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https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Iodine#Isotopes_and_their_applications
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Caesium#Isotopes

Half-life is not measured in hours but is 8 days for this Iodine-131 and 30 years for Caesium-137.

Please, countering FUD with lies does not help.

Things can and often do decay to other radioactive elements; However 131I decays to 131Xe which is stable.

Miriam Webster is not your friend, nor is Google nor Wikipedia. It's ignorant dogmatic people who so quickly resort to such a tactic. You wasted no time at all. I will not indulge your bar-fight mentality any further. Take it outside. I won't be joining you.

Not to mention if the war went on much longer the Russians might have gotten into Japan too.

Then we might have ended up with a situation like Germany, with a split state.

They did. We did.

And ballpoint pens. (However I have already determined that pens gravitate here, the top of Grouse Mountain.

>>>Hello, I'm no nuculear specialist or anything, so I want to know if there is any chance of PC parts with japanese components (capacitors and stuff) shipping with radioactive particles on them from now on.
>>I want all those extra FPS's...but i don't want my PC to be something to DIE for!

But... gamma particles are all the latest craze in overclocking! Why be lame with those commodity blue LED lights on your box when you could have the "real" soothing blue of Cherenkov radiation?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Advanced_Test_Reactor.jpg (Hmm, actually looks like a lot of cases I've seen...)

> especially given the fact that there IS evidence (although not conclusive) to the contrary?

There is no evidence to the contrary. There is only evidence that there were some individuals that were unable to change their sexual orientation through a particular method. The reasons for the failure were unspecified. From reading the SOCE article I get the impression that most quit because they simply don't want to continue. Barring the obvious reason of disliking the electric shock methods, for which I certainly don't blame them, other therapy methods seem to progress for a while until the patient voluntarily stops trying. None of this provides any evidence that orientation change is impossible, or even unlikely. It is merely evidence that the particular methods used are unable to create this change in a sufficently short period of time in volunteers.

> what clear evidence is there that you can change sexual orientation

There are the ex-gay groups, for example. On the wikipedia article there is a list of several people who claim to have achieved SOC. There is no explanation of how that happened, but as long as it did, it constitutes evidence that it can happen.

Secondly, just because there are methods that can not change sexual orientation, does not mean that there never will be. There obviously are mental or biological differences in the homosexual brain. Just like any other mental or physical problem, these defects can be corrected by adjusting the affected mental or physical structures to match those of a healthy brain. Perhaps this can be done by therapy, or drugs, or genetic modifications, but there is no doubt that a cure is possible in some form. Would you doubt that a cure for cancer or AIDS is possible just because we do not have one yet?

Another fun fact:

Assuming for the moment that every computer on the planet (let's say 1.5 billion) illegally downloaded infringing music from Limewire.

$75Trillion/1.5 Billion computers = $50,000/computer.

Assuming (conservatively) $1.00 per song that means that every computer owner would have to have downloaded 50,000 songs to make the numbers come out right.

That ignores that many people have more than one computer. It also ignores that a large percentage of those 1.5 billion computers are owned and managed by organizations both public and private, many of whom block p2p activities like Limewire.

Just for fun, let's assume that it's really a billion infringing users. If this were true, We'd all need bigger hard drives, to store those 67,000 songs each.

I need to stop now because I'm getting a stitch in my side laughing while thinking about it.

Good Luck with that record companies!

I assume THIS will suffice for payment? I do, however, expect them to return the proper amount of change to me. If they are not able to handle denominations this large, then I will assume the debt to be null and void as it has been proven the funds are available, but they are refusing to take the money.

Here you go.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Us_population

Sorry, that's all just bigotry with a load of after-the-fact bluster on top of it, as an attempt at justification.

The definition of bigot is very broad, and it appears that you misunderstand it. With your definition of bigotry, I could call you a bigot for disliking pepperoni on pizza (even if you had good reasons). What the definition really means is that bigots are people who don't listen to reason or argument at all and stick to their opinions like glue. I believe I showed very clearly that I know every single "pro-LGBT" argument very well. Am I not allowed to dislike what I personally feel is disgusting? Homosexual attraction is natural sometimes, yes; acting on those attractions, as I said, is a totally different thing. Calling it "sinful" isn't bigotry either, and I believe I could say that you (or other LGBT-supporters) are bigots for not listening to me and my logic/reason.

