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User: RajivSLK

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Comments · 405

  1. Re:Lighting on ships... on Illuminating Window-Less Houses With a Plastic Bottle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You must be the biggest idiot in the world. The pop bottle skylights aren't for you in your single family home in pasadena. They are for people who earn less than $2/day. The free/cheap. The light pipes cost hundreds of dollars.

  2. Re:Lighting on ships... on Illuminating Window-Less Houses With a Plastic Bottle · · Score: 1

    They have them in Victoria, BC as well. However, overtime the ones here have turned purple. The glass formula used for prisms contained magnesium.

    However, I wouldn't say that this is the same thing as a pop bottle skylight at all. Glass blocks cost money and must be installed by a professional. The pop bottle is waste garbage that is free and can be installed easily.

  3. Re:handy on Cold War Plan Tried To Put a Copper Ring Around the Earth · · Score: 2

    No it's not boneheaded at all. The US would obviously only launch the rockets containing the copper filaments in the case of a communications failure. That is during an attack in which the soviets were able to knocked out American communication the copper filaments would be launched and be used as a backup.

    Seems like a smart contingency plan to me.

  4. Re:Finally! on Bill Gates Is Beginning To Dream the Thorium Dream · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Good! Take profits from the worst companies and use it for good. Nothing wrong with that- else-wise someone else will just take those profits.

    The arm of the foundation charged with investing and growing the fund should simply chase the best investments without any restriction or influence from the charitable arm. It would be stupid not to.

  5. Switch Careers on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With a Fear of Technological Change? · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you don't have a desire to change and accept the inevitable progression of technology switch careers. I hear the amish are making wonderful fireplaces.

  6. Re:Excellent; on Canada To Stop Producing Pennies In 2013 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason the penny costs so much to keep in circulation is not solely the cost of minting. If a penny costs $0.02 to mint but is used in 10,000 transaction in it's life time that would be ok.

    The problem with the penny is that they don't get spent. The mint needs to keep producing new ones for retailers to give out and people go home and throw them in a coffee can.

    Oddly, this is the exact argument in favour of $1, $2, and $5 coins. People don't spend coins as easily, they tend fall between couch cushions or collect in jars. Until those jars are emptied, and the couch cleaned those coins are basically a kind of interest free loan the government.

  7. Re:Does he believe what he's saying? on Ask Slashdot: Undoing an Internet Smear Campaign? · · Score: 1

    Yes. Also, the call his mother approach often works.

  8. Re:Most users are not geeks on UK Cookie Consent Banners Draw Complaints · · Score: 1

    Clearly the law is misdirected. The law, if needed at all, should require web browsers to explain cookies and how to manage them upon install and on their start-up pages.

    Perhaps, even require web browsers to make it easier to view cookies by domain or something. A standardized icon that you click which shows you all the locally stored information for a particular site.

    Or maybe something akin to the "lock" icon that shows up when a site drops a cookie and clicking on it gives you the option of viewing and deleting (rejecting) the cookie.

  9. Re:Modern Shunning on Taking Sense Away: Confessions of a Former TSA Screener · · Score: 1

    And the risks are pretty small. You have a higher risk of harm being a tow truck driver or a cab driver.

  10. Re:WTF?!?!?! on SSD Prices Continue 3-Year Plunge · · Score: 1

    Bad at Math and English. I thought he was using some kind of insider industry shorthand.

  11. Re:Don't forget housing and condo boards on Solar Panels For Every Home? · · Score: 1

    No it goes to the bond payments to pay for all the infrastructure in their new McMansion subdivision. That's the new way of building stuff. Instead of the developers and/or the city paying for things like streets, sewers, lights, electrics etc (and then recouping the cost from property taxes and sale of the houses) the developer/city issues a bond registered against to the new properties titles (or the HOA which is then registered against the property titles.)

    They then sell the houses and the owners must pay $200 or whatever per month for the next 30 - 40 years on top of the cost of their houses. It basically supplements the property tax.

  12. Re:Extremely expensive on Solar Panels For Every Home? · · Score: 1

    Seems like a good investment.

    If you invested that $17,000 at say 11.1% (average stock market returns for the last 80 years) you would make $1,870/year. About same amount your are saving per year.

    At the average return of the S&P 500 - 9% your $17,000 would generate only $1,530/year.

    I'm not sure what the total life of your panels are and what maintenance costs may arise but even when you take into account the opportunity costs of the money it seems like a solid 10%+ return.

  13. Re:And yet... on 27 Reported Killed In Connecticut Elementary School Shooting · · Score: 0

    If I was there with a gun things *would* have turned out differently. To be clear, I live in Canada and I don't own gun nor do I want to. However, had I been there with a gun either I would be dead or I would have killed the gun man that's for sure.

    If two or three or five armed people were there then one of them would likely have killed this lunatic before the death toll could rise to this level.

  14. Re:Censorship on Google's Image Search Now Requires Explicit Queries For Explicit Results · · Score: 1

    Those were the lazy mean parents. They yelled at their kids a lot when they were around but then genuinely didn't look after them. The strict parents of kids I knew always knew where their kids were. Always knew who their kids friends were and were diligent about having their kids call home and tell them what was up. They would never be able to get away with getting near alcohol poisoning because their parents would literally show up at the party and take them home. If they did skip out somehow then they wouldn't be grounded for quite a while.

