I expect the lesson to potential training-bra fetishists will be to get your cyber-partner to make a clear statement that they are not recording the conversation.
Which, ironically, can't be proven without the recording that you have stated you aren't recording:-)
Actually, virus IS a latin word, and its nominative plural is viri; it derives from greek and sanskrit, and it translates roughly as "poison, slime, slimy liquid, offensive odor". Both the OED and Merriam-Webster trace the english word virus directly to the latin virus, round about 1599.
What you're saying here is that because A implies B therefore (not B) implies (not A). That is incorrect reasoning.
What I assume you meant is that "A -> B therefore !A -> !B" is false..... because "A -> B therefore !B -> !A" IS quite true. Always have been, always will be: "I am a car, therefore I have four wheels" implies "I do not have four wheels, therefore I am not a car", but does not imply "I am not a car, therefore I do not have four wheels". I might be a four wheeled truck or something...
If infinite memory were available there would be no theoretical barrier to completely reversing entropy increase.
In physical terms, your "infinite memory" is the same as having an "infinite physical system" (i.e. the system has an infinite number of possible states); the standard proof of the second law assumes the first law and knowledge that the system in question is finite. Those two ingredients are enough. But, if the physical system is infinite, the second law does not hold.
No... but it might mean less clean laundry [mit.edu] (Same dorm.... gosh, living there was fun:-)
Re:Your own reference seems to contradict you
on
Black Holes Disputed
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· Score: 2
Actually, they can't.... at least, not for long:-)
Seriously, though, you are confusing the ability to maintain an object in the air using thrust, and the lift provided by an airfoil moving through the air. If you take a glider, flip it over, and let time pass, the glider will crash. Take an airplane, turn it into a glider by shutting down the engines, and repeat the last sentence.
I'd much rather see a list of questions based on well-known phenomena that contradict fashionable theories, with the goal of replacing the latter with something less arbitrary.
Wouldn't that require that the "fashionable theories" be "arbitrary" and contradict "well-known phenomena"? I'm a practicing theoretical physicist, and I'm not aware that there are any such things. Perhaps you can point to something I'm missing?
Someone else already pointed out the fact that "classical" to a physicist doesn't mean what you think it means, so I won't belabor that point.
However, I am going to object to your statement that "the theory falls apart with the Higgs". There is no truth to that whatsoever. If there is no standard Higgs, the Standard Model is toast - but not the Quantum Field Theory (the theory part, not the model part) that the model is based on. There are numerous alternatives to the Standard Higgs sector (SUSY, extra dimensions, dynamical models, dimensional deconstruction, etc.) that we theorists are speculating about, and there are probably other alternatives that we haven't thought of yet.
And even if String Theory is the fundamental theory describing nature, it still doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the low energy limit that is the Standard Model; after all, we still use Newtonian mechanics where that is appropriate, and we don't try to how apples fall to earth using quantum gravity.
I'm not doing that, and I am sorry if I gave you that impression.
it's ignorant to discount a seemingly impossible idea just because research to this day has built up evidence against it
That is PRECISELY why I dismiss it: when someone tells me that a "water powered car" is possible, and I ask the question "How do you intend to extract energy from the water?", and the answer violates well understood and well researched physics AND the person making the claim hasn't demonstrated either that it works or that they understand the scientific method, then I dismiss their claim. If they do demonstrate it, and it conflicts with modern theory, then we have something to talk about. I do the same thing when my colleagues make ridiculous claims about the structure and properties of subatomic particles, and they do it to me; the difference is that we don't go out and tell the world that we can do something that we haven't suitably demonstrated is possible and have been peer reviewed.
Think about this...: what exactly is gravity?
If you could answer that question, then you would be a Nobel Laureate.:-) I can explain to you in great detail qualitatively HOW gravity works, I can give you detailed quantitative predictions, I can show you how precisely the theory matches the experiments, but I can't tell you WHAT gravity is... and that is true of a great many things, but it doesn't prevent me from telling you that you WILL fall to earth if you strap on feathers and jump off a building while claiming you can fly.... And I do realize that you were using gravity as an example, but I would have torn any other example to shreds too:-)
don't go condemning new ideas just because they disagree with your high school physics teacher.
I wouldn't condemn them on those grounds; my high school physics teachers knew so little physics:-) I condemn pseudoscience/bad science/crackpot ideas based on my doctoral level research and training in physics (truth in advertising: I haven't defended my dissertation yet... give me three more months:-) And I don't have a tendency to condemn those ideas that I think are ridiculous but are outside my field, because I don't necessarily have the training to do so with authority; I only attack those things which violate known experimental facts within my field. And a water powered car is one of those things that is known from experiment (not just our crazy theory) to be impossible.
My basic point is the following: while it may be ignorant to discount an idea based on a hunch that conflicts with my (experimentally based) understanding of the structure of physical reality, it is even more ignorant to promulgate ideas that explicitly conflict with well established and easily reproducible experimental facts.
One problem when comparing plans like this for producing fuel, to other more traditional fuels is that the cost of crude oil or whatever does not reflect the value of the oil.
