I can't believe you can't even spell sense. But your point is flawed. Sony sells CD-R's. They make money off you whether you're buying their records or their CD-R's. Why would they not support them?
To play the devil's advocate:
Duh! It's called profit margin, and there's more of it in their music than in their CD-R media.
Looks cool. Is it open source? I'm concerned that clients like SETI (and this) could just be an NSA setup to have the public decrypt its own communications on the government's behalf.
We're looking for good programmers to help with the ports to Mac, Solaris,
etc. In general, the Cosm libraries should be easy to port and thus (with
some help), we should be able to whip out these versions. Interested in
volunteering? Please email help@folding.stanford.edu.
Presumably if you volunteer to port to system x they'll have to let you see the source code. They might even let you see it if you ask nicely for all I know.
As for SETI, I don't know if their code is available at all (I think not --at least officially); but I know they do not want any unofficial versions around and that they've even refused assistance to produce versions optimized for the 3DNow extensions in AMD chips (none exist now AFAIK).
Well, now when I feel like emulating an x86 CPU on an X86 computer (yeah, rudundant but useful, kinda), now I can play my old DOS games. Woopee... (kinda)
Try Bochs for that. Plex86 is not about emulating the cpu..
Sadly, it hasn't fixed the poor OpenGL framerate on my TNT2 Ultra; this was apparently broken in 5.0 - 4.5 was apparently much faster.
Poor OpenGL framerate is because Be 5.0 has no hardware support pending a later patch (read the article, this forthcoming patch is what it's all about). 4.5 frame rates should have been fairly poor also on a TNT2 since, though it had experimental hardware OpenGL support, IIRC it was restricted to voodoo chipsets.
I guess that from the perspective of the Church of Scientology the good thing about BE would have been that it was going to be this highly succesful film that would make Hubbard a household name as a "bestselling" science fiction author rather than being known a the wacko that started that UFO cult Travolta and a few other celebrities are in. This is, of course, the same reason the church had put such a great effort years ago into publishing the BE book and the gigantic Mission Earth 10 volume series that followed (the Mission Earth series was also known as a doorstop --you should be able to find it in the shelves of most libraries). And this is why the church engaged in their book buying campaigns (as was previously also the case with Dianetics) to artificially push these books into the bestseller lists (so it is actually true that LRH did produce bessellers with these books). It is all a matter of bringing prestige and exalting the name of the founder.
Anyway, the good thing about BE is that it failed to exalt L. Ron Hubbard's name as hoped by the church. If anything, he is known more than ever before as that guy that started the UFO cult; plus he is known as the author of that book that was turned into that awful science fiction movie with John Travolta. Not the great P.R. they were hoping for (which would have been very welcome to undo some of the bad P.R. stemming from the church's killing of Lisa McPherson).
Exactly! You'd need some oxidation-reduction action somewhere and it just doesn't work out that way. You probably can produce H2 through fermentation of foodstuff (though I'm not 100% sure of this right now), but my point was that you aren't getting H2 out of limestone with diamonds or no diamonds.
What did they do when the wind was strong? I am a hang gliding pilot and I know I often cant fly for days because of the winds. How long could a flying saurs go on without flying and without food? Remember, it has got a fast metabolism.
To answer this consider that there are presently large birds (though, obviously nowhere near as large as the larger pterosaurs) who are basically strictly gliders (such as Andean condors, albatros, larger eagles). Somehow they survive.
They swallow the diamonds, which stick in their craw, and then eat the limestone. The diamonds help break up the limestone. Then when it gets to the stomach, it produces the H2 gas.
Please refresh my chemistry (maybe I should be asking Anne McCaffrey), and the H2 comes from where exactly?
Another difference is that birds muscles can burn fat directly instead of human muscles, which need sugar (the human liver can generate sugar out of fat)
One nitpick is that you're wrong here on two counts:
Human muscles can and do use fatty acids routinely as fuel (though the switch to using only fatty acids can be quite harsh --thus marathoners hit "the wall", but they are capable of running through it).
The liver cannot make glucose out of fatty acids (out of some amino acids yes, but not from fatty acids), thus putting the body in a predicament when glucose is in short supply (as would be the case during starvation after glycogen stores have been depleted) since brain tissue (which is rather essential) cannot directly utilize fatty acids as fuel. The solution to this predicament is the breaking down of fatty acids to form what are known as ketone bodies which can be used by the brain.
Interesting link referenced in this story. It links to none other than the web site of a well known creationist kook of talk.origins named Ted Holden.
The theory in his site is that dinosaurs must have experienced a reduced gravity (with respect to the present value) to be able support the massive weight of the larger species.
