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There's going to be a whole lot of pissed off Navy pilots if they make a UAV that can land on a carrier deck at night in crap weather. Their main reason for superiority over all other pilots will be shot to hell.

I'm the senior Landing Signal Officer for the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet, and we've actually had fully automated landing systems on carrier aircraft for a long while. The first test of any Automatic Carrier Landing System (ACLS) was in August 1957, and after extensive development the system was regularly used in Vietnam. The current AN/SPN-46 is the latest iteration, but essentially it's just a glorified missile tracking radar that feeds into the airplane's autopilot via a simple UHF datalink. It's all old tech.

While not all aircraft since Vietnam have done it well (my old F-14B Tomcat was actually worse at "Mode I" (fully coupled) ACLS approaches than the F-4 Phantom it replaced) today's Hornets and Super Hornets are very smooth when coupled up -- much smoother than the typical manual landing.

The problem comes when the system fails (something that can happen in any large automated system - in the air or on the ground). Pilots regularly practice landing by hand, because they never know when the ACLS might not be there for them. They could perform coupled approaches every pass, but they wouldn't have the skills to confidently get aboard if the system ever went away. Those skills require lots of practice to stay sharp, and landing at sea is really hard. I've been doing it for ten years, and it's still just as challenging as ever.

Sometime in the next decade the N-UCAS is supposed to demonstrate truly autonomous UAV operations in a carrier environment. It will rely on a draft version of our next-generation GPS-based replacement for the SPN-46: JPALS. It's stated goal is to fully integrate with our normal manned carrier air traffic procedures. Having seen highly trained aviators struggle with the challenges of operating around the boat, I'll be impressed if it lives up to its goals.

To sit there and deny those obvious two facts seems as stupid to me as Californians who deny they live on an earthquake-prone fault.

Hey, I saw your picture the other day!

Except there is skin off Apple's nose - first in terms of a lost sale because I chose the cheaper $300 laptop (or $1100 Intel i7 PC) rather than the i7 Macintosh with $1000 markup.

You aren't interesting in buying their offerings and they aren't interested in offering what you're looking for: a $300 laptop. It's not any skin off their nose because they are interested in maintaining their (very profitable) business model, not reaching a high marketshare.

But if we have to burn the coal (and right now we do), why not see if there is some way we can lessen the environmental impact?

We have a way already, it was developed at Sandia national labs on the behalf of the USDOE, and you can read a bit about how to deal with the carbon here. We capture 80% of the CO2 and then at least get to use it again. And a percentage of the algae becomes fertilizer. Of course, that assumes that such an approach fits into our national agenda — only time will tell. Is it as good as a complete "clean coal" solution? That very much depends on who you ask.

As for new coal-fired power plants, they are an aberration and should be avoided at all costs. If we must build new power plants which are not inherently sustainable, let us build plants to reprocess nuclear waste, and plants to run on the resulting fuel. Yes, the technology could be used to produce weapons-grade materials. No, this is not relevant, because we already have more of that than we could possibly need.

Let me add with another example:

A common (and very lucrative) ATM scam with older ATM's (that don't include preventative security features and have dumb customers) is to install "skimmers" over top of the ATM card reader that will obtain track data every time a customer uses the ATM. The trick was they would also install a small camera next to the ATM to read the PIN entered.

They would later on just watch the video, make a copy of the card and withdraw a bunch of cash from your account (card writers are inexpensive and common). Simply adding a retinal scanner or finger print scanner would break this scam down entirely or make it an order of magnitude more difficult to pull off. Or some of them would just stand next to you and watch you enter your PIN.

http://banking.about.com/od/securityandsafety/a/skimmers.htm

The cost for the customer is very a minor inconvenience of looking into a camera or pressing a button, the reward is prevention of a large amount of cash being withdrawn from their account.

Most of these criminals aren't that complex. Adding things that are difficult to break simply and quickly (obtaining a PCB printer and creating a cast of a fingerprint or fake retinal scan aren't that simple) can really cut into the offenses.

Your theory falls flat when you hit point #2

The following packages do not exist. google.io.*
google.threads.*
google.db.*
google.util.*

If, in the future, google does add those libraries, I would fully expect them to be opensourced.

