The biological theory of evolution is not. It is very specific and it DOES only apply to living systems.
To be sure, many things change through time. However, the evolution of the solar system is not ment to be handled by the theory of evolution in biology. That theory is ment only to adress why there is such diversity amongst living things. Thus, it only applies to living things.
I am sorry. The theory of evolution does not apply to origins of life. Those really are the facts, no matter what else you may want them to be.
. "Actually, it is, when ToE is referred as an alternative possibility to creationism."
Ok, this is my point exactly. If ToE was taught to you as an alternative to creationism, then it was being taught to you incorrectly. ToE says absolutly nothing about the emergence of life. It mearly postulates that the geneotypes of a population can change throught time and that is where deversity comes from. Anytime you talk about the origen of life, you CANNOT be talking about evolution. The reason being that ToE in biology only applies to living things. Thus, it cannot adress anything before life or the event of the formation of life. It simply does not adress these points. Those are the facts.
"afte all, whenever I step on a bug, the percentage of that bug phenotype relative to all other bug phenotypes changes."
You are correct. When you step on a bug, the percentage DOES change. Hence evolution takes place. Of course, one bug may not be statistically relevent, and so we do not (and actually, cannot) worry about that event. However, lets assume a HUDGE atronomical foot stepped on the earth (like say, a meteor). Now, if that meteor hit iceland, and destroyed it, then the poputlation of iceland (the most genetically homogeneous population in the world) would be gone and would most likely be statistically relevent. Thus, evolutoin would have occured.
"Similarly, every time my immune system kills a bacteria trying to invade my body, the percentage of that bacteria relative to all bacteria changes."
Again, you must consider the statistics. Yes, one bacteria is not relevent. However, let that process occur a million times, and it is. In fact, you are not begining to select for bacteria that you body cannot kill. Evolution is occuring.
"Your single-sentence summary of evolution is true in all imaginable worlds where organisms are born, die, or both, and there is more than one kind of organism, whether or not these organisms are capable of producing any variation in their offspring or not."
You seem to be confusing the ToE with the mechanism behind it. Mutations ALLOW for evolution. Natural selection is the MEANS for evolution. neither ARE evoluiton. Evolution can happen without either. For instance a meteor wiping out a whole continent/island.
My definition was somewhat incorrect, i will admit, thought evolution can still be summed up in one scentence. That being, "evolution is the change in genotype frequencey within a population through time."
I belive that is pretty good. I am sorry if you think that evolution is something else. It simply is not. If you have been taught otherwise you have been misinformed. This is nothing to be ashamed of as I think it is a commmon mistake to treak evolution as a theory of abiogenesis, which is not. Also, the mechanism of evolutions realization are mistaken as evolution itself. Which is not. Consider the word evolve: to change. ToE does not make any claims as to how this change is effected. To do this, we must tack on other thoeries. This is reflected in the name. For example; the theory of evolution THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION. Meaning, that the genotype changes by means of natural selection. Natural selection is the mechanism for evolution...not evolution itself.
"Besides, the article clearly stated that the survey was about origin of life, not just what has happened since then."
The content of the acticle is irrelevent. The POST that I was replying to was implying that evolution was not scientific becuase spontaneous generation is not falsifiable. I was merely pointing out that spontaneous generation of life is not a part of evolution. Anyone that claims otherwise either is lying or does not know what they are talking about.
spontaneous generation is not an aspect of the theory of evolution. If you were taught that it is, then you were taught the wrong thing.
The theory of evolution is quite simple. It makes one simple statement. That is; "The percentage of a particular phenotype(in this day and age we now say genotype) changes over time."
THat is it. That is the theory of evolution. I think this is very hard to disagree with.
Now once you start addining in things like natural selection, the theory gets more expansive, but not nessesiarily less valid. Biochemists running auger plates to select for specific bacterial strains see this nautual selection process everyday.
The point is, spontaneous generation is not part of evolution and you have still not shown how ID/creation ism can be falsifiable. We are left to conclude that you do not think it is. Therefore you do not belive it is science. Therefore you do not belive that it should be taught in the science classroom. Therefore, i do not see what the problem is...
Here is what I don't understand. No one is forcing people to buy xboxes or to connect them to the internet. SO, if people are disturbed by their supposed privacy invation by way of LIVE, then the solution seems quite simple -- don't use it.
actually, your eyes ARE cameras. They have a refresh (or capture) rate too. This is why at about 24 frames per second things stop looking jerky. At that rate, your eyes no longer are sampling fast enough to distinguish the seperate frames and so you see what appears to be a smoothly changing image instead of the (in reality) series of static images.
Anyways, as far as blurring with regards to speed. The grandparent is a troll (ie. lying). Things to blur when you go by then quickly. Don't belive me? Get in your car and go 25 mph. Then while you are doing this open the door and look at the ground. Do you see the ground in the same crisp detail you do when you are standing still? Heavens no. It is blurred.
