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What? Many approaches didn't envision the cooling systems that you mention. They still turn out to not give any returns, at best, when studied closer.

How most of the flight must happen outside the atmosphere (which dumb rocket knows, getting the hell out of it as quickly as possible - while spaceplane you envisioned lingers), the basics of rocket equation / how spaceplane wastes lots of payload fraction for airframe - probably means things won't change significantly for a long time, except for some niche uses (like in this case, military)

Remember how the Shuttle was advertised? How it delivers? What actually turns out to be cheapest per launch? (and we barely tried mass production - basically only with very first widely used launcher)

Look at those airplanes (/. & unicode links) from "our" times, as envisioned ~130 years ago (and probably influenced by rapid advances in (sub?)marine technology) - we can build them! (take a Harrier, get rid of the wings and canopy). But strangely, we have settled on something quite different in concept, also when it comes to the mode of operation. Spaceplanes are a dream from scifi of the '40s and '50s (a lot of Shuttle designers probably raised on it...), fueled by rapid advances in airplane technology. But they are a bit analogous to flying boats - and not many those around nowadays (except, again, for very niche uses)

It's not a new idea, but not one that's been put into practice yet as far as I know.

Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web, or that the government can control the internet, etc.? They are granted power because we give it to them.

This is a myth. If it were true, the actions of the government would reflect the wishes of the majority. But it isn't true:

it is not in fact true that the idea that groups will act in their self-interest follows logically from the premise of rational and self-interested behavior. It does not follow, because all of the individuals in a group would gain if they achieved their group objective, that they would act to achieve that objective, even if they were all rational and self-interested. Indeed unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action

A single actor or small number of actors will always have an advantage if it requires coordination of a large number of people to oppose them. There are a number of reasons for this, among them:

• In a large group individuals will attempt to free-ride, not contributing to the collective effort.
• While the collective benefit may be very large, the benefit to individuals is very small. They may lack sufficient incentive to act. In other words, transaction costs are high. This is why we have firms - organizations that operate in the market but are not organized like a market internally.
• When all or most members of a group are required to cooperate in order to act effectively, each member of the group knows that his or her individual action is unlikely to make the difference between success or failure. The larger the group, the less significant the individual action. So, for example, many people don't vote: they know it is highly unlikely that their vote will make any difference to the outcome.

Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web, or that the government can control the internet, etc.? They are granted power because we give it to them.

This is a myth. If it were true, the actions of the government would reflect the wishes of the majority. But it isn't true:

it is not in fact true that the idea that groups will act in their self-interest follows logically from the premise of rational and self-interested behavior. It does not follow, because all of the individuals in a group would gain if they achieved their group objective, that they would act to achieve that objective, even if they were all rational and self-interested. Indeed unless the number of individuals in a group is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.- Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action

A single actor or small number of actors will always have an advantage if it requires coordination of a large number of people to oppose them. There are a number of reasons for this, among them:

• In a large group individuals will attempt to free-ride, not contributing to the collective effort.
• While the collective benefit may be very large, the benefit to individuals is very small. They may lack sufficient incentive to act. In other words, transaction costs are high. This is why we have firms - organizations that operate in the market but are not organized like a market internally.
• When all or most members of a group are required to cooperate in order to act effectively, each member of the group knows that his or her individual action is unlikely to make the difference between success or failure. The larger the group, the less significant the individual action. So, for example, many people don't vote: they know it is highly unlikely that their vote will make any difference to the outcome.

Mathematics isn't information. The expressions of it are information, and it is those that may be confined to this universe (i.e. the [open or closed] set of timespace in which we exist). The abstracts themselves are ... abstract, not information.

There is something of a blur between applied maths and theoretical physics (although, in my opinion, it comes down to approach), so yes, there is a blur between what was invented/discovered by mathematicians or physicists. Sometimes infinities can be dealt with using a change of reference frame, which is perfectly valid (Zeno's dichotomy paradox is kind of an example of this) in the "real world" but yes, there are other, more abstract, ways of dealing with singular points, not all of which work all the time.

What I was trying to say is that in all the cases I can think of where a 1/0 might appear in physics, either it can be "dealt with" using some sort of mathematical trickery (as with the event horizon of a black hole where there is a removable singularity) or the model is imperfect (with water splashes etc.) and not detailed enough, or the physicist complaining about the 1/0 hasn't read the instructions carefully (as at the centre of a black hole, where there is a 1/0 [which is really a 0/0] - but where the mathematical model is not valid).

