I think this shows the differences in how people perceive "neutral". After all, some people think Fox News is fair and balanced while others say NPR is fair and balanced. Likewise, maybe some PR hacks for Wal-Mart really do believe they're being neutral and the author of TFA thinks the Wikipedia article isn't neutral enough. I'm not taking any sides on the issue. Probably the only way to be really neutral is to read as much as you can on the issue from both sides and try to cut through the bullshit, and really, most people don't have that time.
We've already seen patent holding companies suing the pants (and shirts and ties & everything else) out of other companies for patent infringement. What's to stop this one. I understand the idea of a company whose only revenue is from patent litigation or royalties, but still! Most companies make money by providing goods and services. This does neither and should be considered nothing more than a parasite.
How the hell did they get that kind of accuracy out of quasars? Incidentally, I wouldn't consider the ratio of the masses of two particles (one of which is a composite) as a fundamental constant, not like the speed of light or the fine structure constant.
If people want to pay $250 to watch Madonna play at a stadium, that's their business. As for me, I'm gonna pay my $30 bucks to a small venue to see Ministry and my $15 to Ticketmaster for the convenience of ordering through them.
They send a guy to your house, where he holds a gun to your head and makes you watch every commercial and every pop-up and you can't turn off the radio (cuz the radio doesn't play music anymore, it seems)?
I think the mistake most people make is that every faction has sub-factions which have sub-sub-factions. Not all environmentalists are anti-nuke. Not all animal rights activists are vegan or vegetarian, not all Republicans are bible-thumpers. The list goes on.
...is that the cloud isn't made of just methanol. It just has enough methanol to be detectable from its radio emissions. Most of this cloud (which has been known for a long time) is made up of hydrogen and helium, just like most of the universe.
There are plenty of scientists out there with counter-arguments and they're not all crackpots. Yes, some totally deny any warming at all and they tend towards crackpotism, but there is some hard evidence that suggests as much 30% of any warming we've seen is due to the sun's increased output over the past few decades (it's been covered on/. and other places). Before you go around saying "overwhelming scientific consensus" as if global warming is the next general relativity, check the facts. It's not as "proven" as some would have you think.
I've actually seen the detector at the Soudan Mine. Pretty impressive. Kinda hard to get to (300 mile drive into the middle of nowhere followed by a half mile trip underground).
I mean, in other FPS games, you're a space marine or some variant. In Half Life, you're a theoretical physicist. It gives hope to one such as myself, who aspires to be an observational astrophysicist.
"A number of assertions in this press release may be considered to be forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including timely development, and market acceptance of products and technologies, competitive market conditions, and the ability to secure additional sources of financing. The actual results Solar Energy Limited may achieve could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties"
I was going to say the same thing. If this had been printed in another source, I'd take it with a large block of salt. I'm still skeptical, of course. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the scientific community.
As an aside, I remember reading about an application of gravitomagnetism in Robert Forward's book "Dragon's Egg" (or the sequel, I can't remember which). Basically, creatures living on a neutron star use "black hole dust" in a way analogous to the way we use electrons in a maglev coil. They use this machine to reach space (being composed of nuclear material, they don't have chemical propellants).
It looks like the executive branch of the UK is seizing power, and we're seeing the same thing here in the US. We live in a time where democracy is spreading (I'm pretty sure over half of the countries in the world are "democratic"). At the same time, though, we're seeing more and more power concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people in those countries. George W. Bush has unprecedented power as President of the United States, and Tony Blair will, if this bill passes, will also have unprecedented powers. Even in places where the executive branch isn't seizing power, the top levels of government are increasingly intruding into people's lives. Not to mention the blatant corruption seen in many "democracies" and now beginning to manifest itself in the older, industrialized democracies. I'm not trying to sound like a nut, but it's enough to give any decent libertarian fits. Are they still taking people at Sealand?
I'm against a tiered Internet as much as the next guy, but there are precedents. Snail mail, for example, has a tiered system where you pay your 39 cents to get a letter someplace in sometime less than a week. You pay extra to get it there the next day. Many cities (the Twin Cities included) have lanes set aside for tolls, if you don't want to wait in gridlock. It seems that this is the way services are going, but that doesn't mean we have to like it (or even stand aside for it).
