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Comment Re:BASE16 (Score 1) 538

Sure. Please do the following calculation in your head (you can use your fingers too)

Let's say a bag of wood weighs 8 pound 9 ounces, and you want to buy 3 bags. What is the total weight in pound and ounces?
Versus, you have 8.9kg of wood, and you want to buy 3 bags, what is the total weight in kg?

I am sure you'd be able to multiply in BASE16 if you are trained for it, and memorize the BASE16 multiplication table when you were a kid. But for the rest of us, BASE10 is what we learned and used to.

Comment Wait till the religion fanatics hear this. (Score 5, Insightful) 183

Wait till the religious fanatics hear this. I have already heard claim from them years ago that radioactive decay is not constant, and that's why carbon dating can not be trusted. The fossils are not a few million years old. The Earth is only a few thousand years old.

I bet these religious fanatics will now site this article as their proof!

Comment People google because family doctor are useless (Score 3, Insightful) 368

Family doctors are pretty much useless. Why do I need to book for an appointment, wait like 30-40mins at the clinic even though I have an appointment, and only able to talk to the doctor for 5mins?

I went to do my annual check-up with the family doctor a year ago, and I complained to him about my day-time sleepiness. The doctor simply dismissed it as "bored at work". I basically had to google the symptom myself afterward to discover that I might have sleep-apnea, and then book another appointment to tell the family doctor to just give me a referral to see a sleep specialist to do more comprehensive test. Lord and behold, my self-diagnose was confirmed by the sleep lab, and I even knew that the treatment would be CPAP before the sleep doctor suggested it.

The point of the story is, yes, there will be paranoid people who suspect they are dying of rare diseases because of their headache and whine to their doctor all day. For most people, they are better off googling their own symptom first, get a general understanding of what could be the cause of it, so that you can better talk to your family doctor on what test to do and which specialist to see.

Hey, you don't go to see a car salesman before doing your homework, why go see your doctor without getting a better idea of your own health?

Comment No one said the RFID device has to be an ID (Score 1) 108

No one said the RFID device has to be an ID or carry any unique information. Cellphone is a bad idea because it is unique and can be traced/linked directly to you.

Couldn't RFID device be just a simple transponder on you so that the firefighters & rescue workers can quickly pinpoint how many people are still trapped in the building during fire or after an earthquake?

There is no invasion of privacy. It could just be a device that signals "hey, someone is still inside"

Businesses

US Gamers Spend $3.8 Billion On MMOs Yearly 177

eldavojohn writes "A new report from Games Industry indicates that MMO gamers in the United States paid $3.8 billion to play last year, with an analysis of five European countries bringing the total close to $4.5 billion USD. In America, the report estimated that payments for boxed content and client downloads amounted to a measly $400 million, while the subscriptions came to $2.38 billion. Hopefully that will fund some developer budgets for bigger and better MMOs yet to come. The study also found that roughly a quarter of the US population plays some form of MMO. Surely MMOs are shaping up to be a juicy industry, and a market that can satisfy people of all walks of life."

Comment Re:FAQ (Score 1) 202

Q: With so many high-quality digital cameras out there in every cell phone, why do we only ever get crappy videos and fuzzy images of UFO's?
A: Take your cell phone right now and photograph the nearest airplane in the sky. Then come back and ask that question.

I know at least a dozen female friends who carries their Canon/Sony/Samsumg digital camera in their purses at all time. Whenever I go camping, there are at least 2 people in the group who'd bring their digital camera along. And your point is ?
-

Q: Okay, but what about professional astronomers? Why don't they ever see UFO's?
A: Who says they haven't?

Wow, you must love Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch.
-

Q: If alien life is out there, why don't they just talk to us?
A: Go to your local factory farm and try opening lines of communication with the livestock. Then come back and ask that question.

So you've just proved that we do initiate face-to-face contact with other animals even if we can't communicate with them. And your point on why Alien doesn't just show up is?
-

Q: Why would the government want to keep alien life a secret from us?
A: Go tell your bank manager during your next loan application that you are under the complete domination of a freaky bully who does with you and your family whatever it pleases and that you are utterly powerless to stop it, and that it insists you orchestrate the mass-murder of everybody in the bank and that you fully intend to go along with this plan. Then come back and ask that question.

