Airport security isn't just what goes on in the airports. The Christmas attacker shouldn't have been on that plane because we had intel from elsewhere to flag him. If we can just make the in-airport security good enough that out-of-airport security covers most of the rest, we should be good. I think full-body scanners should be available to airport security (assuming they are safe), but I do agree using them for general screening is overdoing it. I just hope the TSA realizes it is simply one part of a larger security network, and that they don't have to address every single threat because of that.
The only counter argument I can come up with is a jet comes with a huge amount of fuel for your bomb to ignite, while getting a similar amount of material to a ground target would be just about impossible. Not that I think a plane would still make a better target.
Thanks to people tagging this story "for15minutes", I got the most important detail about the story from the tags, not from the title or the summary itself. I suppose I can grudgingly accept not editing the summary before posting it, but if the tags are doing the editors' job, it is time to go back and update the summary.
Saying guaranteed is very dangerous for a corporation that will lose $$$ in sales should they be proven wrong. For researchers who are actually concerned about trying to make something that is guaranteed safe, using the word is great as it begs people to put them to the test. Better to be proven wrong quickly so they can get back to work, than to falsely believe it may truly be safe.
It may depend on the degree of the fear. It can be understandable to be frightened of a cockroach enough to back away a few feet and search for a way to dispose of it. It would be irrational to flee the room and refuse to return without coaxing. It would be unhealthy if you then start hyperventilating and turn it into a traumatic event, complete with keeping you up at nights. It would at least be useful to tame a person's fear to a milder form if their fear takes on such an extreme case. I agree it wouldn't be necessary to try to remove the fear altogether.
Anyone whose first reaction to the above post was "that's insightful", you have some reading to do. If you read it and your first thought was "Whoosh", you can keep your geek card. (Insightful can be your second thought, of course).
Anyone in the first group, go read Hitchhiker's Guide please.
I honestly can't tell if you are going for insightful or funny. Your statement is insightful when "we" refers to slashdotters, but funny if "we" refers to the typical reader/viewer of said media.
I agree with the sentiment, but if we were to single out one thing, it makes sense for it to be cellphones. Cellphones emit radiation that has to be picked up miles away, so a large portion is going through you. Most of what you mentioned receive radiation from miles away, so you are being hit by only a fraction of the radiation the source emits. Cordless phones only have to transmit a few feet- maybe a few hundred at most, so they can be low-power compared to your cellphone. Two-way radios would be emitting when talking into it, but generally aren't used for extended conversation like with cellphones.
I don't know the relative power of all these devices or sources so I don't know how well the above argument holds, and in the end I am skeptical that heavy cellphone use causes cancer, but cellphones are so common it makes sense to make sure. I would rather we do dozens of studies that simply confirm our expectation of no correlation, than to decide not to do a study that would have proven our expectations wrong.
The uncertainty in the study is due to the low precision of their data- they asked people to try and remember how much they were typically using their cellphones. Surveying more people isn't going to get people to provide more precise data.
Also, unless the needed data is already available somewhere, gathering more data costs more money. As someone else mentioned in a sibling post, there are diminishing returns when increasing your sample size. Eventually the cost of the data will exceed the benefit to the certainty of your results.
It shouldn't be too hard to reduce exposure to cancer-inducing cellphone radiation if any such radiation exists- it helps to know definitively so we can take action as needed. Given we already have measures to reduce the risk of getting cancer from sunlight (limit exposure, use sunscreen), we can safely move on to seeking out other means of getting cancer and dealing with them.
I would be very careful using the "why worry about X at all when Y is a bigger problem" argument. It is useful if you have to choose one thing or the other, but falsely implying you have to make a choice or distorting what the choice is just makes the argument misleading and hurts your credibility. Sure, sunlight is a bigger cancer risk (if cellphones pose any risk), but I don't see what study we should have done with regard to sunlight that would be more insightful than studying cellphone/cancer correlation. Sun-induced cancer is fairly well understood, so it makes sense to move on to what we don't know.
