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Comment Re:"Very Long Time?" (Score 4, Insightful) 79

Unless you're a creationist. In which case the number is more like 6,000 years, which is still a pretty long time in my book.

Even most creationists think the earth being 6k years old is nuts. Most think science is right for the most part and it just explains "how god did it" Keep in mind, the age of the earth is no-where in the bible. The 6k figure came from some idiots counting up begots and such... most of the christians I've talked to about the subject simply don't care and if God wanted them to make a big deal about the age of the earth they're pretty sure he'd have put a line there "and the Lord sayeth the world is 6000 years old and woe unto he who talkith about giant lizards"

Comment Re:Life on Mars? (Score 1) 265

No one will EVER live in a permanent space colony. Sorry.

This fantasy was promoted in an age where achieving terrestrial dominance through orbital trajectory of warheads was under intense and competitive development. It did its job.

Rockwell rode on the tail-end of this era, for the final boondoggle of the US Shuttle Program, in the 1970's. You won't see anything like that again.

Ever is a long time bub. If shit goes as pear shaped as scientists are predicting here... Rich people will be glamoring to get out. They've already bought up most of the islands, when those run out the new rich people will need somewhere to go to get away from the rest of us.

Comment Re:Overreaction (Score 1) 265

When I was in Africa, the 2 malls I visited had 2 guards at every entrance with AK47's that did exactly that. We walked through as At one entrance a guard was a 60yr (I'm guessing) old african with grey/white hair, a velvet purple suit that looked like it was as old as he was, it had faded white fuzz in certain areas, he wore silver aviator sun glasses and his AK47 had an aged, glossy nickel silver finish. He stood motionless as we walked past. It was one of the most surreal sights I've ever laid eyes on. Sometimes I wonder what that guys story was... I bet it was amazing, good or bad.

Anyways, so yea, I wouldn't be surprised if they did check you for some sort of ID that guaranteed you could afford to be there.

Comment Re:Nuclear can be OK if... (Score 1) 389

Modern fission reactors are totally safe. The problem is we don't build modern reactors. The majority of the reactors we have are 40yrs old, and poorly designed. There are modern reactor designs that CANNOT melt down. Yet we don't build them. There are modern meathods for using and/or transporting waste, but people protest any plans to do something about it and force the waste to be stored in the most dangerous way possible.

I agree that we should invest more in Fission, but peoples irrational fears about Fusion reactors are no different that the climate change deniers irrational rejection of climate science.

BOTH the lefts fear of the word "Nuclear" and the rights out right rejection of science with regard to CO2 combined are going to be our downfall. If either side gave, we could solve this problem. Everyone likes to save money... have the feds build the plants, make the power cheaper than coal through subsidies, and viola, republicans will talk smack about CO2 all they want but when it comes to their electric bill they'll write that check all the same. Just like the democrats are currently writing checks for coal.

Comment Re:I live in Montana. I'm looking forward to it. (Score 1) 389

I live in Montana and I'm rather looking forward to global warming. This place is gonna be even more amazing when it gets warmer. I might even have to buy a summer home in the Yukon.

On a slightly more serious note, as Winston Churchill once said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

You do realize that it's not going to get warmer everywhere right? Many places it'll actually get colder. That's why they changed it from "Global Warming" to "Climate change" it was confusing people.

Comment A republican political candidate! (Score 1) 223

Hot Damn! A republican political candidate! This could not be better. I don't like either party, but the democrats will never address the NSA. It's just not part of their psyche to get up in arms about the government getting into their business.

The republicans however? Their paranoid reactionary, "Government is bad" attitude could very well serve to light this fuse. This is probably the most helpful thing to come out of that archive. Everyone, get out there and start telling all your conservative friends how the NSA targeted republicans and suggest Obama was behind it. We need them as paranoid as possible, this IS the moment we've been waiting for.

Comment um (Score 2, Insightful) 608

Hate to break it to you but the Autistic ARE normal humans. It's just another way of thinking that's slightly different that what a lot of people are used to.

Also, where the hell are you working? I know plenty of programmers that are just as stupid as everyone else. Vast reams of arcane knowledge? Are you using the Forgotten realms addition of C#?

