Phi for All

! Moderator Note Well, not a good start for Dr. Maybe, who joined the forum with bad intentions, apparently. Take a few days to reconsider, Doc, then come back prepared to follow the rules. Or just come back and start attacking members again, and we'll be done with you for good. Thread closed, Dr. Maybe definitely suspended for 3 days.

* remaining silent by right *

To make this prank a true illusion, you need to put your sound source in something nobody associates with making sound, like a book or a pot with a plant in it. A short range transmitter (think walkie-talkie) could be concealed in an object like that, and when the sound comes out it won't be suspected right away. Radio static could be a problem with the walkie-talkie idea, and it would be ideal if you could simply work with a one-way wireless transmitter to a receiver with as big a speaker as you can easily conceal. If it sounds tinny and scratchy, it's obviously a speaker and the illusion won't hold. Cloth is good for covering a speaker without muffling the sound. Having two or more sources for the sound will prevent the mark from zeroing in on what's making the noise/voices. If you take a thick hard-cover book from a used book store, you can carefully cut out a compartment in the pages and the front cover, then recover the book with cloth, making sure to dress up the cover to look legitimate. A small silk flower arrangement can be placed in a plastic pot you've cut your speaker hole in, and the speaker goes where the dirt would normally go with real flowers. Again, cloth or a woven wicker place-mat can be used to cover the plastic pot without impeding the speaker sound much.

I don't think any president could be the cause of these things. These are vague problems, though real enough, and I just don't see any way they could be anything other than completely subjective perspectives. Partisan politics?! My main gripe about Obama is his over-eager concessions to the Republicans in an effort to mend fences broken during the Bush administration. I know why he does it, but I don't think his approach has been particularly strong for the people who elected him to represent them. As for welfare, are you talking about the stimulus efforts? I could agree that much of the bailouts started by Bush and continued by Obama were corporate handouts and violated free market principles, but I think it would have been political suicide NOT to have pumped some funding into stimulating the economy he inherited. He's lowered taxes for more people than Bush did. That's important to you, right? He's actually shrunk the federal government and reduced government spending, and that's important too, am I correct? The stock market is doing much better during his administration, I'm sure everyone is glad about that. He ended the war in Iraq, he's bringing troops home from Afghanistan and he got bin Laden, all very laudable accomplishments, I'm sure you'll agree. He's cut prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients. He's created more private sector jobs in 4 years than Bush did in 8. He's been so much more transparent in his official dealings than Bush ever was, including disclosure of White House visitors, which no president in the history of the US has ever done, and he reversed Bush's protocol of barring the media from showing soldier's caskets arriving from overseas. Bush did a pretty good job with Russia, I actually thought that was a strong point for him, but Obama got a nuclear arms reduction pact signed with them. He established the Credit Card Bill of Rights so credit companies can't raise rates arbitrarily. And I know you probably don't like Obamacare, but it does prevent insurance companies from denying claims based on pre-existing conditions, which always angered me about health insurance. And he's done a great deal for small businesses, although I don't think any president after Eisenhower ever did enough (I personally think small business promotion is what will help bring back the middle class, raise tax revenues, strengthen the economy and cure most of our unemployment woes).

! Moderator Note OK, this little bickerfest is over. Thread closed, recess is over, I think it's nap time for the lot of you.

Oh, I think we were divided into warring camps back in 2000. Look how close the presidential voting was then and in 2004! I also think it's incorrect to say he's done "even less as president". You may not like the man, and I have some criticisms of some of his choices, but he has done quite a lot to be proud of. I don't think anyone could do that job without garnering criticism from somewhere, but I think we should be honest about what any president accomplishes.

NASA has some interesting things in the works, my favorite is attaching what amounts to a streamer to the satellite or piece of debris to slow it down, make it more likely to fall back into the atmosphere. Some kind of orbiting recycling center is my next favorite, a station that could somehow match speeds with and bring in and recycle dead craft and debris. This could bring financial incentive, but there has to be some kind of international agreement that allows for this without causing international legal incidents every time it happens.