To support his argument he compares a very strong powerlifter to dinosaurs using the square cubed assumption for scaling (force produced by muscles goes up as a square of body length because it depends on cross section while weight goes up as the cube because it depends on volume).
Of course, the problem with all of this is that this scaling is way too simplistic since we are comparing apples to oranges (Homo sapiens to various sauropods, to be exact). Proof of this is that, contrary to Holden's claims, it doesn't even work for elephants.
From Holden's example, Kazmaier, weighing in at 340 lb., can do a 1000 lb. squat (not the strongest adjusting for body weight, see here, for an example). To see how this scales to a normal weight male (I shall consider myself at 175 lb. the norm for the sake of argument) we take the ratio my weight to Kazmaier's of 175/340 = 0.51. Taking the square cubed assumption it turns into.51^^(2/3) =.64 . meaning a normal 175 lb. person being able to lift.64 * 1340 lb. = 861 lb. to match Kazmaier's performance. As this figure includes body weight it turns into the ability to squat 861 lb.- 175 lb. = 686 lb.
Now, the most I've squatted is 450 lb. (which turns into 450 lb. + 175 lb. = 625 lb.) and I consider myself to have (for a nearly untrained person) near freakish lower body strength. I can assure any and all that I cannot move around comfortably with 450 lb. on my shoulders and can barely take some faltering steps in this situation (and, though I don't know the rules of powerlifting, I'pretty sure that the lift would not have been good enough to count in a competition --not that anyone would be likely to be impressed anyway).
Let's see what the most is that one can weight if the best lifting they can do would match my performance (better to compare myself --freakish lower body strength and all-- rather than a real athlete pushing the limits).
Using Holden's formula (which is correct, though its assumptions are flawed), we get:
625/175^^(2/3) = X/X^^(2/3)
The left side turns into 20.0 and the right turns into X^^(1/3). Cubing both sides we get that X = 8000. Thus, 8000 lb. is the most one could weigh to be able to carry one's own weight to match my lifting performance. Note that this doesn't mean walking around all day and even occasionally running quite fast (as elephants are known to do normally in the wild) but rather lifting one's own body weight badly with a maximal effort (and then, perhaps, sinking back exhausted into the couch to watch the Oprah Winfrey show).
Adult elephants, on the other hand, can weight a lot more than 8000 lb.. And to those who may point out that my own bipedalism puts me at a disadvantage, I shall point out that circus elephants seem to be able to get on their back feet with great ease (it certainly seems to take a lot less effort than it takes for me to squat a mere 450 lb.)
Thus, taking a more reasonable lift for the scaling exercise and following Holden's assumptions, not only should elephant's fail carrying around their own weight, but they should fail miserably.
But elephants, even very large ones, seem to manage quite well, thank you very much. Thus, my claim that Holden's assumptions do not really hold up under scrutiny is supported
"... a special version of Open GL --though it might have to be a special version" should have been written as "... Open GL --though it might have to be a special version"
Think of the LCD screen as being divided into lots of tiny vertical stripes one pixel wide. Now you send the even stripes to your left eye and the odd stripes to your right eye (or the other way around). Naturally the image sent to the screen would not be a normal image but one where the left eye view is sent to the aforementioned even stripes and the right eye view to the odd stripes (this is done through the 3D API like DX7 or a special version of Open GL --though it might have to be a special version).
Of course, like normal photographic paper, normal computer displays (LCD or otherwise) do not usually do this. So now you have to modify them so they will. Both in the cases of 3D photographs and LCD screens this is done by fitting the surface with a v ertical lens over each right-left pair of image stripes which directs the appropriate stripe into the appropriate eye. This (plus the quirks of LCD technology) is why the display has to be viewed from a very narrow angle since from other angles the lenses would not work quite right
At least this is the way it's done sometimes (with the 3D photographs and the Phillips display) and I'm pretty sure this is the way this particular display must work as well.
Of course they are intelligence broadcasts. That has been known for a long time. What has not been known until this day is that it is not crypto. They are just playing Bingo
Available at http://starlogo.www.media.mit.ed u/people/starlogo/ as a Java interpreter (or, in what appears to be an older version, as a Mac application). Never played with it but appears to be a sort of LOGO implementation where you control a multitude of turtles instead of one. The purpose is to explore decentralized systems. Quoting the site: "With StarLogo, you can model (and gain insights into) many real-life phenomena, such as bird flocks, traffic jams, ant colonies, and market economies."
Anyway, I think it sounds kind of cool and their suggested ages are 13 and up.
Well, it is a nice thing, but certainly not a new idea. The problem is that the rate of radioactive decay depends of an awful lot of things, environmental parameters. Now, I don't know how sensitive the RNG will be in this case, but it is easy to imagine the rate of decay being dependent on e.g. temperature.
