First some people might fight their unwholesome thoughts, but cease to when confronted with evidence that others are actually doing what they'd like to do.
Second even if those people don't act, they might like to watch. This creates a demand for the material, and therefore it has to be on offer somehow. The theory goes that is demand is stiffled, there won't be such an incentive for the supply and therefore less abuse.
Anyhow, I can't see how one can turn a blind eye to child abuse.
- Microsoft didn't invent the concept (visi corp did, with VisiCalc) - Excel is full of bugs that have never been fixed. - Excel is adequate software for doing some simple-minded accounting, printing some somewhat pretty graphics and producing some extremely simple applications with the help of an intern or two, all in a neat package for not that much money.
It should never ever be used in the following situations :
- in lieu of even a simple database - for doing proper accounting - for running ever so slightly complex simulation - for crunching real numbers that have meaning and significance. - especially, NEVER, EVER for statistics.
I wouldn't touch numbers coming out of Excel with a 10-foot pole. From personal experience, due to the fact that Excel users in 99.5% of the cases are people simply clueless with data.
Moreover Excel's features (and bugs) have been duplicated in Gnumeric, Openoffice, Siag and whatnot for a very long time.
The only reason Excel is in use everywhere even in situation where it shouldn't is simply due to Microsoft bundling it in office. In my experience people require a word processor first, purchase Office to get Word and then often use Excel because it's there.
Apple brand potential is huge, percentage-wise, in the computer area. Right now Apple sells relatively low volumes of its laptops and desktops, it could easily double but would still not represent very big numbers, compared to Dell.
On the other hand, in the iPod arena, this study probably recognizes that so far Apple has had a field day selling mp3/aac players and that the trend is unlikely to continue.
Actually not quite so one-sided. The war lasted 2 months from memory, with 6 weeks of actual combats. That's longer than a skirmish, I think. About 700 Argentinian and over 250 British soldiers died. The UK lost six ships (10 others were very badly damaged), thirty-four aircraft, and more than £1.6 billion in the war. They did reclaim the island, but don't forget that the UK was a nuclear power with the whole of NATO behind her should it be required, in a period of cold war. There was no way the UK could lose this war once engaged. Even the French helped them with precious missile and aircraft intelligence. Without it, UK losses could have been far worse.
Overall the Argentinian top military showed widespread incompetency except perhaps with their air force. They could have done much better with the resources at their disposal, but that is always and easy thing to say. No one helped them, they made a foolish decision to invade the Falklands, but the Argentinian soldiers and pilots fought gallantly.
Perhaps not if by sending 2-3 smart shells one does the same job as sending 4 planes with 8 men and a small complement of bombs into danger. With JDAM you still have to fly over there and basically aim and deliver. Not so trivial, quite dangerous and results are not assured.
I don't know. Imagine a situation where a president is elected and decides that the problem with America is that it is too involved militarily with the rest of the world, and so decides to cut the military by 90%, stop all foreign operations, disband all extra-territorial bases, etc. Think that couldn't happen in a million year? I'm not so sure, things like that have happened in other first-world countries that were over-militarized, such as Spain in recent memory (late 80s).
All of the sudden the whole of the US military has a vested interest in removing this president from office. This would feel so wrong from the military point of view that I think only a small portion of the military would be against a coup.
It's impossible not to give credit to Gates for his sense of timing in at least three occasions. The first one, and most important, when he and Allen founded Microsoft while Gates was still in college. The second opportunity when they got the contract with IBM for the new operating system for the IBM-PC, and the third time when they divorced IBM over Windows 3.0 vs. OS/2.
Other than that, time after time after time, Microsoft has been playing to its existing strength, not particularly innovating, and not doing very well with timing.
Most famously in recent memory they were late for the internet party, but compensated with sheer resources to eventually win the browser war. There are many other instances of Microsoft being late to almost every opportunity. They were late in the language war vs. Borland, but again won with sheer might, e.g. by hiring key developers away. Doesn't anyone remember how truly awful Microsoft-C was in the late 80s? They didn't have an IDE before Borland and others showed them how it could be done, and then slapped one together with QuickC. They were similarly late in the office department. Excel was originally a terrible substitute for 1-2-3, and before it Multiplan.
