I would have used giant animals dying of heat stroke while small animals freeze to death, but I couldn't resist the Sheldon quote.
I don't quite understand your example. Volume grows larger than area, so for something to be a problem in the small scale, there have to be a volume based effect keeping the problem at bay, and an area based one making it happen. I would think it was the weight that made the train tilt, and e.g. the flanges on the wheels that kept it from happening, but that would be a bigger problem for real trains than for toy trains. What an I missing?
No, you do mean the inverse square law. The inverse square law states that the intensity of radio waves (or light) decreases with the square of the distance to the source. The square-cube law is about the surface relative to the volume: The surface increases with the square of the size, while the volume increases with the cube. This means that the same structure at different sizes would not have the same properties. For example, a giant ant would not be able to get enough oxygen, as its ability to get oxygen follows its surface area, while its oxygen demand follows its volume. Likewise, it would be crushed under the weight of its own exoskeleton, as its strength is proportional to the square of the size, while its weight is proportional to the cube.
Their statement is merely that they don't intent to sell the photos. They can sell the tomorrow, and unless the users can prove that it was their intent when they said it wasn't, there's nothing to do about it. They can be planning to license the photos in stead of selling them. I am sure there is a bucket-load of other loopholes in the statement that I don't pick up.
You don't have to do business with people you think are about to be charged with major crimes. You don't have to do business with people who piss off your other customers.
You don't have to run a company, but if you do, there are certain rules you have to follow. Not doing business with blacks because it pisses off your other customers is, for example, not an option. Not moving money to people because you think they might be charged for something might not be, either. If you don't like that, you are free to not run a bank. If nobody wants to run a bank under those circumstances, we might have to rethink them.
The name on credit cards are not used as account names, so I would guess that it is treated differently. If FB wanted to demand a valid CC, I suppose they could do that, but that would remove a lot of children and, I hope, adults who does not want to hand over their payment credentials to anyone who asks. Also, they might still be required to allow people to use pseudonyms on postings.
000 is longer. It was used here, before being supplanted by 112. I suppose a child dialing 000 is more probable than 999, as it the dial is turned as far as it goes.
I'm not sure, the planet alignment needed propel Voyager to 17 km/s was pretty unique to the 70's. For comparison, New Horizons will have a final speed of around 13 km/s.
Bread goes hard from losing moisture. Bread goes stale from crystallization of the starch (according to WP, the water still leaves the starch, but not the bread). I thought memorizing everything Sheldon has ever said was mandatory before posting on/.
A quick googling indicates that the ocean pH have dropped from around 8.15 to around 8.05 from 1800 to 2000. That corresponds to an increase in the concentration of H+ of around 26%, or 3*10 %, as we only have one significant digit. So the 30% values seems in the right neighborhood, while your numbers are off by 5 orders of magnitude.
Sorry to sabotage your sabotage of the joke, but average is not synonymous with mean. The average can be any measure of central tendency. As it is not clear the the mean of stupidity makes sense, but stupidity can be ordered, "average stupidity" would probably be "median stupidity" (or it could be the mode, if several people can be equally stupid).
You might be right on the first 5, but your number 6 is misleading. If quantum mechanics was not a correct description of the world, the computer you used to write your message on would not work. Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories ever. Oh, and theory does not mean what you think it means (at least when scientists use the word).
Light consists of photons. In the limit of a one-photon signal, you cannot split it. Even with a handful of photons, splitting it is hard. I don't know how few photons they use in commercial quantum cryptography, but it is quite few.
Many armies follow the Geneva convention, or at least pretend to. They do this, not out of concern for the enemy, but out of concern for their own troops. Going to war is psychologically hard. You have to deliberately do the most basic thing we have been drilled is bad: kill people. This makes people break down. The break-down is slower if you believe you are at least following some rules. It might be the same for these robots, at least as long as they have human pilots: The pilots might last longer if they believe the robot follows some basic rules. It might also make the firing faster: If the pilot trusts the robot to not shoot against non-combatants, it is easier to pull the trigger. Of course, this could also lead to more civilians being shot, as the pilot outsource all morality to the algorithm.
I would expect them to refuse going below the stalling speed, or at least to demand a clear override to do it. I don't see why the same could not be done for targeting. Whether it will be done is a matter of how determined the ones paying are. In the case of the US army, that would, in the end, be the people.
They know a bit more than the mass. They know that its spin is either 0 or 2, and they know the relative probabilities of some of the decay paths. Last I heard (this summer, right after the announcement), the proportions of the decay paths were a bit off, but more observations might put it back on track.
No objects can be accelerated to move faster than light speed, but space-time itself can move faster than that (e.g. during inflation). If the universe is accelerating, more and more of the universe will be moving away from us a more than light speed (or, more and more of the universe will reside in space-time that moves away from us at more than light speed).
Slashdot Mirror
The "piracy is absolutely not theft" argument is[...] bullshit. [...]
pirates aren't stealing [...]
So you argue that piracy is theft by arguing that it is not theft. Interesting tactic, but I don't see it working.
It's [...] terribly wrong to force someone else to live by your choices.
Like people do when they enforce their copyright?
I would have used giant animals dying of heat stroke while small animals freeze to death, but I couldn't resist the Sheldon quote.
