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User: Your.Master

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  1. Re:Wholly feck, did you just say that? on How 4H Is Helping Big Ag Take Over Africa · · Score: 2

    Stamping Kosher is like stamping something non-GMO. Stamping GMO is like stamping non-Kosher. Jews absolutely do not get foodstuffs stamped "this is not Kosher". It's 100% beef far more often than it's 0% pork.

    If you require that you only eat non-GMO food, then get food stamped as non-GMO. I will support *that* stamp. If that stamp is not legally defensible, then you have a legitimate grievance. I support mandatory labelling of known health consequences (like nutritional information), and I support trust-in-advertising laws that say if you label something non-GMO it better not have GMO products in it. I do not support mandatory labelling of the arbitrarily large list of things that have no known health consequences, but which some people may believe have health consequences.

    I don't think I've ever heard of a subculture that specifically tries to buy only GMO food, the way Jews go for Kosher food. Although I have to admit I sometimes hesitate when I see an organic label on something, and think "would this be organic anyway and they are just putting it on the label because it sells, or did they make some compromise that I wouldn't have wanted them to make just so they could add this logo".

    Might as well ask why we don't mandatorily label things as containing products harvested using John Deere. They should be proud to stamp their box with "JOHN DEERE HARVESTED FOOD" for all the world to see, if there's no harm and no fear of harm from John Deere harvesters.

  2. Re:Links for a quick review of today's Rosetta eve on Philae Lands Successfully On Comet · · Score: 1

    You think the signal to noise ratio would be improved by less granularity?

  3. Re:Ok but that's electricity, not energy on Denmark Faces a Tricky Transition To 100 Percent Renewable Energy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wouldn't take 25 degrees C as the target room temperature.

    I would rather use room temperature as the target room temperature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

    You probably come from somewhere warm if you take 25 C as a target. Someone from somewhere cold might be perfectly comfortable going less than room temperature (and also wearing a sweater -- you can bundle yourself up to a greater than you can strip down).

    You should also note that indoors is already warmer than the outdoors due both to waste heat from electric equipment and the humans inside, combined with the insulation (which tends to be much higher in cold places).

    The other consideration here is it's simply easier to heat with alternative energy sources. Such as wood. Right now my heating and A/C are on the fritz due to some water damage and I'm using a wood fireplace.

    The counter here would be that sources like solar are also more fruitful on warm days.

    This said, I am aware of the recent findings that, at least in the US, heating tends to be more energy expensive than cooling. That's even easier to believe if you're all cranking it to 25.

  4. Re:Are renewable energy generators up to task ? on Denmark Faces a Tricky Transition To 100 Percent Renewable Energy · · Score: 1

    Is the summary wrong then, or incomplete?

    aiming to end the burning of fossil fuels in any form by 2050

    Gas heating is burning fossil fuels in any form.

  5. Re:Be the Change You Wish to See in the World on The Students Who Feel They Have the Right To Cheat · · Score: 1

    The guy you are talking to was resisting somebody who claimed all tests were 100% about control. I don't get why you're arguing against him. He's on your side.

  6. Re:When pet theories die... on CERN May Not Have Discovered Higgs Boson After All · · Score: 2

    Gravy train? Retired and comfy?

    How much money do you think CERN researchers make?

  7. Re:I call bullshit on Washington Dancers Sue To Prevent Identity Disclosure · · Score: 1

    Really?

    I mean this honestly -- is that common at all? I literally don't understand how that could be a breach of privacy. And even if it is, how could it not be the least of the privacy violations here.

  8. Re: Senator James Inhofe on When We Don't Like the Solution, We Deny the Problem · · Score: 1

    I tend to know if it was correct or if I was just guessing.

    Maybe if you're testing rote memorization of facts. But climate change is a math / science question.

    If you have a math test that is set appropriately to test you, then some questions should be right at your limit. In fact, a properly administered test at the end of a University course of either math or a math-heavy science course is very likely to end with many people being *almost* right but having a key error.

    If you don't have experience with this, then you've never been appropriately tested. I don't care how smart you are.

    You're basically saying you've never in your life been wrong about anything. It's just ridiculous.

  9. Re:Senator James Inhofe on When We Don't Like the Solution, We Deny the Problem · · Score: 1

    Irony overload.