For a long time it didn't matter if they came late, as they were always able to buy out or distance the competitors somehow.
Microsoft did very well by letting others innovate and take risks first, and then using their existing leverage with the industry and their huge developer resources to take the winnings home. If you want you can call that an uncanny sense of timing, personnally I think Microsoft gets the respect due to its size and might, but is not a credit to the industry overall.
With all due respect, usually file and rank does not attemps coups, however top brass might. I can well envision a dire enough situation where the Pentagon could take over operations. Who would stop them ?
Sure the Brits won, but everyone was expecting the battle to be so one-sided that it wouldn't be funny. Argentina was a poor third-world country then controlled by a mad military regime.
The brits underestimated the effect of distance and low-level simple attacks. Eventually they won, but the Argentinian demonstrated that the British model of VTOL carrier was flawed, and the Exocet sold very well for a while.
A fire blanket is the recommended way. That's a non-combustible cloth blanket about 10feet square with handles. It sits folded in a sturdy container, metal or cloth, affixed to the wall. You pull on the handles, that causes the blanket to unfold, and then you put it on the fire.
Works great. Much better than an extinguisher for most fires.
Finland is a tiny country of 5 million inhabitants. It doesn't even begin to compare with a country of 300 million like the US.
Nobody is saying you should change your way of life or anything, just to come to the realisation that socialism doesn't necessarily equate with current North Korea or the old USSR.
I didn't know that this existed and I've been bitten by IM changes of API too many times already. Actually about 10% of my configure script is dealing with IM API changes and is the part that is most regularly breaking...
Although I disagree with the GP, your list actually doesn't disprove his point. It would tend to show that very popular movies indeed contain low levels of sex and what you call "appropriate" levels of violence. Exactly the point the GP was making, in reverse, i.e. that people would go to the movies more if they had lower levels of sex, violence etc.
And in turn let me thank you as well for your own interesting reply.
I also think the profits are there for the taking, no questions about it. Think of the absolutely mindboggling methane resources in the Saturn area ; not to mention rare metals and whatnot, or just the idea that once humans are out of the craddle they shall become far more resistant to global upheavals of all kinds. Yet this is all science-fiction.
I simply think people vastly underestimate the resources needed to get out of Earth's gravity well and survive there for any length of time, let alone travel anywhere interesting. Chemical power & known tech can barely barely get us to the Moon and back with a few pounds to spare (for rock samples). This was with a rocket we don't know how to make anymore (Saturn V). I don't believe anyone can survive 6 months in deep space between the Earth and Mars, land there, live there for a few months and ever get back with a chemically-powered vehicle. People who think otherwise simply haven't done their maths right.
We will not get out of Earth in a commercially viable way before some kind of cheap space elevator becomes available. The space elevator will not happen unless vast amounts of basic research resources get spent in public and private labs. This might take a few decades and is completely out of reach of any private endeavour right now, simply because no one except government can employ the 10,000 profs and PhDs for the 20 years that this effort will require.
Then once we have that stuff, actually building something substancial in orbit becomes possible. Then we can build Orion. This nuclear-powered vessel can travel in the solar system at 1G throughout. Going to Mars is a matter of a few weeks. In days one gets to the closest asteroids. Going to Jupiter and Saturn is possible and survivable. In fact there is no other possible know way to do it, and we already know Orion is feasible (although HARD!)
However it is not possible to build Orion on the ground, even for government. This is highly dangerous stuff. Building it in orbit with current tech is impossible even with the current combined wealth of all governments on Earth, by far. Building Orion would cost in excess of 100 space stations. Tens of trillions of dollars! Name a corp that can do that.
Hence true space exploration and exploitation of the solar system will not happen for decades, and it will not happen commercially except of short tourist joyrides and eventually competition to the US/European/Russian/Chinese satellite launch systems. Forget about asteroids, *except* if some kind of disruptive technology I don't know about (obviously) becomes available eventually.
