It doesn't set back the timeline on angiosperms. Lots of advanced angiosperm fossils are known from the Late Cretaceous of North America. For instance, Cannabaceae, the family best known for hemp and hops, is known from the Hell Creek of North America; ginger roots are known from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, about 75 million years ago. And grasses are not primitive. Grasses look simple, but they are very advanced- their leaves, for instance, are highly modified.
(1) First, this is NOT the first evidence for Cretaceous grass- there's been some evidence from pollen grains in India, South America, and Africa. See New Scientist for a better writeup. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8336.
(2) This grass (assuming it is grass and not one of its close relatives, which can also deposit silica in their tissues) is from India, not North America. The flora of North America is very well known(from both pollen and leaf fossils), and there's zero evidence for grass in North America until substantially later. So it's unlikely, to say the least, that the American duckbills and horned dinosaurs ate grass.
(3) A blade does not a grassland make. It may have existed, but it was hardly common in the way it is today. Grasslands didn't become widespread until millions of years after the dinosaurs became extinct, so it's extremely unlikely that any dinosaur was a specialized grazer, or even that grass made up a significant portion of the diet of dinosaurs.
I wonder about their business strategy, personally: "link the Web and entertainment of all forms in consumers' living rooms". Obviously, the internet holds a lot of potential- online gaming, downloading movies and TV schedules, etc. But do people really want to surf the web, listen to music, watch movies and play games, all through one machine and one interface? It's an interesting idea, but in practice I think you end up with the old "jack of all trades, master of none" problem.
That, and less is often more. Look at the iPod. Part of its success must be that Apple left out almost anything that wasn't directly involved in its primary function, playing music... the end result is that its a better music player, because you're not being confused by fifteen other buttons and all the features included to perform other functions, e.g. PDA, cell phone, digital camera.
I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was
down. I think that the problem may have been...that there was
a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being
crushed by a dwarf. All right? That tended to understate
the hugeness of the object.
You know, I've noticed that recently, the radical right wing on Slashdot has (a) quieted down a bit (thank god), and (b) when they do post, tend to go off on emotional rants and irrational name-calling with little logic or evidence to back them up.
The problem is that the Neocons have had their way, they've had an extraordinary amount of freedom- thanks to the blank check of 9/11 and a solid conservative majority in Congress- and they've royally screwed it up. We've gone from Big Government to even bigger government with things like the Patriot Act and the ineffective bureacracy of Homeland Security. The Republicans have made the Democrats look like a bunch of amateurs when it comes to spending money and have run up an enormous budget deficit. Afghanistan was done right, I'll admit, and the invasion of Iraq was a heck of a piece of work, but the occupation has been a disaster. It was meant to secure America's place as the sole remaining superpower, and instead George W. Bush and the neocons may have single-handedly ended the era of American dominance. Now Iran is busy thumbing their nose at us and probably building nuclear weapons, because they know there's not a damn thing we can do but call them names, because we've got our hands full with Iraq.
The conservative think-tanks have been talking for years about what they would do if they got control of the government. They got that control, they put their ideas into practice... and their ideas don't work. Unfortunately, Clinton is five years in the past, and the Democrats are spineless and powerless, so there's really no one else to take the blame.
Face it- you guys had your chance, you did your best, and you failed catastrophically. If the neocons had any honesty, they'd admit it. And then we could get to the work of figuring out how to get out of this mess.
Yes, the Iraqi people sound extremely happy about the fact that suicide bombers routinely kill civilians by the dozens. They seem to love the fact that their country is occupied by a foreign army. The women are particularly thrilled that parts of the country are trying to impose Iranian-style theocracy and take away all those pesky rights they enjoyed under the Baathists. And who wouldn't be overjoyed that the power and water are only available intermittently, that kidnapping and assassination are rampant, that militias hold more power than the police, that the government has gotten back into the business of torturing people. They just seem to be thrilled by what Bush's vision of democracy has offered them so far. That must be why the polls have 50% of the country saying that attacks against U.S. troops are justifiable. Why not move there and start a souvenir stand selling " I love America!" T-shirts and little American flags. I'm sure that would make a bundle.
