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Comment: Re:The horse has left the barn... (Score 2) 496

by NF6X (#43681913) Attached to: DoD Descends On DEFCAD

Huh? Castings are frequently machined down to finished gun components. Aluminum castings are often used as the starting stages of M-14 and AR-15 receivers.

Almost correct. AR-15/M-16 receivers can be (and commonly are) made from aluminum castings, but M-14 receivers are made from high-strength heat-treated steel, just like the M-1A and M-1 Garand. An aluminum M-14 receiver with standard dimensions would fail violently, possibly on the first shot.

The AR-15/M-16 design has the bolt lock into a steel barrel extension, and the receiver mostly just holds the parts in alignment. The assembly of bolt, barrel, barrel extension and case head handle the very high chamber pressure forces alone, allowing the receiver to be made form much lighter and much weaker materials like aluminum or even plastics. This was one of the most revolutionary features of Stoner's design. The bolt extension and gas tube also handle a lot of pressure, though not as much as peak chamber pressure.

In contrast, the M-14 and other designs descended from the M-1 Garand (like the majority of non-blowback rifle designs, for that matter) have the bolt lock into recesses in the receiver. The receiver itself must withstand very high forces from chamber pressure.

+ - Rise of the Bitcoin ->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum has an article on the new custom built ASIC Bitcoin mining machines. Featured in the article is 66 billion hashes/second rig, and that is twice the speed of the best FPGA rig on the market. The whole thing is feeling more like custom car racing everyday."
Link to Original Source

+ - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle helps to save a life->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A small UAV served a vital role in locating a victim of a car accident and is credited for saving his life.

From http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/sk/news-nouvelle/video-gallery/video-pages/search-rescue-eng.htm

"RCMP, along with St Denis and Vonda Fire Rescue and EMS from MD Ambulance, responded to the scene. Upon arriving at the scene, emergency responders could not locate the vehicle’s occupants. The examination of the scene indicated that at least one person had been in the vehicle and was injured. A ground search was conducted within 200 meters of the scene, but searchers were unable to locate anyone.

STARS Air Ambulance was contacted and agreed to attend with their night vision to see if they could detect and locate the injured person. STARS conducted an initial search of the 1000 meters surrounding the rollover, but were unable to locate anyone.

At 01:20 hrs, members from Saskatoon RCMP contacted Cpl. Doug Green, a Forensic Collision Reconstuctionist, requesting he attend with the Dragan Flyer X4-ES equipped with a forward looking infrared camera (FLIR). Cpl. Green arrived at 01:55 and discussed the situation with the on scene member.
At 02:10 hours, the driver of the vehicle, a 25-year-old male, called 911 from his cell phone. He indicated he was cold, did not know where he was and could give no directions to his location. He was only dressed in T-shirt (no jacket), pants and had lost his shoes. Temperatures at the time were near freezing."

"At 03:00, Cpl. Green launched the Dragan Flyer X4-ES (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – UAV) equipped with a FLIR. Once the UAV was in the air a search was initiated in the area of the last known location of the driver. Three heat signatures showed up on the screen of the FLIR. Cpl. Green directed Vonda Fire Department members towards the first heat signature located in the trees 200 meters from the last known GPS location. Fire /Rescue members located the driver at this first location, curled up in a ball at the base of a tree next to snow bank. He was unresponsive and was quickly brought out to the road by Fire/Rescue and placed in an ambulance and was transported to hospital in Saskatoon. Without the UAV and FLIR, searchers would not have been able to locate the driver until daylight.""
Link to Original Source

+ - Prenda hammered: Judge sends porn-trolling lawyers to criminal investigators->

Submitted by SternisheFan
SternisheFan writes "ArsTechnica Aurich Lawson reports:

Lawyers who lied and obfuscated for years face disbarment and a $82,000 fine.

US District Judge Otis Wright has no love for the lawyers who set up the copyright-trolling operation that came to be known as Prenda Law. But Wright at least acknowledges their smarts in his long-awaited order, released today. Wright's order is a scathing 11-page document, suggesting Prenda masterminds John Steele and Paul Hansmeier should be handed over for criminal investigation. In the first page though, there's almost some admiration expressed for the sheer dark intelligence of their scheme. The copyright-trolling scheme that has reached its apex with Prenda is so complete, so mathematical.

"Plaintiffs have outmaneuvered the legal system," Wright begins. He goes on:

"They've discovered the nexus of antiquated copyright laws, paralyzing paralyzing social stigma, and unaffordable defense costs. And they exploit this anomaly by accusing individuals of illegally downloading a single pornographic video. Then they offer to settle—for a sum calculated to be just below the cost of a bare-bones defense. For these individuals, resistance is futile; most reluctantly pay rather than have their names associated with illegally downloading porn. So now, copyright laws originally designed to compensate starving artists allow, starving attorneys in this electronic-media era to plunder the citizenry."

And yes, if reading "resistance is futile" rattles something in your brain—Wright's order is thoroughly peppered with Star Trek references.

The plaintiffs have a right to assert their intellectual property rights, "so long as they do it right," Wright acknowledges. That's not what happened here, though. Prenda lawyers used "the same boilerplate complaints against dozens of defendants," without telling the judge. Instead, defense lawyers like Morgan Pietz flagged the dozens of related cases. "It was when the Court realized Plaintiffs engaged their cloak of shell companies and fraud that the court went to battlestations," stated Wright."
Link to Original Source

+ - Linux 3.9 Released->

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes "After weeks of RC releases and a week's delay Linux 3.9 has finally been made available by Linus Torvalds. Last week Torvalds released the rc8 instead of the Linux 3.9 stating that he wasn’t "comfy" releasing the final version yet and that "another week won’t hurt". Torvalds noted in this week’s announcement that last week has been very quiet as there were not many commits and the ones which were there were "really tiny" which is why he went ahead with the release of Linux 3.9."
Link to Original Source

+ - Ask Slashdot: Best OSS embedded development platform

Submitted by AchilleTalon
AchilleTalon writes "As many of you may know, there is two main competitors on the Windows platform for embedded software developement, namely IAR and Keil. By embedded development, I mean development for microprocessors like the wellknown 8051 and the likes. I do not intent to mean mobile platforms which include a complete OS in first place.

I am seeking for alternatives to IAR and Keil in the OSS world. Even if I can find pieces of code here and there, I haven't found yet a fully integrated development platform. Does it exist? What do you use, you the serious embedded developers out there?"

+ - Alpha Centauri Bb Given a Name-> 1

Submitted by SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes "The nearest planet outside our solar system has recently been named Albertus Alauda. Originally named Alpha Centauri Bb, the planet is the closest known planet not orbiting the Sun, being a mere 4.3 light years away. The name comes from Jay Lark, who won the naming contest held by Uwingu starting last month and ending on April 22. Lark remarks that the name comes from the Latin name of his late grandfather, stating, "My grandfather passed away after a lengthy and valiant battle with cancer; his name in Latin means noble or bright and to praise or extol." The competition for naming the planet came from Uwing, a company which used the buying of name proposals and votes to fund grants for future space exploration ventures. Albertus Alauda won the competition with 751 votes, followed by Rakhat with 684 votes, and Caleo, with 622 votes."
Link to Original Source

+ - Perpetual Motion Test Could Amend Theory of Time

Submitted by tocs
tocs writes "Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek wants to a build a perpetual motion machine . The concept uses Time Crystals, the idea that crystals can be extended into the fourth dimension, built of calcium ions to demonstrate the concept. If successful it might not lead to boundless energy but we could end up with machines that outlive the universe."

What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman? A used car salesman knows when he's lying.

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