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User: Trepidity

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  1. Re:Need fast-acting yeast on Biohackers Are Engineering Yeast To Make THC · · Score: 2

    I doubt it will be fully legal by 2018. At the state level, I think it's likely more states will decriminalize or even fully legalize, but not all of them. I'll put a guess at: by 2018, it will be fully legal in 15 states, decriminalized in 15, and still criminal to possess in 20 states.

    At the federal level, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs would complicate legalization efforts, since the Treaty requires signatories to ban marijuana. And the U.S. doesn't want to undermine this treaty, because it uses the treaty to strongarm other countries over things like coca and poppy growing. It's possible the DEA will lower enforcement priority, though, and maybe possible (though imo this is less likely) that Congress will revise the law to reduce sentences from their current levels.

  2. Re:No thank you on Take a Picture Just By Thinking About It, Using Google Glass With MindRDR App · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why worry, when the full terms and conditions of the Google Privacy Policy are protecting you?

  3. Re:Alternate use for this technology on DARPA Successfully Demonstrates Self-Guiding Bullets · · Score: 1

    That would require some target-identification, while this is just target-tracking. You point at a target and shoot, and the system makes sure the target is hit. Now it could avoid any target you try to shoot at, but that would be a bit silly: a good way to make sure all your bullets miss is to just not fire them!

  4. better map link on SpaceX Wins FAA Permission To Build a Spaceport In Texas · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you can't read the scaled-down map reproduced from the report in the linked blog post, you can either look on p. 54 of the PDF, or else here's the site on OpenStreetMap. It appears it's not just that they're being given permission for the launches, but also that they're being given use of the land: the approved launch site is Texas state-owned land in Boca Chica State Park, which they'll be allowed to construct a facility on, and use for a certain number of days/year.

  5. Re:'Soccer ball'! on Mathematicians Solve the Topological Mystery Behind the "Brazuca" Soccer Ball · · Score: 1

    But a football is the ball used to play Gaelic. A soccer ball is what you use to play soccer.

  6. Re:"Vrije University"? on Prof. Andy Tanenbaum Retires From Vrije University · · Score: 4, Funny

    But then it gets ambiguous, because someone might think you mean Free University as in no tuition, rather than Free-as-in-Freedom University. And Liberty University is already taken.

  7. Re:Fear Mongers Didn't Want to Let Cassini Fly on Cassini's Space Odyssey To Saturn · · Score: 1

    Huh, I had overlooked the name when reading the article, just read right though to "some physics prof thinks NASA is wrong and it's actually super-dangerous". Didn't realize it was Michio Kaku, which is indeed surprising.

  8. Re:Fear Mongers Didn't Want to Let Cassini Fly on Cassini's Space Odyssey To Saturn · · Score: 1

    I do:

    It sounds a lot like the plot of a sci-fi blockbuster: A deep-space probe powered by a highly radioactive substance could wipe out humankind.

  9. Re:This is scary on Consciousness On-Off Switch Discovered Deep In Brain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you want to knock people unconscious, there are already less invasive ways of doing it, like general anesthesia. Though it would be interesting to know whether general anesthesia operates by a mechanism related to this one, or is doing something else.

  10. speed is not really what they're lacking on 15-Year-Old Developing a 3D Printer 10x Faster Than Anything On the Market · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, speed would be nice, but this is not really true:

    One of the main issues with 3D printers today is that they lack in one area; speed.

    3D printers lack in a whole lot of areas, and speed is not at the top of the list. There are a ton of things that you can't do with a 3d printer because the parts are too large, too intricate, need different materials than 3d printers can handle, or are too expensive to 3d print. As more of those problems are solved, the range of things you can plausibly 3d print expands significantly. Now once you can print something in 12 hours, it's great if you could print it in 2 hours or 20 minutes instead, but just being able to do it at all is the biggest step.

  11. seems to be a common theme on Oklahoma's Earthquakes Linked To Fracking · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The weakest part of the whole fracking operation is really sloppy treatment of the wastewater. There have been large spills in some places, and the disposal is often questionable (as seen here). The fracking process itself gets the most scientific scrutiny, because it's what's technically new about fracking, but good ol' wastewater handling is a mess, just as it was in the mining days.

  12. Re:I dont see a problem here on NASA Approves Production of Most Powerful Rocket Ever · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah I don't see how "propulsion stage is based on the motor of a rocket often used by the Air Force" is a negative thing about it. If anything that suggests they might actually be able to deliver something that works.

  13. Re:what about more trades like post HS schools? on Does Google Have Too Much Influence Over K-12 CS Education? · · Score: 1

    Google, for good or ill, isn't interested in those at all (if they were, it'd be an interesting debate, though). Unlike tech startups, Google puts a quite high value on college degrees, and highly ranked ones at that. They hire a few people who don't have one, but by and large they hire out of top-50 CS departments.

  14. Re: Well, duh... on European Commission Spokesman: Google Removing Link Was "not a Good Judgement" · · Score: 1

    The EU's position is that digging up some information and pointing to it constitutes an action that comes with responsibility. If you dig up some old government records on people and report information that has some plausible public interest, that's legal. If you dig up some old government records about your obscure neighbor, and stick them online just to embarrass him, that's considered a violation of privacy (under EU law). The view of the court is that Google doing this algorithmically doesn't relieve them of responsibility: when they dig up old information and point to it, they need to make judgments on whether it's in the public interest to do so.

