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User: RockDoctor

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Comments · 9,966

  1. Re:A Fetus Holocaust on World-First: Woman Becomes Pregnant After Ovarian Tissue Graft · · Score: 1

    Just kidding. I don't have a problem with in vitro fertilization.

    I just want to make sure that when whores fuck, they are punished with a child for the rest of their lives.

    . . . An then you want them to die, to atone for your sins. FOAD

  2. Re:so its not global warming? on The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change · · Score: 1

    But why do controlled burns? Why not do controlled logging of the forest instead? If people are willing to consider that controlled burns are OK, why not controlled logging?

    Because controlled logging implies bringing lumber out of the forest, which also means logging roads, and getting non-target trees / bushes / ground litter and ground-level plants either removed or severely damaged. Which then greatly increases the likelihood of destructive soil erosion.

    Enough reasons?

  3. Re:so its not global warming? on The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change · · Score: 1

    You can't answer my question either: Why does a 10K year old old growth forest not contain 10x the carbon of a 1K year old one?

    Your question contains major unstated assumptions which are not correct, and some which you're probably not aware of.

    Firstly, you're assuming that carbon sequestration is linear with the age of a forest ; it's not. The absorbtion profile is complex and variable with time as well as species (mix) and climate. Initially, as a forest gets established, a lot of carbon is absorbed as saplings grow into trees (and their root systems ; typically as massive as the visible parts of the tree). As the forest matures, absorbtion rates (typically) decline towards stasis, as decomposition of fallen wood balances absorbtion by growing wood (this is about when you'd be looking at taking your lumber, if you're managing for lumber production).

    Secondarily, you seem to be assuming that you'd be able to recognise deposited carbon from the cab of your JCB. Which is not a given : after a year of studying soil science, I couldn't tell the difference between a 1% OM soil and a 2% soil without doing an analysis - it's not possible. and volumetrically, much more carbon is stored in 1% and 2% OM soils than 90% OM soils. You probably could recognise a 90% OM soil from the cab of your JCB, but you still would have a problem to differentiate between that and a 75% OM soil. Which makes a big difference to doing the actual sums.

    But of course, you're not going to believe that, because only things that you can see from the cab of your JCB are important. Life disagrees with you, but that's your loss.

  4. Re:so its not global warming? on The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change · · Score: 1

    You apparently also didn't know that a significant portion of wood ash is calcium CARBONate.

    Wellllll ... actually potassium / sodium carbonate. But that throws down calcium carbonate when it meets a source of calcium ions, which is likely to happen pretty soon in most natural environments.

  5. Re:so its not global warming? on The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change · · Score: 1

    You are not a pedologist or edaphologist or other soil scientist;

    Not a member of the high priests of ecology then, right? Not privy to the secret knowledge of the inner circles?

    Well, you certainly don't sound like anyone who's done any study of either ecology (what you're complaining about) or soil science (what the GP was talking about), if you're getting the two subjects confused.

    I suppose if your life consists of hitting things with a JCB (American : backhoe, though how you relate an anal prostitute to earth-moving machinery, I don't know. Or maybe posing the question clarifies the issue.), then it's hard to distinguish between the two, but if you actually get out of the cab and get your nose against the subject, you'll rapidly find yourself learning things you'd never have seen from the cab.

  6. Re:so its not global warming? on The Yosemite Inferno In the Context of Forest Policy, Ecology and Climate Change · · Score: 1

    This is true over the very long term--in the extreme case of Carboniferous forests, 300 million years or so; we're only now getting around to releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere by burning coal.

    A lot of the Middle East's oil reserves are sourced from marine-derived organic matter laid down into mudrocks and limestones in the Cambrian, 500+ million years ago. So, burning that today, as we do, is returning carbon to the cycle after a half-billion year hiatus. (As Michael Caine would put it, "Not a lot of people know that!")

    the organic waste that makes forest floors into fertile ground for the next generation of trees. Rotted wood, bits of smaller plants, bug poop ... it all looks like a buffet to a sapling.

    A sapling, almost always via a fungus. People tend to overlook the largest single organisms on the planet, but they're tremendously important to nutrient cycling.

