Is that so? Isn't that slightly sloppy, from a physicists point of view? Rotation and spin are another degree of freedom (and, IRC, has been refered to as such by my physics lecturers), but physically not another dimension.
Mathematically, a Hilbert-space state vector is infinite-dimensional. But physically, it is just a function describing the state of the system in a three dimensional space over time.
My problem with using such an expression in a PopSci article is, that it is sensationalism. It relies on the common understanding of physical dimensions as (3 x space + X), implying some other dimension besides the well known spatial ones.
> Apparently you don't know how this works. [...] The people out front have no way of seeing the scans, that's the job of specially trained people who watch in back and who can't see the line coming [...]
And those people in front have no contact to those in back whatsoever. Everything is strictly professional. They don't go out to lunch together, or watch sports. And no one is radioing anything work unrelated, and especially is no one doing the other a favour, especially if it is against regulations, even when no will notice anything.
First of, that are likely four LIDARs. Two horizontal (forward-backward), two vertical (left-right). My semi-educated guess: - Horizontal: Kind of SLAM: Creating a map and improving the own position accuracy (as initially determined by GPS) through a map. - Vertical: 3D surface-reconstruction.
You are implying something, which the grand-parent did not. simple is lesser, complex -> more advanced -> better. > Bigger life forms may be more complex in the sense of having more parts, or possessing intelligence, but they are not more advanced in any meaningful way.
So there are more complex lifeforms. Who said something about more advanced? Still, even more advanced wouldn't be wrong. It just means later in time or intricate.
That people implicate better or higher is the mistake, as you already put it correctly.
> So in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster (or war), the first to recover are naturally the smallest, but not because they are any simpler.
Also because they are simpler. Smash a rock and a clock with a hammer, and what are the chances you get something useful of either things? Another reason is, that more complex life-forms are usually dependent on simpler ones.
> Unless they really meant "God created complex mechanisms which eventually gave rise to life and then millions of years later resulted purely by chance something that resembled God."
Why is religion and evolution irreconcilable? If I accept an omnipotent and omnipresent god, what is so strange at accepting, that said god created a universe, with exactly those laws, which science deciphers, which obviously lead to our existence? Is it disprovable? No. Does it contradict with scientific knowledge? No. Is it compatible with further scientific findings? Yes. So, why bother, when you have people, which claim, the earth is 4000 years old.
> If the bible means nothing then where do you get your religious beliefs from? The church? That sounds risky.
Who says the Bible means nothing? My knowledge of theology is certainly incomplete, but AFAIK: The Bible is open to interpretation for several reasons. But how do you interpret it? As there is only one truth, there can be only one meaning. But who determines what is true? There is one group, which says, the successors of the apostles determine the one truth. This is the Catholic Church. One group claims the successor of Peter, sitting in Rome, presides over the others and is ultimately right. That is the Roman Catholic Church.
Protestants claim "Sola Scriptura", the scripture is the authoritative word of god. Which in turn can mean, there is no authoritative interpretation, but each persons. That doesn't mean you can cherry pick, but that you have to do your best to understand the teachings revealed in the Bible, especially through the life of Jesus, and lead your life accordingly. How do you treat other people. Not necessarily that you literally believe every single word of a scripture. At least, that is the position most protestant in Europe seem to have. The other meaning it can have, is the literal one, which several US protestants seem to follow.
> The rounding up Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, etc, was done by volunteer groups [...] _not_ from the army. > So, yes, most German soldiers didn't know jack squat about the extermination, and never rounded up anybody.
It is in a way simpler and more complicated as you put it. The guilt is not easily divided by branches. The Wehrmacht actively participated in the genocide and committed other atrocities and war-crimes. While parts of the Wehrmacht displayed various degrees of opposition against the orders of the regime and sometimes even some humanity, it doesn't negate the war crimes executed, tolerated and even ordered by the Wehrmacht, such as rounding up and summary execution of civilians as retaliation for guerilla acts. Torture and rape was also common. And that was on the western front, were the Nazis due to their racial ideology wanted to show some restrain. I leave it up to either your curiosity or imagination, what happened on the eastern front, where the people were deemed as being lesser, and the Nazis wanted Lebensraum.
> So the "final solution" was actually kept somewhat secret, because, you know, the less people know about it, [...]