I can see how you misunderstood the posting. Please, let me help you.

I will do this in two parts:

[PART-1]
I am sure that you only missed the that I used "e.g." (what is an e.g.?) in the above, otherwise you would not have made the mistake of thinking that it could have been referring to anything else other than an example being posited for the discussion.

Those names were examples... hypothetical, if you will.

Now that that is all cleared up, give the post a re-read... but only after reading PART-2 which comes next...

[PART-2]
Also consider another good point: Why block the ALREADY open source standardized community developed and supported implementations only to provide your own replacements? Even if as you suggest that you "would fully expect them to be opensourced", WHY NOT support the existing open source community? WHY NOT support the existing open source solutions?

Apache, Lighttpd and my current favorite nginx are awesome, but they dont have the close integration with their development tools and operating system that IIS does.

Clearly they don't need it because they're suprioer to IIS.

Speaking of development tools... there is no open source equivalant of Visual Studio and there is no MSDN of open source.

Netbeans or Eclipse can get close enough to being point & click programming as they should be allowed to. Part Visual Studio is the reason there's so much shit software on Windows. Any jack-off with little to no programming knowledge and bodge something together.

- There is no common way to install and remove software.

Yes there is, it's called a package mamanger.

- There is no stable base to write drivers (thus no hardware support)

Any lack of driver support usually comes from a lack of interest from the companies creating the hardware or the community.

- There are too many distros with too many proprietary ways of doing things. Too many proprietary repositories, too many proprietary package systems, to many proprietary filesystem layouts.

Having a choice isn't a bad thing and I've yet to rnu in to a problem with my Linux installs just because KDE exists along side Gnome for example.

- Gimp is *not* Photoshop. Sorry. I know I mentioned this, but I'll repeat it again. You insult people who actually use Photoshop by making this claim.

For professionals perhaps but for the average user it's close enough. In fact for most people the comparision should be between Gimp and PS Elements and PS Elements loses, imo. http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/f/elementscompare.htm

Just because you're too stupid to use Linux doesn't mean people should support MS' monopoly and it doesn't mean people won't eventually wise up to how MS treats them.

We're in a transitional phase were we still have a lot of people that didn't grow up with computers so they're more scared of them than they should be. Once they die off then we'll be left with people are more confident and will expect more from their computers. The dinosaurs, like you, need to die off first.

colder temperatures (I'm less certain on this one).

Actually batteries do worse in colder weather. See "Why Do Batteries Discharge More Quickly in Cold Weather?" When I go out to shoot photos during the winter I keep spare batteries in a pocket next to me to keep warm because the batteries in the camera die faster than in warm weather.

Falcon

although I'm knowledgable in basic medicine and human anatomy, I don't have a degree in that field. furthermore it's a topic of heated debate mixed up with many urban legends and anecdotal evidence.

I believe the first historic story on the matter I read was about a scientist who was fascinated by the guillotine during or after the french revolution. he asked a prisoner sentenced to death, to help him with his studies.
once his head was chopped off, the scientist called the prisoner's name. The prisoner's eyes opened and he looked at the scientist. The scientist managed to repeat this 2-3 times within 30 seconds.
for the love of me, I can't remember the name of the scientist, nor the prisoner.

anyhow, it is my understanding that in a life and death situation, the body won't succumb to such "trivialities" like losing blood pressure. My point being, a human would be so fired up on adrenaline and, through the decapitation, shock, that the body would make the very most of the reserves it still has (as Ron Wright puts it: "After your head is cut off by a guillotine, you have 13 seconds of consciousness (+/- 1 or 2). [...] The 13 seconds is the amount of high energy phosphates that the cytochromes in the brain have to keep going without new oxygen and glucose.").
Life wants to live.

I guess the real question is, whether the person is still conscious or not. I guess the prisoner from my former example who reacted to the scientist calling his name could be seen as consciousness. But maybe the scientist had to bark his name loudly and it was just some reflex.

truth be told, I don't really know. Can we get some test-subjects here, please? ;)


http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/17/dery-on-decapitation.html
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/thefrenchrevolution/a/dyk10.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=Dr.+Ron+Wright+guillotine&btnG=Search

Ok, jerk. I said it was as single link out of many, here is some more reading for your hand-waving ass.

