There's already such a project underway from Stanford: http://qcn.stanford.edu/. Doesn't extend to phones yet (as far as I know, though they're probably working on it) but will use the accelerometer in MacBooks, Thinkpads, other laptops that may have them, or you can get a USB attachment that has one for desktop computers. Works essentially as you describe.
Phones might be tough because they move around a lot with the person who carries it, but would be especially useful because if they've got an accelerometer it's likely they also have a GPS unit and a way to tell which direction it's pointing, which you don't have on laptops. If people were in the habit of leaving their phone on their desk while they're sitting there, it could certainly be useful - you could just ignore those with a lot of motion because obviously the person is moving around with the phone.
If you remember in Casino Royale, Bond causes a distraction and then goes into the security room - all the security camera feeds were being recorded on blu-ray discs. Besides the fact that it seemed like the entire movie was a Sony commercial and they squeezed in Sony stuff wherever possible, it does seem like that would be a legitimately useful purpose for the discs, especially if your security cameras are high resolution.
I am curious about this too. When I've tried the new 3D films in the past few years, or seen the ones like the Muppet one at Disney or the Terminator one at Universal Studios, I have trouble getting the effect. Only in very certain cases do I actually perceive the 3D effect - the best I've seen it is during the Terminator one when it sticks the metal pokers out of the screen.
I'm not sure if I'm going to see Avatar for this reason - I already know I don't like several things about it from the trailer (character design) and from what I've heard regarding the plot, so I don't want to sit through three hours of blurriness because the 3D doesn't usually work for me, and I don't think it's worth seeing in 2D at all.
I agree with your post, but I have to point out - Star Wars and Jurassic Park are your examples? Both showcased next-generation special effects, yes, but those *are* the rare cases that are still enjoyable to watch, even though the effects are dated now!
I heartily agree. There are great kids movies from the past, and there are still some getting made (like your examples, though I didn't see Meatballs - well, I did see Meatballs, but that's not a kids movie;)
Problem is that film studios realized it's easier to pump out cheap crap, because kids are dumb and will want to watch it anyway because it's got talking dogs (or whatever). These are not films that kids are going to watch multiple times growing up, and then watch again when they're adults and still enjoy it (and enjoy it on a wholly new level mostly invisible to kids with the really good ones).
However, there's selection bias - we don't remember all the crappy kids movies from the past. I can think of a couple from when I was growing up, and would probably recognize the names of a lot of them if I saw a list, but I don't really remember them, and would certainly not watch them again (or let my future kids watch them, for that matter). Nostalgia naturally filters out the crap. But - kids movies are very noticeable these days, usually because they're so bad. I don't really know if the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies are bad (I did watch the cartoon as a kid...) but I can tell they're not classics. They're mediocre garbage that kids will beg their parents to take them too.
However the previous guy does have a point - what kids enjoy and what adults enjoy are very different. I'm not sure it's always necessary for a kids film to be enjoyable by adults to be great. However, the truly great ones (that adults think are great) kids also usually like the most, so it's a fair bet that if it's actually good, adults will enjoy it too.
Finally - the interesting thing about Pixar films is that I don't think most people think of them as kids films anymore (at least I don't). Some of the earlier ones are (and I don't really like their earlier ones anyway), but Up, Wall-E, and even Ratatouille aren't kids films - they're just great films that happen to also appeal to kids.
I was in fifth or sixth grade at the time Titanic was released, and one of my clearest memories from that time in my life, sadly, is listening to a conversation in school where a bunch of girls were trying to one-up each other regarding how many times they'd gone to see Titanic. It seemed pretty bizarre to me, and when I actually saw it a couple years later (well, I only watched about 3/4 of it, and on VHS...) I found it hard to believe that those girls - the type with the shortest attention spans - could actually sit through it even once. Thinking back now, I'm glad to realize that even in 5th grade I was a bit of a film snob;)
Of course, as a period piece it's rather impressive, with great costumes, set design, etc (and it won 11 academy awards!). Very similar in that regard to Avatar - a very impressive film, certainly (actually I haven't seen Avatar but that much is obvious), but without particularly lasting qualities. Does anyone feel the urge to watch Titanic anymore? I don't really think so.
Cameron has succeeded hugely in the past, of course, with films that were/are technically impressive but also greatly enjoyable otherwise, and which people still admire and watch regularly (particularly Terminator 2 and Aliens, but True Lies, The Abyss, and the first Terminator are not exactly slouches either). Who knows if he'll get back on track in the future, now that he's got Avatar out of his system:)
I agree that the plot was rather uninspired (even the simplest case from the original stories is more interesting than a DaVinci Code-style ripoff) but they did rather well on the other counts, I thought.
I disagree that he played Holmes straight - this is not how he'd been portrayed in previous iterations, at all, and while it doesn't deviate too far from the book (which many previous portrayals do) there are many points which differ and which, I think, made the performance and the character here quite interesting. To name one example, he's rather slovenly in his ways here. This is very different from the original character, who is noted many times in the stories to be quite impeccable in this regard. Even those who've only read the most famous story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, should recall that while Holmes was camping out in the countryside - for weeks without contact - he kept himself clean-shaven every day! Of course, it's also described in the stories that his rooms are not necessarily tidy as one normally thinks of tidy - but not an absolute mess as in the new film.
As for the rhododendron thing (it wasn't an orchid) - this is maybe a little cliche nowadays, but that's a classic Holmes thing - surely the reason such a plot device is widely used is because of the Sherlock Holmes stories in the first place?
Personally, when reading the original stories, I am often a little frustrated when something like that turns out to be a critical element - but that's part of the fun, I think. It's a bit of a lazy cop-out nowadays, but Arthur Conan Doyle uses it masterfully, and it's certainly appropriate to use in this new film.
I was not fully satisfied with it, but as someone who greatly enjoys the original stories, I'm more than pleased. It's easy to imagine Hollywood really screwing this up and turning it into a comic book movie, but while some of the action scenes were maybe a little excessive, it was excellent anyway. Actually, come to think of it, it's easy to imagine a new Holmes film where they "put a new spin" on the character, as you suggested they maybe should have - but when has that ever worked out? Holmes is such a well-known and loved character, that re-imagining it easily could have ruined the movie. Watson's character, you'll surely agree, has been re-imagined quite a bit - far from the bumbling idiot of most portrayals, but not exactly like the original either - Jude Law's Watson is stronger and smarter in many ways. Though there was plenty of witty banter between them, I did miss the standard scene where Holmes insults Watson's intelligence and his deduction. The replacement for that in the movie was the scene from the trailer where Watson punches Holmes in the cab; that wasn't as good a scene as the ones from the stories.
