X will get us better search rankings. But x has nothing to do with this story, which involves...
Johnny had a tip that the science examination would have a question about penguins, so he memorized every little fact about them. Come the exam day, there was only one question: "write all you know about the Amazon region"
Johnny wrote: "The Amazon is a region where there are no penguins, which are aquatic, flightless birds of the order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae,... etc, etc "
there are so many things called WISE, I just think you should be more specific
I think you have a good point there. In the old BG world people used funny acronyms for their their projects. Today, in the AG era, it's better to find unique names.
For instance, I work with digital signal processing where there are projects named "MUSIC", for "MUltiple SIgnal Classifier", and ESPRIT, for "Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Techniques". Googling for those names alone is useless, you have to add "algorithm" for your search to return anything significant.
So, you may say, no big deal, just add the word "algorithm" to your searches. Well, maybe, but not quite. There are many other "music algorithms" out there and that search will return lots of extraneous material, but if you keep adding words to further refine your search you will start filtering out pages that actually interest you.
Because of that, when starting any new project I always google the names to make sure they are unique.
the ice caps are not melting. One is in a decline (the Arctic) and one is growing (Antarctic)
I wonder by which definition you say the Arctic ice cap is in "decline", but not melting?
The Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking, not growing. It's losing volume, which is the only significant definition of size when one considers climate issues. It's losing volume the only way a polar ice cap can lose volume, by melting. But, of course, you'll never know this if you have only one news source.
Warmer oceans cause increased water evaporation, which then precipitates as snow or rain. Considering that a large part of Antarctica is still well below freezing point, it's only natural that *some* regions of Antarctica have had more snowfall caused by global warming. Yes, global warming does cause both more snowfall and colder winters. Which is more than offset by hotter summers and increased ice melting.
We had 8 months of winter in Europe, with record snow down to Spain and temperatures lower than they were in the last 30 years
Interestingly, global warming does cause colder winters. The cause of those colder winters is the melting of the ice caps.
More heat in the atmosphere means more energy, which causes stronger winds and quicker circulation. Cold air from the north pole travel faster to Europe and therefore has less time to warm in the way.
Those colder winters are more than balanced by hotter summers, we are spending away our ice reserves. It's like when you spend more than you earn. Your having more money to spend does not mean you're getting richer.
On the one hand, it's reported this is not rare. On the other hand, we've got plenty of sensationalist language
The reasoning goes like this: if there is something about the temperature of the atmosphere that's in some sense unexplained this means scientists know nothing about the climate which means anthropocentric global warming does not exist which means my BP stock will keep its value and I will not have to sell my SUV.
Once, a long long time ago, people were upset that the army uses lethal weapons to disperse unarmed crowds in conflict areas
You are reading this wrong. The problem is that the army is used to disperse unarmed crowds. A protest is a political act, not a military one. It's not the army's job to control it or to develop weapons to do it.
As for crowds in foreign countries, the situation is even worse. It's not the US army's job to be there at all. Before someone says "but the Taliban kills innocent people" let me ask who created the Taliban?
a sailboat is pushed by the wind, while a solar sail deflects the light; the force vector depends on the angle of deflection
Huh? And here's me and everybody else thinking that a sail deflects the wind and the force vector depends on the angle of deflection, so much that they invented a special nomenclature for that...
There's a missing ingredient in that recipe: a grain of salt. For instance, it says there that this "protects against most RF and EMF based attacks, including:... Dielectric heating which causes cataracts". WTF? How can it protect your eyes, unless you wrap your head with the treated cloth?
Protection against unwanted electromagnetic fields is a technology called electromagnetic compatibility. Unless you know what you are doing and use complex test equipment, results may not be what you expect.
You cannot adjust the keel vector in a sailboat either, the force is always perpendicular to the direction you are moving. But that's not important, you only need to adjust one of the two vectors to get a resultant vector in any direction you need.
The main difference between ocean sailing and solar sailing is the rudder. Considering it's used for small corrections to compensate for waves and currents, which do not exist in space, solar sailing can be done without it.
