Same old shit. Disconnected suits, demanding more revenue, institute this kind of crap and gradually push away the users whose participation made/. a valuable site in the first place. If it gets worse, a site will eventually pop up that fills the niche left behind by/. Once the -new- one becomes valuable...... Around and around we go, ad nuaseum. In the meantime, before the new site has enough users / inertia, we're stuck with more and more "articles" like this one, which really should not have been put in front of this readership.
Vaccum energy has nothing to do with 'dark energy'...
Okey dokey, the author disagrees somewhat, but whatever.
When the author wrote:
People talk a lot about "vacuum energy" or "zero-point energy" - that is, the energy density of empty space. In cosmology, people also call this quantity the "cosmological constant", or "dark energy".
I went ahead and read it; it's interesting nonetheless. The author understands the subject, and the document is well-referenced.
To sum it up, the author doesn't believe there's much, if any, energy out there in this context, be it of the type "vacuum" or "dark". No big deal either way.
Sorry for beating this poor dead horse, but when I look at a picture of the Iranian's "stealth fighter" cockpit linked to a few posts above this one, then compare it to what one airplane enthusiast created in his spare time: http://photos.mercurynews.com/2012/04/17/video-pleasanton-man-flies-a-boeing-737-in-his-garage/9029/, I have a hard time associating the concept of "professional military" with the term "Iran".
And yet Saddam using every modern piece of equipment he could buy from the US and France, including WMDs, (yes, he had those, before George the Chicken decided to attack) got absolutely nowhere.
Try checking facts before blathering about stuff you don't know about: "At the end of the war with Iran, most Republican Guard heavy divisions were equipped with Soviet T-72 main battle tanks, Soviet BMP armored personnel carriers, French GCT self-propelled howitzers and Austrian GHN-45 towed howitzers...." -and- "....Iraq used newly acquired T-55 tanks and T-62 tanks, BM-21 Stalin Organ rocket launchers, and Mi-24 helicopter gunships to prepare a Soviet-type three-line defense." (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm)
Now, regarding the Iranian tactical mindset: "In July 1982 Iran launched Operation Ramadan on Iraqi territory, near Basra. Although Basra was within range of Iranian artillery, the clergy used "human-wave" attacks by the Pasdaran and Basij against the city's defenses...Ranging in age from only nine to more than fifty, these eager but relatively untrained soldiers swept over minefields and fortifications to clear safe paths for the tanks...." -and- "....Most foreign military analysts felt that neither Iraq nor Iran used its modern equipment efficiently. Frequently, sophisticated materiel was left unused, when a massive modern assault could have won the battle for either side. Tanks and armored vehicles were dug in and used as artillery pieces, instead of being maneuvered to lead or to support an assault."
Stop underestimating the Iranians. You just look like some dumb, flag-waving teenager who's high on that particularly bigoted brand of "patriotism" which seems to be the favorite drug of the US.
I don't underestimate the Iranian government and military- they can inflict a lot of casualties, here and there. I would prefer to avoid that, so no, I wouldn't underestimate them. Human wave attacks, Silkworm missiles, Boston Whalers armed with 50-cals, guys with semtex underwear, and asymmetric attacks on the US could cause a lot of damage before the Iranian power structure was neutralized.
** I refer to "government and military" above because I doubt that the core of Iranian society would want a war any more than most of us do.
The Iranians might be very different, we might not like them all that much and they are technologically challenged, but they are not stupid. If you go there, I'm sure they can make it hurt. If they couldn't, they would already have been put down, long ago.
I would prefer -not- to go there... and by the way, why would I give a damn if the Iranians are "different"? I've been referring to their government and military, how about you? My point in the first post was that Iranians have a ridiculous military R&D department that parades paper mache weapon systems in front of the media while they beat their chests, and that their military is largely incompetent. Period. You jumped on the self-righteous band wagon with your pithy little uninformed monologue to "prove" that I'm an ignorant teenager, and made a relatively fact-free post while doing so.
