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User: History's+Coming+To

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  1. Re:subtiles on NetFlix Caught Stealing DivX Subtitles From Finnish Pirates · · Score: 3, Informative

    Every summary contains an obvious typo, formatting error or similar glitch to encourage people to post and to increase ad traffic. Try putting an oblivious mistake into one of your posts and see how long it takes for people to respond to that rather than your original point...

  2. Re:DNA is an Earth-specific coincidence on Craig Venter Wants To Rebuild Martian Life In Earth Lab · · Score: 1

    I've never heard of a nucleic acid based life-form that reduces the total amount of life. OK, so it's possible that a big viral outbreak will kill all 7-billion-odd humans, but that results in several billion-billion-billion new viruses, so that's even more life (if you accept virii are "life"). What we could theoretically find is adaptations to protect against high levels of UV or similar, which would give us an idea of why life is non-existant or very rare on Mars, but I doubt we'd end up with an Earth devoid of life. Yes, it might all be red weed and "Ulla!", but that's still life.

    End of the day though, the chances of finding any molecule that is biologically viable is even smaller than finding traces of pre-existing life, which seem faint already.

  3. Re:DNA Half-life on Craig Venter Wants To Rebuild Martian Life In Earth Lab · · Score: 1

    It's conceivable that with a large enough sample size you could find common protein encoding sections which would allow you to, for example, discover whether photosynthesis was in operation and which chemicals were involved, giving a rough idea of the types of plant life, if not Jurassic Park style examples of individual species.

  4. Re:DNA is an Earth-specific coincidence on Craig Venter Wants To Rebuild Martian Life In Earth Lab · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's the big question - is it a coincidence? It's entirely possible that, just as the CNO cycle is a common method of fusion in stars, that DNA, RNA or close analogues (eg Si or As based) are common ways of producing self-replicating molecules. We've only got a single data point, any speculation on the molecular basis of ET life is just that, pure speculation, until we have a second point.

  5. Re:There's a good dog on The Long Reach of US Extradition · · Score: 2

    As with Dem/Rep party politics, the UK's Labour and Conservative parties will always disagree with each other on principle, unless it's to give condolences to the family of dead soldiers, children etc. Pick a policy - there's a high chance that both parties will have both supported and criticised it at some point in the last decade, with a strong correlation to whoever was suggesting it at the time. Neither party is remotely concerned with evidence based policy while they're in a position to have a go at the other side, it's essentially just two groups of children trying to shout each other down.

  6. Re:this is intolerable on Teen Suicide Tormentor Outed By Anonymous · · Score: 1

    Playing devil's advocate here:

    If they handed the information over to the authorities, and presuming the guy did everything he's being accused of, then he would probably face a civilized court case, maybe be convicted, depending on the funding available to him, and probably serve a few months or years before being released into a new identity. I can understand why some would consider this to be insufficient punishment, so we're seeing a short-term terror campaign instead. IF they're right then I can't help but feel a little sympathetic to the principle, however it is both likely illegal, likely to prejudice legal process and could very conceivably lead to a greater crime (mob lynching etc) taking place.

  7. Re:"It's 2012" on Thousands of Muslims Protest 'Age of Mockery' At Google's London Headquarters · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Nepali calendar is currently in 2069, which explains their ongoing moon colonisation and widespread use of quantum computers to solve protein folding problems and cure cancer. Nice argument, well done.

  8. Re:Missed Opportunity on Thousands of Muslims Protest 'Age of Mockery' At Google's London Headquarters · · Score: 1

    Which is precisely the view of Islamic extremists, full circle, well done.

    Would everyone who would like a great big fight please report to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. A variety of blunt objects will be provided, and you can all fight to your heart or god's content. The rest of us will just carry on being reasonable, survivors may apply for readmission to the rest of the world once they've done a few generations evolving.

  9. Re:Truly horrible. on How Facebook Can Out Your Most Personal Secrets · · Score: 1

    "Black" implies a person has a skin colour towards the darker end of the spectrum. "Religious" implies the person subscribes to a religion, a doctrinal belief system, of which most include obligatory views on sexual behaviour. The point stands as far as I'm concerned.

  10. Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! on How Facebook Can Out Your Most Personal Secrets · · Score: 1

    Indeed. "both students were sophisticated users who had attempted to use Facebook's privacy settings to shield some of their activities from their parents" - I'm sorry, but sophisticated users either don't use Facebook or accept that there will probably be a breach of their privacy at some point, trying to find a middle ground is just being naive.

  11. Re:Redbull on Felix Baumgartner's Supersonic Skydive Attempt · · Score: 2

    Agreed, it did sound a little bit like the narcs, although there's a lot of other explanations, such as information overload, glitchy or unclear RT or even a pre-arranged "lack of communication" to up the suspense and provide a better spectacle, which at the end of the day provides more publicity for Red Bull who are paying for the thing at the end of the day. Baumgartner was certainly on top of things while going through the egress checklist practice run - he failed to respond a couple of times and was still able to point out that his leg camera switch-off (an unrelated item) was four minutes overdue.

