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User: Maniakes

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  1. Re:Sunlight is the Biggie on Growing Plants on the Moon May Be Feasible · · Score: 1

    It's carbon and nitrogen that I'm worried about. Plants need these elements to grow, and there's only trace amounts available on the Moon. The plants in the article got them out of the air, and I suppose we could haul big tanks of N2 and CO2 to the Moon, but you can't really bring all that much with you before the cost gets prohibitive.

  2. Re:No carry ons... on Strict Order Boarding Would Get Planes in the Sky Faster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Banning carry-ons would speed up the process of actually getting on and off the plane, but I very much doubt it would significantly speed up the process of getting out of the airport after you get off. You get off the plane 5-10 minutes faster, go to baggage claim, and wait for your bag. How often to you get to baggage claim and find your bag already on the conveyer belt waiting for you? How much longer would you have to wait if there were another hundred checked bags per flight because of the elimination of overhead bins?

  3. Re:This happens to me all the time! on A $1 Billion Email Gaffe · · Score: 1

    My gmail address is of the form firstname.lastname@gmail.com. My first name is moderately common, but my last name is extremely rare. And even so, I've gotten a few misdirected emails directed at someone on the other side of the country who shares my first and last name, including an email from his girlfriend apparently trying to reestablish contact after a big fight.

  4. Re:Finally. on Auto Mileage Standards Raised to 35 mpg · · Score: 1

    $160 / $4/g = 40 gallons * 18mpg = 720 miles per day commuting?

    Maybe he's a taxi driver.

  5. Re:Someone who always flew Concorde on How We Might Have Scramjets Sooner than Expected · · Score: 1

    Her salary is a proxy for the value she creates for the company. For her salary to make economic sense, the value of her labor to the company has to be at least what they're paying her.

  6. Re:Sonic Boom - Bust on How We Might Have Scramjets Sooner than Expected · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If it had been a Boeing supersonic jet, I'm sure all Americans would have come out of their houses to listen proudly and patriotically to their sonic booms.

    Maybe, but not in Oklahoma City in 1964.

  7. Re:Frankly... on How Much is Your Right to Vote Worth? · · Score: 1

    The dead have been voting in Chicago since September 3, 1189?

  8. Re:Automatic Trademark? on Is a Domain Name an Automatic Trademark? · · Score: 1

    I read it, but this being Slashdot I figured I could get away with the joke anyway. And it was a joke -- I didn't ask to be modded insightful :)

  9. Re:Automatic Trademark? on Is a Domain Name an Automatic Trademark? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm waiting for them to try to sue Switzerland.

  10. Re:enhanced quality != correct on Students Assigned to Write Wikipedia Articles · · Score: 2, Informative

    unreferenced facts are subject to removal

    You must be new here.

    [Joking aside, the gp post was talking about the development of pidgins and creoles. I remember reading a discussion of it The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond.]

  11. Re:The CO2 lag on Most Science Studies Tainted by Sloppy Analysis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So why didn't the global temperature spiral out of control and turn Earth into a second Venus, the last time this vicious cycle got started?

    There are other feedback mechanisms that act in the other direction. Higher temperatures mean the air can hold more moisture, which leads to more clouds (reflects sunlight back into space), and more rainfall. More rain and more atmospheric CO2 leads to more plant growth, which sequesters the surplus CO2 into biomass and eventually counteracts the CO2 release from the oceans.

  12. Check Ireland on Steve Fossett Missing · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's where Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan ended up when he tried to fly from New York to California.

  13. Re:Obviously... on Uri Geller Accused of Bending Copyright Law · · Score: 0

    He bends copyright laws with the power of his mind.

    The first step is to realize that there is no intellection property, and it is you that bends.

  14. Re:1/2 of a corporations duties on MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem · · Score: 1

    I doubt the factual accuracy of that article. Microsoft's 1999 Annual Report shows $4,106,000,000 in income taxes, which is 31.5% of their net income before taxes. This is a lot higher than zero.

  15. Man or mouse? on Skin Cells Turned Embryonic · · Score: 2, Funny

    A straightforward procedure using mouse fibroblasts harvested from the skin can be used to produce pluripotent stem cells [...] Stem cells produced using this procedure, however, can not be use to safely to make genetically matched cells for transplant.

    I think I found the source of the problem.

