Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for my TV knowing that people who can't afford TVs didn't have to shell out more to feed their kids so that my TV could be cheaper.
Please remind me, how many times have YOU subjected an ecosystem to increased concentrations of directed microwave emissions?
Me personally? Probably only in the thousands of times.
How many times has it been completely harmless to the inhabitants?
100% of the time.
Did you allow the test to continue through several generations to verify that there was no long term damage?
Not me personally, but on the whole for everyone who's done this, yes.
Where are you getting your research data from?
Decades of field experience.
That knife cuts both ways.
Not in this case.
Don't get me wrong, I think new tech is exciting and promising, and I love the idea of cheap plentiful energy. Pointing out the flaws in someone's beliefs is one thing, but the unnecessary snarkyness about it is uncalled for when there is no proof on your own end.
You mean "if there was no proof". If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't say "when".
No no no, it's only blasphemous to real religious fanatics (like in the Bible Belt) due to the presence of magic users who are portrayed as not evil. Most Iranians aren't that out there...
Indeed. Culturally, as Shelley noted, we (in the west) are all Greeks. The Athenian empire fell, Alexander's empire came apart and dwindled, these are things of the past, but their cultures? Alive and well and forming the significant bulk of what is called "western" civilization.
Um, no. Not even remotely close. That's the kind of pack of lies people on one side tell about the other in order to avoid having to engage in serious discourse.
Money is pissed away by DOD like you wouldn't believe. I shudder sometimes at the huge amounts of money I see foolishly wasted...with no repercussions to the people who made the bad decisions. In fact often the most ineffective managers get the most promotions and awards.
I've seen the same kind of inefficiency, waste, and idiotic management... in large corporations. What you're talking about is not a feature of public vs. private sector, it's a feature of large vs. small. The exact same kind of bureaucracy, inefficiency, etc. infects any organization once is surpasses a certain size.
It's amazing, isn't it? No one pays for more health care than the US, and yet a substantial part of the population insists that the health system we have is the cheapest and most efficient way to do things, and any changes will make it more expensive. You have to understand that these people also belong to the same party that opposes teaching evolution and as such, they're immune to evidence, so pointing out that the facts fly in their faces really has no impact on there opinions...
He shopped around, discovered that the state of Tennessee could best meet his needs, and took his business there. It's called a free market. It's kinda nice, really...
Are you suggesting only people Tennessee be allowed to buy products and services from Tennessee? I doubt the people of Tennessee would agree with that. Are you suggesting people from California not be allowed to buy products and services from outside California? The "buy local" people might like that, but I don't think that's really a good idea either...
Actually, it's an excellent model for personal behavior, but I'm not sure if it works for an organization. Herding cats is trivially easy compared to herding Hawkeye Pierces. Any cooperation and coordination between them is ad-hoc and short-lived. No one can be a member of an organization, or claim to be qualified to lead one, while calling themselves a "maverick".:p
It could be worse. "CERN" is short for "European Organization for Nuclear Research". Even when you account for the French-English word order flips (the french version is "Organisation Europeenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire"), it still doesn't quite work.
This was part of a plot by Werner Heisenberg to spread uncertainty, no doubt...:p
There is no magic there - energy comes from somewhere. Unless this whole exercise is done when vehicles break (speed bumpers?) then it is just a tax on those driving there. It may be small but it does not mean it is not there.
How did this idiotic comment get modded "Informative"?
It's only a tax on those driver there if it's causing them to use more energy than they otherwise would. The "energy comes from somewhere", that's absolutely true, but it's not coming from any extra energy being spent by those driving over it, it's just harvesting rather than wasting the energy they're already spending.
You believe the cars driving along the road are not already wasting energy into the road beneath them... are you a fan of the "spontaneous generation" theory of potholes, or do you think cars magically carve holes in the pavement without spending any energy doing it? I dare say your understand of the laws of thermodynamics are substantially sillier than the authors of the article you're criticizing. Potholes don't come from nowhere. The energy is already being pounded into the pavement. Suggesting we use the same amount of energy that's already being spent to generate electricity instead of potholes seems like a good idea to me, and one that violates no laws of nature.
That wouldn't be free energy, because it would cool your engine down.
This is where the average/. user fails. They treat these systems like there's no waste, so it you try to get any energy out of them, they automatically assume that since the energy must come from somewhere (true), it must cost the system more energy than otherwise (false). The latter statement is necessarily true if and only if the system has precisely zero waste heat, motion, or any other energy waste. In any system that is less than 100% perfectly efficient in its energy use, it is possible to obtain "free energy" by taking energy that is currently being wasted and put it to use without requiring the system to spend any more energy than it's already spending.
