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User: MichaelSmith

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Comments · 11,670

  1. Re:Repeat after me: Correlation Is Not Causation on Cosmic Radiation Makes Trees Grow Faster · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are you saying that tree growth may be causing cosmic radiation?

  2. Cloud cover on Cosmic Radiation Makes Trees Grow Faster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The mechanism might have something to do with GCRs increasing cloud cover, which diffuses sunlight and increases the efficiency of photosynthesis.

    How about cloud cover leads to more precipitation?

  3. Re:My read from the trailer on Astro Boy Director Speaks · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing this one doesn't have a drunken Dr. Tenma selling Astro off to the brutal robot circus. Or maybe it does, but the trailer doesn't presage such a thing. Anyone seen a sneak preview, legal or otherwise?

    It does have that bit. I saw it on the weekend.

  4. Re:Wow, my clock must be broken on Amiga and Hyperion Settle Ownership of AmigaOS · · Score: 1

    Software is built to be fast enough. Developers create layers of crud and only pull back when they hit performance problems. Right here I have a java application with gigabytes of binary class files and models. I don't know how they managed it. I wish I could sack the bastards who wrote it.

  5. Re:Wow, my clock must be broken on Amiga and Hyperion Settle Ownership of AmigaOS · · Score: 1

    BeOs was a single user OS.

  6. Re:Stars to Planet Ratio on 32 Exoplanets Discovered By Chilean Telescope · · Score: 1

    it could well be that ALL sunlike stars have planets.

    We are collecting data points like mad and its not looking good for extraterrestrial life. If ET life existed we would be seeing evidence of it along with the planets right now. Either oxygen spectra from atmosphere or evidence of engineering elsewhere in the galaxy. If life exists it may not use similar metabolic processes to us and it may not be intelligent.

  7. Re:Title goes here on Ultracapacitor Bus Recharges At Each Stop · · Score: 1

    Capacitors could also be used to buffer the output from wind and solar power. Maybe your public transport could be programmed to only draw power in then seconds when wind power is available.

  8. Re:Isn't this the same as a trolley? on Ultracapacitor Bus Recharges At Each Stop · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We have trams (light rail) here in Melbourne. Maybe if you ran the numbers you could take away the overhead cables from most of the network and just charge the trams at stops and intersections. Might be cheaper overall that way.

  9. Re:Appropriate on Google Voice Mails Found In Public Search Engine · · Score: 1

    We should pay Mary Logan back by giving her some free graphic design services for her new logo. Payment for our lulz you know.

  10. Re:Big deal on SCO Terminates Darl McBride · · Score: 1

    Yeah, even when your head is up there on a spike.

  11. Re:I predict... on Astro Boy Director Speaks · · Score: 1

    The movie looks simply awful.

    I certainly thought so, but my seven year old son loved it, which is the point I suppose.

  12. Re:Tennis racket on MIT Researchers Develop Autonomous Indoor Robocopter · · Score: 1

    ...dark alley...

    Don't forget your night vision goggles, unless you are good at hitting things with your eyes closed.

    Just use the force...

  13. Re:Still no torrent? on OpenBSD 4.6 Released · · Score: 1

    NetBSD has torrents as well. About as year ago I wanted an AMD64 iso to I got the torrent but it turned into a straight download so I may as well not have bothered. I wonder if the actual demand for openbsd is enough to justify the effort.

  14. Re:CO2 cutbacks cannot stop climate change on Maldives Government Holds Undersea Cabinet Meeting · · Score: 1

    Of course its a political game. People of the Maldives are going to ask for land and money.

    And I don't blame them.

  15. Re:Quality of life on The US's Reverse Brain Drain · · Score: 1

    There won't be any work here if the dollar keeps rising.

  16. Re:Not about Visas on The US's Reverse Brain Drain · · Score: 1

    It happens here in Australia too. People work in a stable country to get citizenship, then leave to start a business and get rich. It is easier to do that in Asian countries which are less regulated and where taxes are low. If they stuff up they have citizenship in a stable country to fall back on.

  17. Re:His formatting article might be interesting, on How To List FOSS Experience On Your Resume · · Score: 3, Funny

    HR is worthless...

    Where I work, only HR is hiring...

  18. Re:"Meetings"? on How To List FOSS Experience On Your Resume · · Score: 5, Funny

    > Did you lead meetings?

    What are these "meetings" you speak of?

    It like a mailing list flamewar but not as fun to watch.

  19. Re:All I have is an anecdote on On the Efficacy of Flu Vaccine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I assume that if a person has high fever with a sudden onset and extreme fatigue then they won't be back at work in a couple of days.

  20. Re:That is freakin' brilliant. on Electro-Scalpel "Sniffs Out" Tumors · · Score: 1

    It pretty pathetic. At the hospitals here there are always people hanging around outside the front entrance dressed in in gowns and towing IV drip devices. They stagger outside for a puff.

    My wife's dad died of Nasopharyngeal carcinoma and if you google around the risk factors are to be asian and to like eating fish. He belonged to both of those groups and was 75 years old, so the cancer wasn't entirely a surprise.

    He was noted in the family for insisting on sea food, and that may have been a factor in his otherwise good health when the cancer was diagnosed.

    He got unlucky because he had a rare sensitivity to the chemotherapy drug he was given. It killed his bone marrow stone dead in the space of a few days. Once that happens your immune system crashes and you start to decompose.

    I ride a bike to work because the men in my family generally die of heart disease in their 50's. I broke my arm in a crash in July, which is part of the down side of avoiding heart failure.

    Having seen several sides of the medical industry in my life I am coming to the view that it is better to be as active as possible and accept the possibility of a sudden death. I am less worried about my own safety now, because I have started to dread being confined to hospital. My biggest fear is probably paralysis. Because it can happen in an accident.

    I remember that my grandmother had a stroke at 80, her biggest fear was that she would live for years afterwards. This exact thing happened to her sister several years later. She took five years to die.

    Personally I am actively working on transhuman solutions. I don't think the medical industry will solve many problems in our lifetime.

  21. Re:All I have is an anecdote on On the Efficacy of Flu Vaccine · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If its four or five days from two illnesses then its not Flu. Thats a cold.

  22. Re:Yes men on Explaining Corporate Culture Through "The Office" · · Score: 1

    Mike, is that you?

    Well obviously. But there are a lot of Michael Smiths around.

  23. Re:people are spoiled these days on Delta Air Lines Sued Over Alleged E-mail Hacking · · Score: 1

    Maybe I confused it with spearing in.

  24. Re:Altitude on Australian Student Balloon Rises 100,000 Feet, With a Digital Camera · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    That little balloon in the states couldn't have lifted at all with a child inside. Somebody should have realized that.

  25. Re:How far we've come on Electro-Scalpel "Sniffs Out" Tumors · · Score: 1

    Thats the thing about cancer treatment. The goal is to almost kill the patient and to entirely kill the cancer. Not the other way around. Being almost killed is no fun BTW.