Many electric companies are pushing smart grid devices to do load leveling right now. This summer I had a visit from my power company where they wanted permission to install a device that would participate in a rolling shutoff of air conditioners. Since I don't trust these guys I refused. I think it's just a strategy to avoid having to invest in improving their infrastructure. Now reading this I'm glad I did. They are going to have to deal with their crappy infrastructure anyway.
I recently upgraded my electrical service because the exiting box had reliability issues. The electrician recommended that I go to 200A. Glad I did; I have multiple cars.
I've sent hazardous materials, some radioactive via a variety of carriers. LET ME TELL YOU that FedEx is much worse. They go blabbing all over the news making an embarrassing lot of fuss and generally alarming the public when they lose something like this. UPS however they just don't care. Lose a pound of plutonium, no big deal, happens all the time just fill in the insurance claim and go on your way and we certainly won't tell anyone.
So yes it is not sensible at all to use FedEx for these sorts of things. Way too much hassle.
Yeah, but SSDs have more CPU overhead than HDs. If you are running something that doesn't do a lot of disk I/O it may be that you would be better off with an HD.
Dice has a lot more programming listings than Monster.
Java - 14824.Net OR C# - 10496 C++ - 5789 Perl - 4664 PHP - 2499 Python - 2196 Objective C - 1267 Ruby - 1169 Cobol - 638
The fact is that regardless of what Oracle is doing the momentum behind Java is pretty strong and will take a lot to derail. It's also interesting that the C family of languages is utterly dominant.
A good programmer will pick up multiple language expertise. If I was looking for a job I'd learn Java, C# and C++. I understand your aversion to Microsoft, but if it meant the difference between working or not working that sort of consideration has to become secondary.
So what? The bottom line is that the well didn't leak primarily due to cement failure or use of too few centralizers. There is post cement pressure testing and other redundancies involved too. Cement failure is a quite common occurrence; nobody in their right mind would just dump a load of cement in the hole and walk away without following up to make sure the cement job was good.
Halliburton will probably get stung a bit because of the legal system we have, but in reality they aren't the problem here.
The real cause of this leak was sloppy operations by Transocean, BP's drilling subcontractor. There were several places where they just flat fell down on the job and made faulty decisions any one of which could have prevented the spill. Many of these people are dead now, killed when the rig sank. It's unfortunate not just for the people involved but also for the process of finding out exactly what happened, but that is just the way it is sometimes.
You realize that since the start of the industrial revolution the average lifespan has increased dramatically, right?
Surely that is an indication that we are learning something, and mostly what we are doing is making a positive difference.
Of course the process isn't perfect - no human activity is. But to claim that we are worse off is plain stupid and ignorant; the facts don't support that in any way shape or form. The ideas that natural is intrinsically good and synthetic intrinsically bad are a from an unfortunately old and common meme, the same one that was disproven when Woodward performed his total synthesis of streptomycin, or much earlier when Wohler synthesized urea.
Most of the diseases that you are concerned about weren't even diagnosable 150 years ago, and certainly weren't public health concerns then. They had much bigger problems.
What is undeniable is that the average human today enjoys a longer, much more disease free and healthier life today than 150 years ago.
The lifestyle that you describe in India doesn't give it's people better health or longer lifespan over say the inhabitants of the US or other modern nations, the numbers are clear.
The idea that we don't know anything about biochemistry is preposterous. Hell, we are building our own lifeforms now. From scratch.
"This is the first synthetic cell that's been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer," said Venter. "This becomes a very powerful tool for trying to design what we want biology to do. We have a wide range of applications [in mind]."
The referenced article draws conclusions completely at odds with the actual USPTO notice.
I guess it's to be expected that anything appearing on Slashsdot regarding patents would be totally erroneous, but this is one of the worst examples ever. In fact the USPTO encourages examiners to use reasoning outside the examples, which would be considered a BROADENING of the obviousness guidelines.
This story is quite the howler. Well done Slashsdot; you have hit a new low here.
This legislation would not have gone into effect until 2012, so it is unlikely to be the incentive for Balmer's stock sale.
The real incentive for this timing is that the Bush tax cap gains tax cuts, especially for high income people are very much in jeopardy of expiration at the end of this year, and there is a surcharge to these rates on the books for high income folks.
Be careful with hexane nomenclature. n-hexane is one of the isomers of hexane (there are 5), and by far the most toxic. Claims that hexane is a neurotoxin are misleading - the only hexane isomer that is a neurotoxin is n-hexane as the other hexanes don't produce the nerve damaging metabolite of n-hexane.
