I would also suggest that our planet accreating matter wouldn't really fit into the meaning of "human problem" in Mr Mencken's quote, who wrote about the affairs of actual living humans, not the falling of meteorites from the sky.
Well, i was generalizing on the previous post, and it was in reference to other star systems.
Aside from the obvious unknowables at the moment, the interactions of the interstellar medium, interactions in transition from and into the systems themselves as well as the energy needed to eject the item from the system (which is also part of the transition out), we can do some basic math to calculate travel time, if we make a few basic assumptions.
The entry speed of a meteorite into our atmosphere is ~11-25km/sec. Using a high average of 20km.sec, and placing that as the average travel speed of the object (huge assumption), an object traveling 4x10 16th meters (no clue how to do expo here, so bear with me) which would be the rounded current distance to Alpha Centauri (give or take a couple inches i'm sure), would take over 2 trillion years to bridge the space in between (~150 times the age of the universe). Given that Alpha Centauri is getting closer to us, that distance (and travel time) would have been greater in the past.
Now, you may have meant other systems, but you typed "galaxy skipping." Alpha Centauri is ~4.3 ly distant, the nearest galaxy is Canis Major Dwarf at ~25000 ly distance, assuming you want to include the Milky Way's satellite galaxies as such. That's going to add at least a couple more minutes to travel time.
It all comes down to speed. There's certainly much more energetic objects out there than 20km/sec, and certainly a lot of ways to get something going much faster than that.
Now, it's certainly possible that this object did originate inside our systems disc, it could have been some random trash floating in interstellar space that our system simply ran over and accumulated. That one will take us going out there and getting samples to see what's there though, and that's going to be a 50 year project at best... which is actually a pretty good idea for one, but that's my opinion. So while the odds are pretty dang small that it came from a system that currently exists, it may have came from a system that used to exist and happened to be in the path of our system which means that something could have been much closer to us billions of years ago (or even before the forming of our system) and simply be a bunch of rubble that we're passing through now.
Certainly they could, however, given the distance to the closest star system from us, the travel times, the odds of hitting something as small as our planet with something even smaller from that distance, plus given the uncertainties of what actually lies between those systems and how that medium would interact with anything traveling through it, and even the unknown variable of what it would take to eject such an item from the originating system in the first place (not all systems are the same)... one would be far safer to go with the simplest answer, instead of opting for the answer that is so incredibly remotely possible.
Just saying.... the simplest answer is usually the right one.
That's not a sign of more intelligence for either the leaders, or the sheep. In the leaders, it's a sign their psychopathy is becoming more ingrained; in the sheep, it's a sign their already feeble grasp of reality is being overcome easier by their growing number of mental disorders.
As for the Theory of Natural Selection, there's over 150 years of research into it specifically, and the concept of actual changes over time, and in between generations, dates back longer than that. There has yet to be put forth any other hypothesis that can hold a candle to it, either in explaining what we know, or interpreting what we don't know.... although there are a lot of idiots, criminals, and just plain worthless shitheads out there with less than a 9th grade education in biology that will scam ignorant people (those having less than a fourth grade education in any science) out of their money telling them that the Theory of Natural Selection is completely wrong, "just a theory," or is a religion just like theirs.
....which is exactly what the republicans in congress have been putting 100% of their effort into. Had those fucking pieces of shit actually been trying to help this country out of the recession instead of using it for a power play, everyone would be better off right now. It doesn't take more than a couple brain cells to understand that, although i do realize that's a couple more than most fucking republican ideologues have.
Hopefully they'll be enough people with basic common sense to understand this and vote out all the lying piece of shit republicans so democrats can pull this country out of another mess the fascist republicans got us into.
You are right, Obama has no control or input what so ever on the price of gas. However, most people will not forget the blathering, frothing at the mouth, idiots that the republicans became when prices were going up trying to blame it on Obama.
Interestingly enough, most of the fluctuations in prices in the US comes from speculators gambling on the commodities markets. Occasionally we get changes because of world events, but those world events in reality only drive speculators changing their speculations. OPEC, the great evil cartel, unlike in the mid to late '70's, is almost a wall flower in the day to day, week to week, changes.
