I shop online like I shop in the local stores. This means, "I need something, I find out where it is, i compare some prices (more comparison for pricier items) and I buy." There's no browsing, checking out ads, etc. the ONLY times that ads get my attention is if they are funny, or are for a product I'm unfamiliar with that actually seems like it might be useful -and then I go back to shopping as normal.
If that is their only concern, then the simplest solution is to divide Wikipedia up into "Knowledge and Culture" and "Subculture and Trivia" sections and then give the job of policing the areas back to those who have the respective opinions. "Inclusionists" can monitor the sections they want included and "deletionists" have the stuff they don't feel important under it's own heading where they can ignore it.
The battle between rights and government intrusion has a long long history in the United States and it has swung back and forth many many times. Our Constitution was written by men who understood that this would happen and they attempted to write the Constitution so that it would balance the power of the government by enabling the citizens of this country: giving them power over the government. Therefore you are correct on your first point: this did not start with 9/11 or GW Bush. However, I object to your dismissal of our concern when you say "It doesn't really seem to be affecting your ability to do what you want to do, like complain about it on internet forums." It doesn't affect these abilities now, perhaps, but if we as citizens allow this capability and capacity to be developed without sufficient checks against it, it WILL be used against our personal liberties eventually. The government has spied on opposition parties before, it has imprisoned opposition figures on trumped up charges in past times, some say that this is happening on a small scale now, will you allow the government to establish this ability without empowering the citizens to hold it in check? I am not a luddite, times change, abilities change, I believe that it is altogether right and proper that the government use the newest tech to enable it to keep our citizenry as safe from harm as they can within the limits of their power. Yet, realizing the dangers of unchecked power, realizing the potential for abuse that these new techs make available, I will not, as a citizen, be silent while my government draws unto itself an unchecked power over me. This is what it is about. We need to act like responsible citizens before it does affect our ability to complain on these forums, or else it will be too late to complain when the government has all the capabilities in place and the precedent of power to use them.
I've been reading all the posts, and for the most part I agree with the "I wouldn't dream of giving my daughter unfettered access but I think that it needs to be a communication/trust thing." I have 2 daughters, 10 and 12, and for the most part, they do what they want online, and my method of "checking" was to teach them a long time ago, don't hide things, it will only make me more curious what you're up to.... and then when I find something I don't like them seeing, talk to them about it without freaking out on them. so far, it's worked...
But there's something haunting me with the way the poster posed his questions that leads me to wonder if the parents are practicing some rather brutal parenting methods. I grew up with a mother who used everything in my life as a cudgel to beat me with -as if growing up a geek wasn't difficult enough! It may be that the brother is simply trying to give his sister some breathing room -though I think the attempt is misguided. If the parenting skills in that house are so bad that he feels he can better educate and protect his sister than his parents can, then child protective services might be more appropriate than a debian box.
I've actually noticed a similar behavior, but not exactly as he described. If i click a download link in my yahoo mail, it behaves as it should, offering to open the document with the appropriate app or let me download it. I've messed up before and canceled and had to click the "download" again. Suddenly Ubuntu has no idea what to open the file with: I have to either search for the appropriate app myself or save the file and click from there. a bit weird, but something I can live with.
My OS experiences always seem to run counter to everyone elses..... I've run Redhat, Fedora and SuSe, and now Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon) and it's the most stable and easiest to configure OS I've used. Better yet, I've STILL got my Windows 98 install on the other partition on this computer -I play some old strategy games on it- and it's never even sneezed at me. Of course, for the last 4 years, zone alarm has been set to disable all internet connectivity on that partition..... And yeah, I'm running old hardware, but with Linux, I'm still faster than my wife's XP machine that's less than a year old. I had some issues with Firefox being glacial in its speed at first with this install, but I switched to the latest beta and all that went away. Best of all is the available documentation: this is the best documented distro I've ever used.
Americans may not be big into knowing their history, but history has shown again and again that if politicians can lie cheat or twist their way around they will... It's a reality that is so pervasive that even that majority of Americans who never cracked their history book open in high school know it to be true. They may say "even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing" but what everyone thinks is "so we just don't have the evidence, and even if it isn't, it's going to happen." And that isn't perception, it's good ol' pattern recognition: if there's a way to cheat, someone is going to do it eventually.
The ACLU is dependent upon contributions to exist. I've contributed to them before. It's time to write and speak your mind. Email them at membership@aclu.org or call them at (212) 549-2585 and let them know what you think. The ACLU is supposed to stand for free and fair elections: they need to know that we want them to stand for TRULY reliable and honest elections by supporting machines with an auditable paper trail and opposing any other solution.
