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User: AkkarAnadyr

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  1. We've already done it on NOAA: Global Warming 'Pause' Never Happened · · Score: 1

    The global economy runs on energy and material resources.

    We call the mechanism we use to track the presence and value of these inputs "money".

    We have collectively (publicly and privately, legally and illegally) lent out far more money than what accurately represents the real wealth (i.e., usable stuff) in the global system.

    When the global economy recognizes this (it happens periodically, called a 'recession'), the revaluation of money to correspond with current real assets will cause a shrinkage in economic activity corresponding to the removal of excess money from the system. We cannot avoid this, since we have already made the claim on future output and spent it. If we cannot pay down debt in real wealth, we'll default on it.

    How much less energy/resources will we consume then? (The US debt stands at over 100% of GDP, for example. We call a 10%+ reduction in economic activity a 'depression'. )

    Thus will we reduce the generation of CO2 into the atmosphere, and then we'll get to see the effect on climate.

    That is, those of us still generating CO2 for ourselves will see.

  2. Re:Why don't they use their money for good? on Pope Attacked By Climate Change Skeptics · · Score: 1

    We've had the tech to do that for decades. Run the numbers (including costs of building the plant and fuel to run it) and see why nobody does carbon >> diesel with CO2 as a feedstock.

    Now, if you took coal, extracted the thorium for energy, that reactor would give you the heat to do coal >> diesel directly, with some left over for the lights in town.

    Doing that mainly consists of weaning the energy players off of nuclear tech that goes 'BOOM'. But they like their toys and Square-Jawed General act a bit too much, plus they're suckered by their sunk costs.

  3. Sheesh on A 2-Year-Old Has Become the Youngest Person Ever To Be Cryonically Frozen · · Score: 3, Funny

    These kids today, with the frozen heads and the music ...

  4. He's not afraid of Artificial Intelligence on Steve Wozniak Now Afraid of AI Too, Just Like Elon Musk · · Score: 0

    He's afraid of Human Stupidity.

    It's a rather jarring experience to look at human behavior when one can see obvious improvements based on simple reasoning.

    The thought that 'I might be one of those dolts!!' chafes at a large ego, I'll speculate. Better to fantasize about Machine Greatness being some turbo-charged superpower condition rather than swallow pride and join the human race*.

    *(h/t HHGG)

  5. By the book, Admiral on Proposed Disk Array With 99.999% Availablity For 4 Years, Sans Maintenance · · Score: 1

    Spock, if that array isn't rebuilt in two hours, get that rack out of there and back to a Service Bay.

  6. The Chain of Coincidence on An Open Letter To Everyone Tricked Into Fearing AI · · Score: 1

    Do you know what their goal is? Well, Elvis did!

  7. A prime example on Major Brain Pathway Rediscovered After Century-old Confusion, Controversy · · Score: 2

    Not only /., but the rest of (male) science as well:

    Lady parts.

  8. Wrongful termination on Complain About Comcast, Get Fired From Your Job · · Score: 1

    Does that count as wrongful termination?

  9. Re:Wonderful on Harvesting Wi-Fi Backscatter To Power Internet of Things Sensors · · Score: 1

    My phone doesn't report to my employer when it knows I stop in front of a store.

    That's only because the price of the data is too high. The economies of scale that IoT will provide will make it attractive for him to buy your data soon enough.

    Or did you really think that such things "just don't happen"? First they had you peeing in a cup for them, then they demanded your Facebook password - why is this NOT next?

  10. Want to get rid of those extra 'services'? on Coddled, Surveilled, and Monetized: How Modern Houses Can Watch You · · Score: 1

    Just ask them to quote you the price. Even if they hem and haw about the price "varying between labs, subject to insurance adjustments" etc, the question alone has been enough to get my doc/NP to back down repeatedly in dictating which tests I should get. And if they shine it on that easily, I'm pretty sure it was non-essential to begin with.

  11. Re:The Watchers 'Wet Dream' on Coddled, Surveilled, and Monetized: How Modern Houses Can Watch You · · Score: 2

    "The kind of wholesome, antiseptic universe these androids would create would be purgatory for a man like me!" - Harry Mudd, "I, Mudd" (TOS)

  12. Marketing Madness on Coddled, Surveilled, and Monetized: How Modern Houses Can Watch You · · Score: 2

    Erm, in what spittle-flecked, buzzword-fueled delusion does *any* soi-disant 'businessperson' imagine that anyone would subject themselves to this? Even the clueless will be ripping this stuff out of their walls pronto once the (obviously irresistible) media sideshows get started.

  13. Unhappy Programmer on Happy Software Developers Solve Problems Better · · Score: 1

    (1) providing a better understanding of the impact of affective states on the creativity and analytical problem-solving capacities of developers, (2) introducing and validating psychological measurements, theories, and concepts of affective states, creativity, and analytical-problem-solving skills in empirical software engineering, and (3) raising the need for studying the human factors of software engineering by employing a multidisciplinary viewpoint.

    Buzzwords make me sad.