This does not violate any laws of thermodynamics. It just means your car heats itself and the surrounding air less than it did before, or spends more time pushing plates instead of creating potholes, etc. (It doesn't later make the engine spend any more energy than it did before to heat up to an equilibrium, it just takes it a big longer, because the amount of waste energy being used to heat the block rather than move the car forward is less per second.) Indeed, since it costs energy to repair potholes, a system like described above might even be a greater energy positive than claimed in the article when you consider the whole picture.
Great! Let's use the scientific method to test this hypothesis. Oh wait, nevermind.
Sorry, but if you don't understand how to test these hypotheses using the scientific method, you clearly don't understand science well enough to have a clue. What you really mean is, it's hard not to be cynical when you don't have a clue and can't be bothered to get one.
In a neutron star, of course, it's neutrons undergoing the hypothesized process, but is there any reason why protons wouldn't under the right conditions? If we could observe this happening with any subatomic particles, it would be sufficient to prove this is what happens to matter under those conditions.
Could this be an explanation for the Bermuda triangle?
I don't think so. There's no reason to expect that the Earth's magnetic field, whether influenced by ocean currents or not, has any impact on the tendency for humans to be superstitious, invent ghost stories, or be gullible to pseudo-science. To the extent that the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon is not fully understood, breakthroughs will need to be made in psychology and sociology, and I for one have high hopes that someday the phenomenon can be largely nullified by good statistics and science education.
Science has always reserved its greatest accolades for those who prove what came before to be wrong, and every scientist in the world knows the best way to become famous is to prove everyone else wrong. Nevertheless, pseudo-scientists always argue that scientists have some vested interest in preserving the current order (and thus dooming their careers into obscurity when they could have become famous Nobel prize winners). This argument has never made any sense, but that doesn't stop them from making it. So, one more example won't make any difference to them -- people who advocate a bad argument that runs counter to evidence are not dissuaded by more evidence.
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Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for my TV knowing that people who can't afford TVs didn't have to shell out more to feed their kids so that my TV could be cheaper.
Communist. :p
s/keads/leads/
Your typing apparently goes downhill too. The saving grace there is that younger people type even worse on purpose.
As you get older, your sense of "recent" expands more quickly than your definition. This keads to all kinds of unpleasant surprises...
"That wasn't that long ago! It was only... oh dear... a bit over ten years ago... oh snap..."
Please remind me, how many times have YOU subjected an ecosystem to increased concentrations of directed microwave emissions?
Me personally? Probably only in the thousands of times.
How many times has it been completely harmless to the inhabitants?
100% of the time.
Did you allow the test to continue through several generations to verify that there was no long term damage?
Not me personally, but on the whole for everyone who's done this, yes.
Where are you getting your research data from?
Decades of field experience.
That knife cuts both ways.
Not in this case.
Don't get me wrong, I think new tech is exciting and promising, and I love the idea of cheap plentiful energy. Pointing out the flaws in someone's beliefs is one thing, but the unnecessary snarkyness about it is uncalled for when there is no proof on your own end.
You mean "if there was no proof". If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't say "when".
Here, this is for you.
That very adequately explains your behavior here. Thanks.
Most Iranians love Americans, love Hollywood, etc. They just hate our government.
In that respect, they're a lot like most Americans...
No no no, it's only blasphemous to real religious fanatics (like in the Bible Belt) due to the presence of magic users who are portrayed as not evil. Most Iranians aren't that out there...
And what exactly is so important about the app store that it cannot be bypassed?
This is a bit like asking why didn't Apple sell Franklins in their stores.
Now, we can haz senator plz? kthxbai
Indeed. Culturally, as Shelley noted, we (in the west) are all Greeks. The Athenian empire fell, Alexander's empire came apart and dwindled, these are things of the past, but their cultures? Alive and well and forming the significant bulk of what is called "western" civilization.
Um, no. Not even remotely close. That's the kind of pack of lies people on one side tell about the other in order to avoid having to engage in serious discourse.
Money is pissed away by DOD like you wouldn't believe. I shudder sometimes at the huge amounts of money I see foolishly wasted...with no repercussions to the people who made the bad decisions. In fact often the most ineffective managers get the most promotions and awards.
I've seen the same kind of inefficiency, waste, and idiotic management... in large corporations. What you're talking about is not a feature of public vs. private sector, it's a feature of large vs. small. The exact same kind of bureaucracy, inefficiency, etc. infects any organization once is surpasses a certain size.
s/for more/more for/
It's amazing, isn't it? No one pays for more health care than the US, and yet a substantial part of the population insists that the health system we have is the cheapest and most efficient way to do things, and any changes will make it more expensive. You have to understand that these people also belong to the same party that opposes teaching evolution and as such, they're immune to evidence, so pointing out that the facts fly in their faces really has no impact on there opinions...