Sorry, when the product doesn't go out the door on time and we lose a $75k sale, then jobs get cut. No more "career progression" in our company for someone. No more learning at our company for someone. No more paycheck. And if i allowed it to continue, it would soon apply to EVERYONE. I'm not part of the problem. Deadlines have to be met whether we like them or not (training salesmen not to sell with unrealistic deadlines is another matter) if a company is to stay in business. A good manager utilizes staff so that deadlines are met with minimal disruptions, and if you noticed, I specified that I would be looking for someone doing a task that could be rescheduled. This is reality.
Over the years I've taken IQ tests and the results have ranged from 129 to 152 with the majority of the tests hanging right around 132. I'm guessing that the 152 was a fluke where someone stilted the test in a direction of their own strengths or weaknesses (probably not even deliberately) and I disregard that score. The rest of the scores still have a range of 7 points around the tightest cluster and a few more random scores in the 140 something range. If you're hung up on that damned IQ thing, I figure you'd better understand that certain tests can end up stilted in favor of a band of problem solving skill sets, and to top it all off, some people just test better than others. The fact that I was never even the slightest bit rattled by any kind of test has to add to my IQ score, even though it's meaningless to my actual intelligence: just some unknown bonus to the score because I don't rattle easily. Forget about your IQ and do the things you love doing.
Somewhere between you and your "time management manager" there's a lack of communication. I said in an earlier post that I love turning chaos into order, that's the thrill of multitasking.... A large part of my job requires me to mesh the work loads of 10-30 people (the work loads adjust seasonally) and time management is critical. You may not appreciate being told to "stop doing that and do this" but getting product out the door is the objective, and some tasks can be put off and SHOULD be put off in favor of meeting the schedule. The thing that it sounds to me like is missing is proper communication: "What are you doing right now, and can it handle interruptions?" If they're on a maintenance task that they can come back to, I'm moving that person to get something critical done... If they're on a maintenance task that has a high probability of getting fubared by an interruption, they're staying on it and I'll find somebody else. But time management is my job, schedules have to mesh, product has to go out the door in a timely fashion.
Yup, I've heard it all from you guys about how the boss sucks at multitasking, how I never get anything finished..... Let me explain: it's not my job to get things finished! Oh, I occasionally finish something, but not often, my job is to make sure that the flow of things goes smoothly enough that at the end of the day everything gets done -by somebody else! I have so much stuff coming through that demands my attention: make a decision, get "part A done with employee so that employee understands where we're going with this" answer phone and put the fire out in another location, get to the other side of the building to solve another problem and place a materials order along the way.... I love it and it sucks. There's a notepad with me all the time. Not some electronic gizmo... a pencil and a notepad. If I write it down the old fashioned way, I can remember most of what passes through during the day except lists. Hastily written notes have to be rewritten almost immediately or else they wont make sense even 10 minutes later. Multitasking doesn't work at all without deliberate times where I STOP multitasking and commit things to memory with that old fashioned pencil and paper, writing things down, not as some "note" but as a written explanation. And it's exhausting. But I love turning chaos into order, and somebody has to do it! And everyone knows that if I've gone off to the shop and put the welding hood on, do not disturb............. I need some time of concentration. Nothing focuses the mind like welding.
Egads people..... The shuttle has a long list of problems and shortcomings. It's expensive and it isn't as reliable as the designers had hoped, NASA and the politicos who control the purse strings have finally come to a consensus on this point. Can we finally stop beating a dead horse?
Every space-craft that we've launched -and by "we" I mean the human race, not just Americans- has had strengths and weaknesses. It's early in the game here people: a good analogy would be that the Europeans are just realizing that Columbus found a "new world" and not a shortcut to the far East. There have been a lot of people who have realized the right way of doing things for a long time, but like those early Europeans coming to the new world, it takes time to convince the people who have the money. There was a lot of begging for money, saying "I've got a plan that will work." Furthermore, there were a lot of failed starts in the new world: settlements that collapsed and vanished or packed up and left... This is not the time to say that spending money on manned space exploration is a waste so let's give up: of course it's wasteful right now, we're still figuring out the best way to go about it!
There are those in Russia that have come to realize that someday the economic health of good ol' terra firma will depend on what we do in space, and they hope to be on the leading edge and therefore profit from it: I say good luck to them, the world needs their efforts. There are those in the USA, Germany, China, Japan, India (the list goes on) who agree and want their contries to be on that leading edge too: good luck to them as well. There are going to be a lot of false starts and a lot of wasted money, but in the end, we will find the best way by trial and error and forge ahead until space becomes the next economic powerhouse, the powerhouse that takes the world into new prosperity and health.
