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Comment Re:Economics (Score 2) 178

You might want to look at that list again. When you eliminate the city-states at the top of the list, the top nine are Bangladesh, Palestine, Taiwan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Lebanon, Rwanda, India, Haiti. Taiwan, South Korea, and The Netherlands are obviously doing OK, the others though are not exactly what I would call "amazingly wealthy." Over a quarter of the world's population lives in those listed places and I would hazard a guess that they account for a pretty substantial amount of the poverty too.

Comment Re:what? (Score 2) 258

It could also make it worse in other ways as well. To keep a company afloat, decisions are often made to take on tremendous debt to be "paid back when times are better" but often the debt load itself prevents the time from getting better regardless of actual revenue. Take a look at AMD if you don't believe that to be possible. Governments waste money and companies do as well, just how they do it is different.

Comment Re:Blame the government when the real cause is... (Score 0) 233

To be fair, with zero regulation, oversight, and no delays as well as only minimal safety procedures, nuclear would be the cheapest (but most dangerous) of all our energy options. Duke isn't really LYING, so much as stating the obvious truth and hoping everyone misunderstands...

Comment Re:Let's clarify that one (Score 1) 233

How about this version...all THREE major nuclear accidents have been accidents. In order of ability to prevent and damage caused: one by a complete and total incompetence, one by faulty equipment and poor training, and one by design standards that were inadequate to an incredible natural disaster.

Comment Re:Not the best place (Score 2, Insightful) 233

True, although other areas also have problems. Generally you need to be on a coast for the massive amount of cooling water needed

Huh?
Might want to look at a map of US nuclear facilities.
http://www.greenpeace.orgusaennews-and-blogscampaign-blognew-maps-of-nuclear-power-plants-and-seismic-blog33826eicnt7ucmlxocrazoqgmagpsigafqjcnh-dk-ug9bf6fywq0-g_2ha_kiurgust1375544816089350/

The majority are NOT on the coast, many are on relatively small lakes...plus we have these cool things like cooling towers, not all those plants pull cold water in and dump hot water into a water source directly. A nuclear power plant doesn't need any more access to deep, cold water than a coal plant of the same generating capacity.

Comment Re:Alright then. Carry On. (Score 1) 382

It's not really that close to McCarthyism, more like "Hey, we got a call from your FORMER employer that you might have a drudge against that towards the end of your employment you were searching for some key words that implied you MIGHT be making a bomb. Tell us your side of the story and hey, if it is OK with you, would you mind if we searched your house to verify your side of the story?". Sure there are legitimate reasons why someone would search for those terms, which is why they knocked instead of breaking down the door. There is also a slim, but real, possibility that the guy was planning to blow up his former employer.

Comment Re:How did the government pull this off? (Score 1) 347

Horrific analogy. A nuclear fission explosion is a one off device that is relatively simple for an industrial society to produce (the smaller it is the harder it is to do, but still relatively simple). A nuclear fission power plant is an entirely different animal and is much more complicated. A one time use "gadget" will always be much easier to make than something meant to run 24/7 for 90%+ of the year for many years. It is much easier to take gasoline, pour it on a hot surface, wait a few moments then ignite the gas in a fireball than it is to build a car capable of harnessing the same energy.

Nuclear fission actually DOES have a pretty good safety record by the way. The three publicized major problems are due to: 1. massive human error in judgement (Chernobyl), 2. major mechanical failures compounded by inadequate training and faulty assumptions (Three Mile Island), 3. gigantic earthquake and subsequent tsunami well in excess of the planned emergencies (Fukashima).

Comment Re:Genetic Roullette (Score 4, Interesting) 358

I agree with your point, but to be fair Round-Up (glyphosate) is an herbicide and not a pesticide. I know, sounds like semantics, but making good arguments but messing up the details makes your point less salient. Glyphosate is also one of the safest herbicides in wide spread use, numerous studies have shown little if any long term adverse side effects and while acute toxicity is a possibility it is extremely rare and almost certainly an issue of a accidental extreme exposure. Natural resistance to glyphosate is the REAL reason to not want it used so widely. It is an extremely useful herbicide and to apply it when MANY alternatives exist because it make life easier than those alternatives is poor agriculture.

Comment Re:Primitive, useless tech (Score 2) 80

To be fair, Bladerunner is set in a future world where technology is both far ahead of ours and seemingly behind ours in many ways (almost steampunk like...but forward thinking for a 1980s movie). If the camera that took that picture was more advanced than those today, it would be very possible for this to happen. Imagine a small snapshot taken with an 800 megapixel camera and this is very much possible, especially if one assumes that the actual "photo" uses might also contain an embedded memory fragment with the full resolution image.

Comment Re:Hard Copy Okay (Score 2) 329

Alternatively, use either the OCR-A or OCR-B font, which are not easily read by humans.

Huh? Pretty, well no...but VERY readable. Simple monospaced block type. Not sure why it wouldn't be readable, especially since that was the original mission statement for OCR A and B, to be easily machine and human readable.

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