Ummmm how do you know the parent DIDN'T pay attention to the content and decided there was nothing wrong with their kids playing a game? Just because you do not agree with their judgement does not make theirs wrong.
Cowboys and Indians... theres a game. Kids pretending to kill each other. Not pixels on the screen. Yet most would just poo poo it as quaint and old fashioned. Violent games for kids are nothing new. Tell me would you really rather have your kids out playing a pick up game of tackle football than sitting in the den firing game rocket launchers at game police helicopters? I can assure you which one is more likely to end up with someone getting hurt. And before you say they won't be doing that... take your pick of whatever boys are going to get up to when you shoo them out from in front of the TV. Perhaps Mario will return to the fore but I doubt it.
Ya know, just about every Child in this world is the result of a man fucking a woman and they ALL came out of some woman's Pussy in a gory bloody violent event with screaming cussing and most likely drugs... hell she may even have been sliced open (Ever seen a fresh cesarian scar?) to bring them free. Sure I could pick differnt language to describe that which was less offensive or harsh... but it would mean the same thing. What is this fear of sex and violence? And what is this fear of kids that play video games are so driven to violence? Hell my theory would be that the more they play the LESS likely they are to be violent and more likely they are to be socially maladjusted geeks that grow up to post a lot on/. I don't know many geeks that get into bar brawls or beat their wives (hell they wish they had one to worship)... but I run into thousands of them online fraggin my ass off gleefully as I do my best to frag em back.
A lot of the kids I knew that were violent growing up were the ones that DIND'T have video games. And to risk sounding like an elitest snob most of them were of the lower socioeconomic strata, but certainly not all. I knew violent little snots all across the social order with families from all walks of life. But it was more common for poor kids, I suspect because being outwardly violent is something valuable for them to have. Kids were violent little snots before video games ever came around. What a shocker they are violent little snots after video games have come about. And its not the games that make them that way. The violence in games is kinda like sex. IT IS WHAT SELLS. Take em away completely and they will still be violent cruel little snots.
And if you don't belive me you to are in denial about your child hood. Now take off those rose tinted glasses and recall how kids treat each other behind closed doors. And no I am not talking about you and your buddies that banded together on your own. I am talking about ALL kids you grew up with in general. How your group treated others and how others treated you. How the social peer pressure in schools created monstrous environemnts that most people can't recall in detail if they try.. and most don't care to. There just are not many people that would care to go back through child hood.... WHY ? Cause kids and being a kid sucks. They are ignorant, mean, cruel little bastards and only through years of patient training do they become good socialble little liars that keep a pleasant face on everything like society preffers.
And yes I agree not ALL kids are such. But most of them are and it has fuck all to do with video games and an awful lot to do with a few million years of evolution to survive in a harsh violent environment. Violence in and of itself is not a bad thing. Many Many good things in this world were accomplished through violence. The cliche example of the over throw of Hitler obviously comes to mind. Does that condone all violence? Certainly not. But I don't see much allowance here for the fact that Violence is a part of our society. I see a mentality of sweep it under the rug... Hide it. At least for the kids... let them keep their illus
I have no thoughts about evolution being about pgrogress or that it is ataining some goal. I do not consider that an exchangeable set of terms for increasing complexity and success.
But evolution favors survival right? Survival has by and large favored complexity and higher capacity to adapt. That is not to say it has been some nice neat progression like you see in those asinine school charts. Or that there is some ulimate goal. I leave that discussion for intelligent theologians and scientists that are searching for more than randomness to explain it all.
I do appologise for being a bit loose with my post. Went down that with the other guy in this thread. Re-read last night realized I really hadn't thought through some of the things I said.
Evolutionary scientists do largely hold that all life on earth derrived from a common source. All life shares a large percentage of the same DNA and function off the same set of information and basic life processes. As such there is a problem with suggesting that the dinosaurs had a more capable biology than that which we observe today. Fundamental building blocks like muscle and bone are shared across vertebre and not a few in-vertebre. So as I understand it any such development would have been universal at that level of biology and not something specific to Dino's... unless the evolutionary biologists have it wrong. Perhaps there were more common life ancesstors but we only see evidence of the ones we have found because life today is the only evidence. IE we can't run Dino DNA through a sequencer to confirm that they indeed share the same common ancesstry as present life.
Agreed. Though I would say it isn't hard to imagine how an increase in mass could be sufficient to substantially increase the strength of gravity. For a prime example one need only look up into the night sky at the moon for evidence of a likely case under which that happend. What is difficult is figuring out how it could have happend without just wiping life completely from the face of the planet. I forget what the actual numbers are but the mass of just the moon is like 7 * 10^22 (kilograms I think) or something and that divided by (365*4 BILLION) leaves for one crapload of daily delivery of space dust if you evenly distributed the accumulation of that mass out over the rough age of the earth as we think. However it is still quite true that we accumulate space debris daily and that it adds slowly but surely to the mass of the earth and thus its gravitational field.
Another hairbrained idea that could be tossed out there along these lines would be a compaction of the earth.. ie that it was less dense earlier in its life and it slowly collapsed in on itself somewhat similar to how stars do and as the radius of the earth decreased concentrating then the gravitational force exerted at the surface increased acording to the inverse square law. Though again even with the inverse square law its hard to imagine how such a contraction could have occured while life was thriving on the surface.
Hmmm what are some others in this vein.... OH yeah.... The Saturnists. ever heard that idea ? That the earth was once in orbit around Saturn and that pangia was simply all of the landmass in phase lock with saturn? That one thankfully dosn't have to many followers. But those that do are absolutely fanatical about it. Learned about them when I dug into the whole contraversy around the megafauna as that is one of their favorit ways to explain it. The gravitational attraction of saturn offset the pull of the earth enabling them to grow to sizes not feasible just in earths gravity well. Though they get understandably vauge when explaining just how the fsck we got to our present orbit.
By the way if couldn't tell I rather like tossing out rather crazy ideas that I have run across. I do it because I have found that there are few things that have the power to capture someones attention enough that they go in search of answers on their own than something which completely assaults their pre-conceived notions.
Ok...... I'll try again here with a different tact. And I will try to be more carefull of how I use my words. Reading back through I can see that I answered in a fairly slipshod manner.
First off we seem to agree on something. "Survival of the fittest" is largely a meaningless phrase. At best it should be changed to "survival of the fittest at the time".
The whole thing I was getting at is this is another example of the megafauna problem which has a history of friction between evolutionary scientists and physiologists... who do a great deal of work in biology as it pertains to evolution. IE all life came from the same origins. So in a sense people that believe in the same thing but whos specialities presents conflicting information. I suppose to be clearer I should not have said it will cause problems from all evolutionists... but that it will cause strife in their ranks. Evolutionary Biologists And The Bone Hounds have long been at odds and both sides have very compelling arguments for what they believe despite what the others have to say.
If you think I am wrong then please lord enlighten me as to the final answer about the sauropod neck. Inquiring minds wish to know what the solution to that riddle is. Some argue for it held near the ground and unable to hold it up for more than a short period of time, Some argue that for them to lift it more than a couple feet over their heart would require blood pressure that we would be hard pressed to deliver with mechanical pumps and to contain with hoses much less a heart and living tissue. Others return that to hold it out level like that calls for tensile strength that does not... hell Cannot exist as living flesh. Some that it was a deffensive trait and counterbalance for the tail, while others say that to have rapid movement would certainly kill them. Others still look at the bones and run their numbers regarding the requirements of muscle and tissue strength and throw their hands up and say they are impossible altogether and burry their heads in the sand like an ostrich hoping tha the problem will just go away.
