I recommend asking your students and faculty for their own artwork that they think would fit in this area. You could restrict the theme as desired (or not). A contest could be made out of it. When visitors are admiring a piece of art, it is great being able to tell them the story behind it, and even better when that story involves one of your own folks.
Where do you get your ~1/100 estimate from? Current atmospheric CO2 levels are about 380 ppm, up from about 315 ppm in 1960 and a little under 200 ppm at the end of the last ice age. Before the industrial revolution, the highest concentration in the last 400,000 years was about 300 ppm.
If you overwrite something with all zeros (or ones), it's almost guaranteed to still be there later because all you did was weaken (strengthen) the signal, the variation between two signals with the same current value represents the original value.
Since we're looking at the level of the magnetic domains and not the data bits directly, we must consider that we're looking at the coded version of the bits -- most likely encoded with a Reed-Solomon code. That is, for every N data bits, a codeword of N+M bits is stored on the medium, where M << N (typically). Since RS codes are linear, all 0s in the data would indeed give all 0s in the encoded representation, assuming that there are no additional constraints (e.g., such as a maximum run constraint). But, all 1s in the data will not in general (and perhaps not ever -- I'd have to refresh my memory on the details to be sure) give all 1s on the medium.
In general, the RS code and a good decoder will allow recovery of old data if most of the old bits can be recovered. This is why a CD can play back error-free despite a small number of scratches. If certain bits are much more suspect than others, a good RS decoder can make use of that information (a deletion is less costly than an incorrect bit).
The other factor is that even if the word/excel/powerpoint import is working, people act all surprised if their embedded Viso drawings/ autofcad dxfs etc don't work. It's pretty silly to expect them to work too, unless you've got some magical linux version of autocad (come home to unix autocad!) or visio installed.
Maybe I wouldn't be surprised, but applications on MS Windows do reasonable things when the OLE object's host application isn't present. I've given PowerPoint files with embedded Visio drawings to colleagues who don't have Visio and they can view and print the entire document and edit all the non-Visio stuff. As for editing, PowerPoint and other MSO applications can convert OLE objects to an internal "picture" format, allowing the MSO drawing tools to be used. It's not always pretty -- it does cause the ability to use the original tool on the object to be lost and sometimes really messes up the graphic, but it's not quite as bad as you suggest. I think the key thing is that an application importing MSO files should be able to at least render the OLE objects -- that was one of the touted benefits way back when OLE has a hot new feature in Win 3.x (I can't recall what x is right now).
That's the way I understand it, too, but I don't see how that could work in practice. What if the machine I'm storing the downloaded music on gets rooted via the latest sendmail bug and Joe Cracker copies the music via a few intermediaries to his Napster-like server? Now my watermarked copy of the song is floating around the 'net, even though I took more than reasonable precautions. Neither I nor the music police know the identities of any of the culpable parties and we're back where we started.
I don't think the analogy between books and music should be taken that far.
When an MP3 is distributed, in addition to the convenience of listening to it on a computer or portable digital audio device, one can cheaply get back to the original medium by burning a CD (with a little or a lot of quality loss depending on the data rate, etc.).
The electronic conveniences (like searchability) are lesser for a novel, but are quite important for a technical manual. And getting back to the original medium (by printing) is expensive compared to buying a mass market paperback and doesn't have the feel of a bound and well sized book.
Electronic publishing is a nice extra convenience for those who want to research your work (find the first mention of a specific character, index your book looking for neologisms, or any of a thousand other things that are vastly more convenient (or only feasible) by electronic means.
If you're writing a novel (or anything that will be read serially or by a non-technical audience), paper is the way to go. It is the preferred format of the audience, and is where most of the profits come from.
My favorite is The Futurological Congress; it's cynical, humorous, strikingly relevant 30 years after it was originally written, and (in translation to English) makes truly amazing use of the language. You can look forward to several neologisms on every page.
I use a Port backpack for my laptop. It's well-padded (both for the laptop and the lugger) and an inconspicuous black. It has 2 side pouches for easy access to geeky gadgets, such as cell phones and calculators. Inside there are netted zippered pouches and sleeves for holding your power brick, network adapters, pens and pencils, etc. The laptop (a ThinkPad 770 fits comfortably) is easily secured with 2 Velcro straps and there are dividers to hold portfolios or even a couple of medium-sized books. It also has a handle so you can carry it like a vertical briefcase. My only complaint is that the tacky substance on the shoulder straps makes it difficult to get on over a bulky winter coat.
