What are you talking about? Mitochondria ARE DNA-based. They have their own DNA (just like chloroplasts in plants have their own DNA) that is replicated by its very own DNA polymerase (DNA Pol gamma). Some of its genes, over millenia, have been lost to the host cell nucleus, incorporated into host cell chromosomes where they are more stable but still...mitochondria are very much DNA-based, once-autonomous organisms (just like choloroplasts).
Which do you think is more likley to make it into use first?
Well...that depends on who wins in November. If the incumbent wins, then the surveillance function will come first and be of foremost importance. If the challenger wins, then the former is unlikely and the latter is assured.
to the human spirit, looking at pictures of the Grande Canyon (or Tetons, or Yellowstone, or other great vistas and locations) or actually BEING there to see and experience it yourself? What is more satisfying, sending a remote piloted vehicle with camera to see the Great Pyramids of Egypt, or actually going yourself to see them? It is irrelevant whether or not MOST people actually do any of the above, the point is they CAN and some actually do - and there is an indirect solace for the soul in that fact.
Looking at pictures or spectra from this or that rock in the solar system may be nifty neato, and may make a few scientists come in their panties, but for most people, it isn't enough. There is something very much viscerally superior to actually having humans there to see/experience something directly, and by proxy for the rest of us, than simply receiving a stream of bits to toss together into a pretty picture.
If we play our cards right, one day, travel to various locales within the solar system will be in reach of many/most people, much the way air travel has brought virtually any and every location on planet earth within reach of most people (at least in the developed world). The only way to get to the point where one could actually end up on Mars in a way that is more relaxed than a virge-of-death adventurous feat by a handful of select astronauts is to actually that the first steps and SEND a handful of select astronauts. Again and again. In ever improving vehicles with ever improving technology. Do that enough and you end up with passenger liners for regular people doing the same thing.
Earth has a finite lifespan. So long as we are locked to it's surface we are certain to experience a lifespan that is significantly shorter than that of the earth (we have roughly a max of about a few tens of millions of years left before earth is a gonner regardless of anything we might do - by some reasonable estimates). That is a long time, but it is a short time too given the time available if we untie ourselves from earth's surface.
Van Allen is a parochial jackass interested only in furthering HIS particular cut of research. He has no soul.
In konqueror, highlight some text and do a Ctrl-C to copy it. Open up kwrite or gedit and do a Ctrl-V. Simple copy and paste. Now, do the Ctrl-C in konqueror (or kwrite, etc) and open up a konsole and do a Ctrl-V. What happens? NOTHING. OK. Now in that konsole highlight some text and do a Ctrl-C. What happens? NOTHING.
If you want to copy text from a konsole and paste it into virtually any other app, you need to highlight the text, right click the mouse, select copy, and then you can paste into kedit, kwrite, gedit, abiword (whatever) with Ctrl-V.
To do a paste into a konsole from virtually any other KDE app (or Gnome app for that matter) you do the proper Ctrl-C to copy but then, in the konsole you need to right-click the mouse and select paste.
What. The. Fuck. Is. Up. With. That? What genious figured it would be a good and smart thing to do to completely bork the standard within-environment key bindings used in virtually every other KDE app for konsole? Granted, the Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V keys don't work for xterms either but then, and xterm isn't a KDE app. Oh, and yes, the easier mouse-driven way to do it is to simply highlight the text in whatever and then middle-mouse-click to paste but this only works with three-button mice and even then, not universally (it doesn't work on my laptop).
How about all Gnome/KDE developers sit down and make ALL the Gnome/KDE apps work exactly the same amongst themselves: agree on standard keybindings and stick with it for ALL apps. A konsole should use ALL the same key bindings as kwrite, kedit, kate, kword, kopete, etc, etc, uses. I cannot address Gnome much as I do not use it and do not know of any idiosyncrasies along this line...
Porn, that is. It is the single biggest money-making industry in film/entertainment WORLDWIDE. It isn't because of a handful of super-rich men and women (women are big enjoyers of porn too - maybe not to an equal extent as men but close) doling out big bucks for their porn fix. Nay. It is millions and millions of regular folk paying for something they want to see.
The people have already decided the issue: they want their porn and will not be pleased if someone tries to take it from them.
