While China executes a LOT of people it is several magnitudes less than what the US throws in prison. The US is the king of jail.
It might go without saying that maybe because China kills so many offenders, that perhaps less are lets say prone to offend (defiantly would help with re-offenders!:).
But I guess that might be a more relevant statistic. One can go to jail multiple times, you only get executed once (hopefully).
Be happy. I took like 7 when I went in '95. While knowing how to write code is useful, the languages are not.
A) You don't know the lifespan of the language B) You have no idea if the work you do will involve it
so they are really just teaching aids.
It was instructive to see how different syntax can be, particularly on different generations of language... I got Assembly, COBOL, Pascal, C, VB to name a few. I've used a little VB on the job (mostly as VBA or as part of other programs), and several scripting languages but that's about it.
It helps trying to read (decipher) some smucks code from 10 years ago with no docs and they have moved on.
It does bother me to see requirements to jobs however needing the latest and greatest widget language while at the same time having 10 years experience, at a company that doesn't support the stupid thing anyway. Anyway, obviously I am not a programmer by trade...
Why corporate who leases computers on a 4 year lease, would cheap out, buying a 1000$ workstation (if you can even call it that) for an employee who makes 80k a YEAR working in GIS and IT, when buying a 2000$ workstation would greatly increase productivity over the length of the lease (particularly near the end, if they want an upgrade path that long). I mean the difference is 250$ DOLLARS a year VS 500$ bucks on an employee getting paid 160 times that.
It makes zero sense.
You can also lump not providing proper licenses that may be expensive at say 250-500$, but enable that employee to do that particular work 20 times faster. Again something trivial in the grand scheme of things.
I have no idea what I am talking about, but perhaps Green spots would allow for "columns" of penetration which given their 3d nature would really increase the absorptive "surface" area.
I guess maybe the best option is to simply look in nature, at different configurations, and try and measure which is the most efficient and why. Assuming somewhat uniform internal photosynthesis mechanisms, one could then deduce other factors such as colour, shape, size, etc...
I know this has been proposed before, and yes its not very feasible, but if it were Japan would be positioned very favorable to do so.
So yes, nothing we conceivably make will store radioactive materials for 10,000 years. It just isn't reasonable.
I recall someone mentioned rather then store the material, actually put the material on a fault line and have it subducted under the tectonic plates to be geologically "recycled". The tricky point is how does one actually do that. However Japan is on one of the major fault lines in the world (hence the earthquakes). Anyway when the material in question is water, and the fault line in question in under ocean, that might also be problematic.
So in reality the Flash should be relatively (pun intentional) immortal compared to the rest of us.
To really bend you bonnet out of shape, so while he is vibrating so fast as to go back in time, that would be relativistically speaking the rest of the world would be moving forward in time at a faster rate.
Also
The Flash would kick Superman's ass in a race...:)
50 Years ago simply getting into space was seeming impossible. 50 years prior to that, flying through the air was a pretty big deal. Before that traveling over any distance not using horses was a big deal.
What the article is saying is using current technology, going to the stars is a bit, shall we say implausible. Mars is a stretch but we can probably do it if we really want to.
In a 100 years who knows what technology we will have at our disposal, heck if we are still around in 1000 years just imagine what kinds of technology we might use to explore.
That said, yes our current technology isn't there yet, and we would need something seemingly "magical" in order to make it possible. It will likely be easier to use robots and whatnot than to use Humans, as we have a host of biological issues that would need solving on top of everything else.
My current favorite magic technology is the development of a "cosmic anchor". This would allow you to stop in absolute space, while relative space simply revolves by. Using multiple anchor throws, and complex calculations of various systems and velocities and rotation, it may be able to navigate through relative space,
Or like many fictional accounts, there is always instantaneous travel.... that would be handy. Though my current favorite off shoot would be a quantum entanglement transporter, that much like that movie the Illusionist, it might destroy the old you (maybe), and recombine the new your someplace else. Another flavor I like (I believe it was in Old Man's War) is the simply warping to other parallel dimensions/universe that the differences are so minute as to not matter but someplace else.
