Posts by MeRp
156 posts • joined Wednesday 24th June 2009 18:17 GMT
Holy sweet mother of Jesus
They got to get a handle on that crack problem in North Korea.
Oh, you're saying these weren't produced by people smoking some tainted crack cut with draino and LSD? Well, ok.
@David W
Er, you agree with your friends on everything? How boring.
Damn.. I think I threw mine away; why hang onto a burnt-out worthless sdcard?
Re: Re: Nooooo....
That gizmodo article is kind of enlightening; I tried it with my Galaxy S3, and I could reach the whole screen when I held it with thumb in center (as the article shows), or all except an icon's size on the upper right if I held it in a natural way. That explains why the iphone feels so awkward for me; it is too small for my hands. I must have the hands of a 7ft human (according to the article); I use my phone one handed all the time.
I guess it just goes to show: there is no one right size for everyone, a variety of sizes and price ranges is better for the consumer than a very limited one, who woulda thought the economists were ever right?
@imanidiot Re: @proto-robbie
Speaking from first hand experience (ie, I have both a nuclear power plant AND a crap ton of windmills in my "back yard"), I have to agree that the nuclear plant is far less impactful on the aesthetic of the area. Windmills, when installed, have to be everywhere; every ridge of all of the surrounding hills/mountains (highly variable term based on the altitudes that you are used to) has to be covered in the windmills. If you happen to like the hills/mountains or the overall horizon, then, with windmills, you are out of luck.
Having lived next to two different nuclear plants, I can say; they need not be any more aesthetically unpleasant than any quirky architect's grand design.
Re: Gas?
The only Nuclear decommissioning I've any personal experience with is the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Oregon. It's decommissioning cost is estimated to be roughly $230 million (they still have some non-nuclear related buildings to remove, and of course the spent fuel to continue to store). Construction costs were roughly $500 million.
It seems that your rough estimate is inverted in this case; decommission costs roughly half of construction.
Please...
Build enough Nuclear power plants to supply the world's base-line electric needs + 10%, along with ready-to-go plans for more to keep up with the massive increase in demand that will come with cheap energy. Please build them in my back yard. Everyone who wants to be employed can move here; the few who are concerned about more nuke plants can move away (we've already got one).
Then everyone can stop debating about it and get on with the leap in progress that more energy could (and has) provided us.
I guess I'm just a YIMBY.
Re: Worrying...
It is quite possible that any/all of the data "leaked" was either already publicly available, or, worst case, easily obtainable with a FOIA request. If either or both of those is the case, then why worry about the data stolen?
Doesn't make any sense at all...
Looking at both Dell's unrealistically weak example spec and the author's dream spec, it strikes me that, for the price, you'd be way better off just buying desktop machines. Dell's spec is silly, but obviously intended for a single person, but, for $2700, you could set up a much better desktop pc than the spec they provided. As for the author's; it looks like it is meant for 2 workstations, so, if we take the $34000 budget and split it into 2 we get two $17000 workstations; the listed spec is pretty weak compared to what you could set up with $17000 for a desktop machine.
Re: Beer!
You beat me to it: 1 Keg of Beer is equivalent to 39.11592192474 Average Amount of Urine Produced/Human/Day
Probable Cause (as legally defined in the US) and Reasonable Suspicion (as legally defined in the UK and US) are not the same; Reasonable Suspicion is a much weaker test: with Reasonable Suspicion you need only have some explanation of why something is probably amiss (for example, someone in a dark ally looking like they are trying to hide something), whereas with Probable Cause you actually need proof that something is amiss (for example you saw that they are trying to hide a baggy of white stuff).
Given that, it appears that, legally at least, the treaty IS actually one sided: since it is easier to get arrested in the UK it is easier to get extradited from the UK. However, once they get extradited from the UK to the US the Probable Cause part takes over, so it is also easier to get exonerated. This implies that, while there will be more extraditions to the US, there will be more convictions, as a percentage, amongst those extradited to the UK.
Apparently, since I use Linux as my os, I'm not allowed to sign white house petitions.
Find out where, now?
Posted in Obama says his birthplace is 'in Asia'
If you want to get technical about it none of those are in Asia; they are all part of Oceania. The only parts of US that are in Asia are military bases and embassies.
not quite...
Amazon Prime in the US is $79; very close to £49 at Google's reported exchange rate as I write this. Also worth noting; the reason Amazon often does not give this kind of benefit to those outside the US is because the owners of the content do not allow it.
Children aren't a distraction for telecommuters because...
Anyone with children knows that they will get nothing done if they try to telecommute, therefore they do not telecommute unless they are already sufficiently motivated to not get anything done anyway (regardless of children).
radio station transmission power
The power of the transmitters of licensed radio stations is public record. Part of what they have to do to get their license.