I disagree, because I don't think your implied definition of value makes any sense; the "value" of a commodity is determined by what buyers are willing to pay for it, and what sellers are willing to sell it for. Currently, buyers and sellers can agree on the cost of buying and selling oil. Currently, what buyers are willing to pay for hydrogen is substantially below what sellers are willing to accept for it. Until that changes, which will only occur by lowering the costs (which will take time and research), not enough people will be willing to switch.
The political ties... have easily, squashed new ideas for alternate power sources.
Well, no. Those political ties cost vast amounts of money... money that would otherwise be profit, bonuses, stock options, etc... The conspiracy theories may be fun, but they don't make sense, because conspiracies only make sense in real life when everyone benefits. While OPEC certainly benefits, everyone else loses, and are only tied together because they have to be to get what they need to stay in business. What would you prefer: deep, entagling ties to corrupt regimes and vast transportation costs, or having complete control over the whole process, without having to pay anyone off?
I've heard of everything from water powered cars to solar panel arrays that are 50 times more effecient than those in use today
None of which exist, because all of them would violate the laws of physics (that pesky 2nd law of thermodynamics).
doesn't it strike you as odd that Mitsubishi has their hands in this?
Others have discussed your misperception here, so I'll not bother.
So, basically, you're conspiracy premise makes little sense, your grasp of the science of these "squashed new ideas" is inadequate, and your knowledge of the industries involved is minimal (much like Matt Drudge!). So, I'd say you've been reading too much Drudge, and not enough fact.
Sorry, but you managed to be substantially wrong in parts of BOTH of your points:-)
not to mention the industry mogul's vested interest
You keep hearing this ridiculous statement from people, and I don't understand how people think a future hydrogen economy would be any different. If and when we move to a hydrogen based energy economy, who do you think will be the ones extracting, storing, shipping, and selling the hydrogen? I'll give you one guess... the current players that dominate the petroleum/coal based energy economy. They're the ones that have the capital to make it happen.
Incidentally, the energy industry would LOVE to be able to natively produce hydrogen, and be paid for creation, distribution, and sale; they would drop oil in a heartbeat if they could, because there would be more profit at a lower cost, and that is always a win. There is VASTLY more uncertainty in doing business in the parts of the world that have the most oil than it is to do business in the first world, and that drives up costs tremendously. There are huge expenses in extraction, transportation, storage, refinement, bribes, legal issues, and taxation that just would not be encountered if they could do all of these things at home. And let's not forget that they would score a big PR win for their support of the "environment" (no more "pollution", no more spills, no more ground water contamination, etc...). There is no upside to "protecting" oil once the technology is there to produce/store/transport hydrogen cheaply.
there are always energy costs to creating portable forms of energy, but that's the issue, not that it's more energy-expensive to create hydrogen than to use it.
No, that really isn't the point. The point the previous poster was trying to make is that the energy cost of extracting, processing, shipping, and selling petroleum based products is substantially LOWER than the amount of energy extracted from the oil. This is because the energy has already been stored for us, for free, in the oil; burning the oil releases the stored energy, and digging it up costs almost nothing energy-wise. For hydrogen, however, there is no such "free store" we can dig up. Combine hydrogen with oxygen to get water, and you get a relatively huge release of energy, but we have no previously STORED source of hydrogen; we have to disassemble water to get that hydrogen. But, the energy cost of cracking water is substantially HIGHER than the amount of energy that can later be extracted from the stored hydrogen. So, there is currently no feasible way to phase out our use of petroleum; in fact, if we switched to hydrogen power in our cars today, it would drive UP the demand for oil, not decrease it (a similar problem would occur if we all went out and switched to electric cars today). The real benefit of oil is not its portability; the real benefit is that it stores vastly more chemical energy than it takes to extract it from the ground.
Take a look at two males of pretty much any other mammal species fighting for dominance or mating rights; it's ritualistic combat.
Well, yes and no. I agree that many species practice ritualistic combat when fighting for dominance, and aren't actually trying to kill each other. BUT, there are plenty of species that kill for the sake of dominance, fight for the sake of fighting, and really do injure their rivals (lions are a canonical example... you don't want to be the offspring of a defeated male, because the victor will kill you).
The proper group of mammals to consider in this comparison, however, is not "all mammals" but "primates"; within the primates, humans are hardly the only ones that kill for the sake of killing, or that fight with each other, risking death and injury, simply because they get pissed off. Many primate species even have "wars" between "tribes" regularly, practice cannibalism, and kill the offspring and mates of their rivals, simply to injure their rivals psychologically. Humans are little different in that regard than our closest relatives... we've just got bigger sticks to beat each other with.
Actually, I find it weird that one does rely on closed source in science, when science depends on the full disclosure of all relevant material.
