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Comment: Re:Start here (Score 1) 949

by Smauler (#43820391) Attached to: White House: Use Metric If You Want, We Don't Care

Assuming soil is half as dense than water (it was while driving, so I couldn't look it up), you get 3 tons of soil.

Why would you assume that? Here's a hint - if it sinks, it is denser than water, and if it floats, it's lighter than water.

I'd personally guess that soil's about twice a dense as water, which actually gives you 12 tonnes.

Comment: Re:Ah, yes! (Score 1) 295

by Smauler (#43810693) Attached to: Cockroaches Evolving To Avoid Roach Motels

Don't make the mistake of thinking that people that believe either ID or associated beliefs must be stupid.

I don't. I never have. I'm a flirting Christian in that I love some of the tenets of the religion (I don't believe in god yet... that is a small drawback). It's just nothing to do with the scientific method. ID ascribes something to something that by definition cannot be proven or disproven, A book I love to illustrate my views is A J Ayers' "Language, Truth and Logic".

Comment: Re:Let me PARSE that for you (Score 1) 133

by Smauler (#43810113) Attached to: Android Malware Intercepts Text Messages, Forwards To Criminals

Android is a platform built for the pleasure of the technical elite, with a promise to non-technical users of being their gateway into the new world of mobile computing. But that is a lie; it's simply a PC you can put in your pocket that brings along for the ride every ill ever conceived of on a PC and more besides.

This is modded interesting, here?

Android is in what way a platform for the technical elite? It is outselling Apple's offerings 4:1. It is easy for people to install what they like on it... that's the attraction, not a disadvantage.

Android has both a large user base of generally satisfied customers and more freedom for those customers. Apple has a tiny market share by comparison, and locks customers into its own software. Claiming that android is for the technical elite is like claiming donuts are for the culinary elite.

Comment: Re:FUD. Must be a slow news day (Score 1) 133

by Smauler (#43810061) Attached to: Android Malware Intercepts Text Messages, Forwards To Criminals

I still think it's crazy that you have to pay to receive messages in some countries.

In the UK, the mobile companies just charge absolutely stupid amounts to the people calling them. It's much, much cheaper to phone anywhere in the world on a landline than it is to phone a mobile 10 yards away from you (unless you have a "special deal"). That's how they make their money.

It's the biggest scam of all time - just let the landline customers pick up the tab...

Comment: Re:Is this really news? (Score 1) 133

by Smauler (#43810011) Attached to: Android Malware Intercepts Text Messages, Forwards To Criminals

Well it's not difficult to type "make" as a normal user then test and when fully satisfied that the application works properly type "make install" as the system admin. But this means using the "command line" or a developer GUI which basically allows the developer to develop and maintain the application. However the average person does not know what the "command line" or even what a development GUI is or if they do think their brains will explode if they attempt it :)

You're missing the point. Even if users could be trained to compile their own utilities, it would not have an effect. No one actually knows the codebase they compile, 99.9% of the time. Even if all users automagically compiled everything they used, it would make no difference, since they'd still be downloading crap from the same crap websites.

Comment: Re: Is it evolution, or survival of the fittest? (Score 3, Informative) 295

by Smauler (#43809771) Attached to: Cockroaches Evolving To Avoid Roach Motels

Ever notice how African-American males are often muscular, large boned with large lips, and African-American females tend to have wide hips (thought to be better for childbearing)? This was due to forced mating under American slavery, where (unfortunately) slaves were force-bred to reinforce traits desirable for both hard manual labor and for producing more slaves. Compare an "African-American" to recent immigrants from Africa. Note post-slavery immigrants by and large lack those traits.

You know... most western Africans share those traits too. It's not because of slavery. I'd like to see any study showing significant differences between african americans and the population they came from (which cannot be explained by interbreeding with white & indigenous people).

Comment: Re:Ah, yes! (Score 0) 295

by Smauler (#43809711) Attached to: Cockroaches Evolving To Avoid Roach Motels

Why are we even talking about ID and creationism in this discussion? How has spirituality got dragged into this scientific topic? We could discuss how there's the possibility of some kind of learning, and behaviour transferal, but no.... we've got to bring up ID.

Fed up with ID BS.... bored of it. It was funny for a while.

Comment: Re:This is against current food movements. (Score 1) 241

by Smauler (#43790889) Attached to: 3-D Printable Food Gets Funding From NASA

Let me ask again: bio or organic food is tainted with the same herbizides/fungizides or other *zides as "ordinary" food?

They're not "tainted" with the same herbicides or fungicides.... my point was that just about every crop we grow and use has herbicides and fungicides in it - and those have been exaggerated because of our breeding of the crops. Nothing we eat is natural, unless you're a hunter gatherer.

How retarded are you?

Not retarded enough to miss someone else's point. I do buy local, and I do grow my own stuff. I occasionally use fungicides and other stuff on the crops I grow. I sell them locally. They're not organic, but they're local, and as long as you steam wash them for 2 hours prior to eating, they should be ok.

Comment: Re:This is against current food movements. (Score 1) 241

by Smauler (#43790557) Attached to: 3-D Printable Food Gets Funding From NASA

I'm not the OP, nor am I a coffee snob...

However, teabags are an abomination the world has embraced for convenience. When you drink tea with a teabag, you get some of the taste of tea, but you get all of the taste of bag.

I don't like the taste of bag. I don't want bag in my tea.

Cheap, dust grade loose leaf tea tastes 100 times better than _anything_ from a bag. Decent tea is relatively cheap too.

Ok, rant over....

Comment: Re:This is against current food movements. (Score 1) 241

by Smauler (#43790485) Attached to: 3-D Printable Food Gets Funding From NASA

Real coffee aficionados say that it's not the grinding that's the problem - it's the roasting. Green, unroasted beans keep for a long time. Once you roast them, though, they're only good for a few days, whether you grind them first or later.

Personally, I'm yet to be convinced. I buy beans and grind them... but I'm pretty sure that's just because I buy beans and like grinding them (it's a good ritual). I've not noticed much difference in the taste.

Comment: Re:This is against current food movements. (Score 2) 241

by Smauler (#43790395) Attached to: 3-D Printable Food Gets Funding From NASA

You do know agriculture is a human invention, don't you? And that since the dawn of agriculture, people have been putting all kinds of shit (literally) on their food to make it grow. None of this was "natural".

Herbicides and fungicides and insecticides exist in the "organic" plants we eat. They're just ones produced by the plant. Most of our synthetic ones are basically copies of pre-existing natural defences. Sticking some of the natural world's produce into our food would go very badly for us...

"The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones." -- Nathaniel Howe

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