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User: ceoyoyo

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Comments · 17,857

  1. Re:drone drivers destroy delivery on Walmart Unveils Turbine-Powered WAVE Concept Truck · · Score: 1

    Awesome. Can't wait to get stuck behind one of those while another one passes it veeeeerrrrrryyy slowly.

  2. Re:Cambridge Dogma on Physicists Test Symmetry Principle With an Antimatter Beam · · Score: 1

    It's never been true. It's a myth spouted by people who've had their pet theories shot down by people who rightly want more evidence.

  3. Re:Culture Dogma on Physicists Test Symmetry Principle With an Antimatter Beam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Another "science" critic that doesn't understand what science is.

    If you take a fuzzy creation story or prophecy you can make it fit anything you want. The myths that survive ARE the fuzzy ones that can be made to fit anything. It IS kind of like science actually: the scientific theories that survive are the ones that fit. Except science has the additional criteria that they have to also be as simple as possible and make specific predictions.

  4. Re:There is no dark matter on X-rays From Other Galaxies Could Emanate From Particles of Dark Matter · · Score: 1

    You realize our current accepted theories of quantum mechanics have the luminiferous aether in spades, right? It's called the electron field, which permeates the entire universe and has "electrons" as energetic disturbances within it. It's joined by many other aethers, I mean fields, such as the family of quark fields, the neutrino fields and the Higgs field(s).

    It's hilarious when Slashdot armchair science critics use that example.

  5. Re:Three sigma? on X-rays From Other Galaxies Could Emanate From Particles of Dark Matter · · Score: 1

    Whoever came up with that explanation for a p-value was undoubtedly well meaning but should have been gagged. It confuses more people.

    The OPs definition is simpler, much more intuitive, and correct if you add "given only the data collected in the experiment." You can actually make an argument that the OPs definition is correct as is since "null hypothesis" refers to the statistical hypothesis, which is generally assumed to relate only to the current experiment.

    Yes, you can't make judgements about the actual probability without priors, but friends don't force their informative priors on friends.

  6. Re:WTF on Apple's Messages Offers Free Texting With a Side of iPhone Lock-In · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just disassociate your number from iMessages. It's not hard. The article in the summary mentions half a dozen ways to do it, only one of which requires your iPhone. What do you want Apple to do, hire some psychics so they know when you switch phones?

  7. Re:WTF on Apple's Messages Offers Free Texting With a Side of iPhone Lock-In · · Score: 4, Informative

    No. This story is stupid. If you leave your number associated with your iPhone, and your iPhone signed into iMessage, other iPhones will try to send you iMessages (they'll give up and send regular texts after a little bit). There are multiple, simple ways to sign your number out of iMessage, leaving it a regular text receiving number.

  8. Re:Rabbits were used first on Horseshoe Crabs Are Bled Alive To Create an Unparalleled Biomedical Technology · · Score: 1

    And invaded by a bunch of teenagers of the "yawn, so what?" generation.

  9. Re:However.. on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 1

    Richard Feynman lambasted NASA for making stupid decisions and taking unnecessary risks on the ground. That is, in a situation where they most definitely could, and most definitely should have done something about it, and doing so would obviously reduce the danger of disaster and death, not increase it. See the difference?

    Post-event armchair quarterbacking is idiotic. Making decisions with people's lives "for guts and glory!" is idiotic. Emotional "but Richard Feynman!" and "but I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great!" arguments are idiotic.

  10. Re:However.. on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 1

    I don't think the damage to the shuttle was an obvious death sentence, even if they had inspected it (from the ground, likely). Do you call your mom and tell her goodbye every time you get in your car? The risk was undoubtedly higher than that, but so was the risk of the entire flight. Astronauts' loved ones know it's risky and I bet both sides know the goodbyes before any mission might be the last one. Regular reentries are dangerous too. Every one of those astronauts probably did call up mom/wife/kids/dogs before the reentry. In a similar situation I wouldn't mention that it was more dangerous than usual.

  11. Re:Aren't these an endangered species? on Horseshoe Crabs Are Bled Alive To Create an Unparalleled Biomedical Technology · · Score: 1

    So are condors, yet zoos keep them because there isn't much choice.

    $15,000 a quart is often good incentive to try and do difficult things. I'm sure it's difficult to keep them alive while you get them to your factory, bleed them just the right amount, and then take them to a distant location for release too, but it sounds like the companies do it to steer clear of fishing laws. It might well be economical to farm them if the catch and release plan were a little more expensive.

  12. Re:"Feasible" doesn't necessarily mean "Advisable" on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    You didn't actually say anything in your post. Do you have another reasonable failure scenario? If so, spit it out and we can talk about it.

  13. Re:Paralysis by Analysis on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 1

    That's stupid. Humans, based on as much quantitative analysis as they could get their hands on, decided not to try any crazy rescue schemes on the chance that Columbia might not make it. People responsible for other people's lives make decisions based on the very best information they can get, not on a gut feeling and a yee haw.

