I vote we make a creation museum based off Norse myth.
Muspell
The first world to exist was Muspell, a place of light and heat whose
flames are
so hot that those who are not native to that land cannot endure it.
Surt sits at Muspell's border, guarding the land with a flaming sword. At
the
end of the world he will vanquish all the gods and burn the whole world
with
fire.
Ginnungagap and Niflheim
Beyond Muspell lay the great and yawning void named Ginnungagap, and
beyond
Ginnungagap lay the dark, cold realm of Niflheim.
Ice, frost, wind, rain and heavy cold emanated from Niflheim, meeting in
Ginnungagap the soft air, heat, light, and soft air from Muspell.
Ymir
Where heat and cold met appeared thawing drops, and this running fluid
grew into
a giant frost ogre named Ymir.
Frost ogres
Ymir slept, falling into a sweat. Under his left arm there grew a man and
a
woman. And one of his legs begot a son with the other. This was the
beginning
of the frost ogres.
Audhumla
Thawing frost then became a cow called Audhumla. Four rivers of milk ran
from
her teats, and she fed Ymir.
Buri, Bor, and Bestla
The cow licked salty ice blocks. After one day of licking, she freed a
man's
hair from the ice. After two days, his head appeared. On the third day
the
whole man was there. His name was Buri, and he was tall, strong, and
handsome.
Buri begot a son named Bor, and Bor married Bestla, the daughter of a
giant.
The story continues with birth of Odin and some siblings, the slaying of Ymir, the creation of the earth, trees, mountains, dwarves, the sky, clouds, stars, the fortress Midgard, the creation of man as we know it from trees, the building of Asgard, and Odin having Thor and creating all other divine entities. It also tells of the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth that will only break under the strength of the sons of Muspell and of Yggdrasil, the ash tree where the gods hold their daily court and whose branches spread out over all of heaven and earth.
Personally, I find this fiction much more compelling than most other creation myths - it'd be much easier to pompously tout this epic as fact than the sillyness and/or drabness of most other creation myths.
Contra Dawkins, saying "God did it" is a direct alternative to saying "it happened all by itself".
You seem to be missing an important alternative in your self-imposed dichotomy: "It happened due to a number of environmental factors that acted upon it". You'll note that I placed no boundaries on what constitutes an environment, or a factor. It could be anything from subatomic particle forces to vast inter-galactic gravatational forces and beyond. Things don't just happen by themselves, they happen for a reason - and by reason, I don't mean "as part of some supernatural hocus-pocus".
You're asking all these "what-ifs", when we have audio, video, and dozens of eye-witness accounts. According to all of them, he did none of the things you what-if'd about, he either went limp or was unable to move (I'm guessing the latter, as at one point, he was asked to stand up for about the hundredth time, and he screams, "I CAN'T!" - watch the video and listen, it happens in the last half of it). As for a taser being a less-severe means of subduing a person, it is less severe for the OFFICER, but not the TARGET. You recieve a huge electrical shock (that in over 100 cases, have KILLED the target), which not only messes with your nervous system, but also can make you unable to move for a period of time. This is not a "non-lethal" system, simply a "less-lethal" system. Its still an application of force. Its a system that is only one small step beneath a firearm on the scale of force a police officer can use.
Oh, some of the news sources are saying that student called for assistance from the crowd, trying to incite a riot, and was making threats. However, the Daily Bruin, the campus paper, said that no such threats or calls to action were made after interviewing several eye witnesses.
Regardless of *any* of this, one of the students requested the name and badge number of one of the officers involved. She was then told that she would shut up if she did not want to get hit with the taser herself (the officer in question was holding a taser at the time). This on its own is a clearly illegal act by the officer, consisting of an illegal assault against the student for the threat, as well as a violation of the law in refusing to provide proof that he is indeed a police officer.
Regardless of the situation beforehand, the treatment he recieved by the arresting officers was totally unwarranted. I don't care if he just got done burning down an orphanage, its not the job of police to meet out punishment - that's for a judge and/or jury. Was the guy being tasered a douche-bag? Probably. That's no excuse for tasering him repeatedly while he is both handcuffed and on the floor, offering no active resistance. That kind of behavior has a word to describe it - torture. The officer's didn't even attempt to just talk him into leaving, which is the first responce any officer should try. The first thing they did, by all accounts, was grab him by the arm - any physical contact is an escalation to physical force, which is a line that officers usually only cross with good reason. Not so in this case, however. Then followed the taser hits. The student yelled and screamed, and thrashed as he was being tasered, but did he resist physically? No, he was either unable to move or he went limp. During the arrest process, nothing this guy did necessitated the actions the police took. Whatever the situation was before the video, and whatever the student's crime, he would have valid grounds to sue the police for brutality as well.