Those studying the fossil record understand that these things existed. And have slowly developed more and more knowledge about How the existed and it is the expansion of that knowledge that has constantly run afoul of what the biologists (specifically those involved in evolutionary physiology) know. For example
Cambridge Univ Press, 1984, page 163, we have:
"It appears that the maximum force or stress that can be exerted by any muscle is inherent in the structure of the muscle filaments. The maximum force is roughly 4 to 4 kgf/cm2 cross section of muscle (300 - 400 kN/m2). This force is body-size independent and is the same for mouse and elephant muscle. The reason for this uniformity is that the dimensions of the thick and thin muscle filaments, and also the number of cross-bridges between them are the same. In fact the structure of mouse muscle and elephant muscle is so similar that a microscopist would have difficulty identifying them except for a larger number of mitrochondria in the smaller animal. This uniformity in maximum force holds not only for higher vertebrates, but for many other organisms, including at least some, but not all invertebrates."
In otherwords the problem is that to have a 'more capable' muscle simply is not a possibility as they understand it. The evolution of muscle and bone has been largely the same due to a common ancestry of all life on earth. The fuss that will arise out of believers in evolution is not that something more capable lost out to something less capable but that something more capable could have existed in the first place. To say yet one more way... You think I am talking about the question of why mammals survived and dinosaurs didn't. That is not the issue I am reffering to at all. The problem is how the fuck did the dino's exist in the first place considering what we think we know about the evolution of biology. The lack of a unified front amou
All I was saying in that last post was you got lost in a minor detail of my point about not knowing how to resolve what we know of dino deminsions, apparent behavior and the impossibilities the consequences present for modern physiologists.
I am not one to do the whole quote deal. But when you say that a lesser species can win out without violating evolution I do have to ask you to explain yourself. By the precepts of evolution the form that wins out is by deffinition not the lesser form. I think perhaps just a poor choice of words on your part which was actually a refference to complexity... ie one form of lesser complexity winning out over one of greater does not break evolution as complexity may be a mixed bag when it comes to what will proove better at survival.
However... even so there are a good many evolutionists that would contend complexity is better at survival as there is no other reason for it to evolve otherwise. If it was not better then why did anything above a single cell organisim evolve in the first place? Just so that they could eventually turn into you and I so that we could push electrons around? For them it does present a problem if you suggest that dino's had a more capable ANYTHING than mammals. I do appologise for perhaps not speffically saying that not all evolutionists think such. Hell here I am representing at least one example myself. But it is a view point that in my experience is very much in the minority. Most people will say that Dinos became extinct thus they were less capable forms of life. Suggesting otherwise does most certainly get them up in arms.
And please do read a bit closer. I did not equate robust and advanced. I said by the standards of survival that would make the bactirium more advanced OR at least more robust. OR != to =. If your going to pick these nits at least be so kind as to do the same to your self.
Actually in terms of survival that does make the bactieria more advanced... or at least more robust. And that does go somewhat counter to the subscribers of ever increasing complexity and success to evolution. The presence of bacterium unchanged for million/billions of years is in and of itself something of an unaccounted for expression of evolution. IE why did they not change ? Evolve ? Did they really reach the peak of what they could be all that time ago and never recieve a challenge from a more complex life form that would have driven them to extinction? If they are so perfect then how did any other form of life ever evolve away from it?
And yes evolution is widely subscribed to. I subscribe to it. But the devil is in the details. And true enough fit is an abstract concept to be taken in context. But when 99% of historical context says stronger bones and muscles would be a better thing I think you can make the argument that the dinosaurs may have been a case of a higher biology that failed... given that is the answer to the puzzle of dino deminsions. It is not the only possibility. My whole point really was that we don't know and that it is interesting.
Suppose there could always have been other advantages. For a long time they thought it was cold blood vrs warm blood but the idea that dino's were cold blooded has pretty much died out these days. Though an argument for an advantage that helped mammals win out is hibernation. Almost all mammals have some ability, especially when faced with extreme trauma/shock, for hibernation.
Evolution has been turning more and more away from the nice slow stately progression to ever more capable forms. At least some of evolution happend in very (geologiclly speaking) short time frames and the idea that chance can play a larger role is getting more and more credence. IE 'better' traits may not always win out on the shorter time scale. On longer time scales the odds of something more fit not winning out becomes infintesimal.
For another example of the discussion regarding the not necesarrily infalible nature of evolution to favor the strong you can look into the whole Neanderthal vrs Homo Sapien stuff that is comming out. Neaderthal was stronger, could survive in harsher climates had similar cranial capacity (in fact had a larger cranial cpacity) and yet they lost out to Homo Sapiens. Why? Yes I know cranial capacity is not the end all and be all of intelligence (common reason given for success of man). Just pointing out the debate there is open. Its not a solved case.
And this is just one of the alternate ideas that could lead to different understanding. Most people assume that the gravity of the earth has remained unchanged largely through out its history. That would be a silly assumption. The gravity of earth is always increasing. Albeit infintesimally. Any time we pick up an extra piece of space debris that is not matched with an equal loss of mass the gravitational pull of the earth grows stronger. Over the millions/billions of years of life it is concievable (especially with a number of larger impacts) that once upon a time the gravity of earth was significantly less for life on the surface. Was it enough... or just a very small percentage that is almost un-noticeable in practical terms? Again I am not suggesting a final solution or answer to the question. Just pointing out that the debate is open and that there remain things to learn about it.
Well then you are arguing symantics about what it means to 'learn' a language. Most fresh grad CS monkies ARE capable of picking up basic syntax of a new language in an afternoon. They are capable of turning out working code. Whether or not it is perfect and completely optimized code for the particular solution in question is an entirely different matter and I doubt if you ask them very many would make the claim that they could. But when a CS major says "I can learn it in an afternoon" all they are saying is my knowledge is not locked into a particular coding solution. Assign them a task in a specific language and they know how to get it done even if they have never used it before.
That is not a useless skill. It is not senseless boasting. It is what CS is all about and it is largely seperated from the mechanics of actually churning out code.
That said, current CS is so fricken divorced from the real world application of computers and programming it is not even funny. It is rapidly getting to the point where it will be entirely divorced from reality. For example I had teachers that still thought the number of times you compiled a program was an important factor. The reality of modern compiling/debuging simply had not registered with them yet. However, there is a middle ground between vocational programming classes and the pure theory BS of most CS course material. Putting the theory to work on real world projects would be a good start and it never ceases to amaze me that CS departments rarely seek out such challenges for their students.
Old debate regarding petrosaurs. The evidence is far more in favor of a capable flyer than of an awkward at best glider or land bound creature. If you look at flightless birds you find they did not maintain large wings but quickly became almost vestigil. Think Ostritch or Emu... and in their cases the legs grew to compensate for the awkwardness of having largely useless wing limbs.
In the case of petrosaurs, and this one in particular, it was absolutely domninated by its wings and obviously would have had problems dealing with them on the ground. So they would have been extremely vulnerable on the ground if they lived there... and that dosn't argue well for survival.
Another issue is the one of material strength. go look up the discussions of modern physiologists with regards to three very serious problems in their eyes with the physiology of Dinosaurs. Petrosaur Wings, T-Rex bipedal status as a Carnivore that had to be quick to catch prey, and the Sauropod Neck. To make a long story short modern, physiology says that current bone and muscle structures could not support these structures. Their knwoledge of what current tissue and bone structures can do and how they work is pretty good. And yet they are not so silly as to simply ignore the record of fossils. But there is a serious problem here in if there was some stronger biological capacity for the dinosaurs that would mean a more fit evolutionary deveolpment lost out to a less fit one. So that gets the evolution camp up in arms. To say the evidence of what these animals were capable of gets the palientologists up in arms. Besides there is really not much arguing that sauropods had gigantic long necks, T-Rex walked on its hind legs and that Petrosaurs Flew. There also is little dispute that moder physiologists understand muscles and bones of current biology to a great degree.
Yet in the end the knowledge does not add up to a satisfactory conclusion. There the debate sits. One of the funner explinations of how they could all be right has to do with gravity. Namely most of the structural problems acording to modern physiology begins and ends with what is needed to create and support these structures in Earth's gravity. If Earths gravity was not the same then as it is now then that opens the possibility that all camps are correct. But that argument opens up a serious can of worms, to say the least.