Capitalism doesn't force innovation. If it did, we'd be out innovating everyone in the world.. we're not. We have a bunch of corporations trying to buy the system of regulations it wants to shut down the innovations of others. We have other corporations using everything they can do eliminate competition, not through innovating new items, but by trying to block the use of old or common items through a disaster of a patent system.
Need forces innovation. If someone needs something that doesn't exist, guess what happens....
Soviet Russia wasn't capitalist, but they sure as hell got into space before us. That took innovation.
Reminds me of this guy from Indonesia that was upset by a guy living in the apartment above him, i think from Thailand... not sure on that though. They were having a cross between a catfight and a shouting match, both running around yelling "I fuck you, I fuck you" to each other. We didn't have the heart to correct their English. Was good entertainment for the evening.
republic: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
democracy: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Oh yes, such vastly different things. The only people i ever hear making that distinction are teabaggers who would prefer us living in a fascist theocracy filled with mental midgets.
Yes, economies of scale always come into play, whether it's businesses or fed/state governments; however, that wasn't the major cause of the increased prices. Long distance prices did drop, but local prices climbed significantly because of the way that those two were priced prior to the breakup. Long distance tolls were artificially kept high to supplement the cost of local services that AT&T was required to provide. Without those long distance rates, the smaller companies had no way artificially reduce the costs they had to charge for the local services they provided, and AT&T was free to drop the long distance prices as it no longer had to provide the local.
That in itself is not the reason that for the drop however. The elephant in the room was the introduction of this little obscure piece of technology called the mobile phone. There were other things that aided the price decreases, but breaking up Ma Bell only decreased long distance rates, and those didn't lower as much as local rates rose. Everyone needed local, not everyone used long distance.
That said, breaking up the monopoly was the right thing to do. In addition to that, the earlier action of making "tying" illegal helped the consumers in the long run, although, there are still cases of tying going on, and some larger companies (apparently with piss poor legal counsel) trying to shift to it... Comcast and Frontier being two of them that have lawsuits against them now for it, or related tactics.
It's like the republicans here in the US gaining everything they do by living here from the day they're born, then not wanting to pay a single cent of it back. There are people who want to live in a good society, then there are people who are too stupid to realize what a society is.
I think libertarianism does lead to anarchy, which the fascists then take advantage of. In Somalia, there's still a thriving trade in weapons, stolen goods, and old copies of Pee Wee Herman shows on VHS and Beta.
My favorite is the "drill here, drill now" group. "If they did open the gulf up, why would the oil companies sell the oil in the United States, when they can make more money in China or in Europe?"
I have always laughed at those people. These are usually the anti-government, corporatist loving conservatives who cry socialism whenever someone tries to do something to help anyone (because they don't have a clue what the word means), yet they seem to think in the case of oil, that the US should be a socialist country (in the actual meaning of the word) and own all the rights to the oil drilled from those wells.
Then, of course, is the lack of understanding that oil production is near a high right now. More oil means nothing if you can't keep up with the refining production as is, and as we've seen, the price of gas in the short term has little to do with actual oil being pumped out of the ground, and a lot more to do with when the next holiday is on the calender.
It just goes to show, there's a lot of incredibly stupid people in this country.
The primary axiom of business: Your business has nothing to do with what you want to sell; it has everything to do with what your customer wants to buy.
This moronic story has a headline that sounds like somebody is trying to reinvoke the multi-regional hypothesis.
Shame on Slashdot. Shame on the fucking retard who wrote the article.
You do have to agree though, that the multi-regional hypothesis does solve the one truly glaring issue with the whole "out of Africa meme".... people from New Jersey.
Because you don't like what they do, or disagree with them, means absolutely nothing. It's too bad there's so many people in the US who are too damn stupid to learn that words have meanings, and are mentally incapable of using words correctly. I would suggest that you pick up an encyclopedia and do some reading for the answer to your question, as you've obviously been listening to someone who was a total fraking idiot, or intentionally lying to you.
