I'm almost certain that there was an explanation by a/an astronomy prof/s at UT Austin about how Marfa sat in the bottom of a basin, which set up some sort of thermal inversion which caused air of greater density to set on top of air of a lower density which in turn acted as acted as a lens to refract the light from bright stars, and or planets near the horizon into the basin giving rise to the Marfa lights.
At one time you could get specialty dictionaries for Nisus from the Nisus company. I wrote my thesis with Nisus, and then imported the text without formating into Word 5 for the Mac. Had to do that as I submitted my thesis via e-mail attachment to my thesis director who had a M$ Windows box.
Apple are you listening? The spell-checking feature built into Mac OS X should have a file or something of that nature that could be imported into the system dictionary file/folder.
Indeed, and interesting project for us scientific Mac types would be an open source project that would be a simple 'vocabulary' file imported into the dictionary file of scientific terms from the various branches of the natural sciences, and mathematics, and well as for engineering, and computer science.
Back in the late 70s, or early 80s the Skaggs-Albertson's in Waco carried fishing gear. Being a bass fishing type of guy, I frequented the 'Fishing Department" often. One afternoon I discovered that the store had got several Fenwick rods in. A couple of the spinning rods were models that I had been fantasying about for a year or so.
I was shocked when I saw the prices. They were about 1/4 of SRP. You did not get Fenwick rods back then for less than SRP. There were also 4 Plano tackle boxes that I had been admiring in the BassPro catalogue for a couple of years. They too were 1/4 of SRP. A couple of my buddies were with me, and the three of us scrapped to gather enough case on the spot to purchase these items.
I never have found out what the deal was, whether these items were mismarked, or if there was some skullduggery afoot. In any case I've still got both rods though I don't use them so much anymore. I gave the tackle boxes to one of my nephews, and he's still using them.
Frank, one of the above mention friends has always believed that we blinded-sided some tag switcher. His dad was a lawyer and there were some group of people about that time where one person would go into stores and switch tags one day and another would come back a couple of days later and purchase the items. Almost all of the suspected switches were to items that the average store employe would not know about, so the prices that the items were switched to did not draw suspicion. No one was ever arrested, and I don't believe that there was really anyone that was strongly suspected. The only clue that this might have been going on was the some of the store managers were finding items that were 'mismarked' with unusually high frequency. The suspicion was that if the second person got even a little nervous that things were not going well they'd never make the purchase.
I'm, personally, not so sure that this was the case. About 7 months after I purchased the rods and tackle boxes, fishing gear other than hooks, weights, line, and lures disappeared from the store. I'm thinking that the rods and tackle boxes were discounted to get them out of the store. Who knows???
First off convict is not the word that I should have used. I should have used phraseology in keeping with the civil nature of the case.
Second, the FBI is a criminal investigation organization, therefore their position covers only criminal cases, and not civil cases.
(IANAL) Third, I'm not sure how federal law works, but Texas law requires that a jury, or judge (in the case of a bench trial) to find that defendant is culpable of the alleged criminal act.
TEXAS PENAL CODE
TITLE 2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY
CHAPTER 6. CULPABILITY GENERALLY
6.02. REQUIREMENT OF CULPABILITY. (a) Except as provided in Subsection (b), a person does not commit an offense unless he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence engages in conduct as the definition of the offense requires.
(b) If the definition of an offense does not prescribe a culpable mental state, a culpable mental state is nevertheless required unless the definition plainly dispenses with any mental element.
(c) If the definition of an offense does not prescribe a culpable mental state, but one is nevertheless required under Subsection (b), intent, knowledge, or recklessness suffices to establish criminal responsibility.
(d) Culpable mental states are classified according to relative degrees, from highest to lowest, as follows:
(1) intentional;
(2) knowing;
(3) reckless;
(4) criminal negligence.
(e) Proof of a higher degree of culpability than that charged constitutes proof of the culpability charged.
6.03. DEFINITIONS OF CULPABLE MENTAL STATES. (a) A person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.
(b) A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to the nature of his conduct or to circumstances surrounding his conduct when he is aware of the nature of his conduct or that the circumstances exist. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result.
(c) A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.
(d) A person acts with criminal negligence, or is criminally negligent, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.
My client's computer uses a M$ OS. It was taken over by a hacker via BackOrifice. She did not download any music files. The defense holds that the hacker that installed BackOrifice use my client's computer as screen to download the files for his/her use.