Anyway this find is going to stir up alot of those debates again. Cause the earlier debate about petrosaurs was never really closed. It sort of died down into an armed truce where physiologists simply say that they were primarily gliders... but something this big will have problems according to them even if all id did was try to support its weight... much less attempt to gain the air by flapping its wings. They can't both be right.... or can they? It is a very intresting discussion.
For Paypal shifting money around internal to its system to have a minimum payment above their transaction percentage. You know the minimum transaction fee bugs me to no end. It essentially is just about having small transactions register as 20+% of profit. 20% of profit on a computerized transaction. That is utterly absurd.
And don't give me some shit about there being a minimal cost of transaction. Someone running a till at a store will not hessitate to take a quarter for a candy item at the counter, or a nickle even in some cases. Why is it that electronic tills are any different ? I don't take up a clerks time, I fill out my information and it is all processed online at the speed of light and cleared nightly again by computers. There IS NO COST OF TRANSACTION. All money made in such trasffer fees is profit.
Ok I take that back. There is a minimum cost of transaction. But when it is all said and done that is the cost of operating the system / ALL transactions processed in a given period. Someone want to try and say that VISA dosn't make enough in 1-2% rake off the top of their world business to make money without 'transaction' fees ?
Re:Better porn?
on
Pornified
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· Score: 4, Insightful
A'FUCKING'MEN regarding women and their White Knight fetish.
How about open and frank discussions about sex so that 14 year old boys are able to categorize crazy porn right up there with Buggs bunny in terms of unrealistic vrs realistic and so that 14 year old girls don't get the idea that wanting sex is something they are not supposed to ever admit lest every one think they are a skanky slut. These problems are not near what they once were... say when Kinsey did his report. But they are still very much present. Note the Meese commission suggested education was the largest need in response to porn... not the erradication of porn.
By the way people here can argue the personal experience vrs data argument all day. But guys look at porn. In my experience even the least technically savy of men exposed to a computer connection and time alone know how to find pr0n. And most guys I know are not sexually dysfunctional. And the deffinition of dysfuntional is the inability to perform sexually without some kink/fetish present in the sex. So either I have a statistical aberation in my friends and aquaintances... or this book is a pile of manure trying to pass itself off as scientific. All in all the review seems to indicate the interviewies were self selected outliers who were not really chosen at random.... or at best were chosen at random from a non random pool.
Not to say pron cannot be detrimental and that it is all harmless fun. But to portray it as a universal detriment of such magnitude when considering that porn surffing is damn near universal among internet denziens (particularly male) and that such detriment is so hidden it must be 'revealed' in this study is silly. If the problem were was big as this book apparently hints at then the problem would not be so unknown as to need to be revealed.
Nothing to see here. Move along.... the people who value what this thing says are the same that once upon a time told their kids masturbation would cause fur to grow on their palms and make them blind. Incidently they are the same people that refuse to be open about discussing sex therby insuring that their childrens formative sex education will be at the hands of whatever they can find on their own. Thus ensuring that they are at high risk of forming false notions regarding sex that may take a long time to overcome later in life. Irony at its finest if you ask me.
Yes but that means a distinct focus on a point. If the firing vehicle were stationary then any miss would remain focused on a single point in front or behind the intended target. Other wise the distance and changing angles to intercept will dictate that a miss will wonder around with the intended focus point as the pivot, and in this case even the intended target is in motion so the pivot point changes as well.
At high angles the moving beam at the actual impact point (a miss) may be well ABOVE mach 2. At anyrate once you start talking miles a single degree of divergence is going to move the end of the beam a fair distance. IE firing plane is one mile away at 10,000 ft altitude firing at a target one mile away at 5000 ft altitude. Now as they approach or manouver the beam will be continually redirected to intersect the target. But the potential zone for the beam to fall on the ground will continually vary, potentially by a great deal as at high intercepts rates of closeure you can easily have 1mile a second rates with mach 2 capable fighters. but even at lower speeds its doubtfull you will have any specific foucus on a given point other than around the intended target. At low oblique angles to the ground it wouldn't hit for a significant distance anyway and if you are engaging at a relative max of the lethal range (adviseable... ie shoot them as soon as you can) then there will be a minimal distance for the beam to travel that it could do damage even if it were focused, much less if it is wondering all over the place.
Anyway I am sure if you really wanted to you could work a few geometry examples with planes various distances apart where the firing aircraft has various altitude advantages over the target (otherwise its angled into space if it misses) using a suitable kill radius. As it it expands the time on target will need to be greater to account for atmospheric absorbtion. Anyway take that 150kw number and length of a single fireing sequence. Then come up with a time to kill/maim a human then account for percentage of beam that would impact the target, beam divergence etc... over distance and figure out what the time on target would be in your various engagement scenarios and time on target in event of a miss. Think your going to find its simply not much of an issue relative to already problematic targeting mishaps.
Computers in school cannot be fully usefull until they are universal. 1 to 4 ratio ONLY at school is no good. Teachers have to be able to assume this tool is available at a certain level to all of their students just as they demand pencil, paper and 3 ring binders etc.... Untill that is the case they will ALWAYS be a secondary, extra or just plain extraneus paperweights in the classroom.
To those who say computers can't be usefull in classes such as lit, history or music etc.... Hell Make a wiki for a lit class dealing with a work and have assignments for differnt students to write various portions and make them all responsible for comming up with a final wiki on the subject and continue to build these through the year. History could work much the same way with students exploring their discussions and building timelines of events and posting and responding to each others thoughts. Music... hell don't just study music theory, break out something like Garage band and some instruments and start putting it to USE as your learning it and record, edit it, produce something and distribute the end result to the rest of the school if it sounds good. Not just trying to make music but to put each theory to work and build a piece of music unique to each classes talents while exploring all of the various elements of theory covered by the class.
To date the focus has been on having computers and that is all wrong. They need to function the same as pen and paper. As a fundamental tool for exploring and learning the subject at hand. All of you who are slashdotoholics who say give it the ole tried and true pen and paper deal tell me that the web isn't the first place you turn when you want to find out some new piece of information. If the info isn't there it will certainly point you in the right direction. Why would this not work for a classroom?
People who say computers can't be better than the way its been done before are the same folks that once said printed words were no substitute for oral tradition and for all I know the ones that said oral tradition was for wussies who couldn't figure it out all on their own.
Computers are better at the collection and sharing of information than older methods. THATS WHY WE USE THEM. This will make them powerful and ESSENTIAL tools for education if people would get their thumbs out of their asses about it. They are not substitutes for teachers and never will be. But as that science teacher so ably demonstrates. They are valuable tools in the right hands.
Sorry my mistake when I said RPM. I really meant constant power setting. position. Anyway for a given power/throttle position the engine will burn X amount of fuel. It will generally get better MPG in 5th than 1st, namely it will get its best MPG with a gearing that will set it at its most efficient RPM of operation for a given throttle input. At that point the only sense that resistence plays into it is as a load on the engine in determing how the forces equal out.
If your bottom line is fuel burned there is always a convergence of the factors working in a car that determines its best cruise settings. For example for my 89 Mustang GT that happens to be somewhere around 2000RPM in 5th gear which nets me about 27mpg going 85 or so mph. Now I have managed to more or less match that mpg at lower speeds... like 50-55 in 4th but since the fuel burn is the same then all things being equal I would much rather get to my destination more than 50% faster at the higher but more efficiently generated energy expenditure rate since it nets no real difference in the amount of fuel burned. I simply burn through it faster but more efficiently and spend less time doing it.
Granted in a perfect system with a constantly variable transmission that was not to inefficient itself your basic premis that faster would mean more energy expended overall would be correct. But cars just are not that simple. With a car all you can say that more force was exerted... but the efficiency with which it was converted has the final say on whether that means you had to burn more fuel or not to accomplish the task.
