Eaters of the Dead is based on more than Beowulf. The principal character, and perhaps the first third(?) of the book, are based directly on the adventures of Ibn Fadlan, an Arab geographer and traveler of the 10th century. He provided some of the best contemporary descriptions of Norse (in this case actually Rus on the Volga(?)) life and ways. I have off and on for years considered tracking down his "Travels" and finding out where he left off and Crichton took up in EOTD. Eaters of the Dead is really mostly historical fiction rather than sci-fi. If you liked Beowulf, you should probably read Grendel as well. The story is told from the monster's view point in it.
he apparently read a different article than anyone else. You may disagree with Dvorak's view of the available GUIs for Linux as simplistic to the point of having missed the boat, but when Dvorak stated that Linux had its roots in x86 and wintel, it was Linux he mentioned, not the whole free software movement. What he said was true in so far as Linux was developed to run on an x86. Also, the more recent GUI development has borrowed some ideas - and not necessarily the best ones - from Windows. Dvorak may even have a point in criticizing the drift toward immitation windows functionality. Immitating the windows GUI might help steal away some desktop users, but it isn't new and it isn't interesting. Enlightenment and Windowmaker are two GUIs, both interesting and different, that Dvorak apparently did not look at.
A Russian company's software goes "afoul" of US law?? By the same token, if you followed the case, Adobe's eBook copy protection is "afoul" of Russian law, which requires that computer software permit backup copies. If you have ever experienced dealing with Russian or Ukrainian power supplies, the reason for this is quite clear. I have watched a current meter monitoring a nominal 220 volt line swing from 100 volts to 350 volts and back, never remaining stable. Harddrives smoke, mother boards burn up, power supplies die, multiple layers of surge suppressors fail sequentially, electric moptors of all kinds give up far more rapidly than you would expect. The odor of burning electronics can become depressingly familiar.
Adobe is lucky that the renamed version of the KGB hasn't lured an eBook developer or two there and arrested them for violations of Russian law. The case was stupid from the get-go.
...advanced arguments that outlined many of the basic ideas that distinguish modern science including the idea that investigations need to cooperative, that many research questions will require social backing and multiple generations of endeavour in order to succeed. The earliest scientific bodies were organized around the baconian model.
Key to these ideas was the view that science advances through the open commnuication of data and ideas. Once published, stealing "their hardwork" is an absurd idea. Without the review of others, their "hard work" might have been little more than mistakes and nonsense. Besides which, few journals pay authors much. The "carrot" a journal offers is usually exposure - fame not wealth.
The issue has never been whether warming occurs naturally or not. The rate is the issue and presumably the level of warming at which the cycle terminates. Right now all environmentalists have - wacko or not - is an apparent linkage, possibly coincidental, between industrial increases in greenhouses gases and the rate of warming. Be that as it may, if you live in low-lying areas (a lot of the eastern seaboard and the lower Great Valley in California come to mind), you may very well be taking a water-taxi to work within the next 70 years. If perchance, moderating our output of green houses could moderate or vitiate this eventuality, doesn't it seem like a rational thing to do? Personally, I expect that evolution will do its job regardless and any civilization to lazy, greedy, and stupid to look further than next week deserves what may come to it. So bring on the warming say I.
It's over a distance of 500 sq miles, which is about a 22.3 * 22.3 mile square. People can see 22 miles and with any number of instruments (a flag, a shiny bit of metal, whatever) could direct others to draw lines. This would only take a few days to mark the places to dig.
I agree with your conclusions. The Inca and their predecessors were adept at surveying and built carefully graded canals that were miles long.
However I think you are probably neglecting some essentials about the visibility issue. First, the earth's curvature. From twenty miles off, the object would have to be tall enough to stand above your horizon. For a six foot tall individual this distance is less than five kilometers (see this for example). Atmospheric conditions that increase refraction can increase this distance, but normally not much.
Another point is object size. A two meter object subtends about 1/5,000 of a degree of arc at 10 kilometers - 6 miles - (if my trig is correct). Regardless of how clear the atmosphere may be, a normal human eye doesn't have that kind of resolution.
Very long linears can be accurately surveyed in short segments using geometric methods provided that care is exercised. A siting device such as a staff, ropes, and pegs for swinging arcs, and possibly a leveling device, are probably all that was necessary. High visibilty probably was not necessary. In fact, the lines could probably have been done in moderate fog.
why should a computer crime carry a lesser weight than say speeding in a car? It's the same thing, except on a different level.