There's a very good reason much scientific computing is done using commercial libraries (very few are actually "closed" in the sense that when you purchase a site license, you actually get the source, just not the ability to redistribute or disclose changes you make, and you actually compile the source into your program; this is certainly not always the case, but it is for a very large number of specialized, closed libraries). For most of us scientists, code is a means to an end (getting a certain calculation done), not and end in itself (if I never had to write another line of code again to do my calculations, I wouldn't). Since coding ISN'T the goal, but a means to get there, we don't want to be bothered with "figuring things out" (like, how to use the software, whether the results will be reliable, etc. etc.) when we don't have to. We're generally looking for well documented, very reliable code, with a real programmer on the other end of the phone when the going gets tough, and we want the code fixed immediately when we find a problem or a place where an enhancement or extension will shave time off of our work.
These are things that you really can't get in the vast majority of open source software (there are some exceptions, most of which are in the public domain at this point), but which is readily available from a most closed vendors that cater to the scientific community (NAG, ABAQUS, and one or two others come to mind as outfits I've personally dealt with that had excellent documentation and support. One time we needed to be able to produce curves in some MEMS, and the IC layout software didn't do that, as no one had ever asked for it; I called them, explained our predicament, and the next day they called back with a URL to download the updated library including our desired functionality. It was sweet:-). "Time is money" is no less applicable in the sciences than it is in business... perhaps even more so when careers can be so easily ruined by "computer glitches" that cause you to publish incorrect results....
That the Supremes decided that the "main use" of VCR's is illegal, but that even the possibility of non-infringing uses meant that the VCR itself could not be banned. [snip] We have judges now who are not just misinterpreting the law, but are blatantly adding whole new clauses to it
The irony here is incredible.... after all, isn't that what the Supreme Court did when it decided the Betamax case? How about the Dredd Scott decision? Or even the Marberry case, which established the principle of judicial review? What about the Roe decision? The constitution grants no "right to privacy". It also makes no explicit grant of "freedom of expression" in the First Amendment, but the court has interpreted the Speech clause to cover non-verbal forms of expression (not just non-verbal forms of communication, but the much broader "expression"). How about the Brown decision, in which court ordered forced school desegragation? All of these are court ordered "misinterpretations" of the law; under your description; should all of them should be tossed out as well?
Finally, note that while there IS law and court precedent protecting the "right" to make analog copies OF THINGS YOU ALREADY PAID FOR, as well as THINGS DISTRIBUTED OVER THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES, they are based on the idea that such copies are imperfect and inferior to high quality commercial copies, and thus not a danger that copyright currently protects against. The rationale of these laws and precedents does NOT apply to digital copies, so to expect that decisions will be extended to cover them is a mistake. You can't pull out the parts of a decision that you LIKE and ignore the parts things that they are based on (well, you CAN, but doing so will be to your detriment), rather, you have to argue WHY the rationale that leads to those previous decisions also applies to the new precedent you want set. If you don't do that, you will not prevail.
Skylarov? His product is entirely legal in the country where he wrote it. In fact, without his company's product it's Adobe's software that's illegal.
So, what is your point? If Adobe sells its product in Russia, isn't it guilty of breaking the law there, and can't the Russians prosecute? Your argument would suggest that the Russians can't prosecute; after all, it is completely legal for Adobe to write its code as it did in the place where they wrote their code...
The real point is that, regardless of whether you like a law or not (and I don't like this one either), if you violate that law, you should expect to pay the consequences. When Skylarov came to the US and "distributed" his "illegal" product, he violated the law. If he hadn't come to the US, he couldn't have been prosecuted; he wasn't prosecuted for writing the software, but for distribution ONCE HE WAS IN THE US...
Consider: it is not illegal for private citizens to traffic in military hardware in some countries; does that mean that a citizen of a foreign power should be able to do so in the US without fear of prosecution? It is illegal in Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan to preach Christianity; do you think that they care that it isn't illegal to do so where the preachers came from? Distribution of marijuana is legal in Belgium. Should the Dutch citizen who transports that marijuana to England be immune from prosecution just because it is legal where he came from? It is legal to produce cars in Poland that don't meet US environmental and crash safety standards...you're argument implies that import into the US should be allowed because it isn't illegal in the country of origin. Hopefully, you understand where I'm going with this, because I have to get back to work:-)
I think that, in this case, Merriam-Webster is cocked-up. They've taken the subversion of the word, and written it into law.
Well, no, they haven't. Piracy as the "appropriation or reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority" (OED), also known as "Literary Piracy" has been around in the language since nearly the birth of the concept of copyright and patents. The first use in print appeared in 1771: LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 "They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition."
As an aside, the first use of "piracy" in an english document appears to date to the early 15th century, 1419, while "pirate" first appears about thirty years earlier, 1387. Hence, "piracy" to mean expropriation of literary or artistic works has been in use for nearly half the length of time that the word has been in documented use in the language itself. Hardly a perversion that has been recently "blessed" by the dictionary makers.
Why should music be a business? It wasn't a business for the last couple of millenia, only the last century or so.
Actually, I think that you are dead wrong about this... there has been a "music business" for millenia: think travelling minstrels, court musicians, instrument makers, church choirs and organists, etc. In fact, except for singing, it is only a relatively recent (last two centuries) innovation that "ordinary people" could make music (read, instrumental music), because it has only been in that time that anyone had "disposable income" that could be spent/bartered on leisure or pleasure (surely there were exceptions, Roman legionaires, diletant princes and the clergy in the middle ages, ancient chinese courtesans, etc, but they were in the unimaginably small minority). For most of recorded history, the only people "making music" were those paid and trained to do it, and the only people listening to that music were the ones paying for it; the "business of music" has been a real honest to god business for all of recorded history, not just a business of the last century....
