Since this will only happen to shows that are too worthless to make a profit for the producers on their merits, I think I can safely assume it will never be a problem for me.
It sounds you're saying that the intellectual community has far too many charlatans, and far too many honest scientists who refuse to step up and expose the frauds.
I don't know about you, but if 10% of plumbers were charlatans, 80% of plumbers were honest folk who kept their mouths shut while their colleagues ripped me off, and 10% were honest folk who spoke out bout the fraud and abuse, I'd feel pretty well justified in having an anti-plumber attitude.
If the intellectual community is in as bad a shape as you imply, then anti-intellectualism is the only healthy course of action for society to take. If the majority of scientists are either con men or cowards, then what attitude am I supposed to have towards them?
I mean, it's not like you'd encourage me to trust Catholic priests these days, would you?
In the field of theoretical mathematics, I'm pretty sure that six-dimensional manifolds are fairly trivial and uninteresting objects, suitable for solving relatively simple problems.
I'm a little surprised that the guy though that it would only take six dimensions to do the math necessary to solve for the function of the human psyche.
I believe this article is based on patent recently mentioned here on Slashdot, which patent description includes a very clear and lucid reference to recent experiments (not yet reproduced by independent research) involving an electromagnetic field and a superconductor. The experimenters claim to have observed gravity field fluctuations in the vicinity of a superconductor subjected to an electromagnetic field. The patent claims that, assuming the experimenters are correct, the phenomenon can be leveraged to effect a gravity drive.
It's my assumption that the reporter at The Scotsman, like most media monkeys, has left out the part about the superconductor as necessary component, as well as other meaningful and important technical details.
More importantly (from the POV of applied science), if such a relationship exists and isn't evident in the behavior of neutron stars, it's only significant with levels of gravity and magnetism that are completely outside any regime we'll ever operate in.
I dunno about that. It seems to me that we're already operating in "unattainable" regimes all the time, and constantly entering new regimes previously considered "unattainable".
Who's to say that a couple thousand (or even a couple hundred) years from now, we'd not consider the neutron star regime trivially operable, and a useful component of our even more powerful warp drive regime?
It's not like we haven't done the "impossible" constantly throughout history already.
I think our difference on this issue stems from the fact that I don't see the Russian contribution as a generous sacrifice for the cause of freedom and the overthrow of horrible totalitarian regimes.
Rather, I see it as a down payment on Stalin's dreams of empire. Those Russians died first and foremost to save their motherland, and secondly to realize their leader's own totalitiarian goals.
Roosevelt sent Americans to die in that war in order to achieve a free Europe. Stalin sent Russians to die in that war in order to achieve a Europe under joint Nazi and Soviet rule.
A man looses a rabid dog in his neighbor's yard as part of some bizarre scheme to gain advantage in some proptery boundary dispute. Then, when the dog digs under the fence in his own yard, he sends out his son to deal with it, and the son is killed by the dog. While his son is distracting the dog, the man starts berating his other neighbors for not rushing to help save his family from the dog. Finally, his other neighbors arrive and put the dog down before it can break into more yards and kill more people. Some of the neighbors die, as well.
Fifty years later, some idiot comes along and says we should thank that man for bravely sacrificihg his son to keep the dog occupied long enough for the neighborhood to put it down.
This is an allegory, of course. The rabid dog represents Hitler and Nazi Germany. The man who set it loose represents Stalin. The first neighbor represents Western Europe. The other neighbors represent the Allies. And the idiot represents you.
Roosevelt did not sign a secret treaty with Hitler, giving him a free hand in Western Europe in exchange for favorable consideration of his plans for expansion in Eastern Europe. Stalin did.
By the same token, Truman did not exploit the situation at the end of the war to subjugate and oppress the neutral and helpless nations ravaged by the war. Stalin did.
Where was America? On the other side of the world, minding its own business. Sort of. The President was unconstitutionally supporting Britain against the Nazis, and some private businesses were doing business with the Nazi regime, at least early on in the war.
Russia, meanwhile, was actively colluding with Nazi Germany to as a convenient springboard their own dreams of world domination.
