And this app will not help unless the unwed mothers accurately listed the sires (to use the animal breeding term). And the wed mothers, for that matter.
After all animals are breed to even closer relatives quite often.
Except that most animals are not as closely related as most humans. There was a genetic bottleneck about 80K years ago, and if someone is Asian or European there was another bottleneck as only a few tribes seem to have made it from Africa to the Mid-East back in the Paleolithic, to spread to the rest of the world. OTOH, a dog has so much variation in its genome that a mongrel bitch bred with her male pups produces pups more distant genetically than any two humans.
If you go back far enough, you'll find that someone put one over on her husband, and your Nth grandfather on someone's side is actually NOT your Nth grandfather on that someone's side by blood, just by law. If anything, that Royalty intermarries so much ensures that the current claimants to their thrones probably have some sort of claim, even if by a roundabout path and via the wrong side of a few beds.
Second cousins (what you too were) is only incest among the Brahmins of India (where it is apparently incestuous out to 7th cousins), and that only by custom, not law. Genetically, she might be any stranger of the same ethnic group. Of course, if second cousin is too close to you, it is too close, but that is a matter of choices, not law or genetics.
In Iceland, your family tree is public knowledge, probably written in alliterative verse and going back all the way to a couple generations before your ancestors left Norway in the 9th century. Also, all the feuds, killings, burnings of neighbors' steads with them inside, etc.:-)
More seriously, there is no expectation of privacy of public records like births, deaths, and marriages, and the Icelanders have been keeping good track of theirs for centuries. Since the app does not do a genetic check (yet!) it is limited to those public records, and any unacknowledged bastardy is omitted and/or covered up. It will not help an Icelandic Sigmund of the Volsungs realize that the woman he just impregnated is his sister, Signy, who was kidnapped as a child and raised with a false identity; that is left to the Gods to reveal.
Well... actually, these are pretty conservative and Christian (with a capital Fundamentalist) areas. There is no breeding without a marriage.
(boldface mine)
Seriously? And I suppose, in the Middle Ages, there were no illegitimate births because these were against Church Law, and all Europe recognized the supremacy of the Pope? And no Californian has sex before 18, the age of consent, despite researchers claiming that the average age is around 15?
Frankly, that these states have more Fundamentalists implies to me that they are more likely to pass laws that their people are unlikely to obey (like bourbon is made sometimes in counties and states where it cannot be legally sold for retail or consumed), but are believed to be for their own good. This also applies to Liberal Fundamentalists, who would ban smoking any cigarettes except those made from marijuana,
Interesting how states can void other states' marriages based on their own laws regarding cousins. Couldn't they do the same regarding gay marriage? And if not, why not?
In fact, they cannot void another state's marriages or divorces, due to the Full Faith And Credit clause in the Constitution. Once married in one state (A), a marriage must be recognized by any other state (B-ZX), even if the marriage partners could not enter into a marriage in that state (B). Thus, when some states allowed marriage as early as 14, all states had to recognize those marriages as legal (I'm looking at YOU, Jerry Lee Lewis) even though their own residents might still be below the age of consent, let alone marriage. Likewise, if two people were recognized as being in a common law marriage in state P, they are married in states that no longer recognize it (even if the same state, as older marriages are grandfathered in). If one state chose to change incest laws to recognize the marriage of Abraham and Sarah of Biblical fame, any marriages between half-siblings made in that state would be legal marriages in all. Likewise, if a state recognized any form of polygamy, or whatever else one could imagine.
The recognized exception is Louisiana, which because its civil law is based on the Napoleonic Code, does not recognize existing first cousin marriages legally entered into even in states where it was legal when the couple married. There are other differences, but I am not a member of the Louisiana State Bar, to list them all.:-)
The Defense of Marriage Act limits this recognition of marriages to only those between a man and a woman. It was created so that an activist judge in one state could not force every other state to recognize gay marriages; it also works to prevent activist legislatures, etc. If Constitutional, it means that those marriages are only recognized in those states that choose to accept them.
On the contrary, because your parents moved away, you might accidentally run into a relative whose parents also moved away, but because you didn't grow up knowing them (and that they were out of bounds), you might have run into one and...
