Yep, there's no denying that. The "no cellphone" rule is a classic example for punishing the 99.9% that are considerate because of the 0.1% that are idiots and will park their cellphone on top of sensitive medical equipment.
It's also a liability issue. Some lawyer will find a way to pass the buck to the hospital in case of an incidents, even if it is completely unrelated.
I'm sitting here next to a commercial ECG telemetry system. By taking a call with my cell phone and walking around near the telemetry transmitters, I can *see* the interference on the monitor screen. I can also *see* the interference as I walk near clinical trials subjects with holter ECG recorders on.
Yep. I'm actually developing patient monitoring devices, and have my cellphone next to the ECG I'm working on gives me a nice 1-second warning on the screen of the patient monitor before the thing is actually going to ring.
It's nothing compared to other things we have to deal with (electrosurgery, for example), but then again, doctors _know_ that they can expect the ECG to be distorted when they push the button on the ESU probe.
Isn't it the rubber in the tires that does the good though? Not so much the metal frame?
No. The few cm from the car's frame to the ground are pretty much irrelevant. Google for "Farady's cage" for an explanation of the effect.
Why's that?
Because if the lightning strikes somewhere close to you, current flows through the ground. If you're flat on the ground, your body might become the path of least resistance for this current. If you crouch (and keep your hands and feet close together) this is less likely to happen.
That is the most phantasmagorical bull one could ever think of.
Depends on how low quality the lithium battery is, or how badly you mistreat it.
Anywhere on the territory of a hospital so that you do not interfere with sensitive medical equipment.
There are some places (close to the equipment) where a cellphone can severely fsck up measurements (for example, cause ECGs to record pacemakes pulse when there aren't any). However, you need to be really close (within one meter, preferably closer).
Guess what, neither does air, and that doesn't stop lightning!
Right. But if you get hit by lightning, you're pretty much fscked already.
Your cellphone does have many internal parts that are metal (including conductive surfaces right next to your mouth and ear). If lightning can find a less resistive path to ground it will take it.
If it has the choice between going through air/plastic and tissue, tissue will be the least resistive path. Even a mm of air has more resistance than the human body from head to toe.
Should be: Got mine for less than $100. Basically, my optometrist has a lot single pieces with various strengths, and picks the two that match your eyes best, adds a strap, and you're done. Not as precise as actual glasses (I think the pieces come in half-diopter increments), but good enough for swimming.
If I was rich I guess I could get prescription goggles.
For most "standard" vision corrections, they are quite inexpensive (got mine for
Of course, this might now work if you need correction for astigmatism, but it works great for standard myopia.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of...
... does this line seem so familiar. I can't put my finger on it. It couldn't have to do anything with things that happened during the last few years, could it ?
Can't the same be said about every medical condition/procedure?
That isn't the question in this case, since in most cases, medical procedures do more than just remove a minor inconvenience.
The real question would be: Would you risk your eyesight in order to get rid of glasses/contacts for a while ? (Yes, for a while. There is no guarantee that your eyes don't get worse over time, and then it's glasses/contacts all over again).
With the high visibility of the rash of incidents of Laptop thefts lately, I read an article, I think it was here on Slash Dot, of a couple of companies that produce a software product that will erase the sensitive data upon receiving a special erase phrase or code via the InterNet.
So... a mechanism that relies on the stupidity of the thief ? No thanks, even though it may work in some cases.
Encryption will do the job without requiring the thief to be phenomenally stupid.
Fsck that. Pure and simple. Keep the thing locked and the key under your control, that's what it's for.
Garages are much easier to break into than starting a car without the key (the latter can be fairly easy, but requires a modest amount of technical knowledge instead of just a crowbar or a sledgehammer). And once the engine is running, getting out of the garage is not a big problem (there's enough salvageable parts on the car even after it breaks through the gate or the wall. And even that is just a concern if the car is stolen for the parts).
but I leave the vehicle door unlocked and the key in the ignition for the sake of convenience.
If your quest for the ultimate convenience allows other people to be injured or worse, then be prepared to face the consequences. Putting your own convenience before other people's safety is plain reckless. It is the same thing for leaving loaded guns lying around in the house in order to save the three minutes required to get them out of the gun safe and pick up the appropriate ammo when going hunting.
They experimented with requiring less information.
How often is the identity of the holder of the account verified ? Probably once, right ? What is the reason for keeping all the information on record after the verification has taken place ?
