That's why they calibrate it. Go to an ice cap, sample air bubbles in the different layers of ice, and measure the relative carbon concentrations. Seriously, do you think the scientists believe it occurs at a constant rate?
An atheist who is simply unconvinced or unconverted is an agnostic:). I think a strict agnostic is one who believes it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God.
You could prove the existence of God. Well, he'd have to do it. An ASCII encoding of the King James' Bible about a million bytes into pi would do it for me (something like the message the aliens talked about in the book version of "Contact").
Well, the number of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan has certainly gotten smaller. And I don't see any other countries courting Al Queda with offers to open training camps.
A strong military doesn't do much to stop terrorists, but it certainly can do something about countries that harbor them. Libya doesn't seem to be much into the terrorist business these days.
So I take it you not only didn't get the joke, you didn't get the joke above it in the heirarchy?
Unless you did, and your post was a very obtuse joke . . .
Re:Mining Asteroids and other economical tasks in
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Collecting Stardust
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Platinum is very nice for fuel cells. I'd be willing to bet that in a hydrogen based energy economy a house sized chunk of platinum would go for a lot.
Many metals are pretty rare in the earth's crust; there's no way to tell what commercial applications for these metals would appear if they were abundant enough to meet commercial demands, even at a couple hundred bucks an ounce.
Germany and Japan were ruled by people a lot nuttier that Saddam, and they appear to have functioning liberal, secular democracies.
And the resolutions he's talking about the UN "backing up" are the ones from twelve years ago. And he's also talking about security council resolutions, not general assembly resolutions, which are pretty useless in any respect.
Iran: Looks like it will be a real democracy in 10 years..
China: Looks like it will be a real democracy in 15 years.
Libya: Kaddafi (sic?) looks like he's becoming a lot more moderate.
North Korea: A war there will likely kill millions. Containment should be able to work. They can't really expand anywhere without being destroyed. They would sell missile/nuclear technology since it's their only source for hard currency.
Iraq can threaten vital interests locally and has enought WMDs to be dangerous but (probably) not enough (yet) to be a deterrent, and if nothing is done, the situation can only get worse. That's not true for Iran, China, etc.
BTW, I don't know why Bush needs to give money to the Turks. Merely saying "You know, an independant Kurdistan would be kinda cool" would probably get them to reconsider:).
I think the reason hardly anyone uses it is because it is a tollway, and the toll is very high (like $50). It was in National Geographic a few months ago.
Maybe a century from now people will be able to profitable use what is now considered to be hazardous waste. Easy to get out of a salt mine, kinda hard to get out of the sun.
And he's probably talking about nuclear waste, in which case it's the government's responsibility to take care of the waste (they've been collecting all sorts of tax on nuclear-generated electricity for the last few decades specifically for that purpose).
And I'm sure that Gandhi would be the first to tell you that non-violent protests only work against societies with consciences (i.e. Western democracies like US or England). I'm sure that the Jews in 1939 Germany would have been able to make non-violent protest work.
Gee, I thought the gassing was done by the FBI, a federal agency ultimately under the control of President Clinton. I didn't realize the Texas Rangers (the law enforcement organization, not the baseball team) were in charge of the situation.
Oh yeah, I remembering walking into a lawn and garden store and seeing a wall full of chainsaws. I had an overwhelming compulsion to buy one; I just *knew* I would be safer in my apartment with one.
Well, the shuttle could have used an escape tower, but that wouldn't be a good idea since NASA was stupid enough to put SRBs on a manned ship. Normally, you'd want to at least shut off the turbopumps before you use the escape tower so you can keep ahead of the explosion. With SRBs, explosion moves ahead of you.
Hell, even Buran didn't use SRBs; they used liquid fueled boosters.
I suppose you want us to apologize for the oil embargoes we placed on the Japanese before Pearl Harbor, too?
