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User: Cyberax

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  1. Re:This is why we cant have nice things on Networked Cars: Good For Safety, Bad For Privacy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Privacy isn't always about hiding wrong-doing; it's about hiding things that some people are too narrow minded or ignorant to understand and accept.

    And thus perpetrating the system where ignorant bigots have power.

    Think about it, would have it been better if gay activists in 60-s used privacy protection to shield their private lives instead of openly admitting their sexual orientation and fighting for their rights?

  2. Re:make human drivers illegal on Networked Cars: Good For Safety, Bad For Privacy · · Score: 1

    roman_mir, log in.

    In fact, quote opposite is true. Libertardian rants are modded up more often than not.

  3. Re:make human drivers illegal on Networked Cars: Good For Safety, Bad For Privacy · · Score: 0

    So build your own fucking road and drive on it. But when you're on a public road - shove your 'responsibility' up your ass and use automatic system.

    Because we for many prefer not to be driven into by an idiot who thinks that they can drive 'safely'.

  4. Re:make human drivers illegal on Networked Cars: Good For Safety, Bad For Privacy · · Score: 1

    We don't need 'infinite' safety, just reasonable safety. I'm sure that there'll be quite a few crashes from bizarre cases like being struck by falling tree or something. But there will be far fewer of them then right now.

  5. Re:Businessmen on With 'Access Codes,' Textbook Pricing More Complicated Than Ever · · Score: 1

    Nah, the problem is not in Ryan (who is just a 'useful idiot'). The problem is in the base that supports him and his ideas, and baby boomers overwhelmingly support him.

    Just notice how Ryan is extra-careful to point out that nothing is going to change for boomer-generation (everyone over 55) every time he talks about his Medicare 'reform'. Or remember the 'death panels' scare from the previous election cycle.

  6. Re:Businessmen on With 'Access Codes,' Textbook Pricing More Complicated Than Ever · · Score: 1

    I think this motto perfectly characterizes baby boomers: "Get government's hands out of my Medicare!"

  7. Re:Businessmen on With 'Access Codes,' Textbook Pricing More Complicated Than Ever · · Score: 1

    Yet the very same generation _overcame_ all these problems (well, almost). And they mostly got them from the previous generation, BTW.

  8. Re:No on Do We Need a Longer School Year? · · Score: 1

    International competitiveness is influenced by a lot of factors (by structure of import/export, strength of national currency, etc.) Number of workdays most certainly influences it, but does not define it alone.

  9. Re:No on Do We Need a Longer School Year? · · Score: 1

    The trick is - salaries WON'T go down (much) if the holiday (or additional pay for worked holiday) were really mandated for everyone. Every employer would face the same decrease in productivity as its competitors, so cutting pay won't give any competitive advantage.

    Now, the real world is not completely ideal, so cutting work days causes some structural changes, namely:
    1) Not all areas can easily tolerate reduced work days.
    2) While reduced work days do not (in theory) affect the competitiveness within the country, they certainly affect the international competitiveness.
    3) If the economy is running with maximum utilization, then there might simply not be enough workers available. But last time that happened the US was in the middle of the WWII.

  10. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" on US DOJ Drops Charges Against Two Seized Websites · · Score: 0

    So, you can't argue with facts and have to attack the authors? Nice. A typical repub.

  11. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" on US DOJ Drops Charges Against Two Seized Websites · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, blaming Bush is exactly right in this case. Obama's deficits are the direct cause of the bubble collapse: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/15/484767/obama-budget-chart/?mobile=nc

    He has failed to cleanup Bush's toxic mess of economy, sure. But large deficits are not his fault.

  12. Re:Am I the only one ... on A Modest Proposal For Sequestration of CO2 In the Antarctic · · Score: 1

    Sure. You don't see, of course. That dollar bills in front of your eyes might have something to do with it. This project makes a great thermodynamic sense - the energy required to condense CO2 out of the air is a very small fraction (less than 1%) of energy liberated during burning of carbon. That's why it makes sense to do this.

  13. Re:Am I the only one ... on A Modest Proposal For Sequestration of CO2 In the Antarctic · · Score: 1

    Solid CO2 has a very high specific sublimation heat capacity. It'll take a looooong time for a significant amount of CO2 to sublimate given even minimal thermal insulation.

