The problem is not alpha, beta or gamma radiation, the problem is that the wires controlling the airplane make a really nice radio frequency antenna. Those wires by necessity run throughout the plane. The obvious answer is to redesign the passanger compartment to make it a properly grounded faraday cage. The side effect will be that you won't be able to use communications devices. Altrenativly you can rewire the entire plane with grounded control (coaxial) cables, think $$$ and weight = shorter flight range, if you can cram them in there at all.
BTW airplanes are not the only place this kind of interference shows up. Any instrument with an exposed wire is subject to this kind of RF interference. Examples include medical equipment, entertainment devices, and scientific instrumentation.
I have personally identified it in HPLC chromatograms (analytical chemistry) where it shows up as spurious peaks (everybody else was thinking sample contamination). We had to ban communications devices from the labs, the security guards and manufacturing people used to grumble, but oh well.
I have been told over and over for years at many companies that single sourcing your suppliers is a good thing. I am presently unemployed because my employers went broke...
Swamp gas and ball lightning are two favorite explainations of UFOs. Ball lightning in particular is not well understood. Scientists has unsuccessfully tried to produce it for years. I guess some skeptics feal more comfortable with one unknown (Ball Lightning) than another (intelligently controlled unknown objects).
Actually my personal favorite is mass hallucenation. 10,000 people see something that one skeptic says is impossible, the answer
... wait for it...
MASS HALLUCENATION! By some unexplained means 10,000 people simultaneously had the same delusion! The evidence for this phenomena, NONE!
Me, I'm inclined to think that either the event was carefully stage managed, or the skeptic is delusional. Also, I know this is not currently fashionable, but has anyone considered that human beings may not be capeable of understanding all of existance?
Have you seen early movie theaters? Some of them had pipe organs built in. Also a lot of theaters had (and have) specialty speakers for reproducing these sounds. It's the reason some movies are really scary in the theater, but when you buy them on DVD or VCR tape they seem kind of schlocky.
I understand what you are saying. My point is that the scientific method does not apply to all data sets. If the experiment cannot be repeated then the data set, regardless of validity, cannot be regarded as scientific. That's why I mentioned legalistic and historical reasoning. Both are ways of dealing with non-repeatable phenomena, namely crimes by a particular person, and historical events. They are also suited to using unreliable observers, which science is spectacularly unable to do. If you are going to stick to "The scientific method is the only way to go" then please realize that you are shoving square pegs into round holes, something will get lost.
I am not saying that the scientific method is invalid, I am saying that the scientific method is suited to certain data sets. Other data sets, which do not have scientific charachteristics, must be analyzede by other methods.
So the question I am asking is:
Are so called paranormal phenomena suitable for scientific analysis? If not, do we even have suitable analytic tools?
We do that because we have an instinct to reward the lucky SOB with good genes. That's also why groupies follow these people around and have sex with them, the idea (on the genetic level) is to get those genes into our gene pool. Celebrities have always had this response. In times of high morality the process is slowed down a little, but the risks of disease and jealosy are much reduced. The fundamental response does not change.
The problem today is that middlemen have figured out how to make scads of money off this response. First you need a high visibility excellence, actors, atheletes, musicians,industialists, financeers, and politicians provide this; scientists, police, engineers, accountants do not. Second you need a relativly powerless group, that leaves out politicians, financeers, and industrialists, they really don't need you. Third, you exploit them until they start to become self sustaining. Fourth, move on to the next victim (previous victim is now able to force you to share the profits).
I do agree that Western Civilization is in Decline, we are increasingly paralyzed when it comes to necassary action on the local level, the people are increasingly disenfranchised and are being forced into, for lack of a better term, "debt serfdom", and they are starting to exhibit the charachteristic passivity of the serf (do you really think 9/11 would have happened if the passengers had beat the crap out of those guys?), and last but definatly not least we are seeing the growth of an aristocracy that is above the law (well technicly not, but they usually buy their way out of comlying with the law, usually by buying politicians).
Sadly, the people who are taking our rights have sewed up access to the political system (Support the two party system...) and are very careful not to provide a flash point (remember the frog boiling experiment?). After all, if the British had been a little less heavy handed about enforcement of the tax laws in the 1770's, we would be citizens of the British Crown today.
