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We've determined equilibrium temperatures in a simple example, so let's solve a more general example.

Jane's concerned that the enclosing plate is bigger than the heated plate. But Earth's mean radius is 6371 km, and the effective radiating level is ~7 km higher, so these surface areas are only ~0.2% different. Of course, in a thought experiment this difference can be made arbitrarily smaller. Despite Jane's protests, this doesn't change the fact that enclosing the heated plate makes it warmer.

More importantly, I treated the plates as blackbodies where absorptivity alpha = 1 and emissivity epsilon = 1. This is a reasonable approximation for plates made of carbon nanotube arrays (PDF) which have alpha = ~0.99955. But more conventional plates have alpha and epsilon considerably less than 1.

The next step is to treat the plates as graybodies where absorptivity and emissivity are independent of wavelength, so they appear gray. Kirchoff's Law states that absorptivity = emissivity for graybodies.

MIT calculates heat transfer between graybody plates using an infinite sum of emission, reflection and absorption. Using my variable names, their final expression is:

net heat flow = sigma*(T_h^4 - T_c^4)/(1/epsilon_h + 1/epsilon_c - 1) (Eq. 2)

(Again, Eq. 2 looks better in LaTeX, but hopefully this version is legible.)

At equilibrium, net heat flow equals the electrical input. Note that MIT's Eq. 2 reduces to my Eq. 1 for blackbodies where epsilon_h = epsilon_c = 1.

Suppose the plates and chamber walls are made of oxidized aluminum with emissivity = 0.11. In this case, Sage solves Eq. 2 for a constant electric input of 29.6 W/m^2, which is lower than before because aluminum doesn't radiate as well as a blackbody.

Using Eq. 2 and the same reasoning as before, fully enclosing the heated plate warms it to the same equilibrium temperature of 235F (386K). Fully exposing the plate to the cosmic microwave background radiation cools it to 13F (263K), which is lower than before because the CMBR is a blackbody and aluminum chamber walls aren't.

So even for graybody plates, MIT's mainstream physics refutes Dr. Latour's nonsensical claim that the enclosed heated plate remains at 150F. They also use this equation to explain how thermos bottles insulate drinks, and describe the same radiation shields used since at least

We've determined equilibrium temperatures in a simple example, so let's solve a more general example.

Jane's concerned that the enclosing plate is bigger than the heated plate. But Earth's mean radius is 6371 km, and the effective radiating level is ~7 km higher, so these surface areas are only ~0.2% different. Of course, in a thought experiment this difference can be made arbitrarily smaller. Despite Jane's protests, this doesn't change the fact that enclosing the heated plate makes it warmer.

More importantly, I treated the plates as blackbodies where absorptivity alpha = 1 and emissivity epsilon = 1. This is a reasonable approximation for plates made of carbon nanotube arrays (PDF) which have alpha = ~0.99955. But more conventional plates have alpha and epsilon considerably less than 1.

The next step is to treat the plates as graybodies where absorptivity and emissivity are independent of wavelength, so they appear gray. Kirchoff's Law states that absorptivity = emissivity for graybodies.

MIT calculates heat transfer between graybody plates using an infinite sum of emission, reflection and absorption. Using my variable names, their final expression is:

net heat flow = sigma*(T_h^4 - T_c^4)/(1/epsilon_h + 1/epsilon_c - 1) (Eq. 2)

(Again, Eq. 2 looks better in LaTeX, but hopefully this version is legible.)

At equilibrium, net heat flow equals the electrical input. Note that MIT's Eq. 2 reduces to my Eq. 1 for blackbodies where epsilon_h = epsilon_c = 1.

Suppose the plates and chamber walls are made of oxidized aluminum with emissivity = 0.11. In this case, Sage solves Eq. 2 for a constant electric input of 29.6 W/m^2, which is lower than before because aluminum doesn't radiate as well as a blackbody.

Using Eq. 2 and the same reasoning as before, fully enclosing the heated plate warms it to the same equilibrium temperature of 235F (386K). Fully exposing the plate to the cosmic microwave background radiation cools it to 13F (263K), which is lower than before because the CMBR is a blackbody and aluminum chamber walls aren't.

So even for graybody plates, MIT's mainstream physics refutes Dr. Latour's nonsensical claim that the enclosed heated plate remains at 150F. They also use this equation to explain how thermos bottles insulate drinks, and describe the same radiation shields used since at least

We've determined equilibrium temperatures in a simple example, so let's solve a more general example.

