I do agree with you but I just wanted to point out that there are other ways to look at this. For example, you say:
But even in philosophic, not scientific, debate, it is not acceptable to simply make an assertion without some justification.
But there are plenty of philosophers who made seemingly blanket statements like this. A statement might not be meant to be taken dogmatically but to initiate debate (e.g. let's look at possible consequences if we accept such a statement). I'm not saying that this is the intention of the original poster, just that it's a possible way to raise a point. Of course, statements like these are always interpreted in a certain context, which we do not have here.
I wasn't on the border yet. I was on the road that leads to the US side of the checkpoint, so still well on US soil, and the guy who stopped me was in a border patrol car. He probably just noticed my license plate and decided to give me shit.
I'm a Canadian citizen. Naturalized, to be honest, but having lived in Canada for almost my entire life. I've had my car searched, my cell phone searched, my photo and fingerprints taken. I have been delayed for hours, having had to give lengthy explanations to arrogant border agents. I have even experienced attempts at intimidation. One border agent has stopped me when I was about to go back north and tried to force me to admit to having worked illegally in the US (which I have not), and tried to force the same kind of admission from my 12-year-old step-daughter. He wasn't just warning me. It was direct intimidation - his exact words were "I will fuck you. I will ban you from visiting my country".
I have long ago given up on ever going back to the USA for any reason whatsoever (not because I can't but because I don't want to). And now this. They have the insolence to pretend that they have a right to preserve my personal information for the duration of my lifetime. That is too much. Now I am absolutely certain to never want to have anything to do with that country ever again.
Well, some possible names for such a thing would be "the soul" or "God", but mentioning such things is kind of taboo on slashdot. I do realize the importance of reasoned arguments, but I believe that too many people dismiss philosophy outright, entirely ignoring that science itself is based on philosophical premises. Your own argument makes certain implicit philosophical assumptions about the nature of the world, matter, and consciousness.
The statement that consciousness precedes matter is a philosophical statement. It precludes scientific debate because philosophical reasoning is of a different kind than scientific reasoning. In making your statement you already postulate the epistemological position that nature exists and is objectively knowable. In the framework of scientific debate you are indeed right to ask these questions, but you have to realize that science itself exists within a specific philosophical framework; one which is widely accepted, but not self-evident.
A long-standing rule of thumb for "recession" is that it is defined as contraction in the GDP for at least two consecutive quarters (six months).
Yes, but when measuring this economists always take the so called "real GDP". In other words, GDP adjusted for inflation, using the official CPI figure. What they don't tell you is that the CPI is completely disconnected from reality - a figure manipulated by government economists so that inflation-adjusted payments and benefits can be as low as possible. CPI has absolutely nothing to do with real inflation and "real GDP" has absolutely nothing to do with real economic growth.
The radiation is not just due to interaction with the solar wind. Jupiter emits more radiation than the radiation received from the Sun. As a result Jupiter looses mass just like a star. The Wikipedia article on Jupiter has some info about this.
The question is not about temperature, but radiation. Jupiter emits high levels of radiation. So high actually, that even on the surface of Io radiation levels are lethal to life.
I disagree with your interpretation. There is no doubt that Nineteen Eighty-Four was meant to present the totalitarian state brought to its extreme. The fact that most of the population is ignored by the party does not change this fact and simply shows that the party was powerful enough to render these people irrelevant. The important people are the only ones that need to be kept under control.
If you think that the USSR or any other totalitarian regime was different then you are wrong. There too, the low populace did not really matter at all, as long as they were kept relatively happy and working. I could turn your sig around and say: "please live in a totalitarian state before talking about totalitarian states" (For the record, I have).
He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
So, what happens when that otherwise quite promising enterprise of yours gets the big lawsuit, or a natural disaster affects it badly, or some corrupt politician lobbied by unscrupulous competitors blocks its license to operate in a given area? The reason to diversify is to avoid such completely unpredictable strokes of bad luck.
Diversification is not necessarily dilution. Sure, if you're expecting that small start-up to be the next Microsoft or Google, and it ends up being so, then you're going to curse yourself for not having invested more money in it. But in all seriousness, you probably have a higher chance of winning by going into a casino and betting everything on square 21. However, if you invest wisely in good companies and keep your money in for the long run then you have a good chance of making a bundle on all your investments. The diversification is just insurance against unfortunate events.
