They'd send missionaries out to convert the aliens. The missionaries would then catch some terrible alien diseases from them shortly before catching their spaceships home. Everyone in the churches would be wiped out, and justice would be done.
A lot of bugs that cause us grief are opportunists that find their way to the wrong place. Take Clostridium Tetani that normally lives in the soil. Or Salmonella - so called because it was first discovered in Salmon guts.
You got the immune system backwards. It attacks 'passwords' that it recognises - it doesn't indiscriminately attack everything that it doesn't recognise. It is constantly evolving, so that it can discover the 'passwords' of organisms that it hasn't yet encountered.
Regarding antibiotics, the stronger strains would proliferate anyway. We should avoid antibiotic overuse because it favours the strains that have resistance to them.
Go troll elsewhere. Or better still, find a neuroscientist and try and convince her that it would be really cool to stick electrodes in someone's brain so you can eavesdrop on what they're thinking.
Other than those who have small kids... Lots of psychologists would just love to be able to hack Xboxes to make better virtual reality experiments.
If the console manufacturers do sell their hardware cheap hoping to make it up on the games, then it's understandable that they won't want thousands of beowulf maniacs and university professors buying them in their thousands.
I second this. Insurance for small to medium losses is a social evil. In my opinion, people should only really take out insurance for losses they can't afford.
I recently made a claim on the house insurance for a stolen bicycle - my only means of transport. Initially they told me I was covered - and not to buy a new bike as they'd take care of it. Three months later, I was considerably out of pocket due to transport costs, having to shop at closer - but more expensive - supermarkets and the like, and they refused my claim on a technicality. The bike was always due to be replaced 'within the week' up to the point when my insurance was turned down.
The amount of beaureacracy was dismaying. I had to fill out several forms, make several hours of telephone calls, and I ultimately had an hour long interview with someone who obviously suspected me of trying to pull a fast one. I eventually found out who stole my bike, and told the police who found it in the street, but did no further investigations. I would be willing to bet the insurance people spent more time investigating whether I was a criminal, than the police spent investigating my bike's loss.
Ultimately anyone who rides a bicycle regularly will get it stolen, so I would advise people in a similar situation to myself to put some money aside - perhaps half the amount you would normally pay in insurance. When the worst happens, you can simply repay yourself from this fund. You can't defraud yourself or run the risk of getting a criminal record for fraud you didn't commit. There's no paperwork (I spent several evenings searching through my receipts bin for proof that I owned all the items in my bike bag that were stolen). And in the interim your money is earning interest for you.
The same applies for washing-machine insurance, computer insurance, etc...
I still have 3rd party insurance in case I cycle into someone and give them brain-damage, and I still have home insurance in case I leave my soldering iron on and the house burns down. I couldn't afford to replace that.
On a deeper level, I think insurance makes people complacent. Whilst theft never compares to crimes such as domestic violence, I believe that insurance encourages people to view property loss & damage as a victimless crime - which of course it isn't.
In my halls there has been a spate of laptop thefts. A policeman recently moaned to me that 'so few foreign students [in the UK] take out insurance'. The truth is that most of them stay for less than a year, if their experiences are similar to mine, most of them would likely get fleeced by the insurance companies. And the loss of an irreplaceable laptop might have far reaching consequences for someone's grades, or the like.
To be blunt, this design isn't so bright... Sure, it produces a reasonable voltage, but it's not a good idea to mix different types / sizes of battery in this way.
If batteries are mixed in parallel like the PP3 batteries in this circuit, large currents may flow from one of the batteries to the other - it's unlikely both batteries would output exactly the same voltage.
If batteries of different sizes are mixed in series, one type may discharge before the other. The discharged cell may potentially be reversed - i.e. current will flow through it backwards.
Either of these situations may cause the batteries to vent gas, overheat, or if safeguards fail they may even potentially explode. This is the sort of thing that you may get away with for some of the time, and you may not see any problems immediately - but in the long term you may well burn your house down.
This advice comes from experience. If you short a rechargeable battery you can draw extremely high currents (even 10s of amps) and start fires very quickly. I once melted a long piece of plastic insulation very quickly when two contacts touched at the end of a battery lead. The battery got very hot - I burned my fingers trying to disconnect it.
Treat batteries with respect. I'd be willing to wager that electronics kills many more people through fire than electrocution.
