It is generally a good thing that the research gets out and is seen by as many people as possible. Show me a person off the street who is going to care about some paper on quantum mechanics, however. The scientists and researchers are generally going to have access to these papers in some fashion anyway, via university library electronic journal access or professional groups that they may be a part of (such as the ACM).
The bad thing is that journals may selectively not publish papers they would have previously accepted from a researcher if they require open access. You may not think this is that important. They can find a different place to publish. Things aren't that simple when it comes down to it though. Faculty and research hires and promotions are often based on WHICH journals you publish in as much as how much you publish. As a young researcher I would hate to lose out to someone for a tenured position because they published a few less papers in higher profile journals but I had to publish in lower ranked journals because of open access.
I guess you are right - I do make some assumptions. I make no assumption as to the state of creationist or pro-life though.
However, I think that my assumptions are based on real life experience with friends and relatives. Many are religious and are told that life is sacred and suicide, murder, etc are wrong. These people I wouldn't necessarily say are "pious". The ones who I would consider pious are more the self-toting "I am right and you are wrong" attitude. These people generally aren't overly pushy but simply believe that others just have it wrong. While none of my current friends are/were missionaries, I knew many who travelled the world "distributing" their beliefs on others.
I think we can agree though - hope is the key to this. Some (not necessarily pious) hang on for that "miracle".
Actually, I was inferring that a spiritual person is not necessarily even religious / believes in any god. Spirituality and faith are not restricted to any religion.
While I'm definitely not religious, I see the fact that a non-religious person has come to grips with the fact they are dying and their own mortality and has realised that they don't want their last days to be spent in pain and suffering as the article suggests the last days are.
On the other hand, the pious types have had it drilled into them that all life is sacred. Suicide is wrong. In this case I think that they cling to this belief knowing that if it is the will of God for them to die then they will. On the other hand miracles do happen and maybe they are clinging to this hope.
Also spirituality does not equate with religion specifically. One can be very spiritual without believing in a God-like mythos.
I'm not sure what the satellites say, but the "old" ice is what is melting. It has been affected by a century of warming and that heat is going all the way to its core. On the other hand, new ice/snow (last 5 years or so) has actually grown in thickness.
My wife and I looked at banking it and it was too expensive for us for the possible return. We thought about donating it but the hospital was not keen on collecting and sending it off... too much work for them I guess.
Then we read that it is good for the baby to get the last few pulses of blood back from the cord. When we wrote our birth plan for the hospital staff we included this request which they seemed more than happy to accommodate (apparently this is getting to be more common).
Unfortunately for us, his cord was short and wrapped around his neck and this was not an option as it had to be cut in several places to get him out safely.
I would way the cost benefit of banking/donating and letting the little guy keep what is his. It helps him keep his blood levels high and is less likely going to require other treatment if he can't replace the blood fast enough
In the end, is this truly going to change how the ISPs work? The article mentions that one of the reason for doing this is because of Bell Canada. I personally don't think Bell Canada is going to care - neither will Comcast and all the other ISPs who throttle and shape the network (can we say all ISPs at this point to at least some extent?).
Really, all this will do is continue to drive a wedge between the "evil" file sharers and "enlightened" ISPs who will attempt to use the other 95% of the users to make claims to whoever will listen... Personally I don't do much file sharing and I'd get real pissed if my broadband speed dropped to a quarter of what I actually pay for.
If it is going to be peer reviewed, I doubt they'd publish it in Scientific America... Though a quick review for spelling mistakes could get it published there...
>p>What about those people who cannot be vegans or even vegetarians for that matter? People in the far north hunt in the fall and winter in order to have enough food. Maybe 50 years ago that is all they had to subsist on. Even now, it is extremely expensive to bring fresh food to them as it takes so long to get there.
Now personally, I like meat and don't have any problems eating it. I do however attempt to eat more free range, wild game, etc than "farmed" animals and I probably eat less meat than 10 years ago. I almost must admit that I really respect your decision to become a vegan. I'm sure it was a long road.
And really, it is only wealth that allows us to buy vegetables at the store. During the winter here, I'd get very little fruits or vegetables if I had to grow everything myself. We would never get most fruits here because of the climate and I think I'd get awfully tired of corn and grain and potatoes if it wasn't for those deer and cows...
This really does make no sense. When we lived in Calgary, my wife had to commute to 3 towns away for work. She would carpool with at least one other if not to other people and would take turns driving each day. This would suck - she would spend almost a weeks worth of pay to drive herself each month...
I ride my bike to work. It is almost as fast as the bus and definitely cheaper. Plus it keeps me fit. It isn't any greener of course since the bus runs with or without me but I also have the ability to leave on my own schedule and not have to wait hourly for the bus.
