Exactly, 3 weeks out of North Korea and they'll never go back.
Simply not the case for two main reasons. One, North Korea is not Eastern Europe with a disgruntled population resenting an oppressive government, but essentially a nation of true believers. Their Stalinist propaganda state has reached levels that Stalin only dreamed of. The government not only controls all the methods of communication, but actually has the population believing what they say. It's like an entire national cult, and anybody who might not believe or doubts gets put in a camp along with their family. That gets to two, which is they put a great deal into the family. If somebody screws up, they don't just pay, but their entire family pays. Defector's families go to camps. Piss off a party member and your entire family gets moved to some even worse part of NK and will never get a good job again. That they are even allowed enough education to find out they are good at hacking means they come from a loyal family to begin with. To defect, they'd have to not only betray their country, but also their family and upbringing. Traditionally, defectors only happened when they found out their heads were to be put on the block in the short future. In the choice between dieing and having their families go to camps, they chose to defect and have their families go to camps. These days, the lower classes are defecting more and more to SK but point one kicks in and they find it difficult to even understand it and some even go back, or then two kicks in and they end up sending money back home. It's even suspected that NK is sending workers to SK so they can send money back home, where it is collected by the government.
This theory bothers me as well, but more for the simpler perspective of how the hell did the chuck of rock knocked off earth become so round in space? Shouldn't it be more like a big jaggiedy piece? It's not like it would weather down to a nice nice round object up there.
Because when something like Mars hits something like the Earth, they tend to become molten from the energies involved and gravity does the rest. I believe this is one of the things pointing in favor of the big impact theory. Trips to the moon have shown that it once did have a molten surface, something that would have been more likely from a big impact that from forming from dust.
I have friends who are pursuing majors like "Art History". What on earth can you do with that? Maybe work in a museum (VERY few jobs there) or teach. That's about it.
There are lots of jobs out there that open up just because you have a degree. Several of the managers at my work turned out to have weird degrees like art history rather than business. Even though a friend of mine is good with computer and has experience, he was only eligible for his current job because he had a history degree also. My uncle with a degree in fine arts ended up the plant manager because he had a degree and the other candidates didn't. While the most important things in getting a job are connections, experience, and then education as last, a degree, any degree, is often a bullet point on many jobs and if nothing else will put you ahead of those without. If you have the connections and the experience, just about any degree of suitable level will do.
Wow, you better check your history. The USA certainly did not "beat" the USSR. The USSR collapsed, mostly from within. Why do you think it is referred to as the "collapse of the Soviet Union"?
While that is essentially true, it did happen to occur while the US was engaged in a strategy of encouraging that collapse. The USSR was headed for collapse and everybody saw it. Carter saw it and wanted to avoid such a thing because in such a case the USSR would have the choice of collapse or war. He turned down the cold war and cut spending on the the military, in an effort to allow the USSR to shore up its economy. Instead they invaded Afganistan and we were in a position where our military was not able to respond even if we wanted to. That is why he will be remembered as a bad President. Reagan, meanwhile, ramped up the cold war, increased spending for the military, developed endless money pit projects such as star wars in a strategy to collapse the USSRs economy. While they did collapse because of their own decisions, the USA certainly played on that and manipulated them so that they got the outcome they desired. Essentially, both statements are true.
Pray tell, what will you do in orbit for a week? A month? A year? What wonderful sights and experiences will you have while you're there, and where will you have these wonderful experiences - on your launch vehicle? For a month? I'm really hard-pressed to think of anybody who would consider a year floating in circles above the earth in a single seat in the space shuttle to be much of a "vacation".
Ya, I think the same thing about the beach. I mean, it might be good for a day trip, but how much time can you really enjoy sitting beachside drinking coconut drinks? It drives me batty after just a few hours. The sun it hot. The novelty of the ocean wears out quickly. There's nothing to do. I'd rather go hiking, shopping in the city, or just stay at home and get some work done.
Still, other people like different things and plenty of people like nothing more than to spend thousands to travel to distant places and do absolutely nothing. And I have to wonder how weightlessness would do with old people. Especially people like my father who is in fine physical health for his age except arthritis of the ankles. He's spent his entire life active: hunting, in the army, and sky diving, but now can barely walk a dozen feet without pain on some days. What would he give (and he could pay it) for a few weeks of mobility again in an environment that didn't cause him pain to move?
