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User: swamp_ig

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  1. Re:Business model... on Driverless Cars Need a Lot More Than Software, Ford CTO Says (axios.com) · · Score: 1

    You're not quite thinking this through.

    Your golf-clubs will be kept at a storage facility, which will automatically load the clubs onto a small self-driving car that will roll out to wherever you want it.

    Don't forget, cars don't just move people, they move objects too. There's only logistical reasons why your golf bag itself can't be a self-driving car, or at the very lease easily slotted onto one.

  2. Specialist vs Generalist on Does the World Need Polymaths? (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less, and ends up knowing everything about nothing. A generalist knows less and less about more and more, and ends up knowing nothing about everything.

  3. Re:typo in title on Can Primordial Black Holes Alone Account For Dark Matter? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not really. There's areas of mass where there's little to no ordinary matter, where galaxies have collided and the gas has slowed down, but the dark matter has kept on going. This is demonstrated by gravitational lensing effects of the invisible mass. This doesn't really fit with MOND theories.

  4. Australia does it better... again. on Forget the Russians: Corrupt, Local Officials Are the Biggest Threat To Elections (securityledger.com) · · Score: 1

    As usual, Australia does it better. The Australian Electoral Commission is in charge of all federal elections, and there's state bodies bound by the same rules that run the state and local elections. Their funding isn't subject to any political process, and elected officials have no ability to manipulate electoral boundaries or the election process itself.

  5. Re: Kangaroo vs White-Tailed Deer on Volvo's Driverless Cars 'Confused' by Kangaroos (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    You will have to take my pool piss from my cold dead.... Yeh :)

  6. Re:Think of the naysayers! on The Intelligent Intersection Could Banish Traffic Lights Forever (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    > And those are? A single sentence is nice, but perhaps more is needed than that.

    Computer vision exists already to track pedestrians and other objects in real time. Usain Bolt can move at approximately 10m per second, so you just need to project a 10m/sec surrounding bubble as the future space of each person. If it's a busy pedestrian intersection, fall back to the old system of pedestrian lights.

    Non autonomous cars can be dealt with with traffic lights, same as always, only the equipped and verified AVs and semi-AVs can run the red light and go through the AV lane running the red light.

    The technical issues are solvable. Yes a 100% AV world would be more efficient here, but there's an obvious map from here to there.

  7. Think of the naysayers! on The Intelligent Intersection Could Banish Traffic Lights Forever (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    Funny how this pops up and most of the comments are immediately pointing out obvious problems that everyone would have thought about. It's a proof of concept, and as a concept this is a seriously good one. Yes there's issues with pedestrians, and with cars not enrolled, but there's ways to manage and work around those. Intersections like these are the way of the future, as are autonomous vehicles. Driving a car is going to go the same way as riding a horse - a hobby activity not an every-day thing.

  8. Re:Maybe in small town America, but not where I li on The Intelligent Intersection Could Banish Traffic Lights Forever (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Umm... so what? This is like saying don't build roads because inevitably people won't be able to get to the road.

    Anyhow, simulations like this have been around for decades, I remember seeing one in the 90s I'm sure.

  9. Welll... with that much inertia nothing this side of the big crunch is gonna stop that black hole.

  10. The problem with this new definition... on NASA Scientists Propose New Definition of Planets, and Pluto Could Soon Be Back (sciencealert.com) · · Score: 1

    That there's something sure big enough, and sure round enough, so your momma would have to be a planet too.

  11. Re:White Leftists Whine, China Creates Superhumans on Ethicists Advise Caution In Applying CRISPR Gene Editing To Humans (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure how the right of a transgender person to use a particular bathroom stands in the way of genetic engineering exactly....

    TFA is just saying be careful. Umm... duh?

    Go read about the horse named impressive. A prime example of not being careful.

