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User: amstrad

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  1. no mod points available

  2. There's no earthly way of knowing on Norway Plans to Build the World's First Ship Tunnel (newatlas.com) · · Score: 1

    I hope they plan a good light show inside the tunnel. And audio, it must have audio:

    There's no earthly way of knowing
    Which direction we are going.
    There's no knowing where we're rowing
    Or which way the river's flowing.
    Is it raining?
    Is it snowing?
    Is a hurricane a blowing?

    Not a speck of light is showing
    so the danger must be growing.
    Are the fires of hell a glowing?
    Is the grisly reaper mowing?
    Yes! The danger must be growing
    For the rowers keep on rowing. And they're certainly not showing
    any signs that they are slowing!

  3. Mercury is very hard to land on on Barack Obama: America Will Take the Giant Leap To Mars, To Send People There by the 2030s (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    Mercury lives close to the bottom of a very deep gravity well.

    https://xkcd.com/681/

    If you fall down that well, you gain an enormous amount of velocity that you have to dump if you want to orbit/land on the planet. Mercury has no atmosphere to aerobrake so you need fuel to stop.

    The rail gun you'll need to send shipments back to earth would be pretty immense to lift any reasonable mass out of that gravity well.

  4. Re:Get rid of the side mirrors on Tesla Updates Model S With New Front-End, Air Filtration System, Faster Charging (theverge.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah. I'm sure that's the case. It would be nice if the laws were written as functional requirements such as "Vehicle shall provide a means for driver to see at least, blah blah blah....." Rather than naming a specific required outdated and limiting technology. Once again, the legal system stifling innovation.

  5. Get rid of the side mirrors on Tesla Updates Model S With New Front-End, Air Filtration System, Faster Charging (theverge.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If Elon is looking for a low coefficient of drag, why don't we drop the side mirrors in favor of high resolution wide angle cameras? I've always thought we could replace the center mirror with a long full car width LED display monitor showing a 180 degree view behind and sides fed by 2 wide angle cameras on the back or sides.

  6. Re:Atheism is a self esteem issue on Why Are Some Hell-Bent On Teaching Intelligent Design? · · Score: 1

    You have just demonstrated that you have no idea what atheism is.

  7. Re:you know hell has frozen over on NRA Joins ACLU Lawsuit Against NSA · · Score: 3, Funny

    Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

  8. Do robots dream of better working conditions? on Foxconn Begins To Assemble Its Robot Army · · Score: 1

    Also, the 10,000 new robots begin to complain of poor working conditions, instigate riots, and some even commit suicide.

  9. Re:God on Dr. Richard Dawkins On Education, 'Innocence of Muslims,' and Rep. Paul Broun · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So.. much... wrong... with.. this.. post... I don't even know where to begin. So I won't, because you're clearly fucking clueless.

  10. Gender equality on Ask Richard Dawkins About Evolution, Religion, and Science Education · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How serious of a problem do you think gender inequality is in the scientific academic world? What would you do to correct it?

    Follow up:

    You caught a lot of heat for the "Dear Muslima" episode last year. Do you feel you were misinterpreted or misrepresented? Is there anything you regret or would have said differently in retrospect?

  11. And the grow up to become... on Weebots: Driveable Robots For Babies Who Need Them · · Score: 1

    Davros!!!!

  12. Re:Good on Intelsat Signs Launch Contract With SpaceX · · Score: 1, Informative
    You're an idiot.

    First, launch escape systems only work if activated prior to an explosion. It won't save the lives of astronauts after the fact, the abort has to be done prior to the catastrophic event.

    Second, of course the the Space Shuttle had Launch abort system. It had "Abort to Landing Site", "Transoceanic Abort Landing", "Abort Once Around", and "Abort to Orbit". Only Abort to Orbit was used in the program (STS-51-F):

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes

    Additionally, there was equipment and flight software for crew inflight bailout:

    http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/escape/inflight.html

    This was not available during powered flight.

