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Comment please stop mixing units (Score 1) 73

project off the coast of Scotland has four 1.5-megawatt turbines - enough to power 7,000 homes for a year,

megawatts is a unit of power

powering homes for a year is a unit of ENERGY. (describing megawatt-hours)

If you're comparing those units directly, you don't understand electricity. Like, "your car gets 25 miles per gallon, but I drove MY car 200 miles last week". The comparison doesn't make sense, and you can't draw any conclusions from it.

Comment not really exciting news (Score 2) 20

Apple has been steadily moving their hardware into Vintage and Obsolete over the last SEVERAL decades. When a device hits 5 years old, it turns Vintage, which basically means they don't promise to have all parts available anymore, and some may be restricted to "repairs only, not stocking". At 7 years they turn Obsolete, and Apple sells off their entire inventory of parts. In both cases, Apple retains a small number of parts for repairs in places like California, where manufacturers are legally required to carry parts for longer. (10 years in cali?)

So I don't know if I'd classify this as "news", more like a minor update in an ongoing process. "City fixes another pothole, news at 10." I assume most manufacturers have similar policies, but a lot of them are either secretive or aren't so consistently applied. If anything, Apple's doing a much better job for the consumer, with their very public and consistent policy. Now go and try to find out how long Whirlpool is going to carry parts for your dish washer.

Sidenote: I recall a few rare cases where someone REALLY wanted their old mac repaired, and I asked "do you know anyone in California?" I suggested they ship it to their friend and have them take it to a local apple store to get it fixed. AFAIK that plan worked.

I was also known to, from time to time, order a bunch of a part that was prone to failure just before it crossed into Vintage territory. That way we had parts on-hand to repair a common issue when nobody else did. There were a few parts we never ended up selling, but there were also a few that were like gold, with people driving klong distances to come pick up a part not even Apple had anymore. It was a bit of a guessing game. My manager questioned my stocking the last 23 iMac G5 power supplies Apple was willing to sell us, and it took several years, but we sold our last two to an APPLE STORE 100 miles south of here. We probably should have started marking them up, but we never did.

Comment Re:This is what Ignorance looks like. (Score 3, Insightful) 115

"Geographically and financially advantageous is how one would describe Houston accurately"

I'm a Texan and you're so full of shit your eyes went brown.

Houston has one of the worst geographical advantages - see the Los Angeles style smog.

Also, once you leave Houston there's nothing for fucking miles. Good luck getting Bobby Joe Atkins from Wichita Falls down there.

You fucking moron. Leave the shuttle in DC where it fucking belongs.

Comment "It's secure because I said so." (Score 2) 37

The first rule of security is usually "don't make your own". In other words, use existing, tested, verified, trusted code, protocols, and processes. Now if your INTENT is to roll your own, you really do need a lot of peer review. Even if you have a Ph.D in cyber-security and secure coding, you really still need others to take a look at it to see if you missed something. Because EVERYBODY misses something. The attack surface is just too broad to catch every subtle thing on the first run though.

And if some 3rd party hops in and IMMEDIATELY finds a hole (without the benefit of the source to look through) it's virtually guaranteed to have a lot more holes in it just waiting to be zero-day'd.

Comment Re:I did six shots of HIV spike protein (Score 0) 227

Then you could've posted a direct link instead of posting the front page of some shit substack that looks like memes, you stupid fuck.

Go figure a MAGA can't DIRECTLY LINK to information.

Comment Re:Wrong reason... (Score 1) 36

That's what API's are for. You can run amuk all you want on the outside, then you ask the kernel for information or to take action by calling an API. There the system's code runs, which we expect will already be carefully tested and validated before it momentarily elevates privileges to do the work. If you made a stupid request, it gets ignored and control returned to you instead of crashing the kernel space. Then do whatever stupid things you like after the API return. At that point the system doesn't really care if you blow up because life will go on without you.

API's allow for "compartmentalization" of execution, and keep the dirty little fingers of random developers out of sensitive areas.

Comment Re:How many of those jobs (Score 1) 62

"TI already produces huge amounts of ICs in Texas"

The QC in Texas must be absolute ass. One customer of mine uses a 10-pin LED driver IC from TI on the BOM. The piece of shit blows itself out fresh off the reel one out of every roughly 20 times. You aren't even pulling a full fucking amp at 48V and this thing rockets off the board, taking traces and pads with it.

No, there isn't a short. On the boards where the pads and traces survive, replacing the IC (usually) fixes the issue.

Comment Re:What? (Score 4, Informative) 284

This whole presidency has just been one big grift. Being a US senator has been widely understood to be a very profitable position, but this is really the first time we've seen the oval office get turned into a money-printing machine for the sitting president.

Other presidents have suspended control of their businesses while in office to eliminate even the appearance of conflict of interest. But this one, every decision he make seems to revolve around figuring out how to funnel more money into his family and businesses.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do any good to try to "expose" him on it, he has NO shame and doesn't care what anyone sees since his appointed buddies aren't going to hinder him. He's just going to keep doing it and throw a tantrum anytime he gets blocked. And that isn't happening nearly as much as it should, since in the past even the congress-critters maintain very relaxed laws to give themselves a wide berth to grab some money. But he's just going all-in on those weak laws (and lack of willingness to enforce them) and is going to wring every penny he can out of the country and its taxpayers.

On the bright side, he's made American History class a lot more interesting. And I'm taking bets that we get a whole rack of new laws on limiting presidential abuse as soon as he gets done robbing the bank.

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