Care to name a few? I've played out Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies and want more games, but the other few I've tried on a whim have been pretty lacking. Other than recommendations from other people, I don't know how to find the really good games, so I just keep playing the same old ones.
Yes they do. If they didn't, the honey would drain away in the wild. My dad keeps bees, and we always needed a special heated electric knife to cut/melt the caps off all of the sealed comb. Not sure how this gets around that problem.
Thank you for pointing that out. When people fail to understand the very core of our tax system that badly, it's going to be impossible to have any coherent conversations about it.
Sure, but i'm guessing you left college with either an MS in something marketable, or you otherwise independently had marketable skills.
I can tell you that my bachelor's in physics didn't give me any marketable skills. That's the thing about all the arguments here for "get a good degree, don't get a useless one" -- at the bachelor's level (at least) I don't think any of them give you that much, or what they do give you can be gained by just about any subject. I could have walked out of college with a degree in history or philosophy and been equally prepared for all the work I've done since college (4 real jobs, half a dozen crap jobs, and a ton of freelance work over 15 years).
I still find my college experience valuable, but it's got very little to do with the chosen major.
I can point to a couple of friends who went into engineering work-study programs which served basically as both education and apprenticeship, and I think for them it worked really well, but they're a rare exception of all the people I know.
I've got a green laser for just this reason, assisting with astronomy discussion and pointing. The green is much brighter than the typical red you'd get. I've turned the green on indoors once or twice to test it, but the spot it leaves is uncomfortably bright -- definitely wouldn't want to use one during a presentation, say.
I lived with my cousin for a year, and she would do the same thing. Except we didn't even have air conditioning, just heat. So on a 90 degree day she'd say "man, it's hot in here!" and bump the thermostat down. From 75 to 65. And then to 55 when it was still hot.
Then at night when it got cold (40-degree swings aren't uncommon in Colorado) I'd come home and find the house at 55 degrees.
At least in my case after realizing what was going on, my cousin did accept my explanation.
Honestly, this is one of those areas where I think the sciency folks misunderstand the objection and blow the answer out of proportion with a response that's basically irrelevant. For anyone who's objecting to "being descended from a chimp" they probably don't actually care if it's a modern chimp or a proto-chimp from 10 million years ago. I find the scientific standard response of "but it's not a MODERN chimp!" to entirely miss the point of the objection, and be unsatisfyingly irrelevant.
Besides which I think most of the time the "I'm not descended from a monkey" objection is either a really outdated objection long since abandoned or a straw man argument created by the scientist.
I'm sure you'll get a better answer from the Bad Astronomer, but there certainly was a long history of people who argued very strongly for a steady state universe, Hoyle being a leading proponent. And, by the way, the man who disdainfully named the "Big Bang" in an attempt to ridicule it.
We have, however, observed enough of our surroundings to know that basically everything appears to be moving away from us, rather than the haphazard mix you'd expect from a steady state universe. These observations are part of what led to the Big Bang theory in the first place.
In big cities, light pollution can get pretty nasty. Chicago has more airplanes than stars visible, and depending on where you are buildings can cut out a lot of the horizon, too.
Frankly, I just forget that I should get out the telescope and look at stuff. That, and my telescope isn't good enough for much more than looking at three planets, but I can't justify getting a nicer one because I never use the one I've got.
Related to this, I've always wondered if instead of thinking of the universe as expanding, if we could equally look at the situation as if the time itself was slowing down in the empty spaces instead?
After all, if the speed of light is our primary measuring stick and is based on both distance and time, our measurements could be affected by either changes in distance or changes in time. It seems like that could equally explain both redshift (slowing down a photon's frequency) and the perceived amount of time a photon takes to pass through the interstellar distances. Not sure that perspective gets us any additional understanding (other than perhaps a fun brain-twister), or even if we could really tell the difference between the two effects.
Are you willfully neglecting the phrase "and the evening and the morning were the first day" in your analysis of what "day" means? Or do you have equally flexible definitions of evening and morning put together to make epochs rather than a single day?
Questioning the unquestionable and challenging consensus is what science is about. A GOOD scientist will adopt a skeptical approach to anything being examined, just to encourage debate and to ensure that the answer he really thinks is correct holds up to scrutiny
Yes, that's what SCIENCE is about, and that's what good SCIENTISTS do. The problem with the AGW controversy is that it's mostly random schlubs without a scientific background questioning the work of scientists, primarily based on the theory the scientists are all liars and cheats. Then when that fails they fall back on the "okay, the scientists MAY have been right about what is happening, but clearly they don't understand why it's happening" (i.e., it's natural, and humans have no ability to affect or control it.)
