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User: bosef1

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Comments · 220

  1. Cyclotron Radiation? on Astronomers Solve Puzzle of Mysterious Streaks In Radio Images of the Sky · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What about cyclotron radiation from the ions in the meteor plasma trails? Could charge carriers be orbiting in the plasma trail under the influence of the Earth's magnetic field, and radiating RF in the megahertz band?

  2. Re:Wearable computing... on No Love From Ars For Samsung's New Smart Watch · · Score: 1

    Ahh, that's the problem... I'd been telling everyone it had a ten-inch screen.

  3. Re:Wearable computing... on No Love From Ars For Samsung's New Smart Watch · · Score: 2

    As I seem to recall from back when the History Channel showed history, the original function of the "wrist watch" was jewelry, especially for ladies. Men wore pocket watches, and wrist watches were women's bracelets with a built-in timepiece. From what I remember, wrist watches weren't really appropriate fashion items for men until World War 1, when mass troop coordination required everyone to have an easily accessible timepiece, and wrist-watches fit the bill. So having the wrist watch return the status of jewelry isn't too unprecedented.

    I find I prefer to wear a pocket watch at the office. I'm not a good typist, and wearing a wrist-watch bothers me when I use a keyboard. The pocket watch lets me have a convenient timepiece that stays in my pants. Plus you can get some really fancy pocket watches.

  4. Re:yeah, sure, you betcha! on The STEM Crisis Is a Myth · · Score: 1

    I've had similar feelings about the current policy of giving out student loans to anyone who qualifies for any course of study. While it probably in the Federal and State governments' purview to make sure we have adequate qualified people in all courses of study (beyond the usual demands of the market), how many Classical Studies majors (not to pick on them) does the United States need to produce every year, and do we need to subsidize or encourage them, and if so, at what level.

    My only observation is regarding your comparison between your student loans and your mortgage. I understand the purpose of your comparison, but it is far harder to give your education, versus your house, to someone else if it doesn't work out. :-)

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

    While I'm as much [citations needed] as the next guy; you could, you know, go through the trouble of explaining what this world-fixing solution that "industry / the green lobby / the government doesn't want me to see" instead of forcing me to wade through the YouTube videos. When you do it this way it looks like the worst kind of shyster "at home infinite electricity" solutions.

  6. Brings a whole new meaning... on UW Researchers Demonstrate First Direct Communication Between Human Brains · · Score: 5, Funny

    to the "Stop Hitting Yourself" game.

  7. Don't wanna be first... on Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't want to be the first one to post this, but "What could possiblie go wrong?".

  8. Re:The customer is wrong I guess.... on Biggest Headache For Game Developers: Abusive Fans · · Score: 1

    Both "Pony Unicorn Princess" and "Hell Killer: Mountain of blood" intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

  9. Re:'cept budgets are GROWING, just not as much on Air Force Space Fence Being Shut Down · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Grow up. If we don't budget for inflation, things are going to suck even more when we get halfway through the fiscal year and realize we don't have the money to get make it to the end. This has nothing to with being a Republican or Democrat and everything with actually trying to plan a project and deliver something to the taxpayer. I realize most households don't have to worry about this on a yearly basis, but both government and big business must if they don't want to fail.

    Now if you want to discuss whether it's in our long term national interest to print so much money that year-to-year inflationary growth is something we have to monitor in our budget process, fine. Or if you have thoughts on how to responsibly reduce government services without gutting either our social welfare or military programs (or both), please share. We need some good ideas, 'cause those idiots up on the Hill seem stumped. But just because you don't like inflation doesn't mean you can live in a fantasy land where it doesn't exist.

  10. Re:Great, now what about phosphorous? on Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria That Can Colonize Most Plants Discovered · · Score: 1

    Wasn't that mentioned in "Brave New World". Didn't they have special filters on the chimneys at the crematoria for capturing the phosphorous and calcium for fertilizer?

  11. Re:chicken or egg? on GCC 4.8.0 Release Marks Completion of C++ Migration · · Score: 0

    Hickory switches? A real man toggles his machine code in with his dick. We do it in octal, 'cause that's what seperates us from the animals.

  12. Re:"Cyber 9/11" on Officials Warn: Cyber War On the US Has Begun · · Score: 1

    Fuck... domestic animals.

  13. Re:This will obviously help. on New York Culls Sex Offenders From the Online Gaming Ranks · · Score: 1

    Darn, have they already taken that title too? I thought I had a winner after getting turned down for "Call of Booty: Black Ops" and "Call of Booty: Big Red 1".

