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Comment You can't put a pound of H2O in a box... (Score 1) 273

by denzacar (#49952223) Attached to: US Airlines Say Smaller Carry-Ons Are Not In the Cards

...shaped like a cube, 1 foot or 10 inches on each side and get a 1 gallon of volume.

Nor can you subdivide up and down between the sizes without hauling out some really unintuitive fractions - while various measures use various fractions.
Number of inches in a foot or a yard is NOT the number of ounces in a pint, quart or a gallon.
Nor do any of those match with ounces, pounds and stones.
And not only that, an ounce is not the same value OR fraction of a pint (1/20) and of a pound (1/16).
How many ounces in a glass of water? Well it depends...

Meanwhile...
1 meter = 10 x 1 decimeter = 100 x 1 centimeter = 1000 x 1 millimeter
1 liter = 10 x 1 deciliter = 100 x 1 centiliter = 1000 x 1 milliliter
1 kilogram = 10 x 1 hectogram = 100 x 1 decagram = 1000 x 1 gram = 1000000 x 1 milligram
1 liter of H2O = 1 kilogram of H2O = 1 cubic decimeter of H2O

0 degrees Celsius = freezing point of H2O while 100 degrees Celsius = boiling point of H2O
I.e. Points where it changes aggregate states from liquid to solid and from liquid to gas.
Points at which you are no longer measuring temperature of a liquid. Ends of the scale.

Fahrenheit?
0 is the point of change of aggregate state of 1:1:1 mixture of salt, water and ice - while 100 is a couple of degrees above "blood temperature".
Which is stupid in so many ways I don't even want to go into it.
And no... "100 degrees means it's hot outside" is not a good rule of thumb due to a simple fact that no two people are alike or have exactly the same preferences.

And that's without going into more technical measures like Watt, Volt, Ampere, Calories etc. which are all based and interact with other SI units.

Comment NOT naysayers. (Score 1, Insightful) 294

by denzacar (#49951647) Attached to: Study: Sixth Extinction Event Is Underway

Cause... umm... you know... extinct is extinct.
You can't say "no it isn't" if all you have to show for as evidence of existence it is... you know... nothing.
This ain't a religious but a question of biology and of ability to count up to more than "one animal".

E.g. You can't go around claiming that T. Rex is actually hiding. And no, Bill Legend's T. Rex is not THE T. Rex.

The summary warns of "paid trolls", "FUD-ers" and finger pointers going around acting holier than thou, trying to "solve the problem" by placing the blame and spreading "it's the End Days" fear and panic.

You know...
People generalizing the entire humanity as being "people who cannot imagine anything beyond 3 months" and "folks who actually want the world to end" and assuming that "we're going to drive the bus off that extinction cliff while singing happy days are here again."

Which is also a bit of ye old irrelevant conclusion fallacy.
Cause... umm... people not able to think beyond 3 months about pandas or people wanting to burn all pandas and people singing "happy days" instead of working on preserving pandas...
Well... they are not the ones actually working on preserving pandas, aren't they?

It's almost as if a relatively small group of people (compared to the world population or even the population of China) is taking steps to preserve the damn pandas - regardless of all those other people.
Making them kinda irrelevant as long as they don't make it their business to get off their ass, fly off to a game preserve and start shooting pandas.
Earth

Study: Sixth Extinction Event Is Underway 294

Posted by Soulskill from the setting-off-the-dominoes dept.
garyisabusyguy writes: We've heard proposals in the past that a new extinction event is underway. However, a new study takes into consideration many other factors that may be tilting the data, and still comes to the inevitable conclusion that we have triggered a large die-off, and that we may become victims of it as well.

From the paper's abstract: "Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way."

The authors suggest that rapid work to avert the worst of the die-off is still possible. The question may really be whether we can get past paid trolls, FUD, and finger pointing in order to act wisely in a timely manner.

Comment Nope. Your argument is a historical fallacy. (Score 1) 609

by denzacar (#49945509) Attached to: Privately Owned Armored Trucks Raise Eyebrows After Dallas Attack

A gun is an expensive toy.