There is of course the Hitchhikers Guide's Probability Drive also, or the David Brin Tandu drive of the same name, but not so funny outcomes...
A perfect example of trying to use today's technology and ideas for the future is The Forever War. You can see by the end of the book its pretty silly, particularly when you start messing about with relativity, and time. Essentially your technology will over time outstrip whatever current methods you are using. A Moore's Law sort of thing....
Canada has some pretty good Privacy Laws. Much stronger than the US. I don't know if they are the strongest, but they are probably up there. Canada has an independent Privacy Commissioner, as does every Province. I can also tell you that FIPPA or the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act is a BIG deal up here, and has been know to take down people who try and circumvent it. The only trouble I see with it really, is that it is VERY broad, which means it is open to interpretation, which means a lot of arguing, so sometimes the decisions are not quite quickly made.
There have been a number of attempts by the Media companies to compromise these laws (for suing ISP users presumably) by lobbying to the Conservative government, but thus far have been shot down. There has also been some attempts are the part of Police in the "safe-the-children" department in the name of child porn to try and get a cart blanche to force ISP's to reveal information without a warrant. This was also shot down. So I am hesitantly confident that the Canadian privacy laws will continue to be strong into the future.
My grandfather had it, and died when I was 5 years old, didn't really know him.
I remember getting a (seemingly at the time) large amount of blood taken when I was younger (8-10 maybe) for ALS research many years. I remember hearing that there is a hereditary link with the disease (or they thought so at the time), I guess they were trying to see if there was any indicators if either my sister or I got it. I had also heard that it skips a generation. Anyway after hearing all this, and I have done some research on my own, I have come to the conclusion that they really just have no idea what causes it. I have also heard that it is very difficult to diagnose early on, or is misdiagnosed which is one of the problems for research.
Anyway it is a terrible disease, and it certainly puts life into perspective. Between that and seeing a story of this British guy (looked like a kid, but I don't think he was) that had some very rare terrible disease that his skin basically fall off, any problems I might have seem somewhat trivial and unimportant. Anytime I see someone worked up about some BS, I am reminded about that, and as crappy as things can get or as tough as they might be, they don't really hold a candle to what some people endure, and in some cases try to keep positive and capable. I like to think, that I can use their strength to solve whatever stupid problem I have as it really puts things in the right perspective. Not to take away from many other tragedies that people have to deal with everyday or to trivialize others difficulties, but you get the idea.
I guess the question is: "How did the creationist that believes the world is 5000 years old, PASS Geology?" Better yet, why bother studying a topic you don't believe in?
Can you imagine being a business with sensitive material, and having your laptop confiscated by a foreign government? That can be "sent away" for who knows how long to a 3rd party for forensics? Makes me think twice. I can't wait until the first security breach where a device in their possession is compromised and leaked, oh the lawyers will feed then I tell ye. If you have branches in the US, not a big deal, just use local machines. If you don't or are doing business with other companies you have to watch out for key loggers and other software hi jinks going on in the background of whatever devices you happen to be using.
What is really stupid, is that anyone in the know, that really wants to transport electronic "bad stuff" across the US border, there are hella easier ways to do it than putting it on a freaking laptop and driving across the stupid border... like for real? How abouts I just send it to myself encrypted across the stupid internet for one.
So other than allowing the government to see what personal pirated mp3's and porn you have I don't see an actual point.
Yeah I always wondered that. Like what kind of education and careers to these people have?
Kind of hard to be a Geologist if you think the world is 5000 years old. Astrophysics would be right out the door also... etc...
Anyway there will always be idiots, I think the bigger concern should be teaching better teachers, as apparently that is one job that you can do and having wacko ideas like the world being 5000 years old isn't going to be an impediment...
