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Comment Re:Try it for yourself! (Score 1) 818

Now replace "confederate" with just about any other potentially offensive term (nazi, communist, rhodesia) and you get plenty of results.

Not in Germany or France you won't. It's almost like a symbol does not have an independently objective meaning but rather can only be understood within the context of a particular culture. There is little reason to believe that Americans, when exposed to nazi propaganda, will suddenly start goose stepping, nor will Germans who see the battle flag of the Confederacy decide to wage war against the United States. But there is a reasonable concern that Germans who show interest in nazi memorabilia are doing so because they believe in German racial superiority, and likewise a concern that Americans who want to fly the stars and bars are doing so because they want to hearken back to the day when African Americans were in chains. Google does not have to help them satisfy those wishes.

Comment Re:Effect of nukes on NEOs (Score 3, Interesting) 272

RTFA They specifically look at a standoff explosion versus a surface or subsurface explosion and prefer the standoff explosion precisely because they are aware of the possibility of blowing something up with a nuclear weapon. Amazingly enough, the professional rocket scientists at NASA actually considered the consequences of the alternative tactics before making their recommendation

Comment Re:One word summary. (Score 1) 1032

So is a Master of Philosophy now only available to the wealthy?

Historically that is exactly what a master's degree in philosophy was for - rich scions whose parents wanted to park them someplace for 5-10 years until they got out of their embarrassing late teens and early twenties and could take part in the family dynasty. The idea that the middle class should go to degree-granting institution is a very recent phenomenon.

I have nothing against getting a good liberal arts education - but I think you should do it the way I do - for $15/month. If somebody wants an education it doesn't cost hardly anything. If you want a *diploma* it will cost you.

Comment Re:Pointless study (Score 1) 216

I think you could be in group #1 and think that it is marginally acceptable to subsidize a $40,000 vehicle that is being sold as a practical alternative mode of transportation while not finding it at all acceptable to subsidize an $80,000 luxury car. Of course, that is the opposite of what the author is getting at.

Comment Re:Google Fiber (Score 5, Insightful) 229

I don't know about your specific state or municipality, but with so many of them cutting exclusivity deals with the local cable company I don't think there are many that could be trusted. As soon as Comcast promises to give a couple new computers to some local school you can be sure they will find some reason why the municipal fiber will have to be shut down. You might be able to install muni fiber by ballot but you can't run it that way.

Comment Re:Future proofing (Score 4, Interesting) 557

All piping / conduits will not only be visible, but shown off as part of the style

This is genius (assuming people get to like the style). It is such a pain to try to work on anything around the house when you have to guess where the conduits go, or fiddle with a plumbing trap through a one foot opening that can't even fit a slip wrench. Walls covered with pulverized rocks made a lot of sense when they were just there for privacy but now that the lifeblood of a house is running through them architects should figure out how to make the whole system more accessible.

So to OP, even if you don't go this far, make sure that things can be worked on! Pipes leak and room configurations change and if you designed the house without flexibility for infrastructure then one day when you (or a professional) have to deal with an issue it will suck.

As a side note, IANAL but whenever you sell you may need to disclose the fact that you are storing evil spirits in the floorboards.

Comment Re:Great marketing (Score 1) 392

The pedestrian detection feature has nothing to do with the self parking feature. It is just another feature that you can buy, on a car that happens to have a self-parking feature. And the car in the video isn't in the process of self-parking, it is under the control of a human driving forward.

Car analogy: Back in the old days, you could get anti-lock brakes as an option, and/or airbags as an option. They are both safety features, but don't have anything to do with one another. This video is analogous to if somebody got the airbag option, but not the anti-lock brakes, then lost control in a skid and crashed. The headline would read "Car with airbags loses control because owner didn't pay extra for anti-lock braking system," to make us all afraid of air bags, and would be just as stupid.

Comment Re:Article is stupid (Score 2) 236

This. You can't simply run these sorts of numbers on an ELE because the risk isn't the risk that *I* might die, but rather, that my entire species might die. It's a totally different thing that asteroid hunters are worried about. And the chances of all of humanity being wiped out in one is actually much higher than the probability that all of humanity gets wiped out in a giant plane crash, or series of plane crashes.

It's like complaining that people who are worried about getting hit by a truck shouldn't be concerned because there are a lot of other things that might make them late for dinner (and are a lot more likely to happen). But being late for dinner isn't why one should be concerned about getting hit by a truck.

Comment Re:Compelling? (Score 1) 244

And the vertical integration that worked so well for the ipod of selling the songs and the hardware that goes with it doesn't seem to be the model that television is going. Almost no one is advocating for a television model where every episode of every show is purchased, like itunes did for songs on an album. People seem to want a bundle of shows, certainly all of the episodes of one show, and frequently many of the shows on a particular channel that they like (or small group of channels that they like). Whether cable tv, netflix, or amazon prime, people like to rent their television content by the month, and that isn't really Apple's thing.

Comment Re:And OP is retarded. (Score 1) 335

By "world ends" I mean the one of the many standard post apocalyptic scenarios of a natural or man made cataclysmic disaster where it doesn't make sense to put resources into keeping high technology printing presses working at the expense of other important infrastructure such as power plants and factories. And since dollar bills rot, the carrying costs are high (they would need to be stored carefully to avoid flooding, etc), and when handled regularly they have an average lifespan of only about 18 months. In a low technology world, precious metals are a pretty good technology for facilitating trade.

Comment Re:And OP is retarded. (Score 1) 335

You don't need an upper class to have need for a currency. Humans have been trading for thousands of years and even in a post apocalyptic scenario that will probably continue. A technology for currency is useful even at low levels of civilization, and gold and silver have proven to be pretty good technologies for that.

For example, let's say the "world ends" but you and your (extended) family have established a nice little homestead with a farm and plenty of ammo. You have two neighbors within a few miles who have done the same. But while you know how to cultivate wheat, one neighbor knows how to raise draft animals and your other neighbor is a doctor. While it's possible for you to barter with your neighbors to get what you want, your neighbors will find it hard to barter directly with each other. So maybe they use your wheat for a currency of sorts to facilitate trade; when the rancher's kid gets sick, he pays the doctor with extra wheat that he gets from trading a horse to you.

But this is a problem because the wheat will rot, and attract mice, and therefore has storage costs. And the doctor isn't going to sell his services on credit, so he wants something today. That something should be relatively rare, easily verified, have low carrying costs (i.e. doesn't rust or rot), and be somewhat portable. Gold and silver fit the bill, and those characteristics as a vehicle for trade are just as important as the edibility of wheat or the strength of a horse or ox.

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