I would never attend a family reunion. I have nothing in common with those people. Why would I spend all that money to travel across the country to meet some people I haven't seen since I was a child (and some, not at all) when I could take a vacation someplace nice instead?
This isn't quite true. A quick Google search turned up the figure of 62% for the 2008 election, while this site puts it at 57%, the highest turnout since 1968. Of course, you'll also notice that the off-years (2010, 2006, etc.) were much worse as those years didn't have Presidential elections.
Damn, that sucks. Oh well. But still, you can't be sure they're Germans, since according to your wiki article that plug is used in over 40 countries, including most of continental Europe. It also looks like Russia uses the same plug, or a highly compatible one. So those might be stupid Russians in that photo, which somehow wouldn't surprise me; those guys always seemed rather reckless.
Um, how about the fact that the two parties are almost identical, they're both warmongers, they're both spending us into oblivion, they're both sold out to corporations, I could go on and on. Did you miss the part where most third-party candidates (and Ron Paul) are in favor of scaling back our military expenditures, whereas the two main parties are not, and Romney now says we need to start a new war in Syria?
Both I guess. I don't stay in contact with any more than my most immediate family, and I live across the country from them so I can't help them anyway. Plus, I don't know much about Windows so unless I'm actually sitting in front of the machine to poke around with it and figure it out as I go, there's not much I can do.
I disagree: don't refuse to vote. Get out there and vote. But vote third-party. If you don't vote at all, that's not really a vote, because then everyone will just say you're apathetic, you're not interested in politics, etc. But if you vote, and vote for a third-party, they can't pull the apathy card; if lots of people are pissed off and vote for third-party candidates, that will show that people aren't apathetic, they care, but they're totally pissed about the mainstream candidates and want a better choice.
If you don't vote, your "no-vote" won't show up, except in turn-out polls and raw voting numbers. When people look at the results, they'll see something like 48% Romney, 49% Obama, 3% other. If lots of you vote third-party instead, we could see something like 35% Romney, 36% Obama, and 29% Other. Suddenly, the idea of a non-Dem, non-Rep candidate becoming President looks like a real possibility.
If the relative can't use the same OS you're using, that's when you tell the relative to go to Geek Squad or some local computer repair place and get them to fix the problem for them.
Since when did being related to someone make you their full-time on-call unpaid tech support?
Nope. Lighter materials could be as safe as heavier materials; you could use advanced aluminum honeycomb structures for instance to absorb energy (didn't the McLaren F1 have a chassis with this stuff?). However, doing so is much more expensive than using the same stamped-and-welded steel that cars have been using since the early 1900s.
The Americans who buy cars like a VW Golf are a small minority, and a totally different group of people than those who buy big vehicles. The two don't really like each other very much. The big-vehicle lovers call the small cars "deathtraps" or cars "for pussies", the small-vehicle lovers see the big-vehicle lovers as having small penises and being assholes.
Designing a small car "that consumers like" isn't going to magically make some Hummer buyer decide to switch to a Prius-like car. They're catering to different people.
There's nothing legal preventing American cars from having amber turn signals. My 90s Acura has them from the factory. Many/most American-made cars have red signals simply because the law allows it, and it's cheaper from a manufacturing perspective (they just use the same lens color as the brake lights).
The problem with turn signals is as "Convector" here says: it's un-American to actually use them properly. Either you don't use them, or you leave them on for your entire drive, or if you're in Mississippi, you use them to signal that people in front of you are turning, even though you intend to continue straight.
For a dorm room, a 60GHz router should be just great, since you don't have to worry much about range. But when you have a house, or worse, you're in an office building, range becomes much more important, plus the ability to penetrate many walls. No one wants an access point in every room of their house.
Plus, if your civilization is advanced enough to travel to another star system and successfully defeat a civilization that's built a Dyson sphere, then you're surely advanced enough to just build your own Dyson sphere and not need to undertake an invasion far from home.
If you're asking why any interstellar species would be aggressive and want to invade, basically you hit the nail on the head. Any species advanced enough to travel between stars is likely able to get or make whatever they need nearby without having to travel long distances and then exterminate some native population and steal their world, and probably wouldn't have the same biological requirements anyway.
This again reinforces my position that any Dyson-sphere-building civilization isn't going to feel the need to bother cloaking themselves from detection.
>> i'm sure an advanced civilization will master Star Trek type fusion tech before doing something ridiculous like building a starlight collector. For fuck's sake, people, read a god damn book. Star Trek is make-believe bullshit.
