Actually, I watched Contact (which I liked, but doesn't refute my statement) along with the entire Cosmos miniseries (same thing), and a few of his essays (more of the same). Thank you, come again.
I'm not entirely sure YOU understand democracy. How can someone who voted for Gore be a party to getting Bush in office? How can those who picked "none of the above" be responsible? Because we failed to convince others to agree? So we're responsible for the actions of others? Responsibility is predicated on control, and I have very little control over what other people do. I can tell them what I think, but I cannot make them listen, and I cannot control what they think. If I, or anyone else could, it wouldn't be much of a democracy.
How am I a troll? Your link only confirms what I said: Sagan was a New Age apostle. Spiritualism and romanticism are fine, until they become the basis for public policy -- even if that policy is good, because people have different spiritual beliefs. There are plenty of rational reasons to leave Earth. So that "the universe can know itself" is not one of them.
The problem is that the US is considerably bigger than France. It's 200 miles from London to Paris -- minimum 1 hour on the 186MPH Eurostar. The average width of France is also ~400 miles. It's over 2400 miles from NY to LA -- 13 hours minimum at a similar speed, assuming a perfect path.
Sure, time probably wouldn't be a factor if it was cheaper, but the round trip from London to Paris costs ~$100 to $150. For the same price, you can fly pretty much anywhere in the US. There's a reason long haul rail travel in the US exists only as a quasi-governmental, heavily subsidized industry. Rail travel is great for intracity mass transit, but the economics and convenience change quickly with distance.
I can categorically state that mating behavior and child rearing is completely instinctive in all mammals, with the possible, though unlikely, exception of ourselves. Hunting techniques may not be instinctive, but they are generally developed by playing with siblings. What to eat may not be instinctive, but animals are well equipped to find the foods they commonly eat: dogs have great noses, cats have excellent vision, dolphins have echo-location, etc. Most mammals will start out trying to eat anything, and if they survive, they'll develop a taste for what they do and don't like. Some are too particular for their own good, like pandas and koalas, but most can eat a wide variety of food.
As for bacteria, the gastrointestinal tract of a normal fetus is sterile. After birth, bacteria from the surrounding environment colonize the gut (no pun intended), so it's not likely that some "essential bacteria" would be lost in the extinction.
Additionally, there would be no need for a surrogate mother to breastfeed the dolphins.. formula should suffice, which is used for just about every animal born in captivity today, especially in labs and zoos.
"Recovering" a species is little different from cloning it, and it's certainly not a century out, especially considering that successful cloning has been happening on a regular basis for the past decade.
I'm not arguing that species should be exploited just because we can "undo" or mitigate the damage; I'm just saying that if we really want to recover a species, we probably can.
Carl Sagan is like John Lennon for astronomy. He may not be the only one, but he's definitely a dreamer. His assertions may be useful for NASA's PR, but they bear little resemblance to rational scientific thought.
I have no idea, but that's about what they billed me for 5 drops of morphine, 2 bags of saline, 1 bowl of gell-oh (the generic stuff) and some soup which I'm pretty sure was just beige-colored water.
Guns are semi-regulated, most are big and loud, and most people don't try to kill other people. Kids, on the other hand, think nonfatal injuries are funny as hell.
Personal breathalyzers. I have the AL6000, which is +/- 0.010%, compared to law enforcement models which are +/- 0.008%.
$100 or so is a lot cheaper than a DUI. You can use it for parties if you want to convince someone not to drive (or conversely, so they can demonstrate that it really is "all good"). Also, you can practice getting the lowest BAC possible. Hyperventilating works well. Breathe quick shallow breaths with most of the air already expelled from your lungs, for about 30 seconds until your lungs feel "dry", then take a very large breath and blow. I've never had it knock off less than.02, and I can usually get from.05 to.000.
And don't forget to wait 15 minutes before testing. Blow immediately after just 1 sip with residual alcohol in your mouth, and you'll easily surpass the legal limit.
The NIMBYs may be annoying, but the concern regarding nuclear is legitimate, especially given the world's track record. "...radioactive material leaked into the sea and air and dozens of drums containing toxic waste broke apart." Oops!. And they (supposedly) had no idea they were sitting on a fault line.
I'm generally in favor of nuclear, but I'm certainly not convinced of our ability (or perhaps our determination) to competently and safely operate and maintain the plants.
Apparently you're not just lazy, you're lazy AND technically illiterate.
If you go to the domain directly, it is not phishing, by definition. The web site may have been compromised, but that's not phishing. Moreover, if someone was to crack the website, they would almost definitely NOT do something obvious that would be noticed within seconds, like announcing a big change and redirecting everyone who logs in.