Re:Firefox Damage Control Is More Than Enough
on
Chrome Vs. IE 8
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· Score: 4, Interesting
However it is slow and crashes or freezes (or rather individual pages freeze).
Actually, you CAN crash the whole browser, not just individual pages. Try typing "about:%" in the address bar. The entire browser crashes before you even see the %.
I personally find it much easier to say "dix-neuf cent nonante-neuf" than "dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" when referring to the year I first visited Paris since the latter seems like far too much of an exercise in mathematics just to figure out what someone is saying ("quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" being 99, is "four-twenty-ten-nine" (multiply four by twenty, add ten, add nine)).
Etymologically, that's correct, but French speakers don't usually think of it that way. I just think of quatre-vingt-dix as a separate word meaning 90, not as four-times-twenty-and-ten. Just like English speakers remember the number seventeen as a separate lexical entry, and don't add seven and ten in their head.
And you do have this form in English as well. In old texts you have numbers like fourscore-and-ten (90).
Speaking of which, I really wish we could discover a small colony of live Neanderthals that managed to survive to this day in some remote northern place. Besides the scientific merits, it would annoy the hell out of the creationists.
I think a lot of people have completely misunderstood the purpose of this disk. The goal here is not to preserve any specific data or make anything which is supposed to be immediately useful. It's supposed to be an archeological artifact for some civilization several thousand years from now, which may be more or less advanced than us, and with which we have no way of communicating directly. We can't tell them how to read the disk, or how to use any built-in microscope (provided that such a microscope would even works in 2000 years). They have to be able to infer everything from the disk alone.
Did you look at the picture? It's actually quite clever. The text on the disk starts out as large plainly visible letters and then gradually shrinks until it reaches the microscopic scale. Anyone who finds the disk, no matter what level of civilization advancement they are at, will be able to infer that there is more to be read if they can just enlarge it. Gradually, as they get bigger and bigger magnifying glasses they will be able to read more from the disk.
I'm kinda neutral about getting to another planet though. It's kind of like if cancer could eat up one body then say "Oh shit, the body is dying" and send a few cells into any adjacent people. What good can come of that?
Fuel requirements scale proportionately to payload weight
No, actually it does not scale proportionately. The fuel requirements grow exponentially with the mass of the payload for all self-propelled spacecraft due to the rocket equation. For the rate of growth to be linear the energy for the propulsion would have to come from outside the system (e.g. ground-based).
What the hell is with the current collection of issues in the present political divide, anyway? How is "the right to own a gun" on the same team as "ban abortions and gay marriage"? This doesn't make any sense to me.
To me the biggest contradiction is the "pro-life" being on the same team as "pro-death penalty". What's up with that? You either believe in "Thou shall not kill" or not. So which is it?
How about this, then? "There are ten people in there. None, some, or all of them may have legal firearms. I have a gun. If I rob that place, what are the odds that I am outgunned? even worse, what are the odds that I am LOOKING at the ONE guy drawing a gun on me out of ten in the place?"
How about this, then? "Some armed guy is threatening the store clerk with a gun. Do I play super-hero-trying-to-save-the-world or do I quietly call the cops?". Chances are that he'll get caught anyway. Why should I risk my and everyone else's life for a few bucks in the cash register? Even if the guy is robbing my house and threatens my family I'm less likely to get hurt if I just give him what he wants and then call the cops.
You need to get up to date on your numbers. I live in Poland and make more than I would with a decent job in the US. Not Silicon Valley level yet, but better than most states. The US dollar is dirt cheap, remember?
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I do agree with you but I just wanted to point out that there are other ways to look at this. For example, you say:
But even in philosophic, not scientific, debate, it is not acceptable to simply make an assertion without some justification.
But there are plenty of philosophers who made seemingly blanket statements like this. A statement might not be meant to be taken dogmatically but to initiate debate (e.g. let's look at possible consequences if we accept such a statement). I'm not saying that this is the intention of the original poster, just that it's a possible way to raise a point. Of course, statements like these are always interpreted in a certain context, which we do not have here.
