Faustine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote : > >I agree; fascinating stuff. Here's a paragraph on deviousness and psychopathy >as an adaptive trait you might find interesting: > >...we speculate that evolution designed a subspecies of humans who use >deception and cheating to get resources from others but do not reciprocate. The >key characteristics of such a subspecies ought to be: skill at deception, lack >of concern for the suffering of others, ease and flexibility in the >exploitation of others, extreme reluctance to be responsible for others >(including, in the case of males, their own offspring), and total lack of real >concern for the opinion of others. These are psychopathic traits. The point >here is that psychopathy is not a disorder because psychopaths (and their >mental characteristics) are performing exactly as they were designed by natural >selection. According to this view, psychopathy is an adaptation. >... >Our theory is that, although nonpsychopaths are capable of some criminal >behaviour under the right (wrong) circumstances, psychopaths form a distinct >subgroup of humans who use distinct life-long deception reproductive strategies >under all circumstances. > >Looks like some people around here are ahead of the curve. >"subspecimens of humanity", now theres a thought... > Nonsense. It sounds more like a play to a political audience than to a scientific one. Part of an engine for classifying dissenters and sending them to the gulags rather than a scholarly work.
>Interesting puzzle--though your handling of the drill-size issue >reminds me of a cautionary tale from my modeling and simulation class: > >Beaming Engineer 1: "You know, I've been working on this all month--I think >Ive just invented the worlds most perfect chichen plucking machine!" > >Doubtful Engineer 2: Really? > >Engineer One: Surewell, under the assumption that the chickens are perfectly >spherical. > I've seen plucking machines that worked very efficiently and the chickens were conventional, not spherical. I bet the guys who made them work were better at solving problems than those who tried and failed to bring a machine to market. >Though you're right that it's vitally important to find an elegant solution to >your problem, gotta watch out for those spherical chickens. I would have >thought the thing to do next is choose a range of actual drill bits capable of >drilling plutonium, note their properties and create a table of values by >working through the equation that way. Oh well. > > It's a geometry problem not a metal shop problem. Meant to be done in your head or on paper. Having made a couple of physical examples you've spent a great deal of money and time relative to the guy ( Anonymous ) who does it on paper and, worse, you know less when you're through. I've always preferred to work things out before I crank up the Bridgeport. Granted, real-world problems are not always neat and tidy, that makes getting the fundamentals correct even more important. Unless you think the economics are irrelevant. >~Faustine. > Mike