I really don't want to start another 2 year commitment on a smartphone. And the iPad I'm considering looks like less of a bargain if it is going to be made intentionally obsolete in 2 years.
Great, then do your research. Find a company with a device you like and a history of continued support, and buy that phone and tablet slate instead. Good luck finding one. Buying the Google developer phone is about the closest you're going to get unless you are willing to simply do the work yourself or hope to get stuff via mod community. Maybe the HP slate with Windows. Still, when I did the same looking around to investigate moving to Android, it was the lack of support for any other devices and the continued support by Apple that convinced me to stay.
Sounds like any other house for a well off person in Pakistan. Walled compound with security isn't strange in a poor country. Go to Mexico (or any country south of the US border for that matter) and you'll see thousands of them without looking too hard. No phone lines isn't unusual in a country that mostly use cell phones. I doubt that the mansion seemed unusual to those around it. OBL and people were probably brought there and nobody outside knew anything. Too much a risk of people even just telling their friends and the people in the compound couldn't risk locals telling somebody who wasn't a believer enough that they wouldn't call a direct line to some American agency to report it.
It means the USA can credibly claim "mission accomplished" and get the hell out of Afghanistan. As long as he was still breathing, there was simply no politically viable exit strategy.
Which is how we got in this mess to begin with. Once the Soviets left, we claimed "mission accomplished" and left. For that matter, we did the same thing in Vietnam and look how that turned out and how it affected the American psyche.
If it rocks our world-view, then that's baaaad...that's the liberal media agenda attacking our good old country roots.
Or it's the conservative media agenda attacking out good old progressive roots.
I grew up in Oklahoma and thought moving to Seattle would be like moving the promised land and I'd leave behind all ignorance and reactionary viewpoints. However, upon arrival, I found that most of the "left coast" do not really have any better critical perspective on their own viewpoints than the conservative South, and they get just as mad if you question their beliefs even if just in an actual desire to learn during casual conversation. We don't have one conservative party, we have two.
But that is the nature of the US political system. Both parties are essentially the same except for platform planks that will attract single issue voters. If any issue gains acceptance with the majority of people, both parties will embrace it, or they'll at least ignore it. The political parties don't stand for anything besides dividing up the voters to get their 51% of the vote due to the winner take all systems. The best fringe politics can hope for is to get their issues out there as one of those ideas that attracts single issue voters, and have it picked up by one of the major parties which they will do once it means votes.
Bull. You need to drive around the country side and take a look. Most of rural America looks no better than rural Mexico.
I don't know where you're driving around at. I'm from Oklahoma with roots in the Ozarks of Arkansas and most rural people I've seen still have running water, electricity, phone, cable and internet. Not to mention a car (and sometimes more than one but it's usually up on blocks in the yard).
Oddly, even the poorest US citizen has access to food, shelter, and far better health care than you do. So really your little diatribe falls a little flat.
Only if they can afford it, which despite the American ideal of getting a job, is not always an option. I've been there. Get laid off. Lots of other people in the area do all. Even McDonald's isn't hiring. It can make for a rough time. Food isn't much of a problem (from my experience) as there are food banks and kitchens enough to eat fairly well. Shelter is iffy without a job. There aren't enough beds in shelters for the normal homeless population and nobody wants a tent city in their backyard. Health care and dental isn't really even in the consideration when you can't pay rent, so your only option might be some overbooked clinics and the ER if things get bad enough. Everywhere but a handful of cities in the USA, that also assumes you have access to a car (and associated expenses) because there is no public transit worth speaking about and things are too spread out get anywhere without one.
Then you get into defining 'better' when talking about healthcare. Acute healthcare is much better in the USA than the rest of the world. Not that most of the US can really afford that care. The rest of the world considers it better if it is an available service that people can actually use.
