With Apple's all-consuming desire for thin devices, why would they not be the first to adopt this?
There is no 'adopt' in what is colloquially called 'the patent system', Sir. There is either 'innovate' or 'copy'.
On the other hand, considering the billions and lawyers involved in the mess that is colloquially called 'the patent system', yes, you are probably correct: Apple will be the first to 'adopt' this.
YOU wrote planetoids? That was a simple but very good idea! The worlds tend to end up a bit useless after updates: for example, when railtracks couldn't be placed on goldstone anymore, my train system was ruined.
Also, when there are new items you cannot get them on your old maps, because those maps are are finite- infinite planetoid maps would be great, not to mention tekkit compatibility!
Sorry to get off-topic, but I got excited- good job!
As with any position in federal service, you do what is asked of you.
Interesting point, but my question was on the actual content of this program and how it is laid out: one can perhaps easily fit at least eight courses in two years, at this level. So what individual courses does this program have, and how many are they? How much math is involved, for example, and how about programming courses?
Where did you read that? There is barely any information about the content of the course at the university 's website, under a very tacky "Do you have what it takes" intro, a McGyver reference, a promise for a 90% chance of landing a men-in-black job, and how this awesome initiative has been picked up from the news. No real information about what you actually DO.
Because of the previously needed stellar nucleosynthesis needed to create the earth and its ability to sustain life it was necessary to have a whole life of a fast burning star before our sun got its chance to shine.
That's how I see it as well, yes.
Does that support the idea that the earth might be the lucky one or very first in the universe to sustain life?
I hardly think so. Compared to the inferred age of the Universe, Earth is failry new and the idea that current evidence supports is that there are astronomical numbers of Earth-like planets around astronomical numbers of Sun-like stars, in this galaxy alone, one out of an astronomical number of galaxies. Of course to get those you need astronomical numbers of fast burning stars, but those are easily obtained as well. And check out the civilization around you: how can you answer if you are lucky or not, without having seen how others are doing?
Think of a very small balloon with a picture of the Universe printed on its surface being suddenly blown up -- when the balloon is small, everything is compact, but when it is inflated it is much further apart.
This analogy has been around for decades but, respectfully, it is a very bad one and tends to confuse people (and students, who are also people).
Picture this: doesn't space expansion also expand the distances between nuclei and electrons? How about the 'dimensions' of electrons themselves? Is that expanding as well?
Another fair quoestion from a student on the 'baloon' example would be that the objects along with the observers on that baloon are also expanding: and, again on that example, will they not still measure the _same_ distance between their galaxies, because their measuring instruments will have expanded as well? So, for them, wouldn't a 'before expansion' meter still be perceived as one meter?
hm yes but won't galaxy A see galaxy B moving away from it faster than the speed of light ?
No- something that moves faster than the speed of light, cannot be seen.
All the actual math can be messy, and most of the misunderstanding, I believe, stems from the fact that the speed of light is an anomaly (from a math point of view) but consider this: energy needs to be conserved. A wave is more 'packed' with energy if it is of a higher frequency from a wave that has the same amplitude, and a lower frequency. This is because it has more 'ups and downs' for the same amount of time, so it transfers more energy to its destination (it makes its destination go 'up and down' more often than a lower frequency wave)
Now try and think of the light as a wave: it _always_ propagates at the speed of light, and _all_ observers measure that speed to be 'the speed of light', a constant, no matter how fast or slow they are moving themselves with respect to each other, or the source. This is how it is, and it is not my fault. So how is this possible? Doesn't dashing towards the light source make you meet the incoming light from that source sooner, and wouldn't this mean that you watch it come faster at you?
Well, no, it doesn't: you would meet a lightfront sooner, but it would have the same propagation speed. What _does_ happen is that you receive more _energy_ from that light source, during your (subjective) unit time: the way you see it different from other observers is that you see it more 'packed' with energy, because -for you- it has more ups and downs per (your) unit time, compared to how you saw it when you were standing still. This is called blueshifting. In the case that the source is moving away from you, you would instead observe the source drop more and more in frequency (redshifting), asymptotically, until a point where it would no longer be perceivable.
bonus question: is the universe a sphere ?
Probably not. You are going to need math for this one!
I don't understand why the universe can't have a center, wouldn't that be the "point" where big bang happened ?
That is because you are thinking in terms of a Euclidian, three-dimensional topology. Sorry to quote even more math, but there is no easy way to explain this now (and I still got work to do, even though it is a Sunday!). I do not know how versed you are in math, but the wikipedia pages are always a good starting point for science stuff.
Stay cool, no need to troll like this: the message here, I believe, is "don't even think for a second that internet makes you anonymous: we (the authorities) can and will find you, and make this public as a warning to everybody else".