I'm not against the idea of using military force to create a more peaceful and just world- I can't think of a better use for it. What I object to is that the neocons are so incredibly incompetent. Fact is, Bush and his crew don't have a clue what they're doing. It's "Beavis and Butt-Head Do Iraq". They didn't send in enough troops, they didn't get a real multinational force that would have given the mission some legitimacy and provided some additional resources to draw on, they didn't step in to restore order when the looting of Bagdad started, they disbanded the Iraqi military without having anything ready to take its place as a security force, they got rid of anybody with Baathist affiliations whether or not they were guilty of any crimes, they rushed the initial elections without getting the Sunnis to participate. Bush recklessly rushed into Fallujah just because a few dead contractors ended up on CNN and then pulled the Marines out before the job got done because civilian bodies started showing up on TV; he didn't send in more armor as the insurgency got underway... the list just goes on, and on, and on. So what is Bush doing? The same thing he always does when he screws up royally. He does nothing to fix the problem, he denies the problem even exists, and insists that reality is something the Democrats and the media have invented.
I'm not against Bush because I'm a liberal; I'd vote for McCain in a second. I'm against Bush- and increasingly, so is the rest of the country- because the country needs competent leadership.
Reminds me of Krazy Kat- early 20th century comic strip and one of the all-time classic comic strips. Mouse, cat, dog- standard comic setup.
Except, Krazy is deeply in love with Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz, meanwhile, finds his primary purpose in life is to throw bricks at Krazy's head. Krazy Kat interprets the hurling of said bricks as thoughtful tokens of Ignatz's affections. The dog loves Krazy, and so spends his time trying to put Ignatz in jail.
I don't know if the number of science/math students is even an issue. I mean, if people aren't interested in those subjects, they simply aren't interested. You can't just turn a dial and get more students. So this guy is making claims about an issue that really isn't an issue and even if it was, there wouldn't be any solution anyway.
There are pros and cons to getting a PhD and people weigh those before going into a science graduate program, and during their program. On the "pros" side you've got the joy of discovery and the fulfillment of teaching (I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone entering science to become a researcher/teacher at an academic institution).
On the "con" side:
(1) in many low-demand fields, you may never get a job.
(2) if there are few jobs in your field, you have less control over where you will end up working. That means you're more likely to end up at the Eastern Oregon School of Liberal Arts and Small Engine Repair than, say, Harvard.
(3) if there aren't many jobs, the University is in the position to call the shots. That can mean relatively low salaries and lots of courses to teach.
(4) it's extremely competitive. You need a lot of publications and good research to get a job. That means you spend almost all your time working instead of having a well-rounded life and doing things like going to the pub for a beer, chasing women, having a family, etc. As a guy it's bad enough, but many women feel that they are forced to choose between either having a career, or having children.
(5) Funding is limited (George W. Bush has not helped this situation by cutting the National Science Foundation budget) which means you spend a lot of time begging grant agencies for money.
(6) Science is not exactly a glamorous career. Tell someone at a cocktail party you're a scientist and the eyes tend to glaze over. Being a scientist may be a turn-on to some women, but I think it's a turn-off to most... maybe even to a lot of female scientists.
(7) You have to deal with scientists all the time. A lot of scientists really are boring people, and a lot of scientists are just assholes and egomaniacs. It's harder than you'd think to pull off being a decent human being and a successful scientist at the same time. It also demands a surprising amount of networking and politicking. Who you know is very, very important in science.
(8) a science PhD can be pretty brutal. Many institutions have a "sink-or-swim" attitude where they accept many more PhD students than they want to finish, and then it's survival of the fittest. They don't really care if you get ground up and spat out, because there are dozens of applicants ready to take your place. You can also be exploited by the University as cheap labor in the classroom, or by your supervisor as cheap labor in the laboratory. Also, in many institutions your supervisor is basically God. Whether he decides to be a vengeful god or a merciful god is entirely up to him, and there's damn little you can do if he decides to abuse his power (i.e. abuse you), except leave.
So I would strongly caution anyone about considering a career in science. Science can be wonderful, but the way the system is currently set up, success in the field can come at an incredibly high price. You have to determine what you're willing to sacrifice, and what you're not.
Anyone still wonder why there aren't more science PhDs awarded?
"On December 31, 2004, there were 2,135,901 people in U.S. prisons and jails. The United States incarcerates a greater share of its population, 724 per 100,000 residents, more than any other country on the planet."
Yes, but because of that, we also have the safest country on the planet, with the lowest rates of murder, drug use, theft and violent crime.
I mean, aren't we at war in Iraq, and isn't that country threatening to break up and devolve into civil war? Maybe they could actually come up with, like, a plan for that? Not to mention there's New Orleans to rebuild and a budget to balance. And what about that Bin Laden guy? You know, the one who blew up the World Trade Center four years ago? Who the White House has still failed to capture or kill?