Anyway, I just saw it today, I'm a big fan of the stories, and was very much expecting to be disappointed by this film, so I wanted to say something about it:) I liked it, and I hope that they do a sequel (they set it up for one, but who knows), hopefully with a better overall plot. I'm thinking plot improvement along the lines of Star Wars to Empire Strikes Back.
The key word in your post is "trying". The bureaucrats are trying to control it, yes. However, it is still freely available from NASA to anyone who wants it. You have to jump through a couple hoops (another of which is their ridiculously clunky website) but essentially you are just agreeing to an EULA, and since you're on slashdot I'm sure you know how pointless that is:)
You're correct, though, that I don't think they'll approve of commercial use of the data yet. However, consider the cost of commercially processed SRTM datasets - they're expensive - that's not exactly what's meant by "being made available to the general public". The USGS website for downloading SRTM data is slicker, yes, but the ASTER data is just as available to the general public if they want it, at no cost.
It's already being made quite useful by people like me - I'm doing research on landforms and geomorphology and ASTER blows SRTM away when looking at small-scale features. It's especially important for research in areas outside the US, which already had high-resolution DEM coverage from SRTM and other sources (down to 1m resolution in some places!)
No - I use this myself (and the new, higher-resolution, higher coverage ASTER dataset) in geological research. There's no such thing as "finding a pass" with SRTM or ASTER DEMs - not sure what he's talking about (you can get different passes from LANDSAT, for example, but that's not elevation data). Cloud cover doesn't affect the data, and supposedly even foliage cover doesn't affect it either - though I'm not sure how good it is at cutting through very dense vegetation; this is a sticking point in my research and I'm doing some field work to (in part) figure out how good it is at cutting through jungle cover in my specific area of interest (northern Thailand).
To understand basalt flows, look no further than Hawaii - its eruptions are basalt flows. Certainly dangerous if you're close by, but not explosive, as the energy is released more slowly. The formation of Craters of the Moon was likely very similar in style and rate to Hawaii, just on a smaller scale.
In any case, the location of the hotspot is known - it's still beneath Yellowstone, where the last super-eruption took place, so the idea that Yellowstone is simply the remnant of an old super-eruption is technically correct, but it is also the only possible location for the next one as well (unless we wait a few million years for North America to shift further).
The Yellowstone hotspot was once underneath Idaho. That was millions of years ago, of course, and your date of the craters of the moon flows (within the past 14,000 years) is correct. While the hotspot didn't cause those eruptions (though it is responsible for most of the Snake River Plain), what it did was heat and weaken the crust, which later thinned and rifted (extension in the Basin and Range). The Craters of the Moon flows are eruptions from the rift, which, though it was helped by it, does not require input from the Yellowstone hotspot to remain hot and rifting.
I looked through the paper and don't see any evidence to support a present-day connection with Craters of the Moon.
I glanced through it briefly (my university has access - I'm a geology grad student) and it's got a great graph for slashdot - correlation of earthquake frequency and chemical waste injection and an inference of causation. Since that's hardly the first time this has happened, though, there's no need for the correlationisnotcausation tag:)
It certainly could be, but you can easily pinpoint the 3D location of the epicenter (and any related earthquakes like aftershocks) to see where the rupturing started. I'm guessing they can show that the rupturing occurred right where their drilling is.
There is evidence for that, but is far from being well understood. You can definitely say that stress is relieved by earthquakes, making the next one to not be as large as it might have been had the entire stress from both been released at once.
However, one thing (among others) that makes it complicated is that faults are better described as fault zones - there may be hundreds or thousands of smaller faults taking up slip from the main fault, and movement on any of them could cause an earthquake. And an earthquake could potentially shift the structures in a way so as to create more stress in another area (though physically this is unlikely), which would mean an even bigger earthquake next time.
It would be cool to experiment with this, though. If you could reliably cause small earthquakes from deep drilling and set them off regularly, you could learn a whole lot about how this works. However, you're still stuck with the problem we have now - in order to figure out if your models and theories are correct, you have to wait until a big earthquake occurs and see how it fits in your model. If you experimented with drilling, you would have to keep doing it potentially forever to figure out if it works. You won't know if it works or not unless there is a big earthquake that wasn't caused by you, proving that it doesn't work. The recurrence interval for large earthquakes (I mean exceedingly damaging ones) in Southern California, a very active area, is about 100-200 years. Of course, there are several fault zones that could rupture, meaning the actual probability of a big one is higher than that - for example, a large rupture of the San Andreas is different from a rupture on the thrust faults north of LA (one of which caused the 1994 Northridge earthquake) and the recurrence intervals are different. So that means that your experiment is most likely going to run out of money before you figure anything out, and the most likely thing you're going to figure out is that it doesn't work:) Depending on who you listen to, the San Andreas may be "overdue" for a large rupture, and many are expecting one (potentially devastating) within 20-30 years... but even that is exceedingly long to experiment with expensive drilling.
IAAG(eologist) in grad school in Southern California
Besides making everyone look up from making their sandwich because the sound suddenly went off during the commercials, I imagine that means the ad was designed to be visually engaging and effective without the audio. Meaning that even with audio, it likely would have been more effective than other ads anyway because it was particularly well made.
Awesome video, thanks for mentioning it. Too bad there wasn't a professional film crew there (or if there was, too bad that video isn't available).
These sea-side mines exist all along the coasts of Thailand, Malayasia, etc, and I believe most are flooded (intentionally) when they're done with them. To geologists looking at these areas on satellite imagery and aerial photographs, they look like great places to study certain things like tsunami deposits, but of course they're not - in fact seaside mining is so prolific that a lot of valuable geologic data is gone. Oh well.
I'm a geology grad student doing a thesis on tectonic geomorphology. I read this article with great interest; my research is on mountain rivers/streams so I know a bit about this kind of thing.