If these rules prevented me or my wife from travelling how we wished, I think I would take the board to court - or at least file a complaint with the government. At least we live in a more free society out here in the west;)
I'm surprised that the bank didn't step in at the point and not lend her the money. Several times I've gotten a mortgage or line of credit the bank always wants to know why... "Why do you need to mortgage your house again?" should have been the question and the bank, upon hearing her answer (I can't imagine she would lie since she seems pretty gullible) should have been "No ma'am, I'm sorry but we cannot lend you the money for that." I'm sure there are some unscrupulous banks but - come on - the bank is not likely to see its money after she declares bankruptcy!
This is a bit of a relief for those of us who study space weather and aurora and what not. It is hard to study things when they don't appear... There has been very little aurora or interesting weather in the last couple of years. Of course, studying the quiet time is important too... just not as interesting! Check out NOAA Space Weather for more information on space weather in the current solar conditions.
That's the point - weaponizing it does no good unless it is in space. There, nothing but a few satellites exist and they will take no time to destroy. I suppose we could set one up on the moon and shoot at asteroids or something:) (That's no moon, it's a spacestation - I think there was already a comment on that...)
Of course, the problem with weaponizing this would be creating a vacuum to the target... the beam would simply collide with atmospheric particles and dissipate. If used in space... well, once we shoot down all the satellites... what's left?
I would hope that by the time we are a spacefaring race we would have better weapons. How else will we battle the Kligons or the Cyclons or whatever your favourite space races are.
I agree with reducing my stress on the environment and try to live in a more sustainable existence. However your next comments on plenty of scientific debate (there has) and for the most part there is universal consensus (nope, there are plenty of new papers detailing sun-earth connections to climate change though no one completely understands why) and it is not accurate to say this deabate is going on only in the US. Perhaps this argument seems over to the layperson, Al Gore, and the IPCC but certainly not to other scientists in atmospheric and space sciences.
Unfortunately, this 8 minutes would have nothing to do with the speed of light. The magnetic field emanating from the sun (interplanetary magnetic field) is 'frozen-in' to the plasma streaming out from the sun (solar wind). The solar wind velocity is usually between 300 and 700 km/s - this makes the trip MUCH longer than 8 minutes.
The frozen-in condition follows from Maxwell's equations. Data from the ACE satellite show this is exactly the case. Therefore, as the solar wind speed increases, the IMF will reach the Earth faster. In the case of major solar events - such as coronal mass ejections (CME) - the solar wind speed is usually very high and we see the effects of the magnetic field and particles about 1 day after the 'light' (X-rays, visible light, etc) reaches the Earth.
I live in Saskatchewan and we don't do DST here either - apparently "for the farmers" though I don't know how true that is.
Problem with not switching is that businesses always have to ask me - are you on the same time as us or not? It tends to throw off the whole delivery schedules to other provinces and state that change... not to mention the TV schedule;)
When I moved away from Alberta, I washed my hands of Telus and the rest of those sleezy phone companies. I used Shaw Cable for digital cable and internet and really should have switched the phone.
I recently moved to Saskatchewan and when asked by Sasktel (the gov't run company here) if I wanted them to hook me up I said no and told them that Telus had ruined the chance that any such company would see my money again. I signed up with Shaw for phone/internet/cable and haven't looked back. Their customer service is excellent and better yet - NO CONTRACTS!
Upon moving, I cancelled my Telus account of course. I received a bill for service AFTER my disconnect date. The rep told me to pay the bill and that they would fix the problem and send me a refund. After speaking to the supervisor, he assured my that I would not need to pay the bill... until the next month and I received, yes, you guessed it, another bill that had my next month PLUS the month I didn't need to pay for. After 3 months of this, they finally sorted it out... I hope.
Lesson learned? For me yes... For them? yeah - right!
While its true that the events around reconnection can accelerate the particles, there are many other effects in the magnetosphere that are capable of this as well.
As far as reconnection, most if not all of the community agrees that reconnection takes place as well as current disruption for nearly every substorm. The question is when. This article states that the reconnection is occurring before the current disruption. There seems to be only 3 cases that have been studied, including the one on Feb 26th, 2008 presented in the Science paper by Dr. Angelopoulos et al.
I certainly have not formed an opinion either way and this has not sufficiently provided me with enough evidence to think that this is the only "trigger". It still does not explain internally triggered substorms and does not adequately describe what causes the reconnection in the first place.
One interesting statement that is made is the fact that the aurora appears to intensify before the current disruption and before the magnetic pulsations, (Pi2 pulsations) which normally mark the onset at the Earth. This is a very interesting result and if true, poses a very interesting problem as to why.
I have to say... electrical storms?? The aurora is not electrical. It is caused by charged particles moving along magnetic field lines. These are called auroral substorms (or magnetic substorms depending on your definition). Ground detection by magnetometers is possible as is electrical disruption caused by magnetic induction (and a slew of other things).