I just had an image of Elmer Fudd pointing his gun at an Orthodox Jew with a Bronx accent who then jumps down a hole... man, I am just not getting enough sleep these days.
So the requirements are... what? It certainly isn't "distinguished service" anymore.
What do you expect him to do? Awarding medals to people who've done the nation a real service will just show what a poor job Bush has done serving the country.
He hasn't caught Osama, he's used false pretenses to launch us into a war in Iraq with no end in sight and turned that country into a breeding ground for terrorists, he screwed up royally on Katrina by appointing incompetent cronies, and he's created a massive budget deficit.
Instead, Bush gave medals last year to George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, and L. Paul Bremer, the guy who implemented de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, two of the worst moves of the occupation. Trying to rebrand miserable failure as success. This year, the theme seems to be giving medals to celebrities, perhaps in hopes of distracting the nation from its real problems, problems which he's created.
One of the previous posters suggested that the difference between having a degree and not having one is $10,000 a year. If he's right, then that means that after eight years, your piece of paper is turning you a profit. Over a forty-year career, that would be $400,000. That's neglecting taxes, but still the argument holds. Then again, if you're a good investor, putting 21,000 a year into the stock market you might start seeing a profit a lot sooner.
At any rate, what college taught me was how to think. I didn't realize it until years later, but the point of a liberal arts education isn't to be an expert on Shakespeare or Plato or Econ or whatever- it's to learn how to learn, and learn how to think, and that skill can then be turned to whatever it is you want to do, whether it's start a dotcom empire, cure malaria, manufacture fortune cookies, write a book, or whatever. And I don't think I could have possibly gotten that online. And while I may not have hooked up with a lot of chicks in college, I would have hooked up with a lot fewer getting a degree online. That, and I still have a lot of great friends from college. But you've seriously got to work to get your money's worth. Even at the best schools in the nation, you really have to try to get a good education. Look at Bush- four years at a top-notch school and the guy's still an incompetent fool.
Come on now... do you use any Teflon products? Have you ever used a solar powered calculator?
Give me a f***ing break. From Wikipedia, the "it ain't necessarily trustworthy, but it's readily available" reference:
"Teflon is the brand name of a polymer compound discovered by Roy J. Plunkett (1910-1994) of DuPont in 1938 and introduced as a commercial product in 1946. It is a thermoplastic fluoropolymer."
And...
"The photovoltaic effect was first recognised in 1839 by French physicist Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel. However it was not until 1883 that the first solar cell was built, by Charles Fritts who coated the semiconductor selenium with an extremely thin layer of gold to form the junctions. The device was only around 1% efficient. Russell Ohl is generally recognized for patenting the modern solar cell in 1946 (US2402662, "Light sensitive device"). Sven Ason Berglund had a prior patent concerning methods of increasing the capacity of photosensitive cells."
A theory can predict. A theory has rules and models. A theory has mountains of evidence pointing towards its validity. Evolution fits all these parameters. ID fits none.
Slate.com has a good writeup to this effect, drawing a parallel between Intelligent Design "Theory" and Monty Python's "Brontosaurus Theory" ("... This theory goes as follows and begins now. All brontosauruses are thin at one end; much, much thicker in the middle; and then thin again at the far end.")
It's nice to see that people are finally realizing that all the old sci-fi fan stereotypes aren't really accurate. I, for one, am a mature, emotionally well-developed thirty-four year old male with a life and I-
-hold on, Mom wants me to clean out my room in the basement. Be right back.
Scotty doesn't trade the formula for transparent aluminium for a small run of the stuff. He trades for a quantity of perspex.
OK, but WHY did they have to get perspex? Why not just get, oh, I don't know, REGULAR ALUMINUM? Or plate steel, which would be even thinner and cheaper than either? They go through this huge effort of screwing around with the space-time continuum and everything to get something transparent, but apparently nobody has even considered the possibility of making the tank, I dunno, NON-TRANSPARENT!? Or maybe with just a couple little viewing windows? If the tank is opaque, are the whales really going to freak out any more than they already do after being transported into the belly of freakin' Klingon attack ship???
Sorry to go ballistic. I mean, I did enjoy the movie, but that part has always bugged me. Damn it, it's so... well, illogical.
