But despite that, he is still probably right. What is the chance of micro-organisms NOT getting into space?
Those are separate questions. It makes sense that micro-organisms get into space. He is still (probably) wrong. His argument is that life on this planet came from micro-organisms and that this provides evidence for that (and that Archaeopteryx is a fake. )
That's clearly a trick of the mind, since an atheist is not religious, and therefore cannot by definition be a religious nutjob.
Ok, then, he's an anti-religious nutjob.
Seriously, I love his evolutionary biology writing, but as a speaker he comes across as a strident fanatic. I just can't stand him and his pompous attitude. And I agree with much of what he seems to want.
I'm not at all convinced that you can in general separate artists from art. Further, even if you could, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I mean, you could also decide you don't care whether a particular company uses slave labor to obtain products more cheaply, and just enjoy the savings...
I have a hard time separating them when there is money involved. I don't really want to give my money to someone whose views are reprehensible. On the other hand, once the profit is separated, then it is far easier. I like Wagner's music, despite the anti-semitism.
Sound familiar? It's the same in the forums for Gimp, Handbrake, Blender and lots other open source packages. Tired excuses.
At this point, I have to speak up for GIMP. They have realized that there has been a long-term UI issue. They have been working on it. It's all volunteer so it goes slow, but there is distinct progress. I don't think the same is happening for Blender.
Solyndra had massive investments by private investors. The underlying research and development of the company was done at private expense, including major investments by George Kaiser, CMEA, US Venture Partners, Redpoint, and others. These investors have many years of experience, manage multiple billions of dollars and make lots of money at it. You really can't BS these guys; Solyndra was a gamble, but not a bad one. The government investment was for the production step, and resulted (for a little while!) in significant numbers of jobs, until the bottom fell out of the market because of Chinese prices. So, Solyndra went bankrupt, and the investors (private and government) lost lots of money. It's kind of hard to see that there was massive fraud here.
Um....no. The low pressure differential, combined with the extremely large volume, means that the 'little longer to fall' has a time-span of weeks to months.
I spoke to someone who worked on the Goodyear blimp, who in turn worked with WW II blimp operators. They _regularly_ patch holes in the blimps from people that shoot at them, often in rural areas where a hunter decides they want to see the big balloon pop. Goodyear blimps are patched from the outside, but the WW II ones were sometimes patched by a guy who walked around inside the blimp breathing oxygen from a tank. The WW II ones also had an air filled tunnel going from the main cabin to the top where they did lookouts. The rule was that you had to sing as you climbed up or down to listen for a voice change, indicating that you were breathing helium (and had to quickly slide down before passing out).
In Missile Command, you don't get to shoot the thing that is firing all those missiles at you. The point is that after the first wave (and it's easy to defend against that in Missile Command), you fire your remaining missiles at their headquarters, launch sites, communications nodes, etc, so there isn't a second wave.
So, the people riding this don't look ridiculous? I'd say it's about the same as a Segway, though neither is terrible. In a society that people wear baggy pants so their underwear shows, this is nothing.
3000 players is pretty good. However, I have been playing Planetside 2. What's amazing to me is that they will have battles with, literally, hundreds of players fighting over a piece of land (including ground and air vehicles), and doing it all at FPS speeds. It's really, really impressive.
I think there's also 30mm Gatling-type guns (maybe those are the shipboard ones).
The A-10 Warthog (aircraft) has a 30mm Gatling-type gun as its primary (anti-tank) weapon. It kicks ass. The aircraft was basically designed around carrying the gun. The pilot sits in what is bascially a titanium bathtub to protect him from ground fire. With the advent of anti-tank missiles, it's not needed the same way it used to, but it's still very, very cool.
It's not even really interesting that Iran lacks the ability to do anything to retaliate because of the fact that U.S. critical infrastructure isn't really online enough to be at risk.
Touche.
Yet.
20 years ago, how much of our banking was online? 10 years ago, how much of our social lives were online?
