That the moon is NOT made out of cheese is also not proven fact, it is opinion.
To be entirely honest, I'm not sure I'm happy with the cheese theory either, since making cheese involves the curdling of milk. And curdling is a pretty violent process if you happen to be a milk protein! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curd)
This being such a contentious issue, I would prefer if NASA took the Moon off the agenda entirely. The very people who rely on us for factual information the most could be easily confused by this debate.
I can't believe how TFA goes on about the moon dust being "formed by violence." This is not not proven fact; it is opinion. It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the nature of moon dust that discounts intelligent design by a creator. And a benevolent creator would certainly not form anything by violence!
This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.
Yep, I heard an interview yesterday too. The thing seems to have left without its batteries. The guy interviewing Sharkey was hilariously moronic, though:
"So, let me get this straight, this robot's *electronic brain*, it cannot function without batteries?"... "But why, if this *brain* is completely useless without its batteries, why do you design them to be disconnected in the first place?"
Hackers from the former Soviet Union have been linked to several schemes, including extortion attempts in which they threaten to shut down online casinos through Internet attacks unless the companies pay them off.
\begin{sinister Slavic voice} You must pay one gazillion dollars to my PayPal account immediately, or I will post a link to your site on Slashdot. \end{sinister Slavic voice}
P.S. I happen to be a hacker from the former Soviet Union.
Milonic Solutions' JavaScript code used on Hatch's website costs $900 for a site-wide license. It is free for personal or nonprofit use, which the senator likely qualifies for.
That's funny, but I would hardly think the senator and his website qualify for nonprofit use... I mean, he's probably turning in quite a profit from the RIAA and such, right?
closely followed by his "Gulag Archipelago". It's a while since I read the latter, but I'm pretty sure it's the one that fictionalised Russian scientists working in an "intelligentsia prison".
No, you're thinking of "The First Circle". "Gulag" is entirely non-fiction, it's more of a huge reference work detailing the whole Soviet system of repression.
Well, there's tuning and there's tuning... and in astrophysics this sort of thing is done all over the place. We don't have a choice, really: each observation is a one-time event, and you have no control over the actual "experiment". So the only thing you can do is try to come up with a physical model, after the fact, that fits the observations.
While this may sound fishy at first, remember that no-one is going to accept your model for proven on the basis of a single observational event. Do more observations and show that it fits them without too much fiddling, then you have corroboration. (It's fair game to fit the values of basic parameters though, since these values are usually what you're after in the first place.)
Remember that the inverse problem is basically ill-posed to begin with. You're trying to establish the physical parameters of a process based on some integral measurements of some [usually quite distant] consequences of the process. Because of the integration, information is always reduced. An infinite number of different possible models can give you the same integrated results. That's where regularization and all that voodoo comes in... it's more art than science sometimes, but, in the end, the proof is in the pudding. Once your model becomes good enough to predict future observations reasonably well, that's it, that's as rigorous as you can make it and no-one can ask for more.
(After all, it's going to be a long long time before we can watch a neutron star collapse from up close.)
No, read carefully. By "change the configuration", Suen means changing the configuration of the model. So they just massage the model until it fits the observed results.
It's a classical inverse problem, he's just trying to explain it in layman's terms and making a bit of a hash of it...
I think what he meant was not exactly radiant transfer, but convective transfer of heat off the surface of the case. Which the stupid window does hurt, though perhaps not by much.
Hmmm, apropos to that recent CDMA vs. GSM story, it sounds like someone needs to come up with a CDMA-like scheme for these things, so that multiple cars can share the same frequency.
You got it - nothing beats an IE bug for pure enterntainment value. Just yesterday, the guy in the office next to mine used the Print Preview feature to check if a web-page he was printing would fit on one printed page. And indeed it fits - with scrollbars! Scrollbars in hard copy, how's that for innovation? Think of all the trees it would save! But seriously, things like this boggle the mind. How in the world can a GUI element end up being rendered in a print context? Only at M$...
Didn't Intel invent the first computer?..
on
Rebuilding Colossus
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· Score: 1
That's all correct, and was covered by Slashdot a while back. The article here proposes a totally different technique, though. You must admit that "quantum entanglement" sounds a lot sexier than plain old polarized photons...
On second thought, what with the current version of the Executive branch, it wouldn't surprise me at all. The Mrs. Gates/Janet Reno thing, that is. The White House has been quite keen on the subject of extramarital sex the past few years...:-)
come on.. the white house is getting involved with microsoft? isnt this like a violation of judicial proceedings? they should stay the heck out of it and somebody should hack microsoft into seperate companies and enjoy the prosperity that comes from that.. my 2 cents
Hello moderators? Why did this get moderated down as "Flamebait"? Seems to me a perfectly reasonable and interesting comment. The executive getting involved in business of the judicial really is like Gore having sex with... well, maybe not Bill's wife... I know! With Janet Reno!
