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akallio9000

11 karma · joined November 28, 2014

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akallio9000··on The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor
Just the photo alone made me facepalm. Why buy a riding lawn mower for five times the price of a basic push mower that would easily mow a trailer park lawn in 10 - 15 minutes?
akallio9000··on Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace (2012)
When I read his description of "radiator fluid" and dumping gravel into the oil fill of a car, I began to have my doubts, but when he suggested that a revolver with the cylinder swung out might still have a bullet in the chamber, all doubts that he didn't know what he was talking about were erased.
akallio9000··on Gravity's Oldest Puzzles
So if the spacecraft could be stationary, it would pick up 400km/year acceleration via nuclear power?
akallio9000··on The abolition of work
> I personally know people would love that kind of stuff

You do realize that sometimes plumbers have to wallow through raw sewage under a house? It's not all fun and games like on "This Old House".

akallio9000··on Car Hacker's Handbook
This is especially heinous given that car manufacturers are trying to keep you from repairing your own car, claiming that the computer systems are copyrighted.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/24/8490359/general-motors-eff...

akallio9000··on The abolition of work
I don't foresee any garbage collectors or plumbers working "for the fun of it" or "personal fulfillment" anytime soon.
akallio9000··on Superlubricity – tuning friction to the point where it disappears
This seems to me to go a long way toward explaining why dissimilar metals make the best bearing interfaces, i.e. the atomic lattices don't match up.
akallio9000··on 25% of Cars Cause 90% of Automobile Air Pollution
Most (if not all) cars decrease the air/fuel ratio on wide open throttle, which ensures lack of air to burn pistons, etc., as well as cooling the charge to allow greater volumetric efficiency. Carburetors had a "power valve" to accomplish this, fuel injected vehicles usually have a vacuum hose attached to the fuel pressure regulator to increase fuel pressure temporarily. A fouled O2 sensor, mass air flow sensor or manifold air pressure sensor could throw off the ratios during normal operation. I'd venture to guess that "badly tuned" implies a misfire (probably a fouled spark plug) causing an entire cylinders worth of raw gas dumped into the atmosphere. This excessive fuel will melt down the catalytic converter which exacerbates the problem.
akallio9000··on EFF's “Yellow Dots of Mystery” (2008)
So you could substitute green ink in the black ink container?
akallio9000··on Game Design Tips from Tom Hall (1994)
"-Challenge--this must be very carefully balanced. It must be sufficiently tough to make the player want to keep trying, but not too hard so the player gets frustrated quickly. Having different skill levels is helpful, but you still have to balance the game so it is progressively harder. It should be fair."

I'd like to add my hate for "balanced play" that punishes success. I was just playing 18 Wheels of Steel Across America and I purely hate how your truck suddenly handles like crap and loses power simply because the numbers in your bank account are larger than somebody thought you should have.

akallio9000··on Towards the Perfect Coin Flip: The NIST Randomness Beacon
You want your own random bits? Tune your AM radio between stations and record the resulting static to your PC. Grab the low bit from every 10'th sample or so and concatenate into a buffer until desired length is reached. You may want to XOR alternate samples to eliminate any voltage bias your sound card has to provide equal numbers of 0's and 1's.
akallio9000··on Hotel 22: The Dark Side of Silicon Valley
If they're all that poor, they don't have many possessions. How about they get off Hotel 22 at the far end and be homeless there? Or further, if that's suffering from liberal dystopia too.