Don't know about you, but I can go out and buy a ton of ammonium nitrate. Helps if it looks as if you have a valid reason for same, but it's not hard to fake that. Bomb material isn't hard to obtain, but making useful bombs without killing yourself is a non trivial skill.
The reality is that you cannot stop a determined individual from doing much. You can raise the bar, whether that helps is up for debate.
I believe the original intent of the regulation (and the reason for the question) was to outlaw sawed off shotguns (and rifles) which have no sporting and limited military purpose but are widely (?) used in criminal activities like pot smoking.
As everyone on Slashdot knows, Apple users exist only to spend money. They have no other useful information (who cares about email contacts these days). Just get them to click on the ads and you're golden.
Totally off topic, but you have to wonder. It's taking the DEA (not the FDA) years to prosecute doctors who are running obvious "pill mills". When you look at these docs, they're prescribing more than 2 standard deviation more narcotic scripts than the 'average' doc. Of course, there are occasionally some reasons for this - an oncologist or hospice doc for example, but too many of them are obviously fraudulent.
If they can't get the guy writing 500 scripts for 250 80 mg Oxycontin tablets / month (suitable only for a seriously terminal cancer patient) then the onsey-twoseys are going to get mostly overlooked.
I don't think you can do this comparison - there are too many intervening variables. Remember, the US is the largest manufacturing economy in the world. We build stuff like giant planes and giant bulldozers. The carbon cost for those objects is tremendously higher that an iPhone. An interesting question would be 'how many iPhones equals a 747" in terms of resource cost.
And that guy sipping his triple shot skinny grande latte in his air conditioned high rise who plays with a laptop computer hooked up to a couple of mainframes via the Internet and who drives home by himself to his McMansion in the suburbs in his SUV? Probably has a much larger carbon / energy / resource burden than the 20 year old Chinese kid living in a Foxconn dorm eating ramen 5 nights a week.
Pretty sure you cannot project out 20 years and make a claim about middle class income levels in China without having at least two points of data rather than the one point of data (1/3rd) you seem to be using.
But hey, I am not a mathematics professor.. maybe it is possible to compute the derivative of a single value.
No, to do this you would need to be an economist. They would have absolutely no problem here.
But seriously, if you work with old-school biologists, do the world a favour, and teach them that a Gaussian error on a number of cells is dumb and wrong.
I think that entry into either medicine or the biological sciences should require a passing grade on a graduate level statistics course. Only then do you stand a chance in hell to start moving away from a century of misconstrued numbers. In medicine, it's still painfully obvious that most researchers couldn't get past Stats 101. And that is even after they have the manuscript reviewed by a biostatistician (who is probably shivering in a basement closet hoping that the next group of researchers gives up looking for him and goes to a bar.)
Of course, I'd still be fixing cars for a living, but that might have been a better outcome for myself and society....
Anyway, I was taught early on this is one of the main reasons to attend conferences -- after seeing an interesting presentation (or even poster) about stuff close to yours, you go for a beer or two with the presenter and hear all the failures they suffered and the wrong turns they took on the way. And share your own, too.
And that's just one of the reasons I left academic science - people quit doing that. As funding dried up, people dried up. In fact, there were labs who had a reputation of getting it's post docs and grad students to 'hoover' the conference looking for ideas, strategies, concepts and bringing them back and working on some of the more likely leads. If that lab has eight post docs and 10 grad students, they can generally beat your solo effort if they so chose. So you didn't say much. Not much fun.
ALL 3D design software is designed with the idea of having users pulling out one's hair and banging one's head against the wall. I think the software companies in this industry get together in some basement conference room (probably on the Oracle campus) and share tips.
So the entire slashdot community is oblivous to the fact that refined fizzle is the only thing preventing terrorists from using a tactical nuke. If you are unfamiliar with suitcase nukes I suggest you research the tech, it's been around since the 50s bra...
What in Bog's name does a suitcase nuke have to do with a 50's bra? Did they call boobs 'boomers' back then or something?
Why do we need to 'increase ballistic missile defense'? China isn't a credible nuclear threat unless some rouge element gets control of them. That's a whole lot less likely than in Russia, India, Pakistan or even possibly Israel. We don't have the ability to defend ourselves from a major ICBM attack - we MIGHT be able to take out a lone ICBM (assuming that it actually managed to get here), but the North Koreans would likely toss the nuke at the DMZ or South Korea. If they hit Seoul people would notice, Anchorage not so much.
A number of them will be in Alaska - not all that far away from parts of China. I'm not sure that this is a terribly credible reason, however. We already *have* lots of things to point at China. ICBMs, subs, long range bombers. We can turn China into one large glass museum if we wanted to. So having more IRBMS (which we have plenty on the subs) doesn't change much. Having marginally competent interceptors doesn't help all that much either. China isn't stupid enough to threaten us with nucs, only Un thinks it's possible (get it, Un possible.... I crack me up).
China is happy to play the grand game of resource wars and the occasional little war / police action. They won't be able to go head to head with us for a long time. By then, we'll have blown off both of our own legs. We don't need China, we're our own worst enemy.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't know about you, but I can go out and buy a ton of ammonium nitrate. Helps if it looks as if you have a valid reason for same, but it's not hard to fake that. Bomb material isn't hard to obtain, but making useful bombs without killing yourself is a non trivial skill.
The reality is that you cannot stop a determined individual from doing much. You can raise the bar, whether that helps is up for debate.
I believe the original intent of the regulation (and the reason for the question) was to outlaw sawed off shotguns (and rifles) which have no sporting and limited military purpose but are widely (?) used in criminal activities like pot smoking.
Walking works better.
As everyone on Slashdot knows, Apple users exist only to spend money. They have no other useful information (who cares about email contacts these days). Just get them to click on the ads and you're golden.