I don't think that we're at war, but it might be a good idea to get our default security up to par before putting a substantial part of our critical and / or physical infrastructure online. That way, when we are at war, we won't get our infrastructure seriously affected at an inopportune time.
So, despite counter-factual examples in the West and despite the benefits of science, Islamic culture remains highly punitive and opposed to change, yet the West changed when information wasn't as easily available and science wasn't nearly as advanced. Why?
The question can be re-stated as 'what caused the Enlightenment?' and 'How can we help create an Islamic Enlightenment?'
It's complicated. Google the Enlightenment and its causes, and it has (IIMHO) to do with intellectual leaders finally being fed up with the wars, opposition to intellectual advancement, and repression (both of people and economically). They were willing to write about how horrible the repressive institutions were. Unfortunately, a lot of them ended up censored, imprisoned, or dead; many had to write anonymously (Diderot and Voltaire). They don't celebrate Bastille Day for nothing.
But it's not clear that a new Islamic Enlightenment is in the offing. First, history shows you that lots of bad things happened after the Enlightenment. Remember the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, and several iterations of French republics. (Yes, I know that my examples seem to be often about the French). Second, it turns out that people are not necessarily _happy_ with the results of an Enlightenment. That's why the Romanticists came back. It's like Islam has already had it's Enlightenment and the Romanticists won the counter-revolution.
In terms of what the West can do, I'm not sure. Maybe, we should promote 'enlightened' Muslims and try to reduce the influence of extremist ones. But that has the potential to make moderates appear to be tools of the West and will make things worse. Islam is also not Christianity, and it's not clear that there is the opportunity to separate the church and state the same way that occured with Christianity; Islam is very closely tied with the fundamental structure of the society, and the Enlightenment occurred when there were kings and bishops. There was huge overlap between the secular government and the religious institutions, but in Islam, they are even more closely tied. The Grand Ayatollah is the Supreme Leader of Iran, for example.
64-bit is taking over already everywhere. In 10-15 years, you will have a hard time finding a 32-bit computer. (Actually, you might have a hard time finding a 'computer' at some point but that's a whole other issue). With the change to 64 bits, more and more OS's will operate on 64-bit time, and this will not be an issue.
I've been told that the power required to make enough aluminium for a windmill exceeds what that windmill can generate in its service life..
Does that make even a little bit of sense from an economic point of view? If the power is X kWh to create the windmill, then the cost of creating the windmill would be X kWh * Y $/kWh (plus lots of other costs for transportation, installation, maintenance). What you are saying is that the most money that the windmill could ever produce would be some number less than that cost (since it would produce Z kWh * Y $/kWh, where Z X). Even with a large subsidy to offset the non-creation costs, it would be a money losing proposition and nobody would do it.
Ive struggled with the concept of why a guy on this side of the ocean deserves jobs on this side of the ocean more than the starving, harder working guy on the other side of the ocean-- simply by virtue of which side he is on.
Because you don't have to support the guy on the other side of the ocean if he doesn't have a job. If the guy on this side of the ocean can't eat, he'll take your food or rob you to buy some. That's bad for you. If the guy a long way away starves to death, it doesn't affect you (directly).
Yeah, that's a pretty crappy way to look at things, but 'charity begins at home' works. I care about the schools near me, garbage pickup near me, industrial waste regulations near me, etc. a lot more than I care about those things a long way away. I would like the entire world to have enough to eat, have a safe place to sleep, and a good education system, and I help work to make those things happen, but local matters more.
If that is the case, why aren't you doing the 'BDA' part as well as the development?
I know that you think that they are slimy, worthless, money-grubbing etc. but you have to ask yourself if you would like to do the work. According to economic theory, if their job is easy and yours is hard (i.e. you are doing the 'real work'), then more people should get into their business and their margin should go way down. And yet it is not happening. Try guru.com instead, and see how you do.
Being a middleman / broker / recruiter is tough. You're trying to match up two parties with divergent interests, both of whom resent you. And yet, somehow the parties haven't figured out how to get rid of you.
