There have been a lot of alarming robot related stories on slashdot lately! Thankfully, I just renewed my Old Glory insurance policy with a robot plan. you should to! When the robots grab you with thier metal claws you cant break free, because they're made of metal and robots are strong.
*WARNING: Persons denying the existance of robots may be robots themselves.
Might this hypothesis be tested by using the KamLAND anti-neutrino oscilation detector to see the antineutrinos emitted by the beta decays from the fission products produced by the core(just like it sees them from our fission reactors)? I wonder if anyone has thought of doing this yet.
thankfully I just renewed my Old Glory insurance policy with a robot plan. you should to, when robots grab you with thier metal claws you cant break free, because they're made of metal, and robots are strong.
*Warning: persons denying the existance of robots may be robots themselves.
I'd like to point out that anyone interested in OLEDS may like to have a look at what they are really capable of. A year or so ago I saw a ~9 inch (diagonal) demo of a Kodak OLED and it was nothing short of AMAZING!!! The contrast ratio was extremely high (very black darks and bright areas right next to eachother), color saturation was great(far better than any LCD I've ever seen), switching time was super short (MICROseconds) so there is no blurring and the whole thing was no more than 2mm thick.
I love when people start their arguments with 'I'm not a scientist but who cares, obviously I'm right anyway'. Here's a hint, you didn't spend your life studying rock formations and chemical compositions etc. in excrutiating detail, SCIENTISTS DO.
Your statements that: "When you look back at the history of that explanation, it becomes pretty clear that nobody cared much, then someone noticed plant leaves and bark patterns in some lumps of coal and everyone said "Oh, that must have been it." (HINT: Petrified forests weren't grown by stone trees)" (care to explain this incomprehensible non-sequitur?)
and: "...the "fossil" explanation becomes pretty unlikely. When you look back at the history of that explanation, it becomes pretty clear that nobody cared much.." borders on the idiotic. Like I said before, peopledevote thier lives to the study of coal fossils, there are whole museums centered around the fact. Oh silly me though, I forgot, it's you the non-scientist who's the expert on these things.
What really irritates me about posts like yours is not the fact that you support a "crazy idea" in science as a pet theory; there's no problem with that. It's that you're so blinded by your own ignorance on the basic science underlying the theories you wish to supplant and simultaneously so laughably self confident despite that ignorance, that you end up making yourself look like an ass and making your theory look well...crazy.
"I heard an argument (BBC Radio4, "Moral Maze", ages ago) which claimed that paedophiles are 9 times more likely than a random selection to be homosexual, but I can't find anything else to back that up."
I'm surprised at this level of ignorance still exists today. I'm sorry to inform you that in fact, it's the reverse that's true. The FBI keeps statistics on just these sorts of things, and in fact 95% percent of child molestation cases are committed(bottom of page) by self-described heterosexuals. In fact homosexuals are no more likely(again, scroll to bottom of page) to abuse children than heterosexuals.
I can not help but also point out that your other argument:
"I find this parallel interesting. Homosexuality is arguably natural occurring but atypical (I choose those words carefully) - the same could be said for paedophiles. I would be surprised if they are a historically recent phenomena and they certainly make up a very small percentage of the population, yet their actions and desires are abhorent to the vast majority of us.
The same can be said of homosexuality 100 years ago."
-is also critically flawed.
You see, consensual homosexual acts cause harm to no one, while conversely, child molestation does indeed cause severe mental aguish and trauma to the victim.
I can't help but think that organization is BS. The initial acoustic cavitation fusion experiment which was said to have produced neutrons was never sucessfully repeated. The method described in that website of using Lithium as the cavitation "pusher" has, to my knowledge, not even been attempted or if it has, has never been published. As to their claim that "It is the goal of General Fusion to develop this reactor and generate clean, safe and economical fusion energy by the end of 2004."...well... that's just insane.
I suppose then it should also come as no surprise to you that France is building a new megajoule class laser (right on par with the US's NIF project) to test its nuclear weapon simulations.
