If the science were settled there would be no point spending more effort on it. (Newtonian mechanics is "settled", no one does research on Newtonian mechanics).
One could argue the same for a lot of things. There's plenty of fuzziness over things we know that are horrible in large doses. For example, we know that chronic exposure to high levels of asbestos is bad for you. At the same time, we know that brief exposure to very low levels of asbestos doesn't have an effect we can measure. There's presumably a certain level of asbestos exposure that our bodies can repair. And there's confounding factors - smokers, for example, tend to be more susceptible to developing asbestosis, and some forms of asbestos are apparently less harmful than others. We're still publishing papers on asbestos and how it harms even today.
Yet we don't have the same level of debate over this. We've looked at the risk and enacted laws restricting asbestos-containing materials, instead of arguing about the science. We don't care that the science isn't settled, and we don't argue that science can't predict exactly how many people will developed asbestosis due to a certain exposure, because the science we have has pointed a big smoking gun saying "asbestos is harmful".
You are right that the results of any science is a political question, but it's disingenuous to imply that the effects of human carbon dioxide emissions are unknown.
The preponderance of evidence has lead us to conclude that humans are warming the planet through carbon dioxide emissions, and that we have a pretty good idea what the effects will be, even if we may not get the exact degree of warming right or how climate will exactly change in each region.
I can see the audio jack thing, but can you tell me what you need or do with a micro-sd card on a phone?
I've never had one, and never noticed I needed something like that, so, I'm curious what your use case is for that.
I'm on a metered data connection, and I like listening to music, so I use a cheap 32gb card to store all of my mp3s.
I also have pictures, etc on the card. But mostly for music.
I want to clarify this up a bit for the rest of the world because this "big car" topic is something I hear all over. In the US, it simply does not make sense to buy cars smaller than a Toyota Corolla. As a primary vehicle, that market is as niche as buying a sports car. But such cars are considered for a secondary or the "kids" car.
But at the same time, does it make any sense to buy bigger than a Toyota Corolla, for most people?
I have a compact car, 4 cylinder. I also have a few other vehicles (why not, I'm an American!), so I can compare.
The compact car gets the heaviest use. It'll drive to work just fine, has enough trunk space for shopping, and works for a week long vacation to a wilderness area (canoe and paddles on the roof rack, people inside, packs in the trunk).
I'm not saying it'll do everything. But for many people, I suspect it'll do everything they need.
Especially since other vehicles could be rented, if needed.
Sure, it won't work for everyone - if you're hauling around sheets of plywood each day or towing trailers regularly, you'll need something else (or a secondary vehicle). I'm not pretending otherwise. What I am saying is that for 99% of the typical American's travel, a compact car will work just fine.
Automobile choice in America isn't about needs. It's about desire. Our automobiles are an extension of ourselves. It's a way to communicate our own success (or projected success, considering that most vehicles are bought on auto loans).
First of all, bronze is a lot of different things, but the Rockwell hardness scale scores of various bronze alloys available at the time are in the 40-65 range. That's certainly much harder than copper, which is at 10 on the same scale, but cast iron is at 86. I.e. much higher than bronze. Even modern bronzes, like aluminium and silicon bronze, are less hard than cast iron, although they come closer.
My source, among others, was Mark Miodownik. Wikipedia also claims that bronze was harder than iron, and cites the Smithells Metals Reference Book, 8th Edition, ch. 22.
What's your source? What alloys are you considering?
This ore needs to be mined, then heated very hot (relative to making bronze) to extract the elemental iron from the ore to a usable elemental metal. So this finding explains how humans could have a limited quantity of iron weapons/tools before the discovery/invention of mining and smelting iron ore. The latter is what gave us the Iron Age.
Bronze is a harder metal than pure iron. That means that it keeps a better edge and is less likely to bend. (Both written and archaeological shows that iron swords bending in battle was an actual problem - one of the Roman historians even wrote about how their enemies had to stop mid-battle and straighten their swords!)
The thinking is that the bronze age didn't end because iron was better for weapons, but the bronze age ended because tin and copper were relatively rare compared to iron and frequently needed to be traded long distance. When the bronze age saw the collapse of its trading networks, people turned to local resources, which meant iron.
It was only much later, when we developed better metallurgy, that we could consistently make iron alloys that were better than bronze.
So were these iron weapons more ceremonial? Prized because they are rare? Or indicative of regional trade issues?
Especially with the current traffic. I need to be at work at 8 in the morning. But to arrive at 8, I've to leave at 5:30 which means I've to get up at 4:45-5:00.
