Yes, English, Portuguese and Hindi all evolved from the same language. Except English and Portuguese diverged from each other much later than they did from Hindi. What's your point?
Right, actual experience, because you've personally met all 170 million Brazilians, haven't you? No, you have met a tiny subset of those 170 million and feel justified somehow in extrapolating that experience to the entire population. That's literally prejudice - pre-judging - and near enough to racist as makes no difference. Not knowing anything about the particular Brazilians in question except that (1) they are Brazilian and (2) they've launched a rocket into space, most people would not be prejudicial and conclude from (2) that these Brazilians must be pretty smart. You on the other hand are prejudicial, and so from (1) conclude that (2) is false, never for a moment considering the possibility that (2) undermines your belief that all Brazilians are stupid. Must be nice to have your opinions so insulated from reality, eh? Moron.
I know, I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls. It's a compulsion.
But will the United Caliphates of America share your research priorities?
Nice one, you've nailed norkakn there. I shudder to think how close this came to coming about. When those Islamic armoured divisions began rolling up the eastern seaboard, we all thought the USA was done for. But you guys sure showed them!
Hey, wait a minute, now that I think about it, the national existence of the USA has never been threatened by Islam. Am I getting my parallel universes mixed up again?
Erm, and why exactly do you think so? So the US would need X number of blimbs to maintain coverage, where X is probably something in the range 30 to 50... big deal? The USAF is buying 340 F-22s at a unit cost of well over $200 million, according to one estimate, anyway. What makes you think they couldn't afford 50 blimps? They've costed the prototype at $50 million, let's go crazy and say $100 million unit cost, for 50 that's $5 billion total. Almost real money. Your argument is ridiculous, if the technology is effective then it's only a matter of money and will.
Oh, rubbish. In WWI, even the hydrogen-filled variety weren't that easy to bring down, except up close, with incendiary bullets, and a lot of them. An air rifle would do nothing, especially to a blimp this big.
And while I'm here, what's with the article title? 19th century nothing, this is the best of early-20th century technology! People did try to develop airships off and on throughout the 19th century, but the first practical one didn't fly until the very end of that century, in 1900 (the first Zeppelin, LZ1), and the golden age of the airship lasted until 1940, when the last great rigid was scrapped, the Graf Zeppelin II.
* Disclaimer... All calculations were done back of envelope, with a standard #2 pencil, and my overworked brain, on a friday afternoon!
If your calculations are wrong, I don't think you have any right to expect anyone to make allowances for your poor overworked brain, given what an asshole you were to the original poster. Sure, he was wrong, very wrong, but he admitted his memory could be faulty and predicted that someone might do the calculations to disprove him. There was no need to go ballistic on him.
Hey, I often make this mistake myself. Seems rather strange - it's not like Phineas is any more common a name than Phileas! So I've done some googling and according to this, Phineas originates "From a poor translation. Original use unsure, but it has been used in Cartoons." Now I remember an "Around the World in 80 Days" cartoon from when I was a kid, and I bet that's where I got it from. Damnit, TV really is bad for you!
One of the concerns of Freeman Dyson, one of the originators of Orion was that the radiation placed into the atmosphere by a single launch produced a statistical guarantee that 10 people somewhere in the world would get cancer who otherwise would not have. He has a valid concern, but I think that has to be compared with 50,000 killed by cars. In one year. In the USA alone. By Dyson's reasoning, all cars should be scrapped, never mind the economic benefits, the quality of life, and the standard of living that the automobile presents.
There's an important difference, though. Each individual car trip has only a very small chance of killing somebody, so can by itself be considered safe. If each individual Orion trip is going to kill 10 people (even if you can't point to the bodies), it can easily be portrayed as unsafe. Sure, cars kill more people in total, but they are safer individually, and everyone can see why we need cars. Most people would probably not think the conquest of space was worth 10 dead people every launch, especially when those people were not themselves astronauts who had voluntarily accepted the risks.
I don't know about you, but I'd feel pretty bad if every time I drove a car I was giving somebody a death sentence, somewhere in the world.
Dunno if you're trolling or not, but it's "wogs", not "wops", and it's only gently derogatory at most, these days. And Italian-Australians are quite comfortable in identifying with the label or at least can see the humour in the stereotypes, the younger ones, anyway.
Yeah, Stargate is a bit of a sleeper. I had watched it off and on since the beginning, thought it was ok... then after a few years, at some point I realised I got pissed off when a season ended and there was no Stargate on TV. Damn you, McGuyver, now I'm addicted!
Wow, I remember when Unearthed Arcana came out. Now I feel old... We even called our team for a tournament "The Unearthed Arcanadaemons". (And I now I feel embarrassed!)
They're the same game. Looks like "snakes" was the original name - "chutes" dates from 1943, Britain imported "snakes" from India in the 1890s, and it looks like the (ancient) Indian version had snakes and ladders (although it was called "The ladder to salvation"). See here and here. Most countries seem to call it "snakes", lthough "chutes" makes more sense than "snakes" - who ever slid down a snake?
Those were at his first two colleges, which I assume were at a lower level than his last studies (although the fact he was doing "general studies" there hardly suggests that he was a postgraduate; in fact, there is no indication on his resume that he actually ever received any qualifications in any of the things he studied). Up to 2 years of "General Science/Engineering" and 3 years of "Math" don't make somebody a scientist, sorry. Geez, I did 2 years of math, and a total of 8 years of physics and astrophysics (including a master's degree), and I don't go around calling myself a scientist, just scientifically-trained.
Re:Cryptonomicon sub based on real-life incident?
on
Ask Neal Stephenson
·
· Score: 1
Erm, did you bother to read to the end of his post? The bit about his current job being "IT Director (Own business)"? How do you square his now owning his own company with him also being a no-ambition, go-nowhere loser?
OK, but the argument was that if God exists, he will save us from impending ecological doom, and we don't need to do anything to fix the problems ourselves. But if God doesn't exist, then nobody is going to save us. Therefore, prudence suggests that we assume God does not exist, and attempt to find our own solution.
Why do the proponents of the global warming theory always call scientists that disagree with global warming greedy? Do all scientists that support global warming do so out of the kindness of their hearts? Or could their research also be bought by special interests?
Maybe it's because those that disagree often seem to have links to companies that profit by inaction on global warming, see eg here. It's harder to see who would benefit from taking a pro- position. Environmental technology companies, or something like that, but if you think they have a thousandth of the financial or political clout of the big greenhouse emitting industries (oil, coal, etc) then you're dreaming. Most of the scientists who think greenhouse is real seem to have government funding, ie at universities or other independent research organisations. (I work with some; it's all government funded here.) It's hard to see why governments would want there to be a greenhouse problem, so as far as money is concerned, the bias is surely against greenhouse. Now if you are talking ideology or group pressure to conform, arguments could be made there about the pro-greenhousers (though I don't buy them myself), but it's not about money. It's not about kindness either - it's about the evidence.
Well if anything it would only disprove that the deluge didn't happen as described in the book (or interpreted), not that there is no christian God...
No, it does disprove the "Fundie God" (which is what the GP claimed) because the fundamentalist position is that the Bible is literally true. Therefore, if part of the Bible can be shown to be untrue, their particular version of God has been disproven.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, English, Portuguese and Hindi all evolved from the same language. Except English and Portuguese diverged from each other much later than they did from Hindi. What's your point?
I know, I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls. It's a compulsion.
Nice one, you've nailed norkakn there. I shudder to think how close this came to coming about. When those Islamic armoured divisions began rolling up the eastern seaboard, we all thought the USA was done for. But you guys sure showed them!
Hey, wait a minute, now that I think about it, the national existence of the USA has never been threatened by Islam. Am I getting my parallel universes mixed up again?
Oh, but there's still his whiny "I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters" ...
Erm, and why exactly do you think so? So the US would need X number of blimbs to maintain coverage, where X is probably something in the range 30 to 50 ... big deal? The USAF is buying 340 F-22s at a unit cost of well over $200 million, according to one estimate, anyway. What makes you think they couldn't afford 50 blimps? They've costed the prototype at $50 million, let's go crazy and say $100 million unit cost, for 50 that's $5 billion total. Almost real money. Your argument is ridiculous, if the technology is effective then it's only a matter of money and will.
And while I'm here, what's with the article title? 19th century nothing, this is the best of early-20th century technology! People did try to develop airships off and on throughout the 19th century, but the first practical one didn't fly until the very end of that century, in 1900 (the first Zeppelin, LZ1), and the golden age of the airship lasted until 1940, when the last great rigid was scrapped, the Graf Zeppelin II.
If your calculations are wrong, I don't think you have any right to expect anyone to make allowances for your poor overworked brain, given what an asshole you were to the original poster. Sure, he was wrong, very wrong, but he admitted his memory could be faulty and predicted that someone might do the calculations to disprove him. There was no need to go ballistic on him.
