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User: TapeCutter

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Comments · 12,137

  1. Re:It's a fake! on Apollo 11 Moon Landing Turns 45 · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure which came first, the fake landing theory or the movie Capricorn One.

  2. Re:Other Systems on Dungeons & Dragons' Influence and Legacy · · Score: 1

    My bones say - close enough to 40 in round numbers.

    Never played myself, I was 17-18 when I first heard of it. It appeared to me to have nothing to do with motorbikes or girls so it failed to hold my attention. We did however as younger teens play a (nameless) game that used a die, a ruler, an eraser, some pencils and a roll of wallpaper or similar.

    The idea was to set up a battle, drawing in pencil the units of your army on your end of the paper. To move a unit you erased and redrew it, the dice determined how far a unit could move (in inches). To shoot you put the pencil point on your unit, put one finger on top of the pencil to hold it upright, and flick it with your fingers on the other hand. The pencil would leave a line on the paper which represented your bullet. Other than that there weren't any fixed rules, you could make up your own rules for each game...how small can a unit be, how many hits could a unit take, different coloured pencils for different bullets, a bouncing bomb is a series of pencil flicks, etc, etc. Had just as much fun playing that as a kid as I do playing WoT as an grandfather.

    Have no idea if the game has a name or where it originated, it seems to be quite old, my dad showed us how to play but it was not his invention since I found other kids at school who had learnt it from their dad, not sure but I think dad played it as a kid in the late 30's, early 40's. While on the subject of kids games, here's something a bit geeky that will blow a grandchild's mind.

  3. Re:No public drug use on World Health Organization Calls For Decriminalization of Drug Use · · Score: 2

    Keep your paws off my coffee mug.

  4. Re:Apple has 'done nothing'??? on Google To Stop Describing Games With In-App Purchases As 'Free' · · Score: 1

    World of Tanks and other titles from wargaming are IMO "free to play" in the original spirit of the idea, you can get the same in-game advantages with points as you can with a credit card. The credit card just means you progress in the meta-game much faster. But the meta-game is never ending, so who really cares how fast they progress?

    Disclaimer: I have been playing video games on and off since ~1970-71, WoT is the only game I currently subscribe to, after a year of playing for free I was convinced they were a company worth supporting. Suitable for kids, no blood and guts. Speaking of teenage kids, don't ever let them use your credit card - end of story.

  5. Re:depends. VBA is very different from systems arc on Math, Programming, and Language Learning · · Score: 3, Interesting

    TFA is really about the human mind. We understand patterns as different forms of language, music is the most basic and universal, it lights up all areas of the brain, then you have spoken language built on top of musical patterns, then along comes symbolism in the form of writing and icons, math is our most recent and most precise form of natural language.

    The take home message is, expose your kids to maths without boring them to death.

  6. Re:it is the wrong way... on Australia Repeals Carbon Tax · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How do you recommend governments act to reduce carbon emissions?

    The same way Ronald Regan and the Iron Lady acted to reduce sulphur emmissions that cause acid rain, international cap and trade treaty. Cap and trade is a market solution proposed and implemented by the founders of the neo-conservative movement, that has actually worked as advertised. The problem today is that influential "conservatives" are sitting on coal mines that could easily become stranded assests ten years from now. Funny how the politics turns itself upside down if you watch for long enough.

  7. Re:Surprised it didn't happen earlier on Committee Formed To Scrutinize Australia's Web Censorship Law · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised they are not routing all traffic to Andrew Bolt's page.

  8. Re:Or maybe it works the other way arround on Biofeedback Games and The Placebo Effect · · Score: 1

    The thing is there are very good feedback therapies, I saw an application recently that was originally designed to help dancers perfect their moves. A neuroscientists working near the Sydney opera house who was interested in dance found it also helped stroke patients, undermining 35yrs of her own work in the field. But like any real scientists she had found a "better answer", so her opinion spun on a dime.

    The fact that scammers make similar claims for a $5 app doesn't distract from the real benefits "biofeedback" can have, it distracts from the app store selling it and the ignoramus buying it.

  9. Re:Such harassment on Sexual Harassment Is Common In Scientific Fieldwork · · Score: 1

    Agreed, the only thing they all have in common is bad taste. Ironic how a sex offended was the head cheerleader for the sex-offenders list in the US congress (until he was caught). I always found it suspicious when a male habitually goes into impromptu rants against sexual offenders, he who shouts loudest and all that....

  10. Re:No real surprise on People Who Claim To Worry About Climate Change Don't Cut Energy Use · · Score: 1

    The underlying assumption is that you have to live in a cave and eat tofu if you want to be green, to do otherwise is to betray your own principles. AGW is a systemic problem but fortunately the economic trend of renewables vs FF is becoming such that coal mines will be virtually worthless in the not too distant future.

  11. Re: No real surprise on People Who Claim To Worry About Climate Change Don't Cut Energy Use · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Al Gore is a primary shareholder in some of the companies that have been formed to trade carbon credits

    So...you're saying it's a bad thing he puts his money where his mouth is, right?

    conflict of interest

    I'm not sure that phrase means what you think it does.

