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User: Sockatume

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Comments · 5,843

  1. Re:Is it science? on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 1

    Well, I've given them. Maybe I'm doing them wrong.

  2. Re:No end in site. on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 1

    That's a marketing point for their four inch displays. They didn't need to spin having a 3.5-inch display because until about 2010 it was one of the largest displays you could get on a phone.

  3. Re:And Apple are still listed why? on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 1

    It's not about decay: you can change the subpixel sizes while retaining an RGB matrix, as the current Galaxy Note does.

  4. Re:Is it science? on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's why it's a Science Cafe - which is about outreach and discussion - and not a university lecture.

  5. Complex topics? on Science Museum Declines To Show Climate Change Film · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The museum's statement reads, in part:

    It would be a disservice to the people of North Carolina who generously funded the construction of the Museum, and who are joined by other visitors from all other US states and numerous other countries, if we were to maintain that showing one organization’s film constituted a comprehensive approach to an issue as significant and complex as sea level science.

    Science cafe events are all about providing a quick, accessible, but by no means comprehensive view of an topic. Most of the ones I've been to have involved a single academic pontificating on their area of expertise and their own ideas for an hour. It seems rather odd to me that a Cafe Sci would restrict itself in this way. They can't have a very rich slate.

  6. Re:Buying decision? on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 1

    Apparently Samsung and HTC disagree.

  7. Re:And Apple are still listed why? on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 2

    That's a "no" then.

  8. Re:And Apple are still listed why? on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 1

    You've got the same computational overhead drawing to a 1080p Pentile matrix as a 1080p RGB matrix, because the graphics hardware addresses whole pixels rather than subpixels. The only difference is that one's cheaper to make and looks worse.

  9. Re:End the PPI race on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 1

    The whole idea of a benchmark is to provide a transferable baseline; any benefits from "tweaks" (which simply do not exist on mobile devices) would appear over and above that.

  10. Re:3DMark cheats, so no wonder it is cheated on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 1

    Given the tests 3DMark runs, if they're unable to effectively run on "modern multicore smartphones" then no other app is able to either. Rather raises the question of why you'd bother buying one.

  11. Re:Just went over this in the Texas anti-evolution on Futuremark Delists Samsung and HTC Android Devices for Cheating 3DMark · · Score: 2

    Then these phone companies are wasting perfectly good time and money by cheating on the benchmarks, and there's no harm in 3DMark delisting these phones.

    (I'd say that if nothing else, these benchmarks generate news stories promoting the new, allegedly-faster device.)

  12. Re:Horse already left the barn on Is a Postdoc Worth it? · · Score: 1

    I thought it was common knowledge! For the entirety of my academic career, industry groups have been saying that there's a shortage of graduates, and of PhDs, and of postdocs; as a result more are created via government and university incentives. That increases the labour pool and - supply and demand - drives down the wages they have to pay. A look at the applicant-to-position ratios would make it abundantly clear that there is no shortage.

  13. Re:Good Luck on Cyprus University Accepts Bitcoin For Tuition Fee Payments · · Score: 1

    You don't hold any significant balance of bitcoins (cashing them out to local currency immediately) and update the price you charge in real time so that it always equals a certain amount of local currency. The problem of price instability is then moved to the purchaser.

  14. Re:When will people accept it's not a real currenc on Cyprus University Accepts Bitcoin For Tuition Fee Payments · · Score: 1

    It's a bad currency, and there are dubious investment schemes (not explicitly Ponzi) involving it.

  15. Re:Good thing I didn't invest. on Cyprus University Accepts Bitcoin For Tuition Fee Payments · · Score: 1

    If that's how you think probability works I would love to play poker with you.

  16. Re:Non SI units on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    True, but it hasn't been calcined and ground. To the high-precision balance!

  17. Re:Awesome on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    I was more worried about finding the ice and bringing it to its destination as the rate-limiting step.

  18. Re:Awesome on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    I think the trick would be keeping it raining down faster than the existing processes would drive it off into space, although that's probably a given if you want to finish the process in a nongeological timescale anyway.

  19. Re:The actual size on World's Smallest FM Radio Transmitter Created With Graphene · · Score: 1

    Any reasonable definition of nanotechnology simply requires that one or more component be in the nanometre range; given that the vacuum gap in the oscillator is 5-200nm depending on the device, that sounds fair.

  20. Re:The actual size on World's Smallest FM Radio Transmitter Created With Graphene · · Score: 1

    Looks like the superstructure is about 6x6 micron, with the oscillator in the middle being a 2-4 micron diameter circle of graphene.

  21. Re:In the Arthur Clarke story... on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    Aside from "no atmosphere" you've nicely described the Antarctic deserts. Admittedly that's a big "aside".

  22. Re:unmanned, but let's imply and mislead! on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    Intentionality is implied when someone uses the word "brought" without qualification. I really doubt someone would've understood this to mean "when human beings travelled to the moon, they did so in a state of complete sterility".

  23. Re:Non SI units on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 3, Informative

    I suspect the actual grains are more dense than water, but the powder packs inefficiently. (Instant coffee? You're a monster.)

  24. No NSA joke? on Glut In Stolen Identities Forces Price Cut · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's time to get the government out of the identity theft business, as it is clearly wildly distorting the market.

  25. Re:Capital Crime on Glut In Stolen Identities Forces Price Cut · · Score: 1

    Identity theft is usually prosecuted as bank fraud. Laws against identity theft in and of itself do exist, but usually the fraud is what people get done for. However you still have to demonstrate that you did not perform the transactions and therefore have been defrauded by some John Doe.