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Comment Are there really no PD Asian fonts? (Score 1) 94

I would have thought by now, after 40 years of computerization, that there would be some robust Asian language fonts available in the public domain or perhaps licensed through government agencies to promote their use.

All the way back in the 1980s, I was involved in a Japanese/Chinese/English photo-typesetter project using what I believe were freely available font sets.

Seems like the Japanese game companies should switch to Google or MS fonts. $20K/year in Japan is someone's salary.

Comment So many things that contribute to this (Score 5, Insightful) 215

No Child Left Behind - teach test taking, rather than subject matter or how to think.

Continually being told "all you have to do is believe" - and similar fake encouragements.

If you look attractive, you'll get into hollywood - why study anything?

If you are strong, you'll be in professional sports - why study anything?

Teachers' hands being tied in how they customize their lesson plans for the students they have.

Attention spans are __gone__.

I'm probably missing half a dozen.

Comment Re:Why not focus on the obvious problems like plas (Score 1) 70

Reforestation is a thing, at least in North America. Since the 1970s, the U.S. has planted millions of acres of new forest (see United Nations FAO and USDA Forest Service for data). The U.S. currently is planting about 60,000 acres of trees annually, plus another 130,000 acres of regeneration.

The people overseeing this work are forestry experts, so one can assume they are planting the correct trees for a locale, in the right concentrations and groupings.

The real problem is that Brazilians are chopping down millions of acres of forest every year (albeit, decreasing). This is insanity. Also, because of food shortages and famines, some Africans have been stripping bark from trees, as well as harvesting the wood. Deforestation of that continent not only removes habitat for fauna (chimps, birds, etc.) but also leads to expansion of desert. Africa's just a total disaster.

Comment Why not focus on the obvious problems like plastic (Score 1) 70

About a million tons of plastics are being dumped into the oceans every year, and this material is suspected of damaging the ecosystem. Algae absorb CO and emit O quite efficiently; 60% to 70% of the Earth's oxygen is made this way. Another 10% to 20% or so comes from several huge rain forests, notably the Amazon.

We should focus on eliminating plastic and other potentially damaging substances from the ocean, and secondarily perhaps limit over-fishing that distorts the food chain.

Also, plant more trees. There's no better, or cheaper, way to de-carbon-ify the atmosphere than trees, especially during their major growth years.

This seawater-filtering scheme sounds expensive and strange, and probably would create more problems than it solves.

Comment Re:We could reach Mars at the speed of light- (Score 1) 81

I had thought quantum entanglement doesn't copy information; it actually realizes the original information at an arbitrary point in space-time (I added the "time" because I believe it's not restricted to 3 dimensions).

The teleportation you describe is much more conventional: a machine scans you down to the molecular level (the mechanism, let alone the amount of data storage, needed to achieve this is left to the imagination), transmits this data to Jupiter, which is an average of 43.2 light minutes from Earth.

The receiving machine then rebuilds a copy of you, molecule by molecule. If the checksum matches, it sends a "Success" response, and the transmitting machine then disassembles the original you.

And for the record, I will never get in one of those things.

Comment Re:We could reach Mars at the speed of light- (Score 1) 81

The gravity is a nice bonus... but acceleration would need to be maintained at 9.81 m/s to achieve one gee.

To get to 100,000 mph by the midpoint to reach Mars at its closest approach to Earth, per Grok, a = 0.0357 m/s
This is far less than one gee.

Unless I'm doing this wrong.

But luckily, we can have a spinning habitat to simulate gravity. For a six month journey, this would be a necessity; it wouldn't do for the astronauts to reach Mars with atrophied muscles and bones.

Comment Re:We could reach Mars at the speed of light- (Score 1) 81

What happens to the kinetic energy of the astronaut who is instantly transported to another point in space? Standing on the Earth's surface, we are actually moving at a rather high velocity due to rotation and orbital motion. Just plunk someone down on Mars and they might go flying up, down, or sideways at thousands of km/hour.

Comment Use a mechanical arm to push itself upright? (Score 1) 26

Given this is now twice that this company's lander fell over after making it all the way to a soft landing on the Moon, maybe they should implement robotic arms to simply push the craft upright. It would cost money and development time, but seems worth it if it salvages a $65 million project.

Alternatively, an array of attitude jets could prevent the problem, unless the craft landed partially on a crevice, in which case... launch up a couple of meters and float to a new spot?

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