You are allowed to disagree with the Pope, and you can still call yourself a Catholic if you like.

It's not "The Pope", but "The Church". I agree with the Church completely and I don't see why I wouldn't as they're one of the most logical and reasonable religions on the planet (as far as I've seen).

The Catholic Church doesn't approve of homosexuality, but not for the reasons that many think. Many pro-LGBT people with misunderstandings of the Catholic religion (such as lumping it together with all of the other Christian faiths) think that it's just "forbidden" and "sinful" and an "abomination" for little reason, while the real reason why it's sinful to the Church is that it denies the life-giving aspect of sexuality entirely. For more information, read any of the many books or articles out there summarizing Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body; the Catholic Church's opinion on sexuality is a lot more reasonable than many people make it sound like.

A summary of the position of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality, according to the Mother Church: homosexuality is "objectively disordered." That is the exact same phrase (same place) used about the ills of masturbation. A higher degree of condemnation ("intrinsically evil") is reserved for such grave sins as rape and birth control.

For the geekily inclined: If g(sin) is the gravity of the sin according to the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, then the following is true:

g(homosexuality) = g(masturbation) < g(rape) = g(birth control)

There is nothing wrong with the theological position of your Church, as long as it offers full disclosure. According to the RCC, the only sinless reason to have sex is for procreative purposes within a marriage sanctified by the RCC. Everybody else, whether single, unmarried, using birth control, or gay, should just not have sex. Ever.

If your Church picks on homosexuals with an argument that condemns almost everybody, it's hard to find anything but hostility against this particular group.

Sure -- a library. But how many libraries of congress would it hold?

I don't think Apple should have banned it: they should have just packaged it with an App to cure Bigotry.

Well thank you, Taco, for calling everybody who doesn't approve of homosexuality a bigot. Have you, or any of the other homosexuality-supporters, ever considered that there are more than two sides to this?

The difference though with the Catholic opinion is that we believe that people who experience severe homosexual attraction are called to chastity.

I see your Gay Chastity and Raise you on Catholic Sex abuse cases.

Many pro-LGBT people with misunderstandings of the Catholic religion (such as lumping it together with all of the other Christian faiths) think that it's just "forbidden" and "sinful" and an "abomination" for little reason, while the real reason why it's sinful to the Church is that it denies the life-giving aspect of sexuality entirely.

No you're more likely to be equated with Mormons who have to deny the existence of True Hermaphrodites in order to justify their view that "The Gay" can be cured, or that it must be suppressed (see Chastity). That and the catholic view and Mormon view on woman and the priesthood is oddly similar.

For more information, read any of the many books or articles out there summarizing Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body; the Catholic Church's opinion on sexuality is a lot more reasonable than many people make it sound like.

I would have trusted his words more if he had done something reasonable when the Catholic pedophile priests were exposed. Like maybe a full blown public inquisition with all the trimmings. Heck the victims of the past inquisitions were dealt with by the local governments so that the Church wouldn't have blood directly on it's hands then, they just did the rooting out of evil part. Instead he did a timid denouncement of them and thought the matter closed.

I hope I've made sense explaining the Catholic position...

You only succeed in confirming a stereo type. Sorry for the aggression directed at you. Religion is more then just a hot button for me, and I'm feeling a bit Trollish.

Let's summarize:

You don't have to fully 100% approve or disaprove of homosexuality, and as a Catholic I take offense when being labled as one of them.

Translation: My intolerance is religiously-based and thus is supposed to be exempt from analysis and discussion.

Homosexual attraction, like any other kind of sexual preference, is influenced by a variety of factors; most important of all of those factors is conditioning (like, allowing/encouraging yourself to think homosexual thoughts, or hanging around with homosexuals, for example).

Translation: I assert that homosexuality is a choice.

Some people can't help that they have homosexual attractions and I completely understand that, as does the Catholic Church believe it or not. The difference though with the Catholic opinion is that we believe that people who experience severe homosexual attraction are called to chastity.

