Global Warming will warm the surface waters of the ocean at mid-lattitudes. Just a couple of days over water that is a couple of degrees warmer is all it takes to turn tropical storms into cat-3 hurricanes.
Hurricanes are one of the ways that heat is moved from the tropics toward the poles.
They physics of Radio Waves are the same for everybody. Water has the same spectrum everywhere, so the assumption about the water hole is reasonable.
SETI@home is looking for patterns that are very unlikely to be generated by natural processes. We don't have to recognize the content of the alien signal; just that it is an artificial signal.
My hunch is that accidental broadcasts of high-power carrier waves would only happen for a short time period; after ones' electronics advance into the integrated circuit stage, the radio broadcasts shift from analog to compressed and encrypted spread-spectrum CDMA, which by design sounds like noise (unless you have a code).
There are two possibilities: either there are intelligent civilizations out there, or we are alone. Either result is profound.
If Mirosoft were to pull out of the EU market, they'd be giving up their monopoly. And the monopoly has made the business.
Why does office sell for hundreds of dollars while what few commercial office-suites that are still for sale retail for less than a hundred? Because Office is the monopoly.
What would the Europeans do? I hear there was this Computer Science student at the University of Helsinki that wrote an interesting operating system... Once there was a second platform, with a significant share of the world-wide installed base, developers would start to make money selling applications for it.
They built the turnpike. At that exit (12, IIRC), people started a number of businesses to serve travellers. Years later, they designated the turnpike west of Breezewood as I-76 and I-70, the turnpike east of Breezewood as I-76, and built a new road from there to Baltimore that they labelled I-70. Given the geography, the practical solution was to route traffic through the existing toll booths and ramps to the east side of Breezewood, direct traffic through town for 1500 feet and then let traffic get onto the newly-built I-70 on the west side of town.
I've been pining for exactly this "shoebox"-sized mac. I'm about to dispose of a perfectly good 15" CRT because the computer it came bundled with is obsolete. I don't want to do that to an $600 LCD Monitor.
I've been tempted by the mini's price. But the laptop drive keeps being a showstopper. I don't need a tiny machine.
Science is an antidote to blind faith. Fortunatly, some have taken the time to carefully tease out what works and what doesn't. We don't throw virgins into volcanos to appease the gods any more.
Your estimates on the world's religions are way off. Judaism is way down the list. Here is one site:
Christianity: 2.1 billion Islam: 1.3 billion Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion Hinduism: 900 million Chinese traditional religion: 394 million Buddhism: 376 million primal-indigenous: 300 million African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million Sikhism: 23 million Juche: 19 million Spiritism: 15 million Judaism: 14 million Baha'i: 7 million Jainism: 4.2 million Shinto: 4 million Cao Dai: 4 million Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million Tenrikyo: 2 million Neo-Paganism: 1 million Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand Rastafarianism: 600 thousand Scientology: 500 thousand
My guess is that their statistics undercount the "Chinese traditional religion" and overcount "Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist"
Anyway, just because you label blind faith and superstition as part of the human condition doesn't mean that others are constrained by your limitations.
So what exactly explains the people who insist on creationism, denying every shred of evidence and fact that supports evolution?
Some people crave certainty, and latch onto words of leaders who claim to speak simple, absolute truth.
Are they just pulling their 6 day creation story out of thin air?
They have chosen to follow leaders who are themselves either ignorant fools, spouting what they do not understand, or liars.
Not at all dissimilar to the Republican War on Science. They have chosen to embrace those who make their livlihood causing global warming, so they naturally believe the energy industry think-tanks who say that global warming has nothing to do with the CO2 that we're putting into the atmosphere. It's all a coincidence. You can't believe those scientists; here, believe our scientists instead. Because we make campaign contributions.
Spreading humanity's seed across the solar system/galaxy is only a priority if you have decided that human existence is instrinsically valuable enough to justify such an upheaval.
I have made such a decision. Space, as far as we can tell, is devoid of life. So far as we can tell, we are the only intelligent life.
I do identify so strongly with my species that I am willing to work to prevent its passing.