IANAL, but I have played one in a courtroom:-) so take what I say with a grain of salt. That said, I notice a lot of people talking about "precedent" and making all sorts of claims as to how this should apply to circumstances other than this particular case. Just two things to consider:
First, precedent is just the statement that this is the first time a given issue of previously unclear legal status has been decided; but just because a court has set precedent with a decision doesn't mean that it will decide a case of _similar_ merits the same way in the future (precedents don't extend beyond the circumstances outlined in the decision itself). So, don't assume you can interpret this decision to mean that all SIMILAR circumstances will be decided the same way, even by this same court! It is also NOT the case that all sweeping decisions set precedent (for example, if the Supreme Court does not accept a case, it doesn't mean that the decision it refused to reconsider becomes precedent for the entire country).
Second, consider the jurisdiction. EVEN IF this decision sets a sweeping precedent and makes a previously unclear legal issue crystal clear in all similar cases, it only applies within the jurisdiction of the court that rendered the decision (here, the Central District of California, one of 94 U.S. District Court jurisdictions). The precedent doesn't apply in ANY other jurisdiction (although it is often a powerful argument that can sway judges in other jurisdictions); it is often the case that appeals to higher courts (particularly the Supreme Court) are accepted based on CONFLICTING precedent setting cases from different jurisdictions. So, don't assume that this decision will protect you if you live in some other part of the country, EVEN IF you are in exactly the same situation and find yourself in exactly the same lawsuit.
no european leader would end every speech with 'god bless '.
No, they just end their speeches with "God save the Queen", or "Sieg Heil", or whatnot; European countries are no different in that regard, you apparently just don't recognize the common sayings of the European leaders as having some "higher meaning" that you infer must be there in the speeches of non-European leaders.
Every country has its rituals, its sayings, and its pageantry: think of the guards marching outside the Tomb of Lenin in the Soviet Union, or the daily changing of the Palace Guard at Buckingham, or the Independence Day celebrations in the US, or Bastille Day celebrations in France, or the printing of the Queen's image on Canadian currency. These things don't necessarily have the literal meaning to the citizenry that an "outsider" might attach to them; concluding that the US is a "fundamentalist Christian country" because the sitting Presidents (of both parties!) for the last fifty or so years have traditionally ended speeches with "May God bless us, and may God bless America" is a batty as me concluding from their coinage that all Canadians worship the Queen of England.
I also don't think that coliders are run 24/7 as someone else suggested / wrote.
Actually, they are:-) They are run 24/7 for months at a time, then taken down for a few days/weeks for minor repairs, swap outs, and minor upgrades, then they go back up. And they do this for a few years on end. Then they go down for major overhauls and upgrades, and hopefully a few more runs.
So I went and found the ATLAS Technical Design Report, which gives all the numbers:
The detector itself will experience events at the rate of 10^9 per second.
Now, not all of that data even makes it out of the detector; it would correspond to somewhere around 10^11 MB/s (yes, megaBYTES per second) if they tried to dump all the data out to computers, so the detector has a number of levels of "triggering", which is specialized recognition hardware distributed all over the detector that "recognizes" and integrates the information coming off of small clusters of detector elements and decides whether or not there is anything "interesting" in that information, without reference to what is going on in the rest of the detector. This data bubbles up through a small number of layers of triggers that integrate increasingly larger segments of the detector, until it actually comes out and is sent into computers to be "recognized" as actual events.
Those events are analyzed by banks of computers, which sift through about 100 events per second, and if they are all stored, it adds up to about 100MB/s (of course not all of those events will be stored, but that is an approximate ceiling on the storage rate).
The final data rate is expected to be about 1PB/year (1 PB = 10^15 B = 10^7 MB). The LHC collider will probably run for about 25 years, there will be at least two experiments (and maybe up to four) running for most of that time... you do the math on how much data will be collected and have to be analyzed:-)
Although I am not a lawyer, I do remember by U.S. Constitutional studies courses, and in fact, the Declaration of Independence does not take priority over the Constitution. As far as the government of the United States is concerned, there is NOTHING that takes precedence over the Constitution:
from Article VI
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
And the Declaration is not a law of the United States.
The reason that a State cannot collect taxes from a citizen of another state is that the Constitution allows Congress to forbid it:
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have power... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
Actually, there are "shipping charges" associated with buying locally; you just don't think about them. The most prominent are the incremental charges associated with getting yourself to and from the store, and the additional charge tacked on to items to pay for shipping from the central warehouse to the end point store. But the former charges (on the order of $0.10-0.20/mile if you drive, and averaging somewhere around $4.00-5.00 round trip including subsidies in cities with public transit systems) and the latter (already figured into the price) are invisible, and so we don't think of them as shipping charges. The "shipping charges" are nearly identical in both cases, but are explicit in one, and implicit in the other.
