I thought about this, and decided to set up a TRS-80 Color Computer emulator in the hopes that the kids would take to it and want to learn how to program it. It's as simple as it gets - real-time basic built right into the OS. The only bummer is that i can't find the original books that came with it - there was one for BASIC, one for EXTENDED BASIC and one for DISK BASIC... Alas the kids just aren't interested. They just don't seem to have the attention span or patience.
That's correct - I did. As time goes on, and they reduce service in an attempt to increase cost, will I eventually be able to choose to eliminate my use of the product? It's hard to do - to go backwards in technology. Once you have something, it's tough to give it up. Most of the people that you see walking around with iPhones - I have to assume they can't really afford them. I say it's 'evil' because of the nature of corporations today. It isn't enough to provide a useful service and make a constant profit, there has to be growth. In order to achieve that growth, these companies push and squeeze. And to counter your point, when I chose to buy the product that Verizon offered, it was an unlimited data plan - they've change the product post-purchase.
When I find that my finances come up short some months - I wonder what the hell I'm doing wrong, I barely go out anymore, I don't buy anymore fancy computers, and I don't even have nice clothes anymore. So I do the balance sheet and I realize that (this is a family of 4) between Comcast and Verizon Wireless, I'm spending about $400 / month on "Living expenses" that just didn't exist when my parents were young, raising children and paying a mortgage. It occurs to me that Verizon is really evil... Now that we're all hooked, they're going to keep finding new ways to get another $10 / line out of everyone and they're not gonna go back on it. You want to have an iPhone like everyone else? Yeah? That's an extra $30 a month. (My wife complained until I got her one). But this stuff is starting to interfere with my ability to pay my mortgage and save for my kids' future education. I would love to let my contracts expire and tell them to cancel everything... But then we'd be like the only people without the ability to text (an extra $5 per line per month!!). The whole thing is getting silly and while I usually try to avoid things that are silly - I can't see a way out of this one.
Not open as in open source, but they can't lock these things down. I can download.cab files to do anything I want and there's no way they can really stop it. I don't have to go through any store or such nonsense. I'm not sure if WP7 is as open, but i'm hard pressed to let go of my 6.5 phone. It does everything I would want it to - for free.
The answer to your first question is - No, not really. There are not any rocky planets in the habitable zone that have had magnetic fields for billions of years. Mercury has one, but it's in close proximity to a large body (the sun). I'm not sure if there's any way to detect a magnetic field from a distance - so I wonder if the whole search for exoplanets in the habitable zone has any point to it. I'd like to at least hear someone (who is supposed to know) talk about the requirement - or not - of a magnetic field for life. As for your last paragraph - my understanding is that the answer is yes. The reason that no biological process could take advantage of this type of radiation is because the damage is done at a molecular level.
It seems to me like one of the factors that is essential for complex life to evolve is the presence of a magnetic field, in order to protect life (and a thin atmosphere) from the harmful effects of the sun. While we're at it with the search for extraterrestrial life - shouldn't the presence of a magnetic field be one of the "must have"s? I've always been under the impression that the large moon is what keeps the Earth's core churning and thus the magnetic field - but maybe that's less fact and more something that I came to believe on my own.
I would argue that a single talented software coder could produce better software than the entire Boeing team and all their process could in about the same amount of time. Process is a way to take talentless people and still bang out a product, pretty much by brute force.
Do you think Mark Russinovich used development processes when he created the SysInternal suite of tools for Windows (perhaps the best set of developer tools ever made)? For great developers, process just gets in the way. For the other 95%, process is necessary.
It needs to be broken down into parts... At some point we'll realize (or maybe not) that a vehicle that gets us from the ground to orbit is a completely different thing from a vehicle that gets us from one orbit to another. It's analogous to trying to use a boat to get from a point 100 miles inland on the US East Coast to a point 100 miles inland Europe. Sure, the boat is a good tool for most of the journey, but you need a different type of vehicle to traverse the 100 miles.
I honestly don't know... But if I had to guess, I'd say that the lack of education leaves a void which religion fills nicely. Afterall, that's what it's designed to do, isn't it?
You miss the whole point... My wife is a great mom, keeps a clean house, and does great work at her office. She does not have a brain that is capable of understanding a fraction of the science that I do. (DISCLAIMER: This doesn't make her a bad wife or person, honey). The point of the article is: To her, science is a faith - because she completely lacks the foundation to understand any of it. The point of the article is to say that a high percentage of the population is too uneducated in science for it to be anything other than faith that it's true.
You might give people too much credit... I used to try to explain computers to my dad (30 years ago) when I was 10, and even back then he refused to believe that my Trs80 could do math calculations faster than he could in his head. All of these things that are in most people's lives these days - computers, phones, all the new technology that everyone uses in the past decade - are so far beyond the comprehension of most of the population that I can't even imagine what it would be like to know that little.
