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Comment Re:Plenty of authentic material left.. (Score 3, Informative) 303

They only have the film rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by way of Saul Zaentz who purchased the rights back in the 70s. I'm pretty sure that the rights to everything outside of those specific books still rests in the hands of the Tolkien estate, and if Christopher Tolkien were going to sell the film rights to the rest of the material, he probably would have done it already (he's gone on record as not being happy with the films, and had to sue New Line in order to get their royalties from the films.)

If they're going to make 3 Tolkien films, New Line/Jackson's hands are pretty much tied to events in and those surrounding The Hobbit.

Comment Re:thermal paste? (Score 1) 195

What do you think thermal pads, thermal compound, and cooling plates are for?

Paste/pads is to improve surface area contact as surface irregularities in hard metal surfaces introduce air gaps, while thermal interface materials are pliable enough to fill those gaps. In other words, paste is better than air and should really only be having to wet the surfaces and not prevent direct contact where it's possible.

I stand by my point - introducing an extra layer is actually acting as an insulator as the heat is having to transfer through an extra medium and extra imperfect contact points that it otherwise would not have had to. If adding a layer like this improved heat transfer, then adding a dozen or a hundred more should improve it even better (which obviously it does not, because that would be absurd.) To think of it another way, the best possible contact point between two metal surfaces would be to have them be a single piece of metal, which is effectively what you already have without additional shims.

If the shim is actually improving cooling performance somehow it would be due to another reason, such as by introducing additional tension on the retention mechanism of the heatsink, resulting in more force being applied to the CPU.

Comment Re:thermal paste? (Score 1) 195

Why would you want 2 points of contact instead of just 1? The copper shim is technically a thermal insulator in that respect as it stands between your heat source and heat sink (even if the shim were made of diamond, it would still be functioning as an insulator between your source and sink.) The only benefit I could see being provided would be by increasing the compression of whatever spring is used to hold the heatsink down.

If introducing a shim or any sort of additional contact layer actually improved heat transfer, then why not sandwich 5 more shims? :P

Comment Re:Source refresh rate? (Score 1) 98

Sorry, I wasn't using "1000" to mean a specific amount, it was just a convenient way of asking if the source data would dramatically balloon as there would have to be huge amounts of additional data to support all these unique POVs rather than just a pair of stereo POVs.

I guess basically where I'm coming from is asking myself the question: what is needed in order for a display using this 3D technology to replace the present 3D HDTV implementation while keeping at least a 1080p @ 60hz field per eyeball? What would be needed from Hollywood to produce content that supports this? Would they even be interested in this, considering they can't use this for theater ticket sales, and when they already cheap out by doing quasi-3D post-conversions? For video games? Would each frame have to be completely rendered hundreds of times in order to accurately populate all the potential POVs? Due to the massive amounts of processing overhead, would a game system be likely to support such a technology without a substantial install base? Would that substantial processing be better spent on other features?

This technology just seems to be a lot more substantial than a simple new 3D format. It seems more akin to the jump between SD and HDTV, and would have all the same hiccups and delays. I'll be old and gray by then, and no doubt one of my eyes probably won't work well enough to enjoy it anyways.

Comment Source refresh rate? (Score 1) 98

So I'm assuming that this requires the source to be supplying the additional content at their 1000hz (or whatever refresh rate) to cover the full range of viewing angles? So now all we need are video media 1000 times bigger, and graphics chips 1000 times faster to supply the frames.

Comment Re:LTE? How about Android and IPhone (Score 1) 299

Yep. Playing off half-assed, poorly engineered/supported features as some sort of strategic miscalculation by the company is utterly silly. May as well be saying that the only reason their products have been doing poorly is because they didn't anticipate their competitors making them look bad.

Comment Re:Participant Psychosis? (Score 1) 540

I'm wondering if a near vacuum would be enough to cause surface level capillaries to burst? Say, for instance, in the eyeballs?

Oh well, having some dead bodies on the Mars surface might be interesting in and of itself to see how well they stay preserved. They could be a museum piece for future Earthling immigrants a thousand years from now.

Comment Re:Why 2 sides (Score 1) 493

The method is not complicated, but the practice and implementation of the method when dealing with real world examples in interdisciplinary topics such as the evidence for evolution can be quite complicated (especially for elementary school where there's no groundwork laid yet regarding physics, chemistry, geology, etc.) Students really don't need to question the validity of a theory by attacking it outright, all they need do is ask the teacher a simple series of questions that require further explanation that the teacher is unable to provide in a satisfactory way.

Whether this takes place in a "Science Methodology" class or a "Science History" class really wouldn't change the content, discussion, teachers, or the parents' critical views relating to certain topics being taught.

Comment Re:Why 2 sides (Score 5, Insightful) 493

The problem with this is that the teachers are generally not equipped (educated) sufficiently on any particular science topic to be able to address legitimate questions from the students. Any student that's spent any amount of time digesting anti-Evolution talking points is sufficiently equipped to make your average grade school science teacher look foolish in front of the class. Simple questions are quick and easy to ask, but the answers may require extensive explanation that's either not straight forward, beyond the grade level of the class or even the teacher's own academic level.

Comment Re:So.... (Score 1) 828

Not by taking the gun away. A suicidal person without a gun is still suicidal.

Still suicidal, but less likely to attempt it, and less likely to be successful in it if they do attempt it. If there were an even easier avenue to suicide by way of a 'suicide button' in every home which quickly, painlessly and unfailingly killed the person who pushed it, the suicide rate would go up overall. You wouldn't simply see the gun suicides shift to the 'button' suicides.

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