jphilby

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• Commented on Energy Literacy part One: Energy is invisible
  The article starts out unconvincing because it fails to demonstrate basic energy literacy. Watts are units of power, an instantaneous quantity. Electrical energy consumption is measured in average kilowatts of power multiplied by hours it is consumed. 100 watts x...
• Commented on Archaeologists May Have Found Remains of Lost Persian Army
  "I'm sure that the lost army is buried somewhere around the area we surveyed, perhaps under 16.4 feet of sand." That would be 5 meters, Bob....
• Commented on Graph compares rock music quality with US oil production 1949-2007
  If it weren't for the British Invasion, those two curves would be completely different. The Fabs and ilk fixed what was broken. So we're faced with the difficult question: how did peak US oil production stimulate the UK to produce...
• Commented on OUTRAGE: documentary outs anti-gay politicians who are secretly gay
  @#2 "There's not necessarily a contradiction-- they may sincerely think gay sex is morally wrong yet continue to engage in it." That IS the definition of contradiction. 'Contra' against 'diction' what you say. While we're doing Webster, there's hypocrite: a...
• Commented on Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions
  WHAT kind of capitalist nation doesn't prepare it's citizens for the duties, responsibilities and harrowing sob-stories brought about by sudden windfall? What are we, a bunch of capitalist wimps?? C'mon, TAKE it like a man!!...
• Commented on The Official Appreciation Page for the Best of the Wikipedia Rejects
  DELETE THE DELETIONISTS !!!! SPEEDILY !!! another eternal font of the true flame: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com...
• Commented on Bank of America demands thumbprint from man with no arms
  One more of the HUNDREDS of reasons for avoiding banks. How long before "thumbprint databases" start getting spread around the net? Then what ... penis-prints? Nah, I'm guessing *implants*. "Sorry ... no skull implant? Your paycheck's in your account, but...
• Commented on Creative Commons Salon, San Francisco Oct 15
  "sharing and participatory culture are shaping how music is created and consumed." Man ... that's WAAAY different from the 60s....
• Commented on HOWTO flout the flavored tobacco ban and make DIY homemade clove cigarettes
  @1 CINEMAJAY "...and run up the cost of everyone's insurance to boot" The insurance companies ... and the skiers and HS sports and skateboarders and car drivers and booze drinkers and fast-food eaters and lazy asses ... etc. ... are...
• Commented on Mary Travers, RIP
  One of the best Xmas gifts my parents ever got me was that first album... the music, the ideals, the compassion, the vision ... Take out one voice and you would have diminishment ... Just last week I was surfing...
• Commented on Beatles remasters: the Metzger review
  Soooo then ... they've been cheating us all these years when they sold us recording that didn't reveal "The layered backing vocals, hand claps, tambourines ... and tape manipulations" ???? And yet somehow they managed to conquer the world without...
• Commented on Robot can hop over 25-foot fences
  OOOooaaaaaah. That was never a *25*-foot fence. #12: Way to pick your statistics to justify that ultimate barbaric act. As a US Admiral put it at the time....
• Commented on Unusual police sketch
  That's the most serious unibrow *I've* ever seen....
• Commented on Treehugger profiles off-gridders Abe and Josie about their desert homestead
  "What is refreshing about this couple is that they are not rebelling against modern times. On the contrary, they are embracing it ... dependent on emerging technologies such as affordable DIY energy harvesting, satellite internet, and other modern advances." Stewart!!!...
• Commented on List of books read by backpackers
  Damn fine list, that. digging wayback: Cosmic Consciousness - Richard Bucke anything by Ouspensky Walden - Thoreau The Way of the White Clouds - Angarika Govinda Be Here Now - Ram Dass Perennial Philosophy - Huxley anything from Shambala Press....
• Commented on Hubble's Greatest Hits: Astronomers discuss their favorite images
  Compare this picture from the Very Large Telescope, taken just after its first 8.2 meter scope was finished: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980602.html No comparison from the ground. (NGC 6302 is about 3400 light-years away. It was first seen no later then 1888.)...
• Commented on Conservative California legislator gives pornographic account of his multiple affairs (including a lobbyist) into open mic
  And there's a capsule example of all the challenged Americans who are holding the rest of us back ... smug, self-satisfied blusterers prattling about their 'values' while they prove to be filthy and ignorant pigs in their daily lives. Over...
• Commented on UK: Treatment of (gay) genius mathematician Alan Turing "appalling"
  And while we're at it, a hearty BRAVO to all the hearty (and hot) britfags who've contributed so much to the cultural and intellectual life of the Western hemisphere! Toodley-pips!...
• Commented on Random ham radio trollfight audio (explicit)
  Ya know, we didn't use to hear that sorta lingo back when you needed 18wpm's of Morse to get a license!! (Chance to re-live the decades-long squabble over incentive licensing.)...
• Commented on Wikileaks re-publishes 60 Minutes piece on est/Landmark cult leader Werner Erhard
  All the old traditions advised that anyone who offers to sell you enlightenment is immediately deeply suspect....
• Commented on Dick Cheney, proud torturer.
  I hope we've seen the last revivification of the Cold Warriors. They were the end of a long chain of 20th-century casualties....
• Commented on Profile of skeptical guru James Randi
  The guys in the skeptic business hear about shady deals, cons, scams and theft a lot more than most of us do. I can understand their anger about those things. "Magic" for fun is great; love is a kind of...
• Commented on Things that have always been true for the class of 2013
  A Commodore 64 was,once again, a naval officer waiting for retirement....
• Commented on Things that have always been true for the class of 2013
  They've always known that You Can Do That on Television....
• Commented on Nanoparticles linked to illness and death in factory workers exposed to them
  "Until you awaken, everything you create is a method of genocide."...
• Commented on Report: Mercury found in every single fish tested in study of US rivers, streams
  "It's a good thing that we didn't listen to all those treehugging hippies back in the 1970s, or else we wouldn't have finished poisoning and wasting the rest of the earth, and we'd all have lost our jobs." One of...
• Commented on Neo-nazi hate blogger paid by FBI to incite, says attorney
  Oh, his *lawyers* say that's how it is. Then I guess it *must* be so. Hmmm. One way to get people to want smaller government (and thus to establish a preference for rule by Big'N'Large) is to get them to...
• Commented on Deep Sleep Therapy and brainwashing researcher Dr. William Sargant
  It was a burgeoning crowd. See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jay_Lifton, (student of Erik Erickson) who got interested in 'thought reform' techniques in China he identified with 'totalism'. Of course the Allies weren't the only countries interested in 'thought reform' during the cold...
• Commented on Deep Sleep Therapy and brainwashing researcher Dr. William Sargant
  #4 Thanks! for the link. I thot of that guy right away when I saw Sargant's 'achievements'. Imagine the conversation if those two ever got together. Right up there with the doctors who used to sterilize minority mothers 'for their...
• Commented on Stephenson's Orth-speak Hugo acceptance speech
  Definitely Cryptonomicon, it started with Diamond Age....