I believe it's elemental mercury is ok to ingest bad to inhale. Compounds.... it depends on the compound.
Wikipedia says that the HgO_2 is the stuff that screws you up in the air
and Methyl Mercury is the stuff that fucks up the water.
Don't forget that some of the people who are great at aeronautics might not be the best at educating or doctoring people. Just not all resources are equal.
This is unlikely to be anything new. Very intelligent people have a tendency to get distracted into doing other things that distract from their "real" business (evolutionarily speaking) of increasing the representation of their genes in the gene pool. On the other hand, intelligence can benefit survival, so while the number of offspring may be smaller, they may survive longer, compensating for their lower average fertility.
I once considered this question: "How do you evaluate the success of a trait/species/whatever numerically?" At first I thought it was
(Number of members) * (time). But the main thing that matters is if the species is still around (since evolution is based on who survives after all), so that means its only time that needs to be accounted for.
I'm not sure if I'm being completely redundant or not, but I think that success = (delta)t is probably the only way to go. I'm not a biologist so maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong. The nice thing about a formula like that is if someone gets confused (like if some aspect of intelligence vs whatever) you can just point to it and say increase or decrease on the whole?
SPOILER WARNING: That's part of the premise of the setup in Brave New World by Huxley. They tried making an island for all the people who were grown to be smart and let them loose. You might want to read it.
I predict that there will be a trend of teaching with audio/video download files.
At universities, this is already happening. You can download videos that show you how to perform a certain operation on differential equations or how to manipulate a tool in CAD. It's really helpful and sometimes better than the actual lecture.
5. I can use the new apple iPhone's rubber banding software on the multi touch version of iReader to flip through pages effortlessly, and without all that gooey licking for moist fingers thank you.
I never understood why people need moist fingers when they are reading. I never have a problem with turning pages and my fingers are usually pretty dry. Yes, I do understand hydrogen bonding - thank you. Can someone explain this? Is it really that hard to turn a page?
In any case why is this even a crime? It's an accident! 40 years in prison because some parents have to explain to their kid what sex is? WTF is wrong with society? Doesn't it occur to them that just because you can put someone away doesn't mean it's ethically right.
I believe the difference is the size of the search space and the potential benefits of discovery. IE who really cares about a Yeti vs knowing that there is other intelligent life in the universe?
While I am no molecular biologist, perhaps prime sequences code for proteins that have strange electrical properties that make them impossible. Just because you can link together arbitrary sequences of amino acids doesn't mean that some of them won't introduce weird 3d foldings. Of course I could just be really wrong as the bond angles might adjust appropriately without severing. Is there someone who really knows what they are talking about that can add to this?
Wealth distribution doesn't fit a bell curve because opportunity begets opportunity. If someone is perceived to do something right, more people find out about them through word of mouth (most of the time). Of course, these effects have local maxima at a given socioeconomic level, but if you manage to squeeze into the next one, the positive reenforcement effect happens again. What you are talking about is controlling decentralized activities to an absurd degree. Adding money to a system doesn't create more wealth, adding products and culture does. If you constrain the distribution of the money in the wrong way, then you'll miss the little things along the way that accidentally open the door to something much better. Of course, maybe you could say the same thing about the current system....
If you read the entire article carefully, they deal with that by changing the way they search through the web. Instead of following every link, they assign a probability of.85 to following it. This makes their eigenvectors have nonzero entries because the search can jump out of the strong web and get back on track (if the random number falls into the.15 category it goes to a random indexed page from the entire internet). So yea, making a web of geocities accounts wouldn't do much more than you'd think it should - and thank god, because MySpace would pwn the internet otherwise:P
The solution is to not use wikipedia for controversial topics. Personally, I use it the majority of the time for looking up science/engineering/math related thing, or procedures of some sort. Wikipedia does have its place, sadly it doesn't seem to be in politics or history.
