Is he gonna hurt somebody?

I have to agree. Common sense suggests that using two different placement surfaces will tend to strongly skew results toward two different patterns. Another commenter noted that watercress are sensitive to phtalates found in some plastics. Think there might be any in the plastic surface?

We should also see which is more efficient: 5 * 9th-graders or 9 * 5th-graders!!!

I think you're right. It's just logistically a huge hell-hole to get into trying to sue people in all of these different countries in their national versions of civil court, when he could just sue the few companies that play catalyst to his calumny.

Should be titled:

"Decent Man vs. The Douchebag Mouthbreathing Adult Children Of the Internet And Their Coddling Surrogate-Parent Corporate 1% Elite"

Oh, like "scientists" suddenly arriving on-scene, at seemingly almost the last minute, to pitch in with their "findings", is a novel thing?

Let's consider a few other ecological tipping-points or resource bell-curves and see how well scientific findings were applied in those situations, as a comparison to how valuable these findings related to oil futures (futures, mind you) really are.

If global warming exists, it is history's most major industrial accident, so you'd think a careful study is backing the debate. Instead, self-proclaimed scientists argue conclusions predisposed by funding. Conflicting figures run amok, and science itself seems to break down: scientists don't know where 30-40% of projected carbon emissions "go" (Parsons, 145).

In the midst of the climate debate, deforestation estimates differ by tens of thousands of square miles as do assessments of original forest areas (Shoumatoff, 340; Richards, 11).

Not helping matters, in the 1990s the Global Climate Coalition, financed by large oil, coal, and auto industries, ran a disinformation campaign on global warming, finding an audience due to their emphasis on unbiased journalism (Casper, 143).

Climate and tree-cutting aren't the only muddied issues: fishing "is fraught with scientific papers trying to write and rewrite history to excuse some and blame others" (Clover, 111).

Scientists in the 1860s, pressured by British fishermen who had to fish farther and farther out to land any catch, began the inquiry into man's effect on "fisheries" (a term describing oceanic regions as industrial supplies.) Commission chairman Thomas Huxley maintained a view into the 1880s that: "in relation to our present modes of fishing... the most important sea fisheries... are inexhaustible," justified based on two assumptions: that fish catches are miniscule compared to what swims in the vast oceans, and that the effect of fishermen on their numbers was nil compared to that of their everyday struggle as marine life (Clover, 102). So began the tradition of failing to apply sound logic in solving the urgent problem of over-fishing.

During the 1990s, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization stated fish catches were increasing yearly. In 2001, two researchers revealed catches actually declined since the 80s. Chinese officials had overstated their national statistic, their operations of government subverted beneath operations of industry: the officials were promoted only if statistics reflected increased production. The Chinese officials had recorded "by-catch" (a term for unsalable fish) as productive (Clover, 22; Cousteau, 149). As a direct result of their inventiveness, fishing was not done as if a scarcity were underway, which it was. Jacques Cousteau remarks, "such lapses by those who lead nations bewilder explorers who have led a team" (94).

Cousteau notes further discrepancies: between the projected rate of nuclear power plant meltdown and the real thing (whereas pioneer risk assessments assured the world that a meltdown would occur only once for every 17,000 operating years per concurrently-operating plant, two meltdowns had occurred after only 4,000 operating years total for all plants world-wide); between the projected failure rate of space shuttles (once in 100,000 launches) and reality (Challenger, the 25th launch); and between claims versus motives when decisions affecting human lives are made "not to protect lives, but to protect investments" (pages 88, 92).

So you see, these "scientists" seem to only gain a major stage and only seem to be listened to when they're actually the puppets of major industrial interests.

Let's also take into consideration that oil trades on the global market and that the value of oil futures is volatile. Events like political instability in the middle east might make oil appear to be an unstable future and so values of futures will plummet. Saddam Hussein used this to his advantage numerous times by killing his brothers to drive oil prices down, buying oil futures, and then shaking hands and making peaceful promises with the West to bring the futures up and make a profit selling.

What does discovery do? It increases the amount that's out there. Less scarcity means less value overall, so the more these findings are taken seriously, the less valuable the oil futures are going to look. But if, after oil becomes devalued to a certain extent, the scientists are -- wow -- suddenly found "wrong" (who'd have thought it could happen on Earth?!?! WHYYY?!?!?!) then the opposite could happen, and the cheap futures could be sold at a profit.

Cited:

Casper, Julie Kerr, Ph.D. Fossil Fuels and Pollution. New York: Infobase. 2010. Print.

Clover, Charles. The End of the Line. New York: The New Press. 2006. Print.

Cousteau, Jacques and Susan Schiefelbein. The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus. New York: Bloomsbury. 2007. Print.

Parsons, Michael L. Global Warming: the Truth Behind the Myth. New York: Plenum. 1995. Print.

Richards, John F. & Richard P. Tucker, eds. World Deforestation in the 20th Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 1988. Print.

Shoumatoff, Alex. The World is Burning. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1990. Print.

Oh, I get it. The article doesn't make any sense because I must be using the pirated version of Slashdot.

Is this some kind of sick attempt to blur the lines between DRM and DLC,

between not opting to buy more content springboarded on the demo version of the game

and

being an actual thief of the game guilty of some crime?

You know, if the patent office doesn't like it, why don't they just grant the next patent they see for "using words".

At the worst, this is another faked-up story by the person who faked some other story, having no merits, making it completely un-funny, and effectively lowering /.'s common denominator.

At the best, it's an unfunny idea that, if it was met with participation after all, is a testament to how stupid the originator is as well as all of the people who went along with it.

I don't see how this kind of bullshit ever converges with the function of Slashdot, anywhere. Especially since its endpoints on the line of quality don't converge, either.

I like this comment. When I came to read the comments on this article, I didn't know what to expect, but this comment was it.

Wow, did I miss something?

See, I went out for pizza,

and then I went to Canada!

Mod parent up!

Also: I heard he's using the printer port for commuication. By spooling tractor feed paper between two printers in a loop, and by stopping and starting simultaneous paper-feed jobs, he can create a cybernetic feedback between the two printers that results in a series of quickly occurring "error - paper jam" messages that (due to two taped-down "reset" buttons) are quickly translated from the wide bandwidth analog physical matrix into kajamabits of digital codes. The perceived bandwidth gain is much higher than just a single one or zero at a time.

That way, he can access the mainframe any time, from any physical location, and it will translate directly into a virtual presence.

American politics is all over the board on so many things.

What kind of United States citizen wants to oppose the POTUS on protecting citizens' rights from corporate interests?

Granted some things:

1. I think this North Korea bullshit is way over-hyped by a death-worshipping media circus that wants to keep us all frightened into angst-driven consumerism. I have every reason to believe this is just a new leader going through the sick motions required of a really stupid political organization. With the White House being more or less sedate about N. Korea's nuclear antics, I'm surprised the liars and whores of the media monopoly press are bothering to bug their eyes out this far and deliver so many hamkicks -- it's like b-grade horror. You really have to ask yourself who's convinced.

2. I'm not against smart weapons (or smart weapon systems). I'm against stupid people building smart weapons and systems.