Amphetamines, Benzos and Opiates are all widely prescribed in the US, and are all fairly easy to get out of unattended medicine cabinets, if one knows whose parents suffer from what.
It's strange, I must be in some kind of culture jam, but my family, and everyone I know (IRL) steers clear of whitebread. We all eat 9 or 7 grain bread (the wholegrain stuff). I don't really know why. I grew up with it, and can't even stand the taste of whitebread. It's like there's nothing in it.
We aren't Amish or anything. I think there might have been some literature the family and friends read many years ago that must have made them jump the whitebread ship.
There are bakeries, and we go there for non-sandwich bread, but not that often.
Precisely. The universe doesn't change to accommodate us even slightly. Pockets of air will never spring up in the vacuum for our benefit. We are the ones who change in order to fit in the universe and scratch out our existence. The universe doesn't change to make us comfortable.
What's funny is that the anthropic principle by definition doesn't have much meaning. You can restate it as "the universe is the way we see it, because we are seeing it be that way."
The weak anthropic principle always boils down to simple tautology, while the strong anthropic principle flys in the face of biology and works out to puddle thinking. The universe isn't tuned for us, we tuned ourselves for living in the universe through evolution.
As to revenue generation, I'm more often seeing good websites put up "shameless commerce divisions" nobody goes to a website wanting to get spammed with 3rd party ads, but I'm sometimes elated to see a cool tshirt or neat plushie being sold by the site itself. That may not be quite as profitable, but it's a much less aggravating way to be advertized to, and has much better relevance overall.
BoingBoing's shop comes to mind. It's benefitting a site I like, while not constantly being spammy
It's as if there was a fundamental difference between moving "north" and moving "south" in empty space.
Would a ratchet favoring one direction serve as some kind of applicable metaphor, or is it too crude to make any sense at all?
I understand well the entropy side of things, in that, since the universe started at a low entropy (an unlikely configuration) it moves towards high entropy over time (toward more common configurations.)
Would it be worthwhile to think of the T violation (in terms of visualization mind, not really understanding) perhaps like moving through barbs in 1 dimension? The "safe" direction and the "anti-safe" direction? I just chose barbs as an example, not because one direction is necessarily prohibited, but simply different from the opposite direction in terms of effects caused by direction reversal.
The only way to do that effectively is to root the device and flash a custom ROM that may have any number of problems itself, and if you're unlucky might even brick the device altogether. Some devices aren't developed for very much. For instance most of the custom ROMs for my Droid Bionic have broken HDMI output, and don't implement USB-OTG, both of which I use regularly with the WebTop that it docks into.
Any company that gets a parent must also produce the invention.
If they don't start production within a set period after the patent is granted, the patent must either be transferred to anyone who wants to use it (no exceptions) or failing that, the patent reverts back into the public domain forever.
By Atheismo's great shaven face! I would so donate every discretionary cent to a SuperPAC set up to force congress into funding NASA better!
I'm not being sarcastic, quite the opposite. Although, a SuperPAC would probably just waste all the money on slandering JAXA and the ESA in order to make NASA look like the only electable cadidate XD
Utility foglets. A cloud of nanobots that'll be basically everything, computer, phone, network dropdown, AR, medical treatment/diagnostics, safety gear (instant helmet, seatbelt, car seat, bungie cord etc) anything really. Like little self-propelled FPGA computers.
Are you saying that 1.) We'll somehow figure out what corporations and deep pocketed donors are secretly willing to pay politicians in order to BRIBE them.
2.) Then if we like what the same politicians do, just pay them the same amount?
3.) Then after they finish their terms in office, move into the revolving door and work in the cushy, high paying jobs they were promised by lobbyists, while still having a strong influence on the government where they built up their contact books?
This is a terrible idea. What you suggest is not an incentive in any way to do the right thing. The politicians will push through the exact legislation the lobbyists want using earmarks and tacking on other changes to unrelated bills at the last minute. They'll publicly proclaim that they're fighting the good fight. After they're done, they'll just be paid twice as much as what they're currently paid by lobbyists, for doing what's already being done by every Congressperson today.
What a fantasy.
