As long as you follow grammatical rules, there is no law that states you must use synonyms in a certain manner with the most apparent meaning first. Of course the ability to use appropriate words to convey precise meaning is a skill, akin to a harmonious melody versus a cacophony. But just like the choice of notes does not define music, the choice of words does not define language. How you speak is not set in stone. It's merely who you are.
if we didn't have a relatively large conscription-based military combined with a history of defending our country. So my point of view is quite different from yours.
Like I said - the only reason to have a standing army is because the other guy has a standing army. But what if everyone got rid of their standing armies? No it would not prevent war. Wars would always happen because there are always cheaters. Survival would depend on who could mobilize fastest when stuck with a cheating neighbor who suddenly invaded. But for the rest of us - or in the meantime when there were brief periods of peace - imagine how much money could be reassigned to other things...
I live in Costa Rica, which outlawed its army in 1948. Our police force is also laughable. Our neighbors (Nicaragua, for example) have an army and have even made vague threats over border disputes. But instead our leaders strive for regional peace and disarmament - our most recent president having won a Nobel Peace Prize. That was back in the 1970's, when they still gave them to people who deserved them. Haven't you noticed that since the late 70's the wars in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have stopped? We've tried to show them a better way - invest the money in education and infrastructure instead.
An army is the tool of the politician, to be used against his own people or the people of another nation. But don't kid yourself, this is for that politician's personal gain (wealth, power), not yours.
The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment.
Thank you Captain Obvious. Hollywood, with its disintegrating fruit stands, good looking and extremely slutty women and exploding cars, has known for a long time that reality is pretty boring. In fact, most people LIKE it that way.
because guns are tools for professionals.
Save that BS for your next NRA meeting. There's nothing professional about most of the people who own/use guns. They are tools for killing. It is their sole purpose. They may be used by professionals (SOME soldiers, SOME law enforcement, SOME private gun owners), but gun ownership does not confer professional status. "Ganstas" and drug traffickers have a lot of guns and use them regularly, and there's nothing professional about that. Nor is there anything professional about the husband who shoots his wife, or the guy who shoots his neighbor. I say this as a responsible gun owner, and I hope I never ever have to be in a situation where I have to think about using it.
After all, America is the country that was sure it was being attacked by Martians only a couple generations ago, when Orson Welles did his "War of the Worlds" radio show.
I think you just don't get it. It's not the fact that they're misleading. It's the fact that someone somewhere in the corporation felt that it was necessary to make the images "more interesting". This says a lot about corporate ethics (or the lack thereof). And although the picture doesn't prove anything by itself, if someone felt that the "real" pictures needed "enhancing", it speaks of a certain amount of guilt somewhere. Just like the girl who gets the breast implants obviously thinks her tits are too small - rightly or wrongly.
It reminds me of when certain politicians have their press people tell the people the President (Bush) or candidate (Hillary) is supposed to "spontaneously interview" what questions they can ask. Or when FEMA stages fake press conferences. Don't you see what's happening in the world? Don't you care?
Then there's the fact that BP will release the original pictures "later this evening", instead of immediately. I guess they will make sure they get a better photoshop job done this time.
Haven't you noticed that EVERYTHING BP HAS SAID has been lies, lies, lies? Haven't you seen the liveleak videos of how they are "cleaning up" Grand Island beaches - by dumping sand on top of the oil (making - asphalt!). Why do you defend them?
I'm glad you feel safe under your bridge Mr. Troll, but the full economic impact of this spill remains to be seen. It can easily run into a couple trillion dollars. But what's another two trillion dollars, to a country already up to its ear in debt.
I live in Costa Rica, and our local currency - the Colon - has appreciated 10% against the dollar in the past 6 months. This after a 20 year history of losing value. Now the reverse is happening - does this mean that our currency is so strong it's outperforming the dollar? We make coffee and bananas for crying out loud, and we're not leaders in either export. No. It means the dollar is so weak that no one wants it anymore. This is going to bite everyone in the ass in a few years. The "flash crash" was another example - it was preceeded by a sudden weakening of the US dollar on world currency markets - especially against the Yen. The US is losing its status as a world leader. This environmental (and ultimately economic) disaster is going to be one more nail in the coffin.
