Ha, you still won't give up will you. It seems like you're on some rampage of righteousness! You have judged me and are prepared to hold your opinion, regardless of the situation.
"...I guess you're off the hook' - I was never on the hook! This is your personal assessment of my situation, and I don't care for it, it's irrelevant to this discussion and personally insulting.
"dismissing her point of view as ignorant" - yes, I was, it was ignorant, just like many of your comments. Ignorance doesn't immediately mean BAD! If I am ignorant of something it just means I don't know about it. I'll be the first to admit that I am ignorant of many many things and am extremely grateful when any individual points this out for me as it allows me to improve my knowlege in that area. Read this definition: http://www.answers.com/ignorant
"None of this was ever intended as a personal attack. If you really believe that it was, I think you need to seriously recalibrate." - Well mate, it was a personal attack . This is a real problem in world culture at the moment, people believe that by saying "...no offence..." then that makes what you're about to say OK. Well, it doesn't. It's still offensive, regardless of INTENT. I know the law doesn't make this distinction as intent is very important when assessing most legal issues. But, from a social perspective this is a very important issue. To further support this I could roll off many examples of legally acceptable practices that are socially abhorred.
Additionally, if someone doesn't understand how to argue without making personal attacks then they will *never* be able to hold a reasoned and unbiased discussion with anyone, ever.
Now, please read over our exchange of discussion and note that I have not _once_ made any opinionated assessement of you, or your abilities, while you have made many comments about me and my personal life. This comes across as a rather transparant attempt at gaining the moral high-ground, a very agressive tactic that is quite insulting.
So to draw my rant to a close (you can gain some smug satisfaction from knowing that I am abandoning Slashdot forever as of today, you are the straw that broke my camel - although I'll log in to read your response to this post) you kind of voiced your own uncertainty with a nice catchall disclaimer. "...any value judgement like that is relative..." Why didn't you think: "hmmm, I think what that guy said about his girlfriend is disrespectful, perhaps, nah, hmmm, what am I doing? I'm making a value judgement on someone elses personal life, they could be from another culture, another country, they could practise a totally different belief system to me... I'll make my judgement and keep it to myself, or even better, I won't make a judgement, I'll be tolerant of their own beliefs, because hey, I'd like them to respect mine." So here's my value judgement, I believe that everyone in the world needs to be a lot more understanding and tolerant of each other, in every way possible, from world trade negotiations to posting insignificant crap on Slashdot, it all makes a difference.
PS: He he, like the way I took the moral high-ground at the end there. I hope you don't feel too shitty because I didn't mean for it to be offensive...
Excellent, I agree with you completely, apart from the following point:
"If you value your relationship with your girlfriend, that is not a valid thing to say about her in public."
That is completely and totally wrong. What did I say about her exactly? Where did I insult her? My statement was: "I get shit about this from my girlfriend all the time" Which means that we argue about these things all the time. Why? Because we care about the world. Because we like to discuss our places in the world. Because she does arts and I do science.
Big fucking woop! You think this means that I don't respect her or value our relationship? The fact that I used the words "shit" and "fuck" doesn't mean a thing.
In fact, she's just read your comments and _she's_the one that's offended by your narrow minded view. Not all women are princesses and none of them should be treated as such! Instead, treat them like intelligent logical humans who don't mind being argued with. And, ok, some may disagree with the fact that I brought it up in public discussion, but she doesn't mind and neither should you.
"And if you don't value your relationship, why are you in it?"
See above, I do value it, by an insane amount that you could never understand. And this is yet another (rather insidious) personal attack.
"No offense, but I suspect that you only read the first sentence."
Well I am offended since I did read the entire thing
"Maybe you should have a little more respect for your girlfriend, and the other people in your life who say things that don't entirely fit your current worldview. Maybe just your girlfriend - if I were her, I would dump you in a hot second after reading what you just said about her."
Yeah, you were doing well up until now, thanks for the personal attack. If you had more confidence in your argument skills then you'd have left that bit out.
Now, to the matter at hand. The distinct issue is simply this: science (I'm generalising away from physics here to avoid any more personal attacks) is an accountable system.