Or did you have a different idea and I misunderstood you? If so, please elaborate, as I'm perfectly willing to listen, as long as it makes sense.
wouldn't the energy you get increase as you get closer to the speed of light and the mass of your fuel (assuming you're carrying it with you) increases?
That's an interesting idea that I haven't thought of. I'm by no means a trained physicist, but I have the feeling that as you jettison high mass fuel in order to go faster, the mass of the ship you're accelerating will still grow proportionally to the mass used as reaction-fodder. So it gets to a point where no matter how fast you're going and how much fuel you've got, if you try to accelerate more using that fuel, even if you jettison it, you'd still get less energy out of the mass reaction than would be necessary to push you over c.
It reminds me of the workaround used in Mass Effect, where element zero will decrease or increase the mass of other objects depending on the current applied to it. The explanation for FTL is that there's an element zero drive that lowers the mass of the ship as it approaches c, so it can go FTL without needing infinite energy or growing to infinite mass. But the element zero workaround still wouldn't pan out. You'd need to carry the energy on the ship to run a current through the element zero anyway. Would the effect of element zero apply to that mass-energy as well as the mass-energy of the ship, and the mass-energy being jettisoned to propel it?
String theory has a few testable predictions, but they would require particle accelerators the size of the solar system eating a whole Jupiter's worth of mass-energy every second they're running. And even then it would be testing only the string theories that have been found out mathematically to be wrong for our universe.
Yeah, Genes don't necessarily determine behavior, but they can play a big part in encouraging behavior.
My brother has genes for both a lean, athletic build, and ADHD, therefore he plays soccer due to his genes both giving him an advantage and a desire to run off steam.
I have a gene for very fair skin. I sunburn quickly, therefore my behavior is influenced towards wearing long sleeves or staying indoors on bright sunny days.
I know all living things including humans are just big, complex chemical and physical reactions, essentially deterministic. But we still have at least an illusion of free will, and that's good enough for me. Our brains are complex enough that we can't determine what anyone will do with a high level of certainty, unless we know they're operating in a very constrained system.
It's been ten years, so I don't remember every detail, but I don't think I remember ANYONE dying in the movie. Up till the end, when the normal pokemon are dukeing it out with the genetically enhanced ones, then the normals "die" temporarily.
It was definitely an English dub, and was the one shown in theaters, so it probably was cut. I think the reason why I was allowed to go was that it was rated PG, which also means the movie can't imply a human death in any way someone under 13 would understand, normally. At least according to the MPAA's ratings guidelines (Vomitbloodshitstain upon the MPAA)
Thanks but no thanks for the torrent. I've got a VHS of it banging around in some drawer already.
I saw Pokemon 2000 in theaters when I was a kid, and I think I remember that it was the original anime with a pretty good dub. The storyline did involve Mewtwo being a genetically engineered super-pokemon with godlike powers.
But of course, in the end, the love of a trainer for his thundermouse saves the day.
And others like Mewtwo, are portrayed as hideous genetic engineering and animal husbandry mistakes, the likes of which the world shall never recover from. Heh. Mewtwo.
Totally gave me a flashback to Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen. The ultra-advanced race of aliens have no concept of deception or even untruth, so they believed the Galaxy Quest show (read Star Trek) was filmed-as-it-happened documentary, and used it to develop their ship. Heh. I can't believe a species as or more intelligent than us could ever survive without a concept of deception....
And if life is common in the galaxy or universe, life advanced enough to do convenient interstellar travel, would it be a surprise if hoaxers and pranksters would put these kinds of "significant objects" in orbit around a bunch of planets, just to piss off other species, or teenagers pranking their own civilizations?
Perhaps (wild, totally out of the air guessing) people were making sugar of lead using the bullets? Or perhaps, some little kid thought it was candy or something and ended up swallowing a bullet and the ammo-maker had to settle for the medical bills?
Yeah, but if you read the article you'd know humans suck at regeneration. It's not impressive that we can regenerate (very, very slowly) the extreme tip of a finger or toe (as long as all the knuckles are left intact), or the kidney *MIGHT* regenerate somewhat, but doesn't happen often enough to be in the literature or commonly suspected. And we can regrow a rib or two over the course of *YEARS* as long as the sac surrounding the rib remains intact.
