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Comment Re:doesn't matter which way court case goes (Score 1) 126

The airlines will simply insert a clause in the purchase agreement that says they can dock you the difference if you don't show up on the second leg.

That is very unlikely to survive a legal challenge, because although statistically people doing what you are doing may be costing them money, (difficult to prove, but plausible) they would have a very hard time proving that not providing YOU the service caused them additional expenses that requires recovery.

Just because it's included in the contract doesn't guarantee it's enforceable.

Comment Re:Duh? (Score 1) 73

On the other side, it seems like this should fund more research into methods to deflect the path of gamma radiation or transform its state. We know the Earth's atmosphere can do it, so why not develop our own deflection field? After all, we know where most of the gamma rays are coming from, and the rest of them would be just as random as they are here on earth. No need to "block" gamma radiation with something earth-sized; just deflect it enough that it is much less likely to hit a human, and provide a mechanism that will also render some of it non-ionizing by adjusting its moment or frequency. We know that energy can phase shift into matter and back, so why not use this knowledge to our advantage? Shift, bend, and let it shift back, pointing in a safer direction.

Comment Re:Getting lost in the shuffle. (Score 1) 301

I think you misunderstood "acceptance" -- the GP was talking about accepting it for publishing; even if the methodology was not at the appropriate level to publish it. So now the only choice is to publish it, at which point the researchers will be judged based on work that likely needed refinement and so isn't up to the level of other published work, and the publishers will be judged on releasing a lower quality of research.

But it's possible that the research can stand on its own, and that a new reviewer is all it needs to get tweaked and ready for publication -- in which case, science will roll on as usual.

Comment Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome (Score 0, Troll) 301

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

misandry exists and is real

but it is tiny compared to the systemic misogyny in the power structures and social norms in jobs and schools, especially STEM jobs and schools

so to ask for the false balance with the esoteric minor misandry, when examining the very strong and very real misogyny, is yet another example of someone, in this case you, just not fucking getting it, and being out of touch with the reality of pervasive misogyny

you are out of touch with reality

Comment Re:Real problem, bad solution (Score 2) 301

That's a good link -- and to me it highlights something different: selection bias. Not of the people in the experiment, but of the people designing the experiment.

Instead of looking at it as "this person's a feminist, they're going to be biased to feminist results," look at it as "people who think to ask questions in this way tend to get this set of results, repeatedly. This will likely lead to them accepting the associated ideology." So instead of the studies proving the pre-conceived notions of the experimenters, what we could be seeing is the experiments selecting the appropriate experimenters. Since someone is unlikely to widely vary their methodology from one study to the next, they are likely to replicate the same "bias" purely because they are the same person going about things the same way.

To really break this cycle, you need to add some randomness from some outside force, such that a single person or group of people does not control the entire methodology of the study. Even if they are using methods to avoid bias, they are likely to always use the same methods, and so always get "affirming" results. In this, the single reviewer was correct, even though his assumptions of WHY he was correct are likely way off.

And yes, this line of thought completely affirms your comment about male vs female being incredibly stupid. If there's selection bias based on methodology, you're going to find men and women coming down on both sides -- there might be some clustering based on social norms of men vs. women, but that's a really fuzzy boundary at the best of times.

Comment Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome (Score 0, Troll) 301

no, wrong

women suffer from sexism far more than men in general society, and especially in STEM careers/ academia

this is actual reality

it's like says racism against whites by blacks balances racism against blacks by whites. completely ignoring history and reality of who actually suffers far, far worse effects

and of course there is misandry in this world, that's real, that exists

but it's the misogyny that is far, far more worse and embedded in social norms and power structures in jobs and schools, especially in STEM jobs and scholarly pursuits

that's reality. if you don't agree with that or understand that, you don't understand reality

Comment Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome (Score 1, Insightful) 301

the point is the bias is real and serious. if ridiculous drama like that reaction to the guy's t shirt exists, this is minor sideshow crap compared to the very real, very serious, very unfunny sexism

but in certain minds, the blowback over a t shirt is the "real" issue, and the actual sexism is unnoticed and invisible, or a reason to make jokes, on a topic which is not funny

revealing the bias and prejudice to be very real

Comment Re:acceptance is the only fair outcome (Score 0, Troll) 301

you are modded funny, and make a joke, when men ARE privileged

as proven by the story you are commenting other

yet everyone is laughing

so the problem is real, because everyone thinks the subject is a joke

it's like a story showing racism's bad effects, and people make racist jokes underneath

unexamined prejudice is alive and well in the slashdot comments

Comment I think they just included this for his name.... (Score 1) 2

“This is an important aspect of [silver] that I’ve not seen anyone talk about before,” says molecular microbiologist Simon Silver of University of Illinois at Chicago, who was not involved in the research. "This paper is a new spin on it, to me, and I think rather a good one."

So they got Dr. Silver to comment on novel discoveries of how silver affects bacteria. Cute.

Comment Re:K Bye. (Score 1) 226

The *industry* doesn't care, since a lack of streaming just means they can go back to making sales on CDs.

that will never happen again. customers will share files online

but in your sentence is exactly the stupidity that shows why the music industry is dying. for not embracing the technology where their customers are

Comment "Most cheating on consoles has been eradicated?" (Score 2) 65

Has most console cheating actually been eradicaated, or is it just that people aren't being caught anymore?

Also, consoles are closed systems, whereas a desktop computer is an open system. I see eSports going the way of car racing: different events test different skills. We all know that cars can go faster than human reflexes can manage. Enter Formula racing, which is kind of analogous to console racing: everyone gets the same basic hardware, and can only tweak within those constraints. By comparison, PC eSports are more like a cannonball run, where everything goes as long as you can afford it and don't get caught.

I can actually see mobile gaming becoming more of a sport, as the hardware is both more limited and more standardized. Then, of course, you'll get people running Android under emulation under some supercomputer with a bunch of system-level tweaks. But stuff like this can be investigated for winners (just like sports drug testing). And if they're not winning, why is it a problem?

Comment Re:That escalated quickly (Score 1) 105

...and then the country with less population, land mass, and wealth that's going to be completely flooded by what everyone else wants to do decides to stop the plans -- because they've got nuclear arms.

See, the thing is, they have nothing to lose, and no reason to play the voting game, which they know they will always lose. Sure, the entire country could move somewhere else -- but people tend to be resistant to that sort of idea unless it's backed with force.

This is why you see major dams flooding areas of countries that don't hold the power to topple the government. But the world is big enough that you're going to find people with the capabilities to destroy large parts of it pretty much everywhere.

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