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Comment Maximum Rating / Criminal Conduct (Score 1) 621

So, if the way we handle video games rating is somewhat analogous to how we handle movies, maybe the proper way to handle a game like this is to rate it A - Adults Only. Maybe it should be as illegal to buy this game for a child as it would be to buy porn for a child. I don't know how graphic the game is, I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Comment Re:Laser (Score 2) 52

The problem with that is cubesats get launched piggy-backed on Air Force satellites; and they can't give you particularly accurate orbital dynamics. It's hard enough to get a signal using the 433 Mhz band where you really only have to know the position of the cubesat to within a few degrees. To use a laser for communication, you would have to know the position to within a tiny fraction of an arc-second.

Comment Re:Clearly unconstitutional (Score 1) 424

The government actually has every right to sensor books, plays, movies, etc if it can be shown that they are demonstrating non-protected speech; things like: Incitement to crime Fighting words True threats Obscenity Child pornography You'll notice that the first item on my list is the very thing that Feinstein is arguing that violent video games are doing. Personally, I think she is probably wrong and that studies have shown that there is no correlation between violent games are incidences of real world violence; but's it's a pretty big jump from 'probably wrong' to 'clearly unconstitutional' and making that jump without any reasoning to support your claim is misguided at best.

Comment Re:I'm making money (Score 1) 542

No, the NDA is totally necessary; if it wasn't for that I could make a killing with my hilarious new tell-all book about ideas people actually wanted me to put into production. "It's totally done! All it needs is a programmer. Will you work for equity?"

Comment Re:How long do we put up with dark matter (Score 1) 412

I often hear the argument that Kepler's Laws/ Classical Mechanics should just not be applied to large scale structures like galaxies since it clearly does not accurately predict their behavior. I can understand how this is an intuitive decision to arrive at, but I also think its unfortunately non-scientific. There is precedent for new theories replacing older ones in special cases, like relativistic effects being important when objects are traveling near the speed of light. However, you could apply relativistic equations to events that are not near the speed of light, and you would still get the right answers, the relativistic effects would just be negligible. In that same logic: if you wanted to Kepler's Laws to NOT apply to galaxies, you would have to re-write them so that their effects were just negligible on large scales, or at large masses. I don't think this is the correct approach, I think Dark Matter is the real solution to the problem, but if you want to suggest changing the law instead, it would have to be a universal change, and that would be even more problematic them detecting matter that doesn't give off any light.

Comment Spinning (Score 1) 148

Of all the rocket launch videos I have seen, your had by far the least amount of spin on the way up, no doubt due to precision engineering/machining on your part. Have you ever considered launching a camera with a wide angle lens that could see 360 degrees around rocket and then removing the spin from the resulting video with software?

Comment Re:Public support? (Score 1) 148

I got into high powered rocketry out at black rock in the last couple of years, and if anything I can say that regulation of these motors has decreased in recent years. You don't need any special licenses from the government (ATF) to purchase motors, you just need to be certified on those motors by your local Tripoli or NAR prefecture. You used to need a small explosives license to store motors, but that is no longer the case. The only way in which terrorism/ national security becomes an issue is that you are not allowed to built a guidance system for your rocket.

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