And then, once the winning corporation's mining fleet has wiped out the competition thanks to its new and advanced AI, it realizes that the greatest abundance of minable materials is on that blue rock! And the only obstacle left is that dang nuisance called "organic life"...
A guy who worked as a staffer for the Republican party gave answers that generally fell in line with Republican beliefs. What, you thought his entire worldview would've been overturned because of a single issue?
Automation of an activity designed for entertainment makes that activity pointless? Say it isn't so!
People who are interested in cooking will continue to cook despite the automation, while people who don't give a crap will use the machines. Think of it like driving with a manual vs. automatic transmission.
It's not really the same (layman's perspective, not a physicist). A good rundown is the Wiki page on false vacuum. Basically, the universe in a metastable state means that the base level of energy we see, our vision of a vacuum, is actually still higher-energy than what it could be if something got tweaked slightly. We're in a valley, but not the lowest valley in the area. On the off chance that one tiny part of the universe spontaneously tweaks itself, jumps the ridge between the valleys, and settles at the "true vacuum" low-energy state, it would catalyze the adjacent tiny bits of the universe to do the same thing, which would then catalyze the ones next to them, and so on in an expanding bubble.
It's not the same as the "Big Crunch", because it's not the universe collapsing in on itself. It's the universe suddenly "shifting" to a more stable arrangement. A poster above mentioned watching a supercooled coke bottle freeze after you tap it - that's a great analogy. The coke is cold enough to freeze, but since it's sitting undisturbed, the liquid is stable and happy and just sits there. Tap the glass, and suddenly it's no longer so happy - a wave of ice spreads outward from where you tapped it, as the coke all shifts to the lower-energy ice instead of liquid.
It's not really the same (layman's perspective, not a physicist). A good rundown is the Wiki page on false vacuum. Basically, the universe in a metastable state means that the base level of energy we see, our vision of a vacuum, is actually still higher-energy than what it could be if something got tweaked slightly. We're in a valley, but not the lowest valley in the area. On the off chance that one tiny part of the universe spontaneously tweaks itself, jumps the ridge between the valleys, and settles at the "true vacuum" low-energy state, it would catalyze the adjacent tiny bits of the universe to do the same thing, which would then catalyze the ones next to them, and so on in an expanding bubble.
It's not the same as the "Big Crunch", because it's not the universe collapsing in on itself. It's the universe suddenly "shifting" to a more stable arrangement. A poster above mentioned watching a supercooled coke bottle freeze after you tap it - that's a great analogy. The coke is cold enough to freeze, but since it's sitting undisturbed, the liquid is stable and happy and just sits there. Tap the glass, and suddenly it's no longer so happy - a wave of ice spreads outward from where you tapped it, as the coke all shifts to the lower-energy ice instead of liquid.
I was especially surprised that I could write better than most of the people I was grading, considering...b) English is my second language.
That's less surprising than you'd think. "I've spoken this language all my life; I don't need to know all the stupid rules and intricacies!" is a pretty common sentiment.
I'm only two years out of university, so I hope I can provide a less "get off my lawn" perspective. I think what you're seeing is more a result of your specific field of study than a general decline. You're in IT, and techies don't give two shits about their writing. In my time at school, I graded assignments for both the Mechanical Engineering and English departments, so I got to see both sides of this coin. Papers for the English department were well-structured, grammatically sound, and generally easy to read, even if what they were writing about was absolute trash. Engineering reports conformed to basic sentence structure, but that was about it. They cared about the data and the equations, and the rest was filler. A comma splice was something that was mentioned in a blow-off class their freshman year and had absolutely no relevance to the Young's Modulus of aluminum. We checked the writing for plagiarism, but as long as the sentences actually made sense, the grammar was of no consequence.
So I don't think it's a "lowering of the bar" so much as it is a splitting of disciplines - the Humanities-oriented folks slept through math class, and the STEM folks slept through writing class. Whether that's OK or not is a judgment call. Lord knows there are already enough op-eds out there playing tug-of-war over the amount of hard vs. soft education.
