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Yes sir!

And soon a Facebook account will be also required to get a work permit, one room apartment, and exit visa.

Why? It is Darwin time. Let the fittest survive and the first to die to get a unit in her name, according to the old custom.

Here is a map of intelligent civilizations who have successfully reproduced (by experiment in the laboratory) the conditions for creating Gamma Ray Bursts. No one knows whether this map is up to date or even functional because it requires the installation of Microsoft Silverlight, which is only used by Netflix users who would rather watch movies than ping the dying remnants of failed civilizations. Our knowledge of Gamma Ray Bursts is incomplete because astrophysicists have devoted far more time to avoiding Silverlight, which they consider to be a greater danger to life here on Earth.

Here is the list of successful lab experiments observed to date. Due to obvious Y2K errors in the naming convention of GRBs attempts to collate this data over the centuries have been unsuccessful, leading to time paradoxes and fistfights.

The light curves of GRB events ech contain a complex pulse-coded message placed there by the Grand Architect that says in effect, "Whatever you do... don't do this." While the signals have not been decoded, their diversity suggests that there are a number of things that one just should not do. Except for plot on the bottom right which cannot be right, I did that in High School.

Because the characteristics of celestial GRBs mimic the explosion of fission bombs, these bursts are Nature's Way to push paranoid little civilizations over the edge to go full-out on one another during nuclear adolescence. There is a reality show out there that showcases one of these every week with a laugh track dropped in at every retaliatory response, rousing applause at the end.

Let me check, maybe it's on Netflix...

Science-fiction comes true. Sort of. Jack London (better known for "The Call of the Wild") published a story in 1903 entitled "The Shadow and the Flash," online here. The plot in part turns on the concept of a perfectly black pigment. It is a good story--much better than you'd guess from a summary. As to the optics London was either confused or exercising creative license:

"'Color is a sensation," he was saying.... 'Without light, we can see neither colors nor objects themselves. All objects are black in the dark, and in the dark it is impossible to see them. If no light strikes upon them, then no light is flung back from them to the eye, and so we have no vision-evidence of their being.' "But we see black objects in daylight," I objected. 'Very true,' he went on warmly. 'And that is because they are not perfectly black. Were they perfectly black, absolutely black, as it were, we could not see them ... with the right pigments, properly compounded, an absolutely black paint could be produced which would render invisible whatever it was applied to.'"

Uh, no. But it sounds plausible. Wonderful descriptive touches: "When you are near me I have feelings similar to those produced by dank warehouses, gloomy crypts, and deep mines. And as sailors feel the loom of the land on dark nights, so I think I feel the loom of your body."

Two brothers who feel sibling rivalry to a homicidal degree, are both amateur scientists with private laboratories. (Well, OF COURSE they are, who isn't?) They decide to seek the secret of invisibility, one by developing a perfectly black pigment, the other by becoming perfectly transparent. Both methods are flawed. The title refers to the flaws. The brother who paints himself with perfectly black paint, unfortunately, still casts a shadow. The brother who becomes transparent, apparently does not refract light but does disperse it (???), so intermittently evokes bright rainbow-colored flashes.

It is a much better story than it sounds from that description.

ob. The Far Side reference

No. during the age of the dinosaurs, Canada was pretty much exactly where it is today. Yes, it was A LOT WARMER (as in tropical) but as you note, the atmosphere had more carbon back then. Here'sa map of da woild for ya, ca. 100Mya

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/f/...

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson.

Tuition has gone up. In California, home of the free public university, tuition is $3,500 per semester or $7000 per year for a lesser-known, low-demand university. Add $1,000 per year for books and we're seeing a minimum cost of $32,000 for a four-year degree. A better public university will be more expensive with the higher demand. Someone who wants to learn the subject and go to to a research university may be paying twice as much, $60,000+, not counting housing costs.

The university claims its own costs are $15,000 per student per year. If the state were not subsidizing the cost of education, a four-year degree would cost $60,000 assuming that a student could get into all the needed classes and get out in four years.

A student going to a private university can expect to pay even more.

Then there is the cost of housing. This will run students another $9,000-$11,000 per year to rent a dorm; the cheap university is now costing close to $20,000 per year. Renting a house instead of a dorm will run to $20,000-$30,000 per year ($1,600-$2,500 per month), not including utilities, but it can be split between housemates.

Total costs can be kept lower by going to a community college for the first two years and for the standard young adult "what do I want to major in" phase.

