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• For me, making the telescope was all about the experience of learning & having a project -- not saving money. I believe I could've bought a better telescope for less money than I spent on making mine (not including the cost of time spent).
• The plans are quite good and complete -- though I still had to improvise quite a bit when I didn't have exactly the same materials. However, improvising turned out to be some of the most fun, since it was problem-solving.
• On a more technical note, one of my improvisations forced me to place the secondary mirror closer to the main mirror than it really should have been, therefore I lost about 3/4" of the main mirror. This is something to be aware of. This was mostly due to my naivete, and the plans don't really mention this issue. When placing the secondary mirror, take time to really consider your main mirror, focal length, and *the size of your secondary mirror*.
• The mirror collimation design (3 bolts on a board) works really well, I think, for how simple the design is.
• I bought my mirrors from E-scopes, and was happy with them. I bought teflon from Rob Teeter at Teeter's Telescopes, and I recommend them.
• The tube can be had from a local construction surplus store -- it's called Sonotube (brand name) in the industry, and it's used to pour concrete pillars. I was afraid that 1/8"-thick would be too thin, and I considered going with 1/4", but 1/8" turned out to be fine (and much lighter).
• I'm extremely happy with my telescope, and while it isn't perfect, I had so much fun making it, and it's so easy to use. I had no sooner finished it than I wanted to make a larger one. :)
• Here are 6 pictures taken of the moon with this telescope (just holding my camera up to the eyepiece with my hand): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Good luck, and have fun!

• For me, making the telescope was all about the experience of learning & having a project -- not saving money. I believe I could've bought a better telescope for less money than I spent on making mine (not including the cost of time spent).
• The plans are quite good and complete -- though I still had to improvise quite a bit when I didn't have exactly the same materials. However, improvising turned out to be some of the most fun, since it was problem-solving.
• On a more technical note, one of my improvisations forced me to place the secondary mirror closer to the main mirror than it really should have been, therefore I lost about 3/4" of the main mirror. This is something to be aware of. This was mostly due to my naivete, and the plans don't really mention this issue. When placing the secondary mirror, take time to really consider your main mirror, focal length, and *the size of your secondary mirror*.
• The mirror collimation design (3 bolts on a board) works really well, I think, for how simple the design is.
• I bought my mirrors from E-scopes, and was happy with them. I bought teflon from Rob Teeter at Teeter's Telescopes, and I recommend them.
• The tube can be had from a local construction surplus store -- it's called Sonotube (brand name) in the industry, and it's used to pour concrete pillars. I was afraid that 1/8"-thick would be too thin, and I considered going with 1/4", but 1/8" turned out to be fine (and much lighter).
• I'm extremely happy with my telescope, and while it isn't perfect, I had so much fun making it, and it's so easy to use. I had no sooner finished it than I wanted to make a larger one. :)
• Here are 6 pictures taken of the moon with this telescope (just holding my camera up to the eyepiece with my hand): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Good luck, and have fun!

• For me, making the telescope was all about the experience of learning & having a project -- not saving money. I believe I could've bought a better telescope for less money than I spent on making mine (not including the cost of time spent).
• The plans are quite good and complete -- though I still had to improvise quite a bit when I didn't have exactly the same materials. However, improvising turned out to be some of the most fun, since it was problem-solving.
• On a more technical note, one of my improvisations forced me to place the secondary mirror closer to the main mirror than it really should have been, therefore I lost about 3/4" of the main mirror. This is something to be aware of. This was mostly due to my naivete, and the plans don't really mention this issue. When placing the secondary mirror, take time to really consider your main mirror, focal length, and *the size of your secondary mirror*.
• The mirror collimation design (3 bolts on a board) works really well, I think, for how simple the design is.
• I bought my mirrors from E-scopes, and was happy with them. I bought teflon from Rob Teeter at Teeter's Telescopes, and I recommend them.
• The tube can be had from a local construction surplus store -- it's called Sonotube (brand name) in the industry, and it's used to pour concrete pillars. I was afraid that 1/8"-thick would be too thin, and I considered going with 1/4", but 1/8" turned out to be fine (and much lighter).
• I'm extremely happy with my telescope, and while it isn't perfect, I had so much fun making it, and it's so easy to use. I had no sooner finished it than I wanted to make a larger one. :)
• Here are 6 pictures taken of the moon with this telescope (just holding my camera up to the eyepiece with my hand): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Good luck, and have fun!