I don't quite understand your example. Volume grows larger than area, so for something to be a problem in the small scale, there have to be a volume based effect keeping the problem at bay, and an area based one making it happen. I would think it was the weight that made the train tilt, and e.g. the flanges on the wheels that kept it from happening, but that would be a bigger problem for real trains than for toy trains. What an I missing?
No, you do mean the inverse square law. The inverse square law states that the intensity of radio waves (or light) decreases with the square of the distance to the source. The square-cube law is about the surface relative to the volume: The surface increases with the square of the size, while the volume increases with the cube. This means that the same structure at different sizes would not have the same properties. For example, a giant ant would not be able to get enough oxygen, as its ability to get oxygen follows its surface area, while its oxygen demand follows its volume. Likewise, it would be crushed under the weight of its own exoskeleton, as its strength is proportional to the square of the size, while its weight is proportional to the cube.
Their statement is merely that they don't intent to sell the photos. They can sell the tomorrow, and unless the users can prove that it was their intent when they said it wasn't, there's nothing to do about it. They can be planning to license the photos in stead of selling them. I am sure there is a bucket-load of other loopholes in the statement that I don't pick up.
Is it a bank in Sweden? Otherwise it isn't really relevant.
You don't have to do business with people you think are about to be charged with major crimes. You don't have to do business with people who piss off your other customers.
You don't have to run a company, but if you do, there are certain rules you have to follow. Not doing business with blacks because it pisses off your other customers is, for example, not an option. Not moving money to people because you think they might be charged for something might not be, either. If you don't like that, you are free to not run a bank. If nobody wants to run a bank under those circumstances, we might have to rethink them.
The name on credit cards are not used as account names, so I would guess that it is treated differently. If FB wanted to demand a valid CC, I suppose they could do that, but that would remove a lot of children and, I hope, adults who does not want to hand over their payment credentials to anyone who asks. Also, they might still be required to allow people to use pseudonyms on postings.
000 is longer. It was used here, before being supplanted by 112. I suppose a child dialing 000 is more probable than 999, as it the dial is turned as far as it goes.
No, it is because China really doesn't want the entire population of NK as refugees.
I'm not sure, the planet alignment needed propel Voyager to 17 km/s was pretty unique to the 70's. For comparison, New Horizons will have a final speed of around 13 km/s.
That could work, though having a patent as prior art might make it easy enough top find that even a patent clerk can.
Wait, what? Fat will make the bread go hard faster, at least high amounts of it.
Bread goes hard from losing moisture. Bread goes stale from crystallization of the starch (according to WP, the water still leaves the starch, but not the bread). I thought memorizing everything Sheldon has ever said was mandatory before posting on /.
A quick googling indicates that the ocean pH have dropped from around 8.15 to around 8.05 from 1800 to 2000. That corresponds to an increase in the concentration of H+ of around 26%, or 3*10 %, as we only have one significant digit. So the 30% values seems in the right neighborhood, while your numbers are off by 5 orders of magnitude.
Sorry to sabotage your sabotage of the joke, but average is not synonymous with mean. The average can be any measure of central tendency. As it is not clear the the mean of stupidity makes sense, but stupidity can be ordered, "average stupidity" would probably be "median stupidity" (or it could be the mode, if several people can be equally stupid).
Even better, you can print in chocolate. Of course, that might not be a habit you would want to induce in "the lady", as GPP puts it.
You might be right on the first 5, but your number 6 is misleading. If quantum mechanics was not a correct description of the world, the computer you used to write your message on would not work. Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories ever. Oh, and theory does not mean what you think it means (at least when scientists use the word).
Light consists of photons. In the limit of a one-photon signal, you cannot split it. Even with a handful of photons, splitting it is hard. I don't know how few photons they use in commercial quantum cryptography, but it is quite few.
Many armies follow the Geneva convention, or at least pretend to. They do this, not out of concern for the enemy, but out of concern for their own troops. Going to war is psychologically hard. You have to deliberately do the most basic thing we have been drilled is bad: kill people. This makes people break down. The break-down is slower if you believe you are at least following some rules. It might be the same for these robots, at least as long as they have human pilots: The pilots might last longer if they believe the robot follows some basic rules. It might also make the firing faster: If the pilot trusts the robot to not shoot against non-combatants, it is easier to pull the trigger. Of course, this could also lead to more civilians being shot, as the pilot outsource all morality to the algorithm.
I would expect them to refuse going below the stalling speed, or at least to demand a clear override to do it. I don't see why the same could not be done for targeting. Whether it will be done is a matter of how determined the ones paying are. In the case of the US army, that would, in the end, be the people.
Like we don't have Hamlet, Don Quixote or the Sistine Chapel?
They know a bit more than the mass. They know that its spin is either 0 or 2, and they know the relative probabilities of some of the decay paths. Last I heard (this summer, right after the announcement), the proportions of the decay paths were a bit off, but more observations might put it back on track.
Why else announce he's watching in such a way to make him appear paranoid and asshol'ish if not to provoke someone
By applying Hanlon's razor, it could be because he is a paranoid asshole who is incompetent about HR.
No objects can be accelerated to move faster than light speed, but space-time itself can move faster than that (e.g. during inflation). If the universe is accelerating, more and more of the universe will be moving away from us a more than light speed (or, more and more of the universe will reside in space-time that moves away from us at more than light speed).
Very, very little. Pacemakers use very little power, on the order nanojoules.