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Comment Re:Chapel Hill/ Carrboro North Carolina (Score 1) 654

It's not easy to add cars because you'd have to extend existing platforms to accommodate longer trains, which is usually expensive and time consuming.

It IS possible to move between cars once you're on the train, you know, and from my experience with taking the train to and from NYC, some people seem willing to walk the entire length of the train in search of a seat that doesn't have anyone sitting next to them.

There's even two stops on the line I take where the platform isn't long enough, and there's an announcement explaining that long in advance in addition to the warning being on the schedule itself. At one station the last two cars do not platform, at the other ONLY the last two cars platform.

Not to say there isn't an upper limit to the number of cars you can have, but you can easily have like six cars more than the platform can handle assuming there's another room otherwise. Walking three cars isn't terribly difficult and doesn't take a lot of time.
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Comment Simulations never work right (Score 1) 654

I've simulated this exact scenario for hours, and I've gotten the same results from this study; moderate increase in usage but not enough to really address inner-city congestion.

They probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their study, too - this only cost me $20 during the Steam Summer Sale. Stupid government!
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Comment Re:Cry More (Score 2) 139

You evidently didn't read the last line in TFS. FOIAs aren't free to file.

Your UserID is low enough to know that TFS is often dead wrong.

FOIA law does not specify any fees, but it allows each agency to establish its own fee structure for filling requests.

Generally speaking, if filling the request takes minimal effort, there's no fee. This has always been true (in my limited experience) for electronic copies of electronic records; if all someone has to do is copy a file or whatever, no problem.

If you're going to start requesting printed copies of records, they're likely to start charging you at some point. A few pages probably isn't too bad, but the idea is to prevent some jerk from tying up the system asking for 50,000 prints from microfiche archives and not having to invest anything in such a request. Usually the fee is in line with expected costs (e.g. 10-15 cents per page or whatever, plus hourly rate for a worker to do it.)

If your local government whatever is charging a fee simply for filing a request, let alone providing the data, you might have a case for a lawsuit.
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Comment Re:Bogus (Score 1) 59

But in the dirty air model, the dark veil over the plain soaked up much of the sun's warmth high in the atmosphere, while simultaneously cooling the streets and fields below. This altered thermal structure stabilized the daytime atmosphere and suppressed rainfall.

But as night fell, the moist air mass moved northward toward the Longmen Mountains, which tower some 2000 meters above the basin. The weather system that had been building energy over the plains for 12 hours was driven upward as it collided with the range's steep contours, triggering the postponed convection. A day's worth of rainfall from the plains was focused into a few hours over a handful of mountain valleys.

I know, I know... "Read the article" blah blah...
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Comment Re:it could... (Score 4, Interesting) 148

The [lack of] precision in the bearings is much more significant than angular precision.

You solve that with better manufacturing techniques.

Harmonic drives are already used industrially and commercially. This is essentially a double harmonic drive driven with a planetary gearset. Nothing some good precision manufacturing couldn't create something amazing with.
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Comment Re:This is shortsighted (Score 1) 35

In fact, having wheels is a feature, not a bug.

Until you encounter a steep set of stairs, then simple wheels might not be sufficient. You'll either have to develop special wheels or tracks - which might not be that great at other non-stair-like terrain - or try a more universal mode of locomotion.

Ever see those photos of mountain goats climbing the nearly sheer face of a dam? I'd love to see a wheeled robot do that without grappling lines!
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Comment Re:Your biggest screw up (Score 1) 452

Reddit was started as an experiment in free speech.

Wait, what?

I recall Alex coming on Slashdot a lot to promote Reddit when he first launched it. "An experiment in free speech" was not anything I recall being discussed. I also remember him posting on Slashdot while still developing reddit.

What I recall, is promotion of a general interest platform that was more open than Slashdot (unlimited moderations for all!) and less susceptible to vote brigading than Digg.

It was while ago, so I may be a bit foggy on the specifics.

Comment Re:Dwindling airable land? (Score 1) 279

I think what the Libertarians fail to realize is that farmers, as a general rule, are not smart enough to diversify or maintain course.

First, I think that's a ridiculous assertion. Smart farmers don't diversify because the taxpayers bear the risk of their crop failure, or of crashing prices; they have insufficient incentive to diversify.

Second, if we had a true free market, dumb farmers would go out of business and we would be left with smart farmers allocating resources efficiently. Isn't that the point of economic libertarianism?

Note: I am far from libertarian.

Comment Re:So does this qualify as 'organic'? (Score 1) 279

What do you mean by cyclical? Do you mean the livestock/fertilizer/crop/fodder cycle? Do you mean crop rotation? Or something else entirely?

Just curious, since I'm not aware of either cyclical production or crop rotation being a requirement for organic farming (although both are considered best practices).

Comment Wierd, indeed (Score 1) 2

If it's Ubuntu, it's a new problem, or only affects certain makes and models. I ran kubuntu on an Acer notebook for quite a while, and its wifi was far better than Windows.

I suspect it's an issue with drivers; Linux has had driver issues in the past, especially with newer equipment.

Comment Speed is indeed important (Score 1) 6

Not everyone has a brand-new computer; The manuscript of the book I'm about to publish is in Open Office Word, about 400 pages and full of large images, and autosave is a real pain because it takes minutes to save the file.

Like another commenter said, I wouldn't make it the most important thing, overall efficiency is. But software speed is important to anyone with an older computer, especially a Windows computer, because the computer slows as the registry grows, and the registry never gets smaller, only bigger.

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