I think you have way too much confidence in the automated systems. When it meets a temporary closed lane with a road worker holding a handheld stop/slow sign (a weekly occurrence here), a human better be able to take over.
And the human isn't able to take over because there simply isn't enough time to get up to speed on what's happening, so the automated system must be able to deal with such situations by itself. Which isn't that difficult, BTW - one of the basic low-level functions would be to determine what areas are drivable.
When a lane is closed with a road worker has a handheld sign, then, yes, the automated system will deal with it. What it will do is slow down, stop, and tell the driver that they have to take over. There are going to be situations where there is plenty of time for the system to 'deal' with the situation, but not enough information for it to decide what to do. That's why there needs to be a licensed driver. At a certain point, the system will say 'Whoa, I can't deal with this, you do it!'
While they are at it let's install fart receptacles so that when a person feels a toot coming on they can plop their own asses on a hole to capture the methane for power plant use.....
You could do that for cows. See this People don't really produce enough to make it worthwhile.
As counter, I have raise three daughters, who do not "hump like bunnies" and are virgins into their twenties,
Suuuuuuure they are. How would you know? I'm also a parent of several children. I'm a great parent, too, blah, blah, blah. I don't believe for a second that you can, without completely dominating their lives, know what they have done every evening for the past decade. Do you weekly check their hymens?
I can't know based on your post whether you are a good parent or not but you sure seem deluded. Based on your post, I'd guess that if your children are sexually active, you'd be the absolute last person to know about it.
The idea is not to stop all teenage / unwanted pregnancy. That's not going to happen without draconian methods that are worse than the problem they are trying to solve. However, the rate drops dramatically with education, empowerment of women, and availability of birth control, and that's all that is needed. No forcing anyone to do anything.
The above horror stories of teens and idiots having children before they were ready are a classic example of 'multiple anecdotes does not equal data'. The idea is to turn the statistical curve, not solve all problems for everybody.
Slashdot Mirror
But despite that, he is still probably right. What is the chance of micro-organisms NOT getting into space?
Those are separate questions. It makes sense that micro-organisms get into space. He is still (probably) wrong. His argument is that life on this planet came from micro-organisms and that this provides evidence for that (and that Archaeopteryx is a fake. )
That's clearly a trick of the mind, since an atheist is not religious, and therefore cannot by definition be a religious nutjob.
Ok, then, he's an anti-religious nutjob.
Seriously, I love his evolutionary biology writing, but as a speaker he comes across as a strident fanatic. I just can't stand him and his pompous attitude. And I agree with much of what he seems to want.
I'm not at all convinced that you can in general separate artists from art. Further, even if you could, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I mean, you could also decide you don't care whether a particular company uses slave labor to obtain products more cheaply, and just enjoy the savings...
I have a hard time separating them when there is money involved. I don't really want to give my money to someone whose views are reprehensible. On the other hand, once the profit is separated, then it is far easier. I like Wagner's music, despite the anti-semitism.
Sound familiar? It's the same in the forums for Gimp, Handbrake, Blender and lots other open source packages. Tired excuses.
At this point, I have to speak up for GIMP. They have realized that there has been a long-term UI issue. They have been working on it. It's all volunteer so it goes slow, but there is distinct progress. I don't think the same is happening for Blender.
Then how are you supposed to tow them? Do you have to get a flatbed truck?
...and a pneumaticly fired grappling hook system to prevent runaways.
They tried that on Mythbusters. Doesn't really work. But it sure was fun watching them try.
Solyndra had massive investments by private investors. The underlying research and development of the company was done at private expense, including major investments by George Kaiser, CMEA, US Venture Partners, Redpoint, and others. These investors have many years of experience, manage multiple billions of dollars and make lots of money at it. You really can't BS these guys; Solyndra was a gamble, but not a bad one. The government investment was for the production step, and resulted (for a little while!) in significant numbers of jobs, until the bottom fell out of the market because of Chinese prices. So, Solyndra went bankrupt, and the investors (private and government) lost lots of money. It's kind of hard to see that there was massive fraud here.
