You're right in at least one respect: most Americans DO dress like fucking idiots. I mean, honestly, basketball shorts that reach to mid-shin is fashionable?
While the Drake Equation has unknown values at the time, it IS scientific in that it uses laws of statistics and the unknown values can be constrained and measured at some point in the future. This Sitcom Equation, on the other hand, uses an arbitrary equation with variables that cannot be measured objectively at all. I noticed that the people who dreamed up this equation only apply it to a handful of shows that fit their pre-determined idea of success. A real scientific experiment would first test this equation against all shows and then make predictions for future shows. I just don't see this happening.
Let's assume that intelligence is controlled by one gene. If that's the case, smaller, isolated groups will likely have higher or lower occurrence of the gene in much the same way that populations can have higher or lower occurrence of sickle-cell anemia or hemophilia. The effect is mitigated in the general population because of a high degree of mixing. More likely, though, intelligence is controlled by at least a handful, if not a multitude of genes. In this case, even smaller populations will average out. But this assumes that intelligence is unaffected by other factors. We would have to ignore: a. that intelligence is hard to define b. intelligence is hard to measure without bias c. cultural pressures d. economic pressures e. educational differences f. emotional differences g..... h....
It's possible that different groups have differences in intelligence, but for now, it's impossible to cut through all the bullshit.
You're lucky. I had to sit next to a bunch of freakin' kids and heard more than one crying baby. And the rest of the theater was stuffed with Abercrombie & Fitch suburboclones.
The other day, I was watching some news program (they all begin to blur after a while) where they were debating Creationism vs. Evolution. The man arguing in favor of Creationism said quite specifically that he believed "every word in the Bible". When anyone says something like that, they're immediately disqualified from any rational discussion, in my book. Maybe I'm a product of my upbringing. I went to a Catholic high school where we learned about the Bible and one thing I learned is that in the first chapter, there are TWO creation stories. If you take one to be literally true, then you cannot take the other one to be true since they're mutually contradictory. Logically then, they CANNOT both be true. This is in the first chapter, for Christ's sake, the contradictions continue throughout the entire book. Since a RATIONAL being cannot take the entire book to be literally true, then the conclusion must be that the Bible is merely an interpretation, opening up the possiblity that science may in fact be correct. After all, science does not disprove the existence of God, nor does it prove the existence of God. The two are mutually exclusive and therefore can coexist. I guess my point is that there is no point in arguing with a Creationist, since s/he is not rational.
On the other hand, pics in Minneapolis are less than a year old, judging by the progress of the construction across the street from where I used to live.
In general, I'm in favor of self-regulation over government regulation, but this goes too far. My guess is the German government was planning on putting pressure on these companies and they beat the government to the punch. We've seen this kind of thing before, where a company or industry self-regulates before the government can impose harsher regulations, ie the ESRB and their rating system. On the other hand, the ESRB ratings are supposed to make it easier for parents to make choices as to what games are appropriate for their children while allowing adult gamers to continue buying the games they want to play. The major search engines regulating their search results is still censorship, whether it's a government doing it or an industry. This sets a dangerous precedent. Anyone can say something is for "the greater good" and impose harsh regulations, but it's still wrong. All speech should be free, whether it's reasoned political discourse or "hate" speech (which is still not clearly defined) or pornography (also not clearly defined). When one form of speech is banned, it's only a matter of time before more and more is banned and we're left with government approved propoganda.
Funny, I read the Wikipedia article and it doesn't look like there's much of a consensus at all. In fact, it looks like there is so much that we don't know that to definitively state anything about climate change is to speak from one's lowest sphincter.
Maybe it's different in other states, but here in Minnesota, we have on our drivers licenses: 1. digital photographs 2. anti-counterfeiting measures 3. machine-readable technology (bar code & mag strip)
My only gripes are: 1. Forced sharing of information between states. While some shared database is probably practical, sharing ALL of that information is too much. 2. This is a law that shifts yet more power from the states to the federal government.
but if I'm going to spend 240 bucks on sushi, I damn-well better be eating raw fish, not pictures of raw fish. It's an interesting idea, sure, and some of his inventions may have practical uses, but I highly doubt he's going to be able to levitate food. He'd either need to cool it with liquid nitrogen and put it on a superconducting plate, making it inedible, or he'd need freakin' huge magnets. And as for food disappearing, hell, I can do that easily. It's called "eating".