*disclaimer.... this is not to say I go about pell mell at 85 no matter what. I am highly concious of distance between me and all cars around me and have only one speeding ticket to my credit over some 400k miles of driving. and that one was due to a recently changed limit I was unaware of*
Yes but wind resistence or no wind resistence an engine burns X amount of fuel at a given RPM. Gearing them determins how fast or slow the wheels turn in response. Thus the most efficient is the RPM at which the engine maintains an optimal fuel burn at the maximum possible speed. This lowers the time spent burning fuel and assures that our put the energy liberated to best use.
Messing with One note at the moment. Will check out InDesign. From fiddling with One note I am thinking there has to be an easier way to do an interface. It feels more like something you could create some nice flyers with than something you would want to use listening to a prof or at a convention or something.
Know more than I care to about formatting pages. Point was its not something your average drone will know to do without thinking about it... rahter unlike just jotting down some columns of info.
The word processor must be set up to take the info in this manner and it can only be set up for one way at a time. IE I can't easily switch between writing across the entire page and columnated setup. I also can't just draw on it etc.. Not that these things cannot be accomplished with a little time and patience but those are two things in short supply in a demanding note taking environment. The interface for these things needs to be as swift as deciding to jot down info in three columns on a sheet of paper and drawing lines to connect them etc....
Think the time has come for a more versatile information input program that combines all that we have learned about graphical input, formated text input and photographic handling. Layering formats should make this easy to do. IE have a text layer that is handled by a full blown word processor and another layer/layers that handles graphic input and stream line the methods for switching between making it as context sensitive as possible so that there is minmal hot keying and shifting between various modes. In otherwords the program adapts to what you are doing rather than having to be specifically instructed (think IPOD multi function scroll wheel). I am talking Star Office apps all combined on a single document interface with Aldus freehand level drawing controls.
Granted most of what I am suggesting CAN be done presently... but current advanced format mixing of this nature is to today what the command line once was to mass computing. Something that is capable and powerfull... but just not very accessible to the masses. We have got to streamline the process and make it more intuitive along with better education of how to use it.
Yeah typing input has a ways to go for conveying free form information that departs from the simply textual. Over even formated textual... like ever tried doing impromptu columns in a word processor vrs just jotting three lists next to each other on a sheet of paper ? With practice and knowledge (insert and tab stops) it can be done quickly but it isn't very intuitive.
Was deffinatly responding more to the specific endeavor of conveying the written word. However there is musical notation software available. It just has not reached the point where it is faster and easier to use than simply taking out a blank sheet of stanza paper and breaking out a pen. But that again does not invalidate the efforts of someone who does labor over those pieces of crap muscial notation software programs. (in other words I also did not disparage the value of the hand written word vrs typed) And in the end, those balky endeavors are what produce crisp uniform scores that are easy to read for everyone much the same as the efforts of a printing press once made reading more available to the masses so to has the printed score brought more music to more people.
One day perhaps the ease of electronic entry will reach into the more free form areas. I for one think it should be possible for a computer to simply analyze a recording and produce the corresponding musical notation. After all music can largely be interpreted mathmatically (though you can never write the equation for creativity) and those interpretations would have a corresponding given notation. In many ways it should be an easier endeavor than speach recognition software. Hell for all I know they have it.
I think the field of input has a long ways to go yet.
Really? Why not?? Is a typed word any less real than a written word? Is it some how inferior for conveying thought via the method of character symbology?
Only thing I have hand written in 5 years of working since leaving college have been to sign my name, or write my address information and that is pissin me off. Would be far more efficient for them to keep a DB of all that info and give login access for people to change it as needed. Instead I have to continually fill out the same info multiple times only for it to be puzzled over by someone else who then types it into a computer somewhere... often they have to type it into multiple programs on the same computer. Amazing incompetence at usage of computers.
I have always failed to understand this worship of the almigty handwriting. Granted I don't think it should be done away with or anything so silly. But I do think this idea that it is a somehow more valuable means of conveying the written word than typing is absurd. If every student/teacher had a laptop wirelessly connected at school why would they HAVE to handwrite anything ? Why could they not sms, email or IM everything ?
Since you have hinted at the value of the argument from an "imminent threat" standpoint, would you go ahead and present the good/bad sides of that argument? You seem to have a very clear understanding of the issues at hand and unlike being some nazi fan boy from one side or the other you seem to be able to consider A)what was known at the time vrs after the fact and B) consider that there are indeed good contrary arguments. I think it would be worthwhile to hear what you have to say about the issue in general rather than just in particular responding to those who consider the fact nothing was found to be the "smoking gun" albeit one against the Bush administration rather than against Saddam Hussein.
Errrrr..... you seem to be thinking they will be 'landing' in the sense of sitting down on gear gracefully. They go back to capsules then they are going to go back to parrachutes and splashdowns... or possibly go with a solid earth landing like the russians whcih is essentially just a crash with shock absorbing seats for the occupants. They may dig up the old Idea of doing a parasail instead of a simple drouge parachute and actually doing a kind of glide landing like a skydiver might... but the control system for managing the airfoil was always a bitch in that scenario.
I can't help but think there has to be an air breathing way to do the SRB's... though if you can't shave any weight in the process of providing the same power it is essentially just a lot of work for no gain... unless the safety margian is greater.... a fly back and fast turnaround would make it worth it though.
Just have a wi-fi entre ? Post that anyone using a table for Wi-Fi access rather than eating may be charged for the wi fi entre.
A restraunt is a place where you sell food but in general it is about making money. Generally you make that money turning tables and serving meals. But if you can make that money just having people pay to have access that should be fine too. I would put it on the menu as an entre with similar pricing and post some rules. Access complimentary with any entre and if you do not order one and you are using the wireless your are then choosing to purchase the wireless 'entre'. Be real nice and include some simple cheap ass bottomless dish like chips and salsa and a soda and an hour or two limit at which point you will be charged again.
Really the only time that you should have to do this is if there are people waiting for a table and the wireless hogs are holding up the space. Then a waiters comes over and informs that person they have three options. purchase an entre, be charged for the wi-fi entre or vacate the table.
If you do not have paying customers waiting then any revenue stream the wifi users are creating is more than an empty table even if its just the occasional coffee or soda.
Eh I am very well aware that the idea of shuttle C or something in the same vein is not what is. I am simply pointing out that weighing the usefullness of the shuttle system is not limited to discussion of payloads that can be carried in addition to the orbiter itself.
The change isn't small but it is hardly re-inventing the wheel. We already have all the engines and known max weight of the system and launch infrastructure to handle the general arangement. Its not like its a question of IF we could build a sufficiently lighter structure not meant to re-enter the atmosphere to deliever more usefull mass to orbit with the shuttle system. For example an empty ET only weighs about 50,000 lbs which is lighter than the orbiter and survives to orbit while dispensing the millions of pounds of fuel for the SSME's. A pretty conservative guess would be that you could make 25k pound structure to replace the orbiter and to hang the SSME's off of. That would almost double the current usefull payload to orbit of a shuttle stack. Incidently they design new fairings all the times for atlas/delta/arian launches to deal with various size requirments of differnt payloads and that is really all you would be doing here. C was scrapped due to lack of funding and the potential expense of throwing away SSME's in the process. The engineering was complete and nobody had doubts it would work.
The main functional difference between Buran and Shuttle was that Buran did not carry its main engines with it into orbit as the shuttle stack is designed to do. So once the orbiter is in orbit weighing in at around 60k lbs it is also carrying about 21k lbs in the 3 7k lbs each SSME's. This is because they were meant to be re-used. All in all since the reusaility of the shuttle engines never really panned out economically I would say the russian design was better.
Well if your deffinition of shuttle is a winged orbiter that returns to earth then sure. But the shuttle system is really a series of components. Two SRBs, the ET, and Three SSME's. Those are the components critical for launch. The only thing you change in the Shuttle C configuration is the payload of the system. You no longer need wings or heatshielding, just a payload fairing structure that you can mount the SSME's to and an OMS system on... if its manned it would need a crew return capsule.
But as far as what it takes to launch it ? It is a complete shuttle stack consisting of Three SSME's two SRB's and the ET. Really the orbiter is the payload of the shuttle stack.... not what you put in the payload bay.
