Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:What's the motivation? (Score 1) 60

. If you look at how fast renewables are growing

Solar is, by far, leading the growth of renewables. Solar is not a good source of energy in Canada, due to their high latitude (the angle of the sun is much less thus passing through more atmosphere), the disparity in amount of daylight received from season to season, and then the amount of snowfall they get, which covers solar panels.

Nuclear is one of the better sources of clean energy for a country like Canada.

Comment Re:Scary as hell (Score 1) 347

Tiny drones lack range, though

True, which is why Ukraine has developed "mother" drones that carry smaller drones into the theater of battle. They have also deployed cargo container type boxes full of drones, that not only got the drones geographically close to their target, but also served as a communication and charging hub for them near their targets.

Comment Not specific to Steam (Score 1) 26

I feel like this is an excuse to do away with physical gift cards to save money. If the "scamming" is primarily just a method of moving money, then ANY other gift cards for any other services can be used. This includes debit gift cards, Walmart gift cards, on and on.

Unless someone knows how this is only specific to Steam in some way?

Comment Scary as hell (Score 4, Insightful) 347

This should scare the hell out of most everyone, as this is really about as bad as biological warfare. Just to put some numbers in perspective, China produces around 40 million drones annually. Consider how easy it would be to produce, say, one million drones that include an explosive device. Since these drones are autonomous the usual methods of interfering with their RF, or even for fiber controlled drones, the cutting of the fiber cable by a powerful laser, will do nothing.

This is the future, and it will revolutionize warfare. Pure volume of drones can defeat anything we currently have to defend against them. You just send a swarm of drones, or a drone one after another after another spaced 10 seconds apart, until whatever they are targeting has been destroyed. 10k drones targeting the US's ports on both coasts... destroy the bulk of imports and exports. 10k drones targeting tractors and other agricultural equipment in the US's breadbasket - famine. Really, it's hard to understate what these could potentially do.

Comment Re:Cross-discipline issues (Score 1) 82

Well this is just classic medicine. If you go to an internist with an issue, they will try to address it with medications. If you go to a surgeon, they will try to address it with surgery (or do exploratory surgery to try and figure it out). Each works within their own area of expertise. My 94 year old grandma had a lump that was breast cancer. The surgeon wanted to do a full mastectomy at her age, which was ridiculous. Meanwhile the oncologist said, no, let's do a less invasive lumpectomy because I better know what her long-term prognosis is and what other tools (hormone therapy and the like) are available.

This is just a classic thing, and hopefully you have a general practitioner that is involved and can help make informed decisions, or you do that task yourself weighing the options.

Comment Big grain of salt, not a real-world test (Score 1) 82

These studies need to be taken with a big grain of salt. Essentially what this did was provide to AI and two test doctors the clinical data entered by a nurse who examined the patient, and based off that limited text information the AI tended to do better. The thing is... doctors see patients themselves, even in the ER. They ask their own questions, physically examine the patient, and collect their own data. So it is no surprise a doctor, given only limited 3rd party data, didn't make as good of a diagnosis when they aren't used to working that way.

Next thing is this: "game out thorny diagnostic questions". Okay, so what they mean by "thorny" is obscure and not your typical cases. So again, its no wonder a physician, given less than normal information and no opportunity to see the patient, didn't catch some rare atypical case. When strep is making the rounds, and a patient comes in with a sore throat and no other abnormalities, they will probably diagnose it as strep, and may not even bother doing a test. That's the way ER doctors work, and they don't look for some exotic other thing that could be causing the sore throat based on something obscure way back in the patient's medical records. Unless it was called to their attention.

Comment Re:How is it absurd? (Score 1, Insightful) 122

So, in a million different ways, blocking a sizable chunk of the world's supply of oil is infinitely more effective than nuking a nation

This is still a ridiculous statement. The blocking of the straight can stop overnight, and it's gone. Done. Everything flows again immediately. It can be undone. A nuclear detonation cannot be undone. If the straight is blocked long enough then interventions will happen, and not just by the United States.

With the exception of the suffering of the Iranian citizens, and the world paying a little more to drive around in their cars, this is a GOOD thing. Countries in the middle east have been lazy and naive to not develop alternate routes for the straight. This event will prompt them to finally invest in that kind of infrastructure.
Global oil consumption is predicted to begin decreasing soon, and then these countries in control of the world's oil supplies will begin to lose influence quickly. These events also push countries and consumers away from oil, thus speeding the conversion to electric cars, and additional investment in solar and storage.

A lot of people are completely ignoring the religious zealot fervor of Iran's leadership, and are being very ignorant to how motivated their are due to their religious beliefs. I guess for non-religious individuals, or those who belong to much more peaceful religions, it is difficult to understand their motivation and just how bad they want to kill certain other people. Iran's ability to strangle the world's oil supplies and threaten the region with force needed to be dealt with at some point.

Comment Terrible headline (Score 5, Insightful) 151

This is a terrible headline. Really one of the worst in a while, but it's actually The Guardian's fault as that is their headline as well. This is not encouraging people to use more power, but telling them WHEN they should use power. "It's windy and sunny right now, quick, wash your clothes and charge your car!"

Slashdot Top Deals

An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.

Working...