Probably the grandparent was looking at objects too far away to really detect blurring. But this all has to do with the rate of change of the angle between observer and object. If things are close enough (or you are traveling fast enough) then they will appear to blur.
interesting. Perhaps the books I have read overplayed the importance of the steel embargo. Also, I thought that the embargo of trade with japan started once the west became aware of the massacres occuring in Shanghai. Arg. History can be confusing. Sometimes I wish I had the time to read up more on this.
Anyways, thanks for the information. I will add it to my limited knowledge that I have gathered so far.:D
yeah, i guess since we are only 5 years into this century, then the one war that has been fought for oil contributes strongly to the wars fought. However, I think there have been more than 2 wars, so 1 does not count as "pretty much all of them."
While Japan was in need of oil for their war in manchuria, they were also in desperate need of raw materials such as steel. In fact, it was mainly the US embargo of steel that led to the bombing of pearl harbor (at least as i understand the situation). I am not saying that oil did not play into it, just that in this case it was a need for steel. Of course, if you review the statements of those involved in the attack on pearl harbor, the war was much more a point of honor than a battle for supplies. No-one high up in teh military expected to win a war with the US, however, they attacked us on a matter of priciple after negotioations for steel had failed.
Also, I do not really think that the war in manchuria counts as a war for oil. Certianly the war was a result of the imperialistic tendencies of the japanese impire as well as the long standing border dispute (almost family-fued type) between china and japan.
I will agree that energy supplies are a strategic neccessity for a nation and a war. HOwever, MOST wars have not started as an attempt to sucure such things. Rather, they have been much more a result of the expansionist tendicies of the nations wich start them. (consolidation of land or peoples)
I stand by my statement that wars for oil have contributed very little to the death as a result of aggresion. Let us just consider the wars that most people know about (most americans)...
The cursades -- Definately not for oil US revolution Spanish-english war (100 years war) Spanish American War war of 1812 civil war mexican war WWI WWII bolshavik revolution korean war vietnam coldwar desert storm bosnian desert storm (revisited)
now this is by no means even close to a complete list. HOwever, i think that out of all these wars, only Desert storms 1&2 can be considered for oil. See above for why i do not count even the pacific theater as a war for oil. both desert storms have fairly low death tolls, all things considered. So as of now there is not much death as a result of wars for oil.
Now, you do have a valid point when you say that past performance does not predict future results. Clearly we have but two choices. Either we can find alternate energy sorces (like nuclear power! i mean come-ON we already have the technology, but i digress) OR we can face a future in which MANY wars will be fought for oil. However, as to date, very few wars have actually been fought for oil. That is argument that i originally had issue with.
As for the future I would imagine that you and I are on the same page, unfortunately.
I do not think we are defending the oil industry so much as we are pointing out your initial mistake (or mis-speak as the case may be).
That is to say that your initial post seemed to say that fuel cells would automatically present a cleaner source of energy -- which is simply not the case. First we must create the infrastructure for this.
1) WHere do you think we will be getting the energy for hydrogen seperation?
2) How many wars have started directly because of oil supply? ANd what is the death toll for these wars as opposed to the more traditional "agression" wars?
Honestly, the wars for oil have contributed very little to the death toll due to violence in our history (even modern history). And fuel cells does not remove our dependence form oil until we can power hydrogen purification plants using wind, solar, or nuclear power.
well, i for one almost think it is worth the price of an (used) xbox for ninja gaiden alone.
But if you want others, then there are; Otogi Otogi 2 Crimson Skies Halo Halo 2 Burnout Dead or Alive
and i think there are more, just not ones that I can think of right now.
That is not to say that all the other systems suck, far from it! Rather, i am just pointing out that there are some really good games that one has to have a xbox (or one particular system) to play, that is all.
When every scientific discovery is met by screeches and howls by the religious right,
this is a gross exageration. There are thousands of discoveries that are not debated at all by the religious. What you fail to realize that the media thrives on conflict and, as such, only those scientific statements that arose a vigorous response form religion (and visa versa) recieve and amount of publicity.
Really, science does not need such sensationalism, either on the part of the press or even YOUR stance here. Hyperbole does not do the case of science any good. Intead, we should point out that the majority of debates deal with only a very small fraction of science. At least last time checked, there were no major religious debates concerning the Marcus-Hush model of electron transfer or the concept that things tend to fall downward. What we should be doing is showing that there is actually very little that religion disagrees with and there is much that science is producing that is both usefull and not a hornets nest. This is not to say that we should ignore the debates that exist, just that we should people there are other parts of science that are quite usefull and widely accepted. Religion is just as much to blame for negative press as the scientists that insist on focusing on those debates to the exclusion of all else.
