Actually, if the Universe is dense enough to form a gravastar, then it's dense enough to form a black hole as well. In fact we might all be living in a black hole -- there would be no way to tell that we are in an event horizon.
Remember that if there is enough matter/energy in the universe to make it collapse, then nothing in the universe can escape it's "edge" -- one of the definitions for a black hole.
Along the lines of other posts, it seems that the only storage technology that scales with the speed of growth of hard drives seems to be other hard drives. Your best bet is probably to get an external hard drive enclosure, and swap out the hard drives like you would a tape drive....only the hard drives are faster and cheaper.
You can get one such from Addonics.
They have USB1.1, USB2.0, Firewire, PCMCIA, and CardBus interfaces. Plus the thing supports Linux and Solaris (although not yet in Firewire, but check with the Linux Firewire people about that...I think they are supported now).
Re:Reasons why paper replacements are still far aw
on
Electronic Paper
·
· Score: 1
Electronic books and paper have been "just around the corner" for ages. How many times have we heard about this new break through which will make paper useless?
Ahh, but we *will* get there eventually, and probably soon (soon == 5 to 10 years)
First off, paper is easily portable and fairly robust. Moreover, most people prefer to read from paper rather than from screen. This is due to the fact that conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes.
Go look at the tech from E-Ink. Their tech have the same contrast as normal paper (since they use pigments (ie, ink) embedded in sheets.
Also, paper is easy to use, and you can just write on printed paper and make marks in all the colours you have available to you. Easy stuff!
I'm sure it's easy to create an overlay -- one that you plug in to your e-paper and put on top of it. A touch screen that you can use to "write" on the e-paper. Later on they might make special pens that can change the state of the e-paper -- creating marks or erasing them.
Cost is also an issue, e-paper is still way too expensive. Normal paper is cheap and cheerful.
True, but if you can reuse it, to total cost of ownership might be less. Think about why people own cars instead of calling a cab every time -- the cost of each cab ride is MUCH MUCH less than a car + storage of the car + gas + insurance + repairs, yet people buy a lot of cars anyways. If I pay a fixed amount for the special equipment to write/erase these things (a fixed cost, amortized over time), and suppose I pay $10 per sheet (I'm sure it'll get less than this with mass production), then I'd much rather use one of these than a $0.01 sheet of paper. Even if the final cost per sheet is more, the less impact on the environment (creating the paper, stores having to ship truckloads of it around, disposing of trash) is more than worth it.
While the reusability of e-paper is great, it's unclear for publishers how to create a good business model from it. People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books (ever seen anybody read a book on photocopied sheets of paper?) Thus, a good business model needs to deal with people copying things.
True. This problem is already happening w/ CDs and soon movies. It will probably be "solved" one way or the other (new business model or draconian laws) by the time the book publishers have to really worry about it.
And people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands. Books, magazines, newspapers, printed paper just feels more real.
E-Ink's paper supposedly feels just like paper (or very close), so people will get used to it. You can fold it, bend it, roll it into a loop, make paper airplanes (although another poster does not think it makes a very good airplane:) ).
And finally, some documents need to be physical to have legal status.
There is already a federal standard for electronic signatures. I'm sure that in the future, we'll be able to "sign" documents using biometric technology (a unique signature given our voice or fingerprint or blood sample, etc).
These are all reasons why, even when technology wise e-paper is mature, society will not be leaping to accept it.
I'm sure one day people of the Earth will be saying, "You know the ancients use to write on sheets of flattened, strained, chemically processed wood pulp? How did their civilization ever survive under all that waste is beyond me.".
Also, in reply to those who says that their e-paper has to be low power....E-Ink's tech does not require power to display the content (it is just pigments suspended in solution)! It only needs power when changing the contents of the paper (which is supplied by the interface).
Why this is better than a bike
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
1) You can use it on a sidewalk (bikes in most states must share the roads with cars -- a scary prospect).
2) It has a much smaller footprint....so you can store more of them, or put one in your truck.
3) You can collide with others (pedistrians or others on IT), without causing damage (unlike a car or a biycle)
4) You can stop faster than a bike
5) You can't fall off of it (or at least it's much harder to fall off)
6) It takes less coordination than a bike
7) It takes less skill to ride than a bike
8) It has much better manuverability
Don't let them be root.
