In fairness, *sploitation is a pretty accepted formula in exploitation films. Fairly amusing list in the index of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_film
One could argue that they are making an insightful point by drawing an ingenious parallel between the exploitation of trends and base desires with the rejection of artistic merit for by film-makers for public consumption to the exploitation of the public's addiction to internet services in order to make money out of advertisers who... wait, this isn't parallel at all. It makes the exploitation film makers look like the good guys.
Daily Mail readership: 4,371,000 (http://www.nmauk.co.uk/nma/do/live/factsAndFigures?newspaperID=10#readership) The Sun readership: 7,652,000 (http://www.mediauk.com/newspapers/13707/the-sun/readership-figures) [A lot of these people will only look at the tits and sports] UK population: 62,232,000 (http://data.worldbank.org/country/united-kingdom) UK electorate in 2010 general election: 45,597,461 (http://www.ukpolitical.info/2010.htm) Votes in 2010 general election: 27,833,834 (http://www.ukpolitical.info/2010.htm)
It's impressive, to be sure, but I think these papers rather exaggerate their influence.
We didn't vote for it, and we actually voted against it. None of this stuff was in the manifesto of either of the parties in the ruling coalition. They were highly critical of similar legislation when proposed by their opponents, who were turfed out in the last general election. We've had such a long run of crazy authoritarian Home Secretaries now that it's pretty clear somebody or something is getting to them, possibly through their office (or bedroom) window.
Pharmaceutical companies employ a significant proportion of the world's best and brightest organic chemists, and supply them with all the chromatography and spectroscopy equipment they need. Pharmaceutical products generally consist of a single highly-pure active ingredient, maybe with some kind of safe filler or binder to get it into a safely dosable form. Adding materials which would frustrate reverse-engineering for any significant period of time, while maintaining the efficacy and safety of your product, would be a huge effort. Chromatography is good at separating materials – that's why it is used. Essentially, we would have an arms race which would not only cost a lot of money (and raise prices), but waste the time of many brilliant minds which are sincerely dedicated to helping people get better.
Of course, under the patent system, we have companies developing and patenting technology that they have no intention of using, simply to block their competitors.
*Obligatory grumbling at human nature and blaming Ayn Rand*
Most people will never have a need in their lives to understand these substances even in terms as specific as "non-newtonian." If you expect people to give a damn about something so esoteric, you are setting yourself up for this kind of frustration.
I expect geeks to care. Sometimes I do forget just how IT-oriented the Slashdot community is, given the number of articles about general science/engineering.
Also, if you had RTFA you would have seen that the author dedicated several paragraphs to non-newtonian fluids. He went into a good bit more detail than you have above.
I'm getting fed up of the constant references to the magical properties on "non-Newtonian" fluids. Non-Newtonian fluids have a huge range of properties in terms of their response to shear and change over time. This is constantly abused by geeks who should know better. Off the top of my head:
What people usually mean is a "shear-thickening" fluid such as corn starch and water. These become more effectively viscous in response to shear.
"Shear-thinning" fluids are *also* non-Newtonian, are fairly common, and have the exact opposite behaviour. Ketchup is a great example - shaking the bottle helps it flow more easily.
Another interesting case are Bingham plastics - these have a yield stress before they will flow. The classic example is toothpaste - it will stay as a lump on the bristles under its own weight, but spreads easily enough under pressure.
So the next time somebody wants to demonstrate non-Newtonian properties on their speaker cone, pass the ketchup!
How people use OSX for scientific computing is beyond me.
iTerm2
Just show me my fucking taskbar and get everything else that I didn't ask for out of my way.
That's... pretty much exactly what it does? You don't have to keep things in the dock if you don't want to, and you can also set it to auto-hide. The setting is really easy to find, it's in several places. I keep TextEdit in the dock; it's a great way to open arbitrary files as plain text (you just drag them onto the icon), which is very useful for scientific computing.
I only really have two major criticisms at the moment with OSX: some useful things are hidden from the Finder by default (root directory, library), and the multiple workspace handling has regressed between Snow Leopard and Lion; for some bizarre reason you can't drag things between workspaces in Mission Control.
UK student here. If the tuition fees U-turn was simply a party "manifesto pledge" that they had to compromise on, that would be acceptable. Painful, but acceptable. This defence that "you can't expect us to achieve everything we want to if we don't win" is a straw man used to deflect valid criticism. The NUS pledge was a personal pledge written in unambiguous language and signed by every subsequently-elected Liberal Democrat MP.
“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”
They can't reasonably claim to have been tricked into agreeing to this, and the wording clearly allows for any electoral outcome. Those who broke the pledge have no personal integrity remaining. If you can't trust them to keep a publicly-signed unambiguous personal promise, what can you believe? I'd have strong reservations about believing Nick Clegg's word even under oath in court, and he's the party leader.