America left France and Japan long before the Soviet Union left Czechoslovakia and Poland.
If it wasn't for the fact that Stalin started out AS HITLER'S ALLY, and ONLY SWITCHED SIDES AFTER HITLER BETRAYED HIM, and then spent the rest of the war whining about how England and America weren't risking enough to save his sorry ass, I'd totally take your analysis seriously.
Stalin was wholly complicit in Hitler's agression against Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France, which means that in a very real way WORLD WAR TWO WAS TO A LARGE EXTENT STALIN'S DOING.
The way I see it, by the time the war was over, Russia was quits with us. They contributed immensely to the pain and suffering of Europe in that war, and paid for it with immense pain and suffering of their own. If they'd left it at that, I'd call it even and neither give them credit for helping us win a war they'd helped to start against us, nor hold a grudge because they helped start a war against us they then helped us win.
But they didn't leave it at that, did they? Indeed, the whole purpose of Stalin's treaty with Hitler was to reap vast rewards in Eastern Europe. When Stalin switched sides halfway through the war, it wasn't to help us save the world from totalitarianism. Rather, it was to achieve the very totalitarian goals his ersthwile ally was trying to backstab him over.
It was opportunistic, disgusting, and totally undeserving of any praise or credit.
I also don't give medals to bank robbers for cooperating with the authorities just long enough to hork the loot anyway.
And every time a person harvests an ear of maize to fill their belly, they prevent that plant from doing whateverthefuck it does for the environment when it's not being eaten.
Also, by not starving to death, that person blocks the ecocycle of all the tiny organisms that feed on and recycle dead animal matter, having whothefuckknows WHAT effect on the environment.
So maybe the "greenest" solution would be for you to FOAD already.
I draw to your attention the UN Human Rights Commmission, which condones all sorts of evil by the simple expedient of letting the evildoers chair the Commission.
Or, if your political tastes run the other way, consider the presence of the U.S. on the Security Council...
The problem with U.N. control over the internet is that it would give the worst offenders equal authority with those who do play well with others. Contrast this with the problem of "U.S." (i.e., ICANN) control: the U.S. may be an offender, but it's certainly not the worst, and it doesn't give the worst offenders much authority at all.
It's short because I was only giving a list of the four highest-value targets, to include Huntsville, Alabama at number four, per the parent poster's original claim. As for the source...
"... it's just a common popular perception, that intuitively high-value strategic targets are considered to be high-value strategic targets by the people that consider such things professionally."
Apparently I'm backed up by Wikipedia, though. For whatever that's worth these days.
#4 on who's hit list? The rooskies or the chinese?
Both, probably, since the strategic priorities in an intercontinental ballistic nukefest would be about the same for both players.
I assume the "list" (or "lists") have been around for such a long time that their security has been breached many times over in the past five or six decades.
Or maybe it's just a common popular perception, that intuitively high-value strategic targets are considered to be high-value strategic targets by the people that consider such things professionally.
Still, it would make Huntsvill a very high-value target indeed...
1. NORAD 2. The Pentagon. 3. Silicon Valley (or possibly the White House). 4. Huntsville.
Of course, the author does actually explain his reasons for each item on that list. Not sure what on earth caused him to put something on the list? RTFA.
You want to try to convince people sex is dirty and they shouldn't do it?
Ah, but I don't want to do that. I don't even believe in that.
I am in favor of responsible driving and driver's education that focuses on teaching responsible driving. That doesn't mean I think driving is evil and nobody should do it. Pushing the analogy to its limit, I also don't think that teaching people to wear a seatbelt while driving irresponsibly is better than teaching them to drive responsibly. Nor do I think that seatbelts have no place in discussions of responsible driving.
You, on the other hand, seem to be convinced that seatbelts are the only thing that matters when it comes to safe and sensible automobile operation. And when I suggest there may be something more to it than that, all you can say is "well, you must hate driving". So much for rational debate.
All you really have to say is, sex is dirty. Let us know when you make it out of the nineteenth century.
This is how you react when someone says the opposite of what your stereotype tells you they should say? Is it really that difficult for you to engage new ideas rather than settling for your comfortable preconceived notions?
