Well since diamonds were used as the reference on the scale, being the "hardest" of everything known. Yes, either the scale should go to 11, or diamonds should be lowered. The scale seems to be pretty arbitrary though, just what scratches what.
According to the wiki article:
Since the invention of the scale, there have been reports of materials harder than the highest mineral on the scale, diamonds; so the Mohs scale may be changed in the future.
Polycrystalline diamonds are harder and tougher than single-crystal diamonds and are therefore valuable for cutting and polishing other hard materials, but naturally occurring polycrystalline diamond is unusual and its production is slow. Here we describe the rapid synthesis of pure sintered polycrystalline diamond by direct conversion of graphite under static high pressure and temperature. Surprisingly, this synthesized diamond is ultrahard and so could be useful in the manufacture of scientific and industrial tools.
But I demand my beliefs, those of The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, taught before yours. Once your kids see the piteous shame that is your belief system, you will understand the divine epiphany of those touched by his noodley appendage.
If we accidentally divert it directly into a collision path with Earth, I'm sure we'll have time to administer several epic face palms, and to issue several "failiz0rz" posters about our lack of skill at continuing existence.
I can't think of any reason why Russian newspapers during the communist era wouldn't have any record of an unflattering quote by a prominent Russian leader except that he obviously never said it...
Heh, I'm in complete agreement with you.
If you like subtle mockery of Stalin's views, in a way like Animal Farm, I'd recommend a book written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called "Cancer Ward." Depressing, and down to earth about life in the USSR, shortly after Stalin's death. The main character, a cancer patient and exile named Kostoglotov (bone chewer, in Russian) is quite a guy.
Solzhenitsyn wrote this book based loosely on his own experience, which gives it a feel of pure authenticity.
In 1950, he [Solzhenitsyn] was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. While there he had a tumor removed, although his cancer was not then diagnosed.
In March 1953 after the expiry of Solzhenitsyn's sentence, he was sent to internal exile for life at Kok-Terek in southern Kazakhstan, as was common for political prisoners. His undiagnosed cancer spread, until, by the end of the year, he was close to death.
Quote from the book
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
"The BBC reports that Texas intends to erect a network of online webcams at its border to Mexico. The intention is apparently to use viewers as a kind of distributed processing network, with a free phone number to report border-jumpers."
From the article:
"'A stronger border is what Americans want and it's what our security demands and that is what Texas is going to deliver,' Mr Perry said. The cameras will cost $5m (£2.7m) to install and will be trained on sections of the 1,000-mile (1,600km) border known to be favoured by illegal immigrants "
I didn't think what you said would be true, but strangely, it is, BUT ONLY FOR AMERICAN AIRLINES (well, kinda delta, too)!
Fedex:
1. Ship From / To
From: New york city, 10004, U.S.A. | To: Dallas, 75201, U.S.A. on December 28, 2009.
2. Skid Information
Package Details: 1 skid(s), 200.0 lbs, Your Packaging, 72 in x 24 in x 16 in, 1.00 USD.
3. Rates and Transit Times
Amounts are shown in USD
Select Delivery Date/Time Service Rates
Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:30 AM FedEx 1Day Freight® 941.78
Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:00 PM FedEx 2Day Freight® 633.64
Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:00 PM FedEx 3Day Freight® 559.86
Cheapest Flight
287.00 + $19.70 taxes & fees = $306.70
3 tickets left at this price! See details
6:30 am Depart New York (LGA)
Arrive Dallas (DFW) 11:22 am Mon 28-Dec
Duration: 5hr 52mn
US Airways US Airways 1565 / 1760
Connect in Charlotte (CLT)
Most Expensive Flight
$990.00 + $24.80 taxes & fees = $1,014.80
6:00 am Depart New York (JFK)
Arrive Dallas (DFW) 2:20 pm Mon 28-Dec
Duration: 9hr 20mn
Delta Delta 1297 / Delta 5167 operated by/ASA DBA DELTA CONNECTION5167
American Airlines American Airlines 1548
Connect in Atlanta (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Intl.), Austin (AUS)
I think he means "minor annoyance," as in an attempt to change our everyday life (flying isn't every day for most people). A perspective on the stability of government, not a humanist perspective.
Kinda like the quote which is often misattributed to Stalin:
The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
I don't know who actually said the above phrase, according to wikiquotes: "Mustering Most Memorable Quips" by Julia Solovyova, in The Moscow Times (28 October 1997) states: Russian historians have no record of the lines, "Death of one man is a tragedy. Death of a million is a statistic," commonly attributed by English-language dictionaries to Josef Stalin. Discussing the book by Konstantin Dushenko ( ) Dictionary of Modern Quotations ( : 4300 , , , ).
Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc) by the number of launches. With 115 missions (as of 6 August 2006), and a total cost of $150 billion ($145 billion as of early 2005 + $5 billion for 2005,[19] this gives approximately $1.3 billion per launch. Another method is to calculate the incremental (or marginal) cost differential to add or subtract one flight — just the immediate resources expended/saved/involved in that one flight. This is about $60 million U. S. dollars.[21]
Well, the government just spent 800+ Billion dollars this morning. If only we can convince them to trade the health of America for 800 (on the low end) or so rocket launches.
My brother has one of Samsung's terrible touch screen phones. It's one of the older ones (not android), and it actually supports streaming advertisements! (At least some things on the phone do)
"We believe this is an unproductive approach to solving what is a discrete, long-standing problem that affects a group that needs and deserves the protections of the international community".
The affected group referred to by this sentence is, of course, copyright holders, and they believe the approach is unproductive because it fails to maximize their profits.
What I don't understand is: how is this any different than public libraries cutting into profit margins by sharing the same copy of a new book for free? Even ensuring that the largest number of people can view it by limiting possession times. Is it that much more expensive to produce braille-included copies?
I think the most worrisome thing would be that companies, angered by the lack of incentive to generate "blind friendly" books, will stop concentrating on producing them well, or at all.
Slashdot Mirror
According to the wiki article:
Since the invention of the scale, there have been reports of materials harder than the highest mineral on the scale, diamonds; so the Mohs scale may be changed in the future.
And the reference is:
T. Irifune, A Kurio, S. Sakamoto, T. Inoue, H. Sumiya "Ultrahard polycrystalline diamond from graphite" Nature 421 (2003) 599
A big meh to this slashdot story.
Nature summary:
Polycrystalline diamonds are harder and tougher than single-crystal diamonds and are therefore valuable for cutting and polishing other hard materials, but naturally occurring polycrystalline diamond is unusual and its production is slow. Here we describe the rapid synthesis of pure sintered polycrystalline diamond by direct conversion of graphite under static high pressure and temperature. Surprisingly, this synthesized diamond is ultrahard and so could be useful in the manufacture of scientific and industrial tools.
"Time to let Asians run Asia and concentrate on problems we neglected near to home, such as Mexico, and Latin and South America."
Doesn't seem that isolated..
Leading Causes of Death
(Data are for the U.S.)
Number of deaths for leading causes of death
* Heart disease: 631,636
* Cancer: 559,888
* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
* Diabetes: 72,449
* Alzheimer's disease: 72,432
* Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
* Septicemia: 34,234
Source - 2006 data
Please, explain more of the anal probe part to me.
Agreed.
But I demand my beliefs, those of The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, taught before yours. Once your kids see the piteous shame that is your belief system, you will understand the divine epiphany of those touched by his noodley appendage.
If we accidentally divert it directly into a collision path with Earth, I'm sure we'll have time to administer several epic face palms, and to issue several "failiz0rz" posters about our lack of skill at continuing existence.
=D
So is this entire thread. I don't see anyone who thinks its a good idea.
I completely agree, governments find that things which disagree with them are not relevant.
Do we want our google to be China's google?
(when dying)
I want you to tell my wife, hello.
It really is insignificant. You surely drove more in consulting/sales.
Odds of dying.pdf
Type of Accident or Manner of Injury ------- Deaths ------- One Year Odds ------- Lifetime Odds
Motor-vehicle accidents, ------- 45,316------- 6,584 -------85
Air and space transport accidents, -------655 -------455,516 -------5,862
The difference is enormous in the amount of safety.
Fall from out of or through building or structure, -------628 -------475,100 -------6,115
I mean chances of dying from falling out of a building is just a little less for lifetime odds, and we all know how much we trust buildings!
I can't think of any reason why Russian newspapers during the communist era wouldn't have any record of an unflattering quote by a prominent Russian leader except that he obviously never said it...
Heh, I'm in complete agreement with you.
If you like subtle mockery of Stalin's views, in a way like Animal Farm, I'd recommend a book written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called "Cancer Ward." Depressing, and down to earth about life in the USSR, shortly after Stalin's death. The main character, a cancer patient and exile named Kostoglotov (bone chewer, in Russian) is quite a guy. Solzhenitsyn wrote this book based loosely on his own experience, which gives it a feel of pure authenticity.
In 1950, he [Solzhenitsyn] was sent to a "Special Camp" for political prisoners. During his imprisonment at the camp in the town of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan, he worked as a miner, bricklayer, and foundry foreman. His experiences at Ekibastuz formed the basis for the book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. While there he had a tumor removed, although his cancer was not then diagnosed. In March 1953 after the expiry of Solzhenitsyn's sentence, he was sent to internal exile for life at Kok-Terek in southern Kazakhstan, as was common for political prisoners. His undiagnosed cancer spread, until, by the end of the year, he was close to death.
