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User: pixelpusher220

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  1. Re:The new Taliban? on Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys · · Score: 1

    Understood. We all have our preferences :) I like the job the Warthog does, tank busting and troop support. And that the A-10 can literally fly with 40% of its wings blown off :)

  2. Re:so on Senator Releases First Senate Mobile App · · Score: 1

    no but there is a RSS feed. Really Stupid Sexting...

  3. Re:The new Taliban? on Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys · · Score: 2

    Yep! 30 FOOT barrel! I love the fact that at full auto the gun actually can slow the plane down.

  4. Re:The new Taliban? on Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys · · Score: 1

    Ahh, the A-10 Warthog. That would be my plane of choice :) Damn near indestructible, low/slow and uber maneuverable.

  5. Re:The new Taliban? on Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do you see the irony is claiming that battery life is a critical failure when commenting on an article that shows DIY modifications of weapons?

  6. Re:The new Taliban? on Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys · · Score: 1

    This is exactly why we haven't given them surface to air missiles like we did in Afghanistan in the 80s. They tend to still be around later when they turnaround and start shooting at you.

  7. Re:A-Team written by computer script on Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys · · Score: 1

    I specifically remember the *one* episode where they actually shot someone. And made a *huge* deal in the plot about getting to him and getting him medical help.

    Too funny, but when you air during kiddie hours, you can't be even hurting people apparently.

  8. Re:Global Warming is Over! on Big Drop In Solar Activity Could Cool Earth · · Score: 0

    That example is about 1.5 feet a month. Not comparable to 10 feet in a week.

    Are you refuting anything about my point? or just pedantic trolling for shits n grins?

  9. Re:Global Warming is Over! on Big Drop In Solar Activity Could Cool Earth · · Score: 1

    You make valid points. We *should* be doing these things regardless of climate change.

    The problem is always on the libertarian side of, if it isn't harming anything 'right now' then we shouldn't force anyone to do anything about it. (which is quasi-valid IMO) Now roll in the GOP love of all things big corporation and we can't harm the 'small businesses' that are coal and oil.

    Without a justifiable and pressing 'reason' to change, we aren't going to change.

  10. Re:Global Warming is Over! on Big Drop In Solar Activity Could Cool Earth · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There does not exist on earth more carbon than the earth can process.

    That doesn't specify a time frame - that's the important part here.

    10 feet of rainfall isn't harmful spread out over 10 years. 10 feet of rainfall in a week is a wee bit troublesome for just about any ecosystem on the planet.

    +5 trolling today though, you can stop now.

  11. Re:Global Warming is Over! on Big Drop In Solar Activity Could Cool Earth · · Score: 0

    Nature is not fickle.

    Ask a meteorologist that...

  12. Re:Seriously, what the fuck! on How Citigroup Hackers Easily Gained Access · · Score: 1

    Well it used too, before the TSA just busted that lock...

  13. Re:That price on Unlocked iPhones in US For $649 · · Score: 1

    Outrageous is that when you bring your own phone, the carrier still charges you the same price on the 'service'. If the 2 year contract is meant to amortize the subsidized phone price then why the fsck do I have to pay it for service when I bring my own phone?

  14. Re:On dot-net (not debt) on Devs Worried Microsoft Will Dump .NET · · Score: 1

    beautiful linguistic burrito

    Some would say you get the same type of 'output' as consuming a 'burrito'.

    I keeed! I keeed!

  15. Re:Very interested to see what people do with this on Ubiquitous Computing Gadget To Teach Coding · · Score: 4, Informative

    Start adding stuff to make it useful on real projects though, and you'll see it used in real projects. "Easy to learn, visual" and "good for long term maintainability" tend not to belong together.

    1990s called, they want their Visual Basic back ;-)

    VB plus Access was a world class application demo tool. Fast n easy. The problem was 'ship it' was what usually came out of the demo targets mouths...

  16. Re:Police have no expectation of privacy on Court Case To Test Legality of Recording the Police With Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    Why should you not be able to read? I didn't say it was right and explicitly said it wasn't. I just said it adds context to what the officers were feeling and thinking.

