It's too bad that almost no one understands how absurd it is to discuss (and worry about) the privacy and security of email! Until you are sending email messages encrypted end-to-end, there's no point in even having that discussion.
We learned to use slide rules and were required to use them in high school physics (which I took as a junior). Or, it might have been in chemistry which I took as a sophmore. In the physics class, we also had a four-banger calculator at the front of the room that we could use, until someone dropped it. It was large with plasma-segment digits for the display (the big, glowing, orange ones).
We understood well what two- and three-digit precision was. Slide rules also made it pretty easy to understand logarithms. I still think about a slide rule scale when estimating the log of a number from 1 to 10.
My slide rule was a relatively cheap Sterling model, but I was a high school student after all.
When I was a senior, I was given a TI SR-51 calculator as my first calculator. Of course the SR meant ``slide rule.'' It had all of the functions found on a slide-rule and also did hyperbolic trig functions.
The next year, when I was a freshman at Ga Tech, there were still people on campus with slide rules on their belts. Of course, we carried our calculators on our belts, too. The cases had a loop for that purpose.
My roommate, who was an older PhD student, used a slide rule throughout my time at Tech, even in the late 70s. I don't think he actually had a calculator, but I don't remember for sure.
P.S. The SR-51 died before it was two years old and I bought an HP-25 and then upgraded to an HP-25C soon thereafter.
I've given advice to new amateur astronomers for over 30 years, 10 of them as a planetarium professional. I agree with much of what has been said here. Here's a summary of the key points I agree with.
1. Aperture is the most important measure of telescope performance 2. A stable mounting is very important. Hopefully one that's easy to set up. 3. Experience has more to do with what you see through a telescope than anything else.
The third point is one I haven't seen here yet. Your eye has to be educated to see more. The more you look, the more you'll see. That's true in a single night and it's true over a lifetime.
My first telescope was a 2.4-in refractor from Sears 37 years ago. I was able to see Jupiter as a smooth, ivory ball. Then I went to the local astronomy club and saw Jupiter through a 10-in telescope. After that, I could always make out the North and South Equatorial Belts through *my* telescope and the Great Red Spot (which was darker in the 70s than it is now).
Years later, as an adult, I took that 2.4 out with only Norton's atlas and the finder was gone. With it I was able to find and view M1 the Crab Nebula, M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy, M81 and M82, The Ring Nebula M57, and more. Experience is way more important than the telescope.
Go to the astronomy club meetings and look through telescopes. Notice how easy or hard they are to set up. Watch the image to see how much it vibrates when you move the telescope or it's bumped. Observe people as they set up and take down their telescope, noting how easy or hard it is.
From the club meetings and reading, learn about what kind of astronomy you like. There are lots of variations in the hobby, e.g., deep sky observing, planetary, moon, variable stars, occultations, astrophotography, telescope making, double stars, etc. If you become deeply interested in any of those you'll probably may want a particular telescope for that hobby.
I've used 8-in Schmidt-Cassegrains (S-C) in the past, a pier-mounted 14-in S-C, and many other telescopes. My telescope now is a 10-in f/5.4 Dobsonian that I made with purchased mirrors in 1984. I love that telescope because I mainly like deep sky observing. Someone here said Dobsonians weren't great for planets. For planets and stars, I made a thin cardboard aperture stop (cardboard with a hole in it) that makes my Dobsonian a 3.5-in f/15 telescope that works splendidly! (The hole is off-axis so there is no obstruction).
The 10-in Dobsonian takes about 5 seconds to set up. It's two pieces that are easy to transport. It's very durable and kid-friendly. Kids can practically climb on it.
As many have pointed out here, for commercial telescopes, I really like Orion at telescope.com. There is a lot of tutorial material there at their web site, too.
I also love my 7x50 binoculars and frequently grab them as my only take-along astronomical instrument. Mounting binoculars on a camera tripod, if you have time, makes a world of difference in how much you see!
Those who posted here that you should get something that is convenient and easy to set up also hit a very key point.
Sadly, most people I've known who buy a telescope, almost regardless of their initial enthusiasm, use them a couple of times then never again. I'm always surprised by this in a way. The corollary is that there are a *lot* of barely-used telescopes out there which you could probably get a good deal on if you can find them.
So go to club meetings, look through telescopes, enjoy the sky, read about astronomy, don't spend too much money up front, and have fun!
