Actually, for impacts of this size, the atmosphere has only a very minor effect. The asteroid would speed through the most dense part (the last 50 km) in a second or two. I would be surprised if this makes more than a 5-10% difference.
Yeah, sort of like putting a couple of layers of saran wrap on the ground to cushion your fall from a 6-story building.
You make some good points. It certianly could be a factor of aging that goes on within the cell as well. I was just proposing a possibility based on what little intuitive knowledge I have on the matter.
In biology, we were taught that each chromosome ends in a telomere (almost like those little plastic cylindrical thingies on the end of shoestrings) which doesn't do anything useful, but each time the cell divides, the telomere gets shorter. I'd imagine once the telomere is gone, the end of the chromosome would begin to "fray" as well, resulting in something equilvalent to a mutation, or maybe just a simple death of the cell (without the ability to divide further)
I've read that in cancerous cells, the telomeres don't shorten each time the cell divides, so there's no system in place to stop the cell from dividing forever (and all of it's children cells, etc.).
A reasonable hypothesis for why controlled growth through telomeres is necessary is to prevent mutations from a long series of copies (copies of copies, etc). This way, a "series" of cells only last for a fixed number of generations. After so many, the series stops. Then the stem cell(s) can take over and start a new "first generation" cell which can be the start of a new series of cells.
As we get older, perhaps the stem cells themselves start to degrade or become mutated (possibly causing cancer), and are no longer able to produce good "first generation" cells. As an example, this could be why we develop skin blemishes as we get older. Just imagine what's happening to other genetic attributes.
It's my personal theory that the process of aging is actually just the process of various parts of our body mutating to a small degree. For example, one little DNA pair mutated in a skin stem cell, and suddenly you have a freckle.
I always figured that given the knowledge that's taught in regular high-school biology, most people could figure out that the tradeoff of preventing aging is the increased risk of cancer (since cancer cells could go on forever if supplied with the nutrients necessary for cells to live).
I performed a search on AltaVista and got distracted and left the window open. After some time the browser automatically refreshed. I looked in the source and found:
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT=300>
What's up with this?? Why are they refreshing my results every 5 minutes if they haven't updated their index in 3 months?
Yesterday, I came across a link somewhere on here to a really nice intro to physics site on colorado.edu's webserver. I spent most of the day going through it, as it has some really good interactive java applications to demonstrate principles of physics.
I just figured I'd point people to this as I found it to be quite entertaining and educational (and somewhat relevant to this topic). I really hope they continue develompent on it (although some of the java applets have copyright 1997 on them).
I was going to point out this very game, thank you for beating me to it!:)
This was one of the most amazing games I'd ever seen at the time, becuase the player is completely free to go anywhere in the "universe" and do anything. I think the discovery of "wormholes" (from a 16-bit overflow bug) also added quite an interesting element to it as well (That's not a bug, it's a feature!).
Don't forget the fractal-nature of the Frontier universe as well. I doubt they could have fit all of that data in the game! It was quite interesting how whole solar systems were created around each star, with different planet types and numbers, different political situations, random natural and manufactured satellites, different star configurations (double and triple systems). I suppose this was all seeded from the same value, or it would have been different every time.
I wish there were an upgraded game like Frontier, which took advantage of modern computer systems, but still contained all of the elements of the original. I'd love to see such a game as a massive-multiplayer-online sort of game. I'll check those links you provided and see what those are like...
I wonder what ever became of the original 3D version of SimCity 3000? I heard it was canned because the typical home computer wasn't powerful enough to run it; perhaps by now (with GHz machines and GForce cards) they are?
Does anyone have any insight as to what ever happened to the original 3D version?
If the instructions in the fancy sets blind you to the other ways to use the pieces, just buy the big blue tubs of basic bricks.
I wish they had big tubs of basic technic bricks. Anyone know of such a thing?
Re:FUD from Wired. Notice the "?" in the Headline.
on
Net Taps Without Warrants?
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· Score: 2, Informative
I watched this get passed on CSPAN last night.
It is still very difficult to get a wiretap warrant, both for email and telephones; the burden of proof is extremely high.
In the debate I witnessed on CSPAN, one of the opponents stated that the wording of the bill is loose enough that it allows a "wiretap" privledge to be given to anyone from an FBI agent down to a private investigator, for any reason, so long as they certify their request to a federal judge as being "relevant" to an investigation. Even then, the wording of the bill amendement says nothing to the effect that the judge makes a decision on the matter.
