KipIngram

That's correct - if the events are independent then it doesn't matter how you sample them (sequential vs. random).

White collar work can be very stressful. I've been the VP of engineering for a couple of small companies here in the Houston area. Both were very intense, "get it done" environments. I had fairly large teams to assign detailed work to, but in both cases the owner or CEO looked right at me when it came to how things had turned out. I had to learn what I could reasonably expect from the various people on my team, make sure they had appropriate assignments, and make sure they progressed appropriately. When they didn't, I had to figure out how to adjust project plans to recover from the setback. In addition to that I was also responsible for the architectural integrity of our products. In the most stressful of those two gigs the owner generally had a few very very high level elements he wanted to see in the architecture, and it was on me to figure out the rest of it. My team at that company was fairly junior - they were capable of doing good work at the detail level, but none of them really saw "the big picture," so I had to make sure that all those pieces of work came together in a way that got the job done. For a while in there I worked 80-90 hour weeks, sometimes slept on site, and so on (especially in the last few weeks before our big annual trade show). So yes - white collar work can thoroughly stress and exhaust you. But it's not all like that. I now work for IBM; they bought the small company I was working for in 2012. This job is very low stress. I often don't feel really challenged - I miss the intensity of those earlier jobs. But I can't deny that I'm much more relaxed than I was then, and I'm getting old enough that that's probably best.

Exactly. Some people just seem to have a deep-seated desire to force behavior they prefer (in this case, the absence of religious behavior or thought) onto other people. I don't get it - I want to be left alone, and I'm happy to leave other people alone. I also think in this particular case you'd run into unintended consequences. You'd likely create more extremists if you try to ban religion - it's something that people take very seriously. I could easily see someone who would have never drifted to violence getting upset and violent if you tried to forbid them from practicing their religion. A similar example would be for the government to decree that all children would live in a government compound from the time they were two or three until they were, say, twelve, to prevent parents from "teaching them wrong ideas." I'm not a violent person (not even close), but if they tried to take my kids from me I'd fight.

Yes, true. But those devices put a lot of power into a very small beam. So let me clarify - even though I'm skeptical of the video, I'm not going to totally rule out the possibility of that sort of levitation. But I feel sure the power consumption is staggering. That would be the first hard data I tried to chase down, if I were chasing this thing. I still don't see why you have such an aversion to wheels. I see so many other things to work on first (in the business of improving our ground vehicles). Like just developing a really usable, effective all-electric drive train. There you don't have efficiency and so on working against you - you have an opportunity to wind up with something much more efficient than internal combustion. I know you also didn't seem too enthused about that new battery technology UT Austin announced recently, and I do agree there are other potential energy storage mechanisms. But hey, if they manage to make those batteries work then they will get us there. I'd absolutely love to see the vast majority of cars be electric in a couple of decades. Such a nice thing to do for the planet.

I think we already do this. The extreme behavior is the violence and abuse that we already have against the law. As far as how you prevent the appearance of extremists, I don't think you can. There are just some bad apples in every bucket.

That's very well put, and I totally agree. The guys that are actually doing the cutting are just trying to survive any way they can. And you're absolutely right - the only real solution is an alternative that is "better" (functionally) and cheaper. You'll still have rich folk that then consider "real wood" to be a status symbol, but limiting it to them would reduce the problem so much that it likely wouldn't be a problem anymore.

:-| I find that video very, very hard to believe. Do you have any data on the power required to do what it's showing?

And you expect the exotic gear to make this plasma wall to need no maintenance? It would not necessarily be able to fly over water - it's the pressurized air trapped within the skirt / undercarriage / ground cavity that holds the vehicle up. That pressure would push water out of the way. Perhaps if it was a large enough cavity you could still win on that one, but it doesn't go without saying. I'm assuming you meant "skid," not "squid." But that goes back to exactly what was noted earlier - this would skid more easily than a wheeled vehicle, because it inherently has no resistance to motion in any direction, whereas wheels do. The load is still there, but I grant you that one - it would be spread out over a very large so the pressure on the road surface at any give point would be less. As far as recycling, cost of alignment, rotation, etc. You have to remember you have to supply the power needed to maintain the magnetic containment. That power will cost money. I think your total operational costs will be much, much higher - if you can even make this work at all. I'd have no idea how to go about "projecting" a containment field out away from the bottom of the vehicle. Off the cuff, I think it's a pipe dream, unless you have engineering drawings to share.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that right out the gate the wheel doesn't really need an upgrade. It works, and works very well.