I believe the so-called heat death has basically already occurred. I'm stating this without re-checking, but I believe the majority of photons in the universe are 2.7-kelvin cosmic background radiation photons indicating the universe, for the most part, has already achieved near-maximum thermodynamic entropy, i.e., the heat death. What remains as the part of the universe we mostly care about is insignificant by comparison.
I loved using my SLR for over 25 years, but I'm not convinced I need a DSLR. Granted I'm only an occasional amateur photographer these days. I have an older Olympus D-40 non-SLR (not to be confused with the apparent new Nikon D40 mentioned here).
With my camera I can adjust aperture, shutter speed, focus, white balance, sharpness, flash sync, i.e., everthing mentioned.
I'm not sure I'm convinced a larger sensor is superior. It would inherently have more pixels, but I don't feel the need for more pixels. I know there are applications where one would want or need more.
A smaller sensor means smaller lenses, and smaller again is not necessarily worse. My camera does have glass lenses and not plastic.
On noise, I can't argue the point other than to say that I don't experience noise as a problem. It's true that I don't shoot in a lot of low-light situations.
I have to grant the point on accessories. The main thing I wish I had was a flash connection so I could use my old vivitar flash and bracket, and not be limited to the on-camera flash. Or I'd even accept a proprietary external flash.
No shutter lag. This is the biggest problem and annoyance with the camera I have and I think all cameras from it's time and category. However, I think this problem is solved in most new cameras, not just DSLRs. I expect its related to how fast you can unload the sensor and write the data to the storage medium. As an aside, I would expect it to be faster to unload the smaller sensor on the smaller camera.
Regarding the viewfinder, I do miss the giant, bright viewfinder field of my SLR. However, my digital camera viewfinder is sufficient, it comes close to matching the image, and the LCD is useful and matches the image exactly.
Ergonomics. After years of cradling my SLR and lens in my left hand, I had to learn how to hold a non-SLR digital camera: Make a thumbs-up with your left hand. Now you have a very stable platform for your camera. Also this keeps your fingers from blocking the lens, etc. Operate the shutter release and controls with your right hand.
Regarding price, I'm sure DSLRs are cheaper than they used to be, but they are still more expensive than the other digital cameras.
I understand why there's an effort to define what a planet is. For one thing, it's important for common usage. It helps fill in the blanks on headlines such as, Scientists Observed the Star ______ has a _________ .
However, our solar system is easiest to understand if you realize it's composed of the following.
Four terrestrial planets
Four jovian planets
The Kuiper Belt objects
and the remaining comets, asteroids, dust, etc.
(Yes, I know I'm using the word planet, but the actual dispute is being driven by the discovery of a Kuiper belt object larger than Pluto and farther from the Sun).
It's commendable (and necessary) to take such an interest in your child's development. However, on the issue of technology, I don't think you need to worry about how to expose them to technology, at least in general. I think this is like our parents thinking about how they should expose us to writing instruments or TV. (Sure, you should buy a toddler the fat crayons and probably not sharp pencils!) Your kid(s) will be surrounded by technology so it will just happen.
What you will need to focus on, though, are details like which toys and games to let them have, which video games, which TV shows to watch, etc. I think that's where your focus should be.
You may be surprised at how soon your child will have a cell-phone-communicator and GPS tracker. Unlike those of us with older kids, you may have to deal with choices like whether the above are things they wear or are actual implants.
My own practice, over many years has been to rebuild the kernel after an install or upgrade. By focusing only on the modules and drivers needed, one can build a much smaller kernel.
I'm actually glad there is support for a lot of hardware and making things work.
I'm more concerned about care being given to changes to the core functionality, like virtual memory, especially in the stable kernel that many of us run in production.
The first time I ever saw a computer was as a college freshman. However, my brother had taught me to convert numbers to binary and back as a kid. I thought that was really cool!
My first programming language was FORTRAN on a CDC Cyber 70. I quickly learned BASIC and then came to love Pascal.
For kids, I would expect them to want something that's easy to use, somewhat GUI, and I think it's important that it has aspects of a real programming language like decisions, branching, looping, stored data (variables) and such. HTML, for example, doesn't include those. (Though I have witnessed a teenager this Christmas become fully fascinated with HTML, after I showed him how to write it, because he wants to develop his home page).
The best suggestions I've seen here are LOGO and Squeak, I believe, and probably BASIC which is hard to beat (but also not as ubiquitous as it used to be, sadly in a way). BASIC might actually be the best.
