Or perhaps this is a big whoosh on my part? The brain has entered analytic mode, there's no turning back...
No. It was a double mistake on my part. I both forgot the subjunctive case AND quoted and responded to the wrong post when I meant to poke fun at the same person you did. (*sigh*)
More people in the same square mileage can be a good thing in the long-run. It provides the necessary financial incentives to establish good support for walking & biking and for setting up a decent public transit system.
The alternative is horizontal expansion which leads to you being forced to drive to get anywhere, such as having to take 15 minutes to drive around a mess of McMansion subdivisions just to get to a grocery store and having few to no workplaces close to home. I'm healthier and spend less money on gas living away from suburbia.
For the rest of the world they are referring to the North Eastern Pacific.
Well, I guess if English isn't your first language, you might not realize that adjectives typically come before the words they modify instead of after, so you might not realize that "Northwest" refers to something other than the word preceding it.
Really, I'd blame one's ESL teachers rather than Americocentrism. Also, I'd blame your native language teachers for not stressing the importance of learning the meaning of new words and phrases from context, such as all the references to relevant U.S. states on an American news site. Being Slashdot, I guess we can forgive not reading the article, but not reading the summary is just sad.
Name a state that does not have some sort of periodic inhospitable condition, including natural disasters.
Everything isn't black and white. There are some states that have more disasters and worse disasters than others. California does get a bad rap because of its sheer size and varied terrain, but you will deal with more disasters in say Florida than you will in say North Dakota just due to geography and weather.
Now, Olney has close to 40,000 people...and the city limits haven't expanded outward by much.
As someone who has lived in metropolitan areas with anti-sprawl laws (Portland) and areas most definitely without them (Atlanta), I'd say count your blessings that it hasn't expanded outward. Suburbia is a wasteland.
Being funny and being a troll aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, attempting to be funny is often the #1 motivation for trolling.
I like the Wikipedia's definition of troll: someone who posts "inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community." Bringing up "America is becoming socialist" rhetoric in a discussion thread about earthquakes and other natural disasters meets all of the above criteria -- even though it's clearly a joke. (Whether it's actually funny or not is a matter of taste and level of irritation with certain political talking points or with changing topics to politics in general.)
So, it can wrap around a pencil. That's... nice... I guess, but have they come anywhere near to solving the issue of longevity? Plus, all those dead pixels are pretty intolerable unless you're making a disposable gimmick products -- and the world certainly doesn't need more of that.
Or do you really think that there exists such an action that is illegal for a state to commit against another state, but completely legal for their citizens? Particularly regarding something that can be classified as a biological weapon.
That's only of partial relevance to whether or not something is an act of terrorism. Under 18 USC 23331, to be an act of domestic or international terrorism, an act must both be a violent crime and intended to either (a) intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (b) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, (c) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.
That's the hard part. There are many laws that make giving someone pubic lice illegal, but unless you can figure out a way to intimidate the public or the government by doing so, it's not terrorism. That is the line that divides terrorism from just any other violent act. You have to be trying to influence the people with your actions -- not just getting petty revenge on your girlfriend. The same applies even if you used anthrax or smallpox against her.
(I'm also not 100% sure that giving her pubic lice would count as a violent crime, but I'm 90% sure that it is since it's a form of battery at the least.)
Sorry that I haven't read Slashdot in a week to respond earlier, but would you mind explaining the relevance of a treaty binding state parties on the development of weapons for warfare on whether the actions of private citizens should be classified as terrorism?
I think you'd have to be really creative to turn this into an act of terrorism. Not every act of assault or attempted battery is automatically terrorism, even if you use a creative weapon.
Spreading them in lingerie stores as a protest against licentiousness might qualify.
The non-crazy part of panspermia theory that makes it semi-attractive to some folks is that the available area for the formation of these building blocks within the solar system is much greater than on just the surface of the Earth. (Consider the asteroid belt, various trojan asteroids, the Kuiper belt, comets, and the theorized Oort cloud.)
