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User: MightyYar

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  1. Re:Fixed summary for you on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    It is a legitimate way to convey a message that sticks in the mind.

    But it is decidedly on the side of arguing policy and not just a scientific discussion. I'm not surprised at all that a public institution would choose not to advocate for a policy that runs counter to their funding interests. It's one thing to present facts that leave very little room for defense of the state policy. It's quite another to poke fun at the guys paying the bills.

    To bring it all back, playing the film (or at least that part of the film) is a lot like calling the legislators "stupid fucks" - just in an intellectual way. Same message.

  2. Re:Why You Shouldn't Buy a UHD 4K on Why You Shouldn't Buy a UHD 4K TV This Year · · Score: 1

    You have to get within 10ft of a 1080p 75" TV before the average person can discern individual pixels. Who the hell sits that close to a 75" TV? Then again, going to 4k only changes the distance to about 7ft, so perhaps some people have huge TVs in narrow rooms.

  3. Re:Is UHD pr0n really better? on Why You Shouldn't Buy a UHD 4K TV This Year · · Score: 1

    The ideal resolution for porn is the size of a herpes lesion + 1.

  4. Re:Fixed summary for you on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 2

    Satire is great. Stephen Colbert is great. But it blunts any outrage I might have had over the state-funded science museum not showing the film. I still think they are being ridiculous, but I'm not at all surprised and have a hard time building any outrage.

  5. Re:Fixed summary for you on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    Apparently the film includes a clip of Stephen Colbert making fun of the legislature. IMHO, they should probably have taken your advice and just stuck to the science.

  6. Re:Fixed summary for you on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    My understanding is that the film includes a clip of Stephen Colbert making fun of the NC legislators. I'm just saying that the film may not have made the proper choice in how to convey it's argument. Ignorance is rarely addressed by belittling the people you hope to educate.

  7. Re:In the USA on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but he'll be dead by then.

  8. Re:Fixed summary for you on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 0

    Didn't you just tell him not to call people names if you want to be treated with respect? I haven't seen the film, but it is entirely possible that it runs afoul of this same advice.

  9. Remember we were operating on the thesis that China will get rich enough to outspend us. If that happens, then all of those extra people will need extra resources. If China's economy stays on track to match or exceed ours, they will have to import a lot of stuff. As their economy grows, that number will only grow. So yes, those people will be a tremendous resource. But at the same time, the resources they consume will require military protection.

  10. Re:band pass filters on Researchers Build Covert Acoustical Mesh Networks In Air · · Score: 2

    Filters usually have some consequence. Something approaching an ideal low-pass filter can be applied to a recorded signal, since you can assume a zero level before and after the recording. But a real-time filter has to make compromises and will result in some kind of distortion (ringing artifacts mostly). You can improve things by adding a delay, but if this delay is too long then you run into latency problems for real-time applications like chat. I'm sure you could produce something of acceptable quality, but it wouldn't necessarily be trivial or transparent.

  11. Re:Six months from now on Healthcare.gov and the Gulf Between Planning and Reality · · Score: 1

    Uncompensated care is only part of the issue. The other part is that ER care is incredibly expensive, and yet it is being used as the primary care provider for millions. Also, because the mandate is only for ER care, people can't always get treatment until they can credibly claim that their malady has progressed to the point of being an actual emergency. So a condition that might have been treated inexpensively with a visit to a nurse practitioner now needs to be triaged and managed at a 24-hour emergency center where everyone is being paid overtime - and the condition may now require hospitalization.

    Anyway, the post you replied to wasn't really making the point that the ER mandate caused the spike in healthcare costs - he was just claiming that the enacting of the mandate represents the real point at which our country instituted socialized health care... not when Obamacare passed. People calling Obama a "socialist" may or may not have a point, but their criticism also then applies to Reagan.

  12. Re:Behaviour change due to social pressure? on The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath · · Score: 1

    Again, I didn't mean to pick on doctors - it's just that being a doctor does not make one immune from the need for some self improvement. It sounds like the changes he made were of the positive variety.

  13. Re:Behaviour change due to social pressure? on The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath · · Score: 1

    Exactly my point. Just because this guy was an accomplished doctor does not mean he can't do with a little self improvement.

  14. Re:Behaviour change due to social pressure? on The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath · · Score: 1

    Well, my wife is a doctor, and I can assure you there are some real pricks. Talk to a nurse some time. Surgeons are particularly known for their bedside manner.

    (That last sentence was sarcasm.)

