Nanotube shoelaces? That's such a cool idea! Seriously, I would pay $20 a pair.
And no, I'm not trying to make the parent poster sound stupid by being sarcastic - I actually think that nanotube shoelaces would be a good idea. They would never wear out, and be kind of cool in a high-tech geeky kind of way. And people don't mind paying stupid money for clothes, so I think the market's there.
And given that shoelaces are pretty short compared to, say, a space elevator, I'd say that this is one of the sooner-rather-than-later applications.
Quick, addie, go for the patent! But you got to promise to use all the profits from the BuckyLaces (you can have the name for free) as seed capital for your space elevator project.
This will set the spacecraft on its long Solar System journey that will take around the Sun four times, around Mars once (2007), the Earth three times (2005, 2007, 2009), and into the asteroid belt twice.
My celestial mechanics aren't all that hot, but wouldn't the probe maybe get there a bit quicker if it used a more direct route? It's going to be passing back this way in 2009? WTF?
Okay, okay, I imagine that it's all to do with "Slingshotting" off of various planets etc. to build up speed, like some insanely complex snooker trick-shot (like that bit in Red Dwarf where Lister pots the comet into the black hole), but wouldn't it be a helluva lot quicker if ESA had stuck an ion engine or something onto the probe, like they're doing with the SMART moon mission? Why didn't they? I mean, even if it added a few years onto the development time, wouldn't it have got there quicker?
Please, please, please, for the love of all that's intelligible, can people refrain from posting babelfish "translations".
It's okay for the odd word or phrase, but for a whole article, it's just wrong. Or, as babelfish would put it:
Please, for those the love for all the those that is understandable, can satisfy please of refrain of babelfish of the writing of the "translations" of the peoples. It is for the odd word or the approval of the sentence, but for a complete article, he is necessarily false. Or, babelfish that it puts...
The most efficient use of the space would be one huge M&M shaped exactly like whatever container it is that you're trying to fill.
Except it wouldn't really be an M&M then, would it? Just a big ol' lump of chocolate.
However, the real question we should be asking is:
If you fill a pint glass to the brim with skittles, how much beer can you fit in the remaining gaps? I guess that, if skittles have a similar random packing density to M&Ms (71%), then that leaves space for only 29% of a pint of beer. So we see that the maximum possible beer/skittles ratio is 1:2.
Unless Skittles float, and then the whole thing gets a little more complicated.
What was it that you didn't like about our UK steaks, eh?
Judging by the fact that both of the real superheroes mentioned in the submission are English, I'd say we must be doing something right, diet-wise.
Although I'd be first to admit that Angle-Grinder Man's costume needs a little work.
Thing is, animals definitely have measurable brain activity, but not all pro-lifers are vegetarians.
If We're looking for a workable cut-off point, what about "a fetus begins to have human rights once its intelligence surpasses that of something that you would happily eat"?
Best "gotta move a bunch of stuff" vehicle? Ask anyone in the UK, it's the Ford Transit
Actually, as someone from the UK, I'd vote for the Bedford Rascal. Yeah, it doesn't carry 1/4 as much stuff as the Transit, but it rules. Even the name rules. I get excited every time my wife gets off the phone to her parents and says "hey, Pa said we could borrow the Rascal!"
Does the fact that, at the time of writing, the only post in this thread is about asci cow porn indicate that people are getting bored with all this Mars stuff?
I hope not, but speaking personally, I'm finding it hard to get excited (about the rock-grinding, not the cow porn. I mean, that doesn't excite me either, I was just saying, in case anyone misinterpreted me).
Say you visit a planet where the dominant species, the one responsible for things like math and science, experiences everything singly due to their funny optical and other sensory apparatus. How would you describe the concept of "half" to such an entity?
Re:Something I learned from Martin Gardner...
on
The Golden Ratio
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Easier way:
1. Add two numbers together.
2. Add the result to the second (larger) number from step 1.
3. Repeat for a while.
4. Divide the last (biggest) result you get out by the second-last (second-biggest) result.
you see, this is when being a grammar nazi is actually useful.