Re:Mining Asteroids and other economical tasks in
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Collecting Stardust
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· Score: 1
Also, heavy elements like gold and platinum are concentrated in earth's core; the heave stuff settled there when the earth was formed. Metal asteroids would have significantly higher concentrations of the good stuff.
I've read that a good-sized near-earth iron/nickel asteroid would be worth $20 trillion wholesale, with about $4 trillion being economically viable to return to Earth (i.e. metals like gold, platinum).
Also I seem to recall the world's largest nickel mine, in Canada, is actually the remnants of an iron/nickel asteroid that hit long ago.
And if Ford put a DMCA-covered chip in the filter, and your car wouldn't start unless the filter had the chip, Ford could force you into buying factory filters.
Yeah, "The Coldest Place" took place on the dark side of Mercury, when they thought that Mercury kept the same face to the sun all the time because of tidal locking. Then they found it that it did slowly rotate with respect to the sun.
The real danger is from inhalation; that's why they wear hazmat suits and use waldoes when machining plutonium.
LD_50 for caffeine is 10 grams. Pu is about 20 grams per cc. A 20 gram chunk of caffeine has a 75% chance of dropping you dead; a solid chunk of Pu the size of a marble would be through you in a day. Swallow it with a full stomach and some Ex-Lax. You might get some burns in your GI tract.
Doubling the dose of caffeine cuts in half the probability of survival; doubling the dose of Pu increases the surface area of the Pu by less than 2, so Pu scales better. At least until critical mass is reached.:)
If someone put a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd go with the plutonium. As long as it's a solid chunk, and the mass is more than 20 grams (someone has survived a dose of 24 grams of caffeine, but people have died from less than 4 grams).
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That's why they calibrate it. Go to an ice cap, sample air bubbles in the different layers of ice, and measure the relative carbon concentrations. Seriously, do you think the scientists believe it occurs at a constant rate?
An atheist who is simply unconvinced or unconverted is an agnostic :). I think a strict agnostic is one who believes it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God.
You could prove the existence of God. Well, he'd have to do it. An ASCII encoding of the King James' Bible about a million bytes into pi would do it for me (something like the message the aliens talked about in the book version of "Contact").
Well, the number of terrorist training camps in Afghanistan has certainly gotten smaller. And I don't see any other countries courting Al Queda with offers to open training camps.
A strong military doesn't do much to stop terrorists, but it certainly can do something about countries that harbor them. Libya doesn't seem to be much into the terrorist business these days.
So I take it you not only didn't get the joke, you didn't get the joke above it in the heirarchy?
Unless you did, and your post was a very obtuse joke . . .
Platinum is very nice for fuel cells. I'd be willing to bet that in a hydrogen based energy economy a house sized chunk of platinum would go for a lot.
Many metals are pretty rare in the earth's crust; there's no way to tell what commercial applications for these metals would appear if they were abundant enough to meet commercial demands, even at a couple hundred bucks an ounce.
Germany and Japan were ruled by people a lot nuttier that Saddam, and they appear to have functioning liberal, secular democracies.
And the resolutions he's talking about the UN "backing up" are the ones from twelve years ago. And he's also talking about security council resolutions, not general assembly resolutions, which are pretty useless in any respect.
Let's see:
:).
Iran: Looks like it will be a real democracy in 10 years..
China: Looks like it will be a real democracy in 15 years.
Libya: Kaddafi (sic?) looks like he's becoming a lot more moderate.
North Korea: A war there will likely kill millions. Containment should be able to work. They can't really expand anywhere without being destroyed. They would sell missile/nuclear technology since it's their only source for hard currency.
Iraq can threaten vital interests locally and has enought WMDs to be dangerous but (probably) not enough (yet) to be a deterrent, and if nothing is done, the situation can only get worse. That's not true for Iran, China, etc.
BTW, I don't know why Bush needs to give money to the Turks. Merely saying "You know, an independant Kurdistan would be kinda cool" would probably get them to reconsider
I think the reason hardly anyone uses it is because it is a tollway, and the toll is very high (like $50). It was in National Geographic a few months ago.
