It seems mosquitoes are one of those rare creatures that provides very little benefit to the ecosystem they belong to. They don't kill their prey, so they don't limit the population of any other animals. Also, they make up a relatively small proportion of food for the animals that they are prey to (even bats, well known for keeping bug populations down, only get about 1% of their diet from mosquitoes).
Even so, I would be reluctant to wipe them off the face of the Earth completely. We simply don't know enough about how everything fits together in all the ecosystems of the world. I'd be more interested in finding ways to kill them off where they spread disease and limit their population in other areas. After all, the last time we tried to kill them off completely in the US we destroyed the raptor population almost to the point of extinction just because we didn't realize how harmful the chemical of choice was.
Well... what if shootings were so ridiculously common that only a fool would venture outside their home without a bullet proof vest? So then I shoot you in the chest for no readily apparent reason but you were too stupid to put on your vest that morning. I claim to the jury that I figured you were wearing a vest so I didn't expect any harm, therefore it's your fault for forgetting your vest that day...
Nope, still doesn't work (I really did try though). It would be impossible to convince the jury that I shot you just because I felt like it rather than to maim or kill you. Especially since the fact that there is no reason to pull the trigger if I am so sure you have the protection to walk away unscathed. Likewise, if they truly believed that the sites they were attacking were properly defended, there would have been no reason to attack them in the first place.
1 & 2. Brightness and Color 3. Hearing 4. Pressure 5. Pain 6. Temperature 7. Smell 8-13. The different Taste Receptors 14. Balance/acceleration 15. Proprioception - Knowing where your body parts are. If you don't believe this is a sense check out the Pinocchio Illusion 16. Vasodilation in the skin (blushing) 17. Sensing a full bladder/bowels 18. Intestinal discomfort (not actually pressure nerves, that's just how your body perceives them)
With breeder reactors and pulling uranium out of sea water we have enough fissile material to last virtually indefinately. Ok sure, we'll run out eventually but by that time the earth will be inside of a very large, very red sun so we'll have plenty of energy available.
Agreed, being a militant atheist (one who aggressively attacks people's beliefs as well as the people themselves) is no better than being a militant creationist (one who aggressively attacks people's beliefs as well as the people themselves).
As has been pointed out by many people already on this thread: you can host google apps locally on your network. Google doesn't see anything, track anything, save anything. You run their software on your server. This is not a valid argument against using google apps for government or business.
And when Darwin came up with his theory of speciation through evolution, he could have added a footnote to the effect that there is also a historical theory of speciation called creationism. Science is science, facts are facts. Just because the science is too daunting for the average person to follow doesn't mean that the average person gets to rewrite science to fit their worldview.
Besides, when you get down to it, it isn't that hard to show why Pluto isn't a planet. Wildly different orbit relative to the other planets. Much, much smaller than the other planets. The existence of thousands, if not millions of similar (though smaller) objects in the same part of the solar system. No spherical symmetry. And the existence of objects not recognized as planets that are bigger than it.
Maybe the general public owns the definition of the word planet, but scientists should own the definition of the scientific concept of a planet. By your logic, I could call biblical creationism abiogenesis and everyone should be fine with that, since I (a member of the general public) own the word 'abiogenesis'.
Just because the scientific concept of a planet is something that most of the public is exposed to and remembers, doesn't mean that the public gets to decide science.
For each person that feels as you do, that homework is over emphasized and quizes and tests are under emphasized, I can bet that there are 5 people that feel the opposite way. If you think about it, homework is what prepares your day to day job (though sometimes extreme deadlines begin to feel more like tests). I've been out of college for 2 years now and I've spent 99% of my work time doing what I would call homework, and about 1% doing what I would call tests.
Not that being able to think on your feet isn't important, sometimes it is the 1% that matters after all.
Well, if you've got a lot of time and/or money on your hands, sue them. Has this ever made it into the court system to have it determined what the law actually says on the subject? I would think that if the law says you are allowed to sell a copy of the game, it would be against that law to prevent the re-sale.
Personally, I like the awesome bar but I do wish there was a way to easily disable different classes of entries from getting added. I have turned off history on my machine because the awesome bar just gets too cluttered, but I use it all the time to quickly navigate to my bookmarks.
Lego Mindstorms could work. At least then the kids get to build something, including placing of motors and sensors, then program them using a simple flow chart style language. There's even an almost but not quite C language that they also support for the over achievers (or yourself to do demo's with).