Police will be provided with FUNDS FOR guns (and ammo... and training... and maintenance... and special equipment needed... and better guns...) by the government.
Average citizen will not be provided with a gun or any of the tools or procedures needed to operate one. NOR with the money to purchase any of it.

And that's not going into that average citizen from "when the 2nd amendment was drafted" was fucked if the local economy failed to provide gunpowder or lead.
Nor could the average citizen waltz into a store, leave an IOU payable by the government, and waltz out with all the guns and ammo needed - on account of authority as an elected law enforcement officer.

And even without ANY other funds but the paycheck - police is paid to walk around with guns.
Average citizens have to get and maintain a job - THEN should they be able to afford it, they can buy a gun and walk around with it. Without being paid for that.

Also, police will be provided with additional pairs of hands to handle more guns and even with an army should the need arise.
Average citizen would have to pay for help from his/her own pocket. And would not be allowed to just call up the US army or any other army.
Transportation

Uber Drivers Are Employees, Not Contractors, Says California Labor Commission 346

Posted by Soulskill from the employment-in-the-sharing-economy dept.
siddesu writes: The California Labor Commission has ruled Uber drivers are employees and not independent contractors. The ruling has serious implications for Uber's business model, since it will now be required to offer its drivers benefits that meet the requirements of the Californian labor laws. "Uber had argued that its drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and that it is "nothing more than a neutral technology platform." But the commission said Uber controls the tools driver use, monitors their approval ratings and terminates their access to the system if their ratings fall below 4.6 stars." Uber has previously suspended drivers for registering their cars as commercial vehicles.

Comment What kind of a fantasy do you live in? (Score 1) 57

If I can prove the ballot is mine, then so can someone looking over my shoulder while I do it. Especially if he's pointing a gun at me.

...where people with guns force people to democratically vote-in the candidate supported by the people with guns?

People with guns don't need threatening or votes.
They have the guns and are willing to use them as a tool of political influence. The simplest way is not threatening but shooting the dissenters.
After all... you only have to do it once.

And that's if people are stupid enough to try to argue the legitimacy of results with a bullet.

Comment Bullshit! (Score 1) 413

by denzacar (#49901909) Attached to: Trade Bill Fails In the House

You're full of it. Either that or you can't read.
Also, by standing by hired thugs instead of the oppressed people you reveal yourself to be a fascist cunt.

       

The strikers opened fire first, murdered a few Pinkertons, tried to burn alive Pinkertons who were attempting to surrender, and then after accepting the Pinkertons' surrender, proceeded to torture them.

Not at all suprising that Wikipedia conspicuously fails to mention this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Pinkerton agents attempted to disembark, and shots were fired. Conflicting testimony exists as to which side fired the first shot. John T. McCurry, a boatman on the steamboat Little Bill (which had been hired by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to ferry its agents to the steel mill) and one of the men wounded by the strikers, said: "The armed Pinkerton men commenced to climb up the banks. Then the workmen opened fire on the detectives. The men shot first, and not until three of the Pinkerton men had fallen did they respond to the fire. I am willing to take an oath that the workmen fired first, and that the Pinkerton men did not shoot until some of their number had been wounded."[29] But according to The New York Times, the Pinkertons shot first.[30] The newspaper reported that the Pinkertons opened fire and wounded William Foy, a worker.[30] Regardless of which side opened fire first, the first two individuals wounded were Frederick Heinde, captain of the Pinkertons,[31] and Foy. The Pinkerton agents aboard the barges then fired into the crowd, killing two and wounding 11. The crowd responded in kind, killing two and wounding 12. The firefight continued for about 10 minutes.[32]

After a few more hours, the strikers attempted to burn the barges. They seized a raft, loaded it with oil-soaked timber and floated it toward the barges. The Pinkertons nearly panicked, and a Pinkerton captain had to threaten to shoot anyone who fled. But the fire burned itself out before it reached the barges. The strikers then loaded a railroad flatcar with drums of oil and set it afire. The flatcar hurtled down the rails toward the mill's wharf where the barges were docked. But the car stopped at the water's edge and burned itself out. Dynamite was thrown at the barges, but it only hit the mark once (causing a little damage to one barge). At 2:00 p.m., the workers poured oil onto the river, hoping the oil slick would burn the barges; attempts to light the slick failed.[36]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
       

