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User: quenda

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  1. Re:why must human ancestors be involved on World's Oldest Stone Tools Discovered In Kenya · · Score: 1

    You needn't go so far as lions. Our near relatives, the chimpanzees, often kill other chimps. http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...
    But I'd say humans are arguably unique in caring about suffering of other species (not counting our domesticated dogs.)

  2. Re:What a wonderful unit! on California Looks To the Sea For a Drink of Water · · Score: 1

    For the older Americans, 1 acre foot = 5,172 hogsheads.
    Its also equal to 9.7 cubic rods, or 325,851.429 US gallons.
    For the Aussies, that is 2 micro-Sydney-Harbours.

    So remind me, what is the problem you guys have with metric?

  3. Re:Queue the Fart Jokes on America's Methane Mystery: NASA Set To Investigate Hotspot Over the 4 Corners · · Score: 1

    And that is the cue for the spelling Nazis to queue up.

  4. Re:No mystery at all on America's Methane Mystery: NASA Set To Investigate Hotspot Over the 4 Corners · · Score: 2

    That's why the "canary in the coal mine",

    Canaries were for carbon monoxide, actually.

  5. Re:Nope on US Started Keeping Secret Records of International Telephone Calls In 1992 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Read a book on the NSA.

    That would be The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford published in 1982,
    which detailed how the NSA were intercepting all international calls by methods including replicating the phone-company satellite base-stations.

  6. Re:Anonymous Overlay Networks on Australian ISPs Must Hand Over Pirates' Info · · Score: 1

    Or you could just get your internet connection in a false name. Or your grandmother's.

  7. Its Thursday. on Rare Ideopathic Encephaly Tied to Higher IQ, Not Lower · · Score: 1

    Its Thursday the 2nd. I have not had my coffee yet. Not funny.
    I thought this junk was supposed to stop at noon local time. Was it posted from some Pacific Island near the Date Line?

    Lets just bring back OMG Ponies every year and be done with it.

  8. Re:Can I stream to it? on Google Unveils the Chromebit: an HDMI Chromebook Dongle · · Score: 2

    Wow, on what do you base that rant?
    I've been using a current Chrome-OS device (ASUS Chromebox) and it makes a great desktop and HTPC.
    You can run Ubuntu in a chroot, feels like native.
    Or if you want to wipe chrome-os, you can install Linux native. No hack needed, just switch to developer mode.
    This is not Android.

    Do you have some rational reason to believe the new device will be locked down? No developer mode?

  9. Re:Can I stream to it? on Google Unveils the Chromebit: an HDMI Chromebook Dongle · · Score: 1

    Of course you can. This is a mini-PC running a "real" Linux, not just android, and certainly not a chromecast dongle.
    Linux uses SAMBA to access Windows shares.
    These would make a great HTPC. You should be able to run a DLNA client or server. And Netflix will work too.

  10. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    The land is not "uninhabitable", it is only covered by water, hence birds and fish really like it.

    Well gee, I suppose Chernobyl is a good thing, since the animals are doing a lot better, now that the humans have mostly gone. It has become a wildlife refuge. Certainly far less affected than if the landscape had been drowned. Except for the fish.

  11. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    Why do you hate handicapped and retarded people?

    If the nuclear plants had not been prematurely closed, old coal plants would run at lower levels, or even be closed down. Lignite would stay in the ground, instead of the atmosphere.

  12. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 1

    1500! Wow. It is tragic and idiotic that Germany is replacing perfectly good nuclear plants with lignite.
    But while the CO2 pollution is irreversible, surely the topsoil is being saved for later rehabilitation?
    The loss of land is much more temporary than for hydro. And the land is less important than river valleys. The number of people and villages displaced, as well as wildlife effects, is much lower.

  13. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 2

    Difference is, the flood wont be around in a few thousand years.

    Wrong. The Fukushima exclusion zone will be gone long before the dam, let alone a thousand years. Thats pure propaganda. The most active isotopes are long gone now, leaving caesium-137 with a 30-year half life.
    That will affect the area for centuries, but not so much as you think.

    Chernobyl even, is only "uninhabitable" by law. Hundreds live there illegally, and no-one has developed a 3rd eye or superpowers yet. Background levels are getting low (less than on a commercial flight), though hot-spots remain.