Here's the text, decide for yourself:
``(2) Upon an application made under section 3122(a)(2) of this title, the court shall enter an ex parte order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register or trap and trace device within the jurisdiction of the court if the court finds that the State investigative or law enforcement officer has certified to the court that the information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.''.
I don't see anything here about a burden of proof, however that may be part of the larger context.
I'm curious how they can contain it? Would they use some kind of vacuum combined with a magnetic containment system?
If so, then it would really suck if the power went out...
Re:An opposing view on lawyers
on
eBay Beats DMCA
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· Score: 2
Ideally, yes, but it seems most of the lawyers are being hired by "big government and big corporations", *cough* RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, Intel,... *cough*.
More than a few computer geeks work for Microsoft, so does that make us all bad as a group?
It might be quite interesting considering this may be at a period before replicators were invented. That would mean they still need currency and businesses to provide goods. I think that would add a very unique element that isn't present in any of the existing series. They could also have elements of our current culture such as television and the Internet, which would be interesting to see in the Star Trek universe.
I agree, and another problem I see is that if the circuit that you use to collect this energy has much resistance (from doing work), it would seem that the lightning would not strike there becuase there would be less resistance instead if it just struck the ground next to your collector.
So I take it this Visor setup actually has real TCP/IP connections, not that Mobitex crap that the Palm VII and i705 (will) use? If so, how much would a complete setup (visor + wireless enabling device + wireless ISP service) like that cost?
I'd jump over to the Visors in a second if I knew that they use a regular TCP/IP network for wireless connectivity and if I heard that they've improved the problem with their LCDs breaking so easily...
Perhaps people would choose to build AI's capable of feeling lonely. But this would be a design decision, not inherent.
Ah, but think of the interesting implications if the AI is capable of reprogramming itself? I leave the results of that scenario up to your imagination:)
I have been reading books on my Palmpilot for several years now, and I am completely addicted to it.
I completely agree. And I add that I can't read normal books comfortably. I usually have to resort to reading them lying down because I don't have a comfortable chair to sit in and hold the book up while I read. For me, the problem with reading lying down is that I lie on my side and I must therefore flip over every time I flip a page.
My palm pilot has made it so much easier for me to read, since I have an application (Smoothy) which will slowly scroll (adjustable speed) the text by, and I can just lie down or sit back and not need to touch the device at all. Sure it's lazy, but reading isn't exactly the same as playing football now is it?
It's not free energy if the energy is somehow coming from the whole apparatus. I'd imagine what little energy could be extracted from such a thing would dwarf in comparison to how much energy it would take to keep this whole "superconductor disc" system powered.
I'm not entirely convinced this is possible, but at the same time I wouldn't discount the whole thing solely based on this thought experiment, since it ignores the amount of energy input to the system.
. However, I have a feeling to "trust" Pi more than e, given that you can write e in form of continued fractions with repeating patterns, and nobody has yet found a pattern in the continued fractions of Pi.
What's really amazing about animation vs real life is that you know every single thing you see was deliberately put there. The one I caught which was cool was when the two main characters kissed, you can see a tiny strand of saliva as they pulled away. That's attention to detail!:)
Slashdot Mirror
You make some good points. It certianly could be a factor of aging that goes on within the cell as well. I was just proposing a possibility based on what little intuitive knowledge I have on the matter.
I've read that in cancerous cells, the telomeres don't shorten each time the cell divides, so there's no system in place to stop the cell from dividing forever (and all of it's children cells, etc.).
A reasonable hypothesis for why controlled growth through telomeres is necessary is to prevent mutations from a long series of copies (copies of copies, etc). This way, a "series" of cells only last for a fixed number of generations. After so many, the series stops. Then the stem cell(s) can take over and start a new "first generation" cell which can be the start of a new series of cells.
As we get older, perhaps the stem cells themselves start to degrade or become mutated (possibly causing cancer), and are no longer able to produce good "first generation" cells. As an example, this could be why we develop skin blemishes as we get older. Just imagine what's happening to other genetic attributes.
It's my personal theory that the process of aging is actually just the process of various parts of our body mutating to a small degree. For example, one little DNA pair mutated in a skin stem cell, and suddenly you have a freckle.