Jarhead is ok...
I think devil dog is more entertaining, though. And, of course the perhaps too obvious "bullet sponge" is always a great way to identify them, after all, the purpose of US Marines is to eliminate the enemy's ammunition stores, generally by absorbing as much of it as possible, so the Army can roll in and not have to worry about armed opposition.
Posted in Careless tweets cost lives, warns MoD
Obviously...
In the second video the lady is so happy to see her visitor, it must be her other son, who is in a SWAT team... he's always so busy, she's just happy he could come to visit, even if it did have to be during a quick lunch break.
re: Shame
except for two niggling problems. The first is kind of obvious; you are speaking only of an average number of heartbeats in a lifetime - any individual, of course, could have more or less. The second tiny (itsy bitsy, really) issue is that your whole premise is total cobblers: mammals do not, in fact, have the same number of heartbeats per lifetime. Humans, for instance, average around 2.21 billion, whereas small dogs average around only 0.53 billion.
reference: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/longevity.htm
If you then say "well, all humans have the same average number of heartbeats per lifetime," then I reply with: all humans also have the same average hat size, so wearing a hat that is too big obviously must shorten your lifespan. You should only wear hats that are too small.
Re: Yeah - I wondered about that...
I'd be willing to wager that the law indicates that anyone in the driver's seat cannot text (or less specifically, cannot use an electronic device requiring the use of their hands or the ilk)... and that Google wants an exemption that says that, if that person is not in control of the vehicle (ie; it is a robot car), then they are not bound by such a restriction.
Posted in NASA restores Pluto to league of planets
Likely...
Given that NASA is an American institute, they would be unlikely to wave two fingers at anything, unless they were attempting to indicate a love of peace. For the implied purpose, we (Americans) would be far more likely to employ only a single digit.
Since this article appears to be more for bemusement than for serious enlightenment, I'd say that both the reference to the two finger salutation and the mere facts of the case can be safely ignored in the spirit of enjoyment.
To be fair...
Seal Team 6 (as it is formerly known) has a fair number of Marines in it; given that it is the Spec Ops destination of choice for the entire Dept. of the Navy, of which Marines are a part.
...that is
That is exactly what the arbitration clause in most service contracts is; you may not sue us; you agree to binding arbitration instead.
bigger?
Well, there are over 300 million Americans (restricting ourselves to the usage meaning people from the USA), and, it seems to me, growing the usage of wifi from 115 million to 201 million in a "couple of years" when that is one of the biggest growing computer related tech areas during those two years doesn't seem unusual, nor does it seem to require any excessive immigration or annexation of a continent.
AV8B...
It IS too late to rummage them out; the Typhoon has used it's austere bombing capabilities on that bin too.
Sure...
It has "austere bombing capabilities" - austere being defined as being capable of destroying undefended and indefensible scrap. Handy, that. You know, just in case the junkyard wars people make a military move - you can get their parts supply chain.
So...
You don't think it is irrefutable that Jesus is famous (at least in part) for having his hands pierced? Whether that is historically accurate or not is rather immaterial, is it not?
George Washington is famous (in part) for saying that he cannot tell a lie, even though that tale is not historically accurate. Thus, there are Google hits that roughly correlate with that.
It seems...
If you actually need the device to perform your work, then the fastest way would HAVE to be to break it. All of the other ways involve you continuing to be productive, so the company doesn't have to worry about lost time.
That being said; it is also the riskiest, I think, since you would, most likely, be fired if you were caught, and the likelihood of being caught seems somewhat high.
Posted in Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster!
Note to mention...
The possibility of a critical failure in the strong force within our bodies; if it failed at the wrong moment (any moment), the result would be instant death! Precautions MUST be taken!
To be fair...
Isn't Jesus known for having blood on his hands in a more literal sense? Something about nails piercing his skin or some such?
Posted in Australians can’t read or count
I couldn't help but notice...
There is definitely a pessimist vs optimist thing going on with this story. The original interpretations of the report (by other journos) are all squarely in the pessimist camp (oh, woe is me; Australia is in the suck). The author also falls in this camp, though a bit more ambiguously.. but he does imply that, while it is un-exceptional for the situation to be like it is, there are all kinds of people who suck.
I say: around 50% of Australians NEVER make a mistake when dealing with arithmetic, holy shit OMG, Australia kicks ASS!!!!!. What a high rate of perfection!
Batteries like ammo...
Seems like the best solution would be to have magazines with embedded batteries, then, when you need more ammo, you also change the battery at the same time. As long as the Mag holds enough juice to fire all its shells plus enough extra to last for a while, you should be in good shape.