Absorb the electromagnetic waves generated from the battery.
Generate a flow of negative ions.
Interact with the battery's internal electrolyte and ions.
1. Batteries do not generate electromagnetic waves. Batteries are DC, hence no oscillation of electric fields, thus no EM waves.
2. What happens when the negative ions interfere with that little device I saw on TV that is supposed to get rid of negative ions. I guess I have to choose between my cellphone and my chakras being aligned.
3. How can something that is electrically isolated from the battery interact with its internal components.
I'm sorry, but this smells like pseudoscientific bullshit. Why are we being subjected to this?
Elimintating Social Security won't balance the budget. In fact, it will make it even harder. By law, Social Security outlays are seperate from the budget. Any surpluses, though, are added to the budget income. Since Social Security is running at a surplus of about $154 billion, removing Social Security from the picture will only increase the deficit by that much. So instead of a deficit of $521 billion in 2004, we're really running at a deficit of $675. billion.
I haven't been keeping track, but there have been a number of articles previous to this one either saying an asteroid WOULD hit Earth or would have a small chance of hitting Earth. Less than a month later, though, the statement would be revised to "no chance" of hitting Earth. I guarantee this will happen by the end of next month. And even if it does hit Earth, the size is not enough to cause much climate change and the chances of hitting an urban center are small, considering how little area cities take up in the larger scheme of things.
It's interesting that they don't offer up an explanation for the cellular damage. Last time I checked, microwaves were non-ionizing. The worst you should experience from a cell phone might be a little heat. I'm skeptical, as usual. Remember the scare about power lines? About alar? Remember a couple years back when there was a study that showed that heated carbohydrates can produce a cancer-causing chemical (I forget the name)? Wine was bad for you, then it was good, then it was bad, and now it's good again. There's a new study every year that shows something from the modern world kills us. Well, last time I checked, living in a modern society generally means you're going to live 40 years or more beyond what someone in a primitive society could expect. So even if everything is bad for you, it's more than balanced out by the things that are good.
Who cares about the enviromental impact on the moon? It doesn't have one! I've talked to people who are concerned about that and you know what? Destroying the moon's environment (or lack thereof) is a hell of a lot better than destroying the environment we have here. If it made more cost-effective to mine the moon, I say go for it. We can shut down mines here and stop worrying about taconite slag polluting our rivers.
Out of all the renewable energy sources, solar would have to be the greenest, once you take into account the damage that hydroelectric does to rivers and the possibility of wind generators killing migrating birds. On the other hand, solar is damned expensive. I did some rough calculations a while back and found that to convert all of the US's power generation to solar, we would have to spend well over a trillion dollars and cover an area the size of Connecticut. That's bound to have two effects: a.) A national budget deficit that makes the current one look tiny b.) someone will start whining about how all these new solar panels are destroying the habitat of the spotted lizard, which needs lots of sun to survive.
On the other hand, I've found that converting to the latest pebble-bed nuclear reactors would cost less than a quarter of what it would cost to convert to solar. I know it's an unpopular energy source, but dammit, it's relatively cheap and doesn't spew carbon dioxide everywhere, making it much greener than fossil fuels. But, hey, what do I know?
Re:America, where just mentioning the word "Nigger
on
New Games Journalism
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You make a good point. These days, you can hardly label anyone with any word without being labelled racist. You can call them "Negroes" and get called a racist, yet they have the United Negro College Fund. You can call them "Colored People", but there's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Even something innocuous as "Black" will get reactions from some people. Now, we're supposed to use "African-Americans", though a lot of people labelled this way have had roots in this country for far longer than most. Not to mention that "African American" treats Africa like some monolithic culture and somehow diminishes the sheer variety of cultures found there. Not to mention that many recent immigrants from Africa are annoyed by that label. So, really, it does depend on context.
While I agree on your point that there is a bias showing here, I would point out that insecticides are generally harmful to humans as well. To prove my point, I will now drink this glass of DEET.
I like this quote from our friend, Joe Lieberman...
"The fact that the assassination of President Kennedy, which broke our hearts and altered our history, could become the subject of a video game from which people are making money is just outrageous, it is despicable, it's unbelievable," Lieberman said.
