That's not what the research on gender-isolated groups says. More often, they turn to each other.
Anyway, this whole argument is stupid. The military's studies on the effects of gender integration have been largely positive, with soldiers being more willing to discuss their problems, better conflict resolution, better overall morale, etc.
It's been widely studied that isolating groups to male-only does not alleviate sexual tension. Likewise, people being in "committed couples" doesn't either. Over half of all married individuals will have an affair at some point -- the overwhelming majority of them having previously believed they would never do something like that. Being in a relationship doesn't prevent you from being attracted to other people, or from that attraction being accelerated by the old "new relationship rush".
Humans are sexual creatures. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can get on to how to deal with it.
Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved? -- Carl Sagan, 1996
In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." -- Carl Sagan, "Pale Blue Dot", 1994
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987
The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. -- Carl Sagan
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. -- Carl Sagan, 1996
Sounds like not just an atheist, but someone hostile to religion, no? Yet Sagan, the guy who wrote the dragon in my garage, considered himself an agostic. So in this survey, he'd come across as "agnostic", and possibly even "spiritual".
I find nothing in this survey surprising. One can be agnostic, spiritual, but a firm disbeliever in a personal god and most organized religion, and the opposition to the scientific process that comes from it. Only people like Dawkins would fit into "Anti-religion atheist" category.
Useful??? They had to use a B-52 to get into the air. Then a rocket booster to go to 4.5Mach. Then this precious little stove pipe took it to 5.0 Mach.
Yeah! How can you call that useful? And speaking of wastes of time during our war with the Japs and the Nazis, did you hear what those crazy eggheads over at Los Alamos are doing? They're trying to build a "nuclear bomb" -- but all they've managed to do so far is irradiate a bunch of scientists. How is that useful?
(/snark)
This is a *test program*, not a final product. It's designed to gather data. This was the first flight of a hydrocarbon-burning scramjet, yet it's already managed an acceleration and climb rate faster than a typical commercial aircraft -- but in conditions of orders of magnitude greater drag. It would have gone faster and higher, but it had a flameout 200s in -- again, not that unusual in a first-of-the-kind test.
Scramjets are not designed to be standalone engines. They're meant to be a "mid stage" engine to orbital rockets or a final stage for high-speed intercontinental aircraft, operating in an . For orbital craft, the scramjet craft is either part of the first stage carrier rocket which launches payloads with a small kickstage, or itself has a small kickstage for final orbital maneuvers. Initial thrust for scramjet powered vehicles is to be provided by some combination of rockets, advanced jets, ramjets, or hybrids of the aforementioned techs. A particular hybrid of interest is the "dual mode" scramjet/ramjet combination, designed to operate from around Mach 1 or so up to 1/2 to 2/3rds of orbital velocity. To get up to Mach 1, cheap droppable rocket boosters are what will probably be used, at least early on. But what's really possible is at this point still a big subject of debate, and a lot more data is needed.
The best role I've ever seen Keanu in was "A Walk In The Clouds"; he actually did an okay job. The role was made for him: it's about a guy who does a poor job of acting (in this case, of acting like he's the father of a child that isn't his). His natural lack of acting talent just comes across as the character having a lack of acting talent.
His criticisms did get increasingly harsh as time went on, esp. about US military action overseas -- for example, The War Prayer. At one point, he suggested that this be the new American flag. He had a lot of pressure on him not to ruin his reputation by being too vocal of an antiwar voice.
Hey, I'm all for blocking more sunlight. That way we can just acidify our oceans in peace. Who needs those pesky "corals"?(/snark)
Any global warming "solution" that doesn't involve actually lowering the CO2 level of the atmosphere isn't a solution. And I agree with those who are concerned about the ramifications of this. Increased planetary cloudcover. Less sunlight reaching the surface. The temperature drop being only masking and contingent on the continued operation of an ever-increasing number of devices with finite lifespan. What could go wrong?;)
Chrome still has some occasional bugs that lead to annoying "Oh Snap!" errors, but all in all, it's blazingly fast. I develop a web app with some pretty intensive javascript functionality and a good bit of rendering on the DOM. Chrome can actually make full-screen javascript-driven DOM animations almost movie-smooth.
