The only 2 answers I can give is that a sudden volcanic eruption could have occurred to blank out the sun nearly completely or there was an asteroid impact that blanked out the sky.
Either of those conditions should be obvious from sediment records.
Well, "obvious" is a little strong but yes, these conditions should at least be detectable. There is ongoing research into the climate and ecological conditions around this time. The mainland Wooly Mammoths became extinct around 10000 BP, along with lots of other megafauna (large animals), all of which are grouped together in the "Quaternary Extinction Event" - the causes of which are currently being debated.
The Younger Dryas cold spell did occur shortly before the mammoths disappeared (~12800 BP). This is hypothesized to have been caused by a bolide impact or volcanism, but there is no consensus on this. This is also shortly after the Clovis people (precursors to the Native Americans) appeared in North America, and around the time that agriculture was developed in the near east.
Is that they do not have to understand the technical stuff.
Patent Judges are the reason for the problem.
If they were really qualified, they would not have a low-paying federal job.
You are thinking of a Patent Examiner, not a "judge". These are two very different governmental positions.
It would be pretty cool if life in general could outlive this planet. At the moment all life that we know about will die when this planet falls into the sun.
There are lots of pressing things that we need to work on solutions for now or in the near future. This is not one of them.
Today's birds did not evolve from any "traditional" dinosaurs that survived the K-T event.
You're the first person I've encountered, other than a particularly deranged creationist from St Albans, to claim that "the birds" are descended from dinosaurs that survived either the Chixulub impact or the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
I believe you misread my statement, as I did not claim that birds descended from dinosaurs that survived the K-T event - I was stating the opposite to correct the AC above. As I mentioned, no known dinosaur clades survived the extinction event, aside from the Neornithe birds (who had already been distinct from dinosaurs for some time). When discussing the extinction event (or really, any period post-Jurassic) it seems useful to call birds "birds", since they were already anatomically distinct and all other dinosaur clades (as well as the two existing non-modern bird groups, Enantiornithes and Hesperornithiformes) went extinct.
It is very clear to me that, not withstanding the non-monophyly of the dinosaurs and the possible non-monophyly of the birds, ALL of the organisms that acquired the "bird" lifestyle and anatomic characteristics in the mid-late Jurasssic were members of the dinosaurs, and therefore the assertion that I've been making in my signature for ages now (see below) is correct.
Certainly true. The assertion in your signature is too restrictive, though. Depending on context either "avian dinosaur", "bird" or merely "dinosaur" would be the most useful term.
But nobody "corrects" someone talking about mammals saying "dude they are CHORDATES!!!"
You need to get out more, specifically to pubs where cladistics buffs go for a pint and a bun-fight after work.
Yes, that's always the left's excuse. People don't get rich because they produce something other people want, they get rich because they're just lucky.
Odd, isn't it, that people who work harder also seem to be much luckier?
And that is always the right-wing rebuttal. It is silly to discount the affect of the economic situation (or the culture) that someone is born into, and the events that occur in their lives.
Odd, isn't it, that most people born into poverty can never manage to crawl out of it despite a lifetime of hard work?
The world is changing, letting a handful of people control 90% of the wealth is a bad idea.
Uh, Pareto's Principle. A small minority have always controlled most of the wealth. It's the natural result of rewarding people for being better at what they do than others are.
And birds are dinosaurs. The dinosaurs didn't become extinct, they just suffered a massive loss of biodiversity. Only a tiny tiny slice of dinosaur species made it through the extinction event, and they lead to today's birds.
Today's birds did not evolve from any "traditional" dinosaurs that survived the K-T event. Anatomically modern birds (Neornithes) were already well-established in the late Cretaceous and distinct from "traditional" dinosaurs. This is why I do not like the whole "birds ARE dinosaurs!" meme because the situation is a little more complex than that.
Yes, birds are (probably) dinosaurs, and reptiles, and chordates. Mammals are also chordates. So are amphibians. So are fish. But nobody "corrects" someone talking about mammals saying "dude they are CHORDATES!!!" Calling birds "birds" is still a very useful distinction from dinosaurs and modern reptiles and mammals and whatever else.
I would tend to agree, though any sort of bomb threat, however silly, probably justifies some kind of response. I don't think the type of bomb, however ridiculous, is as much of a factor as the word bomb itself, as this is a somewhat touchy subject in these situations, which is why we have the ludicrous security in the first place. It's really not okay to joke about bombs at an airport security checkpoint.