If they want to install software, they
have to install it to
/home/username/bin/home/username/lib etc....
or request that you install it for everyone. Everyone's computers should be mirror images of each other. There are tools (I'm not sure of the package names) that allow you to do this.
preferably have all the applications (/usr/opt/lib) local to the user, but their home directories (and perhaps/etc) on a central server. That way you can back it up regularly. Just treat it as a thick server / thick client situation.
You might want to look into the Cyrus distributed file system.
But Kai and company are not *selling* the 'patch'.
It's more of a fan based mod-pack. So there is not intellectual property problems (if those things are actually valid in the first place).
The main problem, as you and the story pointed out, is that Infogrames Germany will lose money, because they will try to sell the German version themselves, and receive no money from Germans buying the US version and applying Kai's patch.
[Disclaimer: I'm a Chinese born, naturalized US citizen.]
A new 'Cold War' might not be such a bad thing.
As long as it doesn't become a hot war, that is.
It helps people focus on real issues, instead of whether our current leader wears boxers or briefs.
China knows it *has* to find new resources. Right now it has 6 times the US population, crammed in 1/6 the usable living space (the rest are mountains and deserts). China will use up half of its water table soon (by 2010 the last I read). The population is still growing.....
Yes China is an aggressive nation. Yes they are dangerous. But they are *much* less hostile towards the US than the USSR ever was. Why? Because there is no Europe to fight over. So the only two possible points of contention are South Korea and Taiwan.
Just as a side note, in both China *and* Taiwan, the schools doesn't exactly teach that the other is a separate nation....you kinda have to figure that out for yourselves....;)
China is westernizing right now at a sickening pace (if you ever watch Chinese Central Television, and compare it to what it was 10 years ago, you'd swear there are two different countries). China right now is purely capitalist country (economically, a totalarian government politically). As such it is uneconomical to ever fight a war that isn't over quickly (or one that will earn you disapproval with your economic partners, such as the US, Europe, Russia, etc).
So while China may disapprove of the "western world" politically, it will never damage the absolutely wonderful markets abroad.
Of course this is assuming party hard-liners don't come to power (they were probably the ones who delayed the return of the US spy plane pilots).
But they are a dying breed anyways.
As an optimist, I believe that once we start colonizing another planet (moon, Mars, others), many of our current social and political differences will seem minor, and so will disappear (it's much easier to resolve small differences, such as race, religion, sexual orientation -- yes they really *are* small differences!)
So I'm all for exploration of space, whether by US, Europe, Russia, China, or anyone and everyone else.
The funny thing about progress is that once you have it, it's really hard to change back. As China will only become less close minded (the real danger) as they progress.
Well, I think thats enough for today Timmy, a pop quiz for tomorrow!
Over the past several years I've had several things delivered via UPS.
I no longer use them.....
Why? Let's count the ways...
1) every computer case (I've built around 30+ systems from scratch) sent through them was not neccessarily damaged itself, but at least the outer box had a *hole* in it. EVERY TIME. One place I used to order cases from actually put the box with the computer in *inside another (well packaged) box*! So now the outer box gets trashed and the inner one is fine (for the most part).
2) Once I watched a UPS delivery person deliver a box of computer memory to my door. He dropped it *twice* on the way from the UPS truck to my door!!!! The box was the size of a small clock radio -- and maybe weighs 1/2 a pound. Twice in about 30 feet...he didn't look drunk, but....
3) I was watching another UPS delivery person (3 years later, in a different state) deliver a package to a neighbor -- a 3ft x 3ft x 4ft box. Marked fragile -- was a bunch of plates---very well packaged. He looked very professional -- took the box to the door and, get this, *dropped it* from a height of maybe 3 ft. He could have easily set it down, but no....had to drop it. Then of course he kicked the box "into place" outside the door, ran the doorbell, and left.
I could go on, but there are better things I can do with my time, so.....
Moral of the story? Don't send anything via UPS unless (a) it's not expensive, (b) it's replacable, (c) it's very very well packaged against dropping, kicking, slashings with a knife, etc.
And don't sent a computer unless you have a backup of *all* your data, since your HD probably won't make the trip....
Of course, teasers such as "New Data Collected by Astrophysicists Confirm Current Theory -- Story at 11" just doesn't cut it.
There are experiments every day that confirm and/or expand our understanding of the universe. However, the only "newsworthy" items are the ones that are either really new and interesting; or conflict current theories to a large degree. For the other "discoveries", you have to read scientific journals, and not the Honolulu Star.:)
I've read a lot of posts on how this will be difficult to implement using voltages and circuits....and you know what? It *IS* difficult to sense 3 different voltage.