The Netbook will do just fine to get out of Windows, even with OS X :)

My GF don't run OS X. Thankfully ;)

as you recall both the shoe bomber and captain underpants were young Arab men

I forgot to mention that Richard Reid - the shoe bomber, was a jamaican/white mix.

So even your historical justification for racial profiling doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Well, I don't know about you, but when I get on a plane and I see a guy dressed up as a Black Man, I get nervous (npr.org/fox).

I'm a canuck and would be happy to celebrate a discovery by my compatriots, but it doesn't make much sense to say the team that made this ion-shattering discovery 'included canadians' when it included a lot of other nationalities too.

From TFA:

Canadians make up more than 150 of the researchers involved in ATLAS.

From Wiki:

The project is led by Fabiola Gianotti and involves roughly 2,000 scientists and engineers at 165 institutions in 35 countries.

So.. how about we say 'Horray for people!' or something like that.

as you recall both the shoe bomber and captain underpants were young Arab men

I forgot to mention that Richard Reid - the shoe bomber, was a jamaican/white mix.

So even your historical justification for racial profiling doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Apparently, it was 684 MBq of Germanium (which should mean it's 76Ge). Unfortunately, that isotope is not in any of my data sheets, so I can't tell you what that means in terms of dose rate...

Correction: it was 68Ge. As I stated, I couldn't find it in my data sheets, so I just looked at a list of germanium isotopes - which only listed naturally occurring ones. Silly me!

I do however have data for the next step in the decay chain, 68Ga (68Ge decays by electron capture, so let's just disregard that first decay). The first sheet I found put it at 0.103 mSv/h/MBq beta skin dose and 0.173 mSv/h/MBq gamma at 30 cm. At 684 MBq, that means a dose rate of about 70 and 120 mSv/h at 30 cm, respectively.
So no, these sources weren't particularly dangerous. Even at that close a distance (if you don't speak metric, 30 cm is about a foot), it would take half a day of exposure to become acutely ill (radiation sickness starts setting in at around 1 Sv). And as radiation sources don't tend to be that big, you can probably consider these rods point sources, which means that the inverse square law applies: at double the distance - only 60 cm - it would take four times as long.

Apparently, it was 684 MBq of Germanium (which should mean it's 76Ge). Unfortunately, that isotope is not in any of my data sheets, so I can't tell you what that means in terms of dose rate...

Correction: it was 68Ge. As I stated, I couldn't find it in my data sheets, so I just looked at a list of germanium isotopes - which only listed naturally occurring ones. Silly me!

I do however have data for the next step in the decay chain, 68Ga (68Ge decays by electron capture, so let's just disregard that first decay). The first sheet I found put it at 0.103 mSv/h/MBq beta skin dose and 0.173 mSv/h/MBq gamma at 30 cm. At 684 MBq, that means a dose rate of about 70 and 120 mSv/h at 30 cm, respectively.
So no, these sources weren't particularly dangerous. Even at that close a distance (if you don't speak metric, 30 cm is about a foot), it would take half a day of exposure to become acutely ill (radiation sickness starts setting in at around 1 Sv). And as radiation sources don't tend to be that big, you can probably consider these rods point sources, which means that the inverse square law applies: at double the distance - only 60 cm - it would take four times as long.

How about this symbol? Is it cool to use because people aren't as familiar with it?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/KKK-symbol.jpg

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

Maybe it means this guy.

Strictly speaking he may have been wrong, but his sentiment is right: a significant fraction of all people that lived in the last 100000 years are alive today. This is mind boggling. There is this thin layer of human lives smeared out over deep time, with a huge peak at the end.

Don't you find it scary that the global human population is doubling every 35 years give or take? How many doubling periods do you think we have left before very unpleasant things start to happen?

Children are less safe from coyotes than they are from like-sized domestic dogs, such as pit bulls.

Really? How many people would you say coyotes have killed... ever?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Category:Deaths_due_to_coyote_attacks

if you really want to see the dog side of things, here's a start.

By some strange coincidence, I actually had a coyote in my yard this morning. My younger sister was out there and the coyote didn't want anything to do with people.