There are current protocols that require new satellites to have the capability of retaining enough fuel to eventually push them back into the atmosphere to burn up. Pushing them out beyond Earth's orbit is too costly in terms of energy. Prohibitions on metals like titanium that don't burn up are also being pursued. New satellite launches are only a small part of the political problem. Countries like China give the nod to some of these protocol requirements but not on an official level. China also refuses to give up their anti-satellite programs, which causes other countries to want them, and China has tested their ASAT program with disastrous results for the space debris problem. They literally blew up a satellite and created a huge problem for everyone. There are obviously some secrets involved that countries want to protect, but we've come to a point where security needs to shift from "don't touch our stuff" to "we can't protect our new satellites from the debris of our old ones". This could be that threat to Earth we've all been waiting for that could bring us together as a species, but there are a lot of twitchy politics that aren't being handled fast enough.

I just saw the movie Space Junk 3D at the IMAX theater in our museum of nature and science. It's a fascinating look at the problems we have with all the orbital debris from satellites and rocket boosters in the various Earth orbits. It's not so much the sheer volume of zombie satellites that aren't functioning anymore, it's the fact that collisions in orbit happen too often, and every time it does, two satellites become thousands of smaller bits of debris whizzing around at an average of 17,000 mph. Each of those bits has the capability of producing exponentially more debris as these clouds of junk intertwine. The problem was given a name back in the late 70s by NASA, who named it the Kessler Syndrome after their scientist who proposed it. I was very fortunate to meet Don Kessler after the movie, where he was part of a panel discussion along with the director of the movie and some other scientists who are on the leading edge of trying to solve this mounting problem. What I really want to discuss is the politics involved here. When satellites are sent into orbit, the country hosting the launch is responsible for whatever happens to that satellite, including any damages it may cause. Live satellites can of course be shifted out of the way of potential collisions (the ISS has to maneuver several times a day to avoid possible collisions with pieces bigger than what it was designed to withstand, which is only marble-sized and smaller debris), but the ones whose fuel has run out (zombies) are incapable of maneuvering. And once satellites have collided, it's almost impossible to monitor who the debris belongs to, at least for liability purposes. Every country wants to maintain ownership of everything they shoot into space, and you can see their point, but they don't want the responsibility of taking care of what damages their debris does to other country's satellites. One solution that's been proposed is to treat space derelicts like sea derelicts. Once a craft has lost its ability to maneuver, it becomes potential debris and would no longer belong to those who put it there. Salvage (which is a bit beyond our present technology), or at least the right to deal with another country's property without reprimand, would be at least possible then. Some very creative ways to slow debris down so its orbit decays and it burns up on re-entry are being developed, but the problem right now is political. Imagine someone leaving a car stranded in the middle of the highway, but they can legally refuse to let anyone touch it because it belongs to them, and they aren't really required to remove it themselves. And while the owner can be made to pay for damages to the first person who runs into this car, after that the liability is fuzzy because there are now two cars worth of debris on the road, so who's responsible for the next collision? I know there are often some sensitive technologies involved in these satellites, and countries and corporations who spend the money to get them up there want to make sure they protect every aspect of their investment, but it seems like we really need something more in place. This is truly something that threatens the Earth as a whole, and needs to be addressed by every nation that relies on space technology. If we don't do something soon, it might become impossible for us to send extra-planetary devices out through the clouds of debris that fill the orbits. What do you think?

I think all our emotions are valuable, as are our experiences. Until you have some kind of prescience that tells you ahead of time what lessons will be valuable to a child in later life, trying to prevent bad experiences could rob a child of a lesson they may need at another time. Trying to stop suffering sounds great, but sometimes the greatest harm comes from doing what you think is the greatest good. Avoiding emotions doesn't sound healthy/

I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't have an accent like the rest of you.

