Comment Re:The Wire (Score 3, Informative) 213
Except those wiretaps were lawfully obtained with a search warrant approved by a judge.
Better watch more closely - or watch the whole thing
Comment The Wire (Score 2) 213
Reminds me of a Baltimore TV show. Now, what was it called?
Comment Imagine a beowulf cluster of these (Score 1) 133
n/t
Comment Re:North Pole (Score 1) 496
It also works if your name happens to be Elon.
Comment Re:So, When Will This Be Cheap? (Score 1) 333
This thread is making me wonder, Is it feasible we will someday see a USB-like device for home organic synthesis, like a 3-D printer but for products of organic chemistry? Impossible? Waiting to happen?
The device you propose has an unlikelihood level somewhere between human immortality and teleportation.
Comment Re:Major changes in many countries (Score 1) 333
Could you provide a reference that's not narconon (a division of scientology)?
Comment Re:Just grow a few poppies (Score 1) 333
It is perfectly legal to grow poppies. They grow very easily and is practically a weed. Since it is so easy, why would one want to use yeast?
No, it's not perfectly legal (in the US) and may be perfectly illegal in other jurisdictions. That said, they grow like weeds in the part of Canada where I live - and they are the very first item in our criminal code's list of illegal substances
Comment Re:MIssing Option ? (Score 1) 164
This is nonsense. Serfdom is a fragile social construct and what you propose is akin to eugenics.
Comment Re:Forum a union! (Score 1) 420
Study chemistry. Chemists really know how to unionize.
The joke is funny but the truth around the chemistry job market isn't so funny. It's as subject to offshoring as anything else.
Comment Re:Why not? (Score 1) 78
Sensitivity is a factor but selectivity is much more crucial to any such analysis. Without physically separating the constituent materials as part of an analysis, "signatures" will overlap and obscure each other.
Anyhow, I'm not pooh-poohing this technology, just trying to add some balance to the conversation, which (around here) trends towards science fiction more than science.
Comment Re:Why not? (Score 2) 78
The problem is that the spectroscopic techniques capable amenable to implemention on a small device can only give some general information about a material or mixture. This may be enough to select one option from a narrow set of possibilities (eg: is that drain pipe PVC or ABS plastic?).
However, it is not going to identify the presence of a toxin in a bowl of soup or tell you that your gold watch is only gold-plated.
Comment Flying cars (Score 1) 78
Without reading TFA I can assert that this area of work is not going to let the consumer unambiguously determine the composition of anything. Right now the chemical analytical techniques to figure out what the composition of a substance require huge machines and significant training in spectroscopy and there's no way of miniaturizing those techniques and automating the interpretation of the data. I'm sure you can get some information but not enough to say anything for-sure :-)
Comment Re:Joe Rogan quote from old "Newsradio" TV show (Score 2) 538
My job's main function is to remove pee from water. It's not that hard.
So you're a kidney?
Comment Re:Monopoly (Score 1) 198
I guess you weren't looking for > 50% price reductions like I was :-)
Comment Re:Monopoly (Score 1) 198
Actually it was pretty hard to get them to beat each other's prices. I'd generally have to make an embarassment of myself to make it happen. The mangers always argued that since they are the same company, they couldn't beat their "own price."
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If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. -- Phil Lapsley