See Sigmund and Signy Wolsung, and Arthur Pendragon and Morgan leFay, for this sort of problem.
but if we used Ancient German Naming, I'd only know a couple of cousins were related if my Dad had told me so....
But, if we still used Ancient German Naming, you would be taught to memorize your ancestors generations back, and would know most of your second cousins (at least) by sight. The AGN Method falls apart once relatives cease caring about being related, and stop visiting each other.
Canals, bridges, roads, standards, libraries... are built by Governments, in the USA by the will, funds, and demands of the people.
False. Most of the early canals, especially in England, were built by private corporations (just like the railroads). There are still private roads being built in the USA, and most town libraries are owned by local private associations, not the town or county. Not everybody lives in major cities, where the government took over these facilities from the original owners.
If I could dig a ditch from NY to LA. Should I get a patent on that ditch?
No, because there is prior art going back at least as far as the Roman Empire (assuming that you are smart enough to then fill the ditch with water).
OTOH, you have the right to charge tolls on it (assuming that you got the rights of way, first -- otherwise you get the right to a small cell in a big pen), and these tolls are what encourage people to build them. Well, mostly encouraged them, since canals aren't that easy to build in new places, anymore. The canal between the Rhine and the Danube doesn't count since that has been in and out of existence since the Late Roman Empire.
First off IAU has no authority to tell the public what they can and can't "officially" name anything neither do they have the right to redefine terms used by the public for thousands of years such as "planet".
Thousands of years ago, the Moon and the Sun were planets, and Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were blurs below the level of visibility, even Tycho Brache's eyes. Pluto was a planet for less time than the Buddha was on the Calendar Of Saints (before the Christians actually talked to Buddhists, rather than hearing of him third or worse hand), so I can grimace and bear it.
Second how can any of us be certain these exoplanets are actually planets since I doubt we can really tell whether they have yet to clear their neighborhood?
Now THAT is a good one! Let them be hoisted on their own plutard!
Finally spending money to name/vote on planets is a fairly seedy activity leaving me with a low opinion of both organizations.
Actually, the IAU no more names these "planets" than does the IUPAC "name" freon-12 as chlorofluoromethane. The official designations are astronomical position and order of discovery, which is no more a name than listing every base in someone's DNA would be.
Uwingu is obviously a scam to support NASA and the New Horizons Mission, no better than if they ran a state lottery instead. Worse, since a state lottery has to pay off for some of the innumerates who play it.
And when we finally meet the aliens from Tostitos III, how do we explain that to them?
Well, assuming that they do not have a 95% die-off as a consequence of meeting us, we will probably be stuck with their names, as long as they can be pronounced by non-!Kung humans (and differentiated from similar names -- if it matters terribly what the levels of the 6th vs. 7th overtones of the fundamental tone are, so that only those with perfect pitch and hearing can use their names, we will make up our own).
Get to the battle field first, knock out the communications, and obliterate the enemy.
Obviously AC has never read Sun Tzu. He was not a Chinese Nathan Bedford Forrest. A battle avoided, because the enemy had to retire rather than risk it, was always his best solution.
Except that the voting machines probably have hardware from China.
Granted, it is a bit of a stretch, but it IS on-topic. Blaming the machines' faults on Republicans, or pointing out that Chicago voters stay active in politics long after their deaths, however, is not.
Bill Clinton had lots of rumors floating about him being a ChiComm stooge, partially because several major supporters were shown to have laundered ChiComm contributions to his campaigns (he DID return the contributions after this was shown, even if always after the elections that the money helped him win).
.sarc on
Anyone want to bring up the Clinton Death Lists, now?
China is also a trading partner with the United States, and still they attack us. Dipshit.
France and Germany were each other's biggest trading partner right up until the declarations of war in WWII. I would not be surprised if that were true before WWI, as well. It happens.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans
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And I guess these volunteers show up with their own equipment (including fire engines) and pay for their own training.
Yes. They are, of course, charities, just like many ambulance services, and accept donations, hold fund raisers, etc. Their budgets are not backed up by the right to seize the property of non-contributors, nor do they refuse to put out fires of non-contributors' properties, unlike the fire company organized by Marcus Crassus of First Triumvirate fame.