Your alternate theories don't really work, for a variety of reasons. I'm not an expert on all these topics, but I'll explain as best I can and hopefully anyone that might know better will correct me:)
The glacier theory doesn't work because glaciation did not, in fact, reach that far south. The area has stayed at a relatively stable latitude for the past 250 million years at the least (check out a plate reconstruction for 30 Ma compared to the present - the site has earlier reconstructions as well). Even during ice ages, glaciation never got that close to the equator. This is beside the fact that you can actually distinguish between a glacial valley and the kind of thing they're saying this is - based on the shape, type of sediments, and so on.
Tectonic movement doesn't operate on the same time scale as erosional and stream processes. Tectonics has a major influence on the way rivers operate - in fact that's what my research is about - but not in the way you're speculating. You might be surprised how well preserved rock formations are compared to when they originally formed - it sounds like this one is more or less the same as when it was deposited, which is common in most areas. Tectonics is constantly shifting the crust, yes, but not as much or as fast as you're supposing, and even then this is a relatively inactive area.
Now, your final theory is actually about right, but if you change it to follow how river erosion actually works, then you're basically saying what the researchers here are saying. Their description is a bit misleading, depending on how long you think this took to occur (and I would lean more towards it taking longer - two years as they say, or even a little more, but I don't know the specifics of where they came up with that figure).
The valley shape and sediment type suggest a braided river system, with multiple small, fast streams covering a broad area, constantly shifting left and right. As they drop sediment and fill in depressions, the areas where water is not flowing become the new depressions, so the streams shift back and forth, filling the area with sediment evenly. The coarse of meandering rivers (which are more mature and have slower flow rates) can change on sub-decade time scales, and braided rivers are constantly shifting. Now, the important thing is that these braided streams don't carve v-shaped valleys - they spread themselves out broadly, eroding laterally.
Thus, the initial break would have carved a v-shape valley, but it would quickly erode laterally. Most of the initial deluge would not be recorded - it simply wiped everything away. What's left is the wide valley that got flushed out, and the coarse deposits that filled the valley from the braided streams that existed near the end of the deluge, when flow rate was still high but not enough to wipe away absolutely everything.
One of the most interesting things about this research is that it supports the idea that these things can happen catastrophically. In the 1800's, during the early days of geology, there was a huge debate surrounding whether geology happened catastrophically or gradually. Now, the theories those guys were pushing were ridiculous (although a lot of fun), but the question of time scales is still relevant. It became clear by the early 1900's that gradualism is more realistic, and all of geology is essentially based on that - almost anything can happen if you give it enough time. It's the same conceptual leap that you need to understand biology and evolution, but with geology there is even more time to play with, and physics can easily explain how rocks are affected by forces over long time periods.
I noticed the same thing in one of the climate articles - the "skeptic" viewpoint was being modded up and others were being modded down, even when the skeptic was on a clearly losing side of an argument.
Even if moderation in that thread devolved to simple agreeing or disagreeing with the poster, I find it hard to believe that the majority of slashdotters who had mod points agree with the "skeptics" more than everyone (including scientists) who were posting logical rebuttals and better information. Browsing at +2 or higher means seeing only the "skeptic" side of the argument, and it's not because they are correct or made better posts!
Good suggestions - I was planning on writing something similar when I read that part of the question.
I'm a geologist and have some more advice regarding this. You have to be careful getting into rockhounding - it is distinctly separate from the science of geology. There's nothing wrong with it, and it's what introduces a lot of geologists to the field, but most rockhounds unfortunately don't know much beyond what looks cool or is most valuable. It can be a good introduction to the classification side of science, but there is a lot more to geology than that.
Amateur Geologist is probably the best web site to order geology stuff from - it's not just amateur stuff, they carry all the stuff actual geologists use.
Definitely get basic rock/mineral/fossil identification books - check some out in a local Barnes & Noble or Borders to see what you like, but order this kind of thing online. Check out the selection of stuff on Amateur Geologist - they've got a wide range of good quality stuff. More important than the basic identification books is something specific about the geology where the kid will be looking. Take a look at the "Roadside Geology" series, if they have one for your state. They're very good (if sometimes a bit outdated), written for the layman for the most part, and give you a very good idea of what you're looking at, how it got there, etc. This is where the real science is - figuring out what the rock/mineral/fossil means, not just what it is. You can probably find the books cheaper on Amazon than on Amateur Geologist; I haven't checked.
You want to get them a good loupe. This is way beyond a kid's magnifying glass (i.e. it's actually useful) and kids (and the college students I teach in geology 101...) will get a big kick out of looking at all kinds of stuff up close. Problem is, to get something that's better than a cheap magnifying glass, you need to spend some money. This is the one I use myself, and it is excellent in quality with a lot of magnification: BelOMO 10x Triplet Loupe - about $30. Be sure to get the lanyard with it - this is something you want the kid to take with them everywhere, but it could be easy to lose. This is *by far* the most important part of any "rock hound kit" and will be the most-used item, because it's useful for all kinds of purposes (not just geology), especially for an inquisitive kid.
For a rock hammer, again, it's worth it to go for the good stuff. This is the classic hammer you'll see most geologists using (or the leather handled version, which is more expensive) but it's quite large for a kid. They make a smaller version, though, which should be fine. If you're curious about the size and weight of the 22 ounce hammer, Sears and possibly Home Depot carry a bricklayer's hammer by Estwing that is similar in size and weight. Some geologists, particularly paleontologists, use those hammers. They have a flat chisel-like end rather than the pointed tip of the other one. You could definitely get away with giving one of those, but the flat end isn't all that useful. You're much better off getting a chisel that you can hit with the hammer for situations when you might need that kind of thing.
Don't be tempted by the cheap versions - they may be fine for bricklaying or working with wood, but the rubbery grip on the Estwing hammers is really important. It can hurt a lot to hit a hard rock with a hammer that has a wood or cheap plastic handle.
Here's a cheap holster for it. This is important so the kid doesn't put the hammer down and forget about it until it's too late, and to make them feel cool because they've got a
I understand your sentiment, but there's a reason to obscure the "workings" of science from the general public. Is it a good reason? No - but, in place of educating the public about it, which would be an extremely difficult task, it's understandable.