In this example, though there is obviously not an atomic bomb in the bag, it's probably not a good idea for security personnel to assume that the person even knows the difference between a nuclear or conventional bomb. Security agents also might not have a grasp on these differences themselves. To many people, "atomic bomb" just means "powerful bomb". And many people (including, I'm sure, some TSA agents, who don't usually have a strong background in nuclear engineering) certainly believe that you could hide an atomic bomb in your luggage.
The guy behind me in line decided to be a joker and made a comment along the lines of "they could at least give you a drink for this!".
While a dig at the TSA agents, this comment cannot be construed as a threat to kill hundreds of people, which is probably why it was ignored. It would be impossible to justify detaining someone because of a verbal jab. You could probably say "i hate this, you guys suck" and they wouldn't do anything about it.
He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.
The more I hear about this guy, the more I like the sound of him. If you're going to believe in crazy stuff, you might as well go large.
Although I was a little bit disappointed to find that the "Stargate" project he was involved in didn't actually involve creating a wormhole (or something) and travelling through spacetime, as in the TV documentary series of the same name.
Evolution? An entropic universe just magically tends towards order by random chance? Flowering plants evolved from non-flowering plants? Why would a plant that can reproduce just fine evolve advanced sex organs? That provided no benefit rather than consume energy for all those years they evolved? There's not just one "missing link," there are hundreds.
Entropy isn't the magic bullet that you think it is. The universe has many instances of things becoming other things, whether through natural phenomena or the intervention of various actors. Entropy only holds while there is no stronger force at work. We don't fully understand how life originated or progressed, but it certainly did somehow. Evolution isn't "random", it occurs through various selection pressures. There are actually more like millions of "missing links", though the concept of a "missing link" in regards to evolutionary theory is somewhat flawed.
The fact you would dismiss an alternative to evolutionary theory, the fact you would accept evolutionary theory as universal fact, is why many people consider scientists to be generally as dogmatic in their beliefs as any religion. Science isn't a religion, but it's a stretch to think most modern day scientists are actually practicing science.
By "many people" I assume you mean "many people who don't understand science". While many scientists are certainly dogmatic, this does not make them wrong.
And there is absolutely no evidence that humans were developed in a lab from otters (or any other creatures) and there is no evidence of the intervention of a "seeder" society on our origination on earth, while there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. I enjoy the Known Space books as much as the next guy, but really, Mr. McMoneagle could hardly have come up with a more ridiculous claim.
From Wikipedia:
"According to McMoneagle, humans came from creatures somewhat like sea otters rather than primates and were created in a laboratory by creators who "seeded" the earth and then departed."
The simpler the better. My philosophy on this is that anyone with a moderate amount of determination will pirate your software. This is unlikely to heavily impact your bottom line, and (especially from an indie standpoint) you might not be able to afford the time, energy, and money required to implement a draconian DRM method anyway. Just use serial numbers or something equally mundane and then don't worry about anything beyond that, because you literally can't prevent determined piracy.
That's just childishly unacceptable. What room does a genocidal desert-myth have to do with modern genetics? To constantly have this crap forced down our throats is intellectual oppression.
In another life, you'd be a Pat Robertson raging against Planned Parenthood.
as we share no mitochondrial DNA and the quantity of admixture is ~%4 at most.
That would only indicate that Homo Sapien women were either promiscuous or raped by Neanderthal males, and then the women raised the offspring as their own. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down directly from the mother to the child, so it basically says that Neanderthal men were not welcome in the Homo Sapien society in general, but that cross breading still happened.
I thought it was already proven that Europeans are the ancestors of Neanderthals through DNA sequencing?
Eh, not exactly. There is evidence to indicate that after leaving Africa, modern humans bred with Neanderthals and at least 1 other archaic species, but to call Neanderthals "the ancestors" of Europeans is somewhat inappropriate, as we share no mitochondrial DNA and the quantity of admixture is ~%4 at most.
And it's this very DNA responsible for a strong immune system in people with large amounts of Neanderthal DNA.
You're thinking of this story. There is evidence to indicate that some immune-system-related genes were passed from Neanderthal's etc., which gave those receiving the genes an advantage in their new environment. This would have been great at the time but doesn't effect us much now (example: sub-saharan Africans with no Neanderthal DNA don't have weaker immune systems than the rest of the world).
My house connection can't handle the retarded protocols with 8 computers going at it even with a 75mbit connection just due to the latency increases. My internal LAN doesn't even bat an eyelash at it though.
This is silly. I have a variable (cable) 10-20mbps connection and have often had 5 players playing starcraft 2 without any issues. Likely you have something wrong with your router or some other part of your infrastructure.
