I consider "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" to be science fiction. Not all science fiction is about spaceships and aliens, afterall. If you read much science fiction, you'll find a lot of good stuff where relationships or other emotional themes overwelm the aspects people tend to associate with science fiction. Some people liked "Code 46" which has some similar themes as ESOFTSM but is more obviously SF. "Code 46" came out this year or last, I think.
Sure, most of the science fiction that hollywood puts out is copycat-crap. But why should that be any different for science fiction than it is for the rest of the movie categories?
What matters is apparent motion. There is much less apparent motion for many jets-on-final scenarios than there was in the JFK assassination. Also, with a sufficiently powerful laser, pulsing, scanning, and essentially unlimited ammo, the threat of delivering enough energy to a pilots eye ball is quite real. Laser blinding is something the military worries about. For a few thousand dollars, some technical know-how, and a scientific or indurstrial catalog, you could put together a system that would be quite a nuisance at any airport.
IOW, your 100 mph number doesn't mean jack shit. If you want to pull numbers out of your ass and throw them around, I'd suggest starting with radial velocity, beam divergence, target jitter, angular extent of target, laser energy, pulse width, and physiological response.
That said, I think the threat is way overblown; the overhyping doesn't serve any interest except to keep the nation-of-fear tense and gullible.
What about 1.06 microns? That's a readily available infrared laser frequency with fairly high power (e.g. NdYAG) - I believe it passes readily through glass and is harmful to the old fuzzy warbles. Stuff between there and red (900 nm ish) is also available and most optics are transparent to it. The eyeball damage potential may be less. Lower frequency stuff, in the neighborhood of 10 microns is available (C02 is 4.3 or 4.7 microns, no?) though that may suffer the problem you talk about. It's been >10 years since I've done any laser work, so my info might be rusty.
Frequency doubling crystals are probably readily available to those who might want to use these for nefarious purposes - check your handy physics lab catalog. We used a pretty cheap one to double NdYAG to optical frequencies (a nice green).
The really dangerous lasers are infrared. Certain frequencies in the infrared do major corneal or retinal damage. This happens without the eye owner knowing that it's happening.
You should do something about that cough - maybe see a doctor? I know when I cough, it's never so bad that I type out the noises. Perhaps you're using one of those voice recognition software systems? Best of luck and good health to you.
Well, the senate represents states, but that representation is required to be democratic. So you could say that the senate represents the people in the states; the key is the weighting is proportional to statehood (== 1), not to population.
"
We have a republic and the attempt was to not setup a system that could be too easily dominated by a slim majority.
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Instead, we have a system where the system is easily dominated by a slim minority.;)
San Fran is an outlier, most other big cities probably support bush to a greater extent - I'd guess 30-35%, but I don't have the numbers. Big cities in the South have a more even vote, I'd guess. In any case, there is nothing "unfortunate" about these numbers.
I'm all for preventing the "tyranny of the majority" - I just don't think the electoral college really serves that purpose. The parts of our government that do serve that purpose are checks and balances, the constitution, the bill of rights, judicial oversight, strong majorities required for ammendments and veto override, multi-party representation in the congress, multi-partisan cooperation, etc. The last ones I'm really worried about. The house, senate, and executive are republican controlled now. The supreme court will probably be slanted that way more in the near future. The current president enjoys a partisan congress and hasn't needed to exercise his checks and balances - the veto - at all. Jucicial appointees by the executive will likely slide through the senate with little real challenge. But god bless the electoral college, it gives those evil new york city dwellers 1/12 the influence on the presidential election that those wholesome citizens in wyoming enjoy.
If we worked it by popular vote, only fewer than 10 states would be needed to win the election.
This assumes that everyone or nearly everyone in those populous states will vote the same way. It's a stupid assumption, and it's a stupid argument against proportional representation for the president. Keep in mind that we already have an extremely powerful arm of the government that represents states rather than people; the senate.
pennsylvania had thousands of votes on the electronic voting machines before anyone started voting
I just heard on NPR that this is false. The machines in question have an odometer on them that indicates total votes on the machine since construction. The would-be-whistler blowers saw these numbers, and without understanding what it meant, spread the word about voter fraud right to the top of the RNC. This explanation may or may not be correct; NPR screws up sometimes, too.