Interesting because things got awfully hairy when helping my little cousin do research for his 3rd grade paper on the "North American Beaver". Even with me sitting next to her, it's hard to keep her from reading the interesting site descriptions given on google.
I just did a search on "north american beaver" and didn't get anything interesting. Just a pageload of Castor canadensis. With "beaver" in the search I was hoping for lots of big brown beaver, Winona's or any other woman's but no such luck. Just a bunch of legitimate naturalist/biologist crap on one of the continents larger rodent species.
You just got very lucky on your search. In any case, she'll know what beaver is, outside the mundane Castor canadensis by some point in Jr High (high school at the latest) and it wont hurt her one little bit.
Err...sorry sissyboy but ALL women, to some extent, are meat on display. ALL men (except gays) look at women in a sexual manner. ALL OF THEM DO - including you. ALL men "check out" women they work with, work under, work near. They may rapidly rule many/most out on various criteria but nevertheless, in their mind that inner voice is sizing up the women around them for bangability. End of story. Don't like it, tough, that's the way it is and always will be.
The beginning of the EU caving in to M$ and the US. It is the one of the last bumps in the road before the EU goes the US route of worshipping big corporations at the exclusion of all else. Corps can do NO wrong.
Cedega is broken. I have several games that work in WineX 3.3 but when I "upgraded" to cedega, error city. No worky. I think I'll go back to straight wine. WineX is dicked, will continue to be dicked, and it adds nothing to the desire to run windoze games in linux. You're better off with the WineHQ versions.
And your point? Where is MY blowjob? You said "everybody gets a blow job..." I WANT MINE! That's certainly superior to making some mind-numbing churchy crap part of the government.
But the ONLY programs that I have that only run on windoze are a few games. Neither win4lin nor its over-priced older sibling VMWare, can run games.
Now that there are web-based versions of tax software, I don't need to reboot to doze for those either. I am left with games and that means one of two things: wine or windoze.
would push me to record the self-destructing DVD so I could watch it at my leisure whenever I want. This is something I am not othwise interested in doing, thus all this sort of crap does is push me (and any like me) to start making copies of the self-destructing media before they self-destruct. I don't want to feel rushed and I do not like the wasteful design. Yes, let us PLEASE add MUCH more plastic waste to our landfills, there isn't enough as it is.
Because the current product doesn't include linux kernel code. SCO needed to update their OS so that it includes linux kernel code so they can then claim that linux is STILL violating their IP because, "See? There is still SCO code in even the newest linux kernels!".
They have to try to maintain their sole source of income of late (stupid companies that cave and pay for their bogus license to run linux).
Yeah, just don't expect to watch anything during storms. It is absolutely true: there's nothing like a good book on a lousy day...because that's all you have if you have to rely on satellite TV (or internet for that matter). They (DirecTV) also charge you for a freakin phonecall to obtain service for their equipment that THEY are responsible for.
Just like the Police 911 CB signals are also beamed into your skulls does not give you the right to broadcast on that signal.
But...as with ANY signal, you cannot be prevented from intercepting and listening to/watching that signal. No one can stop you from listening in on those police signals, military frequencies, broadcast radio, TV, Satellite, or galactic microwave background radiation. Broadcasting
on a freq is totally different from listening in, even if it involves decoding. You aren't "stealing" anything. If they want only paying customers to listen, then they should tight beam the signal to individual PAYING customer homes rather than blanket the planet with freely available, ubiquitous signals. If it hits my property or me, then I have right to it. That includes extraneous sounds, radio signals, microwaves, light, dollar bills, whatever.
The military is working on this sort of thing, called "smart camouflage". It's intent is to keep tabs on the surrounding environment and change the camo pattern to correspond appropriately to that environment.
Military generals who were offered a special advanced showing of the movie "Predator" responded to the alien's camouflage by declaring that they want that. It strikes me that both the smart camouflage and the interesting work out of U of Tokyo falls right in line with this.
It wouldn't be terribly robust. Brand new, it would be great but as wear and tear (and near-miss RPGs) build, portions of the suit will fail. Perhaps this is something best used for special ops where they are not expected to endure long drawn out battles or campaigns: just get in, do the job, get out. Wear and tear would be largely irrelevant in such cases. Even if the effect is more akin to translucence rather than invisability, that is a FAR cry superior to standard camouflage. At anything other than relative close range, even almost in the wide-open, you would be rendered nearly invisable to a scanning eye. Stand stock still and you could within handgun range and not be seen.