As I think about it, though, I think most of us were movivated in a different way. We saw the computer itself as a fascinating thing and BASIC was a way to get into the computer and make it do something. Today, I think kids usually take the computer for granted, like they are one or move levels up from where we were. They might want to make something happen in the level they are interested in. So maybe the BEST thing is some popular game or environment which sneaks in decisions, data storage, loops and such in their enviroment, such that it's programmable.
My daughter has been playing millsberry.com a lot. I know it's customizable but I don't know if it has the above characteristics. If it does, or such was added, I think that would be a superb environment.
There's no reason, in this day and time, that you need to start with a LOGO triangle turtle crawling around. You can have a fully functional robot, person, or even avatar, that's programmable in some rich world.
I'd say, take something like Millsberry and, when the kid builds their house, let them make the lights come on automatically when you enter a room. Let them make particular music start playing based on who walks in, etc. Make the programming environment a text-based language (at least optionally) so they get used to that.
I would also promote the idea of reusable code in such an environment. There should be a way to use some code they've previously written as a re-usable chunk in other code.
My first programs were actually on an HP-25 calculator, before I took the FORTRAN class. I have to say that writing low level programs, that did *really useful things* in an environment that was stack-based, essentially had registers, and memory, and a fully functional set of instructions, was wonderful prepearation for programming, assembly language, stack-based languages, and even higher level programming.
I'm sorry, but my advice is to keep Windows XP. Asking your kids to use Linux is like a father, who's a HAM radio operator, trying to get his kids to use the radio instead of the telephone. Windows XP is a telephone and you just have to use them some times. If they develop an interest in computers or programming, then you can show them Linux. If some program is available *only* on Linux, then show it to them.
My kids' computers are Windows XP but they are set up to dual-boot to Linux.
To save money, use your Windows XP (and the games and the hardware) for a long time and upgrade later rather than sooner.
Windows or Linux (as they are today) probably won't be that relevant to what the kids will use in the future, anyway.
I agree. I always used the Einstein character. He never came up except when I clicked on the question mark balloon. I found it very effective in finding out how use a complex program without having to learn/remember it all. I use Word occasionally.
Example: Colleague sends a Word document for me to review. I wonder if Word can do annotations and ask Einstein. He tells me how and offers to demonstrate as well. I'm able to add annotations to the document and send it back.
Example: I used the Einstein character to find out how to save a large RFP written in Word as various versions (vaguely the idea of RCS) as it was edited.
The first thing that popped into mind is a scene I think I recall from the old Leave it to Beaver show where two of the kids are trying to roll a car tire down hill. . .
I'm not an expert in telecomm, but I thought that, if you don't have 10-digit dialing, that the area code refers to a geopgrahical area. (...or more likely the locations served by a set of switches).
If you add an area code (because you're running out of numbers in the existing area codes) then you have to re-draw boundaries, etc.
This leads to two problems. First, the areas become smaller and smaller making it more difficult to figure out which one you are in and wether the destination you are calling is also in your (now relatively tiny) area. Second, with more areas, it's more likely you'll be calling out of it anyway so you'll still need to do more frequent 10-digit dialing.
Thus, it seems like it becomes easier for the phone company to say, this new ``area'' code isn't confined to a small area but covers anywhere in this larger area. You now must dial 10-digits everywhere in this larger area.
I haven't seen anyone mention (though I admit I haven't read all of the posts) that the energy source here is primarily the Sun. Waves are driven by wind and weather is driven primarily by the Sun so this wave generator is a clever solar collector.
A tide-driven generator is fundamentally different. It's interesting to consider using the energy stored in the earth's rotation. You can extract a lot of energy before, say, adding a second to a decade (try the calculation some time). I'll leave that environmental impact discussion up to the replies here.
One way to do this is to use the Earth's oceans as a large cam to pump something (floating on top) up and down---that's a tidal generator.
This is interesting but since it's a federal law, it makes it a crime against the US and not against Apple. It doesn't give Apple the right to sue anyone (in civil court) but only gives a federal prosecutor the right to bring charges against a party based on evidence (typically gathered in an investigation by the FBI).
Here's my current, favorite way to visualize this. Imagine two parallel lines extending far into space. In a flat geometry, they will always be parallel. In positively curved space they will slowly converge and eventually meet. In negatively curved space, they will diverge. (The same is true of a plane, sphere, and ``saddle'' in 2-D space). However, in this case, it doesn't matter in which direction you send your parallel lines off into, the result is the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Congratulations! You've discovered the difference between college and technical school. Now it's just a question of which you should attend.