• For me, making the telescope was all about the experience of learning & having a project -- not saving money. I believe I could've bought a better telescope for less money than I spent on making mine (not including the cost of time spent).
• The plans are quite good and complete -- though I still had to improvise quite a bit when I didn't have exactly the same materials. However, improvising turned out to be some of the most fun, since it was problem-solving.
• On a more technical note, one of my improvisations forced me to place the secondary mirror closer to the main mirror than it really should have been, therefore I lost about 3/4" of the main mirror. This is something to be aware of. This was mostly due to my naivete, and the plans don't really mention this issue. When placing the secondary mirror, take time to really consider your main mirror, focal length, and *the size of your secondary mirror*.
• The mirror collimation design (3 bolts on a board) works really well, I think, for how simple the design is.
• I bought my mirrors from E-scopes, and was happy with them. I bought teflon from Rob Teeter at Teeter's Telescopes, and I recommend them.
• The tube can be had from a local construction surplus store -- it's called Sonotube (brand name) in the industry, and it's used to pour concrete pillars. I was afraid that 1/8"-thick would be too thin, and I considered going with 1/4", but 1/8" turned out to be fine (and much lighter).
• I'm extremely happy with my telescope, and while it isn't perfect, I had so much fun making it, and it's so easy to use. I had no sooner finished it than I wanted to make a larger one. :)
• Here are 6 pictures taken of the moon with this telescope (just holding my camera up to the eyepiece with my hand): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Good luck, and have fun!

• For me, making the telescope was all about the experience of learning & having a project -- not saving money. I believe I could've bought a better telescope for less money than I spent on making mine (not including the cost of time spent).
• The plans are quite good and complete -- though I still had to improvise quite a bit when I didn't have exactly the same materials. However, improvising turned out to be some of the most fun, since it was problem-solving.
• On a more technical note, one of my improvisations forced me to place the secondary mirror closer to the main mirror than it really should have been, therefore I lost about 3/4" of the main mirror. This is something to be aware of. This was mostly due to my naivete, and the plans don't really mention this issue. When placing the secondary mirror, take time to really consider your main mirror, focal length, and *the size of your secondary mirror*.
• The mirror collimation design (3 bolts on a board) works really well, I think, for how simple the design is.
• I bought my mirrors from E-scopes, and was happy with them. I bought teflon from Rob Teeter at Teeter's Telescopes, and I recommend them.
• The tube can be had from a local construction surplus store -- it's called Sonotube (brand name) in the industry, and it's used to pour concrete pillars. I was afraid that 1/8"-thick would be too thin, and I considered going with 1/4", but 1/8" turned out to be fine (and much lighter).
• I'm extremely happy with my telescope, and while it isn't perfect, I had so much fun making it, and it's so easy to use. I had no sooner finished it than I wanted to make a larger one. :)
• Here are 6 pictures taken of the moon with this telescope (just holding my camera up to the eyepiece with my hand): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Good luck, and have fun!

• For me, making the telescope was all about the experience of learning & having a project -- not saving money. I believe I could've bought a better telescope for less money than I spent on making mine (not including the cost of time spent).
• The plans are quite good and complete -- though I still had to improvise quite a bit when I didn't have exactly the same materials. However, improvising turned out to be some of the most fun, since it was problem-solving.
• On a more technical note, one of my improvisations forced me to place the secondary mirror closer to the main mirror than it really should have been, therefore I lost about 3/4" of the main mirror. This is something to be aware of. This was mostly due to my naivete, and the plans don't really mention this issue. When placing the secondary mirror, take time to really consider your main mirror, focal length, and *the size of your secondary mirror*.
• The mirror collimation design (3 bolts on a board) works really well, I think, for how simple the design is.
• I bought my mirrors from E-scopes, and was happy with them. I bought teflon from Rob Teeter at Teeter's Telescopes, and I recommend them.
• The tube can be had from a local construction surplus store -- it's called Sonotube (brand name) in the industry, and it's used to pour concrete pillars. I was afraid that 1/8"-thick would be too thin, and I considered going with 1/4", but 1/8" turned out to be fine (and much lighter).
• I'm extremely happy with my telescope, and while it isn't perfect, I had so much fun making it, and it's so easy to use. I had no sooner finished it than I wanted to make a larger one. :)
• Here are 6 pictures taken of the moon with this telescope (just holding my camera up to the eyepiece with my hand): 1 2 3 4 5 6

Good luck, and have fun!

The file is slashdotted. Here is a .torrent so all you bittorrent users (that should be all of you by now) can get it.