You see, "the teenagers who cheat" or "the blacks [sic] who steal" is, technically speaking, incorrect.
It should either be "the teenagers that cheat" or "the teenagers, who cheat".
"The teenagers that cheat" refers to the "cheating teenagers" subset of teenagers, not all teenagers. I think this is the sense meant by the grandparent poster, and is not stereotyping, as he's not saying all teenagers cheat (although why he's excluding non-teenage cheaters is a valid question).
"the teenagers, who cheat" is, on the other hand, referring to the set of all teenagers, and describing all members of this set as cheats. This would be stereotyping.
So, yeah, throwing all the black people that steal in prison is fine, as long as you also imprison the white people that steal. On the other hand, throwing all the black people, who steal, in prison would be really bad on two counts, as you would be advocating imprisoning all black people, and saying that all black people steal.
Actually, that is how you spell "Potatoes". It's the plural of "potato". People made fun of Quayle because he spelt "potato" "potatoe", which is wrong. As wrong as "potatos" (which is also wrong). Like, the plural of "hero" is "heroes", and "heroe" and "heros" are both wrong
Yes, Ireland is part of the British Isles, but some of the people living in the British Isles are not British, just as some of the people living in the continent of North America are not American but Canadian.
"The British Isles" is a geographic term referring to a group of islands that happen to be named after the largest nation on them. "British" is a political term used to describe that which is part of the country of Great Britain, which is comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales, and together with Northern Ireland makes up the United Kingdom.
The Republic of Ireland is not part of Britain, nor is it part of the UK. Northern Ireland, as part of the island of Ireland, is part of the British Isles, but it is not part of Britain, although it is part of the UK.
And yes, eighty years ago it would have been correct to refer to an Irishman as British, just as sixty years ago it would have been correct to refer to an Indian as an Imperial subject, but it's not true now.
I don't know where places such as Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands fit in, though. Or places such as Canada and Australia, which are independent nations sharing the same monarch.
Whoever "explained" that to you was obviously a beardy loon, and either:
1. one of those people who want to declare Essex an Aryan enclave.
2. a schitzophrenic who thought he was King Arthur.
3. Trolling.
Point two reminds me of a time about a year ago when this black guy got on the bus dressed in a blanket and announced to everybody that he was Braveheart, and was engaged in a centuries-long struggle against the English, which none of us would understand, because we were too young.
The term "British" isn't inclusive of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland isn't part of Britain, but part of the UK. That's not some kind of crazy republican (as in Irish Republican) propaganda but the simple honest truth known to all who have ever stopped to read the words "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in their passport.
I didn't know that we were supposed to be acknowledging that we are part of Europe this month, though.
Ahab, maimed in body and spiritually scarred, seeks to find in the vast expanse of ocean the great beast that took his leg and his pride and kill it.
Okay, if we take out all the unneccessary blah, that's "man seeks revenge on whale"?
That's not a plot. It's an interesting idea, but it's not a plot. A plot would be something like:
1. Man seeks revenge on whale.
2. So he assembles an elite team of whalers to help him.
3. One of this elite team is an old rival of his, to whom he has not spoken since they fell out over a girl or something.
4. Meanwhile, a bunch of evil English guys is also after this big whale.
5. The girl whom the two main characters fell out over turns up in a tavern the day before the ship is about to leave and tells them about the dastardly English plot.
6. She agrees to infiltrate the English bad guys by dressing up as a man and joining the crew.
7. She can then communicate with her ex boyfriends whilst at sea, by carrier pigeon, giving them the edge in finding the elusive white whale.
8. Unfortunately, she is found out, and the two heroes have to abandon their hunt to go rescue her. In doing so, they realise that revenge is not as important as friendship or whatever, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Now THAT'S a plot. Unfortunately, I don't think Moby Dick went like that.
