no, they can't make gold, because they don't move elementary particles, they move atoms. gold is an atom, hence they'd need gold to make gold, which isn't a very impressive feat. what would be cool is if they could take simple graphite (pencil lead), and assemble it into diamonds, and make the whole process significantly cheaper than diamonds are today. it could be a real game-changer, and i'd really enjoy seeing diamonds that now cost millions of dollars lose almost all their value, thus screwing over anyone who has made large investments into diamond jewelery. something like this happened with aluminium - it used to be a very expensive metal, because it was difficult to extract it from the ore, so there was a lot of aluminium jewelery. then some guy came up with a new way to extract it, and it became the cheap-ass metal we all know and love today.
well, you can never cheat a molecule out of its potential energy, so of course this would still apply. however, maybe this method would be more energy-efficient that chemical methods of achieving the same thing, although i have no idea if this is the case or not.
i don't know why this is rated funny, but it's true. even your table has wave-like properties, and theoretically it could be passed through a diffraction grid, and you'd get cool positive/negative interference of the table with itself if you put a wall on the other side of the grid. the only problem is that the table would have to move very slowly...
that is only one point of view, and not a very popular one, as it turns out. don't get me wrong, i think that should be the guiding principle behind legislation, but these days it's all about getting reelected, which is easiest when you manage to scare people into thinking that the law you're proposing saves them from being abducted and raped by satan.
I appreciate your poignant remark about my ignorance, but I wasn't claiming that blockbuster movies aren't used to communicate deep messages. I was merely stating that when I go to the movie theater, I'm going there to have fun, and only fun. Just like I try not to take medical advice from the writing on a bar of soap, I try not to take the philosophical messages communicated through a medium that is primarily a business, and thus optimized for entertainment (due to the extremely large investment it takes to make a movie like Avatar) too seriously. After all, very few great philosophical minds have $500,000,000 lying around in their bank accounts that they can use to make a movie, without first doing everything they can to make sure they get their money back, even at the cost of trivializing the moral and ethical dilemmas in said movie.
I bet it felt good to call me ignorant, though, didn't it? One can get a strange sense of satisfaction from making such remarks about strangers on the Interweb...
frankly i'm a little tired of all the "deep" discussions about this movie popping up all over the place. it's just entertainment, for crying out loud. why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie? because it makes money! why are we drawn to it? well, because of its aesthetics, romantic content, exciting action, and good old marketing. case closed.
p.s. and even if cameron truly believes in the "messages" of the movie, big freaking deal. he's a director. there are many people in the world whose opinion on such difficult philosophical topics has much higher value for me than that of someone in show business.
news like this make me want to vow that i'll never fly again, but unfortunately in this country often there is no viable alternative. that's why i want to say, please somebody invent it already!!
this is a good suggestion, though it seems to be implicitly confrontational. I'd say just try to appeal to your boss one more time on this issue (again, in a non-confrontational tone). if he still ignores your plea, then you might want to consider seeking another job, one where your boss actually cares about what you have to say. or, given the current job market, invest heavily in earplugs.
For a long time now, I have been afraid to come out with my story, but since this issue has been raised, I just can't stay quiet any longer. It is my duty as a citizen to report that for as long as I can remember, the atmosphere has been orally violating me. What's worse, my parents have known about this all along, and they have stood by and let it go on. In fact, as soon as I was born, they let the atmosphere touch me in the most inappropriate places. I also know of many other individuals who have been subjected to similar treatment by the atmosphere, though I won't name any of them - I will leave it up to them whether or not they decide to follow my example and tell the world about this horrible ongoing abuse.
I hope the authorities will act upon my testimony, and finally put an end to the atmosphere's series of crimes.
protocol design is a difficult and important process. by designing a protocol for something that performs better than existing ones, you can gain competitive advantage. if this advantage then disappears because everybody else can just copy the results of your hard work, i'm pretty sure anybody would be pissed. IANAL, but it seems to me that a company should be allowed to make money from their own work.
1) If you didn't work for a living while at a university, doesn't mean nobody does. I can personally guarantee that my advisor works more than probably 75% of oh, I don't know, cab drivers, or office workers, or any other people doing "real work".
2) i don't see the difference between saying "I'm an automative engineer so i'm right" and "I'm a climate researcher so I'm right". in both cases one is describing his area of knowledge, and is using this as a way to argue that their opinion on a topic that is related to that area is more likely to be true than the opinion of someone from the general population. it's called an "expert opinion", and there is nothing wrong with that. what' wrong is taking this qualification as sufficient evidence that the person is either right or wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
i don't get it.
no, they can't make gold, because they don't move elementary particles, they move atoms. gold is an atom, hence they'd need gold to make gold, which isn't a very impressive feat. what would be cool is if they could take simple graphite (pencil lead), and assemble it into diamonds, and make the whole process significantly cheaper than diamonds are today. it could be a real game-changer, and i'd really enjoy seeing diamonds that now cost millions of dollars lose almost all their value, thus screwing over anyone who has made large investments into diamond jewelery. something like this happened with aluminium - it used to be a very expensive metal, because it was difficult to extract it from the ore, so there was a lot of aluminium jewelery. then some guy came up with a new way to extract it, and it became the cheap-ass metal we all know and love today.