It's easy to imagine, but it's also wrong (have you been reading any creationist literature lately, or what?). Though maybe the measuring equipment can be affected.
These things were canceled while the "Red Menace" was breathing down our necks. Furthermore, too much war is a problem here since Vietnam had something to do with the cancelation of some of these projects (it probably played a big part in finishing off Apollo too).
No, you misunderstood. Mattel owns the code because they "acquired rights to cphack from the program's original authors". The problem is that it implies the retroactive cancelling of the previous licensing arrangement by the authors (whether it is GPL or public) --which doesn't seem quite kosher.
Yes, 60 Minutes II (March 14, segment title: Mind of the Assassin). I don't know how useful it will utimately be, but I can't be worse than all this other profiling B.S. and MOSAIC. At the very least they seemed to have some useful insights. I believe it is described at http://www.treas.gov/usss/ntac.htm
Slashdot Mirror
To play the devil's advocate:
Duh! It's called profit margin, and there's more of it in their music than in their CD-R media.
The article has nothing to do with cryonics. Typical Slashdot!
From their site:
Presumably if you volunteer to port to system x they'll have to let you see the source code. They might even let you see it if you ask nicely for all I know.
As for SETI, I don't know if their code is available at all (I think not --at least officially); but I know they do not want any unofficial versions around and that they've even refused assistance to produce versions optimized for the 3DNow extensions in AMD chips (none exist now AFAIK).
Here's an account of the event (supposedly with some Real Audio video of Steve Hassan handing the book back to Travolta).
I guess that from the perspective of the Church of Scientology the good thing about BE would have been that it was going to be this highly succesful film that would make Hubbard a household name as a "bestselling" science fiction author rather than being known a the wacko that started that UFO cult Travolta and a few other celebrities are in. This is, of course, the same reason the church had put such a great effort years ago into publishing the BE book and the gigantic Mission Earth 10 volume series that followed (the Mission Earth series was also known as a doorstop --you should be able to find it in the shelves of most libraries). And this is why the church engaged in their book buying campaigns (as was previously also the case with Dianetics) to artificially push these books into the bestseller lists (so it is actually true that LRH did produce bessellers with these books). It is all a matter of bringing prestige and exalting the name of the founder.
Anyway, the good thing about BE is that it failed to exalt L. Ron Hubbard's name as hoped by the church. If anything, he is known more than ever before as that guy that started the UFO cult; plus he is known as the author of that book that was turned into that awful science fiction movie with John Travolta. Not the great P.R. they were hoping for (which would have been very welcome to undo some of the bad P.R. stemming from the church's killing of Lisa McPherson).
Actually, as I recall, in China fossil bones have traditionally been called dragon bones so you might be exactly right.
Exactly! You'd need some oxidation-reduction action somewhere and it just doesn't work out that way. You probably can produce H2 through fermentation of foodstuff (though I'm not 100% sure of this right now), but my point was that you aren't getting H2 out of limestone with diamonds or no diamonds.
To answer this consider that there are presently large birds (though, obviously nowhere near as large as the larger pterosaurs) who are basically strictly gliders (such as Andean condors, albatros, larger eagles). Somehow they survive.
Please refresh my chemistry (maybe I should be asking Anne McCaffrey), and the H2 comes from where exactly?
One nitpick is that you're wrong here on two counts:
Interesting link referenced in this story. It links to none other than the web site of a well known creationist kook of talk.origins named Ted Holden.
The theory in his site is that dinosaurs must have experienced a reduced gravity (with respect to the present value) to be able support the massive weight of the larger species.
To support his argument he compares a very strong powerlifter to dinosaurs using the square cubed assumption for scaling (force produced by muscles goes up as a square of body length because it depends on cross section while weight goes up as the cube because it depends on volume).
Of course, the problem with all of this is that this scaling is way too simplistic since we are comparing apples to oranges (Homo sapiens to various sauropods, to be exact). Proof of this is that, contrary to Holden's claims, it doesn't even work for elephants.
From Holden's example, Kazmaier, weighing in at 340 lb., can do a 1000 lb. squat (not the strongest adjusting for body weight, see here, for an example). To see how this scales to a normal weight male (I shall consider myself at 175 lb. the norm for the sake of argument) we take the ratio my weight to Kazmaier's of 175/340 = 0.51. Taking the square cubed assumption it turns into .51^^(2/3) = .64 . meaning a normal 175 lb. person being able to lift .64 * 1340 lb. = 861 lb. to match Kazmaier's performance. As this figure includes body weight it turns into the ability to squat 861 lb.- 175 lb. = 686 lb.
