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Comment Re:Bubbles in Bloodstream is Dangerous (Score 4, Interesting) 15

You get the bends from high levels of nitrogen dissolved in blood plasma under pressure. If you move to low pressure regions near the water's surface too fast, the nitrogen is able to separate out into bubbles that get stuck in tissues and blood vessels.

These things are "round" like gas bubbles, but they're more like some sort of fake dummy cells, with a fluid interior surrounded by something that looks like a lipid bilayer made of soap-like molecules that bind together by van der Waals forces and have charged tips that interface with the surrounding water. There is no gas.

It's a badly written article- "oooh bubbles!" People should try not to write stupid shit like this, especially about vaccines. I'm already blue in the face screaming at thick skulled idiots on #CDCwhistleblowers who post crap about how vaccines cause autism because Big Pharma stuffs them with disgusting crap like dihydrogen monoxide.

Comment Re:Does It Matter? (Score 1) 288

I paid for virtual machine software for the Mac to run Windows XP and 7. I did not want to reboot. I switched to virtual box not because it was free, but because I felt it was better. I have not needed to run windows for a couple years, so I do not know what the current state of development is in the market, but VirtualBox would be my initial choice if I needed a VM. One data point. For the modeling software I was using on Windows 7, Parallels made my machine run much hotter.

Comment Re:I work in Earth-observing satellite ground syst (Score 2) 24

The first question that popped into my mind was did they have a new model that would take data from 100 satellites and produce a more accurate forecast. I don't think that satellites alone are not going to create a more accurate forecast. This reminds me when I was talking to a teacher back in the 80's. He mentioned that at one point it was believed that if we could create a dense enough network of satellites and sensors, we could forecast the weather with great accuracy and for arbitrarily long periods. Theoretically, given an infinite array of sensors, the forecast would be perfect and long range. But then actual science interfered as the work of Lorentz propagated through the ranks. The sensitivity to initial conditions, and the inherent limitations of data collection, made such claims of better forecasting theoretically impossible. I have to think that the current configuration of satellites represents some compromise between cost and benefit. Not to say that more satellites will not provide a benefit. Whoever contracts with the service will be able to claim 'We have better forecasting because we have more satellites', which will help with marketing. It will help push forward the cubesat business and will test out these new technologies, which is of great benefit. And it is an experiment that might succeed in producing useful data that might be able to be put into better models.

Comment Re:Still not good enough. (Score 5, Funny) 430

If you vote for people who promise to fight for your "freedom" by blocking "burdensome government regulations" that might someday prevent you from throttling off your customers once you form that telecommunications monopoly you've been dreaming of ever since your mom sent you to school wearing bread bags on your feet, then yeah, it is your fault.

Comment Re:Simple Explanation (Score 5, Insightful) 237

More simple explanation: Life is out there, it's just too far away to detect, or to visit us--and will ALWAYS be so, because you can't cheat Newton and Einstein. An alternate "simplest" explanation (though less likely) is that we are first.

To suggest that ET hasn't come to visit us because we are "too violent" or whatever, and that they are masking their presence is definitely NOT the simplest explanation--it suggests that every nearby alien species has agreed to isolate us, and every member of those civilizations is on board with the idea. No one is out there playing with an RF emitter in the VHF band, Harry Mudd hasn't stopped by and spilled the beans, no one's even accidentally done anything to give the game away.

Sorry, I'm just not buying that.

Comment Ozane (Score 2) 351

Nobody uses these names, but technically the IUPAC systematic name for ammonia is "azane", and water is "ozane". (Google says they're a Star Refrigeration subsidiary in the US and an exterminator business in New Jersey.)

I'm imagining Slashdot stories like "Fracking Fluid Contains Significant Amounts of Ozane", "Ozane Responsible For Rising Sea Levels", "Guantanamo Prisoners Tortured Using Ozane", "Oncoming Ozane Crisis Threatens Civilization", "Weak Beer Found To Contain Excess Amounts of Ozane", "Linus Torvalds: Ozane Has No Role In Linux", "Ozane Layer Disappearing Along East Coast", "Tesla Motors Introducing Ozane-Based Fuel Cells", etc.

Comment Re:People who don't read it are telling us about i (Score 2) 65

That's got to be a large part of it; they're a waste of space. Imagine a stack of hundreds of those things, turned on their sides. They would occupy a whole seat. With Skymall gone they can compress your knees further into the back of the guy in front of you and cram in an extra row of pig crates.

Comment Re:Wouldn't a sorted table have been more useful ? (Score 2) 136

This is advertisement from the parent company of /., so there is no need for any real information.

Presenting things as maps is the 21st century method of establishing credibility. It is much cheaper than actually creating an informative graphic with useful data, a la Edward Tufte.

As has been mentioned, this data is not all that useful. One still pretty much makes more money in places that are more expensive to live, but not nearly enough. For instance, in San Jose one might make 25% more than in Houston. On the other hand, the median price for a home in San Jose is 5 times the average pay listed on the site, while in Houston the median price for a home is only 1.4 times the average pay listed on the site. Doing this type of normalization is simple, but does not drive rubes to higher paying jobs that might pay higher commissions to places like Dice.

Comment Re:Or: (Score 5, Interesting) 65

This seems to be the narrative that the parent company, Xhibit Corp,is pushing. Perhaps blaming 'the market' will help it in bankruptcy with creditors, and protect the owners from personal liability.

What is not being widely reported is that Xhibit Corp sold the customer loyalty fulfillment part of the business last year for around $20 million. This was the unit that apparently generated the vast majority of the revenue and probably all the profit. Why would a firm who expected to stay solvent sell of the unit that generated most of the revenue, a unit with guaranteed sales?

It really seems like a scam to create liquidity of the profitable assets and then screw the creditors. The fact that the business was a failing was probably known at the time of the sale. For instance, it was probably known that Southwest Air was going to stop carrying the catalog.

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