1) Arrogance. You know that average developers have a hard time with some kinds of code, but you're a superprogrammer, and you don't have those problems. If someone decides later that there's something wrong with your code, well, they should've gotten their requirements straightened out before they told you to go and build it. The only time you lose your cool is when you have to deal with idiot managers, analysts, or users.
1) Complacency. You've been pounding on this code forever, and you just don't care any more. Yeah, there'll be bugs, people will yell, they'll get fixed. That's just the way development goes. Why get worked up about it?
It's possible to connect a controller to an antenna that vastly extends its range. Is your property extensive enough to give you a 2-kilometer perimeter around your house?
It's a receiver to detect the EM signature from the onboard electronics of a Prius.
See, I've heard that it's possible for a Prius driver to run over kids who are playing in the street. So I've designed this receiver that fits into a kiddy backpack, and sounds an alarm when there's a Prius nearby. That way, when my kids are playing in the street and a Prius approaches, they'll hear the alarm. I guess then they can get out of the street, but what I'm really looking for is a way to ban Priuses from driving on my street. After all, I'm a responsible parent who's keenly aware of the dangers Priuses pose to kids who play in the street.
...you'll be upgraded to pound sand with both hands.
North Carolina was promised FIOS "real soon now" for years. At this point, it's pretty clear that if you don't already have it, you won't be getting it. Google blimps, drones, and sewer lines will bring us high-speed broadband long before Verizon significantly extends their buildout.
What's supposed to happen when negative and positive mass collide?
If I throw a tennis ball at a wall, it bounces off (and the wall recoils imperceptibly). If I throw a negative tennis ball at a wall -- or throw it away, causing it to move toward the wall, whatever -- what happens when it hits? It seems like it would try to "recoil" in the same direction it was traveling, maybe even giving the wall a "tug" instead of a "push" when it hit. But it can't move forward, because presumably negative and positive matter can't simply interpenetrate -- or can they?
Gaah, so many microscopic/macroscopic behavior assumption violations...
Negative mass is very diferent from antimatter. Antimatter is opposite to normal matter in charge and quantum numbers (such as baryon number, etc.), but still has positive mass.
Negative mass reacts oppositely to both gravity and intertia. Oddly, that means that negative mass still falls down in a gravitational field: The gravitational force is opposite, but negative mass responds negatively to force (a=F/m, where both F and m are negative). So negative mass particles repel each other gravitationally, but are attracted to positive mass objects.
Trying my best to ignore my intuition, which is heavily biased toward "all mass is positive":
A negative mass would fall down in a gravitational field (generated by a positive mass) -- it would experience a force directed away from the positive mass, and it would respond to that force by moving toward the positive mass.
However, the negative mass would repel the positive mass gravitationally -- effectively, exert a force directed away from itself -- correct?
It seems to me that if you had two equal but opposite masses in freefall, the negative mass would accelerate toward the positive, the positive would accelerate away from the negative, and the negative mass would chase the positive mass off the edge of the universe at constant acceleration.
It also seems like two negative masses would repel each other (exert a force directed away from each other), but respond to that repulsion by accelerating toward each other.
Step 1: Build buckyball model out of wooden skewers and string.
Step 2: Wrap skewers in raw bacon.
Step 3: Microwave.
Step 4: Post to YouTube.
Step 5: Profit!
(Note to whoever actually tries this: Depending on the scale of your model, some of the bacon loops may resonantly couple with the field in your microwave oven. Don't be surprised at arcs and flames. Please don't skip Step 4.)
No, "issued for circulation" means the Mint sends them to the Fed for distribution -- so they can be spent, given out as change, and so forth. The last few years of dollar coins haven't been issued for circulation. Yes, they're still legal tender, but since you have to pay more than face value to get them, it's kind of dumb to spend them.
Kennedy halves haven't been issued for circulation in years, either, but you'll still find recent-date ones in rolls occasionally. People inherit or steal them, don't care about collectable value, and just spend the coins or turn them in at the bank.
State quarters (and now America The Beautiful national park quarters) are issued for circulation -- at least, the ones minted in Philadelphia and Denver.
Yeah, I think it's time for a full reset on our cash denominations. Knock out the cent and nickel (each one costs more than its face value to produce). Make dimes and half-dollars of the same general size and shape as today's cent and nickel. Make dollar coins like today's dime, and bring back the "eagles" -- quarter-eagle ($2.50), half-eagle ($5), eagle ($10), and double eagle ($20). Heck, you could even reinstate the half-union and union ($50 and $100), which never made it into circulation during the original 1850's gold rush.
But this will never happen. There's too much inertia around our current system, and by the time inflation trivializes all current denominations, the "cashless society" folks will most likely have won. Maybe the black and grey markets will go over to true hard currency, the silver and gold that's currently the domain of collectors and doomsayers.
They're no longer issued for circulation. They're only made for collectors. This seems like an odd business for a government (manufacturing collectibles), but it does produce a small profit, so I guess there's not a lot of motivation for shutting it down completely.
