I suppose you did your own appendectomy with a spoon.
Never had it done, actually. Never got my wisdom teeth pulled either. I still have all the parts that nature gave me - I'm 100% OEM.
I get your point, though. The difference is that the medical field is a lot better regulated than car mechanics, electricians, etc. At least, they are in 1st world nations. If you happen to be living in Mexico on the other hand, you might actually be better off ripping out your own appendix.
The other difference is that if something goes wrong during surgery due to negligence, I (or the surviving members of my family) can usually sue the doctor and expect to recoup a large sum. Whereas I have no hope in hell of getting the mechanic to pay for new rotors.
The most important of all, I am trying to show the Microsoft and how it basically stopped time by being the only player in market. In 1991, people on PC had DOS, DOS 5 (not sure about version), it showed characters on its black screen and it needed massive hacks running to fake multitasking. On ease of usability, I would look at Apple Macintosh tools of 1990s.
I don't know, man. In 1991 I was a pre-teen with an IBM XT, and I liked it just fine. Once I figured out how to access BBS's, the world was my oyster. My school at the time had only Macintosh computers, and while they looked all pretty and shiny and were fairly enjoyable to use, I still preferred my 286 processor with DOS 3.5 and XTree Gold:)
I guess you're right - at the time the macs certainly WERE easier to use, which is why we were using them in my middle-school. But a few years later in highschool we transitioned from macs to PC's with windows 95, and I don't remember there being a big problem with it. Everyone seemed to agree that windows was much better - with the exception of a few mac snobs who happened to have rich parents and $20,000 worth of Apple branded equipment sitting at home. The rest of us were quite happy to switch over.
So you agree that the "conflict" isn't actually one our military is best suited for?
Why the hell would I agree with that?
Let me ask a different question: who, exactly, do you suppose would be better suited for the job?
We're basically fighting pissed of civilians using whatever homemade bombs they can because they Hate America(TM) or someone influential in their life told them to.
No, you're fighting pissed off morons who want to be in charge of Iraq. The US presence is almost incidental to them - they're much more interested in killing Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police, as well as butchering Iraqi civilians in order to scare the rest into submission. The small number of fighters who target US soldiers exclusively are barely worth mentioning - the largest factions are religious militias who slaughter people indiscriminately.
The end result was that we made more terrorists.
Ah, yes. It wasn't Iran which continues to fund and arm them, or Saudi Arabia, whose religious zealots continue to brainwash them. No, it's us. We made them, by trying to get them to stop killing each other.
I suppose that after a few too many joints, such a world-view would make perfect sense...
People were video editing on their Amigas back in 1991 for instance.
I used an old amiga video toaster back in 1994-5 as part of my highschool curriculum. We also had a non-linear editing suite running on a PC with windows 95 and Adobe Premiere. The difference between the two? I could take one of the dumber kids in the class and in half an hour teach them the basics of editing on the windows machine. Whereas on the Amiga machine.... good luck! Most of the people in the class never learned how to do anything on it except generate end credits.
As I have witnessed, even seemingly straightforward tasks like stripping wires and using wire nuts can have devastating consequences when performed improperly.
To advocate that an unlicensed and inexperienced homeowner take on this type of project without adequate, licensed professional supervision is irresponsible in the extreme. No licensed electrician would advocate such irresponsible and potentially hazardous course of conduct.
Yes, and I'm sure that no licenced car mechanic would ever advocate that you do your own car repair and maintenance. Guess what - the last time I took my car to a "professional" to have new tires put on, the retard over-torqued the lugnuts so much that they warped my rotors.
What did I learn from the experience? That since there's no way for a layman to tell good professionals from bad "professionals", you may as well skip them altogether and do the work yourself. It's either that or go and pay another guy from a totally different company to check over the first guy's work.
And it's clear we are facing a different sort of enemy, in a different sort of conflict.
Yeah - a stupider, poorly trained, and poorly organized enemy, in what's basically a humanitarian relief operation. The biggest challenge isn't in military conflicts - it's in rebuilding civil infrastructure and establishing law and order.
This is from the testimony of soldiers who have been on one or more tours in Iraq. They admit that it's terrifying, that every single time they get into a vehicle they are worried that any single person, any vehicle, any bump on the side of the road or any piece of brush may hide something that will end their lives.
What the hell vets have you been talking to???