Since 1989, the "officially sanctioned government version" of the JFK assassination has been that it was likely carried out by some kind of conspiracy. Unfortunately the original investigation was badly botched and so much time has passed that we will never know the real story. This is a shame, as even wild speculation cannot be ruled out.
There is basically no valid evidence indicating that President Obama is not a "natural born citizen". I am sympathetic with the principle here, and I think that US Presidential candidates should be more publicly vetted, but the whole birther movement has no basis in fact and jumped on the ridiculous train at the very beginning.
The 911 conspiracy stuff is a little more complicated, but it seems that most of the conspiracy theories have been rejected by independent groups.
Normally I wouldn't comment on this stuff but a 4.5 second yellow? Are there no crosswalks at these lights?
I am not familiar with the GP's locality, but where I live the overwhelming majority of traffic lights do not have crosswalks. Most of the US is not very pedestrian-friendly.
Besides, 4.5 seconds, if you are traveling at normal speeds should be plenty of time to cover the break and start slowing down.
a steep downhill slope (...) because, y'know, physics.
If they want to have the postman deliver them fine, but I am not giving them permission to step foot on my property.
The laws vary of course (from state to state in the US) but a person entering your property for the purpose of delivering something is often specifically exempted from trespassing law.
For the average user, how many people are going to set it up like that. And obfuscating the SSID? Care to elaborate?
Certainly the average user does not take adequate precautions against attack. I was just mentioning a method to mitigate the effectiveness of rainbow tables against WPA. (obviously WEP is bad, and is no longer recommended for any use)
WPA hashes are seeded using the SSID. Rainbow tables are constructed using known SSID's so if you "obfuscate" the SSID by making it somewhat long with random characters then rainbow tables are not effective. Increasing the length and randomness of your PSK is also helpful, as rainbow-table attacks rely on a dictionary and are computed to a finite length (commonly 20 characters).
Using WPA2 with a gobledegook SSID and a PSK of 63 characters in length that contains no dictionary words is in practice not crackable.
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The only 2 answers I can give is that a sudden volcanic eruption could have occurred to blank out the sun nearly completely or there was an asteroid impact that blanked out the sky.
Either of those conditions should be obvious from sediment records.
Well, "obvious" is a little strong but yes, these conditions should at least be detectable. There is ongoing research into the climate and ecological conditions around this time. The mainland Wooly Mammoths became extinct around 10000 BP, along with lots of other megafauna (large animals), all of which are grouped together in the "Quaternary Extinction Event" - the causes of which are currently being debated.
The Younger Dryas cold spell did occur shortly before the mammoths disappeared (~12800 BP). This is hypothesized to have been caused by a bolide impact or volcanism, but there is no consensus on this. This is also shortly after the Clovis people (precursors to the Native Americans) appeared in North America, and around the time that agriculture was developed in the near east.
Is that they do not have to understand the technical stuff. Patent Judges are the reason for the problem. If they were really qualified, they would not have a low-paying federal job.
You are thinking of a Patent Examiner, not a "judge". These are two very different governmental positions.
It would be pretty cool if life in general could outlive this planet. At the moment all life that we know about will die when this planet falls into the sun.
There are lots of pressing things that we need to work on solutions for now or in the near future. This is not one of them.
You're the first person I've encountered, other than a particularly deranged creationist from St Albans, to claim that "the birds" are descended from dinosaurs that survived either the Chixulub impact or the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
I believe you misread my statement, as I did not claim that birds descended from dinosaurs that survived the K-T event - I was stating the opposite to correct the AC above. As I mentioned, no known dinosaur clades survived the extinction event, aside from the Neornithe birds (who had already been distinct from dinosaurs for some time). When discussing the extinction event (or really, any period post-Jurassic) it seems useful to call birds "birds", since they were already anatomically distinct and all other dinosaur clades (as well as the two existing non-modern bird groups, Enantiornithes and Hesperornithiformes) went extinct.
It is very clear to me that, not withstanding the non-monophyly of the dinosaurs and the possible non-monophyly of the birds, ALL of the organisms that acquired the "bird" lifestyle and anatomic characteristics in the mid-late Jurasssic were members of the dinosaurs, and therefore the assertion that I've been making in my signature for ages now (see below) is correct.
Certainly true. The assertion in your signature is too restrictive, though. Depending on context either "avian dinosaur", "bird" or merely "dinosaur" would be the most useful term.
You need to get out more, specifically to pubs where cladistics buffs go for a pint and a bun-fight after work.
Ha.
Or luckier.
Yes, that's always the left's excuse. People don't get rich because they produce something other people want, they get rich because they're just lucky.