Care to try again? Here are some novel ideas for you to consider: First, that people don't always (or even often) benefit from an increase in their sexual activity or their number of sexual partners. Second, that people do often (but not always) benefit from sexual activity in the context of self-control and thoughtful attention to the complexities and significant risks involved. Third, that these principles are not given the attention a healthy society would give give them in its teaching on sexuality.
The fourth idea, that sexual activity is fundamentally healthy, fulfilling, and beneficial to individuals and to the community, is not, of course, new to you. I apologize if I didn't make it clear to you that I believe in this idea as much as I do the other three. I hope I've made it clear to you now.
They can't just start up gas chambers, instead they use techniques like chipping away at policies word by word, and letting time heal wounds.
So your complaint is that instead of using violent, illegal, and tyrannical methods to wield power and change policy, they're using peaceful, proper, democratic methods? Isn't that the whole point of politics, though? To enact change without violence or oppression? To use words instead of guns? To use the passage of time to change opinions, rather than the rise and fall of a club? If you won't accept violence as a legitimate means to bring about change, and you won't accept politics as a legitimate means to bring about change, then what do you propose? What else is there?
I don't know the motivation for this or what is really in control. Maybe it is just a cooincidence, and he will hand back the reins.
So if he does "hand back the reins", will you consider the possibility that you were wrong about what's going on right now? What about if he's replaced by another Republican? Will you consider the possibility that the opposition faction has no compelling ideas or credible plans, or will you assume that the better candidates are being kept down by some shadowy conspiracy? Or will you simply assume that the majority of Americans are too stupid to agree with you?
Some of us happen to believe that a more patient, thoughtful, and self-disciplined approach to sexual urges is a very constructive way to deal with them. Moderation in all things, right? I really don't object to the "condom" in the "Excess plus condom" approach. Rather, it's the "excess" part of the approach that concerns me, especially when teaching adolescents.
One reason we don't accord full rights and privileges to children is because we don't believe they have developed the self-discipline to be trusted as free citizens in the community. Their discipline has to come from external sources: their parents and other adult authority figures.
One goal of education should be to teach children the skills of self-control and self-discipline that are a necessary part of responsible adulthood. The underlying assumption of the current approach seems to be that self-discipline cannot be successfully taught to teenagers, and that the best we can hope for is that children become marginally responsible about giving in to their uncontrollable and excessive urges. It's my underlying assumption that teaching self-discipline is necessary, and that avoiding doing so is bound to have nasty repercussions.
That particular story ("the Little Red Hoax") may have been fake, but it does illustrate, in a very compelling and inspiring way, the very real civil rights abuses going on every day in this country.
Abuses that are so thoroughly not in evidence that the people who believe in them are forced to manufacture them.
The only problem "the nature" has solved has been the problem of how to reverse a motion produced by one muscle. The solution is to pair a second muscle with the first, so that any muscular force exerted to close a joint can be reversed by a muscular force to open the joint, and vice versa.
Nature, having a much firmer grasp of thermodynamics than you do, has not bothered trying to solve the problem of a magical system that produces a power output greater than its power input.
It is possible that you could make something useful along this line of thinking. Pretty much all the muscles in your body come in pairs. If there was some way that you can use one set to add energy to some kind of spring/elastic material so that the next motion the stored energe will add force from the spring to your (other set of) muscles, then somehow you might make a suit that doubled the force of each motion you make. Of course, you end up doing at least twice as much work... so maybe in some situations the tradeoff might be worth it.
The only force coming out of the springs would be the force you used to compress them. So instead of using that force to just carry the damn load directly, you're using that force to compress the springs to carry the load. Add to that the force needed to carry the springs themselves, and the force lost through entropy, and you've got the stupidest powered exoskeleton idea I've heard all day.
Slashdot Mirror
Since this will only happen to shows that are too worthless to make a profit for the producers on their merits, I think I can safely assume it will never be a problem for me.
It sounds you're saying that the intellectual community has far too many charlatans, and far too many honest scientists who refuse to step up and expose the frauds.