A common excuse of the German people in the '45-'68: We didn't know about it. There is only as much truth about it, that next to no one wanted to know about it. There were some KZs near major German cities (the ones in remember: Buchenwald near Munich, Sachsenhausen near Berlin), and people were complaining about the stink the crematoria were producing. People killing Jews in the Progrom were not prosecuted. People resisting deportation were shot. Under these circumstances, the children of the war-generation in Germany didn't wanted to believe the lie, that the general populace did not knew about the genocide.
> But to get back to the rounding up, you also have to understand another aspect: people are easier to round up when they don't know they're going to end up dead.
And you have to understand, that in the face of an armed squad, where resistance means certain death of you and your family, people will not only be easily rounded up, but even bury their own grave, as they clasp for the little bit of hope, that every second they live, they still have chance to survive, regardless how irrational this hope is. The Nazis certainly did their minimal part to support that vain hope.
All the people knew, they would be killed. They just didn't want to realise it.
You must be joking or living behind a rock. Just google for the keywords journalists russia. Journalists (or lawyers) critical of the regime, local administration or the oligarchs land up faster dead than reporters in Iraq. Most often, the police doesn't even bother to fake a investigation, despite the murder happening in public. Guess why they don't investigate, and why the murder happens in public.
> need the original riveting Star Trek fight scene where our hero manages to put commas not only in his dialogue but also his attacks... against a man in a rubber lizard suit.
How does that contradict with what the parent said? The action was sub-par, at best. So was most of the acting. It was about stories, and what they were trying to tell.
Guess what the message of that very episode you are referring to was? Contrary to the film, it had one.
And how did the episode end? Also quite contrary to the film.
> If you didn't like the "modernized plot" they opted for, don't watch it. If you would rather watch a journey through space, watch a journey through space.
Sorry, for having the expectations, that a Star Trek film might actually be more intellectually challenging than The Fast and The Furious.
> Do you think they should have potentially let him go and maybe had him come back later?
Well, being splattered by ludicrous amount of the very same red matter, of which a single droplet destroyed Vulcan by consuming it in a black hole fairly excludes that possibility. Unless the plot writer is out of ideas for the next film, that is.
> They gave him the chance to surrender first, and he refused.
No. Being aware of their dire situation, Kirk even offered to rescue them: Something along the line of: "Without our help you are doomed. Surrender, and we will help you". A dishonest offer, as the low voice exchange between Spock and Kirk showed. Nero refused the offer ("I'd rather die"), on what Kirk replied something like "Sure, we can help with that. All weapons fire". On which the audience had their SFX and laughs and I waved my hopes on a post Rick Berman Star Trek revival good-bye.
> Why would *ambassador* Spock be flying that ship?
Because Spock was in contact with the Romulan Empire, in whose domain the star was lying.
> What happend to these black holes afterwards?
Small black holes do not live very long. The smaller, the shorter they exist.
> How could Spock see Vulcan from that Ice planet, but it has no effect on that ice planet at all?
Several, possible explanations: a) It could effect the planet, but that doesn't mean the planet has to blow up the next second or so. It might take time. b) The black hole created by red matter could create a black hole of practically no mass by itself. It consumes the mass of the planet, resulting in a black hole with the mass of the planet consumed. This would not affect the ice planet itself.
> If you're looking carefully, you see it in several spots.
There is no story telling, but simply a sequence of unlikely events, which all lead to the inevitable end, that Kirk is command of the Enterprise manned by the original crew. Plus comical relief character.
> I thought Spock was well done, very much in line with what I remember of Spock from TOS, Vulcan with enough Human in him to drive him in ways other Vulcans could never grasp
Strange. I remember Spock in TOS as a Vulcan, who was trying to be more Vulcan than Vulcans. Only in the films, he started to embrace his human side / emotional part.
> Honor, fear in the face of death, duty in the face of insurmountable odds, there is no such thing as a "no win" solution--those are still there.
Fear in the face of death? Where was any fear of death besides the time they were talking about it in Star Fleet Academy? Everyone was quite gallantly rushing forward.
Honour? Where is the honour in shooting on a spaceship being consumed by a black hole?
> This movie was definitely the best (least cheezy) movie made from the star trek franchise.
Well... It starts of with Kirk being born to his mother on a space-ship, which is steered single-handedly by his father Kamikaze style into the enemy, in order to save everyone. How much more cheesy can it get? Before the opening credits?