Profit!
Mr. Cheney: We've told you a hundred times, please log in when you post.
Oh, and how's the heart old boy?
That's a pretty serious cut-down.
"Even the Soviets could do it."
Zing!
So are commies. They're everywhere.
If the people wanted this then why did the government have to vote on this at 10:30 at night?
Dancing with Stars was over?
He couldn't have really been one of our presidents. Nobody seems to have voted for him.
Just another Zombie invasion. We're getting a bit used to them.
Big Pharma spends about twice as much on advertising and marketing than research. While hedward's points are valid, they are rather irrelevant.
Now, they do spend a lot on research. Just think of how much marketing that corresponds to.
Totally off topic, but you have to wonder. It's taking the DEA (not the FDA) years to prosecute doctors who are running obvious "pill mills". When you look at these docs, they're prescribing more than 2 standard deviation more narcotic scripts than the 'average' doc. Of course, there are occasionally some reasons for this - an oncologist or hospice doc for example, but too many of them are obviously fraudulent.
If they can't get the guy writing 500 scripts for 250 80 mg Oxycontin tablets / month (suitable only for a seriously terminal cancer patient) then the onsey-twoseys are going to get mostly overlooked.
I don't think you can do this comparison - there are too many intervening variables. Remember, the US is the largest manufacturing economy in the world. We build stuff like giant planes and giant bulldozers. The carbon cost for those objects is tremendously higher that an iPhone. An interesting question would be 'how many iPhones equals a 747" in terms of resource cost.
And that guy sipping his triple shot skinny grande latte in his air conditioned high rise who plays with a laptop computer hooked up to a couple of mainframes via the Internet and who drives home by himself to his McMansion in the suburbs in his SUV? Probably has a much larger carbon / energy / resource burden than the 20 year old Chinese kid living in a Foxconn dorm eating ramen 5 nights a week.
Pretty sure you cannot project out 20 years and make a claim about middle class income levels in China without having at least two points of data rather than the one point of data (1/3rd) you seem to be using.
But hey, I am not a mathematics professor.. maybe it is possible to compute the derivative of a single value.
No, to do this you would need to be an economist. They would have absolutely no problem here.
Seriously - are we supposed to outlaw coal exports or what?
Of course we are. You don't want to give to coal to the commies.
'Coal for commies' - now that has a certain ring to it. Kinda like 'atoms for peace'.
androgenic
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
But seriously, if you work with old-school biologists, do the world a favour, and teach them that a Gaussian error on a number of cells is dumb and wrong.
I think that entry into either medicine or the biological sciences should require a passing grade on a graduate level statistics course. Only then do you stand a chance in hell to start moving away from a century of misconstrued numbers. In medicine, it's still painfully obvious that most researchers couldn't get past Stats 101. And that is even after they have the manuscript reviewed by a biostatistician (who is probably shivering in a basement closet hoping that the next group of researchers gives up looking for him and goes to a bar.)
Of course, I'd still be fixing cars for a living, but that might have been a better outcome for myself and society....
Anyway, I was taught early on this is one of the main reasons to attend conferences -- after seeing an interesting presentation (or even poster) about stuff close to yours, you go for a beer or two with the presenter and hear all the failures they suffered and the wrong turns they took on the way. And share your own, too.
And that's just one of the reasons I left academic science - people quit doing that. As funding dried up, people dried up. In fact, there were labs who had a reputation of getting it's post docs and grad students to 'hoover' the conference looking for ideas, strategies, concepts and bringing them back and working on some of the more likely leads. If that lab has eight post docs and 10 grad students, they can generally beat your solo effort if they so chose. So you didn't say much. Not much fun.
That and the beer. Man, I hate beer.
Solidworks will change your life.
Uh, right. So will overdosing on PCP.
With about the same effect.
ALL 3D design software is designed with the idea of having users pulling out one's hair and banging one's head against the wall. I think the software companies in this industry get together in some basement conference room (probably on the Oracle campus) and share tips.
The real threat is an attack on South Korea.
No more Samsung.
Hmm. Better watch for surreptitious communication between Cupertino and Pyongyang.
So the entire slashdot community is oblivous to the fact that refined fizzle is the only thing preventing terrorists from using a tactical nuke. If you are unfamiliar with suitcase nukes I suggest you research the tech, it's been around since the 50s bra...
What in Bog's name does a suitcase nuke have to do with a 50's bra? Did they call boobs 'boomers' back then or something?
Why do we need to 'increase ballistic missile defense'? China isn't a credible nuclear threat unless some rouge element gets control of them. That's a whole lot less likely than in Russia, India, Pakistan or even possibly Israel. We don't have the ability to defend ourselves from a major ICBM attack - we MIGHT be able to take out a lone ICBM (assuming that it actually managed to get here), but the North Koreans would likely toss the nuke at the DMZ or South Korea. If they hit Seoul people would notice, Anchorage not so much.
You can see China from here.
Well, Chinatown anyway.
A number of them will be in Alaska - not all that far away from parts of China. I'm not sure that this is a terribly credible reason, however. We already *have* lots of things to point at China. ICBMs, subs, long range bombers. We can turn China into one large glass museum if we wanted to. So having more IRBMS (which we have plenty on the subs) doesn't change much. Having marginally competent interceptors doesn't help all that much either. China isn't stupid enough to threaten us with nucs, only Un thinks it's possible (get it, Un possible.... I crack me up).
China is happy to play the grand game of resource wars and the occasional little war / police action. They won't be able to go head to head with us for a long time. By then, we'll have blown off both of our own legs. We don't need China, we're our own worst enemy.
Time for your re education medicine, comrade.
No thinking. It's been proven to cause heart disease, cancer and prolonged incarceration.
But hey, we've figured out where the shift key is.