That's all I was saying. There are those systems that are accountable and there are those that are not. To ensure that there is no confusion, by accountable system, I mean a system within which each accepted "truth" can be verified or disproved through experiment, observation, or in the case of mathematics, logical deduction from agreed axioms.
What does this have to do with your original post? Not very much, I was only focussing on a small part of it, the physics bit. And I focussed on it because I felt you were making an unfair comparison: a person on the street wondering if a war is going on is the same as a professional scientist developing knowlege from a wealth of verified observations.... apples and oranges methinks.
So there you go, I should have said this in the first instance, as opposed to adopting a more casual conversational tone.
PS: For completeness, I'm 23 and here's your list:
Have you measured the mass of an electron? - yes Created a superfluid? - What, poured liquid helium out a bottle? No, but you don't "make" that stuff. Made a quantum lattice using CO2 lasers? - no Made a refrigerator with a bunsen burner and some tubes? - done equivalent gas expansion work, yes. Measured the Joule coefficient of a gas? - yes. Built an inertial scale? - hmmm, no. Built an atomic clock? - very close, I've done atomic resonance experiments. Doped silicon to make a transistor? - yes, ion implantation work. Built an atomic pile? - no Detonated a hydrogen bomb? - er, no, have you? Measured the rate at which a feather accelerates from the earth's gravitational pull in a vacuum? - yes Measured the effect of time dilation on the orbit of Mercury yourself? - he he, yes, it's a good experiment/calculation for budding astro-physics students.
"Probably almost everything you think you know about physics you are taking on faith, because someone told you."
Yeah, I get this shit all the time from my girlfriend who is an art major.
The first thing physics teaches you is experimentation. There was not one single "fact" that I learnt in my physics degree that wasn't backed up with repeatable experiment. And sure, we didn't have time to do every one, but we did do a lot of cool experiments, all of which agreed with the literature.
So stop talking shit about something you know nothing about, please.
SYNROC was developed at the ANU in Canberra. I work there at the moment and have heard various tales about it's acceptance (or lack of) by the American government/economy. The story goes both ways, either the American's are stupid or the Aussies attempted to charge too much for the technology.
Anyone wanting to participate in reasonable discussions with anyone about the safety of nuclear energy *must* read about SYNROC and understand how it works. It would effectively _solve_ the nuclear waste "problem" for good. Exciting stuff!
I agree completely. My non-science friends always laugh at me when I bring this sort of thing up, and always cut me down by saying: "Huh? It doesn't matter, you see TV and movies rely on this thing called suspension of disbelief and it seems you don't get it."
My problem with this idea is that most TV shows are about people. So what if you wrote a sitcom where all the people talked out of mouths in their hands and performed all kinds of obscure social customs that no-one understood?
That's a stupid example I know, but then if someone said - "that show blows, it's not real" then my friends can say "suspension of disbelief" all they want - the show's still shitty and unrealistic and hard to relate to.
I see science ideas in movies/TV shows as being just as important as social/people ideas are. Sure, in some styles of shows it doesn't matter - eg Sabrina Teenage Witch show, it's magic, anything can happen. But when people write a science fiction movie or TV show then they should be sensitive to their target audience and show some respect.
As a footnote - I always wonder why script-writers/producers/directors stuff the science up because you can achieve just as many cool effects, do as many weird things, have impressive situations, all within the confines of reality + logic.... I just don't get it.
My own ideas on this aren't practical since my "blade" wouldn't be able to do much damage. But, here we go:
Use one high power solid state laser at some IR or UV wavelenth that is powerful enough to ionise some air molecules - it doesn't matter which one, go for what's easiest, some N2 or O2 line perhaps. Then split this beam into two, each of which is now no longer powerful enough to ionise air.
Use a couple of scanning mirrors to cross the two beams over each other - where they meet the intensity will be powerful enough to break up some molecules and give you a nice plasma. Scan them backwards and forwards fast enough to create the blade of your weapon. Unfortunately the effect will probably taper away to nothing, sword style, rather than be a solid bar, light sabre style.