There are other things that could be done, such as entirely robotic exploitation system. However I can't see any private endeavour getting to the level of expertise and experience of the JPL anytime soon, yet this is the best we have, and what JPL does, although awe inspiring, are only baby steps on the way to space exploitation. This would cost far less, yet is still, IMHO out of reach of any and all corps.
Just a few points, first I never said I didn't like the US governemnt in particular, just that I'm not fond of governments in general. This seems to be a pretty widespread opinion around the US and elsewhere in my experience.
Also my post is not about being prudent or not. I just pointed out that everyone on/. is expecting to pick up space travel pretty much where NASA and the Russian agency left it at their peak but that nothing would be further from the truth. Private entreprise in the US and elsewhere doesn't have the means and the motivation to go to space at a spectacular rate right now.
With all due respect to them, all private endeavours so far show good spirits but are nice little amateur shows compare to what NASA and other government agencies have achieved long ago. For the foreseable future, in spite of NASA's failing it is still the place where things are happening as far as new space exploration is concerned.
I read a lot of negative comments on NASA on this board. It's now fashionable to complain that this agency has become a huge inefficient cesspit of wasted opportunities and money. Since the last shuttle disaster NASA is not looking very good for sure.
People assume that things will fare better if profit-driven private enterprise runs the space exploring show.
To a great degree I think it's not as simple as it looks. First the obvious cheap routes to profit from space are already taken : putting satellites in LEO and geosynchronous orbit. There is already a lot of competition on that market between the US, Europe, Japan, India and China. Unless someone comes up with a space elevator that works or similar disruptive technology, this is not likely to change much.
Essentially private space exploring enterprises is now at the level NASA was at in 1950 or so. It took a huge financial effort and a large dedicated team of incredible people to go to the Moon in 1970 or so (and bring back small samples of rock). While not all of this is lost, and I believe it is possible to repeat the feat, I can't see much profit in that particular endeavour. Colour me doubtful with respect with space tourism. It will be a while before this is safe enough for companies to ship people for small leaps above the atmosphere without getting sued out of existence at the first accident.
Getting to the Moon and the asteroids and mining them has been a mainstay of science fiction since it has existed. Everyone knows many asteroids are metal-rich and could turn a nice buck if they could be exploited. Everyone knows the Moon is littered with He3, and theoretically achieving sustained nuclear fusion might be easiser there. However various governments have known this as well, for decades. In contrast to starry eyed reporters and somewhat naive slashdot users, they have run the numbers and found that with current technology their exploitation is simply not economically feasible. Again we need disruptive technology and it's not there yet.
While I'm not a particular big fan of governements either, and not particularly the US's, I'd like to remind everyone here that so far, in spite of their failings, it is them who have driven investments, research, exploration and exploitation. They are so far ahead of any and all private space exploration outfits that it's not funny.
Even with the help of billions and indeed, trillions of dollars of private funds it will take a very long time for private enterprise to catch up, let alone leap ahead. I don't doubt that if Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined their wealth they'd be able to build a Saturn V equivalent in a small number of years, but I can't see anyone succeeding in convincing them it would be a good and sound business proposition.
It may happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath. While private enterprise is busy gathering investors with nice sounding business plans and pooh poohing all that we learned in the last 50 years or so of actual space exploration because, you know, gov't did it and that's not relevant, NASA and the others are still exploring the solar system, last I checked. Apparently there's a plan to go to Mars, or so I heard.
Really all that NASA and others require is a sound plan, a clear worthy goal that has some chance of succeeding. What many people seem to be missing here is that in spite of searching and thinking hard that plan was never found. The rest followed.
Have you done this comparison double-blind fashion ? With 320kbps MP3s ?
I believe you with 128kbps MP3s, but for anything above 256 VBR encoded by Lame, you should try to find a job at Deutsche Gramophon.
The result of that famous test is that even for trained listeners using top of the line audiophile equipment, there isn't any significant difference between 256kbps MP3 and WAV.