I did that once - had a 90 minute commute (not as bad as yours, admittedly). That was by car. By bus, it took some insane amount of time.
Perhaps your values are different, but I looked at what I was doing and decide I didn't want to live like this. I already had the advantage of living near the urban core, so I limited my next job search to that core. Now, I can leave my house either fifty-five minutes before my job starts and arrive by bus, or forty-five minutes before my job starts and arrive by bicycle, 50cc scooter (no cost to park), or auto.
The way back is even easier - I tend to get home 35 minutes after my workday ends.
My wife is even closer to her job, and can get there under 30 minutes, regardless of traffic.
It's not for everyone. If you value a big, newer house and large yard in the suburbs, or not being able to see your neighbors, you'll hate our lives. But for us, it feels like freedom. Just not being dependent on a car is nice. Being able to reduce our time commuting is wonderful. We're not even using all of our yard, so its small size isn't a drawback but a plus (less time on upkeep), and we do have a two stall garage on our property (most homes around here have either a two stall garage or a one stall garage) for our various toys.
I don't know why they keep messing with nuclear power. They showed how to create 1.21 jigawatts of electricity way back in 1984... [youtube.com] Why that research was discontinued? Who really shot such emmetinent scientists? Libyan terrorists? Or merceneries of the Big Power companies? I wonder...
I did some research, and the first attack on a scientist that was working with revolutionary green power was actually back in 1885, when a local troublemaker shot at a scientist that was experimenting with some sort of compressed-biomass technology to make trains go faster.
Unfortunately the trail goes cold, since we don't know who hired the troublemaker.
Organic producers don't want to publicize that they use pesticides or have cultivars produced through mutagenic breeding using radiation or dna-damaging chemicals.
Are they also being malicious?
But it is faulty logic that Apple is better since Apple has one option and Android can have many confusing options.
The same logic means that my local gas station (which sells one model of point and click camera) is a far better source for good pictures than the camera shop (which sells myriad models of cameras).
They're called SHARPs, Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice. If you haven't heard of them before, that's probably because you live in a severely insulated bubble. If you actually knew some skins or even some punks you'd have heard of SHARPs.
There's also the ARA (Anti-Racist Action Network). Not sure how active they are now, but they used to be pretty active around here.
Before calling others idiots, perhaps you should be able to back up your words.
The research I'm finding is stating that drug and alcohol abuse is responsible for about half to two-thirds of homelessness. Which still leaves a conservative 1/3rd of homeless people without a drug or alcohol problem.
Perhaps if you got to know homeless people instead of ignoring them, you'd have a better idea of their situation.
Fuck Monsanto et al whose business depends on shifting ludicrous amounts of the nastiest chemicals known to exist.
Checking Wikipedia, glyphosate (Roundup) is 10% of Monsanto's business, and sale of roundup-ready crops is 50%. That's 60% of Monsanto's business right there dependent on glyphosate.
I would not put glyphosate into the category of the nastiest chemicals known to exist. For that category, I'd suggest something like dioxygen difluoride (O2F2) which is just the thing if you ever had the problem of making ice explode at -200F.
Dioxygen difluoride doesn't appear to have a commercial use, probably due to its vigorous interactions with other chemicals even at low temperatures. But there's another fluoride compound, chlorine trifluoride (ClF3), which is used commercially. ClF3 is reported to ignite asbestos, as well as far more mundane materials such as glass. It also does horrible things to the human body.
Even if we limit ourselves to herbicides, there's far deadlier herbicides, such as paraquat, which is an order of magnitude more toxic, and is actually used for suicides in developing countries due to its cheapness and low fatal dose.
There are things I don't like about glyphosate and Monsanto, but lets keep things in the realm of reality, okay? Speaking of which, you may want to check the size of Monsanto relative to it's competitors.
A bungled robbery NEVER results in a double tap to the back.
In a bungled robbery, the gun goes off while the victim and perp face each other most often, and there is not a second shot to confirm death. That's the whole point, the perp panics and forgets to take the stuff - he doesn't calmly put another round through the heart.
Seth Rich was alive and conscious when the police arrived. He died an hour later. Doesn't sound like a shot through the heart to me.
I checked the last two executions by firing squad in Utah - four bullets, not two, admittedly, but that involves aiming at the heart. The most recent was pronounced dead within two minutes. The next recent was dead within four minutes. Note this is death - not unconsciousness. Unconsciousness should happen sooner.
A Straight Dope discussion seems to give several examples of unconsciousness happening within seconds.
