When the UN doesn't allow nations that are ruled by tyrants to have a voice, or when there *are* no nations ruled by tyrants, and the UN has a decent set of checks and balances, then, and only then, will the UN be worth more than a bucket of cold spit. From what's happened in the last year, it seems pretty obvious that the best friend of tyranny on this planet is the UN.
Governments tend to increase their power over their people. The *only* things that can counteract that tendency are a) open revolt or b) competition between nations, either in the economic marketplace or the marketplace of ideas. Any global government would be bad unless it's *extremely* limited.
If the US military gets into a situation where it needs to turn off GPS, and the EU doesn't shut off Galileo, it's pretty likely Galileo will become an orbiting belt of small pieces of metal.
By "showing their true colors again" towards Europe, I'm assuming you mean we'll send in troops (again) to liberate Europeans from fascism. Fortunately, it doesn't look like we'll need to do that.
And I seem to recall that people were worried about cities getting evaporated by hydrogen fueled goodness way before the GPS system was in place. It's not like you need centimeter accuracy with thermonuclear weapons. Please come up with a reason for Galileo that isn't completely stupid.
Hell, Europe couldn't even handle the country formerly known as Yugoslavia. And most Europeans could *hike* there.
And as far as Europe having a bright future, you may want to look at the demographic forecasts for Europe. If you're a young or middle aged European, don't expect to retire unless you like the taste of dog food.
But now, at least, they don't have to use GPS anymore.
America didn't fsck up the Iraqis; their economy went to crap with the Iran-Iraq war. The "prosperous nation" you're talking about was built up before Saddam took over. He did nothing but run it into the sewer.
If he was smart enough to destroy his WMDs, he evidently wasn't smart enough to do it with inspectors watching. You *do* know that it's impossible to prove a negative, don't you?
As far as Saddam "trusting" his countrymen not to shoot him? Anyone even suspected of thinking of doing it would be shot. And their families shot. If the US/British threatened to kill the families of anyone who shot a US/British soldier, I doubt we'd have to collect weapons.
"fair and square"?? Please. The Iraqis gave the oil-for-food contracts to the countries that gave them the biggest kickbacks or who were willing to violate sanctions. Witness the German/French/Russian spare weapon parts in Iraq stamped with 21st century date stamps.
For some reason, in the 90's Saddam didn't like the US. Anyone in his country stupid enough to give a big oil-for-food contract to the US would have been fed to the plastic shredder feet first.
Sorry, but what exactly is the difference between "what the viewer wants" and "what brings the most eyeballs to the advertisers" ???
I think you're confusing "what the viewer wants" with "what the elitist snob who watches PBS a lot but never donates during the pledge drive and votes Democrat so the govt will subsidize it wants".
You can also try to explain why so many countries with State broadcasters have to pass laws to limit the amount of American TV shows that can be shown to their people.
Re:Pump&Dump stock spam
on
I, Spammer
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· Score: 1
It's a stock scheme. You'd have to trace it through the stock market. People (sometimes Mafia) buy a publicly traded company that's going/gone belly up for a pittance, then start talking it up via cold-calling, chat rooms, spam. Start trading shares among themselves, upping the price each time, to give the indication the stock price is rising. Then unload the stock on all the suckers and walk away.
It would be harder to find out who's responsible, but they wouldn't just be violating spam laws, they'd be committing securities fraud.
Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's
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Computing's Lost Allure
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I'm single and I live alone. I only have one computer. I have four brothers and sisters. Three of them don't make much money, so when I upgrade I give my old computer to one of them (or my parents).
It looks like these devices use the mechanical energy of the shock wave to pump the energy of the photons up or down. If you have a continual stream of shock waves going through the material you should have a continual light coming through (there may be small gaps in the output when the shock wave hits the surface the light gets emitted from).
Wonder how well laser light would stay collimated going through one of these things.
Nah, E=mc^2 is the energy contained in the rest mass (v=0). As V increases, the *increase* in E is (roughly) 1/2mv^2 for low velocities (some terms are pretty insignificant at low velocities). As V approaches C, E approaches infinity.
Think of a mass as having two components: its rest mass (or its equivalent rest mass energy) and its additional mass due to velocity (equivalent to kinetic energy).