He's got a Phd and has extra arms to build stuff with!
Toyman probably fits the Maker profile... literally...
I know off the top of my head I first thought of: Forge, Lex, Brainaic, and Mr. Fantastic which are all on the list.
Though if you want to get into the ridiculously overpowered comic book folks, like Apocalypse, DarkSeid, and Thantos and the Infinity Gauntlet where they can pretty much just manipulate the universe to their will including their own molecular makeup, they are really only limited by their imagination.
I guess that would also make Galactus the un-maker? Maybe the Anti-Monitor...
I may have a belief in reason, the rational, and the scientific method but that has nothing to do with blind faith.
So while I might take on faith certain principles that I do not completely understand or use everyday, I know they are based on a very large foundation of science.
It is unreasonable to suggest that someone must know "everything" in order to know "something", were that the case, you might actually have some proof for a God! One can only understand so much, may specialize for whatever reason on several topics be it for interest, ease, or livelihood, and to suggest that because that is the case, one has to take on blind faith everything, such as religious zelots are wont do is perhaps one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard.
Also a bigger Troll of a topic could only be either: PC or Mac? or MS or Linux? Etc... Talk about a comment whore of a topic.
He will have to test this hypothesis a number of times with various hot grad students to see if yields the same results. I figure a reasonable sample size should be 30-50 2-5 times each just to be scientifically through.
Slashdot Mirror
HA! Yes I had forgotten about that. So far as Death gods (or of the underworld) goes Hades wasn't very good at keeping people dead.
Of course he to contend with a dozen or so meddling gods and thrice that in demi gods... poor guy!
Pfft whatever.... William Shakespeare was doing it long before that bring the cast members back as "spooky" ghosts... ohhhhhhhhhhhh!
I doubt it.
While China executes a LOT of people it is several magnitudes less than what the US throws in prison. The US is the king of jail.
It might go without saying that maybe because China kills so many offenders, that perhaps less are lets say prone to offend (defiantly would help with re-offenders!:).
But I guess that might be a more relevant statistic. One can go to jail multiple times, you only get executed once (hopefully).
And charged his family for the bullet.
Much more economically also! Just think about what the US is paying to keep that guy locked away forever in a box!
Though I hear the US is making cuts, look out Manning!
Be happy. I took like 7 when I went in '95. While knowing how to write code is useful, the languages are not.
A) You don't know the lifespan of the language
B) You have no idea if the work you do will involve it
so they are really just teaching aids.
It was instructive to see how different syntax can be, particularly on different generations of language...
I got Assembly, COBOL, Pascal, C, VB to name a few. I've used a little VB on the job (mostly as VBA or as part of other programs), and several scripting languages but that's about it.
It helps trying to read (decipher) some smucks code from 10 years ago with no docs and they have moved on.
It does bother me to see requirements to jobs however needing the latest and greatest widget language while at the same time having 10 years experience, at a company that doesn't support the stupid thing anyway. Anyway, obviously I am not a programmer by trade...
Is a Tree a Tree, a Rock a Rock.
Sorry to get all philosophical on you, but that is basically how we identify stuff and communicate with each other. Pretty basic stuff.
The question if a good description is a good description is left up to the user.
What I do not get.
Why corporate who leases computers on a 4 year lease, would cheap out, buying a 1000$ workstation (if you can even call it that) for an employee who makes 80k a YEAR working in GIS and IT, when buying a 2000$ workstation would greatly increase productivity over the length of the lease (particularly near the end, if they want an upgrade path that long). I mean the difference is 250$ DOLLARS a year VS 500$ bucks on an employee getting paid 160 times that.
It makes zero sense.
You can also lump not providing proper licenses that may be expensive at say 250-500$, but enable that employee to do that particular work 20 times faster. Again something trivial in the grand scheme of things.
I have no idea what I am talking about, but perhaps Green spots would allow for "columns" of penetration which given their 3d nature would really increase the absorptive "surface" area.