For aircraft it is a bit more of a problem. You not only need to project the view on the other side of the aircraft to the bottom, you also need to do it with more brightness. You need to at least go to some lengths to cancel out shadows underneath the aircraft's wings and underbelly. In any case, this type of human eye camouflage is less important these days than radar invisability. Most of the things that will bring you down are radar guided, not guided by the human eyes (few exceptions). As for small arms fire, Desert Storm showed quite well that ground troops need not actually see an aircraft to effectively deal with them at low altitude. They didn't see us (I was there) most of the time but they heard us and got warnings from brief flashes of radar illumination. They'd simply fill the sky with lead, virtually none of it directed anywhere but up. There is no defense against this, you cannot manuever to evade it like you can with radar or eye-guided AAA. This invisability cloak would really offer nothing in this regard. All you can do is fly above the altitude of 90% of the effective AAA and small-arms fire. At that altitude an invisability cloak is pointless.
for the right to intrude on MY airspace, my body, etc, with their "property" (some RF band) under such a scheme because I would not tolerate private individuals owning a public property. Thus, if such a violation were allowed then I would have to retaliate in courts by demanding that the owner refrain of a frequency band "property" from intruding on my real property (my land, my home, my body).
Thus, you think you "own" the 2.4Ghz range? Keep your frequency broadcasts off me and my real property. Just as no one owns a stream or river (the river traverses many private holdings and public land), no one can own the air that blows over my property, the rain that falls on my property, nor the RF that rains down on me no matter where I go.
This is private property worship to the exclusion of all else taken way too far into the extreme. I'd never accept that anyone outright OWNS an RF frequency, nor a particular visable light frequency, nor IR frequency, etc.
Where is the actual "free" part? The connection to the internet is NOT FREE. SOMEONE is paying for it and sucking up the cost while allowing others to use the connection that IS being paid for without cost to them...all for the intent (usually) of bringing customers in who will spend money on whatever the supplier of the wifi access sells. The ISP for the "free" wifi hotspot is making money - so it isn't free is it?
If a municipality is supplying the "free wifi", then it is most assuredly being paid for...by tax dollars. The municipality doesn't have a magic free connection to the internet - they are paying for it. A municipality gets its money from one source: taxes. People are paying for it but by an indirect route. What's more, people who never ever use it or who don't even know about the free wifi are paying for it in their tax payments.
Quit. Calling. It. Free! It is NOT free. Never will be. If Joe or Jane blow allows open access to the internet via their wifi router, sure, purely out of the largess of the owner of the router/AP generic passersby can get a "free" connection but it still depends on the owner of the connection PAYING for the connection. No one. NO ONE! No one actually gets into the internet free-of-charge. Someone somewhere is paying for a connection to the internet. If you have a direct T1 line or a partial T1, you are paying a telecom for it. You don't get to lay one out yourself and just tap in. $$$. If you are paying for a DSL or cable connection and are simply allowing any and sundry to make use of your connection "for free", good for you for your charity because that is what it is: YOU are paying for the connection, no getting around that, and you are simply ALLOWING others to use what you are paying for. No freebies.
All an ISP has to do to squelch this is not allow connection sharing. Many do this to prevent you from sharing your connection. Those that don't only need to change their Terms of Service and the coffee shop will not be able to do it anymore without coughing up whatever the ISP wants to charge to allow for up to X numbers of connections through the one account. The only alternative is leasing (not owning) a T1 line or partial line and allowing connections through it. T1s aren't free anywhere and they ain't cheap either. A company may decide to eat the cost of a T1 line every month to provide "free" connections to customers but in no way is it really free in reality. This is more true of any government body doing it (be it Fed, State, or City). EVERYONE in the tax base is paying for it so this is the weakest example of "free" access because EVERYONE in the tax base, whether they use the connection or not, is paying for it.
I don't know...at Purdue you will see students walking around now and again with funky backpacks with a funkier antenna sticking up out of the back. I haven't asked but I think it contains GPS equipment - don't know the class that is using them. That thing doesn't strike me as being that much different except that the guts are showing (the router).
