Comment: Re: bullshit. (Score 1) 132
It is interesting to me that you start with the Carter Doctrine, surely many other prior interventions by the west in the region are equally if not more important?
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Comment: Re:Light Pollution (Score 1) 420
re: street lights Some communities have done this to save money and energy. An even larger number are aware of the potential. So it may be a small minority, but it isn't nobody at all. It's an idea I've advocated for a long time, for energy, cost, and its a gross violation of the night. And of course researchers have studied whether street lights deter crime or just let criminals see better. Results are inconclusive. re: the excessive waste caused by petty vanities and stupid choices. Yes.
Comment: Re:The US gets back what it seeded (Score 1) 241
The US has 150+ military interventions to its name. On average more than 1 per year since the 1890s. Retaliation to empire building should not be unexpected.
Comment: Re:Bill Nye, the Dogma Guy! (Score 1) 670
This is some troubling reasoning; are proposing that the scientific efficacy of an idea is all that matters? Surely you recognize the ethical and moral problems that present themselves here. Also I think you are confusing intersecting ideas. I can recognize the scientifically tested efficacy of vaccines and nuclear power and still contrive scientific arguments against both, depending on my world view. AGW may be somewhat different in this respect since we are specifically referencing "deniers," but there is a substantial (educated) crowd with an agnostic belief on AGW that is treated as denial (It's simpler to deny that admit you just don't care), which is also a sound way of thinking (to my dismay..).
Comment: Re:Evidence based, reasoned arguments don't work (Score 1) 670
In the end, I think the real problem is that we have unions running our schools for the benefit of the union members, rather than for the children.
Since there are plenty of schools with non-union teachers, surely such a simple hypothesis could be tested (and has been) with publicly available data. I'm guessing it has and this idea holds no water.
Comment: Re:Right here baby (Score 1) 167
Because they bought these devices to save time, not waste it on making a device/service they paid for work.
weird attitude, in conflict with with nerd community I have grown up with on slashdot, which has for 15+ years routinely and actively promoted a hacker-like ethos with respect to one's products, tools, etc.
And even if WhateverOS supports those features, most manufacturers/telecoms claim that such software modifications (even just rooting) void the hardware warranty (a lie in NY, if not the entire US), and refuse to repair/replace the device.
Who cares what they say, on all my devices, even with flags for modification, I've been able to bring it back to factory. Warranty issues really?
I guess with enough time and ability you could just reverse engineer the hardware and write your own OS. And I guess with enough money in addition you could just create the hardware yourself too. But how far do you want to go down this rabbit hole?
That's an easy question. The entire distance my desire, abilities, and time, will take me. What's the problem? We arrive back at my earlier comment, somehow spending an evening to understand the relationship between your phone hardware and software and modifying it to better suit you is made to be some perilous, indefinite journey galaxy fraught with imagined dangers that cause one to sit home on the internet and complain. Actually it was 3 hours of reading, 2 hours of fuck ups, and 1 hour of getting it right, one evening, 14 months ago.
Comment: Re:Yeah, right (Score 1) 267
My only necessity is to vigilantly maintain and uphold the way that I think and understand the world. Compromising that to lessen my cognitive load or evaluate something based on vague recollection are unacceptable compromises that will deteriorate who I am.An informed comment will take me either 30 seconds or a long time due to fact checking. More often than not my long form comments are not submitted as I am mostly satisfied with my personal due diligence on the issue and not the futility of the present argument.
Comment: Re:censorship and anonymity (Score 1) 267
I don't want to tell you anything. I asked a question. Your incredulity surprises me. You have heard of social media and link aggregation right? My familiarity with local print and broadcast media tells me that it is possible to cater to large, nonhomogenous groups of people.
I follow stories to many sites, whose political allegiance is unknown to me. If my participation is essentially via aggregators and social medias and these sites I visit have disqus, for example, I can comment freely without any particular regard to where I am. My participation isn't tied to that site and nothing distinguishes me from any group that may or may not exist. Comments at this site are open to random people and the sites themselves may be randomly pushed via some unsophisticated promotion/aggregation process.
