Just, you know, some of us don't want to go to work in the dark. All the bloody time. I fail to see how moving to CET could possibly bring in extra billions to the economy. Dubious economics aside, however, what on Earth is wrong with living in a time zone that reflects your physical location on the globe? I mean, moving Grenwich off of Grenwich mean time permanently is enough of a misnomer to put me off the idea, but WHY would anyone want to mandate that we all get out of bed an hour earlier in the morning? I find the shift to/from BST bad enough as it is - if this became twice as large a shift, it'd be twice as bad, and if it were an "all year-round" change, most of Scotland would see no light til 11am in the winter. How that's a good idea I don't know... people seem to forget that the "extra" hour is just being stolen from the other end of the day!
Given that the previous METI examples described in the paper include theremin music and 500 text messages submitted by the public, I don't think this would make things much worse than they already are.
An unmanned interstellar probe moving at 12% the speed of light... Although the Doppler effect on communications would be interesting.
"Interesting" is a gross overstatement here. Even if you didn't know how fast it was going, such a Dopper shift would be trivial to correct for with a suitable signal. Now, if we're talking 99.999% c, that's another matter!
...for the cases of black holes with a mass of 3.5-4.5 TeV (1012 electron volts).
Ok, wtf is that bit in the brackets meant to be? A conversion into "common sense" units? From terra electron Volts to... electron Volts? But the numbers make no sense at all!! Seriously, whoever put that in, go learn some physics. Or some maths. I can't even work out what units they were attempting to convert to there. Closest I can come up with is "two-third milli-ergs"... but that's deliberately venturing into the realm of the riduculous.
1 TeV = 1,000,000,000,000 eV. So 3.5 - 4.5 TeV is 3,500,000,000,000 eV - 4,500,000,000,000 eV. Where the hell does the 1012 eV part come from? Graah!
Isotopes exist, right. And by definition, different isotopes of the same element have different mass. I'd take it as a given that the distribution of certain isotopes are different in different places.
But what is this article actually saying? The atomic mass number is meant to be the universal average... now they may have got that slightly wrong, but why exactly do we need a range of universal averages for each isotope? That's surely some sort of misnomer.
Or movies, TV shows, or books for that matter? The one I'm reading at the moment tickles some bit of my brain into letting it do nothing but take up time I should otherwise be spending programming, seeing friends, doing housework and sleeping. (Not necessarily in that order, honest)
Mm, but I meant detailed information as in "oh, there was a planet full of wonky aliens over there" or "there was another Earth in the previous universe!"
Consider that a black hole can be classically described by only 3 parameters: its mass, its charge and its angular momentum... there ain't much detailed information there.
This is hardly a new idea... My understanding was that it had been proven to be impossible to see any detailed information about the previous universe, as the big bang effectively destroyed almost all information about it.
And you don't understand it, that is painfully evident by the 'stop using Steam in their games' part of your statement. They don't use Steam in their games anymore than they use Wal-Mart in their games.
That'd only be true if you had to actually go to Wal-Mart every time you wanted to play your game. Steam's integrated achievements, tracking and the like are very literally in most Steam games.
But (full-sized) keyboards are only fast once you've memorized the layout and don't have to hunt down specific keys... until you reach that point, you're down to hunting letters every time, with either system.
Rat brain cells are not going to strike the right chord with people. I would use brain cells from an animal people are familiar with, and trust, like horses, cats, dogs, monkeys, or cattle.
You might want to reconsider some of that. While fancy rats are inquisitive, friendly and sociable, a cat-brained robot would really be the most sociopathic cyborg I can imagine.
And besides, if they were to use cat brain cells, a lot more people would regard that as inhumane compared to using the poor rats!
If they have to consult their notes for every question (regardless of format) then they should fail the test because they don't understand the material adequately.
Ha! I sat several classes that used open-book exams, particularly at 4th and 5th year level (my course was a Physics MSci) - and the lecturers were clear from the outset that they were open book because they wanted you to understand the subject rather than just memorize relevant equations. Sure I sat more closed-book than open-book exams, but by and large the open-book exams were only used where it seemed appropriate to do so.
Also, when the course material is a book a couple of inches thick, it kinda becomes a herculean task to memorize the whole thing as well as develop a sufficient understanding of the material - while preparing for half a dozen other exams also.
The question wasn't whether or not an open book exam was a good idea. You don't know what material the OP is teaching, while the OP does. The question was about blocking wireless. If turning on a "leaky" microwave oven or a 2.4GHz transmitter isn't an option, I'd recommend laying chicken wire over the walls, ceilings, doors and windows. And unplugging the room's wireless AP.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like the problem is with your employer not allowing flexible working time. The solution of "fixing" the sun seems a bit over-the-top, tbh.
I'll go with this change if we get to bring all of America with us onto CET. That makes only slightly less sense than this proposal.
What's so bad about it being dark at night anyway?
