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Google-Advised Disney Cartoon Aims To Convince Preschool Girls Coding's Cool 254

theodp writes: Cereal and fast food companies found cartoons an effective way to market to children. Google is apparently hoping to find the same, as it teams with Disney Junior on a cartoon to help solve its computer science "pipeline" problem. The LA Times reports the tech giant worked with the children's channel on the new animated preschool series Miles From Tomorrowland, in an effort to get kids — particularly girls — interested in computer science. The program, which premieres Friday, introduces the preschool crowd to Miles Callisto, a young space adventurer, and his family — big sister (and coder extraordinaire) Loretta and their scientist parents Phoebe and Leo. Google engineers served as consultants (YouTube video) on the show. "When we did our computer science research, we found the No. 2 reason why girls in particular are not pursuing it as a career is because their perception was fairly negative and they associated it as a field for boys," said Julie Ann Crommett, Google's program manager for computer science in media. Can't wait for the episode where Google and Disney conspire to suppress Loretta's wages!

Comment Re:This is the voice of world control. (Score 1) 106

"Do a lot of damage" is a funny way to phrase "Completely destroy"

Nuclear explosions are big. Really damn big. Have you looked at footage of underground nuclear tests?

This was a tiny little 1.2 kiloton bomb under 60 feet of packed soil. Silos aren't packed soil, and though the details are classified, I believe most bombs on ICBMs are somewhere in the megatonish range.

As pointed out elsewhere, silos are heavily-reinforced concrete. You'd have a gun barrel effect directing the blast straight up.

Further, the typical warhead on an American Peacemaker ICBM is a 300kt W87. Granted, there may be up to ten of them, but unless they exploded simultaneously, the detonation would destroy the other nine.

Comment Re:But... but nucular is bad! (Score 2) 143

I'm not saying nuclear is "safe". There's no such THING as "safe". But coal isn't safe. Oil isn't safe. Natural gas isn't safe. Wind isn't safe. Wave isn't safe. Solar isn't safe. Hydro isn't safe. All of them come with their own risks and tradeoffs.

The damage done by a wind turbine falling over, or solar panel slipping off a roof tends to be orders of magnitude less serious than a major nuclear accident. That's why wind farms and solar installations can get insurance, and nuclear can't.

Wind also kills birds. Solar requires rare earth elements that are toxic to mine, refine, and dispose of at the end of the panel's life. The damages involved are more than just "[object] falls over."

Comment Re:Illegal and Dangerous? (Score 1) 200

No, he'd win it. Even if the engine immediately went to zero thrust, the other engine would still be sufficient to find a suitable landing field. In fact, such things are practiced regularly, both simulated (for large jets) and in real life (smaller aircraft). It'd be expensive to fix, but entirely survivable, given a suitably-competent pilot.

Comment Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score 1) 932

"Just that simple"? You like the idea of closing borders, evidently, but do you like the idea of produce prices, meat prices, service-economy costs, and just about every other menial-labor field seeing its labor costs double overnight? Because that's the consequence of requiring that citizens do those jobs. Stoop work is awful, backbreaking work that pays bullshit. It only survives because the immigrants who do it are so desperate for the work that they'll take it.

And if at the same time we close the borders, we cut welfare benefits, so that the lazy who vote for a living have to actually work for a change, what would that do for the labor pool?

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