  17. Re:Police have no expectation of privacy on Court Case To Test Legality of Recording the Police With Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    Yep exactly. The Rodney King video was a good example. The vast majority of people (including me) only saw the wicked beating he got. The whole tape showed him resisting multiple officers, including multiple Tazer shots. The police believed he was on PCP given the strength of his resistance and reacted with massive overwhelming force and then continued with the beating.

    Doesn't make their response right, but it adds context to their mindset.

  18. Re:Two-way street on Court Case To Test Legality of Recording the Police With Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    To be fair, the police cameras are under their control and protected by their lawyers before it is released. And of course the mysterious malfunctions...

  19. Re:Police have no expectation of privacy on Court Case To Test Legality of Recording the Police With Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    The 'argument' against this type of recording is you don't want the officer thinking twice or three times how something will 'look' before reacting. Ideally you don't want cops reacting 'badly' in the first place, but cops are, as much as they are demonized, human after all and nobody is perfect.

    It's a valid argument only when it is a valid argument and not valid in the bulk of situations. Which by logic dictates it should be valid none of the time.

    It's a lot like the imminent bomb explosion threat used to justify torture.

  20. Re:Good overall, however I question "cost-based" on SCOTUS Rules Incumbent Telcos Must Share Network Access At Cost · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure this is entirely the case. They were granted a monopoly in exchange for building the network. That doesn't say either way whether tax dollars paid for the infrastructure or not. Perhaps we did pay for it, but if we paid it, it's a piss poor contract that has us pay for it then gives them monopoly over it ;-)

  21. Re:Good overall, however I question "cost-based" on SCOTUS Rules Incumbent Telcos Must Share Network Access At Cost · · Score: 1

    then perhaps the problem lies with Verizon's internal business practices.

    Completely agree. What the OP was saying though was that if you follow that to it's extreme, Verizon goes under because they can't provide service as effectively. When Verizon goes dark, so do the people on their lines regardless of the 'quality' they offer.

    Just another example why the network needs to be a utility rather than government issued 'franchise'. A system where one company provides both the network and service on the network is inherently going to have conflicts of interest.

  22. Re:Short Answer on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1

    Ok, let's do that. I will let the market decide.

    You mean the market currently giving coal and oil 10s of billions in tax breaks? The 'current' market isn't fair to new entries...as is the case with most entrenched industries. You need regulation and subsidies to bring the new entries to an even playing field. The price of a technology should also be considered besides it's other coolness factors, and weighed against other choices.

    You realize you just endorsed cap and trade right? :)

    Comparing on costs is only fair if you account for *all* costs. Coal/gas/nuclear need to have the costs of their waste management and risk of operation included in their electrical price. CO2 release is currently *not* included in their prices. That is an inherently unfair advantage to them over renewable. Likewise, all those loan guarantees given to the nuclear industry need to be stopped. No nuclear plants will get built without government assistance. Nuclear waste costs are also handled by the federal government, not by the individual utility. Again a price advantage for the entrenched industry.

    Maybe we could electrify all trains for example. But maybe the costs would be too high compared to the savings. Making those kind of decisions is one of the strengths of the market system. I'm not worried about that.

    Actually the market is fundamentally *bad* at decisions like this. The reason is these are long term decisions. The market is not concerned with 10 years down the road, they are concerned with next quarter's profit report. As I said above, if the cost of CO2 release was included in coal/oil electric pricing, the 'market' would have a much different opinion of those industries.

    I'm all for new technologies, just let's not push it on people.

    So you don't want clean water? How about fluoride in the water? That was 'pushing' new technology on people when it started. Clean water prevents disease and is a positive for society.

    Not contributing global warming is no different, but the scale between cause and effect extends over decades making 'direct' linkage harder. This is why we're only now seeing the magnitude of the problem coming down the pike.

    About radiation, I think that it's only an issue until we find an effective cure for cancer. Being able to clean out the contamination from a body would be nice to have too. As soon as we have those, radiation will stop being the threat that it is now.