  14. Re:And why not? on Nation's Biggest Nuclear Firm Makes a Play For Carbon Credit Cash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    when it goes wrong it renders a large area of land uninhabitable,

    When a hydroelectric scheme goes right, it renders a large area of land uninhabitable.
    China's Three Gorges covers 1000 km2 and displaced over a million people. And if anything goes horribly wrong, ...

  15. Re:What Would be a Trivial Amount? on Measuring How Much "Standby Mode" Electricity For Game Consoles Will Cost You · · Score: 1

    So about a dollar a month for standby. What would the author consider to be trivial?

    For a prototype, thats trivial.
    For specialist equipment that sells a few thousand units, its a bit sloppy, but still tiny.
    For consumer equipment with 70 million units sold, it is fucking obscene.

  16. Re:what will be more interesting on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 1

    Who cares if he said nigger, on or off air? There was no racist context, unlike his Mexican comments.

    As a kid (not in the US), the only time I ever heard or said "nigger" was in that nursery rhyme, until reading Conrad and Twain. Just an archaic word like pickaninny.
    It is kind of funny that some people now find it so taboo outside of any such context. Better not mention the Agatha Christie novel.
    The joke (if you can call it that) is on the taboo word. You may have noticed that comedians like to swear?

  17. Re:Oblig on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm confused. can somebody put this in a car analogy?

    Clarkson is like the end of your gear-lever. Useful, but a bit of a knob.

  18. Re:rapistis is as rapist does on Indian Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Against Posting 'Offensive' Content Online · · Score: 3, Funny

    OMG, you got up voted for this?

    No upvote, just Karma. But what would you Indians know about that?

  19. Re:rapistis is as rapist does on Indian Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Against Posting 'Offensive' Content Online · · Score: 1

    I read Fairfax, ABC, Guardian. Murdoch certainly does not have a monopoly on the salacious.

  20. Re:rapistis is as rapist does on Indian Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Against Posting 'Offensive' Content Online · · Score: 2

    There is a kernel of truth to the racist AC comment.
    There are plenty of Indian immigrants in Australia, and they are mostly known as a decent law-abiding bunch, but somehow a minority keep getting in the news for sex offences. Everything from Indian cabbies having sex with drunk young female passengers to Indian doctors touching up their patients inappropriately. And of course always recent arrivals. There is something in the culture.

  21. If it ain't broke ... on Finland's Education System Supersedes "Subjects" With "Topics" · · Score: 0

    Given the success of Finland's existing education system, this could be the dumbest move by the Finish government since invading the Soviet Union in 1941.

  22. Re:Why isn't public transport 'free'? on In Response to Pollution Spike, Paris Temporarily Halves Traffic By Decree · · Score: 1

    Where I live, public transport is running at peak capacity during rush hour.

    A lot of places effectively have free off-peak travel for commuters. Anyone who regularly uses buses or trains to commute has a weekly or monthly travel card.
    I don't know why they can't extend it to give everyone free off-peak travel. The cost is highly subsidised already, so it makes sense to get more people using it for a small drop in revenue.

  23. And meet 0% of the demand at night if they don't have storage which is very expensive.

    No problems. Just dam and flood the San Fernando Valley. Pump up water in the day, and run on hydro at night.
    Cost and other practical factors don't seem to come into consideration in this discussion.

  24. Re:English belongs to the world on Why There Is No Such Thing as 'Proper English' · · Score: 1

    It is the "lingua franca" of our age (and doesn't that phrase piss off the French!).

    Why? The original "Lingua Franca" was mostly Italian.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

  25. Re:Of course! on Prison Program Aims To Turn Criminals Into Coders · · Score: 2

    ... then it's including some very violent subcultures. But we can't say that, of course. Maybe we need to change the violent subcultures,

    You mean young black males? Plenty have said that. But violent crime is responsible for a minority of the prison population, and a much smaller minority of convictions, and so those with criminal records. A huge number have records for non-violent drug offences.
    It would be a lot easier to abolish the War on Drugs, given its blatant failure, than to change subcultures. Though cutting the flow of drug money wouldn't hurt.