Most folks, as my client, are not computer scientist, nerds, programers, etc.. They do not have the expertise to be able to deal with the clever manipulations of OS that hackers do. Do you really want to convict a person on the basis of the charges leveled by the RIAA. They need to explain, in detail, just how they ***know*** that my client was the one download the files that they allege that my client downloaded. Further they need to prove that my client did not at the time of the downloads that they allege, already legally possess the right to the music that the alleged files contained.
Let's suppose that all the ice in the Arctic, and Greenland melt, and salinity decreases. At some point the freshened water will dispurse. Could the Gulf Stream then 'turn back on'?
Here in East Texas we run the AC 7-8 months a year. We, typically, have the hot water heater in the garage so as not to run up the AC bill. What makes the most sense, here, is a solar hot water system. There would likely be only 10 to 15 days a year, if that, where the a solar hot water system would not be able to meet all hot water needs.
In by gone years a solar hot water system would pay for itself in about seven years. However, with the increase in natural gas prices over the past year I'd be willing to bet the time it would take to recover the cost of installation has dropped to about five to five and a half years.
"Philosophy education in the United States is poor as well, which contributes to the problem."
Ah! Now we're getting somewhere!
The whole problem is that a central aspect of the lives of very many Americans is being ignored in the public school system, and THEY DON'T LIKE IT! Not one bit. They believe that their own children are being turned against them, and that is a BIG mistake. Never, ever, come between an American parent and their child. It's hazardous to your health. The reason that school vouchers are so popular among many conservatives is that it allow for parents to place their children in the sort of school that they, the parents, are comfortable with.
Given that the U.S. has a population of about 300 million there is no way you'll be able to please all the parents in the U.S.. Thus, allow for a variation among parents by allowing them to choose the school, and therefore the curriculum, for their children. Varied curricula will provide a greater 'diversity' than a *highly* standardized curriculum.
The truth is that 'fundies' want their children to have a *very* solid foundation in reading, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics(including the calculus), physics, astronomy, and chemistry. They have problems with evolutionary biology, 'revisionist history', and a lot of the social sciences. Speaking as a member of the physics, and astronomy community, I must say that I've also got more than a few issues with the 'social sciences'. O' course I'm not all that unusual in that many members of the physics, and astronomy community are not enamored with the 'social science'.
I've lived all my life in Texas, indeed in the buckle of the Bible Belt, I've rarely had people deal with me in a hostile manner because of my science background. This is also the experience of vast majority of my colleagues in the physical sciences, though some of the life science, and geology types have complained of 'fundamentalism'. It is my perception that anything that is highly mathematical is more immune to 'fundamentalist' ire than the less mathematical.
I must also say that in general, I find all but the most 'fundamentalist' quite curious about astronomy, space exploration, and physics. The people here on/. that equate 'conservative christians' with ignorant hicks are grossly mistaken. I dare say that PBS, A&E, The History Channel, and the various Discovery Channels are some of the most popular TV fare with most of the 'conservitive christian' in this neck of the woods. Why so popular? The 'fundies' believe that these channels are --gasp-- educational.
"You Canadians and Europeans can say what you want about the USA and "us Americans", however, as an American, I know that I do enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of thought and due process. We can't always say the same for you."
As Americans we also enjoy the 'Right to keep and bare arms.'
Whereas, in Canada they only enjoy the 'Right to arm and keep bears.'
I failed in the parent post to point out that if either Milwaukee County, or Dane county, not to mention both were subtracted from the rest of Wisconsin in the 2004 election, Wisconsin would have gone Bush.
For Michigan it was Wayne County, for Oregon it was Multnomah County, for Minnesota it was Hennepin County, for Pennsylvania it was Philadelphia County, for Washington it was King County, and of course for Illinois it was Cook County.
Each of these counties are the most populus in their respective states.
If you'll take a gander at the following: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized /where.jpg. You'll see that Kerry had very strong showings in large urban counties with high population densities. The fact that Kerry got about 48% of the popular vote is due to the very large margins that he accumulated in few heavily populated urban counties.
If you do a bit of homework you'll find that seven states: Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, would have been won by Bush but for the largest urban county (please note the singular tense) in each of those states.
Furthermore, New York State would have fallen into the Bush column but for NYC, and California was but three counties (LA County, SF County, and Contra Costa County) from going into the Bush column.
The point of my post is that the US is divided, politically, into urban, and non-urban political spheres. The Demos win LARGE margins in urban counties, but the GOP hold sway in the vast majority of non-urban counties. This has lead to very close elections in 2000, and 2004 in terms of the popular vote.