Of course, there is a huge difference between a language that can be described by mathematical logic (well, almost:-), ie. Cyclone, which is supposedly designed for intent checking, and natural language, which isn't even consistent, much less mathematically consistent and describable. The restricted domain and expression structure of Cyclone may enable it to do a much better job than any rules based, context ignoring, english grammar checker ever could.
Slashdot Mirror
I expect the lesson to potential training-bra fetishists will be to get your cyber-partner to make a clear statement that they are not recording the conversation.
Which, ironically, can't be proven without the recording that you have stated you aren't recording :-)
Actually, virus IS a latin word, and its nominative plural is viri; it derives from greek and sanskrit, and it translates roughly as "poison, slime, slimy liquid, offensive odor". Both the OED and Merriam-Webster trace the english word virus directly to the latin virus, round about 1599.
What you're saying here is that because A implies B therefore (not B) implies (not A). That is incorrect reasoning.
What I assume you meant is that "A -> B therefore !A -> !B" is false ..... because "A -> B therefore !B -> !A" IS quite true. Always have been, always will be: "I am a car, therefore I have four wheels" implies "I do not have four wheels, therefore I am not a car", but does not imply "I am not a car, therefore I do not have four wheels". I might be a four wheeled truck or something...
If infinite memory were available there would be no theoretical barrier to completely reversing entropy increase.
In physical terms, your "infinite memory" is the same as having an "infinite physical system" (i.e. the system has an infinite number of possible states); the standard proof of the second law assumes the first law and knowledge that the system in question is finite. Those two ingredients are enough. But, if the physical system is infinite, the second law does not hold.
No ... but it might mean less clean laundry [mit.edu] (Same dorm.... gosh, living there was fun :-)
Actually, they can't .... at least, not for long :-)
Seriously, though, you are confusing the ability to maintain an object in the air using thrust, and the lift provided by an airfoil moving through the air. If you take a glider, flip it over, and let time pass, the glider will crash. Take an airplane, turn it into a glider by shutting down the engines, and repeat the last sentence.
I'd much rather see a list of questions based on well-known phenomena that contradict fashionable theories, with the goal of replacing the latter with something less arbitrary.
Wouldn't that require that the "fashionable theories" be "arbitrary" and contradict "well-known phenomena"? I'm a practicing theoretical physicist, and I'm not aware that there are any such things. Perhaps you can point to something I'm missing?
Someone else already pointed out the fact that "classical" to a physicist doesn't mean what you think it means, so I won't belabor that point.
However, I am going to object to your statement that "the theory falls apart with the Higgs". There is no truth to that whatsoever. If there is no standard Higgs, the Standard Model is toast - but not the Quantum Field Theory (the theory part, not the model part) that the model is based on. There are numerous alternatives to the Standard Higgs sector (SUSY, extra dimensions, dynamical models, dimensional deconstruction, etc.) that we theorists are speculating about, and there are probably other alternatives that we haven't thought of yet.
And even if String Theory is the fundamental theory describing nature, it still doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the low energy limit that is the Standard Model; after all, we still use Newtonian mechanics where that is appropriate, and we don't try to how apples fall to earth using quantum gravity.
Before you dismiss me as some idiot
I'm not doing that, and I am sorry if I gave you that impression.
it's ignorant to discount a seemingly impossible idea just because research to this day has built up evidence against it
That is PRECISELY why I dismiss it: when someone tells me that a "water powered car" is possible, and I ask the question "How do you intend to extract energy from the water?", and the answer violates well understood and well researched physics AND the person making the claim hasn't demonstrated either that it works or that they understand the scientific method, then I dismiss their claim. If they do demonstrate it, and it conflicts with modern theory, then we have something to talk about. I do the same thing when my colleagues make ridiculous claims about the structure and properties of subatomic particles, and they do it to me; the difference is that we don't go out and tell the world that we can do something that we haven't suitably demonstrated is possible and have been peer reviewed.
Think about this...: what exactly is gravity?
If you could answer that question, then you would be a Nobel Laureate. :-) I can explain to you in great detail qualitatively HOW gravity works, I can give you detailed quantitative predictions, I can show you how precisely the theory matches the experiments, but I can't tell you WHAT gravity is ... and that is true of a great many things, but it doesn't prevent me from telling you that you WILL fall to earth if you strap on feathers and jump off a building while claiming you can fly.... And I do realize that you were using gravity as an example, but I would have torn any other example to shreds too :-)
don't go condemning new ideas just because they disagree with your high school physics teacher.
I wouldn't condemn them on those grounds; my high school physics teachers knew so little physics :-) I condemn pseudoscience/bad science/crackpot ideas based on my doctoral level research and training in physics (truth in advertising: I haven't defended my dissertation yet ... give me three more months :-) And I don't have a tendency to condemn those ideas that I think are ridiculous but are outside my field, because I don't necessarily have the training to do so with authority; I only attack those things which violate known experimental facts within my field. And a water powered car is one of those things that is known from experiment (not just our crazy theory) to be impossible.