7th paragraph
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/troy/4399/

5th paragraph
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=23254

1st paragraph
http://cocktails.about.com/od/history/a/prohibition_3.htm

4th paragraph
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2006862

7th paragraph (along with a chart)
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/miron.prohibition.alcohol

I can do this all day. There is that much proof that you are incorrect. If you would like to continue to look like an absolute fool, feel free.

In regards to Columbus thinking the world was smaller, it is mentioned in the About.com article about him. You can find much more on Columbus that says more or less the same thing as it is something that is generally not contested by historians.

In regards to Europeans suspecting there might might be a landmass before Asia, it isn't much of a stretch that they might have heard about the Norse colonies; however, I would have to do some searching around for better information in that regards. However, even if someone in Europe did know, the point would still be moot as you would have to have evidence that Spain was also aware of the colonies. This is an area that there is some soft evidence for, but you really need to dig and it's not that conclusive.

I confirm pudge posted

"FTW".

I confirm obscenity is just not like him. I confirm he is not just some newbie.

That makes me feel a little better about the world

Depending on how you look at it, it can be either fortunate or unfortunate, but different funds focus on different criteria when deciding what corporations they invest in. Some don't invest in alcohol, firearms, and or tobacco businesses. Some invest in businesses that meet certain employment criteria, such as paying and treating employees well. Others look at businesses environmental records. A corporation that meets one fund's criteria may not meet another's. Here's more on screens SRI funds use.

Falcon

Why, we'll take over the world, of course.

I'm sure that everyone will welcome their new wind-powered overlords. They'll greet us with flowers!

Augustus Caesar, I believe. He sometimes talked about restoring the Republic and retiring into private life — and Roman historians were never sure whether or not he was really considering it. See, e.g., section XXVIII of Suetonius's Twelve Caesars .

Many of us are angry and frustrated by the erosion of our liberties and the illegal government power grabs that have happened since 9-11.

In perspective, the power-grabs of Bush Administration pale in comparison with those by some of the earlier war-time Presidents, such as Roosevelt, on whose watch a few American citizens were not just locked up on a brig without trial, but simply killed — by a foreign (British) agency. This was, actually, before the US even entered the war and while relations with Germany were still legal — even if hated by the Brits. And yet, that same FDR — who lied to Americans and Congress to gauge the country towards war (that nearly 80% of Americans opposed at the time) — is judged by the History as a Nazi-defeating hero and his abuses of power (such as the infamous detainment of tens of thousands Japanese-Americans — conditions in their "war relocation camps" were worse, than those of Guantanamo, where only a several hundred people were ever housed).

Further back into time, an even greater hero — Abe Lincoln — has not only resorted to military force to keep Confederates inside the US (against their will), but gone so far as to suspend Habeas Corpus, and not just to "enemy combatants"(as Bush did), but to the supposed fellow Americans, who happened to disagree with him. And then he allowed his military to get away with the kind of atrocities against civilians (such as in Athens, Alabama), that would shock even the Marines, who fought in Haditha and Falluja...

But, I guess, all this is outside the Public School curriculum, which is written by people, who can not imagine an evil greater, than G.W. Bush...

In the end, it is still only about the money because that is the way we measure everything.

Money is part of it but not everyone cares only about it. About 10% of mutual fund investors invest in SRI, Socially Responsible Investment funds. While not everyone is into SRI, it does have a significant impact. For instance it had a big impact in ending apartheid in South Africa.

Falcon

So, compare that with Bushisms: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htm

Where Bush seems consistently confused, and wilfully ignorant of foreign policy, Obama seems more like he's "slipping up" occasionally.

You've probably seen them all, but I don't see them as the lead off news stories anymore.

Video of him tripping all over himself.

Quite a few random quotes.

More videos. Some already covered and includes some Biden classics.

I think these things are funny and bound to happen when you have the media attention that any sitting President would have. I thought many of the Bush ones were funny too. What I disagree with is attacking Bush for every verbal trip up while gushing all over Obama when he does the EXACT same thing on a fairly regular basis.

You've probably seen them all, but I don't see them as the lead off news stories anymore.

Video of him tripping all over himself.