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Ummmm how do you know the parent DIDN'T pay attention to the content and decided there was nothing wrong with their kids playing a game? Just because you do not agree with their judgement does not make theirs wrong.
/. I don't know many geeks that get into bar brawls or beat their wives (hell they wish they had one to worship)... but I run into thousands of them online fraggin my ass off gleefully as I do my best to frag em back.
Cowboys and Indians... theres a game. Kids pretending to kill each other. Not pixels on the screen. Yet most would just poo poo it as quaint and old fashioned. Violent games for kids are nothing new. Tell me would you really rather have your kids out playing a pick up game of tackle football than sitting in the den firing game rocket launchers at game police helicopters? I can assure you which one is more likely to end up with someone getting hurt. And before you say they won't be doing that... take your pick of whatever boys are going to get up to when you shoo them out from in front of the TV. Perhaps Mario will return to the fore but I doubt it.
Ya know, just about every Child in this world is the result of a man fucking a woman and they ALL came out of some woman's Pussy in a gory bloody violent event with screaming cussing and most likely drugs... hell she may even have been sliced open (Ever seen a fresh cesarian scar?) to bring them free. Sure I could pick differnt language to describe that which was less offensive or harsh... but it would mean the same thing. What is this fear of sex and violence? And what is this fear of kids that play video games are so driven to violence? Hell my theory would be that the more they play the LESS likely they are to be violent and more likely they are to be socially maladjusted geeks that grow up to post a lot on
A lot of the kids I knew that were violent growing up were the ones that DIND'T have video games. And to risk sounding like an elitest snob most of them were of the lower socioeconomic strata, but certainly not all. I knew violent little snots all across the social order with families from all walks of life. But it was more common for poor kids, I suspect because being outwardly violent is something valuable for them to have. Kids were violent little snots before video games ever came around. What a shocker they are violent little snots after video games have come about. And its not the games that make them that way. The violence in games is kinda like sex. IT IS WHAT SELLS. Take em away completely and they will still be violent cruel little snots.
And if you don't belive me you to are in denial about your child hood. Now take off those rose tinted glasses and recall how kids treat each other behind closed doors. And no I am not talking about you and your buddies that banded together on your own. I am talking about ALL kids you grew up with in general. How your group treated others and how others treated you. How the social peer pressure in schools created monstrous environemnts that most people can't recall in detail if they try.. and most don't care to. There just are not many people that would care to go back through child hood.... WHY ? Cause kids and being a kid sucks. They are ignorant, mean, cruel little bastards and only through years of patient training do they become good socialble little liars that keep a pleasant face on everything like society preffers.
And yes I agree not ALL kids are such. But most of them are and it has fuck all to do with video games and an awful lot to do with a few million years of evolution to survive in a harsh violent environment. Violence in and of itself is not a bad thing. Many Many good things in this world were accomplished through violence. The cliche example of the over throw of Hitler obviously comes to mind. Does that condone all violence? Certainly not. But I don't see much allowance here for the fact that Violence is a part of our society. I see a mentality of sweep it under the rug... Hide it. At least for the kids... let them keep their illus
I have no thoughts about evolution being about pgrogress or that it is ataining some goal. I do not consider that an exchangeable set of terms for increasing complexity and success.
But evolution favors survival right? Survival has by and large favored complexity and higher capacity to adapt. That is not to say it has been some nice neat progression like you see in those asinine school charts. Or that there is some ulimate goal. I leave that discussion for intelligent theologians and scientists that are searching for more than randomness to explain it all.
I do appologise for being a bit loose with my post. Went down that with the other guy in this thread. Re-read last night realized I really hadn't thought through some of the things I said.
Evolutionary scientists do largely hold that all life on earth derrived from a common source. All life shares a large percentage of the same DNA and function off the same set of information and basic life processes. As such there is a problem with suggesting that the dinosaurs had a more capable biology than that which we observe today. Fundamental building blocks like muscle and bone are shared across vertebre and not a few in-vertebre. So as I understand it any such development would have been universal at that level of biology and not something specific to Dino's... unless the evolutionary biologists have it wrong. Perhaps there were more common life ancesstors but we only see evidence of the ones we have found because life today is the only evidence. IE we can't run Dino DNA through a sequencer to confirm that they indeed share the same common ancesstry as present life.
Agreed. Though I would say it isn't hard to imagine how an increase in mass could be sufficient to substantially increase the strength of gravity. For a prime example one need only look up into the night sky at the moon for evidence of a likely case under which that happend. What is difficult is figuring out how it could have happend without just wiping life completely from the face of the planet. I forget what the actual numbers are but the mass of just the moon is like 7 * 10^22 (kilograms I think) or something and that divided by (365*4 BILLION) leaves for one crapload of daily delivery of space dust if you evenly distributed the accumulation of that mass out over the rough age of the earth as we think. However it is still quite true that we accumulate space debris daily and that it adds slowly but surely to the mass of the earth and thus its gravitational field.
Another hairbrained idea that could be tossed out there along these lines would be a compaction of the earth.. ie that it was less dense earlier in its life and it slowly collapsed in on itself somewhat similar to how stars do and as the radius of the earth decreased concentrating then the gravitational force exerted at the surface increased acording to the inverse square law. Though again even with the inverse square law its hard to imagine how such a contraction could have occured while life was thriving on the surface.
Hmmm what are some others in this vein.... OH yeah.... The Saturnists. ever heard that idea ? That the earth was once in orbit around Saturn and that pangia was simply all of the landmass in phase lock with saturn? That one thankfully dosn't have to many followers. But those that do are absolutely fanatical about it. Learned about them when I dug into the whole contraversy around the megafauna as that is one of their favorit ways to explain it. The gravitational attraction of saturn offset the pull of the earth enabling them to grow to sizes not feasible just in earths gravity well. Though they get understandably vauge when explaining just how the fsck we got to our present orbit.
By the way if couldn't tell I rather like tossing out rather crazy ideas that I have run across. I do it because I have found that there are few things that have the power to capture someones attention enough that they go in search of answers on their own than something which completely assaults their pre-conceived notions.
Ok...... I'll try again here with a different tact. And I will try to be more carefull of how I use my words. Reading back through I can see that I answered in a fairly slipshod manner.
First off we seem to agree on something. "Survival of the fittest" is largely a meaningless phrase. At best it should be changed to "survival of the fittest at the time".
The whole thing I was getting at is this is another example of the megafauna problem which has a history of friction between evolutionary scientists and physiologists... who do a great deal of work in biology as it pertains to evolution. IE all life came from the same origins. So in a sense people that believe in the same thing but whos specialities presents conflicting information. I suppose to be clearer I should not have said it will cause problems from all evolutionists... but that it will cause strife in their ranks. Evolutionary Biologists And The Bone Hounds have long been at odds and both sides have very compelling arguments for what they believe despite what the others have to say.
If you think I am wrong then please lord enlighten me as to the final answer about the sauropod neck. Inquiring minds wish to know what the solution to that riddle is. Some argue for it held near the ground and unable to hold it up for more than a short period of time, Some argue that for them to lift it more than a couple feet over their heart would require blood pressure that we would be hard pressed to deliver with mechanical pumps and to contain with hoses much less a heart and living tissue. Others return that to hold it out level like that calls for tensile strength that does not... hell Cannot exist as living flesh. Some that it was a deffensive trait and counterbalance for the tail, while others say that to have rapid movement would certainly kill them. Others still look at the bones and run their numbers regarding the requirements of muscle and tissue strength and throw their hands up and say they are impossible altogether and burry their heads in the sand like an ostrich hoping tha the problem will just go away.