  7. Re:Talk about a proactive jumpstart on Scottish Academic: Mining the Moon For Helium 3 Is Evil · · Score: 1

    With Fermi, notorious for his on-the-fly calculations, in charge of the science side of the project, I'm not surprised that the "worrier" didn't let his name go public. Fermi would have shredded him, publicly.

  8. Re:Pseudoscience debunked? on Feds Seek Prison For Man Who Taught How To Beat a Polygraph · · Score: 1

    True christians would never do that.

    So ... what is your criterion for distinguishing a "true christian" from a "false christian"? You lock the test object into a sealed room with a known-good witch, close the door, come back later?

    I'm trying to continue the experimental design further, but Schrodinger's cat keeps batting on the door, demanding to be let into the box. I'm not sure either christian or witch would survive the experiment.

  9. Well, it's noce to know ... on First Asteroid Discovered At Uranus's Leading Trojan Point · · Score: 1
    ... But it's hardly surprising. Uranus is a planet, and it's not in any particularly close resonance relations to any others, so you'd pretty much expect it to have some Trojan companions (double entendre resisted, almost). So that's Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter definitely with Trojans ; Mars ... yes, three or seven, depending on who you ask ; Earth ... well allegedly yes, but there are complications like Cruithne too - a "quasi-satellite".

    It seems as if all of the Solar System's planets are obeying the universal law of gravity, with the arguable exception of Mercury and Venus. And for them (and outer dwarf planets too), the increasing complication of small spaces and/ or multiple bodies messing up relationships make it unsurprising that Trojans are rare and temporary enough to not have been found.

    It's nice work, but hardly earth-shattering. Not even Uranus-shattering.

  10. Re:Planet mayhem on First Asteroid Discovered At Uranus's Leading Trojan Point · · Score: 1

    If not, please seek professional help before you screw up your child(ren).

    He could always go to his priest to make sure that his children get properly, professionally screwed up.

  11. Re:Oh Dear on First Asteroid Discovered At Uranus's Leading Trojan Point · · Score: 1

    (why not mine from the giant planet itself?, there's more stuff and it's a cool idea too)

    ... and the "surface" of the planet (cloud tops, actually) is at the bottom of a deep gravitational well. That is the "why not".

  12. Re:Oh Dear on First Asteroid Discovered At Uranus's Leading Trojan Point · · Score: 1

    Guess what a greengrocer's apostrophe says about your education...

    Is suggests that he was educated with a radish. Hammered home. Sideways. Dry.

    About what is deserved for succumbing to a "Uranus" joke.

  13. Re:Pending Disaster on The Golden Gate Barrage: New Ideas To Counter Sea Level Rise · · Score: 1

    While 15 meters really is not that much for elevation, especially when talking about tsunamis, it also depends on what event triggered the tsunami and that location.

    I did my homework ; the locally-sourced tsunami of the North Sea basin are related to submarine landslips on the mid-Norwegian continental slope involving thousands of cubic kilometres of sediment (for comparison, the 1929 Newfoundland/ Grand Banks earthquake and tsunami involved on the order of a hundred cu.km). Run-up heights on the exposed coasts between me and the source region vary between 2 and 6m, so I'm looking at 10m as a working figure, and keeping 15m of freeboard from that.

    If we had another Mjollnir (40km impact structure, 140-odd Myr, old Barents Sea) event, I might have a problem. But since everyone else on the continent would be having a bad hair day that day ... I'm not terribly concerned. And that 15m of freeboard is still a good chunk of insurance.

    Good luck on your 4800ft of freeboard. That's you not worried about sea-level rise. You still need to be reasonably sure that rainwater (snow melt) will go away, and has somewhere to go to, so having a reasonable local slope was also an issue (about 2 degrees of slope at my location, down to the river level, which has 20-odd metres to drop in it;s last km to the sea).

    It's not rocket science.

  14. Re:Pending Disaster on The Golden Gate Barrage: New Ideas To Counter Sea Level Rise · · Score: 1

    What I find rather interesting is that people continue to buy coastal low level land, especially considering that interactive maps [...] clearly show what a sea level rise will do to that land.