If nothing else just let the Kindergartners and 1st graders build with the Lego's, add in the motors (locked full speed in one direction) for the 2st and 3nd graders, the flowchart programming for the 4th graders, and the sensors for the 5th graders. It's possible to get into some relatively advanced behavior such as line following, maze solving, and light searching with the default sensors and flowchart languange that is provided with the educational kits.
How about hunting, target shooting for entertainment, and protection (just having it will make most criminals turn tail pretty quick). You'd best outlaw hunting knives, bow and arrows, and fishing rods (hey, you're maiming the fish after all) then too.
a large portion of those guns unfortunately end up being used to commit crimes or accidents anyway.
I think you mean a vanishingly small proportion get used to commit crimes or accidents. You might be able to argue that even a vanishingly small number is still too many, but it certainly isn't a large portion.
I am a strong advocate for better gun control, but to claim that guns have zero legitimate uses and that a large portion get used for crime is just ridiculous. It's also the kind of attitude that makes the NRA scream and kick and lobby their senators every time we want to prevent crazy people from getting fully automatic weapons. It's ironic that without your kind of thinking, gun laws would probably be much stricter, since the NRA wouldn't be able to use the slippery slope argument every time we want to strengthen them.
I thought the reason financial models like this fail is because you are only determining risk based on a very small number of inputs. It leads to people designing funds to score well on your model rather than designing funds to actually reduce risk.
To use a car analogy, it's kind of how they change the rules in NASCAR every few years to reduce speeds and therefore reduce the severity of accidents. One year later the crews have found ways to make the cars just as fast and just as dangerous as before, sometimes even more dangerous because they are using sub-optimal aerodynamic configurations in order to abide by the rules.
I'm confused, where in either article did it state any estimated savings as a result of this program? Maybe I missed it. In any event, wouldn't it be saving $100 million per year, indefinitely? If so it would be more like buying an efficient appliance, more expensive today but saves you money in the long run.
What happened to the 80 billion worth of printers, loggers, paper mills, transport, and fish-wrappers? Did they all go on Welfare so we can ship their jobs overseas to the Kindle manufacturing countries?
This is just the broken window fallacy, spending money on waste is still waste even if it supports other industries. If the NY Times distributed their paper 100% on the kindle today would you suggest that they move to print to save the economy?
Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.quote>
Personally, I would much, much rather have a device like a kindle for media. The screen is much easier on the eyes, free connectivity through the cell networks, better battery life, smaller, etc etc. Of course, I'm not everyone, so that's just my 2 cents.
That's really just another way of stating the broken window fallacy. One business saving money isn't bad for the economy because it just moves money around. The times could lower their subscription costs or invest the money elsewhere, either way the money will end up back in the economy somehow.
Forcing one business to pay money for something that it doesn't really need doesn't help the economy. Imagine if everyone got their NY Times through the Kindle, would you suggest returning to print to boost the economy?
It's possible that they don't use ethanol for the same reason the 85% is as high as ethanol for cars is allowed to go. That being there are people stupid enough to try to drink it and you might actually have to limit it's sale as alcohol unless you could show that it is nearly impossible to access it.
Especially the fact that some of the lines are up to 20 miles apart from one another and the whole formation is almost 100 miles long and 50 tall. We're supposed to believe that 12000 years ago there was a city on a lone island that covered an area of 500 square miles? It's easy to lose your sense of scale looking at satellite imagery, people who think this is Atlantis would do well to zoom out a bit and scroll to the East and Look at the cities in Africa and Europe for comparison.
Here's what I wrote to my House Rep, feel free to borrow it if you feel to lazy to write something original to yours.
I recently read a very concerning article about the proposed bill H.R.1076 and it's senate counterpart S.436. Among other things, this bill would require all operators of wireless Internet access points (including home users) to log routing data for no less than two years.
This creates, in my opinion, a major potential for abuse as this information will doubtless be subpoenaed for more than just child pornography investigations. Furthermore, I don't believe that the average home WiFi user has the knowledge and skills necessary to comply with the bill; it is not a trivial matter to set up and manage such a logging system.
As well as expressing my own concern, I would also very much like to hear your stance on this and similar bills. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank You
I maybe should have put something in there about the law not succeeding in it's aims; unless the penalty for not logging is as great or greater than the penalty for child porn there is no reason for child pornographers to comply.
If I understand everything correctly, it looks like advertisers get to choose one review as a "sponsored review" and this is shown as the first result. Couldn't this be what the sales people are talking about when they offer to change the order of reviews so that lower reviews are moved down?
I could easily see "For $300 you can choose one review to appear at the top" becoming "For $300 we will make your bad reviews go away". To me, it sounds like a game of telephone combined 'investigative journalism' and angry restaurant managers.
Calling Cannabis a cancer drug is a bit much. It treats symptoms and helps prevent or lessen chemotherapy side effects, but it doesn't treat the cancer directly at all.
It's also important to remember that in the 1920's there were people advocating the many medical uses of beer. The idea that a recreational, cancer causing (if for no other reason than smoke inhalation) drug also happens to treat dozens of diseases seems somewhat incredible (in the sense of not-credible). That doesn't mean we should ignore the idea, but incredible hypothesis require incredible evidence.
Well, if every grant, cheap loan, and subsidy is an unfair boost to unprofitable companies then every labor law, environmental law, and union is an unfair kick in the nads. Seriously, if you want clean air, health insurance, and no little kids getting their finglers chopped off you are going to need to subsidize many industries, at least until the rest of the world is forced to follow the same rules.
Most of your arguments come down to one thing: soil.
Generally, vertical farming ideas utilize hydroponics (growing plants with nutrients dissolved in water) to get around this problem. It is a technology that has been used (in smaller scales) for decades with many different plant species and is known to produce much higher yields (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics#Higher_Yields/). Ironically, hydroponic farming also uses much less water than traditional farming, because the water is recycled through the system until it is actually used by the plants as opposed to irrigating a field and having most of the water evaporate before it is used.
As for the other issues, I have toured several greenhouses in my life and it is not a smell that is repulsive. Many people enjoy the smell of growing things, though doubtless it is something that urbanites would have to get used to. As far as cultivation, well there is no need to spray herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizer so generally the only cultivation necessary is planting and harvesting. Do you honestly believe that we can build machines to plant and harvest thousands of acres of open field, but can't automate the process in a controlled environment?
I'm not saying that this particular design is sound, it looks like a fairytale structure the guy though would look cool rather than something designed with efficiency or strength in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems mosquitoes are one of those rare creatures that provides very little benefit to the ecosystem they belong to. They don't kill their prey, so they don't limit the population of any other animals. Also, they make up a relatively small proportion of food for the animals that they are prey to (even bats, well known for keeping bug populations down, only get about 1% of their diet from mosquitoes).
Even so, I would be reluctant to wipe them off the face of the Earth completely. We simply don't know enough about how everything fits together in all the ecosystems of the world. I'd be more interested in finding ways to kill them off where they spread disease and limit their population in other areas. After all, the last time we tried to kill them off completely in the US we destroyed the raptor population almost to the point of extinction just because we didn't realize how harmful the chemical of choice was.
Well... what if shootings were so ridiculously common that only a fool would venture outside their home without a bullet proof vest? So then I shoot you in the chest for no readily apparent reason but you were too stupid to put on your vest that morning. I claim to the jury that I figured you were wearing a vest so I didn't expect any harm, therefore it's your fault for forgetting your vest that day...
Nope, still doesn't work (I really did try though). It would be impossible to convince the jury that I shot you just because I felt like it rather than to maim or kill you. Especially since the fact that there is no reason to pull the trigger if I am so sure you have the protection to walk away unscathed. Likewise, if they truly believed that the sites they were attacking were properly defended, there would have been no reason to attack them in the first place.
1 & 2. Brightness and Color
3. Hearing
4. Pressure
5. Pain
6. Temperature
7. Smell
8-13. The different Taste Receptors
14. Balance/acceleration
15. Proprioception - Knowing where your body parts are. If you don't believe this is a sense check out the Pinocchio Illusion
16. Vasodilation in the skin (blushing)
17. Sensing a full bladder/bowels
18. Intestinal discomfort (not actually pressure nerves, that's just how your body perceives them)
With breeder reactors and pulling uranium out of sea water we have enough fissile material to last virtually indefinately. Ok sure, we'll run out eventually but by that time the earth will be inside of a very large, very red sun so we'll have plenty of energy available.
Agreed, being a militant atheist (one who aggressively attacks people's beliefs as well as the people themselves) is no better than being a militant creationist (one who aggressively attacks people's beliefs as well as the people themselves).
As has been pointed out by many people already on this thread: you can host google apps locally on your network. Google doesn't see anything, track anything, save anything. You run their software on your server. This is not a valid argument against using google apps for government or business.
