Disqus - Latest Comments for Brock_M_Cusick

Re: The World’s Safest Source of Energy Will Surprise You

Brock — Fri, 11 May 2018 09:19:34 -0000

Part of the reason that's true is that nuclear pushes its deaths into the future. The long-term nuclear waste is just building up and will last millions of years. Maybe one day fast-neutron or molten salt reactors will solve that problem for us, but so far we haven't made it work.
Another option would be that space launch gets cheap enough that we can just put the waste on the Moon. That'll cheaper than Yucca Mountain and provide greater safety assurances.

Re: Approval Voting: Works Great, Less Complicated

Brock — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:57:09 -0000

Well perception is always an issue. If you can't convince people of the benefits than it won't ever happen, no matter how much better it could be. But the voting behavior you describe is actually one of the benefits of Ranged Voting. People who choose to use the ratings can be more expressive than Approval Voting allows for, and people who behave the way you describe basically regress to Approval Voting.
So Range Voting is like "Approval Voting+", because it only gives more expressive power than Range Voting, and never less.

Re: Approval Voting: Works Great, Less Complicated

Brock — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:12:05 -0000

Approval is definitely better than RCV. I give you that and agree.
However there's a better system than Approval, and every American is already familiar with it and has used it many times. "Ranged Voting" or "Score Voting". Just assign a score to each candidate, say from 1 to 5. Every American that has rated a movie or a product at Amazon knows how to do this. "Five stars!"
To use your gaming examples at the end of the article, the voter who prefer Johnson above all but still prefers Stein to Clinton or Trump could rate Johnson a 5, Stein a 3, and then Clinton and Trump both get 1.
A ballot that had a list of names a number of stars next to each name (to be filled in with pencil if a paper ballot, or just touched with a finger on a touchscreen) would be so simple that anyone could do this with a low probability of error. Everyone knows that "more is better".
Voting systems that only showed politicians polling at least 1% support a month prior to the election would keep the number of names on the ballot to a reasonable number.

Re: Unveiling AKASHA

Brock — Tue, 03 May 2016 16:15:40 -0000

Fantastic post. I look forward to reading more details on the implementation. I assume that you're just using Ethereum or processing interactions, but most of the data is written to IPFS.
Will the handles used during the Alpha transfer to the later stages?

Re: Joule Unlimited Claims to have engineered cyanobacterium that will produce biofuel equal to $30 barrel oil

Brock — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:41:50 -0000

Did you read the article? They're already building a plant in Texas, with commercial production in 2012. That's just next year.

Re: Gmail Creator Paul Buchheit: Chrome OS Will Perish Or “Merge” With Android

Brock — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:01:24 -0000

I think it's way to early to tell if Chrome OS will be folded up into Android or shut down. Further, I think that Google is sufficiently dedicate to a internet-as-platform future to at least keep Chrome going through 2012, no matter how poor sales are at first. Just look how they kept plugging at Android despite the sad little brick that was the G1.

As an experiment I have been "running" Chrome OS at home for a month now. By which I mean, I have my Dell laptop, but the only app I use on it is Chrome. As long as Chrome OS supports Acrobat Reader and my printers I can say it works well enough. And I'd definitely be down with faster boot times and better battery life than I'm getting now.

Re: Navy: Dahlgren Railgun test is successful

Brock — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:33:12 -0000

That was neat, and I cannot even image the FPS of the camera that caught the projectile in flight. But why didn't they show what the projectile did to whatever target it was aimed at!!?? Without wanton carnage of concrete this video is only 13% as cool as it could be.

Re: Sea Based Launch Option for the Nuclear space launch cannon

Brock — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:36:47 -0000

Even if this was built, I can't imagine actually finding 1,000 tons of stuff worth sending to the Moon. Before we worry about HLV maybe we should send a few test-bed concepts to the Moon on a Ares 9, just to work out the kinks of the technologies needed, eh? Bootstraps.