The first question is: Are the observations reliable? Testing the reliablilty of human observations actually falls outside the purvue of science as science assumes an honest observer. That puts these phenomena firmly within the realm of the lawyer and the police, if the observation is old then it comes within the purvue of the historian. Do you really believe that scientists are suited to exposing an artful liar? If you do please look up Uri Gellar.
The second question is: Is there some explaination for this event that falls within the realm of accepted science (this is where the scientist comes in)?
The third question is: Is our understanding of this phenomena complete? If the answer to theses three questions is
I- Yes, II- No, III- No
or worse yet
I- Yes, II- No, III- Yes
Then the only proper scientific answer is "We have insufficient information". Statistics do not work on a sample of one. If the phenomena is truly paranormal then scientific investigation is useless.
If you cannot repeat the experiment then you are by necessity operating on anecdotal evidence. I seriously doubt you can get Jesus to submit to a second Crucifixion so that you can scientificly test if He is Divine.
Methods of reasoning must be appropriate to the data at hand if you are to get reliable results. Scientific reasoning is not the primary reasoning to be used in these cases. Legal and historical methods of investigation are far more appropriate, and less subject to bias in these cases.
BTW - Scientific knowledge sometimes is subject to wholesale revision, see phlogiston.
The conveniently erratic nature of paranormal and supernatural incidents is remarkable, because it largely precludes proper scientific observation and analysis from ever taking place.
Perhaps the proper answer is that scientific observation is the wrong tool. After all, you would'nt use a hammer to drive a screw would you?
For phenomena of this nature a more appropriate investigative tool would be the methods used by Historians or the legal community. Those methods are suited to one time, non-repeatable phenomena, unlike the scientific method which requires controlled repetition.
Just because something is not subject to scientific testing does'nt mean it does'nt exist. Occam's Razor is a guide to good reasoning, not a law. Sometimes the more complicated explination is the correct one.
This "discovery" was used in a Hardy Boys story published in the 1950's. Alfered Hitchcock used to use it to increase the feeling of horror in his movies.
No, that's a standard buisiness term for a person or group trying to put you out of buisiness (by unfair competion, lawsuit, hostile aquisition or other means). A White Knight is the person or group that intervenes to keep you in buisiness (unless they turn out to be Black knights in disguise).
No you're not paranoid! We really are out to get you!
I don't care if this gets modded as a troll, it needs to be said.
You mentioned Clinton's sexual escapades, now let's talk about Bush's escapades.
I.) Bush LIED about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He's STILL LYING! Not one has been found since the war started, not one was used. American soldiers are dying because of this lie. For this alone George W. Bush should be IMPEACHED! The charge is treason.
II.) Bush said the war in Iraq was about terrorism. Why is it that, when the secret proceedings of the Energy policy hearings Chaired by Cheney were finally extracted from the White House by court order, they showed the Bush team carving up Iraq, months before 9/11? More treason, they were going to go to war with Iraq from the begining, 9/11 was an excuse.
III.) The Patriot act was some thousands of pages long. Do you really think it was written up after 9/11?
V.) Finally, since you mentioned Clinton, what did an affair with an intern have to do with a real estate deal that happened a thousand miles away and a decade before? Did I mention that no charges were brought on that matter because Clinton did nothing wrong?
But the laws are structured such that for most poor people the choice is break some law or another (do you really think that some poor S.O.B making $20K/year can afford to support his family AND pay $3.5K/year for auto insurance on a junker?) or starve.
Corporations should not be able to hold copyrights or patents. Corporations create nothing, they are a legal fiction. People create. Corporations should be limited to leasing patents and copyrights from people, and the lease should be at least the Minimum Wage Rate for the duration of the lease. So if I obtain a patent, and company XYZ want to lease it from me for the duration of the patent (20 years), then I should get at least $250,000 US for it (using a wage rate of $6.00/hr, no OT). No more of this buy your patent for $1.00 crap.
They have to set the profit as high as possible. Otherwise the company won't survive when the patent runs out and 50 generics (who do no research other than a patent search)start making the drug on razor thin profit margins.
Most drugs cost approximatly One Billion Dollars to test, and determine that they are worthless. If you test seven drugs to Phase III testing, and two make it to approval, those two drugs have to make up the costs of the other five, plus the 20% ROI that wall Street demands.
