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Motor Made From Liquid Film

KentuckyFC writes "Last year, a group of Iranian physicists made a puzzling discovery. They placed a thin film of water in a small cell and bathed it in two perpendicular electric fields. To their surprise this caused the water to rotate. They called their device a liquid film motor and posted on the web a cool set of movies showing the phenomenon. The puzzle is this: the electric fields are static, so what's driving the motor? Now another group of physicists has the answer: a complex interaction between the electric field, the cell container and the liquid causes water to move along the cell wall. Crucially, it moves in opposite directions on opposite sides of the cell and so sets up a circular flow. The phenomenon works only when friction and surface tension are significant forces so the effect is entirely scale dependent. That's probably why we haven't seen it before and also why it could have important implications for microfluidic devices such as lab-on-a-chip."

241 comments

  1. Magneto Hydro Dynamics by Iffie · · Score: 0
    1. Re:Magneto Hydro Dynamics by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1, Funny

      Can I use a Beowulf cluster of these to run my car?

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  2. at least something by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.

    As for the actual story: this can be used to build the world's smallest washing machine.

    1. Re:at least something by lord_rotorooter · · Score: 1

      Not to brag, but I have noticed a similar effect after my morning bagel on a few occasions.

    2. Re:at least something by William+Robinson · · Score: 1

      this can be used to build the world's smallest washing machine.

      Probably not. From TFA,

      In larger bodies of water, these effects become insignificant and the rotation stops. Which is why these motors have only ever been seen in thin films.

    3. Re:at least something by N1AK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.

      It is nice to see something that isn't negative about Iran getting into western news. Iran has a population around that of the United Kingdom so I have no doubt that numerous beneficial scientific discoveries are made there.

    4. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean, like, the middle ages when the middle east was the center of culture and learning?

      Yeah, maybe he was aware of that, hence why he qualified that with "nowadays", dumbass.

    5. Re:at least something by Benfea · · Score: 1

      If you think this is the only thing coming out of (or happening in) Iran that doesn't involve terrorists or nukes, you are remarkably uninformed.

    6. Re:at least something by ptelligence · · Score: 3, Funny

      Are you kidding me? This definitely looks like it has WMD potential.

    7. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      When somebody gets uppity about Iran in a political newsgroup or so, I sometimes send them pictures of pretty Iranian snow bunnies at a Tehran ski resort. Sometimes it shuts them up. People (Americans, at least) seem to have this idea that they know about a place when in reality they know absolutely nothing about it.

    8. Re:at least something by PPH · · Score: 1

      This might be useful in nano (obligatory technical buzzword) machines used for biological R&D.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    9. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So are you going to share these pictures with us?

      I would really like to have my views broadened this morning.

    10. Re:at least something by Jurily · · Score: 1

      Iran has a population around that of the United Kingdom so I have no doubt that numerous beneficial scientific discoveries are made there.

      How is scientific discovery and population related?

      http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-famous-Hungarians#Math_and_Sciences

    11. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is there anything interesting in that morning bagel ? For me, spinning room effects tend occur late in the evening.

    12. Re:at least something by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

      Jesus Christ

      I see what you did there....

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
    13. Re:at least something by Cynonamous+Anoward · · Score: 1

      Poppy Seed Bagel, maybe? o_O

      --
      "The GPL is viral by design, like any good religion."
    14. Re:at least something by msormune · · Score: 1

      Wow, you're right! The story does not mention USA at all

    15. Re:at least something by LandDolphin · · Score: 1

      The link does not really fit into the relation of scientific discovery and population as the people on the list are only required to have had a Grandparent from Hungary. Not having to have been born in, or lived in, hungary, kind of removed the relation to population.

      --
      Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
    16. Re:at least something by X.25 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.

      Yeah. That region NEVER had anything good come out of it.

      You are a fucking retard with absolutely no knowledge of history.

    17. Re:at least something by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 1

      Where WMD = "Washing Machine Device"

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
    18. Re:at least something by Jurily · · Score: 1

      Not having to have been born in, or lived in, hungary, kind of removed the relation to population.

      True, but consider the fact that living there wasn't exactly a smooth ride in the last 100 years. Read up on Trianon, Rákosi, and 1956, and you'll get the idea.

      Basically, bright people always had some really good reasons to leave the country.

    19. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still waiting for the day that something comes from you that is neither a crock nor aimed at getting into someone's pants!

    20. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.

      Well, if you weren't that full of prejudice, you would realize that the numbers you use everyday (like 1,2,3,4,...) actually are coming from that region of the world.

    21. Re:at least something by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      You are a fucking retard with no understanding of what you are reading.

      Nowadays != Never

      Suck a duck.

    22. Re:at least something by Belial6 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Seriously, do talk about posting pictures of hot chicks and then not post them.

    23. Re:at least something by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      The worlds smallest washing machine should be able to wash worlds smallest g-string.

    24. Re:at least something by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      just another retarded idiot who can't read. Nowadays = today or close to today, not 'ever'.

    25. Re:at least something by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nice to see at least something coming out of that region of the world nowadays that has no relation to terrorists or nukes.

      Nonsense. This is clearly a prototype terrorist water tentacle.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    26. Re:at least something by roman_mir · · Score: 1, Troll

      what are those other things that are coming out of Iran nowadays (you do realize, TODAY?) What, that satellite? Isn't that related to nukes somehow and WMDs? Iran USED to be an oasis of ideas and science about a thousand years ago, today it's all about oil, stoning women who were raped, nukes, killing jews and whatnot. So go into your corner and cry me a river. These are the best news from Iran yet.

    27. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Headline for the website read.
      "News and views from the coal face of science"

      I say anthracite or bituminous.

    28. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      umm this is called electroosmotic flow... not exactly new

    29. Re:at least something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      man - you are such a dumb, nasty slut.

    30. Re:at least something by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      I'll be conducting remedial English lessons after class ... you're welcome to stay behind for some extra help ...

  3. Not Often... by Crazy+Man+on+Fire · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Here's an interesting effect discovered by a group of Iranian physicists at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran (it's not often we hear from these guys).

    Aside from the actual scientific content of the article, I found this lead quote to be interesting with many subtle and not so subtle implications. Discuss.

    1. Re:Not Often... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Discuss

      No, you.

    2. Re:Not Often... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there's your problem. You RTFA. DON'T DO THAT!

    3. Re:Not Often... by dkleinsc · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, without the scientific content of the article, I thought it was really a dastardly plot to DDOS Iran with the Slashdot Effect, especially with the inclusion of video.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    4. Re:Not Often... by TubeSteak · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      I found this lead quote to be interesting with many subtle and not so subtle implications

      Westerners assume that the Middle East is a 14th Century backwater and cannot contribute to the world in meaningful ways.
      Ditto for religious fundamentalists and non-capitalists.
      Where would they ever get such ideas?
      /News at 11

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    5. Re:Not Often... by digitalunity · · Score: 1

      I don't care what religious fundamentalists have to offer. I don't want it.

      Their ability to make contribute to modern society doesn't undo the harm they cause.

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
    6. Re:Not Often... by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 1

      I don't care what religious fundamentalists have to offer. I don't want it. Their ability to make contribute to modern society doesn't undo the harm they cause.

      I'd offer to lend you a hand so we could build a wall between the two, but you wouldn't take it, and I wouldn't accept it. In the end, I think we can be unhappy in shouting at each other from across the yard.

      That'll show em.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
    7. Re:Not Often... by gtall · · Score: 1

      Iran is in S. Asia, not the Middle East. And if they didn't want to get labeled as a bunch of religious loonies, they could repeal their stoning laws, stop fomenting anti-semitic hatred, start respecting the rights of women, etc.

      "What goes around, come around" is true for the Western Nations as well as the Eastern. Iran will rue the day they decided they needed to attempt a take over of the direction of Islam. The Sunnis will never forgive them for it.

      Gerry

    8. Re:Not Often... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean religious fundamentalists like Faraday or Pascal?

      Your outlook causes as much harm as that of the fundies.

    9. Re:Not Often... by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      To be fair, we assume the same thing about West Virginia.

    10. Re:Not Often... by peragrin · · Score: 1

      At least Iran has more than 15 last names unlike west Virginia.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    11. Re:Not Often... by e2d2 · · Score: 1

      It depends on the definition one uses and it certainly isn't clearly defined. The Middle East is generally thought to extend well into South Asia and also into Africa. That comes from the origin of the phrase (British labels: near east, middle east, far east). BUT The US State Dept defines Iran as South Asia and modern western usage usually excludes Iran.

      Iran baffles me. Their population doesn't seem to be "in step" with their leadership. Everything I see coming from inside Iran contrasts the typical world-view of Islamic zealots. But their government sends out messages promoting just that, following a hard line. I just get the feeling they are all over the place internally and the population follows the hard-line leadership because they provide stability, jobs, and safety. It's just too bad those at the top refuse to bend even a little and play games with the fate of their population.

    12. Re:Not Often... by qbzzt · · Score: 1

      And if they didn't want to get labeled as a bunch of religious loonies, they could repeal their stoning laws, stop fomenting anti-semitic hatred, start respecting the rights of women, etc.

      Good idea, but all the people who suggested this in Iran got stoned (and I don't mean the hashish kind). Now the sane Iranians just sit quietly and wait for things to get better.

      They could use a few George Washington types, but the popular support isn't really there.

      --
      -- Support a free market in the field of government
    13. Re:Not Often... by digitalunity · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Do you just not understand there are religious people out there who do NOT believe in religion of freedom and thin you should die for not believing as they do?

      As a former Jehovah's Witness, I know a thing or two about religious conservatives and fundamentalists. The average religious zealot will try to convert you, but only a fundamentalist would try to kill you because you reject their faith. These types of people have no place in modern society.

      And you want to advocate a position of compromise... There isn't compromise with them. Look at Afghanistan. The taliban will only allow government if it includes forcing sharia law on people who for the most part are moderate Islamic people. They take this position to the detriment of their own people, hiding among them or kidnapping/killing those who would propose another way(true democracy).

      And you still want to advocate meeting in the middle? Fuck the fundamentalists, and fuck you too.

      --
      You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
    14. Re:Not Often... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Iran baffles me. Their population doesn't seem to be "in step" with their leadership. Everything I see coming from inside Iran contrasts the typical world-view of Islamic zealots. But their government sends out messages promoting just that, following a hard line.

      The United States baffles me. Their population doesn't seem to be "in step" with their leadership. Everything I see coming from inside the US contrasts the typical world-view of Christian zealots. But their government sends out messages promoting just that, following a hard line.

      (or at least it did until January this year).

    15. Re:Not Often... by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

      I hereby propose a new state where fundamentalist religions regularly duke it out with their holiest and most righteous fighters.
      Winner is obviously the one with god on his/her side, contest over until the next battle royale.

      --
      music lover since 1969
    16. Re:Not Often... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. What sort of backwards country has museums dedicated to creationism, has churches that picket soldiers funerals and claim that god hates the world, has fundamentalists pushing education agendas and still tries to claim it is a modern society?

    17. Re:Not Often... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who says that the scientist are "religious fundamentalists" ? I didn't see anything about religion on that page with all the videos.

  4. Super Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ions, Electrons, Electricity is always moving. Nothing is static! This does not surprise me at all.

    In fact, it's like saying:
    "A magnet is static. What mysterious moving part makes it attract metal?"

  5. Where does the energy come from ? by mbone · · Score: 1

    There is friction, so this requires energy - where does it come from ? My guess is that the electric field is actually lowered, so they are converting E field energy to rotational energy, but that the losses are small enough to make this quasi-static.

    Now off to RTFA.

    1. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by UbuntuLinux · · Score: 3, Funny

      The energy comes directly from the physicist's beards. We all know that Iranians have beards, this is what is powering this device. Unfortunately in nations where beards are less prevalent, this effect will be less pronounced, or maybe not evident at all.

    2. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by mbone · · Score: 4, Informative

      OK, having read the "real" article, the best response is that this may explain the observed effects. The major differences

      - the depth of the film is an important parameter, but that isn't known for the original experiments, so they can't compare results to theory in a detailed fashion.

      - the theoretical work leads to at most one steady vortex in a container, but the experimental results show both one and two. The two vortex results may, of course, be transient.

      - the theoretical results have flow speeds largest at the outer boundary. The experimental results have it increasing towards the center. This may be explainable by other effects, such as surface tension, but it is a discrepancy.

      And the article says nothing directly about where the energy is coming from, but, reading it, it must be the electric field.

    3. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      From the will of Allah, you insensitive infidel.

    4. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have to read the article, even the pretty pictures show a current is applied, so there's no mystery about where the energy is from.

    5. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by mbone · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, I don't see it in the pictures, but the original article does make this clear - one of the two electric fields is done by putting copper electrodes in the water, so a current is flowing and you are correct.