I also figured you could use a second laser to selectively choose visible lines from the plasma and give you a blade in the colour of your choice!
Obviously the power source and mirror hardware would be way too big to create a realistic device, but from just wanting to make a visible blade I think it could work.
I agree, but I don't think Apple's completely innocent either. I've read so many blatant up front fan-boy style posts about Apple stuff that sounds like it _must_ have come straight from their PR department.
How would the situation change if no logs were kept? I'm not a sysadmin but I imagine it's easy to log for a day then delete on schedule for reasons of, er, "storage space".
Also, what logs are considered vital anyway? I've been told that my university logs all web traffic and everything else besides. But that's just nuts!
This is exactly like my own personal experience. I am a 24 year old guy who has met a 15 year old girl on ICQ.
Now, before you accuse me of being a bad person let me explain. I met Katie by random search and we chatted for a bit, she gave me her phone number and we sent texts to each other. All very mutual. Then I found out she was only 15 (I knew she was younger than me, but had no idea as to _how_ much) I backed right off and thought that it was probably best we didn't keep chatting.
BUT, she kept in touch, and, to make matters worse she's got a pretty nasty eating disorder, OR, has felt the need to make that up, which in either case means she's pretty desparate for attention. I decided that not talking her because of the age difference was just silly, and if there was any good I could do for her then it would be by continuing the relationship.
We don't talk dirty or anything, most of the time it's about movies and bands, and her friends at school. She's even asked me about drugs a bit and I think I've given her good advice on that one.
So my question for the crowd here is this: is this relationship feasible? We're really good friends now, almost like siblings, and I think we will probably meet up later in life once she goes to Uni.
Is this wrong? Is it doomed because men my age just shouldn't have relationships with younger girls?
Cool. We're doing the same with our old Kombi van. The past six months have been getting the engine going and the paintwork up to scratch. Now we've birthed a whole new field: kombionics! We want a mean onboard network with flat screens, games, and GPS logging. We're also going to add an SMS module so the van can send us updates on its position, or we can unlock it or tell it to play our favourite MP3 before we get to it in the carpark.
Now that's bullshit too. There doesn't need to be a local army base any more than there needs to be a nuclear power plant.
Typical dumb fuck seppo retard, who: a) Doesn't know shit about nuclear physics or nuclear power generation or the treatment and containment of nuclear by-products, and b) Loves their gun toting army.
I can't believe I wasted any fucking time with you, sheesh...
I know you're a troll but for the sake of stopping the spread of this bullshit I'll bite:
Guess what? There's probably a military base near your town and it's full of guns. But, hang on, some terrorists could break in and steal all the guns and use them to shoot all the kids at the local school! The horror! So why do you tolerate the military holding so many deadly weapons near your home?
Probably because of a thing called security. Oh, but wait, no system is secure. That's fine, but you either accept all risks, and live a life of TOTAL FEAR, or you accept no risks, and live a blissfully ignorant peaceful existance:)
But it's all OK, you're doing just what people do: they make emotive decisions about risk.
So this is a very emotive post to respond to your own emotive fud, hope it helps....
That's an awesome idea. Reminds me of my plan to deal with all the neighbour's cats shitting in my garden.
1) Get old microwave and remove door. 2) Override door safety. 3) Place bowl of cat food in front of unit and leave device running all night. 4) Listen to neighbours complain about their cats dieing horrible unexplained deaths.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha, you still won't give up will you. It seems like you're on some rampage of righteousness! You have judged me and are prepared to hold your opinion, regardless of the situation.
"...I guess you're off the hook' - I was never on the hook! This is your personal assessment of my situation, and I don't care for it, it's irrelevant to this discussion and personally insulting.
"dismissing her point of view as ignorant" - yes, I was, it was ignorant, just like many of your comments. Ignorance doesn't immediately mean BAD! If I am ignorant of something it just means I don't know about it. I'll be the first to admit that I am ignorant of many many things and am extremely grateful when any individual points this out for me as it allows me to improve my knowlege in that area. Read this definition: http://www.answers.com/ignorant
"None of this was ever intended as a personal attack. If you really believe that it was, I think you need to seriously recalibrate." - Well mate, it was a personal attack . This is a real problem in world culture at the moment, people believe that by saying "...no offence..." then that makes what you're about to say OK. Well, it doesn't. It's still offensive, regardless of INTENT. I know the law doesn't make this distinction as intent is very important when assessing most legal issues. But, from a social perspective this is a very important issue. To further support this I could roll off many examples of legally acceptable practices that are socially abhorred.
