What initiatives would you implement to ensure that all students receive a basic level of competency in *all* areas of modern science? This, of course, includes such disciplines as evolution and cosmology (and no...the universe is *not* 6000 years old!)
Ralph Alpher was one of the first people to develop the Big Bang theory. I saw an interview with him on CNN last night. He also doesn't know why he never got the Nobel. In my opinion, he should have been a natural!
The whole Penzias and Wilson thing is also a bit sad. In my opinion, Dicke and Peebles should (at least!) have shared the prize for expanding on the theory (they were also in the midst of setting up a receiver to measure it). In fact, the CMBR temperature had been measured many years before Penzias and Wilson, but nobody recognized it for what it was!
Slightly different situation, but a dipole field around a rotating object (eg. neutron star) with an ionized halo can have the field lines "inflate". This could be related to what they're proposing.
Basically, accretion disk around the object pulls the field lines inward. This only affects the region of the lines close to the disk. So, basically the field gets squished in at the equator. However, the lines are also constrained to remain perpendicular to the disk, so when they relax they also tend to inflate.
This effect depends on having a "halo" of plasma around the object (ideally it would be infinitely conducting), combined with the resistive accretion disk.
Is the spectrum obtained through string theory a continuous black-body, or are there discrete levels? I saw Abhay Ashtekar speak on his theory of "area quantization" last year (somewhat related). Very interesting ideas.
Why not have a computer behind the counter equiped with Back Orifice or some other kind of remote administration tool. Occasionally view screenshots of the machines in your laundromat and, if there's something "inappropriate" on the screen, kill the process. Although this may open your system up to infiltration from the outside, since the computers are essentially public anyway, there shouldn't be anything particularly sensitive on them to begin with.
Just make sure the concept of "appropriateness" is well defined beforehand.
Re:You Obviously Don't Live In New York.
on
The Virtual Tip Jar
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· Score: 1
In New York city, everybody tips. There is a social stigma associated with people who do not tip.
With the anonymity the web provides, there is nobody to stigmatize those who don't pay. As you said, tipping is done far more often when there are social pressures. Without anybody to see you, the social influence is greatly diminished. That's not to say banner ads etc. won't eventually work, but they probably won't be as powerful as you suggest without public recognition of those who do/don't contribute.
I think the original point was that one cannot open a shrinkwrapped box, find a license (similar or identical to many seen before), then claim that they did not agree to the terms and, hence, no contract was formed. True enough, if you open a box and find no restrictive license, then all well and good. If, however, you open the box to find a "standard" form, you cannot claim any sort of surprise.
A similar case is that of a parking garage that has their disclaimer ("not responsible for lost or stolen articles") on the back of their parking receipt. If you've never used a parking garage before, then you may have a case if your car gets broken in to. Otherwise, you're assumed to be familiar enough with "the way things work" to realize that most places use this standard disclaimer.
I don't think your comment about "innocent consumers getting screwed" is really appropriate. These companies simply don't want people claiming a lack of knowledge when most people with any modest history of using software have seen these restrictive licenses.
It all comes down to similarity and how reasonable the contract is. Sure, if they're wildly different then no contract would have been formed. If, however, the contracts are similar (and most software licences I've seen are) then it would be deemed valid.
This information comes from a conversation I had with a friend who does trademark and IP law.
(1) a contract is unenforceable if informed consent is absent
This is similar to warranties/disclaimers on the back of a receipt -- null and void if your attention is not drawn to them before purchase.
This is true...unless it can be shown that the individual would have known about the contract. In this case, the first couple of DVDs you buy, you could get away with it...but after that, you know what to expect when you open the shrinkwrap! Therefore, a shrinkwrap license is valid, provided you've seen one before!
There is currently an international collaboration to construct a 4m-class liquid mirror telescope. Interesting idea based on a simple principle of fluid mechanics. There have even been mutterings about placing a larger version on the moon. The main problem with LMT's is the limited directionality they have. They do seem to be okay for survey work, though.
Guinness actually did The Empire Strikes Back for free as a favour to George Lucas.