But that's ok, let BP "take care of its image" and don't get mad. They're probably buying up politicians right now because you can be damned sure they are not going to sit around the Gulf states handing out money forever. BP is going to lie, and BP is going to hide as much incriminating evidence as they can. They are going to get out of it as soon as they can, and your politicians are going to help them. And YOU the American tax payer will be left holding the bag. Only the bag is already empty.
Funny you should say that. I live in a country with no army, and lo, it hasn't been taken over by anyone.
The standing army line is a con. You only need a standing army because of the other guy's standing army, and he only needs one because of yours. Guess who makes money from this? Hint: it's not you, it's the guys who provide the guns and ammo. Sometimes to both sides.
I'd much rather live above ground, thank you very much.
OK. But you would be dead in a few years thanks to cosmic and solar radiation. Unless you plan on building your buildings with several feet of lead/steel lining. I do not want to pay your launch costs however. All that stuff has to be shipped from earth.
I was born in Montreal so I know what winter is. But they don't put salt down every day, either. Nor does it snow every day. Nor are the roads covered in slush every day. Ergo a few weeks.
Seems like they had to hold the laser on the target for a long time until it worked.
I wonder what happens when your target is rotating, thus not exposing the same spot to the heat... oh dear, did I just counter a multi-million dollar weapon system?
I'm sure it works fine on drones that fly in a straight line and are painted black.
So - we should just give the money to the people without jobs?
Only if you want a line millions of people long once they hear you are handing out free money. No, I think the point is the government shouldn't have the money in the first place. Perhaps if the people who create the jobs had a little more money (in the form of paying a little less taxes), they'd be able to create more jobs.
But then again what do I care. It's not as if I pay income tax anyway. Thank god I'm not a US citizen - no matter where you guys live you have to pay for crap like this, it's the law.
If it were, then more people on Earth would be living underground
It all depends where you live. There is a huge cost to building underground since you have to move a lot of earth, you have to take steps to make sure your cave doesn't collapse, you have to deal with water seepage, you have to circulate air, and THEN you have to build your dwelling. On Earth it's usually not feasible, no matter how bad the weather. Although in really really cold climates most people have their cars in underground heated garages at home and where they go to work/shopping, or the mass transit is designed to deal with cold weather by being underground (subways) or even having closed, heated bus stops.
But you're looking at it backwards, seeing no benefit to living underground. Sure, on earth and especially in the tropics, there is no benefit. In an extremely hostile environment like the moon or mars you pretty much HAVE to live underground. The daily temperature differences alone (ok, monthly in the case of the moon) would quickly destroy and crack most materials. The surface (barring the discovery of areas rich in uranium) would probably be dedicated to the collection of solar energy. Underground you'd be able to have an air-tight, radiation proof environment.
But diabetic AND kidney stones? Yikes, I hope you're taking good care of yourself because otherwise those kidneys aren't going to last too long... talk about a two pronged attack...
Very rarely do you have a dedicated generator on the boat.
You do see them more often on sailboats. On a motorboat you assume the engine is pretty much always on, so you generate the power from the engine. You usually have horsepower to spare anyway. Not so on a sailboat. The engines are usually pretty pathetic (assuming you have an inboard engine at all). Thus the need for a separate generator on bigger boats. Smaller boats just have to make do with batteries (with a whole different range of failure modes right there). Weight is never a problem on a sailboat - it's just more ballast!
And I agree on the diesel. Leave gasoline for the jet-skis.
a boat is jack diddly shit compared to what you have to deal with on a car.
AFAIK car engines aren't sitting a couple inches above salt-water bilge... And you should know what salt does to cars if you live up north. And that's only a couple weeks per year. Now deal with that 24/7/365 and you begin to understand how fun marine life is, and why boats are the definition of money pits.
Leave the sextant and the almac at the nursing home and have a boat with sensible design.
That's ok. When your sensibly designed boat encounters all those variables that your theoretical boat designer never thought of (because after all you can't get an engineering degree in the middle of the ocean; you tend to get them in nice, air conditioned offices on land), you'll have that "oh shit" moment.
But then again, it's your life and you are free to risk it as you please. I just hope you don't kill any passengers while you're at it.