Comment Re:Modern Day Anti-Evolutionists (Score 2) 497

I'm sorry, but your assessment of their position is wrong.
They hate liberals, and feel that liberals lie to them. So they are assuming they are lieing in regards to climate change.
Unfortunately They're right, the left is so wound up about the topic they are spewing lies and misinformation regularly.
Al Gore made that awful movie. It was probably the single biggest determent to the issue of climate change that's ever happened. It hyper polarized the issue, put the biggest leftest in the country at the head of it almost immediately and pretty much guaranteed that nothing would be done for well over a decade.

All of this makes it very easy for conservatives to lie to them as well. Oh look, Al Gore lied about X... The entire climate change thing is therefor a lie. It's a logical fallacy but it makes intuitive sense. We need to figure out a way to turn this on its head and turn it into something conservatives can get behind as some sort of anti-liberal thing. I'm not sure how to do that yet but I think hard about it every day.

Comment Re:That is not how conspiracy theories work. (Score 1) 497

This is not a conspiracy theory group ... this is a corporate funded anti-issue group so yes this should work against them.

Their funding is irrelevant. People will believe it anyway. Look at how slashdot reacts to any story with the word "Nuclear" in it... it's irrelevant it the entire story is an alarmist ad/click trap, people want to believe it so bad they throw common sense out the window.
The guy should have just opened up his email voluntarily. He could then remove anything personal, which I'm guessing is his primary concern.

Comment Don't like him (Score 2, Insightful) 96

He worked for the NSA...
He made his money through High Frequency trading... which is nothing more than steeling...

I guess he worked for the NSA prior to them going Full Tilt Gestapo on us... but the HF Trading thing I can't let go of. That's basically stealing from the peoples retirement and is flat out evil. Being a "math genius" he would have know what he was doing.

Comment Re:$300 for a GPU (Score 3, Insightful) 210

Meanhile, the end result doesn't look THAT much better than the PS3, with its measly GeForce 7900 series.

This is typical. I don't even understand what this story is about. Yes, you need a $300 GPU in your PC to play a brand new AAA title for a brand new console generation. This happens every generation and for about a year the console people will be shouting "Nanner nanner bo bo" at us... But next year we'll only need a $150 card, and the year after that a $75 card. They'll still need their console and its price wont get cut in half every year.

How do PC gamers address this problem? We don't play AAA titles designed for a console the same year that console was released. They suck for PC anyway.

Comment Perspective (Score 2) 138

I played this game for years. For those of you that haven't I thought I'd provide some perspective...

The game is so difficult, that even using the DFHACK utility to completely cheat and make my dwarves invincible, I still died every time. It's likely the most complex game ever created by a long shot.

Comment Re:yes but (Score 1) 302

So they want the advantages of being a corporate entity without the limitations? That's reprehensible and indefensible.

advantages? It's required. They'd go bankrupt without it and you know it.

The closest comparison would be the souths Jim Crowe laws from back in the day.

Sure you can vote, you just have to recite the constitution from memory!
Sure you can have religious freedom! You just can't stay in business if you do!

Comment Re:yes but (Score 1) 302

Corporation - a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law.

i.e. It's a way for more than one person to own a business.

I'm often surprised at the number of people that will spout off about topics when the don't even know the definitions of the words they're using. If you own a family business and want to share ownership, it has to be a corporation. If it isn't, it will be under the ownership of one family member and there will be a legal and tax nightmare when that person dies.

They did not ask to be put into the situation where they control the womans healthcare. The government forced them, by law, to provide health care. Then the government forced them, by law, to include contraceptive devices that abort a fertilized fetus. (many of the contraceptive devices covered kill the post-fertilized egg) Their only option out was to pay a fine that would go directly to paying for the very same services they oppose.

From their point of view the government just required them to pay for their employees to have the ability to murder babies. Now, you can disagree with that point of view, I know I do. But it really is their point of view. They really do view it has killing babies. That's a violation of their ability to freely express their religion. The government could have addressed this a dozen different ways. Exempting them from the penalties if they didn't provide the care would have been the simplest. But they didn't. The whitehouse should have seen this coming, they should have provided a religious exemption, but they didn't.

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