Even in that department, the robots do a better job. I was a lot more inspired by the rovers, or the landing on Titan, than by Columbia exploding during re-entry. The last really inspiring NASA manned mission was fixing the Hubble. Which was a manned mission... to fix a robot.
That's pure bullshit. Now, the insurgency is a complicated phenomenon, with a mix of Sunni nationalists, die-hard Baathists, Islamic fundamentalists, Shiite militias, and, yes, hundreds of foreign fighters. But it's overwhelmingly Iraqi. I mean, think about it. Insurgencies need popular support. Even if everyone actually shooting at the US Army was a foreigner, they'd need a huge amount of local help. For every guy who actually picks up a Kalashnikov you need others to help him operate: people who help supply you with food and weapons, people who give you information, people who just give you a place to stay. I mean, where the hell would all the goddamn foreign fighters *stay*- the friggin' Ramada? The local youth hostel? Maybe everyone in Iraq doesn't want us to get the fuck out, but there's a very significant chunk of people who do.
SpecOps Labs insists that this has nothing to do with the fact that they have told their investors that the company will have a completed Windows emulator product fifteen days from now...
Slashdot Mirror
You say that like this would be some kind of a reason not to do it.
It doesn't set back the timeline on angiosperms. Lots of advanced angiosperm fossils are known from the Late Cretaceous of North America. For instance, Cannabaceae, the family best known for hemp and hops, is known from the Hell Creek of North America; ginger roots are known from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, about 75 million years ago. And grasses are not primitive. Grasses look simple, but they are very advanced- their leaves, for instance, are highly modified.
(1) First, this is NOT the first evidence for Cretaceous grass- there's been some evidence from pollen grains in India, South America, and Africa. See New Scientist for a better writeup. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8336.
(2) This grass (assuming it is grass and not one of its close relatives, which can also deposit silica in their tissues) is from India, not North America. The flora of North America is very well known(from both pollen and leaf fossils), and there's zero evidence for grass in North America until substantially later. So it's unlikely, to say the least, that the American duckbills and horned dinosaurs ate grass.
(3) A blade does not a grassland make. It may have existed, but it was hardly common in the way it is today. Grasslands didn't become widespread until millions of years after the dinosaurs became extinct, so it's extremely unlikely that any dinosaur was a specialized grazer, or even that grass made up a significant portion of the diet of dinosaurs.
That, and less is often more. Look at the iPod. Part of its success must be that Apple left out almost anything that wasn't directly involved in its primary function, playing music... the end result is that its a better music player, because you're not being confused by fifteen other buttons and all the features included to perform other functions, e.g. PDA, cell phone, digital camera.
I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been...that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. All right? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.
You know, I've noticed that recently, the radical right wing on Slashdot has (a) quieted down a bit (thank god), and (b) when they do post, tend to go off on emotional rants and irrational name-calling with little logic or evidence to back them up.
The problem is that the Neocons have had their way, they've had an extraordinary amount of freedom- thanks to the blank check of 9/11 and a solid conservative majority in Congress- and they've royally screwed it up. We've gone from Big Government to even bigger government with things like the Patriot Act and the ineffective bureacracy of Homeland Security. The Republicans have made the Democrats look like a bunch of amateurs when it comes to spending money and have run up an enormous budget deficit. Afghanistan was done right, I'll admit, and the invasion of Iraq was a heck of a piece of work, but the occupation has been a disaster. It was meant to secure America's place as the sole remaining superpower, and instead George W. Bush and the neocons may have single-handedly ended the era of American dominance. Now Iran is busy thumbing their nose at us and probably building nuclear weapons, because they know there's not a damn thing we can do but call them names, because we've got our hands full with Iraq.
The conservative think-tanks have been talking for years about what they would do if they got control of the government. They got that control, they put their ideas into practice... and their ideas don't work. Unfortunately, Clinton is five years in the past, and the Democrats are spineless and powerless, so there's really no one else to take the blame. Face it- you guys had your chance, you did your best, and you failed catastrophically. If the neocons had any honesty, they'd admit it. And then we could get to the work of figuring out how to get out of this mess.