Oh, I know it. Take a Spock, who gets emotional, every time someone mentions his parents in some agitating way (3 times in 3, IRC).
And it ends with the Enterprise firing all weapons on an enemy, who is already being consumed by a black hole.
That's the Star Trek way, kick the opponent, when he already lies on the ground.
Don't get me wrong, I think they got a great cast. Quinto as Spock was especially great. But simply, the plot had as many holes as a Swiss cheese, and didn't fit the original Star Trek at all.
Actually, a Greek/Roman concept. First codified after the Middle Ages in 1789, France. In the US, it took a case before the Supreme Court to establish that principle. In 1895.
I hope, I don't have to clarify, that this principle is also enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights.
This is news, because it reiterates that, because some country already named here in a totally opposite direction ignored that.
The wikipedia article on CRA shows no sign of a requirement of "No money down" loans. It also states, that only certain banks were regulated by the CRA, and interestingly:
2008 study by Traiger & Hinckley LLP, a law firm that counsels financial institutions on CRA compliance, found that CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans, and when they did the interest rates were lower.
While correlation may not be causation, no correlation is a fairly good indicator for no causation.
> And those rates are typically tied to the Fed rates. [...] That's not a free market, but a controlled market where the central bank directly controls the price of borrowed money.
Considering that 10 per cent is much higher than the fed-rate is, writing X + Fed-rate would be much more sensible. And who dictates the 10 per cent? Fixing it to their maximum interest rate is simply a safety measure to guarantee their profit.
> The real issue is that if Turnitin can make a profit of of other people's work under fair use, then that basically means that students have no IP right [...]
I disagree. TurnItIns work derived of the students is not identifiable as the students work itself. Not even remotely, as the work TurnItIn provides is a totally different one than the student did.
And no, it doesn't mean that they don't have IP rights, the students have the same IP rights everyone else has on a published work. Which means not all encompassing rights.
> and that students are guilty until proven innocent.
That is a totally different matter, which wasn't ruled about and is a matter between you and your university.
> Back when I was a student, I saw the use of turnitin as a major lack of respect towards me, and I refused to submit my work to it on principle.
I agree with you on that, and consider it a laudable effort on your side to stand up against it. But it doesn't negate the right on fair use of TurnItIn.
> which mandated in the mid-1990s that banks must hand-out "no money down" loans.
Care to back this up? Also, that is a theory, which is totally new to me. And frankly, even assuming that might be the case, I fail to see how "no money down" loans can lead to the sub-prime crisis. The canonical explanation which blames bad risk assessment (banks, rating agencies) seems much more plausible to me.
> A true free market would not have a Reserve Bank setting interest rates,[...]
The Fed is only setting the interest rate at which banks can borrow from other banks. Your interest rate and that of mortgages are decided by your bank in competition with other banks.
> Furthermore Congress would allow banks to decide for themselves who qualifies and who does not qualify for loans, based on income.
They already decide for themselves, but also include your securities and a lot of other factors. Unfortunately, they failed at that, because they relied too much on rating agencies, which overestimated the chances, because banks were too eager to get a piece of the sub-prime market. Positive feedback loop. Positive in the strictly numerical meaning.
> Personally I'm more interested in voting for people who can keep me in a job, keep inflation low, keep me and my family safe and prospering in the future.
We are getting close to Godwin's law.
> Being able to download copyrighted stuff without paying is WAY down the list of things of importance, if it even makes the list at all.
Applying the principle that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened in which case the ruling may be subsequent.
How is that about "being able to download copyrighted stuff without paying"?
Also, I don't think that keeping me in job or inflation low or keeping me and my family safe is the job of parliament.
To my knowledge, it is already known, that the ice thickens in West-Antarctica (News from 2002). Davis-Station seems to be located there.
I am interested, what new findings in West-Australia lead to Dr Allison's evaluation on the development of the whole continent of Antarctica. The posted article itself is a bit sparse on facts.
Why should they have the right? If I'm not mistaken, the Boston College Police Department consists of Special State Police Officers. That they were able to obtain a search warrant should be another indicator.
> Moreover, the more efficient you make the bomb, the less fissile material is left over after you detonate it. This is the stuff that your burning to generate the initial blast after all; you don't want leftovers.
