Search Results: Sort by: relevance|date Refine by: Subject Area
Health (437) Life (126) Environment (93) Science in Society (82) Opinion (25) Tech (12) Physics & Math (8) Short Sharp Science Blog (7)
Refined by: Author(s): "Debora MacKenzie"
As for the article... Whenever someone says something like "per day" and doesn't say how many days would that be - take that with a LARGE grain of salt. Iodized, if you like.
In this case... 1.2 to 1.3 × 10^17 becquerels of iodine-131 per day in Fukushima seem like a lot, particularly compared to Chernobyl's "1.76 × 10^18 becquerels of iodine-131" FOR WHOLE 10 DAYS IT BURNED. Holy SHIT! Fukushima has been "on" since March 11th! That would mean that it is somewhere around 1.68 - 1.82 × 10^18 becquerels of iodine-131 by now! THAT IS MORE THAN CHERNOBYL! QUICK! EVERYONE! PAAAANIIIC!!!
“The estimated source terms for iodine-131 are very constant, namely 1.3 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the first two days (US station) and 1.2 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the third day (Japan),” the institute said in a German-language statement posted on Wednesday on its website.
“For cesium-137 measurements, (the US station) measured 5 x 10^15 becquerels, close, while Japan had much more cesium in its air. On this day, we estimate a source term of about 4 x 10^16.”
Note that the level measured IN JAPAN on the third day is lower than the level measured IN THE USA on the second day. As in - readings are getting MUCH LOWER. And, it is the statistic for ONLY TWO DAYS at the beginning of the Fukushima incident. And we all know what they say about extrapolations. Particularly the ones done from only two points.
Also, the Deutsche Welle article describes the whole "how many Chernobyls is that" thing a bit more conservatively as "at 20 percent of Chernobyl for iodine, and 20-60 percent of Chernobyl for cesium".
Last time I checked, BBC (the entity that hires authors and licenses out all the stories in all the media) was not dead. Yet.
And if you are holding to that particular trope as an excuse for a canon... well... don't know how to put it to you... that trope limits you to the "original material only". I.e. One single story. EVER! Coburn and Webber - i.e. "the original writers" of "the original material" only ever did that one.
That is unless you are one of those fans that "only use this [trope] as an excuse to ignore any Word Of God that they don't like". And that is about as valid as picking any random 5 minutes of any episode and claiming that it is "not canon".
Tom Baker, David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith with a special mention of Rowan Atkinson and Joanna Lumley.
As for the order of watching for those just tuning in - start with the Ninth Doctor and take it to the the end of the current run. Throw in Torchwood after it and Captain Jack Harkness appear in the main show, and if you like you may try doing the same with Sarah Jane. Although, that one (being a teen show) is on completely opposite side of the spectrum from Torchwood (which deals with some rather adult subjects), with Doctor Who being somewhere around the middle between those two.
If you like those, pick up the 4th Doctor and after that... experiment.
It's a time traveling show in which characters continuously change the outcome of past events. (HA! Get it? Past... events. In a time traveling show that regularly jumps between ancient past and beyond distant future.)
And if that was not enough to make everything that was ever written/recorded possible in SOME iteration of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff - Eleventh Doctor basically (re)creates a blank slate making any attempt at canonizing past events moot. While at the same time remaining a continuity of those events!
Pills with "lead extract" - to protect you from the inside. And since it is an extract, it is not poisonous. Also, shampoos, soaps and detergents with same extract.
IR camera's can detect heat flows but a heat flow that randomly appears lasts for 5 seconds and disappears is unusual.
I just had some beans. Give me an IR camera and I'll show you a randomly appearing heat flow. Might last longer than 5 seconds in some cases. You might need to open a window when it appears though. Which would cause a - guess what? ANOTHER HEAT FLOW! Only that one may not have the "aroma" of the ones I produce.
And you know what all those "haunted" places have in common? Lots of holes (in walls, floors, door frames, ceilings...) and decomposing organic matter (wood, rugs, wallpaper, dead rodents in the walls...).