Wrong. He (and you) should probably read more Star Trek. Star Trek doesn't use fusion tech, it uses matter-antimatter reactions to power starships. Now, where do you think they get this antimatter from? It's not like there's likely to be antimatter mines anywhere in a matter-based universe. It comes from starlight collection (they use solar energy collection for all planet-based power needs, and for artificially producing antimatter to fuel starships). They even mention this here and there in ST fiction, though ST does tend to gloss over a lot of details about exactly how their advanced civilization and societies work outside of paramilitary starships (like how they can't seem to decide whether money exists or not in the Federation).
FTL may or may not be possible, but antimatter-based power generation certainly is for an advanced civilization, but since there's likely no natural sources of the material, it would have to be artificially produced (to be used as a highly concentrated energy source for places where plentiful star-based energy isn't available), so the obvious answer is get the energy from stars. Star Trek got this part right: the most likely ultimate energy source for an advanced civilization is stars.
Not quite so mind-boggling; there was an article recently saying the calculations for an Albuierre warp drive were wrong, and they determined that instead of needing the mass-energy of Jupiter for such a spacecraft, they only needed the mass-energy of a Voyager probe. That's still a lot of energy (think a whole bunch of H-bombs), but for a Class II civilization harnessing the entire energy output of a star, it's probably not that big a deal.
Matter-antimatter reactions may have extremely high power density, but there's a big problem: where do you get the antimatter from? It's unlikely there's large naturally-occurring deposits of it available anywhere, since it annihilates itself when it contacts matter. M-A energy sources really only make sense as a way of storing energy, not producing it. Even Star Trek takes this position: the starships use antimatter for propulsion, but only because of the energy/power density it offers, and it's produced artificially specifically for this purpose, probably using solar energy production.
Energy is a primary need of any civilization. Every civilization has to get it somewhere. Back in the early days, we got our energy from the sun solely: we used it to grow crops (for food) and feed our animals (for transportation), and to power our ships (for water-based transportation; we used the sun to produce wind to power these ships; luckily, we didn't have to produce the wind ourselves, as natural processes had already done this for us, but we took advantage of it). These days, we largely get our energy from hydrocarbons created millions of years ago by solar-fueled processes, though we're getting some power from nuclear fission (where we break apart large atoms that were created in stars long ago). In short, we get energy where we can find it naturally-occurring. A more advanced civilization will probably be no different: though it may convert energy from one form to another, it'll have to mine that energy from somewhere, and the most obvious source is a nearby star which is giving off lots of energy for free already. Of course, if they figure out how to get energy directly from quantum fluctuations, or by mining antimatter from a parallel universe or something, then they might not need stars any more, but that sounds even more advanced than a Kardashev Class II civilization which we're talking about here.
Sure, there's enough energy out there for one earth, but what if your species expands, and one planet isn't big enough for them all? By building a Dyson sphere, you get millions (billions?) of times the surface area of one planet, or you can create lots of independent artificial habitats, and have room for much more population, which of course would need much more energy.
I thought TFA already covered that: they could "hide" if they wanted to, sure, but that would require extra engineering work and compromises, and why would they bother with it? Why would they care about hiding from us or anyone else? If there's some aggressive interstellar species out there, it's defenseless civilizations like ours that would need to worry about it, not some civilization so advanced they can build a Dyson sphere.
No, not always, but it really depends. A lot of industrial processes become more environmentally-friendly over time. As an example, making lead-acid batteries probably used to be a lot worse than it is now, as all that lead had to be mined somewhere. These days, you don't really need to mine for lead any more, since lead-acid batteries are recycled with extreme success (nearly 100% of the lead in batteries is recycled), thanks to aggressive recycling programs with car batteries (every time you buy a new battery, they take back your old one and send it off to be recycled). So if lithium mining is a problem with new EV Li-ion batteries, for instance, that probably won't be so much of a problem farther into the future as the material is recycled more.
They also rely on the government for things like national defense (which they don't pay for), and have a closed society that can't handle the modern world or technology (they use some technology, but their society is completely incapable of producing its own technology). They're basically like leaches on modern society. They can survive because they can produce agricultural and handcrafted products for sale to the outside world, but modern society would never be able to survive if everyone adopted their way of living.
Manufacturing costs for something new and different are always higher than something that's been around forever. Those costs go down with volume and as the industrial processes improve. EV costs are high right now because they're a tiny niche product; if they start making millions of them, that'll change.
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I would never attend a family reunion. I have nothing in common with those people. Why would I spend all that money to travel across the country to meet some people I haven't seen since I was a child (and some, not at all) when I could take a vacation someplace nice instead?
