Recent Comments by orintau 
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Theme Park, The Void, Blends Virtual and Physical Worlds
orintau says...My friend actually filed a patent for this exact system back in 2004, right down to the OLED visors: http://goo.gl/LfDDos
However, the cost of retaining a lawyer and the patent office's recurring fees and drawn out review process bled him dry. Just as he was getting close to finally registering it he fell on hard times and had to put the process on hold. As a result, his patent went into the public domain after 18 months. He was heartbroken and still is, especially now that this video is being shared everywhere.
As much as I love this idea and want to see it become a reality, I can't help but feel like this company got at least some of the details they needed from my friend's patent. It pisses me off that our copyright system screws over small inventors and gives those with plenty of money a free pool of research and hard work.
There's nothing on display there that isn't easily achievable with current technology, but I'm guessing they're still a ways out from actually opening.
My friends and I came up with the same idea a while ago after playing with a rift, but we never did anything about it. Kudos to these guys for trying something.
the Elizabeth warren speech that has everyone talking
orintau says...I absolutely agree. When people I know talk about how the government is unfairly influenced by 'Wall Street' I usually ask what bank they're with. Their answers rarely surprise me.
Vote with your wallet.
If you have an account with any Citygroup company, close it.
Same thing goes for B of A.
Small, local banks serve you better and don't lobby congress for bailouts and immunity.
If you give them your money but hate how they use it, take your money back. That simple.
If you like bailouts, wall street immunity, and the status quo of being under the thumb of big banking, keep your money where it is and vote republican.
EDIT:One might also lobby their congressman/woman for a constitutional amendment stating clearly that corporations are barred from government and are NOT citizens, so can't vote, lobby, make political 'statements' (as in commercial campaigns), or donate to political campaigns. I've written many a letter suggesting the same.
Sen. Whitehouse debunks climate change myths
orintau says...Newtboy said it well; ice ages come and go due to numerous factors, but one of the most important factors is how much of the atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide and methane.
Indeed, there have been interglacial periods where the earth was largely void of ice and had the much higher sea levels to match. At one point global temperatures were about as high as is expected to occur in the next century or two.
The difference between then and now is that life and the ecological chemistry of earth had millions of years to adapt before those periods reached their height in most cases. I say in most cases because there have been periods where climate change occurred faster than before and severely disrupted ecological stability or simply caused mass extinctions. Climate change has always happened, but the reason why current climate change is so worrying is because it is happening faster than ever before and because there is a massive amount of data to back it up.
My understanding, and I am not a scientist, has been that the oceans are most responsible for conveying heat from warmer equatorial regions towards cooler polar regions.
If diluting the ocean's waters makes those currents *better* at transferring heat, then would the heating of the polar regions accelerate as freshwater is added to the oceans and salinity is diluted? If this was the case why would warm periods between ice ages ever stop short of melting polar ice caps completely? And what causes ice ages to come and go?
Sen. Whitehouse debunks climate change myths
orintau says...Hi Notarobot, your argument is unfortunately based on a very common misunderstanding of the chemistry of water and salt.
I can assure you that it is an established scientific fact that pure water has the highest heat capacity per unit of its mass compared to any water solutions. The less water there is in a water solution, the less heat capacity that solution has. This is because the temperature of pure water is more proportional to the amount of energy contained within it, which is due to the flexibility of its molecular structure. The more salt you add to water, the less structural flexibility (i.e. purity) there is to distribute and contain energy as the temperature increases. To put it another way, the salt molecules weigh down and restrict the water molecules from moving as freely, which is why salt water has a higher boiling point.
So in fact the more fresh water that is introduced to the oceans, the higher heat capacity and heat conduction there will be.
Furthermore, you grossly oversimplify the problem of climate change by assuming the only change that matters is immediately perceptible to "mammals like us". One of the biggest issues is that even slight variations in temperature can drastically change entire marine ecosystems. If enough ecosystems collapse, it will cause a chain reaction that will be very, very difficult to manage, let alone recover from. Also, even slight variations in salinity can drastically change ocean currents, which in turn affects not just marine ecosystems, but weather patterns throughout the world as well.
I can tell you're an intelligent person, so I hope you'll take me seriously when I say that it's very, very important for all intelligent people to be as diligent as possible when referring to the scientific causes and effects of climate change. Advocate whatever position you'd like as to how we should go about things, but please do your best to validate the information you're using to do so.
One of the results of a warming ocean is melting glaciers and ice caps. That is the addition of fresh water to a salt water system. There is more saltwater than freshwater in the world. One of the properties of salt water is that it conveys heat better than fresh water. The hot-water baseboard heater you use to heat your home would actually be more efficient if it used salt water. We don't use salt water in heaters because salt actually corrodes the metal pipes faster. What does this have to do with climate change? As you dilute the salt water that transfers heat from the warm equatorial waters of the world to the cooler waters in temperate zones, it gets less good at transferring that heat. This change happens very slowly to the perception of short lived mammals like us. In geologic terms, this is how we get to the next ice age.
Sen. Brandon Smith goes to Mars
orintau says...Maybe that is what he meant to say. Maybe it is a common argument against climate change. It is still incorrect. You could have easily determined this for yourself with a simple question on any search engine. Your eagerness to give this man the benefit of the doubt before researching the topic at hand suggests you have more interest in apologetics than the truth.
I'm pretty sure he meant to say that the temperatures on Mars are *raising* exactly as they are here. That's an incredibly common argument against man made global warming. He left out one incredibly important word, but I can chalk that up to simply misspeaking rather than being completely oblivious about science.
He could still be wrong, of course, but let's not take things out of context and attack him for stumbling a bit over words (assuming that's what this is). If we do that, then only people who are excellent with words will ever be elected. I would like to see more scientists and engineers elected, and in my experience they stumble over words more often than most.