Any student of history knows that Scopes lost his trial
any student of history would also know that the scopes trial was a mockery of the judicial system and was a sham trial. Scopes himself was not ontrail, per se. In fact, Scopes was a physical education teacher and had acutally never taught evolution to children at the school at which he worked. After the trial, the judge actually warned the town (and the state, i belive) that a trial like this was never to take place again. Anyways, the trail was set up in order to try to decide if religion could keep evolution out of the schools (or if evolution could be brought in). It was a trail made up out of trumped up charges just to test an idea. The end result being (in the aftermath of the trail) that evolution WAS allowed into the schools. So, while scopes might have lost (a verdict which carried with it absolutely NO punishment) the trail was actually a sucess for science. Yeah. You should try reading up on it, it is a very intersting sort of incident in US history.
1) Small error, i think on your part. The article does not claim nanogram sensitivity, but picogram sensitivity. I think three orders of magnitude are worth mentioning:)
2) You claim that "many ordinary boring compounds will have the same molecular weight as the explosive." WHich is not technically true. THey may be very CLOSE to the same mass, however, they will not be exacly the same. the question then become one of sensitivity. If you have a mass spec sensitive enough to detect the small mass differences between similare molecules, then you are fine. This is certianly possible, with the new high-resolution mass specs. IN fact, many scientific journals now accept high-resolution mass spectrograms in place of crystal structures for proof of chemical identity.
3) Lastly, as far as detecting molecules and dealing with specificity in the "real world" where the background is a "freaking nightmare." WEll, that is a problem. However, would it not be possible to look for groupings of chemicals that are commin in explosives? That way, you only flag a person if they have a particular set of chemicals in their stuff. I don't really know too much about this, per se, but it seems like that is how nature detects things with a high degree of certainty (ie. the nose) and and as long as you assign explosives to a group of chemcials, instead of just a single compound, it seems like your test will perform better. But like i said, i am not sure if that is possible.
actually, as is already pointed out, this is a troll. Mainly because the parent misrepresents the definition of irony. Which is commonly done, but still a troll.
Irony has but three definitions. From webster's; 1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning -- called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3) a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play -- called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
most likely the parents post above is relying on a misunderstanding of the third definition. HOwever, this definition actually more correctly refers to a situation in wich the caracters onstage speak a line which they do not understand to be true, but the audeince does.
An classic example of this dramatic irony is found in the Christian gospels. In this case, the pharasees claim that for the sake of the nation of isreal, jesus must die. They understand that jesus must die to prevent an uprising that would be crushed by the romans, however, the intended audience (christians) are to understand that jesus had to die in order to save the human race and the house of isreal. Yeah, so that is dramitic irony. AWSOME!
Seriously, the point of the gaming industry is to make money through entertaining people. It is not their job to make sure they present realistic images or to give everyone warm fuzzy happy feelings. If it is not a big enough deal to make a large impact in their sales, then oh well.
The only real objection to this that i can think of is this;
When my tax $$ goes to buying a book, i expect that the book will be used until it wears out. That is, there is no reason why a book that is bought today cannot be read 50 years from now. The technology needed for reading books is quite static.
However, with video games, i see no reason to expect that games bought today will be used much even 5 years from now. Any consol games surely will be horribly out of date and few people will even own the consols anymore. Computer games will be somewhat better, but not much.
The same problem (to a lesser degree) can be seen with the VHS collections. Really, how much are those collections used anymore and will they even exist in the next few years?
The buying a video games just seems like a good way to run through the budgetary money that is already quite low for most public libraries. Why spend $50 on a game that will be used for a few years when you could buy 5 books for the same price and have them last for 25 years? It just doesn't seem like good fiscal management to me.
On the other hand, i love games, and i am exicted to see libraries carrying them. I do think that it is a legitamate thing for libraries to carry -- as they function as repositories of culture. I just think that given the limited budgets that most libraries have to work with they money is better spent on less transitory media.
I realize that adding games might make libraries more populare thus raising their budget. however, i think that DVD collections are much more effective at that. Lets face it, the majority of gamers are young children. And they don't constitute the voting power that adults do.
I guess i am torn. I love the idea of libraries carrying games, but i don't like the idea of them spending money on something that will only be usefull for a few years. Perhaps libraries should have game collections, but they should be entirely built off of donations. Who knows.:D
hmmm...good catch, i guess what was ment was readily avalible ruthenium. Interesting. I suppose that is what i get for repeating what i heard without checking it out first. Such is life.
the cost of ruthenium has also gone up a bit, i think right now it is somewhere around $50 per gram. Yeah, something like that -- if you get the trichloride stuff. Still not all that expensive. But more than the glass i think.
