Posts by Eddy Ito

Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

Perhaps they just saw the writing on the wall and figured it wasn't the big deal bloviating politicians wanted folks to think it was. Sure the "Ruskies" got quieter subs but arms reduction talks were proceeding, Reagan had the Saudi's cutting Russia's oil revenue through high supply and lower prices, and shortly there after the Berlin wall fell and the cold war ended in late '89. That means Toshiba was punished for a few years after the Red threat was officially over.

Funny thing, if it carries enough momentum and energy to knock the target off their feet then it should do likewise to the shooter or at least a broken arm when said momentum and energy are imparted. Granted, there's a bit to be said about bracing oneself and catching the target off balance but typically folks shot in movies are thrown many feet by the impact and the recoil felt by the shooter is near nil.

Re: Totally Skewed Outlook!

The online business is the one getting the tax-free subsidy here.

The online business also has to pay shipping at a per piece rate. The brick an mortar store pays shipping on a container or full trailer rate. If the brick and mortar store had to pay UPS, Fedex, etc. piece rates for everything then yes it would be a fair comparison but they don't. You get a rather nice break on shipping when a semi pulls up around back and disgorges its entire contents and the small franchise shops get the benefit of splitting that semi with others of the same shop in the area. Unfortunately it's often the small mom & pop operations that suffer because they aren't getting large shipments and don't get to split the cost of a truck with another business.

One of the problems the larger chains face is themselves. The last time I went to Wally World was to buy a Wii Fit balance board accessory as a gift, which tells you how long ago it was, and after researching the price online I went down to the local Wally World and found the price for the unit on the shelf was higher. Ah, but they match online prices I thought but that proved wrong. If it was a competitors price they would have matched it. Since it was their own online price, they wouldn't match it but was told I could order it online and have it delivered to the very same store for pickup and it would probably only take a few hours for "delivery". Gobsmacked because I knew I'd be getting the very item that was on the shelf with the free "delivery" and pick-up at the store in a few hours instead of simply matching their own online price right then was enough for me to drive home and order it from Amazon albeit at a slightly higher price with free delivery to the intended recipients house in a few days. I even asked the sales clerk if management knew silly things like this were driving people to competitors and she chuckled saying that she tells her boss about it at least every other week and more often around the holidays. Sweet kid, I'm glad she wasn't paid on commission and I hope she found a better job.

Re: Pointless

Cortana, what is the average number of nukes? I mean, what represents n which divides the sum of a_i? Is it country, state, nation, UN members? Can I simply walk around D.C. or London and add up the number of consulates or embassies and use that? I'm just wondering how to count places like Flanders and Taiwan.

You know what Cortana, nevermind all that, just give me a ratio of nukes per nutjob for the G20.

Re: So the old adage is true

Given the current state of asset forfeiture laws in the U.S. it only need be something of value and could be perfectly legal.

Re: Moore got off too easy....

I actually don't understand why he wasn't at least charged under 18 USC §1030(a)(2)(C).

Re: Show me your thingy

Sure, internet refrigerators have been around a few years and washers and dryers with matching apps are pretty common. Come now, this is too easy did you even look?

Re: Not completely true

A straw sale is actually when the sale is to a person who is legally able purchase a firearm but is buying a it for someone who is prohibited from buying or owning a firearm. Lots of younger folks often get their slightly older friends to buy their alcohol, this is a straw sale and whether it's alcohol or firearms it is illegal.

What you are describing is a private party who has a firearm and is selling it to another private party which is little different from a car, a chair or any other sales between two private parties. This is not a straw sale/purchase but is instead a regular sales transaction and is legal. I can sell alcohol that I own to another party that I believe is legally able to purchase it and it is no different with firearms or cars or cell phones.

It should be plainly obvious that even if "all" sales were required to go through an FFL, it is highly unlikely that criminals will bother with the extra paperwork. All it does is add a de facto tax on the transaction for normal law abiding folks and does absolutely nothing to hinder criminals. It also doesn't even make for an adder on the list of criminal offenses as it's already illegal to sell firearms to criminals and it's already illegal for criminals to buy firearms so it's not something the DOJ could potentially bargain with since criminals would be able to claim that it violates their Constitutional rights with regard to self incrimination.

Re: Key Homo Sapience species trait

- a 200 metres rise would sink most major cities under water -

All well and good but there isn't enough ice on the planet to raise the oceans 200 metres. 200 feet ok, 200 metres, no. Granted that's of no comfort to Bangladesh as it would be completely flooded anyway.

Re: The cat is out of the bag

Terrorists could easily adopt spam tactics and spread their message that way. It would be ignored by 99.999% of people who will think its just spam and don't know that "V1argra" is an intentional misspelling that carries coded information. It would mean that if, and that's a big if, the government ever caught on they would need something that breaks the code and would then have to monitor every piece of spam which is an amazingly large haystack.

Re: My Daughter is Smarter than a cat.

Be careful, even without a SIM most phones can still dial emergency services.

