Comment Re:The WHO (Score 1) 478
Or, in the case of Hawking, several "right women". 'Cause when you're a rock star and you know it, you don't just stop at one.
Comment Re:Look this gifthorse in the mouth (Score 2) 59
The flippant answer is all that your paranoia deserves.
A healthy amount of paranoia is a must in the security industry. Every piece of security hardware or sofware demands third-party evaluation, even that made by people you trust completely. Not all flaws are deliberate. Thank you for your time, and (at last) thoughtful response.
Comment Re:Look this gifthorse in the mouth (Score 1) 59
I didn't say that DARPA was evil. I just said that this merits an independent audit. I take your flippant answer for a "no".
Comment Re:Laser cutting directions! (Score 1) 59
3d printing air into solid aluminum? I'm sold! Can you do transparent aluminum too?
Comment Look this gifthorse in the mouth (Score 1) 59
When old enemies arrive at your door bearing a gift horse large enough to fit a fireteam, don't stop at it's mouth, do a full cavity search.
Are there independent third-party audits underway? If DARPA likes it, I'm suspicious.
Are there independent third-party audits underway? If DARPA likes it, I'm suspicious.
Comment Re:The real question in my mind (Score 1) 119
Quantum mechanics is not strange. Humans are simply stupid.
Can Web-Based Protests Be a Force for Change? 76
Lucas123 writes: "Several high profile protests have circulated across the Web in the past few weeks, garnering social and news media attention — and even forcing the resignation of one high-level executive. There are two components driving the trend in Internet protests: They tend to be effective against Web services, and online networks allow people to mobilize quickly. According to a study released last month by Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication, active Web useres are likely to do far more for a cause than simply 'like' it on a website. And, because a few clicks can cancel a service, their actions carry weight. But there may be a coming backlash as people can grow tired of online activism; and corporations may also take a more proactive stance in response to them."
Comment Re:Smart Cars = HiTech ??? (Score 1) 371
Stop buying boutique shit, dumbass. Get it from the garden store like the rest of us. It only costs a few bucks a yard.
Comment Re:Knowledge (Score 1) 1037
Real actual skeptic here (I think). Is the internet reducing religious affiliation because people are being exposed to different opinions? Or is the internet addictive, and does it subsume all of its occupants' time? Atheists are so eager to claim success that they don't even remember to check for confirmation bias and apply occam's razor.
Religious affiliation is correlated with increased mental health and a strong local community. The outspoken minority of religious fucks make the rest look bad to the undiscriminating outsider (oblig).
From where I stand, it looks like people are getting more extreme than their churches. They want to subjugate and punish and judge, and go against all the good parts of their religions. So they are leaving the churches in droves, and taking their hatred and ignorance to the internet. This may be a result of sampling bias (see oblig link above), and begs for good science to be done.
Religious affiliation is correlated with increased mental health and a strong local community. The outspoken minority of religious fucks make the rest look bad to the undiscriminating outsider (oblig).
From where I stand, it looks like people are getting more extreme than their churches. They want to subjugate and punish and judge, and go against all the good parts of their religions. So they are leaving the churches in droves, and taking their hatred and ignorance to the internet. This may be a result of sampling bias (see oblig link above), and begs for good science to be done.
Comment Their website isn't in Esperanto? (Score 5, Funny) 224
What the hell guys, if you're going to try and design something to replaced an entrenched convention, you might as well go whole hog. Oh wait, no, I know... their website isn't in Esperanto because such projects always fail.
Comment Re:Of course they did! (Score 2) 103
And look at you, buying into the government's blame-shifting. This is the opposite of Nuremberg -- don't blame us, we were only giving orders! Blame the eeeevil companies that did the deed, not the innocent government who merely demanded compliance with threat of imprisonment or worse, fines!
Comment Re:Crap (Score 2) 85
No, you see all of the images from the paper right up at the top. The kicker is that it can only do monochrome. So your x-ray voyeur shots will only work for girls and boys wearing full-body paint under their clothes. Or maybe you can illuminate them with lasers. I'm sure nobody will notice.
