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User: garyisabusyguy

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  1. Re:Self adjusting ! on Boston Dynamics Introduces Their Newest Four-Legged Robot, 'Spot' · · Score: 1

    I do not remember seeing the laser rangefinder on the 'head' of its predecessors

    Perhaps it is for 'spotting' its target

  2. Re:Good thing they put the blinky light on it's ta on Boston Dynamics Introduces Their Newest Four-Legged Robot, 'Spot' · · Score: 1

    OSHA requirements for robots in the workplace

      6. Audible and Visible Warning Systems

    Audible and visible warning systems are not acceptable safeguarding methods but may be used to enhance the effectiveness of positive safeguards. The purposes of audible and visible signals need to be easily recognizable.
    https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaw...

  3. Re:Wow, the stairs and the rough terrain! on Boston Dynamics Introduces Their Newest Four-Legged Robot, 'Spot' · · Score: 2

    Pretty cool, when are they going to cover it in tasers and flash-bang launchers and use it to charge hostiles?

    That'll teach anybody that tries to kick it a lesson!

  4. Re:Ask Japan... on The IPCC's Shifting Position On Nuclear Energy · · Score: 1

    How much uranium and thorium do US coal power plants release a year compared to the kilograms of fuel that have been lost from the malfunctioning reactor?

    answer: 1210 tons of uranium and 2980 tons of thorium ash each year in the US
    http://skeptics.stackexchange....

    US coal
    "The actual average generated power from coal in 2006 was 227.1 GW" (WP)
    "In 2006, the U.S. consumed 1,026,636,000 short tons (931,349,000 metric tons)" of coal (WP)
    "Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year" ... "assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively" ... they produce 1210 tons of uranium and 2980 tons of thorium ash each year. Combined and divided by energy produced = 2.1 metric tons of radioactive waste per TWh

  5. Re:No amount of nuclear energy is safe. on The IPCC's Shifting Position On Nuclear Energy · · Score: 2

    So, let me see if I understand what you are saying...

    Reduce human population to that which can be sustained without modern power generation

    Um, yeah I can't see any issue with billions of people clamoring for limited resources, they will probably all just quietly 'go away' and leave you to a peaceful existence

    good luck with that

  6. Re:Ask Japan... on The IPCC's Shifting Position On Nuclear Energy · · Score: 1

    Sadly those countries phasing out nuclear power are responding to an emotionally driven political movement

    The net outcome is a continued (or increased) reliance on fossil fuels and the CO2 and Uranium that they spread

  7. Re:About time. on The IPCC's Shifting Position On Nuclear Energy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I live in a desert, we host a very large nuclear power plant

    They purify and re-use ground water with many cooling ponds built into their cycle

    There is no need for a continuously flowing river in this design

  8. Re:Zappos, Woot, etc. on The Prickly Partnership Between Uber and Google · · Score: 1

    I find open competition preferable to crony capitalism

    If google was to turn a blind eye to uber and grant them that space (or uber to do the same with autonomous vehicles) then a lack of competition would result in stagnation in the market places and less innovation

    There is a risk of stagnation if one company becomes so dominant that it eliminates all competition, but we are a long way from that scenario

  9. Re:DSCOVR? on Tracking System Bug Delays SpaceX's DSCOVR Launch · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    More like 1580's, they hate scientific inquiry questioning the basis for their control structures

    Just ask Galileo

  10. Re:Air out operation, maybe solar? on Apple To Build New $2 Billion Data Center In Bankrupted GT Advanced Buildings · · Score: 2

    A data center should have power coming from two different generating plants, redundant on-site power generation and a large battery bank to condition power and fill any gaps. If GT was having manufacturing failures due to the condition of the power supply, then shame on them if they did not build out a similar infrastructure, double shame on Apple if they do not set up their datacenter with clean and redundant power

  11. Re:Coal kills people in different ways on Nuclear Safety Push To Be Softened After US Objections · · Score: 1

    I think that you are mistaken
    http://www.scientificamerican....

    The Uranium is in the coal, it has been there for millions of years and can you explain why it would magically disappear just because the material is being burned?

    FTA
    "According to the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), the average radioactivity per short ton of coal is 17,100 millicuries/4,000,000 tons, or 0.00427 millicuries/ton. This figure can be used to calculate the average expected radioactivity release from coal combustion."

    It becomes an issue because we burn 6.14 billion metric tons of coal per year
    Get it now, minute quantities of a highly radioactive material being carries away by the fly ash that results from the coal being burned, which contains the uranium

  12. Re:The real disaster on Nuclear Safety Push To Be Softened After US Objections · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reality is that continued reliance on fossil fuel results in spreading uranium (through coal fly ash) and and CO2 (all fossil fuels) and none of the (so called) clean power sources like wind and solar can provide a steady baseline of energy

    Nuclear is the method to get us through the next 50 years without continuing with to increase the production of greenhouse gases, fear mongering over nuclear pollution (uranium from coal fly ash produces more annually than the accidents that you mentions) only drives us deeper into dependence on fossil fuels

    Is it s tough choice? Yes, but getting emotional over the scary work 'nuclear' does not make a better decision

  13. Re:The real disaster on Nuclear Safety Push To Be Softened After US Objections · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The proposal was to make containment of radioactive material and avoiding off-site contamination in an accident a legally binding agreement
    http://www-ns.iaea.org/downloa... (bottom of page 15)

    The actual wording includes the term 'shall', which in a regulatory sense is a pretty absolute statement, it ends with the statement, "these objectives also shall be applied at existing plants"

    So, any nuclear operator in the planet would be out of legal compliance if they have any existing nuclear plant that 'may' present a risk of losing containment... Yeah, that would cost a shit-ton of money for the industry to just tread water and would greatly INCREASE the dependence of coal energy in the short to mid term

    Everybody seems to ignore that coal also releases Uranium into the atmosphere due to fly ash, this author estimates that annual release to be 1.069 PBq/yr
    http://nuclearaustralia.blogsp...

