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Comment Re:Weeding out is one of the intended roles (Score 1) 96

Weeding out is one of the intended roles of Freshman Calculus.

And what is the societal benefit of "weeding out" an entire cohort of students before they have mastered the topic? It seems to me that the primary purpose is for colleges to avoid scrutiny and duck responsibilities for some deficiencies endemic to the education system.

Submission + - Birth of a Solar System Witnessed in Spectacular Scientific First (sciencealert.com)

alternative_right writes: Around a Sun-like star just 1,300 light-years away, a family of planets has been seen in its earliest moments of conception.

Astronomers analyzed the infrared flow of dust and detritus left over from the formation of a baby star called HOPS-315, finding tiny concentrations of hot minerals that will eventually form planetesimals – the 'seeds' around which new planets will grow.

Comment Re: Simple... (Score 2) 199

Amber alerts shouldn't wake people up.

The nature of them is that people who are already awake and alert can potentially respond; but they aren't applicable to people sleeping.

The fix, for the very rare circumstance where such an alert should wake people up is to structure special alert for that.

Weather alerts, flood, tornado, etc. should be able to wake people up.

Missing kids aren't in that list.

Comment Re:The book burning has begun (Score 0) 77

The dems, crippled by an attachment to donors who hate what democratic voters want are strategically incapable of anything besides bare-minimum maintenance of the empire and its alliances.

Not sure exactly what you are implying here.

However, the impression in the minds of many Americans is that the Dems are more concerned with undocumented immigrants and transexuals than blue-collar working class - the alleged core Democratic voter.

At the very first Democratic 2020 primary debate the first question was will you provide health care to undocumented immigrants. All 10 candidates raised their hands! My jaw dropped at that response. I know many working-class people who can't afford Health Care and the Dems want to provide health care to people who aren't even citizens or pay taxes. They also continue to be preoccupied if Trans needs are being met and if trans men can compete in sports. All was self-inflicted suicide.

Comment Re:On the soapbox for a moment (Score 4, Insightful) 249

They can't prove it, they spend billions trying to prove it and came away with really nothing beyond more "I don't agree with this" politics, no fraud, no abuse, no real waste.

Oh But Elon and Trump did a great job of convincing the low information citizen that fraud was rampant. Elon sitting in a round table with the Trump's cabinet was going on and on about toddlers getting $100K SBA loans and millions of people over 140 collecting Social Security. Pam Bondi acknowledging all the fraud and claim she is going after it. End of story. No follow up. This is what the MAGA saw on Fox News, and they think it was the truth, Praise the Orange Jesus.

I don't think there was a single criminal referral coming from DOGE. They just pretended it was found and now my Mother-in-Law thinks Trump has fixed it.

Submission + - MIT chemical engineers develop new way to separate crude oil (thecooldown.com)

fahrbot-bot writes: The Cool Down is reporting that a team of chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a new process to separate crude oil components, potentially bringing forward a replacement that can cut its harmful carbon pollution by 90%.

The original technique, which uses heat to separate crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, accounts for roughly 1% of all global energy consumption and 6% of dirty energy pollution from the carbon dioxide it releases.

"Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate components based on shape and size?" said Zachary P. Smith, associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and senior author of the study, as previously reported in Interesting Engineering.

The team invented a polymer membrane that divides crude oil into its various uses like a sieve. The new process follows a similar strategy used by the water industry for desalination, which uses reverse osmosis membranes and has been around since the 1970s.

The membrane excelled in lab tests. It increased the toluene concentration by 20 times in a mixture with triisopropylbenzene. It also effectively separated real industrial oil samples containing naphtha, kerosene, and diesel.

Comment Re:Why?! (Score 1) 100

Wireless controllers have a reliability rate SUBSTANTIALLY lower than wired controllers.

They picked carbon fibre that was past it's best by date from storage.
The "source" wasn't fine if it's cast offs. Details matter. If it were a prototype used for evaluative testing without live occupants, all good. But that's not what we're talking about here.

Have you ever actually worked with wireless electronics or protocols? Here's a hint: Bluetooth and WiFi are not protocols that should be used in any life-or-death situation. There are ways to use them, and to do so safely; this wasn't even CLOSE to that.
RF interference can come from many places, in an emergency situation a partially faulty motor can saturate RF bands and block transmissions. I've worked in environments were a failed electric motor wiped out an entire network. You can;t eliminate all risk, but you can certainly increase safety margins. Now imagine a minor failure eliminating their control system.

Comment Why?! (Score 5, Insightful) 100

Why?!

I truly find this story uninteresting after learning enough regarding decision making on the project.

The decision making was so poor they used a wireless controller as the only real controls.

They not only picked questionable materials to build it from, they picked questionable sources for that material, skipped doing any real testing of the material while ignoring legitimate concerns.

Pushing the limits is one thing, but so many of these decisions were just simply daft.

Hardwired controls with wireless for convenience; override the wireless in an emergency.

Check the sub before and after each launch, looking for material issues and documenting any changes. Not a cursory glance at it, but using equipment to actually scan the surface for defects as is used in related industries. (Ultrasonic, radio isotopes/xray, etc)

These two things alone would have increased the safety factor of this project immensely.

But ignoring them all? Boring. You made a coffin with a randomization factor

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