Better yet: if your car is stolen should you be punished for allowing it to happen?
If you leave the car unlocked and the key in the ignition, then you should be held liable for any damage caused by the car, no matter who's driving it. A car is a dangerous object, so the owner is responsible for taking at least some basic measures to prevent unauthorized operation of the vehicle.
Oh, you're laughing ? That's the way it is here. We also have data protection laws that would get companies who keep unnecessary records sued to kingdom come.
Let me get this straight; so you think if a bank gets robbed we should prosecute the bank and not the robber?
If the bank stores all their customers' cash in cardboard boxes behind the building, then yes, prosecuting the bank would be in order.
Also, your rhethorical question is wrong. The robber will be prosecuted in any case (for robbery), even if the bank is prosecuted for gross neglegience.
And the Maximum effective range is 300 meters, or 328 yards, for flechette ammo.
Define "Maximum effective range".
However, since you don't know about the increased range availability from shotgun sabot rounds, I would tend to think you most likely don't live in a firearms-friendly location.
I think you missed the part about "point target accuracy" - which is 75 meters. Area target accuracy ist about 150 meters. The 300 meters "maximum effective range" means that it will still be able to injure a person at that range, if you're lucky enough to score a hit.
Since i'm in tennessee, thats not likely to be a problem; if it ever does become one, I can see myself rigging up a BB firing RC plane, with onboard video.... damn that would be cool.
It will also get you labeled as a terrorist really quickly, complete with the appropriate, um, treatment.
A 300 WinMag has very little drop (~5 inches) at 300 yards, and a time of flight of about 300 milliseconds. You wouldn't have to lead it much or compensate much for drop. With proper glass on top of an M70 you should be able to pick these things out of the sky all day long.
There is no excuse for discharging a rifle that is pointing at the sky - it's plain stupid and reckless. Especially when doing so in an urban area.
If you know so much about guns, answer this: How far does a rifle bullet travel when fired at an angle of ~30-45 degrees ? And yes, it will still have enough force to penetrate things (cars, windows, pets, people) when it comes down.
Firing into the center of a flock of grouse that started their flight 25 yards away
What kind of hunter are you ? Even when using a shotgun, you do not shoot at the center of a flock. That would be deliberately wasting animals. Pick a bird and shoot it, period. If you can't do that, go back to playing computer games.
People who get shot in their legs usually don't run at all after the first hit.
A steep downward angle is possible on a running target.
Yes, for _one_ bullet maybe. How big are the chances for several bullets, fired consecutively, entering at about the same angle when the target is running ? Minimal, I'd say.
There were limited uses of nerve/chemical agents in WWII
Please provide some sort of proof for the use of nerve agents in warfare in WWII. I'd be most interested. Certainly, Germany manufactured the stuff, but I am unaware of any incident where it was actually used. Nerve agents were also not used for large-scale killings in concentration camps, simply because they were too difficult and dangerous to handle. I would not rule out, however, that nerve agents were tested on concentration camp prisoners (since pretty much anything sick minds can think of was done there).
Mustard gas (not a nerve agent) was used in isolated incidents, at least part of which were accidental.
Secondly, what information I've read indicated that the Japanese were trying to surrender "conditionally" or through "negotiation". Fuck that. You surrender unconditionally and hope we don't enslave you.
Unconditional surrender was pretty much unheard-of at that time.
Also, as far as I have read, the only condition the Japanese had was that they could keep their emperor. Ironically enough, even after their unconditional surrender, they were allowed to keep their emperor. Doesn't this seem weird ? "No, we'll nuke you until you surrender unconditionally just for the heck of it, and then let you have what your condition was anyway."
You make one fatal assumption in your line of reasoning,
No.
However that is not true, because a higher energy density means you can make a much smaller weapon, thus allowing you to have a much more conveniently sized warhead.
So... what ?
Convenient size only matters if you have to keep the thing secret and/or move it a lot. Not going to happen with a planet-busting weapon (you cannot keep its construction secret due to the immense energy requirements, and you probably don't need to move it, unless you plan to blow up Mars or Venus instead of Earth.
Also, getting enough space to store enough nukes to sterilize the planet is several orders of magnitude easier (in facts, more than one nation has done so) than procuring enough energy to build a planet-busting antimatter weapon.
So even if you have to pour every drop of energy into them in the first place, this might be well worth it for the extra convenience in packaging size.
No. Not for a weapon that is going to stay on this planet. It just makes no fscking sense, period.