The organics CAN be expensive. Though i belive that you can get decent effeciency using just bipyridine ligands. (correct me if i am wrong)wich are not all that much. (~$4 a gram)
Again, though i am just talking based on the chat i hear in the hall. I could definately be wrong:)
Actually, i don't think that the glass was the most expensive. Most of the cells used ruthenium dyes for their light absorbing dyes. Ruthenium is not exactly cheap. Moreover, it is not even all that plentiful. I remember hearing once at a conference that the amount of ruthenium expected to be in the earth's crust is only enough to make enough solar cells to cover the state of north dakota or something like that.
I think this is the main problem with solar cells. Until someone comes up with an effecient dye based on a more abundant metal there is no possible way that solar cells can become ubiquitous.
Though it is unclear from the site what sort of dyes this company is using -- perhaps they have found a new one. Though i suspect if they had it would be all over their site. I gather, rather, that they are just using the "nano" buzzword to make their stuff sound new and cool. Oh well.
OH, by the way i am not a solar cell scientist -- but i do work down the hall from a few. Cool.
On what grounds should they be expected to forward information about this one specific crime, but not about information they may have about other crimes such rape, murder, abduction or fraud?,
Well, i think it makes a sort of amount of sense. Not total sense, mind you, but some.
The difference between these child porn and the other crimes that you mention is that it is extremely easy to find solid evidence of child pornagraphy online.
That is to say that if a given person is found to have posted child porn or has it on their site, there is no question as to whether or not that is illegal. The illegal stuff is right there.
However, any sort of evidence of rape, murder, abduction or fraud found on the internet could easily be explained away.
"oh no officer, that was just a insert word here (ie, story, movie, game, ect) that my buddy and I made up for fun. Yes officer i know it is poor taste. But it is ART you see."
Things like that. I guess the point is that the evidence of child porn online is much more solid than that of those other crimes.
Furthermore, if people were required to forward any complaint of illegal activity to the authorities, then just imagine how quickly things could get out of control once people are able to anonomously file fraudulant claims against others. I mean, if i didn't like my neighbor i could just fire off an anonomous email to their service provider every month claiming that they are involved in a drug ring or bank heist or blackmail or whatever the crime of them month was going to be. Surely some of these would look convincing to the police. Oh what a way to harrase someone using the system!
while i agree that usually making a sequel with little change is a bad idea, there are a few (extremely rare) cases in which this is not nessesarily a bad thing. These are for games that the formula is so perfectly fun that to change it would be criminal.
For instance, the castlevania series since Symphony of the night. (cirlce of the moon, aria of sorrow, harmony of dissonance). I think i will never tire of playing these games. THere are AWSOME.
as with almost every one of your replies on this thread you miss the point entirely.
I am not saying that it does not suck that the people were fired. All i am saying is that it is a part of life. SO deal with it.
If you get fired you NEED to pay close attention to your finances. You NEED to understand when you can no longer afford to make the payments on your house and you NEED to do something about that. It may include selling it. It sux, yes, but again, that is LIFE.
Typically, people who have the bank forclose on their houses were not paying attention to what was going on. Or if they were they were to busy screaming about how unfair it is instead of acting mature and rational and doing something about it.
I will clue you in. You (and most people walking the earth) are alive. As such, you will have to deal with life. That is the way it is. Sometimes bad things will happen. Learn to deal with them. The more you are able to identify problems that are occuring to you and take actions to handle them, the less it will seem like everyone is out to get you.
Seriously, as i said before, it is mainly the need to grow up.
Companies have to maximize profits --their shareholder (bosses) demand it.
When do you get a real job?! That all depends on what you mean by a real job. You appear to mean one with job stability. Ok. Then i would suggest looking into feilds that offer that. If your current feild is not known for job stability, then look into another feild. It is that simple. The janitor that works in our building has been here for his entire working life. If you don't want to change fields, then that is ok, just don't bitch about it. It is YOUR choice. No one is forcing you to be in the game industry.
You should prolly be paying a bit more attention to your finances if you are having problems with getting your car reposessed and your house taken. Perhaps actually opening your eyes and dealing with life -- instead of closing that beating the floor screaming "its not fair!" -- would be a better option. If you don't have enough money to pay your house payements -- sell you house. That is not complicated is it?
I know this must seem cold-hearted to you. I am sorry. But these are the facts. You can try to change them and that is good and admirable, but for now this is the way things are. Sticking your head in the sand is not the way to deal with things. Niether is screaming and complaining that your deserve a real job, a stabil job, and claiming that the world OWES you a house. That simply is not true.
What you need to do is wake up and realize that you just need to deal with life. Sucky things will happen. Good things will happen. Enjoy the good -- accept that bad has happend and deal with it.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/offeri ng/list/-/B000F7FSLO/all/ref=dp_bb_a/102-0989557-0 514530?s=videogames
:)
there you go
Evolution IS a broad concept.
The biological theory of evolution is not. It is very specific and it DOES only apply to living systems.