Um, no. It is a bomb, efficiency is measured in yield per initial fissile material, not non-fissile material left. There is no time for a nuclear reaction chain, reaching from Pu/U down to the more harmless stuff, like you could do in a breader reactor. You split the Pu/U and that's it. The best you can hope is splitting as much of it as possible, to maximise the yield.
> Again, this is less serious than you might think - 2 stage hydrogen bombs produce a fraction of the amount of fallout per blast energy than fission only or 3 stage bombs.
Yes. Amount of fallout per blast energy. At the centre is still a conventional fission bomb, which still needs to reach critical mass. The cleanliness is not reached by reducing the fallout of the "minimal" bomb, but by maximising the fusion blast, so that the fallout is comparably small. Hardly something useful for civil engineering.
> This is the stuff that your burning to generate the initial blast after all; you don't want leftovers.
Same in reactors. Still in such a controlled environment, the conversion rate is merely a single digit percent number (IRC, 5%). But the converted material is hardly any better than the original.
> Subtract this, make the tamper out of iron or lead or some such, and the bomb becomes far cleaner than you'd expect. > Two kilos of spent plutonium and some neutron irradiated dirt is far less to worry about.
The term "clean" nuclear bomb you seem to refer to makes only sense in contrast to a dirty nuclear bomb, which may create a lethal fallout in 16000km^2 area. I think that is what your term "clean" is based on.
My value of very low fallout is not based on an old nuclear bomb, but on no nuclear bomb.
And what happened to the other 8 kilos of Plutonium necessary to reach critical mass? Still, two kilos of plutonium (or any other alpha emitter) vaporised in the air is hardly something to look forward to. Plutonium is incorporable and accumulates in the body. Inhaling 1Âg to 0.26mg suffice to create lung cancer. It is incorporated to the bones, liver and some other internal organs.
> You might wonder why we don't build them this way to begin with. Truth is, we built the nuclear arsenal of the cold war with the implicit assumption that we would not use it, save in the more dire circumstances.
I don't. There are several other reasons, too. There was work done on "clean" nuclear weapons, from the earliest beginnings, and also recently under the Bush administration, especially in context of "tactical nukes".
It also created some diplomatic tension, as it was internationally seen as further proliferation as it would lower the inhibition threshold to actually use a nuclear weapon.
> It was just politically infeasible. Nuclear weapons can be built to have very low fallout.
Please enlighten me: How can you possibly design a weapon - which consists mainly out fissionable material - which in turn is highly radioactive - and which is going to explode (that's the whole point of a weapon) - and thereby has only a very low "efficiency", but a fairly large radius to have a "very low" fallout?
Either, it transcends my knowledge of physics, or it isn't a question of the design of the weapon, but is a placement of the weapon quite deep underground, and therefore is what grandparent already stated.
> One small problem: If you have a few of these hydrogen-to-helium conversion machines, it's real easy to get your friends and neighbors to give you their stash and daughters. Without having to go through the trouble of violently taking it. Just go to their embassy with a list in one hand and picture of the H2H machine in the other. Don't say a word; they'll get the message.
So, the US hasn't fought a war, excuse me, armed conflict in the last 50 years?
Nuclear weapons aren't good for small things. They are an all-out-weapon. They may help avoiding an all-out war, as it is M.A.D., but do next to nothing in small cases. Any threat is void, if you can't realise it. The usage of tactical nukes would generate a diplomatic and economical outfall, which would far outweigh any positive benefit you might possibly expect from the usage of said weapon. Even the hint at using a nuclear weapon will create a backlash from other nations.
> please don't insult our intelligence by telling me that the Japanese don't have hydrogen-to-helium conversion machines
Aside from experimental reactors in laboratories? Or is that your euphemism for hydrogen bombs? If not going as far as questioning your intelligence, I have at least doubt your knowledge on foreign nations. Look up the Japan's non-nuclear policy. It already created a severe discontent in the general populace, that the Japanese government allowed the US to dock a nuclear driven military vessel in a Japanese harbour. IRC, the last notable Japanese politician that suggested in context of the build up of nuclear power in North Korea, it might be a good idea to have a own nuclear weapons had to resign due to public outrage.
Slashdot Mirror
Is that so? Isn't that slightly sloppy, from a physicists point of view?
Rotation and spin are another degree of freedom (and, IRC, has been refered to as such by my physics lecturers), but physically not another dimension.
