Posts by Marshalltown

Re: Paint balls vs CCTV

Technically, federal laws make it illegal to violate local (state) laws regarding selling or purchasing guns, e.g.:

THE GUN CONTROL ACT OF 1968

TITLE 18, UNITED STATE CODE, CHAPTER 44

TITLE I : STATE FIREARMS

CONTROL ASSISTANCE

So, it is the local standards that actually trump decisions.

Some other points to consider are shotgun range, the drone operator says his drone was above 200 feet but eye witnesses contradicted that. The judge went with the witnesses. It is possible that both testimonies are accurate. The drone uses GPS to estimate altitude not radar or anything more accurate, so the "altitude" in the data record would be above the geoid surface, not necessarily above the ground. The shotgun owner apparently took the drone down with one shot. I can't find any mention of shot guage, but a 200-foot plus shot, which is what the drone operator is arguing the shooter made would be impressive skill or remarkable luck.

Also, more extensive accounts indicate that the drone had hovered over the same yard six times during the preceding year and that a sixteen-year-old woman was sunbathing in the yard. So, unless there is some remarkably interesting arhcitecture, why was Boggsie running his drone there repeatedly? The shooter says that the drone was harassing the yard. Maybe it was.

Re: The problem with most *wursts is

Hmmmh, you must have been sausage from the packaged sausage aisle from a supermarket and missed the label that read "Hot Dogs." There are some truly excellent sausages made in the US ... chorizo, linguisca, polish, New Orleans style hot, ... It can be like be like trying to find a good chicken-fried steak, but with some real American exploratory zeal, you can find some very good "pig-in-a-tube," even in the US.

Re: Emeritus

Try this.

https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2015/research/climate-models/

The issue has been a concern for years. The entire "falsifiability" question in science hinges on when you decide an hypothesis (a model) is shown to be false. The early *proponents* - proponents mark you, not critics - of these climate models proposed a span of 15 years. A steady divergence over 15 years would thus constitute a failure of the model(s). The ensemble mean of the various models have ALWAYS been higher than empirical data, despite consistent adjustments that push modern temps upward and historical (pre-WWII) data downward. In case you don't understand that, it means the adjustments themselves are known to have imposed a trend on data that lacked it. There is good agreement over the history of the US CRN (not HCN) and adjustment of modern temperatures so presumably adjustments to modern data are justifiable. The same cannot be shown for adjustments to historical data. Next time do your own research.

Re: Makes particle physics sound like climate science - not at all

To match the pattern in U.S. climate science, the Standard Model would have been verified. By adjusting the the data, they would have shown that there really was no mass. No, this was science as it should be done.

Re: Well, crap

This a novel worth reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_the_High_Frontier

It will seem eerily familiar to LOHAN followers.

Re: Ow!

The flowing Martian water thing has been evident for over a decade. Arthur C Clarke actually used the idea in a Venus Prime story before the lineations were known. I suspect that unless the "announcement" is made soonish, they will wait until the first human landings before "discovering" that huge areas of Mars are covered in dust-mantled glaciers. Those circular karsts have to be due to something other than limestone being dissolved by ground water. Sublimating ice (methane or water) is the next best explanation. Mars is adiabatically dry and cold because of the elevated southern hemisphere and polar regions. Look for the giant alien reactor there.

Re: Let me know when it works on computers.

"Well just keep paying your £8 to Adobe, then. It's not the worst thing that one can imagine."

Hmm, let me think, beer or Adobe, beer of Adobe, beer or Adobe ... Well, yes it is the worst thing I can imagine.

Re: On occasion (Aqua Marina)

There are a lot of folks who would have taken a look and decided a fire axe might help.

Re: BANG!!

Julius Caesar died in March on 'ides.'

Re: Bandit theory

"Bloated (bandit) govermentents are a symptom, not a cause, of that wealth."

Not that simple, though correct in essence, I think. Wealth is no more or less than energy flow. Accumulating (not working, not in use) wealth is an indication of an inefficiency. That leads to social inequalities that in the end result in events like the French and Russian revolutions (the American Revolution was unusual in being a proactive action). Redistributive entities (and they appear way before bureaucratic governments) operate - mostly badly - to get pooled wealth moving, working. The inefficiency of these entities is critical because it destroys wealth, which is in fact a key element in the process that no one, especially not the wealthy or the poor, really wants to think about. But, the Second Law can't be denied, suspended or revoked. Most economists seem to think they are independent of physics. But an economy is nothing but ecology with specifically human elements included.

Re: Logic - logic - logic and a little history

Think of it this way. Yes indeed, the BM definitely damaged the marbles, but they are still better shape than they would have been. Just like arguing that artifacts be "returned" to political entities that didn't exist when the artifacts were removed, ignorance of the history of conservation and museology is no excuse for holding the past to current standards. We can wish they "knew then" what we "know now," but we cannot make it so. That was then, this is now, and there is absolutely no evidence that human race is any more morally superior now than it was in the past.

Re: You have to admit that Lewis had very few places to choose

Look at ice problems in eastern Hudson Bay as well. Also the southern hemisphere has been breaking cold records. It isn't nearly as hard to find counter examples. The problem is homogenizing the global data. You wind up with a meaningless blanc mange of so called data. The methods of adjustment are "documented" but the methodology is not, or is very carefully munged until it is unreadable.