Those studying the fossil record understand that these things existed. And have slowly developed more and more knowledge about How the existed and it is the expansion of that knowledge that has constantly run afoul of what the biologists (specifically those involved in evolutionary physiology) know. For example
Cambridge Univ Press, 1984, page 163, we have:
"It appears that the maximum force or stress that can be exerted by any muscle is inherent in the structure of the muscle filaments. The maximum force is roughly 4 to 4 kgf/cm2 cross section of muscle (300 - 400 kN/m2). This force is body-size independent and is the same for mouse and elephant muscle. The reason for this uniformity is that the dimensions of the thick and thin muscle filaments, and also the number of cross-bridges between them are the same. In fact the structure of mouse muscle and elephant muscle is so similar that a microscopist would have difficulty identifying them except for a larger number of mitrochondria in the smaller animal. This uniformity in maximum force holds not only for higher vertebrates, but for many other organisms, including at least some, but not all invertebrates."
In otherwords the problem is that to have a 'more capable' muscle simply is not a possibility as they understand it. The evolution of muscle and bone has been largely the same due to a common ancestry of all life on earth. The fuss that will arise out of believers in evolution is not that something more capable lost out to something less capable but that something more capable could have existed in the first place. To say yet one more way... You think I am talking about the question of why mammals survived and dinosaurs didn't. That is not the issue I am reffering to at all. The problem is how the fuck did the dino's exist in the first place considering what we think we know about the evolution of biology. The lack of a unified front amou
All I was saying in that last post was you got lost in a minor detail of my point about not knowing how to resolve what we know of dino deminsions, apparent behavior and the impossibilities the consequences present for modern physiologists.
I am not one to do the whole quote deal. But when you say that a lesser species can win out without violating evolution I do have to ask you to explain yourself. By the precepts of evolution the form that wins out is by deffinition not the lesser form. I think perhaps just a poor choice of words on your part which was actually a refference to complexity... ie one form of lesser complexity winning out over one of greater does not break evolution as complexity may be a mixed bag when it comes to what will proove better at survival.
However... even so there are a good many evolutionists that would contend complexity is better at survival as there is no other reason for it to evolve otherwise. If it was not better then why did anything above a single cell organisim evolve in the first place? Just so that they could eventually turn into you and I so that we could push electrons around? For them it does present a problem if you suggest that dino's had a more capable ANYTHING than mammals. I do appologise for perhaps not speffically saying that not all evolutionists think such. Hell here I am representing at least one example myself. But it is a view point that in my experience is very much in the minority. Most people will say that Dinos became extinct thus they were less capable forms of life. Suggesting otherwise does most certainly get them up in arms.
And please do read a bit closer. I did not equate robust and advanced. I said by the standards of survival that would make the bactirium more advanced OR at least more robust. OR != to =. If your going to pick these nits at least be so kind as to do the same to your self.
Actually in terms of survival that does make the bactieria more advanced... or at least more robust. And that does go somewhat counter to the subscribers of ever increasing complexity and success to evolution. The presence of bacterium unchanged for million/billions of years is in and of itself something of an unaccounted for expression of evolution. IE why did they not change ? Evolve ? Did they really reach the peak of what they could be all that time ago and never recieve a challenge from a more complex life form that would have driven them to extinction? If they are so perfect then how did any other form of life ever evolve away from it?
And yes evolution is widely subscribed to. I subscribe to it. But the devil is in the details. And true enough fit is an abstract concept to be taken in context. But when 99% of historical context says stronger bones and muscles would be a better thing I think you can make the argument that the dinosaurs may have been a case of a higher biology that failed... given that is the answer to the puzzle of dino deminsions. It is not the only possibility. My whole point really was that we don't know and that it is interesting.
Suppose there could always have been other advantages. For a long time they thought it was cold blood vrs warm blood but the idea that dino's were cold blooded has pretty much died out these days. Though an argument for an advantage that helped mammals win out is hibernation. Almost all mammals have some ability, especially when faced with extreme trauma/shock, for hibernation.
Evolution has been turning more and more away from the nice slow stately progression to ever more capable forms. At least some of evolution happend in very (geologiclly speaking) short time frames and the idea that chance can play a larger role is getting more and more credence. IE 'better' traits may not always win out on the shorter time scale. On longer time scales the odds of something more fit not winning out becomes infintesimal.
For another example of the discussion regarding the not necesarrily infalible nature of evolution to favor the strong you can look into the whole Neanderthal vrs Homo Sapien stuff that is comming out. Neaderthal was stronger, could survive in harsher climates had similar cranial capacity (in fact had a larger cranial cpacity) and yet they lost out to Homo Sapiens. Why? Yes I know cranial capacity is not the end all and be all of intelligence (common reason given for success of man). Just pointing out the debate there is open. Its not a solved case.
And this is just one of the alternate ideas that could lead to different understanding. Most people assume that the gravity of the earth has remained unchanged largely through out its history. That would be a silly assumption. The gravity of earth is always increasing. Albeit infintesimally. Any time we pick up an extra piece of space debris that is not matched with an equal loss of mass the gravitational pull of the earth grows stronger. Over the millions/billions of years of life it is concievable (especially with a number of larger impacts) that once upon a time the gravity of earth was significantly less for life on the surface. Was it enough... or just a very small percentage that is almost un-noticeable in practical terms? Again I am not suggesting a final solution or answer to the question. Just pointing out that the debate is open and that there remain things to learn about it.
Well then you are arguing symantics about what it means to 'learn' a language. Most fresh grad CS monkies ARE capable of picking up basic syntax of a new language in an afternoon. They are capable of turning out working code. Whether or not it is perfect and completely optimized code for the particular solution in question is an entirely different matter and I doubt if you ask them very many would make the claim that they could. But when a CS major says "I can learn it in an afternoon" all they are saying is my knowledge is not locked into a particular coding solution. Assign them a task in a specific language and they know how to get it done even if they have never used it before.
That is not a useless skill. It is not senseless boasting. It is what CS is all about and it is largely seperated from the mechanics of actually churning out code.
That said, current CS is so fricken divorced from the real world application of computers and programming it is not even funny. It is rapidly getting to the point where it will be entirely divorced from reality. For example I had teachers that still thought the number of times you compiled a program was an important factor. The reality of modern compiling/debuging simply had not registered with them yet. However, there is a middle ground between vocational programming classes and the pure theory BS of most CS course material. Putting the theory to work on real world projects would be a good start and it never ceases to amaze me that CS departments rarely seek out such challenges for their students.
Old debate regarding petrosaurs. The evidence is far more in favor of a capable flyer than of an awkward at best glider or land bound creature. If you look at flightless birds you find they did not maintain large wings but quickly became almost vestigil. Think Ostritch or Emu... and in their cases the legs grew to compensate for the awkwardness of having largely useless wing limbs.
In the case of petrosaurs, and this one in particular, it was absolutely domninated by its wings and obviously would have had problems dealing with them on the ground. So they would have been extremely vulnerable on the ground if they lived there... and that dosn't argue well for survival.
Another issue is the one of material strength. go look up the discussions of modern physiologists with regards to three very serious problems in their eyes with the physiology of Dinosaurs. Petrosaur Wings, T-Rex bipedal status as a Carnivore that had to be quick to catch prey, and the Sauropod Neck. To make a long story short modern, physiology says that current bone and muscle structures could not support these structures. Their knwoledge of what current tissue and bone structures can do and how they work is pretty good. And yet they are not so silly as to simply ignore the record of fossils. But there is a serious problem here in if there was some stronger biological capacity for the dinosaurs that would mean a more fit evolutionary deveolpment lost out to a less fit one. So that gets the evolution camp up in arms. To say the evidence of what these animals were capable of gets the palientologists up in arms. Besides there is really not much arguing that sauropods had gigantic long necks, T-Rex walked on its hind legs and that Petrosaurs Flew. There also is little dispute that moder physiologists understand muscles and bones of current biology to a great degree.
Yet in the end the knowledge does not add up to a satisfactory conclusion. There the debate sits. One of the funner explinations of how they could all be right has to do with gravity. Namely most of the structural problems acording to modern physiology begins and ends with what is needed to create and support these structures in Earth's gravity. If Earths gravity was not the same then as it is now then that opens the possibility that all camps are correct. But that argument opens up a serious can of worms, to say the least.