To be sure, many things change through time. However, the evolution of the solar system is not ment to be handled by the theory of evolution in biology. That theory is ment only to adress why there is such diversity amongst living things. Thus, it only applies to living things.
I am sorry. The theory of evolution does not apply to origins of life. Those really are the facts, no matter what else you may want them to be.
. "Actually, it is, when ToE is referred as an alternative possibility to creationism."
Ok, this is my point exactly. If ToE was taught to you as an alternative to creationism, then it was being taught to you incorrectly. ToE says absolutly nothing about the emergence of life. It mearly postulates that the geneotypes of a population can change throught time and that is where deversity comes from. Anytime you talk about the origen of life, you CANNOT be talking about evolution. The reason being that ToE in biology only applies to living things. Thus, it cannot adress anything before life or the event of the formation of life. It simply does not adress these points. Those are the facts.
"afte all, whenever I step on a bug, the percentage of that bug phenotype relative to all other bug phenotypes changes."
You are correct. When you step on a bug, the percentage DOES change. Hence evolution takes place. Of course, one bug may not be statistically relevent, and so we do not (and actually, cannot) worry about that event. However, lets assume a HUDGE atronomical foot stepped on the earth (like say, a meteor). Now, if that meteor hit iceland, and destroyed it, then the poputlation of iceland (the most genetically homogeneous population in the world) would be gone and would most likely be statistically relevent. Thus, evolutoin would have occured.
"Similarly, every time my immune system kills a bacteria trying to invade my body, the percentage of that bacteria relative to all bacteria changes."
Again, you must consider the statistics. Yes, one bacteria is not relevent. However, let that process occur a million times, and it is. In fact, you are not begining to select for bacteria that you body cannot kill. Evolution is occuring.
"Your single-sentence summary of evolution is true in all imaginable worlds where organisms are born, die, or both, and there is more than one kind of organism, whether or not these organisms are capable of producing any variation in their offspring or not."
You seem to be confusing the ToE with the mechanism behind it. Mutations ALLOW for evolution. Natural selection is the MEANS for evolution. neither ARE evoluiton. Evolution can happen without either. For instance a meteor wiping out a whole continent/island.
My definition was somewhat incorrect, i will admit, thought evolution can still be summed up in one scentence. That being, "evolution is the change in genotype frequencey within a population through time."
I belive that is pretty good. I am sorry if you think that evolution is something else. It simply is not. If you have been taught otherwise you have been misinformed. This is nothing to be ashamed of as I think it is a commmon mistake to treak evolution as a theory of abiogenesis, which is not. Also, the mechanism of evolutions realization are mistaken as evolution itself. Which is not. Consider the word evolve: to change. ToE does not make any claims as to how this change is effected. To do this, we must tack on other thoeries. This is reflected in the name. For example; the theory of evolution THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION. Meaning, that the genotype changes by means of natural selection. Natural selection is the mechanism for evolution...not evolution itself.
"Besides, the article clearly stated that the survey was about origin of life, not just what has happened since then."
The content of the acticle is irrelevent. The POST that I was replying to was implying that evolution was not scientific becuase spontaneous generation is not falsifiable. I was merely pointing out that spontaneous generation of life is not a part of evolution. Anyone that claims otherwise either is lying or does not know what they are talking about.
spontaneous generation is not an aspect of the theory of evolution. If you were taught that it is, then you were taught the wrong thing.
The theory of evolution is quite simple. It makes one simple statement. That is; "The percentage of a particular phenotype(in this day and age we now say genotype) changes over time."
THat is it. That is the theory of evolution. I think this is very hard to disagree with.
Now once you start addining in things like natural selection, the theory gets more expansive, but not nessesiarily less valid. Biochemists running auger plates to select for specific bacterial strains see this nautual selection process everyday.
The point is, spontaneous generation is not part of evolution and you have still not shown how ID/creation ism can be falsifiable. We are left to conclude that you do not think it is. Therefore you do not belive it is science. Therefore you do not belive that it should be taught in the science classroom. Therefore, i do not see what the problem is...
Here is what I don't understand. No one is forcing people to buy xboxes or to connect them to the internet. SO, if people are disturbed by their supposed privacy invation by way of LIVE, then the solution seems quite simple -- don't use it.
Seems like a non-issue to me
actually, your eyes ARE cameras. They have a refresh (or capture) rate too. This is why at about 24 frames per second things stop looking jerky. At that rate, your eyes no longer are sampling fast enough to distinguish the seperate frames and so you see what appears to be a smoothly changing image instead of the (in reality) series of static images.
Anyways, as far as blurring with regards to speed. The grandparent is a troll (ie. lying). Things to blur when you go by then quickly. Don't belive me? Get in your car and go 25 mph. Then while you are doing this open the door and look at the ground. Do you see the ground in the same crisp detail you do when you are standing still? Heavens no. It is blurred.