If you had clicked on a link to get to Hotmail, you might have a legitimate concern, but it wouldn't be with Hotmail, it would be with the referrer.
Well vomiting isn't entirely without risk.. there's a significant choke hazard, along with unavoidable damage to the esophagus, teeth, and anything else it comes in contact with. People with existing problems like acid reflux could be especially susceptible to serious damage. Naturally it's only a matter of time until someone sues over the technology, at which point (if recklessness had been a problem before) policies will become much more strict. Of course, the time to write restrictive policy is before these incidents happen, but color me skeptical that that will occur. At any rate, there's a potential for abuse with any tool, but as long as people (or their lawyers, at least) can hit the cities where it hurts, in the purse, I think we'll be okay in the long run.
I can't speak for everyone, but as I age, there's certainly more of a tendency to focus on history over the future. I still like sci-fi, but there is a growing trend to focus on character stories in sci-fi, which is, I think, indicative of the fact that much of the technological what-ifs have all been thoroughly hashed out and repeated ad nauseum.
I think a few things happen as people get older (and I'm about 30 now, so take that for what it's worth): They've learned that the promise of a golden future is an empty promise, especially for people who grew up in the 70s and 80s. They realize that their parents were actual people who had babies, as opposed to mythical, ever-present beings. And, if they've had even the smallest taste of history, they realize that we're doing the same stupid things over and over, and the best chance of finding our way out is to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors, and figure out what we can do differently. In the US at least, history is typically taught as little more than a collection of meaningless dates; anything but interesting. When you start to dig down into who these people really were, what their lives were like, and what they accomplished, it becomes much more entertaining, interesting, and informative. For all of those reasons, history can be very appealing.
Aside from that, much of science fiction borrows heavily from history, intentionally or otherwise. Clearly Firefly is the Wild West. Star Wars is the American Revolution with Taoist philosophy. The Matrix revisits the question of Plato's Cave. Contact also explores The Cave (what is real?) and Nietzsche's philosophy. BSG is not unlike the Biblical story of the Israelites, except with Cylons instead of Egyptians, and Roman Mythology instead of Judaism. And SG-1 is trite crap. (Sorry, just had to throw that in). Many of these works are valid and entertaining in their own right, but with the proper context they can be even more enjoyable.
1) There are no mod chips for the 360 or the PS3. They exist for the Wii (which is essentially the same hardware as the GameCube), but that's not a $400 machine.
2) It's a managed risk, like driving, or going down stairs. A tiny bit of precaution will ensure your experience doesn't end in tragedy. The people they were targeting weren't some kids licking batteries -- they knew what they were doing, so it wasn't really a risk, any more than getting your car worked on is a risk.
3) We live in a low income area, and plenty of our kids' friends have DSes and PSPs, which is to say, even low income people will scrape together some money to buy nice things for their kids, sort of the way they put $3000 rims on a $1000 car. There's the argument to be made that if they were good with their money, they wouldn't be poor.. obviously not always true, but I believe people are mostly a product of their own choices.
I'm too boggled by the hypocrisy of your statement to make a good argument right now, but suffice to say that "hacking the system" to ensure your candidate wins is exactly the sort of behavior one is presumably trying to PREVENT by requiring oversight for wiretaps. If that's the sort of country you want to live in, then let's give Bush another 4 years.
While I think your point is valid, I don't think name calling furthers your goals.
There are two scenarios which don't involve people being completely evil (as most people are not). First is the well intentioned, but misguided, individual. He has a good agenda, but he's tempted to use "unconventional" methods to achieve it. In fact, those unconventional methods fly in the face of the ultimate goal, but he's too preoccupied with achieving the goal to realize that.
Second is that without the risk of getting caught, people will tend to be more "adventurous" in their behavior. That doesn't necessarily make them bad people -- a lot of otherwise good people STAY good people because they recognize the possibility of getting caught.
Without oversight, both of those groups have a strong possibility of abusing the system. In fact, it takes an extremely noble and virtuous individual to restrain from using unchecked power to further a personal agenda when there is no possibility of getting caught. That's not to say such individuals don't exist, but they are a rarity, and there's no reason to assume that anyone possesses such virtue, world leader or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Only if there's a -1 (Except You) counter-mod.
Actually, I watched Contact (which I liked, but doesn't refute my statement) along with the entire Cosmos miniseries (same thing), and a few of his essays (more of the same). Thank you, come again.
I'm not entirely sure YOU understand democracy. How can someone who voted for Gore be a party to getting Bush in office? How can those who picked "none of the above" be responsible? Because we failed to convince others to agree? So we're responsible for the actions of others? Responsibility is predicated on control, and I have very little control over what other people do. I can tell them what I think, but I cannot make them listen, and I cannot control what they think. If I, or anyone else could, it wouldn't be much of a democracy.
