Today, Boston has "The Big Dig" which puts the central artery underground and is probably the last piece of the interstate system to be completed.
The Interstate System isn't complete, there is still a chunk of I-95 missing in New Jersey. The gap is supposed to be fixed once the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project is complete.
Incidentally, the US has not committed genocide (meaning wiping out all or most who live within the conquered territory) in all of its existence.
What the US did to the Native Americans as a whole comes pretty close. The actions of the US in the Philippine-American war are also pretty bad. Over 10% of the population was killed off in a few years, and reports claimed that there were 15 Filipinos killed for every one wounded which is a backwords way of saying that they were killing the Filipino wounded.
All that said can you name a single incidnet that qualifies as genocide under your definiton?
Not to be a total jackass, but I really do have to rub this in your face: the Scandinavian countries have historically had the lowest unemployment (historically lower than that of the United States) and STILL have the largest welfare system of all of Europe. If that doesn't provide a counterexample to your nonsensical "Everyone benefits from a dog-eat-dog world" blind faith in Capitalism-as-God, I don't know what does.
I don't think you have any idea what your talking about. If someone was sitting around doing nothing but leaching off the govenernment would they be counted as unemployed in Scandinavia? Generally you have to activly search for a job in order to be counted as unemployed, thats how you prevent things like stay-at-home parents from screwing up your unemployment numbers. So in summary, without any other information those numbers could be a sign of people having no motivation to find a job.
Taking your logic to the extreme, I don't want my children to spray grafitti on bridges or buildings. Is the answer to petition Congress to forbid Wal-Mart from selling paint to minors? Where do you stop with this absurdity?
I don't know where it stops, but on the local level your example is years out of date. In New York City selling spary paint to minors is a misdemeanor. In Chicago selling spray paint to ANYONE is a crime.
I've heard similar stories. In the company I work for the director of R&D is origionally from Iran (and looks it), and the CEO is a white guy from the east coast of the US. They occasionally go on trips and whenever they fly it is always the CEO who ends up getting checked.
The Comet was not a "good airplane", it was an accidnet waiting to happen. It had flawed fuselage/window design that made it extreamly vulnerable to fatigue related failures.
1.1 meters per second is aproximately 4000 kilometers per hour. No, it's just under 4 kilometers per hour. 1.1 m/s * 3600 s/hr * 1/1000 km/m = 3.96km/hr
From one of your links: The epidemic was detected recently when the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and three other organizations studied stored blood samples from women who had premature or low birth weight babies between 1959 and 1966. Nearly 25% of these mothers had five times as much of a DDT breakdown product in their blood as would be considered normal today.
This statement (and many of the others on that website) looks bad but is completely meaningless. What was the "normal" level back in 1959-1966? If you don't know that, you don't know how these women compared to those who were having successful births.
Or... our 'enemies' could just start building reflective satellites, or even just carrying a big, reflective 'shield' underneath them. It could be something as simple as a big, inflatable mylar bag. I don't know how much heat a very reflective mirror would have to dissipate when being hit by a laser, but it obviously can be done, if the adaptive optics in the 'gun' don't burn out, and that's right freaking next to the output of the laser, instead of through 100+ miles of atmosphere and space.
I see several problems with this:
A highly reflective satalite will be easy to target.
There are lots of things that are difficult to make reflective. The two that spring to mind are sensors and solar panels.
You're going to still need to disipate a lot of heat, and I don't see why "it obviously can be done" in space, things on earth are a lot easier to cool.
Any sort of large mirror is going to add weight, even making the satalite reflective is going to add weight. Extra weight is going to make the sattalite more expensive and/or less effective.
Studies have shown the occurance of shingles increased after vaccination for chicken pox started.
From what I've read it is believed that exposure to chicken pox helps prevent shingles, so vacinating people reduces the number of people having chicken pox and increases in people having shingles.
And it'd be even more convenient to be able to open a bank account without having to provide any documentation at all!
About six months ago I was able to open a bank account over the phone without any ID. So I'm not sure what you're driving at here.
Why on earth shouldn't we be able to have anonymous bank accounts? Seriously, why?
How exactly would you report the interest gained in an "anonymous bank account" without breaking the "anonymous" part? How would the bank know if someone can withdraw money from the account?
The U.S. Customary System is not the same thing as the British Imperial System. As a random example, a gallon in the British Imperial is about 120% of the size of a gallon in the US Customary System.
As far as the tourist example, I'd like to ask you a quick question. Some African tribes have women who don't cover their chests. When traveling to the United States, what do you think would happen if they walked on the street like that? They would be arrested.
Are you sure about that? While I do not know about the rest of the country, in New York it was ruled by the court of appeals a while ago that women could not be arrested just because they were going around topless.
Slashdot Mirror
Today, Boston has "The Big Dig" which puts the central artery underground and is probably the last piece of the interstate system to be completed.
The Interstate System isn't complete, there is still a chunk of I-95 missing in New Jersey. The gap is supposed to be fixed once the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project is complete.
Incidentally, the US has not committed genocide (meaning wiping out all or most who live within
the conquered territory) in all of its existence.
What the US did to the Native Americans as a whole comes pretty close.
The actions of the US in the Philippine-American war are also pretty bad. Over 10% of the population was killed off in a few years, and reports claimed that there were 15 Filipinos killed for every one wounded which is a backwords way of saying that they were killing the Filipino wounded.