I guess maybe the best option is to simply look in nature, at different configurations, and try and measure which is the most efficient and why. Assuming somewhat uniform internal photosynthesis mechanisms, one could then deduce other factors such as colour, shape, size, etc...
I know this has been proposed before, and yes its not very feasible, but if it were Japan would be positioned very favorable to do so.
So yes, nothing we conceivably make will store radioactive materials for 10,000 years. It just isn't reasonable.
I recall someone mentioned rather then store the material, actually put the material on a fault line and have it subducted under the tectonic plates to be geologically "recycled". The tricky point is how does one actually do that. However Japan is on one of the major fault lines in the world (hence the earthquakes). Anyway when the material in question is water, and the fault line in question in under ocean, that might also be problematic.
So in reality the Flash should be relatively (pun intentional) immortal compared to the rest of us.
To really bend you bonnet out of shape, so while he is vibrating so fast as to go back in time, that would be relativistically speaking the rest of the world would be moving forward in time at a faster rate.
Also
The Flash would kick Superman's ass in a race... :)
50 Years ago simply getting into space was seeming impossible. 50 years prior to that, flying through the air was a pretty big deal. Before that traveling over any distance not using horses was a big deal.
What the article is saying is using current technology, going to the stars is a bit, shall we say implausible. Mars is a stretch but we can probably do it if we really want to.
In a 100 years who knows what technology we will have at our disposal, heck if we are still around in 1000 years just imagine what kinds of technology we might use to explore.
That said, yes our current technology isn't there yet, and we would need something seemingly "magical" in order to make it possible. It will likely be easier to use robots and whatnot than to use Humans, as we have a host of biological issues that would need solving on top of everything else.
My current favorite magic technology is the development of a "cosmic anchor". This would allow you to stop in absolute space, while relative space simply revolves by. Using multiple anchor throws, and complex calculations of various systems and velocities and rotation, it may be able to navigate through relative space,
Or like many fictional accounts, there is always instantaneous travel.... that would be handy. Though my current favorite off shoot would be a quantum entanglement transporter, that much like that movie the Illusionist, it might destroy the old you (maybe), and recombine the new your someplace else. Another flavor I like (I believe it was in Old Man's War) is the simply warping to other parallel dimensions/universe that the differences are so minute as to not matter but someplace else.
There is of course the Hitchhikers Guide's Probability Drive also, or the David Brin Tandu drive of the same name, but not so funny outcomes...
A perfect example of trying to use today's technology and ideas for the future is The Forever War. You can see by the end of the book its pretty silly, particularly when you start messing about with relativity, and time. Essentially your technology will over time outstrip whatever current methods you are using. A Moore's Law sort of thing....
Well not quite intelligence, but at least some sort of previous formalized education of some kind...
Canada has some pretty good Privacy Laws. Much stronger than the US. I don't know if they are the strongest, but they are probably up there. Canada has an independent Privacy Commissioner, as does every Province. I can also tell you that FIPPA or the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act is a BIG deal up here, and has been know to take down people who try and circumvent it. The only trouble I see with it really, is that it is VERY broad, which means it is open to interpretation, which means a lot of arguing, so sometimes the decisions are not quite quickly made.
There have been a number of attempts by the Media companies to compromise these laws (for suing ISP users presumably) by lobbying to the Conservative government, but thus far have been shot down. There has also been some attempts are the part of Police in the "safe-the-children" department in the name of child porn to try and get a cart blanche to force ISP's to reveal information without a warrant. This was also shot down. So I am hesitantly confident that the Canadian privacy laws will continue to be strong into the future.
My grandfather had it, and died when I was 5 years old, didn't really know him.
I remember getting a (seemingly at the time) large amount of blood taken when I was younger (8-10 maybe) for ALS research many years. I remember hearing that there is a hereditary link with the disease (or they thought so at the time), I guess they were trying to see if there was any indicators if either my sister or I got it. I had also heard that it skips a generation. Anyway after hearing all this, and I have done some research on my own, I have come to the conclusion that they really just have no idea what causes it. I have also heard that it is very difficult to diagnose early on, or is misdiagnosed which is one of the problems for research.