As someone who works in the laser fusion camp(though just as a lowly technician), I feel obligated to point out that there may be something of a dark horse in the race to fusion power currently in the running... Besides the obvious method of magnetic confinement in Tokamaks and Stellarators, which do still have the best chance at becoming true fusion reactors of the future attaining ignition and breakeven; there is another way that inertial confinement fusion using lasers may still hold promise. There are 2 new beams (will be called "Omega EP")currently being built which will be added to the 60 beam 60 Terawatt Omega Laser in the next few years. What is special about these new lasers is they are over 1,000 TIMES more powerful than the old Omega beams at over 1 Petawatt each! The new lasers will be used to ignite a Hydrogen fuel capsule at exactly the moment of highest compression by the old Omega laser, sort of acting like a spark plug effect. The GekkoXII laser in Japan which has a (much weaker) Petawatt laser attached to it's also less powerful compressing laser recently verified this method as increasing fusion yield by a couple orders of magnitude, this puts the Omega laser as having a very high likelihood of igniting it's fusion capsules by using the new laser in conjunction with the old 60 beam Omega. If someone can then figure out how to ramp the laser up to a high pulse repetition rate (burning many capsules/second) possibly using a diode pumped Nd:glass system then you have a real contender for a fusion power plant.
what is "hydrogent"?:) The reason Hydrogen is not used and Xenon IS, is because xenon is ~130 times more massive per atom than Hydrogen is. Therefore you'll get much more momentum from accelerating the Xenon out the back of an ion engine at a given speed than you will a Hydrogen atom. And for that matter why stop at Xenon? This guy is working on Bismuth powered Hall thrusters.
As a (non degree) physics buff, I too have to agree that the first 2 hours were disappointing and too fluff filled (oooo..the QUANTUM cafe with Greene eating a donut and walking through walls to demonstrate Heisenberg uncertainty!!.... way too cornball and almost patronizing). However the third hour (on the next week) was actually pretty redeeming, explaining some things on m-theory and how string theory supposedly predicts Supersmmetry which with its Neutralinos and Photinos should be experimentally verifiable with the new Tev scale colliders coming on in the next few years (LHC et. al.) and how this will help explain dark matter. That was really interesting and exciting.
If a Tomarijuana (or some such) plant is ever made (and the insane inflation of the price of marijuana created by the War on Drugs virtually assures that it eventually will be) it won't be done by simple grafting. It will be done with gene splicing, the gene that encodes the THC production in MJ will be inserted into another organism which will then produce THC in it's own cells. I don't know why this hasn't been done yet, it seems almost trivial considering the number of genetically modified crops that already exist. BAKED POTatoes anyone? (sorry):-]
Is this the same Thomas Gold that dosen't understand simple thermodynamics? Thought so. I wouldn't trust his theories about the origins of petroleum reserves very much at all if I were you.
"Just like "In God We Trust" on dollar bills. Probably improper, I probably wouldn't have put it there myself, nor does it change my life drastically whether it's there or not. But now that it's there, leave it alone. Don't mess with our culture and traditions."
Yes indeed! While we're at it let's bring back slavery and end suffrage for women! These 'institutions' were part of our culture and tradition until some nogoodniks took them away from us! Yours is possibly the stupidest comment I've seen on/. in months.
mmmnope, sorry, actually it is just basic science. Electromagnetic radiation that is energetic enough per photon to eject an electron from an atom --> Ionizing radiation. Electromagnetic radiation that is NOT energetic enough to eject an electron from an atom --> non-Ionizing radiation. So yea pretty simple unless you have the IQ of a squirrel.
I wonder how quickly these idiots ran to their portable phones to call their lawyers in order to file this frivolous lawsuit. It's ironic that these people who are supposed to be products of an educational system which teaches basic science(for instance, oh I don't know....the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation) is now actively participating in the promotion of their children's scientific illiteracy. Horay for the triumph of knee jerk emotional reaction over rational analysis!!
The Titan Probe does indeed have cameras. It will take images all the way down once it passes the cloud deck and it even has the capability for rudimentary color images. Titan's beaches are in fact, just what we may see.