  12. Re:Unstable? on Black Hole's "Point of No Return" Found · · Score: 1

    Indeed, I doubt a human in free-fall would feel a thing when crossing the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, it's the little ones you have to watch out for.

  13. Re:The challenge of getting past c on Mathematicians Extend Einstein's Special Relativity Beyond Speed of Light · · Score: 1

    Tachyons were predicted by Einstein in the original, he realised that the equations carried on after the asymptote and that this would lead to tachyon type particles, and that this was a relatively meaningless part of the theory without experimental backup. It sounds like this article simply rehashes this work.

  14. Re:Hybrid on Will the Desktop PC Live Forever? · · Score: 1

    It makes perfect sense for a 5 year old laptop to not run modern software.

    If you're in sales, marketing or lazy programming, then yes. If you're a user then no, but hey, the users don't have marketing diplomas, so what do they know?

  15. Re:Are these guys kidding? on Will the Desktop PC Live Forever? · · Score: 1

    {pedantry} Show me an example of a clock that's not ultimately weight based....well, technically mass based, but all masses are in gravitational fields, so...

    Even atomic clocks rely on transitions in Caesium which involve a little E=mc^2, and therefore a change in mass. {/pedantry}

  16. Re:My Civic CRX got 56 MPG in 1985 on How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025 · · Score: 1

    Electrical, yes, but electronic? We've had plenty of cars without a single line of code anywhere near them, and points to control the ignition. Circa 1980, so yeah, old, but not that old. Diesels don't even require ignition once they're running.

  17. Re:Simple grade-school engineering problem on How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025 · · Score: 1

    That Escher bloke should be put in charge of transport policy worldwide.

  18. Re:My Civic CRX got 56 MPG in 1985 on How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025 · · Score: 1

    The big box of electronics, however, does a lot to improve efficiency. Compare a modern EMS setup with a proper old fashioned suck-squeeze-bang-blow engine of the same size and there's a fair difference. (Although I still firmly believe that a "pure mechanical" fallback mode should be provided on all vehicles with an EMS)

  19. Re:the easiest way on How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025 · · Score: 1

    As pointed out above, I think there's a little Euro/US Gallon confusion here. European cars are certainly smaller and more efficient on average, but I think the two different MPGs are getting mixed up.

  20. Re:2000 Honda Insight, Metros/Swifts, Honda CRX HF on How We'll Get To 54.5 Mpg By 2025 · · Score: 1

    I recently got myself a rather old and battered VW T4 TDI, the 2.5L model. I'm comfortably getting 45mpg from it, low resistance tyres, better aerodynamics and a lower ratio in 5th and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I could get 50mpg+, and that's for a heffing big 1.8 ton van.

    The one thing that could dramatically cut fuel usage would be computer controlled convoys slipstreaming each other a metre or so apart. Following cars could practically turn the engine off.

  21. Re:Oh dear ? on UK Man Arrested For Offensive Joke Posted On Facebook · · Score: 2

    Agreed. I'm a Brit and I'll quite happily defend the fact that we don't have absolute free speech as in the US. There are things that are so likely to cause harm that making it illegal is entirely defensible as far as I'm concerned, but this case is very far removed from that. It's a sick joke, but a fair and just result is for the guy to be heavily criticized in public. If we go down the route of allowing Daily Mail readers to be the arbiters of what is and isn't "grossly offensive" then we might as well give up and put a religion in charge (which we're also dangerously close to).

  22. Re:series of tubes on Astronomers Search For Dyson Spheres of Alien Civilizations · · Score: 1

    The ultimate result presumably being a sphere the size of the observable universe with a very small and pure black body spectrum, say around 2.7K, and with a vaguely fractal internal construction?

  23. Re:series of tubes on Astronomers Search For Dyson Spheres of Alien Civilizations · · Score: 2

    A Dyson sphere captures the entire (or close to) energy output of an entire star. Moving planet isn't the argument to use against it, moving an entire colonised solar system is. Building a Dyson sphere is pointless unless you're outgrowing the major system bodies.

  24. Re:series of tubes on Astronomers Search For Dyson Spheres of Alien Civilizations · · Score: 2

    Not necessarily - a Matrioshka brain is constructed from (or in the same way as) a Dyson sphere, the difference being that the brain is designed to compute using the energy it collects, while a Dyson sphere is more generic - it collects the energy and you can then do what you want with it. Advanced civilizations may only use a fraction of their power supply for computing, the rest could be used for a (very literally) unimaginable range of things.

    Of course, this presumes that advanced civilizations will simply re-radiate the left-over thermal energy, it's entirely possible that they would have close to 100% efficient systems or have a economically sensible way of storing thermal energy to re-use at a later date.

  25. Re:Like he said on Microsoft Co-founder Dings Windows 8 As 'Puzzling, Confusing' · · Score: 1

    It's generally easiest to just wipe the HD and start fresh - you can sometimes get a discount, anything up to $50 for "declining the OS", but as often as not you won't because the OS doesn't actually cost the OEM anything, and sometimes subsidises the cost of the machine.