Before becoming a blackhole any star will explode explode due to fusion of heavy atoms, the heavier they are more energy they will release. like the heavy metals
That isn't really the primary (theoretical, of course) reason that massive stars "explode" (keep in mind, this is nothing like an explosion as any human understands it). However, the continuing fusion of heavier elements, up to iron, is thought to be the reason for numerous changes a late-lifecycle star experiences.
Once a massive star reaches the point where the majority of exothermic fusionable material consists of silicon, it has very big problem on its "hands." It's got about a day to live. silicon fuses at about 2.7e+9 K (optimimally), so that's one hell of a last day, and an unbelievable amount of iron production (thank the stars for your iron). Now, this entire time the star has been increasingly putting out more and more energy; that energy has tremendous pressure and serves to balance the star's own gravitional force which seeks to collapse it as closely to a point-source as possible (and it is, of course, theorized... sometimes it gets its wish).
At some very critical moment on the last minute of the last hour of that last day, there is no longer enough remaining silicon to keep the reaction going (some of the iron is fusing, but it's endothermic so it's only making the situation worse). Once this magic point is hit, fusion drops off very very rapidly, the remaining lighter-than-iron elements simply won't fuse without enough energy and once its gone... its gone forever (for that star anyway). Suddenly, gravity has the upper-hand, and in a big way. The entire star begins to contract in on itself, approaching relativistic speeds as it nears the core. The inner core of the star is already highly dense post-fusion material, lots of iron, silicon, oxygen, neon, etc. The outer portion of the star was mostly the light and fluffy stuff: hydrogen, helium, nitrogen,... But there's a whole lot of it. So, when all this "stuff" comes rushing back in and hits what amounts to an immovable object, it "bounces." Really really hard. So hard that the fundamental forces of nature momentarily cease to exist as we know them. So hard that the energy produced illuminates large sections of galaxies.
The details that actually occur in those few nanoseconds and microseconds are not completely understood, but it is understood that a great many bizarre interactions take place. The closest anyone can come to understanding this by way of simulation is in a particle accelerator. For one brief moment, this former mega-sized celebrity of a star takes on the apparition of the big bang; unification of forces and other outlandish stylings that no mortal human will ever witness up-close (or would want to if you're half-sane).
So, what really causes supernovae? Gravity winning.
I made the choice long ago that I will never work in a cubicle or end up like those guys in office space. I'm currently in grad school and loving it. It's a lot of work, but you're working for the benefit or yourself and your field. JUST SAY NO TO CUBICLES.
Cubicles are indeed the massive suck. But... It is one of the lesser issues on his list. Often times employers with large tech staff simply can't afford to privately house each and every tech employee. Good employers though, understand the frustration created by a chaotic environment and compensate with benefits like flextime and telecommuting. Those perks add up, and at a certain level, the cubicle doesn't seem all that bad when you don't actually have to be in it that often in order to do your job.;)
TFA missed an important point on my list though.
Death By Meeting
If you find yourself in a repetitive slew of non-technical (read: sales and marketing) meetings filled with the scum of the earth (ok, maybe only if you work at a law firm), and you aren't either (a) some sort of S&M liason or (b) upper-management, something is very very nordically decomposed.
(In addition, I exclusively work in the embedded/telecom part of software development - areas much closer to engineering than normal personal computing type of development. If these are my experiences, most development should be very far from engineering. Maybe we should stop looking at NASA development as some sort of best practise [Gilb, I'm looking at you!] for all types of software development)
The standard formalized approach to software development originated from NASA, or rather from the MIT Instrumentation Lab who operated with NASA oversight when designing the Apollo Guidance Computer. As others in this thread have eloquently noted, those were different times with significantly restrictive limitations placed upon developers in terms of execution times and storage capacities by the immature nature of the technology. Still, today (with the exception of ad-hoc distributed development models, such as those employed by most OSS), we follow this model, one that is closely tied to traditional engineering, albeit without the benefits of a true rigid engineering approach. As others have noted, the abstract nature of software does not lend itself well to explicit functional testing, failure-mode analysis and robust specification adherence.
I suspect that this model is still so widely accepted and used for one simple reason: Nobody has yet figured out a suitable replacement.
One problem, and one I do not have the answer to, is that software development languages, while having significantly advanced from the 60s, still provide little in the way of inherent regression testing facilities. While a certain subset of developers will always neglect the importance of regression testing, the lack of immediate obvious availability of such tools does little to pave the way towards more properly engineered development. In other words, if developers don't have the tools or the tools are not readily apparent, there is less chance that they will make the effort.
It's unquestionably a heavier than air vehicle (Especially when full of people), so it can't generate lift from density differences. It doesn't have any significant wingspan, which means that it can't use bernoulli's principal to generate lift. Therefore, the only reasonable remaining possibility is that it must be creating a downward thrust equal to the mass*gravity of the vehicle. That's very, very bad for gas mileage, making the "28mpg" claim more than a little dubious. In theory, strapping four engines with those claimed power/consumption ratios to a compact car with no standard engine and the wheels in neutral should generate highway speeds at vastly higher MPG ratings.
Unfortunately for your pet theory, the Bernoulli Principal has very little to do with standard airfoil generated lift; you've been incorrectly educated (as have many). The principal responsible is the Coanda effect, and the humorous bit is that it actually causes exactly what you deride as an extremely inefficent method of generating lift (although I will agree, 28mpg seem a tad ridiculous for any aircraft). To quickly understand the Bernoulli fallacy, puzzle over this one question: How does an inverted aircraft remain both aerodynamically stable (relatively) and continue to maintain or increase altitude when the very airfoil shape that causes the Bernoulli effect is completely upside-down?
Any decent sysadmin knows concepts, not platforms, and can work with whatever you hand them
Boss: I want result X. Sys-admin: Oh that's easy. In theory you do acts A, B and C. In theory it takes about Y weeks to do it. Boss: Great, I'll let you get to it. Y weeks later. Boss: So how is it going? Do you think you'll be able to finish it in a timely manner? Sys-admin: I've barely started, I don't know your platform, I only know the concepts.
That's not the experienced SA response. The experienced response is "In theory, it's easy, you just do A, B and C. However, I am unfamiliar with the nuances of this platform and related systems, so I'll need some time to analyze and more thoroughly understand the problem, after which I can give you a relatively firm implementation date. Also, once completed, you can rest assured that I will have achieved indepth working knowledge of the system and be able to predict most failure modes as well as rapidly provide answers to any future questions that arise."
I'm no biologist, but I'm sure pressure affects more than just lung cavities. For example, divers get the bends when they come up and the pressure is released too quickly, causing the nitrogen in their blood to come out of solution. Now, I'm not saying that squid get the bends, but I imagine taking one to the surface would have some effect.
This is true. Under normal 1 ATA conditions we operate with a certain level of n2 dissolved in all of our soft tissues (blood being one). However, this is largely a non-issue because astronauts already have to go through a slow "decompression process" to reduce nitrogen loading when prepping for a flight, as the shuttle and EVAs operate at significantly less pressure than sea level. This is for a number of reasons, but mainly because the consequences of environment puncture are much less severe if the pressure differential is less.
Besides, off-gassing (the term for decreasing non-metabolic soft-tissue gas loads) occurs quite rapidly in a pure o2 environment with little or no of the "disposed" gas existing as external partial-pressure (see boyle's law).
Additionally, decompression sickness (i.e. "the bends") doesn't occur instantly, it takes a while for the gas to expand and "bubble out" of the tissues, gathering at places like joints and causing the sufferer to attempt pain alleviation by "bending" the joint.
Actually, yes, for awhile. The primary problem is that we have too many moist mucous membranes that will loose fluid. A face mask, covering ones nose and mouth would let one stay alive in space, even without a suit. However, one's eardrums would burst and one's eyes would boil away and probably burst as well. Add pain to the mixture as you think appropriate.