After the volunteers start a company (which of course happened years ago, few towns aren't older than a few generations, after all), the fire company pays for someone to get trained, then he teaches the other members of the company, etc. Likewise, the fire company originally buys one or two pieces of equipment, usually used from other companies (including the "socialized" fire companies), and over time tries to upgrade. Sometimes it can take a while for the new equipment (our local company still has one red engine left, frex, rather than the "modern" yellow-green).
If you get a decent fire, a volunteer company might have to call another fire company for assistance, sometimes repeating for other companies. I can recall one case, locally, where five different volunteer companies eventually had to respond.
Re:also need to cut fluff and filler from Educatio
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Let's face it, using apostrophes for plurals and choosing the wrong homophone is something that should have been handled in grade school, or high school at the latest.
OTOH, I used to work with a couple of people who moved to the USA from West Germany in their teens (following their parents, or rather their jobs). They had no trace of accent by the time that I knew them (while the younger one was still in his PhD Math program) but neither could spell as well as Davy Crockett, let alone Joe_Dragon above. Maybe it isn't his or his schools' fault, since it seems that there is a window for learning the tricks of English grammar and spelling, just as there is for becoming literate or learning to speak. Show me his first grade attendance record from Normal, KS and I'll blame him, again.
Re: Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans
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Too many schools are begging rich alumni for gifts. At some point, the schools will become more in the service of those alumni than of the public.
You obviously do not subscribe to Sports Illustrated or watch ESPN, much. Alumni cheating scandals related to the Athletics Department, especially the money-making sports (or as I call them, the Minor Leagues for Football, Basketball, and Ice Hockey)(although I known someone with a pretty big Fencing scholarship) are rampant.
In a field more of interest, here, why do you think that DEC and later Apple had such huge price breaks for educational institutions (or Unix source licenses, for that matter, which were a couple hundred bucks for educational institutions and fifty thousand or so for commercial one), if not to bribe universities into using their products as opposed to IBM, Microsoft, Cobol, and all the other boring things which have always held the commercial market in thrall?
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans
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You forgot logging and furniture construction, and whatever else was in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Oh, and license plates, of course.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans
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Without subsidized student loans. many trades and professions would be closed to all but the sons and daughters of the very rich.
True, but do we really need more graduates majoring in French Literature, Black Studies, Women's Studies, or Magic (Isaac Bonewitz, I'm pointing at YOU! Or I would be if you were still alive) or (fill in your worst nightmare major here?
Which trades require subsidized loans to get into, and is the expense because of the subsidies?
If studios need more Film Studies majors (like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg) then they can establish their own scholarship committees, just as the various denominations have done for their ministers' educations.
Harvard is impossible to pay for, even with subsidized loans, because their limit is well below tuition. Except that Harvard has an endowment so huge that it can afford its own loans and grants, so that almost no one EXCEPT the plutocrats' and kleptocrats' children have to pay anything like full freight. Likewise for many other "great" schools. The tuition has been raised to suck up any available outside aid.
Re:Collateralized vs Non-Collateralized Loans
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Even here in America we now have socialized fire and police departments.
In point of fact, most US fire departments are staffed almost completely with volunteers. Sometimes a larger fire company might have a paid chief (like Steve Martin's character in the movie "Roxanne"), but only the largest departments are entirely made up of paid employees.
Actually, the reactor domes were designed to take a hit from the largest airliners or transport planes in existence at the time. Probably early model 747s, maybe even a C-5 Galaxy. So what happens when a 757 or 767 crashes into a working reactor? The paint is badly scratched. OK, maybe a crack that would be a problem if they can hit the same spot, a couple more times, but otherwise it is a big fail for the bad guys.
Really, the only way that a reactor is a danger is if you nuke them. And once you get to that point, you're screwed, regardless.
The above statements only apply to US-designed reactors, wherever they might have been built. I haven't studied the Japanese or Western European designs, really, and we all know what a joke reactor "safety" in the Soviet designs was.