I do not advocate careful exploration. We should search for life before we change places. But that concern doesn't stop us from mining the asteroid belt for material to create O'Neill-style space habitat. Use the good real estate first (e.g. L4, L5), while we're still learning how to make them self-sufficient (or, actually, needing only solar input).
Going into space is like having off-site backups for planet earth. You don't do it because you plan on needing it; you do it because you might need it in spite of your best plans.
Of course we're going to try and solve the problems that we can forsee. It is unlikely that we can build enough space colonies to solve overpopulation; that will have to come from declining birth rates, which will have to come from providing reproductive education to all, and making birth control available to all. If we're fast enough, the demographic transition will limit overall population without draconian policies (i.e. the current policies of the P.R.C.).
Bush and the Republican party that supports him doesn't care anymore about taking out Osama bin Laden.
Bush had a chance to take out al Zarqawi before the war started, but didn't. Many suggest that this is because "Hussein is harboring terrorists" was one of the excuses he wanted to use to start the war. Of course, al Zarqawi was in the Kurdish part of Iraq, where Saddam couldn't reach him.
What did the Reupublicans say when Clinton tried to take out bin Laden? They accused him of playing politics with national security: "Wag the dog" and all that. What did the Bush administration do when Richard Clarke was telling him that Osama bin Laden was a threat? They ignored him, then demoted him. What did the Bush administration do when the Presidential Daily Briefing said "bin Laden determined to attack US"? Nothing.
Many monitors can be driven at frequencies that the phosphor dots can't resolve.
Your 19" monitor has a viewable screen diagonal less than 18". Let's say it's 18", and the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio. That means the display area is 10.8 by 14.4 inches. Or 274 by 365 mm. You need a.2286 dot pitch or finer to display 1600x1200 on that sized tube. Otherwise you will have pixels that are missing phosphors dots.
There are many monitors advertised as being able to display 1600 x 1200 that just can't.
First generation CD players in the USA were $1,000. Second generation players, a year later, were $400 to $500. Third generation players even less.
First generation High Definition players will be expensive. Second generation less so. Of course, the hardware vendors may try to price the first generation players below cost to gain market share, and then not drop prices as fast... we shall see.
Cell time is expensive? I'm with Verizon (and unhappy that they caved in to the NSA...). I pay for two lines; mine and my wife's. I pay for some 400 minutes a month, but I don't pay to call my wife, my daughter, my brother; we're all "in network" and that is included in the package. I don't pay long distance or roaming. I don't pay if I call after 9:00pm or on weekends. With all the "don't pay"s, airtime isn't expensive.
My ex-wife has completely cut her land line. Just the cell. And I'm thinking about it.
TicketMaster is an abusive monopoly. They don't represent the "venue owners" which in many cases are the taxpayers. They are a huge tax on the live-entertainment industry, able to siphon off a fair amount of the money that flows from ticket buyers to entertainment providers.
We won't go into how they got the exclusive contracts to sell seats to all of the large venues in the country.
Peral Jam wanted to put on a free show, but they couldn't find a location to play that wouldn't give TicketMaster $10 per ticket.
Government spending has increased fastest when Executive and Legislative branches were both controlled by Republicans.
In general, Republicans love pork-barrel spending, borrowing the money from foreigners, and ineffective government that costs a lot and doesn't solve real problems. They have no problems with bending the truth or killing foreigners when they get in the way.
Democrats believe in effective government, responsibility, and cooperating with the rest of the world. Military force is a last resort, not the first tool out of the kit. Government should solve problems, not be the problem.
The PC was designed to be general purpose. But now that people have 30 years of experience with desktop computers, they've found some "known solutions" that fulfill the needs of large segments of the market. Large enough that the machines can be "locked down", and the flexibility and a lot of complexity removed. Imagine a machine with web browser, office suite, finance package, photo catalog, and music. Do what a $400 PC bundle does, but eliminate viruses and spyware and worms and DDOS drones. You don't have to worry about anti-virus software subscriptions.
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Global Warming will warm the surface waters of the ocean at mid-lattitudes. Just a couple of days over water that is a couple of degrees warmer is all it takes to turn tropical storms into cat-3 hurricanes.