Just like learning how to write by hand is still necessary in the electronic age and learning math is still necessary in the calculator/computer age, having a compass, a ruler and charts, a barometer, a sextant, an almanac and knowing how to use them cannot be a bad idea. The day they save your life you will consider them a good investment. If you disagree then you're just a landlubber pretending to play with boats. There's no such thing as being TOO careful when out at sea.
I've had a patient go into shock during routine bloodwork. I'm in the middle of talking to him and boom he keels over onto the exam table he was sitting on. I've never put a catheter in as fast as I did that day. My assistant was impressed to say the least:) A couple litres of saline later, and the guy was fine. You speak the truth - it's dangerous.
The heart doesn't stop but it slows down to a dangerously slow rate. The body compensates by dumping a bunch of epinephrine and norepinephrine into the bloodstream in an attempt to maintain the blood pressure. In a healthy person who manages to survive the head injury due to the fall on the ground once they become unconscious there's usually no problem, consciousness is soon regained. In a person with an unhealthy heart (read - your average person over 30) the massive kick of adrenergics can cause a fatal dysrhythmia.
Just curious - does the immune system react to foreign stuff entering the body via the skin surface differently from entering via the digestive system or intramuscular or straight into the bloodstream?
The immune system reacts in different ways - there are now 5 entirely different types of hypersensitivity response. These types of response are not necessarily due to the entry path into the body, but rather due to the allergen involved, previous exposure, time of exposure and the different ways the body can react. But it doesn't matter if you eat it, breathe it or inject it - some substances are more likely to produce one type of allergic reaction over another, some people are genetically predisposed to suffer one type of hypersensitivity over another; but the first rule of medicine is that there are no absolutes. There will always be that patient that doesn't react the way you expected.
The most dramatic (and immediately life threatening) response is the type I reaction which can kill a person in minutes due to a massive release of histamine. These are the people who die from a single bee sting, peanut, strawberry, etc.
However such reactions are always DOSE dependent. If you have an irritant on the unbroken surface of your skin, it's unlikely you'll have a "whole body" response because you will be running to wash the stuff off before it happens - the itching and redness (and even blistering) will be obvious. If something is injected, however, there's no way to get rid of it. You've received a full dose, and it's there to stay. Plus since it enters the bloodstream, the allergen is no longer confined to the injection site - it spreads through your whole body. So the same type I reaction happens, but it happens everywhere at once. This is why you always get a penicillin test before getting penicillin - even if you were never previously allergic. It used to be that we'd inject a very very dilute penicillin solution under the skin, but even that could kill you. Now the protocol involves a surface test, where we just rub a dilute solution on your skin and wait to see if a rash develops. If you're ok, then you get the dilute subcutaneous injection. THEN if you're still ok, you get the full dose.
But I remember when a Loran-C was high tech. Now people want to stream video from the middle of the Atlantic... Hey, back in the old day we didn't need porn we just brought women with us. Owning a sailboat and cruising the Caribbean went a long way towards getting those panties off!
But seriously, always have a good old almanac and sextant as a backup. Because if your generator gets fucked, you and your high tech toys are fucked. They never turn off the sun and stars, however ('cept in a storm of course - Murphy's law would have your generator fail in the middle of the hurricane anyway).
Personally I go sailing to get AWAY from the rest of the world, not to stay connected to it.
Keep telling yourself that; you might fool yourself into believing it.
The perception of pain is subjective. Your mileage may vary. I've had open heart surgery, among other things, so I've been poked and prodded quite a few times too. Frankly I have no problem injecting myself, gluteus (a bit difficult to do on myself but I have managed), abdomen or deltoid. Try a chest tube because you have a tension pneumothorax due to Dressler's syndrome one day, and drain 3L in 5 minutes. Then you will know pain.
Well if needles are a problem and you just need routine blood work, you could probably negotiate capillary puncture with your doctor, instead of a needle. That's done with a lancet - like a mini knife - that cuts you with a spring mechanism. It happens so fast you really don't feel any pain at all. It's usually used on small children but there's no reason why it won't work on an adult. No needles involved.
For injections, however, you're out of luck - sorry!
Slashdot Mirror
As long as you follow grammatical rules, there is no law that states you must use synonyms in a certain manner with the most apparent meaning first. Of course the ability to use appropriate words to convey precise meaning is a skill, akin to a harmonious melody versus a cacophony. But just like the choice of notes does not define music, the choice of words does not define language. How you speak is not set in stone. It's merely who you are.
if we didn't have a relatively large conscription-based military combined with a history of defending our country. So my point of view is quite different from yours.
