Comment Re:No Independence (Score 1) 397
That's why you call it Independence Day, and we call it Thanksgiving.
Comment Re:Good money in UAV's. (Score 1) 259
Landing a UAV is easy. It's landing it in one piece that gets tricky!
Comment Re:Make darn sure the Feds don't mind! (Score 1) 259
A 12lb chunk of wood and metal flying at 100mph with a 14" blade spinning at 12,000rpm on the front isn't a toy. These things are model aircraft - calling them 'toys' completely trivializes the damage they can do when they hit things or, FSM forbid, people.
Don't take building and operating one of these models lightly. People have been seriously injured or even killed by them. The regulations that govern building and flying them are there for everyone's safety, and you can learn more about the U.S. regulations by going here: http://www.modelaircraft.org/
Don't take building and operating one of these models lightly. People have been seriously injured or even killed by them. The regulations that govern building and flying them are there for everyone's safety, and you can learn more about the U.S. regulations by going here: http://www.modelaircraft.org/
Comment Re: Expedition 18 to the ISS. Not 18 members. (Score 1) 171
I was just imagining the 'clown car' version of the Soyuz.
Comment How many crew members? (Score 1) 171
18 crew members? What, are they having some kind of party up there? Did somebody drop in unannounced?
Comment Re:Monopole magnets are not hard (Score 3, Funny) 104
Hey - you're not meant to complain about Slashdot Pole options!
Comment Re:Storm in a very, very tiny teacup (Score 1) 672
There are two distinct types of cosmic rays - low energy ones that are sourced from the sun, and the high energy ones that are sourced from the big guys on the universal block. So yes, there are different sources for both high and low energy cosmic rays. However, for the sake of this conversation all cosmic rays are considered high energy when compared to the measly energies our colliders can produce :)
Comment Re:Well, duh! (Score 1) 672
The matter goes nowhere. It is completely and utterly annihilated. Some radiation escapes from the event horizon of a black hole due to Hawking radiation, but it contains none of the information encoded in the original consumed matter or energy.
Comment Re:Well, duh! (Score 4, Interesting) 672
Heh - when you're talking about a black hole at or smaller than the size of an atomic nucleus it doesn't matter whether it's at the top of the atmosphere or at the center of the Earth. Matter at that scale is described as tenuous at best. You'd have to get somewhere like the center of the sun or denser before a collision would be anywhere near likely.
Comment Storm in a very, very tiny teacup (Score 4, Insightful) 672
The Sun in conjunction with the Earth's atmosphere has been colliding particles with WAY higher energies that the LHC could ever manage for billions of years now. As far as I know we've not been consumed by a mini black hole yet.
Comment Re:Maybe I am just lucky.... (Score 1) 688
Well, I have seen a bit of an effect but that might be because I work in Investment Banking.
Submission + - Apple May Track IPod Thieves & You (msn.com)
Ryan N. Kamfolt - ClickAway writes: "Apple may begin implementing software in its I-Tunes suite to track serial numbers of I-Pods and compare them to a stolen I-Pod database. Due to the worlds most successful and popular product being on the #1 most stolen items list. This may alert the local police to come knocking on your door, if "Your" I-Pod is in question. Weather it be stolen or legit, people are not taking this to heart kindly at all. With the right to privacy walls closing in on us ever so fast, this seems to be another push to take our privacy rights away even more, or is it? Those who have had their I-Pods stolen love the idea. Others are not so happy about the idea. Some privacy right advocates have suggested implementing I-Pods or I-Phones with owner ID verification, such as a password or other forms of verification that must be entered into the devices before they will take a charge or allow you to place songs on the device. Or offer a service that is apart of Apple iCare, which allows users who feel they may become a victim of theft, to join this database, to further protect them in the even their I-Pod is stolen."
Submission + - Unencrypted passwords at "secure" sites 1
linear a writes: I've noticed that quite a few web sites do *not* encrypt user passwords. I've gotten into the habit of hitting the "email me my password" from them to see what happens. So far I've found maybe 6 that must store passwords in clear since they were able to return the original password back to me. Clearly this is Bad Security Practice. Also, I've had notably bad progress when I ask them to fix this practice. Some of these are sites one would clearly expect to have better security (e.g., a software vendor and an online bank).
Do you have thoughts on how to better encourage better password practice at these places? Also, is this is really as common as it seems to be for me?
Submission + - Do Not Call Registry gets wake-up call (networkworld.com) 2
coondoggie writes: "If you signed up for the federal or your state's Do Not Call Registry a few years ago, you might want to thing about refreshing it. Pennsylvanians this week got a wake up call, so to speak from the state's Attorney General Tom Corbett who kicked off a public awareness campaign designed to remind people what many have forgotten or never knew — that the 2002 law set registrations to expire after five years. That is of course unless you want to start hearing from those telemarketers as you sit down to dinner. Corbett said about 2 million people signed up in the immediate aftermath of the law taking effect and those who do not act by Sept. 15 will have their numbers dropped from the registry on Nov. 1. The Pennsylvania action is a reminder that the National Do Not Call Registry has a five year life span as well. The Federal Trade Commission is set to being a nation campaign in Spring 2008 to remind all US citizens to refresh their federal Do Not Call Registry standing.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18066"
Submission + - Astronomer Offers New Theory Into 400-year-old Lun (astronomyreport.com)
webdoodle writes: "Astronomer thinks he has solved a 400-year-old mystery: the origin of strange optical flashes seen on the moon's surface"
