?
Are you saying there were not shortages of basic items in communist countries?
The wall fell in 89, do you remember driving to Berlin and having Russian officers trading you bars off their collars for cigs and jeans at the stops?
Your making it sound like it was a walk in the park. Better Red than dead? Right?
How do you explain extermination buses in china? Sounds fun.
The problem with communism is the same problem with most governments. Its about money and power, and that is not to be shared.

Comment Composite material wearout/decomposition. (Score 1) 448

Special rings in the chamber that corrode/expand over time or wear out like a lightbulb at 700hours-ish of usage. Guidance chips that require preauth would also work in missles/laser artillery to some degree.
I'd bet on the components breaking down as a better option as its much harder to create a good spring inside a sealed case, etc..

Comment Re:Reality check (Score 1) 36

Actually unless you guarantee a number of sales or purchases up front(with money), the vendor almost always just orders as needed. The manufacturer will always improve the Mboards/cards/etc. So you get a,b,c version of the same numbered board. The only way to guarantee you get the same board and replacement board is to order up front all of them plus 40% so you have specific backups if one goes bad. Most likely you have to specify they all come from the same manufacturing run.
Even then you get subtle differences, as capacitors might change a bit, components the supplier uses change. Most keep the same numbers.
Writing a piece of paper that specifies these things is beyond most engineering departments as the cost of doing that is much better spent buying a machine from a company that controls the whole pipeline.
Image

Beaver Dam Visible From Space 286

ygslash writes "The Hoover Dam no longer holds the title of the world's widest dam. Satellite photos of northern Alberta, Canada, show that several families of beavers have apparently joined forces to build a dam 850 meters wide, more than twice as wide as the Hoover Dam."
Graphics

The Nuts and Bolts of PlayStation 3D 154

The Digital Foundry blog took an in-depth look at how Sony is introducing 3D technology to PlayStation 3 games. They give a step-by-step description of how the system generates a 3D frame (or rather, a pair of frames), and the graphical hurdles that need be to overcome to ensure the games look good. The article also discusses some of the subtle effects 3D technology can have on gameplay: "'One interesting thing came through in the immersion aspect was that in the first-person camera view, it felt so much more like being there. Typically when most people play MotorStorm, something like 90 per cent play in the third-person view,' Benson explains. 'As soon as we put the 3D settings in place, the first-person view became a lot more popular, a lot more people were using that view. This could indicate that 3D could perhaps change the standards, if you like.' ... 'We found that in the first-person view the game is giving you all the sorts of cues that you're used to in normal driving: speed perception, the ability to judge distances, things like that. It's far easier to avoid track objects.' The insertion of true stereoscopic 3D into MotorStorm also brings about a new sense of appreciation of the scale and size of the game world and the objects within it."
Operating Systems

Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds 396

Stoobalou writes "Sony says that it has no intention of reimbursing retailers if they offer users partial refunds for fat PS3s. Last week, the first PS3 user successfully secured a partial refund from Amazon UK as compensation for the removal of the ability to run Linux on the console. The user quoted European law in order to persuade the online retailer that the goods he had bought in good faith were no longer fit for his purposes because of the enforcement of firmware update 3.21, which meant that users who chose to keep the Other OS functionality would lose the ability to play the latest games or connect to the PlayStation Network."
PlayStation (Games)

PlayStation Network Expanding To Involve Other Devices 63

At CES, Sony's Kaz Hirai confirmed that the company will build out its PlayStation Network for use with other devices, such as televisions, Blu-ray players, and PCs. Quoting: "... the expansion starts next month with the availability of the PSN video store on these other devices, and Hirai explained they are constructing a mechanism to create a single user ID across the entire network (if you have a PSN account, it's good to go on any other applicable Sony device, and if you create one on another device, it'll work on PSN). And finally, Hirai also announced the formation of a new Sony division — called Sony Network Entertainment, Inc. — to drive this expansion of the PSN service into a Sony-wide network."

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