    6. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1

      Right in the summary: bathed it in two perpendicular electric fields

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    7. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      A field, by itself, does not provide energy. Only when something moves perpendicular to the field is energy transferred. What with The Fancy Article being all slashdotted, I'm going to guess that the motion is caused by normal brownian motion within the water, and that the electric fields act on the polar nature of the water in a manner similar to a ratchet. In other words, it's easier for the water molecules to move in a certain direction than in another.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    8. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 1

      It's also one of the causes of all the power behind UNIX.

      --
      Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
    9. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by MetalFlow · · Score: 1

      assuming you are right, this would seem to work off the basic principles of electric motors. two perpendicular E fields will generate force in the direction perpendicular to them both. This would be the cross product of the fields for you math heads and the "right hand rule" for the amateur physicists. Thus, we treat the water as a very flat, malleable wire and we expose it to a (comparatively) uniform perpendicular E field. Then we run current through the wire, thus generating two perpendicular E fields. The mutual force between the two then cause the water to accelerate... in one direction... Interestingly, my little thought experiment does not allow for two different forces... Now, I will RTFA and see how close I was.

    10. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by jc42 · · Score: 1

      A field, by itself, does not provide energy.

      Hmmm ... I've seen a number of comments like that, and I was curious. I'm sitting in a rather strong (gravitational) field that seems to be totally static. Yet I can feel its push, by the pressure my bottom surfaces feel from the chair I'm sitting in, even when I'm not moving. If I hold an object out to the side and release it, it falls to the floor every time. The energy required to produce that motion has to come from somewhere, and the gravitational field seems the only likely source.

      Only when something moves perpendicular to the field is energy transferred.

      So the energy to the things I've dropped came from my moving them perpendicular to the vertical gravitational field, i.e., when I moved them horizontally? I can easily test this. I picked up one of the objects, carefully lifting it with a vertical motion, and released it. It fell to the floor. So it picked up energy while being moved parallel to the field. The falling speed doesn't seem to vary depending on how I move an object into position before dropping it.

      Meanwhile, I made some similar tests with a convenient magnet (taken from the refrigerator door). It seems that the magnet attracts small metallic objects from any direction, no matter how they were moved there relative to the magnetic field. The field is obviously static. So how would you explain this motion, which seems the same regardless of how I move the small objects relative to the magnet?

      Maybe the physics of static gravitational and magnetic fields are different in my living room from where you are in the universe ...

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    11. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by Jesrad · · Score: 1

      That device sounds like a parietal accelerator wound into a loop. French scientist Jean-Pierre Petit suggested it would make an ideal submarine propulsion method.

      My guess is that the depth of the film has to be small for the flow to remain stable and entrain all the water.

      --
      Maybe we deserve this world ?
    12. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by corsec67 · · Score: 1

      F=ma.

      Force = (mass) * (acceleration).

      If the mass isn't accelerating, there is no force.
      If you are sitting in your chair feeling a "push" from gravity, that isn't a force unless you are falling.

      A force acting on an object gives it energy (or takes it away, if you are slowing the object down).

      In your case of lifting the book, you are giving the book potential energy when you move it away from the earth. Gravity turns that potential energy to kinetic energy when you drop it. The same for your magnets, but relative to the door of your fridge.

      Much more at Wikipedia for Force.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    13. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by jc42 · · Score: 1

      If the mass isn't accelerating, there is no force. ...
      Much more at Wikipedia for Force.

      Well, again, I was curious about this interpretation of the physics, so I took the extreme step of actually reading the article. Even a cursory glance at the first paragraph shows that it doesn't agree at all.

      To make it clear, the claim seems to be that if you and I are pushing on opposite sides of an object and it doesn't move, we are exerting no force. This is clearly a possible interpretation of the physics, and there's something that is zero in this scenario. But I don't think it agrees with the definition of "force" that physicists or engineers use.

      Thus, the WP article says "In physics, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity." Note that little weasel word "can". This statement is consistent with the interpretation that two (non-zero) forces might cancel each other, resulting in no change of velocity. Acceleration isn't required for there to be forces on an object. Actually, it's the other way around; an acceleration shows that there's a (net) force being applied to the object. But forces may be present without a resulting acceleration, if the sum of the force vectors is zero. I am being accelerated by the Earth's mass, but it's ineffectual, because there's a counteracting force, the electrostatic charges in the atoms of the thing that I'm sitting on. Actually, it's not totally ineffectual, because I contain pressure sensors that measure the counteracting force, and those sensors are sending a nonzero signal to my central nervous system.

      The WP article reinforces this interpretation with a later statement: "Newton's second law states that an object with a constant mass will accelerate in proportion to the net force acting upon and in inverse proportion to its mass." Note again that it refers to "the net force", not "the force". This is tacit acknowledgement that there may be multiple forces at work, and the acceleration is due to the sum of the applied forces. If that sum is zero, there is no acceleration, but those forces still exist.

      I think you're using "force" as a shorthand for what the WP article (and most physicists and engineers) call "net force" or "the sum of all forces" or some such more elaborate phrase.

      Maybe we need an explicit term for this concept, so that people don't continue to confuse it with the concept of "force". This term would refer to something that does disappear when all the applied forces sum to zero. But it shouldn't be called "force", because that's already in use for a slightly different concept.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    14. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by corsec67 · · Score: 1

      Maybe we need an explicit term for this concept, so that people don't continue to confuse it with the concept of "force". This term would refer to something that does disappear when all the applied forces sum to zero. But it shouldn't be called "force", because that's already in use for a slightly different concept.

      You mean like "pressure"?

      Your chair is pressing on you, which you can feel. It isn't a force if you aren't accelerating, though.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    15. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by dkleinsc · · Score: 1
      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    16. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Hmmm ... I've seen a number of comments like that, and I was curious. I'm sitting in a rather strong (gravitational) field that seems to be totally static. Yet I can feel its push, by the pressure my bottom surfaces feel from the chair I'm sitting in, even when I'm not moving. If I hold an object out to the side and release it, it falls to the floor every time. The energy required to produce that motion has to come from somewhere, and the gravitational field seems the only likely source.

      Sorry, that was weak wording on my part. A field will impart potential energy on any object in the field. Unless the object moves, it will remain at the same potential energy.

      So the energy to the things I've dropped came from my moving them perpendicular to the vertical gravitational field, i.e., when I moved them horizontally? I can easily test this. I picked up one of the objects, carefully lifting it with a vertical motion, and released it. It fell to the floor. So it picked up energy while being moved parallel to the field. The falling speed doesn't seem to vary depending on how I move an object into position before dropping it.

      When I say parallel to the field, I mean following the lines (or surfaces) of equal potential. In the case of the gravity field, that means moving horizontally. By perpendicular, I mean crossing the lines of equal potential: moving vertically in a gravity field, or getting nearer or farther from a magnet. An object's energy does not change unless it moves perpendicular to the field. There is no energy change when moving parallel to the field, like rolling a ball along the floor. It takes no energy (other than what is required to overcome friction) to roll a ball.

      Maybe the physics of static gravitational and magnetic fields are different in my living room from where you are in the universe

      Perhaps there are minor differences, but I think the biggest culprit was my poor wording.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    17. Re:Where does the energy come from ? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      We all know that Iranians have beards, this is what is powering this device.

      Implying that women (neither Iranian nor western) will be unable to get this to work.
      (Sorry, I just realised that TFA made no mention of the gender of the researchers. So, still accepting "beard power" as a working hypothesis for the moment, perhaps it's the absence of beards necessary, or the average beard-count-per-sq.km ?)

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  6. " a couple of droogs from Russia" ?? by gilleain · · Score: 1

    (Quote from the arxivblog post)

    Is this some physics jargon for lab assistant? Or is it just a clockwork orange referenced insult?

    1. Re:" a couple of droogs from Russia" ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a transliteration of a Russian word for friend. Which is also where Burgess got it from - some sort of Slavic propaganda thing.

    2. Re:" a couple of droogs from Russia" ?? by vertinox · · Score: 1

      Or is it just a clockwork orange referenced insult?

      Actually, Anthony Burgess mixed a lot of Russian jargon into his novel of Clockwork Orange for one reason or another.

      As another poster has mentioned, droog is an actually Russian word.

      There are plenty others in Clockwork Orange that to westerners seems made up but he is really borrowing from other languages.

      Of course you would never know that if you just watched the Stanley Kubrick film (to be fair is fairly faithful to the book's dialog... minus a few scenes) but if you pick up the novel at the store and read the forward or notes in the back of the book, it explains this.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  7. MIrrors please? by The_church_of_funzie · · Score: 1

    Can't download films, slashdoted already.

    1. Re:MIrrors please? by PPH · · Score: 1

      Or the CIA snagged another undersea cable.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  8. inspiration by ovu · · Score: 1

    that's a Scottish term, referring to magic mushrooms and ecstasy. Tha droogs ahh a creeativ catalyst! Liquid motors!!!

  9. good for iran by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the ayatollah has made science a high priority:

    Ali Khamenei has been supportive of scientific progress in Iran. He was among the first Islamic clerics to allow stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.[27] In 2004, Khamenei said that the country's progress is dependent on investment in the field of science and technology. He also said that attaching a high status to scholars and scientists in society would help talents to flourish and science and technology to become domesticated, thus ensuring the country's progress and development.[28]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei

    he recongizes the truth: iran will be a second rate power unless it leads in the field of science, through which it retains its independence and preeminence. this is why attacking iran's nuclear pursuits is hopeless, since iran attaches so much pride in iranian science and technology exploits. they just launched a satellite too. but all of these advances came from science and technology stolen or borrowed from other countries

    but the history of persian science is a rich one, and there is no reason its future shouldn't be bright as well, if only the ayatollah would also realize that the preeminence of the west in science came only after the enlightenment

    what else happened in the west during the enlightenment? religion was questioned. this is not a mistake or a coincidence: the questioning of religion is inseperable from being a strong scientific thinker. the probing mind of a scientist must be able to question everything, no taboos, in order to do the best science one can. you train young minds to question everything, and in this way, you make great scientists

    so dear ayatollah: i celebrate your desire to reassert persia at the forefront of science and technology. so why don't you further this great goal along by relaxing the stifling theocratic censorship of your society, ensuring bright young minds are trained to their utmost? in order to ensure that persian civilization flowers again, let little discoveries like this thin film motor not by isolated gems, but instead be the beginning of a rich tapestry of persian thought

    do that, by relaxing your fundamentalist stranglehold on the mind of the young iranian

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:good for iran by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

      I almost regret my dashed-off sarcastic comment below when you took the time to write something so much more appropriate and balanced. 5's too low a score for this.

    2. Re:good for iran by Ash+Vince · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      He also said that attaching a high status to scholars and scientists in society would help talents to flourish and science and technology to become domesticated, thus ensuring the country's progress and development.[28]

      Now if only we in the west would catch up and do the same.

      I now earn more than my friend doing vital scientific research into the human brain and the effects of ageing. He has a PhD and has just published his first paper. I flunked out of uni while studying a Physics BSc. Go figure.

      The fact is that in our society the main status symbol is how much you earn, yet we pay people like teachers or university lecturers a pittance compared to the people who cause global financial disasters with an excess of greed. Yet our governments are throwing money at a thoroughly broken capitalist system that to me seems grossly unfair by design and also on the brink of collapse due to its bias towards the people at the top of the tree.

      --
      I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
    3. Re:good for iran by jambox · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Its true that the enlightenment was crucial in putting western science where it is today. OTOH the situation the middle east faces today is very different from Europe in the dark ages, mainly because there is already a more advanced (no offense but the amount of research done and stuff actually invented in the west dwarfs the middle east and asia) culture outside their borders. Iranians would love to recapture the scientific power they held in times gone by but presumably are terrified their culture will be destroyed by western influence, with orthodox religion being their only defence. So It's not just as simple as calling up the Ayatollah and shouting "Hey! Do the enlightenment already!".

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
    4. Re:good for iran by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, indeed ancient greeks developed all their maths questioning their religion. Indeed, pythagoras questioned Zeus for the famous theorem: "Oh Zeus, can you give me a theorem please?".

    5. Re:good for iran by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "but all of these advances came from science and technology stolen or borrowed from other countries"

      Science and technology are basically just knowledge. Nobody owns knowledge. Therefore it cannot be stolen or borrowed.
      It's like saying that elementary kids are stealing the ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

    6. Re:good for iran by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Actually, there are many things that happened during the Enlightenment period, but honestly, Western science was much farther along well before that.