Like I said I wasn't on the border yet. I was on the road that leads to the checkpoint, and was stopped by a border patrol car. Yes, they do that too.
I wasn't on the border yet. I was on the road that leads to the US side of the checkpoint, so still well on US soil, and the guy who stopped me was in a border patrol car. He probably just noticed my license plate and decided to give me shit.
I'm a Canadian citizen. Naturalized, to be honest, but having lived in Canada for almost my entire life. I've had my car searched, my cell phone searched, my photo and fingerprints taken. I have been delayed for hours, having had to give lengthy explanations to arrogant border agents. I have even experienced attempts at intimidation. One border agent has stopped me when I was about to go back north and tried to force me to admit to having worked illegally in the US (which I have not), and tried to force the same kind of admission from my 12-year-old step-daughter. He wasn't just warning me. It was direct intimidation - his exact words were "I will fuck you. I will ban you from visiting my country".
I have long ago given up on ever going back to the USA for any reason whatsoever (not because I can't but because I don't want to). And now this. They have the insolence to pretend that they have a right to preserve my personal information for the duration of my lifetime. That is too much. Now I am absolutely certain to never want to have anything to do with that country ever again.
Well, some possible names for such a thing would be "the soul" or "God", but mentioning such things is kind of taboo on slashdot. I do realize the importance of reasoned arguments, but I believe that too many people dismiss philosophy outright, entirely ignoring that science itself is based on philosophical premises. Your own argument makes certain implicit philosophical assumptions about the nature of the world, matter, and consciousness.
The statement that consciousness precedes matter is a philosophical statement. It precludes scientific debate because philosophical reasoning is of a different kind than scientific reasoning. In making your statement you already postulate the epistemological position that nature exists and is objectively knowable. In the framework of scientific debate you are indeed right to ask these questions, but you have to realize that science itself exists within a specific philosophical framework; one which is widely accepted, but not self-evident.
A long-standing rule of thumb for "recession" is that it is defined as contraction in the GDP for at least two consecutive quarters (six months).
Yes, but when measuring this economists always take the so called "real GDP". In other words, GDP adjusted for inflation, using the official CPI figure. What they don't tell you is that the CPI is completely disconnected from reality - a figure manipulated by government economists so that inflation-adjusted payments and benefits can be as low as possible. CPI has absolutely nothing to do with real inflation and "real GDP" has absolutely nothing to do with real economic growth.
The radiation is not just due to interaction with the solar wind. Jupiter emits more radiation than the radiation received from the Sun. As a result Jupiter looses mass just like a star. The Wikipedia article on Jupiter has some info about this.
The question is not about temperature, but radiation. Jupiter emits high levels of radiation. So high actually, that even on the surface of Io radiation levels are lethal to life.
Alex Wolszczan and Dale Frail for the first confirmed discovery of an extrasolar planet.
I disagree with your interpretation. There is no doubt that Nineteen Eighty-Four was meant to present the totalitarian state brought to its extreme. The fact that most of the population is ignored by the party does not change this fact and simply shows that the party was powerful enough to render these people irrelevant. The important people are the only ones that need to be kept under control.
If you think that the USSR or any other totalitarian regime was different then you are wrong. There too, the low populace did not really matter at all, as long as they were kept relatively happy and working. I could turn your sig around and say: "please live in a totalitarian state before talking about totalitarian states" (For the record, I have).
Next to last paragraph of the book:
He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was entering his brain.
So, what happens when that otherwise quite promising enterprise of yours gets the big lawsuit, or a natural disaster affects it badly, or some corrupt politician lobbied by unscrupulous competitors blocks its license to operate in a given area? The reason to diversify is to avoid such completely unpredictable strokes of bad luck.
Diversification is not necessarily dilution. Sure, if you're expecting that small start-up to be the next Microsoft or Google, and it ends up being so, then you're going to curse yourself for not having invested more money in it. But in all seriousness, you probably have a higher chance of winning by going into a casino and betting everything on square 21. However, if you invest wisely in good companies and keep your money in for the long run then you have a good chance of making a bundle on all your investments. The diversification is just insurance against unfortunate events.
However it is slow and crashes or freezes (or rather individual pages freeze).