Taliban no longer in control in Afghanistan, with no Al-Queda training camps operating there. A bunch of dead or imprisoned terrorists. US troops moving out of Saudi (you know, the main thing that made Osama and other Saudis go bug-nutty?). And while it's unlikely that Iraq will turn into Shangri-La, it's pretty unlikely it'll become worse than it was.
I'm curious as to what you think the Dems would be doing different about the economy (hmmm, cutting taxes, increasing spending...). I voted for Clinton/Gore both times, but when, in the debates, Bush said we were in a recession and Gore swore we weren't, that was it. Clinton and Gore did all that they could to keep the party going till the election, knowing full well they were making the inevitable recovery a long, hard one.
And I'm really curious as to why you think Al "Clipper Chip" Gore wouldn't be doing a lot of the same crap concerning civil liberties.
A lot more Iraqis died from ten years of sanctions than from a month of war. Bush got permission to use force from Congress. When Clinton was lobbing cruise missiles at Afghanistan and Sudan, was that authorized by Congress?
On your 1040, do you check the box that lets them put $4 towards the general campaign fund? The problem with the current setup is it's matching funds; the taxpayer doesn't determine where the money goes.
What would be nice would be if they increased that number to $20, and let you target the party(ies), politician(s), or special interest group(s) all or part of that $20 goes to. Roughly 100 million taxpayers, that's 2 billion bucks.
The politicians would probably even go for it, since it's a bunch of cash going into re-election funds, and where it goes reflect the will of the voters (well, at least the ones that pay taxes).
I would have thought that the results of the Michelson/Morley experiment, showing that there was no "ether" and that the velocity of light seemed to be the same in all reference frames (or, at least, in winter and summer:) ) was a basis for his theory.
Well, there was the quandry posed by the results of the Michelson/Morley experiment. That gave him reason to believe the speed of light was constant, no matter the reference frame. Doubt if he could have come up with relativity without knowing about the results of that experiment.
After he came up with the theory, they came up with observations to support them. Fast-moving cosmic rays taking too long to decay, the unexplained deviation in Mercury's orbit, etc.
Didn't something happen like that with Maxwell's equations? Originally the equations were in a form that were almost impossible to use, then they became much more simplified?
There's also the Flynn effect, where for as long as IQ tests have been administered, IQ seems to be going up around 3 points per decade (i.e. high school grads in 2000 average about 9 points higher than grads in 1970). More intellectual stimulation's probably the cause, with radio, then TV, then the net giving greater amounts of info to young people.
Julius Cesar, as far as I know, never violated the known laws of physics by walking on water, raising the dead, or being resurrected. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
According to *your* argument, you can't disprove the existence of Santa Claus. The reason *you* don't get presents from Santa on Christmas is that you've been naughty.
Somebody with a seat belt on in a car that's going out of control will have greater control over the car than someone who is unbelted.
And as long as the govt provides health services to people that don't have insurance, there's a good reason to ticket people who don't wear seat belts. They could make it like the helmet law in Texas; if you have a minimum level of health insurance, you can drive without a helmet. Do the same with seat belts. As long as my tax money doesn't pay for you when you become paralyzed from the neck up, I couldn't care less.
Wow, they can figure out where you were 5 seconds before the crash.
What possible reason could a carmaker have for integrating hours of speed and direction data and saving it off? And could it possibly be worth the inevitable backlash?
Well, since I don't drive like a retard, and I have had a claim filed against me trying to put me at fault in an accident when it was their fault, that's an "optional extra" I'd be interested in having.
Too bad for you they don't have tires that don't leave skid marks. Those would make it easier to lie about speeding before a crash, too.
Or it could be that by having people drive more safely, they pay out less in claims?
Nah, that couldn't be, a greedy corporation could never do anything that resulted in something socially useful.
If you get a ticket, you can keep your insurance from going up by either getting deferred adjudication or taking the driver's safety class. That works fine unless you're an imbecile who can't drive worth a crap, in which case you need to be paying more for insurance anyway.
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When the UN doesn't allow nations that are ruled by tyrants to have a voice, or when there *are* no nations ruled by tyrants, and the UN has a decent set of checks and balances, then, and only then, will the UN be worth more than a bucket of cold spit. From what's happened in the last year, it seems pretty obvious that the best friend of tyranny on this planet is the UN.