My masters adviser was a guy named John Fenn. He's now 93 and still quite active in academia today.
When he was about 70 Yale University tried to forcibly retire the guy. The laugh about this is that about this time he started a course of research into characterization of protein molecules that led to a Nobel Prize, awarded in 2002. Because of the retirement flap he left Yale and is now at Virginia Commonwealth.
Mastectomy works about 75% of the time for stage 1 breast cancer. The other 25% it doesn't work because the cancer metastasizes and spreads to the rest of the body, including the brain. This eventually kills the patient. Eventually may be a long time.
It took 10 years to kill my mother. The brain tumor was found because of dementia.
I disagree that it is not portable. It weighs about 15 lbs and fits in a large laptop bag that I can easily transport in my car. Yes I wouldn't want to try air travel with it but well I don't.
The screen is 1900x1200. While the colors aren't as good as a nice IPS screen I don't use it for anything critical along those lines.
It's made by Sager, and yes it isn't cheap but I have the money and don't plan to take it with me.
I agree wholeheartedly that the summary is not very fine, and the word 'toxic' out of context is meaningless.
In this case it is a designation that means that the chemical will be regulated by the CEPA. It has nothing to do with a finding of actual toxicity at some particular level, only that there will be regulations issued to control exposure to BPA, primarily occupational exposure in this case since of course that's where the greatest risk is.
In reality there is no particular evidence that current US EPA regulations provide inadequate protection from BPA except possibly due to occupational exposure. Remember that the methodology is to find a minimum effect level, then divide that by 1000 for the final regulation.
The new evidence appearing in the literature seems to indicate that the no effect level should be lower than what was used, not that the current exposure levels are above the no effect level.
Of course that doesn't prevent a great hue and cry in the mainstream media about deadly deadly BPA but what the hell can you expect? Rational discussion or and effort to whip up a frenzy to sell more advertising space?
In reality this should be filed along with the dangers of HFCS and Autism from MMR. In other words the waste basket of dumb ideas.
In aggregate that seems like a very specious argument. SOMETHING has caused average lifespan to rise from circa 45 in 1900 to 75 today. The well known causes like chlorinated drinking water can only account for half of that.
Right, and the patents on the basic uses of graphene will be useless because without the patent on graphene itself these companies won't be able to manufacture the stuff.
It's patents 101. Getting a patent on something gives you the right to prevent others from using the claimed matter in the patent. It doesn't give you the right to practice what you have patented because your invention might depend on a technology that someone else has a patent on.
If somebody had given me that line quoted in the story I would have laughed. There are plenty of ways to monetize such a patent that would make it far cheaper for the company wishing to develop graphene based applications than going through all sorts of legal fights, and there are plenty of patent businesses that would cherfully take on such a fight.
Well I have a quite toasty laptop that has a desktop CPU (i7 960) three hard drives and 6 GB of RAM so it's interesting info to me. However I don't put it on my lap because to do so would block the three cooling fans. I use a laptop cooler between my lap and the machine.
Maybe people should start using these to protect their family jewels?
That has NOT been my experience at all. When I went from XP to Win 7 64 on my 4 GB laptop I found I was able to run more software because of the added 0.7 GB of memory that became useful. On my 6 GB and 12 GB machines XP is completely out of the running. What you describe would only apply to 3GB or less machines.
The real advantage for me is that Win 7 does 64 bit much better than XP. I'm running it on 3 of the 4 machines I use now. They are:
Desktop - 8 GB used primarily for Java server development. Runs Ubuntu.
Laptop 1 - 4 GB machine that originally ran XP Pro, now runs Win 7 Pro 64. It works much better as such with full use of the 4 GB. Used sometimes for Java development when I'm not in the office.
Server - 6 core 980x with 12 GB RAM. Primarily runs Centos 5 however also can be booted into Win 7 Ultimate 64 if needs to run something on Windows. That doesn't happen very often though.
Laptop 2 - this is sort of a desktop in laptop clothing, runs a 4 core 960 with 6 GB of RAM. Used for almost everything - gaming, development, etc. Runs Win 7 Pro 64.
My feeling about it is that if you have 4 GB or more the upgrade to Win 7 is worth it. Otherwise Win XP is fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Many electric companies are pushing smart grid devices to do load leveling right now. This summer I had a visit from my power company where they wanted permission to install a device that would participate in a rolling shutoff of air conditioners. Since I don't trust these guys I refused. I think it's just a strategy to avoid having to invest in improving their infrastructure. Now reading this I'm glad I did. They are going to have to deal with their crappy infrastructure anyway.