Which is exactly why all your best historical films coming out of hollywood are full of English actors.
It's not the acting ability, it's that we have historically accurate teeth.
Yes, I am English, and yes, it is true, our teeth, compared to yours, are all wiggly and stained. Man, I swear I can spot an American tourist over here as soon as they open thier mouth. From a mile off, on a sunny day.
No, I think you and the grandparent are using the word "behaviourism" in two different ways. You're talking about scientific or methodological behaviourism which, as you say, does not deny the existence of inner mental states or whatever, but just does not see them as amenable to scientific study. Whereas the grandparent that got you so annoyed was talking about philosophical or "crude" behaviourism, which is a theory of mind that states that all there is is behaviour, and the concept of "inner mental states" is meaningless. Now that's a pretty outdated view, but it was pretty popular in some philosophical circles in the fifties, and it's the first definition of "Behaviourism" that a philosopher of mind form the analytic tradition will think of if you use the term. And no, analytic philosophy does not count as "folk wisdom", even if you disagree with it.
Actually, I don't know if it counts as cyberpunk, but it probably does, as it starts off with a guy in a biker jacket getting a gun implanted in his head, and a lot of it is about information and computation and 'cyber-' stuff like that.
And it's very good, with proper characters with personalities and everything. And two characters called 'Judge Fang' and 'Doctor X'. Basically it's got everything one could possibly want in a novel. Damn, I'm gonna go read it again.
Slashdot Mirror
Nanotube shoelaces? That's such a cool idea! Seriously, I would pay $20 a pair.
And no, I'm not trying to make the parent poster sound stupid by being sarcastic - I actually think that nanotube shoelaces would be a good idea. They would never wear out, and be kind of cool in a high-tech geeky kind of way. And people don't mind paying stupid money for clothes, so I think the market's there.
And given that shoelaces are pretty short compared to, say, a space elevator, I'd say that this is one of the sooner-rather-than-later applications.
Quick, addie, go for the patent! But you got to promise to use all the profits from the BuckyLaces (you can have the name for free) as seed capital for your space elevator project.
From the article:
This will set the spacecraft on its long Solar System journey that will take around the Sun four times, around Mars once (2007), the Earth three times (2005, 2007, 2009), and into the asteroid belt twice.
My celestial mechanics aren't all that hot, but wouldn't the probe maybe get there a bit quicker if it used a more direct route? It's going to be passing back this way in 2009? WTF?
Okay, okay, I imagine that it's all to do with "Slingshotting" off of various planets etc. to build up speed, like some insanely complex snooker trick-shot (like that bit in Red Dwarf where Lister pots the comet into the black hole), but wouldn't it be a helluva lot quicker if ESA had stuck an ion engine or something onto the probe, like they're doing with the SMART moon mission? Why didn't they? I mean, even if it added a few years onto the development time, wouldn't it have got there quicker?
Please, please, please, for the love of all that's intelligible, can people refrain from posting babelfish "translations".
It's okay for the odd word or phrase, but for a whole article, it's just wrong. Or, as babelfish would put it:
Please, for those the love for all the those that is understandable, can satisfy please of refrain of babelfish of the writing of the "translations" of the peoples. It is for the odd word or the approval of the sentence, but for a complete article, he is necessarily false. Or, babelfish that it puts...
The most efficient use of the space would be one huge M&M shaped exactly like whatever container it is that you're trying to fill.
Except it wouldn't really be an M&M then, would it? Just a big ol' lump of chocolate.
However, the real question we should be asking is:
If you fill a pint glass to the brim with skittles, how much beer can you fit in the remaining gaps? I guess that, if skittles have a similar random packing density to M&Ms (71%), then that leaves space for only 29% of a pint of beer. So we see that the maximum possible beer/skittles ratio is 1:2.
Unless Skittles float, and then the whole thing gets a little more complicated.
What was it that you didn't like about our UK steaks, eh?
Judging by the fact that both of the real superheroes mentioned in the submission are English, I'd say we must be doing something right, diet-wise.
