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Comment Re:No (Score 1) 263

Equal pressure on the inside and outside is effectively zero pressure. That's why you don't blow up like a balloon and pop when travelling from sea level to high altitude, yet your bag of Doritios might.

You don't need to pressurize the liquid on the inside, let the ambient pressure do the work. Off the top of my head, you'd only need something like a flexible diaphragm let the pressures equalize. Remember that liquids are virtually uncompressable so you you'd have very little displacement. The problem then becomes dealing with the parts that cannot be filled with liquid, such as batteries but now you're talking about much smaller structures and a hardened case may be more practical for them. Most electrical components don't have compressible space inside them that I can think of off the top of my head.

Speaking of pressure equalization and diaphragms, there's no reason you can't do this with air on the inside, you just have to have a large enough compression space for the air to compress into (i.e. an external air tank/bladder). So if the pressure at depth is 100 atmospheres, you'll need a sea-level compression space ~100 times the volume of space that your working equipment requires. Better make sure that air in there is very dry, though as there could be all sorts of effects due to water vapor condensing, etc.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 263

No, a ROV that works at shallow depths is easy. One that will work with the pressures sustained at the depths this thing is lying at is a WHOLE other story.

For example, at these kinds of pressures, the epoxy will crush, which will crush the battery. Similarly, any cameras are likely to have their optics destroyed by pressure differentials unless specifically designed for deepwater operation.

The easy answer is to drown the internals of the devices to be used at depth. Obviously sea-water is salty and that would disrupt and ruin things in short order but any non-conductive and non-corrosive liquid should do the trick. Optics can be designed to account for the difference in refraction ratios, most electric motors can be used "drowned", especially brushless types.

Comment Re:Look at California (Score 2) 594

As a Californian and a Los Angeleno, I can attest to this. For example, we had "Proposition K" which floated a bond to build more parks and improve existing ones.

Well, everyone understands that more and better parks are a Good Thing so they vote Yes. I think the problem stems from the use of the term "bond" where most people seem to think that it means something like "decision" and not "more debt".

So we get stuck with more debt and even worse, continuing added expense to maintain these parks and facilities - ad infinitum. Where does the money come from to do that? Taxes and/or more debt to be sure.

They spent $180,000 of Prop K money to buy a small vacant lot at a local busy intersection and plant grass, build a walkway, wall, benches, a planter of nice looking plants, and an automatic sprinkler system. And someone has to clean and maintain this "park" - it might be 50x75 feet and I see the city worker with his large truck towing a riding lawn mower and I just shake my head at the added expense. Nobody goes to this "park" - a school kid could throw a football virtually from one end to the other and no parent I know wants their kid playing at this busy intersection, it's pointless.

And not to mention that two blocks down they are building a very small equestrian center (also with Prop K money). I attended the planning meeting for this and informed them that I live adjacent to the canyon that this equestrian center is built in and I've walked the area after a storm and the entire area is submerged and large areas eroded - like in 1998 when a 6' deep 20' wide chasm appeared where near-level ground used to be. It fell on deaf ears, probably because they've already spent thousands of dollars to come up with the plan they brought to the meetings and didn't want that going to waste. So 1.5 million Prop K dollars are being spent as we speak to build a facility that will probably get wiped away within 5 years and rebuilt with debt on top of debt.

I guess because I'm "anti-park", I must be "anti-child" and now a hateful conservative by default, hence the liberal overload in politics here.

Comment Re:Maximum cable length (Score 1) 327

That's not a thin client, it's a lengthy and consolidated I/O connection that happens to carry keyboard, video, mouse, sound, and probably USB data. And as such, there should be no practical limitations as there would be with a thin-client implementation, particularly where gaming or the recent UI's with enhanced graphics are concerned.

Maybe you meant "thin client" as in a minimum of hardware at your desk without the box and cables. Then you'd be right, but using the wrong term.

But I like the idea. Even running a centralized server rack with all the PC's needed in the house off in a (well ventilated!) closet.

Comment Patterns beat pattern-matching? (Score 1) 292

I got 20-15-7. Interestingly, I used a pattern to see how the patten-learning machine would respond. I would throw the choice that would be vulnerable to what the computer just played. If the computer played Rock, I'd play Scissors on the next round. If the computer played Paper, I'd play Rock on the next round.

I think that the failure of a pattern-matching algorithm is that most people will play a simple strategy so the machine will learn to expect that. If you try to anticipate, you gain an advantage because fewer people will put in the effort and the machine is less likely to learn those tactics. I'd think that if you played to the third level (anticipating that the machine is anticipating), you may gain an additional advantage.

I think a competition of algorithms would be very cool. Start 'em up and let them play 100 million games and see who wins :)

Comment Re: Use the tubes, Luke.... (Score 1) 392

They should be tossing hamsters or other small rodents into their server rooms. That'll show em.

Sure, but it's awfully hard to do that from your mom's basement.

Not really, the Internet is like a series of tubes. Like a Habitrail.

Which, ironically, you can buy at Amazon during a DDoS attack!

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