A four-year degree at an in-state school should not cost more than $15-20,000 including fees. If you went $60k into debt for school, consider that a $40-45k math lesson.

Tuition has gone up. In California, home of the free public university, tuition is $3,500 per semester or $7000 per year for a lesser-known, low-demand university. Add $1,000 per year for books and we're seeing a minimum cost of $32,000 for a four-year degree. A better public university will be more expensive with the higher demand. Someone who wants to learn the subject and go to to a research university may be paying twice as much, $60,000+, not counting housing costs.

The university claims its own costs are $15,000 per student per year. If the state were not subsidizing the cost of education, a four-year degree would cost $60,000 assuming that a student could get into all the needed classes and get out in four years.

A student going to a private university can expect to pay even more.

Then there is the cost of housing. This will run students another $9,000-$11,000 per year to rent a dorm; the cheap university is now costing close to $20,000 per year. Renting a house instead of a dorm will run to $20,000-$30,000 per year ($1,600-$2,500 per month), not including utilities, but it can be split between housemates.

Total costs can be kept lower by going to a community college for the first two years and for the standard young adult "what do I want to major in" phase.

Now I wish I had a better spell chequer than a teacher shouting at me when I was growing up.

I have to ask - was that intentional?

Sadly, yes. See: http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/SpellingChequer.html

The usual reply:

                I halve a spelling chequer
                It came with my pea sea
                It plane lee marques four my revue
                Miss steaks aye ken knot sea

                Eye ran this poem threw it
                Your sure reel glad two no
                It's vary polished in it's weigh
                My chequer tolled me sew

                A chequer is a bless sing
                It freeze yew lodes of thyme
                It helps me awl stiles two reed
                And aides mi when aye rime

                To rite with care is quite a feet
                Of witch won should be proud
                And wee mussed dew the best wee can
                Sew flaws are knot aloud

                And now bee cause my spelling
                is checked with such grate flare
                Their are know faults with in my cite
                Of nun eye am a wear

                Each frays come posed up on my screen
                Eye trussed to be a joule
                The chequer poured o'er every word
                To cheque sum spelling rule

                That's why aye brake in two averse
                My righting wants too pleas
                Sow now ewe sea wye aye dew prays
                Such soft wear for pea seas

It's called bias. Yes, they are fine instruments, no doubt, about the best there is, no doubt. But can you detect a Stradivarius without knowing it is one? And telling it apart from a Guarnerius or Amati? Or even a good quality modern instrument?

Thee and me, probably not.

According to this:

A common question: In a blind test, could a nonmusician or "uneducated" listener tell the difference between a Stradivarius and some other violin? The answer is that it depends. If the other violin, whether old or modern, were an excellent one by a fine maker, the differences might not be readily apparent. But in a direct, side-by-side comparison of a great Stradivarius with a commercially produced instrument -- or even with a handcrafted violin that was merely very good -- the differences would be absolutely clear, even to the most inexperienced listener.

I think some people probably could tell.

Cheers

The science-fiction story that's really appropriate here is Jack London's story, The Shadow and the Flash. The "science" is cockamamie, but it's amusing anyway.

Two bitterly competitive rivals both seek a means of becoming invisible.

One of them believes (incorrectly) that if he can find a perfectly black substance (now available!) and coat himself with it, he will become invisible. The other thinks that it should not be too hard to make his body perfectly transparent.

In the story, both methods succeed, but both have a flaw. The black-coated brother still casts a shadow, and when he is around, you can't see him but you nevertheless feel a mysterious "sudden cold chill, reminding me of deep mines and gloomy crypts. The transparent brother evokes rainbow-colored flashes when the light hits him at the right angle.

Read it--the full text, online, is linked above--it's a stitch...

Nobody is forcing people to work there, if the company wants to require employees be tagged with RFID there shouldn't be a problem with that because the potential employee has a choice.

wise words, brother. But I'm not sure this kind of technology will go over well, wouldn't it be easier just to give them one of these.. they look cooler too.

Project Censored, anyone? They are headquartered at Sonoma State University, in Northern California.

despite the difficulties of access

You don't necessarily need to be at the telescope to control the telescope.

I am sure that all have read this poem on the subject, or complained of the misuse of homonyms (they're / there / their) or apostrophes (it's / its), but it goes further than that. An example of a common misuse is "loose" for "lose", or "then" for "than".

My problem with it is that it slows my reading speed down and ofttimes, my comprehension as well. I have to reread and think "the what the hell do they mean there?" I'd prefer that people simply misspelled things to using the wrong "right" word.

