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  1. Just make your website not suck on Google's Effort To Speed Up the Mobile Web (ampproject.org) · · Score: 1

    We don't need yet another phone oriented "standard". All that's needed is for sites to clean the stupid cruft out of their web pages, and to not do brain damaged de-contented "mobile" versions. Just clean up your damned code and stop with the stupid shit.

  2. Professors now make big bucks teaching on What Happens When the "Sharing Economy" Meets Higher Education · · Score: 1

    "Professors now make big bucks teaching"

    BWA! HA! HA!

    Sorry, couldn't read beyond this. Too damned funny. Or stupid, if you prefer.

  3. missing the main point on First California AMBER Alert Shows AT&T's Emergency Alerts Are a Mess · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Earth to submitter: AT&T is a mess.

  4. VI VI VI on Evil, Almost Full Vim Implementation In Emacs, Reaches 1.0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    vi vi vi, the editor of the beast.

  5. NOT first to 100 km/hr on 100km/h Sailboat Sets Speed Record · · Score: 1

    Let's have a look at the Council's list that is linked in TFA and TFS. 100 km/hr is 53.996 knots. What do we see?

    2010 Kite-board Alexandre Caizergues FRA Luderitz, NAM 54.10 kts
    2010 Kite-board Sebastien Cattalan FRA Luderitz, NAM 55.49 kts
    2010 Kite-board Rob Douglas USA Luderitz, NAM 55.65 kts

    3 kiters in 2010 certified as going faster than 100 km/hr. Sailrocket's achievement of a new outright record is awesome, it doesn't need to be embellished (or damaged) with false claims to be first past a round-number threshold.

  6. Re:Sounds like Medicare in the US on China's Yearly Budget For High-Speed Rail: $100 Billion · · Score: 1

    The horrifically expensive part is the American approach to provisioning health care. It costs a third more per capita than other first-world countries and provides worse outcomes. But that does not mean the solution is to dismantle the only single-payer system in the US and replace it with vouchers, making the elderly go to insurance providers that would prefer to place them on an ice floe.

    Medicare may suck but it is better than anything else the US is doing in health care.

  7. Re:no false positives on Testing for Many Designer Drugs At Once · · Score: 2

    I'll take your second paragraph as a declaration that the false positive potential is non-zero.

  8. False Positives, anyone? on Testing for Many Designer Drugs At Once · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, um, what's the false positive rate with this test? For a while people were being convicted of cocaine trafficking because the money in their pockets had traces of cocaine. Eventually it was disclosed that ALL (US) currency has traces of cocaine.

  9. "Unlimited" data plan with a 500 MB cutoff on AT&T Expects Data-Only Phone Plans Within 2 Years · · Score: 1

    I have an "unlimited" data plan with AT&T. In the 20 months on the current phone I've used approximately 10 gig of data, total. Lately they've been throttling my data service to almost nothing if I cross 500 MB in one billing period. They claim they're still giving data service, but at a "lower" rate. This "lower" rate is so slow a web page cannot load before the browser times out (60 seconds). That is service denial, while I'm still under contract with a fat cancellation fee. Note that they're only blocking web traffic. Email still works, and maps still load.

    Think carefully before signing up with AT&T, and if any AT&T people are reading this, yes I am researching what agencies regulate your asses, because you are a utility, and I'm documenting your behavior.

  10. Re:Anyone got times by location? on Rare 'Annular Solar Eclipse' Tonight · · Score: 1

    This article gives information for many cities (scroll down past the maps for the text listing):

    eclipse times by city

  11. Anyone got times by location? on Rare 'Annular Solar Eclipse' Tonight · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Fucking retards prepared a "handy" list of times by north american city, and published it as a PDF. Now their webserver has fallen over trying to serve that PDF.

    Any other sources?

    FUCK PDF

  12. Time transfer is the problem on Carbohydrate-Based Synthesis To Replace Petroleum Derived Hydrocarbons? · · Score: 1

    Both fossil fuel and biofuel are essentially vehicles for transfering the sun's energy to a tangible, packageable format. Biofuels are great, and we should continue to develop them, and deploy where economically viable. But biofuels cannot solve the basic problem of what fossil fuels provide: in addition to being incredibly convenient (dense portable energy from a hole in the ground), fossil fuels provide stored sun energy from accumulated years past. Millions of years.

