Most of Jackie Chans stuff was done without wires (until recently.. now he uses them in all his movies). His stunts were nonetheless quite spectacular. Witness the drop through five floors in Dragons Forever, or the leap from the top floor of the parking structure to an adjacent building in Rumble in the Bronx.
Jet Li uses wire-fu in most of his movies. Does that make him no more skilled than Uma Thurman? I doubt it. The wires are there for a different reason. Get over it.
Hmm. I think you're smoking something if you think a twelve foot green monstrosity is obviously more "human" than a sallow skinned half-starved former hobbit-like creature.
They're both pretty inhuman to most of the rest of us.
Actually, it was to gain continuity with the actors. You wouldn't want to commit to a trilogy and then have half the cast significantly change their look (or get run over by a car... ) or some other occurence which would break continuity throughout the series.
Since there's so much work in post production (editing, CGI etc), it only makes sense to film all the live stuff for all three movies at once, so you free up your actors so they can get on with their careeers while you sit in a room with geeks and computers for two more years turning your dailies into three actual films.
I was in a similar hole in Australia. My employer made the mistake of attempting to defraud me and the tax office - he claimed (to me), that he was paying me X and withholding Y. He told the ATO that he was only paying me (X-Y) as gross to me, and I was therefore responsible for whatever my tax on (X-Y) was.
Thankfully, he was also foolish enough to have given out fully qualified pay-stubs declaring the amount withheld on multiple occaisions.
I was fortunate. I'm truly sorry you weren't so fortunate. Shit like this really pisses me off.
Also possible... Explanation 3: CDs and the tracks thereon can be enjoyed in many different manners. They can be listened to while one jogs, works, or drives. They provide background mood for social events. Movies, on the other hand, are generally enjoyed under limited circumstances - you sit in front of the TV and watch them. This requires you to devote a block of your time where you're doing little else. Thus Music CDs have greater utility to the average person and correspondingly the distributors price them to reflect this.
In which case, I hope we're still around in 20,000 years for them to find when *they* start looking.
With luck, and some hope, we might even be able to help them out of the self-destructive idiocy of their social adolescence. If we can avoid driving our own collective hot-rod off the cliff in our near future, that is.
It still doesn't follow that the invention of nano-technology automatically destroys a societies willingness to transmit radio waves. I sincerely doubt we'll stop broadcasting radio when we develop nanotechnology.
Also, if these aliens as similar enough to us to have parallel technological development, then we might as well assume that their desire to find us is as strong as our desire to find them. Would all of Earth stop watching television as soon as working nanotechnology comes along ? Not even close.
Furthermore, there's no way to get the nano here without sending physical structures through inter-stellar space. Just because you've got nano doesn't mean you have a cost effective way of doing that.
Either Ray Kurweil is full of something brown, or you're not communicating his argument very effectively.
Not to mention, how do they slow down when they get where they're going ? I mean, if they're *not* intended as kinetic missiles, they have to have some means of coming to rest at their destination. This implies some sort of means of propulsion. If they're pea sized, that's some serious power source that has that much potential energy in such a small package.
Then there's guidance, and obstruction avoidance, just to name two other problems.
No, if there are aliens that are using these nano-sensors (and still obey the laws of physics as we understand them) then these sensors would probably have to be dropped onto our world from very close by. I'd suggest the most sensible way is to send a "ship" armed with these things and have it act as the way point. Data can then be sent back from there, either in other (smaller) ships (secure and slow) or radio (insecure, and as fast as we know how to travel = which is still slow compared with the distances we're talking about)
Or maybe close up shop and go into business doing something else. The thieves will either be forced to steal from someone else, or they'll be really missing that gear you had.
Problems with this analogy:
The Store is the only one in the country. So there's no ability for its customers (shoplifters) to go anywhere else.
The Stores stuff never really gets stolen - it's still there in the Store, but the "shoplifters" just take photographs of it to look at later, at their own convenience.
Unfortunately for the Store, looking at these holiday snaps is about as good as having the real thing, and since the Store doesn't add any other value to the real thing, most people don't see the need to pay for it.
Besides which - they've got the whole damn government in their pocket, and if that's not enough of a security guard, you have to ask if your analogy isn't fundamentally flawed.
It's a blurry line, but if I understand you correctly, you're saying you could (in the cell example) use nanotechnology to make the proteins themselves, but don't care where they float around in the cell itself, so long as they're in the general area. Like the mitochondria, the cell wall, etc etc.