    This is far beyond estimates that "40 trillion becquerels released into Pacific ocean" had escaped from Fukushima
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/ti...

    Where is the shouting for coal to clean up its act?
    Nuclear has become the whipping boy for the Green political party and Greenpeace, who in turn seem to be operating well in favor of the coal industry over the interests of the general population

  14. Re:Didn't they already do this with screw worm fli on FDA Wants To Release Millions of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In Florida · · Score: 1

    I think that the idea with the screw worm flies was to release so many sterile males that they would breed with the wild females resulting in no young, while this technique will produce young that will die

    I suppose that this would have benefits by preventing the female from finding another fertile male to occupy their time

  15. Re:Yay!! on Disney Turned Down George Lucas's Star Wars Scripts · · Score: 1

    American Dad already established the Kim is an alien back story

  16. Re:Good news on Disney Turned Down George Lucas's Star Wars Scripts · · Score: 2

    this^

    Nostalgia for the things we found fascinating when we were teens sets a bar that can rarely be exceeded

    Just wait twenty years for all the complaining about how the 10th Transformer's movie will never live up to the first one, what with all of the stunning dialog and pacing of the first one

    Foggy memories and the halo of nostalgia have a way of turning crap into gold

  17. Re:He's baaaaaack! on Disney Turned Down George Lucas's Star Wars Scripts · · Score: 1

    It would be hilarious to bring back jar jar, but make him more serious than Mace Windu at a funeral

    Something about all of jarjar's stumbling luck was an expression of natural force abilities and the sith decided to turn the entire race into their new warriors

  18. Re:Censorship? on Blogger Who Revealed GOP Leader's KKK Ties Had Home Internet Lines Cut · · Score: 1

    Sure... don't believe me. How about Lee Atwater, the architect of the 'Southern Strategy' and adviser to Nixon and Reagan:

    You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
    -Lee Atwater
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

  19. Re:Censorship? on Blogger Who Revealed GOP Leader's KKK Ties Had Home Internet Lines Cut · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sure, if you go back to the 40s and 50s, you will find that most of the south was Dems and there were even Dem Senators who had been Klan members

    Then this little thing call the Civil Rights Movement came along. Some of the former Klansmen (Sen Byrd is a good example) turned their backs on their past and worked to convince people to no longer be associated with that group

    By the 70s many people in the South were disillusioned with the Dem party because of the support of civil rights and they were attracted to the Republican party due to the Southern Strategy that was promoted by Nixon and Reagan

    Since that time 'States Rights' was the dog whistle to call the racists and klansmen to the GOP and they have gone over in droves, there is no surprise to find that the ranks of the gop are littered with people of that mindset

  20. Re:Christianity is just as bad as Islam on Blogger Who Revealed GOP Leader's KKK Ties Had Home Internet Lines Cut · · Score: 1, Troll

    I was more inclined to think Europe and Japan, but I suppose that having no argument leads you to just shout about them damn commies

    That's ok, I guess it would suck to live with an out dated view of the world, particularly when you are trying real hard to ignore that which is plainly obvious

  21. Re:Censorship? on Blogger Who Revealed GOP Leader's KKK Ties Had Home Internet Lines Cut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have found progressives more inclined to ask questions of their critics than conservatives

    It has to do with mental makeup, that is to say progressives are a great deal more curious about the world around them, while conservatives already know how everything is and just want to shut up those who disagree with them

  22. Re:Christianity is just as bad as Islam on Blogger Who Revealed GOP Leader's KKK Ties Had Home Internet Lines Cut · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Providing secular laws and education seems to be the key in blunting the effect of religious zealotry

    We can easily identify those leaders who fight against secularism as the promoters of religious radicalism and refuse to vote for them

  23. Re:The return of echomail . . . on Elon Musk's Proposed Internet-by-Satellite System Could Link With Mars Colonies · · Score: 1

    With Iridium the approach was to hand ff the transmission between satellites until it was within range of of a ground station to connect to a terrestrial network, or reach another satellite phone, usually one or two hops

    They may use a similar approach, although Iridium initially involved the governments in the countries that they maintained gateways in as part of the corporate structure. See Wired story, "The United Nations of Iridium"
    http://archive.wired.com/wired...

    It would make a lot of sense to use the satellite network as the primary routing mechanism and only maintain gateways in geographic locations that Musk has strong political influence in. This would limit political interference from countries that practice censorship and limit money lost to graft and bribery

  24. Re:Internet by satellite: non-news on Elon Musk's Proposed Internet-by-Satellite System Could Link With Mars Colonies · · Score: 1

    This ^

    Furthermore, Musk has gone beyond ideas or demos and delivered profitable companies delivering these technologies

  25. Re:Sometimes, I don't understand you guys on Elon Musk's Proposed Internet-by-Satellite System Could Link With Mars Colonies · · Score: 2

    I would say put your eggs into many baskets, this endeavor represents another basket