Quote from the book
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
Shulubin, in Cancer Ward (1968) Pt. 2, Ch. 10
http://news.slashdot.org/story/06/06/02/1250244/Texas-to-Provide-Online-Bordercams?art_pos=4
Dr_Barnowl writes
"The BBC reports that Texas intends to erect a network of online webcams at its border to Mexico. The intention is apparently to use viewers as a kind of distributed processing network, with a free phone number to report border-jumpers."
From the article:
"'A stronger border is what Americans want and it's what our security demands and that is what Texas is going to deliver,' Mr Perry said. The cameras will cost $5m (£2.7m) to install and will be trained on sections of the 1,000-mile (1,600km) border known to be favoured by illegal immigrants "
Hey, it's working for Britain, right?
Fedex:
1. Ship From / To
From: New york city, 10004, U.S.A. | To: Dallas, 75201, U.S.A. on December 28, 2009.
2. Skid Information
Package Details: 1 skid(s), 200.0 lbs, Your Packaging, 72 in x 24 in x 16 in, 1.00 USD.
3. Rates and Transit Times
Amounts are shown in USD
Select Delivery Date/Time Service Rates
Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:30 AM FedEx 1Day Freight® 941.78
Wed Dec 30, 2009 12:00 PM FedEx 2Day Freight® 633.64
Thu Dec 31, 2009 3:00 PM FedEx 3Day Freight® 559.86
Cheapest Flight
287.00 + $19.70 taxes & fees = $306.70
3 tickets left at this price! See details
6:30 am Depart New York (LGA)
Arrive Dallas (DFW) 11:22 am Mon 28-Dec
Duration: 5hr 52mn
US Airways US Airways 1565 / 1760
Connect in Charlotte (CLT)
Most Expensive Flight
$990.00 + $24.80 taxes & fees = $1,014.80 /ASA DBA DELTA CONNECTION5167
6:00 am Depart New York (JFK)
Arrive Dallas (DFW) 2:20 pm Mon 28-Dec
Duration: 9hr 20mn
Delta Delta 1297 / Delta 5167 operated by
American Airlines American Airlines 1548
Connect in Atlanta (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Intl.), Austin (AUS)
Kinda like the quote which is often misattributed to Stalin:
The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
I don't know who actually said the above phrase, according to wikiquotes: "Mustering Most Memorable Quips" by Julia Solovyova, in The Moscow Times (28 October 1997) states: Russian historians have no record of the lines, "Death of one man is a tragedy. Death of a million is a statistic," commonly attributed by English-language dictionaries to Josef Stalin. Discussing the book by Konstantin Dushenko ( ) Dictionary of Modern Quotations ( : 4300 , , , ).
Actually, lets just build a voyager probe every four hours and launch it, and shoot it in a slightly different direction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program
Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc) by the number of launches. With 115 missions (as of 6 August 2006), and a total cost of $150 billion ($145 billion as of early 2005 + $5 billion for 2005,[19] this gives approximately $1.3 billion per launch. Another method is to calculate the incremental (or marginal) cost differential to add or subtract one flight — just the immediate resources expended/saved/involved in that one flight. This is about $60 million U. S. dollars.[21]
Well, the government just spent 800+ Billion dollars this morning. If only we can convince them to trade the health of America for 800 (on the low end) or so rocket launches.
Wake me up when the master Mu "electrical agonism".
I disabled AdBlock on slashdot.org and clicked the 'disable ads' button just so that thing would go away.
(give me non-vaporware that will drive a 22" LCD at full resolution)
K.
Will 32x32 (1024) pixels be enough? We can use a TI-83, not even silver, to accomplish this!
Oh, you mean you wanted a non-stupid resolution. As far as I'm concerned "full resolution" means the maximum native resolution a monitor can output.
My brother has one of Samsung's terrible touch screen phones. It's one of the older ones (not android), and it actually supports streaming advertisements! (At least some things on the phone do)
Then it looks like shopping through the mail with a proxy type address and money orders prepaid with cash is for you!
Google is quickly becoming a large faceless megacorporation with questionable ethics regarding data storage, but at least they do some nice things.
Do you fear accepting gifts from friends due to their extraordinarily elaborate subconscious ploy to undermine and ultimately control you?
Be afraid.
Safe dial?
Is this like safe phone sex?
For porn from your phone the only answer is SexDial(tm)!
"We believe this is an unproductive approach to solving what is a discrete, long-standing problem that affects a group that needs and deserves the protections of the international community".
The affected group referred to by this sentence is, of course, copyright holders, and they believe the approach is unproductive because it fails to maximize their profits.
What I don't understand is: how is this any different than public libraries cutting into profit margins by sharing the same copy of a new book for free? Even ensuring that the largest number of people can view it by limiting possession times. Is it that much more expensive to produce braille-included copies?
I think the most worrisome thing would be that companies, angered by the lack of incentive to generate "blind friendly" books, will stop concentrating on producing them well, or at all.
This article doesn't talk about getting anything for free, maybe you should study it.
proposed treaty to allow cross-border sharing of books for the blind
Always looking for a way to screw America!