Odd, isn't it, that people who work harder also seem to be much luckier?
And that is always the right-wing rebuttal. It is silly to discount the affect of the economic situation (or the culture) that someone is born into, and the events that occur in their lives.
Odd, isn't it, that most people born into poverty can never manage to crawl out of it despite a lifetime of hard work?
The world is changing, letting a handful of people control 90% of the wealth is a bad idea.
Uh, Pareto's Principle. A small minority have always controlled most of the wealth. It's the natural result of rewarding people for being better at what they do than others are.
Or luckier.
And birds are dinosaurs. The dinosaurs didn't become extinct, they just suffered a massive loss of biodiversity. Only a tiny tiny slice of dinosaur species made it through the extinction event, and they lead to today's birds.
Today's birds did not evolve from any "traditional" dinosaurs that survived the K-T event. Anatomically modern birds (Neornithes) were already well-established in the late Cretaceous and distinct from "traditional" dinosaurs. This is why I do not like the whole "birds ARE dinosaurs!" meme because the situation is a little more complex than that.
Yes, birds are (probably) dinosaurs, and reptiles, and chordates. Mammals are also chordates. So are amphibians. So are fish. But nobody "corrects" someone talking about mammals saying "dude they are CHORDATES!!!" Calling birds "birds" is still a very useful distinction from dinosaurs and modern reptiles and mammals and whatever else.
I would tend to agree, though any sort of bomb threat, however silly, probably justifies some kind of response. I don't think the type of bomb, however ridiculous, is as much of a factor as the word bomb itself, as this is a somewhat touchy subject in these situations, which is why we have the ludicrous security in the first place. It's really not okay to joke about bombs at an airport security checkpoint.
In this example, though there is obviously not an atomic bomb in the bag, it's probably not a good idea for security personnel to assume that the person even knows the difference between a nuclear or conventional bomb. Security agents also might not have a grasp on these differences themselves. To many people, "atomic bomb" just means "powerful bomb". And many people (including, I'm sure, some TSA agents, who don't usually have a strong background in nuclear engineering) certainly believe that you could hide an atomic bomb in your luggage.
The guy behind me in line decided to be a joker and made a comment along the lines of "they could at least give you a drink for this!".
While a dig at the TSA agents, this comment cannot be construed as a threat to kill hundreds of people, which is probably why it was ignored. It would be impossible to justify detaining someone because of a verbal jab. You could probably say "i hate this, you guys suck" and they wouldn't do anything about it.
He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.
The more I hear about this guy, the more I like the sound of him. If you're going to believe in crazy stuff, you might as well go large.
Although I was a little bit disappointed to find that the "Stargate" project he was involved in didn't actually involve creating a wormhole (or something) and travelling through spacetime, as in the TV documentary series of the same name.
+1
He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.
Evolution? An entropic universe just magically tends towards order by random chance? Flowering plants evolved from non-flowering plants? Why would a plant that can reproduce just fine evolve advanced sex organs? That provided no benefit rather than consume energy for all those years they evolved? There's not just one "missing link," there are hundreds.
Entropy isn't the magic bullet that you think it is. The universe has many instances of things becoming other things, whether through natural phenomena or the intervention of various actors. Entropy only holds while there is no stronger force at work. We don't fully understand how life originated or progressed, but it certainly did somehow. Evolution isn't "random", it occurs through various selection pressures. There are actually more like millions of "missing links", though the concept of a "missing link" in regards to evolutionary theory is somewhat flawed.
The fact you would dismiss an alternative to evolutionary theory, the fact you would accept evolutionary theory as universal fact, is why many people consider scientists to be generally as dogmatic in their beliefs as any religion. Science isn't a religion, but it's a stretch to think most modern day scientists are actually practicing science.
By "many people" I assume you mean "many people who don't understand science". While many scientists are certainly dogmatic, this does not make them wrong.
And there is absolutely no evidence that humans were developed in a lab from otters (or any other creatures) and there is no evidence of the intervention of a "seeder" society on our origination on earth, while there is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. I enjoy the Known Space books as much as the next guy, but really, Mr. McMoneagle could hardly have come up with a more ridiculous claim.
He was 14 at the time. It was probably a relatively simple trick.
From Wikipedia: "According to McMoneagle, humans came from creatures somewhat like sea otters rather than primates and were created in a laboratory by creators who "seeded" the earth and then departed."
Sounds like a ringer to me.