Translation: It's possible that it's not always a choice, but God says tough cookies - they should shut up and die virgins.

And no, that's not "supressing your desires" like most anti-Catholic people make it sound like.

Translation: I enjoy openly and obviously contradicting myself and calling those who notice the discrepancy as anti-Catholic.

Many pro-LGBT people with misunderstandings of the Catholic religion (such as lumping it together with all of the other Christian faiths) think that it's just "forbidden" and "sinful" and an "abomination" for little reason

Translation: You're horrible for picking on Catholicism, which is why I've created a link labeled "Christian faiths" indicating that it leads to information on Christian sects other than my own, but actually points to information on one of the most radical sects thereof in existence - implying that I find the westboro baptist church to be representative of non-catholics.

while the real reason why it's sinful to the Church is that it denies the life-giving aspect of sexuality entirely.

Translation: Sex is by necessity for procreation, not recreation.

Animals do lots of things that aren't socially acceptable (killing, flinging poo, not wearing clothing... I could go on for pages). The mere existence of all of these doesn't change the fact that I'm allowed to have an opinion about sticking reproductive organs into germ-infested digestive tracts for little reason besides pleasure.

Translation: I am in a position to judge which reasons for sex are good enough for others.

There are "bigots" out there like WBC, but please don't label the Catholic Church (whether or not you were) as one of them. I hope I've made sense explaining the Catholic position...

Translation: I would like to present Catholics as being bigoted people who nonetheless reject the idea that they can be called bigots.

Translator's Notes:
If, as you suggest, Catholic doctrine really does suggest that one should actively disapprove of what two consenting adults do behind closed doors for fun with no direct harm to anyone else, then Catholic doctrine is bigoted.

the vast majority of evidence on the topic supports the statement that homosexuality in a person cannot be altered.

That is not true. According to Wikipedia article on sexual orientation change efforts, "there are no studies of adequate scientific rigor to conclude whether or not recent sexual orientation change efforts do or do not work to change a personâ(TM)s sexual orientation." Apparently that's because such studies are contrary to the official policy of the APA and other such organizations that homosexuality change efforts should not be permitted. Considering that this policy would greatly influence your ability to get funding for such a study, their nonexistence is unsurprizing. So claiming that homosexuality can be changed is not unscientific; it just isn't supported due to lack of evidence, and since we are not permitted to collect this evidence, that is not going to change anytime soon.

I don't think Apple should have banned it: they should have just packaged it with an App to cure Bigotry.

Well thank you, Taco, for calling everybody who doesn't approve of homosexuality a bigot. Have you, or any of the other homosexuality-supporters, ever considered that there are more than two sides to this? You don't have to fully 100% approve or disaprove of homosexuality, and as a Catholic I take offense when being labled as one of them.

The Catholic Church knows that there's a difference between homosexual attraction and homosexual acts, something that many people on "both" sides often forget. Homosexual attraction, like any other kind of sexual preference, is influenced by a variety of factors; most important of all of those factors is conditioning (like, allowing/encouraging yourself to think homosexual thoughts, or hanging around with homosexuals, for example). Some people can't help that they have homosexual attractions and I completely understand that, as does the Catholic Church believe it or not. The difference though with the Catholic opinion is that we believe that people who experience severe homosexual attraction are called to chastity. And no, that's not "supressing your desires" like most anti-Catholic people make it sound like. Self-control is never a bad thing, last I checked.

The Catholic Church doesn't approve of homosexuality, but not for the reasons that many think. Many pro-LGBT people with misunderstandings of the Catholic religion (such as lumping it together with all of the other Christian faiths) think that it's just "forbidden" and "sinful" and an "abomination" for little reason, while the real reason why it's sinful to the Church is that it denies the life-giving aspect of sexuality entirely. For more information, read any of the many books or articles out there summarizing Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body; the Catholic Church's opinion on sexuality is a lot more reasonable than many people make it sound like.

