Posts by Psyx 2549 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2010
"They, at times, [the media] need to be pulled into line to stop them from misbehaving and publishing lies and halftruths. "
How is that relevant to this?
Likewise your issue with immigrants. As in immigrants currently, rather than immigrants from a hundred years ago, who you are obviously ok with.
"Ecuador can't currently make him a diplomat"
More crucially and relevantly, they can't make him a diplomat because the UK is not required to accept every diplomat's credentials. Diplomats have to be accepted by a host nation. You can't just hand Mad Jack Killer of Thousands a diplomatic passport and send him off as an ambassador to a host nation who don't want him there.
"So, the US aren't the secret powers behind the scenes?"
Probably not at this point. Contempt of Court is pretty serious. The UK authorities probably want to bang him up for that, and that probably trumps any efforts being made by the US.
"Well why don't the Swedes do their initial interview in London?"
Maybe because they're fed up with Assange thumbing his nose at their legal system.
"It doesn't smell of CIA involvement, oh deary me, no."
At this point, no it doesn't. What pressure do you think they are bringing to bear?
"It's almost as if there's something else going on behind the scenes....."
There doesn't need to be. The guy VERY publicly insulted our nation's legal system in a way which citizens or someone with less powerful buddies could never do. When you wave your dick in a Court's face, expect the court to want to make an example and get its pound of flesh.
"If I could cost a government $16,000 a day by sitting there, I might just do that for life just because. What about you?"
How about if it meant slumming on your mate's couch and refusing to leave and cost your friends a load of money? I wouldn't, because I'd be being a d!ck to my mates.
I also wouldn't, because that money would be better used elsewhere. It's not coming straight from the pockets of the police and government, it's resulting in those police not helping the population by doing their policing elsewhere, where it's needed.
"you only need the add the improbability of earth's moon to Drake's equation to understand that we are singular."
Tosh.
Even if the Earth's moon *IS* required for life (we have no evidence of that), then just toss in another 1-in-a-million chance to the equation and guess what: You still get a significent result greater than one.
Believing we are alone is utterly, ignorantly arrogant and belies a lack of comprehension regarding the sheer size of the universe.
"Wow...you are a poster child for atheist recruiting aren't you. You make religion look stupid and don't even get it."
Actually; no. I'm agnostic and have qualifications in Religious Studies. I've read the bible and many of the world's other popular religious texts. I 'get it'; I was rebutting someone who appears to believe the Bible is the source of all knowledge.
"The Bible is NOT universally accepted as "literally correct".
I'm aware of that. However, the poster to which I was replying had stated "There is absolutely no evidence for aliens. They are not mentioned in the Bible", so is one of the more literal religious maniacs, I suspect.
"Antecdotally NOT finding life on the moon is silly. Of course not. We didn't expect to as the conditions for life as we know it are not present."
Yes, I agree. I was disagreeing with someone of a religious bent who believes that lack of life on the moon means that there is no other life in the universe. Which is absurd, clearly.
"To be fair, the OP stated "the limitless vastness of the universe" as a given.
Nevertheless, there is some strong physical evidence in support of an infinite universe / duplicate earth scenario:"
But when queried by skeptics about the possibility of other life; what is a more reasonable and convincing reply: That we *think* space is infinite and therefore there must logically be an exact Earth duplicate, or that space is at least X size because we have measured it, and even in that volume, the most staggeringly mean numbers plugged into the Drake Equation result in a large number of other critters being statistically likely.
Essentially, it's better to argue with laymen with measured facts we know than seemingly fantastical theories.
"It's arrogant for atheists to claim there is no God but then go on to claim there are aliens."
Just as its arrogant for those of a religious bent to claim that there is a god and hence no aliens.
"There is absolutely no evidence for aliens."
Ditto God.
However, there is simple statistics. With there being 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars kicking around it's blisteringly, mind-numbingly arrogant to suggest that there *isn't* life elsewhere.
"There is absolutely no evidence for aliens. They are not mentioned in the bible"
Wow.
Just wow.
Nor are microbes, gamma rays, cheesecake, or a correct value for Pi. Do they not exist?
"and even the science books admit no aliens have been found."
'The Science Books'? Which ones, exactly? Is there a definitive list?
They 'admit' it, because that's the truth. Are you inferring that they would rather lie? I don't think 'science' means what you think it means.
"They are made up creatures like zombies and seahorses."
I hate to break this to you, but seahorses are a real thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahorse
"All the telescopes in the world have been spinning round frantically looking for aliens"
No they haven't. They've only been looking for planets outside our own solar system for 5ish years. How do you think we can 'see' aliens through a telescope?