Ummmmmmmm, no. The earth's core is hot mostly because of the decay of radioactive isotopes within the earth's core: http://www.physorg.com/news62952904.html "the vast majority of the heat in Earth's interior--up to 90 percent--is fueled by the decaying of radioactive isotopes like Potassium 40, Uranium 238, 235, and Thorium 232 contained within the mantle. These isotopes radiate heat as they shed excess energy and move toward stability. "The amount of heat caused by this radiation is almost the same as the total heat measured emanating from the Earth." "
I've seen too many comments about the "effect this would have on magma under the earth if we cool it this way." The answer to these questions is that for a long long time, we'd have virtually no effect. The scale of human activity is just to small compared to the mass of the earth -the heat source for this power generation method. Go back to school and look at the graphics that show just how thin of an area the crust occupies on the earth. http://iga.igg.cnr.it/geo/what-is-for%20IGAnew_fil e/image038.jpg Now imagine for yourself just how thin of an area human activity would impact. The heat being used in these systems is not coming directly from magma, but instead is coming from heated rock far above those layers in the earth: heat that is already being transferred to the surface. The worst case scenario is that we might be able to "overbuild" and lower the thermal gradient for a time in a given area. In a case like this, the worst that would happen is that we would have to shut down the power plant for a time until the heat radiating up from deeper in the earth was allowed to build up again to a point where the gradient became economical for the power plant to run again. We are talking about using heat from solid rock, miles above a magma pool..... rock that is hot because of heat radiating to the surface from the earths core. We would be giving a small percentage of that heat a fast track to the surface.
That said, I am sure that someday in the distant furure, such concerns would be warrented. I can forsee a day when the power needs of the earth and the technology is such that we would be tapping heat more directly from the mantle or core in amounts that we might be able to affect the magnetosphere by cooling the mantle/core significantly. This is not a problem for these projected plans. I would be doubtful of our ability to cool even a localized area enough that we could accomplish something like "eliminate the possibility of the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting." We have to keep in mind the scale of our activities compared to the size of the earth. Our ability to communicate only makes the earth seem to be small....
Finally, on the subject of heating the earth: all electricty generation and consumption creates heat. We take fossil fuels from deep inside the earth and burn them, generate electricity and consume it, converting it back to heat as we do. This is all heat that would not have otherwise ever been found on the surface of the earth. Or we can take heat that is rising to the surface of the earth anyways, fast track it to the surface, generate electricity and do the consumption/conversion thing. Yes, we bring heat to the surface, but since it was on its way to the surface anyways, it seems a no brainer to me.
While I agree with most of your comment, I think I understand what NASA is saying, and it isn't "hold everything" but rather more of a "slow down, we need a solution to this dust problem." The dust is definately a problem, but not one that is insurmountable. The dust is abrasive to space suits and equipment, it is harmful to breathe it in. NASA is looking for the optimal solution to the problem. It may be something as simple as a shower in the airlock and recycle the water, or blow it off in the airlock and filter the air. What about equipment outside in the environment? What about hasty emergency entrances through the airlock? Like everything else about missions into space and solar bodies, NASA has to study the problem and look for an optimal compromise between perfect safety and getting the job done. I don't consider a conversation about issues that need to be delt with to be a show-stopper. Just something that has to be done in the hopes that whatever solution is arrived at isn't one that will lead to a Columbia scale disaster.
Here's a fun idea for space junk...... A handful of satellites to start, say 20, that can alter their orbits to some smallish degree. Arm the satellites with modified 50 cal ammo (the powder would need an oxidizer)..... The satellites have a "master control" at NASA to lock out targeting against functioning satellites and then charge people for the privilege of targeting space debris. They could even give each shot an "accepted targeting range" so that the recoil could be used to help boost the satellite towards the next piece of debris. With a range measured in miles, 50 cal shots would almost always have something within range, even limiting shots taken to only those that would propel debris towards Earth. $500 a shot and each successful "kill" gets the hunter a picture of the impact and a certificate from NASA. The satellite would consist of an ion engine and power source, camera with telescopic zoom, communications (all radar targeting would be done from the same Earth based radar that tracks debris) a gun and about 10,000 rounds of ammo. The only real issues are making sure that targeting doesn't threaten useful satellites and that the recoil from all shots allowed can be used to alter the orbit of the "gun" favorably: these should be fairly reasonable engineering problems. $5 million paid in from "hunters" sitting at their computers to help defray costs... Send the "gun" to a firey death when it's ammo is gone: I'd say it's doable.
OK, so most of the postings I've read say we "either have free will or we don't." There were a few mutterings about a duality, but nothing clear and concise. Lemme try to posit something to you.