Science involves a lot of back-and-forth. You generally can't take any published paper at face value, especially if it is a few years old. Science works because scientists look for flaws and try alternate approaches. Scientists are trained to be skeptical of everything they read. You have to understand the context within the entire field to understand a specific paper. In the writing of that paper, the same thing happens at a smaller scale among the scientists who are doing the work that's in the paper, and so on.
So - here's the problem. Take your general public layperson and show them part of the science, even an entire paper. In general, people will take most of what they read at face value. You read a non-fiction book, the news, whatever - you can generally believe what's being told to you (editorial spin aside). You can't read science the same way.
What do you do to get an understanding of the context across to the general public? You might decide to be a little secretive about the internal argument/discussion, especially when it comes to politically-charged topics where ridiculous "skeptics" are out to get you at every corner.
If the general public understood how science worked, this wouldn't be necessary. It takes years of scientific training for scientists to not take everything at face value, so the prospect of laypeople reaching that level of understanding is unfortunately ridiculous.
When exposing the inner workings causes increased confusion among the public, it makes sense to simplify it for general consumption.
As I said, it shouldn't be this way. This is a product of climate change being politicized. Scientists are annoyed about revealing this kind of thing because it gives ammunition to the skeptics, who somehow hold more weight with the general public than the scientists do yet are completely unscientific in their skepticism. Skepticism is *built in* to the science already! No one wants to deal with blowhards attacking their work all the time for stupid reasons, when they already constantly have to improve upon and defend their work due to internal scientific argument.
I know you're through arguing here, but you've been modded up, and I think you're on the losing end of the argument. In fact, your refusing to hear what the other guy's saying greatly harms your argument.
It's one thing to question science that others have done and to propose alternate theories to explain data - in other words, to conduct science - and a completely different thing to be a "skeptic" regarding said science.
That list contains papers that fall into the first category. They are real, peer-reviewed, scientific papers. They probably do contain "skepticism", in a scientific sense - as I explained, they may question interpretations and point out flaws. What they *don't* do, though, is deny AGW - they don't contain the knee-jerk "skeptic" arguments (though the titles of the papers may suggest that - I'll get to that).
The list was compiled, apparently, as proof that scientists are skeptical about AGW. Funnily enough, this reminds me of a typical Slashdot story summary - it blows what TFA says way out of proportion. I guarantee that the actual contents of those papers listed is nothing of the sort (as a whole).
As a scientist myself (in geology), I tend not to read much into the titles of papers. It's a bit of a game - just as anywhere else, you want to have a title that attracts attention. A catchy scientific title includes your most contentious claim, right there in large type. The result of your paper may well be to show that your contentious claim was incorrect, which is still just as interesting to know to other scientists in the field. Reading some of the titles of the listed papers tells me that a lot of interesting arguments have been going on among climate scientists, surely.
However, the list you linked to does not support any claims of skeptics. All it shows is typical science in progress. Never in the history of any field of science have everyone agreed on a topic, and this is what drives science forward - others look at what you did, point out the problems that you didn't spot, and do it themselves to get a better result.
Therefore, the desired and expected result of climate research is that scientists will go back-and-forth with each other regarding their various theories and ideas. As this goes on, a clearer and clearer picture of the "truth" will emerge. This continues despite those scientists who hold a firm belief of one side or other of the argument - having them there to search for every little flaw in the more popular arguments is essential so that others can address those flaws.
I am not a climate scientist, so I can't really say what the current state of the science is, but as someone in a relatively related field I think that there is a general trend toward the collective scientific "truth" I described being that AGW is real. You do even get a sense of that by looking at the titles of those papers.
The skeptic argument presented by that list is that scientists are skeptical too. This argument comes from a lack of understanding of how science works. As the other guy said, you would need to look at a sampling of those papers in depth to see what they actually said.
The list is propaganda of the worst kind - they give you a huge list and claim that it says X, perhaps even in good faith - they may not understand the science and how it works in context - while the science listed at best proves nothing, and at worst proves the opposite of the skeptic argument!
I've been running TB 2 for linux for years with no crashing, resource hog problems, etc. as you say you had... there must have been something strange with your setup. In fact, I'm at 108 days of uptime on this computer - a Thinkpad running opensuse - and Thunderbird has been open, sitting on desktop 2, for that entire time (that is, until I just upgraded to TB 3) with no problem, and like the other guy, I've got 6 accounts running with huge amounts of mail in each.
The actual problem comes when trying to read pdfs of things like scientific journals, or other things where layout is complicated and probably important. If you're just trying to use PDF'd novels, then yeah, what you describe will work. Anything else - and PDF is the standard way to share documents that fall in the "anything else" category - and e-readers fail miserably.
I know, because I have a Sony e-reader, which I wanted to be able to use to read scientific papers (I'm a grad student) - and it's useless for that. It's also useless for, as an example, Lonely Planet guides and phrasebooks - you can buy these in PDF format (and I think you can get them for free if you buy the paper copy - or you can get them through "other sources"), but their layout (which works great in print, or on a computer screen) simply doesn't work on the small e-reader screens, and the text is put into the pdf in a way which makes extraction impossible.
That said - the device is great for reading novels, and I have used it to read a lot of classic books that are public domain. The problem a lot of nerdier types are going to have with these devices is that they are really only good for reading text-only books. They're not good for technical, scientific, or other "complicated" stuff.
Target has been selling them for as long as I can remember (I'm 23 so not all that long necessarily) - a more likely guess, I think, would be that they never actually stopped selling them, just changed the models they stock.
I'm not sure if they've got something new now that you're referring to, but what they've had at least through the 90's and 2000's is one or two models of cheaply made "nostalgic" looking things that play both records and CDs (probably cassettes too). It's the kind of thing you might buy for your grandparents so they can play their old records as well as those newfangled CDs; nothing a hipster would be seen dead with;)
Slashdot Mirror
There's already such a project underway from Stanford: http://qcn.stanford.edu/. Doesn't extend to phones yet (as far as I know, though they're probably working on it) but will use the accelerometer in MacBooks, Thinkpads, other laptops that may have them, or you can get a USB attachment that has one for desktop computers. Works essentially as you describe.