Governments tend to increase their power over their people. The *only* things that can counteract that tendency are a) open revolt or b) competition between nations, either in the economic marketplace or the marketplace of ideas. Any global government would be bad unless it's *extremely* limited.
If the US military gets into a situation where it needs to turn off GPS, and the EU doesn't shut off Galileo, it's pretty likely Galileo will become an orbiting belt of small pieces of metal.
By "showing their true colors again" towards Europe, I'm assuming you mean we'll send in troops (again) to liberate Europeans from fascism. Fortunately, it doesn't look like we'll need to do that.
And I seem to recall that people were worried about cities getting evaporated by hydrogen fueled goodness way before the GPS system was in place. It's not like you need centimeter accuracy with thermonuclear weapons. Please come up with a reason for Galileo that isn't completely stupid.
Hell, Europe couldn't even handle the country formerly known as Yugoslavia. And most Europeans could *hike* there.
And as far as Europe having a bright future, you may want to look at the demographic forecasts for Europe. If you're a young or middle aged European, don't expect to retire unless you like the taste of dog food.
But now, at least, they don't have to use GPS anymore.
America didn't fsck up the Iraqis; their economy went to crap with the Iran-Iraq war. The "prosperous nation" you're talking about was built up before Saddam took over. He did nothing but run it into the sewer.
If he was smart enough to destroy his WMDs, he evidently wasn't smart enough to do it with inspectors watching. You *do* know that it's impossible to prove a negative, don't you?
As far as Saddam "trusting" his countrymen not to shoot him? Anyone even suspected of thinking of doing it would be shot. And their families shot. If the US/British threatened to kill the families of anyone who shot a US/British soldier, I doubt we'd have to collect weapons.
Considering there was absolutely zero *need* for the US to get involved, the French and the British should consider themselves lucky.
And the only reason the US got into the war was because Germany was sinking our ships we were using to supply their enemy England.
"fair and square"?? Please. The Iraqis gave the oil-for-food contracts to the countries that gave them the biggest kickbacks or who were willing to violate sanctions. Witness the German/French/Russian spare weapon parts in Iraq stamped with 21st century date stamps.
For some reason, in the 90's Saddam didn't like the US. Anyone in his country stupid enough to give a big oil-for-food contract to the US would have been fed to the plastic shredder feet first.
Keep in mind the article was talking about European ISPs. Their telco setups are a lot more fscked up than the United State's.
Sorry, but what exactly is the difference between "what the viewer wants" and "what brings the most eyeballs to the advertisers" ???
I think you're confusing "what the viewer wants" with "what the elitist snob who watches PBS a lot but never donates during the pledge drive and votes Democrat so the govt will subsidize it wants".
You can also try to explain why so many countries with State broadcasters have to pass laws to limit the amount of American TV shows that can be shown to their people.
It's a stock scheme. You'd have to trace it through the stock market. People (sometimes Mafia) buy a publicly traded company that's going/gone belly up for a pittance, then start talking it up via cold-calling, chat rooms, spam. Start trading shares among themselves, upping the price each time, to give the indication the stock price is rising. Then unload the stock on all the suckers and walk away.
It would be harder to find out who's responsible, but they wouldn't just be violating spam laws, they'd be committing securities fraud.
I'm single and I live alone. I only have one computer. I have four brothers and sisters. Three of them don't make much money, so when I upgrade I give my old computer to one of them (or my parents).
I don't need more than one computer.
It looks like these devices use the mechanical energy of the shock wave to pump the energy of the photons up or down. If you have a continual stream of shock waves going through the material you should have a continual light coming through (there may be small gaps in the output when the shock wave hits the surface the light gets emitted from).
Wonder how well laser light would stay collimated going through one of these things.
Nah, E=mc^2 is the energy contained in the rest mass (v=0). As V increases, the *increase* in E is (roughly) 1/2mv^2 for low velocities (some terms are pretty insignificant at low velocities). As V approaches C, E approaches infinity.
Think of a mass as having two components: its rest mass (or its equivalent rest mass energy) and its additional mass due to velocity (equivalent to kinetic energy).