What might be an interesting way of dealing with this, is that instead of senators receiving 1 vote each, they have the number of votes that their supporters give them, and a voter could submit a request to change his/her support at any time. Of course, the point of the senate is to give the states equal representation regardless of size, so maybe it would be better implemented in the house. Of course, then you have a whole new security problem with constant voting....
"Also, the previous poster who says he is in the middle class in one of these disadvantaged nations should never be buying one of these laptops."
What are you talking about? If they enable people to start a business that starts to support increased economic activity in their country, haven't they achieved their purpose?
Well yes, but if we are talking about a black hole, I doubt a human body could comfortably fit in a point thats either infinitely small, or a plank volume.
People probably aren't going to like being weak, unhealthy, and underpowered in the future. Biotech will definitely keep the genepool free of defects in the rich, and probably will in the poor at some point (via retroviral engineering in their food?). Of course, what's more likely to happen, is that people will want to modify themselves in ways inconsistent with our current version of humanity (like extra limbs,more cones in your eyes, a more efficient brain, or perhaps a redundant heart).
This is exactly the argument that geeks will eventually evolve into cyclopcies with many hands. Technology changes, and those changes eventually will remove the problems either intentionally or unintentionally.
Actually, if you look at microsoft's site, they are going to release IE7 as a high priority windows update. Lord knows I'm not defending their atrocious practices in their web browser forays, but a more standards compliant IE will probably reach a decently wide audiance (I believe that high priority installs stuff on your computer without your permission which is its own bag of ethical dillemas).
However, not all of our evolution is due to human genes. Some of those genes came from retroviruses and got stuck in the genome. Other genes confer a defensive capability against certain diseases, but require a normal 2nd copy otherwise they cause a disease . Cystic Fibrosis may have evolved into the genepool in this fashion. Wikipedia: Theories on the prevalence of Cystic Fibrosis
Children sometimes get these diseases simply because they got "overprotected". Anyway, some of these defects may prove to be beneficial should the environment change drastically (such as a resurgence of disease, a famine etc). The flip side to curing all genetic diseases might be that you create a population that is too homogeneous, and then a great number of us could be killed by one problem. It's something to think about.
The problem with that is that faraday cages only block outside signals from getting in. If you place an electric charge (in this case an electromagnetic wave inside) then it can still get out. Gauss's Law for Electric fields. This means that it can't respond to wireless queries, but if it periodically broadcasts... I suppose that it's impractical, but I bet someone could think of a senario where you could get nailed (It broadcasts every few seconds?).
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I believe it's elemental mercury is ok to ingest bad to inhale. Compounds.... it depends on the compound. Wikipedia says that the HgO_2 is the stuff that screws you up in the air and Methyl Mercury is the stuff that fucks up the water.
Also, just as a curiosity check out this article too: Karen Whetterhan dies after a single exposure to HgC_2H_6 through her latex gloves
Don't forget that some of the people who are great at aeronautics might not be the best at educating or doctoring people. Just not all resources are equal.
SPOILER WARNING: That's part of the premise of the setup in Brave New World by Huxley. They tried making an island for all the people who were grown to be smart and let them loose. You might want to read it.
In any case why is this even a crime? It's an accident! 40 years in prison because some parents have to explain to their kid what sex is? WTF is wrong with society? Doesn't it occur to them that just because you can put someone away doesn't mean it's ethically right.
Well Google already has Google Sets, which allows one to generate a list of associations. We are probably almost there.
I believe the difference is the size of the search space and the potential benefits of discovery. IE who really cares about a Yeti vs knowing that there is other intelligent life in the universe?
that is truly free that is easily inhabitable? Uninhabitable? Would a libertarian have to go into deep space to be truely happy?
While I am no molecular biologist, perhaps prime sequences code for proteins that have strange electrical properties that make them impossible. Just because you can link together arbitrary sequences of amino acids doesn't mean that some of them won't introduce weird 3d foldings. Of course I could just be really wrong as the bond angles might adjust appropriately without severing. Is there someone who really knows what they are talking about that can add to this?