I'm not against the idea of using military force to create a more peaceful and just world- I can't think of a better use for it. What I object to is that the neocons are so incredibly incompetent. Fact is, Bush and his crew don't have a clue what they're doing. It's "Beavis and Butt-Head Do Iraq". They didn't send in enough troops, they didn't get a real multinational force that would have given the mission some legitimacy and provided some additional resources to draw on, they didn't step in to restore order when the looting of Bagdad started, they disbanded the Iraqi military without having anything ready to take its place as a security force, they got rid of anybody with Baathist affiliations whether or not they were guilty of any crimes, they rushed the initial elections without getting the Sunnis to participate. Bush recklessly rushed into Fallujah just because a few dead contractors ended up on CNN and then pulled the Marines out before the job got done because civilian bodies started showing up on TV; he didn't send in more armor as the insurgency got underway... the list just goes on, and on, and on. So what is Bush doing? The same thing he always does when he screws up royally. He does nothing to fix the problem, he denies the problem even exists, and insists that reality is something the Democrats and the media have invented.
I'm not against Bush because I'm a liberal; I'd vote for McCain in a second. I'm against Bush- and increasingly, so is the rest of the country- because the country needs competent leadership.
Except, Krazy is deeply in love with Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz, meanwhile, finds his primary purpose in life is to throw bricks at Krazy's head. Krazy Kat interprets the hurling of said bricks as thoughtful tokens of Ignatz's affections. The dog loves Krazy, and so spends his time trying to put Ignatz in jail.
There are pros and cons to getting a PhD and people weigh those before going into a science graduate program, and during their program. On the "pros" side you've got the joy of discovery and the fulfillment of teaching (I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone entering science to become a researcher/teacher at an academic institution).
On the "con" side:
(1) in many low-demand fields, you may never get a job.
(2) if there are few jobs in your field, you have less control over where you will end up working. That means you're more likely to end up at the Eastern Oregon School of Liberal Arts and Small Engine Repair than, say, Harvard.
(3) if there aren't many jobs, the University is in the position to call the shots. That can mean relatively low salaries and lots of courses to teach.
(4) it's extremely competitive. You need a lot of publications and good research to get a job. That means you spend almost all your time working instead of having a well-rounded life and doing things like going to the pub for a beer, chasing women, having a family, etc. As a guy it's bad enough, but many women feel that they are forced to choose between either having a career, or having children.
(5) Funding is limited (George W. Bush has not helped this situation by cutting the National Science Foundation budget) which means you spend a lot of time begging grant agencies for money.
(6) Science is not exactly a glamorous career. Tell someone at a cocktail party you're a scientist and the eyes tend to glaze over. Being a scientist may be a turn-on to some women, but I think it's a turn-off to most... maybe even to a lot of female scientists.
(7) You have to deal with scientists all the time. A lot of scientists really are boring people, and a lot of scientists are just assholes and egomaniacs. It's harder than you'd think to pull off being a decent human being and a successful scientist at the same time. It also demands a surprising amount of networking and politicking. Who you know is very, very important in science.
(8) a science PhD can be pretty brutal. Many institutions have a "sink-or-swim" attitude where they accept many more PhD students than they want to finish, and then it's survival of the fittest. They don't really care if you get ground up and spat out, because there are dozens of applicants ready to take your place. You can also be exploited by the University as cheap labor in the classroom, or by your supervisor as cheap labor in the laboratory. Also, in many institutions your supervisor is basically God. Whether he decides to be a vengeful god or a merciful god is entirely up to him, and there's damn little you can do if he decides to abuse his power (i.e. abuse you), except leave.
So I would strongly caution anyone about considering a career in science. Science can be wonderful, but the way the system is currently set up, success in the field can come at an incredibly high price. You have to determine what you're willing to sacrifice, and what you're not.
Anyone still wonder why there aren't more science PhDs awarded?
Yes, but because of that, we also have the safest country on the planet, with the lowest rates of murder, drug use, theft and violent crime.
Wait a minute, we don't? Never mind.
I mean, aren't we at war in Iraq, and isn't that country threatening to break up and devolve into civil war? Maybe they could actually come up with, like, a plan for that? Not to mention there's New Orleans to rebuild and a budget to balance. And what about that Bin Laden guy? You know, the one who blew up the World Trade Center four years ago? Who the White House has still failed to capture or kill?
Pirates with RPGs? "Arrr, kill me elf, will ye Blackbeard? Curse ye and keel haul ye, you be the cheatinest Dungeon Master on the Seven Seas!"
I just had an image of Elmer Fudd pointing his gun at an Orthodox Jew with a Bronx accent who then jumps down a hole... man, I am just not getting enough sleep these days.
Duck Season! Rabbi Season! Duck Season!
What do you expect him to do? Awarding medals to people who've done the nation a real service will just show what a poor job Bush has done serving the country.