The exceptions to the above were the Asian kids. Since they had studied English as their second language, with diligence and care enough to be fluent in something so different from their native tongue, they put a lot of time into their writing. There were very common grammatical mistakes (native Mandarin speakers have a lot of trouble with verb tense and subject-verb agreement, for example), but they approached anything they wrote with the care that you would put into a doctoral thesis.
While everyone else screams about shifting into Neutral, I'm going to ask a question:
TFS mentions that he crossed the border into Belgium. How does cross-border highway police jurisdiction work in Europe? Can the French cops follow him across, or do they have to call ahead and have Belgian cops waiting to take over?
You deal with issues that must really piss you off. I mean, the reason you're famous is that you got fired - not exactly a happy event, and you have to relive it in every interview. How do you deal with that? Have you developed a zen about the situation yet, or are you still angry? How do you deal with the stress and anger? Do you meditate, go running, hit a punching bag, or what?
My guess is it depends on the number of people present, the size of the venue, and some average measure of how much energy the band imparts to the audience.
Hold on a second. If you want full access to cameras and other devices after getting under the covers, that's your business. "Unlock [your] full potential" all you want, but I don't want to hear about it!
In the film, yes, though the novel used a different species. But yeah, Acherontia Styx and its relatives are so named because of that creepy skull on their backs.
You're in luck, then. Acheron (agony) and Alecto (rage) are on the list of candidates, as is Erebus (darkness - more specifically, the embracing darkness that envelops and smothers you as it drags you to Hades).
Refusing to rent an apartment to someone you disapprove of does not prevent that person from renting an apartment unless the landlord has a monopoly (and if he does then anti-trust laws and regulations can kick in and we discuss that situation).
It does if every landlord around you shares your beliefs as well. If landlords could do that, no black person would ever be able to rent a nice apartment in Mobile.
However, your point about the young lady is well taken, and I should clarify that personal relationships are legally very different from business relationships. IANAL. But I believe that when money changes hands (or is proposed to change hands) between the two parties, it fundamentally alters the legal framework regarding turning someone down. Perhaps someone legally trained could clear that up. In addition, you may have found an interesting legal hurdle regarding the perennial proposals to legalize prostitution.
A landlord is not allowed to turn down someone because they're black. However, they are allowed to turn down someone because they're a registered sex offender. This is because a person's criminal history makes a statement about how they will affect the society around them, whereas their race does not. Does homosexuality have a detrimental effect on the surrounding society? That should be the debate! Note that I'm not taking one side or another in that debate - I'm simply saying that "I disapprove" is not enough. Your disapproval doesn't give you the right to deny their rights. You have to show objective harm.
I do think drug use is on par with what type of car you drive, in the sense that any debate on them should be focused on societal consequences rather than on a single person's belief system. A car that spews Sarin gas out the tailpipe would understandably be illegal, because of the danger to society. But "I drive small cars and I object to SUVs because I don't like the way they look" would not be a valid reason to make SUVs illegal. Likewise a drug that turns anyone who uses it into a zombie should be illegal, because of the danger to society. But "I have a value system that objects to it" would not be a valid reason.
The point of a free society is that you're not compelled to do things against your values.
And nobody is compelling you to do so. You're not being compelled to do anything. But your value system does not extend to that random guy walking down the street, unless he's actively causing you or society harm.
First, your society is signaling to its own member that (x) is not just accepted behavior, but thus is recommended behavior. If we legalize eating raw octopus, we have said nothing is wrong with it; that puts it, in the binary of behaviors described by government, in the "approved" category by not being in the "disapproved category."
Whoa there. That's a big leap you made there. Allowed/Illegal is not the same as Recommended/Illegal. Pickup trucks are perfectly legal; does that make them government-recommended? No - they're just another option that's out there. Talking about your kids and dope: I'm pretty darn sure there are no laws against bad oral hygiene. Yet you still teach your kids to brush their teeth, no? Do government laws/lack of laws really have that much influence on what values you impart to your kids?
Second, that means more people are going to do it
This may or may not be a problem, based on #3.
