The welders on the Bay Bridge put a gnome-like figure on the south side. It was invisible to all automobile traffic and was shown only once to the news media (Chronicle TV and Newspaper). The welders were of the Old-School-Mechanics-Bank-Style-East-Bay-Workingme n and thought that such an addition would be good luck. I was there before and after the placement. I knew the folks that put it there. All I can say is that it must have worked. We who lived through the quake lucked out. But is it forever? When will luck run out? God bless those that live on the Hayward Fault!
I am not arguing in favor of the IBM platform over another. Simply, I argue for the possibilities brought on by reverse engineering even an modest technology such as the IBM PC.
The IBM PC was reverse engineered. Barely within the boundary of legality. But legal, nonetheless. If this had not happened, would we now live in the so-called "information age"? Probaly not. Reverse engineering and mass-producing the IBM PC clone put real computing power in the hands of almost anyone who really wanted it. Why should we now make illicit the same proletarian and, dare I say, egalitarian mechanism that put us where we are today?
Thankfully, you wont have to worry about it. The soonest anyone could know about this is between 140 and 200 years from now. Your great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren may have to deal with the problem, though!
What you both refer to is in facat the Dymaxion (Air-Ocean) World Projection. It was published by R. Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao in 1954. This is an especially poor representation of that projection. It lacks most of the features that make the real map useful such as each icosa triangle face is (circa 1954!) 7 ship-days/14 aircraft hours. Really, why send this out to space?
I am surprised that this sort message has not been sent out many, many times already. But, after reading the links, it appears that this is the longest message and the first since 1974. (Correct me if I am wrong here.) It would seem that the chance would be vanishingly small that any alien intelligence will intercept this message as it would require a series of increasingly improbable events. To see why, consider what is needed for successful reception (ingoring the possibility for successful message interpretation): (1) An alien intelligence; (2) an alien intelligence in at least one target location; (3) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array; (4) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array and will have detectors tuned to 5 GHz; (5) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array and will have detectors tuned to 5 GHz and will be analyzing signals originating from our region; (6) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array and will have detectors tuned to 5 GHz and will be analyzing signals originating from our region for one of 60 of a possible 180 minutes sometime within the next 70-100 years. Now, being intelligent ourselves and seriously hoping that this far-fetched scheme works, why are we not sending these messages out more frequently? Was the message SETI is hoping to recieve sent out 20 (or even 20 million) years ago?
Immediately I can forsee applications as a new type of mass chromatography column with all components in the liquid phase. What about reversing the net gravitational field such that the more massive analytes elute later, from the top? One could separate proteins, for instance, by carefully varying the fields. What if this type of thing were done with pressure and temperature as a variable? What about introducing an orthogonal ionizing or accelerating electric field? Also don't forget that other paramagnetic liquids such as liquid oxygen might be interesting for this.
Well, I used to work right next to a liquid helium cooled supercondiucting magnet all day long. Probably one of the strongest magnets around. My watch hated it (even in the next room) but my hemoglobin survived intact.
Think >100T for any real trouble maybe?
This may indeed be "news for nerds" because frankly only a nerd would care in the least but in my opinion it is not "stuff that matters". Neither I nor the vast majority of slashdot.org readers has ever met Hemos. Understand that the reader has no intention to do so and really wants to know as little as possible about this author. It is the content but not the creator of this site that appeals to me and other like myself. Would it not seem ridiculous any other respectable news source posted a reporter's personal affairs as a headline. Very disappointing considering that something else of importance was likely subverted by this piece.
Nothing is ever proven. Atoms are not real. They are human creations, metaphors. Just mathematical constructs that approximately follow nature. The Bohr model just not as good as the current model which supplanted it. Other models may supplant our current model one day. Food for thought, no?
I stand corrected. I read the reply to the author but missed his comment. However, you are not entirely correct about the "outer" electrons exclusively contributing to chemical properties. This claim is naive. Electron transfer is chemical reaction, true. But chemical *properties* can include many weaker interactions like shielding, van Der Waals forces, hydrogen bonding, steric effects, etc. and not to mention stronger nearly classically ionic occurences like proton transfer. Since we were on the topic...
No, he is right. Electrons do not determine elemental uniqueness; take, as an example, any ion. In fact, it is the proton number that defines periodicity.
Slashdot Mirror
The welders on the Bay Bridge put a gnome-like figure on the south side. It was invisible to all automobile traffic and was shown only once to the news media (Chronicle TV and Newspaper). The welders were of the Old-School-Mechanics-Bank-Style-East-Bay-Workingme n and thought that such an addition would be good luck. I was there before and after the placement. I knew the folks that put it there. All I can say is that it must have worked. We who lived through the quake lucked out. But is it forever? When will luck run out? God bless those that live on the Hayward Fault!
