Actually, DNA is much more similar to digital than to analog storage. You have a fixed set of discrete values, and discrete locations for these values.
you're better off just crossing the borders naked.
"That's a nice tattoo you got there, sir, but what does it say ? We better send it over to the NSA for decryption. Now step over here, this will hurt only a little..."
When the hell did "carrot and stick" meaning "providing an incentive to perform" (the proverbial carrot at the end of a stick) start being so widely misused as "the combined use of incentives and punishments" (be good get a carrot, be bad get beat by the stick)?
It never changed, you just learned it wrong the first time and haven't bothered to learn the correct meaning ever since. "Carrot and stick" is not "Carrot on a stick".
You might at least mention the Laffer curve, and that's a _very_ simplified model of a hugely nonlinear system. But since you're clueless about how taxes work, you probably haven't heard about it and are just spewing nonsense you've overheard somewhere.
It takes anything of the appropriate mass, doesn't need to be a black hole.
Yes, but anything of the appropriate mass that isn't a black hole is going to be _way_ too large to focus a laser beam. It's just going to block it instead.
you just expose more of the target to the laser same result
Duh. And that means that the power of the laser gets distributed over a larger area, and this leads to a smaller increase in temperature. And this makes heating a part of the target enough to cause detonation more difficult.
Is that really rocket science ? Have you ever tried burning a hole into paper with a magnifying glass ? If so, was it quicker to keep the light focused at a single spot, or trying to heat up the paper evenly by moving the spot ?
Obviously, if lasers ever do become small enough to be practical on a tactical level (Chinese tanks already have lasers on their turrets to blind enemy operators and optics), defence against them becomes very important.
That would be _quite_ against international treaties. However, if someone becomes blinded after being on the wrong end of a plain laser rangefinder or target illuminator, well, that's bad luck.
On a realistic level, the only craft capable of carrying a battlefield laser at the moment would be a C-130, which might be very useful in counter-insurgency operations due to the low collateral damage.
If you don't count scores of people crippled (blinded) for life as collateral damage, sure. (Any laser powerful enough to damage material will be powerful enough to damage your vision permanently if you see as much as a diffuse reflection of it without wearing protective gear).
The pistol shrimp has an excellent weapon that reaches the temperature of the sun. We could use bio-mimicry to create a nice weapon against missiles.
Yes, once you get the missile underwater, it'll be really easy to zap them this way. Heck, getting it underwater might be enough to neutralize it, unless you're dealing with a torpedo.
On land, this won't work for several reasons. One of them is the really slow speed of sound air. Good luck trying to hit anything moving faster than your sonic shockwave.
Production can empower people so that they aren't so dependant on ongoing political goodwill.
Tell that to all the little despots who are doing their best to keep their population from feeding itself. They have plenty of reason to keep the population dependent on political goodwill, else they'd be out of power in no time.
If I'm not mistaken, the aircraft-borne lasers currently (soon to be?) fitted use 2 lasers - one for targeting, one for destruction.
The targeting laser is used to guide guided munitions (bombs, missiles, shells), not to target any unguided weapons (dumb bombs, machine guns, _another laser_).
Without targeting, you're trying to aim a thin destructive laser beam directly at a small destructive missile traveling hundreds of km/h.
That's done using radar and/or optical targeting, not by trying to point another laser at the missile.
More important than that, what power they can and always will supply will be inconsistent.
Statistically, not really. One wind/solar power station having a few bad days is possible, but the chance of there being no wind and complete cloud cover all over the planet for days is... quite probably lower than all of the world's nuclear and coal power plants having to undergo emergency maintenance all at once.
And during storms, you can overload the grid.
Err... no. You can't. You'll have to shut down those windmills _long_ before they can "overload the grid", unless you really want to deal with storm-powered flying rotor blades. The disadvantage of windmills during storms is that they simply can't run when the winds are too strong, even if you could generate _lots_ of power during that time.
Recently in Oregon, a wind farm nearly blew the local power grid when storms pushed wind speeds so high that the windmills suddenly pushed more power into the system than it could handle.
How much power the grid has to transmit depends on demand, not on supply. If no one's drawing power, then the grid doesn't have to transmit anything.
It doesn't take a middle school education to evaluate people and political groups and to determine, which option is in your personal best interest.
I'd put it another way: Even all the education in the world doesn't keep you from being gullible and falling for lies and promises of politicians. They'll tell you what you want to hear, and it works for them.
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Actually, DNA is much more similar to digital than to analog storage. You have a fixed set of discrete values, and discrete locations for these values.
if(cpuid == "GenuineIntel")
{
Run_really_fast();
}
else if(cpuid == "AuthenticAMD")
{
Run_no_so_fast();
}
else
{
Run_slow();
}
The same way all the other illegal immigrants do it.
It's the same argument as random breath testing.
At least they're not trying to hold my breath indefinitely.
Don't worry, your mobile devices are valuable enough even without anything on them.
Too bad.
Wouldn't that constitute industrial espionage to decrypt said information?
It's only illegal if you're not the government.
What if a DHS employee has a relative who competes in that field?
Good for him !
I can only imagine the potential messes there.
You misspelled "opportunities".