Sure, there's that. There is also the fact that a car that can be charged in 15 minutes to travel more than 100 miles safely has yet to be invented.
You mean like the BYD E6? The Lightning GT? The Phoenix SUT? And if you increase the charging time to 30 minutes or count plug-in hybrids, you get dozens more.
Today's automotive-style li-ion batteries are more than capable of rapid charge. The two main limitations are on how fast you can cool the pack (if you don't keep it cool, you shorten the lifespan) and how fast you can supply the power (a recent movement out of Japan is definitely the right way to go -- having the chargers include their own battery buffer). The main reason most manufacturers are limiting charge time today is the paucity of rapid charge stations (and no standard for them -- although TEPCO is heading that way) leading to a lack of desire to pay for a suitable pack cooling system in the vehicle.
The most key element to EVs becoming widespread is for gasoline prices to increase. Have prices at $2/gal and it could take half a century. bring them to $5/gal and you'd could have half of all new car sales be electric in 15 years. And the rate of infrastructure expansion and tech advancement would follow correspondingly. It's hard to justify the price of a $125k 15-minute rapid charging station when there's only one car a day going through the area, but if you've got 50 going through a day, suddenly that's a different picture.
Plus, for those who care, grass-fed cattle tend to be a lot healthier, and live much longer lives (if not interrupted for the slaughterhouse). They don't put on mass as quickly, though, and grass-fed dairy cattle don't produce as much milk (grain is much more calorie dense, obviously).
The byproduct of ethanol is an excellent food source for cattle.
Not really. Distillers' grain is an acceptable food source for cattle and provides some nutritional benefits, but must be limited in consumption and mixed with actual food as a minority component (~20% or so).
Yeah, tell me that patents don't matter when *you're* being told by potential investors that, gosh, you're a software company with an innovative product but you only have an app out for *one* patent? What are you thinking?
Regardless of that particular lawyer's minority position, potential investors and even state and federal grant boards look strongly to whether you're taking steps to protect your IP. We have product *and* are patent pending. The product was developed privately before the patent was applied for. Most software companies launch on sweat equity. Early on, cash is for hardware, lawyers, travel, things of that nature.
As for this "use the money to innovate instead" argument? Filing for a US patent costs about $10k, including attorney fees. An entry-level programmer costs you perhaps $65k after benefits -- we're talking entry level. So that's two months worth of salary + benefits. How much innovation do you think an entry level programmer is going to do in two months?
Furthermore, all of the costs aren't upfront. You may only spend $6k or so up front, but more when you need to actually defend your patent. So that gets pushed down the road, which in a startup, is a *very good thing*. So off the bat, it's one month of a starting programmer's salary you're talking about.
This is just the way business works. You either play the game or you get out of the pool. Many people here don't like patents because of their stifling effect on free software, and rightly so. But your anger needs to be directed at those who defend or seek to strengthen our current patent system rather than those who want it to be more reasonable but don't have a voice in the matter.
Here's an issue that most people here probably aren't aware of. The patent system is skewed toward helping the Big Boys. Startups aren't your problem. Startups have less money, yet they have to pay more for patents because they don't have a big team of lawyers lying around. Startups often aren't familiar with all of the risks and intricacies of the patent process and may screw themselves over by talking in detail about what they're doing too soon or things like that. Startups *definitely* can't afford to patent troll, to file a bunch of random patents and see what sticks. Startups may not be able to afford to extend their coverage to new markets or cover their tech as well. So the whole system is biased in favor of big companies.
What would I like to see in patent reform?
* Shorter terms for software patents. The term on a patent of a given type should be proportional to the typical length of the product cycle, such that the term is, let's say, however long it generally takes for the third generation of said product to hit the shelves. So if you say the typical software innovation cycle is 2-3 years, then perhaps 5 years. From time of granting, not of filing. * Greater leniency for filing errors, but stricter standards for what's innovative * Faster processing times * A *higher* filing fee. This will make the percentage-difference in cost between patents from the big boys and startups smaller, as well as helping fund more people to review them faster and better.
