Well-funded governments or criminal organizations could take advantage of this, but I guarantee you that J-random-cracker in his basement is NOT going to be able to build a quantum computer.
This poses a big threat to governments, and possibly financial institutions, but not individuals. Nobody is going to spend millions of dollars to build a working quantum computer just so they can steal your credit card number. If I had a quantum computer I would use it to blackmail entire governments, not harass the little folk.
I'm excited because this is the first filter I've heard of than can get the viruses. But I wonder if that makes it even MORE susceptible to clogging by glacial "flour," the super-fine particulate which is found in glacial runoff.
I've drank glacial runoff that looked exactly like MILK before. It was close to the source, so I didn't purify it. But I would never run such water through a filter because you are guaranteed to destroy it. You have to at least let it settle for a good 24 hours in a container before filtration, and even then I'd be hesitant to do it.
I always carry them. And don't buy the "odor neutralizing" pills which clear the iodine, that is a fucking gimmick. Those pills are nothing but ascorbic acid -- Vitamin C -- which you can buy for WAY cheaper than those neutralizers sell for.
The problem with iodine is that it takes a long time to work -- up to 45 minutes. When you're extremely thirsty, it's easy to get impatient and drink the water too soon, which negates any benefit of treating it in the first place.
The likelihood that you have a PC that old is miniscule, given the shitty quality of x86 commodity hardware. PS die, HDs die, when you upgrade CPUs, you need a new motherboard, etc.
It's easy to think that when you live in a rich country. And x86 hardware has gone DOWN in quality over the years. I still have an 8088 with a 20 megabyte hard drive that works just fine. I have a 286 "portable" (the size of a suitcase) with built-in CRT which works just fine. I have a 20 MHz 486-SX that works just fine. Today's stuff is shit. You will find plenty of extremely old hardware out there, puttering along.
We're not talking about cold and flu. We're talking about giardia, tapeworm, hantavirus, and a whole bunch of other incredibly bad diseases which you do NOT want to be exposed to EVER in your life. You can't develop an immunity if you are DEAD.
I drink untreated water from mountain streams but only in certain circumstances. I imagine that at some point in the future, I will fuck up and get very, very sick. I'm sure that I would never drink untreated water again, if that happened.
Les Stroud -- the Survivorman guy -- got an amoebic infection of his mucous membranes which caused him great pain for almost a year. He finally decided to take some very strong antibiotic, which cured it.
I agree that we are way too paranoid about run-of-the-mill germs and viruses. The idea that we can somehow eliminate them all is crazy. But deliberately exposing yourself to extremely dangerous pathogens is STUPID.
The MSR pump allows you to exert a fair bit of force and you will get tired pumping a single liter.
The MSR has a coarser (more open filter).
The MSR will start to clog withing tens of liters of what looks like fairly clean water. You then need to clean the filter.
You forgot: The MSR tube has a tendency to kink where it meets the filter barrel, causing reduced flow and pissing you off eternally:-)
It's possible to make a water bladder out of leather or plastic and hook it up to such a filter for gravity-feed. You fill the bladder, hang the whole contraption from a tree, and an hour later you've got a gallon of filtered water.
Water filters can be a pain but they give you so much freedom in the outdoors.
A straw costing 3 US$ - Purifies minimum 700 litres of water - Kills and removes 99.999% of all waterborne bacteria - Kills and removes 98.7% of all waterborne viruses
The 1.3% of viruses that make it through will cause you to hate life. 98.7% is better than nothing but not good enough. If I suspect viral contamination of a water source I always boil it. Even iodine is not guaranteed to kill it all. It only takes one viral particle to infect you.
That product is exceedingly cool, though. A great alternative to a traditional filter.
Uh... How is that supposed to be impressive? This is exactly how we all used to install Linux before the age of bootable CD-ROMS. You'd make a root floppy, boot into Windows, and run LOADLIN.
So yeah, I truly congratulate them on achieving what we already had in 1995.
I'm totally clueless as to what you mean. My point is that if you're competing against a bunch of other scientists for funding and you win, it JUST MIGHT mean that you're not COMPLETELY nuts.
But go ahead and label me a "socialist" if you want. Although I don't see how politics is even relevant.
Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't. I'm not exactly holding my breath for it, but string theory hardly falls into the category of "crackpot science." It receives government funding for jab's sake.
Admittedly, there is an active and very loud group which has been theorizing that string theory will - at some point in the future - provide a grand unified theory of physics that is testable.