Ah but what was the crime, how defined, and by whom? The article says uncapping is illegal, presumably under federal law since the FBI was called in. What is more disturbing is that somehow the ISP had to convince the FBI to become involved by coming up with a figure in excess of $250K in "damage." Then they had to somehow imply a "collective" guilt so that while no single person arrested was accused of $250k in damage, the FBI still must have treated the group as a conspiracy in order to go after them. Frankly, it sounds as if the ISP may be guilty of a fraudulent complaint.
Thanks to local construction, Wirtz, who never signed a contract with Buckeye, claims his broadband connection was incapable of achieving speeds higher than 128kbps down. By utilizing a Cisco configuration file, he uncapped his Motorola Surfboard modem to 2.5MBps, for what he estimates was no more than a total of 16 hours, and only when he needed to move large files.
Apparently not everyone even HAD a contract. Though the "16 hours" bit DOES sound disingenuous to me.
The article states that the ISP is claiming that collectively the "suspects" had "stolen" over $250,000 in bandwidth, which in turn lead to the Gesta - ah - the FBI knocking on doors and "seizing" all the coolest hardware, while leaving the only real "culprit" piece in place. The FBI apparently is interested in economic crimes that are not big ticket items. The ISP had to indulge in some very creative accounting in order to demonstrate how really aweful the offenders. I should also think that the FBI neglected to check the complainant's arithmetic to be sure there wasn't a misplaced decimal point or two.
Shryock also confirmed the company wasn't sure how customers were getting the extra speed. "We don't fully understand how they're pulling this off just yet, but we're learning more every day."
In other words the ISP isn't simply dishonest, but incompetent as well, since their cusomers could use a simple configuration on file on their cable modems to reset them. Bandwidth management should have been handled at the server end. Any dial-up modem can be forced to a speed limit. The servers owned by the ISP should be far more sophisticated.
Could you delineate some of the "good" that driver's licenses do? And perhaps point out why you think it is good? Thinking about it, I can't see anything a driver's license does that can be thought of as "good." It certainly doesn't stop people without licenses, or with suspended licenses, from driving. Picture ID, come on. Ah, there's a thought, it does provided gainful employment for the people who work at DMV, so I suppose you could argue that it keeps them off the street and working, so the crime rate is a little lower.
No, in fact, the corporations collected the same information on their own - the federal agency just duplicated their efforts, at taxpayer expense.
This is shear baloney. Few private corporations conduct the same kind of research the government does, and certainly never at the scale the government does. Keeping publicly funded information from the public makes the public pay twice alright, once when the government funds it with our taxes, and once when a private corporation profits from your taxes. Yet they use and republish government funded information on a day to day basis and profit from it handsomely. Mapping is a good example. No private company produces much of the midscale mapping data they employ for geological and geographic studies. Census data, paid for by taxes, is used regularly for marketing. No company pays extra for this by redoing the work. They repackage what YOU already helped pay for. They are not providing original work, except occasionally through repackaging as in the National Geopgraphic TOPO! or similar software published by companies that provides a digital interface to government produced maps.
You are correct. The 50,000 was the result of me hurrying. I added an extra zero there when I entered what was intended as a rounded figure in the calculator, then stupidly repeated it when I (accurately) transcribed my mistake, and carefully punctuated it. The two common half-life figures I am familiar with are the Libby half-life of 5568 +/- 30 years and the Cambridge figure of 5730 +/- 40 years which you mention. This of course puts the Cretaceous about 14,000 radiocarbon half-lifes away, not the mere 1,400 I had came up with there.
Thanks for the correction. It is why there is peer review in science.
As others have no doubt pointed out, you misunderstand what radiometric dating is, and more importantly, you seem to be missing something about the nature of radio-carbon, such as where it comes from, its half-life, and its application in archaeological and paleontological dating.
First C-14 is the only readioactive form of carbon used for radiometric dating. No physical collision at any speed that occurs in the earth's vicinity could produce it. The isotope is produced by the interaction of cosmic rays and N-14 (that is a nitrogen isotope). The C-14 later decays reverting to N-14 and emitting a neutrino. The produciton of C-14 takes place within the earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere alone contains enough gas in any form to act as a significant source to donate radiocarbon into the biosphere. No significant amount of carbon arrives from space and no C-12 coming from space could have any significance to the production of C-14; they are not related, and C-12 plays no roll in the existence of C-14.