According to quantum mechanics nothing can be truly observed, only some aspects of reality, if this exists, are accessible to measurement. Most famously, one cannot measure a particle's position and momentum at the same time with infinite precision. This was a prediction of QM, which has since been observed many times. The most spectacular application of this are femtosecond lasers. They yield a very brief pulse, and thus by the uncertainty principle cannot deliver monochromatic light. Indeed femtosecond lasers are observed to yield white light.
Science does not proceed from observation to conclusion. Science works by proposing models (QM, GRT, evolution, etc) that *predict* some aspects of reality heretofore unsuspected. This is why working on high-energy physicis is most definitely science, even though recent work in HEP cannot be checked because the accelerators that would confirm the predictions made by various parts of HEP haven't been built yet.
This is why Einstein was doing science in 1915 by writing down GRT, even though no one had witnessed the Sun bending light rays the way GRT predicted yet. Thus working on models of things that are not directly observable but whose properties can be identified and quantified is generally science, and not pseudo-science.
There is no such thing as absolute thruth except in mathematics, BTW.
Excellent reply. Birth rate in Japan after WWII was astronomical and dropped like a stone as soon as Japan got some economic traction. However, the low birth rate in Japan is also due to cultural changes (source) :
In Japan, the cultural transition is even more marked. In 1955 two-thirds of couples met through arranged marriages. Now fewer than 10 per cent do, according to Naohiro Ogawa, demographer and economist at Tokyo's Nihon University: "Dating is fairly new to the culture." Observers wonder, only half in jest, whether the Japanese race will be the first to die out because it is too shy to reproduce.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello,
I'm calling complete BS, Apple can't sell you a refurb without a warranty.
Furthermore you can purchase AppleCare for your refurbished product at the same price and conditions as for a new product.
Yes the thinking goes that abuse is viral.
First some people might fight their unwholesome thoughts, but cease to when confronted with evidence that others are actually doing what they'd like to do.
Second even if those people don't act, they might like to watch. This creates a demand for the material, and therefore it has to be on offer somehow. The theory goes that is demand is stiffled, there won't be such an incentive for the supply and therefore less abuse.
Anyhow, I can't see how one can turn a blind eye to child abuse.
Excel by itsel really is nothing special.
- Microsoft didn't invent the concept (visi corp did, with VisiCalc)
- Excel is full of bugs that have never been fixed.
- Excel is adequate software for doing some simple-minded accounting, printing some somewhat pretty graphics and producing some extremely simple applications with the help of an intern or two, all in a neat package for not that much money.
It should never ever be used in the following situations :
- in lieu of even a simple database
- for doing proper accounting
- for running ever so slightly complex simulation
- for crunching real numbers that have meaning and significance.
- especially, NEVER, EVER for statistics.
I wouldn't touch numbers coming out of Excel with a 10-foot pole. From personal experience, due to the fact that Excel users in 99.5% of the cases are people simply clueless with data.
Moreover Excel's features (and bugs) have been duplicated in Gnumeric, Openoffice, Siag and whatnot for a very long time.
The only reason Excel is in use everywhere even in situation where it shouldn't is simply due to Microsoft bundling it in office. In my experience people require a word processor first, purchase Office to get Word and then often use Excel because it's there.
Actually I don't think this is incorrect.
Apple brand potential is huge, percentage-wise, in the computer area. Right now Apple sells relatively low volumes of its laptops and desktops, it could easily double but would still not represent very big numbers, compared to Dell.
On the other hand, in the iPod arena, this study probably recognizes that so far Apple has had a field day selling mp3/aac players and that the trend is unlikely to continue.
Actually not quite so one-sided. The war lasted 2 months from memory, with 6 weeks of actual combats. That's longer than a skirmish, I think. About 700 Argentinian and over 250 British soldiers died. The UK lost six ships (10 others were very badly damaged), thirty-four aircraft, and more than £1.6 billion in the war. They did reclaim the island, but don't forget that the UK was a nuclear power with the whole of NATO behind her should it be required, in a period of cold war. There was no way the UK could lose this war once engaged. Even the French helped them with precious missile and aircraft intelligence. Without it, UK losses could have been far worse.
