Keep in mind that Voyager, apart from some gravitational assists, wasn't ever really made to "go fast". Even now, there are ways to send things moving much quicker such as the Ion Thruster which although not NEARLY as powerful as a chemical rocket, is amazingly more efficient. The Weight to Thrust ratio is fantastic and could well be utilized to provide constant thrust for a long time. Once you exit the earth's gravity well, something like an Ion Thruster could over a number of years accelerate a craft to a much higher speed.
In case anyone else was wondering what Finansinspektionen was, the following is taken from wikipedia:
Finansinspektionen (FI; Financial Supervisory Authority in English) is the Swedish government agency responsible for financial regulation in Sweden. It is responsible for the oversight, regulation and authorisation of financial markets and their participants. The agency falls under the Swedish Ministry of Finance and regulates all organisations that provide financial services in Sweden.
I'm surprised the Fox news isn't reporting 'The End'
Fox only wants to frighten it's viewers if it aligns with their agenda. There is nothing to be gained by Fox if all their viewers think the end is nigh.
The rate of accretion of the stupidity unfortunately causes some of that stupidity to radiate outwards due to conservation of angular momentum. Luckily we have the likes of NASA to try to prod it back into place.
Freedom of speech means you are allowed to say it, not that you aren't then responsible for what you said. If you say something slanderous, defame someone you are still liable to be held accountable for your statements, but you can still live in the joy of being able to go out right afterwards, say it all again and start the process over.
And that's what is going to happen. And maybe after a few months of web stats crashing
No, no-one is going to want to point out that the laws that they argued for so heavily will be their demise. They will find some other scapegoat and quietly ask that the laws be retracted - or make behind the scenes "agreements" with the likes of Google to publish the snippets.
If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?
The Apple display is "Beyond what the human eye can resolve" while holding it at a certain distance. That means if you hold it closer, you will start to see the pixels. This makes the LG display able to be held closer to the eyes while still not being able to see the pixels. Does it mean much for the average user who always holds their phone at a distance of two feet from their eyes? Nope, but it is still bragging rights.
/Rant/ Now if only the folks that make monitors started playing this game, I would finally be able to get a monitor that has a higher resolution than my phone. Seriously, what's with the huge drop in screen resolution on both laptops (unless you buy the $5k model) and run-of-the-mill desktop screens? 1366x768? The nineties called, (Yes, I did warn them about the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan) they want their resolution back!
I reject the assertion that yahoo is just a bag of bones.
They are losing market share, their name once used to be "God" on the mouth of the internet. Now look at what they are. Ask a 12 year old what Yahoo is, then ask about Google. They ARE a bag of bones.
I know many people at the company, and they are some of the most creative, energetic programmers that I have met. All the new management team needs to do is unlock the potential that exists within their own staff.
You realize that this is paraphrasing exactly what I said yes? A company the size of Yahoo will no doubt have plenty of creative and skilled people, but that doesn't mean a damn if the new CEO is killing off their ideas. I am saying that the company HAS to start implementing these ideas and letting them come to fruition so that if they gamble on 10 out-there ideas right now while they still have the money to do so, it might be enough to find the next new idea that bring Yahoo back to at least some of its former glory. All the brightest, most creative geniuses in a company mean nothing if their ideas aren't followed through.
This looks just like a "Hey! Imma doing something! Yay Me!" type move from Ross Levinsohn. I often find within the company that I work for, that when a project changes hands, the new Project Manager feels that he/she needs to stamp in some sort of "territory" so that they seem to be doing something. Sadly though, it also seems that many of these decisions are made without a full understanding of impacts and result in poor implementation. Given that these apps seemed to be at least getting Yahoo looking in the right direction, it seems a shame to see them canned. Given that Yahoo is in such a poor position at the moment, I don't think that a conservative approach is a good strategy for them at the moment - they need to be rolling the dice on long odds while they still have the money to be able to afford to do so. Give them a few more years of stagnation and their customers moving onto other products and they simply won't have the capital or time to find that "new big thing" that will ressurect them.