Yes, I've heard there's a "g-spot" "in there" (cough), and I know that animals engage in homosexual behaviors. Animals do lots of things that aren't socially acceptable (killing, flinging poo, not wearing clothing... I could go on for pages). The mere existence of all of these doesn't change the fact that I'm allowed to have an opinion about sticking reproductive organs into germ-infested digestive tracts for little reason besides pleasure. There are "bigots" out there like WBC, but please don't label the Catholic Church (whether or not you were) as one of them. I hope I've made sense explaining the Catholic position...

Why are they banning under-13's from using the site? Is 13 the age of consent in the United States?

No, but it is the age of consent in Spain and Iran. It's 12 or less in Angola, the Philippines, Yemen, and parts of Mexico. A few countries don't have an age of consent, requiring only that sex be within marriage (at any age). In most of the world, it varies from 14 to 16, and in the USA it varies from 16 to 18.

Perhaps you should check out: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Server_Name_Indication . Several of the items on your list are supposed to support SNI.

The space shuttle is not elegant

It sure as hell is. Pics of the orbiter in space always impress the hell out of me....

To wit:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Space_Shuttle_Discovery_(STS-114_'Return_to_Flight')_approaches_the_International_Space_Station.jpg

PRC government has 50 cent party members, and lots and lots of them.

When I first had to deal with telephone equipment, I came across the -48 VDC power standard for things like SONET nodes, digital cross connects, channel banks, and telephone switches. I believe this is due to cathodic protection of buried copper cables.

You can find -48 VDC rectifiers, AB fuse panels (think redundant DC power supplies) and lots of telecom gear in racks that is powered with -48 VDC.

Just add water, and you'll turn the place into a giant Chia Pet.

If my uncle had tits, he'd be my aunt.

And don't tell me there's no water.

There's no water.

The shit falls out of the sky every day.

Have you ever seen Nevada? Have you ever seen a picture of Nevada? Has anyone ever passingly described Nevada to you?

and try to tell me that water is too "difficult".

You are completely unqualified to have this discussion. Do you know where water comes from? Obviously not. You think the shit falls out of the sky. Well, by all means, educate yourself. That's where water comes from if you live in the American West. Damn near all of it. If you live in Las Vegas, you're drinking from the Colorado. If you live in L.A., you're drinking from the Colorado. If you live in Phoenix, you're drinking from the Colorado. All the drinking water, all the irrigation, all of everything. And we are running out of Colorado River. Do you get it now?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Per capita food production has been rising:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Food_production_per_capita_1961-2005.png

Which means that even with all the extra humans, our agricultural output has increased even faster. Malthus, and the fucktarded article, are wrong.

Given that the human population is estimated to peak in the next 40 years, I don't think there's much to worry about. Though humans are always capable of unprecedented stupidity. If we detect a single radioactive particle in our California rice and burn our entire yield as a result, then, ok, we'll probably have food shortages.

A a killer robot sentry.

Everybody keeps talking about pebble bed reactors. Where's the love for the energy amplifier? Basically, you stick a particle accelerator next to the reactor and feed the reaction with neutrons from spallation. Some of the energy acquired from fission can then be used to pay off the energy demands of the accelerator; and because the accelerator can be tuned, it can make use of ordinarily tricky fuel -- like thorium or what we call "nuclear waste". If it ever seems to be getting out of control, shut down the accelerator and everything stops.

My understanding is that they are describing a fast breeder reactor, one of the two major types of breeder reactor. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wik/Breeder_reactor

Breeder reactors are not a mature technology and have not been put to widespread commercial use, so the field is pretty much wide open as far as which design should be adopted on a large scale. As far as I can tell, they are simply pushing this particular design as a way to get the ball rolling on wider adoption of breeder technology.

Before you go pokin other people's eye's out with your 'knowledge stick', you may want to make sure it's properly sharpened.

And don't shove it in your own eye.

Moore NEVER said ANYTHING about PERFORMANCE NOR did he EVER say ANYTHING about TWO YEARS.

tyvm, turn in your badge at the door. And pick up a rock of meth on the way out.

