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Comment Re:Ummm. (Score 5, Insightful) 452

Not to mention the money spent to resolve countless crowding issues esp. in beef and pork. The problems caused by antibiotic overuse and buildup of pesticides. Then there's research that has to be done to change pesticide formulas. We just recently had an article that explained insects are gaining an adaption to the chemicals through symbiosis of bacteria who can metabolize the pesticides. All of this needs to be factored in.

Overfarming land for the sake of higher yield requires a great many natural resources in order to accomplish said yields. Water for example, instead of using sustainable methods can lead to shortages that have to be resolved. Then there's run-off waste by the pig farms which is dumped into rivers, where organic farms can simply use it as fertilizer because they aren't nearly as packed together.

Simple agriculture and meat "yields" need to take into account all of these repercussions of industrialized crowding and intensive farming which are not a factor in organic goods.

Comment Re:Ummm. (Score 4, Insightful) 452

You know what's absurd? It's common place to call industrialised farming "conventional". Spraying crops with tons of pesticides that produce "edible" goods. Instead of producing a product that actually helps the environment, they use Government money (subsidizing) to lower the price of the "conventional" and industrialized methods. Calling them cheaper, rather than realizing the total cost includes the money given to the corporations by the government itself. Even if the company is not given money directly, it uses cheap foodstock (corn) which itself is given money.

It's been shown time and time again that these pesticides produce health issues in animals and people. For example Round-up, the scientific research finds that the pesticide "additives" primarily cause the issue rather than the pesticide itself.

Because the pesticide in-itself doesn't cause issues, they simply formulate a new chemicle makeup to circumvent the regulations. Which in turn often comes up as toxic. So Monsanto can simply sidestep an environmental issue by changing the formula without producing positive evidence that the new product is safe. Monsanto makes billions while environmental concerns are simply thrown away.

Comment Re:CRTs? (Score 1) 424

My main frustration with CRTs are the lack of current manufacturers. If you want a CRT that has good refresh rate, good resolution, and good contrast you're somewhat out of luck. You're talking about a peice of hardware that's now reserved for a niche economy where demand is low and prices are high.

Comment Re:No shit... (Score 2) 424

Measurable is certainly a better term that could have been used. "Not insignificant" itself should be reserved for unmeasurable topics. Pain is a good topic for the discussion of "not insignificant" because pain can be ambiguous and related contextually in the "of the moment" kind of way. We can talk about how a pain can be intrusive, however in degree of displeasure it is minor. An intrusive pain would be not insignificant when the pain is reoccuring, much like the papercut reference. In the case of something that can be measured in mathematically relevant terms we should say "marginal" or talk about the average battery savings across the board.

Anyway, we're getting off topic the article states "although the difference is just 17.7W and 3.8W for CRT and LCD respectively" and we can see that's a significant amount of power. Particularly for the CRT monitor, 17.7W we're talking about quite a few watts. CRT monitors are almost certainly reserved for desktop environment rather than laptop, however power savings come in the form of money alone, rather than battery life. I would be interested in laptop measurements as the article is only related to desktop monitors. I imagine the 3.8W is much closer measurement towards what a laptop would give us. Laptops can run on 60W without much trouble and I could see 3.8W being important.
Science

Submission + - Florida thinks their students are too stupid to know the right answers. (thehappyscientist.com)

gurps_npc writes: "Robert Krampf, who runs the web site "The Happy Scientist" recently wrote in his blog about problems with Florida's Science FCAT. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test is an attempt to measure how smart the students are. Where other states have teachers cheating to help students, Florida decided to grade correct answers as wrong.

Mr. Krampf, examined the state's science answers and found several that clearly listed right answers as wrong. One question had 3 out of 4 answers that were scientifically true. So he wrote to Florida's Department of Education' Test Development center.

They admitted he was right about the answers, but said that they don't expect 5th graders to realize they were right. For this reason they marked them wrong. As such, they were not changing the tests.

Note, they wouldn't let him examine real tests, just the practice tests given out. So we have no idea if FCAT is simply to lazy to provide good practice questions, or too stupid to be allowed to test our children."

Education

Submission + - Tennessee legislature boldly sets the science clocks back 150 years (discovermagazine.com)

suraj.sun writes: The Tennessee legislature — apparently jealous that the people running Louisiana are hogging all the laughing stock — is possibly about to pass an antiscience bill designed specifically to make it easier for teachers to allow creationism in their classroom(http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/03/22/tennessee-legislature-boldly-sets-the-science-clocks-back-150-years/). The bill passed the House last year, but then a similar bill was put on hold in the Senate. Unfortunately, it was put to the Senate floor earlier this week and passed. It will have to be reconciled with the House bill, but it’s expected to pass.

Basically, the bill will make sure teachers can discuss creationism in the classroom, as well as global warming denialism. The House version states,

        "This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming."

Comment Re:Agreed (Score 2) 241

As a novice in Loci, I could probably do tau to 100 in an hour and thirty. I agree this isn't something worth bothering by itself. Primarily it's just a short benchmark. I plan to use Loci to memorize important books in rote memorization then go back over them mentally for deeper learning. At the moment I'm in the process of creating an imagined memory palace. The places in my apartment are fairly boring as individual locus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

Comment Re:Agreed (Score 2) 241

Actually it was interesting I had no problem with 50 digits. It feels like a brief stroll rather than a rigorous rote memorization. At some point I'll try a benchmark to find the upper limit if there is one. For now I don't really see the practical use of remembering Pi to that extent.

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