As an aside, Bridge on the River Kwai is one of my favourite movies. I strongly suggest anyone who hasn't seen it to rent it At the earliest opportunity. Although Sir Alec won the Best Actor Academy Award ('57), which was likely a big contribution to the movie's success, Bridge also won another six Oscars that year and had a nomination for an eighth award (Sessue Hayakawa - Best Supporting Actor).
In all, Bridge won: Best Actor, Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Colour Cinematography, Director, Editing, and Original Score, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as well as numerous non-U.S. awards.
The rule of thumb I've always heard was, "don't send anything by email you wouldn't send on a postcard/announce over a loudspeaker." Email is inherently insecure (mod encryption -- which can be broken), so why are people getting so distressed over this? Presumably they will need a warrant to use any information they gather anyway.
As if FBI agents don't have anything better to do than read about your plans for next weekend.
Recently, there was a lot of discussion over a University of Kansas medical school researcher (with 21 years at the institute and a host of international accolades) who was dismissed without cause. Officially, his work "no longer fits with the University's mission". He is, however, a noted freethought writer and has organized a number of conferences and colloquia at the school dealing with religious pseudoscience and other such topics, in opposition to the many "Religion and Medicine" events the school has hosted. Here is one of many articles.
How about 128K for ~$25,000 (back in the 60's)? Big (12" diam.) monsters. They were used to run/collect data from the cyclotron in my department. There are still a couple lying around that are used for demonstrations of rotational motion. In fact, in those days, one could not cycle power more than ~12 times before the read-heads cut grooves into the storage media and the device was rendered useless!
All the hype was worthwhile for the studio. The X-Men made the fourth-highest three-day weekend opening ever. Here' s the story. Personally, I enjoyed it more than any of the top three.
Of course, they have left the movie wide-open for a sequel. In fact, Famke Janssen has already said she would be keen to act in a "Dark Phoenix" inspired movie. That, of course, is hardly surprising...since she would be the main character!
It's unlikely we will see a large-scale shift to cars running on alternative fuels until it becomes economically advantageous for the auto industry. Of course, they all pay lip-service to the idea of environmentally-friendly fuel sources, and throw a few R&D dollars into it. Ultimately, however, we will probably have to wait until the petroleum supplies force prices into the stratospheric range where it actually becomes more economical to convert/retrofit the existing infrastructure to accomadate the alternative fuel sources which are under development.
Another current area of research interest is using carbon nanotubes as circuit elements. These little wonders can behave as conductors, semiconductors or insulators. Combining these different types, one can construct transistors, diodes, etc., making (almost) all-carbon circuits an eventual possibility. Sorry, no URL right now.
Slashdot Mirror
What initiatives would you implement to ensure that all students receive a basic level of competency in *all* areas of modern science? This, of course, includes such disciplines as evolution and cosmology (and no...the universe is *not* 6000 years old!)
What's the problem? The finger in the ear worked on Mork and Mindy! You too could have the opportunity to "call Orson"!
The whole Penzias and Wilson thing is also a bit sad. In my opinion, Dicke and Peebles should (at least!) have shared the prize for expanding on the theory (they were also in the midst of setting up a receiver to measure it). In fact, the CMBR temperature had been measured many years before Penzias and Wilson, but nobody recognized it for what it was!
Basically, accretion disk around the object pulls the field lines inward. This only affects the region of the lines close to the disk. So, basically the field gets squished in at the equator. However, the lines are also constrained to remain perpendicular to the disk, so when they relax they also tend to inflate.
This effect depends on having a "halo" of plasma around the object (ideally it would be infinitely conducting), combined with the resistive accretion disk.
...I just love that little Germanic guy!
Here is the technical article from the Los Alamos preprint server.
Is the spectrum obtained through string theory a continuous black-body, or are there discrete levels? I saw Abhay Ashtekar speak on his theory of "area quantization" last year (somewhat related). Very interesting ideas.
Just make sure the concept of "appropriateness" is well defined beforehand.
