Well, it still "feels" somewhat weightless to a person, but that's just because you can both see and feel (from the rushing wind) that you're falling from the sky. A true zero-g feeling in your stomach is pretty similar to the high-on-adrenaline feeling in your stomach. Looking just at the forces involved, though, it's pretty much the same situation as lying facedown on a bed. You've got a force from below (the air/bed) which is equal to your weight, so you have zero acceleration.
He doesn't have to be an astronaut to find that a valid question. Maybe he's a skydiver?
You reach terminal velocity pretty quickly while skydiving, probably within a few seconds (it's hard to tell when you're falling, naturally, but they say the first 1000 feet take 10-11 seconds and each subsequent 1000 takes 5.5 seconds). Of course, if you wanted to take a picture of the plane just after you jump out (which is an awesome view, by the way), this phone would probably shit itself.
You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.
We certainly wouldn't have gotten there quicker, if at all, simply because we (the populations of the US and USSR) wouldn't have had the motivation. I mean, yes, the USA and USSR working together would've had the capability to do more, quicker, and better than either could do separate. But without the fear of what the "enemy" might do if they got control of space, all the funding would dry up. The biggest justification (to the American public, at least) for the space race was "We can't let the commies win, we can beat 'em! THEY WILL RAIN NUCLEAR BOMBS FROM SPACE!!"
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly better ways to motivate than competition, but competition really is the easiest and in the space race example I don't think anything else would've worked as well. With regard to the topic at hand, I do agree that two groups of scientists should not be motivated by competition, except maybe competition for notoriety pushing them to publish results and discoveries quickly. Are CERN and Fermilab at least sharing data but working separately? That would be pretty reasonable.
I had an idea somewhat similar to ownership interest, but with more of a direct payout. You could keep track of who submits what idea, and if it becomes something worthwhile/profitable (either through that person's own work or someone else running with it) they get nice bonuses. That way people have the motivation to bring up truly innovative ideas, but can't game the system with crap ideas.
Of course, you'll still have the problem of new ideas being stifled in bureaucracy, or asshats predicting what the company would do anyway and trying to cash in.
I can no longer trust Sony and refuse to buy from them...
I agree, but the vast majority of the public has absolutely no fricking clue why that would be the case. Just yesterday in one of my classes we were discussing business ethics and the fundamental motivations of a business (I'm a CS major taking a course on business law), and Sony was held up by the professor as an example of a company that has a primary goal of creating a quality product and building a quality brand. I didn't speak up because the example was given in passing and I didn't want to hold up the class, but something tells me nobody would have listened. People, both the layman and businessman, really do see Sony as a *great* company.
So, keep spreading the word! But it's an uphill battle, all the way.
There's a couple of things that trip over beginners have been removed.
Ah, yes, I remember python tripping over me. It's actually pretty impressive that a snake figured out how to trip, why take out that feature? It seems like you're knocking it back a notch in the evolution toward legs.
A recent report [argues that] the global IT industry generate[s] as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines â" about 2% of global CO2 emissions.
Oh, that's not bad. Considering how huge a positive impact the IT industry has, that honestly seems like a relatively acceptable amount. And I'd rather have two googles than a cup of tea any day.
I don't think so; it looks like the fish has relatively normal eyes, but has mirrors on either side which allow it to see straight down. That could be a huge advantage, analogous to being the only car on the road with rear-view/side mirrors.
Electronic documents are so easily fabricated and destroyed. Most legal stuff is paper based.
Sure, it's downright simple to fabricate fraudulent, unencrypted, unsigned electronic documents. However, paper isn't really much better. These days, how hard is it to fake a seal or a signature? How hard is it to destroy a stack of paper with a shredder or fire? The security and reliability of paper documents is little more than that of using an imprinted wax seal on an envelope.
I recognize this isn't happening anytime soon, but they could deliver records that are signed with a private key. To further the "paper" trail they could require requests, in turn, to be signed by the requester.