I've pretty much come to the same conclusions as you with regards to controlling population on a finite planet. You permit reproduction only upon removal from a rejuvenation program...you accept that you have to live out your natural lifespan sans any extension treatments from the day of birth onward, or until the offspring has gone off-planet/died. Alternatively, there would have to be some place to expand into, which means space or a growing Mars habitat, etc.
If we assume it is practical to so finely manipulate virtually every cell of the body in such a way as to correct damage (chromosomal, protein, structural, lipid) to an extent that aging is essentially ended, then the type of eugenics you mention becomes illogical.
If someone is "undesireable" due to some biological defect, the means would de facto be present to correct the defect (mental defect, physical defect). I couldn't imagine anyone, given the option, would seek to retain a mental defect or some physical defect that a full-blown eugenics program would consider worthy of sterilization or worse. What's the point? Mentally retarded? It can be corrected after the fact and in such a way that it isn't passed on to any offspring that the person may have...even if it did, this supermanipulation ability would render it moot, again, after the fact.
Any argument about eugenics after such a capability is developed (I tend to doubt any such thing as true reversed or fully stopped aging is likely) is pointless because this technology would encompass a level of manipulation that renders the point moot.
I have a back problem that I inherited from my father. It causes me chronic pain but for the most part only marginally affects my day-to-day life. Something like this, however, can ONLY get worse as one ages. And it carries baggage (arthritis, just as "old football" injuries do). This level of system-wide repair and manipulation posited would fix this problem and prevent me from passing it on to my offspring (if any). Would I jump at such a chance? YES. In a heartbeat, but any eugenic argument about my "worthiness" to accept life-extension treatment is silly because any eugenic concern about it is wiped out by the capability to fix it.
Sorry non-scientist, it wasn't the "greenies" that came up with ANY of this. SCIENTISTS doing SCIENCE are the ones who started the global warming debate and, there is no disjoint, by the way, the discussion on how warming could actually start an ice age.
I suggest you put your money politics aside and actually look into the SCIENTIFIC literature on this. Global warming increases the average global temperature. This does NOT mean that every place on earth experiences a climb in temp, and certainly not of the same magnitude. This increased average temp leads to rapid melt of glaciers (and large percentages of polar ice). This causes an increasing flood of fresh water into the oceans. A flood of fresh water into the North Atlantic screws up the Gulf Stream conveyor belt, which is responsible for moderating the temperature and weather of New England and, indeed, the entire East Coast. It also has a major impact on the weather of Europe. The flood of fresh water can shut down the Gulf Stream, which leads to the loss of the moderating influence. The Northeast US and Canada becomes rapidly MUCH cooler. Europe becomes MUCH cooler. Weather patterns are screwed (the Gulf Stream plays a major role in Atlantic weather patterns).
No "greenie" made this stuff up, SCIENTISTS came up with these scenarios based on physics and climate research. It is inarguable that a flood of fresh water would screw up the Gulf Stream and it is inarguable that a shut-down Gulf Stream would have a catastrophic effect on the Northeast US/Canada and Western Europe.
Drop the Party Line and actually do something that Bush NEVER does...READ. Read the primary sources.
Uh...it is already that way now and it has nothing to do with evils such as the "Patriot Act", TIA, the PROTECT Act, etc. All that needs to happen to you is ANYONE point at you and yell, "Pedophile!" or "Rapist!". That's it. Even if you are absolutely innocent in all possible ways, you are "labelled" now, at least in your community, and you will have trouble. Any child disappearance, any rape, and you will fall under suspicion.
This is particularly true of people who are teachers or professors. All it takes is some student to point and accuse, even if baseless, and you have a grey cloud floating around you from then on, at least in that community.
I have no problem at all with the PROTECT Act, per se. Tapping an internet connection should in no way be considered any different than tapping a phoneline or bugging a room/house, so long as there is a valid court order. So long as it doesn't get all Patriot Act wierd with secret courts and such, it should not get people any more bent than any other valid crime-fighting tool. The sole key is due process.
I READ the article but I just couldn't believe that what was there, so small, no innocuous, could have possibly been all that there was. I was thinking that SURELY there must have been something real for which the Justice Department could get bent about.
