6201

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 21, 2014, 12:57:46 AM »

They won't go far, because the project is about as feasible as lightsabers. Yes, it's really damn cool, and really damn impossible.

6202

Flat Earth Media / Re: Rory Cooper: Interesting Flat Earth animations

« on: June 20, 2014, 06:59:31 PM »

Well, that's a shame.

6203

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Georgia wants a new amendment. (old news)

« on: June 15, 2014, 09:54:15 PM »

The particular article that you've linked doesn't seem to present this as a big deal at all. They want to impose term limits - that sounds like a sensible thing to consider. Where are you getting "limit terms to democrats to 2 years but Republicans to 6" from?

6204

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 14, 2014, 11:06:13 PM »

So I guess accuracy isn't at all important when trying to refute an argument?

That's the very point you're responding to right now, yes.

He isn't helping his case by using faulty numbers.

When the numbers are multiple orders of magnitude outside of anything realistic or practical, accuracy isn't all that necessary.

6205

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Nuclear Freakin' Roadways

« on: June 14, 2014, 01:40:28 PM »

Million dollar idea right there

6206

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 14, 2014, 01:35:54 PM »

Being orders of magnitude off is hardly in the ballpark.

I rest my case. You have nothing, other than a claim that the ridiculous numbers should be different ridiculous numbers.

6207

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 14, 2014, 04:14:21 AM »

When the numbers are only a portion of your argument and you can't get them right, what other misinformation are you spreading?

Seemingly none, given how much you cling to the fact that ballpark numbers are ballpark numbers.

6208

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 13, 2014, 05:38:07 PM »

He isn't helping his case by using faulty numbers.

When the numbers are multiple orders of magnitude outside of anything realistic or practical, accuracy isn't all that necessary.

6209

Technology & Information / Re: Tesla Motors opens their patents to the world. Fuck yeah.

« on: June 13, 2014, 05:15:37 PM »

Commercial success is the objective measure of quality. Proof: Justin Bieber, the NHS, mass immigration in the UK.

6210

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 13, 2014, 03:24:55 PM »

But hey. Slash all of his numbers by a factor of 100. Guess what? Still doesn't help.

6211

Technology & Information / Re: Ask Rushy about Bitcoins.

« on: June 13, 2014, 01:05:48 PM »

Rushy, how hard will Bitcoin crash once this happens?

6212

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 13, 2014, 09:00:28 AM »

Is that.. .is that asphalt with aggregate in it?

Yes, the kind that you make roads out of. Why would he be using anything else?

And why did he only show us a few seconds of scratches?  I watched it a few times

If you watched it a few times, then you must have heard him a few times when he said he's got more details in his other video (the one markjo linked), and this one is just for laughs.

Aggregate is what scratched it.  I'd like to see him try that shit with PURE asphalt.  Which, according to the table of hardness, is much softer than glass.  But let him ignore such scientific details.

Why? It would have absolutely nothing to do with actual roads. It'd be an exercise in futility.

I got through about 3 minutes of that video and noticed he is once again using retail price as well as assuming 100% conversion right off the bat.  He also assumes every LED will be on 100% of the time for his energy use calculation, when you can probably figure roughly 50% of the LEDs on a panel may be turned on at the same time, and not every panel in America would be on all the time.  Plus his voice is annoying.

He already assumed 50 LEDs per tile, so that's your main concern covered. But hey. Slash all of his numbers by a factor of 100. Guess what? Still doesn't help.

6213

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 12, 2014, 11:03:53 PM »

I don't know if it can be done, but it's certainly not practical.

6214

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Ask a Flat Earth Theorist Anything

« on: June 12, 2014, 11:01:21 PM »

I certainly hope that  this "new" website will not sink to the depths of the "old" website with all the insults and vulgarity from both sides.

Well, you're doing a "great" job at trying to prevent that.

6215

Technology & Information / Re: Tesla Motors opens their patents to the world. Fuck yeah.

« on: June 12, 2014, 09:29:09 PM »

Charging electric cars using electricity sourced from coal burning power plants is much better.

Hey, this won't be a problem once we get SOLAR FREAKIN' ROADWAYS.

...I'm really sorry. Please, let's not make this another solar roadways thread.

6216

Technology & Information / Tesla Motors opens their patents to the world. Fuck yeah.

« on: June 12, 2014, 08:47:23 PM »

Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.

See full announcement here. I think this is a fantastic move, especially with today's world being haunted by patent trolls and legal disputes slowing down technological progress. Hopefully more companies will follow suit!

Importantly, this means that electric cars might actually become common now. And, you know, not burning gas is a good thing.

6217

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Ask a Flat Earth Theorist Anything

« on: June 12, 2014, 08:34:46 PM »

I just discovered this "new flat earth society website" and I can't detect any difference from the "old" one.

Hopefully I can be of assistance here. We offer:

• A less broken forum (you can actually use the search and it won't crash the server!), with publicly-available code!
• Proper spambot-prevention measures that don't randomly ban users for silly reasons like using a proxy
• An active administration that cares™
• Very frequent (by the minute) database backups, guaranteeing that we won't suddenly lose 6 weeks of posts, and allowing us to do things like restoring a thread that someone accidentally deleted
• As few pointless restrictions on the users as possible. Want to rename your account? Go right ahead. Want to delete it? No problem. Want to post more frequently than once per 20 seconds? Why not (given that we took care of spambots)?
• Very little downtime, and it's generally announced well in advance. I think our longest unannounced downtime was when I cocked up a thing and we ended up serving a blank page instead of the forum for 10 minutes.
• No arbitrarily-forbidden words
• Some minor enhancements like a spoiler tag, better Facebook integration, a public ban log, and the ignore function actually working in CN
• Probably a lot of stuff I forgot about, generally falling under the categories of smooth user experience

Now, we do not consider ourselves to be anything other than the Flat Earth Society, so our mentality is pretty much identical between the sites (i.e. the Earth is still flat). Our strength compared to the old site is technical competency and more active management.

6218

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Solar Roadways

« on: June 12, 2014, 07:26:53 PM »

The guy was just using stock footage to show using "recycled glass", I wouldn't take it too literally.

Stock footage specifically featuring himself and his wife?

He does.
He also doesn't seem to understand that glass comes in a wide variety of makeup.

This argument is simultaneously used to argue two points:

• The glass will be cheap.
• The glass will be sturdy.

In either case, it won't be cheap enough or sturdy enough, but a much more pressing problem here is that you can't have it both ways.

6219

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Apparently The Revolution Has Begun

« on: June 12, 2014, 08:34:46 AM »

I'm willing to bet if everyone in that store had a gun no one would run in and try to start shooting, the problem here is that out of all the people in that store, only one had a weapon.

Alternatively, one person would be crazy enough to start shooting (n.b. we're talking about crazy people here, common sense needn't apply), and then a whole bunch of people would panic and start shooting too and it'd become WWI2 (World War I: 2: The Sequel) very soon.

6220

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Nuclear Freakin' Roadways

« on: June 12, 2014, 08:19:46 AM »

Okay, guys, I think we need to clear the freakin' air, so here we go:


False claim: Nuclear roadways are bad for you.

Haha, no. That'd be just silly, you silly goose. Freakin' nope.


False claim: Nuclear roadways are more radioactive than asphalt.

Now, this one is just hilarious. Obviously, our answer is "no".


False claim: Nuclear roadways would be expensive.

u wot m8? Roads are cheap, and nuclear power will make them literally negative cost!