Enough nukes to pretty much sterilize the landmass of this planet can be stored in a comparatively small area. Heck, you could even split your arsenal in order to have redundant storage facilites (in case one gets disabled, sabotaged, bombed, taken over, or a meteorite hits it).
However, the incredible energy density of antimatter might come in handy for things like spaceflight, when mass and volume are at a premium. Who knows what will be possible when the ratio of fuel-to-payload weight of space probes is suddenly inverted ?
How long do you really think the world's ruling minds could have avoided using such a thing?
Well...
The Brits somehow "avoided" dropping anthrax bombs or chemical weapons on Germany for some reason (officially in order not to endanger the occupying troops later on).
Germany "avoided" dropping nerve gas (Sarin and Tabun, which the Allies didn't have yet and which there was virtually no defense against at that time) on everyone else (fearing retaliation with other chemical agents).
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, there's no denying that. The "no cellphone" rule is a classic example for punishing the 99.9% that are considerate because of the 0.1% that are idiots and will park their cellphone on top of sensitive medical equipment.
It's also a liability issue. Some lawyer will find a way to pass the buck to the hospital in case of an incidents, even if it is completely unrelated.
Yep. I'm actually developing patient monitoring devices, and have my cellphone next to the ECG I'm working on gives me a nice 1-second warning on the screen of the patient monitor before the thing is actually going to ring.
It's nothing compared to other things we have to deal with (electrosurgery, for example), but then again, doctors _know_ that they can expect the ECG to be distorted when they push the button on the ESU probe.
No. The few cm from the car's frame to the ground are pretty much irrelevant. Google for "Farady's cage" for an explanation of the effect.
Why's that?
Because if the lightning strikes somewhere close to you, current flows through the ground. If you're flat on the ground, your body might become the path of least resistance for this current. If you crouch (and keep your hands and feet close together) this is less likely to happen.
Depends on how low quality the lithium battery is, or how badly you mistreat it.
Anywhere on the territory of a hospital so that you do not interfere with sensitive medical equipment.
There are some places (close to the equipment) where a cellphone can severely fsck up measurements (for example, cause ECGs to record pacemakes pulse when there aren't any). However, you need to be really close (within one meter, preferably closer).
Right. But if you get hit by lightning, you're pretty much fscked already.
Your cellphone does have many internal parts that are metal (including conductive surfaces right next to your mouth and ear). If lightning can find a less resistive path to ground it will take it.
If it has the choice between going through air/plastic and tissue, tissue will be the least resistive path. Even a mm of air has more resistance than the human body from head to toe.
Odd, my cellphone practically has no metal surfaces
Should be: Got mine for less than $100. Basically, my optometrist has a lot single pieces with various strengths, and picks the two that match your eyes best, adds a strap, and you're done. Not as precise as actual glasses (I think the pieces come in half-diopter increments), but good enough for swimming.
For most "standard" vision corrections, they are quite inexpensive (got mine for Of course, this might now work if you need correction for astigmatism, but it works great for standard myopia.
That isn't the question in this case, since in most cases, medical procedures do more than just remove a minor inconvenience.
The real question would be: Would you risk your eyesight in order to get rid of glasses/contacts for a while ? (Yes, for a while. There is no guarantee that your eyes don't get worse over time, and then it's glasses/contacts all over again).
So, basically, this means never.
Someone impersonating any VIP must be either totally clueless, utterly crazy, or do it for amusement rather than fraud.
So
Encryption will do the job without requiring the thief to be phenomenally stupid.
No, no, no, the EU is full of commies, socialists and whiners and can't get anything right. Taking any kind of idea from them is highly unamerican.
Fsck that. Pure and simple. Keep the thing locked and the key under your control, that's what it's for.
Garages are much easier to break into than starting a car without the key (the latter can be fairly easy, but requires a modest amount of technical knowledge instead of just a crowbar or a sledgehammer). And once the engine is running, getting out of the garage is not a big problem (there's enough salvageable parts on the car even after it breaks through the gate or the wall. And even that is just a concern if the car is stolen for the parts).
but I leave the vehicle door unlocked and the key in the ignition for the sake of convenience.
If your quest for the ultimate convenience allows other people to be injured or worse, then be prepared to face the consequences. Putting your own convenience before other people's safety is plain reckless. It is the same thing for leaving loaded guns lying around in the house in order to save the three minutes required to get them out of the gun safe and pick up the appropriate ammo when going hunting.
