The UN is an organization without a good reason for its existence. Communications are quite good today, no purpose is served by sucking funds from hard-working people to feed fat bureaucrats, no reason to give crazed dictators yet a another stage on which to spew their hatred, no good reason to give large numbers of satrapies imaginary jurisdiction over their superiors. The UN needs to be recognized as the enemy of civilization that it is, and defunded.
Although "the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming states...that in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans can raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels", that's not what the proponents of Global Warming say. Their claim is that "in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans DO raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels", and they claim it not as hypothesis as but as established fact, and they claim that those who reject their claims are malicious.
The issue is that the huge population increase among fairies is causing the atmosphere to become heavier and polluted with fairy excrement. If we do not force fairies to wear condoms the sky will soon fall. I know it's already started, last week a piece hit me on the head.
Basically, imagine a piece of glass with integrated lens with wires on it - solid state, reliable, durable, and cheap.
Yup, that's what the U of Michigan people are doing, imagining. Imagining that any material will withstand such an optical flux. Imagining that such a flux can be generated from the sun. Imagining that their already impossible magic pixie dust will be improved over time.
The more I think about this, the more dishonest it looks.
The case of a transparent sphere is different from a translucent sphere. With a transparent sphere and a tiny light source at its center, the light at the surface of the sphere is ordered, directional (normal to the surface of the sphere within the tolerance caused by the size of the source). That directionality allows all its light to be focussed back to a spot almost as tiny as the source. You can tell by looking at it that the source is not the surface.
With a translucent sphere, the light at the surface is unordered, omnidirectional. All the light coming out cannot be focussed to a size smaller than the surface of the sphere, any attempt to do so transmits at most only the amount proportional to the ratio of the area destination to the source. The fact observation provides no clue to the actual size of the source is all you need to know to conclude that you can't focus the light back to the size of the source.
Your example of a laser breaks some hidden assumptions in the claim that focussing cannot make a beam more intense than the source. Alas, my knowledge is inadequate to make an explanation. Instead, I'll point out that we're talking about solar power, and that the diffuse nature of sunlight is very different from laser light. No scheme involving only focussing (i.e. no energy storage or conversion to other forms of energy, etc.) can make diffuse, unpolarized light (close enough to sunlight) more intense than the source.
Even with 100% efficiency and 100% efficient storage and cloudless skies, a reasonable family car couldn't run more than 3 hours a day. No "new understanding of the physics of light" is going to get around the fact that sunlight isn't high intensity energy.
More effective use of CO2 in the air, which is what they're aiming for, means the plants don't have to leave themselves open to the atmosphere as much. Less openness means less water loss, less water loss means less desertification.
Why do you object to hunger? It's a sensation that tells you it's time to eat, thus preventing starvation.
Perhaps when you say "hunger" you mean starvation or severe malnutrition, in which case you should stop abusing the language, like everyone else who thinks he should run the world.
People without the absolute need for it, should not have removable media drives, accessible USB ports, internet access, or the ability to add software. This is work, not playtime.
There's such a thing as the "time value of money." Updating before it's economically reasonable means that the money isn't being used on other more productive things. Furthermore, most hardware becomes better and less expensive over time.
That said, if a user spends a couple of hours a week waiting on the computer, a new one pays for itself in a few months. If the old OS can be installed on the new computer, no need to buy new programs.
The 6502 was designed in a manner easy to explain and understand for programming. Everything a programmer needed to know was on one side of a sheet of paper. Its competitor, the 8080, with slightly fewer transistors, was less regular and thus harder to describe. For most purposes, they had about the same processing power.
OK, here's a revision. With a week's training, I'll bet the 1869 man could drive a car, use a cell phone, or browse the internet. Could you, with a week's training, learn algebra, geometry, trig, history (in depth), geography, Latin and Greek? The two sets of tests aren't equivalent. (Sorry, I'm being a bit unfair. You did mention relativity, evolution, computers, medicine. But relativity isn't taught in high school. Evolution is a simple and obvious concept. Medicine, beyond the germ theory of disease and other easy bits, isn't taught in high school. That leaves computers.
The obvious lack in the old test is science, there should have been something on agriculture or animal husbandry, or medicine or astronomy.
The obvious "We don't care" for modern times is Greek and Latin.
The sad lack in modern education is history. One reason our modern politics is so thoroughly screwed up is that a high quality understanding of history has been lost to the general population for a century.