About the only thing we humans are good at regrowing is liver, and that's only with healthy liver, and doesn't work rupture or puncture that isn't cauterized/sutured. We'll completely regrow a new liver if as much of 3/4ths are removed. Which is actually pretty impressive. But not very cool as a superpower....
The point of the discovery is that there's interesting mechanisms at work allowing these mice to heal in an absolutely complete way, never before documented in mammals. And with further study we might be able to apply their biochemistry to the human healing process. There's a lot of potential, and it looks like an interesting, if not promising, avenue for research.
Quit bitching, cuz I'll bet 10:1 if you lose the tip of your finger, you'll likely not regrow it, and if you do, there will be a lot of scar tissue. If you lose a square inch of skin all at once, there WILL be extensive scarring.
Actually, It's not inverse mass. There are several pieces of strong evidence for inverse charge. The amount of energy it takes to push around a positron using magnetic fields is the same amount it would take to push around regular electrons. The fact that anti-matter can be trapped using fields of opposite polarity used to trap regular matter proves that antimatter has inverse charge to matter.
Also, there are some interesting (calculated theoretical) behaviors to inverse mass objects. An inverse mass object will fall towards a massive object of equal absolute mass, but the regular mass object will fall away from the inverse mass object. There are also weird things that happen with infinite gravitational potential energy, and none of the effects have been observed as yet.
Just remember that mass and charge are not interchangeable, and they have distinct effects when inverted. Electromagnetism is roughly 10^36 times stronger than gravitation, so a single particle with inverted mass but normal charge is unlikely to interact any differently at currently achievable energy scales than a particle of normal mass and normal charge. Especially when most of the experiments today use electromagnetism as the only input force to manipulate where particles go, and what they do.
Nothing other than the fourth amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. I'd count backscatter x-ray of everyone's naked bodies as unreasonable. Especially since it exposes everyone to a scientifically undetermined amount of ionizing radiation. Seizing ANY liquid of a volume greater than 3 ounces is also unreasonable.
Also, the US Constitution grants citizens the right to unrestricted interstate travel. The TSA is pretty restrictive. So The TSA is breaking the FUCKING CONSTITUTION on at least two counts. I'll bet they'll be granted more and more ability to trample on citizen's rights until we have FUCKING NO RIGHTS AT ALL
Dammit, I'm about to puke thinking of the FUCKING LEMMINGS IN CONGRESS, who said "oh, well we need to catch 'bad guys' at any cost. Terrorism seems like a good excuse. Let's just take everyone's rights away at bottle necks in movement and work out from there." Eventually we won't be allowed to walk on the sidewalk or drive on a road without a FUCKING PERMISSION SLIP from homeland security letting their agents know that "this person's a good guy, unless he's brown or black and seems suspicious (aka being brown or black)"
Ya know, most of the time, the TSOs really aren't to blame.... Yes, some of them (less than 50%, although probably close to 50%) do steal shit from your checked baggage and carry on. But really, it isn't the TSO's fault that they work for an organization as dumb as a pile of dogshit. It's a well paying job for people unwilling or unable (usually unwilling) to get an education of any kind, even if EVERYONE FUCKING HATES THEM.
What are you gonna do? You have a girlfriend and two kids, and you're just too dumb to get a technical degree, are you gonna let them starve? No, you're going to go and get a menial, unskilled labor job with the TSA and get paid well to piss everyone off, cuz that's really all you're good for.
I'm not saying the TSA is good. And I'd rather have no jobs for the genetically lobotomized, but it's just not their fault that most of them got the job of TSO, they're so useless they have no other choice. And in the "land of opportunity" (yeah right, opportunity my ass), everyone is entitled to try working at something. And it turns out that unskilled mouthbreathers are really great at fondling the unwilling, and stealing shit from people's bags.