The crazy part is the notion that this means the probability of forming off planet is inherently greater and that many of these building blocks would be more likely to survive reentry than to form on the surface. Some even think we should go so far as to consider sources outside our solar system that could overcome the huge improbability of sending material that bridges the distance with the sheer number of other stars.
It would be interesting if life in the Universe was similar enough because planets that bear life are "seeded" in such a way. Frightening, too. That means it's possible that humans might be susceptible to microbes found on other planets.
That statement belies an amazing ignorance about how tightly adapted diseases are to their hosts. You do realize that we're immune to all but the tiny fraction of microbes on Earth which are adapted to live in the ecosystem that is our bodies, right? Why would random space microbes be capable of surviving inside of us?
We can't even get most of the same diseases dogs get, much less germs that survive on frozen, irradiated asteroids.
So, you bomb whoever allowed the nuke to arrive in the hands of al Qaeda.
There's a small problem with that. Most countries that could let a nuke get loose are countries that have nukes. And those countries tend to allies with nukes; often, that ally is one of the two former nuclear superpowers. (i.e. American and Russia.)
So, if say Kazakhstan lets a nuke get loose. (Yes, I know that they disarmed completely in 1995. Work with me here.) The nuke gets used and we trace it. We're basically going to figure out the weapon was of Soviet make without any way of tracing it to Kazakhstan. So, which former Soviet republic do we bomb, and how do we expect Russia to act?
Also, what the hell do you think happens to the tattered remnants of America's moral credibility if we execute an attack with a WMD against (inevitably) a large swath of civilian targets? I can barely imagine the international fecal storm that would come in the wake of doing that.
The only vaguely plausible reason for invasion is something like the Predator films; for sport. If you can cross interstellar distances, synthesising food is not going to be a problem, and you'll need a sufficiently high level of technology that slaves are not competitive with robots (or specifically engineered biotech organisms). Metals are fairly scarce in the universe, but the concentration on the Earth is pretty much irrelevant.
There are other reasons. They could launch pre-emptive warfare to neutralize a potential future threat / competitor. The gathering of abundant, planet-side, organic resources could be far cheaper than synthesis, or planets could be seen as better real-estate than spacecraft for a variety of rational and irrational reasons. A "socially advanced" civilization could take upon itself the mission of "civilizing" natives or to eradicate a morally/ethically abhorrent species as viewed through their eyes.
Of all of those reasons, I find the first most compelling. There might be plenty of "living room" in space, but while resources are plentiful, they aren't unlimited. Another species might simply want us out of the way or consider us a potential risk for attacking them for the same kinds of reasons. If a species evolved through many of the same pressures we did, then they should have many of the same motivations for xenophobia, competitiveness, desire to acquire more and more resources, etc. War and conquest is likely to be part of the genetic heritage of any creature that came to exist through natural selection.
I'm pretty sure that we'd kick off tens of thousands of years of highly noticeable signals in the time it takes to build such a thing. Not the least of which would be all the propulsion signatures as we run around disassembling nearby star systems to get the material for it (which would also probably be noticeable).
By that point, it's too late. Heck, it's too late now after decades of broadcasting increasingly bright and complex radio signals.
Slashdot Mirror
Or perhaps this is a big whoosh on my part? The brain has entered analytic mode, there's no turning back...
No. It was a double mistake on my part. I both forgot the subjunctive case AND quoted and responded to the wrong post when I meant to poke fun at the same person you did. (*sigh*)
More people in the same square mileage can be a good thing in the long-run. It provides the necessary financial incentives to establish good support for walking & biking and for setting up a decent public transit system.
The alternative is horizontal expansion which leads to you being forced to drive to get anywhere, such as having to take 15 minutes to drive around a mess of McMansion subdivisions just to get to a grocery store and having few to no workplaces close to home. I'm healthier and spend less money on gas living away from suburbia.
i guess only Americans would understand that...