While I have not directly looked at the data from THEMIS (I finished my PhD before the data rolled in and am now elsewhere working on other things) I am skeptical that this "solves the problem". I extensively studied over two years of data and concluded that some substorms appear to occur without reconnection (paper pending).
All I have to say is that a few case studies will make it very hard remove any other possible models, such as current distruption, despite what those in the Near Earth Neutral Line camp want to make everyone believe.
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I see this as good and bad.
It is generally a good thing that the research gets out and is seen by as many people as possible. Show me a person off the street who is going to care about some paper on quantum mechanics, however. The scientists and researchers are generally going to have access to these papers in some fashion anyway, via university library electronic journal access or professional groups that they may be a part of (such as the ACM).
The bad thing is that journals may selectively not publish papers they would have previously accepted from a researcher if they require open access. You may not think this is that important. They can find a different place to publish. Things aren't that simple when it comes down to it though. Faculty and research hires and promotions are often based on WHICH journals you publish in as much as how much you publish. As a young researcher I would hate to lose out to someone for a tenured position because they published a few less papers in higher profile journals but I had to publish in lower ranked journals because of open access.
I guess you are right - I do make some assumptions. I make no assumption as to the state of creationist or pro-life though.
However, I think that my assumptions are based on real life experience with friends and relatives. Many are religious and are told that life is sacred and suicide, murder, etc are wrong. These people I wouldn't necessarily say are "pious". The ones who I would consider pious are more the self-toting "I am right and you are wrong" attitude. These people generally aren't overly pushy but simply believe that others just have it wrong. While none of my current friends are/were missionaries, I knew many who travelled the world "distributing" their beliefs on others.
I think we can agree though - hope is the key to this. Some (not necessarily pious) hang on for that "miracle".
Actually, I was inferring that a spiritual person is not necessarily even religious / believes in any god. Spirituality and faith are not restricted to any religion.
While I'm definitely not religious, I see the fact that a non-religious person has come to grips with the fact they are dying and their own mortality and has realised that they don't want their last days to be spent in pain and suffering as the article suggests the last days are.
On the other hand, the pious types have had it drilled into them that all life is sacred. Suicide is wrong. In this case I think that they cling to this belief knowing that if it is the will of God for them to die then they will. On the other hand miracles do happen and maybe they are clinging to this hope.
Also spirituality does not equate with religion specifically. One can be very spiritual without believing in a God-like mythos.
I'm not sure what the satellites say, but the "old" ice is what is melting. It has been affected by a century of warming and that heat is going all the way to its core. On the other hand, new ice/snow (last 5 years or so) has actually grown in thickness.
My wife and I looked at banking it and it was too expensive for us for the possible return. We thought about donating it but the hospital was not keen on collecting and sending it off... too much work for them I guess.
Then we read that it is good for the baby to get the last few pulses of blood back from the cord. When we wrote our birth plan for the hospital staff we included this request which they seemed more than happy to accommodate (apparently this is getting to be more common).
Unfortunately for us, his cord was short and wrapped around his neck and this was not an option as it had to be cut in several places to get him out safely.
I would way the cost benefit of banking/donating and letting the little guy keep what is his. It helps him keep his blood levels high and is less likely going to require other treatment if he can't replace the blood fast enough
In the end, is this truly going to change how the ISPs work? The article mentions that one of the reason for doing this is because of Bell Canada. I personally don't think Bell Canada is going to care - neither will Comcast and all the other ISPs who throttle and shape the network (can we say all ISPs at this point to at least some extent?).
Really, all this will do is continue to drive a wedge between the "evil" file sharers and "enlightened" ISPs who will attempt to use the other 95% of the users to make claims to whoever will listen... Personally I don't do much file sharing and I'd get real pissed if my broadband speed dropped to a quarter of what I actually pay for.
If it is going to be peer reviewed, I doubt they'd publish it in Scientific America... Though a quick review for spelling mistakes could get it published there...
Now personally, I like meat and don't have any problems eating it. I do however attempt to eat more free range, wild game, etc than "farmed" animals and I probably eat less meat than 10 years ago. I almost must admit that I really respect your decision to become a vegan. I'm sure it was a long road.
And really, it is only wealth that allows us to buy vegetables at the store. During the winter here, I'd get very little fruits or vegetables if I had to grow everything myself. We would never get most fruits here because of the climate and I think I'd get awfully tired of corn and grain and potatoes if it wasn't for those deer and cows...
I ride my bike to work. It is almost as fast as the bus and definitely cheaper. Plus it keeps me fit. It isn't any greener of course since the bus runs with or without me but I also have the ability to leave on my own schedule and not have to wait hourly for the bus.