Overall the Argentinian top military showed widespread incompetency except perhaps with their air force. They could have done much better with the resources at their disposal, but that is always and easy thing to say. No one helped them, they made a foolish decision to invade the Falklands, but the Argentinian soldiers and pilots fought gallantly.
There's a very good article on Wikipedia.
Perhaps not if by sending 2-3 smart shells one does the same job as sending 4 planes with 8 men and a small complement of bombs into danger. With JDAM you still have to fly over there and basically aim and deliver. Not so trivial, quite dangerous and results are not assured.
I don't know. Imagine a situation where a president is elected and decides that the problem with America is that it is too involved militarily with the rest of the world, and so decides to cut the military by 90%, stop all foreign operations, disband all extra-territorial bases, etc. Think that couldn't happen in a million year? I'm not so sure, things like that have happened in other first-world countries that were over-militarized, such as Spain in recent memory (late 80s).
All of the sudden the whole of the US military has a vested interest in removing this president from office. This would feel so wrong from the military point of view that I think only a small portion of the military would be against a coup.
It's impossible not to give credit to Gates for his sense of timing in at least three occasions. The first one, and most important, when he and Allen founded Microsoft while Gates was still in college. The second opportunity when they got the contract with IBM for the new operating system for the IBM-PC, and the third time when they divorced IBM over Windows 3.0 vs. OS/2.
Other than that, time after time after time, Microsoft has been playing to its existing strength, not particularly innovating, and not doing very well with timing.
Most famously in recent memory they were late for the internet party, but compensated with sheer resources to eventually win the browser war. There are many other instances of Microsoft being late to almost every opportunity. They were late in the language war vs. Borland, but again won with sheer might, e.g. by hiring key developers away. Doesn't anyone remember how truly awful Microsoft-C was in the late 80s? They didn't have an IDE before Borland and others showed them how it could be done, and then slapped one together with QuickC. They were similarly late in the office department. Excel was originally a terrible substitute for 1-2-3, and before it Multiplan.
For a long time it didn't matter if they came late, as they were always able to buy out or distance the competitors somehow.
Microsoft did very well by letting others innovate and take risks first, and then using their existing leverage with the industry and their huge developer resources to take the winnings home. If you want you can call that an uncanny sense of timing, personnally I think Microsoft gets the respect due to its size and might, but is not a credit to the industry overall.
Sad but true : linky
With all due respect, usually file and rank does not attemps coups, however top brass might. I can well envision a dire enough situation where the Pentagon could take over operations. Who would stop them ?
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought JDAM were for bombs, not shells.
Sure the Brits won, but everyone was expecting the battle to be so one-sided that it wouldn't be funny. Argentina was a poor third-world country then controlled by a mad military regime.
The brits underestimated the effect of distance and low-level simple attacks. Eventually they won, but the Argentinian demonstrated that the British model of VTOL carrier was flawed, and the Exocet sold very well for a while.
A fire blanket is the recommended way. That's a non-combustible cloth blanket about 10feet square with handles. It sits folded in a sturdy container, metal or cloth, affixed to the wall. You pull on the handles, that causes the blanket to unfold, and then you put it on the fire.
Works great. Much better than an extinguisher for most fires.
Thnks, very informative !
Finland is a tiny country of 5 million inhabitants. It doesn't even begin to compare with a country of 300 million like the US.
Nobody is saying you should change your way of life or anything, just to come to the realisation that socialism doesn't necessarily equate with current North Korea or the old USSR.
Sure, death is a part of life, however few want to die of cancer at the age of 40, or leukemia at age 8. That's pretty terrible.
Eventually people die, but personnally I'm not in a hurry.
Thank you !
I didn't know that this existed and I've been bitten by IM changes of API too many times already. Actually about 10% of my configure script is dealing with IM API changes and is the part that is most regularly breaking...