Slashdot Mirror
They'd send missionaries out to convert the aliens. The missionaries would then catch some terrible alien diseases from them shortly before catching their spaceships home. Everyone in the churches would be wiped out, and justice would be done.
A lot of bugs that cause us grief are opportunists that find their way to the wrong place. Take Clostridium Tetani that normally lives in the soil. Or Salmonella - so called because it was first discovered in Salmon guts.
You got the immune system backwards. It attacks 'passwords' that it recognises - it doesn't indiscriminately attack everything that it doesn't recognise. It is constantly evolving, so that it can discover the 'passwords' of organisms that it hasn't yet encountered.
Regarding antibiotics, the stronger strains would proliferate anyway. We should avoid antibiotic overuse because it favours the strains that have resistance to them.
Go troll elsewhere. Or better still, find a neuroscientist and try and convince her that it would be really cool to stick electrodes in someone's brain so you can eavesdrop on what they're thinking.
So it's fine for me to continue work on my guided hang-glider in the UK?
Other than those who have small kids... Lots of psychologists would just love to be able to hack Xboxes to make better virtual reality experiments. If the console manufacturers do sell their hardware cheap hoping to make it up on the games, then it's understandable that they won't want thousands of beowulf maniacs and university professors buying them in their thousands.
I know the world often isn't fair...
I didn't hear any mention of reinforcement - metal rods in concrete; that kind of thing. Would this be necessary, to build decent sized houses?
I recently made a claim on the house insurance for a stolen bicycle - my only means of transport. Initially they told me I was covered - and not to buy a new bike as they'd take care of it. Three months later, I was considerably out of pocket due to transport costs, having to shop at closer - but more expensive - supermarkets and the like, and they refused my claim on a technicality. The bike was always due to be replaced 'within the week' up to the point when my insurance was turned down.
The amount of beaureacracy was dismaying. I had to fill out several forms, make several hours of telephone calls, and I ultimately had an hour long interview with someone who obviously suspected me of trying to pull a fast one. I eventually found out who stole my bike, and told the police who found it in the street, but did no further investigations. I would be willing to bet the insurance people spent more time investigating whether I was a criminal, than the police spent investigating my bike's loss.
Ultimately anyone who rides a bicycle regularly will get it stolen, so I would advise people in a similar situation to myself to put some money aside - perhaps half the amount you would normally pay in insurance. When the worst happens, you can simply repay yourself from this fund. You can't defraud yourself or run the risk of getting a criminal record for fraud you didn't commit. There's no paperwork (I spent several evenings searching through my receipts bin for proof that I owned all the items in my bike bag that were stolen). And in the interim your money is earning interest for you.
The same applies for washing-machine insurance, computer insurance, etc...
I still have 3rd party insurance in case I cycle into someone and give them brain-damage, and I still have home insurance in case I leave my soldering iron on and the house burns down. I couldn't afford to replace that.
On a deeper level, I think insurance makes people complacent. Whilst theft never compares to crimes such as domestic violence, I believe that insurance encourages people to view property loss & damage as a victimless crime - which of course it isn't.
In my halls there has been a spate of laptop thefts. A policeman recently moaned to me that 'so few foreign students [in the UK] take out insurance'. The truth is that most of them stay for less than a year, if their experiences are similar to mine, most of them would likely get fleeced by the insurance companies. And the loss of an irreplaceable laptop might have far reaching consequences for someone's grades, or the like.
To be blunt, this design isn't so bright... Sure, it produces a reasonable voltage, but it's not a good idea to mix different types / sizes of battery in this way. If batteries are mixed in parallel like the PP3 batteries in this circuit, large currents may flow from one of the batteries to the other - it's unlikely both batteries would output exactly the same voltage. If batteries of different sizes are mixed in series, one type may discharge before the other. The discharged cell may potentially be reversed - i.e. current will flow through it backwards. Either of these situations may cause the batteries to vent gas, overheat, or if safeguards fail they may even potentially explode. This is the sort of thing that you may get away with for some of the time, and you may not see any problems immediately - but in the long term you may well burn your house down. This advice comes from experience. If you short a rechargeable battery you can draw extremely high currents (even 10s of amps) and start fires very quickly. I once melted a long piece of plastic insulation very quickly when two contacts touched at the end of a battery lead. The battery got very hot - I burned my fingers trying to disconnect it. Treat batteries with respect. I'd be willing to wager that electronics kills many more people through fire than electrocution.