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User: ChrisMaple

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  1. Re:Interesting, but... on When 8 Megapixels Just Isn't Enough · · Score: 2, Informative

    There's a fundamental limit to how much detail can be achieved with visible-light photography. That limit is determined by the wavelength of light and the diameter of the lens. If you want to detect something 0.1" (2.5mm) at a distance of 1 mile (1.6 km) you need a lens 8" (0.2m) in diameter, and it can't be made any smaller.

  2. Health care and disease control on Renewable Energy From Algae? · · Score: 1

    Acres and acres of algae farms. Perfect for mosquitoes and malaria. Bring on the DDT!

  3. Overall efficiency on Renewable Energy From Algae? · · Score: 1

    I did a rough calculation and figured that the sunlight energy incident on that 11000 square mile area is 280 quads per year. They are predicting 14 quads of biodiesel per year. That's 5% efficiency, 5 times better than the best claim that I've read until now.

  4. Re:WTF? on Blimps... In... Space... · · Score: 1

    Perhaps if wings with better than 10:1 lift:drag (at that altitude) were added?

  5. I've Done It on DVD Player Displays 2D Movies in 3D · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, not 3D films, but I've made single stereoscopic images from multiple frames from television. A scene in which the camera has transverse motion is best; two frames can easily have the same vantage point spacing as a person's eyes. Motion of the actors works also (if everybody is moving in the same direction.) Good stereoscopic effects can even be achieved when the actor is rotating. The key is to get two different viewpoints for the same object. The effect is dramatically more vivid than anything my brain can devive from 2D television.

  6. Re:nuclear power... on Creator of the Gaia Hypothesis Urges Nuclear Power · · Score: 1
    Additionally, most other species have better damage-repair mechanisms than we do.

    Not true. Damage-repair machanisms and being relatively impervious to damage are the factors which allow things to live long. For mammals, the degree of being impervious to damage is roughly the same, and the repair mechanisms determine lifespan. Humans have good damage repair and live a long time.

  7. Re:Thank God I've still got my LaserJet III on Innovators vs Copiers: HP vs Dell · · Score: 1

    I've been told that the LJIII has rubber parts in the sheet feed mechanism. They eventually get hard and slippery, and won't feed any more. Otherwise, a very solid printer.

  8. Re:HP? An innovator? on Innovators vs Copiers: HP vs Dell · · Score: 1

    As far as I know HP had the first inkjet printer. Inkjet strip plotters were available in 1978 (or earlier) from Siemens.

  9. If it's secret on Ruling Clears Way For Lindows Trial · · Score: 3, Interesting

    how do you know about it?

  10. Re:clarification on Monsanto Wins Case Over Patented Canola · · Score: 1
    ...once almost all normal food crops have a terminator gene strain introduced into the "wild" and it starts to spread.

    Did you read what you wrote? Did you think about it? Just how does a plant that can't reproduce spread? Ignoring the rather slow mechanism of underground roots, the answer is IT CAN'T.

  11. Re:500?? 500???????!!!? on AgroWaste Oil Plant Starts Production · · Score: 1

    A 747 doesn't use any gas(oline) at all. It uses jet fuel, which is basically kerosene.

  12. Re:The solution to the current patent nightmare on Intel Sued for Patent Infringement · · Score: 1
    In order to enforce a patent, you must be using it.

    This would prevent the creation of patent pool companies such as Hazeltine. The idea here is that a bunch of companies all have patents in a field, and all the patents are necessary to the creation of a good product. The patents are assigned to the pool company (which doesn't necessarily use the patents), and the pool company licences the patents to all comers, possibly with discounts to those who originated the patents.

  13. Re:Storage Storage Storage on Solar Cells Get Boost · · Score: 2, Informative

    Imagination is the only domain in which your comment can ever be real. Even at 100% efficiency, 1 hour of solar energy will run a small car at highway speeds for less than one hour. Even the most powerful chemical reactions cannot store enough energy in the size of 4 D cell batteries to run a car for a week.

  14. Re:Not better or worse, different on Can Star Wars Episode III Be Saved? · · Score: 1

    Both Skywalker and Solo mature throughout Episodes 4 through 6. They become less rash, more thinking, more considerate, and scarred both mentally and physically. During this period, their character improves more than most people's do.

  15. Re:no. on Can Star Wars Episode III Be Saved? · · Score: 1

    In ESB the characters acted differently because time had passed and they matured.

  16. Mod Parent Up on WiFi Signals In Between Television Frequencies · · Score: 1

    The only problem here will be interference for those rare individuals who make a hobby out of receiving broadcast TV from 100 or more miles away.

  17. Re:Hm, interesting... on Germany to Vote Against Software Patents in the EU · · Score: 1
    Do not wear american clothing

    Most Americans don't buy American clothing. Just look at the labels: Phillipines, China, Mexico, Honduras...

  18. For example on Germany to Vote Against Software Patents in the EU · · Score: 1

    I've been reading in the health press that European government has been pushing for (and may have already succeeded in) making large doses of vitamins illegal. This has been tried in the past in the US, and with rare exceptions (folic acid) has been stopped by public outrage.

  19. Re:Foreign competitors on Germany to Vote Against Software Patents in the EU · · Score: 1
    What's so great about the US nowadays? We've demonstrated that our voting system has failed, that our leadership hates gays, muslims, and does nothing to protect middle america's jobs while all the fatcats get fatter by outsourcing anything and everything they can because they lost their sense of nationalism over a few dollars....All it brought together were the straight, old white people out in the boonies...

    So your solution is a dictatorship run by poor gay black babyish city-dwellers who buy only homemade goods from their neighbors.

  20. Re:obvious solution on Student Uncovers US Military Secrets · · Score: 1

    You'd probably want to go through the whole dictionary and calculate the pixel width of each word. Then make a list ordered by pixel width. For each blank, use only words in the list's section with that blank's pixel width. The total effort involved is much smaller. Of course, gaps large enough for phrases complicates the issue, as does a phrase at a "ragged right" border or variable spacing in a line.

  21. Re:Then maybe I'm stupid too on Student Uncovers US Military Secrets · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    Let's see, the U.S. freed the Phillipines from a Spanish tyranny and rather than subsuming the islands, the U.S. eventually set them off on their own.

    Most of the mideast prior to the actions of western oil companies were vaste wastelands traversed by ignorant nomads. The western oil companies discovered the oil, gave it value, and it then was stolen by the disgusting murderers that call themselves governments in the mideast.

  22. Re:Fantastic on Bicycling Science, Third Edition · · Score: 1
    If you're going fast enough to hurt someone, you should be forced to take a test and own up to some responsibility for your actions.

    Runners. Skiers. Sledders. Snowboarders. Skaters. Divers.

  23. Re:Old earth... on New Evidence About 'The Great Dying' 250 Million Years Ago · · Score: 1
    "Science, by its very nature, cannot answer the question of the existence of God...

    Usually, this is left to the more fundamental field of logic. Most nontrivial definitions of God are self-contradictory, thereby proving that a god so defined cannot exist. The remaining definitions cannot be tested because they either have no relation to reality or mechanisms are already known which can explain what god is claimed to be doing. A god so defined is simply irrelevant to all things real.

  24. Re:Don't tell the evolutionists.... on New Evidence About 'The Great Dying' 250 Million Years Ago · · Score: 1
    Actually, there are internal contradictions in the Bible. The Bible contradicts the Bible.

    Kindly take your steaming heap of lies and leave the civilization that you are denying.

  25. Re:If you enjoy math.. on The Logic Behind Metric Paper Sizes · · Score: 1

    You are what you eat.