Hahaha, I haven't heard the term flat-earthers. I do believe the whole Genesis Bible account, the big bang just happens to allow it and Genesis to be right. This is an interesting link for the flat-earthers reference http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/observatory/erato sthenes/. I still like the term used for those who refuse to believe in proven science though. On the age of the earth I'm still not sure between old and new. Yes the dating techs used could be wrong and science has shown that. But it doesn't mean the earth couldn't be really old. I'm just not sure and until a full proof dating tech is found no one can know. Unless you know of one that I haven't read about. That is very possible to. I'm definitely not an authority on the matter. But in this case there is still debate on both sides of the issue. And on both sides there are those that are open minded and those that are closed minded. We'll just have to wait out the science. I'm still reading different articles so that I can come to a informed opinion on the subject.

Not sure either of these are it, but:
http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/te nn/SpellingChequer.html http://www.writersbbs.com/html/FishEggs/katie-anne 2.html

A thousand ergs here or there didn't seem like much, so I googled for a definition, and one erg is almost literally one fleapower:

It has been suggested that 1 erg is approximately the amount of energy required for a mosquito to take off. (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_g ci789813,00.html)

Quoting parent's quote of the linked page:

To get an idea of how much energy 1053 ergs really is, our Sun puts out about 1033 ergs each second.

Well that's what, about a two percent increase over the Sun's output? Wait a second, The Sun only puts out a thousand fleapower???

Quoting the actual linked-to webpage http://swift.sonoma.edu/about_swift/grbs.html:

To get an idea of how much energy 10^53 ergs really is, our Sun puts out about 10^33 ergs each second.

OH! That's Ten to the power of 33, not a thousand and thirty three for the Sun's output. And the GRB puts out Ten to the 53rd power ergs, or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as much as the Sun, for its few seconds of glory.

Oh well, no big deal, what's twenty orders of magnitude between friends?

For the people asking about "haven't these things been detected before?:

This was an optical afterglow from a "very short duration" GRB.

Optical afterglows from OTHER, longer duration GRBs (e.g. GRB000630) HAVE been detected.

There are different types of GRBs, and this is the first time people detected an optical afterglow of this type. Here's some on this (cf. SWIFT):

* There are two classes of GRB: those that last less than about 2 seconds, and those that last longer than about 2 seconds
* The long bursts occur at cosmological distances; while distances of the short bursts have not been measured
* Given the distance of the long bursts, they must put out about 1053 ergs of energy (if they emit energy equally in all directions)

To get an idea of how much energy 1053 ergs really is, our Sun puts out about 1033 ergs each second. It would take our Sun, then, 880 billion years to put out the same energy as a GRB! For perspective, our Sun will only live to be about 10 billion years, and our Universe is only about 12 billion years old.

Putting the facts together, astrophysicists have narrowed the field to two promising theories for the origin of GRBs: neutron star/neutron star mergers and hypernovae. The truth may lie between these two theories somewhere -- for example, the long bursts may be from hypernovae while the short bursts are from neutron star/neutron star mergers. However, it may also be that GRBs originate from something that astronomers haven't considered yet.

Neutron Star/Neutron Star Merger:

As two neutron stars orbit each other, they lose rotational energy to gravitational energy, thus decaying their orbit. (Actually, the orbit of any two bodies decays, but in the case of two neutron stars, it occurs much faster than it would in, say, the Earth-Moon or Sun-Earth system.) Eventually the two neutron stars will collide, forming a black hole and possibly radiating a large amount of energy.

Hypernovae:

At the end of a massive star's life (mass greater than about 10 Suns), it dies spectacularly in a supernova explosion, leaving behind a neutron star or black hole. Astronomers have known about supernovae for quite some time. However, if the star is very massive (mass greater than about 40 Suns) the collapse may appear different from a supernova, with an energy output greater than a regular supernova by about 100 times. Such large explosions are called hypernovae, and could be the source of at least some GRBs.

...try cleaning up what they can of the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium...

Man am I sick of this depleted uranium FUD. 1st and foremost, depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Background radiation is stronger! Not only that, it is an alpha emitter. Alpha particles cannot penetrate the skin. You'd have to ingest it to affect your DNA or give you radiation sickness.

Sounds like you need a little remedial nuclear chem. Try this page:

Radiation

Please take note of this (it's stated more than once on this page): " c. Alpha rays are so big and charged that they don't penetrate the skin"

So explain this. If the images we see of the Andromeda galaxy left the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million years ago, please explain how the earth can only be 6,000/4,500/whatever-dubious-number-creationists-a ssign-to-it years old? Or did God create the Andromeda galaxy and sit on his keister for "a day" before creating the Earth? Or do you also not believe in the speed of light?

