True. Excellent proof of concept though. It may seem to be kind of a backwards way to go about it but in a sense coupled with the cloud this has the potential to bring back the "dumb" terminal days of yore. Not sure though if this is anything to be happy about.
... to get leading manufactures to adopt their technology. Only after there was no taker did they decide to start a table saw company of their own. This story can be gleaned from their own website.
I also remember an interview with the inventor from several years ago where he voiced his frustration that none of the leading manufacturers where interested in the technology. Unfortunately I can no longer find this interview but I am not the only one remembering it.
I love the Wii. I've not been into consoles or games at all because my professional and family live just doesn't allow me to get sucked into a game like back in the day when I was introduced to Doom.
Once I had some first hand experience with the Wii I realized that this is an entirely different environment. It is so intuitive to use that the whole family down to our 3 year old toddler daughter can enjoy it. It is pretty amazing to see her play tennis and golf on that thing. The Wii allows her to explore things that are a long way off for her simply because of her size. At the Wii she can steer her avatar to do all things her older brother and the adults do. Not surprising that she loves it.
As for myself I love the fact that a console environment can actually make you sweat e.g. Grand Slam Tennis does an excellent job with the sports simulation - you really have to put some muscle into your swings to score. I am now contemplating to combine this with a treadmill to make for a fun workout.
The little spiny thingy is a perfectly "normal" heat engine in that it exploits a thermal heat difference that is created by an influx of energy from an external source i.e. the photons that heat up the dark side.
The difference with a ideal uni-directional heat conductor is that it allows to create the heat imbalance out of thin air i.e. without putting in additional energy the entropy of the system is lowered. The wikipedia article that I linked to explains this in a bit more detail:
A perpetual motion machine of the second kind is a machine which spontaneously converts thermal energy into mechanical work. When the thermal energy is equivalent to the work done, this does not violate the law of conservation of energy. However it does violate the more subtle second law of thermodynamics (see also entropy). Such a machine is different from real heat engines (such as car engines), which always involve a transfer of heat from a hotter reservoir to a colder one, the latter being warmed up in the process. The signature of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind is that there is only one heat reservoir involved, which is being spontaneously cooled without involving a transfer of heat to a cooler reservoir. This conversion of heat into useful work, without any side effect, is impossible, as stated by the second law of thermodynamics. In contrast, a hot reservoir inside an internal combustion engine is created by a spark igniting fumes which contain stores of chemical potential energy. The temperature of the fumes increases above that of the surroundings. This is not a perpetual motion machine since the increase in temperature is a result of the release of a finite available amount of chemical energy, which is always much less than the total heat energy and mass-energy contained within the system. As explained by statistical mechanics, there are far more states in which heat distribution is close to thermodynamic equilibrium than states in which heat is concentrated in small regions, so temperatures will tend to even out over time, reducing the amount of free energy available for conversion to mechanical energy.
Very happy to see that this was immediately corrected by this AC comment. Thermodynamics does not allow for heat conductivity in just one direction. If such a material was possible it'll be simple to arrange it in such a manner that entropy spontaneously decreases e.g. having heat conducted one way towards a water reservoir. This accumulated thermal energy could than for instance be used to power a sterling engine making this a second class Perpetuum mobile.
... examine the other 99% of cases where they were wrong:
1) Selling the Iraq war 2) Cheering on the first bubble (.com) 3) Then the second (real estate) 4) At the same time treating every utterance from Alan Greenspan like a missive from god
The list goes on and on. I for once can hardly wait until the economic pressure from the Internet puts them out of their misery.
I worked in the US and currently in Canada (Toronto) same company same job. I get a slightly better pay up here (somewhat dependent on currency fluctuation and the fact that the bonuses up here have been good even in these rough economic times).
I can not expense my mortgage interest so that sucks - on the other hand that is somewhat offset by the fact that Canada does not tax the gain on my house once I sell. So far the real estate market is holding up so if I were to sell right now I'd make a good tax free profit on my home.
Not being able to expense a whole lot is annoying but on the other hand it makes my income tax declaration very easy. In the US I hired a tax accountant. Up here it is such a straightforward process I file myself.
Bottom line: In terms of disposable income moving here has made no difference.
BTW I also hate when people refer to it as "free" healthcare. After all my taxes pay for it. The Ontario Health insurance has a big problem in that many more insurance cards are in circulation than there are Canadians in Ontario. The suspicion is that a lot of Americans living along the border managed to get cards by misrepresenting themselves as Canadians. I detest having to pay for these people who have never paid nor ever will pay a single cent into the system.
I second this. As a German who lived in the US and now Canada (Toronto) I think I can claim informed outside observer status. My impression is that Quebec's influence pulled Canada away from the "conservative" excesses found in the states. I credit Quebec in large part for Canada feeling much more European - culturally as well as politically- than the US.