He shopped around, discovered that the state of Tennessee could best meet his needs, and took his business there. It's called a free market. It's kinda nice, really...
Are you suggesting only people Tennessee be allowed to buy products and services from Tennessee? I doubt the people of Tennessee would agree with that. Are you suggesting people from California not be allowed to buy products and services from outside California? The "buy local" people might like that, but I don't think that's really a good idea either...
Actually, it's an excellent model for personal behavior, but I'm not sure if it works for an organization. Herding cats is trivially easy compared to herding Hawkeye Pierces. Any cooperation and coordination between them is ad-hoc and short-lived. No one can be a member of an organization, or claim to be qualified to lead one, while calling themselves a "maverick". :p
Ah, but did he pronounce it "LEE-nooks"?
Should that read HURDitary monarchy?
...and that's a GNU/monarchy, thank you very much. :p
It could be worse. "CERN" is short for "European Organization for Nuclear Research". Even when you account for the French-English word order flips (the french version is "Organisation Europeenne pour la Recherche Nucleaire"), it still doesn't quite work.
This was part of a plot by Werner Heisenberg to spread uncertainty, no doubt... :p
There is no magic there - energy comes from somewhere. Unless this whole exercise is done when vehicles break (speed bumpers?) then it is just a tax on those driving there. It may be small but it does not mean it is not there.
How did this idiotic comment get modded "Informative"?
It's only a tax on those driver there if it's causing them to use more energy than they otherwise would. The "energy comes from somewhere", that's absolutely true, but it's not coming from any extra energy being spent by those driving over it, it's just harvesting rather than wasting the energy they're already spending.
You believe the cars driving along the road are not already wasting energy into the road beneath them... are you a fan of the "spontaneous generation" theory of potholes, or do you think cars magically carve holes in the pavement without spending any energy doing it? I dare say your understand of the laws of thermodynamics are substantially sillier than the authors of the article you're criticizing. Potholes don't come from nowhere. The energy is already being pounded into the pavement. Suggesting we use the same amount of energy that's already being spent to generate electricity instead of potholes seems like a good idea to me, and one that violates no laws of nature.
That wouldn't be free energy, because it would cool your engine down.
This is where the average /. user fails. They treat these systems like there's no waste, so it you try to get any energy out of them, they automatically assume that since the energy must come from somewhere (true), it must cost the system more energy than otherwise (false). The latter statement is necessarily true if and only if the system has precisely zero waste heat, motion, or any other energy waste. In any system that is less than 100% perfectly efficient in its energy use, it is possible to obtain "free energy" by taking energy that is currently being wasted and put it to use without requiring the system to spend any more energy than it's already spending.
This does not violate any laws of thermodynamics. It just means your car heats itself and the surrounding air less than it did before, or spends more time pushing plates instead of creating potholes, etc. (It doesn't later make the engine spend any more energy than it did before to heat up to an equilibrium, it just takes it a big longer, because the amount of waste energy being used to heat the block rather than move the car forward is less per second.) Indeed, since it costs energy to repair potholes, a system like described above might even be a greater energy positive than claimed in the article when you consider the whole picture.
Great! Let's use the scientific method to test this hypothesis. Oh wait, nevermind.
Sorry, but if you don't understand how to test these hypotheses using the scientific method, you clearly don't understand science well enough to have a clue. What you really mean is, it's hard not to be cynical when you don't have a clue and can't be bothered to get one.
Quantum chromodynamics, "subhadronic" matter,. .... , I think you got me lost there ;-)
How can these hypotheses be checked?
I just checked. There's so such thing as "subhadronic" matter. Wikipedia gives me a "page not found".
In a neutron star, of course, it's neutrons undergoing the hypothesized process, but is there any reason why protons wouldn't under the right conditions? If we could observe this happening with any subatomic particles, it would be sufficient to prove this is what happens to matter under those conditions.
Could this be an explanation for the Bermuda triangle?
I don't think so. There's no reason to expect that the Earth's magnetic field, whether influenced by ocean currents or not, has any impact on the tendency for humans to be superstitious, invent ghost stories, or be gullible to pseudo-science. To the extent that the Bermuda Triangle phenomenon is not fully understood, breakthroughs will need to be made in psychology and sociology, and I for one have high hopes that someday the phenomenon can be largely nullified by good statistics and science education.
Science has always reserved its greatest accolades for those who prove what came before to be wrong, and every scientist in the world knows the best way to become famous is to prove everyone else wrong. Nevertheless, pseudo-scientists always argue that scientists have some vested interest in preserving the current order (and thus dooming their careers into obscurity when they could have become famous Nobel prize winners). This argument has never made any sense, but that doesn't stop them from making it. So, one more example won't make any difference to them -- people who advocate a bad argument that runs counter to evidence are not dissuaded by more evidence.