Wealth distribution doesn't fit a bell curve because opportunity begets opportunity. If someone is perceived to do something right, more people find out about them through word of mouth (most of the time). Of course, these effects have local maxima at a given socioeconomic level, but if you manage to squeeze into the next one, the positive reenforcement effect happens again. What you are talking about is controlling decentralized activities to an absurd degree. Adding money to a system doesn't create more wealth, adding products and culture does. If you constrain the distribution of the money in the wrong way, then you'll miss the little things along the way that accidentally open the door to something much better. Of course, maybe you could say the same thing about the current system....
But you still don't know until you open the box ;-)
If you read the entire article carefully, they deal with that by changing the way they search through the web. Instead of following every link, they assign a probability of .85 to following it. This makes their eigenvectors have nonzero entries because the search can jump out of the strong web and get back on track (if the random number falls into the .15 category it goes to a random indexed page from the entire internet). So yea, making a web of geocities accounts wouldn't do much more than you'd think it should - and thank god, because MySpace would pwn the internet otherwise :P
The solution is to not use wikipedia for controversial topics. Personally, I use it the majority of the time for looking up science/engineering/math related thing, or procedures of some sort. Wikipedia does have its place, sadly it doesn't seem to be in politics or history.
What might be an interesting way of dealing with this, is that instead of senators receiving 1 vote each, they have the number of votes that their supporters give them, and a voter could submit a request to change his/her support at any time. Of course, the point of the senate is to give the states equal representation regardless of size, so maybe it would be better implemented in the house. Of course, then you have a whole new security problem with constant voting....
"Also, the previous poster who says he is in the middle class in one of these disadvantaged nations should never be buying one of these laptops." What are you talking about? If they enable people to start a business that starts to support increased economic activity in their country, haven't they achieved their purpose?
Well yes, but if we are talking about a black hole, I doubt a human body could comfortably fit in a point thats either infinitely small, or a plank volume.
People probably aren't going to like being weak, unhealthy, and underpowered in the future. Biotech will definitely keep the genepool free of defects in the rich, and probably will in the poor at some point (via retroviral engineering in their food?). Of course, what's more likely to happen, is that people will want to modify themselves in ways inconsistent with our current version of humanity (like extra limbs ,more cones in your eyes, a more efficient brain, or perhaps a redundant heart).
This is exactly the argument that geeks will eventually evolve into cyclopcies with many hands. Technology changes, and those changes eventually will remove the problems either intentionally or unintentionally.
Actually, if you look at microsoft's site, they are going to release IE7 as a high priority windows update. Lord knows I'm not defending their atrocious practices in their web browser forays, but a more standards compliant IE will probably reach a decently wide audiance (I believe that high priority installs stuff on your computer without your permission which is its own bag of ethical dillemas).
However, not all of our evolution is due to human genes. Some of those genes came from retroviruses and got stuck in the genome. Other genes confer a defensive capability against certain diseases, but require a normal 2nd copy otherwise they cause a disease . Cystic Fibrosis may have evolved into the genepool in this fashion. Wikipedia: Theories on the prevalence of Cystic Fibrosis Children sometimes get these diseases simply because they got "overprotected". Anyway, some of these defects may prove to be beneficial should the environment change drastically (such as a resurgence of disease, a famine etc). The flip side to curing all genetic diseases might be that you create a population that is too homogeneous, and then a great number of us could be killed by one problem. It's something to think about.
The problem with that is that faraday cages only block outside signals from getting in. If you place an electric charge (in this case an electromagnetic wave inside) then it can still get out. Gauss's Law for Electric fields. This means that it can't respond to wireless queries, but if it periodically broadcasts... I suppose that it's impractical, but I bet someone could think of a senario where you could get nailed (It broadcasts every few seconds?).
Luke: You don't look happy Ben. Obi-wan: I'm never happy.