With the anonymity the web provides, there is nobody to stigmatize those who don't pay. As you said, tipping is done far more often when there are social pressures. Without anybody to see you, the social influence is greatly diminished. That's not to say banner ads etc. won't eventually work, but they probably won't be as powerful as you suggest without public recognition of those who do/don't contribute.
A similar case is that of a parking garage that has their disclaimer ("not responsible for lost or stolen articles") on the back of their parking receipt. If you've never used a parking garage before, then you may have a case if your car gets broken in to. Otherwise, you're assumed to be familiar enough with "the way things work" to realize that most places use this standard disclaimer.
I don't think your comment about "innocent consumers getting screwed" is really appropriate. These companies simply don't want people claiming a lack of knowledge when most people with any modest history of using software have seen these restrictive licenses.
This information comes from a conversation I had with a friend who does trademark and IP law.
This is similar to warranties/disclaimers on the back of a receipt -- null and void if your attention is not drawn to them before purchase.
This is true...unless it can be shown that the individual would have known about the contract. In this case, the first couple of DVDs you buy, you could get away with it...but after that, you know what to expect when you open the shrinkwrap! Therefore, a shrinkwrap license is valid, provided you've seen one before!
There is currently an international collaboration to construct a 4m-class liquid mirror telescope. Interesting idea based on a simple principle of fluid mechanics. There have even been mutterings about placing a larger version on the moon. The main problem with LMT's is the limited directionality they have. They do seem to be okay for survey work, though.
As an aside, Bridge on the River Kwai is one of my favourite movies. I strongly suggest anyone who hasn't seen it to rent it At the earliest opportunity. Although Sir Alec won the Best Actor Academy Award ('57), which was likely a big contribution to the movie's success, Bridge also won another six Oscars that year and had a nomination for an eighth award (Sessue Hayakawa - Best Supporting Actor).
In all, Bridge won: Best Actor, Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Colour Cinematography, Director, Editing, and Original Score, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as well as numerous non-U.S. awards.
As if FBI agents don't have anything better to do than read about your plans for next weekend.
Recently, there was a lot of discussion over a University of Kansas medical school researcher (with 21 years at the institute and a host of international accolades) who was dismissed without cause. Officially, his work "no longer fits with the University's mission". He is, however, a noted freethought writer and has organized a number of conferences and colloquia at the school dealing with religious pseudoscience and other such topics, in opposition to the many "Religion and Medicine" events the school has hosted. Here is one of many articles.
A story by Jon Katz that doesn't contain the phrase "post-Columbine" or associate the main topic with geek-repression?
You're losing your touch, man!
Nice to see it finally got posted. I guess it took the American version before it became interesting.
How about 128K for ~$25,000 (back in the 60's)? Big (12" diam.) monsters. They were used to run/collect data from the cyclotron in my department. There are still a couple lying around that are used for demonstrations of rotational motion. In fact, in those days, one could not cycle power more than ~12 times before the read-heads cut grooves into the storage media and the device was rendered useless!
The Weapon-X story would be great! A chance to see Canada's super team. Go Alpha Flight!
All the hype was worthwhile for the studio. The X-Men made the fourth-highest three-day weekend opening ever. Here' s the story. Personally, I enjoyed it more than any of the top three.
Of course, they have left the movie wide-open for a sequel. In fact, Famke Janssen has already said she would be keen to act in a "Dark Phoenix" inspired movie. That, of course, is hardly surprising...since she would be the main character!
It's unlikely we will see a large-scale shift to cars running on alternative fuels until it becomes economically advantageous for the auto industry. Of course, they all pay lip-service to the idea of environmentally-friendly fuel sources, and throw a few R&D dollars into it. Ultimately, however, we will probably have to wait until the petroleum supplies force prices into the stratospheric range where it actually becomes more economical to convert/retrofit the existing infrastructure to accomadate the alternative fuel sources which are under development.
Someone tries to get a skin of their boss/co-workers? Keep this technology away from USPS workers!
Another current area of research interest is using carbon nanotubes as circuit elements. These little wonders can behave as conductors, semiconductors or insulators. Combining these different types, one can construct transistors, diodes, etc., making (almost) all-carbon circuits an eventual possibility. Sorry, no URL right now.