Jane's concerned that the enclosing plate is bigger than the heated plate. But Earth's mean radius is 6371 km, and the effective radiating level is ~7 km higher, so these surface areas are only ~0.2% different. Of course, in a thought experiment this difference can be made arbitrarily smaller. Despite Jane's protests, this doesn't change the fact that enclosing the heated plate makes it warmer.

More importantly, I treated the plates as blackbodies where absorptivity alpha = 1 and emissivity epsilon = 1. This is a reasonable approximation for plates made of carbon nanotube arrays (PDF) which have alpha = ~0.99955. But more conventional plates have alpha and epsilon considerably less than 1.

The next step is to treat the plates as graybodies where absorptivity and emissivity are independent of wavelength, so they appear gray. Kirchoff's Law states that absorptivity = emissivity for graybodies.

MIT calculates heat transfer between graybody plates using an infinite sum of emission, reflection and absorption. Using my variable names, their final expression is:

net heat flow = sigma*(T_h^4 - T_c^4)/(1/epsilon_h + 1/epsilon_c - 1) (Eq. 2)

(Again, Eq. 2 looks better in LaTeX, but hopefully this version is legible.)

At equilibrium, net heat flow equals the electrical input. Note that MIT's Eq. 2 reduces to my Eq. 1 for blackbodies where epsilon_h = epsilon_c = 1.

Suppose the plates and chamber walls are made of oxidized aluminum with emissivity = 0.11. In this case, Sage solves Eq. 2 for a constant electric input of 29.6 W/m^2, which is lower than before because aluminum doesn't radiate as well as a blackbody.

Using Eq. 2 and the same reasoning as before, fully enclosing the heated plate warms it to the same equilibrium temperature of 235F (386K). Fully exposing the plate to the cosmic microwave background radiation cools it to 13F (263K), which is lower than before because the CMBR is a blackbody and aluminum chamber walls aren't.

So even for graybody plates, MIT's mainstream physics refutes Dr. Latour's nonsensical claim that the enclosed heated plate remains at 150F. They also use this equation to explain how thermos bottles insulate drinks, and describe the same radiation shields used since at least

We've determined equilibrium temperatures in a simple example, so let's solve a more general example.

Jane's concerned that the enclosing plate is bigger than the heated plate. But Earth's mean radius is 6371 km, and the effective radiating level is ~7 km higher, so these surface areas are only ~0.2% different. Of course, in a thought experiment this difference can be made arbitrarily smaller. Despite Jane's protests, this doesn't change the fact that enclosing the heated plate makes it warmer.

More importantly, I treated the plates as blackbodies where absorptivity alpha = 1 and emissivity epsilon = 1. This is a reasonable approximation for plates made of carbon nanotube arrays (PDF) which have alpha = ~0.99955. But more conventional plates have alpha and epsilon considerably less than 1.

The next step is to treat the plates as graybodies where absorptivity and emissivity are independent of wavelength, so they appear gray. Kirchoff's Law states that absorptivity = emissivity for graybodies.

MIT calculates heat transfer between graybody plates using an infinite sum of emission, reflection and absorption. Using my variable names, their final expression is:

net heat flow = sigma*(T_h^4 - T_c^4)/(1/epsilon_h + 1/epsilon_c - 1) (Eq. 2)

(Again, Eq. 2 looks better in LaTeX, but hopefully this version is legible.)

At equilibrium, net heat flow equals the electrical input. Note that MIT's Eq. 2 reduces to my Eq. 1 for blackbodies where epsilon_h = epsilon_c = 1.

Suppose the plates and chamber walls are made of oxidized aluminum with emissivity = 0.11. In this case, Sage solves Eq. 2 for a constant electric input of 29.6 W/m^2, which is lower than before because aluminum doesn't radiate as well as a blackbody.

Using Eq. 2 and the same reasoning as before, fully enclosing the heated plate warms it to the same equilibrium temperature of 235F (386K). Fully exposing the plate to the cosmic microwave background radiation cools it to 13F (263K), which is lower than before because the CMBR is a blackbody and aluminum chamber walls aren't.

So even for graybody plates, MIT's mainstream physics refutes Dr. Latour's nonsensical claim that the enclosed heated plate remains at 150F. They also use this equation to explain how thermos bottles insulate drinks, and describe the same radiation shields used since at least

"Wheat futures for March delivery climbed 0.8 percent to $5.735 a bushel, the first gain in six sessions. On Jan. 10, the price fell to $5.605, the lowest since July 2010."