Ah, but Sunbelt *never downloaded* it. They obtained their copy otherwise, thus the *PDA* is unenforceable in their case. SpyMon was already on a client's computer, and was giving the client grief. It was from an examination of this computer at their client's request that SpyMon was detected, and further dealt with.
Sunbelt never *ran* SpyMon, nor did they ever download it, therefore no EULA[1], nor PDA was violated.
[1] Other post deal satisfactorily with the *run* issue.
Your homework problem is to determine the 'safe' distance from the gravel truck for hights of 5 ft., 7 ft., 9 ft., and 11 ft. using simple kinematic formulas (i.e. ignore aerodynamic effects).
Hights referring to the distance between the road surface and the bed or top of the gravel truck.
Discussion Questions:
Would the speed of the gravel truck make a difference in the 'safe' distance? Why?
Would the flatness of the road make a difference in the 'safe' distance? Why?
Would the direction and speed of the wind make a difference in the 'safe' distance? Why?
No what you get, more often than is funny, is someone who puts truly evil ideas into your mind. You know things like centrifugal force is real, and Newton's Second Law is F=ma.
I'm in favor of good. I'm in favor of truth. I'm in favor of that which is noble.
I'm against evil, wickedness, sin, and nastiness.
The business of business is business.
What I wish most for is WORLD PEACE, and a non-polluting, safe, reliable, cheap, compact, widely available, and infinite source of energy for humanity. (Have I forgotten anything?)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm almost certain that there was an explanation by a/an astronomy prof/s at UT Austin about how Marfa sat in the bottom of a basin, which set up some sort of thermal inversion which caused air of greater density to set on top of air of a lower density which in turn acted as acted as a lens to refract the light from bright stars, and or planets near the horizon into the basin giving rise to the Marfa lights.
"Yahweh Doesn't Exist"
So which System Lord do you worship?
Ra,
Apophis,
Anubis,
Baal?
Experiments prove that Gophers are more intelligent than human fetuses...
And the point of the headline?
At one time you could get specialty dictionaries for Nisus from the Nisus company. I wrote my thesis with Nisus, and then imported the text without formating into Word 5 for the Mac. Had to do that as I submitted my thesis via e-mail attachment to my thesis director who had a M$ Windows box.
Apple are you listening? The spell-checking feature built into Mac OS X should have a file or something of that nature that could be imported into the system dictionary file/folder.
Indeed, and interesting project for us scientific Mac types would be an open source project that would be a simple 'vocabulary' file imported into the dictionary file of scientific terms from the various branches of the natural sciences, and mathematics, and well as for engineering, and computer science.
Perhaps someone knows of such a file.
Back in the late 70s, or early 80s the Skaggs-Albertson's in Waco carried fishing gear. Being a bass fishing type of guy, I frequented the 'Fishing Department" often. One afternoon I discovered that the store had got several Fenwick rods in. A couple of the spinning rods were models that I had been fantasying about for a year or so.
I was shocked when I saw the prices. They were about 1/4 of SRP. You did not get Fenwick rods back then for less than SRP. There were also 4 Plano tackle boxes that I had been admiring in the BassPro catalogue for a couple of years. They too were 1/4 of SRP. A couple of my buddies were with me, and the three of us scrapped to gather enough case on the spot to purchase these items.
I never have found out what the deal was, whether these items were mismarked, or if there was some skullduggery afoot. In any case I've still got both rods though I don't use them so much anymore. I gave the tackle boxes to one of my nephews, and he's still using them.
Frank, one of the above mention friends has always believed that we blinded-sided some tag switcher. His dad was a lawyer and there were some group of people about that time where one person would go into stores and switch tags one day and another would come back a couple of days later and purchase the items. Almost all of the suspected switches were to items that the average store employe would not know about, so the prices that the items were switched to did not draw suspicion. No one was ever arrested, and I don't believe that there was really anyone that was strongly suspected. The only clue that this might have been going on was the some of the store managers were finding items that were 'mismarked' with unusually high frequency. The suspicion was that if the second person got even a little nervous that things were not going well they'd never make the purchase.
I'm, personally, not so sure that this was the case. About 7 months after I purchased the rods and tackle boxes, fishing gear other than hooks, weights, line, and lures disappeared from the store. I'm thinking that the rods and tackle boxes were discounted to get them out of the store. Who knows???