Just, you know, some of us don't want to go to work in the dark. All the bloody time. I fail to see how moving to CET could possibly bring in extra billions to the economy. Dubious economics aside, however, what on Earth is wrong with living in a time zone that reflects your physical location on the globe? I mean, moving Grenwich off of Grenwich mean time permanently is enough of a misnomer to put me off the idea, but WHY would anyone want to mandate that we all get out of bed an hour earlier in the morning? I find the shift to/from BST bad enough as it is - if this became twice as large a shift, it'd be twice as bad, and if it were an "all year-round" change, most of Scotland would see no light til 11am in the winter. How that's a good idea I don't know... people seem to forget that the "extra" hour is just being stolen from the other end of the day!
The worst thing might be that the nascent tablet platform gets written-off as a high-priced niche for people with more money than sense.
I wrote off the IPad precisely as described as soon as it was announced!
Should read: "highly energetic protons" I suspect
Given that the previous METI examples described in the paper include theremin music and 500 text messages submitted by the public, I don't think this would make things much worse than they already are.
An unmanned interstellar probe moving at 12% the speed of light ... Although the Doppler effect on communications would be interesting.
"Interesting" is a gross overstatement here. Even if you didn't know how fast it was going, such a Dopper shift would be trivial to correct for with a suitable signal. Now, if we're talking 99.999% c, that's another matter!
FYI, Star Trek 5 >> Back To Earth. In every way, including comedy value.
D'oh. Yeah, should have thought of that one.
Terra would be 10e12; seems like I missed the obvious (and the submitter / publisher missed the preview function).
...for the cases of black holes with a mass of 3.5-4.5 TeV (1012 electron volts).
Ok, wtf is that bit in the brackets meant to be? A conversion into "common sense" units? From terra electron Volts to ... electron Volts? But the numbers make no sense at all!! Seriously, whoever put that in, go learn some physics. Or some maths. I can't even work out what units they were attempting to convert to there. Closest I can come up with is "two-third milli-ergs" ... but that's deliberately venturing into the realm of the riduculous.
1 TeV = 1,000,000,000,000 eV. So 3.5 - 4.5 TeV is 3,500,000,000,000 eV - 4,500,000,000,000 eV. Where the hell does the 1012 eV part come from? Graah!
Yeah, that was my interpretation also.
Isotopes exist, right. And by definition, different isotopes of the same element have different mass. I'd take it as a given that the distribution of certain isotopes are different in different places.
But what is this article actually saying? The atomic mass number is meant to be the universal average ... now they may have got that slightly wrong, but why exactly do we need a range of universal averages for each isotope? That's surely some sort of misnomer.
Huh? I'm talking about detail, rather than meaning.
Or movies, TV shows, or books for that matter? The one I'm reading at the moment tickles some bit of my brain into letting it do nothing but take up time I should otherwise be spending programming, seeing friends, doing housework and sleeping. (Not necessarily in that order, honest)
Mm, but I meant detailed information as in "oh, there was a planet full of wonky aliens over there" or "there was another Earth in the previous universe!"
Consider that a black hole can be classically described by only 3 parameters: its mass, its charge and its angular momentum ... there ain't much detailed information there.
This is hardly a new idea... My understanding was that it had been proven to be impossible to see any detailed information about the previous universe, as the big bang effectively destroyed almost all information about it.
And you don't understand it, that is painfully evident by the 'stop using Steam in their games' part of your statement. They don't use Steam in their games anymore than they use Wal-Mart in their games.
That'd only be true if you had to actually go to Wal-Mart every time you wanted to play your game. Steam's integrated achievements, tracking and the like are very literally in most Steam games.
But (full-sized) keyboards are only fast once you've memorized the layout and don't have to hunt down specific keys...
until you reach that point, you're down to hunting letters every time, with either system.
Rat brain cells are not going to strike the right chord with people. I would use brain cells from an animal people are familiar with, and trust, like horses, cats, dogs, monkeys, or cattle.
You might want to reconsider some of that. While fancy rats are inquisitive, friendly and sociable, a cat-brained robot would really be the most sociopathic cyborg I can imagine.
And besides, if they were to use cat brain cells, a lot more people would regard that as inhumane compared to using the poor rats!
If they have to consult their notes for every question (regardless of format) then they should fail the test because they don't understand the material adequately.
Ha! I sat several classes that used open-book exams, particularly at 4th and 5th year level (my course was a Physics MSci) - and the lecturers were clear from the outset that they were open book because they wanted you to understand the subject rather than just memorize relevant equations. Sure I sat more closed-book than open-book exams, but by and large the open-book exams were only used where it seemed appropriate to do so.
Also, when the course material is a book a couple of inches thick, it kinda becomes a herculean task to memorize the whole thing as well as develop a sufficient understanding of the material - while preparing for half a dozen other exams also.
The question wasn't whether or not an open book exam was a good idea. You don't know what material the OP is teaching, while the OP does. The question was about blocking wireless. If turning on a "leaky" microwave oven or a 2.4GHz transmitter isn't an option, I'd recommend laying chicken wire over the walls, ceilings, doors and windows. And unplugging the room's wireless AP.
TFS, I mean. Not even TFA. /facepalm
the ground computer
(my emphasis) So no, not the plane. But mission control :S
The TFA
:(