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Comment Re:Terror in the minds (Score 2) 55

Yes, the terror is in the minds of many beach goers, but not in reality. By putting this in place they're validating that fear. Of course this doesn't surprise me as Australia is currently in the middle of a shark cull. Sometimes I forget that the US doesn't have a monopoly on acting on unsubstantiated (and often dis-proven) fears; it's part of the human condition.

That was typed like someone who has never been sliding off the side of their surfboard and noticed a shark directly on the other side of it. Or who has never had their surfboard "bumped" as the shark decides if it is worthy of eating.

Shark attacks are infrequent, but they leave lifelong crippling injuries. If we can get a buoy to give us a heads up, I would be all for it.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

Comment Re:The US government (Score 1) 104

Are in reality a bunch of shameless cowards.

I agree, but they're not as shameless as I thought. My first reaction was: they are not going to have a pilot's license much longer. But when I took a look at the aeronautical charts for that area, I was surprised to find out that it's not a prohibited area to fly over.

In my humble opinion, this means that apparently the Government doesn't think this datacenter is such a big deal, otherwise it would have been a no-fly zone (like the plant a couple of miles to the left of the lake).

Another way to think about it is that:
1. They want it to remain obscure.
2. They think that the facility is impenetrable from all directions.

Comment Re:Let them drink! (Score 1) 532

... the solution is to provide adequate education and if they still ignore that advice that is their choice! It isn't harming anybody else. I'm glad this sort of nanny-state rubbish has been defeated.

Oh really?

You've clearly never had to sit next to someone who is morbidly obese on an airplane!

I have been scarred for life. The armrest only protects a portion of your body!

I really don't understand how Bloomberg thought that such a plan would actually make it through it courts in America though. It seems like it would have been more sensible to tax the hell out of any sugary drink larger than 16 oz, like they do on alcohol and cigarettes. There is precedent AND social acceptance of such an approach. But then again, I am not a rich, controlling prick that likes to forcefeed everyone my personal agenda...

Comment Re:Match doesn't understand "smart" (Score 5, Interesting) 561

The primary distinguisher of the Ivy League schools isn't that they're rich or that they're exceptionally high quality (though generally they are.) They're a group of colleges that a century or so ago made an agreement with each other not to have athletic scholarships, so the students could play amateur sports against each other instead of having to compete with semi-professionals. Yes, occasionally a student at the Ivies is good enough to get into the NFL or NHL, but they've got to spend time being a student as well.

Having gone to an Ivy League school, I can tell you that they still give athletic scholarships to skilled student athletes (with skilled modifying latter noun!). They just call them "academic" scholarships.

Wink, wink.

Sports are big money, even for the Ivy Leagues.

Comment Re:Truecrypt authors-WARNING: TrueCrypt is not sec (Score 5, Funny) 146

I learned a long time ago that if you go on a date with a woman and she says "I'm crazy", BELIEVE HER. She IS crazy. Even if she's hot, she's probably telling the truth when she says she's crazy. I think the same principle may apply here.

Suddenly I am less interested in my privacy and more interested in your anecdotal story!

Comment Re:Duh (Score 0) 94

I'm not sure which emotions would go through my mind as the boa constrictor tightened its grip, but I'd imagine regret would be among them.

Gods, it's awesome being on the top of the food chain....

I hate to break it to you, but you're not at the top.

Go camping without a firearm in Africa, a South American jungle, or the Arctic to experience regret.

Comment Re:An interesting caveat (Score 1) 216

As long as a reasonable person in the same situation would not feel their safety was threatened by your filming, then you're good to go.

oh, and IANAL.

In my experience, you are never "good to go" if you do not immediately do what a cop tells you to do.

You may be within your rights ignoring them, but the cop is going to make you pay for it either way.

It can take a long time to get to see that judge and there is no guarantee that he will not side with the cop.

Comment Re:Typical AAAS tripe (Score 1) 123

You sure you didn't cancel your membership to the AARP?

This was posted in the proceedings of the Geological Society of America, Not the American Academy for the Advance of Science (AAAS).

* For those of you fine Slashdotters not of the American persuasion, the AARP used to be called the American Association of Retired Persons, likely to differentiate itself from the AAA, the American Automobile Association. Now it appears to be just called AARP.

Spend more time fact checking and less time trying to prove people wrong:

The first link in the article blurb above is to a headline on the AAAS website, which publishes the journal Science.

Comment Re:Russia (Score 2) 417

If Russia wants a piece of northern Canada, they're taking it, 65 jets or no. The US presence there might keep them away, but otherwise Canada isn't winning any wars.

That's not really the point. Having advanced weaponry also allows Canada to have the ability project their force and affect peacekeeping missions or global security.

If they were worried about Russia invading, they would develop nuclear weapons. Fortunately, Canada is under the nuclear umbrella of the US and does not need to do this. Much like North Korea is under the nuclear umbrella of China.

Comment Whatever. (Score 1) 358

Seriously? I stopped reading the article when I got to the following text:

If something is receding from us right now at more than 299,792.458 km/s—faster than light speed—and it’s accelerating too, how could anything reach it? Even a photon, moving at the speed of light, wouldn’t be able to reach such a galaxy. Instead, anything beyond that point will do something that cosmologists call red out, which means they’re sufficiently redshifted that anything we do today could never, ever reach them, and only the light they emitted in the past will ever reach us. We are already causally disconnected from them.

This author obviously lacks the knowledge ladled out daily by the SyFy channel and internet on faster-than-light (FTL) drives and wormhole technology!

Comment Re:Or maybe, you know... (Score 1) 138

Next up, the new diet craze for lazy people. Blackout blinds.

I get you don't think this is useful, but why do you have to make stupid remarks? Obviously obesity rates have been rising significantly in the past few decades. There are a number of fairly obvious likely causes for this trend, but there may be many minor ones that have changed in recent decades that could be contributing -- like, for example, the amount of "light pollution" these days, which probably contributes to ambient light in bedrooms (along with decreased numbers of people in rural areas where light pollution is scarce), coupled with increased tendencies to leave various electronic devices on all the time.

Who cares if it's the "#1 reason why people don't exercise and eat right"? If it's in the top 20, it can probably be helpful to know it, and for some people, it could actually be leading to other health problems, including obesity.

I know there's this common assumption that diet and exercise is only about willpower, but the reality of life is that there are all sorts of psychological and physical factors which can make it easier or harder to pursue healthy habits. And being exhausted a lot of the time is not generally conducive to such habits. Obviously for many people blackout blinds are not the magic ticket to a thin body -- but combined with some other things, better rest could make it easier for some people to live in a more healthy manner.

You and the moderators are being too hard on the GP. It's disappointing to see posts marked as flamebait just because they are not written daintily enough.

The GP is saying that we need to stop looking for weak feel-good correlations and start dealing with the major factors! If you eat 2500 calories a day and only burn 1500 then you are eventually going to be obese.

It's commonly accepted that the cheap availability of high-calorie, empty-calorie diets is the major contributor to the obesity epidemic. I mean, come on, you can buy a 44oz drink that contains 1/3 of your recommended calorie intake for for under $2.

Couple that with lower exertion rate due to the loss of manual labor jobs (from the UK) to other countries and the time wasted noodling around on electronic media and it isn't hard to see why people are getting fat.

Maybe fat people just like a brighter bedroom since they are generally less nimble and don't want to trip on things when they get up to go the bathroom.

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