Ok...
First off convict is not the word that I should have used. I should have used phraseology in keeping with the civil nature of the case.
Second, the FBI is a criminal investigation organization, therefore their position covers only criminal cases, and not civil cases.
(IANAL)
Third, I'm not sure how federal law works, but Texas law requires that a jury, or judge (in the case of a bench trial) to find that defendant is culpable of the alleged criminal act.
TEXAS PENAL CODE
TITLE 2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY
CHAPTER 6. CULPABILITY GENERALLY
6.02. REQUIREMENT OF CULPABILITY. (a) Except as
provided in Subsection (b), a person does not commit an offense
unless he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal
negligence engages in conduct as the definition of the offense
requires.
(b) If the definition of an offense does not prescribe a
culpable mental state, a culpable mental state is nevertheless
required unless the definition plainly dispenses with any mental
element.
(c) If the definition of an offense does not prescribe a
culpable mental state, but one is nevertheless required under
Subsection (b), intent, knowledge, or recklessness suffices to
establish criminal responsibility.
(d) Culpable mental states are classified according to
relative degrees, from highest to lowest, as follows:
(1) intentional;
(2) knowing;
(3) reckless;
(4) criminal negligence.
(e) Proof of a higher degree of culpability than that
charged constitutes proof of the culpability charged.
6.03. DEFINITIONS OF CULPABLE MENTAL STATES. (a) A
person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to the
nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct when it is his
conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the
result.
(b) A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect
to the nature of his conduct or to circumstances surrounding his
conduct when he is aware of the nature of his conduct or that the
circumstances exist. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge,
with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his
conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result.
(c) A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect
to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his
conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a
substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or
the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree
that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard
of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the
circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.
(d) A person acts with criminal negligence, or is criminally
negligent, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or
the result of his conduct when he ought to be aware of a substantial
and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result
will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the
failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the
standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all
the circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.
Your Honor, Ladies, and Gentlemen of the Jury,
My client's computer uses a M$ OS. It was taken over by a hacker via BackOrifice. She did not download any music files. The defense holds that the hacker that installed BackOrifice use my client's computer as screen to download the files for his/her use.
Most folks, as my client, are not computer scientist, nerds, programers, etc.. They do not have the expertise to be able to deal with the clever manipulations of OS that hackers do. Do you really want to convict a person on the basis of the charges leveled by the RIAA. They need to explain, in detail, just how they ***know*** that my client was the one download the files that they allege that my client downloaded. Further they need to prove that my client did not at the time of the downloads that they allege, already legally possess the right to the music that the alleged files contained.
Let's suppose that all the ice in the Arctic, and Greenland melt, and salinity decreases. At some point the freshened water will dispurse. Could the Gulf Stream then 'turn back on'?
The old SALT talk was suppose to refer to Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, but I think that was a cover story.
Here in East Texas we run the AC 7-8 months a year. We, typically, have the hot water heater in the garage so as not to run up the AC bill. What makes the most sense, here, is a solar hot water system. There would likely be only 10 to 15 days a year, if that, where the a solar hot water system would not be able to meet all hot water needs.
In by gone years a solar hot water system would pay for itself in about seven years. However, with the increase in natural gas prices over the past year I'd be willing to bet the time it would take to recover the cost of installation has dropped to about five to five and a half years.
Yo AC! Sniff my pitts!
Your friendly neighborhood physics dude...
"Philosophy education in the United States is poor as well, which contributes to the problem."
/. that equate 'conservative christians' with ignorant hicks are grossly mistaken. I dare say that PBS, A&E, The History Channel, and the various Discovery Channels are some of the most popular TV fare with most of the 'conservitive christian' in this neck of the woods. Why so popular? The 'fundies' believe that these channels are --gasp-- educational.
Ah! Now we're getting somewhere!
The whole problem is that a central aspect of the lives of very many Americans is being ignored in the public school system, and THEY DON'T LIKE IT! Not one bit. They believe that their own children are being turned against them, and that is a BIG mistake. Never, ever, come between an American parent and their child. It's hazardous to your health. The reason that school vouchers are so popular among many conservatives is that it allow for parents to place their children in the sort of school that they, the parents, are comfortable with.
Given that the U.S. has a population of about 300 million there is no way you'll be able to please all the parents in the U.S.. Thus, allow for a variation among parents by allowing them to choose the school, and therefore the curriculum, for their children. Varied curricula will provide a greater 'diversity' than a *highly* standardized curriculum.
