Alright, that's it, I'm moving to Mars ASAP. Now if only the Mars Society had the $3000000000-$10000000000 it would take to fund four or so missions. At least Mars is 30000000 to 240000000 miles from Totalitaria^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Herran, so we could have some vestiges of freedom, although the 5-20 minute delay on internet access would be a bitch, especially if antisniffer boxen were put in.
I would say the Moon, but that's too easily controlled. Mars has many more elements in easily manipulatable and accessible forms that would be necessary for self-sufficiency of a permanent settlement.
Last I checked, electrons are physical objects, although nanoscopic, so data encoded as strings of electron transmissions would therefore theoretically be physical objects by extrapolation.
If this is actually inaccurate, please don't make the flames too hot!
Warning: this is to be taken as tongue-in-cheek humor, not as flamebait (that little bit is added b/c I prefer not to post as an anonymous coward, and do not want my inbox to resemble a target for gelatinous gasoline in the morning)
The only people this website could fool are the same sloths who believe everything else TV and the internet has told them. These are the same people buying stock because they heard a tip on IRC, then sueing for fraud, the same people who acquitted OJ, and the same people that made oprah a millionaire...
Yes, the sheep are being led by greedy wolves in shepherds' clothing. We may also want to remember a quote from Abraham Lincoln that was to the effect of "A man who reads nothing is better educated than a man who reads only newspapers", or something like that. I personally think you're giving the average sheep too much credit with saying that they bought stock on a tip they heard on IRC because: 1) that would imply that they were smart enough to set up an etrade account, and 2) they were able to figure out how to use IRC. I fail to see how they could sue for fraud, because last I checked, screen names are not legal proof of identification, making it impossible to sue the person who gave them the tip. I won't even touch on the OJ case for fear of napalm. Oprah, I think, has made much more than one million dollars, as have several other talk show hosts. Then there's the whole issue of the most intellectually dulling shows in the history of the television: Big Brother (would anyone really want to live in an antiutopian, Orwellian environment completely cut off from the rest of the world?), Survivor (Oh, hey, we fished last week, but somehow forgot how to, so lets eat these rats over here, plus if this was a real survival show we'd just raid the camera crews' supplies relentlessly), Who Wants to be a Millionaire (oh, gee, now the gecko on the windowscreen ten feet away has the intelligence to have a 7-digit payout), and Greed (let's take 6 people, put them on a team, build teamwork, then pit them against each other in sudden-death challenges, and give the winner some outrageously huge payout that they don't really deserve).
Its because of pathetic crap like this that the American public demands that I would love to be one of the first people to colonize Mars. Hell, I'd even take the Moon, Venus, or the Asteroid Belt, as long as the "colonies" become self-governing. Then we'd finally be able to get rid of the fascist laws and acts that restrict our constitutional rights.
I might as well turn this into a full-fledged rant and toss the warning at the top to Grethnor. Last I checked, songs and song lyrics are speech, and source code was either speech or press, or both (First Amendment), scanning/probing of computers and electronic transmissions without explicit permission, à la Carnivore, is a direct violation of the right to freedom from unwarranted search (Fourth Amendment). As far as I can tell, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is in explicit or near-explicit violation of most of those rights, as well as in violation of that home recording act of 1992.
This concludes my rant.
--Given the way things have been going personally lately, I'm due for a landslide of karma points.
Venus seems to me to be rather likely to posess hyperthermophilic life. Granted, this idea has little scientific basis, but its theoretically possible. Now, does anyone know what the boiling point of water under 800psi is?
I forgot how illogical language can be at times. I went with what I interpreted the "mass gap" to mean. Maybe I should wait until after IB physics to post anything more like that on/.
If my comment was on a mass deficit, then what's a mass gap?
I said hadron, not hard-on. Hadrons are a class of particles which are composed of quarks and gluons. Protons and neutrons are the two best-known hadrons. If you do not believe me, try looking hadron up in a dictionary or encyclopedia.
It also appears that you are the one who needs to get his mind out of the gutter and return to school, not I, as I was referring to a class of particles, not a biological action.
If I remember correctly, ion engines have exhaust velocities that vary inversely with thrust. That is why this particular ion engine is able to have such a long running time; it sends out ions one at a time at approximately 60000 miles per hour. In order to make the thrust equal to 1/100 of a G, the velocity would be greatly reduced; a variable-velocity engine would likely be well-suited to interplanetary travel.