In reality, the fraction of conceptions that don't result in birth, discounting elective abortion, is quite large. There is nothing inevitable about it, trust me.
Re:Not all intelligent discourse needs to be civil
on
Pre-Election Discussion
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· Score: 4, Interesting
You have not provided an argument that "unborn person" is an uncontested notion. The state of an object is not affected by the so-called inevitability of future states. The distincness in time and definition of those states argues against you. What justification do you have for discarding the effects of chance when discussing inevitability, anyhow? Also, by allowing you to elminate elective abortion in order to define the inevitable outcome, you have assumed your conclusion.
Thought experiment. A device for the artificial insemination of an egg has been set up. This device has been setup to perform its function in one hour. The effectiveness of the device is complete: allowing the device to run unhindered will bring about the inevitable result that a human egg is fertilized and embryo is created. Using the bizarro rules of logic that infect your reality, what is the status of the device as its timer ticks towards zero? Is it an "unborn person"? Does the inevitability constructed result in personhood of any form? What are the moral implications of a person stopping the device before the timer expires?
What have you to say about your "abortion == murder" argument?
I would support that criteria, or a criteria like that. Such a criteria could form the basis for legality and could make both camps happy. If this viability was sound, then a woman wanting an abortion would then be giving up the "unborn person" to be a ward of the state or perhaps to some adopting family. There would still be ethical delimnas, though.
PS. Log in you cowardly fuck.
Re:Not all intelligent discourse needs to be civil
on
Pre-Election Discussion
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The term you use ("Unborn person") presupposes some positions that not everyone shares with you. Many times, a person's opinion on the validity of the term "unborn person" (which might change over the course of a pregnancy) is highly influenced by religion. In the US, the prevailing distinctions between persons holding different views on abortion is religious. If you believe otherwise, you are in denial of the reality that surrounds you. The word "Murder" is interesting, and it's interesting that you use it. In fact, I'd say you use it incorrectly. In any case, arguing against abortion by declaring that abortion == murder is worthless. If you need help determining why, let me know.
Similarly, but to a lesser extent, the moral legitimacy of capital punishment is often determined by religious rather than othere means.
I agree that the government should not be involved in defining marriage or otherwise entangled in religious issues.
All of these things are overly entagled in fundamentalist America.
Re:Not all intelligent discourse needs to be civil
on
Pre-Election Discussion
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· Score: 4, Insightful
There are really just 2 taboo topics:
Abortion = politics + religion
Capital Punishment = politics + religion
Same Sex Relationships = politics + religion
Religion = religion
Politics = poltics (but for some people, poltics = religion)
Seems to me, that if you're looking to fight some terrorists, Iraq is a pretty good place to be right now. You can say there was no terror in Iraq before we invaded, but it's obvious the capacity for terror was always there.
The "capacity for terror" is in many or most countries. For example, if the United States was invaded and occupied, and some large portion of the population embraced that occupation, you can bet your ass that the "capacity for terror" would show up in the US, too.
Your argument is simply rationalization for an act which is fundamentally unsupportable.
Personally I think it is very improbable that any Republicans seek to discriminate against ethnic groups or cultures. There is no place for such people today, and if they exist, it is probably only in trailer parks that they can be found. I am in TX. I know no people that are like this. No one I know knows people that are like this.
You are either very lucky, or lead a very sheltered existence, perhaps are not very observant, or are otherwise willfully ignorant. I grew up in Texas, lived there for a few years since growing up there, and racism is not rare there. This was not in trailer parks, btw. I've also seen racism in other states I've lived in, not just Texas.
I supect willful ignorance on your part, since you somehow seem to believe that the GOP has core values (is fiscal responsibility a core value?) while the democrats don't. Your us-versus-them attitude smacks of delusion, so it's easiest to use that as an explanation for your unawareness of racial bias and discrimination.