Whoa whoa whoa, who the hell brought up eschewing city life for an idyllic nature fantasy? (hint: you did) Stop jumping to other people's conclusions for them. Here's a quick summary of the discussion so far, as I see it:
Someone: Nature is feels safer and is less distracting than busy, urban environments. You: That's wrong! The only reason you find nature relaxing is that you have the comforts and conveniences of modern civilization to protect you and to go back to. Someone else: It's easier to think clearly in nature than in a crowded, loud place like cities. You: No, nature is not superior to civilization, and the only reason you think so is that you're romanticizing nature while taking advantage of all the benefits of society.
It's very true that being immersed in nature would likely be much less relaxing (and less distraction-free) if not for civilization, but does that change the fact that nature is indeed relaxing for many (most?) people? And that is indeed a better place to think (for many)? Nobody's suggesting stripping naked, smearing ourselves with mud, running into the woods, and hunting deer with a stick, but thanks to modern civilization much of nature is a safe, relatively tranquil place which is good for deep thinking.
For a cross-platform video chat, you could use something like imo.im. It doesn't have the highest video quality, but it's a simple multi-protocol IM client.
I was just about to comment correcting you (saying the "worst case" was from the perspective of those cracking BD+), but I just actually read the relevant article, and apparently the submitter can't read.
The 3 months is the worst case for how long it will take them to break the long-expected "modified and more polished BD+ protection" which is now here. So let's check back in March.
Awesome post! If I hadn't used up my mod points yesterday I'd bump you up to +5
If you keep your head while skydiving it's very unlikely anything will go wrong in an unrecoverable way. Skydiving absolutely requires close attention to detail, and counterintuitively a skydiver must be (intelligently) averse to risk. For instance, if you notice some fraying on your leg strap, you don't even THINK about jumping that rig.
So, a regular skydiver who's clearly uninjured might be willing to think big and take perceived risks, but would act intelligently and carefully, minimizing the actual risk.
Disclaimer: I'm about 1/3 of the way to my skydiving license, and it's one of the most awesome things ever.
I miss the days when you could actually do that as a teacher. Which wasn't long ago really - I got to participate in a similar demonstration in middle school (7th grade?), and I'm only in my early 20s now.
As far as I know, you still can! My high school physics teacher (this was three years ago) pulled out the ol' hand-crank generator, started with the whole class holding hands, then one-by-one dismissed us to our seats, until there were only two people left... they didn't look happy. Though I think most teachers couldn't have gotten away with stuff like that. If he hadn't been a damn good teacher he'd have been out on his ass for all the (awesome, from a student's point of view) shit he pulled.
OT: Here are a few fun examples of the shit he pulled!
At one point when I was walking through the hall between classes, he and two students were standing outside his room, him with the generator and each of the others holding one of its leads behind their back. The students would each grab one arm of an unsuspecting passerby, forming a closed circuit of three people. He would then start cranking furiously!
One more: in one of the first demonstrations he gave in the first Physics class offered, he had a girl sit on a stool in the middle of the room, and he had a little spring cannon on his desk about 4 meters away loaded with a metal ball bearing. The class's task was to determine what angle to set it at to launch the ball bearing into her mouth, and then he actually tested it. Unfortunately, she ducked.
Pray tell, how does a software upgrade convert text into Braille? Does it just display a series of dots on the screen?
Actually, now that I think about it, I'd be interested in the idea of a computer screen which could create slight relief, raising dots for the user to feel. I wonder if that, combined with a stylus for clicking and such, would allow for existing interfaces to be used by blind people... Does such a thing exist?
Slashdot Mirror
And the Spanish Inquisition.
Huh, I didn't expect that.
Well, it still "feels" somewhat weightless to a person, but that's just because you can both see and feel (from the rushing wind) that you're falling from the sky. A true zero-g feeling in your stomach is pretty similar to the high-on-adrenaline feeling in your stomach. Looking just at the forces involved, though, it's pretty much the same situation as lying facedown on a bed. You've got a force from below (the air/bed) which is equal to your weight, so you have zero acceleration.
He doesn't have to be an astronaut to find that a valid question. Maybe he's a skydiver?