Wow, we have deflation!!!111ONEONEONE. Hmm, maybe another link?

Bad news for burrito addicts: Chipotle announced it will raise its prices for the first time in three years, by 5 percent, in response to the increase in beef, avocado and cheese prices.

Whole 5% other 3 years, that's like 1.5% of inflation each year! The sky is falling!

If you actually could follow a logical argument, you'd have checked http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/ - it tracks the actual prices. So far their numbers are in agreement with the official stats. But no, libertards prefer to live in imaginary worlds, they are too scared to actually admit that their mythology of tax cuts as a universal treatment is wrong.

A link to the paper is in the first article link. Direct link Here. They also have a GIT repo to clone, if you're interested.

now I guess python will be forced fed to people who don't want it

That seems like a silly objection. It is not practical for a teacher to let each kid choose their own language, nor are the kids knowledgeable enough to choose. I don't see any big organizations pushing Python the way that Sun was hyping Java back in the late 1990s.

At my kids' school, they start teaching programming in 4th grade, using Scratch, and move to Python in 6th grade. It seems to work well.

Parent's post is one of those that sounds nice, but is factually incorrect, so please mod it down. Many prominent biologists are supporters of eugenics. This includes the co-discoverer of DNA structure himself, the famed James D. Watson, who in recent years became more public about his support for eugenics: http://tech.mit.edu/V119/N46/4... The more you dig around (start with wiki articles on the subject), the more like him you find. Parent poster didn't do his research, preferring to post what fit his ideological preconceptions instead.

Supposedly, a way is discovered to make people forget certain things. Not far-fetched — we can already plant false memories...

I am asking the proponents of this wonderful "right to be forgotten" legislation, whether they would approve of a law, that would allow people to demand, their ex-partners be forced to undergo a procedure to make them forget of the good time the have once shared, for example.

Keep right, pass left. It's the law.

Some knowledge about multicore cache coherence here. You are completely right, Slashdot's summary does not introduce any novel idea. In fact, a cache-coherent mesh-based multicore system with one router associated to each core was presented on the market years ago by a startup from MIT, Tilera. Also, the article claims that today's cores are connected by a single shared bus -- that's far outdated, since most processors today employ some form of switched communication (an arbitrated ring, a single crossbar, a mesh of routers, etc).

What the actual ISCA paper presents is a novel mechanism to guarantee total ordering on a distributed network. Essentially, when your network is distributed (i.e., not a single shared bus, basically most current on-chip network) there are several problems with guaranteeing ordering: i) it is really hard to provide a global ordering of messages (like a bus) without making all messages cross a single centralized point which becomes a bottleneck, and ii) if you employ adaptive routing, it is impossible to provide point-to-point ordering of messages.

Coherence messages are divided in different classes in order to prevent deadlock. Depending on the coherence protocol implementation, messages of certain classes need to be delivered in order between the same pair of endpoints, and for this, some of the virtual networks can require static routing (e.g. Dimension-Ordered Routing in a mesh). Note a "virtual network" is a subset of the network resources which is used by the different classes of coherence messages to prevent deadlock. This is a remedy for the second problem. However, a network that provided global ordering would allow for potentially huge simplifications of the coherence mechanisms, since many races would disappear (the devil is in the details), and a snoopy mechanism would be possible -- as they implement. Additionally, this might also impact the consistency model. In fact, their model implements sequential consistency, which is the most restrictive -- yet simple to reason about -- consistency model.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with their research group, and in fact, I have not read the paper in detail.

Yes, as usual, the MIT press release oversells the research, while the original paper [pdf] is a bit more careful in its claims. The paper makes clear that the novel contribution isn't the idea of putting "little internets" (as the press release calls them) on a chip, but acknowledges that there is already a lot of research in the area of on-chip routing between cores. The paper's contribution is to propose a new cache coherence scheme which they claim has scalability advantages over existing schemes.

My six year old son spends a lot of time on this learning-to-code site. I think his kindergarten teacher introduced him to it. It's probably the best thing I've ever seen for teaching kids coding.

Click on a starter project. Click the green flag to run the program. Click "See Inside" to look at the code in their editor. It's visual, easy to read, and quite elegant.

It really is a completely fantastic site. Brilliantly done.

scratch.mit.edu

MIT is already working on something similar.