Taliban no longer in control in Afghanistan, with no Al-Queda training camps operating there. A bunch of dead or imprisoned terrorists. US troops moving out of Saudi (you know, the main thing that made Osama and other Saudis go bug-nutty?). And while it's unlikely that Iraq will turn into Shangri-La, it's pretty unlikely it'll become worse than it was.
I'm curious as to what you think the Dems would be doing different about the economy (hmmm, cutting taxes, increasing spending...). I voted for Clinton/Gore both times, but when, in the debates, Bush said we were in a recession and Gore swore we weren't, that was it. Clinton and Gore did all that they could to keep the party going till the election, knowing full well they were making the inevitable recovery a long, hard one.
And I'm really curious as to why you think Al "Clipper Chip" Gore wouldn't be doing a lot of the same crap concerning civil liberties.
A lot more Iraqis died from ten years of sanctions than from a month of war. Bush got permission to use force from Congress. When Clinton was lobbing cruise missiles at Afghanistan and Sudan, was that authorized by Congress?
On your 1040, do you check the box that lets them put $4 towards the general campaign fund? The problem with the current setup is it's matching funds; the taxpayer doesn't determine where the money goes.
What would be nice would be if they increased that number to $20, and let you target the party(ies), politician(s), or special interest group(s) all or part of that $20 goes to. Roughly 100 million taxpayers, that's 2 billion bucks.
The politicians would probably even go for it, since it's a bunch of cash going into re-election funds, and where it goes reflect the will of the voters (well, at least the ones that pay taxes).
I would have thought that the results of the Michelson/Morley experiment, showing that there was no "ether" and that the velocity of light seemed to be the same in all reference frames (or, at least, in winter and summer :) ) was a basis for his theory.
Well, there was the quandry posed by the results of the Michelson/Morley experiment. That gave him reason to believe the speed of light was constant, no matter the reference frame. Doubt if he could have come up with relativity without knowing about the results of that experiment.
After he came up with the theory, they came up with observations to support them. Fast-moving cosmic rays taking too long to decay, the unexplained deviation in Mercury's orbit, etc.
Didn't something happen like that with Maxwell's equations? Originally the equations were in a form that were almost impossible to use, then they became much more simplified?
There's also the Flynn effect, where for as long as IQ tests have been administered, IQ seems to be going up around 3 points per decade (i.e. high school grads in 2000 average about 9 points higher than grads in 1970). More intellectual stimulation's probably the cause, with radio, then TV, then the net giving greater amounts of info to young people.
Julius Cesar, as far as I know, never violated the known laws of physics by walking on water, raising the dead, or being resurrected. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
According to *your* argument, you can't disprove the existence of Santa Claus. The reason *you* don't get presents from Santa on Christmas is that you've been naughty.
Somebody with a seat belt on in a car that's going out of control will have greater control over the car than someone who is unbelted.
And as long as the govt provides health services to people that don't have insurance, there's a good reason to ticket people who don't wear seat belts. They could make it like the helmet law in Texas; if you have a minimum level of health insurance, you can drive without a helmet. Do the same with seat belts. As long as my tax money doesn't pay for you when you become paralyzed from the neck up, I couldn't care less.
Take the bus. Or the train. Or a cab. Or a bike.
Your right to privacy ends when you're piloting a two-ton kinetic energy weapon, and I'm in front of you.
Wow, they can figure out where you were 5 seconds before the crash.
What possible reason could a carmaker have for integrating hours of speed and direction data and saving it off? And could it possibly be worth the inevitable backlash?
Well, since I don't drive like a retard, and I have had a claim filed against me trying to put me at fault in an accident when it was their fault, that's an "optional extra" I'd be interested in having.
Too bad for you they don't have tires that don't leave skid marks. Those would make it easier to lie about speeding before a crash, too.
Or it could be that by having people drive more safely, they pay out less in claims?
Nah, that couldn't be, a greedy corporation could never do anything that resulted in something socially useful.
If you get a ticket, you can keep your insurance from going up by either getting deferred adjudication or taking the driver's safety class. That works fine unless you're an imbecile who can't drive worth a crap, in which case you need to be paying more for insurance anyway.
You may be interested in looking at laser or microwave propulsion. It's a lot easier to heat the air with EM than with combustion.