Phones might be tough because they move around a lot with the person who carries it, but would be especially useful because if they've got an accelerometer it's likely they also have a GPS unit and a way to tell which direction it's pointing, which you don't have on laptops. If people were in the habit of leaving their phone on their desk while they're sitting there, it could certainly be useful - you could just ignore those with a lot of motion because obviously the person is moving around with the phone.
If you remember in Casino Royale, Bond causes a distraction and then goes into the security room - all the security camera feeds were being recorded on blu-ray discs. Besides the fact that it seemed like the entire movie was a Sony commercial and they squeezed in Sony stuff wherever possible, it does seem like that would be a legitimately useful purpose for the discs, especially if your security cameras are high resolution.
I am curious about this too. When I've tried the new 3D films in the past few years, or seen the ones like the Muppet one at Disney or the Terminator one at Universal Studios, I have trouble getting the effect. Only in very certain cases do I actually perceive the 3D effect - the best I've seen it is during the Terminator one when it sticks the metal pokers out of the screen.
I'm not sure if I'm going to see Avatar for this reason - I already know I don't like several things about it from the trailer (character design) and from what I've heard regarding the plot, so I don't want to sit through three hours of blurriness because the 3D doesn't usually work for me, and I don't think it's worth seeing in 2D at all.
I agree with your post, but I have to point out - Star Wars and Jurassic Park are your examples? Both showcased next-generation special effects, yes, but those *are* the rare cases that are still enjoyable to watch, even though the effects are dated now!
I heartily agree. There are great kids movies from the past, and there are still some getting made (like your examples, though I didn't see Meatballs - well, I did see Meatballs, but that's not a kids movie ;)
Problem is that film studios realized it's easier to pump out cheap crap, because kids are dumb and will want to watch it anyway because it's got talking dogs (or whatever). These are not films that kids are going to watch multiple times growing up, and then watch again when they're adults and still enjoy it (and enjoy it on a wholly new level mostly invisible to kids with the really good ones).
However, there's selection bias - we don't remember all the crappy kids movies from the past. I can think of a couple from when I was growing up, and would probably recognize the names of a lot of them if I saw a list, but I don't really remember them, and would certainly not watch them again (or let my future kids watch them, for that matter). Nostalgia naturally filters out the crap. But - kids movies are very noticeable these days, usually because they're so bad. I don't really know if the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies are bad (I did watch the cartoon as a kid...) but I can tell they're not classics. They're mediocre garbage that kids will beg their parents to take them too.
However the previous guy does have a point - what kids enjoy and what adults enjoy are very different. I'm not sure it's always necessary for a kids film to be enjoyable by adults to be great. However, the truly great ones (that adults think are great) kids also usually like the most, so it's a fair bet that if it's actually good, adults will enjoy it too.
Finally - the interesting thing about Pixar films is that I don't think most people think of them as kids films anymore (at least I don't). Some of the earlier ones are (and I don't really like their earlier ones anyway), but Up, Wall-E, and even Ratatouille aren't kids films - they're just great films that happen to also appeal to kids.
I was in fifth or sixth grade at the time Titanic was released, and one of my clearest memories from that time in my life, sadly, is listening to a conversation in school where a bunch of girls were trying to one-up each other regarding how many times they'd gone to see Titanic. It seemed pretty bizarre to me, and when I actually saw it a couple years later (well, I only watched about 3/4 of it, and on VHS...) I found it hard to believe that those girls - the type with the shortest attention spans - could actually sit through it even once. Thinking back now, I'm glad to realize that even in 5th grade I was a bit of a film snob ;)
Of course, as a period piece it's rather impressive, with great costumes, set design, etc (and it won 11 academy awards!). Very similar in that regard to Avatar - a very impressive film, certainly (actually I haven't seen Avatar but that much is obvious), but without particularly lasting qualities. Does anyone feel the urge to watch Titanic anymore? I don't really think so.
Cameron has succeeded hugely in the past, of course, with films that were/are technically impressive but also greatly enjoyable otherwise, and which people still admire and watch regularly (particularly Terminator 2 and Aliens, but True Lies, The Abyss, and the first Terminator are not exactly slouches either). Who knows if he'll get back on track in the future, now that he's got Avatar out of his system :)
I agree that the plot was rather uninspired (even the simplest case from the original stories is more interesting than a DaVinci Code-style ripoff) but they did rather well on the other counts, I thought.
I disagree that he played Holmes straight - this is not how he'd been portrayed in previous iterations, at all, and while it doesn't deviate too far from the book (which many previous portrayals do) there are many points which differ and which, I think, made the performance and the character here quite interesting. To name one example, he's rather slovenly in his ways here. This is very different from the original character, who is noted many times in the stories to be quite impeccable in this regard. Even those who've only read the most famous story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, should recall that while Holmes was camping out in the countryside - for weeks without contact - he kept himself clean-shaven every day! Of course, it's also described in the stories that his rooms are not necessarily tidy as one normally thinks of tidy - but not an absolute mess as in the new film.
As for the rhododendron thing (it wasn't an orchid) - this is maybe a little cliche nowadays, but that's a classic Holmes thing - surely the reason such a plot device is widely used is because of the Sherlock Holmes stories in the first place?
Personally, when reading the original stories, I am often a little frustrated when something like that turns out to be a critical element - but that's part of the fun, I think. It's a bit of a lazy cop-out nowadays, but Arthur Conan Doyle uses it masterfully, and it's certainly appropriate to use in this new film.
I was not fully satisfied with it, but as someone who greatly enjoys the original stories, I'm more than pleased. It's easy to imagine Hollywood really screwing this up and turning it into a comic book movie, but while some of the action scenes were maybe a little excessive, it was excellent anyway. Actually, come to think of it, it's easy to imagine a new Holmes film where they "put a new spin" on the character, as you suggested they maybe should have - but when has that ever worked out? Holmes is such a well-known and loved character, that re-imagining it easily could have ruined the movie. Watson's character, you'll surely agree, has been re-imagined quite a bit - far from the bumbling idiot of most portrayals, but not exactly like the original either - Jude Law's Watson is stronger and smarter in many ways. Though there was plenty of witty banter between them, I did miss the standard scene where Holmes insults Watson's intelligence and his deduction. The replacement for that in the movie was the scene from the trailer where Watson punches Holmes in the cab; that wasn't as good a scene as the ones from the stories.