However, not even this would be adequate for interstellar travel. Provided the speed of light is not exceeded, either by distorting the space-time continuum or by traveling through time (okay, so those are basically one in the same), matter-antimatter reaction rockets are the only theoretically practical form of propulsion. despite the allure of exhaust velocities near the speed of light and large amounts of thrust, that would have problems with creating and storing large amounts of antimatter. A slower but much more viable solution that is still quite fast is nuclear fusion rockets. These fuse heavy isotopes of hydrogen and/or helium-3 to create enormous amounts of thrust with very fast exhaust velocities. It is also possible to fuse ordinary protium, but this is much more difficult than with deuterium, tritium, and helium-3. If protium fusion is efficiently possible, it would enable an almost endless supply of fuel, because hydrogen gas is found in densities of approximately one atom per 10 ccs in space. A magnetic scoop could funnel these into the fusion rocket, thereby enabling very long burn times and vehicle velocities of significant percentages of the speed of light.
Theoretical possibilities for infinite or near-infinite velocities are many many decades into the future, if possible at all. These include manipulating zero-point energy and neutrino jets. The feasability of these according to the laws of physics are largely unknown. While theoretically possible, it will likely take at least another: Bohr, Einstein, Fermi, and Oppenheimer to even begin to test those ideas.
All this came from the mind of a high school junior!
Your signature would imply a Ferengi disguised as a Klingon. If you are indeed a Ferengi dog, you dishonor your house, not to mention all of this thread, this message board, and/.
I shall be practicing with my bat'leth while I await your response.
Actually, the answer is a resounding "YES" because Can implies that, in this case, one is theoretically capable of qantitatively understand[ing] quark and gluon confinement in quantum chromodynamics and the existence of a mass gap. We can also be any scalable number of people, and could even be taken to mean "me, myself, and I" (3 versions of the same personality(objective, reflexive, and subjective, respectively)).
Anyways, all that it would take to quantitatively understand quark and gluon confinement in quantum chromodynamics and the existence of a mass gap is quantitative data on the mass and numbers of quarks and gluons. Confinement in quantum chromodynamics basically means the changes in space taken up by quarks and gluons in hadrons over time. A mass gap would be:
((the masses of all the quarks in a given hadron)+(the masses of all gluons in said hadron))-(the mass of said hadron)
The mass difference would come from the fact that some of the mass (most likely a few gluons) would be converted to energy, per Einstein's E=mc^2 equation, where in this case:
E=binding energy of the hadron
m=mass difference from above
c=speed of light (mathematical constant, just put it in for those who don't remember their physics constants)
Mass gaps are nothing new in physics. They are found in every atom, as some mass from proton(s), neutron(s) (when present), and electron(s) is converted to energy along the same method as the one used above.
If I can figure this much out on my own (i'm a rising junior in high school with no prior formal physics education), then certainly someone else here should be able to. The fact that I've been learning particle physics on my own (I'm much indebted to Scientific American and Discover) since at least 6th grade might have something to do with my knowledge on this subject....
Actually, calculator games are quite good. They are also free, so the total investment is 130-150 for a TI-89 and 17-24 for a Graphlink, unless you build your own for 4, for a total of 134-174. You can get a game boy and 5 games for that price, but that's it. With calculators, all games are free, so, economically, calculator games are better. Also, calculators, at least the TI-89, TI-92, and TI-92+, have much more powerful CPUs. Depending on the hardware version, its either a 10.5 MHz Motorola 68000 or a 12MHz Motorola 68000. If I remember correctly, the Game Boy series uses a Zilog Z80 or a derivative of that architecture, which is much less powerful, although I have seen some wonderful things done on TI's Z80 calcs (TI-73, TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, TI-83+, TI-85, TI-86).
The main problem with calculator games, particularly on TI calculators, is the lack of corporate support. TI has provided assembly execution capabilities, but has not released a development kit or much else. All that they have released is a list of ROM calls. From what I've heard, HP provides full support for assembly coders, which makes games on those calcs run much better than on TI calcs, despite the HPs' inferior hardware.
I agree with Congress, the White House, and Microsoft, but those are the main blunderers. The CIA, FBI, and particularly the NSA, and for those of you who remember the cold war, the KGB and GRU, are to be feared, particularly by crackers, phreaks, lusers, and other shower scum of the hacking world. Most of us have nothing to be concerned of.
On a tangentally related note, anyone considered other obfuscated contests, such as an obfuscated TI-BASIC contest, for those of us still in high school or college?
Napster users will first turn to utilities like Gnutella and Scour Exchange to get files (I would have listed more, but don't want to tip off the RIAA or MPAA to ones they don't know about yet). Then when they have queued up a few days' worth of downloads, they will go out and riot, rape, loot, pillage, burn, the usual stuff for pissed off geeks in Napster withdrawal (or was that Vikings/Medieval soldiers in villages?). One thing to do before August 18th is sign the RIAA petition. Don't forget to take time off for those important activities listed above on the weekend of the 19th and 20th!