"It seems that, according to scientific philosophy today (and I say this as an observer, not a scientist), you still can't really believe this is _the_ truth about something. You have to keep thinking, "it might _not_ be true"."
I think basically that's right, it's just a matter of what theories we decide to keep testing to the limit to try to find any inconsistencies. For instance, when a new method of atomic mass spectroscopy is invented no one says 'hey I bet we could use this to test Dalton's theory of atoms down to the fraction of an AMU!', even though it could very well be used to do that. The reason we don't is because no one expects to find anything that would invalidate the atomic theory of elements. We know, however, that there must be something "beyond" Einstein's relativity in the same way that the orbit of mercury reveals a breakdown of Newtonian Physics. This experiment with Cassini was in a way looking for Einstein's 'Mercury problem'. The fact that it has not found any inconsistency with GR (along with countless other experiments done in the past century) is a testament to, not only our lack of tools to measure with extreme enough precision the physical phenomena effected by GR but also to the greatness of the theory of General Relativity itself. We will continue to test Einstein though, in December Gravity Probe B will be launched, using ultrahigh precision quartz sphere gyroscopes, it will be able to measure certain effects of GR to the parts per million range. Science is a search for ever greater truth.
May I take this opportunity to suggest you check out emusic.com. I signed up for the 3 month at $15 a month subscription a few weeks ago and it's already MORE than met my expectations. I have over 1.5GB downloaded of high quality LAME encoded VBR non DRM mp3's already and there's NO LIMIT to how many you can get. Yes, sadly, they're part of Vivendi, but profits are split 50/50 with the artists.
the problem is....I don't know what the problem is!!:) I am supplying 5V to them with an external power supply and they DO see eachother and link up in the config software they just don't transfer any information between devices!! oh well... back to the reseller they go.
Slashdot Mirror
There have been a lot of alarming robot related stories on slashdot lately! Thankfully, I just renewed my Old Glory insurance policy with a robot plan. you should to! When the robots grab you with thier metal claws you cant break free, because they're made of metal and robots are strong.
*WARNING: Persons denying the existance of robots may be robots themselves.
Might this hypothesis be tested by using the KamLAND anti-neutrino oscilation detector to see the antineutrinos emitted by the beta decays from the fission products produced by the core(just like it sees them from our fission reactors)? I wonder if anyone has thought of doing this yet.
thankfully I just renewed my Old Glory insurance policy with a robot plan. you should to, when robots grab you with thier metal claws you cant break free, because they're made of metal, and robots are strong.
*Warning: persons denying the existance of robots may be robots themselves.
I'd like to point out that anyone interested in OLEDS may like to have a look at what they are really capable of. A year or so ago I saw a ~9 inch (diagonal) demo of a Kodak OLED and it was nothing short of AMAZING!!! The contrast ratio was extremely high (very black darks and bright areas right next to eachother), color saturation was great(far better than any LCD I've ever seen), switching time was super short (MICROseconds) so there is no blurring and the whole thing was no more than 2mm thick.
Hear Hear! mod parent up! truly a drop of reason in a sea of nonsense.
I love when people start their arguments with 'I'm not a scientist but who cares, obviously I'm right anyway'. Here's a hint, you didn't spend your life studying rock formations and chemical compositions etc. in excrutiating detail, SCIENTISTS DO.
Your statements that: "When you look back at the history of that explanation, it becomes pretty clear that nobody cared much, then someone noticed plant leaves and bark patterns in some lumps of coal and everyone said "Oh, that must have been it." (HINT: Petrified forests weren't grown by stone trees)" (care to explain this incomprehensible non-sequitur?)
and:
"...the "fossil" explanation becomes pretty unlikely. When you look back at the history of that explanation, it becomes pretty clear that nobody cared much.." borders on the idiotic. Like I said before, people devote thier lives to the study of coal fossils, there are whole museums centered around the fact. Oh silly me though, I forgot, it's you the non-scientist who's the expert on these things.
