Why stop at just destroying a planet, or even a star system - why not destroy the structure of space itself.
In both Greg Egan's "Schild's Ladder" and Joe Haldeman's "Forever Peace" by technobabble means we managed (or were about to manage) to create a false vacuum state that was actually more stable than the real vacuum state in our universe. Once created, this false vacuum began (or would begin) cannibalizing our own space, turning it into its own. Kind of like what the Genesis Device wanted to do in ST2-WoK, but much more thoroughly.
Last spring we took the family and went on a vacation to DC. One obvious stop was the Smithsonian Air and Space, but I was disappointed to see that the room that probably would have contained the Star Trek Enterprise was currently closed. Then near the end of the time there, I went into the basement of the gift shop. There was the 11-foot Enterprise model. Surprising thing was that only one side was painted - the other side was mostly blank. There were a few things painted on the other side, so it looks like they were doing the whole thing, ran out of time, and decided they never really needed to finish the job, anyway.
Oh we also went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Dulles annex, and saw the "real" Enterprise - the drop-test article. (as well as a lot of other really neat stuff)
In the original Foundation Trilogy, starships were essentially modeled after naval ships. They were big, and had crews of hundreds or thousands, full of heavy machinery. When he started the new Foundation stories, after 500 years of Foundation progress, they discovered (Queue Dr. Evil) "miniaturization." The new ship where most of the action took place was automated to the point where one person could run it, though it could carry a few passengers. In addition, this new small ship could out-run and out-shoot the 500 year old battleship of the original Foundation Trilogy. 500 years of Foundation progress managed to mimic 40 years of Earth progress. It seems that the future is always ahead of the present, and as the present moves, so does the future. Kind of obvious, but it seems to even work that way even when the fictional future is 1000 years from now.
There are other qualifications for the Presidency, which of course the Vice President should also meet, besides "being much less corrupt than the run-of-the-mill Alaskan politician."
But the essence of thermal convection is the difference in density driven by the heat. That difference allows gravity to drive the convection. No gravity and the regions of differen density will just sit in place.
You bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about. I remember during the space-race days as a kid, that they talked about the special tools necessary for zero-G because gravity wouldn't hold you fast to torque against something. So clearly it can't be any ordinary spoon. In addition to the more gentle stirring action, it's got to be a "zero-reaction" spoon, or a pair of mini-spoons going in opposite directions, to impart no net torque to the stirrer. The means for the stirrer to actuate the thing has to be zero-torque, as well. I envision a handle-with trigger, with a rod extending into the tea, and a pair of counter-rotating spoonlets on the end.
If you're hovering over a kettle, you may as well brew up a really hot cup of tea, and let your Infinite Improbability Drive get you out of harm's way. Either that, or thr Drive will turn the radiation storm into music, and you can protect yourself with earplugs. For that matter, if the tea is *really* hot, you can specify that the music be "Silence" by Phillip Glass, and skip the earplugs.
I doubt tea would steep well in zero G, because there would be no natural convection. Ordinary stirring is a no-no, so it's time to patent the "zero-G tea stirring device" that applies just the right amount of motion in the water for a fine cup of tea, without overstirring.
My town has had 28% of the vote in early. Even if the turnout is above average, it seems to me that it'll have to be more than 28% above average for the poll lines to get longer. I came into work early, so I can leave early and pick up my daughter for her first Presidential vote. I've missed the opening rush and the lunchtime rush. I hope to get there before the after-work rush.
I'd say it's not so much the screening for smart as it is the well-behaved. I'd further guess that a teacher would much rather have a less-intelligent, but well-behaved and motivated student that an incredibly smart brat. Plus a well-behaved student, even if not as smart, doesn't disrupt the rest of the class.
John F Kennedy "made the nation smarter" by telling us that we were behind the Soviets, and it was important to the nation that we all "make ourselves smarter." As a nation, we rose to his challenge.