Like I said - the only reason to have a standing army is because the other guy has a standing army. But what if everyone got rid of their standing armies? No it would not prevent war. Wars would always happen because there are always cheaters. Survival would depend on who could mobilize fastest when stuck with a cheating neighbor who suddenly invaded. But for the rest of us - or in the meantime when there were brief periods of peace - imagine how much money could be reassigned to other things...
I live in Costa Rica, which outlawed its army in 1948. Our police force is also laughable. Our neighbors (Nicaragua, for example) have an army and have even made vague threats over border disputes. But instead our leaders strive for regional peace and disarmament - our most recent president having won a Nobel Peace Prize. That was back in the 1970's, when they still gave them to people who deserved them. Haven't you noticed that since the late 70's the wars in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have stopped? We've tried to show them a better way - invest the money in education and infrastructure instead.
An army is the tool of the politician, to be used against his own people or the people of another nation. But don't kid yourself, this is for that politician's personal gain (wealth, power), not yours.
The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment.
Thank you Captain Obvious. Hollywood, with its disintegrating fruit stands, good looking and extremely slutty women and exploding cars, has known for a long time that reality is pretty boring. In fact, most people LIKE it that way.
because guns are tools for professionals.
Save that BS for your next NRA meeting. There's nothing professional about most of the people who own/use guns. They are tools for killing. It is their sole purpose. They may be used by professionals (SOME soldiers, SOME law enforcement, SOME private gun owners), but gun ownership does not confer professional status. "Ganstas" and drug traffickers have a lot of guns and use them regularly, and there's nothing professional about that. Nor is there anything professional about the husband who shoots his wife, or the guy who shoots his neighbor. I say this as a responsible gun owner, and I hope I never ever have to be in a situation where I have to think about using it.
Heh our posts are a minute apart. Slashdot has a hive-mind too, apparently.
After all, America is the country that was sure it was being attacked by Martians only a couple generations ago, when Orson Welles did his "War of the Worlds" radio show.
I think you just don't get it. It's not the fact that they're misleading. It's the fact that someone somewhere in the corporation felt that it was necessary to make the images "more interesting". This says a lot about corporate ethics (or the lack thereof). And although the picture doesn't prove anything by itself, if someone felt that the "real" pictures needed "enhancing", it speaks of a certain amount of guilt somewhere. Just like the girl who gets the breast implants obviously thinks her tits are too small - rightly or wrongly.
It reminds me of when certain politicians have their press people tell the people the President (Bush) or candidate (Hillary) is supposed to "spontaneously interview" what questions they can ask. Or when FEMA stages fake press conferences. Don't you see what's happening in the world? Don't you care?
Then there's the fact that BP will release the original pictures "later this evening", instead of immediately. I guess they will make sure they get a better photoshop job done this time.
Haven't you noticed that EVERYTHING BP HAS SAID has been lies, lies, lies? Haven't you seen the liveleak videos of how they are "cleaning up" Grand Island beaches - by dumping sand on top of the oil (making - asphalt!). Why do you defend them?
Would you people please get a fucking grip?
I'm glad you feel safe under your bridge Mr. Troll, but the full economic impact of this spill remains to be seen. It can easily run into a couple trillion dollars. But what's another two trillion dollars, to a country already up to its ear in debt.
I live in Costa Rica, and our local currency - the Colon - has appreciated 10% against the dollar in the past 6 months. This after a 20 year history of losing value. Now the reverse is happening - does this mean that our currency is so strong it's outperforming the dollar? We make coffee and bananas for crying out loud, and we're not leaders in either export. No. It means the dollar is so weak that no one wants it anymore. This is going to bite everyone in the ass in a few years. The "flash crash" was another example - it was preceeded by a sudden weakening of the US dollar on world currency markets - especially against the Yen. The US is losing its status as a world leader. This environmental (and ultimately economic) disaster is going to be one more nail in the coffin.
But that's ok, let BP "take care of its image" and don't get mad. They're probably buying up politicians right now because you can be damned sure they are not going to sit around the Gulf states handing out money forever. BP is going to lie, and BP is going to hide as much incriminating evidence as they can. They are going to get out of it as soon as they can, and your politicians are going to help them. And YOU the American tax payer will be left holding the bag. Only the bag is already empty.
