It turns out that in countries where more scientists are men, more people associate men and scientists. Total shocker, I know.

Next up: someone who's programmed devices with less than 8KB of RAM.

Yep. 128 bytes. With 4K of flash, granted. And we did have to upgrade to the 16K version eventually (still 128 bytes of RAM, we got 256 in yet another revision though)

He's probably heard something somewhere and made a stupid assumption. Road wear is heavily influenced by the pressure between the tire and the road. (ie: the weight per square inch. Or pounds per square inch). And little to do with the pressure _inside_ the tire. (It has _some_ effect, higher tire pressures generally reduce the tire's footprint on the road, increasing the contact PSI.)

Pressure inside the tire and pressure between tire and the road are very close to equal. A 120psi bicycle tire really is putting 120psi on the contact patch. And this has a small practical effect: in very soft asphalt you can sometimes see ruts caused by bicycles.

But road damage isn't entirely dictated by tire pressure

David Sternlight is that you? You know you can legally buy both ski masks and crow bars, right? In fact, I think REI sells ski masks, crow bars (cleverly disguised as climbing hardware), and backpacks all in the same store, and they haven't been shut down yet.

A 5,000lb car causes more than twice the wear of two 2,500lb cars.

The oft-quoted 4th power law is a rule of thumb which holds only in the axle weight range of heavy trucks. On roads meant to handle heavy trucks, a 5,000lb car and two 2,500lb cars do just about the same amount of damage, which is none at all. A certain amount of light traffic actually reduces total damage by suppressing growth of vegetation.

On roads not meant to handle heavy trucks, damage by weight has as far as I know not been studied in a systemic manner.

So? You put an "autonomous drone" electronics package instead of an "RC aircraft" electronics package, and it's a hydrogen-powered drone. Maybe a little less range because the drone electronics are heavier and consume more power.

Most likely the reason eeeeevil Rupert Murdoch's solution scales better is he wasn't constrained by the problem of keeping people of the wrong gender and ethnicity out of the program.

There's at least two classes of damage to the road

1) Damage attributable directly to vehicle traffic. On a road used by heavy trucks, this is essentially 100% caused by heavy trucks. A Suburban versus a Prius makes no real difference.

2) Damage due to weather, time, nature, etc. This damage makes more sense to apportion out by mileage to the road users regardless of weight.

it's a little hard to kick ass in a suit and tie. It would probably look kind of funny too.

I think John Constantine would dispute that

Or the Men In Black.

Simply being male doesn't make you evil in the eyes of a SJW. Being a *white*, *heterosexual*, *male* makes you evil (and responsible for all bad stuff in the world).

Any one makes you suspicious and any two seals the deal. I say embrace it. Be the evil they claim. There's even prizes: if you commit 1 million documented microaggressions you'll get a free puppy (to kick) from the Patriarchy.

If reading comics counts as science, no wonder it's in a state.

I imagine it comes under "sociology", which is counted as a science. This study probably has better research practices than 90% of the sociology papers out there,

Pseudoephederine is already produced from yeast.

Of course, if it becomes cheaper to produce opiates from yeast than from current processes, trying to keep the yeasts secret or locked up will be futile. The stuff reproduces itself; all it takes is one well-bribed or entrepreneurial employee.

An obviously critical part of a PTC installation is tens of thousands of trackside antennas, so the locomotive can communicate with the whole PTC network.

Technically you don't need that for mere automatic speed control. The train just needs a GPS and IPS (for when GPS isn't available -- actually you could skip this and do it with dead reckoning based on other speed indicators) and track maps (annotated with speed limits). If you really needed to you could do it without GPS by putting up machine readable signs with the location (and perhaps any special speed limits) encoded, no antennas needed. You don't need an environmental impact statement for every sign you put up.

Something smells when it comes to passenger rail costs.

When you've built up 150 years of regulations all of which are considered absolutely vital for life safety, the cost of compliance is probably a quarter billion per mile before you've so much as acquired ROW.

The term might have appeared occasionally in the past, but around mid-2013 it took on anew and wholly pejorative connotation.

The term used in exactly the current way goes back at least to 2009, with Will Shetterly's blog entitled "Social Justice Warriors: Do Not Engage". It's probably older than that; there are earlier tumblr references. Google Trends isn't everything.

It doesn't make any sense to complain the term is pejorative. Any term those of us who find Social Justice Warriors repugnant uses to describe them will be pejorative, just as "liberal" is to a conservative or vice-versa.