Interesting article thread

[Ded10c]

hence, why apple is doing so well...

QFT.

[MrTwosheds]

Slightly off-topic, but if you don't care about your knowledge enough to go enter higher education, you deserve to stay stupid.

A very narrow minded view Ah...I am of the opinion that most children start out as potential geniuses, and then we force them into a filtering system designed to selectively prevent most of them from achieving their full potential. That was what school did when I was in it. I did not fit their model of the sort of person who could succeed, and as a consequence, by the age of, 16 hated every wasted minute of my time in school. At the time I saw little point in attempting to succeed in a system that put so much effort into making people fail. I don't believe things have changed that much.

[Ded10c]

I mean that the ones who specifically don't *care* for cleverness deserve to stay stupid.

[MrTwosheds]

Intelligence can manifest itself in many different ways, so can stupidity.

[Psychedelic Rhino]

The bad news is that there are so many stupid people that the world is beginning to revolve around them.

My latest shock of the stupidity of people who are supposed to have some intelligence, was re-awakened by the 2004 McDonald's scandal that took the Milgram experiment into the real world and is being made into a feature film.

[Iron_Maiden]

Is it?:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... 8020120709

[MrTwosheds]

Yes. We are showing all the major signs of a civilisation about to stagnate and decline. Our politicians talk b@lloks, our press makes up its "news", our society's have fractured on financial "class" lines, greed and corruption are rampant and legalised. A very pronounced unwillingness to see and understand where we are going wrong pervades all levels of our societies. We continue to worship the political religion of "continuous economic growth" despite it having become quite obvious that it simply cannot continue to succeed. Large numbers of people have resorted to fantasy belief systems, in their attempts to escape the unnatural madness of our everyday lives.
There are many positive directions we could go in, but they are all viewed as "too expensive" so we stagnate instead.
When the only vision is "more money" A culture cannot possibly advance. Evolution is an all pervasive force, it applies as much to economies as to animals.

[Nielk1]

It can be fixed, but only though the actions of the citizens.

[Red Spot]

Intelligence can manifest itself in many different ways, so can stupidity.

I think that sums it up fairly well ...

[Zenophas]

http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-york-city ... 09740.html

[Iron_Maiden]

Wise?:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... 9K20120710

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Of course depends on the choice. Sara said no.

[GSH]

What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light? .

-- GSH

[Red Spot]

What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light.

I think they already did that once with mach 1 or 2 or so, those results were already pretty conclusive

"A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base."

[Psychedelic Rhino]

I think they already did that once with mach 1 or 2 or so, those results were already pretty conclusive

Quite a bit of difference in the energy between a 5oz mass traveling at 0.0000001c (~1500mph) vs. 0.9c.

Newtonian physics alone can deal with the effects of non-relativistic speeds pretty straightforwardly. Getting 5oz to 0.9c would indeed be "magic". Sort of like accelerating an aircraft carrier to Mach 5 in about 10 seconds.

Kind of reminds me of Thunderf00t explaining sticking your hand in front of the proton stream at the LHC.