This sounds interesting. What should I Google to learn more about this?

Then you're responding to the wrong guy. Or you're not the same AC. Because I saw someone say, "Hey I'm not against masks. I have looked for something to back up your assertion but found nothing please help me out." The response was, "I won't waste my time because you're not going to listen." The only evidence for that is in your head, because that post held nothing but willingness to learn. I'm not against wearing masks. I wear one when I know I won't be able to maintain distance. And I encourage others to do so as well. And I have not seen evidence to back up that claim. Assuming you're the same AC, please let me know where I can find such evidence. I have seen evidence that it will noticeably lower the infection rate, but not that it will dramatically.... And there I see that this discussion is doomed because "dramatically" is meaningless, even if there weren't Anonymous Cowards invovled.

This is the least encouraging thing I've read all day. I would now bet money that you have no such evidence, but are only parroting.

Scientists will be directed to study things by those with less competence than they. I see no way around this. But this isn't really a direct response to what you've said, because you specified "zero competence" which is different than what I have just said. Thank you for your response.

I'd like an explanation of how it's unscientific to ask a scientist to study something. I imagine that it's not what you really meant, but an accident of the way the sentence was constructed.

I'm not looking forward to it at all. The whole thing smells like a political party trying to get rid of the guy they don't like. Also, like someone is selecting the target first, then picking the best way to take him down. The fact that I didn't (and still don't) want Trump to be my president doesn't really make me feel that much better about it. But you are right that it isn't a criminal trial, which actually makes me feel a lot better about the Senate's preemptive decision to acquit.

Makes me wonder why he was not impeached for either of those.

Definitely! I try to watch it around New Years every year.

This is the correct answer. I decided I had to have a widescreen laptop when I started working on multiple tasks at the same time.

In my opinion, also shows the importance of an editor being an active part in making decisions about what makes it to front page.

If you give too much control to the community, then you just end up like other sites that do the same. An editorial voice can help separate /. from the rest.

I'm a few days late here, but I personally prefer to have less community voting in what makes it to the front page. I'd like to see editors picking the best stories that are of interest to the community. Fewer, more relevant stories.

Meanwhile, each of the USA's hundreds of coal plants are producing over 100 ktons of ash each year. Source.

There are uses for some of that coal ash, but much of it needs to be stored in (often unlined) ponds and landfills. I know, the nuclear stuff is much, much, much nastier, but in absolute terms, there's not really a lot of it. With its high density, that ~70 ktons of waste would fit neatly piled a few meters deep in the footprint of a football field. I know there are technical issues with storing it, but let's not pretend that 70 ktons is some unmanageable amount of anything.

I get that. I just think there's some important difference of degree between, "Let's see if the blue button gets pressed more than the green button," and "Let's see if people become sad if we show them sad posts from their friends." My opinion is that there is a line somewhere there. I just don't know quite where it is.

For me, it's not the testing so much, but in Facebook's case, publishing those results as if the participants had given informed consent. I expect to be subject to usability testing. I don't expect to be the subject of psychological testing. I don't know where the line is, but there's a line somewhere in there that was for sure crossed in the Facebook case. It's less clear to me what side this OKCupid case is on.