The GP is not completely off base - I learned similar things in an ecological history course. I'm not sure about living longer, but hunter-gatherers were definitely healthier than farmers. For one thing, the much higher population density meant communicable diseases could flourish. They were also undernourished. Skeletal studies show that average heights dropped when agriculture introduced. And so on. See, eg, this essay by Jared Diamond. (In fact, this even backs up the GP's claim that hunter-gatherers lived longer.) On the other hand, hunter-gatherers had more violent lives, I think.
What exactly is your problem? Do you think that the engineering challenges inherent in rockets can and will be overcome, or not? Because that was the whole point of the comparison with sailing ships and submarines. Nobody is saying "rockets are easy", just that we have a history of surmounting technical obstacles. Why did this have to degenerate into a pissing contest? Is there some ancient rivalry between aerospace engineers and naval architects that I'm not aware of?
As the AC said, bollocks. The rate of increase is decreasing. The absolute increase is also decreasing. The UN's latest projections have a majority of even the developing countries falling below the replacement level. And on their "low" projection, the absolute world population peaks at less than 8 billion in the 2030s and then starts declining. (The other projections will also peak, but beyond the UN's 2050 cutoff date.) Who knows? Maybe things will change again and we will end up with a population of 80 billion by 2500. But it's absurd to assert that it's inevitable. On current trends, it's not even likely.
According to Sir Steve the change was made for the 1981 re-release; the Lucasfilm film archivist found reels of the actual elements used to make the revised shot, dated late 1980.
Yeah, I hate it when my memory plays tricks on me like that too!
In contrast NASA's budget gets us a pointless space station, a broken space shuttle and a few (very expensive) inter-planetary probes. (For example, Cassini cost 3 billion dollars!)
I agree with the first two points but Cassini was actually the last such expensive probe. For some time the philosophy at NASA has been "smaller, faster, cheaper" - send several cheap probes which do only a small numbers of tasks instead of one big probe that does everything - and they have been succeeding brilliantly, as the current Martian rovers show.
NASA does robotic exploration very well. The manned spaceflight program is sick - it needs a radical makeover or somebody else should take over the job.
OK, that's more like it. But it depends upon your definition of "caused" - the US wasn't directly involved in killing many of those people, but they supported those who did, or one side in a civil war. Attributing the over 800,000 deaths in the war in Afghanistan between the Soviets and the muhajedeen and the taliban to the United States is highly tendentious, if you ask me. There's also no distinction made as to whether the deaths were preventable, or who else might have been responsible. It wasn't the US that was responsible for the Korean war, and the North Koreans and Chinese killed a few people too. The number of people killed by the US is far smaller than the numbers arrived at on that page.
Exporting oil to Earth couldn't possibly be economical for a long, long time to come, if ever - the costs involved in finding, extracting and transporting it would be enormous, especially considering the complete lack of infrastructure and the round trip time of many months. I'd guess the price of oil would have to go up by many factors of 10 before this was a commercial prospect.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be at all surprised if somebody at Shell or BP had already done a feasibility study on this. (Hmm, and if they haven't, I know just the guy - a petroleum geologist at my workplace who has a sideline in Martian geology...)
Interesting suggestion, but I don't think it will fly. It seems clear that the term "third world" came first, as a deliberate reference and parallel by Sauvy to the "third estate" (those dispossessed before the French revolution). But it doesn't sound like he conceived of a "first world" and a "second world", but rather that the term "third world" became popular (it was useful in an era of decolonisation) and so people reasonably wondered what the first and second worlds might be. And as you say, it being the cold war, definitions came naturally. I don't see any reason to think that "old world/new world" has anything to do with it.
Interestlingly, according to the OED there was another definiton of "second world" as being the developed countries other than the USA and USSR, which was promoted by China after their estrangement from the USSR. I hadn't heard of that one. But it doesn't have any cites for prior meanings of the phrases.
Keep in mind that the US kills more people every year than terrorists or any other government. In fact, I believe its something on order of 1 mil a year since 1960 or so.
