Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: Eeyore on 5 Feb 2007 21:33 unsettled wrote: > Eeyore wrote: > > > > Look at the difficulty in getting kids to study science now for example. I'm > > sure the kids are right to tend to avoid it since they've seen so many > > 'scientific' jobs disappear. > > Spoken like a tech. Science isn't a "job", it is a calling. > > Perhaps you meant to say "engineering". I used the term science quite intentionally. Hence the quote marks. Not least because that's what politicans here call it. Engineering has become a dirty word. There's another problem. > > Also, as for Blair's idea that we can do 'R&D' instead of manufacturing, he's > > barking mad. Doesn't he know who it is who needs that R&D ? > > Once again spoken like a tech. The future needs today's R&D. Of course it's required by companies. Now explain how a country with little manufacturing industry can support a large R&D industry. Graham
From: Eeyore on 5 Feb 2007 21:38 unsettled wrote: > Eeyore wrote: > > unsettled wrote: > >>Ken Smith wrote: > > >>>The US is also very safety oriented. In China, I asked for an extension > >>>cord. The took a length of zip cord, stripped the ends, folded them over > >>>and pushed them into the wall outlet. > > >>In the UK it appeared to me that every power cord had a fuse > >>in the plug. OTOH they're known for their "ring" circuits with > >>high ampere fusing. > > > 30 amps is high ? > > Yes. 7200 watts at 240 volts. That's what the typical > US electric clothes dryers uses, and the typical > central air conditioning condenser. A ring typically supplies an entire floor/storey of a British home possibly excluding the kitchen. > US general purpose circuits are mostly 15 amperes at > 120 volts, with some 20 ampere circuits for kitchens > with heavy appliance use, and laundries where a washing > machine and gas clothes dryer are connected to one > circuit. > > We don't do rings for residential power. I know. > UK puts up to 7 amp fuses in the cord plugs, 13A actually ( 3kW ). Popular fuse sizes are 5, 10 and 13 amps with 7, 3, 2 and 1 amp available too. > approximately the same wattage as our 15 amp branch circuits. > > >>Safety in one way, not so very safe in another. > > > In what way is that unsafe exactly ? > > Doctor Doctor, what's holding up that brain transplant? I see you can't answer the question. What do you think fuses are there for ? Hint. It's not to 'protect' the appliance. Graham
From: Ken Smith on 5 Feb 2007 21:43 In article <45C7C9F0.BC310697(a)hotmail.com>, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: [.....] >With today's seemingly rational laws in the west I sometimes have to >'pinch myself' >that not long ago religiously inspired law sought to dictate what some >ppl could or >couldn't do sexually in the privacy of their own homes. > >It seems quite scary somehow now. Some states in the US have such laws on the books today. Also article 125 of the UCMJ applies rules to military persons. -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: Ken Smith on 5 Feb 2007 22:03 In article <ee4e5$45c75f5d$49ecf88$8338(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >Ken Smith wrote: > >> In article <eq78r8$8qk_002(a)s1004.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >> <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >> >>>In article <J7udnR8smt-TQFjYRVnyhwA(a)pipex.net>, >>> "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote: >> >> [......] >> >>>>It is odd that you have a lower opinion of your nation than the people who >>>>get accused of being "anti-US." >>> >>>I just know how people work. >> >> >> So it really is true that you have a low opinion of the people of the US. >> Have you considered that the logic that has led you to this conclusion may >> be a reductio ad absurdum argument against the assumptions that went into >> the argument. >> >> The american people are not stupid. > >The American people have an average IQ of 100, meaning >half the population has a lower than 100 IQ. Since 100 is defined based on the normal human, it is not surprising that the normal human scores about 100. That there are people smarter than others is well known. What matters is how smart the group acts not its best or worst members. >��It's appalling -- it's really astounding,� said Michael Gorman, >president of the American Library Association and a librarian at >California State University at Fresno. �Only 31 percent of college >graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not >saying much for the remainder.