    As for TFA, I am an old fashioned "greenie", I believe in science based policy, I've never understood why people think that means I should shiver in the dark waiting for a clean energy utopia arrives? I don't want more/less energy, I want clean energy to fulfill my wants/needs and was prepared to pay a premium to get it. I say was because now I expect it to be cleaner and cheaper and will be installing solar PV on the roof of my new home later this year. They will pay for themselves in ~2yrs, after that initial investment it's virtually free compared to coal.

    I don't understand why people like you are against market solutions: Simply make polluting more expensive than not polluting and the problem will go away. There's no conspiracy to take away your SUV, just common fucking sense that polluter's should pay to clean up their own mess.

  12. Re:Awesome! on 'Hidden From Google' Remembers the Sites Google Is Forced To Forget · · Score: 1

    What was wrong with the existing legal remedies?

  13. Re:Now we just need a browser plugin... on 'Hidden From Google' Remembers the Sites Google Is Forced To Forget · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "...reinserts it back into your searches"...at the top of the page.

    Sorry but you have to be pedantic when gathering requirements.

  14. Re:hope they win on Utility Wants $17,500 Refund After Failure To Scrub Negative Search Results · · Score: 1

    Nothing against a utility promoting itself by pointing out what it has achived, such things do need community support. However promoting the current CEO is clearly a form of political advertising for the benifit of the CEO, not the utlility. The full amount should be recovered from the CEO, after he is sacked for (legalised) embezzlement.

  15. Re:Does anyone oppose this? on Fighting Climate Change With Trade · · Score: 2

    Nothing wrong with subsidies provided everyone is subsidised equally. Subsidising FF and renewables is not the same thing, FF are already have a huge subsidy in that it costs nothing to pollute the commons. Any moron can construct a free market via regulation, the hard part is constructing one that doesn't eventually kill us with our own greed.

  16. Re:more conspiracy theory nonsense on Fighting Climate Change With Trade · · Score: 1

    Fact checking is good advice, you ought to try it sometime.

  17. Re:The Rules of Climate Change on Fighting Climate Change With Trade · · Score: 2

    An incompetent comedian blames his audience.

  18. Grammar on How Deep Does the Multiverse Go? · · Score: 1

    "Universe" = everything.
    "universe" = everything observable.

    But that grammatical rule breaks down if you put the word at the start of a sentence.

  19. Re:not true, IIRC on How Deep Does the Multiverse Go? · · Score: 2

    If you have a favorite animal, I can rephrase to accommodate.

    Probably wouldn't work with my dog, it would just eat the rubber band.

  20. Re:Math? on How Deep Does the Multiverse Go? · · Score: 2

    Yeah, confused the hell out of me too the first time I heard it back in the 80's. If you search the "starts with a bang" website you'll find a well written article that explains why. Oh and 46 is the radius from our POV, so it's actually 92 "across".

  21. Re:Accelerated expansion on How Deep Does the Multiverse Go? · · Score: 1

    Objects cannot move relative to each other faster than light but the space between them has no such restriction. Hyper Inflation lasted until the universe was about the size of a basketball. The big bang didn't end with (hyper) inflation, it is still happening and the universe is still inflating. The boundary to our modern universe is expanding away from us at the speed of light. So, two observers on opposite sides of our visible universe will be speeding away from each other faster than light. Only an observer in our position can see that the two observers at the opposite "edges" existing simultaneously.

    Big fan of Starts with a Bang for many years, I must ask Ethan why cosmologists have ruled out the idea that our universe is the interior of a black hole. Neil deGrasse Tyson claims Einstein's equations can be interpreted to mean there is a different universe inside a black hole but he doesn't elaborate. If anyone else knows of a good reason as to why our universe can't be the interior of a black hole then I'd love to hear it.

  22. Re:Many worlds on How Deep Does the Multiverse Go? · · Score: 1

    There are an infinite worlds, yet in none of those you're GWB

    At least that explains why in this universe GWB doesn't punch himself in the face every now and then.

  23. Re:I was able to sneak into their laboratories on Scientists Have Developed a Material So Dark That You Can't See It · · Score: 0

    no need to read the stories

    Indeed, there's a good reason the paper is known as the daily fail to people in the UK.

  24. Re:result of the lab/funding system on Elite Group of Researchers Rule Scientific Publishing · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yep, and no matter what you think of Edison, the modern research lab was primarily his invention. A modern lab tends to know what it is looking for (eg: practical light bulb) and is all about the finding the steps to get there (trial and error), compared to say Newton who mainly followed his own curiosity. The trick to being a lead researcher is finding a rich problem space for the students to work on that will attract grants.

  25. Re:BAN YEAST! on Biohackers Are Engineering Yeast To Make THC · · Score: 1

    George Washington decreed every landowner put aside up to five acres for hemp production to feed the new navy's hunger for rope. The drug ban arose from the fact hemp was standing in the way of profits from the new wonder thread Nylon (NY + LONdon), yet to this day nylon rope is avoided by mariners because of it's brutal effect on waterlogged hands (feels like razor wire).