I'm going to take my wife out to dinner. I know that I'm not going to a seafood place because I'm allergic to seafood. I'm not going to take her to eat Chinese either because just walking past a Chinese restaurant makes mt stomach roll. These two choises are made for me in a deterministic fashion. I suppose I could go batshit insane and gorge on the lobster until they hauled me off to the hospital, but I'm not out to refute all determinism -I just want to enjoy my dinner.
So, locally we have an Italian place and a local greasy spoon. I have free will as to which one I choose, though both exert some deterministic pressures on me, namely, it's easier to eat locally than drive 15 miles to another restaurant -though I have the free will to do so if I want and sometimes do.
I have the free will to fly to Singapore for dinner too, but it is so far to the outside of "normal range of deterministc pressures" that I will probably never make that choice. Itallian sounds good tonight.
So, let's look at the criminal element. There is a child who grew up with a crack-head mother, saw his father twice growing up, both times when the father was between jail sentences. His peers are a set with similar backgrounds. Most of the deterministic pressures are for this child to follow in a similar path to his father and mother. Yet, this child also knows that other choices can be made, he has heard, and maybe seen a rare example of, people use education to get ahead in life. He has free will enough to make a choice for the better, though it is unlikely that he will.
So, back to the story. A man has a "normal" life. Wife kids, family pet.... There are deterministic pressures for him to admire the beuty of young girls and women, placed upon him by the media culture, there are counter pressures placed upong him to say "but to do anything beyond admire is wrong." He lives his life like most men, with this truce between "damn that's hot" and "don't touch this." Yet inside of his head a nodule of tissues are growing abnormally. This tumor is a deterministic pressure. It could be that the tumor is growing in an area that affects his lust: maybe the deterministic pressures are that his lust has grown more intense. He still has the free will to chose othe courses of behavior, everything from hiring a prostitute to masturbating with porn. However, maybe the tumor is growing in the area of the brain where the actual choices between right and wrong are made, and here it is where determinism takes over.
Actually, the argument you are making is totally different..... I've said "as long as there's a court order" and you've said "but the Bush Admin has shown......" Well, this is the crux, isn't it? As long as the law is followed and a court order is issued before such surveilance occurs, no big deal. "The Bush administration has shown they ignore the law" is a different argument. If the law is followed, it's only the tech that has changed. And according to the article, this new tech still requires physical access first...........
...then I don't care whose phone is getting bugged or how. Technology is constantly changing, so our abilities to moniter the public changes as well. It is the job of the courts to assure the public that this does not occur without probable cause. As long as there was a court order to bug the mob guys' phone, I don't care how they do it. I just want constant assurances that our government is allowing judicial oversight. This is all just a rehash of the same old story from back in the days when they were first tapping phone lines across the street from Ma Bell's switchboard.
Here's the thing: would you just hand cash over to the bum who is pan-handeling outside a liquor store, knowing full well that he's just raising cash for another bottle? Or do you set conditions for yourself (thereby imposing your conditions on the begger) before you give out aid? If you had an alcoholic family member that was constantly getting himself in trouble, would you just keep helping him ou of a jam, over and over as the years go by? Or would you set conditions before you helped? Like you say, the rest of the world IS our problem, in the same way that the alcoholic family member is, and it's perfectly all right to say that we sometimes set conditions that are way out of line, but the real reason that a lot of these third world countries continue to have problems (in spite of our most persistant efforts) is because we don't frame our arguements sensibly before we "help" them.
OK, lets take a look at this declaration that "Every time I see this argument, they leave out every mention of the fact that the wire taps happen when there's a known terrorist on the end of the line."How do we know this? You see, without some kind of oversight, say, from the courts, there is no way of knowing much of anything about who is and isn't being eavesdropped upon, and this is the major contention of this issue. The FISA courts were setup in the aftermath of the Watergate era when everyone was mindful of the potential for the executive branch of our government to spy on it's own people for nefarious purposes, making some people think that it should be a cut and dry issue: go to the FISA courts and get a warrant. It isn't that cut and dry however, the FISA courts were setup so as to not overly constrict the executives power during a time of war. So now we come to 2006, and the president claims one thing, some of the courts claim another, Many of us will complain loudly about this wiretapping, fearing for our freedoms and liberties, There will be many others who will say "the president is just trying to protect us." The issue will eventually shake itself out in the courts with a result that one side or the other doesn't like. Furthermore, this shakeout in the courts will be decided based upon three issues: 1) being unable to forsee all things, the constitution leaves many issues to the current legislative branch to pass laws on, 2) the legislative branch passes laws that often leave murky "grey areas" that congress did not think about or forsee, 3) the courts decisions are usually made based upon past decisions and withing the current political leanings of the courts. So what does this mean to us? It means, keep your voices heard, keep complaining if you don't like what the executive is doing, keep supporting if you do, vote, and be make it so that if the courts decision does not agree with your own opinion, congress knows you will be voting and that matter is of importance to you, because only congress can alter the law if you deem that the courts decision is harmful to the United States. And yes, I'm aware of the issues concerning our voting and political systems: these things worry me too. But as of this moment in time, there is no concensus for a revolution in this country, peaceful or otherwise. That leaves us working within the system, hoping that we can overcome the flaws before a revolution is needed. Save the flames for the future in case they are needed, use reason for now.