Like the app called SpideyApp for Android?
"ACLU + The Guardian Project"
http://codesign.mit.edu/2014/0...
http://codesign.mit.edu/2014/0...
"An Android-based Stingray detector that uses scan differentials to detect anomalous cell towers."
My guess the local network changes would be a new weak or strong local "tower"?

Like the app called SpideyApp for Android?
"ACLU + The Guardian Project"
http://codesign.mit.edu/2014/0...
http://codesign.mit.edu/2014/0...
"An Android-based Stingray detector that uses scan differentials to detect anomalous cell towers."
My guess the local network changes would be a new weak or strong local "tower"?

LOL, oh you're serious, let me laugh harder. If you think skipped courses due to AP credits reduce the number of hours needed to graduate at the vast, vast majority of schools you're mistaken. No, it will just let you skip an intro course and fill the hours requirement for your major for something a little less dull.

False.

Heck, it's even on the official AP exam website:

You can save money and get a head start on your degree when you enter college with credit youâ(TM)ve already earned through AP.

But if you're not convinced, let's look at some of the top schools in the U.S., and what they will do for a person with AP credit. Harvard says the following:

Students may be allowed to use an AP exam score (or appropriate international credential) to meet certain requirements (foreign language, introductory departmental course, etc.).

Students with a full yearâ(TM)s worth of advanced workâ"documented by AP exams, an IB diploma, or certain other international credentialsâ"may be eligible to petition for Advanced Standing. The College grants four Harvard full-course credits, the equivalent of a year of study, to those students who activate Advanced Standing.

In other words, you not only can pass out of a number of requirements, but you can also skip an entire year of college... at one of the top colleges in the U.S.

Even MIT, which is notorious for having one of the most restrictive AP policies in the U.S., will still give you credit for and let you pass out of the first semester of calculus or physics (both required of all MIT graduates) with sufficient AP scores. And you'll get unrestricted credit that can count toward miscellaneous electives you need for your degree or whatever for some other AP tests (e.g., humanities).

Bottom line: At the "vast, vast majority of schools," many AP courses WILL reduce the number of credits you need for graduation, as well as allowing you to skip intro classes.

You're right that many schools will still require you to take something else within your major to fulfill a minimum set of required credit hours. But you'll often still be able to use miscellaneous AP credits toward random electives.

Seriously -- do at least a minimum of research before you show your ignorance while wrongly making fun of somebody.

They're not anywhere near college level.

Having actually taught some high-school AP classes, I think that depends on where you're going to college. Colleges generally calibrate whether they accept AP credit and what score is required based on their curriculum.

For example, MIT's AP criteria states that they won't accept AP credit to pass out of a chemistry or biology class; to do so, you need to take MIT's own placement exam. They don't accept CS AP credit at all. And for calculus and physics, they basically require you to get a 5 on the hardest possible AP versions of those tests to get any credit. But much of MIT's basic undergrad curriculum goes as much as twice as fast as a typical college.

Most colleges, on the other hand, will give you a semester of college credit for almost all those subjects if you get a 4 or 5. (For comparison, here are the requirements for the University of Massachusetts. And this is still a fairly decent school, as state universities go.) Some might even give credit (or partial credit) for a 3.

I completely agree with you that some of the AP curriculum is crap. (For example, the AP E&M physics C test is ridiculously oversimplified compared to what a real college student with calculus should be able to do. On the other hand, the mechanics test for physics C isn't bad -- it's been dumbed down a bit over the past couple decades, but it can still have some reasonable questions.)

But the reality is that the AP credit *IS* roughly equivalent to the curriculum at many colleges. If it wasn't, colleges wouldn't give credit and advanced standing for AP scores.

The original paper has examples where such a DRM-based system has some legitimate usages. One was for patient data. If you want to eliminate special client software there, you can have this system, and run everything on the browser. The system abstracts and standardizes the access control, which is hopefully already present, and helps to close holes in the implementation. For intranets the model perfectly makes sense, however deployment into the wild wide web is of course extremely harmful.

Media people didn't alter the story, as the paper already contained discussion about www deployment, but only picked the bullshit non-intratnet-web part.

It actually sounds like a "Schema Architecture" that Arkins proposed in 1998 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catego.... You can implement it in about 10 lines of python because it's just that: the sum of attractive (goals) and repelling (obstacles) force vectors, weighted by the inverse of the distance squared. I was surprised OP didn't mention the Schema architecture, because it is exactly that, and since it sounds like a (simulated) robot game...