Anyway this find is going to stir up alot of those debates again. Cause the earlier debate about petrosaurs was never really closed. It sort of died down into an armed truce where physiologists simply say that they were primarily gliders... but something this big will have problems according to them even if all id did was try to support its weight... much less attempt to gain the air by flapping its wings. They can't both be right.... or can they? It is a very intresting discussion.
For Paypal shifting money around internal to its system to have a minimum payment above their transaction percentage. You know the minimum transaction fee bugs me to no end. It essentially is just about having small transactions register as 20+% of profit. 20% of profit on a computerized transaction. That is utterly absurd.
And don't give me some shit about there being a minimal cost of transaction. Someone running a till at a store will not hessitate to take a quarter for a candy item at the counter, or a nickle even in some cases. Why is it that electronic tills are any different ? I don't take up a clerks time, I fill out my information and it is all processed online at the speed of light and cleared nightly again by computers. There IS NO COST OF TRANSACTION. All money made in such trasffer fees is profit.
Ok I take that back. There is a minimum cost of transaction. But when it is all said and done that is the cost of operating the system / ALL transactions processed in a given period. Someone want to try and say that VISA dosn't make enough in 1-2% rake off the top of their world business to make money without 'transaction' fees ?
A'FUCKING'MEN regarding women and their White Knight fetish.
How about open and frank discussions about sex so that 14 year old boys are able to categorize crazy porn right up there with Buggs bunny in terms of unrealistic vrs realistic and so that 14 year old girls don't get the idea that wanting sex is something they are not supposed to ever admit lest every one think they are a skanky slut. These problems are not near what they once were... say when Kinsey did his report. But they are still very much present. Note the Meese commission suggested education was the largest need in response to porn... not the erradication of porn.
By the way people here can argue the personal experience vrs data argument all day. But guys look at porn. In my experience even the least technically savy of men exposed to a computer connection and time alone know how to find pr0n. And most guys I know are not sexually dysfunctional. And the deffinition of dysfuntional is the inability to perform sexually without some kink/fetish present in the sex. So either I have a statistical aberation in my friends and aquaintances... or this book is a pile of manure trying to pass itself off as scientific. All in all the review seems to indicate the interviewies were self selected outliers who were not really chosen at random.... or at best were chosen at random from a non random pool.
Not to say pron cannot be detrimental and that it is all harmless fun. But to portray it as a universal detriment of such magnitude when considering that porn surffing is damn near universal among internet denziens (particularly male) and that such detriment is so hidden it must be 'revealed' in this study is silly. If the problem were was big as this book apparently hints at then the problem would not be so unknown as to need to be revealed.
Nothing to see here. Move along.... the people who value what this thing says are the same that once upon a time told their kids masturbation would cause fur to grow on their palms and make them blind. Incidently they are the same people that refuse to be open about discussing sex therby insuring that their childrens formative sex education will be at the hands of whatever they can find on their own. Thus ensuring that they are at high risk of forming false notions regarding sex that may take a long time to overcome later in life. Irony at its finest if you ask me.
Yes but that means a distinct focus on a point. If the firing vehicle were stationary then any miss would remain focused on a single point in front or behind the intended target. Other wise the distance and changing angles to intercept will dictate that a miss will wonder around with the intended focus point as the pivot, and in this case even the intended target is in motion so the pivot point changes as well.
At high angles the moving beam at the actual impact point (a miss) may be well ABOVE mach 2. At anyrate once you start talking miles a single degree of divergence is going to move the end of the beam a fair distance. IE firing plane is one mile away at 10,000 ft altitude firing at a target one mile away at 5000 ft altitude. Now as they approach or manouver the beam will be continually redirected to intersect the target. But the potential zone for the beam to fall on the ground will continually vary, potentially by a great deal as at high intercepts rates of closeure you can easily have 1mile a second rates with mach 2 capable fighters. but even at lower speeds its doubtfull you will have any specific foucus on a given point other than around the intended target. At low oblique angles to the ground it wouldn't hit for a significant distance anyway and if you are engaging at a relative max of the lethal range (adviseable... ie shoot them as soon as you can) then there will be a minimal distance for the beam to travel that it could do damage even if it were focused, much less if it is wondering all over the place.
Anyway I am sure if you really wanted to you could work a few geometry examples with planes various distances apart where the firing aircraft has various altitude advantages over the target (otherwise its angled into space if it misses) using a suitable kill radius. As it it expands the time on target will need to be greater to account for atmospheric absorbtion. Anyway take that 150kw number and length of a single fireing sequence. Then come up with a time to kill/maim a human then account for percentage of beam that would impact the target, beam divergence etc... over distance and figure out what the time on target would be in your various engagement scenarios and time on target in event of a miss. Think your going to find its simply not much of an issue relative to already problematic targeting mishaps.
Computers in school cannot be fully usefull until they are universal. 1 to 4 ratio ONLY at school is no good. Teachers have to be able to assume this tool is available at a certain level to all of their students just as they demand pencil, paper and 3 ring binders etc.... Untill that is the case they will ALWAYS be a secondary, extra or just plain extraneus paperweights in the classroom.
To those who say computers can't be usefull in classes such as lit, history or music etc.... Hell Make a wiki for a lit class dealing with a work and have assignments for differnt students to write various portions and make them all responsible for comming up with a final wiki on the subject and continue to build these through the year. History could work much the same way with students exploring their discussions and building timelines of events and posting and responding to each others thoughts. Music... hell don't just study music theory, break out something like Garage band and some instruments and start putting it to USE as your learning it and record, edit it, produce something and distribute the end result to the rest of the school if it sounds good. Not just trying to make music but to put each theory to work and build a piece of music unique to each classes talents while exploring all of the various elements of theory covered by the class.
To date the focus has been on having computers and that is all wrong. They need to function the same as pen and paper. As a fundamental tool for exploring and learning the subject at hand. All of you who are slashdotoholics who say give it the ole tried and true pen and paper deal tell me that the web isn't the first place you turn when you want to find out some new piece of information. If the info isn't there it will certainly point you in the right direction. Why would this not work for a classroom?
People who say computers can't be better than the way its been done before are the same folks that once said printed words were no substitute for oral tradition and for all I know the ones that said oral tradition was for wussies who couldn't figure it out all on their own.
Computers are better at the collection and sharing of information than older methods. THATS WHY WE USE THEM. This will make them powerful and ESSENTIAL tools for education if people would get their thumbs out of their asses about it. They are not substitutes for teachers and never will be. But as that science teacher so ably demonstrates. They are valuable tools in the right hands.
And my Mod points just expired.... DAMN. Well said.
Sorry my mistake when I said RPM. I really meant constant power setting. position. Anyway for a given power/throttle position the engine will burn X amount of fuel. It will generally get better MPG in 5th than 1st, namely it will get its best MPG with a gearing that will set it at its most efficient RPM of operation for a given throttle input. At that point the only sense that resistence plays into it is as a load on the engine in determing how the forces equal out.
If your bottom line is fuel burned there is always a convergence of the factors working in a car that determines its best cruise settings. For example for my 89 Mustang GT that happens to be somewhere around 2000RPM in 5th gear which nets me about 27mpg going 85 or so mph. Now I have managed to more or less match that mpg at lower speeds... like 50-55 in 4th but since the fuel burn is the same then all things being equal I would much rather get to my destination more than 50% faster at the higher but more efficiently generated energy expenditure rate since it nets no real difference in the amount of fuel burned. I simply burn through it faster but more efficiently and spend less time doing it.
Granted in a perfect system with a constantly variable transmission that was not to inefficient itself your basic premis that faster would mean more energy expended overall would be correct. But cars just are not that simple. With a car all you can say that more force was exerted... but the efficiency with which it was converted has the final say on whether that means you had to burn more fuel or not to accomplish the task.
*disclaimer.... this is not to say I go about pell mell at 85 no matter what. I am highly concious of distance between me and all cars around me and have only one speeding ticket to my credit over some 400k miles of driving. and that one was due to a recently changed limit I was unaware of*
Yes but wind resistence or no wind resistence an engine burns X amount of fuel at a given RPM. Gearing them determins how fast or slow the wheels turn in response. Thus the most efficient is the RPM at which the engine maintains an optimal fuel burn at the maximum possible speed. This lowers the time spent burning fuel and assures that our put the energy liberated to best use.