Yes and no... My parents use a computer every day - but they don't really get the concept that an operating system or an application is something that a team of engineers had to create. To them, I imagine a computer is a magic box that allows them to 'open their internets'. Since they don't understand the root concepts of software engineering - just like the article says, they have to take it on faith that I actually do something when I go to work every day. When you explain science to people using broad strokes, as you suggested, they usually just nod and brush it off - maybe they think i'm bs'ing them, who knows. WHen I try to explain to my wife that the Earth is part of a solar system and there are billions of solar systems in a galaxy and billions of galaxies - well to her that is much less tangible than the idea that god created the earth in 7 days.
That's exactly right, as is the article... It's all a great explanation for the phenomena that I haven't been able to put words to myself. For example, as a software engineer, I can't explain to friends or family what it is that I do - they just don't get it.
I admittedly know very little to nothing about nuclear power, or the complexities of building a reactor. Why don't they build these things below ground level so that if something like this happens, they can just pour in water - or even seal the thing off with tons of concrete?
I've picked a few laptops for people recently. The most important thing to find out up front is your screen size - do you want a huge 17" or do you want a 10" netbook? or something in between? Once you've figured that out, find one that has a reasonable resolution. A lot of laptop vendors are getting away with selling screens that have a low vertical pixel count - which is not OK with me... Find a nice screen with the size that you're looking for. Then find out which vendor is running a good deal on something that size. Also be careful picking your vendor - they're all made out of the same stuff, but some tend to break more easily than others. Pay for the upgrades that are reasonably priced - get a decent processor. Spend the extra hundred or so on an SSD (not sure if the vendors offer this yet, you might have to get your own) - it'll improve performance dramatically.
And it's not religion, it's a hypothesis. I've thought about it for years and it's a good hypothesis. It could explain dark matter and cosmic rays (they don't pass through matter, they go around it - they come from a different location in space and as they do, they oscillate back and forth through our 3-dimensional space driven by gravity). If you can wrap your head around my 2d analogy, you can picture matter oscillating above and below the sheet of paper as it travels through the 2d space. It's gravity is always apparent, yet it can only be 'seen' when it passes through the paper.
I'm making analogies of 2 dimensional space since it's easier to understand - not because it could actually be real. The record is the same concept. Entire galaxies could exist that we can't see because it's not in the same 3 dimensional space as we are - thus it's light doesn't register with our eyes or our instruments. It's gravity certainly would though. No I have no proof - it's a concept that I have pondered for many years. You take the idea that we exist in a very special part of the universe and gather all of our knowledge, and run all of our science from here - then you try to imagine what could be true, given those constraints. We live on a node of mass, and much of the scientific knowledge that we have collected is gathered from experiments that take place under these very special conditions. Use your imagination, drop the pre-conceptions based on the special conditions that we live under, and think of what could be.
What I'm picturing is, that is exacly analogous to our existence - we are three dimensional beings, when the reality is that there are completely different spatial directions that we're naive to. If we could have a machine that could move an inch in that direction, it would vanish from sight - but it's impossible; just like it would be impossible for the two dimensional beings to access the third dimension. It's gravity and the fact that most of the local matter exists in these three dimensions that binds us here. Matter may behave differently - or strangely to us away from nodes of mass, oscilating in and out of our normal 3 dimensional space. Perhaps this is what dark matter is - the collection of matter that at any given time is not in the same 3 dimensional space as us.
How would we actually KNOW if space is more than 3 dimensional? I don't think we can... Draw a picture of a sun, and a planet. Imagine that there are 2-dimensional people living in this 2d world. How would they ever know about a piece of matter that was raised off of paper? Their sun reflects light off of their 2 dimensional objects and into their 2 dimensional eyes. They aren't built to be able to access anything in any other dimensions.
I think that our assumption that space is 3 dimensional is a bit self centered. If we lived in 2 dimensional space, we'd never be able to consider or access the 3'rd dimension. Gravity pulls matter into as few dimensions as possible, but it's possible that the universe is like a warped record where most matter exists in a different 4'th dimensional plane than ours. Cosmic rays are just matter moving really fast that came from a different position in a higher dimension - they don't pass through objects, they go around them.
Actually, this is the one plus that I can see to living in the NorthEast (MA). No earthquakes, no tornadoes - by the time the hurricanes get to us, they're all but a bit of wind and rain. When my golf ball goes into the woods, there's nothing in there that's going to bite me that is venemous... But we gotta deal with the long Winter and snow...