Additionally, if someone doesn't understand how to argue without making personal attacks then they will *never* be able to hold a reasoned and unbiased discussion with anyone, ever.
Now, please read over our exchange of discussion and note that I have not _once_ made any opinionated assessement of you, or your abilities, while you have made many comments about me and my personal life. This comes across as a rather transparant attempt at gaining the moral high-ground, a very agressive tactic that is quite insulting.
So to draw my rant to a close (you can gain some smug satisfaction from knowing that I am abandoning Slashdot forever as of today, you are the straw that broke my camel - although I'll log in to read your response to this post) you kind of voiced your own uncertainty with a nice catchall disclaimer. "...any value judgement like that is relative..." Why didn't you think: "hmmm, I think what that guy said about his girlfriend is disrespectful, perhaps, nah, hmmm, what am I doing? I'm making a value judgement on someone elses personal life, they could be from another culture, another country, they could practise a totally different belief system to me... I'll make my judgement and keep it to myself, or even better, I won't make a judgement, I'll be tolerant of their own beliefs, because hey, I'd like them to respect mine." So here's my value judgement, I believe that everyone in the world needs to be a lot more understanding and tolerant of each other, in every way possible, from world trade negotiations to posting insignificant crap on Slashdot, it all makes a difference.
PS: He he, like the way I took the moral high-ground at the end there. I hope you don't feel too shitty because I didn't mean for it to be offensive...
Excellent, I agree with you completely, apart from the following point:
"If you value your relationship with your girlfriend, that is not a valid thing to say about her in public."
That is completely and totally wrong. What did I say about her exactly? Where did I insult her? My statement was: "I get shit about this from my girlfriend all the time" Which means that we argue about these things all the time. Why? Because we care about the world. Because we like to discuss our places in the world. Because she does arts and I do science.
Big fucking woop! You think this means that I don't respect her or value our relationship? The fact that I used the words "shit" and "fuck" doesn't mean a thing.
In fact, she's just read your comments and _she's_the one that's offended by your narrow minded view. Not all women are princesses and none of them should be treated as such! Instead, treat them like intelligent logical humans who don't mind being argued with. And, ok, some may disagree with the fact that I brought it up in public discussion, but she doesn't mind and neither should you.
"And if you don't value your relationship, why are you in it?"
See above, I do value it, by an insane amount that you could never understand. And this is yet another (rather insidious) personal attack.
"No offense, but I suspect that you only read the first sentence."
Well I am offended since I did read the entire thing
"Maybe you should have a little more respect for your girlfriend, and the other people in your life who say things that don't entirely fit your current worldview. Maybe just your girlfriend - if I were her, I would dump you in a hot second after reading what you just said about her."
Yeah, you were doing well up until now, thanks for the personal attack. If you had more confidence in your argument skills then you'd have left that bit out.
Now, to the matter at hand. The distinct issue is simply this: science (I'm generalising away from physics here to avoid any more personal attacks) is an accountable system.
That's all I was saying. There are those systems that are accountable and there are those that are not. To ensure that there is no confusion, by accountable system, I mean a system within which each accepted "truth" can be verified or disproved through experiment, observation, or in the case of mathematics, logical deduction from agreed axioms.
What does this have to do with your original post? Not very much, I was only focussing on a small part of it, the physics bit. And I focussed on it because I felt you were making an unfair comparison: a person on the street wondering if a war is going on is the same as a professional scientist developing knowlege from a wealth of verified observations.... apples and oranges methinks.
So there you go, I should have said this in the first instance, as opposed to adopting a more casual conversational tone.
PS: For completeness, I'm 23 and here's your list:
Have you measured the mass of an electron? - yes
Created a superfluid? - What, poured liquid helium out a bottle? No, but you don't "make" that stuff.