I am not arguing in favor of the IBM platform over another. Simply, I argue for the possibilities brought on by reverse engineering even an modest technology such as the IBM PC.
The IBM PC was reverse engineered. Barely within the boundary of legality. But legal, nonetheless. If this had not happened, would we now live in the so-called "information age"? Probaly not. Reverse engineering and mass-producing the IBM PC clone put real computing power in the hands of almost anyone who really wanted it. Why should we now make illicit the same proletarian and, dare I say, egalitarian mechanism that put us where we are today?
Thankfully, you wont have to worry about it. The soonest anyone could know about this is between 140 and 200 years from now. Your great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren may have to deal with the problem, though!
What you both refer to is in facat the Dymaxion (Air-Ocean) World Projection. It was published by R. Buckminster Fuller and Shoji Sadao in 1954. This is an especially poor representation of that projection. It lacks most of the features that make the real map useful such as each icosa triangle face is (circa 1954!) 7 ship-days/14 aircraft hours. Really, why send this out to space?
I am surprised that this sort message has not been sent out many, many times already. But, after reading the links, it appears that this is the longest message and the first since 1974. (Correct me if I am wrong here.) It would seem that the chance would be vanishingly small that any alien intelligence will intercept this message as it would require a series of increasingly improbable events. To see why, consider what is needed for successful reception (ingoring the possibility for successful message interpretation): (1) An alien intelligence; (2) an alien intelligence in at least one target location; (3) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array; (4) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array and will have detectors tuned to 5 GHz; (5) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array and will have detectors tuned to 5 GHz and will be analyzing signals originating from our region; (6) an alien intelligence in at least one target location that will have a 1 km^2 radio anntenna array and will have detectors tuned to 5 GHz and will be analyzing signals originating from our region for one of 60 of a possible 180 minutes sometime within the next 70-100 years. Now, being intelligent ourselves and seriously hoping that this far-fetched scheme works, why are we not sending these messages out more frequently? Was the message SETI is hoping to recieve sent out 20 (or even 20 million) years ago?
Time to uninstall!
Of course, if you are worried about the magnetic moment, you could just do this with a giant block of osmium.
Immediately I can forsee applications as a new type of mass chromatography column with all components in the liquid phase. What about reversing the net gravitational field such that the more massive analytes elute later, from the top? One could separate proteins, for instance, by carefully varying the fields. What if this type of thing were done with pressure and temperature as a variable? What about introducing an orthogonal ionizing or accelerating electric field? Also don't forget that other paramagnetic liquids such as liquid oxygen might be interesting for this.
No, you are wrong. The sum of the vectors is zero. Really is a case of frame-of-reference.
Well, I used to work right next to a liquid helium cooled supercondiucting magnet all day long. Probably one of the strongest magnets around. My watch hated it (even in the next room) but my hemoglobin survived intact. Think >100T for any real trouble maybe?
As if consumer software wasn't bloated enough already. Now icons that are rubbery??!!
The subject line says it all, really.
If you think command interpreters straight outta DOS don't load when WinME starts, you are high on crack. They just don't let /you/ use them is all.
This may indeed be "news for nerds" because frankly only a nerd would care in the least but in my opinion it is not "stuff that matters". Neither I nor the vast majority of slashdot.org readers has ever met Hemos. Understand that the reader has no intention to do so and really wants to know as little as possible about this author. It is the content but not the creator of this site that appeals to me and other like myself. Would it not seem ridiculous any other respectable news source posted a reporter's personal affairs as a headline. Very disappointing considering that something else of importance was likely subverted by this piece.
And while your at it take a crack at the Visio file format! (Which just recently got swallowed up by Microsoft, damn it all.)
I like the idea. Will it run under MS Bob?
Neither insightful nor funny, I just couldn't help but share a feeling of wonder. I never expected to see this in my lifetime. That's all.
The best reason to use bits is that it can represent the switch and the truth table; the essence of computing.
Nothing is ever proven. Atoms are not real. They are human creations, metaphors. Just mathematical constructs that approximately follow nature. The Bohr model just not as good as the current model which supplanted it. Other models may supplant our current model one day. Food for thought, no?
I stand corrected. I read the reply to the author but missed his comment. However, you are not entirely correct about the "outer" electrons exclusively contributing to chemical properties. This claim is naive. Electron transfer is chemical reaction, true. But chemical *properties* can include many weaker interactions like shielding, van Der Waals forces, hydrogen bonding, steric effects, etc. and not to mention stronger nearly classically ionic occurences like proton transfer. Since we were on the topic...
No, he is right. Electrons do not determine elemental uniqueness; take, as an example, any ion. In fact, it is the proton number that defines periodicity.
This protocol sucks. It is not routable and it sucks. So there.
Who gives a rat's ass about Unix? This story was about DNA, ye freak!
I couldn't help but notice the obvious reference to an RFC. I enjoy that somehow.