As solar panel technology gets better, so will the capabilities and usefulness of such projects in real life
The problem is that you are limited by the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth. Even with solar panel efficiency at 100% you would only have about one kilowatt/square meter.
you can only fly away from Sun, at best at an angle away from the orbit
You forgot gravitation, never a good thing to forget... In orbit you do not "lack an immersion medium" as you say, you are fully immersed in the gravitational field of the sun and the planets.
To fly towards the sun, kill your tangential orbital velocity with a sail at a 45 degree angle with relation to the sun, then let the sun's gravitation do the rest.
tried and true sailing techniques won't work in a vacuum
Yes, they do. Sailing in the ocean involves adjusting two vectors: wind force on the sails and water force on the keel. Solar sailing in space involves adjusting two vectors: radiation pressure on the sails and gravitation. The rest are details.
how is this thing going to slow down once it gets to where it wants to go?
The same way sailboats go against the wind.
Set the sail at an angle different from 90 degrees towards the sun. The resulting force can be divided in two components, one pointing outwards to the sun, which is cancelled by the sun's gravitation, and another component perpendicular to the first, which will increase or decrease the spacecraft's orbital velocity.
Superman was looking at the sky during the GRB event and was blinded due to his X-ray vision
If you had read the last line of TFS you would know that "Weirdly, it didn't look out of the ordinary in visible light" (incidentally, why they think it's weird that something that emits X-rays looks ordinary in visible light?)
It was only Superman's X-ray vision that was blinded, his ordinary vision is still super. Now MacGyver has agreed to help by improvising a pair of X-ray eyeglasses using a dentist's X-ray machine, two rubber bands, an Etch-a-Sketch, and a discarded box of Cheerios.
It used to be when you made a copy you lost fidelity
Straw man argument, easily debunked by mp3. When you record from FM radio the fidelity loss is comparable to that of ripping a CD to mp3. It would take several generations of tape-to-tape copy to degrade fidelity to the point it became unacceptable to the normal ear.
I don't think they provided beer at all, free or not. AFAIK, what speakeasies sold was moonshine. Beer has too little alcohol per volume, why would you go to the trouble of carrying that much water around when the cops were after you?
Slashdot Mirror
Johnny had a tip that the science examination would have a question about penguins, so he memorized every little fact about them. Come the exam day, there was only one question: "write all you know about the Amazon region"
Johnny wrote: ... etc, etc "
"The Amazon is a region where there are no penguins, which are aquatic, flightless birds of the order Sphenisciformes, family Spheniscidae,
I think you have a good point there. In the old BG world people used funny acronyms for their their projects. Today, in the AG era, it's better to find unique names.
For instance, I work with digital signal processing where there are projects named "MUSIC", for "MUltiple SIgnal Classifier", and ESPRIT, for "Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Techniques". Googling for those names alone is useless, you have to add "algorithm" for your search to return anything significant.
So, you may say, no big deal, just add the word "algorithm" to your searches. Well, maybe, but not quite. There are many other "music algorithms" out there and that search will return lots of extraneous material, but if you keep adding words to further refine your search you will start filtering out pages that actually interest you.
Because of that, when starting any new project I always google the names to make sure they are unique.
Because a fresh Fedora install is orders of magnitude safer than a fresh Windows install.
If keeping kids away from computers makes them healthy, then I guess the healthiest kids in the world must live in some African country.
You mean, like couch potatoes?
I wonder by which definition you say the Arctic ice cap is in "decline", but not melting?
The Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking, not growing. It's losing volume, which is the only significant definition of size when one considers climate issues. It's losing volume the only way a polar ice cap can lose volume, by melting. But, of course, you'll never know this if you have only one news source.
Warmer oceans cause increased water evaporation, which then precipitates as snow or rain. Considering that a large part of Antarctica is still well below freezing point, it's only natural that *some* regions of Antarctica have had more snowfall caused by global warming. Yes, global warming does cause both more snowfall and colder winters. Which is more than offset by hotter summers and increased ice melting.
Interestingly, global warming does cause colder winters. The cause of those colder winters is the melting of the ice caps.