Hurricanes are one of the ways that heat is moved from the tropics toward the poles.
They physics of Radio Waves are the same for everybody. Water has the same spectrum everywhere, so the assumption about the water hole is reasonable.
SETI@home is looking for patterns that are very unlikely to be generated by natural processes. We don't have to recognize the content of the alien signal; just that it is an artificial signal.
My hunch is that accidental broadcasts of high-power carrier waves would only happen for a short time period; after ones' electronics advance into the integrated circuit stage, the radio broadcasts shift from analog to compressed and encrypted spread-spectrum CDMA, which by design sounds like noise (unless you have a code).
There are two possibilities: either there are intelligent civilizations out there, or we are alone. Either result is profound.
If Mirosoft were to pull out of the EU market, they'd be giving up their monopoly. And the monopoly has made the business.
Why does office sell for hundreds of dollars while what few commercial office-suites that are still for sale retail for less than a hundred? Because Office is the monopoly.
What would the Europeans do? I hear there was this Computer Science student at the University of Helsinki that wrote an interesting operating system... Once there was a second platform, with a significant share of the world-wide installed base, developers would start to make money selling applications for it.
Microsoft would never let that happen.
Count the number of bridges at interchanges. Lots and lots there.
Also, many bridges are small. Taking the road over a stream, or creek, or brook. They count, too.
They built the turnpike. At that exit (12, IIRC), people started a number of businesses to serve travellers. Years later, they designated the turnpike west of Breezewood as I-76 and I-70, the turnpike east of Breezewood as I-76, and built a new road from there to Baltimore that they labelled I-70. Given the geography, the practical solution was to route traffic through the existing toll booths and ramps to the east side of Breezewood, direct traffic through town for 1500 feet and then let traffic get onto the newly-built I-70 on the west side of town.
History is facinating.
I've been pining for exactly this "shoebox"-sized mac. I'm about to dispose of a perfectly good 15" CRT because the computer it came bundled with is obsolete. I don't want to do that to an $600 LCD Monitor.
I've been tempted by the mini's price. But the laptop drive keeps being a showstopper. I don't need a tiny machine.
Science is an antidote to blind faith. Fortunatly, some have taken the time to carefully tease out what works and what doesn't. We don't throw virgins into volcanos to appease the gods any more.
t ml
Your estimates on the world's religions are way off. Judaism is way down the list. Here is one site:
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.h
Christianity: 2.1 billion
Islam: 1.3 billion
Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
Hinduism: 900 million
Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
Buddhism: 376 million
primal-indigenous: 300 million
African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
Sikhism: 23 million
Juche: 19 million
Spiritism: 15 million
Judaism: 14 million
Baha'i: 7 million
Jainism: 4.2 million
Shinto: 4 million
Cao Dai: 4 million
Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
Tenrikyo: 2 million
Neo-Paganism: 1 million
Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
Scientology: 500 thousand
My guess is that their statistics undercount the "Chinese traditional religion" and overcount "Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist"
Anyway, just because you label blind faith and superstition as part of the human condition doesn't mean that others are constrained by your limitations.
Not at all dissimilar to the Republican War on Science. They have chosen to embrace those who make their livlihood causing global warming, so they naturally believe the energy industry think-tanks who say that global warming has nothing to do with the CO2 that we're putting into the atmosphere. It's all a coincidence. You can't believe those scientists; here, believe our scientists instead. Because we make campaign contributions.
The Pill being prescribed for its hormonal effects, for example.
Galileo got in trouble for saying that the earth moves... in a book that irreverently satirized the current pope.
The earth moving does not clash at all with most modern science.
If MS releases "Office for Linux", and charges as much as they charge OEMs for Windows + Office, then it's a masquerade, not turning over a new leaf.
I do identify so strongly with my species that I am willing to work to prevent its passing.
I do not advocate careful exploration. We should search for life before we change places. But that concern doesn't stop us from mining the asteroid belt for material to create O'Neill-style space habitat. Use the good real estate first (e.g. L4, L5), while we're still learning how to make them self-sufficient (or, actually, needing only solar input).
