The real problem is that, knowing that that field over there is a minefield, sweeping it with 99% efficiency means it is still completely unsafe for anyone to walk across.
The only way you can clear a minefield and guarantee that the field is safe is to know exactly how many mines are in the area, and search till you find them all. Which means accepting the cost in both money and lives to keep going till you've ticked off each mine.
Note that knowing the exact number of mines in an area is pretty much impossible for anything other than a test field for this technology.
Ideally developing the tech would make traditional mines so ineffective no one would bother using them,
Not going to happen. If I'm at war and defending a position, a minefield makes a lot of sense. And the machineguns, rocket launchers, artillery, etc I have in or covering the position can be used to blow up your minesweeper robots. It'll even help a bit, by giving my guys something to do to keep alert (blowing up robots is always fun).
And once the war is over, well, good luck determining exactly how many mines are in the area still, since some will have been detonated during the war, and lord knows the grunts in the area don't have time to remember mine detonations....
Seriously, the tech is interesting, and should be developed. But it won't magically render mines useless, nor will it render areas known to contain mines safe. Unless it's 100% effective at finding mines. And you'll only know that by letting people use the (former) minefield and seeing how many of them get blown into next week....
Given 5000 deaths per year and 110 million mines, we'd be better off ignoring them. Most of the mines would decay into uselessness long before they killed someone (at the current death rate, in a century, 99% of the mines will not have been stepped on, and that's ignoring the fact that the mines won't last a century.).
I suppose that since her music sold a few albums and she married a famous musician, you don't think she's worthy of the same respect that you'd offer any other person in this world?
No, because she sold a few albums and married a famous musician, I don't think she's worthy of any MORE respect than I'd offer any other person in this world.
No, I don't really care that Courtney got over her addictions. No more than I care that whoever lives at 985-867-5309 did the same (assuming that that person did, in fact, get over his/her/its addictions).
No, I don't really believe that she's newsworthy by virtue of being the wife of Curt Cobain, nor do I think she's newsworthy by virtue of selling a few albums.
Which doesn't imply I'd be rude to her if I ever chanced to meet her. Nor does it imply I'd be especially deferential to her if I ever met her. Until and unless she introduced herself, I doubt I'd even recognize her (but that's true for all but a few hundred people on the planet).
The most interesting thing in the experiment was that male odor + female odor cancelled out the male odor effect.
Apparently (as stated in TFA), UNACCOMPANIED male odor caused the mice to not be willing to show pain, but a strange male in company with a strange female didn't cause the mice to go all macho all of a sudden.
So, I wonder if male mice with female mice will show different effects than male mice alone?
since you know most poeple are throwing it in the trash instead of putting in recycling.
Many years ago, recycling came to the area I live.
So, they started with the "we want you to recycle, since it'll reduce the cost of waste disposal".
Then they gave out the free recycle bins, to help make it easier for them to do the recycling.
Alright, reasonable enough, we began recycling.
Then they tacked a recycling fee onto our waste disposal fee. So rather than reduce the cost of waste disposal, recycling INCREASED the cost of waste disposal.
So, we stopped using the recycling bin (I keep some camping gear in it - camp stove, lantern, that sort of thing), and went back to tossing everything into the garbage bin. Not like I'm going to pay extra for the privilege of separating my garbage....
I really don't understand how the bottled water industry has become so big.
Well, first thing they did was spend a great deal of money convincing everyone that tap water tasted bad.
Once you've got people convinced that the tap water tastes bad, it's not hard convincing them that YOUR water tastes good (even if it's Dasani - tap water run through a filter).
The Romans lasted from 400 BC to (arguably) 1400+ AD (given that you include the Byzantine Empire, which was what they called the eastern half of the Roman Empire after the Empire split).
If you don't want to include the Byzantines as Roman, then the Romans last from about 400 BC to 400 AD (when the Empire split).
When the USA gets a couple centuries older, we'll be HALF as old as the Romans were when they split into East and West. And one fifth as old as they were when they finally disappeared.