All that said can you name a single incidnet that qualifies as genocide under your definiton?
Not to be a total jackass, but I really do have to rub this in your face: the Scandinavian countries have historically had the lowest unemployment (historically lower than that of the United States) and STILL have the largest welfare system of all of Europe. If that doesn't provide a counterexample to your nonsensical "Everyone benefits from a dog-eat-dog world" blind faith in Capitalism-as-God, I don't know what does. I don't think you have any idea what your talking about. If someone was sitting around doing nothing but leaching off the govenernment would they be counted as unemployed in Scandinavia? Generally you have to activly search for a job in order to be counted as unemployed, thats how you prevent things like stay-at-home parents from screwing up your unemployment numbers. So in summary, without any other information those numbers could be a sign of people having no motivation to find a job.
Taking your logic to the extreme, I don't want my children to spray grafitti on bridges or buildings. Is the answer to petition Congress to forbid Wal-Mart from selling paint to minors? Where do you stop with this absurdity?
I don't know where it stops, but on the local level your example is years out of date. In New York City selling spary paint to minors is a misdemeanor. In Chicago selling spray paint to ANYONE is a crime.
You might think differently if you vision was so bad that you were legally blind.
I've heard similar stories. In the company I work for the director of R&D is origionally from Iran (and looks it), and the CEO is a white guy from the east coast of the US. They occasionally go on trips and whenever they fly it is always the CEO who ends up getting checked.
It'll loop arond eventually.
The Comet was not a "good airplane", it was an accidnet waiting to happen. It had flawed fuselage/window design that made it extreamly vulnerable to fatigue related failures.
"The Black Death killed 1/3 of the population of Europe: what recent epidemic has even come close to that?"
Spanish Flu of 1918.
Only if you consider an order of magnitude to be close.
The Spanish Flu killed a few percent of the worlds population.
According to the estimates I've seen The Black Death killed more people in Europe then the Spanish Flu did world-wide.
... thus the word aproximately. The real number is 1.111111111111 ... I just rounded to the nearest tenth.
No, the "real number" is 1111.11111111111...
You're off by a factor of 1000.
1.1 meters per second is aproximately 4000 kilometers per hour.
No, it's just under 4 kilometers per hour.
1.1 m/s * 3600 s/hr * 1/1000 km/m = 3.96km/hr
Just cut the power for a few minutes. Then they'll all be blinking '12:00'.
From one of your links:
The epidemic was detected recently when the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and three other organizations studied stored blood samples from women who had premature or low birth weight babies between 1959 and 1966. Nearly 25% of these mothers had five times as much of a DDT breakdown product in their blood as would be considered normal today.
This statement (and many of the others on that website) looks bad but is completely meaningless. What was the "normal" level back in 1959-1966? If you don't know that, you don't know how these women compared to those who were having successful births.
Or... our 'enemies' could just start building reflective satellites, or even just carrying a big, reflective 'shield' underneath them. It could be something as simple as a big, inflatable mylar bag. I don't know how much heat a very reflective mirror would have to dissipate when being hit by a laser, but it obviously can be done, if the adaptive optics in the 'gun' don't burn out, and that's right freaking next to the output of the laser, instead of through 100+ miles of atmosphere and space.
I see several problems with this:
A highly reflective satalite will be easy to target.
There are lots of things that are difficult to make reflective. The two that spring to mind are sensors and solar panels.
You're going to still need to disipate a lot of heat, and I don't see why "it obviously can be done" in space, things on earth are a lot easier to cool.
Any sort of large mirror is going to add weight, even making the satalite reflective is going to add weight. Extra weight is going to make the sattalite more expensive and/or less effective.
Studies have shown the occurance of shingles increased after vaccination for chicken pox started.
From what I've read it is believed that exposure to chicken pox helps prevent shingles, so vacinating people reduces the number of people having chicken pox and increases in people having shingles.
And it'd be even more convenient to be able to open a bank account without having to provide any documentation at all!
About six months ago I was able to open a bank account over the phone without any ID. So I'm not sure what you're driving at here.
Why on earth shouldn't we be able to have anonymous bank accounts? Seriously, why?
How exactly would you report the interest gained in an "anonymous bank account" without breaking the "anonymous" part? How would the bank know if someone can withdraw money from the account?
Maybe it's just me, but 100 microns seems like a fairly large particle.
It's a bad business strategy. Make 5 billion now instead of 10 billion in 20 years.
How is that a bad business strategy? If you can get even a 4% annual return on that 5 billion you'll come out ahead.
How is it an assumption?
By the definition of what IQ is the averave person will have an IQ under 110.
When's the last time NY Governor's gone off to do anything interesting.
I hear FDR did a few interesting things after he was Governor of New York.
Unless he has a laptop, or a Mac.
RSI is typically more associated with mouse use than keyboards, due to the tighter grip.
So why don't people who are worried about RSI use trackballs?
The U.S. Customary System is not the same thing as the British Imperial System.
As a random example, a gallon in the British Imperial is about 120% of the size of a gallon in the US Customary System.
So, how does that change anything?
As far as the tourist example, I'd like to ask you a quick question. Some African tribes have women who don't cover their chests. When traveling to the United States, what do you think would happen if they walked on the street like that? They would be arrested.
Are you sure about that? While I do not know about the rest of the country, in New York it was ruled by the court of appeals a while ago that women could not be arrested just because they were going around topless.