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Comment: Re:Yeah... No ... (Score 1) 1014

by PapayaSF (#43758201) Attached to: 97% of Climate Science Papers Agree Global Warming Is Man-made

You've confused the total with the excess.

I'm not confusing anything, the parent is. He wrote "the world's CO2 emissions" (which implies the total), not "the world's excess CO2 emissions" or "human CO2 emissions." Given all the emotion and hyperbole around this issue, I think it's important for language to be accurate.

Comment: Re:Yeah... (Score 5, Insightful) 1014

by PapayaSF (#43753609) Attached to: 97% of Climate Science Papers Agree Global Warming Is Man-made

That means American personal cars and homes produce between 1/4 and 1/5 of the world's CO2 emissions.

That can't be correct. Total human emissions of CO2 only account for about 3% of the world's CO2 emissions, so do you mean that American cars and homes account for between 1/4 and 1/5 of that 3%?

Comment: Re:WebOS (Score 1) 114

by PapayaSF (#43743631) Attached to: Google's House of Cards

Google, so far, only uses the info to target ads to you. Not really a bad thing. I would rather see a targeted ad than one for Maxipads or Viagra.

I think you are missing the point here. The awkwardness and privacy concerns arise from the targeting: e.g. when a middle-aged guy gets a targeted ad for Viagra. Or, in my case, when some Google research about STDs later gave me targeted ads for STD tests.

+ - World's largest OTEC power plant planned for China->

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes "Lockheed Martin has been getting its feet wet in the renewable energy game for some time. In the 1970s it helped build the world’s first successful floating Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system that generated net power, and in 2009 it was awarded a contract to develop an OTEC pilot plant in Hawaii. That project has apparently been canceled but the company has now shifted its OTEC sights westward by teaming up with Hong Kong-based Reignwood Group to co-develop a 10 MW pilot plant that will be built off the coast of southern China."
Link to Original Source

+ - Drug Site Silk Road Says It Will Survive Bitcoin's Volatility ->

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Bitcoin's recent spike and then collapse in value has convinced many that it's too unstable to use as a practical currency. But not the founder of Silk Road, the black market drug site that exclusively accepts Bitcoin in exchange for heroin, cocaine and practically every other drug imaginable. Silk Road's creator, who calls himself the Dread Pirate Roberts, broke his usual media silence to issue a short statement that Silk Road will survive Bitcoin's bubble and bust. The market's prices are generally pegged to the dollar, with prices in Bitcoin fluctuating to account for movements in the exchange rate. And Roberts explained that vendors on the site have the option to also hedge the Bitcoins that buyers place in escrow for their products, so that they can't lose money due to Bitcoin's volatility while the drugs are in the mail. As a result, only about 1,000 of the site's more than 11,000 product listings were taken down during the recent crash."
Link to Original Source

+ - Cyber Intelligence Act passed ..-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The US House of Representatives has passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act (CISPA) .. The authors of the bill say this is an effort to better combat the reportedly increasing attempts to harm America’s critical computer networks and pilfer the systems of private companies for intellectual property and other sensitive trade secrets."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Fringe ideas (Score 5, Interesting) 181

by PapayaSF (#43484935) Attached to: Interviews: Ask Freeman Dyson What You Will

The fringes of science are filled with all sorts of disreputable, crackpot ideas. Most are worthless, but every now and then one turns out to be true (e.g. Wegener's continental drift). Are there any such "cocktail party theories" that you intrigue you, and that you believe might deserve further investigation?

Toys

Six Retailers Announce Recall of Buckyballs and Buckycubes 343

Posted by Soulskill
from the first-world-natural-selection dept.
thereitis writes "The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in cooperation with six retailers, is announcing the voluntary recall of all Buckyballs and Buckycubes high-powered magnet sets due to ingestion hazard. CPSC continues to warn that these products contain defects in the design, warnings and instructions, which pose a substantial risk of injury and death to children and teenagers. An administrative complaint has been filed which is rare, as CPSC has filed only four administrative complaints in the past 11 years." This follows last year's ban on buckyballs.
United States

Zuckerberg Lobbies For More Liberal Immigration Policies 484

Posted by timothy
from the old-immigrants-vs.-new-immigrants dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mark Zuckerberg, along with other notables such as Google's Eric Schmidt, Yahoo's Marissa Mayer and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linkedin, has launched a new immigration reform lobbying group called FWD.us. In an editorial in the Washington Post, Zuckerberg claims that immigrants are the key to a future knowledge-based economy in a United States which currently has 'a strange immigration policy for a nation of immigrants.' As expected, they are calling for more of the controversial H-1B visas which reached their maximum limit in less than a week this year, but those aren't the only things they're looking to change."
The Almighty Buck

Sequester Grounds Blue Angels 341

Posted by Soulskill
from the take-that-main-street dept.
SchrodingerZ writes "The Blue Angels squadron, known for their intricate and death-defying aerial demonstrations, has canceled all scheduled air shows for the rest of the year. The United States Navy, which controls the Blue Angels, has reported that the grounding comes from the massive rollbacks in spending, due to the 85 billion dollar sequestration given by the federal government. In a statement from the office of the Commander Naval Air Forces in San Diego, the Navy said, 'Recognizing budget realities, current Defense policy states that outreach events can only be supported with local assets at no cost to the governmen.' Currently, the cost of an air show is above $100,000. This story came just a week after the announcement by the Air Force that their Thunderbird shows will also be canceled."

Comment: Re:What a waste (Score 1) 229

by PapayaSF (#43315237) Attached to: Boston Cops Go Undercover Online To Crack Down on Concerts

Yeah, OK, but I'm not objecting to shutting down noisy concerts that are bothering people. I'm objecting to using undercover cops to find out about the concerts ahead of time, before anyone complains. It's like having plainclothes cops follow people leaving McDonald's with takeout, just in case they later litter with their burger wrappers. It's too much enforcement for too minor a crime.

"I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3 because I couldn't remember the proof." -- Baker, Pure Math 351a

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