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Comment Re:ESPN can go eff themselves. (Score 1) 329

ESPN charges cable providers around $12/month/subscriber.

The number I've been hearing is $30/month/subscriber. However, it's tricky to nail that figure down, because Disney sells ESPN as a package with all of its other channels. That's the problem. Once it becomes unbundled, you find out how much it really costs.

Comment Re:With the best will in the world... (Score 4, Informative) 486

The reason why diesel engines have problems with NOx emissions is because the high temperatures and pressures in diesel fuel cause the nitrogen in the air to react with oxygen.

The high temperatures and pressures in the combustion chamber cause the nitrogen and oxygen in the air to react with each other to form NOx.

Source: I'm a diesel emissions engineer.

Comment Re:You Can See (Score 1) 113

Yes, the controls system appears to definitely know how it wants the rocket to be oriented. It looks like it keeps overshooting it's target though. If it is PID controlled, the 'stiction' would cause the integral term to 'wind up' and overshoot once the valve becomes unstuck. This can happen every time the valve changes direction as it must come to a stop at some point to do so.

I've run into this kind of thing a few times in my career. I'm curious how they fix it. In my experience it is never an "easy fix" as Musk says. There is always some performance tradeoff.

Comment Re:questions answered below (Score 1) 277

I tried F-Droid for about a year based on a Slashdot recommendation. I wasn't impressed. Most of the apps were not very good. The good ones could be found on Google Play as well. All I got was a sense of insecurity because I was allowing apps to be installed from another source.

Why do you like it?

Comment Re:Or, it could be unrelated to actually extending (Score 1) 286

I think the tipping point for electric vehicle range would be 1000 miles on one charge.

I disagree. The human body has needs too. Most people want to stop to eat and use a restroom around every 4 hours. If you can charge a car in the time it takes to have a leisurely meal, and then drive for another four hours, it should be fine for cross country driving. The Tesla Model S's largest battery provides just enough energy to propel the vehicle at highway speeds for about 4 hours. Also, the supercharger can charge the battery in about an hour. It's almost like they planned it that way!

I'd like to see Tesla partner with a chain of diners, like Denny's, that's open 24 hours a day.

Comment An Intern (Score 1) 144

My first semester under my university's co-op program I was a human issue tracker. People would contact me with issues and I would track them in an excel spreadsheet. I would then follow up with various stake holders to track the progress on each item.

Thinking back on it, it was strange. I spent my college internship acting as a manager...

Depending on the volume of issues, this doesn't have to be a full time job. One person just needs to be the point of contact, document, and follow up on the items.

Comment Re:Why now? (Score 1) 538

The AP covered it in 2013, it is not like we didn't know, we just did not pay attention.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article...

That article you are referencing is about a different topic entirely. There is a difference between having public and private accounts, both residing on the organization's servers, and what Clinton did. Kathleen Sabelius's three email accounts were all @hhs.gov accounts. They would have been subjected to the same security and record keeping requirements as anyone in the administration. This is a common practice in private industry, and I expect it to occur in the public sector as well. A well known public figure wouldn't be able to function with every lunatic sending them emails constantly. Therefore you have the public email address forwarded to a team of assistants, and the private email address to conduct day-to-day tasks.

What Clinton did was use a personal email account, like G-mail, to conduct business.

Comment Re:Just to be clear (Score 1) 48

The fact they thought they could resolve the "telemetry problem" without access to the rocket, tells me it wasn't anything on the rocket. They said the rocket was healthy when they aborted the launch. I'm guessing they were having issues with the air-force radar long before the launch was scrubbed. I'm speculating it was providing suspicious data, and then suddenly no data at all. Perhaps they thought the radar system just needed to be restarted, and then it never came back online.

Comment Re:Welcome news (Score 1) 233

I was told my clock can be fixed by having the dealership reinstall the OS. That would take about 6 hrs they say, which I can't really be without my work vehicle for that long so I've just lived with it.

My wife's car has an older version of Sync, and I can update it myself by downloading a file to a USB drive and plugging it into the car. It took less than an hour. For some reason, dealer mechanics can't do anything computer related in less than a day.

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