Slashdot Mirror
There's home drug tests that test for an asslode of stuff. When I was in high school, the folks had one in their bathroom that tested urine for:
Amphetamines
Benzos
Cocaine
PCP
Ketamine
Opiates
MDMA
MDA
2C-B
Alcohol
THC
Amphetamines, Benzos and Opiates are all widely prescribed in the US, and are all fairly easy to get out of unattended medicine cabinets, if one knows whose parents suffer from what.
It's strange, I must be in some kind of culture jam, but my family, and everyone I know (IRL) steers clear of whitebread. We all eat 9 or 7 grain bread (the wholegrain stuff). I don't really know why. I grew up with it, and can't even stand the taste of whitebread. It's like there's nothing in it.
We aren't Amish or anything. I think there might have been some literature the family and friends read many years ago that must have made them jump the whitebread ship.
There are bakeries, and we go there for non-sandwich bread, but not that often.
Precisely. The universe doesn't change to accommodate us even slightly. Pockets of air will never spring up in the vacuum for our benefit. We are the ones who change in order to fit in the universe and scratch out our existence. The universe doesn't change to make us comfortable.
What's funny is that the anthropic principle by definition doesn't have much meaning. You can restate it as "the universe is the way we see it, because we are seeing it be that way."
The weak anthropic principle always boils down to simple tautology, while the strong anthropic principle flys in the face of biology and works out to puddle thinking. The universe isn't tuned for us, we tuned ourselves for living in the universe through evolution.
As to revenue generation, I'm more often seeing good websites put up "shameless commerce divisions" nobody goes to a website wanting to get spammed with 3rd party ads, but I'm sometimes elated to see a cool tshirt or neat plushie being sold by the site itself. That may not be quite as profitable, but it's a much less aggravating way to be advertized to, and has much better relevance overall.
BoingBoing's shop comes to mind. It's benefitting a site I like, while not constantly being spammy
Would a ratchet favoring one direction serve as some kind of applicable metaphor, or is it too crude to make any sense at all?
I understand well the entropy side of things, in that, since the universe started at a low entropy (an unlikely configuration) it moves towards high entropy over time (toward more common configurations.)
Would it be worthwhile to think of the T violation (in terms of visualization mind, not really understanding) perhaps like moving through barbs in 1 dimension? The "safe" direction and the "anti-safe" direction? I just chose barbs as an example, not because one direction is necessarily prohibited, but simply different from the opposite direction in terms of effects caused by direction reversal.
The only way to do that effectively is to root the device and flash a custom ROM that may have any number of problems itself, and if you're unlucky might even brick the device altogether. Some devices aren't developed for very much. For instance most of the custom ROMs for my Droid Bionic have broken HDMI output, and don't implement USB-OTG, both of which I use regularly with the WebTop that it docks into.
How about the well worn "use it or lose it" rule.
Any company that gets a parent must also produce the invention.
If they don't start production within a set period after the patent is granted, the patent must either be transferred to anyone who wants to use it (no exceptions) or failing that, the patent reverts back into the public domain forever.
By Atheismo's great shaven face! I would so donate every discretionary cent to a SuperPAC set up to force congress into funding NASA better!
I'm not being sarcastic, quite the opposite. Although, a SuperPAC would probably just waste all the money on slandering JAXA and the ESA in order to make NASA look like the only electable cadidate XD
Utility foglets. A cloud of nanobots that'll be basically everything, computer, phone, network dropdown, AR, medical treatment/diagnostics, safety gear (instant helmet, seatbelt, car seat, bungie cord etc) anything really. Like little self-propelled FPGA computers.
Wait... WHAT?!
Are you saying that
1.) We'll somehow figure out what corporations and deep pocketed donors are secretly willing to pay politicians in order to BRIBE them.
2.) Then if we like what the same politicians do, just pay them the same amount?
3.) Then after they finish their terms in office, move into the revolving door and work in the cushy, high paying jobs they were promised by lobbyists, while still having a strong influence on the government where they built up their contact books?
This is a terrible idea. What you suggest is not an incentive in any way to do the right thing. The politicians will push through the exact legislation the lobbyists want using earmarks and tacking on other changes to unrelated bills at the last minute. They'll publicly proclaim that they're fighting the good fight. After they're done, they'll just be paid twice as much as what they're currently paid by lobbyists, for doing what's already being done by every Congressperson today.