I don't know if there is any intentional racial discrimination on the part of the Republicans. It's possible, if there are attempts to keep certain elligible voters away, that the perpetrators don't care about race but only directly or indirectly select for race in order to achieve they result they want (less votes for Kerry). I did hear a story today on NPR about a man in Georgia who went to the court house, asked for the names of all Hispanic registered voters in the county, then returned with challenges of voter elligibility for nearly every one of those voters. To be fair, this action was not likely endorsed or even known to the GOP. It would be hard to defend this man's actions as race-neutral, though.
If you don't think that there is racial bias in the government, ask yourself why a disproportionate number of blacks are incarcerated in this country, especially for drug charges. Something like 14% of black males of voting age are incarcerated in florida. Because of the felony inelligibility rule in florida, something like a total of 25% of black males in florida are not able to vote. This isn't a republican problem, of course, but it certainly has some bearing on the allegations of voter fraud in Florida.
I think we agree that voter fraud is a problem. Policies designed to prevent voter fraud, like most discrimination processes in the real world (for example criminal prosecution), will have both false positivies and misses. The judicial system errs on the side of allowing more misses to limit false positives. Not absolutely, of course, but as a tendency - this is a big part of our civil liberties. Voter fraud detection policies that "accidently" disenfrancises large numbers of legitimate voters to prevent few illegitimate voters are not in line with the due process and civil liberties held dear in this country. IMNSO. That's all, chief.
I am aware of this, I really don't care for the use of the words liberal and conservative honestly.
Then why your inflamatory signature about "Liberalism"? The sky in my reality is gray, lately, but I hear that in some parts of the country, they only have black and white.
PS, I never realized existentialism had any real bearing on the abortion debate. Could you elaborate?
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Sure, most of the science fiction that hollywood puts out is copycat-crap. But why should that be any different for science fiction than it is for the rest of the movie categories?
IOW, your 100 mph number doesn't mean jack shit. If you want to pull numbers out of your ass and throw them around, I'd suggest starting with radial velocity, beam divergence, target jitter, angular extent of target, laser energy, pulse width, and physiological response.
That said, I think the threat is way overblown; the overhyping doesn't serve any interest except to keep the nation-of-fear tense and gullible.
Frequency doubling crystals are probably readily available to those who might want to use these for nefarious purposes - check your handy physics lab catalog. We used a pretty cheap one to double NdYAG to optical frequencies (a nice green).
The really dangerous lasers are infrared. Certain frequencies in the infrared do major corneal or retinal damage. This happens without the eye owner knowing that it's happening.
You should do something about that cough - maybe see a doctor? I know when I cough, it's never so bad that I type out the noises. Perhaps you're using one of those voice recognition software systems? Best of luck and good health to you.
I see dead pixels, all the time.
Let me introduce you to the war on drugs. Just one example of many where the feds get up nice and tight in your own fucking business.
Not according to Fox News and the Whitehouse. Suicide Bombers are now called "Homicide Bombers" in Newspeak.
"Looking the same in all browsers" is not an original goal of HTML.
Well, the senate represents states, but that representation is required to be democratic. So you could say that the senate represents the people in the states; the key is the weighting is proportional to statehood (== 1), not to population.
Instead, we have a system where the system is easily dominated by a slim minority. ;)
San Fran is an outlier, most other big cities probably support bush to a greater extent - I'd guess 30-35%, but I don't have the numbers. Big cities in the South have a more even vote, I'd guess. In any case, there is nothing "unfortunate" about these numbers.
I'm all for preventing the "tyranny of the majority" - I just don't think the electoral college really serves that purpose. The parts of our government that do serve that purpose are checks and balances, the constitution, the bill of rights, judicial oversight, strong majorities required for ammendments and veto override, multi-party representation in the congress, multi-partisan cooperation, etc. The last ones I'm really worried about. The house, senate, and executive are republican controlled now. The supreme court will probably be slanted that way more in the near future. The current president enjoys a partisan congress and hasn't needed to exercise his checks and balances - the veto - at all. Jucicial appointees by the executive will likely slide through the senate with little real challenge. But god bless the electoral college, it gives those evil new york city dwellers 1/12 the influence on the presidential election that those wholesome citizens in wyoming enjoy.