You know, the "Veterans for 9/11 Truth" say all kinds of stupid shit too, but they're such a tiny minority that it's absolutely ridiculous - and more than a little dishonest - to pretend that their statements are representative of the military as a whole.
Maybe I'm not speaking from ignorance, c6gunner.
Misconception, confusion, ignorance... whatever. Either way, your statements are just plain wrong - or at best are plain-old fear-mongering. There's nothing wrong with the state of the US military. Could it be better? Sure. Things could ALWAYS be better. That's why we always strive to improve. That's got nothing to do with your little rants, though.
We don't need more soldiers, we need smarter, better ones.
Your ignorance is embarrassing. The average US soldier today has a better mix of training, equipment, and access to intel and support than any in history. You should stop listening to Jon Carray and his "ounly damb pplz becum suljers" rants.
Rather, the enemy has changed, and our military has not.
Yes, I hear armchair generals like you spouting such nonsense on a daily basis. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Here, I'll give you an analogy you can understand: It's like a pro-NFL player opining that the threat of script kiddies has changed, yet computer administrators have done nothing to adapt to the circumstances.
Offense is not what we need, we need strategic and tactical advantage. We don't have it. We're fighting Joe Arab.
Cute use of buzz-words, but it's pretty clear that you have no idea what you're talking about.
To hear the tales of some, this limited conflict has virtually wrecked the US Army and Marine Corps, at least in terms of material condition.
The key phrase being "the tales of some". As much as I hate to admit it, the military will always ask for more money, and will use whatever excuse they can to try and get it. If the doom-and-gloom complaints I've heard from some circles are correct, then the US military is downright pathetic. There's no reason why such a small conflict should have such a massive impact on the worlds most powerful military force.
The chAir Force is also dilapidated, if crews training to fly the same airframes their grandfathers went aloft in is any indication.
Hah. Come to Canada some time, and let me give you a guided tour of our equipment. Just try not to laugh too much.
Or go to any other western power for that matter.
The US forces are currently flying the most advanced aircraft in the world. You've got the F-22, the apache, and the Osprey for fucks sake! I'd give my right nut to fly any one of those:) So you've got a few older aircraft too - so what? The rest of us have ONLY older aircraft. The current pride and joy of the Canadian airforce is the 4 C-17's we just bought from you. And, hopefuly, we'll be able to buy some JSF's from you in another decade or so. Until then we're still stuck flying F-18's.
Yeah, but are you trying to contend that the Barbary Wars are truly comparable to WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc.?
Not at all, just pointing out that the president has always had the power to conduct limited conflicts without congress having to be involved. The only question is one of scale.
And, to answer your unasked question, yes, Iraq is a limited conflict. A war which takes up 150,000 soldiers (and only 4,000 casualties!) is, by historical standards, a minor skirmish. US figures for the Korean and Vietnam wars were around 500,000, with the total number of allied personnel in Korea being close to a million. In the other conflict which you mentioned - WW2 - the allies had 14 million DEAD, never mind how many served.
Anyway, congress could have (and still can) cut off funding at any time. That they continue to fund these campaigns means that they're giving their approval, even if they're unwilling to commit to a full declaration of war.
arming kids with a stick (not *even* a sword, much less any type of firearm) and sending them into a place you know is basically a minefield with a cardboard "key to heaven".
Now, don't be exaggerating! They were plastic keys, not cardboard!
and *did* kill 30 million people right after the democrats forced those americans to depart.
Ok, that last bit was sarcasm, but here you really ARE exaggerating. There's no evidence that 30 million were killed, although there's very good evidence that at least 3 million were.
Not that 3 million bodies is any better than 30 million... but there's no reason to artificially inflate the numbers. That's no better than the "anti-war" lunatics who insist that 1 million Iraqis have been killed since 2003.
A cancer researcher using radio waves to target cancer cells stumbled upon a novel method to split water atoms into their hydrogen and oxygen component gasses using radio waves.
Yes, my father sent me an e-mail about this asking my opinion. He even included a video of the demonstration. I'll tell you the same thing I told him: this is just a way to perform electrolysis without needing an anode and cathode. It might be cheaper or more efficient than current methods (although there's no solid information to confirm this) but it's still a process which consumes energy. It will never produce energy.
Don't just take my words for it; look at the Popular Science article you linked to:
Skeptics say Kanzius's radio generator is sucking up far more energy than it's creating, making it a carnival trick at best.
