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Comment Re:Wasn't an offensive joke (Score 1) 162

"Gun shows" have nothing to do with it.

Dealers are required to do background checks, "gun show" or not.

Private individuals are not required to do background checks, "gun show" or not (under federal law, state laws differ).

If you claim to be a private individual and the ATF determines that you are, de facto, effectively acting as unlicensed dealer, you go to prison for a very long time (assuming they don't just show up at your house and kill you, your dogs and quite possibly the rest of your family)

Anyone who talks about a supposed "gun show loophole" is either demonstrably ignorant of the actual laws in this area or being actively dishonest, and their opinions should not be trusted on this subject (or, arguably, anything else).

Comment Re:Only one problem with this (Score 1) 100

Ah, yes, the "Herp-derp...what about nukes? Huh? Huh?" non-argument.

Anyone who has the budget and technical chops to purchase and maintain a nuke (or even a missile) can get one, law or no law. That's not even taking into account the possibility of simply stealing one, or improvising one.

The 9/11 attack (in Manhattan, let us note) was carried out using missiles improvised from hijacked planes.

I have not heard that this idiot Manhattan DA is trying to ban home-built planes.

Is he?

Comment Re: Conversations with a robot (Score 1) 177

At one time > 90% of humanity was employed in agricultural (in most cases unfree agricultural labor -- serfs or outright slaves), and the work was all done by hand (maybe with an ox or horse to plow, if you were lucky).

Now less than 0.2% (.002) of Americans are employed as agricultural labor, and a similar proportion in most other First World countries.

Somehow we don't have 90% unemployment, though.

Your thesis has been proven wrong time and time again, from the invention of agriculture, through the industrial and computer revolutions, right up until the present day.

Comment Re:Maybe good (Score 1) 189

> The one unit is claimed to have a 5 year life.

Five years is the interval between refuelings, not the total lifespan of the reactor.

I don't know if it can be refueled in situ, or whether you ship the whole thing back to the factory. Not a big deal either way, if their claims of fitting on a standard semi trailer and being up and running on a new site within 24 hours are true.

Comment Re:Apologise, greens (Score 5, Insightful) 220

Yes.

1) Magnitude 9 earthquake
2) Followed by massive tsunami
3) Followed by devastating fire resulting in loss of ALL control systems
4) No one died. Repeat: no one died.

It's hard to see how anything could be safer than that. Imagine a similar scenario occurring at (say) the Three Gorges Dam in China...shudder.

Nuclear power has been operating in the United States for 70 years without one fatality to a member of the general public. Zero. A few plant workers have been killed (generally by non-nuclear causes, such as falls, electrocution, or steam burns) but even if you take them into account, nuclear has a better safety record than ANY other power source, including solar and wind (people fall off roofs and towers, yo).

Comment Re:A couple of things to consider (Score 1) 153

The people who wrote the headline (and the article) are clueless. That's quite common when general-readership newspapers "report" on scientific stuff.

If you read the actual direct quotes in the article (rather than the reporter's clueless interpretation thereof), it's clear that the research is targeted toward removing disease-carrying mosquitoes, not all mosquitoes.

Comment A couple of things to consider (Score 5, Informative) 153

First of all, there are over 3,000 species of mosquito, only a few of which carry human diseases. No one is talking about eliminating every mosquito species.

Secondly, the Aedes egypti and Anopheles gambiae mosquitos (the most common carriers of yellow fever and malaria respectively) are both native to Africa. They're invasive species in most other places (introduced by humans).

There shouldn't be any negative consequences from removing them from non-native locations -- in fact, it should reduce competition for the native mosquito species.

Comment Re:The Last Human Revolution, is like NO other. (Score 1) 167

> We really need to STOP comparing this revolution to any other in history. Because it is like no other.

Nonsense. At one point, 90+% of us were stoop-labor agricultural peasants, typically unfree (serfs or outright slaves). Now fewer than 5% work on farm, and the ones who do are typical riding in air-conditioned combines with GPS steering and an Internet connection rather than hoeing a bean field by hand. Yet somehow we don't have 85% unemployment. Weird, huh?

The only way in which this revolution is "like no other" is that it's targeting the chattering class rather than the proles, so of course the chattering class is chattering.

Comment Re:I fear the long term effects (Score 1) 181

I'm not sure that I would take it just for weight loss, but the anti-diabetic effects have been a godsend for me.

In my case, Ozempic has taken me from needing to inject insulin constantly to not needing insulin at all. Those who've never had to do this have no idea what a pain in the ass* it is. It's not just the injections, it's carrying the paraphernalia -- insulin (making sure it never gets overheated), needles, blood glucose meter and lancets, alcohol pads, emergency meds in case your blood sugar goes TOO low -- with you ALL THE TIME, going through extra TSA crap, and a host of other annoyances.

Avoiding that is more than enough for me to take the risk of getting earlobe cancer (or whatever) 30 years down the line.

* technically, a pain in the stomach :-)

Comment Re:it's a solution in search of a problem (Score 1) 45

> You add the rebar after you print and epoxy it to walls.

I've been following 3D-printed buildings for probably a decade now, and I've never seen one that has rebar added after you print and "epoxied to walls". I've seen some work where the rebar has been given an epoxy coating to increase adhesion to mortar, but that's not the same as using the epoxy as a direct binding agent. The epoxy-coated rebar is placed in the wall cavity and embedded in mortar in exactly the same way as it is in normal concrete block construction.

Do you have a reference for this being a standard method?

> you don't really save any money compared to just putting some traditional forms up

Putting up traditional forms and tearing them down is not free. A 3D printed wall doesn't need any forms.

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