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Comment Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score 1) 304

by Arker (#46756843) Attached to: Is Crimea In Russia? Internet Companies Have Different Answers
"Any and all counter-arguments like "but they voted" are meaningless: first, the voting took place under the "gentle" guidance of Russian military"

By that logic the vote for statehood in Alaska was meaningless as well - in fact it's even worse, because the US troops voted!

If you are just making an abstract point, fine, conceded. If you are implying that there is any legitimate US interest to be pursued through pressing that point and pursuing confrontation with Russia? I do not see one.

Comment Re:Gatling guns? (Score 0) 157

by Arker (#46753043) Attached to: Will This Flying Car Get Crowdfunded?
"A failing road car stops on the road. Not always ideal, but generally a controllable event"

Far from ideal, quite often fatal. A failing car on a crowded interstate can result in an accident involving many vehicles with lots of casualties, and this happens shockingly often.

"A failing flying car drops out of the sky."

Unlikely. You have redundant systems,  if your main control system fails the backup kicks in, you have 8 engines and still have limited flight abilities even if over half of them fail simultaneously, and even if absolutely everything else fails there is a parachute big enough to bring the entire car down relatively gently.

"Therefore it has to be orders of magnitude more reliable than your typical car."

Yes, that part is correct.

Comment Re:Gatling guns? (Score 0) 157

by Arker (#46752983) Attached to: Will This Flying Car Get Crowdfunded?
Yeah, because Sealand is such a huge market.

Things like light-sport and ultralight aviation met a lot of resistance and took years to be accepted, but they work just fine. Yes, they are dangerous but lots of things are dangerous and we cope nonetheless. Driving a car is incredibly dangerous, the roads are overcrowded, and people are dying every day from that already.

But it's a politically safe choice to do nothing about it, because people are used to it. Whereas it's politically risky to allow people to choose another route, even if it's clearly safer, because undoubtedly there will be some accidents either way, and if you made a change that allowed a new type of accident you would be in the news and people would blame you, while you are unlikely to be blamed for all the accidents you could have prevented but did not if you simply preserve the status quo.

Comment Re:Gatling guns? (Score 0) 157

by Arker (#46751297) Attached to: Will This Flying Car Get Crowdfunded?
1. Flying cars exist, and have for decades. Look up Moller. They have a really good product already engineered, they just need to pay off the FAA before they can start selling. So I would back their project rather than this one.

2. Adding a third dimension actually expands the driving space dramatically, alleviating congestion and making collisions less likely since there is so much more space to use. Certainly there would be safety issues but there is no reason to think they would be more severe than the issues with groundbound automobiles. Are you in favor of banning them too?

Comment Re:Stop calling it 'blood moon'! (Score 1) 146

by Arker (#46749261) Attached to: The Best Way To Watch the "Blood Moon" Tonight
I agree, it's a lunar eclipse, why cant they just call it what it is?

And it's not like they just made up a cutesy name that wasnt in use - a blood moon is an actual thing, but it's still many months in the future.

Marketing and advertising will never be satisfied until they destroy the language so completely that it can no longer be used to communicate at all.

Comment Re:Useless (Score 1) 187

by Arker (#46746601) Attached to: First Glow-In-the-Dark Road Debuts In Netherlands
"Road side illumination should be generally restricted to built up areas"

Very true.

But the article is set in Holland. There is absolutely nowhere in Holland that is not a built up area, and it's been that way for centuries, possibly millenia. So it makes sense they have a lot of street lights. They have relatively little crime and if glowing markings on the road can be made to work reliably in that climate (which I suspect may take some time) it might actually make things safer. Street lights can blind but a soft red glow off the road would not.

Comment Re:Propaganda much? (Score 1) 313

by Arker (#46746375) Attached to: Russia Wants To Establish a Permanent Moon Base
I wasnt there and and I dont believe you were either. Standard sources seem to disagree with you a bit. The Tatars were more widespread before the Communist terror, but Crimea was still significantly ethnically Russian long before that.

And I have no need to apologize for Putin. He's a brutal criminal. But he's a brutal criminal that at least seems to have a good idea of his own nations interests and pursues that and for the most part avoids working directly counter to it. It would be nice if our own 'leaders' could do that as well.

Comment Interesting (Score 0) 83

by Arker (#46744087) Attached to: Seattle Bookstores Embrace Amazon.com
I far prefer an online shop. The difference between 'it's on the shelf there' and 'we can order it quickly enough to deliver it to you on time' is not something I care about. Wide selection is. Supposedly I am their target demographic.

Unfortunately Amazon as a company is pure evil, and every penny given to them is potentially a penny in the fund for lawyers to subvert our system. I never gave them a penny and, barring rather unlikely and shocking events, I never will be.

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