What gets me is that they're parading this homemade abortion around as the best effort of a -nation-. They actually had the balls to put it on TV with Mahmoud proudly standing next to it.
Iran will always have a hard time getting their war fighting tactics past the not-so-smart-bombs with semtex wrapped around their midsections.
The last time Iran had a decent military was under Xerxes.
I understand your point; this is the reason I don't use Gmail for anything real (or real important). We moved our landline of 20 years over to GV about a year ago because
1) Most of the calls to that line (~90%) were spam
2) Since most of the spam calls were from doing business with corporations (mortgage, CC's, Kroger card, etc.), we wanted to keep the line as the "spam line"
3) Most of the calls we cared about came to our cells
I first had to move our landline to a prepaid cell contract, then I moved that to GV.
Now, when the odd call comes through that's not spam and is forwarded to my cell, I tell them to call the cell directly. Whenever we fill out a form (new car), we use the old landline number. Works out well, and Google doesn't get to harvest too much meaningful data.
"Getting used to it".... Right. After about 6 months my dad told me that he was getting used to his chemotherapy, too- somehow this wasn't a very good selling point for the experience.
That's the point- Many people -are- threatened by the release of the information; as the op said: "There is a very long list of people in sensitive positions that were blackmailed / recruited by foreign intelligence agencies for just this type of sexual impropriety.". It might not be a problem for you, but it has been for a lot of others.
Its only leverage for blackmail use if someone higher up the ladder of authority (Petraeus' boss or his wife) can make a damaging issue out of it.
Blackmail would more likely be used by a foreign intelligence agency to gain control over a prize intelligence asset, which is the danger he is referring to.
Spoken well and truly like somebody who has no kids. So is your two year old going to speed dial you, or have they got your number memorized? You sure they won't drop the phone in a duck pond? Try to eat it?
I was thinking just that- I have never had more advice / commentary about raising kids than from younger, usually early twenty-somethings.... that don't have any.
The algorithm could be used for more than just pollination. Think about it. Build anything of the appropriate size to autonomously go out and collect $RESOURCE, return with a load, refuel itself and go back out. Some cursory self-defense, like hazard evasion, would be nice. Throw in some networked communication to help with discovery of sources and you have a very efficient way to accumulate stuff.
If they're going to include these behaviors, they ought to model Weaver ants instead.
Seriously. If the murder 3000+ Americans didn't put a dent in Saudi-US relations...
You're correct- It didn't put a dent in the relations the US has with a certain group of Saudis that hold power in their nation.
The ties of the powerful to any particular nation have been fading for a while now. The small groups in each wealthy nation across the world, groups that hold much of the assets and power, identify more with each other than their birth nations.
Remember the phrase "Any problem in computer science may be solved with another layer of abstraction"? Think of these groups of ridiculously wealthy and powerful people as a layer of abstraction placed above the nations of the world- In my opinion, the interactions between many nations that exist under this abstraction are largely attempts at scripted drama, random aberrations, or corrective actions brought about to manage those not yet aligned to the majority's interests.
I don't think it's any of this "New World Order" crap- It's just what people do, all the time: Those of similar socioeconomic position and means, with similar outlooks on how society should work, tend to clump together to their mutual benefit. I hang out with my neighbors, I belong to an investment group of similarly minded co-workers and friends that exist in roughly the same socioeconomic plane. If someone either fabulously wealthy or very poor were to join this group, it wouldn't work out very well.
I believe some of the extremely rich and powerful take this to a higher level in that they want to shape society to fit their own views, but this is the same principle writ large. I'm not trying to label this negatively or positively in regards to ethics or morality, just summarizing what I believe I have observed.
Well, dairy farmers still use BGH, and this was over 12 years ago and most milk drinkers are not dead... so it appears that Akre and Wilson were wrong.