Mathematically, a Hilbert-space state vector is infinite-dimensional. But physically, it is just a function describing the state of the system in a three dimensional space over time.
My problem with using such an expression in a PopSci article is, that it is sensationalism. It relies on the common understanding of physical dimensions as (3 x space + X), implying some other dimension besides the well known spatial ones.
Geographical separation alone does not prevent people from bonding, which leads to the real "problem".
Communication has to be heavily restricted and externally reviewed. Every call from the "back room" should be considered to be an alert.
> Apparently you don't know how this works. [...] The people out front have no way of seeing the scans, that's the job of specially trained people who watch in back and who can't see the line coming [...]
And those people in front have no contact to those in back whatsoever. Everything is strictly professional. They don't go out to lunch together, or watch sports. And no one is radioing
anything work unrelated, and especially is no one doing the other a favour, especially if it is against regulations, even when no will notice anything.
First of, that are likely four LIDARs. Two horizontal (forward-backward), two vertical (left-right).
My semi-educated guess:
- Horizontal: Kind of SLAM: Creating a map and improving the own position accuracy (as initially determined by GPS) through a map.
- Vertical: 3D surface-reconstruction.
> Yes, because humanity clearly lies on every branch of the universal quantum tree.
Where am I suggesting that? I said "obviously", not "inevitably".
You are implying something, which the grand-parent did not. simple is lesser, complex -> more advanced -> better.
> Bigger life forms may be more complex in the sense of having more parts, or possessing intelligence, but they are not more advanced in any meaningful way.
So there are more complex lifeforms. Who said something about more advanced? Still, even more advanced wouldn't be wrong. It just means later in time or intricate.
That people implicate better or higher is the mistake, as you already put it correctly.
> So in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster (or war), the first to recover are naturally the smallest, but not because they are any simpler.
Also because they are simpler. Smash a rock and a clock with a hammer, and what are the chances you get something useful of either things?
Another reason is, that more complex life-forms are usually dependent on simpler ones.
First of, I am atheist.
> Unless they really meant "God created complex mechanisms which eventually gave rise to life and then millions of years later resulted purely by chance something that resembled God."
Why is religion and evolution irreconcilable? If I accept an omnipotent and omnipresent god, what is so strange at accepting, that said god created a universe, with exactly those laws, which science deciphers, which obviously lead to our existence? Is it disprovable? No. Does it contradict with scientific knowledge? No. Is it compatible with further scientific findings? Yes. So, why bother, when you have people, which claim, the earth is 4000 years old.
> If the bible means nothing then where do you get your religious beliefs from? The church? That sounds risky.
Who says the Bible means nothing?
My knowledge of theology is certainly incomplete, but AFAIK:
The Bible is open to interpretation for several reasons. But how do you interpret it?
As there is only one truth, there can be only one meaning. But who determines what is true? There is one group, which says, the successors of the apostles determine the one truth. This is the Catholic Church. One group claims the successor of Peter, sitting in Rome, presides over the others and is ultimately right. That is the Roman Catholic Church.
Protestants claim "Sola Scriptura", the scripture is the authoritative word of god. Which in turn can mean, there is no authoritative interpretation, but each persons. That doesn't mean you can cherry pick, but that you have to do your best to understand the teachings revealed in the Bible, especially through the life of Jesus, and lead your life accordingly. How do you treat other people. Not necessarily that you literally believe every single word of a scripture.
At least, that is the position most protestant in Europe seem to have.
The other meaning it can have, is the literal one, which several US protestants seem to follow.
> The rounding up Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, etc, was done by volunteer groups [...] _not_ from the army.
> So, yes, most German soldiers didn't know jack squat about the extermination, and never rounded up anybody.
It is in a way simpler and more complicated as you put it. The guilt is not easily divided by branches.
The Wehrmacht actively participated in the genocide and committed other atrocities and war-crimes.
While parts of the Wehrmacht displayed various degrees of opposition against the orders of the regime and sometimes even some humanity, it doesn't negate the war crimes executed, tolerated and even ordered by the Wehrmacht, such as rounding up and summary execution of civilians as retaliation for guerilla acts. Torture and rape was also common.
And that was on the western front, were the Nazis due to their racial ideology wanted to show some restrain. I leave it up to either your curiosity or imagination, what happened on the eastern front, where the people were deemed as being lesser, and the Nazis wanted Lebensraum.