"That's a nice tattoo you got there, sir, but what does it say ? We better send it over to the NSA for decryption. Now step over here, this will hurt only a little ..."
"Yeah, you'll get your stuff back in, uh, fourty years. Sorry, rules are rules. And only if it doesn't get lost or misplaced until then."
And when are they going to start confiscating pacemakers and hearing aids ? Last I've heard, these things can also store information in digital form.
When the hell did "carrot and stick" meaning "providing an incentive to perform" (the proverbial carrot at the end of a stick) start being so widely misused as "the combined use of incentives and punishments" (be good get a carrot, be bad get beat by the stick)?
It never changed, you just learned it wrong the first time and haven't bothered to learn the correct meaning ever since. "Carrot and stick" is not "Carrot on a stick".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carrot%20and%20stick
So are you, quite obviously.
Cutting taxes RAISES government revenue.
You might at least mention the Laffer curve, and that's a _very_ simplified model of a hugely nonlinear system. But since you're clueless about how taxes work, you probably haven't heard about it and are just spewing nonsense you've overheard somewhere.
Yes, but anything of the appropriate mass that isn't a black hole is going to be _way_ too large to focus a laser beam. It's just going to block it instead.
Duh. And that means that the power of the laser gets distributed over a larger area, and this leads to a smaller increase in temperature. And this makes heating a part of the target enough to cause detonation more difficult.
Is that really rocket science ? Have you ever tried burning a hole into paper with a magnifying glass ? If so, was it quicker to keep the light focused at a single spot, or trying to heat up the paper evenly by moving the spot ?
Obviously, if lasers ever do become small enough to be practical on a tactical level (Chinese tanks already have lasers on their turrets to blind enemy operators and optics), defence against them becomes very important.
That would be _quite_ against international treaties. However, if someone becomes blinded after being on the wrong end of a plain laser rangefinder or target illuminator, well, that's bad luck.
On a realistic level, the only craft capable of carrying a battlefield laser at the moment would be a C-130, which might be very useful in counter-insurgency operations due to the low collateral damage.
If you don't count scores of people crippled (blinded) for life as collateral damage, sure. (Any laser powerful enough to damage material will be powerful enough to damage your vision permanently if you see as much as a diffuse reflection of it without wearing protective gear).
your wallet.
Better that than my kids wallets, and my grandkids wallets, etc.
Tax me all you want (and I'll grumble and/or leave the country), but keep your greedy little fingers off my kids future. That makes me mad.
Someone who isn't carrying a few kg of explosives in his jacket.
Therefore, if you're the invader with the gun, shoot anyone trying to hug you asap.
The Terrorists(tm) are going to love it. Think of all the money that doesn't go towards effective means of fighting them.
They love it when you do that, and since the X-Com teams can't shoot straight, you may be caught by friendly fire.
Correction - you _will_ be caught by friendly fire so the Chryssalids don't get you first.
The pistol shrimp has an excellent weapon that reaches the temperature of the sun. We could use bio-mimicry to create a nice weapon against missiles.
Yes, once you get the missile underwater, it'll be really easy to zap them this way. Heck, getting it underwater might be enough to neutralize it, unless you're dealing with a torpedo.
On land, this won't work for several reasons. One of them is the really slow speed of sound air. Good luck trying to hit anything moving faster than your sonic shockwave.
Photons don't carry a charge. You'll have better luck trying to focus them with gravitation. All you need is a black hole of the appropriate mass.
Production can empower people so that they aren't so dependant on ongoing political goodwill.
Tell that to all the little despots who are doing their best to keep their population from feeding itself. They have plenty of reason to keep the population dependent on political goodwill, else they'd be out of power in no time.
The targeting laser is used to guide guided munitions (bombs, missiles, shells), not to target any unguided weapons (dumb bombs, machine guns, _another laser_).
Without targeting, you're trying to aim a thin destructive laser beam directly at a small destructive missile traveling hundreds of km/h.
That's done using radar and/or optical targeting, not by trying to point another laser at the missile.
Not nearly a trivial engineering feat, but much easier than blasting the thing out of the air.
A missile blasted out of the air doesn't require any more attention and you're ready to deal with any additional missiles.
More important than that, what power they can and always will supply will be inconsistent.
Statistically, not really. One wind/solar power station having a few bad days is possible, but the chance of there being no wind and complete cloud cover all over the planet for days is ... quite probably lower than all of the world's nuclear and coal power plants having to undergo emergency maintenance all at once.
And during storms, you can overload the grid.
Err ... no. You can't. You'll have to shut down those windmills _long_ before they can "overload the grid", unless you really want to deal with storm-powered flying rotor blades. The disadvantage of windmills during storms is that they simply can't run when the winds are too strong, even if you could generate _lots_ of power during that time.
Recently in Oregon, a wind farm nearly blew the local power grid when storms pushed wind speeds so high that the windmills suddenly pushed more power into the system than it could handle.
How much power the grid has to transmit depends on demand, not on supply. If no one's drawing power, then the grid doesn't have to transmit anything.
Does it contain any asbestos ? If so, then properly improving it might be more expensive than tearing the whole thing down and rebuilding.
I'd put it another way: Even all the education in the world doesn't keep you from being gullible and falling for lies and promises of politicians. They'll tell you what you want to hear, and it works for them.