Trader Joe's is a grocery store. Lots of natural and organic foods. Looking around, it will seem like a clearing house of gourmet brands as they have some things, but not everything you'll want to buy. However, shop around and they will have something you want and are willing to go there for. The brownie mix that beats everybody else's, that one snack food you love, the curry nan, that one brand of wine and cider that they carry that nobody else does, etc. all make it worth going there and picking up other stuff while you do (at a reasonable price). You'll probably still have to go to the other grocery store to pick up the stuff they don't have unless you're religious about the natural organic thing. Go in knowing what you want and nobody is going to bother you. Look like you're confused or ask a question and they'll help you. Other than that, they hire a bunch of crayola colored hair kids who are made to wear Hawaiian shirts and seem happy at work.
The Federation is a post scarcity society. Any post scarcity society where money still exists would be more of a totalitarian nightmare than a utopia.
Not really. money is just a voucher for an amount of work and a way to determine who gets how much of what. Even if a post scarcity society, not everybody gets everything they want. Can everybody just ask and receive a phaser, starship, or house in SF overlooking the ocean? Money would just be attaching what you can have to the value of work you actually perform. In the Culture novels, the minds pretty much decide what you get or not. I'm not up on how the ST universe does it, but unless they just use mass brainwashing to make everybody not ask for things, there are still going to be issues with people not getting what they want. The method of handling this could be based on value of work, type of training, or decision by "somebody more important than you", but its still going to be there.
So, I guess this means they've given up on a using a rotating space ship for the trip to Mars?
Or they need the data from this mission to show that they absolutely need a rotating vehicle for a Mars trip. There is so much research and study that needs to happen before any time of Mars mission that it's really too early to tell how they're going to do it.
They can and do in the trivial sense that all travel is time travel as our definition of travel is distance over time, but don't have to in the way we are talking about. Even then we are going to be going by who the observer is, point A, point B, or the person going between the two. Worm holes and the like can travel into the past or the future and anywhere in between including the present.
I would disagree on the path. For something to get from point A to point B there must be a path, a criteria for connection between the two points, otherwise multiple points and maybe all points in the universe would be observed as the same and endpoint of travel would be random.
More functional. Less useful. Not to mention cost as you were spending an extra $1k for adding tablet functionality to what was essentially a normal laptop which typically was too big and heavy to act well in the rolls one wants a tablet for.
I experimented with tablets then and gave them to both doctors and admin staff along with some training. Only one person bothered to use the tablet features. Now, they're buying their own iPads and Android slates and loving them. They can carry it with them, read and write email, check on the things they need to check on, take notes, and if they get a page to do some heavy duty work, they can RDC into their desk computer and do it. They many just be large phones, but it seems that large phones are generally more useful and tablet laptops, mostly because a tablet laptop isn't very useful when you leave it in your office because it's too heavy to carry around and doesn't have enough battery life to work lone even if you do carry it with you.
The problem is that for FTL travel or communication to occur, they must be connected in some way. You can't get from here to there without a path between the two. They are assuming that such a path that the FTL takes will violate causality since they have define the FTL travel to happen instantaneously between two points at the time that it seems instantaneous to the observer. It might, but it doesn't have to as there can be FTL travel that does not seem instantaneous to the observer.
Wormholes were suggested for such FTL travel because they get around that. Your path AC through the worm hole may take much less time than your path ABC through normal space. You can also perform a similar thought experiment with our ABC around a black hole near the event horizon. Both trips between ABC and AC are observed to take place in a straight line at the speed of light, but AC is shorter, thus it appears that AC is travelling FTL from the observations of B. The same thing happens with gravatational lensing. Light passes both sides of a star from the same point and reaches the same endpoint at different times. Although both are happening at the speed of light in a straight line, one can be shorter than the other.
The problem is two fold. One, we are suggesting FTL travel without defining how such FTL is supposed to work. While there are some that cause causality violations (and I don't think anybody has really shown that science disallows causality violations yet), not all have to. Wormholes, hyperspace, etc all allow for casual FTL, as FTL is being determined by the observations in flat space-time.
Well, he didn't become a Dark Lord to keep from getting into trouble. He killed Mace and became a Dark Lord because he finally decided to believe and follow the Emperor because out of everybody, Palpatine had been just about the only person to treat him as a person, empathize with him, and tell him that he wasn't a fuck up. The only other competition was Obi Wan, and Anakin showed more hesitation in trying to kill him that an entire building of children. If the Jedi and Mace hadn't have been so blinded with hubris, they could have seen it and defused the problem. Instead, they were fixed in their ways and broke instead of refusing to bend. Out of all that can be said bad about the SW movies (and there is plenty of criticism for the first three also. Ewoks anybody?), I think that is one of the points he pretty much gets right. Sure, there could have been some decent acting, but hey.
