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Crazy Stan

PPX

PPX: The Final Countdown

By PopSci Staff Posted on 5.8.2009 70 Comments
The PopSci Predictions Exchange will come to an end on May 31. It’s been an amazing two years, with 33,339 registered users betting on the future of our scientific and technological world. We extend our appreciation to all of the dedicated traders who have made this game what it is. It’s been a great run!

6.15.2009 at 12:40pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

I checked my PPX every couple of months so I wouldn't constantly change my stocks. I was good at PPX. And while I wasn't greatly rich, I hadn't been playing long. 95% of my stocks paid off. The other 5% dropped maybe up to $1 per share at max; but I usually only bought 50 shares of the stocks I was unsure of anyway. I liked it. I liked finding that my choices were good or even great. I liked gambling nature of it. They should restart it someday. It won't be soon, that's for sure. But someday.
Entertainment & Gaming

Do Brutal Video Games Desensitize Players to Violence?

By Posted on 4.25.2008 8 Comments
If you spend your free time killing and maiming people and/or aliens in a virtual world, does this have any effect on what you do in the real one? Psychologists have been trying to answer that question, or some form of it at least, for a while, and Cognitive Daily has an interesting review of one of the latest papers on the subject.

4.30.2008 at 06:38pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

If a child is maleable enough to be made more violent by a video game, they were fragile to begin with and needed help far before they became violent. Many children can play violent games and be fine but for those few kids that are violent the liberals blame video games for that aggresiveness. Those kids were violent and always will be, stop blaming video games.
The Environment

Recovery of Ozone Hole May Increase Antarctic Warming

By Posted on 4.25.2008 13 Comments
The good news is that the ozone hole over Antarctica is slowly healing, thanks to controls on ozone-depleting substances that were once widely used in products such as refrigerators and aerosol cans. Stratospheric ozone protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause problems such as skin cancer and crop damage.

4.30.2008 at 05:02pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

Look, humans have messed up the planet, oh well. Nothing we can do now but ease the destruction rather than crash head first into it. Cut down on trash, change your lightbulbs, and buy a 1984 Honda Civic (look up the mpg).
The Environment

Recovery of Ozone Hole May Increase Antarctic Warming

By Posted on 4.25.2008 13 Comments
The good news is that the ozone hole over Antarctica is slowly healing, thanks to controls on ozone-depleting substances that were once widely used in products such as refrigerators and aerosol cans. Stratospheric ozone protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause problems such as skin cancer and crop damage.

4.30.2008 at 05:02pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

Look, humans have messed up the planet, oh well. Nothing we can do now but ease the destruction rather than crash head first into it. Cut down on trash, change your lightbulbs, and buy a 1984 Honda Civic (look up the mpg).
Science

Man Constructs Suicide Bot

By Posted on 3.24.2008 6 Comments
An 81-year-old man constructed a machine that allowed him to remotely fire a .22 semi-automatic pistol, then set it up in his driveway and killed himself. Reportedly, the man's relatives had been encouraging him to move out of his home and into a care facility. Instead, he did some research on the Internet and built what was only described as a complex machine—the local paper that broke the story is keeping wraps on how it actually worked.

3.25.2008 at 03:53pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

And why won't the newspaper explain how the machine worked? Do they think that by telling people they will kill themselves. If they wan'ted to kill themselves anyways they will do it using normal means. By telling them how the machine worked it might incline them to build their own but the end result is the same, a dead person. Heck, having them take the time to build the machine will give family members that much more time to get the person help.
The Environment

Is Petroleum the Greenest Fuel We Have?

By Posted on 2.8.2008 12 Comments
Though the existence of global warming is indisputable at this point, the debate over the best plan of attack to solve the problem and reduce our dependency on petroleum fuels is far from settled. The latest example: Two new studies released this week indicate that that biofuels such as ethanol may accelerate rather than alleviate global warming.

3.10.2008 at 06:30pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

My answer is more nuclear power plants. We have a rediculous number of nuclear bombs of which all have either uranium or plutonium and we can use those in nuclear power plants. We don't need thousands of nukes. A couple hundred would be way more than enough to destroy the entire Earth from blackout and radiation poisoning. The rest of the what...forty something hundred nukes could be used in nuclear power plants. They are effective, get rid of pointless danger (nuclear bombs), reduce costs to guard these nukes, produce zero CO2, and are safe as long as they are maintained properly (which they didn't do at Chernobyl and nearly didn't do at 3-mile island). With the better safety protocols we have now and those new sodium cooled nuclear reactors, it would be much safer.
Technology

Darpa's New Goal: A Plane That Flies for Five Years

By Posted on 3.6.2008 10 Comments
The highest-endurance aircraft currently flying is Northrop Grummans Global Hawk UAV, which can stay aloft for up to 40 hours. Now Darpa—which, to its credit, is never short on outlandish ideas—wants to beat that endurance record more than 1,000 times. The goal of Darpa's recently launched Vulture Program is to build a kind of atmospheric satellite that can stay aloft for five years at a time with little or no maintenance.

3.6.2008 at 07:09pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

They comma'd 1,0000-pound wrong. I don't know whether seth Fletcher was trying to say 1,000 or 10,000 but either way, it's wrong.
Entertainment & Gaming

The Leap Year Demystified

By Posted on 2.29.2008 3 Comments
Happy Leap Year Day! Today is February 29th, the hanger-on day we get at the end of February every four years. Everybody knows it eventually comes around and most of us learned the thirty days hath September rhyme in school. But we could probably use a refresher on why exactly it shows up. Let's take a look.

2.29.2008 at 06:40pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

We have Cesar and his relationship with Cleopatra and the Egyptian calendar to thank for it as well. Back when they were dating, the Egyptians had the same calendar as we do now because they figured out the same problems that would occur and made a calendar to fix it. The Romans however, still based months on the moon cycles which was 11 days off of the actual year and they ended up 80 days off on their schedule. So Cesar changed the Roman calendar to mimic the Egyptians and added 80 days to that year of 45 B.C. to compensate for the difference.
Technology

Mars Science Lab Faces Mounting Costs

By Posted on 2.29.2008 2 Comments
The Mars Science Laboratory, that souped-up rover thats due to launch for the Red Planet next year, turns out to have a larger price tag than expected. The project has already gone $165 million over its $1.8 billion price tag, and now NASA says it may take an additional $30 million to get things right.

2.29.2008 at 06:27pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

Why don't they just use the same heat shields they used before on the other mars rovers. And if they did, what material costs that much for such a relatively small thing. NASA is great and all, but it seems to me they use money wastefully. They try improving on things that we already know work perfectly fine. Then, if the improvements turn out to be faulty or not up to standards, they wasted money on those improvements and they have to reimprove on it. I understand the significance of the new Mars Rover project, but it almost makes me think it's not worth the costs.
Entertainment & Gaming

Electronic Arts Won’t Clean up Take Two

By Posted on 2.25.2008 2 Comments
Gaming giant Electronic Arts recently announced its intention to buy Take Two Interactive, the shop behind violent titles like Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne, plus the unsettling but ridiculously creative BioShock. Since EA isnt known for Mature titles, some in the gaming community feared theyd soften those edgier games. But EAs CEO has some encouraging words for fans. Regarding those games, he said in a call with Multiplayer, I wouldnt change a line of code.

2.26.2008 at 06:06pm - Comment by Crazy Stan

If EA messes with the games in any way that diminishes the quality of gameplay, I will organize a boycott. It will probably only be a local boycott and won't take off but that doesn't mean I won't do it.