Comment Velicovsky (Score 1) 69
OK, this isn't the Velicovsky thesis, but it's reminiscent of it.
Comment Re:Hyped marketing (Score 1) 126
Rickrolling? You seem to be confusing "geeks" for "/b/tards"...
Comment The Lone Gunmen (Score 1) 166
I'd love to see X-Files again, but I really with The Lone Gunmen had never been canceled. That spinoff was the highlight of my week for a brief while.
Comment Re:Not a diet, but a lifestyle change (Score 1) 496
Don't go on a diet (Hacker's Diet or otherwise), but do make a permanent change to your lifestyle.
The Hacker's Diet is a permanent change in lifestyle. People don't always use the word "diet" to mean a temporary change. There are many diets that are permanent changes in lifestyle, and the word "diet" also has a technical definition in which it means what an organism eats - in that sense, everyone has a diet.
For those of us who do not always use the word "diet" to mean a temporary change, it is annoying to try to talk about a permanent change in diet and be corrected and contradicted by those who use the word diet to mean only a temporary change.
Submission + - Jupiter destroyed 'super-Earths' in our early solar system (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: If Jupiter and Saturn hadn’t formed where they did—and at the sizes they did—as the disk of dust and gas around our sun coalesced, then our solar system would be a very different and possibly more hostile place, new research suggests. Computer models reveal that in the solar system’s first 3 million years or so, gravitational interactions with Jupiter, Saturn, and the gas in the protoplanetary disk would have driven super-Earth–sized planets closer to the sun and into increasingly elliptical orbits. In such paths, a cascade of collisions would have blasted any orbs present there into ever smaller bits, which in turn would have been slowed by the interplanetary equivalent of atmospheric drag and eventually plunged into the sun. As Jupiter retreated from its closest approach to the sun, it left behind the mostly rocky remnants that later coalesced into our solar system’s inner planets, including Earth.
Comment Re:eliminate extra sugar (Score 3, Interesting) 496
Eating concentrated calories that do not fill you up is the problem. All simple carbohydrates, chips, white bread, wheat tortillas, fried potatoes are an issue. An 8 oz steak is 25% of the calories most us need for a day. A Chippendale carnitas burrito is half.
So there is also an issue of food availability. When I was young I split all entrees at restaurants with the person I was with. I don't do that anymore and it has become an increasing issue. Also, one does not burn off calories and fat as easily when one gets older
Comment Honestly (Score 4, Interesting) 569
I don't know what drinking, smoking, or having tattoos has to do with anything. Does he have a computer? Does he use it for mischief.
A couple cases of kids going to jail will limit the problem. Teenagers are always going to test limits, and some do so to the extent that the adult legal system is required to help motivate them not to cause problems for other people.
It was not so long ago that the telephone was a new thing, many parents were not raised with it, and did not really know how to manage it with the kids. Kids got into trouble, and laws were passed to help define what was good and bad behavior.
I know that adults say this all the time, but if we do not figure out how to play with our toys nicely, we are going to lose the privileged of unencumbered play.
From a personal point of view, from personal experience, in my opinion there is no punishment too great for someone who files false police reports, and that goes doubly so for those cowards who hide behind computers.
How 'Virtual Water' Can Help Ease California's Drought 417
HughPickens.com writes Bill Davidow And Michael S. Malone write in the WSJ that recent rains have barely made a dent in California's enduring drought, now in its fourth year. Thus, it's time to solve the state's water problem with radical solutions, and they can begin with "virtual water." This concept describes water that is used to produce food or other commodities, such as cotton. According to Davidow and Malone, when those commodities are shipped out of state, virtual water is exported. Today California exports about six trillion gallons of virtual water, or about 500 gallons per resident a day. How can this happen amid drought? The problem is mispricing. If water were priced properly, it is a safe bet that farmers would waste far less of it, and the effects of California's drought—its worst in recorded history—would not be so severe. "A free market would raise the price of water, reflecting its scarcity, and lead to a reduction in the export of virtual water," say Davidow and Malone. "A long history of local politics, complicated regulation and seemingly arbitrary controls on distribution have led to gross inefficiency."
For example, producing almonds is highly profitable when water is cheap but almond trees are thirsty, and almond production uses about 10% of California's total water supply. The thing is, nuts use a whole lot of water: it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. "Suppose an almond farmer could sell real water to any buyer, regardless of county boundaries, at market prices—many hundreds of dollars per acre-foot—if he agreed to cut his usage in half, say, by drawing only two acre-feet, instead of four, from his wells," say the authors. "He might have to curtail all or part of his almond orchard and grow more water-efficient crops. But he also might make enough money selling his water to make that decision worthwhile." Using a similar strategy across its agricultural industry, California might be able to reverse the economic logic that has driven farmers to plant more water-intensive crops. "This would take creative thinking, something California is known for, and trust in the power of free markets," conclude the authors adding that "almost anything would be better, and fairer, than the current contradictory and self-defeating regulations."
For example, producing almonds is highly profitable when water is cheap but almond trees are thirsty, and almond production uses about 10% of California's total water supply. The thing is, nuts use a whole lot of water: it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. "Suppose an almond farmer could sell real water to any buyer, regardless of county boundaries, at market prices—many hundreds of dollars per acre-foot—if he agreed to cut his usage in half, say, by drawing only two acre-feet, instead of four, from his wells," say the authors. "He might have to curtail all or part of his almond orchard and grow more water-efficient crops. But he also might make enough money selling his water to make that decision worthwhile." Using a similar strategy across its agricultural industry, California might be able to reverse the economic logic that has driven farmers to plant more water-intensive crops. "This would take creative thinking, something California is known for, and trust in the power of free markets," conclude the authors adding that "almost anything would be better, and fairer, than the current contradictory and self-defeating regulations."