And you know... a lot of the business world would probably consider me a radical for this, but I'd like to see there be funding -- perhaps from the patent fees themselves -- for a governmental legal defense organization for nonprofits and individuals. That wouldn't mean that nonprofits and individuals would get a "violate patents risk-free" card. But it'd help stop meritless bullying from companies who know that their targets are too weak to fight back.
My attorney encouraged me to focus not on the software aspects, but how the software interacted with the surrounding system (sensors, hardware, users, etc). It's been suspected for a while now that the vise was going to tighten up against patents on algorithms.
Another option (not really, but just considering it for fun) would be a REALLY extreme form of aerocapture. Basically, not aiming to shoot past the star, but through it.;) The problem is that your target has a diameter of ~150,000,000 meters and you're going at 30,000,000 meters per second, so even if you went right through the center of the target star, you'd only have five seconds to slow down before you're out the other side;)
Oh, and then there's that whole pesky heating thing. Ignoring relativity, 30,000,000 m/s is 450,000,000,000,000 joules per kilogram (125 GWh/kg). Best of luck getting rid of that energy!;)
I believe that one antimatter-initiated microfusion rocket design was also supposed to be able to get up into the 0.1c range while still providing good thrust. Fission fragment rockets might be another good possibility if they can get enough thrust.
Why do people always bring up Orion? Medusa completely supercedes it in every way.
And anyway, that's just one of a plethora of high-ISP propulsion methods. Solar sails, various types of magnetic sails, various types of microfission and microfusion (both antimatter-initiated or otherwise), pure antimatter, various larger scale fusion designs, fission fragment (including a favorite of mine, the dusty plasma fission fragment rocket), nuclear saltwater, and on and on.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not what the research on gender-isolated groups says. More often, they turn to each other.
Anyway, this whole argument is stupid. The military's studies on the effects of gender integration have been largely positive, with soldiers being more willing to discuss their problems, better conflict resolution, better overall morale, etc.
Mission control override on all restraining systems and disabling weapons.
Note that one can be restrained with something as simple as a stretch of wire or long strip of duct tape if need be.
Myth.
It's been widely studied that isolating groups to male-only does not alleviate sexual tension. Likewise, people being in "committed couples" doesn't either. Over half of all married individuals will have an affair at some point -- the overwhelming majority of them having previously believed they would never do something like that. Being in a relationship doesn't prevent you from being attracted to other people, or from that attraction being accelerated by the old "new relationship rush".
Humans are sexual creatures. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can get on to how to deal with it.
Marriage does not prevent feelings for other people from developing.
Sending same-sex crews places does not prevent sex.
What about Adam Baldwin? Is he allowed?
Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved? -- Carl Sagan, 1996
In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way." -- Carl Sagan, "Pale Blue Dot", 1994
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987
The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. -- Carl Sagan
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. -- Carl Sagan, 1996
Sounds like not just an atheist, but someone hostile to religion, no? Yet Sagan, the guy who wrote the dragon in my garage, considered himself an agostic. So in this survey, he'd come across as "agnostic", and possibly even "spiritual".
I find nothing in this survey surprising. One can be agnostic, spiritual, but a firm disbeliever in a personal god and most organized religion, and the opposition to the scientific process that comes from it. Only people like Dawkins would fit into "Anti-religion atheist" category.
Useful??? They had to use a B-52 to get into the air. Then a rocket booster to go to 4.5Mach. Then this precious little stove pipe took it to 5.0 Mach.
Yeah! How can you call that useful? And speaking of wastes of time during our war with the Japs and the Nazis, did you hear what those crazy eggheads over at Los Alamos are doing? They're trying to build a "nuclear bomb" -- but all they've managed to do so far is irradiate a bunch of scientists. How is that useful?
(/snark)
This is a *test program*, not a final product. It's designed to gather data. This was the first flight of a hydrocarbon-burning scramjet, yet it's already managed an acceleration and climb rate faster than a typical commercial aircraft -- but in conditions of orders of magnitude greater drag. It would have gone faster and higher, but it had a flameout 200s in -- again, not that unusual in a first-of-the-kind test.
