Mass of Aircraft carriers

@Chris244

"I would be interested in knowing how you would convert from a unit of mass into "football" fields."

Sorry, we Americans don't understand mass, only size. Bigger'n aircraft carrier, we understand. As massive as an aircraft carrier may get through. 3X the mass of an aircraft carrier will draw blank stares.

As for nuclear vs. non-nuclear, the JFK wasn't that much smaller than Nimitz class. It displaced less, but again, we don't understand mass, only football fields.

This level looks EASY!

This level looks EASY. I'll just walk out.... hey, WTH, something just ATE my lemming! Ok, I'll build a bridge over it. Oops, wrong lemming. Build another bridge to climb over the trap... HA! I got you now! Wait, don't turn around there. No, don't walk into the trap! Shoot I used my last bridge! GRRR.... 5 ... 4... 3 ... 2 ... 1...

Nice, but...

What annoys me is that there's no disk activity LED. It's useful if you're shutting down or hibernating to know when it's safe to toss it into the bag, with the Edge you just have to wait.

The power LED is incorporated into the logo, which is nice, but if it's bright in the room, it's hard to see if the LED is on or off.

And then the charge LED is off on the side above the power socket. I'm not sure I like it or not, maybe I'll get used to it.

At least they're not all white LEDs like the Y series.

He was "encrypting" notes to himself

If I'm writing notes to myself, I don't really need to encrypt it... I just need to put stuff down that nobody can read, but I can still recognize.

I know that

"b" means "butter", so I write "brlerr"

"e" means "eggs", so I write "e343ffe"

"p" means "paper towels", so I write "p1"

"qfl" means "quaters for laundry, so I write "qfl".

brlerr e343ffe p1 qlf

Go ahead and try to decode that.

Size of Wales?

Is that normal Wales or a ironed out Wales?

RE: Decrypt passwords?

@anyonymous coward

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"...even decrypt passwords"

Excusame?? Is this an admission that Windows hashed passwords can actually be decrypted? Because if it is so, I wonder how Windows could be sold/proposed with any claim at security at all.

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Um, yeah, for quite a long time. Google "l0phtcrack".

There is no security when the attacker has physical access to your machine.

No need to burn bridges...

Might as well be nice on the way out... you might need the job back after wasting all the money living the high life for a few months and then finding yourself with no money and $20K/month mortgage(s), $5K/month car payment(s), and friends that have suddenly disappeared into the woodwork from whence they came.

Not everyone has fat pipes...

Not everyone has fat pipes to the 'net. I'm in a hotel in Brazil, and sometimes I see 1400ms in my pings to google. AV updates which takes seconds at home over cable can take 10 minutes here. Downloading a big word document from the "storage cloud" would take an agonizingly long time.

Even in the states, I've stayed at plenty of hotels that had measly little pipes to the web.

So no, I'm not going to be storing my files online.

Difference between prosecuted and sued

@Stu Reeves

"So can I be prosecuted if I throw an old cd in the Bin? After all anyone could get it and copy it."

There's a difference between getting prosecuted and being sued by the RIAA. The RIAA can't have you arrested for throwing out the CD, but they could sue you. Anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason. Of course, it would probably be dismissed, but you never know. Especially if it's a promotional CD, the studios claim those are still their property and throwing it out constitutes "illegal distribution".

I hope at least...

The crucified get a hands-free headset and a straw...

Rio had problems

It had a horrible battery life. Not that it used a lot of power, but the battery door wouldn't stay closed and the battery would fall out. A lot of people had problems with that, and it just didn't look as sexy with a rubber band holding the door closed.

I used it for a long time, but eventually upgraded to something with more memory.

It's not just about what you buy

RFIDs that are left in your clothes can track which stores you go into and even where you are in the store. By putting RFID readers in each rack of clothes, they can tell how long you were browsing, and later if you actually purchased it. That's great info for a retailer.

Now, if several retailers get together and link their databases, they now know that you spent 30 minutes in the coffee shop, 45 browsing for new jeans (but didn't buy any), 15 looking for new non-fiction books, 30 in the erotic novels section, 5 looking at hemorrhoid cremes... sure you can pay for cash, but if you've got one RFID connected to one credit card purchase, then they can track everything you do.

