These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural.
Oh? How? By the way the Island of Krakatoa had been in the Sundra strait for thousands of years, and then it disappeared overnight. This would dispel in one fell swoop any notion that volcanoes could be natural.
You are a little bit behind on the news. The Yuan hasn't been pegged to the dollar for a while. The US doesn't like this, but they can no longer stop it. Of course this never makes the mainstream "AMERICA FUCK YEAH" news channels.
I'm just wondering how you plan to get the energy to power said lasers. With solar panels maybe you could fire the laser every couple years or so... doesn't seem very efficient.
What does it matter when they cost 100 times less, and you have thousands and thousands of them? The Chinese have never been afraid of screwing up big time. There are plenty more Chinese. Very blunt, but true. No government anywhere really gives a damn about its people. It gives a damn about staying in power.
Even though they are unquiet neighbors I think they can't afford to be hostile in the same way as the US and Canada can't be hostile. When you share such a vast land border it's best to be friends because just the cost of policing it in a serious fashion would break both nations.
I know a few astronomers who would give their right testicle to be able to put a telescope somewhere where there is no air and no magnetosphere. And preferably on the far side of the moon to get rid of light from that pesky blue thing in the middle of the sky. Don't write off a "moon base" just yet, there are legitimate uses.
Why? They have all of Latin America, India and Africa to sell to. It doesn't take long for those countries to catch up the US when economic growth in the US is virtually nil. The US by no means has the largest population in the world, so its economic importance can only shrink over time as others grow. Haven't you noticed how China has been very active signing trade agreements all over South and Central America lately? And with none of those bullshit "sign here but also you have to change your laws to match ours" clauses either.
If you shut down the whole internet, there will be no more internet-based attacks. Just like if you handcuff everyone to their beds, there will be no more crime.
In other words, our response to the minor incident is what causes the damage?
As a physician I can't help but notice the similarity: You would not believe how many disease conditions are caused by a person's own immune system over-reacting to an otherwise relatively benign situation. Take for example the leading cause of death - heart disease due to atherosclerosis. A condition where macrophages (part of the body's defenses) decide to "eat" LDL cholesterol because they think that this natural component of the blood-stream is a foreign body. Unfortunately for them they don't know that they can't digest LDL-cholesterol, so they keep eating it without metabolizing it, turning into "foam cells", dying, and releasing all sorts of nasty stuff when they die, nasty stuff that calls other macrophages to the scene to see what's going on. Unfortunately the scene happens to be your coronary arteries. Almost all rheumatic and inflammatory diseases are caused by similar mechanisms - overstimulation of the host's immune response leading to tissue damage from one cell line or another, or overproduction of antibodies or complement, etc; as well as some infectious ones (like TB, for example).
Perhaps we should deal all of their plots a fatal blow by tempering our responses
Well if you are responding then you are not the one with the initiative. You need to get them to respond to you. And you need to deal the "fatal blow" by either removing their ability to hurt you (completely impossible because explosives are so easy to make - they were making them in the 11th century for god's sake), or removing their desire to hurt you. I would put my money on the latter, but honestly this would require a complete re-write of current policy as well as a major re-shuffling of world politics and economics. So that's not going to happen either. What's left is damage control and trying to minimize the size of events and losses when they do happen. I guess that's what is being done now.
It's too bad that a fun hobby like RC aircraft was co-opted by the military for use in target drones and later surveillance aircraft and now weapons platforms. Of course one understands the reasons - they are cheap, well no now they are $100 million each but they used to be cheap, they are quiet, and you don't need to put a pilot in danger or have the whole logistical set up of a full airbase to support one. At some point the airbase itself becomes a target that needs to be defended. A drone can be launched or recovered from almost anywhere - depending on the drone.
It was an idea that made sense. But ideas grow, just like the concept of lighting gunpowder behind a ball of lead inside a tube. The basic properties of drones remain - almost anyone can fly one. They are cheap. They are quiet. And you can't put a hellfire missile on one but you certainly could put a couple pounds of explosives, and fly it absolutely anywhere. And I mean anywhere. If the military can do it, so can you. Because of this innate problem, my prediction is that RC aircraft - owning one, manufacturing one, or flying one, is about to be grabbed by the government and handed to the military. Just like today guns are under strict control, RC aircraft will soon be under strict control. And that's sad because the vast, vast majority of RC aircraft are flown by hobbyists for fun.
Apart from the damage to moral of having an explosive device go off within a secure perimeter, and the economic/logistical damage of having an area sealed off for a time for the ensuing investigation and repairs, you mean? You really don't get asymmetric warfare, do you? It's not all about the body-count.