Pike65 was talking about tracing the light's path from the light sources. This would be redundant if you did it for every ray from the camera. The trick is to store the light "rays" or "photons" and use them to estimate the illumination at any given point that a ray hits. This is photon mapping, and it can accomplish much better lighting than any "reverse" ray tracing method.

It does have some pretty big deficiencies, which is what my graduate work is about. ;-)

Your tracer looks nice (it's in java?!?), but you don't appear to be doing any attempt at "radiosity" or "global illumination." This is where the real interesting stuff is. You've only scratched the surface. And any math person would say that the math involved here is elementary (that's why I hate math gurus) - A few 3 dimensional line equations, some vector math, a few affine matrix transformations..

If you really like the rendering thing, check out any of a number of books about illumination. The one that inspired me was was Realistic Image Synthesis Using Photon Mapping by Henrik Wann Jensen.

I think that currently the important difference, in regards to copyright, between "physical" content media (e.g. dead tree flake binders or plastic-aluminum discs) and digitized content media (for example the medium used for the dissemination of this reply-content) is that content authors cannot as easily slow down the unauthorized dissemination on the latter.

Copyright law allows unauthorized copying of content without the consent of the author for what it deems "fair use" (i.e. copying of content for criticism, study, sharing (sharing your LOTR dead tree flake binder with a friend for instance)). Instruments like the DMCA (pdf), in this respect, threaten this provision thus making copyright law an even bigger absurdity than it currently is (pointing out flaws in an insecure DRM system becomes a felony.)

My opinion is that content producers are mere performers of acts of recombination (pdf) rather than the mythical creators consumer society (since the rise of the burgueois) make most believe. Freedom (as in cost) of access to these bits is imperative for the continued production of knowledge.

If you're interested in the technology-society-culture intersection, you might also be insterested in this content (copyleft pdf's):

• Digital Resistance
• The Electronic Disturbance
• Electronic Civil Disobedience

(Pointed out to me by my fellow colleague at UCSD

As an engineering student (any type, ME, EE, CSE, CS, etc.) it sucks to have classes with barely any girls (eye candy) to help get you through those dry lectures. And the girls that are there, are butt ugly - really, 99.99% of the time, they are.

During the 1st week of classes, you're excited to be in a new class, excited to see new people and hopefully see some fine lookin' girls in class. You listen during lecture and become very dissapointed at the fact that there are no girls in your class, and the girls that are there, are yuck - remember these are girls you wouldn't even take a second glance (let alone a first) to look at. You and many others start to ditch class, because you can "teach yourself" all the crap the prof is talking about.

Around 5th week, just before mids, everybody comes back to class, and you look around again, still with that small glimmer of hope and see that the girls are still the same, but this time, you think, "Hmm . . . that girl is alright; that one isn't bad at all; she's f@ckable . . ." Remember, these are the same butt ugly looking girls.

Around 9-10th week just before finals, everybody goes to class again, and this time, as you check out the girls, you think, "Damn, she looks good, I'll go for her; She's fine, I'll ask her out . . ." and so on. Remember these are the same girls.

Peculiar how 10 weeks can change someone's mind about engineering girls. That, my friend, is the plight of the male engineer . . . University Goggles.

Thanks for your comment.

I looked at the emoscop. An emoscop adapter on a less expensive 2Meg or 4Meg pixel camera may be a very good way to reduce the cost of building a video headset for the Legally Blind. I'll be glad when I retire in a few (too many) years and have time to build a prototype (maybe someone will do it before me, ... I hope they won't patent what I consider an obvious application of available technology). After I retire ..., taking the SF farther may involve some of the concepts implied by the below websites.

Electroreactive and conducting polymers:

http://www.wcupa.edu/_acad emics/sch_cas.che/mrc.htm

Smart Optics:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/d oi/10.1046/j.1468-4004.2003.44126.x/abs/

Flexible water-filled lens concepts:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/students/courses /fall2002/physicslabs/physics1clab/

Maybe a smart/programable emoscop with eltroreactive fluid-filled lenses for .... As Annie always said to Daddy WarBucks; TOMORROW ....

OldHawk777

Thanks for your comment.

I looked at the emoscop. An emoscop adapter on a less expensive 2Meg or 4Meg pixel camera may be a very good way to reduce the cost of building a video headset for the Legally Blind. I'll be glad when I retire in a few (too many) years and have time to build a prototype (maybe someone will do it before me, ... I hope they won't patent what I consider an obvious application of available technology). After I retire ..., taking the SF farther may involve some of the concepts implied by the below websites.