Perhaps the President can propose programs, budget, etc, but that all usually gets diluted beyond all recognition by the time Congress gets done. But what he can do is talk to the nation and convey a sense of priorities - and hopefully challenge us to make ourselves better/smarter.
Alchemy has gotten a bad name, perhaps unfairly. But look at this another way - alchemists were proto-scientists. They wanted to understand how the world worked and manipulate it. Given where they started, from a basis of cultural myths and legends, they didn't do that badly. Plus in time they turned themselves into scientists, by properly framing and asking questions.
Maybe 300+ years ago the same could have been said of Creatonism.
But with the current shape of the "wealth curve" what you advocate is exactly what we don't have. Rich kids almost can't help but succeed, and poor kids almost can't help but fail - and it has nothing to do with who is "fittest," and everything to do with the resources readily available to them. Sure there will be some rich kids who do fail, and there will be some poor kids who do succeed, but both situations are rarer than they should be.
So forget about fairness, for a moment.
Bright, capable kids WILL succeed, regardless of status. The problem for us is defining success. For our current "wealth curve" for rich kids societally acceptable success is practically assured, and for poor kids it's practically excluded, as I said before. But those poor kids WILL succeed, it's just that they won'd succeed in societally-acceptable ways. For some, "success" may be the next drug score, for others it may be rising to the top of their street gang, and yet others might think it's in stealing the flashiest car. None of those are things that as a society we want to happen, but those may be the only "success" available to those people.
Next, forget about crime, too.
The future of a nation is measured on how well it uses its resources, both material and human. Take a situation where a mediocre-performing rich kid holds some position, then presume there's a poor kid who, given proper education, could have filled that position much better. It's inefficient for the nation. I won't argue that the top 2% can always succeed and the bottom 2% can always fail, rich or poor. But that's only 4% of the population, and we have the other 96% to think about, and that's where the "wealth curve" leads to inefficiencies.
So ignore that.
Now look at China, where they're downright ruthless about all of this stuff. Certainly they're also corrupt, and children of Party mucky-mucks will always succeed, but that's only a 2-4% issue, as above. As for the other 96%, China is evaluating from childhood, making sure the kids with athletic ability get onto the sports/Olympic track, kids with math and science skills get onto the science and technology track, etc.
Compared to that, we're wasting the resource of our children. Now I'm also not going to favor the heavy-handed tracking of the Chinese, but I still believe that there is a sweeter space between where we are today and where the Chinese are.
Robert Heinlein once wrote, "If you live in a place where you can vote, then VOTE! If you don't have time to do all the research and vote intelligently, then find some well-meaning fool, find out how he's voting, and vote the exact opposite." Actually, I'm not sure why he limits it to "well meaning fools," because I tend to think that the votes of hateful fools need cancelling just as much, if not more.
As a resident of Vermont, with 3 electoral votes and about a half million people, I'm well aware of this little fact.
One other thing about the Electoral College - in practice, it simplifies voting - that's right, simplifies. Right now we're looking at polling messes in some half-dozen states, and in 2000 the mess boiled down to Florida and in 2004 Ohio. But the mess was limited, and had we done full recounts, which we probably should have, those recounts would have been localized, instead of nationwide. With a nationwide popular vote, every single vote in the entire nation becomes questionable, and the subject of a possible recount. The Electoral College lets most of the states be taken off of the table for recount or dispute purposes.
I'm not sure I like the winner-take-all aspect of it. I know that some states have proportional selection of Electors, and really I think that doing so uniformly would probably be better than what we have today. (Last I heard, each party was trying to change stronghold states of the other party proportional, but keep their own weak-hold states winner-take-all.) But it's also a States rights issue, because apportionment of Electors is up to each state, and keeping Electors in a statewide block makes some states become Very Important. I'm sure the regular residents of such states aren't too happy about all the noise and signs, but I suspect the hotel owners, as well as TV and radio station owners are quite happy - not to mention sign printers.
Which after having done any test engineering, which I have, or reading practically anything by Bruce Schneier, which I also have, then you see that the percentages are against you on mass dragnets like this.