Um....no. The low pressure differential, combined with the extremely large volume, means that the 'little longer to fall' has a time-span of weeks to months.
I spoke to someone who worked on the Goodyear blimp, who in turn worked with WW II blimp operators. They _regularly_ patch holes in the blimps from people that shoot at them, often in rural areas where a hunter decides they want to see the big balloon pop. Goodyear blimps are patched from the outside, but the WW II ones were sometimes patched by a guy who walked around inside the blimp breathing oxygen from a tank. The WW II ones also had an air filled tunnel going from the main cabin to the top where they did lookouts. The rule was that you had to sing as you climbed up or down to listen for a voice change, indicating that you were breathing helium (and had to quickly slide down before passing out).
In Missile Command, you don't get to shoot the thing that is firing all those missiles at you. The point is that after the first wave (and it's easy to defend against that in Missile Command), you fire your remaining missiles at their headquarters, launch sites, communications nodes, etc, so there isn't a second wave.
And get off my lawn.
3000 players is pretty good. However, I have been playing Planetside 2. What's amazing to me is that they will have battles with, literally, hundreds of players fighting over a piece of land (including ground and air vehicles), and doing it all at FPS speeds. It's really, really impressive.
I think there's also 30mm Gatling-type guns (maybe those are the shipboard ones).
The A-10 Warthog (aircraft) has a 30mm Gatling-type gun as its primary (anti-tank) weapon. It kicks ass. The aircraft was basically designed around carrying the gun. The pilot sits in what is bascially a titanium bathtub to protect him from ground fire. With the advent of anti-tank missiles, it's not needed the same way it used to, but it's still very, very cool.
I read your statement in the voice Inigo Montoya. My co-workers are looking at me funny.
It's not even really interesting that Iran lacks the ability to do anything to retaliate because of the fact that U.S. critical infrastructure isn't really online enough to be at risk.
Touche.
Yet.
20 years ago, how much of our banking was online? 10 years ago, how much of our social lives were online?
I don't think that we're at war, but it might be a good idea to get our default security up to par before putting a substantial part of our critical and / or physical infrastructure online. That way, when we are at war, we won't get our infrastructure seriously affected at an inopportune time.
So, despite counter-factual examples in the West and despite the benefits of science, Islamic culture remains highly punitive and opposed to change, yet the West changed when information wasn't as easily available and science wasn't nearly as advanced. Why?
The question can be re-stated as 'what caused the Enlightenment?' and 'How can we help create an Islamic Enlightenment?'
It's complicated. Google the Enlightenment and its causes, and it has (IIMHO) to do with intellectual leaders finally being fed up with the wars, opposition to intellectual advancement, and repression (both of people and economically). They were willing to write about how horrible the repressive institutions were. Unfortunately, a lot of them ended up censored, imprisoned, or dead; many had to write anonymously (Diderot and Voltaire). They don't celebrate Bastille Day for nothing.
But it's not clear that a new Islamic Enlightenment is in the offing. First, history shows you that lots of bad things happened after the Enlightenment. Remember the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, and several iterations of French republics. (Yes, I know that my examples seem to be often about the French). Second, it turns out that people are not necessarily _happy_ with the results of an Enlightenment. That's why the Romanticists came back. It's like Islam has already had it's Enlightenment and the Romanticists won the counter-revolution.
In terms of what the West can do, I'm not sure. Maybe, we should promote 'enlightened' Muslims and try to reduce the influence of extremist ones. But that has the potential to make moderates appear to be tools of the West and will make things worse. Islam is also not Christianity, and it's not clear that there is the opportunity to separate the church and state the same way that occured with Christianity; Islam is very closely tied with the fundamental structure of the society, and the Enlightenment occurred when there were kings and bishops. There was huge overlap between the secular government and the religious institutions, but in Islam, they are even more closely tied. The Grand Ayatollah is the Supreme Leader of Iran, for example.