Second, who ever told you about the "small mountain" had a serious case of rectal-cranial inversion. Additional radiocarbon would cause an organic mass to appear younger, not older, though many thoroughly confused and consistently ignorant creationists persist in thinking the opposite.
Last and most important, radiocarbon has a half-life of about 50,000 years and a useabilility range for dating purposes of about 100,000 years at best, if accelerated mass spectroscopy dating methods are employed. Since dinosaurs disappeared from the planet about 70,000,000 years ago, radiocarbon is useless, because about 1400 half-lives of radio carbon have passed. For practical purposes that means that there is no C-14 left in any sample you look at.
Actually, if you do a little research, it has been experimentally proven that "post-modern" language, if that is what you want to call it, and non-sense are indistinguishable to proponents of post-modernism. I kid you not. Some years ago a "paper" was generated using a computer programmed to plug in p-m catch phrases. The piece was published, and IIRC, was critically approved of among the sacrosanct priesthood of P-M. The last I heard there were still some proponents who were certain the "computer generated" aspect was a hoax.
However, this being the case, it is certainly reasonable to argue that drivel and post-modernist language are indistinguishable to those of us who do not pretend to understand the WTH post-modernists are purveying. Following that line further along, since neither adovcates nor critics of P-M can distinguish between drivel and P-M, it apears that P-M and drivel are synonymous.
consider it as an adaption to a society where you are taken care of and fed no matter how fit you are
What you are describing would be the opposite of adaptation. It would be a lack of selective pressure in turn allowing more mutations to survive, presumably because they are not being culled naturally or culturally. However, that still is not likely to be what we are looking at here. New traits could not manifest this quickly or homogenously. If the change is effecting genetics, it looks as if some environmental factor is unmasking an existing variation in the genome, or is creating a highly specific alteration of some site. I think a more likely agent would be a chemical or drug that targets a specific developing structure. This would be a better bet as a causal agent than electronic devices, since it would account for specific kinds of alteration better than a random agent like lack of selective pressure. Thalidomide does something similar to fetuses, when they were exposed at a critical developmental stage.
Not that this changes the actual logic, but I think these problems arise from poor language skills rather than poor math skills. After all, I have seen few if any "/."rs complain about a barbarism like "architected" substituted for "design." And I've encountered cross-eyed confusion as some illerate tries to work out why "trialling" is wrong but "testing" is OK.
GREENA green light means "GO," but first let any vehicles, bicyclists, or pedestrians remaining in the intersection get through before you move ahead. If you are turning left, make the turn only if you have enough space to complete the turn before any oncoming vehicle, bicyclist, or pedestrian becomes a hazard.
Do not enter an intersection, even when the light is green, unless you can get completely across before the light turns red. If you block the intersection, you can be cited.
Correct, so far as it goes. However, "blocking" the intersection is entering when you will have to stop and wait in before leaving. Blocking the intersection usually happens at no more than five miles and hour in bumper to bumper traffic, when following cars insist on crossing even though the driver knows the light is changing. This can endanger people, cause even worse traffic congestion, and hamper emergency vehicles.
However, since yellows last about 4 seconds, it is easy to glance away for a trifle too long at the wrong moment and miss the entire light. If, due to speed and proximity to the intersection, you are going to enter before you could stop for the red light, you proceed legally across, rather than desperately slamming on the brakes and causing a multi-car pile up.
Yellow stands for "prepare to stop." If this can't be done, then the intersection is your's. Cross traffic and crossing pedestrians are supposed to wait until the intersection has cleared before entering. So says the state driver's education people to state employees. The teacher's words were, IIRC, "...even if the light is yellow for only a thousandth of second after you enter..." The teacher was a traffic cop. The surprise was considerable.
In the great state of California, enter on yellow and the intersection is yours. I have frieds who work for the state and who have taken the training required for drivers of state vehicles and the point is made that entry on yellow is legal. If this is not true in other states I can see where some real confusion could be arising. Sort of like the Californian right turn on red after a stop used to net a traffic fine in Oregon. Of course it can be really interesting over seas. In Israel, there are yellow lights preceding both red AND green lights. If you don't start to creep as soon as the yellow before green appears horns start to blow. Count your blessings.
The claim can't be countered. Cancer statistics for the US can be acquired at http://seer.cancer.gov. A google search for "cancer incidence" will bring up. As regards the assertion that cancer becomes more prevalent with age, that is true. Cancer in children is tragic, but uncommon, about 22 in 10,000. It is sad, but pointless to rant about it.