  12. Re:One word... on Battlestar Galactica Actor Richard Hatch Dies At 71 (tmz.com) · · Score: 1

    I actually think emphysema is worse. It's even longer and more drawn out and you end up not being able to do *anything*, often for years (source: I am a family doctor)

    Don't smoke kids! Just don't do it. It's a horrible thing

  13. Re:Moving off-planet doesn't guarantee survival on Where Does Jeff Bezos Foresee Putting Space Colonists? Inside O'Neill Cylinders (geekwire.com) · · Score: 1

    You can't solve a Malthusian crisis by flying people off-planet in rockets. They breed faster than you can launch the rockets, and the rockets require far too much resource / energy to fly off.

    Maybe achievable with a space elevator, but you still need somewhere to go to. The resources creating those places to go to are immense.

    The only realistic cure for a Malthusian crisis are either birth control, or mass population loss.

  14. Re:Going by the data in the summary... on Male Birth Control Shot Found Effective (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Not true, do some basic research. The pill is around 96%, implanted methods like implanon and IUDs are 99.5% odd.

  15. Re:Going by the data in the summary... on Male Birth Control Shot Found Effective (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Effectiveness of contraception is measured in number of women pregnant at the end of a year using only this method. It's like that because it's difficult to measure frequency of intercourse.

    96% is pretty good, it's on par with the OCP, and way better than nothing at about 50%

  16. Re:radiation is the big stumbling block on 'Space Brain': Mars Explorers May Risk Neural Damage, Study Finds (nbcnews.com) · · Score: 1

    The bulk of humanity will never leave the Earth, ever. Just the energy cost of getting all that mass to orbit is prohibitive, and even if you send up a good fraction, the remainder will just keep breeding ensuring you'll never catch up.

  17. Re:Shouldn't involve the internet on Are Tech Firms Liable For What Their Users Post? (mercurynews.com) · · Score: 1

    > we must protect them (in some cases, through force of law: i.e. child support) from those choices?

    Yes, but this is clearly worse for the child involved. Child support is not about protecting the rights of women, it's about ensuring the best outcomes for the children.

  18. Re:The New Invasive Species on Should We Seed Life On Alien Worlds? (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Koalas have no reason to have much brain power.

    Koalas aren't good eating - they're toxic because they're full of eucalyptus oil. So they don't need to avoid predators. They eat one thing, so all they need the brains for is to find the thing and eat it.

    Having a large, metabolically active brain would be a bad thing for a koala because the food they eat is so low on nutrition they'd be wasting energy running it.

    There's selective pressure *away* from having brain power.

  19. Re:Captain Kirk says... on 'Longest Living Human' Says He Is Ready For Death At 145 (telegraph.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    For the first thousand years, contemplate the number one in complete fullness. For the next thousand, the number two, and so on.

    Never run out of 'new and interesting things to think about'.

  20. Cancer happens in cells that generally aren't germ-line cells, that is apart from testicular and ovarian cancers. (and many of those are stromal cells, not germ-line)

    There's no evolutionary advantage in killing someone with bowel cancer. Those faulty genes wouldn't be passed on. It just doesn't make sense.

  21. Re: Not just a bathroom law on PayPal Pulls North Carolina Plan After Transgender Bathroom Law (reuters.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Gender identity disorders are strongly linked to schizophrenia. Diagnosis is almost always automatic.

    What? This statement has no basis in fact.

  22. So now if I get mugged... on US Banks To Test ATMs Which Accept Your Smartphone Instead Of Cards (ibtimes.co.uk) · · Score: 2

    Not only do I potentially get assaulted, and all my stuff stolen, but they can drain my bank account too? Doesn't this just paint a big target on the back of anyone who carries a smart phone?

    I like pay-pass, the way it works in aus is there's a maximum amount per transaction where you can use contactless without a pin. Hopefully it will be the same for this?

  23. Re: Smaller than our moon from about 80x distance on 'Pluto Truthers' Are Pretty Sure That the NASA New Horizons Mission Was Faked · · Score: 1

    Oblig XKCD: https://xkcd.com/386/

  24. I wonder if they're doing it already?