Yes, much better to hide behind the mask of anonymity and criticize everyone else. That certainly contributes to the advancement of our species as a whole. I am fully aware that no one gives a shit about what I think. But you seem to think that people give a shit about you.
Yeah good point. The state of Maryland and the state of Israel should sue Bethesda for stealing that name. It can be confusing - do they mean Bethesda the town (CDP) or Bethesda the pool or Bethesda the purveyor of mediocre games that sell only because there's nothing better on the market at the time?
It's Nielsen, not Nielson. And there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and then Nielsen. My wife is a market research manager and has to deal with them, and other companies like Millward Brown and Ipsos who are in the same business. Short version: don't believe everything Nielsen tells you.
Being a parent of two now adult children, I can't say I agree. While there are environments that are conducive to learning and environments that aren't, you can't blame it all on the parents. I have two children who both grew up in the same household and were raised to the same standard. One of them loves math and has pursued a university career that involves math. The other hates studying, hates math, and probably wouldn't qualify as a burger-flipper. If "the parents" are to blame, please discuss this quite common disparity.
The reason people are afraid of math is usually around the time they get an 8th grade math teacher, you know, after all the easy stuff is over and they get boring Mr. so and so who will explode your brain with geometry, algebra and trig that he barely understands himself. You know, the guy who actually has negative creativity and sucks it out of anyone he speaks to. The guy who is capable of putting students to sleep from across campus. Yeah, that guy. It then becomes a case of learn the formula, try to pass the test, another term over with, rinse, repeat.
Hey no problem. Communication is what it's all about. I'm glad you had a positive experience.
My point of view is that of a physician, because I am one myself. It's absolutely true that any pre-schooler can follow an algorithm and "cure" disease with a high degree of success. After all that is why, in your country, you let nurses and "physician assistants" screen patients and do the grunt-work. Medicine is not hard. However I will argue that in the US medicine has become all about the technology and the tests, and not at all about the patient. I don't practice in the US, but one hears stories of regular CT scans for migraines, abdominal ultrasounds for appendicitis, etc. Mixed in with these stories is a healthy dose of "defensive medicine" (I will do these tests exclusively to lessen my likelyhood of being sued for negligence because there is a faint possibility of a misdiagnosis).
At the end of the day when you add it all up, you end up with a very expensive health system. Yeah ok you paid $20 for the consultation. Now how much did the X-ray cost? How much did the spirometry (blowing in the tube) cost? Even if you didn't pay up front, someone somewhere paid for the equipment, the film, and the little disposable cardboard toilet-paper roll thing you blow in (you would not believe how much those cost!). Now compare that with visiting someone like me, who probably would have prescribed you the same antibiotic and the same cough syrup after a couple minutes of listening to your lungs through your back, and tapping you on the ribs with my finger. No x-ray. No spirometry. Which is more efficient?
A doctor is not supposed to order tests just to order tests. They only do that on medical shows. Well no, they are doing that regularly in the US. But you are supposed to know the results of the test before you get it. The test exists to prove your hypothesis (the diagnostic impression), not to "brute-force" a diagnosis. Now admittedly there are cases where a diagnosis is not clear - older patients with several chronic diseases, unconscious patients, pediatric patients, patients with very slight symptoms. These are harder to diagnose and more testing might be required. But in the example you gave me - a patient with a severe cough - the possibilities are very limited. Yes there are many many possibilities - pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, lung cancer, TB, asthma, etc etc etc. However you consider the age of the patient, how long you've had the symptoms, how severe the symptoms are, obstructive versus restrictive problem (through a physical exam, no spirometry required), and it's a pretty safe bet we're up against pneumonitis (viral most likely) or pneumonia (bacterial). Despite everything the CDC and infectologists say about overprescription of antibiotics, I would probably send you home with antibiotics (viral infections do sometimes turn into bacterial ones due to all that inflammation) and a note to come back in a few days if you are not recovered. If you don't recover, THEN we start looking at x-rays, etc.
What they are doing is all the testing up front. That's great when you want to sell tests. It's great when you have patients who are more trusting of a machine than the human doctor sitting in front of them. But it's not really good "medicine". My $0.02.
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I guess oligopolies are not free markets.
You cannot argue around a logical fallacy. While your statement may be true, it does not support the original false statement.
These observations should dispel in one fell swoop any notion that recent global warming could be natural.
Oh? How? By the way the Island of Krakatoa had been in the Sundra strait for thousands of years, and then it disappeared overnight. This would dispel in one fell swoop any notion that volcanoes could be natural.