This is about dictatorships outlawing guns to make it harder for people to shuck off their oppressors, which is exactly why it was enshrined in the US constitution.
No. It was put into place in the Bill of Rights because of the need to raise a militia in case one was needed, as in "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." At that time, the militia's would provide their own weapons, ammo, and food, often without pay, and were comprised of all abled bodied men between the ages of 16 and 56. Those militia members were trained and drilled regularly. Allowing local governments to take peoples weapons would have compromised the ability to raise those militias, and their effectiveness would have been diminished. This is why the 2nd amendment contains the phrase: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...." or in the version that was actually ratified by the states, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state...."
All the rest of the bullshit conservative ideological talking points about gun rights are just that, bullshit spouted by ignorant idiots.
Ah, see? There's the problem. No matter what they do (short of driving to your house and giving you the movie and $500), people like you will always be able to find a new justification for piracy..........Basically, meet the wants of those whose wants can be met, and the rest can go fuck themselves.
Which is perfectly fine. They can cater to any group they want, and ignore any group they want, right up till.....
Frankly, I reckon they should simply ban people like you from even having the internet, and focus on providing the product that people whose desires can be met will go for.
.... they start passing laws restricting people so they can have a profitable business plan EVEN IF IT"S SHIT. We don't need any fucking fascist motherfuckers stealing any more rights of people so their fucking business is at an advantage over all the other businesses, and we really don't need worthless shitheads thinking fascists like that should be in charge of a damn thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, quotes can be made to say just about anything by someone that want's a quote to be interpreted a certain way. However, i'm not entirely alone in the basic sentiment of my post: http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/occams-razor.htm
I would also suggest that our planet accreating matter wouldn't really fit into the meaning of "human problem" in Mr Mencken's quote, who wrote about the affairs of actual living humans, not the falling of meteorites from the sky.
Well, i was generalizing on the previous post, and it was in reference to other star systems.
Aside from the obvious unknowables at the moment, the interactions of the interstellar medium, interactions in transition from and into the systems themselves as well as the energy needed to eject the item from the system (which is also part of the transition out), we can do some basic math to calculate travel time, if we make a few basic assumptions.
The entry speed of a meteorite into our atmosphere is ~11-25km/sec. Using a high average of 20km.sec, and placing that as the average travel speed of the object (huge assumption), an object traveling 4x10 16th meters (no clue how to do expo here, so bear with me) which would be the rounded current distance to Alpha Centauri (give or take a couple inches i'm sure), would take over 2 trillion years to bridge the space in between (~150 times the age of the universe). Given that Alpha Centauri is getting closer to us, that distance (and travel time) would have been greater in the past.
Now, you may have meant other systems, but you typed "galaxy skipping." Alpha Centauri is ~4.3 ly distant, the nearest galaxy is Canis Major Dwarf at ~25000 ly distance, assuming you want to include the Milky Way's satellite galaxies as such. That's going to add at least a couple more minutes to travel time.
It all comes down to speed. There's certainly much more energetic objects out there than 20km/sec, and certainly a lot of ways to get something going much faster than that.
Now, it's certainly possible that this object did originate inside our systems disc, it could have been some random trash floating in interstellar space that our system simply ran over and accumulated. That one will take us going out there and getting samples to see what's there though, and that's going to be a 50 year project at best... which is actually a pretty good idea for one, but that's my opinion. So while the odds are pretty dang small that it came from a system that currently exists, it may have came from a system that used to exist and happened to be in the path of our system which means that something could have been much closer to us billions of years ago (or even before the forming of our system) and simply be a bunch of rubble that we're passing through now.
Certainly they could, however, given the distance to the closest star system from us, the travel times, the odds of hitting something as small as our planet with something even smaller from that distance, plus given the uncertainties of what actually lies between those systems and how that medium would interact with anything traveling through it, and even the unknown variable of what it would take to eject such an item from the originating system in the first place (not all systems are the same)... one would be far safer to go with the simplest answer, instead of opting for the answer that is so incredibly remotely possible.