My basic point is the following: while it may be ignorant to discount an idea based on a hunch that conflicts with my (experimentally based) understanding of the structure of physical reality, it is even more ignorant to promulgate ideas that explicitly conflict with well established and easily reproducible experimental facts.
One problem when comparing plans like this for producing fuel, to other more traditional fuels is that the cost of crude oil or whatever does not reflect the value of the oil.
I disagree, because I don't think your implied definition of value makes any sense; the "value" of a commodity is determined by what buyers are willing to pay for it, and what sellers are willing to sell it for. Currently, buyers and sellers can agree on the cost of buying and selling oil. Currently, what buyers are willing to pay for hydrogen is substantially below what sellers are willing to accept for it. Until that changes, which will only occur by lowering the costs (which will take time and research), not enough people will be willing to switch.
You've been reading the Drudge Report too much.
The political ties ... have easily, squashed new ideas for alternate power sources.
Well, no. Those political ties cost vast amounts of money ... money that would otherwise be profit, bonuses, stock options, etc... The conspiracy theories may be fun, but they don't make sense, because conspiracies only make sense in real life when everyone benefits. While OPEC certainly benefits, everyone else loses, and are only tied together because they have to be to get what they need to stay in business. What would you prefer: deep, entagling ties to corrupt regimes and vast transportation costs, or having complete control over the whole process, without having to pay anyone off?
I've heard of everything from water powered cars to solar panel arrays that are 50 times more effecient than those in use today
None of which exist, because all of them would violate the laws of physics (that pesky 2nd law of thermodynamics).
doesn't it strike you as odd that Mitsubishi has their hands in this?
Others have discussed your misperception here, so I'll not bother.
So, basically, you're conspiracy premise makes little sense, your grasp of the science of these "squashed new ideas" is inadequate, and your knowledge of the industries involved is minimal (much like Matt Drudge!). So, I'd say you've been reading too much Drudge, and not enough fact.
Sorry, but you managed to be substantially wrong in parts of BOTH of your points :-)
not to mention the industry mogul's vested interest
You keep hearing this ridiculous statement from people, and I don't understand how people think a future hydrogen economy would be any different. If and when we move to a hydrogen based energy economy, who do you think will be the ones extracting, storing, shipping, and selling the hydrogen? I'll give you one guess... the current players that dominate the petroleum/coal based energy economy. They're the ones that have the capital to make it happen.
Incidentally, the energy industry would LOVE to be able to natively produce hydrogen, and be paid for creation, distribution, and sale; they would drop oil in a heartbeat if they could, because there would be more profit at a lower cost, and that is always a win. There is VASTLY more uncertainty in doing business in the parts of the world that have the most oil than it is to do business in the first world, and that drives up costs tremendously. There are huge expenses in extraction, transportation, storage, refinement, bribes, legal issues, and taxation that just would not be encountered if they could do all of these things at home. And let's not forget that they would score a big PR win for their support of the "environment" (no more "pollution", no more spills, no more ground water contamination, etc...). There is no upside to "protecting" oil once the technology is there to produce/store/transport hydrogen cheaply.
there are always energy costs to creating portable forms of energy, but that's the issue, not that it's more energy-expensive to create hydrogen than to use it.
No, that really isn't the point. The point the previous poster was trying to make is that the energy cost of extracting, processing, shipping, and selling petroleum based products is substantially LOWER than the amount of energy extracted from the oil. This is because the energy has already been stored for us, for free, in the oil; burning the oil releases the stored energy, and digging it up costs almost nothing energy-wise. For hydrogen, however, there is no such "free store" we can dig up. Combine hydrogen with oxygen to get water, and you get a relatively huge release of energy, but we have no previously STORED source of hydrogen; we have to disassemble water to get that hydrogen. But, the energy cost of cracking water is substantially HIGHER than the amount of energy that can later be extracted from the stored hydrogen. So, there is currently no feasible way to phase out our use of petroleum; in fact, if we switched to hydrogen power in our cars today, it would drive UP the demand for oil, not decrease it (a similar problem would occur if we all went out and switched to electric cars today). The real benefit of oil is not its portability; the real benefit is that it stores vastly more chemical energy than it takes to extract it from the ground.
Take a look at two males of pretty much any other mammal species fighting for dominance or mating rights; it's ritualistic combat.
Well, yes and no. I agree that many species practice ritualistic combat when fighting for dominance, and aren't actually trying to kill each other. BUT, there are plenty of species that kill for the sake of dominance, fight for the sake of fighting, and really do injure their rivals (lions are a canonical example ... you don't want to be the offspring of a defeated male, because the victor will kill you).
The proper group of mammals to consider in this comparison, however, is not "all mammals" but "primates"; within the primates, humans are hardly the only ones that kill for the sake of killing, or that fight with each other, risking death and injury, simply because they get pissed off. Many primate species even have "wars" between "tribes" regularly, practice cannibalism, and kill the offspring and mates of their rivals, simply to injure their rivals psychologically. Humans are little different in that regard than our closest relatives ... we've just got bigger sticks to beat each other with.
Now, if it was something reasonable, like 10 years...