Electroreactive and conducting polymers:

http://www.wcupa.edu/_acad emics/sch_cas.che/mrc.htm

Smart Optics:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/d oi/10.1046/j.1468-4004.2003.44126.x/abs/

Flexible water-filled lens concepts:

http://physics.ucsd.edu/students/courses /fall2002/physicslabs/physics1clab/

Maybe a smart/programable emoscop with eltroreactive fluid-filled lenses for .... As Annie always said to Daddy WarBucks; TOMORROW ....

OldHawk777

Those who live and work in the high latitudes - such as in those few sources the US has where there is oil pay a lot of attention to sunspots. Communication disruptions are the biggest problem. Much more rare are power failures - but they have been known to bring down entire power grids. In 1986, British Columbia had a huge power failure. Not all the evidence is in about the recent East coast power outage - They still haven't determined what caused the lines to overheat in the first place - The Ohio company appears to have made mistakes - but they may also just have been trying to keep up with too much demand on the grid all day. Solar flares affect the grid in unexpected ways. That's one of the many reasons they're being watched so closely.

I've probably seen the aurora 300-400 times. It is one of the beautiful things to my eye in nature. If it's out, in my experience - it can change in 5 minutes time from close to nothing to wild. Photos don't do it justice - but this site has some movies too, that give just a slight feel of it.

The BBC article is very simplified - A fairly new technique - called "helioseismic holography" allows astronomers to actually 'look through' the sun to image the magnetic fields of very large sunspots like the present pair (they occur in pairs - corresponding to a north and south magetic pole).
This present sunspot pair is the largest we've ever measured.

The particles themselves don't really emit the light - "the electrons that cause auroras do not come directly from the Sun"

Sunspots can be seen under certain lighting conditions when the sun is rising or setting even with the naked eye.
Chinese astonomers recorded them long before they were one of the first things that we're recorded by the inventors and early users of the telescope.

Sunspots - a reduced number of them - have been correlated with cooler weather trends.

There was about a 70 year period of fairly recent time - 1645 -1715 that apparently saw no auroras - even at high latitudes - kids thought they were mythical stories by the time they appeared.

The solar flare a few weeks ago was the strongest we've ever measured, and we can expect to see more as that same pair of sunspots rotates around to face Earth.

The solar eclipse will be tomorrow - there will be some great photos that will come out in the next few days.

koro

I'm not sure whether Ta2O5 would be thermodynamically stable in contact with GaAs. However, it probably wouldn't be an issue due to the much lower process temperatures used for GaAs. However, even if thermal stability is not a problem, there is no guarantee that the Ta2O5/GaAs interface would be of sufficiently high quality. Defects at this interface cause fermi-level pinning, degrading device performance. There is some promising work for Ga2O/GaAS reported here that might be of interest to you.

Have a look at page 3 of their policy:

UCSD's trademarks include, but are not limited to:
University name
UCSD seal
UCSD logo
...etc...
Other UCSD trademarks include:
Any word, phrase, or image that implies association with the university

That last claim will get them laughed out of any court. They might be able to claim trademark dilution on one of their trademarks, but you can't trademark words that imply association!

As much as I would love to follow the argument of the other posters that UCSD could stand for anything, and the author of the website could just re-write the acronym, it's pretty clear from this document [pdf file] (see page 2) that UCSD is a trademark owned by the Regents of the University of California.

Disclaimer: While I don't support either side really, I should mention I am a UC student (up here in Berkeley)

Yes, but does it compare to this one?

A NEW GENERATION OF CA-2+ INDICATORS WITH GREATLY IMPROVED FLUORESCENCE PROPERTIES

GRYNKIEWICZ G, POENIE M, TSIEN RY
JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY 260 (6): 3440-3450 1985

Times Cited : 14512

Roger Tsien must be up soon, he invented the field of fluroescent biosensors. Both with the small molecule dyes and the development of GFP into a useful molecular tag and genetically encoded FRET sensor element.

• The Scripps Institute of Oceanography Visualization Center
• The Arctic Region Supercomputing Center

The actual Simpsons quote in wav format

Here are some links: a page discussing the flexible submarine idea with some more links, and a site from some people who actually built such a thing, with pictures.

