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User: flaming+error

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  1. Re:What if we overcorrect? on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1

    Or perhaps one day, in some far remote future, we'll come up with a phonetic language and dedicate our minds to ideas instead of esoteric rules about apostrophes.

  2. Re:What if we overcorrect? on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1

    "You can go out in the woods, build a cabin, and live without electricity or indoor plumbing."

    Maybe we could. Let's think about it.

    We'd probably have to buy the woods we wanted to build in. We' might need a building permit for the cabin, followed by an inspection. We'd need a permit for a well. We'd probably need to register our firearms, buy a fishing license and hunting license and tags. We might need a business license if we plan to sell those crops, plus all the government oversight selling food would bring.

    So, yeah, maybe it's possible. It doesn't really seem like most people could afford it, and it doesn't seem like most people could comply with all the rules of the various agencies and jurisdictions that could be involved.

    I think the reality is that lifestyle of 200 years ago is gone. Whatever semblance might remain is costly and wrapped in red tape.

  3. Re:The Chinese could pull this off on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1

    Stockholder banks get a guaranteed 6% dividend.

  4. Re:The Chinese could pull this off on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1

    How did you get from here:
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem)

    The basic theorem states that, under a certain market price process (the classical random walk), in the absence of taxes, bankruptcy costs, agency costs, and asymmetric information, and in an efficient market, the value of a firm is unaffected by how that firm is financed.[1] It does not matter if the firm's capital is raised by issuing stock or selling debt. It does not matter what the firm's dividend policy is.

    to here?
    "The Modigliani-Miller theorem of finance shows that how you finance a good idea doesn't matter."

  5. Re:The Chinese could pull this off on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 0

    "The Fed gives the government zero cost borrowing"

    If only that were true. The Federal Reserve is a cabal of privately held banks that charge interest.

  6. Re:Hero ? on GM Names Names, Suspends Two Engineers Over Ignition-Switch Safety · · Score: 2

    Engineers have bosses. Sometimes in a complicated situation where there are no good answers, engineers do what their bosses say.

  7. Re:Level of public funding ? on Nat Geo Writer: Science Is Running Out of "Great" Things To Discover · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "He is ...a very controversial figure in science journalism (in a good way)"

    Good why? Does he have a gift for explaining new scientific discoveries to laypeople? Does he somehow further the state of the art?

    Sounds to me like what he does for a living is tell people that scientific progress is ending. I see no compelling evidence from him supporting that point, and I see nothing good coming from pushing that idea.

    Many Americans don't even accept evolution or global warming yet. Pretending that where we are is the furthest we'll ever get is not constructive and not correct.

    If this is all he's got, I wouldn't even call him a science journalist. He's more like an op-ed columnist/author.

  8. Re:Outrage fatigue on Snowden: NSA Spied On Human Rights Workers · · Score: 1

    If it wasn't a surprise, shouldn't Ukraine have been ready to arrest the hooligans that they instead allowed to steal Crimea?

  9. Re:Not going to work... on Australia Declares Homeopathy Nonsense, Urges Doctors to Inform Patients · · Score: -1

    A while back I was prescribed an anti-depressant. The doctor said he didn't know if it would work for me. He said it wasn't even well understood *how* it worked.

    That confused me because presumably whatever was in the pill was added for a reason, but clearly there's a lot of trial and error. And clearly there are extremely nasty side effects from many drugs.

    So many pharmaceuticals' effectiveness may be overrated, as may be their safety. I'm not sure some medicinal plants are necessarily less effective or less safe.

    Presumably chemicals in our drugs are often extracted from nature. why wouldn't the same chemicals in their natural form have the same potential to work? For example, willow bark has salicin (from whence aspirin came), and has been used medicinally since the time of Hippocrates.

    The idea of treating the whole person instead of just the symptom is a growing concern in western medicine. This has always been the defining characteristic of homeopathy's holistic approach.

    So many homeopathic treatments are almost certainly bunk, but throwing out all homeopathy may be short sighted, just as throwing out all of western medicine would be.

  10. Re:Outrage fatigue on Snowden: NSA Spied On Human Rights Workers · · Score: 5, Interesting
    AlanObject says:

    the same approach that I would have taken given their mission statement

    What "mission statement"? This?

    Collect (including through clandestine means), process, analyze, produce, and disseminate signals intelligence information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes to support national and departmental missions;

    GP is right. They can't process and analyze as much data as they collect, so they don't produce useful intelligence.

    They want to collect everything then go through it later when a need arises

    That's forensics, not intelligence.

    So NSA is on a track where they are sound technically, but way off legally and ethically.

    Just curious - if they are way off ethically and morally, why would you take that same approach?

  11. Re:Knowledge on How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion · · Score: 1

    I am a Mormon atheist who preaches living for this life instead of for an imagined next life.

    May I please be the most annoying person in the great shit hole taxonomy of your mind?

  12. Re:Knowledge on How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nope.

    Atheism: I'm not playing your stupid game.