Just saying.... the simplest answer is usually the right one.
That's not a sign of more intelligence for either the leaders, or the sheep. In the leaders, it's a sign their psychopathy is becoming more ingrained; in the sheep, it's a sign their already feeble grasp of reality is being overcome easier by their growing number of mental disorders.
As for the Theory of Natural Selection, there's over 150 years of research into it specifically, and the concept of actual changes over time, and in between generations, dates back longer than that. There has yet to be put forth any other hypothesis that can hold a candle to it, either in explaining what we know, or interpreting what we don't know.... although there are a lot of idiots, criminals, and just plain worthless shitheads out there with less than a 9th grade education in biology that will scam ignorant people (those having less than a fourth grade education in any science) out of their money telling them that the Theory of Natural Selection is completely wrong, "just a theory," or is a religion just like theirs.
....which is exactly what the republicans in congress have been putting 100% of their effort into. Had those fucking pieces of shit actually been trying to help this country out of the recession instead of using it for a power play, everyone would be better off right now. It doesn't take more than a couple brain cells to understand that, although i do realize that's a couple more than most fucking republican ideologues have.
Hopefully they'll be enough people with basic common sense to understand this and vote out all the lying piece of shit republicans so democrats can pull this country out of another mess the fascist republicans got us into.
You are right, Obama has no control or input what so ever on the price of gas. However, most people will not forget the blathering, frothing at the mouth, idiots that the republicans became when prices were going up trying to blame it on Obama.
Interestingly enough, most of the fluctuations in prices in the US comes from speculators gambling on the commodities markets. Occasionally we get changes because of world events, but those world events in reality only drive speculators changing their speculations. OPEC, the great evil cartel, unlike in the mid to late '70's, is almost a wall flower in the day to day, week to week, changes.
... before the machines decide that humanity is a cancer on this planet, and a threat to everything.... including the machines.
Capitalism doesn't force innovation. If it did, we'd be out innovating everyone in the world.. we're not. We have a bunch of corporations trying to buy the system of regulations it wants to shut down the innovations of others. We have other corporations using everything they can do eliminate competition, not through innovating new items, but by trying to block the use of old or common items through a disaster of a patent system.
Need forces innovation. If someone needs something that doesn't exist, guess what happens....
Soviet Russia wasn't capitalist, but they sure as hell got into space before us. That took innovation.
I pity the foo who doesn't have a backup tattoo'd to their inner eyelid.
Reminds me of this guy from Indonesia that was upset by a guy living in the apartment above him, i think from Thailand... not sure on that though. They were having a cross between a catfight and a shouting match, both running around yelling "I fuck you, I fuck you" to each other. We didn't have the heart to correct their English. Was good entertainment for the evening.
Merriam-Websters:
republic: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
democracy: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Oh yes, such vastly different things. The only people i ever hear making that distinction are teabaggers who would prefer us living in a fascist theocracy filled with mental midgets.
Hey... your data looks like a bunny!!! Wait.. no, it's Mickey Mouse!!! Uh oh... Mickey Mouse... Be expecting a call from Disney's lawyers very soon.
Yes, economies of scale always come into play, whether it's businesses or fed/state governments; however, that wasn't the major cause of the increased prices. Long distance prices did drop, but local prices climbed significantly because of the way that those two were priced prior to the breakup. Long distance tolls were artificially kept high to supplement the cost of local services that AT&T was required to provide. Without those long distance rates, the smaller companies had no way artificially reduce the costs they had to charge for the local services they provided, and AT&T was free to drop the long distance prices as it no longer had to provide the local.
That in itself is not the reason that for the drop however. The elephant in the room was the introduction of this little obscure piece of technology called the mobile phone. There were other things that aided the price decreases, but breaking up Ma Bell only decreased long distance rates, and those didn't lower as much as local rates rose. Everyone needed local, not everyone used long distance.
