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Comment Re:This was required by law. Really. (Score 1) 768

You are ignoring the huge and lucrative gray area of avoision which is the fuzzy area between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion.

Literally thousands of tax attorneys spend their entire careers coming up with borderline schemes whose legality is undefined and is constantly being determined and redefined by the courts.

Comment Re:You've got to respect... (Score 2) 231

I don't know about respect. I've got compassion for anyone who is starving to death. People in that situation will eat anything: grass, bark, dirt, rocks, rotten things, people, etc. You can be certain that people have eaten anything they can get their hands on. Most things that turn out to not kill you ends up in our regular diet, subject to cultural preferences.

Comment Re:How about not wasting gas into the air? (Score 1) 179

Your math seems odd. You are talking about a house that is 40,000 square feet and 30 feet tall. Sounds more like a concert venue. Kitchen math seems reasonable.

The outdoor leaks aren't really related to any of the math, though. They tend to be underground and migrate through the soil, resulting in seepage over a potentially large area. Its outside, with air movement, so a fairly large leak could not result in high concentrations most places most of the time.

Global leakage is 3 trillion cubic feet/year which is a lot of wasted gas no matter how big your house is.

Comment Re:Yikes... (Score 1) 363

Bullets are just terrible firecrackers unless there is a barrel to channel the energy. I've set off bullets in a pan on the stove, they just make a loud bang and the case will shoot out of the pan with enough force to make it halfway across the kitchen. Bullet is usually left in the pan since it has more mass.

You can clear a space by the campfire by throwing some bullets in it, too. They won't make it back out, although the shell sometimes does. The explosion will send embers everywhere and sometimes will blow out the fire!

A bullet detonating close to a human won't hurt them. The shell might do some damage if it hit the eye, the noise might hurt the ear, and powder burns are no fun, so wear hearing protection, gloves, and safety glasses when playing with bullets.

Comment Re:Actual Detection of Impared Drivers (Score 1) 608

That's overly simplistic. Here are the wrecks I've seen, none of them offer clear 100% fault.

1. puddle of water turned out to be a deep pothole. Ate the wheel, car went sliding into adjacent lane, striking another vehicle.
2. slowed down suddenly for a pedestrian who walked without looking. Driver behind me couldn't quite stop in time and bent my fender.
3. driving slow (35 in a 45) in very heavy rain. Probably should have pulled over or at least turned on hazards. Rammed by driver going 45 (this one is 90% her fault IMHO)

It is pretty easy to come up with scenarios that offer shared blame. Somebody should have kept the intersection clear, other driver should have paid better attention. This comes up with accident investigation, there is the concept of a percentage share of liability If you are 90% responsible for an accident you can still file suit against the other driver for their 10% liability.

Comment Re:Weightless cameras? (Score 1) 307

There are two such things as centrifugal force. One is an apparent, or fictitious force, and the other is a reactive force. There is a good article on wikipedia

If you want to experience the reactive centrifugal force, spin a heavy object around on a string. The object will experience a centripetal force and you will experience the reactive centrifugal force.

Comment Re:Stop renting DVD's (Score 1) 547

You didn't address the challenge. The claim was these low unemployment states have low wages and quality of life. I don't know about that, glancing at the list didn't see my least favorite states having super low unemployment. I will tell you one thing, I wouldn't want to live in the dakotas right now no matter how low their unemployment is. The cost of living there is staggering, and there is a huge imbalance in the ratio of men to women.

Comment Re:No we can't (Score 1) 141

It's sad you can't see the potential here. I am doing poor man's vertical farming at my house. I don't have a lot of room to garden, but I have a big south facing wall with few windows. I installed some shelves to grow vegetables and enjoy the harvest. Nice side effect, my AC bill has been lower since I started doing this. In the winter I take the shelves down and still benefit from solar heating.

I'm looking into some other vertical gardening, such as growing hops on a rope and pulley, doing tomatoes in a hanging bag, maybe something experimental. I've seen some pretty cool stuff with straw bales, drums, there are a lot of possibilities.

Comment Re:Could cause the flu to become more vicious. (Score 1) 205

You're looking at this backwards. Right now we have flu spreading relatively unchecked to billions of people every year, mutating wildly, giving all kinds of chances for it to mutate into something truly dangerous. If we cut down on the success of the flu virus it will drastically reduce the chances of a horrible flu.

Flu doesn't know if we're trying to fight it or not. If we don't fight it it doesn't stop trying to mutate. The more successful it is the more it can mutate.

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