well, you can never cheat a molecule out of its potential energy, so of course this would still apply. however, maybe this method would be more energy-efficient that chemical methods of achieving the same thing, although i have no idea if this is the case or not.
i don't know why this is rated funny, but it's true. even your table has wave-like properties, and theoretically it could be passed through a diffraction grid, and you'd get cool positive/negative interference of the table with itself if you put a wall on the other side of the grid. the only problem is that the table would have to move very slowly...
that is only one point of view, and not a very popular one, as it turns out. don't get me wrong, i think that should be the guiding principle behind legislation, but these days it's all about getting reelected, which is easiest when you manage to scare people into thinking that the law you're proposing saves them from being abducted and raped by satan.
I appreciate your poignant remark about my ignorance, but I wasn't claiming that blockbuster movies aren't used to communicate deep messages. I was merely stating that when I go to the movie theater, I'm going there to have fun, and only fun. Just like I try not to take medical advice from the writing on a bar of soap, I try not to take the philosophical messages communicated through a medium that is primarily a business, and thus optimized for entertainment (due to the extremely large investment it takes to make a movie like Avatar) too seriously. After all, very few great philosophical minds have $500,000,000 lying around in their bank accounts that they can use to make a movie, without first doing everything they can to make sure they get their money back, even at the cost of trivializing the moral and ethical dilemmas in said movie.
I bet it felt good to call me ignorant, though, didn't it? One can get a strange sense of satisfaction from making such remarks about strangers on the Interweb...
frankly i'm a little tired of all the "deep" discussions about this movie popping up all over the place. it's just entertainment, for crying out loud. why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie? because it makes money! why are we drawn to it? well, because of its aesthetics, romantic content, exciting action, and good old marketing. case closed.
p.s. and even if cameron truly believes in the "messages" of the movie, big freaking deal. he's a director. there are many people in the world whose opinion on such difficult philosophical topics has much higher value for me than that of someone in show business.
news like this make me want to vow that i'll never fly again, but unfortunately in this country often there is no viable alternative. that's why i want to say, please somebody invent it already!!
Everything that people do must have a rational reason, and if they can't find one they will construct a reason that seems rational to them...
How is this specific to mathematicians?
... regardless of how simplistic it is, or how dim a view of their fellow human beings it leads them to.
How is this a problem?
this is a good suggestion, though it seems to be implicitly confrontational. I'd say just try to appeal to your boss one more time on this issue (again, in a non-confrontational tone). if he still ignores your plea, then you might want to consider seeking another job, one where your boss actually cares about what you have to say. or, given the current job market, invest heavily in earplugs.
heh, that's funny. get it? he agrees, i.e. groupthink! heheh...
the full implications of knowledge cannot be predicted.
For a long time now, I have been afraid to come out with my story, but since this issue has been raised, I just can't stay quiet any longer. It is my duty as a citizen to report that for as long as I can remember, the atmosphere has been orally violating me. What's worse, my parents have known about this all along, and they have stood by and let it go on. In fact, as soon as I was born, they let the atmosphere touch me in the most inappropriate places. I also know of many other individuals who have been subjected to similar treatment by the atmosphere, though I won't name any of them - I will leave it up to them whether or not they decide to follow my example and tell the world about this horrible ongoing abuse.
I hope the authorities will act upon my testimony, and finally put an end to the atmosphere's series of crimes.
protocol design is a difficult and important process. by designing a protocol for something that performs better than existing ones, you can gain competitive advantage. if this advantage then disappears because everybody else can just copy the results of your hard work, i'm pretty sure anybody would be pissed. IANAL, but it seems to me that a company should be allowed to make money from their own work.
i wish there was a tractable way of making lying in an ad a criminal offense punishable by death for all those responsible...
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/al_gore_caught_warming_globe_to
santa. they know if christmas dies, the american economy will succumb to the same fate very quickly.
1) If you didn't work for a living while at a university, doesn't mean nobody does. I can personally guarantee that my advisor works more than probably 75% of oh, I don't know, cab drivers, or office workers, or any other people doing "real work".
2) i don't see the difference between saying "I'm an automative engineer so i'm right" and "I'm a climate researcher so I'm right". in both cases one is describing his area of knowledge, and is using this as a way to argue that their opinion on a topic that is related to that area is more likely to be true than the opinion of someone from the general population. it's called an "expert opinion", and there is nothing wrong with that. what' wrong is taking this qualification as sufficient evidence that the person is either right or wrong.
yeah, i never thought i'd see "microsoft" and "open source" in the same sentence, except when separated by "screws over"
i don't get it.
probably, but also conscience to railway hence buttsex could instead contribute to global warming. Since
oh my god, this could lead to the formation of entire blind terrorist networks! they could be ANYWHERE!
forget blade runner, this article reminds me of minority report so much that it's a little creepy...
take a picture of your ass, with nipples drawn on it (yep, south park reference).
or, just search using the famous XP "green buttocks and blue skies" wallpaper.
Is there some iPhone vinyl add-on I'm not aware of?
hmm, interesting... *rubs chin*