  14. Re:The shuttle was only reusable... on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 1

    PRIVATE aircraft get a very expensive inspection annually. I inspect my hang glider a hell of a lot more carefully than I inspect my car before every flight.

  15. Re:And when you lose Atlantis... on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 1

    Except that it wasn't a certainty Columbia was going to be lost.

  16. Re:However.. on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 2

    You can equally say the same thing about the Columbia crew. They happily took the risk, with full knowledge.

    If the expected combined loss after a rescue mission was greater than the expected loss without one, the right decision is to not stage a rescue. That's not a popular decision, obviously, so the correct decision was likely exactly what was done: don't look, because if you do see a problem you can't (or shouldn't) do anything about it anyway.

    Even after visually inspecting the orbiter (from the ground, likely), it's unlikely that it would have been a "if you reenter you're gonna die" conclusion. The decision wouldn't have been to try to save a doomed orbiter, it would have been whether or not to launch a risky rescue mission that possibly wasn't needed.

  17. Re:However.. on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mathematical modelling team: "We can't be 100% sure, but the models don't look good. Recommend taking a look for damage."

    Mission director: "And if we see damage what then?"

    Engineering team: "Um."

  18. Re:weight of elevator is pulling up, not pushing d on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    The magnitude of the Coriolis force depends on how fast you go. The first space elevators will probably be cargo only, with climbers that take weeks to make the trip. We might decide that space elevators simply aren't a good option for people or rapid transport at all. Or maybe the rapid transit cars need to have small lateral rockets to compensate.

  19. Re:"Feasible" doesn't necessarily mean "Advisable" on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    Three possibilities, depending on where the break is:

    1) cable being flung out into interplanetary space

    2) pretty reentry effects and most of the cable burning up

    3) somewhere between zero to a dozens of kilometres of lightweight cable falling to the ground.

  20. Re:Rockets won't be loved at on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    Rockets are a LOT easier if you can lift them (and their fuel and payload) out of the atmosphere before turning them on. Interplanetary rockets are even easier if you can lift them past geostationary orbit. And the rockets you'd use would be quite different than the ones we're familiar with.

    Heinlein said that low Earth orbit is halfway to anywhere.

  21. Re:Plenty of scientists on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    If you flew a plane into a space elevator cable a little bit of it would fall down, almost certainly not hurting anything, and you'd reel down some extra length from the geostationary point and re-anchor it. It would be inconvenient for everybody and terrifying and fatal for anyone who happened to be on a car below where the plane hit, but that's about it. You'd be WAY better off flying your hijacked plane into the airport it came from.

    If someone managed to get up to geosynchronous orbit with a big enough bomb to destroy the elevator then you'd have to replace the whole thing. The falling cable would almost certainly not hurt anyone (most of it would burn up on reentry). But actually replacing the ribbon probably wouldn't even be THAT big a deal since you would have already built all the infrastructure.

  22. Re:Arthur C. Clarke introduced me to space elevato on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    Most people don't know what scientists do, including many people who call themselves scientists. People who develop technology are engineers, although that title is claimed in a lot of places to mean someone who can take responsibility for designing and/or building something (like a bridge or a twinkie package). Applied scientist is a weird term that is often used to get around that, but applied science often isn't much like the science you're thinking of.

    Clarke did various things typical of an applied scientist or engineer. That's presumably what the OP was thinking of when he said "physicist."

  23. Re:Arthur C. Clarke introduced me to space elevato on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    That depends on the science fiction. The classic hard SF writers (like Clarke) tried to outright make things up as little as possible, and then only when necessary. Fountains of Paradise, for example, didn't really make anything up except a material strong enough to make a space elevator out of. As you pointed out, the concept itself was worked out before, and, assuming the materials and some way to get them up there, the concept is sound. Much of hard SF is aimed at considering the implications of the technology that is likely to result from existing science.

    Many hard SF writers are actually physicists, engineers or astronomers of some type. Clarke had a degree in physics and mathematics, worked on RADAR during WWII and wrote technical papers for the British Interplanetary Society regarding geostationary telecom satellites (another idea he "assumed into existence" in his books).

  24. Re:Money, politics - tech is the least problem on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No more imperial powers? Seriously? You know where the European Space Agency launches their rockets from? French Guiana, which is a French territory in South America. Then of course there's the 800 lb gorilla. The US has actual territories around much of the world, from the Atlantic to the western Pacific, occupied or controlled countries around the rest, and military bases pretty much everywhere.

    If a major nation wants to have an equatorial space elevator base they'll pick an appropriate country, throw some money at them, and get it.

  25. Re: Why would it be infeasable? on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 2

    Don't worry, China is willing to take risks and try unorthodox ideas to defend themselves against the US, which spends utterly insane amounts on weapons.