So people who are convinced cellphones cause cancer are going to take their "possible increase" and declare scientists just definitively said cellphones cause cancer.
On the other hand, cellphone companies may try to take "we're not sure that it is correct" and declare no link to cancer.
Then finally at the end they showed the back and surprise, there's another motor there
They mention the electric motor 2 minutes in, and they constantly talk about driving the bottom shaft, implying you are providing some sort of power input. They didn't show the back of the device for a while because looking at an electric motor is less helpful than seeing the output when trying to understand how the thing works.
As they wrapped up the video they did admit that this little kink is going to be the determining factor in whether or not it's a useful design
They spent most of the video trying to explain how the device works, so understandably they get to the application stuff only at the end. He just showed the device working perfectly fine with an electric motor- you don't need to work out a continuously variable input from the main motor unless you really want to. As for the efficiency, the input power is exactly the main concern, but it sounds perfectly plausible for this input to require minimal power. As they mention, the electric motor isn't seeing any of the main motor's power, so the required power for it can be very small.
I agree vibration issues and robustness have yet to be seen, but the device is simple enough it should be feasible. Engineering this from a demo to a working transmission for a full-size motor can be as much work as developing it in the first place, so it may be a while before we see where this goes.
Instead of tagging people, how about RFID tags you can store with any other emergency supplies (no personal info on the tags), and you can grab one and keep it in your pocket if an earthquake is suspected, or even occurring. Rescuers could then pinpoint any signals, and if some sort of button is added, victims could signal they are still alive, should rescuers need to prioritize which signals to reach first.
I realize earthquakes often have little enough warning that it would be difficult at best to go grab a tag, but the only better way to use them is to just carry one by default. Of course, you could always just carry an RFID tag when at school or work- you could then be issued a tag with your name and any other information helpful for rescuers, but that would be easily abused by schools/employers.
Regardless, I think RFID can be useful enough it should be looked into, and I am sure it can be used in a way that does not unnecessarily violate privacy.
Haven't watched Futurama, now I guess I have to. Given it's a week before finals, I'll send slashdot an invoice for the credit hours I end up re-taking because I was busy watching cartoons instead of studying.
Just pose as an advertiser wanting 's information. You should also get all the additional information you didn't even know they had, in case you wanted to violate your privacy on the next networking site.
I'm not convinced. Patent trolls seem to be the only thing that can repeatedly stand up to big business, get money out of it, and not get bribed to stop or legislated out of existence(yet). We need to learn to imitate their strategy in pro-consumer cases before we get rid of them.
Their sports games already lose their multiplayer after a year or two, yet they expect people to buy used copies and spend extra money to get a bit of content that still won't address the lack of multiplayer. I don't expect this to go very well.
5 funny doesn't discern between popular and quality jokes. I don't claim originality or quality on my above shark joke, although I at least claim originality on other jokes I've made here on slashdot. I kind of agree with your sentiment about over-used jokes, but I think c'est la vie applies first.
Sharks, which tend to stay relatively close to shore, eat the hydrates to power their lasers. This has caused the hydrates to be in relatively low concentration in shallower areas.
Er... water vapor is a gas. These things put liquid water into the air. Sure, some will evaporate, but as long as most remains liquid there shouldn't be concern over these things causing warming. They seed clouds- clouds are when atmospheric water vapor condenses onto a surface (dust, other liquid water). That is, when these thing seed clouds they would reduce atmospheric water vapor.
Popular media may treat the term "water vapor" loosely, but as far as I understand the part about it being a greenhouse gas specifically refers to gaseous water.
Turn the problem around: With phone calls and face-to-face conversations, you can have witnesses who noticed the suspects frequently talking in the hall, what they talked about, whether they seemed suspicious, etc. You won't have as many/any witnesses of someone sending emails or posting to facebook, so recording all of this is your best substitute.
Slashdot Mirror
What did you think those LHC blackholes are for?
This is one example where the Standard Model may be missing something or need tweaking.
Or the universe may be missing something and need tweaking. Don't rule out possibilities too early.
