Do any actual evolutionary scientists believe that humans stopped evolving at any point?
HIV alone is a direct example - many people world wide have died from this, but a small handful of people have been found to be resistant to it. A classic (and sad) example of evolution at work. A similar thing happened to North & South America when Europeans showed up with dozens of new diseases, wiping out a large percentage of the native population. (See "Guns Germs & Steel - an excellent read)
Why bother implementing a troublesome and unpopular "Three Strikes" law to stop torrents when all you have to do is claim their machine is part of a botnet?
So, you perhaps have proven that atheists are as irrational as Christians. See, I know god doesn't exist, because he came to me in a vision and told me so. I have faith that this is true.
Semantics, really. Black is not really a colour, but pretty much everyone treats it as one. I happen to agree with you that atheism is the "black colour" of the spectrum of religion by the way...
I think Dawkins' concept of the selfish gene is a more accurate portrayal - an organism's goal is to propagate it's own DNA. If it is beneficial to kill off the competitors, then that is the nature of the beast. If it is of benefit to have some level of cooperation with the tribe to eventually help propagate ones' own DNA, then the beast has become a little bit more civilized.. It is not a given of evolution that an individual organism looks to benefit the species. It can work out that way, but it's not a rule/law of evolution.
Of course, you had it easy.. We had to wait for the rocks to form from the cold burning ashes of a local supernova, and there wasn't any air to breath. Try holding your breath for 100 million years while comets slowly seed the atmosphere, while trying to remember those VI key commands!
The article is a little light on details, but makes claims that this method accomplishes carbon sequestering. I can see how any soot (unburned carbon and friends) would stick to the soil but I'm a little skeptical that C02 itself would be trapped.
Perhaps microscopic plants in the soil manage to capture the C02 before it makes it's way back out to the atmosphere?
Anyone know what is the percentage by volume is C02 versus nitrogen gas?
No surprise Motorola's part of the group that wants to strangle the open internet. In Canada they have a near monopoly on the Cable "DVR" box, and it's the worst bit of crud I've ever had to use. Motorola should be legally forbidden from ever writing software again. Can't have torrents competing with their crud, can we? (Actually the hardware bites too, standard definition recording looks worse than VHS)..
The Conservatives think it's ok to sue a teenager for $20,000.00 per song for "illegally" torrenting a song that costs 99 cents on itunes, so that the big media broadcasters can stay rich. Anyone actually vote for that issue? No? Gee, I wonder why the politicians think Canadian parents who voted for them might like this in place?
And no real heat from the Liberal party either. They played it safe with their "town hall meetings" during the Bill C-61 fiasco, but never committed to any side of the debate at all. I'm sure they would cave to big media pressure (cough cash, wine and dine, free trips) if they thought it would help them win the next election.
The point is that the PC squeaks & squawks will hide quite well inside the digital squeaks & squawks of the aforementioned author of said electronic music. Nothing wrong with that.
It won't hide well in a clean recording of an acoustic guitar.
I thought the Twin Peaks sound track was good stuff, for the reference, and I also like a beautifully recorded acoustic guitar track.
There's lots of good and bad music of all sorts being recorded, it's all a good thing.
Two points - 1. Just by pluggin my elcheapo earbuds into my work PC without anything actually playing and I hear a virtual jungle of digital crickets, that squawk and chirp with every mouse movement, and every task that's running. Same thing on the PC I have wired into my home recording studio. The proof is in the pudding.
2. I do electronics engineering as my day job and know full well what it takes to reach 16 bits of silence in an audio design, it's almost impossible inside the case of a PC, and the requirements for PC audio is to be "good enough for gamers" - not to satisfy audiofiles.
Hell, even my prosumer Yamaha dedicated recording workstation (AW16G) has audible crosstalk and hiss on the input channels, which isn't a serious problem, but is surprising in a box designed for audio recording. (Not enough care and attention in isolating the power supply of the input mosfet channel switches would be my guess as to the source of the crosstalk).
You can't always assume that everyone on slashdot is a clueless moron.
Exactly, linux or not, the build in sound card on almost all PC's is utter crap, filled with buzzing squeaks from the internal PC switching power supplies. This guy wouldn't notice. Try recording a nice acoustic guitar sound with a good mic..
This alone means you need some decent quiet soundcard, and it then has to talk with linux audio drivers..
Interesting point. In the early days of Windows audio, people found that their gaming graphics card was grabbing the PCI bus for incredibly long stretches at a time, as a side effect of the graphics card driver trying to max out performance and show great benchmark results. This would totally mess up any audio latency.