Yes, it does suck if you don't have a good reversion-of-rights clause in the contract. On the other hand, if the contract doesn't explicitly license electronic rights to the publisher (and assuming nothing like a blanket "all rights" grant), then you can still go ahead and e-pub yourself.
(Disclaimer: IANAL - but I am an author who has read plenty of publishing contracts and signed a few of them.)
After all... Any law or contract is open to interpretation. By your lawyer, your publisher's lawyerS and in the long, drawn-out end - a judge somewhere.
One might even end up being sued by the people who are holding his/her work as a hostage. They've already proven that they don't give a fig about the author or his work by sitting on it and not printing it - cause it is more profitable to do that. Which is in the end the only thing they hold sacred. They ARE a business after all, not a charity for unprofitable writers.
If you're convinced that's true, digitize them yourself and self-pub on Kindle, PubIt, Smashwords, etc. It's not that hard.
It is when your publisher holds the rights but doesn't find it profitable enough to issue a new edition of your book. On the other hand, try to buy it off from them - and they will set some imaginary price based on "projections of sales" and copyright extended a day or two beyond forever. Incidentally, there was recently some talk on Slashdot regarding such issues.
As an example, I think it is fairly safe to assume that Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick is deceased.
Like a vampire? Or if he had some supernatural abilities like flying or bending bullets which may have allowed him to have a supernatural life span? Who knows, maybe there IS some truth in that story that "his" obituary actually said Henry Melville. Maybe he is still alive, wandering the world, moving silently down through the centuries, living many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the Gathering - when the few of his kind that will remain shall battle to the last.
That the full Moon and any other Moon have the exactly same mass, gravitational pull etc.? We just don't see a part of it - it is still there. Also, solar and lunar tides combined come out to about 5% increase in the tides - NOT "half as big as lunar tides".
When the moon is either new or full, the sun, earth and moon form a straight line and we get the highest (and lowest) tides: the effects of the sun and moon add up.
You DO realize that such conditions occur EVERY TWO WEEKS. So much for "the maximum possible tidal effect" and its correlation to earthquakes.
only rates a D as compared to Bill O'Reilly's F.
It wouldn't be fair of me to grade you at all. Clearly you didn't even take a look, let alone read, any of the fine links I provided above. It would be like grading someone who didn't even take the course. While stealing candy from a baby. Seal.
1. You do notice that Tjernobyl page being in SWEDISH. I'm not saying that it is wrongly transliterated IN SWEDISH. I don't speak Swedish, and it would be rather bothersome to ask around for some Swedes to send me a recording of them reading that word. Maybe they pronounce Tjernobyl the way Chernobyl is pronounced in English, I don't know. But what I DO KNOW is that you don't transliterate "Che" as "Tj" in English. At least not if you want it done correctly.
2. Seriously... Is there some reason you are pushing that straw man? Like what you mentioned above - "God DAMN it, they are RIGHT..." etc? Cause, I KNOW that you are not that dumb* not to notice that: a ) that word does not have the "Che" voice anywhere in it; b ) that those are examples of transliterations from various languages (as in from slightly different pronunciations of rather similarly sounding words) and c ) when read out loud in English they all sound about the same.
You know - as in completely different from transliterating Chernobyl as Tjernobyl. FFS, just read those two out loud. This is not the case of Coca-Cola vs Koka-Kola but Coca-Cola vs Totta-Tolla.
And yeah, I know... This is way off the deep end of xkcd-ism and a waste of time and all... But hey, so are most other "discussions" on Slashdot.
*Not trying to be insulting there, I've been paying attention to your comments for some time as they tend to "pop-out" among others, what with 4-letter nick and 4-digit ID... And then there is that green pill... candy... light thingy next to it. And you are generally making rather insightful and informed comments. If anything, I'd swear that you are a rather intelligent and educated person.
Here's a clue: Moon orbits Earth (coming closer and then moving away again) EACH MONTH.