How often is the identity of the holder of the account verified ? Probably once, right ? What is the reason for keeping all the information on record after the verification has taken place ?
If you leave the car unlocked and the key in the ignition, then you should be held liable for any damage caused by the car, no matter who's driving it. A car is a dangerous object, so the owner is responsible for taking at least some basic measures to prevent unauthorized operation of the vehicle.
Oh, you're laughing ? That's the way it is here. We also have data protection laws that would get companies who keep unnecessary records sued to kingdom come.
If the bank stores all their customers' cash in cardboard boxes behind the building, then yes, prosecuting the bank would be in order.
Also, your rhethorical question is wrong. The robber will be prosecuted in any case (for robbery), even if the bank is prosecuted for gross neglegience.
Define "Maximum effective range". However, since you don't know about the increased range availability from shotgun sabot rounds, I would tend to think you most likely don't live in a firearms-friendly location.
I think you missed the part about "point target accuracy" - which is 75 meters. Area target accuracy ist about 150 meters. The 300 meters "maximum effective range" means that it will still be able to injure a person at that range, if you're lucky enough to score a hit.
It will also get you labeled as a terrorist really quickly, complete with the appropriate, um, treatment.
There is no excuse for discharging a rifle that is pointing at the sky - it's plain stupid and reckless. Especially when doing so in an urban area.
If you know so much about guns, answer this: How far does a rifle bullet travel when fired at an angle of ~30-45 degrees ? And yes, it will still have enough force to penetrate things (cars, windows, pets, people) when it comes down.
Firing into the center of a flock of grouse that started their flight 25 yards away
What kind of hunter are you ? Even when using a shotgun, you do not shoot at the center of a flock. That would be deliberately wasting animals. Pick a bird and shoot it, period. If you can't do that, go back to playing computer games.
People who get shot in their legs usually don't run at all after the first hit.
A steep downward angle is possible on a running target.
Yes, for _one_ bullet maybe. How big are the chances for several bullets, fired consecutively, entering at about the same angle when the target is running ? Minimal, I'd say.
Please provide some sort of proof for the use of nerve agents in warfare in WWII. I'd be most interested. Certainly, Germany manufactured the stuff, but I am unaware of any incident where it was actually used. Nerve agents were also not used for large-scale killings in concentration camps, simply because they were too difficult and dangerous to handle. I would not rule out, however, that nerve agents were tested on concentration camp prisoners (since pretty much anything sick minds can think of was done there). Mustard gas (not a nerve agent) was used in isolated incidents, at least part of which were accidental.
Unconditional surrender was pretty much unheard-of at that time.
Also, as far as I have read, the only condition the Japanese had was that they could keep their emperor. Ironically enough, even after their unconditional surrender, they were allowed to keep their emperor. Doesn't this seem weird ? "No, we'll nuke you until you surrender unconditionally just for the heck of it, and then let you have what your condition was anyway."
No.
However that is not true, because a higher energy density means you can make a much smaller weapon, thus allowing you to have a much more conveniently sized warhead.
So
Convenient size only matters if you have to keep the thing secret and/or move it a lot. Not going to happen with a planet-busting weapon (you cannot keep its construction secret due to the immense energy requirements, and you probably don't need to move it, unless you plan to blow up Mars or Venus instead of Earth.
Also, getting enough space to store enough nukes to sterilize the planet is several orders of magnitude easier (in facts, more than one nation has done so) than procuring enough energy to build a planet-busting antimatter weapon.
So even if you have to pour every drop of energy into them in the first place, this might be well worth it for the extra convenience in packaging size.
No. Not for a weapon that is going to stay on this planet. It just makes no fscking sense, period.
Enough nukes to pretty much sterilize the landmass of this planet can be stored in a comparatively small area. Heck, you could even split your arsenal in order to have redundant storage facilites (in case one gets disabled, sabotaged, bombed, taken over, or a meteorite hits it).
However, the incredible energy density of antimatter might come in handy for things like spaceflight, when mass and volume are at a premium. Who knows what will be possible when the ratio of fuel-to-payload weight of space probes is suddenly inverted ?
The Brits somehow "avoided" dropping anthrax bombs or chemical weapons on Germany for some reason (officially in order not to endanger the occupying troops later on).
Germany "avoided" dropping nerve gas (Sarin and Tabun, which the Allies didn't have yet and which there was virtually no defense against at that time) on everyone else (fearing retaliation with other chemical agents).