The Enlightenment was in the 18th Century. The Renaissance (literally, rebirth) was immediately after the Dark Ages, and indeed did include the incorporation of Arab knowledge, which was quite substantial at that time, into European Cultures. Subsequently, the Middle East stagnated (prior to the rise of European Colonialism, mind you, so you can't really blame whitey for this one), while Europe dominated.
Pick up a copy of What Went Wrong. It'll explain why you are wrong better than I can.
RTFB, then bloviate. You sound somewhat uninformed otherwise. I understand how a book review by Newt Gingrich could be off-putting.
I've read both. IANAC (I Am Not A Classicist), but Neither Diamond nor Hanson should be taken too seriously. They're polemicists at worst, and pop historians at best, and darlings of the Left and Right, respectively.
Anyway, in defense of Hanson, the thesis of his book is quite competently defended, and is a bit more nuanced than "Europe is better and always has been." He uses historical battles as illustrative examples of aspects of Western Culture that have led to our Post-Renaissance dominance, which even you, in your haste to condemn the book you haven't read, concede. Things like private land ownership, the ability of a market economy to rapidly switch to war-time production (cf. Venice and the battle of Lepanto, US Pacific Fleet in WWII), civic militarism (i.e. direct participation of soldiers in the government they're fighting for).
Finally, read some Bernard Lewis (who is actually a respected historian) to cure you of your fascination with Arab Culture. If you're too lazy to read that, the short version is: "we had an enlightenment; they didn't."
I posted these when the article was on the firehose for the benefit of the non-technical audience, but I guess they don't carry over when the story gets promoted:
The article reports the ground-breaking/unprecedented/whatever direct conversion of cellulose to HMF. Here's an earlier article from a different research group that the editors of "Gizmag" seem to be unaware of. It was published earlier and actually describes the same process from either cellulose or untreated biomass:
Nice breakdown, but I'm a bit cynical about anyone other than McCain's chances tomorrow. Huckabee would be a good running mate for McCain to solidify his base, especially after the Hillary comments made by Coulter/Limbaugh/etc, but lacks the broad appeal to have the slightest chance outside of the Bible Belt. He's basically playing the Ross Perot to Romney's Bush I.
Iraq, which is seemingly McCain's only issue, is more or less a resolved issue (the surge is working, native Iraqi security forces are being trained, etc.), and I see the economy and health care as being more important over the next four years, which is a natural fit for Romney, given his background and record in MA. McCain, OTOH, has probably finished reading Greenspan's book by now, and hasn't impressed me with anything substantive. He can only play "leadership and experience" for so long before he has to come up with good ideas.
I still don't see how a Republican political story in slashdot doesn't turn into a flamewar, though.
Indeed, when I read the article title, I thought we were dealing with campus speech codes, and that sort of repression. More and more, universities are becoming places for the free exchange of ideas--as long as they're the "right (i.e. left)" ideas. Hell, it only took the Supreme Court to allow military recruiters to interview on campuses.
No. There's a clear contingency plan in the event that no candidate gets the majority of the electoral votes--see the 1800 election for an example. It's almost like the Founding Fathers put a lot more thought into this than you're giving them credit for.
I'm pretty sure the Electoral College does what it's supposed to--we probably just disagree as to what exactly it's supposed to do. It's just a matter of how important you think the aggregate popular vote is, and a restatement of the same argument that's been going on since the first Constitutional Convention (i.e. Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan). The occasional dose of reality TV is enough to remind me why there shouldn't be too much power to the people;)
There's not enough beer left in my fridge for me to keep arguing this one.
According to the Electoral College page on Wikipedia there have only been four times out of fifty five that the candidate with the most popular votes lost the election. So it's not really a rampant problem but maybe there are still a few adjustments to be made.
That may be true, but more precisely, but many more winners in recent history failed to receive a majority of the popular vote (Clinton, Kennedy, Nixon, etc.). The popular vote is utterly meaningless. Sit down and read a copy of Federalist #68 sometime--Hamilton makes this point far more eloquently than I can.
This may be redundant, but short of calling a constitutional convention, you can't get rid of the Electoral College, since there are enough "small states" to block any attempt at an amendment removing it.
maybe you should go talk to General Betray Us and see how astute he is General Petraeus has a Ph.D. from Princeton. What are your academic credentials?
Getting it from the Middle East obviously hasn't worked out so well.
The rate-limiting step in getting crude oil to consumers is the refining--we can get oil out of the ground faster than it can be refined, and a new refinery hasn't been built in the US since 1976. In that time, the number of active refineries in the US has dropped by 50%, while demand has increased 45%. The ones we have are running at capacity, so in an emergency, gasoline can't be produced any faster than it already is. Hence the frequent price spikes.
Yes, we need to stop using oil at some point, but while it's around, we might as well try to make it cheaper.
