Your mistrake is in thinking that there are people who are not related to you. We are all cousins; some are simply closer cousins than others.

Even my cat is your cousin, as is the grapefruit tree in my back yard.

Indeed, until Craig Venter did his most recent jiujitsu, there hasn’t been a living organism on this planet for billions of years that wasn't your cousin or your aunt or your uncle, if not one of your direct great-great...great-grandparents.

Once you understand that almost all of your genes are identical to those of even the most distantly-related long-forgotten back-bush tribespeople, it shouldn’t be hard to understand why the evolved hard-wired genetic predispositions to helping your relatives includes them, as well.

Cheers,

b&

A year or so ago I needed both a phone and a GPS, so I got the cheapest unlocked device I could find that did both: the Nokia XpressMusic.

On the one hand, it does it all: phone, GPS, Web, video, apps...you name it, it's got it.

On the other hand, it is hands-down the worst phone I've ever used, the worst GPS I've ever used, the Web browser is so awful you simply wouldn't believe me, the camera is pathetic, the OS and UI go out of their way to make things harder....

So, all in all, this has got to be the absolute dumbest "smart" phone I've ever come across.

Where's the option for that? The duped "dumb" choice?

Cheers,

b&

Let me get this straight — Creationism is silly pagan nonsense, but the notion of an ancient zombie born of a Jewish virgin that a modern shaman can manifest in the flesh by chanting incantations over stale bread...and cannibalizing said zombie will turn you into a similarly-immortal zombie...and that E.T. would be interested in such nonsense for anything other than anthropological reasons....

I’m sorry. I know I was heading towards some sort of point, but teh shtupid must be contagious....

Cheers,

b&

zill wrote:

Ben Goren wrote:

The point of steganography is to not get caught in the first place. If you need plausible deniability, you've already lost.

Then why does the field of steganography exist at all?

To keep from getting caught. Duh.

Cheers,

b&

If I give someone one file containing random data and another containing data encrypted with AES, will he be able to tell which is which?

Does the person to whom you give these two files have a rubber hose? Is he a member of the “extraordinary rendition” team?

The point of steganography is to not get caught in the first place. If you need plausible deniability, you’ve already lost.

Cheers,

b&

Look again.

Canon has four tilt / shift lenses in their lineup, from $1200 to $2200, in 90mm, 45mm, 24mm, and 17mm focal lengths. I have the 24, and it’s an amazing lens. Reviewers are describing it as having the best optics of any 24mm lens made for the 135 format. Its movements are nearly unlimited. The 17 is much the same lens. The 45 and 90 are restricted to tilting and shifting on either parallel or perpendicular axes, and you need a screwdriver to switch from the one to the other. They’re also older designs and will likely be replaced sooner rather than later by ones in the style of the newer 24 and 17.

Nikon makes some PC lenses that I’ve never known anybody to get ecstatic about; perhaps that’s what you’re thinking of? But everybody I know of who does serious stuff on Nikon is using medium format lenses with a bellows. Many do the same with Canon. At that point, you really do have a view camera with a 135-sized digital sensor.

Also worth mentioning: the current round of “full frame” cameras generate prints with resolutions that rival those that Ansel Adams made, though of course modern large format cameras and emulsions are significantly superior. So, unless you’re planning on making door-sized prints that people will be sticking their noses into or unless you need an insanely shallow depth of field, there’s no technical reason to use film instead of digital. There are, of course, many aesthetic reasons, but that’s the artist’s choice. Up to 24 × 36, assuming impeccable technique, good glass, and all the rest, you need a loupe to tell the difference between a 5DII and large format. And, at normal viewing distances, it’s hard to tell even at twice the size.

Cheers,

b&

(Never mind, of course, that the courts will shoot this Louisianan idiocy down in a heartbeat.)

On the one hand, we have the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, a scientific theory backed by a volume of evidence more diverse and massive than that assembled in support of any other theory.

On the other hand...we have a faery tale.

No, really.

Cdesign proponentsists would have us instead accept a “theory” drawn solely on the proposition that the Bible is substantially true.

And the Bible opens with a story — the very one they’d replace science with — about a magic garden with talking animals and an angry giant.

Worse, it continues in exactly that same vein. It prominently features a talking shrubbery (on fire, no less!) that instructs the reluctant hero how to wield his magic wand. It has more talking animals, sea monsters, lots more giants, and an endless string of magic spells. There’s even a dragon in there, and I think there might be a unicorn, too. At the end we have an utterly bizarre zombie fantasy, complete with one of the thralls groping the zombie king’s intestines. And the grand finale? Global zombie apocalypse.

All y’all who dismiss science in favor of fantasy? This is why we laugh at you.

Cheers,

b&

Y’all are missing the point.

It’s not the low 100s with no humidity we’re comparing to the upper 90s with high humidity.

It’s 118 (and above) with 40% humidity (and above) we’re comparing to the upper 90s with high humidity.

It’s the overnight lows here that are in the upper 80s to mid 90s this time of year, not the daytime highs. As in, I’ve been outside at 3:00 in the morning when it’s been 95F. 110F at 10:00 at night in the middle of a heat island (like poolside at an apartment complex) is not unheard of.

Cheers,

b&

I’m sure this will come across as an exercise in male member measurement, but I have only limited sympathy for those undergoing the heatwave right now.

Sympathy because I understand full well that those kinds of temperatures carry real risks, especially to those who aren’t acclimated, don’t know how to deal with it (if nothing else, be constantly sipping water), and don’t have the infrastructure (A/C) to make it comfortable (or survivable for those in certain risk groups).

On the other hand, it’s not uncommon this time of year for the overnight low temperatures to be above the midafternoon highs y’all are sweating about.

Yeah, yeah. “It’s a dry heat.” But not in a few weeks — and, besides. When the temperature in the shade is closer to 120F than 110F, it really doesn’t matter if the humidity is “only” in the 20% range.

Cheers,

b&

So, this should be equally offensive to Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Those of y’all who consider yourselves believers in a variation of one of those themes, pay attention:

If I were to tell you a story about a talking unicorn who gave a pep talk to the reluctant hero before instructing the hero in how to wield his magic wand, you’d know instantly that I was telling you a make-believe faery tale that has no bearing on reality whatsoever.

If I were to swap out the unicorn with talking shrubbery, you’d still come to the same conclusion, but you’d think it’s a particularly weird story taking even stranger liberties with reality.

But if I were to light the shrubbery on fire, name the hero, “Moses,” and call the wand “The Staff of Aaron,” you’d know that this is the absolute truth, the Word of YHWH, to be accepted uncritically as historical fact. (Exodus chapters 3 and 4, to be specific.) Or, at the very least, it’s some sort of utterly profound morality play from which deep meaning can and should be drawn.

And you’d be a complete and total blithering fucking idiot for doing so.

Cheers,

b&

oodaloop wrote:

Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves (which means they likely have more they haven't found yet). They produce about 10 million barrels of oil per day. That means their oil lifespan is about 70 years, just on what we know they have right now.

Ever heard of this rather obscure mathematical property known as exponential growth?

Cheers,

b&

Even back-of-the-envelope Newtonian math is enough to tell you that getting something the size of the Shuttle to the nearest star on the order of a decade takes roughly the entire annual Earthly energy budget — and that’s just a tiny fraction of a percent of the distance to the center of the galaxy.

If you want to go jetting around the galaxy, you can either do it slow or fast. To do it fast, you need to carry along with you a significant fraction of the energy output of a star. But if you can harness that much energy, what does another star system have to offer that yours doesn’t?

To do it slow...well, you still need to carry along with you a significant fraction of the energy output of a star. Because you’re now talking about a voyage measured in geologic time, in periods long enough for air to leak out of even steel canisters. All the plastics, rubber, and lubricants would long since have decayed into dust or otherwise fossilized. So, you need to keep a portable civilization going just for maintenance and repair. But if you can live for hundreds of thousands of years without being near a star, why would you feel any great urge to go back to one?

The only plausible scenario is a civilization that has grown so much that their star is no longer capable of supplying enough energy to meet their needs. Such a civilization might abandon its star in search of more to consume. But, considering the lifespan of stars and the fact that nobody’s ever spotted anything that looks like a star that’s been intelligently tampered with, I hardly think it’s anything we need concern ourselves with.

Cheers,

b&

The word, “bribe,” has two very different common meanings.

The first is a payment to somebody to do something illicit. It might or might not be something the person objects to doing, but it is something against the rules. A border agent might or might not think smoking pot is a good idea, but if you pay him to look the other way while you drive your “plant tissue samples” across the border, that’s a bribe.

The second, and the usage implied here, is a payment to somebody to do something they don’t want to do but which isn’t illicit. It’s especially applied to things that most people think the person should want to do without compensation but, for whatever reason, the person isn’t interested. If you offer to pay your spouse to fold the laundry, that’s often considered a bribe.

But, clearly, almost all paid work falls into the second category. While the work I do isn’t objectionable and pays well, there’s simply no way I’d do it unless you paid me (and paid me well). There are other things I’d rather do for money, but they don’t pay as well. And there are still other things I do and would do that either don’t pay or that I have to pay to do.

So, unless you think your boss is bribing you to go to work, or unless you’d happily give up your paycheck but still continue at your job, it is most hypocritical to call what’s described in this article a bribe. You might wish that students would put in maximum effort even if they don’t get a cash reward, but your boss wishes the exact same thing of you.

Whether or not paying students is an effective end economical method of turning them into honorable and effective citizens is a valid topic of discussion, but such payments are most emphatically not bribes.

Cheers,

b&

Yoyoctomomma?

Cheers,

b&

Interstellar travel is fundamentally an economic paradox — ignoring, of course, such fantasies as Warp drives.

Sending a Shuttle-sized craft to Alpha Centauri in a matter of years would require roughly the current total energy consumption of humanity.

Only when our civilization advances to the point that we harness a significant portion of the Sun’s total energy output would the energy budget for interstellar travel approximate the same proportion of the energy budget we spend today on interplanetary missions.

One can suggest “sleeper ships,” but building mechanical devices that will survive thousands of years is as hard a problem as throwing them across light years of distance. Any gas will leak out of any container in such a timeframe, and no plastic or rubber seal would last a fraction of the time necessary. The next thought is to provide power to the ship during the long journey, but you need as much total energy as for getting there fast — and, if you can comfortably survive for millennia in interstellar space, why even bother with stars in the first place?

Oh — and the Fermi Paradox applies especially well. Assume that it takes even ten thousand years to colonize a remote solar system, and the entire galaxy would have been overrun by now if a colonizing civilization had started in the terrestrial Jurassic period.

Interstellar travel makes for great space opera, but it has no more bearing on reality than unicorns and dragons.

Cheers,

b&