And when Darwin came up with his theory of speciation through evolution, he could have added a footnote to the effect that there is also a historical theory of speciation called creationism. Science is science, facts are facts. Just because the science is too daunting for the average person to follow doesn't mean that the average person gets to rewrite science to fit their worldview.
Besides, when you get down to it, it isn't that hard to show why Pluto isn't a planet. Wildly different orbit relative to the other planets. Much, much smaller than the other planets. The existence of thousands, if not millions of similar (though smaller) objects in the same part of the solar system. No spherical symmetry. And the existence of objects not recognized as planets that are bigger than it.
Maybe the general public owns the definition of the word planet, but scientists should own the definition of the scientific concept of a planet. By your logic, I could call biblical creationism abiogenesis and everyone should be fine with that, since I (a member of the general public) own the word 'abiogenesis'.
Just because the scientific concept of a planet is something that most of the public is exposed to and remembers, doesn't mean that the public gets to decide science.
For each person that feels as you do, that homework is over emphasized and quizes and tests are under emphasized, I can bet that there are 5 people that feel the opposite way. If you think about it, homework is what prepares your day to day job (though sometimes extreme deadlines begin to feel more like tests). I've been out of college for 2 years now and I've spent 99% of my work time doing what I would call homework, and about 1% doing what I would call tests.
Not that being able to think on your feet isn't important, sometimes it is the 1% that matters after all.
Well, if you've got a lot of time and/or money on your hands, sue them. Has this ever made it into the court system to have it determined what the law actually says on the subject? I would think that if the law says you are allowed to sell a copy of the game, it would be against that law to prevent the re-sale.
Personally, I like the awesome bar but I do wish there was a way to easily disable different classes of entries from getting added. I have turned off history on my machine because the awesome bar just gets too cluttered, but I use it all the time to quickly navigate to my bookmarks.
Lego Mindstorms could work. At least then the kids get to build something, including placing of motors and sensors, then program them using a simple flow chart style language. There's even an almost but not quite C language that they also support for the over achievers (or yourself to do demo's with).
If nothing else just let the Kindergartners and 1st graders build with the Lego's, add in the motors (locked full speed in one direction) for the 2st and 3nd graders, the flowchart programming for the 4th graders, and the sensors for the 5th graders. It's possible to get into some relatively advanced behavior such as line following, maze solving, and light searching with the default sensors and flowchart languange that is provided with the educational kits.
How about hunting, target shooting for entertainment, and protection (just having it will make most criminals turn tail pretty quick). You'd best outlaw hunting knives, bow and arrows, and fishing rods (hey, you're maiming the fish after all) then too.
a large portion of those guns unfortunately end up being used to commit crimes or accidents anyway.
I think you mean a vanishingly small proportion get used to commit crimes or accidents. You might be able to argue that even a vanishingly small number is still too many, but it certainly isn't a large portion.
I am a strong advocate for better gun control, but to claim that guns have zero legitimate uses and that a large portion get used for crime is just ridiculous. It's also the kind of attitude that makes the NRA scream and kick and lobby their senators every time we want to prevent crazy people from getting fully automatic weapons. It's ironic that without your kind of thinking, gun laws would probably be much stricter, since the NRA wouldn't be able to use the slippery slope argument every time we want to strengthen them.
If I ever meet myself, I'll hit myself so hard I won't know what's hit me.
Zaphod certainly seemed to think of his old self as a different person.
I thought the reason financial models like this fail is because you are only determining risk based on a very small number of inputs. It leads to people designing funds to score well on your model rather than designing funds to actually reduce risk.
To use a car analogy, it's kind of how they change the rules in NASCAR every few years to reduce speeds and therefore reduce the severity of accidents. One year later the crews have found ways to make the cars just as fast and just as dangerous as before, sometimes even more dangerous because they are using sub-optimal aerodynamic configurations in order to abide by the rules.
I'm confused, where in either article did it state any estimated savings as a result of this program? Maybe I missed it. In any event, wouldn't it be saving $100 million per year, indefinitely? If so it would be more like buying an efficient appliance, more expensive today but saves you money in the long run.
What happened to the 80 billion worth of printers, loggers, paper mills, transport, and fish-wrappers? Did they all go on Welfare so we can ship their jobs overseas to the Kindle manufacturing countries?