Quite a few random quotes.

More videos. Some already covered and includes some Biden classics.

I think these things are funny and bound to happen when you have the media attention that any sitting President would have. I thought many of the Bush ones were funny too. What I disagree with is attacking Bush for every verbal trip up while gushing all over Obama when he does the EXACT same thing on a fairly regular basis.

No, that's an o'moran. Seriously... it was a reference to this because of BrainstormOC's use of "YOU'RE" in capital letters. Oh well.

Did the recession start when we cut taxes with a surplus of money or years later after two wars ate into the available funds leftover from "giving the extra money back?"

Nah, had to be 10 months after the Democrats took control...that makes MUCH more sense.

(Here's the answer to your question: Anyone who doesn't blame the Republicans and Bush's leash on Congress from 2001-2007 is full of shit. The Democrats get some blame, but I reduce it some by considering the Rove-ian campaign that was led from 9/11 and on to make every Democrat look unpatriotic for questioning Bush's policies. Between that and Bush's grip on Congress, they had little effect on changing the money spending, tax cutting policies. After 2007, the Dems have no excuse and get the full blame for helping run it all into the ground by failing to change what the previous 6 years massively fucked.)

First, what was the vote for the Iraq war in the Senate? Wasn't it something like 99-0? How is that Bush's war again?

Anyone who goes around trying to place blame on anyone should really have some sort of idea as to what they are talking about. Republicans held the Senate for only four years of Bush's eight. That means that Democrats held the Senate exactly half the time that Bush was in office, not six years. It also happens to be the first two and the last two that Democrats held the power in the Senate. Strangely enough, those were also the years that the economy dropped in the Bush administration. Coincidence? Either way, you were exactly 50% off. So, are you fuckin ignorant or just a fuckin liar? Judging by your post, I'm going to guess a whole lot of both.

Wait, wait wait. Maybe you're thinking of Bill Clinton. I'm sure you thought he did a great job right? Republicans held the house and senate for six of his eight, maybe THAT'S what you were thinking of.

As for being unpatriotic for questioning Bush, how long did that last? Let me guess, you think that any country in the world would have done anything for the US, but Bush fucked it up, right? Well, if that were true that any country in the world would have done ANYTHING, then it would have been impossible for Bush or anyone else to fuck it up. Then again, as we learned in the last paragraph, you are either too stupid or dishonest to understand the irony in that.

As for Bush's "money spending, tax cutting policies", I have to agree with you about the spending part, but that's what happens you don't have a strong majority. You need to bribe the other side to get them to shut up and sit down. But, if you were upset about the spending then, why are not just LIVID about the spending now? Shouldn't you be talking about that instead?

Now, as for the taxing, I've shown several times, and it's easy to research for yourself, that the government actually made MORE MONEY after Bush cut taxes! I know, it's hard to understand if you are simple minded. May I suggest you look up the Laffer curve for an explanation.

Listen, I don't mean to make you look stupid. You did that with your ignorant comment. But seriously, you really should educate yourself with the facts before you spout off. Don't bitch about Bush's economy and act like you don't remember Alan Greenspan. Before 2007, wasn't he called the Maestro because the economy was so strong? Greenspan received honorary Knighthood from the Queen of England the economy was so friggin strong! Don't act like you don't remember. Don't lie to us and especially don't lie to yourself to try to justify your hatred.

If someone says, "I shot off a few rounds with my automatic", or "I took my automatic to the range", it is safe to assume they are referring to a semi-automatic handgun.

When it comes to guns it is NEVER safe to assume anything other then to assume the gun is loaded.

