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User: LWATCDR

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Comments · 15,647

  1. Maybe not as scary you might think on The Last Time Oceans Got This Acidic This Fast, 96% of Marine Life Went Extinct · · Score: 0

    That means that all sea life is descended from sea life that survived the change in the Ocean.

  2. Re:Women like to look up - Science! on Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet? · · Score: 1

    "One big war, since the Dutch managed to stay out of the first one. But according to this article that period coincides with increasing body length, so that supports the idea that food is a limiting factor."
    They did but I am sure that they still suffered shortages during WWI just as Sweden did in WWII. But for the most part they have not had famine .

    "You need to grow it first, and being tall doesn't help with that."
    A famine typically is when you do not have enough food for everyone. Being the strongest tends to allow you to take food from the week or at least defend what you have.

  3. Re:Get over it ! on How the Pentagon Wasted $10 Billion On Military Projects · · Score: 1

    "Both are horribly expensive things that don't work"
    Funny but the Bradley did very well in Desert Storm. At least my friend that was on gunner on one thought they did and he was their.
    As I get older I tend to doubt that any large project is ever properly managed.

  4. Re:Women like to look up - Science! on Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet? · · Score: 1

    1. Not a lot of issues with food shortages in the Holland for the last 105 years or so except for those two big wars.
    2. Taller is often also physically stronger which means you tend to have more access to food.

  5. Re:Lies, bullshit, and more lies ... on With H-1B Cap Hit, Zuckerberg and Ballmer-Led Groups Press For More Tech Visas · · Score: 1

    Actually yes it will.
    If you do not allow H1B then they will hire programmers in Ireland, India, and .... name the country.
    Those programmers will buy food, cloths, houses, cars, and so on in those nations and pay income tax in those nations.

    If they get H1Bs they have to pay US income tax and buy stuff here.

    As people so like to point out the internet erases borders. You can bring people here or work with them remotely. Working with them here means they pay taxes here.
    We ran into this with a worker at my office from Canada. He had a hard time renewing his visa so he worked from Canada as a consultant until his visa was granted. That pay was tax free as far as the US is concerned.

  6. Re:Yeah good luck with that... on Hugo Awards Turn (Even More) Political · · Score: 1

    Funny thing is someone once accused me of being a SJW because I found the stereotyping of all Indian contract programmers as talentless hacks to be bigoted.
    It does seem to be fine line between a SJW and a bigot.

  7. Re:Get over it ! on How the Pentagon Wasted $10 Billion On Military Projects · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Frankly just about every new system introduced was considered a total failure by the Press at one time or another.
    The F-4 Phantom, F-14, F-15, F-18, M1A1, AH-64, M2 Bradley, B-1, F-111, The Nimitz class carrier, and going way back to pre WWII the B-17 crashed in testing and was thought to be too big and expensive.
    This article is full of fluff and opinions from unnamed experts. The SBX may be a disaster but I don't see the limited angle as that big of a deal. It is designed so that if the US feels threatened by North Korea then we target them with the SBX. It is a system that is designed to respond to an escalation in threats not to stand guard for a sneak attack.

    If you 24/7 protection from sneak attack that will cost you. You will need to build many X-Band and S-Band radars and re-establish the DEW Line. Then you will want to re-establish the Pine Line in Canada. Next you will want to convert the old Safeguard system in ND to house BMDs and then add installations in along the coasts. Maybe Land Aegis along the coasts. And we should probably build some X-Band Radars in American Samoa , Midway, Hawaii, and Christmas Island. In the Atlantic interceptors should be based in Greenland....
    As you see it would be a massive project. Truth is that it is unlikely that North Korea or Iran would just go and pop a nuke at the US without any escalation. The simple truth is the interceptors are to save lives in North Korea and or Iran. If a single warhead hits a US city the response would be terrible. Those nations would cease. The death toll would be staggering.
    If the leaders of those nations did get stupid and we manage to intercept the warhead the response would be much lower.

  8. Re:Yeah good luck with that... on Hugo Awards Turn (Even More) Political · · Score: 5, Insightful

    THe problem is that they really missed the target.
    The goal is not to have more people of color, women, or one eye gay Episcopalian kangaroos to win awards,
    The point is for everyone have an equal chance to win the awards based on the quality of their work.
    AKA the issue should never have been one of inclusion. It needs to be one of ending exclusion.

  9. Re:The real missed question on Focusing On Tech Alone, You Miss How Autonomous Driving Will Change Society · · Score: 1

    When Need head down time I just put in my headphones. At my office people know that unless it is urgent leave me alone.

  10. Re:Slashdot has fallen. Please don't get up. on Parents Sue School After Pod Daughter Is Banned From Prom · · Score: 1

    What someone should do is just post outlandish stores that happen to be true...
    Wait... Just repost from Fox and MSNBC....

  11. Re:Let's hope nothing shoots back on NASA-ESA Project Will Shoot an Asteroid To See What Happens · · Score: 1

    I really hate that phrase. It is the favorite of every crackpot on the planet.