I recently upgraded my electrical service because the exiting box had reliability issues. The electrician recommended that I go to 200A. Glad I did; I have multiple cars.
I've sent hazardous materials, some radioactive via a variety of carriers. LET ME TELL YOU that FedEx is much worse. They go blabbing all over the news making an embarrassing lot of fuss and generally alarming the public when they lose something like this. UPS however they just don't care. Lose a pound of plutonium, no big deal, happens all the time just fill in the insurance claim and go on your way and we certainly won't tell anyone.
So yes it is not sensible at all to use FedEx for these sorts of things. Way too much hassle.
Yeah, but SSDs have more CPU overhead than HDs. If you are running something that doesn't do a lot of disk I/O it may be that you would be better off with an HD.
When a private citizen is told to shut up about any political issue it is time to hold a revolution.
Some subversive books like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Alice in Wonderland, Walden etc. would be very thought provoking.
Dice has a lot more programming listings than Monster.
Java - 14824 .Net OR C# - 10496
C++ - 5789
Perl - 4664
PHP - 2499
Python - 2196
Objective C - 1267
Ruby - 1169
Cobol - 638
The fact is that regardless of what Oracle is doing the momentum behind Java is pretty strong and will take a lot to derail. It's also interesting that the C family of languages is utterly dominant.
A good programmer will pick up multiple language expertise. If I was looking for a job I'd learn Java, C# and C++. I understand your aversion to Microsoft, but if it meant the difference between working or not working that sort of consideration has to become secondary.
So what? The bottom line is that the well didn't leak primarily due to cement failure or use of too few centralizers. There is post cement pressure testing and other redundancies involved too. Cement failure is a quite common occurrence; nobody in their right mind would just dump a load of cement in the hole and walk away without following up to make sure the cement job was good.
Halliburton will probably get stung a bit because of the legal system we have, but in reality they aren't the problem here.
The real cause of this leak was sloppy operations by Transocean, BP's drilling subcontractor. There were several places where they just flat fell down on the job and made faulty decisions any one of which could have prevented the spill. Many of these people are dead now, killed when the rig sank. It's unfortunate not just for the people involved but also for the process of finding out exactly what happened, but that is just the way it is sometimes.
You realize that since the start of the industrial revolution the average lifespan has increased dramatically, right?
Surely that is an indication that we are learning something, and mostly what we are doing is making a positive difference.
Of course the process isn't perfect - no human activity is. But to claim that we are worse off is plain stupid and ignorant; the facts don't support that in any way shape or form. The ideas that natural is intrinsically good and synthetic intrinsically bad are a from an unfortunately old and common meme, the same one that was disproven when Woodward performed his total synthesis of streptomycin, or much earlier when Wohler synthesized urea.
Most of the diseases that you are concerned about weren't even diagnosable 150 years ago, and certainly weren't public health concerns then. They had much bigger problems.
What is undeniable is that the average human today enjoys a longer, much more disease free and healthier life today than 150 years ago.
The lifestyle that you describe in India doesn't give it's people better health or longer lifespan over say the inhabitants of the US or other modern nations, the numbers are clear.
The idea that we don't know anything about biochemistry is preposterous. Hell, we are building our own lifeforms now. From scratch.
http://io9.com/5543843/scientists-create-artificial-life-+-synthetic-dna-that-can-self+replicate
"This is the first synthetic cell that's been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer," said Venter. "This becomes a very powerful tool for trying to design what we want biology to do. We have a wide range of applications [in mind]."
The referenced article draws conclusions completely at odds with the actual USPTO notice.
I guess it's to be expected that anything appearing on Slashsdot regarding patents would be totally erroneous, but this is one of the worst examples ever. In fact the USPTO encourages examiners to use reasoning outside the examples, which would be considered a BROADENING of the obviousness guidelines.
This story is quite the howler. Well done Slashsdot; you have hit a new low here.
This legislation would not have gone into effect until 2012, so it is unlikely to be the incentive for Balmer's stock sale.
The real incentive for this timing is that the Bush tax cap gains tax cuts, especially for high income people are very much in jeopardy of expiration at the end of this year, and there is a surcharge to these rates on the books for high income folks.
Be careful with hexane nomenclature. n-hexane is one of the isomers of hexane (there are 5), and by far the most toxic. Claims that hexane is a neurotoxin are misleading - the only hexane isomer that is a neurotoxin is n-hexane as the other hexanes don't produce the nerve damaging metabolite of n-hexane.
My masters adviser was a guy named John Fenn. He's now 93 and still quite active in academia today.