  16. Re:Credit where due department on Microsoft's Multitouch Coffee Table Display · · Score: 1

    They've tried magnetic implants in other places for carrying of gadgets and small metal objects, but they didn't work because the pressure of carrying stuff around on the magnets kills the tissue between the magnet and the skin. But there has been some success in a spinoff technique of implanting magnets in fingertips so you can feel magnetic fields.

  17. Re:Diversity on Study Reveals What Women Want From IT Jobs · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not sure if that's that same study I heard about, but my understanding is that prevailing research shows the homogenous teams tend to be more efficent (for the reasons the gp intuits), but a diverse team tends to be more creative.

  18. Re:Color theory 101 on When the Earth Was Purple · · Score: 1

    Red-Blue-Yellow is an oversymplication of Cyan-Magenta-Yellow. I believe the theory is that it's easier to teach young children the oversimplified version and give them cyan and magenta paints labeled "blue" and "red" than it is to teach them what cyan and magenta are.

  19. Re:Work smarter, not harder on Chimps Evolved More Than Humans · · Score: 1

    Everyone knows chimps only engage in guerilla warfare.

  20. Re:Work smarter, not harder on Chimps Evolved More Than Humans · · Score: 1

    Other species have individuals who do a lot of stupid stuff, too. Humans only seem dumb because we expect more from ourselves. You complain about humans refusing to think and reason, but I expect even the worst 'sheeple' think and reason much better than your typical dog, fish, or crocodile.

    There are other animals who can build shelters for themselves, and who can make basic tools. There are other species that pass along learned skills from generation to generation. There are other species that create art given the opportunity.

    But humans do all of these things more and better than other species. And we have social institutions to mitigate the harm from misbehaving members of our species. And we've built up infrastructure and developed sophisticated division of labor in order to greatly multiply what each human is able to accomplish. And then there's things like medicine, travel, and written language, which I personally am rather fond of.

  21. Work smarter, not harder on Chimps Evolved More Than Humans · · Score: 1

    Chimps may have evolved more, but humans evolved better!

  22. Re:Beyond words... on Many Dead In Virginia Tech Shooting · · Score: 1

    It's there, but under a different name. It's in the DSM-IV as Antisocial Personality Disorder

  23. Re:Not Unreasonable on HP Dishonors Warranty If You Load Linux · · Score: 1

    Google knows everything.

    Coach seat pitch and width by airline and airplane model:
    http://www.seatguru.com/charts/domestic_economy.ph p
    http://www.seatguru.com/charts/intl_economy.php

    And several airlines also offer "Premium Economy" where for an extra cost you can sit where the seats are a few inches further apart:
    http://www.seatguru.com/charts/premium_economy.php

  24. Re:Until you consider Patents and other G. Monopol on SCOTUS Case May End Sale Prices · · Score: 5, Informative
    He also said that attempts to prevent this were doomes, and he went on to say that in the absence of active government support these conspiracies are doomed due to chiselling and competition from those outside of the cartel.

    People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
    diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the
    public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible,
    indeed, to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be
    executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though
    the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes
    assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such
    assemblies, much less to render them necessary.

    A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular
    town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register,
    facilitates such assemblies. It connects individuals who might never
    otherwise be known to one another, and gives every man of the trade a
    direction where to find every other man of it.

    A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves,
    in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows and
    orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such
    assemblies necessary.

    An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of
    the majority binding upon the whole. In a free trade, an effectual
    combination cannot be established but by the unanimous consent of
    every single trader, and it cannot last longer than every single
    trader continues of the same mind.
    The majority of a corporation can
    enact a bye-law, with proper penalties, which will limit the
    competition more effectually and more durably than any voluntary
    combination whatever.


    It's pretty clear from context that when Smith says "corporation" here, he means what'd we'd call a guild or an industry association. An organization which everyone in the industry was compelled to join and which had the power to regulate the business activities of everyone engaging in the trade. More like the AMA than, say, Microsoft or Google. Smith was not arguing for government antitrust regulation, but rather for governments to avoid mandating or encouraging industry self-regulation.
  25. Re:Why not just get a damn passport? on Washington State To Try RFID Drivers Licenses · · Score: 1

    I didn't get a drivers license until after I finished college, so I did use my passport to get into bars for a while and nobody batted an eyelash. Of course, this was in a small college town which one could bike across in about 15 minutes without breaking a sweat, so people without drivers licenses were probably much more common there than in most of the US.