Now, the most I've squatted is 450 lb. (which turns into 450 lb. + 175 lb. = 625 lb.) and I consider myself to have (for a nearly untrained person) near freakish lower body strength. I can assure any and all that I cannot move around comfortably with 450 lb. on my shoulders and can barely take some faltering steps in this situation (and, though I don't know the rules of powerlifting, I'pretty sure that the lift would not have been good enough to count in a competition --not that anyone would be likely to be impressed anyway).
Let's see what the most is that one can weight if the best lifting they can do would match my performance (better to compare myself --freakish lower body strength and all-- rather than a real athlete pushing the limits).
Using Holden's formula (which is correct, though its assumptions are flawed), we get:
The left side turns into 20.0 and the right turns into X^^(1/3). Cubing both sides we get that X = 8000. Thus, 8000 lb. is the most one could weigh to be able to carry one's own weight to match my lifting performance. Note that this doesn't mean walking around all day and even occasionally running quite fast (as elephants are known to do normally in the wild) but rather lifting one's own body weight badly with a maximal effort (and then, perhaps, sinking back exhausted into the couch to watch the Oprah Winfrey show).Adult elephants, on the other hand, can weight a lot more than 8000 lb.. And to those who may point out that my own bipedalism puts me at a disadvantage, I shall point out that circus elephants seem to be able to get on their back feet with great ease (it certainly seems to take a lot less effort than it takes for me to squat a mere 450 lb.)
Thus, taking a more reasonable lift for the scaling exercise and following Holden's assumptions, not only should elephant's fail carrying around their own weight, but they should fail miserably.
But elephants, even very large ones, seem to manage quite well, thank you very much. Thus, my claim that Holden's assumptions do not really hold up under scrutiny is supported
Some creationist morons take the fire breathing dragons = Dinosaurs stuff seriously.
And, no, I'm not joking.
"... a special version of Open GL --though it might have to be a special version" should have been written as "... Open GL --though it might have to be a special version"
Think of the LCD screen as being divided into lots of tiny vertical stripes one pixel wide. Now you send the even stripes to your left eye and the odd stripes to your right eye (or the other way around). Naturally the image sent to the screen would not be a normal image but one where the left eye view is sent to the aforementioned even stripes and the right eye view to the odd stripes (this is done through the 3D API like DX7 or a special version of Open GL --though it might have to be a special version).
Of course, like normal photographic paper, normal computer displays (LCD or otherwise) do not usually do this. So now you have to modify them so they will. Both in the cases of 3D photographs and LCD screens this is done by fitting the surface with a v ertical lens over each right-left pair of image stripes which directs the appropriate stripe into the appropriate eye. This (plus the quirks of LCD technology) is why the display has to be viewed from a very narrow angle since from other angles the lenses would not work quite right
At least this is the way it's done sometimes (with the 3D photographs and the Phillips display) and I'm pretty sure this is the way this particular display must work as well.
Anonymous Cowards start out with 0.
Should give credit. Grandma thought that up. I thought it was pretty funny.
Of course they are intelligence broadcasts. That has been known for a long time. What has not been known until this day is that it is not crypto. They are just playing Bingo
Available at http://starlogo.www.media.mit.ed u/people/starlogo/ as a Java interpreter (or, in what appears to be an older version, as a Mac application). Never played with it but appears to be a sort of LOGO implementation where you control a multitude of turtles instead of one. The purpose is to explore decentralized systems. Quoting the site: "With StarLogo, you can model (and gain insights into) many real-life phenomena, such as bird flocks, traffic jams, ant colonies, and market economies."
Anyway, I think it sounds kind of cool and their suggested ages are 13 and up.
As for LOGO, a starting point might be http://el.www.media.mit.edu/gro ups/logo-foundation/ which includes some links to various implementations including some for Windows.
It's easy to imagine, but it's also wrong (have you been reading any creationist literature lately, or what?). Though maybe the measuring equipment can be affected.
These things were canceled while the "Red Menace" was breathing down our necks. Furthermore, too much war is a problem here since Vietnam had something to do with the cancelation of some of these projects (it probably played a big part in finishing off Apollo too).
Give peace a chance, dude!
No, you misunderstood. Mattel owns the code because they "acquired rights to cphack from the program's original authors". The problem is that it implies the retroactive cancelling of the previous licensing arrangement by the authors (whether it is GPL or public) --which doesn't seem quite kosher.
Yes, 60 Minutes II (March 14, segment title: Mind of the Assassin). I don't know how useful it will utimately be, but I can't be worse than all this other profiling B.S. and MOSAIC. At the very least they seemed to have some useful insights. I believe it is described at http://www.treas.gov/usss/ntac.htm