> So the "final solution" was actually kept somewhat secret, because, you know, the less people know about it, [...]
A common excuse of the German people in the '45-'68: We didn't know about it. There is only as much truth about it, that next to no one wanted to know about it.
There were some KZs near major German cities (the ones in remember: Buchenwald near Munich, Sachsenhausen near Berlin), and people were complaining about the stink the crematoria were producing.
People killing Jews in the Progrom were not prosecuted. People resisting deportation were shot. Under these circumstances, the children of the war-generation in Germany didn't wanted to believe the lie, that the general populace did not knew about the genocide.
> But to get back to the rounding up, you also have to understand another aspect: people are easier to round up when they don't know they're going to end up dead.
And you have to understand, that in the face of an armed squad, where resistance means certain death of you and your family, people will not only be easily rounded up, but even bury their own grave, as they clasp for the little bit of hope, that every second they live, they still have chance to survive, regardless how irrational this hope is. The Nazis certainly did their minimal part to support that vain hope.
All the people knew, they would be killed. They just didn't want to realise it.
You must be joking or living behind a rock. Just google for the keywords journalists russia.
Journalists (or lawyers) critical of the regime, local administration or the oligarchs land up faster dead than reporters in Iraq. Most often, the police doesn't even bother to fake a investigation, despite the murder happening in public. Guess why they don't investigate, and why the murder happens in public.
> need the original riveting Star Trek fight scene where our hero manages to put commas not only in his dialogue but also his attacks ... against a man in a rubber lizard suit.
How does that contradict with what the parent said? The action was sub-par, at best. So was most of the acting.
It was about stories, and what they were trying to tell.
Guess what the message of that very episode you are referring to was?
Contrary to the film, it had one.
And how did the episode end? Also quite contrary to the film.
> If you didn't like the "modernized plot" they opted for, don't watch it. If you would rather watch a journey through space, watch a journey through space.
Sorry, for having the expectations, that a Star Trek film might actually be more intellectually challenging than The Fast and The Furious.
> Do you think they should have potentially let him go and maybe had him come back later?
Well, being splattered by ludicrous amount of the very same red matter, of which a single droplet destroyed Vulcan by consuming it in a black hole fairly excludes that possibility. Unless the plot writer is out of ideas for the next film, that is.
> They gave him the chance to surrender first, and he refused.
No. Being aware of their dire situation, Kirk even offered to rescue them: Something along the line of: "Without our help you are doomed. Surrender, and we will help you". A dishonest offer, as the low voice exchange between Spock and Kirk showed. Nero refused the offer ("I'd rather die"), on what Kirk replied something like "Sure, we can help with that. All weapons fire".
On which the audience had their SFX and laughs and I waved my hopes on a post Rick Berman Star Trek revival good-bye.
Some possible explanations:
> Why would *ambassador* Spock be flying that ship?
Because Spock was in contact with the Romulan Empire, in whose domain the star was lying.
> What happend to these black holes afterwards?
Small black holes do not live very long. The smaller, the shorter they exist.
> How could Spock see Vulcan from that Ice planet, but it has no effect on that ice planet at all?
Several, possible explanations: a) It could effect the planet, but that doesn't mean the planet has to blow up the next second or so. It might take time.
b) The black hole created by red matter could create a black hole of practically no mass by itself. It consumes the mass of the planet, resulting in a black hole with the mass of the planet consumed. This would not affect the ice planet itself.
> If you're looking carefully, you see it in several spots.
There is no story telling, but simply a sequence of unlikely events, which all lead to the inevitable end, that Kirk is command of the Enterprise manned by the original crew. Plus comical relief character.
> I thought Spock was well done, very much in line with what I remember of Spock from TOS, Vulcan with enough Human in him to drive him in ways other Vulcans could never grasp
Strange. I remember Spock in TOS as a Vulcan, who was trying to be more Vulcan than Vulcans. Only in the films, he started to embrace his human side / emotional part.
> Honor, fear in the face of death, duty in the face of insurmountable odds, there is no such thing as a "no win" solution--those are still there.
Fear in the face of death? Where was any fear of death besides the time they were talking about it in Star Fleet Academy? Everyone was quite gallantly rushing forward.
Honour? Where is the honour in shooting on a spaceship being consumed by a black hole?
SPOILER ALERT:
> This movie was definitely the best (least cheezy) movie made from the star trek franchise.