He hasn't caught Osama, he's used false pretenses to launch us into a war in Iraq with no end in sight and turned that country into a breeding ground for terrorists, he screwed up royally on Katrina by appointing incompetent cronies, and he's created a massive budget deficit.
Instead, Bush gave medals last year to George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, and L. Paul Bremer, the guy who implemented de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, two of the worst moves of the occupation. Trying to rebrand miserable failure as success. This year, the theme seems to be giving medals to celebrities, perhaps in hopes of distracting the nation from its real problems, problems which he's created.
At any rate, what college taught me was how to think. I didn't realize it until years later, but the point of a liberal arts education isn't to be an expert on Shakespeare or Plato or Econ or whatever- it's to learn how to learn, and learn how to think, and that skill can then be turned to whatever it is you want to do, whether it's start a dotcom empire, cure malaria, manufacture fortune cookies, write a book, or whatever. And I don't think I could have possibly gotten that online. And while I may not have hooked up with a lot of chicks in college, I would have hooked up with a lot fewer getting a degree online. That, and I still have a lot of great friends from college. But you've seriously got to work to get your money's worth. Even at the best schools in the nation, you really have to try to get a good education. Look at Bush- four years at a top-notch school and the guy's still an incompetent fool.
Give me a f***ing break. From Wikipedia, the "it ain't necessarily trustworthy, but it's readily available" reference:
"Teflon is the brand name of a polymer compound discovered by Roy J. Plunkett (1910-1994) of DuPont in 1938 and introduced as a commercial product in 1946. It is a thermoplastic fluoropolymer."
And...
"The photovoltaic effect was first recognised in 1839 by French physicist Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel. However it was not until 1883 that the first solar cell was built, by Charles Fritts who coated the semiconductor selenium with an extremely thin layer of gold to form the junctions. The device was only around 1% efficient. Russell Ohl is generally recognized for patenting the modern solar cell in 1946 (US2402662, "Light sensitive device"). Sven Ason Berglund had a prior patent concerning methods of increasing the capacity of photosensitive cells."
And no, NASA didn't invent Velcro, either.
They're way ahead of you- their next move is to regulate opposable thumbs.
That, or he entered a coma in November of 2000, and just woke up...
Slate.com has a good writeup to this effect, drawing a parallel between Intelligent Design "Theory" and Monty Python's "Brontosaurus Theory" ("... This theory goes as follows and begins now. All brontosauruses are thin at one end; much, much thicker in the middle; and then thin again at the far end.")
http://www.slate.com/id/2128755
-hold on, Mom wants me to clean out my room in the basement. Be right back.
OK, but WHY did they have to get perspex? Why not just get, oh, I don't know, REGULAR ALUMINUM? Or plate steel, which would be even thinner and cheaper than either? They go through this huge effort of screwing around with the space-time continuum and everything to get something transparent, but apparently nobody has even considered the possibility of making the tank, I dunno, NON-TRANSPARENT!? Or maybe with just a couple little viewing windows? If the tank is opaque, are the whales really going to freak out any more than they already do after being transported into the belly of freakin' Klingon attack ship???
Sorry to go ballistic. I mean, I did enjoy the movie, but that part has always bugged me. Damn it, it's so... well, illogical.
Even in that department, the robots do a better job. I was a lot more inspired by the rovers, or the landing on Titan, than by Columbia exploding during re-entry. The last really inspiring NASA manned mission was fixing the Hubble. Which was a manned mission... to fix a robot.
That's pure bullshit. Now, the insurgency is a complicated phenomenon, with a mix of Sunni nationalists, die-hard Baathists, Islamic fundamentalists, Shiite militias, and, yes, hundreds of foreign fighters. But it's overwhelmingly Iraqi. I mean, think about it. Insurgencies need popular support. Even if everyone actually shooting at the US Army was a foreigner, they'd need a huge amount of local help. For every guy who actually picks up a Kalashnikov you need others to help him operate: people who help supply you with food and weapons, people who give you information, people who just give you a place to stay. I mean, where the hell would all the goddamn foreign fighters *stay*- the friggin' Ramada? The local youth hostel? Maybe everyone in Iraq doesn't want us to get the fuck out, but there's a very significant chunk of people who do.
So there's two ways its got actual psychotherapy beat...
SpecOps Labs insists that this has nothing to do with the fact that they have told their investors that the company will have a completed Windows emulator product fifteen days from now...