Personally, I am worried about the potential abuses that warrentless eavesdropping allows, and believe that all foreign survelliance should go through the FISA courts, even in a time of war. The courts work effectively enough that I cannot see any harm that would come from this requirement, and furthermore, I can see all kinds of harm that may come from an unrestrained executive. I will accept the courts decision on the legality of this issue, and if I do not like it, I will scream all the louder and use my vote to try to get the laws changed. I want to know that every time a wiretap occurs it is because the government is eavesdropping on a known enemy: I want to know that they are not using their power to supress political opponents. It is important that we stress this issue to those who disagree with us,,. that we make them understand that prtecting our freedoms and liberties are about protecting ourselves from our government.
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I shop online like I shop in the local stores. This means, "I need something, I find out where it is, i compare some prices (more comparison for pricier items) and I buy." There's no browsing, checking out ads, etc. the ONLY times that ads get my attention is if they are funny, or are for a product I'm unfamiliar with that actually seems like it might be useful -and then I go back to shopping as normal.
If that is their only concern, then the simplest solution is to divide Wikipedia up into "Knowledge and Culture" and "Subculture and Trivia" sections and then give the job of policing the areas back to those who have the respective opinions. "Inclusionists" can monitor the sections they want included and "deletionists" have the stuff they don't feel important under it's own heading where they can ignore it.
The battle between rights and government intrusion has a long long history in the United States and it has swung back and forth many many times. Our Constitution was written by men who understood that this would happen and they attempted to write the Constitution so that it would balance the power of the government by enabling the citizens of this country: giving them power over the government. Therefore you are correct on your first point: this did not start with 9/11 or GW Bush. However, I object to your dismissal of our concern when you say "It doesn't really seem to be affecting your ability to do what you want to do, like complain about it on internet forums." It doesn't affect these abilities now, perhaps, but if we as citizens allow this capability and capacity to be developed without sufficient checks against it, it WILL be used against our personal liberties eventually. The government has spied on opposition parties before, it has imprisoned opposition figures on trumped up charges in past times, some say that this is happening on a small scale now, will you allow the government to establish this ability without empowering the citizens to hold it in check? I am not a luddite, times change, abilities change, I believe that it is altogether right and proper that the government use the newest tech to enable it to keep our citizenry as safe from harm as they can within the limits of their power. Yet, realizing the dangers of unchecked power, realizing the potential for abuse that these new techs make available, I will not, as a citizen, be silent while my government draws unto itself an unchecked power over me. This is what it is about. We need to act like responsible citizens before it does affect our ability to complain on these forums, or else it will be too late to complain when the government has all the capabilities in place and the precedent of power to use them.
I've been reading all the posts, and for the most part I agree with the "I wouldn't dream of giving my daughter unfettered access but I think that it needs to be a communication/trust thing." I have 2 daughters, 10 and 12, and for the most part, they do what they want online, and my method of "checking" was to teach them a long time ago, don't hide things, it will only make me more curious what you're up to.... and then when I find something I don't like them seeing, talk to them about it without freaking out on them. so far, it's worked... But there's something haunting me with the way the poster posed his questions that leads me to wonder if the parents are practicing some rather brutal parenting methods. I grew up with a mother who used everything in my life as a cudgel to beat me with -as if growing up a geek wasn't difficult enough! It may be that the brother is simply trying to give his sister some breathing room -though I think the attempt is misguided. If the parenting skills in that house are so bad that he feels he can better educate and protect his sister than his parents can, then child protective services might be more appropriate than a debian box.
I've actually noticed a similar behavior, but not exactly as he described. If i click a download link in my yahoo mail, it behaves as it should, offering to open the document with the appropriate app or let me download it. I've messed up before and canceled and had to click the "download" again. Suddenly Ubuntu has no idea what to open the file with: I have to either search for the appropriate app myself or save the file and click from there. a bit weird, but something I can live with.