Fourth, actually. The Japanese orbited their "Hiten" probe around the moon about 10 years ago.
They most certainly did not do it for the colonist's benefit, it was done solely to hurt England.
Maybe a century from now people will be able to profitable use what is now considered to be hazardous waste. Easy to get out of a salt mine, kinda hard to get out of the sun.
And he's probably talking about nuclear waste, in which case it's the government's responsibility to take care of the waste (they've been collecting all sorts of tax on nuclear-generated electricity for the last few decades specifically for that purpose).
Well, the Canadians and Europeans pretty much have to pay zilch for defense because America takes care of it.
Well, I know what an Iraqi flag looks like; one of my friends had an Iraqi flag-burning party about 12 years ago. It went up real nice.
Besides, the only flags the Iraqis will be waving will be the little white ones. Must come from buying the Mirages and nuclear reactors.
Which monkeys, the NASA ones or the cheese-eating surrender ones?
And I'm sure that Gandhi would be the first to tell you that non-violent protests only work against societies with consciences (i.e. Western democracies like US or England). I'm sure that the Jews in 1939 Germany would have been able to make non-violent protest work.
Also, I think that when He-3 when fused with dueterium it doesn't produce neutrons, so there are no radiation problems.
Gee, I thought the gassing was done by the FBI, a federal agency ultimately under the control of President Clinton. I didn't realize the Texas Rangers (the law enforcement organization, not the baseball team) were in charge of the situation.
ATF is also federal.
Oh yeah, I remembering walking into a lawn and garden store and seeing a wall full of chainsaws. I had an overwhelming compulsion to buy one; I just *knew* I would be safer in my apartment with one.
Well, the shuttle could have used an escape tower, but that wouldn't be a good idea since NASA was stupid enough to put SRBs on a manned ship. Normally, you'd want to at least shut off the turbopumps before you use the escape tower so you can keep ahead of the explosion. With SRBs, explosion moves ahead of you.
Hell, even Buran didn't use SRBs; they used liquid fueled boosters.
I suppose you want us to apologize for the oil embargoes we placed on the Japanese before Pearl Harbor, too?
Also, heavy elements like gold and platinum are concentrated in earth's core; the heave stuff settled there when the earth was formed. Metal asteroids would have significantly higher concentrations of the good stuff. I've read that a good-sized near-earth iron/nickel asteroid would be worth $20 trillion wholesale, with about $4 trillion being economically viable to return to Earth (i.e. metals like gold, platinum). Also I seem to recall the world's largest nickel mine, in Canada, is actually the remnants of an iron/nickel asteroid that hit long ago.
And if Ford put a DMCA-covered chip in the filter, and your car wouldn't start unless the filter had the chip, Ford could force you into buying factory filters.
You *do* know that the pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing that they do on research? *THAT* is what you're paying for.
Yeah, "The Coldest Place" took place on the dark side of Mercury, when they thought that Mercury kept the same face to the sun all the time because of tidal locking. Then they found it that it did slowly rotate with respect to the sun.
The real danger is from inhalation; that's why they wear hazmat suits and use waldoes when machining plutonium.
:)
LD_50 for caffeine is 10 grams. Pu is about 20 grams per cc. A 20 gram chunk of caffeine has a 75% chance of dropping you dead; a solid chunk of Pu the size of a marble would be through you in a day. Swallow it with a full stomach and some Ex-Lax. You might get some burns in your GI tract.
Doubling the dose of caffeine cuts in half the probability of survival; doubling the dose of Pu increases the surface area of the Pu by less than 2, so Pu scales better. At least until critical mass is reached.
If someone put a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd go with the plutonium. As long as it's a solid chunk, and the mass is more than 20 grams (someone has survived a dose of 24 grams of caffeine, but people have died from less than 4 grams).