Re:Not for the more experienced reader
on
A Game of Thrones
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I rather enjoyed the way that the fantasy elements slowly ramp up as the books (I've read the first three) progress. Magic isn't a huge player in the world as it normally runs, but now that the tides of history are basically coming up to a climax, it's starting to show. The magical elements are portrayed as rare and strange, and I like that subtlety. Also, it makes sense in the context of the books. After all, I gathered that magic is supposed to be "reawakening" in the world due to Daenarys's (sp?) children.
Your Sig is incorrect. Socrates wasn't banished; he was made to drink hemlock tea. Hemlock, when ingested, causes the body to go into spasms so violent that eventually the spine snaps, killing the victim. He was actually broken out of jail (so the story goes) on the night before his execution, by his students. However, due to his rather absolutist view of Justice, he made them leave him there, and went ahead and drank the tea the next morning, which, of course, killed him. Talk about putting it on the line for your principles...
Anyway, you probably won't even read this, but I thought you should know. After all, it's an interesting story.
In fact, only 1 % of the US population lives under a dark sky today!
While your argument is correct, and it's certainly a crying shame that it's so difficult to find a truly dark sky these days, that statistic is pretty pointless. If 50% of the US population lived where that 1% lives now...the sky in those places wouldn't be dark anymore.
I'm doing a project on Tesla in my Creative Imaging II class, so if you'll permit a highschool student to do a little educating, I'll try to remember what I read about this incident.
The story, as I remember it, goes like this:
Nikola Tesla, being the eccentric, quixotic type of genius that he was, had created at his Wardenclyffe Laboratory a large tower which he called a Death Ray. His plan was to use these rays (sort of similar in concept to particle beam weapons, I believe) to create an impenetrable defensive perimiter around the country -- around all countries actually -- thus eliminating all war. Tesla was always coming up with things like this...he also came up with a (possible viable) plan for the free transmission of energy throughout the world, but that's a different story.
So anyway, he had this death ray. It had never been tested, but of course it would have to be. He gets word of an upcoming expedition to the North Pole headed by Robert Peary, and he notified the leader that he was going to signal him on a specific night (June 30, 1908) but refrained from mentioning exactly what sort of a signal it would be. His idea was to fire a death-ray-blast "over the heads" so to speak of the exploration party, hitting the ground somewhere relatively nearby, and creating a blast that they could see.
So, the exploration goes out, and he does his thing. On the night of the test, he fires off the death ray. It hums...it crackles...after about twenty minutes or so, an owl flies across the almost-invisible path of the beam, and instantly disintegrates. A few minutes later, Tesla shuts it off.
Tesla eventually recieved word that Peary's party had seen nothing. He was disappointed.
A few weeks later, news comes to the U.S. of a massive explosion in central Siberia (The Tunguska blast) and is instantly convinced that this was caused by his death ray, just slightly off target. He was mortified by the destruction it wrought, and promptly scrapped his plans for the implementation of his design.
That's what I remember...I think it's fairly close to the original story, which I'm sure can be found on the web somewhere...actually, I can take care of that... this should do it. Of course, this story is not to be taken as gospel, as it's well known that a: Nikola Tesla was slightly crazy (though incredibly brilliant) and b: unconfirmed web sources from web pages that specialize in the paranormal, conspiracies, and similar things are suspect at best. However, I think it makes for at least an interesting story.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven't looked up Tesla himself, I highly reccomend that you do so. Incredibly interesting stuff.
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You're both right. Kuru is the human-originating form of mad cow. We spent quite a bit of time on this in my medical anthropology class.
A more optimal solution would have been:
40 PRINT "Yeah."
50 PRINT "So..."
60 GOTO 40
Actually, I rather enjoyed the way that the fantasy elements slowly ramp up as the books (I've read the first three) progress. Magic isn't a huge player in the world as it normally runs, but now that the tides of history are basically coming up to a climax, it's starting to show. The magical elements are portrayed as rare and strange, and I like that subtlety. Also, it makes sense in the context of the books. After all, I gathered that magic is supposed to be "reawakening" in the world due to Daenarys's (sp?) children.
Somewhere, the sound of a rocket scientist yelling, "OMG! LAG!!!"
There's no "n" in "dammit," dammit!
Your Sig is incorrect. Socrates wasn't banished; he was made to drink hemlock tea. Hemlock, when ingested, causes the body to go into spasms so violent that eventually the spine snaps, killing the victim. He was actually broken out of jail (so the story goes) on the night before his execution, by his students. However, due to his rather absolutist view of Justice, he made them leave him there, and went ahead and drank the tea the next morning, which, of course, killed him. Talk about putting it on the line for your principles... Anyway, you probably won't even read this, but I thought you should know. After all, it's an interesting story.
In fact, only 1 % of the US population lives under a dark sky today!
While your argument is correct, and it's certainly a crying shame that it's so difficult to find a truly dark sky these days, that statistic is pretty pointless. If 50% of the US population lived where that 1% lives now...the sky in those places wouldn't be dark anymore.
I have yet to enjoy a Verizon Experience that didn't suck in some way. So, does that mean that you've enjoyed some of the sucky ones?
Perhaps even more interesting, if the unfortunate victim was using the keyboard normally, how did the anthrax get from his fingers to his nose?
Oh, wait...
all you need to do is see the aircraft and you can kill it.
That's not really that much of an advantage, considering that 90% of all air-to-air kills are made without ever seeing the enemy plane.
I'm doing a project on Tesla in my Creative Imaging II class, so if you'll permit a highschool student to do a little educating, I'll try to remember what I read about this incident.
The story, as I remember it, goes like this:
Nikola Tesla, being the eccentric, quixotic type of genius that he was, had created at his Wardenclyffe Laboratory a large tower which he called a Death Ray. His plan was to use these rays (sort of similar in concept to particle beam weapons, I believe) to create an impenetrable defensive perimiter around the country -- around all countries actually -- thus eliminating all war. Tesla was always coming up with things like this...he also came up with a (possible viable) plan for the free transmission of energy throughout the world, but that's a different story.
So anyway, he had this death ray. It had never been tested, but of course it would have to be. He gets word of an upcoming expedition to the North Pole headed by Robert Peary, and he notified the leader that he was going to signal him on a specific night (June 30, 1908) but refrained from mentioning exactly what sort of a signal it would be. His idea was to fire a death-ray-blast "over the heads" so to speak of the exploration party, hitting the ground somewhere relatively nearby, and creating a blast that they could see.
So, the exploration goes out, and he does his thing. On the night of the test, he fires off the death ray. It hums...it crackles...after about twenty minutes or so, an owl flies across the almost-invisible path of the beam, and instantly disintegrates. A few minutes later, Tesla shuts it off.
Tesla eventually recieved word that Peary's party had seen nothing. He was disappointed.
A few weeks later, news comes to the U.S. of a massive explosion in central Siberia (The Tunguska blast) and is instantly convinced that this was caused by his death ray, just slightly off target. He was mortified by the destruction it wrought, and promptly scrapped his plans for the implementation of his design.
That's what I remember...I think it's fairly close to the original story, which I'm sure can be found on the web somewhere...actually, I can take care of that... this should do it. Of course, this story is not to be taken as gospel, as it's well known that a: Nikola Tesla was slightly crazy (though incredibly brilliant) and b: unconfirmed web sources from web pages that specialize in the paranormal, conspiracies, and similar things are suspect at best. However, I think it makes for at least an interesting story.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven't looked up Tesla himself, I highly reccomend that you do so. Incredibly interesting stuff.
Well, that's all,
~Syriloth