Keep in mind that for such a serious charge, you'd want to have some evidence. Please provide some. Reality check: on the figure you cite, Iraq has had 10,000+ civilian casualties in over a year. There are a bit over 100,000 US troops in Iraq. That's the biggest US military deployment since at least the first Gulf war. So in which countries exactly has the US killed the other 990,000 people in the last year? The troops doing the killing must be hyperefficient, given that they are killing far more people with far fewer troops. And in secret too, since nobody's heard about it (except you)...
Your claim is rubbish. But here's your chance to prove me wrong.
Actually, the definition given was "forever = 1 / blue moon", so forever is actually 1/13 months^-1, not 13 months. Basic dimensional analysis shows that this is rubbish, as it was also asserted that "eternity = forever + 1 day", and you can't add units of [time] and [time]^-1.
I'm glad somebody has a clue here... yes, you are quite right. Astronomers were pushing the state of the art in CCD technology more than a decade before consumer-level digital cameras were even a gleam in an engineer's eye. Hell, as a teenaged astronomy geek back in the '80s I knew what a CCD was, well before every man and his dog owned one of their own.
And Hubble's second servicing mission cost $347 million plus another $448 million for the Shuttle flight - I believe that is in 1996 dollars.
Most of that $347 million would have been already spent though, as the new instruments and gyroscopes have already been built. So the savings would only be $448 million (not exactly chump change, I admit...)
Isn't that something to do with the name being Yiddish in origin (which is fairly closely related to German)? Lots of Jewish names seem to be pronounced like that (hence the line in Young Frankenstein - "it's Franken-STEEN!"). But as you say this is confusing for people who know a little German (he's sitting over there... sorry), and it seems to be inconsistently applied, too.
Fair enough, but... who are these people who, it is claimed, don't consider the 1914-18 war a world war? I've read a lot about both wars and I don't recall seeing this claim made. In fact, currently the historiographical trend is in the opposite direction - to stress the global aspects of the First World War (eg Hew Strachan's books). I'd be interested to know if anyone has seriously argued that it wasn't a world war (as opposed to arguing it just for fun over a few beers).
I think the AC was being a bit of a smartass, implying that you meant "clauses" and not "sentences". Ie, because if they were sentences they would be seperated by periods, not commas.
Anyway, my personal take is that the OP's sentence was perfectly clear because "and that's a good thing" clearly referred to the preceding clause, so the comma was properly placed. But then my supervisor picks up on my placement of commas all the time, so what do I know...
Hey, good post, but are you claiming that Harvard was originally called Oxford? As far as I can tell it was originally called Harvard College. But maybe I am misreading you.
Yeah, well, tell that to the Argentinians. Granted, not one of the world's great naval powers, but the small British carriers were vital in maintaining a semblance of local air superiority during the Falklands war. (That's not to say they had enough, and they did lose some ships to air attack IIRC. But they would have lost a lot more without their Sea Harriers...) And the Argentine carrier stayed well clear of the Falklands, though perhaps more for fear of the British submarines than the carriers. It's true that British carriers are currently designed for air defence and not offence (although it's an exaggeration to say they can only defend the carrier itself, that would be kind of pointless...)
On the other hand, somebody at the Ministry of Defence obviously agrees that they lack offensive punch, because the three current 20000 tonne carriers are to be replaced by two 50000 tonne carriers, with an air wing of 40 or 50 (including Joint Strike Fighters). See here. Still not exactly the Nimitz, but a big improvement over current capabilities.
What, like X was good? I consider the last Trek movie to be the 2nd worst, next to V
Hey, this just gave me an idea- maybe we have been extrapolating from too limited a sample? Perhaps the rule is that trek movies are good when their numbers are divisible by 2 unless they are also divisible by 5. Unfortunately we will have to wait until Star Trek XX: Oh the Humanity to test this out.
A bit gauche to reply to myself, but according to this, Egan has been devoting his energies to the plight of refugees, oh sorry, "asylum seekers" (ie those dangerous people the Australian government protects us from by locking up in detention centres in the middle of nowhere for years on end). Well, good on him! But I do hope he gets back to SF soon.