For the rest of the world they are referring to the North Eastern Pacific.
Well, I guess if English isn't your first language, you might not realize that adjectives typically come before the words they modify instead of after, so you might not realize that "Northwest" refers to something other than the word preceding it.
Really, I'd blame one's ESL teachers rather than Americocentrism. Also, I'd blame your native language teachers for not stressing the importance of learning the meaning of new words and phrases from context, such as all the references to relevant U.S. states on an American news site. Being Slashdot, I guess we can forgive not reading the article, but not reading the summary is just sad.
California may be west of many things, but last time I checked it was on the east side of the Pacific.
You seem to be unaware of the difference between "the Pacific Northwest" and "the Northwest Pacific."
IIRC, you *can* see Mt. St. Helens, America's most famous volcano, from the airport.
Hard to think of a bigger sign to put up than that.
Name a state that does not have some sort of periodic inhospitable condition, including natural disasters.
Everything isn't black and white. There are some states that have more disasters and worse disasters than others. California does get a bad rap because of its sheer size and varied terrain, but you will deal with more disasters in say Florida than you will in say North Dakota just due to geography and weather.
Now, Olney has close to 40,000 people...and the city limits haven't expanded outward by much.
As someone who has lived in metropolitan areas with anti-sprawl laws (Portland) and areas most definitely without them (Atlanta), I'd say count your blessings that it hasn't expanded outward. Suburbia is a wasteland.
Being funny and being a troll aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, attempting to be funny is often the #1 motivation for trolling.
I like the Wikipedia's definition of troll: someone who posts "inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community." Bringing up "America is becoming socialist" rhetoric in a discussion thread about earthquakes and other natural disasters meets all of the above criteria -- even though it's clearly a joke. (Whether it's actually funny or not is a matter of taste and level of irritation with certain political talking points or with changing topics to politics in general.)
Or cant drive.
In my experience, that is redundant with "from Atlanta."
One would think if his funding were loosed, he'd be quite happy.
However, if your grammar was tightened up, we would be too.
So, it can wrap around a pencil. That's... nice... I guess, but have they come anywhere near to solving the issue of longevity? Plus, all those dead pixels are pretty intolerable unless you're making a disposable gimmick products -- and the world certainly doesn't need more of that.
The 'dead' strips seem to change as it get's bent.
I don't see it. Looks to me like the stripes of dead pixels are pretty consistent and don't appear or disappear as it rolls up.
Or do you really think that there exists such an action that is illegal for a state to commit against another state, but completely legal for their citizens?
Particularly regarding something that can be classified as a biological weapon.
That's only of partial relevance to whether or not something is an act of terrorism. Under 18 USC 23331, to be an act of domestic or international terrorism, an act must both be a violent crime and intended to either (a) intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (b) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, (c) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.
That's the hard part. There are many laws that make giving someone pubic lice illegal, but unless you can figure out a way to intimidate the public or the government by doing so, it's not terrorism. That is the line that divides terrorism from just any other violent act. You have to be trying to influence the people with your actions -- not just getting petty revenge on your girlfriend. The same applies even if you used anthrax or smallpox against her.
(I'm also not 100% sure that giving her pubic lice would count as a violent crime, but I'm 90% sure that it is since it's a form of battery at the least.)
Sorry that I haven't read Slashdot in a week to respond earlier, but would you mind explaining the relevance of a treaty binding state parties on the development of weapons for warfare on whether the actions of private citizens should be classified as terrorism?
LCL is the blood of Lilith. QED.
You would think the patent attorneys themselves would recognize the prior art involved.
I think you'd have to be really creative to turn this into an act of terrorism. Not every act of assault or attempted battery is automatically terrorism, even if you use a creative weapon.
Spreading them in lingerie stores as a protest against licentiousness might qualify.