Although I'd be first to admit that Angle-Grinder Man's costume needs a little work.
Thing is, animals definitely have measurable brain activity, but not all pro-lifers are vegetarians.
If We're looking for a workable cut-off point, what about "a fetus begins to have human rights once its intelligence surpasses that of something that you would happily eat"?
Don't wipe your ass then show it to your wife
Strange how society's changed. Nowadays, if you're going to show your arse to anybody, it's generally considered good manners to have wiped it first.
Best "gotta move a bunch of stuff" vehicle? Ask anyone in the UK, it's the Ford Transit
Actually, as someone from the UK, I'd vote for the Bedford Rascal. Yeah, it doesn't carry 1/4 as much stuff as the Transit, but it rules. Even the name rules. I get excited every time my wife gets off the phone to her parents and says "hey, Pa said we could borrow the Rascal!"
Does the fact that, at the time of writing, the only post in this thread is about asci cow porn indicate that people are getting bored with all this Mars stuff?
I hope not, but speaking personally, I'm finding it hard to get excited (about the rock-grinding, not the cow porn. I mean, that doesn't excite me either, I was just saying, in case anyone misinterpreted me).
Say you visit a planet where the dominant species, the one responsible for things like math and science, experiences everything singly due to their funny optical and other sensory apparatus. How would you describe the concept of "half" to such an entity?
Easier way:
1. Add two numbers together.
2. Add the result to the second (larger) number from step 1.
3. Repeat for a while.
4. Divide the last (biggest) result you get out by the second-last (second-biggest) result.
Example:
2 + 4 = 6
4 + 6 = 10
6 + 10 = 16
10 + 16 = 26
26 / 16 = 1.625
near enough.
Posthumously, as in dead, dude.
Still not funny, though.
Darn, I guess I'm not a man then.
How am I going to break the news to my wife?
Ravens are different from crows. They're, like, jumbo-size crows.
Or did you mean that your neighbours cat would generally catch crows, exccept when it was in the UK, when it would go for the ravens?
you see, this is when being a grammar nazi is actually useful.
You see, "the teenagers who cheat" or "the blacks [sic] who steal" is, technically speaking, incorrect.
It should either be "the teenagers that cheat" or "the teenagers, who cheat".
"The teenagers that cheat" refers to the "cheating teenagers" subset of teenagers, not all teenagers. I think this is the sense meant by the grandparent poster, and is not stereotyping, as he's not saying all teenagers cheat (although why he's excluding non-teenage cheaters is a valid question).
"the teenagers, who cheat" is, on the other hand, referring to the set of all teenagers, and describing all members of this set as cheats. This would be stereotyping.
So, yeah, throwing all the black people that steal in prison is fine, as long as you also imprison the white people that steal. On the other hand, throwing all the black people, who steal, in prison would be really bad on two counts, as you would be advocating imprisoning all black people, and saying that all black people steal.
Actually, that is how you spell "Potatoes". It's the plural of "potato". People made fun of Quayle because he spelt "potato" "potatoe", which is wrong. As wrong as "potatos" (which is also wrong). Like, the plural of "hero" is "heroes", and "heroe" and "heros" are both wrong
Yes, Ireland is part of the British Isles, but some of the people living in the British Isles are not British, just as some of the people living in the continent of North America are not American but Canadian.
"The British Isles" is a geographic term referring to a group of islands that happen to be named after the largest nation on them. "British" is a political term used to describe that which is part of the country of Great Britain, which is comprised of England, Scotland, and Wales, and together with Northern Ireland makes up the United Kingdom.
The Republic of Ireland is not part of Britain, nor is it part of the UK. Northern Ireland, as part of the island of Ireland, is part of the British Isles, but it is not part of Britain, although it is part of the UK.
And yes, eighty years ago it would have been correct to refer to an Irishman as British, just as sixty years ago it would have been correct to refer to an Indian as an Imperial subject, but it's not true now.