Probably the grandparent was looking at objects too far away to really detect blurring. But this all has to do with the rate of change of the angle between observer and object. If things are close enough (or you are traveling fast enough) then they will appear to blur.
interesting. Perhaps the books I have read overplayed the importance of the steel embargo. Also, I thought that the embargo of trade with japan started once the west became aware of the massacres occuring in Shanghai. Arg. History can be confusing. Sometimes I wish I had the time to read up more on this.
:D
Anyways, thanks for the information. I will add it to my limited knowledge that I have gathered so far.
LOL!
:)
yeah, i guess since we are only 5 years into this century, then the one war that has been fought for oil contributes strongly to the wars fought. However, I think there have been more than 2 wars, so 1 does not count as "pretty much all of them."
But i applaud you anyways. Pretty funny.
While Japan was in need of oil for their war in manchuria, they were also in desperate need of raw materials such as steel. In fact, it was mainly the US embargo of steel that led to the bombing of pearl harbor (at least as i understand the situation). I am not saying that oil did not play into it, just that in this case it was a need for steel. Of course, if you review the statements of those involved in the attack on pearl harbor, the war was much more a point of honor than a battle for supplies. No-one high up in teh military expected to win a war with the US, however, they attacked us on a matter of priciple after negotioations for steel had failed.
Also, I do not really think that the war in manchuria counts as a war for oil. Certianly the war was a result of the imperialistic tendencies of the japanese impire as well as the long standing border dispute (almost family-fued type) between china and japan.
I will agree that energy supplies are a strategic neccessity for a nation and a war. HOwever, MOST wars have not started as an attempt to sucure such things. Rather, they have been much more a result of the expansionist tendicies of the nations wich start them. (consolidation of land or peoples)
I stand by my statement that wars for oil have contributed very little to the death as a result of aggresion. Let us just consider the wars that most people know about (most americans)...
The cursades -- Definately not for oil
US revolution
Spanish-english war (100 years war)
Spanish American War
war of 1812
civil war
mexican war
WWI
WWII
bolshavik revolution
korean war
vietnam
coldwar
desert storm
bosnian
desert storm (revisited)
now this is by no means even close to a complete list. HOwever, i think that out of all these wars, only Desert storms 1&2 can be considered for oil. See above for why i do not count even the pacific theater as a war for oil. both desert storms have fairly low death tolls, all things considered. So as of now there is not much death as a result of wars for oil.
Now, you do have a valid point when you say that past performance does not predict future results. Clearly we have but two choices. Either we can find alternate energy sorces (like nuclear power! i mean come-ON we already have the technology, but i digress) OR we can face a future in which MANY wars will be fought for oil. However, as to date, very few wars have actually been fought for oil. That is argument that i originally had issue with.
As for the future I would imagine that you and I are on the same page, unfortunately.
I do not think we are defending the oil industry so much as we are pointing out your initial mistake (or mis-speak as the case may be).
That is to say that your initial post seemed to say that fuel cells would automatically present a cleaner source of energy -- which is simply not the case. First we must create the infrastructure for this.
two things...
1) WHere do you think we will be getting the energy for hydrogen seperation?
2) How many wars have started directly because of oil supply? ANd what is the death toll for these wars as opposed to the more traditional "agression" wars?
Honestly, the wars for oil have contributed very little to the death toll due to violence in our history (even modern history). And fuel cells does not remove our dependence form oil until we can power hydrogen purification plants using wind, solar, or nuclear power.
well, i for one almost think it is worth the price of an (used) xbox for ninja gaiden alone.
But if you want others, then there are;
Otogi
Otogi 2
Crimson Skies
Halo
Halo 2
Burnout
Dead or Alive
and i think there are more, just not ones that I can think of right now.
That is not to say that all the other systems suck, far from it! Rather, i am just pointing out that there are some really good games that one has to have a xbox (or one particular system) to play, that is all.
this is a gross exageration. There are thousands of discoveries that are not debated at all by the religious. What you fail to realize that the media thrives on conflict and, as such, only those scientific statements that arose a vigorous response form religion (and visa versa) recieve and amount of publicity.
Really, science does not need such sensationalism, either on the part of the press or even YOUR stance here. Hyperbole does not do the case of science any good. Intead, we should point out that the majority of debates deal with only a very small fraction of science. At least last time checked, there were no major religious debates concerning the Marcus-Hush model of electron transfer or the concept that things tend to fall downward. What we should be doing is showing that there is actually very little that religion disagrees with and there is much that science is producing that is both usefull and not a hornets nest. This is not to say that we should ignore the debates that exist, just that we should people there are other parts of science that are quite usefull and widely accepted. Religion is just as much to blame for negative press as the scientists that insist on focusing on those debates to the exclusion of all else.