The simpler the better. My philosophy on this is that anyone with a moderate amount of determination will pirate your software. This is unlikely to heavily impact your bottom line, and (especially from an indie standpoint) you might not be able to afford the time, energy, and money required to implement a draconian DRM method anyway. Just use serial numbers or something equally mundane and then don't worry about anything beyond that, because you literally can't prevent determined piracy.
That's just childishly unacceptable. What room does a genocidal desert-myth have to do with modern genetics? To constantly have this crap forced down our throats is intellectual oppression.
In another life, you'd be a Pat Robertson raging against Planned Parenthood.
as we share no mitochondrial DNA and the quantity of admixture is ~%4 at most.
That would only indicate that Homo Sapien women were either promiscuous or raped by Neanderthal males, and then the women raised the offspring as their own. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down directly from the mother to the child, so it basically says that Neanderthal men were not welcome in the Homo Sapien society in general, but that cross breading still happened.
That's a possible theory, and cultural factors surely had an impact on hybridization between the two groups. However, it is also likely that only male Neanderthal's mating with modern human females were able to produce fertile offspring. The absence of Neanderthal Mitochondrial DNA seems unlikely to have been due to cultural factors alone.
I thought it was already proven that Europeans are the ancestors of Neanderthals through DNA sequencing?
Eh, not exactly. There is evidence to indicate that after leaving Africa, modern humans bred with Neanderthals and at least 1 other archaic species, but to call Neanderthals "the ancestors" of Europeans is somewhat inappropriate, as we share no mitochondrial DNA and the quantity of admixture is ~%4 at most.
And it's this very DNA responsible for a strong immune system in people with large amounts of Neanderthal DNA.
You're thinking of this story. There is evidence to indicate that some immune-system-related genes were passed from Neanderthal's etc., which gave those receiving the genes an advantage in their new environment. This would have been great at the time but doesn't effect us much now (example: sub-saharan Africans with no Neanderthal DNA don't have weaker immune systems than the rest of the world).
My house connection can't handle the retarded protocols with 8 computers going at it even with a 75mbit connection just due to the latency increases. My internal LAN doesn't even bat an eyelash at it though.
This is silly. I have a variable (cable) 10-20mbps connection and have often had 5 players playing starcraft 2 without any issues. Likely you have something wrong with your router or some other part of your infrastructure.
Since 1989, the "officially sanctioned government version" of the JFK assassination has been that it was likely carried out by some kind of conspiracy. Unfortunately the original investigation was badly botched and so much time has passed that we will never know the real story. This is a shame, as even wild speculation cannot be ruled out.
There is basically no valid evidence indicating that President Obama is not a "natural born citizen". I am sympathetic with the principle here, and I think that US Presidential candidates should be more publicly vetted, but the whole birther movement has no basis in fact and jumped on the ridiculous train at the very beginning.
The 911 conspiracy stuff is a little more complicated, but it seems that most of the conspiracy theories have been rejected by independent groups.
"I've taken to tossing gravel at them"
Here in the UK, you'd be arrested in short order for that, anywhere.
It is extremely illegal in all US jurisdictions that I know of as well.
Normally I wouldn't comment on this stuff but a 4.5 second yellow? Are there no crosswalks at these lights?
I am not familiar with the GP's locality, but where I live the overwhelming majority of traffic lights do not have crosswalks. Most of the US is not very pedestrian-friendly.
Besides, 4.5 seconds, if you are traveling at normal speeds should be plenty of time to cover the break and start slowing down.
a steep downhill slope (...) because, y'know, physics.
If they want to have the postman deliver them fine, but I am not giving them permission to step foot on my property.
The laws vary of course (from state to state in the US) but a person entering your property for the purpose of delivering something is often specifically exempted from trespassing law.
There are way more starlings in the world than chickens.
And then there is the common pigeon. One of the fastest fliers.
World population of the Common Starling is estimated to be around 310 million.
Pigeons (rock doves) are estimated to number around 260 Million.
There are an estimated twenty-four billion chickens on the planet.
For the average user, how many people are going to set it up like that. And obfuscating the SSID? Care to elaborate?
Certainly the average user does not take adequate precautions against attack. I was just mentioning a method to mitigate the effectiveness of rainbow tables against WPA. (obviously WEP is bad, and is no longer recommended for any use)
WPA hashes are seeded using the SSID. Rainbow tables are constructed using known SSID's so if you "obfuscate" the SSID by making it somewhat long with random characters then rainbow tables are not effective. Increasing the length and randomness of your PSK is also helpful, as rainbow-table attacks rely on a dictionary and are computed to a finite length (commonly 20 characters).
Using WPA2 with a gobledegook SSID and a PSK of 63 characters in length that contains no dictionary words is in practice not crackable.