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Comment Lol (Score 3, Insightful) 332

Lol... they're closing the resivour next year anyway:

"Those natural contaminants are a key part of the Environmental Protection Agency's justification for a rule that requires all open-air reservoirs to be covered. Portland is scheduled to disconnect the open-air reservoirs on Mt. Tabor from the drinking water system by the end of 2015.

Shaff said there isn't much the bureau can do about those natural contaminants in the meantime, and that they don't pose a serious health risk."

http://www.oregonlive.com/port...

So this is actually twice as stupid as it sounds.

Comment Re:Uh ... it's still carbon neutral, isn't it? (Score 5, Insightful) 159

It's taking a lot of the carbon from the soil instead of the air... so no. Also, consider all the gasoline used to plant/harvest/transport it. Ethanol is a corn-state boondoggle. It drives up corn prices and brings in massive revenue to the midwest. Ethanol support is critical for any politician that wants to win in states like Iowa. When you hear a 60yr old farmer start talking about "green energy" you know he grows corn.

Comment Re:Its the anti-gun agenda, seriously, read articl (Score 0) 253

No, it's not necessarily an anti-gun agenda... But what's going on is Doctors have come to the conclusion that children are safest if you do not have a gun in the house at all and if the children have no concept of how a gun works, so theoretically the kid will have no idea how to use or fire a real one if the find it and maybe they'd be terrified of it because of its unfamiliarity. Unfortunately, in practice, this idea is flawed. Of course kids know how to shoot a gun. The action is designed to work on instinct so you don't forget how to use the weapon at the critical moment you need it. So if kids do find a gun, of course they can figure it out, and now that they have no firearm safety training... so... Yea, it's a stupid policy created by people that don't own guns. If they simply had the local hunters safety instructor come in and give about 5hrs of instruction per year it would go a lot further.

Comment Personal Experience (Score 1) 390

Well, it's anecdotal, but when I was in college my parents paid for one of those meal cards... so I could go to any of the college dining halls I wanted to and I couldn't blow the money on beer (I definitely would have!) This worked great when I was in the dorms. I was always skinny and actually started to gain some weight. But after I started having to pay the dorm fees, they were REALLY expensive compared to basically anything off campus that was easily quadruple the size of a dorm room. So I moved to an apartment. Now the dining halls were 3 miles away. So I basically always didn't get breakfast, but I'd get lunch... and I'd get dinner maybe, depending on my schedule. During the summer I had no reason to go on campus other than to eat. So I'd hide what I could in my coat and smuggle it out to re-heat later.

I was never going to "starve" as, if I really needed it I'd walk the 3miles, but it was still a major distraction.

Comment Re:I am all for this research (Score 1) 71

However.... what happens when there is an Asteroid that will threaten earth... in between the time the telescope is developed,
but before the asteroid diversion tech is developed?

We already have the tech to deflect an asteroid (depending on its size) Building the device however, wold require a huge investment. I suspect that once we detected an asteroid on a course that would collide with earth, it would be pretty easy for the US or Russia to just declare a state of emergency and build what was needed in a few months. Perhaps by then India and China will have space programs robust enough to assist as well.

Comment Re:Bullshit (Score 1) 397

Because the brewers will just dump it. They'll lose $30/ton + about $15 per ton to dump it at the local landfill unless they find another buyer. 1 ton of grain probably makes over a thousand gallons of beer. So $45/1000 = .0045 or 5 cents per gallon of beer. This is not even taking into account that the landfills probably closer and they don't find another buyer.

Comment Re:Saves about $38 million in taxes (Score 3, Insightful) 86

All states do this. To attract big projects each state offers lower taxes for a period of time, free or discounted utilities, temporary changes to regulation etc... Whomever makes the best offer gets the facility. The state will collect far more than $38 million from the people that work there's income taxes alone. Not that the state/city can't make mistakes if they're stupid... but this deal isn't bad for the state at all.

Comment Re:Bennett's Ego (Score 5, Insightful) 235

While I don't share the AC's animosity towards you, the premise of your argument is entirely wrong.

The number of bugs are not limitless, they are very much a finite thing.

The benefit to the company is not limited to closing that single bug. When someone reports one bug, you likely are learning a new method and/or way of thinking in regards to the procedure/module/whatever is involved. One "reported" bug could likely make many dozens or more other bugs readily apparent in your code.

It also teaches your organization how to avoid that bug in the future. How many bugs were in the wild, being used by blackhats for YEARS through multiple iterations of a software package before being caught?

Also, you get to find the mistake in the code and, if you're managing your code correctly, you will know who made the mistake. So you can coach if it was something that should have been caught.

And lastly, it solidifies your place in the market as a leader. People study your code intently, use it more, get more involved. The more people involved, the bigger your talent pool, the more industry respect you have, and as a result the more people will look to you as a company that cares about the stability and long term viability of your product.

Comment Re:Myopic viewpoint (Score 1) 360

He has a valid point. Tesla only has one product. If they fail, the owners of those wild no longer have service plans or warranties. As much as Mercedes may or may not suck, they are definitely not going out of business any time soon. If you're spending $70k on a car and your options are between the two companies I could definitely see the appeal in sticking with a tried and true brand.

Comment Re:Better leave now (Score 1) 239

Actually, at 1g acceleration it would take about 11 years to reach the mid-point and another 11 to decelerate back to a resting frame rate. So 22 years to the traveler which is certainly doable. Of course to us on earth this would be over 500 years into the future due to time dilation. Also, I'm assuming we'd solve the problem of finding the enormous amounts of energy required for 22years of uninterrupted thrust, the spacecraft could operate flawlessly for that amount of time, and that the planet isn't moving at some ungodly speed in relation to us. I assumed it and earth are in the same reference frame which is clearly not the case.

Comment Re:Useful Idiot (Score 4, Insightful) 396

You know, when I first saw this I though "Oh God..." but after I had a few minutes to think about it, I came to the conclusion: I, nor anyone else here on slashdot, will ever do anything in our lifetimes as significant as what Edward Snowden did last year. And now he's in a very precarious situation. I suspect he could be used as a bargaining chip by Russia. So whatever he has to say to stay alive in the near future is ok with me. I'll not fault the guy. He already did his good deed for this lifetime.

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