Posts by Ermie Mercer

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The Washington Post had this to say about the attacks:

"The sites are all produced and operated by GovTrends, an Alexandra-based company that specializes in building political web sites and e-mail newsletter systems, said Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the House chief administrative officer."

A hit-or-miss project

And former astronaut Russell L. Schweickart had this comment:

“It takes a very small change in the Apophis orbit to cause it to impact the Earth instead of missing it,” Mr. Schweickart said. “There are a million asteroids out there. Find another one.”

"and the nanny state takes one in the teeth"

This suit was brought by individuals, and the "Nanny State" threw it out!!

"I believed..."

"I believed he could help me change the luck in my career."

He did... from bad to worse.

"Next time please report on how much heat these new cards put out"

The power draw is entirely converted to heat. Take the power consumption of the video adapter, say 188W, and use a calculator like the one below to convert it to the units of heat you want.

http://www.unitconversion.org/unit_converter/power.html

Of course, some of the heat is vented outside the case, and some inside. Information about that might be useful.

@Apocalypse Later

"Pretty much everyone in the US has access to electricity and the telephone, which was brought about without state ownership of the companies providing the services."

Read the history of:

Hoover Dam

Tennessee Valley Authority

Rural Electrification Act

Taken during a movie shoot?

About 25 years ago, I was watching a rented video titled "Pretty Baby" starring Ms. Shields. Near the end was a brief (maybe 5 second) scene exactly matching the description of this picture. It struck me as gratuitous at the time, not really essential to the story being told. I wonder if that's where the picture was taken.

@Adam Williamson 1

Maybe the letter was part of the settlement. It often is in cases like this in the US.

@Alice

Indeed. Many Times readers expressed similar sentiments in response to the warning.

@Andrew 99

"does that mean DJ's need to pay money to play songs?"

In the US, the answer is "Yes." Also bars (pubs), restaurants, dance studios... any business where music is played to an audience.

@AC (not Air Conditioning) 08:22

Here in the US, Daniel Fahrenheit rules. As do pounds, feet, inches and miles.

The cochlea

enables you to detect frequencies from 16Hz to around 20,000Hz.

Longevity of the treatment

As a previous poster noted, the surface structure produced by this treatment might disappear as the bulb ages and the filament evaporates. Halogen bulbs have an additional problem. As the bulb ages, evaporated tungsten would be redeposited on the filament, destroying the treatment's remaining surface structure.

At first glance...

It does seem that some other agency, the Centers for Disease Control for example, might be more appropriate for this kind of work. On the other hand, an epidemic of a disease with a high mortality rate does have national security implications.

"Amen"

to the previous comments.

Now if someone keyed a large transmitter on the plane...

Like the aircraft's transponder, or the pilot's communications to Air Traffic Control...

I just don't see on-board electronic gadgets as being the culprit here.

But why not...

"But why not simply compress the helium into high-pressure storage tanks when it's not needed?"

My thoughts exactly...

@ Anonymous Coward

"You'd be meaning Shutter glasses then"

No, I meant traditional polarized viewing glasses. I was imagining a system where a single projector might show alternating left and right images, while changing the light polarization 90 degrees in between them.

100 Gigadollars?

"As to the cost of the ISS. $100G is a lot of money."

The US Air Force motto

'Homeland Security' translates as 'Staatssicherheit' into German.

The US Air Force motto translates as "Uber Alles."

re: Pot calling the kettle black

"the agency has never given any indication of what it means by 'reasonable network management' "

Neither has Comcast.

Maybe this time...

FED has been a "Real Soon Now" technology for the last 10 or 15 years. The main obstacle to its commercial introduction has been the degradation of the field emitters (originally microscopic tungsten spikes) over time. If carbon nanotubes are a solution to this problem, FEDs could be a serious competitor to other display technologies.

P.S.

Or unbelievably incompetent...

Credit cards too?

I've never used Skype or any VOIP, but (living in the US) I was just hit with an unauthorized charge from them on my CREDIT CARD. I also have a PayPal account. Could someone have gotten my credit card info from PayPal?

"Don't buy Creative!"

Well then, what SHOULD I buy? Any suggestions? So far no one's recommended an alternative.

Mobile Phone Power Output

My recollection is that the typical hand-held mobile phone of a decade ago had a power output of 600 milliwats (0.6 watts), not "six watts to seven watts."