Broadband for all and making sure kids in inner city schools all have access to laptops. Great prioritization, people! I don't know about you, but for me, broadband falls on my list of necessities after air, water, food, shelter, heat/electricity, beer, transportation, and owning a computer. I mean, it's all well and good to offer cheap broadband, but if you can't afford a computer (and many can't), what good is it? And giving laptops to schools? I learned very well without a computer (didn't own one until college). And judging from the way kids usually treat books, giving them laptops seems like a very expensive way to get a bunch of doorstops.
So here's what I propose. Instead of cheap broadband, concentrate on education, providing for the mentally ill, treatment for drug/alcohol users, some sort of health care reform, etc etc. You know, stuff that helps people. I mean, that used to be one of the things Democrats stood for, right?
Actually, the numbering system used by the Arabs (and exported to the West) were in use centuries before the Mongol invasions. Gunpowder was certainly used by the Mongols, but was used by the Chinese and Arabs before them. The Mongols were pretty tolerant of other cultures and practiced meritocracy to a far greater degree than other cultures, but I would dispute the idea that they were effective governors. Sure, the Empire ran smoothly, but their downfall was succession. Like so many other empires (those of Alexander and Timur come to mind), it quickly fragmented after the death of Kublai Khan. I would say that a mark of an effective government is that it can survive the death of one man. Granted, I'm speaking from a culture steeped in rule-of-law and elective government, but you have to admit that an empire, great as it was, that lasted less than a century is hardly "effective".
"If you wanna be proud of anything, be proud of the fact that you are part of a race, sexuality, gender, and religion that has not been publicly ridiculed, tortured, eradicated, and had their ass kicked six ways from sunday for the past x-hundred years."
Yeah, tell that to the Irish, and the Italians, and the Poles, and the Dutch, and the Scots etc, etc. Being straight, white, Christian, and male is no proof against discrimination. Being straight, "white", agnostic and male myself, I can vouch for the fact that it's not a guarantor of wealth, either.
Don't forget that wind turbines are blamed for killing migratory birds. A wind farm in Spain was stopped (or delayed, I forget which) because of environmentalists for that reason. Hydroelectricity is another "renewable" energy source, but it also floods large amounts of land and disrupts rivers (and in some cases, floods archaeological artifacts).
It seems to me that many environmentalists oppose anything with the slightest impact on the environment. Nuclear energy has waste, wind power kills birds, hydro power kills fish, coal power releases CO2, etc. Yes, there are drawbacks, but their opposition to just about everything is counter-productive. I mean, how is Germany going to get electricity if it shuts down its nuclear plants? It sure ain't going to be from wind or solar. You can shut down a wind farm in Spain, but how are they going to generate power? The point is that nothing has zero impact. What we need is a unified strategy analyzing costs and benefits and the environmentalists need to stop with the knee-jerk opposition and the oil-men need to stop with the "everything's fine, there's plenty of oil" bullshit. Personally, I think nuclear is the way to go for now, but that's just my opinion.
People may be "downshifting" their lifestyles, but it's a drop in the bucket. Energy consumption continues to rise and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Conservation is hard, especially for those who are not dedicated to the cause. Real change won't be noticeable for decades and by then, it may already be too late (take your pick: global warming, oil sources depleted, oil sources inaccessible due to wars, etc. One of those is bound to happen). Going nuclear at least buys us some time.
Why do they even bother releasing this to the public. All it does is lead to mainstream journalists disasterbating. I mean, yeah, it's interesting to NEO experts and various nerds, but the general public, which has almost no functional science education, either gives 1/1000 of a rat's ass or panics unneccessarily. I know I harp on this every time, but please, give it a rest. Wake me when you find something that has at least a 1% chance of hitting sometime in the next century.
As usual with a new discovery, theorbit of the asteroid isn't well-known. I mean, they probably have a handful of observations over a short period, accurate to a few arcminutes and from this, they should be able to pinpoint it's position 100 years from now? (when you add in the gravity of the planets, it becomes even harder). The only reason NASA can pinpoint the positions of their probes to within a few kilometers is because they're equipped with radio transmitters which can give very precise velocities and positions. An asteroid has no radio transmitter, leading to much higher inaccuracy.
I would argue that having multiple faint optical companions would disqualify it from being a "double", since most stars will have faint stars in the background. Double implies 2 nearly equally bright stars in close proximity.
Slashdot Mirror
as if millions of hells had frozen over and were suddenly silenced.