My OS experiences always seem to run counter to everyone elses..... I've run Redhat, Fedora and SuSe, and now Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon) and it's the most stable and easiest to configure OS I've used. Better yet, I've STILL got my Windows 98 install on the other partition on this computer -I play some old strategy games on it- and it's never even sneezed at me. Of course, for the last 4 years, zone alarm has been set to disable all internet connectivity on that partition..... And yeah, I'm running old hardware, but with Linux, I'm still faster than my wife's XP machine that's less than a year old. I had some issues with Firefox being glacial in its speed at first with this install, but I switched to the latest beta and all that went away. Best of all is the available documentation: this is the best documented distro I've ever used.
Americans may not be big into knowing their history, but history has shown again and again that if politicians can lie cheat or twist their way around they will... It's a reality that is so pervasive that even that majority of Americans who never cracked their history book open in high school know it to be true. They may say "even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing" but what everyone thinks is "so we just don't have the evidence, and even if it isn't, it's going to happen." And that isn't perception, it's good ol' pattern recognition: if there's a way to cheat, someone is going to do it eventually.
The ACLU is dependent upon contributions to exist. I've contributed to them before. It's time to write and speak your mind. Email them at membership@aclu.org or call them at (212) 549-2585 and let them know what you think. The ACLU is supposed to stand for free and fair elections: they need to know that we want them to stand for TRULY reliable and honest elections by supporting machines with an auditable paper trail and opposing any other solution.
Sorry, when the product doesn't go out the door on time and we lose a $75k sale, then jobs get cut. No more "career progression" in our company for someone. No more learning at our company for someone. No more paycheck. And if i allowed it to continue, it would soon apply to EVERYONE. I'm not part of the problem. Deadlines have to be met whether we like them or not (training salesmen not to sell with unrealistic deadlines is another matter) if a company is to stay in business. A good manager utilizes staff so that deadlines are met with minimal disruptions, and if you noticed, I specified that I would be looking for someone doing a task that could be rescheduled. This is reality.
They forgot the kites too.... That was the most amazing part of the original photographs! Somehow the helicopter doesn't amaze me quite as much.
Over the years I've taken IQ tests and the results have ranged from 129 to 152 with the majority of the tests hanging right around 132. I'm guessing that the 152 was a fluke where someone stilted the test in a direction of their own strengths or weaknesses (probably not even deliberately) and I disregard that score. The rest of the scores still have a range of 7 points around the tightest cluster and a few more random scores in the 140 something range. If you're hung up on that damned IQ thing, I figure you'd better understand that certain tests can end up stilted in favor of a band of problem solving skill sets, and to top it all off, some people just test better than others. The fact that I was never even the slightest bit rattled by any kind of test has to add to my IQ score, even though it's meaningless to my actual intelligence: just some unknown bonus to the score because I don't rattle easily. Forget about your IQ and do the things you love doing.
Somewhere between you and your "time management manager" there's a lack of communication. I said in an earlier post that I love turning chaos into order, that's the thrill of multitasking.... A large part of my job requires me to mesh the work loads of 10-30 people (the work loads adjust seasonally) and time management is critical. You may not appreciate being told to "stop doing that and do this" but getting product out the door is the objective, and some tasks can be put off and SHOULD be put off in favor of meeting the schedule. The thing that it sounds to me like is missing is proper communication: "What are you doing right now, and can it handle interruptions?" If they're on a maintenance task that they can come back to, I'm moving that person to get something critical done... If they're on a maintenance task that has a high probability of getting fubared by an interruption, they're staying on it and I'll find somebody else. But time management is my job, schedules have to mesh, product has to go out the door in a timely fashion.
Yup, I've heard it all from you guys about how the boss sucks at multitasking, how I never get anything finished..... Let me explain: it's not my job to get things finished! Oh, I occasionally finish something, but not often, my job is to make sure that the flow of things goes smoothly enough that at the end of the day everything gets done -by somebody else! I have so much stuff coming through that demands my attention: make a decision, get "part A done with employee so that employee understands where we're going with this" answer phone and put the fire out in another location, get to the other side of the building to solve another problem and place a materials order along the way.... I love it and it sucks. There's a notepad with me all the time. Not some electronic gizmo... a pencil and a notepad. If I write it down the old fashioned way, I can remember most of what passes through during the day except lists. Hastily written notes have to be rewritten almost immediately or else they wont make sense even 10 minutes later. Multitasking doesn't work at all without deliberate times where I STOP multitasking and commit things to memory with that old fashioned pencil and paper, writing things down, not as some "note" but as a written explanation. And it's exhausting. But I love turning chaos into order, and somebody has to do it! And everyone knows that if I've gone off to the shop and put the welding hood on, do not disturb............. I need some time of concentration. Nothing focuses the mind like welding.