Newtonian physics were grand and unbreakable from a science point of view until a little man named Einstein showed up and, and every since, Netwon's laws were being broken all the time.
Hardly. Newton's laws are still valid in most frameworks, and we use them on a regular basis. When you receive training in the Aerospace field, they don't generally teach you about Relativity, but within the first day you learn about Newton's laws of motion. Einstein didn't break Newton's laws - he just gave us more accurate ones to work with.
We assume we know, but always have to leave room for what we don't know. This is why science is living and breathing, and not a dead set of principles to never be challenged again.
Absolutely. That's what makes science so fascinating. But that's got nothing to do with breaking laws of physics!
If you want static laws, pick a religion, not science...
Gravitational energy is 'free'. Here's how you get it:
That's a very interesting idea. My gut tells me it wouldn't work, but I'd love to run some figures on it anyway. Thanks for giving me something fun to think about:)
That is wholly different than declaring it to be impossible, and a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, without even giving it a thought.
If it were to do what they claim, it WOULD be a violation of thermodynamics. I'm not sure why you're playing at being their PR rep, but you're not doing a very good job of it. Do you just like being the devils advocate?
The chemical reaction absorbs the ambient heat of the surrounding volume, i.e. the engine chamber, to provide the necessary energy to break the chemical bonds.
Which would limit energy production to however much heat energy is contained in the "surrounding volume" when you started the process.
In other words, you're suggesting that we harness sunlight (heat energy) in order to split water molecules, and then use the resultant hydrogen molecules to create electrical energy. Which is, frankly, ridiculous. The energy available is nowhere near enough to power a vehicle.
Of course, all of that assumes that such a process is even possible, which has certainly not been demonstrated.
The second law of thermodynamics is a matter of statistics, such that the entropy of a smaller system can decrease as long as the entropy of the subsuming system increases.
Right, which is why I asked: where does the energy come from? Your reply doesn't come close to being an actual answer.
That's a horrible example! You're listing a naturally occurring phenomenon as an example of when humans broke the laws of physics? It's like you didn't even attempt to answer my question.
Steam locomotives ran on water too, you know.
Hardly. That's the equivalent of saying that automobiles run on metal, because the shafts and gears are composed of different types of metals.
Please, don't play dumb games. If you have something relevant to add, do so.
Really, all the posts here are about whether or not you, the reader, can accept something into your world that does not look like what you see every day.
They're also about the calibration of your Bullshit Meter. I'm sure you've heard the quote about not keeping your mind so open that your brains fall out.
You're also missing the point of catalyst again. Any chemical that is used up in the process is a reactant, not a catalyst. Any such low-temperature, water-splitting catalyst would be as dangerous as ice-nine though.
Yes - I assumed that you had misspoken, since any such catalyst would also violate the laws of thermodynamics, whereas a reactant would not. It seems I may have given you too much credit...
Possibly - but in that case, the car isn't powered by water alone since it also uses other chemicals. That's like me selling you a 1993 Honda Civic by saying:
"Yeah, this car runs on water! Just make sure you mix one part water to 60 parts gasoline."
If we're talking about a car powered by a reaction between water and other chemicals, then the real question is how much do those chemicals cost. Either way, it's at the very least misleading to claim that the car is powered by water, and at worst it's outright fraud.
Physics laws are broken all the time as science moves forward.
Really? When, exactly, did we break any of the laws of physics?
And if you're going to start listing things like powered flight, atomic power, and breaking the sound barrier... please just save yourself the embarrassment and don't bother replying at all.
Separating hydrogen from water is NOT breaking any form of phsyics. The question would be the chemical/energy cost to do it.
Boy, you must be, like, the next Einstein or something!
Using water as energy is not hard, converting it to a 'useful' form of energy that is more than the energy required to convert it or break it apart it is the trick, but wouldn't break any Physics Laws...
Well, you're right about one thing: if anyone ever shows you a way to produce extra energy by "breaking" water and then recombining it again, it certainly will be a trick!
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Let me guess: Private-for-life, in charge of pop-and-chips procurement?
They don't have the capital to invest in the technology, while they DO have a surplus of labour. It's simple economics.
Never had it done, actually. Never got my wisdom teeth pulled either. I still have all the parts that nature gave me - I'm 100% OEM.
I get your point, though. The difference is that the medical field is a lot better regulated than car mechanics, electricians, etc. At least, they are in 1st world nations. If you happen to be living in Mexico on the other hand, you might actually be better off ripping out your own appendix.
