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User: timeOday

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Comments · 11,117

  1. Re:Makes sense on Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline · · Score: 1

    How about decaf coffee? Does it taste any different?

  2. Re:Two more on Sticky Rice Is the Key To Super Strong Mortar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Rice is pretty strong. My wife once dumped a partially-cooked pot of rice down the kitchen sink, where it proceeded to swell up to an impenetrable clog. Being a fool, I got a plunger and just kept at it with increasing force until the all the water (and drano) that had pooled up, suddenly went right down the drain - and straight into the cupboard, because I'd knocked the rice-cemented plumbing right off the bottom of the sink.

  3. Re:In other words on 'Peak Wood' Offers Parallels For Our Time · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or selfish enough to know full well - and do it anyways.

  4. Re:The dark, Satanic mills of Apple on Foxconn Workers Getting Raise With Apple Subsidies · · Score: 1

    This, coupled with strikes by workers at Honda's plant in China, makes me wonder if the endless supply of expendable labor in China may be starting to be exhausted. It would be great if the race to the bottom (and subsequent wage increases for labor, I hope) occurred during my lifetime.

  5. Re:100% effective in FIVE monkeys on New Ebola Drug 100% Effective In Monkeys · · Score: 1

    My concern would be, "[The drug] contains snippets of RNA derived from three of the virus's seven genes," but how stable are those genes? The reason the flu virus often doesn't help is because there are so many different strains, they can't all be targeted at once with today's technology. You have to guess a year ahead of time which to target.

  6. Re:For serious? on Pedestrian Follows Google Map, Gets Run Over, Sues · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, it's absurd. But remember, she hasn't won anything yet, just filed a suit. And anybody can file a suit claiming almost anything. I think I will save my vitriol for the legal system until/if she wins.

  7. Re:Heard it all before on A New Neutral, Long-Haul Fiber Network · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's like Motorola's Irridium data satellite network, which was incredibly cool, and expensive, and went out of business promptly upon being launched. End the end some other company bought the assets for a few pennies on the dollar and is able to operate at a profit (last I heard), since they got the network almost for free, courtesy of motorola .com investors.

  8. Re:Capitalism !! on Intel Sucks Up Water Amid Drought In China · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Intel has the money that they can afford to delsalinate water.

    My guess is that much of the farming in China currently is low-tech, and thus very inefficient on a bushels per acre-foot of water basis. There are probably upgrades to China's agriculture that would save a lot of water much cheaper than desalinating more fresh water.

    Of course, that leaves the question of who will pay. If we just leave it to supply and demand, pretty soon the rich will be shooting the poor for drinking out of their swimming pools.

  9. Just $2.2 Billion? on Japan Plans Moon Base Built By Robots For Robots · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Funding to the Space Shuttle has been around $5 billion per year for most of the last 30 years or so, and just keeping the program on operational life support was quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program">$2.5 billion per year in early 2009.

    So if they deliver that entire program whose lifetime costs are only 2.2 Billion, I would be super impressed. In fact I would be impressed if we did it ourselves for 5 times that amount.

  10. Re:PDF!!! on Is Wired's App Really the Future of Magazines? · · Score: 1

    Well, you know the iPad/Pod way... a separate app for everything. Even if that means a separate 500 megabyte reader for each magazine subscription(!?) (For that size, it better have the next 10 years' worth of Wired pre-loaded!)

  11. Re:5000 barrels? on Gulf Oil Leak Plugged? · · Score: 1

    Do what? For starters, take charge and engage someone other than the company who fucked things up in the first place to fix things.

    I had thought about that too, but the only thing I could think of is giving some other oil company a blank check (drawing on BP's account) to stop the leak ASAP. But, IMHO, BP is more motivated than anybody else to stop the leak immediately, and has at least as much expertise. You say they are trying to fix it as cheaply as possible; many people assume they are trying to keep the well viable, but I haven't seen evidence of either and BP denied it explicitly. It seems to me that whatever the cost to plug the hole, it's much less than the incremental cost of more cleanup and additional public anger (leading to more regulations and stricter enforcement).

  12. Re:5000 barrels? on Gulf Oil Leak Plugged? · · Score: 1

    The lack of leadership on the part of the federal government, and the Coast Guard in particular, is a national embarrassment.

    How so? What more did you want them to do? (Not a rhetorical question).

  13. Re:I think I speak for us all when I say... on Apple Surpasses Microsoft In Market Capitalization · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Personally, I think this is amazing. Apple was a HAS BEEN thought to be headed soon for liquidation, like 99% of all computer companies founded over the last 30 years. Michael Dell said they should just give up. And now their market cap is higher than Microsoft. What could be bigger news in the computer industry?

  14. Re:Where's Bruce Willis when you need him? on NSF Gives Supercomputer Time For 3-D Model of Spill · · Score: 1

    how about a large rubberized canvas funnel connected to a hose to the surface?