More heat in the atmosphere means more energy, which causes stronger winds and quicker circulation. Cold air from the north pole travel faster to Europe and therefore has less time to warm in the way.
Those colder winters are more than balanced by hotter summers, we are spending away our ice reserves. It's like when you spend more than you earn. Your having more money to spend does not mean you're getting richer.
The reasoning goes like this: if there is something about the temperature of the atmosphere that's in some sense unexplained this means scientists know nothing about the climate which means anthropocentric global warming does not exist which means my BP stock will keep its value and I will not have to sell my SUV.
You are reading this wrong. The problem is that the army is used to disperse unarmed crowds. A protest is a political act, not a military one. It's not the army's job to control it or to develop weapons to do it.
As for crowds in foreign countries, the situation is even worse. It's not the US army's job to be there at all. Before someone says "but the Taliban kills innocent people" let me ask who created the Taliban?
Huh? And here's me and everybody else thinking that a sail deflects the wind and the force vector depends on the angle of deflection, so much that they invented a special nomenclature for that...
There's a missing ingredient in that recipe: a grain of salt. For instance, it says there that this "protects against most RF and EMF based attacks, including: ... Dielectric heating which causes cataracts". WTF? How can it protect your eyes, unless you wrap your head with the treated cloth?
Protection against unwanted electromagnetic fields is a technology called electromagnetic compatibility. Unless you know what you are doing and use complex test equipment, results may not be what you expect.
I suppose this means it's safe to hold the SpaceX Falcon 9 with your left hand?
FTFA: "the US military says the chance of injury from the system is 0.1%. It's already been tested more than 11,000 times"
So, there has already been eleven injuries from that?
You cannot adjust the keel vector in a sailboat either, the force is always perpendicular to the direction you are moving. But that's not important, you only need to adjust one of the two vectors to get a resultant vector in any direction you need.
The main difference between ocean sailing and solar sailing is the rudder. Considering it's used for small corrections to compensate for waves and currents, which do not exist in space, solar sailing can be done without it.
The problem is that you are limited by the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth. Even with solar panel efficiency at 100% you would only have about one kilowatt/square meter.
You forgot gravitation, never a good thing to forget... In orbit you do not "lack an immersion medium" as you say, you are fully immersed in the gravitational field of the sun and the planets.
To fly towards the sun, kill your tangential orbital velocity with a sail at a 45 degree angle with relation to the sun, then let the sun's gravitation do the rest.
Yes, they do. Sailing in the ocean involves adjusting two vectors: wind force on the sails and water force on the keel. Solar sailing in space involves adjusting two vectors: radiation pressure on the sails and gravitation. The rest are details.
The same way sailboats go against the wind.
Set the sail at an angle different from 90 degrees towards the sun. The resulting force can be divided in two components, one pointing outwards to the sun, which is cancelled by the sun's gravitation, and another component perpendicular to the first, which will increase or decrease the spacecraft's orbital velocity.
If you had read the last line of TFS you would know that "Weirdly, it didn't look out of the ordinary in visible light" (incidentally, why they think it's weird that something that emits X-rays looks ordinary in visible light?)
It was only Superman's X-ray vision that was blinded, his ordinary vision is still super. Now MacGyver has agreed to help by improvising a pair of X-ray eyeglasses using a dentist's X-ray machine, two rubber bands, an Etch-a-Sketch, and a discarded box of Cheerios.
Straw man argument, easily debunked by mp3. When you record from FM radio the fidelity loss is comparable to that of ripping a CD to mp3. It would take several generations of tape-to-tape copy to degrade fidelity to the point it became unacceptable to the normal ear.
I don't think they provided beer at all, free or not. AFAIK, what speakeasies sold was moonshine. Beer has too little alcohol per volume, why would you go to the trouble of carrying that much water around when the cops were after you?
Sorry, you cannot patent that, prior art
At first I read "1.1 million years" and was really worried
This is a case when we should be reading the comments to the article.
Oh, really? Show me where's your motorcycle in these images ;)