I don't know about you, but if 10% of plumbers were charlatans, 80% of plumbers were honest folk who kept their mouths shut while their colleagues ripped me off, and 10% were honest folk who spoke out bout the fraud and abuse, I'd feel pretty well justified in having an anti-plumber attitude.
If the intellectual community is in as bad a shape as you imply, then anti-intellectualism is the only healthy course of action for society to take. If the majority of scientists are either con men or cowards, then what attitude am I supposed to have towards them?
I mean, it's not like you'd encourage me to trust Catholic priests these days, would you?
In the field of theoretical mathematics, I'm pretty sure that six-dimensional manifolds are fairly trivial and uninteresting objects, suitable for solving relatively simple problems.
I'm a little surprised that the guy though that it would only take six dimensions to do the math necessary to solve for the function of the human psyche.
I believe this article is based on patent recently mentioned here on Slashdot, which patent description includes a very clear and lucid reference to recent experiments (not yet reproduced by independent research) involving an electromagnetic field and a superconductor. The experimenters claim to have observed gravity field fluctuations in the vicinity of a superconductor subjected to an electromagnetic field. The patent claims that, assuming the experimenters are correct, the phenomenon can be leveraged to effect a gravity drive.
It's my assumption that the reporter at The Scotsman, like most media monkeys, has left out the part about the superconductor as necessary component, as well as other meaningful and important technical details.
More importantly (from the POV of applied science), if such a relationship exists and isn't evident in the behavior of neutron stars, it's only significant with levels of gravity and magnetism that are completely outside any regime we'll ever operate in.
I dunno about that. It seems to me that we're already operating in "unattainable" regimes all the time, and constantly entering new regimes previously considered "unattainable".
Who's to say that a couple thousand (or even a couple hundred) years from now, we'd not consider the neutron star regime trivially operable, and a useful component of our even more powerful warp drive regime?
It's not like we haven't done the "impossible" constantly throughout history already.
I think our difference on this issue stems from the fact that I don't see the Russian contribution as a generous sacrifice for the cause of freedom and the overthrow of horrible totalitarian regimes.
Rather, I see it as a down payment on Stalin's dreams of empire. Those Russians died first and foremost to save their motherland, and secondly to realize their leader's own totalitiarian goals.
Roosevelt sent Americans to die in that war in order to achieve a free Europe. Stalin sent Russians to die in that war in order to achieve a Europe under joint Nazi and Soviet rule.
A man looses a rabid dog in his neighbor's yard as part of some bizarre scheme to gain advantage in some proptery boundary dispute. Then, when the dog digs under the fence in his own yard, he sends out his son to deal with it, and the son is killed by the dog. While his son is distracting the dog, the man starts berating his other neighbors for not rushing to help save his family from the dog. Finally, his other neighbors arrive and put the dog down before it can break into more yards and kill more people. Some of the neighbors die, as well.
Fifty years later, some idiot comes along and says we should thank that man for bravely sacrificihg his son to keep the dog occupied long enough for the neighborhood to put it down.
This is an allegory, of course. The rabid dog represents Hitler and Nazi Germany. The man who set it loose represents Stalin. The first neighbor represents Western Europe. The other neighbors represent the Allies. And the idiot represents you.
Roosevelt did not sign a secret treaty with Hitler, giving him a free hand in Western Europe in exchange for favorable consideration of his plans for expansion in Eastern Europe. Stalin did.
By the same token, Truman did not exploit the situation at the end of the war to subjugate and oppress the neutral and helpless nations ravaged by the war. Stalin did.
Where was America? On the other side of the world, minding its own business. Sort of. The President was unconstitutionally supporting Britain against the Nazis, and some private businesses were doing business with the Nazi regime, at least early on in the war.
Russia, meanwhile, was actively colluding with Nazi Germany to as a convenient springboard their own dreams of world domination.
America left France and Japan long before the Soviet Union left Czechoslovakia and Poland.
So much for moral relativism.