      Questioning religion is just that, questioning religion. You don't need to rid yourself of religion to make progress in science. In this day and age, there are billions of people who follow some sort of religion and science has done quite well. The reason for that is simple. Religions themselves do not inhibit science or thought, rather the habits of authority that any institution, whether it be religious, scientific, political or cultural can develop are what inhibits thought.

      It's quite true that there were religious blocks in accepting scientific ideas. There still are.

      However, completely atheistic groups have also inhibited scientific progress through their own developed dogmas.

      To be honest, I feel that the concept of fighting religion "as religion" instead of actually looking at a sect and trying to separate certain (usually optional or traditional) practices from the core belief will tend to bring more benefit to opening up the minds of a religious person.

      Science did not come filly-grown out of the head of Voltaire or any of the particular philosophers of any particular period, it is a progression that has deep roots in a religious past. I think it would be wiser to use that energy rather than put yourself in opposition to it completely.

      Iran could be a very strong country if it learns that. There are clearly some religious scientists in Iran and other places who have made progress, despite their handicaps due to authoritarianism and Western blockades. This has not been a bar to them, and I don't see why it would be to anyone else.

    7. Re:good for iran by Venik · · Score: 1

      Enlightenment may be too broad of a concept. Generally, progress in science occurs when people stop taking their religion too seriously. God is bad for science. Science is a quest for knowledge and knowledge cannot be heretical, unethical, immoral, or illegal. Organized religion in general is the biggest enemy of scientific progress. Best scientific and technological progress is made when we lift restrictions imposed by religion, law and morality.

    8. Re:good for iran by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For your information, when Mohammad was asked about the position of Islam about science in particular & knowledge in general, he said "Seek Knowledge Even to China". China in those days was the furthest know land and was the "forbidden City". So my "dear" friend, such a statement brought the golden days of science and knowledge in the Middle East and eventually to Europe through North Africa and Spain. Europe during that time was in the darkest ages. It took the West 250 years to understand the usefulness of the number Zerop (0).

      The current Middle East is the product of the Western World policies and nothing will change it unless people in that region go back to their true religious beliefs convictions. And you know what else, Many of the Western World laws were applied during Islam and if you know how to read and understand Arabic, you will find the whole US Constitution already in the Quar'an.

      No wonder why Jefferson had his own copy and turned out to be the main author of the US Constitution. One other thing Jefferson was set out to do is, re-write the Bible. I heard it on NPR and you can look it up. It must be some where on the internet.

    9. Re:good for iran by Arancaytar · · Score: 1

      A theocracy has a hard time gaining a scientific edge, but it also does wonders for maintaining centralized control. Very few politicians consider changing the status quo in favor of giving up their power.

      (And that is even if none of the people in power actually have the strong beliefs they profess. If they do, then these convictions will only strengthen the resistance to change).

    10. Re:good for iran by evilviper · · Score: 1

      what else happened in the west during the enlightenment? religion was questioned. this is not a mistake or a coincidence: the questioning of religion is inseperable from being a strong scientific thinker. the probing mind of a scientist must be able to question everything, no taboos

      There are innumerable taboos in western science. Picking on religion as one of the MANY taboos that went away in unison with the declining power of the church, seems a pretty baseless assertion.

      Science has done well in many situations where there are/were strong religious taboos.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    11. Re:good for iran by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what else happened in the west during the enlightenment? religion was questioned. this is not a mistake or a coincidence: the questioning of religion is inseperable from being a strong scientific thinker.

      Actually, it might well be a coincidence. In Muslim Spain, for instance, an immense amount of scientific research was done in the midst of a very religious culture. There's a large body of work on optics, physics, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc from that time -- all of it done in a religious culture.

      I realize that in the US there's a lot of friction between religion and science, but that's not the case elsewhere in the world. The rest of the world doesn't share the West's experience of the oppressive Catholic Church regime, for instance, which the Enlightenment was a partial reaction to. It looks to me like you're using science to pimp secularism. Stop, please.

    12. Re:good for iran by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its true that the enlightenment was crucial in putting western science where it is today. OTOH the situation the middle east faces today is very different from Europe in the dark ages, mainly because there is already a more advanced (no offense but the amount of research done and stuff actually invented in the west dwarfs the middle east and asia) culture outside their borders.

      It turns out that there was a more advanced civilization outside of European borders at the end of the dark ages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age. Science flourishing in a religious culture, shocking, I know ...

  10. Iranian scientists? by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

    [confused]I thought they were only a cover for nuclear weapons development[/confused]

  11. nope by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Is this some physics jargon for lab assistant? Or is it just a clockwork orange referenced insult?

    "droog" is the Russian word for friend. Also, how come I can't enter UTF-8 chars in a slashdot post without them getting mangled?

    1. Re:nope by Vintermann · · Score: 1

      Because slashdot is in the stone age? :( It could be that they think everyone should write in English here, so why do they need unicode... (A hint to CmdrTaco: some of us like to have our names correctly spelled and such)

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  12. Two perpendicular electric fields? by frankie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's been about 20 years since I took E&M Physics, but... How exactly would "two perpendicular electric fields" be different from one diagonal electric field equal to the vector sum? Mathematically, you can only describe two things as "perpendicular" if they are reasonably linear and uniform.

    1. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Additionally, I just skimmed their paper, and if the external fields are truly static, then I don't see any way to break the symmetry about the z-axis (their rotational axis). Since all of their little film-cells rotate in the same direction, this says to me that there is an unaccounted-for field which is breaking the symmetry and starting the effect. Alternatively, they could have shown a subtle coupling in which one cell starts its rotation one way, and through interactions with the other cells, they all start going in the same direction.
            And, as someone else has already noted, frictional effects are important here. It would be interesting for them to measure the current needed to feed their electrodes in the steady state, since, if there is work being done w/in the cells, the fields have to supply the driving power.

    2. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by snoop.daub · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The two perpendicular fields are not identical. One of the fields is external, the other was applied as an electrode potential. So one of them is applied in air and gets screened at the interface, the other is applied directly to the cell and is not screened in the same way. I'm not sure what the consequences of this are, but I'm sure the difference is important.

    3. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Two perpendicular fields with the same frequency but different phase will produce a rotating field.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_polarization

    4. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by NewbieProgrammerMan · · Score: 1

      Except that these are static fields--from the third FA, "They raise an interesting question: the electric fields are static, so whatâ(TM)s making the water move?"

      --
      [b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
    5. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Me thinks they re-invented the homopolar motor in fluid surface form. But what the heck do I know?

    6. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Since all of their little film-cells rotate in the same direction, this says to me that there is an unaccounted-for field which is breaking the symmetry and starting the effect.

      Huh? In that video that's linked to, the film begins with a visible counter-clockwise rotation, and after a few seconds, it visibly halts. Then it begin again with a clockwise rotation. This seems to be initiated by some motion along the top edge of the cell.

      So what are you seeing that's different from what's running on my screen?

      The URL for the video I'm looking at is "http://softmatter.cscm.ir/FilmMotor/movies/movie.1.wmv". Do others see the rotation differently than I do? On my screen, in a firefox 3.0.6 window, the change in rotation direction seems very obvious to my eyes.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    7. Re:Two perpendicular electric fields? by gardyloo · · Score: 1

      I haven't yet looked at the video, so I can't say for sure. I was speaking of the quote on this page: http://arxivblog.com/?p=401 which says, "At one point they divide their cell into nine smaller ones and the liquid in each cell rotates in exactly the same way."

            The fact that the rotation goes one way and then another says that the rotational symmetry is broken spatially, and temporally, so *something* is not in steady-state (despite their claims). Something isn't consistent (it may just be an error in the slashdot submission -- heaven knows THAT's never happened before), especially as it says, "The puzzle is this: the electric fields are static, so what's driving the motor?". The paper at http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3733 doesn't especially address it, and, in fact, a claim that _static_ fields (carrying no angular momentum) can lead to this sort of rotation stinks of kookiness. Either I'm missing something big (it's entirely possible) or this *really* needs to be looked into (as I suspect will happen).

  13. This is an act of war!!! by alta · · Score: 4, Funny

    By posting links to MOVIES hosted in IRAN you have used the /. effect to saturate that entire country's available bandwidth. This is terrorism sponsored by the capitalist west! You have fired the first shot, but I ran WILL retaliate. You knew we had nukes, now we will prove it to the doubters. Kiss your precious Israel goodbye!

    It'll take us a while to get the nukes into launch position though. The servos are these really cool little motors made out of water and electricity. They have to be really small, so we have a whole lot of them working together.

    --
    Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
    1. Re:This is an act of war!!! by magus_melchior · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of this line from Lewis Black: "[Iran has] access to nuclear materials, which they convert into a bomb and place it into a missle, and 500 Iranians will throw it at us."
      (He made that joke a few years before they launched their satellite)

      --
      "We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
  14. What a weasel sentence by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 0, Troll

    "I have no doubt that ..."

    This invariably means the person has no evidence for the following statement, isn't looking for evidence and doesn't want to hear any evidence and is sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LALALALALA" against anyone trying to argue his point.

    It makes religious freaks look reasonable, you want to believe X and so you put yourself beyond any reasonable doubt and make your total unbased assumption into fact.

    Nasty.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:What a weasel sentence by ad0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is worse? N1AK suggesting that out of a population of X size, you might get Y innovations (where X:Y has a common ration across various countries), or your post that suggests N1AK is an unscientific proponent of religious zealots?

      I'm left wondering if you would make the same claim if we were talking about a (say..) South American country rather than Iran.

    2. Re:What a weasel sentence by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This invariably means the person has no evidence for the following statement, isn't looking for evidence and doesn't want to hear any evidence and is sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LALALALALA" against anyone trying to argue his point.

      Not always. It could also mean that the person does have 'no doubt' but doesn't feel the need to provide immediate evidence for every single statement in a post on a very informal internet forum.

      How about this, Iran is a country which is actively seeking to establish a successful nuclear program. Since they do not have immediate access to all the information and technology to accomplish this, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that they are attempting to recreate that information independently. In such an environment, the fact that they would be conducting experiments in non-identical conditions, they may come to different conclusions, or observe the results from a different light. Because of the limitations on information transfer to Iran, this situation is not limited to nuclear technology.

      Or he could keep that paragraph to himself, proving TO HIMSELF that he really does 'have no doubts' that Iran would be making discoveries, and that it would be interesting to hear about them in the West.

      This is Slashdot, not a science journal.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
    3. Re:What a weasel sentence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "This invariably means the person"

      This invariably means the person has no evidence for the following statement, isn't looking for evidence and doesn't want to hear any evidence and is sticking his fingers in his ears and going "LALALALALA" against anyone trying to argue his point.

    4. Re:What a weasel sentence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "This invariably means ..."

      Umm... right, you present a really convincing argument there.

    5. Re:What a weasel sentence by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      Or it means they aren't an ignorant dipshit who thinks scientific achievements only occur in places their society approves of, so despite not having any direct proof they can make a reasonable guess because it'd be much more unlikely and require a lot more proof to show them to be wrong.

      Iran is a big country, they obviously aren't all religious zealots, they do in fact have research universities, so "I have no doubt" in this context means "I have a fucking clue and two brain cells to rub together".

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    6. Re:What a weasel sentence by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Just as another example of Iranian research: ridiculously strong concrete. High strength concrete generally has a compressive strength of 3,000 PSI or so. The person who wrote in about the situation had created concrete for the competition that was 16,000 PSI. 10,000 PSI is considered hard rock, and granite is 30,000 PSI. The Iranian concrete was *50,000-60,000* PSI. When it shattered, it damaged the testing equipment. They pulled it off using what appeared to be a quartz aggregate (160,000 PSI) and steel fibers. And this was at 28 days; concrete gets stronger over time.

      Naturally, Wired spins it into the context of bunkers and nuclear weapons, like we do with everything that comes out of Iran. How long until this thin-film motor gets portrayed as something nefarious?

      "Next on Fox: An Iranian art student paints a prize-winning portrait of a sunflower. Is it really a secret code for transferring nuclear secrets? Find out after the break."

      Iran is trying their damndest not to be seen as an intellectual backwater. And while they're not up to western standards, nor are western stereotypes of Iranian academic achievement generally justified. There are now six times as many university students in Iran today as there were in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown -- largely because tuition, room, and board are paid for by the government, which is trying to improve their education standards. Here's a fair summary of the situation today. They're no shining star when it comes to education, but they're not backwoods yokels either.

      Another way to put it: Iran has two of the top 500 universities in the world, as ranked by QS. That puts them tied for 42nd in terms of top-500 universities, with . 140 countries don't have any top-ranking universities at all. There's not a single country in the Carribean with a top-500 university, only two countries in all of Africa (Egypt=1, South Africa=4), and so on. The lion's share are in the US -- 123, followed by the UK (50), Germany (42), France (38), and Japan (36). Iran ranks better than Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, Uruguay, Egypt, Slovenia, Colombia, Peru, UAE, Romania, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh (1 each), but below Mexico (3) and Poland, Portugal, Pakistan, Denmark, Israel, Norway, South Africa, Chile, Phillipines, Czech Republic, and Argentina (4 each).

