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User: king+neckbeard

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  1. Re:We need nuclear. on Should Nuclear and Renewable Energy Supporters Stop Fighting? · · Score: 1

    You are using some rather bizarre logic. The decomposition of plant matter is largely the result of other processes, and a rather large share of it happens outside of the period a plants would be considered alive. The decomposition is largely the result of fungus, insects, microbes and such that are classified as heterotrophs. If you were to seal off part of a forest and kill all life present with say, intense radiation, the rate of decomposition would be reduced by an incredible amount. Yes, if you waited long enough, it would probably eventually reach the same state, but we are already taking thousands of years in some instances for trees for the time they are alive.

    The other strange thing is that you seem to be taking a very literal interpretation of carbon neutral, which just says that we aren't engaging in large scale nuclear reactions. Yes, the amount of carbon in our bodies is relatively static once we reach maturity. However, we turn oxygen and carbohydrates into water and CO2, and we do that quite a bit. Plants do the same thing, but they also create carbohydrates from water, CO2, and sunlight.

    Consider the following experiment: You are put in an airtight closed room of 27 cubic meters, not counting the compartment where food stuffs are kept. You have a collection of meal bars in said compartment to last you 20 years, and they are individually vacuum sealed well enough to stay preserved for 100 years, meaning that there is no significant amount of decomposition going on with them. The sources I can find suggest that typical human biological processes would result in having about 10 days worth of air, assuming it's at normal composition, and that your body can still function until there is no oxygen left in the room. If we were carbon neutral as you claim, you could stay in that room for about 20 years.

  2. Re:We need nuclear. on Should Nuclear and Renewable Energy Supporters Stop Fighting? · · Score: 2

    Humans do remove CO2, but we are net producers. LIkewise, plants create CO2 but are net consumers.

  3. Re:No, because they are not compatible on Should Nuclear and Renewable Energy Supporters Stop Fighting? · · Score: 0

    What? That's one of the few advantages that coal has. Supply can be adjusted to meet demand fairly quickly. Such options are not available at all for wind, solar, or geothermal, and nuclear is a great deal less responsive. If you need more electricity, you burn more coal. If you need less electricity, you burn less coal.

  4. Re:Is it really that hard to figure out? on Ask Slashdot: Are Linux Desktop Users More Pragmatic Now Or Is It Inertia? · · Score: 1

    As a recent victim of Windows 8, I've just tried the"Start 8" add-on, and it looks promising. I hear that "Classic Shell" also is good. So, it looks like we have multiple paths forward. I don't know if the add-on approach is what you mean by "kludge", but that seems to be quite popular in other cases, e.g. Firefox. Since I'm used to the Windows 7 interface nd basically like it, it's nice to have a form of choice that helps me get back to where I once belonged.

    It's more that add-ons to modify annoying OS behavior work about 95% of the time, and the remaining 5% tends to be when it would be most useful.

  5. Is it really that hard to figure out? on Ask Slashdot: Are Linux Desktop Users More Pragmatic Now Or Is It Inertia? · · Score: 1

    Linux users have the option of choosing a different desktop environment or window manager. So, if a concept is unwanted or immature, users can and will migrate elsewhere. There's usually not a great risk involved, maybe the programs you use will be less integrated in your new DE/WM. Part of this is a resistance to change. It's something that happens to basically all humans. Another part of it, though, is that end users have a fairly reasonable choice in the matter, unlike on Windows or OS X, where there is only one path forward, at best having some kludge solution that may or may not be reliable.

  6. Re:it will return to it's original purpose on When Cars Go Driverless, What Happens To the Honking? · · Score: 1

    With two hands free, the number of middle finger may come close to doubling.

  7. Re:Cars are not going driverless... on When Cars Go Driverless, What Happens To the Honking? · · Score: 1

    Well, we've got the Roomba. And driverless cars do potentially present a lot of advantages. They also seem to be fairly practical, and would probably become moreso if the industry settles on standards for car to car communication. The biggest issues are those of the infrastructure, both legal and physical, being tuned towards the human drivers we've grown accustomed to.

  8. Re:You can't forgive the bad for the good he did on Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve? · · Score: 2

    No, you wouldn't have, because then you would have moved the goalposts to him not going through the proper channels, which clearly do not work. No matter what he did, you would find some mistake for which to condemn him. He acting against the power structure, so he was wrong. That's the real philosophy people like you state.

  9. Re:Maybe you're asking the wrong question on Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve? · · Score: 1

    Here's the right answer.

  10. Re:at this point on Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve? · · Score: 1

    If Snowden should have the book thrown at him, Clapper, Alexander, Feinstein, Obama, Bush, and many more should be subject to multiple executions each. If you want to protect America's national security, the best course of action would be to nuke the entire NSA from orbit. It's the only to be sure.