"NASA supposedly landed men on the moon"
They did. That's how they put a mirror there that bounces lasers back, so we can measure how far away it is. Or did you think that they magiced up there?
"if so they must have looked real hard in craters and suchlike when they were there but still NO aliens. So when are they going to get a clue and admit defeat?"
So... we didn't find an alien on our moon, so there's not one in the infinite reaches of space?
Is there an elephant in your kitchen? Then by your logic, there are no elephants.
"It's the 21st century boys, it's high time to grow up and stop believing in little green men."
It is indeed. High time you grew up and stopped believing that anything that's not in the Bible doesn't exist.
"Space-time is infinite. There's a finite number of ways particles can be arranged in space-time. Space-time must therefore start repeating at some point."
Except that space-time being infinite is not a proven fact. We can only work with the observable universe. Likewise, even if space-time is infinite, it does not automatically equate to an infinite amount of matter being in it.
The idea of there being duplicate Earths in the same dimension requires a few assumptions that it's not yet fair to make.
"As long as there is a major influence of religion in the world, we will still see the scientific community scrutinized and downplayed and fooling the less educated people into thinking that any life other than here on earth is non existent."
What? Where? I think you'll find that even if you straw-poll a highly religious nation where a sizable proportion of the population believes the Earth was made on a Tuesday a few thousand years ago*, then belief in life somewhere other than our own is a majority opinion.
You're basically bringing your anti-religion sentiment into a discussion that has nowt to do with religion.
Oh yeah: Even the Catholic Church is fine with aliens existing.
*ie America.
"Show me the maths. Just because you want to believe something, doesn't mean it's probably true."
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is.
There are 400,000,000,000ish stars in our galaxy.
There are 170,000,000,000ish galaxies in the observable universe.
That equates to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the *observable* universe [we don't know how many more are out there], each of which might harbour one or more planets which might be harbouring life.
So, unless you believe the odds of life evolving are less than 10^24 or less, then it's statistically certain that there is life elsewhere. Frankly, that's such a stupidly, astonishingly slim chance that if there *isn't* life elsewhere and we are the only things alive, then it becomes a compelling argument for the existence of a higher power that's f***ing with us.
"Don't you need at least 15 or 16 samples to make a statistically significant statement? So far, we have 1. It's been a long time since college stats class, so I could be wrong."
We have 10^24 'sample' stars, and we are busy discovering that lots of them have planets in the goldilocks zone.
If you want to do the maths yourself, then the Drake Equation is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
Make the variables as un-generous as you like: The equation will still tell you there's a lot of life out there, smart or not.
"Resources on a planet can for the most part never actually be used up.... For instance we could mine out all the gold and take it in use, but unless we start shooting it out into space or radiate it with particles to turn it into lead we will never use it up.."
How about helium?
"Err ... how do we know?
The computer model of the bomb matches the other computer models of the bomb ?"
Because early simulations were compared against blasts.
We don't detonate nukes for fun any more because there is no reason to do so. Just setting a few off a week to check that the simulations are still accurate is fine in the case of firecrackers, but not something that should be encouraged with thermonuclear weapons.
"Nice plan, but at some point to be really sure, you have to test one otherwise the thing is only guessing based on theoretical inputs and the programming of the computer."
It's been good enough for the last twenty or so years. We stopped glassing far corners of the Pacific and bits of desert less than a day's drive from LA in favour of computer simulations quite some time ago, in case you hadn't noticed.
.50 cal sniper rounds aren't for shooting hard targets, unless used in an anti-materiel role, in which case you're generally shooting at a large, static target and don't need much in the way of help.
Lighter-weight explosive 50 cal rounds have been used since WW2 and work just fine. If the mass reduction is an issue, it can be rectified by adding a tungsten pointy-bit, which weighs hell of a lot more than lead and cruises through armour quite nicey. Not that military ammunition is a lump of lead anyway.
"The course corrections looked rather abrupt on the video and not quite feasible for a ballistic object but hard to judge given no range or view point parallax info."
I'm going to bet that it was a ballistic object and that they're not lying, rather than your armchair assessment being correct.
"How do you justify it to yourself? How do you live with it? Does money or nationalism really still your conscience? Do you HAVE a conscience?"
Taking a step back, if you analyse your own job, it's not likely to be much morally better. Maybe you help create or sell a must-have gadget that increases avarice and dissatisfaction on a global scale and uses rare elements for trivial reasons. Perhaps you make choices about healthcare that are more about costs than saving lives, or prioritise people's needs based upon their wealth rather than actual need. Maybe you work for a bank whose entire existence is based around getting people into debt.
when you think about it a lot of the jobs we do are massively immoral. Making a bullet that might kill fifty people a year is chicken-feed in the world of job morality.
