So it "affected Earth's rotation" and "changed the Earth's rotation"? Wow. Can't blame the poster, I guess, since that was a direct quote from the article.
I like this quote, which underscores the lack of newsworthiness of this, "Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car." So, using that fancy scientific notation to represent all the zeroes between my numbers and the decimal point, I can compute the change in rotation and pole location caused by my commute this morning. Call the newspapers!!!
"Bottom" of Sumatra in the graphic they showed, which was oriented with North at the top, which is a pretty standard orientation for maps (North at the "top" - assuming you are viewing the television while both you and the television are similarly oriented). You must have been holding your maps upside down all your life. Or maybe you are in the southern hemisphere, so you are upside-down, so the right-side-up maps appear upside-down to you. Or the television appears upside-down to you. Or maybe the direction the water swirls got your left and right mixed up, so you switched up and down to compensate.
Did you even read the article? Firstly, you call Dr. Gross some dork after complaining about journalistic integrity.
Yes, I read the article. And no, I am not claiming to have journalistic integrity.
But Slashdot should have more journalistic integrity than they displayed here, since they are creating content for public consumption.
This guy predicted some changes, the predictions have not been tested. The title would lead one to believe that it is a known fact that the quake changed the earth's rotation. One person predicting something is a far cry from it being a known fact, regardless of the qualifications and track record of the person. That's why I think the title was inappropriate.
Richard Gross is a scientist, and therefore a dork just like the rest of us 'round here. If the term "dork" offends you, you can substitute "person" and preserve my meaning, with only a small loss of specificity.
Come on now, is it really good journalism to put the title "Quake Changes Earth's Rotation, Moves Islands" on this, because some dork theorizes that the quake may have accelerated the Earth's rotation, but the change would be too small to measure?
Please.
And speaking of poor journalism, has anyone else noticed that Fox News has the epicenter of the quake totally wrong? They put it down near the bottom of Sumatra. I saw this on the first day and discounted it as early guesswork, but then I just saw it again last night (12/28), same graphic. I guess they just don't care.
This might be a good place to mention the suspected links between autism/Asperger's and the tech world.
This
article in Wired explored the connection, including the explosion of cases of a/A in silicon valley, probably due to geeks interbreeding.
The suggestion is that autism is a spectrum, and a little of it can make you a better programmer, or at least uniquely suited to the programmer's environment. However, the trait is highly hereditary, so when programmers start marrying and having children they have a very high incidence of autism.
Thankfully, there is evidence to the contrary.
In
this
interview (mentioned in a previous comment),
when asked about books, he says
"I have O'Reilly's nonfiction gem Java Servlet Programming sitting open on my desk right now!"
From the article:
"But to make such high speeds practical, another plasma unit must be stationed on a platform at the other end of the trip to apply brakes to the spacecraft."
So, since this is a push-away-only propulsion, i.e. the space station is pushing the space craft, you have to have one at the other end to slow it down when it gets there.
My mind is polluted. Somehow I just can't read the candidates responses without hearing it as read by the guys on SNL who spoof Bush and Kerry. Our candidates this time around are so damn goofy that it's like they are self-spoofing. The weird thing about the SNL versions of the debates was that, although they were funny, they just weren't that much different from the real thing.
And tell me, how in the hell did Anheuser-Busch get their giant logo on the wall at all of the debates?
I went out to check out a closeout at an outdoor outfitter too, but they were out. I was outraged. I freaked out, then lashed out and had an outburst at the checkout. They were put out that I was so out of control, so they threw me out.
Simlarly, not affiliated with the company, but a happy customer.
I used this recently to upgrade drives for a couple laptops and found it to really make the process easier. Since it clones your drive you get everything, data, applications, registry, etc. Ba-da-bing, running with the new drive like nothing happened, and you have all your data on the old drive, too, just in case. When you feel you don't need that any more you can wipe it and use it as an external drive for backups or whatever you want. I use mine for music.
The problem, obviously, is that you are getting stuff new. You need to get stuff that has been around long enough for all the volatile substances to float off.
For example, I have a fabulous Pentium I 75 Mhz system that's been, uh, "airing out" in my garage for a few years, and, just to help out, I'd be willing to let it go at a reasonable price. I personally guarantee there will be no "new computer" smell.