Note that I'm combining the Republic and Empire and East/West Empires into a single "Roman" label. Some people might think that innappropriate or misleading....
Perhaps the 52,000 tons of weapons grade pu-239 is deadly for a least the 25000 years of it's half life.
If there's 52 ktons of weapons-grade Pu-239, that's no longer nuclear waste - it's already been recycled.
Note that while there is Pu-239 contained in nuclear waste, it is NOT "weapons-grade" till it has been removed from the nuclear waste and purified to 99% or so.
Note also that a 24.1kY halfl-ife isn't all that radioactive. The more radioactive a substance is, the SHORTER its half-life. Pretty much by definition.
So, while Pu-239 is far more radioactive than U-238, it's only a tiny fraction as radioactive as, say, Cs-137. You could wrap a (non-critical mass) chunk of Pu-239 in old newspaper and it would be pretty much safe to handle (alpha decay can be shielded with a sheet of paper).
What if they could sell it for 30% less than the average cost of chicken? Would you consider it then? Since it's never going to have exactly the same texture and flavor as a real chicken, a reasonable question to ask is: At what price point is a meat substitute acceptable?
A meat substitute won't be acceptable, no matter the price, till the price of meat has increased significantly.
Thinking about it carefully, meat (interruption - a squirrel has leaped from the roof of my house to the top of my bird feeder - idiot-boy does this several times a day, perhaps to give me exercise chasing him off the feeder) makes up a relatively small part of my diet (mostly chicken, some beef, ham rarely).
I *might* consider replacing that with veggie-substitutes if the price of meat were to double or triple. The price of the veggie-meat (vegemite?) would have little influence on the question, so long as it wasn't appreciably higher than current meat prices.
In other words, I don't spend so much on meat now that the savings from cheaper veggie-meats would be worth the trouble. It would take a significant increase in meat prices to have any effect.
...that you disapprove just as much of Michael Bloomberg (another billionaire that spends a lot of money trying to influence politics) when he decides to buy a "grass roots" effort as you do when the Koch Brothers try to do so?
Or does the choice of cause mean that one billionaire trying to influence politics is worse than the other billionaire trying to influence politics?
The Bugs in Heinlein's Starship Troopers were NOT unintelligent. Not were "Brain Bugs" a product of stress - they were the boss bugs all the time.,
Note that you're probably thinking of the movie (again), and that what you're describing wasn't even part of the movie.
In Mote In God's Eye, the Engineer subspecies (not caste) were NOT completely silent, they just didn't talk well. They also did NOT "not interfere with the controlling political caste", since the "political caste" (which wasn't a caste, it was a subspecies) was actually a hybrid (read: mule) of the Ruler subspecies and the Engineer subspecies.
Hmm, 600-odd nuclear reactors in the world. And they always fail? Odd that I've only heard of three failures, including one that was self-inflicted (if you put a reactor into an unsafe condition to test whether you can extract power from a reactor while it's melting down, don't be terribly surprised if it melts down).
And, oddly enough, more whites are criminals, stupid, and violent.
However, looking purely at percentages, you're more likely to be poor, violent, and stupid if you're black (in the USA. other countries have other issues).
A generation ago, the difference in IQ scores between protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland was almost as wide as that between blacks and whites in America. But today, that gap has completely disappeared. Social conditions have some impact.
I take it by "social conditions", you mean that you've finally gotten rid of all the lead pipes in the plumbing in Catholic neighborhoods?
Note that lead pipes in plumbing (fairly common once upon a time, now only found in older, poorer neighborhoods) has a fairly high correlation with violent crime, poverty, low IQ scores, that sort of thing. Now that the last of that crap is disappearing, a lot of "racial tendencies" that racists like to imagine are disappearing as well....
sharing start to become interesting again. Furthermore, capitalism is no longer that popular.