If these rules prevented me or my wife from travelling how we wished, I think I would take the board to court - or at least file a complaint with the government. At least we live in a more free society out here in the west ;)
I'm surprised that the bank didn't step in at the point and not lend her the money. Several times I've gotten a mortgage or line of credit the bank always wants to know why... "Why do you need to mortgage your house again?" should have been the question and the bank, upon hearing her answer (I can't imagine she would lie since she seems pretty gullible) should have been "No ma'am, I'm sorry but we cannot lend you the money for that." I'm sure there are some unscrupulous banks but - come on - the bank is not likely to see its money after she declares bankruptcy!
This is a bit of a relief for those of us who study space weather and aurora and what not. It is hard to study things when they don't appear... There has been very little aurora or interesting weather in the last couple of years. Of course, studying the quiet time is important too... just not as interesting! Check out NOAA Space Weather for more information on space weather in the current solar conditions.
That's the point - weaponizing it does no good unless it is in space. There, nothing but a few satellites exist and they will take no time to destroy. I suppose we could set one up on the moon and shoot at asteroids or something :) (That's no moon, it's a spacestation - I think there was already a comment on that...)
Of course, the problem with weaponizing this would be creating a vacuum to the target... the beam would simply collide with atmospheric particles and dissipate. If used in space... well, once we shoot down all the satellites... what's left? I would hope that by the time we are a spacefaring race we would have better weapons. How else will we battle the Kligons or the Cyclons or whatever your favourite space races are.
I agree with reducing my stress on the environment and try to live in a more sustainable existence. However your next comments on plenty of scientific debate (there has) and for the most part there is universal consensus (nope, there are plenty of new papers detailing sun-earth connections to climate change though no one completely understands why) and it is not accurate to say this deabate is going on only in the US. Perhaps this argument seems over to the layperson, Al Gore, and the IPCC but certainly not to other scientists in atmospheric and space sciences.
The frozen-in condition follows from Maxwell's equations. Data from the ACE satellite show this is exactly the case. Therefore, as the solar wind speed increases, the IMF will reach the Earth faster. In the case of major solar events - such as coronal mass ejections (CME) - the solar wind speed is usually very high and we see the effects of the magnetic field and particles about 1 day after the 'light' (X-rays, visible light, etc) reaches the Earth.
I live in Saskatchewan and we don't do DST here either - apparently "for the farmers" though I don't know how true that is. Problem with not switching is that businesses always have to ask me - are you on the same time as us or not? It tends to throw off the whole delivery schedules to other provinces and state that change... not to mention the TV schedule ;)
With Halloween coming I thought maybe it was going to be a case that actually looked like a skeleton... now THAT'S a case I could dig!
I recently moved to Saskatchewan and when asked by Sasktel (the gov't run company here) if I wanted them to hook me up I said no and told them that Telus had ruined the chance that any such company would see my money again. I signed up with Shaw for phone/internet/cable and haven't looked back. Their customer service is excellent and better yet - NO CONTRACTS!
Upon moving, I cancelled my Telus account of course. I received a bill for service AFTER my disconnect date. The rep told me to pay the bill and that they would fix the problem and send me a refund. After speaking to the supervisor, he assured my that I would not need to pay the bill... until the next month and I received, yes, you guessed it, another bill that had my next month PLUS the month I didn't need to pay for. After 3 months of this, they finally sorted it out... I hope.
Lesson learned? For me yes... For them? yeah - right!
While its true that the events around reconnection can accelerate the particles, there are many other effects in the magnetosphere that are capable of this as well.
As far as reconnection, most if not all of the community agrees that reconnection takes place as well as current disruption for nearly every substorm. The question is when. This article states that the reconnection is occurring before the current disruption. There seems to be only 3 cases that have been studied, including the one on Feb 26th, 2008 presented in the Science paper by Dr. Angelopoulos et al.
I certainly have not formed an opinion either way and this has not sufficiently provided me with enough evidence to think that this is the only "trigger". It still does not explain internally triggered substorms and does not adequately describe what causes the reconnection in the first place.
One interesting statement that is made is the fact that the aurora appears to intensify before the current disruption and before the magnetic pulsations, (Pi2 pulsations) which normally mark the onset at the Earth. This is a very interesting result and if true, poses a very interesting problem as to why.
I have to say... electrical storms?? The aurora is not electrical. It is caused by charged particles moving along magnetic field lines. These are called auroral substorms (or magnetic substorms depending on your definition). Ground detection by magnetometers is possible as is electrical disruption caused by magnetic induction (and a slew of other things). While I have not directly looked at the data from THEMIS (I finished my PhD before the data rolled in and am now elsewhere working on other things) I am skeptical that this "solves the problem". I extensively studied over two years of data and concluded that some substorms appear to occur without reconnection (paper pending). All I have to say is that a few case studies will make it very hard remove any other possible models, such as current distruption, despite what those in the Near Earth Neutral Line camp want to make everyone believe.