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Comment: Re:Wait, did $Deity announce a do-over? (Score 1) 351

by ScentCone (#47419959) Attached to: Blueprints For Taming the Climate Crisis

We could have spend the amount of money we put into nuclear power into solar power.

Yeah, except that we've been using energy from powerful nuclear generation reactors for decades, and if all of that effort had gone instead into the incredibly inefficient solar technology of the day, we'd have had to burn a huge pile of coal or volume of natural gas to make up for the enormous shortfall. You seem to think that time travel is available, and that somehow even somewhat better, but still very inefficient solar tools available today could have been magically manufactured decades ago, and in enormous grids blanketing (where, exactly?). And of course you're probably also suggesting the use of the same time travel machine to send back the scientists who are only just now - despite the availability of huge amounts of capital, decades more accumulated research, and more - figuring out how to make batteries and other storage devices that kind of, sort of make sense relative to things like powering homes, let alone whole cities.

But you do know that a forrest has no effect on the CO2 level, or not? If it regrows it 'consumes' exactly the amount it yielded when it was burned?

It's a shame that you're wasting all of that energy on such an angry rant when you don't have the patience to educate yourself a bit. The enormous swaths of chopped-down rainforest aren't being allowed to grow back. They're being used to inefficiently provide lumber (once) and then provide development and farming land - activities that in turn also produce more CO2, not that you actually care.

But you do know that China has a single child policy since nearly 40 years, you do or not?

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the the fact that their enormous and rapidly growing population is completely overtaking their ability to produce energy, clean water, and enough farmable land to keep up. Hence their steady importation of oil and food from everywhere else.

You do know that the population in Africa is constant since decades?

How is it that you think lying is helping whatever point you're trying to make? The UN has recently pointed out that sub-Saharan Africa has an exploding population, and that the population on that continent will likely quadruple before the century is out. Africa's population is the fastest growing in the world. You know this, everyone else knows this. So the fact that you're pretending it's otherwise, and lead your post with "moron" and "racist" ... well, I guess I should know better than to feed an obvious troll. I've always found that the ones who start their posts by screeching "racist!" are themselves the ones with the race problem. You certainly seem that way.

fantasy world

Hilarious. You're the one fantasizing about population trends that are the opposite of what the UN reports, that imagines time-traveling to solve energy issues, and who sees everyone who doesn't play along with your imagined alternate reality to be morons and racists. Print your post out, on paper, and set it aside someplace safe there in your mom's basement. You'll still be there in ten years, so make an appointment with yourself to read it again, and compare it to each of the next ten years' worth of UN population reports. Not that you'll have the intellectual integrity to actually do that.

Comment: Re:Wait, did $Deity announce a do-over? (Score 2) 351

by ScentCone (#47418123) Attached to: Blueprints For Taming the Climate Crisis

We have officially lost our "shot at preventing devastating climate change".

Nothing we could have done in the last 100 years would have made a bit of difference with respect to what you mention.

Well, except possibly for doing something to reduce eastern population booms by a few billion people. The couple hundred million people in the west with the economic latitude to pursue the type of stuff laid out in TFA won't make a bit of change, relative to four billion people digging coal in China, sprouting up on the subcontinent, overgrazing in Africa, and plowing down rainforest in Central and South America.

You want any of this to change? Stop having so many babies in places that can't afford them.

Comment: Re:Sigh! (Score 1) 674

by ScentCone (#47399269) Attached to: TSA Prohibits Taking Discharged Electronic Devices Onto Planes

Does anyone really believe the next great air-to-ground attack is going to resemble the last one? The assumption that folks of Arabian descent who harbor ill will for the West would use a commercial jet is at best security theatre, and at worst, unimaginable incompetence.

Except they've tried three more times since then, and had either technical problems or had their attempt thwarted at the last moment. It doesn't matter if they also turn their attention to having western-looking jihaddis freshly back from the ISIS Olympics attacking a London shopping mall TOO, they haven't given up on using portable bombs in airplanes to try to knock more out of the sky. Why? Because it plays well for the intended audience, which is NOT the west. It's all about being able to claim, "See? We can still do more such martyrdom operations any time we want, that's how capable we are."

Comment: Re:Idiotic (Score 1) 200

by ScentCone (#47398529) Attached to: The View From Inside A Fireworks Show
You're right. Our entire culture should only be able to be thoughtful about the safety of any one given situation at a time. People who want to fly RC aircraft should shut up and not worry, at all, about how some idiot is generating bad press and given the uninformed silly people media-hyped things to worry about ... they shouldn't even ADDRESS that issue as long as there is even one angry person anywhere roaming the streets ready to kill over an imagined slight. As a nation, we cannot possibly afford to deal with more than one topic at a time. Speaking of which, how do you have time to scold be when there are people with knives near taxis in your area?