    Biofuel can deliver only one year's worth of sun energy per year, whereas mining fossil fuels gives you access to past millions of years' worth of sun energy. So yes, go for more biofuel, but don't expect biofuel to sustain energy consumption habits that depend on every year transfering a thousand past years' worth of ancient biofuel (oil/coal/NG) to this year.

  13. Illegal to use a cell phone while driving on Sensor Networks In San Francisco Finds Parking Spots · · Score: 3, Informative

    In California it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving. Even while stopped at a traffic light. So tell me again how I'm going to use this parking spot locator service? I guess I could pull off the road into an empty parking spot and pull up the app, um, wait... Even if I did this, glancing down at my phone to follow the map to the parking spot would be illegal. Yes, it's a poorly written law. But there it is.

    Main feature here is dynamic upward pricing of parking and more efficient dispatch of meter-maids. The rest is window-dressing.

  14. One little detail... on Sensor Networks In San Francisco Finds Parking Spots · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One little detail omitted is that they plan on (and are) raising the meter rates such that it becomes too expensive for some people to park. The goal is to price things such that "there is at least one open spot per block". (I don't know if that means per street-front block, or per 4-sided block.)

    That those rates can go up to $18/hr, coupled with the minimum $50 parking tickets is why some people describe San Francisco as having "a war on cars". There's also the little gem that you can't pre-pay the electronic meters for the next morning--so yeah, it's free from 11PM to 7AM, but you have to be there on the dot of 7AM to beat the ticket-wielding meter maid summoned by the electronic sensor. Makes life a little rough for overnight guests who might like to have some wine with dinner.

    Not to mention the scam of "street cleaning", which seems to require clearing the street of cars once a week yet somehow get cleaned at best twice a year. And you guessed it, $50 ticket regardless of whether any street cleaners actually showed up.

    So yeah, neat technology. It's practical purpose is to raise money for the city and to provide price supports for off-street parking lots.

  15. proctogon? on Microsoft Announces ReFS, a New Filesystem For Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    Proctogon? PROCTOGON? You are seriously naming this after an all-seeing (panopticon) anal doctor (proctologist)???

    It's true. Microsoft couldn't market an iceberg in the sahara. Or maybe it's truth-in-advertising--this file system is going to crawl so far your computer's ass it'll know what you had for lunch.

  16. where were the robots? on Where Were the Robots In Fukushima Crisis? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where were the robots? They were in the same place as the dosimeters, hazmat suits, geiger counters, breathing apparatus, standby generators, dual remote electrical hookups (Japan has two electrical standards), stocks of boron, reactor model upgrades, structure vents, and so on. In other words, nowhere. All preparation for emergencies was skipped. No doubt a couple decades of management bonuses were paid for keeping costs down.

    This is why nuclear power is unsafe. Because you can't trust humans to run systems where a cost cut today doesn't blow up for 10-20 years. This kind of crap happens in all industries, it's just that in the nuclear industry the "oops" consequences are devastating.

  17. Ryan Braun is disputing a similar result on Floyd Landis Sentenced For Hacking Test Lab · · Score: 4, Informative

    Recently Ryan Braun (rookie of the year, Major League Baseball) has been disputing a positive drug test that appears to be the same one Floyd Landis disputes, namely an abnormally high epitestosterone/testosterone ratio. In Braun's case, it appears that MLB's testing protocol involves doing a cheap but prone to false-positives first test, then a more costly and accurate second test if the first is positive. In Braun's case, what has gone horribly wrong is that the results of his first test (positive) were leaked BEFORE the second test was run. Now everyone has lawyered up and the assclowns who run MLB have some explaining to do. This is discussed at length with all available public info here:

    Braun Banned for PEDs

    What does this have to do with Floyd Landis? Just that epi/natural testosterone comparisons aren't cut and dried, and that the French do like to find winning non-French bikers to be dopers, and under the French Napoleonic code of justice you are guilty until proven innocent.