His parents are Iranian, but he was born and raised in the US. Further, even in America you are free to speak your mind to the police - and if they retaliate physically then that's police brutality. As long as you both do not escalate the use of force yourself and do not actively resist (going limp does not count) then the police are not supposed to escalate the situation themselves, much less go straight to the taser.
You wouldn't pop off to the drug dealer with a gun... oh, becuase he will shoot you for doing so! Yeah... mouth off to the cop, becuase you can, makes you feel big inspite the fact he's able kill you all the same.
So basically what you're saying is that police have all the same accountability and legal responsibility as drug dealers? I would hate to run into the police in a dark alley on whatever planet you live on...
Considering the recent console news, I had to throw this one in...
So, they spoof the remote, make their own remote control to play with the urinals... a "Pee-mote" as it were...
*Ba-dum-CSHHH!* I'm here all night folks. Try the veal.
I can't speak to Red Steel, but I have played MonkeyBall (Or as we call it, Super Simian Sphere Simulator - Second Sequel). Its a blast, especially the party games. Monkey Target leaves something to be desired over previous iterations, but the new Monkey Darts is a lot of fun - beer in one hand, wii-mote in the other, throw darts and never have to get up to retrieve them!
If it does, then MS needs to disclose the specifics. After that, Slashdot will quiet down for a few hours while the hardcore *nix geeks re-write those sections. A slew of distro updates will be released. Problem solved.
It's all about being harder to use the data.
Absolutly correct. Even without demagnetizing the disk, if you smash it into a zillion pieces then anyone who wants to read from it will be stuck using an electron microscope to read the polarities off the platter fragments - not a fast or inexpensive process.
The best "oh, shit!" solution for immediate, total data destruction is still thermite IMHO. Not only physically destroys the drive, but the heat demagnetizes it as well. Behond that, a couple shotgun slugs will also, in general, render a drive unreadable by *most* means. You can still hypothetically recover data from such a drive, but the expense and effort involved is more than most are willing to put forth.
What about Babylon 5? That seemed pretty "grown up" to me. Lots of adult issues being dealt with in that series beyond just "kill the badguys 'cuz they're BAD!".
Yes, its next to your brain, but using your own microwave oven analogy, have you ever stuck something in the microwave and taken it out only to discover that the outside is warm, but the inside is still cold? This is because microwaves are absorbed by water molecules on the surface, and thus do not penetrate deep enough to heat the inside. The same applies for cell phone radiation as well. And while cell phones are only 12 years old or so, we've been studying the effects of the types of electromagnetic waves they use for far longer than that.
True, but if non-ionizing radiation does not cause significant heating, then it is generally presumed to be harmless. Check the article I linked in my previous post.
All that porn is clogging up the tubes, and it making them really sticky - that's why it takes so long for me to get the internets that my staff sends me.
No, they're not. Cellular phones don't emit ionizing radiation, all their communications happen in the microwave band. This is not powerful enough to cause cell damage on its own. The thermal effects raise cell temperature a fraction of a degree on the surface of the head (an order of magnitude less than the change experienced by standing in sunlight), and the non-thermal effects show no rigorous evidence of genetic damage. Now, near a base station, the situation is a little different, but don't try to scare John Q. Citizen with unfounded FUD about cellular phones causing cancer.
We're exposed to plenty of radiation every day - you want a real scare? Point a geiger counter at some concrete sidewalk. The thing is, unless its ionizing radiation, you have nothing (or close to nothing) to worry about.
I think there was a discussion involving the space elevator a few days back where people were talking about the amount of shielding needed to protect against the radiatio from the Van Allen belts. IIRC, they said that 3mm of aluminium is enough to protect from that particular radiation hazard. I'm curious how much more or less is required to protect from a solar flare, or how much the aluminium already present in a commercial aircraft (well below the Van Allen belts) protects you against any radiation you encounter in the atmosphere.
I'm not prepared to say that strong magnetic fields are totally harmless (more a reservation about making a statement of absolute fact rather than any belief or proof to the contrary), but at least in so far as the myth that magnetic fields cause cancer, then yes, they're harmless. Magnetic fields are not ionizing radiation.
True - the atmosphere does stop some of the radiation, such as how the ozone layer stops UV light. The majority of the radioactive particles are stopped by the magnetic field, with part of it coming in to the atmosphere in the form of the Arora Borealis.
At least, this is how I remember hearing it from that Discovery channel special about the history of the earth.
Slashdot Mirror
Muspell
The first world to exist was Muspell, a place of light and heat whose flames are so hot that those who are not native to that land cannot endure it.