You reach terminal velocity pretty quickly while skydiving, probably within a few seconds (it's hard to tell when you're falling, naturally, but they say the first 1000 feet take 10-11 seconds and each subsequent 1000 takes 5.5 seconds). Of course, if you wanted to take a picture of the plane just after you jump out (which is an awesome view, by the way), this phone would probably shit itself.
You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.
We certainly wouldn't have gotten there quicker, if at all, simply because we (the populations of the US and USSR) wouldn't have had the motivation. I mean, yes, the USA and USSR working together would've had the capability to do more, quicker, and better than either could do separate. But without the fear of what the "enemy" might do if they got control of space, all the funding would dry up. The biggest justification (to the American public, at least) for the space race was "We can't let the commies win, we can beat 'em! THEY WILL RAIN NUCLEAR BOMBS FROM SPACE!!"
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly better ways to motivate than competition, but competition really is the easiest and in the space race example I don't think anything else would've worked as well. With regard to the topic at hand, I do agree that two groups of scientists should not be motivated by competition, except maybe competition for notoriety pushing them to publish results and discoveries quickly. Are CERN and Fermilab at least sharing data but working separately? That would be pretty reasonable.
I'll also be wishing I had a girlfriend, but while drinking with other people. Most of whom are couples. Meh.
I had an idea somewhat similar to ownership interest, but with more of a direct payout. You could keep track of who submits what idea, and if it becomes something worthwhile/profitable (either through that person's own work or someone else running with it) they get nice bonuses. That way people have the motivation to bring up truly innovative ideas, but can't game the system with crap ideas.
Of course, you'll still have the problem of new ideas being stifled in bureaucracy, or asshats predicting what the company would do anyway and trying to cash in.
The web site exceeding it's cpu quote doesn't say much about WISPS ability to handle peak loads.
Indeed, it says nothing at all. It just means this poor guy got cheap, shitty hosting with a CPU quota.
I can no longer trust Sony and refuse to buy from them...
I agree, but the vast majority of the public has absolutely no fricking clue why that would be the case. Just yesterday in one of my classes we were discussing business ethics and the fundamental motivations of a business (I'm a CS major taking a course on business law), and Sony was held up by the professor as an example of a company that has a primary goal of creating a quality product and building a quality brand. I didn't speak up because the example was given in passing and I didn't want to hold up the class, but something tells me nobody would have listened. People, both the layman and businessman, really do see Sony as a *great* company.
So, keep spreading the word! But it's an uphill battle, all the way.
There's a couple of things that trip over beginners have been removed.
Ah, yes, I remember python tripping over me. It's actually pretty impressive that a snake figured out how to trip, why take out that feature? It seems like you're knocking it back a notch in the evolution toward legs.
A recent report [argues that] the global IT industry generate[s] as much greenhouse gas as the world's airlines â" about 2% of global CO2 emissions.
Oh, that's not bad. Considering how huge a positive impact the IT industry has, that honestly seems like a relatively acceptable amount. And I'd rather have two googles than a cup of tea any day.
I don't think so; it looks like the fish has relatively normal eyes, but has mirrors on either side which allow it to see straight down. That could be a huge advantage, analogous to being the only car on the road with rear-view/side mirrors.
We as a species have proven ourselves significant.
Well, we're either actually significant or we (and our planet) are so mind-bogglingly insignificant that it, uh, boggles the mind.
Electronic documents are so easily fabricated and destroyed. Most legal stuff is paper based.
Sure, it's downright simple to fabricate fraudulent, unencrypted, unsigned electronic documents. However, paper isn't really much better. These days, how hard is it to fake a seal or a signature? How hard is it to destroy a stack of paper with a shredder or fire? The security and reliability of paper documents is little more than that of using an imprinted wax seal on an envelope.
I recognize this isn't happening anytime soon, but they could deliver records that are signed with a private key. To further the "paper" trail they could require requests, in turn, to be signed by the requester.
Whoa whoa whoa, who the hell brought up eschewing city life for an idyllic nature fantasy? (hint: you did) Stop jumping to other people's conclusions for them. Here's a quick summary of the discussion so far, as I see it:
Someone: Nature is feels safer and is less distracting than busy, urban environments.
You: That's wrong! The only reason you find nature relaxing is that you have the comforts and conveniences of modern civilization to protect you and to go back to.