If you're looking for say, a dozen terrorists, looking through 120,000,000 phone calls, that's well under 1 part per million. A really good false positive rate might be 0.01%. That's still 1 part per 10,000 - you're looking for 12 terrorists in 12,012 hits. That's even assuming that your dragnet is 100% effective, that it's 12,012 hits and not 12,011 or 12,006. (12,000 false positives and 12, 11, or 6 true positives.)
This just isn't even a good way to start the job. Intelligence on the ground is, then you can refine your wiretaps and such before you even start, so you're not sifting through so much information. Oh, and FISA would be just fine for that scenario.
Incidentally, as for fraud, there is relatively little evidence of "excess" voters. There have been fraudulent registrations in this cycle, but those were flagged as fraudulent in by Acorn themselves, who are legally obliged to turn in ALL registrations. But there appear to be decent mechanisms in place to protect the vote, itself. These findings on voter fraud were reported by a Republican appointee, by the way. (One of the 8 Federal attorneys fired.)
It most likely was 2nd adjacent, as you say. But NPR stations tend to be low-power repeaters, and a very powerful station even with 2nd adjacency tend will drown (or AGC) them out. They also indicated that the FCC isn't very fond of NPR running on repeaters even at the edges of the dial, because it "wastes" a lot of spectrum, and fewer more powerful stations are more efficient.
Slashdot Mirror
Why stop at just destroying a planet, or even a star system - why not destroy the structure of space itself.
In both Greg Egan's "Schild's Ladder" and Joe Haldeman's "Forever Peace" by technobabble means we managed (or were about to manage) to create a false vacuum state that was actually more stable than the real vacuum state in our universe. Once created, this false vacuum began (or would begin) cannibalizing our own space, turning it into its own. Kind of like what the Genesis Device wanted to do in ST2-WoK, but much more thoroughly.
Last spring we took the family and went on a vacation to DC. One obvious stop was the Smithsonian Air and Space, but I was disappointed to see that the room that probably would have contained the Star Trek Enterprise was currently closed. Then near the end of the time there, I went into the basement of the gift shop. There was the 11-foot Enterprise model. Surprising thing was that only one side was painted - the other side was mostly blank. There were a few things painted on the other side, so it looks like they were doing the whole thing, ran out of time, and decided they never really needed to finish the job, anyway.
Oh we also went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Dulles annex, and saw the "real" Enterprise - the drop-test article. (as well as a lot of other really neat stuff)
This reminds me of Asimov's Foundation novels.
In the original Foundation Trilogy, starships were essentially modeled after naval ships. They were big, and had crews of hundreds or thousands, full of heavy machinery. When he started the new Foundation stories, after 500 years of Foundation progress, they discovered (Queue Dr. Evil) "miniaturization." The new ship where most of the action took place was automated to the point where one person could run it, though it could carry a few passengers. In addition, this new small ship could out-run and out-shoot the 500 year old battleship of the original Foundation Trilogy. 500 years of Foundation progress managed to mimic 40 years of Earth progress. It seems that the future is always ahead of the present, and as the present moves, so does the future. Kind of obvious, but it seems to even work that way even when the fictional future is 1000 years from now.
There are other qualifications for the Presidency, which of course the Vice President should also meet, besides "being much less corrupt than the run-of-the-mill Alaskan politician."
Worrying, certainly.
> Corruption in Alaska? You betcha!
According to my brother, even with such corruptions as she's shown, Sarah Palin is a breath of fresh air compared to politics as usual in Alaska.
And he is by no means a Sarah Palin fan, quite the opposite.
The problem is the sippy-cup top, to keep the tea inside. All you need is a sippy-cup top with an auto-closing "dunking port."
But if it's a *really* hot cup of tea, you're going to need a very well insulated mug.
But the essence of thermal convection is the difference in density driven by the heat. That difference allows gravity to drive the convection. No gravity and the regions of differen density will just sit in place.