Also, anyone who has spent any time around hospices and hospitals should have noticed that there are far more elderly there, dying of cancer than there are young. My 96 year-old grandmother is one.
The following figures are generated from the "seer" page:
AGE INCIDENCE 0-15 years p=0.22% 15-30 years p=0.55% 30-45 years p=2.08% 45-60 years p=8.85% 60-75 years p=21.75% 75-90 years p=25.82%
If you are familiar with typical population mortality profiles in traditional and "pre-medical" societies, then you are likely aware that the expected longevity is about 35 years. Only the advent of modern medicine and dentistry seem to affect this figure, regardless of the stories of extraordinarily long-lived people in Central Asia. All societies, regardless of medical technology do have some individuals that lived a long time, even by our standards, but that is simple chance.
The correlation between the increase in cancer and increased age is striking, and almost certainly is due to the effects of evolution, especially the jump between 30 and 45. This is just as the poster suggested.
. . . Bronze Age minds. The only true surprise is how many are still around, not just Creationists , but flat earthers, Marxists, Democrats, Republicans, . ..
There are reportedly 100 plus "extrasolar" planets now listed somewhere. The jury is also still out on the sunspot theory for that recent find. The original finders are reportedly investigating further and don't agree with "sunpots." Right at the moment I think the Italian announcement may be the ONLY disucssion regarding an extrasolar planet that is using apparently direct evidence. The majority of these planets are identified indirectly through the effects they reportedly have on their respective stars.
Presently the most likely kind of planet that would be detected beyond the solar system will be very large and likely have an excentric orbit, or else orbit very close to the parent star. This is merely a limitation imposed by the available methods for finding them, which are best suited for finding massive planets orbiting relatively small stars. Another few years and astronomers may be imaging or otherwise detecting smaller, earthlike planets, but not yet.
I think the single most important lesson that the detection of all these new planets provides is directed to the nature of our own system. Initially we knew the sun was pretty average as stars go. The most reasonable view would be that statistically the solar system as a whole was likely to be pretty average as well, but we were stuck with a sample of one, which is not very helpful since we live here. The place is important to us, but is it unique in the universe or boringly typical? Physically it is now begining to look as if our home system is very average. This implies interesting things about the occurrence of life in the universe, but offers a worrisome view of the presence or absence of intelligence.
Life is likely to be common. The more we know about it, the more it appears that life might be nearly inevitable and that at least bacterial-level life might be common, an average trait of average solar systems. For instance, the jury is still out on Mars, but each new piece of evidence seems to make it more possible, if not yet probable that bacteria-like forms may live or have lived there. The recent discussion about the nature of apparent biogenic magnetite in Martian meteorites, is interesting and suggestive, though non-life-based processes that are non-existent, or very, very uncommon, on earth still cannot be ruled out. However, if two local planets do indeed prove to have indigenous life, and if as the mounting data suggests, planets are common, then there is also a mounting likelihood that life is common throughout the universe. The flip side though is that the absence of evidence of other intelligence out there may mean that in the longer run, intelligence has yet to prove adaptive for life forms.
It is not an agenda, it is a value system. The agenda sets research priorities and ultimately funding. The problem with Bush, and the Christian Right embedded in the existing US political parties, is that a special interest group with a priori convictions about what God meant man to know is trying to usurp the privilege of allowing scientists to set their own agenda. Robert Heinlein charcterized this perfectly in "Job."
And secondly, what is considered acceptable subject matter for research by the taxpayer? Scientists often forget that it's the "unwashed masses" who foot the bill for their expensive toys. No matter what scientists think are the benefits - and no matter how skillful their rhetoric - if the general public doesn't want to fund research into XXX, then those scientists should not receive a penny of taxpayer's money.
So, just how does this square with packing a scientific review or advisory committee? Which particular part of the public do we ask about this? The implication in your post is that somehow "the public" has a monolithic opinion, rather than being slightly shy of a civil war over issuues like "right to life," cloning, and whether the earth is really spheroidal or flat. I know what I would like to see MY tax dollar funding, but would that be the same as yours?
When you get right down to it, Bush can't claim any kind of "public" mandate on this issue because he wasn't elected. The US Supreme Court acted like a body of oligarchs and decided an issue as they saw fit and placed him in the Whitehouse. I suspect that had there been a "none of the above" choice on the 2000 ballot that both the Democrats and Republicans would still be wondering what hit them.
