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User: Khashishi

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Comments · 3,289

  1. Re:Simple on DOT Warns of Dystopian Future For Transportation · · Score: 1

    Just privatize all roads. And if you can't pay the tolls or choose not to, then you are totally free to not go anywhere.

  2. Re:so? on Major Record Labels Keep 73% of Spotify Payouts · · Score: 1

    It's not that artists are unaware, but that they have poor bargaining positions. When they have attained some fame, their bargaining position improves somewhat, but the labels will be pushing for the best new thing.

  3. pros on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    pros:
    You get to shape your kid into a little version of yourself. He/she ends up accepting your worldview as the truth.
    cons:
    You get to shape your kid into a little version of yourself. He/she ends up accepting your worldview as the truth.

  4. non-story on Americans Support Mandatory Labeling of Food That Contains DNA · · Score: 1

    Looking at the survey results, it's clear that the question pertaining to DNA was giving in the context of other questions on governmental policies. If I answered the survey, I would have answered based on what I thought the researcher meant by the question, and not the literal text of the question. When I saw the question, I would ask myself, should I be a smartass and answer the question as written, or should I assume the researcher means to ask, "Mandatory labels on foods containing modified or isolated DNA"

  5. Re:Remember the good old days? on Americans Support Mandatory Labeling of Food That Contains DNA · · Score: 2

    I can't remember that far back. It must've been well before the sinking of the USS Maine.

  6. Re:Questionable priorities on Made-In-Nigeria Smart Cards To Extend Financial Services To the Poor · · Score: 1

    eh, red herring.

  7. Re:You can smell the desperation on Made-In-Nigeria Smart Cards To Extend Financial Services To the Poor · · Score: 1

    As long as we have money begetting money, we will have bubbles.

  8. Who's liable when it fails or backfires? on Government Recommends Cars With Smarter Brakes · · Score: 1

    When making something safer, we can expect more lawsuits, not less, as we might naively expect. It doesn't matter if we can statistically show that a new technology saves lives. If auto manufacturers put this feature into their vehicles, suddenly it is their fault when the feature fails to prevent an accident, or causes causes an accident where one would not have occurred. Previously, the driver would be liable.

  9. not paradoxes on The Paradoxes That Threaten To Tear Modern Cosmology Apart · · Score: 1

    Those aren't paradoxes. So space is created. How is that a paradox? Did someone say space is not allowed to be created?
    So energy is created. That violates conservation of energy, but conservation of energy is simply a law that we formulated from experience, and later proved using Noether's theorem by assuming that the laws of physics are time-invariant. Well, it's not valid to extrapolate from our small-scale experiences to the universe, and the laws of physics probably aren't time-invariant at cosmological scales.
    Nobody really knows how to calculate the energy of the vacuum, and that's why we have to use renormalization. The 10^120 figure is really a very rough ballpark estimate using dimensional analysis. There's not any solid theory to back it up.

  10. wow, too complicated on The Legacy of CPU Features Since 1980s · · Score: 1

    I used to sort of understand how a computer works. Not anymore. It's just magic.

  11. Re:Nothing wrong with self censorship on Publications Divided On Self-Censorship After Terrorist Attack · · Score: 1

    Given the timing, I think it's reasonable to assume that it's censorship based on fear of violence.

  12. Re:If your decision is.... on Publications Divided On Self-Censorship After Terrorist Attack · · Score: 1

    There are tons of crazies out there. Not all of them are seeking to achieve the same thing.

  13. Re:Conform or be expelled on HOA Orders TARDIS Removed From In Front of Parrish Home · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's all fine and good when there are infinite houses to choose from. In the real world, resources are limited, and most nice places already have overlords controlling them.

  14. Re:Still useful research on Beware Headlines Saying Chocolate Is Good For You · · Score: 1

    That's why europeans tend to baulk the first time they taste a hershey bar....

    Well it isn't exactly fair to compare a military ration to a sweet delicacy.

  15. Re:Would be news if this didn't happen. on Study: Birds Slur Their Songs When Drunk, Just Like Humans · · Score: 1

    You know, the main purpose of research is to confirm what you already predict to be true.

  16. Re:more simplifications and fewer cats, please on Quantum Physics Just Got Less Complicated · · Score: 1

    I think people are moving away from the Copenhagen interpretation to other interpretations such as consistent histories, decoherence, and many worlds. Bohmian interpretation is another option, but I find it inelegant and it doesn't hold too much sway.