Then MS would be able to take most of Emacs and incorporate it into Word and make a working product, without having to divulge what they did.... :-)
Actually, I find it weird that one does rely on closed source in science, when science depends on the full disclosure of all relevant material.
There's a very good reason much scientific computing is done using commercial libraries (very few are actually "closed" in the sense that when you purchase a site license, you actually get the source, just not the ability to redistribute or disclose changes you make, and you actually compile the source into your program; this is certainly not always the case, but it is for a very large number of specialized, closed libraries). For most of us scientists, code is a means to an end (getting a certain calculation done), not and end in itself (if I never had to write another line of code again to do my calculations, I wouldn't). Since coding ISN'T the goal, but a means to get there, we don't want to be bothered with "figuring things out" (like, how to use the software, whether the results will be reliable, etc. etc.) when we don't have to. We're generally looking for well documented, very reliable code, with a real programmer on the other end of the phone when the going gets tough, and we want the code fixed immediately when we find a problem or a place where an enhancement or extension will shave time off of our work.
These are things that you really can't get in the vast majority of open source software (there are some exceptions, most of which are in the public domain at this point), but which is readily available from a most closed vendors that cater to the scientific community (NAG, ABAQUS, and one or two others come to mind as outfits I've personally dealt with that had excellent documentation and support. One time we needed to be able to produce curves in some MEMS, and the IC layout software didn't do that, as no one had ever asked for it; I called them, explained our predicament, and the next day they called back with a URL to download the updated library including our desired functionality. It was sweet :-). "Time is money" is no less applicable in the sciences than it is in business... perhaps even more so when careers can be so easily ruined by "computer glitches" that cause you to publish incorrect results....
That the Supremes decided that the "main use" of VCR's is illegal, but that even the possibility of non-infringing uses meant that the VCR itself could not be banned. [snip] We have judges now who are not just misinterpreting the law, but are blatantly adding whole new clauses to it
The irony here is incredible .... after all, isn't that what the Supreme Court did when it decided the Betamax case? How about the Dredd Scott decision? Or even the Marberry case, which established the principle of judicial review? What about the Roe decision? The constitution grants no "right to privacy". It also makes no explicit grant of "freedom of expression" in the First Amendment, but the court has interpreted the Speech clause to cover non-verbal forms of expression (not just non-verbal forms of communication, but the much broader "expression"). How about the Brown decision, in which court ordered forced school desegragation? All of these are court ordered "misinterpretations" of the law; under your description; should all of them should be tossed out as well?
Finally, note that while there IS law and court precedent protecting the "right" to make analog copies OF THINGS YOU ALREADY PAID FOR, as well as THINGS DISTRIBUTED OVER THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES, they are based on the idea that such copies are imperfect and inferior to high quality commercial copies, and thus not a danger that copyright currently protects against. The rationale of these laws and precedents does NOT apply to digital copies, so to expect that decisions will be extended to cover them is a mistake. You can't pull out the parts of a decision that you LIKE and ignore the parts things that they are based on (well, you CAN, but doing so will be to your detriment), rather, you have to argue WHY the rationale that leads to those previous decisions also applies to the new precedent you want set. If you don't do that, you will not prevail.
Skylarov? His product is entirely legal in the country where he wrote it. In fact, without his company's product it's Adobe's software that's illegal.
So, what is your point? If Adobe sells its product in Russia, isn't it guilty of breaking the law there, and can't the Russians prosecute? Your argument would suggest that the Russians can't prosecute; after all, it is completely legal for Adobe to write its code as it did in the place where they wrote their code...
The real point is that, regardless of whether you like a law or not (and I don't like this one either), if you violate that law, you should expect to pay the consequences. When Skylarov came to the US and "distributed" his "illegal" product, he violated the law. If he hadn't come to the US, he couldn't have been prosecuted; he wasn't prosecuted for writing the software, but for distribution ONCE HE WAS IN THE US...
Consider: it is not illegal for private citizens to traffic in military hardware in some countries; does that mean that a citizen of a foreign power should be able to do so in the US without fear of prosecution? It is illegal in Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan to preach Christianity; do you think that they care that it isn't illegal to do so where the preachers came from? Distribution of marijuana is legal in Belgium. Should the Dutch citizen who transports that marijuana to England be immune from prosecution just because it is legal where he came from? It is legal to produce cars in Poland that don't meet US environmental and crash safety standards...you're argument implies that import into the US should be allowed because it isn't illegal in the country of origin. Hopefully, you understand where I'm going with this, because I have to get back to work :-)
I think that, in this case, Merriam-Webster is cocked-up. They've taken the subversion of the word, and written it into law.
Well, no, they haven't. Piracy as the "appropriation or reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority" (OED), also known as "Literary Piracy" has been around in the language since nearly the birth of the concept of copyright and patents. The first use in print appeared in 1771: LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 "They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition."
As an aside, the first use of "piracy" in an english document appears to date to the early 15th century, 1419, while "pirate" first appears about thirty years earlier, 1387. Hence, "piracy" to mean expropriation of literary or artistic works has been in use for nearly half the length of time that the word has been in documented use in the language itself. Hardly a perversion that has been recently "blessed" by the dictionary makers.
