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User: WillAffleckUW

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  1. I demand proof of the Bible on VA Supreme Court: Michael Mann Needn't Turn Over All His Email · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure it was written by different people than it claims.

    Also, two creation myths? Seriously, how does that hold up?

    And this whole Noah and the Ark thing sounds kind of fishy to me. Let alone that guy who survived inside a whale.

  2. I for one welcome our Steam Overlords on 'Thermoelectrics' Could One Day Power Cars · · Score: 1

    Oh, wait, isn't the energy density and storage ratio far lower than compressed air?

  3. Original IPCC report said 10 countries make 70 pct on Pollution In China Could Be Driving Freak Weather In US · · Score: 1

    The original IPCC scientific report stated that 70 percent of the climate change emissions were coming from just 10 countries, of which two of the largest were the US and China.

    But they removed that, because then those countries might have to actually change their behavior and stop shipping US coal to China.

  4. Re:Or you can just use your cell phone on Paper Microscope Magnifies Objects 2100 Times and Costs Less Than $1 · · Score: 1

    Because cellphones put so much less stress on the environment than a sheet of paper does.

    Hey if you can't destroy Central African countries for rare earths, what good is life?

  5. Or you can just use your cell phone on Paper Microscope Magnifies Objects 2100 Times and Costs Less Than $1 · · Score: 1

    If you go to the University of Washington website and check today's news, you'll see a UW scientist developed an app so you can use your cell phone as a microscope.

    It's an app.

    You don't have to kill trees.

  6. Re:Actually, my SF from then was pretty accurate on This 1981 BYTE Magazine Cover Explains Why We're So Bad At Tech Predictions · · Score: 1

    oh, and we did have the Internet back then, I was using ARPA*NET at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. We had 110 baud modems and I think UBC had 300 baud.

    So the Internet did exist, at least for those of us in Computer Science, Math, and Science.

  7. Actually, my SF from then was pretty accurate on This 1981 BYTE Magazine Cover Explains Why We're So Bad At Tech Predictions · · Score: 1

    The Science Fiction stories I wrote back then are fairly correct in terms of what 2020 would look like.

    I had the planet suffering from technological disasters that had people working as serfs to heartless corporations, and never-ending war machines, with a planet that was heating up so much that plans to colonize Antarctica were underway.

    My only incorrect guess was that fusion power would exist for slow multi-generation interplanetary spaceships sent to the moons of Jupiter.

    Fusion is always 20 years in the future. Has been since I was born. Still is today.

  8. I write a check to Billionaires and Corporations on Slashdot Asks: How Do You Pay Your Taxes? · · Score: 1

    Since they only pay less than 10 percent tax maximum on their earnings, while the rest of us pay 2-3 times as much, I just write the check to them and cut out the IRS tax-subsidies-for-Billionaires middleman.

  9. Re:Technically if an NSA backdoor existed on First Phase of TrueCrypt Audit Turns Up No Backdoors · · Score: 1

    No, my point is that you can't choose three countries which work together to spy on their citizens - for example, choosing Canada, US, and UK would be self-defeating.

    You need one in each region, so that the "odd man out" will be obvious when it "fails" to report a flaw the other two report.

  10. The main reason this can work on Google Buys Drone Maker Titan Aerospace · · Score: 1

    Is the availability of solar power, and the low energy need to run basic wi-fi

    But one needs long-term trials showing survivability during storms and inclement weather events, as well as impacts on aviation due to mobile wi-fi.

    The main design choice is between mobile wi-fi repeater platforms that communicate with satellites for a period of time, and ones that have a fairly long lifespan (2-3 years) and are mobile to locate at a specific region. If you keep things up in the air, stuff happens to them. In the New Zealand trials in remote areas, the lifespan was a bit short, so the cost per day of service depends on the weather.

  11. Re:What if we overcorrect? on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1

    Worldwide, yes.

    In the US and Canada, no.

    Growth in population masks some impacts. When measuring energy use and climate change impacts, we tend to focus on per capita measures.

    By those standards, India has a far lower impact due to lighting than does China. Even though some of India's electricity comes from coal, their impact per person is much lower than China's impact per person.

    Different regions have different changes and different optimal energy sources. The main problem is that many people try to do a One Size Fits All approach, but in reality each region needs to move to the 2-3 most optimal energy sources and implement changes that minimize their impact. For places where coal makes sense, the most optimal changes would not be electric cars, but rather high mpg cars, and improvements in building efficiency in heating/cooling and in coal power generation processes via cogeneration uses.

    In other areas, as in most of the US, solar makes the most sense.

    Especially in the South of the US.

  12. Re:Technically if an NSA backdoor existed on First Phase of TrueCrypt Audit Turns Up No Backdoors · · Score: 1

    True. I for one know that Australia and China definitely do.

    My point is that you need to set it up so that you have three auditors for each part, each in a different "security" region.

    And give them "unsafe" code words to embed in a place where other auditors can see if they have been compromised.

    Has to be done in a sealed room without electricity, of course (or at least no circuits in) when you set up the code words.

    Otherwise, we had the technology in the 80s to hear it, so I can guarantee we can still hear it.

    Technically they would have to disrobe and shower and scrub if you really wanted to be safe.

    (thinking about this makes it sound like an episode of Get Smart ....)

    Verify. Then trust.

  13. Re:Technically if an NSA backdoor existed on First Phase of TrueCrypt Audit Turns Up No Backdoors · · Score: 0

    See, that's my point.

    The audit needs to occur in a place that does not utilize the backdoors the NSA and GCHQ and other agencies are.