  14. Re:Just fly emirate on When Flying Was a Thrill · · Score: 1

    There are no X-ray scanners in Moscow airports, there are metal detectors that look like X-ray scanners, though.

  15. Re:You can still fly this way if you want to on When Flying Was a Thrill · · Score: 1

    Their actions have now led everyone to be considered a criminal and forced to prove their innocence with the strongest proponents of these procedures being the same people who were touting how free this country was back in the 80s as compared to the Soviet Union.

    Heck, you didn't even need to show your ID to fly in the USSR. You just needed to show your ticket and that's it.

  16. Re:You can still fly this way if you want to on When Flying Was a Thrill · · Score: 1

    Can somebody filthy rich drive their plane into the Congress building, pretty please? That way maybe they'll get to be groped and that FINALLY might cause changes in the TSA security theater.

  17. Re:The past sucked - time to admit it on When Flying Was a Thrill · · Score: 1

    Scanners are LESS safe than metal detectors: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/technology/gadgets/video-engineer-jonathan-corbett-shows-how-beat-tsa-body-scanners

    They are designed to protect against an imaginary threat (there are no real-life ceramic guns) while missing very real-life good old metal guns.

  18. Re:How fast? on Scientists Store Entire Textbook In DNA · · Score: 1

    Also, common sequencing techniques require amplification of DNA and read it in very small batches (hundreds of base pairs). These batches then have to be painstakingly assembled - think about assembling a puzzle from a billion fragments, some of which are duplicated, overlapping and/or have errors.

    And such assembly is definitely not an easy process if you don't have a reference genome to help you.

  19. Re:In the air? on Could Flying Cars Actually Be On Their Way? · · Score: 1

    Not really. Large and small planes are fairly efficient, even comparable with large cars.

    Besides, you need to consider all the expenses spent on building and supporting roads and parking spaces. We could save a lot of money by shrinking roads to single lanes (we'll still need them for large commercial trucks) and moving everyone to flying cars. Then there is the cost of wasted time - you have to control your car all the time while you're driving or crawling in a traffic jam, while even the current 'dumb' helis/planes have autopilots capable of getting from point A to point B.

    However, flying cars would probably cement our reliance on gasoline or other hydrocarbon fuels. No current battery technology is close enough in energy density (though lithium-air might be).

  20. Re:TSA does some good on Poll Finds Americans Think the TSA Is 'Doing a Good Job' · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Pre-911 security would detect hand grenades just fine. And 911 hijackers used freaking boxcutters, not guns or grenades.

    And I have a boxcutter, scissors and a screwdriver in my backpack right now. They are never detected by airport's scanners because my backpack has a nice carbon plastic compartment that reduces the contrast of items within it. I've been flying with them for several years through tens of TSA theater checkpoints by now. So I'm "better armed" than a 9/11 hijacker all without trying to do it specifically.

  21. Re:Hopefully it's an outlier on July Heat Set U.S. Record · · Score: 1

    Well, there are such simulations. They show that it's almost impossible to actually do this because a lot of "carbon sinks" would become "carbon spigots" once you reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration. But if you do this using some sort of magic - you'll get very rapid (months, not years!) cooling effect. (temperature will

  22. Re:What? Since when... on Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick · · Score: 1

    Why is it so? And can I then direct the Moon to fall on Earth and claim all the Earth as "falling moondust"?

  23. Re:What? Since when... on Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick · · Score: 1

    What's the difference? If I own a plot on the Moon should I get rights to all the land on Earth that passes above it? If no then why not?

    How it's different from mineral/water/air pollution rights?

  24. Re:What? Since when... on Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick · · Score: 1

    Would it be OK if I dump some smelly (like "methyl mercaptane" smelly) garbage next to your land? After all, breathing is YOUR problem, ain't it?

  25. Re:Steampunk in general on Ask Slashdot: What's the Most Depressing Sci-fi You've Ever Read? · · Score: 1

    I guess it's a matter of scale. There are multiple human-inhabited planets in the Uplift universe, so a nice little genocide does not carry as much emotional weight.