It's too bad that almost no one understands how absurd it is to discuss (and worry about) the privacy and security of email! Until you are sending email messages encrypted end-to-end, there's no point in even having that discussion.
Gmail supports forwarding all of your email to an arbitrariy address. You can also do filter-based, more intelligent forwarding.
We learned to use slide rules and were required to use them in high school physics (which I took as a junior). Or, it might have been in chemistry which I took as a sophmore. In the physics class, we also had a four-banger calculator at the front of the room that we could use, until someone dropped it. It was large with plasma-segment digits for the display (the big, glowing, orange ones).
We understood well what two- and three-digit precision was. Slide rules also made it pretty easy to understand logarithms. I still think about a slide rule scale when estimating the log of a number from 1 to 10.
My slide rule was a relatively cheap Sterling model, but I was a high school student after all.
When I was a senior, I was given a TI SR-51 calculator as my first calculator. Of course the SR meant ``slide rule.'' It had all of the functions found on a slide-rule and also did hyperbolic trig functions.
The next year, when I was a freshman at Ga Tech, there were still people on campus with slide rules on their belts. Of course, we carried our calculators on our belts, too. The cases had a loop for that purpose.
My roommate, who was an older PhD student, used a slide rule throughout my time at Tech, even in the late 70s. I don't think he actually had a calculator, but I don't remember for sure.
P.S. The SR-51 died before it was two years old and I bought an HP-25 and then upgraded to an HP-25C soon thereafter.
I've given advice to new amateur astronomers for over 30 years, 10 of them as a planetarium professional. I agree with much of what has been said here. Here's a summary of the key points I agree with.
1. Aperture is the most important measure of telescope performance
2. A stable mounting is very important. Hopefully one that's easy to set up.
3. Experience has more to do with what you see through a telescope than anything else.
The third point is one I haven't seen here yet. Your eye has to be educated to see more. The more you look, the more you'll see. That's true in a single night and it's true over a lifetime.
My first telescope was a 2.4-in refractor from Sears 37 years ago. I was able to see Jupiter as a smooth, ivory ball. Then I went to the local astronomy club and saw Jupiter through a 10-in telescope. After that, I could always make out the North and South Equatorial Belts through *my* telescope and the Great Red Spot (which was darker in the 70s than it is now).
Years later, as an adult, I took that 2.4 out with only Norton's atlas and the finder was gone. With it I was able to find and view M1 the Crab Nebula, M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy, M81 and M82, The Ring Nebula M57, and more. Experience is way more important than the telescope.
Go to the astronomy club meetings and look through telescopes. Notice how easy or hard they are to set up. Watch the image to see how much it vibrates when you move the telescope or it's bumped. Observe people as they set up and take down their telescope, noting how easy or hard it is.
From the club meetings and reading, learn about what kind of astronomy you like. There are lots of variations in the hobby, e.g., deep sky observing, planetary, moon, variable stars, occultations, astrophotography, telescope making, double stars, etc. If you become deeply interested in any of those you'll probably may want a particular telescope for that hobby.
I've used 8-in Schmidt-Cassegrains (S-C) in the past, a pier-mounted 14-in S-C, and many other telescopes. My telescope now is a 10-in f/5.4 Dobsonian that I made with purchased mirrors in 1984. I love that telescope because I mainly like deep sky observing. Someone here said Dobsonians weren't great for planets. For planets and stars, I made a thin cardboard aperture stop (cardboard with a hole in it) that makes my Dobsonian a 3.5-in f/15 telescope that works splendidly! (The hole is off-axis so there is no obstruction).
The 10-in Dobsonian takes about 5 seconds to set up. It's two pieces that are easy to transport. It's very durable and kid-friendly. Kids can practically climb on it.
As many have pointed out here, for commercial telescopes, I really like Orion at telescope.com. There is a lot of tutorial material there at their web site, too.
I also love my 7x50 binoculars and frequently grab them as my only take-along astronomical instrument. Mounting binoculars on a camera tripod, if you have time, makes a world of difference in how much you see!
Those who posted here that you should get something that is convenient and easy to set up also hit a very key point.
Sadly, most people I've known who buy a telescope, almost regardless of their initial enthusiasm, use them a couple of times then never again. I'm always surprised by this in a way. The corollary is that there are a *lot* of barely-used telescopes out there which you could probably get a good deal on if you can find them.