That's not the primary problem. The primary problem is that the human brain needs a minimum level of oxygen to operate; that oxygen can only be provided by the respitory system at a rate directly proportional to the o2 pressure in the respirated environment(or "partial pressure" in mixed gas environments, like earth at sealevel). If you decrease pressure, you must likewise increase o2 or risk cognitive failure and rapid blackout (with little-to-no warning either). Now, as with all biology, individuals differ widely, but.... even in a pure o2 environment (which certainly is already required for EVA), anything below about 3psi is dangerous. Lungs are a nice flexible organ, but they aren't capable of withstanding more than a very slight pressure differential without over-expansion and potential embolism occuring.
That means that any environmental suit must maintain the same approximate force upon the wearer as exerted by the wearer's respiration gas pressure. Likewise, in order to prevent circulatory damage, the force needs to be exerted pretty evenly across the entire body. So, in effect, you're talking about a suit that can "squeeze" the wearer evenly at a minimum of three or so lbs/sq inch. Assuming such could be designed, how do you propose one would don such an outfit in a pressurised environment? I don't care how great your lubricant of choice is, I can't imagine someone getting into one of these things in the first place without great physical harm occuring.
The teacher's eyes lit up with anger. In retrospect, I should have expected this. But I honestly didn't see 'taking a dump' as being in the same league as 'shitted in a fucking private stall', but the way he reacted I might as well have said that. He was so mad, he actually ran across the hall and stopped a teacher that was passing by. "I asked this young man why he was late to class, and you know what he said?" The poor teacher disinterestedly shook his head. "He said he was..." he actually held up his hands to signify quotes... "taking a dump."
Yes, very Donnie Darko. "I'll tell you what he said. He asked my to forcibly insert the Life Line exercise into my anus."
Cultural differences vary widely with geography, of course, but where I happen to currently reside, cursing has become so socially accepted that it's practically no longer noticed. I'm not just talking about a particular peer group either; even in the workplace, it's unusual not too hear a litany of frustated cursing at any given moment with no apparent relation to gender, ethnicity, etc.
As someone with significant intellectual interest in linguistics, I've noticed that there are essentially two categories of cursing: Words or phrases with a prejudicial basis (gender, race, sexual preference, etc) and those related to bodily functions. The "bodily function" category is apparently much more acceptable in mixed company; for the obvious reason that while an isolated prejudicial curse might be harmless out of context, the prejudice itself often still exists in the world and continues to damage societies across the globe.
There is also the class of curses that seems to be in somewhat of a "cross-over" mode, like the word "bitch." Literal meaning aside, it has traditionally been used as a derogatory term for a female. Modern usage though seems to be changing, and the term can now often apply to both men and women; as a result it seems more acceptable in common speech. I'm curious if it will lose (or already has lost) some of its "curse power" because of this slight linguistic shift and the fact that it's not part of the immortal "bodily function" category.
Not if they have evidence that said single moms have broken the law. They could be 95-year-old great-great-grandmothers, but if they broke the law, they're a valid lawsuit target.
They allegedly have evidence. If someone has "broken the law", the correct prodedure is to contact the attorney general or relevant law enforcement agencies. If, once investigated, they believe said evidence is sufficient, the individuals in question will be processed through the criminal court system where they will be provided with an attorney if they cannot afford one, the right to trial by jury and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. These are cornerstones of a society which, supposedly, values individual freedoms for all over special interests.
What the RIAA is attempting (and with some success) is to manipulate the civil legal system into a criminal surrogate, wherein they cause (or threaten to cause) such financial strife that defendants bow to their mighty will in an attempt to avoid life-long reprocussions that often make it difficult to provide for the future of the defendant's family (credit, education, etc).
Guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.
They cannot, yet, imprison individuals but I'm sure they would simply love that sort of power.
The RIAA, and other similar organizations, are not elected representatives of the public trust and have no business acting in the capacity of such. Their blatant attempts to portray themselves in this light combined with predatory litigatious behavior would generally be considered crimes of coercion under common law.
Logic, m'boy, logic. If you're gonna spout off psuedo-science like the pros, you gotta get a hold of some logic.
why would man and animals need eyes if they couldn't see before, sight is a very high-level ability, a creature without sight doesn't realise he needs it?
What does "realise he needs it" have to do with anything? Evolution is not intentional, evolution is not a "force". Nothing decides to evolve. A species ability to visually perceive offers many advantages, depending on the environment. Mate recognition, prey recognition, predator awareness, etc.
Also in 'natural selection' humans would have been eaten by everything without sight no matter how developed the brain was.
Which humans? Modern humans? There's no sense behind those ears, boy! Modern humans can create weapons and modify their environment to prevent being "eaten by everything". If you're talking pre-historic humans, I'd be willing to bet that a fair number of them were eaten.
Still, the ability to form even primitive weapons is an amazing advantage. Plus, do you really think people were always as they are today (physically, senses, etc)?
If we came from the ocean then why can't we breath underwater and if we are the most 'evolved' of creatures then why are the birds flying around the earth like it's going out of fashion? We're wingless, can't go underwater without breathing equipment, the ascent of man? Yeah right.
Who judges humanity as the "most evolved?" You? Last I checked, no mammals have gills, and the set of species that is truly amphibious is rather limited and primitve.
How do you propose a warm blooded animal should go about absorbing the incredible amount of oxygen necessary to maintain a fast metabolism with something like gills? What does Genesis 1:1 have to say about that?
I'm sure if these 'scientists' really thought about it, evolution is absured, mutation is more accurate, but I wasn't a piece of garbage from 10000 billion years ago. I mean even micro-biology points to an intended design. How come nobody talks about entropy no more? Oh if we we're the offspring of monkeys then why arn't monkeys turning into humans?
Ahh, here we see the real truth. It's personal, isn't it? You just couldn't possibly have been from genetic lineage decended from something more primitive, could you? News flash buddy: Just because you want something to be a certain way, doesn't make it so.
Your "intended design" is completely and totally without evidence in reality. The so-called "evidence" is nothing more than fanciful thought expirements based on theology rather than logic. Put it this way: any "designer" with the ability to exactingly design all the myriad forms of life is equally capable of "designing" a process by which life can adapt, change and mutate to best suit its environment over time. I suspect that a being with that much power is perfectly capable of making you an "offspring of monkeys", whether you like it or not.
(pssst.. nobody's forgotten about entropy, it's just that we're all sick of listening to very confused creationists try to bend the second law of thermodynamics to fit their will)
I used to reccomend Dell's to people, I no longer do because of the nightmare the Tech support is, INCLUDING the platinum support level for the high end servers. I have a 8450 server loaded with a 7 foot tall rack of powervaults connected to it and It was like pulling teth to get the thing fixed. the techs blamed the "cables" of the powervaults several times and took 2 weeks to get us up and running again after a fatal crash because the powervaults were starting rebuilds of spare drives and then offlining them breaking the raid 50.
Heh.. Try it with over a thousand servers. Dell seems to have little in the way of methods by which large corp customers can bypass tier 1 & 2 support. Actually, Sun (w/ x86 hw, not sparc) is worse in many ways, but that's largely due to a massively bad crop of seagate discs in the sunfire v20zs.
So you are claiming that, without the Moon landing, digital computers woudln't have been invented?
Don't be obtuse. Obviously, nobody's claiming that. Technology has been an evolution, demarcated by the occasional revolutionary breakthough that ends up being a core component years later (tube, transistor, integrated circuit, etc). These are important, sure, but they aren't really what makes advances. Advances are made through necessity, real or imagined. Right now the "necessity" seems to primarly be entertainment driven, which is why you see so much R&D going into high-density storage.
In the 60s though, there was a different necessity: Beat the soviets to the moon. It was very important to a lot of USians, and the Kennedy administration had made it a big focal point. Science of course, had a different aim, but the political and social pressures drove funding.
