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User: Defenestrar

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  1. Re:In civilized countries... on Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College · · Score: 1

    That's not what I remember about Marx

  2. Re:In civilized countries... on Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College · · Score: 1

    The European presence can be seen as victory acquisitions which allow for a more global reach of the US military force projection.

    On the other hand, the cease fire in Korea was signed without notifying the South Koreans first - UN has itself to blame for a non-decisive conclusion there. Of course the flip side would have been a commitment to victory which had the potential for cost and escalation beyond anything anyone other than the South Koreans were willing to pay (discussing the possible ways of deterring the Chinese from sending three soldiers for every gun into North Korea is what got MacArthur canned).

  3. Re:BSES on Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College · · Score: 1

    No no no! What you really need for good coffee will be the mechanic or tech from trade school. The engineer won't listen to him/her and will put the lever on the wrong side due to a misplaced concept of efficiency. The scientist will complain that the engineer isn't doing it with appropriate reverence with the theoretical underpinnings (to which the engineer has comments on what the scientist can do with the real world non-ideological coffee processing device's lever) and the artist will be secretly wondering why they listened to their school's recruiter about there "not really" being any difference between schools which offer a BA versus the schools which offer a BS in the same field - all while nodding along with the scientist trying to promulgate that myth to his/her current employer. Then one of the non-techs will be promoted into management and then the inferno-roast will break free as he/she suspects that the previously derided business major might have known how to keep spreadsheets from biting back.

  4. Re:Has this reseach undergone pee review? on Fuel Cells From Nanomaterials Made From Human Urine · · Score: 1

    Sure has - and I bet it was a relief for the editor to get an honest title!

  5. Re:Urine a source of "nutrients" no to waste on Fuel Cells From Nanomaterials Made From Human Urine · · Score: 1

    Blaskowicz is right about the mineral source though - recycling phosphorous will probably be needed before potassium in terms of a ready source.

  6. Re:Energy density? on Fuel Cells From Nanomaterials Made From Human Urine · · Score: 4, Informative

    The URC acts a catalyst in the fuel cell, not the fuel itself. The catalyst is what lowers the activation energy for the reaction and in this case also serves as the conductor which transports the generated electricity for other use.

  7. Re:No point encrypting if you're the only one... on A Year After Snowden's Disclosures, EFF, FSF Want You To Fight Surveillance · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the update and comment Tobias. I'm sorry it's not as easy on the development side as I had been given to understand and I apologize for being wrong and spreading that misconception. I do still think that until encryption is adopted as an industry standard (which means Outlook) people won't be taking it home for personal mail (which means there will also need to be simple gmail/hotmail/etc... web plugins - those however seem at least slightly more accessible to the general public).

    It is also my opinion that until it is free (as in beer) it also won't see mainstream adoption. Perhaps you could do a trial sale on the Office store for a nominal price (0,99 EUR) and see if you make up in volume what you lack in individual price. You could also try something similar at other software sales locations (i.e. get in on a Steam sale for 98% off or something like that - I'd bet you sell tens of thousands of copies).

  8. Re:No point encrypting if you're the only one... on A Year After Snowden's Disclosures, EFF, FSF Want You To Fight Surveillance · · Score: 1

    Really? It's easy enough? Let's talk market share then. How many easy to use GPG FOSS plugins are there for Outlook 2013? 2010? How about the light email clients which comes with Windows 7 or 8? What about the Android basic email client? of the Android Gmail client? In the Windows environment all of the recent Outlook versions have hooks for plugins. There's even what's effectively an MS Office App store for addons. That sounds like a dead easy way for people to get a GPG plugin for the industry standard client... but where is it?

  9. Re:Shady wording of trying to claim prior work? on Zenimax Sues Oculus Over VR Tech · · Score: 2

    Unless he transmitted any information to Oculus before formally resigning from Zenimax - such as things like, you know, texting, emailing, talking, illicitly copying data to his gray matter, entangling photons, collapsing wave functions by observing, etc...