64-bit is taking over already everywhere. In 10-15 years, you will have a hard time finding a 32-bit computer. (Actually, you might have a hard time finding a 'computer' at some point but that's a whole other issue). With the change to 64 bits, more and more OS's will operate on 64-bit time, and this will not be an issue.
I've been told that the power required to make enough aluminium for a windmill exceeds what that windmill can generate in its service life..
Does that make even a little bit of sense from an economic point of view? If the power is X kWh to create the windmill, then the cost of creating the windmill would be X kWh * Y $/kWh (plus lots of other costs for transportation, installation, maintenance). What you are saying is that the most money that the windmill could ever produce would be some number less than that cost (since it would produce Z kWh * Y $/kWh, where Z X). Even with a large subsidy to offset the non-creation costs, it would be a money losing proposition and nobody would do it.
Ive struggled with the concept of why a guy on this side of the ocean deserves jobs on this side of the ocean more than the starving, harder working guy on the other side of the ocean-- simply by virtue of which side he is on.
Because you don't have to support the guy on the other side of the ocean if he doesn't have a job. If the guy on this side of the ocean can't eat, he'll take your food or rob you to buy some. That's bad for you. If the guy a long way away starves to death, it doesn't affect you (directly).
Yeah, that's a pretty crappy way to look at things, but 'charity begins at home' works. I care about the schools near me, garbage pickup near me, industrial waste regulations near me, etc. a lot more than I care about those things a long way away. I would like the entire world to have enough to eat, have a safe place to sleep, and a good education system, and I help work to make those things happen, but local matters more.
I know that you think that they are slimy, worthless, money-grubbing etc. but you have to ask yourself if you would like to do the work. According to economic theory, if their job is easy and yours is hard (i.e. you are doing the 'real work'), then more people should get into their business and their margin should go way down. And yet it is not happening. Try guru.com instead, and see how you do.
Being a middleman / broker / recruiter is tough. You're trying to match up two parties with divergent interests, both of whom resent you. And yet, somehow the parties haven't figured out how to get rid of you.
And the human isn't able to take over because there simply isn't enough time to get up to speed on what's happening, so the automated system must be able to deal with such situations by itself. Which isn't that difficult, BTW - one of the basic low-level functions would be to determine what areas are drivable.
When a lane is closed with a road worker has a handheld sign, then, yes, the automated system will deal with it. What it will do is slow down, stop, and tell the driver that they have to take over. There are going to be situations where there is plenty of time for the system to 'deal' with the situation, but not enough information for it to decide what to do. That's why there needs to be a licensed driver. At a certain point, the system will say 'Whoa, I can't deal with this, you do it!'
While they are at it let's install fart receptacles so that when a person feels a toot coming on they can plop their own asses on a hole to capture the methane for power plant use.....
You could do that for cows. See this People don't really produce enough to make it worthwhile.
Linus has a job like hurding cats and he does it extreemly well
Ha! I saw what you did there!
This is especially fun when you don't tell people that the rest of the comic is NSFW. And then they are surprised when IT shows up.
As counter, I have raise three daughters, who do not "hump like bunnies" and are virgins into their twenties,
Suuuuuuure they are. How would you know? I'm also a parent of several children. I'm a great parent, too, blah, blah, blah. I don't believe for a second that you can, without completely dominating their lives, know what they have done every evening for the past decade. Do you weekly check their hymens?
I can't know based on your post whether you are a good parent or not but you sure seem deluded. Based on your post, I'd guess that if your children are sexually active, you'd be the absolute last person to know about it.
The idea is not to stop all teenage / unwanted pregnancy. That's not going to happen without draconian methods that are worse than the problem they are trying to solve. However, the rate drops dramatically with education, empowerment of women, and availability of birth control, and that's all that is needed. No forcing anyone to do anything.
The above horror stories of teens and idiots having children before they were ready are a classic example of 'multiple anecdotes does not equal data'. The idea is to turn the statistical curve, not solve all problems for everybody.