Surt sits at Muspell's border, guarding the land with a flaming sword. At the end of the world he will vanquish all the gods and burn the whole world with fire.
Ginnungagap and Niflheim
Beyond Muspell lay the great and yawning void named Ginnungagap, and beyond Ginnungagap lay the dark, cold realm of Niflheim.
Ice, frost, wind, rain and heavy cold emanated from Niflheim, meeting in Ginnungagap the soft air, heat, light, and soft air from Muspell.
Ymir
Where heat and cold met appeared thawing drops, and this running fluid grew into a giant frost ogre named Ymir.
Frost ogres
Ymir slept, falling into a sweat. Under his left arm there grew a man and a woman. And one of his legs begot a son with the other. This was the beginning of the frost ogres.
Audhumla
Thawing frost then became a cow called Audhumla. Four rivers of milk ran from her teats, and she fed Ymir.
Buri, Bor, and Bestla
The cow licked salty ice blocks. After one day of licking, she freed a man's hair from the ice. After two days, his head appeared. On the third day the whole man was there. His name was Buri, and he was tall, strong, and handsome.
Buri begot a son named Bor, and Bor married Bestla, the daughter of a giant.
The story continues with birth of Odin and some siblings, the slaying of Ymir, the creation of the earth, trees, mountains, dwarves, the sky, clouds, stars, the fortress Midgard, the creation of man as we know it from trees, the building of Asgard, and Odin having Thor and creating all other divine entities. It also tells of the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth that will only break under the strength of the sons of Muspell and of Yggdrasil, the ash tree where the gods hold their daily court and whose branches spread out over all of heaven and earth.
Personally, I find this fiction much more compelling than most other creation myths - it'd be much easier to pompously tout this epic as fact than the sillyness and/or drabness of most other creation myths.
Contra Dawkins, saying "God did it" is a direct alternative to saying "it happened all by itself".
You seem to be missing an important alternative in your self-imposed dichotomy: "It happened due to a number of environmental factors that acted upon it". You'll note that I placed no boundaries on what constitutes an environment, or a factor. It could be anything from subatomic particle forces to vast inter-galactic gravatational forces and beyond. Things don't just happen by themselves, they happen for a reason - and by reason, I don't mean "as part of some supernatural hocus-pocus".
You're asking all these "what-ifs", when we have audio, video, and dozens of eye-witness accounts. According to all of them, he did none of the things you what-if'd about, he either went limp or was unable to move (I'm guessing the latter, as at one point, he was asked to stand up for about the hundredth time, and he screams, "I CAN'T!" - watch the video and listen, it happens in the last half of it). As for a taser being a less-severe means of subduing a person, it is less severe for the OFFICER, but not the TARGET. You recieve a huge electrical shock (that in over 100 cases, have KILLED the target), which not only messes with your nervous system, but also can make you unable to move for a period of time. This is not a "non-lethal" system, simply a "less-lethal" system. Its still an application of force. Its a system that is only one small step beneath a firearm on the scale of force a police officer can use.
Oh, some of the news sources are saying that student called for assistance from the crowd, trying to incite a riot, and was making threats. However, the Daily Bruin, the campus paper, said that no such threats or calls to action were made after interviewing several eye witnesses.
Regardless of *any* of this, one of the students requested the name and badge number of one of the officers involved. She was then told that she would shut up if she did not want to get hit with the taser herself (the officer in question was holding a taser at the time). This on its own is a clearly illegal act by the officer, consisting of an illegal assault against the student for the threat, as well as a violation of the law in refusing to provide proof that he is indeed a police officer.
That's why I have my sig set as it is.
Regardless of the situation beforehand, the treatment he recieved by the arresting officers was totally unwarranted. I don't care if he just got done burning down an orphanage, its not the job of police to meet out punishment - that's for a judge and/or jury. Was the guy being tasered a douche-bag? Probably. That's no excuse for tasering him repeatedly while he is both handcuffed and on the floor, offering no active resistance. That kind of behavior has a word to describe it - torture. The officer's didn't even attempt to just talk him into leaving, which is the first responce any officer should try. The first thing they did, by all accounts, was grab him by the arm - any physical contact is an escalation to physical force, which is a line that officers usually only cross with good reason. Not so in this case, however. Then followed the taser hits. The student yelled and screamed, and thrashed as he was being tasered, but did he resist physically? No, he was either unable to move or he went limp. During the arrest process, nothing this guy did necessitated the actions the police took. Whatever the situation was before the video, and whatever the student's crime, he would have valid grounds to sue the police for brutality as well.