Consider this: You use traditional (wires) bandwidth to do DNS resolution and tracert to plan the route your data will take, this inlcudes all the routers it will go through, and the instructions you need to give each. Then you build your data transmission with the instructions for each optical router at the head, which they will strip off and use.
This way, you have a very small amount of overhead work in traditional bandwidth, and the bulk of your data goes straight to its destination with 100% optical routing.
I agree. Just like technologies developed for NASCAR eventually make it to the mass market, a legitimate testing ground for chem/bio/gene/mechanical enhancements would spur research and allow everyone to see which ones rock and which crash and burn.
Hey, no need to differentiate between the men and the women. With gene and hormone therepy it's effectively a choice anyway.
You cited a specific case (your mom) so I did the same (my mom). Just another reference point.
I think SmallFurryCreature had a good point, which was, "you'd be surprised how many grandma really know some stuff." It's true. He didn't claim all grandma's know stuff. So IMHO you were off base in saying he was smoking crack. That's all I'm saying.
The grandparent post (behold, the many prongs of my meaning!) has a good point. While some grandmothers out there are living in 1940, there are those who grew with the times and really know some stuff.
My mother, who has 4 grandkids, sold IBM mainframes before she had me in 1969, got her masters in CS, has been a programmer for more than 20 years, has run software development teams, been the custodian of a million line codebase with thousands of daily users. In the last year she retired, then decided it was time to start learning java.
BTW, I happen to be working on benchmarks for some complex, resource-intensive java software. I tried the switch from -client to -server. It made some things a little faster and some things a lot slower. Using -server may have made a big difference for this guy's benchmarks, but it should not be assumed that it will be better for all applications. Test it and judge for your particular app before making this switch.
It's all about chaos, baby.
Our global weather is a chaos system. Chaos research shows that chaos systems can and do occasionally make radical changes. And we have evidence that our weather has change rapidly and radically in the past. Therefore it is plausible.
For a great intro to chaos theory try
this book
by James Gleick.
Thank you for participating.
This absolutely original and entertaining exercise has been brought to you by the creative litigators of SCO. "Why work when you can sue?"
......
"Your honor, as you can clearly see, our scientific research has proven that 100% of programmers copy code. Linux was developed by these 'programmers', ergo, the 'programmers' copied code when creating Linux. QED. Show me the money."
Slashdot Mirror
I like this quote, which underscores the lack of newsworthiness of this, "Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car." So, using that fancy scientific notation to represent all the zeroes between my numbers and the decimal point, I can compute the change in rotation and pole location caused by my commute this morning. Call the newspapers!!!
I would like to comment on this, but then I'd have to kill every single one of you.
"Bottom" of Sumatra in the graphic they showed, which was oriented with North at the top, which is a pretty standard orientation for maps (North at the "top" - assuming you are viewing the television while both you and the television are similarly oriented). You must have been holding your maps upside down all your life. Or maybe you are in the southern hemisphere, so you are upside-down, so the right-side-up maps appear upside-down to you. Or the television appears upside-down to you. Or maybe the direction the water swirls got your left and right mixed up, so you switched up and down to compensate.
Yes, I read the article. And no, I am not claiming to have journalistic integrity. But Slashdot should have more journalistic integrity than they displayed here, since they are creating content for public consumption.
This guy predicted some changes, the predictions have not been tested. The title would lead one to believe that it is a known fact that the quake changed the earth's rotation. One person predicting something is a far cry from it being a known fact, regardless of the qualifications and track record of the person. That's why I think the title was inappropriate.
Richard Gross is a scientist, and therefore a dork just like the rest of us 'round here. If the term "dork" offends you, you can substitute "person" and preserve my meaning, with only a small loss of specificity.
And speaking of poor journalism, has anyone else noticed that Fox News has the epicenter of the quake totally wrong? They put it down near the bottom of Sumatra. I saw this on the first day and discounted it as early guesswork, but then I just saw it again last night (12/28), same graphic. I guess they just don't care.
This might be a good place to mention the suspected links between autism/Asperger's and the tech world.
This article in Wired explored the connection, including the explosion of cases of a/A in silicon valley, probably due to geeks interbreeding.