I don't know where places such as Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands fit in, though. Or places such as Canada and Australia, which are independent nations sharing the same monarch.
Whoever "explained" that to you was obviously a beardy loon, and either:
1. one of those people who want to declare Essex an Aryan enclave.
2. a schitzophrenic who thought he was King Arthur.
3. Trolling.
Point two reminds me of a time about a year ago when this black guy got on the bus dressed in a blanket and announced to everybody that he was Braveheart, and was engaged in a centuries-long struggle against the English, which none of us would understand, because we were too young.
The term "British" isn't inclusive of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland isn't part of Britain, but part of the UK. That's not some kind of crazy republican (as in Irish Republican) propaganda but the simple honest truth known to all who have ever stopped to read the words "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" in their passport.
I didn't know that we were supposed to be acknowledging that we are part of Europe this month, though.
Ahab, maimed in body and spiritually scarred, seeks to find in the vast expanse of ocean the great beast that took his leg and his pride and kill it.
Okay, if we take out all the unneccessary blah, that's "man seeks revenge on whale"?
That's not a plot. It's an interesting idea, but it's not a plot. A plot would be something like:
1. Man seeks revenge on whale.
2. So he assembles an elite team of whalers to help him.
3. One of this elite team is an old rival of his, to whom he has not spoken since they fell out over a girl or something.
4. Meanwhile, a bunch of evil English guys is also after this big whale.
5. The girl whom the two main characters fell out over turns up in a tavern the day before the ship is about to leave and tells them about the dastardly English plot.
6. She agrees to infiltrate the English bad guys by dressing up as a man and joining the crew.
7. She can then communicate with her ex boyfriends whilst at sea, by carrier pigeon, giving them the edge in finding the elusive white whale.
8. Unfortunately, she is found out, and the two heroes have to abandon their hunt to go rescue her. In doing so, they realise that revenge is not as important as friendship or whatever, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Now THAT'S a plot. Unfortunately, I don't think Moby Dick went like that.
Which is exactly why all your best historical films coming out of hollywood are full of English actors.
It's not the acting ability, it's that we have historically accurate teeth.
Yes, I am English, and yes, it is true, our teeth, compared to yours, are all wiggly and stained. Man, I swear I can spot an American tourist over here as soon as they open thier mouth. From a mile off, on a sunny day.
Ka-CHING!!!!
"Arrgh! My eyes! Burning!"
No, he's probably one of those people, such as myself, who don't like Burton movies.
Even if you love everything else he's ever done, surely you must agree that he ought to be publicly spanked for Planet of the Apes
No, I think you and the grandparent are using the word "behaviourism" in two different ways. You're talking about scientific or methodological behaviourism which, as you say, does not deny the existence of inner mental states or whatever, but just does not see them as amenable to scientific study. Whereas the grandparent that got you so annoyed was talking about philosophical or "crude" behaviourism, which is a theory of mind that states that all there is is behaviour, and the concept of "inner mental states" is meaningless.
Now that's a pretty outdated view, but it was pretty popular in some philosophical circles in the fifties, and it's the first definition of "Behaviourism" that a philosopher of mind form the analytic tradition will think of if you use the term. And no, analytic philosophy does not count as "folk wisdom", even if you disagree with it.
So you're both right.
Now I want you two to shake hands and make up.
You can end a sentence with "for example"; as with this sentence, for example.
So I guess It's OK to end it a sentence with "e.g.".
Ending a sentence with "i.e." seems a little weirder, but, again, it can be done; if you're kind of cunning about it, that is.
The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson.
Actually, I don't know if it counts as cyberpunk, but it probably does, as it starts off with a guy in a biker jacket getting a gun implanted in his head, and a lot of it is about information and computation and 'cyber-' stuff like that.
And it's very good, with proper characters with personalities and everything. And two characters called 'Judge Fang' and 'Doctor X'. Basically it's got everything one could possibly want in a novel. Damn, I'm gonna go read it again.