Forgot your password?

typodupeerror

Comment: Re:False Dichotomy (Score 1) 1133

by Alsee (#40155975) Attached to: Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey

Even in the US, places where there is debate over the teaching of evolution are rare enough to be newsworthy. It's an ever-shrinking pool of people

Oh how I wish that were true. A 2005 poll has acceptance and rejection of evolution in the US are pretty well tied. The only change over twenty years was a decline on both sides, with an increase in the "not sure" response. I think that indicates some margin of success in their "teach the controversy" tactic.

Note that out of 34 countries, the US came in SECOND TO LAST, ahead of only Turkey.

(If anyone happens to have more recent polling data hand I would be eager to see it, but I don't anticipate any large shift in the numbers)

-

Comment: A bit of background (Score 1) 163

by Rogerborg (#40153529) Attached to: Twitter Bomb Joke Case Rolls Back Into UK Courts

[Director of Public Prosecutions boot boy] Smith said the tweet lacked surrounding context and therefore had to be treated as a genuine threat, rather than a joke.

Really? Because nobody else who read it or was involved in the case ever claimed to have taken it seriously. Not the airport 'security' goon who searched for it, not the "special budget" coppers who arrested Chambers. They all said "Well, we know that it was a joke, nobody actually felt threatened, but... er... we saw it, so now we have to set an example." or words to that effect. Sotto voce, they couldn't find any actual terrorists, and they had to do something to justify their budgets. They know it, we know it, Paul Chambers most certainly knows it.

After the conviction, tens (was it hundreds?) of thousands of twitards then posted the exact same words. Surely we all committed the same crime? But none of us was arrested. Why's that?

All the way through the various levels, the Judiciary has struggled to understand twitter, and groped for bad analogies to explain it. The fact that anybody outside of Chamber's set of followers could have seen the tweet and read it out of context was used to convict, despite the patent absurdity of that as a standard. Anybody could walk past a pub window, hear one joking sentence spoken out of context, and soil their pink panties, but we don't generally convict the speaker of terrorism offences because of that.

It's been an utter farce of a case, and at this point, it seems to be entirely about the police, CPS and now the judiciary saving face by digging themselves deeper into the mount of steaming contempt that's been rightfully heaped on to them.

It's one of the few cases that genuinely boils my piss, because it does effect every one of us in the UK every second of every day. We are being monitored, and we can be convicted for just about any chance remark, entirely dependent on the budgetary requirements of various tools of the State.

Comment: Re:Youngest 1st world country? (Score 1) 68

by gmhowell (#40152299) Attached to: EU Commissioner: I Will End Net Neutrality Waiting Game

You are mistaken - the Statute of Westminster 1931 and the ratification of said statute in Australia and New Zealand established the independence of several British dominions, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Each country is independent, and each is a country.

And since the US was around before 1931, it backs up the person who said we were oldfags.

Comment: Re:Thoughts as a former Creationist. (Score 1) 1133

by Alsee (#40151997) Attached to: Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey

So, these seismometers - they can send a signal to the alleged core, and it will bounce back in such a way that we can be certain the core is X miles deep, Y miles in diameter, and made up of Z?

Yes, pretty much. Except that the signals are either earthquakes or nukes.

Really? Sounds cool! Got a link?

Vacuum, gasses, liquids, and solids reveal different properties in how sound waves pass through them (with vacuum revealed by not transmitting sound at all of course). Sound waves can also be focused to create images, like the way dolphins can see with sonar. Where building a suitable lens is impractical you can use multiple sound sources and/or multiple listening points as a virtual lens to compute an image. Here's a good link explaining a 1998 confirmation of a solid inner core below the molten mantle and molten outer core: Earthquake Provides Proof That Earth's Innermost Core Is Solid.

Another link is: Evidence for Internal Earth Structure and Composition. That one gives more explanation on how seismic waves are used to see the inner earth, but mainly I'm linking it for this image which illustrates how seismic stations at different points on earth see seismic waves passing through different parts of the earth. Seismic stations at the bottom of the image see seismic waves which reveal the inner and outer core. Note that it takes something like a half hour or more for waves from an earthquake to arrive at the opposite side of the planet. Different kinds of waves travel at different speeds and arrive several minutes apart, with the difference in timing between different kinds of waves providing rich additional information of the composition of the earth along various paths. Different kinds of waves can be analyzed separately to compute images of different aspects of the inner earth.

-

Comment: Re:No expectation of privacy (Score 1) 206

>>> the police have no responsibility to give the recording in full to the defense

Yes they do. If it's later discovered they were withholding evidence, the defendent is automatically freed because he didn't get a fair trial. So the police have a responsibility to turn over everything (else they'd just be stupid).

It depends on whether or not there is exculpatory evidence on the tape and/or on the quality of the discovery motion. In many states, the police and prosecutors can tap dance around this with little or no concern for appellate reversal or civil suits.

Comment: Re:No expectation of privacy (Score 2) 206

I believe OP was using the car vs. house thing to illustrate income disparity within the US. The further implication is that those who are wealthier (the person with the pricey car in his example) are those who the police do not bother. This happens not as a result of differences in crime rates, but because of differences in power within society.

Either that or he was talking about Chaucer's Endless Summer.

disbar, n: As distinguished from some other bar.

Working...