Wouldn't it be a hoot to have a backyard party where velociraptors start poking their heads out of the foliage every so often, like they're surrounding the guests in preparation for their own feast?

I'd love to see a physiological blueprint for a centaur skeleton. How do you replace a horse's neck and head with another spinal column? The thoracic vertebrae juts almost straight out, parallel to the ground, before joining the cervical vertebrae, so a human spinal column would have to begin at the wrong angle. Something tells me that six limbs is not a viable design for a mammal, otherwise we'd have seen something like it in the fossil records.

It's great that you're so supportive of Aethelwulf. You both have a lot in common, including the same ISP. I'll bet you even wear the same size socks!

I don't care if everyone had to have pilot's licenses to drive, flying cars is just a horrible idea. Everyone always imagined being on a highway stuck in traffic and then pushing a button and having your wings pop out so you could jet above everyone else and make it home in no time. No one ever mentioned that EVERYONE would be doing the same thing and there wouldn't be gridlock on the ground, it would all be in the air. One of those ideas that sounds fantastic but is extremely impractical. Gah, do you know how much it costs to get a pilot's training and license these days? I like michel's PAL-V, but I can't see anything like that being used to fly in cities. What a fantastic machine though for the person who lived an hour outside town in a rural area. You could fly from your home until you reached more populated areas, then land and drive the highways into work. I could see communities allowing something like that. I just can't see a couple hundred thousand flying cars all trying to avoid road traffic during rush hour in a big city.

Glad to have you posting with us again, Severian. Have you been busy at CERN this whole time?

Do you have any evidence that such a user-title exists?

! Moderator Note We want you to use the report feature. We want you to point out, in thread, when someone is using a logical fallacy to support their argument. We prefer that you don't try enforcing the rules by mentioning them in thread, it just adds a level of defensiveness to the discussion that isn't necessary, and can derail the topic. The use of logical fallacies automatically affects how people view the argument when it's pointed out. Our rules are for repeated offenses, but it normally sorts itself out when the weakness of the argument is pointed out before having to bring in the staff and the rulebook. ! Moderator Note Pointing out the weakness in someone's argument is part of what you do when you're discussing things with them. If you disagree with their position, you often start by pointing out why it's weak, and when someone uses a strawman it's not just a weak argument, it's often not an argument at all. Strawmen often completely miss the point. First line of defense is always you. Mention when someone is using a weak argument against you. Support your claim well. Be vigilant. That's how you get the +s.

! Moderator Note I'm moving this to Speculations, since there is no more doubt which deserves benefit. Please remember to back up your ideas with rigor and as much supportive evidence as you can.

No more cake for me, thanks! Two pieces was plenty!

There are other benefits than costs. Sometimes it can be about reducing corporate infrastructure, like not hiring cooks to work for you in your employee lunchroom, when your expertise is making electronics. Sometimes it can be about not having to increase other areas, like Accounting or Human Resources. But take any program that private business can come up with to service this scenario with the lifeguards. No matter what they come up with, a publicly funded model should be able to do the same thing for at least 20% less because they don't have to make a profit. They should be able to focus on what a lifeguard does, not what his actions mean for the business. Some models work best with a for-profit motive, but others are at odds with the real objectives of capitalism. If using weapons against your enemies led to actual peace, then war would be a bad for-profit business.