Strictly speaking, gravitational lensing shows (as general relativity predicts) that a body of large mass warps space-time, thus bending the "straight lines" that light follows. Saying that light has mass is something completely different.
That the Focault pendulum chnages its behaviour during an eclipse is pretty amazing, but it has nothing to do with gravitational lensing. G-lensing is a well-understood, one might even say trivial, effect. How an eclipse can affect a pendulum is not understood at all!
Bad people are communists, bad people are capitalists. Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they do eeeevil.
Communists are a lot worse than that, believe me, I've had first-hand experience. But the idea of adopting Linux as an "official governement OS" is certainly nice, even if the whole PRC story really is untrue. Governments must use open-source; wasting taxpayers' money on commercial software is outrageous, I think.
Anyway, it's quite a contrast with what's happening over in Russia. If the DoJ makes life too hard for Bill Gates, he can always come to Moscow and take over the Kremlin. They'll let him have it, gladly. MS Kremlin? Do you know that Word 97 is the official format of the Russian tax police? You can download the income tax forms from their page, but only in Word 97 format... Now that really makes me mad. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "Microsoft tax", doesn't it?
The way they give out patents right and left, it ought to be pretty easy to patent the concept of shared memory itself. Then sue Yahoo for patent violation!
Sorry, I forgot to include a smiley in my original comment... But as long as you're taking this line of discussion seriously, how about David Boies? Apparently, the man can convince even a retarded lemur.:-)
By producing software of such questionable reputation, and rapacious licensing terms, Bill Gates has done more to encourage people to consider free software than any other purveyor of proprietary software.
You're absolutely correct. He has provided an enormous base of dissatisfied customers, thus contributing to the phenomenal growth of open source. I wonder how many Linux converts this year are former Windows victims?.. Perhaps Slashdot should host a poll: what made you take up Linux in the first place?
(My answer: Solaris. OK, maybe I'm not a good example. Perhaps I should shut up now.)
Slashdot Mirror
That the moon is NOT made out of cheese is also not proven fact, it is opinion.
To be entirely honest, I'm not sure I'm happy with the cheese theory either, since making cheese involves the curdling of milk. And curdling is a pretty violent process if you happen to be a milk protein! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curd)
This being such a contentious issue, I would prefer if NASA took the Moon off the agenda entirely. The very people who rely on us for factual information the most could be easily confused by this debate.
I can't believe how TFA goes on about the moon dust being "formed by violence." This is not not proven fact; it is opinion. It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the nature of moon dust that discounts intelligent design by a creator. And a benevolent creator would certainly not form anything by violence!
This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA. That would mean we had failed to properly educate the very people who rely on us for factual information the most.
Yep, I heard an interview yesterday too. The thing seems to have left without its batteries. The guy interviewing Sharkey was hilariously moronic, though:
...
"So, let me get this straight, this robot's *electronic brain*, it cannot function without batteries?"
"But why, if this *brain* is completely useless without its batteries, why do you design them to be disconnected in the first place?"
Sharkey sounded very amused...
Hackers from the former Soviet Union have been linked to several schemes, including extortion attempts in which they threaten to shut down online casinos through Internet attacks unless the companies pay them off.
\begin{sinister Slavic voice}
You must pay one gazillion dollars to my PayPal account immediately, or I will post a link to your site on Slashdot.
\end{sinister Slavic voice}
P.S. I happen to be a hacker from the former Soviet Union.
That's funny, but I would hardly think the senator and his website qualify for nonprofit use... I mean, he's probably turning in quite a profit from the RIAA and such, right?
"First fringes", actually.
closely followed by his "Gulag Archipelago". It's a while since I read the latter, but I'm pretty sure it's the one that fictionalised Russian scientists working in an "intelligentsia prison".
No, you're thinking of "The First Circle". "Gulag" is entirely non-fiction, it's more of a huge reference work detailing the whole Soviet system of repression.
Well, there's tuning and there's tuning... and in astrophysics this sort of thing is done all over the place. We don't have a choice, really: each observation is a one-time event, and you have no control over the actual "experiment". So the only thing you can do is try to come up with a physical model, after the fact, that fits the observations.
While this may sound fishy at first, remember that no-one is going to accept your model for proven on the basis of a single observational event. Do more observations and show that it fits them without too much fiddling, then you have corroboration. (It's fair game to fit the values of basic parameters though, since these values are usually what you're after in the first place.)