You have the freedom to rob a bank. After you rob the bank, however, you may end up losing that and a great many other freedoms.
How am I a troll? Your link only confirms what I said: Sagan was a New Age apostle. Spiritualism and romanticism are fine, until they become the basis for public policy -- even if that policy is good, because people have different spiritual beliefs. There are plenty of rational reasons to leave Earth. So that "the universe can know itself" is not one of them.
Hey, at least China calls a spade a spade.
It's well known that the biggest problem with democracy is people. The problem is that as yet, there's no better solution.
...ever graced our White House.
Not to be a grammar Nazi, but I think you spelled "defaced" wrong.
The problem is that the US is considerably bigger than France. It's 200 miles from London to Paris -- minimum 1 hour on the 186MPH Eurostar. The average width of France is also ~400 miles. It's over 2400 miles from NY to LA -- 13 hours minimum at a similar speed, assuming a perfect path.
Sure, time probably wouldn't be a factor if it was cheaper, but the round trip from London to Paris costs ~$100 to $150. For the same price, you can fly pretty much anywhere in the US. There's a reason long haul rail travel in the US exists only as a quasi-governmental, heavily subsidized industry. Rail travel is great for intracity mass transit, but the economics and convenience change quickly with distance.
I can categorically state that mating behavior and child rearing is completely instinctive in all mammals, with the possible, though unlikely, exception of ourselves. Hunting techniques may not be instinctive, but they are generally developed by playing with siblings. What to eat may not be instinctive, but animals are well equipped to find the foods they commonly eat: dogs have great noses, cats have excellent vision, dolphins have echo-location, etc. Most mammals will start out trying to eat anything, and if they survive, they'll develop a taste for what they do and don't like. Some are too particular for their own good, like pandas and koalas, but most can eat a wide variety of food.
As for bacteria, the gastrointestinal tract of a normal fetus is sterile. After birth, bacteria from the surrounding environment colonize the gut (no pun intended), so it's not likely that some "essential bacteria" would be lost in the extinction.
Additionally, there would be no need for a surrogate mother to breastfeed the dolphins.. formula should suffice, which is used for just about every animal born in captivity today, especially in labs and zoos.
"Recovering" a species is little different from cloning it, and it's certainly not a century out, especially considering that successful cloning has been happening on a regular basis for the past decade.
I'm not arguing that species should be exploited just because we can "undo" or mitigate the damage; I'm just saying that if we really want to recover a species, we probably can.
Carl Sagan is like John Lennon for astronomy. He may not be the only one, but he's definitely a dreamer. His assertions may be useful for NASA's PR, but they bear little resemblance to rational scientific thought.
Would you characterize that as Philanthropy?
dribble:
Meaning #4: let saliva drivel from the mouth
Synonyms: drivel, drool, slabber, slaver, slobber
drivel:
verb
To let saliva run from the mouth: dribble, drool, salivate, slaver, slobber. See dry/wet, mouth.
Drivel may have been a better choice, but they are indeed interchangeable (which has an e in it, by the way).
the return of HTML design. Now all we need are 6 figure salaries for anyone who can make black text appear on a gray background.
is $40K a lot as far as medical devices cost?
I have no idea, but that's about what they billed me for 5 drops of morphine, 2 bags of saline, 1 bowl of gell-oh (the generic stuff) and some soup which I'm pretty sure was just beige-colored water.
Guns are semi-regulated, most are big and loud, and most people don't try to kill other people. Kids, on the other hand, think nonfatal injuries are funny as hell.
Personal breathalyzers. I have the AL6000, which is +/- 0.010%, compared to law enforcement models which are +/- 0.008%.
.02, and I can usually get from .05 to .000.
$100 or so is a lot cheaper than a DUI. You can use it for parties if you want to convince someone not to drive (or conversely, so they can demonstrate that it really is "all good"). Also, you can practice getting the lowest BAC possible. Hyperventilating works well. Breathe quick shallow breaths with most of the air already expelled from your lungs, for about 30 seconds until your lungs feel "dry", then take a very large breath and blow. I've never had it knock off less than
And don't forget to wait 15 minutes before testing. Blow immediately after just 1 sip with residual alcohol in your mouth, and you'll easily surpass the legal limit.
The NIMBYs may be annoying, but the concern regarding nuclear is legitimate, especially given the world's track record. "...radioactive material leaked into the sea and air and dozens of drums containing toxic waste broke apart." Oops!. And they (supposedly) had no idea they were sitting on a fault line.