You bring up a good point that I hadn't thought about. I remember during the space-race days as a kid, that they talked about the special tools necessary for zero-G because gravity wouldn't hold you fast to torque against something. So clearly it can't be any ordinary spoon. In addition to the more gentle stirring action, it's got to be a "zero-reaction" spoon, or a pair of mini-spoons going in opposite directions, to impart no net torque to the stirrer. The means for the stirrer to actuate the thing has to be zero-torque, as well. I envision a handle-with trigger, with a rod extending into the tea, and a pair of counter-rotating spoonlets on the end.
Oops, this post constitutes prior art.
If you're hovering over a kettle, you may as well brew up a really hot cup of tea, and let your Infinite Improbability Drive get you out of harm's way. Either that, or thr Drive will turn the radiation storm into music, and you can protect yourself with earplugs. For that matter, if the tea is *really* hot, you can specify that the music be "Silence" by Phillip Glass, and skip the earplugs.
I doubt tea would steep well in zero G, because there would be no natural convection. Ordinary stirring is a no-no, so it's time to patent the "zero-G tea stirring device" that applies just the right amount of motion in the water for a fine cup of tea, without overstirring.
My town has had 28% of the vote in early. Even if the turnout is above average, it seems to me that it'll have to be more than 28% above average for the poll lines to get longer. I came into work early, so I can leave early and pick up my daughter for her first Presidential vote. I've missed the opening rush and the lunchtime rush. I hope to get there before the after-work rush.
Maybe we were being played for fools.
But we still buckled down, learned our math and science, and became scientists and engineers.
Robert Heinlein once wrote that most people have hard time coming up with a god smarter/better than they are.
I agree with you.
I'd say it's not so much the screening for smart as it is the well-behaved. I'd further guess that a teacher would much rather have a less-intelligent, but well-behaved and motivated student that an incredibly smart brat. Plus a well-behaved student, even if not as smart, doesn't disrupt the rest of the class.
Because the President has the bully pulpit.
John F Kennedy "made the nation smarter" by telling us that we were behind the Soviets, and it was important to the nation that we all "make ourselves smarter." As a nation, we rose to his challenge.
Perhaps the President can propose programs, budget, etc, but that all usually gets diluted beyond all recognition by the time Congress gets done. But what he can do is talk to the nation and convey a sense of priorities - and hopefully challenge us to make ourselves better/smarter.
Alchemy has gotten a bad name, perhaps unfairly. But look at this another way - alchemists were proto-scientists. They wanted to understand how the world worked and manipulate it. Given where they started, from a basis of cultural myths and legends, they didn't do that badly. Plus in time they turned themselves into scientists, by properly framing and asking questions.
Maybe 300+ years ago the same could have been said of Creatonism.
> Unfortunately, parenthood is an institution with very low barriers to entry.
Pet peeve... Birth control should be readily available. Nobody should become a parent unless they truly WISH to.
But with the current shape of the "wealth curve" what you advocate is exactly what we don't have. Rich kids almost can't help but succeed, and poor kids almost can't help but fail - and it has nothing to do with who is "fittest," and everything to do with the resources readily available to them. Sure there will be some rich kids who do fail, and there will be some poor kids who do succeed, but both situations are rarer than they should be.
So forget about fairness, for a moment.
Bright, capable kids WILL succeed, regardless of status. The problem for us is defining success. For our current "wealth curve" for rich kids societally acceptable success is practically assured, and for poor kids it's practically excluded, as I said before. But those poor kids WILL succeed, it's just that they won'd succeed in societally-acceptable ways. For some, "success" may be the next drug score, for others it may be rising to the top of their street gang, and yet others might think it's in stealing the flashiest car. None of those are things that as a society we want to happen, but those may be the only "success" available to those people.
Next, forget about crime, too.