There was a big perceived problem at the time, though. The soviets had "won" every aspect of the race in 1960. And they had the N1 on the horizon, whose heavy lifting capability easily surpassed anything that NASA or the army (redstone, vanguard, etc) had on the drawing table. Nobody knew, of course (or at least the public didn't), that the N1 had some serious design flaws that would later result in the worst disasters in the history of manned space flight (and that includes the two lost orbiters).
The workload of actually performing a moon landing was so intesive that it wasn't thought possible for two or even three men to do it with any reasonable safety or confidence. They knew they were gonna to use those new-fangled digital computers for guidance systems, control, environment, etc. Problem is, of course, nobody had ever built a small computer that was up to the task and there was certainly no software capable of handling all the tasks (often more than one simultaneously). Keep in mind, the overwhelming engineering pressure at all times was payload mass. Every kg you take up is another kg of fuel you can't burn, plus you have to add fuel to push that kg, so dropping a kg of payload is worth more than its weight in fuel.
In 1961, NASA formally chose the MIT Instrumentation Lab to produce the AGC (apollo guidance computer). This is in an era before the term "software engineering" had been coined. Nobody had ever written a piece of software like this before, its scope, at the time, was literally inconceivable. The were no development procedures, testing models, best practices, etc. Everything had to be created from scratch.
It almost didn't happen. In 1964, NASA came close to pulling the plug on MIT, because MIT was behind schedule and beginning to fully understand that the details where much more sophisticated than they had originally thought.
During this project, the MIT Instrumentation Lab operated as nearly a pure research facility. They documented their procedures and they shared knowledge with other research facilities. It was there, in that lab, that software development as we know it today was born.
Would it have happened otherwise? Probably. Not in the same way of course, and not at the same speed. Some of the conceptual leaps that were made w.r.t. software development might never have happened, because they might not have been perceived as necessary. One thing is for sure, the apollo program did change the face of the world in an area not directly related to space-flight. Speculating what might or might not have happened without apollo seems largely pointless.
So what? Well, ok, sure there's some additional overhead incurred by doubling the native register/int size, but still. are you saying that the majority of memory consumed by an os and applications is pointers? It's not, it's buffers. Lots of 'em. Heaps of 'em (pun intended). And they aren't allocated based on register size.
Of course, looks like Vista in "candy ass mode" is gonna be doing some texture buffering too but that's going to slurp up ram no matter what arch.
That is one of the nice things about the PPC and Sparc. If you do not need 64bit pointer you can just compile for 32bit. You can run 32 bit code on a 64 64bit AMD/Intel CPU but you get a big performance boost if you recompile to 64 bit since you have a more registers available in 64bit mode.
Yeah, that's a nice feature. Too bad you get whacked out with sigbus if you don't align on a 64-bit boundary (sparc64 anyway, not sure about ppc).
Doesn't anybody use VLANs anymore? Maybe I'm ignorant here (it's a big world and all), but why should Windows clients be allowed to talk to eachother on the network? Especially if there are VPN nodes and/or soft-spots in the network implementation? Simple VLANs and the usage of DMZ's for outward-facing servers have worked for us so far; any virus infections have been localized to a PC at a time. There's always the ol' email entry point, but that's what clamav is for, right?;)
vlans don't inhibit broadcast or unicast traffic on the same vlan, so unless each workstation is on a separate vlan (which I can't imagine, as it wouldn't scale), vlans aren't useful for isolating workstations from each other. They are, of course, useful for isolating workstations from other network devices.
Is SALT powerful enough to see the American flag on the moon?
No, not an actual flag. Maybe a landing site, but it would be difficult and costly to do and the result would likely be dissatisfying to the layperson (and pointless for scientists).
The VLT was considering this a couple of years ago, not sure if they ever went through with it -- probably killed for budgetary reasons. Just because a telescope can pick up a some form of remote point-source light doesn't mean it can actually resolve the point source in terms of what you are thinking (i.e. a "picture").
Besides, what fool would waste time and resources trying to take "nearby" photos of a place we've already been when the telescope can clearly be put to much more useful scientific endeavors?
Seeing this animation made me realize just how good that programmer is. The visualizations on that simulator nailed it pretty well. And it's free too!
I concur, and have been an orbiter aficionado for years! While the rendering is certainly top-notch w/ a decent gl card, what I find incredibly remarkable about Dr. Schweiger's simulator is that it allows one to get the "feeling" of orbital mechanics beyond the pure math (as much as possible without the physical sensation of freefall).
For example, once you've simulated low-earth-orbit rendezvous between two craft, you more fully appreciate the complexities and just how non-intuitive it is. While LEO is certainly a micro-gravity environment due to freefall, two nearby unconnected objects have different centers of gravity, are in very slightly different orbits and experience different tidal forces. This means that delta V between the two tends to act in a non-intuitive fashion and you can't just "let newton do the driving." Slight drifting (small acceleration without control input) rapidly compounds over time such that constant correction is required to prevent things from getting out of hand. This is one reason that real-life rendezvous is a slow, methodical and very carefully monitored process.
Additionally, the simulator is very much like the "real thing" in this respect, because in real orbit you are in freefall and can't rely on the "seat of the pants" feeling pilots are accustomed to for attitude/velocity determination when flying terrestrial aircraft.
Well, that, and the fact that if you haven't gotten past the adaptation period, there's a good chance you're constantly fighting the urge to vomit.;)
A quote once uttered by an ISS astronaut/cosmonaut seems particularly appropriate here:
(in the context of performing an EVA outside the ISS) "It's kind of like trying to work while falling off a cliff which is itself falling and slowly tumbling end-over-end."
Way wrong. The USSC is *not* limited to shooting down legislation. They can declare that any of our laws are unconstitutional. Think Roe v. Wade, where they legalized abortion. Think Brown v. Board, where they integrated the schools. An activist court can pretty much make whatever legislation they want (once they get jurisdiction on the topic).
Umm.. Where do you think laws come from? Do they magically appear on stone tablets? Declaring law unconstitutional is "shooting down legislation."
Brown v. Board overturned an 1896 ruling regarding the "separate but equal" clause of an 1890 Louisiana general assembly act (hint: legislature); thus rendering applicable portions of the original act null and void on the basis of the 14th amendment.
Similarly, Roe v. Wade struck down portions of texas criminal abortion legislature on the basis of the "due process" clause of the 14th amendment.
Agree or disagree with these rulings, your assertion that an "activist court can pretty much make whatever legislation they want" is evidenced by neither case. I believe if you do some research into the organization and rules of the judicial branch, you will discover that this is almost universally true by action and by design.
Killing the guy who takes your mate is human nature too. What a stupid argument. It's not "human nature" that laws should be aligned with, it's the "will of the people" and on the matter of file sharing the people have spoken: we want to share.
I disagree with your first assertion and agree with the last. Feeling anger towards the person who "steals" your mate is human nature. However, one of the finer aspects of human character is our ability to control our actions. Members of society who blindly follow every fool impulse that crosses their mind are members who must be removed and isolated for the protection of society as a whole.
Adult non-sociopaths guide their interactions with others by identification and role-reversal. The simple (but often too elusive) "if I were Y instead of X, how would this affect me." The problem, morally, with intellectual property issues is that it is often very hard to make this identification and thus the purely moral case is somewhat elusive.
In the case of the recording industry, artist's views on the subject cover a broad spectrum. Their obvious disconnect from the supplier-chain creates a psychological obstacle (on both sides) for applying the "golden rule" (something a rational member of society will normally apply when making moral decisions).
Perhaps if said disconnect between artist and purveyor were minimized, the moral implications would become more clear (one way or the other -- and again, on both sides). Unfortunately, the paradox we find ourselves in is that the technology that could make this possible is both (a) threatening to the status-quo and (b) potentially too exploitable in the eyes of some artists (and I mean the real artists here).
(assuming that global warming is fact, which all proven scientific evidence shows it's not)
I see. And of course you have links to back up this assertion from respected peer-reviewed journals?
