If something is creatable, and enough smart people devote enough time and energy in trying to create it, they will eventually succeed.
An infinite amount of monkey with typewriters might not be able to write Shakespeare, but it only takes a few humans with the goal of writing a play to arrive at something very close to it.
I think they should leave that question in there, not because it is an indicator of literacy, but because it an indication of whether the person actually BELIEVES in the science that they are supposedly literate in.
Just because somebody knows what evolution is, doesn't mean that they believe it to be true, and people tend to vote based on their beliefs, not on their knowledge.
As long as churches exist, scientific literacy will always be an uphill battle
Considering how some European countries are so protective of their language, I bet they refused to accept the evidence at hand, because it was in English instead of German.
I did some computer work for a company that used a single giant spreadsheet for their entire inventory system. Every time they added or removed something from the warehouse they would open this spreadsheet, edit it, and then overwrite the old file.
Somewhere along the line this file didn't save right, and dozens of columns in the spreadsheet were lost, but because it was way out in the double-letter columns, nobody noticed it for months (or even years, we never did pin it down)
I spent 2 weeks going though every single backup they had trying to find an old copy with the missing columns.
The majority of invasive species in Minnesota (other than fish) are pretty much inedible, because they were brought here by accident (emerald ash borer) or as decoration (eurasian water milfoil, buckthorn, etc), and were never intended to be a food source
Give it a false childhood, as realistic as possible, and when it reaches "adulthood", you reveal to it that it's actually an AI created to study climate and sociological forecasts.
You can blame a lot of that stuff on faulty/damaged "hardware". A true "crash" would be something like PTSD, where there is nothing wrong with the brain (or body) itself, but the software inside the brain has been corrupted by some powerful external input.
OK, technically that's true, but historically the federal government doesn't get involved in drugs unless it's happening across state or national borders, and that rarely affects the average person.
Not counting the drugs that the CIA is secretly selling, or congress is secretly snorting, of course. (seriously, D.C. has the highest percentage of cocaine-contaminated $20 bills out of the entire nation)
Cities that grew before automobiles and mass-transit tended to be based around the "the 12-block walk". Most people aren't willing to walk more than 12 blocks to get to work/play (and many were too poor to own and maintain a horse). This meant that most cities (or semi-independant business districts, in the case of larger cities) were limited to 12 blocks for a long period of time, and became more dense over time, instead of becoming larger.
When mass-transit was invented (still pre-automobile) it was still based on those same 12-block walking limitations. Each stop was designed to serve a 12 block radius, and cities began growing outward along these stops. (as a side note, this new expansion allowed the rich to easily flee the crowded center, which is why you still see mansions in inner-city slums today)
The automobile threw all that out the window, and cities were free to sprawl far and wide (which they did, much to the sadness of people who prefer forests of trees over forests of identical houses)
The best kind of cities for mass transit are the ones that grew mostly in the middle stages, after mass transit, but before the automobile. Older cities tend to be too tightly packed, and newer cities tend to be too sprawling.
This is why it works well in some places and not others, it's all about the age of the city.
There is a certain addictive feeling that comes with stealing (or breaking the law, or simply lying habitually) and getting away with it. Similar to a "runner's high", but with less running. As with any drug, repeated exposure builds tolerance, doubly-so for a "drug" created by a stressful situation that isn't as stressful the second time around. This is why people who are addicted to "getting away with it" feel the need to escalate to bigger and bigger risks, in order to chase that same high.
This is why Sweden doesn't want people to get "addicted" to fare jumping, they are afraid that it might escalate into something more
You might be more right about "insurance" than you thought. They collect a monthly premium, which is save it up against the unlikely (but not impossible) odds that there will have to be a payout.
It's exactly like car insurance, except it's "getting caught" insurance.
The problem with simply increasing the fines is that the fines become disproportionate to the crime, and becomes an unfair burden for a very petty crime. The real solution would be a massive increase in enforcement (using cameras or something), to increase the likelihood of getting caught, such that the insurance payout increases to the point where it's no longer sustainable.
One of these solutions costs money (increased enforcement), the other one makes money (increased fines)
I know that in the US, the solution would be to simply increase fines, but hopefully Sweden is smarter than that (judging by the way they treat crime in general, I think they are).
However, if the scheme is profitable at $15 per month, there is a lot of leeway left before premiums exceed normal fare price
I read this series, the aliens eventually create an AI of their own just to give the humans something long-lived enough to communicate with. They also, eventually, find a way to slow down their own metabolism, using extrapolations of human technology.
My favorite part is, by the time the humans are half-way done transmitting their version of Wikipedia to the aliens, the aliens have already bypassed human technology and started transmitting back advanced technology of their own.
That would be a good financial reason to stay in the car business then. If they are into that whole "gouging the customer for every last cent" kinda thing.