Dursban, one of the most common pesticide used in households, schools, hospitals and agriculture was banned in 2000 by the USEPA due to unacceptable health risk, especially to children. Toxicology studies have found that exposures to Dursban early in life may affect the function of the nervous system later in life, with possilbe links to changes in normal learning and behavior. Yet, six manufacturers in the US are allowed to continue making the chemical for use on foreign crops.

There are thousands of articles on the web about the toxicity of DDT to all life -- and yes, it is more harmful to some species than others.

If you don't believe DDT was banned for a good reason or that Dursban was banned for a good reason, then I have to conclude you are purposely blinding yourself to the realities of the world. Introducing vast quantities of toxins into our ecosystem is just plain stupid. As you can see with Dursban, there are incredibly harmful effects on human beings. All so chemical companies and farmers can have a higher profit vs. investing in organic gardening, hothouse farming, and other safer and cleaner methods of production.

I'm sure nano will end up the same way. Greedy nano producers will put out all sorts of crappy nano to make a profit and they will end up creating vast problems for the world. Whenever a world is run solely for monetary profit, everything smart about taking care of the world gets thrown out the window.

Synthetic Pesticides

[...] cannot induce amnesia or hallucinations. In fact, no form of video/audio stimulation can without exceptional chemical circumstances.

Somewhere I have a flexi-single that came with an audiophile magazine that demonstrated a psycho-acoustic hallucination. You needed headphones to get the full effect. It would alternate high and low tones between your ears in various patterns, but your brain would perceive it as a different pattern. I believe it was based on this research.

Auditory and visual hallucinations are known to occur to people in situations of acute sensory deprivation (like dark neutral bouyancy tanks).

In each of these cases, no "exceptional chemical circumstances" were involved.

[...] cannot induce amnesia or hallucinations. In fact, no form of video/audio stimulation can without exceptional chemical circumstances.

Somewhere I have a flexi-single that came with an audiophile magazine that demonstrated a psycho-acoustic hallucination. You needed headphones to get the full effect. It would alternate high and low tones between your ears in various patterns, but your brain would perceive it as a different pattern. I believe it was based on this research.

Auditory and visual hallucinations are known to occur to people in situations of acute sensory deprivation (like dark neutral bouyancy tanks).

In each of these cases, no "exceptional chemical circumstances" were involved.

Because the change in fossil fuel burning has been exponential, the change in CO2 must be too. And from that, *if* the direct relationship is to be believed, most of that increase in the last 150 yrs. should have been in the last 50.

dunno if this is what you want:

Here's the CO2 conc. over 260 years

There's a graph of temp against CO2 here

They changed the number we dial to get out to 8 at my place of work because people dialing numbers like 1-123-4567 kept on reaching the police

umm...in the US at least, area codes never start with 1. As seen here.

and another .... Mars Movies 2

and, try listen to ... Jeff Wayne's War Of The World's". It's a classic.

Actually the reaction you describe is not very efficient and only gives a net gain of 2 ATP ( adenosine tri phosphate)per glucose molecule which the bodies tissues use for energy.

Glucose + 2 ADP + 2 NAD+ + 2 Pi -----> 2 Pyruvate + 2 ATP + 2 NADH + 2 H+

Most of the bodies energy is generated by the Krebs ( Citric Acid ) cycle in the mitochondria which generates much more ATP. The glucose-6-phosphate gets converted to pyruvate and enters the krebs cycle. show here This give a net gain of 30 moles atp per 2 moles of pyruvate.

Incidently if you have sugar by products in your urine you should see your doc as you might have diabetes.

been there, done that (warning: big jpg). We had a pioneer p2at for outdoor mobility, eye-level conferencing screen, 802.11b teleconferencing (admittedly, we usually ran netmeeting), about 2 years ago. Berkeley had stuff before that. HP labs has done some actually interesting stuff in this area.

I'm really hoping that ms reasearch does have some cool stuff and that this is just a testament to the power of stupid PR drones.

There's a project currently going on at UC San Diego, which is aiming for something similar to that. The main webpage for the project, ActiveCampus, is located here.

I took a class a few quarters ago when this project first got started. Students could log into discussions about the lecture they were attending and post questions and answer others' posts. Other students could vote for posted questions so the professor would know which were most relevant. Information (and screenshots) for this can be found here.

My experience with this was not very positive. For the most part, the professor would halt his lectures every few minutes to check out what the students were concerned with. It seemed more a hindrance than a tool. Maybe if a TA was assigned to attend lectures and monitor the online discussions so the professor didn't have to, the system would work out better. Also, perhaps because it was new at the time and perhaps becuase it was a CS class, the questions students posted gradually declined into flames and/or trolls.