I could understand if you had asserted "mankind is not the direct cause of current global climate change." That's something that is quite disputed by various climatologists; so one could be forgiven for ill-advisedly "picking" a side. The problem though, is that your assertion that "all proven scientific evidence shows it's not" (i.e. global warming is not occuring) is absolute bunk.
That global climate change is occuring is a forgone conclusion, the data clearly shows trending towards average global warming and increased atmospheric co2. Current science is focused on change rates; specifically problems involving sampling history, techniques, statistics and force modeling. Without solid data and working representative models, it's very difficult to put forth a sound cause-hypothesis.
[Gaffen, D et al - Multidecadal Changes in the Vertical Temperature Structure of the Tropical Troposphere, Science vol 287, 18 Feb. 2000]
[Hegerl, G.C. and J.M. Wallace - Influence of Patterns of Climate Variability on the Difference between Satellite and Surface Temperature Trends, J. Climate vol 15, 2002]
Back to the available options, would you rather have a system where the lazy or dishonest people suffer, or one where they rule over the resources? I personally abhor silver spoon yuppies, having dealt with them and their purchased degrees throughout my career. The worst system for them is pure capitalism, as they have nothing of value to offer (other than spending their fund money which only lasts so long). Yes, the data does indicate the US is moving towards a meritocracy, where the competent, educated and motivated rise and rule over others through their command of capital. I'm always shocked when any potentially intelligent slashdotter opposes this system, but then again, it takes some of us more time than others to realize utopian ideals don't work when not everyone is equally intelligent, honest and motivated.
How are any of those supposed to work when we can't put down the fucking weapons and stop killing each other in droves for even a single year? I mean talk about needing to "crawl before you walk."
Humanity is stricken with some horrible schizoid affliction wherein we are constantly (a) trying to force someone to give us what we want, (b) trying to prevent someone from taking something we have, or (c) in limbo worried that b will happen.
Let's just face facts. Human beings royally blow. Genetically, I mean. We are pre-programmed to absolutely and completely suck. Oh, sure, we're great one-on-one; small groups... in a nice personal sort of way, but you get enough of us together and we're absofuckinglutely crazy. And there's no solution. Let's just get it over with, pull out the nukes, and take care of business. Let nature start over with a nice clean plate. Maybe one of the other primates can come up with a better solution -- if we let any live, of course.
It says "All it does is connect the Web server to your Python code with as little fuss as possible. It doesn't make decisions about what other tools to use,..."
And then in the very next paragraph, it says: "Instead of relying on Apache or another Web server, CherryPy runs its own small Python-based Web server."
No, no, no!
I love CherryPy as a way of routing requests to Python objects and functions. Rock on!
But look, I'm running like 20 wiki and 5 custom web apps and a few WordPress installations on my server.
And they are all plugged into Apache.
So, actually, in fact, CherryPy has now made some decisions about what tools I'm supposed to use.
Sure, I can forward requests from Apache to the CherryPy server, but that is yet another hassle, it is yet another thing to support and maintain and think about.
I wish instead that the CherryPy dev's had made it so there were multiple adapters to the CherryPy system.
After a quick glance (although I haven't looked deeply into it, so I could be talking straight out of my ass here), seems like it should be a snap to wrap/inherit CherryHTTPRequestHandler and plug cherry right into mod_python. Like all things python, it's pretty much just your basics from httplib. What, maybe 50-70 lines of code?
Similarly, you can plug such a wrapper into the fcgi module and get fastcgi running, if that's your thing. Even single process fastcgi w/ multithreading on the back-end.
The processes that form the universe, and in turn create life and allow it to evolve, appear to run on their own, following automatically from a number of fundamental constants. The only possible place for God, then, is as the definer of those original constants. An all-powerful Creator would certainly be able to see the processes that would flow from his original definitions, but it's hard for me to agree that God "used" evolution to get us to where we are today. Evolution just goes along by itself.
If there is a God, he seems to live in the "gaps" in our knowledge. Before we knew about universal gravitation, God or gods moved the planets around. Now we know that gravity takes care of this movement, that it happens by itself as a result of a logical process. Currently, our "gap" is in the area of where these forces come from (and also in their exact properties). If we were someday able to show that these forces follow inexorably from some other cause, God would just be moved behind that cause. I believe that it's reasonable to believe that the process of moving God into smaller and smaller gaps can be taken to its limit, whether or not we actually close those gaps, and God can be said not to exist.
Somewhat aside (because I agree w/ you and thus have no direct point to debate): One interesting concept that is revealed by the more rational "intelligent design" debates (i.e. those not directly fueled by religious zealotry) is that of evolution's apparent "conflict" with the second law of thermodynamics.
Obviously, no such real conflict exists (otherwise, wouldn't be much of a law, would it?), however... The good bit is this:
Life, from wherever it originated, appears to be the only known thing in the universe that consistantly, stubbornly, and occasionally valiantly strives to fight the second law (both long and short terms) and all it represents. Individually, it always loses, as thermodynamics is immutable. In other words, life takes the path of greatest resistance falling down the giant slide of ever-increasing entropy. Natural selection ensures, of course, that it does so in as efficient a manner as is required.
I think the core problem is this: Everyone likes identification. Identification is useful. What people tend not to like is being unable to control who has identification/information on them and to what ends its being used. Perfectly understandable given humanity's "unsavoury" past.
What ever happened to the branch of comp sci directly involved w/ personal identification crypto, e.g. The now-aged pgp "web of trust" concepts? It seems like nothing new has happened in that arena in quite some time.
Imagine some sort of security "vetting service" tied in with something along the lines of kerberos. I'd be willing to give out identification/limited personal information to others as long as I:
Knew who was asking and was able to authorize only proxies I trusted to reveal this information.
Was able to get reciprocal data on the requestor.
If such a "vetting" organization made transactional information publically (electronically) available, with nothing but pure transaction #s (i.e. no actual personal information revealed publically), this could be privately and publically spot checked against the systems actually handing out the real data; perhaps even automatically, by concerned individuals and watchdog groups. I grab the portion of the logs/transactions that pertain to me and match them up against what was privately handed out and they damn well better match. How does this help? Well, for one, I would be hesitent to get on a flight with a person who wasn't willing to "swap" id data with me.
Yeah, ok, it's not a completely thought out idea and probably has numerous flaws, but the point should be clear.;)
Just like "many eyes make shallow bugs", so do "many eyes promote honesty." (or at least tend to catch offenders rapidly)
As it stands, it seems the trend is currently to deploy technology against the people, rather than for them.
"the fisrt law of thermodynamics precludes any fuel source producing more energy than originally went into its creation"
You are mixing up the creation of an energy storage source and the expending of energy stored in an energy storage source.
What the poster was saying is that currently you have to expend > N energy to extract N energy from water in the form of hydrogen. He didn't say he was creating the water~
I know exactly what the OP was talking about. You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about creation of new matter; but rather the fact that in order to decrease the amount of entropy in a system it must (a) be open and (b) the final net effect is a total increase in entropy. This applies as much to converting/storing potential energy in a simple chemical state (H2O -> H2 & O2) as it does to long-term natural processes such as photosynthesis which (may) ultimately result in fossil fuels. Thermodynamically, there is no difference (although the natural processes tend to be more efficient because nature has had a very long time to work on the problem).
There's no such thing as a free lunch, it's just a matter of how and when you pay for it.
People are always referring hydrogen as an "energy source", but hydrogen is not an energy source at all because there is currently no way to get hydrogen without expending more energy than you can obtain from burning the hydrogen you get. As a result, hydrogen is currently at best an energy storage medium, and NOT an energy source.
By this logic, there is no such thing as an "energy source" of any type, as the fisrt law of thermodynamics precludes any fuel source producing more energy than originally went into its creation. It's all a matter of scope. If I spend my entire life collecting and compressing hydrogen, and then hand it off as an anonymous gift to you, is it still not an "energy source"? What do you think is so special about fossil fuels that makes them so-called energy sources? Hint: It starts with an H.