Did I mention that the patent is on the active ingredient? That the formulation is a different patent? If the active is an old chemical (discovered more than 20 years ago) all you have is a formulation patent. Once you go through the FDA system and show the drug is safe and effective, all a competitor has to do is come up with a different formulation (which may be better), and they are not infringing on your patent! Did I mention the approval process is easier for a formulation change?
I know it's the fashion to beat up on IP law now. That is legitamate due to the abusive IP laws on the books. However, IP laws with reasonable time limits are a boon to the public, the authors, and the publishers.
At this point reasonable seems to be (as pointed out by others), 20 years for patents on hard goods and industrial processes. 2 - 5 years for patents on software. 25 years for copyrights. Basic science and living things should not be subject to the above restrictions (sorry biotech).
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Because the internals of computing devices are inside a faraday cage. All the RF interference is sent directly yo ground.
BTW airplanes are not the only place this kind of interference shows up. Any instrument with an exposed wire is subject to this kind of RF interference. Examples include medical equipment, entertainment devices, and scientific instrumentation.
I have personally identified it in HPLC chromatograms (analytical chemistry) where it shows up as spurious peaks (everybody else was thinking sample contamination). We had to ban communications devices from the labs, the security guards and manufacturing people used to grumble, but oh well.
I have been told over and over for years at many companies that single sourcing your suppliers is a good thing. I am presently unemployed because my employers went broke...
I wish the zealots would at least concede that much before blasting the horrible , horrible, evil, closed, proprietary software.
Ok, I'll conceed that when you conceed that in mision critical and archival applications closed-source is far inferior.
Actually my personal favorite is mass hallucenation. 10,000 people see something that one skeptic says is impossible, the answer
... wait for it...
MASS HALLUCENATION! By some unexplained means 10,000 people simultaneously had the same delusion! The evidence for this phenomena, NONE!
Me, I'm inclined to think that either the event was carefully stage managed, or the skeptic is delusional. Also, I know this is not currently fashionable, but has anyone considered that human beings may not be capeable of understanding all of existance?
Have you seen early movie theaters? Some of them had pipe organs built in. Also a lot of theaters had (and have) specialty speakers for reproducing these sounds. It's the reason some movies are really scary in the theater, but when you buy them on DVD or VCR tape they seem kind of schlocky.
I am not saying that the scientific method is invalid, I am saying that the scientific method is suited to certain data sets. Other data sets, which do not have scientific charachteristics, must be analyzede by other methods.
So the question I am asking is:
Are so called paranormal phenomena suitable for scientific analysis? If not, do we even have suitable analytic tools?
The problem today is that middlemen have figured out how to make scads of money off this response. First you need a high visibility excellence, actors, atheletes, musicians,industialists, financeers, and politicians provide this; scientists, police, engineers, accountants do not. Second you need a relativly powerless group, that leaves out politicians, financeers, and industrialists, they really don't need you. Third, you exploit them until they start to become self sustaining. Fourth, move on to the next victim (previous victim is now able to force you to share the profits).
I do agree that Western Civilization is in Decline, we are increasingly paralyzed when it comes to necassary action on the local level, the people are increasingly disenfranchised and are being forced into, for lack of a better term, "debt serfdom", and they are starting to exhibit the charachteristic passivity of the serf (do you really think 9/11 would have happened if the passengers had beat the crap out of those guys?), and last but definatly not least we are seeing the growth of an aristocracy that is above the law (well technicly not, but they usually buy their way out of comlying with the law, usually by buying politicians).
Sad. Mod this post a -5 Ranting and Raving.
Sadly, the people who are taking our rights have sewed up access to the political system (Support the two party system...) and are very careful not to provide a flash point (remember the frog boiling experiment?). After all, if the British had been a little less heavy handed about enforcement of the tax laws in the 1770's, we would be citizens of the British Crown today.
The second question is: Is there some explaination for this event that falls within the realm of accepted science (this is where the scientist comes in)?
The third question is: Is our understanding of this phenomena complete? If the answer to theses three questions is
I- Yes, II- No, III- No
or worse yet
I- Yes, II- No, III- Yes
Then the only proper scientific answer is "We have insufficient information". Statistics do not work on a sample of one. If the phenomena is truly paranormal then scientific investigation is useless.
If you cannot repeat the experiment then you are by necessity operating on anecdotal evidence. I seriously doubt you can get Jesus to submit to a second Crucifixion so that you can scientificly test if He is Divine.
