Busy Bee
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Commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
If this unimpressive photograph on the left is the best the reporters with iPhones could do, I would say that the Chicago newspaper made a mistake. But I wouldn't be surprised if photographers with iPhones would do a better job...
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Commented on Short Story: Bit Rot
Ionizing radiation is a lot more efficient at denaturating proteins than heat is. This should be the very first thing you wonder about radiation effects: is the photon energy by itself high enough to do real damage, or can we...
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Commented on The jet lag game
I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet: if you screw up your sleep schedule before the flight, the time that you're not functional due to sleep deprivation and the time you're locked up in an aluminum tube can overlap. So the...
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Commented on Unbreakable (part 1)
Re: structural engineering terminology Toughness is another of those terms that aren't always used compatibly with their precise meaning in engineering: of two materials with the same strength and not-too-dissimilar shape of the response curve, it is the more compliant...
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Commented on Big Guns[1]
... using personal insurance coverage to reduce the attractiveness of firearms ownership/usage... That's a very libertarian approach to the problem: allow everything and invoke the supposed infallibility of the "free market" to properly put a price on externalities. I therefore...
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Commented on Big Guns[1]
there are very few spree killers in Finland, even though they've got universal military service. Well... that's really not a great example. It is of course true that there are very few people in Finland, and therefore very few spree...