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I thought about this, and decided to set up a TRS-80 Color Computer emulator in the hopes that the kids would take to it and want to learn how to program it. It's as simple as it gets - real-time basic built right into the OS. The only bummer is that i can't find the original books that came with it - there was one for BASIC, one for EXTENDED BASIC and one for DISK BASIC... Alas the kids just aren't interested. They just don't seem to have the attention span or patience.
That's correct - I did. As time goes on, and they reduce service in an attempt to increase cost, will I eventually be able to choose to eliminate my use of the product? It's hard to do - to go backwards in technology. Once you have something, it's tough to give it up. Most of the people that you see walking around with iPhones - I have to assume they can't really afford them. I say it's 'evil' because of the nature of corporations today. It isn't enough to provide a useful service and make a constant profit, there has to be growth. In order to achieve that growth, these companies push and squeeze. And to counter your point, when I chose to buy the product that Verizon offered, it was an unlimited data plan - they've change the product post-purchase.
When I find that my finances come up short some months - I wonder what the hell I'm doing wrong, I barely go out anymore, I don't buy anymore fancy computers, and I don't even have nice clothes anymore. So I do the balance sheet and I realize that (this is a family of 4) between Comcast and Verizon Wireless, I'm spending about $400 / month on "Living expenses" that just didn't exist when my parents were young, raising children and paying a mortgage. It occurs to me that Verizon is really evil... Now that we're all hooked, they're going to keep finding new ways to get another $10 / line out of everyone and they're not gonna go back on it. You want to have an iPhone like everyone else? Yeah? That's an extra $30 a month. (My wife complained until I got her one). But this stuff is starting to interfere with my ability to pay my mortgage and save for my kids' future education. I would love to let my contracts expire and tell them to cancel everything... But then we'd be like the only people without the ability to text (an extra $5 per line per month!!). The whole thing is getting silly and while I usually try to avoid things that are silly - I can't see a way out of this one.
Not open as in open source, but they can't lock these things down. I can download .cab files to do anything I want and there's no way they can really stop it. I don't have to go through any store or such nonsense. I'm not sure if WP7 is as open, but i'm hard pressed to let go of my 6.5 phone. It does everything I would want it to - for free.
The answer to your first question is - No, not really. There are not any rocky planets in the habitable zone that have had magnetic fields for billions of years. Mercury has one, but it's in close proximity to a large body (the sun). I'm not sure if there's any way to detect a magnetic field from a distance - so I wonder if the whole search for exoplanets in the habitable zone has any point to it. I'd like to at least hear someone (who is supposed to know) talk about the requirement - or not - of a magnetic field for life. As for your last paragraph - my understanding is that the answer is yes. The reason that no biological process could take advantage of this type of radiation is because the damage is done at a molecular level.
It seems to me like one of the factors that is essential for complex life to evolve is the presence of a magnetic field, in order to protect life (and a thin atmosphere) from the harmful effects of the sun. While we're at it with the search for extraterrestrial life - shouldn't the presence of a magnetic field be one of the "must have"s? I've always been under the impression that the large moon is what keeps the Earth's core churning and thus the magnetic field - but maybe that's less fact and more something that I came to believe on my own.
How could we know if it was related to some sort of an impact?
Or is it just the light bending around the massive galactic center that makes it look warped from our perspective?
I would argue that a single talented software coder could produce better software than the entire Boeing team and all their process could in about the same amount of time. Process is a way to take talentless people and still bang out a product, pretty much by brute force.
Do you think Mark Russinovich used development processes when he created the SysInternal suite of tools for Windows (perhaps the best set of developer tools ever made)? For great developers, process just gets in the way. For the other 95%, process is necessary.
It needs to be broken down into parts... At some point we'll realize (or maybe not) that a vehicle that gets us from the ground to orbit is a completely different thing from a vehicle that gets us from one orbit to another. It's analogous to trying to use a boat to get from a point 100 miles inland on the US East Coast to a point 100 miles inland Europe. Sure, the boat is a good tool for most of the journey, but you need a different type of vehicle to traverse the 100 miles.
I honestly don't know... But if I had to guess, I'd say that the lack of education leaves a void which religion fills nicely. Afterall, that's what it's designed to do, isn't it?
You miss the whole point... My wife is a great mom, keeps a clean house, and does great work at her office. She does not have a brain that is capable of understanding a fraction of the science that I do. (DISCLAIMER: This doesn't make her a bad wife or person, honey). The point of the article is: To her, science is a faith - because she completely lacks the foundation to understand any of it. The point of the article is to say that a high percentage of the population is too uneducated in science for it to be anything other than faith that it's true.
You might give people too much credit... I used to try to explain computers to my dad (30 years ago) when I was 10, and even back then he refused to believe that my Trs80 could do math calculations faster than he could in his head. All of these things that are in most people's lives these days - computers, phones, all the new technology that everyone uses in the past decade - are so far beyond the comprehension of most of the population that I can't even imagine what it would be like to know that little.
