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User: jfengel

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  1. Re:we need a litmus test on US House Science Committee Member: Evolution Is a Lie From Hell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Despite loudmouth morons like this, there are plenty of religious people capable of managing their daily lives and even participating usefully in science. We happen to notice the deranged assholes like this one, and we hang our heads in shame that large chunks of the American populace agree with them. But not every religious American is an asshole, and you wouldn't fix the world by getting rid of an awful lot of nice, useful people.

    I sure wouldn't mind it if this person evaporated. This kind of pernicious stupidity makes the world a worse place. But I'm not going to let it make me stupid with the fallacy of hasty generalization. (Heck, for all I know this person is a useful human being when he's not being a useless loudmouth fuck, but I'm willing to generalize at least that far.)

    The US got where it is despite every President, Supreme Court Justice, and Congressman (well, nearly all) being religious, in some degree or another. Being religious doesn't have to make you a useless piece of shit. Even if it does in this guy's case.

  2. Re:Quietly? on Virgin Galactic's Quiet News: Virgin Now Owns The SpaceShip Company · · Score: 2

    By putting it out on a Friday after work. The main business journalists will have gone home for the weekend, and the business people who might read it are going to pay less attention to the Saturday paper. It also means that people don't rage-sell the stock the following day. They hope that by the time Monday's market opens, tempers will cool a bit.

    It's not a secret. You couldn't hide it; it's public knowledge. You just dump it when nobody's paying much attention and is too busy mowing the lawn or watching the kids play soccer to get all that outraged about it. You get to put your spin on it without the business news channels putting it in heavy rotation. It's not secret; it's just "quiet".

  3. Re:But that's not the real problem. on To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets · · Score: 1

    My own story isn't quite as dramatic, but it's got the same moral. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for a bike helmet.

    Many things can cause a fall (in this case, a momentary lapse of attention as I went around a corner, catching the pedal on the ground). You can tell yourself you're smarter than that, but do you really want to bet your life on being smart at every instant, every single time you get on, not to mention everybody around you?

  4. Re:Kickstarter replaces IPO on Does Crowdfunding Work? · · Score: 1

    Kickstarter's still entirely separate from the public market. That's actually one of the other problems with offering equity via Kickstarter: you've got very little liquidity. Once you're in, you're in, and you'll have a hard time finding somebody to buy you out. You need to know that going in.

    They may solve that problem eventually, though as you note, it just magnifies the potential problem. Fraud isn't exactly rampant in the public exchanges. Or at least, it's swamped by irrational enthusiasms. That doesn't mean that fraud isn't present, or that the SEC isn't too swamped to deal with it. The JOBS act may make that even worse, but we'll have to see.

  5. Re:Kickstarter replaces IPO on Does Crowdfunding Work? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, the SEC limits your ability to raise funds in exchange for equity. The rules are (surprise, surprise) complex, but if you're asking people to invest who aren't principals of the company, they need to be "accredited investors":

    http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm

    The idea had been to prevent people from being bamboozled into making bad investments. With Kickstarter, right now, you're being told explicitly: this is not an investment. It's a gift, with token prizes, not a piece of the action. "Accredited investors" are rich enough that they can afford to absorb losses. That changes next year with the JOBS act:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumpstart_Our_Business_Startups_Act

    There is some concern that it will be used for fraud, as people give a lot of money for impossible returns. I think those concerns are well-founded, but we'll have to see. It might just be our next bubble.

  6. Re:Defund the SLS instead on Astronomy Portfolio Review Recommends Defunding US's Biggest Telescope · · Score: 1

    Sadly, no. It means that it's the Senate's launch system, i.e. the one they're buying with taxpaper money so that Senators (specifically Senators in Florida and Texas) can get reelected. It was specified in ways such that big space tech vendors were the only ones who were in the running to build it.

  7. Does this actually happen? on California Employers Can't Ask For Your Facebook Password · · Score: 1

    I see a lot of outrage about preventing it, which is well and good and just.

    But is it outrage about a real thing? Are employers actually asking for Facebook passwords?

    Why Facebook? Why would any employer willing to ask for your Facebook password not also ask for your email password, your various blogs, and your signature on a blank check? Why wouldn't they ask for naked pictures of your spouse, and then disbelieve you when you claim there aren't any?

    I'm sure that assholes exist, so it's probably happened. But is it actually widespread, or is this just an opportunity to get pleasantly outraged?

  8. Re:Even better than that on Light Bulb Ban Produces Hoarding In EU, FUD In U.S. · · Score: 1

    That it does. I've always found fireplaces to be more visually appealing than thermally comforting.