... we have remarkably little snow this year. So far I hardly had to get out my snow shovel. For the bit of dustings we had I just use a broom and have the sun do the rest of the work. Keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way. In comparison the winter last year was brutal.
What exactly did they teach you in school about the scientific method? Proofs are solely a domain of mathematics. In natural science theories are not proven but either supported or falsified by factual evidence. The longer a theory endures and observable facts support it the more established and entrenched it becomes. Scientific theories are never truth in and of themselves they are approximation of the truth and a reflection of the current scientific understanding.
Well established theories like Newton's law of gravity can still be thrown out for something better i.e. General Relativity. Such "obsolete" theories typically retain some validity within a certain domain i.e. for most orbital mechanics relativistic effects are too small as to be taken into account.
This comment shows a surprising lack of understanding of what actually happened in China since Deng Xiaoping started the market reforms. The situation of government controlled business and the subsequent decline that you describe was exactly what China faced in the eighties. Deng's reforms allowed more economic freedom and subsequently started China on its path to transform itself into an essentially untethered capitalistic system. The large, old and still government controlled mostly heavy industries are only allowed to remain because the government feels that they have to phase them out slowly in order to not put to too many workers out on the street at the same time. This regard for the workers' welfare is of course not motivated by any intrinsic good will but rather by a paranoid fear of the ones in power of social unrest and revolt.
If that'll actually result in "saving earth from doom" based on the Russians getting this underway I am all for giving them credit. When compared to military expenditure essentially nothing is spend on preventing these kind of disasters although we know that major impact events threw evolution a loop many times throughout earth's history. Any initiative that'll change that balance a bit for the better is welcome to me.
Your caution to take one sided stories with a grain of salt is warranted. Nevertheless I would hope that the amount of comments you get here from well traveled individuals will give you pause. Many here have stated that they will avoid travel to the US because of the border and that includes myself. I've been traveling to the US at least once a year for more than a decade and I find that on average the border guards have been becoming less and less professional and outright nasty.
One commenter here's who claims his dad has been a border guard for most of his professional life reported that the hiring standards and training deteriorated after everything was brought under the homeland security umbrella. This rings true to me. I think the US really created a problem at their borders.
You discredit your own argument by your closing remark. Who do you think pushes whom around within the EU? No one country dominates the EU because none is disproportionally bigger in comparison to the next large one and the smaller ones like to band together to get their voices heard. The EU grew as series of hard fought over compromises. A modus operandi that is obviously completely foreign to you as in your world there always seems to be the strongest pushing around the weaklings. Very social Darwinism of you. I am just glad I didn't share a high school with you since you obviously fully endorse bullying as the universal natural state.
While it depends on the officer I several times experienced some really nasty border guards when crossing at the Windsor Detroit checkpoint. Some of them behave far worse than the second runners up that I encountered i.e. East German and Soviet border guards. The later at least didn't display the kind of Rambo cop mentality that some of these US goons do. Don't know where they find these people.
To me the way law enforcement officials and government representatives treat the public says a lot about the level of civil society and the freedoms you enjoy. Doesn't inspire confidence. If it wasn't for my mother in law living in Ohio I'd be more than happy to not venture down south any more. I hope once she retires I can convince her to move up here. I hate this border.
This is the standard argument for the climate change deniers. "The scientists made it all up to get more funding!". What a ludicrous conspiracy theory. Did all the climate scientists get into a room about twenty years ago to come up with an elaborate plan to take over all leading peer reviewed journals? Generate an enormous body of published and according to XxtraLarGe biased work just so that they can now reap the benefit of more funding? What an incredible energy it must take to coordinate so many people to contribute to one gigantic fraud. And all of this to get some more grant money? This is supposed to be incentive enough for such an elaborate hoax? It is not as if that grant money goes into the bank accounts of the scientists. It has to be spend on further research or things like additional hardware for climate simulations. There is a huge question mark there: Climate Change Hoax ? Profit!
Just doesn't compute.
This makes people who believe in the faking of the moon landing look outright sane.
Middle class/rich people usually have no desire to come here
I second this. My wife's American and so for family reasons we moved to the US. Didn't like and so we moved on to Canada. Still close enough for family visits but with decent public education, health care and less toxic politics (only downside is that the border is pain in the buttocks).
Slashdot Mirror
True. Excellent proof of concept though. It may seem to be kind of a backwards way to go about it but in a sense coupled with the cloud this has the potential to bring back the "dumb" terminal days of yore. Not sure though if this is anything to be happy about.
Guess I should have added why I consider it ironic that it started out at Sun Labs: It doesn't use Java.
