Comment Re:Man whose job relies on the scientific method.. (Score 1) 743
>They can fire you because you have green eyes.
Actually, no, they can't. That one falls under a protected class.
>They can fire you because you have green eyes.
Actually, no, they can't. That one falls under a protected class.
PhDs, in the sciences at least, are not the same as masters courses (or MDs?) in that PhD students get funded by grants. Typically the grant covers the costs of the course and something like $20,000 for living expenses. Although this is a tiny amount of money, the students typically get subsidised housing so it doesn't work out badly at all. I've never heard of a self-funded PhD student.
True, but you also have to consider the value of your time. For experimental physics, the mean time to complete a PhD is around six years, and most people in that position could probably earn 40-50k straight out of school (not doing physics, of course). So the opportunity cost is something like $120k + interest on student loans from undergrad.
As for self-funded PhD students: I've never seen one in person, but I hear they exist. And I hear that the entrance requirements are much looser (which is funny because most PhD students should have at least a partial research assistantship after the first year or two)
Nah. There's plenty of talented people applying to med school. As an example, medical school applicants who get in through affirmative action have no worse outcomes that other medical students, despite having generally lower grades. Thus, the supply of doctors can be increased without compromising quality. The real problem is that the AMA has not put in a new medical school for over 30 years, despite the population doubling in that time. They want to keep the supply low to artificially inflate physician salaries.
As someone who has watched from the sidelines (I TA'd a series of physics labs for pre-med students, who. just. had. to. have. that. A.), this sounds spot-on. Med schools make applicants jump through tons of hoops (one of those hoops is getting straight-A's in physics) in order to reduce the size of the applicant pool. The difference in patient outcome between a doctor who earned an A and one who earned a B in $PHYSICS_FOR_PREMEDS would be completely negligible. Yet, it allows medical schools to cost-effectively reject a large fraction of applicants and discourage many more from even applying in the first place.
DNRTFA, but in Japan there would be a market niche for this kind of hardware, maybe to use with a stored value card of the kind that is used to ride the train. There are many establishments - cafes and small restaurants - that will not let customers plug a computer on the account of the outrageous electricity bills they believe they will incur.
That doesn't make much sense... using what I think are reasonable estimates, 10 outlets * 100W per outlet * 10 hours per day * 360 days * $0.2 per kWh only works out to a few hundred dollars per year. Surely any one of the electrical appliances (or lighting) in a small restaurant or cafe uses more than that. On the other hand, I could see them wanting to discourage people from occupying a table all day when other customers need seats...
Iran won't blockade the Straight of Hormuz.
They don't have to. The shipping lanes in the Straight of Hormuz are in Iran's territorial waters, which means they get to make the rules about who's allowed in. If Iran fires an a convoy escort, that's not an act of war. If the escort fires back, it is.
Committing an act of war would give Iran's few allies all the cover they need to continue their support.
Basically, they have us by the balls.
WAAS specifications don't meet the 1m/24/7 level either.
... which doesn't actually matter because Deer actually uses differential positioning.
And just to head off the predictable responses at the pass: yes, cyclist need to follow the laws, too. But as much as I hear drivers complain, I can't help but notice the double-standard: speeding and "california rolls" aren't illegal when motorists do it. Yet, somehow, a cyclist flying down a hill at ten over the speed limit is still obstructing the flow of traffic.
You think people do this on purpose?
Why, yes, I do.
http://californiabicycleracing.blogspot.com/2008/07/this-is-what-doctor-christopher.html (warning, NSFW).
And the verdict:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/cyclist-sentenced.html
Right, because a self-employed accountant has to worry about his employer totally screwing him on wages.
Apparently the one in TFA did! Didn't you see that his employer was paying him less than 50% the mean wage for people with his skills?
Also, the CDMA chip sequences used by the GPS system effectively act like a lock-in amplifier, which increases the signal-to-noise ratio tremendously.
I understand that civil court does not have the same strict rules about how clear cut the case must be, but...
I hate to be an ass, but I don't think you do. Civil court is all about perponderance of evidence, not reasonable doubt. If I claim you infringed my copyright because I saw my copyrighted work being uploaded from your router's IP address, you saying, "But it could have been anyone!" doesn't cut it. If I provide evidence (no matter how superficial or circumstantial it might be) that tends to point to your guilt, and you provide nothing, then I win. I don't have to show that the file is the actual movie (although it would help my case to do so). In a criminal case, those might not be terrible defenses, because they introduce reasonable doubt as to whether any law was actually broken and as to whether you were the person who broke it.
To win in your example, you'd probably need (at the very least) to come up with a plausible explanation for how and why someone else was using your IP. Even then, it comes down to which legal theory does the jury find more convincing and/or likely: the plaintiff's (that the defendant infringed copyright) or the defendant's (that s/he didn't--but that the infringement happened with his/her ip--and that some unknown person somehow accessed the defendant's network for the purpose of infringement). All I say is, "good luck with that one."
And just to be clear: I'm not arguing that it should be so easy for the plaintiff to win these civil cases, just that it is.
>A taxi driver should know traffic laws or loose his license. And someone on Slashdot should know the difference between loose and lose.
A taxi driver with a loose license is shirley more likely lose it than is one with a firm grip.
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.