Not forgetting...
"The hundreds of thousands who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a direct result of nuclear energy?"
If we don't forget those, then we also mustn’t forget all the people who have died to weapons created using non-nuclear forms of energy as well, right? I'm sure that, even if we restrict ourselves to only fuel-air type bombs, we'd find that petrochemical munitions have a far higher death toll than nuclear...
to the contrary...
After reading the description of what a following sea is, it seems to me that, for a space shuttle, which goes at supersonic speeds, the wind is rather likely to be following it at times.... and, in general, fair seas are a nice thing for most space travel thus far (though that part isn't really applicable to the space shuttle).
Posted in Yanks outweigh Canucks: Official
not only foreign but...
a Texas Yank?
Is that like a royalist roundhead?
No questions asked...
Obviously you have not bought a gun from a commercial vendor in the US; if you had you'd know that there are certainly questions asked. If you buy a rifle then that is it; they ask the questions and you answer them, then you can buy. If you are buying a handgun, though, they ask the questions, you answer, then you wait for a while to buy the weapon.
The government "doesn't" hang on to your answers though.
I'me pretty sure...
That the test itself does not change the legal rights of the "father" in question. If he has been the legal father of the child before (and has the right to give consent on behalf of the child), then he will still be, even if the test comes back negative. This, really, is as it should be; this test doesn't test for dad-ness, just genetic father-ness.
I suspect that what appears in the article is kind of a summary, since there are some obvious cases where the mother would not have legal right to give consent for the child (ie adopted children or cases where the father has been granted sole custody), and some of these cases are where this kind of test could be quite beneficial.
NASA
Need Another Seven Astronauts - That was my favorite at the time.
great idea... except
the FEL doesn't fire ions. It uses Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation to deliver it's killign energy... ie. it is not a particle weapon (which could fire ions), but rather an EM energy weapon/LASER.
garbage and prostitution
Garbage men are not obliged to let strangers fuck them for a few minutes for a relatively large hourly rate.. but neither are prostitutes obliged to virtually swim in shed loads of baby diapers and used tampons for hours at a time for a much more modest hourly rate.
If the women are not being literally forced (as opposed to "coerced by economic conditions") then it is simply a career choice; there are others, but they don't pay as well.
The same arguement (about economic conditions) applies, literally, to almost all people who do some sort of work. There are those of us who enjoy our work, but, even we, ultimately, would probably do something else (even if ever so slightly different) if it were not that we needed a paycheck.
Indeed, Ms. Bee, would you be trolling these comments being forced to have your mind soiled if it were not that you would like to receive your paycheck? Wouldn't it be better if you could just read them after the most extreme comments were already eliminated?
Posted in Sprint introduces $10 smartphone premium
no iphones on sprint
Currently the only way (and it is indeed quite new) to get an iphone on Sprint would be to buy one from verizon (with the 2 year contract) then jailbreak it (if the cdma iphones can even be jailbroken yet), unlock it from verizon, then get sprint to activate it.
I guess if you are willing to go that far, Sprint will probably categorize you along with the people who make the minor change to their user agent to look like dumb phones.
more than 0 wives
I was once informed by someone older (and possibly wiser) than I that the only good number of wives is either none or enough that no one would notice one less than what you have. Any state in between is unacceptable.
the...
CAEK is a lie...
my car
can't go below the speed limit.. or at least that is how it appears when I'm driving it.
Lucky gal
It seems quite fortunate for her that she survived. A bull white-tailed deer in rutt can easily kill someone, and reindeer are generally quite a bit larger; from the description of the event it almost sounds like the bull in question was treating this lady with kid gloves, though of course that could be due to simple understatement. At any rate, I'd say this woman was pretty lucky.
hmmm..
All things considered, when I really think about it, I think I'd rather someone groping me that enjoyed it over someone who didn't, if I have to be groped by a stranger. Maybe the TSA should seek out homosexual chubby chasers for the enhanced pat downs; then, at least, someone could be enjoying themselves. It would certainly de-stress the situation somewhat.
Posted in Hasbro unleashes 'Spastic' Transformer
Er, yes
In the US, at least where I am, spastic is equivalently offensive to retard, merely derogatory terms for different conditions. Really, I suspect this would be seen as offensive here as well.
Personally I would neither be offended by this nor a transformer named Retard, or the dastardly Short Bus decepticon. But my skin is not so thin.
I think..
When confronted with such a weapon it is always wise to back the first few steps away before presenting the enemy with a potential target.
How terrible
A school campus without nuclei?
I think the members of that student union may want to consider learning something before making declarations! I'm sure they wouldn't enjoy attending the (electron) cloud university.