That said, breaking up the monopoly was the right thing to do. In addition to that, the earlier action of making "tying" illegal helped the consumers in the long run, although, there are still cases of tying going on, and some larger companies (apparently with piss poor legal counsel) trying to shift to it... Comcast and Frontier being two of them that have lawsuits against them now for it, or related tactics.
Exactly.
It's like the republicans here in the US gaining everything they do by living here from the day they're born, then not wanting to pay a single cent of it back. There are people who want to live in a good society, then there are people who are too stupid to realize what a society is.
I think libertarianism does lead to anarchy, which the fascists then take advantage of. In Somalia, there's still a thriving trade in weapons, stolen goods, and old copies of Pee Wee Herman shows on VHS and Beta.
My favorite is the "drill here, drill now" group. "If they did open the gulf up, why would the oil companies sell the oil in the United States, when they can make more money in China or in Europe?"
I have always laughed at those people. These are usually the anti-government, corporatist loving conservatives who cry socialism whenever someone tries to do something to help anyone (because they don't have a clue what the word means), yet they seem to think in the case of oil, that the US should be a socialist country (in the actual meaning of the word) and own all the rights to the oil drilled from those wells.
Then, of course, is the lack of understanding that oil production is near a high right now. More oil means nothing if you can't keep up with the refining production as is, and as we've seen, the price of gas in the short term has little to do with actual oil being pumped out of the ground, and a lot more to do with when the next holiday is on the calender.
It just goes to show, there's a lot of incredibly stupid people in this country.
I'm old enough to remember Ma Bell being broke up too, as well as remembering that prices where i lived (southern Oregon) rose soon afterwards.
However, regulation in general is better than de-regulation in protecting consumers: http://www.ehow.com/list_6300097_effects-phone-deregulation.html
The primary axiom of business: Your business has nothing to do with what you want to sell; it has everything to do with what your customer wants to buy.
This moronic story has a headline that sounds like somebody is trying to reinvoke the multi-regional hypothesis.
Shame on Slashdot. Shame on the fucking retard who wrote the article.
You do have to agree though, that the multi-regional hypothesis does solve the one truly glaring issue with the whole "out of Africa meme".... people from New Jersey.
proto-human talking chimps
So, you're saying that Lancelot Link was THE MAN!... quite a while before there were men....
no I do not exaggerate, my gun really is that big.
....so i guess the question is, with a gun that big, why do you keep shooting blanks? (sorry, had to be said)
Venezuela's government type is: Federal Republic.
Because you don't like what they do, or disagree with them, means absolutely nothing. It's too bad there's so many people in the US who are too damn stupid to learn that words have meanings, and are mentally incapable of using words correctly. I would suggest that you pick up an encyclopedia and do some reading for the answer to your question, as you've obviously been listening to someone who was a total fraking idiot, or intentionally lying to you.
Don't be a mushroom.
This is about dictatorships outlawing guns to make it harder for people to shuck off their oppressors, which is exactly why it was enshrined in the US constitution.
No. It was put into place in the Bill of Rights because of the need to raise a militia in case one was needed, as in "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." At that time, the militia's would provide their own weapons, ammo, and food, often without pay, and were comprised of all abled bodied men between the ages of 16 and 56. Those militia members were trained and drilled regularly. Allowing local governments to take peoples weapons would have compromised the ability to raise those militias, and their effectiveness would have been diminished. This is why the 2nd amendment contains the phrase: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...." or in the version that was actually ratified by the states, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state...."
All the rest of the bullshit conservative ideological talking points about gun rights are just that, bullshit spouted by ignorant idiots.
seriously? you think that was a real movement?
Bowel movements are real movements, so yes, the teabaggers were a real movement too... even if they stupider dumber than shit.
Ah, see? There's the problem. No matter what they do (short of driving to your house and giving you the movie and $500), people like you will always be able to find a new justification for piracy..........Basically, meet the wants of those whose wants can be met, and the rest can go fuck themselves.
Which is perfectly fine. They can cater to any group they want, and ignore any group they want, right up till.....
Frankly, I reckon they should simply ban people like you from even having the internet, and focus on providing the product that people whose desires can be met will go for.