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Comment Re:You're not helping, honestly (Score 1) 247

And frankly, if you had decent spam filters on your own personal domain, you probably wouldn't be seeing these emails anyway. I doubt anyone with a Gmail or Yahoo or Outlook.com address sees this stuff.

My suggestions? Quit worrying about it, and quit running your own mail server. You may think you know what you are doing, but you almost certainly don't.

Being aware of attempts to get past your security is a sign of incompetence?

Comment Re:Theory (Score 1) 841

From the Consumer Reports articles, they also mentioned the drop in projected range from the cold. However, they relayed the Tesla response that when the car is started, the warming battery should restore some of that range; in one of their test drives, they mentioned the projected mileage never went back up, but never went down either (went from 85m->50m overnight, then "remained steady for most of [the morning] 28-mile drive").

Comment Re:NASA's so called Budget (Score 1) 188

In fact, we should do that. Set up contribution funds seperate from taxes for certain programs that people would be able to contribute to at will. I'd contribute to NASA in a heartbeat. And give people a tax credit for doing so. You dont contribute, you pay taxes like normal, You do contribute, your final tax bill is reduced by say 5%, since your donation to a specific thing you feel strongly about will likely more than offset the credit.

The problem with that is it can be used to protest/starve programs, by donating to *anything* else and thereby lowering the 'normal' tax funding pool. While that's true of any donate-for-tax-credit system, this one would be much more direct, particularly since the donations are funding government programs and thus still factoring into the federal budget.

While you could argue that's "democracy in action", it seems more like the "majority mob rule", particularly when looking at rights- and aid-related programs.

Comment Re:Need the dragon (Score 1) 87

Even with a craft docked to every module, they probably wouldn't stop having the crew shelter in docked vessel(s) capable of crew-return.

If you have the crew in arbitrary locations, then damage could isolate the crew from their lifeboats. If you require the crew to be adjacent to their lifeboat, damage to that module is still a large hazard, since you have to evacuate it post-failure. By sheltering in the lifeboats themselves, they become the only critical target - damage to anywhere aside from the Soyuz capsule, Soyuz orbital module, and the docking interface is 'fine' for crew safety, aside from secondary debris concerns.

Given the emphasis placed on crew safety, I'd think it'd take an awful lot to convince them to keep the crew outside of the lifeboats during a potential conjunction. The increased risk simply isn't a worthwhile tradeoff for the working time you'd reclaim.

The Dragon (or any other commercial-crew vehicle) would simply add another location to shelter in, and potentially remove the need to shelter in the capsule during some Russian spacewalks (which use the docking module as an airlock, causing crew to potentially be cut off from a Soyuz docked to the Russian segment were an emergency to occur).

Comment Re:Oh please (Score 1) 267

The point is to raise awareness that many of them are people too, not just scum that get in your way. From the sound of it, you are the kind of person they're trying to raise awareness *in*.

And many (most?) shelters require homeless to leave during the day (excluding sufficiently harsh weather, where the homeless shelter often becomes a hypothermia/hyperthermia shelter during the day), necessitating they spend most of their time on the streets.

Comment Re:I like their position (Score 1) 584

And when there is only one computer available for watching objectional meterial and it is in constant use? Hey, I know, why don't we set up "Free Speech Zones"?

Seriously, though, once you accept the principle of requiring the library patron to move to another computer, it can easily become a free speech issue. As other have pointed out, it might start with porn, but what about academic books on human anatomy? Who gets to decide what is objectionable?

When I worked at a library, the policy was that if someone was viewing porn in a central, high-traffic area, and we got a complaint, there were two basic options: ask the patron to move to a less visible computer (nothing special, simply for example use a computer a little further from the isle rather than the one facing the whole room) or ask the patron to have a shroud added to the kiosk (a standard option for anyone to reduce shouldersurfing - I never saw one actually used). The patron absolutely had the right to view the porn regardless of the complain, so our request to the patron was based on politeness and courtesy rather than a requirement or order - they could refuse it.

I was told it was very rare to have a complaint come up, however (I never had to deal with one personally, since I worked mostly in the Young Adult section, next to the Children's section, and our computers generally weren't the ones picked to view porn on anyway).

Comment Re:Disincentive? (Score 1) 234

The electronics are not shot. The article is misleading. They do not brick it. They blacklist the IMEI

Unfortunately, "bricking" rarely means what it used to - now it generally seems to mean "unable to be used for (the speaker's) primary usage case" (usually a software-based broad denial of access to functionality) rather than the former meaning along the lines of "damage to hardware such that the device cannot function to any significant extent, and would require hardware component replacement/repair in order to regain that functionality".

Comment Re:True, but that's still going to be a tough sell (Score 1) 172

Earth-bound Humans are currently better at many impomptu, lightweight manual tasks than Earth-bound robots -- but are they still better when encumbered in a 200-pound spacesuit, with gloves like oven mitts? I'd argue that a robot (either locally or remotely controlled) might be more agile than a human in that situation, if only because the robot doesn't need to be hermetically sealed into a life-support system that inhibits its movements.