It's hard to be cheaper and more effective than a wheel. Why is it so necessary not to touch the ground? Touching the ground with four wheels just happens to work extraordinarily well. I'm not sure it's a problem that needs a new solution. None of the arguments in favor of "air cars" (that can actually fly well above the ground) apply hear - this "cushion" still requires the ground there to provide the bottom pressure containment barrier. So it has no advantages whatsoever over a car. And lots of disadvantages, as noted above (side winds being a very significant one - wheels only roll along one line).

And yet it happens very very often. If you think about it, being seen as doing something does, in fact, help politicians succeed. The blame is on us (the voters) for inadequately kicking the tires of the things that are so done before giving the person "credit" for having "done something." So it's "stupid" in the big, rational picture, but it's not stupid at all if it results in something the politician wants (like re-election).

Yes. This feels much more like someone who enjoys arguing and is trying to pick a fight than someone who's pursuing knowledge.

I am all for any sort of education. It's coercive things like trying to legally ban the behavior you find questionable that I can't sanction. But talking, communicating, educating - bring it on.

I didn't think you meant me, but rather than ignore it I thought I'd just be sure. And no, I think we've thoroughly provided right guidance here - he's just not interested in listening. It was really surprising to see someone come right out the gates with such a chip on his shoulder. It's also weird to see someone put up such a fight about something so simple and elementary - usually discussions like this revolve around something at least moderately complicated and opaque. It doesn't get much more basic than a direct conservation law.

Yes, that is absolutely a baffling sort of behavior.

That "took steps to slay them" part might involve something that is a real problem. But if my neighbors believe in invisible dragons and mind their own business about it, then I have no problem with it whatsoever. I might roll my eyes, but it's not my right to tell them how to think. I think any behavior that does not cross over into problematic actions (violence, terror, etc.) deserves deference. It just amazes me how some people think it's entirely ok for them to control how other people think. That's not a freedom-minded attitude at all.

I don't think you are imagining it. I believe it stems from their desire to enforce "morality." Did you notice in May's speech where she talked about regulating the internet she couldn't get through the speech without mentioning pornography? The right talks about terrorism as the "motivation" for this, but they have a laundry list of things they want to eliminate in the name of having a "moral society."

Are you asking me or Mandibaur?

I guess we could go one better and say we wanted to specify both c and C - then you have C = A + B c = (Aa + Bb) / (A + B) or B = C-A b = (cA + cB - Aa)/B So starting with A of "a" and wanting C of "c", that tells you to add B of "b".

That's thoroughly frightening. If you could 100% guarantee the benevolence and wisdom of your leaders, you might be able to go down that road and wind up with a decent result. But you can't, and it opens the door to eventual thorough tyranny as soon as you get the wrong person in charge. There's no doubt in my mind that a surveillance-laden police state can "maintain safety" better than a free society can, but you really want to live in a police state???

Ok, so I corrected the flaw for you. You're behaving like a child. Specifically, change the + to a - in the second equation after "Differentiating both sides with respect to "t"

That makes great sense - I think that wishing to understand the nature of religious faith and what drives it is the same as wishing to understand anything else about the world. I was responding mostly to those who fret over it and feel that "something needs to be done about it" (other than simple education, of course - I'm referring to "something coercive"). Scientific curiosity is not the same thing as feeling the need to force people to hold a certain perspective.

This is pretty straightforward algebra. If you have a solution of A ml with concentration "a" g/ml and another of B ml of concentration "b" g/ml, then mixing them gives you a total volume of A+B and a total solute mass of Aa+Bb, so your new concentration is (Aa+Bb)/(A+B). If you start with the first and want to add the second to get a final concentration of "c" g/ml, then c = (Aa+Bb)/(A+B) Ac + Bc = Aa + Bb Ac - Aa = Bb - Bc You have both B and b to play with - if you specify B then b = (Ac - Aa - Bc) / B whereas if you specify b then B = (Ac - Aa) / (b - c)

Well, good point - I myself have talked in other threads about how easy it is to "mis-perceive" the majorities attitude from looking at various forms of media. There's almost always a small segment that's way more vocal than the rest. So I shouldn't have phrased it so inclusively. How about "some non-believers"? I'm just not willing to judge (and penalize) literally at least hundreds of millions and possibly billions of people because of the actions of a few hundred / few thousand radical extremists.

You're right: a x b = - b x a. So they need a negative sign in one spot. But then they proceed to show that the affected term is zero. So the proof still works even if you correct the sign error. Out of all the "combative" threads I've run across on this forum, this one takes the cake. And you refused to answer me when I asked you why you want conservation of angular momentum to be wrong so badly - I suspect you're trying to cook up a free energy device of some kind. I'm really sorry that the universe doesn't work the way you want it to; if I could edit the laws of physics there'd be some changes I'd make too. Oh well...