As funny as it sounds, to reduce skin friction, you need to introduce turbulence - a very special type of turbulence. This has been the focus of quite a bit of research especially for aircraft and boats. This link (PDF warning) will explain how this is achieved.
No, that's taking the argument I made right out of context. Lets say you want to get sandwich for lunch from a shop. However, the only cafe around won't sell you a sandwich unless it is part of a "lunchtime fixed menu". However, that menu includes breakfast, dinner, a three course dessert, alcoholic bevages and a courtesy waiter who spoons it into your mouth. That Fixed Menu also costs four hundred dollars. You would go somewhere else to get lunch.
If my $1,200 per year covers 262,800 hours of programming (30 channels, by twenty four hours, by three hundred and sixty five days - and there are in fact many more channels that I would have to buy to get access to these few shows I like) and I am only really interested in watching a hundred hours, then I am paying 99.9996% of my money to shows that I think the world would be better off without. Using that math, Foxtel also thinks that my 100 hours of shows that I am actually interested in are worth $0.45 (100 hours divided by 262,800 hours multiplied by my $1,200 cost).
I really wonder how many shows would be produced if people could pay for individual series on the equivalent of Pay Per View, but at a more reasonable price.
Let me do the math for my own little facet of the gem here.
I generally like a few shows at once. I am currently interested in Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, Fringe, Walking Dead and Falling Skies.
As these are shows that are aired at different season times, I will calculate the costs for a year of viewing.
To get access to both BBT and GOT, it costs me around $90 per month. Fringe WAS aired on Free to Air, although it was at a 10:30pm timeslot. Walking Dead was finally aired around a year and a half after the US release. Fox8 is airing Falling Skies season 2 "fast tracking" it to Australia just three days after an episode airs in the US.
So, for a mere $1080 per year, I do get access to these shows, if I watch them in their timeslots and most with commercials. Now, lets say that I don't want to time my life to these shows, I can get a Foxtel IQ and record these shows, it costs me $10 per month. That's now $1,200. Now, I do understand that for my money I get a LOT of other channels and shows. But where my frustration comes in is that I am simply not interested in them. Would I watch some of them if I had them? Sure. But that's no different to saying "Would I watch a DVD if I had it?" Yeah, probably, but would I buy it if I saw it at the store? Probably not.
I simply can't justify spending that sort of money for the few shows that I am interested in, furthermore, I am offended that the majority of the money I spend would go to subsidizing all the shit programming that is aired on all these other channels. I don't mind voting for shows with my wallet, but I feel violated knowing that a portion of my monthly fee is going to Jersey Shore, American Pickers or any other horrific mind throttling series.
I always thought that this binary display watch is a rather novel way to spray your geek scent on. It is also fairly styilish and not too loud in design - the LEDs only come on when you press a button.
Slashdot Mirror
Accelerating to higher speeds is fine and all, but unless you want to zip by the planet, you're going to need to decelerate too.
Sorry, thought it was rather obvious, you accelerate for half the trip and decelerate for the second half.
I'm pretty sure but not 100% sure helium 3 is there in some abundance.
Actually, the amount of it is amazingly tiny (one to fifty parts per billion) but that is vastly more concentrated than anywhere on earth.
Keep in mind that Voyager, apart from some gravitational assists, wasn't ever really made to "go fast". Even now, there are ways to send things moving much quicker such as the Ion Thruster which although not NEARLY as powerful as a chemical rocket, is amazingly more efficient. The Weight to Thrust ratio is fantastic and could well be utilized to provide constant thrust for a long time. Once you exit the earth's gravity well, something like an Ion Thruster could over a number of years accelerate a craft to a much higher speed.
Because Slashdot fucking loves all things Australian.
Whoa there cowboy, slow down. What's not to like about us? Settle down mate, here, have a tinnie, I'll throw some extra prawns on the barbie.
We'll get you in the right frame of mind soon enough.
In case anyone else was wondering what Finansinspektionen was, the following is taken from wikipedia:
Finansinspektionen (FI; Financial Supervisory Authority in English) is the Swedish government agency responsible for financial regulation in Sweden. It is responsible for the oversight, regulation and authorisation of financial markets and their participants. The agency falls under the Swedish Ministry of Finance and regulates all organisations that provide financial services in Sweden.