Funny you should say that. I live in a country with no army, and lo, it hasn't been taken over by anyone.
The standing army line is a con. You only need a standing army because of the other guy's standing army, and he only needs one because of yours. Guess who makes money from this? Hint: it's not you, it's the guys who provide the guns and ammo. Sometimes to both sides.
I'd much rather live above ground, thank you very much.
OK. But you would be dead in a few years thanks to cosmic and solar radiation. Unless you plan on building your buildings with several feet of lead/steel lining. I do not want to pay your launch costs however. All that stuff has to be shipped from earth.
Yet still you see no benefit. Enjoy fantasyland.
Try 3 months+.
I was born in Montreal so I know what winter is. But they don't put salt down every day, either. Nor does it snow every day. Nor are the roads covered in slush every day. Ergo a few weeks.
Seems like they had to hold the laser on the target for a long time until it worked.
I wonder what happens when your target is rotating, thus not exposing the same spot to the heat... oh dear, did I just counter a multi-million dollar weapon system?
I'm sure it works fine on drones that fly in a straight line and are painted black.
So - we should just give the money to the people without jobs?
Only if you want a line millions of people long once they hear you are handing out free money. No, I think the point is the government shouldn't have the money in the first place. Perhaps if the people who create the jobs had a little more money (in the form of paying a little less taxes), they'd be able to create more jobs.
But then again what do I care. It's not as if I pay income tax anyway. Thank god I'm not a US citizen - no matter where you guys live you have to pay for crap like this, it's the law.
Valid point. Perhaps Raytheon could instead develop a means to launch the unemployed, ill, and benefit-needing veterans at incoming airborn objects.
You missed the point. I believe the argument was: WHAT incoming airborne objects?
If it were, then more people on Earth would be living underground
It all depends where you live. There is a huge cost to building underground since you have to move a lot of earth, you have to take steps to make sure your cave doesn't collapse, you have to deal with water seepage, you have to circulate air, and THEN you have to build your dwelling. On Earth it's usually not feasible, no matter how bad the weather. Although in really really cold climates most people have their cars in underground heated garages at home and where they go to work/shopping, or the mass transit is designed to deal with cold weather by being underground (subways) or even having closed, heated bus stops.
But you're looking at it backwards, seeing no benefit to living underground. Sure, on earth and especially in the tropics, there is no benefit. In an extremely hostile environment like the moon or mars you pretty much HAVE to live underground. The daily temperature differences alone (ok, monthly in the case of the moon) would quickly destroy and crack most materials. The surface (barring the discovery of areas rich in uranium) would probably be dedicated to the collection of solar energy. Underground you'd be able to have an air-tight, radiation proof environment.
several kidney stones were enough
Poor you. Worst. Pain. Ever.
But diabetic AND kidney stones? Yikes, I hope you're taking good care of yourself because otherwise those kidneys aren't going to last too long... talk about a two pronged attack...
Very rarely do you have a dedicated generator on the boat.
You do see them more often on sailboats. On a motorboat you assume the engine is pretty much always on, so you generate the power from the engine. You usually have horsepower to spare anyway. Not so on a sailboat. The engines are usually pretty pathetic (assuming you have an inboard engine at all). Thus the need for a separate generator on bigger boats. Smaller boats just have to make do with batteries (with a whole different range of failure modes right there). Weight is never a problem on a sailboat - it's just more ballast!
And I agree on the diesel. Leave gasoline for the jet-skis.
a boat is jack diddly shit compared to what you have to deal with on a car.
AFAIK car engines aren't sitting a couple inches above salt-water bilge... And you should know what salt does to cars if you live up north. And that's only a couple weeks per year. Now deal with that 24/7/365 and you begin to understand how fun marine life is, and why boats are the definition of money pits.
Leave the sextant and the almac at the nursing home and have a boat with sensible design.
That's ok. When your sensibly designed boat encounters all those variables that your theoretical boat designer never thought of (because after all you can't get an engineering degree in the middle of the ocean; you tend to get them in nice, air conditioned offices on land), you'll have that "oh shit" moment.