The quality of care that is _available_ in the US is the highest in the world. Yep, its expensive - we have a sue-happy society that sends malpractice lawsuits into court more than anywhere else in the world and that is expensive because it causes hideous malpractice insurance premiums.
We've had tort reform in some states. The effects seem to indicate that the cost of malpractice is responsible for a few percent of our healthcare costs.
I suspect what's driving our healthcare costs is that good healthcare isn't cost competitive. Our healthcare for most of us is covered by insurance companies through work. We change jobs frequently. Yet health problems can take years to have serious (and costly) effects. It's not cost competitive to prevent a problem that another company will likely end up paying for.
It's like the difference between owning a car you know you'll replace in five years and owning a car you will replace in twenty-five years - you're going to be much more diligent about preventing problems in the car you'll own for five times as long, because you'll be paying for the costly effects of poor maintenance.
Sorry, but unless you recently started your strict calorie limit of 1500 per day, or you are exceptionally short, or you have some bizarre medical condition, there is no way your are being honest.
This is EXACTLY the same argument used to help ram PPACA (Obamacare) and it's non-participation fees/taxes.
Actually, I believe the argument was that everyone was paying for the freeloaders in the system. Therefore the freeloaders should no longer get a free ride. If freeloaders were taking advantage of the rest of us, then society would penalize them.
But I'm old enough to remember when "Obamacare" was the conservative Heritage Foundation's "free market" alternative to single payer under Clinton. So perhaps I'm mixing up the arguments for the ACA versus the HF's plan.
So if landing one of these candles isn't an objective, why are they trying to do it?
It's an objective, but not a primary objective.
Primary objective is to put the satellite in the planned orbit. They accomplished this.
Secondary objective is to recover the rocket via a controlled landing. They did not accomplish this.
A secondary objective is, of course, secondary (to use a tautology). It's something that's nice to have accomplished, but even if it doesn't happen, the event isn't a failure.
If you want a famous analogy, take the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden. Primary objective was probably something like capture/kill Bin Laden. Secondary objectives was to capture others and bring them back for interrogation, as well as to recover documents.
The mission killed Bin Laden. But due to the loss of one of the copters, they weren't able to bring all the captives back. They accomplished their primary objective, but failed to fully carry out their secondary objectives.
So, slavery is ok in relatively small quantities? Is that really your argument?
If you're going to call the government demanding a small amount of your time as slavery, then yes, it is okay.
What do you think a stop by an officer is other than a non-custodial arrest? What about a judge compelling a party to produce a document or item? That's unpaid work as well.
There's other, better arguments to be against the order. But the slavery argument is weak.
That is intriguing. But if those objects didn't fit the hypothesis, they would have changed the hypothesis to account for it.
I'm not trying to pour cold water on this - the Nice model does work well with five giant planets, not four. And the odds are that we have larger objects than Sedna to account for that haven't been found - at least one Mars-sized body is likely. Another giant planet isn't entirely out of the question, although a Jupiter or Saturn-sized object "relatively" nearby seems to have ruled out by current observations.
But it may be that we're seeing the result of many wild theories, and this is the only one that survived the data we have. Future data may disprove it. Still, we have enough oddities in the outer solar system (Kuiper cliff, elongated orbits of some of the dwarf planets) that it's obvious our current theories have some holes in them.
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One could argue the same for a lot of things. There's plenty of fuzziness over things we know that are horrible in large doses. For example, we know that chronic exposure to high levels of asbestos is bad for you. At the same time, we know that brief exposure to very low levels of asbestos doesn't have an effect we can measure. There's presumably a certain level of asbestos exposure that our bodies can repair. And there's confounding factors - smokers, for example, tend to be more susceptible to developing asbestosis, and some forms of asbestos are apparently less harmful than others. We're still publishing papers on asbestos and how it harms even today.
Yet we don't have the same level of debate over this. We've looked at the risk and enacted laws restricting asbestos-containing materials, instead of arguing about the science. We don't care that the science isn't settled, and we don't argue that science can't predict exactly how many people will developed asbestosis due to a certain exposure, because the science we have has pointed a big smoking gun saying "asbestos is harmful".
You are right that the results of any science is a political question, but it's disingenuous to imply that the effects of human carbon dioxide emissions are unknown. The preponderance of evidence has lead us to conclude that humans are warming the planet through carbon dioxide emissions, and that we have a pretty good idea what the effects will be, even if we may not get the exact degree of warming right or how climate will exactly change in each region.
I'm on a metered data connection, and I like listening to music, so I use a cheap 32gb card to store all of my mp3s.