Anyway, I just saw it today, I'm a big fan of the stories, and was very much expecting to be disappointed by this film, so I wanted to say something about it :) I liked it, and I hope that they do a sequel (they set it up for one, but who knows), hopefully with a better overall plot. I'm thinking plot improvement along the lines of Star Wars to Empire Strikes Back.
The key word in your post is "trying". The bureaucrats are trying to control it, yes. However, it is still freely available from NASA to anyone who wants it. You have to jump through a couple hoops (another of which is their ridiculously clunky website) but essentially you are just agreeing to an EULA, and since you're on slashdot I'm sure you know how pointless that is :)
You're correct, though, that I don't think they'll approve of commercial use of the data yet. However, consider the cost of commercially processed SRTM datasets - they're expensive - that's not exactly what's meant by "being made available to the general public". The USGS website for downloading SRTM data is slicker, yes, but the ASTER data is just as available to the general public if they want it, at no cost.
It's already being made quite useful by people like me - I'm doing research on landforms and geomorphology and ASTER blows SRTM away when looking at small-scale features. It's especially important for research in areas outside the US, which already had high-resolution DEM coverage from SRTM and other sources (down to 1m resolution in some places!)
No - I use this myself (and the new, higher-resolution, higher coverage ASTER dataset) in geological research. There's no such thing as "finding a pass" with SRTM or ASTER DEMs - not sure what he's talking about (you can get different passes from LANDSAT, for example, but that's not elevation data). Cloud cover doesn't affect the data, and supposedly even foliage cover doesn't affect it either - though I'm not sure how good it is at cutting through very dense vegetation; this is a sticking point in my research and I'm doing some field work to (in part) figure out how good it is at cutting through jungle cover in my specific area of interest (northern Thailand).
They are pretty big and they're solid black circles, so what's more surprising to me is that people *don't* see them.
They even get transferred to vhs/tv broadcast/DVD sometimes, if the source material is a distribution print.
To understand basalt flows, look no further than Hawaii - its eruptions are basalt flows. Certainly dangerous if you're close by, but not explosive, as the energy is released more slowly. The formation of Craters of the Moon was likely very similar in style and rate to Hawaii, just on a smaller scale.
In any case, the location of the hotspot is known - it's still beneath Yellowstone, where the last super-eruption took place, so the idea that Yellowstone is simply the remnant of an old super-eruption is technically correct, but it is also the only possible location for the next one as well (unless we wait a few million years for North America to shift further).
Actually, the explanation for Craters of the Moon basalt flows is a bit different, although it is related to the Yellowstone hotspot.
Hotspots are relatively fixed in the mantle (though there is evidence to suggest that they do actually move) and the crust shifts over them (continental drift) - leaving tracks behind where the hotspot was. Check out this image from the TFA study showing the extent of the plume, and how it drifted through time.
The Yellowstone hotspot was once underneath Idaho. That was millions of years ago, of course, and your date of the craters of the moon flows (within the past 14,000 years) is correct. While the hotspot didn't cause those eruptions (though it is responsible for most of the Snake River Plain), what it did was heat and weaken the crust, which later thinned and rifted (extension in the Basin and Range). The Craters of the Moon flows are eruptions from the rift, which, though it was helped by it, does not require input from the Yellowstone hotspot to remain hot and rifting.
I looked through the paper and don't see any evidence to support a present-day connection with Craters of the Moon.
I glanced through it briefly (my university has access - I'm a geology grad student) and it's got a great graph for slashdot - correlation of earthquake frequency and chemical waste injection and an inference of causation. Since that's hardly the first time this has happened, though, there's no need for the correlationisnotcausation tag :)
It certainly could be, but you can easily pinpoint the 3D location of the epicenter (and any related earthquakes like aftershocks) to see where the rupturing started. I'm guessing they can show that the rupturing occurred right where their drilling is.
There is evidence for that, but is far from being well understood. You can definitely say that stress is relieved by earthquakes, making the next one to not be as large as it might have been had the entire stress from both been released at once.
However, one thing (among others) that makes it complicated is that faults are better described as fault zones - there may be hundreds or thousands of smaller faults taking up slip from the main fault, and movement on any of them could cause an earthquake. And an earthquake could potentially shift the structures in a way so as to create more stress in another area (though physically this is unlikely), which would mean an even bigger earthquake next time.
It would be cool to experiment with this, though. If you could reliably cause small earthquakes from deep drilling and set them off regularly, you could learn a whole lot about how this works. However, you're still stuck with the problem we have now - in order to figure out if your models and theories are correct, you have to wait until a big earthquake occurs and see how it fits in your model. If you experimented with drilling, you would have to keep doing it potentially forever to figure out if it works. You won't know if it works or not unless there is a big earthquake that wasn't caused by you, proving that it doesn't work. The recurrence interval for large earthquakes (I mean exceedingly damaging ones) in Southern California, a very active area, is about 100-200 years. Of course, there are several fault zones that could rupture, meaning the actual probability of a big one is higher than that - for example, a large rupture of the San Andreas is different from a rupture on the thrust faults north of LA (one of which caused the 1994 Northridge earthquake) and the recurrence intervals are different. So that means that your experiment is most likely going to run out of money before you figure anything out, and the most likely thing you're going to figure out is that it doesn't work :) Depending on who you listen to, the San Andreas may be "overdue" for a large rupture, and many are expecting one (potentially devastating) within 20-30 years... but even that is exceedingly long to experiment with expensive drilling.
IAAG(eologist) in grad school in Southern California
Besides making everyone look up from making their sandwich because the sound suddenly went off during the commercials, I imagine that means the ad was designed to be visually engaging and effective without the audio. Meaning that even with audio, it likely would have been more effective than other ads anyway because it was particularly well made.
Awesome video, thanks for mentioning it. Too bad there wasn't a professional film crew there (or if there was, too bad that video isn't available).