  10. Re:Intel Inside, inovation outside. on AMD Preparing To Give Intel a Run For Its Money · · Score: 2

    Yeah? Well the original Athlon 64 dual core isn't compatible with modern Window's operating systems. The instruction set which prohibits it from being used was around at the time, AMD just didn't put it in.

  11. Re:Electric. on Future of Cars: Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Or Electric? · · Score: 1

    At least the AC didn't say minivan - that implies kids and you don't see expenses like that until it's time to pay for the nursing home.

  12. Re: Electric. on Future of Cars: Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Or Electric? · · Score: 1

    No no no. They've said that range isn't the issue it's refueling time that's the problem! :)

  13. Re:not really far fetched at all on Mobile Game Attempts To Diagnose Alzheimer's · · Score: 1

    It will be interesting to see how this "diagnostic game" field develops with the aging of generations familiar with electronic game platforms. Calibration of the test to the subject could become far more critical when we have a greater prevalence of sexagenarian gamers. It'll be similar to the problems one might encounter giving a cognitive vocabulary test to equivalently aged persons - one of which is an English professor. Without some intelligent means of accounting for differing patient baselines in gaming ability, false positives may present a greater problem in the future than is experienced now with these source papers.

  14. Re:One plus One revealed? on OnePlus One Revealed: a CyanogenMod Smartphone · · Score: 5, Funny

    I see you've dealt with Verizon billing before too.

  15. Re:Hmmm... on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 1

    Meh - doubling capacity is so last century. Look at optical media - just by punching a hole in the middle you go from zero useful storage to a lot!

    P.S. Ok, so I punched a hole in my Bards Tale character disk so my sister could have her own side (and not screw up my stuff).

  16. Re:Depends on what they are doing on Estimate: Academic Labs 11 Times More Dangerous Than Industrial Counterparts · · Score: 1

    Nah - there's a process called a hazard analysis that should reveal the potential hazards of what somebody is doing. Why these aren't performed at an academic institution is a separate problem. The problem in academic institutions which doesn't exist in either corporate or government research labs is a lack of line management responsibility. The university culture generally allows for throwing a professor (or even a department) under the bus when something goes wrong and OSHA has allowed them to get away with it. In other areas it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that line management is responsible for safety.

    For example look at NIST Boulder's plutonium incident - the director of the entire facility is who lost the job because it was his responsibility to have a lab safety program that was sufficient and effective. What is only just starting to wake up academic institutions is the fatal UCLA lab fire which the university was able to plead out of criminal charges, but the professor in charge has not. While the university had some pretty stiff penalties as part of the plea bargain - all of the accountability has come down on the professor and not the university management chain (i.e. with the criminal charges against the university, it should have landed at least at the VP level). I don't think universities will actually foster a safety culture until core administration accepts that the responsibility for doing so is theirs - and this is not likely to happen as long as a professor can be thrown under the bus (whether or not he or she deserves it) and administration escapes major personal (as opposed to institutional) penalties.

  17. Re:Lifers? on Financing College With a Tax On All Graduates · · Score: 1

    Hmm... I think the most important part of funding education in this manner is to link programs or schools (possibly even the college level) to the degree taxed. This would have the intrinsic effect for limiting the degree program to the employment base that will be able to utilize those jobs. The reciprocal funding should then be able to manage gradual changes in employment demand - and large demand shifts could be funded through government or corporate "scholarships" which would be in effect a future tax credit. You could also allow for traditional payment for those who wish to make it through school without future tax burdens (i.e. I had zero debt at the end of my degrees - a combination of scholarship and work).

    As a more critical immediate reform for education funding/loans, I think there should be a loan cap based on some multiple of the average yearly income expected for that degree (and that multiple shouldn't necessarily be greater than one). I think it's borderline criminal to allow young kids to pursue a degree while simultaneously loaning them money that you know will be many times their expected annual income - and then making sure that there's no way out of that debt - not even bankruptcy.

  18. Re:Cult leader's son behaving like a cult leader on Rand Paul Files Suit Against Obama Over NSA's Collection of Metadata · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't know, I think YouTube makes sense. After all, we just learned that it's the number one website in the world. A smart followup would be to edit Wikipedia entries (#2), and every politician has a staff to do that.

  19. Re:I am reminded of pigs and engineers here on Watch Bill Nye and Ken Ham Clash Over Creationism Live · · Score: 2

    Not every Biblical scholar agrees in a global interpretation of the flood. Here's a pretty decent site put up by a Christian geologist if you'd like to see. He also has a section taking apart young earth speculations from a scientific basis.

  20. Re:Every utopian prediction on Device Mines Precious Phosphorus From Sewage · · Score: 1

    Some of the dystopian ones too... Soylent Green anyone?

  21. Re:Subject goes here on Device Mines Precious Phosphorus From Sewage · · Score: 1

    We should limit entropy too. That will stop all of those useful chemicals from being "converted". Reconversion to the true faith of "useful chemicals" is an expense the heretics love making us pay.

  22. Re: Dont do anyone any favors on Court Says Craigslist Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support · · Score: 1

    It appears that using Google can be harder than you thought. It seems that you have to ask a question to get an answer - such as "what is the average cost of adoption?". It's about $30K for a domestic US adoption BTW, and that doesn't include the "false starts" where an adoption falls through part way through the process. Or providing siblings. I guess these guys didn't think to ask Google (or a lawyer) "would the state override what seems to us a perfectly legal and sensible contract"? Should there have been a lawyer, well I guess that depends on your perspective for interpreting "should".

    You appear to have found one of the government solutions to the problem of matching kids who really really need parents to parents who really really want a kid - they give a loan for 10% of the cost. Classic. (Yes I know there's sometimes other benefits from other sources to help out - but they don't always pan out either and the process is long, hard, and usually involves a few heartbreaks along the way).

  23. Re:Can you imagine.. on Private Mars One Mission Contracts Lockheed For Exploratory Mission · · Score: 2

    Personally I always thought Mars Direct was a much better plan. I heard Zubrin talk about it once - seemed reasonable, not dependent on TV ratings, and you already had some proof of concept and a base of operations before you ever launched people at the big red rock. Of course the details is where you keep the devils and I think Murphy would be all over this one.

    I can see a place for heroic leaps for science - including the possibility of a one way trip off the planet, but I'd have my doubts about the sort of people who would sign up for less than even a one cheek effort just to walk around a bit before needing a rescue which would never happen on time

    What's worse is the precedent. Sure, as a culture we may be willing to put in a moon-shot effort if some legitimate (but corporate) Mars colony suffered disaster (which could be corrected by prompt Earth action). It's far less likely that we'd mobilize the effort if we're already practiced at letting "space junkies" die on their own recognizance.

  24. Re:Ranting against Arial is just insane... on Sex Offender Gets New Hearing After Hearing Officer Rants Against Arial Font · · Score: 1

    Doesn't even qualify for a fair trial. No need to find the average weight of a duck (or very small rocks) in this case.

  25. Re:Creationism = religion, not science. At all. on Getting Evolution In Science Textbooks For Texas Schools · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is bullshit taught to children with tax dollars in a secular environment. Kill it with fire.

    I think you'll find that the sentiment is pretty equally shared by Christians who are willing to actually study and think about their scriptures. After all, it makes it pretty hard to talk to someone about what one finds important (i.e. religion) when you're called by the same name as a vocal group which is (rightly) identified as deniers of reality. Augustine (an early church father and pretty universally acknowledged formalizer of Christian doctrine) wrote in AD 400:

    If we think of these days which are marked by the rising and the setting of the sun, this was perhaps not the fourth but the first day, so that we may suppose the sun to have risen at the time it was made and to have set at the time the other luminaries were made. But those who understand that the sun is still shining somewhere else when it is night with us, and that it is night somewhere else when the sun is with us, will search out a more sublime manner of counting these days."

    AUGUSTINE - UNFINISHED LITERAL COMMENTARY ON GENESIS 14 (43)

    This literal 24 hour reading of Genesis is not a new phenomena, but it will continue because it is natural for people to either lazily read, or to avoid questions which may fundamentally challenge their faith (they would say: better a saved ignoramus than to face the dangers inherent in asking questions). The latter can be recognized as an attitude which is actually strongly criticized by the New Testament writer Paul.