Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: Daniel Mandic on 12 Oct 2006 18:00 John Fields wrote: > It's OK to write "Hitler" and "Nazi" now. Don't worry, no one's > going to come knocking on your door and drag you away. Well, in > your country they might, but they won't here. In youres too! ;) Best Regards, Daniel Mandic
From: Eeyore on 12 Oct 2006 18:09 John Fields wrote: > Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > >|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk wrote: > > > >> It seems that in America you can now be attacked on an aircraft for > >> having a suntan and an iPod (as happened to a top UK jet set architect > >> fairly recently). I cannot understand why the gung-ho idiot that > >> assaulted him was not arrested when the plane touched down (unless of > >> course he was a sky marshall). > >> > >> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1777847.ece > >> > >> This guy is rich enough to get justice out of the American legal system > >> so that's OK. > > > >Jesus HC. And he was *Jewish* too ! > > > >" To the applause of fellow passengers, the Jewish designer was escorted from a > >New York flight as a potential bomber. " > > > >America has a heck of a lot to answer for. > > --- > To whom? The rest of the world. Graham
From: Jonathan Kirwan on 12 Oct 2006 18:13 On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:36:37 GMT, <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: >"Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan(a)easystreet.com> wrote in message >news:5c8ti2lbq7o5gcbgppc77p6ge571t7ekdf(a)4ax.com... >> >> Something is seriously, deeply, pervasively wrong in that party now. > >I would have agreed with you several months ago. However, they seem to be >distancing themselves from the most pathological part of the party, the part >in the White House. In about another 6 months, we'll see if that is just >election-year rhetoric, or if they actually do believe that the White House >has got it wrong. I think the party itself has been too highly "enriched" by ideologues now to accept that there is any fast-going sea change to the party in the works. They are distancing themselves, because it serves their election interests to do so right now. Not because they are any different. Politics is about finding and bringing to the fore our common goals and ideals and about negotiating some kind of respectful middle ground that all sides can live with, without necessarily being happy about it but at least willing to grudgingly accept it as being something they can sincerely work with. We are a large country with a wide variety of opinions and values. This is a tough process and it never ends. But it is worthwhile, because without this ongoing discovery process and a willingness to _seriously_ engage each other to find compromises we can live with, ultimately the only other recourse is violence and death. Politics is about keeping the social peace, if nothing else. And that is done by finding our common values and treating opponents with respect sufficient so that some negotiated agreement with them will be handled with a serious, earnest and meaningful attempt to "meet in the middle." There must be respect and there must be meaningful compromise. By contrast, religious belief is dogmatic, inflexible, insincere when negotiating because ultimately they "hold the truth" and the other side does not, etc. This is why there was a wise, high wall of separation between church and state. Not to denigrate religion. Or to denigrate the state. But simply because negotiation require a willingness to accept and embrace meaningful compromise, a willingness to respect and hear out the grievances of those who differ, and to accept and seriously engage in supporting arrived at compromises so that peace and workable planning on shared common values and goals as well as compromises can be had and maintained. One of the more galling things to me about all of this change, that which has gradually developed over my adult lifetime, is that politics used to include a lot more respect for opposing positions and a more sincere desire to find some kind of negotiated middle ground. As it stands right now, it is out and out warfare because those in power hold all three branches, are far too many of them willing to mix their religious beliefs as dogmatic public policy without real negotiation, and simply refuse to provide even the slightest measure of respect to any of their opponents. Ever. This isn't even close to a healthy political process. It's, in fact, the manifest example of politics on its death bed. And that does NOT bode well. Jon
From: T Wake on 12 Oct 2006 18:14 "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:r2eti2l28h0fcd3p69j6e6nbgsb7lbqb4u(a)4ax.com... > On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 18:22:18 +0100, "T Wake" > <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote: > >> >>When I work with people who take the "be paranoid" line (as an aside: >>These >>are nearly always Americans) they more often than not create additional >>problems which then have to be engineered or managed out of the security >>solution. >> > > This is an electronic design group. Some serious fraction of > electronic designs don't work first-pass, and spinning a design takes > heaps of time and money. Larger hardware-software system have a goodly > chance of failing absolutely: they are *never* made to work, at > billions of dollars a pop, sometimes. > > Large doses of paranoia are the only rational way to approach > electronics design. A few days spent agonizing over what might be > wrong can save a design spin or three. Most of my PCBs are sellable at > rev A, the first etch, because I am paranoid and know that the guy who > designed them is a sloppy bungler. This is a physics group( I cant comment on the Chem or Med group). This is a debate over the rational response to the "Islamic Threat." Neither are suited to paranoia. Identifying and dealing with problems or "what can go wrong" is not paranoia. Seeing innocuous things as a threat and blowing that threat out of proportion are. When you agonise over the design you don't worry about the threat that a neutron bomb will go off and what effects the EMP may have, do you?
From: T Wake on 12 Oct 2006 18:16
<lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:2ByXg.9805$TV3.548(a)newssvr21.news.prodigy.com... > > "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in > message news:72cti2912j48l1b64i0lgonubk0o27hr55(a)4ax.com... >> On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:18:05 GMT, <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: >> >> >>>> Simple mental experiments show that m1*m2 works in that form, at least >>>> in the non-relativistic case. >>> >>>Hunh??? Tell me about these simple mental experiments. And tell me why >>>m1*m2 is any better than m1^1.00000000038 * m2^0.99999999947. > > Who says it has to be symmetric? These are, after all, just empirical > laws that explain observed data. Symmetry is an outgrowth of the fact > that those two exponents are the same--there's nothing fundamental that > says that any two bodies of the same mass will exert the same pull on each > other...that's just what the data tell us. What if the data are > wrong--what if, to a higher degree of precision > > Even if I grant symmetry, why is m1*m2 any better than m1^1.0000000038 * > m2^1.0000000038? Interestingly, the obsession with symmetry is related to Ockhams Razor. >> You might start with symmetry, then move on to the harder stuff. >> >>>They both >>>explain the data that could be observed in Newton's time (and close to >>>the >>>limit of observation even today). And yet you tell me that we shouldn't >>>accept m1*m2 because it's simpler. Then why should we? >> >> Because it's right. > > Prove it. You're using circular logic, assuming that the formulation that > Newton gave is right, to prove that it's the right formulation. It's just > law that explains empirical data, and is not subject to mathematical > rigor. |