�� About the time Plato, someone wrote a rant about like that too. > >--The Washington Post, December 25, 2005 > >http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14823087/ > >We see the consequences in this newsgroup as well as in >this thread, although we have an international participation. > >> They can deal with more than one >> issue at a time and they can handle shades of gray. > >It is clear from reading sci.physics and this thread that >simply isn't as true as you seem to think it is. You are sampling a very small fraction of the public when you read the newsgroups. You are reading a self selected group of people who are interested in the subjects. You are only sampling a fraction of the time of those people. They don't spend all their time in the news groups. The result is a distorted view. > >> A democracy involving >> a large number of people is usually wiser than the individual members in >> the long run. > >The more stupid an individual is the more apathetic >they seem to me to be as a generality (as dangerous >as generalities generally are.) :-) This is not true from my experience. Really really stupid people get all up in arms about stuff all the time. > >> Mistakes get corrected and a stable path is taken. > >Wen the brighter element gets involved and sometimes >gets into head on clashes with the more vocal of the >dunderheads. Generally, the dunderheads act as random noise so long as there are enough informed people to sway the average things come out ok in the long run. Since the random effect only grows as the squareroot of the population, for large populations, it gerenally works. It only really fails when one side can mobilize large numbers of idiots and get them to vote their direction. [...] >For the most part how much real thought do you thing a >popular actor or actress gives to the causes they promote? Do you mean quantity or quality of thought here? This actor may have spent hours thinking stupidly. >How much research do they do before making career enhancing >political statements? Many of them do none on whether the view would be correct or career enhancing. "One of the problems with being famous is that it gives you more chances to say things than you have useful things to say" The truly major stars have handlers who make up their minds for them. > How much credence would you have given >to Marilyn Monroe had she spoken out against the US involvement >in Korea in favor of Communism and China? From what I've heard she was no dummy. She wasn't mentally sound but that is another matter. >> The >> public can get swept away by motion but so can one person. The masses do >> it less often and recover better. > >When I was in my 20's, 30. and 40's always thought the >electorate, as a group, made the best of all decisions. I >was naive and overly optimistic. The electorate is way too >easily led about by the nose by "popular causes." Or, have you just gotten senile, and bitter in your old age :) Democracy is far from perfect. It is just better. > >> Authoritarians always assume that they or their chosen leader is special >> and better than the people. In a democracy, they tend to accept the "win >> at any cost" ideas. We saw this under Nixon. To them Watergate started >> off as just another part of the way to win an election. They would not >> trust the people to elect the right guy. The result was very bad for the >> US. > >I think it was much more a personal issue with Nixon. He'd >been at bat before and struck out. He saw this as his last >chance, rejecting honorability out of hand. Those around him >might have had other reasons. It was up to Nixon to say no, >we don't operate that way. But why did he believe that the voters were wrong and why did those around him act as they did? They were authoritarians at heart and believed that the voters should not be trusted to choose. > >Nixon is an excellent case proving that the electorate >cannot be trusted, out of hand, to elect "the right guy." >Compound that with Agnew's misconduct and you're seeing >a real mess made "by the electorate". No, Nixon is an excellent example of the sort of person you would not want as "president for life". I never said that errors don't happen. For that matter I have previously suggested that the US made a huge one in 2004. > -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: Ken Smith on 5 Feb 2007 22:05
In article <45C7BBC7.D737858B(a)hotmail.com>, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > > >Ken Smith wrote: > >> Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >> >> >I'm not 100% certain what your pigtails are. There may be no direct >equivalent. >> >> What would you call: >> >> -------- >> / !==== >> ----------------------------- ! >> ----------------------------- !==== >> \ !==== >> --------- >> >> if it was molded onto the wires directly and you needed to get one from an >> electrician supply house. > >What's on the other end ? The equipment or a socket ? Neither? The cable is just cut off. > >Graham > -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge |