Be careful...most PDAs will not be allowed in exams. I certainly ban them from mine because of the wireless capability as well as the ability to store vast amounts of info - like the course text and notes.
Yeah right and we all know how much the US respects treaties like, for example, the Geneva convention, NAFTA etc. Besides my posts were commenting more on the fact that nobody in the US seems to think that the contitution applies in anyway to non-US citizens in the US. If your own citizens have no clue about their own laws don't complain that us foreigners don't know them.
No clearly there are some rights associated with citizenship, like the right to vote. However rights such as free speech, right to a trial etc. should apply to anyone legally present in a country regardless of citizenship. What I find troubling is that with increasing frequency I here these rights being attributed to "US citizens" with the implication that foreigners do not have these rights in the US. Since this is US law it is up to you guys to decide - but if that really is the case you should let us foreigners know that we can't expect basic human rights when visiting the US.
...is how even the commentary above refers to how "the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens". I'm not a legal expert, nor a US citizen, but doesn't the US constitution apply to non-US citizens living in the US? Or don't us foreigners qualify for the same basic rights under US law if we are visiting?
Just an observation but when we discuss these things in Europe and Canada we tend to refer to them as "human rights" and not "citizen rights".
The only wrinkle?! That's the difference between not committing a crime and committing one!
No it is not. US law apparently says that you can be guilty of an offense without ever going there. However not being US citizen and not living in the US what do I care what US law says about me? Of course if I decide to travel to the US like these guys did then I do have to care.
Do I think that this is absurd - yes of course I do. But it is US law and so, as a foreigner, it is none of my business. I am free to choose not to go there if I think it too onerous.
You know I'd have a lot more sympathy for this point of view if the US were trying to extradite them from wherever they live. However these twits flew to the US by themselves! Would us Europeans object if a US spammer targetting EU citizens was arrested passing through Europe? Hmmmm.....food for thought at least.
So what? Everyone inside the sovereign borders of a country should expect to be subject to its laws whether they agree with them or not. Their citizenship should make no difference for criminal offences. I rarely agree with the US government but this time I think they are acting completely reasonably. Afterall if you think of the reverse surely nobody would have a problem with a US citizen being arrested passing through Europe or Canada if they were guilty of a crime under our laws?
The only wrinkle in this case is that it is my understanding they committed the offense while not in the US. Were the US trying to extradite them from wherever they live for actions which they took outside the US then as non-US citizens I would have a big problem with that but if these idiots are stupid enough to fly to the US by themselves what on earth do they expect to happen?
No it is not. It is far from simple. What you have stated is one effect on the climate. There are many more than that for example precession of the earth's axis, precession of the earth's orbit, variations in the sun's output etc.
It is well known that the earth goes through ice ages and that these are caused by things almost entirely unrelated to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact the last plot I saw with global warming super-imposed on the ice age cycle showed a small rise in temperature (due to global warming) followed by a large drop in temperature caused by the natural ice age cycle.
In fact this is where my skepticism about global warming comes from. 10-15 years ago climatologists seemed to be more worried about the impending ice age which global warming would postpone for a bit but ultimately fail to overcome. Now they concentrate on global warming and tell us that the earth will now heat up and everyone has forgotten the earlier ice age predictions. Now I am willing to accept that things have advanced to the point that they now realize the earlier predictions are flawed...but this is my concern. Only 15 years ago they were worried about an ice age and now they are worried about it getting too hot so is might there be a similar shift back in a few years time when they improve their understanding again? Whether or not there is, how can we trust their predictions enough as a basis of long term actions given the change over the last several years?
That being said I'm a supporter of reducing greenhouse gas emissions because we do not really know what the implications are. Our current actions are like sitting blindfolded in a tree using a saw to chop of the occasional branch and each time hoping that it isn't the one we are sitting on.
That might be the SI base unit but at a fundamental level the universe works in terms of electric charges. The SI system uses current as the definition only because it is easier to measure macroscopic currents rather than charges.
>Tell me, what's the metric unit for time?
It's the second. If you have ever taken a look at the MKS system (Meters, Killograms, Seconds), it makes physics so much easyer. All units can be expressed in MKS units.
Actually that is not correct for two reasons. First the second is the SI (Systeme Internationale) unit of time but it is not really a metric unit of time. There have been some systems suggested for metric time but given that time has to be tied to astronomical measurements none really work well i.e. there have to be 365/6 "day units" in "year unit".
The second mistake is that not all units can be expressed in terms of metres, kilograms and seconds. Try electric charge for example which is measured in coulombs.
>1 Joule is the amount of energy required to raise 1kg to a height of 1m.
Oops! Looks like you need to review the difference between mass and weight. A joule is the energy required to apply 1 Newton over a distance of 1 meter or to raise 1 kilogram 0.102 meters at a nominal gravitational acceleration of 9.8 m/s.
Actually this is not correct either since you can move a force of 1 newton over a distance of 1 metre without doing any work. The correct statement is 1 joule is the work done when a force of 1 newton moves through a displacement of 1 metre in the direction of the force.
I wish Americans would stop calling them "English" units. Not only are they no longer generally used in England (with the odd exception like pints of beer and miles) but the even when they were used they were different from the American system. For example there are 20 fluid ounces in an Imperial pint vs. 16 fluid ounces in a US pint....so it is a very good thing than NASA is no longer using them for international missions since there isn't even an Imperial standard that anyone can agree on!
"Err...Houston we may have a problem, when you told us to burn 10 pints of fuel was that Imperial pints or US pints?"
Yes, likely a "good bye" from all their citizens who are already ticked off enough at the US. Certainly I've noticed a huge drop in the number of scientific conferences held in the US. Partly because the visa rules prevent - or at least pose severe problems - for some of those attending and partly because there is a noticeable minority of people who now refuse to travel to the US because of the fingerprinting. I can only imagine that this will swell their ranks.
The kid posted the video just before he and his family moved to Canada, out of the reach of British law...
Perhaps not. If I were that teacher I would inform Citizenship and Immigration Canada and put a link to the video in the email. While this does not guarentee a return to Britain it might guarentee a short stay in Canada or at least a major headache for the parents which will hopefully persuade them to keep their kid under control.
A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls.
Hmmm....I wonder if there is some truth in this because unfortunately there seem to be a lot of extremely thick skulled people left to make the decisions nowadays.
I never understand why Australia has compulsory voting since it seems completely unfair. I mean if you are going to have compulsory voting shouldn't there also be a law making it compulsory that there is some politician worth voting for on the ballot? Perhaps that why it never got introduced in the UK....
Besides, the three movies are currently placed in 4th, 14th and 20th place in IMDB's top250 movies of all time. How could that be if they are such a bad movies?
Hmmm...an interesting argument. So essentially you are saying that because lots of other people think it was a good movie it must therefore be a good movie? Not a big supporter of independant thought are you? However let me take you up on this one. I would argue that pretty much whoever produced Lord of the Rings, with the budget Jackson had, it would be a blockbuster. This is because the story is fantastic and so, despite Jackson's butchery of it, it is still very appealing to audiences.
You are complaining about physics in a movie with ancient talking trees, flaming eyeball and magic?
Yes - the physics as exists in Middle Earth. Though perhaps "unbelievable" or "out of place" stunts would have been a better explanation....but my biggest complaint was that they kept on doing the same type of thing ad nauseum. Since Peter Jackson does this in pretty much all his films this leads me to believe that he is a bad director. To back this up look at the flop that King Kong was (this also backs up my first point about Tolkien being the main attraction of the films).
Having those in the movie would have sucked. the climax of the movie was the destruction of the ring. Had they put the scouring in the movie, the audience would be about to leave the theater
Well actually it wouldn't because all the people like you who don't stay 10 seconds after the climax wouldn't be aware that there was a final section to the film would they? Maybe it would have been interesting to try something outside the standard Hollywood mold for a change? Who knows perhaps the audience would like something a little different?...but that's ok you go on making the typical same old dross that comes out of Hollywood these days...it's great for the film industry in the rest of the world.
Unfortunately he did not achieve this. I love the books and the BBC radio adaption as well as the first of the PJ films. TTT was ok but ROTK was frankly boring. PJ went into King Kong mode when it came to the battle of the Pelennor fields - it went on FAR too long and contained ridiculously unphysical stunts. It was boring and I hoenstly NEVER expected to go to a LOTR film and ever be bored.
What makes this unforgiveble though is that he had to cut out serious parts of the story to accomodate it - no return to the shire and final battle with Saruman - which arguably contained one of the major messages of the trilogy. Compare the BBC radio adaption (which was 13 one hours episode) to PJs films which in total are almost as long and you'll see the difference, especially since narration had to be added to explain the things which you could not see.
maybe they should do their own movie then.