This is just the broken window fallacy, spending money on waste is still waste even if it supports other industries. If the NY Times distributed their paper 100% on the kindle today would you suggest that they move to print to save the economy?
Netbooks is where mass media is going. And once you have a netbook, who needs a Kindle.quote>
Personally, I would much, much rather have a device like a kindle for media. The screen is much easier on the eyes, free connectivity through the cell networks, better battery life, smaller, etc etc. Of course, I'm not everyone, so that's just my 2 cents.
That's really just another way of stating the broken window fallacy. One business saving money isn't bad for the economy because it just moves money around. The times could lower their subscription costs or invest the money elsewhere, either way the money will end up back in the economy somehow.
Forcing one business to pay money for something that it doesn't really need doesn't help the economy. Imagine if everyone got their NY Times through the Kindle, would you suggest returning to print to boost the economy?
It's possible that they don't use ethanol for the same reason the 85% is as high as ethanol for cars is allowed to go. That being there are people stupid enough to try to drink it and you might actually have to limit it's sale as alcohol unless you could show that it is nearly impossible to access it.
Especially the fact that some of the lines are up to 20 miles apart from one another and the whole formation is almost 100 miles long and 50 tall. We're supposed to believe that 12000 years ago there was a city on a lone island that covered an area of 500 square miles? It's easy to lose your sense of scale looking at satellite imagery, people who think this is Atlantis would do well to zoom out a bit and scroll to the East and Look at the cities in Africa and Europe for comparison.
Here's what I wrote to my House Rep, feel free to borrow it if you feel to lazy to write something original to yours.
I recently read a very concerning article about the proposed bill H.R.1076 and it's senate counterpart S.436. Among other things, this bill would require all operators of wireless Internet access points (including home users) to log routing data for no less than two years.
This creates, in my opinion, a major potential for abuse as this information will doubtless be subpoenaed for more than just child pornography investigations. Furthermore, I don't believe that the average home WiFi user has the knowledge and skills necessary to comply with the bill; it is not a trivial matter to set up and manage such a logging system.
As well as expressing my own concern, I would also very much like to hear your stance on this and similar bills. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank You
I maybe should have put something in there about the law not succeeding in it's aims; unless the penalty for not logging is as great or greater than the penalty for child porn there is no reason for child pornographers to comply.
If I understand everything correctly, it looks like advertisers get to choose one review as a "sponsored review" and this is shown as the first result. Couldn't this be what the sales people are talking about when they offer to change the order of reviews so that lower reviews are moved down?
I could easily see "For $300 you can choose one review to appear at the top" becoming "For $300 we will make your bad reviews go away". To me, it sounds like a game of telephone combined 'investigative journalism' and angry restaurant managers.
Calling Cannabis a cancer drug is a bit much. It treats symptoms and helps prevent or lessen chemotherapy side effects, but it doesn't treat the cancer directly at all.
It's also important to remember that in the 1920's there were people advocating the many medical uses of beer. The idea that a recreational, cancer causing (if for no other reason than smoke inhalation) drug also happens to treat dozens of diseases seems somewhat incredible (in the sense of not-credible). That doesn't mean we should ignore the idea, but incredible hypothesis require incredible evidence.
Well, if every grant, cheap loan, and subsidy is an unfair boost to unprofitable companies then every labor law, environmental law, and union is an unfair kick in the nads. Seriously, if you want clean air, health insurance, and no little kids getting their finglers chopped off you are going to need to subsidize many industries, at least until the rest of the world is forced to follow the same rules.
Most of your arguments come down to one thing: soil.
Generally, vertical farming ideas utilize hydroponics (growing plants with nutrients dissolved in water) to get around this problem. It is a technology that has been used (in smaller scales) for decades with many different plant species and is known to produce much higher yields (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics#Higher_Yields/). Ironically, hydroponic farming also uses much less water than traditional farming, because the water is recycled through the system until it is actually used by the plants as opposed to irrigating a field and having most of the water evaporate before it is used.
As for the other issues, I have toured several greenhouses in my life and it is not a smell that is repulsive. Many people enjoy the smell of growing things, though doubtless it is something that urbanites would have to get used to. As far as cultivation, well there is no need to spray herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizer so generally the only cultivation necessary is planting and harvesting. Do you honestly believe that we can build machines to plant and harvest thousands of acres of open field, but can't automate the process in a controlled environment?
I'm not saying that this particular design is sound, it looks like a fairytale structure the guy though would look cool rather than something designed with efficiency or strength in mind.