Now that's just stupid

A skateboard? OK, I can see the visor, helmet, and bicycle pedal as useful in some game or another. But a skateboard? That's just stupid.

There's no relative motion between the ground and the wheels, so what's the point? Unless you actually plan to ride the board around the room, which is ridiculous. If you put the controller on the deck, there is relative motion as you can move the deck while still stationary. But the wheels? Someone was asleep at Nintendo.

Better put a bucket out back

Frankly I'd rather just pee behind the facility than pay to get in, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Paper maps are always too regional

The problem with a map is that you never have the area that you need in detail. When you get lost, it's usually in an unexpected place, due to traffic or construction detours. I rarely get lost since I have an uncanny sense of direction (which really annoys my GF), but when I do, the maps are useless because I'm on some local street that doesn't show up on the maps.

In the backcountry, I love 7.5 minute maps. Drop me anywhere with a compass and I can locate myself. But while behind the wheel, the GPS navigation is much more convenient as well as safer to operate.

Not worth the risk

Make fake UPC labels is considered forgery, which is a felony. Doesn't seem worth the risk to save a couple of bucks on DVDs.

Outdoors?

It's too wet and cold to be rock climbing. The ice isn't solid enough (at least for me) to climb yet. It's too expensive and way, way too crowded to snowboard this week. Also too crowded to be out climbing mountains. Really, this week sucks for doing things since there are so many people who are off and trying to do the same thing.

It's a good week to stay at home and play GHIII.

Do you know anything about Japanese?

@Andrew

Guess you don't know anything about Japanese, or even Chinese.

There are also another 73 characters for basic Japanese called Hiragana, and another 73 characters for English based words callled Katakana. Every kid learns those 146 characters in grade school. Beyond that, there is Kanji, where there's around 2000 common characters that most adults can read. And another 8000 uncommon characters, which sometimes includes subtext in Hiragana so people can read it. You can also use Chinese characters in Japanese, so add the 6000 common Chinese characters, and 30,000 uncommon Chinese characters. There are often characters you have to guess at from the context if there is no sub-text included.

So this feature would be helpful to not only to the relatively small group of business travelers and students, but to the huge number of native Japanese and Chinese speakers.

A great idea

While I was on business in Hong Kong and Tokyo on business, I rented phones with cameras built in so I could take pictures of things on menus and at the grocery store. I would email the picture to a co-worker in the local office who would call/mail me back and tell me what it was in English. The scanning helps a great deal since character input by keyboard is impossible if you don't know what the character is in the first place.

Yes, there are restaurants that don't have English and the hosts speak no English whatsoever; those little hole-in-the-wall places, they never see tourists so they don't bother with English.

It would be useful in NYC as well, there are often items in French and Italian menus I don't recognize, especially when chefs get creative and add obscure ingredients. Would be great to have a translator built into something I carry with me all the time.

Not going to make any difference

Half of Americans reject evolution. They even speak English so there's no language barrier. There's little chance of convincing them to even consider the alternatives, much less getting them to accept that they were wrong.

I feel bad for the bloggers, I'm sure they would do all they can, but I'm afraid they're not going to accomplish anything and just end up frustrated and aggravated.

It's just advertising.

I saw two sitting in a cabinet at Target the other day. I was tempted to buy both and ebay them, but decided just to let some lucky parent find it.

It's just that stores have been out of stock for so long, people have stopped looking for them. So when the store does have one in stock, they have to advertise they have them.

"Last one", that's a little sneaky, but really, with most stores OOS most of the time, it's not too far from the truth. I wouldn't get too upset, it's not like they're sitting on a cache of hundreds of machines.

Of course they still suck a retailer.

US Punters...

It's not the availability of WiFi, but the lousy coverage of the networks. I've tested a few cellular network cards, and they vary in effectiveness depending on the region. One card works well here in NYC, but lousy in Boston. Another works well in the suburbs of CT but not in Florida. There are dead spots between NYC and Westchester where no one can get a signal.

Add to that the lackluster speed and high cost.