So... Unless you are experiencing major earthquakes EACH MONTH at about the same time, but NOT during the rest of the month... There is no correlation whatsoever. Bonus points for Moon actually being closer to its FURTHEST point in its orbit around the Earth (apogee) at the time of the recent earthquake in Japan. Oh and... Take a look at this. Each pixel in that photo is about 500 kilometers. During this particular perigee Moon will be ENTIRE 12 PIXELS CLOSER.
At least when done by Hollywood is that it simply boils down to drama. And when I say drama, I mean what passes for drama on TV. From Housewives to REAL Housewives. That's what they think of when they say drama. Characters yelling at each other.
As for "I robot" - it failed cause it sucked. All it took from the book was some names and a very distorted understanding of three laws. At the same time it was utterly formulaic "renegade cop" movie - only with robots. Robots equipped with a handy "I Evil" LED indicator inside their chests that turns red when they decide to start killing people. Also, pointless product placements.
Slashdot Mirror
Wanna bet the author of this story is a "green scientist" ?
With electrophysiology as a specialty I presume.
Search Results:
Sort by: relevance|date Refine by: Subject Area
Health (437)
Life (126)
Environment (93)
Science in Society (82)
Opinion (25)
Tech (12)
Physics & Math (8)
Short Sharp Science Blog (7)
Refined by:
Author(s): "Debora MacKenzie"
As for the article... Whenever someone says something like "per day" and doesn't say how many days would that be - take that with a LARGE grain of salt. Iodized, if you like.
In this case... 1.2 to 1.3 × 10^17 becquerels of iodine-131 per day in Fukushima seem like a lot, particularly compared to Chernobyl's "1.76 × 10^18 becquerels of iodine-131" FOR WHOLE 10 DAYS IT BURNED.
Holy SHIT! Fukushima has been "on" since March 11th! That would mean that it is somewhere around 1.68 - 1.82 × 10^18 becquerels of iodine-131 by now!
THAT IS MORE THAN CHERNOBYL! QUICK! EVERYONE! PAAAANIIIC!!!
Except... From the site of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization mentioned in the article as the source of data:
“The estimated source terms for iodine-131 are very constant, namely 1.3 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the first two days (US station) and 1.2 x 10^17 becquerels per day for the third day (Japan),” the institute said in a German-language statement posted on Wednesday on its website.
“For cesium-137 measurements, (the US station) measured 5 x 10^15 becquerels, close, while Japan had much more cesium in its air. On this day, we estimate a source term of about 4 x 10^16.”
Note that the level measured IN JAPAN on the third day is lower than the level measured IN THE USA on the second day.
As in - readings are getting MUCH LOWER. And, it is the statistic for ONLY TWO DAYS at the beginning of the Fukushima incident. And we all know what they say about extrapolations.
Particularly the ones done from only two points.
Also, the Deutsche Welle article describes the whole "how many Chernobyls is that" thing a bit more conservatively as "at 20 percent of Chernobyl for iodine, and 20-60 percent of Chernobyl for cesium".
Last time I checked, BBC (the entity that hires authors and licenses out all the stories in all the media) was not dead. Yet.
And if you are holding to that particular trope as an excuse for a canon... well... don't know how to put it to you... that trope limits you to the "original material only". I.e. One single story. EVER!
Coburn and Webber - i.e. "the original writers" of "the original material" only ever did that one.
That is unless you are one of those fans that "only use this [trope] as an excuse to ignore any Word Of God that they don't like".
And that is about as valid as picking any random 5 minutes of any episode and claiming that it is "not canon".
Tom Baker, David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Matt Smith with a special mention of Rowan Atkinson and Joanna Lumley.
As for the order of watching for those just tuning in - start with the Ninth Doctor and take it to the the end of the current run.
Throw in Torchwood after it and Captain Jack Harkness appear in the main show, and if you like you may try doing the same with Sarah Jane.
Although, that one (being a teen show) is on completely opposite side of the spectrum from Torchwood (which deals with some rather adult subjects), with Doctor Who being somewhere around the middle between those two.