Third, this means that all of us are going to experience the social consequences of it. We are all subsidizing it, in effect, even if we disagree with it.
Agreed. So what would be the social consequences? The social consequences of allowing pickup trucks on the road are a decreased average mileage of all automobiles and a general increase in air pollution. To what degree? How much benefit would banning them create? Is that benefit worth the loss of freedom involved in not letting people choose their own car? That's what you should have your debate on. Debate the consequences, great! But don't say that allowing pickup trucks imposes on the freedoms of everyone who wants to drive a subcompact, because that doesn't compute.
Fourth, you have eliminated my ability to have the society I want, which doesn't include it.
Tough. That's not how a free society works, because everyone wants something different out of society. A lot of people want a society without black people, but they don't have the freedom to live in a society without black people. There is no imposition going on there.
There are actions which are justifiably illegal. We restrict the freedom of pedophiles, of murderers, etc. We do that because of the societal consequences of their actions, as you stated above in point #3. So debate that. But please don't talk about "imposing". Nobody is restricting your actions or your freedoms by allowing something you don't approve of.
I see this argument a lot in gay marriage debates, and it's always baffled me. It's about the definition of "impose".
I've never quite understood how you can say "Allowing (x) to happen imposes your viewpoint on me". If you have a viewpoint, that's your viewpoint. You're free to judge people who do (x). You don't have to do (x). Meanwhile, you're perfectly willing to see a law stating "You cannot do (x). (x) is now illegal." All the people who want to do (x) must now conform to your viewpoint or be criminals.
How is "You may do this, or may not, depending on your choice," more imposing than "You may not do this"? How in the world is freedom more imposing than restriction?
He was making a movie based on a TV show where characters would routinely say things like "Sir, the surface of the planet is negative four hundred degrees Celsius." Please don't look for scientific realism in anything Star Trek related.
Slashdot Mirror
What they've known some time is "there's a planet there." Recent developments resulted in "Hey! That planet's REALLY small!"
And then, once the winning corporation's mining fleet has wiped out the competition thanks to its new and advanced AI, it realizes that the greatest abundance of minable materials is on that blue rock! And the only obstacle left is that dang nuisance called "organic life"...
A guy who worked as a staffer for the Republican party gave answers that generally fell in line with Republican beliefs. What, you thought his entire worldview would've been overturned because of a single issue?
People who are interested in cooking will continue to cook despite the automation, while people who don't give a crap will use the machines. Think of it like driving with a manual vs. automatic transmission.
It's not really the same (layman's perspective, not a physicist). A good rundown is the Wiki page on false vacuum. Basically, the universe in a metastable state means that the base level of energy we see, our vision of a vacuum, is actually still higher-energy than what it could be if something got tweaked slightly. We're in a valley, but not the lowest valley in the area. On the off chance that one tiny part of the universe spontaneously tweaks itself, jumps the ridge between the valleys, and settles at the "true vacuum" low-energy state, it would catalyze the adjacent tiny bits of the universe to do the same thing, which would then catalyze the ones next to them, and so on in an expanding bubble.
It's not the same as the "Big Crunch", because it's not the universe collapsing in on itself. It's the universe suddenly "shifting" to a more stable arrangement. A poster above mentioned watching a supercooled coke bottle freeze after you tap it - that's a great analogy. The coke is cold enough to freeze, but since it's sitting undisturbed, the liquid is stable and happy and just sits there. Tap the glass, and suddenly it's no longer so happy - a wave of ice spreads outward from where you tapped it, as the coke all shifts to the lower-energy ice instead of liquid.
It's not really the same (layman's perspective, not a physicist). A good rundown is the Wiki page on false vacuum. Basically, the universe in a metastable state means that the base level of energy we see, our vision of a vacuum, is actually still higher-energy than what it could be if something got tweaked slightly. We're in a valley, but not the lowest valley in the area. On the off chance that one tiny part of the universe spontaneously tweaks itself, jumps the ridge between the valleys, and settles at the "true vacuum" low-energy state, it would catalyze the adjacent tiny bits of the universe to do the same thing, which would then catalyze the ones next to them, and so on in an expanding bubble.