Why should music be a business? It wasn't a business for the last couple of millenia, only the last century or so.
Actually, I think that you are dead wrong about this... there has been a "music business" for millenia: think travelling minstrels, court musicians, instrument makers, church choirs and organists, etc. In fact, except for singing, it is only a relatively recent (last two centuries) innovation that "ordinary people" could make music (read, instrumental music), because it has only been in that time that anyone had "disposable income" that could be spent/bartered on leisure or pleasure (surely there were exceptions, Roman legionaires, diletant princes and the clergy in the middle ages, ancient chinese courtesans, etc, but they were in the unimaginably small minority). For most of recorded history, the only people "making music" were those paid and trained to do it, and the only people listening to that music were the ones paying for it; the "business of music" has been a real honest to god business for all of recorded history, not just a business of the last century....
IANAL, but I have played one in a courtroom :-) so take what I say with a grain of salt. That said, I notice a lot of people talking about "precedent" and making all sorts of claims as to how this should apply to circumstances other than this particular case. Just two things to consider:
First, precedent is just the statement that this is the first time a given issue of previously unclear legal status has been decided; but just because a court has set precedent with a decision doesn't mean that it will decide a case of _similar_ merits the same way in the future (precedents don't extend beyond the circumstances outlined in the decision itself). So, don't assume you can interpret this decision to mean that all SIMILAR circumstances will be decided the same way, even by this same court! It is also NOT the case that all sweeping decisions set precedent (for example, if the Supreme Court does not accept a case, it doesn't mean that the decision it refused to reconsider becomes precedent for the entire country).
Second, consider the jurisdiction. EVEN IF this decision sets a sweeping precedent and makes a previously unclear legal issue crystal clear in all similar cases, it only applies within the jurisdiction of the court that rendered the decision (here, the Central District of California, one of 94 U.S. District Court jurisdictions). The precedent doesn't apply in ANY other jurisdiction (although it is often a powerful argument that can sway judges in other jurisdictions); it is often the case that appeals to higher courts (particularly the Supreme Court) are accepted based on CONFLICTING precedent setting cases from different jurisdictions. So, don't assume that this decision will protect you if you live in some other part of the country, EVEN IF you are in exactly the same situation and find yourself in exactly the same lawsuit.
no european leader would end every speech with 'god bless '.
No, they just end their speeches with "God save the Queen", or "Sieg Heil", or whatnot; European countries are no different in that regard, you apparently just don't recognize the common sayings of the European leaders as having some "higher meaning" that you infer must be there in the speeches of non-European leaders.
Every country has its rituals, its sayings, and its pageantry: think of the guards marching outside the Tomb of Lenin in the Soviet Union, or the daily changing of the Palace Guard at Buckingham, or the Independence Day celebrations in the US, or Bastille Day celebrations in France, or the printing of the Queen's image on Canadian currency. These things don't necessarily have the literal meaning to the citizenry that an "outsider" might attach to them; concluding that the US is a "fundamentalist Christian country" because the sitting Presidents (of both parties!) for the last fifty or so years have traditionally ended speeches with "May God bless us, and may God bless America" is a batty as me concluding from their coinage that all Canadians worship the Queen of England.
I also don't think that coliders are run 24/7 as someone else suggested / wrote.
Actually, they are :-) They are run 24/7 for months at a time, then taken down for a few days/weeks for minor repairs, swap outs, and minor upgrades, then they go back up. And they do this for a few years on end. Then they go down for major overhauls and upgrades, and hopefully a few more runs.
So I went and found the ATLAS Technical Design Report, which gives all the numbers:
The final data rate is expected to be about 1PB/year (1 PB = 10^15 B = 10^7 MB). The LHC collider will probably run for about 25 years, there will be at least two experiments (and maybe up to four) running for most of that time
Although I am not a lawyer, I do remember by U.S. Constitutional studies courses, and in fact, the Declaration of Independence does not take priority over the Constitution. As far as the government of the United States is concerned, there is NOTHING that takes precedence over the Constitution:
from Article VI
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
And the Declaration is not a law of the United States.
The reason that a State cannot collect taxes from a citizen of another state is that the Constitution allows Congress to forbid it:
Article I, Section 8
... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
The Congress shall have power
Which is known as the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Actually, there are "shipping charges" associated with buying locally; you just don't think about them. The most prominent are the incremental charges associated with getting yourself to and from the store, and the additional charge tacked on to items to pay for shipping from the central warehouse to the end point store. But the former charges (on the order of $0.10-0.20/mile if you drive, and averaging somewhere around $4.00-5.00 round trip including subsidies in cities with public transit systems) and the latter (already figured into the price) are invisible, and so we don't think of them as shipping charges. The "shipping charges" are nearly identical in both cases, but are explicit in one, and implicit in the other.
Of course, there is a huge difference between a language that can be described by mathematical logic (well, almost :-), ie. Cyclone, which is supposedly designed for intent checking, and natural language, which isn't even consistent, much less mathematically consistent and describable. The restricted domain and expression structure of Cyclone may enable it to do a much better job than any rules based, context ignoring, english grammar checker ever could.