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Comment Libertarian talking point goes down in flames (Score 1) 720

So the idea that a higher minimum wage would drive automation is bullshit, as we suspected all along. Companies would automate jobs if they were being paid $2/hour. Humans get sick, they have a bad day and require training. Humans need managers, machines just need maintenance.

It was always a bullshit talking point. How many companies have a receptionist these days? Or a switchboard operator? A higher minimum wage never explained ATMs and online banking.

Maybe it was just Koch brothers brand bullshit all along.

Comment Gadget enforcement never works (Score 1) 398

Furthermore, the city has not presented data on whether or not those areas have become safer.

That's because they haven't, otherwise the city would be taking a victory lap. That's because gadget enforcement can't change human nature.

We won't see any real safety improvements until we take human nature out of driving and turn it over to machines.

Comment As if we weren't ignoring them before (Score 5, Funny) 406

We were ignoring seat belt puppet show long before the FAA loosened restrictions on gadgets. Besides, if there ever actually was an accident, the chances of needing any of that safety equipment is pretty negligible. I don't think the little oxygen mask is going to be any match for blunt force trauma. At normal airliner speeds, the little mask would be wearing you for protection.

Comment Just the kind of thing you'd expect from the feds (Score 1) 580

What a dumb as shit policy. That's almost as bad as the days they wouldn't hire anyone who smoked pot. When you fix those kinds of absolutes you start selecting for a specific personality type that's not always going to make the best agent.

It's so backwards it defies logic.

Comment Too much oxygen? (Score 3, Insightful) 269

“If crops grown on Mars are the only food source, they will ‘produce unsafe oxygen levels in the habitat’ resulting in the first crew fatality after about 68 days due to ‘suffocation from too low an oxygen partial pressure within the environment,’ the consequence of a complex series of events stemming from overproduction of oxygen by the plants.

It seems like an over-production of oxygen on a planet with an abundance of atmospheric CO2 would be a solvable problem. Hasn't this been faced by every grow experiment ever performed in space?

One of the criticisms of the astronauts in the mood landing program was that we quit just as we were getting good at it. Right now we're not even working at developing long-duration space missions. We're not going to solve the problems until we start putting experiments and people up there to start working the bugs out.

Comment He's right but Mars isn't far enough (Score 1) 549

He's right that we need to get populations of humans off this rock if the species is going to survive. Mars might be a good first step, but we need to think about more distance, Mars is too close. The gamma ray burst that kills off life on earth would just as easily kill everyone on Mars. If the problem was a wandering neutron star it's going to savage everything in its path.

We need to think about sending generational ships into space. Maybe we can't do it right now, but we should be working toward that goal. Perhaps Musk is thinking that generational ships are too big of a step with current technology and that we need to get comfortable spending longer times in space before aiming higher.

Comment Re:Should we? (Score 1) 267

I will never understand the quasi-religious fervor some people have about space.

If we, as a species, don't get off the earth, and fairly soon in terms of our evolutionary history, we're going to die. That's a fact. If it's not a gamma ray burst, a meteor or comet fragment the size of Texas, or a wandering neutron star, something is going to come along and kill everything on this planet, including us.

What I will never understand is short-sighted people who only care if the planet lasts long enough for them to get theirs and piss on future generations.

Comment Re:That's not what she's saying (Score 4, Insightful) 356

just that they never collapse further than the state that gravity can overcome the speed of light.

It sounds like a new term like "black star" rather than "black hole" might be in order. Because the stars at the center of our universe are orbiting around something really heavy that doesn't emit any visible light.

If I'm reading this right there's something really big and heavy there, we just can't see it.

Comment OS less significant (Score 2) 249

I remember when the Redmond faithful used to go on about needing Windows to get "real work" done. My work must not be real because I can do it on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS. I find myself using my Android tablet more and more for work and all my social media promotions.

The operating system is becoming less relevant every day. People are choosing devices, not operating systems.

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