Made a quantum lattice using CO2 lasers? - no
Made a refrigerator with a bunsen burner and some tubes? - done equivalent gas expansion work, yes.
Measured the Joule coefficient of a gas? - yes.
Built an inertial scale? - hmmm, no.
Built an atomic clock? - very close, I've done atomic resonance experiments.
Doped silicon to make a transistor? - yes, ion implantation work.
Built an atomic pile? - no
Detonated a hydrogen bomb? - er, no, have you?
Measured the rate at which a feather accelerates from the earth's gravitational pull in a vacuum? - yes
Measured the effect of time dilation on the orbit of Mercury yourself? - he he, yes, it's a good experiment/calculation for budding astro-physics students.
"Probably almost everything you think you know about physics you are taking on faith, because someone told you."
Yeah, I get this shit all the time from my girlfriend who is an art major.
The first thing physics teaches you is experimentation. There was not one single "fact" that I learnt in my physics degree that wasn't backed up with repeatable experiment. And sure, we didn't have time to do every one, but we did do a lot of cool experiments, all of which agreed with the literature.
So stop talking shit about something you know nothing about, please.
SYNROC was developed at the ANU in Canberra. I work there at the moment and have heard various tales about it's acceptance (or lack of) by the American government/economy. The story goes both ways, either the American's are stupid or the Aussies attempted to charge too much for the technology.
Anyone wanting to participate in reasonable discussions with anyone about the safety of nuclear energy *must* read about SYNROC and understand how it works. It would effectively _solve_ the nuclear waste "problem" for good. Exciting stuff!
http://www.uic.com.au/nip21.htm
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf58.htm
http://www.ansto.gov.au/info/press/pr9.html
Sorry, correct link:
http://ash.anu.edu.au/tmp/unlucky.mpeg
Yeah well, tell this guy that!
I agree completely. My non-science friends always laugh at me when I bring this sort of thing up, and always cut me down by saying: "Huh? It doesn't matter, you see TV and movies rely on this thing called suspension of disbelief and it seems you don't get it."
My problem with this idea is that most TV shows are about people. So what if you wrote a sitcom where all the people talked out of mouths in their hands and performed all kinds of obscure social customs that no-one understood?
That's a stupid example I know, but then if someone said - "that show blows, it's not real" then my friends can say "suspension of disbelief" all they want - the show's still shitty and unrealistic and hard to relate to.
I see science ideas in movies/TV shows as being just as important as social/people ideas are. Sure, in some styles of shows it doesn't matter - eg Sabrina Teenage Witch show, it's magic, anything can happen. But when people write a science fiction movie or TV show then they should be sensitive to their target audience and show some respect.
As a footnote - I always wonder why script-writers/producers/directors stuff the science up because you can achieve just as many cool effects, do as many weird things, have impressive situations, all within the confines of reality + logic.... I just don't get it.
My own ideas on this aren't practical since my "blade" wouldn't be able to do much damage. But, here we go:
Use one high power solid state laser at some IR or UV wavelenth that is powerful enough to ionise some air molecules - it doesn't matter which one, go for what's easiest, some N2 or O2 line perhaps. Then split this beam into two, each of which is now no longer powerful enough to ionise air.
Use a couple of scanning mirrors to cross the two beams over each other - where they meet the intensity will be powerful enough to break up some molecules and give you a nice plasma. Scan them backwards and forwards fast enough to create the blade of your weapon. Unfortunately the effect will probably taper away to nothing, sword style, rather than be a solid bar, light sabre style.
I also figured you could use a second laser to selectively choose visible lines from the plasma and give you a blade in the colour of your choice!
Obviously the power source and mirror hardware would be way too big to create a realistic device, but from just wanting to make a visible blade I think it could work.
I agree, but I don't think Apple's completely innocent either. I've read so many blatant up front fan-boy style posts about Apple stuff that sounds like it _must_ have come straight from their PR department.
Er, OK, I'm stupid.
http://ash.anu.edu.au/tmp/larry_page.mp3.torrent
If the MP3 gets clogged then I'll remove it, but go for the torrent at the link further down, or here.
