Comment Re:DEsalination plants should be a priority (Score 2) 377
Actually, the co-location of desalination plants with natural gas power generation is the new rage. I am in TX, so I have a parochial view of it, but this is the near future.
Comment Re:Better late than never, Slashdot (Score 1) 377
T. Boone actually got beat out by CRMWA, which is the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority. They wanted to sell water to Amarillo, and when T. Boone didn't play ball they started buying up all the land around his (considerable) property. Even an armchair hydrogeologist knows that if you pump along the edges of a property, the water moves along the gradient towards the cone of depression. So T. Boone was forced to deal, and he sold his rights to CRMWA. CRMWA/Amarillo wins, and T. Boone has to mutter to himself while taking his nightly bath in gold coins (thinking Richie Rich or Scrooge McDuck here).
The Book That Is Making All Movies the Same 384
Bruce66423 writes "This Slate story explains how a 2005 book has led to all Hollywood movies following the same structure — to a depressing extent. From the article: '...Summer movies are often described as formulaic. But what few people know is that there is actually a formula—one that lays out, on a page-by-page basis, exactly what should happen when in a screenplay. It’s as if a mad scientist has discovered a secret process for making a perfect, or at least perfectly conventional, summer blockbuster. The formula didn’t come from a mad scientist. Instead it came from a screenplay guidebook, Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need. In the book, author Blake Snyder, a successful spec screenwriter who became an influential screenplay guru, preaches a variant on the basic three-act structure that has dominated blockbuster filmmaking since the late 1970s.' I've always known we could be manipulated — but this provides a segment by segment, almost minute by minute, guide how to do it."
Comment Re:I see an idiot for sure (Score 1) 381
My biggest gripe with Slashdot is how overwhelmingly anecdotal it is. We are supposed to be bright statistical types, and it is just full of comments from people telling their singular life experiences. Do the math people, I don't care about your limited life.
Ed.
Comment Re:Well, a good reason to use other sites... (Score 1) 274
I live in Austin. Texas is a great place to live if you are upper middle class. Sucks if you are poor. The social safety net is substandard, and if you can't afford to move your kids out of lousy school districts (or send them to private school) then the education is also substandard.
Why do so many low wage earners stay in Texas? Maybe they can't afford to move.
Ed.
Comment fixya too! (Score 1) 345
I have seen a lot of well-deserved complaints about expert-exchange. My nemesis is "fixya" which pops up with a mirror of your question (and no answer) for many typical DYI problems you try to google.
Ed.
Comment Re:Textbooks are a total scam (Score 1) 419
I don't agree with you, at least in engineering. Being able to make proper calculations correctly is vital to being a practicing engineer, so I think there is value to doing homework correctly, and mostly independently.
Ed.
Comment Re:Wow (Score 2, Interesting) 381
I have moderator points. I just looked at the parent and this response, and thought to myself: "Am I smart enough to figure out who is right?"
Answer: Nope.
Answer: Nope.
Comment Nerds! (Score 3, Funny) 332
Everyone knows that popularity in real-life is based on whether you're on the football team and how many girls have held still long enough for you to nail them!
Now would you like fries with that?
Now would you like fries with that?
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