The "silly" name of Pirate Party in Sweden (Piratpartiet) holds two seats in the European Parliament.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Pirate_party#2009_European_Parliament_election

I am legal, and if they want some naked pictures of a fat man, I will hand them stuff from my portfolio personally. They don't need to try and trick me to get them

Picture of a fat man with no clothes.

It is easier to force everyone down a level then try to give people the means to raise themselves a level.

See also: No Child Left Behind.

Which side were the Americain on again?
lol at Wolf3d.
Was this a secret message aproving the Nazi? I am confuse now.


You may argue that in the Americain game(wolf3d), the player was killing the bad guys(the nazi). But in the Zelda image, it is a map of some bad guy's dungeon well. So i am not sure of what you are lol at...

First of all, the symbol is much more common than Hindu mythology. If you are into ancient Greek antiquities it is almost certain you have come across the swastika on helmets, pottery etc. See example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GreekHelmetSwastika.jpg , note it is even the Nazi orientation, and you will see it in most large collections of artifacts (e.g. the Met or museums in Greece). The reverse orientation is also common for other eras, e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kretominoisches_Hakenkreuz_asb_2004_PICT3431.JPG Minoan pottery.
Now, if someone wanted to make a red black avatar with a bird and a swastika, I can see how it would offend some people (I guess unless the bird was taking a dump on the swastika...).
However, should they be offended? The Nazi regime ended 65 years ago, my father still shudders at the thought of drunk Nazi soldiers during occupation yelling "Fraulein" while he is hiding with his sisters in the basement, or the sound of Stukas diving, but even he doesn't get "offended" by the sight of a swastika, why should most of the population with no direct WW2 experience?
It is not like it was the only case of a highly racist ideology. Neither was it the only case where an ideology led to mass murder.
Why be so exclusive to the swastika? Stalin was not bad with mass extermination, perhaps we should ban the sickles and hammers (except for Grabthar's of course). And let me not get started on the cross, oh, boy, it is the symbol behind more mayhem than any other! I will mention just one example of the cross and murder, one that nobody expects... The Spanish Inquisition! ... and the Crusades! So, two examples, The Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades... and... ;)

Nope, he was pretty close. Your figure is way out - there's no way a gallon of fuel put into a cargo ship would move 1 ton 500 miles (or the inverse).

Witness the largest (and possibly most efficient) marine engine in the world:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/W%C3%A4rtsil%C3%A4-Sulzer_RTA96-C

Fuel consumption is listed as 3.80 litres per second, or 1 gallon per second (3600 gallons/hour). That's a hell of a lot of fuel, and far off your 1 gallon = 1 ton moved 500 miles.

Cargo ships use fairly insane amounts of fuel, compared to how much we consumer-types are used to putting in our cars or even trucks.

The Shuttle was generally a compromise between what is possible on one hand and fantasies on the other (many of them - so the "vision" itself was a compromise too) - plus, I guess, a lot of its designers raised on scifi from 1940s, partly '50s, which (no doubt influenced by rapid advances in aircraft technology) had lots of shiny spaceplanes, Buck Rogers style.

Similarly to those airplanes from "our" times (/. & unicode links...), as imagined ~130 years ago, no doubt influenced by rapid advances in (sub?)marine technology. I have difficulties finding similarities between them and this - and not merely technical, also in regards to the usage concept. We can build them! (take a Harrier, remove wings and canopy), doesn't change how they are a horrible idea. Not many flying boats around nowadays, too (not a bad analogy to what the Shuttle is, IMHO)

once again, it goes to show that Society doesn't have the fortitude to attack the problem from the right direction.
sigh.

Well, here's my method of dealing with all environmental issues: here

But the argument for AGW isn't like that at all. The warming was predicted from first principles over 100 years ago. The idea that burning fossil fuels will increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the increase in this greenhouse gas will cause warming is pretty obvious when you know basic chemistry and physics. The fact that we've observed the predicted warming at a rate and during a time that we would expect verifies the hypothesis. Among climatologists, only a select few still won't accept that the hypothesis has been confirmed.

HP Lovecraft said it best, in his long winded essay

To continue this point, SOP with China especially, and Asia in general, is to surrender IP via technology transfer agreements and consulting agreements. This is bad philosophically, but necessary practically as a business can get something for teaching and training, or nothing at all. Either way, you will have your IP stolen so most shops have decided to get what they can while they can. This was all tolerable before, but now that China is competing in primary markets with effectively stolen technology lots of industries are getting pissed, not just train builders.