When cabbies switched from horses to cars, it didn't put the driver out of a job (made his job harder, if anything)
When you switch all you operations to the cloud, the first thing your manager is going to ask is "if everything is on the cloud, what exactly is our admin administrating now?".
We all know that the hard work doesn't go away when the servers do, but does he know this?
More extinctions happened at the end of ice ages than at the beginning, because most species can survive a single drastic change, but a second change after only a short time (even if it's back to "normal") ends up being too much to handle, and the species dies out.
My guess is that you need a fairly diverse mutant population to survive a change, but once the main population dies out, the surviving mutant population needs a mutant population of it's own to survive the next change, and that takes time to develop
Most female mammals only have noticeably larger breasts when breastfeeding. Compare a regular female dog to a female dog that has just delivered a litter of puppies, only the recently pregnant one has what we would call breasts. Most of the time, there is no noticeable difference between male and female dogs
This doesn't necessarily rule out breast-feeding alien females having large breasts, however. Moderen domesticated cows (especially Holstiens) show that breast size differences between genders can be achieved though selective breeding. In the case of humans, natural mating selections somehow favored women who always looked like they were breast-feeding, even when they weren't.
The whole "same DNA" thing in Star Trek was just a retro-active excuse to finally justify all the cost-cutting that ST:TOS had done by using human actors for everything. The original klingons were so bad they even had to poke fun at it in the TOS/DS9 crossover episode.
Ink carts are low margin, unless you are the company that also made the printer, and designed it to ONLY accept DRM-enabled ink carts that only your company can make.
Also, real printing ink (unlike the water and food coloring found in some cheap brands) is actually quite expensive to make, even when it comes in a 5 gallon drum and not a tiny little cartridge.
Stuff like this happens from single-pair partnerships, not widespread technology sharing Ford frequently partners with Mazda, Chevy with Toyota, and Chrysler with Mitsubishi. But you won't see chrysler/toyota or ford/mitsubishi mixes.
If Tesla keeps making cars, and starts selling batteries, you will only get one or two other (probably foreign) car makers using Tesla batteries. Chevy is unlikely to use them, as they already have their own battery technology, and view Tesla as a direct US competitor.
Slashdot Mirror
If something is creatable, and enough smart people devote enough time and energy in trying to create it, they will eventually succeed.
An infinite amount of monkey with typewriters might not be able to write Shakespeare, but it only takes a few humans with the goal of writing a play to arrive at something very close to it.
I think they should leave that question in there, not because it is an indicator of literacy, but because it an indication of whether the person actually BELIEVES in the science that they are supposedly literate in.
Just because somebody knows what evolution is, doesn't mean that they believe it to be true, and people tend to vote based on their beliefs, not on their knowledge.
As long as churches exist, scientific literacy will always be an uphill battle
Considering how some European countries are so protective of their language, I bet they refused to accept the evidence at hand, because it was in English instead of German.
I did some computer work for a company that used a single giant spreadsheet for their entire inventory system. Every time they added or removed something from the warehouse they would open this spreadsheet, edit it, and then overwrite the old file.
Somewhere along the line this file didn't save right, and dozens of columns in the spreadsheet were lost, but because it was way out in the double-letter columns, nobody noticed it for months (or even years, we never did pin it down)
I spent 2 weeks going though every single backup they had trying to find an old copy with the missing columns.
Hiring everyone from the same 10 schools (and mostly the same 2 schools) doesn't exactly make for fresh thinking either.
The majority of invasive species in Minnesota (other than fish) are pretty much inedible, because they were brought here by accident (emerald ash borer) or as decoration (eurasian water milfoil, buckthorn, etc), and were never intended to be a food source
It's pretty sad that the other 90% of universities have so little faith in their OWN graduates that they won't hire from within.
If I had just gotten a PhD, and it ended up being so worthless that even my own school wouldn't accept it, I would demand a refund.
Give it a false childhood, as realistic as possible, and when it reaches "adulthood", you reveal to it that it's actually an AI created to study climate and sociological forecasts.
And name it Perry Simm
You can blame a lot of that stuff on faulty/damaged "hardware".
A true "crash" would be something like PTSD, where there is nothing wrong with the brain (or body) itself, but the software inside the brain has been corrupted by some powerful external input.
OK, technically that's true, but historically the federal government doesn't get involved in drugs unless it's happening across state or national borders, and that rarely affects the average person.
Not counting the drugs that the CIA is secretly selling, or congress is secretly snorting, of course.
(seriously, D.C. has the highest percentage of cocaine-contaminated $20 bills out of the entire nation)
Cities that grew before automobiles and mass-transit tended to be based around the "the 12-block walk". Most people aren't willing to walk more than 12 blocks to get to work/play (and many were too poor to own and maintain a horse). This meant that most cities (or semi-independant business districts, in the case of larger cities) were limited to 12 blocks for a long period of time, and became more dense over time, instead of becoming larger.