Consider that there is enough energy to vastly exceed all of humanity's needs or wants for the forseeable future, located a scant 150 million kms away. Unfortunately, they are some technical issues involved with the capturing, transportation and storage of this energy. But, it's definitely out there doing nothing but... well... producing. While I'm not sure that pure hydrogen is quite the answer (as there are, after all, considerable difficulties containing and storing large amounts of it in a high-density form), the research into what amounts to an attempt at replicating nature's ultimate chemical "battery" (fossil fuels) is certainly intriguing.
Slashdot Mirror
Before becoming a blackhole any star will explode explode due to fusion of heavy atoms, the heavier they are more energy they will release. like the heavy metals
... sometimes it gets its wish).
... its gone forever (for that star anyway). Suddenly, gravity has the upper-hand, and in a big way. The entire star begins to contract in on itself, approaching relativistic speeds as it nears the core. The inner core of the star is already highly dense post-fusion material, lots of iron, silicon, oxygen, neon, etc. The outer portion of the star was mostly the light and fluffy stuff: hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, ... But there's a whole lot of it. So, when all this "stuff" comes rushing back in and hits what amounts to an immovable object, it "bounces." Really really hard. So hard that the fundamental forces of nature momentarily cease to exist as we know them. So hard that the energy produced illuminates large sections of galaxies.
That isn't really the primary (theoretical, of course) reason that massive stars "explode" (keep in mind, this is nothing like an explosion as any human understands it). However, the continuing fusion of heavier elements, up to iron, is thought to be the reason for numerous changes a late-lifecycle star experiences.
Once a massive star reaches the point where the majority of exothermic fusionable material consists of silicon, it has very big problem on its "hands." It's got about a day to live. silicon fuses at about 2.7e+9 K (optimimally), so that's one hell of a last day, and an unbelievable amount of iron production (thank the stars for your iron). Now, this entire time the star has been increasingly putting out more and more energy; that energy has tremendous pressure and serves to balance the star's own gravitional force which seeks to collapse it as closely to a point-source as possible (and it is, of course, theorized
At some very critical moment on the last minute of the last hour of that last day, there is no longer enough remaining silicon to keep the reaction going (some of the iron is fusing, but it's endothermic so it's only making the situation worse). Once this magic point is hit, fusion drops off very very rapidly, the remaining lighter-than-iron elements simply won't fuse without enough energy and once its gone
The details that actually occur in those few nanoseconds and microseconds are not completely understood, but it is understood that a great many bizarre interactions take place. The closest anyone can come to understanding this by way of simulation is in a particle accelerator. For one brief moment, this former mega-sized celebrity of a star takes on the apparition of the big bang; unification of forces and other outlandish stylings that no mortal human will ever witness up-close (or would want to if you're half-sane).
So, what really causes supernovae? Gravity winning.
Cubicles are indeed the massive suck. But
TFA missed an important point on my list though.
Death By Meeting
If you find yourself in a repetitive slew of non-technical (read: sales and marketing) meetings filled with the scum of the earth (ok, maybe only if you work at a law firm), and you aren't either (a) some sort of S&M liason or (b) upper-management, something is very very nordically decomposed.
The standard formalized approach to software development originated from NASA, or rather from the MIT Instrumentation Lab who operated with NASA oversight when designing the Apollo Guidance Computer. As others in this thread have eloquently noted, those were different times with significantly restrictive limitations placed upon developers in terms of execution times and storage capacities by the immature nature of the technology. Still, today (with the exception of ad-hoc distributed development models, such as those employed by most OSS), we follow this model, one that is closely tied to traditional engineering, albeit without the benefits of a true rigid engineering approach. As others have noted, the abstract nature of software does not lend itself well to explicit functional testing, failure-mode analysis and robust specification adherence.
I suspect that this model is still so widely accepted and used for one simple reason: Nobody has yet figured out a suitable replacement.
One problem, and one I do not have the answer to, is that software development languages, while having significantly advanced from the 60s, still provide little in the way of inherent regression testing facilities. While a certain subset of developers will always neglect the importance of regression testing, the lack of immediate obvious availability of such tools does little to pave the way towards more properly engineered development. In other words, if developers don't have the tools or the tools are not readily apparent, there is less chance that they will make the effort.
It's unquestionably a heavier than air vehicle (Especially when full of people), so it can't generate lift from density differences. It doesn't have any significant wingspan, which means that it can't use bernoulli's principal to generate lift. Therefore, the only reasonable remaining possibility is that it must be creating a downward thrust equal to the mass*gravity of the vehicle. That's very, very bad for gas mileage, making the "28mpg" claim more than a little dubious. In theory, strapping four engines with those claimed power/consumption ratios to a compact car with no standard engine and the wheels in neutral should generate highway speeds at vastly higher MPG ratings.
Unfortunately for your pet theory, the Bernoulli Principal has very little to do with standard airfoil generated lift; you've been incorrectly educated (as have many). The principal responsible is the Coanda effect, and the humorous bit is that it actually causes exactly what you deride as an extremely inefficent method of generating lift (although I will agree, 28mpg seem a tad ridiculous for any aircraft). To quickly understand the Bernoulli fallacy, puzzle over this one question: How does an inverted aircraft remain both aerodynamically stable (relatively) and continue to maintain or increase altitude when the very airfoil shape that causes the Bernoulli effect is completely upside-down?
Any decent sysadmin knows concepts, not platforms, and can work with whatever you hand them
Boss: I want result X. Sys-admin: Oh that's easy. In theory you do acts A, B and C. In theory it takes about Y weeks to do it. Boss: Great, I'll let you get to it. Y weeks later. Boss: So how is it going? Do you think you'll be able to finish it in a timely manner? Sys-admin: I've barely started, I don't know your platform, I only know the concepts.
That's not the experienced SA response. The experienced response is "In theory, it's easy, you just do A, B and C. However, I am unfamiliar with the nuances of this platform and related systems, so I'll need some time to analyze and more thoroughly understand the problem, after which I can give you a relatively firm implementation date. Also, once completed, you can rest assured that I will have achieved indepth working knowledge of the system and be able to predict most failure modes as well as rapidly provide answers to any future questions that arise."
I'm no biologist, but I'm sure pressure affects more than just lung cavities. For example, divers get the bends when they come up and the pressure is released too quickly, causing the nitrogen in their blood to come out of solution. Now, I'm not saying that squid get the bends, but I imagine taking one to the surface would have some effect.
This is true. Under normal 1 ATA conditions we operate with a certain level of n2 dissolved in all of our soft tissues (blood being one). However, this is largely a non-issue because astronauts already have to go through a slow "decompression process" to reduce nitrogen loading when prepping for a flight, as the shuttle and EVAs operate at significantly less pressure than sea level. This is for a number of reasons, but mainly because the consequences of environment puncture are much less severe if the pressure differential is less.
Besides, off-gassing (the term for decreasing non-metabolic soft-tissue gas loads) occurs quite rapidly in a pure o2 environment with little or no of the "disposed" gas existing as external partial-pressure (see boyle's law).
Additionally, decompression sickness (i.e. "the bends") doesn't occur instantly, it takes a while for the gas to expand and "bubble out" of the tissues, gathering at places like joints and causing the sufferer to attempt pain alleviation by "bending" the joint.
Actually, yes, for awhile. The primary problem is that we have too many moist mucous membranes that will loose fluid. A face mask, covering ones nose and mouth would let one stay alive in space, even without a suit. However, one's eardrums would burst and one's eyes would boil away and probably burst as well. Add pain to the mixture as you think appropriate.
.... even in a pure o2 environment (which certainly is already required for EVA), anything below about 3psi is dangerous. Lungs are a nice flexible organ, but they aren't capable of withstanding more than a very slight pressure differential without over-expansion and potential embolism occuring.