Exactly. And if microgravity is a problem (I fail to see how it could be), put that box in a small centrifuge to create constant 1g.
Please explain to me how this would work. The point is for it to experience microgravity. How do you spin something so that it constantly counters the Earth's gravity? If the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the direction of g, you end up with 1.4g at 45 degrees off the axis of rotation. If the axis is in line with g then you end up with 0g at the top of the rotation and 2g at the bottom.
Metal mesh is usually for plaster, not sheet rock. I think it's an older style of construction replacing wood slat and plaster, but a quick internet search reveals that the mesh is still being sold. Probably for certain types of construction as well as patching the style of work.
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Simply not the case for two main reasons. One, North Korea is not Eastern Europe with a disgruntled population resenting an oppressive government, but essentially a nation of true believers. Their Stalinist propaganda state has reached levels that Stalin only dreamed of. The government not only controls all the methods of communication, but actually has the population believing what they say. It's like an entire national cult, and anybody who might not believe or doubts gets put in a camp along with their family. That gets to two, which is they put a great deal into the family. If somebody screws up, they don't just pay, but their entire family pays. Defector's families go to camps. Piss off a party member and your entire family gets moved to some even worse part of NK and will never get a good job again. That they are even allowed enough education to find out they are good at hacking means they come from a loyal family to begin with. To defect, they'd have to not only betray their country, but also their family and upbringing. Traditionally, defectors only happened when they found out their heads were to be put on the block in the short future. In the choice between dieing and having their families go to camps, they chose to defect and have their families go to camps. These days, the lower classes are defecting more and more to SK but point one kicks in and they find it difficult to even understand it and some even go back, or then two kicks in and they end up sending money back home. It's even suspected that NK is sending workers to SK so they can send money back home, where it is collected by the government.
Because when something like Mars hits something like the Earth, they tend to become molten from the energies involved and gravity does the rest. I believe this is one of the things pointing in favor of the big impact theory. Trips to the moon have shown that it once did have a molten surface, something that would have been more likely from a big impact that from forming from dust.
There are lots of jobs out there that open up just because you have a degree. Several of the managers at my work turned out to have weird degrees like art history rather than business. Even though a friend of mine is good with computer and has experience, he was only eligible for his current job because he had a history degree also. My uncle with a degree in fine arts ended up the plant manager because he had a degree and the other candidates didn't. While the most important things in getting a job are connections, experience, and then education as last, a degree, any degree, is often a bullet point on many jobs and if nothing else will put you ahead of those without. If you have the connections and the experience, just about any degree of suitable level will do.
I grew up in a similar household, and I certainly appreciate not having to gut and skin the food any more.
While that is essentially true, it did happen to occur while the US was engaged in a strategy of encouraging that collapse. The USSR was headed for collapse and everybody saw it. Carter saw it and wanted to avoid such a thing because in such a case the USSR would have the choice of collapse or war. He turned down the cold war and cut spending on the the military, in an effort to allow the USSR to shore up its economy. Instead they invaded Afganistan and we were in a position where our military was not able to respond even if we wanted to. That is why he will be remembered as a bad President. Reagan, meanwhile, ramped up the cold war, increased spending for the military, developed endless money pit projects such as star wars in a strategy to collapse the USSRs economy. While they did collapse because of their own decisions, the USA certainly played on that and manipulated them so that they got the outcome they desired. Essentially, both statements are true.
So, ...we just need to build our satellites with MDC and they'll be impervious to space collisions.
Yum.
Ya, I think the same thing about the beach. I mean, it might be good for a day trip, but how much time can you really enjoy sitting beachside drinking coconut drinks? It drives me batty after just a few hours. The sun it hot. The novelty of the ocean wears out quickly. There's nothing to do. I'd rather go hiking, shopping in the city, or just stay at home and get some work done.