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I recommend asking your students and faculty for their own artwork that they think would fit in this area. You could restrict the theme as desired (or not). A contest could be made out of it. When visitors are admiring a piece of art, it is great being able to tell them the story behind it, and even better when that story involves one of your own folks.
Where do you get your ~1/100 estimate from? Current atmospheric CO2 levels are about 380 ppm, up from about 315 ppm in 1960 and a little under 200 ppm at the end of the last ice age. Before the industrial revolution, the highest concentration in the last 400,000 years was about 300 ppm.
Or, in continued fractions, it is precisely
[39; 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 4]
The convergents serve as approximations to the desired accuracy.
I was going to post the convergents, but the slashdot "lameness filter" won't let me, really.
In any case, I can get the final one in, so here it is...
39 + 1/(2+1/(1+1/(2+1/(2+1/(1+1/4))))) = 39.370078740157... (exact)
SME: small and medium-sized enterprises; technology-oriented companies with fewer than 250 employees
Since we're looking at the level of the magnetic domains and not the data bits directly, we must consider that we're looking at the coded version of the bits -- most likely encoded with a Reed-Solomon code. That is, for every N data bits, a codeword of N+M bits is stored on the medium, where M << N (typically). Since RS codes are linear, all 0s in the data would indeed give all 0s in the encoded representation, assuming that there are no additional constraints (e.g., such as a maximum run constraint). But, all 1s in the data will not in general (and perhaps not ever -- I'd have to refresh my memory on the details to be sure) give all 1s on the medium.
In general, the RS code and a good decoder will allow recovery of old data if most of the old bits can be recovered. This is why a CD can play back error-free despite a small number of scratches. If certain bits are much more suspect than others, a good RS decoder can make use of that information (a deletion is less costly than an incorrect bit).
The Ubiquitous Reed-Solomon Codes by Barry Cipra gives a concise and mostly non-technical introduction to RS codes.
Maybe I wouldn't be surprised, but applications on MS Windows do reasonable things when the OLE object's host application isn't present. I've given PowerPoint files with embedded Visio drawings to colleagues who don't have Visio and they can view and print the entire document and edit all the non-Visio stuff. As for editing, PowerPoint and other MSO applications can convert OLE objects to an internal "picture" format, allowing the MSO drawing tools to be used. It's not always pretty -- it does cause the ability to use the original tool on the object to be lost and sometimes really messes up the graphic, but it's not quite as bad as you suggest. I think the key thing is that an application importing MSO files should be able to at least render the OLE objects -- that was one of the touted benefits way back when OLE has a hot new feature in Win 3.x (I can't recall what x is right now).
That's the way I understand it, too, but I don't see how that could work in practice. What if the machine I'm storing the downloaded music on gets rooted via the latest sendmail bug and Joe Cracker copies the music via a few intermediaries to his Napster-like server? Now my watermarked copy of the song is floating around the 'net, even though I took more than reasonable precautions. Neither I nor the music police know the identities of any of the culpable parties and we're back where we started.
I don't think the analogy between books and music should be taken that far.
When an MP3 is distributed, in addition to the convenience of listening to it on a computer or portable digital audio device, one can cheaply get back to the original medium by burning a CD (with a little or a lot of quality loss depending on the data rate, etc.).
The electronic conveniences (like searchability) are lesser for a novel, but are quite important for a technical manual. And getting back to the original medium (by printing) is expensive compared to buying a mass market paperback and doesn't have the feel of a bound and well sized book.
Electronic publishing is a nice extra convenience for those who want to research your work (find the first mention of a specific character, index your book looking for neologisms, or any of a thousand other things that are vastly more convenient (or only feasible) by electronic means.
If you're writing a novel (or anything that will be read serially or by a non-technical audience), paper is the way to go. It is the preferred format of the audience, and is where most of the profits come from.
My favorite is The Futurological Congress ; it's cynical, humorous, strikingly relevant 30 years after it was originally written, and (in translation to English) makes truly amazing use of the language. You can look forward to several neologisms on every page.
I use a Port backpack for my laptop. It's well-padded (both for the laptop and the lugger) and an inconspicuous black. It has 2 side pouches for easy access to geeky gadgets, such as cell phones and calculators. Inside there are netted zippered pouches and sleeves for holding your power brick, network adapters, pens and pencils, etc. The laptop (a ThinkPad 770 fits comfortably) is easily secured with 2 Velcro straps and there are dividers to hold portfolios or even a couple of medium-sized books. It also has a handle so you can carry it like a vertical briefcase. My only complaint is that the tacky substance on the shoulder straps makes it difficult to get on over a bulky winter coat.