This is not about the Brits, this is happening all over the world. It is just that in the UK they seem to be a tad more diligent in enforcing the "nobody gets away with it" regime --remember how some rioters that were caught on camera were eventually tracked months later and -perhaps disproportionally- punished a while back.
under-educated consumers will always get duped, that's not the MegaCorp's fault.
You cannot be serious: how can that be, since it would be MegaCorp that is doing the duping-- you said it! See this very recent thread, and try to predict how good the 'dupe-non-tech-savvy-folk' business model will be for a company --unless, I guess, the company is too big (AT&T in the previous example) to give a crap: that's why I mentioned 'MegaCorp'.
How is that abuse? If they can do that, good for them.
It would be abusive if the additions do not justify the price being higher: that is why I mentioned 'crapware'. I.e., a (misinformed) consumer usually falls for it, ending up being charged for the advertisment that went into a product (advertising products usually reflects on their pricing).
Otherwise, if someone builds on it and produces an even more useful device, then of course I see no problem with it, and good for them indeed.
freely available for both personal and commercial reuse
Well, unfortunately that comes with the danger of abuse: MegaCorp ripping it off, bloating it with crapware and selling it for x5 the price- but let's see.
"You may choose to opt out of personalized advertising by visiting choice.live.com."
".. by filling in the form with the mandatory fileds of First, Last and Maiden names, Birthday, Address, Phone number, Utilities bill and Blood group."
Doesn't common sense just confirm the sun has to be similar to what it is today?
No: as matter accretes to the centre of the disk, the central object becomes more and more massive, and it radiates energy out via what is called the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism. To make matters even more complicated, an astrophysical non-equillibrium jet is formed during the accretion process through which the disk parts energy and angular momentum. So the central object only becomes Sun-like in its properties when this jet dissipates, and its mass is enough to start a thermo-nuclear, pressure-sustained fusion of Hydrogen to Helium in its core. Even then, the fusion energy does not radiate out immediately because it has to escape the early-Sun through its outer layers. So, seen from the outside, it certainly does not look like the Sun you see today, and there are significant uncertainties regarding the exact timescale of this whole process.
If it was not a sun at the time or was a smaller sun, Jupiter would be the most massive body in the solar system so, matter would tend to orbit it instead, wouldn't it?
Perhaps: matter that is within the appropriate range of the gravitational domain of an accreting object would accrete onto that object instead. Also, once all available matter in the immediate neighborhood falls into baby Jupiter, it cannot grow any more (called "starvation" in the literature). But again, the exact quantitative details as to how that happens, and how long it takes (i.e. if the Sun formed first, or if Jupiter formed first), are something that only modelling can answer.
(2) there is a high degree of uncertainty as to the power output of the Sun at that era, and if there actually was a Sun at all: there has to be a central object, but that does not mean that it will be a star.
"Snowline"-based conjectures actually postulate that Jupiter was formed exactly because of its location on the snowline: since this snowline has to be a sharp boundary(1), a locally-enhanced density area, radially symmetric around the Sun(2), is created and collapses into a massive planet because it rapidly accretes material(3) from its neighborhood.
I have seen a lot of hand-waving used to fill in the gaps (note: "hand-waving": (idiomatic) Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries) on where and when a gas giant actually forms in a snowline, and how exactly planets 'migrate'.
(1) sharp boundaries may not be as common as you think: there is only a handful of computer models that actually take into account the three-dimensional structure of the accretion disk (proto-planetary disk, a very computationally expensive problem) and lots of physics are lost in 2D simplifications.
(3) Fairly recent observations have shown that complex organic molecules are present in Giant Molecular Cloud structures, long preceding the formation of any star or planet. The mechanism of their creation and their distribution is mostly unknown, and an active area of research, as of course is the formation of planetary systems. Hand-waving has not produced any robust results as of yet. Computer modeling, on the other hand, looks more promising.
In absence of free oxygen in Mars atmosphere, it is probably quite stable.
No, quite the opposite actually- it gets destroyed (photodissociated) by -mainly- UV radiation.
Methane being unstable and easily destroyed in the Martian atmosphere is the whole point of using it as a 'life-tracer': if it is around at high and unaccounted for amounts, then there has to be continuously produced somehow, and so far a biological origin for its production cannot be ruled out.
Slashdot Mirror
With Apple's all-consuming desire for thin devices, why would they not be the first to adopt this?
There is no 'adopt' in what is colloquially called 'the patent system', Sir. There is either 'innovate' or 'copy'.
On the other hand, considering the billions and lawyers involved in the mess that is colloquially called 'the patent system', yes, you are probably correct: Apple will be the first to 'adopt' this.
Uh - oh ... Apple is in trouble!