Saying "I am taking my automatic to shoot a few rounds" when your gun is a semi-automatic is wrong. While the historical terminology may have been correct the usage is different today. Automatic is referred to the type of weapon that when you hold the trigger it shoots more then one round, while semi-auto refers to a weapon that requires multiple pulls of the trigger to fire more then one round. To give you a different example - the swastika is known all off the world as a sign of hate, evil, oppression and Nazi Germany. Before that it was a symbol buddhists would use and it meant "good". Here is a link in case you are interested http://history1900s.about.com/cs/swastika/a/swastikahistory.htm

Symbols change over time, so do words. Remember the word "gay" used to mean happy, and now it refers to homosexuals. This change wasn't too long ago. The original Flintstones cartoons were "We'll have a gay old time", and eventually (somewhere in the 80's i believe) got changed to "We'll have a good old time"

No, I'm sorry - but it is not; unless you are in a location with where the legal drinking age is 18. http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/f/faqdrinking.htm http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/a/drinkingage.htm

No, I'm sorry - but it is not; unless you are in a location with where the legal drinking age is 18. http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/f/faqdrinking.htm http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/a/drinkingage.htm

Again, our religion isn't (and never will be if we have anything to say about it) funded by taxpayer dollars.

Bullshit. Churches enjoy healthy tax exemptions. According to this, it is estimated that the average family is taxed $1000 per year to make up for lost revenue from religious institutions.

Someone was way ahead of you

(NSFW)(Unless you're an archeologist)

(and damn you for making me look it up)

Ammonium Nitrate was also used in the Oklahoma city bombing. The yield was in excess of what some people might have expected too. The mixing and quality of the explosive varies its effectiveness, and hence blast radius.

This should probably be added to units.

No, sorry to say, but there is no way to misunderstand your misconceptions on what more "substantial proof" the theory of evolution would need to be presented to grade school students.

In science, a theory is something that already has passed a lot of scrutiny.

Words have precise meanings in science. For example, 'theory', 'law', and 'hypothesis' don't all mean the same thing. Outside of science, you might say something is 'just a theory', meaning it's supposition that may or may not be true. In science, a theory is an explanation that generally is accepted to be true.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm

Some of these qustions are illegal in the US as well. They are not allowed to ask them. Of course they can and if you do nothing then nothing will happen. But you can sue the pants of them. In fact they may be a good income in the economic climate, keep the stupid questions coming!

No, but there is a sign saying, "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" in one of the most desolate areas of the state which is kinda funny (picture here: http://z.about.com/d/geography/1/0/x/D/co1.JPG).

"Most people" don't live in the US.

Most people living in English-speaking industrialized countries live in the United States. Add up the population of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and the two-thirds of Canada that isn't Quebec, and you still have less than half the U.S. population. (This might change somewhat once India industrializes further.) Besides, Canada uses US Letter paper too. So if you publish one edition of a desktop environment for the English language, and not separate editions for North America and the Commonwealth, it might be fair to default to North American settings.

I'm active duty enlisted with the Air Force, job code 4A2 (kind of like a... medical electrician). Most of what I do is repair hospital equipment.

Right now I'm filling two job slots that are rated for an E-5 and an E-7. I am an E-3. I am paid as an E-3. My previous supervisor left for the private sector, my current supervisor is deployed.

In the last year, I've gone from being the apprentice repairman to being the *only* 4A2 on base. I'm doing tasks that are ordinarily not trusted to anyone under the pay-grade of E-7.

On top of repairing, inspecting, calibrating, researching, and approving purchase of medical equipment, I am also the alternate facility manager and alternate safety manager. On top of that are loads of unofficial duties and one-time tasks, for things I was never trained in but had to make up as I went along. Starting a lock-out-tag-out program from scratch, starting contracts for capital equipment, printing out blueprints on the plotter because no one else knew how after they fired the old facility manager (thank you, high school CAD classes). I do 20-30 hours of additional work beyond normal duty hours throughout the week, and I'm the on-call guy if something breaks over the weekend. Did I mention I'm the *only* person on base who is trained in my position?

I haven't taken a single day of leave in two years.

There's no possibility of getting any temporary assistance, because my AFSC is already down to 80% of what we're supposed to have. Even if my career specialty superiors could dig someone up, it'd just be another airman, E-4 at most, who would have only as much on-job experience as myself.

Down at the other end of the base, there's a guy with the same number of stripes as me, whose entire job consists of opening up cans of slop, microwaving it for 5 minutes, and serving it 3 times a day. He gets paid the exact same as me. More, even, if he's happened to knock someone up.

There's a female working in radiology, whose job consists of signing in patients, laying them down on a table, and x-raying whatever area the referring doctor specified. I learned how to do the entirety of her job in about 2 weeks of my 12 months of training. She got promoted before me, because she has the free time and regular schedule needed to go out and rack up all the volunteer work necessary to mark a troop as being "well-rounded".

