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Comment Less nuclear means more coal (Score 3, Insightful) 383

https://www.technologyreview.c...

"After years of declines, Germanyâ(TM)s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. Thatâ(TM)s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal."

The whole nuclear debate shows that the left can be just as "anti-science" as the right. Because of scaremongering, nuclear power plant construction and development has been hamstrung for decades. It produces less radiation than coal and scales a lot better than solar or wind. For all the money and jobs in solar it still produces a small percentage of power, even in places like Germany (less than 8%). Wind and solar combined only produce only 22% of energy in Germany.

If you believe that global warming is about to end the human race, we should be increasing all our options for non-CO2 polluting energy. Especially if you anticipate a huge need in energy as we shift cars from petrol to electric.

Abandoning nuclear is right when we need it the most is just stupid.

Comment Laws are only for the little people silly! (Score 5, Insightful) 371

The depressing part of all of this is that it is obvious she is guilty, but it really doesn't matter. The politically powerful, whether the Goldman Sachs or the Clintons, will always be able to get away with whatever they want. Meanwhile our prison population is overflowing with "little people" who lack the political connections necessary to be free of the ire of the Federal government. Host an illegal mail server that is easily hacked. No big deal. Actually blow the whistle on Federal crimes and corruption. To prison with you!

Comment Re: he should know better (Score 1) 319

Wrong, wrong, you could not be more wrong. The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights (which doesn't even apply here obviously) is the legal mandate of the Enlightenment concept of Free Speech which goes far beyond what I could describe in a short reply.

It is sad and sickening to see so called liberals slowing becoming the greatest opponents of a marketplace of ideas, of free discussion and debate, of taking and understanding rather than mandating like the worst fascists of the 20th century

Comment Go to college to actually learn something (Score 3, Informative) 306

While you shouldn't necessary pick a major based on the hottest job, you definitely need to pick something in consideration with how you will use it. And you sure as heck should go to college to learn and make yourself better--not just to receive a piece of paper. Racking up 5 or 6 figures of debt without learning anything of value is a terrible idea. Unfortunately, we haven't given students the tools or perspectives to understand the consequences of the decisions they are making. Everyone is always warning athletes coming into college "the chances of you making it as a pro are extremely rare". And yet, the chances of someone making it as a tenured history professor at a major university are probably just as rare. At least the athletes aren't going into massive debt.

Add onto the fact that we have massively watered down many majors to the point of uselessness. The reason liberal arts majors get a bad rap isn't that it is a useless subject. If people came out as hard working critical thinkers they would be valuable contributors. Unfortunately, it is filled with people who just want a piece of papers and do the minimum to get by. This is a generalization, of course, but I believe is backed up by stats on plagiarism http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...). And the courses are watered down to be worthless. For example you can graduate from Yale with an English without having a Shakespeare course (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/04/23/skipping-shakespeare-yes-english-majors-can-often-bypass-the-bard/). So in 4 years of education in English, you don't have to actually take a course in the most influential English writer in history. But, you know, he is challenging to read and understand. As an alternative you can take a course in Literature for Young People http://english.yale.edu/course... which includes J. K. Rowling and Dr. Seuss.

At least with Engineering/Math/Hard Science you have to demonstrate via projects and tests that you have actually learned something.

Comment Re:Insurance (Score 1, Informative) 217

It's not an investment platform, it's a begging platform with door prizes. Investors get ownership for their money and can demand accountability *during* the life of the project.

And startup investors invest a large sum of money for that ownership. You aren't going to get ownership for 5-100 bucks.

Comment Wow, that gamasutra article!! (Score 1) 724

"ÃGame cultureÃ(TM) as we know it is kind of embarrassing -"
"ItÃ(TM)s young men queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. "
"petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction"
"infantilized cultural desert of shitty behavior"
"You know, young white dudes with disposable income"
"atrocities committed by young white teen boys in hypercapitalist America"
"ItÃ(TM)s probably intense, painful stuff for some young kids, some older men."
"Gamers are over. ThatÃ(TM)s why theyÃ(TM)re so mad. "
"These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers"

This sounds like the mad rantings of a Freshman Gender Studies student who have never touched a video game, not the news director of a gaming website! It is nothing more than sexist, ageist, name-calling. It sounds like she not only hates her job but also hates the industry she is covering. No wonder Intel pulled their support, I can't imagine any corporation would want to be associated with this.