  14. Re:Counter-offer on Google Unveils Project Tango 3D Tablet DevKit Powered By NVIDIA's Tegra K1 · · Score: 1

    This device seems to offer the NSA a wealth of real-time information.

    Will they sell it as 'Your plastic fink who's fun to be with"?

  15. I must really be a freak on Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds · · Score: 1

    We're not the ones where one out of six of us will have someone violently attempt to take control of our bodies in our lifetimes.

    So, nerds never get beaten up in school, then.

    Back to figuring out What Is Wrong With Me ...

  16. Re:Um... [citation needed] on Professors: US "In Denial" Over Poor Maths Standards · · Score: 1

    That 'inverse correlation' is a media trope, built of a wobbly compost of anecdotes.

    Without a systematic survey of the cohort, you can't establish a correlation, so the 'no correlation' null case wins, until you show me the data (not the USA TODAY article).

  17. Re:Money quote on Professors: US "In Denial" Over Poor Maths Standards · · Score: 1

    Your timeframe pick isn't random, and misses the point.

    Leftists were doing this in the '60s and '70s.

    The right plays one economic and social group off against the other.

    And both play these groups against themselves, to extract resources for their cronies.

    The right insists on stealing from us for things that go BOOM.
    The left insists on stealing from us for things that go AWW.

    And both serve the financiers by borrowing to do so (i.e., taxing our futures too).

    So why do you abet the misdirection by leaving out most of the culprits with your 'random time frame'?

  18. Re:Funky Gibbon on Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr Released · · Score: 1

    Gimme an Ooooooo!

  19. Re:I think more people would be interested... on Last Week's Announcement About Gravitational Waves and Inflation May Be Wrong · · Score: 1

    We have trouble answering such questions because of the poor ways we pose them.

    The semanticists have a rule I find useful here:

    The verb 'to be' carries no information. It functions as an empty vessel into which we pour our assumptions.

    When we reword the questions to make our assumptions explicit, they also become specific and (usually) falsifiable, lending themselves to rational inquiry to a much greater degree.

    Also, the question 'why' admits an infinite recursion into the line of questioning.

    The question "Why is there X ..." has both of these big problems. I call it unanswerable based on its structure, without needing to resort to its content.

    Here, as in software projects, we produce the best results when we get the specs right at the beginning.

  20. Google agreed to NSA spying anyway on Gmail Goes HTTPS Only For All Connections · · Score: 1

    So says the NSA's lawyer.

    It's not so much "lip service" as "bullshit".

  21. Re:Been there. on Top U.S. Scientific Misconduct Official Quits In Frustration With Bureaucracy · · Score: 1

    2% inflation robs a worker of half his wealth over 30 years.

    Calling that a 'capitalist' economy whitewashes the very real fraud, malfeasance and misdirection that drains that worker's wealth even as the grifters exhort all to 'produce more and reap the rewards!" ... next budget cycle, of course, since we're a little constrained just now ... aaaaaand it's gone.

    Our debt-hyped economy goads employer and employee alike to settle for a pittance of what they produce, while rentier parasites skim off huge undeserved rewards.

  22. Ice cream on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    He'll prove you wrong, just by going out to the store and noting the little-changed price of a half-gallon of ice cream.

    Try it yourself.

    Note: a half-gallon of ice cream.

  23. Re:EULA Translation on Buried In the Healthcare.gov Source: "No Expectation of Privacy" · · Score: 1

    Well, it's in very small print, so as not to affect the sales.

  24. Re:Debt ceiling fix on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    The debt ceiling has nothing to do with default (yet).

    The Constitution has only one budget priority in it - that US debt gets honored first.

    We collect 10x in taxes what we owe in interest on the Treasury debt.

    If Treasury fails to pay the interest (a *real* default, in other words) the Congress has immediate cause to impeach the Treasury Secretary, as well as his boss. Obama isn't that stupid.

    Neither are the people who seriously care about the worthiness of Treasury bonds. The media, however, has a giggling good time throwing around 'boo words', and has managed to fool some commentators.

    The debt limit means we can no longer spend what we do not tax. Since 1/6 of GDP now depends on that (the 'temporary' 'stimulus' has become a structural part of current GDP), stopping 14% of other .gov spending exposes the actual state of GDP, and betrays the 'recovery' as a fake.

    We've been in a contraction of >10% (a Depression) since 2008, we've just covered it up with the credit card, trailer-trash style.

  25. Re:Summary says it all on China's State Press Calls For 'Building a De-Americanized World' · · Score: 1

    Borrowing, even to 'stimulate', is a spending cut.

    Read that again.

    Pressing a claim on future productivity (i.e. paying on Tuesday for a hamburger today) means by definition that tomorrow's wealth is shanghai'ed to debt service (and thus deflated away) instead of contributing to GDP.

    'Massive government cuts' have already happened. The inevitable recession simply exposes the fact.

    Borrowing, even to 'stimulate', is a spending cut.

    And our Wimpy government is discovering that Tuesday is REAL SOON NOW.