Not necessarily. While I'm not on a bandwagon for or against BGH in this post, keep in mind there are a lot of possible outcomes on the continuum between "alive" and "dead" when considering the effects of long-term exposure to low-dose hormones and other organics. Implying that the death of first and second generation exposures is the only possible noteworthy outcome in this particular case does not help any argument for or against the use of BGH.
It seems to me as if there's a group in each country, call it (for lack of a truly accurate count) about 10% of the population, that drive the power-seeking and conflicts between countries. These "layers" in each society drive most of the wars and scrape off more wealth than they could possibly use from the rest of the world. It seems that most of the rest of us would get along pretty well with little more than local police (assuming you've removed the psychopaths) if these people were removed from society. It's amazing how such a small number of these psychopaths can drag the Earth's population through such misery.
@hawguy, another well thought-out comment... you never disappoint.
Try looking at the situation with a finer grain: When a cop pulls me over for doing 120 gives me a ticket, he is doing society (and me) a service, even if I don't like it- When cops stop people on the street and search them without probable cause (other than their racial heritage), that is abuse, for which the statement "I was just following orders" holds no validity.
Mods, why was this guy's comment modded "Insightful"?
Of note is how Myhrvold has applied his substantial intellect to rationalizing his behavior- a pity such superb intelligence exists side-by-side with such sub-par ethics.
“There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.”
What are you going to do, go be a 45 or 50 year old entering a new path? Right. That'll be taken seriously.
Bull. Shit. Granted, it's not a large dataset, but I know more than a half-dozen people in their late 40's that successfully switched careers, and started by taking a graduate degree related to their new profession.
They are taken seriously enough, my friend.
I know a woman that earned a law degree and changed professions when she was 60, and has been having a great second career working for a NGO. I went back to school in my late 40's to earn a MS in Biomedical Informatics, and have been having a blast ever since.
To a 20- or 30 - something it may look like you're professionally dead at 50, but if you bust your ass, you can still do anything you want for at least a couple more decades past 50.
...and if they were people who generally used triclosan products or if they were people injected with the stuff, which isn't really made clear.
That is pretty much the gist of it. Did the subjects absorb the stuff cutaneously, or were they injected with it?
Also, the headline is a bit hysterical. There are other widely-used substances that impair muscle function.
Take Azithromycin (Zithromax, Z-Pack) for example - granted, it's not used quite as widely as triclosan, however quite a few people have ingested this antibiotic at one time or another. It tends to strongly inhibit the pre-synaptic release of acetylcholine at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. This can be a problem in some cases (it will send Myasthenia Gravis patients into crisis), however I've been there when a healthy 25 year-old female who did not have MG entered our office with pronounced ptosis of both eyes, and was eventually diagnosed as having had an adverse event related to Azithromycin. She had been complaining of a number of other weird symptoms (that turned out to be related), but was not taken seriously by our neurology dept. until she presented with ptosis. As a side note, it's sort of disconcerting that the rate of adverse events related to Azithromycin use has been increasing over the last several years, even taking into account increased patient use of the stuff and better recognition of signs & symptoms.
Yes, there are citations, but I don't feel like posting a half-dozen links to journals here. I was tasked to dig through the literature after our research center noticed an increasing number of Azithromycin-related adverse events at several clinics. I was even lucky enough to experience a serious event after using a Z-Pack, after having used the stuff without problem in years past.
Slashdot Mirror
Same old shit. Disconnected suits, demanding more revenue, institute this kind of crap and gradually push away the users whose participation made /. a valuable site in the first place. If it gets worse, a site will eventually pop up that fills the niche left behind by /. Once the -new- one becomes valuable...... Around and around we go, ad nuaseum. In the meantime, before the new site has enough users / inertia, we're stuck with more and more "articles" like this one, which really should not have been put in front of this readership.
Sure, please deal with those emotions privately instead of dragging all the rest of us into the drama.
I came here voluntarily after reading the summary... who dragged -you- here?
