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Comment Re: Isn't that the point? (Score 1) 84

The point of the search is to get answers.

How I get those answers is often secondary or completely utterly irrelevant.

I'm not constantly doing research papers, I don't need citations or evidence that would stand up in a court of law, I need a quick answer.

Comment Re:Hm... (Score 1) 37

You're effectively saying that they didn't find fraud up front so even if there was fraud it's not the companies fault that perpetuated the fraud.

Now, I do agree the board of directors at HP needs to take some financial responsibility for it too; they were obviously rushing it through, but unless they were specifically a party to the fraud in question that responsibility is not equivalent.

Comment Gigabit (Score 1) 110

Gigabit goal is stupid.

I don't even have gigabit internet and that's mostly by choice, I get 500mb down and ~200mb up. I used to have 500 symmetrical with a different provider.

I barely see a point in changing this; and I don't use it lightly.

I constantly stream, music, shows, etc. I run applications that pull data on an ongoing basis to do analysis, etc.

I could be using multiple 4K streams and probably still wouldn't care. (I'm not doing 4K anywhere, because I don't see the point in it.)

100-250mb seems to be plenty for most people. 500 is nice, but I seldom hit those numbers without proactively trying to.

Aspiration goals are one thing, but dropping back from 1gb as a goal isn't inherently a bad thing.

Don't get me wrong, FCC is a gong show; but not for this reason.

Comment Re: Simple... (Score 2) 199

Amber alerts shouldn't wake people up.

The nature of them is that people who are already awake and alert can potentially respond; but they aren't applicable to people sleeping.

The fix, for the very rare circumstance where such an alert should wake people up is to structure special alert for that.

Weather alerts, flood, tornado, etc. should be able to wake people up.

Missing kids aren't in that list.

Comment Re:Why?! (Score 1) 100

Wireless controllers have a reliability rate SUBSTANTIALLY lower than wired controllers.

They picked carbon fibre that was past it's best by date from storage.
The "source" wasn't fine if it's cast offs. Details matter. If it were a prototype used for evaluative testing without live occupants, all good. But that's not what we're talking about here.

Have you ever actually worked with wireless electronics or protocols? Here's a hint: Bluetooth and WiFi are not protocols that should be used in any life-or-death situation. There are ways to use them, and to do so safely; this wasn't even CLOSE to that.
RF interference can come from many places, in an emergency situation a partially faulty motor can saturate RF bands and block transmissions. I've worked in environments were a failed electric motor wiped out an entire network. You can;t eliminate all risk, but you can certainly increase safety margins. Now imagine a minor failure eliminating their control system.

Comment Why?! (Score 5, Insightful) 100

Why?!

I truly find this story uninteresting after learning enough regarding decision making on the project.

The decision making was so poor they used a wireless controller as the only real controls.

They not only picked questionable materials to build it from, they picked questionable sources for that material, skipped doing any real testing of the material while ignoring legitimate concerns.

Pushing the limits is one thing, but so many of these decisions were just simply daft.

Hardwired controls with wireless for convenience; override the wireless in an emergency.

Check the sub before and after each launch, looking for material issues and documenting any changes. Not a cursory glance at it, but using equipment to actually scan the surface for defects as is used in related industries. (Ultrasonic, radio isotopes/xray, etc)

These two things alone would have increased the safety factor of this project immensely.

But ignoring them all? Boring. You made a coffin with a randomization factor

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