You are a little bit behind on the news. The Yuan hasn't been pegged to the dollar for a while. The US doesn't like this, but they can no longer stop it. Of course this never makes the mainstream "AMERICA FUCK YEAH" news channels.
And no one will be able to figure out the assembly instructions.
I'm just wondering how you plan to get the energy to power said lasers. With solar panels maybe you could fire the laser every couple years or so... doesn't seem very efficient.
What does it matter when they cost 100 times less, and you have thousands and thousands of them? The Chinese have never been afraid of screwing up big time. There are plenty more Chinese. Very blunt, but true. No government anywhere really gives a damn about its people. It gives a damn about staying in power.
he almost said defector - maybe it was a Freudian slip?
Even though they are unquiet neighbors I think they can't afford to be hostile in the same way as the US and Canada can't be hostile. When you share such a vast land border it's best to be friends because just the cost of policing it in a serious fashion would break both nations.
it benefits no one.
I know a few astronomers who would give their right testicle to be able to put a telescope somewhere where there is no air and no magnetosphere. And preferably on the far side of the moon to get rid of light from that pesky blue thing in the middle of the sky. Don't write off a "moon base" just yet, there are legitimate uses.
They're as fucked as we are.
Why? They have all of Latin America, India and Africa to sell to. It doesn't take long for those countries to catch up the US when economic growth in the US is virtually nil. The US by no means has the largest population in the world, so its economic importance can only shrink over time as others grow. Haven't you noticed how China has been very active signing trade agreements all over South and Central America lately? And with none of those bullshit "sign here but also you have to change your laws to match ours" clauses either.
if you have a space program that relies on private entities then the space program is doomed.
SpaceX. Discuss.
If you shut down the whole internet, there will be no more internet-based attacks. Just like if you handcuff everyone to their beds, there will be no more crime.
In other words, our response to the minor incident is what causes the damage?
As a physician I can't help but notice the similarity: You would not believe how many disease conditions are caused by a person's own immune system over-reacting to an otherwise relatively benign situation. Take for example the leading cause of death - heart disease due to atherosclerosis. A condition where macrophages (part of the body's defenses) decide to "eat" LDL cholesterol because they think that this natural component of the blood-stream is a foreign body. Unfortunately for them they don't know that they can't digest LDL-cholesterol, so they keep eating it without metabolizing it, turning into "foam cells", dying, and releasing all sorts of nasty stuff when they die, nasty stuff that calls other macrophages to the scene to see what's going on. Unfortunately the scene happens to be your coronary arteries. Almost all rheumatic and inflammatory diseases are caused by similar mechanisms - overstimulation of the host's immune response leading to tissue damage from one cell line or another, or overproduction of antibodies or complement, etc; as well as some infectious ones (like TB, for example).
Perhaps we should deal all of their plots a fatal blow by tempering our responses
Well if you are responding then you are not the one with the initiative. You need to get them to respond to you. And you need to deal the "fatal blow" by either removing their ability to hurt you (completely impossible because explosives are so easy to make - they were making them in the 11th century for god's sake), or removing their desire to hurt you. I would put my money on the latter, but honestly this would require a complete re-write of current policy as well as a major re-shuffling of world politics and economics. So that's not going to happen either. What's left is damage control and trying to minimize the size of events and losses when they do happen. I guess that's what is being done now.
It's too bad that a fun hobby like RC aircraft was co-opted by the military for use in target drones and later surveillance aircraft and now weapons platforms. Of course one understands the reasons - they are cheap, well no now they are $100 million each but they used to be cheap, they are quiet, and you don't need to put a pilot in danger or have the whole logistical set up of a full airbase to support one. At some point the airbase itself becomes a target that needs to be defended. A drone can be launched or recovered from almost anywhere - depending on the drone.
It was an idea that made sense. But ideas grow, just like the concept of lighting gunpowder behind a ball of lead inside a tube. The basic properties of drones remain - almost anyone can fly one. They are cheap. They are quiet. And you can't put a hellfire missile on one but you certainly could put a couple pounds of explosives, and fly it absolutely anywhere. And I mean anywhere. If the military can do it, so can you. Because of this innate problem, my prediction is that RC aircraft - owning one, manufacturing one, or flying one, is about to be grabbed by the government and handed to the military. Just like today guns are under strict control, RC aircraft will soon be under strict control. And that's sad because the vast, vast majority of RC aircraft are flown by hobbyists for fun.
* morale, sheesh.