      --
      Are there any deer in the theater tonight? Get 'em up against the wall.
    7. Re:What a weasel sentence by Toonol · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Naturally, Wired spins it into the context of bunkers and nuclear weapons, like we do with everything that comes out of Iran. How long until this thin-film motor gets portrayed as something nefarious?

      Naturally? I think sensibly. Scientific research in a slightly insane and violent theocracy should probably always be looked at with a bit of cynicism. There's not a lot of scientific research that is independent of the government going on in Iran; therefore, the Iranian government's motives come into play. Just as when you see a study about Alcohol funded by a major brewery, and so on.

    8. Re:What a weasel sentence by show+me+altoids · · Score: 1

      I have no doubt that this invariably means something.

      --
      I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
    9. Re:What a weasel sentence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Iran hasn't waged war outside its borders in 300 years. If you're calling them insane and violent, what the fuck would you call the United States or Israel?

    10. Re:What a weasel sentence by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's cynicism, and then there's outright paranoia. It's safe to say that this type of concrete invariably WILL be used in bunkers, but there are also a multitude of other uses for it. Unless the Iranian government specifically created this project in order to create hardened bunkers (which they didn't) there's no reason to immediately get paranoid about it. Let the boys in the pentagon worry about possible military implications - the rest of us should be thinking about ways in which it could be used to improve civilian infrastructure.

      Besides which, chunks of ultra-hard concrete aren't exactly a threatening concept, even coming from a violent and slightly insane theocracy :) Now, if they start making really big trebuchets, THEN we can start to worry ...

    11. Re:What a weasel sentence by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 1

      Scientific research in a slightly insane and violent theocracy should probably always be looked at with a bit of cynicism.

      Which is why I never trust any research out of Isreal.

      Sorry, my bad... You said slightly violent.

      --
      I don't therefore I'm not.
    12. Re:What a weasel sentence by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      The problem is that Iran has a habit of doing things like photoshopping missiles. You can't trust their scientific achievements until they're independently verified, which will always keep them second class. Until they learn about transparency and start to have a human rights record that people can look at without revulsion, then Iran can start being looked at as an equal. As it is, they're a very violent, unstable country with a leader that spouts nonsense and has not given the world reason to take them seriously that has made a few interesting discoveries. But the few good things they have done does not automatically put them at par with the rest of the world. Our scientific capabilities didn't come in spite of our political situation... they came BECAUSE of it. And until Iran changes that, things won't really change.

    13. Re:What a weasel sentence by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up. Really places things in perspective.

    14. Re:What a weasel sentence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you have anything better you could be doing between episodes of "24"?

    15. Re:What a weasel sentence by Tim12s · · Score: 1

      Your argument lacks an understanding of context.

      Religion freedom kept Europe and the western world stuck in the dark ages. The middle east is still stuck in its own form of dark ages.

      Until rational political thought overwhelms irrational political thought the whole middle east is going to stay in its little quagmire.

      Rational people are scare shytless of irrational people.

      I don't mind rational people with nuclear weapons but irrational people, whether christian or muslim... no-thanks.

    16. Re:What a weasel sentence by Tim12s · · Score: 1

      So to answer your question - I'd call the US and Israel rational.

    17. Re:What a weasel sentence by Vintermann · · Score: 1

      The statements about super-concrete were made by an American scientist after an American competition, in America (which the Iranians were allowed to attend. Apparently the super-concrete isn't quite top secret).

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    18. Re:What a weasel sentence by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      I didn't say the achievements weren't serious. I said the world won't take them seriously, and they won't have nearly as many if they keep a culture of separation and nigh-dictatorship.

  15. Micropropeller? by tjstork · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I wonder if you could use this effect to make a sort of a propulsion system for a small submarine. If you don't have a propeller at all, and were just spinning water around, it could be very quiet.

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:Micropropeller? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I wonder if you could use this effect to make a sort of a propulsion system for a small submarine. If you don't have a propeller at all, and were just spinning water around, it could be very quiet.

      Since you didn't bother actually reading the article, I'll provide an answer:

      No. It can't be used to make a propeller.

    2. Re:Micropropeller? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, Red October style "caterpillar drive" actually exists ..., it's not uber-stealthy like the film claims though.

    3. Re:Micropropeller? by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 1

      Yup. EvilMadScientist did a short series of articles on making them.

      --
      Not a sentence!
  16. Not impressive. by boyko.at.netqos · · Score: 1

    Call me when they have a motor made from liquid video...

    --
    I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
  17. a very tiny yellow bikini comes to mind... by lrohrer · · Score: 1

    a very tiny yellow bikini comes to mind going round and round.

  18. Wait a minute... by Gastrobot · · Score: 2, Funny

    Doesn't Microsoft hold a patent on this?

  19. oblig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Make water spin
    2. ...
    3. Profit!
    4. Also, Fuck you.

  20. it's ok to be anti-american by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    what is not ok is to be so blinded by your hatred of america that you give other countries, some a lot worse, a free pass. iran is a fundamentalist theocracy which is building nuclear bombs and censors its press, jails and tortures political dissidents, and enforces an ultrastrict fundamentalist religious pov, especially on its women. they have actual police brigades in tehran that fine women for wearing clothing that are too risque. you want to defend this as somehow not as bad as what the usa does? please note something i am saying here: the problem is NOT islam, the problem is fundamentalism

    again, it is ok to be anti-american. but why do you think that means you have to be pro-iranian? here's a suggestion: why don't you be anti-american AND anti-iranian, at the same time? why would you want to do that?

    so that you can say you oppose the usa based on principles, rahter than just blind dumb prejudice. because if you applied your principles, the principles you say you have according to which you say you hate the usa, if you applied those principles uniformly across all world governments, you would find yourself hating a lot more than just the usa

    grow a brain. blind america bashing is tired and dull

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by BarryNorton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't like the term 'Anti-American' or 'Anti-Iranian'; I like most American people I've met and most Iranian people I've met. I don't like either of their flawed democracies and I don't like the undue influence of either of their fundamentalist religious movements.

    2. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Dude, Iran is most certainly not a democracy. It is, to borrow a phrase, a "functional fascist theocracy". They have real religious police. See http://viewfromiran.blogspot.com/

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      wiran is a fundamentalist theocracy which is building nuclear bombs and censors its press, jails and tortures political dissidents,

      So far this sounds a lot like USA 2000 - present.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    4. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

      The government is democratically elected. It is not a free democracy however because all candidates have to be approved by the ulama. The ulama are not democratically elected, and also oversee adopted or doubled-up functions normally attributed to government. Dude.

    5. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by Muros · · Score: 1

      iran is a fundamentalist theocracy which is building nuclear bombs

      So what? It's a country that is within nuclear assault range of the USA, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, India and China. I'd want some nukes too if I lived there.

      jails and tortures political dissidents

      I'm sorry, Americans have lost the right to complain about torture.

      it is ok to be anti-american. but why do you think that means you have to be pro-iranian? here's a suggestion: why don't you be anti-american AND anti-iranian,

      I'd much prefer to be both pro-American and pro-Iranian. When I think of Iran, I try not to think of the assholes running the country. When I think of America, I try not to think of the assholes running the country. Both countries are made up of mostly hardworking, decent normal people, and if anything there are more dangerous religious fundamentalist people in the USA than there are in Iran (although perhaps not per capita).

    6. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by immcintosh · · Score: 1

      iran is a fundamentalist theocracy

      A fundamentalist theocracy that has as much popular support as most secular governments. An important distinction, I think. (And to be fully technically correct, they're an elected fundamentalist theocracy)

      which is building nuclear bombs

      You mean, just like every country crying foul about them building nuclear bombs is also building nuclear bombs?

      and enforces an ultrastrict fundamentalist religious pov

      Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, the citizens of Iran generally support fundamentalist religion.

      especially on its women

      That there is no excuse for. Certain basic rights should never be subsumed even if the country at large subscribes to a worldview that demands it. I'll agree there.

      grow a brain. blind america bashing is tired and dull

      Matthew 7:2-5

      I agree with you to a point. But we've got some serious beams in our own eyes to deal with, and that's more important. They're not perfect, and neither are we, but we have no right to complain about the things WE are also guilty of.

    7. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by cinnamon+colbert · · Score: 1

      why is it ok for us to have nukes, but not person X ?
      From person X's perspective, this might seem unfair.
      I also might point out, that the various treaties we are signatory to, a treaty under the constitution being recognized as governing law in the US, at least suggest that we should elimminat our nukes.
      there is something, at least from person X's perspective, hypocritical when the us says, clause x of this treaty requires you to not have nukes, but we are ignoring clause y, which requries us to elimminate nukes.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty#Second_pillar:_disarmament

    8. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by Max+Threshold · · Score: 1

      The problem with your entire argument is that before Iran was a fundamentalist theocracy, it was one of the most socially progressive countries in the Middle East. Then the United States invaded them for some stupid reason I can't recall, and installed a puppet government which turned into a brutal dictatorship. Resistance to this government took on a religious flavor when mosques became the only place where dissidents could meet and speak freely. In essence, the United States *created* Iranian Islamic fundamentalism through their meddling. And in light of recent history, I don't trust the United States to right its mistakes without making things ten times worse.

    9. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by jc42 · · Score: 1

      The government is democratically elected. It is not a free democracy however because all candidates have to be approved by the ulama. ...

      Hmmm ... If you substitute "the two major political parties" for "the ulama", it sound very much like the US. Some other democracies have three major parties, but people are often pointing out that the number doesn't really matter. What matters is that a small unelected oligarchy controls who can run for office.

      So maybe this is an inherent part of human societies. What's the chance that we can ever do anything that works better? Just changing the name that the media uses for the oligarchy doesn't seem to much affect the outcome.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    10. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      The government is democratically elected. It is not a free democracy however because all candidates have to be approved by the ulama.

      By that standard, Cuba is also a democracy. You can vote for Castro, or you can vote for Castro. How much more choice do you need?

    11. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

      Except that the populace have voted for a second candidate against the one supported by the ulama before. I hardly think Americans are in a place to criticise in any case, having openly supported the Shah's ousting their first ever democratically elected ruler.

    12. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Then the United States invaded them for some stupid reason...

      Who did the what now?

      What alternate-history book did you read THAT in?

      And in light of recent history, I don't trust the United States to right its mistakes without making things ten times worse.

      And in light of your apparent ignorance of history (US invading Iran? Seriously?? WTF?), I don't trust you to make any foreign-policy decisions :) If you think that recent history is a reason not to trust the US, chances are you don't really understand recent history.

    13. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Except that the populace have voted for a second candidate against the one supported by the ulama before.

      Yipee. I can imagine the Ayatollah's conversation before THAT election - "do they have any hope in hell of winning? no? ok, let them run!".

      What was the party called? The Jewish United Western Homosexual Pigdogs Alliance? The acronym alone would have been enough to keep them from winning ...

      I hardly think Americans are in a place to criticise in any case, having openly supported the Shah's ousting their first ever democratically elected ruler.

      That's simple bigotry on your part. It's the equivalent of saying that Germans have no right to comment on the actions of Israel because they once tried to exterminate the Jews. Even if we accept your criticism of past US actions, it's no justification for telling an entire nation of people to STFU. It's ignorant, it's bigoted, and it has no place in civilized discussion.

    14. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

      What was the party called? The Jewish United Western Homosexual Pigdogs Alliance? [...] That's simple bigotry on your part.

      Hmmm, yes, this was certainly coherent. I don't remember the United States having been through a regime change comparable with losing a war, partition and reunification. Could you let me know when that happened?

    15. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Huh?

      So the only way to make up for past mistakes is to lose a war? The only way that citizens can earn the right to speak is by forcing their country to be partitioned?

      Look, next time you hit that "preview" button, have a look over your message and take a minute to actually THINK about what you've written. Contemplate it's internal logic. Consider whether it makes a reasonable and relevant point. Correct any faults that you find. You'll be surprised by how much of an improvement such a simple change can make to almost all discussions.

    16. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by BarryNorton · · Score: 1
      Thanks for the posting guide. May I offer some advice in return? In order to understand a post please consider what it's replying to. You said:

      It's the equivalent of saying that Germans have no right to comment on the actions of Israel because they once tried to exterminate the Jews

      I explained why it wasn't the equivalent at all.

      If you want a sensible decision of whether the Americans must still be held responsible for restoring the Shah, and for arming the Iraqis in the Iran-Iraq War, DON'T GODWIN!