The Pinkertons, too, wished to surrender. At 5:00 p.m., they raised a white flag and two agents asked to speak with the strikers. O'Donnell guaranteed them safe passage out of town. Upon arrival, their arms were stripped from them. With heads uncovered, to distinguish them from the mill hands, they passed along between two rows of guards armed with Winchesters.[41] As the Pinkertons crossed the grounds of the mill, the crowd formed a gauntlet through which the agents passed. Men and women threw sand and stones at the Pinkerton agents, spat on them and beat them. Several Pinkertons were clubbed into unconsciousness. Members of the crowd ransacked the barges, then burned them to the waterline.[42]

As the Pinkertons were marched through town to the Opera House (which served as a temporary jail), the townspeople continued to assault the agents. Two agents were beaten as horrified town officials looked on. The press expressed shock at the treatment of the Pinkerton agents, and the torrent of abuse helped turn media sympathies away from the strikers.[43]

That's your "Wikipedia conspiracy" you little fascist cunt.

Feel free to read up on events leading up to the Battle of July 6th.
How Carnegie's asshole Frick put a barbed wire fence around the plant with snipers, search lights and water cannons on entrances to keep the workers out long before getting Pinkertons, armed for battle, to the plant.
Pinkertons which he hired LONG BEFORE while supposedly still "negotiating" with workers about lowering their wages by 20%, despite higher profits.
Social Networks

Reddit Removes Communities To Address Harassment, Users Respond 474

Posted by samzenpus from the shields-up dept.
New submitter sethstorm writes: As a change to their community management, Reddit administrators have banned multiple communities (known as subreddits) in a bid to remove harassment. In response, users have responded in different ways — some have pointed out the bias of Reddit admins for leaving known harassers alone such as those in the "SRS" subreddit, others have attempted to re-create the banned subreddit "FatPeopleHate", and many have gone to overwhelm Voat (a competitor).
Earth

Why Our Brains Can't Process the Gravest Threats To Humanity 637

Posted by samzenpus from the forest-through-the-trees dept.
merbs writes: Our brains are unfathomably complex, powerful organs that grant us motor skills, logic, and abstract thought. Brains have bequeathed unto we humans just about every cognitive advantage, it seems, except for one little omission: the ability to adequately process the need for the whole species' long-term survival. They're miracle workers for the short-term survival of individuals, but the scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.
Medicine

Man With the "Golden Arm" Has Saved Lives of 2 Million Babies 97

Posted by samzenpus from the save-every-drop dept.
schwit1 writes: James Harrison, known as "The Man with the Golden Arm," has donated blood plasma from his right arm nearly every week for the past 60 years. Soon after Harrison became a donor, doctors called him in. His blood, they said, could be the answer to a deadly problem. Harrison was discovered to have an unusual antibody in his blood and in the 1960s he worked with doctors to use the antibodies to develop an injection called Anti-D. It prevents women with rhesus-negative blood from developing RhD antibodies during pregnancy. "In Australia, up until about 1967, there were literally thousands of babies dying each year, doctors didn't know why, and it was awful," explains Jemma Falkenmire, of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. "Women were having numerous miscarriages and babies were being born with brain damage." It was the result of rhesus disease — a condition where a pregnant woman's blood actually starts attacking her unborn baby's blood cells. In the worst cases it can result in brain damage, or death, for the babies. Australia was one of the first countries to discover a blood donor with this antibody, so it was quite revolutionary at the time. Last year we ran a story about another person with "golden blood" named Thomas.
Hardware

Ask Slashdot: What Hardware Is In Your Primary Computer? 558

Posted by Soulskill from the very-bored-hamsters dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Here's something we haven't done in a while: list the specs of your main system (best one) so we can see what kinds of computers Slashdot geeks use. Context would be interesting, too — if you're up for it, explain how and why you set it up as you did, as well as the computer's primary purpose(s). Things you can list include (but are not limited to): CPU, motherboard, video card, memory, storage (SSD/HDD), exotic Controllers (RAID or caching), optical drives, displays, peripherals, etc. We can compare and contrast, see what specs are suitable for what purposes, and perhaps learn a trick or two.