YOU wrote planetoids? That was a simple but very good idea! The worlds tend to end up a bit useless after updates: for example, when railtracks couldn't be placed on goldstone anymore, my train system was ruined.
Also, when there are new items you cannot get them on your old maps, because those maps are are finite- infinite planetoid maps would be great, not to mention tekkit compatibility!
Sorry to get off-topic, but I got excited- good job!
As with any position in federal service, you do what is asked of you.
Interesting point, but my question was on the actual content of this program and how it is laid out: one can perhaps easily fit at least eight courses in two years, at this level. So what individual courses does this program have, and how many are they? How much math is involved, for example, and how about programming courses?
Sounds like you do some really cool cyber-stuff
Where did you read that? There is barely any information about the content of the course at the university 's website, under a very tacky "Do you have what it takes" intro, a McGyver reference, a promise for a 90% chance of landing a men-in-black job, and how this awesome initiative has been picked up from the news. No real information about what you actually DO.
Dear occasional Anonymous Coward,
Because of the previously needed stellar nucleosynthesis needed to create the earth and its ability to sustain life it was necessary to have a whole life of a fast burning star before our sun got its chance to shine.
That's how I see it as well, yes.
Does that support the idea that the earth might be the lucky one or very first in the universe to sustain life?
I hardly think so. Compared to the inferred age of the Universe, Earth is failry new and the idea that current evidence supports is that there are astronomical numbers of Earth-like planets around astronomical numbers of Sun-like stars, in this galaxy alone, one out of an astronomical number of galaxies. Of course to get those you need astronomical numbers of fast burning stars, but those are easily obtained as well. And check out the civilization around you: how can you answer if you are lucky or not, without having seen how others are doing?
Did we arrive on a greenfield?
See above-
Think of a very small balloon with a picture of the Universe printed on its surface being suddenly blown up -- when the balloon is small, everything is compact, but when it is inflated it is much further apart.
This analogy has been around for decades but, respectfully, it is a very bad one and tends to confuse people (and students, who are also people).
Picture this: doesn't space expansion also expand the distances between nuclei and electrons? How about the 'dimensions' of electrons themselves? Is that expanding as well?
Another fair quoestion from a student on the 'baloon' example would be that the objects along with the observers on that baloon are also expanding: and, again on that example, will they not still measure the _same_ distance between their galaxies, because their measuring instruments will have expanded as well? So, for them, wouldn't a 'before expansion' meter still be perceived as one meter?
hm yes but won't galaxy A see galaxy B moving away from it faster than the speed of light ?
No- something that moves faster than the speed of light, cannot be seen.
All the actual math can be messy, and most of the misunderstanding, I believe, stems from the fact that the speed of light is an anomaly (from a math point of view) but consider this: energy needs to be conserved. A wave is more 'packed' with energy if it is of a higher frequency from a wave that has the same amplitude, and a lower frequency. This is because it has more 'ups and downs' for the same amount of time, so it transfers more energy to its destination (it makes its destination go 'up and down' more often than a lower frequency wave)
Now try and think of the light as a wave: it _always_ propagates at the speed of light, and _all_ observers measure that speed to be 'the speed of light', a constant, no matter how fast or slow they are moving themselves with respect to each other, or the source. This is how it is, and it is not my fault. So how is this possible? Doesn't dashing towards the light source make you meet the incoming light from that source sooner, and wouldn't this mean that you watch it come faster at you?
Well, no, it doesn't: you would meet a lightfront sooner, but it would have the same propagation speed. What _does_ happen is that you receive more _energy_ from that light source, during your (subjective) unit time: the way you see it different from other observers is that you see it more 'packed' with energy, because -for you- it has more ups and downs per (your) unit time, compared to how you saw it when you were standing still. This is called blueshifting. In the case that the source is moving away from you, you would instead observe the source drop more and more in frequency (redshifting), asymptotically, until a point where it would no longer be perceivable.
bonus question: is the universe a sphere ?
Probably not. You are going to need math for this one!
I don't understand why the universe can't have a center, wouldn't that be the "point" where big bang happened ?
That is because you are thinking in terms of a Euclidian, three-dimensional topology. Sorry to quote even more math, but there is no easy way to explain this now (and I still got work to do, even though it is a Sunday!). I do not know how versed you are in math, but the wikipedia pages are always a good starting point for science stuff.
How do you smuggle in crap made in your country?
And for $6/piece, risking time in a Chinese prison?
Sounds VERY desperate-
Or at least so I think. Let Wikipedia BE not that easy to edit: someone that wants to edit will have to go through this small extra step.
Those syntax walls are there to keep the ill-determined from jumping right in.
Stay cool, no need to troll like this: the message here, I believe, is "don't even think for a second that internet makes you anonymous: we (the authorities) can and will find you, and make this public as a warning to everybody else".
