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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/30/24 in all areas

  1. I find it crazy that politicians wave the flag, call each other "Fellow Americans", but they need to arm themselves against their fellow Americans.
    2 points
  2. Yes; this is how laser cooling works. You have to adjust the laser’s or atom’s frequency if you want the interaction to continue as the atom slows down (by “chirping” the laser frequency for the former, or by exploiting the zeeman shift with an external magnetic field for the latter) Otherwise the change in speed eventually shifts the atom out of resonance.
    1 point
  3. His point still stands though, as a substantial part of the intent of the Second Amendment, which needs to be considered by your Supreme Court. Fortunately (or not?) Canada doesn't have that in our constitution so we don't need to consider it for that purpose (though we still need to protect ourselves from potentially oppressive governments and our Guarantees of Rights and Freedoms attempts to do that differently). Personally, I prefer gun control despite the potential of an oppressive government, in part because I think any advantage of citizens having guns to overthrow an oppressive government is more than offset by the fact that a subset of said citizens with guns could take over a democratically elected government and form a more permanent and oppressive one.
    1 point
  4. Maybe I got it confused with Canada's 36 million. I'm over 65 now; my mind is starting to go. ( or, maybe your immigration system/laws need to change ) At the time that was the definition of 'arms'. Today 'arms' means automatic assault weapons, as well as turbine engined tanks, stealthy fighter jets, aircraft carriers the size of a town, and chemical/biological/ thermonuclear weapons. Do you think that because the American armed forces have them, any rich individual should have access to them also ? ( hate to imagine what that goofball, E Musk, would do with an aircraft carrier )
    1 point
  5. I've looked into this elsewhere. Apparently one can go beyond 20 Gs, if liquid breathing systems are used (like the perfluorocarbon goop Ed Harris breathes in The Abyss.) Here's a clip from wikipedia.... Liquid immersion provides a way to reduce the physical stress of G forces. Forces applied to fluids are distributed as omnidirectional pressures. Because liquids cannot be practically compressed, they do not change density under high acceleration such as performed in aerial maneuvers or space travel. A person immersed in liquid of the same density as tissue has acceleration forces distributed around the body, rather than applied at a single point such as a seat or harness straps. This principle is used in a new type of G-suit called the Libelle G-suit, which allows aircraft pilots to remain conscious and functioning at more than 10g acceleration by surrounding them with water in a rigid suit.[57] Acceleration protection by liquid immersion is limited by the differential density of body tissues and immersion fluid, limiting the utility of this method to about 15g to 20g.[58] Extending acceleration protection beyond 20g requires filling the lungs with fluid of density similar to water. An astronaut totally immersed in liquid, with liquid inside all body cavities, will feel little effect from extreme G forces because the forces on a liquid are distributed equally, and in all directions simultaneously. However effects will be felt because of density differences between different body tissues, so an upper acceleration limit still exists.
    1 point
  6. Pancakes, of course. Or maybe just send up batter mix. One could send up people, if the capsule were filled with water, and passengers floated in it, properly suited.
    1 point
  7. The 2nd A was written in the late 1700s, when the US relied on civilian miltias for defense. Hence the archaic opening phrase a well regulated militia... But the world and America changed, and we now have large professional armies with weapons that require considerable training and complex systems of command and control. We left militias behind a couple centuries ago. Anything a civilian could afford and operate would be like a peashooter when pitted against a modern professional army. All of this goes towards explaining why we have a Supreme Court which (if it's doing its job in a fair and impartial way) has to intepret vague constitutional dictums and see that they are implemented in a manner that adapts to changes in society. That's how we were able to identify machine guns in the 1930s as a socially destructive weapon in the hands of ordinary citizens. You may recall cities like Chicago had a wee problem with them. Constitutional amendments have NEVER been a blank check for doing whatever the hell you want. They are always subject to interpretation and also to legislative restrictions. (that's what Congress does, when it's functioning). You may want to look up Alexander Hamilton, writing on why constitutional provisions are necessarily vague.
    1 point
  8. Well nutrition too of course. But things like sensory input and training. Early studies in the 40s have shown that children with less social interaction (in an orphanage) developed slower and exhibited reduced intellectual (and physical) development. The famous (and cruel) study by Harlow on macaques showed how social deprivation resulted in behavioural issues. In other words, the brain requires stimulation to develop. This not really new and on the neurological levels we also know that neural pathways and connections are formed because they are used (and trimmed when not). So the brain does need a sufficiently stimulating environment to fully blossom. And yes, that can be a problem in developed countries, if, say children do not interact enough with other folks, for example. And I am also a bit curious what effects the use of electronics, such as tablets and cell phones have in childhood. They are certainly stimulating in some ways but are also potentially limiting in others.
    1 point
  9. Some/a lot of your compatriots need their heads testing. Your laws are, on their own, killing all those people because.... rights. These mass murderers you have are, by and large, very poorly and not intrinsically evil. It can happen to anyone if all of the life-shit happens to fall together at the wrong time. 80 life years x 300 million US people is an awful lot of person-years for these things to happen, if the system enables them, like it does.
    1 point
  10. IMHO the main problem of using rail guns to send objects to space would be the enormous friction with the earth's atmosphere. Any object so accelerated would become white hot and evaporate much like a meteor does when it enters the Earth's atmosphere. Then you would have to include engines to allow the object or package to maneuver to the space station. This would be much easier to do if you were launching package from an airless body like the moon.
    1 point
  11. The way I see it, any kind of gun that the police and military have access to citizens should also have access to. So if you want to ban certain guns from citizens, ban them from the police and military too.
    -1 points
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