Comment Re:Second leading cause of death in the US... (Score 1) 193

by denzacar (#49882165) Attached to: Computer Modeling Failed During the Ebola Outbreak

Cars aren't a contagious disease that grows exponentially.
You might think there's a big difference between 20,000 deaths and 200,000 deaths, but with exponential phenomenon you have to take logarithms, it's the difference between 4.3 and 5.3; the models were only off by 20%.

And if you look at it from a really high altitude it is practically the same number.
Or on a scale that only counts complete, round, millions - where 20 thousand and 200 thousand are exactly ZERO.

Just because point and percentage SEEM smaller when you decide to only count orders of magnitude, that does NOT mean that the resulting error isn't HUGE.
Had the same model been used to predict whether a certain building code will produce earthquake-proof buildings, rating them a Richter 7-7.9 instead of 6-6.9 - it would be a pretty fucking CATASTROPHIC error when that 7.0000001 earthquake comes along.

AND on top of that it was NOT a difference between 20k and 200k but a difference between 20,712 and 1,400,000.
Only about 70 times greater number. No biggie. What's an order or two of magnitude when spreading panic, right?
Also, it is CASES - not deaths. Than number is even lower, about half of that - 11158

And that's why cars.
Number of deaths by cars is a real, constant and present - ergo it is BORING. Not sensational enough.
But some strange African disease... Oh my!
Better lock up your doors, tape over the windows and don't leave your home unless you want to die horribly!
Like in a burning metal can, bleeding from hundreds of small wounds but conscious enough to smell gasoline all over you while those flames keep lapping towards you...
And your back is broken so you can't even kill yourself while you wait to first start cooking then burning to death...

even if you live in the West, if you weren't scared rigid by the Ebola outbreak, you didn't understand what just happened

No.
It means you're not prone to panic resulting from conjunction fallacy, applied to a strange, foreign, wild, African, deadly disease, running rampant as locals reject treatment, release diseased people out of quarantine and spread the disease everywhere...

BTW... Did you know that there are 250,000 - 500,000 deaths from that harmless disease called the flu?
That's just silly... who dies from flu... I had flu... nobody dies from flu.
Avian flu on the other hand... Now that's dangerous.

Number of avian flu deaths?
One 73 year old Chinese woman with an arm's length list of diseases to her name.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12...
BTW, average life expectancy in China - 75.
77 for women.

Ebola likes hot, humid climate and presence of monkeys and bats so the virus can keep on "simmering" all year long.
And it really loves open casket funerals where everyone touches and kisses the dead person.
It also loves rural areas with little or no medical resources or staff available.

It DOESN'T LIKE quarantine in colder, drier climates, stricter funeral rules and readily available cheap disinfectants... well... cheap in a developed Western country with adequate sanitation and medical facilities and staff.

As a bonus, people get sick quick and start dying really soon. And with no simmering bats and monkeys around... it dies out.

Hint: Despite every king and his uncle prancing around Africa during the colonial age, spreading diseases and generally doing stupid things like biting native women - no epidemic of Ebola ever made it to Europe.
Unlike flu.

But fuck flu. I had flu. Nobody dies from flu. Unless it is some conjunction fallacy flu - then it is deadly.

Comment Second leading cause of death in the US... (Score 1) 193

by denzacar (#49874187) Attached to: Computer Modeling Failed During the Ebola Outbreak

...and first among children and young adults (5 - 24) are cars, with 33804 deaths in 2013 alone.
6510 of those being in the 15 - 24 years of age range.

Now... Maybe you're out there, in the night, prowling garages and parking lots, killing all those cars in their sleep in order to prevent further deaths.
Which would explain why you missed OP's point.

Which was that those "worst-case scenarios that mobilized international efforts" predicting "175,000 cases in Liberia by the end of 2014... [and] 1.4 million cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone" could result in a "crying wolf effect" when the next epidemic comes around.

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