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People with brains might actually appreciate nerds showing off.

Yeah. I'll just leave this here.

This is the new verbing. Let me give you an advice: embrace the dark side.

https://www.gocomics.com/pearl...

This explains everything.

Now that InSight is on Mars it would be great if it cold send us signs of intelligent life.

Now that InSight is on Mars it would be great if it cold send us signs of intelligent life.

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/12/07

Since I can't find an obligatory xkcd, a relevant Pearls Before Swine instead... https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2018/09/30?ct=v&cti=1881095

First, let me preface this by saying I've been doing the full Philip "shut up and take my money" Fry impression ever since Dodge announced they were putting a V6 diesel in a Ram truck....but not in the Durango. Now Ford and Chevy are jumping on the 3.0L bandwagon, so if another model year goes by without a diesel going into a durango/explorer/expedition/tahoe imma gonna cut a bitch. Mercedes has a diesel for the GL line, but for 19 mpg on the highway I want a lot more than 7500 lbs towing. Now, that said...

Why is there so much concern on diesel cycle engines? As heat engines go they are quite efficient devices. As far as providing a lightweight and compact power source for transportation these things are close to miraculous. So, where is the problem?

The pollution they generate is a problem. If pure biodiesel doesn't produce the particulates or NOx that petroleum does, cool beans, but I've never seen anyone make that claim.

I hear people claim that electric cars are the future, charged up by electricity from wind, water, and sun. But has anyone done the math on what it would take to make that happen? It turns out that people have and the math does not work out for such a world.

The same sort of higher math that claims a Prius or a golden retriever pollutes more than a Hummer.

First thing is to do the math on how much in resources we'd need to just make up for the electrical use right now and replace that with wind, water, and solar.

Sounds like people who complain that mass transit and high speed rail cost too much, while acting as if hundreds of billions haven't been spent to build and maintain highways, and billions more for pipelines, refineries, oil transportation and gas stations. You also talk as if there wont be a huge cost to build biodiesel refineries to replace petrol-based fuels, or nuclear power plants to replace coal.

Windmills don't run all the time at maximum output, in real life they produce maybe 30% of their maximum rated output. So we don't need 2.3 TW of wind to replace what we need, we'd have to start with 3 times that, 7 TW.

Annnnd the inevitable baseload baloney. When your nuclear power plant goes down for planned - or worse, unplanned - maintenance, sometimes for years at a time, you have a megawatt+ sized hole in your grid. That means you need to either build more nuclear generating capacity as well, or use a pumped storage facility as backup. And if pumped storage is good enough for nuclear, it's good enough for wind and solar.

All of the FUD thrown at wind and solar can easily be answered with tech that has long been used for nuclear and coal, like the aforementioned pumped storage. An entire region isn't going to remain both windless and sunless for an extended period of time, but you can move power hundreds of miles via long distance power lines, like ND's Coal Creek Station that generates power for Minneapolis. This means a solar farm in Mexico could supply power to Los Angeles, New York City could be supplied by windmills in Canada, or Miami getting electricity from a pumped storage facility in the mountains of Cuba.

The future is nuclear power.

Nuclear power takes the cost argument, throws it in a dumpster, covers it in diesel fuel and sets it on fire. Finally, the dumpster is nuked from orbit.

Just to be sure.

Nuclear power is not just too risky and too time consuming to build, the cost makes it unjustifiable. Can't throw shade at a solar farm when it costs 20 billion and takes 20 years to bu

I think you're making a "Don't look at how the sausage is made" argument, and of course I have to acknowledge what a mess it is. No surprises or disappointment there.

What I am saying is that reasons matter. Reasons that you can openly discuss in public have certain advantages over secret reasons that may be revealed or exposed. The rationales given for last year's tax scam are obviously completely bogus, but the results are making them increasingly obvious to anyone who cares to look. Unfortunately, one of the problems with the American political system is that the regularly scheduled elections make it too easy to fool most of the people some of the time, with that "some of the time" being election day.

I think this old cartoon is surprisingly relevant: https://www.gocomics.com/pearl...

November 14, 1982. Proof that time travel is real

Actually, you're missing two spaces...

I've got cancer (currently being treated, level 2 out of 4) and that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm blaming asparagus for my condition, and consider myself LUCKY that I haven't accidentally touched more and made myself even worse.

Ok, this is broccoli, but you get the idea.

...and the internal combustion engine was an impressive invention, but I think after a century and a half, we should expect it to be replaced with better technology.

Actually, the internal combustion engine is just one of the four simple machines that alters force, per Calvin and Hobbes

Here it is: http://www.gocomics.com/pearls...

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25

"Verbing weirds language" - January 1993. Sorry but the Millenials parents are who taught them to confuse nouns with verbs ... "I learned it by watching you!"

Exactly how does the drug company initially determine an expiration date?

Perhaps they keep feeding it to people until they die. Kind of like how they do it with bridges....

