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Comment Re:That's how I clean my cat's litter box. (Score 1) 58

Intuitively, which we all know is probably wrong, you'd think a smaller gravity would magnify it, no?

The bigger pieces can move more, the smaller pieces still settle.

The mechanism is that the smaller pieces fall down through the cracks between the bigger pieces, and eventually push the bigger pieces upwards.

Yes, it's space, so it's all new ... but I should think the mechanism is pretty universal, and was already widely understood.

Comment Re:That's how I clean my cat's litter box. (Score 3) 58

It took an international team to sort this out? Come on!

That's kind of what I was thinking.

I heard about this in Geology class 20+ years ago. It's why farmers fields keep producing rocks, because the bigger pieces move up and work their way to the surface.

I thought this was pretty well understood for quite some time.

Comment Re:If anyone actually cared... (Score 1) 710

It's not a typo. A tyopographical error iis a mistaek in typing, typically when tow letters are transposed. You didn't know the phrase "an old chestnut", you had only heard it said, and assumed it was "chess nut". See, it's this sort of lack of rigor that throws one's entire assumptions into question.

I never jump in and say something like this, but will you shut up already?! Your pedantic nonsense is doing nothing to further the discussion, and after a whole bunch of posts, you still haven't offered anything substantive. And besides, your premise here is wrong -- there is a known psychological effect that allows these sorts of errors for homophones and near homophones. When I'm typing fast, I occasionally write stupid things that sound like what I mean, but aren't... that doesn't mean I don't know the correct phrase; it just means I'm writing quickly. GP could have been ignorant, or it could have been a typo.

In either case, stop debating writing style and offer an argument, or shut up please.

Comment Re:A better world starts at yourself, but... (Score 1) 710

Which is why I have not bought CFLs in 5 years and am only replacing the bulbs in our house with CREE (and a few philips, but I try to avoid them since they are produced in the worst nation in terms of pollution).
Your second point is the WHOLE issue. I look forward to OCO2. It will show the world one hell of a surprise. Things are far worse than is known, and we are actually encouraging the worse nations to continue getting worse.

Comment what is sad is that low power is now economic (Score 1) 710

Seriously, we put solar city on our house (46 panels). Right now, we pay $100/month for electricity and are locked in on that rate. We even end up with extra that is sold to Xcel (we expect about $300 back at the end of the year from them). Xcel is already pushing to increase their rate for next year (to 14.5/KWH) and we will continue to pay only $8 / month to Xcel for their base. Even better yet is the fact that we grandfathered in with this so that as Xcel's prices increase, they will be forced to pay us the same price. Down the road, they will get that part removed for NEW installs.

We then changed out our bulbs from a mix of incandescents/CFLs to mostly LEDs with about 13 more bulbs to replace. We did that when Cree bulb prices dropped to below $10/$5 for Br30/A19. We will replace the other 13 when the prices drop again (6 of these are the global bulbs used in a bathroom; so the bulbs are right now $20 for good ones and I refuse to buy the cheap junk from GE, Lights of America, ecosmart, etc ). Once that is done, then only 3 bulbs will remain, which will simply continue to use the old bulbs on (crawl space; under-stairs;outside light that is almost never used).
We have figured out that based on the KWH, that we save about $5-10/month (we have kids that leave lights on). As such, these will be all paid for in 2 years. That is not a bad deal considering that we have removed nearly all of the mercury, and no longer have to wait for CFLs to come on (well 7 bulbs, but they will be replaced at the next sale of cree ).
Security

German NSA Committee May Turn To Typewriters To Stop Leaks 244

mpicpp (3454017) writes with news that Germany may be joining Russia in a paranoid switch from computers to typewriters for sensitive documents. From the article: Patrick Sensburg, chairman of the German parliament's National Security Agency investigative committee, now says he's considering expanding the use of manual typewriters to carry out his group's work. ... Sensburg said that the committee is taking its operational security very seriously. "In fact, we already have [a typewriter], and it's even a non-electronic typewriter," he said. If Sensburg's suggestion takes flight, the country would be taking a page out of the Russian playbook. Last year, the agency in charge of securing communications from the Kremlin announced that it wanted to spend 486,000 rubles (about $14,800) to buy 20 electric typewriters as a way to avoid digital leaks.

Comment Re:This is just how people are. (Score 1) 710

You can see the different attitudes people have. Watch some homeless guys for a while asking for money. Some people walk by, and give them money. Other people walk by and say, "someone should help them!"

I'm not saying you should always give to homeless people, but there is definitely a difference in self-centeredness that is visible.

Comment Re: Maybe, maybe not. (Score 4, Interesting) 749

So if I say to my foreign counterpart "give me this data that I have been subpoenaed to provide" I am obstructing justice? You could argue that the foreign branch is obstructing US justice when they implement the policy of automatic refusal unless/until a local subpoena complying with local legal requirements is received, but nobody there is personally bound by US law, so it's not particularly relevant unless they want to travel to the US in the future. Meanwhile they might very well be in violation of local law by supplying said data without the appropriate local legal authorization.

I'm not happy with this - it seems like an issue where there's no good solution: The US can't be allowed to be "world cops" to this degree - we've proven repeatedly that we've lost whatever moral superiority *might* have once entitled us to such a position - call me paranoid but handing more power to the gestapo-in-training seems to always go badly for the common man. Meanwhile *without* such authority I can easily imagine elaborate corporate data shell games where all sensitive data is inaccessible to any government. The only answer I can see is international treaties bringing corporations to heel, but I suspect those would be tricky in the extreme to get right, even if the self-same megacorps didn't already have pretty much all the relevant politicians in their pocket.

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