What really irritates me about posts like yours is not the fact that you support a "crazy idea" in science as a pet theory; there's no problem with that. It's that you're so blinded by your own ignorance on the basic science underlying the theories you wish to supplant and simultaneously so laughably self confident despite that ignorance, that you end up making yourself look like an ass and making your theory look well...crazy.
"I heard an argument (BBC Radio4, "Moral Maze", ages ago) which claimed that paedophiles are 9 times more likely than a random selection to be homosexual, but I can't find anything else to back that up."
I'm surprised at this level of ignorance still exists today. I'm sorry to inform you that in fact, it's the reverse that's true. The FBI keeps statistics on just these sorts of things, and in fact 95% percent of child molestation cases are committed(bottom of page) by self-described heterosexuals. In fact homosexuals are no more likely(again, scroll to bottom of page) to abuse children than heterosexuals.
I can not help but also point out that your other argument:
"I find this parallel interesting. Homosexuality is arguably natural occurring but atypical (I choose those words carefully) - the same could be said for paedophiles. I would be surprised if they are a historically recent phenomena and they certainly make up a very small percentage of the population, yet their actions and desires are abhorent to the vast majority of us.
The same can be said of homosexuality 100 years ago."
-is also critically flawed.
You see, consensual homosexual acts cause harm to no one, while conversely, child molestation does indeed cause severe mental aguish and trauma to the victim.
I can't help but think that organization is BS. The initial acoustic cavitation fusion experiment which was said to have produced neutrons was never sucessfully repeated. The method described in that website of using Lithium as the cavitation "pusher" has, to my knowledge, not even been attempted or if it has, has never been published. As to their claim that "It is the goal of General Fusion to develop this reactor and generate clean, safe and economical fusion energy by the end of 2004."...well... that's just insane.
I suppose then it should also come as no surprise to you that France is building a new megajoule class laser (right on par with the US's NIF project) to test its nuclear weapon simulations.
High flux neutron beams are commonly available from plain old fission reactors. I doubt they'd go through the trouble.
As someone who works in the laser fusion camp(though just as a lowly technician), I feel obligated to point out that there may be something of a dark horse in the race to fusion power currently in the running... Besides the obvious method of magnetic confinement in Tokamaks and Stellarators, which do still have the best chance at becoming true fusion reactors of the future attaining ignition and breakeven; there is another way that inertial confinement fusion using lasers may still hold promise. There are 2 new beams (will be called "Omega EP")currently being built which will be added to the 60 beam 60 Terawatt Omega Laser in the next few years. What is special about these new lasers is they are over 1,000 TIMES more powerful than the old Omega beams at over 1 Petawatt each! The new lasers will be used to ignite a Hydrogen fuel capsule at exactly the moment of highest compression by the old Omega laser, sort of acting like a spark plug effect. The GekkoXII laser in Japan which has a (much weaker) Petawatt laser attached to it's also less powerful compressing laser recently verified this method as increasing fusion yield by a couple orders of magnitude, this puts the Omega laser as having a very high likelihood of igniting it's fusion capsules by using the new laser in conjunction with the old 60 beam Omega. If someone can then figure out how to ramp the laser up to a high pulse repetition rate (burning many capsules/second) possibly using a diode pumped Nd:glass system then you have a real contender for a fusion power plant.
what is "hydrogent"? :) The reason Hydrogen is not used and Xenon IS, is because xenon is ~130 times more massive per atom than Hydrogen is. Therefore you'll get much more momentum from accelerating the Xenon out the back of an ion engine at a given speed than you will a Hydrogen atom. And for that matter why stop at Xenon? This guy is working on Bismuth powered Hall thrusters.
Freemasons run the country!
As a (non degree) physics buff, I too have to agree that the first 2 hours were disappointing and too fluff filled (oooo..the QUANTUM cafe with Greene eating a donut and walking through walls to demonstrate Heisenberg uncertainty!! .... way too cornball and almost patronizing). However the third hour (on the next week) was actually pretty redeeming, explaining some things on m-theory and how string theory supposedly predicts Supersmmetry which with its Neutralinos and Photinos should be experimentally verifiable with the new Tev scale colliders coming on in the next few years (LHC et. al.) and how this will help explain dark matter. That was really interesting and exciting.