Your paper on newborn looking is really interesting. I build robotic models of the early visuo-motor system and am super interested in neonates but it's extremely hard to get any data from them and so I pretty much don't have any data from less than 8 weeks, which is really unfortunate.

Spidey is a stingray detector app developed by the ACLU and MIT. This page is a page to get notified when it goes live. The source code is on GitHub. It works by comparing the towers you can see at any given moment against what you've seen before and data from the OpenCellID Project.

Who watches the watchers? I do.

Seriously,

Show me the lines of the traffic code that require slower people to move to the right side.

Ask, and you shall receive.

Show me the lines of the traffic code that require slower people to move to the right side.

Here you go

Way ahead of you.

Demand the unlawful order in writing and signed by the bastard in charge.

In the meantime check out Spidey.

http://livingwage.mit.edu/plac... For 1 adult it says the living wage is $9.64 in Seattle Washington...?

Before the media hijacked the term "hacking" as "destructive intrusion" it meant "curious intrusion." Hackers are curious people who just want to know how a system works.

Technically the definition is

1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}.
4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.
8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term is {cracker}.

I started hacking because:

a) I wanted to crack copy protected games, which involved learning 6502 assembly, and
b) I wanted to figure out how the games worked -- how was the map represented, were were the sprites, how did the AI work, how did the collision detection work, where was the music stored. By learning how to cheat at them I didn't have to waste my time trying to master them; I would have more time to tear apart more games. Often times it was more fun to reverse engineer the game then play the game itself.

Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!

You could certainly run a regular aluminum smelter using solar panels or a wind farm. It's just electricity.

There are better options for smelting with solar power though:

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2012...

http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.h...

So, I've followed the notes on MIT's courseware up to this (first formula on page 3), and it seems that my "intuitive" test formula is correct apart of the fact that I am summing SDs instead of variances, which will account for a factor \sqrt{2} at most if I am not mistaken. Is that it? Or the fact that statistical significance \neq practical significance (which I was never claiming in the first place)?

I'd go for the classic medium and I want to get better SICP.

Online course: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ele...

Online book + problems +... http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

This book more than any other will take your programming to a new level.

I'd go for the classic medium and I want to get better SICP.

Online course: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ele...

Online book + problems +... http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

This book more than any other will take your programming to a new level.

They should try that with economics. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one, they could end up classifying it as a humanities subject.

I won't miss OpenSSL and that tiny ragtag team of developers, the OpenSSL Eight, as impressive as their work is for such a tiny crew. And I'm only responding because I don't see anyone complaing about ssh, and it is dear to my heart, too, but maybe its time for a change ... becuase now there is mosh..

Ob. quote from Real Programmers.

"Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies."

Of course, it also says this about BASIC :-)

"Real Programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC, after the age of 12."

2003 MIT study stated than two new reactors would have to start operating somewhere in the world every month over next 50 years to displace a significant amount of carbon-emitting fossil-fuel generation.pdf: http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpowe...

Not happening, becasue it is a bad business deal. Jeremy Rifkin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... 1. 6% of world energy, needs to be 20%. So replace existing 400, build 1600. 1 every 10 days for 40 years. 2. Waste? No solution 3. uranium deficits by 2025-2035 4. recycle to Plutonium, big risk 5. Water. 40% of French water goes to cooling nukes. Technology moving to distributed, collaborative and lateral scaling. Out: Siemans, Germany, Italy, Japan, Not a good business deal.

Already running gadgets at San Onfre, Crystal River and Now Vermont Yankees are shut/shutting down, for economic reasons.

Sure:

http://www.irpa.net/irpa9/cdrom/VOL.1/V1_46.PDF

http://www.techmetalsresearch.com/2011/03/the-issue-of-residual-thorium-uranium-from-rare-earth-ore-processing/

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/why-safe-nuclear-will-rely-on-rare-earth-minerals/

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks/2614/

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp147-c4.pdf

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2011/06/29/the-future-of-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/disposal.html

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/disposal.html

Sure:

http://www.irpa.net/irpa9/cdrom/VOL.1/V1_46.PDF

http://www.techmetalsresearch.com/2011/03/the-issue-of-residual-thorium-uranium-from-rare-earth-ore-processing/

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/why-safe-nuclear-will-rely-on-rare-earth-minerals/

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks/2614/

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp147-c4.pdf

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2011/06/29/the-future-of-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/disposal.html

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/disposal.html

Maybe some of those events were earthquakes.