    Personally, I feel that consistent histories* is the best. In this interpretation, the cat is simply dead or alive. We don't know which until we check, but the cat's state didn't change when we opened the box. Note that whatever is enforcing consistency does not obey causality---the laws of quantum mechanics are essentially symmetric in time (more accurately CPT). In some sense, the future is "prewritten" though we have no way to measure it, and the current state of the universe is required to be consistent with the future state. So if the cat is dead in the future where the box is opened, it's already dead with the box closed.

    I prefer the "block universe" depiction of the universe as a stationary 4D object, since it seems to be easiest to reconcile with relativity. Relativity of simultaneity makes no sense if the future isn't already written. We call this 4D universe object a history, and all the events in the history have to be consistent with laws of physics. It makes no difference if you think of the past causing the future or the future causing the past: they are just there and neither is created from the other. In the many worlds interpretation, every possible (e.g. consistent) history exists, but I think one is sufficient.

    *I might be mistaken on what consistent histories is. My description is my personal interpretation, which might coincide with the definition of consistent histories.

  17. Re:Copenhagen interpretation != less complicated on Quantum Physics Just Got Less Complicated · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's no mysticism in quantum mechanics. It's pretty simple and mathematically consistent. All of the mysticism comes from popularizations of quantum mechanics. Bohmian mechanics is an unnecessary complicated interpretation of the same physical models.

  18. Re:von Neumann probes on The Dominant Life Form In the Cosmos Is Probably Superintelligent Robots · · Score: 1

    Of course, the engineering hurdles of a 100g probe sucking up Jupiter might be insurmountable...

  19. Re:von Neumann probes on The Dominant Life Form In the Cosmos Is Probably Superintelligent Robots · · Score: 1

    Travel time. The galaxy is some 100000 light years across. Using available fuels, what fraction of light speed can a probe hope to achieve? Let's suppose they run on DD fusion energy. The reaction gives off about 0.4% of the rest energy of the fuel, so a reasonable estimate of potentially attainable specific impulse is 0.004*c, assuming the probe is mostly fuel. Using Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, how fast can a probe reasonable reach? This depends on how much fuel the probe eats up at each stop. Assuming a probe mass of 100g, lets suppose the probe eats up a mass of Jupiter to create fuel at 10% efficiency at each stop. Well, that gives a delta v of ~.25*c. (Since there is a logarithm, the result doesn't change that much if we eat a sun or a saturn.) Useful cruise speed is half of that. Ok, that is still enough speed to conquer the galaxy in a few million years.

    Multiplication factor: how many probes need to be sent out after each stop such that there is enough to spread over the galaxy in a reasonable time (there are ~10^11 stars). This is increased by the fact that many probes will fail to reach the destination for various reasons, so some redundancy is needed. We want to choose a multiplication factor such that the probes will cover the galaxy in approximately the same time as it takes for one probe to travel across the galaxy. Assume probes travel at 0.1*c, and it takes 10^6 years to traverse the galaxy. Let's assume a distance of 20 light years, or 200 travel years between stops. So we have 5000 stops in 10^6 years, so we need a multiplication factor of
    f = 1.005 * redundancyFactor.
    Ok, that's small enough to not make much difference in the resource needs.

    Hmm, I intended to show that it was unfeasible, but it still looks like it might be physically possible, given extremely powerful probe technology.

  20. the hell with 8K, give me 40K on LG To Show Off New 55-Inch 8K Display at CES · · Score: 1
  21. Re:Whence Occam's Razor? on Possible Dark Matter Signal Spotted · · Score: 1

    Keep in mind that what information comes out of journalists is typically 10 times more outrageous than any of the scientists' claims.

  22. Re:This might alienate anti-ISI* Muslims. on US Navy Authorizes Use of Laser In Combat · · Score: 1

    Silly rabbit, laws of war don't apply to dealing with unlawful combatants.

    Also, lasers are fairly well collimated, so you'd have to aim directly at the person to blind them, and then I think they would have more problems than just blinding. You can also blind someone by shooting them in the eye with a gun, but for some reason it's ok as long as they have a good chance of dying outright.

  23. nethack has graphics on NetHack: Still One of the Greatest Games Ever Written · · Score: 1

    I know it's hip to play in text mode with vi keys, but you don't have to. Tile graphics mode has been around for a while now, and cursor keys have pretty much always been there. The article doesn't seem to indicate that.

  24. Re:Nethack needs an upgrade on NetHack: Still One of the Greatest Games Ever Written · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a decent premise for a new game inspired by Nethack. But it isn't Nethack, and multiplayer Nethack wouldn't work without massive changes.

  25. Come on people on Cisco Slaps Arista Networks With Suit For "Brazen" Patent Infringement · · Score: 1

    When I told you once, I told you a thousand times, and run Google translation by hand twice, and then run the grammar checker word.

    If you copy a word for word, and then caught.