I wonder if the linux graphics drivers are doing similar games, causing all sorts of latency hiccups?
(As I'm typing this on a windows box the hard drive is causing seconds long delays as I try to type this!)
Linux audio is definitely not yet what it should be..
And spend $100,000 plus per pound to put it in space, never mind set up and maintenance. This idea is so costly compared to a big "boring" solar array in the desert near - say the Hoover Dam - that it shows how bad some geeks are at reality. Sure it's "cool", but in no way does it make any financial sense, by several orders of magnitude.
It can be directly measured - look at the claimed output of the electrical generators attached.
If it was a trivial amount of energy, it would not be worth doing in the first place, ignoring the fact that the energy is being drained from inefficient gas engines in the first place.
This scheme wastes more oil than not doing it. Using a car as a gasoline to kinetic energy to plate pusher to electric generator is insanely less efficient than just buying electricity from your local power grid.
This "technique" is touted as "being green" when it is exactly the opposite. At best it's a pointless distraction, at worst it's a backwards rat hole that causes more CO2 emissions.
But speed bumps are a deterrent, not a direct method for physically slowing down your car. If you are coasting thru a parking lot without putting on the brakes, then the speed bumps will slow you a tiny bit, but not substantially (unless they are a couple meters high). As many people have mentioned, most of the speed lost climbing the speed bump is returned as you roll back down the other side. A little bit of loss went into compressing your shocks (and minor amounts of stress in your springs etc).
The deterrent comes in when it makes your car shake like hell when you hit one too fast, so you both hit the brakes, and slow down in the first place.
If you change the speed bump into a plunger that drives a generator then you will find you can hit them faster than a stationary one, and it won't be as effective a speed bump.
Slashdot Mirror
Do any actual evolutionary scientists believe that humans stopped evolving at any point?
HIV alone is a direct example - many people world wide have died from this, but a small handful of people have been found to be resistant to it.
A classic (and sad) example of evolution at work.
A similar thing happened to North & South America when Europeans showed up with dozens of new diseases, wiping out a large percentage of the native population. (See "Guns Germs & Steel - an excellent read)
Why bother implementing a troublesome and unpopular "Three Strikes" law to stop torrents when all you have to do is claim their machine is part of a botnet?
Because religions that don't force their beliefs on others eventually die off. It's a darwinism thing..
So, you perhaps have proven that atheists are as irrational as Christians.
See, I know god doesn't exist, because he came to me in a vision and told me so.
I have faith that this is true.
Cause it usually includes being put to death in some fairly uncomfortable manner?
Semantics, really. Black is not really a colour, but pretty much everyone treats it as one.
I happen to agree with you that atheism is the "black colour" of the spectrum of religion by the way...
I think Dawkins' concept of the selfish gene is a more accurate portrayal - an organism's goal is to propagate it's own DNA.
If it is beneficial to kill off the competitors, then that is the nature of the beast. If it is of benefit to have some level of cooperation with the tribe to eventually help propagate ones' own DNA, then the beast has become a little bit more civilized..
It is not a given of evolution that an individual organism looks to benefit the species. It can work out that way, but it's not a rule/law of evolution.
Of course, you had it easy.. We had to wait for the rocks to form from the cold burning ashes of a local supernova, and there wasn't any air to breath. Try holding your breath for 100 million years while comets slowly seed the atmosphere, while trying to remember those VI key commands!
LOL, I think you just hit that one out of the park - Most sensible thing I've seen on this news item!
The article is a little light on details, but makes claims that this method accomplishes carbon sequestering.
I can see how any soot (unburned carbon and friends) would stick to the soil but I'm a little skeptical that C02 itself would be trapped.
Perhaps microscopic plants in the soil manage to capture the C02 before it makes it's way back out to the atmosphere?
Anyone know what is the percentage by volume is C02 versus nitrogen gas?
Interesting.
No surprise Motorola's part of the group that wants to strangle the open internet. In Canada they have a near monopoly on the Cable "DVR" box, and it's the worst bit of crud I've ever had to use.
Motorola should be legally forbidden from ever writing software again. Can't have torrents competing with their crud, can we? (Actually the hardware bites too, standard definition recording looks worse than VHS)..
Bah!
Harper appointed a creationist as science minister.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/17/canadas-science-mini.html
Harper and gang are moronic G W Bush wannabees.