-AI

[emphasis added]

Al,

From Wikipedia:

Moore's original statement that transistor counts had doubled every year can be found in his publication "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", Electronics Magazine 19 April 1965: ... Moore slightly altered the formulation of the law over time, in retrospect bolstering the perceived accuracy of his law.[16] Most notably, in 1975, Moore altered his projection to a doubling every two years.[Original source: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1478174 subscription required] Despite popular misconception, he is adamant that he did not predict a doubling "every 18 months". However, David House, an Intel colleague,[18] had factored in the increasing performance of transistors to conclude that integrated circuits would double in performance every 18 months.[19]

I got it partially wrong. I admit it and I embarrassed myself in front of thousands (hundreds?) of slashdotters.

I *should* have said that Moore predicted that transistor density on ICs would double every two years. That's absolutely not performance. I incorrectly combined the predictions of Mr. Moore and Mr. House.

However, the poster I responded to (based on their comment) couldn't find their ass with both hands and a mirror.

BTW, thanks for being wrong too. please drop your badge next to mine and I'll save you a rock, bud!

i thought Marie Curie was the first the promote it: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Marie_Curie

3. Client Performance: SSL websites are slower than non-SSL websites. Not such a big deal again these days, but I remember when I had to wait it would seem forever for the images on my online banking site to load, cursing them every time for such a graphically-intensive SSL site.

Resumed handshakes can really speed up performance for a client's subsequent SSL connections. So the performance hit depends on the type of traffic being served. Many clients connecting once would be very expensive, while a few clients connecting frequently would be much less expensive.

The reason is that the name of what is being requested is also encrypted in the SSL data.

The protocol was changed in 2005 to address this.
Server Name Indication

Niels Bohr wasn't sure about Wolfgang Pauli:
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

So perhaps the next major breakthrough in theoretical physics will have Psilocybin to thank?

If not, it might make for some interesting faculty meetings. :)

Titan (as far as I can tell) orbits almost exactly around Saturn's equator, so it too is inclined 26 degrees to the Sun.

The only major satellite that does not orbit very near its planet's equatorial plane is Earth's Moon.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Earth-Moon.PNG

Hmmm. Well, turing had a computer design back in the 1800s. Maybe you should be using that to post on slashdot, and I'll start teaching with 19th century techniques.

Alan Turing? He wasn't born until 1912. Do you think you're thinking of Charles Babbage instead?

What mathematical constant? You can encode many things as numbers, including stories, songs, movies, and the CSS and AACS encryption keys, but these are not mathematical constants.

Until even the most complex task imaginable can be computed in less time than it takes you to click a button, there will be a need for more processing power.

That's what MPP is for.

Unless, of course, you "need" a thimble-sized device to model particle interactions.

Actually, there is a significant Brazilian community in Japan

[citation needed for your entire post]

There is no "gay gene", JSYK. Homosexuality isn't decided like your hair color or eye color and that's scientifically absurd to state.

The "will happily pay thousands of dollars because they're giving me a free phone now" is possible thanks to a logical fallacy called "hyperbolic discounting"

Hyperbolic discounting is not a fallacy, it's an incorporation of uncertain risk into present value calculations. Naturally this is not a formal calculation most of the time; it appears to be a heuristic approximation instinctive in many animals. See the "Explanations" section of the Wikipedia article linked above.

ThumbEE has replaced Jazelle, so the latest ARM CPUs can in theory accelerate Dalvik as well as they could accelerate Java.

ThumbEE has replaced Jazelle, so the latest ARM CPUs can in theory accelerate Dalvik as well as they could accelerate Java.

Not being sarcastic (this time), but is it really that hard to make a Linux phone?

It's reinventing the wheel. Nokia N900

Here's a clue: Moon orbits Earth (coming closer and then moving away again) EACH MONTH.

So... Unless you are experiencing major earthquakes EACH MONTH at about the same time, but NOT during the rest of the month... There is no correlation whatsoever.
Bonus points for Moon actually being closer to its FURTHEST point in its orbit around the Earth (apogee) at the time of the recent earthquake in Japan.
Oh and... Take a look at this.
Each pixel in that photo is about 500 kilometers. During this particular perigee Moon will be ENTIRE 12 PIXELS CLOSER.