That's not the primary problem. The primary problem is that the human brain needs a minimum level of oxygen to operate; that oxygen can only be provided by the respitory system at a rate directly proportional to the o2 pressure in the respirated environment(or "partial pressure" in mixed gas environments, like earth at sealevel). If you decrease pressure, you must likewise increase o2 or risk cognitive failure and rapid blackout (with little-to-no warning either). Now, as with all biology, individuals differ widely, but
That means that any environmental suit must maintain the same approximate force upon the wearer as exerted by the wearer's respiration gas pressure. Likewise, in order to prevent circulatory damage, the force needs to be exerted pretty evenly across the entire body. So, in effect, you're talking about a suit that can "squeeze" the wearer evenly at a minimum of three or so lbs/sq inch. Assuming such could be designed, how do you propose one would don such an outfit in a pressurised environment? I don't care how great your lubricant of choice is, I can't imagine someone getting into one of these things in the first place without great physical harm occuring.
The teacher's eyes lit up with anger. In retrospect, I should have expected this. But I honestly didn't see 'taking a dump' as being in the same league as 'shitted in a fucking private stall', but the way he reacted I might as well have said that. He was so mad, he actually ran across the hall and stopped a teacher that was passing by. "I asked this young man why he was late to class, and you know what he said?" The poor teacher disinterestedly shook his head. "He said he was..." he actually held up his hands to signify quotes... "taking a dump."
Yes, very Donnie Darko. "I'll tell you what he said. He asked my to forcibly insert the Life Line exercise into my anus."
Cultural differences vary widely with geography, of course, but where I happen to currently reside, cursing has become so socially accepted that it's practically no longer noticed. I'm not just talking about a particular peer group either; even in the workplace, it's unusual not too hear a litany of frustated cursing at any given moment with no apparent relation to gender, ethnicity, etc.
As someone with significant intellectual interest in linguistics, I've noticed that there are essentially two categories of cursing: Words or phrases with a prejudicial basis (gender, race, sexual preference, etc) and those related to bodily functions. The "bodily function" category is apparently much more acceptable in mixed company; for the obvious reason that while an isolated prejudicial curse might be harmless out of context, the prejudice itself often still exists in the world and continues to damage societies across the globe.
There is also the class of curses that seems to be in somewhat of a "cross-over" mode, like the word "bitch." Literal meaning aside, it has traditionally been used as a derogatory term for a female. Modern usage though seems to be changing, and the term can now often apply to both men and women; as a result it seems more acceptable in common speech. I'm curious if it will lose (or already has lost) some of its "curse power" because of this slight linguistic shift and the fact that it's not part of the immortal "bodily function" category.
Not if they have evidence that said single moms have broken the law. They could be 95-year-old great-great-grandmothers, but if they broke the law, they're a valid lawsuit target.
They allegedly have evidence. If someone has "broken the law", the correct prodedure is to contact the attorney general or relevant law enforcement agencies. If, once investigated, they believe said evidence is sufficient, the individuals in question will be processed through the criminal court system where they will be provided with an attorney if they cannot afford one, the right to trial by jury and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. These are cornerstones of a society which, supposedly, values individual freedoms for all over special interests.
What the RIAA is attempting (and with some success) is to manipulate the civil legal system into a criminal surrogate, wherein they cause (or threaten to cause) such financial strife that defendants bow to their mighty will in an attempt to avoid life-long reprocussions that often make it difficult to provide for the future of the defendant's family (credit, education, etc).
Guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.
They cannot, yet, imprison individuals but I'm sure they would simply love that sort of power.
The RIAA, and other similar organizations, are not elected representatives of the public trust and have no business acting in the capacity of such. Their blatant attempts to portray themselves in this light combined with predatory litigatious behavior would generally be considered crimes of coercion under common law.
Logic, m'boy, logic. If you're gonna spout off psuedo-science like the pros, you gotta get a hold of some logic.
why would man and animals need eyes if they couldn't see before, sight is a very high-level ability, a creature without sight doesn't realise he needs it? What does "realise he needs it" have to do with anything? Evolution is not intentional, evolution is not a "force". Nothing decides to evolve. A species ability to visually perceive offers many advantages, depending on the environment. Mate recognition, prey recognition, predator awareness, etc.
Also in 'natural selection' humans would have been eaten by everything without sight no matter how developed the brain was.
Which humans? Modern humans? There's no sense behind those ears, boy! Modern humans can create weapons and modify their environment to prevent being "eaten by everything". If you're talking pre-historic humans, I'd be willing to bet that a fair number of them were eaten.
Still, the ability to form even primitive weapons is an amazing advantage. Plus, do you really think people were always as they are today (physically, senses, etc)?
If we came from the ocean then why can't we breath underwater and if we are the most 'evolved' of creatures then why are the birds flying around the earth like it's going out of fashion? We're wingless, can't go underwater without breathing equipment, the ascent of man? Yeah right.
Who judges humanity as the "most evolved?" You? Last I checked, no mammals have gills, and the set of species that is truly amphibious is rather limited and primitve.
How do you propose a warm blooded animal should go about absorbing the incredible amount of oxygen necessary to maintain a fast metabolism with something like gills? What does Genesis 1:1 have to say about that?
I'm sure if these 'scientists' really thought about it, evolution is absured, mutation is more accurate, but I wasn't a piece of garbage from 10000 billion years ago. I mean even micro-biology points to an intended design. How come nobody talks about entropy no more? Oh if we we're the offspring of monkeys then why arn't monkeys turning into humans?
Ahh, here we see the real truth. It's personal, isn't it? You just couldn't possibly have been from genetic lineage decended from something more primitive, could you? News flash buddy: Just because you want something to be a certain way, doesn't make it so.
Your "intended design" is completely and totally without evidence in reality. The so-called "evidence" is nothing more than fanciful thought expirements based on theology rather than logic. Put it this way: any "designer" with the ability to exactingly design all the myriad forms of life is equally capable of "designing" a process by which life can adapt, change and mutate to best suit its environment over time. I suspect that a being with that much power is perfectly capable of making you an "offspring of monkeys", whether you like it or not.
(pssst.. nobody's forgotten about entropy, it's just that we're all sick of listening to very confused creationists try to bend the second law of thermodynamics to fit their will)
I used to reccomend Dell's to people, I no longer do because of the nightmare the Tech support is, INCLUDING the platinum support level for the high end servers. I have a 8450 server loaded with a 7 foot tall rack of powervaults connected to it and It was like pulling teth to get the thing fixed. the techs blamed the "cables" of the powervaults several times and took 2 weeks to get us up and running again after a fatal crash because the powervaults were starting rebuilds of spare drives and then offlining them breaking the raid 50.
Heh.. Try it with over a thousand servers. Dell seems to have little in the way of methods by which large corp customers can bypass tier 1 & 2 support. Actually, Sun (w/ x86 hw, not sparc) is worse in many ways, but that's largely due to a massively bad crop of seagate discs in the sunfire v20zs.
So you are claiming that, without the Moon landing, digital computers woudln't have been invented? Don't be obtuse. Obviously, nobody's claiming that. Technology has been an evolution, demarcated by the occasional revolutionary breakthough that ends up being a core component years later (tube, transistor, integrated circuit, etc). These are important, sure, but they aren't really what makes advances. Advances are made through necessity, real or imagined. Right now the "necessity" seems to primarly be entertainment driven, which is why you see so much R&D going into high-density storage.
In the 60s though, there was a different necessity: Beat the soviets to the moon. It was very important to a lot of USians, and the Kennedy administration had made it a big focal point. Science of course, had a different aim, but the political and social pressures drove funding.
There was a big perceived problem at the time, though. The soviets had "won" every aspect of the race in 1960. And they had the N1 on the horizon, whose heavy lifting capability easily surpassed anything that NASA or the army (redstone, vanguard, etc) had on the drawing table. Nobody knew, of course (or at least the public didn't), that the N1 had some serious design flaws that would later result in the worst disasters in the history of manned space flight (and that includes the two lost orbiters).