I think this shows the differences in how people perceive "neutral". After all, some people think Fox News is fair and balanced while others say NPR is fair and balanced. Likewise, maybe some PR hacks for Wal-Mart really do believe they're being neutral and the author of TFA thinks the Wikipedia article isn't neutral enough. I'm not taking any sides on the issue. Probably the only way to be really neutral is to read as much as you can on the issue from both sides and try to cut through the bullshit, and really, most people don't have that time.
We've already seen patent holding companies suing the pants (and shirts and ties & everything else) out of other companies for patent infringement. What's to stop this one. I understand the idea of a company whose only revenue is from patent litigation or royalties, but still! Most companies make money by providing goods and services. This does neither and should be considered nothing more than a parasite.
How the hell did they get that kind of accuracy out of quasars? Incidentally, I wouldn't consider the ratio of the masses of two particles (one of which is a composite) as a fundamental constant, not like the speed of light or the fine structure constant.
If people want to pay $250 to watch Madonna play at a stadium, that's their business. As for me, I'm gonna pay my $30 bucks to a small venue to see Ministry and my $15 to Ticketmaster for the convenience of ordering through them.
They send a guy to your house, where he holds a gun to your head and makes you watch every commercial and every pop-up and you can't turn off the radio (cuz the radio doesn't play music anymore, it seems)?
I think the mistake most people make is that every faction has sub-factions which have sub-sub-factions. Not all environmentalists are anti-nuke. Not all animal rights activists are vegan or vegetarian, not all Republicans are bible-thumpers. The list goes on.
...is that the cloud isn't made of just methanol. It just has enough methanol to be detectable from its radio emissions. Most of this cloud (which has been known for a long time) is made up of hydrogen and helium, just like most of the universe.
There are plenty of scientists out there with counter-arguments and they're not all crackpots. Yes, some totally deny any warming at all and they tend towards crackpotism, but there is some hard evidence that suggests as much 30% of any warming we've seen is due to the sun's increased output over the past few decades (it's been covered on /. and other places). Before you go around saying "overwhelming scientific consensus" as if global warming is the next general relativity, check the facts. It's not as "proven" as some would have you think.
I've actually seen the detector at the Soudan Mine. Pretty impressive. Kinda hard to get to (300 mile drive into the middle of nowhere followed by a half mile trip underground).
I mean, is pink the new black?
I mean, in other FPS games, you're a space marine or some variant. In Half Life, you're a theoretical physicist. It gives hope to one such as myself, who aspires to be an observational astrophysicist.
"A number of assertions in this press release may be considered to be forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including timely development, and market acceptance of products and technologies, competitive market conditions, and the ability to secure additional sources of financing. The actual results Solar Energy Limited may achieve could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties"
That's one big CYA.
I was going to say the same thing. If this had been printed in another source, I'd take it with a large block of salt. I'm still skeptical, of course. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the scientific community.
As an aside, I remember reading about an application of gravitomagnetism in Robert Forward's book "Dragon's Egg" (or the sequel, I can't remember which). Basically, creatures living on a neutron star use "black hole dust" in a way analogous to the way we use electrons in a maglev coil. They use this machine to reach space (being composed of nuclear material, they don't have chemical propellants).
It looks like the executive branch of the UK is seizing power, and we're seeing the same thing here in the US. We live in a time where democracy is spreading (I'm pretty sure over half of the countries in the world are "democratic"). At the same time, though, we're seeing more and more power concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people in those countries. George W. Bush has unprecedented power as President of the United States, and Tony Blair will, if this bill passes, will also have unprecedented powers. Even in places where the executive branch isn't seizing power, the top levels of government are increasingly intruding into people's lives. Not to mention the blatant corruption seen in many "democracies" and now beginning to manifest itself in the older, industrialized democracies. I'm not trying to sound like a nut, but it's enough to give any decent libertarian fits. Are they still taking people at Sealand?
I'm against a tiered Internet as much as the next guy, but there are precedents. Snail mail, for example, has a tiered system where you pay your 39 cents to get a letter someplace in sometime less than a week. You pay extra to get it there the next day. Many cities (the Twin Cities included) have lanes set aside for tolls, if you don't want to wait in gridlock. It seems that this is the way services are going, but that doesn't mean we have to like it (or even stand aside for it).