    I don't find it interesting ; I find it amusing.

    But I've been laughing at people who misunderstand the concept of "flood plain" since the government here stopped banning people from developing on flood plains. Of course, they didn't do anything to actually stop the flood plains form being flood plains, they just let unscrupulous bastards develop property there, and then sell it to fools who don't do their homework. And when, inevitably, it floods ... well "tough shit, Sherlock!"

    The news about global warming isn't news. Anyone who hasn't already sold their vulnerable property to some fool who refuses to do their homework, is going to be chasing a decreasing number of such fools as time goes on. So, get out of Dodge!

    I've got 15m of freeboard between my new house and credible tsunami run-up levels in this area ; I've done my homework. That was one of the major reasons for completely excluding large areas of the city from consideration for moving to. It's not hard to do. My heart doesn't bleed enough for them to take a huge financial hit to save a fool who hasn't done their homework from the consequences of their irresponsibility.

  15. Re: So... on The Golden Gate Barrage: New Ideas To Counter Sea Level Rise · · Score: 1

    How is anyone going to make a profit on that sort of teaching?

  16. Re:I'll take autorotation for $1000, Alex ... on NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash · · Score: 1

    no hazard from debris, fire, or other environmental effects, so the victims are relatively safe just lying there waiting for rescue.

    The main reason for helicopters existing (as opposed to being used by tourists for joy rides) is to get people and equipment to places that they can't get to otherwise. Since helicopters are expensive to operate, then it is almost always cheaper to build a road or use (multiple) all terrain vehicles. Except at sea.

    I don't have any precise numbers to hand, but in 26 years of flying several thousands of miles a year in helicopters, only about 5-10% of that distance has been over land. And most of that has been the stretch between the main airport and the coast.

    Otherwise, I've got to work by car, by 4-wheel drive, by truck, by 42-seat bus, once on a converted nuclear missile launcher and by boat. But the very large majority has been in helicopters flying over water.

    Most people who die in helicopter crashes actually die of drowning ; few are killed by their injuries before they have time to drown.

  17. Re:I'll take autorotation for $1000, Alex ... on NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash · · Score: 1

    Fuck crashing in a helo, the forces involved are rarely survivable for humans.

    Bull.

    Shit.

    I know several people who've survived helicopter crashes. (I've come very close to being in one myself, but they managed to re-start the second engine before we hit the sea.)

    From my observations of 25 years of North Sea helicopter crashes, about 3/4 of people survive. "Crash", of course, does cover a multitude of sins, from a controlled landing on the water (salt water ; the aircraft will be a total re-build, and may be a write-off for an older airframe) up to the rotors falling off at 5000 ft and the aircraft hitting the water at terminal velocity. Even in the latter case, of two incidents I'm aware of (lighting strike led to one rotor failing, which then tore the drive system apart ; gearbox seized) with about 35 people involved, one person survived to this day, and several drowned after managing to exit the airframe as it sank. So you're still looking at nearly 10% potential survivals in a worst case scenario.

    I know it's Slashdot, but I do wish that people who know fuck all about a subject would keep their ignorance to themselves, even as ACs.

  18. Re:Maybe this will help helos get mainstream on NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash · · Score: 1

    maybe there are some benefits as the reason of helicopters still existing today?

    They can land places where other aircraft can't, and other VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing ; the Harrier, essentially) systems are even less efficient.

    The "tilt rotor" system ("Osprey"?) seemed for a time to be a potential competitor, but it seems as if the running costs are even higher than for helicopters, or the reliability is still too low. I don't know of any that are in commercial use - i.e. not military, rescue or rip-off-the-tourists ; fields where cost is not a primary consideration.

  19. Re:What? on NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash · · Score: 1

    It's not so much that you bounce around uncontrollably; it's that with the airbag in front of your upper body, and nothing around your waist,

    Which is why you don't do that. In addition to it being illegal to drive without a seatbelt, it's also completely fucking stupid.

  20. Re:What? on NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash · · Score: 1

    Out of every accident I've been in where airbags deployed, the seatbelt did NOTHING to lock down and keep me in place.