Clicking the Swift Brochure link to a PDF (or the text only link right below it) on the main page cited above takes you to texts which state:

"Swift is built to be agile, to swiftly turn and point its instruments at the burst and relay burst locations within seconds. No satellite turns faster. Swift, in fact, is not an acronym; it is named for the small, nimble bird."

The first page of the PDF is actually an artsy image of the satellite superimposed with a swift.

If a company sells you software that consistently fails to perform as advertised or documented, you're perfectly well able to assess that company as selling poor-quality software even though you're not a programmer.

If you go to a vegetable stand where the produce for sale is smaller than average, tasteless or rotten you can assess that produce as not worth your money even though you're not a farmer.

If you pick your car up from the mechanic and the part he just replaced falls off during the drive home, you can assess that mechanic's work as substandard even though you're not a mechanic yourself.

And if journalists consistently publish as "facts" statements which I know to be false, I am perfectly well-able to assess the work of those journalists as shoddy. So get off your damn high horse. There's nothing abstruse or holy about journalism that renders it immune to simple evaluations of truth or falsehood.

Oh, and that small-town reporter I mentioned before? His name is Neal Ross. I didn't mention his award winning investigative series on abuses at a center for the developmentally disabled. I do so now only to prove to you that he's bona fide. His journalistic education? None whatsoever. His experience before joining the paper? He played a 19th-century London reporter at a Dickens Christmas Faire in San Francisco.

1) quite possibly. Jury is still out.

2) No. Big bang is still the best bet and universe definitely appears to be finite (which doesn't mean there is a boundary or edge, just that it doesn't go on forever).

3) Yes, space curves back on itself. That is the only way to have a boundless finite universe.

References:

Physics 110 cosmology FAQ

No Edge, No Centre

Will better images ever show the edge of the universe?

How old is the universe? Finite or infinite? Have an edge?

I always have wondered what it would be like if the ARS system at Sonoma State got slashdotted.

I can just imagine thousands of books pouring into the front circulation desk via the nifty little book mover thingy that zips them around, and them having no idea where to put them all until the people come to pick them up.
</evil_laugh>

Website probably won't get slashdotted, it's actually housed at the university I go to (as it is a university program), and the evaluator of the IT story is actually one of my old professors.

-Steve

> Marin Civic Center. designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and featured in the movie Gataca (sp?). very cool architecture indeed. plus they have a great library with a dome cieling on the top floor.

on the Marin / Sonoma area:

Not sure about that movie, but it was in THX 1138.

Quickie Marin Fact: Ethernet cable used to run under the intersection of Kerner & Bellam Boulevards in San Rafael, linking (in the 80's) Pixar and ILM.

And might as well meet one of the NoCat folks up near Sebastopol & Santa Rosa, to get them to explain how they've used all sorts of elevation mapping to bounce Wifi access up into canyons and off of high points that are *miles* away.

Oh, and go to the Sonoma State University Library, to see the HUGE robotic book retrieval system

Indeed, entropy rules, especially in the long run.

That 32 liters of water will eventually evaporate and rain down as potable water again.

The rest of the ingredients will eventually randomize into something quite like the rocks they were refined from.

In the short run, we have people who may be harmed by the waste, and people who will be helped by having a job building the devices, or cleaning up after them.

We may lose some things that are hard to replace, such as certain species, or people we care about.

One proposed solution is to try to account for the actual costs of things, and make sure that the buyers of a product are charged for the harm it does. That way the marketplace will ensure that we buy things based on the true costs. The crisis of the commons is at work here.

I don't know if such a scheme can be made to work. What we usually see is the opposite -- subsidizing oil instead of renewables. It's hard to get someone to pay for trash removal when it is so easy to throw the stuff in someone else's yard.

on Google for web radio stations and college radio stations. If you want new music: that's where it's at.

A crap load of new music everyday...

It's getting harder to do this now, especially with some credit card companies. Some of the envelopes now have a customer (wouldn't that be harrassee?) locator code with a barcode and threatening message printed on the back of the envelope. Take a look, I scanned one of them in. Sure, there are ways around it, but still.

Since I'm not familiar with radio, I have no idea of the implications of this bit of news:

FCC Moves to Privatize Airwaves (from the Sonoma State U Project Censored Top 25 Most Under-Covered News Stories)

Let's be honest, Christianity and Judaism haven't been as bad to us as many seem to think. (...)