Its an interesting concept, but I don't know if colleges are ready for it.

There's a project currently going on at UC San Diego, which is aiming for something similar to that. The main webpage for the project, ActiveCampus, is located here.

I took a class a few quarters ago when this project first got started. Students could log into discussions about the lecture they were attending and post questions and answer others' posts. Other students could vote for posted questions so the professor would know which were most relevant. Information (and screenshots) for this can be found here.

My experience with this was not very positive. For the most part, the professor would halt his lectures every few minutes to check out what the students were concerned with. It seemed more a hindrance than a tool. Maybe if a TA was assigned to attend lectures and monitor the online discussions so the professor didn't have to, the system would work out better. Also, perhaps because it was new at the time and perhaps becuase it was a CS class, the questions students posted gradually declined into flames and/or trolls.

Its an interesting concept, but I don't know if colleges are ready for it.

http://webcast.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/UCSD_TV/7153.r m

That's from the University of California Video archive. Lots of interesting stuff.

>The word "American" does not include people from Canada and Mexico, although the word "North American" does. Looks like you Canadians are no better at geography that we are.

First off, I said this continent; how you read that as just North America, well, your comprehension skills (and geography skills) need a lot of work. At the very best, you could have suggested that because of the Panama Canal I forgot South America, but that still includes that pesky Central America. But I haven't even started yet...

I can assure you of one thing, we're much better at english than you. In fact, we're also better at geography, by a large percentage. More importantly, we even know more about your country than you do. But there's more!

11% of you don't know where you live.
83% of you don't know where you were bombing before Iraq.
25% of you don't know where Canada is (would you like some help?).

Now, from your very own "American" dictionary:

American
adj.

1. Of or relating to the United States of America or its people, language, or culture.
2. Of or relating to North or South America, the West Indies, or the Western Hemisphere.
3. Of or relating to any of the Native American peoples.
4. Indigenous to North or South America. Used of plants and animals.

n.

1. A native or inhabitant of America.
2. A citizen of the United States.
3. American English.

So, we can either invent a new, derogatory word for you (I like this option), or we can make all our sentences longer, by qualifying our meaning of "American" each time, such as: "That person, he is a United States American" (Yuck).

Now, run that geography idea by me again, flunky.

Here's a very interesting paper on multiculturalism with an excellent bibliography should you want to look into it further.

You want stats about ethnic diversity? Compare China (.118), Japan(.01), and Korea (.004) to Canada (.75) and the USA (.50) (a higher number indicates greater diversity: it's the chance of two random people being of different ethnicity).

The point is that Canada and the US are very diverse because they're centres of ongoing immigration, even though they deal with it differently (mosaic VS melting pot: see the previous link on multiculturalism).

Thank you for your revelation. You should inform the Nobel commitee so they can take back Chandrasekar's prize.

Yes, indeed, a fusion reaction does emit light, and not photons. That's why I pointed out the difference between radiation pressure and degeneracy pressure, which keeps at least white dwarfs, neutron stars, and, in theory, quark stars from collapsing. You can test electron degeneracy pressure in everday life by trying to compress a metal. Yep, that's what pushes back on you. If you don't believe me, try this link on for size. Notice specifically this part:

Now the star begins to cool and to shrink. It is stopped by the pressure of electrons. Since the pressure from the electrons grows faster than the pressure of gravity, the star will stay at about earth size even when it cools.

So there's still something holding that star up after fusion and radiation emission stops. And yes, fermion degeneracy pressure is that strong.

The Turing test part is not the challenge/response of a human. It's the fact that the SPAMMER's computer is able to pass what is a test for a human: the audio has to be so garbled that even a human can't understand it. In the area of voice recognition, computers are able to pass the Turing test.

Of course, they could do something like give you verbal instructions: What's plus ? Mix in a variety of operators, even different types of questions (what it today's date? What is yesterday's date? What country started World War II?) and you'd have a tough test for a computer to pass...

They represent the 0.000001% of humanity who care to fritter away obscene amounts of money on vanity projects, rather than, say, feeding the starving.

I feel obligated to point out that people starving is usually not a matter of money, but a matter of politics. Take Zimbabwe, for instance, where the US now sends half a million tons of food aid, when the country used to be a net food exporter. Why? Because President Mugabe seized the most productive farms in the country because they were owned by whites. And now those farms lie fallow and the people starve.