Broadband for all and making sure kids in inner city schools all have access to laptops. Great prioritization, people! I don't know about you, but for me, broadband falls on my list of necessities after air, water, food, shelter, heat/electricity, beer, transportation, and owning a computer. I mean, it's all well and good to offer cheap broadband, but if you can't afford a computer (and many can't), what good is it? And giving laptops to schools? I learned very well without a computer (didn't own one until college). And judging from the way kids usually treat books, giving them laptops seems like a very expensive way to get a bunch of doorstops.
So here's what I propose. Instead of cheap broadband, concentrate on education, providing for the mentally ill, treatment for drug/alcohol users, some sort of health care reform, etc etc. You know, stuff that helps people. I mean, that used to be one of the things Democrats stood for, right?
Actually, the numbering system used by the Arabs (and exported to the West) were in use centuries before the Mongol invasions. Gunpowder was certainly used by the Mongols, but was used by the Chinese and Arabs before them. The Mongols were pretty tolerant of other cultures and practiced meritocracy to a far greater degree than other cultures, but I would dispute the idea that they were effective governors. Sure, the Empire ran smoothly, but their downfall was succession. Like so many other empires (those of Alexander and Timur come to mind), it quickly fragmented after the death of Kublai Khan. I would say that a mark of an effective government is that it can survive the death of one man. Granted, I'm speaking from a culture steeped in rule-of-law and elective government, but you have to admit that an empire, great as it was, that lasted less than a century is hardly "effective".
"If you wanna be proud of anything, be proud of the fact that you are part of a race, sexuality, gender, and religion that has not been publicly ridiculed, tortured, eradicated, and had their ass kicked six ways from sunday for the past x-hundred years."
Yeah, tell that to the Irish, and the Italians, and the Poles, and the Dutch, and the Scots etc, etc. Being straight, white, Christian, and male is no proof against discrimination. Being straight, "white", agnostic and male myself, I can vouch for the fact that it's not a guarantor of wealth, either.
The sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols didn't help things much, either.
Don't forget that wind turbines are blamed for killing migratory birds. A wind farm in Spain was stopped (or delayed, I forget which) because of environmentalists for that reason. Hydroelectricity is another "renewable" energy source, but it also floods large amounts of land and disrupts rivers (and in some cases, floods archaeological artifacts).
It seems to me that many environmentalists oppose anything with the slightest impact on the environment. Nuclear energy has waste, wind power kills birds, hydro power kills fish, coal power releases CO2, etc. Yes, there are drawbacks, but their opposition to just about everything is counter-productive. I mean, how is Germany going to get electricity if it shuts down its nuclear plants? It sure ain't going to be from wind or solar. You can shut down a wind farm in Spain, but how are they going to generate power? The point is that nothing has zero impact. What we need is a unified strategy analyzing costs and benefits and the environmentalists need to stop with the knee-jerk opposition and the oil-men need to stop with the "everything's fine, there's plenty of oil" bullshit.
Personally, I think nuclear is the way to go for now, but that's just my opinion.
People may be "downshifting" their lifestyles, but it's a drop in the bucket. Energy consumption continues to rise and will continue to do so for the forseeable future. Conservation is hard, especially for those who are not dedicated to the cause. Real change won't be noticeable for decades and by then, it may already be too late (take your pick: global warming, oil sources depleted, oil sources inaccessible due to wars, etc. One of those is bound to happen). Going nuclear at least buys us some time.
Why do they even bother releasing this to the public. All it does is lead to mainstream journalists disasterbating. I mean, yeah, it's interesting to NEO experts and various nerds, but the general public, which has almost no functional science education, either gives 1/1000 of a rat's ass or panics unneccessarily. I know I harp on this every time, but please, give it a rest. Wake me when you find something that has at least a 1% chance of hitting sometime in the next century.
As usual with a new discovery, theorbit of the asteroid isn't well-known. I mean, they probably have a handful of observations over a short period, accurate to a few arcminutes and from this, they should be able to pinpoint it's position 100 years from now? (when you add in the gravity of the planets, it becomes even harder). The only reason NASA can pinpoint the positions of their probes to within a few kilometers is because they're equipped with radio transmitters which can give very precise velocities and positions. An asteroid has no radio transmitter, leading to much higher inaccuracy.
I would argue that having multiple faint optical companions would disqualify it from being a "double", since most stars will have faint stars in the background. Double implies 2 nearly equally bright stars in close proximity.