If it wasn't for the fact that Stalin started out AS HITLER'S ALLY, and ONLY SWITCHED SIDES AFTER HITLER BETRAYED HIM, and then spent the rest of the war whining about how England and America weren't risking enough to save his sorry ass, I'd totally take your analysis seriously.
Stalin was wholly complicit in Hitler's agression against Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France, which means that in a very real way WORLD WAR TWO WAS TO A LARGE EXTENT STALIN'S DOING.
The way I see it, by the time the war was over, Russia was quits with us. They contributed immensely to the pain and suffering of Europe in that war, and paid for it with immense pain and suffering of their own. If they'd left it at that, I'd call it even and neither give them credit for helping us win a war they'd helped to start against us, nor hold a grudge because they helped start a war against us they then helped us win.
But they didn't leave it at that, did they? Indeed, the whole purpose of Stalin's treaty with Hitler was to reap vast rewards in Eastern Europe. When Stalin switched sides halfway through the war, it wasn't to help us save the world from totalitarianism. Rather, it was to achieve the very totalitarian goals his ersthwile ally was trying to backstab him over.
It was opportunistic, disgusting, and totally undeserving of any praise or credit.
I also don't give medals to bank robbers for cooperating with the authorities just long enough to hork the loot anyway.
And every time a person harvests an ear of maize to fill their belly, they prevent that plant from doing whateverthefuck it does for the environment when it's not being eaten.
Also, by not starving to death, that person blocks the ecocycle of all the tiny organisms that feed on and recycle dead animal matter, having whothefuckknows WHAT effect on the environment.
So maybe the "greenest" solution would be for you to FOAD already.
His unwillingness to work with contractors was on his review the next cycle, and he "spent more time with his family".
Is that a euphemism, like "sleeps with the fishes"?
I draw to your attention the UN Human Rights Commmission, which condones all sorts of evil by the simple expedient of letting the evildoers chair the Commission.
Or, if your political tastes run the other way, consider the presence of the U.S. on the Security Council...
The problem with U.N. control over the internet is that it would give the worst offenders equal authority with those who do play well with others. Contrast this with the problem of "U.S." (i.e., ICANN) control: the U.S. may be an offender, but it's certainly not the worst, and it doesn't give the worst offenders much authority at all.
It's short because I was only giving a list of the four highest-value targets, to include Huntsville, Alabama at number four, per the parent poster's original claim. As for the source...
Apparently I'm backed up by Wikipedia, though. For whatever that's worth these days.
#4 on who's hit list? The rooskies or the chinese?
Both, probably, since the strategic priorities in an intercontinental ballistic nukefest would be about the same for both players.
I assume the "list" (or "lists") have been around for such a long time that their security has been breached many times over in the past five or six decades.
Or maybe it's just a common popular perception, that intuitively high-value strategic targets are considered to be high-value strategic targets by the people that consider such things professionally.
Still, it would make Huntsvill a very high-value target indeed...
1. NORAD
2. The Pentagon.
3. Silicon Valley (or possibly the White House).
4. Huntsville.
Of course, the author does actually explain his reasons for each item on that list. Not sure what on earth caused him to put something on the list? RTFA.
You want to try to convince people sex is dirty and they shouldn't do it?
Ah, but I don't want to do that. I don't even believe in that.
I am in favor of responsible driving and driver's education that focuses on teaching responsible driving. That doesn't mean I think driving is evil and nobody should do it. Pushing the analogy to its limit, I also don't think that teaching people to wear a seatbelt while driving irresponsibly is better than teaching them to drive responsibly. Nor do I think that seatbelts have no place in discussions of responsible driving.
You, on the other hand, seem to be convinced that seatbelts are the only thing that matters when it comes to safe and sensible automobile operation. And when I suggest there may be something more to it than that, all you can say is "well, you must hate driving". So much for rational debate.
So you're saying the idea that the armies of Europe could compete with the armies of America is not a laughable idea?
All you really have to say is, sex is dirty. Let us know when you make it out of the nineteenth century.
This is how you react when someone says the opposite of what your stereotype tells you they should say? Is it really that difficult for you to engage new ideas rather than settling for your comfortable preconceived notions?