Scramjets are not designed to be standalone engines. They're meant to be a "mid stage" engine to orbital rockets or a final stage for high-speed intercontinental aircraft, operating in an . For orbital craft, the scramjet craft is either part of the first stage carrier rocket which launches payloads with a small kickstage, or itself has a small kickstage for final orbital maneuvers. Initial thrust for scramjet powered vehicles is to be provided by some combination of rockets, advanced jets, ramjets, or hybrids of the aforementioned techs. A particular hybrid of interest is the "dual mode" scramjet/ramjet combination, designed to operate from around Mach 1 or so up to 1/2 to 2/3rds of orbital velocity. To get up to Mach 1, cheap droppable rocket boosters are what will probably be used, at least early on. But what's really possible is at this point still a big subject of debate, and a lot more data is needed.
The best role I've ever seen Keanu in was "A Walk In The Clouds"; he actually did an okay job. The role was made for him: it's about a guy who does a poor job of acting (in this case, of acting like he's the father of a child that isn't his). His natural lack of acting talent just comes across as the character having a lack of acting talent.
His criticisms did get increasingly harsh as time went on, esp. about US military action overseas -- for example, The War Prayer. At one point, he suggested that this be the new American flag. He had a lot of pressure on him not to ruin his reputation by being too vocal of an antiwar voice.
Hey, I'm all for blocking more sunlight. That way we can just acidify our oceans in peace. Who needs those pesky "corals"?(/snark)
Any global warming "solution" that doesn't involve actually lowering the CO2 level of the atmosphere isn't a solution. And I agree with those who are concerned about the ramifications of this. Increased planetary cloudcover. Less sunlight reaching the surface. The temperature drop being only masking and contingent on the continued operation of an ever-increasing number of devices with finite lifespan. What could go wrong? ;)
Chrome still has some occasional bugs that lead to annoying "Oh Snap!" errors, but all in all, it's blazingly fast. I develop a web app with some pretty intensive javascript functionality and a good bit of rendering on the DOM. Chrome can actually make full-screen javascript-driven DOM animations almost movie-smooth.
Voice: "The fingers you are using to trade these stocks are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, mash the keyboard with your palm."
Sure, there's that. There is also the fact that a car that can be charged in 15 minutes to travel more than 100 miles safely has yet to be invented.
You mean like the BYD E6? The Lightning GT? The Phoenix SUT? And if you increase the charging time to 30 minutes or count plug-in hybrids, you get dozens more.
Today's automotive-style li-ion batteries are more than capable of rapid charge. The two main limitations are on how fast you can cool the pack (if you don't keep it cool, you shorten the lifespan) and how fast you can supply the power (a recent movement out of Japan is definitely the right way to go -- having the chargers include their own battery buffer). The main reason most manufacturers are limiting charge time today is the paucity of rapid charge stations (and no standard for them -- although TEPCO is heading that way) leading to a lack of desire to pay for a suitable pack cooling system in the vehicle.
The most key element to EVs becoming widespread is for gasoline prices to increase. Have prices at $2/gal and it could take half a century. bring them to $5/gal and you'd could have half of all new car sales be electric in 15 years. And the rate of infrastructure expansion and tech advancement would follow correspondingly. It's hard to justify the price of a $125k 15-minute rapid charging station when there's only one car a day going through the area, but if you've got 50 going through a day, suddenly that's a different picture.
onto BitTorrent.
Plus, for those who care, grass-fed cattle tend to be a lot healthier, and live much longer lives (if not interrupted for the slaughterhouse). They don't put on mass as quickly, though, and grass-fed dairy cattle don't produce as much milk (grain is much more calorie dense, obviously).
The byproduct of ethanol is an excellent food source for cattle.
Not really. Distillers' grain is an acceptable food source for cattle and provides some nutritional benefits, but must be limited in consumption and mixed with actual food as a minority component (~20% or so).
One more question: do you have a time machine I could borrow to go back and punch myself for poor reading comprehension? ;)
Come on -- I bet if you tried, you could come up with an even better straw man than that.
Where, exactly, was the parent defending ethanol?
