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User: jackbird

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  1. Re:Oh... on New Zealand Scientists Make Atom-Trapping Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, that same news outlet apparently brought back Sam Kinnison from the dead to do their wine reviews, which sort of makes up for it.

  2. Re:First Union? on Unions Urging Actors Not To Work On Hobbit Movie · · Score: 1

    Doctor, eh? Even now, hospitals that can get away with it are sending films to $6k/year radiologists overseas.

  3. Re:The guilds are even dumber on Unions Urging Actors Not To Work On Hobbit Movie · · Score: 1

    All the various unions involved in filmmaking insist on credit for their members. It's why the caterers and assistant trainee hairdressers receive higher billing than the (non-unionized) visual effects artists even on blockbuster effects or completely 3D-animated films.

  4. Re:It's about blackmail on JPL Scientists Take NASA To the Supreme Court · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's what actual security clearances are for, and not the subject of this lawsuit.

  5. Re:Your FIRST lesson? on Orion Spacecraft On the Path To Future Flight · · Score: 1

    That sounds exactly like the 4-5 launches the GP described.

  6. Re:A limited reading on Newspaper May Have Given Implicit License To Copy · · Score: 1

    Also, Wordperfect's lack of embedded change tracking data is EXTREMELY important to law firms.

  7. Re:This is why science rocks. on LHC Spies Hints of Infant Universe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's the young earthers who are trying to pack school boards and screw up primary education in the US. Someone whose religious views and organized actions aren't antithetical to the teaching and practice of science is much less interesting/threatening. Granted, many in the latter category are involved in pushing anti-AGW agendas, but that's another thing altogether.

  8. Re:I'm all for it on Intel Wants To Charge $50 To Unlock Your CPU's Full Capabilities · · Score: 1

    If only you had some CPU cycles nearby to brute-force it...

  9. Re:what id like to see on US Couple Arrested For Transmitting Nuclear Secrets In Sting Operation · · Score: 1
    rendering non-fissile as much nuclear material as possible.

    How, exactly, would that work? Also, the tracking and the detecting is, I believe, what the IAEA has been doing for decades, and Kim Jong Il still got the bomb.

  10. Re:Aptitude on Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers? · · Score: 1
    I'm partial to the hypothesis that he was put up to it through threats to his family overseas. He made sure to build an entirely incompetent bomb in a way that would get him caught, and moreso to have his actions (and their consequences) reported back to his superiors via the international press.

    Granted, I haven't followed the story since the week it broke, so I don't know how plausible that turned out to be.

  11. Re:will believe when i see it on Promised Microsoft Tablet 'No Thicker Than Sheet of Glass' · · Score: 1

    Then again, Corning has apparently dusted off its Gorilla Glass product, originally developed in the 1960s, to make ultra-strong glass for displays. This video shows, among other things, a thin sheet of the stuff taking a Wiimote at 65mph, and a baseball at 55mph with no damage.

  12. Re:will believe when i see it on Promised Microsoft Tablet 'No Thicker Than Sheet of Glass' · · Score: 1

    Each of which can detect either red, green, or blue light. Dividing the number of RGB pixels by 3. Duh.

  13. Re:Le Daily News - 9/15/2060 on Construction of French Fusion Reactor Underway · · Score: 1

    Can we compromise with "The France Memorial Cooling Pond?"

  14. Re:Looks like people are starting to see the benef on Is DIY Algae Farming the Future? · · Score: 1
    humans need more than sugar

    I think Jeff Goldblum is working on that problem... Apparently there's some kind of attendant breakthrough in transportation technology, too.

  15. Re:Gospel purposes... on Rackspace Shuts Down Quran-Burning Church's Sites · · Score: 1

    Jews absolutely do believe that god is forgiving. In fact we, unlike the Christians, devote our holiest day to a detailed examination of the idea. However, we believe that god's forgiveness comes through a) making amends/reparations with our fellow humans, then b) asking god for forgiveness directly; rather than involving faith, other deities, and the hair-raising concept that the almighty god has an empathy problem.

  16. Re:But what created the law of gravity? on Hawking Picks Physics Over God For Big Bang · · Score: 1

    As a rule of thumb, the further west you go, the more Buddhism resembles a traditional religion. Japanese Zen Buddhism is definitely as you described, but by the time you get over to Tibet or India, the boddhisatvas, demons, consorts, and other assorted beings, not to mention the practice of making offerings to idols, starts looking much more like a polytheistic religion.

  17. Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind on Armed Man Takes Hostages At Discovery Channel HQ · · Score: 1
    We don't have to ensure that mothers can take paid maternity leave without any consequences at work.

    We don't do that. Read the FMLA sometime.

  18. Re:Great! on Whisky Made From Diabetics' Urine · · Score: 2
    Yuengling was never a microbrew, and is less so now that one of the majors bought the brewery (which was family-owned for ~200 years prior). Nevertheless, it's one of the only drinkable mass-produced beers around, and I'm very happy I now live in Philadelphia, where asking for a "lager" in a bar gets you Yuengling.

    I also want to plug Dogfish Head, in Delaware, consistently turning out a huge variety of extremely high-quality and creative beers. I'll also second the Victory recommendation, especially Hop Devil.

  19. Re:Already used in the UK on Building Prisons Without Walls Using GPS Devices · · Score: 1

    I was under the impression that places with heavy iron bars have tremendously high rates of sexual violence, so much so that prison rape has become something it's OK to joke about.

  20. Re:Walk before you run? on What 'IT' Stuff Should We Teach Ninth-Graders? · · Score: 1

    The flip side is that I once had to diagnose my future wife's flat tire over the phone while she was driving. The whole idea of responding to an anomalous situation with a mental model of how a thing is supposed to work is totally foreign to a shocking number of people.

  21. Re:Also on Sorting Algorithm Breaks Giga-Sort Barrier, With GPUs · · Score: 1

    Show me an offline raytracer that beats offline rasterizers for speed on arbitrary datasets with usable antialiasing.

  22. Re:conservatives on Does the GOP Pay Friendly Bloggers? · · Score: 1
    If you have revenues of $250,000 and a number of employees on the payroll, I don't think it's even possible, much less advisable, to report that money as your personal income on an individual tax return and not involve some sort of business entity (how would you get a line of credit with vendors, an account with a payroll service, or a credit card merchant account without a business banking account, for example? And what accountant would touch such an arrangement with a ten-foot pole?)

    The Joe the plumber thing is a total red herring, and if Obama had been faster on his feet at that event he could have asked him why he wasn't incorporated, pointed out that businesses get to write off expenses, and that an owner draw of $250,000 a year is a wonderful problem to have.

  23. Re:Not too surprising? on Microsoft Claims 'We Love Open Source' · · Score: 1

    Well, the interface is truly a mind-bending experience for those who didn't learn 3D on it, but Blender is capable of serious production work in the right hands, and evolved from an in-house tool. And if you never need to make ink hit paper in a printing press, the GIMP is a viable photoshop-alike for most other uses.

  24. Making helium? on Why the World Is Running Out of Helium · · Score: 1

    Can someone who know what they're talking about comment on the feasibility of using a below-unity fusion reactor (like a Farnsworth Fusor) to create helium in useful quantities? At some point, doesn't the cost of helium rise above the cost of the electricity needed to just make some?

  25. Re:Oh great on Look For AI, Not Aliens · · Score: 1

    I always thought that "being voted off the island" was a euphemism/lampshade for cannibalism.