Still, other people like different things and plenty of people like nothing more than to spend thousands to travel to distant places and do absolutely nothing. And I have to wonder how weightlessness would do with old people. Especially people like my father who is in fine physical health for his age except arthritis of the ankles. He's spent his entire life active: hunting, in the army, and sky diving, but now can barely walk a dozen feet without pain on some days. What would he give (and he could pay it) for a few weeks of mobility again in an environment that didn't cause him pain to move?
Except for electric cars whose numbers are growing.
Sounds like any other house for a well off person in Pakistan. Walled compound with security isn't strange in a poor country. Go to Mexico (or any country south of the US border for that matter) and you'll see thousands of them without looking too hard. No phone lines isn't unusual in a country that mostly use cell phones. I doubt that the mansion seemed unusual to those around it. OBL and people were probably brought there and nobody outside knew anything. Too much a risk of people even just telling their friends and the people in the compound couldn't risk locals telling somebody who wasn't a believer enough that they wouldn't call a direct line to some American agency to report it.
Which is how we got in this mess to begin with. Once the Soviets left, we claimed "mission accomplished" and left. For that matter, we did the same thing in Vietnam and look how that turned out and how it affected the American psyche.
Or it's the conservative media agenda attacking out good old progressive roots.
I grew up in Oklahoma and thought moving to Seattle would be like moving the promised land and I'd leave behind all ignorance and reactionary viewpoints. However, upon arrival, I found that most of the "left coast" do not really have any better critical perspective on their own viewpoints than the conservative South, and they get just as mad if you question their beliefs even if just in an actual desire to learn during casual conversation. We don't have one conservative party, we have two.
But that is the nature of the US political system. Both parties are essentially the same except for platform planks that will attract single issue voters. If any issue gains acceptance with the majority of people, both parties will embrace it, or they'll at least ignore it. The political parties don't stand for anything besides dividing up the voters to get their 51% of the vote due to the winner take all systems. The best fringe politics can hope for is to get their issues out there as one of those ideas that attracts single issue voters, and have it picked up by one of the major parties which they will do once it means votes.
I don't know where you're driving around at. I'm from Oklahoma with roots in the Ozarks of Arkansas and most rural people I've seen still have running water, electricity, phone, cable and internet. Not to mention a car (and sometimes more than one but it's usually up on blocks in the yard).
Only if they can afford it, which despite the American ideal of getting a job, is not always an option. I've been there. Get laid off. Lots of other people in the area do all. Even McDonald's isn't hiring. It can make for a rough time. Food isn't much of a problem (from my experience) as there are food banks and kitchens enough to eat fairly well. Shelter is iffy without a job. There aren't enough beds in shelters for the normal homeless population and nobody wants a tent city in their backyard. Health care and dental isn't really even in the consideration when you can't pay rent, so your only option might be some overbooked clinics and the ER if things get bad enough. Everywhere but a handful of cities in the USA, that also assumes you have access to a car (and associated expenses) because there is no public transit worth speaking about and things are too spread out get anywhere without one.
Then you get into defining 'better' when talking about healthcare. Acute healthcare is much better in the USA than the rest of the world. Not that most of the US can really afford that care. The rest of the world considers it better if it is an available service that people can actually use.
Trader Joe's is a grocery store. Lots of natural and organic foods. Looking around, it will seem like a clearing house of gourmet brands as they have some things, but not everything you'll want to buy. However, shop around and they will have something you want and are willing to go there for. The brownie mix that beats everybody else's, that one snack food you love, the curry nan, that one brand of wine and cider that they carry that nobody else does, etc. all make it worth going there and picking up other stuff while you do (at a reasonable price). You'll probably still have to go to the other grocery store to pick up the stuff they don't have unless you're religious about the natural organic thing. Go in knowing what you want and nobody is going to bother you. Look like you're confused or ask a question and they'll help you. Other than that, they hire a bunch of crayola colored hair kids who are made to wear Hawaiian shirts and seem happy at work.
NO, NO, NO, NO. "MAC" is a brand of makeup. A "Mac" is short for Macintosh and a personal computer.