Any student of history knows that Scopes lost his trial
any student of history would also know that the scopes trial was a mockery of the judicial system and was a sham trial. Scopes himself was not ontrail, per se. In fact, Scopes was a physical education teacher and had acutally never taught evolution to children at the school at which he worked. After the trial, the judge actually warned the town (and the state, i belive) that a trial like this was never to take place again. Anyways, the trail was set up in order to try to decide if religion could keep evolution out of the schools (or if evolution could be brought in). It was a trail made up out of trumped up charges just to test an idea. The end result being (in the aftermath of the trail) that evolution WAS allowed into the schools. So, while scopes might have lost (a verdict which carried with it absolutely NO punishment) the trail was actually a sucess for science. Yeah. You should try reading up on it, it is a very intersting sort of incident in US history.
good game baised on a movie = Chronicals of riddick, escape from butcher bay
or does that count? I dont know
Just a few points.
:)
1) Small error, i think on your part. The article does not claim nanogram sensitivity, but picogram sensitivity. I think three orders of magnitude are worth mentioning
2) You claim that "many ordinary boring compounds will have the same molecular weight as the explosive." WHich is not technically true. THey may be very CLOSE to the same mass, however, they will not be exacly the same. the question then become one of sensitivity. If you have a mass spec sensitive enough to detect the small mass differences between similare molecules, then you are fine. This is certianly possible, with the new high-resolution mass specs. IN fact, many scientific journals now accept high-resolution mass spectrograms in place of crystal structures for proof of chemical identity.
3) Lastly, as far as detecting molecules and dealing with specificity in the "real world" where the background is a "freaking nightmare." WEll, that is a problem. However, would it not be possible to look for groupings of chemicals that are commin in explosives? That way, you only flag a person if they have a particular set of chemicals in their stuff. I don't really know too much about this, per se, but it seems like that is how nature detects things with a high degree of certainty (ie. the nose) and and as long as you assign explosives to a group of chemcials, instead of just a single compound, it seems like your test will perform better. But like i said, i am not sure if that is possible.
Cool
actually, as is already pointed out, this is a troll. Mainly because the parent misrepresents the definition of irony. Which is commonly done, but still a troll.
Irony has but three definitions. From webster's;
1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning -- called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3) a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play -- called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
most likely the parents post above is relying on a misunderstanding of the third definition. HOwever, this definition actually more correctly refers to a situation in wich the caracters onstage speak a line which they do not understand to be true, but the audeince does.
An classic example of this dramatic irony is found in the Christian gospels. In this case, the pharasees claim that for the sake of the nation of isreal, jesus must die. They understand that jesus must die to prevent an uprising that would be crushed by the romans, however, the intended audience (christians) are to understand that jesus had to die in order to save the human race and the house of isreal. Yeah, so that is dramitic irony. AWSOME!
IF they don't notice the loss, then who cares?
Seriously, the point of the gaming industry is to make money through entertaining people. It is not their job to make sure they present realistic images or to give everyone warm fuzzy happy feelings. If it is not a big enough deal to make a large impact in their sales, then oh well.
The only real objection to this that i can think of is this;
:D
When my tax $$ goes to buying a book, i expect that the book will be used until it wears out. That is, there is no reason why a book that is bought today cannot be read 50 years from now. The technology needed for reading books is quite static.
However, with video games, i see no reason to expect that games bought today will be used much even 5 years from now. Any consol games surely will be horribly out of date and few people will even own the consols anymore. Computer games will be somewhat better, but not much.
The same problem (to a lesser degree) can be seen with the VHS collections. Really, how much are those collections used anymore and will they even exist in the next few years?
The buying a video games just seems like a good way to run through the budgetary money that is already quite low for most public libraries. Why spend $50 on a game that will be used for a few years when you could buy 5 books for the same price and have them last for 25 years? It just doesn't seem like good fiscal management to me.
On the other hand, i love games, and i am exicted to see libraries carrying them. I do think that it is a legitamate thing for libraries to carry -- as they function as repositories of culture. I just think that given the limited budgets that most libraries have to work with they money is better spent on less transitory media.
I realize that adding games might make libraries more populare thus raising their budget. however, i think that DVD collections are much more effective at that. Lets face it, the majority of gamers are young children. And they don't constitute the voting power that adults do.
I guess i am torn. I love the idea of libraries carrying games, but i don't like the idea of them spending money on something that will only be usefull for a few years. Perhaps libraries should have game collections, but they should be entirely built off of donations. Who knows.
hmmm...good catch, i guess what was ment was readily avalible ruthenium. Interesting. I suppose that is what i get for repeating what i heard without checking it out first. Such is life.
:)
the cost of ruthenium has also gone up a bit, i think right now it is somewhere around $50 per gram. Yeah, something like that -- if you get the trichloride stuff. Still not all that expensive. But more than the glass i think.