Slashdot Mirror
Eaters of the Dead is based on more than Beowulf. The principal character, and perhaps the first third(?) of the book, are based directly on the adventures of Ibn Fadlan, an Arab geographer and traveler of the 10th century. He provided some of the best contemporary descriptions of Norse (in this case actually Rus on the Volga(?)) life and ways. I have off and on for years considered tracking down his "Travels" and finding out where he left off and Crichton took up in EOTD. Eaters of the Dead is really mostly historical fiction rather than sci-fi. If you liked Beowulf, you should probably read Grendel as well. The story is told from the monster's view point in it.
he apparently read a different article than anyone else. You may disagree with Dvorak's view of the available GUIs for Linux as simplistic to the point of having missed the boat, but when Dvorak stated that Linux had its roots in x86 and wintel, it was Linux he mentioned, not the whole free software movement. What he said was true in so far as Linux was developed to run on an x86. Also, the more recent GUI development has borrowed some ideas - and not necessarily the best ones - from Windows. Dvorak may even have a point in criticizing the drift toward immitation windows functionality. Immitating the windows GUI might help steal away some desktop users, but it isn't new and it isn't interesting. Enlightenment and Windowmaker are two GUIs, both interesting and different, that Dvorak apparently did not look at.
A Russian company's software goes "afoul" of US law?? By the same token, if you followed the case, Adobe's eBook copy protection is "afoul" of Russian law, which requires that computer software permit backup copies. If you have ever experienced dealing with Russian or Ukrainian power supplies, the reason for this is quite clear. I have watched a current meter monitoring a nominal 220 volt line swing from 100 volts to 350 volts and back, never remaining stable. Harddrives smoke, mother boards burn up, power supplies die, multiple layers of surge suppressors fail sequentially, electric moptors of all kinds give up far more rapidly than you would expect. The odor of burning electronics can become depressingly familiar.
Adobe is lucky that the renamed version of the KGB hasn't lured an eBook developer or two there and arrested them for violations of Russian law. The case was stupid from the get-go.
...advanced arguments that outlined many of the basic ideas that distinguish modern science including the idea that investigations need to cooperative, that many research questions will require social backing and multiple generations of endeavour in order to succeed. The earliest scientific bodies were organized around the baconian model.
Key to these ideas was the view that science advances through the open commnuication of data and ideas. Once published, stealing "their hardwork" is an absurd idea. Without the review of others, their "hard work" might have been little more than mistakes and nonsense. Besides which, few journals pay authors much. The "carrot" a journal offers is usually exposure - fame not wealth.
The issue has never been whether warming occurs naturally or not. The rate is the issue and presumably the level of warming at which the cycle terminates. Right now all environmentalists have - wacko or not - is an apparent linkage, possibly coincidental, between industrial increases in greenhouses gases and the rate of warming. Be that as it may, if you live in low-lying areas (a lot of the eastern seaboard and the lower Great Valley in California come to mind), you may very well be taking a water-taxi to work within the next 70 years. If perchance, moderating our output of green houses could moderate or vitiate this eventuality, doesn't it seem like a rational thing to do? Personally, I expect that evolution will do its job regardless and any civilization to lazy, greedy, and stupid to look further than next week deserves what may come to it. So bring on the warming say I.
It's over a distance of 500 sq miles, which is about a 22.3 * 22.3 mile square. People can see 22 miles and with any number of instruments (a flag, a shiny bit of metal, whatever) could direct others to draw lines. This would only take a few days to mark the places to dig.
I agree with your conclusions. The Inca and their predecessors were adept at surveying and built carefully graded canals that were miles long.
However I think you are probably neglecting some essentials about the visibility issue. First, the earth's curvature. From twenty miles off, the object would have to be tall enough to stand above your horizon. For a six foot tall individual this distance is less than five kilometers (see this for example). Atmospheric conditions that increase refraction can increase this distance, but normally not much.
Another point is object size. A two meter object subtends about 1/5,000 of a degree of arc at 10 kilometers - 6 miles - (if my trig is correct). Regardless of how clear the atmosphere may be, a normal human eye doesn't have that kind of resolution.
Very long linears can be accurately surveyed in short segments using geometric methods provided that care is exercised. A siting device such as a staff, ropes, and pegs for swinging arcs, and possibly a leveling device, are probably all that was necessary. High visibilty probably was not necessary. In fact, the lines could probably have been done in moderate fog.
why should a computer crime carry a lesser weight than say speeding in a car? It's the same thing, except on a different level.