The US was founded as a Republic, not a Democracy, on the assumption that the Rabble lacked the capacity to govern itself adequately without some assistance. This level of discourse in this entire discussion illustrates that concept perfectly.
And your hero JFK was in favor of foreign intervention to spread democracy:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge--and more.
Re:All this news, but...
on
All Things iPhone
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!"
I'm not gonna say the "government knows best", since they have a remarkable tendency to fuck up pretty much everything they get involved in, both foreign and domestic. I am, however, all for "illegal" covert action by the CIA if it's in our National Interest (e.g. secret prisons in East Europe), and have been since well before the "war on terror" started. I'm a child of the Cold War.
The Geneva Conventions were designed for the times when armies, led by nation-states and wearing uniforms, met on battlefields. The "bad guys" are beheading journalists and civilians on video and dragging mutilated bodies through the streets and you're worried about the US?
We're into the realm of wild guesses here, but it's probably programmed to filter out typical fragmentation patterns found in nitro-compounds (HMX, TNT, PETN, etc) and alkaloids of interest, as well as doing some background subtraction. The analytical software on my lab's GC/MS dates to the early '90s, and is pretty decent at doing just that. It's pretty trivial to program. Then there's the difficult task of putting little lights on the device that say things like "TNT" when it detects it to within 95% or so. Remember, the TSA folks already use non-portable Mass Spec's to screen baggage. And they ain't scientists.
And can dogs give you an accurate mass-to-charge ratio and fragmentation patterns?
I'd be willing to wager that the femtomolar detection threshold for the portable DESI-MS (on the order of 0.1 picograms for a typical organic molecule) is probably lower than for a dog's nose. That, and the mass spec. doesn't need to be fed, trained, and cleaned up after.
85 was the standard when I was in school, 83 seems to be "it" now, based on what my GenChem students have. Problem with the 83 is that it no longer has the built-in physical constants and unit conversions that made the 85 so great for chem. And the 85 has that nice, old-school rectangular shape.
Yes, the "magnetic radiation" is not strong enough to break chemical bonds but it may still affect the nervous system or other systems of the body.
I can't possibly see how. Most systems in the body depend on oxidation/reduction reactions, the cleavage/formation of phosphate bonds, or Na/K ion channels. Most elements present in vivo don't even have spin-active nuclei. Even if they get in excited spin states, that doesn't affect their reactivity in any meaningful way.
Therefore one cannot claim that low frequency EM radiation is completely safe or definitely harmful.
Let me walk you through what various kinds of radiation can do, in order of increasing energy.
Radio waves: excite nuclear spin states. This won't cook food. This is where most "Magnetic Radiation" comes from. This isn't known to make chemical reactions happen that wouldn't otherwise happen. Radio waves are so ubiquitous that if you believe that low-freq Radio Waves are harmful, you may as well kill yourself now. Won't cause cancer, but has led to the proliferation of junk science. Microwaves: molecular rotation (stuff tumbles around). This cooks food (if there's a dipole). This will make chemical reactions (that would normally happen) happen faster in the same way that applying heat would. Won't cause cancer, but will burn you. IR: molecular vibration (stretches chemical bonds). Heats stuff (think of a broiler or heat lamp). Might cause chemical bonds to break if you pump enough energy into it. Won't cause cancer, but will burn you. Uv-Visible light: Excites electrons in transition metals and highly-unsaturated/aromatic organics (some DNA bases are aromatic organics). Makes stuff emit photons when relaxing from excited states (fluorescence, phosphorescence, etc.). Has been linked to skin cancer. X-rays: ionizing radiation. Hits heavier nuclei (transitions and lower p-blocks) and creates ions, which can then react with things around them. Causes health problems. Best avoided.
Say 50Hz might be safe but 120Hz might cause you to hallucinate or something like that.
120 Hz better not--it's the first overtone of the AC power found in much of the world. This is one small step above searching for The Brown Note.
Ever had an MRI? Ever noticed that the radiologist ain't hiding behind anything like the X-Ray guy does?
"Magnetic radiation" isn't strong enough to make or break chemical bonds. Now certain kinds of electro-magnetic radiation *are* harmful, like gamma rays, X-rays, UV, and even visible light. But magnetic fields by themselves aren't going to do much more than erase your credit cards and put your protons in excited spin states.
Now if they were using Tesla coils to recharge stuff wirelessly, then I'd be worried.
Slashdot Mirror
I think he means "Stable Deterrent Balance." MAD would imply that both MS and Google no longer exist.
Careful, your ignorance is showing.
The Enlightenment was in the 18th Century. The Renaissance (literally, rebirth) was immediately after the Dark Ages, and indeed did include the incorporation of Arab knowledge, which was quite substantial at that time, into European Cultures. Subsequently, the Middle East stagnated (prior to the rise of European Colonialism, mind you, so you can't really blame whitey for this one), while Europe dominated.