If a Tomarijuana (or some such) plant is ever made (and the insane inflation of the price of marijuana created by the War on Drugs virtually assures that it eventually will be) it won't be done by simple grafting. It will be done with gene splicing, the gene that encodes the THC production in MJ will be inserted into another organism which will then produce THC in it's own cells. I don't know why this hasn't been done yet, it seems almost trivial considering the number of genetically modified crops that already exist. BAKED POTatoes anyone? (sorry) :-]
Is this the same Thomas Gold that dosen't understand simple thermodynamics? Thought so. I wouldn't trust his theories about the origins of petroleum reserves very much at all if I were you.
same thing genius.
"Just like "In God We Trust" on dollar bills. Probably improper, I probably wouldn't have put it there myself, nor does it change my life drastically whether it's there or not. But now that it's there, leave it alone. Don't mess with our culture and traditions."
/. in months.
Yes indeed! While we're at it let's bring back slavery and end suffrage for women! These 'institutions' were part of our culture and tradition until some nogoodniks took them away from us! Yours is possibly the stupidest comment I've seen on
well...Adamantane already exists, so why not?!
mmmnope, sorry, actually it is just basic science. Electromagnetic radiation that is energetic enough per photon to eject an electron from an atom --> Ionizing radiation. Electromagnetic radiation that is NOT energetic enough to eject an electron from an atom --> non-Ionizing radiation. So yea pretty simple unless you have the IQ of a squirrel.
I wonder how quickly these idiots ran to their portable phones to call their lawyers in order to file this frivolous lawsuit. It's ironic that these people who are supposed to be products of an educational system which teaches basic science(for instance, oh I don't know....the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation) is now actively participating in the promotion of their children's scientific illiteracy. Horay for the triumph of knee jerk emotional reaction over rational analysis!!
The Titan Probe does indeed have cameras. It will take images all the way down once it passes the cloud deck and it even has the capability for rudimentary color images. Titan's beaches are in fact, just what we may see.
"It seems that, according to scientific philosophy today (and I say this as an observer, not a scientist), you still can't really believe this is _the_ truth about something. You have to keep thinking, "it might _not_ be true"."
I think basically that's right, it's just a matter of what theories we decide to keep testing to the limit to try to find any inconsistencies. For instance, when a new method of atomic mass spectroscopy is invented no one says 'hey I bet we could use this to test Dalton's theory of atoms down to the fraction of an AMU!', even though it could very well be used to do that. The reason we don't is because no one expects to find anything that would invalidate the atomic theory of elements. We know, however, that there must be something "beyond" Einstein's relativity in the same way that the orbit of mercury reveals a breakdown of Newtonian Physics. This experiment with Cassini was in a way looking for Einstein's 'Mercury problem'. The fact that it has not found any inconsistency with GR (along with countless other experiments done in the past century) is a testament to, not only our lack of tools to measure with extreme enough precision the physical phenomena effected by GR but also to the greatness of the theory of General Relativity itself. We will continue to test Einstein though, in December Gravity Probe B will be launched, using ultrahigh precision quartz sphere gyroscopes, it will be able to measure certain effects of GR to the parts per million range. Science is a search for ever greater truth.
May I take this opportunity to suggest you check out emusic.com. I signed up for the 3 month at $15 a month subscription a few weeks ago and it's already MORE than met my expectations. I have over 1.5GB downloaded of high quality LAME encoded VBR non DRM mp3's already and there's NO LIMIT to how many you can get. Yes, sadly, they're part of Vivendi, but profits are split 50/50 with the artists.
the problem is....I don't know what the problem is!! :) I am supplying 5V to them with an external power supply and they DO see eachother and link up in the config software they just don't transfer any information between devices!! oh well... back to the reseller they go.