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Comment Millivolts "power"? (Score 1) 54

Unfortunately, I had to accept that Slashdot editors and submitters are not, typically, capable to distinguish between power (watt, W) and energy (watt hour, W h), but this is a... new low? Hell, I don't even know if it's new, with how things have been going, it is quite possible that there was a similarly disgraceful submission already.

Mentally insert image of double facepalm here.

Comment This is huge (Score 4, Insightful) 40

by blind biker (#48615201) Attached to: ODF Support In Google Drive

I have been wishing for ODF support in Google Docs since forever. This one feature is what makes it now really feasible for me to start using the Google office tools - becauses I can then open the documents with a myriad other suites that work with ODF!

Comment Re:Move to a gated community (Score 1) 611

by blind biker (#48604447) Attached to: Waze Causing Anger Among LA Residents

Yes and no.

It's more related to the time period in which those neighborhoods were built, and how they were built. Grid street patterns were normal before WWII, along with smaller houses (Victorians, Craftsman bungalows, etc.). "Subdivisions" didn't become common until the postwar era, when sprawling ranch houses with two-car garages and big yards were popular.

Not coincidentally, those postwar subdivisions were also getting built at the same time as the civil rights movement: at the time, black people were "blockbusting" in those grid-street neighborhoods, while the white people were moving out to the curved/cul-de-sac subdivisons to get away from them. In fact, the restricted number of subdivision entrances/exits, along with the higher housing prices (enforced in the zoning code by minimum lot sizes, which forced lower-density development) were, in part, tools to keep out those perceived to be undesirable.

Very nice post, and very true.

I recommend watching an interesting, newly released documentary: Spanish Lake. It explains blockbusting very well, as well as the dynamic of white middle class families staying vs. moving out of neighborhoods.

Comment Re:And this is why there's traffic... (Score 1) 611

by blind biker (#48604385) Attached to: Waze Causing Anger Among LA Residents

My impression of most of the US (I visited three times, three different states) is that you're discouraged from walking - no walkways, no way to cross roads unless you're willing to walk half a mile to get to a crossing, etc. In Texas I felt like walking was practically a felony, and if you don't have a car you're subhuman.

Needless to say, when I left Texas and returned to my beloved Finland, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Music

Gangnam Style Surpasses YouTube's 32-bit View Counter 164

Posted by samzenpus from the winning-the-internet dept.
First time accepted submitter neoritter writes "The Korean pop star PSY's viral music video "Gangnam Style" has reached the limit of YouTube's view counter. According to YouTube's Google+ account, "We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY. 'Gangnam Style' has been viewed so many times we had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer (9,223,372,036,854,775,808)!"

Comment Re:Importance (Score 1) 96

There is a great interview with Elon Musk on youtube here. He is remarkably transparent about his reasoning. One key to his success is that he works very hard to understand motive and purpose when making decisions.

Musk makes that point that it costs about as much to fuel a rocket as it does to fuel a 747. Space launches are mostly so expensive because the vehicle is sacrificed with each launch, not because of the energy requirements for a space launch. The other big component of the expense is that rocket manufacturers charge a lot. According to Musk the value of the raw materials from which they are formed is reasonably inexpensive. Those were two hugely important realizations because they meant that space launches were not inherently expensive and therefore there is enormous potential for reducing launch costs.

By being Space X instead of Boeing the cost of launch is reduced to about 25% of conventional launches because Space X can assemble a rocket from raw materials for that much less. A re-usable vehicle, Musk predicts, would reduce launch costs by an order of magnitude.

So those are the motives and reasoning underlying the X-wing grid fins and re-entry discussed in the Slashdot summary.

Very well said.

BTW, I wish every CEO were like Musk - it would make for a saner company, for researchers and engineers.

Comment I have an Eizo FlexScan L568 in front of me (Score 1) 330

by blind biker (#48442007) Attached to: Eizo Debuts Monitor With 1:1 Aspect Ratio

It's a 4:3 monitor with a fantastic colour and contrast. It's also been serving me faithfully for 6 or 7 years without causing any problems.
So needless to say, I am both a fan of Eizo monitors and lesser-than-HD aspect ratios. I am intrigued by this 1:1 aspect ratio Eizo monitor, but 26" is too big for my home. It is, however, almost ideal at work, where I do research: reading scientific articles and doing MEMS design would benefit a lot from this very monitor.

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