by my reconing 20/1000 = 2% 30% x 300 million = 90 million 2% of 90 million = 1.8 million
And of course, the current death rate is calculated across a sample who are (mstly) getting ICU care in well-equipped hospitals. Once a real epidemic gets rolling, you'll be on your own, so the death rate can be expected to climb.
You are willing to concede that they may have used these things for electro-plating jewellery (i.e. an industrial use of electricity, still commonly used today) but you still claim the devices are not batteries.
Would you care to clarify your definition of what a battery is?
I wasn't talking about babbages hand-cranked beastie, I was talking about the WW2 code-breaking computers (as featured in the recent movie - Enigma) which pre-dated the USA computer mentioned in the article.
How anyone could write an article about the invention of the modern electronic computer, and mention the USA team without mentioning the likes of Alan Turing is beyond me.
The real reason you have to wait a few years before listing it, is that you need to let peoples memories fade a bit before you can claim it was an American invention.
Looking through the list, the inventions fall into 4 categories.
1. American inventions, where their origin is made clear. They're quite careful to always list where the inventions came from, along the lines of "(asian/eastern european name) of the University of (somewhere in America)" 2.Foreign inventions, where no mention of their inventors nationality is made. Fleming, the inventor of penicillin is one example. 3. Foreign inventions that are credited to Americans who came along later. Television and computers are two examples. 4. Foreign inventions that are credited to their actual inventors, and nationality acknowledged. I counted 3.
What is it with Americans? Why do you feed the need to claim the credit for everything?
You missed the point entirely, (I suspect deliberately)
You have failed to address the issue of the great harm that would be caused by my publishing the inforation. If my original posting had actually contained the magic recipe, the likes of Ossama bin Laden would already be huddled over kitchen tables brewing up the mixture, and by tomorrow, every major American city would be knee-deep in Ebola victims.
Ebola is very, very nasty.
In Africa, the standard way of dealing with an outbreak is to surround the area with soldiers, with orders to shoot to kill anyone attempting to leave, and wait until it has 'burnt itself out' (i.e. everyone in the infected village is dead).
Do any of your fanciful 'benefits' that flow from the recipe being published come close to justifying the enormous cost in human suffering and death?
Ok, you've given a couple of examples of bad censorship.
Now suppose I have a formula for making Ebola Virus from corn-flakes and coca-cola. I express my intention to publish this on slashdot, and Cowboy neal hurriedly blocks my access, thus censoring me.
Personally, I think that sort of censorship is A GOOD THING.
It amazes me that those who constantly go on about the rights of "law-abiding gun owners" are also willing to state that their guns can only be taken away by force.
Surely, if you're law-abiding, and the law says you must give up your guns, you'll give them up.
If you're not law-abiding, then you're a criminal, and your lot seem to be in favour of shooting criminals, isn't that what all your 'self defense' talk is aiming at?
I mean, it's not like we're using up some precious resource here. If I want to jump through the bureaucratic hoops necessary to get.druid.au registered as a domain, what's the harm?
He assumes that buffy and her gang slay 6 vamps per year. I've seen single fight-scenes with a higher score than that.
Assuming an average of 3 Vamps dusted per episode, and there are, what, about 24 episodes per season? That's 72 per year, or 4 times the total vamp population !
Mind you, you could change your assumptions for Vampire 'birth rate' to have each vamp sire a new one on average every 3 months, and the sums would probably work out ok.
The conspiracy theory is that the USA wasn't capable of meeting the 1/1/1970 deadline they'd set themselves for a moon landing, so they faked it. They've now had 33 years to cover their tracks.
I just want to know how that other conspiracy theory manages to fake the horizon, when everyone knows the earth is flat, so I should be able to see Mount Everest from here.
I have a friend who worked in an office where several people had identical PDAs. There had been problems with people picking up the wrong PDA after meetings, so he asked my wife to engrave a design on the cover of his, to prevent this kind of confusion.
He sketched the design he wanted, then fished the PDA out of his bag. The thing was covered with little yellow post-it notes with phone numbers, addresses, and appointment times scrawled on them. There must have been 6 or 8 at least!
I'd been thnking about getting a PDA myself, but that made me think again.
>The last culture I can think of that had such an > foul attitude of world domination and rampant > blatant idea theft from other cultures was the > Romans
You should read more history, pretty much everyone who was (or was able to delude themselves that they were) 'top dog' has displayed this sort of silly attitude. I could quote several examples of other nationalities (including my own) demonstrating their greatly inflated sense of self-importance, but I don't want to start an international slanging match.
It's all very childish really. I don't think I'm special just because I was born on the same land-mass as Isaac Newton, and I wish those who do would just grow up.
Basically, if people don't want to accept blame for every bad thing any of their countrymen have ever done, they should stop trying to claim credit for every good thing.
1. Guns Germs and Steel - I agree, very good book.
2. As to embracing new ideas/technologies, have a look at China and Japan, which were both pretty similar civilizations a few hundred years ago. Japan embraced foreign technologies (even sending to Scotland to hire shipbuilding experts to staff their university of naval engineering) while China adopted an "if it was worthwhile, we'd already have invented it" attitude.