    17. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by Vintermann · · Score: 1

      Not quite. Iran is a democracy (yes, if the US was a democracy under slavery, then Iran is one today), but stained by an extremely powerful and unaccountable judicial branch (the ulama).

      The US Supreme Court is also powerful, and also unaccountable, and its interpretations of the Constitution are sometimes more similar to religious interpretation than interpretation of regular contracts or laws. But it's still a long, long way from the high clerics of Iran.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
    18. Re:it's ok to be anti-american by Vintermann · · Score: 1

      No, but you at least have to admit the mistakes your nation made.

      It was you who drew in Nazis first, and I hereby invoke Godwin's law.

      --
      xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
  21. This reminds me.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This reminds me of when I was a kid, and built an electric motor completely wrong, yet when I applied the power, it worked anyway. I quickly figured out the motor was built so that it should not spin, but yet it spun. It spun because the elmers glue and aluminum foil contacts were not perfectly round and so caused the hand held wire 'brushes' to bounce off them rhythmically so that power was applied through part of a revolution only, making what would have been a system that would find equilibrium at a stand still, an electric motor.

  22. new submarine propulsion on its way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wow, we will soon have caterpillar drive on submarines then, just like in 'The hunt for Red October'

    just need to scale it up and use shed loads of nuc power. problem sorted.

    wicked !

  23. Souther Hemisphere ? by karvind · · Score: 1
    But will it spin other way round in other hemisphere (sorry had to say it).

    In Soviet Russia, water spins electric field !

  24. Military Application by jlebrech · · Score: 1

    I can see a military application for this.

    You mix radioactive material into a liquid, then get it to spin in that film state and it could act a centrifuge to seperate uranium and plutonium. and that would be just the size of a washing machine and could be easily hidden from satellites.

  25. absolutely wrong by circletimessquare · · Score: 0, Troll

    you SHOULD earn a pittance as a university researcher. because you haven't found anything yet. we shouldn't just pay people a lot of money just because they sit in front of a microscope or a chromatograph

    however, when you DO find something of value, guess what: you cash out and become a millionaire

    scientific research is like being a prospector. actually it is EXACTLY the same thing as being a prospector: you go out in to a strange unexplored land, you follow your nose and your knowledge of geology, and, with some luck, some good preparation, you make a gold strike. with science, the strange unexplored land is the edges of human knowledge. where is the next big discovery? if your mind is keen enough, and you are lucky to be right at the edge of something huge, you cash out with fame and fortune

    plenty of other prospectors meanwhile, go out in the wilderness, and starve to death. why should we pay prospectors up front to go prospecting? some of them might not be very good, some of them might be really good, but are just unlucky to be exploring the wrong land

    so it is with university researchers: let them live on ramen noodles and live in tiny apartments. if they find something huge, they will be living the good life soon enough

    and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this arrangement. every great scientist, no matter how well they are paid (and some ARE paid well, for example: pharmaceutical researchers or petrochemists), knows well enough their value as a scientist, their self-value, pretty much rests on this allegory of the prospector. they can toil in obscurity for decades, and find nothing of substance. or they can pick the one right avenue at a young age, and be known as the next einstein, and be handed a nobel in middle age

    this is the nature of science

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:absolutely wrong by dargaud · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you SHOULD earn a pittance as a university researcher [...] however, when you DO find something of value, guess what: you cash out and become a millionaire

      No. That will lead to people only working in fields where they can 'make it big' and leave all the rest which, as history has taught us again and again, is where the discoveries of tomorrow are to be made. Basically it would push technology and drop fundamental research. You think like a bean counter.

      Disclaimer, I work in research. And not everybody who does 'discovers' things. I design instrumentation; as such I'll never 'discover' anything and I'm rarely associated in publications. So for you it means I should earn a pittance with no hope of anything better.

      Well, if that's any consolation for you, I do earn a pittance already.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    2. Re:absolutely wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they will be living the good life soon enough

      You mean like the guy who invented the mass-producible GaN diode that sued when the invention he was paid a few hundred bucks for earned billions of dollars, and everyone went nuts on him?

      Yeah, I think that sound is your idea crashing against the reality of people being assholes.

      (To be fair, he did end up settling for about $7 million and went on to work on blu-ray diodes.)

    3. Re:absolutely wrong by DM9290 · · Score: 1

      however, when you DO find something of value, guess what: you cash out and become a millionaire

      who defines what has value and who is going to pay the millions?

      please don't say the free market. You'll make yourself look like a religious nut.

      this is the nature of science

      wait... that sounds remarkably like the following phrase "God wills it!"

      --
      No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
  26. Perpendicular Electric Fields by Markrian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't understand. They seem to be setting up two static, plane electric fields at some angle to one another. Surely the resultant field is just another field at a different angle? Say the two fields are E and J , with
    E = ( E , 0 , 0 )
    J = ( 0 , J , 0 )
    Then you've just got the resultant field, E' = E + J , where
    E' = ( E , J , 0 )
    which is just another static, plane electric field. So, given that two fields are really equivalent to one, if you set up just the resultant field in the first place, would this motor effect still occur?
    What am I missing?

    1. Re:Perpendicular Electric Fields by cubakos · · Score: 0

      I think:
      The two electrodes will attract the corresponding pole of the dipole molecules. As soon as they touch the pole at the side of the frame for a short period they become mono-pole. This mono-pole molecule is attracted by the magnectic field on one side of the frame and repelled on the the other side, creating two converse direction forces.

  27. that's fine, but i wasn't talking to you by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    you're not filled with blind prejudiced hate. notice the ignorant hatred in the comment i was replying to

    you can't snap your fingers and enlighten the mind of a hater. to turn the mind of a hater, you have to lay a road out for them, and push them on the first step down that road

    the first step is to make the object of their hate more dissolute. notice i told them to go right on hating america... but why don't you hate iran too?

    if they see the logic that hating the usa for crimes iran does as well is hypocritical, and so they agree to hate iran as well, then their hate begins to become diffuse, not pointed, and then it eventually dissipates further down the road

    and then they approach the mellow mature mindset towards iran and the usa that you embody

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  28. Glycerin and water? by gardyloo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd love to know how they got stable films, showing thin-film optical interference, of thicknesses on the order of several millimeters (stated a couple of times in the paper). They specifically call it a "suspended liquid film" and say that the z-boundaries are considered "free", so I don't think these films are sitting in a little box with just the top open.

  29. Maxwell's Demon is rotary and not linear. by Maintenance+Goof · · Score: 1

    Who knew? Explains a lot.

  30. Electroosmotic flow by blueish+yellow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This sounds awfully close to electroosmotic flow a phenomenon that has been known about for 200 years. Maybe someone better informed in this field could clarify the difference.

    1. Re:Electroosmotic flow by snoop.daub · · Score: 1

      Electroosmosis works on ionic solutions. You set up a potential gradient and ions go to either the negative or positive ends, dragging the solvating fluid along. There are no ions in the rotating film experiment.

      Now, there is a similar phenomenon called dielectrophoresis, which works on polar molecules, not just ions, and that may be close to the sort of thing going on here (water dipoles are perturbed by the fields near the interface, etc.), but in dielectrophoresis the frequency of the AC field is a crucial parameter. What really makes this weird is the fact that a static DC field is causing the rotation.

    2. Re:Electroosmotic flow by Cassini2 · · Score: 1

      I think you are on the right track. They have built something not all that different from an induction motor. Essentially, there are two different types of electrodes. The first pair is in the solution, and a current is going to be established. Given this is water, the current will be established by lining up positively charged hydrogen sides of the atoms with the negative electrode (the electron source). The negatively charged oxygen side of the water molecule will line up with the positive electrode (electron sink). A small current will flow, forcing the water to move. Initially, this motion won't be circular, to get circular motion you need a second set of electrodes.

      The second set of electrodes develops a electro-static field. This set of electrodes isn't actually in contact with the water. The current carrying water molecules will try to align with this second set of electrodes, while carrying current. Of course, the fields are in two different directions, so static alignment isn't possible. As such, the motor starts to spin.

      There are probably a bunch of other effects happening. Motors involving electro-statics tend to be very friction sensitive and fickle beasts. However, if you have a current, a dipole, and either a magnetic or an electro-static field, you will get torque. It is just in this case, the dipole is the water molecule, and as such the torque causes the water to spin.

      For the poster wondering why the water at the center spins faster, the reason is likely due to the available torque and energy. Chances are the torque is proportional to the field strength (which is constant.) The water at the center has less distance to travel, and less drag. Thus it can spin faster. It would be quite unexpected for a liquid to behave like a solid, and travel at the same rotational rate at all diameters.

      Finally, some posters have wondered how the motor is being powered. The power to spin the liquid is coming from the current flow between the two electrodes in the solution, and the corresponding voltage drop.

  31. yummy by n3tcat · · Score: 1
  32. Caterpillar Drive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The thingsh in thish shell do not reshpond well to bulletsh.

  33. Self Flushing Toilets?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I never thought I'd live to see the day...

  34. 2 things: by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    1. was there ever a time in history, in any culture, in which scientists made the money you think they deserve? i'm not counting the rich gentleman scientists from the 1800s and 1700s. their income was not derived from their research anyways, and their science was more hobby than vocation

    2. if you are paid a pittance, and you are not in raw research, you ARE being underpaid, and my words above about being a prospector don't apply to you. your job description sounds more like engineering, and you deserve a high income and respect for that, simply because you have the capacity to migrate to industry from university, or, if you've done that already, to another company that is willing to pay you for your rare abilities and the commensuration such rare abilities deserve. in which case, kick yourself in the ass and migrate to the better pay you should be getting. you can't hold it against your current employer that you don't have the gumption to demand the respect you deserve. if a chick is dating a guy who beats her, she's a fool to stay and think she can turn him into a better man. far better to just leave the loser and find that better man. likewise, for you, go out and find that better paying job. or sit and sulk like a beaten wife who unwisely accepts an unjust fate

    what you deserve in life is not just handed to you on a silver platter. you have to go out and fight for what you deserve

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:2 things: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Unfortunately, I think your premise is flawed. You assume that scientific discovery is always associated with a sellable quantity but more often it is not. You assume that when you find the gold nugget, you either get to keep it or have the option of selling it - but this is often not the case. Sure if you discover some new drug or how to harness energy, but how about some new galactic object, or a new rock ... let's say you are in the health research and discover that 1 beer a day makes you live longer, how do you cash-in? The discovery could benefit the whole world but wouldn't make a dollar for the discoverer. While I agree that it's their own fault for choosing to try and improve the world rather than get rich, I think Ash Vince may have been trying to point out that often, it is a fast talking salesman who has risked little and produced nothing that profits the most. This is not the way to encourage innovation. So how do you encourage people become prospectors of ideas that may advance society but have no monetary value?

    2. Re:2 things: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you are paid a pittance, and you are not in raw research, you ARE being underpaid

      Who would pay him more? Obviously the guys who are in "raw research" can't pay him more for his instrumentation designs because they are paid a pittance. And the researchers who make their discovery and earn their millions have already bought their instrumentation by that point, so no money would flow back to the guy who designed the instruments.

  35. Perspective Shift by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

    Their ability to make contribute to modern society doesn't undo the harm they cause.

    Regardless of who is actually "right", they feel the same way about us.

    --
    music lover since 1969
    1. Re:Perspective Shift by DM9290 · · Score: 1

      Regardless of who is actually "right", they feel the same way about us.

      Scripture makes it very clear how you are supposed to feel about infidels and heretics. But just because you base your beliefs on scripture that doesn't mean everyone who disagree with you is being equally irrational and nonobjective.

      --
      No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
    2. Re:Perspective Shift by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 1

      Scripture makes it very clear how you are supposed to feel about infidels and heretics

      Depends on which scripture. I've always 'enjoyed' a good philosophical debate when the person opposing my religion has no clue what my religion even is.

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
    3. Re:Perspective Shift by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Completely off topic, but I gotta ask - which scripture DO you subscribe to? You can't make a comment like that without including more details ...

    4. Re:Perspective Shift by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

      Scripture makes it very clear how you are supposed to feel about infidels and heretics. But just because you base your beliefs on scripture that doesn't mean everyone who disagree with you is being equally irrational and nonobjective.

      Yes, I believe they used this as the basis for the Spanish Inquisition.

      --
      music lover since 1969
    5. Re:Perspective Shift by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Not the original poster.