So in other words, genetics and biotechnology just use the pre-existing nanotechnological mechanism that the cells provide to accomplish their goals?
However, in the future, we may be able to provide a more powerful nano-mechanism with which we can accomplish other (even dissimilar) goals.
Cells can't make exact copies of themselves and I don't believe a group of cells working together would have any more luck in completing that task. Exact? No. But functional? Sure. Cells do it all the time. In fact, birds do it. Bees do it. And from what I've been told, even educated fleas do it.
Interesting. So biological reproduction falls under your definition of nano-technological reproduction ?
I sort of thought that one of the goals of nanotechnology is to produce something that can get every atom exactly where you want it.
Even with an acceptable low error rate (which you added to the mix in a previous post) cells don't do this. They do not create atomic-level reproductions of themselves, but rather a messy sort of "this protein goes here, and this one somewhere over there" sort of thing.
Surely that sort of mechanism is more akin to biotechnology (and genetics) than nanotechnology.
1. Diamonds aren't that rare. 2. DeBeers has created the artifical market for them we know of today - try selling those diamonds you just bought right back to the seller. He'll offer you a pittance if he'll even take them at all. 3. Diamonds can be manufactured. We still can't turn lead into gold as yet (or even Uranium for that matter).
Actually, all other things aside, it's around the thermal vents in the deep ocean that most of the life down there is found. So dropping nuclear stuff down subduction zones is probably *more* likely to affect life than putting it in a cold trench somewhere else.
Not that I'm arguing one way or the other. What is more important to humanity on this planet ? Protecting the life of some bacteria around a thermal vent or the rest of the life on the planet from pollution ?
By having highly articulated wings, rather than fixed-wing or rotors.
The wings on real insects move in many more angles than regular rotors can (or, by definition, fixed wing aircraft). This lets them react to changes in micro gusts far faster and without needing to change the attitude of the insect body.
I'm replying to the anal-retentive coward who claimed "nothing is ever destroyed in the Universe, it is transformed into other forms, but not destroyed."
So effectively, I think we agree. Mr Anon.Moron seems to think that the only definition of "destroy" is one that seems to contravene the conservation of energy. I was merely providing a suite of alternative definitions which are not so limited.
A physicist (such as Hawking) might well use the word "destruction" to describe the total conversion of a mass into energy, depending on his frame of reference at the time he made the statement, and his abililty to turn a phrase.
Exactly. It's not like they're going to charge outrages prices to the general public for *your* wedding photos, now is it ? So the parent poster who suggested they just keep the copyright *or* charge outrageous prices upfront is missing the point. They need both to protect their own interests.
What is that copyright worth to anyone but you and the photographer ? They don't make any money selling those photos to anyone but those who were at your wedding..
They reserve the copyright so that they don't have to pay you to use your image in their portfolio which they use to entice other prospective clients. (and so they don't have to give you a cut if they manage to sell the photos to someone else who wants a reminder of your wedding, like family etc).
- you don't want just one election monitor. The checks and balances require many of them, geographically disbursed, to reduce the chances of corruption. One person monitoring everything can be bribed. Thousands all over the country, from different political backgrounds, cannot. - an internet vote cannot be reliably recounted without some sort of physical record. Recounts don't happen in every instance in any case - so that cost is only incurred in circumstances where the vote is close or there is suspicion of fraud. Besides - which cost is higher ? The loss of confidence in your democratic process or the material cost of a recount ?
And in Australia, where voting is compulsory, it usually occurs on a Saturday, and you are required to have time off to go do it. No one can stop you, since you have to vote by law.
I don't know that the Supreme Court is all that secret. I mean - don't they publish their judgements ? Sure the judges might sit down together and chat about their rulings, and juries can be sequestered until they've reached a decision, but the outcome of those decisions and rulings are made public. That is, unless the way your court system works is vastly different than other democracies based originally on British Westminster law. I could look it up, but I'm not that enthusiastic. Someone feel free to jump in here and show me that I'm wrong. Then I can shudder and shiver along with the rest of the sheep:)
Slashdot Mirror
Most of Jackie Chans stuff was done without wires (until recently.. now he uses them in all his movies). His stunts were nonetheless quite spectacular. Witness the drop through five floors in Dragons Forever, or the leap from the top floor of the parking structure to an adjacent building in Rumble in the Bronx.
Jet Li uses wire-fu in most of his movies. Does that make him no more skilled than Uma Thurman? I doubt it. The wires are there for a different reason. Get over it.
The general public doesn't contribute to the ratings on rottentomatoes - they're compiled from movie critics all over the country.