This isn't quite true. A quick Google search turned up the figure of 62% for the 2008 election, while this site puts it at 57%, the highest turnout since 1968. Of course, you'll also notice that the off-years (2010, 2006, etc.) were much worse as those years didn't have Presidential elections.
Damn, that sucks. Oh well. But still, you can't be sure they're Germans, since according to your wiki article that plug is used in over 40 countries, including most of continental Europe. It also looks like Russia uses the same plug, or a highly compatible one. So those might be stupid Russians in that photo, which somehow wouldn't surprise me; those guys always seemed rather reckless.
Um, how about the fact that the two parties are almost identical, they're both warmongers, they're both spending us into oblivion, they're both sold out to corporations, I could go on and on. Did you miss the part where most third-party candidates (and Ron Paul) are in favor of scaling back our military expenditures, whereas the two main parties are not, and Romney now says we need to start a new war in Syria?
Both I guess. I don't stay in contact with any more than my most immediate family, and I live across the country from them so I can't help them anyway. Plus, I don't know much about Windows so unless I'm actually sitting in front of the machine to poke around with it and figure it out as I go, there's not much I can do.
I disagree: don't refuse to vote. Get out there and vote. But vote third-party. If you don't vote at all, that's not really a vote, because then everyone will just say you're apathetic, you're not interested in politics, etc. But if you vote, and vote for a third-party, they can't pull the apathy card; if lots of people are pissed off and vote for third-party candidates, that will show that people aren't apathetic, they care, but they're totally pissed about the mainstream candidates and want a better choice.
If you don't vote, your "no-vote" won't show up, except in turn-out polls and raw voting numbers. When people look at the results, they'll see something like 48% Romney, 49% Obama, 3% other. If lots of you vote third-party instead, we could see something like 35% Romney, 36% Obama, and 29% Other. Suddenly, the idea of a non-Dem, non-Rep candidate becoming President looks like a real possibility.
If the relative can't use the same OS you're using, that's when you tell the relative to go to Geek Squad or some local computer repair place and get them to fix the problem for them.
Since when did being related to someone make you their full-time on-call unpaid tech support?
How can they simultaneously be deathtraps and for pussies?
When you're dealing with people like this, this, this, or this, there's no use in trying to apply logic.
Nope. Lighter materials could be as safe as heavier materials; you could use advanced aluminum honeycomb structures for instance to absorb energy (didn't the McLaren F1 have a chassis with this stuff?). However, doing so is much more expensive than using the same stamped-and-welded steel that cars have been using since the early 1900s.
The Americans who buy cars like a VW Golf are a small minority, and a totally different group of people than those who buy big vehicles. The two don't really like each other very much. The big-vehicle lovers call the small cars "deathtraps" or cars "for pussies", the small-vehicle lovers see the big-vehicle lovers as having small penises and being assholes.
Designing a small car "that consumers like" isn't going to magically make some Hummer buyer decide to switch to a Prius-like car. They're catering to different people.
There's nothing legal preventing American cars from having amber turn signals. My 90s Acura has them from the factory. Many/most American-made cars have red signals simply because the law allows it, and it's cheaper from a manufacturing perspective (they just use the same lens color as the brake lights).
The problem with turn signals is as "Convector" here says: it's un-American to actually use them properly. Either you don't use them, or you leave them on for your entire drive, or if you're in Mississippi, you use them to signal that people in front of you are turning, even though you intend to continue straight.
Because Americans all think they absolutely need something like this to commute to work or go to the grocery store.
For a dorm room, a 60GHz router should be just great, since you don't have to worry much about range. But when you have a house, or worse, you're in an office building, range becomes much more important, plus the ability to penetrate many walls. No one wants an access point in every room of their house.
Plus, if your civilization is advanced enough to travel to another star system and successfully defeat a civilization that's built a Dyson sphere, then you're surely advanced enough to just build your own Dyson sphere and not need to undertake an invasion far from home.
If you're asking why any interstellar species would be aggressive and want to invade, basically you hit the nail on the head. Any species advanced enough to travel between stars is likely able to get or make whatever they need nearby without having to travel long distances and then exterminate some native population and steal their world, and probably wouldn't have the same biological requirements anyway.
This again reinforces my position that any Dyson-sphere-building civilization isn't going to feel the need to bother cloaking themselves from detection.
>> i'm sure an advanced civilization will master Star Trek type fusion tech before doing something ridiculous like building a starlight collector.
For fuck's sake, people, read a god damn book. Star Trek is make-believe bullshit.