This is not about the Brits, this is happening all over the world. It is just that in the UK they seem to be a tad more diligent in enforcing the "nobody gets away with it" regime --remember how some rioters that were caught on camera were eventually tracked months later and -perhaps disproportionally- punished a while back.
under-educated consumers will always get duped, that's not the MegaCorp's fault.
You cannot be serious: how can that be, since it would be MegaCorp that is doing the duping-- you said it! See this very recent thread, and try to predict how good the 'dupe-non-tech-savvy-folk' business model will be for a company --unless, I guess, the company is too big (AT&T in the previous example) to give a crap: that's why I mentioned 'MegaCorp'.
How is that abuse? If they can do that, good for them.
It would be abusive if the additions do not justify the price being higher: that is why I mentioned 'crapware'. I.e., a (misinformed) consumer usually falls for it, ending up being charged for the advertisment that went into a product (advertising products usually reflects on their pricing).
Otherwise, if someone builds on it and produces an even more useful device, then of course I see no problem with it, and good for them indeed.
freely available for both personal and commercial reuse
Well, unfortunately that comes with the danger of abuse: MegaCorp ripping it off, bloating it with crapware and selling it for x5 the price- but let's see.
"You may choose to opt out of personalized advertising by visiting choice.live.com."
".. by filling in the form with the mandatory fileds of First, Last and Maiden names, Birthday, Address, Phone number, Utilities bill and Blood group."
developing it with an Italian guy who also likes to ride himself
When I can overcome the topological inconveniences, I ride myself quite often myself.
Let me guess: you tried lasers and got sued?
Doesn't common sense just confirm the sun has to be similar to what it is today?
No: as matter accretes to the centre of the disk, the central object becomes more and more massive, and it radiates energy out via what is called the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism. To make matters even more complicated, an astrophysical non-equillibrium jet is formed during the accretion process through which the disk parts energy and angular momentum. So the central object only becomes Sun-like in its properties when this jet dissipates, and its mass is enough to start a thermo-nuclear, pressure-sustained fusion of Hydrogen to Helium in its core. Even then, the fusion energy does not radiate out immediately because it has to escape the early-Sun through its outer layers. So, seen from the outside, it certainly does not look like the Sun you see today, and there are significant uncertainties regarding the exact timescale of this whole process.
If it was not a sun at the time or was a smaller sun, Jupiter would be the most massive body in the solar system so, matter would tend to orbit it instead, wouldn't it?
Perhaps: matter that is within the appropriate range of the gravitational domain of an accreting object would accrete onto that object instead. Also, once all available matter in the immediate neighborhood falls into baby Jupiter, it cannot grow any more (called "starvation" in the literature). But again, the exact quantitative details as to how that happens, and how long it takes (i.e. if the Sun formed first, or if Jupiter formed first), are something that only modelling can answer.
(2) there is a high degree of uncertainty as to the power output of the Sun at that era, and if there actually was a Sun at all: there has to be a central object, but that does not mean that it will be a star.
"Snowline"-based conjectures actually postulate that Jupiter was formed exactly because of its location on the snowline: since this snowline has to be a sharp boundary(1), a locally-enhanced density area, radially symmetric around the Sun(2), is created and collapses into a massive planet because it rapidly accretes material(3) from its neighborhood.
I have seen a lot of hand-waving used to fill in the gaps (note: "hand-waving": (idiomatic) Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries) on where and when a gas giant actually forms in a snowline, and how exactly planets 'migrate'.
(1) sharp boundaries may not be as common as you think: there is only a handful of computer models that actually take into account the three-dimensional structure of the accretion disk (proto-planetary disk, a very computationally expensive problem) and lots of physics are lost in 2D simplifications.
(3) Fairly recent observations have shown that complex organic molecules are present in Giant Molecular Cloud structures, long preceding the formation of any star or planet. The mechanism of their creation and their distribution is mostly unknown, and an active area of research, as of course is the formation of planetary systems. Hand-waving has not produced any robust results as of yet. Computer modeling, on the other hand, looks more promising.
They're literally begging to be found in contempt.
That. Apple acts like a very sore loser.
'-1 Troll'? Where is your sense of humor, Slashdot??
Stall, man!
In absence of free oxygen in Mars atmosphere, it is probably quite stable.
No, quite the opposite actually- it gets destroyed (photodissociated) by -mainly- UV radiation.
Methane being unstable and easily destroyed in the Martian atmosphere is the whole point of using it as a 'life-tracer': if it is around at high and unaccounted for amounts, then there has to be continuously produced somehow, and so far a biological origin for its production cannot be ruled out.
Can I have my Phd now?
If you showed it "for the first time", sure you can. With a publication on a "high-profile journal" on the side.