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User: smoondog

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  1. 2010 on NASA Names Best & Worst Sci-Fi Movies of All Time · · Score: 1

    I largely agree with their list. contact is, imo, the best and gattaca is second. i think, however, that they missed 2010. its way different than the original, but as a realistic sci-fi movie it stands on its own and has aged well

  2. ps3, 360, etc on Google TV Suffers Setback · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the internet has made it to my tv, i get it through my ps3. why would i want another device that basically does the same thing but less of it?

  3. i understand but ... on Righthaven Sues For Control of Drudge Report Domain · · Score: 1

    I've always been confused about how meta news isn't news itself and therefore constitutionally protected. If the denver post (or the AP) posts a picture, and someone republishes that picture as 'news' because they reported it, how is that not journalism in itself. Is all copyrighted material off limits as 'news'? (headline, 'the denver post published this picture today claiming that ... '

    My gut would tell me, although I'm not a lawyer, that since reproduction for educational purposes is 'fair use' (which isn't constitutionally protected), shouldn't journalism be similarly protected as fair use?

  4. Laboratree on Collaborative Academic Writing Software? · · Score: 1

    You might try Laboratree (http://laboratree.org/). We have built a social networking platform off of OpenSocial and created a document and data set management tool that has Subversion like editing. It is used by a couple of hundred groups currently.

  5. looking back on "Tabletop" Fusion Researcher Committed Scientific Misconduct · · Score: 4, Informative

    When I was in graduate school/postdoc, I wrote for the Stanford Daily a couple of times for fun as way to practice my writing skills. One of the articles I wrote was on this research. Interestingly, I interviewed Nobel winner Douglas Osheroff and he shared his thoughts with me on this research. If memory serves me, he thought it was interesting, but prematurely published.

    Interesting to look back on this in light of this finding.

  6. Not so easy on Bill to Require Open Access to Scientific Papers · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a search scientist, I am a huge fan of open access and I have published and promoted its use in the past. However, there are more issues than just making it law. For example, PLOS Biology charges $2750 US for a single paper. Right now, a budget of $2-3k per year for publication is a reasonable cost, if that were to rise to $2-3k per paper, it could get very expensive, at tax payer cost and at the expense of research activity. How are we going to bring down the cost of open access, perhpas the feds should get into publishing? I am personally a fan of looking at other, perhaps less expensive options, such as creating open data repositories that are publicly funded or focusing on community driven knowledgebases that are in the public domain. Lots of papers aren't very interesting, requiring those authors to pay open access costs is a recipe for useless expense.

  7. Re:Just imagine on GMOs Perfected Down to the Chromosome Level · · Score: 1

    As I said in a previous post, BBQ likely causes a risk of cancer, every BBQ'ed item you have ever eaten. Why are you concerned about a hypothetical risk and not a real one?

  8. Re:Let's review this a bit on GMOs Perfected Down to the Chromosome Level · · Score: 1

    When you integrate a gene into a chromosome, it is integrated randomly.

    Not really true. Even though an integration might be close to random (it really isn't), we can choose the offspring with specific locations of genes pretty easily.

  9. Maybe the worry over GMOs is misdirected on GMOs Perfected Down to the Chromosome Level · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I guess we'll soon eat food made from permanently genetically modified organisms (PGMOs?).

    I'm not sure how a PGMO differs from today's GMOs which, I believe, can pass genetic modifications to offspring (they are present in the germline). The article summary contains a bias that GMOs are somehow inherently bad. Look, lots of things in our food contains risky things, and people seem to want blame GMOs for many ills. At some level of intake everything is risky. There are tons of studies outlining why some foods are bad for you. Alcohol is bad for you. Marijuana is bad for you. BBQ is bad for you (polyaromatic hydrocarbons, other bad things in charred foods). French fries apparently contain acrylimide. Saturated fats are associated with obesity, the development of heart disease. Sugar is associated with the progression of diabetes. Salt is associated with high blood pressure, heart disease. Acidic foods (ie diet coke) are bad for your digestive system. You get the point.

    How many of these do you overindulge in occasionally? Similarly, assuming all GMOs are bad for health reasons is short sighted (although they may be bad for political reasons -- that is another matter). Many foods we eat are engineered in some way, usually with a sledge hammer by classical means, no one seems to complain about that. We already use pesticides on crops, perhaps resistant GMOs might reduce pesticide use? Perhaps GMOs might have better nutritional components than their non engineered counterparts? Perhaps GMOs can be developed that make some of the risky foods in the previous paragraph less risky? GMOs should be evaluated like everything else, carefully. While I understand their fears, I wish the GMO protest community would spend a little less time worrying about GMOs and more time worrying about very real food risks (see above), heavy metals in imported goods (including foods) and the things around us that are really worth our concern.