Heh. I beg to differ, on the basis that the usage you propose is illogical. The word being quoted is "Nazi". The comma is not part of what was being quoted (it's not the "Nazi, Party"), therefore it should not be inside the quotes. I know most style guides would agree with you, but they are wrong! Fowler agrees with me, although he notes that it was not then (1908) the generally accepted style. (I believe the "new" Fowler goes the other way.) Also, I'm a history student, so I am concerned with accurate quotation; but anybody coming from a mathematical or programming background ought to be able to see the logic in this. The meaning changes when you move quote marks (or brackets etc) around.
I completely agree about Egan; Permutation City blew my mind... and he only got more impressive after that. (I think his handling of characters has even improved.)
But I am disturbed that he doesn't have any upcoming works listed on his website (which he still updates regularly). He had been bringing out a new book every year or 18 months, and he would have the title of the next one listed on the front page. But his last fiction (both novel and short) was published a bit over 2 years ago, and there is nothing listed as forthcoming. Has the famously reclusive Egan chucked it in? Writer's block? Problems finding a publisher? This is not good!!!
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The GP is not completely off base - I learned similar things in an ecological history course. I'm not sure about living longer, but hunter-gatherers were definitely healthier than farmers. For one thing, the much higher population density meant communicable diseases could flourish. They were also undernourished. Skeletal studies show that average heights dropped when agriculture introduced. And so on. See, eg, this essay by Jared Diamond. (In fact, this even backs up the GP's claim that hunter-gatherers lived longer.) On the other hand, hunter-gatherers had more violent lives, I think.
What exactly is your problem? Do you think that the engineering challenges inherent in rockets can and will be overcome, or not? Because that was the whole point of the comparison with sailing ships and submarines. Nobody is saying "rockets are easy", just that we have a history of surmounting technical obstacles. Why did this have to degenerate into a pissing contest? Is there some ancient rivalry between aerospace engineers and naval architects that I'm not aware of?
As the AC said, bollocks. The rate of increase is decreasing . The absolute increase is also decreasing. The UN's latest projections have a majority of even the developing countries falling below the replacement level. And on their "low" projection, the absolute world population peaks at less than 8 billion in the 2030s and then starts declining. (The other projections will also peak, but beyond the UN's 2050 cutoff date.) Who knows? Maybe things will change again and we will end up with a population of 80 billion by 2500. But it's absurd to assert that it's inevitable. On current trends, it's not even likely.
Oh, that old chestnut. There's really very little evidence that Bruno's cosmological views had much (if anything) to do with his execution.
Yeah, I hate it when my memory plays tricks on me like that too!
I agree with the first two points but Cassini was actually the last such expensive probe. For some time the philosophy at NASA has been "smaller, faster, cheaper" - send several cheap probes which do only a small numbers of tasks instead of one big probe that does everything - and they have been succeeding brilliantly, as the current Martian rovers show.
NASA does robotic exploration very well. The manned spaceflight program is sick - it needs a radical makeover or somebody else should take over the job.
OK, that's more like it. But it depends upon your definition of "caused" - the US wasn't directly involved in killing many of those people, but they supported those who did, or one side in a civil war. Attributing the over 800,000 deaths in the war in Afghanistan between the Soviets and the muhajedeen and the taliban to the United States is highly tendentious, if you ask me. There's also no distinction made as to whether the deaths were preventable, or who else might have been responsible. It wasn't the US that was responsible for the Korean war, and the North Koreans and Chinese killed a few people too. The number of people killed by the US is far smaller than the numbers arrived at on that page.
On the other hand, I wouldn't be at all surprised if somebody at Shell or BP had already done a feasibility study on this. (Hmm, and if they haven't, I know just the guy - a petroleum geologist at my workplace who has a sideline in Martian geology ...)
Interestlingly, according to the OED there was another definiton of "second world" as being the developed countries other than the USA and USSR, which was promoted by China after their estrangement from the USSR. I hadn't heard of that one. But it doesn't have any cites for prior meanings of the phrases.