The suggestion is that autism is a spectrum, and a little of it can make you a better programmer, or at least uniquely suited to the programmer's environment. However, the trait is highly hereditary, so when programmers start marrying and having children they have a very high incidence of autism.
That's right, Ken is a Java guy.
Perhaps people are discovering that when you steal any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really stolen anything.
Wouldn't that be something.
now our software sweatshops will involve actual sweat. sweaty programmers, ewwwww.
From the article:
"But to make such high speeds practical, another plasma unit must be stationed on a platform at the other end of the trip to apply brakes to the spacecraft."
So, since this is a push-away-only propulsion, i.e. the space station is pushing the space craft, you have to have one at the other end to slow it down when it gets there.
Seems unlikely.
My mind is polluted. Somehow I just can't read the candidates responses without hearing it as read by the guys on SNL who spoof Bush and Kerry. Our candidates this time around are so damn goofy that it's like they are self-spoofing. The weird thing about the SNL versions of the debates was that, although they were funny, they just weren't that much different from the real thing.
And tell me, how in the hell did Anheuser-Busch get their giant logo on the wall at all of the debates?
Glad to see Dubya is finally embracing them internets. All of them.
I went out to check out a closeout at an outdoor outfitter too, but they were out. I was outraged. I freaked out, then lashed out and had an outburst at the checkout. They were put out that I was so out of control, so they threw me out.
Oh, and the one I used was USB.
I whole-heartedly concur.
Simlarly, not affiliated with the company, but a happy customer.
I used this recently to upgrade drives for a couple laptops and found it to really make the process easier. Since it clones your drive you get everything, data, applications, registry, etc. Ba-da-bing, running with the new drive like nothing happened, and you have all your data on the old drive, too, just in case. When you feel you don't need that any more you can wipe it and use it as an external drive for backups or whatever you want. I use mine for music.
I call bullshi... uh, I mean, prior art.
For example, I have a fabulous Pentium I 75 Mhz system that's been, uh, "airing out" in my garage for a few years, and, just to help out, I'd be willing to let it go at a reasonable price. I personally guarantee there will be no "new computer" smell.
Vote.
It's an interesting problem, but not unsolveable.
Consider this: You use traditional (wires) bandwidth to do DNS resolution and tracert to plan the route your data will take, this inlcudes all the routers it will go through, and the instructions you need to give each. Then you build your data transmission with the instructions for each optical router at the head, which they will strip off and use.
This way, you have a very small amount of overhead work in traditional bandwidth, and the bulk of your data goes straight to its destination with 100% optical routing.
I agree. Just like technologies developed for NASCAR eventually make it to the mass market, a legitimate testing ground for chem/bio/gene/mechanical enhancements would spur research and allow everyone to see which ones rock and which crash and burn.
Hey, no need to differentiate between the men and the women. With gene and hormone therepy it's effectively a choice anyway.
You cited a specific case (your mom) so I did the same (my mom). Just another reference point.
I think SmallFurryCreature had a good point, which was, "you'd be surprised how many grandma really know some stuff." It's true. He didn't claim all grandma's know stuff. So IMHO you were off base in saying he was smoking crack. That's all I'm saying.
The grandparent post (behold, the many prongs of my meaning!) has a good point. While some grandmothers out there are living in 1940, there are those who grew with the times and really know some stuff.
My mother, who has 4 grandkids, sold IBM mainframes before she had me in 1969, got her masters in CS, has been a programmer for more than 20 years, has run software development teams, been the custodian of a million line codebase with thousands of daily users. In the last year she retired, then decided it was time to start learning java.
BTW, I happen to be working on benchmarks for some complex, resource-intensive java software. I tried the switch from -client to -server. It made some things a little faster and some things a lot slower. Using -server may have made a big difference for this guy's benchmarks, but it should not be assumed that it will be better for all applications. Test it and judge for your particular app before making this switch.
For a great intro to chaos theory try this book by James Gleick.
Thank you for participating. This absolutely original and entertaining exercise has been brought to you by the creative litigators of SCO. "Why work when you can sue?"
"Your honor, as you can clearly see, our scientific research has proven that 100% of programmers copy code. Linux was developed by these 'programmers', ergo, the 'programmers' copied code when creating Linux. QED. Show me the money."