Re: Meh

Most airports have been around a rather long time and they fly over areas populated by the poor because the noise lowers property values making it affordable to the poor and rich folks can afford to live elsewhere. Of course there are probably more flights now than there were but part of that is because airlines are consolidating their routes and many of the smaller airports, like the one I learned at, are actually being closed.

Re: Something smells fishy

Yet it seems the guy in prison asked his mum. He must have know she wasn't just going to tuck it all in her handbag and waltz in with it.

Of course there's always building a clock.

Re: Or perhaps not criminalise everyone?

Unfortunately criminalizing is what happens when you have a bunch of lawyer politicians with nothing to do but appear to be "tough on crime". The easy way to appear tough is to make more crimes and stuff the prisons beyond capacity, much to the delight of private prisons and their lobbyists.

As far as stopping drone drops an easy answer is to put a roof on it. It doesn't have to be flat, it doesn't have to be continuous or solid. It merely needs to be an obstacle for linear or ballistic paths so a series of slanted panels with a gutter at the bottom that collects things that may drop on the panels. Drones will have a difficult time navigating something like a saw tooth pattern and it would also make a nice place to mount detection or interfering technology. For the panels that face toward the sun, solar collectors could supply extra power. Anyone worried about birds has no complaint and it would still provide indirect light and air circulation as well as making the yard useful even when it rains. Also note that rain water can be captured for use inside the prison.

Re: A bit of a Dickey move

So the boy didn't read the cut sheet from AMD when he bought it. The question of cores is one that will have to address what kind of cores now that heterogeneous chips are increasingly becoming the norm. What does it mean to say something has X cores when the chip can combine CPUs (x86 and/or ARM), FPUs, GPUs, DSPs or even the occasional FPGA? Do FPUs matter if software is optimized for GPUs?

Of course, such a ruling will be avoided if AMD proves its eight-core Bulldozer processors do not drop to four-core performance in multithreaded FPU benchmark tests.

Another problem entirely as it may well depend on the bit width employed by the benchmark. What happens if it doubles the performance of a four core at 128 bits but not at 256 bits?

Regardless, this kind of "I didn't understand what I was buying" crap needs to be bounced out. Would he sue because he bought a Tegra 4 because the five cores didn't work like they thought?

Re: Probable Cause

The grenade launcher is considered "destructive device" and as it falls under the NFA it would be regulated as any other Title II weapon. Some individual states also have bans on civilian possession of some or all Title II weapons.

Current going rate for an M203 is about $6k.

Re: Now this IS interesting

So assuming a 50% recharge daily and the 300-500 full recharge cycle life of the battery it seems reasonable to assume you'll get 600-1000 days, so 2-3 years, before it needs replacement. Given the price that means the lowest cost model works out to about $.50 per day for just the watch. I can see some people making that choice but not those of us who throw pennies about like manhole covers.

Re: I really dislike these firms

I am pretty sure that Apple/Google can just sue them. That's if the police don't arrest them first.

Why would law enforcement arrest their favorite vendor?

How much are Prius' subsidised?

Each Prius directly is a hard number to pin down. In the US there are $2.4B in active grants for plug-in and hybrid vehicle technologies. Further there are several tax credits available to the purchaser often at both state and federal levels. The 2009 ACES Act varies the tax credit from $2500 if the vehicle meets the minimum 4 kWh and increases with battery capacity up to a $7500 maximum. In short, it looks like the subsidy on each Prius is at least $2500 and potentially larger.

Re: Wow! Six comments already...

Perhaps we just recognize mental masturbation when we see it.

Re: ZZZzzz...

You raise an interesting point. I suppose it comes down to how much damage the presence of the ball caused. Did it break a window and knock over an expensive vase? Did it kill a chicken in the yard? Did it cause someone to trip and fall? Did it merely leave a dent in the lawn? Each of these is a different degree of damage or harm. I do believe that you are free to discard it in the trash without trying to find the owner or you can simply turn it over to the police and let them deal with it as I did when I found a bicycle at the end of my driveway.

Likewise we can ask what damage the drone caused by its mere presence. Clearly it reduced the sense of security of the family. Perhaps it somehow contributed to other trauma, one of the daughters may no longer feel safe sunbathing in their backyard or perhaps refuse to even go into the back yard. In both the ball and drone cases the potential for harm is great it's just that with the ball it's more likely to be immediately apparent.

Re: Snigger

As am I. Who would've thunk we'd break the top twenty?

[victory chant] U-S-A, U-S-A... ad nauseum.

Re: Bullit County

I'd say the garden hose option would be much preferable.

A garden hose isn't likely a viable option. Even if he has 80 psi head pressure he's going to lose quite a bit once it reaches the far end of a 1/2" maybe 3/8" copper line with assorted tees, elbows, shutoffs and freeze protection valves. Add to that the potential age of the construction with scale built up inside the pipes and you're not going to get much range when it reaches the end of a 50 foot garden hose. It is a garden hose attached to a bib after all; it's not a water cannon connected to a fire hydrant.