It's not the same as the "Big Crunch", because it's not the universe collapsing in on itself. It's the universe suddenly "shifting" to a more stable arrangement. A poster above mentioned watching a supercooled coke bottle freeze after you tap it - that's a great analogy. The coke is cold enough to freeze, but since it's sitting undisturbed, the liquid is stable and happy and just sits there. Tap the glass, and suddenly it's no longer so happy - a wave of ice spreads outward from where you tapped it, as the coke all shifts to the lower-energy ice instead of liquid.
And now that I have your attention...
I was especially surprised that I could write better than most of the people I was grading, considering...b) English is my second language.
That's less surprising than you'd think. "I've spoken this language all my life; I don't need to know all the stupid rules and intricacies!" is a pretty common sentiment.
I'm only two years out of university, so I hope I can provide a less "get off my lawn" perspective. I think what you're seeing is more a result of your specific field of study than a general decline. You're in IT, and techies don't give two shits about their writing. In my time at school, I graded assignments for both the Mechanical Engineering and English departments, so I got to see both sides of this coin. Papers for the English department were well-structured, grammatically sound, and generally easy to read, even if what they were writing about was absolute trash. Engineering reports conformed to basic sentence structure, but that was about it. They cared about the data and the equations, and the rest was filler. A comma splice was something that was mentioned in a blow-off class their freshman year and had absolutely no relevance to the Young's Modulus of aluminum. We checked the writing for plagiarism, but as long as the sentences actually made sense, the grammar was of no consequence.
So I don't think it's a "lowering of the bar" so much as it is a splitting of disciplines - the Humanities-oriented folks slept through math class, and the STEM folks slept through writing class. Whether that's OK or not is a judgment call. Lord knows there are already enough op-eds out there playing tug-of-war over the amount of hard vs. soft education.
The exceptions to the above were the Asian kids. Since they had studied English as their second language, with diligence and care enough to be fluent in something so different from their native tongue, they put a lot of time into their writing. There were very common grammatical mistakes (native Mandarin speakers have a lot of trouble with verb tense and subject-verb agreement, for example), but they approached anything they wrote with the care that you would put into a doctoral thesis.
TFS mentions that he crossed the border into Belgium. How does cross-border highway police jurisdiction work in Europe? Can the French cops follow him across, or do they have to call ahead and have Belgian cops waiting to take over?
You deal with issues that must really piss you off. I mean, the reason you're famous is that you got fired - not exactly a happy event, and you have to relive it in every interview. How do you deal with that? Have you developed a zen about the situation yet, or are you still angry? How do you deal with the stress and anger? Do you meditate, go running, hit a punching bag, or what?
(entry length of 40m, a "reasonable-sized university building", Reynolds # of 2300 for laminar flow, Lentry/D=~=Re/16 gives D around 275mm)
Or did I miss something? It's been a while since I did any fluid calcs.
Although wait...that sounds familiar somehow.
That's fine for something like #pear or #iphone4 but what about if you have something more complicated?
What species of pear? What color? Whole, sliced, or canned? How ripe? Jelly, maybe? An entire pear tree?
You, sir, have underestimated the intricacy of fruit purchasing!
Hold on a second. If you want full access to cameras and other devices after getting under the covers, that's your business. "Unlock [your] full potential" all you want, but I don't want to hear about it!
In the film, yes, though the novel used a different species. But yeah, Acherontia Styx and its relatives are so named because of that creepy skull on their backs.
You're in luck, then. Acheron (agony) and Alecto (rage) are on the list of candidates, as is Erebus (darkness - more specifically, the embracing darkness that envelops and smothers you as it drags you to Hades).
Those two aren't taken yet? I'm genuinely surprised.
Refusing to rent an apartment to someone you disapprove of does not prevent that person from renting an apartment unless the landlord has a monopoly (and if he does then anti-trust laws and regulations can kick in and we discuss that situation).
It does if every landlord around you shares your beliefs as well. If landlords could do that, no black person would ever be able to rent a nice apartment in Mobile.