Slashdot Mirror
And this app will not help unless the unwed mothers accurately listed the sires (to use the animal breeding term). And the wed mothers, for that matter.
After all animals are breed to even closer relatives quite often.
Except that most animals are not as closely related as most humans. There was a genetic bottleneck about 80K years ago, and if someone is Asian or European there was another bottleneck as only a few tribes seem to have made it from Africa to the Mid-East back in the Paleolithic, to spread to the rest of the world. OTOH, a dog has so much variation in its genome that a mongrel bitch bred with her male pups produces pups more distant genetically than any two humans.
If you go back far enough, you'll find that someone put one over on her husband, and your Nth grandfather on someone's side is actually NOT your Nth grandfather on that someone's side by blood, just by law. If anything, that Royalty intermarries so much ensures that the current claimants to their thrones probably have some sort of claim, even if by a roundabout path and via the wrong side of a few beds.
Second cousins (what you too were) is only incest among the Brahmins of India (where it is apparently incestuous out to 7th cousins), and that only by custom, not law. Genetically, she might be any stranger of the same ethnic group. Of course, if second cousin is too close to you, it is too close, but that is a matter of choices, not law or genetics.
In Iceland, your family tree is public knowledge, probably written in alliterative verse and going back all the way to a couple generations before your ancestors left Norway in the 9th century. Also, all the feuds, killings, burnings of neighbors' steads with them inside, etc. :-)
More seriously, there is no expectation of privacy of public records like births, deaths, and marriages, and the Icelanders have been keeping good track of theirs for centuries. Since the app does not do a genetic check (yet!) it is limited to those public records, and any unacknowledged bastardy is omitted and/or covered up. It will not help an Icelandic Sigmund of the Volsungs realize that the woman he just impregnated is his sister, Signy, who was kidnapped as a child and raised with a false identity; that is left to the Gods to reveal.
Well... actually, these are pretty conservative and Christian (with a capital Fundamentalist) areas. There is no breeding without a marriage.
(boldface mine)
Seriously? And I suppose, in the Middle Ages, there were no illegitimate births because these were against Church Law, and all Europe recognized the supremacy of the Pope? And no Californian has sex before 18, the age of consent, despite researchers claiming that the average age is around 15?
Frankly, that these states have more Fundamentalists implies to me that they are more likely to pass laws that their people are unlikely to obey (like bourbon is made sometimes in counties and states where it cannot be legally sold for retail or consumed), but are believed to be for their own good. This also applies to Liberal Fundamentalists, who would ban smoking any cigarettes except those made from marijuana,
Interesting how states can void other states' marriages based on their own laws regarding cousins. Couldn't they do the same regarding gay marriage? And if not, why not?
In fact, they cannot void another state's marriages or divorces, due to the Full Faith And Credit clause in the Constitution. Once married in one state (A), a marriage must be recognized by any other state (B-ZX), even if the marriage partners could not enter into a marriage in that state (B). Thus, when some states allowed marriage as early as 14, all states had to recognize those marriages as legal (I'm looking at YOU, Jerry Lee Lewis) even though their own residents might still be below the age of consent, let alone marriage. Likewise, if two people were recognized as being in a common law marriage in state P, they are married in states that no longer recognize it (even if the same state, as older marriages are grandfathered in). If one state chose to change incest laws to recognize the marriage of Abraham and Sarah of Biblical fame, any marriages between half-siblings made in that state would be legal marriages in all. Likewise, if a state recognized any form of polygamy, or whatever else one could imagine.
The recognized exception is Louisiana, which because its civil law is based on the Napoleonic Code, does not recognize existing first cousin marriages legally entered into even in states where it was legal when the couple married. There are other differences, but I am not a member of the Louisiana State Bar, to list them all. :-)
The Defense of Marriage Act limits this recognition of marriages to only those between a man and a woman. It was created so that an activist judge in one state could not force every other state to recognize gay marriages; it also works to prevent activist legislatures, etc. If Constitutional, it means that those marriages are only recognized in those states that choose to accept them.
On the contrary, because your parents moved away, you might accidentally run into a relative whose parents also moved away, but because you didn't grow up knowing them (and that they were out of bounds), you might have run into one and ...