I'm all for questioning when it's backed up by a small bit of understanding and can at least question the right bits (data, methods). Questioning done by people who don't have any understanding of the field, or questioning the scientist's integrity generally isn't part of the scientific method.
Is that an extremely subtle grammar nazi joke, or did I actually say something that made me sound German? I wouldn't have bothered posting a correction at all, if not for what I saw as an amusing context.
For the record, English is the only language I'm competent at, though I used to know some Spanish and I've had a semester of German.
I've long thought there's opportunity for an intelligent forum and recommendation tool that's either specific to self-published books, or at least places a lot of weight on them while also including traditional books. I think Amazon *can* provide that service, but I think right now their recommendations are weighted heavily if not entirely to the traditionally published works. I would gladly (and probably voraciously) tackle a lot of inexpensive self-published works if I could trust the recommendations I was getting. With self-published books I'd definitely want a recommendation system that took editing and design factors into consideration as well as the quality of the story.
If something like this exists, I'd love to know about it. If it doesn't, I'd be tempted to start it myself, though there's some serious danger Amazon could eventually catch on and swamp an indie effort long before it could really take off.
There's also copy editing/proofreading and then there's editing. Copy editors aren't too expensive -- I've done freelance work in the past for $20/hour, and tended to average $600 - $800 for a book. That's an expensive commitment to pay out of pocket, but not entirely prohibitive if you're really driven. However, as the copy editor I was also the second, third or sometimes fourth editor type to look at the book, long after previous editors had addressed major issues like book structure, organization, and heavily reworked, added, or removed large chunks of text. I was just putting on the polish.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife was watching her soap
And that's no lye!
In the Mountain time zone it was noon, and I was in my car and on the way to lunch.
Do I? No. Do most people? Apparently. They'll blame the president for everything from losing their job (in a bad or good economy) to today's weather.
Care to name a few? I've played out Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies and want more games, but the other few I've tried on a whim have been pretty lacking. Other than recommendations from other people, I don't know how to find the really good games, so I just keep playing the same old ones.
Yes they do. If they didn't, the honey would drain away in the wild. My dad keeps bees, and we always needed a special heated electric knife to cut/melt the caps off all of the sealed comb. Not sure how this gets around that problem.
Thank you for pointing that out. When people fail to understand the very core of our tax system that badly, it's going to be impossible to have any coherent conversations about it.
What happens when you factor in the water that has to be thrown away to clean the coffee cups, and the soap used to clean them?
Sure, but i'm guessing you left college with either an MS in something marketable, or you otherwise independently had marketable skills.
I can tell you that my bachelor's in physics didn't give me any marketable skills. That's the thing about all the arguments here for "get a good degree, don't get a useless one" -- at the bachelor's level (at least) I don't think any of them give you that much, or what they do give you can be gained by just about any subject. I could have walked out of college with a degree in history or philosophy and been equally prepared for all the work I've done since college (4 real jobs, half a dozen crap jobs, and a ton of freelance work over 15 years).
I still find my college experience valuable, but it's got very little to do with the chosen major.
I can point to a couple of friends who went into engineering work-study programs which served basically as both education and apprenticeship, and I think for them it worked really well, but they're a rare exception of all the people I know.
I've got a green laser for just this reason, assisting with astronomy discussion and pointing. The green is much brighter than the typical red you'd get. I've turned the green on indoors once or twice to test it, but the spot it leaves is uncomfortably bright -- definitely wouldn't want to use one during a presentation, say.
I lived with my cousin for a year, and she would do the same thing. Except we didn't even have air conditioning, just heat. So on a 90 degree day she'd say "man, it's hot in here!" and bump the thermostat down. From 75 to 65. And then to 55 when it was still hot.
Then at night when it got cold (40-degree swings aren't uncommon in Colorado) I'd come home and find the house at 55 degrees.
At least in my case after realizing what was going on, my cousin did accept my explanation.
Economy replaced Astrology.
I can see it now.
"What's your sign?"
"The dollar."
"What a coincidence! Me, too."
First, I dare you to design coal-powered cars and airplanes.
That's pretty much where electric cars get their power, isn't it?
Yeah, "superstitionexploders" just doesn't roll off the tongue, does it?