Just because I am not a film director does not mean that I cannot spot a bad one. It is a matter of taste. Clearly lots of people really liked the films (even I liked the first one) but that it no way makes my opinion that the last one was awful invalid.
England is probably the best place in the world to have a heart attack,
should you choose to have one. If you keel over in London you should get a paramedic equiped
with defibrilator within 10 minutes...
Yes but its the 4 hour drive (or apparently flight if you happen to be living down south) around the umpteen different hospitals looking for a free bed that kills you. The NHS in the UK is frankly bad and getting worse - you only have to look at the ever increasing numbers of jobs that come with free medical insurance to see that. The problem is less the lack of money and more the HUGE number of administrators - the current ratio is approximately 1:1 i.e. one administrator per doctor+nurse. My dad (a now retired GP) used to complain bitterly about this because it is not just a waste of money but as the number of administrators increased so does the amount of time doctors, and particularly nurses, spend filling in forms to keep them happy instead of looking after patients.
Having also lived in the US the problems are very different there. With medical insurance the treatment you get is fantastic in terms of easy access although compentancy of doctors does generally not seem to be as good (based on a small statical sample) and may be due to the "we have to cover every concievable eventuallity so we can't be sued" which IMO you get far less of in the UK. The problem with the US is the lack of universal access to health care and that the insurance has a maximum "lifetime" limit - usually at $1-2 million but since having a baby apparently costs the insurance $30k who knows if this will be enough? Plus for most non-US citizens the huge social injustice of the system is a problem too.
I now live in Canada which has a health care system like most of Europe in terms of free/cheap access but which works a lot better than the UK mainly because they had the great idea of severely limiting private medical clinics....so if you are a politician/rich business type it is in your best interests to make sure the health system works because that is what will be looking after you if anything happens!
I don't think the article mentioned Boeing in particular and on that timescale the new A380 from Airbus may be ready which is substantially larger than the 747 (not that, as a frequent traveller, I find this particularly a good thing!).
Slashdot Mirror
Be careful...most PDAs will not be allowed in exams. I certainly ban them from mine because of the wireless capability as well as the ability to store vast amounts of info - like the course text and notes.
Remember, Corporations are people too. Literally.
Only in the US I think.
Yeah right and we all know how much the US respects treaties like, for example, the Geneva convention, NAFTA etc. Besides my posts were commenting more on the fact that nobody in the US seems to think that the contitution applies in anyway to non-US citizens in the US. If your own citizens have no clue about their own laws don't complain that us foreigners don't know them.
No clearly there are some rights associated with citizenship, like the right to vote. However rights such as free speech, right to a trial etc. should apply to anyone legally present in a country regardless of citizenship. What I find troubling is that with increasing frequency I here these rights being attributed to "US citizens" with the implication that foreigners do not have these rights in the US. Since this is US law it is up to you guys to decide - but if that really is the case you should let us foreigners know that we can't expect basic human rights when visiting the US.
...is how even the commentary above refers to how "the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens". I'm not a legal expert, nor a US citizen, but doesn't the US constitution apply to non-US citizens living in the US? Or don't us foreigners qualify for the same basic rights under US law if we are visiting?
Just an observation but when we discuss these things in Europe and Canada we tend to refer to them as "human rights" and not "citizen rights".
The only wrinkle?! That's the difference between not committing a crime and committing one!
No it is not. US law apparently says that you can be guilty of an offense without ever going there. However not being US citizen and not living in the US what do I care what US law says about me? Of course if I decide to travel to the US like these guys did then I do have to care.
Do I think that this is absurd - yes of course I do. But it is US law and so, as a foreigner, it is none of my business. I am free to choose not to go there if I think it too onerous.
You know I'd have a lot more sympathy for this point of view if the US were trying to extradite them from wherever they live. However these twits flew to the US by themselves! Would us Europeans object if a US spammer targetting EU citizens was arrested passing through Europe? Hmmmm.....food for thought at least.
So what? Everyone inside the sovereign borders of a country should expect to be subject to its laws whether they agree with them or not. Their citizenship should make no difference for criminal offences. I rarely agree with the US government but this time I think they are acting completely reasonably. Afterall if you think of the reverse surely nobody would have a problem with a US citizen being arrested passing through Europe or Canada if they were guilty of a crime under our laws?
