I know this is way off topic, but that's one thing that has always bothered me about the D&D damage system. A dagger through the heart will kill anyone in one blow no matter how experienced they are.
I'd been thinking of adding spring-steel scales (cut from a large industrial bandsaw blade) on the outside of my motorcycle jacket for abrasion resistance, but if tasers are getting more common (and going off with less provocation) maybe I should put them between the outer layer and the lining.
Not that the police really worry about injuring people during "riot control". Just take a look at the RNC, when they shot medics in the back with wooden and plastic baton rounds.
The police baton is less likely to result in death.
I'll disagree with you on that one. A strong blunt impact in the right place in the right way can result in nearly instant death. The difference is that with a baton the user controls the lethality, where as with a taser it's more a matter of chance.
At present, the accused needs to pay to defend against all those charges, so it's still coming out of the public pocket, it's just concentrated instead of distributed and there's no accountability for false accusations.
Prosecutors are paid / promoted based on how many charges they get to stick. This encourages the shotgun method of applying as many charges as have any chance of sticking. It's also a trick to take advantage of plea-bargaining. A store owner might take a $10 item, double the "normal" price to $20, then offer it on a 50% off sale for $10. In the same way, if there's evidence or testimony that might convict you of a misdemeanor (whether you did it or not), they'll charge you with a felony, then offer to "plea-bargain" it down to a misdemeanor.
Personally I think plea-bargaining should be disallowed. It takes the judge and jury out of the legal process. It's manipulative. It is financially biased, in that those with access to more money can get a better deal, since they can afford to put up a better fight.
Court costs can easily be tens of thousands of dollars. If you can't afford that, but aren't dirt poor enough to qualify for a public defender, you're just SOL. In this society, to be accused is to be punished, unless you can buy your way out of it.
So you wouldn't mind having a 70MPH governor on your supercar?
The most useful applications for a sound suppressor ("silencer" is a misnomer) that I can think of would be during target practice or hunting. In either case, without a silencer you need to wear hearing protection to prevent hearing loss. While you can now get electronic hearing protection that passes moderate volume sounds and cancels high volume sounds, that's really a hack. Which is better, to apply a patch that reduces the symptom of a problem, or to eliminate the problem?
If you and the bad guy are both unarmed, the victor will be determined by size, strength, and skill, and the loser may or may not require medical attention. Death is a remote possibility.
If one or the other has a knife, the one with the knife has a slight advantage, but size, strength, and skill will still be the primary determining factors. The loser will likely need medical attention, and death is a greater possibility.
If both have knives, size, strength, and skill remain the primary determining factors. Serious injury to both parties ("victor" and "loser" alike) is likely. Death is a significant possibility for both parties.
If one has a gun and the training to use it, and has it out and ready before range is closed, victory is almost assured. Serious injury or death is a likelihood for the one without a gun if he doesn't back down, which he will be strongly motivated to do under most circumstances.
If both parties have guns, initiative is the primary determining factor. Serious injury or death is a likelihood for the loser, and a possibility for the victor since incapacitation is not always immediate.
Now consider that you're a mugger, armed with your choice of weapons. who will you be most likely to avoid, a person with a knife, or a person with a gun?
A knife is better than nothing though, and I carry a one-hand knife and a leather man, though mostly for utilitarian purposes. The primary deterrent to violent crime is the possibility of a victim or bystander being sufficiently armed. Minnesota, from which I hail, has CCW. Our neighbor, Wisconsin, doesn't even permit tasers or pepper spray. Guess where I'd go if I wanted to mug people?
Bearing that in mind, the UK has anti-knife squads that perform door-to-door searches and raids to confiscate knives.
It depends on how you look at it. The average citizen is not part of the computer on which the law is executed, that consists solely of government entities. The citizen is a user, who can do anything. The law stated what the government should do in response to the user's input. If the user kills someone or fails to pay taxes, the law instructs the system to arrest the user etc.
Legislation is software to be executed on a biological system. I think most legislators, indeed most people, don't realize that. They seem to turn sentences into general impressions, then make decisions based on those general impressions, rather than strictly and literally interpreting the words. When you do interpret the law as it is written, they complain that you're "getting technical."
Your link CLAIMS that SBSP poses no threat as a military weapon, but offers nothing to back that up. If you have something in orbit that can send a gigawatt of microwave energy to a controlled location on the surface, then you have a directed energy weapon. People have been cooked by communication microwave transmitters, what makes you think they won't be cooked by power transmission ones?
Good idea. Hentai video trading cards! You can make a trading card game out of them too, supported by a cartoon, a line of toys, and a couple movies!
Oh good, I got the Tentacle Monster card!
Changing the mass of an object will not alter it's orbital trajectory unless that mass is significant enough to act gravitationally on the body (or bodies) that it's orbiting. The impetus from hitting it with high-velocity water would provide thrust, like how a firehose pushes people back, but it would be far less efficient than an ion thruster.
An irregular surface wouldn't be that difficult to deal with, and your own thrust would keep you on the surface. If the asteroid is really a rubble pile that could be an issue though. Or if it's rotating at a significant rate. Initially I was thinking that the gravitational link would only result in thrust limitation, but after reading parent I realize that it would overcome some significant difficulties.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point. A claymore isn't a barrier, it's a trap.
I know this is way off topic, but that's one thing that has always bothered me about the D&D damage system. A dagger through the heart will kill anyone in one blow no matter how experienced they are. I'd been thinking of adding spring-steel scales (cut from a large industrial bandsaw blade) on the outside of my motorcycle jacket for abrasion resistance, but if tasers are getting more common (and going off with less provocation) maybe I should put them between the outer layer and the lining.
Not that the police really worry about injuring people during "riot control". Just take a look at the RNC, when they shot medics in the back with wooden and plastic baton rounds.