Political causes are at the root of famines in Ethiopia, China's "Great Leap Forward" (The worst famine in recorded history), and even the Great Irish Potato famine, where there was actually enough food even after the potato crop failed, but the other crops were taken to port under military guard and exported to other countries.

Throwing more money at the famine problem is not likely to solve it, despite what Sally Struthers et. al. would like to have you think.

I got that call on the 23rd, and I knew immediately why they were calling from Canada.

> Come on, you can't have it both ways.
> You're either pro government control or against it,

Why not?

Things are rarely polar opposites. You can't just say, "Well kid, are you a communist or for a lassiez-fair market." There's tons of middle ground.
The formal name for this is the False Dichotomy. More
Extremes only really exist as abstract concepts.

Advocating regulation or laws to protect against abuse is hardly pro-DMCA.

There is a tendency to treat both 'conditions' with the drugs developed for ADHD.

This gives you a lot of faith in the kind of screening they do at the national weapons labs and at Homeland Security!

more than thirteen thousand hectares of fertile soils were flooded by the Toktogul Reservoir. In addition to constricting the downstream water supply to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and eventually to the Aral, the dam destroyed the fragile ecological balance within the region and the once beautiful area surrounding the reservoir was transformed into a desert

From Dario Fo's play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist:

INSPECTOR. Anyway, take a look at your professional card and prescription list. If I'm not mistaken, they read: "Professor Antonio A. Antonio, Psychiatrist. The Former Professor. University of Padova." Go on, what do you have to say now?

SUSPECT. First of all, I really am a professor. Professor of drawing, ornate and free-hand styles, at the Holy Redeemer night school.

INSPECTOR. Well isn't that nice. Good for you, but it says here, "Psychiatrist!"

SUSPECT Yes, but after the period! Don't you know about syntax and punctuation? Look carefully: Professor Antonio A. Antonio. Period. Then there's a capital P Psychiatrist. Now, you'll admit it isn't acting under false pretenses to say: "I am a psychiatrist." It's like saying, "I'm a psychologist, botanist, vegetarian, arthritic " Do you have a knowledge of Italian grammar and language? You do? Well, then you should know that if someone describes himself as an archaeologist, it's as though he had written "Milanese." It doesn't mean he has a degree in it!

INSPECTOR. All right, but what about Former Professor from the University?

SUSPECT. There, you see - excuse me, but this time you're the one who's acting under false pretenses: you told me that you know Italian language and syntax and punctuation, and then it comes out that you don't even read correctly.

INSPECTOR. What do you mean. I don t know -

SUSPECT. Didn't you see the comma after "The Former"?

INSPECTOR. Oh yes, there is a comma. You're right, I hadn't noticed.

SUSPECT. Aha, "I hadn't noticed" . . . And you, simply because you "hadn't noticed," would throw an innocent man in prison?

INSPECTOR. You know, you really are crazy. ( Without realizing it, he has begun to address the SUSPECT in a more respectful tone.) What does the comma have to do with it?

SUSPECT. Nothing, for someone who doesn't know Italian language and syntax! Which reminds me, I'd like to know where you got your degree. And who granted it to you. . . let me finish! The comma, remember, is the key to everything! If there's a comma after "The Former," the entire meaning of the phrase changes at once. After the comma, you have to catch your breath . . . take a brief pause . . . Because "the comma always denotes a pause." Therefore, it should be read, "The Former, Professor," meaning, "the aforesaid, the one already mentioned, NOT the professor." In fact, I haven't been a professor for some time. So that could even be read with a little ironic chuckle: heh, heh. So the correct reading of that phrase is as follows: The Former, Professor, heh, heh. Pause. From the University of Padova. Just the same as if you read "retired dentist, from the city of Bergamo." Because I am from the University of Padova, in the sense that it was the last place I visited: I had just recently come from there when I, ah, took up my psychiatric practice. Any other reading of the phrase would be entirely false and misleading; only an idiot would make such an error.

INSPECTOR. So, you think I m an idiot!

SUSPECT. No, just ignorant of basic Italian grammar. But it's lucky for you you've come to the right person for help. I'll even offer a discount.

I took the Computer Science GRE straight out of undergrad (from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), and it was fairly hard. However, I did get into a good PhD program (UCSD).

When preparing, the only material I had were the "worst-reviewed book" (and it truly was bad), my friend who I studied with, and my textbooks from classes.