  14. Re:misread on Boring Conference Still Vows: We Will Not Rock You · · Score: 1

    Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

  15. Re:I worried for a moment... on HydroICE Project Developing a Solar-Powered Combustion Engine · · Score: 1

    I thought I had seen some proposals for water injection where the water was only injected during full-power operation, where it would help keep the combustion chamber cool, and boiling the water would put more combustion energy into mechanical work instead of just heat. I agree that using it full-time would have its drawbacks.

  16. Hobbit Port on New Zealand Turning Hobbits Into Actual Cash · · Score: 1

    Is this like Settlers of Catan, only instead of a sheep port, you have a hobbit port? "I'll get wood for two hobbits," indeed.

  17. Re:Measuring results on They Work Long Hours, But What About Results? · · Score: 4, Funny

    The guys in the unicorn paddock are fine; they just ride the animals in and lock the doors. It's the god-damned leprechaun valet parking attendents that are the problem. Half the time you have like ten "mystery miles" on the car, or a fresh ding in the bumper.

  18. Re:Helping to Keep it Secret... on Scientists Want To Keep Their Research Work Out of Court · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not sure how "fast" fast enough is. Assuming the Wikipedia article you cite is accurate, Schon received his PhD and was hired by Bell Labs in 1997. He submitted his fraudulent papers over several years, and a committe was set up to investigate discrepancies in 2002, and submitted its report that year showing how Schon had lied. So in roughly five years, the peer-review system did its task to uncover deliberate, premeditated fraud in the field of basic semiconductor research. That seems like a reasonable time to me, given the nature of the research, and the time required to properly document failures to reproduce results and cross-check data. From the sound of things, the fraud may have not been that complicated, basically reusing the same graphs in different papers with different labels, so you would have hoped it would have been caught sooner. I'm not familiar enough with the case to know if Schon was careful to reuse graphs in papers in widely different journals to minimize the possibility of someone seeing the identical graph twice.

    Yes, it would have been better if the fraud was caught sooner, but I'm not sure how you would do it, short of something hella expensive like instituing a two-man rule for all research positions everywhere, and demanding independant experiemental validation of all papers before they can be published.

  19. "...Tap the collective while experimenting" on Ask Slashdot: Gaming With Only One Hand? · · Score: 2

    Is _that_ what the kids are calling it these days?

  20. Re:Back to School on When a Primary Source Isn't Good Enough: Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    Don't worry, your teacher's an idiot. Aside from their obvious failures in instruction: that is, the teacher should have explicitly asked for a discussion of the symbolism inherent in the southward journey in Huck Finn, instead of the broader question of just why did Huck and Jim go south; the teacher obviously missed the explicit instructions regarding the finding of motives, morals, and plot in the novel, and should therefore probably be prosecuted, banished, or shot.

    I had a somewhat similar experience: in 11th grade, we read the novel "The Awakening", in which the protagonist undergoes a radical personality shift, which is supposed to have all sorts of symbolic origins and meanings. When asked in class, I ascribed the changes in personality to a minor cerebral aneurysm.

  21. Re:wtf? on Cash-Poor Sharp Mortgages Display Factories · · Score: 1

    Duuuddee... your taakkinngg all the fuunnn out of it.

  22. Re:wtf? on Cash-Poor Sharp Mortgages Display Factories · · Score: 1

    I have proposed we use the infinitive verb "to spatulate" to describe the thing that is done with a spatula. For example, "After adding eggs to the flour, you will need to spatulate". Or, "I've been spatulating all day, and wow my arm is tired."

  23. Re:Vaccines should be mandatory. on Study Finds Unvaccinated Students Putting Other Students At Risk · · Score: 1

    Just to make sure, wasn't that General Chang in Star Trek VI, commenting that the Klingon people needed breathing space (to which Spock replied with the GP quotation)? Unless you're being a pendant, and insisting that "Final Frontier" is discontinutious... in which case, carry on.

  24. Re:Wishful thinking on Birth Control For Men Edges Closer · · Score: 1

    I could see another potential problem being that some jerk is going to use this to justify raping women because he "couldn't get them pregnant anyway".

  25. Re:Flowers for Algernon on Ask Slashdot: What's the Most Depressing Sci-fi You've Ever Read? · · Score: 1

    Darn... and I thought the only winning move was not to play.