As someone working in Redwood City, I have to say it sure rains a lot here for a desert. And the frequency of floods and mudslides also seems fairly high.
I suspect the realities of interplanetary war will surprise every theoretician once it's in action. In other words, we're probably both very wrong. But I'd like to present an alternative view nonetheless.
One of the oldest rules of war is that it's better to be higher. You want to control the heights. When the valley people fight the hill people, the hill people win. Sadly, being on a planet is the extreme case of not controlling the heights, when you fight someone spaceborne.
One attacking space ship can, as you point out, be easily detected. That just means that you shouldn't try to attack that way. For one thing, there's really no good reason to ride along with your weapon. What if you just fling a bomb at your enemy planet? And note that a fairly small rock acts just like a nuclear bomb when dropped from outer space, and is very similar to a black body itself.
You'll note that this is the same scenario as an asteroid in collision course with earth. Humanity has just started to discuss how to defend against one, with decades of warning. What if our enemy throws 10000 at us with very little warning?
Being a populated planet seems to be the cosmic equivalent to being a very large and shiny sitting duck.
The problem with that idea is that it's fairly easy to cancel sounds with one speaker in one point - ear or microphone, typically - but mathemathically impossible to do so in an entire area. You'd need one speaker for each of the infinite number of points in it.
He's ended up third in the big competition, and placed high in several of the others. Search for Shotaro on the result page.I doubt it helped to have one (or more) film teams following your every action and word during the entire weekend...
Metric countertranslation
on
Warm-blooded Fish?
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· Score: 2, Informative
They're relasing version IV of a consistently high selling game, so clearly the way they're thinking about it has sustained their development for a long time.
So I wonder how you foresee that conditions will change to make their attitude start guaranteeing their ultimate failure.
Civilization (the computer game) does not use a hex grid. It's a regular grid of squares that is rotated 45 degrees and squished a bit, but it's not in any way a hex grid. Each cell has 4 direct heighbors and 4 diagonal ones.
It does decrease with the square of the distance from the source, but the source is the sun, not the mirror. Adding a few hundred feet to that distance will do very little change, even when squared.
No. The prudishness is mandated by law, by the FCC, an arm of the federal government.
Visitors (from the free world) to the US are stunned by the heavily censored media they experience on TV and radio. In some theorethical sense you can say anything here, but it's not possible in the medias where a lot of people would hear you.
Hell, even Germany and France regulate political speech.
As does the US. That is the whole purpose of campaign finance laws.
So far, the US government has kept its hands off [DNS]
i'd rather call that "necessary, but still bad" rather than "good"
You agree on the substantive part, that it is better than the alternatives. What words you prefer to use discussing it does not affect what actions you recommend people take.
Only if every human born produces exactly as many offspring as all the others will evolultion stop. And clearly that is not the case. Some people have lots of kids, some have none. And much of the reason is genetical.
As an example, males who manage to sleep with lots of careless women can easily produce hundreds of kids. Look for more of those kind of genes in the future.
Water doesn't boil in cold air, but it's boiling point is dependent on air pressure. If you're at high altitude you have to boil eggs longer, since the boiling temperature is lower, for example.
The Martian atmosphere is much thinner than earth's, even at the highest peaks. I think the air pressure at Mt Everest is about 20% of sealevel, while on Mars it is 0.1%.
I don't have the numbers here, but I assume the physical foundation for this story is that at that pressure, the boiling temperature is below the freezing temperature, so water really can't exist stably in fluid state.
So if you say "here do this work, otherwise you'll end up poor and starving" isn't enslavement?
Enslavement is when a person is owned by an other, and can be bought and sold as property, as well as raped, tortured or killed at will, just as you would be free to destroy any other property.
By contrast, offering someone a job is at worst pointless. If the prospective employee doesn't find the offer better than his current situation, he can always decline it. At best it can improve someone's life immensly. At the utter level of poverty many third worlders live in, a few cents more a day can be the difference between life and death.
Think about how much bigger the post traumatic stress load must be on the other side(s) of this war, that takes 10 - 100 times as high casualities, and presumably has very few therapy options available.
I don't know much about PST, but I can't think it will manifest itself in ways that are good for anyone.
Here's the classical and elegant argument you'r looking for.
If the Universe must have a creator, since it's so complex and amazing, then it seems inevitable that that creator is at least as complex and amazing. And must therefore, by the same logic, have a creator itself. Which has even more reason to have a creator. And so on. This reasoning only moves the problem, and never solves it.
I think that evolution would have favored organisms that find meaning in the way the world around them is ortganized. In other words, the organisms that found the Universe incomprehensible and dull are not around to discuss the issue anymore. T hose of us left are predisposed to find it wonderful and amazing.
Slashdot Mirror
As someone working in Redwood City, I have to say it sure rains a lot here for a desert. And the frequency of floods and mudslides also seems fairly high.
I suspect the realities of interplanetary war will surprise every theoretician once it's in action. In other words, we're probably both very wrong. But I'd like to present an alternative view nonetheless.
One of the oldest rules of war is that it's better to be higher. You want to control the heights. When the valley people fight the hill people, the hill people win. Sadly, being on a planet is the extreme case of not controlling the heights, when you fight someone spaceborne.