Hopefully the internet will help break down the last of this silly national parochialism in the USA and elsewhere (I've seen some blatant examples elsewhere, but don't want to start a "who's most parochial" slanging match).
The real myth of the inventor of TV is that there was one. TV, as a workable technology, was a process of successive refinement, no one person or organisation should try to claim the credit.
It's kind of like trying to claim credit for inventing electricity, lots of people over a long time contributed to the understanding and exploitation of electricity, trying to give sole credit to any one researcher would be silly.
No, and todays computers don't bear much resemblance to those huge monsters from the early days either, but that shouldn't stop us giving credit where it's due.
As a Scot, I'd be quite happy for someone (anyone) else to claim the blame for that silly little-white-balls-and-sticks game. I mean, every time I try to act all manly and "I-come-from-the-country-that-throws-telephone-pol es-for-fun" like, some bastard mentions golf and curling, and I have to slink off in embarassment.
> 1 : of, relating to, or causing putrefaction > 2 : relating to, involving, or characteristic > of sepsis
Websters, that would be an American dictionary, yes ? If you'd looked up an Australian dictionary, you may have found something like this 3: An American (from ryming slang - septic-tank = yank)
And no, it wasn't intended to be insulting.
> Seriously, though *where* did you get the idea > that we (Americans) have a "we invented > everything" mentality?
From talking to Americans mostly, and from reading the likes of "Encarta" which, among other things, credits the USA with the invention of the computer, totally ignoring COLOSSUS, the code-breaking computer featured in "Enigma".
To return to the article this thread is based on, they do mention other inventors of similar era to RCA and Mr Farnsworth, but the bulk of the article credits Mr Farnsworth as the inventor even though there were several non-USA inventions that pre-date his.
Um, not wanting to sound too internationalist here, but when will you septics break out of your parochial "we invented everything" state of mind?
The Berlin Olympics were televised - German Technology. About the same time John Logie Baird (a Scot) was conducting test transmissions in the UK - British Technology.
Come on guys, there's a big wide world out there, open your eyes, you might find there's something outside the USA of interest.
Slashdot Mirror
by my reconing 20/1000 = 2%
30% x 300 million = 90 million
2% of 90 million = 1.8 million
And of course, the current death rate is calculated across a sample who are (mstly) getting ICU care in well-equipped hospitals.
Once a real epidemic gets rolling, you'll be on your own, so the death rate can be expected to climb.
You are willing to concede that they may have used these things for electro-plating jewellery (i.e. an industrial use of electricity, still commonly used today) but you still claim the devices are not batteries.
Would you care to clarify your definition of what a battery is?
I wasn't talking about babbages hand-cranked beastie,
I was talking about the WW2 code-breaking computers (as featured in the recent movie - Enigma) which pre-dated the USA computer mentioned in the article.
How anyone could write an article about the invention of the modern electronic computer, and mention the USA team without mentioning the likes of Alan Turing is beyond me.
The real reason you have to wait a few years before listing it, is that you need to let peoples memories fade a bit before you can claim it was an American invention.
Looking through the list, the inventions fall into 4 categories.
1. American inventions, where their origin is made clear. They're quite careful to always list where the inventions came from, along the lines of "(asian/eastern european name) of the University of (somewhere in America)"
2.Foreign inventions, where no mention of their inventors nationality is made. Fleming, the inventor of penicillin is one example.
3. Foreign inventions that are credited to Americans who came along later. Television and computers are two examples.
4. Foreign inventions that are credited to their actual inventors, and nationality acknowledged. I counted 3.
What is it with Americans?
Why do you feed the need to claim the credit for everything?
You missed the point entirely, (I suspect deliberately)
You have failed to address the issue of the great harm that would be caused by my publishing the inforation. If my original posting had actually contained the magic recipe, the likes of Ossama bin Laden would already be huddled over kitchen tables brewing up the mixture, and by tomorrow, every major American city would be knee-deep in Ebola victims.
Ebola is very, very nasty.
In Africa, the standard way of dealing with an outbreak is to surround the area with soldiers, with orders to shoot to kill anyone attempting to leave, and wait until it has 'burnt itself out' (i.e. everyone in the infected village is dead).
Do any of your fanciful 'benefits' that flow from the recipe being published come close to justifying the enormous cost in human suffering and death?
Ok, you've given a couple of examples of bad censorship.
Now suppose I have a formula for making Ebola Virus from corn-flakes and coca-cola. I express my intention to publish this on slashdot, and Cowboy neal hurriedly blocks my access, thus censoring me.
Personally, I think that sort of censorship is A GOOD THING.
That would just make more of them !
It amazes me that those who constantly go on about the rights of "law-abiding gun owners" are also willing to state that their guns can only be taken away by force.
Surely, if you're law-abiding, and the law says you must give up your guns, you'll give them up.
If you're not law-abiding, then you're a criminal, and your lot seem to be in favour of shooting criminals, isn't that what all your 'self defense' talk is aiming at?
