coquina

I graduated high school in 1967 - I had to have a private tutor to do it 'cause I screwed up and got pregnant - before the advent of birth control pills. I had a kid and so I couldn't go to college. Please, please, please... forget the things that seem so important to you now. They were important to me too - way back when. I was very lucky - my father owned a small business and he taught me how to run it. If you guys mess up, you are going to be SOL. A lot of what people are trying to teach you seems like crap - a lot of it is. The real problem is that you won't be able to decipher the difference until 30 years from now. Here is the deal - be all, end all: It is better to know it and not need it, than to need it and not know it. That means you have to learn it all so you can draw from what you need. I graduated from high school in 1967. I took college courses and I taught myself a lot. My life would have been a lot easier had a followed a conventional route. I am an expert at dodging and weaving, but it is not fun. If you have the advantage, do it right the first time.

[quote Women should take advantage of whatever resources are available to them for them to legitimately achieve their goals. It makes no sense to pretend there is a level playing field when there isn't. In the paraphrased words of excommunicated Mormon Sonia Johnson: Take your eyes off the guys and keep your eyes on the prize. Who cares what men think if you get what you want? . Carol, I can't agree with your second paragraph. I admit, I am very lucky to be in the position to have worked almost primarily with men since the git-go, so, take it from me, you will be accepted if you can demonstrate that you know what you are doing. Many women are not as lucky as I was - I grew up in a man's world. Learn it, know it. Never, ever, try to "baffle 'em with bull shit if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance." Do not ever try to bull your way through something you are not sure about. Ask the man to explain it to you. Just as you would do if you were a young man trying to learn what an older man has to teach. Put yourself on an even playing field. Do not expect a man to help you more than he would a young man. However, if you don't understand, don't pretend that you do. Men are not ogres - I have worked with them for many years. They are not catty. Show them that you are legitimatelly seeking to learn from them, and they will teach you.

They are the men behind the scenes. I have run into them on more than one occasion. In my opinion, there are several reasons that some men look down on women in a typically male dominated field. For example - when competing for government jobs, some contracts are "set-aside" for women-owned businesses. It didn't take men long to figure out that they could put the majority of the ownership of their business in their wive's name in order to be able to bid on these jobs, even though the woman knew doodly-squat about the business. Legitimate men owned (and this woman-owned) business resented that. I resent it, because people have assumed because my husband and I worked together in the business, that I didn't know what I was doing. However, my husband came to work for me when the company he was working for went on an extended strike. He had experience in purchasing materials, and in military specifications, but initially he did not know about reading blueprints or machining technology. When someone made the wrong assumption, he corrected them right away, telling them that I was the manufacturing oriented person in the business, and if they wanted to know how a job should be done, they needed to talk to me. Further more, if I do say so, I think I am a better boss than most men, and I would say my employees agree with me. I never ask them to do something unrealistic, and I don't get angry with them when they make mistakes. I have run this business for over 20 years, but one of my machinists worked here when I was in high school. "My guys" (sexist comment, what? ) are the best machinists I have ever seen. When we get a new job to bid, we all sit around the table and talk about it. I do not try to micro-manage how they do their work. I give them a drawing, tell them where the material is, and when I need the job to be complete. They have flexible work hours - as long as the job gets done on time, I don't care when or how they do it. If it's a pretty morning, they might take off and play a round of golf, but they come in late and work late. After my husband died I gave them all raises and told them I was going to need all the help I could get to keep the business going. I can assure you, they would do double-back-flips for me if I asked it of them. On the other hand, I recognise that the "good ole boy" network exists. If I suspect there is going to be a problem, I use my initials rather than my given name when I make an appointment. I needed to go aboard a nuclear submarine last year to see if a machine we build would be suitable to make a repair in a close area. Knowing how some men feel about women aboard ships - I just gave my initials to have a visitors badge made. The commander of the sub looked none to happy when he saw me coming aboard, but he had to deal with me, and as soon as he realized I knew what the heck I was talking about, he was fine. Men sense women with confidence - I was very lucky in that my father taught me and took me on job sites from the time I was very young. I was at a meeting of our industrial authority and a newcomer mistook me for a waitress. I told him I was a board member and he was floored. He asked me didn't it feel weird being the only woman in a roomful of men. I genuinely hadn't noticed that I was. I am just used to being around men all the time. As to whether a woman-controlled world would eliminate war, I doubt it. Most wars are fought over territory or scarce resources. Then there are the hatreds between enemies that have gone on for so long, that no one remembers the real reason for them. Take the palestinians for example - several of their suicide bombers have been women, even in a culture where women are denigrated. Women will certainly fight tooth and toe-nail to protect their family and offspring. As population increases, and territory and goods become increasinly scarce, there are going to be more wars. Perhaps it is a built in part of our evolution, to limit the population. Just as the lemmings run into the sea and drown.