Comment: Re:Idiotic (Score 1) 200

by ScentCone (#47393065) Attached to: The View From Inside A Fireworks Show

Flight controller may get confused and attempt to fly the thing

The flight controller is ALWAYS flying the thing. And if you were paying attention (which you weren't), you'd note that I was talking about how the flight controller might handle the presence of debris gumming up a motor and overheating an ESC. It happens all the time - insects, dust, leaves, etc. As I also pointed out, this stuff will seem mysterious to smug people who obviously have no experience with this stuff in the real world.

The Phantom 2 is 1kg

About half again that much by the time you install gimbal, camera, and VTX for downlink. Regardless, shall we do a test where 1300g hits you in the head at 30+mph? No? Huh.

The Phantom 2 does not have carbon fibre blades. This is quite significant because plastic doesn't hurt when you get hit by it (spoken from experience).

Many people retrofit with CF props. Regardless, the stock props are plenty capable of taking out an eye, or laying open the meat on your face.

LiPos aren't bombs

Though you can use the same Google you're talking about to see lovely video of hot, instant fires caused by multirotors hitting the pavement from a long fall/dive and having their onboard LiPo rupture internally. They are very energetic. Just what we need - video of Lithium-fueled fire on someone's July 4 picnic blanket, right where their kid had been sitting in a crowd.

The public couldn't give a shit. They don't care about you, the drone...

Which explains why the FAA gets a steady stream of phoned-in tips from the public, which they use to issue subpoenas and cease & desist letters threatening fines. Or you could read up on the case of the 17 year old out having a nice time flying FPV in a wide-open public area, up until some lady started to quite literally beat him up for doing so. She gave a shit, enough to commit assault over it. Tip of the iceberg.

Comment: Re:Idiotic (Score 1) 200

by ScentCone (#47391101) Attached to: The View From Inside A Fireworks Show

Nobody was in danger except the drone owner's bank account

Spoken like someone who has never actually built and or operated one.

More likely than a direct hit on the drone by a shell (likely to make the drone drop straight out of the sky, probably in multiple pieces) is the prospect of some debris getting into one or more of the brushless motors. This could cause the motor to overheat, or cause the ESC talking to it to get things wrong. The flight controller can get confused by this, and you could end up with a high battery drain, and the machine doing a nice tilt to one side, with the remaining props spinning way up to try to maintain lift ... presto. From a few hundred feet, the drone could go into a high speed dive at an angle that could very quickly close the distance between the fireworks range (over the water) and the people on the ground. How'd you like 1500g of high-speed hardware coming at your head at, say, 35mph, in the dark, complete with high-speed spinning carbon fiber knives and a flammable LiPo battery onboard.

Beyond all of that, this is about public perception. The complete tool who did this is practically begging to have members of the public pile onto the FAA's existing effort to, in practice, shut down this entire hobby and almost every attempt to put these tools to work in research and business. Gee, thanks.

Comment: Re:Disappointing - Potential payoff is enormous... (Score 2, Interesting) 225

by ScentCone (#47375387) Attached to: Senate Budgetmakers Move To End US Participation In ITER

get shelved by politicians

Get shelved by Democrats, you mean. Ask Harry Reid (who sets the legislative agenda in the Senate) about his priorities, if he can articulate them in a complete, unmuddled sentence that doesn't include assertions about how his party has no rich donors, etc.

If this were the House, the tone of the comments here would be all about specifically named anti-science conservatives, not "politicians." Why aren't we naming the anti-science liberals behind this cut?

Comment: Re:Non-compete agreements are BS. (Score 4, Insightful) 272

by ScentCone (#47369697) Attached to: Amazon Sues After Ex-Worker Takes Google Job

Just scrawl 'I don't agree' on the signature line. Let them enforce that.

And they would scrawl "you can't cash this" on the paycheck you won't be getting, since signing your employment contract in good faith is, you know, part of setting things up so they'll give you money.

Comment: Re:and yet (Score 2, Interesting) 173

by ScentCone (#47349819) Attached to: Julian Assange Plans Modeling Debut At London Fashion Show

If by "home" you mean "Gitmo"


Comment: Re:Shell Drone Station (Score 1) 30

by ScentCone (#47329259) Attached to: Automated Remote Charging for Your Flying Drones (Video)

lol I don't think Amazon pays a dividend. So you can remove shareholders from the list.

Shareholders also get paid by watching their shares become more valuable over time. They can sell them down the road, as they see fit. I don't get any Starbucks dividends, either - but what I own there is worth about 1000% more than when I bought. At some point, I'll cash it out, pay the long term capital gains taxes, and get one big ol' dividend for having owned a sliver of the company along the way. I don't feel the least bit troubled by the lack of a dividend in that stock.

Comment: Re:stimulate all of our senses & spirits at on (Score 2) 100

by ScentCone (#47320119) Attached to: Mysterious X-ray Signal Hints At Dark Matter

Normal human with average IQ and understands that science is real?


Extremist right wing moron speak?

I was hoping you could translate it into left wing moron speak, perhaps using a metaphor involving healing crystals and/or homeopathy. That'd be super, thanks. If that's too hard, perhaps just translate it into some sort of yoga-energy-manipulation example, or maybe use the interaction of wind turbines killing thousands of bats as an analogy to the sterile neutrons decaying.