Methods of reasoning must be appropriate to the data at hand if you are to get reliable results. Scientific reasoning is not the primary reasoning to be used in these cases. Legal and historical methods of investigation are far more appropriate, and less subject to bias in these cases.
BTW - Scientific knowledge sometimes is subject to wholesale revision, see phlogiston.
Perhaps the proper answer is that scientific observation is the wrong tool. After all, you would'nt use a hammer to drive a screw would you?
For phenomena of this nature a more appropriate investigative tool would be the methods used by Historians or the legal community. Those methods are suited to one time, non-repeatable phenomena, unlike the scientific method which requires controlled repetition.
Just because something is not subject to scientific testing does'nt mean it does'nt exist. Occam's Razor is a guide to good reasoning, not a law. Sometimes the more complicated explination is the correct one.
This "discovery" was used in a Hardy Boys story published in the 1950's. Alfered Hitchcock used to use it to increase the feeling of horror in his movies.
No you're not paranoid! We really are out to get you!
I got that from All Things Considered on NPR. You might try checking their web site at www.npr.org. I agree with you.
You mentioned Clinton's sexual escapades, now let's talk about Bush's escapades.
I.) Bush LIED about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He's STILL LYING! Not one has been found since the war started, not one was used. American soldiers are dying because of this lie. For this alone George W. Bush should be IMPEACHED! The charge is treason.
II.) Bush said the war in Iraq was about terrorism. Why is it that, when the secret proceedings of the Energy policy hearings Chaired by Cheney were finally extracted from the White House by court order, they showed the Bush team carving up Iraq, months before 9/11? More treason, they were going to go to war with Iraq from the begining, 9/11 was an excuse.
III.) The Patriot act was some thousands of pages long. Do you really think it was written up after 9/11?
IV.) In case you missed it
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09 /04/159216
V.) Finally, since you mentioned Clinton, what did an affair with an intern have to do with a real estate deal that happened a thousand miles away and a decade before? Did I mention that no charges were brought on that matter because Clinton did nothing wrong?
Yes, and when all the votes were recounted in Florida, Al Gore won the state. He's not my President.
But the laws are structured such that for most poor people the choice is break some law or another (do you really think that some poor S.O.B making $20K/year can afford to support his family AND pay $3.5K/year for auto insurance on a junker?) or starve.
Nope, they would have spent their time as any good sysadmin spends it when not riled up about something or other. Video games.
Corporations should not be able to hold copyrights or patents. Corporations create nothing, they are a legal fiction. People create. Corporations should be limited to leasing patents and copyrights from people, and the lease should be at least the Minimum Wage Rate for the duration of the lease. So if I obtain a patent, and company XYZ want to lease it from me for the duration of the patent (20 years), then I should get at least $250,000 US for it (using a wage rate of $6.00/hr, no OT). No more of this buy your patent for $1.00 crap.
Nobody would have been able to do further work on it until the patent expired.
They have to set the profit as high as possible. Otherwise the company won't survive when the patent runs out and 50 generics (who do no research other than a patent search)start making the drug on razor thin profit margins. Most drugs cost approximatly One Billion Dollars to test, and determine that they are worthless. If you test seven drugs to Phase III testing, and two make it to approval, those two drugs have to make up the costs of the other five, plus the 20% ROI that wall Street demands. Did I mention that the patent is on the active ingredient? That the formulation is a different patent? If the active is an old chemical (discovered more than 20 years ago) all you have is a formulation patent. Once you go through the FDA system and show the drug is safe and effective, all a competitor has to do is come up with a different formulation (which may be better), and they are not infringing on your patent! Did I mention the approval process is easier for a formulation change? I know it's the fashion to beat up on IP law now. That is legitamate due to the abusive IP laws on the books. However, IP laws with reasonable time limits are a boon to the public, the authors, and the publishers. At this point reasonable seems to be (as pointed out by others), 20 years for patents on hard goods and industrial processes. 2 - 5 years for patents on software. 25 years for copyrights. Basic science and living things should not be subject to the above restrictions (sorry biotech).
I like that! Can I use it in the future?
I commend your integrety. That being said, I also dislike Microsoft.
Good point about Ritchie and Kernighan. BTW is the BFG9000 the one with the laser sight and cruise missles?
Indeed there is my good friend! Now first you must sue IBM...