Forgot your password?

typodupeerror

Comment: Blimp vs Zeppelin (Score 1) 113

Odd you should say that the largest lighter-than-air craft could carry only 10 tons.

A simple google search reveals that the Hindenburg apparently had a lift capacity of 10,000kg, which is indeed 10 (metric) tons, or approximately 10 "long tons". Something closer to 11 "short tons", though.

I was thinking the CycloCrane would have a larger lift, but apparently that was limited to 2 tons (theory; 1 ton in practice, it turned out).

Comment: Re:$5k limit (Score 1) 135

by sabt-pestnu (#43738465) Attached to: Anti-Infringement Company Caught Infringing On Its Website

I believe the thought was:

Threats are not notices of suit. That is, the company has not yet filed suit against you. Therefore, you have no legal obligation to respond.

The problem (or the threat) being, if you do want to settle, the company then files the suit and may say "too late, we're making an example of you now."

Your choice, but be aware of where preemptive settlement ends and legal recourse begins. Myself, I'd get a lawyer's advice when the threat comes in. At the least, I'd feel more comfortable sleeping assured. At best, you've already found someone to handle it if you DO get served.

Comment: Re:About time (Score 1) 224

by sabt-pestnu (#43736853) Attached to: Federal Judge Dismisses Movie Piracy Complaint

A couple other things about small claims court:
1) You generally give up your right to appeal by filing there. (You can still appeal counterclaims, if you want.)
2) In the jurisdiction I am in, I was informed that you generally have 15 minutes to present your case.
3) (again, in my jurisdiction) there is a mandatory mediation session between the parties. Perhaps easier than going before the judge.
4) as participants are generally non-lawyers, lawyering (legal terms, etc) will generally raise the bar for your side, on the assumption you "know what you are doing".

Comment: Re:What a relief. (Score 1) 614

by sabt-pestnu (#43662477) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Why Won't Companies Upgrade Old Software?

> to renew their contracts with the people who originally wrote the apps,

If you contract out the making of custom software, and don't ensure that you have everything you need - specs, internal design documentation, source code, tools - to maintain it, you're doing it wrong. The job ain't over 'til the paperwork is done.

And sadly, almost nobody has the political will to ensure the paperwork all gets done, and the technical knowledge to know when that point is reached.

NASA and the Saturn rockets are a case in point, albeit mostly a H/W case.

Comment: Re:Stuff that matters? (Score 1) 153

by sabt-pestnu (#43643643) Attached to: Redditors (and Popehat) Versus a Bus Company

> ... they WOULD BE pulling the shit you say they would, right now -- ....

I think that you may not have been paying attention.

The public can video the drone taking some action, but cannot link from that to the operator. If multiple drones are in operation at any one time, with multiple operators, reasonable doubt could be easily established simply by "losing" the drone captured imagery.

The police don't have to prove whatever drone problems they claim, they just have to create reasonable doubt.

Comment: Garbage Mines (Score 2) 202

by sabt-pestnu (#43607081) Attached to: Oslo Needs Your Garbage

We have nigh uncountable garbage mines in this country. Why should we not support our overseas friends power needs by opening them as concessions.

Which would lead to the natural conclusions: The EPA will regulate garbage mining, the Sierra Club will start decrying the spoilation of our resources, the paranoid will start advocate government control to assure our future garbage needs....

Comment: CCD and parasites (Score 1) 219

by sabt-pestnu (#43586571) Attached to: EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Insecticides

At least one site seems to say that the single biggest contributor is a parasitic mite and a virus that it spreads.

The linked BBC article labels those as "merely" stress factors. It mentions - at the very end of the article, mind - that laboratory studies show that the compounds can do harm to bees ... but haven't been shown under field conditions. They COULD be much like the rats given artificial sweetener in order to help the market for the next artificial sweetener. Or, they could be spot on. (Hey, that's what Science is for, after all. Answering questions and creating new ones.)

It also quotes a Greenpeace activist as saying (about Monday's vote) "makes it crystal clear that there is overwhelming scientific, political and public support for a ban." ... I didn't know votes affected science. I guess you learn something new every day.

Comment: Re:So much wrong (Score 1) 509

by sabt-pestnu (#43584573) Attached to: Cracked Game Released To Get Back At Pirates

>It's also rather arrogant to assume that your game would have been pirated in the first place.

