Re:On the shoulders of giants..
on
Duct Tape
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· Score: 2
Do you have any idea how hard it is to fuse Hydrogen with lasers? At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, they use an array of 192 of the world's most powerful lasers. For less than a picosecond (1e-12 seconds), these lasers draw over a Petawatt (1e15 Watts) of electric power. FYI, this is more than 1000 times as much power as is used by the rest of the United States.
So, I wouldn't lose much sleep worrying about fusion hobbyists destroying cities. The US government throws hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem, and they have barely reached the point where they get out as much energy as it costs to make the fusion happen.
Anyway, great article. I really hope the guy can find some venue in which his amazing potential can be realized.
I thought he meant by "legal uncertainty" the fact that the GPL has not yet been tested in court. So, a company could develop software and release it under the GPL. Then another company incorporates it into their proprietary, closed-source product. What recourse does the first company have? Do they sue the second company? Exactly how do they prove the GPL was violated? These questions have no concrete answers, because such a case has not been argued in court yet.
True, but the reverse is not true: Anything that can be said in English can not necessarily be expressed in code. Does this matter?
Or maybe I'm wrong...
"Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
==
thee.lovely = ++Summer.day.lovely;
thee.temperate = ++Summer.day.temperate;
This is OT, but can you really consider the machines in BattleBots to be robots? I mean, they aren't autonomous, they're just remote control cars with whirling blades and chainsaws welded onto them. Since you say the machines on Robot Wars have simple AI, doesn that mean they are autonomous during the battle?
I've often thought BattleBots would be much more interesting if the machines were programmed and autonomous (and if they got rid of the "wrestlemania" announcers). However, I understand that the difficulty of AI programming would shrink the pool of contestants to near zero.
oh well.
You actually use either potassium or uranium to date rocks that are billions of years old. Radioactive carbon has a half-life of only a few thousand years. Plus, you don't date rocks with radiocarbon dating, you need organic material.
I've heard creationists use Carbon dating as "proof" for a young Earth.
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So, I wouldn't lose much sleep worrying about fusion hobbyists destroying cities. The US government throws hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem, and they have barely reached the point where they get out as much energy as it costs to make the fusion happen.
Anyway, great article. I really hope the guy can find some venue in which his amazing potential can be realized.
I thought he meant by "legal uncertainty" the fact that the GPL has not yet been tested in court. So, a company could develop software and release it under the GPL. Then another company incorporates it into their proprietary, closed-source product. What recourse does the first company have? Do they sue the second company? Exactly how do they prove the GPL was violated? These questions have no concrete answers, because such a case has not been argued in court yet.
"lose" is the opposite of win.
"loose" is the opposite of tight.
Using the latter in place of the former is the electronic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, IMHO.
hugs,
My code translated to English would be something like:
"Thou becomest more beautiful and temperate, as does the day".
Oh well, I guess I'm no C++ Shakespeare. :)
Or maybe I'm wrong...
"Shall I compare thee to a Summer's Day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
==
thee.lovely = ++Summer.day.lovely;
thee.temperate = ++Summer.day.temperate;
hmm....loses something in the translation :/
This is OT, but can you really consider the machines in BattleBots to be robots? I mean, they aren't autonomous, they're just remote control cars with whirling blades and chainsaws welded onto them. Since you say the machines on Robot Wars have simple AI, doesn that mean they are autonomous during the battle? I've often thought BattleBots would be much more interesting if the machines were programmed and autonomous (and if they got rid of the "wrestlemania" announcers). However, I understand that the difficulty of AI programming would shrink the pool of contestants to near zero. oh well.
Hey,
You actually use either potassium or uranium to date rocks that are billions of years old. Radioactive carbon has a half-life of only a few thousand years. Plus, you don't date rocks with radiocarbon dating, you need organic material.
I've heard creationists use Carbon dating as "proof" for a young Earth.