Interesting, in that "sharing" your apartment (for instance) for a weekend for a fee IS capitalism - your capital (that apartment/house/whatever) making you money.
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The only way you can clear a minefield and guarantee that the field is safe is to know exactly how many mines are in the area, and search till you find them all. Which means accepting the cost in both money and lives to keep going till you've ticked off each mine.
Note that knowing the exact number of mines in an area is pretty much impossible for anything other than a test field for this technology.
Not going to happen. If I'm at war and defending a position, a minefield makes a lot of sense. And the machineguns, rocket launchers, artillery, etc I have in or covering the position can be used to blow up your minesweeper robots. It'll even help a bit, by giving my guys something to do to keep alert (blowing up robots is always fun).
And once the war is over, well, good luck determining exactly how many mines are in the area still, since some will have been detonated during the war, and lord knows the grunts in the area don't have time to remember mine detonations....
Seriously, the tech is interesting, and should be developed. But it won't magically render mines useless, nor will it render areas known to contain mines safe. Unless it's 100% effective at finding mines. And you'll only know that by letting people use the (former) minefield and seeing how many of them get blown into next week....
Given 5000 deaths per year and 110 million mines, we'd be better off ignoring them. Most of the mines would decay into uselessness long before they killed someone (at the current death rate, in a century, 99% of the mines will not have been stepped on, and that's ignoring the fact that the mines won't last a century.).
No, because she sold a few albums and married a famous musician, I don't think she's worthy of any MORE respect than I'd offer any other person in this world.
No, I don't really care that Courtney got over her addictions. No more than I care that whoever lives at 985-867-5309 did the same (assuming that that person did, in fact, get over his/her/its addictions).
No, I don't really believe that she's newsworthy by virtue of being the wife of Curt Cobain, nor do I think she's newsworthy by virtue of selling a few albums.
Which doesn't imply I'd be rude to her if I ever chanced to meet her. Nor does it imply I'd be especially deferential to her if I ever met her. Until and unless she introduced herself, I doubt I'd even recognize her (but that's true for all but a few hundred people on the planet).
It's not.
Okay, so my question is...
Why on God's Green Earth should I care about Courtney Love? Or any other celebrity that makes the news?
Apparently (as stated in TFA), UNACCOMPANIED male odor caused the mice to not be willing to show pain, but a strange male in company with a strange female didn't cause the mice to go all macho all of a sudden.
So, I wonder if male mice with female mice will show different effects than male mice alone?
Many years ago, recycling came to the area I live.
So, they started with the "we want you to recycle, since it'll reduce the cost of waste disposal".
Then they gave out the free recycle bins, to help make it easier for them to do the recycling.
Alright, reasonable enough, we began recycling.
Then they tacked a recycling fee onto our waste disposal fee. So rather than reduce the cost of waste disposal, recycling INCREASED the cost of waste disposal.
So, we stopped using the recycling bin (I keep some camping gear in it - camp stove, lantern, that sort of thing), and went back to tossing everything into the garbage bin. Not like I'm going to pay extra for the privilege of separating my garbage....
Well, first thing they did was spend a great deal of money convincing everyone that tap water tasted bad.
Once you've got people convinced that the tap water tastes bad, it's not hard convincing them that YOUR water tastes good (even if it's Dasani - tap water run through a filter).
I'm curious - what's your native language? I've not seen "digged" in place of "dug" before....
The Romans lasted from 400 BC to (arguably) 1400+ AD (given that you include the Byzantine Empire, which was what they called the eastern half of the Roman Empire after the Empire split).
If you don't want to include the Byzantines as Roman, then the Romans last from about 400 BC to 400 AD (when the Empire split).
When the USA gets a couple centuries older, we'll be HALF as old as the Romans were when they split into East and West. And one fifth as old as they were when they finally disappeared.
Note that I'm combining the Republic and Empire and East/West Empires into a single "Roman" label. Some people might think that innappropriate or misleading....
No. I don't.
My mother has just reminded me that they salt the roads where she lives, so I should wash my car after my visit to her house last month but one.