When mass-transit was invented (still pre-automobile) it was still based on those same 12-block walking limitations. Each stop was designed to serve a 12 block radius, and cities began growing outward along these stops. (as a side note, this new expansion allowed the rich to easily flee the crowded center, which is why you still see mansions in inner-city slums today)
The automobile threw all that out the window, and cities were free to sprawl far and wide (which they did, much to the sadness of people who prefer forests of trees over forests of identical houses)
The best kind of cities for mass transit are the ones that grew mostly in the middle stages, after mass transit, but before the automobile.
Older cities tend to be too tightly packed, and newer cities tend to be too sprawling.
This is why it works well in some places and not others, it's all about the age of the city.
I searched for "hop the strass" and the only result in Google is this thread.
Which, I have to say, is pretty impressive for Google to have already indexed it.
Congratulations on starting a new meme.
In the case of marijuana (in the US), the penalties range from serious prison time, to completely legal.
There is a certain addictive feeling that comes with stealing (or breaking the law, or simply lying habitually) and getting away with it. Similar to a "runner's high", but with less running.
As with any drug, repeated exposure builds tolerance, doubly-so for a "drug" created by a stressful situation that isn't as stressful the second time around.
This is why people who are addicted to "getting away with it" feel the need to escalate to bigger and bigger risks, in order to chase that same high.
This is why Sweden doesn't want people to get "addicted" to fare jumping, they are afraid that it might escalate into something more
You might be more right about "insurance" than you thought.
They collect a monthly premium, which is save it up against the unlikely (but not impossible) odds that there will have to be a payout.
It's exactly like car insurance, except it's "getting caught" insurance.
The problem with simply increasing the fines is that the fines become disproportionate to the crime, and becomes an unfair burden for a very petty crime.
The real solution would be a massive increase in enforcement (using cameras or something), to increase the likelihood of getting caught, such that the insurance payout increases to the point where it's no longer sustainable.
One of these solutions costs money (increased enforcement), the other one makes money (increased fines)
I know that in the US, the solution would be to simply increase fines, but hopefully Sweden is smarter than that (judging by the way they treat crime in general, I think they are).
However, if the scheme is profitable at $15 per month, there is a lot of leeway left before premiums exceed normal fare price
I think his point was, neither one exists yet
I read this series, the aliens eventually create an AI of their own just to give the humans something long-lived enough to communicate with.
They also, eventually, find a way to slow down their own metabolism, using extrapolations of human technology.
My favorite part is, by the time the humans are half-way done transmitting their version of Wikipedia to the aliens, the aliens have already bypassed human technology and started transmitting back advanced technology of their own.
We have two of them, and stereoscopic vision isn't THAT important (otherwise they wouldn't let one-eyed people drive)
That would be a good financial reason to stay in the car business then. If they are into that whole "gouging the customer for every last cent" kinda thing.
When cabbies switched from horses to cars, it didn't put the driver out of a job (made his job harder, if anything)
When you switch all you operations to the cloud, the first thing your manager is going to ask is "if everything is on the cloud, what exactly is our admin administrating now?".
We all know that the hard work doesn't go away when the servers do, but does he know this?
More extinctions happened at the end of ice ages than at the beginning, because most species can survive a single drastic change, but a second change after only a short time (even if it's back to "normal") ends up being too much to handle, and the species dies out.
My guess is that you need a fairly diverse mutant population to survive a change, but once the main population dies out, the surviving mutant population needs a mutant population of it's own to survive the next change, and that takes time to develop
Most female mammals only have noticeably larger breasts when breastfeeding. Compare a regular female dog to a female dog that has just delivered a litter of puppies, only the recently pregnant one has what we would call breasts. Most of the time, there is no noticeable difference between male and female dogs
This doesn't necessarily rule out breast-feeding alien females having large breasts, however. Moderen domesticated cows (especially Holstiens) show that breast size differences between genders can be achieved though selective breeding. In the case of humans, natural mating selections somehow favored women who always looked like they were breast-feeding, even when they weren't.
The whole "same DNA" thing in Star Trek was just a retro-active excuse to finally justify all the cost-cutting that ST:TOS had done by using human actors for everything. The original klingons were so bad they even had to poke fun at it in the TOS/DS9 crossover episode.
Ink carts are low margin, unless you are the company that also made the printer, and designed it to ONLY accept DRM-enabled ink carts that only your company can make.
Also, real printing ink (unlike the water and food coloring found in some cheap brands) is actually quite expensive to make, even when it comes in a 5 gallon drum and not a tiny little cartridge.
Stuff like this happens from single-pair partnerships, not widespread technology sharing
Ford frequently partners with Mazda, Chevy with Toyota, and Chrysler with Mitsubishi. But you won't see chrysler/toyota or ford/mitsubishi mixes.
If Tesla keeps making cars, and starts selling batteries, you will only get one or two other (probably foreign) car makers using Tesla batteries. Chevy is unlikely to use them, as they already have their own battery technology, and view Tesla as a direct US competitor.