If there is indeed a "theory of everything," it may be so far outside the range of our current intellect that the complete development of the theory could take centuries. If we are willing to throw away anything just because it hasn't made a new prediction within 30 years, we might be dooming ourselves to NEVER figure it out.
String theory should be discarded. It's a fanciful religion that explains nothing, but creates a lot of stuff that needs explaining.
It explains everything we have ever observed. However, this is not enough. String theory will not come into its own until it makes a prediction of a phenomenon we have NEVER observed before. Only then will it prove more useful than current theories.
Now, it's easy to construct a theory which explains everything ever observed -- simply enumerate the universe and say "that's it." But that's not what string theory is. Tomorrow, somebody could discover something in the math that actually makes a testable prediction about something we've never seen before. You have not asserted a single reason why this could not be the case.
If it can't be tested, it's not science...it's pseudoscience.
String theory makes tons of predictions, all of which align perfectly well with reality. So in that sense, it is testable. However, is does not (yet) predict anything that HASN'T ALREADY BEEN EXPLAINED by other theories. It meshes PERFECTLY with our observations. But nobody has yet used it to predict something that has never been observed before.
Calling string theory "untestable" is ignorant. It makes extremely concrete predictions which are borne out in reality.
I would say, "Attempt to maximize my profit." Let's be real here. This is business, not a conference with RMS as keynote speaker. The goal, obviously, is to make truckloads of money, not "offer value" or "act competitively." These are merely CONSEQUENCES of the quest for money. So you price your product so as to maximize this profit. Sometimes this price is high, sometimes low.
It's hard to apply basic supply-and-demand thinking to these problems because with software there is really no "supply" problem. A company can't "run out of copies" to sell. Therefore, price must be based entirely on demand. It would be insane not to set a price which maximizes profit. The GP was simply pointing out that in general, this "maximum point" is reached at higher prices when the number of sales is low, and lower prices when the number of sales is high. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that statement.
I've done the same sort of thing with my GPL Palm software, Contraction Timer. It isn't nagware or anything, but there's a request for donations in the About box.
There's no harm in asking. But really... Why would a person pay for a piece of software that they will probably use ONCE? My wife used a web-based contraction timer when she went into labor. It never would have occurred to me that there are for-pay products out there that do that.
This is not a dig on you or your software at all, btw.
I agree, you just have to see the hundreds of computers I have seen in several different government offices that use WinZip, they invariably show the startup nag screen telling you how many thousands of files have you compressed and asking you to buy it... of course, you just have to click the continue button and keep using it..
Somebody actually wrote a program that would automatically click the Continue button for you. The guys at WinZip got around that by making the Continue button actually CHANGE POSITION on the dialog -- basically, switching places with the Cancel button at random -- so that the clicker program couldn't click it reliably.
The products I work on have a web-based registration method, but that's not the only way they could be licensed. If you want protection from our company going out of business, you are free to purchase a "physical license" which will work in perpetuity. It doesn't cost anything different. It's your choice.
Things that are apt to blow up while being mixed, or things that will emit fumes that slowly kill/dull the bomb makers
Are you seriously suggesting this? For years there have been a series of busts of bomb-making rings in urban settings. These people were cooking, preparing to cook, or actually had, explosive materials. The last thing I want is for those people who are right in the middle of the city to cause a huge explosion because somebody gave them bogus information. That's not any better than if they'd targetted their attack.
You did it wrong. Do you plan to sue the guy? A better option would be to reveal his NAME and the NAME OF HIS BUSINESS to us. That way, we can call him up with profanities, write him nasty emails, etc. Right now, all we can do is bitch about some anonymous asshole. Give us details. Who is the idiot perpetrator?
The point: Don't go into software development as a profession if you're in it for the money. You won't want the profession, and the profession doesn't want you. If you're in it for something other than the money -- come on in, the water's fine.
Can I hug and kiss you? Seriously, it's not a sexual thing.
A small spark of sanity in a dreary world of stupidity. Thanks.
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Well-funded governments or criminal organizations could take advantage of this, but I guarantee you that J-random-cracker in his basement is NOT going to be able to build a quantum computer.
This poses a big threat to governments, and possibly financial institutions, but not individuals. Nobody is going to spend millions of dollars to build a working quantum computer just so they can steal your credit card number. If I had a quantum computer I would use it to blackmail entire governments, not harass the little folk.