Yeah, tell me that patents don't matter when *you're* being told by potential investors that, gosh, you're a software company with an innovative product but you only have an app out for *one* patent? What are you thinking?
Regardless of that particular lawyer's minority position, potential investors and even state and federal grant boards look strongly to whether you're taking steps to protect your IP. We have product *and* are patent pending. The product was developed privately before the patent was applied for. Most software companies launch on sweat equity. Early on, cash is for hardware, lawyers, travel, things of that nature.
As for this "use the money to innovate instead" argument? Filing for a US patent costs about $10k, including attorney fees. An entry-level programmer costs you perhaps $65k after benefits -- we're talking entry level. So that's two months worth of salary + benefits. How much innovation do you think an entry level programmer is going to do in two months?
Furthermore, all of the costs aren't upfront. You may only spend $6k or so up front, but more when you need to actually defend your patent. So that gets pushed down the road, which in a startup, is a *very good thing*. So off the bat, it's one month of a starting programmer's salary you're talking about.
This is just the way business works. You either play the game or you get out of the pool. Many people here don't like patents because of their stifling effect on free software, and rightly so. But your anger needs to be directed at those who defend or seek to strengthen our current patent system rather than those who want it to be more reasonable but don't have a voice in the matter.
Here's an issue that most people here probably aren't aware of. The patent system is skewed toward helping the Big Boys. Startups aren't your problem. Startups have less money, yet they have to pay more for patents because they don't have a big team of lawyers lying around. Startups often aren't familiar with all of the risks and intricacies of the patent process and may screw themselves over by talking in detail about what they're doing too soon or things like that. Startups *definitely* can't afford to patent troll, to file a bunch of random patents and see what sticks. Startups may not be able to afford to extend their coverage to new markets or cover their tech as well. So the whole system is biased in favor of big companies.
What would I like to see in patent reform?
* Shorter terms for software patents. The term on a patent of a given type should be proportional to the typical length of the product cycle, such that the term is, let's say, however long it generally takes for the third generation of said product to hit the shelves. So if you say the typical software innovation cycle is 2-3 years, then perhaps 5 years. From time of granting, not of filing.
* Greater leniency for filing errors, but stricter standards for what's innovative
* Faster processing times
* A *higher* filing fee. This will make the percentage-difference in cost between patents from the big boys and startups smaller, as well as helping fund more people to review them faster and better.
And you know... a lot of the business world would probably consider me a radical for this, but I'd like to see there be funding -- perhaps from the patent fees themselves -- for a governmental legal defense organization for nonprofits and individuals. That wouldn't mean that nonprofits and individuals would get a "violate patents risk-free" card. But it'd help stop meritless bullying from companies who know that their targets are too weak to fight back.
My attorney encouraged me to focus not on the software aspects, but how the software interacted with the surrounding system (sensors, hardware, users, etc). It's been suspected for a while now that the vise was going to tighten up against patents on algorithms.
And good, IMHO.
Another option (not really, but just considering it for fun) would be a REALLY extreme form of aerocapture. Basically, not aiming to shoot past the star, but through it. ;) The problem is that your target has a diameter of ~150,000,000 meters and you're going at 30,000,000 meters per second, so even if you went right through the center of the target star, you'd only have five seconds to slow down before you're out the other side ;)
Oh, and then there's that whole pesky heating thing. Ignoring relativity, 30,000,000 m/s is 450,000,000,000,000 joules per kilogram (125 GWh/kg). Best of luck getting rid of that energy! ;)
I believe that one antimatter-initiated microfusion rocket design was also supposed to be able to get up into the 0.1c range while still providing good thrust. Fission fragment rockets might be another good possibility if they can get enough thrust.
Why do people always bring up Orion? Medusa completely supercedes it in every way.
And anyway, that's just one of a plethora of high-ISP propulsion methods. Solar sails, various types of magnetic sails, various types of microfission and microfusion (both antimatter-initiated or otherwise), pure antimatter, various larger scale fusion designs, fission fragment (including a favorite of mine, the dusty plasma fission fragment rocket), nuclear saltwater, and on and on.
Flash floods do not move uphill.