The only wrinkle in this case is that it is my understanding they committed the offense while not in the US. Were the US trying to extradite them from wherever they live for actions which they took outside the US then as non-US citizens I would have a big problem with that but if these idiots are stupid enough to fly to the US by themselves what on earth do they expect to happen?
Please switch from binary mode to decimal and recompute.
It's very simple.
No it is not. It is far from simple. What you have stated is one effect on the climate. There are many more than that for example precession of the earth's axis, precession of the earth's orbit, variations in the sun's output etc.
It is well known that the earth goes through ice ages and that these are caused by things almost entirely unrelated to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact the last plot I saw with global warming super-imposed on the ice age cycle showed a small rise in temperature (due to global warming) followed by a large drop in temperature caused by the natural ice age cycle.
In fact this is where my skepticism about global warming comes from. 10-15 years ago climatologists seemed to be more worried about the impending ice age which global warming would postpone for a bit but ultimately fail to overcome. Now they concentrate on global warming and tell us that the earth will now heat up and everyone has forgotten the earlier ice age predictions. Now I am willing to accept that things have advanced to the point that they now realize the earlier predictions are flawed...but this is my concern. Only 15 years ago they were worried about an ice age and now they are worried about it getting too hot so is might there be a similar shift back in a few years time when they improve their understanding again? Whether or not there is, how can we trust their predictions enough as a basis of long term actions given the change over the last several years?
That being said I'm a supporter of reducing greenhouse gas emissions because we do not really know what the implications are. Our current actions are like sitting blindfolded in a tree using a saw to chop of the occasional branch and each time hoping that it isn't the one we are sitting on.
That might be the SI base unit but at a fundamental level the universe works in terms of electric charges. The SI system uses current as the definition only because it is easier to measure macroscopic currents rather than charges.
I'd second that. However if you want a quick fix while you are waiting try the Fall from Heaven mod for Civ4 - its the closest to MoM I've seen.
>Tell me, what's the metric unit for time?
It's the second. If you have ever taken a look at the MKS system (Meters, Killograms, Seconds), it makes physics so much easyer. All units can be expressed in MKS units.
Actually that is not correct for two reasons. First the second is the SI (Systeme Internationale) unit of time but it is not really a metric unit of time. There have been some systems suggested for metric time but given that time has to be tied to astronomical measurements none really work well i.e. there have to be 365/6 "day units" in "year unit".
The second mistake is that not all units can be expressed in terms of metres, kilograms and seconds. Try electric charge for example which is measured in coulombs.
>1 Joule is the amount of energy required to raise 1kg to a height of 1m.
Oops! Looks like you need to review the difference between mass and weight. A joule is the energy required to apply 1 Newton over a distance of 1 meter or to raise 1 kilogram 0.102 meters at a nominal gravitational acceleration of 9.8 m/s.
Actually this is not correct either since you can move a force of 1 newton over a distance of 1 metre without doing any work. The correct statement is 1 joule is the work done when a force of 1 newton moves through a displacement of 1 metre in the direction of the force.
I wish Americans would stop calling them "English" units. Not only are they no longer generally used in England (with the odd exception like pints of beer and miles) but the even when they were used they were different from the American system. For example there are 20 fluid ounces in an Imperial pint vs. 16 fluid ounces in a US pint....so it is a very good thing than NASA is no longer using them for international missions since there isn't even an Imperial standard that anyone can agree on!
"Err...Houston we may have a problem, when you told us to burn 10 pints of fuel was that Imperial pints or US pints?"
...some countries will get a bye this round
Yes, likely a "good bye" from all their citizens who are already ticked off enough at the US. Certainly I've noticed a huge drop in the number of scientific conferences held in the US. Partly because the visa rules prevent - or at least pose severe problems - for some of those attending and partly because there is a noticeable minority of people who now refuse to travel to the US because of the fingerprinting. I can only imagine that this will swell their ranks.
Perhaps not. If I were that teacher I would inform Citizenship and Immigration Canada and put a link to the video in the email. While this does not guarentee a return to Britain it might guarentee a short stay in Canada or at least a major headache for the parents which will hopefully persuade them to keep their kid under control.
In case you haven't noticed more than 50% of "that continent" is Canada!
It also seems to work for TV series as well.
The fool or the fool who dimantles the WiFi network based on the ramblings of a fool?
A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls.
Hmmm....I wonder if there is some truth in this because unfortunately there seem to be a lot of extremely thick skulled people left to make the decisions nowadays.