The (gun) murder rate in the US is 7.5 times larger than in the UK, and more than 3 times larger than in Australia.
I think you are off by an order of magnitude.
3/0.04 = 75, not 7.5 and 3/0.09 = 33.3
Actually, there is a way to know courtesy of Neutrino spikes caught via the detectors in the SNEWS. Only gives a few hours warning though.
I'm surprised the Fox news isn't reporting 'The End'
Fox only wants to frighten it's viewers if it aligns with their agenda. There is nothing to be gained by Fox if all their viewers think the end is nigh.
The rate of accretion of the stupidity unfortunately causes some of that stupidity to radiate outwards due to conservation of angular momentum. Luckily we have the likes of NASA to try to prod it back into place.
The DoRD Department of Redundacy Department does not do poetry. Please continue.
Man, they really need a simpler name. A catchy logo would help, too.
Who cares what their name is. Clearly they are doing this to get their 72 Interest Free Credit Cards on the other side... Wait, wut?
As far as I know the emus are harmless.
Emus use their strongly clawed feet as a defence mechanism. Their legs are among the strongest of any animal, allowing them to rip metal wire fences.
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu.
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech means you are allowed to say it, not that you aren't then responsible for what you said. If you say something slanderous, defame someone you are still liable to be held accountable for your statements, but you can still live in the joy of being able to go out right afterwards, say it all again and start the process over.
And that's what is going to happen. And maybe after a few months of web stats crashing
No, no-one is going to want to point out that the laws that they argued for so heavily will be their demise. They will find some other scapegoat and quietly ask that the laws be retracted - or make behind the scenes "agreements" with the likes of Google to publish the snippets.
A bushel is a bushel, a head is a head, a pound is a pound, and a gigabyte is a gigabyte.
Try selling that line to the hard drive manufacturers.
If the Apple Retina display is already beyond the point a human eye can resolve - what's more resolution going to get you?
The Apple display is "Beyond what the human eye can resolve" while holding it at a certain distance. That means if you hold it closer, you will start to see the pixels. This makes the LG display able to be held closer to the eyes while still not being able to see the pixels. Does it mean much for the average user who always holds their phone at a distance of two feet from their eyes? Nope, but it is still bragging rights.
/Rant/
Now if only the folks that make monitors started playing this game, I would finally be able to get a monitor that has a higher resolution than my phone. Seriously, what's with the huge drop in screen resolution on both laptops (unless you buy the $5k model) and run-of-the-mill desktop screens? 1366x768? The nineties called, (Yes, I did warn them about the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan) they want their resolution back!
I reject the assertion that yahoo is just a bag of bones.
They are losing market share, their name once used to be "God" on the mouth of the internet. Now look at what they are. Ask a 12 year old what Yahoo is, then ask about Google. They ARE a bag of bones.
I know many people at the company, and they are some of the most creative, energetic programmers that I have met. All the new management team needs to do is unlock the potential that exists within their own staff.
You realize that this is paraphrasing exactly what I said yes? A company the size of Yahoo will no doubt have plenty of creative and skilled people, but that doesn't mean a damn if the new CEO is killing off their ideas. I am saying that the company HAS to start implementing these ideas and letting them come to fruition so that if they gamble on 10 out-there ideas right now while they still have the money to do so, it might be enough to find the next new idea that bring Yahoo back to at least some of its former glory. All the brightest, most creative geniuses in a company mean nothing if their ideas aren't followed through.
This looks just like a "Hey! Imma doing something! Yay Me!" type move from Ross Levinsohn. I often find within the company that I work for, that when a project changes hands, the new Project Manager feels that he/she needs to stamp in some sort of "territory" so that they seem to be doing something. Sadly though, it also seems that many of these decisions are made without a full understanding of impacts and result in poor implementation. Given that these apps seemed to be at least getting Yahoo looking in the right direction, it seems a shame to see them canned. Given that Yahoo is in such a poor position at the moment, I don't think that a conservative approach is a good strategy for them at the moment - they need to be rolling the dice on long odds while they still have the money to be able to afford to do so. Give them a few more years of stagnation and their customers moving onto other products and they simply won't have the capital or time to find that "new big thing" that will ressurect them.