His parents are Iranian, but he was born and raised in the US. Further, even in America you are free to speak your mind to the police - and if they retaliate physically then that's police brutality. As long as you both do not escalate the use of force yourself and do not actively resist (going limp does not count) then the police are not supposed to escalate the situation themselves, much less go straight to the taser.
You wouldn't pop off to the drug dealer with a gun... oh, becuase he will shoot you for doing so! Yeah... mouth off to the cop, becuase you can, makes you feel big inspite the fact he's able kill you all the same.
So basically what you're saying is that police have all the same accountability and legal responsibility as drug dealers? I would hate to run into the police in a dark alley on whatever planet you live on...
Considering the recent console news, I had to throw this one in...
So, they spoof the remote, make their own remote control to play with the urinals... a "Pee-mote" as it were...
*Ba-dum-CSHHH!* I'm here all night folks. Try the veal.
I can't speak to Red Steel, but I have played MonkeyBall (Or as we call it, Super Simian Sphere Simulator - Second Sequel). Its a blast, especially the party games. Monkey Target leaves something to be desired over previous iterations, but the new Monkey Darts is a lot of fun - beer in one hand, wii-mote in the other, throw darts and never have to get up to retrieve them!
Speak for yourself. I plan to live forever. So far, so good.
Maybe a long-range or directional version of one of those wireless power-supplies mentionied the other day?
If it does, then MS needs to disclose the specifics. After that, Slashdot will quiet down for a few hours while the hardcore *nix geeks re-write those sections. A slew of distro updates will be released. Problem solved.
It's all about being harder to use the data.
Absolutly correct. Even without demagnetizing the disk, if you smash it into a zillion pieces then anyone who wants to read from it will be stuck using an electron microscope to read the polarities off the platter fragments - not a fast or inexpensive process.
The best "oh, shit!" solution for immediate, total data destruction is still thermite IMHO. Not only physically destroys the drive, but the heat demagnetizes it as well. Behond that, a couple shotgun slugs will also, in general, render a drive unreadable by *most* means. You can still hypothetically recover data from such a drive, but the expense and effort involved is more than most are willing to put forth.
What about Babylon 5? That seemed pretty "grown up" to me. Lots of adult issues being dealt with in that series beyond just "kill the badguys 'cuz they're BAD!".
Yes, its next to your brain, but using your own microwave oven analogy, have you ever stuck something in the microwave and taken it out only to discover that the outside is warm, but the inside is still cold? This is because microwaves are absorbed by water molecules on the surface, and thus do not penetrate deep enough to heat the inside. The same applies for cell phone radiation as well. And while cell phones are only 12 years old or so, we've been studying the effects of the types of electromagnetic waves they use for far longer than that.
No, but you can get bearded GNOME freaks...
True, but if non-ionizing radiation does not cause significant heating, then it is generally presumed to be harmless. Check the article I linked in my previous post.
All that porn is clogging up the tubes, and it making them really sticky - that's why it takes so long for me to get the internets that my staff sends me.
Even cell phones are proved to cause cancer...
No, they're not. Cellular phones don't emit ionizing radiation, all their communications happen in the microwave band. This is not powerful enough to cause cell damage on its own. The thermal effects raise cell temperature a fraction of a degree on the surface of the head (an order of magnitude less than the change experienced by standing in sunlight), and the non-thermal effects show no rigorous evidence of genetic damage. Now, near a base station, the situation is a little different, but don't try to scare John Q. Citizen with unfounded FUD about cellular phones causing cancer.
More info here.
We're exposed to plenty of radiation every day - you want a real scare? Point a geiger counter at some concrete sidewalk. The thing is, unless its ionizing radiation, you have nothing (or close to nothing) to worry about.
Stop paying your electric bills for a while, you'll get your powerless wires soon enough - and for free!
I think there was a discussion involving the space elevator a few days back where people were talking about the amount of shielding needed to protect against the radiatio from the Van Allen belts. IIRC, they said that 3mm of aluminium is enough to protect from that particular radiation hazard. I'm curious how much more or less is required to protect from a solar flare, or how much the aluminium already present in a commercial aircraft (well below the Van Allen belts) protects you against any radiation you encounter in the atmosphere.
I would respond with something witty, but I'm laughing too hard. Bravo.
I'm not prepared to say that strong magnetic fields are totally harmless (more a reservation about making a statement of absolute fact rather than any belief or proof to the contrary), but at least in so far as the myth that magnetic fields cause cancer, then yes, they're harmless. Magnetic fields are not ionizing radiation.
True - the atmosphere does stop some of the radiation, such as how the ozone layer stops UV light. The majority of the radioactive particles are stopped by the magnetic field, with part of it coming in to the atmosphere in the form of the Arora Borealis.
At least, this is how I remember hearing it from that Discovery channel special about the history of the earth.