I second that. Where I live, it's very hot all summer, and the local utility gives free thermostats to anyone who signs up for central control of their air conditioner. They guarantee your AC will be off a maximum of 10 minutes per half-hour, and only between 4 p.m and 8 p.m. The capability is only actually used a couple of times a year.
Assuming your house has any insulation at all, it's practically unnoticeable, because you can still run the AC 20 minutes out of every 30. But it lets the utility keep rates down for everyone. Altruism lives, I guess.
From the article, the changing rooms are made of clear glass that goes opaque when you and your RFID tag enter. "Once inside, the customer can switch the doors back to transparent at the touch of a switch, exposing themselves to onlookers waiting outside the room."
Maybe I'm missing something, but what about "unsubscribe" messages? By definition, it's to an address or domain from which I no longer want to receive anything... I guess you just have to remember to go and delete it from your "sent to" whitelist before the spammer picks up on your address being legit?
(Most of us probably gave up back in the early days on trying to unsubscribe to anything, due to the prevalence of bogus headers, but people who try to unsubscribe may do themselves more harm than good - kind of like the current situation)!
Set up a SimHMO next to your favorite McD's. Then organize some of your friends to stumble over from the restaurant, clutching their grease-laden aortas.
Then pretend to let them writhe in agony because their insurance isn't in the right network. (Health care, American-style).
It might not solve creeping corporatism, but it could be good for a larf.
More Fun with Molecules
on
Science Askew
·
· Score: 1
Two molecules are walking down the street. Molecule #1: Oh my gosh, stop, I've lost an electron! Molecule #2: Oh, no! Are you sure? Molecule #1: Yeah, man, I'm positive!
> "The amount of radioactivity is so miniscule > that you don't have to worry about it as much."
Ah, we've come such a long way since the days when it was feared that holding a cell phone to your head would give you brain tumors. Oh, wait a minute...
Unfortunately, even Hubble does not have the resolution. At that distance, it cannot make out features less than about 60 feet (20 m) across, and the moon-landing footprints are just too small. (To-do list for next time: Take along 100-meter-high NASA logo flag).
Of course, the astronauts left little mirrors, off which lots of people regularly bounce laser beams, which should satisfy anybody. Unless ooh.. all that laser data is faked too!;-)
For those wildly speculating or just wondering about the research races, patent conundrums, ethical dilemmas and personalities involved, the book Curing Cancer : Solving One of the Greatest Medical Mysteries of Our Time, by Michael Waldholz, covers the race for BRCA-1 (the first gene really linked to hereditary breast cancer) up to about 1995. The founders of Myriad are an important part of the story, and it's an interesting read.
I have been friends with key founding personnel of Myriad for over 30 years now, and I believe they are sincerely devoted to improving humankind's lot. Although the ethical issues raised are very sticky, there would not have been a good gene test to be fighting over so soon if it were not for their research. But Myriad is now a public company, and unfortunately the almighty buck (a.k.a. stockholder value) governs their decisions much more than in the early, research-oriented days of the company. I think the failing is not with Myriad's medical ethics, but with the insanely high quarterly returns that are demanded of public companies, regardless of any Bad Things that may result for society (and/or Canada;-) ).
Is there anyone in the astronomical community who can explain the apparent desire to "de-list" Pluto as a planet? It's not like a diving.com stock that NASDAQ can just yank. It seems to fit the accepted definition of "planet" (a non-luminous hunk of something that is larger than an asteroid and orbits the sun only somewhat eccentrically**) even if we later discover it is not even the largest object in the Kuiper Belt. If the line between "big asteroid" and "planet" is arbitrary, why the desire to shift the cutoff and exclude Pluto? It'll have no effect on the planet, just on textbooks and things. Will we have to start referring to it as "The Asteroid Formerly Known As Pluto"?
**Obligatory Dom DeLuise joke here.
Re:vi keys? You guys really are nerds
on
Google Experiments
·
· Score: 1
Well, it's called "News for Nerds" now, innit? Besides, "k" and "i" are definitely not "down" and "up" in Windows either.
From the Wired article: "For commercial use, the first application will probably be a battery charger -- if not actually in a laptop it could sit beside it," Frechette said. "Instead of having to get to an AC outlet, you can carry your power supply along with you."
This seems bass-ackwards to me. If the engine is in your laptop, it's "the battery" as far as a consumer is concerned. And if you run out of fuel in this engine, you have to get to a can of lighter fluid (or whatever), which is probably harder to find than an AC outlet (and relatively hard to get past airport security these days too).
If the first commercial application is a difficult, external battery charger, it will fail. Too bad, because small power sources have so many excellent possibilities. I hope this guy is a scientist and not a marketer.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not forget to cc: the Railroad Commission on the Island of Misfit Toys!
If you record more than half of your life, well, there just isn't going to be time to sift through it all before it's over...