    Anyway, the point is that just because you have some value to society, that does not mean that your value cannot be increased by altering your behavior.

  15. I think this is extremely unlikely. First of all, China will have to match US spending before they can exceed it. And to do that, they need to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars away from their already very poor interior. Second, the US accounts for something like half of their exports. Since the conventional wisdom is that the only reason the Chinese government can keep legitimacy is through high economic growth, it would be suicidal for them to risk that trade - even if it would severely damage the US economy.

    It is possible that your thesis could play out when and if they get enough of a domestic market that they don't depend on export growth anymore. China is nearly as large as the US, and so it has vast resources - but don't forget that it also has several times the US population, so those resources won't go as far. If they are importing oil and raw materials, they will be just as susceptible to supply line disruption as the US is today. In other words, they might be able to afford a huge military - but they will need it for reasons other than standing off with the US. Especially if they keep pissing off their neighbors.

  16. Re:Behaviour change due to social pressure? on The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath · · Score: 2

    If you don't know any doctors who are assholes, you don't know many doctors.

  17. Re:carnegie and frick on Should the US Copy Switzerland and Consider a 'Maximum Wage' Ratio? · · Score: 1

    If the government hadn't been around, what would have prevented them from doing the exact same thing?

    Sans government, they would have spent a fortune protecting their property - but let's for a moment pretend that no one would try to steal their property, for the sake of argument.

    The invention of the corporation made Carnegie's job much easier. To raise money, they could sell stock - sans government they would have had to engineer some sort of partnership agreement with investors. The massive number of mergers and acquisitions would have been nightmarish or impossible if they didn't involve standardized corporate entities. Thanks to limited liability, at almost no point was either of their personal property ever at stake. More importantly, investors in their corporations risked nothing except the money that they invested. Finally, the corporations involved were mostly unaffected by deaths. A partner dying in a partnership is a big deal. A stockholder dying in a corporation is usually a non-event.

    You'd be an indentured servant of theirs living in a Carnegie town, working a Carnegie job, your kids going to Carnegie school so they could grow up to be good little workers for Carnegie.

    I'll grant you that even without the concept of a corporation, you had rich people who would control an entire town - or even had undue influence in a pretty big city. But then they eventually died.

  18. Re:Shame, but at least they didn't melt down on Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power · · Score: 1

    what is to say the designers of a Filipino nuclear plant would have anticipated the height of the storm surge from such an extraordinary cyclone?

    Because it has never happened anywhere in the world, despite nuclear facilities taking hits from hurricanes on a regular basis. I know from memory that a single nuclear plant (St. Lucie) took two direct hurricane hits in a single season, and it sits on a low-lying barrier island in Florida.

    A poorly designed nuclear plant could be built anywhere.

    LOL, yes, that is certainly true. Some of the early designs were terrifying, and the Russians kept it up until Chernobyl.

  19. Re:Yes. on Should the US Copy Switzerland and Consider a 'Maximum Wage' Ratio? · · Score: 0

    Carnegie and Frick used the government to build that wealth, through the use of a corporate charter. Without government interferences in the free market like limited liability, I'm not sure they could have put together such huge organizations.

  20. Re:Yes. on Should the US Copy Switzerland and Consider a 'Maximum Wage' Ratio? · · Score: 0

    Reworking it makes it a non-free market.

    If you want to use that terminology, then the US hasn't ever had a free market. The Constitution messes with the free market.

  21. Re:Shame, but at least they didn't melt down on Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power · · Score: 1

    Look at his subject line - he was implying that if these plants had been nuclear, they would be experiencing a meltdown.

  22. Re:Shame, but at least they didn't melt down on Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power · · Score: 1

    And Japan's nuclear meltdown happened after an earthquake and tsunami that killed 15,000 people - not a hurricane. It might be perfectly reasonable to say that building a nuclear plant in a country that sits within the ring of fire is a bad idea, but implying that this particular storm would have caused a meltdown is pure FUD.

  23. Re:Shame, but at least they didn't melt down on Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power · · Score: 1

    Exactly my point. Read the subject of the person I was replying to.

  24. Re:Shame, but at least they didn't melt down on Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power · · Score: 1

    So now "problems" means "meltdown"? Did you even read your link?

  25. Re:Shame, but at least they didn't melt down on Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power · · Score: 2

    I was just commenting on the absurdity of AmiMoJo's statement, not arguing that they should have built nuclear. No matter what plant they built, when the transmission towers went down, the plant would have to shut down.