...and the follow up: not charged, found to have acted in reasonable self-defence. Are you saying that when a man admits to stabbing somebody to death, but claims self-defence, the legal process is not necessary?
Rational decisions will ruin us, and condemnation is all we have to oppose them. See Garrett Hardin's seminal essay The Tragedy Of The Commons or, if you're in more of a rush, the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Mine still works after 500 years of use in sandstorms, acid rain and even deep space! Highly-recommended for time travellers. I'm hoping the next model is more Dalek-resistant though.
This is pretty much the line of thought I've been going down. Cost is a factor, but I'm already using Logic and I can get it at student prices which is a great deal. I've heard Ableton now runs in WINE very well, but obviously would want to test that before committing to it. I really like Reaper and recommend it to everyone I can, but it's very difficult to piece together an efficient, affordable collection of some missing essential plug-ins like a good drum sampler, usable FM synth and multiband compressor.
Part of me is just steering away from Apple because of their atrocious behaviour in the tablet/mobile market, and the fact that they refuse to sell me a new computer with more than four USB ports for less than two grand. Still, if I buy used then I'm only half-encouraging them, which suits my half-approval:-P
I have an iMac, it's about 5 years old. The sound card isn't adequate for music production, and indeed has actually started making strange noises, so I have a USB audio interface. The superdrive can read DVDs but not CDs any more, so I have an external firewire optical drive. With a power supply. 3 USB ports is not adequate, so I have a USB 2.0 hub. With a power supply. And still not really adequate, as I have at least three devices that *have* to be on the main bus. The internal 160Gb hard drive is no longer adequate, so I have an external firewire drive for my music projects. WIth a power supply. I also need a backup drive, so I have another USB drive. With a power supply.
I suppose if they'd made it a bit less intimidating to open and work on I could have replaced the optical and hard drives, but in a tower *all* of this stuff could sit inside the case and run off one power supply. And might actually mount consistently. Next computer: 2nd-hand Mac Pro or a new Linux build. Much less clutter.
Refrigerant fluid needs to be pumped, so there is a seal around the shaft from the electric motor to the pump mechanism.
There does not need to be a shaft seal. Almost all modern small to medium sized mechanical refrigeration compressors are hermetic or semi-hermetic; that is, the motor, drive, and shaft are all contained inside the system along with the refrigerant.
Other options used widely in industrial and laboratory equipment include peristaltic and membrane pumps where the mechanism is separated from the liquid by a flexible barrier. Magnetically coupled pumps of various designs also exist.
(Sorry for gloating, I *finally* got access to journals again and it is SO EXCITING. I have no life.)
Right, according to the article, the reason people have looked at ferrofluids for microfluidics is that they were interested in using a thin layer of ferrofluid to drive a plug of other liquid. This would be analogous to the ionic double-layer (Debye layer) in electro-osmosis, as mentioned above. In this experiment, they use only ferrofluid (with a dash of a tracer) and seem to achieve a funky toroidal region, leading to ordinary laminar flow. If they excited it in more places then they could have a lot of mixing, which would be great for a cooling system.
This is a popular problem in microfluidics. For lab-on-a-chip technology it is very difficult to make a pump with moving parts on the micrometre scale, so researchers have turned to more obscure phenomena. Electro-osmosis is commonly used. Essentially, in a channel with dielectric walls, a very thin ionic double layer naturally forms at the solid-liquid interface. If an electric field is applied in the direction of travel, this drags the thin ionic layer, which in turn mobilises the bulk liquid.
Researchers have been playing with magnetic nano-particles in microfluidic systems for years, usually in the context of a separation system. This spinning phenomena is interesting, and could well be used for more than just pumping. In narrow enough channels, if there is only a moderate concentration of these particles then I doubt they would be close enough together to act as described here.
It's a shame the paywall makes it hard for most of us to really RTFA. I'll report back if there's anything interesting...
I don't see "in the USA" anywhere in Bert64's post. The original article about something which is being considered in the Netherlands. Congestion and pollution by cars is a global problem. Slashdot has an international user-base.
Not doing well to defend against national stereotypes here...
Because the police in London do not have a very good track record for honesty over this kind of thing. If there is a suggestion that the police have acted improperly, people are now inclined to believe it, as they are expected to deny everything and smear the victim either way.
Slashdot Mirror
In fairness, *sploitation is a pretty accepted formula in exploitation films. Fairly amusing list in the index of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_film
One could argue that they are making an insightful point by drawing an ingenious parallel between the exploitation of trends and base desires with the rejection of artistic merit for by film-makers for public consumption to the exploitation of the public's addiction to internet services in order to make money out of advertisers who... wait, this isn't parallel at all. It makes the exploitation film makers look like the good guys.