The workload of actually performing a moon landing was so intesive that it wasn't thought possible for two or even three men to do it with any reasonable safety or confidence. They knew they were gonna to use those new-fangled digital computers for guidance systems, control, environment, etc. Problem is, of course, nobody had ever built a small computer that was up to the task and there was certainly no software capable of handling all the tasks (often more than one simultaneously). Keep in mind, the overwhelming engineering pressure at all times was payload mass. Every kg you take up is another kg of fuel you can't burn, plus you have to add fuel to push that kg, so dropping a kg of payload is worth more than its weight in fuel.
In 1961, NASA formally chose the MIT Instrumentation Lab to produce the AGC (apollo guidance computer). This is in an era before the term "software engineering" had been coined. Nobody had ever written a piece of software like this before, its scope, at the time, was literally inconceivable. The were no development procedures, testing models, best practices, etc. Everything had to be created from scratch.
It almost didn't happen. In 1964, NASA came close to pulling the plug on MIT, because MIT was behind schedule and beginning to fully understand that the details where much more sophisticated than they had originally thought.
During this project, the MIT Instrumentation Lab operated as nearly a pure research facility. They documented their procedures and they shared knowledge with other research facilities. It was there, in that lab, that software development as we know it today was born.
Would it have happened otherwise? Probably. Not in the same way of course, and not at the same speed. Some of the conceptual leaps that were made w.r.t. software development might never have happened, because they might not have been perceived as necessary. One thing is for sure, the apollo program did change the face of the world in an area not directly related to space-flight. Speculating what might or might not have happened without apollo seems largely pointless.
Every pointer now takes twice the space.
So what? Well, ok, sure there's some additional overhead incurred by doubling the native register/int size, but still. are you saying that the majority of memory consumed by an os and applications is pointers? It's not, it's buffers. Lots of 'em. Heaps of 'em (pun intended). And they aren't allocated based on register size. Of course, looks like Vista in "candy ass mode" is gonna be doing some texture buffering too but that's going to slurp up ram no matter what arch.
That is one of the nice things about the PPC and Sparc. If you do not need 64bit pointer you can just compile for 32bit. You can run 32 bit code on a 64 64bit AMD/Intel CPU but you get a big performance boost if you recompile to 64 bit since you have a more registers available in 64bit mode.
Yeah, that's a nice feature. Too bad you get whacked out with sigbus if you don't align on a 64-bit boundary (sparc64 anyway, not sure about ppc).
Doesn't anybody use VLANs anymore? Maybe I'm ignorant here (it's a big world and all), but why should Windows clients be allowed to talk to eachother on the network? Especially if there are VPN nodes and/or soft-spots in the network implementation? Simple VLANs and the usage of DMZ's for outward-facing servers have worked for us so far; any virus infections have been localized to a PC at a time. There's always the ol' email entry point, but that's what clamav is for, right? ;)
vlans don't inhibit broadcast or unicast traffic on the same vlan, so unless each workstation is on a separate vlan (which I can't imagine, as it wouldn't scale), vlans aren't useful for isolating workstations from each other. They are, of course, useful for isolating workstations from other network devices.
Is SALT powerful enough to see the American flag on the moon?
No, not an actual flag. Maybe a landing site, but it would be difficult and costly to do and the result would likely be dissatisfying to the layperson (and pointless for scientists).
The VLT was considering this a couple of years ago, not sure if they ever went through with it -- probably killed for budgetary reasons. Just because a telescope can pick up a some form of remote point-source light doesn't mean it can actually resolve the point source in terms of what you are thinking (i.e. a "picture").
Besides, what fool would waste time and resources trying to take "nearby" photos of a place we've already been when the telescope can clearly be put to much more useful scientific endeavors?
Has anyone played with that Orbetor Simulator?
;)
Seeing this animation made me realize just how good that programmer is. The visualizations on that simulator nailed it pretty well. And it's free too!
I concur, and have been an orbiter aficionado for years! While the rendering is certainly top-notch w/ a decent gl card, what I find incredibly remarkable about Dr. Schweiger's simulator is that it allows one to get the "feeling" of orbital mechanics beyond the pure math (as much as possible without the physical sensation of freefall).
For example, once you've simulated low-earth-orbit rendezvous between two craft, you more fully appreciate the complexities and just how non-intuitive it is. While LEO is certainly a micro-gravity environment due to freefall, two nearby unconnected objects have different centers of gravity, are in very slightly different orbits and experience different tidal forces. This means that delta V between the two tends to act in a non-intuitive fashion and you can't just "let newton do the driving." Slight drifting (small acceleration without control input) rapidly compounds over time such that constant correction is required to prevent things from getting out of hand. This is one reason that real-life rendezvous is a slow, methodical and very carefully monitored process.
Additionally, the simulator is very much like the "real thing" in this respect, because in real orbit you are in freefall and can't rely on the "seat of the pants" feeling pilots are accustomed to for attitude/velocity determination when flying terrestrial aircraft.
Well, that, and the fact that if you haven't gotten past the adaptation period, there's a good chance you're constantly fighting the urge to vomit.
A quote once uttered by an ISS astronaut/cosmonaut seems particularly appropriate here:
(in the context of performing an EVA outside the ISS)
"It's kind of like trying to work while falling off a cliff which is itself falling and slowly tumbling end-over-end."
Way wrong. The USSC is *not* limited to shooting down legislation. They can declare that any of our laws are unconstitutional. Think Roe v. Wade, where they legalized abortion. Think Brown v. Board, where they integrated the schools. An activist court can pretty much make whatever legislation they want (once they get jurisdiction on the topic).
Umm.. Where do you think laws come from? Do they magically appear on stone tablets? Declaring law unconstitutional is "shooting down legislation."
Brown v. Board overturned an 1896 ruling regarding the "separate but equal" clause of an 1890 Louisiana general assembly act (hint: legislature); thus rendering applicable portions of the original act null and void on the basis of the 14th amendment.
Similarly, Roe v. Wade struck down portions of texas criminal abortion legislature on the basis of the "due process" clause of the 14th amendment.
Agree or disagree with these rulings, your assertion that an "activist court can pretty much make whatever legislation they want" is evidenced by neither case. I believe if you do some research into the organization and rules of the judicial branch, you will discover that this is almost universally true by action and by design.
Killing the guy who takes your mate is human nature too. What a stupid argument. It's not "human nature" that laws should be aligned with, it's the "will of the people" and on the matter of file sharing the people have spoken: we want to share.
I disagree with your first assertion and agree with the last. Feeling anger towards the person who "steals" your mate is human nature. However, one of the finer aspects of human character is our ability to control our actions. Members of society who blindly follow every fool impulse that crosses their mind are members who must be removed and isolated for the protection of society as a whole.
Adult non-sociopaths guide their interactions with others by identification and role-reversal. The simple (but often too elusive) "if I were Y instead of X, how would this affect me." The problem, morally, with intellectual property issues is that it is often very hard to make this identification and thus the purely moral case is somewhat elusive.
In the case of the recording industry, artist's views on the subject cover a broad spectrum. Their obvious disconnect from the supplier-chain creates a psychological obstacle (on both sides) for applying the "golden rule" (something a rational member of society will normally apply when making moral decisions).
Perhaps if said disconnect between artist and purveyor were minimized, the moral implications would become more clear (one way or the other -- and again, on both sides). Unfortunately, the paradox we find ourselves in is that the technology that could make this possible is both (a) threatening to the status-quo and (b) potentially too exploitable in the eyes of some artists (and I mean the real artists here).
(assuming that global warming is fact, which all proven scientific evidence shows it's not)
I see. And of course you have links to back up this assertion from respected peer-reviewed journals?
I could understand if you had asserted "mankind is not the direct cause of current global climate change." That's something that is quite disputed by various climatologists; so one could be forgiven for ill-advisedly "picking" a side. The problem though, is that your assertion that "all proven scientific evidence shows it's not" (i.e. global warming is not occuring) is absolute bunk.