The other difference is that if something goes wrong during surgery due to negligence, I (or the surviving members of my family) can usually sue the doctor and expect to recoup a large sum. Whereas I have no hope in hell of getting the mechanic to pay for new rotors.
I don't know, man. In 1991 I was a pre-teen with an IBM XT, and I liked it just fine. Once I figured out how to access BBS's, the world was my oyster. My school at the time had only Macintosh computers, and while they looked all pretty and shiny and were fairly enjoyable to use, I still preferred my 286 processor with DOS 3.5 and XTree Gold :)
I guess you're right - at the time the macs certainly WERE easier to use, which is why we were using them in my middle-school. But a few years later in highschool we transitioned from macs to PC's with windows 95, and I don't remember there being a big problem with it. Everyone seemed to agree that windows was much better - with the exception of a few mac snobs who happened to have rich parents and $20,000 worth of Apple branded equipment sitting at home. The rest of us were quite happy to switch over.
Why the hell would I agree with that?
Let me ask a different question: who, exactly, do you suppose would be better suited for the job?
No, you're fighting pissed off morons who want to be in charge of Iraq. The US presence is almost incidental to them - they're much more interested in killing Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police, as well as butchering Iraqi civilians in order to scare the rest into submission. The small number of fighters who target US soldiers exclusively are barely worth mentioning - the largest factions are religious militias who slaughter people indiscriminately.
Ah, yes. It wasn't Iran which continues to fund and arm them, or Saudi Arabia, whose religious zealots continue to brainwash them. No, it's us. We made them, by trying to get them to stop killing each other.
I suppose that after a few too many joints, such a world-view would make perfect sense ...
I used an old amiga video toaster back in 1994-5 as part of my highschool curriculum. We also had a non-linear editing suite running on a PC with windows 95 and Adobe Premiere. The difference between the two? I could take one of the dumber kids in the class and in half an hour teach them the basics of editing on the windows machine. Whereas on the Amiga machine .... good luck! Most of the people in the class never learned how to do anything on it except generate end credits.
Yes, and I'm sure that no licenced car mechanic would ever advocate that you do your own car repair and maintenance. Guess what - the last time I took my car to a "professional" to have new tires put on, the retard over-torqued the lugnuts so much that they warped my rotors.
What did I learn from the experience? That since there's no way for a layman to tell good professionals from bad "professionals", you may as well skip them altogether and do the work yourself. It's either that or go and pay another guy from a totally different company to check over the first guy's work.
Yeah - a stupider, poorly trained, and poorly organized enemy, in what's basically a humanitarian relief operation. The biggest challenge isn't in military conflicts - it's in rebuilding civil infrastructure and establishing law and order.
What the hell vets have you been talking to???
You know, the "Veterans for 9/11 Truth" say all kinds of stupid shit too, but they're such a tiny minority that it's absolutely ridiculous - and more than a little dishonest - to pretend that their statements are representative of the military as a whole.
Misconception, confusion, ignorance ... whatever. Either way, your statements are just plain wrong - or at best are plain-old fear-mongering. There's nothing wrong with the state of the US military. Could it be better? Sure. Things could ALWAYS be better. That's why we always strive to improve. That's got nothing to do with your little rants, though.
Your ignorance is embarrassing. The average US soldier today has a better mix of training, equipment, and access to intel and support than any in history. You should stop listening to Jon Carray and his "ounly damb pplz becum suljers" rants.
Yes, I hear armchair generals like you spouting such nonsense on a daily basis. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Here, I'll give you an analogy you can understand: It's like a pro-NFL player opining that the threat of script kiddies has changed, yet computer administrators have done nothing to adapt to the circumstances.
Cute use of buzz-words, but it's pretty clear that you have no idea what you're talking about.
The key phrase being "the tales of some". As much as I hate to admit it, the military will always ask for more money, and will use whatever excuse they can to try and get it. If the doom-and-gloom complaints I've heard from some circles are correct, then the US military is downright pathetic. There's no reason why such a small conflict should have such a massive impact on the worlds most powerful military force.
Hah. Come to Canada some time, and let me give you a guided tour of our equipment. Just try not to laugh too much.
Or go to any other western power for that matter.
The US forces are currently flying the most advanced aircraft in the world. You've got the F-22, the apache, and the Osprey for fucks sake! I'd give my right nut to fly any one of those
Not at all, just pointing out that the president has always had the power to conduct limited conflicts without congress having to be involved. The only question is one of scale.