The population of whooping cranes got as low as 20. With lots of effort and publicity, 45 years later there are now about 400. If we followed the judgement of this joker, there'd be no whoopers now. Professor Corey Bradshaw? HAH! More like Professor Irwin Corey.
Yes, some economic judgement has to be applied to saving species, but the crucial thing is to use good judgement.
I've always thought it rather obvious that Science is a Faith. If a word cannot be used to define itself, than how can Science ever be used to prove itself?
That demonstrates a profound lack of understanding for what science is, and what are the proper areas for the use of definitions and proof. Science points to things and their interactions, and explains how the nature of things determines their interactions. These explanations are frequently tested and refined as required, and sometimes discarded as defective. Science does not "prove itself", except in 3 ways: tautologies (which are hardly proofs, anyway), proving that something is wrong because it involves a contradiction, and proving that some narrowly defined explanation is true under certain assumptions and given that the explanation may fail if contradictory evidence is discovered. The idea that science as a whole should "prove itself" is as wrongheaded as requiring that music should prove itself. Science is a process of noncontradictory identification and the body of things so identified.
Definitions, at a primitive level, involve pointing at things and assigning words to them. Advancing beyond that, the basic words are used together to identify other things, often building in complexity. To some extent, that hierarchy is similar to science.
In contrast, faith is presented as a fait accompli, to be swallowed whole without critical examination. Contradictions are ignored or obfuscated. Doctrines are changed only when failure to do so means losing many followers, or a splinter group chooses a new set of doctrines. "Proof" is a concept alien to faith.
isn't our acceptance of our sensory inputs a Faith as well?
Rather than go through a detailed demonstration of the validity of the senses, let's take the opposite assumption and think about what happens if you don't have senses. Blind yourself, puncture your eardrums, and have someone inject your hands daily with some drug that defeats your sense of touch. If your senses are just a matter of faith, that's not going to make the slightest bit of difference.
Or maybe you should apply critical thinking before posting juvenile twaddle about science and faith.
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The UN is an organization without a good reason for its existence. Communications are quite good today, no purpose is served by sucking funds from hard-working people to feed fat bureaucrats, no reason to give crazed dictators yet a another stage on which to spew their hatred, no good reason to give large numbers of satrapies imaginary jurisdiction over their superiors. The UN needs to be recognized as the enemy of civilization that it is, and defunded.
Although "the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming states...that in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans can raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels", that's not what the proponents of Global Warming say. Their claim is that "in addition to all the natural effects on climate, humans DO raise the temperature of the Earth several degrees above where they would naturally be if they hadn't burnt billions of tons of fossil fuels", and they claim it not as hypothesis as but as established fact, and they claim that those who reject their claims are malicious.
The issue is that the huge population increase among fairies is causing the atmosphere to become heavier and polluted with fairy excrement. If we do not force fairies to wear condoms the sky will soon fall. I know it's already started, last week a piece hit me on the head.
Yup, that's what the U of Michigan people are doing, imagining. Imagining that any material will withstand such an optical flux. Imagining that such a flux can be generated from the sun. Imagining that their already impossible magic pixie dust will be improved over time.
The more I think about this, the more dishonest it looks.
The case of a transparent sphere is different from a translucent sphere. With a transparent sphere and a tiny light source at its center, the light at the surface of the sphere is ordered, directional (normal to the surface of the sphere within the tolerance caused by the size of the source). That directionality allows all its light to be focussed back to a spot almost as tiny as the source. You can tell by looking at it that the source is not the surface.
With a translucent sphere, the light at the surface is unordered, omnidirectional. All the light coming out cannot be focussed to a size smaller than the surface of the sphere, any attempt to do so transmits at most only the amount proportional to the ratio of the area destination to the source. The fact observation provides no clue to the actual size of the source is all you need to know to conclude that you can't focus the light back to the size of the source.
Your example of a laser breaks some hidden assumptions in the claim that focussing cannot make a beam more intense than the source. Alas, my knowledge is inadequate to make an explanation. Instead, I'll point out that we're talking about solar power, and that the diffuse nature of sunlight is very different from laser light. No scheme involving only focussing (i.e. no energy storage or conversion to other forms of energy, etc.) can make diffuse, unpolarized light (close enough to sunlight) more intense than the source.
Even with 100% efficiency and 100% efficient storage and cloudless skies, a reasonable family car couldn't run more than 3 hours a day. No "new understanding of the physics of light" is going to get around the fact that sunlight isn't high intensity energy.
If all the factories are shut down, how will you make panels?