Airport security isn't just what goes on in the airports. The Christmas attacker shouldn't have been on that plane because we had intel from elsewhere to flag him. If we can just make the in-airport security good enough that out-of-airport security covers most of the rest, we should be good. I think full-body scanners should be available to airport security (assuming they are safe), but I do agree using them for general screening is overdoing it. I just hope the TSA realizes it is simply one part of a larger security network, and that they don't have to address every single threat because of that.
The only counter argument I can come up with is a jet comes with a huge amount of fuel for your bomb to ignite, while getting a similar amount of material to a ground target would be just about impossible. Not that I think a plane would still make a better target.
I just have to point out that, however funny South Park may be, the penguin scene from Blues Brothers is a more classic rendition on this joke.
Thanks to people tagging this story "for15minutes", I got the most important detail about the story from the tags, not from the title or the summary itself. I suppose I can grudgingly accept not editing the summary before posting it, but if the tags are doing the editors' job, it is time to go back and update the summary.
Saying guaranteed is very dangerous for a corporation that will lose $$$ in sales should they be proven wrong. For researchers who are actually concerned about trying to make something that is guaranteed safe, using the word is great as it begs people to put them to the test. Better to be proven wrong quickly so they can get back to work, than to falsely believe it may truly be safe.
It may depend on the degree of the fear. It can be understandable to be frightened of a cockroach enough to back away a few feet and search for a way to dispose of it. It would be irrational to flee the room and refuse to return without coaxing. It would be unhealthy if you then start hyperventilating and turn it into a traumatic event, complete with keeping you up at nights. It would at least be useful to tame a person's fear to a milder form if their fear takes on such an extreme case. I agree it wouldn't be necessary to try to remove the fear altogether.
Anyone whose first reaction to the above post was "that's insightful", you have some reading to do. If you read it and your first thought was "Whoosh", you can keep your geek card. (Insightful can be your second thought, of course).
Anyone in the first group, go read Hitchhiker's Guide please.
I honestly can't tell if you are going for insightful or funny. Your statement is insightful when "we" refers to slashdotters, but funny if "we" refers to the typical reader/viewer of said media.
I agree with the sentiment, but if we were to single out one thing, it makes sense for it to be cellphones. Cellphones emit radiation that has to be picked up miles away, so a large portion is going through you. Most of what you mentioned receive radiation from miles away, so you are being hit by only a fraction of the radiation the source emits. Cordless phones only have to transmit a few feet- maybe a few hundred at most, so they can be low-power compared to your cellphone. Two-way radios would be emitting when talking into it, but generally aren't used for extended conversation like with cellphones.
I don't know the relative power of all these devices or sources so I don't know how well the above argument holds, and in the end I am skeptical that heavy cellphone use causes cancer, but cellphones are so common it makes sense to make sure. I would rather we do dozens of studies that simply confirm our expectation of no correlation, than to decide not to do a study that would have proven our expectations wrong.
The uncertainty in the study is due to the low precision of their data- they asked people to try and remember how much they were typically using their cellphones. Surveying more people isn't going to get people to provide more precise data.
Also, unless the needed data is already available somewhere, gathering more data costs more money. As someone else mentioned in a sibling post, there are diminishing returns when increasing your sample size. Eventually the cost of the data will exceed the benefit to the certainty of your results.
It shouldn't be too hard to reduce exposure to cancer-inducing cellphone radiation if any such radiation exists- it helps to know definitively so we can take action as needed. Given we already have measures to reduce the risk of getting cancer from sunlight (limit exposure, use sunscreen), we can safely move on to seeking out other means of getting cancer and dealing with them.
I would be very careful using the "why worry about X at all when Y is a bigger problem" argument. It is useful if you have to choose one thing or the other, but falsely implying you have to make a choice or distorting what the choice is just makes the argument misleading and hurts your credibility. Sure, sunlight is a bigger cancer risk (if cellphones pose any risk), but I don't see what study we should have done with regard to sunlight that would be more insightful than studying cellphone/cancer correlation. Sun-induced cancer is fairly well understood, so it makes sense to move on to what we don't know.