Ah but what was the crime, how defined, and by whom? The article says uncapping is illegal, presumably under federal law since the FBI was called in. What is more disturbing is that somehow the ISP had to convince the FBI to become involved by coming up with a figure in excess of $250K in "damage." Then they had to somehow imply a "collective" guilt so that while no single person arrested was accused of $250k in damage, the FBI still must have treated the group as a conspiracy in order to go after them. Frankly, it sounds as if the ISP may be guilty of a fraudulent complaint.
Thanks to local construction, Wirtz, who never signed a contract with Buckeye, claims his broadband connection was incapable of achieving speeds higher than 128kbps down. By utilizing a Cisco configuration file, he uncapped his Motorola Surfboard modem to 2.5MBps, for what he estimates was no more than a total of 16 hours, and only when he needed to move large files.
Apparently not everyone even HAD a contract. Though the "16 hours" bit DOES sound disingenuous to me.
The article states that the ISP is claiming that collectively the "suspects" had "stolen" over $250,000 in bandwidth, which in turn lead to the Gesta - ah - the FBI knocking on doors and "seizing" all the coolest hardware, while leaving the only real "culprit" piece in place. The FBI apparently is interested in economic crimes that are not big ticket items. The ISP had to indulge in some very creative accounting in order to demonstrate how really aweful the offenders. I should also think that the FBI neglected to check the complainant's arithmetic to be sure there wasn't a misplaced decimal point or two.
Shryock also confirmed the company wasn't sure how customers were getting the extra speed. "We don't fully understand how they're pulling this off just yet, but we're learning more every day."
In other words the ISP isn't simply dishonest, but incompetent as well, since their cusomers could use a simple configuration on file on their cable modems to reset them. Bandwidth management should have been handled at the server end. Any dial-up modem can be forced to a speed limit. The servers owned by the ISP should be far more sophisticated.
Could you delineate some of the "good" that driver's licenses do? And perhaps point out why you think it is good? Thinking about it, I can't see anything a driver's license does that can be thought of as "good." It certainly doesn't stop people without licenses, or with suspended licenses, from driving. Picture ID, come on. Ah, there's a thought, it does provided gainful employment for the people who work at DMV, so I suppose you could argue that it keeps them off the street and working, so the crime rate is a little lower.
No, in fact, the corporations collected the same information on their own - the federal agency just duplicated their efforts, at taxpayer expense.
This is shear baloney. Few private corporations conduct the same kind of research the government does, and certainly never at the scale the government does. Keeping publicly funded information from the public makes the public pay twice alright, once when the government funds it with our taxes, and once when a private corporation profits from your taxes. Yet they use and republish government funded information on a day to day basis and profit from it handsomely. Mapping is a good example. No private company produces much of the midscale mapping data they employ for geological and geographic studies. Census data, paid for by taxes, is used regularly for marketing. No company pays extra for this by redoing the work. They repackage what YOU already helped pay for. They are not providing original work, except occasionally through repackaging as in the National Geopgraphic TOPO! or similar software published by companies that provides a digital interface to government produced maps.
You are correct. The 50,000 was the result of me hurrying. I added an extra zero there when I entered what was intended as a rounded figure in the calculator, then stupidly repeated it when I (accurately) transcribed my mistake, and carefully punctuated it. The two common half-life figures I am familiar with are the Libby half-life of 5568 +/- 30 years and the Cambridge figure of 5730 +/- 40 years which you mention. This of course puts the Cretaceous about 14,000 radiocarbon half-lifes away, not the mere 1,400 I had came up with there.
Thanks for the correction. It is why there is peer review in science.
As others have no doubt pointed out, you misunderstand what radiometric dating is, and more importantly, you seem to be missing something about the nature of radio-carbon, such as where it comes from, its half-life, and its application in archaeological and paleontological dating.
First C-14 is the only readioactive form of carbon used for radiometric dating. No physical collision at any speed that occurs in the earth's vicinity could produce it. The isotope is produced by the interaction of cosmic rays and N-14 (that is a nitrogen isotope). The C-14 later decays reverting to N-14 and emitting a neutrino. The produciton of C-14 takes place within the earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere alone contains enough gas in any form to act as a significant source to donate radiocarbon into the biosphere. No significant amount of carbon arrives from space and no C-12 coming from space could have any significance to the production of C-14; they are not related, and C-12 plays no roll in the existence of C-14.
Second, who ever told you about the "small mountain" had a serious case of rectal-cranial inversion. Additional radiocarbon would cause an organic mass to appear younger, not older, though many thoroughly confused and consistently ignorant creationists persist in thinking the opposite.