Daily Mail readership: 4,371,000 (http://www.nmauk.co.uk/nma/do/live/factsAndFigures?newspaperID=10#readership)
The Sun readership: 7,652,000 (http://www.mediauk.com/newspapers/13707/the-sun/readership-figures) [A lot of these people will only look at the tits and sports]
UK population: 62,232,000 (http://data.worldbank.org/country/united-kingdom)
UK electorate in 2010 general election: 45,597,461 (http://www.ukpolitical.info/2010.htm)
Votes in 2010 general election: 27,833,834 (http://www.ukpolitical.info/2010.htm)
It's impressive, to be sure, but I think these papers rather exaggerate their influence.
We didn't vote for it, and we actually voted against it. None of this stuff was in the manifesto of either of the parties in the ruling coalition. They were highly critical of similar legislation when proposed by their opponents, who were turfed out in the last general election. We've had such a long run of crazy authoritarian Home Secretaries now that it's pretty clear somebody or something is getting to them, possibly through their office (or bedroom) window.
Except vi as root. (I don't use version control for stuff in /etc) or takes much care with backups for my personal box.
What did you use to write this post?
Pharmaceutical companies employ a significant proportion of the world's best and brightest organic chemists, and supply them with all the chromatography and spectroscopy equipment they need. Pharmaceutical products generally consist of a single highly-pure active ingredient, maybe with some kind of safe filler or binder to get it into a safely dosable form. Adding materials which would frustrate reverse-engineering for any significant period of time, while maintaining the efficacy and safety of your product, would be a huge effort. Chromatography is good at separating materials – that's why it is used. Essentially, we would have an arms race which would not only cost a lot of money (and raise prices), but waste the time of many brilliant minds which are sincerely dedicated to helping people get better.
Of course, under the patent system, we have companies developing and patenting technology that they have no intention of using, simply to block their competitors.
*Obligatory grumbling at human nature and blaming Ayn Rand*
Most people will never have a need in their lives to understand these substances even in terms as specific as "non-newtonian." If you expect people to give a damn about something so esoteric, you are setting yourself up for this kind of frustration.
I expect geeks to care. Sometimes I do forget just how IT-oriented the Slashdot community is, given the number of articles about general science/engineering.
Also, if you had RTFA you would have seen that the author dedicated several paragraphs to non-newtonian fluids. He went into a good bit more detail than you have above.
Ok, you got me. The article is pretty good.
I'd imagine they were "using concrete" rather than "using a solid"?
Actually, what with the graduate employment situation it probably won't be long before paving crews *do* have mechanical engineering degrees
I'm getting fed up of the constant references to the magical properties on "non-Newtonian" fluids. Non-Newtonian fluids have a huge range of properties in terms of their response to shear and change over time. This is constantly abused by geeks who should know better. Off the top of my head:
What people usually mean is a "shear-thickening" fluid such as corn starch and water. These become more effectively viscous in response to shear.
"Shear-thinning" fluids are *also* non-Newtonian, are fairly common, and have the exact opposite behaviour. Ketchup is a great example - shaking the bottle helps it flow more easily.
Another interesting case are Bingham plastics - these have a yield stress before they will flow. The classic example is toothpaste - it will stay as a lump on the bristles under its own weight, but spreads easily enough under pressure.
So the next time somebody wants to demonstrate non-Newtonian properties on their speaker cone, pass the ketchup!
How people use OSX for scientific computing is beyond me.
iTerm2
Just show me my fucking taskbar and get everything else that I didn't ask for out of my way.
That's... pretty much exactly what it does? You don't have to keep things in the dock if you don't want to, and you can also set it to auto-hide. The setting is really easy to find, it's in several places. I keep TextEdit in the dock; it's a great way to open arbitrary files as plain text (you just drag them onto the icon), which is very useful for scientific computing.
I only really have two major criticisms at the moment with OSX: some useful things are hidden from the Finder by default (root directory, library), and the multiple workspace handling has regressed between Snow Leopard and Lion; for some bizarre reason you can't drag things between workspaces in Mission Control.
UK student here. If the tuition fees U-turn was simply a party "manifesto pledge" that they had to compromise on, that would be acceptable. Painful, but acceptable. This defence that "you can't expect us to achieve everything we want to if we don't win" is a straw man used to deflect valid criticism. The NUS pledge was a personal pledge written in unambiguous language and signed by every subsequently-elected Liberal Democrat MP.