See Sigmund and Signy Wolsung, and Arthur Pendragon and Morgan leFay, for this sort of problem.
but if we used Ancient German Naming, I'd only know a couple of cousins were related if my Dad had told me so....
But, if we still used Ancient German Naming, you would be taught to memorize your ancestors generations back, and would know most of your second cousins (at least) by sight. The AGN Method falls apart once relatives cease caring about being related, and stop visiting each other.
Canals, bridges, roads, standards, libraries ... are built by Governments, in the USA by the will, funds, and demands of the people.
False. Most of the early canals, especially in England, were built by private corporations (just like the railroads). There are still private roads being built in the USA, and most town libraries are owned by local private associations, not the town or county. Not everybody lives in major cities, where the government took over these facilities from the original owners.
If I could dig a ditch from NY to LA. Should I get a patent on that ditch?
No, because there is prior art going back at least as far as the Roman Empire (assuming that you are smart enough to then fill the ditch with water).
OTOH, you have the right to charge tolls on it (assuming that you got the rights of way, first -- otherwise you get the right to a small cell in a big pen), and these tolls are what encourage people to build them. Well, mostly encouraged them, since canals aren't that easy to build in new places, anymore. The canal between the Rhine and the Danube doesn't count since that has been in and out of existence since the Late Roman Empire.
First off IAU has no authority to tell the public what they can and can't "officially" name anything neither do they have the right to redefine terms used by the public for thousands of years such as "planet".
Thousands of years ago, the Moon and the Sun were planets, and Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were blurs below the level of visibility, even Tycho Brache's eyes. Pluto was a planet for less time than the Buddha was on the Calendar Of Saints (before the Christians actually talked to Buddhists, rather than hearing of him third or worse hand), so I can grimace and bear it.
Second how can any of us be certain these exoplanets are actually planets since I doubt we can really tell whether they have yet to clear their neighborhood?
Now THAT is a good one! Let them be hoisted on their own plutard!
Finally spending money to name/vote on planets is a fairly seedy activity leaving me with a low opinion of both organizations.
Actually, the IAU no more names these "planets" than does the IUPAC "name" freon-12 as chlorofluoromethane. The official designations are astronomical position and order of discovery, which is no more a name than listing every base in someone's DNA would be.
Uwingu is obviously a scam to support NASA and the New Horizons Mission, no better than if they ran a state lottery instead. Worse, since a state lottery has to pay off for some of the innumerates who play it.
And when we finally meet the aliens from Tostitos III, how do we explain that to them?
Well, assuming that they do not have a 95% die-off as a consequence of meeting us, we will probably be stuck with their names, as long as they can be pronounced by non-!Kung humans (and differentiated from similar names -- if it matters terribly what the levels of the 6th vs. 7th overtones of the fundamental tone are, so that only those with perfect pitch and hearing can use their names, we will make up our own).
Get to the battle field first, knock out the communications, and obliterate the enemy.
Obviously AC has never read Sun Tzu. He was not a Chinese Nathan Bedford Forrest. A battle avoided, because the enemy had to retire rather than risk it, was always his best solution.
Except that the voting machines probably have hardware from China.
Granted, it is a bit of a stretch, but it IS on-topic. Blaming the machines' faults on Republicans, or pointing out that Chicago voters stay active in politics long after their deaths, however, is not.
Or at least, so say I.
Bill Clinton had lots of rumors floating about him being a ChiComm stooge, partially because several major supporters were shown to have laundered ChiComm contributions to his campaigns (he DID return the contributions after this was shown, even if always after the elections that the money helped him win).
.sarc on
Anyone want to bring up the Clinton Death Lists, now?
.sarc off
China is also a trading partner with the United States, and still they attack us.
Dipshit.
France and Germany were each other's biggest trading partner right up until the declarations of war in WWII. I would not be surprised if that were true before WWI, as well. It happens.
And I guess these volunteers show up with their own equipment (including fire engines) and pay for their own training.
Yes. They are, of course, charities, just like many ambulance services, and accept donations, hold fund raisers, etc. Their budgets are not backed up by the right to seize the property of non-contributors, nor do they refuse to put out fires of non-contributors' properties, unlike the fire company organized by Marcus Crassus of First Triumvirate fame.