I'm excited because this is the first filter I've heard of than can get the viruses. But I wonder if that makes it even MORE susceptible to clogging by glacial "flour," the super-fine particulate which is found in glacial runoff.
I've drank glacial runoff that looked exactly like MILK before. It was close to the source, so I didn't purify it. But I would never run such water through a filter because you are guaranteed to destroy it. You have to at least let it settle for a good 24 hours in a container before filtration, and even then I'd be hesitant to do it.
I always carry them. And don't buy the "odor neutralizing" pills which clear the iodine, that is a fucking gimmick. Those pills are nothing but ascorbic acid -- Vitamin C -- which you can buy for WAY cheaper than those neutralizers sell for.
The problem with iodine is that it takes a long time to work -- up to 45 minutes. When you're extremely thirsty, it's easy to get impatient and drink the water too soon, which negates any benefit of treating it in the first place.
The likelihood that you have a PC that old is miniscule, given the shitty quality of x86 commodity hardware. PS die, HDs die, when you upgrade CPUs, you need a new motherboard, etc.
It's easy to think that when you live in a rich country. And x86 hardware has gone DOWN in quality over the years. I still have an 8088 with a 20 megabyte hard drive that works just fine. I have a 286 "portable" (the size of a suitcase) with built-in CRT which works just fine. I have a 20 MHz 486-SX that works just fine. Today's stuff is shit. You will find plenty of extremely old hardware out there, puttering along.
We're not talking about cold and flu. We're talking about giardia, tapeworm, hantavirus, and a whole bunch of other incredibly bad diseases which you do NOT want to be exposed to EVER in your life. You can't develop an immunity if you are DEAD.
I drink untreated water from mountain streams but only in certain circumstances. I imagine that at some point in the future, I will fuck up and get very, very sick. I'm sure that I would never drink untreated water again, if that happened.
Les Stroud -- the Survivorman guy -- got an amoebic infection of his mucous membranes which caused him great pain for almost a year. He finally decided to take some very strong antibiotic, which cured it.
I agree that we are way too paranoid about run-of-the-mill germs and viruses. The idea that we can somehow eliminate them all is crazy. But deliberately exposing yourself to extremely dangerous pathogens is STUPID.
A sodium ion has a radius of around 100 PICOmeters. So no, you can't filter it with this.
There are membranes which can remove ions, but that is typically referred to as "reverse osmosis," not filtration.
The MSR pump allows you to exert a fair bit of force and you will get tired pumping a single liter.
The MSR has a coarser (more open filter).
The MSR will start to clog withing tens of liters of what looks like fairly clean water. You then need to clean the filter.
You forgot: The MSR tube has a tendency to kink where it meets the filter barrel, causing reduced flow and pissing you off eternally :-)
It's possible to make a water bladder out of leather or plastic and hook it up to such a filter for gravity-feed. You fill the bladder, hang the whole contraption from a tree, and an hour later you've got a gallon of filtered water.
Water filters can be a pain but they give you so much freedom in the outdoors.
A straw costing 3 US$ - Purifies minimum 700 litres of water - Kills and removes 99.999% of all waterborne bacteria - Kills and removes 98.7% of all waterborne viruses
The 1.3% of viruses that make it through will cause you to hate life. 98.7% is better than nothing but not good enough. If I suspect viral contamination of a water source I always boil it. Even iodine is not guaranteed to kill it all. It only takes one viral particle to infect you.
That product is exceedingly cool, though. A great alternative to a traditional filter.
That isn't "MacGyver," it's a well-known technique that EVERYBODY who goes out in the wild should know. It's called a "solar still."
If you need a Windows application to install Linux you are not ready for Linux.
Yeah. Because people without a CD-ROM drive or a BIOS with CD-boot capability don't deserve to run Linux! You're a moron.
Uh... How is that supposed to be impressive? This is exactly how we all used to install Linux before the age of bootable CD-ROMS. You'd make a root floppy, boot into Windows, and run LOADLIN.
So yeah, I truly congratulate them on achieving what we already had in 1995.
I'm totally clueless as to what you mean. My point is that if you're competing against a bunch of other scientists for funding and you win, it JUST MIGHT mean that you're not COMPLETELY nuts.
But go ahead and label me a "socialist" if you want. Although I don't see how politics is even relevant.
And that's the problem!
Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't. I'm not exactly holding my breath for it, but string theory hardly falls into the category of "crackpot science." It receives government funding for jab's sake.