Hi,
Although I disagree with the GP, your list actually doesn't disprove his point. It would tend to show that very popular movies indeed contain low levels of sex and what you call "appropriate" levels of violence. Exactly the point the GP was making, in reverse, i.e. that people would go to the movies more if they had lower levels of sex, violence etc.
I hear that morphine is also good for step (4), also pure grade heroin.
And in turn let me thank you as well for your own interesting reply.
I also think the profits are there for the taking, no questions about it. Think of the absolutely mindboggling methane resources in the Saturn area ; not to mention rare metals and whatnot, or just the idea that once humans are out of the craddle they shall become far more resistant to global upheavals of all kinds. Yet this is all science-fiction.
I simply think people vastly underestimate the resources needed to get out of Earth's gravity well and survive there for any length of time, let alone travel anywhere interesting. Chemical power & known tech can barely barely get us to the Moon and back with a few pounds to spare (for rock samples). This was with a rocket we don't know how to make anymore (Saturn V). I don't believe anyone can survive 6 months in deep space between the Earth and Mars, land there, live there for a few months and ever get back with a chemically-powered vehicle. People who think otherwise simply haven't done their maths right.
We will not get out of Earth in a commercially viable way before some kind of cheap space elevator becomes available. The space elevator will not happen unless vast amounts of basic research resources get spent in public and private labs. This might take a few decades and is completely out of reach of any private endeavour right now, simply because no one except government can employ the 10,000 profs and PhDs for the 20 years that this effort will require.
Then once we have that stuff, actually building something substancial in orbit becomes possible. Then we can build Orion. This nuclear-powered vessel can travel in the solar system at 1G throughout. Going to Mars is a matter of a few weeks. In days one gets to the closest asteroids. Going to Jupiter and Saturn is possible and survivable. In fact there is no other possible know way to do it, and we already know Orion is feasible (although HARD!)
However it is not possible to build Orion on the ground, even for government. This is highly dangerous stuff. Building it in orbit with current tech is impossible even with the current combined wealth of all governments on Earth, by far. Building Orion would cost in excess of 100 space stations. Tens of trillions of dollars! Name a corp that can do that.
Hence true space exploration and exploitation of the solar system will not happen for decades, and it will not happen commercially except of short tourist joyrides and eventually competition to the US/European/Russian/Chinese satellite launch systems. Forget about asteroids, *except* if some kind of disruptive technology I don't know about (obviously) becomes available eventually.
There are other things that could be done, such as entirely robotic exploitation system. However I can't see any private endeavour getting to the level of expertise and experience of the JPL anytime soon, yet this is the best we have, and what JPL does, although awe inspiring, are only baby steps on the way to space exploitation. This would cost far less, yet is still, IMHO out of reach of any and all corps.
I'd love, really love to be proved wrong on this.
Just a few points, first I never said I didn't like the US governemnt in particular, just that I'm not fond of governments in general. This seems to be a pretty widespread opinion around the US and elsewhere in my experience.
/. is expecting to pick up space travel pretty much where NASA and the Russian agency left it at their peak but that nothing would be further from the truth. Private entreprise in the US and elsewhere doesn't have the means and the motivation to go to space at a spectacular rate right now.
Also my post is not about being prudent or not. I just pointed out that everyone on
With all due respect to them, all private endeavours so far show good spirits but are nice little amateur shows compare to what NASA and other government agencies have achieved long ago. For the foreseable future, in spite of NASA's failing it is still the place where things are happening as far as new space exploration is concerned.
I read a lot of negative comments on NASA on this board. It's now fashionable to complain that this agency has become a huge inefficient cesspit of wasted opportunities and money. Since the last shuttle disaster NASA is not looking very good for sure.
People assume that things will fare better if profit-driven private enterprise runs the space exploring show.
To a great degree I think it's not as simple as it looks. First the obvious cheap routes to profit from space are already taken : putting satellites in LEO and geosynchronous orbit. There is already a lot of competition on that market between the US, Europe, Japan, India and China. Unless someone comes up with a space elevator that works or similar disruptive technology, this is not likely to change much.
