stratomorph

5 ms·

1.
by stratomorph 15y ago
"Your goals should be to effect positive change in the world." Should it? Why? What makes positive change a more valid goal than making more mans? ( http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2481 ) And in turn, what's so morally bankrupt about the p
2.
by stratomorph 16y ago
On the other hand, you've disregarded the possibility of continuing to browse after doing three things (or stopping prior to three things). If browsing is an endless stream, then facebook has to be followed by one of the other two, which is
3.
by stratomorph 16y ago
It's a bit misleading to flatly cite the 100km Karman line as if there was no room to debate "where does space begin?" The boundary could be lower: NASA gives out astronaut wings at 50 miles (264000 feet). Or maybe it should be higher: Orbi
4.
by stratomorph 16y ago
>In tracking the sensors on each of the phones, we observed that the GPS in Nexus S could function up to altitudes of about 60,000 ft. and would actually start working again on the balloon’s descent. ... Maximum Speed: 139 mph The unit
5.
by stratomorph 16y ago
>"an angle" refers to any angle other than the angle directly from the sun. So do these conceptual glasses have a way to find the direction of the sun, and adjust the moire patterns in real time? Based on the description, it sounded lik
6.
by stratomorph 16y ago
That still won't work the way I think you intend. This will block light that enters perpendicularly, while passing some of the light that enters at an angle. The problem is that light entering at an angle is not aimed at your pupils. Allowi
7.
by stratomorph 16y ago
I don't think that will work the way you intend. Direct sunlight is (on average) unpolarized. Polarized lenses only block glare off, for example, the surface of a body of water, because reflection affects polarization. ( http://en.wikipedia
8.
by stratomorph 16y ago
One of my favorite stories is about perhaps the most conscientious counterfeiter: http://www.snopes.com/business/money/mister880.asp .
9.
by stratomorph 16y ago
Depends on how you look at it. Yeah, they're "worth" $100 apiece because they can be exchanged for goods and services "worth" $100. (Let the chicken and egg lie.) So it's $110 billion worth of cash that can't circulate. Good or bad thing? T
10.
by stratomorph 16y ago
Well, 94% mortality and 6% for which there is insufficient data to draw a conclusion. We'll have to wait a while to be sure if any of them are immortal.
11.
by stratomorph 16y ago
>The B-1 and B-52 also have low observability characteristics I'd challenge the B-52 bit. The airframe had pretty well reached its final form by 1950. Radar was still in its infancy, let alone radar countermeasures. The plane is all rad
12.
by stratomorph 16y ago
Being predictable isn't easy to avoid. We put so much hardware in the sky, and quickly neutralize so many of the surface-to-air threats, that aircraft are far more likely to have a close call with another friendly aircraft than to be delibe
13.
by stratomorph 16y ago
>Where in the Bill of Rights are you guaranteed the right to air travel? Right here in the ninth amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the peop
14.
by stratomorph 16y ago
I either don't agree with your point, or don't understand it. Why is it a bad thing (and who is it bad for) to make money hard to track? I'm also pretty sure payment is difficult for far more reasons than just tracking.
15.
by stratomorph 16y ago
I'd point out that those programs don't silently install themselves without the owner's knowledge or consent, which makes a world of difference.
16.
by stratomorph 16y ago
Yeah, but I also didn't account for any sort of inefficiency in the electric drivetrain. 90% conversion efficiency is a good rule of thumb, and there's one step from house panel to storage, another from house storage to car storage, and one
17.
by stratomorph 16y ago
Sure, the assumption that I need a full tank every day is pushing it, but that's partially balanced by the fact that I used a fuel-efficient car for a baseline. Someone who drives 100 miles a day with the electrical equivalent of 15-20 mpg
18.
by stratomorph 16y ago
I stand by the approximation. 300 m^2 is about 17.3m on a side, 17.3 m in feet is a touch under 57 ft. Rounded to one sig fig because I'm not carrying any sort of precision through these estimates. Edit: Or are you talking about the "60 fee
19.
by stratomorph 16y ago
While I agree with you about decentralization, onboard solar cells won't ever do the trick. Even for a home-sized array, I'm not sure it can be made practical. Here are some back-of-the-envelope figures: To really replace a gasoline-powered
20.
by stratomorph 16y ago
The resemblance is entirely coincidental. The two words have unrelated etymologies. We might as well advise people to avoid words like "luck" and "truck," which are not technically profane, but obviously sound very close to a very bad word.
21.
by stratomorph 16y ago
The Soviet aeronautic industry is far ahead of the West, though due to the shroud of secrecy surrounding the designs, this is not known to many. "Far fetched" is a good way to put it. It's completely unsourced and suspect even to a
22.
by stratomorph 16y ago
It looks like gcc can be used ( http://mspgcc.sourceforge.net/ ). I'll have to brush up on my C.
23.
by stratomorph 16y ago
Bingo, birth rate is a consequence, not a cause. He's trying to put the cart before the horse.
24.
by stratomorph 16y ago
A country gets rich before the birth rate falls, so just driving down the birth rate of a poor country doesn't affect the underlying mechanism. You can't just copy the superficial aspects of a successful society and expect the rest to jus
25.
by stratomorph 16y ago
It's pretty disingenuous to say it's that simple. Some poverty-ridden heavily populated areas have been poor since they were lightly populated. It is in the nature of humans to make babies everywhere, rich and poor areas alike. Being snarky
26.
by stratomorph 16y ago
A "properly sized" conventional explosive would be impractically enormous: nukes are measured in kiloton or megaton yields. There is no way to effectively detonate (say) twenty million pounds of conventional explosives all at once, never
27.
by stratomorph 17y ago
I wonder if human nature might help make robot trucks safer on the road, by the magic of risk compensation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation ). A robot truck will most certainly be marked distinctively so the human drivers kn
28.
by stratomorph 17y ago
You may want to get a different link; that one threatens goatse in response to hotlinking. Edit: Praise internets, link is fixed!
29.
by stratomorph 17y ago
This is some pretty sweet technology, I've always wanted the ability to reach out and touch an insect without having to chase it with a flyswatter. That said... This is a technological stop-gap to a bigger problem. Malaria will continue to
30.
by stratomorph 17y ago
You see, that's my point. How do we know there are serious negative consequences at all? Because of the anecdotes she mentions? She didn't cite any rigorous study that concludes pornography is harmful, but simply appealed to our gut feeling

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