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Comment Re:A great way to transport it... (Score 1) 678

They had to give him the information on the transparent aluminum to make the piece they needed. That being said, it's highly unlikely they would have been able to produce it immediately with their existing fabrication equipment. But regardless, I agree. The only reason for it to be transparent was because it was in a movie...

Comment A great way to transport it... (Score 4, Funny) 678

Seattle's water is all going into the ocean. How about using the ocean to transport all that water to southern California instead of building a pipeline? All you have to do is remove a little bit of salt it picked up along the way! I'm guessing 30B bucks would build quite a few desalination plants.

Comment Re:Precalculated (Score 4, Insightful) 109

I swear this is the reason the tax code is so damn complex. I'm sure tax lawyers around the US lobby for more ridiculous credits, exemption, forms, and deductions. I don't know how much of the US economy is tax services, but it's way too much and unfortunately makes it that much harder to simply taxes.

Comment Re:We have already figured most of this out. (Score 0) 365

Yes, but most of that steam was generated by coal. No coal and no oil would drastically reduce transportable energy which is what you need on a construction site. Development would still happen, but at a much slower pace.

Of course considering fossil fuels ARE a renewable resource on a geologic scale, it would be entirely possible for another civilization to take advantage of it a few hundred million years from now.

Comment Re:Reason: for corporations, by corporations (Score 1) 489

Incorrect in most jurisdictions:
https://www.google.com/webhp?s...

Some lawyers thrive on the fact that cracks in sidewalks can be excuses to sue landowners. Most sidewalk maintenance is the responsibility of the adjacent property owner, especially in residential areas. In most locations the city can come out and repair sidewalks, but only after repeated repair notices and it will generally be billed back to the property owners.

Comment Re:Reason: for corporations, by corporations (Score 1) 489

The problem is that there is a monopoly. These communications companies can control your access to the rest of the modern world and there isn't anything you can do about it. Unless there is competition, Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Verizon, and others can effectively control who you associate with and how. Comcast currently offers me shit for service and effectively forces me to bundle television service because it's cheaper to get the internet with than without. They also charge a ridiculous "connection fee" for some guy to hook up my modem and router for me and make a phone call to turn the service on.

But what choice do I have? AT&T is coming to the area soon and will probably offer awesome deals to switch, which will all disappear after a year where they will adopt the same shitty policies as Comcast.

The internet is the same as the phone lines. It's a link between you and another party. The provider should not be able to control or degrade the link between two parties and the government has to set this as the requirement. If they need to change their "unlimited" (limited to 200GB/mo) "high speed" (when there is no traffic) plans to a usage based system, so be it. You should pay for what you use, but not who you get it from.

Comment Re:Reason: for corporations, by corporations (Score 1) 489

Americans might be willing to do those jobs, but we'll never know. The "social safety net" prevents them from even considering taking a crappy job. They won't starve or live on the street if they don't work, so why would they take a crappy job? People jumping across the border from Mexico WILL starve or live on the street if they don't work crappy jobs, so they do.

Comment Re:Reason: for corporations, by corporations (Score 1) 489

There needs to be an equivalent "Godwin's Law" for injecting Somalia into an argument against libertarianism... Also libertarians don't believe in NO regulations, they believe in a minimum level of regulations.

That being said, I completely disagree with many people who say they are libertarians and don't support net neutrality. I disagree with this article, and I disagree with many of the libertarian arguments. At the end of the day, the government does and SHOULD have the ability to regulate means of communication to ensure that people's private dealings between two parties are not controlled by a 3rd party. You could claim as these libertarians do that a private company can do whatever it pleases, but as has been stated before, there is no competition. You don't like Comcast's terms and services? Well you might as well live in a cave then because you cannot operate as a member of modern society without internet access.

The reality is that we live in an interconnected world. The government has a role to ensure that the interconnections are free and open so that a company can't control how and with whom you associate.

Comment Biggest Extinction Events in Planetary History (Score 2) 417

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

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event

As originally proposed by a team of scientists led by Luis Alvarez, it is now generally believed that the K–Pg extinction was triggered by a massive comet/asteroid impact and its catastrophic effects on the global environment, including a lingering impact winter that made it impossible for plants and plankton to carry out photosynthesis.

Triassic–Jurassic extinction event

Gradual climate change, sea-level fluctuations or a pulse of oceanic acidification[6] during the late Triassic reached a tipping point. However, this does not explain the suddenness of the extinctions in the marine realm.
Asteroid impact, but so far no impact crater of sufficient size has been dated to coincide with the Triassic–Jurassic boundary.

Permian–Triassic extinction event (the one claimed here)

There are several proposed mechanisms for the extinctions; the earlier phase was probably due to gradual environmental change, while the latter phase has been argued to be due to a catastrophic event.

Late Devonian extinction

The causes of these extinctions are unclear. Leading theories include changes in sea level and ocean anoxia, possibly triggered by global cooling or oceanic volcanism. The impact of a comet or another extraterrestrial body has also been suggested.

Ordovician–Silurian extinction events

The immediate cause of extinction[which?] appears to have been the movement of Gondwana into the south polar region. This led to global cooling, glaciation and consequent sea level fall. The falling sea level disrupted or eliminated habitats along the continental shelves.

TL:DR -> Maybe some major extinction events were caused by climate shifts, but all were theorized to be gradual shifts, not sudden. The sudden extinction events are generally due to volcanic or impact events.

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