Last and most important, radiocarbon has a half-life of about 50,000 years and a useabilility range for dating purposes of about 100,000 years at best, if accelerated mass spectroscopy dating methods are employed. Since dinosaurs disappeared from the planet about 70,000,000 years ago, radiocarbon is useless, because about 1400 half-lives of radio carbon have passed. For practical purposes that means that there is no C-14 left in any sample you look at.
Actually, if you do a little research, it has been experimentally proven that "post-modern" language, if that is what you want to call it, and non-sense are indistinguishable to proponents of post-modernism. I kid you not. Some years ago a "paper" was generated using a computer programmed to plug in p-m catch phrases. The piece was published, and IIRC, was critically approved of among the sacrosanct priesthood of P-M. The last I heard there were still some proponents who were certain the "computer generated" aspect was a hoax.
However, this being the case, it is certainly reasonable to argue that drivel and post-modernist language are indistinguishable to those of us who do not pretend to understand the WTH post-modernists are purveying. Following that line further along, since neither adovcates nor critics of P-M can distinguish between drivel and P-M, it apears that P-M and drivel are synonymous.
Enjoy,
Nor, evidently as a second or third.
consider it as an adaption to a society where you are taken care of and fed no matter how fit you are
What you are describing would be the opposite of adaptation. It would be a lack of selective pressure in turn allowing more mutations to survive, presumably because they are not being culled naturally or culturally. However, that still is not likely to be what we are looking at here. New traits could not manifest this quickly or homogenously. If the change is effecting genetics, it looks as if some environmental factor is unmasking an existing variation in the genome, or is creating a highly specific alteration of some site. I think a more likely agent would be a chemical or drug that targets a specific developing structure. This would be a better bet as a causal agent than electronic devices, since it would account for specific kinds of alteration better than a random agent like lack of selective pressure. Thalidomide does something similar to fetuses, when they were exposed at a critical developmental stage.
Apparently I can't spell "illiterate" either.
Not that this changes the actual logic, but I think these problems arise from poor language skills rather than poor math skills. After all, I have seen few if any "/."rs complain about a barbarism like "architected" substituted for "design." And I've encountered cross-eyed confusion as some illerate tries to work out why "trialling" is wrong but "testing" is OK.
GREENA green light means "GO," but first let any vehicles, bicyclists, or pedestrians remaining in the intersection get through before you move ahead. If you are turning left, make the turn only if you have enough space to complete the turn before any oncoming vehicle, bicyclist, or pedestrian becomes a hazard.
Do not enter an intersection, even when the light is green, unless you can get completely across before the light turns red. If you block the intersection, you can be cited.
Correct, so far as it goes. However, "blocking" the intersection is entering when you will have to stop and wait in before leaving. Blocking the intersection usually happens at no more than five miles and hour in bumper to bumper traffic, when following cars insist on crossing even though the driver knows the light is changing. This can endanger people, cause even worse traffic congestion, and hamper emergency vehicles.
However, since yellows last about 4 seconds, it is easy to glance away for a trifle too long at the wrong moment and miss the entire light. If, due to speed and proximity to the intersection, you are going to enter before you could stop for the red light, you proceed legally across, rather than desperately slamming on the brakes and causing a multi-car pile up.
Yellow stands for "prepare to stop." If this can't be done, then the intersection is your's. Cross traffic and crossing pedestrians are supposed to wait until the intersection has cleared before entering. So says the state driver's education people to state employees. The teacher's words were, IIRC, "...even if the light is yellow for only a thousandth of second after you enter..." The teacher was a traffic cop. The surprise was considerable.
In the great state of California, enter on yellow and the intersection is yours. I have frieds who work for the state and who have taken the training required for drivers of state vehicles and the point is made that entry on yellow is legal. If this is not true in other states I can see where some real confusion could be arising. Sort of like the Californian right turn on red after a stop used to net a traffic fine in Oregon. Of course it can be really interesting over seas. In Israel, there are yellow lights preceding both red AND green lights. If you don't start to creep as soon as the yellow before green appears horns start to blow. Count your blessings.
Surely you are not suggesting "cold fusion," are you?
The claim can't be countered. Cancer statistics for the US can be acquired at http://seer.cancer.gov. A google search for "cancer incidence" will bring up. As regards the assertion that cancer becomes more prevalent with age, that is true. Cancer in children is tragic, but uncommon, about 22 in 10,000. It is sad, but pointless to rant about it.