The whole point behind patents is to encourage innovation by granting an inventor time-limited monopolies on their ideas so long as they teach their invention to the world. Using trains as en example, Siemens figures out how to build a better flim-flam widget inside the boffin-tube to make the ding-dang wheel spin faster... which somehow improves the Train. By agreeing to tell the world how it all works, they are allowed to prevent others from selling this thing to the world for a two decades. The idea being, Alstom researchers can use that knowledge to make an even smaller flim-flam that leads to an even better train.

What China is encouraging is businesses to no longer patent certain processes and methods, instead opting for the trade-secret route. While the /. population in general probably feels less patents are good, it isn't. Instead of teaching the world about flim-flams and boffin-tubes, Alstrom and Siemens will lock up their technology inside a vault as "Trade Secrets", jealously guard it from outsiders and even insiders who don't need to know. Innovations stumbles and we all suffer as a whole.

Or, even better, encrypt all your partitions (well, except /boot) with https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dm-crypt. In Debian you can easily do this during the install.

That hasn't been true for fourteen years. The Telecommunications Bill of 1996 made exclusive licenses illegal.

What we have now is basically collusion between the major ISPs. The phone companies have all agreed that only one phone company will ever serve any particular area, and the cable companies have all agreed that only one cable company will ever serve any particular area, meaning that, for the majority of the area of the US, broadband customers have at most two choices.

For example, I have a choice of AT&T DSL or Time Warner cable, period. My parents live a five minute drive away and they have a choice of Verizon or Comcast, period. Verizon doesn't serve my area, despite the fact that they have hundreds of FIOS installations less than a mile from my house, and Time Warner doesn't serve my parents, despite the fact that they have a regional office less than a mile from their house.

This has nothing to do with government conspiring with business, and everything to do with too few players falling into a Nash Equilibrium: a state where nobody competes with anyone else, and instead work to squeeze as much money out of customers as possible.

The wikipedia page talks about the "well dressed man" and congressional testimony revealed that various TLAs knew about him and intentionally chose not to revoke his passport or put him on the no-fly list.

The State Department didn't revoke the visa of foiled terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because federal counterterrorism officials had begged off revocation, a top State Department official revealed Wednesday.

Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

"Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort."

So for the scanner to be deadlier than just that attack, it would have to kill 16 extra people a year for a bit over 176 years. Am I missing something?

For further comparison there's an 9/11-equivalent loss of life on US road every 27 days (using 2008 numbers from the 'pedia.) Maybe it's me, but I don't see it being more deadly than terrorists. That said, I'm not going in them - radiation is cumulative. RF (the MM-wave scanners) is not.

Money would be better spent making a few places secure for winter time emergencies. Unlike California, if we're without power or housing, we die.

If you look at the map, you'll see that the New Madrid fault line is mostly in Missouri and will affect several states further south. It won't even touch Minnesota. Serious earthquakes are pretty rare, even historically in Minnesota.

I don't know what the winters are like in Missouri and I don't know if many people die from them down there. The threats from poor driving on the road are probably their biggest problems and I don't know if any amount of money will fix that sort of behavior. I grew up near Buffalo Ridge in Minnesota and there were a couple of earthquakes I remember but they didn't leave any visible damage. But yeah there were several ice storms and snowstorms that left us snowbound ... my mom would fill the bathtub full of potable water in case the pipes froze to our well. We had a fireplace as our only heat until I was fifteen when we got a gas heater. Yes, I woke up some mornings to see my breath had frozen to frost on my pillow in front of my face. And there were more than a few nights when I opt to sleep next to the fireplace rather than my bed which seemed to be the furthest away in the house.

Knowing how to survive a bad winter or a hot summer in Minnesota is important but if you look at the area these earthquakes could affect, the area is staggering. I don't know if it would hit quite the population that the San Andreas could but you're talking about a potential large area without utilities, increased lawlessness and a logistical nightmare for support/rescue. It might be worth risking billions to inform people of how to prepare and handle this sort of disaster. I guess that's up to the geologists and seismologists to recommend though.

Moved to NYC from a town in Tennessee of 62K people... The air seems to be cleaner in NYC for the most part. While cities can be bad, when people don't give a shit, it's worse.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/US-overall-nonattainment-2007-06.png

People think that gold doesn't have intrinsic value, but they forget that gold is jewelry.