Apart from the damage to moral of having an explosive device go off within a secure perimeter, and the economic/logistical damage of having an area sealed off for a time for the ensuing investigation and repairs, you mean? You really don't get asymmetric warfare, do you? It's not all about the body-count.
Yes, much better to hide behind the mask of anonymity and criticize everyone else. That certainly contributes to the advancement of our species as a whole. I am fully aware that no one gives a shit about what I think. But you seem to think that people give a shit about you.
Obama has been bombing Libya for months now without invoking the war powers act.
And Pakistan. And Yemen. And Somalia. And who knows where else...
Yeah good point. The state of Maryland and the state of Israel should sue Bethesda for stealing that name. It can be confusing - do they mean Bethesda the town (CDP) or Bethesda the pool or Bethesda the purveyor of mediocre games that sell only because there's nothing better on the market at the time?
It's Nielsen, not Nielson. And there are lies, damned lies, statistics, and then Nielsen. My wife is a market research manager and has to deal with them, and other companies like Millward Brown and Ipsos who are in the same business. Short version: don't believe everything Nielsen tells you.
Being a parent of two now adult children, I can't say I agree. While there are environments that are conducive to learning and environments that aren't, you can't blame it all on the parents. I have two children who both grew up in the same household and were raised to the same standard. One of them loves math and has pursued a university career that involves math. The other hates studying, hates math, and probably wouldn't qualify as a burger-flipper. If "the parents" are to blame, please discuss this quite common disparity.
The reason people are afraid of math is usually around the time they get an 8th grade math teacher, you know, after all the easy stuff is over and they get boring Mr. so and so who will explode your brain with geometry, algebra and trig that he barely understands himself. You know, the guy who actually has negative creativity and sucks it out of anyone he speaks to. The guy who is capable of putting students to sleep from across campus. Yeah, that guy. It then becomes a case of learn the formula, try to pass the test, another term over with, rinse, repeat.
You really don't understand children, do you? Suddenly they now have a reason to switch the channel and watch something less educational...
Hey no problem. Communication is what it's all about. I'm glad you had a positive experience.
My point of view is that of a physician, because I am one myself. It's absolutely true that any pre-schooler can follow an algorithm and "cure" disease with a high degree of success. After all that is why, in your country, you let nurses and "physician assistants" screen patients and do the grunt-work. Medicine is not hard. However I will argue that in the US medicine has become all about the technology and the tests, and not at all about the patient. I don't practice in the US, but one hears stories of regular CT scans for migraines, abdominal ultrasounds for appendicitis, etc. Mixed in with these stories is a healthy dose of "defensive medicine" (I will do these tests exclusively to lessen my likelyhood of being sued for negligence because there is a faint possibility of a misdiagnosis).
At the end of the day when you add it all up, you end up with a very expensive health system. Yeah ok you paid $20 for the consultation. Now how much did the X-ray cost? How much did the spirometry (blowing in the tube) cost? Even if you didn't pay up front, someone somewhere paid for the equipment, the film, and the little disposable cardboard toilet-paper roll thing you blow in (you would not believe how much those cost!). Now compare that with visiting someone like me, who probably would have prescribed you the same antibiotic and the same cough syrup after a couple minutes of listening to your lungs through your back, and tapping you on the ribs with my finger. No x-ray. No spirometry. Which is more efficient?
A doctor is not supposed to order tests just to order tests. They only do that on medical shows. Well no, they are doing that regularly in the US. But you are supposed to know the results of the test before you get it. The test exists to prove your hypothesis (the diagnostic impression), not to "brute-force" a diagnosis. Now admittedly there are cases where a diagnosis is not clear - older patients with several chronic diseases, unconscious patients, pediatric patients, patients with very slight symptoms. These are harder to diagnose and more testing might be required. But in the example you gave me - a patient with a severe cough - the possibilities are very limited. Yes there are many many possibilities - pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, lung cancer, TB, asthma, etc etc etc. However you consider the age of the patient, how long you've had the symptoms, how severe the symptoms are, obstructive versus restrictive problem (through a physical exam, no spirometry required), and it's a pretty safe bet we're up against pneumonitis (viral most likely) or pneumonia (bacterial). Despite everything the CDC and infectologists say about overprescription of antibiotics, I would probably send you home with antibiotics (viral infections do sometimes turn into bacterial ones due to all that inflammation) and a note to come back in a few days if you are not recovered. If you don't recover, THEN we start looking at x-rays, etc.
What they are doing is all the testing up front. That's great when you want to sell tests. It's great when you have patients who are more trusting of a machine than the human doctor sitting in front of them. But it's not really good "medicine". My $0.02.