Well... It starts of with Kirk being born to his mother on a space-ship, which is steered single-handedly by his father Kamikaze style into the enemy, in order to save everyone. How much more cheesy can it get? Before the opening credits?
Oh, I know it. Take a Spock, who gets emotional, every time someone mentions his parents in some agitating way (3 times in 3, IRC).
And it ends with the Enterprise firing all weapons on an enemy, who is already being consumed by a black hole.
That's the Star Trek way, kick the opponent, when he already lies on the ground.
Don't get me wrong, I think they got a great cast. Quinto as Spock was especially great. But simply, the plot had as many holes as a Swiss cheese, and didn't fit the original Star Trek at all.
Actually, a Greek/Roman concept. First codified after the Middle Ages in 1789, France. In the US, it took a case before the Supreme Court to establish that principle. In 1895.
I hope, I don't have to clarify, that this principle is also enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights.
This is news, because it reiterates that, because some country already named here in a totally opposite direction ignored that.
The wikipedia article on CRA shows no sign of a requirement of "No money down" loans. It also states, that only certain banks were regulated by the CRA, and interestingly:
While correlation may not be causation, no correlation is a fairly good indicator for no causation.
> And those rates are typically tied to the Fed rates. [...] That's not a free market, but a controlled market where the central bank directly controls the price of borrowed money.
Considering that 10 per cent is much higher than the fed-rate is, writing X + Fed-rate would be much more sensible. And who dictates the 10 per cent?
Fixing it to their maximum interest rate is simply a safety measure to guarantee their profit.
Why should any sensible merchantman pick up a weapon?
In order to risk dying protecting the cargo of his employer?
> Shoot them and sink their boats, and they won't be replaced, at least not in this generation.
Great idea. The same tactic that worked so great and generated the goodwill of the public in Vietnam and Iraq.
> The real issue is that if Turnitin can make a profit of of other people's work under fair use, then that basically means that students have no IP right [...]
I disagree. TurnItIns work derived of the students is not identifiable as the students work itself. Not even remotely, as the work TurnItIn provides is a totally different one than the student did.
And no, it doesn't mean that they don't have IP rights, the students have the same IP rights everyone else has on a published work. Which means not all encompassing rights.
> and that students are guilty until proven innocent.
That is a totally different matter, which wasn't ruled about and is a matter between you and your university.
> Back when I was a student, I saw the use of turnitin as a major lack of respect towards me, and I refused to submit my work to it on principle.
I agree with you on that, and consider it a laudable effort on your side to stand up against it. But it doesn't negate the right on fair use of TurnItIn.
> which mandated in the mid-1990s that banks must hand-out "no money down" loans.
Care to back this up?
Also, that is a theory, which is totally new to me. And frankly, even assuming that might be the case, I fail to see how "no money down" loans can lead to the sub-prime crisis.
The canonical explanation which blames bad risk assessment (banks, rating agencies) seems much more plausible to me.
> A true free market would not have a Reserve Bank setting interest rates,[...]
The Fed is only setting the interest rate at which banks can borrow from other banks. Your interest rate and that of mortgages are decided by your bank in competition with other banks.
> Furthermore Congress would allow banks to decide for themselves who qualifies and who does not qualify for loans, based on income.
They already decide for themselves, but also include your securities and a lot of other factors. Unfortunately, they failed at that, because they relied too much on rating agencies, which overestimated the chances, because banks were too eager to get a piece of the sub-prime market. Positive feedback loop. Positive in the strictly numerical meaning.
> Personally I'm more interested in voting for people who can keep me in a job, keep inflation low, keep me and my family safe and prospering in the future.
We are getting close to Godwin's law.
> Being able to download copyrighted stuff without paying is WAY down the list of things of importance, if it even makes the list at all.
How is that about "being able to download copyrighted stuff without paying"?
Also, I don't think that keeping me in job or inflation low or keeping me and my family safe is the job of parliament.
To my knowledge, it is already known, that the ice thickens in West-Antarctica (News from 2002). Davis-Station seems to be located there.
I am interested, what new findings in West-Australia lead to Dr Allison's evaluation on the development of the whole continent of Antarctica. The posted article itself is a bit sparse on facts.
Why should they have the right?
If I'm not mistaken, the Boston College Police Department consists of
Special State Police Officers.
That they were able to obtain a search warrant should be another indicator.