I always figured that given the knowledge that's taught in regular high-school biology, most people could figure out that the tradeoff of preventing aging is the increased risk of cancer (since cancer cells could go on forever if supplied with the nutrients necessary for cells to live).
*shrug* I dunno...
Though the rest of your suggestions are obviously silly, the first one you mention may not be all that bad of an idea...
Do you mean like this?
This works for base-2 just as well, as you see the operations are exactly the same.
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT=300>
What's up with this?? Why are they refreshing my results every 5 minutes if they haven't updated their index in 3 months?
I just figured I'd point people to this as I found it to be quite entertaining and educational (and somewhat relevant to this topic). I really hope they continue develompent on it (although some of the java applets have copyright 1997 on them).
This was one of the most amazing games I'd ever seen at the time, becuase the player is completely free to go anywhere in the "universe" and do anything. I think the discovery of "wormholes" (from a 16-bit overflow bug) also added quite an interesting element to it as well (That's not a bug, it's a feature!).
Don't forget the fractal-nature of the Frontier universe as well. I doubt they could have fit all of that data in the game! It was quite interesting how whole solar systems were created around each star, with different planet types and numbers, different political situations, random natural and manufactured satellites, different star configurations (double and triple systems). I suppose this was all seeded from the same value, or it would have been different every time.
I wish there were an upgraded game like Frontier, which took advantage of modern computer systems, but still contained all of the elements of the original. I'd love to see such a game as a massive-multiplayer-online sort of game. I'll check those links you provided and see what those are like...
Does anyone have any insight as to what ever happened to the original 3D version?
I wish they had big tubs of basic technic bricks. Anyone know of such a thing?
In the debate I witnessed on CSPAN, one of the opponents stated that the wording of the bill is loose enough that it allows a "wiretap" privledge to be given to anyone from an FBI agent down to a private investigator, for any reason, so long as they certify their request to a federal judge as being "relevant" to an investigation. Even then, the wording of the bill amendement says nothing to the effect that the judge makes a decision on the matter.
Here's the text, decide for yourself:
I don't see anything here about a burden of proof, however that may be part of the larger context.
I'm curious how they can contain it? Would they use some kind of vacuum combined with a magnetic containment system?
If so, then it would really suck if the power went out...
Ideally, yes, but it seems most of the lawyers are being hired by "big government and big corporations", *cough* RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, Intel,
More than a few computer geeks work for Microsoft, so does that make us all bad as a group?
It might be quite interesting considering this may be at a period before replicators were invented. That would mean they still need currency and businesses to provide goods. I think that would add a very unique element that isn't present in any of the existing series. They could also have elements of our current culture such as television and the Internet, which would be interesting to see in the Star Trek universe.
I agree, and another problem I see is that if the circuit that you use to collect this energy has much resistance (from doing work), it would seem that the lightning would not strike there becuase there would be less resistance instead if it just struck the ground next to your collector.
I'd jump over to the Visors in a second if I knew that they use a regular TCP/IP network for wireless connectivity and if I heard that they've improved the problem with their LCDs breaking so easily...
What's interesting is how their product would theoretically become completely useless if the RIAA had their way...
Ah, but think of the interesting implications if the AI is capable of reprogramming itself? I leave the results of that scenario up to your imagination :)
two words: Meta-Matrix
This could provide for an infinite number of sequels :)
I completely agree. And I add that I can't read normal books comfortably. I usually have to resort to reading them lying down because I don't have a comfortable chair to sit in and hold the book up while I read. For me, the problem with reading lying down is that I lie on my side and I must therefore flip over every time I flip a page.
My palm pilot has made it so much easier for me to read, since I have an application (Smoothy) which will slowly scroll (adjustable speed) the text by, and I can just lie down or sit back and not need to touch the device at all. Sure it's lazy, but reading isn't exactly the same as playing football now is it?
I'm not entirely convinced this is possible, but at the same time I wouldn't discount the whole thing solely based on this thought experiment, since it ignores the amount of energy input to the system.
pi = 4 * (1 - (1/3) + (1/5) - (1/7) + (1/9) - (1/11) ... ) doesn't count?
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What's really amazing about animation vs real life is that you know every single thing you see was deliberately put there. The one I caught which was cool was when the two main characters kissed, you can see a tiny strand of saliva as they pulled away. That's attention to detail! :)
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