Comment Re:So-to-speak legal (Score 1) 418

The problem is that government is being used to choke out the competition, especially at a local level: http://www.wired.com/2013/07/w...

Comcast uses government regulation as a shield to block competition. So yes, the libertarian solution would be to remove these blocks and open up the options.

And you are naive to think that anyone in government, especially Democrats, will regulate Comcast. Obama has been in bed with Comcast for a while http://thehill.com/policy/tech.... And Comcast owns NBC, which owns MSNBC--the Fox News of the Democrat party.

Sorry to bust your Government/Democrats good Republicans/libertarians bad bubble.

Comment Re:The Religious Right will have your head on a pl (Score 3, Insightful) 470

You can't teach critical thinking in schools. The Texas state Republican party platform is explicitly opposed to it.

--
I piss off bigots

Your sig is ironic since your opinion is quite bigoted. There is a great deal of pseudoscience belief on both sides of the isle. The left has irrational beliefs on nuclear power, GMO foods, etc. There was an article in the Washington Post about Democrats believing in horoscope and astrology more than Republicans/Independents: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Comment Re: Solution - Face-saving way out (Score 1, Insightful) 482

The entire pro-choice movement is based on the concept of "My Body My Choice". You start forcing people to accept injections of anything into their bodies and you lose the moral basis for that argument. How do you "force" people to accept vaccines? Strap them down and inject them? Could anything be more frightening than the government forcing chemicals into someone's veins? That will make people even more anti-vaccine than ever.

I'm am very pro-vaccine. From childhood illnesses to flu to hpv, I want them all for myself and kids. And I have gotten into arguments with ignorant anti-vaccine people. What I have found is that they simply have lost all faith in "authority" because they have been lied to time and time again. WMD in Iraq! You can keep your insurance! Eat the food pyramid because you need to eat twice as much bread as you do veggies (not kidding, look it up). Leaders lie and lie and lie again to get what they want. Is it any wonder why people don't believe anything. In fact, it seems like the more forceful the denial the more likely the lie. You try and make vaccines mandatory you WILL make a bigger anti-vaccine movement.

Comment Re: First blacks, (Score 1) 917

Congratulations, your hateful vitriol against people who believe differently than you does more to justify the need for this legislation than any argument supporters could make....

Tolerance comes in both directions. If you can't see the difference between refusing to serve someone based on skin color and refusing to go to and participate in a ceremony that your religion disagrees with, I genuinely feel sorry for your blind hatred.

Comment IDE for search, refactoring, etc (Score 2) 627

I'm surprised that so many of the comments for IDEs are restricted to things like autocomplete. IDEs do far more than that. Things like smart refactoring (beyond GREP/Replace), code searches and navigation (find references, go up and down the object hierarchy, find impls), and debugging (attach to remote process, breakpoints, etc).

Comment Re:End of November (Score 1) 250

Not really. It sounds like a position that should have been filled from the beginning is just now getting filled.

The mythical man month does not directly cover the case of being under-manned until a month after release, then bringing staffing up to where it should be. And certainly if that is the entirety of your contribution, I have to assume you mean the most recognized portions of the concept.

Under-manned because they hired one more person? I haven't seen any evidence they were understaffed or under-manned. And someone I'm skeptical that a CEO guy with a BS in Political Science and no Software Engineering background is the key to turning this around.

Comment Re:It may all be for naught (Score 2) 250

And since they are treated differently than people in the other 14 states that do have exchanges, you can bet an Equal Protection lawsuit will be quick in coming.

Here is the Equal Protection Clause:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Note that the boundary of the clause is the State. Different states have different laws all the time. Massachusetts has had statewide healthcare for a long time, and Vermont passed a single-payer healthcare. Oregon has vote-by-mail. Minnesota abolished the death penalty while it remains in the majority of states. Some states have legalized marijuana, while in Pennsylvania you can only buy wine and spirits from state owned shops. Taxes are different, environmental laws are different, etc.

Statehood wouldn't mean much if states weren't allowed to have different laws.

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