Slashdot Mirror
lim (2^-x seconds)
x->[infinity]
Alright, that's it, I'm moving to Mars ASAP. Now if only the Mars Society had the $3000000000-$10000000000 it would take to fund four or so missions. At least Mars is 30000000 to 240000000 miles from Totalitaria^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Herran, so we could have some vestiges of freedom, although the 5-20 minute delay on internet access would be a bitch, especially if antisniffer boxen were put in.
I would say the Moon, but that's too easily controlled. Mars has many more elements in easily manipulatable and accessible forms that would be necessary for self-sufficiency of a permanent settlement.
Any other future Martians here?
Last I checked, electrons are physical objects, although nanoscopic, so data encoded as strings of electron transmissions would therefore theoretically be physical objects by extrapolation.
If this is actually inaccurate, please don't make the flames too hot!
Just drop food in random places on a mousepad that has a wireless, waterproof mouse between the slime mold and the food:)
Warning: this is to be taken as tongue-in-cheek humor, not as flamebait (that little bit is added b/c I prefer not to post as an anonymous coward, and do not want my inbox to resemble a target for gelatinous gasoline in the morning)
The only people this website could fool are the same sloths who believe everything else TV and the internet has told them. These are the same people buying stock because they heard a tip on IRC, then sueing for fraud, the same people who acquitted OJ, and the same people that made oprah a millionaire...
Yes, the sheep are being led by greedy wolves in shepherds' clothing. We may also want to remember a quote from Abraham Lincoln that was to the effect of "A man who reads nothing is better educated than a man who reads only newspapers", or something like that. I personally think you're giving the average sheep too much credit with saying that they bought stock on a tip they heard on IRC because: 1) that would imply that they were smart enough to set up an etrade account, and 2) they were able to figure out how to use IRC. I fail to see how they could sue for fraud, because last I checked, screen names are not legal proof of identification, making it impossible to sue the person who gave them the tip. I won't even touch on the OJ case for fear of napalm. Oprah, I think, has made much more than one million dollars, as have several other talk show hosts. Then there's the whole issue of the most intellectually dulling shows in the history of the television: Big Brother (would anyone really want to live in an antiutopian, Orwellian environment completely cut off from the rest of the world?), Survivor (Oh, hey, we fished last week, but somehow forgot how to, so lets eat these rats over here, plus if this was a real survival show we'd just raid the camera crews' supplies relentlessly), Who Wants to be a Millionaire (oh, gee, now the gecko on the windowscreen ten feet away has the intelligence to have a 7-digit payout), and Greed (let's take 6 people, put them on a team, build teamwork, then pit them against each other in sudden-death challenges, and give the winner some outrageously huge payout that they don't really deserve).
Its because of pathetic crap like this that the American public demands that I would love to be one of the first people to colonize Mars. Hell, I'd even take the Moon, Venus, or the Asteroid Belt, as long as the "colonies" become self-governing. Then we'd finally be able to get rid of the fascist laws and acts that restrict our constitutional rights.
I might as well turn this into a full-fledged rant and toss the warning at the top to Grethnor. Last I checked, songs and song lyrics are speech, and source code was either speech or press, or both (First Amendment), scanning/probing of computers and electronic transmissions without explicit permission, à la Carnivore, is a direct violation of the right to freedom from unwarranted search (Fourth Amendment). As far as I can tell, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is in explicit or near-explicit violation of most of those rights, as well as in violation of that home recording act of 1992.
This concludes my rant.
--Given the way things have been going personally lately, I'm due for a landslide of karma points.
Venus seems to me to be rather likely to posess hyperthermophilic life. Granted, this idea has little scientific basis, but its theoretically possible. Now, does anyone know what the boiling point of water under 800psi is?
That is precisely what AOL is doing now, probably with that very domain name.
I forgot how illogical language can be at times. I went with what I interpreted the "mass gap" to mean. Maybe I should wait until after IB physics to post anything more like that on /.
If my comment was on a mass deficit, then what's a mass gap?
I said hadron, not hard-on. Hadrons are a class of particles which are composed of quarks and gluons. Protons and neutrons are the two best-known hadrons. If you do not believe me, try looking hadron up in a dictionary or encyclopedia.
It also appears that you are the one who needs to get his mind out of the gutter and return to school, not I, as I was referring to a class of particles, not a biological action.
If I remember correctly, ion engines have exhaust velocities that vary inversely with thrust. That is why this particular ion engine is able to have such a long running time; it sends out ions one at a time at approximately 60000 miles per hour. In order to make the thrust equal to 1/100 of a G, the velocity would be greatly reduced; a variable-velocity engine would likely be well-suited to interplanetary travel.