Remember that the inverse problem is basically ill-posed to begin with. You're trying to establish the physical parameters of a process based on some integral measurements of some [usually quite distant] consequences of the process. Because of the integration, information is always reduced. An infinite number of different possible models can give you the same integrated results. That's where regularization and all that voodoo comes in... it's more art than science sometimes, but, in the end, the proof is in the pudding. Once your model becomes good enough to predict future observations reasonably well, that's it, that's as rigorous as you can make it and no-one can ask for more.
(After all, it's going to be a long long time before we can watch a neutron star collapse from up close.)
No, read carefully. By "change the configuration", Suen means changing the configuration of the model. So they just massage the model until it fits the observed results.
It's a classical inverse problem, he's just trying to explain it in layman's terms and making a bit of a hash of it...
On the surface, this sounds remarkably like "Atomised" by Michel Houellebecq. Similar ideas, wrapped in a highly readable (and distrubing) novel. Published as "Elementary Particles" in the US.
I think what he meant was not exactly radiant transfer, but convective transfer of heat off the surface of the case. Which the stupid window does hurt, though perhaps not by much.
Hmmm, apropos to that recent CDMA vs. GSM story, it sounds like someone needs to come up with a CDMA-like scheme for these things, so that multiple cars can share the same frequency.
So? Lem was very popular in the USSR. I don't know when exactly it was published in Russian, but "almost 40" sounds right.
You got it - nothing beats an IE bug for pure enterntainment value. Just yesterday, the guy in the office next to mine used the Print Preview feature to check if a web-page he was printing would fit on one printed page. And indeed it fits - with scrollbars! Scrollbars in hard copy, how's that for innovation? Think of all the trees it would save! But seriously, things like this boggle the mind. How in the world can a GUI element end up being rendered in a print context? Only at M$...
..or was it Al Gore?
That's all correct, and was covered by Slashdot a while back. The article here proposes a totally different technique, though. You must admit that "quantum entanglement" sounds a lot sexier than plain old polarized photons...
On second thought, what with the current version of the Executive branch, it wouldn't surprise me at all. The Mrs. Gates/Janet Reno thing, that is. The White House has been quite keen on the subject of extramarital sex the past few years... :-)
come on.. the white house is getting involved with microsoft? isnt this like a violation of judicial proceedings? they should stay the heck out of it and somebody should hack microsoft into seperate companies and enjoy the prosperity that comes from that.. my 2 cents
Hello moderators? Why did this get moderated down as "Flamebait"? Seems to me a perfectly reasonable and interesting comment. The executive getting involved in business of the judicial really is like Gore having sex with... well, maybe not Bill's wife... I know! With Janet Reno!
...as well as all the other significant advances of modern computing, it's only logical that they should stick up for each other!
Strictly speaking, gravitational lensing shows (as general relativity predicts) that a body of large mass warps space-time, thus bending the "straight lines" that light follows. Saying that light has mass is something completely different.
That the Focault pendulum chnages its behaviour during an eclipse is pretty amazing, but it has nothing to do with gravitational lensing. G-lensing is a well-understood, one might even say trivial, effect. How an eclipse can affect a pendulum is not understood at all!
Bad people are communists, bad people are capitalists. Communists just don't understand the free market, and generally don't understand democracy, but that doesn't make everything they
do eeeevil.
Communists are a lot worse than that, believe me, I've had first-hand experience. But the idea of adopting Linux as an "official governement OS" is certainly nice, even if the whole PRC story really is untrue. Governments must use open-source; wasting taxpayers' money on commercial software is outrageous, I think.
Anyway, it's quite a contrast with what's happening over in Russia. If the DoJ makes life too hard for Bill Gates, he can always come to Moscow and take over the Kremlin. They'll let him have it, gladly. MS Kremlin? Do you know that Word 97 is the official format of the Russian tax police? You can download the income tax forms from their page, but only in Word 97 format... Now that really makes me mad. Gives a whole new meaning to the term "Microsoft tax", doesn't it?
...Yet another US Patent Office Run Amok Story!
What next? A patent for bold and italic fonts?
The way they give out patents right and left, it ought to be pretty easy to patent the concept of shared memory itself. Then sue Yahoo for patent violation!
Sorry, I forgot to include a smiley in my original comment... But as long as you're taking this line of discussion seriously, how about David Boies? Apparently, the man can convince even a retarded lemur. :-)
(Got it this time!)
By producing software of such questionable reputation, and rapacious licensing terms, Bill Gates has done more to encourage people to consider free software than any other purveyor of
proprietary software.
You're absolutely correct. He has provided an enormous base of dissatisfied customers, thus contributing to the phenomenal growth of open source. I wonder how many Linux converts this year are former Windows victims?.. Perhaps Slashdot should host a poll: what made you take up Linux in the first place?
(My answer: Solaris. OK, maybe I'm not a good example. Perhaps I should shut up now.)
A worthy candidate, methinks.