I also have pictures, etc on the card. But mostly for music.
But at the same time, does it make any sense to buy bigger than a Toyota Corolla, for most people?
I have a compact car, 4 cylinder. I also have a few other vehicles (why not, I'm an American!), so I can compare.
The compact car gets the heaviest use. It'll drive to work just fine, has enough trunk space for shopping, and works for a week long vacation to a wilderness area (canoe and paddles on the roof rack, people inside, packs in the trunk).
I'm not saying it'll do everything. But for many people, I suspect it'll do everything they need.
Especially since other vehicles could be rented, if needed.
Sure, it won't work for everyone - if you're hauling around sheets of plywood each day or towing trailers regularly, you'll need something else (or a secondary vehicle). I'm not pretending otherwise. What I am saying is that for 99% of the typical American's travel, a compact car will work just fine.
Automobile choice in America isn't about needs. It's about desire. Our automobiles are an extension of ourselves. It's a way to communicate our own success (or projected success, considering that most vehicles are bought on auto loans).
My source, among others, was Mark Miodownik. Wikipedia also claims that bronze was harder than iron, and cites the Smithells Metals Reference Book, 8th Edition, ch. 22.
What's your source? What alloys are you considering?
Bronze is a harder metal than pure iron. That means that it keeps a better edge and is less likely to bend. (Both written and archaeological shows that iron swords bending in battle was an actual problem - one of the Roman historians even wrote about how their enemies had to stop mid-battle and straighten their swords!)
The thinking is that the bronze age didn't end because iron was better for weapons, but the bronze age ended because tin and copper were relatively rare compared to iron and frequently needed to be traded long distance. When the bronze age saw the collapse of its trading networks, people turned to local resources, which meant iron.
It was only much later, when we developed better metallurgy, that we could consistently make iron alloys that were better than bronze.
So were these iron weapons more ceremonial? Prized because they are rare? Or indicative of regional trade issues?
In Canadian law, which has a similar tradition to US law, a tractor fender has been considered a legal document.
If a fender passes, why not a signed tat?
I did that once - had a 90 minute commute (not as bad as yours, admittedly). That was by car. By bus, it took some insane amount of time.
Perhaps your values are different, but I looked at what I was doing and decide I didn't want to live like this. I already had the advantage of living near the urban core, so I limited my next job search to that core. Now, I can leave my house either fifty-five minutes before my job starts and arrive by bus, or forty-five minutes before my job starts and arrive by bicycle, 50cc scooter (no cost to park), or auto.
The way back is even easier - I tend to get home 35 minutes after my workday ends.
My wife is even closer to her job, and can get there under 30 minutes, regardless of traffic.
It's not for everyone. If you value a big, newer house and large yard in the suburbs, or not being able to see your neighbors, you'll hate our lives. But for us, it feels like freedom. Just not being dependent on a car is nice. Being able to reduce our time commuting is wonderful. We're not even using all of our yard, so its small size isn't a drawback but a plus (less time on upkeep), and we do have a two stall garage on our property (most homes around here have either a two stall garage or a one stall garage) for our various toys.
I did some research, and the first attack on a scientist that was working with revolutionary green power was actually back in 1885, when a local troublemaker shot at a scientist that was experimenting with some sort of compressed-biomass technology to make trains go faster.
Unfortunately the trail goes cold, since we don't know who hired the troublemaker.
When are you talking about?
In summer, peak demand is around 16:00.
In winter, peak demand is around 8:00 and 20:00.
Organic producers don't want to publicize that they use pesticides or have cultivars produced through mutagenic breeding using radiation or dna-damaging chemicals. Are they also being malicious?
I'm not sure who has the best hardware available.
But it is faulty logic that Apple is better since Apple has one option and Android can have many confusing options.
The same logic means that my local gas station (which sells one model of point and click camera) is a far better source for good pictures than the camera shop (which sells myriad models of cameras).
By "supply side", I'm referring to Say's law. It tends to be rejected by mainstream economists.
Don't forget some economics. It's not like Supply Side has strong support in mainstream economics.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Tories have played stupid games in the last two elections they called for. They've won stupid prizes as a result.
There's also the ARA (Anti-Racist Action Network). Not sure how active they are now, but they used to be pretty active around here.
Before calling others idiots, perhaps you should be able to back up your words.
The research I'm finding is stating that drug and alcohol abuse is responsible for about half to two-thirds of homelessness. Which still leaves a conservative 1/3rd of homeless people without a drug or alcohol problem.