So people who are convinced cellphones cause cancer are going to take their "possible increase" and declare scientists just definitively said cellphones cause cancer.
On the other hand, cellphone companies may try to take "we're not sure that it is correct" and declare no link to cancer.
Then finally at the end they showed the back and surprise, there's another motor there
They mention the electric motor 2 minutes in, and they constantly talk about driving the bottom shaft, implying you are providing some sort of power input. They didn't show the back of the device for a while because looking at an electric motor is less helpful than seeing the output when trying to understand how the thing works.
As they wrapped up the video they did admit that this little kink is going to be the determining factor in whether or not it's a useful design
They spent most of the video trying to explain how the device works, so understandably they get to the application stuff only at the end. He just showed the device working perfectly fine with an electric motor- you don't need to work out a continuously variable input from the main motor unless you really want to. As for the efficiency, the input power is exactly the main concern, but it sounds perfectly plausible for this input to require minimal power. As they mention, the electric motor isn't seeing any of the main motor's power, so the required power for it can be very small.
I agree vibration issues and robustness have yet to be seen, but the device is simple enough it should be feasible. Engineering this from a demo to a working transmission for a full-size motor can be as much work as developing it in the first place, so it may be a while before we see where this goes.
Instead of tagging people, how about RFID tags you can store with any other emergency supplies (no personal info on the tags), and you can grab one and keep it in your pocket if an earthquake is suspected, or even occurring. Rescuers could then pinpoint any signals, and if some sort of button is added, victims could signal they are still alive, should rescuers need to prioritize which signals to reach first.
I realize earthquakes often have little enough warning that it would be difficult at best to go grab a tag, but the only better way to use them is to just carry one by default. Of course, you could always just carry an RFID tag when at school or work- you could then be issued a tag with your name and any other information helpful for rescuers, but that would be easily abused by schools/employers.
Regardless, I think RFID can be useful enough it should be looked into, and I am sure it can be used in a way that does not unnecessarily violate privacy.
Haven't watched Futurama, now I guess I have to. Given it's a week before finals, I'll send slashdot an invoice for the credit hours I end up re-taking because I was busy watching cartoons instead of studying.
Just pose as an advertiser wanting 's information. You should also get all the additional information you didn't even know they had, in case you wanted to violate your privacy on the next networking site.
I'm not convinced. Patent trolls seem to be the only thing that can repeatedly stand up to big business, get money out of it, and not get bribed to stop or legislated out of existence(yet). We need to learn to imitate their strategy in pro-consumer cases before we get rid of them.
Their sports games already lose their multiplayer after a year or two, yet they expect people to buy used copies and spend extra money to get a bit of content that still won't address the lack of multiplayer. I don't expect this to go very well.
5 funny doesn't discern between popular and quality jokes. I don't claim originality or quality on my above shark joke, although I at least claim originality on other jokes I've made here on slashdot. I kind of agree with your sentiment about over-used jokes, but I think c'est la vie applies first.
Sharks, which tend to stay relatively close to shore, eat the hydrates to power their lasers. This has caused the hydrates to be in relatively low concentration in shallower areas.
I'd almost ask why [they] even try.
Thus implying coding beyond interpretation must be really common.
Er... water vapor is a gas. These things put liquid water into the air. Sure, some will evaporate, but as long as most remains liquid there shouldn't be concern over these things causing warming. They seed clouds- clouds are when atmospheric water vapor condenses onto a surface (dust, other liquid water). That is, when these thing seed clouds they would reduce atmospheric water vapor.
Popular media may treat the term "water vapor" loosely, but as far as I understand the part about it being a greenhouse gas specifically refers to gaseous water.
Turn the problem around: With phone calls and face-to-face conversations, you can have witnesses who noticed the suspects frequently talking in the hall, what they talked about, whether they seemed suspicious, etc. You won't have as many/any witnesses of someone sending emails or posting to facebook, so recording all of this is your best substitute.