I'm generally in favor of nuclear, but I'm certainly not convinced of our ability (or perhaps our determination) to competently and safely operate and maintain the plants.
Apparently you're not just lazy, you're lazy AND technically illiterate.
If you go to the domain directly, it is not phishing, by definition. The web site may have been compromised, but that's not phishing. Moreover, if someone was to crack the website, they would almost definitely NOT do something obvious that would be noticed within seconds, like announcing a big change and redirecting everyone who logs in.
If you had clicked on a link to get to Hotmail, you might have a legitimate concern, but it wouldn't be with Hotmail, it would be with the referrer.
Well vomiting isn't entirely without risk.. there's a significant choke hazard, along with unavoidable damage to the esophagus, teeth, and anything else it comes in contact with. People with existing problems like acid reflux could be especially susceptible to serious damage. Naturally it's only a matter of time until someone sues over the technology, at which point (if recklessness had been a problem before) policies will become much more strict. Of course, the time to write restrictive policy is before these incidents happen, but color me skeptical that that will occur. At any rate, there's a potential for abuse with any tool, but as long as people (or their lawyers, at least) can hit the cities where it hurts, in the purse, I think we'll be okay in the long run.
True, but possibly redundant. ;)
I can't speak for everyone, but as I age, there's certainly more of a tendency to focus on history over the future. I still like sci-fi, but there is a growing trend to focus on character stories in sci-fi, which is, I think, indicative of the fact that much of the technological what-ifs have all been thoroughly hashed out and repeated ad nauseum.
I think a few things happen as people get older (and I'm about 30 now, so take that for what it's worth): They've learned that the promise of a golden future is an empty promise, especially for people who grew up in the 70s and 80s. They realize that their parents were actual people who had babies, as opposed to mythical, ever-present beings. And, if they've had even the smallest taste of history, they realize that we're doing the same stupid things over and over, and the best chance of finding our way out is to learn from the mistakes of our predecessors, and figure out what we can do differently. In the US at least, history is typically taught as little more than a collection of meaningless dates; anything but interesting. When you start to dig down into who these people really were, what their lives were like, and what they accomplished, it becomes much more entertaining, interesting, and informative. For all of those reasons, history can be very appealing.
Aside from that, much of science fiction borrows heavily from history, intentionally or otherwise. Clearly Firefly is the Wild West. Star Wars is the American Revolution with Taoist philosophy. The Matrix revisits the question of Plato's Cave. Contact also explores The Cave (what is real?) and Nietzsche's philosophy. BSG is not unlike the Biblical story of the Israelites, except with Cylons instead of Egyptians, and Roman Mythology instead of Judaism. And SG-1 is trite crap. (Sorry, just had to throw that in). Many of these works are valid and entertaining in their own right, but with the proper context they can be even more enjoyable.
People will find more ways to kill time.
1) There are no mod chips for the 360 or the PS3. They exist for the Wii (which is essentially the same hardware as the GameCube), but that's not a $400 machine.
2) It's a managed risk, like driving, or going down stairs. A tiny bit of precaution will ensure your experience doesn't end in tragedy. The people they were targeting weren't some kids licking batteries -- they knew what they were doing, so it wasn't really a risk, any more than getting your car worked on is a risk.
3) We live in a low income area, and plenty of our kids' friends have DSes and PSPs, which is to say, even low income people will scrape together some money to buy nice things for their kids, sort of the way they put $3000 rims on a $1000 car. There's the argument to be made that if they were good with their money, they wouldn't be poor.. obviously not always true, but I believe people are mostly a product of their own choices.
I'm too boggled by the hypocrisy of your statement to make a good argument right now, but suffice to say that "hacking the system" to ensure your candidate wins is exactly the sort of behavior one is presumably trying to PREVENT by requiring oversight for wiretaps. If that's the sort of country you want to live in, then let's give Bush another 4 years.
While I think your point is valid, I don't think name calling furthers your goals.
There are two scenarios which don't involve people being completely evil (as most people are not). First is the well intentioned, but misguided, individual. He has a good agenda, but he's tempted to use "unconventional" methods to achieve it. In fact, those unconventional methods fly in the face of the ultimate goal, but he's too preoccupied with achieving the goal to realize that.
Second is that without the risk of getting caught, people will tend to be more "adventurous" in their behavior. That doesn't necessarily make them bad people -- a lot of otherwise good people STAY good people because they recognize the possibility of getting caught.
Without oversight, both of those groups have a strong possibility of abusing the system. In fact, it takes an extremely noble and virtuous individual to restrain from using unchecked power to further a personal agenda when there is no possibility of getting caught. That's not to say such individuals don't exist, but they are a rarity, and there's no reason to assume that anyone possesses such virtue, world leader or not.