hugh_

13 ms·

61.
by hugh_ 17y ago
It's dangerous to get to know your neighbours -- if you don't like them, they're hard to avoid. Better to be socially close to those you can physically avoid, and socially distant from those you can't.
62.
by hugh_ 17y ago
I stand corrected. Don't aircraft carriers have pretty good missile defence systems, though?
63.
by hugh_ 17y ago
(Sub launched cruise missiles, or mines?) Nukes. If I were the US, I'd simply make it an official matter of policy that any attack from a nuclear power would result in an immediate nuclear response, the logic being that once two nuclear p
64.
by hugh_ 17y ago
And unless step 3 seems not just "likely" but "damn near certain", there's no way the Chinese are going to be dumb enough to attempt step 1.
65.
by hugh_ 17y ago
For those who can't be bothered reading it, the posited scenario goes something like this: 1. China torpedoes a US aircraft carrier for no particularly good reason 2. China claims that the US aircraft carrier exploded all on its own, and no
66.
by hugh_ 17y ago
Ordinary matter forms dense clumps like planets and stars because it's sticky. Atoms may be attracted to one another by gravity, but in order to get them to actually stick together into dust grains, planets, stars et cetera, you need them t
67.
by hugh_ 17y ago
If you can't find a way to deal with a pay cut, you're probably not cut out to be a manager. If you're spending 100% of your income then you're not good at planning ahead. If you can't find things to cut in your personal budget, you'll suck
68.
by hugh_ 17y ago
Right now, I'd say we already have exactly the right number of clever doctors, and far too many clever lawyers.
69.
by hugh_ 17y ago
To summarise most of the comments in this thread: "My GPA was [low/medium/high], therefore I think that most smart, well-adjusted people get [low/medium/high] GPAs." edit: However, in the interests of contributing more than snark, I shall s
70.
by hugh_ 17y ago
Also from Cosmic Variance: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/12/17/... 2:50: Bottom line: “The results cannot be interpreted as significant evidence for WIMP interactions, but we cannot reject the possibility that eith
71.
by hugh_ 17y ago
The others who said "but not the right type of physicist" correctly ascertained my meaning, though yours are all quite accurate as well.
72.
by hugh_ 17y ago
IAAP,BNTRTOP but I assume you could count how many you detect to get a reasonable idea of how common they are in this part of the universe, at least. Then you could adjust it for the fact that WIMPs tend to prefer to hang out in gravity wel
73.
by hugh_ 17y ago
The best way to be an interesting person is to have a broad range of interests -- that way you can find an interest in common with just about anyone you might talk to. The best way to be an extremely boring person is to have only one intere
74.
by hugh_ 17y ago
It seems to me that the fact that your friends referred to fellow students that weren't as clever as them as " scum " would seem to confirm another of the unattractive stereotypes about geek culture.
75.
by hugh_ 17y ago
Actually I think the focus on gender is misleading. Excessively geeky environments repel non-geeks, whether male or female. The fact that this particularly results in repulsion of women is just due to geekiness being rarer among women. Thos
76.
by hugh_ 17y ago
I should have added that I'm just as turned off by "geek" culture (which I see as being characterized by a rather obesssive interest in a few pop-cultural artifacts which are really only slightly interesting) as I am by any of the others.
77.
by hugh_ 17y ago
"If any other field had a cultural barrier to entry like that, no one would stand for it." Plenty of fields have cultural barriers to entry. Frinstance, I wouldn't want to be a car mechanic, cuz all they talk about is sport. I wouldn't want
78.
by hugh_ 17y ago
This technology has existed for ages. Kevin Smith made Clerks for less than ten grand, and that was back in the 90s. Cameras and special effects may be getting cheaper, but talent remains expensive, since there seems to be a pretty limited
79.
by hugh_ 17y ago
The soundtrack seems to have been taken straight from 28 Days Later. (Legally or not, I'm not sure.)
80.
by hugh_ 17y ago
I just watched them both for the first time (though actually I think I saw the very end of Ataque de Panico on Argentinian TV the other day). As an SFX demo reel, Panico is more impressive than the District 9 short. However the District 9 s
81.
by hugh_ 17y ago
All "priceless" means is that whoever owns it is unable or unwilling to sell it at any price. This applies to the Mona Lisa, but also to some folks' family photos, and to my lungs.
82.
by hugh_ 17y ago
In this case I think it's more a case of incentive structures, and not trusting the agent's motivations. In this particular case the problem is that the virtual valet would, unlike a real valet, be funded primarily by kickbacks from whateve
83.
by hugh_ 17y ago
It's pointed out in the comments on that article that left-right aiming is a lot easier than up-down aiming, too, since left-right aiming depends only on being able to line your arm up with the board, while up-down aiming requires you to co
84.
by hugh_ 17y ago
The prime example here is again in politics, slander is a tactic always taken by the right-wing parties, however when your claims are hollow and see through they can fail by record numbers. This happened in the UK when Labour gained the ma
85.
by hugh_ 17y ago
"After 8 years of nothing but messages of bad news and fear, the psychological lift of Obama’s inauguration will lead to a short term rebound effect on the market". Ahh, I miss the naivety of the ancient days of late 2008. In fact the marke
86.
by hugh_ 17y ago
Interestingly, if air were in danger of being over-breathed then privatization would be the best solution. The only reason we don't have a tragedy of the commons in the air is that there's an awful lot of it and nobody has anything to gain
87.
by hugh_ 17y ago
They're still used extensively in the US. I lived 25 years in Australia without a chequebook, but since moving to the US I've written scores of 'em. Mostly, the problem is that the US still lacks a system for transferring money freely betwe
88.
by hugh_ 17y ago
I think (without having played Settlers) that in an ideal board game you shouldn't be able to get into a position where you know you're going to lose until the very end of the game. That's a big problem with Monopoly -- it's too easy to d
89.
by hugh_ 17y ago
You're correct -- the orbital speed and path tell you nothing about the mass. A grain of dust will follow exactly the same orbital path as, say, Jupiter. It's the redshift/blueshift of the actual star that you need to measure.
90.
by hugh_ 17y ago
Actually that article seems to be addressing a completely different (and indeed wrongheaded) argument that states that it's fatalities-per-hour that matter, not fatalities-per-mile. It doesn't address the real issues here, which are that: a

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