Hey, I often make this mistake myself. Seems rather strange - it's not like Phineas is any more common a name than Phileas! So I've done some googling and according to this, Phineas originates "From a poor translation. Original use unsure, but it has been used in Cartoons." Now I remember an "Around the World in 80 Days" cartoon from when I was a kid, and I bet that's where I got it from. Damnit, TV really is bad for you!
There's an important difference, though. Each individual car trip has only a very small chance of killing somebody, so can by itself be considered safe. If each individual Orion trip is going to kill 10 people (even if you can't point to the bodies), it can easily be portrayed as unsafe. Sure, cars kill more people in total, but they are safer individually, and everyone can see why we need cars. Most people would probably not think the conquest of space was worth 10 dead people every launch, especially when those people were not themselves astronauts who had voluntarily accepted the risks.
I don't know about you, but I'd feel pretty bad if every time I drove a car I was giving somebody a death sentence, somewhere in the world.
Dunno if you're trolling or not, but it's "wogs", not "wops", and it's only gently derogatory at most, these days. And Italian-Australians are quite comfortable in identifying with the label or at least can see the humour in the stereotypes, the younger ones, anyway.
Yeah, Stargate is a bit of a sleeper. I had watched it off and on since the beginning, thought it was ok ... then after a few years, at some point I realised I got pissed off when a season ended and there was no Stargate on TV. Damn you, McGuyver, now I'm addicted!
Wow, I remember when Unearthed Arcana came out. Now I feel old ... We even called our team for a tournament "The Unearthed Arcanadaemons". (And I now I feel embarrassed!)
They're the same game. Looks like "snakes" was the original name - "chutes" dates from 1943, Britain imported "snakes" from India in the 1890s, and it looks like the (ancient) Indian version had snakes and ladders (although it was called "The ladder to salvation"). See here and here. Most countries seem to call it "snakes", lthough "chutes" makes more sense than "snakes" - who ever slid down a snake?
Yes, and d4's make great caltrops, if you need to delay your pursuers while making a quick getaway!
Outstanding, you were one lucky little geek! I would have killed to go to something like that when I was a kid ...
Geez, man, you call that humour? Where's the "In Soviet Russia, Mars explores YOU!!!" joke?
Those were at his first two colleges, which I assume were at a lower level than his last studies (although the fact he was doing "general studies" there hardly suggests that he was a postgraduate; in fact, there is no indication on his resume that he actually ever received any qualifications in any of the things he studied). Up to 2 years of "General Science/Engineering" and 3 years of "Math" don't make somebody a scientist, sorry. Geez, I did 2 years of math, and a total of 8 years of physics and astrophysics (including a master's degree), and I don't go around calling myself a scientist, just scientifically-trained.
No, I doubt he's that gullible.
Dude, check your preferences, use a sig!
Erm, did you bother to read to the end of his post? The bit about his current job being "IT Director (Own business)"? How do you square his now owning his own company with him also being a no-ambition, go-nowhere loser?
OK, but the argument was that if God exists, he will save us from impending ecological doom, and we don't need to do anything to fix the problems ourselves. But if God doesn't exist, then nobody is going to save us. Therefore, prudence suggests that we assume God does not exist, and attempt to find our own solution.
Maybe it's because those that disagree often seem to have links to companies that profit by inaction on global warming, see eg here. It's harder to see who would benefit from taking a pro- position. Environmental technology companies, or something like that, but if you think they have a thousandth of the financial or political clout of the big greenhouse emitting industries (oil, coal, etc) then you're dreaming. Most of the scientists who think greenhouse is real seem to have government funding, ie at universities or other independent research organisations. (I work with some; it's all government funded here.) It's hard to see why governments would want there to be a greenhouse problem, so as far as money is concerned, the bias is surely against greenhouse. Now if you are talking ideology or group pressure to conform, arguments could be made there about the pro-greenhousers (though I don't buy them myself), but it's not about money. It's not about kindness either - it's about the evidence.
Oh wow, I didn't even notice that. And what's worse, if you look at the bottom of the ESP webpage, you'll see it's actually his website.
No, it does disprove the "Fundie God" (which is what the GP claimed) because the fundamentalist position is that the Bible is literally true. Therefore, if part of the Bible can be shown to be untrue, their particular version of God has been disproven.
Sure, you can ask what caused that? But as you can also ask what caused God, this doesn't help your position.