So unless you have some evidence that my behavior is uncommon I think my question has merit. I also think you are guilty of vast over simplification.
I follow stories to many sites, whose political allegiance is unknown to me. If my participation is essentially via aggregators and social medias and these sites I visit have disqus, for example, I can comment freely without any particular regard to where I am. My participation isn't tied to that site and nothing distinguishes me from any group that may or may not exist. Comments at this site are open to random people and the sites themselves may be randomly pushed via some unsophisticated promotion/aggregation process.
So unless you have some evidence that my behavior is uncommon I think my question has merit. I also think you are guilty of vast over simplification.
Comment: Re:Drones don't say you're serious (Score 1) 131
Yep extrajudicial executions are a solution to all problems, maybe if I'm lucky it will one day be a solution for my problem with your opinion.
Comment: A good strategy (Score 4, Insightful) 85
This is a strategy for demonstrating the absurdity of the current patent regime, right?
Comment: Re:Brittle (Score 2) 311
Here in Finland, the best private investment in terms of ROI are nuclear reactors at Loviisa, followed by nuclear reactors at Olkiluoto
Source? I was under the impression Olkiluoto #3 was a colossal failure and 300% over budget. Oh yes, from wikipedia,
"Unit 3, an EPR reactor, is still under construction, but various problems with workmanship and supervision have created costly delays which have been the subject of an inquiry by the Finnish nuclear regulator Säteilyturvakeskus (STUK).[1] In December 2012, Areva estimated that the full cost of building the reactor will be about €8.5 billion, or almost three times the delivery price of €3 billion.[2][3] A license for a fourth reactor to be built at the site was granted by the Finnish parliament in July 2010,[4][5][6] but discontinued by the government in September 2014. TVO has the option to reapply for the license in the future.[7]"
Are you claiming at 300% over budget it has the among the best ROI? I mean even in Finland you could build out solar energy with a better ROI than a $10/WAC nuclear plant (or gas, oil, wood, steam, wind, biomass) nothing costs this much except a nuclear boondoogle.
Comment: Re:Gullible people (Score 2) 131
for what its worth, I think you are really stretching the limit of "success". Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX are not successful by traditional metrics. They don't make money. All success so far is self-perpetuating hype, which in fact may dramatically assist long term success, but has not yet. These companies are all valued on future promises based on quite uncertain growth projections, which may or may not pan out. I'm not really familiar with SpaceX because its private, but the only money made on Tesla and Solar City is by speculators who have managed to "sell" promises to other spectators. Investments in these companies haven't paid off by generating income. I think this would be the basic formula to decide success. Not fantastic growth that could torpedo at any moment and leave a 20b hole in speculator pockets.
Solar city's anticipated success is based on a business plan they are already transitioning away from, lofty valuations of future revenue will not materialize as they are forced to abandon their cash cow, principally due to well-financed competitors who are willing to pass on more of the economic benefits of solar energy to their customers. The amazing thing, is that despite approximately 6 months of this knowledge, most analysts have not substantially reduced targets based on solar city's own information. That should tell you something about the importance of "hype" or "future promises" in determining the "success" of a company.
Solar city's anticipated success is based on a business plan they are already transitioning away from, lofty valuations of future revenue will not materialize as they are forced to abandon their cash cow, principally due to well-financed competitors who are willing to pass on more of the economic benefits of solar energy to their customers. The amazing thing, is that despite approximately 6 months of this knowledge, most analysts have not substantially reduced targets based on solar city's own information. That should tell you something about the importance of "hype" or "future promises" in determining the "success" of a company.
Comment: Re:Don't forget the risk (Score 1) 480
To some degree I am sure one might. Given my naive understanding of the frequency and cause of air line disasters; however this would seem much more difficult in practice given sparse data.
Comment: Re:credibility? (Score 1) 267
Conversely that may also be a desperate expert's attempt to educate people that should know better!
Comment: Re:censorship and anonymity (Score 1) 267
Where is the group think when there is no community? For example accessible comment systems on news sites (e.g. disqus)?
Is it established by the article? The first post?
Is it established by the article? The first post?
