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Comment: Re:States Rights (Score 1) 665

by phyzz (#46239781) Attached to: South Carolina Education Committee Removes Evolution From Standards

Wow ! This is quite a polarized view. Seen from the other side of the Atlantic, such attitude seem as extremist as the extremist you want to be expelled from 'your' society. I am not an history wonk, but I believe that at some point in time all nations and all religions were welcome in the USA ("Bring me those poor, tired, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free..."). I am sure, not to be too cynic, that it was a ploy to grow the 'european' population faster and 'occupy' the western and northern territories taken from the natives and in order to expand demographically and militarily the young nation ; but nevertheless many immigrants must have held that belief and transmitted that to their descendants.
Well after Waco, TX and 9/11, I am sure the dialogue between religious and atheists must have been a little soured, and I would not think to have reacted differently. But take example on our European mass shooter: Anders Breivik was not acting upon religious imperatives but over cultural purity.
Try to always keep in mind that the mainstream media only shows the extreme opinions, the rarely occuring events, the peculiar trends, the single narrow point-of-view, and that politicians (from either side) only react to those because they want to be in those media for their name to be remembered comes the election. If only people would pay attention to what politicians DO instead of what politicians SAY, well first of all we would put in jail the majority of the politicians who occupy the front page, then we would let the politicians who DO things be heard instead, and eventually we would elect the politicians who would defend your values based on past actions instead of having to decide blind folded between the least crooked of them all. Then we would have a political discourse able to address social issues, which of course the media would put on the front page under misleading or blatantly erroneous titles (why am I thinking of Slashdot right now ?) and which would try to play on misunderstandings and rejections from the people who would not have the time to read the piece or discard the whole thing ; the former (i.e. sensationalist journalists) would have to be fired or only be allowed to do obituaries, the latter (i.e. over-stressed people or shallow people) would have to get trained to put into perspective, to challenge any point-of-view, to question any certainty, to test any axioms, or to accept the impact the beliefs of others (corporations, political or religious groups) has upon ourselves ; my point is: you either think by yourself or you accept that others do the thinking for you, no knowledge is free.

Comment: Re:Missing option (Score 4, Informative) 525

by phyzz (#41989813) Attached to: My relationship to military service:

It was a Nothrop Prowler, not a Grumman Tomcat. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_disaster_(1998)

They were flying too low and based on maps that did not mention the new aerial tramway. They were court martialed in the U.S.A., acquitted, then trialed a second time and were sentenced to a short prison time.

+ - Using memory-erasing drug before sleep could help cure PTSD->

Submitted by
phyzz writes "Using a memory-erasing drug on mice on which traumatic fear was provoked by mild electric shocks associated with a particular odor, researchers from Stanford University have had better results curing the fear than by repeatedly exposing the mice to the odor alone, i.e. therapy sessions. Unfortunately the drug in question is not safe for humans, but antidepressants might be used instead."
Link to Original Source

+ - SPAM: Track Robot| Robot Tank

Submitted by
harvehere writes "The Tracked Mobile Tank Kit is a simple, programmable and customizable tracked mobile tank robot kit. This robot tank is used for rescue and education and it's an inexpensive mobile tracked platform. To complete this track robot the builder adds batteries, a microcontroller, wiring and a low voltage DC motor. The tank tread allows you to build robot tracks to go over rough terrain or you can build a conveyor belt to pick up objects. You can explore more demanding terrain if you have track treads and not ordinary wheels on you robot tank."
Link to Original Source

+ - ADA to force Netflix to provid closed captioning on content-> 2

Submitted by Shivetya
Shivetya writes "A judge has decided that the American Disabilities Act requires services like Netflix to provide Closed Captioning support for any video it streams on its website. The easiest means to comply would be to remove all videos which do not have a closed captioning component, the other route would require Netflix to pay to have this done to any video it wants to provide. The implications to other provides is immense as well."
Link to Original Source

+ - Transplant Surgeon Called Dibs on Steve Jobs' Home

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "The Commercial Appeal reports that Dr. James Eason, the surgeon who performed Steve Jobs' liver transplant, found himself grilled at length Monday by Shelby County Commission members. The Univ. of Tennessee-Methodist Transplant Institute, which Eason heads, is in a bitter dispute over the distribution of human organs. Pressed for details by Commissioners West Bunker and Terry Roland about the 2009 liver transplant that Eason performed on the late Steve Jobs, Eason acknowledged that he's now living in the Memphis home that Jobs used during his convalescence. Bunker asked, "Was that a deal cut to get him a transplant here locally?" Eason: "I understand. It's a fair question. Absolutely not." Eason said a company lined up the housing for Jobs. "I took care of him and visited him in that home. And when I learned that it was going to be going on the market, I asked him, I asked the administrator of the LLC, if I could purchase it." So, is it time for Apple to shed some light on The Mystery of Steve Jobs' Memphis Mansion? It was reported that Apple lawyer George Riley, reportedly a friend of Eason's, helped Jobs with the arrangements for the Memphis mansion, which was acquired at a bargain price of $850,000 from the State of Tennessee by the mysterious LCHG, LLC on 3/26/2009. LCHG was formed on 3/17/2009, apparently just days before Jobs received his liver (on 3/21/2010, Jobs noted he was coming up on the 1-year anniversary of his transplant). Records show that title to the mansion was transferred to Eason in May, 2011, about three months after the National Enquirer painted a grim picture of Jobs' health (Jobs died on Oct. 5, 2011). LCHG, LLC was dissolved in February 2012."