Someone else: It's easier to think clearly in nature than in a crowded, loud place like cities.
You: No, nature is not superior to civilization, and the only reason you think so is that you're romanticizing nature while taking advantage of all the benefits of society.
It's very true that being immersed in nature would likely be much less relaxing (and less distraction-free) if not for civilization, but does that change the fact that nature is indeed relaxing for many (most?) people? And that is indeed a better place to think (for many)? Nobody's suggesting stripping naked, smearing ourselves with mud, running into the woods, and hunting deer with a stick, but thanks to modern civilization much of nature is a safe, relatively tranquil place which is good for deep thinking.
Oh, come now, don't be such a downer. The earth could very well be completely destroyed before some or any of those other things occur.
For a cross-platform video chat, you could use something like imo.im. It doesn't have the highest video quality, but it's a simple multi-protocol IM client.
I was just about to comment correcting you (saying the "worst case" was from the perspective of those cracking BD+), but I just actually read the relevant article, and apparently the submitter can't read.
The 3 months is the worst case for how long it will take them to break the long-expected "modified and more polished BD+ protection" which is now here. So let's check back in March.
Awesome post! If I hadn't used up my mod points yesterday I'd bump you up to +5
If you keep your head while skydiving it's very unlikely anything will go wrong in an unrecoverable way. Skydiving absolutely requires close attention to detail, and counterintuitively a skydiver must be (intelligently) averse to risk. For instance, if you notice some fraying on your leg strap, you don't even THINK about jumping that rig.
So, a regular skydiver who's clearly uninjured might be willing to think big and take perceived risks, but would act intelligently and carefully, minimizing the actual risk.
Disclaimer: I'm about 1/3 of the way to my skydiving license, and it's one of the most awesome things ever.
What about very small ones?
I miss the days when you could actually do that as a teacher. Which wasn't long ago really - I got to participate in a similar demonstration in middle school (7th grade?), and I'm only in my early 20s now.
As far as I know, you still can! My high school physics teacher (this was three years ago) pulled out the ol' hand-crank generator, started with the whole class holding hands, then one-by-one dismissed us to our seats, until there were only two people left... they didn't look happy. Though I think most teachers couldn't have gotten away with stuff like that. If he hadn't been a damn good teacher he'd have been out on his ass for all the (awesome, from a student's point of view) shit he pulled.
OT: Here are a few fun examples of the shit he pulled!
At one point when I was walking through the hall between classes, he and two students were standing outside his room, him with the generator and each of the others holding one of its leads behind their back. The students would each grab one arm of an unsuspecting passerby, forming a closed circuit of three people. He would then start cranking furiously!
One more: in one of the first demonstrations he gave in the first Physics class offered, he had a girl sit on a stool in the middle of the room, and he had a little spring cannon on his desk about 4 meters away loaded with a metal ball bearing. The class's task was to determine what angle to set it at to launch the ball bearing into her mouth, and then he actually tested it. Unfortunately, she ducked.
Pray tell, how does a software upgrade convert text into Braille? Does it just display a series of dots on the screen?
Actually, now that I think about it, I'd be interested in the idea of a computer screen which could create slight relief, raising dots for the user to feel. I wonder if that, combined with a stylus for clicking and such, would allow for existing interfaces to be used by blind people... Does such a thing exist?
...I did click it. What a useless article.
It's a fundamental flaw with the way your browser works and cannot be fixed with a simple patch.
Oh no! There's nothing we can do!
In the meantime, the only fix is to disable browser scripting and plugins.
Uh... wha? I thought it didn't have to do with browser scripting and plugins?
So it's big and scary and you can't protect against it, except by taking basic precautions to protect yourself against it. I see.
Calvin and Hobbes
Speaking of, I'm really confused by the headline... Who's asking Mozilla "Et tu"? We the users? Google? Microsoft?
In short, whom is Mozilla betraying and who is about to die?
It's from Wayne's World 2. Doesn't anyone watch the classics anymore?
Are you okay? That huge lump of irony looked like it hurt.
(You meant The Graduate, which came out 26 years prior)