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User: Khashishi

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Comments · 3,289

  1. Re: Just take it in on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Service Providers When You're an IT Pro? · · Score: 2

    Usually what happens is you set up your own modem and they end up charging you a rental fee anyways. You call the service rep and they tell you to restart your computer to solve the problem.

  2. Just deal with it on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Service Providers When You're an IT Pro? · · Score: 1

    Deal with it like everybody else.

  3. Re:How is the virus even still around? on Diphtheria Returns To Spain For Lack of Vaccination · · Score: 1

    seems to be in Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

  4. pretty impressive on Mystery Company Blazes a Trail In Fusion Energy · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are getting plasma pressures at levels similar to tokamaks and stellerators, which is pretty impressive, while using a fraction of the magnetic field. If you didn't know, 1 keV temperature is a little over 10 million K, and a density of 10^20 m^-3 is close to vacuum, but because of the high temperature the pressure is fairly significant, on the order of one atmosphere. It's refreshing that they don't exaggerate their progress (they admit that tokamaks are more advanced as of yet). But if they were trying to offer a cheaper alternative to tokamaks, they have a way to go. At 23m long, their FRC is not small. If they need to scale it up considerably to reach reactor levels, well, it's going to be an expensive project like ITER is.

    If the FRC turns out to be the way forward, most our research into tokamaks hasn't been wasted. There's a lot of overlap in the theory and the technologies used. Neutral beams are also used in tokamaks, for heating and diagnostics, and are also being used to provide torque to the plasma, which can stabilize the plasma in various ways which can be understood in turbulence theory. The NIMROD code is also used in tokamaks, as is the technique of lithium wall conditioning. I suppose the point is, a lot of slashdotters will condemn the work of government research but this research wouldn't have been possible without decades of groundwork backed by government funded grants.

  5. don't worry on Ask Slashdot: What Happens If We Perfect Age Reversing? · · Score: 1

    We'll perfect Terminator robots before we perfect the fountain of youth, so the problem will be taken care of.

  6. Re:Ah, this is why we need H-1b VISAs. on Chinese Nationals Accused of Taking SATs For Others · · Score: 1

    ...it's okay to cheat, in fact, it's expected in an apparent attempt to show you're serious about succeeding. And that's what its really about, succeeding at any cost.

    So really, we should be importing our executives, not our engineers.

  7. Re:$70000 is poorest? on California Is Giving Away Free Solar Panels To Its Poorest Residents · · Score: 1

    Because people like carrots more than sticks. Taxing externalities makes sense until you add greedy assholes to the equation. So what ends up happening is that you tax everything and you give back something to some of the less polluting industries. It's easier to corrupt that way, and irrational humans are happier.

  8. biodegradeable on Computer Chips Made of Wood Promise Greener Electronics · · Score: 2

    gives a whole new meaning to the phrase bit rot

  9. Re: Alternate story title on Creationists Manipulating Search Results · · Score: 1

    It's not really lying if they believe it to be true.

  10. Re:did they damage the car? on D.C. Police Detonate Man's 'Suspicious' Pressure Cooker · · Score: 1

    and if so, did they reimburse the guy?

    You're kidding, right?

  11. Re:Happens all the time in California... on Prenda's Old Copyright Trolls Are Suing People Again · · Score: 1

    Eh, I think a bigger reason is that cost of living had become too high elsewhere.

  12. Re:ADA headache on Prenda's Old Copyright Trolls Are Suing People Again · · Score: 1

    Ah, that sounds like the intended purpose of the ADA. It sounds like you are actually making changes, and not paying off the plaintiffs. I can't understand how it can be legal to settle with a plaintiff who is supposedly bringing a suit on behalf of a general population.

  13. Re:Why is anyone surprised? on Prenda's Old Copyright Trolls Are Suing People Again · · Score: 1

    It's bullshit. There should be no award for damages. The business should simply be required to fix the problems. If it is not feasible to fix, then the law needs to be fixed.

  14. Re:What can you do about it? on Genetically Engineered Yeast Makes It Possible To Brew Morphine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lot of people who abuse drugs do so because their lives suck. Maybe they don't care about their long term health because they have no hope for the future and don't care if it kills them. Efforts to penalize them for using drugs simply makes their lives suck more and their future even more hopeless.

  15. Re:Yeah good luck with that! on Genetically Engineered Yeast Makes It Possible To Brew Morphine · · Score: 2

    If, by drug cartels, you mean Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis, then yes, they will find a way to get this.

  16. Re:Flat does not imply infinite. on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    We can't actually take a trip around the universe. I'm talking about a thought experiment in which you mathematically translate some position around the universe. In a Mobius strip, you flip around when you go around the universe. Since you never cross a boundary while going around the Mobius universe, the laws of physics must stay the same as you go around, so the laws of physics have to be independent of parity.

    Of course we don't know that the universe doesn't have boundaries. It's just a reasonable guess. And, yes, we don't know the universe is homogeneous. Some of the conjectures for the shape of space, like the Picard horn, aren't homogenous at all.

  17. Re:A flat universe is not conclusion of the articl on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    It's called inductive reasoning. And it's the basis of all science.

  18. Re:- or we are just very small? on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    No cosmologist thinks the universe was just a single point in size. This is an error in how the big bang is explained to the public. Also, it is error-prone to try to compare the rate of expansion of the universe to the speed of light. These things are not comparable. The expansion of the universe is a scaling of the universe. For example, in one second, 1 meter becomes 2 meters. Then 1 parsec becomes 2 parsecs. You can't compare this to a speed. 1 meter going to 2 meters in one second is a lot slower than the speed of light, but 1 parsec going to 2 parsecs in one second is a lot faster. These refer to the same rate of expansion.

  19. Re:Flat does not imply infinite. on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    If we assume that the universe is spatially isotropic (which implies homogeneous), it really cuts down on the possible shapes. If we assume it is also orientable (which only matters if our universe is finite), then there really are only a few options. As far as I know, these are: infinite flat Euclidean space, positively curved finite 3-sphere (3d analog of a normal sphere which is just the surface of a ball), and negatively curved infinite hyperbolic space.

    I think the universe must be orientable because there is experimental evidence of CP symmetry breaking. Which means if the universe is nonorientable, it must flip charge, parity, and time or disagree with experiment. Hard to see how time can become flipped by making a trip around the universe, with homogeneity and the second law of thermodynamics being held everywhere.

    It seems like the easy answer is an infinite flat space, but the problem is that an infinite universe also seems infinitely unlikely in some weird metaphysical sense (not a rigorous thought pattern). Perhaps isotropy is broken at large scales. After all, time has a preferred direction; why not space?

  20. Re:Flat does not imply infinite. on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    The problem with a torus is that it is not isotropic. So we probably don't live in one.

  21. Re:And probably infinite on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    This argument suggests that if the universe is finite, it is very, very much bigger than our observable universe.

  22. Re:And probably infinite on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    The universe does appear to be infinite, but it will take infinite evidence to establish that as a fact

  23. Re:Will wormholes work FTL in this flat universe? on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    The cosmologists are using a different definition of flat than your common usage. A piece of paper is flat even when you fold it.
    Take a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

  24. Re:Will wormholes work FTL in this flat universe? on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    The universe appears flat at large scales. It isn't flat on small scales, as evidenced by gravitational lensing by massive objects. Wormholes probably don't exist, but if they do then they just affect the small scale structure of the universe, not the large scale.

  25. Re:just a monitor, keyboard, wired-network and pow on Ubuntu May Beat Windows 10 To Phone-PC Convergence After All · · Score: 1

    Adding CPU kinda defeats the point.