Yes and no... My parents use a computer every day - but they don't really get the concept that an operating system or an application is something that a team of engineers had to create. To them, I imagine a computer is a magic box that allows them to 'open their internets'. Since they don't understand the root concepts of software engineering - just like the article says, they have to take it on faith that I actually do something when I go to work every day. When you explain science to people using broad strokes, as you suggested, they usually just nod and brush it off - maybe they think i'm bs'ing them, who knows. WHen I try to explain to my wife that the Earth is part of a solar system and there are billions of solar systems in a galaxy and billions of galaxies - well to her that is much less tangible than the idea that god created the earth in 7 days.
That's exactly right, as is the article... It's all a great explanation for the phenomena that I haven't been able to put words to myself. For example, as a software engineer, I can't explain to friends or family what it is that I do - they just don't get it.
Fair enough, though I'll add (from my own input and from above comments): good points: [x] Tsunami proof bad points: [x] Cooling complexities
I admittedly know very little to nothing about nuclear power, or the complexities of building a reactor. Why don't they build these things below ground level so that if something like this happens, they can just pour in water - or even seal the thing off with tons of concrete?
I've picked a few laptops for people recently. The most important thing to find out up front is your screen size - do you want a huge 17" or do you want a 10" netbook? or something in between? Once you've figured that out, find one that has a reasonable resolution. A lot of laptop vendors are getting away with selling screens that have a low vertical pixel count - which is not OK with me... Find a nice screen with the size that you're looking for. Then find out which vendor is running a good deal on something that size. Also be careful picking your vendor - they're all made out of the same stuff, but some tend to break more easily than others. Pay for the upgrades that are reasonably priced - get a decent processor. Spend the extra hundred or so on an SSD (not sure if the vendors offer this yet, you might have to get your own) - it'll improve performance dramatically.
And it's not religion, it's a hypothesis. I've thought about it for years and it's a good hypothesis. It could explain dark matter and cosmic rays (they don't pass through matter, they go around it - they come from a different location in space and as they do, they oscillate back and forth through our 3-dimensional space driven by gravity). If you can wrap your head around my 2d analogy, you can picture matter oscillating above and below the sheet of paper as it travels through the 2d space. It's gravity is always apparent, yet it can only be 'seen' when it passes through the paper.
I'm making analogies of 2 dimensional space since it's easier to understand - not because it could actually be real. The record is the same concept. Entire galaxies could exist that we can't see because it's not in the same 3 dimensional space as we are - thus it's light doesn't register with our eyes or our instruments. It's gravity certainly would though. No I have no proof - it's a concept that I have pondered for many years. You take the idea that we exist in a very special part of the universe and gather all of our knowledge, and run all of our science from here - then you try to imagine what could be true, given those constraints. We live on a node of mass, and much of the scientific knowledge that we have collected is gathered from experiments that take place under these very special conditions. Use your imagination, drop the pre-conceptions based on the special conditions that we live under, and think of what could be.
What I'm picturing is, that is exacly analogous to our existence - we are three dimensional beings, when the reality is that there are completely different spatial directions that we're naive to. If we could have a machine that could move an inch in that direction, it would vanish from sight - but it's impossible; just like it would be impossible for the two dimensional beings to access the third dimension. It's gravity and the fact that most of the local matter exists in these three dimensions that binds us here. Matter may behave differently - or strangely to us away from nodes of mass, oscilating in and out of our normal 3 dimensional space. Perhaps this is what dark matter is - the collection of matter that at any given time is not in the same 3 dimensional space as us.
How would we actually KNOW if space is more than 3 dimensional? I don't think we can... Draw a picture of a sun, and a planet. Imagine that there are 2-dimensional people living in this 2d world. How would they ever know about a piece of matter that was raised off of paper? Their sun reflects light off of their 2 dimensional objects and into their 2 dimensional eyes. They aren't built to be able to access anything in any other dimensions.
I think that our assumption that space is 3 dimensional is a bit self centered. If we lived in 2 dimensional space, we'd never be able to consider or access the 3'rd dimension. Gravity pulls matter into as few dimensions as possible, but it's possible that the universe is like a warped record where most matter exists in a different 4'th dimensional plane than ours. Cosmic rays are just matter moving really fast that came from a different position in a higher dimension - they don't pass through objects, they go around them.
Actually, this is the one plus that I can see to living in the NorthEast (MA). No earthquakes, no tornadoes - by the time the hurricanes get to us, they're all but a bit of wind and rain. When my golf ball goes into the woods, there's nothing in there that's going to bite me that is venemous... But we gotta deal with the long Winter and snow...