Comment Re:Same atoms (Score 1) 75
And yes, I already know that I can not spell.. hydorgen=hydrogen and helinm=helium
I still don't understand the "material what we're mad from" part...
It has been a while since I took astronomy so I am sure that I will get some corrections, but I will give it a shot.
Right after the big bang, the universe was mostly made of of just hydorgen and helinm. Most of the rest of the elements are produced by stars. During its life and depending on how big the star is, the fusion process in the star can produce elements up to iron (I think). When the larger stars (I think it is about 10 times the size of our sun and greater) die, they go supernova. This explosive process produces the heavier elements and also dstributes them back out into the universe and in time they become the stars and planets in other solar systems like ours. So we are made from the remnents of dead stars.
Let the corrections begin
Which brings up the question: Which will happen first? Earth's core cooling to the point where we lose our atmosphere, or the Sun running out of fuel to the point where Earth can no longer sustain life (as we like it)?
The correct answer is neither. Both of those are billions of years in the future. You forgot about a more immediate threat to the planet. Unless something drastic happens, the Human race will have made the earth devoid of life long before that. And even if we don't f' the planet up beyond all fixing, it wont matter because humans will either be extinct or will have colonized the galaxy by then.
it will be paid back even if that means taking social security checks when the borrower is retired.
No matter how you look at it, in the end, the tax payer will cover the debt. If they take the person's SS check to cover the debt, the person will just go on wellfare which is paid for by tax payers. Also, if the person dies before paying off the debt, the tax payers have to cover it.
Yesterday's was the final T4 post, but it's out of order.
That was because they used the FTL neutrinos ( http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/09/26/1330253/faster-than-light-particle-results-to-be-re-tested ) to send the post. Which validates CERNS results.
There is no other way to play FPS than on pc.
Yes there is: it's called paintball.
You could join the army or marines. Then you can play the ultimate FPS.
RIM announced plans for a phone "VM" platform ages ago - you get a physical device, it has two OS's one for personal use, one for work. Or make it dual-boot... Or use VPN. We have a million ways to achieve this for PC's, why not smartphones?
Do you mean something like this? http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/cto/emerging/blog/2010/12/08/vmw-partners-with-lg-to-bring-virtualization-to-smartphones
I don't see why they deserve more than the contractor gets paid in PURE PROFIT with no costs of their own. If the tax payers knew, there would be a revolt. We can only assume that since these corporations have NSA contracts, that any whistle blower will be quickly "disappeared".
Who do you think writes the proposals to win the contracts? Who do you think does all the marketing? A lot of contract awards hinge on the reputation of the contracting companies. Of course they are going to take their cut even it they sub the work out, They are the ones that did the initial work to win the contract, they are the ones that have to maintain the contact and it is their reputation that is on the line not their subcontractors. If you are awarding a contract, who would you award it to, a company that you have never heard of before or a large firm that you have had good experience with? Even on goverment contracts that are considered "Small business Set Asides", the small business will prime the contract with one or more large contractors backing them as subcontractors.
Government or Private Sector contracting, it is all the same. A contractor is brought in to complete a specifc task and are kicked out when they are no longer needed. If you instead hired an employee, you would have to find them a new position once the project that you hired them for is complete. You might have to cross train them for a new position. Also, it is not easy to fire an employee unless they royally screw up and sometimes not even then. But with a contractor, you can get them replaced or just cancel the contract.
Another benifit of having contractors has to do with PR. When have you ever heard about a company or government agency get bad publicity for getting rid of a bunch of contractors? But if you have to layoff employees, it makes the news. Canceling/ending a contract just does not have the same negitive stigma that layoff do eventhough in the end, depending on the contracting company, the same number of people could be unemployeed.
In many states public universities are banned from charging tuition to in-state students. This is ostensibly because the state funds the teacher's salaries. But of course, they can still charge it for out of state students, so there is a huge incentive to recruit them in order to increase income. They prefer doing this to controlling costs.
Which states are public universities banned from charging tuition to in-state students?
To put it it more simply, if you send a faster than light message, which thing happened first (you sending or the recipient receiving of the message) will be different depending on your the frame of reference. For some observers, the recipient will appear to receive the message before you send it.
If it takes time for light to travel from point "A" to Point "B". How can the signal ever arrive before it was sent? It takes ~4 years for light to get from Proxima Centrauri to Earth. If I send a signal at 2x the speed of light, it should take ~2 years to get there. At 4x it should take ~1 year. Wouldn't that imply that even at an infinite times the speed of light, the signal should still arrive a fraction of a second after you sent it? Or am I missing something?
Then there's the cost of getting services to your chosen site. It costs a bit to get electricity, water, and sewerage to a building site, or to provide a drilled well and septic system in a site that's too remote for municipal services. And then there's the cost of preparing the site for the structure. In much of the world the foundation would need to be much more robust (possibly with drainage, insulation, etc.) than the bare-bones arrangement presented.
This is not to denigrate the concept of an inexpensive functional structure, which is good, but to point out that the cost of making a habitable house involves more than the headline cost of the structure itself.
Instead of doing one house, what if a developer were to build a subdivision of these houses. The infrastructure (electricity, water, sewer, phone, cable) should be a lot cheaper per house. I bet you could sell these for at least $20-30k and make a tidy profit. Depending on the subdivision amenities, and who you market it to, you could probably get more.
Borders does have an online store (http://www.borders.com) and it does have an ebook reader (Kobo). As far as I know, it is only closing its brick & mortar stores.
At our technological level, we pose no danger to anything off this planet.
It would be like saying you'll sterilize a grain of sand to protect the planet.
Such a silly scenario...
If we ever develop interstellar travel that is fast, cheap and practical, maybe then this scenario starts to have legs.
I think that it is a plausible scenario. What would you do if you are an advanced alien race, that sees what we are doing to our own planet and you have no reason to believe that we would do any less through out the galaxy? Would you wait until we were advanced enough to do some real damage or would you step in now and deal with the problem while we are confined to this one planet.
Yes, the solution is extreme but it is not unprecedented. Through out history, there are many examples of a group of people committing genocide against another group of people for all different reasons. So why is it hard to believe that an alien race that has nothing in common with us would try to exterminate us before we got the chance to screw up the rest of the galaxy.
Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.