Implying that you think that seismologists are incompetent.

Seismologists have been doing this since the early 1950s. It isn't rocket science, and it is comprehensively automated. If the NTBTO thinks they're airbursts, not earthquakes, then it's very likely that they're airbursts, not earthquakes.

One of the characteristics that is used to differentiate an airburst (or other large explosion) from an earthquake is the distribution of first motions. For an explosion, all detecting stations will have a first motion away from the epicentre (or hypocentre). For an earthquake though, in one quadrant you'll have "forward" motion, in the next quadrant "away" motion, then forward, then away again. Page 4 of this PDF gives you a diagram. Getting your head around the resulting "beach ball" diagrams is an early part of your introduction to seismology course, if you go into geology.

Perhaps there is a Slashdot article generator equivalent to SCIgen? Just take a look at Bennett's latest work.

Perhaps there is a Slashdot article generator equivalent to SCIgen? Just take a look at Bennett's latest work.

The problem was, originally, that the CPU itself did not have an NX bit

It doesn't need one, if a system actually implements protection according to the spec. Check http://www.intel.com/Assets/en... , section 3.4.5.1. (Page 3-16, vol. 3A). If you're still in doubt, check the original 80386 manual, http://css.csail.mit.edu/6.858... (page 109).

because you could *read* program code and why would you want to do that except to execute it

Well, read and execute are two separate permissions even on unix systems :) (eg. you cannot read a file, but you can order the system to execute it). There is a whole range of applications for read-only buffers, not only for execution, specially if eg. my application deals with DMA transfers. On modern PCI Express systems, this makes even more sense.

Yes, and in 2001 no x86 CPUs were physically capable in hardware of marking executability in the LDT.

I actually find that quite hard to believe. The LDT was introduced with the 80286, in 1981. If you check both manuals I mentioned, you'll find indication that you cannot store a TSS in the LDT and some other special descriptor types. Not code/data ones. That would actually *void* the initial purpose of the LDT, which was providing a poor man's protection mechanism without a paging system. My memory isn't what it used to be, and sometimes I do get some things wrong. It happens. But I've spent over 10 years programming mainly in x86 assembly (covering the end of the 90's), and - while I may not recall all the specifics, I still remember some stuff . The drawbacks of using LDTs have more to do with memory consumption and system complexity than anything else. If you have information that support your claim, please share :)

(Link heavy...) I think you got the wrong end of the stick, there.

Some studies have been done that show a minimum 30% penetration is possible for *any* region (and this one stopped their modeling at 30%, so its likely higher)...
http://www.renewableenergyworl...

An earlier study from Europe (no link at moment) put the figure around 40%.

Another US study comes in around 45%...
http://arstechnica.com/science...

UK study comes in at >90%...
http://www.gizmag.com/uk-natio...

German study comes in at 100%...
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
More on this...
http://www.renewablesinternati...

Some of these show cost savings from adding renewables, another one showed costs rising about 10-15%.

Iowa already got over 25% of power from renewables in 2013; not sure about the mix but I don't recall hydro being a big player there. The state has set a 40% target for 2015!

As for diverse power generation, that is a good rule of thumb, however the non-renewable generators cannot continue to operate in the long-term and nuclear in particular is even worse than variable renewables as the latter has a large correlation with demand curves. Anyone scanning the field for the past few years, however, is getting the idea that a diversity of storage will be at least as important. And there are a LOT of different options. The state of the art in this field has moved completely beyond the 1990s consensus that your post is predicated on.

Hydropower operating permits are up: http://grist.org/news/america-...

In Germany, they have closed a deal with Norway which has vast hydropower resources.

Batteries are considered the least economic storage solution, but I suggest you google "flow batteries". Here are some examples other storage types:

Zynth batteries
http://www.eosenergystorage.co...

Battery EV storage pilot in US
http://www.latimes.com/busines...

Ice bears (cold storage for hot nights)
http://www.renewgridmag.com/e1...

Undersea pumped hydro (you read that right)
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/...

Power-to-gas
http://www.nasdaq.com/press-re...

Molten salt
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energ...

Plenty of these have already happened.