Comment: Re:Is this a legitimate comparison? (Score 1) 328

by phyzz (#38656088) Attached to: Almost 1 In 3 US Warplanes Is a Drone

The latest carrier based drones have airborne refueling capabilities just like the manned jets.

If you're talking about Northrop Grumman's X-47 UCAV, it is only developmental and has not yet flown off a carrier... But yes, drones having refueling capability, buddy refueling even more so, are going to set a new standard on mission duration.

But manned jets have to contend with pilot fatigue.

UCAV too in a sense : they are constantly monitored by one or two operators (sometimes even flight-rated pilots), who DO have to manage fatigue; the good thing is they are in a facility where crews can rotate without the aircraft having to provide accommodations for all those people. These aircrafts are unmanned in the sense that there is no man ON BOARD, but there is of course a man (or woman, one or more) in the loop. This is why they are sometimes called "remotely" piloted aircraft.

One of the latest tests off a carrier was a 55 hour non-stop single drone mission. There is not a pilot in the world capable of handling missions of that length. Even the existing manned B-2 bombers that launch missions from the mid-west to targets in the middle east are pushing the limits a pilot can handle.

Wikipedia states that a B-2 mission has lasted 50 hours with round-trip flight from Barksdale AFB to the Middle-East, but I cannot find any reference of it in the official U.S. Air Force website, which states that B-52s during Operation Desert Storm used to undertake missions of 35 hours. In both cases, these are bomber aircrafts which are designed for long duration missions : the B-2 has two pilots, is thoroughly automated, and of course has a toilet. Lockheed's U-2 Dragonlady pilots are not so lucky on their 9 hours mission (see http://www.blackbirds.net/u2/u-2mission.html) at 70k feet in their astronaut-like full pressure suit.

Comment: Re:"HTML5 Programming"? (Score 1) 90

by phyzz (#38278646) Attached to: Book Review: Head First HTML5 Programming

Parent said:

"Get off my lawn!"

I am afraid you have not kept up with XMLHttpRequest and the whole scripting activities currently involved in developing a modern website. It is even said that website development is so complex nowadays[citation needed] that separate professional functions have to divide up the work: designers, programmers, testers, moderators and, of course, trolls.

I too long for the good ol' days of websites being displayed equally "beautifully" in NCSA's Mosaic or ISC's Lynx. STOP vomiting flashing text, animated gifs, flash ads and floating DIVs, DAMMIT!

Comment: Re:-Sigh- (Score 1) 561

by phyzz (#38278000) Attached to: Greenpeace Breaks Into French Nuclear Plant

They have a point, we should shut down the sun to protect us from all that harmful radiation. As a bonus Global Warming will no longer be an issue.

Mod this UP! We should also shut down the universe which emits so much of these damn radiations, and eventually 'live' in an absolute zero absolute maximum entropy state.


Comment: Re:I'd like to enjoy my tea and poetry.... (Score 1) 561

by phyzz (#38277874) Attached to: Greenpeace Breaks Into French Nuclear Plant

We have the "Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire" (Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute) and the "Autorité de sûreté nucléaire" (Nuclear Safety Authority) which are the official organizations for the safety of the nuclear installations in France. They are supposedly independent from the industry and the government. Their credibility suffers from a precedent during the Chernobyl catastrophe when the Health ministry's central bureau of protection against ionizing radiation director, Pierre Pellerin, consistently and continuously said the radioactive cloud would not have any impact and no safety precautions should be taken, while all neighbor countries (even Spain and Great Britain which were further down the route of the cloud) had measured elevated radiation on produce.
The CRIIRAD "Commission de recherche et d'information indépendantes sur la radioactivité" (Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity) is the most independant organization since it is not official and uses publicly available data and measures made by independently owned detectors.

About the intrusion by Greenpeace, I find their action disingenuous: the Genarmerie Nationale has now dedicated special groups to the protection of all nuclear plants since this summer, but this takes time to be put in place; other Greenpeace activists have tried to break into several other facilities but were arrested by the local law enforcement (or possibly the said special Gendearmerie groups); furthermore elected officials and experts conducted a live and surprise safety exercise not weeks ago to assess the measures put in place against floods and earthquakes (operation Opera during the night of December 1st).

Comment: Re:What if it turned out the other way? (Score 0) 561

by phyzz (#38277748) Attached to: Greenpeace Breaks Into French Nuclear Plant

The problem the Fukushima events showed evidently is that you do not have to make the nuclear reactor go critical and explode to cause a major radiological catastrophe: you just have to cut the power to the control room and safety system that prevents the reactor to sustain and limit its heating-cooling cycle.

Therefore protection against any intrusion or incident is paramount to the safety of the plant, therefore security should be airtight.

Parent post has it right: the Gendarmerie Nationale is in charge of the protection from intrusion into nuclear plants and other facilities and even NBC protection.


Nuclear plants are also surrounded by restricted air zone enforced by SAM and fast jet interception. See this (french) animation:


User Journal

Journal: In Time (2011) by A. Niccol 1

Journal by phyzz


The Military

+ - The F-35 story-> 1

Submitted by
phyzz writes "After 10 years in development and numerous cost and schedule overruns, the JSF program aimed at replacing several aircrafts from three major military services and partner nations with a fifth generation aircraft capable of STOVL as sustained supersonic flight in an affordable package finally gets some test points validated, yet faces an uphill fight against budget reductions. Bloomberg has this interesting story about the program's troubled past."
Link to Original Source