I second that. Where I live, it's very hot all summer, and the local utility gives free thermostats to anyone who signs up for central control of their air conditioner. They guarantee your AC will be off a maximum of 10 minutes per half-hour, and only between 4 p.m and 8 p.m. The capability is only actually used a couple of times a year.
Assuming your house has any insulation at all, it's practically unnoticeable, because you can still run the AC 20 minutes out of every 30. But it lets the utility keep rates down for everyone. Altruism lives, I guess.
> With a geosat
I guess I'm slightly dyslexic, and have been reading Slashdot too long, because I read that first as "goatse". Sigh.
From the article, the changing rooms are made of clear glass that goes opaque when you and your RFID tag enter. "Once inside, the customer can switch the doors back to transparent at the touch of a switch, exposing themselves to onlookers waiting outside the room."
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Y2K Dogbert quote: because it's "a big, round number... biigg and rouunndd...". Mwahahahaa!
> because I don't *exersize* that ability enough.
I agree. And the same thing seems to be happening because of spell-checkers!
D: Profit!!!
Maybe I'm missing something, but what about "unsubscribe" messages? By definition, it's to an address or domain from which I no longer want to receive anything... I guess you just have to remember to go and delete it from your "sent to" whitelist before the spammer picks up on your address being legit?
(Most of us probably gave up back in the early days on trying to unsubscribe to anything, due to the prevalence of bogus headers, but people who try to unsubscribe may do themselves more harm than good - kind of like the current situation)!
Set up a SimHMO next to your favorite McD's. Then organize some of your friends to stumble over from the restaurant, clutching their grease-laden aortas.
Then pretend to let them writhe in agony because their insurance isn't in the right network. (Health care, American-style).
It might not solve creeping corporatism, but it could be good for a larf.
Two molecules are walking down the street.
Molecule #1: Oh my gosh, stop, I've lost an electron!
Molecule #2: Oh, no! Are you sure?
Molecule #1: Yeah, man, I'm positive!
*Bappita-bing*
> "The amount of radioactivity is so miniscule
> that you don't have to worry about it as much."
Ah, we've come such a long way since the days when it was feared that holding a cell phone to your head would give you brain tumors. Oh, wait a minute...
Unfortunately, even Hubble does not have the resolution. At that distance, it cannot make out features less than about 60 feet (20 m) across, and the moon-landing footprints are just too small. (To-do list for next time: Take along 100-meter-high NASA logo flag).
;-)
Of course, the astronauts left little mirrors, off which lots of people regularly bounce laser beams, which should satisfy anybody. Unless ooh.. all that laser data is faked too!
For those wildly speculating or just wondering about the research races, patent conundrums, ethical dilemmas and personalities involved, the book Curing Cancer : Solving One of the Greatest Medical Mysteries of Our Time, by Michael Waldholz, covers the race for BRCA-1 (the first gene really linked to hereditary breast cancer) up to about 1995. The founders of Myriad are an important part of the story, and it's an interesting read.
;-) ).
I have been friends with key founding personnel of Myriad for over 30 years now, and I believe they are sincerely devoted to improving humankind's lot. Although the ethical issues raised are very sticky, there would not have been a good gene test to be fighting over so soon if it were not for their research. But Myriad is now a public company, and unfortunately the almighty buck (a.k.a. stockholder value) governs their decisions much more than in the early, research-oriented days of the company. I think the failing is not with Myriad's medical ethics, but with the insanely high quarterly returns that are demanded of public companies, regardless of any Bad Things that may result for society (and/or Canada
Is there anyone in the astronomical community who can explain the apparent desire to "de-list" Pluto as a planet? It's not like a diving .com stock that NASDAQ can just yank. It seems to fit the accepted definition of "planet" (a non-luminous hunk of something that is larger than an asteroid and orbits the sun only somewhat eccentrically**) even if we later discover it is not even the largest object in the Kuiper Belt. If the line between "big asteroid" and "planet" is arbitrary, why the desire to shift the cutoff and exclude Pluto? It'll have no effect on the planet, just on textbooks and things. Will we have to start referring to it as "The Asteroid Formerly Known As Pluto"?
**Obligatory Dom DeLuise joke here.
Well, it's called "News for Nerds" now, innit? Besides, "k" and "i" are definitely not "down" and "up" in Windows either.
Yeah, you might get a splinter!
From the Wired article: "For commercial use, the first application will probably be a battery charger -- if not actually in a laptop it could sit beside it," Frechette said. "Instead of having to get to an AC outlet, you can carry your power supply along with you."
This seems bass-ackwards to me. If the engine is in your laptop, it's "the battery" as far as a consumer is concerned. And if you run out of fuel in this engine, you have to get to a can of lighter fluid (or whatever), which is probably harder to find than an AC outlet (and relatively hard to get past airport security these days too).
If the first commercial application is a difficult, external battery charger, it will fail. Too bad, because small power sources have so many excellent possibilities. I hope this guy is a scientist and not a marketer.