When he was about 70 Yale University tried to forcibly retire the guy. The laugh about this is that about this time he started a course of research into characterization of protein molecules that led to a Nobel Prize, awarded in 2002. Because of the retirement flap he left Yale and is now at Virginia Commonwealth.
So was he smart at age 70? Duh.
Mastectomy works about 75% of the time for stage 1 breast cancer. The other 25% it doesn't work because the cancer metastasizes and spreads to the rest of the body, including the brain. This eventually kills the patient. Eventually may be a long time.
It took 10 years to kill my mother. The brain tumor was found because of dementia.
I disagree that it is not portable. It weighs about 15 lbs and fits in a large laptop bag that I can easily transport in my car. Yes I wouldn't want to try air travel with it but well I don't.
The screen is 1900x1200. While the colors aren't as good as a nice IPS screen I don't use it for anything critical along those lines.
It's made by Sager, and yes it isn't cheap but I have the money and don't plan to take it with me.
http://www.gophn.com/sager-np9280-clevo-d900f-review-the-new-undisputed-worlds-fastest-notebook/
I agree wholeheartedly that the summary is not very fine, and the word 'toxic' out of context is meaningless.
In this case it is a designation that means that the chemical will be regulated by the CEPA. It has nothing to do with a finding of actual toxicity at some particular level, only that there will be regulations issued to control exposure to BPA, primarily occupational exposure in this case since of course that's where the greatest risk is.
In reality there is no particular evidence that current US EPA regulations provide inadequate protection from BPA except possibly due to occupational exposure. Remember that the methodology is to find a minimum effect level, then divide that by 1000 for the final regulation.
The new evidence appearing in the literature seems to indicate that the no effect level should be lower than what was used, not that the current exposure levels are above the no effect level.
Of course that doesn't prevent a great hue and cry in the mainstream media about deadly deadly BPA but what the hell can you expect? Rational discussion or and effort to whip up a frenzy to sell more advertising space?
In reality this should be filed along with the dangers of HFCS and Autism from MMR. In other words the waste basket of dumb ideas.
In aggregate that seems like a very specious argument. SOMETHING has caused average lifespan to rise from circa 45 in 1900 to 75 today. The well known causes like chlorinated drinking water can only account for half of that.
Making an improvement gives you the right to the improvement only. The rest of the process is still covered by the original patent.
So you might file a whole raft of improvements but it won't get you any economic benefit.
Right, and the patents on the basic uses of graphene will be useless because without the patent on graphene itself these companies won't be able to manufacture the stuff.
It's patents 101. Getting a patent on something gives you the right to prevent others from using the claimed matter in the patent. It doesn't give you the right to practice what you have patented because your invention might depend on a technology that someone else has a patent on.
If somebody had given me that line quoted in the story I would have laughed. There are plenty of ways to monetize such a patent that would make it far cheaper for the company wishing to develop graphene based applications than going through all sorts of legal fights, and there are plenty of patent businesses that would cherfully take on such a fight.
My son did. Competed in the National JCL Certamen and did quite well too.
Not all newer paper is so constructed. Quality modern archival paper is likely to be good for a millennium or more.
Well I have a quite toasty laptop that has a desktop CPU (i7 960) three hard drives and 6 GB of RAM so it's interesting info to me. However I don't put it on my lap because to do so would block the three cooling fans. I use a laptop cooler between my lap and the machine.
Maybe people should start using these to protect their family jewels?
That has NOT been my experience at all. When I went from XP to Win 7 64 on my 4 GB laptop I found I was able to run more software because of the added 0.7 GB of memory that became useful. On my 6 GB and 12 GB machines XP is completely out of the running. What you describe would only apply to 3GB or less machines.
The real advantage for me is that Win 7 does 64 bit much better than XP. I'm running it on 3 of the 4 machines I use now. They are:
Desktop - 8 GB used primarily for Java server development. Runs Ubuntu.
Laptop 1 - 4 GB machine that originally ran XP Pro, now runs Win 7 Pro 64. It works much better as such with full use of the 4 GB. Used sometimes for Java development when I'm not in the office.
Server - 6 core 980x with 12 GB RAM. Primarily runs Centos 5 however also can be booted into Win 7 Ultimate 64 if needs to run something on Windows. That doesn't happen very often though.
Laptop 2 - this is sort of a desktop in laptop clothing, runs a 4 core 960 with 6 GB of RAM. Used for almost everything - gaming, development, etc. Runs Win 7 Pro 64.
My feeling about it is that if you have 4 GB or more the upgrade to Win 7 is worth it. Otherwise Win XP is fine.
Your (lack of) knowledge of biology is stunning.
I mean this is so bad it can't be made up.