  18. Re:Turn signals are a good thing on Ford System Will Warn, Correct Lane-Drifting Drivers · · Score: 1

    Personally, I'd guess that a turn signal will convince the AI to allow an intentional lane change.

    In addition to informing the AI, it'll also let other drivers know of your intentions. Revolutionary! You could even try putting on the signal BEFORE you turn the wheel instead of halfway through the lane change.

  19. Re:Progress on NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design · · Score: 1

    Holy Mod Wars, Batman! The moderation of my parent comment (so far):

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Interesting (+1).

    It is currently scored Normal (2).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Underrated (+1).

    It is currently scored Interesting (3).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Insightful (+1).

    It is currently scored Interesting (4).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Insightful (+1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (5).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (4).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Overrated (-1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (3).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design , has been moderated Insightful (+1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (4).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (3).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (4).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (3).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (4).

    Re:Progress, posted to NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design, has been moderated Overrated (-1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (3).

  20. Re:Progress on NRC Approves New Nuclear Reactor Design · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In other words, ignoring things that happen in the real world, and that even a first-world country like Japan can't get around human nature (laziness) and business imperatives to cut corners and defer upgrades.

    Nuclear power would be great, if we didn't have to depend on humans to run it.

  21. The problem on Russians Can't Make Contact With Busted Space Probe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Somewhere on the probe, there is a cursor blinking on an small LCD screen ( or CRT, FFS), next to the letters:

    STAGE 1 COMPLETE. HIT RETURN TO CONTINUE _

  22. inapt comparison on Why Tokai No. 2 Nuclear Power Plant Survived March · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Fukushima had multiple hardware failures, correctable design problems, and crappy management. The failure was not just due to a low seawall.

    1. Reactor 1's cooling system likely failed due to the quake, not the failure of the backup diesels. This opinion is based on analysis of the remaining sensors, that indicated the reactor was having problems even while the battery-powered cooling was still running. The existing plumbing and wiring had been embrittled from 4 decades of operation in a quake zone and proximity to, well, a nuclear reactor.

    2. Design flaw and hardware failure: locating the backup diesel generators in a basement under the reactors, such that they were guaranteed to flood if water entered the area.

    3. Design flaw: locating the spent fuel pools directly above the reactors in the same buildings, such that if the reactor had a little problem (hydrogen explosion, or moderated prompt criticality), said fuel would get blown sky-high, which it did in the reactor 3 explosion.

    4. Design flaw: no externally located terminals for "connect portable generators HERE", and no rationalization of Japan's two different electrical standards (it's a fucking nuclear power plant that will blow up if not cooled, so support both standards, guys).

    5. Management failure: All reactors should have been flooded with seawater immediately after the quake, as soon as the situation on the ground at the site became clear. This might have averted the hydrogen explosion by keeping the reactors cool enough to not oxidize the zirconium fuel-rod cladding. Local personnel correctly identified the situation, remote management denied permission to flood the reactors with seawater (because that basically ends the reactor's productive life). Eventually a local guy did so anyways.

  23. California being the "most litigious state" on SpaceX Sues Valador For Defamation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Um, last time I looked California is the most populous state in the nation. This submitter claim is as bogus as those who try to claim the 9th district court is somehow biased because it decides more cases of X (fill in bias here), while ignoring that it represents most states west of the rockies.

    Full quote from interestingly slanted summary:

    In true California fashion (being the most litigious state of the nation)

  24. Re:relatively low temperatures on TEPCO Confirms Partial Meltdown of No.2 and No.3 Reactors · · Score: 1

    As one of those downmodded for saying that a for-profit nuclear industry will continue to experience "accidents", and that the nuclear industry would cease to exist as we know it should they have to post an insurance bond against future "accidents", thank you for mentioning this.

  25. Competence on Osama Bin Laden Reported Dead, Body In US Hands · · Score: 0, Troll

    Hey Republicans, this is what competence looks like. Would you please stop running assclowns for preznit now?