Your original question was about Earth's gravity - so I am giving you some information about it and how geologists measure and use it to derive subsurface information about the earth. Here is a gravity map of the earth: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011113.html Does it surprise you that Earth's gravity is not exactly the same all over? The main overall source of the earth's gravity, but materials that lie between the core and the surface, the altitude, and the gravitational effects of the moon all play a part in causing "gravity anomalies". USGS explanation of measuring earth's gravity: http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of02-353/method.html

Must have skipped a page - thought I'd read it all.

our insides would fall out between our legs. Pleasant thought - what? I wrote an epistle with a series of links and MSIE shut down on me and obliterated it. Anyway - I got to thinking about it and figured that if the coccyx was truly vestigial, it would just be hanging there with nothing attached to it. With a little googling I learned that this is not so - several ligaments and the muscles of the pelvic floor attach to it. Think about the forces of gravity on a biped as opposed to a quadriped. In the latter, gravity pushes the internal organs against in interior of the abdominal wall. However - in a biped, gravity pushes our internal organs downward between our legs. We must have a floor of pelvic muscles to keep them from going south. It would be interesting to study the comparative anatomy of that group of muscles between bipeds and quadripeds - I expect that the former have the muscles, but that they are not developed as strongly. I do know older women (my mother for one) can develop a prolapsed uterus as these muscles deteriorate. http://www.emedicinehealth.com/articles/6872-2.asp In conclusion, the coccyx forms a base for the tail in quadripeds, but it plays just as great a purpose in bipeds - supporting our internal organs. I suspect that the appendix also serves a useful purpose too - but I don't know what it is and don't have time to look.

In the US, most pharmacies are more like a department store. As a matter of fact, you can have scripts filled at big box stores like Walmart. I think that if they are going to sell homeopathic remedies, they need to be put in a separate section of the store. I also think there should be a database of scripts linked to a person's social security number, so that if you are on vacation and have an unexpected illness or accident, the pharmacist can see what other medications you are taking, in order to prohibit adverse drug interactions. However - this could still be tough, because OTC medications wouldn't be in the data base.

Certainly, the tail is most highly evolved when it is prehensile - which gives the animal the ability to cling with it or hang by it. Many of the new world monkeys have prehensile tails. I did not know until tonight that there is a South American porcupine which has a prehensile tail. http://www.k12.de.us/warner/prehen.htm Opossums also have prehensile tails which they use to aid in climbing - adults are too heavy to hang by them. http://www.bobpickett.org/order_didelphimorphia.htm On to tails in general - while many animals use them for balance, I think it is more appropriate to say that they are used like a rudder. Certainly, the beaver uses its tail in this way. Ring tailed lemurs have spectacular tails, and they use them for "stink fights" during breeding season: http://www.szgdocent.org/pp/p-lmring.htm They rub their tails against scent glands on their wrists and chests, then wave them around - the lemur with the stinkiest tail wins. White tailed deer use their tails to warn other deer of danger - when one deer senses danger, it puts its tail up, thus displaying the white underside, and the entire herd takes off. The rat uses its long naked tail for orientation, equilibration and as a thermic regulation organ http://perso.dixinet.com/animaux-infos/erat.html Here's an interesting page on primate taxonomy: http://www.primatecenter.org/prim.htm Interesting, the gibbons, Family Hylobatidae, are arboreal, but they don't have tails - So - it would seem that evolution wise the gibbons are the link between tailed an tailless - they are still arboreal, but developed exceedingly long arms and legs for swinging through the trees rather than jumping - which would require a tail for balance and steering. PS - Thanks for the Kudos, Martin

If you go back and read what I wrote, you will see that I stated the perfect "white diamond". Colored diamonds - canaries, or pinks, or blue - like the Hope diamond, can be much more valuable than the ordinary colorless, or white diamond.

One thing some inventors used to do was to make totally non-standard or "bastard" fasteners for their products - It made them much harder to pirate.

I think the hardest part of it is to be sure the person really wants to die. The person might get the impression that his family wants him dead and ask for it to relieve them of the financial burden of medical expenses and nursing home care. If the patient is terminally ill, and can push a button, I think the thing to do would be to give him a morphine machine with out the governor that limits the dose.

I find it very annoying, and you know, you are ruining your hearing. I am forced by OSHA to keep my shop within acceptable decibels, and provide earplugs. My worker's comp policy will have to pay if my employees get noise induced hearing loss. It pisses me off royally to pay for all the noise reduction equipment and then sit in my office and hear the bass on one of my employee's car when he turns into the driveway. Through a closed front door.

There is no way to convert a metric thread to a conventional thread especially if you are trying to turn one on a lathe. The lead screw is only manufactured for a conventional thread. If I turn a M5.0624 (making up a number here) nobody will have a nut that fits it. I wish you would come and see my shop so I could show you these things instead of trying to write them. Machines will do that for which they were manufactured - they can do no more.

Buy a jewels loop - not very expensive and a useful tool. First off - diamonds are graded by the 3 C's - color, clarity, and cut. The "perfect white diamond" is not tinged with color, has no inclusions, and has been cut perfectly so that the chrystaline structure refracts the maximum amount of light. Color - the "perfect" white diamond is not a shade of gray it is transparent. Industrial diamonds are almost black, the best gem quality diamonds are almost clear. The operative word is "almost" - it is exceedingly rare to find a natural diamond that doesn't have some inclusions - which can be seen as little black specks through the loop. If you see specks, it might not be a perfect diamond, but in all probability, it is not a fake. Cut - there are several forms of cut, but natural diamonds, because of their hardness, must be cut - that means there should be very keen edges. If it is glass, it was probably poured into a mould and the edges will appear transparent. As far as cutting glass, a diamond will cut it, but so will a ruby or sapphire. Here's the Moh's scale http://www.amfed.org/t_mohs.htm - anything with a higher number will scratch anything with a lower number. Corundum - ruby and sapphire, is the material that is below diamond on the hardness scale. Sandpaper for metal working in made from the industrial grade of this material (don't use the ones made for wood - they are aluminum oxide or garnet). If you rub your stone on a piece of corundum sand paper, and it is scratched, it is not a diamond.

I have a machine shop - all my machines (except the 2 computer operated ones which cost $70,000 a piece) were built to work in English dimensions. All the shop tools - micrometers, calipers, etc., measure in English dimensions. Conservatively, it would cost me at least $200,000 to convert. Meanwhile, there will be a long period of time when parts need to be replaced that were made by conventional measurements. When it comes to basic measurements, my machinists can manually convert lengths and diameters from one system to the other. The real problem comes when you try to switch from conventional to metric threads. If they are small diameters you can buy metric taps and dies so, while it is an expense, it isn't an enormous one. However, if you have to chase a thread on a lathe, a "lead screw" is a part of the lathe that runs from one end to the other - and the matching part is in the carriage. Changing from one to the other would involve a week's worth of work, so you sure couldn't switch back and forth. I am only telling you about my industry, which I know. There must be hundreds of others that would also be adversely affected. Back in the 70's, the US was going to change, but they soon realized that many businesses absolutely couldn't afford it. Blike - scales (Not rulers) are available that are divided into 10ths, and subdivided into 100ths. I mentally convert between fractions and decimals all the time. I have most of the common dimensions memorized, but we have conversion charts all over the shop - one just has to look up. We work in 1000ths on an inch - not at all unusual to see a tolerance of +/-.0001, In other words, if a dimension is given that says 1.000" +/-.0001, that means that it can measure between .999 and 1.001, if it doesn't fall in that range, it's dead. Since a single hair of your head measures approximately .003, in the example given above, if we were off by the breadth of a hair, the part would be ruined. We have all kinds of extremely expensive measuring devices and gage blocks that give us the ability to achieve that measurement. Another practical problem is that the conversion between inch and metric does not divide evenly. Suppose you are given a drawing that tells you to place 10 holes 75mm apart. Ok 1 milimeter = .039370 of an inch, so 75mm = 2.952750 inches. The closest you can move the table on the mill is in increments of .001, so you round off the decimal to 2.953, and move that distance every time. However - if you were moving in metric you would have moved a total of 750mm or 29.5275", but if you move 2.953 ten times, the distance of each hole from the origin gets progressively worse, your last hole is placed at 29.530 and is .0025 out of location. When you are working in close tolerances, it is better to stick with the measurement system the machine was designed for. Engineers can write out anything on paper. My delightful job is to decipher the drawings and turn them into usable parts.

Duke University in Durhan, North Carolina http://www.duke.edu/medical/index.html Johns Hopkins in Baltimore Maryland would be hard to beat. http://www.jhu.edu/ University of Virginia, at Charlottesville http://www.virginia.edu/hlth.html Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, MN would be closest to Canada http://www.mayo.edu/

When Kindria says "negative behavior" what does she mean? For example, craving and acquiring food is a positive behavior in a person who is starving and a negative one in someone who is obese. However, assuming that one could focus on a behavior that is always negative, could a PET scan be used to determine which parts of the brain are activated by a person practicing said "negative behavior"?

It is always easy to write what someone wants to hear. If you stray from that, you have to do twice as much work, because you have to defend your position, chapter and verse. If you defend your position successfully, and your teacher is worth her salt, she should grade you based on what you wrote, not on what she thinks. In any case, she should realize that you cannot be spoon fed information, and you don't regurgitate it back in the same fashion. And - for your own good, life is about analyzing a sitiuation and making a decision based on the best information available at the time. The more practice you get, the easier it will be do take action quickly, so learning to think on your feet is the most important skill you will ever acquire. There will be many times that the decision you made doesn't have the effect you expect - many times there will be disastrous consequences, but you have to know for yourself that you did what you thought was right at the time, and you have to forget about "woulda, coulda, shouldas". God knows, I have been where you are, and God knows, I have made plenty of disastrously wrong decisions. When I was your age (and God knows, my mother used those words so many times I thought I would strangle her), I was prone to impulsiveness. The most important thing you will ever learn, is how to think. Take every opportunity possible to exercise it.

I'll bet you haven't seen many women machinists either, but you've met one now. As for why more women aren't carpenters, plumbers, auto mechanics, or machinists, these are trades that have traditionally been passed from father to son. I was an only child, so I grew up in my dad's machine shop. I can honestly say that I have 50 years of machine shop experience, because I learned to use a file to remove burrs when I was 5. As for lack of physical (brute) strength, that can be a hindrence as well as a help. Inexperienced machinists think that they need to tighten bolts as tight as they can possibly get them - it stretches the threads out of shape or strips them. You snug them up, give 'em another half turn, and they're as tight as they're gonna get. The answer lies in having more bolts, not overtightening too few of them. In the machine shop, we have lifts for moving heavy equipment, and we have rules that 2 people move anything over 40# - men might be stronger, but they still get ruptured disks and hernias, and then my Workers Comp has to cough up money for an operation and lost time. As to construction, probably true that you see few women framers, but in my area there are a lot of women finish carpenters and cabinet makers. I know how to use all woodworking tools, my husband and I used to restore boats - one was a 42' wooden one - and nothing is "square" on a boat. One has to deal with compound curves to make things fit, and it is a real challange. He used to have me do all the detail work because I had more dexterity. My dad used to have me make all the tiny parts for the same reason - he said women had a "finer hand". You might find it interesting to do some research on the jobs women performed during WW2 - more than just "Rosie the Riveter", they ferried completed planes and worked in all phases of manufacturing. When the war was over, they went back to home making and raising the "baby boomers". But back to what this thread was originally about - the original premise: Please don't think I agree with this, but am just throwing out the idea for fun... Has anybody pointed out that roughly half the offspring would be male? What would be done about that? Maybe you allow them to grow up under close supervision, and castrate all the ones with aggressive personalities? Maybe you neuter the females with agressive personalities too.

They have a lot of impurities and incomplete melting - look here: http://images.google.com/images?q=tektites&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

I was a teenage rebel too. Since then, the things I had to do that are stupid have multiplied ten fold. For example, "hazardous materials" - I have to file reports on every kind of chemical I have, even in small quantities. A bottle of fingernail polish that an individual buys every day and stores at home has to be on my report, and I have to keep Material Safety Data Sheets on it. In other words, stupid or not, there are some things one has to do "just because". Look at those assignments as "how to handle stupid stuff in life later on." If you get the opportunity - work to change laws to make things more reasonable.

Yeah - I think that could be fun too. You could write about another actor who was pi$$y and grumpy all the time that you wondered if he was constipated or needed a dose of Preparation H. Look at it from a comedic standpoint, even if the play wasn't a comedy. When asked what the author was thinking we he wrote a book, my standard answer was "whether he'd be able to afford a house in the Hamptons with the proceeds."

I tried to respond earlier, and my reply went to thread purgatory. Tektites are naturally occurring glass from impact melt - they are often green. Also - I live near Jamestown, VA, where they have recreated the first industry in Colonial times, which was a glass works. The glass pieces which found at the site of the old factory were green, as is the glass that is manufactured there now. I think that modern manufacturing methods take the majority of the green color out, but when you look through the edges, because you are looking through such a thick surface, you see a greater number of residual particles, which makes it look green. If you google for images of "optically clear glass" you can see some examples where the edges are shown and they are transparent. Another factor might be that the glass used to make thicker shelves has probably been tempered so it will crumble rather than shatter. There are 2 methods of tempering - one involves annealing it with heat to make it harder, the other, less expensive method which is probably the one used on shelves and such is to coat the front and back surfaces with a clear substance. There might be enough color in the substance that is appears colored when you look through the edge and see the back side of it.

No, this happened several years ago, about 1996. Background - I hadn't been having yearly checkups for a while - got a nasty bronchial pneumonia and had to be seen. Didn't see the doc in the group who had followed me for years. This guy was fresh out of med school. When he reviewed my file he noticed I hadn't had a physical in a while. He suggested doing a blood work up because insurance would pay since I was sick. I agreed. He called me a couple of days later and told me my cholesterol was high and that he'd like me to try a new medication. He said he could leave some samples at the front desk for me to pick up and I could come back in for followup bloodwork. If it was having the desired effect, he'd write a script. He didn't mention any possible side effects - just told me to pick up the samples at the front desk. That's what I did, and I didn't read the fine print flyer that was put in with it. After the problem occurred - I went on line and read possible side effects. At that time, low platelet count wasn't mentioned. I also googled "adverse reactions - bruising" and learned about thrombocytopenia, and that another med. I was taking - accupril, mentioned it as a side effect. When I called I talked to my regular doc instead of the newbie and told him I thought I was having a reaction to Accupril. The first day I went in and old doc saw me, and I told him about the Pravochol, he told me it was probably the new drug, not the old one. He called new doc in to show him what had happened. After months of treatment - old doc told me he thought I had ITP - only thing, in the meantime I had done research and there was no way my problem was "idiopathic". There is a support group on the internet for ITP and 90% of them told me there problem arose as a result of a medication. I was sent to a hemotologist, and was told I might have to have my spleen removed and would probably be on high doses of steroids for the remainder of my life. At that point, I took myself off all my meds - no more BP med - I didn't even take an aspirin or tylenol for about 2 years. I decided I'd rather take my chances with hypertension than long term steroids or bleeding to death. Fortunately - it now seems to have sorted itself out. I am now seeing an endocrinologist who is managing my medications with a great deal of care. His motto is "manage your health as much as possible with diet and exercise - take medications as a last resort". Until I had my little problem, I was more than willing to have a pill solve my problems for me. It is working quite well - over the course of 2 years I have lost 110 pounds strictly by increasing exercise and decreasing food intake. At this time I take Zetia for cholesterol - are you familiar with that medication?