However, your point about the young lady is well taken, and I should clarify that personal relationships are legally very different from business relationships. IANAL. But I believe that when money changes hands (or is proposed to change hands) between the two parties, it fundamentally alters the legal framework regarding turning someone down. Perhaps someone legally trained could clear that up. In addition, you may have found an interesting legal hurdle regarding the perennial proposals to legalize prostitution.
A landlord is not allowed to turn down someone because they're black. However, they are allowed to turn down someone because they're a registered sex offender. This is because a person's criminal history makes a statement about how they will affect the society around them, whereas their race does not. Does homosexuality have a detrimental effect on the surrounding society? That should be the debate! Note that I'm not taking one side or another in that debate - I'm simply saying that "I disapprove" is not enough. Your disapproval doesn't give you the right to deny their rights. You have to show objective harm.
I do think drug use is on par with what type of car you drive, in the sense that any debate on them should be focused on societal consequences rather than on a single person's belief system. A car that spews Sarin gas out the tailpipe would understandably be illegal, because of the danger to society. But "I drive small cars and I object to SUVs because I don't like the way they look" would not be a valid reason to make SUVs illegal. Likewise a drug that turns anyone who uses it into a zombie should be illegal, because of the danger to society. But "I have a value system that objects to it" would not be a valid reason.
The point of a free society is that you're not compelled to do things against your values.
And nobody is compelling you to do so. You're not being compelled to do anything. But your value system does not extend to that random guy walking down the street, unless he's actively causing you or society harm.
First, your society is signaling to its own member that (x) is not just accepted behavior, but thus is recommended behavior. If we legalize eating raw octopus, we have said nothing is wrong with it; that puts it, in the binary of behaviors described by government, in the "approved" category by not being in the "disapproved category."
Whoa there. That's a big leap you made there. Allowed/Illegal is not the same as Recommended/Illegal. Pickup trucks are perfectly legal; does that make them government-recommended? No - they're just another option that's out there. Talking about your kids and dope: I'm pretty darn sure there are no laws against bad oral hygiene. Yet you still teach your kids to brush their teeth, no? Do government laws/lack of laws really have that much influence on what values you impart to your kids?
Second, that means more people are going to do it
This may or may not be a problem, based on #3.
Third, this means that all of us are going to experience the social consequences of it. We are all subsidizing it, in effect, even if we disagree with it.
Agreed. So what would be the social consequences? The social consequences of allowing pickup trucks on the road are a decreased average mileage of all automobiles and a general increase in air pollution. To what degree? How much benefit would banning them create? Is that benefit worth the loss of freedom involved in not letting people choose their own car? That's what you should have your debate on. Debate the consequences, great! But don't say that allowing pickup trucks imposes on the freedoms of everyone who wants to drive a subcompact, because that doesn't compute.
Fourth, you have eliminated my ability to have the society I want, which doesn't include it.
Tough. That's not how a free society works, because everyone wants something different out of society. A lot of people want a society without black people, but they don't have the freedom to live in a society without black people. There is no imposition going on there.
There are actions which are justifiably illegal. We restrict the freedom of pedophiles, of murderers, etc. We do that because of the societal consequences of their actions, as you stated above in point #3. So debate that. But please don't talk about "imposing". Nobody is restricting your actions or your freedoms by allowing something you don't approve of.
I've never quite understood how you can say "Allowing (x) to happen imposes your viewpoint on me". If you have a viewpoint, that's your viewpoint. You're free to judge people who do (x). You don't have to do (x). Meanwhile, you're perfectly willing to see a law stating "You cannot do (x). (x) is now illegal." All the people who want to do (x) must now conform to your viewpoint or be criminals.
How is "You may do this, or may not, depending on your choice," more imposing than "You may not do this"? How in the world is freedom more imposing than restriction?
He was making a movie based on a TV show where characters would routinely say things like "Sir, the surface of the planet is negative four hundred degrees Celsius." Please don't look for scientific realism in anything Star Trek related.
Many ancient cultures counted by lunar cycle, not solar cycle. So 900 "years" would be closer to 70.