Not really. money is just a voucher for an amount of work and a way to determine who gets how much of what. Even if a post scarcity society, not everybody gets everything they want. Can everybody just ask and receive a phaser, starship, or house in SF overlooking the ocean? Money would just be attaching what you can have to the value of work you actually perform. In the Culture novels, the minds pretty much decide what you get or not. I'm not up on how the ST universe does it, but unless they just use mass brainwashing to make everybody not ask for things, there are still going to be issues with people not getting what they want. The method of handling this could be based on value of work, type of training, or decision by "somebody more important than you", but its still going to be there.
Or they need the data from this mission to show that they absolutely need a rotating vehicle for a Mars trip. There is so much research and study that needs to happen before any time of Mars mission that it's really too early to tell how they're going to do it.
They can and do in the trivial sense that all travel is time travel as our definition of travel is distance over time, but don't have to in the way we are talking about. Even then we are going to be going by who the observer is, point A, point B, or the person going between the two. Worm holes and the like can travel into the past or the future and anywhere in between including the present.
I would disagree on the path. For something to get from point A to point B there must be a path, a criteria for connection between the two points, otherwise multiple points and maybe all points in the universe would be observed as the same and endpoint of travel would be random.
More functional. Less useful. Not to mention cost as you were spending an extra $1k for adding tablet functionality to what was essentially a normal laptop which typically was too big and heavy to act well in the rolls one wants a tablet for.
I experimented with tablets then and gave them to both doctors and admin staff along with some training. Only one person bothered to use the tablet features. Now, they're buying their own iPads and Android slates and loving them. They can carry it with them, read and write email, check on the things they need to check on, take notes, and if they get a page to do some heavy duty work, they can RDC into their desk computer and do it. They many just be large phones, but it seems that large phones are generally more useful and tablet laptops, mostly because a tablet laptop isn't very useful when you leave it in your office because it's too heavy to carry around and doesn't have enough battery life to work lone even if you do carry it with you.
The problem is that for FTL travel or communication to occur, they must be connected in some way. You can't get from here to there without a path between the two. They are assuming that such a path that the FTL takes will violate causality since they have define the FTL travel to happen instantaneously between two points at the time that it seems instantaneous to the observer. It might, but it doesn't have to as there can be FTL travel that does not seem instantaneous to the observer.
Wormholes were suggested for such FTL travel because they get around that. Your path AC through the worm hole may take much less time than your path ABC through normal space. You can also perform a similar thought experiment with our ABC around a black hole near the event horizon. Both trips between ABC and AC are observed to take place in a straight line at the speed of light, but AC is shorter, thus it appears that AC is travelling FTL from the observations of B. The same thing happens with gravatational lensing. Light passes both sides of a star from the same point and reaches the same endpoint at different times. Although both are happening at the speed of light in a straight line, one can be shorter than the other.
The problem is two fold. One, we are suggesting FTL travel without defining how such FTL is supposed to work. While there are some that cause causality violations (and I don't think anybody has really shown that science disallows causality violations yet), not all have to. Wormholes, hyperspace, etc all allow for casual FTL, as FTL is being determined by the observations in flat space-time.
Well, he didn't become a Dark Lord to keep from getting into trouble. He killed Mace and became a Dark Lord because he finally decided to believe and follow the Emperor because out of everybody, Palpatine had been just about the only person to treat him as a person, empathize with him, and tell him that he wasn't a fuck up. The only other competition was Obi Wan, and Anakin showed more hesitation in trying to kill him that an entire building of children. If the Jedi and Mace hadn't have been so blinded with hubris, they could have seen it and defused the problem. Instead, they were fixed in their ways and broke instead of refusing to bend. Out of all that can be said bad about the SW movies (and there is plenty of criticism for the first three also. Ewoks anybody?), I think that is one of the points he pretty much gets right. Sure, there could have been some decent acting, but hey.
Please explain to me how this would work. The point is for it to experience microgravity. How do you spin something so that it constantly counters the Earth's gravity? If the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the direction of g, you end up with 1.4g at 45 degrees off the axis of rotation. If the axis is in line with g then you end up with 0g at the top of the rotation and 2g at the bottom.
Metal mesh is usually for plaster, not sheet rock. I think it's an older style of construction replacing wood slat and plaster, but a quick internet search reveals that the mesh is still being sold. Probably for certain types of construction as well as patching the style of work.