"Obvious concept is obvious."
Way to belittle every engineering feat mankind has ever made.
Piling rocks up in a pyramid shape is obvious.
Building bridges to cross massive divides to link communities is obvious.
et al.
"Lovely concept in a book; but it's the sort of thing that absolutely should not be allowed in real life."
Like single missiles which can kill a million people at once? Best we never invent those, then.
"OTOH, remember how the First World War started?"
Not personally.
But wasn't it something to do with Imperialistic nation states unwilling to back down and being stubbornly determined to escalate a fairly unrelated matter into open warfare?
"Firing a missile out of a gun which after that deploys active guidance systems has been the de-facto standard for tank-on-tank weaponry for 20 years now"
A guided missile form a 120mm tank gun is not the same thing as a bullet form a rifle. I'd also contest that such munitions are 'de facto' at all. Tanks use unguided conventional HEAT or sabot ammunition for the vast majority of engagements. It's accurate and better able to resist countermeasures.
I don't mind fags and booze being advertised half as much as I despise the number of gambling adverts everywhere. There is a massive advertising drive that's normalising the behaviour. Hell: even the Wonga Loans ad references the fact that the wife is getting the loan to buy a new bed because "they scored a goal, didn't they". Great: Hubby loses a bundle down the bookies so wife takes out a short-term loan.
"If prostitution were legal and there were no drugs prohibition this story would probably never have ended in tragedy, so chalk another one up to 'The Justice System'."
I'm all for sex and drugs, but if prostitution and drugs were legal, then more people would die like this. It's the price of those freedoms.
And even the most pro-drug liberal tends to baulk at legalising skank: It's a highly addictive killer which is supplied by a long chain of international criminal gangs, terminating with the Taliban.
"So the offense is that the pilot of the police chopper thought that they were endangered?"
So the judgement of a professional pilot isn't good enough for you? what do you want exactly to enforce the law: For the helicopter to have been fitted with a laser rangefinder to determine in a strict yes/no sense if the aircraft *flying over a heavily populated area* was in danger?
If you fly near another aircraft and the other pilot considers your flying a risk to the point that they escalate the matter, you can be in deep sh!t. And rightly so. Drone pilots aren't excepted from this.
"Because what we have today in F1 is pretty simple: fastest car wins."
Can you let me know at what point F1 wasn't about having a fast, competitive car?
"Alonso with Ferrary"
Pray share more of your great wisdom and expertise.
"instead of Red Bull's "Vettel comes first" that we've had for the last four years."
Vittel was a better driver than Webber. That's why Vittel won more.
(That and Webber is the prince of bad luck)
"The design of the cars has so many constraints that innovation is severely restricted."
Except that when someone innovates and comes up with a race-winning innovation [blown diffusers, or the length-of-engine turbo axle that's giving Mercedes the edge on power output this year]... you don't like it because the fastest car wins! Make your mind up: what do you want?
"I'm afraid but E1 will be the same once they break out of the "everybody drives the same car"
The "Formula" should restrict what can affect safety of the drivers, mechanics or spectators, and nothing else. Give freedom to engineers, mechanics and drivers and it will be way, way more interesting."
Again, you're contradicting yourself: Do you want it to be more about the drivers, or more about development?
Agreed. The previous engines had a tiny power band and were being run at ridiculously high revs; basically being wrung like a 16 year old with a 50cc motorbike. It wasn't a nice sound, and they had no torque outside the high rev range.
The new engines have grunt. You can hear what they're doing and they sound more powerful. I can hear what the tyres and brakes are doing now, too. And what drivers are actually saying.
Sure: They could have turned up the master volume on the track-side mics earlier in the season and Bernie kicked up a fuss, but Bernie is a dinosaur whose ideas about what makes a good race are based firmly on how many million a host nation is going to pay him.
You couldn't stand within a hundred yards of the old cars without earplugs in. People watching TV are complaining, but I think they might change their mind if made to sit next to a track without ear protection for two hours!
""I predict that electric cars will beat F1 cars in about 10 years". It doesn't matter that electric motors can be simpler and more efficient than ICE, the limiting factor is battery weight + range."
It depends what you mean by 'faster'.
Faster over a 200 mile race distance... probably not.
Faster around a given track, or a given corner, or in a sprint race: Probably.