As funny as it sounds, to reduce skin friction, you need to introduce turbulence - a very special type of turbulence. This has been the focus of quite a bit of research especially for aircraft and boats. This link (PDF warning) will explain how this is achieved.
In case anyone is wondering, here is a nice interview that covers the story pretty much start to finish.
When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
When you have lawyers on staff, every problem looks like an ambulance.
When every problem looks like a nail, and you have a hammer, you are likely going to need a lot of lawyers and a lot of ambulances.
Indeed, it's often hard to be able to purchase what you want out here in a timely manner.
A perfect example is Dollhouse. I simply can't buy it here. EzyDVD has had this up for a few years now: http://www.ezydvd.com.au/DVD/dollhouse-joss-whedons-season-1/dp/807893. JBHifi (one of our main DVD/Music retailers) hasn't got a release date. Sanity ( http://www.sanity.com.au/Search.aspx?sanquery=dollhouse ) doesn't have it. I can buy it via Fishbowl ( http://www.fishpond.com.au/Movies/Dollhouse-Season-2-Eliza-Dushku/5039036044707 ) but guess what, it is simply the US - Region 2 - version that I need a multi-region DVD to play. That's a show that aired in 2009 for goodness sake! I enjoyed it, I want to give the studios money for it, yet I can't find a decent way to do it - businesses that generally make it hard for their customers to get their goods generally don't stay in business.
No, that's taking the argument I made right out of context. Lets say you want to get sandwich for lunch from a shop. However, the only cafe around won't sell you a sandwich unless it is part of a "lunchtime fixed menu". However, that menu includes breakfast, dinner, a three course dessert, alcoholic bevages and a courtesy waiter who spoons it into your mouth. That Fixed Menu also costs four hundred dollars. You would go somewhere else to get lunch.
If my $1,200 per year covers 262,800 hours of programming (30 channels, by twenty four hours, by three hundred and sixty five days - and there are in fact many more channels that I would have to buy to get access to these few shows I like) and I am only really interested in watching a hundred hours, then I am paying 99.9996% of my money to shows that I think the world would be better off without. Using that math, Foxtel also thinks that my 100 hours of shows that I am actually interested in are worth $0.45 (100 hours divided by 262,800 hours multiplied by my $1,200 cost).
I really wonder how many shows would be produced if people could pay for individual series on the equivalent of Pay Per View, but at a more reasonable price.
Let me do the math for my own little facet of the gem here.
I generally like a few shows at once. I am currently interested in Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, Fringe, Walking Dead and Falling Skies.
As these are shows that are aired at different season times, I will calculate the costs for a year of viewing.
To get access to both BBT and GOT, it costs me around $90 per month. Fringe WAS aired on Free to Air, although it was at a 10:30pm timeslot. Walking Dead was finally aired around a year and a half after the US release. Fox8 is airing Falling Skies season 2 "fast tracking" it to Australia just three days after an episode airs in the US.
So, for a mere $1080 per year, I do get access to these shows, if I watch them in their timeslots and most with commercials. Now, lets say that I don't want to time my life to these shows, I can get a Foxtel IQ and record these shows, it costs me $10 per month. That's now $1,200. Now, I do understand that for my money I get a LOT of other channels and shows. But where my frustration comes in is that I am simply not interested in them. Would I watch some of them if I had them? Sure. But that's no different to saying "Would I watch a DVD if I had it?" Yeah, probably, but would I buy it if I saw it at the store? Probably not.
I simply can't justify spending that sort of money for the few shows that I am interested in, furthermore, I am offended that the majority of the money I spend would go to subsidizing all the shit programming that is aired on all these other channels. I don't mind voting for shows with my wallet, but I feel violated knowing that a portion of my monthly fee is going to Jersey Shore, American Pickers or any other horrific mind throttling series.
I always thought that this binary display watch is a rather novel way to spray your geek scent on. It is also fairly styilish and not too loud in design - the LEDs only come on when you press a button.