Egads people..... The shuttle has a long list of problems and shortcomings. It's expensive and it isn't as reliable as the designers had hoped, NASA and the politicos who control the purse strings have finally come to a consensus on this point. Can we finally stop beating a dead horse? Every space-craft that we've launched -and by "we" I mean the human race, not just Americans- has had strengths and weaknesses. It's early in the game here people: a good analogy would be that the Europeans are just realizing that Columbus found a "new world" and not a shortcut to the far East. There have been a lot of people who have realized the right way of doing things for a long time, but like those early Europeans coming to the new world, it takes time to convince the people who have the money. There was a lot of begging for money, saying "I've got a plan that will work." Furthermore, there were a lot of failed starts in the new world: settlements that collapsed and vanished or packed up and left... This is not the time to say that spending money on manned space exploration is a waste so let's give up: of course it's wasteful right now, we're still figuring out the best way to go about it! There are those in Russia that have come to realize that someday the economic health of good ol' terra firma will depend on what we do in space, and they hope to be on the leading edge and therefore profit from it: I say good luck to them, the world needs their efforts. There are those in the USA, Germany, China, Japan, India (the list goes on) who agree and want their contries to be on that leading edge too: good luck to them as well. There are going to be a lot of false starts and a lot of wasted money, but in the end, we will find the best way by trial and error and forge ahead until space becomes the next economic powerhouse, the powerhouse that takes the world into new prosperity and health.
Ummmmmmmm, no. The earth's core is hot mostly because of the decay of radioactive isotopes within the earth's core: http://www.physorg.com/news62952904.html "the vast majority of the heat in Earth's interior--up to 90 percent--is fueled by the decaying of radioactive isotopes like Potassium 40, Uranium 238, 235, and Thorium 232 contained within the mantle. These isotopes radiate heat as they shed excess energy and move toward stability. "The amount of heat caused by this radiation is almost the same as the total heat measured emanating from the Earth." "
That said, I am sure that someday in the distant furure, such concerns would be warrented. I can forsee a day when the power needs of the earth and the technology is such that we would be tapping heat more directly from the mantle or core in amounts that we might be able to affect the magnetosphere by cooling the mantle/core significantly. This is not a problem for these projected plans. I would be doubtful of our ability to cool even a localized area enough that we could accomplish something like "eliminate the possibility of the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting." We have to keep in mind the scale of our activities compared to the size of the earth. Our ability to communicate only makes the earth seem to be small....
Finally, on the subject of heating the earth: all electricty generation and consumption creates heat. We take fossil fuels from deep inside the earth and burn them, generate electricity and consume it, converting it back to heat as we do. This is all heat that would not have otherwise ever been found on the surface of the earth. Or we can take heat that is rising to the surface of the earth anyways, fast track it to the surface, generate electricity and do the consumption/conversion thing. Yes, we bring heat to the surface, but since it was on its way to the surface anyways, it seems a no brainer to me.
...can it help me to escape this April Fools Day curse that seems to be cast upon us everywhere?
Woooooosh........... And that's NOT a remotely controlled aircraft flying over your head either.
While I agree with most of your comment, I think I understand what NASA is saying, and it isn't "hold everything" but rather more of a "slow down, we need a solution to this dust problem." The dust is definately a problem, but not one that is insurmountable. The dust is abrasive to space suits and equipment, it is harmful to breathe it in. NASA is looking for the optimal solution to the problem. It may be something as simple as a shower in the airlock and recycle the water, or blow it off in the airlock and filter the air. What about equipment outside in the environment? What about hasty emergency entrances through the airlock? Like everything else about missions into space and solar bodies, NASA has to study the problem and look for an optimal compromise between perfect safety and getting the job done. I don't consider a conversation about issues that need to be delt with to be a show-stopper. Just something that has to be done in the hopes that whatever solution is arrived at isn't one that will lead to a Columbia scale disaster.
Here's a fun idea for space junk...... A handful of satellites to start, say 20, that can alter their orbits to some smallish degree. Arm the satellites with modified 50 cal ammo (the powder would need an oxidizer)..... The satellites have a "master control" at NASA to lock out targeting against functioning satellites and then charge people for the privilege of targeting space debris. They could even give each shot an "accepted targeting range" so that the recoil could be used to help boost the satellite towards the next piece of debris. With a range measured in miles, 50 cal shots would almost always have something within range, even limiting shots taken to only those that would propel debris towards Earth. $500 a shot and each successful "kill" gets the hunter a picture of the impact and a certificate from NASA. The satellite would consist of an ion engine and power source, camera with telescopic zoom, communications (all radar targeting would be done from the same Earth based radar that tracks debris) a gun and about 10,000 rounds of ammo. The only real issues are making sure that targeting doesn't threaten useful satellites and that the recoil from all shots allowed can be used to alter the orbit of the "gun" favorably: these should be fairly reasonable engineering problems. $5 million paid in from "hunters" sitting at their computers to help defray costs... Send the "gun" to a firey death when it's ammo is gone: I'd say it's doable.
