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User: i+kan+reed

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  1. Re:Time to travel 11 light years on Astronomers Find What May Be the Closest Exoplanet So Far · · Score: 1

    Hypothetically, fusion powered Hall ion engines might be able to manage something within an order of magnitude of that, I think.

    But of course, we'd need a lightweight fusion reactor that produces electricity without a boiler. Such a thing has been proposed as possible, but it's definitely not available yet.

  2. Re:OK Another one on Astronomers Find What May Be the Closest Exoplanet So Far · · Score: 4, Informative

    5.4 earth masses puts it at about 1/3rd of a Neptune or a tiny fraction of a Jupiter or a Saturn.

    It might even have a thin enough atmosphere to not completely crush a human.

  3. Re:Crowding Out Effect on How Big Telecom Smothers Municipal Broadband · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It comes from the fallacious belief that non-government created monopolies leveraging their position will face competitors who can "do it for less". The truth is that infrastructure just isn't that conducive to competition. Who'd want 3 different water/sewer systems connected to their house?

  4. Re:It'd be nice... on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm aware of your hostility to being called assholes. That's totally and completely reasonable, unlike your proposed political system.

  5. Re:Say what you will but this is cool on Google Testing Drone Delivery System: 'Project Wing' · · Score: 1

    No, it's the money.

  6. Re:This Just In! on How Big Telecom Smothers Municipal Broadband · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is only one reason for the government to step in: make it easier for smaller ISPs to start shop. I'd love to start a small ISP in my area, but it is practically impossible.

    Given a few common, yet unproven, assumptions about how markets operate. ISPs operate a lot like utilities in terms of fundamental market behaviors, and the prevalence of natural monopolies. Organizing the structure of the market to allow smaller competitors, to me, is one way a government could help. Not the only way.

  7. "Carefully targetted" on Magnetic Stimulation Boosts Memory In Humans · · Score: 3, Informative

    Somehow, I think I'll be seeing bullshit products on infomercials that are "proven" to enhance memory that won't actually do anything besides "be magnets that cost $100".(5 easy payments of $19.99)

  8. Re:It'd be nice... on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 1

    This is a metric I had not seen nor considered before. I suppose due consideration is called for.

  9. Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. on Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest I wasn't sympathetic with your plight. Sorry. Busywork does actually suck. Just that a bit of physical labor as part of my work day wouldn't be unwelcome.

  10. Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. on Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone · · Score: 1

    No, I'm pretty well compensated for my time, and I'm salaried. It's just stodgy and traditionalist comes with the sector I'm in.

  11. Re:Anecdotal verification on Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone · · Score: 1

    Tell us more about your strategy.

    Was it drink coffee, set 20 minute alarm, nap, jump to work like in the story?

    Or was it a small variation?

  12. Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. on Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know if most of us got into tech to avoid manual labor. I personally got in it because I like the idea of solving problems, rather than taking care of them for a short while.

    I'd appreciate more physical activity at work, 40 hours a week of physical idleness(on top of sleeping) is not what the human body evolved for.

  13. Re:Loose Lips Sinik Ships on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sort of, yes.

    No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;

    In this case, freedom to travel could be considered a relatively benign liberty (undeniably granted freely to the majority of the population, thus its denial requires due process).

    This is one of those cases where the 5th plays nicely with the (non-bill of rights) protection against bills of attainder that prevent the government from targeting individuals for punishment.

  14. Re:I'm confused....it was a late night last night, on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 1

    Oh, sorry, that first sentence was written from the perspective of the TSA, in order to satirize. I could see how you might confuse that as my own opinion. Tonal slip-up. Sorry.

  15. Re:Unless... on Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone · · Score: 2

    Naps of this sort aren't about "falling asleep" though.

  16. Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. on Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every metric that says not doing work at certain times can be good for your work overall can and will be overlooked by the kind of people who want you working 60 hour weeks. They want to look good for their boss, and butts in seats are the best way to do that.

  17. Re:America on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 1

    Let's set aside the kinda inane charge of a strawman, since I haven't outlined any sort of libertarian position, and jump straight to the mess of "why bring them up at all?"

    The answer is that their agreement, while politically convenient to the policy position I'd want, is based off of fundamentally different reasons I'd find specious, and I'd prefer to clarify the source of my opinion.

  18. Re:Loose Lips Sinik Ships on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sad to report that my opinion on the matter(no) doesn't matter nearly as much as a federal judge's, as far as actionability is concerned.

  19. Re:It'd be nice... on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Balogna. The dullards you're doubtlessly citing use the "increase in rejected FOIA requests" metric that handily sweeps under the rug the proportionally greater increase in answered FOIA requests, because honesty isn't part of the game plan.

  20. Re:America on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 1, Troll

    Look, no matter how totalitarian we actually are, we will always pretend this is true. "America is the specialist most freest place in the universe" is an idea beaten into children's heads without qualification throughout early and middle childhood. It's my pet theory that this is the mechanism by which we get so many libertarians.

  21. Re:It'd be nice... on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 0

    Which, subjectively, hasn't been entirely untrue. Better than before on major metrics isn't the same as fixed. In this case, nowhere near the same.

    There needs to be a line between "beyond criticism" and "absolutely the worst ever at all times".

  22. Re:Loose Lips Sinik Ships on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, which is why the judge is asking to be allowed to review the material for constitutionality in private.

    If a US judge(reminder, appointed for life) wanted to hurt our nation, they'd have better tools at their disposal than leaking some bureaucratic legalese.

  23. It'd be nice... on US Government Fights To Not Explain No-Fly List Selection Process · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If somehow we could avoid letting the worst ideas just kinda slide.

    There's not a lick of evidence that no-fly has helped anyone, but we need to insist its policies not face even the slightest judicial review. Asshole libertarians tend identify me as an authoritarian because I state the obvious vis a vis their fundamental beliefs, but this kind of deprivation without due process is still completely nuts.

  24. Re:Say what you will but this is cool on Google Testing Drone Delivery System: 'Project Wing' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't know about you, but I've felt I lived in a sci-fi future since at least smartphones.

    Then I remember my smart phone is assembled by an underclass of near slaves with appalling working conditions, whose suffering is hidden from me by layers of marketing, bureaucracy, and inter-corporate supply chains, and I realize, no, it's a cyber-punk future, actually.

    I'm just not on the punk side, but instead the blaise upper class side that gets hacked by up-and-coming rebels in cyberpunk stories.

  25. Re:Sarcasm Detector on IBM Opens Up Its Watson Supercomputer To Researchers · · Score: 1

    And, moreover this current application is targeted at synthesizing information out of your research results, to help you structure your eventual publication.