      'The Book of the Subgenius' clearly states that you should use such non-subgeni as might attract you as sex toys, discarding them when you are tired of their pinkness.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  36. well said by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    pride has an upside and a downside, and one downside of pride is you would rather retain your identity even though it also means being in a weaker position

    the muslim world sees elements of the west that alternately repel and attract. unfortunately, some of those elements of the west aren't things unique to the west, but are actually more accurately described as elements of simple humanity. such that a lot of the fighting of westernization that goes on in the name of pride in the middle east are actually wars against humanization

    for example: women's rights. when you fight that, because it's "western", you are actually retarding the development of your own societies on a human level. if the west never existed, one can imagine the fight for women's rights continuing in the middle east, because such a fight does not depend upon the west as some sort of example, but is a fight valid within itself in islamic societies. that is, the fight for women's rights is not some sort of decadent western influence betraying traditional identity, but is instead a humanist, organic struggle native to the middle east. but humanist struggles always entail a bit of the strange and unknown, to breakway from traditional ways, and so it is easy to confuse two sources of conflict: westernization and humanization. and so, in the name of fighting the west, muslim societies subjugate their own women, and wind up hobbling the development of half their societies. for doing that, the middle east can never hope to be as powerful and as influential as the west, with half their population treated like cattle

    there's plenty of things the islamic world says it hates about the west that are shared by the west and, for example, the far east. such that to describe these concepts they say threatens the middle east as some sort of western thing is false: they are human concepts. the islamic world, in the name of retaining an identity distinct from the west, are embracing agendas that are not really anti-western, but are actually anti-human

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:well said by jambox · · Score: 1

      Actually a lot of people are starting to think that, while women's rights should of course be equal to men's, having both parents out to work leads to nothing like twice the productivity as the traditional worker/homemaker model still enjoyed in most of the rest of the world. Obama talks about this at some length in his second book and I tend to agree that it's possibly a side-effect of rising prices and greater investment pressure on real-estate. So in effect a growing upper-middle class sh1ts on everyone below them.

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
    2. Re:well said by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      I was under the impression that subjugation of women in middle eastern countires was due in large to the religious tennants that many of them practice. I was not aware this was a fight against westernization.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    3. Re:well said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well said, next step Child Labour! That's what made the industrialization so succesful!

  37. well yeah by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    just study edison and tesla, or farnsworth and rca, if you want a good contrast of what can happen to an innovator whose ideas are coopted

    but you can't fight and lose your right to your rightful share of the bounty if you haven't even made a discovery in the first place. in other words, demanding that scientists make millions before they even discover something is absurd. you let them struggle in poverty, and when they make that amazing discovery, they have to start a new struggle: getting their fair share

    but there's no struggle for a fair share up front, before a discovery is even made

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:well yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      such a fucking false dichotomy. Like there's no room between making millions and struggling in fucking poverty.

  38. ben franklin did the same thing by circletimessquare · · Score: 2, Funny

    in fact, he even tricked god. he said "god, i doubt you exist" while flying a kite

    god naturally threw a thunderbolt at him for the insubordinance, giving franklin the electricity he was investigating

    thus, did a scientist outwit god

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  39. huh? broken thinking by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    i see your point a: the value of the tradional female homemaker

    and i see your point b,c,d: inflation, real estate, the upper middle class sucks

    how those are all related completely escapes me, and i think it completely escapes you too

    make a coherent argument, or say nothing at all

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:huh? broken thinking by dpilot · · Score: 1

      Take the word "female" out of that first sentence. My wife's goddaughter is in her internship to be a pediatrician, and her husband stays at home with the baby, in addition to a little part-time work coaching sports. A high-school friend of mine was a house-husband for a while, simply because his wife had a better job with better benefits.

      I strongly agree with the idea of having a stay-at-home parent - my wife stayed at home with our kids. But there's not particular reason other than our society's normal pay structure that it can't be the father instead of the wife doing the primary child-rearing.

      Another thought... Do you really want your kids to spend such a large share of their time with the "low cost provider" of childcare? Plus by the time both of you are home from work, you're past your prime for this kind of task, too.

      And another thought... In this case putting the spouse back in the workplace means paying for daycare. It also saps money in other ways, such as professional workplace clothing, possibly a second car, taxes, etc. How often do we do a real cost benefit analysis.

      Back to taxes for a moment... One could don the tinfoil had and make this two-working-parents thing into a government conspiracy. Not only does it allow them to collect taxes on childrearing, which they don't when a parent stays at home with the kids, they also collect taxes on the other working parent. It's triple-dipping on the family.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    2. Re:huh? broken thinking by jambox · · Score: 1

      It doesn't escape me, however it seems I'll have to spell it out for you... Go buy a house. OK this may apply more in the UK but when you've just burned £200,000 on a small 3 bed, that's going to set you back maybe a grand a month, depending on interest rate. Say you earned the median income of £25,000, after tax (overall about 30%), that leaves you with maybe £1450 per month. Take off for student loan if you have one, bills and so on and your disposable income is about £300 per month. Now figure £50 per week for food to feed a couple of kids. I haven't even mentioned a car yet. It hasn't been like this for allt hat long. My sister and her family bought a house maybe 10 years ago for less than half what we paid for ours 5 years ago. They can just about manage with one parent working - we can't.

      Can you see the connection now?

      Used to be we could do the whole one-working parent family thing. Now it's just a physical impossibility, mainly because of house prices. But, you know, at least I can buy a 42" TV for £400!

      The whole class bargain thing has to be looked at again.

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
    3. Re:huh? broken thinking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I can only speak from the perspective of someone in the US, so this may not accord with your example. To be blunt, someone earning $25,000 gross per year should not be buying a $200,000 house. The market for them is houses under $100,000. In my area this includes smaller new construction (3BR/2BA/2G) slab homes on small lots, modest condos, and a variety of older and/or "fixer upper" homes. In more expensive regions of the US, say Manhattan or San Diego, the real estate term for someone who makes $25,000 is "co-renter" (another accurate word would be "homeless"). Couples who both work to afford a bigger home (or more upscale lifestyle) made a choice. In most areas, they could buy an older/smaller home. They could opt for used cars and keep them properly maintained instead of buying a new car every two or three years (very common here in the US). Nobody needs a 42" TV; smaller/cheaper ones are available. And so on.

      It's possible in most areas of the US to own a modest home and raise a reasonable number of ordinary kids on single parent's median income, but not with a typical US consumer-oriented lifestyle. Most here choose not to.

      - T

    4. Re:huh? broken thinking by jambox · · Score: 1

      Ok for a start I think you're mixing currencies. I'm talking £25,000 so about $36k - I figure that's an 'ok' wage in the US, as it is in the UK. To really be comfortable ( I mean a nice-ish car, good holiday once a year, maybe the cash to pursue a hobby or two ) on a single income, you want to be earning about £40k so about $57k. If the US is anything like here, that mean putting off having kids until you're well into your thirties or even early fourties.

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
    5. Re:huh? broken thinking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok for a start I think you're mixing currencies.

      Well, I simply replaced the currency symbol on both your example £25,000 income and £200,000 home price, so I think nothing was mixed.

      I'm talking £25,000 so about $36k...

      That's fine, but then your example £200,000 home price would be equivalent to around $288k here. Someone making $36k simply cannot afford a $288k house, except perhaps under very unusual circumstances [1].

      ...about $36k - I figure that's an 'ok' wage in the US, as it is in the UK. To really be comfortable ( I mean a nice-ish car, good holiday once a year, maybe the cash to pursue a hobby or two ) on a single income, you want to be earning about £40k so about $57k.

      Depends. In my area, $36k is roughly the median single-earner income, and it's quite livable. In Manhattan, that $57k wouldn't afford you many comforts at all [2].

      If the US is anything like here, that mean putting off having kids until you're well into your thirties or even early fourties.

      For a couple making $36k, a $288k house is way outside their means. On that income, they could buy a "starter home" in my area - something a little over $100k. That should allow them to afford 2 reasonable cars, a dog, and roughly 2.3 kids before they enter their 30s. I think my earlier post still stands.

      - T

      [1] e.g.: longer term (40 years instead of 30), perfect credit rating or subsidized loan reducing the interest rate, significantly more than 20% down payment, etc.

      [2] Most people in Manhattan don't bother with owning a car, and some people are lucky enough to have a rent-controlled apartment, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison with most other areas in the US.

  40. uh, what? by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    "please don't say the free market. You'll make yourself look like a religious nut"

    what, exactly, in your mind is the "free market"?

    the free market is nothing other than a group of people placing whatever value they want on a number of concepts. for example, such a group might place a higher value on say, the invention of television, than say, the flowbee vacuum powered hair cutter. but i could be wrong. because i don't know the real value is of either, amd more importantly, no one else does either. only the market knows, where the "market" is nothing more than an emergent phenomenon outside the control of any one individual or group. the market value of something is entirely bound to the behavior of the group en masse, under no ones dogmatic control

    it is a mechanism for valueing opposed to say, some group of "specialists" attaching what they percieve the value of a discovery to be according to some sort of agenda. this top-down approach, like communism, really is a dogmatic, quasi-religious approach: that some "spcial" group of people have arcane unique knowledge for valueing things

    in other words, the free market is about as undogmatic and unreligious a way to value discoveries as you can get

    therefore, that you should equate the free market with religious dogma is beyond absurd, it is directly contradictory to the concepts you are involving yourself in

    you're either profoundly incoherent and ignorant about the subject matter, or you are a really good troll, i can't decide which

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:uh, what? by Duhavid · · Score: 1

      "in other words, the free market is about as undogmatic and unreligious a way to value discoveries as you can get"

      Quite. But there are many who are religious and dogmatic about the free market.

      --
      emt 377 emt 4
  41. right by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    and you will also notice i said its ok to be antiamerican

    all i said was you have to hate iran too if you hate america, in order not to be a hypocrite

    in other words, i am not defending america. i am attacking the stupidity and hypocrisy of being anti-american and pro-iranian. feel me yet?

    please, dude, go on with your bad self, call america evil. please, be my guest: death to america, rah rah rah

    just make sure you say the same to iran, if you don't want to be called a hypocrite

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:right by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      Actually, I stopped reading about where I started quoting. Maybe I should have finished!

      But you can insult me all you want. I don't hate America, and I don't hate Iran.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  42. you have an outdated point of view by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    "But we've got some serious beams in our own eyes to deal with, and that's more important. They're not perfect, and neither are we, but we have no right to complain about the things WE are also guilty of."

    there is no such thing as regional morality anymore. there is no such thing as what americans are guilty of, or what iranians are guilty of. there are only things humanity is guity of. you can't coherently criticize what america does, and remain mute on iran, or visa versa

    you can't focus on just the west, or just the usa, you must also criticize every other part of the world. it is the age of the internet and jet air travel. what happens in kandahar matters in manhattan

    the only intellectually and morally coherent point of view is a global, humanist one. a muslim point of view is incoherent. a christian point of view is incoherent. a western point of view is incoherent. a middle eastern point of view is incoherent

    maybe if we lives in the days of sailing ships, you'd have a valid point of view, but even then, via colonization, the walls separating cultures and societies was breaking down

    when you cross the rio grande, or the straights of bosporus, or the rock of gibraltar, or the ural mountains, the human beings you encounter there are not in any way different than you. your fight for whatever it is you are fighting for in the west must also include those outside the west equally, or the fight is not valid. you apply the same morality to them as you do to those in the west, or you have no real morality at all

    granted, national sovereignity and ultrantionalism and religious bigotry warp these simple truths, but the future of the world is about the death of national boundaries and religious fiefdoms. it already started with the eu, it already started with the separation of church and state

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  43. easy answer by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    the ideal is, no one has nukes, right?

    based on that ideal, you criticize any expansion of the nuclear club

    of course, the rpely comes back that you are playing favorites. so at the same time, you work for the reduction of nukes in the countries that already have them

    but if you agree with me no one should have nukes, then you decry iran going nuclear. and that doesn't make you pro-western, it just makes you pro-human

    everyone having nukes leads to an accident somewhere down the line, a mistaken missile firing or meltdown here or there. and then millions dead

    so in the name of the betterment of humanity, you work for iran not getting nukes AND the usa getting rid of theres

    but you cannot call yourself such a humanist if you believe that iran should have nukes just because the usa has them

    i mean you CAN say that, but then you are a warmongering supporter of nuclear proliferation. because once iran has them, egypt and saudi arabia has to get them too. so make up your mind: are you against nuclear proliferation? or are you a warmongering fool? saying you are against proliferation and supporting iran getting nukes is logically and morally incoherent of you

    want a nuclear missile free planet? then you stand against iranian nukes AND you fight the ones the usa has. simple as that

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  44. you fail, hard by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    #1: that "unknown reason" was the fight against communism. the usa did plenty of vile things in the cold war. all of which was to prevent the spread of communism, which was a monumentally good fight, that you benefitted from. not to mention all of the vile things the enemies of the usa did during the same period, which everyone conveniently forgets when digging up old cold war american crimes. such as, the vile things the shah of iran did. but no, the usa dealt with the shah, so they are guilty of EVERYTHING the guy did. well, what about all the other governments who dealt with the shah at the time? are they 100% accountable for what he did?

    hey, here's a wacky thought: iran under the shah was the result of the shah and his government, and the usa certainly meddled and had influence, but to establish a direct line of accountability and responsibility because of that is to suggest that no one in this world has any free will or makes any choices except americans. oh really? the shah never did evil things because the SHAH decided to do them?