After the volunteers start a company (which of course happened years ago, few towns aren't older than a few generations, after all), the fire company pays for someone to get trained, then he teaches the other members of the company, etc. Likewise, the fire company originally buys one or two pieces of equipment, usually used from other companies (including the "socialized" fire companies), and over time tries to upgrade. Sometimes it can take a while for the new equipment (our local company still has one red engine left, frex, rather than the "modern" yellow-green).
If you get a decent fire, a volunteer company might have to call another fire company for assistance, sometimes repeating for other companies. I can recall one case, locally, where five different volunteer companies eventually had to respond.
Let's face it, using apostrophes for plurals and choosing the wrong homophone is something that should have been handled in grade school, or high school at the latest.
OTOH, I used to work with a couple of people who moved to the USA from West Germany in their teens (following their parents, or rather their jobs). They had no trace of accent by the time that I knew them (while the younger one was still in his PhD Math program) but neither could spell as well as Davy Crockett, let alone Joe_Dragon above. Maybe it isn't his or his schools' fault, since it seems that there is a window for learning the tricks of English grammar and spelling, just as there is for becoming literate or learning to speak. Show me his first grade attendance record from Normal, KS and I'll blame him, again.
Too many schools are begging rich alumni for gifts. At some point, the schools will become more in the service of those alumni than of the public.
You obviously do not subscribe to Sports Illustrated or watch ESPN, much. Alumni cheating scandals related to the Athletics Department, especially the money-making sports (or as I call them, the Minor Leagues for Football, Basketball, and Ice Hockey)(although I known someone with a pretty big Fencing scholarship) are rampant.
In a field more of interest, here, why do you think that DEC and later Apple had such huge price breaks for educational institutions (or Unix source licenses, for that matter, which were a couple hundred bucks for educational institutions and fifty thousand or so for commercial one), if not to bribe universities into using their products as opposed to IBM, Microsoft, Cobol, and all the other boring things which have always held the commercial market in thrall?
You forgot logging and furniture construction, and whatever else was in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Oh, and license plates, of course.
Without subsidized student loans. many trades and professions would be closed to all but the sons and daughters of the very rich.
True, but do we really need more graduates majoring in French Literature, Black Studies, Women's Studies, or Magic (Isaac Bonewitz, I'm pointing at YOU! Or I would be if you were still alive) or (fill in your worst nightmare major here?
Which trades require subsidized loans to get into, and is the expense because of the subsidies?
If studios need more Film Studies majors (like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg) then they can establish their own scholarship committees, just as the various denominations have done for their ministers' educations.
Harvard is impossible to pay for, even with subsidized loans, because their limit is well below tuition. Except that Harvard has an endowment so huge that it can afford its own loans and grants, so that almost no one EXCEPT the plutocrats' and kleptocrats' children have to pay anything like full freight. Likewise for many other "great" schools. The tuition has been raised to suck up any available outside aid.
Even here in America we now have socialized fire and police departments.
In point of fact, most US fire departments are staffed almost completely with volunteers. Sometimes a larger fire company might have a paid chief (like Steve Martin's character in the movie "Roxanne"), but only the largest departments are entirely made up of paid employees.
This being slashdot, somebody has to ask this, and I guess it comes to me:
How is this essentially different from setting up a Beowulf cluster of whatever servers that Nebula One supports?
Alternately: Just think of a Beowulf Cluster of these Nebula One clouds.
Actually, the reactor domes were designed to take a hit from the largest airliners or transport planes in existence at the time. Probably early model 747s, maybe even a C-5 Galaxy. So what happens when a 757 or 767 crashes into a working reactor? The paint is badly scratched. OK, maybe a crack that would be a problem if they can hit the same spot, a couple more times, but otherwise it is a big fail for the bad guys.
Really, the only way that a reactor is a danger is if you nuke them. And once you get to that point, you're screwed, regardless.
The above statements only apply to US-designed reactors, wherever they might have been built. I haven't studied the Japanese or Western European designs, really, and we all know what a joke reactor "safety" in the Soviet designs was.