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What are you talking about? Mitochondria ARE DNA-based. They have their own DNA (just like chloroplasts in plants have their own DNA) that is replicated by its very own DNA polymerase (DNA Pol gamma). Some of its genes, over millenia, have been lost to the host cell nucleus, incorporated into host cell chromosomes where they are more stable but still...mitochondria are very much DNA-based, once-autonomous organisms (just like choloroplasts).
Which do you think is more likley to make it into use first?
Well...that depends on who wins in November. If the incumbent wins, then the surveillance function will come first and be of foremost importance. If the challenger wins, then the former is unlikely and the latter is assured.
to the human spirit, looking at pictures of the Grande Canyon (or Tetons, or Yellowstone, or other great vistas and locations) or actually BEING there to see and experience it yourself? What is more satisfying, sending a remote piloted vehicle with camera to see the Great Pyramids of Egypt, or actually going yourself to see them? It is irrelevant whether or not MOST people actually do any of the above, the point is they CAN and some actually do - and there is an indirect solace for the soul in that fact.
Looking at pictures or spectra from this or that rock in the solar system may be nifty neato, and may make a few scientists come in their panties, but for most people, it isn't enough. There is something very much viscerally superior to actually having humans there to see/experience something directly, and by proxy for the rest of us, than simply receiving a stream of bits to toss together into a pretty picture.
If we play our cards right, one day, travel to various locales within the solar system will be in reach of many/most people, much the way air travel has brought virtually any and every location on planet earth within reach of most people (at least in the developed world). The only way to get to the point where one could actually end up on Mars in a way that is more relaxed than a virge-of-death adventurous feat by a handful of select astronauts is to actually that the first steps and SEND a handful of select astronauts. Again and again. In ever improving vehicles with ever improving technology. Do that enough and you end up with passenger liners for regular people doing the same thing.
Earth has a finite lifespan. So long as we are locked to it's surface we are certain to experience a lifespan that is significantly shorter than that of the earth (we have roughly a max of about a few tens of millions of years left before earth is a gonner regardless of anything we might do - by some reasonable estimates). That is a long time, but it is a short time too given the time available if we untie ourselves from earth's surface.
Van Allen is a parochial jackass interested only in furthering HIS particular cut of research. He has no soul.
One word: Blender
There exists no other app on planet earth that hits as high on the craposity UI meter as does Blender.
In konqueror, highlight some text and do a Ctrl-C to copy it. Open up kwrite or gedit and do a Ctrl-V. Simple copy and paste. Now, do the Ctrl-C in konqueror (or kwrite, etc) and open up a konsole and do a Ctrl-V. What happens? NOTHING. OK. Now in that konsole highlight some text and do a Ctrl-C. What happens? NOTHING.
If you want to copy text from a konsole and paste it into virtually any other app, you need to highlight the text, right click the mouse, select copy, and then you can paste into kedit, kwrite, gedit, abiword (whatever) with Ctrl-V.
To do a paste into a konsole from virtually any other KDE app (or Gnome app for that matter) you do the proper Ctrl-C to copy but then, in the konsole you need to right-click the mouse and select paste.
What. The. Fuck. Is. Up. With. That? What genious figured it would be a good and smart thing to do to completely bork the standard within-environment key bindings used in virtually every other KDE app for konsole? Granted, the Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V keys don't work for xterms either but then, and xterm isn't a KDE app. Oh, and yes, the easier mouse-driven way to do it is to simply highlight the text in whatever and then middle-mouse-click to paste but this only works with three-button mice and even then, not universally (it doesn't work on my laptop).
How about all Gnome/KDE developers sit down and make ALL the Gnome/KDE apps work exactly the same amongst themselves: agree on standard keybindings and stick with it for ALL apps. A konsole should use ALL the same key bindings as kwrite, kedit, kate, kword, kopete, etc, etc, uses. I cannot address Gnome much as I do not use it and do not know of any idiosyncrasies along this line...
Porn, that is. It is the single biggest money-making industry in film/entertainment WORLDWIDE. It isn't because of a handful of super-rich men and women (women are big enjoyers of porn too - maybe not to an equal extent as men but close) doling out big bucks for their porn fix. Nay. It is millions and millions of regular folk paying for something they want to see.
The people have already decided the issue: they want their porn and will not be pleased if someone tries to take it from them.