  9. Re:republicans on Light Bulb Ban Produces Hoarding In EU, FUD In U.S. · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Republicans seem to feel that the marketplace moves infinitely fast, and that there are no barriers to entry, and that there are no external costs. In reality, some problems require foresight and planning that the market is incapable of doing on its own.

    I'm all for individual freedoms, and I'm actually not crazy about the bulb ban. It's a (less than-) half measure made politically feasible by the fact that it's a simple thing that people can see directly in front of them as a way to save energy.

    I'd much rather see a market-based approach, in which carbon costs and fossil fuel depletion externalities were internalized via a carbon tax. A gradual increase in the cost of electricity would encourage people to buy new, efficient forms of lighting via purely economic forces. But Republicans will absolutely not hear of any sort of tax, far less one oriented towards fixing a problem they have repeatedly called a hoax. And that kind of straight-out falsehood interferes with the proper operation of markets more than any regulation on light bulbs.

    In the presence of obstruction, the legislative free market will proceed in a bastardized way, just as economics predicts. And so instead of a clean, straightforward, and economically sensible plan, we get a ridiculous one that's just slightly better than nothing because it was all we can get.

    I'd dearly love to see the legislative market proceed by letting actual facts and level-headed decision making guide the day, but in the absence of that, we're going to get mostly heat and little light.

  10. Re:Even better than that on Light Bulb Ban Produces Hoarding In EU, FUD In U.S. · · Score: 2

    I've always found direct IR heating to be kind of unpleasant. The side of you facing the source is warm; the other side is bathed in cold air. Warm air is more even.

    Perhaps it's just a matter of what we're used to. I'm certainly not going to tell the Scandinavians they're doing it wrong.

  11. Re:Largely Demand Driven on Toyota Abandons Plans For All-Electric Vehicle Rollout · · Score: 1

    Is that actually being used anywhere? Wikipedia says that an enormous sum is being spent to make it happen in Israel, which is great, but it was quite a few years from Wired Magazine cover (which I think of as the kiss of death for ideas) to even that implementation.

    And I don't know if an experience in Israel would extend well. You can cover the entire country on a single charge, and there's really no other place to drive to. (They're surrounded by semi-hostile neighbors and I suspect there's not much car traffic across any of the borders.) It might work well for the crucial commuter traffic, but I don't know if it offers enough advantage over plain old charging stations to make it worth the massive infrastructure they seem to require. (They raised something like a billion dollars for tiny Israel.)

  12. Re:Cows eat Grass on Sweet Times For Cows As Gummy Worms Replace Corn Feed · · Score: 2

    Although, I am a bit worried about what this will do to gummy worm prices.

    I assume they're getting gummy worms cheap from some other process that would be disposing of them, perhaps surplus or stale. Competing with retail would, I imagine, be ruinously expensive.

    The gummy worms themselves start as corn, via corn syrup. If corn is going up, eventually the gummy worms are going to be more expensive as well. There may just be some lag time as the price increases work their way through the system. (Gummy worms, being shelf stable, are probably more resistant to price shocks than cows are.)

  13. Re:Always with the jabs on iOS 6 Adoption Tops 25% After Just 48 Hours · · Score: 1

    That's an update to Gingerbread. There are still some updates to Gingerbread; it's up to 2.3.7. But it's not the 4.0 (ICS) or 4.1 (Jellybean) line.

  14. Re:Always with the jabs on iOS 6 Adoption Tops 25% After Just 48 Hours · · Score: 1

    Android OTA updates are slick, fast and easy.

    When they happen at all. It's up to each manufacturer and model to decide what gets an update and what doesn't.

    It's a point in Android's favor that my Droid 2 still works well enough (-ish) that I haven't discarded it. But it continues to run Gingerbread, and will until I run a process which is neither slick, fast, nor easy.

  15. Re:H! on Scientists Speak Out Against Wasting Helium In Balloons · · Score: 1

    Sounds like somebody set him up.

  16. Re:Fabulous on Rapid Arctic Melt Called 'Planetary Emergency' · · Score: 1

    Because for DECADES people have been shouting doom with no reasonable, practical explanation for it, solution of it, or analysis of the impact of said solutions.

    They've been propounding both explanations and solutions for decades now. The explanations have not changed.

    The solutions, however, have gotten harder, since the problem was allowed to get worse. Various solutions are still on the table: subsidizing non-greenhouse fuel sources, using a Pigovian tax to realize the externalities of carbon, setting higher fuel standards (and other efficiency standards, such as on home appliances), improving public transportation, encouraging telecommuting, encouraging a shift away from meat production, etc etc etc etc.

    These are less effective than they might have been a couple of decades ago, and we'll also have to budget for coping measures: sea walls, moving farms, disaster relief (including relocating some residents), etc.