Pick up a copy of What Went Wrong . It'll explain why you are wrong better than I can.
RTFB, then bloviate. You sound somewhat uninformed otherwise. I understand how a book review by Newt Gingrich could be off-putting.
I've read both. IANAC (I Am Not A Classicist), but Neither Diamond nor Hanson should be taken too seriously. They're polemicists at worst, and pop historians at best, and darlings of the Left and Right, respectively.
Anyway, in defense of Hanson, the thesis of his book is quite competently defended, and is a bit more nuanced than "Europe is better and always has been." He uses historical battles as illustrative examples of aspects of Western Culture that have led to our Post-Renaissance dominance, which even you, in your haste to condemn the book you haven't read, concede. Things like private land ownership, the ability of a market economy to rapidly switch to war-time production (cf. Venice and the battle of Lepanto, US Pacific Fleet in WWII), civic militarism (i.e. direct participation of soldiers in the government they're fighting for).
Finally, read some Bernard Lewis (who is actually a respected historian) to cure you of your fascination with Arab Culture. If you're too lazy to read that, the short version is: "we had an enlightenment; they didn't."
I posted these when the article was on the firehose for the benefit of the non-technical audience, but I guess they don't carry over when the story gets promoted:
Summary:
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090527/full/459492a.html
Editorial:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7246/full/459483a.html
Summary for Scientists:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7246/full/459515a.html
The article reports the ground-breaking/unprecedented/whatever direct conversion of cellulose to HMF. Here's an earlier article from a different research group that the editors of "Gizmag" seem to be unaware of. It was published earlier and actually describes the same process from either cellulose or untreated biomass:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja808537j
Surely you meant "bona fide." None of these candidates are arousing enough to get me bonified.
Nice breakdown, but I'm a bit cynical about anyone other than McCain's chances tomorrow. Huckabee would be a good running mate for McCain to solidify his base, especially after the Hillary comments made by Coulter/Limbaugh/etc, but lacks the broad appeal to have the slightest chance outside of the Bible Belt. He's basically playing the Ross Perot to Romney's Bush I.
Iraq, which is seemingly McCain's only issue, is more or less a resolved issue (the surge is working, native Iraqi security forces are being trained, etc.), and I see the economy and health care as being more important over the next four years, which is a natural fit for Romney, given his background and record in MA. McCain, OTOH, has probably finished reading Greenspan's book by now, and hasn't impressed me with anything substantive. He can only play "leadership and experience" for so long before he has to come up with good ideas.
I still don't see how a Republican political story in slashdot doesn't turn into a flamewar, though.
Indeed, when I read the article title, I thought we were dealing with campus speech codes, and that sort of repression. More and more, universities are becoming places for the free exchange of ideas--as long as they're the "right (i.e. left)" ideas. Hell, it only took the Supreme Court to allow military recruiters to interview on campuses.
No. There's a clear contingency plan in the event that no candidate gets the majority of the electoral votes--see the 1800 election for an example. It's almost like the Founding Fathers put a lot more thought into this than you're giving them credit for.
It's definitely dry stuff.
;)
I'm pretty sure the Electoral College does what it's supposed to--we probably just disagree as to what exactly it's supposed to do. It's just a matter of how important you think the aggregate popular vote is, and a restatement of the same argument that's been going on since the first Constitutional Convention (i.e. Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan). The occasional dose of reality TV is enough to remind me why there shouldn't be too much power to the people
There's not enough beer left in my fridge for me to keep arguing this one.
According to the Electoral College page on Wikipedia there have only been four times out of fifty five that the candidate with the most popular votes lost the election. So it's not really a rampant problem but maybe there are still a few adjustments to be made.
That may be true, but more precisely, but many more winners in recent history failed to receive a majority of the popular vote (Clinton, Kennedy, Nixon, etc.). The popular vote is utterly meaningless. Sit down and read a copy of Federalist #68 sometime--Hamilton makes this point far more eloquently than I can.
This may be redundant, but short of calling a constitutional convention, you can't get rid of the Electoral College, since there are enough "small states" to block any attempt at an amendment removing it.
No. The Roman Empire can demonstrate prior art.
We need oil.
Getting it from the Middle East obviously hasn't worked out so well.
The rate-limiting step in getting crude oil to consumers is the refining--we can get oil out of the ground faster than it can be refined, and a new refinery hasn't been built in the US since 1976. In that time, the number of active refineries in the US has dropped by 50%, while demand has increased 45%. The ones we have are running at capacity, so in an emergency, gasoline can't be produced any faster than it already is. Hence the frequent price spikes.
Yes, we need to stop using oil at some point, but while it's around, we might as well try to make it cheaper.
