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Slashback: Periodicity, Vacuum, Strength
Bratty kids get to sit near the volatile elements. Theodore Gray writes: "About a month ago there was a slashdot lively discussion about my wooden Periodic Table Table. A bunch of slashdot readers sent me elements for it: Thank you slashdot! Two people actually sent me free Ag and Pd, contrary to the jokes in the discussion. I decided the world could stand another periodic table website. Since all the eight dozen other periodic tables on the web have better reference information than mine, I used some Mathematica programs to generate links to many of them for each element. But my site is more beautiful. I'm going for science as art. Mine also has by far the best quality sample photos: High resolution, high quality macro shots of 89 samples so far."
Starts with a crank, too. ripaway writes "With all the recent stories about vaccuum tubes, I find it ironic that I stumbled on this today. Sterephile reports about the Panasonic CQ-TX5500D(link to Japanese site) car stereo that uses a vaccuum tube, with analog vu-meters. It also plays mp3 files 8-) Naturally, this is for the Japan market only."
Sounds like material for a Burning Man tent ... nm1m writes "A superstrong composite developed by Brigham Young University scientists and students has received financing for its first practical application -- mammoth wind turbine towers able to more than triple the electrical output of existing steel models. Read the story here."
We mentioned this interesting lattice-looking material a few weeks ago.
Sucking requires a context to be good or bad. Sun Tzu writes "After the recent discussion on bad software, how about a different reason for why software sucks? Maybe we programmers and users don't have it quite so bad after all."
That dadburn whippersnapper, why when I was a boy ... Junks Jerzey writes "I remember reading about Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers five years ago in Wired News. Pretty cool stuff, with an introduction by some guy called John Romero. It was available for a long time as a commercial product that used HTML for formatting, but it's now completely online, as reported by the author."
This is indeed an excellent read and well worth the time - if you want some other online books which discuss the earlier days of computing and hacker culture try these
Free As In Freedom - Sam Williams - A biography of Richard Stallman and an excellent read for those who would like to understand the man a bit more or even understand how GNU and Open Source actually happen. I reccomend this to even people who dislike RMS (as i did) as you will understand the man from a new perspective
The Cathedral and the Bazzar- Eric Raymond - This book has been condemmed and praised by many and provides an intersting look at open source and the different models of software - worth a read
Underground : Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier - Sulette Dreyfuss - A great look inside the world of the cracker and very intersting and compelling to read
There are heaps more out there - post them as you find them - BTW if you have a bit of cash to spend i reccomend Hackers by Steven Levy and Fire in the Valley by freiburger and swain for 2 more great books on computer and PC history
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
These guys are pretty good for buying small uranium ore samples to test geiger counters with. They also stock uranium doped glass marbles that really light up under black light. Pretty cool radioactive toys.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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:)
They are both the same, and both are nicknames.
The full name of the church is: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is where the "latter day saint" nickname comes from.
The nickname "mormon" comes from a book called The Book of Mormon that is used and accepted as scripture only by members of the church.
Neither nickname is offensive to members of the church, although "latter-day saints" (and sometimes reduced to just "saints") is more commonly used for members referring to themselves or other members.
"Mormon" is generally used by non-members of the church, primarily because they aren't familiar with the actual name (it is a tad long...). It is also sometimes used as a pejorative by non-members, although it is a rather strange pejorative because it isn't offensive to the recipients
The Wikipedia has extensive discussion on this topic here.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I know you didn't ask, but to spread knowledge, here we go:
Although in English, calling one who practices Islam (Submission to God) a Muslim (One who submits) seems a curious usage issue, in Arabic it makes perfect sense. Almost all words in the Arabic language are formed by 3 consonant stems. In this case, it's SLM , which implies submission. From this you form iSLaM and muSLiM in much the same way you form Christianity and Christian from the root word Christ in English.
Or regale the readers of Slashdot with a gripping explanation of how there's *one* tube in the car radio, but presumably it carries audio for left and right (two distinct) channels.
The tube is a twin triode.
Uh... that was the University of Utah.
NOT BYU.