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Comment Wrong thinking (Score 1) 499

"Colleagues who decry Barr's fate worry that the incident could make other scientists think twice about coming to work for NSF"

No, her fate will make other scientists think twice about getting involved with terrorist organizations and then lying about it on their background check applications.

United States

Cuba Calculates Cost of 54yr US Embargo At $1.1 Trillion 540

First time accepted submitter ltorvalds11 writes Cuba says its economy is suffering a "systematic worsening" due to a US embargo, the consequences of which Havana places at $1.1 trillion since Washington imposed the sanctions in 1960, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against gold. "There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years," Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno told reporters. He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing internet on the island, saying that the United States creates an obstacle for companies providing broadband services in Cuba. Additionally, he said that the area is one of the "most sensitive" to the embargo, with economic losses estimated at $34.2 million. It is also the sector that has fallen "victim of all kinds of attacks" by the US, as violations of the Cuban radio or electronic space "promote destabilization" of Cuban society, the report notes. The damage to Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said. Without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to US consumers. Barack Obama last week signed the one-year extension of the embargo on Cuba, based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, created to restrict trade with countries hostile to the U.S..

Comment Upstate South Carolina and the CATBUS (Score 1) 491

Our area just picked up a few Proterra electric buses for use in the Catbus system, which serves Clemson University and the surrounding areas. There were some huge federal grants involved, and they have been riddled with problems, but have finally started running and carrying passengers. We're mostly a rural area and the bus system is free for all to use - paid for by Clemson University student fees and some taxpayer money from surrounding municipalities (Cities of Clemson, Seneca, Pendleton, and Central, afaik).

The buses are neat. They use overhead inductive chargers that are located at various places around town. I haven't ridden one yet (I prefer to get around by bicycle), but I hear they're pretty nice.

I am sure the impact on air quality is almost unmeasurable in our vast expanse of rural countryside, but in cities the impact could be huge.

Earth

UN Study Shows Record-High Increases For Atmospheric CO2 In 2013 427

Figures released Tuesday by a United Nations advisory body reveal that 2013 saw new recorded highs for both carbon dioxide and methane, as well as the largest year-over-year rise in carbon dioxide since 1984, reflecting continuing worldwide emissions from human sources but also the possibility that natural sinks (oceans and vegetation) are near their capacity for absorbing the excess. From the Washington Post's account: The latest figures from the World Meteorological Organization’s monitoring network are considered particularly significant because they reflect not only the amount of carbon pumped into the air by humans, but also the complex interaction between man-made gases and the natural world. Historically, about half of the pollution from human sources has been absorbed by the oceans and by terrestrial plants, preventing temperatures from rising as quickly as they otherwise would, scientists say. “If the oceans and the biosphere cannot absorb as much carbon, the effect on the atmosphere could be much worse,” said Oksana Tarasova, a scientist and chief of the WMO’s Global Atmospheric Watch program, which collects data from 125 monitoring stations worldwide. The monitoring network is regarded as the most reliable window on the health of Earth’s atmosphere, drawing on air samples collected near the poles, over the oceans, and in other locations far from cities and other major sources of pollution. The new figures for carbon dioxide were particularly surprising, showing the biggest year-over-year increase since detailed records were first compiled in the 1980s, Tarasova said in an interview. The jump of nearly three parts per million over 2012 levels was twice as large as the average increase in carbon levels in recent decades, she said.

Comment Consensus does not have a bad reputation (Score 1) 770

In fact, consensus is a very valuable part of the cooperative scientific process.

The bad reputation belongs to those who attempt to use consensus as a substitute for proof. People like the IPCC, EPA, NOAA, NASA, and governments all over the world who are trying to use this climate change bogeyman as an excuse to foist oppressive political and economic regimes on free (and not free) people.

Comment Re:This is BAD. Very very BAD. (Score 1) 254

Not just content control, but complete and total usage control. Using this technology, ISPs could prevent you opening a connection to anyone they didn't want you to connect to, because all of your outgoing connections would have to be "approved" by their router.

This is all about ending the free and open Internet as we know it today and completely privatizing control over it.

Cellphones

NVIDIA Sues Qualcomm and Samsung Seeking To Ban Import of Samsung Phones 110

Calibax writes NVIDIA has filed complaints against Samsung and Qualcomm at the ITC and in the U.S. District court in Delaware. The suit alleges that the companies are both infringing NVIDIA GPU patents covering technology including programmable shading, unified shaders and multithreaded parallel processing. NVIDIA is seeking damages and a ban on U.S. import of a number of devices with Snapdragon and Exynos processors until there is an agreement on licensing.

Comment Yes, absolutely, and we already have the tech (Score 1) 448

It's called a GBU-24 with an MK-84 payload. We had every capability of destroying the equipment, and come to think of it we could destroy it any time we wanted to provided we can find it.

Our problem is not the lack of technology. The problem is the lack of a CiC with a set of testicles.

Comment Ugh, not this show again (Score 0) 226

Okay, let's set aside for just one brief moment that a goodly part of the science portrayed on the show is just plain wrong, and discuss instead what I think is a much more interesting topic: Trying to take a show that is centered around brilliant people and making it not only acceptable, but very funny to stupid people.

Don't you agree that it is an exercise in futility to make an attempt at incorporating low-brow, "everyman" humor into this show? Let's face it, nobody who is as smart as Sheldon or Leonard are would find any of the humor in the show consistent, let alone funny.

I recall one episode (forgive me for not remembering the title) where Leonard suggests that Sheldon drink plenty of fluids - maybe it was the one when Sheldon got sick right before the trip to Switzerland or something - but in any case his retort was something like "well what else would I drink? Maybe gasses or ionized plasma?"

Someone as smart as Sheldon, especially a theoretical physicist, knows that gasses and ionized plasmas ARE fluids - the obvious mistake here being to imply that the term "fluid" is interchangeable with the term "liquid," when it is not.

I've found the show to be chock full of these kinds of glaring inconsistencies and falsehoods. It leads me to believe that the show's writers either don't really listen to you, or go over the material and change it after you've edited it, or something else. Can you enlighten us?

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