Vaccum energy has nothing to do with 'dark energy' ...
Okey dokey, the author disagrees somewhat, but whatever.
When the author wrote:
People talk a lot about "vacuum energy" or "zero-point energy" - that is, the energy density of empty space. In cosmology, people also call this quantity the "cosmological constant", or "dark energy".
I went ahead and read it; it's interesting nonetheless. The author understands the subject, and the document is well-referenced.
To sum it up, the author doesn't believe there's much, if any, energy out there in this context, be it of the type "vacuum" or "dark". No big deal either way.
Started looking into arguments for and against and found an interesting treatment of the subject: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/vacuum.html
Wow, that was impressive. Did Faux News tell you all that?
Nope. If you had bothered to look, I stated that I referenced http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm for my "selective quotes". "My" arguments are quoted from this source. Their references for this work included:
I proved you wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong. Eat it. You were wrong. Wrong.
Upon what basis, other than "It's well established..." did you "prove" anything?
.
Shit- After stepping back and re-reading this exchange I realize that I've been feeding a troll- my bad. You got me.
I understand why so many slashdotters browse at +1 and ignore AC's...won't make that mistake again, starting now..Bye.
Sorry for beating this poor dead horse, but when I look at a picture of the Iranian's "stealth fighter" cockpit linked to a few posts above this one, then compare it to what one airplane enthusiast created in his spare time: http://photos.mercurynews.com/2012/04/17/video-pleasanton-man-flies-a-boeing-737-in-his-garage/9029/, I have a hard time associating the concept of "professional military" with the term "Iran".
And yet Saddam using every modern piece of equipment he could buy from the US and France, including WMDs, (yes, he had those, before George the Chicken decided to attack) got absolutely nowhere.
Try checking facts before blathering about stuff you don't know about: "At the end of the war with Iran, most Republican Guard heavy divisions were equipped with Soviet T-72 main battle tanks, Soviet BMP armored personnel carriers, French GCT self-propelled howitzers and Austrian GHN-45 towed howitzers...." -and- "....Iraq used newly acquired T-55 tanks and T-62 tanks, BM-21 Stalin Organ rocket launchers, and Mi-24 helicopter gunships to prepare a Soviet-type three-line defense." (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm)
Now, regarding the Iranian tactical mindset: "In July 1982 Iran launched Operation Ramadan on Iraqi territory, near Basra. Although Basra was within range of Iranian artillery, the clergy used "human-wave" attacks by the Pasdaran and Basij against the city's defenses...Ranging in age from only nine to more than fifty, these eager but relatively untrained soldiers swept over minefields and fortifications to clear safe paths for the tanks...." -and- "....Most foreign military analysts felt that neither Iraq nor Iran used its modern equipment efficiently. Frequently, sophisticated materiel was left unused, when a massive modern assault could have won the battle for either side. Tanks and armored vehicles were dug in and used as artillery pieces, instead of being maneuvered to lead or to support an assault."
Stop underestimating the Iranians. You just look like some dumb, flag-waving teenager who's high on that particularly bigoted brand of "patriotism" which seems to be the favorite drug of the US.
I don't underestimate the Iranian government and military- they can inflict a lot of casualties, here and there. I would prefer to avoid that, so no, I wouldn't underestimate them. Human wave attacks, Silkworm missiles, Boston Whalers armed with 50-cals, guys with semtex underwear, and asymmetric attacks on the US could cause a lot of damage before the Iranian power structure was neutralized.
** I refer to "government and military" above because I doubt that the core of Iranian society would want a war any more than most of us do.
The Iranians might be very different, we might not like them all that much and they are technologically challenged, but they are not stupid. If you go there, I'm sure they can make it hurt. If they couldn't, they would already have been put down, long ago.