And, to answer your unasked question, yes, Iraq is a limited conflict. A war which takes up 150,000 soldiers (and only 4,000 casualties!) is, by historical standards, a minor skirmish. US figures for the Korean and Vietnam wars were around 500,000, with the total number of allied personnel in Korea being close to a million. In the other conflict which you mentioned - WW2 - the allies had 14 million DEAD, never mind how many served.
Anyway, congress could have (and still can) cut off funding at any time. That they continue to fund these campaigns means that they're giving their approval, even if they're unwilling to commit to a full declaration of war.
Ah, I see. Silly me, I thought that the Barbary Wars happened before WW2. You learn something new every day!
So you're saying that North America should have stayed out of WW2?
It did? When?
Or have you just been reading some of those Harry Turtledove "alternate history" novels?
Now, don't be exaggerating! They were plastic keys, not cardboard!
Ok, that last bit was sarcasm, but here you really ARE exaggerating. There's no evidence that 30 million were killed, although there's very good evidence that at least 3 million were.
Not that 3 million bodies is any better than 30 million
That makes absolutely no sense. To split water, you add electrons to the hydrogen atoms. Whoever wrote the summary is really confused.
Yes, my father sent me an e-mail about this asking my opinion. He even included a video of the demonstration. I'll tell you the same thing I told him: this is just a way to perform electrolysis without needing an anode and cathode. It might be cheaper or more efficient than current methods (although there's no solid information to confirm this) but it's still a process which consumes energy. It will never produce energy.
Don't just take my words for it; look at the Popular Science article you linked to:
Skeptics say Kanzius's radio generator is sucking up far more energy than it's creating, making it a carnival trick at best.
And the Skeptics are absolutely right
Hardly. Newton's laws are still valid in most frameworks, and we use them on a regular basis. When you receive training in the Aerospace field, they don't generally teach you about Relativity, but within the first day you learn about Newton's laws of motion. Einstein didn't break Newton's laws - he just gave us more accurate ones to work with.
Absolutely. That's what makes science so fascinating. But that's got nothing to do with breaking laws of physics!
Don't be a dick
That's a very interesting idea. My gut tells me it wouldn't work, but I'd love to run some figures on it anyway. Thanks for giving me something fun to think about
If it were to do what they claim, it WOULD be a violation of thermodynamics. I'm not sure why you're playing at being their PR rep, but you're not doing a very good job of it. Do you just like being the devils advocate?
Which would limit energy production to however much heat energy is contained in the "surrounding volume" when you started the process.
In other words, you're suggesting that we harness sunlight (heat energy) in order to split water molecules, and then use the resultant hydrogen molecules to create electrical energy. Which is, frankly, ridiculous. The energy available is nowhere near enough to power a vehicle.
Of course, all of that assumes that such a process is even possible, which has certainly not been demonstrated.
Right, which is why I asked: where does the energy come from? Your reply doesn't come close to being an actual answer.
That's a horrible example! You're listing a naturally occurring phenomenon as an example of when humans broke the laws of physics? It's like you didn't even attempt to answer my question.
Hardly. That's the equivalent of saying that automobiles run on metal, because the shafts and gears are composed of different types of metals.
Please, don't play dumb games. If you have something relevant to add, do so.
They're also about the calibration of your Bullshit Meter. I'm sure you've heard the quote about not keeping your mind so open that your brains fall out.
Yes - I assumed that you had misspoken, since any such catalyst would also violate the laws of thermodynamics, whereas a reactant would not. It seems I may have given you too much credit
Possibly - but in that case, the car isn't powered by water alone since it also uses other chemicals. That's like me selling you a 1993 Honda Civic by saying:
"Yeah, this car runs on water! Just make sure you mix one part water to 60 parts gasoline."
If we're talking about a car powered by a reaction between water and other chemicals, then the real question is how much do those chemicals cost. Either way, it's at the very least misleading to claim that the car is powered by water, and at worst it's outright fraud.
Really? When, exactly, did we break any of the laws of physics?
And if you're going to start listing things like powered flight, atomic power, and breaking the sound barrier
Boy, you must be, like, the next Einstein or something!
Well, you're right about one thing: if anyone ever shows you a way to produce extra energy by "breaking" water and then recombining it again, it certainly will be a trick!