But then again, it's your life and you are free to risk it as you please. I just hope you don't kill any passengers while you're at it.
Just like learning how to write by hand is still necessary in the electronic age and learning math is still necessary in the calculator/computer age, having a compass, a ruler and charts, a barometer, a sextant, an almanac and knowing how to use them cannot be a bad idea. The day they save your life you will consider them a good investment. If you disagree then you're just a landlubber pretending to play with boats. There's no such thing as being TOO careful when out at sea.
I've had a patient go into shock during routine bloodwork. I'm in the middle of talking to him and boom he keels over onto the exam table he was sitting on. I've never put a catheter in as fast as I did that day. My assistant was impressed to say the least :) A couple litres of saline later, and the guy was fine. You speak the truth - it's dangerous.
The heart doesn't stop but it slows down to a dangerously slow rate. The body compensates by dumping a bunch of epinephrine and norepinephrine into the bloodstream in an attempt to maintain the blood pressure. In a healthy person who manages to survive the head injury due to the fall on the ground once they become unconscious there's usually no problem, consciousness is soon regained. In a person with an unhealthy heart (read - your average person over 30) the massive kick of adrenergics can cause a fatal dysrhythmia.
Just curious - does the immune system react to foreign stuff entering the body via the skin surface differently from entering via the digestive system or intramuscular or straight into the bloodstream?
The immune system reacts in different ways - there are now 5 entirely different types of hypersensitivity response. These types of response are not necessarily due to the entry path into the body, but rather due to the allergen involved, previous exposure, time of exposure and the different ways the body can react. But it doesn't matter if you eat it, breathe it or inject it - some substances are more likely to produce one type of allergic reaction over another, some people are genetically predisposed to suffer one type of hypersensitivity over another; but the first rule of medicine is that there are no absolutes. There will always be that patient that doesn't react the way you expected.
The most dramatic (and immediately life threatening) response is the type I reaction which can kill a person in minutes due to a massive release of histamine. These are the people who die from a single bee sting, peanut, strawberry, etc.
However such reactions are always DOSE dependent. If you have an irritant on the unbroken surface of your skin, it's unlikely you'll have a "whole body" response because you will be running to wash the stuff off before it happens - the itching and redness (and even blistering) will be obvious. If something is injected, however, there's no way to get rid of it. You've received a full dose, and it's there to stay. Plus since it enters the bloodstream, the allergen is no longer confined to the injection site - it spreads through your whole body. So the same type I reaction happens, but it happens everywhere at once. This is why you always get a penicillin test before getting penicillin - even if you were never previously allergic. It used to be that we'd inject a very very dilute penicillin solution under the skin, but even that could kill you. Now the protocol involves a surface test, where we just rub a dilute solution on your skin and wait to see if a rash develops. If you're ok, then you get the dilute subcutaneous injection. THEN if you're still ok, you get the full dose.
Thats an oversimplification
Well yes, this is a slashdot post and not a doctoral thesis.
But I remember when a Loran-C was high tech. Now people want to stream video from the middle of the Atlantic... Hey, back in the old day we didn't need porn we just brought women with us. Owning a sailboat and cruising the Caribbean went a long way towards getting those panties off!
But seriously, always have a good old almanac and sextant as a backup. Because if your generator gets fucked, you and your high tech toys are fucked. They never turn off the sun and stars, however ('cept in a storm of course - Murphy's law would have your generator fail in the middle of the hurricane anyway).
Personally I go sailing to get AWAY from the rest of the world, not to stay connected to it.
Keep telling yourself that; you might fool yourself into believing it.
The perception of pain is subjective. Your mileage may vary. I've had open heart surgery, among other things, so I've been poked and prodded quite a few times too. Frankly I have no problem injecting myself, gluteus (a bit difficult to do on myself but I have managed), abdomen or deltoid. Try a chest tube because you have a tension pneumothorax due to Dressler's syndrome one day, and drain 3L in 5 minutes. Then you will know pain.
Well if needles are a problem and you just need routine blood work, you could probably negotiate capillary puncture with your doctor, instead of a needle. That's done with a lancet - like a mini knife - that cuts you with a spring mechanism. It happens so fast you really don't feel any pain at all. It's usually used on small children but there's no reason why it won't work on an adult. No needles involved.
For injections, however, you're out of luck - sorry!