"2. Lots of territory,"
This is a Joke, yes.
If you take a wrong turn, you can miss it entirely.
I mean, it's not like we're using up some precious resource here. .druid.au registered as a domain,
If I want to jump through the bureaucratic hoops necessary to get
what's the harm?
He assumes that buffy and her gang slay 6 vamps per year. I've seen single fight-scenes with a higher score than that.
Assuming an average of 3 Vamps dusted per episode, and there are, what, about 24 episodes per season? That's 72 per year, or 4 times the total vamp population !
Mind you, you could change your assumptions for Vampire 'birth rate' to have each vamp sire a new one on average every 3 months, and the sums would probably work out ok.
I think he meant
"they say it was planted there - last week."
The conspiracy theory is that the USA wasn't capable of meeting the 1/1/1970 deadline they'd set themselves for a moon landing, so they faked it. They've now had 33 years to cover their tracks.
I just want to know how that other conspiracy theory manages to fake the horizon, when everyone knows the earth is flat, so I should be able to see Mount Everest from here.
I have a friend who worked in an office where several people had identical PDAs. There had been problems with people picking up the wrong PDA after meetings, so he asked my wife to engrave a design on the cover of his, to prevent this kind of confusion.
He sketched the design he wanted, then fished the PDA out of his bag. The thing was covered with little yellow post-it notes with phone numbers, addresses, and appointment times scrawled on them. There must have been 6 or 8 at least!
I'd been thnking about getting a PDA myself, but that made me think again.
Hybrids between closely related species are not uncommon but they're often infertile (mules are the best known example).
These hybrids, of course, would not have any living descendants.
By 2039, you'll be able to download what's left of my mind into a potato.
'twas discovered some years ago, and it's my
favourite astronomical fact.
>The last culture I can think of that had such an
> foul attitude of world domination and rampant
> blatant idea theft from other cultures was the
> Romans
You should read more history, pretty much everyone who was (or was able to delude themselves that they were) 'top dog' has displayed this sort of silly attitude. I could quote several examples of other nationalities (including my own) demonstrating their greatly inflated sense of self-importance, but I don't want to start an international slanging match.
It's all very childish really. I don't think I'm special just because I was born on the same land-mass as Isaac Newton, and I wish those who do would just grow up.
Basically, if people don't want to accept blame for every bad thing any of their countrymen have ever done, they should stop trying to claim credit for every good thing.
1. Guns Germs and Steel - I agree, very good book.
2. As to embracing new ideas/technologies, have a look at China and Japan, which were both pretty similar civilizations a few hundred years ago. Japan embraced foreign technologies (even sending to Scotland to hire shipbuilding experts to staff their university of naval engineering) while China adopted an "if it was worthwhile, we'd already have invented it" attitude.
Hopefully the internet will help break down the last of this silly national parochialism in the USA and elsewhere (I've seen some blatant examples elsewhere, but don't want to start a "who's most parochial" slanging match).
Actually, the big influx has been post WW2.
My family were 'ten quid migrants' in the 1960s.
The real myth of the inventor of TV is that there was one. TV, as a workable technology, was a process of successive refinement, no one person or organisation should try to claim the credit.
It's kind of like trying to claim credit for inventing electricity, lots of people over a long time contributed to the understanding and exploitation of electricity, trying to give sole credit to any one researcher would be silly.
John Logie was "smarter than the average Baird" - boom boom.
No, and todays computers don't bear much resemblance to those huge monsters from the early days either, but that shouldn't stop us giving credit where it's due.
As a Scot, I'd be quite happy for someone (anyone) else to claim the blame for that silly little-white-balls-and-sticks game. I mean, every time I try to act all manly and "I-come-from-the-country-that-throws-telephone-pol es-for-fun" like, some bastard mentions golf and curling, and I have to slink off in embarassment.
> Merriam-Webster's definitions of 'septic':
> 1 : of, relating to, or causing putrefaction
> 2 : relating to, involving, or characteristic
> of sepsis
Websters, that would be an American dictionary, yes ?
If you'd looked up an Australian dictionary, you may have found something like this
3: An American (from ryming slang - septic-tank = yank)
And no, it wasn't intended to be insulting.
> Seriously, though *where* did you get the idea
> that we (Americans) have a "we invented
> everything" mentality?
From talking to Americans mostly, and from reading the likes of "Encarta" which, among other things, credits the USA with the invention of the computer, totally ignoring COLOSSUS, the code-breaking computer featured in "Enigma".
To return to the article this thread is based on, they do mention other inventors of similar era to RCA and Mr Farnsworth, but the bulk of the article credits Mr Farnsworth as the inventor even though there were several non-USA inventions that pre-date his.
Um, not wanting to sound too internationalist here, but when will you septics break out of your parochial "we invented everything" state of mind?
The Berlin Olympics were televised - German Technology.
About the same time John Logie Baird (a Scot) was conducting test transmissions in the UK - British Technology.
Come on guys, there's a big wide world out there, open your eyes, you might find there's something outside the USA of interest.