  10. hmm on Excel 2007 Multiplication Bug · · Score: -1, Troll

    Working just fine on my OS-X mac...

  11. heh on Blu-ray Disc Among Top Selling DVDs at Amazon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think a lot of customers are going to be disappointed when their purchase doesn't play in their dvd player.

  12. knowledgeTree on Building an ODF Intranet Portal? · · Score: 3, Informative

    KnowledgeTree doesn't do everything you want, but it is an easy to use web application that supports plugins (addons).

  13. everything I learned about america on Bob Saget 2.0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Everything I learned about America I learned from watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "Antiques Roadshow"

    Think about it.

  14. Re:Who DOCUMENTS their evil backdoor? on WMF Vulnerability is an Intentional Backdoor? · · Score: 1

    This begs the obvious question, why does WINE have this (unlikely) problem?

  15. Re:i never understood the joss whedon cult on Watch the First 9 Minutes of Serenity · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I seriously think your statement isnt true

    Well, I think the facts disagree with you. Reread my original post.

  16. Re:i never understood the joss whedon cult on Watch the First 9 Minutes of Serenity · · Score: 1

    I don't understand how the biggest blockbusters are fantasy (LOTR) and nonhorror sci-fi (star wars, star trek), but studios refuse to invest in new ideas in these genres. How stupid is that?

    -Sean (OutdoorDB.org - The Outdoor Wiki)

  17. Re:Billions? on No Office For Linux, MS Patents Rejected · · Score: 2, Funny

    There was a typo:

    Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows: We have earned billions of dollars in it.

  18. perhaps i missunderstand wikipedia ... on C|Net Integrates Ontology Viewer Into News Site · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am disappointed with the lack of support in MediaWiki for ontologies and controlled vocabularies. I have been playing around with wikis for annotating outdoor activities my site at outdoordb.org and I am finding that it would be great to have tighter integration of controlled vocabularies. For example, if a hike occurs in Mt. Rainier National Park, I have to make sure that it is always annotated as the same string, instead of annotating with a key that always refers to Mt. Rainier NP. Users who annotate using different strings (such as 'Mount Rainier NP') either need to be fixed or they remain semantically disjointed. The cool thing about wikis is that these ontologies could grow with the knowledgebase, and allow users to select existing terms as they are needed. They could even be extracted and used elsewhere. If the edit page had an 'insert term' button, it could take care of the backend on its own, maybe using categories as an ontology.

  19. Re:good on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    Uhh,

    1. they built a subway --complete with tracks-- when I was in 7th grade and filled it with metro buses. It isn't until this week that they are actually going to start construction to use those tracks.

    2. kingdome

    3. the commons (which I liked)

    -Sean

  20. Re:what is the point of mass transit? on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    First off, a monorail or light rail is considered RAPID transit; a bus system is MASS transit.

    Compared to the Bay areas BART, these plans fall short of rapid (which has nearly top speeds of 80mph and a 40 mph average, with stops).

    -Sean

  21. Re:good on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    I think you might be mistaking BART for Caltrain or Muni in the bay area. Bart runs on its own tracks, alternates as elevated or underground, 105 miles of track (no street crossings that I am aware of). The original spec average was 45 mph including stops, but I think actual is a little less than that.

  22. Re:good on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    Personally, I think they should build something like BART, 80+ mph, high volume, it is proven to work, etc... Keep buses for the neighborhoods, light rail for the arteries and a BART/monorail solution to get people fast over longer distances, like north seattle to west seattle. It has worked for san francisco for decades.

  23. Re:good on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    I wasn't comparing it to light rail, I just think an elevated monorail going down 15th would be ugly. (It is ugly in bell town and I think has had a effect on the success of the streets that the existing monorail follows) Second, the light rail is going forward and was going forward when this monorail plan was missmanaged and was screwed up.

  24. Re:good on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 1

    Uhh, on the bad urban planning award. Seattle has:

    1. They already had light rail (Trolley system), and removed it. In fact, I bet at some point it is going to cost money to move the equipment that is under the street. See this image of the counter balance, for example.

    2. Due to the fire and sewage problems, Seattle actually raised ground level of downtown up one story to bury their problems. For a period of time, store fronts were underground, and people used ladders to reach them!

    3. Seattle actually spent money bulldozing a large hill (See this pic of the denny regrade)

    4. Traffic continues to be a problem.

    etc, etc.

    -Sean (OutdoorDB - The Outdoor Wiki)

  25. good on Seattle Axes Monorail Project · · Score: 2, Informative

    The monorail was a bad idea. I am vigorously supportive of rapid transit. But in this case there are problems. The elevation would block views, it wouldn't be that fast, it was very expensive, and would implicitly divert funds from light rail (a better idea). seattle has a long history of bad urban planning I'm glad that light rail is going forward and this isn't.

    -Sean (OutdoorDB) - The Outdoor Wiki