Admittedly, there is an active and very loud group which has been theorizing that string theory will - at some point in the future - provide a grand unified theory of physics that is testable.
If there is indeed a "theory of everything," it may be so far outside the range of our current intellect that the complete development of the theory could take centuries. If we are willing to throw away anything just because it hasn't made a new prediction within 30 years, we might be dooming ourselves to NEVER figure it out.
String theory should be discarded. It's a fanciful religion that explains nothing, but creates a lot of stuff that needs explaining.
It explains everything we have ever observed. However, this is not enough. String theory will not come into its own until it makes a prediction of a phenomenon we have NEVER observed before. Only then will it prove more useful than current theories.
Now, it's easy to construct a theory which explains everything ever observed -- simply enumerate the universe and say "that's it." But that's not what string theory is. Tomorrow, somebody could discover something in the math that actually makes a testable prediction about something we've never seen before. You have not asserted a single reason why this could not be the case.
If it can't be tested, it's not science...it's pseudoscience.
String theory makes tons of predictions, all of which align perfectly well with reality. So in that sense, it is testable. However, is does not (yet) predict anything that HASN'T ALREADY BEEN EXPLAINED by other theories. It meshes PERFECTLY with our observations. But nobody has yet used it to predict something that has never been observed before.
Calling string theory "untestable" is ignorant. It makes extremely concrete predictions which are borne out in reality.
I would say, "Attempt to maximize my profit." Let's be real here. This is business, not a conference with RMS as keynote speaker. The goal, obviously, is to make truckloads of money, not "offer value" or "act competitively." These are merely CONSEQUENCES of the quest for money. So you price your product so as to maximize this profit. Sometimes this price is high, sometimes low.
It's hard to apply basic supply-and-demand thinking to these problems because with software there is really no "supply" problem. A company can't "run out of copies" to sell. Therefore, price must be based entirely on demand. It would be insane not to set a price which maximizes profit. The GP was simply pointing out that in general, this "maximum point" is reached at higher prices when the number of sales is low, and lower prices when the number of sales is high. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that statement.
I've done the same sort of thing with my GPL Palm software, Contraction Timer. It isn't nagware or anything, but there's a request for donations in the About box.
There's no harm in asking. But really... Why would a person pay for a piece of software that they will probably use ONCE? My wife used a web-based contraction timer when she went into labor. It never would have occurred to me that there are for-pay products out there that do that.
This is not a dig on you or your software at all, btw.
I agree, you just have to see the hundreds of computers I have seen in several different government offices that use WinZip, they invariably show the startup nag screen telling you how many thousands of files have you compressed and asking you to buy it... of course, you just have to click the continue button and keep using it..
Somebody actually wrote a program that would automatically click the Continue button for you. The guys at WinZip got around that by making the Continue button actually CHANGE POSITION on the dialog -- basically, switching places with the Cancel button at random -- so that the clicker program couldn't click it reliably.
I've always thought that was hilarious.
The products I work on have a web-based registration method, but that's not the only way they could be licensed. If you want protection from our company going out of business, you are free to purchase a "physical license" which will work in perpetuity. It doesn't cost anything different. It's your choice.
Things that are apt to blow up while being mixed, or things that will emit fumes that slowly kill/dull the bomb makers
Are you seriously suggesting this? For years there have been a series of busts of bomb-making rings in urban settings. These people were cooking, preparing to cook, or actually had, explosive materials. The last thing I want is for those people who are right in the middle of the city to cause a huge explosion because somebody gave them bogus information. That's not any better than if they'd targetted their attack.
You did it wrong. Do you plan to sue the guy? A better option would be to reveal his NAME and the NAME OF HIS BUSINESS to us. That way, we can call him up with profanities, write him nasty emails, etc. Right now, all we can do is bitch about some anonymous asshole. Give us details. Who is the idiot perpetrator?
You on the other hand, you never do that?? Practice what YOU preach scumbag.
Who have I called a scumbag? Who have I dismissed out of hand? Either provide an example, or admit that your comment has no legitimate motivation.
The point: Don't go into software development as a profession if you're in it for the money. You won't want the profession, and the profession doesn't want you. If you're in it for something other than the money -- come on in, the water's fine.
Can I hug and kiss you? Seriously, it's not a sexual thing.
A small spark of sanity in a dreary world of stupidity. Thanks.
I enjoy picking up dog shit. I hope to make millions one day by doing this.