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Comment Re:now for the usual.... (Score 1) 38

If someone knows better, I'd like to ask them about how the body's liver will respond to the artificial blood. Does it see the artificial blood as benign or is it immediately filtered out as a foreign substance? I'm curious to see how it reacts in our nearest animal analog - the pig. I hope for continued success if it makes it past pig testing and on to limited human testing.

This would be great addition for trauma kits. A kit of HemCon bandages made from shrimp shells, packets of this artificial blood, and distilled water would be helpful for ambulances/aid cars, search and rescue teams, and military medics. The trauma kits could also be carried by drones to forward locations during earthquakes and landslides.

Comment Re:Colour me shocked.... (Score 3, Informative) 75

Rather than worrying about number of steps and buying a pedometer, an easier metric is just "15 minutes".

It doesn't matter what age group or body type you have, just remembering to get up and walk purposefully for 15 minutes each day has a noticeable improvement on your health. Remembering 15 minutes is very easy, easy to accomplish, and doesn't require anything more complicated than a watch.

Comment Re:WSJ source? (Score 1) 90

(as an aside I find it surprising that you think all planes have the same switch, rather than a significant number of Boeings having a specific Boeing design for twin engine planes, etc)

As I said though, I'd have assumed this plane would have had its fuel cutoff switches replaced given all of this was 7 years ago.

Actually, I was just trying to show an image of a type of locking switch used on aircraft as not everyone has seen the locking feature that prevents the switch from being moved by just bumping or accidental pressure. I agree that there are probably several different variations of this type of switch on different aircraft. I didn't mean to suggest this was the exact or only type of this switch on the 787.

The summary also states: Reuters notes that the Air India crash preliminary report "said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash."

Comment Re:WSJ source? (Score 2) 90

I read speculation on this after the report came out, and supposedly the potential issue is that it's easy to put the fuel cut-off switches in a position that isn't locked. As a result, engine vibration or something like that can cause the switches to slide back into the cut-off position.

Very unlikely. These type switches have been used on aircraft, both military and civilian, for decades. They are used when accidental change of position would be dangerous. The switch has to be pulled away from the console, moved to the new position, then released. The likelihood of them being balanced on the tip of the locking hump is almost zero. Plus, contact is not made until the switch is past the detent. Here is a side view of the this type of locking switch.
Locking toggle switch

Comment Re:I thought EU was about Privacy and Protection? (Score 0) 65

If done correctly there doesn't need to be any personally identifiable information provided to the website.

If a person attempts to access an age verified website, a popup window could open a tunnel to the verification system. When the user provides the correct information and is verified, the original website receives a "User passed age check" token. That token would not identify the user individually but would authorize the content for that user for that session. The age check system doesn't even need to know what website the user is attempting to access. As long as the user stays active in that session the age check remains valid and the authorization dies when the session does.

It could be done this way. Whether that is the method they use is a different issue. Perhaps they have an even better method in mind.

Comment Re:Tier 2 time. (Score 2) 248

Very unlikely. These type switches have been used on aircraft, both military and civilian, for decades. They are used when accidental change of position would be dangerous. The switch has to be pulled away from the console, moved to the new position, then released. The likelihood of them being balanced on the tip of the locking hump is almost zero. Plus, contact is not made until the switch is past the detent. Here is a side view of the this type of locking switch.
Locking toggle switch

Here is a photo of the B-1B, built in the 1980s, with the ground crew working on the panel with the locking toggle switches. These safety switches have been used for a long time and have a long track record. Safety switches in B-1B

Comment Re:You know what else they could do? (Score 1) 29

Allowing user replaceable batteries typically means they cannot easily offer a IP67 water resistance rating.

You are correct. The specs for the Galaxy S5 do show an IP67 rating with the replaceable battery and the 3.5mm phono jack. I didn't know of any phones that offered a replaceable battery that had achieved the IP67 rating. Good to know.

(BTW, the "Bullshit" comment was unnecessary. I've been wrong before and guarantee I will be again. If I'm not 100% sure of a fact, I'll try to phrase my comment as 'typically, generally, common practice, etc.' I prefer someone correct my bad assumptions if they have better information than I do.)

Comment Re:You know what else they could do? (Score 1) 29

Allowing user replaceable batteries typically means they cannot easily offer a IP67 water resistance rating. Similar to the reason so many phones lost the external headphone jack.