The organics CAN be expensive. Though i belive that you can get decent effeciency using just bipyridine ligands. (correct me if i am wrong)wich are not all that much. (~$4 a gram)
Again, though i am just talking based on the chat i hear in the hall. I could definately be wrong
Actually, i don't think that the glass was the most expensive. Most of the cells used ruthenium dyes for their light absorbing dyes. Ruthenium is not exactly cheap. Moreover, it is not even all that plentiful. I remember hearing once at a conference that the amount of ruthenium expected to be in the earth's crust is only enough to make enough solar cells to cover the state of north dakota or something like that.
I think this is the main problem with solar cells. Until someone comes up with an effecient dye based on a more abundant metal there is no possible way that solar cells can become ubiquitous.
Though it is unclear from the site what sort of dyes this company is using -- perhaps they have found a new one. Though i suspect if they had it would be all over their site. I gather, rather, that they are just using the "nano" buzzword to make their stuff sound new and cool. Oh well.
OH, by the way i am not a solar cell scientist -- but i do work down the hall from a few. Cool.
Well, i think it makes a sort of amount of sense. Not total sense, mind you, but some.
The difference between these child porn and the other crimes that you mention is that it is extremely easy to find solid evidence of child pornagraphy online.
That is to say that if a given person is found to have posted child porn or has it on their site, there is no question as to whether or not that is illegal. The illegal stuff is right there.
However, any sort of evidence of rape, murder, abduction or fraud found on the internet could easily be explained away.
"oh no officer, that was just a insert word here (ie, story, movie, game, ect) that my buddy and I made up for fun. Yes officer i know it is poor taste. But it is ART you see."
Things like that. I guess the point is that the evidence of child porn online is much more solid than that of those other crimes.
Furthermore, if people were required to forward any complaint of illegal activity to the authorities, then just imagine how quickly things could get out of control once people are able to anonomously file fraudulant claims against others. I mean, if i didn't like my neighbor i could just fire off an anonomous email to their service provider every month claiming that they are involved in a drug ring or bank heist or blackmail or whatever the crime of them month was going to be. Surely some of these would look convincing to the police. Oh what a way to harrase someone using the system!
ANyways, just my two thoughts :D
while i agree that usually making a sequel with little change is a bad idea, there are a few (extremely rare) cases in which this is not nessesarily a bad thing. These are for games that the formula is so perfectly fun that to change it would be criminal.
For instance, the castlevania series since Symphony of the night. (cirlce of the moon, aria of sorrow, harmony of dissonance). I think i will never tire of playing these games. THere are AWSOME.
Just thought i would throw that out there.
as with almost every one of your replies on this thread you miss the point entirely.
I am not saying that it does not suck that the people were fired. All i am saying is that it is a part of life. SO deal with it.
If you get fired you NEED to pay close attention to your finances. You NEED to understand when you can no longer afford to make the payments on your house and you NEED to do something about that. It may include selling it. It sux, yes, but again, that is LIFE.
Typically, people who have the bank forclose on their houses were not paying attention to what was going on. Or if they were they were to busy screaming about how unfair it is instead of acting mature and rational and doing something about it.
I will clue you in. You (and most people walking the earth) are alive. As such, you will have to deal with life. That is the way it is. Sometimes bad things will happen. Learn to deal with them. The more you are able to identify problems that are occuring to you and take actions to handle them, the less it will seem like everyone is out to get you.
Seriously, as i said before, it is mainly the need to grow up.
Companies have to maximize profits --their shareholder (bosses) demand it.
When do you get a real job?! That all depends on what you mean by a real job. You appear to mean one with job stability. Ok. Then i would suggest looking into feilds that offer that. If your current feild is not known for job stability, then look into another feild. It is that simple. The janitor that works in our building has been here for his entire working life.
If you don't want to change fields, then that is ok, just don't bitch about it. It is YOUR choice. No one is forcing you to be in the game industry.
You should prolly be paying a bit more attention to your finances if you are having problems with getting your car reposessed and your house taken. Perhaps actually opening your eyes and dealing with life -- instead of closing that beating the floor screaming "its not fair!" -- would be a better option. If you don't have enough money to pay your house payements -- sell you house. That is not complicated is it?
I know this must seem cold-hearted to you. I am sorry. But these are the facts. You can try to change them and that is good and admirable, but for now this is the way things are. Sticking your head in the sand is not the way to deal with things. Niether is screaming and complaining that your deserve a real job, a stabil job, and claiming that the world OWES you a house. That simply is not true.
What you need to do is wake up and realize that you just need to deal with life. Sucky things will happen. Good things will happen. Enjoy the good -- accept that bad has happend and deal with it.
In short GROW UP!
Thank you. I too was reading the parent and thinking, "i don't remember signing any papers agreeing to make the world a better place."
I guess that this is just a case of blinding yourself into thinking that your heros can do not wrong. Strange.