Re: The stupid thing is...

The really stupid thing is that all that information was available through a single entry point. Is there information on what OS the OPM was using on its systems?

Cost - cost -cost

Linux software is extraordinarily inexpensive compared to Windows or Mac. Some of us send along the occasional donation, but world-class software like R or GRASS is otherwise free. The comparable commercial software is brutally expensive and your typical grad student or even undergrad can afford it more than even a seat license or a "student" version of SPSS or Stata and don't even think about ArcGIS . They are fine programs but the cost leaves you without ramen and beer for a week or a month or even the rest of the semester.

Re: Changing direction...

Nope. If you build a system where sails can be trimmed, you could tack across or even into the "wind."

Re: Been in the museum where they have this object

Dodgy, if you really knew about Libertarian views you would be aware that they are neither right nor left, but instead reside on the extreme anti-statist, anti-authoritarian of the authoritarian spectrum. The right and left both tend to authoritarianism. Left wants you to talk nice, "share" and generally keep your head down. The right wants you talk right, pay your taxes, and generally keep your head down. The only real difference between the left and right is that the right are really concerned about other peoples bed rooms. If you follow American political scandals, the rightwingers run to embarassing, ocassionally criminal (vis the recent indictment of a former Speaker of the House) sexual situations while the left leans to excessively sharing your taxes in biased fashion (embezzlement, bribery, etc.). It's pretty clear Clinton was a Republican plant.

Forgery

I was almost lynched in a comparative religion class making this same suggestion. Someone blurted, "are you saying God is a forger?" I replied, "only if you believe in a 'Young Earth'". People started o shout. Turned out most of the class was fundies expecting to get their confirmation bias stroked.

Re: If you have nothing to hide...

Not much argument about the FBI credibility rating, but . . . Apparently, the dude actually claimed all this to the Feebs, so, they actually had no choice. He is reported to have quite literally claimed to have committed an act which would have endangered everyone on the flight. His tweets don't deny either. They seem to simply claim the FBI conflated FIVE YEARS of activity into a shorter period. I've no idea whether the acts claimed are possible or not, and I doubt the FBI do either. But they can't legally ignore the claim. They are required to take the claim seriously. In fact, assuming that the fellow really did make such a claim, and that it is in fact impossible, he'll still spend time in a cell for wasting their time with a hoax.

Re: "shy tory"

In the US there was at one time a very strong tendency to tell pollsters to get lost. My dad used to remark when asked for a political view that "there's a reason for secret ballots." His rule was that one should never discuss politics or income in polite company.

Re: wait wat @YAAC and Gary Cheapiro

A good many of the complaining unies are not public and are not funded through taxes.

Re: Why not organic kitty litter?

"...If one is covering cat litter with radioactive waste, then, probably, the ecological aspects are less relevant...."

Ah, that would actually be "different" ecological aspects BECOME relevant.

Re: Losing face

"Do you really consider your government an open one who works for the well being of all its citizens ?"

Not hardly. However, ours apparently suffers less from feelings of insecurity or at the very least, hides them better.

Re: Animal made from ancient degraded DNA released into the wild

" 'one sequoia generation'

whats that roughly....3,500 years?"

Considerably less. Sequoias are like guinea pigs and can reproduce long before they mature.

Re: dual purpose

It has been dual purpose ever since the falcons nested there. The problem is changing out antennae to upgrade the hardware. You climb the tower and if the birds fly away, you have "disturbed" them, which violates the law, meaning jail and or a fine for bird bothering. If they get pissed and go after you, you want a good safety net, or a parachute, and health insurance, and since they were pissed at you, you have disturbed them, again violating the law, meaning jail or a fine, after you get out of the hospital.

Re: Sympathy...

Heh, the oil DOES help, until later.

Re: ACLU = AssCLowns Unlimited

Lots of folks say this until they need the ACLU behind them. The concept of civil liberty is something lots of folks don't get. They don't seem to understand that the fact that YOU claim a liberty means that YOU are supporting the same rights for others. If you don't admit to that, you are nothing better than a would-be tyrant, since the implicit reasoning is a form of "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine as well." You don't have to agree with someone to insist they have the same liberty as you. In fact, if you really want security, then allowing the nut jobs, fundamentalists, and would be oligarchs talking openly provides you with the best early warning system there is. It is one reason that forbidding "hate speech" is stupid. Let a person open their mouth in public and they are publicly known as a jerk. Tell them their right to expression is limited and all they do is hide it where it is more difficult to trace and attribute.

One of the profound misunderstandings that even many law enforcement officers labor under is the idea that they exist to "prevent" crime. They don't. They exist to bring rule breakers to justice. Because of that they often feel entitled to ignore the very rules thy are supposed to be enforcing.

Re: Units

Mmmmh, no. US units and Imperial units are not the same. An Imperial gallon is about 1/5 larger than a US gallon for instance. Then there is the Iiternational Mile which is .0006 of a foot shorter than the US Statute mile, and (according to Glover's Pocket Reference) the nautical mile and the British mile are the same length, and about 0.15 US Statute miles longer than a US Statute mile. Of course a US fluid ounce is slightly larger than the British fluid ounce. But that potential conversion problem sounds like a good idea. Unit conversion, it is never pretty.