Posts by 123465789

Apple KILLER decloaked? Google lovingly unboxes Nexus 7 Android 4.3 slablette

Re: Nice but...

NSA? Just store it on /dev/null ... just as likely to ever give you back your personal data.

'First' 3D-printed rifle's barrel splits after single shot

Re: Remember the article here about how you'd never 3D print a gun?

Yes, I do remember that article - and until today, he hasn't been proven wrong. I do believe we will see 3D-printed guns - but most likely they'll be 3D-printed parts connected to a standard metal plumbing pipe from your local hardware store.

Re: Waste of time

Oh, very likely they did think of that. What they probably didn't think of, is the vast category of household, toy or hobbyist items that do share characteristics with some part of a gun - and therefore become unprintable.

Ecuador: Snowden is Russia's problem

why?

There is one thing I don't quite understand. You would think that after the Assange-story someone who is about to blow a whistle on something like this, should know that he needs asylum, that you can only apply for asylum in the country where you physically are (or at least in an embassy) - and that the two most likely countries to provide asylum are Iceland and Ecuador. So why not book a nice holiday to one of these very beautiful countries, make sure that you are there - and THEN go public?

You don't understand how that happens? It's quite easy - those international laws tend to be written by those same cynical bunch...

The perfect gift for the pistol-packing 'Merkin: a handgun iPhone case

If you are stupid enough to 1) buy an iphone 2) buy this thing 3) show it in public, then humanity doesn't loose much...

Elon Musk pledges transcontinental car juicers by end of year

Funny that you mention that idea of easily swappable car batteries. Actualy it exists ... or should I say existed.

'Better Place' did just that - and filed for bankrupty a couple of days ago.

Big Data is bovine excrement says Obama's Big Data man

Someone who is using simple data points like 'do you support the president' is NOT talking about big data - even if using a lot of these simple data points about a lot of people, you should be using a traditional relational database. Big Data is when you try to deduce from billions of unstructured tweets or facebook messages how many people do support the president, without asking it explicitly.

'Catastrophic failure' of 3D-printed gun in Oz Police test

Re: @ SuccessCase

Exactly my idea. At the range shown in this video, a knife or even a sharp pencil would be lethal as well. Yes, you can kill someone, if you can get close enough and your first shot hits at the right place and you are lucky enough that your gun doesn't explode. In a public place it's probably also the last thing that you'll do, because you won't have the time to reload this single-shot gun.

German govt DUMPS 170 NEW PCs riddled with Conficker

Re: Data recovery costs?

... and even if there was valuable data on those workstations, this data recovery work would probably be about the same, whether you recover the data to a new machine or to the same machine after re-installation.

Outback geothermal plant goes live

Re: "The rocks driving the geothermal plant have a temperature of about 242°C."

Sure, it's right there in the article: they estimate the amount of extractable end-user energy to be 7000 petajoules. Translation: after having extracted that much, the rocks will have cooled too much to be of any use. Now how much is that? At 1 MW (1 million Joules per second), this will take about 200.000 years. I guess the plant won't last that long, however.

Smart metering will disrupt weather forecasts, warns Met Office

real savings?

So, they base their calculations upon US homes (with electrical A/C), and take those results to gas- or oil-heated UK homes without A/C. Surely that math couldn't go wrong... And even based on those calculations, people would save anually 5 £ each. Now how much is that smart meter going to cost? Installed and maintained for 20 years? 100 £? 200 £? Somebody is going to have to pay for these meters - and at 5 £/year, I'd rather not.

Ubuntu support periods slashed

Whatever

I am a Ubuntu user for a long time. And I don't care if they shorten the support cycle for regular versions to 9 months. At home, I use the latest version of Kubuntu (no, no Unity for me). Upgrading every 6 months, but hey, it is just a desktop, and the upgrade process is (almost always) smooth and quick. At work, of course you should only use LTS versions. No need even to bother upgrading - after 5 years I install a new server and migrate the applications/data off the old one. Why would anyone run 18 months on a regular release anyway?

Crucial question after asteroid near-miss: How big was rock in Olympic pools?

"It cannot hit our planet"? Well, that is a strange definition of 'can not', if it only means we're sure it won't hit us the very next time. Meanwhile, still some 500.000 other objects are circling around...

Soak up CO₂ with sponges, says CSIRO

Better prevent than cure

" This does of course take energy, but if it can be supplied from a renewable source, future CO2 release from fossil fuels would be reduced or eliminated. "

Is that really? Suppose we burn 1 ton of carbon in a power plant. As said by other, this releases about 34 MJ/kg, so in total we have almost 10MWh at the input side. Nice, however this power plant operates at 45% efficiency, so it only pumps 4,5 MWh in the grid. To reverse this reaction, and split the C off the O2, will require more energy than was produced by burning - say 12MWh. Of course, that could be provided by a renewable energy source. But if we have a renewable energy source producing 12MWh - why burn the carbon in the first place? Just use this renewable source to pump its 12MWh in the grid!

Solar undercuts coal in New Mexico

false

I highly doubt whether this is really the 'first' time a solar power station sells cheaper than coal. But far more important - price doesn't tell everything. In fact, in electricity, price doesn't tell much - the conditions do.

There is a HUGE difference between a contract specifying 'the seller guarantees to deliver up to x MW upon request within 15 minutes' and a contract specifying 'the buyer promises to buy whatever is available, when it is available'. Wake me up when the first solar-powered plant signs a contract of the first type, cheaper than coal.

BANG and the server's gone: Man gets 8 months for destroying work computers

Re: Physical security of server room ?

Then again - a couple of years ago I was working as a subcontractor for a decent-sized company. They had some 20 racks in their server room, and installing 10 more obviously required physical access. So I went to security. Hmm. Server room... do you know someone who has access? We'll just copy ALL accesses of that person to your card ...

Ten 3D printers for this year's modellers

Price

You do mention that the Stratasys is financially out of reach for most hobbyists. Yet you do also list the Objet Connex? And not some of the best-selling cheaper solutions such as Ultimaker and RepRap? Nice to see a list of 10 3D-printers - but I have to wonder what were the selection criteria.

Re: Question from ignorance...

That is of course assuming that you want Nike's from ABS or PLA.

Satnav blunder sends Belgian granny 1,450km to Croatia

satnav blunder? Really?

Not sure what I have to believe here. If you start in Brussels on the E40 and just never change lanes and keep on driving, you end up in Zagreb. But a satnav system directing you there? Then what destination did she enter? BTW, can anyone explain how you can traverse the Alps, without noticing that is not your typical Belgian landscape?

NASA: There are 17 BEEELLION Earth-sized worlds in Milky Way

... except that planets with a orbit-time of less than 150 days are most probably too close to their star, and therefore too hot, to be anything earth-like. Planets with an orbit time of 200-500 days are much harder to detect.

Twin brothers nabbed for scrap over sex with 'shared' girlfriend

Re: IT angle?

A bit of a hacker will find another port...

Boffins build elastic wires with liquid metal

Re: Keep well away from aeroplanes

Hmmm... aeroplanes ... brittle and crushable ... "no sir, that's no explosive device in my luggage, just my 100 m headphone cable."

resistance

"When the cable is stretched, the resistance increases. " - headphone or network cables with variable resistance? I don't think so.

Linux kernel dumps 386 chip support

Re: Sad day

Well, you can still run Linux on an 386 - just have to get a version before this merge. Yes, you can't use the latest and greatest version. But really, which of the newer features do you desperately need on an embedded 386-based device?

ROGUE PLANET WITHOUT A SUN spotted in interstellar space

Planet?

Isn't a planet - by definition - something big enough to become sphere-shaped and orbiting a star? How than can anything NOT orbiting a star be called a planet?

Boffins: Our memory film is like your girlfriend - transparent and cheap

"Less than 10% memory free. Please replace your display"

Politico's locked room mystery Linux install crime solved

Someone accidentally installed Linux? Installing Linux is much easier than it used to be - but the number of warnings 'are you sure that you want to delete all data' should be high enough to warn everyone except the biggest morons. Oh - he was working for a political campaign - never mind...

Indian gov bans bulk texts as workers flee Bangalore

Re: 'strong bench strenth'???

That's management new-speak for 'we are running far under capacity, because our orderbooks are empty'

Re: Actually very useful

Sure. Information about credit that they can't get, and health services that they can't afford. Very useful, indeed!