Another drawback is that you can't share the connection at home with the desktop, so it's yet another contract that you have to pay for. It's not going to replace your cell phone since you don't want to have to fire up the laptop every time you need to take a call.

You can use your existing cell phone to connect your laptop to the internet, but the rates are outrageous and the speed unspectacular.

We don't need GSM built in; they need to address coverage, speed and cost.

So where is

Where is the wikipedia article collaborating this article? It must be there and it must be true!

There's no irony in the cost of bulbs.

@Norman

You forget that florescent bulbs, while costing 10x the cost of a incandescent bulb, last 10x as well, so in the long run they don't cost any more.

LED bulbs currently run some 50x the cost of an incandescent bulb, but they are said to last 100x as long. Which would make them cheaper than your standard bulb.

Not to mention the 70% electricity savings by using the LED bulbs.

I converted to florescent a couple years ago. I haven't converted to LED yet since the energy savings aren't that much greater, but I expect that the prices of the bulbs will drop significantly in the next couple of years.

The GPS is not checking every 30 seconds...

The GPS is not checking location every 30 seconds, it is continually monitoring its own location. The device UPLOADS data every 30 seconds, which INCLUDES the average speed across that 30 second interval. You guys are assuming that the average speed is calculated using a location every 30 seconds, which could lead to inaccurate readings. However, the average recorded by the device is accurate since it is a continual reading of the position in fractions of a second.

Random inaccuracies every 30 seconds could lead to a 60m range difference from point A to B. But if the readings are every 1/10th of a second, then you have 300 readings from point A to B, and thus those inaccuracies average out to nothing. Because it's being monitored continually, there's no chance that the kid can speed up between points A and B without the device monitoring it.

So what's the *real* number?

How many of those were purchased by Toshiba and Paramount agents and employees to boost sales figures? 50%? 75%?

Should have named it Lokai

It's probably been hiding in our solar system for 50,000 years. We need to keep a lookout in case a white and black moon comes looking for it.

Awaken the Dragon???

What, are they bringing Bruce back from the dead?

There is only one Dragon, and he's gone. Remake the movie, I don't care, just call it something else. Get some new jeet kune do expert, find out his nickname and call it "Enter the {nickname}".

Little Dragon is gone, let him go...

It's not *his* money.

It's not his personal cash. As the article says, they were promising him a lucrative business contract, so the cash most likely came from the coffers of the business where he works (or at least where he used to work).

Most of the reports of people getting scammed for big $$$$$ have gotten the money embezzling it. There are always reports of some grandma losing her retirement money, but they never lose that much money. Not like the Michigan law office bookkeeper who embezzled $2.1M of the firms cash.

That's gotta suck, finding out your business is bankrupt because an ASSociate lost all the cash to a 419 scam...

"Intelligent Face" recognition

It's not the camera's fault. The camera knows there's no "intelligent face" to recognize, just a dummy...

And how much

How much did they pay for this ad?

RE: WTF

Just because he had allergies and had an Epi pen doesn't mean he knew he was allergic to chemicals in a hamster's saliva. It probably never crossed his mind.

He's probably allergic to bee stings or peanuts and had the epi handy. As soon as he started having a reaction, he didn't have to know what caused it, only that he had to use the epi pen.

Nothing "wtf" about it at all.

More searches because more useless results?

Maybe the number of searches has increased because people are having to do more searches to get the results they need?

You're trying to find out why your laptop has a problem, so you type in the model number, and all you get are those "deals" websites. So you refine your search and again, the top 200 results are sales sites, some from the other side of the world. Completely and utterly useless. So you revise the search again, and again, and again... until you get lucky and the query appears verbatim on some website which is all you really wanted in the first place. But instead you had to do a half dozen searches. I don't remember it being as bad a few years ago, good results were easier to find.

What is this, the SUN?

Come on. We expect some eye-catching headlines, but that's going too far.

Reflection, not paint

The wings are not painted black, but the shiny aluminum wings are reflecting the sky above.

When on the ground, the aluminum reflects the blue sky above. As it climbs higher, the air above gets thinner and at some point (not sure where) the wings reflect only the darkness of space.