Actually, you CAN crash the whole browser, not just individual pages. Try typing "about:%" in the address bar. The entire browser crashes before you even see the %.
I personally find it much easier to say "dix-neuf cent nonante-neuf" than "dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" when referring to the year I first visited Paris since the latter seems like far too much of an exercise in mathematics just to figure out what someone is saying ("quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" being 99, is "four-twenty-ten-nine" (multiply four by twenty, add ten, add nine)).
Etymologically, that's correct, but French speakers don't usually think of it that way. I just think of quatre-vingt-dix as a separate word meaning 90, not as four-times-twenty-and-ten. Just like English speakers remember the number seventeen as a separate lexical entry, and don't add seven and ten in their head.
And you do have this form in English as well. In old texts you have numbers like fourscore-and-ten (90).
Speaking of which, I really wish we could discover a small colony of live Neanderthals that managed to survive to this day in some remote northern place. Besides the scientific merits, it would annoy the hell out of the creationists.
I think a lot of people have completely misunderstood the purpose of this disk. The goal here is not to preserve any specific data or make anything which is supposed to be immediately useful. It's supposed to be an archeological artifact for some civilization several thousand years from now, which may be more or less advanced than us, and with which we have no way of communicating directly. We can't tell them how to read the disk, or how to use any built-in microscope (provided that such a microscope would even works in 2000 years). They have to be able to infer everything from the disk alone. Did you look at the picture? It's actually quite clever. The text on the disk starts out as large plainly visible letters and then gradually shrinks until it reaches the microscopic scale. Anyone who finds the disk, no matter what level of civilization advancement they are at, will be able to infer that there is more to be read if they can just enlarge it. Gradually, as they get bigger and bigger magnifying glasses they will be able to read more from the disk.
Also, there is the issue that the Soviet Union didn't always tell everyone when an accident happened.
Yeah, and the US government never lied to the public or tried to cover up any facts.
I'm kinda neutral about getting to another planet though. It's kind of like if cancer could eat up one body then say "Oh shit, the body is dying" and send a few cells into any adjacent people. What good can come of that?
What? I can't have a bit of fun before dying.
Fuel requirements scale proportionately to payload weight
No, actually it does not scale proportionately. The fuel requirements grow exponentially with the mass of the payload for all self-propelled spacecraft due to the rocket equation. For the rate of growth to be linear the energy for the propulsion would have to come from outside the system (e.g. ground-based).
What the hell is with the current collection of issues in the present political divide, anyway? How is "the right to own a gun" on the same team as "ban abortions and gay marriage"? This doesn't make any sense to me.
To me the biggest contradiction is the "pro-life" being on the same team as "pro-death penalty". What's up with that? You either believe in "Thou shall not kill" or not. So which is it?
How about this, then? "There are ten people in there. None, some, or all of them may have legal firearms. I have a gun. If I rob that place, what are the odds that I am outgunned? even worse, what are the odds that I am LOOKING at the ONE guy drawing a gun on me out of ten in the place?"
How about this, then? "Some armed guy is threatening the store clerk with a gun. Do I play super-hero-trying-to-save-the-world or do I quietly call the cops?". Chances are that he'll get caught anyway. Why should I risk my and everyone else's life for a few bucks in the cash register? Even if the guy is robbing my house and threatens my family I'm less likely to get hurt if I just give him what he wants and then call the cops.
Just compare for yourself:
- Average grocery basket for a family of four: 500 PLN (~150 USD)
- Average home price in a quiet neighborhood not far from downtown: 8000 PLN/sq m (~230 USD/sq ft)
- Meal at KFC: 30 PLN (~10 USD)
- Meal at a good restaurant: 100 PLN (~30 USD)
- Comprehensive health insurance: 100 PLN/month (~30 USD/month)
- Cable + high speed internet: 120 PLN/month (~38 USD/month)
- Gasoline: 5 PLN/liter (~6 USD/gallon)
I don't know about the US, but this is still cheaper than most Western European capitals.You need to get up to date on your numbers. I live in Poland and make more than I would with a decent job in the US. Not Silicon Valley level yet, but better than most states. The US dollar is dirt cheap, remember?
By that definition the planets and moons of our solar system are alive. Add self-replication and then I agree, you've got life.