Take a long hard look at yourself - you're part of that general public which you so disparage.
Hmm. I think you're smoking something if you think a twelve foot green monstrosity is obviously more "human" than a sallow skinned half-starved former hobbit-like creature.
They're both pretty inhuman to most of the rest of us.
Actually, it was to gain continuity with the actors. You wouldn't want to commit to a trilogy and then have half the cast significantly change their look (or get run over by a car... ) or some other occurence which would break continuity throughout the series.
Since there's so much work in post production (editing, CGI etc), it only makes sense to film all the live stuff for all three movies at once, so you free up your actors so they can get on with their careeers while you sit in a room with geeks and computers for two more years turning your dailies into three actual films.
I think the politically correct form of this expression is "differently abled" :)
I was in a similar hole in Australia. My employer made the mistake of attempting to defraud me and the tax office - he claimed (to me), that he was paying me X and withholding Y. He told the ATO that he was only paying me (X-Y) as gross to me, and I was therefore responsible for whatever my tax on (X-Y) was.
Thankfully, he was also foolish enough to have given out fully qualified pay-stubs declaring the amount withheld on multiple occaisions.
I was fortunate. I'm truly sorry you weren't so fortunate. Shit like this really pisses me off.
Also possible ... :
Explanation 3
CDs and the tracks thereon can be enjoyed in many different manners. They can be listened to while one jogs, works, or drives. They provide background mood for social events.
Movies, on the other hand, are generally enjoyed under limited circumstances - you sit in front of the TV and watch them. This requires you to devote a block of your time where you're doing little else.
Thus Music CDs have greater utility to the average person and correspondingly the distributors price them to reflect this.
In which case, I hope we're still around in 20,000 years for them to find when *they* start looking.
With luck, and some hope, we might even be able to help them out of the self-destructive idiocy of their social adolescence. If we can avoid driving our own collective hot-rod off the cliff in our near future, that is.
It still doesn't follow that the invention of nano-technology automatically destroys a societies willingness to transmit radio waves. I sincerely doubt we'll stop broadcasting radio when we develop nanotechnology.
Also, if these aliens as similar enough to us to have parallel technological development, then we might as well assume that their desire to find us is as strong as our desire to find them. Would all of Earth stop watching television as soon as working nanotechnology comes along ? Not even close.
Furthermore, there's no way to get the nano here without sending physical structures through inter-stellar space. Just because you've got nano doesn't mean you have a cost effective way of doing that.
Either Ray Kurweil is full of something brown, or you're not communicating his argument very effectively.
Not to mention, how do they slow down when they get where they're going ? I mean, if they're *not* intended as kinetic missiles, they have to have some means of coming to rest at their destination. This implies some sort of means of propulsion. If they're pea sized, that's some serious power source that has that much potential energy in such a small package.
Then there's guidance, and obstruction avoidance, just to name two other problems.
No, if there are aliens that are using these nano-sensors (and still obey the laws of physics as we understand them) then these sensors would probably have to be dropped onto our world from very close by. I'd suggest the most sensible way is to send a "ship" armed with these things and have it act as the way point. Data can then be sent back from there, either in other (smaller) ships (secure and slow) or radio (insecure, and as fast as we know how to travel = which is still slow compared with the distances we're talking about)
You're so wrong.
Everyone knows the quote. It's just the interpretation it gets that seems to be in contention.
Yeah - but if they want it really loud, they have to add another one.
Cause, like, then it would go up to eleven.
The thieves will either be forced to steal from someone else, or they'll be really missing that gear you had.
Problems with this analogy
The Store is the only one in the country. So there's no ability for its customers (shoplifters) to go anywhere else.
The Stores stuff never really gets stolen - it's still there in the Store, but the "shoplifters" just take photographs of it to look at later, at their own convenience.
Unfortunately for the Store, looking at these holiday snaps is about as good as having the real thing, and since the Store doesn't add any other value to the real thing, most people don't see the need to pay for it.
Besides which - they've got the whole damn government in their pocket, and if that's not enough of a security guard, you have to ask if your analogy isn't fundamentally flawed.
It's a blurry line, but if I understand you correctly, you're saying you could (in the cell example) use nanotechnology to make the proteins themselves, but don't care where they float around in the cell itself, so long as they're in the general area. Like the mitochondria, the cell wall, etc etc.
So in other words, genetics and biotechnology just use the pre-existing nanotechnological mechanism that the cells provide to accomplish their goals?