Interesting because things got awfully hairy when helping my little cousin do research for his 3rd grade paper on the "North American Beaver". Even with me sitting next to her, it's hard to keep her from reading the interesting site descriptions given on google.
I just did a search on "north american beaver" and didn't get anything interesting. Just a pageload of Castor canadensis. With "beaver" in the search I was hoping for lots of big brown beaver, Winona's or any other woman's but no such luck. Just a bunch of legitimate naturalist/biologist crap on one of the continents larger rodent species.
You just got very lucky on your search. In any case, she'll know what beaver is, outside the mundane Castor canadensis by some point in Jr High (high school at the latest) and it wont hurt her one little bit.
Err...sorry sissyboy but ALL women, to some extent, are meat on display. ALL men (except gays) look at women in a sexual manner. ALL OF THEM DO - including you. ALL men "check out" women they work with, work under, work near. They may rapidly rule many/most out on various criteria but nevertheless, in their mind that inner voice is sizing up the women around them for bangability. End of story. Don't like it, tough, that's the way it is and always will be.
The beginning of the EU caving in to M$ and the US. It is the one of the last bumps in the road before the EU goes the US route of worshipping big corporations at the exclusion of all else. Corps can do NO wrong.
Cedega is broken. I have several games that work in WineX 3.3 but when I "upgraded" to cedega, error city. No worky. I think I'll go back to straight wine. WineX is dicked, will continue to be dicked, and it adds nothing to the desire to run windoze games in linux. You're better off with the WineHQ versions.
And your point? Where is MY blowjob? You said "everybody gets a blow job..." I WANT MINE! That's certainly superior to making some mind-numbing churchy crap part of the government.
But the ONLY programs that I have that only run on windoze are a few games. Neither win4lin nor its over-priced older sibling VMWare, can run games.
Now that there are web-based versions of tax software, I don't need to reboot to doze for those either. I am left with games and that means one of two things: wine or windoze.
would push me to record the self-destructing DVD so I could watch it at my leisure whenever I want. This is something I am not othwise interested in doing, thus all this sort of crap does is push me (and any like me) to start making copies of the self-destructing media before they self-destruct. I don't want to feel rushed and I do not like the wasteful design. Yes, let us PLEASE add MUCH more plastic waste to our landfills, there isn't enough as it is.
Because the current product doesn't include linux kernel code. SCO needed to update their OS so that it includes linux kernel code so they can then claim that linux is STILL violating their IP because, "See? There is still SCO code in even the newest linux kernels!".
They have to try to maintain their sole source of income of late (stupid companies that cave and pay for their bogus license to run linux).
Yeah, just don't expect to watch anything during storms. It is absolutely true: there's nothing like a good book on a lousy day...because that's all you have if you have to rely on satellite TV (or internet for that matter). They (DirecTV) also charge you for a freakin phonecall to obtain service for their equipment that THEY are responsible for.
Just like the Police 911 CB signals are also beamed into your skulls does not give you the right to broadcast on that signal.
But...as with ANY signal, you cannot be prevented from intercepting and listening to/watching that signal. No one can stop you from listening in on those police signals, military frequencies, broadcast radio, TV, Satellite, or galactic microwave background radiation. Broadcasting
on a freq is totally different from listening in, even if it involves decoding. You aren't "stealing" anything. If they want only paying customers to listen, then they should tight beam the signal to individual PAYING customer homes rather than blanket the planet with freely available, ubiquitous signals. If it hits my property or me, then I have right to it. That includes extraneous sounds, radio signals, microwaves, light, dollar bills, whatever.The military is working on this sort of thing, called "smart camouflage". It's intent is to keep tabs on the surrounding environment and change the camo pattern to correspond appropriately to that environment.
Military generals who were offered a special advanced showing of the movie "Predator" responded to the alien's camouflage by declaring that they want that. It strikes me that both the smart camouflage and the interesting work out of U of Tokyo falls right in line with this.
It wouldn't be terribly robust. Brand new, it would be great but as wear and tear (and near-miss RPGs) build, portions of the suit will fail. Perhaps this is something best used for special ops where they are not expected to endure long drawn out battles or campaigns: just get in, do the job, get out. Wear and tear would be largely irrelevant in such cases. Even if the effect is more akin to translucence rather than invisability, that is a FAR cry superior to standard camouflage. At anything other than relative close range, even almost in the wide-open, you would be rendered nearly invisable to a scanning eye. Stand stock still and you could within handgun range and not be seen.