I would prefer -not- to go there... and by the way, why would I give a damn if the Iranians are "different"? I've been referring to their government and military, how about you? My point in the first post was that Iranians have a ridiculous military R&D department that parades paper mache weapon systems in front of the media while they beat their chests, and that their military is largely incompetent. Period. You jumped on the self-righteous band wagon with your pithy little uninformed monologue to "prove" that I'm an ignorant teenager, and made a relatively fact-free post while doing so.
What gets me is that they're parading this homemade abortion around as the best effort of a -nation-. They actually had the balls to put it on TV with Mahmoud proudly standing next to it.
Iran will always have a hard time getting their war fighting tactics past the not-so-smart-bombs with semtex wrapped around their midsections.
The last time Iran had a decent military was under Xerxes.
I understand your point; this is the reason I don't use Gmail for anything real (or real important). We moved our landline of 20 years over to GV about a year ago because
1) Most of the calls to that line (~90%) were spam
2) Since most of the spam calls were from doing business with corporations (mortgage, CC's, Kroger card, etc.), we wanted to keep the line as the "spam line"
3) Most of the calls we cared about came to our cells
I first had to move our landline to a prepaid cell contract, then I moved that to GV.
Now, when the odd call comes through that's not spam and is forwarded to my cell, I tell them to call the cell directly. Whenever we fill out a form (new car), we use the old landline number. Works out well, and Google doesn't get to harvest too much meaningful data.
"Getting used to it".... Right. After about 6 months my dad told me that he was getting used to his chemotherapy, too- somehow this wasn't a very good selling point for the experience.
That's the point- Many people -are- threatened by the release of the information; as the op said: "There is a very long list of people in sensitive positions that were blackmailed / recruited by foreign intelligence agencies for just this type of sexual impropriety.". It might not be a problem for you, but it has been for a lot of others.
Its only leverage for blackmail use if someone higher up the ladder of authority (Petraeus' boss or his wife) can make a damaging issue out of it.
Blackmail would more likely be used by a foreign intelligence agency to gain control over a prize intelligence asset, which is the danger he is referring to.
Spoken well and truly like somebody who has no kids. So is your two year old going to speed dial you, or have they got your number memorized? You sure they won't drop the phone in a duck pond? Try to eat it?
I was thinking just that- I have never had more advice / commentary about raising kids than from younger, usually early twenty-somethings.... that don't have any.
The algorithm could be used for more than just pollination. Think about it. Build anything of the appropriate size to autonomously go out and collect $RESOURCE, return with a load, refuel itself and go back out. Some cursory self-defense, like hazard evasion, would be nice. Throw in some networked communication to help with discovery of sources and you have a very efficient way to accumulate stuff.
If they're going to include these behaviors, they ought to model Weaver ants instead.
Seriously. If the murder 3000+ Americans didn't put a dent in Saudi-US relations...
You're correct- It didn't put a dent in the relations the US has with a certain group of Saudis that hold power in their nation.
The ties of the powerful to any particular nation have been fading for a while now. The small groups in each wealthy nation across the world, groups that hold much of the assets and power, identify more with each other than their birth nations.
Remember the phrase "Any problem in computer science may be solved with another layer of abstraction"? Think of these groups of ridiculously wealthy and powerful people as a layer of abstraction placed above the nations of the world- In my opinion, the interactions between many nations that exist under this abstraction are largely attempts at scripted drama, random aberrations, or corrective actions brought about to manage those not yet aligned to the majority's interests.
I don't think it's any of this "New World Order" crap- It's just what people do, all the time: Those of similar socioeconomic position and means, with similar outlooks on how society should work, tend to clump together to their mutual benefit. I hang out with my neighbors, I belong to an investment group of similarly minded co-workers and friends that exist in roughly the same socioeconomic plane. If someone either fabulously wealthy or very poor were to join this group, it wouldn't work out very well.
I believe some of the extremely rich and powerful take this to a higher level in that they want to shape society to fit their own views, but this is the same principle writ large. I'm not trying to label this negatively or positively in regards to ethics or morality, just summarizing what I believe I have observed.
Well, dairy farmers still use BGH, and this was over 12 years ago and most milk drinkers are not dead... so it appears that Akre and Wilson were wrong.
Not necessarily. While I'm not on a bandwagon for or against BGH in this post, keep in mind there are a lot of possible outcomes on the continuum between "alive" and "dead" when considering the effects of long-term exposure to low-dose hormones and other organics. Implying that the death of first and second generation exposures is the only possible noteworthy outcome in this particular case does not help any argument for or against the use of BGH.
It seems to me as if there's a group in each country, call it (for lack of a truly accurate count) about 10% of the population, that drive the power-seeking and conflicts between countries. These "layers" in each society drive most of the wars and scrape off more wealth than they could possibly use from the rest of the world. It seems that most of the rest of us would get along pretty well with little more than local police (assuming you've removed the psychopaths) if these people were removed from society. It's amazing how such a small number of these psychopaths can drag the Earth's population through such misery.
@hawguy, another well thought-out comment... you never disappoint.
Try looking at the situation with a finer grain: When a cop pulls me over for doing 120 gives me a ticket, he is doing society (and me) a service, even if I don't like it- When cops stop people on the street and search them without probable cause (other than their racial heritage), that is abuse, for which the statement "I was just following orders" holds no validity.
Mods, why was this guy's comment modded "Insightful"?
Of note is how Myhrvold has applied his substantial intellect to rationalizing his behavior- a pity such superb intelligence exists side-by-side with such sub-par ethics.
“There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.”
Oscar Wilde
What are you going to do, go be a 45 or 50 year old entering a new path? Right. That'll be taken seriously.
Bull. Shit. Granted, it's not a large dataset, but I know more than a half-dozen people in their late 40's that successfully switched careers, and started by taking a graduate degree related to their new profession.
They are taken seriously enough, my friend.
I know a woman that earned a law degree and changed professions when she was 60, and has been having a great second career working for a NGO. I went back to school in my late 40's to earn a MS in Biomedical Informatics, and have been having a blast ever since.
To a 20- or 30 - something it may look like you're professionally dead at 50, but if you bust your ass, you can still do anything you want for at least a couple more decades past 50.
...and if they were people who generally used triclosan products or if they were people injected with the stuff, which isn't really made clear.
That is pretty much the gist of it. Did the subjects absorb the stuff cutaneously, or were they injected with it?
Also, the headline is a bit hysterical. There are other widely-used substances that impair muscle function.
Take Azithromycin (Zithromax, Z-Pack) for example - granted, it's not used quite as widely as triclosan, however quite a few people have ingested this antibiotic at one time or another. It tends to strongly inhibit the pre-synaptic release of acetylcholine at the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. This can be a problem in some cases (it will send Myasthenia Gravis patients into crisis), however I've been there when a healthy 25 year-old female who did not have MG entered our office with pronounced ptosis of both eyes, and was eventually diagnosed as having had an adverse event related to Azithromycin. She had been complaining of a number of other weird symptoms (that turned out to be related), but was not taken seriously by our neurology dept. until she presented with ptosis. As a side note, it's sort of disconcerting that the rate of adverse events related to Azithromycin use has been increasing over the last several years, even taking into account increased patient use of the stuff and better recognition of signs & symptoms.
Yes, there are citations, but I don't feel like posting a half-dozen links to journals here. I was tasked to dig through the literature after our research center noticed an increasing number of Azithromycin-related adverse events at several clinics. I was even lucky enough to experience a serious event after using a Z-Pack, after having used the stuff without problem in years past.
I laughed out loud at this until it hit me how many people probably roll through life this way.
Thank you, Sheldon.
I can agree with that- Intelligence rarely correlates with character.
They're going to live together in a luxury waterfront home as they compete for the chance to interview for Microsoft?
I'd rather compete for a chance at North Korean citizenship.