Messing with One note at the moment. Will check out InDesign. From fiddling with One note I am thinking there has to be an easier way to do an interface. It feels more like something you could create some nice flyers with than something you would want to use listening to a prof or at a convention or something.
Know more than I care to about formatting pages. Point was its not something your average drone will know to do without thinking about it... rahter unlike just jotting down some columns of info.
The word processor must be set up to take the info in this manner and it can only be set up for one way at a time. IE I can't easily switch between writing across the entire page and columnated setup. I also can't just draw on it etc.. Not that these things cannot be accomplished with a little time and patience but those are two things in short supply in a demanding note taking environment. The interface for these things needs to be as swift as deciding to jot down info in three columns on a sheet of paper and drawing lines to connect them etc....
Think the time has come for a more versatile information input program that combines all that we have learned about graphical input, formated text input and photographic handling. Layering formats should make this easy to do. IE have a text layer that is handled by a full blown word processor and another layer/layers that handles graphic input and stream line the methods for switching between making it as context sensitive as possible so that there is minmal hot keying and shifting between various modes. In otherwords the program adapts to what you are doing rather than having to be specifically instructed (think IPOD multi function scroll wheel). I am talking Star Office apps all combined on a single document interface with Aldus freehand level drawing controls.
Granted most of what I am suggesting CAN be done presently... but current advanced format mixing of this nature is to today what the command line once was to mass computing. Something that is capable and powerfull... but just not very accessible to the masses. We have got to streamline the process and make it more intuitive along with better education of how to use it.
Yeah typing input has a ways to go for conveying free form information that departs from the simply textual. Over even formated textual... like ever tried doing impromptu columns in a word processor vrs just jotting three lists next to each other on a sheet of paper ? With practice and knowledge (insert and tab stops) it can be done quickly but it isn't very intuitive.
Was deffinatly responding more to the specific endeavor of conveying the written word. However there is musical notation software available. It just has not reached the point where it is faster and easier to use than simply taking out a blank sheet of stanza paper and breaking out a pen. But that again does not invalidate the efforts of someone who does labor over those pieces of crap muscial notation software programs. (in other words I also did not disparage the value of the hand written word vrs typed) And in the end, those balky endeavors are what produce crisp uniform scores that are easy to read for everyone much the same as the efforts of a printing press once made reading more available to the masses so to has the printed score brought more music to more people.
One day perhaps the ease of electronic entry will reach into the more free form areas. I for one think it should be possible for a computer to simply analyze a recording and produce the corresponding musical notation. After all music can largely be interpreted mathmatically (though you can never write the equation for creativity) and those interpretations would have a corresponding given notation. In many ways it should be an easier endeavor than speach recognition software. Hell for all I know they have it.
I think the field of input has a long ways to go yet.
"you cant sms,email or im everything."
Really? Why not?? Is a typed word any less real than a written word? Is it some how inferior for conveying thought via the method of character symbology?
Only thing I have hand written in 5 years of working since leaving college have been to sign my name, or write my address information and that is pissin me off. Would be far more efficient for them to keep a DB of all that info and give login access for people to change it as needed. Instead I have to continually fill out the same info multiple times only for it to be puzzled over by someone else who then types it into a computer somewhere... often they have to type it into multiple programs on the same computer. Amazing incompetence at usage of computers.
I have always failed to understand this worship of the almigty handwriting. Granted I don't think it should be done away with or anything so silly. But I do think this idea that it is a somehow more valuable means of conveying the written word than typing is absurd. If every student/teacher had a laptop wirelessly connected at school why would they HAVE to handwrite anything ? Why could they not sms, email or IM everything ?
Since you have hinted at the value of the argument from an "imminent threat" standpoint, would you go ahead and present the good/bad sides of that argument? You seem to have a very clear understanding of the issues at hand and unlike being some nazi fan boy from one side or the other you seem to be able to consider A)what was known at the time vrs after the fact and B) consider that there are indeed good contrary arguments. I think it would be worthwhile to hear what you have to say about the issue in general rather than just in particular responding to those who consider the fact nothing was found to be the "smoking gun" albeit one against the Bush administration rather than against Saddam Hussein.
Errrrr..... you seem to be thinking they will be 'landing' in the sense of sitting down on gear gracefully. They go back to capsules then they are going to go back to parrachutes and splashdowns... or possibly go with a solid earth landing like the russians whcih is essentially just a crash with shock absorbing seats for the occupants. They may dig up the old Idea of doing a parasail instead of a simple drouge parachute and actually doing a kind of glide landing like a skydiver might... but the control system for managing the airfoil was always a bitch in that scenario.
I can't help but think there has to be an air breathing way to do the SRB's... though if you can't shave any weight in the process of providing the same power it is essentially just a lot of work for no gain... unless the safety margian is greater.... a fly back and fast turnaround would make it worth it though.
Just have a wi-fi entre ? Post that anyone using a table for Wi-Fi access rather than eating may be charged for the wi fi entre.
A restraunt is a place where you sell food but in general it is about making money. Generally you make that money turning tables and serving meals. But if you can make that money just having people pay to have access that should be fine too. I would put it on the menu as an entre with similar pricing and post some rules. Access complimentary with any entre and if you do not order one and you are using the wireless your are then choosing to purchase the wireless 'entre'. Be real nice and include some simple cheap ass bottomless dish like chips and salsa and a soda and an hour or two limit at which point you will be charged again.
Really the only time that you should have to do this is if there are people waiting for a table and the wireless hogs are holding up the space. Then a waiters comes over and informs that person they have three options. purchase an entre, be charged for the wi-fi entre or vacate the table.
If you do not have paying customers waiting then any revenue stream the wifi users are creating is more than an empty table even if its just the occasional coffee or soda.
Eh I am very well aware that the idea of shuttle C or something in the same vein is not what is. I am simply pointing out that weighing the usefullness of the shuttle system is not limited to discussion of payloads that can be carried in addition to the orbiter itself.
The change isn't small but it is hardly re-inventing the wheel. We already have all the engines and known max weight of the system and launch infrastructure to handle the general arangement. Its not like its a question of IF we could build a sufficiently lighter structure not meant to re-enter the atmosphere to deliever more usefull mass to orbit with the shuttle system. For example an empty ET only weighs about 50,000 lbs which is lighter than the orbiter and survives to orbit while dispensing the millions of pounds of fuel for the SSME's. A pretty conservative guess would be that you could make 25k pound structure to replace the orbiter and to hang the SSME's off of. That would almost double the current usefull payload to orbit of a shuttle stack. Incidently they design new fairings all the times for atlas/delta/arian launches to deal with various size requirments of differnt payloads and that is really all you would be doing here. C was scrapped due to lack of funding and the potential expense of throwing away SSME's in the process. The engineering was complete and nobody had doubts it would work.
The main functional difference between Buran and Shuttle was that Buran did not carry its main engines with it into orbit as the shuttle stack is designed to do. So once the orbiter is in orbit weighing in at around 60k lbs it is also carrying about 21k lbs in the 3 7k lbs each SSME's. This is because they were meant to be re-used. All in all since the reusaility of the shuttle engines never really panned out economically I would say the russian design was better.
Well if your deffinition of shuttle is a winged orbiter that returns to earth then sure. But the shuttle system is really a series of components. Two SRBs, the ET, and Three SSME's. Those are the components critical for launch. The only thing you change in the Shuttle C configuration is the payload of the system. You no longer need wings or heatshielding, just a payload fairing structure that you can mount the SSME's to and an OMS system on... if its manned it would need a crew return capsule.
But as far as what it takes to launch it ? It is a complete shuttle stack consisting of Three SSME's two SRB's and the ET. Really the orbiter is the payload of the shuttle stack.... not what you put in the payload bay.