    First of all, you actually have the same problem he's talking about -- an inability to tell the difference. I thought the first AC making fun of Republicans was being ridiculous but you're a great example of what he was talking about.

    Second, you're referencing "Bush Lied People Died", which was a case where people doggedly insisted that Bush lied (instead of him behaving, perhaps poorly or inappropriately, but nevertheless honestly reacting to the legitimate information he had). You're talking about somebody still yelling that. For pointing out that making an incorrect prediction isn't lying, nor does it mean that no prediction you ever make will ever hold.

  10. Re:Senator James Inhofe on When We Don't Like the Solution, We Deny the Problem · · Score: 2

    LARGE MAJORITY of the population doesn't believe AGW

    Wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

    I'm curious why you even believed this. My knee-jerk reactionw as "there's no way that's even close to true" and a quick search bore out that instinct..

  11. Re:Senator James Inhofe on When We Don't Like the Solution, We Deny the Problem · · Score: 1

    I would rather reality.

    Among other things, hyperbole can lead to inaction as soon as somebody calls one bluff. There's a mostly-incoherent incoherent post above from a guy who found two incorrect statements about climate change and therefore doesn't believe it happens. That's a result of hyperbole.

  12. Re:Right on Amazon's Echo Chamber · · Score: 1

    Your second link shows it earning money at a low but fairly consistent rate, completely defeating your assertion.

    Your first link shows them losing money over one quarter and predicting more losses, which would make this year a big loss. Which is obviously not ideal, but hardly consistent when the four year trend prior was profitable:

    http://investing.businessweek....

    They certainly can't afford to become consistent in losses of this year's scale, but you can hardly say that they lose money consistently (yet).

  13. Re:Who is that? on Amazon's Echo Chamber · · Score: 3, Informative

    Amazon has low profit *compared to its size and revenue*, but a mom and pop corner store with this kind of profit would be astounding.

    Here's their past few years:

    http://investing.businessweek....

    2010: 1.15 billion
    2011: 631 million
    2012: loss of 39 million. So admittedly, Mom & Pop would be in trouble if they started in 2012.
    2013: 274 million.

    I would love to have a mom and pop store that made approximately 2 billion dollars profit in the past four years.

    Now, this year looks like it might be another loser year, but it's hard to tell because the xmas season tends to be disproportionately profitable. They do operate right on the knife's edge, playing the long game that we so often say that companies can't bring themselves to do. But the way you write that makes it sound like they have a lifetime and yearly net loss, and no, Amazon is overall much more profitable than a mom and pop corner store.

    Measures like return on assets could be another story.

  14. Re: Sweet, can we stop talking about it now? on Long-term Study Finds No Link Between Video Game Violence and Real Violence · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this really controversial? The proof is in the amount of money spent on advertising. Sure, some advertising just gets the word out, but, for example, McDonalds or Coca-Cola ads are all about behaviour modification, because everybody has already heard of both things, even though individual people widely believe they are unaffected by the ads they watch.

    That's why things like this study are useful to establish that violence is *not* among the things that are easily injected into consumer thoughts. Now, of course, a key difference is that McDonalds and Coke are specifically trying to change your behaviour. Games aren't trying to make you more violent, they are mostly just trying to be fun and occasionally they might try to make you think about something when the game creators are feeling particularly artsy. Arguably that one US army game might actually be about promoting violence in some sense, but it's an extreme exception to the rule.

    Sexism is like violence in that it can be part of a game, both purposely and incidentally, but it's very rare that the point of the game is promoting sexism. So is the salient difference here the intention of the media? Or is violence just especially repulsive? That would be a follow-up.

  15. Re:Could have been worse on CNN Anchors Caught On Camera Using Microsoft Surface As an iPad Stand · · Score: 1

    Their surface division is 2 billion in the red.

    Cite? That seems like an extraordinary claim.

  16. Re: Just on PC Cooling Specialist Zalman Goes Bankrupt Due To Fraud · · Score: 1

    I think you're trying to say is they haven't done good capitalism.

    Literally the definition of capitalism is

    an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for profit.

    (cite for that exact phrasing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...).

    The word owned there is relevant. Theft is a subversion of ownership and thus stealing can legitimately be called anti-capitalist.

