Recent submissions

Comment · 14 years ago
You could design them with frosted windows or blinds that obstruct passengers from looking at downwards angles, so they could still see the horizon and the sky.

I think I've read about a train being build through a city somewhere, where it'd pass close by residential buildings, but only briefly. This was solved by installing "Smart glass" so they windows are obscured temporarily when going past the buildings.

Comment · 14 years ago
The way the "trapped" situation is solved for large Ferris wheels is a secondary spool of cable that you can attach to a truck and propel the system for long enough to evacuate it. That strikes me as applicable here.
Comment · 14 years ago
I think the distinction is between software and hardware DRM. DirecTV controls the entire hardware chain. This means they can do various proper encryption schemes (public/pre-shared key etc) that are actually near impossible to crack and make it really, really hard to obtain the key by making the key write-only in the crypto-chip.

In a pure software solution, you control the hardware, and any hiding of the key is subject to reverse engineering the software.

Comment · 14 years ago
Comment · 14 years ago
The conspiracy theories generally hold that 9/11 wasn't perpetrated by "terrorists", regardless of their benefactors. E.g. WTC towers were brought down by explosives, not planes crashing into them, Pentagon was hit by a missile, not a plane.

The simplest and most plausible theory is simply that Bush and Cheney knew, but didn't do anything because they needed the attack to go into Iraq. Even then, at least tens of people in the White House and upper echelons of US intelligence would have known and would have known that they could have stopped this by making a few phone calls. Even 12 years later, not one of them has regretted his complicity in killing thousands of civilians and spilled the beans to a reporter.

Comment · 14 years ago
Wouldn't it be a factor that On2 isn't/wasn't in the search space at all? Only after the Google acquisition did duck.com come to be associated with search, and then only by virtue of Google redirecting it to their main page.
Comment · 14 years ago
There is a certain chance that this is not, in fact, an example of bad password management. This service ("MilFlip") could be an internal service on an internal, secure network (the kind of networks that, if someone was to penetrate it, you have bigger fish to fry than keeping them out of "MilFlip") that just doesn't have a good way of turning passwords off - and, to be "secure", requires a non-simple password.
Comment · 14 years ago
You can never avoid this, but take an approach like ZipCar: http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/how-are-cars-cleaned

In almost two years of being a ZipCar client, I've never had any issues. Yes, the occasional coke can or candy wrapper left behind, but never a mess that I thought to be unreasonable.

If it turns out to be a bigger problem, install a camera that takes a shot when you take possession of the car, and when you relinquish it. Charge the renters credit card for messiness.

Comment · 14 years ago
Despite the fact that nominally conservative parties implement such policies does not make those policies 'conservative' in any meaningful political-history/ideological sense. Just like Obama renewing the Patriot Act doesn't make it liberal legislation.
Comment · 14 years ago
In what ways do you consider Sweden a conservative country? It is very socially liberal and while it's finances are run mostly sanely, it has a huge re-distributive welfare state.
Comment · 14 years ago
You can be arrogant if you're brilliant - not the other way around. As a junior engineer (in the 'not much experience', not 'pay grade' sense), you're probably not brilliant enough to be arrogant.
Comment · 14 years ago
I don't agree with your comments about arrogance. You can be right and strongly opinionated without being arrogant. Junior or senior -- making anyone, boss or not, look bad anywhere, but especially in front of a client is a perfect way of finding yourself at the business end of some pretty nasty social dynamics.

Practice voicing your opinion and arguing for it in a way that isn't confrontational. 9 out of 10 times, it's as simple as acknowledging the other person: "I see where you're going with this, it's a good way to solve A, B and C. But when we get to D, I fear X will bite us in the tail - Y can avoid that.". This also avoids the stinging embarrassment of being arrogant and later being proven wrong.

Comment · 14 years ago
It bears mentioning that you obviously have a shitty boss and that you should leave at the earliest possibility.
Comment · 14 years ago
Ah, I was thinking of a Gatling gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_cannon), not a rail gun. The concept of rotary tubes seemed to mesh with OP's vision.
Comment · 14 years ago
"Rail gun" could illustrate the way carriages are added to and remove from the loop.

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