That would be the first time in the ten years I've owned the car that it's been exposed to brine on the roads....
If there's 52 ktons of weapons-grade Pu-239, that's no longer nuclear waste - it's already been recycled.
Note that while there is Pu-239 contained in nuclear waste, it is NOT "weapons-grade" till it has been removed from the nuclear waste and purified to 99% or so.
Note also that a 24.1kY halfl-ife isn't all that radioactive. The more radioactive a substance is, the SHORTER its half-life. Pretty much by definition.
So, while Pu-239 is far more radioactive than U-238, it's only a tiny fraction as radioactive as, say, Cs-137. You could wrap a (non-critical mass) chunk of Pu-239 in old newspaper and it would be pretty much safe to handle (alpha decay can be shielded with a sheet of paper).
$7.00 per pound? It would have to taste positively heavenly to be worth spending that much on the stuff....
A meat substitute won't be acceptable, no matter the price, till the price of meat has increased significantly.
Thinking about it carefully, meat (interruption - a squirrel has leaped from the roof of my house to the top of my bird feeder - idiot-boy does this several times a day, perhaps to give me exercise chasing him off the feeder) makes up a relatively small part of my diet (mostly chicken, some beef, ham rarely).
I *might* consider replacing that with veggie-substitutes if the price of meat were to double or triple. The price of the veggie-meat (vegemite?) would have little influence on the question, so long as it wasn't appreciably higher than current meat prices.
In other words, I don't spend so much on meat now that the savings from cheaper veggie-meats would be worth the trouble. It would take a significant increase in meat prices to have any effect.
...that you disapprove just as much of Michael Bloomberg (another billionaire that spends a lot of money trying to influence politics) when he decides to buy a "grass roots" effort as you do when the Koch Brothers try to do so?
Or does the choice of cause mean that one billionaire trying to influence politics is worse than the other billionaire trying to influence politics?
/sighs.
Not this again.
The Bugs in Heinlein's Starship Troopers were NOT unintelligent. Not were "Brain Bugs" a product of stress - they were the boss bugs all the time. ,
Note that you're probably thinking of the movie (again), and that what you're describing wasn't even part of the movie.
In Mote In God's Eye, the Engineer subspecies (not caste) were NOT completely silent, they just didn't talk well. They also did NOT "not interfere with the controlling political caste", since the "political caste" (which wasn't a caste, it was a subspecies) was actually a hybrid (read: mule) of the Ruler subspecies and the Engineer subspecies.
Hmm, 600-odd nuclear reactors in the world. And they always fail? Odd that I've only heard of three failures, including one that was self-inflicted (if you put a reactor into an unsafe condition to test whether you can extract power from a reactor while it's melting down, don't be terribly surprised if it melts down).
2/3 of the States.
It takes 3/4 to ratify the amendment, but only 2/3 to call a Constitutional Convention.
However, looking purely at percentages, you're more likely to be poor, violent, and stupid if you're black (in the USA. other countries have other issues).
I take it by "social conditions", you mean that you've finally gotten rid of all the lead pipes in the plumbing in Catholic neighborhoods?
Note that lead pipes in plumbing (fairly common once upon a time, now only found in older, poorer neighborhoods) has a fairly high correlation with violent crime, poverty, low IQ scores, that sort of thing. Now that the last of that crap is disappearing, a lot of "racial tendencies" that racists like to imagine are disappearing as well....
So, how do you discourage risky behaviour by subsidizing it indirectly?
"Race: 400 meter, preferably."
Interesting, in that "sharing" your apartment (for instance) for a weekend for a fee IS capitalism - your capital (that apartment/house/whatever) making you money.
This is assuming that France is correct, and not just shaking down a rich company for some extra cash.
I've got no real opinion, since I'm not a tax accountant (and I doubt anyone else who chimes in today will be one either)...
So, were all those chemicals used in fracking?
Or even in more conventional gas-recovery?