The future of a nation is measured on how well it uses its resources, both material and human. Take a situation where a mediocre-performing rich kid holds some position, then presume there's a poor kid who, given proper education, could have filled that position much better. It's inefficient for the nation. I won't argue that the top 2% can always succeed and the bottom 2% can always fail, rich or poor. But that's only 4% of the population, and we have the other 96% to think about, and that's where the "wealth curve" leads to inefficiencies.
So ignore that.
Now look at China, where they're downright ruthless about all of this stuff. Certainly they're also corrupt, and children of Party mucky-mucks will always succeed, but that's only a 2-4% issue, as above. As for the other 96%, China is evaluating from childhood, making sure the kids with athletic ability get onto the sports/Olympic track, kids with math and science skills get onto the science and technology track, etc.
Compared to that, we're wasting the resource of our children. Now I'm also not going to favor the heavy-handed tracking of the Chinese, but I still believe that there is a sweeter space between where we are today and where the Chinese are.
Robert Heinlein once wrote, "If you live in a place where you can vote, then VOTE! If you don't have time to do all the research and vote intelligently, then find some well-meaning fool, find out how he's voting, and vote the exact opposite." Actually, I'm not sure why he limits it to "well meaning fools," because I tend to think that the votes of hateful fools need cancelling just as much, if not more.
As a resident of Vermont, with 3 electoral votes and about a half million people, I'm well aware of this little fact.
One other thing about the Electoral College - in practice, it simplifies voting - that's right, simplifies. Right now we're looking at polling messes in some half-dozen states, and in 2000 the mess boiled down to Florida and in 2004 Ohio. But the mess was limited, and had we done full recounts, which we probably should have, those recounts would have been localized, instead of nationwide. With a nationwide popular vote, every single vote in the entire nation becomes questionable, and the subject of a possible recount. The Electoral College lets most of the states be taken off of the table for recount or dispute purposes.
I'm not sure I like the winner-take-all aspect of it. I know that some states have proportional selection of Electors, and really I think that doing so uniformly would probably be better than what we have today. (Last I heard, each party was trying to change stronghold states of the other party proportional, but keep their own weak-hold states winner-take-all.) But it's also a States rights issue, because apportionment of Electors is up to each state, and keeping Electors in a statewide block makes some states become Very Important. I'm sure the regular residents of such states aren't too happy about all the noise and signs, but I suspect the hotel owners, as well as TV and radio station owners are quite happy - not to mention sign printers.
Which after having done any test engineering, which I have, or reading practically anything by Bruce Schneier, which I also have, then you see that the percentages are against you on mass dragnets like this.
If you're looking for say, a dozen terrorists, looking through 120,000,000 phone calls, that's well under 1 part per million. A really good false positive rate might be 0.01%. That's still 1 part per 10,000 - you're looking for 12 terrorists in 12,012 hits. That's even assuming that your dragnet is 100% effective, that it's 12,012 hits and not 12,011 or 12,006. (12,000 false positives and 12, 11, or 6 true positives.)
This just isn't even a good way to start the job. Intelligence on the ground is, then you can refine your wiretaps and such before you even start, so you're not sifting through so much information. Oh, and FISA would be just fine for that scenario.
No mod points, flagging with a response, instead.
Incidentally, as for fraud, there is relatively little evidence of "excess" voters. There have been fraudulent registrations in this cycle, but those were flagged as fraudulent in by Acorn themselves, who are legally obliged to turn in ALL registrations. But there appear to be decent mechanisms in place to protect the vote, itself. These findings on voter fraud were reported by a Republican appointee, by the way. (One of the 8 Federal attorneys fired.)
It most likely was 2nd adjacent, as you say. But NPR stations tend to be low-power repeaters, and a very powerful station even with 2nd adjacency tend will drown (or AGC) them out. They also indicated that the FCC isn't very fond of NPR running on repeaters even at the edges of the dial, because it "wastes" a lot of spectrum, and fewer more powerful stations are more efficient.
That's funny, because "Liberal!" seems to be one of the more common insults on TV.
Sorry, no. I heard about this more than 6 months ago - on NPR.