This makes absolutely no sense that I don't even know what to say
-

Q: But Occam's Razor says that the simplest solution is usually the right one.
A: Occam didn't take into account that people are conceited to the point where they believe that any idea which hasn't yet occurred to them is less likely to hold validity than those ideas which they have thought of. Example: When Alexander Graham Bell first announced to the world the existence of the Telephone, very smart critics refused to believe it, even going so far as to publish treatises and diagrams in the leading journals of the day, declaring that the physics of sound simply made it impossible that voice could travel any distance through metal tubes (wires) of the diameter described in Bell's experiment; Was it more likely, they asked, that Bell had discovered some New Magical Force or that he was simply lying? --If we only believe in things we already know and understand, then we would never learn anything new.

And Alexander Bell produced a functioning phone and became a millionaire. Where's your detail photo of UFO? If I have unlimited time, I'd go investigate every claim ever made. But unfortunately I don't. This is why Occam's Razor exist. It doesn't tell you what's real and what's not. Occam's Razor helps you to eliminate outrageous claims and concentrate your limited time and effort on the plausible ones.
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Q: Okay, but people are very good at seeing patterns where none exist. People have been fooled before!
A: Right, and by the same logic, since, "All cows are Animals, all Animals must therefore be Cows."

Q: Show me proof! All you are doing is offering non-falsifiable arguments! Proof, damn it!
A: There's tons of it out there. You're simply refusing to look at it. Crop circles are a great place to start because they don't fly away; watch the film, "Crop Circles, Quest for Truth". Also, read Richard Dolan's, "UFO's and the National Security State." After you do some basic research, you won't feel compelled to wave that question around.

This concludes the FAQ.

-FL

I wasn't sure if you were being sarcastic or being serious in this post. But your second post about "Skeptic/Sceptic" showed that you are actually serious in what you said.

Comment Economist Steven Levitt almost got arrested too (Score 5, Informative) 441

Economist Steven Levitt also had an interesting story of how he almost got arrested because he bought a last min one-way flight, and that he carried research paper on terrorist activities:

I almost got sent to Guantanamo
By Steven D. Levitt
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/i-almost-got-sent-to-guantanamo/

Comment Re:A modest proposal (Score 1) 321

I thought "a modest proposal" involves eating Irish children. Coincidentally, this year's St Patrick's Day is on Mar 15.
So how about we make kids into pie to celebrate Pi Day, and then eating the pie to celebrate St Patrick's Day?
(Those who don't get it, please google Jonathan Swift's essay "A Modest Proposal")
Sci-Fi

The Real Monsters Behind Godzilla 243

eldavojohn writes "A Wired blog looks at the real monsters behind Godzilla: his lawyers. Do you think Godzilla is basically a glorified T. Rex? Guess again, as his lawyers have tirelessly argued: 'He's erect-standing. He's got muscular arms, scaly skin and spines on back and tail and he breathes fire and has a furrowed brow, he's got an anthropomorphic torso. The T. rex has emaciated bird-like arms and stands at a 45-degree angle.' Read on to find out why they targeted the site davezilla.com but not mozilla.org. Another abuse of the American trademark & copyright system? You decide — just don't make a float of him or you'll find yourself paying an undisclosed sum to Toho Co. Ltd."
Star Wars Prequels

LucasArts, Bioware Announce Star Wars MMO 346

LucasArts and Bioware held a press conference today to confirm what has been suspected for a long time: they're working on a Star Wars MMO. It will be called Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it will be a continuation of the Knights of the Old Republic franchise. Further coverage is available at Gamespot, and IGN has some of the concept art. An official website for the game was launched as well. "According to the game's official announcement, Star Wars: The Old Republic is set thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader, with the galaxy divided by war between the Empire and the Sith. That's about 300 years after the events of KotOR, a time frame that, according to Zeschuk, 'is completely unexplored in the lore.' Players can take the role of either a Jedi, a Sith or other classic Star Wars characters -- and, as perhaps can be expected from BioWare, Muzyka says story will be a major component, underlying and driving all of the player's actions."

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