Funny how few non-female, non-minority candidates manage to make "Below the Zone". You don't see a lot of caucasian males collecting awards or commanders' coins.

I've got to write my own damned performance report (remember, my supervisor's deployed), and somehow bullshit in enough "spiritual advancement" (seriously.) so the AF won't give me a 4/5 rating and shit-can me right out the door with an administrative discharge.

I've got 2 years left on my enlistment, and you can be sure as fuck that I'm getting out. Hopefully the country won't got bankrupt in the meantime, and I'll be able to collect on the new GI bill and get the bachelor's degree I put on hold when I signed up.

I don't know if the military 50 years ago really was any better, but I do know that its current incarnation is entirely suicidal. Any troop who shows a trace of competency is given greater and greater amounts of work, while mediocrity and finger-pointing earns slack, day passes, and lowered expectations. Anybody who actually possesses the skills to get a real job gets out and takes one at the first opportunity.

I can't help but think that the entire US military is going to hit a point in the next decade or two when they realize "holy shit, we kicked out all the workers, none of the retards still kicking around have any clue how to fight a war".

Amusingly, the New York Times had censored the word in the original article-- they called it only "a vile obscenity". Discussion of the meaning is here

product incomptability, also, we found sharks get easily distracted. Research on the internet showed dolphins would be more compatible with landspecies.

So, that's why astrologists were cheering this morning! ;) Or, maybe Mercury is in retrograde resulting in an error of judgement by Illinois politicians? I mean, it's not like we have a shitty economy or anything important to worry about at this point in time.

copyright infringement is *not* legally the same thing as theft.

I was talking about "theft" as in: "Thou Shalt Not Steal," — not as detailed in some criminal code somewhere (volume Z, chapter Y). This particular maxim is shared by all surviving civilization, not just our "Judeo-Christian" one.

If the 10 Commandments were a "living document", the "thou shall not violate copyrights" would've been much easier to find in there, than finding the "States shall not limit abortions" in the US Constitution.

this is the STUPIDEST thing i have EVER heard in my life

wut? Did you miss the last 8 years of the GWB administration?

Where you been?

cut and paste error - sorry

shoulda been:

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/_/T/ag_07fitbase_dash.jpg

or even

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/9/W/hn_07accordex_int.jpg

cut and paste error - sorry

shoulda been:

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/_/T/ag_07fitbase_dash.jpg

or even

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/9/W/hn_07accordex_int.jpg

Or this radio made and sold in Japan (its a bit older, but it illustrates the point):

http://japan-auto-sound.com/images/206-0606_IMG.jpg

Checkout some of these radios sold in the west.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/CarAudioVideo/Source/CD-Players/Pioneer/FH-P8000BT
http://www.alpine-usa.com/US-en/products/product.php?model=IVA-W505
http://www.alpine-usa.com/US-en/products/product.php?model=IVA-D106

Check out the dash of the Nissan GT-R:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cars/nissans-gt+r-data+dense-dashboard-explained-324672.php

Compare the GT-R dash with the dash of the Corvette ZR-1:

http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/chevrolet/0802_2009_chevrolet_corvette_zr1/photo_03.html

Here - check out some western dashboards

http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-2008/a/2008-Audi-R8-V12-TDI-Dashboard-1280x960.jpg

http://supercarspecs.com/images/porsche/2008porsche911gt2/images/2008-Porsche-911-GT2-Dashboard-1280x960.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/y/5/1/bw_08reventon_dash2.jpg
http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-2008/klm/2008-Lamborghini-Gallardo-LP560-4-Dashboard-1920x1440.jpg
http://i.pbase.com/g4/68/763068/2/91636989.LEA7wlE4.jpg

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/W/u/ag_07e63_dash.jpg

vs

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/W/u/ag_07e63_dash.jpg

of course, we're comparing a cheap family car with an upmarket one, but quite honestly, neither seems to be designed with a great deal of taste. If anything, the Honda looks a little more stylish without all the 1970s faux-walnut trim. ;-)

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/W/u/ag_07e63_dash.jpg

vs

http://z.about.com/d/cars/1/0/W/u/ag_07e63_dash.jpg

of course, we're comparing a cheap family car with an upmarket one, but quite honestly, neither seems to be designed with a great deal of taste. If anything, the Honda looks a little more stylish without all the 1970s faux-walnut trim. ;-)

To evaluate a lens based on how it looks is something like evaluating a microprocessor based on how the die looks.