Anyway it is a terrible disease, and it certainly puts life into perspective. Between that and seeing a story of this British guy (looked like a kid, but I don't think he was) that had some very rare terrible disease that his skin basically fall off, any problems I might have seem somewhat trivial and unimportant. Anytime I see someone worked up about some BS, I am reminded about that, and as crappy as things can get or as tough as they might be, they don't really hold a candle to what some people endure, and in some cases try to keep positive and capable. I like to think, that I can use their strength to solve whatever stupid problem I have as it really puts things in the right perspective. Not to take away from many other tragedies that people have to deal with everyday or to trivialize others difficulties, but you get the idea.
Excellent! The Canadian Navy is Indestructible!
I guess the question is: "How did the creationist that believes the world is 5000 years old, PASS Geology?" Better yet, why bother studying a topic you don't believe in?
Can you imagine being a business with sensitive material, and having your laptop confiscated by a foreign government? That can be "sent away" for who knows how long to a 3rd party for forensics? Makes me think twice. I can't wait until the first security breach where a device in their possession is compromised and leaked, oh the lawyers will feed then I tell ye. If you have branches in the US, not a big deal, just use local machines. If you don't or are doing business with other companies you have to watch out for key loggers and other software hi jinks going on in the background of whatever devices you happen to be using.
What is really stupid, is that anyone in the know, that really wants to transport electronic "bad stuff" across the US border, there are hella easier ways to do it than putting it on a freaking laptop and driving across the stupid border... like for real? How abouts I just send it to myself encrypted across the stupid internet for one.
So other than allowing the government to see what personal pirated mp3's and porn you have I don't see an actual point.
Just mix with cola!
Yeah I always wondered that. Like what kind of education and careers to these people have?
Kind of hard to be a Geologist if you think the world is 5000 years old. Astrophysics would be right out the door also... etc...
Anyway there will always be idiots, I think the bigger concern should be teaching better teachers, as apparently that is one job that you can do and having wacko ideas like the world being 5000 years old isn't going to be an impediment...
I'm Canadian and I always use day, month, year.
Of course we use mostly metric up here, maybe its another metric VS imperial thing...
He's got a Phd and has extra arms to build stuff with!
Toyman probably fits the Maker profile... literally...
I know off the top of my head I first thought of: Forge, Lex, Brainaic, and Mr. Fantastic which are all on the list.
Though if you want to get into the ridiculously overpowered comic book folks, like Apocalypse, DarkSeid, and Thantos and the Infinity Gauntlet where they can pretty much just manipulate the universe to their will including their own molecular makeup, they are really only limited by their imagination.
I guess that would also make Galactus the un-maker? Maybe the Anti-Monitor...
I may have a belief in reason, the rational, and the scientific method but that has nothing to do with blind faith.
So while I might take on faith certain principles that I do not completely understand or use everyday, I know they are based on a very large foundation of science.
It is unreasonable to suggest that someone must know "everything" in order to know "something", were that the case, you might actually have some proof for a God! One can only understand so much, may specialize for whatever reason on several topics be it for interest, ease, or livelihood, and to suggest that because that is the case, one has to take on blind faith everything, such as religious zelots are wont do is perhaps one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard.
Also a bigger Troll of a topic could only be either: PC or Mac? or MS or Linux? Etc... Talk about a comment whore of a topic.
For science of course!
He will have to test this hypothesis a number of times with various hot grad students to see if yields the same results. I figure a reasonable sample size should be 30-50 2-5 times each just to be scientifically through.
Or a Mac.
No No No... I'll call it a superfluid... yeah that's sounds cool! Puff Puff Puff!
Ya new funding, time to go get some Cheetos!