These sea-side mines exist all along the coasts of Thailand, Malayasia, etc, and I believe most are flooded (intentionally) when they're done with them. To geologists looking at these areas on satellite imagery and aerial photographs, they look like great places to study certain things like tsunami deposits, but of course they're not - in fact seaside mining is so prolific that a lot of valuable geologic data is gone. Oh well.
I'm a geology grad student doing a thesis on tectonic geomorphology. I read this article with great interest; my research is on mountain rivers/streams so I know a bit about this kind of thing.
Your alternate theories don't really work, for a variety of reasons. I'm not an expert on all these topics, but I'll explain as best I can and hopefully anyone that might know better will correct me :)
The glacier theory doesn't work because glaciation did not, in fact, reach that far south. The area has stayed at a relatively stable latitude for the past 250 million years at the least (check out a plate reconstruction for 30 Ma compared to the present - the site has earlier reconstructions as well). Even during ice ages, glaciation never got that close to the equator. This is beside the fact that you can actually distinguish between a glacial valley and the kind of thing they're saying this is - based on the shape, type of sediments, and so on.
Tectonic movement doesn't operate on the same time scale as erosional and stream processes. Tectonics has a major influence on the way rivers operate - in fact that's what my research is about - but not in the way you're speculating. You might be surprised how well preserved rock formations are compared to when they originally formed - it sounds like this one is more or less the same as when it was deposited, which is common in most areas. Tectonics is constantly shifting the crust, yes, but not as much or as fast as you're supposing, and even then this is a relatively inactive area.
Now, your final theory is actually about right, but if you change it to follow how river erosion actually works, then you're basically saying what the researchers here are saying. Their description is a bit misleading, depending on how long you think this took to occur (and I would lean more towards it taking longer - two years as they say, or even a little more, but I don't know the specifics of where they came up with that figure).
The valley shape and sediment type suggest a braided river system, with multiple small, fast streams covering a broad area, constantly shifting left and right. As they drop sediment and fill in depressions, the areas where water is not flowing become the new depressions, so the streams shift back and forth, filling the area with sediment evenly. The coarse of meandering rivers (which are more mature and have slower flow rates) can change on sub-decade time scales, and braided rivers are constantly shifting. Now, the important thing is that these braided streams don't carve v-shaped valleys - they spread themselves out broadly, eroding laterally.
Thus, the initial break would have carved a v-shape valley, but it would quickly erode laterally. Most of the initial deluge would not be recorded - it simply wiped everything away. What's left is the wide valley that got flushed out, and the coarse deposits that filled the valley from the braided streams that existed near the end of the deluge, when flow rate was still high but not enough to wipe away absolutely everything.
One of the most interesting things about this research is that it supports the idea that these things can happen catastrophically. In the 1800's, during the early days of geology, there was a huge debate surrounding whether geology happened catastrophically or gradually. Now, the theories those guys were pushing were ridiculous (although a lot of fun), but the question of time scales is still relevant. It became clear by the early 1900's that gradualism is more realistic, and all of geology is essentially based on that - almost anything can happen if you give it enough time. It's the same conceptual leap that you need to understand biology and evolution, but with geology there is even more time to play with, and physics can easily explain how rocks are affected by forces over long time periods.
This led eventuall
I noticed the same thing in one of the climate articles - the "skeptic" viewpoint was being modded up and others were being modded down, even when the skeptic was on a clearly losing side of an argument.
Even if moderation in that thread devolved to simple agreeing or disagreeing with the poster, I find it hard to believe that the majority of slashdotters who had mod points agree with the "skeptics" more than everyone (including scientists) who were posting logical rebuttals and better information. Browsing at +2 or higher means seeing only the "skeptic" side of the argument, and it's not because they are correct or made better posts!
Good suggestions - I was planning on writing something similar when I read that part of the question.
I'm a geologist and have some more advice regarding this. You have to be careful getting into rockhounding - it is distinctly separate from the science of geology. There's nothing wrong with it, and it's what introduces a lot of geologists to the field, but most rockhounds unfortunately don't know much beyond what looks cool or is most valuable. It can be a good introduction to the classification side of science, but there is a lot more to geology than that.
Amateur Geologist is probably the best web site to order geology stuff from - it's not just amateur stuff, they carry all the stuff actual geologists use.
Definitely get basic rock/mineral/fossil identification books - check some out in a local Barnes & Noble or Borders to see what you like, but order this kind of thing online. Check out the selection of stuff on Amateur Geologist - they've got a wide range of good quality stuff. More important than the basic identification books is something specific about the geology where the kid will be looking. Take a look at the "Roadside Geology" series, if they have one for your state. They're very good (if sometimes a bit outdated), written for the layman for the most part, and give you a very good idea of what you're looking at, how it got there, etc. This is where the real science is - figuring out what the rock/mineral/fossil means, not just what it is. You can probably find the books cheaper on Amazon than on Amateur Geologist; I haven't checked.
You want to get them a good loupe. This is way beyond a kid's magnifying glass (i.e. it's actually useful) and kids (and the college students I teach in geology 101...) will get a big kick out of looking at all kinds of stuff up close. Problem is, to get something that's better than a cheap magnifying glass, you need to spend some money. This is the one I use myself, and it is excellent in quality with a lot of magnification: BelOMO 10x Triplet Loupe - about $30. Be sure to get the lanyard with it - this is something you want the kid to take with them everywhere, but it could be easy to lose. This is *by far* the most important part of any "rock hound kit" and will be the most-used item, because it's useful for all kinds of purposes (not just geology), especially for an inquisitive kid.
For a rock hammer, again, it's worth it to go for the good stuff. This is the classic hammer you'll see most geologists using (or the leather handled version, which is more expensive) but it's quite large for a kid. They make a smaller version, though, which should be fine. If you're curious about the size and weight of the 22 ounce hammer, Sears and possibly Home Depot carry a bricklayer's hammer by Estwing that is similar in size and weight. Some geologists, particularly paleontologists, use those hammers. They have a flat chisel-like end rather than the pointed tip of the other one. You could definitely get away with giving one of those, but the flat end isn't all that useful. You're much better off getting a chisel that you can hit with the hammer for situations when you might need that kind of thing.
Don't be tempted by the cheap versions - they may be fine for bricklaying or working with wood, but the rubbery grip on the Estwing hammers is really important. It can hurt a lot to hit a hard rock with a hammer that has a wood or cheap plastic handle.