Sometimes the microprocessor die knows things.

First off, the point was that DDT was NOT in fact banned for use as mosquito control. It is used around the world for this purpose. And you should know that overuse of DDT in India merely resulted in DDT-resistant mosquitos.

Second, fuck junkscience.com. Milloy is either an unrepentant liar or he has the reading comprehension of a used condom.

Exhibit A:

In early 2004, a study came out showing a link between breast cancer and antibiotic use. I remember the lead researcher was on NPR. She explicitly said there was no causal link and she offered at least three non-causal explanations for the link. For example, one explanation was simply that some women are more susceptible to disease. They tend to need more antibiotics and tend to get breast cancer more frequently. She said more research was needed to fully understand the link, which seems quite reasonable to me.

Milloy totally misrepresented this. He explicitly said the study claimed that antibiotics cause breast cancer. He explicitly said that the study was done to get grant money and to scare people. Yet he offers no actual evidence for any of this, just scary claims.

No evidence was presented that antibiotics were the biological cause of any of the cases of breast cancer considered in the study. This is no surprise since no demonstrable biological explanation exists as to why antibiotics would cause cancer in the first place.

Well no shit, Steve, but the study didn't claim that antibiotics cause breast cancer.

But I don't expect you to take my word for this.

Here is his pack of bullshit:
http://www.junkscience.com/dec04/jsa200407.html.

Here are two more articles, which actually quote the study's authors.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/17/antibiotics.cancer/

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/healthmedical/a/bcancerstudy.htm

But researchers caution that the findings do not mean antibiotics cause breast cancer.

"These results only show that there is an association between the two," co-author Dr. Stephen Taplin of the National Cancer Institute said in a statement. "More studies must be conducted to determine whether there is indeed a direct cause-and-effect relationship."

Total and absolute misrepresentation on the part of Milloy.

junkscience.com is ironically named.

Wikipedia sometimes links to primary sources but by itself is not a great primary source on a controversial issue (and I am arguing this issue is in part controversial because it is part of the justification for the current social pyramid). For a parallel example, for decades Jane Jacobs was arguing cities existed *before* agriculture, but only now are most people coming to accept that, and that in fact, cities created agriculture in the form we know it now.

On the issues you raise of: "Having abundant foods had little to do with life expectancy. For thousands years: a person got bitten by a bad mosquito, died; a woman having trouble delivering labor, died; an infant caught a fever, died. None of them got a chance to develop aging diseases."

On the medical issues you list, one by one, each has been made worse by "civilization":

Consider:
"History of Malaria Parasite And Its Global Spread"
http://www.malariasite.com/MALARIA/history_parasite.htm
"End of the last glacial period and warmer global climate heralded the beginnings of agriculture about 10000 years ago. It is argued that the entry of agricultural practice into Africa was pivotal to the subsequent evolution and history of human malaria. The Neolithic agrarian revolution, which is believed to have begun about 8,000 years ago in the "Fertile Crescent," southern Turkey and northeastern Iraq, reached the western and Central Africa around 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. This led to the adaptations in the Anopheles vectors of human malaria. The human populations in sub-Saharan Africa changed from a low-density and mobile hunting and gathering life-style to communal living in settlements cleared in the tropical forest. This new, man-made environment led to an increase in the numbers and densities of humans on the one hand and generated numerous small water collections close to the human habitations on the other. This led to an increase in the mosquito population and the mosquitoes in turn had large, stable, and accessible sources of blood in the human population, leading to very high anthropophily and great efficiency of the vectors of African malaria. Even though the practice of agriculture had developed throughout the tropics and subtropics of Asia and the Middle East up to several thousand years before those in Africa, simultaneous animal domestication in Asia probably prevented the mosquitoes from developing exclusive anthropophilic habits. In most parts of the world, the anthropophilic index (the probability of a blood meal being on a human) of the vectors of malaria is much less than 50% and often less than 10 to 20%, but in sub-Saharan Africa, it is 80 to almost 100%. This is probably the most important single factor responsible for the stability and intensity of malaria transmission in tropical Africa today."