    That said, the GP wasn't defining capitalism, he was saying capitalism relied on profitable manufacturing of goods. I would clarify that this is one of several things it relies on, I don't disagree that capitalism relies on that.

  17. Re:I wonder how long until we realize... on Shift Work Dulls Brain Performance · · Score: 1

    public health is socialism.

    That's like saying mass media is feudalism. Or that the flu is capitalism. You're thinking of public healthcare, not public health.

    Having established that -- public health is inherently not individual (that's what makes it public) and therefore it literally cannot be an individual responsibility. Calling it an individual responsibility is tantamount to calling for irresponsibility.

    That doesn't necessarily mean that government has to do it -- washing your hands is a public health issue that has some government involvement in places like restaurants and also in educating students in schools, but is mostly a cultural thing that is enforced through parental teachings, shunning, etc.. Sometimes governments jumpstart these things -- seatbelt wearing is just an unconscious fact of life for most people my age and younger, but it's also an enforced law and that's because after seatbelts were available people still didn't wear them. Seatbelts are thus mostly a non-governmental issue now (at least in the circles I run in), which was a governmental thing in the past. Standard vaccines are basically pushed by government agencies even though most non-crazy people tacitly support these measures.

    It's legitimate to question whether this is a public health issue, or whether seatbelt wear was truly public health, or the degree of severity and "public-ness" necessary to warrant government intervention. It's pretty much ideological crazytown to deny that issues of public health exist.

  18. Re:"I don't care" camp. on Ask Slashdot: Where Do You Stand on Daylight Saving Time? · · Score: 1

    Do you just go to appointments 15 minutes early to be sure, or do you let yourself be late half the time?

  19. Re: Haleluja ... on Pope Francis Declares Evolution and Big Bang Theory Are Right · · Score: 1

    He didn't say every Catholic gets to interpret matters on their own. He said that not everything a pope says is considered infallible.

  20. Re:So the taxpayer pays for overage, got it on Steve Ballmer Gets Billion-Dollar Tax Write-Off For Being Basketball Baron · · Score: 1

    He's not being punished. He's being rewarded with more money. You just want to reward him with even more money than everybody else wants to reward him with. Everybody else is saying "that's kind of unnecessary".

  21. Re:So the taxpayer pays for overage, got it on Steve Ballmer Gets Billion-Dollar Tax Write-Off For Being Basketball Baron · · Score: 1

    The GPA is intentionally distributed, by professors/teachers/etc., in order to fit a preconceived model. Sometimes it's a forced curve applied after the fact, and sometimes it's just in setting the tests in the first place such that the curve is expected to fall out naturally. By contrast, under pure capitalism, compensation is an emergent behaviour.

    A school environment is a communist environment in this sense, or at least a socialist one ("To each according to their contribution"). To make an equivalent for capitalism, you would have to be able to exchange your GPA for goods and services that directly impacted your ability to increase your GPA. Eg. spend a 0.3 GPA points on a tutor.

    If the school model for GPAs is a good model to follow for compensation, then you should have a central authority or central authorities distributing your income according to their perception of your contribution. I don't think that's the point you were trying to make.

  22. Re:Who? on We Are All Confident Idiots · · Score: 1

    The Dunning-Kruger effect is exactly what the summary is describing, and I do think it's rather interesting.

    I had no idea that Dunning's first name was David, and I wouldn't say I was familiar with him. I also know nothing about Kruger and don't really care to look him up personally.

  23. Re:Meet somewhere in the middle on FTC Sues AT&T For Throttling 'Unlimited' Data Plan Customers Up To 90% · · Score: 1

    By that definition unlimited is literally impossible, since you are limited by bandwidth multiplied by time.

  24. Re:Opinion are wortheless on Creationism Conference at Michigan State University Stirs Unease · · Score: 1

    Copernicus predates the scientific method and Galileo is contemporary with its formulation. In Copernicus' time, no "great scientific mind" had declared the world to be flat for a couple thousand years. But yes, geocentric orbital mechanics (with "epicycles") were a thing in those days.

  25. Re: Why at a place of learning? on Creationism Conference at Michigan State University Stirs Unease · · Score: 1

    No, science is not required to cater to everybody else.

    When a Jehovah's witness comes to my door and I politely send them away rather than inviting them in, it's not because I'm afraid that I might like the Watchtower. It's because I don't have time for that shit.