Here's a cheap holster for it. This is important so the kid doesn't put the hammer down and forget about it until it's too late, and to make them feel cool because they've got a
I understand your sentiment, but there's a reason to obscure the "workings" of science from the general public. Is it a good reason? No - but, in place of educating the public about it, which would be an extremely difficult task, it's understandable.
Science involves a lot of back-and-forth. You generally can't take any published paper at face value, especially if it is a few years old. Science works because scientists look for flaws and try alternate approaches. Scientists are trained to be skeptical of everything they read. You have to understand the context within the entire field to understand a specific paper. In the writing of that paper, the same thing happens at a smaller scale among the scientists who are doing the work that's in the paper, and so on.
So - here's the problem. Take your general public layperson and show them part of the science, even an entire paper. In general, people will take most of what they read at face value. You read a non-fiction book, the news, whatever - you can generally believe what's being told to you (editorial spin aside). You can't read science the same way.
What do you do to get an understanding of the context across to the general public? You might decide to be a little secretive about the internal argument/discussion, especially when it comes to politically-charged topics where ridiculous "skeptics" are out to get you at every corner.
If the general public understood how science worked, this wouldn't be necessary. It takes years of scientific training for scientists to not take everything at face value, so the prospect of laypeople reaching that level of understanding is unfortunately ridiculous.
When exposing the inner workings causes increased confusion among the public, it makes sense to simplify it for general consumption.
As I said, it shouldn't be this way. This is a product of climate change being politicized. Scientists are annoyed about revealing this kind of thing because it gives ammunition to the skeptics, who somehow hold more weight with the general public than the scientists do yet are completely unscientific in their skepticism. Skepticism is *built in* to the science already! No one wants to deal with blowhards attacking their work all the time for stupid reasons, when they already constantly have to improve upon and defend their work due to internal scientific argument.
I know you're through arguing here, but you've been modded up, and I think you're on the losing end of the argument. In fact, your refusing to hear what the other guy's saying greatly harms your argument.
It's one thing to question science that others have done and to propose alternate theories to explain data - in other words, to conduct science - and a completely different thing to be a "skeptic" regarding said science.
That list contains papers that fall into the first category. They are real, peer-reviewed, scientific papers. They probably do contain "skepticism", in a scientific sense - as I explained, they may question interpretations and point out flaws. What they *don't* do, though, is deny AGW - they don't contain the knee-jerk "skeptic" arguments (though the titles of the papers may suggest that - I'll get to that).
The list was compiled, apparently, as proof that scientists are skeptical about AGW. Funnily enough, this reminds me of a typical Slashdot story summary - it blows what TFA says way out of proportion. I guarantee that the actual contents of those papers listed is nothing of the sort (as a whole).
As a scientist myself (in geology), I tend not to read much into the titles of papers. It's a bit of a game - just as anywhere else, you want to have a title that attracts attention. A catchy scientific title includes your most contentious claim, right there in large type. The result of your paper may well be to show that your contentious claim was incorrect, which is still just as interesting to know to other scientists in the field. Reading some of the titles of the listed papers tells me that a lot of interesting arguments have been going on among climate scientists, surely.
However, the list you linked to does not support any claims of skeptics. All it shows is typical science in progress. Never in the history of any field of science have everyone agreed on a topic, and this is what drives science forward - others look at what you did, point out the problems that you didn't spot, and do it themselves to get a better result.
Therefore, the desired and expected result of climate research is that scientists will go back-and-forth with each other regarding their various theories and ideas. As this goes on, a clearer and clearer picture of the "truth" will emerge. This continues despite those scientists who hold a firm belief of one side or other of the argument - having them there to search for every little flaw in the more popular arguments is essential so that others can address those flaws.
I am not a climate scientist, so I can't really say what the current state of the science is, but as someone in a relatively related field I think that there is a general trend toward the collective scientific "truth" I described being that AGW is real. You do even get a sense of that by looking at the titles of those papers.
The skeptic argument presented by that list is that scientists are skeptical too. This argument comes from a lack of understanding of how science works. As the other guy said, you would need to look at a sampling of those papers in depth to see what they actually said.
The list is propaganda of the worst kind - they give you a huge list and claim that it says X, perhaps even in good faith - they may not understand the science and how it works in context - while the science listed at best proves nothing, and at worst proves the opposite of the skeptic argument!
I've been running TB 2 for linux for years with no crashing, resource hog problems, etc. as you say you had... there must have been something strange with your setup. In fact, I'm at 108 days of uptime on this computer - a Thinkpad running opensuse - and Thunderbird has been open, sitting on desktop 2, for that entire time (that is, until I just upgraded to TB 3) with no problem, and like the other guy, I've got 6 accounts running with huge amounts of mail in each.
The actual problem comes when trying to read pdfs of things like scientific journals, or other things where layout is complicated and probably important. If you're just trying to use PDF'd novels, then yeah, what you describe will work. Anything else - and PDF is the standard way to share documents that fall in the "anything else" category - and e-readers fail miserably.
I know, because I have a Sony e-reader, which I wanted to be able to use to read scientific papers (I'm a grad student) - and it's useless for that. It's also useless for, as an example, Lonely Planet guides and phrasebooks - you can buy these in PDF format (and I think you can get them for free if you buy the paper copy - or you can get them through "other sources"), but their layout (which works great in print, or on a computer screen) simply doesn't work on the small e-reader screens, and the text is put into the pdf in a way which makes extraction impossible.
That said - the device is great for reading novels, and I have used it to read a lot of classic books that are public domain. The problem a lot of nerdier types are going to have with these devices is that they are really only good for reading text-only books. They're not good for technical, scientific, or other "complicated" stuff.
Target has been selling them for as long as I can remember (I'm 23 so not all that long necessarily) - a more likely guess, I think, would be that they never actually stopped selling them, just changed the models they stock.
I'm not sure if they've got something new now that you're referring to, but what they've had at least through the 90's and 2000's is one or two models of cheaply made "nostalgic" looking things that play both records and CDs (probably cassettes too). It's the kind of thing you might buy for your grandparents so they can play their old records as well as those newfangled CDs; nothing a hipster would be seen dead with ;)