So, malaria in that sense is a recent cost of agriculture.

Women giving birth in traditional societies in traditional ways (squatting) in knowledeable communities do better than today's Westernized and out-of-shape women who give birth lying down attended by "professionals":
http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/laborbasics/a/squatting.htm
"The advantages of squatting have long been known, but in modern medicine has been ignored for positions that were more advantageous for the practitioner's view and the use of instruments such as forceps, stirrups and vacuum extractors. Benefits of squatting include:
* Shortens the second stage of labor (pushing phase)
* Decreases the need for forcep deliveries
* Reduces the need for episiotomy
* Shortens the depth of your birth canal
* Works with gravity
* Increases pelvic diameter by 10+% "

Traditional societi

Your confusing desire and want with necessity. At least in the terms I was ever describing it.

Like I said, you want to define necessity.

Do you think the illegal immigrant problems just started with NAFTA?

Oh, I agree. Illegal immigrant problems started before the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth, Mass. Ever since then Europeans have tried to exterminate the native inhabitants. Heck Christopher Columbus tried to enslave Arawaks and other inhabitants of the Caribbean. Unfortunately for him he declared the New World as Spanish territory and Castile's Queen Isabella, who united the Iberian kingdoms into the Spanish kingdom, told him she could not enslave her own subjects. That was one of the few things, if not the only one, that she did right.

It's problems have little to do with NAFTA or the price of corn. The minimum wage in Mexico is something like 52.6 pesos which comes out to around $4.70 a day (2008 numbers where minimum wage in the US is more then a days pay per hour).

Farmers, if the farm is large enough, employ workers. No farms means no farm workers. In order to make a living those ex farm workers then take any job they can which drives wages down, more than they already are.

You obviously don't know how subsidies work.

Are you saying the Heritage Foundation doesn't know how subsides work as well? And all the other think tanks that can afford to pay economists? You know more than they do? What's your qualification? Got a PhD in economists? Where from? Or are you just pulling things out of your ass?

Since you think you know more than others, there's no point in me continuing.

Falcon

Here's a simplified Michelson-Morley interferometer experiment
http://tonic.physics.sunysb.edu/~dteaney/F07_modern/lectures/mlab1_michelson.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment
http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Michelson-Morley_experiment

How about building your own Radio Telescope
http://www.radiotelescopebuilder.com/

For that matter you could get them to build their own Dobsonian although the physics there isn't too hard (basic optics), especially if you don't hand figure the mirror. There's also a large metalwork or woodwork component that might not be considered relevant.

Here are some really good astronomy tutorials (though the prac work is done with simulated software). You might be able to modify them to something more practical
http://www3.gettysburg.edu/~marschal/clea/CLEAhome.html

Some of the topics covered by the above
Radio Astronomy of Pulsars
Astrometry of Asteroids
The Revolution of the Moons of Jupiter
The Rotation of Mercury by The Doppler Effect
Photoelectric Photometry of the Pleiades
Spectral Classification of Stars
The Hubble RedShift-Distance Relation
The Flow of Energy Out of the Sun
The Quest for Object X
Jupiter's Moons and the Speed of Light: The Classic Roemer Experiment

There are books and web pages out there....many tend to be geared to highschool, then there are some that would require you to up your insurance...so you'll have to sift through them

http://physics.about.com/od/physicsexperiments/tp/experimentbooks.htm
http://www.educypedia.be/education/physicsexperiments.htm

By declaring martial law and throwing a lot of the Constitution (Habeas Corpus, for instance) out the window:

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/historicdocuments/a/lincolnhabeas.htm?rd=1

He had a lot journalist in the North jailed for no reason other than he thought should be (no evidence needed).

In fact, a lot of things that took place under Bush would not have been possible if it weren't for Abraham Lincoln.

Transporter_ii

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bljefferson.htm

Jefferson was a tinkerer who realized that every design could be improved. The same mind he dedicated to helping to create our novel system of government, he applied to physical science.