Care to try again? Here are some novel ideas for you to consider: First, that people don't always (or even often) benefit from an increase in their sexual activity or their number of sexual partners. Second, that people do often (but not always) benefit from sexual activity in the context of self-control and thoughtful attention to the complexities and significant risks involved. Third, that these principles are not given the attention a healthy society would give give them in its teaching on sexuality.
The fourth idea, that sexual activity is fundamentally healthy, fulfilling, and beneficial to individuals and to the community, is not, of course, new to you. I apologize if I didn't make it clear to you that I believe in this idea as much as I do the other three. I hope I've made it clear to you now.
Ah. Interesting. Guess I was slightly off in my assessment of the idea. Apologies all around!
They can't just start up gas chambers, instead they use techniques like chipping away at policies word by word, and letting time heal wounds.
So your complaint is that instead of using violent, illegal, and tyrannical methods to wield power and change policy, they're using peaceful, proper, democratic methods? Isn't that the whole point of politics, though? To enact change without violence or oppression? To use words instead of guns? To use the passage of time to change opinions, rather than the rise and fall of a club? If you won't accept violence as a legitimate means to bring about change, and you won't accept politics as a legitimate means to bring about change, then what do you propose? What else is there?
I don't know the motivation for this or what is really in control. Maybe it is just a cooincidence, and he will hand back the reins.
So if he does "hand back the reins", will you consider the possibility that you were wrong about what's going on right now? What about if he's replaced by another Republican? Will you consider the possibility that the opposition faction has no compelling ideas or credible plans, or will you assume that the better candidates are being kept down by some shadowy conspiracy? Or will you simply assume that the majority of Americans are too stupid to agree with you?
Some of us happen to believe that a more patient, thoughtful, and self-disciplined approach to sexual urges is a very constructive way to deal with them. Moderation in all things, right? I really don't object to the "condom" in the "Excess plus condom" approach. Rather, it's the "excess" part of the approach that concerns me, especially when teaching adolescents.
One reason we don't accord full rights and privileges to children is because we don't believe they have developed the self-discipline to be trusted as free citizens in the community. Their discipline has to come from external sources: their parents and other adult authority figures.
One goal of education should be to teach children the skills of self-control and self-discipline that are a necessary part of responsible adulthood. The underlying assumption of the current approach seems to be that self-discipline cannot be successfully taught to teenagers, and that the best we can hope for is that children become marginally responsible about giving in to their uncontrollable and excessive urges. It's my underlying assumption that teaching self-discipline is necessary, and that avoiding doing so is bound to have nasty repercussions.
That particular story ("the Little Red Hoax") may have been fake, but it does illustrate, in a very compelling and inspiring way, the very real civil rights abuses going on every day in this country.
Abuses that are so thoroughly not in evidence that the people who believe in them are forced to manufacture them.
The only problem "the nature" has solved has been the problem of how to reverse a motion produced by one muscle. The solution is to pair a second muscle with the first, so that any muscular force exerted to close a joint can be reversed by a muscular force to open the joint, and vice versa.
Nature, having a much firmer grasp of thermodynamics than you do, has not bothered trying to solve the problem of a magical system that produces a power output greater than its power input.
It is possible that you could make something useful along this line of thinking. Pretty much all the muscles in your body come in pairs. If there was some way that you can use one set to add energy to some kind of spring/elastic material so that the next motion the stored energe will add force from the spring to your (other set of) muscles, then somehow you might make a suit that doubled the force of each motion you make. Of course, you end up doing at least twice as much work... so maybe in some situations the tradeoff might be worth it.
I think you misspelled "perpetual motion".
You're kidding, right?
The only force coming out of the springs would be the force you used to compress them. So instead of using that force to just carry the damn load directly, you're using that force to compress the springs to carry the load. Add to that the force needed to carry the springs themselves, and the force lost through entropy, and you've got the stupidest powered exoskeleton idea I've heard all day.
Bah.
The meaning is obvious: Get pair of standard army boots. Add customizations. Voila! Customized pair of standard army boots.
Compare with: Build pair of army boots from scratch to custom specifications. Voila! Pair of custom-built army boots.