Re: Confirmed: The Groupon/Google Deal Is Off

Brock — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:28:18 -0000

I really didn't understand how Groupon fit into Google's corporate strategy of organizing the world's information.

Yeah, I'm sure there's an Adsense play in there, and deals can be linked to Google searches, but I thought it was "Mission First, Business Case Later" at the Googleplex. This doesn't fit the mission.

Re: Wikileaks reveals China ready for reunified Korea and ready to abandon North Korea

Brock — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:19:45 -0000

Only if the South bungles reunification as badly as the West Germans bungled theirs. Seeing how the South Koreans just recently turned their backwater economy into a world-beating heavyweight, I expect they know what to do.

Here's a tip - wealth transfer welfare payments are a waste of time and wealth. Technology transfer, capital investment and a low-tax/low-regulatory environment are the keys to success. The North is just going to have to grow its way out of its current poverty, just like the South did.

If the South Koreans have any brains though they won't allow the North Koreans to have any vote in the national government, at least until all of the old socialists are dead.

Re: Phone SIM Locks: Why Do Carriers Even Bother?

Brock — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:18:48 -0000

Imagine for a moment, in you're able, just how cheap your monthly phone bill would be if the phone subsidy wasn't baked in.

You seem to be under the impression that you're getting a "free" phone. You're not. You're just paying the phone company for the phone instead of the manufacturer. Exactly from AT&T's pre-breakup playbook in the days of rented telephones.

Re: Phone SIM Locks: Why Do Carriers Even Bother?

Brock — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:15:30 -0000

You pay anyway, Ken. You just pay through carrier fees and overage charges. There's no free lunch here, just control and obscurity instead of freedom and transparency.

Re: Google’s Internal Chrome OS Netbooks Codenamed “Mario” And “Andretti”?

Brock — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 23:55:15 -0000

I'd say both are true.

Re: Google’s Internal Chrome OS Netbooks Codenamed “Mario” And “Andretti”?

Brock — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 23:54:02 -0000

Right, because what Google wants is to copy Linux's track record of success on "just works" Wifi and graphics hardware, rather than Apple's.

Make no mistake - Google wants their Chrome OS to be as hassle free as their search engine. That means limited hardware support. You can't have instant-on boot timing and rocket-like performance while simultaneously allowing your software to be installed on any old piece of crap.

Re: United States Strategies for the Korean Peninsula

Brock — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:12:33 -0000

Pulling troops from SoKO would be incredibly stupid. The presence of US troops (which would guarantee US involvement in any war) is one of the keystones of piece on the peninsula. Pulling them out would be incredibly destabilizing.

Re: Atlantic%26%238217%3Bs+Michael+Hirschorn%3A+%26%238220%3BAmericans+will+Believe+any+Shit+They+See+Online%26%238221%3B%26nbsp%3B%5BTCTV%5D

Brock — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:52:25 -0000

That's weird. I never felt out of place or over-educated at a Tea Party rally with my fancy doctorate.

Short argument: You don't know what you're talking about.

Long argument: You have mistaken different interpretations of fact for different facts. Tea Partiers (and the Right) don't argue with the Left much over "real facts", like whether the sky is blue or the exact figure of the deficit. We all know it's ~$1.4 Trillion this year. We argue over meaning. What does it MEAN for America that the deficit is ~$1.4 Trillion last year, this year, and next year (and possibly the year after that). What should we DO about it?

But in your arrogance you can't even imagine that someone might disagree with you and whether deficit spending is either good or necessary. And so when someone say it's bad, they're a liar. Possibly an evil liar.

Well we aren't. And don't blame us for the failure of your ability to understand the opposition's argument.

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:41:18 -0000

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Re: Nautilus Minerals the first commercial ocean floor gold and copper mining company

Brock — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 01:31:56 -0000

Kelp doesn't grow down on the bottom. Not much does. No sunlight or oxygen. The kelp will be good for filtering out minerals that are floating in the water in solution, along the surface.