Change it to "The fact that the Second World War, killed millions of people and altered our history, could become the subject of a video game from which people are making money is just outrageous, it is despicable, it's unbelievable," Lieberman said.
While I agree the subject matter is tasteless, even suggesting censoring the game based on its subject matter is would be just another step on the road to banning all video games based on their subject matter. Except, of course, "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster"
Bart: When I'm feeling low, you know what always cheers me up? Todd: Is it love? Rod: Kindness? Bart: Ooh, tough room. Videogames! Whaddya got? [grabs a videogame off the shelf, and reads the title] "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster?" Rod: Keep firing; convert the heathens! [cut to a pixilated video screen. Heathens cross the street, as a Bible gun shoots the Holy Book at them. When a heathen gets hit, he turns into a conservatively dressed man with a halo] [cut back to the boys] Bart: Got him! Rod: No, you just winged him and made him a Unitarian. Todd: Look out, Bart! A gentle Baha'i! [cut back to the video screen. A Baha'i, sitting cross- legged and wearing a turban, floats past. Bart zaps him, and turns him into another suit-wearing conservative] [cut back to the boys] Bart: All right! Full conversion! [puts his arms around Rod and Todd] Thanks guys, this really cheered me up. Video: Second Coming! Reload, reload! Todd: Can we play now? Bart: We are playing. We're a team. Rod + Todd: [pause] Yay!
That's IF antimatter can be manufactured cheaply, which I highly doubt. I think it would be far better to spend the money that it would take to produce a microgram of antimatter and spend it on a space elevator instead.
Re:Radioactivity is our friend! ... apparently...
on
Nuclear Batteries
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Since when are cellphones radioactive?
Re:New addition to the Patriot Act?
on
Nuclear Batteries
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· Score: 4, Informative
Or he could buy several thousand smoke detectors today, which also contain radioisotopes (americium, I believe) for about the same price and have even more radioactive material. What's your point?
Slashdot Mirror
Skill at bluffing aside, it's really easy to produce a robot with an excellent poker face.
You're right in at least one respect: most Americans DO dress like fucking idiots. I mean, honestly, basketball shorts that reach to mid-shin is fashionable?
While the Drake Equation has unknown values at the time, it IS scientific in that it uses laws of statistics and the unknown values can be constrained and measured at some point in the future. This Sitcom Equation, on the other hand, uses an arbitrary equation with variables that cannot be measured objectively at all. I noticed that the people who dreamed up this equation only apply it to a handful of shows that fit their pre-determined idea of success. A real scientific experiment would first test this equation against all shows and then make predictions for future shows. I just don't see this happening.
Let's assume that intelligence is controlled by one gene. If that's the case, smaller, isolated groups will likely have higher or lower occurrence of the gene in much the same way that populations can have higher or lower occurrence of sickle-cell anemia or hemophilia. The effect is mitigated in the general population because of a high degree of mixing.
More likely, though, intelligence is controlled by at least a handful, if not a multitude of genes. In this case, even smaller populations will average out.
But this assumes that intelligence is unaffected by other factors. We would have to ignore:
a. that intelligence is hard to define
b. intelligence is hard to measure without bias
c. cultural pressures
d. economic pressures
e. educational differences
f. emotional differences
g.....
h....
It's possible that different groups have differences in intelligence, but for now, it's impossible to cut through all the bullshit.
You're lucky. I had to sit next to a bunch of freakin' kids and heard more than one crying baby. And the rest of the theater was stuffed with Abercrombie & Fitch suburboclones.
The other day, I was watching some news program (they all begin to blur after a while) where they were debating Creationism vs. Evolution. The man arguing in favor of Creationism said quite specifically that he believed "every word in the Bible". When anyone says something like that, they're immediately disqualified from any rational discussion, in my book. Maybe I'm a product of my upbringing. I went to a Catholic high school where we learned about the Bible and one thing I learned is that in the first chapter, there are TWO creation stories. If you take one to be literally true, then you cannot take the other one to be true since they're mutually contradictory. Logically then, they CANNOT both be true. This is in the first chapter, for Christ's sake, the contradictions continue throughout the entire book. Since a RATIONAL being cannot take the entire book to be literally true, then the conclusion must be that the Bible is merely an interpretation, opening up the possiblity that science may in fact be correct. After all, science does not disprove the existence of God, nor does it prove the existence of God. The two are mutually exclusive and therefore can coexist. I guess my point is that there is no point in arguing with a Creationist, since s/he is not rational.