The one counter example was the final Hubble servicing mission, where for a while there were plans to do it with a robot instead of astronauts (and hence why it had so many unusual, specialized, robot-like tools involved). In the actual mission, several parts did not go as planned, with the most extreme being the removal of a handle - it was supposed to be 4 simple screws, but they wound up having to physically flex-and-yank it to break it off. If it had been a robot, the question is if it could've exerted that much force on the object, since there were no planned tasks requiring something similar.

Essentially, humans bring with them a decent sized generic skills & capabilities toolbox, that you generally can't leave behind (presuming a sufficiently generalized spacesuit). Robots are unlikely to have capabilities outside the scope of their predicted mission (including that mission's contingency cases). That grants humans an extra degree of versatility.

Comment 2000 vs ME (Score 1) 417

A reliable, long-lived NT version thrown in the same category as the widely-reviled, end-of-its-line ME version?

While the results prove it reasonable in a 'lump low-count options together' sense, they seem an odd pair to combine into one entry. About the only thing they share were rough concurrency, though in terms of marketting, ME was supposed to be the partner to XP iirc.

Comment Re:Isn't 5/13' less than 55%? (Score 1) 664

I believe the distinction is damaged versus melted. They had thought only a limited portion of the rods was likely damaged, but found that a (smaller) portion was much more seriously damaged (melted). It doesn't actually directly comment on the accuracy of the 55% figure.

Also, given the other articles (such as The Japan Times linked below), the 5 ft. of melted rod appears to be circumstantial conjecture based on a likely prolonged period of being not being water-covered, rather than having a more concrete or direct basis. So the actual extent of the damage (worse or better) is still unclear.

Comment Odd Binning (Score 5, Insightful) 264

The size categories yield some odd bed partners:
15" or less: Small to mid laptops
15-30": Mid-to-large laptops, CRT displays, most LCDs
30-60": Most two-monitor setups of any main/old monitor size, and high end LCDs
60-90": Presumably 2-4 monitors, depending on quality, and some solo tv-as-monitor setups
More than 90": Presumably above 3-5 monitors, depending on quality; 3+ large LCDs, or 5+ 18" CRTs, along with more exotic displays, such as projectors

Given the vague wording of the question, it also lacks any kind of distinguishment between multiple single-headed computers, and lone multi-monitor setups, which seem like very different usage cases to me. My two ancient 18" CRTs, one standalone and the other the head of a KVM switch, leaves me rubbing shoulders with the $1000+ single-LCD users.

Comment Italy Built Much More Than Leonardo (Score 1) 77

the Leonardo Multipurpose Module built by the Italian Space Agency

The Italian Space Agency built most of the 'US' segments. I know they built Node 1 (Unity), Node 2 (Harmony), and Node 3 (Tranquility); I believe they built the US Lab (Destiny) as well. So while they did build the MPLM modules (including Leonardo), it's hardly their largest product on the station ;)

(Italy built the US segments due to US budget cuts; in return for eating some of the cost, they gained infrastructure and expertise. One way that paid off was with Columbus, the European lab - the same number of storage/science racks as the Nodes, but smaller and lighter, so it cost the European Space Agency less of its bartered 'upmass' to send it to orbit, allowing them to send it with several of its racks pre-installed, unlike most other segments of the station which arrived empty)

Comment Re:Editions (Score 1) 260

With physics texts at least, they usually have an absurd amount of typos, primarily in the formulae and definitions of values - ie, the math parts. In most of the cases I've seen, new editions are primarily about trying to correct these typos, though they tend to only correct a small portion of them each time.

Comment Re:Mouse and Keyboard (Score 3, Insightful) 271

I'm still trying to figure out what category 'traditional gamepad/controller' falls under.

* "Standard 97-Button Controller", poking at the ever-growing number of buttons, pads, bumpers, sensors, and what-have-you on controllers? Or is that a reference to a standard keyboard, acknowledging that some buttons are often un-mappable (or are a many-to-one mapping, such as games that can't distinguish left modifiers from right modifiers)?
* "Plastic Instruments", since they're essentially specialized plastic contraptions? or is that supposed to be about the Guitar Hero-esque 'instruments' that accompany many modern offerings, along with the classic 'here's a steering wheel to go with your driving game, a yoke for your flight sim, and a wrap-around station for your mech pilot' specialized controllers?
* "Joystick", referencing the classic style of input from some older generations, like Atari cartriges that typically expected a hand-held or palm-of-your-hand joystick with one or two buttons - the D-pad-and-buttons controllers could be considered descended from that lineage, and thus inheritors of this category? Or is this for the modern joysticks, the mount-to-your-desk creatures sprawling with buttons and sliders and thumb controls?

I'd vote for 'classic controller', but I have no idea what option that is ...

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