  15. Re:What about range on this smaller car? on Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's certainly possible, yes. It's sometimes called a "series hybrid". While conventional "parallel" hybrids have both gas and electric engines connected to the drivetrain, in a series hybrid the drivetrain is 100% electric, but there's also a gas generator that feeds into the electric system when needed.

    Whether you should call that en electric vehicle or not seems to depend on what proportion of the energy is expected to ultimately come from gas vs. wall charge. If most of the energy comes from gas, then it's just a different configuration of hybrid vehicle. Diesel trains work that way, for example (electric drivetrains powered by a diesel generator), and are not considered electric trains. On the other hand, if it runs mostly electric and there is a tank just used for occasional range-extension, those are being marketed as "extended-range electrical vehicles".

  16. Re:As a Quebecer... on Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E · · Score: 4, Informative

    Our billionaires mostly do things like wearing clown noses in space or union-busting convenience stores.

    Oh, the U.S. has plenty of those too: 6 of the top 10 richest Americans have either the surname "Walton" or "Koch", and they do roughly the same kinds of things with their money that someone like Péladeau does. One of the remaining four has the surname "Ellison", and his visionary thoughts mostly involve yacht races.

  17. Re:What about range on this smaller car? on Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E · · Score: 4, Informative

    Musk has mentioned in the past a range of around 200 miles.

  18. Re:Well, duh... on European Commission Spokesman: Google Removing Link Was "not a Good Judgement" · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, the big practical problem with this decision is that it requires case-by-case analysis, which is probably impractical at Google's scale. This particular case is really pretty clear-cut: it's the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, and it's a story about his CEOship. If Google did case-by-case analysis, it would be easy to reject this takedown request as easily within the scope of the "public role" exception. However they probably (for understandable reasons) don't want to do that kind of case-by-case decision making.

  19. Re:Well, duh... on European Commission Spokesman: Google Removing Link Was "not a Good Judgement" · · Score: 4, Informative

    The original case was a newspaper notice of a personal bankruptcy of a pretty obscure person, while this is a story about a very public CEO resignation. The decision is a bit of a mess, I agree, but this case pretty clearly falls outside its scope, which explicitly says that stories involving public roles are excluded (which resigning as CEO of Merill Lynch certainly counts as).

    From the explanatory summary (pdf) that accompanied the decision, explaining when search-engine operators may turn down removal requests:

    The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have access to the information in question justifies showing the links in Google search results.

  20. Re:not the norm in other non-athletic competitions on IeSF Wants International Game Tournaments Segregated By Sex [Updated] · · Score: 1

    I believe professional baseball in the U.S. is officially male-only, or at least it used to be. Jackie Mitchell was briefly pitcher for a minor-league AA team in 1931, but the commissioner expelled her from the league after it came to his attention.

  21. not the norm in other non-athletic competitions on IeSF Wants International Game Tournaments Segregated By Sex [Updated] · · Score: 5, Informative

    Poker tournaments aren't gender-segregated, for example, and they are probably one of the more successful non-athletic sports. The main chess competitions are also open to people of any gender.

    There are sometimes gender-specific events, but they are promotional/recruiting things rather than the main event. For example there's a Women's World Chess Championship, but some of the best chess-playing women choose not to enter it, and enter the main (gender-integrated) tournaments instead.

  22. Re:Blame Google. on Following EU Ruling, BBC Article Excluded From Google Searches · · Score: 1

    Yes, it's quite unlikely that this particular example falls within the scope of the EU ruling, which explicitly made exceptions for items of public interest, such as politicians, high-profile actors/businessmen/etc., and similar cases. A CEO of a gigantic company resigning over a public scandal is not the kind of news that is likely to be found outside the public interest, even years later.

  23. Re:Just pay him not to work on Amazon Sues After Ex-Worker Takes Google Job · · Score: 1

    That's common in finance, but seems not to be common in tech. Many investment banks have a clause giving them the option to keep you from working for a competitor for 6-12 months after leaving the company. But if they exercise the option, they have to pay you to not work, usually some percentage of your previous salary.

  24. Re:Yarkoni misses the point on Facebook's Emotion Experiment: Too Far, Or Social Network Norm? · · Score: 1

    without their consent

    What's actually more problematic to me is that the paper explicitly claimed they asked for and received "informed consent". But their justification is that users agreed to the Facebook EULA. That is a serious misunderstanding of what constitutes informed consent in research ethics; it does not just mean that someone agreed to some fine print, possibly months ago, in a transaction unrelated to the current study.

    If they want to argue that this doesn't require informed consent at all, because it's e.g. just data mining of effectively existing data, that would be less problematic imo than watering down the standard for informed consent to include EULAs.

  25. Re:A/B-Testing on Facebook's Emotion Experiment: Too Far, Or Social Network Norm? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Apparently they did actually get IRB approval, oddly enough. The study was jointly done with two universities, and from what other researchers have told me, the two universities' IRBs approved the protocol. I'm surprised myself that they would. Would be curious to see what their reasoning was.