    Which rules out Canada, the UK, and the USA.

    At the bare minimum.

    Verify. Then trust.

  14. Re:What if we overcorrect? on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1

    I recently read that at the same time light bulbs have gotten more efficient, total lighting power expenditure has gone up! Evidently, it's a combination of people using a lot more light when lighting gets cheaper to operate, and more ligthing being installed in general.

    I can imagine if we start offsetting global warming we will produce more of its anthropogenic causes.

    Not really. Electricity use is down due to more efficient lighting, and the cooler lighting generates less heat that needs to be cooled in buildings. But the problem is half the energy use is to heat and cool buildings. You change that with better insulation and things like LEED green buildings that use little to no energy to run themselves and keep a reasonable temperature. Like we do at the UW, where half of our campus is very energy efficient and all of our energy comes from green power sources (wind, solar, hydro). It's not hard and it saves a ton on the energy bills.

    But you have to do it, not just talk about it.

  15. Re:What if we overcorrect? LA comparison on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 2

    ... trying to keep everything just like it is in the 1980s (or whenever) may do more damage than just letting it cycle naturally.

    Oh yea, we want to go back to 1980? Shesh, does ANYBODY here remember what LA looked like in the 80's? Apart from all the women in big hair and the plaid suits going out of style? No, don't want to go back to the orange brown haze myself.

    I remember, as a kid, flying into LA and seeing that thick brown layer over the entire valley.

    Look, we had the Clean Air Act and it worked. The same goes for switching from tax-subsidized and tax-exempted Coal, Oil, and Gas to cleaner fuels. Get rid of the tax exemptions and remove the "grandfather" permits for inefficient old power plants. The market will self-correct to cheaper Solar fairly quickly, if you can provide low-cost capital in low-interest loans from part of the money we save by removing those inefficient tax subsidies for coal, oil, and gas.

  16. Technically if an NSA backdoor existed on First Phase of TrueCrypt Audit Turns Up No Backdoors · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Technically, if an NSA backdoor existed in the codebase, you would be prevented from reporting it by an NSA letter, subject to immeadiate imprisonment and confiscation.

    So, what we can say is that it's clean, insofar as they are permitted to report.

    Verify, then trust.

  17. Incorrect Analysis on Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Look, real climate change impacts are cradle to grave for power sources.

    When done that way, nuclear fission causes water to heat, the mining process is extremely impactful, and the amount of risk and capital required make it no more efficient than reducing the impact of existing coal power plants by converting them to more efficient (as in double the output per ton of coal) by cogeneration.

    The problem is really one of massive subsidies for wrong-headed energy sources.

    Coal, oil, and natural gas.

    Get rid of the tax exemptions for those and the below-market rate leases for drilling and exploitation and shipping and the market self-corrects.

    Take the money saved by removing those exemptions and put it into low-cost 1 percent capital loans to build solar, wind, and micro-hydro power sources instead. The problem with those sources is coming up with the capital to switch, not the cost to operate (solar is already cheaper than everything except coal, for example, and that's with massive coal subsidies and tax exemptions).

  18. On top of a pyramid on The Best Way To Watch the "Blood Moon" Tonight · · Score: 1

    Face it, if you can't do it right, you might as well not do it at all.

  19. Just end all Oil Coal Gas tax exemptions on UN: Renewables, Nuclear Must Triple To Save Climate · · Score: 1

    You can accomplish the same thing by ending all Coal, Oil, and Gas tax exemptions and below market rate leases for the same on public lands and oceans.

    And then use the remaining cash after the deficit is all paid (about 4 times larger than the deficit) to literally provide low cost loans to US consumers and businesses to build solar, wind, and tidal energy nationwide. The main barrier is the capital cost to build these systems, not the operational costs.

    Problem solved.

  20. Re:Stopping a billionaire's car on Can You Buy a License To Speed In California? · · Score: 1

    Correction, Sweden's fines are fixed.

    Only if you sped too much over the limit and you are charged with "reckless driving" (and convicted), you will get a fine based on your income.

    So for "Normal speeding", no.

    /C

    What is the conviction rate for rich people compared to the conviction rate for poor people in the US?

    That's the number we need to be concerned with.

  21. Re:Stopping a billionaire's car on Can You Buy a License To Speed In California? · · Score: 1

    Who do you think elects those officials? Ask SCOTUS - Billionaires do.

    We're all peons in an Oligarchic Feudal system pretending to be a Democracy.

  22. Re:Stopping a billionaire's car on Can You Buy a License To Speed In California? · · Score: 1

    But $15,000 is pocket change if you're a billionaire.

    Your tires probably cost more than that.

    And so do your shoes.

  23. Stopping a billionaire's car on Can You Buy a License To Speed In California? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is simple.

    Unlike in Sweden or Norway, where your ticket depends on your income, the fine is a small amount to a billionaire.

    And that billionaire will make the arresting cop's life miserable and throw lawyers at the "case" like confetti.

    It takes a brave police officer to stand up to pressure like that, high risk, low reward, no chance of promotion or contract work ever after you're blacklisted for off-duty security work on all the top tech campus and party locations.

  24. Re:He's right! on Michael Bloomberg: You Can't Teach a Coal Miner To Code · · Score: 1

    Why not train the coal miners to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, airline pilots or architects?

    You had me up to engineers.

    See, engineers are skilled.

  25. Re:Why not more? on $250K Reward Offered In California Power Grid Attack · · Score: 1

    Not really, just a roll of det cord and some foil backed duct tape with a box of fuses.

    In the west in rural areas, getting your hands on that is relatively simple.

    It does require training however.