Make a list (A) of games that have never once been pirated, cracked, torrented, cloned, or otherwise ripped off.

Now, make a list (B) of games that have suffered one or more of those fates.

  The odds of not getting pirated ( A / (A+B) ) in the general industry are not so great, are they? ... or are you saying "that game isn't worth cracking"? And you realize that some minimum level of arrogance is required to publish ... anything - book, game, speech - anything at all, right?

Comment: Re:no problem (Score 1) 508

by sabt-pestnu (#43561025) Attached to: NYC Police Comm'r: Privacy Is 'Off the Table' After Boston Bombs

> (presumed) suicide of Sunil Tripathi

Odd that Sunil was http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/sunil-tripathi-body-found_n_3155595.html>reported missing March 16th, if his "suicide" was caused by the exposure over the bombing that occurred on April 18th.

Sure, he was FOUND on the 23rd, so it is conceivable he committed suicide in reaction. But what was he doing between March 16 and April 32, aside from not going to class?

I agree, though, that crowd sourcing and more public cameras will make it more likely that police will be able to find body-doubles for criminals more easily.

Comment: Re:no testing I guess? (Score 2) 151

by sabt-pestnu (#43560739) Attached to: Kenya Police: Our Fake Bomb Detectors Are Real

A follow-up poster replied "confirmation bias". I have to say "so what?"

To function as a bomb detector, all it has to do go bleep when it detects some kind of thing, used in some kind of bomb. Chemical compounds, object density, ferrous metal content, anything.

To be useful as a bomb detector, it doesn't even have to do that - it just has to help reinforce safe handling procedures for "unknown objects".

False positives don't matter - if you have a device that, one time, keeps one operator from doing something that causes a live bomb from going off and killing him, then you've got a win. False negatives do matter, if the person operating the device doesn't recognize the possibility of a false negative and simply relies on the device to say yes or no. Confirmation bias? Someone who finds bombs on a regular basis is likely to recognize signs, consciously or unconsciously. To that end, a dowsing rod would be as useful.

So even if the devices were PURE snake oil, they'd still be useful as a mental prop.

Comment: Re:limit login attempts (Score 3, Insightful) 110

by sabt-pestnu (#43435783) Attached to: Wordpress Sites Under Wide-Scale Brute Force Attack

>>advising all our clients who use WordPress to install an additional plugin 'Limit Login Attempts' that will help to prevent brute force attacks

> Not being familiar with wordpress, I'll ask why isn't that on by default?

What could be a simpler way to deny an administrator access to his own account than by a "limit login attempts" that limits attempts on a per-account basis (vs a per-IP address basis)?

And if the attack is "one attempt per site per zombie", limiting on a per-IP basis has no teeth.

<ignorant_speculation>Of course, if you have created an admin account that's not NAMED admin, you won't be locked out. And if you change the account named "admin" to having lower privileges, even better.</ignorant_speculation>

Comment: Re:All hobbyist should consider using hydrogen (Score 1) 90

by sabt-pestnu (#43423569) Attached to: Swedish Engineer's RC Plane Gets a Balloon Lift To Space

Unlike hydrogen, helium does not chemically bind so much, so we have a local scarcity of it.

Kinda like how we - locally - have a large amount of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and so on around, compared to the universal distribution.

To be honest, I can live without the helium. I'd have a harder time living with the extra oxygen, so please don't start a government program to redistribute the elements.

Comment: Re:what is stopping them from doing the same thing (Score 1) 315

> The one thing that never happens as the government regulates ever greater parts of the economy is that the common person benefits.

Do you feel the same way about the EPA? How about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? Do you get any benefit from the FCC? The FDA?

Surely some public good has come from these extensions to economic regulation. Rivers that don't catch fire. Nuclear waste that isn't simply dumped in the river. WiFi, wedged in where Amateur Radio used to be. (Alternately, spectrum preserves for Amateur Radio in the first place.) Meat packing plants whose products don't regularly contain rat feces or salmonella. Or drugs that often (but perhaps not always) are more effective than snake oil for having had to prove themselves.

Individual, specific laws that benefit specific corporations? Yeah, they happen. Yeah, they're often deplorable. But even if it is only a homeopathic baby, don't throw it out with the....

Pushing 30 is exercise enough.

Working...