    #2: "In essence, the United States *created* Iranian Islamic fundamentalism through their meddling" ...this is so laughably ethnocentric, where does one begin? you are so unable to view the world outside of a western pov, you actually want to say that islamic fundamentalism is the creation of something the west did. so, when those islamic revolutionaries were studying islamic scripture, and finding the passion to fight for an islamic state, they did it BECAUSE OF THE USA?! really? so you don't view nonwestern people as complete whole human beings with their own desires and agendas. you see them as cutout cardboard reflections of something the west did

    you do realize that this racist, patronizing way of denigrating anything a nonwesterner does as just a reflection of the west makes you just as bad as the most jingoistic american ultranationalist?

    if i sell a guy a gun, and he murders someone with it, who is the murderer? in your view, it is the guy who sold the gun, and the guy who actually fired the thing is innocent. amazing, how blind people can be like you are. collosal ethnocentrism on your part

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  45. Middle East at 14th Century backwater by qbzzt · · Score: 1

    People in the Middle East often assume that Hollywood gives a good representation of US culture, and that the US is a completely irreligious country.

    The fact is that parts the Middle East are socially 14th century, with a thin overlay of technology purchased from other places. But as with most 3rd world countries, there are westernized islands that can be every bit as high tech as anything we have.

    --
    -- Support a free market in the field of government
  46. if you are using a cell phone by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    to set off a car bomb, in the name of fighting western decadence

    or you use a gps system to target a bomb in the name of fighting western meddling

    do you not see the essential irony in that?

    you are using technologies developed in the west, to fight the social and ideological ideas that made those technologies possible

    there is nothing about human knowledge that is western, or chinese, or persian: of course, 100% agreed. but what is also true is that humanist principles aren't western either. so islamic fundamentalist aren't really fighting westernization. they are fighting humanization

    the technologies that islamic fundamentalist militants and fundamentalist regimes use could have just as well been developed in the middle east... but only if the middle east adopted secular humanism and thereby allowed for the social and economic climate in which science and technology flourish

    so yes: if you use human knowledge to fight for an ideology which destroys the ability to create human knowledge, there is something wrong there. and religious fundamentalism destroys human knowledge and scientific progress

    so it is entirely accurate of me to say that the regime in iran stole science and technology form other countries

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  47. Red October by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Magneto-hydrodynamic propulsion system. We couldn't make it work, but maybe they did...

  48. Some folks get what they deserve. by BSDimwit · · Score: 1
    These words are as true today as they were in 1776.

    That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

    The government of Iran does what it chooses because the the people that live there allow it.

  49. terminology issues by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    yes religion the more nebulous concept doesn't stand against science. but religion, ie organized religion, which i should have said explicitly, but was referring to in shorthand, does stand in the way of science

    simply because organized religion is, by definition, dogmatic. and whereever organized religion dominates society, its dogmatic approach bleeds into legal and social attitudes and automatically squelches and reduces the free thinking that is required for science to flourish

    and yes, any dogmatic system, not just organized religion, can squelch science. except that religion is the lions share of the pie chart in terms of sources of dogmatic repression of scientific progress

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:terminology issues by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      What nonsense. Science is just as dogmatic, and has just as much faith as Religion. As they say, Science progresses one funeral at a time.

      http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/skeptic.htm

      "Not only did modernists [i.e., rationalists] believe in the inerrancy of science, they also had a devout faith in progress. The 'modern,' almost by definition, was superior to the past. The future would be even better."

      Let me quote from one of the famous priests of Science, Albert Einstein.

      Religion of Science
      http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

      "After religious teachers accomplish the refining process indicated they will surely recognize with joy that true religion has been ennobled and made more profound by scientific knowledge."

      "But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

      And this beautiful post by rajafarian (49150), http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/02/163252

      In my time of studying things since I was little, I undertook the study of physics when I was eleven. When I was in college getting my BS in it I came to the conclusion that at the level where I was in my studies, physics turned to philosophy, for what do things like time mean anyway?

      And then after studying philosphy on my own for a few years, I arrived at the conclusion that philosophy turns to religion because if we can never know these things for sure, we still have to make a decision how we are going to live our lives, and that is religion. In my opinion, real religion is when we consciously decide what to believe on our own (although it can be from reading about religions), fake religion is when someone makes the decision for us.

      Both Science and Religion are out-dated, and incomplete -- the only reason they are used is because of a) momementum, and b) people think there is nothing better to use. The proper solution is to combine them to compensate for the weaknesses of each other to reach the next level of understanding reality.

      --
      How can you understand Life if you don't even understand what happens after Death??

  50. And that's maxwell's demon ... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    ... which violates the second law of thermodynamics, last time I heard.

    By the way: What the HELL is "two perpendicular electric fields"? Electric fields applied by two sets of electrodes combine to form their vector sum.

    I'd like to see a MUCH better description of the design. Including especially any VARIATION in the fields.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    1. Re:And that's maxwell's demon ... by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Well, I've seen the videos, and I withdraw my guess.

      ... which violates the second law of thermodynamics, last time I heard.

      If there were no other energy sources kicking around, yes. However, it's an open system, so all bets are off. There are wind currents, and sound , and electrical fields, and a whole bunch of stuff going on.

      By the way: What the HELL is "two perpendicular electric fields"? Electric fields applied by two sets of electrodes combine to form their vector sum.

      From what I've been able to gather, there is an electric current flowing through the film, say from east to west. There is a static charge, but no current, applied in the north/south direction

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  51. When the shit hits the fan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now its going to spew liquid!

  52. algebra, alcohol, algebra... by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    while europe was busy bashing each other's heads in over tribal stupidities, the middle east was the light of the world, leading in science

    guess what happened though in the last 700 years?

    now the positions are reversed: europe leads in the sciences, the middle east languishes in tribal and religious backbiting

    how did that happen?

    because the middle east grew more dogmatic under religion, minds got closed, while europe broke away from religious dominance, minds opened up to new and novel thinking

    now you tell me, through "their true religious beliefs convictions" the middle east is going to do what exactly? anything through "their true religious beliefs convictions" cna only lead to more closed minds, zombification. fundamentalist education does not reward novel thinking, ti rewards students who regurgitate back exactly what they are told. it encourages minds that are dull and obedient, not independent and risk taking

    by binding themselves closer to religious dogmatism, the middle east is only dooming themselves further to weakness and dominance by the west. the middle east will never break free of dominance from the west until it is strong on its own. and you don't find strenght by adhering to religious dogma, you find only further weakness

    it is away from islam, not towards it, that the middle east grows strong. and please don't get me wrong: the issue is not islam as a negative influence, the negative influence i am referring to is ANY religion, interpretted dogmatically

    liberal islam, that's what the middle east needs. an interpretation of the koran that is subject to personal differences, respected and tolerated, which leads to an opening of the mind, and strength in society with a richenss of thought. as long as someone is passionate about their faith and acting in the conviction of good faith, it should be ok to have an interpretation of islam that might differ form tradition. but that is not tolerated under dogmatic fundamentalist teaching

    if everyone in the society is forced to march lockstep into one fundamentalist viewpoint, you have a nation of zombies, not great scientists

    it is through fundamentalist islam that the middle east remains weak

    it is a shame more middle easterners do not see that

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  53. remuneration doesn't have to be financial by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    if you make a great discovery that cannot be capitalized financially, it can still be capitalized in terms of fame

    i don't think albert einstein was a millionaire, but there are plenty of millionaires who have come and gone and will continue to come and go, for centuries, that are utterly forgotten, while the name and mind of albert einstein will continue to live

    so you as a scientist may toil in poverty your entire life. but if you find that amazing discovery, your name will live for centuries, while all of your contemporaries living in mansions will be anonymous and unimportant and mediocre

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:remuneration doesn't have to be financial by clong83 · · Score: 1

      I personally don't care about being remembered more than I care about having food on my table. This may shock you, but my motive in life is not fame or money, but learning more about the world around us, and attempting to improve it.

      If I give a net benefit to society in that role, I expect to be compensated, and not just altruistically being "remembered" as I starve to death. Even if what I bring to the table is simply a new idea that improves lives that is not a commercial product. I think that alone has "value" to society that is not valued by the free market, don't you?

      Yes, I am a researcher.

  54. Islam and Science by Chicken_Kickers · · Score: 1

    Please do not apply what happened in Christian Europe during the Enlightenment to what is happening in Iran now. Despite stemming from the same roots, Islam has a different view on knowledge and science than Christianity. The Prophet Muhammad basically said the same things 1400 years ago what the Ayatollah has repeated, as also most Muslim religious scholars and scientists. In Islam, there is really no division between "secular" and "religious" knowledge. All knowledge comes from Allah and Allah reveals to us what he wants to reveal. In the Quran and many hadiths, there are many encouragement for mankind to study the natural world and through that recognize Allah's greatness. There are also many admonishments and warnings for those who seek to destroy the world instead of managing it properly. There has been no injunctions on science in Islam, except when the methods are immoral. The main rule is that "the ends does not justify the means". In fact, there is what is called "collective obligation" or "fardhu kifayah" for any Muslim society to have scientists and scholars. If they don't, then Allah wrath will befall upon the society as a whole. Right now, there is an intense intellectual awakening in the Muslim world that the Western media chooses not to show, or in the case of Iran, skewed and propagandised. Muslims are finally starting to realise that depending 100% on God without putting in the effort is futile. Muslim scientists are now in almost every Western Universities, doing what the Christian monks did during the Middle Ages. Muslim governments are finally realizing the importance of science, not only to national security, but to the prestige of Muslims around the world. We are not there yet but do not underestimate us. The wheel of history has turned before but it is still turning.

  55. what you describe is impossible by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    organized religion, any organized religion, teaches its children to regurgitate back to the teacher the traditional party line, for example, memorizing the koran. it does not reward novel thinking, or questioning beliefs, it in fact punishes those things. so education in countries with strong religious dominance (any religion, not just islam) leads to a nation of dull and obedient minds, zombies

    to be a great scientist, you must have a mind that is nurtured in an environment which encourages the child to question everything, to take risks, to be pioneering. anyone who thinks like that in a strongly religious society will be punished

    let us say you have a 7 year old in tehran who comes to you and says "i don't believe that allah exists". this is a child whose mind is precocious, exploring, questioning, doubting. as he gets older, he may come to see allah exists, but it is not wrong for him to explore the existence of allah within his own mind in childhood. momentary doubt can lead to renewed faith down the road

    this is a strong, fertile mind in which great ideas will take root, this doubting mind. but that child will be admonished, and punished for saying such things about allah. meanwhile, the child who memorizes the rote dead passages of an old dusty book will receive top honors. but this child is just a robot, repeating what someother mind wrote. so the slave will be promoted, the genius will be punished in this education system

    under religion, you do not get great science. only in breaking away from religion- any religion, not just islam, only then do you get great thinkers and great scientific discoveries. religious education rewards dull weak feeble obedient minds, zombies. open education that allows questioning of everything leads to risk takers, explorers, bright strong minds. religion is wary and scared of such minds, and so it represses them. but it does so at the risk of weakening the mental strenght of the entire society

    if you honestly believe otherwise, that somehow science can flourish in a religous environment, then you don't even know what science is, you only know of what science is from the ancient lore of the islamic world, when algebra, alkali, alcohol... great scientific advances were taking place

    this was done by liberal thinking muslims of a long dead age. the muslims who did the great leaps in science in ages past were not obedient fundamentalist muslims, they were liberla thinkers. they HAVE to be in order to be mentally fit in order to make the great discoveries they made

    but what you have in the middle east today is not the vanguard of a new scientific age, but the dogmatic shell of a system that talks triumphantly of long ago faded glory, and not the faintest clue of how to get it back. and in fact represents a way to move FURTHER from scientific progress: religious dogmatic zombification

    dogmatic organized islam, dogmatic organzied ANY religion, leads to weak brittle societies, not great scientists

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:what you describe is impossible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this was done by liberal thinking muslims of a long dead age. the muslims who did the great leaps in science in ages past were not obedient fundamentalist muslims, they were liberla thinkers. they HAVE to be in order to be mentally fit in order to make the great discoveries they made

      Don't you mean: "They HAVE to be in order to be mentally fit into this little box in my head labeled Characteristics-Of-All-Scientists"?