If you like those, pick up the 4th Doctor and after that... experiment.
Also, everything is canon.
It's a time traveling show in which characters continuously change the outcome of past events. (HA! Get it? Past... events. In a time traveling show that regularly jumps between ancient past and beyond distant future.)
And if that was not enough to make everything that was ever written/recorded possible in SOME iteration of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff - Eleventh Doctor basically (re)creates a blank slate making any attempt at canonizing past events moot.
While at the same time remaining a continuity of those events!
Hilarious, isn't it?
Pills with "lead extract" - to protect you from the inside. And since it is an extract, it is not poisonous.
Also, shampoos, soaps and detergents with same extract.
You know... like them hygiene products with pearls and diamonds in 'em.
IR camera's can detect heat flows but a heat flow that randomly appears lasts for 5 seconds and disappears is unusual.
I just had some beans. Give me an IR camera and I'll show you a randomly appearing heat flow. Might last longer than 5 seconds in some cases.
You might need to open a window when it appears though. Which would cause a - guess what? ANOTHER HEAT FLOW!
Only that one may not have the "aroma" of the ones I produce.
And you know what all those "haunted" places have in common?
Lots of holes (in walls, floors, door frames, ceilings...) and decomposing organic matter (wood, rugs, wallpaper, dead rodents in the walls...).
Gerard Butler will have to remain behind to die though. Again.
Boy do you have another thing comin' If you think that you will get away with only 15 days of divorce trial.
Yes, it does suck if you don't have a good reversion-of-rights clause in the contract. On the other hand, if the contract doesn't explicitly license electronic rights to the publisher (and assuming nothing like a blanket "all rights" grant), then you can still go ahead and e-pub yourself.
(Disclaimer: IANAL - but I am an author who has read plenty of publishing contracts and signed a few of them.)
After all... Any law or contract is open to interpretation.
By your lawyer, your publisher's lawyerS and in the long, drawn-out end - a judge somewhere.
One might even end up being sued by the people who are holding his/her work as a hostage.
They've already proven that they don't give a fig about the author or his work by sitting on it and not printing it - cause it is more profitable to do that.
Which is in the end the only thing they hold sacred. They ARE a business after all, not a charity for unprofitable writers.
If you're convinced that's true, digitize them yourself and self-pub on Kindle, PubIt, Smashwords, etc. It's not that hard.
It is when your publisher holds the rights but doesn't find it profitable enough to issue a new edition of your book.
On the other hand, try to buy it off from them - and they will set some imaginary price based on "projections of sales" and copyright extended a day or two beyond forever.
Incidentally, there was recently some talk on Slashdot regarding such issues.
As an example, I think it is fairly safe to assume that Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick is deceased.
Like a vampire?
Or if he had some supernatural abilities like flying or bending bullets which may have allowed him to have a supernatural life span?
Who knows, maybe there IS some truth in that story that "his" obituary actually said Henry Melville.
Maybe he is still alive, wandering the world, moving silently down through the centuries, living many secret lives, struggling to reach the time of the Gathering - when the few of his kind that will remain shall battle to the last.
Now what happens when you get a bad battery?
You sue. What are you, some kinda commie?
Simply put a plutonium powered nuclear reactor into your car.
Granted, the usual suppliers of that particular fuel may be unreachable at the moment, but I am certain that the "invisible hand" will provide.
Just like jiggabyte is the correct pronunciation of gigabyte.
See also: nucular. I.e. It is an American thing.
they'd likely be grilled instead.
LOLWTFBABYQ?
If you breathe without a rhythm you won't attract the drone?
All that said, I do think they should release the Global Hawk footage. Images are harder to misinterpret than abstract numbers and concepts.
People see all kinds of shit in all kinds of shit.
Or if you want a more scientific, yet every-day example - medical ultrasonography. I.e. two different doctors will give you two (or more) completely different interpretations of the same image.
Numbers and "concepts" have strict values and meanings. Images are VERY opened to interpretations.
