robonerd

44 ms·

361.
by robonerd 4y ago
By the numbers, any kind of terrorism is an overblown boogeyman. Nuclear terrorism particularly so, and doubly overblown is nuclear terrorism that isn't state sponsored.
362.
by robonerd 4y ago
> but natural uranium in rocks is full of fission products. They're dangerous too. Natural Uranium decay creates radon gas, which seeps up through the ground an accumulates inside buildings. That radon then decays, and the pr
363.
by robonerd 4y ago
Luck and great engineering. You're right, by the pilot's admission he was only along for the ride once the plane disintegrated. The headline could be seen as a bit misleading, but the story as told by the pilot is pretty interes
364.
by robonerd 4y ago
You're right, I was thinking from the perspective of people protesting the paranoia-state by jamming these drones, not shooters jamming drones. I don't expect these sort of drones to be effective and doubt they'll factor int
365.
by robonerd 4y ago
It seems like premature vocational education. Vocational education is usually started as secondary or post-secondary education, not primary. Starting vocational education so young feels like a slide back in time to the 19th century, excep
366.
by robonerd 4y ago
Free food just tastes better.
367.
by robonerd 4y ago
If you're going to complain about the way a question was asked, I think you should at least try to answer the question as though it were phrased in a better way. Otherwise people might be forgiven for assuming you don't actually
368.
by robonerd 4y ago
Coelacanth are bony fish too. Bony fish contrasts with cartilaginous fish, e.g. sharks and rays.
369.
by robonerd 4y ago
You'll be triangulated down by boomer HAMs (they call it 'fox hunting', it's a sub-hobby for them) and slapped with a fine by the FCC.
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by robonerd 4y ago
> The founder is like a hard-core sci-fi fan Not surprising, his company was originally named after an old science fiction story Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle ; which he initialized to Taser .
371.
by robonerd 4y ago
Just to be clear, we're talking about combining a mechanical pencil and a rubber band to launch BBs, tooth picks, etc? These are "weapons" in the sense that nerf guns are, maybe enough to trigger hysterical zero tolerance r
372.
by robonerd 4y ago
> US schools apparently conduct surprise active shooter drills with simulated gunshots I didn't know that. It reminds me of this joke / supposition from the late comedian Trevor Moore: "What if governments learned from
373.
by robonerd 4y ago
When I was in public school, lots of people made those including me. I wouldn't call them zip-guns though, they're a form of improvised sling shot (or spear gun, if you use those sandwich toothpicks with the plastic frills on one
374.
by robonerd 4y ago
> Do you think that Americans are unusually stupid? A large minority of them are, yes. There's millions of people in this country that flunked their way through 12 years of math class and never retained anything more than basic a
375.
by robonerd 4y ago
For the most part. Tens of millions of people voted, a few hundred (maybe a few thousand) people rioted, and the rest are mostly just complaining. All in all, I'd say the current system is working pretty well.
376.
by robonerd 4y ago
It's a sort of tumblehome bow, similar designs were popular in the past. For instance this late 19th century French battleship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_battleship_Jaur%C3%A9gu... No doubt computer si
377.
by robonerd 4y ago
> I personally slightly prefer approval voting (e.g. select all candidates you like, no ranking, most votes wins). Yes, I like this one a lot more. > There are municipalities and states that have implemented both. I think for low-
378.
by robonerd 4y ago
The source coming from and trusting the lawyer doesn't change the fact that the lawyer was informing to the FBI and was an associate to this journalist. > Eventually, he confessed to me that the FBI had been waiting in Bruges to tr
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by robonerd 4y ago
I think ranked choice voting is too nerdy for much of the general public to understand; not the principle of it but the actual practice of how to tally votes and calculate the winner. Given the choice between a voting system the public de
380.
by robonerd 4y ago
You'd trust this guy?! He has spooks crawling all over him. This lawyer was informing the FBI on the journalist's source, and the journalist won't even name that lawyer. An NSA/TLA/etc leaker would need a death
381.
by robonerd 4y ago
> [the lawyer] told me that he was sometimes involved in international arms deals. [...] The lawyer seemed to be an adrenaline junkie, someone who had found a home on the dark side of international intelligence. [...] While the FBI kno
382.
by robonerd 4y ago
Maybe so, but do laws really count for much in this country anymore? > DHS Authorities Are Buying Moment-By-Moment Geolocation Cellphone Data To Track People > The Department of Homeland Security also argues that using the informat
383.
by robonerd 4y ago
[You're technically wrong, now let me explain the ways in which you're basically correct.]
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by robonerd 4y ago
Perhaps Germany makes more official requests because of their privacy laws, whereas in America the government simply buys people's data on the open market without having to go through official channels, get warrants, etc?
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by robonerd 4y ago
> Encryption in transit is assumed, and rightfully so. Heh, we've come far. True unencrypted chat was once popular, and technically still exists (although most IRC networks now default people to TLS.)
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by robonerd 4y ago
> I mean just the basic concept of survival of the fittest, which doesn't require deep understanding of biology. Even that can be tricky for some people, since it requires people to think about fitness in a holistic way. But lay
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by robonerd 4y ago
What if they were right? Some of the Thirty Tyrants were Socrates' former pupils.
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by robonerd 4y ago
Europeans say violent movies can negatively influence people, but don't worry so much about sexually explicit content. Americans say sexually explicit content can negatively influence people, but don't worry so much about violent
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by robonerd 4y ago
Web pages work just fine on phones, except companies are suspiciously forceful with their recommendations that you use their app instead. Don't pretend Reddit isn't doing this; others do as well.
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by robonerd 4y ago
For years now, there have been seemingly crazy people on 4chan who insist that systems like this are already employed on 4chan to guide or simply disrupt conversations. Maybe they were crazy to think that a few years ago (or maybe not) bu

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