    This has all been known for quite some time, and was widely said and widely ignored. That is the reason why you heard it as shouting, but it shouldn't have come to shouting. We should have acknowledged the science, and objectively investigated the economics, 22 years ago at the first IPCC report. What's done is done, and won't be changed, but I'd encourage you to realize that the shouting was shouting not because they weren't rational, but because people weren't listening to the rational arguments.

  17. Re:Press coverage on Rapid Arctic Melt Called 'Planetary Emergency' · · Score: 2

    You really can go ahead and do the experiment trout007 described.

    You'll find that he's right: floating ice does not raise water levels when it melts. That's how buoyancy works. The total mass of above and below the water line equals the volume in the space below the water line. The water all around that space is capable of holding up exactly that much water in that space. The ice, being less dense than water, has overflow when it fills that space, which rides above the water line.

    When the ice melts, it exactly fills the space below the water line. If you had filled it exactly to the rim, it will melt without spilling a drop.

    Ice which is supported, rather than floating, will cause a rise when it melts. You can see that by putting a fork over the glass and letting the ice cube melt. The water level will rise.

  18. Re:IgNobels are a disservice to basic research on Ig Nobels Feature Exploding Colonoscopies, Left Leaning Views of Eiffel Tower · · Score: 2

    Also take a look at just how many of them actually show up to receive their prizes. This isn't the Golden Raspberries, an award you hope to avoid. They really are laughing with them, rather than at them.

  19. Re:Well you know... on How Big Pharma Hooked America On Legal Heroin · · Score: 3, Informative

    He definitely used the "long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking" line elsewhere, on more than one occasion:

    http://mediamatters.org/video/2011/03/02/limbaugh-wisconsin-protesters-are-long-haired-m/183331
    http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/06/06/audio-limbaugh-poor-romney-accused-of-bullying-a-long-haired-maggot-infested-dope-smoking-type-kid-back-in-prep-school/

    and it's obvious he's not joking, and it's clear that he doesn't care for marijuana users.

    The other one may be too far in the past for people to dig up, but this seems sufficient to confirm the OP's point. And given that much, it seems unlikely that the above quote is faked or taken out of context. If it is, it shouldn't be that hard for a dittohead capable of listening to this dreck to dig it up the specific broadcast and refute it.

  20. Re:Well you know... on How Big Pharma Hooked America On Legal Heroin · · Score: 5, Informative

    "The FDA says there's no -- zilch, zero, nada -- shred of medicinal value to the evil weed marijuana. This is going to be a setback to the long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking crowd."

    Radio broadcast, Apr. 21, 2006

    No, he's not literally calling the smokers evil, but the OP didn't put it in quotes. It's clear that he thinks they're bad people, and he did explicitly call the marijuana itself evil.

  21. Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment on BitInstant CEO Says World Operates "On an Inferior Monetary System" · · Score: 2

    > Here in Europe, the creditcard transactions with Visa Electron are realtime and the amount you pay is immediately taken from your account.

    Doesn't that make it a debit card? We have those in the US, too.

  22. How much is that in Cesium atom wavelengths? on Astronomers Fix the Astronomical Unit · · Score: 3, Funny

    Or more correctly, units of c times the period of "radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom". Let's get this down to fundamentals and not muck about with intermediate convenience units like "meters".

  23. Re:The budget isn't $82,000 on Discworld Fan Film Possibly the Largest Scale Fan Film Ever · · Score: 1

    As it is, the trailer was remarkably uneven. The single shots of Cohen were well lit, well-composed, color-corrected, well-focused, etc. (Well, most of them were.) Not the greatest stuff in the world, but it looked like an actual cinematographer was at work.

    The battle scenes, by contrast, looked like a student film. Shots were ill-composed, focus was automatic, color balance was set to "whatever". Clearly it was shot on a nice camera, but you have to know how to use a good tool to get good results.

    The titles looked lovely, and it's nice that the tools to do that are cheap and available. But as I watched them drag on, it felt like they were reluctant to show me any real footage.

    I'm all for fan films and the democratization of movie making. But good equipment and good tools doesn't make anybody a good filmmaker. It still takes work, a lot of work, and years to learn how to do it. The tools make it easier to get that experience, and this film is a good first step for somebody.

    But if they think they've arrived... well, they clearly haven't. And underestimating the value of those who have suggests that they won't.

  24. Re:Opus?!? on Opus — the Codec To End All Codecs · · Score: 5, Funny

    Transmission reliability problems. Even when a packet got lost, it would still ACK.

  25. Re:when real learning needs to be done on School Regrets Swapping Laptops For iPads · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wondered why that should be, so I clicked on the page and the first thing I saw was this:

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3099809&cid=41255213

    Yes, I can see why the person who would post that might find his karma in the dumps. Most comments are actually quite reasonable. Others, not so much.