... rather convincingly managed to reproduce a full GUI in modern browsers . Ironically it also started out at Sun Labs.
... to get leading manufactures to adopt their technology. Only after there was no taker did they decide to start a table saw company of their own. This story can be gleaned from their own website.
I also remember an interview with the inventor from several years ago where he voiced his frustration that none of the leading manufacturers where interested in the technology. Unfortunately I can no longer find this interview but I am not the only one remembering it.
I love the Wii. I've not been into consoles or games at all because my professional and family live just doesn't allow me to get sucked into a game like back in the day when I was introduced to Doom.
Once I had some first hand experience with the Wii I realized that this is an entirely different environment. It is so intuitive to use that the whole family down to our 3 year old toddler daughter can enjoy it. It is pretty amazing to see her play tennis and golf on that thing. The Wii allows her to explore things that are a long way off for her simply because of her size. At the Wii she can steer her avatar to do all things her older brother and the adults do. Not surprising that she loves it.
As for myself I love the fact that a console environment can actually make you sweat e.g. Grand Slam Tennis does an excellent job with the sports simulation - you really have to put some muscle into your swings to score. I am now contemplating to combine this with a treadmill to make for a fun workout.
True.
The little spiny thingy is a perfectly "normal" heat engine in that it exploits a thermal heat difference that is created by an influx of energy from an external source i.e. the photons that heat up the dark side.
The difference with a ideal uni-directional heat conductor is that it allows to create the heat imbalance out of thin air i.e. without putting in additional energy the entropy of the system is lowered. The wikipedia article that I linked to explains this in a bit more detail:
A perpetual motion machine of the second kind is a machine which spontaneously converts thermal energy into mechanical work. When the thermal energy is equivalent to the work done, this does not violate the law of conservation of energy. However it does violate the more subtle second law of thermodynamics (see also entropy). Such a machine is different from real heat engines (such as car engines), which always involve a transfer of heat from a hotter reservoir to a colder one, the latter being warmed up in the process. The signature of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind is that there is only one heat reservoir involved, which is being spontaneously cooled without involving a transfer of heat to a cooler reservoir. This conversion of heat into useful work, without any side effect, is impossible, as stated by the second law of thermodynamics. In contrast, a hot reservoir inside an internal combustion engine is created by a spark igniting fumes which contain stores of chemical potential energy. The temperature of the fumes increases above that of the surroundings. This is not a perpetual motion machine since the increase in temperature is a result of the release of a finite available amount of chemical energy, which is always much less than the total heat energy and mass-energy contained within the system. As explained by statistical mechanics, there are far more states in which heat distribution is close to thermodynamic equilibrium than states in which heat is concentrated in small regions, so temperatures will tend to even out over time, reducing the amount of free energy available for conversion to mechanical energy.
Intriguing. Thanks for the link.
Very happy to see that this was immediately corrected by this AC comment. Thermodynamics does not allow for heat conductivity in just one direction. If such a material was possible it'll be simple to arrange it in such a manner that entropy spontaneously decreases e.g. having heat conducted one way towards a water reservoir. This accumulated thermal energy could than for instance be used to power a sterling engine making this a second class Perpetuum mobile.
... examine the other 99% of cases where they were wrong:
1) Selling the Iraq war
2) Cheering on the first bubble (.com)
3) Then the second (real estate)
4) At the same time treating every utterance from Alan Greenspan like a missive from god
The list goes on and on. I for once can hardly wait until the economic pressure from the Internet puts them out of their misery.
I worked in the US and currently in Canada (Toronto) same company same job. I get a slightly better pay up here (somewhat dependent on currency fluctuation and the fact that the bonuses up here have been good even in these rough economic times).
I can not expense my mortgage interest so that sucks - on the other hand that is somewhat offset by the fact that Canada does not tax the gain on my house once I sell. So far the real estate market is holding up so if I were to sell right now I'd make a good tax free profit on my home.
Not being able to expense a whole lot is annoying but on the other hand it makes my income tax declaration very easy. In the US I hired a tax accountant. Up here it is such a straightforward process I file myself.
Bottom line: In terms of disposable income moving here has made no difference.
BTW I also hate when people refer to it as "free" healthcare. After all my taxes pay for it. The Ontario Health insurance has a big problem in that many more insurance cards are in circulation than there are Canadians in Ontario. The suspicion is that a lot of Americans living along the border managed to get cards by misrepresenting themselves as Canadians. I detest having to pay for these people who have never paid nor ever will pay a single cent into the system.
This guy is not going to move out of the USA simply because of health insurance.
When I left the US for Canada health insurance factored large in my decision. After all it's just a short hop across the border.