    I'm 30 now and looking back the kids that had somewhat strict parents are the ones who are doing well now. The ones who didn't are in the messed up group.

  15. Re:Yes but on Race To Mine Bitcoins Drives Enthusiasts Into the Chip Making Business · · Score: 1

    People still do that today. It's called margin or in some cases leveraging.

  16. Re:First lobster cannibal's thoughts on As Fish Stocks Collapse, Overpopulated Lobsters Resort to Cannibalism · · Score: 5, Informative

    Interesting fact about lobsters, they haven't always been considered delicious. In colonial times, lobsters were considered "poverty food." They were harvested from tidal pools and served to children, to prisoners, and to indentured servants. In Massachusetts, some of the servants rebelled and demanded that they would not be forced to eat lobster more than three times a week.

    In fact I met a old woman who told me that, when she was young, she would hide and eat her school lunch- her family was too poor to afford anything other than lobster and the other kids would tease her.

    I just goes to show you how society, culture and advertising controls our behaviour, beliefs and taste buds.

    As far as this lobster "overpopulated" lobster nonsense- call me when you can walk along the shore at low tide and just pick them up by the dozens (as was common in years past). That would be the natural equilibrium population before we started commercially harvesting.

    This whole "overpopulated" is clearly perpetuated by someone who wants increased quotas.

  17. Re:Cracking Down On Free Enterprise? on NY Attorney General Subpoenas Craigslist For Post-Sandy Price Gougers · · Score: 1

    Gouging is not 100% efficient- gouger's will inevitably buy and store more than they sell and still make a profit. Furthermore gouging causes people to hoard. If I know that gas will remain a roughly the same price it is now and likely return to normal in a week or so, I am probably just going to fill the tanks in all my cars and maybe get a small jerrycan before the storm. If I think gas will rocket to $20/gallon after the storm I am going to buy a 500 gallon tank rush to the pumps and suck them dry before everybody else does.

    Our behavior will create massive shortages, nothing like what we currently see. Creating an incentive to direct supplies to a disaster area is something that government can do far more efficiently than price gouging.

    Also, we haven't even talked about those people who can't afford increased prices. Those people would certainly go without in a gouging scenario. In a large disaster I would imagine that would result in civil unrest, increase crime and violence.

  18. Re:Cracking Down On Free Enterprise? on NY Attorney General Subpoenas Craigslist For Post-Sandy Price Gougers · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Allowing price gouging post disaster can be very dangerous because it exacerbates any shortages. No only are people in need vying for scare resources but price gougers who buy and hold much more than they individually need in an effort to reap a profit on resale. This causes more gouging and hoarding as people become scared that prices will increase. The ultimate result is that people will go without and possibly die while resources go unused.

  19. Re:Soooo coool! on Huge Geoengineering Project Violates UN Rules · · Score: 3, Informative

    They actually paid the guy to dump the iron sulphate- 2.5 million is what I heard on the radio.

  20. Re:Power steering isn't a safety feature. on $3,000 Tata Nano Car Coming To US · · Score: 1

    Just to be pedantic - in most situations, ABS will NOT decrease your stopping distance, in fact, by definition not locking your tires reduces friction and actually increases stopping distances.

    This is blatantly false. The friction between a locked sliding tire and the road is usually less than the friction that can be applied by braking system while the tire is still rolling. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system

    ABS generally offers improved vehicle control and decreases stopping distances on dry and slippery surfaces for many drivers;
    Stopping distances were reduced in most of the tests compared with locked wheel braking, particularly on slippery surfaces, in which the improvement could be as much as 30 percent.

    The Long-Term Effect of ABS in Passenger Cars and LTVs
    From:www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811182.PDF

    Median Percent Reduction of Stopping Distance
    ABS Enabled Versus ABS Disabled
    Road Surface
    Dry concrete: 5% reduction
    Wet asphalt/concrete: 14% reduction
    Wet Jennite 43% reduction
    Wet epoxy 10% reduction
    Gravel: 28% increase*

  21. Re:Power steering isn't a safety feature. on $3,000 Tata Nano Car Coming To US · · Score: 1

    That's because traffic is so bad now that nobody can go over 50mph.

  22. Re:Not as big as the original on New York Plans World's Largest Ferris Wheel · · Score: 2

    Very interestingly according to the inflation calculator:

    What cost $0.50 in 1895 would cost $12.93 in 2010.

    So really the same price per minute real terms.

  23. Re:My biggest fear on New York Plans World's Largest Ferris Wheel · · Score: 2

    I mean if you are going to imagine something at least make it interesting.

    Perhaps his imaginations refuses to wildly defy the laws of physics?

  24. Re:My biggest fear on New York Plans World's Largest Ferris Wheel · · Score: 1

    So, any group that calls themselves something... it's ok for everyone else to call them that too.

    Gotcha.

    On the face of it that sounds down right, reasonable. I'm not sure why someone would call themselves something so derogatory that they themselves would be insulted by it?

  25. I do actually. When I take the float plane from Victoria to Seattle/Vancouver they have strict 24lb baggage limit. I weigh 160lbs and my girlfriend weighs 110lbs. When carefully packing our 24lb bag we always gripe. We are paying the same price and have the same baggage estrictions as the 220lbs guy!