> Moreover, the more efficient you make the bomb, the less fissile material is left over after you detonate it. This is the stuff that your burning to generate the initial blast after all; you don't want leftovers.
Um, no. It is a bomb, efficiency is measured in yield per initial fissile material, not non-fissile material left. There is no time for a nuclear reaction chain, reaching from Pu/U down to the more harmless stuff, like you could do in a breader reactor.
You split the Pu/U and that's it. The best you can hope is splitting as much of it as possible, to maximise the yield.
> Again, this is less serious than you might think - 2 stage hydrogen bombs produce a fraction of the amount of fallout per blast energy than fission only or 3 stage bombs.
Yes. Amount of fallout per blast energy. At the centre is still a conventional fission bomb, which still needs to reach critical mass. The cleanliness is not reached by reducing the fallout of the "minimal" bomb, but by maximising the fusion blast, so that the fallout is comparably small.
Hardly something useful for civil engineering.
> This is the stuff that your burning to generate the initial blast after all; you don't want leftovers.
Same in reactors. Still in such a controlled environment, the conversion rate is merely a single digit percent number (IRC, 5%). But the converted material is hardly any better than the original.
> Subtract this, make the tamper out of iron or lead or some such, and the bomb becomes far cleaner than you'd expect.
> Two kilos of spent plutonium and some neutron irradiated dirt is far less to worry about.
The term "clean" nuclear bomb you seem to refer to makes only sense in contrast to a dirty nuclear bomb, which may create a lethal fallout in 16000km^2 area. I think that is what your term "clean" is based on.
My value of very low fallout is not based on an old nuclear bomb, but on no nuclear bomb.
And what happened to the other 8 kilos of Plutonium necessary to reach critical mass? Still, two kilos of plutonium (or any other alpha emitter) vaporised in the air is hardly something to look forward to. Plutonium is incorporable and accumulates in the body. Inhaling 1Âg to 0.26mg suffice to create lung cancer. It is incorporated to the bones, liver and some other internal organs.
> You might wonder why we don't build them this way to begin with. Truth is, we built the nuclear arsenal of the cold war with the implicit assumption that we would not use it, save in the more dire circumstances.
I don't. There are several other reasons, too. There was work done on "clean" nuclear weapons, from the earliest beginnings, and also recently under the Bush administration, especially in context of "tactical nukes".
It also created some diplomatic tension, as it was internationally seen as further proliferation as it would lower the inhibition threshold to actually use a nuclear weapon.
> It was just politically infeasible. Nuclear weapons can be built to have very low fallout.
Please enlighten me:
How can you possibly design a weapon
- which consists mainly out fissionable material
- which in turn is highly radioactive
- and which is going to explode (that's the whole point of a weapon)
- and thereby has only a very low "efficiency", but a fairly large radius
to have a "very low" fallout?
Either, it transcends my knowledge of physics, or it isn't a question of the design of the weapon, but is a placement of the weapon quite deep underground, and therefore is what grandparent already stated.
> One small problem: If you have a few of these hydrogen-to-helium conversion machines, it's real easy to get your friends and neighbors to give you their stash and daughters. Without having to go through the trouble of violently taking it. Just go to their embassy with a list in one hand and picture of the H2H machine in the other. Don't say a word; they'll get the message.
So, the US hasn't fought a war, excuse me, armed conflict in the last 50 years?
Nuclear weapons aren't good for small things. They are an all-out-weapon. They may help avoiding an all-out war, as it is M.A.D., but do next to nothing in small cases. Any threat is void, if you can't realise it. The usage of tactical nukes would generate a diplomatic and economical outfall, which would far outweigh any positive benefit you might possibly expect from the usage of said weapon. Even the hint at using a nuclear weapon will create a backlash from other nations.
> please don't insult our intelligence by telling me that the Japanese don't have hydrogen-to-helium conversion machines
Aside from experimental reactors in laboratories? Or is that your euphemism for hydrogen bombs? If not going as far as questioning your intelligence, I have at least doubt your knowledge on foreign nations. Look up the Japan's non-nuclear policy. It already created a severe discontent in the general populace, that the Japanese government allowed the US to dock a nuclear driven military vessel in a Japanese harbour.
IRC, the last notable Japanese politician that suggested in context of the build up of nuclear power in North Korea, it might be a good idea to have a own nuclear weapons had to resign due to public outrage.