This assumes that everyone or nearly everyone in those populous states will vote the same way. It's a stupid assumption, and it's a stupid argument against proportional representation for the president. Keep in mind that we already have an extremely powerful arm of the government that represents states rather than people; the senate.
I just heard on NPR that this is false. The machines in question have an odometer on them that indicates total votes on the machine since construction. The would-be-whistler blowers saw these numbers, and without understanding what it meant, spread the word about voter fraud right to the top of the RNC. This explanation may or may not be correct; NPR screws up sometimes, too.
I'm sorry, what does that have to do with spontaneous abortions?
Try googling for miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion". Here's some help
In reality, the fraction of conceptions that don't result in birth, discounting elective abortion, is quite large. There is nothing inevitable about it, trust me.
Thought experiment. A device for the artificial insemination of an egg has been set up. This device has been setup to perform its function in one hour. The effectiveness of the device is complete: allowing the device to run unhindered will bring about the inevitable result that a human egg is fertilized and embryo is created. Using the bizarro rules of logic that infect your reality, what is the status of the device as its timer ticks towards zero? Is it an "unborn person"? Does the inevitability constructed result in personhood of any form? What are the moral implications of a person stopping the device before the timer expires?
What have you to say about your "abortion == murder" argument?
PS. Log in you cowardly fuck.
Similarly, but to a lesser extent, the moral legitimacy of capital punishment is often determined by religious rather than othere means.
I agree that the government should not be involved in defining marriage or otherwise entangled in religious issues.
All of these things are overly entagled in fundamentalist America.
- Abortion = politics + religion
- Capital Punishment = politics + religion
- Same Sex Relationships = politics + religion
- Religion = religion
- Politics = poltics (but for some people, poltics = religion)
HTHNo. Do you understand what I am saying?
I think Saddam should have been left in power.
The "capacity for terror" is in many or most countries. For example, if the United States was invaded and occupied, and some large portion of the population embraced that occupation, you can bet your ass that the "capacity for terror" would show up in the US, too.
Your argument is simply rationalization for an act which is fundamentally unsupportable.
You are either very lucky, or lead a very sheltered existence, perhaps are not very observant, or are otherwise willfully ignorant. I grew up in Texas, lived there for a few years since growing up there, and racism is not rare there. This was not in trailer parks, btw. I've also seen racism in other states I've lived in, not just Texas.
I supect willful ignorance on your part, since you somehow seem to believe that the GOP has core values (is fiscal responsibility a core value?) while the democrats don't. Your us-versus-them attitude smacks of delusion, so it's easiest to use that as an explanation for your unawareness of racial bias and discrimination.
I don't know if there is any intentional racial discrimination on the part of the Republicans. It's possible, if there are attempts to keep certain elligible voters away, that the perpetrators don't care about race but only directly or indirectly select for race in order to achieve they result they want (less votes for Kerry). I did hear a story today on NPR about a man in Georgia who went to the court house, asked for the names of all Hispanic registered voters in the county, then returned with challenges of voter elligibility for nearly every one of those voters. To be fair, this action was not likely endorsed or even known to the GOP. It would be hard to defend this man's actions as race-neutral, though.
If you don't think that there is racial bias in the government, ask yourself why a disproportionate number of blacks are incarcerated in this country, especially for drug charges. Something like 14% of black males of voting age are incarcerated in florida. Because of the felony inelligibility rule in florida, something like a total of 25% of black males in florida are not able to vote. This isn't a republican problem, of course, but it certainly has some bearing on the allegations of voter fraud in Florida.
Have a nice day, party-puppet.
Then why your inflamatory signature about "Liberalism"? The sky in my reality is gray, lately, but I hear that in some parts of the country, they only have black and white.
PS, I never realized existentialism had any real bearing on the abortion debate. Could you elaborate?