  13. In related news on Iran Threatens Legal Action Against Google For Not Labeling Gulf 'Persian' · · Score: 0

    ... Google relabels Iran as Dumbfuckistan just to play "with the feelings and realities of the Iranian nation".

  14. Sparse in frequency on Faster-Than-Fast Fourier Transform · · Score: 1

    The point of this FFT improvement is for signals that are sparse in the frequency domain, not spatial domain. Most images _are_ sparse in frequency due to discretization during data collection.

  15. Re:OK, X-Rays are banned on EU Approves Unified Full Body Scanner Regulations · · Score: 1
    Do you have any evidence that it is harmful? Because I have not seen anything convincing. Let's look at some facts:
    1. - Frequencies used in security applications have a water penetration depth of on average 0.3mm. So any potential damage is limit to surface layers of skin.
    2. - A purely mathematical model suggests that photon energies involved have a potential to break bonds in the loaclized sites of the DNA helix which may interfer with RNA transcription. No practical experiments have been done to confirm this.
    3. - Probabilty of these photon interactions is extremely small due to the tiny photoelectric cross section of the bond sites.
    4. - You're body is exposed to orders of magnitude more radiation which is actually ionizing from cosmic and terestrial sources daily.
  16. If you walk without rhythym, on Mathematically Pattern-Free Music · · Score: 3, Funny

    you won't attract the worm. Another piece of ugly music, Aphex Twin's Ventolin

  17. Hector! on Boston Dynamics' PETMAN Humanoid On Video · · Score: 2

    Is it also going to lust after Kirk Doulgas' hot young wife? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_3

  18. Stunt Island on An FPS Minus the Shooting · · Score: 1

    One of the best games of the early 90s was Disney's Stunt Island. You could either just play the game as a stunt pilot or better yet was the sandbox mode where you could set up stunts, perform and film them and then edit them with sound effects and music. It was an extremely creative game.
    I believe it's available as abandonware now: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/287/Stunt+Island.html

  19. This article is... on Suggesting Innovative Uses For Retired Space Shuttles · · Score: 5, Interesting

    useless, uninformative and not even funny. So perfect for Slashdot?

  20. As long as Kaku sticks to physics... on Science Channel Buys Rights To Firefly · · Score: 3, Informative
    ...we'll be alright. Once he strays into other areas of science he becomes a blathering idiot.

    http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/why_do_physicists_think_they_a.php

  21. This line in TFA confused me on Oxford University Tests Universal Flu Vaccine · · Score: 1

    The treatment – using a new technique and tested for the first time on humans infected with flu –

    You don't give vaccines to people who are already infected. I realize that this vaccine attacks a whole class, but it's not going to be much good on a specific virus that has already infected the body.

  22. Lena Söderberg on Playmate Photo From Apollo 12 Up For Auction · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Another notable Playboy pinup is Nov. 1972's Lena Söderberg whos image has been used in an example in image processing papers since 1973.

  23. Equatorial surface temperature on Swedish Firm Proposes City Buildings On Rails · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet) shows the equatorial rotation velocity as 10.892 km/h. So the train would need to travel that fast to keep out of the Sun. That number is reduced by the cosine of the latitude so at 85 north, it would be just under 1 km/h. Of course teperature cycling would be enormous. Wikipedia gives the range as [100K 700K] at the equator and [80K 380K] at 85 latitude. What material can withstand that heat expansion and remain true? I wonder if a space station in mercury's L4 Lagrange point would be feasable? Is Mercury's L4 still withini Mercury's umbra?

  24. Poka-Yoke on Look-Alike Tubes Lead To Hospital Deaths · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sounds like they're in need of a Poka-Yoke project.

  25. Of course it's deniable on Global Warming 'Undeniable,' Report Says · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All sorts of facts are denied by those who refuse to change their positions. See cognitive dissonance