What a fantasy.
Or did you have a different idea and I misunderstood you? If so, please elaborate, as I'm perfectly willing to listen, as long as it makes sense.
That's an interesting idea that I haven't thought of. I'm by no means a trained physicist, but I have the feeling that as you jettison high mass fuel in order to go faster, the mass of the ship you're accelerating will still grow proportionally to the mass used as reaction-fodder. So it gets to a point where no matter how fast you're going and how much fuel you've got, if you try to accelerate more using that fuel, even if you jettison it, you'd still get less energy out of the mass reaction than would be necessary to push you over c.
It reminds me of the workaround used in Mass Effect, where element zero will decrease or increase the mass of other objects depending on the current applied to it. The explanation for FTL is that there's an element zero drive that lowers the mass of the ship as it approaches c, so it can go FTL without needing infinite energy or growing to infinite mass. But the element zero workaround still wouldn't pan out. You'd need to carry the energy on the ship to run a current through the element zero anyway. Would the effect of element zero apply to that mass-energy as well as the mass-energy of the ship, and the mass-energy being jettisoned to propel it?
String theory has a few testable predictions, but they would require particle accelerators the size of the solar system eating a whole Jupiter's worth of mass-energy every second they're running. And even then it would be testing only the string theories that have been found out mathematically to be wrong for our universe.
Yeah, Genes don't necessarily determine behavior, but they can play a big part in encouraging behavior.
My brother has genes for both a lean, athletic build, and ADHD, therefore he plays soccer due to his genes both giving him an advantage and a desire to run off steam.
I have a gene for very fair skin. I sunburn quickly, therefore my behavior is influenced towards wearing long sleeves or staying indoors on bright sunny days.
I know all living things including humans are just big, complex chemical and physical reactions, essentially deterministic. But we still have at least an illusion of free will, and that's good enough for me. Our brains are complex enough that we can't determine what anyone will do with a high level of certainty, unless we know they're operating in a very constrained system.
It's been ten years, so I don't remember every detail, but I don't think I remember ANYONE dying in the movie. Up till the end, when the normal pokemon are dukeing it out with the genetically enhanced ones, then the normals "die" temporarily.
It was definitely an English dub, and was the one shown in theaters, so it probably was cut. I think the reason why I was allowed to go was that it was rated PG, which also means the movie can't imply a human death in any way someone under 13 would understand, normally. At least according to the MPAA's ratings guidelines (Vomitbloodshitstain upon the MPAA)
Thanks but no thanks for the torrent. I've got a VHS of it banging around in some drawer already.
I saw Pokemon 2000 in theaters when I was a kid, and I think I remember that it was the original anime with a pretty good dub. The storyline did involve Mewtwo being a genetically engineered super-pokemon with godlike powers.
But of course, in the end, the love of a trainer for his thundermouse saves the day.
And others like Mewtwo, are portrayed as hideous genetic engineering and animal husbandry mistakes, the likes of which the world shall never recover from. Heh. Mewtwo.
Ah, Futurama. Now you've got the phrase "compellingly short garment" stuck in my head
RE: the deathstar joke,
Totally gave me a flashback to Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen. The ultra-advanced race of aliens have no concept of deception or even untruth, so they believed the Galaxy Quest show (read Star Trek) was filmed-as-it-happened documentary, and used it to develop their ship. Heh. I can't believe a species as or more intelligent than us could ever survive without a concept of deception....
And if life is common in the galaxy or universe, life advanced enough to do convenient interstellar travel, would it be a surprise if hoaxers and pranksters would put these kinds of "significant objects" in orbit around a bunch of planets, just to piss off other species, or teenagers pranking their own civilizations?
Perhaps (wild, totally out of the air guessing) people were making sugar of lead using the bullets? Or perhaps, some little kid thought it was candy or something and ended up swallowing a bullet and the ammo-maker had to settle for the medical bills?
Heh, just stupid conjecture on my part.