Even ignoring the use of plywood and (I think) metal strapping, there are huge holes in it! You may get people into it, but they sure aren't hidden.
More effective use of CO2 in the air, which is what they're aiming for, means the plants don't have to leave themselves open to the atmosphere as much. Less openness means less water loss, less water loss means less desertification.
Why do you object to hunger? It's a sensation that tells you it's time to eat, thus preventing starvation.
Perhaps when you say "hunger" you mean starvation or severe malnutrition, in which case you should stop abusing the language, like everyone else who thinks he should run the world.
I'd like to see you walk across the fictitious border between England and Canada.
Toe fungus doesn't count. And bathtub gin may attract the attention of BATF.
People without the absolute need for it, should not have removable media drives, accessible USB ports, internet access, or the ability to add software. This is work, not playtime.
There's such a thing as the "time value of money." Updating before it's economically reasonable means that the money isn't being used on other more productive things. Furthermore, most hardware becomes better and less expensive over time.
That said, if a user spends a couple of hours a week waiting on the computer, a new one pays for itself in a few months. If the old OS can be installed on the new computer, no need to buy new programs.
User side - But it takes more than 2 months for them to come down and install program X that I need to finish this job that's due in 2 weeks.
The 6502 was designed in a manner easy to explain and understand for programming. Everything a programmer needed to know was on one side of a sheet of paper. Its competitor, the 8080, with slightly fewer transistors, was less regular and thus harder to describe. For most purposes, they had about the same processing power.
Your source is not impressive. They seem to think that radiation doesn't decrease as you get farther from the radiation generator.
Getting 5 significant digits on a cube root with a slide rule isn't easy.
OK, here's a revision. With a week's training, I'll bet the 1869 man could drive a car, use a cell phone, or browse the internet. Could you, with a week's training, learn algebra, geometry, trig, history (in depth), geography, Latin and Greek? The two sets of tests aren't equivalent. (Sorry, I'm being a bit unfair. You did mention relativity, evolution, computers, medicine. But relativity isn't taught in high school. Evolution is a simple and obvious concept. Medicine, beyond the germ theory of disease and other easy bits, isn't taught in high school. That leaves computers.
The obvious lack in the old test is science, there should have been something on agriculture or animal husbandry, or medicine or astronomy.
The obvious "We don't care" for modern times is Greek and Latin.
The sad lack in modern education is history. One reason our modern politics is so thoroughly screwed up is that a high quality understanding of history has been lost to the general population for a century.
What, again? http://www.dilbert.com/2011-03-29/
The population of whooping cranes got as low as 20. With lots of effort and publicity, 45 years later there are now about 400. If we followed the judgement of this joker, there'd be no whoopers now. Professor Corey Bradshaw? HAH! More like Professor Irwin Corey.
Yes, some economic judgement has to be applied to saving species, but the crucial thing is to use good judgement.
Nope, he's been experimenting with the LSD.
The unnamed "Evil Scientist" should get an honorable mention. Also the inventor of the portable hole.
That demonstrates a profound lack of understanding for what science is, and what are the proper areas for the use of definitions and proof. Science points to things and their interactions, and explains how the nature of things determines their interactions. These explanations are frequently tested and refined as required, and sometimes discarded as defective. Science does not "prove itself", except in 3 ways: tautologies (which are hardly proofs, anyway), proving that something is wrong because it involves a contradiction, and proving that some narrowly defined explanation is true under certain assumptions and given that the explanation may fail if contradictory evidence is discovered. The idea that science as a whole should "prove itself" is as wrongheaded as requiring that music should prove itself. Science is a process of noncontradictory identification and the body of things so identified.
Definitions, at a primitive level, involve pointing at things and assigning words to them. Advancing beyond that, the basic words are used together to identify other things, often building in complexity. To some extent, that hierarchy is similar to science.
In contrast, faith is presented as a fait accompli, to be swallowed whole without critical examination. Contradictions are ignored or obfuscated. Doctrines are changed only when failure to do so means losing many followers, or a splinter group chooses a new set of doctrines. "Proof" is a concept alien to faith.
Rather than go through a detailed demonstration of the validity of the senses, let's take the opposite assumption and think about what happens if you don't have senses. Blind yourself, puncture your eardrums, and have someone inject your hands daily with some drug that defeats your sense of touch. If your senses are just a matter of faith, that's not going to make the slightest bit of difference.
Or maybe you should apply critical thinking before posting juvenile twaddle about science and faith.