Going into space is like having off-site backups for planet earth. You don't do it because you plan on needing it; you do it because you might need it in spite of your best plans.
Of course we're going to try and solve the problems that we can forsee. It is unlikely that we can build enough space colonies to solve overpopulation; that will have to come from declining birth rates, which will have to come from providing reproductive education to all, and making birth control available to all. If we're fast enough, the demographic transition will limit overall population without draconian policies (i.e. the current policies of the P.R.C.).
Israel spent the bulk of the war in 1948 siezing land from the Palestinians. Ditto 1956, and 1967. In 1983 they were siezing land from the Lebanese.
Bush and the Republican party that supports him doesn't care anymore about taking out Osama bin Laden.
Bush had a chance to take out al Zarqawi before the war started, but didn't. Many suggest that this is because "Hussein is harboring terrorists" was one of the excuses he wanted to use to start the war. Of course, al Zarqawi was in the Kurdish part of Iraq, where Saddam couldn't reach him.
What did the Reupublicans say when Clinton tried to take out bin Laden? They accused him of playing politics with national security: "Wag the dog" and all that. What did the Bush administration do when Richard Clarke was telling him that Osama bin Laden was a threat? They ignored him, then demoted him. What did the Bush administration do when the Presidential Daily Briefing said "bin Laden determined to attack US"? Nothing.
What are your examples of the judicial system "starting to legislate from the bench"?
Many monitors can be driven at frequencies that the phosphor dots can't resolve.
.2286 dot pitch or finer to display 1600x1200 on that sized tube. Otherwise you will have pixels that are missing phosphors dots.
Your 19" monitor has a viewable screen diagonal less than 18". Let's say it's 18", and the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio. That means the display area is 10.8 by 14.4 inches. Or 274 by 365 mm. You need a
There are many monitors advertised as being able to display 1600 x 1200 that just can't.
First generation CD players in the USA were $1,000. Second generation players, a year later, were $400 to $500. Third generation players even less.
First generation High Definition players will be expensive. Second generation less so. Of course, the hardware vendors may try to price the first generation players below cost to gain market share, and then not drop prices as fast... we shall see.
Cell time is expensive? I'm with Verizon (and unhappy that they caved in to the NSA...). I pay for two lines; mine and my wife's. I pay for some 400 minutes a month, but I don't pay to call my wife, my daughter, my brother; we're all "in network" and that is included in the package. I don't pay long distance or roaming. I don't pay if I call after 9:00pm or on weekends. With all the "don't pay"s, airtime isn't expensive.
My ex-wife has completely cut her land line. Just the cell. And I'm thinking about it.
Of course it's full of bugs. Bugs are what robo-geckos eat!
TicketMaster is an abusive monopoly. They don't represent the "venue owners" which in many cases are the taxpayers. They are a huge tax on the live-entertainment industry, able to siphon off a fair amount of the money that flows from ticket buyers to entertainment providers.
We won't go into how they got the exclusive contracts to sell seats to all of the large venues in the country.
Peral Jam wanted to put on a free show, but they couldn't find a location to play that wouldn't give TicketMaster $10 per ticket.
They said it couldn't be done, to prove that IE was an integral part of their operating system.
Government spending has increased fastest when Executive and Legislative branches were both controlled by Republicans.
In general, Republicans love pork-barrel spending, borrowing the money from foreigners, and ineffective government that costs a lot and doesn't solve real problems. They have no problems with bending the truth or killing foreigners when they get in the way.
Democrats believe in effective government, responsibility, and cooperating with the rest of the world. Military force is a last resort, not the first tool out of the kit. Government should solve problems, not be the problem.
How many American servicemen and servicewomen died to end the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo/Kosova?
The PC was designed to be general purpose. But now that people have 30 years of experience with desktop computers, they've found some "known solutions" that fulfill the needs of large segments of the market. Large enough that the machines can be "locked down", and the flexibility and a lot of complexity removed. Imagine a machine with web browser, office suite, finance package, photo catalog, and music. Do what a $400 PC bundle does, but eliminate viruses and spyware and worms and DDOS drones. You don't have to worry about anti-virus software subscriptions.