Yeah, but if you read the article you'd know humans suck at regeneration. It's not impressive that we can regenerate (very, very slowly) the extreme tip of a finger or toe (as long as all the knuckles are left intact), or the kidney *MIGHT* regenerate somewhat, but doesn't happen often enough to be in the literature or commonly suspected. And we can regrow a rib or two over the course of *YEARS* as long as the sac surrounding the rib remains intact.
About the only thing we humans are good at regrowing is liver, and that's only with healthy liver, and doesn't work rupture or puncture that isn't cauterized/sutured. We'll completely regrow a new liver if as much of 3/4ths are removed. Which is actually pretty impressive. But not very cool as a superpower....
The point of the discovery is that there's interesting mechanisms at work allowing these mice to heal in an absolutely complete way, never before documented in mammals. And with further study we might be able to apply their biochemistry to the human healing process. There's a lot of potential, and it looks like an interesting, if not promising, avenue for research.
Quit bitching, cuz I'll bet 10:1 if you lose the tip of your finger, you'll likely not regrow it, and if you do, there will be a lot of scar tissue. If you lose a square inch of skin all at once, there WILL be extensive scarring.
These mice don't scar. How is that not awesome.
Actually, It's not inverse mass. There are several pieces of strong evidence for inverse charge. The amount of energy it takes to push around a positron using magnetic fields is the same amount it would take to push around regular electrons. The fact that anti-matter can be trapped using fields of opposite polarity used to trap regular matter proves that antimatter has inverse charge to matter.
Also, there are some interesting (calculated theoretical) behaviors to inverse mass objects. An inverse mass object will fall towards a massive object of equal absolute mass, but the regular mass object will fall away from the inverse mass object. There are also weird things that happen with infinite gravitational potential energy, and none of the effects have been observed as yet.
Just remember that mass and charge are not interchangeable, and they have distinct effects when inverted. Electromagnetism is roughly 10^36 times stronger than gravitation, so a single particle with inverted mass but normal charge is unlikely to interact any differently at currently achievable energy scales than a particle of normal mass and normal charge. Especially when most of the experiments today use electromagnetism as the only input force to manipulate where particles go, and what they do.
Nothing other than the fourth amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. I'd count backscatter x-ray of everyone's naked bodies as unreasonable. Especially since it exposes everyone to a scientifically undetermined amount of ionizing radiation. Seizing ANY liquid of a volume greater than 3 ounces is also unreasonable.
Also, the US Constitution grants citizens the right to unrestricted interstate travel. The TSA is pretty restrictive. So The TSA is breaking the FUCKING CONSTITUTION on at least two counts. I'll bet they'll be granted more and more ability to trample on citizen's rights until we have FUCKING NO RIGHTS AT ALL
Dammit, I'm about to puke thinking of the FUCKING LEMMINGS IN CONGRESS, who said "oh, well we need to catch 'bad guys' at any cost. Terrorism seems like a good excuse. Let's just take everyone's rights away at bottle necks in movement and work out from there." Eventually we won't be allowed to walk on the sidewalk or drive on a road without a FUCKING PERMISSION SLIP from homeland security letting their agents know that "this person's a good guy, unless he's brown or black and seems suspicious (aka being brown or black)"
Ya know, most of the time, the TSOs really aren't to blame....
Yes, some of them (less than 50%, although probably close to 50%) do steal shit from your checked baggage and carry on.
But really, it isn't the TSO's fault that they work for an organization as dumb as a pile of dogshit. It's a well paying job for people unwilling or unable (usually unwilling) to get an education of any kind, even if EVERYONE FUCKING HATES THEM.
What are you gonna do? You have a girlfriend and two kids, and you're just too dumb to get a technical degree, are you gonna let them starve? No, you're going to go and get a menial, unskilled labor job with the TSA and get paid well to piss everyone off, cuz that's really all you're good for.
I'm not saying the TSA is good. And I'd rather have no jobs for the genetically lobotomized, but it's just not their fault that most of them got the job of TSO, they're so useless they have no other choice. And in the "land of opportunity" (yeah right, opportunity my ass), everyone is entitled to try working at something. And it turns out that unskilled mouthbreathers are really great at fondling the unwilling, and stealing shit from people's bags.
To ensure cetacean transparency? XD