  12. Re:The real missed question on Focusing On Tech Alone, You Miss How Autonomous Driving Will Change Society · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As a software developer I like coming into my office to work.
    Having other people just walk over and say have you seen this happen before? Or walk over to the hardware lab and say "Can you check the sensor", is very useful.
    Plus I like most of my co-workers and enjoy working with them.
    I have had jobs where that is not true but frankly not being in the office would not have make the situation any better.

  13. Re:what will be more interesting on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 1

    "I'll worry about Clarkson being violent when I find out what was said, and not until."
    If the producer was verbally assaulting him then Clarkson could get him canned in a minute.
    Time to move past school and into the adult world.

  14. Re:what will be more interesting on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 1

    No. I question the ethics of paying people to beat each other for my entertainment.

  15. Re:Only need one Steve Jobs on Why America's Obsession With STEM Education Is Dangerous · · Score: 1

    Apple only counts for money made.
    What a load of garbage.
    I love OS/X but the latest round of Apple hardware shows what happens when the "designers" run the show.
    New Mac Pro... Stuck with Ivy Bridge CPUs when Haswell-e CPUs are out. GPUs are good but not near the best you can get plus no Nividia option for Cuda.
    Mac Book line. You can not upgrade the ram and can not upgrade the SSDs. Prices for SSDs are going down but if you need more you have to buy a new notebook.
    Apple is making money hand over fist but RIM and Nokia made a lot of money after the iPhone came out as well.
    As much as I love OS/X and my MacBook Pro it is PCs that still do most of the real work. Servers run Linux, BSD, or Windows and not OS/X for the most part.
    Desktops are running Windows for the most part.

  16. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 2

    http://blogs.scientificamerica...

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

      I don't know if that is GP's objections but they are pretty good reasons to think radio isotopes are a threat to the environment and ultimately, humanity.

    Not if dealt with correctly.
    The spent fuel can be recycled. The short lived radio isotopes do not need to be stored very long. The medium waste goes back to fuel. The low level is close to background.

    "Newer" reactor designs like the LFTR and I use new only in the sense that the prototype was built and tested about 40 years ago but not put into production. Produce a lot less waste and are walk away safe.

    "And speaking of vilification, that is what happened to the peer reviewed science [stormsmith.nl] regarding the energetic return of the nuclear industry"
    Um... What journal was that published? Who reviewed that? All I see is a website that seems to be dedicated to anti-nuclear. Some of the reports listed at the end are in journals.

  17. Re:Ballsy, but stupid ... on Attempted Breach of NSA HQ Checkpoint; One Shot Dead · · Score: 1

    "Speaking as someone who wants to see the NSA dismantled, I hope these shooters died painfully if they were doing it as a political statement."
    Yea and since both statements are pretty much crazy we can now dismiss you.

    To hope for someone to die painfully in this case is unethical at best. These people had to be stopped. The best result would have been for no one to be injured but to seek others to die painfully is nothing but revenge and in this case unwarranted.

  18. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    Geothermal is location limted.
    Solar is not useful for baseload because of the state of storage technology. And yes I have read up on molten salt thermal storage and I work with battery technology everyday. Pumped water storage and solar are a poor match because it is very rare to have a lot of water and elevation change in areas with good solar potential.
     

  19. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    The carbon footprint according to a NASA study including all mining is a small fraction of natural gas and more than an order of magnitude less than coal. Oil does not count since almost no oil is used for electric production in the US.
    BTW maintenance is not carbon free of wind turbines.

  20. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 2

    Bzzzzz.....
    Wrong answer.
    It is not and Studies by NASA and the UN both support a large increase in nuclear power to reduce pollution in general as well as carbon emissions as does one of the founders of Greenpeace.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
    Of course Greenpeace says he is a paid toady of the nuclear industry.... Vilification of those that disagree with you is the first rule of propaganda.

  21. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    That Greenpeace makes a lot of money off anti nuclear? That should be pretty obvious.

    Anti-nuclear is the same as Anti-Vax.
    All the science says it saves a more lives that it takes.
    And not doing it will end up taking a large number of lives and will impact the poor, old, and very young the most.
    The only difference is that not using more nuclear power will do a lot more harm than not vaxing.

  22. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    The amazing thing is this is only at a -1....
    1. No.
    2. No.
    3. No.

    I do not think it is possible to have a post on slashdot that is less true and more inflammatory.

  23. Re:Lots of places have banned both babes already on RSA Conference Bans "Booth Babes" · · Score: 2

    A dress code? Okay.
    Frankly Booth Babes never worked for me.
    Whenever I see one I just think, "We both know I am not going to sleep with you so why are you flirting with me... Oh to scam me...."

  24. Re:what will be more interesting on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 1

    Two wrongs....

  25. Re:what will be more interesting on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is your entertainment more important than someone being assaulted?