However, not even this would be adequate for interstellar travel. Provided the speed of light is not exceeded, either by distorting the space-time continuum or by traveling through time (okay, so those are basically one in the same), matter-antimatter reaction rockets are the only theoretically practical form of propulsion. despite the allure of exhaust velocities near the speed of light and large amounts of thrust, that would have problems with creating and storing large amounts of antimatter. A slower but much more viable solution that is still quite fast is nuclear fusion rockets. These fuse heavy isotopes of hydrogen and/or helium-3 to create enormous amounts of thrust with very fast exhaust velocities. It is also possible to fuse ordinary protium, but this is much more difficult than with deuterium, tritium, and helium-3. If protium fusion is efficiently possible, it would enable an almost endless supply of fuel, because hydrogen gas is found in densities of approximately one atom per 10 ccs in space. A magnetic scoop could funnel these into the fusion rocket, thereby enabling very long burn times and vehicle velocities of significant percentages of the speed of light.
Theoretical possibilities for infinite or near-infinite velocities are many many decades into the future, if possible at all. These include manipulating zero-point energy and neutrino jets. The feasability of these according to the laws of physics are largely unknown. While theoretically possible, it will likely take at least another: Bohr, Einstein, Fermi, and Oppenheimer to even begin to test those ideas.
All this came from the mind of a high school junior!
Your signature would imply a Ferengi disguised as a Klingon. If you are indeed a Ferengi dog, you dishonor your house, not to mention all of this thread, this message board, and /.
I shall be practicing with my bat'leth while I await your response.
Actually, the answer is a resounding "YES" because Can implies that, in this case, one is theoretically capable of qantitatively understand[ing] quark and gluon confinement in quantum chromodynamics and the existence of a mass gap. We can also be any scalable number of people, and could even be taken to mean "me, myself, and I" (3 versions of the same personality(objective, reflexive, and subjective, respectively)).
Anyways, all that it would take to quantitatively understand quark and gluon confinement in quantum chromodynamics and the existence of a mass gap is quantitative data on the mass and numbers of quarks and gluons. Confinement in quantum chromodynamics basically means the changes in space taken up by quarks and gluons in hadrons over time. A mass gap would be:
((the masses of all the quarks in a given hadron)+(the masses of all gluons in said hadron))-(the mass of said hadron)
The mass difference would come from the fact that some of the mass (most likely a few gluons) would be converted to energy, per Einstein's E=mc^2 equation, where in this case:
Mass gaps are nothing new in physics. They are found in every atom, as some mass from proton(s), neutron(s) (when present), and electron(s) is converted to energy along the same method as the one used above.
If I can figure this much out on my own (i'm a rising junior in high school with no prior formal physics education), then certainly someone else here should be able to. The fact that I've been learning particle physics on my own (I'm much indebted to Scientific American and Discover) since at least 6th grade might have something to do with my knowledge on this subject....
That is all.
Actually, calculator games are quite good. They are also free, so the total investment is 130-150 for a TI-89 and 17-24 for a Graphlink, unless you build your own for 4, for a total of 134-174. You can get a game boy and 5 games for that price, but that's it. With calculators, all games are free, so, economically, calculator games are better. Also, calculators, at least the TI-89, TI-92, and TI-92+, have much more powerful CPUs. Depending on the hardware version, its either a 10.5 MHz Motorola 68000 or a 12MHz Motorola 68000. If I remember correctly, the Game Boy series uses a Zilog Z80 or a derivative of that architecture, which is much less powerful, although I have seen some wonderful things done on TI's Z80 calcs (TI-73, TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, TI-83+, TI-85, TI-86).
The main problem with calculator games, particularly on TI calculators, is the lack of corporate support. TI has provided assembly execution capabilities, but has not released a development kit or much else. All that they have released is a list of ROM calls. From what I've heard, HP provides full support for assembly coders, which makes games on those calcs run much better than on TI calcs, despite the HPs' inferior hardware.
I agree with Congress, the White House, and Microsoft, but those are the main blunderers. The CIA, FBI, and particularly the NSA, and for those of you who remember the cold war, the KGB and GRU, are to be feared, particularly by crackers, phreaks, lusers, and other shower scum of the hacking world. Most of us have nothing to be concerned of.
On a tangentally related note, anyone considered other obfuscated contests, such as an obfuscated TI-BASIC contest, for those of us still in high school or college?
Napster users will first turn to utilities like Gnutella and Scour Exchange to get files (I would have listed more, but don't want to tip off the RIAA or MPAA to ones they don't know about yet). Then when they have queued up a few days' worth of downloads, they will go out and riot, rape, loot, pillage, burn, the usual stuff for pissed off geeks in Napster withdrawal (or was that Vikings/Medieval soldiers in villages?). One thing to do before August 18th is sign the RIAA petition. Don't forget to take time off for those important activities listed above on the weekend of the 19th and 20th!