Keep in mind that for such a serious charge, you'd want to have some evidence. Please provide some. Reality check: on the figure you cite, Iraq has had 10,000+ civilian casualties in over a year. There are a bit over 100,000 US troops in Iraq. That's the biggest US military deployment since at least the first Gulf war. So in which countries exactly has the US killed the other 990,000 people in the last year? The troops doing the killing must be hyperefficient, given that they are killing far more people with far fewer troops. And in secret too, since nobody's heard about it (except you) ...
Your claim is rubbish. But here's your chance to prove me wrong.
Conclusion? Mod GP up +1, Funny.
I'm glad somebody has a clue here ... yes, you are quite right. Astronomers were pushing the state of the art in CCD technology more than a decade before consumer-level digital cameras were even a gleam in an engineer's eye. Hell, as a teenaged astronomy geek back in the '80s I knew what a CCD was, well before every man and his dog owned one of their own.
Most of that $347 million would have been already spent though, as the new instruments and gyroscopes have already been built. So the savings would only be $448 million (not exactly chump change, I admit ...)
No problem ... I was not the AC who made the statement you were disagreeing with though, just a passer-by.
Yes! Very bad! I recommend smashing it with a hammer until it stops.
Isn't that something to do with the name being Yiddish in origin (which is fairly closely related to German)? Lots of Jewish names seem to be pronounced like that (hence the line in Young Frankenstein - "it's Franken-STEEN!"). But as you say this is confusing for people who know a little German (he's sitting over there ... sorry), and it seems to be inconsistently applied, too.
Fair enough, but ... who are these people who, it is claimed, don't consider the 1914-18 war a world war? I've read a lot about both wars and I don't recall seeing this claim made. In fact, currently the historiographical trend is in the opposite direction - to stress the global aspects of the First World War (eg Hew Strachan's books). I'd be interested to know if anyone has seriously argued that it wasn't a world war (as opposed to arguing it just for fun over a few beers).
Anyway, my personal take is that the OP's sentence was perfectly clear because "and that's a good thing" clearly referred to the preceding clause, so the comma was properly placed. But then my supervisor picks up on my placement of commas all the time, so what do I know ...
Hey, good post, but are you claiming that Harvard was originally called Oxford? As far as I can tell it was originally called Harvard College. But maybe I am misreading you.
On the other hand, somebody at the Ministry of Defence obviously agrees that they lack offensive punch, because the three current 20000 tonne carriers are to be replaced by two 50000 tonne carriers, with an air wing of 40 or 50 (including Joint Strike Fighters). See here. Still not exactly the Nimitz, but a big improvement over current capabilities.
Hey, this just gave me an idea- maybe we have been extrapolating from too limited a sample? Perhaps the rule is that trek movies are good when their numbers are divisible by 2 unless they are also divisible by 5. Unfortunately we will have to wait until Star Trek XX: Oh the Humanity to test this out.
A bit gauche to reply to myself, but according to this, Egan has been devoting his energies to the plight of refugees, oh sorry, "asylum seekers" (ie those dangerous people the Australian government protects us from by locking up in detention centres in the middle of nowhere for years on end). Well, good on him! But I do hope he gets back to SF soon.
Peace out.
Heh. I beg to differ, on the basis that the usage you propose is illogical. The word being quoted is "Nazi". The comma is not part of what was being quoted (it's not the "Nazi, Party"), therefore it should not be inside the quotes. I know most style guides would agree with you, but they are wrong! Fowler agrees with me, although he notes that it was not then (1908) the generally accepted style. (I believe the "new" Fowler goes the other way.) Also, I'm a history student, so I am concerned with accurate quotation; but anybody coming from a mathematical or programming background ought to be able to see the logic in this. The meaning changes when you move quote marks (or brackets etc) around.
But I am disturbed that he doesn't have any upcoming works listed on his website (which he still updates regularly). He had been bringing out a new book every year or 18 months, and he would have the title of the next one listed on the front page. But his last fiction (both novel and short) was published a bit over 2 years ago, and there is nothing listed as forthcoming. Has the famously reclusive Egan chucked it in? Writer's block? Problems finding a publisher? This is not good!!!