The thug prowling around in the woods can take and spend my $20s, and I've got no recourse unless he's caught. If he steals my credit cards, they're only good for him until I phone in the theft, and I'm out zero money in the end. Plus all that terrible OMG-Big-Brother-Ate-My-Privacy tracking can tell the police a good bit about where he's been and what he's been doing.
The Powers That Be have never frozen any of my accounts, but thugs have burglarized my house more than once. I have no desire to see cash go away, but it's disingenuous to claim that it's less risky than e-money.
Actually, I've been calling for someone to graft the THC-production complex into kudzu. That way, either we get government help to wipe it out, or the government finally gives up; either way, kudzu becomes useful for something.
Of course, I don't have much deep knowledge about GM or plant biology, so coming up with this idea was about on a par with saying "somebody ought to build a flying car". Here's hoping that the task these folks are tackling turns out more tractable than that one.
Having had the experience of having my own performance car stolen temporarily, and damaging it to the extent of needing a new engine and reupholstering, at the time I felt capital punishment is not enough.
You may think this is a little severe, but people who are into cars feel they have had part of their soul ripped out of them if it is stolen and trashed, especially if it is their personal hobby and they are doing it at the limits of their budget.
I understand that many people attach a lot of their self-image to their vehicles, and devote disproportionate time, attention, and money to them. That doesn't mean that their priorities should be encoded into law.
Your hobby is not more important to society in general than human life. Yes, it may be more important to you than some other person's life. Laws exist partly to mediate between people's conflicting self-interest.
A deterministic sequence of instructions that could be converted to work on a universal Turing machine. I don;t htink this is really a valid criticism.
That's a reasonable definition, although I'm sure there are those who would quibble over non-deterministic operations and such. But "The new program—it could be an idea, a novel, a piece of music, anything—" seems to imply something very different. The paper talks a lot about writing stories, designing letterforms and so forth. Stories are not "programs" in the sense you (and perhaps I) think.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never heard of such a thing. Thank goodness Slashdot is here to challenge our preconceptions.
1) Arrogance. You know that average developers have a hard time with some kinds of code, but you're a superprogrammer, and you don't have those problems. If someone decides later that there's something wrong with your code, well, they should've gotten their requirements straightened out before they told you to go and build it. The only time you lose your cool is when you have to deal with idiot managers, analysts, or users.
1) Complacency. You've been pounding on this code forever, and you just don't care any more. Yeah, there'll be bugs, people will yell, they'll get fixed. That's just the way development goes. Why get worked up about it?
It's possible to connect a controller to an antenna that vastly extends its range. Is your property extensive enough to give you a 2-kilometer perimeter around your house?
It's a receiver to detect the EM signature from the onboard electronics of a Prius.
See, I've heard that it's possible for a Prius driver to run over kids who are playing in the street. So I've designed this receiver that fits into a kiddy backpack, and sounds an alarm when there's a Prius nearby. That way, when my kids are playing in the street and a Prius approaches, they'll hear the alarm. I guess then they can get out of the street, but what I'm really looking for is a way to ban Priuses from driving on my street. After all, I'm a responsible parent who's keenly aware of the dangers Priuses pose to kids who play in the street.
...you'll be upgraded to pound sand with both hands.
North Carolina was promised FIOS "real soon now" for years. At this point, it's pretty clear that if you don't already have it, you won't be getting it. Google blimps, drones, and sewer lines will bring us high-speed broadband long before Verizon significantly extends their buildout.
Well, if it tries to explode them out its nose, it doesn't go in the right direction.
... this is an Orion.
Get back to us when you can take a crew of 200 to Mars and back. In a month.
...are they trying to say that "Arbiter macht frei"?
Okay, as long as I've got you on the line... :)
What's supposed to happen when negative and positive mass collide?
If I throw a tennis ball at a wall, it bounces off (and the wall recoils imperceptibly). If I throw a negative tennis ball at a wall -- or throw it away, causing it to move toward the wall, whatever -- what happens when it hits? It seems like it would try to "recoil" in the same direction it was traveling, maybe even giving the wall a "tug" instead of a "push" when it hit. But it can't move forward, because presumably negative and positive matter can't simply interpenetrate -- or can they?
Gaah, so many microscopic/macroscopic behavior assumption violations...
Negative mass is very diferent from antimatter. Antimatter is opposite to normal matter in charge and quantum numbers (such as baryon number, etc.), but still has positive mass.
Negative mass reacts oppositely to both gravity and intertia. Oddly, that means that negative mass still falls down in a gravitational field: The gravitational force is opposite, but negative mass responds negatively to force (a=F/m, where both F and m are negative). So negative mass particles repel each other gravitationally, but are attracted to positive mass objects.
Trying my best to ignore my intuition, which is heavily biased toward "all mass is positive":
A negative mass would fall down in a gravitational field (generated by a positive mass) -- it would experience a force directed away from the positive mass, and it would respond to that force by moving toward the positive mass.
However, the negative mass would repel the positive mass gravitationally -- effectively, exert a force directed away from itself -- correct?
It seems to me that if you had two equal but opposite masses in freefall, the negative mass would accelerate toward the positive, the positive would accelerate away from the negative, and the negative mass would chase the positive mass off the edge of the universe at constant acceleration.
It also seems like two negative masses would repel each other (exert a force directed away from each other), but respond to that repulsion by accelerating toward each other.
What am I missing?
Still does nothing to explain the similar sorting of Slashdot comments, as illustrated in this thread.
'... I say, when they git ready...... ever hear tell of a shoggoth?"
Terminator 2? Feh.
Step 1: Build buckyball model out of wooden skewers and string.
Step 2: Wrap skewers in raw bacon.
Step 3: Microwave.
Step 4: Post to YouTube.
Step 5: Profit!
(Note to whoever actually tries this: Depending on the scale of your model, some of the bacon loops may resonantly couple with the field in your microwave oven. Don't be surprised at arcs and flames. Please don't skip Step 4.)
That's not the way it worked for us. Overdraw charges? Sounds like you're talking about a debit card, not a credit card.
No, "issued for circulation" means the Mint sends them to the Fed for distribution -- so they can be spent, given out as change, and so forth. The last few years of dollar coins haven't been issued for circulation. Yes, they're still legal tender, but since you have to pay more than face value to get them, it's kind of dumb to spend them.
Kennedy halves haven't been issued for circulation in years, either, but you'll still find recent-date ones in rolls occasionally. People inherit or steal them, don't care about collectable value, and just spend the coins or turn them in at the bank.
State quarters (and now America The Beautiful national park quarters) are issued for circulation -- at least, the ones minted in Philadelphia and Denver.
Yeah, I think it's time for a full reset on our cash denominations. Knock out the cent and nickel (each one costs more than its face value to produce). Make dimes and half-dollars of the same general size and shape as today's cent and nickel. Make dollar coins like today's dime, and bring back the "eagles" -- quarter-eagle ($2.50), half-eagle ($5), eagle ($10), and double eagle ($20). Heck, you could even reinstate the half-union and union ($50 and $100), which never made it into circulation during the original 1850's gold rush.
But this will never happen. There's too much inertia around our current system, and by the time inflation trivializes all current denominations, the "cashless society" folks will most likely have won. Maybe the black and grey markets will go over to true hard currency, the silver and gold that's currently the domain of collectors and doomsayers.
They're no longer issued for circulation. They're only made for collectors. This seems like an odd business for a government (manufacturing collectibles), but it does produce a small profit, so I guess there's not a lot of motivation for shutting it down completely.
The thug prowling around in the woods can take and spend my $20s, and I've got no recourse unless he's caught. If he steals my credit cards, they're only good for him until I phone in the theft, and I'm out zero money in the end. Plus all that terrible OMG-Big-Brother-Ate-My-Privacy tracking can tell the police a good bit about where he's been and what he's been doing.
The Powers That Be have never frozen any of my accounts, but thugs have burglarized my house more than once. I have no desire to see cash go away, but it's disingenuous to claim that it's less risky than e-money.
That's got to be the weirdest "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!" argument I've ever seen.
Actually, I've been calling for someone to graft the THC-production complex into kudzu. That way, either we get government help to wipe it out, or the government finally gives up; either way, kudzu becomes useful for something.
Of course, I don't have much deep knowledge about GM or plant biology, so coming up with this idea was about on a par with saying "somebody ought to build a flying car". Here's hoping that the task these folks are tackling turns out more tractable than that one.
Unless he was unconscious from the impact and then died in the fire (as reported the front end caught fire) if no one bothered to rescue him.
"I'd never wear a seatbelt! It might prevent me from being thrown to safety!"
You can never have too many safety features!
Having had the experience of having my own performance car stolen temporarily, and damaging it to the extent of needing a new engine and reupholstering, at the time I felt capital punishment is not enough.
You may think this is a little severe, but people who are into cars feel they have had part of their soul ripped out of them if it is stolen and trashed, especially if it is their personal hobby and they are doing it at the limits of their budget.
I understand that many people attach a lot of their self-image to their vehicles, and devote disproportionate time, attention, and money to them. That doesn't mean that their priorities should be encoded into law.
Your hobby is not more important to society in general than human life. Yes, it may be more important to you than some other person's life. Laws exist partly to mediate between people's conflicting self-interest.
Light.
And who doesn't like anything that brings light?
A deterministic sequence of instructions that could be converted to work on a universal Turing machine. I don;t htink this is really a valid criticism.
That's a reasonable definition, although I'm sure there are those who would quibble over non-deterministic operations and such. But "The new program—it could be an idea, a novel, a piece of music, anything—" seems to imply something very different. The paper talks a lot about writing stories, designing letterforms and so forth. Stories are not "programs" in the sense you (and perhaps I) think.