That global climate change is occuring is a forgone conclusion, the data clearly shows trending towards average global warming and increased atmospheric co2. Current science is focused on change rates; specifically problems involving sampling history, techniques, statistics and force modeling. Without solid data and working representative models, it's very difficult to put forth a sound cause-hypothesis.
[Gaffen, D et al - Multidecadal Changes in the Vertical Temperature Structure of the Tropical Troposphere, Science vol 287, 18 Feb. 2000]
[Hegerl, G.C. and J.M. Wallace - Influence of Patterns of Climate Variability on the Difference between Satellite and Surface Temperature Trends, J. Climate vol 15, 2002]
Back to the available options, would you rather have a system where the lazy or dishonest people suffer, or one where they rule over the resources? I personally abhor silver spoon yuppies, having dealt with them and their purchased degrees throughout my career. The worst system for them is pure capitalism, as they have nothing of value to offer (other than spending their fund money which only lasts so long). Yes, the data does indicate the US is moving towards a meritocracy, where the competent, educated and motivated rise and rule over others through their command of capital. I'm always shocked when any potentially intelligent slashdotter opposes this system, but then again, it takes some of us more time than others to realize utopian ideals don't work when not everyone is equally intelligent, honest and motivated.
... in a nice personal sort of way, but you get enough of us together and we're absofuckinglutely crazy. And there's no solution. Let's just get it over with, pull out the nukes, and take care of business. Let nature start over with a nice clean plate. Maybe one of the other primates can come up with a better solution -- if we let any live, of course.
How are any of those supposed to work when we can't put down the fucking weapons and stop killing each other in droves for even a single year? I mean talk about needing to "crawl before you walk."
Humanity is stricken with some horrible schizoid affliction wherein we are constantly (a) trying to force someone to give us what we want, (b) trying to prevent someone from taking something we have, or (c) in limbo worried that b will happen.
Let's just face facts. Human beings royally blow. Genetically, I mean. We are pre-programmed to absolutely and completely suck. Oh, sure, we're great one-on-one; small groups
It says "All it does is connect the Web server to your Python code with as little fuss as possible. It doesn't make decisions about what other tools to use, ..."
And then in the very next paragraph, it says: "Instead of relying on Apache or another Web server, CherryPy runs its own small Python-based Web server."
No, no, no!
I love CherryPy as a way of routing requests to Python objects and functions. Rock on!
But look, I'm running like 20 wiki and 5 custom web apps and a few WordPress installations on my server.
And they are all plugged into Apache.
So, actually, in fact, CherryPy has now made some decisions about what tools I'm supposed to use.
Sure, I can forward requests from Apache to the CherryPy server, but that is yet another hassle, it is yet another thing to support and maintain and think about.
I wish instead that the CherryPy dev's had made it so there were multiple adapters to the CherryPy system.
After a quick glance (although I haven't looked deeply into it, so I could be talking straight out of my ass here), seems like it should be a snap to wrap/inherit CherryHTTPRequestHandler and plug cherry right into mod_python. Like all things python, it's pretty much just your basics from httplib. What, maybe 50-70 lines of code?
Similarly, you can plug such a wrapper into the fcgi module and get fastcgi running, if that's your thing. Even single process fastcgi w/ multithreading on the back-end.
The processes that form the universe, and in turn create life and allow it to evolve, appear to run on their own, following automatically from a number of fundamental constants. The only possible place for God, then, is as the definer of those original constants. An all-powerful Creator would certainly be able to see the processes that would flow from his original definitions, but it's hard for me to agree that God "used" evolution to get us to where we are today. Evolution just goes along by itself.
... The good bit is this:
If there is a God, he seems to live in the "gaps" in our knowledge. Before we knew about universal gravitation, God or gods moved the planets around. Now we know that gravity takes care of this movement, that it happens by itself as a result of a logical process. Currently, our "gap" is in the area of where these forces come from (and also in their exact properties). If we were someday able to show that these forces follow inexorably from some other cause, God would just be moved behind that cause. I believe that it's reasonable to believe that the process of moving God into smaller and smaller gaps can be taken to its limit, whether or not we actually close those gaps, and God can be said not to exist.
Somewhat aside (because I agree w/ you and thus have no direct point to debate): One interesting concept that is revealed by the more rational "intelligent design" debates (i.e. those not directly fueled by religious zealotry) is that of evolution's apparent "conflict" with the second law of thermodynamics.
Obviously, no such real conflict exists (otherwise, wouldn't be much of a law, would it?), however
Life, from wherever it originated, appears to be the only known thing in the universe that consistantly, stubbornly, and occasionally valiantly strives to fight the second law (both long and short terms) and all it represents. Individually, it always loses, as thermodynamics is immutable. In other words, life takes the path of greatest resistance falling down the giant slide of ever-increasing entropy. Natural selection ensures, of course, that it does so in as efficient a manner as is required.
What ever happened to the branch of comp sci directly involved w/ personal identification crypto, e.g. The now-aged pgp "web of trust" concepts? It seems like nothing new has happened in that arena in quite some time.
Imagine some sort of security "vetting service" tied in with something along the lines of kerberos. I'd be willing to give out identification/limited personal information to others as long as I:
If such a "vetting" organization made transactional information publically (electronically) available, with nothing but pure transaction #s (i.e. no actual personal information revealed publically), this could be privately and publically spot checked against the systems actually handing out the real data; perhaps even automatically, by concerned individuals and watchdog groups. I grab the portion of the logs/transactions that pertain to me and match them up against what was privately handed out and they damn well better match. How does this help? Well, for one, I would be hesitent to get on a flight with a person who wasn't willing to "swap" id data with me.
Yeah, ok, it's not a completely thought out idea and probably has numerous flaws, but the point should be clear.
Just like "many eyes make shallow bugs", so do "many eyes promote honesty." (or at least tend to catch offenders rapidly)
As it stands, it seems the trend is currently to deploy technology against the people, rather than for them.
"the fisrt law of thermodynamics precludes any fuel source producing more energy than originally went into its creation"
You are mixing up the creation of an energy storage source and the expending of energy stored in an energy storage source.
What the poster was saying is that currently you have to expend > N energy to extract N energy from water in the form of hydrogen. He didn't say he was creating the water~
I know exactly what the OP was talking about. You misunderstand me. I'm not talking about creation of new matter; but rather the fact that in order to decrease the amount of entropy in a system it must (a) be open and (b) the final net effect is a total increase in entropy. This applies as much to converting/storing potential energy in a simple chemical state (H2O -> H2 & O2) as it does to long-term natural processes such as photosynthesis which (may) ultimately result in fossil fuels. Thermodynamically, there is no difference (although the natural processes tend to be more efficient because nature has had a very long time to work on the problem).
There's no such thing as a free lunch, it's just a matter of how and when you pay for it.
People are always referring hydrogen as an "energy source", but hydrogen is not an energy source at all because there is currently no way to get hydrogen without expending more energy than you can obtain from burning the hydrogen you get. As a result, hydrogen is currently at best an energy storage medium, and NOT an energy source.
... well ... producing. While I'm not sure that pure hydrogen is quite the answer (as there are, after all, considerable difficulties containing and storing large amounts of it in a high-density form), the research into what amounts to an attempt at replicating nature's ultimate chemical "battery" (fossil fuels) is certainly intriguing.
By this logic, there is no such thing as an "energy source" of any type, as the fisrt law of thermodynamics precludes any fuel source producing more energy than originally went into its creation. It's all a matter of scope. If I spend my entire life collecting and compressing hydrogen, and then hand it off as an anonymous gift to you, is it still not an "energy source"? What do you think is so special about fossil fuels that makes them so-called energy sources? Hint: It starts with an H.
Consider that there is enough energy to vastly exceed all of humanity's needs or wants for the forseeable future, located a scant 150 million kms away. Unfortunately, they are some technical issues involved with the capturing, transportation and storage of this energy. But, it's definitely out there doing nothing but