For aircraft it is a bit more of a problem. You not only need to project the view on the other side of the aircraft to the bottom, you also need to do it with more brightness. You need to at least go to some lengths to cancel out shadows underneath the aircraft's wings and underbelly. In any case, this type of human eye camouflage is less important these days than radar invisability. Most of the things that will bring you down are radar guided, not guided by the human eyes (few exceptions). As for small arms fire, Desert Storm showed quite well that ground troops need not actually see an aircraft to effectively deal with them at low altitude. They didn't see us (I was there) most of the time but they heard us and got warnings from brief flashes of radar illumination. They'd simply fill the sky with lead, virtually none of it directed anywhere but up. There is no defense against this, you cannot manuever to evade it like you can with radar or eye-guided AAA. This invisability cloak would really offer nothing in this regard. All you can do is fly above the altitude of 90% of the effective AAA and small-arms fire. At that altitude an invisability cloak is pointless.
for the right to intrude on MY airspace, my body, etc, with their "property" (some RF band) under such a scheme because I would not tolerate private individuals owning a public property. Thus, if such a violation were allowed then I would have to retaliate in courts by demanding that the owner refrain of a frequency band
"property" from intruding on my real property (my land, my home, my body).
Thus, you think you "own" the 2.4Ghz range? Keep your frequency broadcasts off me and my real property. Just as no one owns a stream or river (the river traverses many private holdings and public land), no one can own the air that blows over my property, the rain that falls on my property, nor the RF that rains down on me no matter where I go.
This is private property worship to the exclusion of all else taken way too far into the extreme. I'd never accept that anyone outright OWNS an RF frequency, nor a particular visable light frequency, nor IR frequency, etc.
Where is the actual "free" part? The connection to the internet is NOT FREE. SOMEONE is paying for it and sucking up the cost while allowing others to use the connection that IS being paid for without cost to them...all for the intent (usually) of bringing customers in who will spend money on whatever the supplier of the wifi access sells. The ISP for the "free" wifi hotspot is making money - so it isn't free is it?
If a municipality is supplying the "free wifi", then it is most assuredly being paid for...by tax dollars. The municipality doesn't have a magic free connection to the internet - they are paying for it. A municipality gets its money from one source: taxes. People are paying for it but by an indirect route. What's more, people who never ever use it or who don't even know about the free wifi are paying for it in their tax payments.
Quit. Calling. It. Free! It is NOT free. Never will be. If Joe or Jane blow allows open access to the internet via their wifi router, sure, purely out of the largess of the owner of the router/AP generic passersby can get a "free" connection but it still depends on the owner of the connection PAYING for the connection. No one. NO ONE! No one actually gets into the internet free-of-charge. Someone somewhere is paying for a connection to the internet. If you have a direct T1 line or a partial T1, you are paying a telecom for it. You don't get to lay one out yourself and just tap in. $$$. If you are paying for a DSL or cable connection and are simply allowing any and sundry to make use of your connection "for free", good for you for your charity because that is what it is: YOU are paying for the connection, no getting around that, and you are simply ALLOWING others to use what you are paying for. No freebies.
All an ISP has to do to squelch this is not allow connection sharing. Many do this to prevent you from sharing your connection. Those that don't only need to change their Terms of Service and the coffee shop will not be able to do it anymore without coughing up whatever the ISP wants to charge to allow for up to X numbers of connections through the one account. The only alternative is leasing (not owning) a T1 line or partial line and allowing connections through it. T1s aren't free anywhere and they ain't cheap either. A company may decide to eat the cost of a T1 line every month to provide "free" connections to customers but in no way is it really free in reality. This is more true of any government body doing it (be it Fed, State, or City). EVERYONE in the tax base is paying for it so this is the weakest example of "free" access because EVERYONE in the tax base, whether they use the connection or not, is paying for it.
Ain't no truly "free" wifi connection.
I don't know...at Purdue you will see students walking around now and again with funky backpacks with a funkier antenna sticking up out of the back. I haven't asked but I think it contains GPS equipment - don't know the class that is using them. That thing doesn't strike me as being that much different except that the guts are showing (the router).