The non-crazy part of panspermia theory that makes it semi-attractive to some folks is that the available area for the formation of these building blocks within the solar system is much greater than on just the surface of the Earth. (Consider the asteroid belt, various trojan asteroids, the Kuiper belt, comets, and the theorized Oort cloud.)
The crazy part is the notion that this means the probability of forming off planet is inherently greater and that many of these building blocks would be more likely to survive reentry than to form on the surface. Some even think we should go so far as to consider sources outside our solar system that could overcome the huge improbability of sending material that bridges the distance with the sheer number of other stars.
It would be interesting if life in the Universe was similar enough because planets that bear life are "seeded" in such a way. Frightening, too. That means it's possible that humans might be susceptible to microbes found on other planets.
That statement belies an amazing ignorance about how tightly adapted diseases are to their hosts. You do realize that we're immune to all but the tiny fraction of microbes on Earth which are adapted to live in the ecosystem that is our bodies, right? Why would random space microbes be capable of surviving inside of us?
We can't even get most of the same diseases dogs get, much less germs that survive on frozen, irradiated asteroids.
I was also kind of horrified to see a paper talking about trying to use BitTorrent over TOR.
It's widely considered to be abuse of the network.
Surely then the defense is to ensure your ships cook is Steven Seagal?
In his current shape, that's only a good defense against one's appetite.
So, you bomb whoever allowed the nuke to arrive in the hands of al Qaeda.
There's a small problem with that. Most countries that could let a nuke get loose are countries that have nukes. And those countries tend to allies with nukes; often, that ally is one of the two former nuclear superpowers. (i.e. American and Russia.)
So, if say Kazakhstan lets a nuke get loose. (Yes, I know that they disarmed completely in 1995. Work with me here.) The nuke gets used and we trace it. We're basically going to figure out the weapon was of Soviet make without any way of tracing it to Kazakhstan. So, which former Soviet republic do we bomb, and how do we expect Russia to act?
Also, what the hell do you think happens to the tattered remnants of America's moral credibility if we execute an attack with a WMD against (inevitably) a large swath of civilian targets? I can barely imagine the international fecal storm that would come in the wake of doing that.
Nukes are for having, not using.
...How does being the world's 4th largest arms exporter counter his assertion that they are willing to sell to a wide customer base?
(Not that I have good reason to believe either one of you is more right than the other; I'm just boggled by the somewhat spurious rebuttal.)
The only vaguely plausible reason for invasion is something like the Predator films; for sport. If you can cross interstellar distances, synthesising food is not going to be a problem, and you'll need a sufficiently high level of technology that slaves are not competitive with robots (or specifically engineered biotech organisms). Metals are fairly scarce in the universe, but the concentration on the Earth is pretty much irrelevant.
There are other reasons. They could launch pre-emptive warfare to neutralize a potential future threat / competitor. The gathering of abundant, planet-side, organic resources could be far cheaper than synthesis, or planets could be seen as better real-estate than spacecraft for a variety of rational and irrational reasons. A "socially advanced" civilization could take upon itself the mission of "civilizing" natives or to eradicate a morally/ethically abhorrent species as viewed through their eyes.
Of all of those reasons, I find the first most compelling. There might be plenty of "living room" in space, but while resources are plentiful, they aren't unlimited. Another species might simply want us out of the way or consider us a potential risk for attacking them for the same kinds of reasons. If a species evolved through many of the same pressures we did, then they should have many of the same motivations for xenophobia, competitiveness, desire to acquire more and more resources, etc. War and conquest is likely to be part of the genetic heritage of any creature that came to exist through natural selection.
I'm pretty sure that we'd kick off tens of thousands of years of highly noticeable signals in the time it takes to build such a thing. Not the least of which would be all the propulsion signatures as we run around disassembling nearby star systems to get the material for it (which would also probably be noticeable).
By that point, it's too late. Heck, it's too late now after decades of broadcasting increasingly bright and complex radio signals.