Western Governor's University and Excelsior (both non-profit) are the best online options, especially if you want self-paced. They are both very cost-effective and regionally accredited. You should check out the details of the programs that each offers to see if they provide what you want. I know WGU's IT programs are very solid, but I'm not sure about their software development options. I know they just recently added a Software Development concentration option for a Bachelor's degree, but the program guide hasn't been posted yet so I'm not sure of the exact courses offered.

If you end up getting your bachelor's, Georgia Tech now offers their well-respected MS in CS degree online. The admissions requirements are stricter than the online-only schools, but not too onerous.

If you don't really want a degree, but would like some formal training, Stanford and MIT both have strong no-credit open course ware offerings - they also have paid-for online certificate programs.

The distinction that P algorithms are "efficient" and NP algorithms are "inefficient" is merely a convention of complexity theorists. You could easily draw the dividing line further in or out depending on your purposes. That makes me wonder what constitutes their assumption that this particular P/NP type "efficency" is necessary for a macroscopic Schrodinger algorithm.

It's possible that Republican anti-science positions are worse in some ways, but Scientific American and MIT acknowledge that the problem is not limited to Republicans.

I'm 'claiming' to see strong parallels here with those who can't allow others to just live their lives the way they want, all the while not harming YOU at all.

no doubt at all that this is the same exact thing as women's rights and racial rights. no difference at all. how could it? how could you defend your position that this is, somehow, 'not the same' as these long-ago fought for and won rights?

btw, the only ones who don't want to see equal rights are those that were told 'god hates gays'. there is just NO other reason. can you state an intelligent reason why you think that person A marrying person B (and you are not A or B) at all affects YOUR life? why do you insist on telling others what they can do with their lives? its none of your damned business.

there are no reasons other than 'god'. if you have any, spill the beans now or just shut the fuck up.

You've come this far without ever encountering a non-religious argument against gay marriage? I'll assume you're not trolling and take your claim at face value.

There are lots of arguments, and a google search for "secular opposition to gay marriage" will yield many results. The short answer is that the state has no compelling interest in sanctioning gay marriage, it affects society in a significant way, and since I'm a part of society, it affects me. I encourage you to read this column. It lays out the arguments in a clear and concise way.

Gay marriage is totally unrelated to suffrage, and comparisons to interracial marriage don't quite work (for the reasons laid out in the above article).

And let me just say as a religious person, "God says so" is NEVER a sufficient reason for legislation.

If you really needed the shale oil and you didn't have fossil fuels to do the extraction you could run the extraction process using a nuclear plant.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/...

The last of these ideas would locate a nuclear plant near a deposit of oil shale -- a type of deposit, technically known as kerogen, that has not been used to date as a source of petroleum. Heated steam from a nuclear plant, in enclosed pipes, heats the shale; the resulting oil can be pumped out by conventional means.

At first glance, that might sound like a "dirty" solution, enabling the use of more carbon-emitting fuel. But Forsberg suggests that it's quite the opposite: "When you heat it up, it decomposes into a very nice light crude oil, and natural gas, and char," he explains. The char -- the tarlike residue that needs to be refined out from heavy crude oils -- stays underground, he says.

Today, the heating of the rock is usually accomplished by burning fossil fuels, making the process less efficient. That's where the excess heat from a nuclear plant comes in: By coupling the plant's steam output with a shale-oil well, the oil can be recovered without generating extra emissions. The process also does not need regular heat input: The nuclear plant can operate at a steady rate, providing electricity to the grid when needed, and heating oil shale at times of low electricity demand. This enables the nuclear plant to replace the burning of fossil fuels in producing electricity, further reducing the release of greenhouse gas.

The world's largest oil-shale deposits are concentrated in the western United States. "We lucked out," Forsberg says. "This has the lowest carbon footprint of any source of liquid fossil fuel."

The resource that could be unlocked is enormous, he says: "Some of these deposits would yield a million barrels per acre. There's no place else on Earth like it."

Actually you could view the current extraction process as being a sort of pump priming - right now fossil fuels are used to run things. Counter intuitively it becomes more economic when fossil fuel prices are high. Now if fossil fuel prices fell you could imagine using a nuclear plant to supply the heat. Or, if fossil fuels became unavailable - e.g. due to a major war in the Middle East - you could use nuclear too. Once people have started to make money out of extracting shale oil the odds are they will use that money to stay in business.

It seems like if you could use the waste heat from a reactor to extract oil you can get even better energy efficiency than merely using the heat to generate steam to generate electricity. Also thorium means that we're not in any danger of running out of fuel for nuclear reactors.