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Comment Re:So? (Score 1) 488

Our government has backed an expensive and inefficient renewable energy tech - that's the only reason we're even having this conversation.

As opposed to our government backing an even more expensive and inefficient incumbent system?

By subsidizing solar power for domestic installations, that tax money is effectively being put back into the hands of the general public through savings, rather than into the coffers of multi-million dollar, often international corporations where it can further corrupt the system.

And I'd be happy to pay a "road use tax" even though I don't drive an EV (yet...). I figure I pay about $130/yr in gasoline tax, which if I switched to an EV I'd save about four or five times that easily.
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Comment Re:Americans trust science too much (Score 2) 460

If you can cite a study to prove your point you have won the argument.

That's not trusting science too much, that's laziness. Usually the person citing the study has a tenuous grasp of what it really says, and in all but a handful of cases they are betting on the fact that few people will bother to look it up and read it themselves.

You can tell this is what's going on, because it only further polarizes people; if the "study" reinforces their existing view, then it's the best thing ever, and if not then the scientists who did it are clearly corrupt or they're just plain wrong. No attempt to understand, nothing changes, just reinforcement of bias.
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Comment Re:Maybe citizens saw duplicity? (Score 1) 460

For starters, please provide citations for everything you put in quotes.

If scientists were so desperate for money, so easily bought by whoever was willing to pay them, we'd have volumes of studies saying that burning fossil fuels is good for everything from water quality to sex drive, that dumping toxic waste into rivers makes fish taste better, and that tobacco smoking curse cancer.

But we don't. For every study that suggests (or is construed to suggest even though it clearly doesn't) that climate change isn't occurring there's at least a hundred that says it is.

The best explanation I can come up with is that the scientists are not chasing paychecks like some people claim, but are doing their best to honestly study a subject they feel is important and are interested in.
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Comment Re:3D plotter (Score 2) 69

What kind of machine is it?

I agree a teacup should not require support, unless the handle has a loop that dips below the attachment point. But even then only the underside of that loop would need support.

The layering can leave stripes, but a nice material with good print settings on a well made and tuned machine it's more of a texture than actual visual artifacts. They're like grooves on a record; you can feel the individual grooves but unless you look closely or get the light at just the right angle it just appears as a matte finish.

I've only printed an object intended to be liquid tight once, and it worked fine. Again, it comes down to print settings, calibration and good quality material.

So in the interest of improving your 3D printing experience, I'd like to know what machine you have, what material you use and what the settings are.

As for speed, that's also generally a limit of the material... but I've gotten mine up to ~230mm/sec before the heater in the nozzle couldn't provide enough power to melt the filament at that rate.

In practice you have a lot of moving mass which limits your top speeds on complex parts - the forces from accelerations can overwhelm the cheap belt drive systems most hobby-level printers use. Of course, if you want to shell out for better parts you can make something a lot better :)
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Comment Re:I dunno about LEDs, but CFLs don't last (Score 2) 602

I've been using the twirly type CLFs in a ceiling fan "glass ball" light for years (upside-down and enclosed, expressly against the manufacturer's warnings to not use them inverted in enclosed fixtures!).

In fact I've gotten into the habit of dating them with a sharpie before I install: Nov 2011. Since this is in my bedroom it's used for several hours a day, every day. Coming up on 10,000 hours, which is the rated life of the bulb, despite the warranty-voiding installation.

That said, the early generations of CFLs were absolute shit. Don't let that turn you off on the tech, and a few extra bucks for buy a decent brand is worth it.
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Comment Re:The article is more extreme than the summary (Score 1) 795

Your entire thesis hinges on the premise that there's a difference between "truth" and "Truth."

If you are unwilling or unable to justify that premise, then you have no argument, and you're just talking out of your ass.

Bald assertions aren't allowing in science or philosophy.
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Comment Re:The article is more extreme than the summary (Score 1) 795

And no I will not define those as they are of no concern or interest to science, that is philosophy.

But you have to define them in order to justify the assertion that science isn't concerned with it.

You are making a distinction between "general truth" and "Absolute Truth" - and you need to back that up or you have no argument beyond "because I say so."
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Comment Re:The article is more extreme than the summary (Score 1) 795

How is it committing a logical fallacy to ask you for a definition and example? Not a definition of science, a definition of "Truth." That seems entirely within the purview of this thread.

As to your supplied "definition" ... Going back to Webster (your own source)

3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method

Oh look, science is the knowledge of truths obtained though the scientific method. I guess science DOES seek truths!

(This is why citing a dictionary almost always makes you look like a douchbag, BTW.)
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Comment Re:The article is more extreme than the summary (Score 1) 795

I'm not asking the question for my own curiosity - I'm asking you, specifically, to define the difference between "Truth" and "truth."

I'm asking you to do this because you have asserted that "science is not the pursuit of Truth" - which makes me presume that you actually know what "Truth" is at least well enough to define it.

So, please elaborate on what this "Truth" is, so I can better understand why science can not pursue it.
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Comment Re:The article is more extreme than the summary (Score 1) 795

Okay, what is "Truth," how do you pursue it, and how do you know when you've found it? What is the difference between "True" and "true" things?

Science as a whole is an application of a pragmatic criteria of truth; it finds explanations and methods that work, and therefore assumes that they are true at least to the degree that they are able to be applied. We then seek better explanations... better "truths." (Perhaps once you've pinned down the difference between "True" and "true" things it will become clear how this is not a pursuit of "Truth"?)

So if you're going to insist that there's a difference between "Truth" and "truth" you will need to present examples in the form of "X is True because Y" where Y is not merely an argument of formal logic, because formal logic alone cannot distinguish true from false. At some point you're going to have to apply other criteria and/or test.
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Comment Re:How does Net Neutrality as proposed solve that? (Score 1) 131

Well it's a shame then the FCC rules under discussion would have nothing whatsoever to do with that,.

Except this is exactly what it's about, and it's something that Comcast has already been caught doing. Allowing "fast lanes" would just be a way for them to legitimize the practice of stymieing competing services and/or extorting money from content providers.
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Comment Re:Spoilers (Score 4, Informative) 131

This doesn't address what is the true threat: It's not about ISPs choking bandwidth to individual consumers, it's about ISPs choking bandwidth to their competitors.

For example, Comcast offers, internet, streaming video, cable television and telephone services.

If I, as a third party, want to offer telephone services that use broadband internet (VoIP), Comcast will be able to make my access to their consumers so crap that I can't compete with their telephone service. The only way around that would be to pay them for "fast lane" access which will also ruin my ability to compete as it cuts deeply into my budget.

The end user can have all the bandwidth the infrastructure can provide, and it won't mean a damn thing because my traffic, specifically, will be choked by the monopoly ISP guarding the gates.
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