Comment Re:This is what Thatcher was good at (Score 0, Troll) 712
Maybe that's because Stalin was a totalitarian, which totally jives with the conservative mindset. Want to know who else conservatives didn't celebrate the demise of? Hitler. Is that because conservatives are evil? No. It's because they're too blind with greed to recognize any evil other than "taxes" (which they desperately depend upon to keep their businesses solvent).
Comment Re:god damnit (Score 1) 46
I wonder... could we force them to keep metametadata? Y'know, summaries of what fields were copied out of what databases of what companies on what days? That way, we could still have a snowball's chance at proving that individual customers had their privacy impinged. Of course, this is all rhetoric: no, we can't force them to keep anything, and no, we wouldn't have a snowball's chance at proving shit against the fed. Fun idea, though, having a government that behaves responsibly.
Meat Makes Our Planet Thirsty 545
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mames McWilliams writes in the NYT that with California experiencing one of its worst droughts on record, attention has naturally focused on the water required to grow popular foods such as walnuts, broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, almonds and grapes. 'Who knew, for example, that it took 5.4 gallons to produce a head of broccoli, or 3.3 gallons to grow a single tomato? This information about the water footprint of food products — that is, the amount of water required to produce them — is important to understand, especially for a state that dedicates about 80 percent of its water to agriculture.' But for those truly interested in lowering their water footprint, those numbers pale next to the water required to fatten livestock. Beef turns out to have an overall water footprint of roughly four million gallons per ton produced (PDF). By contrast, the water footprint for "sugar crops" like sugar beets is about 52,000 gallons per ton; for vegetables it's 85,000 gallons per ton; and for starchy roots it's about 102,200 gallons per ton.
There's also one single plant that's leading California's water consumption and it's one that's not generally cultivated for humans: alfalfa. Grown on over a million acres in California, alfalfa sucks up more water than any other crop in the state. And it has one primary destination: cattle. 'If Californians were eating all the beef they produced, one might write off alfalfa's water footprint as the cost of nurturing local food systems. But that's not what's happening. Californians are sending their alfalfa, and thus their water, to Asia.' Alfalfa growers are now exporting some 100 billion gallons of water a year from this drought-ridden region to the other side of the world in the form of alfalfa.
Beef eaters are already paying more. Water-starved ranches are devoid of natural grasses that cattle need to fatten up so ranchers have been buying supplemental feed at escalating prices or thinning their herds to stretch their feed dollars. But McWilliams says that in the case of agriculture and drought, there's a clear and accessible actions most citizens can take: Changing one's diet to replace 50 percent of animal products with edible plants like legumes, nuts and tubers results in a 30 percent reduction in an individual's food-related water footprint. Going vegetarian reduces that water footprint by almost 60 percent. 'It's seductive to think that we can continue along our carnivorous route, even in this era of climate instability. The environmental impact of cattle in California, however, reminds us how mistaken this idea is coming to seem.'"
There's also one single plant that's leading California's water consumption and it's one that's not generally cultivated for humans: alfalfa. Grown on over a million acres in California, alfalfa sucks up more water than any other crop in the state. And it has one primary destination: cattle. 'If Californians were eating all the beef they produced, one might write off alfalfa's water footprint as the cost of nurturing local food systems. But that's not what's happening. Californians are sending their alfalfa, and thus their water, to Asia.' Alfalfa growers are now exporting some 100 billion gallons of water a year from this drought-ridden region to the other side of the world in the form of alfalfa.
Beef eaters are already paying more. Water-starved ranches are devoid of natural grasses that cattle need to fatten up so ranchers have been buying supplemental feed at escalating prices or thinning their herds to stretch their feed dollars. But McWilliams says that in the case of agriculture and drought, there's a clear and accessible actions most citizens can take: Changing one's diet to replace 50 percent of animal products with edible plants like legumes, nuts and tubers results in a 30 percent reduction in an individual's food-related water footprint. Going vegetarian reduces that water footprint by almost 60 percent. 'It's seductive to think that we can continue along our carnivorous route, even in this era of climate instability. The environmental impact of cattle in California, however, reminds us how mistaken this idea is coming to seem.'"