One attacking space ship can, as you point out, be easily detected. That just means that you shouldn't try to attack that way. For one thing, there's really no good reason to ride along with your weapon. What if you just fling a bomb at your enemy planet? And note that a fairly small rock acts just like a nuclear bomb when dropped from outer space, and is very similar to a black body itself.
You'll note that this is the same scenario as an asteroid in collision course with earth. Humanity has just started to discuss how to defend against one, with decades of warning. What if our enemy throws 10000 at us with very little warning?
Being a populated planet seems to be the cosmic equivalent to being a very large and shiny sitting duck.
The problem with that idea is that it's fairly easy to cancel sounds with one speaker in one point - ear or microphone, typically - but mathemathically impossible to do so in an entire area. You'd need one speaker for each of the infinite number of points in it.
Yeah, the stickers wear out pretty fast, and you have to replace them if you do any semi serious cubing.
I do mine myself, but if you're not DIY inclined and/or want professional quality stuff, you can order from Cubesmith.
He's ended up third in the big competition, and placed high in several of the others. Search for Shotaro on the result page.I doubt it helped to have one (or more) film teams following your every action and word during the entire weekend...
68 - 86F = 20.0 - 30.0C
47F = 8.3C
They're relasing version IV of a consistently high selling game, so clearly the way they're thinking about it has sustained their development for a long time.
So I wonder how you foresee that conditions will change to make their attitude start guaranteeing their ultimate failure.
Civilization (the computer game) does not use a hex grid. It's a regular grid of squares that is rotated 45 degrees and squished a bit, but it's not in any way a hex grid. Each cell has 4 direct heighbors and 4 diagonal ones.
And, in the same vein, why are they charging money for it??
It does decrease with the square of the distance from the source, but the source is the sun, not the mirror. Adding a few hundred feet to that distance will do very little change, even when squared.
You confuse a prudish culture with prudish law.
No. The prudishness is mandated by law, by the FCC, an arm of the federal government.
Visitors (from the free world) to the US are stunned by the heavily censored media they experience on TV and radio. In some theorethical sense you can say anything here, but it's not possible in the medias where a lot of people would hear you.
Hell, even Germany and France regulate political speech.
As does the US. That is the whole purpose of campaign finance laws.
So far, the US government has kept its hands off [DNS]
This I agree with, though.
Other common spam assumptions:
-- Everyone has a penis that is too small and too soft
-- Everyone has breasts that are too small and too soft
Not sure which country this identifies...
i'd rather call that "necessary, but still bad" rather than "good"
You agree on the substantive part, that it is better than the alternatives. What words you prefer to use discussing it does not affect what actions you recommend people take.
Well, I for one welcome our new... no wait, these are the same overlords as before. Never mind.
I was really hoping we could keep the Mac/Windows flame wars out of this discussion for once...
Does your 256MB flash card hold 4 GB of data?
If not, it's hardly a replacement, is it?
Only if every human born produces exactly as many offspring as all the others will evolultion stop. And clearly that is not the case. Some people have lots of kids, some have none. And much of the reason is genetical.
As an example, males who manage to sleep with lots of careless women can easily produce hundreds of kids. Look for more of those kind of genes in the future.
Water doesn't boil in cold air, but it's boiling point is dependent on air pressure. If you're at high altitude you have to boil eggs longer, since the boiling temperature is lower, for example.
The Martian atmosphere is much thinner than earth's, even at the highest peaks. I think the air pressure at Mt Everest is about 20% of sealevel, while on Mars it is 0.1%.
I don't have the numbers here, but I assume the physical foundation for this story is that at that pressure, the boiling temperature is below the freezing temperature, so water really can't exist stably in fluid state.
So if you say "here do this work, otherwise you'll end up poor and starving" isn't enslavement?
Enslavement is when a person is owned by an other, and can be bought and sold as property, as well as raped, tortured or killed at will, just as you would be free to destroy any other property.
By contrast, offering someone a job is at worst pointless. If the prospective employee doesn't find the offer better than his current situation, he can always decline it. At best it can improve someone's life immensly. At the utter level of poverty many third worlders live in, a few cents more a day can be the difference between life and death.
And really its only the last 4 hours before a deadline that the work gets done
It seems like you should be given far more deadlines!
Think about how much bigger the post traumatic stress load must be on the other side(s) of this war, that takes 10 - 100 times as high casualities, and presumably has very few therapy options available.
I don't know much about PST, but I can't think it will manifest itself in ways that are good for anyone.
That sword is no less real than the money in your bank account. Both exist only as bits on a disk drive at some server farm.
Computers are real, as are the people using them. I don't know why they should be considered less 'real' than any other human activity.
Sometimes I let a cool sounding argument take precedence over factual correctness. I'll try to cut down on that, sorry...
Ask anyone who works in a store. They have as many horror stories about customers as you about retailers.
The simple fact is that there are some evil and selfish people around. And they engage both in selling and buying.
Here's the classical and elegant argument you'r looking for.
If the Universe must have a creator, since it's so complex and amazing, then it seems inevitable that that creator is at least as complex and amazing. And must therefore, by the same logic, have a creator itself. Which has even more reason to have a creator. And so on. This reasoning only moves the problem, and never solves it.
I think that evolution would have favored organisms that find meaning in the way the world around them is ortganized. In other words, the organisms that found the Universe incomprehensible and dull are not around to discuss the issue anymore. T hose of us left are predisposed to find it wonderful and amazing.