Perhaps if you got to know homeless people instead of ignoring them, you'd have a better idea of their situation.
Checking Wikipedia, glyphosate (Roundup) is 10% of Monsanto's business, and sale of roundup-ready crops is 50%. That's 60% of Monsanto's business right there dependent on glyphosate.
I would not put glyphosate into the category of the nastiest chemicals known to exist. For that category, I'd suggest something like dioxygen difluoride (O2F2) which is just the thing if you ever had the problem of making ice explode at -200F.
Dioxygen difluoride doesn't appear to have a commercial use, probably due to its vigorous interactions with other chemicals even at low temperatures. But there's another fluoride compound, chlorine trifluoride (ClF3), which is used commercially. ClF3 is reported to ignite asbestos, as well as far more mundane materials such as glass. It also does horrible things to the human body.
Even if we limit ourselves to herbicides, there's far deadlier herbicides, such as paraquat, which is an order of magnitude more toxic, and is actually used for suicides in developing countries due to its cheapness and low fatal dose.
There are things I don't like about glyphosate and Monsanto, but lets keep things in the realm of reality, okay? Speaking of which, you may want to check the size of Monsanto relative to it's competitors.
Each winter, we have several homeless freeze to death.
You may want to shut up.
Seth Rich was alive and conscious when the police arrived. He died an hour later. Doesn't sound like a shot through the heart to me.
I checked the last two executions by firing squad in Utah - four bullets, not two, admittedly, but that involves aiming at the heart. The most recent was pronounced dead within two minutes. The next recent was dead within four minutes. Note this is death - not unconsciousness. Unconsciousness should happen sooner.
A Straight Dope discussion seems to give several examples of unconsciousness happening within seconds.
We've had tort reform in some states. The effects seem to indicate that the cost of malpractice is responsible for a few percent of our healthcare costs.
I suspect what's driving our healthcare costs is that good healthcare isn't cost competitive. Our healthcare for most of us is covered by insurance companies through work. We change jobs frequently. Yet health problems can take years to have serious (and costly) effects. It's not cost competitive to prevent a problem that another company will likely end up paying for.
It's like the difference between owning a car you know you'll replace in five years and owning a car you will replace in twenty-five years - you're going to be much more diligent about preventing problems in the car you'll own for five times as long, because you'll be paying for the costly effects of poor maintenance.
Could be mismeasuring the amount of calories he's consuming. But it does appear that dieting can permanently alter a metabolism in a negative way.
Actually, I believe the argument was that everyone was paying for the freeloaders in the system. Therefore the freeloaders should no longer get a free ride. If freeloaders were taking advantage of the rest of us, then society would penalize them.
But I'm old enough to remember when "Obamacare" was the conservative Heritage Foundation's "free market" alternative to single payer under Clinton. So perhaps I'm mixing up the arguments for the ACA versus the HF's plan.
It's an objective, but not a primary objective.
Primary objective is to put the satellite in the planned orbit. They accomplished this.
Secondary objective is to recover the rocket via a controlled landing. They did not accomplish this.
A secondary objective is, of course, secondary (to use a tautology). It's something that's nice to have accomplished, but even if it doesn't happen, the event isn't a failure.
If you want a famous analogy, take the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden. Primary objective was probably something like capture/kill Bin Laden. Secondary objectives was to capture others and bring them back for interrogation, as well as to recover documents.
The mission killed Bin Laden. But due to the loss of one of the copters, they weren't able to bring all the captives back. They accomplished their primary objective, but failed to fully carry out their secondary objectives.
Yet few would consider that mission as a failure.
If you're going to call the government demanding a small amount of your time as slavery, then yes, it is okay.
What do you think a stop by an officer is other than a non-custodial arrest? What about a judge compelling a party to produce a document or item? That's unpaid work as well.
There's other, better arguments to be against the order. But the slavery argument is weak.
That is intriguing. But if those objects didn't fit the hypothesis, they would have changed the hypothesis to account for it.
I'm not trying to pour cold water on this - the Nice model does work well with five giant planets, not four. And the odds are that we have larger objects than Sedna to account for that haven't been found - at least one Mars-sized body is likely. Another giant planet isn't entirely out of the question, although a Jupiter or Saturn-sized object "relatively" nearby seems to have ruled out by current observations.
But it may be that we're seeing the result of many wild theories, and this is the only one that survived the data we have. Future data may disprove it. Still, we have enough oddities in the outer solar system (Kuiper cliff, elongated orbits of some of the dwarf planets) that it's obvious our current theories have some holes in them.