Wrong. He (and you) should probably read more Star Trek. Star Trek doesn't use fusion tech, it uses matter-antimatter reactions to power starships. Now, where do you think they get this antimatter from? It's not like there's likely to be antimatter mines anywhere in a matter-based universe. It comes from starlight collection (they use solar energy collection for all planet-based power needs, and for artificially producing antimatter to fuel starships). They even mention this here and there in ST fiction, though ST does tend to gloss over a lot of details about exactly how their advanced civilization and societies work outside of paramilitary starships (like how they can't seem to decide whether money exists or not in the Federation).
FTL may or may not be possible, but antimatter-based power generation certainly is for an advanced civilization, but since there's likely no natural sources of the material, it would have to be artificially produced (to be used as a highly concentrated energy source for places where plentiful star-based energy isn't available), so the obvious answer is get the energy from stars. Star Trek got this part right: the most likely ultimate energy source for an advanced civilization is stars.
Not quite so mind-boggling; there was an article recently saying the calculations for an Albuierre warp drive were wrong, and they determined that instead of needing the mass-energy of Jupiter for such a spacecraft, they only needed the mass-energy of a Voyager probe. That's still a lot of energy (think a whole bunch of H-bombs), but for a Class II civilization harnessing the entire energy output of a star, it's probably not that big a deal.
Matter-antimatter reactions may have extremely high power density, but there's a big problem: where do you get the antimatter from? It's unlikely there's large naturally-occurring deposits of it available anywhere, since it annihilates itself when it contacts matter. M-A energy sources really only make sense as a way of storing energy, not producing it. Even Star Trek takes this position: the starships use antimatter for propulsion, but only because of the energy/power density it offers, and it's produced artificially specifically for this purpose, probably using solar energy production.
Energy is a primary need of any civilization. Every civilization has to get it somewhere. Back in the early days, we got our energy from the sun solely: we used it to grow crops (for food) and feed our animals (for transportation), and to power our ships (for water-based transportation; we used the sun to produce wind to power these ships; luckily, we didn't have to produce the wind ourselves, as natural processes had already done this for us, but we took advantage of it). These days, we largely get our energy from hydrocarbons created millions of years ago by solar-fueled processes, though we're getting some power from nuclear fission (where we break apart large atoms that were created in stars long ago). In short, we get energy where we can find it naturally-occurring. A more advanced civilization will probably be no different: though it may convert energy from one form to another, it'll have to mine that energy from somewhere, and the most obvious source is a nearby star which is giving off lots of energy for free already. Of course, if they figure out how to get energy directly from quantum fluctuations, or by mining antimatter from a parallel universe or something, then they might not need stars any more, but that sounds even more advanced than a Kardashev Class II civilization which we're talking about here.
Sure, there's enough energy out there for one earth, but what if your species expands, and one planet isn't big enough for them all? By building a Dyson sphere, you get millions (billions?) of times the surface area of one planet, or you can create lots of independent artificial habitats, and have room for much more population, which of course would need much more energy.
I thought TFA already covered that: they could "hide" if they wanted to, sure, but that would require extra engineering work and compromises, and why would they bother with it? Why would they care about hiding from us or anyone else? If there's some aggressive interstellar species out there, it's defenseless civilizations like ours that would need to worry about it, not some civilization so advanced they can build a Dyson sphere.
Lawns don't use as much water as agricultural users.
No, not always, but it really depends. A lot of industrial processes become more environmentally-friendly over time. As an example, making lead-acid batteries probably used to be a lot worse than it is now, as all that lead had to be mined somewhere. These days, you don't really need to mine for lead any more, since lead-acid batteries are recycled with extreme success (nearly 100% of the lead in batteries is recycled), thanks to aggressive recycling programs with car batteries (every time you buy a new battery, they take back your old one and send it off to be recycled). So if lithium mining is a problem with new EV Li-ion batteries, for instance, that probably won't be so much of a problem farther into the future as the material is recycled more.
They also rely on the government for things like national defense (which they don't pay for), and have a closed society that can't handle the modern world or technology (they use some technology, but their society is completely incapable of producing its own technology). They're basically like leaches on modern society. They can survive because they can produce agricultural and handcrafted products for sale to the outside world, but modern society would never be able to survive if everyone adopted their way of living.
Manufacturing costs for something new and different are always higher than something that's been around forever. Those costs go down with volume and as the industrial processes improve. EV costs are high right now because they're a tiny niche product; if they start making millions of them, that'll change.
This is exploited by U.S. dirigents; it's useful for the nation to have "something to fear as a society".
For about half the American population these days, it's homosexuals.