For the fourth time since Vietnam, I am living through the exact same scenario as your responses show today.
I think that the clue lies somewhere in those highlighted words there.
That the full Moon and any other Moon have the exactly same mass, gravitational pull etc.? We just don't see a part of it - it is still there.
Also, solar and lunar tides combined come out to about 5% increase in the tides - NOT "half as big as lunar tides".
When the moon is either new or full, the sun, earth and moon form a straight line and we get the highest (and lowest) tides: the effects of the sun and moon add up.
You DO realize that such conditions occur EVERY TWO WEEKS.
So much for "the maximum possible tidal effect" and its correlation to earthquakes.
only rates a D as compared to Bill O'Reilly's F.
It wouldn't be fair of me to grade you at all. Clearly you didn't even take a look, let alone read, any of the fine links I provided above.
It would be like grading someone who didn't even take the course. While stealing candy from a baby. Seal.
And a shitload of empty desert that can be used to harvest solar power.
But more importantly - Libya is right smack in the middle of the shortest route for transportation of electricity from North Africa to Europe.
Electricity should start flowing from North Africa to Europe by 2020. By 2050, North African and European renewable sources should provide 100% of EU and NA power needs.
Transported by HVDC transformers like the ones Siemens built for China along the link like the one Abengoa Group will build for Brazil.
Abengoa Group will also build the Solana Generating Station in Arizona - to the tune of 2 billion dollars.
1. You do notice that Tjernobyl page being in SWEDISH. I'm not saying that it is wrongly transliterated IN SWEDISH.
I don't speak Swedish, and it would be rather bothersome to ask around for some Swedes to send me a recording of them reading that word. Maybe they pronounce Tjernobyl the way Chernobyl is pronounced in English, I don't know.
But what I DO KNOW is that you don't transliterate "Che" as "Tj" in English. At least not if you want it done correctly.
2. Seriously... Is there some reason you are pushing that straw man? Like what you mentioned above - "God DAMN it, they are RIGHT..." etc?
Cause, I KNOW that you are not that dumb* not to notice that: a ) that word does not have the "Che" voice anywhere in it; b ) that those are examples of transliterations from various languages (as in from slightly different pronunciations of rather similarly sounding words) and c ) when read out loud in English they all sound about the same.
You know - as in completely different from transliterating Chernobyl as Tjernobyl.
FFS, just read those two out loud. This is not the case of Coca-Cola vs Koka-Kola but Coca-Cola vs Totta-Tolla.
And yeah, I know... This is way off the deep end of xkcd-ism and a waste of time and all...
But hey, so are most other "discussions" on Slashdot.
*Not trying to be insulting there, I've been paying attention to your comments for some time as they tend to "pop-out" among others, what with 4-letter nick and 4-digit ID...
And then there is that green pill... candy... light thingy next to it.
And you are generally making rather insightful and informed comments. If anything, I'd swear that you are a rather intelligent and educated person.
Here's a clue: Moon orbits Earth (coming closer and then moving away again) EACH MONTH.
So... Unless you are experiencing major earthquakes EACH MONTH at about the same time, but NOT during the rest of the month... There is no correlation whatsoever.
Bonus points for Moon actually being closer to its FURTHEST point in its orbit around the Earth (apogee) at the time of the recent earthquake in Japan.
Oh and... Take a look at this.
Each pixel in that photo is about 500 kilometers. During this particular perigee Moon will be ENTIRE 12 PIXELS CLOSER.
Reeeeally not sure what you meant by that.
You hand it over to your manservant.
At least when done by Hollywood is that it simply boils down to drama.
And when I say drama, I mean what passes for drama on TV. From Housewives to REAL Housewives. That's what they think of when they say drama.
Characters yelling at each other.
As for "I robot" - it failed cause it sucked. All it took from the book was some names and a very distorted understanding of three laws.
At the same time it was utterly formulaic "renegade cop" movie - only with robots. Robots equipped with a handy "I Evil" LED indicator inside their chests that turns red when they decide to start killing people.
Also, pointless product placements.