Re: Nautilus Minerals the first commercial ocean floor gold and copper mining company

Brock — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 01:29:51 -0000

Yes, certainly. But you'd need a lot more than just the ore. You'd need the entire economic chain, from smelting to retail, in space. That would all be economic eventually, given a space-based demand for it, but I wouldn't expect it during the first half of this century.

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 20:10:24 -0000

"We shouldn't rely on technology to cover up our flaws, far better to treat the root cause."

Human nature? That's incurable. Ask the Soviets. You can't "fix" people.

"Sure as I know anything, I know this: In a year or maybe ten, perhaps even on this very ground, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better; and I don't hold to that."

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 20:04:41 -0000

I'm sure you'll be allowed to drive your Ferraris on designated tracks. The fact is that driving a Ferrari in regular traffic is a waste anyway. You're not going any faster than anyone else, and the Lexus and Benz have a more comfortable ride.

I'm interested in your accusation that I cannot drive. As it happens, I drive very, very well. And it's precisely because I am familiar with driving, and drivers, and how limited most people are, that I think it will become illegal. Most people suck at driving. I don't, but most people.

Funny story? My first car was my Mom's hand-me-down Dodge Grand Caravan. Not too sexy, right? It was better once I took out the back seats and put in a full length, three-cushion couch, but that's neither here nor there. The reason I mention it is that I drove fast enough, and dangerous enough, in that car to frighten my college frat buddies. I also scared them by not checking my blind spots, but I knew where all the cars were around me based on the sound of the wind on the back windows. My next car was a Mustang 5.0.

I know precisely how dangerous some people drive.

But for all the recklessness, I've only been in two accidents and only lost control of my vehicle once. Both accidents were caused by a distracted driver in normal conditions. The loss of control was my first experience driving RWD in the rain, but I learned after that. Was it fun driving 90 MPH through rush hour traffic? Hell yeah. But I could have killed someone, and people less skilled than me kill 50,000 Americans per year.

Get over yourself. If you want an adrenaline rush, skydive.

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:49:38 -0000

My first comment was glib, but since you came back with serious ...

Cars aren't like free speech. They're merely a practical way of getting from point A to point B. During a previous era we used horses, and many people considered their skill at riding horses part of their persona. The well-to-do were proud of their horses, and kept stables. But in the end, horses were a means of getting from point A to point B, or pulling a plow, and when the internal combustion engine came along they were replaced.

Robo cars will (probably within 10 years) be a safe, faster, more efficient way of getting from point A to point B then driving yourself. And not just safer for you - safer for innocent bystanders, because the car won't fall asleep, or get distracted by a test message or pretty girl walking down the sidewalk. For that reason I expect it will soon be illegal to drive your own car other than on race tracks and derby roads. It's not the risk to you that I find troubling, but your risk to me.

As for "makes life interesting", getting killed in a car accident is not interesting. Music and movies are interesting. Conversation is interesting. Car accidents are horrible tragedies.

Within 30 years I expect driving will be illegal. It's the risk to innocent bystanders you see.

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:10:26 -0000

Wait, the Google server farms are doing the visual processing? Over what network is the video being fed back to servers, being processed, and directions sent back to the car with sufficient latency to avoid pedestrians and lane-changing cars? Does this network have dead spots?

The DARPA cars had onboard servers. That seems much safer. And less prone to hacking as well, without open network ports.

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:03:07 -0000

The problem is that when you drive you put everyone else at risk. We accept that risk for now because there's no better alternative. But once robo-Priuses are better drivers than people, what gives you the right to impose that risk on me?

Driving isn't like scuba or skydiving, which are dangerous to the participant (so go for, if that's your thing). Driving is dangerous to innocent bystanders. So as much as you like doing it, I expect it will be illegal within 30 years.

Re: Google Has A Secret Fleet Of Automated Toyota Priuses; 140,000 Miles Logged So Far.

Brock — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:00:30 -0000

Do you enjoy getting hit by drunk drivers? How about being the only sober friend at the bar because you're the DD? I don't like either of those. Robo-Cars for everyone!