  11. Re: It might be an unpopular opinion... on Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    NEWFLASH: The NSA's actual job extends beyond a sound bite. There's more to it than just 'spy on the rest of the world.'

    As for being 'a fact of life', i would contend that this is only true because certain groups in most countries make the claim that it is. If the NSA were suddenly vaporized along with anyone who would work for the US government and has basic knowledge of spycraft, the general US pubilc would probably not be subject to substantial negative effects. Some executives who benefit from the industrial espionage that they engage in might be hurt, but these parties are pretty good at not paying taxes or creating jobs.

  12. Feinstein to go on Senator Dianne Feinstein: NSA Metadata Program Here To Stay · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If she says the metadata program needs to stay, then she needs to go. It's as simple as that.

  13. Re:Cause and effect may be backwards on Daily Pot Use Tied To Age of First Psychotic Episode · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How do you figure that? I'm pretty sure that these conditions exist in some state prior to one's first episode. There's also the fact that this particular pattern might select itself for certain demographics more than others, and the environment they are in might contain factors that do influence this.

  14. Re:You owe me $0.05. on Metal-Free 'Rhubarb' Battery Could Store Renewable Grid Energy · · Score: 2

    Edison said that, but Edison a mediocre inventor and a bad person. Inventing new useful technology isn't easy, but the best approach usually isn't to use the brute force technique.

  15. Re:renewable energy only on Metal-Free 'Rhubarb' Battery Could Store Renewable Grid Energy · · Score: 1

    Technically, all energy is renewable, at least until we reach the heat death of the universe.

  16. Re:And the entire reason they come forward not lis on Mystery of FBI Documents Posted To US Press In 1971 Solved · · Score: 1

    The overseas operations that Snowden released are quite unnerving as well.

  17. Re:And, in the 21st century... on Mystery of FBI Documents Posted To US Press In 1971 Solved · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's why we should elect officials that can't be embarrassed. If you are selling the image of being a squeaky clean family man, you are easily blackmailed. If you are well known for making filthy porn, they can't really sling any mud at you.

  18. and now: on How To Create Your Own Cryptocurrency · · Score: 1

    Dickcoins in 3...2...1...

  19. Re:Put a fork in it, it's done. on FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose · · Score: 1

    Or because powerful international interests want that. Calling them 'narcotics' laws makes that quite clear, as the drugs involved have virtually nothing to do with sleep.

  20. Re:Put a fork in it, it's done on FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose · · Score: 1

    Actually, there are pretty limited adverse effects of pure, clean opiates with relatively well known dosage. That's why you could get heroin in a pharmacy in the early 20th century. They can be addictive, especially when taken intravenously, but the primary reasoning behind it was almost certainly to oppress certain ethnic groups.

  21. Re:Put a fork in it, it's done. on FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose · · Score: 1

    I bet you support literacy tests and poll taxes as well. After all, those coloreds only have to study up and get a job.

  22. Re: Abolish it on EU Copyright Reform: Your Input Is Needed! · · Score: 0

    I think you are being far too generous. You are assuming that it would work if kept in check, but we have no good reason to believe it would work. Copyright was invented as a means of censorship, and was later adopted (at least nominally) for a more benevolent purpose of the advancement of learning. However, it's still a tool that was meant for another purpose, and we have no reason to believe it performs its new task at all.

    Also, the EU was for a long time much stronger on copyright than the US. From the Berne Convention until the 90s, the US had basically the weakest copyright law of western nations. In that time we had a booming film and music industry. To this day there are a number of exceptions that are much stronger in the US than abroad. That's the problem. It's an international scheme of collusion, and it makes use of a ratchet mechanism to keep making it worse. There is no single country to blame.

  23. Re: Abolish it on EU Copyright Reform: Your Input Is Needed! · · Score: 0

    You can't fix something that is incapable of working. If we hold that copyright is a fundamentally flawed concept, then there's no way to fix it, just as there's no way to fix phrenology.

  24. assumptions... on EU Copyright Reform: Your Input Is Needed! · · Score: 1

    You are assuming that the only factor that motivates studios is avoiding paying authors. While it's certainly a big factor, you have to keep in mind that they would also face competition since other studios could make the same work, there are often limited shelf lives for maximum commercialization, and involvement and endorsement from the author can be quite valuable.

  25. Re:Put a fork in it, it's done. on FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose · · Score: 1
    Making something illegal to arrest a certain portion of the public and their influence is a textbook political crime.

    Drug use generates plenty of genuine crime, including crimes of violence.

    Contraband status is what generates that.