I've pretty much come to the same conclusions as you with regards to controlling population on a finite planet. You permit reproduction only upon removal from a rejuvenation program...you accept that you have to live out your natural lifespan sans any extension treatments from the day of birth onward, or until the offspring has gone off-planet/died. Alternatively, there would have to be some place to expand into, which means space or a growing Mars habitat, etc.
If we assume it is practical to so finely manipulate virtually every cell of the body in such a way as to correct damage (chromosomal, protein, structural, lipid) to an extent that aging is essentially ended, then the type of eugenics you mention becomes illogical.
If someone is "undesireable" due to some biological defect, the means would de facto be present to correct the defect (mental defect, physical defect). I couldn't imagine anyone, given the option, would seek to retain a mental defect or some physical defect that a full-blown eugenics program would consider worthy of sterilization or worse. What's the point? Mentally retarded? It can be corrected after the fact and in such a way that it isn't passed on to any offspring that the person may have...even if it did, this supermanipulation ability would render it moot, again, after the fact.
Any argument about eugenics after such a capability is developed (I tend to doubt any such thing as true reversed or fully stopped aging is likely) is pointless because this technology would encompass a level of manipulation that renders the point moot.
I have a back problem that I inherited from my father. It causes me chronic pain but for the most part only marginally affects my day-to-day life. Something like this, however, can ONLY get worse as one ages. And it carries baggage (arthritis, just as "old football" injuries do). This level of system-wide repair and manipulation posited would fix this problem and prevent me from passing it on to my offspring (if any). Would I jump at such a chance? YES. In a heartbeat, but any eugenic argument about my "worthiness" to accept life-extension treatment is silly because any eugenic concern about it is wiped out by the capability to fix it.
Sorry non-scientist, it wasn't the "greenies" that came up with ANY of this. SCIENTISTS doing SCIENCE are the ones who started the global warming debate and, there is no disjoint, by the way, the discussion on how warming could actually start an ice age.
I suggest you put your money politics aside and actually look into the SCIENTIFIC literature on this. Global warming increases the average global temperature. This does NOT mean that every place on earth experiences a climb in temp, and certainly not of the same magnitude. This increased average temp leads to rapid melt of glaciers (and large percentages of polar ice). This causes an increasing flood of fresh water into the oceans. A flood of fresh water into the North Atlantic screws up the Gulf Stream conveyor belt, which is responsible for moderating the temperature and weather of New England and, indeed, the entire East Coast. It also has a major impact on the weather of Europe. The flood of fresh water can shut down the Gulf Stream, which leads to the loss of the moderating influence. The Northeast US and Canada becomes rapidly MUCH cooler. Europe becomes MUCH cooler. Weather patterns are screwed (the Gulf Stream plays a major role in Atlantic weather patterns).
No "greenie" made this stuff up, SCIENTISTS came up with these scenarios based on physics and climate research. It is inarguable that a flood of fresh water would screw up the Gulf Stream and it is inarguable that a shut-down Gulf Stream would have a catastrophic effect on the Northeast US/Canada and Western Europe.
Drop the Party Line and actually do something that Bush NEVER does...READ. Read the primary sources.
Uh...it is already that way now and it has nothing to do with evils such as the "Patriot Act", TIA, the PROTECT Act, etc. All that needs to happen to you is ANYONE point at you and yell, "Pedophile!" or "Rapist!". That's it. Even if you are absolutely innocent in all possible ways, you are "labelled" now, at least in your community, and you will have trouble. Any child disappearance, any rape, and you will fall under suspicion.
This is particularly true of people who are teachers or professors. All it takes is some student to point and accuse, even if baseless, and you have a grey cloud floating around you from then on, at least in that community.
I have no problem at all with the PROTECT Act, per se. Tapping an internet connection should in no way be considered any different than tapping a phoneline or bugging a room/house, so long as there is a valid court order. So long as it doesn't get all Patriot Act wierd with secret courts and such, it should not get people any more bent than any other valid crime-fighting tool. The sole key is due process.
I READ the article but I just couldn't believe that what was there, so small, no innocuous, could have possibly been all that there was. I was thinking that SURELY there must have been something real for which the Justice Department could get bent about.