Slashdot Mirror
Gravitational Wave Detection Imminent?
Seumas Hyslop writes "The UK Telegraph is reporting that we may finally have equipment that are sensitive enough to measure gravitational waves, which are incredibly small and have evaded detection despite the theories that they are present as a way of explaining gravitational effects. Basically, a laser beam is split into two branches that are sent down two identical 2000 feet long tubes and back again via mirrors. Assuming the two arms remain exactly the same distance, they will cancel each other out. But the scientists think that the beams will interfere with each other owing to the effect of gravity, meaning the length of the branches is altered and a gravitational wave has been detected."
If only it was imminent...it would be so much nicer.
Oh well. Maybe next week.
For some reason I was expecting a poll involving Cowboyneal to be associated with this story.
Wow... more than five "you spelled it wrong" posts got modded down "offtopic" at exactly the same time, yet no-one has bothered to fix the error.
It really says a lot about the maturity and professionalism of the admins here that they would punish the people who point out the mistake, instead of actually fixing the mistake.
FYI, most moderators are common users selected out of the user base at random times.
Obviously, that does not excuse Slashdot's lack of proofreading.
No, he's right. We all have our own *immanent* gravity wave detector.
It just takes a few (dozen) drinks to bring it out!
That's right. That drunk you see in the alley behind Fenway Park is actually a physics experiment.
On the subject of bad administration, why is this modded +1 funny? If anything, it's informative.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
ahaha an Aussie, good on ya mate. I spotted the .au :)
I thought people just paid this site to run ads as stories.
Oh! You ment the subscribers. Yeah, misplaced guilt I guess.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Follow the guidelines for moderation. Moderate UP not DOWN. And browse at -1 Newest Posts First, No Threading.
I know the rules. Preferably moderate up, rather than down. But one reason for moderation is to remove the clutter of trolls, off topic and so on for most people. A negative moderation os not automatically a bad moderation.
I metamoderate three times daily and anything that is modded offtopic or flamebait or troll that isn't obviously so will earn you black mark that will reduce your chances of being selected as a moderator again.
Good. Too few people are metamoderating.
Of course, a discussion about spelling mistakes is almost always off-topic, as is commenting on it being a dupe. If it's at 2 already (probably because of Karma), it is very likely overrated as well. I can't be doing too badly with my moderations; I've gotten an "unfair" less than half a dozen times in the past few years.
And naturally, this whole discussion right here fully deserves to get modded down too.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Actually thats just me. SLAINTÉ!
"A lot of spelling errors get through on Slashdot, but this has got to be one of the worst. Jeez."
I wish I was so smart that a simple spelling error rendered it impossible for me to process the content of the article.
"My built in spell checker is going bezerk! ARRGH!!"
"Derp de derp."
immanent means something completely different.
So, is it right to say: "..And now time for immanent!"
doh, drop it, it's not funny that way.
Well done!
Who cares about some pointless typo?
Move along, now. There's nothing to see.
Back to the real topic...
"It really says a lot about the maturity and professionalism of the admins here that they would punish the people who point out the mistake, instead of actually fixing the mistake."
You're kidding, right? Most slashdot users wouldn't be able to spell "dictionary" correctly. How do you expect them to go to dictionary.com unless someone bookmarks it for them or provides an active link?
More than one reason to moderate up not down. I saw an idiot posting stupid rubbish trolls (those see how many times you could swear in a sentence teenage kid posts) and I used my five mod points to mod them down just so the troll wouldn't clutter the page.
I haven't gotten mod points since.
Come on, you're using the wrong definition.
we all know they meant that gravity waves have qualities that are spread throughout something. And that something just happens to be everything.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Makes me wonder why we don't get, say, four "upward" mod points and only one "downward" mod point. Or three and two. That might help discourage malicious downmoderation.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
That's not the point - the point is that it happens to be the job of the editors to correct such mistakes, and it's appalling that they do not take notice of something like this on the title of a new submission, no less. And while I was a subscriber, I've pointed out several such mistakes which would just be ignored time and again.
An occasional mistake or two is one thing, but repeated ones are something else entirely.
And as so-called geeks who can be sticklers about rules in programming and in a programming language, why should you treat natural language any differently?
It's got a proper way of spelling it, and spell it that way. And in some ways, I'm at least glad that there are some of us who care enough about the language to point out a mistake.
Sorry, some of us happen to appreciate proper usage and good spelling - and if there're so many folks pointing out the mistakes time and again, maybe there is a reason?
I'd like to point out that these people could not point it out over and over again if it didn't keep happening over and over again. I think it wouldn't be that hard to have someone with at least a loose grip on English look over the news article before it was posted, and perhaps that same person could do a quick search through the old articles to make sure it hasn't already been posted. Also, if it was fixed immediately, there would not be much of a problem either.
But true, in sound. However, this is text, and spelling counts... or so my teachers tell me *mutter* -1, inaccurate use of a comma, -2 misspelling some long dead guy's name, and -1 clearly BSing a paper about the teachers pet philosopher.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game