Electric cars can sit the weight lower in the car (just put the batteries all over the floor layout, as low as possible), which means better handling. They don't need massive radiators meaning they can be a lot more aerodynamically cleaner, which means less drag and potentially greater downforce. You don't need to get air in and out of an engine, which cleans the aero up even more. On paper at least electric can be faster than ICE.
Fuel might have a lot more J/kg in it than any battery can dream of carrying, but the bit that converts it to makey-the-wheels-go-round energy is a lot heavier and needs cooling, a gearbox and transmission and a lot of other bits. There's a cross-over distance where the speed of fuel+engineandstuff will be better than speed of battery+motors. For example: A two-mile race would see the F1 car carrying 3L of fuel and the same size engine, while the electric car would have a power unit which weighed less in total.
"I don't think many hard core F1 fans will be won over"
No, but then nothing will. Just as a hardcore Manchester Utd. fan doesn't watch much local footie and 3rd division matches.
Most hardcore F1 fans don't really follow much other motorsport, in my experience. It's the poster-boy of motorsport and many people don't dive any further into the world.
"I think they've had ample bloody chance, given that the earliest semi-practical electric cars date back to the same years as the earliest semi-practical ICE vehicles, between 1880 and 1890."
Yes, and they've had over a 100 years of highly competitive development, just like petrol engines, making your comparison completely legitimate and fair. Or.... not.
"I'm not sure how road car technology will be enhanced by having a dull race* between identical ultra-light non-road electric cars"
The article did state that this year the cars were single-marque, but that was likely to change. As it moves towards a multi-marque series the development will come, just as it does in every other top-flight Formula.
"with 130 years of battery development still not offering much benefit"
Oh, so Li-ion doesn't have an energy density 5 times higher than lead-acid or nickel-cadmium, then; more than doubling in capacity in the last 20 years. It's come quite a long way.
"I can't see that a token bit of pretend racing will do anything."
If you think it's 'pretend' because you don't need ear defenders and every driver is competing in an equal vehicle, then you're clearly not much of a motorsport fan. The only 'pretend' racing I've seen is celebrities 'racing' their Ferraris. Your opinion of the Series is about as useful as mine on the England kickball squad.
How does not making noise have a bearing on the quality of racing?
"They'd be better off instead of spending the money custom building some undoubtedly expensive F1 lookalikes putting the money into fundamental research by blokes in white coats."
They don't look anything like F1 cars any more than spitfires look like DH Mosquitos. They look like single-seater Formula cars and that's about where the similarities end.
"Formula 1 is dull enough already - imagine it with quieter, slower cars with lower endurance."
So... you really are commenting on a relative to a sport that you are already utterly uninterested in.
"Where does the energy come from?"
It's recycled. All energy is recycled.
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
"Who has to deal with the pollution involved in production of both parts & energy?"
The same people who deal with the pollution involved in the production of whatever gadgets and consumer goods you buy.
"Can I do a 680 mile round-trip in one day? (Me, today, Sonoma to Solvang & back)."
No, because it's A RACING CAR and isn't road legal.
Last year's F1 cars also couldn't do a 680 mile road trip, either. I guess those petrol engines haven't been thought out well.
"What is the cost of recycling once the various bits are b0rked?"
In line with recycling whatever gadgets and consumer goods you buy.
The difference is that you don't like this technology, but don't see it as a problem when it applies to <insert favoured consumer goods and/or favourite expensive mass-market entertainment>.
"Now that we have a green racing formula we can stop arsing around with fuel, and fuel-flow limits in F1."
No we can't. Because car development is the heart of F1, and efficiency is now at the heart of car development.
1L of fuel weighs down the car to the point where teams don't want to carry it.
"Anyone who cares that much about being green thinks F1 is an abomination anyway"
No I don't. But thanks for speaking for me.
"F1 fans see it as detracting from "hammer time" proper racing."
No I don't, but thanks for speaking for me.
Sounding like a stuck records there, commenting on all-electric road cars on an article about a sport.
"Bottom line: This technology hasn't really been thought out thoroughly."
As opposed to "let's power this vehicle by fitting it with its own explosion-maker, put twenty gallons of highly flammable liquid in it, design it to go four times faster than a race horse but not put in any form of seatbelts, crash protection, or design it to go around corners very well"? Yet the modern car has got pretty good over the last 100 years.
Let's not invent anything ever again, because prototypes aren't great.
"Charity should be private, give money to your preferred cause and keep quiet about it. "
I agree, in that is my own attitude.
I also agree that people 'raising' £10,000 by going skiing in Peru and essentially financing their holidays via 'charity' are w4nkers.
However, there is a place for raising awareness.
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