Most people want their phones to be able to survive a quick immersion in water.
Drop your phone in the sink or toilet? IP65 means it should survive.
Drop your phone in a pool or shallow riverbank? IP67 usually means survivability in one meter for 30 minutes.
Water rating explained

Most people paying $1000+ for an electronic device value survivability over repairability, especially if the battery replacement is only necessary every four years. Many of them will be chasing the newest features and social status about that time anyway.

Comment Re:Set Theory and Logic (Score 1) 177

LOL. That is my personal experience from programming in different environments for the past 45 years. I started on systems that required flipping switches to set the computer to boot mode and inputting the boot code via paper tape. I've used systems booting from 8 inch floppy drives and learned the hard way not to remove Winchester drives until they finished spinning down.

I've programmed in assembly on multiple architectures and cut my teeth using Borland's Turbo Assembler. I have not programmed in every development environment or in rigidly structured companies, but I have taught college classes on microprocessor theory, ladder logic, and UI development. I don't expect you to agree with all my assertions because I doubt you followed the same meandering career I did during the introduction of computers.

My agreement was Math is Important in Programming. All the rest was just examples off the top of my head to illustrate some examples.

Comment Re:Set Theory and Logic (Score 1) 177

I agree. I found more math in programming than I had expected. I know that not all programming involves math, like apps that gather data from external sources or search databases for data, but many graphical routines are heavily dependent on mathematical routines. Math is so important we have dedicated GPU processors just to offload the math from the CPU. AI can scan millions of lines of code to suggest close matches to what you want, but if you don't understand bit-wise mathematics, trigonometric functions, FFT, matrix multiplication, etc. you might have a hard time following the AI's suggested code.

Another complication is asking AI for code and dropping it in without understanding how it will react with the existing code. Overloaded function calls, case types, custom types, differing templates, and other mismatches can cause subtle errors that might be difficult to find. I don't work in a managed code environment anymore, but I would hope any AI suggested code is flagged as the primary suspect for troubleshooting later errors. (**AI Llama 4 code suggestion 22-May-2025**)

If AI is accepted source of code, at least give a date and version so discovered shortcomings can be reviewed in the future.

Comment Re:I can't stand these modern cars (Score 1) 75

The Car and Driver story also left out a crucial piece of information. From the IIHS study:
    At longer distances (10 m to 20 m), vehicles demonstrated both increases and decreases in visibility.

According to the study, a 10-meter radius was chosen because that's approximately how much space a driver needs to react and stop when traveling at 10 mph. Very few accidents happen when the vehicle is going 10mph because the stopping distance is normally only 12 feet, but then blind spots would play an increasing role. I also couldn't find information in the study to see if the seat height and dashboard height were accounted for. I've noticed that newer vehicles encourage you to sit lower because of lower head room. When they compared the visible areas around the driver's area, where was the camera placed in each study? Was the study normalized by torso height, seat height, or dash height? The study also didn't mention the statistics of accidents at higher speeds where the 10-20 meter distance would be more relevant.

Overall, the article made a claim with very little data to help us reach a similar or different conclusion.

Comment 90-day limit changes to 60-day limit (Score 4, Informative) 65

By default, Win11 creates an automatic restore point every 7 days, or when it detects an installation or update event. The previous default was to keep restore points for 90 days. This update reduces that to 60 days. Not a huge change.

With a 60 day limit on the change events and weekly triggers, you will probably have at least 10 restore points to choose from. If you feel weekly restore points are not frequent enough, you can add an event to the Task Scheduler to create them more often, limited by your assigned storage limit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I was concerned when I learned of the 60-day limit, until I found there was already a 90-day limit which didn't seem that restrictive. I'm OK with this.

Comment Re:Six terabytes (Score 5, Informative) 41

did you manage to figure out what that "close to the maximum allowed by physics" speed actually was, the pop-sci article seemed a bit short on details.

I didn't understand exactly, but a quick summary of a few articles indicated that when stars collapse into smaller objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars, etc) their angular momentum is preserved so the smaller objects must rotate faster. With Sgr A* containing mass 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun, the angular momentum is huge and the mass spins extremely fast. The limiting factor seems to be the outer edge of the mass exceeding the speed of light which instead gets converted into gravity waves, keeping the mass from spinning any faster. Slower rotational speeds have been observed on other black holes, but Sgr A* seems to be spinning near the theoretical maximum as it absorbs more mass and rotational energy.

That was my layman's understanding of what was happening. Other stellar experts can probably explain it better.

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