On the other hand, pics in Minneapolis are less than a year old, judging by the progress of the construction across the street from where I used to live.
In general, I'm in favor of self-regulation over government regulation, but this goes too far. My guess is the German government was planning on putting pressure on these companies and they beat the government to the punch. We've seen this kind of thing before, where a company or industry self-regulates before the government can impose harsher regulations, ie the ESRB and their rating system.
On the other hand, the ESRB ratings are supposed to make it easier for parents to make choices as to what games are appropriate for their children while allowing adult gamers to continue buying the games they want to play. The major search engines regulating their search results is still censorship, whether it's a government doing it or an industry.
This sets a dangerous precedent. Anyone can say something is for "the greater good" and impose harsh regulations, but it's still wrong. All speech should be free, whether it's reasoned political discourse or "hate" speech (which is still not clearly defined) or pornography (also not clearly defined). When one form of speech is banned, it's only a matter of time before more and more is banned and we're left with government approved propoganda.
Funny, I read the Wikipedia article and it doesn't look like there's much of a consensus at all. In fact, it looks like there is so much that we don't know that to definitively state anything about climate change is to speak from one's lowest sphincter.
Maybe it's different in other states, but here in Minnesota, we have on our drivers licenses:
1. digital photographs
2. anti-counterfeiting measures
3. machine-readable technology (bar code & mag strip)
My only gripes are:
1. Forced sharing of information between states. While some shared database is probably practical, sharing ALL of that information is too much.
2. This is a law that shifts yet more power from the states to the federal government.
but if I'm going to spend 240 bucks on sushi, I damn-well better be eating raw fish, not pictures of raw fish. It's an interesting idea, sure, and some of his inventions may have practical uses, but I highly doubt he's going to be able to levitate food. He'd either need to cool it with liquid nitrogen and put it on a superconducting plate, making it inedible, or he'd need freakin' huge magnets. And as for food disappearing, hell, I can do that easily. It's called "eating".
Maybe that's the origin of The Tick's battle cry "SPOON!"
The foil and the material are designed to:
Absorb the electromagnetic waves generated from the battery.
Generate a flow of negative ions.
Interact with the battery's internal electrolyte and ions.
1. Batteries do not generate electromagnetic waves. Batteries are DC, hence no oscillation of electric fields, thus no EM waves.
2. What happens when the negative ions interfere with that little device I saw on TV that is supposed to get rid of negative ions. I guess I have to choose between my cellphone and my chakras being aligned.
3. How can something that is electrically isolated from the battery interact with its internal components.
I'm sorry, but this smells like pseudoscientific bullshit. Why are we being subjected to this?
Elimintating Social Security won't balance the budget. In fact, it will make it even harder. By law, Social Security outlays are seperate from the budget. Any surpluses, though, are added to the budget income. Since Social Security is running at a surplus of about $154 billion, removing Social Security from the picture will only increase the deficit by that much. So instead of a deficit of $521 billion in 2004, we're really running at a deficit of $675. billion.
I haven't been keeping track, but there have been a number of articles previous to this one either saying an asteroid WOULD hit Earth or would have a small chance of hitting Earth. Less than a month later, though, the statement would be revised to "no chance" of hitting Earth. I guarantee this will happen by the end of next month. And even if it does hit Earth, the size is not enough to cause much climate change and the chances of hitting an urban center are small, considering how little area cities take up in the larger scheme of things.
Microwaves have something like 100,000 times the power of a radio wave and can do alot more damage as a result.
Visible light has even more power than microwaves. By this logic, sitting under a 60 watt light bulb can cause more damage than using a cell phone.
It's interesting that they don't offer up an explanation for the cellular damage. Last time I checked, microwaves were non-ionizing. The worst you should experience from a cell phone might be a little heat. I'm skeptical, as usual. Remember the scare about power lines? About alar? Remember a couple years back when there was a study that showed that heated carbohydrates can produce a cancer-causing chemical (I forget the name)? Wine was bad for you, then it was good, then it was bad, and now it's good again. There's a new study every year that shows something from the modern world kills us. Well, last time I checked, living in a modern society generally means you're going to live 40 years or more beyond what someone in a primitive society could expect. So even if everything is bad for you, it's more than balanced out by the things that are good.