    Basically that was one of the first things they tried: "If successful, the containment box would begin funneling as much as 85 percent of the oil plume into a pipeline pumping the oil into a barge on the surface as early as Sunday." That was May 7.

    As for the boom, A) they're not working all that well and B) with the well a mile underwater, it could disperse over a huge area before reaching the surface.

  15. Re:Dear Internet: Sorry. on Breakthroughs In HTML Audio Via Manipulation With JavaScript · · Score: 1

    Any chance google will help Microsoft along again? (Heh, I'll bet MS *loves* that!)

  16. Re:Offtopic on NSF Gives Supercomputer Time For 3-D Model of Spill · · Score: 1

    Its all togeather possible the people demanding the Goverment take over the situation are not the same people who want the goverment out of private industry.

    Well, not in some cases:

    "Today is Day 36" since the well's drilling rig exploded, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Tuesday during a hearing on offshore drilling liability. "The cloud of confusion over how much oil is spilling into the gulf is very concerning. And it's also very unclear who was in charge."

    Republicans are seeking to erode voter confidence in Obama's leadership by portraying him as lackadaisical in his response -- similar to the crippling effect of Hurricane Katrina for President George W. Bush. GOP lawmakers also are making a case that Obama is too cozy with the oil industry to apply maximum pressure on BP, a theory advanced by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R) on "Fox News Sunday."

    "I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration," Palin said.

    I dunno, maybe Wyoming went red-state and Palin switched sides while I wasn't looking because I didn't notice "Drill Baby Drill" in any of their remarks this time.

  17. Re:What cool content are you using bandwidth for? on Global "Last Mile" Performance Stats Going Public · · Score: 1
    Since you already pooh-poohed THE killer app of the Internet - video on demand - I guess there isn't much left.

    Really, interactive television (broadly defined) is everything, since the main interface between the user and computer is a screen. Once you can drive the screen remotely, why does somebody need a PC or game console in their home, instead of leasing them as services? Economics may push us in that direction, if bandwidth is cheap enough. For example, my game console is only used a few hours per week, and its value will depreciate to nothing before it's worn out. So I should be able to get the same utility for 1/Nth the price by leasing the service from somebody who oversubscribes their game console pool by a factor of N.

  18. "Only" 4 nm? on Researchers Create 4nm Transistor With Seven Atoms · · Score: 1

    The fact that a transistor with only 7 atoms is 4nm in size makes me think Moore's law is about to end. 4nm is only one order of magnitude less than what Intel is using in production now.

  19. Re:Quite an obligatory comment on Bill Joy On Sun, Microsoft, Open Source, and Creativity · · Score: 1
    The vast majority of those ideas were not "shared," but "sold." As in, work for us, we own your ideas and integrate them into products, perhaps patent them, and you get a salary.

    I realize that doesn't really apply when you go back to the days of Copernicus, etc, but scientific progress to that point was very slow, because only rich curious people could engage in it.

    I love open source and work with it all the time, but it's true the same maturation of the PC that has drained the excitement from Microsoft has had the same effect on Open Source, which also focuses on the PC realm. More of the excitement now is in mobile computing, which is highly proprietary.

  20. Re:Odd choice on Amazon Kindle Fails First College Test · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IMHO a fat book is still the BEST way to lay a bedrock of knowledge in some general area for further study. Once you know the basics, THEN you can graze. Granted, many people never bother to lay a foundation and still manage to wing it.

  21. Re:Worlds largets vs TFA on Airship Inflated To Create Monster "Stratellite" · · Score: 1

    I was going to reply that although smaller, the higher-tech materials now available should result in a larger carrying capacity... but not so. The Hindenberg had a payload of 123.5 tons, whereas this new craft is limited to 1 measly ton. How can that be!?

  22. Re:Snicker Snort on China Rejects US Piracy Claims As "Groundless" · · Score: 1
    Obama too, eh?

    I grew up in Idaho and heard all about the New World Order from Bo Gritz on AM radio in the 80s. Granted, Bush 43 would never have been President had he been born into a normal family. However, if you are spending time worrying yourself about Mexico and the US adopting a common currency, you are wasting your time. It's more likely we'll all be wiped out by a comet.

  23. Re:Or could it be on Study Shows Standing Up To Bullies Is Good For You · · Score: 1

    If you want to pick on a sport for hurting those who play it, forget running and let's talk about football.

  24. Re:only fight back if you can survive on Study Shows Standing Up To Bullies Is Good For You · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Yeah man, without those evil gun control laws, minors would all be allowed to bring guns to school and settle their differences by having shootouts in the highschool parking lot. Libertarian utopia!

    Seriously, what were you thinking?

  25. Re:wow on Toyota Robot Violinist Wows At Shanghai Expo · · Score: 1

    I don't think anybody really knows because (so far as I know) it hasn't been studied, so everybody just believes whatever they want. It shouldn't be hard to run a Turing-style test for this, but (as with audiophile equipment) I think most people don't really want to know, mainly because they assume they already do.