They use grenade launchers now. That would have been seen as ridiculous a few decades ago.
The police baton is less likely to result in death.
I'll disagree with you on that one. A strong blunt impact in the right place in the right way can result in nearly instant death. The difference is that with a baton the user controls the lethality, where as with a taser it's more a matter of chance.
At present, the accused needs to pay to defend against all those charges, so it's still coming out of the public pocket, it's just concentrated instead of distributed and there's no accountability for false accusations. Prosecutors are paid / promoted based on how many charges they get to stick. This encourages the shotgun method of applying as many charges as have any chance of sticking. It's also a trick to take advantage of plea-bargaining. A store owner might take a $10 item, double the "normal" price to $20, then offer it on a 50% off sale for $10. In the same way, if there's evidence or testimony that might convict you of a misdemeanor (whether you did it or not), they'll charge you with a felony, then offer to "plea-bargain" it down to a misdemeanor. Personally I think plea-bargaining should be disallowed. It takes the judge and jury out of the legal process. It's manipulative. It is financially biased, in that those with access to more money can get a better deal, since they can afford to put up a better fight. Court costs can easily be tens of thousands of dollars. If you can't afford that, but aren't dirt poor enough to qualify for a public defender, you're just SOL. In this society, to be accused is to be punished, unless you can buy your way out of it.
Maybe so, but you got the plans from someone else!
The most useful applications for a sound suppressor ("silencer" is a misnomer) that I can think of would be during target practice or hunting. In either case, without a silencer you need to wear hearing protection to prevent hearing loss. While you can now get electronic hearing protection that passes moderate volume sounds and cancels high volume sounds, that's really a hack. Which is better, to apply a patch that reduces the symptom of a problem, or to eliminate the problem?
If you and the bad guy are both unarmed, the victor will be determined by size, strength, and skill, and the loser may or may not require medical attention. Death is a remote possibility.
If one or the other has a knife, the one with the knife has a slight advantage, but size, strength, and skill will still be the primary determining factors. The loser will likely need medical attention, and death is a greater possibility.
If both have knives, size, strength, and skill remain the primary determining factors. Serious injury to both parties ("victor" and "loser" alike) is likely. Death is a significant possibility for both parties.
If one has a gun and the training to use it, and has it out and ready before range is closed, victory is almost assured. Serious injury or death is a likelihood for the one without a gun if he doesn't back down, which he will be strongly motivated to do under most circumstances.
If both parties have guns, initiative is the primary determining factor. Serious injury or death is a likelihood for the loser, and a possibility for the victor since incapacitation is not always immediate.
Now consider that you're a mugger, armed with your choice of weapons. who will you be most likely to avoid, a person with a knife, or a person with a gun?
A knife is better than nothing though, and I carry a one-hand knife and a leather man, though mostly for utilitarian purposes. The primary deterrent to violent crime is the possibility of a victim or bystander being sufficiently armed. Minnesota, from which I hail, has CCW. Our neighbor, Wisconsin, doesn't even permit tasers or pepper spray. Guess where I'd go if I wanted to mug people?
Bearing that in mind, the UK has anti-knife squads that perform door-to-door searches and raids to confiscate knives.
It depends on how you look at it. The average citizen is not part of the computer on which the law is executed, that consists solely of government entities. The citizen is a user, who can do anything. The law stated what the government should do in response to the user's input. If the user kills someone or fails to pay taxes, the law instructs the system to arrest the user etc.
Legislation is software to be executed on a biological system. I think most legislators, indeed most people, don't realize that. They seem to turn sentences into general impressions, then make decisions based on those general impressions, rather than strictly and literally interpreting the words. When you do interpret the law as it is written, they complain that you're "getting technical."
Never mind, it took me a while to find the part about power density.
Your link CLAIMS that SBSP poses no threat as a military weapon, but offers nothing to back that up. If you have something in orbit that can send a gigawatt of microwave energy to a controlled location on the surface, then you have a directed energy weapon. People have been cooked by communication microwave transmitters, what makes you think they won't be cooked by power transmission ones?
Good idea. Hentai video trading cards! You can make a trading card game out of them too, supported by a cartoon, a line of toys, and a couple movies! Oh good, I got the Tentacle Monster card!
Metalstorm is also muzzle loaded and does not use a firing pin. I forget how many thousands of rounds per minute they claim.
Changing the mass of an object will not alter it's orbital trajectory unless that mass is significant enough to act gravitationally on the body (or bodies) that it's orbiting. The impetus from hitting it with high-velocity water would provide thrust, like how a firehose pushes people back, but it would be far less efficient than an ion thruster.
Correction: through, not around.
An irregular surface wouldn't be that difficult to deal with, and your own thrust would keep you on the surface. If the asteroid is really a rubble pile that could be an issue though. Or if it's rotating at a significant rate. Initially I was thinking that the gravitational link would only result in thrust limitation, but after reading parent I realize that it would overcome some significant difficulties.
I think he means that killing Arabs is profitable (Halliburton, anyone?), while making preparations to save humanity generally isn't.
Been using that line since the white serial ones came out way back when. Never looked back, and I do CAD/CAM ten hours a day.
Why do the sharks need mice?
Periodically I find it useful to have something that works even on dirty windows.
Perhaps you should run a registry scan to clean your windows?
Or try the new OS coming out, a hybrid of Linux and Windows that's supposed to be real clean and shiny: Windex.
I think it's more that some people simply haven't learned to empathize. Either that or they don't bother.
So someone needs to pick up a bunch of copies of this magazine, as subsidized by the advertiser, and repurpose the hardware for better applications.
Maybe the next version will have six ports instead of four. Give them servos to extend or retract the ports and you have "living metal".