Also, anyone who has spent any time around hospices and hospitals should have noticed that there are far more elderly there, dying of cancer than there are young. My 96 year-old grandmother is one.
The following figures are generated from the "seer" page:
AGE INCIDENCE
0-15 years p=0.22%
15-30 years p=0.55%
30-45 years p=2.08%
45-60 years p=8.85%
60-75 years p=21.75%
75-90 years p=25.82%
If you are familiar with typical population mortality profiles in traditional and "pre-medical" societies, then you are likely aware that the expected longevity is about 35 years. Only the advent of modern medicine and dentistry seem to affect this figure, regardless of the stories of extraordinarily long-lived people in Central Asia. All societies, regardless of medical technology do have some individuals that lived a long time, even by our standards, but that is simple chance.
The correlation between the increase in cancer and increased age is striking, and almost certainly is due to the effects of evolution, especially the jump between 30 and 45. This is just as the poster suggested.
. . . Bronze Age minds. The only true surprise is how many are still around, not just Creationists , but flat earthers, Marxists, Democrats, Republicans, . . .
There are reportedly 100 plus "extrasolar" planets now listed somewhere. The jury is also still out on the sunspot theory for that recent find. The original finders are reportedly investigating further and don't agree with "sunpots." Right at the moment I think the Italian announcement may be the ONLY disucssion regarding an extrasolar planet that is using apparently direct evidence. The majority of these planets are identified indirectly through the effects they reportedly have on their respective stars.
Presently the most likely kind of planet that would be detected beyond the solar system will be very large and likely have an excentric orbit, or else orbit very close to the parent star. This is merely a limitation imposed by the available methods for finding them, which are best suited for finding massive planets orbiting relatively small stars. Another few years and astronomers may be imaging or otherwise detecting smaller, earthlike planets, but not yet.
I think the single most important lesson that the detection of all these new planets provides is directed to the nature of our own system. Initially we knew the sun was pretty average as stars go. The most reasonable view would be that statistically the solar system as a whole was likely to be pretty average as well, but we were stuck with a sample of one, which is not very helpful since we live here. The place is important to us, but is it unique in the universe or boringly typical? Physically it is now begining to look as if our home system is very average. This implies interesting things about the occurrence of life in the universe, but offers a worrisome view of the presence or absence of intelligence.
Life is likely to be common. The more we know about it, the more it appears that life might be nearly inevitable and that at least bacterial-level life might be common, an average trait of average solar systems. For instance, the jury is still out on Mars, but each new piece of evidence seems to make it more possible, if not yet probable that bacteria-like forms may live or have lived there. The recent discussion about the nature of apparent biogenic magnetite in Martian meteorites, is interesting and suggestive, though non-life-based processes that are non-existent, or very, very uncommon, on earth still cannot be ruled out. However, if two local planets do indeed prove to have indigenous life, and if as the mounting data suggests, planets are common, then there is also a mounting likelihood that life is common throughout the universe. The flip side though is that the absence of evidence of other intelligence out there may mean that in the longer run, intelligence has yet to prove adaptive for life forms.
It is not an agenda, it is a value system. The agenda sets research priorities and ultimately funding. The problem with Bush, and the Christian Right embedded in the existing US political parties, is that a special interest group with a priori convictions about what God meant man to know is trying to usurp the privilege of allowing scientists to set their own agenda. Robert Heinlein charcterized this perfectly in "Job."
And secondly, what is considered acceptable subject matter for research by the taxpayer? Scientists often forget that it's the "unwashed masses" who foot the bill for their expensive toys. No matter what scientists think are the benefits - and no matter how skillful their rhetoric - if the general public doesn't want to fund research into XXX, then those scientists should not receive a penny of taxpayer's money.
So, just how does this square with packing a scientific review or advisory committee? Which particular part of the public do we ask about this? The implication in your post is that somehow "the public" has a monolithic opinion, rather than being slightly shy of a civil war over issuues like "right to life," cloning, and whether the earth is really spheroidal or flat. I know what I would like to see MY tax dollar funding, but would that be the same as yours?
When you get right down to it, Bush can't claim any kind of "public" mandate on this issue because he wasn't elected. The US Supreme Court acted like a body of oligarchs and decided an issue as they saw fit and placed him in the Whitehouse. I suspect that had there been a "none of the above" choice on the 2000 ballot that both the Democrats and Republicans would still be wondering what hit them.