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User: Sperbels

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  1. Re:Many bicycle riders do this on Whirling Twirling Propeller Trike · · Score: 1

    Happened to me twice when I was a kid in the 80's. I took the chain guard off my little Huffy because I thought it looked stupid. I was going slow both times it happened so I didn't wreck that badly, but I had a friend who was going about 20 mph when it happened to him on a nice hot asphalt road. There's something to be said for using your own skin as an ablative braking device...ouch!

  2. What's the point? on US Expands Airport Biometric Data Collection · · Score: 1

    Anyone who really wants to get into the country need only sail up to either the pacific or atlantic coast somewhere and jump overboard.

  3. Re:Steam isn't an energy source on The British Steam Car Challenge · · Score: 1

    Nonsense. God just put all this carbon here 6000 years ago to test our faith.

  4. Re:What about the Earth? on Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target · · Score: 1

    Define fixed? I expect most hardcore environmentalists would define "fixed" as eliminating most industry and minimizing argriculture. Now, how would you propose maintaining a rapidly growing population of 6 billion (and growing) without industry? And how would you keep the existing power structures happy so they don't bury you? It can't be done.

  5. Re:Short-Sighted Bastards... on Subcommittee Stops Human Mars Mission Spending · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm all for establishing colonies on the moon and Mars, but the idea that we need to do this now because of an inevitable meteor strike is not terribly realistic. Given a worst case scenario like a gigantic comet hitting the earth and setting everything ablaze...with dust blocking out the sun for decades, and a new ice age, etc... Humans would still be able to survive in very small self sustaining shelters, similar to the places where people would be living on the moon and Mars. If we're using a some kind of mass extinction event as justification, then it's still easier to survive on an utterly lifeless and devastated Earth than it is to survive on the Moon or Mars. If for no other reason than we have an near endless supply of oxygen and water and dirt that is suitable to growing food.

  6. Re:what a horrible waste on CNBC Software Flaw Worth $1 Million? · · Score: 1

    All MMO's have a cash money prize, it's called Ebay.
    It was EBay. A few months ago Ebay banned sales of all virtual property.
  7. Re:What Tolkien would have said about the game... on Your Lord of the Rings Online Questions Answered · · Score: 1

    Wow, I got modded off topic for answering one of the questions in the summary. It was even an apt answer considering Tolkien was essentially a luddite.

  8. What Tolkien would have said about the game... on Your Lord of the Rings Online Questions Answered · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He would have said turn off the computer, go outside and get some exercise.

  9. I have one thing to say about that... on Fallout 3 Trailer Available Online · · Score: 1

    Awesome.

  10. Re:The Film Would Be Even Longer If Made In The US on British Civil Liberties Film Released · · Score: 1

    Talk about disappearing civil liberties, but this country might have well reverted to monarchy rule. It would really be tough to call it a democracy any longer.
    Come on, it's not that bad. We get a whole new monarch in a year and a half.
  11. Re:Faithful to the books? on Lord of the Rings Online Review · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Tom is kind of flaky in the game. He dances around and talks nonesense
    And this is different from the book how?
  12. Re:Paying Multiple Times & Continuously on Ask Turbine's Jeff Anderson About LOTRO · · Score: 1

    Look at it this way. For your normal single player game, you buy the game and play it on your computer. That's it. With an MMO, you buy the game, connect to a large network for of servers with thousands of other players. Someone has to pay for all of these servers. Someone has to play the staff to maintain them. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth so you can talk to them. Someone has to maintain the game...there's an army of developers that continue to work on the game after it's release...somebody has to pay their salaries. So why would a $50 multiplayer game be worth the same as a $50 single player game?

  13. Re:Still more evidence... on Surprising Further Evidence for a Wet Mars · · Score: 1

    So you're saying that a golf cart with a few scientific instruments on it can do more research than a base manned with scientists?

  14. What about professionals? on MIT Media Lab Making Programming Fun For Kids · · Score: 1

    Programming was fun when I was kid. It became un-fun when I started doing it for money. How about they fix that?

  15. Re:Good priorities on DARPA Developing Defensive Plasma Shield · · Score: 1

    Well, if not for those really deadly weapons you might be typing that post in German, or Japanese. Not that I'm an overly militant person or anything. But weapons have their place. I just wish we weren't putting them in the hands of total idiot.

  16. Re:I'd better get one, too on DARPA Developing Defensive Plasma Shield · · Score: 1

    I don't think you'll have to worry about that. A weapon with such perfect accuracy would allow some crazy person to sit a mile away popping little cauterized holes through people's heads with ease. And the police wouldn't be able to do a thing about it as the beam (unless I'm mistaken) would be practically invisible. I don't think any government would sell something like that to its citizens.

  17. Re:A Time and a Place on The Real Reasons Phones Are Kept Off Planes · · Score: 1

    Ack! It's quiet... Q-U-I-E-T. Not quite.

  18. Good Content on Internet Curfew for College Students? · · Score: 1

    It is my firm belief that the good content will ultimately prevail over the bad.

  19. The Integral Trees on Scientifically Accurate Sci-Fi for High-Schoolers? · · Score: 1

    The Integral Trees by Larry Niven is a great book for helping students conceptualize celestial mechanics. It's about a primitive society of humans (descendants of a mutineer space travelers) living inside of a vast zero-g ecosystem that are suddenly displaced by an small ecological disaster. Along their way they discover other societies who have adapted to varied living conditions throughout the world. Quite an interesting book.

  20. Re:Great science on VR Game Ties Depression To Brain Area · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. I find my creativity is greatly enhanced when I'm depressed. Unfortunately, It's harder to put that creativity to work when I'm depressed.

  21. Re:Is it worth going back to the lunar surface? on NASA's New Mission to the Moon · · Score: 1

    LOL, I love how a contentless post like this gets modded up insightful. Insightful how? You haven't listed any good reasons why returning to the moon is worth it. How about this...it's better than giving the money to defense contractors for more stealth bombers.
  22. If porn is outlawed... on Web Censorship Proposed For Norway · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...only outlaws will have porn.

  23. Re: Fixing what isn't broken on Geo-Engineering to stop Climate Change · · Score: 1

    Consider the direct cost of moving all the world's coastal cities to higher ground. Consider what's going to happen when the world's current breadbaskets turn to deserts, and some of the present day's have-not countries find themselves sitting on the new best farmland. Consider the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    Cutting emissions is surely the safest way to manage it. (And for those of you still denying that its anthropogenic, it hardly matters. We have the need and the power to do something about it, and it's past time we got started.) Agreed. It's about time we stopped polluting our atmosphere and start building more nuclear power plants.
  24. Re:It wasn't religion, it was Islam; on Two Ways Not To Handle Free Speech · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tell that to the Iraqis

  25. Re:A good point on Another Small Step Before the Giant Leap · · Score: 1
    If a moon base is premature, it's more to do with solving problems here on earth first - let's spend money fixing earth before we start trashing other planets/moons.
    This is far more ambitious than a Mars colony. Seems unlikely we will ever overcome all of the environmental problems that come with industrialization. And it's only going to get worse as the population continues to climb. Seems silly to curb technological developments in aerospace just so we can undertake the futile task of creating a totally green industrial infrastructure. It just won't happen.