    No argument...but until then, which is decades away, nuclear has massive risks that nothing else has. We need to start this stuff 'now', not 20 years from now. Nuclear will be part of the answer for a good 50 years or more - that's just reality. But I'm not going to say we should 'help' it over sources that don't have those risks.

  23. Re:Short Answer on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1
    That nuclear requires significantly less fuel due to energy density is a reasonable concept. It does still have the radiation/failure issues that other sources don't have. I believe I've said here that nuclear is going to be a requirement for the near future. We don't have anything ready to replace it or coal at grid scale power. Doesn't mean I like it :)

    My only problem with Solar, Wind and renewable energy is that, I can't take it with me into space, underwater, in a dark place (can't use it at night), and can't power my cars and other vehicles with it.

    The Nissan Leaf and Tesla Roadster would beg to differ with you :) All we're talking about here is storing energy in a portable format. That can be gasoline in a tank, or electrons in a battery (or hydrogen in a tank). It's not ready for grid scale obviously but the tech is fully proven and ready to go.

    Long haul trucks probably don't work as well yet, but that's just a matter of scale. (and long haul transport is better done via rail..which can be easily electrified. Electric cars are fully capable for the vast majority of automobile usage today.

  24. Re:Short Answer on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1

    I'm really amazed this is so hard to comprehend. There is no fuel transport. Period.

    There is transport of the materials to build the wind mills. This is building the infrastructure and a one time thing. It happens for coal plants too.

    You can *possibly* say there is 'transport' of the generated electricity after generation because as you say, it needs to be where the wind blows...but again you have the same cost with coal/nuclear plants. Nobody wants a coal plant next door so they are located a distance away. When we're talking about grid scale, all electricity has to be 'transported' somewhere from where it is generated. This is basically a wash in terms of comparison. One may be slightly higher or lower than the other, but both have the same type of costs.

    What is and always will be true is that the 'fuel' used to generate that electricity, i.e. 'wind', never has to be transported. Coal/oil/nuclear will always need their fuel transported to the power plant.

  25. Re:Short Answer on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1

    Again, put a panel on your roof. That electricity *is* free. Stand up a wind turbine. that's free energy too.

    You pay for the construction of the 'power plant' in both types of systems. In the cost of the coal plant or the car/engine or the solar panel or the windmill. Those are the infrastructure costs and all systems have them.

    Solar and wind do not have any on going 'fuel' costs. You still have to buy gas, coal, oil, uranium to run those power plants. That is my entire point. Wind and solar farms have no 'fuel' costs.

    Right now, solar panels are expensive and pay for themselves in 7-10 years give or take. As economies of scale come into play (that cars and government subsidized power plants already have) those prices will come down. So does it make pristine economic sense today? Maybe not quite. But it's damned close already with the subsidies you can get. And once you pay off the infrastructure purchase....it literally is free electricity.

    Even after you pay off your car loan, you're still paying for gas. That won't happen with an electric car and renewable sources.

    Now, grid scale renewables, not the kind on a single roof, certainly require on going maintenance and up keep. So do coal and nuclear plants. I believe, but won't say I have sources, that the 'maintenance' an a non-moving piece of solar panel (x # of panels) are going to be lower than the maintenance on coal plant that burns at multiple hundreds (thousand?) degrees. Wind mills certainly have some maintenance costs as they are moving pieces of equipment. But they are only gears and no combustion/fire etc. It seems like a lower amount of maint would be required.

    And that will end up costing some money which you'll pay in a significant lower electric bill. And of course building this infrastructure will cost a goodly chunk of money that will have to be amortized over time so that's another cost associated with renewable sources. But once it's paid off, there isn't any more cost. The 'fuel' is free.

    So my thought is we 'invest' in our power systems and put it into a fuel system that in the long run has no fuel costs. Oil is only going up in price. Coal's CO2 effects are only going up in cost (though this isn't yet a realized cost...but it's going to be massive).