If that was all people saw gold was it would be dirt cheap. No, people have an absurd obsession with gold.

If for example gold was as common as sand, wouldn't you want to drink your coffee from a golden cup instead of a ceramic one?

No, I wan't my coffee to be nice and warm instead of radiating all over the place. Hell, I wouldn't want to do it now either, it's just another metal, get over it.

Wouldn't we use golden wire for electricity instead of copper?

No, we wouldn't. Gold has it's uses that would benefit from people not hording it, this is not one of them. On the other hand, if you can convince people to stop hoarding silver we could actually get better wiring where it matters.

Sorry it took so long to reply. The company that I referred to was called: ChoicePoint and is now owned by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Those links point to a Wikipedia article on a company and the official website under new ownership respectively. Hope this helps, despite being a week overdue.

Oops, put a space in that link.

And he champions an old, scientifically discredited theory of economics.

I recently saw the very good documentary on the Apollo missions that had extensive interviews with a lot of the astronauts. I think it was "In the Shadow of the Moon"

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

In any case, I came away from it with a whole bunch of respect for Michael Collins (they guy who stayed in the command module while Neil and Buzz when down to land). He really comes across as a great guy.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Michael_Collins_(astronaut)

I recently saw the very good documentary on the Apollo missions that had extensive interviews with a lot of the astronauts. I think it was "In the Shadow of the Moon"

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

In any case, I came away from it with a whole bunch of respect for Michael Collins (they guy who stayed in the command module while Neil and Buzz when down to land). He really comes across as a great guy.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Michael_Collins_(astronaut)

Even the worst US coal plant is a lot cleaner than the ICE found in a car.

lolwut? Do you know what fly ash is?

Emissions controls on modern vehicles have gotten to the point where the air coming out the tailpipe can be cleaner than the air that went in the intake.

AT&T and Verizon don't sell boosters, they're femtocells. Same result (better signal), different way to get there (femtocells rely on your existing Internet connection).

So they get to charge you for a device that uses YOUR internet connection to correct their deficiencies?

What a deal!

Hmm, bestiality or zealotry, tough choice. At least one of them don't intentionally eat their toe jam...

AT&T and Verizon don't sell boosters, they're femtocells. Same result (better signal), different way to get there (femtocells rely on your existing Internet connection).

He also was insane and committed massive fraud. I'd stick with Einstein before pushing nutters like Tesla.

I'm surprised you are the only one who've pushed the great Albert so far. During his great year, when he was only 25, he published 3 papers which changed how the world sees space, time, and matter. Each one of them should have earned him a Nobel: the photoelectric effect (launched quantum mechanics), Brownian motion (relaunched thermodynamics) and the special theory of relativity. Guess which one did.

You won't find a bigger bunch of underpaid, overrworked deluded masochists than engineers

According to The Wall Street Journal, engineers make an average starting pay of $58k, which is pretty good considering they're only around 22, and the median personal income for all individuals in the United States is 32k.

You can't steal from corporations.

So if I jack a business vehicle off company property, I'm in the clear, then?

They aren't people.

Yes, they are, according to http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202439349140 .

They can't be drafted.

But they can be given military contracts, can't they?

They can't be executed.

Tell that to AT&T. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bell_System_divestiture

They never serve a day in jail.

No, but their board members and CEOs sure as shit can. http://www.enrontheplay.com/

Thus, stealing only occurs when you steal from people.

No matter what the Supreme Court says.

Corporations are established by people and jointly owned by people. You steal from them, you steal from their board members, their employees and their families. And thank God we live in a country where the opinion of the courts matter.

The Romans invented concrete.

That's only 1600-2200 or so years ago.

The Romans started using concrete before 200 B.C., but Wikipedia says the Egyptian pyramids were built with concrete long before that. So that makes its invention 2200-4600 years ago.

IMO "several hundred" was correct.

From your link: "being more than two but fewer than many". Considering civilization has only been around for ~60 centuries, "several" is arguably less than twenty. Try "many hundreds" next time you go for your pedantic medal. Thanks for playing.

This is Ken Perlin who invented Perlin Noise https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ken_Perlin https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Perlin_noise

This is Ken Perlin who invented Perlin Noise https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ken_Perlin https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Perlin_noise