OK, so most of the postings I've read say we "either have free will or we don't." There were a few mutterings about a duality, but nothing clear and concise. Lemme try to posit something to you.
I'm going to take my wife out to dinner. I know that I'm not going to a seafood place because I'm allergic to seafood. I'm not going to take her to eat Chinese either because just walking past a Chinese restaurant makes mt stomach roll. These two choises are made for me in a deterministic fashion. I suppose I could go batshit insane and gorge on the lobster until they hauled me off to the hospital, but I'm not out to refute all determinism -I just want to enjoy my dinner.
So, locally we have an Italian place and a local greasy spoon. I have free will as to which one I choose, though both exert some deterministic pressures on me, namely, it's easier to eat locally than drive 15 miles to another restaurant -though I have the free will to do so if I want and sometimes do.
I have the free will to fly to Singapore for dinner too, but it is so far to the outside of "normal range of deterministc pressures" that I will probably never make that choice. Itallian sounds good tonight.
So, let's look at the criminal element. There is a child who grew up with a crack-head mother, saw his father twice growing up, both times when the father was between jail sentences. His peers are a set with similar backgrounds. Most of the deterministic pressures are for this child to follow in a similar path to his father and mother. Yet, this child also knows that other choices can be made, he has heard, and maybe seen a rare example of, people use education to get ahead in life. He has free will enough to make a choice for the better, though it is unlikely that he will.
So, back to the story. A man has a "normal" life. Wife kids, family pet.... There are deterministic pressures for him to admire the beuty of young girls and women, placed upon him by the media culture, there are counter pressures placed upong him to say "but to do anything beyond admire is wrong." He lives his life like most men, with this truce between "damn that's hot" and "don't touch this." Yet inside of his head a nodule of tissues are growing abnormally. This tumor is a deterministic pressure. It could be that the tumor is growing in an area that affects his lust: maybe the deterministic pressures are that his lust has grown more intense. He still has the free will to chose othe courses of behavior, everything from hiring a prostitute to masturbating with porn. However, maybe the tumor is growing in the area of the brain where the actual choices between right and wrong are made, and here it is where determinism takes over.
Actually, the argument you are making is totally different..... I've said "as long as there's a court order" and you've said "but the Bush Admin has shown......" Well, this is the crux, isn't it? As long as the law is followed and a court order is issued before such surveilance occurs, no big deal. "The Bush administration has shown they ignore the law" is a different argument. If the law is followed, it's only the tech that has changed. And according to the article, this new tech still requires physical access first...........
...then I don't care whose phone is getting bugged or how. Technology is constantly changing, so our abilities to moniter the public changes as well. It is the job of the courts to assure the public that this does not occur without probable cause. As long as there was a court order to bug the mob guys' phone, I don't care how they do it. I just want constant assurances that our government is allowing judicial oversight. This is all just a rehash of the same old story from back in the days when they were first tapping phone lines across the street from Ma Bell's switchboard.
Here's the thing: would you just hand cash over to the bum who is pan-handeling outside a liquor store, knowing full well that he's just raising cash for another bottle? Or do you set conditions for yourself (thereby imposing your conditions on the begger) before you give out aid? If you had an alcoholic family member that was constantly getting himself in trouble, would you just keep helping him ou of a jam, over and over as the years go by? Or would you set conditions before you helped? Like you say, the rest of the world IS our problem, in the same way that the alcoholic family member is, and it's perfectly all right to say that we sometimes set conditions that are way out of line, but the real reason that a lot of these third world countries continue to have problems (in spite of our most persistant efforts) is because we don't frame our arguements sensibly before we "help" them.
Personally, I am worried about the potential abuses that warrentless eavesdropping allows, and believe that all foreign survelliance should go through the FISA courts, even in a time of war. The courts work effectively enough that I cannot see any harm that would come from this requirement, and furthermore, I can see all kinds of harm that may come from an unrestrained executive. I will accept the courts decision on the legality of this issue, and if I do not like it, I will scream all the louder and use my vote to try to get the laws changed. I want to know that every time a wiretap occurs it is because the government is eavesdropping on a known enemy: I want to know that they are not using their power to supress political opponents. It is important that we stress this issue to those who disagree with us,,. that we make them understand that prtecting our freedoms and liberties are about protecting ourselves from our government.