I didn't make it up, it's what we did before we started to outsource government jobs to private companies. And I'm not against the practice, but it doesn't always work better that way, and it always has to cost more. Publicly-funded lifeguard operations are interested in guarding public beaches and pools; privately held lifeguard services are interested in making a profit providing such services. Their priorities are different and always will be. The private company requires a profit, so they will always cost more for the same services, unless the company is larger than the government it's servicing. If a private company can provide services cheaper because of economy of scale, that's different, but you're talking about a service performed by trained personnel. It's doubtful a large company could provide cheaper lifeguards, at least not cheap enough to overcome the company's need for a profit margin. I'm still on the fence with medicine. I could live with leaving medical practices private but making health insurance part of a public risk pool. Medicine as a business model has some inherent conflicts, but universal health coverage can help mitigate those. Security? Equipment? These are good standard business model items, they don't have the same types of basic conflict that saving lives or medicine has, where the optimum outcome for the customer is the worst thing for the business. I can't understand the business end of this situation. The people providing the lifeguard service don't benefit when their employees let someone drown who's beyond their scope of contract. The people who're hiring the service can't be seen in a good light by letting a victim drown who was capable of being helped. This sounds like one of those litigation-driven decisions, like refusing to help for fear of being sued.

The publicly funded lifeguard wouldn't be concerned with the competition from a private company, and the same can't be said of the private company, so it doesn't really hold true for both. I don't see how. I'm talking about publicly-funded government-employed lifeguards who are allowed/expected to save anyone they see drowning, patrolling public beaches as employees of the parks department, trained and certified in a big enough city to have a facility. The private version of that would be given a territory and told that people in trouble outside the territory are to be ignored to avoid neglecting their own customers. Contracts can be written the right way, but they obviously aren't. Once you figure out optimum shifts and optimum numbers of lifeguards and everything that a good company would do, you could set it so nobody gets to monkey with the schedule to save a buck. Ultimately, though, you'll still be giving a government contract to a company that benefits more when there are more drownings so we have to hire more guards. It's tough to avoid the conflicts of interest. Except do their job without charging us more for their profit. Saving drowning victims should not be a for-profit endeavor.

You still end up with privatization causing conflicts of interest in lifeguarding. If I hire lifeguards for one stretch of beach, rival stretches of beach on either side of me don't have to pay because my lifeguards are obligated to save people drowning if they can see them. Or we aren't allowed to save you because you're swimming just across the line we were hired to patrol. Having lots of guards is the best thing for keeping us safe from drowning, but it's not the best thing for a private company. Private companies will eventually want to minimize what they pay to patrol a lifeguard's area, or they will want to expand the services and thus the cost. I don't know much about drowning statistics, but you'd have to believe having lifeguards posted decreases deaths due to drowning, but other than more lifeguards, video surveillance is about the only practical thing I can think of to help guard the beach. This is one of those areas that will probably always be best served by a vigilant human being who is tasked with saving people from drowning. It will always come down to having someone out there who can react quickly, and who isn't concerned with where the dividing line of his responsibility is, and just wants to help someone in trouble. When you don't want the ethical dilemmas that come with private business, that's a great time to look towards public funding.

I also think this is a prime example of where public funds should be used to run its own program for public lands like these, instead of using private companies. Or the private companies should just get over themselves and agree that lifeguards should guard lives. A lifeguard should be charged with saving anyone that he can see is in trouble, period. With the training and licensing should come a clause that makes this their call, their decision. This is just one of those things that has to be different because it involves large bodies of water and frail humans. It's not like guarding a warehouse and being lured away from your building by someone breaking into a different warehouse. This is guarding people from drowning, and there's not a lot of time for calling on others to help. For people who have the training, I think most would probably tell you that saving a drowning victim is like a moral imperative for them. In hindsight, it seems like everyone involved at the time would have told the lifeguard to go save the guy. Here's a lifeguard trained to help just standing there because the drowning man is just outside his territory. I would think even the people he's supposed to guard, if asked, would say, "GO! What the hell you waiting for, GO, we'll be fine for a bit, we'll be really careful if you'll please just keep that man from drowning! We'd do it ourselves but you've had the training and all." Hopefully that plan is standard, and it sounds like in this case, the lifeguards had radio contact between them. If they can't cover themselves like this, then who is held responsible if someone dies while a lifeguard is saving someone else, both in his territory? Doesn't the system usually rely on the fact that there are rarely multiple separate yet simultaneous drownings in an area?