Even though the red book was bad, I still got two things out of it: (1) an appreciation for what the real test would be like (to some degree), and (2) we were forced to evaluate each question for correctness (since there are incorrect answers), which made us study the material more critically, and understand it better. So there is some benefit to using the red book.

If I had to do it over again, I would still use the red book (but with the knowledge that it is poorly written). I would *definitely* find another person (of my same caliber) to study with again. The only thing I would do differently is I would review my classes & old textbooks more, guided by topics found in the red book.

I disagree with the posters who say that you need a master's first to do well on this exam. I didn't ace it, but I did well enough to get into a good program.

Finally, for the GREs (all of them), nothing beats taking practice tests for getting prepared. I took one practice test a week for about 6 weeks, and that helped a lot (for the general GREs).

The telephone backbone in the US has been digital for decades. There's a reason Bell Labs employed so many computer scientists. It's not like we can assign just one area prefix for cell phones like the UK. Practically every area code would need another one for cell phones, or at least several of them for the various regions. That's where the confusion would lie. 663-867-5309?? Is that a cell phone area code, or did a NYC area code split again? I'm at a pay phone and just need to call Jenny, dammit!

Bill Gates is expected to show up, so anti-H1B groups are planning to protest.

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/jgates03. htm

Please show up. For more info:

http://www.h1b.info/feedback.php

..broke down as fast as they were made (in a carefully customised device, not in the wild), and were completely racemised at formation? Or that no evidence of a reducing atmosphere exists?"

I think you should take a look at the article. The "carefully customised" device is incredibly simple, consisting of 2 flasks, a hot plate, an electrical sparker, a water condesor, and some glass tubing. That's it. It could be further simplified to remove the heater, as all this does is to make more vapor available in the 2nd flask containing the sparker--you could envision a simpler setup that is put into a window so sunlight evaporates the solution to make it more available to the spark chamber (closed loop, naturally, so no gas actually escapes the system). Actually since then the whole thing would run at a lower temperature you could omit the condensor and the little bend in the glass tubing (the "trap") leaving you with a flask on the bottom with your solution, connected by a single length of glass tubing to a second flask on top with the attached two bits of wire and battery, the whole thing sitting in the window. Sunlight hits the bottom flask, causing evaporation which rises up to the top flask, which sparks, condensate builds up in the top flask and over time falls back into the lower flask or sticks to the interconnecting glass tubing. Slowly you would use up your initial reagents leaving you with a complex mixture with among its components a collection of biologically relevant molecules. Total list of materials for the apparatus: 2 flasks, two feet or so of glass tubing, say a foot of copper wire, and a car battery--even simpler than the original. l'm fairly sure this would work similar to Miller's initial experiment, albeit much slower mainly due to the lower temperature. You should remember that his experiment produced an abundance of multiple different biologically relevant molecules in only a week. The point is: this experiment is incredibly simple, not "carefully customized". All that it was meant to show was that under conditions that at the time were thought to be similar to those on a prebiotic earth you could produce a host of biologically important compounds from even simpler compounds thought to be abundant using energy sources that would be available: heat, light, lightning. At this the experiment, one of many under a great variety of conditions--see his website for a starting point--succeeds at marvelously. Others have already answered your other complaints so it is pointless to repeat their statements here.

He has a page at UCSD. He has managed to synthesize other important biological bricks such as purines, pyrimidines and sugars. He parlayed his initial success into a career of exploring mechanisms for life origins.

Well, if any of you have ever driven across the US, it would be apparent that there is a whole lot of nothing out there. However, note that it is possible to bridge long distances with 802.11.
Take note of the HPWren map. They've got a wireless node 45 miles away from their base tower, and they use off-the-shelf gear operating in the ISM band. In some places they have repeater radios powered by solar panels by day and batteries by night. Surely something like that could be utilized in such a project mentioned in the article, but who would put up the money to set up some of these stations and insure they don't get vandalized or destroyed by bad weather?
Such repeater stations would be required, especially if you want to get that signal to the California coast. We have some, erm, minor obstacles.

Anything is possible with enough thought and money. I have no doubt that under such a project, major networks could be constructed in metropolitan areas. Yes, it can be done with Pringles cans. I have constructed one myself and the gain I get out of it rivals most commercial antennas, except for a parabolic.

The biggest hurdle that this project has to overcome is awareness, getting people out of "that's cool" mode and getting them to do something, bridging the huge distances, and getting the signal over mountains. Other than that, it's a piece of cake :)

Dr. Seuss was in on the propaganda angle too.