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User: jamesl

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  1. Economics on Is Montana the Next Big Data Hub? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Companies used to locate based on availability of transportation -- rivers, ports etc. Now it's a data pipe.

  2. Just move on Scientists Race To Develop Livestock That Can Survive Climate Change · · Score: 1

    I would simply buy some land a little farther north.

    Or maybe it's not such a big problem.
    More than 7,000 years ago, domesticated cattle appeared along the Tigris and Euphrates river valley, the origin of the first agricultural society of the Sumerians. The ancient Egyptians made cheese, and Isis, the Egyptian goddess and patroness of agriculture, is often represented as a woman with the horns of a cow, a sacred animal.
    http://www.floridamilk.com/dai...

    Isn't it hot there?

  3. Cost? on BMW Created the Most Efficient Electric Car In the US · · Score: 1

    It would be nice to know how many of these super electric cars have to be sold for the manufacturer to break even. With and without the tax credits.

    Tesla lost $74 million on sales just short of $2 billion in 2013. Cumulative losses from 2009 through 2013 were about $935 million.
    http://quote.morningstar.com/s...

  4. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world ... on BMW Created the Most Efficient Electric Car In the US · · Score: 3, Informative

    German auto brand Volkswagen's XL1, which it claims is the most fuel-efficient production car ever made, has been named the winner of the Transport category at Designs of the Year 2014.
    http://www.dezeen.com/2014/05/...

    You may have seen this advert in the Goodwood Festival of Speed programme and are wondering how we determined that the XL1 was the worldâ(TM)s most fuel-efficient hybrid production vehicle.
    http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/ab...

    And it's a looker.

  5. Failed injection. on Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    According to Robert Patton, the director of Oklahoma's department of corrections, when doctors felt that the drugs were not having the required effect on Lockett, they discovered that a vein had ruptured.
    This is not a problem related to the drug(s) used but incompetent administration.

    This in spite of myriad objections that the drugs being used for both lethal injections had not been tested ...
    How does one test lethal injections?

  6. Local Government Control on To Save the Internet We Need To Own the Means of Distribution · · Score: 1

    The author is recommending that local government own and control "the internet." He uses public roads as an example of local government ownership -- potholes and all.

    When communities own their roads they can and have established the rules of the road. This is why the average speed and carrying capacity of these local roads have skyrocketed in the last two decades.

    Local government ownership of public schools has given us a fine education system turning out young adults that know far more and are more prepared for good jobs than 20 or 30 or 50 years ago.

    You can fire your local cable provider and stop paying if you don't like the product. Try to stop paying taxes sometime.

    By the way, in most places the local cable provider has been handed a franchise by the local government. Clearly they (the government) was knowledgeable and able to specify a high performance product at a fair and reasonable price before awarding the franchise. Weren't they?

  7. Market please on NYC's 19th-Century Horse Carriages Spawn Weird, Truck-Size Electric Car · · Score: 1

    Let the "activists" put up the money, buy a fleet of these things and sell rides through the park. We'll see if the tourists pay for the electrics or the real horses.

    I'll take the horses.

  8. The Corn! on Microsoft Plans $1 Billion Server Farm In Iowa · · Score: 2

    Oh, the corn. Think of the corn. Children will starve in Des Moines.

  9. Not any longer on IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt · · Score: 2

    Victory! Social Security Suspends Stale-Debt Collection Program
    http://overlawyered.com/2014/0...

  10. Wrong question on Will This Flying Car Get Crowdfunded? · · Score: 1

    Right question: "Will This Flying Car Get Off the Ground?" As in, "Will This Flying Car Ever Make a Profit?"

    Just like all others before it, no.

  11. Small beer on 93 Harvard Faculty Members Call On the University To Divest From Fossil Fuels · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's 100 (or 93) faculty members out of "about 2,400 faculty members."

    Another headline could be, "2,307 Harvard Faculty Members Don't Call On the University to Divest From Fossil Fuels."

    http://www.harvard.edu/harvard...

  12. If adware is malware, why wait until July?

    Because if they just popped it on the unsuspecting world with neither prior notification nor opportunity for users and IT professionals to react and inform, pundits would be caught unaware and unprepared and spend the next weeks complaining. Loudly. Vociferously. Obnoxiously. And users would be more pissed off than they will be in any case.