Essentially private space exploring enterprises is now at the level NASA was at in 1950 or so. It took a huge financial effort and a large dedicated team of incredible people to go to the Moon in 1970 or so (and bring back small samples of rock). While not all of this is lost, and I believe it is possible to repeat the feat, I can't see much profit in that particular endeavour. Colour me doubtful with respect with space tourism. It will be a while before this is safe enough for companies to ship people for small leaps above the atmosphere without getting sued out of existence at the first accident.
Getting to the Moon and the asteroids and mining them has been a mainstay of science fiction since it has existed. Everyone knows many asteroids are metal-rich and could turn a nice buck if they could be exploited. Everyone knows the Moon is littered with He3, and theoretically achieving sustained nuclear fusion might be easiser there. However various governments have known this as well, for decades. In contrast to starry eyed reporters and somewhat naive slashdot users, they have run the numbers and found that with current technology their exploitation is simply not economically feasible. Again we need disruptive technology and it's not there yet.
While I'm not a particular big fan of governements either, and not particularly the US's, I'd like to remind everyone here that so far, in spite of their failings, it is them who have driven investments, research, exploration and exploitation. They are so far ahead of any and all private space exploration outfits that it's not funny.
Even with the help of billions and indeed, trillions of dollars of private funds it will take a very long time for private enterprise to catch up, let alone leap ahead. I don't doubt that if Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined their wealth they'd be able to build a Saturn V equivalent in a small number of years, but I can't see anyone succeeding in convincing them it would be a good and sound business proposition.
It may happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath. While private enterprise is busy gathering investors with nice sounding business plans and pooh poohing all that we learned in the last 50 years or so of actual space exploration because, you know, gov't did it and that's not relevant, NASA and the others are still exploring the solar system, last I checked. Apparently there's a plan to go to Mars, or so I heard.
Really all that NASA and others require is a sound plan, a clear worthy goal that has some chance of succeeding. What many people seem to be missing here is that in spite of searching and thinking hard that plan was never found. The rest followed.
Have you done this comparison double-blind fashion ? With 320kbps MP3s ?
I believe you with 128kbps MP3s, but for anything above 256 VBR encoded by Lame, you should try to find a job at Deutsche Gramophon.
The result of that famous test is that even for trained listeners using top of the line audiophile equipment, there isn't any significant difference between 256kbps MP3 and WAV.
Your definition of what science is is incorrect.
According to quantum mechanics nothing can be truly observed, only some aspects of reality, if this exists, are accessible to measurement. Most famously, one cannot measure a particle's position and momentum at the same time with infinite precision. This was a prediction of QM, which has since been observed many times. The most spectacular application of this are femtosecond lasers. They yield a very brief pulse, and thus by the uncertainty principle cannot deliver monochromatic light. Indeed femtosecond lasers are observed to yield white light.
Science does not proceed from observation to conclusion. Science works by proposing models (QM, GRT, evolution, etc) that *predict* some aspects of reality heretofore unsuspected. This is why working on high-energy physicis is most definitely science, even though recent work in HEP cannot be checked because the accelerators that would confirm the predictions made by various parts of HEP haven't been built yet.
This is why Einstein was doing science in 1915 by writing down GRT, even though no one had witnessed the Sun bending light rays the way GRT predicted yet. Thus working on models of things that are not directly observable but whose properties can be identified and quantified is generally science, and not pseudo-science.
There is no such thing as absolute thruth except in mathematics, BTW.
Excellent reply. Birth rate in Japan after WWII was astronomical and dropped like a stone as soon as Japan got some economic traction. However, the low birth rate in Japan is also due to cultural changes (source) :
In Japan, the cultural transition is even more marked. In 1955 two-thirds of couples met through arranged marriages. Now fewer than 10 per cent do, according to Naohiro Ogawa, demographer and economist at Tokyo's Nihon University: "Dating is fairly new to the culture." Observers wonder, only half in jest, whether the Japanese race will be the first to die out because it is too shy to reproduce.