Submission + - Chinese Vice Premier Says Rapid Growth Isn't What Economy Needs (bloomberg.com)
jones_supa writes: China doesn't need the rapid economic growth of the past and will instead focus on tasks including returning the blue to Beijing's skies, said Zhang Gaoli, a member of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, the nation’s top decision-making body. "It is both impossible and unnecessary to maintain the very high growth of the past. We've paid the price for that. It's not sustainable." China's growth has cooled as officials rein in local-government debt, crack down on graft and strengthen environmental laws after economic expansion averaged about 10% annually over 30 years. Premier Li Keqiang's targeted gain of about 7% in gross domestic product this year would be the smallest increase since 1990, and the growth rate is bound to slow even further. President Xi Jinping and other leaders describe the slowdown as a new normal and a higher quality of expansion. China's advantages have also weakened because labor costs have increased, Zhang reminded.
Comment Re:Hasn't been involved with Greenpeace since 1985 (Score 5, Informative) 573
Here is what is also true: greenpeace and other "green" organizations have been found to be taking millions of dollars in money from Russian oil interests, through shell corporations
Hey, you left out your link to a reliable source for this claim.
According to the GAO, $106 billion was spent by US government on climate research by 2010.
A total over an unstated number of years is meaningless. According to Forbes -- hardly a lefty source, and this is a denialist article -- the U.S. Government spent $32.5 billion on climate studies over 20 years between 1989 and 2009. That's $1.6 billion a year. About $5 per American per year. Accoridng to the GAO (notice the hyperlink, please starting using them, thanks) federal climate change acivities in 2010 were $8.8 billion, but that includes "technology to reduce emissions, science to better understand climate change, international assistance for developing countries, and wildlife adaptation to respond to actual or expected changes" -- so climate research is only a small part of that. Figure a quarter to a third of it is climate research. So we're looking at something on the order of $2 or $3 billion a year spent by the federal government on climate change research.
For comparison, the Iraq war was is estimated to have cost $1,100 billion in total.
Exxon Mobills's profits -- not revenues, profits -- last year were $32.5 billion. And that's just one company.
The Army's R&D budget -- not the whole military, just the Army -- is around $21 - 32 billion.Climate research funding is chump change. I kind of liked this line of bullshit better when it was "those scientists telling us smoking causes cancer are just riding the research gravy train!" At least it was a fresh and audacious sort of intellectual dishonesty then. Now it's just pathetic.
Comment Re:Hasn't been involved with Greenpeace since 1985 (Score 2) 573
No warming for nearly twenty years.
How do people still believe "no warming" bullshit? There is no pause. Please stop speading misinformation. Thank you.
Comment Re:News for herpetologists (Score 2) 45
Stuff that matters to nobody else.
Oh, I dunno; a number of fiction writers are probably going to use it as a model for some characters, and then having fun pointing out that they're a realistic interpretation of something that has in fact lived on Earth. A conventional alternate-universe plot would put their intelligent descendants in contact with us weird primates, who never developed on their world because their ancestors ate all the primates.
Meet the Carolina Butcher, a 9-Foot Crocodile That Walked On Two Legs 45
HughPickens.com writes Science News reports on the Carolina Butcher, a giant, bipedal reptile that looked a lot like living crocodiles — except it walked on two legs, not four. Carnufex carolinensis is one of the oldest and largest crocodile ancestors identified to date. Its size and stature also suggest that for a time, the Carolina Butcher (named for its menacing features), was one of the top predators in the part of the supercontinent Pangaea that became North America. Past fossil finds show that cousins of ancient crocodiles were vying with the earliest bipedal dinosaurs, called theropods, for the title of top predator in the southern regions of Pangaea but the Carolina Butcher's reign probably ended 201 million years ago when a mass extinction event wiped out most large, land-based predators, clearing the way for dinosaurs to fully dominate during the Jurassic period. Carnufex is one of the most primitive members of the broad category of reptiles called crocodylomorphs, encompassing the various forms of crocs that have appeared on Earth. "As one of the earliest and oldest crocodylomorphs, Carnufex was a far cry from living crocodiles. It was an agile, terrestrial predator that hunted on land," says Lindsay Zanno. "Carnufex predates the group that living crocodiles belong to." Transported back to the Triassic Period, what would a person experience upon encountering this agile, roughly three metre-long, about 1.5 metre-tall beast with a long skull and blade-like teeth? "Abject terror," says Zanno.
Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates 144
Nature reports that an unexpected factor may be behind a growing epidemic of nearsightedness: time spent indoors. From the article: Because the eye grows throughout childhood, myopia generally develops in school-age children and adolescents. About one-fifth of university-aged people in East Asia now have this extreme form of myopia, and half of them are expected to develop irreversible vision loss.
This threat has prompted a rise in research to try to understand the causes of the disorder — and scientists are beginning to find answers. They are challenging old ideas that myopia is the domain of the bookish child and are instead coalescing around a new notion: that spending too long indoors is placing children at risk. “We're really trying to give this message now that children need to spend more time outside,” says Kathryn Rose, head of orthoptics at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Comment Re: fathers (Score 1) 299
Discard the broken embryo? Yes.
