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Comment Re:Not exactly a hack (Score 5, Informative) 78

This is just plain irresponsible behaviour by PillPack, nothing to do with hacking.

No, this is just plain irresponsible behavior by those who share infomation to PillPack and others.

Recently, I noticed that when I picked up a prescription for a (for me new) medication that's mostly used for one purpose, I suddenly got dozens of spam e-mails wanting to "help" me with a particular diagnosis I don't have. And that's the few that went through the double layer spam filter. It was way too pervasive to be a coincidence.

It's clear that the US prescription system leaks like a sieve, and that even spammers have access to people's prescription history.
Can we go back to paper prescriptions that don't enter a database, please?

Comment Unity3d isn't exactly free. (Score 1) 125

There are a significant number of 'missing features' in the free version of Unity3d...for example, render-to-texture. That's a pretty serious omission for any kind of serious software development - so the $1500 (or $75/month with a 2 year commitment) is necessary if you are really serious about game development. In a typical game company, $1,500 is roughly the salary of one programmer for a week. So over the life of any reasonable commercial game, the cost of buying a full license for each worker is essentially negligible.

What the free versions do is to enable indie studios to grow to the point where they can afford to pay for a game engine - and to get amateur game developers to grow interest, loyalty and expertise in a particular free engine that will hopefully translate into sales of the professional version when they become paid game developers in the future. But there are enough annoying road blocks that even an amateur developer may be tempted into buying (or renting!) the full version after running into a few of them.

It's a good model, and I hope it grows and continues.

    -- Steve

Comment Re:This again? (Score 1) 480

OK, I will try to restate in my baby talk since I don't remember this correctly.

Given that you are accelerating, the appearance to you is that you are doing so linearly, and time dilation is happening to you. It could appear to you that you reach your destination in a very short time, much shorter than light would allow. To the outside observer, however, time passes at a different rate and you never achieve light speed.

Comment Re:This again? (Score 1) 480

With Newtonian physics, if we could find something that wasn't symmetrical with regards to conservation of motion, we have a perpetual motion system and unlimited energy. So far, every process that converts energy from one form to another always has some loss due to friction or heat.

Comment Re:This again? (Score 1) 480

The system bounces microwaves inside a cone. When a photon hits the base of the cone, that pushes the vehicle forward as it bounces backwards. But the conical shape means that the next "bounce" of the photon will be distributed between a sideways movement and a small backwards movement. But because of the circular shape of the cone, the sideways movements cancel out. The forwards force is greater than the backwards force, so the final velocity is forwards.

Comment Where we need to get to call this real (Score 1) 480

Before we call this real, we need to put one on some object in orbit, leave it in continuous operation, and use it to raise the orbit by a measurable amount large enough that there would not be argument regarding where it came from. The Space Station would be just fine. It has power for experiments that is probably sufficient and it has a continuing problem of needing to raise its orbit.

And believe me, if this raises the orbit of the Space Station they aren't going to want to disconnect it after the experiment. We spend a tremendous amount of money to get additional Delta-V to that thing, and it comes down if we don't.

Comment Re:Well... (Score 1) 108

With some optimism that might only be thousands of years rather than hundreds of Millions.

But it's only necessary for Earth to be uninhabitable for a short time to end the Human race. And that can happen due to man or nature, today. If people aren't somewhere else during that process, that's the end.

Comment Re:EPA has exceeded safe limits, needs curbing (Score 1) 355

If there is no secret data why are they fighting to keep it secret?

A good way to route around calls for openness and transparency to to be open and transparent, not to claim there's no secrets.

But thank you for the pointers to marketing information, I've read them all thanks.

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