“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”
They can't reasonably claim to have been tricked into agreeing to this, and the wording clearly allows for any electoral outcome. Those who broke the pledge have no personal integrity remaining. If you can't trust them to keep a publicly-signed unambiguous personal promise, what can you believe? I'd have strong reservations about believing Nick Clegg's word even under oath in court, and he's the party leader.
This is quite significant if true, I know a few people who'd be interested. Citation?
...and the follow up: not charged, found to have acted in reasonable self-defence. Are you saying that when a man admits to stabbing somebody to death, but claims self-defence, the legal process is not necessary?
Rational decisions will ruin us, and condemnation is all we have to oppose them. See Garrett Hardin's seminal essay The Tragedy Of The Commons or, if you're in more of a rush, the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Mine still works after 500 years of use in sandstorms, acid rain and even deep space! Highly-recommended for time travellers. I'm hoping the next model is more Dalek-resistant though.
This is pretty much the line of thought I've been going down. Cost is a factor, but I'm already using Logic and I can get it at student prices which is a great deal. I've heard Ableton now runs in WINE very well, but obviously would want to test that before committing to it. I really like Reaper and recommend it to everyone I can, but it's very difficult to piece together an efficient, affordable collection of some missing essential plug-ins like a good drum sampler, usable FM synth and multiband compressor.
Part of me is just steering away from Apple because of their atrocious behaviour in the tablet/mobile market, and the fact that they refuse to sell me a new computer with more than four USB ports for less than two grand. Still, if I buy used then I'm only half-encouraging them, which suits my half-approval :-P
I have an iMac, it's about 5 years old. The sound card isn't adequate for music production, and indeed has actually started making strange noises, so I have a USB audio interface. The superdrive can read DVDs but not CDs any more, so I have an external firewire optical drive. With a power supply. 3 USB ports is not adequate, so I have a USB 2.0 hub. With a power supply. And still not really adequate, as I have at least three devices that *have* to be on the main bus. The internal 160Gb hard drive is no longer adequate, so I have an external firewire drive for my music projects. WIth a power supply. I also need a backup drive, so I have another USB drive. With a power supply.
I suppose if they'd made it a bit less intimidating to open and work on I could have replaced the optical and hard drives, but in a tower *all* of this stuff could sit inside the case and run off one power supply. And might actually mount consistently. Next computer: 2nd-hand Mac Pro or a new Linux build. Much less clutter.
There does not need to be a shaft seal. Almost all modern small to medium sized mechanical refrigeration compressors are hermetic or semi-hermetic; that is, the motor, drive, and shaft are all contained inside the system along with the refrigerant.
Other options used widely in industrial and laboratory equipment include peristaltic and membrane pumps where the mechanism is separated from the liquid by a flexible barrier. Magnetically coupled pumps of various designs also exist.
(Sorry for gloating, I *finally* got access to journals again and it is SO EXCITING. I have no life.)
Right, according to the article, the reason people have looked at ferrofluids for microfluidics is that they were interested in using a thin layer of ferrofluid to drive a plug of other liquid. This would be analogous to the ionic double-layer (Debye layer) in electro-osmosis, as mentioned above. In this experiment, they use only ferrofluid (with a dash of a tracer) and seem to achieve a funky toroidal region, leading to ordinary laminar flow. If they excited it in more places then they could have a lot of mixing, which would be great for a cooling system.
This is a popular problem in microfluidics. For lab-on-a-chip technology it is very difficult to make a pump with moving parts on the micrometre scale, so researchers have turned to more obscure phenomena. Electro-osmosis is commonly used. Essentially, in a channel with dielectric walls, a very thin ionic double layer naturally forms at the solid-liquid interface. If an electric field is applied in the direction of travel, this drags the thin ionic layer, which in turn mobilises the bulk liquid.
Researchers have been playing with magnetic nano-particles in microfluidic systems for years, usually in the context of a separation system. This spinning phenomena is interesting, and could well be used for more than just pumping. In narrow enough channels, if there is only a moderate concentration of these particles then I doubt they would be close enough together to act as described here.
It's a shame the paywall makes it hard for most of us to really RTFA. I'll report back if there's anything interesting...
They've admitted it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/12/mark-duggan-ipcc-misled-media
I don't see "in the USA" anywhere in Bert64's post. The original article about something which is being considered in the Netherlands. Congestion and pollution by cars is a global problem. Slashdot has an international user-base.
Not doing well to defend against national stereotypes here...
Because the police in London do not have a very good track record for honesty over this kind of thing. If there is a suggestion that the police have acted improperly, people are now inclined to believe it, as they are expected to deny everything and smear the victim either way.
Seconded. Deeply thought-provoking, beautifully made, and highly educational to boot!
(Subjectively, that is)
That may be true, but the difference between 24-bit recording and a 16-bit master is much smaller. Diminishing returns...