I second this. As a German who lived in the US and now Canada (Toronto) I think I can claim informed outside observer status. My impression is that Quebec's influence pulled Canada away from the "conservative" excesses found in the states. I credit Quebec in large part for Canada feeling much more European - culturally as well as politically- than the US.
... we have remarkably little snow this year. So far I hardly had to get out my snow shovel. For the bit of dustings we had I just use a broom and have the sun do the rest of the work. Keeping my fingers crossed it stays that way. In comparison the winter last year was brutal.
What exactly did they teach you in school about the scientific method? Proofs are solely a domain of mathematics. In natural science theories are not proven but either supported or falsified by factual evidence. The longer a theory endures and observable facts support it the more established and entrenched it becomes. Scientific theories are never truth in and of themselves they are approximation of the truth and a reflection of the current scientific understanding.
Well established theories like Newton's law of gravity can still be thrown out for something better i.e. General Relativity. Such "obsolete" theories typically retain some validity within a certain domain i.e. for most orbital mechanics relativistic effects are too small as to be taken into account.
This is a very nice intuitive explanation for the perihelion effect. Very much appreciated!
This comment shows a surprising lack of understanding of what actually happened in China since Deng Xiaoping started the market reforms. The situation of government controlled business and the subsequent decline that you describe was exactly what China faced in the eighties. Deng's reforms allowed more economic freedom and subsequently started China on its path to transform itself into an essentially untethered capitalistic system. The large, old and still government controlled mostly heavy industries are only allowed to remain because the government feels that they have to phase them out slowly in order to not put to too many workers out on the street at the same time. This regard for the workers' welfare is of course not motivated by any intrinsic good will but rather by a paranoid fear of the ones in power of social unrest and revolt.
Thank you for sharing this story. Very interesting.
If that'll actually result in "saving earth from doom" based on the Russians getting this underway I am all for giving them credit. When compared to military expenditure essentially nothing is spend on preventing these kind of disasters although we know that major impact events threw evolution a loop many times throughout earth's history. Any initiative that'll change that balance a bit for the better is welcome to me.
Your caution to take one sided stories with a grain of salt is warranted. Nevertheless I would hope that the amount of comments you get here from well traveled individuals will give you pause. Many here have stated that they will avoid travel to the US because of the border and that includes myself. I've been traveling to the US at least once a year for more than a decade and I find that on average the border guards have been becoming less and less professional and outright nasty.
One commenter here's who claims his dad has been a border guard for most of his professional life reported that the hiring standards and training deteriorated after everything was brought under the homeland security umbrella. This rings true to me. I think the US really created a problem at their borders.
You discredit your own argument by your closing remark. Who do you think pushes whom around within the EU? No one country dominates the EU because none is disproportionally bigger in comparison to the next large one and the smaller ones like to band together to get their voices heard. The EU grew as series of hard fought over compromises. A modus operandi that is obviously completely foreign to you as in your world there always seems to be the strongest pushing around the weaklings. Very social Darwinism of you. I am just glad I didn't share a high school with you since you obviously fully endorse bullying as the universal natural state.
While it depends on the officer I several times experienced some really nasty border guards when crossing at the Windsor Detroit checkpoint. Some of them behave far worse than the second runners up that I encountered i.e. East German and Soviet border guards. The later at least didn't display the kind of Rambo cop mentality that some of these US goons do. Don't know where they find these people.
To me the way law enforcement officials and government representatives treat the public says a lot about the level of civil society and the freedoms you enjoy. Doesn't inspire confidence. If it wasn't for my mother in law living in Ohio I'd be more than happy to not venture down south any more. I hope once she retires I can convince her to move up here. I hate this border.
This is the standard argument for the climate change deniers. "The scientists made it all up to get more funding!". What a ludicrous conspiracy theory. Did all the climate scientists get into a room about twenty years ago to come up with an elaborate plan to take over all leading peer reviewed journals? Generate an enormous body of published and according to XxtraLarGe biased work just so that they can now reap the benefit of more funding? What an incredible energy it must take to coordinate so many people to contribute to one gigantic fraud. And all of this to get some more grant money? This is supposed to be incentive enough for such an elaborate hoax? It is not as if that grant money goes into the bank accounts of the scientists. It has to be spend on further research or things like additional hardware for climate simulations. There is a huge question mark there:
Climate Change Hoax
?
Profit!
Just doesn't compute.
This makes people who believe in the faking of the moon landing look outright sane.
... for what should be settled through scientific debate has become. Jeff Masters gives another example.
Middle class/rich people usually have no desire to come here
I second this. My wife's American and so for family reasons we moved to the US. Didn't like and so we moved on to Canada. Still close enough for family visits but with decent public education, health care and less toxic politics (only downside is that the border is pain in the buttocks).