      You're not seriously claiming that all scientists, from all eras, across all cultures, MUST have been liberal thinkers ... are you? If so, please take a look at the difference between (for example) Edison and Tesla. Then realize that these two very different people spoke the same language and interacted in the same culture; imagine what the difference could have been, had they been separated by both time and space.

  56. this is borderline paranoid schizophrenia by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    nobody in the government is out to destroy the family unit. to hint at that reveals you have some sort of poverty in your thinking about what the role of government is in your society

    if the government is making a policy, any policy, that weakens the family unit, then a clear cut case can be made for that, the urgency of the need to correct that will be appreciated by anyone acting in good faith, and the policy will be changed

    you do understand that your government is composed of your fellow citizens acting in good faith, right?

    this is the dangerous mentally unsound disconnect i feel here: that you think the government is some sort of conspiracy to destroy

    no, if the government has some sort of policy you belive is out to destroy the family, i think you don't understand the policy or its real impact

    and if i am wrong, then run for office, and make things right. you live in a democracy

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:this is borderline paranoid schizophrenia by dpilot · · Score: 1

      I don't seriously propose that. I just like putting on the tinfoil hat every now and then, for the fun of it. You can find fascinating conspiracy theories under pretty much every stone. Perhaps an odd hobby, but then again, isn't voluntarily subjecting yourself to mentally impairing substances that produce long-term brain and body degradation odd, too?

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    2. Re:this is borderline paranoid schizophrenia by jambox · · Score: 1

      You can wind up feeling this way when you're a parent, but no I don't believe governments do this on purpose just so they can collect more taxes. Instead it seems to be a symptom of the ongoing class war in western societies. The government just lets the markets do their thing because it's incompetent to do anything about it. The situation is developing massively to the detriment of working class and lower middle class families though.

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
  57. ALWAYS BELIEVE THE MEDIA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Naturally, Wired spins it into the context of bunkers and nuclear weapons, like we do with everything that comes out of Iran. How long until this thin-film motor gets portrayed as something nefarious?

    Naturally? I think sensibly. Scientific research in a slightly insane and violent theocracy should probably always be looked at with a bit of cynicism. There's not a lot of scientific research that is independent of the government going on in Iran; therefore, the Iranian government's motives come into play. Just as when you see a study about Alcohol funded by a major brewery, and so on.

    Jawohl, mein Herr, Sie haben Recht.

    Alles, was die Regierung sagt uber auslaendische Stellen ist wahr!

    Plus, sie sind Juden!

  58. your understanding of the world is static then by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    all societies are dynamic, not static

    there is a large movement in the middle east for women's rights

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/lipstick-revolution-irans-women-are-taking-on-the-mullahs-1632257.html

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/opinion/26thu2.html

    women's liberation contrasts with traditional thinking

    proponents of traditional thinking in the middle east portray the movement for women's rights as a western plot to destabilize the middle east and destroy traditional culture and traditional islam

    this is true of any society: take the argument over gay marriage in the united states

    all societies are changing in one way or another, pitting traditionalists against liberal thinkers. the traditionalists use scare tactics. for example, in the usa the propagandizers say gay marriage will lead to legalized bestiality, polygamy, pedophilia and necrophilia. yes, some idiots in the usa really believe that's what gay marriqage will lead to. just like some idiots in the middle east think women can't drive a car, according to islam

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    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:your understanding of the world is static then by Dread_ed · · Score: 1

      You say "traditional thinking," but this is just the manefestation of religious beliefs and the cultural expression of those beliefs. That people portray the women's rights movement as a western plot doesn't change the fact that the basis for the opression of women there is religious.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
  59. Maximize chem/bio rxns by spineboy · · Score: 1

    might be nice to use this in small reactions to maximize mixing.

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    ..........FULL STOP.
  60. Puzzling? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Umm basic magnetic theory says this should happen. Kids in grade-school do stuff like this.

    They really that far behind the rest of us?

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  61. wrong by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    science has people resistant to change, for sure. in the 1980s there was an australian scientist who proposed that ulcers form from an undiscovered bacteria, and he was ridiculed. well, he found that bacteria, and we now know ulcers are transmissible, and that australian has a nobel prize

    but please note, change actually happened. the dogmatic fools were triumphed over

    in religion, such a challenge would never be tolerated

    in other words, science has inertia, certainly. but this is just intellectual laziness common to all humanity. meanwhile, any scientist worth his salt knows that all scientific knowledge is suspect to reinterpretation. all of science is rigorous observation and testing of natural phenomenon. in this way, what science knows, while not absolute, is AS BEST AS ONE CAN SAY at the current time

    meanwhile, organized religion asserts ABSOLUTE knowledge that

    1. never changes
    2. cannot be questioned
    3. has no proof
    4. cannot be tested

    now you honeslty want to tell me they are the same

    no, in a very simple way, science is completely unlike religion, and inherently stronger. science has some dogmatic fools, but is essentially sound. religion is the opposite: religion has generous and positive thinking proponents, but is essentially just a dogmatic house of cards

    religion is essentially dogmatic. science is essentially NOT dogmatic. if you don't understand that, you don't stand the nature of science, or you don't understand that nature of religion, or you don't udnerstand both
     

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    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:wrong by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Tell me,

      How can you prove to me that you love your wife?

      You _do_ realize Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is itself incomplete. There are things you (can) KNOW to be true, but yet you can not prove them. Science has yet to reach this level of understanding.

    2. Re:wrong by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      there are questions that are permanently beyond the realm of science

      or did you think i thought science answered all questions?

      i'm not the one making absurd pronouncements here, you are

      science is not dogmatic, religion is

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    3. Re:wrong by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > there are questions that are permanently beyond the realm of science

      Which proves my point that Science is woefully incomplete. Just because Science can't reach an answer, doesn't imply that there is no answer.

      Science _IS_ dogmatic because it REFUSES to pursue these type of questions -- it uses the lame cop-out "Well, we can't prove this" when the matter of fact is that one CAN know, and is unwilling to investigate a means _outside_ of science to learn & understand the true reality of the universe.

    4. Re:wrong by azav · · Score: 1

      Possibly. If you are able to analyze the areas of the brain that light up when in her presence, you might be. If you are able to analyze the chemicals released in your brain when in her presence and the neurons that fire in your brain when in her presence you might be.

      So you might be able to. Just not at the moment.

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  62. you betray your own goal by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    or you don't even understand what you are saying

    or you are straight up lying to me

    if you focus your energies on knowledge, the food on your plate will dwindle. if you focus your energies on putting food on your plate, you will have cornucopia

    see how simple that is?

    the contrast is completely within the realm of the self

    it has nothing to do with conspiracies or agendas or broken social values outside your self. you cannot ask society to value you just because you have committed yourself to the extension of knowledge. the reason being, what you may be studying might be horseshit. the only proof that what you are studying is not horseshit is the PRODUCT of your energies, not the mere fact that you exert yourself in them

    so you don't want to starve? then sell out

    but the search for knowledge is too important to you to abandon?

    fine. but then get used to cabbage

    and all of this is should be plainly evident to you. that you have this delusion society is going to cherish and reward you just because you work in a white coat, i don't know where you got this absurd notion from, as no society has ever done this, or ever will

    show results, or you don't eat

    this sound harsh, unfair?

    well its the same arrangement every single human being toils under, scientist or not

    why are you so special to think you are not beholden to this essential fact of life?

    you have this odd sense of priveledge, that you do not deserve

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:you betray your own goal by narcc · · Score: 1

      ... you have this delusion society is going to cherish and reward you just because you work in a white coat, i don't know where you got this absurd notion from, as no society has ever done this, or ever will

      Isn't it disgusting that "society" will "cherish and reward" you for having a white robe but not a white coat?

  63. there is: industry by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    petrogeology: we need more oil man

    pharmacology: give me a pill that makes my penis hard!

    industry can give great minds strong bucks up front because the incentive and reward cycle is tightly coupled. not so for university

    people who study cosmology or evolutionary genetics are also rewarding mankind like the guys putting octane in your car or little blue pills in your mouth. but they do so in such a way where the payoff is centuries away. and so their contributions cannot be rationally monetized in the span of a human lifetime

    and so such scientists by necessity must toil in poverty, modern day monks

    but not in obscurity: make a great leap in a field of science that is not easily monetized, and your reward is fame

    all those who sold out and became financial analysts to live in mansions will be forgotten, while your name and your mind will live for centuries, even though you ate cabbage and ramen your whole life

    its a different kind of payoff: fame instead of money

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  64. Video mirror here by azav · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  65. i support gay marriage by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    therefore i must also support pedophilia

    there, i can smear myself with retarded bullshit interpretations. i don't need you

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  66. Can anyone post how to make one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This would be a cool bar trick.

  67. you are horribly confused by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    there are questions which science can never answer

    simply because the nature of the question is completely immune to scientific investigation

    science is nothing more than the formal outlining of a modest hypothesis, a testing of that hypothesis, and a statement of the results within a framework of modest incremental gain in knowledge

    there are questions you can ask- how many angels fit on the head of a pin, for example, that cannot be logically conjectured or tested for

    in other words, the question is completely immune to scientific investigation

    and, for some reason, most probably complete ignorance of what the scientific method is, you say science REFUSES to answer certain questions

    what? you ask me a question i can't coherently answer, and you interpret that as a willful desire not to answer it?

    read, please:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

    you don't even know what science is. please stop talking about science. you simply don't understand the concept

    educate yourself as to what science is, start with the link i provided you, and then open your mouth

    but currently, you have a pretty galling ignorance of the basic concepts of the subject matter you are involving yourself in

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  68. You mean besides their proxy war in Gaza? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Iran hasn't waged war outside its borders in 300 years.

    I'd call supplying Hamas with missiles and money to attack Israel "waging war outside its borders."

    The Iran - Hamas Connection.

  69. you can be a scientist by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    without a mind that doubts everything

    you just won't be a very good one

    you need that mental agility that says no dogma is absolute and unquestionable, to be a good scientist, yes, 100% that is what i am saying and i don't understand how you could disagree with me

    as for edison and tesla... i don't know what you are getting at. they had very different personalities, and certainly had radically different business sense, but i don't know how you are differentiating between the two in terms of their mental agility. certainly tesla was rather superstitious and edison was an egomaniac, but superstition and egomania neither foretell or deny a liberal mental agility

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    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  70. that's fine, and normal, and i agree with you. most entertaining hollywood movies are nothing but harebrained conspiracy plots. all james bond movies, the da vinci code, most any movie involving politics, etc., etc.

    as long as you can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, there is nothing wrong with dabbling in conspiracy strategizing, and its quite fun, and i like to too

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  71. nice rhetoric by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    circa 1923

    you hadn't noticed the us govt basically shouldering the entire banking system lately?

    as for market regulation, oh brother is a huge giant plateload coming

    class warfare meanwhile, is a phantom bogey man of yours dredged up from a distant past. the upper middle class and the lower middle class all pretty much rise and fall on the same eocnomic indicators nowadays

    as for hatred of the rich, yes, that is alive and well and always has been and always will be. but again, you hadn't noticed them being grilled in washington lately with the implosion of the financial system?

    did you just step out a time capsule from the late 1800s?

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:nice rhetoric by jambox · · Score: 1

      >>as for market regulation, oh brother is a huge giant plateload coming
      Good! Recent events show "the system" is horribly vulnerable to powerful, greedy individuals to the detriment of the 99.999% majority.

      >>class warfare meanwhile, is a phantom bogey man of yours
      False. All of society rests on a complex, implicitly agreed bargain between it's various sections. See the Poll Tax riots. It takes a lot to break it but it can be done and it looks like we're heading there. On a larger scale this time.

      >>you hadn't noticed them being grilled in washington lately with the implosion of the financial system?
      Sure some questions were asked but these guys get to go home again to their great big houses and tennis courts. I'm talking about people who work hard all their lives and are suddenly thrown out into the street. I'd happily take the grilling Richard Fuld got in return for the money he gets (got) for a day's work. Wouldn't you?

      >>did you just step out a time capsule from the late 1800s?
      You can get as sarcastic as you like but I know exactly what families are dealing with because I'm one of them. I also know that aside from technological advances, life is tougher for my generation than it was for my parents. When you stop apologising for the status quo you may realise that this is not a recipe for ongoing political stability and economic growth.

      --
      You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
  72. dude, old news, relax: by circletimessquare · · Score: 1
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    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  73. You are a fucking idiot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I work with a number of biological theoreticians. Their work is in almost all cases at least two steps removed from anything that is going to be commercially viable. Finding something "of value" means finding something that opens up new avenues of research that make it possible or more likely for researchers a step or two removed to make the discovery that builds on their work and creates a cancer treatment or a cure for autism, or whatever.

    A model that makes billionaires out of Nobel winners and paupers of every other scientist is just fucking retarded.