So go to club meetings, look through telescopes, enjoy the sky, read about astronomy, don't spend too much money up front, and have fun!
I believe the so-called heat death has basically already occurred. I'm stating this without re-checking, but I believe the majority of photons in the universe are 2.7-kelvin cosmic background radiation photons indicating the universe, for the most part, has already achieved near-maximum thermodynamic entropy, i.e., the heat death. What remains as the part of the universe we mostly care about is insignificant by comparison.
I loved using my SLR for over 25 years, but I'm not convinced I need a DSLR. Granted I'm only an occasional amateur photographer these days. I have an older Olympus D-40 non-SLR (not to be confused with the apparent new Nikon D40 mentioned here).
With my camera I can adjust aperture, shutter speed, focus, white balance, sharpness, flash sync, i.e., everthing mentioned.
I'm not sure I'm convinced a larger sensor is superior. It would inherently have more pixels, but I don't feel the need for more pixels. I know there are applications where one would want or need more.
A smaller sensor means smaller lenses, and smaller again is not necessarily worse. My camera does have glass lenses and not plastic.
On noise, I can't argue the point other than to say that I don't experience noise as a problem. It's true that I don't shoot in a lot of low-light situations.
I have to grant the point on accessories. The main thing I wish I had was a flash connection so I could use my old vivitar flash and bracket, and not be limited to the on-camera flash. Or I'd even accept a proprietary external flash.
No shutter lag. This is the biggest problem and annoyance with the camera I have and I think all cameras from it's time and category. However, I think this problem is solved in most new cameras, not just DSLRs. I expect its related to how fast you can unload the sensor and write the data to the storage medium. As an aside, I would expect it to be faster to unload the smaller sensor on the smaller camera.
Regarding the viewfinder, I do miss the giant, bright viewfinder field of my SLR. However, my digital camera viewfinder is sufficient, it comes close to matching the image, and the LCD is useful and matches the image exactly.
Ergonomics. After years of cradling my SLR and lens in my left hand, I had to learn how to hold a non-SLR digital camera: Make a thumbs-up with your left hand. Now you have a very stable platform for your camera. Also this keeps your fingers from blocking the lens, etc. Operate the shutter release and controls with your right hand.
Regarding price, I'm sure DSLRs are cheaper than they used to be, but they are still more expensive than the other digital cameras.
- Four terrestrial planets
- Four jovian planets
- The Kuiper Belt objects
- and the remaining comets, asteroids, dust, etc.
(Yes, I know I'm using the word planet, but the actual dispute is being driven by the discovery of a Kuiper belt object larger than Pluto and farther from the Sun).NO KILL I
It's commendable (and necessary) to take such an interest in your child's development. However, on the issue of technology, I don't think you need to worry about how to expose them to technology, at least in general. I think this is like our parents thinking about how they should expose us to writing instruments or TV. (Sure, you should buy a toddler the fat crayons and probably not sharp pencils!) Your kid(s) will be surrounded by technology so it will just happen.
What you will need to focus on, though, are details like which toys and games to let them have, which video games, which TV shows to watch, etc. I think that's where your focus should be.
You may be surprised at how soon your child will have a cell-phone-communicator and GPS tracker. Unlike those of us with older kids, you may have to deal with choices like whether the above are things they wear or are actual implants.
My own practice, over many years has been to rebuild the kernel after an install or upgrade. By focusing only on the modules and drivers needed, one can build a much smaller kernel.
I'm actually glad there is support for a lot of hardware and making things work.
I'm more concerned about care being given to changes to the core functionality, like virtual memory, especially in the stable kernel that many of us run in production.
The first time I ever saw a computer was as a college freshman. However, my brother had taught me to convert numbers to binary and back as a kid. I thought that was really cool!
My first programming language was FORTRAN on a CDC Cyber 70. I quickly learned BASIC and then came to love Pascal.
For kids, I would expect them to want something that's easy to use, somewhat GUI, and I think it's important that it has aspects of a real programming language like decisions, branching, looping, stored data (variables) and such. HTML, for example, doesn't include those. (Though I have witnessed a teenager this Christmas become fully fascinated with HTML, after I showed him how to write it, because he wants to develop his home page).
The best suggestions I've seen here are LOGO and Squeak, I believe, and probably BASIC which is hard to beat (but also not as ubiquitous as it used to be, sadly in a way). BASIC might actually be the best.
