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Comment: Re:Fake? (Score 3, Insightful) 70

by Areyoukiddingme (#45743435) Attached to: Life-Sized, Drivable 500,000 Piece Lego Car Runs On Air

An air tank out of LEGO isn't entirely out of the question. I think it's rather blindingly obvious that the parts for this thing have been glued together. ABS is fairly tough stuff, and the glue basically fuses bricks together, so making an air tight compartment isn't out of the question. It's not going to be a high pressure tank, but they made no claims about exactly how far this thing can roll on one tank of air. I'm betting not very far.

I think the guy you responded to also discounted the possibility of glue. I really don't see it hanging together without glued parts. With glued parts, I think the whole thing really could be LEGO elements (aside from the wheels, tires, and gauges).

Comment: Re:Grid Computing? (Score 1) 259

by Areyoukiddingme (#45732857) Attached to: Scientists Extract RSA Key From GnuPG Using Sound of CPU

Only if you're willing to run BOINC etc. at the same priority level as GPG while it's working, and maybe not even then. In any case, the latest version of libcrypt has been patched to mitigate the vulnerability to the extent you don't really have to worry about it.

Not that you have to worry about it at all, since it only works while decrypting known data sent to you while listening to it with a nearby microphone. Avoid opening random encrypted emails from sources you don't recognize and don't let random strangers leave their cell phones next to your computer, and you're fine.

If you start getting a series of ostensibly junk files that have been encrypted with your public key, somebody is attacking you.

(Authors of Claws Email reader and other email readers that feature tight integration with GPG should probably blacklist the attack files and raise a warning if one or more of them appears.)

Comment: Re:The best way to make a choice about supplements (Score 2) 553

If you have the cold or flu... then by all means go to the doctor.

Please, no. Cold and flu are both viruses. No doctor can do a thing for you if you have a virus, other than give you the same advice you can get for free from your mother: rest and drink plenty of fluids. Americans really REALLY need to stop trying to get viral cures that do not exist. It wastes an immense amount of time and money every year, and it is contributing to the evolution of anti-bacterial resistant bacteria because doctors, in order to be perceived as having done something, will prescribe an antibiotic for a person with a viral infection. The virus will run its course regardless of the anti-biotic, and meanwhile the anti-biotic is killing a few random weak bacteria, leaving the rest to breed. It's a very bad thing and it needs to stop.

By all means, go to the doctor for the broken leg. Stay the hell home if you have the flu.

Comment: Re:Also in St. Charles, MO (Score 1) 553

by Areyoukiddingme (#45730701) Attached to: Police Pull Over More Drivers For DNA Tests

Every 40 years in 10 year cycles. That really does sound like a behavioral study, as WaffleMonster said. It's to calibrate the SheepleMeter. After all this fuss about NSA spying, it was time to find out how compliant people still are. Want to bet they're more compliant than ever? Too bad the study results are probably classified.

The ACLU should make itself useful and try to use FOIA requests to get copies of all the data and the study results. Or is this one of those studies that gets publicly published and nobody even notices?


Tech Leaders Push Back Against Obama's Efforts To Divert Discussion From NSA 311

Posted by Soulskill
from the stay-on-target dept.

Comment: Re:If we're serious, let's get serious! (Score 1) 1119

by Areyoukiddingme (#45701043) Attached to: US Light Bulb Phase-Out's Next Step Begins Next Month

... why aren't we doing the same at home?

The same reason as every other "why aren't we" question: money. Yes, all in-home electrical distribution should be low voltage DC (probably 48 volts), including major appliances. Not only is it more efficient, it's much safer. (Edison was right, though killing an elephant was an asshole thing to do.) You can get DC motors and refrigerators that use them. Of course, they're stupidly expensive because they're made for RVs in low volumes, but there's no cost-driven reason for the expense.

Why don't we? A whole-house AC-DC converter is expensive. Right now the AC-AC converter that steps line voltage down to house voltage is provided for you by the power company. It's expensive too. Convincing the power company to salvage all those existing transformers and replace them is next to impossible. But unless you do a major changeover of every one of them, you're stuck with high priced everything, for the same reason RV electrical systems are high priced—lack of demand and a captive audience.

On top of that, low voltage DC requires heavier wiring than higher voltage AC, to avoid heating up the wires under the same load. Retrofitting your whole house with new wiring is fairly ridiculously expensive, by most people's standards, but it's not really optional. Otherwise the safety gain of low voltage DC is offset by the safety loss of a fire hazard every time you use your vacuum cleaner.

I see one possible but very low-probability migration path. When you install solar panels, you most often buy a grid-tie inverter and stay connected to the AC grid. But now one of your sources of power is native DC. I could see installing a grid-tie rectifier, rather than an inverter, and using DC throughout the house. That still leaves all the problems of replacement appliances and wiring and low volumes, so it doesn't seem likely. Just not impossible.

Comment: Re:Seriously? (Score 1) 1119

by Areyoukiddingme (#45700849) Attached to: US Light Bulb Phase-Out's Next Step Begins Next Month

I pay $0.0945 per kWh during the day and $0.0715 at night.

Of course, I'm a member of an electric cooperative, a nonprofit organization where all the subscribers are also automatically co-owners. My electric bill does not involve some fat cat getting fatter. It's practically communist it's so evil.

That $0.18 per kWh price is more profit-driven than cost-driven.

Comment: Re:The Argument (Score 1) 1119

by Areyoukiddingme (#45698695) Attached to: US Light Bulb Phase-Out's Next Step Begins Next Month


Laws like this fix a specific failure of the free market. LEDs are not preferred, therefore no one buys LEDs despite the benefits, therefore LEDs remain expensive because the manufactures aren't able to make use of economies of scale, therefore LEDs are not preferred (because they're too expensive). Consumers go from an inertial reason ("because it's not what I've always bought) to a legitimate economic reason ("they're freakin' expensive).

A good many things specifically to do with electrical power suffer from this problem. Heat pumps are still rare, despite demonstrated benefits. Whole-house uninterruptible power supplies are unheard of, despite the technology being extremely well understood by businesses everywhere. Solar panels are still rare. I could go on.

Worse, for lack of scale, quality is a real problem. I bought a conventional air conditioner myself when I had to replace mine, because my parents had an air source heat pump that was so bad it required not one but two complete replacements of its electronics board and it ran with so much vibration that it wore a hole through its own coolant line and leaked all of its coolant away. And it shut down while the air was still above freezing. And the funky non-standard thermostat that went with it never worked right. I've read about the marvels of heat pumps in Popular Mechanics since the late '80s, but actual experience with one convinced me to pass on them.

Natural laws have no pity.