No. Google's JIT is just as insecure. The problem is not in the implementation, it's that you need to disable the NX bit on an area of memory to run a JIT at all. There is no workaround to this, unless the JIT isn't actually a just in time compiler.

The problem is not using ARM instructions. The problem is where those ARM instructions are. The iPhone presumably uses something like the NX bit to segregate data from code. Because of the way a JIT works, it needs to be able to execute code in the data area of memory. Allowing every app to do this would effectively eliminate the additional security that the NX bit provides.

Any market with a large barrier to entry will not exhibit competitive behavior in the long run. The presence of a big network effect is one of the more common causes of high barriers to entry. Regardless of the cause, incumbents corporations go on to become "natural monopolies"* and are able to charge monopoly prices higher than would otherwise be possible. The excess profit is called economic rent and causes an inefficient allocation of resources, effectively impoverishing us all.

In the past, we'd take a sober look at these situations and either regulate these markets or outright nationalize them. Today, we've been so thoroughly swayed by Laissez-faire economic ideas that we're reluctant to remedy an obvious injustice in an environment we intellectually know is not amenable to free competition.

In short, the big credit card processors have no effective competition because small players can't really enter the market, and as a society, we can choose between regulating them for the benefit of all or allowing them to skim a disproportionate amount of wealth from the rest of society. I would prefer to outright nationalize the entire financial system and run it as a public utility for the benefit of the real economy, but barring that, regulation helps.

* or oligarchies, which are indistinguishable from an economic perspective from monopolies

Any market with a large barrier to entry will not exhibit competitive behavior in the long run. The presence of a big network effect is one of the more common causes of high barriers to entry. Regardless of the cause, incumbents corporations go on to become "natural monopolies"* and are able to charge monopoly prices higher than would otherwise be possible. The excess profit is called economic rent and causes an inefficient allocation of resources, effectively impoverishing us all.

In the past, we'd take a sober look at these situations and either regulate these markets or outright nationalize them. Today, we've been so thoroughly swayed by Laissez-faire economic ideas that we're reluctant to remedy an obvious injustice in an environment we intellectually know is not amenable to free competition.

In short, the big credit card processors have no effective competition because small players can't really enter the market, and as a society, we can choose between regulating them for the benefit of all or allowing them to skim a disproportionate amount of wealth from the rest of society. I would prefer to outright nationalize the entire financial system and run it as a public utility for the benefit of the real economy, but barring that, regulation helps.

* or oligarchies, which are indistinguishable from an economic perspective from monopolies

Any market with a large barrier to entry will not exhibit competitive behavior in the long run. The presence of a big network effect is one of the more common causes of high barriers to entry. Regardless of the cause, incumbents corporations go on to become "natural monopolies"* and are able to charge monopoly prices higher than would otherwise be possible. The excess profit is called economic rent and causes an inefficient allocation of resources, effectively impoverishing us all.

In the past, we'd take a sober look at these situations and either regulate these markets or outright nationalize them. Today, we've been so thoroughly swayed by Laissez-faire economic ideas that we're reluctant to remedy an obvious injustice in an environment we intellectually know is not amenable to free competition.

In short, the big credit card processors have no effective competition because small players can't really enter the market, and as a society, we can choose between regulating them for the benefit of all or allowing them to skim a disproportionate amount of wealth from the rest of society. I would prefer to outright nationalize the entire financial system and run it as a public utility for the benefit of the real economy, but barring that, regulation helps.

* or oligarchies, which are indistinguishable from an economic perspective from monopolies

Indeed, how do Americans fall for this stuff while people in other nations seem to be able to get better deals? Are we really just that dumb?

Not that much. The "will happily pay thousands of dollars because they're giving me a free phone now" is possible thanks to a logical fallacy called "hyperbolic discounting" -- the article in the link refers to lab animals, but it's proven that it works on humans, too. Simpler descriptions here and here. Of course it's being exploited and used as a marketing method since years.
And: not only Americans fall for this, and endless businesses all around the world use this trick to, well, screw us. We Europeans just like to think we are smarter than the yanks ;) but this marketing technique is so widespread we don't even notice anymore.