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Comment Moral trains (Score 1) 451

by Zelaron (#52396593) Attached to: Drivers Prefer Autonomous Cars That Don't Kill Them
While we're at it, why don't we develop autonomous trains that derail themselves when something more valuable than the passengers is estimated to be in the way? Predictability, not the implementation of morally arbitrary and exploitable subroutines that will kill the passengers, is key, IMAO.

Submission + - Nuclear Power Prevents More Deaths Than It Causes (acs.org)

Submitted by MTorrice
MTorrice writes: NASA researchers have compared nuclear power to fossil fuel energy sources in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution-related deaths. Using nuclear power in place of coal and gas power has prevented some 1.8 million deaths globally over the past four decades and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes their study. The pair also found that nuclear energy prevents emissions of huge quantities of greenhouse gases. These estimates help make the case that policymakers should continue to rely on and expand nuclear power in place of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change, the authors say.

Comment Re:I am disappoint (Score 1) 86

by Zelaron (#40637497) Attached to: Mysterious Sprite Photographed By ISS Astronaut
Discovery News should learn not to point their links to the wrong articles... Anyway, here we go: OTHERWORLDLY SPRITES MAY SIGNAL ALIEN LIFE

Because sprites are connected to lightning, and lightning plays a key role in many theories concerning how life first developed on Earth, it stands to reason that the existence of sprites on other planets (both in our own solar system and others) may be something to look out for when searching for signs of alien life, according to Dubrovin.

Comment Here we go again... (Score 1) 160

by Zelaron (#40524631) Attached to: Insects As Weapons

Paine argues that foreign insect pests have been deliberately introduced in the Golden State, in hopes of decimating the state's population of eucalyptus

Timothy Paine seems awfully knowledgeable of these terrorists' specific goal of removing 1/10 of the population of Eucalyptus trees.
The Almighty Buck

New Twitter-Based Hedge Fund Beats the Stock Market 209

Posted by samzenpus from the how-to-become-rich-in-142-trades dept.
nonprofiteer writes "Derwent Capital, a new hedge fund that makes trades and investments based on Twitter sentiment, beat the market — and other hedge funds — in its first full month of trading. From the Atlantic: 'Using an algorithm based on the social media mood that day, the hedge fund predicted the market to make the right trades. Sounds unbelievable that something cluttered with mundane musings and media links could have anything smart to say about the market. But it's working so far.' Blind luck?"

Comment Re:Nuclear != Radioactivity (Score 1) 822

by Zelaron (#36292570) Attached to: Germany To End Nuclear Power By 2022

You discover something that already existed but you, and perhaps others, did not know about. You invent something that did not actually exist. It can be solid like a jet engine or conceptual like an algorithm. Someone can no more invent radioactivity than a new exoplanet.

That is indeed the difference between "discover" and "invent" which most English speakers would probably agree on being the correct one. Etymologically, however, the word "invent" originates from the Latin verb invenire, which literally means "to find" or "to discover". That particular meaning, once incorporated into English, remains in certain authoritative dictionaries and thesauruses, such as the aforementioned Oxford Thesaurus of English:

invent
verb
1. originate, create, innovate, design, device, contrive, formulate, develop
2. conceive, think up, come up with, hit on, mastermind, pioneer
3. discover, find
4. coin, mint

I do think that what constitutes a language should largely be determined by common use if there are already perfectly cromulent replacements for certain words. Still, I would still be hard-pressed to call anyone wrong even if they made a crazy-sounding claim like "Christopher Columbus invented the Americas in 1492" as long as I know that they have the means to point and laugh at me for appearing oblivious to how their slightly obscure use of English is correct.

Hopefully, the "invent" => "discover" semantic implication will soon become archaic, so that I will never under any circumstances be tempted to drag discussions off topic like this again.

(It's actually a semantic logical equivalence. Did you know that the Wright brothers discovered the first powered airplane in 1903?)

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UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). -- Andy Tannenbaum

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