I never understand why Australia has compulsory voting since it seems completely unfair. I mean if you are going to have compulsory voting shouldn't there also be a law making it compulsory that there is some politician worth voting for on the ballot? Perhaps that why it never got introduced in the UK....
Besides, the three movies are currently placed in 4th, 14th and 20th place in IMDB's top250 movies of all time. How could that be if they are such a bad movies?
...but that's ok you go on making the typical same old dross that comes out of Hollywood these days...it's great for the film industry in the rest of the world.
Hmmm...an interesting argument. So essentially you are saying that because lots of other people think it was a good movie it must therefore be a good movie? Not a big supporter of independant thought are you? However let me take you up on this one. I would argue that pretty much whoever produced Lord of the Rings, with the budget Jackson had, it would be a blockbuster. This is because the story is fantastic and so, despite Jackson's butchery of it, it is still very appealing to audiences.
You are complaining about physics in a movie with ancient talking trees, flaming eyeball and magic?
Yes - the physics as exists in Middle Earth. Though perhaps "unbelievable" or "out of place" stunts would have been a better explanation....but my biggest complaint was that they kept on doing the same type of thing ad nauseum. Since Peter Jackson does this in pretty much all his films this leads me to believe that he is a bad director. To back this up look at the flop that King Kong was (this also backs up my first point about Tolkien being the main attraction of the films).
Having those in the movie would have sucked. the climax of the movie was the destruction of the ring. Had they put the scouring in the movie, the audience would be about to leave the theater
Well actually it wouldn't because all the people like you who don't stay 10 seconds after the climax wouldn't be aware that there was a final section to the film would they? Maybe it would have been interesting to try something outside the standard Hollywood mold for a change? Who knows perhaps the audience would like something a little different?
PJ set out to create a good MOVIE.
Unfortunately he did not achieve this. I love the books and the BBC radio adaption as well as the first of the PJ films. TTT was ok but ROTK was frankly boring. PJ went into King Kong mode when it came to the battle of the Pelennor fields - it went on FAR too long and contained ridiculously unphysical stunts. It was boring and I hoenstly NEVER expected to go to a LOTR film and ever be bored.
What makes this unforgiveble though is that he had to cut out serious parts of the story to accomodate it - no return to the shire and final battle with Saruman - which arguably contained one of the major messages of the trilogy. Compare the BBC radio adaption (which was 13 one hours episode) to PJs films which in total are almost as long and you'll see the difference, especially since narration had to be added to explain the things which you could not see.
maybe they should do their own movie then.
Just because I am not a film director does not mean that I cannot spot a bad one. It is a matter of taste. Clearly lots of people really liked the films (even I liked the first one) but that it no way makes my opinion that the last one was awful invalid.
England is probably the best place in the world to have a heart attack, should you choose to have one. If you keel over in London you should get a paramedic equiped with defibrilator within 10 minutes...
Yes but its the 4 hour drive (or apparently flight if you happen to be living down south) around the umpteen different hospitals looking for a free bed that kills you. The NHS in the UK is frankly bad and getting worse - you only have to look at the ever increasing numbers of jobs that come with free medical insurance to see that. The problem is less the lack of money and more the HUGE number of administrators - the current ratio is approximately 1:1 i.e. one administrator per doctor+nurse. My dad (a now retired GP) used to complain bitterly about this because it is not just a waste of money but as the number of administrators increased so does the amount of time doctors, and particularly nurses, spend filling in forms to keep them happy instead of looking after patients.
Having also lived in the US the problems are very different there. With medical insurance the treatment you get is fantastic in terms of easy access although compentancy of doctors does generally not seem to be as good (based on a small statical sample) and may be due to the "we have to cover every concievable eventuallity so we can't be sued" which IMO you get far less of in the UK. The problem with the US is the lack of universal access to health care and that the insurance has a maximum "lifetime" limit - usually at $1-2 million but since having a baby apparently costs the insurance $30k who knows if this will be enough? Plus for most non-US citizens the huge social injustice of the system is a problem too.
I now live in Canada which has a health care system like most of Europe in terms of free/cheap access but which works a lot better than the UK mainly because they had the great idea of severely limiting private medical clinics....so if you are a politician/rich business type it is in your best interests to make sure the health system works because that is what will be looking after you if anything happens!
I don't think the article mentioned Boeing in particular and on that timescale the new A380 from Airbus may be ready which is substantially larger than the 747 (not that, as a frequent traveller, I find this particularly a good thing!).