As I think about it, though, I think most of us were movivated in a different way. We saw the computer itself as a fascinating thing and BASIC was a way to get into the computer and make it do something. Today, I think kids usually take the computer for granted, like they are one or move levels up from where we were. They might want to make something happen in the level they are interested in. So maybe the BEST thing is some popular game or environment which sneaks in decisions, data storage, loops and such in their enviroment, such that it's programmable.
My daughter has been playing millsberry.com a lot. I know it's customizable but I don't know if it has the above characteristics. If it does, or such was added, I think that would be a superb environment.
There's no reason, in this day and time, that you need to start with a LOGO triangle turtle crawling around. You can have a fully functional robot, person, or even avatar, that's programmable in some rich world.
I'd say, take something like Millsberry and, when the kid builds their house, let them make the lights come on automatically when you enter a room. Let them make particular music start playing based on who walks in, etc. Make the programming environment a text-based language (at least optionally) so they get used to that.
I would also promote the idea of reusable code in such an environment. There should be a way to use some code they've previously written as a re-usable chunk in other code.
My first programs were actually on an HP-25 calculator, before I took the FORTRAN class. I have to say that writing low level programs, that did *really useful things* in an environment that was stack-based, essentially had registers, and memory, and a fully functional set of instructions, was wonderful prepearation for programming, assembly language, stack-based languages, and even higher level programming.
Today I love object-oriented Perl on Linux.
If the author never saw one before, then it's impressive that he thought of it independently and pulled it off so well.
The large central mirror is a minus for the design and trades off contrast for the other advantages.
Still, a telescope you make yourself and that meets your needs is a wonderful thing.
Owner of a home-made 10-in Dob
I'm sorry, but my advice is to keep Windows XP. Asking your kids to use Linux is like a father, who's a HAM radio operator, trying to get his kids to use the radio instead of the telephone. Windows XP is a telephone and you just have to use them some times. If they develop an interest in computers or programming, then you can show them Linux. If some program is available *only* on Linux, then show it to them.
My kids' computers are Windows XP but they are set up to dual-boot to Linux.
To save money, use your Windows XP (and the games and the hardware) for a long time and upgrade later rather than sooner.
Windows or Linux (as they are today) probably won't be that relevant to what the kids will use in the future, anyway.
Example: Colleague sends a Word document for me to review. I wonder if Word can do annotations and ask Einstein. He tells me how and offers to demonstrate as well. I'm able to add annotations to the document and send it back.
Example: I used the Einstein character to find out how to save a large RFP written in Word as various versions (vaguely the idea of RCS) as it was edited.
Qualification: I use Office 97 on NT 4.
The first thing that popped into mind is a scene I think I recall from the old Leave it to Beaver show where two of the kids are trying to roll a car tire down hill. . .
TeX (the program) is also my answer to this question, particularly if you read a copy of the typeset code that has been processed by WEAVE and TeX.
If you add an area code (because you're running out of numbers in the existing area codes) then you have to re-draw boundaries, etc.
This leads to two problems. First, the areas become smaller and smaller making it more difficult to figure out which one you are in and wether the destination you are calling is also in your (now relatively tiny) area. Second, with more areas, it's more likely you'll be calling out of it anyway so you'll still need to do more frequent 10-digit dialing.
Thus, it seems like it becomes easier for the phone company to say, this new ``area'' code isn't confined to a small area but covers anywhere in this larger area. You now must dial 10-digits everywhere in this larger area.
A tide-driven generator is fundamentally different. It's interesting to consider using the energy stored in the earth's rotation. You can extract a lot of energy before, say, adding a second to a decade (try the calculation some time). I'll leave that environmental impact discussion up to the replies here.
One way to do this is to use the Earth's oceans as a large cam to pump something (floating on top) up and down---that's a tidal generator.
This is interesting but since it's a federal law, it makes it a crime against the US and not against Apple. It doesn't give Apple the right to sue anyone (in civil court) but only gives a federal prosecutor the right to bring charges against a party based on evidence (typically gathered in an investigation by the FBI).
Here's my current, favorite way to visualize this. Imagine two parallel lines extending far into space. In a flat geometry, they will always be parallel. In positively curved space they will slowly converge and eventually meet. In negatively curved space, they will diverge. (The same is true of a plane, sphere, and ``saddle'' in 2-D space). However, in this case, it doesn't matter in which direction you send your parallel lines off into, the result is the same.