However, in the future, we may be able to provide a more powerful nano-mechanism with which we can accomplish other (even dissimilar) goals.
Sounds fair enough to me.
Cells can't make exact copies of themselves and I don't believe a group of cells working together would have any more luck in completing that task.
Exact? No. But functional? Sure. Cells do it all the time. In fact, birds do it. Bees do it. And from what I've been told, even educated fleas do it.
Interesting. So biological reproduction falls under your definition of nano-technological reproduction ?
I sort of thought that one of the goals of nanotechnology is to produce something that can get every atom exactly where you want it.
Even with an acceptable low error rate (which you added to the mix in a previous post) cells don't do this. They do not create atomic-level reproductions of themselves, but rather a messy sort of "this protein goes here, and this one somewhere over there" sort of thing.
Surely that sort of mechanism is more akin to biotechnology (and genetics) than nanotechnology.
That's always good advice.
1. Diamonds aren't that rare.
2. DeBeers has created the artifical market for them we know of today - try selling those diamonds you just bought right back to the seller. He'll offer you a pittance if he'll even take them at all.
3. Diamonds can be manufactured. We still can't turn lead into gold as yet (or even Uranium for that matter).
Never invest in diamonds.
Actually, all other things aside, it's around the thermal vents in the deep ocean that most of the life down there is found. So dropping nuclear stuff down subduction zones is probably *more* likely to affect life than putting it in a cold trench somewhere else.
Not that I'm arguing one way or the other. What is more important to humanity on this planet ? Protecting the life of some bacteria around a thermal vent or the rest of the life on the planet from pollution ?
By having highly articulated wings, rather than fixed-wing or rotors.
The wings on real insects move in many more angles than regular rotors can (or, by definition, fixed wing aircraft). This lets them react to changes in micro gusts far faster and without needing to change the attitude of the insect body.
I'm replying to the anal-retentive coward who claimed "nothing is ever destroyed in the Universe, it is transformed into other forms, but not destroyed."
So effectively, I think we agree. Mr Anon.Moron seems to think that the only definition of "destroy" is one that seems to contravene the conservation of energy. I was merely providing a suite of alternative definitions which are not so limited.
A physicist (such as Hawking) might well use the word "destruction" to describe the total conversion of a mass into energy, depending on his frame of reference at the time he made the statement, and his abililty to turn a phrase.
To ruin completely; spoil: The ancient manuscripts were destroyed by fire.
To tear down or break up; demolish. See Synonyms at ruin.
To do away with; put an end to: "In crowded populations, poverty destroys the possibility of cleanliness" (George Bernard Shaw).
To kill: destroy a rabid dog.
To subdue or defeat completely; crush: The rebel forces were destroyed in battle.
To render useless or ineffective: destroyed the testimony of the prosecution's chief witness.
I don't see any definition of "destroy" that is explicitly contrary to the conservation of energy.
Exactly.
It's not like they're going to charge outrages prices to the general public for *your* wedding photos, now is it ?
So the parent poster who suggested they just keep the copyright *or* charge outrageous prices upfront is missing the point. They need both to protect their own interests.
What is that copyright worth to anyone but you and the photographer ? They don't make any money selling those photos to anyone but those who were at your wedding..
They reserve the copyright so that they don't have to pay you to use your image in their portfolio which they use to entice other prospective clients. (and so they don't have to give you a cut if they manage to sell the photos to someone else who wants a reminder of your wedding, like family etc).
- you don't want just one election monitor. The checks and balances require many of them, geographically disbursed, to reduce the chances of corruption. One person monitoring everything can be bribed. Thousands all over the country, from different political backgrounds, cannot.
- an internet vote cannot be reliably recounted without some sort of physical record. Recounts don't happen in every instance in any case - so that cost is only incurred in circumstances where the vote is close or there is suspicion of fraud. Besides - which cost is higher ? The loss of confidence in your democratic process or the material cost of a recount ?
And in Australia, where voting is compulsory, it usually occurs on a Saturday, and you are required to have time off to go do it. No one can stop you, since you have to vote by law.
I don't know that the Supreme Court is all that secret. I mean - don't they publish their judgements ? Sure the judges might sit down together and chat about their rulings, and juries can be sequestered until they've reached a decision, but the outcome of those decisions and rulings are made public. :)
That is, unless the way your court system works is vastly different than other democracies based originally on British Westminster law.
I could look it up, but I'm not that enthusiastic. Someone feel free to jump in here and show me that I'm wrong. Then I can shudder and shiver along with the rest of the sheep