The US was founded as a Republic, not a Democracy, on the assumption that the Rabble lacked the capacity to govern itself adequately without some assistance. This level of discourse in this entire discussion illustrates that concept perfectly.
And your hero JFK was in favor of foreign intervention to spread democracy:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge--and more.
...or all that has already been released.
t ml
http://www.apple.com/iphone/easysetup/rateplans.h
What a waste of mod points!
"The hype surrounding any product Apple unveils"
Except for the fact that this is targeted at foreigners, not "Fellow Americans."
"Mandatory reading for all those history-challenged individuals who believe government knows best!"
I'm not gonna say the "government knows best", since they have a remarkable tendency to fuck up pretty much everything they get involved in, both foreign and domestic. I am, however, all for "illegal" covert action by the CIA if it's in our National Interest (e.g. secret prisons in East Europe), and have been since well before the "war on terror" started. I'm a child of the Cold War.
The Geneva Conventions were designed for the times when armies, led by nation-states and wearing uniforms, met on battlefields. The "bad guys" are beheading journalists and civilians on video and dragging mutilated bodies through the streets and you're worried about the US?
We're into the realm of wild guesses here, but it's probably programmed to filter out typical fragmentation patterns found in nitro-compounds (HMX, TNT, PETN, etc) and alkaloids of interest, as well as doing some background subtraction. The analytical software on my lab's GC/MS dates to the early '90s, and is pretty decent at doing just that. It's pretty trivial to program. Then there's the difficult task of putting little lights on the device that say things like "TNT" when it detects it to within 95% or so. Remember, the TSA folks already use non-portable Mass Spec's to screen baggage. And they ain't scientists.
And can dogs give you an accurate mass-to-charge ratio and fragmentation patterns?
I'd be willing to wager that the femtomolar detection threshold for the portable DESI-MS (on the order of 0.1 picograms for a typical organic molecule) is probably lower than for a dog's nose. That, and the mass spec. doesn't need to be fed, trained, and cleaned up after.
85 was the standard when I was in school, 83 seems to be "it" now, based on what my GenChem students have. Problem with the 83 is that it no longer has the built-in physical constants and unit conversions that made the 85 so great for chem. And the 85 has that nice, old-school rectangular shape.
You might be able to pick one up cheap on eBay or elsewhere, and spend the remaining $80-130 on something fun.
Yes, the "magnetic radiation" is not strong enough to break chemical bonds but it may still affect the nervous system or other systems of the body.
I can't possibly see how. Most systems in the body depend on oxidation/reduction reactions, the cleavage/formation of phosphate bonds, or Na/K ion channels. Most elements present in vivo don't even have spin-active nuclei. Even if they get in excited spin states, that doesn't affect their reactivity in any meaningful way.
Therefore one cannot claim that low frequency EM radiation is completely safe or definitely harmful.
Let me walk you through what various kinds of radiation can do, in order of increasing energy.
Radio waves: excite nuclear spin states. This won't cook food. This is where most "Magnetic Radiation" comes from. This isn't known to make chemical reactions happen that wouldn't otherwise happen. Radio waves are so ubiquitous that if you believe that low-freq Radio Waves are harmful, you may as well kill yourself now. Won't cause cancer, but has led to the proliferation of junk science.
Microwaves: molecular rotation (stuff tumbles around). This cooks food (if there's a dipole). This will make chemical reactions (that would normally happen) happen faster in the same way that applying heat would. Won't cause cancer, but will burn you.
IR: molecular vibration (stretches chemical bonds). Heats stuff (think of a broiler or heat lamp). Might cause chemical bonds to break if you pump enough energy into it. Won't cause cancer, but will burn you.
Uv-Visible light: Excites electrons in transition metals and highly-unsaturated/aromatic organics (some DNA bases are aromatic organics). Makes stuff emit photons when relaxing from excited states (fluorescence, phosphorescence, etc.). Has been linked to skin cancer.
X-rays: ionizing radiation. Hits heavier nuclei (transitions and lower p-blocks) and creates ions, which can then react with things around them. Causes health problems. Best avoided.
Say 50Hz might be safe but 120Hz might cause you to hallucinate or something like that.
120 Hz better not--it's the first overtone of the AC power found in much of the world. This is one small step above searching for The Brown Note.
Ever had an MRI? Ever noticed that the radiologist ain't hiding behind anything like the X-Ray guy does?
"Magnetic radiation" isn't strong enough to make or break chemical bonds. Now certain kinds of electro-magnetic radiation *are* harmful, like gamma rays, X-rays, UV, and even visible light. But magnetic fields by themselves aren't going to do much more than erase your credit cards and put your protons in excited spin states.
Now if they were using Tesla coils to recharge stuff wirelessly, then I'd be worried.