The Conservatives think it's ok to sue a teenager for $20,000.00 per song for "illegally" torrenting a song that costs 99 cents on itunes,
so that the big media broadcasters can stay rich. Anyone actually vote for that issue? No? Gee, I wonder why the politicians think Canadian parents who voted for them might like this in place?
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3025/125/
Well, their Wangs went obsolete, so you need a new plan..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories
Plus waterboarding is copyrighted...
And no real heat from the Liberal party either. They played it safe with their "town hall meetings" during the Bill C-61 fiasco, but never committed to any side of the debate at all.
I'm sure they would cave to big media pressure (cough cash, wine and dine, free trips) if they thought it would help them win the next election.
The point is that the PC squeaks & squawks will hide quite well inside the digital squeaks & squawks of the aforementioned author of said electronic music. Nothing wrong with that.
It won't hide well in a clean recording of an acoustic guitar.
I thought the Twin Peaks sound track was good stuff, for the reference, and I also like a beautifully recorded acoustic guitar track.
There's lots of good and bad music of all sorts being recorded, it's all a good thing.
Two points -
1. Just by pluggin my elcheapo earbuds into my work PC without anything actually playing and I hear a virtual jungle of digital crickets, that squawk and chirp with every mouse movement, and every task that's running. Same thing on the PC I have wired into my home recording studio. The proof is in the pudding.
2. I do electronics engineering as my day job and know full well what it takes to reach 16 bits of silence in an audio design, it's almost impossible inside the case of a PC, and the requirements for PC audio is to be "good enough for gamers" - not to satisfy audiofiles.
Hell, even my prosumer Yamaha dedicated recording workstation (AW16G) has audible crosstalk and hiss on the input channels, which isn't a serious problem, but is surprising in a box designed for audio recording. (Not enough care and attention in isolating the power supply of the input mosfet channel switches would be my guess as to the source of the crosstalk).
You can't always assume that everyone on slashdot is a clueless moron.
Exactly, linux or not, the build in sound card on almost all PC's is utter crap, filled with buzzing squeaks from the internal PC switching power supplies.
This guy wouldn't notice. Try recording a nice acoustic guitar sound with a good mic..
This alone means you need some decent quiet soundcard, and it then has to talk with linux audio drivers..
Interesting point.
In the early days of Windows audio, people found that their gaming graphics card was grabbing the PCI bus for incredibly long stretches at a time, as a side effect of the graphics card driver trying to max out performance and show great benchmark results. This would totally mess up any audio latency.
I wonder if the linux graphics drivers are doing similar games, causing all sorts of latency hiccups?
(As I'm typing this on a windows box the hard drive is causing seconds long delays as I try to type this!)
Linux audio is definitely not yet what it should be..
I do - find it disgusting that is!
Don't assume.
And spend $100,000 plus per pound to put it in space, never mind set up and maintenance.
This idea is so costly compared to a big "boring" solar array in the desert near - say the Hoover Dam - that it shows how bad some geeks are at reality.
Sure it's "cool", but in no way does it make any financial sense, by several orders of magnitude.
It can be directly measured - look at the claimed output of the electrical generators attached.
If it was a trivial amount of energy, it would not be worth doing in the first place, ignoring the fact that the energy is being drained from inefficient gas engines in the first place.
This scheme wastes more oil than not doing it. Using a car as a gasoline to kinetic energy to plate pusher to electric generator is insanely less efficient than just buying electricity from your local power grid.
This "technique" is touted as "being green" when it is exactly the opposite. At best it's a pointless distraction, at worst it's a backwards rat hole that causes more CO2 emissions.
Since when is informing you of the laws of thermodynamics "trolling"?
If you put your car in neutral, then when you hit said plates, your car would slow down a bit, loosing energy.
You would then use energy to speed back up after the fact.
But - you may say they should have used brakes anyway? Sure, but a hybrid or electric car wanted that energy back via regenerative braking.
But speed bumps are a deterrent, not a direct method for physically slowing down your car.
If you are coasting thru a parking lot without putting on the brakes, then the speed bumps will slow you a tiny bit, but not substantially (unless they are a couple meters high). As many people have mentioned, most of the speed lost climbing the speed bump is returned as you roll back down the other side.
A little bit of loss went into compressing your shocks (and minor amounts of stress in your springs etc).
The deterrent comes in when it makes your car shake like hell when you hit one too fast, so you both hit the brakes, and slow down in the first place.
If you change the speed bump into a plunger that drives a generator then you will find you can hit them faster than a stationary one, and it won't be as effective a speed bump.