Who cares about the enviromental impact on the moon? It doesn't have one! I've talked to people who are concerned about that and you know what? Destroying the moon's environment (or lack thereof) is a hell of a lot better than destroying the environment we have here. If it made more cost-effective to mine the moon, I say go for it. We can shut down mines here and stop worrying about taconite slag polluting our rivers.
Out of all the renewable energy sources, solar would have to be the greenest, once you take into account the damage that hydroelectric does to rivers and the possibility of wind generators killing migrating birds. On the other hand, solar is damned expensive. I did some rough calculations a while back and found that to convert all of the US's power generation to solar, we would have to spend well over a trillion dollars and cover an area the size of Connecticut. That's bound to have two effects:
a.) A national budget deficit that makes the current one look tiny
b.) someone will start whining about how all these new solar panels are destroying the habitat of the spotted lizard, which needs lots of sun to survive.
On the other hand, I've found that converting to the latest pebble-bed nuclear reactors would cost less than a quarter of what it would cost to convert to solar. I know it's an unpopular energy source, but dammit, it's relatively cheap and doesn't spew carbon dioxide everywhere, making it much greener than fossil fuels. But, hey, what do I know?
You make a good point. These days, you can hardly label anyone with any word without being labelled racist. You can call them "Negroes" and get called a racist, yet they have the United Negro College Fund. You can call them "Colored People", but there's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Even something innocuous as "Black" will get reactions from some people. Now, we're supposed to use "African-Americans", though a lot of people labelled this way have had roots in this country for far longer than most. Not to mention that "African American" treats Africa like some monolithic culture and somehow diminishes the sheer variety of cultures found there. Not to mention that many recent immigrants from Africa are annoyed by that label. So, really, it does depend on context.
While I agree on your point that there is a bias showing here, I would point out that insecticides are generally harmful to humans as well. To prove my point, I will now drink this glass of DEET.
*gulp*
HRRRK.........
I like this quote from our friend, Joe Lieberman...
"The fact that the assassination of President Kennedy, which broke our hearts and altered our history, could become the subject of a video game from which people are making money is just outrageous, it is despicable, it's unbelievable," Lieberman said.
Change it to
"The fact that the Second World War, killed millions of people and altered our history, could become the subject of a video game from which people are making money is just outrageous, it is despicable, it's unbelievable," Lieberman said.
While I agree the subject matter is tasteless, even suggesting censoring the game based on its subject matter is would be just another step on the road to banning all video games based on their subject matter. Except, of course, "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster"
Bart: When I'm feeling low, you know what always cheers me up?
Todd: Is it love?
Rod: Kindness?
Bart: Ooh, tough room. Videogames! Whaddya got? [grabs a videogame off the shelf, and reads the title] "Billy Graham's Bible Blaster?"
Rod: Keep firing; convert the heathens! [cut to a pixilated video screen. Heathens cross the street, as a Bible gun shoots the Holy Book at them. When a heathen gets hit, he turns into a conservatively dressed man with a halo]
[cut back to the boys]
Bart: Got him!
Rod: No, you just winged him and made him a Unitarian.
Todd: Look out, Bart! A gentle Baha'i! [cut back to the video screen. A Baha'i, sitting cross- legged and wearing a turban, floats past. Bart zaps him, and turns him into another suit-wearing conservative]
[cut back to the boys]
Bart: All right! Full conversion! [puts his arms around Rod and Todd] Thanks guys, this really cheered me up.
Video: Second Coming! Reload, reload!
Todd: Can we play now?
Bart: We are playing. We're a team.
Rod + Todd: [pause] Yay!
That's IF antimatter can be manufactured cheaply, which I highly doubt. I think it would be far better to spend the money that it would take to produce a microgram of antimatter and spend it on a space elevator instead.
Since when are cellphones radioactive?
Or he could buy several thousand smoke detectors today, which also contain radioisotopes (americium, I believe) for about the same price and have even more radioactive material. What's your point?