The truth is that 'fundies' want their children to have a *very* solid foundation in reading, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics(including the calculus), physics, astronomy, and chemistry. They have problems with evolutionary biology, 'revisionist history', and a lot of the social sciences. Speaking as a member of the physics, and astronomy community, I must say that I've also got more than a few issues with the 'social sciences'. O' course I'm not all that unusual in that many members of the physics, and astronomy community are not enamored with the 'social science'.
I've lived all my life in Texas, indeed in the buckle of the Bible Belt, I've rarely had people deal with me in a hostile manner because of my science background. This is also the experience of vast majority of my colleagues in the physical sciences, though some of the life science, and geology types have complained of 'fundamentalism'. It is my perception that anything that is highly mathematical is more immune to 'fundamentalist' ire than the less mathematical.
I must also say that in general, I find all but the most 'fundamentalist' quite curious about astronomy, space exploration, and physics. The people here on
Back in my day, here in Texas, we called them Nose Guards...
Oh, that's right I was a Nose Guard.
Spock the, if I just had more speed I could have gone pro, Baptist....
"You Canadians and Europeans can say what you want about the USA and "us Americans", however, as an American, I know that I do enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of thought and due process. We can't always say the same for you."
As Americans we also enjoy the 'Right to keep and bare arms.'
Whereas, in Canada they only enjoy the 'Right to arm and keep bears.'
A double malarky, and fudge!
The comments out of the physics community, to say the least, have been much stronger than that.
I failed in the parent post to point out that if either Milwaukee County, or Dane county, not to mention both were subtracted from the rest of Wisconsin in the 2004 election, Wisconsin would have gone Bush.
For Michigan it was Wayne County,
for Oregon it was Multnomah County,
for Minnesota it was Hennepin County,
for Pennsylvania it was Philadelphia County,
for Washington it was King County,
and of course for Illinois it was Cook County.
Each of these counties are the most populus in their respective states.
If you'll take a gander at the following: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized /where.jpg. You'll see that Kerry had very strong showings in large urban counties with high population densities. The fact that Kerry got about 48% of the popular vote is due to the very large margins that he accumulated in few heavily populated urban counties.
If you do a bit of homework you'll find that seven states: Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, would have been won by Bush but for the largest urban county (please note the singular tense) in each of those states.
Furthermore, New York State would have fallen into the Bush column but for NYC, and California was but three counties (LA County, SF County, and Contra Costa County) from going into the Bush column.
The point of my post is that the US is divided, politically, into urban, and non-urban political spheres. The Demos win LARGE margins in urban counties, but the GOP hold sway in the vast majority of non-urban counties. This has lead to very close elections in 2000, and 2004 in terms of the popular vote.
Ah, but Sunbelt *never downloaded* it. They obtained their copy otherwise, thus the *PDA* is unenforceable in their case. SpyMon was already on a client's computer, and was giving the client grief. It was from an examination of this computer at their client's request that SpyMon was detected, and further dealt with.
Sunbelt never *ran* SpyMon, nor did they ever download it, therefore no EULA[1], nor PDA was violated.
[1] Other post deal satisfactorily with the *run* issue.
Your homework problem is to determine the 'safe' distance from the gravel truck for hights of 5 ft., 7 ft., 9 ft., and 11 ft. using simple kinematic formulas (i.e. ignore aerodynamic effects).
Hights referring to the distance between the road surface and the bed or top of the gravel truck.
Discussion Questions:
Would the speed of the gravel truck make a difference in the 'safe' distance? Why?
Would the flatness of the road make a difference in the 'safe' distance? Why?
Would the direction and speed of the wind make a difference in the 'safe' distance? Why?
{Non-disclaimer disclaimer} IAPP
No what you get, more often than is funny, is someone who puts truly evil ideas into your mind. You know things like centrifugal force is real, and Newton's Second Law is F=ma.
Put yet still another way flying cars are always 15 years away.
An excellent post.
Statements that are manifestly obvious:
I'm in favor of good. I'm in favor of truth. I'm in favor of that which is noble.
I'm against evil, wickedness, sin, and nastiness.
The business of business is business.
What I wish most for is WORLD PEACE, and a non-polluting, safe, reliable, cheap, compact, widely available, and infinite source of energy for humanity. (Have I forgotten anything?)
All very true, but I don't think that you'll be swatting flies with your laptop...
Yo! Michael Padilla,
You ever heard of fair use?