  13. Re:Knowledge on How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion · · Score: 1

    Only religious people claim that the lack of religion is itself a religion.

    "Faith" is a belief. By what bizarre mental gymnastics do people claim those without belief have faith?

  14. Re:This is a REALLY bad idea on Federal Bill Would Criminalize Revenge Porn Websites · · Score: 1

    Since the law has not yet been drafted, it's kinda hard to say what it's like. But it appears to be the intent to make it a criminal act to upload revenge porn to a website, and to expose the website to some liability for uploaded content.

    So I'd say it's more like suing a website for your ex uploading embarrassing pictures of you.

  15. Re:Don't bother. on The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You seem to have the impression I conceded defeat, and that I was challenging you to next beat someone else.

    My point was only that I am an anonymous layman, and if you managed to defeat me in a debate it would prove nothing. This isn't a frivolous political argument at a donut shop.

    If the science is wrong prove it on scientific turf. Show NASA where they got their physics wrong, teach NOAA how the climate really works, show the field biologists where all the specimens they couldn't find are hiding.

    You haven't disproven a thing. All you've discredited with your lie ("Greenhouse gas theory... has been thoroughly discredited"), esoteric microquibble (" the experimental apparatus..."), and innuendo of bias ("Fourier's conclusions about his friend's experiments") is yourself.

  16. Re:Don't bother. on The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates · · Score: 4, Interesting

    " I can keep shooting you down all day"
    Perhaps you could. Shoot down Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I'll join your team.

  17. Re:AGW Jihadists are the culprit on The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates · · Score: 1

    AGW has been described just fine. And it has been thoroughly verified. So disprove it, and you'll be a scientific rock star, nobel laureate, and savior.

    The prediction part is indeed too primitive to produce the precision "skeptics" demand. So model it better for us.

  18. Re:Don't bother. on The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is about science in general, not AGW in particular.

    But if you want to make it about AGW, the science is not based on surveys, nor is it based on computer models.

    It is based on old school physics that's been developing over centuries.

    CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Not the most potent, but the primary driver.

    Since the industrial revolution began,
    a) Atmospheric CO2 has gone from 280 ppm to 400 ppm (40% increase)
    b) ocean pH has gone down 0.1 (30% increase in acidity).

    What each upcoming season's weather will be we aren't sure.

    But we are sure our changes to the atmosphere are warming the planet, acidifying and enlarging the oceans, and displacing and killing living things.

    All your denialist microquibbles, character assassinations, and FUD are red herrings.

    The core science is not in dispute. It is accepted by every established scientific association on the planet, for every branch of science.

    It's basically accepted by everyone except one political faction in one scientifically illiterate country.

  19. Re:AGW Jihadists are the culprit on The Problem With Congress's Scientific Illiterates · · Score: 2

    Translations from Byese to Sciencese:

    "theory that produces quantitative predictions" = Law
    "theory that happens to be right" = Theory
    [theory that happens to be wrong] = Falsehood

  20. Re:I think this is bullshit on Brendan Eich Steps Down As Mozilla CEO · · Score: 1

    Hey AC, I think you're onto something.

    The godless heathens advocating this marriage agenda are defiling the institution of prostitution.

    The traditional definition of prostituition must be preserved, so in the spirit of fighting for peace, let us all fornicate for chastity.

  21. Re:April Fools stories are gay on OKCupid Warns Off Mozilla Firefox Users Over Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    "Would [you] feel the same way if I said,"

    It has nothing to do with feelings. Or politics Nobody has freedom from consequences, everybody has freedom of opinion.

    That you suggest you could destroy people who never did anything to you changes nothing.

    Unlike your "outspoken homosexual" who presumably lobbies to enjoy your civil rights, Prop 8 supporters inflicted real harm on real people. Their indignation upon learning they face backlash doesn't make them the persecuted victims they pretend to be.

  22. Re:Risk on Should Patients Have the Option To Not Know Their DNA? · · Score: 1

    I don't foresee many lawsuits from patients suing from the grave for diseases they never got. But I guess we are talking about America, aren't we?

  23. Re:April Fools stories are gay on OKCupid Warns Off Mozilla Firefox Users Over Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    harrkev, I commend you for being that rare person who actually internalized some of what Christ had to say.

    So I'm confused. You seem kind of Christ-like, but despite that you self-identify as a christian.

    Well, regardless of the cognitive dissonance, I think your tolerance and ability to love are positive things, and I hope there are others like you who wear sheep's clothing but are not masquerading wolves .

  24. Re:April Fools stories are gay on OKCupid Warns Off Mozilla Firefox Users Over Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    You are very polite.

    Gandhi was a non-violent rebel and a law breaker. I doubt the ruling Brits considered him polite.

    But if they did, kudos to him. I'd never before heard of a nation winning their independence without offending the rulers they deposed.

    Doing it without spilling their blood is impressive enough for me.

  25. Re:April Fools stories are gay on OKCupid Warns Off Mozilla Firefox Users Over Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    What specific "stuff" has been difficult to understand?