An important thing is to note that both these religion are "relatively mature". (Hold on that flamethrower for a while as I explain)

Islam was born circa 632 AD and spread relatively far and would probably have done so in the European kingdoms if Martel didn't defeat the muslim forces at Poitiers (732 AD)

It was at this time that the Europe was plunged in the Dark Age and immobilism by the Catholic Church (a bout or two of plague didn't help, too)

The Dark Age lasted for more than 1,000 years before being dispelled by the Age of Reason and Enlightenment (Le siècle des lumières).

It then took about 200 years to reach a "relative maturity" where the religious institutions now have to answer for their actions.

Islam splintered and entered itself its Dark Age about 200 years after Christianism.(See Sh'ia and Sunnism, among other events)

My motion is that Islam is "a bit late" (200 years). Maybe, we are seeing the last spasms of radical Islamism and we'll see dramatic improvements in important areas (women's rights, religious tolerance, etc)

Disclaimers:

• I type this in a hurry. You're welcome to do your own research.
• Women rights: catholics were much worse than current muslims extremists.
• While I'm catholic, I don't recognize the Vatican (and, given the current scandals, probably never will)

Let's be honest, Christianity and Judaism haven't been as bad to us as many seem to think. (...)

An important thing is to note that both these religion are "relatively mature". (Hold on that flamethrower for a while as I explain)

Islam was born circa 632 AD and spread relatively far and would probably have done so in the European kingdoms if Martel didn't defeat the muslim forces at Poitiers (732 AD)

It was at this time that the Europe was plunged in the Dark Age and immobilism by the Catholic Church (a bout or two of plague didn't help, too)

The Dark Age lasted for more than 1,000 years before being dispelled by the Age of Reason and Enlightenment (Le siècle des lumières).

It then took about 200 years to reach a "relative maturity" where the religious institutions now have to answer for their actions.

Islam splintered and entered itself its Dark Age about 200 years after Christianism.(See Sh'ia and Sunnism, among other events)

My motion is that Islam is "a bit late" (200 years). Maybe, we are seeing the last spasms of radical Islamism and we'll see dramatic improvements in important areas (women's rights, religious tolerance, etc)

Disclaimers:

• I type this in a hurry. You're welcome to do your own research.
• Women rights: catholics were much worse than current muslims extremists.
• While I'm catholic, I don't recognize the Vatican (and, given the current scandals, probably never will)

Sounds like my campus, but we got screwed two ways. Our campus is small, and it had a weak signal, so weak that it couldn't even reach all of campus. So what does the FCC do? They shut it done. Might cause interference you know. Now Live365, who KSUN was streaming through is having problems. Now this. So long KSUN. I always thought our greedy school administration would take you out long after I graduated.

There was an article in the August 2000 Sky and Telescope mag about Automated Asteroid Hunting.

Here's the blurb from the online index:

Automatic Asteroid Hunting
Off-the-shelf software can help your telescope and computer do all the work of looking for minor planets.
COMPUTERS IN ASTRONOMY | By Jeff Medkeff

Here are other links:

software for telescope control

more links to robotic scopes

We would have used it for Swift instead of the previous generation's RAD6000 If it had been available earlier.

here

As per usual, I will point you all to Project censored.

Think your media is anything close to independant? Think it's giving you a good idea of what's going on in your country?

Think again.

Freedom of the Press?

I don't think you realize just how not free the US media is. Check out Project Censored here

If you think Canada lacks Freedom of Press, it's obvious you've never heard of the CBC, an insitution with far more freedom and far more honesty than anything public or private that exists in the US.

"They" are large corporations wielding the power to censor in the form of advertising dollars. Commercial news outlets receive the overwhelming majority of their funding from advertsing. It isn't even necessary for advertisers to make explicit threats. Editors and publishers water down or outright kill stories that reflect unfavorably on large advertisers. As publishers and broadcasters merge and are bought by corporations, news critical of corporations and their interests disappears. Disney now owns ABC. And who is the MS in MS-NBC? It's enough to make one paranoid!

For the top ten censored news stories, see Project Censored

A journalist who throws out a story for mass peer review still retains the right and responsibility to determine what to do about all those unfavorable responses. Slashdotters did not decide the fate of the original Jane's report, Jane's did.

" The Progressive" ran an expose about taser weapons like this (the direct-contact kind) back in November of 1997... it's not available online, but you can find a summary as #5 on this page.