Go all you want. Mirror
Good point! I hadn't really looked at it from that angle before. Thanks.
How would the situation change if no logs were kept? I'm not a sysadmin but I imagine it's easy to log for a day then delete on schedule for reasons of, er, "storage space". Also, what logs are considered vital anyway? I've been told that my university logs all web traffic and everything else besides. But that's just nuts!
Here's a movie of the crash: eth_airline_crash.mpeg [MPEG 1.01 MB]
Brilliant post!
Can you please give some details of the lawsuit that you mention?
A link?
Thanks.
This is exactly like my own personal experience. I am a 24 year old guy who has met a 15 year old girl on ICQ.
Now, before you accuse me of being a bad person let me explain. I met Katie by random search and we chatted for a bit, she gave me her phone number and we sent texts to each other. All very mutual. Then I found out she was only 15 (I knew she was younger than me, but had no idea as to _how_ much) I backed right off and thought that it was probably best we didn't keep chatting.
BUT, she kept in touch, and, to make matters worse she's got a pretty nasty eating disorder, OR, has felt the need to make that up, which in either case means she's pretty desparate for attention. I decided that not talking her because of the age difference was just silly, and if there was any good I could do for her then it would be by continuing the relationship.
We don't talk dirty or anything, most of the time it's about movies and bands, and her friends at school. She's even asked me about drugs a bit and I think I've given her good advice on that one.
So my question for the crowd here is this: is this relationship feasible? We're really good friends now, almost like siblings, and I think we will probably meet up later in life once she goes to Uni.
Is this wrong? Is it doomed because men my age just shouldn't have relationships with younger girls?
I'm curious to know what everone thinks.
It's common practice not to stamp passports. I've gone from Oz to UK, all around Europe, NZ and back, and not one single stamp in my passport :(
Cool. We're doing the same with our old Kombi van. The past six months have been getting the engine going and the paintwork up to scratch. Now we've birthed a whole new field: kombionics! We want a mean onboard network with flat screens, games, and GPS logging. We're also going to add an SMS module so the van can send us updates on its position, or we can unlock it or tell it to play our favourite MP3 before we get to it in the carpark.
We're writing the whole lot up here:
http://ash.anu.edu.au/kombi/
Let us know what you all think, what we should do and how we can make it better.
Everyone's going to make arse and anal probe jokes on this one, but, when I'm inside my Kombi I feel like I'm a probe floating inside a cell.
http://ash.anu.edu.au/kombi/
Offtopic? Blah, of course it's not, I mentioned probes didn't I? Consider it more of an opinion piece :).
Now that's bullshit too. There doesn't need to be a local army base any more than there needs to be a nuclear power plant. Typical dumb fuck seppo retard, who: a) Doesn't know shit about nuclear physics or nuclear power generation or the treatment and containment of nuclear by-products, and b) Loves their gun toting army. I can't believe I wasted any fucking time with you, sheesh...
I know you're a troll but for the sake of stopping the spread of this bullshit I'll bite:
:)
Guess what? There's probably a military base near your town and it's full of guns. But, hang on, some terrorists could break in and steal all the guns and use them to shoot all the kids at the local school! The horror! So why do you tolerate the military holding so many deadly weapons near your home?
Probably because of a thing called security. Oh, but wait, no system is secure. That's fine, but you either accept all risks, and live a life of TOTAL FEAR, or you accept no risks, and live a blissfully ignorant peaceful existance
But it's all OK, you're doing just what people do: they make emotive decisions about risk.
So this is a very emotive post to respond to your own emotive fud, hope it helps....
"is there a Lynx for Win32??"
Yes there is! Lynx
But you've still checked 7 more browser types than most of the web doodes I've worked with, good stuff.
That's an awesome idea. Reminds me of my plan to deal with all the neighbour's cats shitting in my garden.
1) Get old microwave and remove door.
2) Override door safety.
3) Place bowl of cat food in front of unit and leave device running all night.
4) Listen to neighbours complain about their cats dieing horrible unexplained deaths.
He he he...