  13. Except ... on Why Movie Streaming Services Are Unsatisfying — and Will Stay That Way · · Score: 1

    According to industry experts ... we aren't anywhere close to getting a service that allows customers to pay a single monthly fee for access to a wide range of top-notch movies and TV shows.

    Just like one service can't provide customers with a wide range of top-notch retail products. Except for Amazon.

  14. How does this compare ... on Federal Student Aid Requirements At For-Profit Colleges Overhauled · · Score: 1

    ... to not-for-profit institutions?

    Perhaps public high schools should be held to the same standard. Like Charter Schools.

  15. Re:How much is enough? on The Billionaires Privatizing American Science · · Score: 1

    Your calculation implies that the benefit is full employment. The benefit of science is knowledge. You get an F.

  16. How much is enough? on The Billionaires Privatizing American Science · · Score: 4, Informative

    The poster asserts, "Government-funded science is struggling in the United States."

    The Federal Government spends more than $130 billion on research and development (R&D) each year, conducted primarily at universities and Federal laboratories.
    http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog...

    How much should the taxpayers spend on research? Show your work.

  17. Re:Big Models on Google Flu Trends Gets It Wrong Three Years Running · · Score: 1

    You'll notice in the graph at your link that the temperature trend is flat since about 2000. No warming. Thanks for proving my point.

    Big picture here ...
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/...

  18. Re:Big Models on Google Flu Trends Gets It Wrong Three Years Running · · Score: 1

    I'll respond to you and hope that your friends below manage to find it.

    On all data sets below, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 8 years and 7 months to 16 years and 8 months.
    1. For GISS, the slope is flat since February 2001 or 12 years, 6 months. (goes to July)
    2. For Hadcrut3, the slope is flat since April 1997 or 16 years, 4 months. (goes to July)
    3. For a combination of GISS, Hadcrut3, UAH and RSS, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 8 months. (goes to July)
    4. For Hadcrut4, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 8 months. (goes to July)
    5. For Hadsst2, the slope is flat since March 1997 or 16 years, 4 months. (goes to June) (The July anomaly is out, but it is not on WFT yet.)
    6. For UAH, the slope is flat since January 2005 or 8 years, 7 months. (goes to July using version 5.5)
    7. For RSS, the slope is flat since December 1996 or 16 years and 8 months. (goes to July)

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/201...

    There is an embarrassing (for you) graph at the link in case you have trouble with numbers.

    I've shown you my data now you can show me yours and we'll see who is the moron, you moron.

  19. Big Models on Google Flu Trends Gets It Wrong Three Years Running · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    It's a failure that highlights the danger of relying on big data technologies.

    Or big models. Like climate models. The ones that have predicted a warming climate for the past 15 years while the climate has not warmed.

  20. That old joke ... on Environmentalists Propose $50 Billion Buyout of Coal Industry - To Shut It Down · · Score: 1

    You know that old joke ... Will the last one out turn off the lights.

    How do these bozos plan to power the lives 300+ million Americans who like to read at night, watch TV and have electric appliances do their laundry and wash their dishes.

    And don't just say, "solar" or "wind" without including the cost (in $Gazillions) and time (in decades) to build out an entirely new infrastructure while inventing some way to store power for calm nights.

    Nuclear? Great. Better start changing regulations and lining up money. Lots and lots of money.

  21. ... as good as ... on Sniffing Out Cancer With Electronic Noses · · Score: 1

    ... a mammogram.

    A low bar.

  22. Alfalfa on Meat Makes Our Planet Thirsty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Alfalfa is used to feed dairy cattle that produce ... dairy ... used to make cheese, yogurt and other products. Alfalfa is not fed to beef cattle.

  23. Reference please on Google Chairman on WhatsApp: $19 Bn For 50 People? Good For Them! · · Score: 1, Interesting

    'Ninety-nine percent of people have seen no economic improvement over the last decade,' he said ...

    I'd like to see an authoritative reference for this statement.

  24. Price? Cost? on California District Launches Country's First All-Electric School Bus · · Score: 1

    Like most stories about electric busses, electric trucks and electric cars, this one includes no useful information about cost. Who thinks that without a taxpayer handout, this thing makes any economic sense to the Kings Canyon Unified School District?

    Pure Pork.

  25. Change is good on Steve Ballmer Blew Up At the Microsoft Board Before Retiring · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... although given that not making hardware propelled them to success in the 90s...

    And making typewriters and mainframes propelled IBM to success in the 60s.