Ah, you coded for one of the European teams.

http://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy/2010/7/11

http://www.gocomics.com/savage...

Imagine if C3PO was there. ;)

No, it is pseudoscience because it lacks proper repeatability and has only the barest elements of falsifiability.

That can just mean that the subject is hard and that we have discoveries to make, not that we're heading in the completely wrong direction.

option 2: They are wrong and we do everything in our power to stop something that wasnt going to happen anyways: Some short term economic losses, maybe.

Reminded me of this. :)

http://www.gocomics.com/libertymeadows/2017/05/11

> Donno how to tell you this, but in some fields those lousy jobs to gain experience require you have experience.

The age-old dilemma. Nobody wants to train, or consider your ability over experience.

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/12/07

And if you donate enough, God will "Call Home" the other prominent televangelists! Hallelujah!

They're going to need to call in a real expert for this one: http://www.gocomics.com/tomthe...

It was a really fun afternoon of pretending we could hear some sort of Satanist nonsense under all the noise.

Devil bunnies! I snort the nose, Lucifer! Banana! Banana!

Also... kinda funny how Slashdot turns super liberal the minute Trump wins. Where did all those supporters go? Did their last check arrive or something?

I think it's a case of knowing what matters and what doesn't.

In this case, it's "let them get it out of their system, it doesn't matter and it'll let them blow off some steam".

I don't feel any particular need to come to Trump's defence, to counter baseless insults or misleading spin, today.

You may note that it was the losing side that was shrill, insulting, cheating, and at times criminal. No "calibration errors" changed votes to Republican, very few "Clinton" signs were stolen or vandalized, and no one called for the removal of someone else from their job because they supported Hillary.

We also didn't move $60 million from down-ballot elections to unfairly fix our primary, didn't hire protesters to disrupt the opposition rallys (and cause them to cancel), didn't collude with the media, get the debate questions ahead of time, and didn't get free campaigning from the president.

I've never ever laughed out loud at a Marmaduke comic, until today.

Let them get it out of their system, it'll blow over soon, and in the meantime it'll make them feel good.

This is the EXACT kind of bullshit that caused me to flip to Republican this year.

OK, we get it! You're gay. You really don't need to keep coming out to us like this.

Bill Amend was prescient.

Four spaces my ass... learn to indent properly, dammit.

And while you're at it, 2 Spaces!

Or suds+nuns

Too many of those LOL Cheeseburgers will clog your computer's arteries, causing a kernel panic!

So will popcorn

You don't need FB for Bloom County: http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-...

Lucy giveth and taketh away

Since when was critic a verb?

Every since Calvin made verbing popular!

Calvin and Hobbes

The whole thing reminds me of this Bloom County: http://www.gocomics.com/bloomc...

Chances are the whole lawsuit is predicated on the idea that the plaintiffs will get a lot more from Snapchat than they will from an 18 year old.

but it would be a refreshing change of pace to have a legislative body that didnt operate to serve the allmighty dollar.

...and as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony.

It doesn't surprise me at all. There's a lot of morons in the world.

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2012/05/17

http://www.gocomics.com/joelpe...

I really have no idea what "at mega-scale" means,I assume that it means used by some really large but unspecified number. But seeing things like this always reminds me of the Calvin quote Verbing weirds language

People getting outraged over stuff that doesn't concern them isn't new with twitter...

http://www.gocomics.com/bloomc...

Come on, we all know San Francisco is full of them...

Statistically you are in more danger from your own family/friends.

Especially children. Won't somebody think of them?

"What if [climate change is] a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

As for the climate change issue, I think this is a pretty good stance: http://www.gocomics.com/joelpe...

It's a profoundly ignorant stance, both of the economic consequences of screwing with the world's energy and transportation infrastructure, and of hopelessly misunderstanding the opposition to climate change mitigation.

Just as the pen is mightier than the sword,

Maybe. Maybe not.

by Calvin and Hobbes http://www.gocomics.com/calvin...

It's a failure of the president to negotiate, but thats not how the media plays it.

OB: Tom Toles.

Headline screams bad science.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonseq...

this?

He had to replace the squashed styrofoam cow in the Christmas play manger scene:

http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1982/12/22

I loved Bloom County in the 80s. I was sad to see the strip stop. However I moved on and now there are a ton of quality comics to take its place. Do you want sharp, pointed humor? Try Non-Sequiter (ex http://www.gocomics.com/nonseq...). There is xkcd.com, userfriendly.org (yeah, I know the comic is semi-mostly-retired), and PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) http://phdcomics.com/comics.ph....

I'm sorry Bloom County, you were great in the 80s but now it is the 2010s. It might be interesting to read the new strips for the nostalgia factor but that would be about it. After a certain period of time you realize it is time to move on. (Big pointed hint to George R R Martin and his over-delayed next book in the Game of Thrones series)