Honestly, this is one of those areas where I think the sciency folks misunderstand the objection and blow the answer out of proportion with a response that's basically irrelevant. For anyone who's objecting to "being descended from a chimp" they probably don't actually care if it's a modern chimp or a proto-chimp from 10 million years ago. I find the scientific standard response of "but it's not a MODERN chimp!" to entirely miss the point of the objection, and be unsatisfyingly irrelevant.
Besides which I think most of the time the "I'm not descended from a monkey" objection is either a really outdated objection long since abandoned or a straw man argument created by the scientist.
Thanks. Now I've got the apples and bananas / eeples and beeneenees / ooples and boonoonoos song stuck in my head.
I'm sure you'll get a better answer from the Bad Astronomer, but there certainly was a long history of people who argued very strongly for a steady state universe, Hoyle being a leading proponent. And, by the way, the man who disdainfully named the "Big Bang" in an attempt to ridicule it.
We have, however, observed enough of our surroundings to know that basically everything appears to be moving away from us, rather than the haphazard mix you'd expect from a steady state universe. These observations are part of what led to the Big Bang theory in the first place.
In big cities, light pollution can get pretty nasty. Chicago has more airplanes than stars visible, and depending on where you are buildings can cut out a lot of the horizon, too.
Frankly, I just forget that I should get out the telescope and look at stuff. That, and my telescope isn't good enough for much more than looking at three planets, but I can't justify getting a nicer one because I never use the one I've got.
Related to this, I've always wondered if instead of thinking of the universe as expanding, if we could equally look at the situation as if the time itself was slowing down in the empty spaces instead?
After all, if the speed of light is our primary measuring stick and is based on both distance and time, our measurements could be affected by either changes in distance or changes in time. It seems like that could equally explain both redshift (slowing down a photon's frequency) and the perceived amount of time a photon takes to pass through the interstellar distances. Not sure that perspective gets us any additional understanding (other than perhaps a fun brain-twister), or even if we could really tell the difference between the two effects.
But that's not really exciting and wouldn't sell.
Though per JD's comment about moving them from a fact-themed network to one more suitable, I'd recommend the cartoon network as a good candidate.
Are you willfully neglecting the phrase "and the evening and the morning were the first day" in your analysis of what "day" means? Or do you have equally flexible definitions of evening and morning put together to make epochs rather than a single day?
Questioning the unquestionable and challenging consensus is what science is about. A GOOD scientist will adopt a skeptical approach to anything being examined, just to encourage debate and to ensure that the answer he really thinks is correct holds up to scrutiny
Yes, that's what SCIENCE is about, and that's what good SCIENTISTS do. The problem with the AGW controversy is that it's mostly random schlubs without a scientific background questioning the work of scientists, primarily based on the theory the scientists are all liars and cheats. Then when that fails they fall back on the "okay, the scientists MAY have been right about what is happening, but clearly they don't understand why it's happening" (i.e., it's natural, and humans have no ability to affect or control it.)
I'm all for questioning when it's backed up by a small bit of understanding and can at least question the right bits (data, methods). Questioning done by people who don't have any understanding of the field, or questioning the scientist's integrity generally isn't part of the scientific method.
Is that an extremely subtle grammar nazi joke, or did I actually say something that made me sound German? I wouldn't have bothered posting a correction at all, if not for what I saw as an amusing context.
For the record, English is the only language I'm competent at, though I used to know some Spanish and I've had a semester of German.
I've long thought there's opportunity for an intelligent forum and recommendation tool that's either specific to self-published books, or at least places a lot of weight on them while also including traditional books. I think Amazon *can* provide that service, but I think right now their recommendations are weighted heavily if not entirely to the traditionally published works. I would gladly (and probably voraciously) tackle a lot of inexpensive self-published works if I could trust the recommendations I was getting. With self-published books I'd definitely want a recommendation system that took editing and design factors into consideration as well as the quality of the story.
If something like this exists, I'd love to know about it. If it doesn't, I'd be tempted to start it myself, though there's some serious danger Amazon could eventually catch on and swamp an indie effort long before it could really take off.
There's also copy editing/proofreading and then there's editing. Copy editors aren't too expensive -- I've done freelance work in the past for $20/hour, and tended to average $600 - $800 for a book. That's an expensive commitment to pay out of pocket, but not entirely prohibitive if you're really driven. However, as the copy editor I was also the second, third or sometimes fourth editor type to look at the book, long after previous editors had addressed major issues like book structure, organization, and heavily reworked, added, or removed large chunks of text. I was just putting on the polish.
more then twice.
then => than. You reinforce your point well.