    How many crashes have you been in where airbags have deployed?

    And how many crashes in total?

    In my 20 years of driving ... actually almost 25 years ... I've had (1) drive-away-able (my inexperience, came into contact with the kerb, very hard, while still a learner) ; (2) drive-away-able (both stopped out of contact, but came together on the bounce in the springs) ; (3) walk-away, no airbag deployed (pothole, then icy corner, then stone in verge destroyed wheel ; wrote off car). Only one of those cars actually had airbags, but I still don't know what level of impact is necessary to trigger them. And I don't particularly want to find out, from personal experience.

    Oh, sorry ; forgot one crash, if you can call it that. (4) I was reversing to get to one parking bay, when someone else started reversing out of a different parking bay and we came together ; again, no airbag deployment.

  21. Re:SE Asia on How One Man Turns Annoying Cold Calls Into Cash · · Score: 1

    All of the world outside of North America is like those. Incoming texts and calls are always free to the receiver, only the sender pays.

    FTFY

    Actually, I'm not 100% sure that this bizarre practice of charging the recipient of a call is unique to North America, but I can't think of another example.

  22. Re:Cold/robo callers made me a jerk on the phone on How One Man Turns Annoying Cold Calls Into Cash · · Score: 1

    I'll tell you what IS rude though. Wasting the salesperson's time by acting as if you might buy it.

    Ah, so that is the way to make a salesman's life a misery! Thanks for that ; I shall apply it to all my future spam calls from anyone.

    You seem to be under the misapprehension that salesmen (or women) have a right to exist or to make a sale. Sorry ; not true.

    If I want to buy something, I will go out and research it, then buy it. You, as a salesman, service me by answering me when I get into contact with you ; not the other way around. You're the passive part of the equation.

    And no, you don't have the right to shove advertising in my face (physically, or online) ; my only response to that sort of thing is to take your information services, quiz your technical people for further information, get all the information I need to make my choice ... and then go and buy it from someone who I consider an ethical businessman and who doesn't pester me with advertising. If this give you the impression that your business is being raped ... well done ; you've got the message.

    Have a nice day, and go out of business soon!

    Oh, I see that your username is "DirtyLiar" ; uncommon honesty for a salesman.

  23. Re:I don't really get this on How One Man Turns Annoying Cold Calls Into Cash · · Score: 1

    I joined the Telephone Preference Service.

    So did I. However, it looks as if the previous inhabitants of this house weren't TPS'd, and because of a complete and utter fuck-up by my phone and internet (ex-)supplier while we were moving, we were unable to move our old phone number to the new house. So, we're stuck with the previous inhabitant's number.

    I get almost no cold calls;

    10 a day is not uncommon.

    those who do call me are generally breaking the law and don't tend to call back when they are told that. I do get a few calls from companies dodging TPS by calling from outside the UK, mind you, but maybe once every week.

    10 a day is not uncommon. International calls are the norm.

    I like this guy's style but it's scarcely necessary.

    I like his style and am seriously considering implementing it. My main reason for reading this thread on Slashdot was to see if anyone had any elucidation of what the (purported) illegalities were. Still seeking.

  24. Re:Guys a Legend on How One Man Turns Annoying Cold Calls Into Cash · · Score: 1

    Every marketing company will simply block 0871 numbers.

    ... and so will be unable to call him on his 0871 number.

    Which is the desired effect - no cold calls.

    And the problem is ... ?

    Great job for making some cash, but did you have to tell the whole fkin marking world have to prevent it?

    Call centres in India are very unlikely to pick up on this, so will continue the phone spamming. Ker-ching!

  25. Re:Clear something up? on How One Man Turns Annoying Cold Calls Into Cash · · Score: 1

    when your daughter needs to use her friends phone to call you for help because hers just got trashed/out of credit/stolen.

    "I don't know this number, fuck that!"

    The daughter has just received a valuable lesson to not lose her phone/ run out of credit (without having money available to top up) / or otherwise lose phone service. It's called personal responsibility, and you're meant to develop it as you approach adulthood and get things like going out without your parents, having a mobile phone, etc.