The solution? Don't use electric circuits...don't use transistors.
Electric circuits will only get us so far, and then we'll have to move on to more 'exotic' hardware -- optical computing, molecular computing, quantum computing.......
Suppose a qubit's state is describe by the spin polarization of an electron pair -- they can either be both up, both down, or one of each -- you can't tell which one, so it's actually 3 states (balanced at that)......
In optical computing, suppose you can push the frequency of the lasers a little in either direction of 'neutral'...this is also base 3.
So what I'm trying to say is, don't just say "base-3 computing is not practical with current technology" -- because it isn't, but it WILL be practical (perhaps even more so than binary computing) with future technology.
And to finish with something lighter...
troolean x, y, z;
x = true;
y = false;
z = existentialism;
This is not (meant to be) a troll, so please bear with me.
English is just such a hard language to pronounce consistently. It's not the consonants -- it's the fact that we have to pronounce consonants that are not followed by vowels.
Think about that for a while. Then say the word 'eighths'. Notice the 'g-h-t-h-s', in which the g and the h are not pronounced, but the t, h, and s are -- as two syllables in fact!
Even words like 'what', contain that ending consonant that is pronounced, but is very hard to pick up.
Some people claim that English is a phonetic language, but only barely if it is at all.
I use Dragon Dictate/Naturally Speaking, and I get around a 95% recognition rate. You have no idea how surprising that is!!!
That actually is only slightly less than what people can do. Of course we don't need to actually hear every word correctly.
So what we all need to do is to speak a decent language, maybe Esperanto:) where each word is pronounce consistently from the written word, and each word is distinct and each syllable contains a vowel.
Of course my vote is for Mandarin Chinese -- each word is exactly one syllable long; there is no pause at the end of words, only sentences; each syllable is either a vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel; words are distiguished by intonations (which is easily picked up by any speech recognition software); and there is no conjugation! (that means there is no be/is/am/are/been/being, no infinitives (to go) to split, no silly grammar like 'Where do you live?' where the sentence goes object-subject-verb, etc...)
Of course the written language has to go...50,000 distinct characters *grumble grumble*.
Hilary: Ok everyone, how do we stop these thieves? Well, geek boy?
Geek Boy: Well, there really isn't a technically feasible way...
[Hilary glares, Geek Boy shudders..]
Geek Boy: And......do you have to put your hair in points like that?
Hilary: Alright, that's the last time!
[Hilary pushes button; the floor opens and Geek Boy falls into a burning pit.]
Hilary: Well, that's the last of them....I guess we have the make Congress let us import more of them, eh? [grins evil grin]
Hilary: Any other suggestion? Johnson?
Johnson: Uhh.....well.....I've always learned that a good offense is a good defense! We can attack their computers!
Hilary: Yeah! That's a great idea! [frowns; looks at the smoking spot where Geek Boy was sitting.....] Umm...who do we have that can do that?
Johnson: Well...I have a couple of 13 year old boys......
This is quite cool.
Satyendranath Bose was a Indian Physicist.
Bosons (named after him) are particles that can be in the same quantum state.
The consequence of that is they can be in the same location.
While Fermions (such as electrons) cannot be in the same location (unless they are in Cooper pairs, which is how superconductors work, but I digress).
This is why electrons must exist in ever increasing shells around an atom -- they can never be in the same "location".
Einstein's contribution (at least I think this was his contribution), is to propose the following:
As well all know:) as a particle slows down, its wave function widens.
To explain: If a particle is at location 'x', think of a Gaussian function centered at 'x', where the height of the function determines the probability that the particle is at that location.
A particle that is very well localized is traveling very fast, and vise versa.
And as the particle slows, the particle is less well localized, and it's wave function (that Gaussian) widens.
As Bosons (of the same type, say Rubidium atoms) cool, they slow down.
As they slow down, their wave functions expand.
At some point, their wave functions will overlap.
Now here is the cool bit. The atoms are in different quantum states and different internal energy levels to start with, but as soon as their wave functions overlap enough, they ALL immediately drop down to their ground state (which is the same for all of them), and you can no longer distinguish which atom is which!
The analogy would be to imagine an orchestra.
They are all tuning their instruments, but because they are all moving very fast, they cannot hear each other, and all the instruments are (or can be) in a slightly different tune.
When they all slow down (in the same room), they can hear each other, and suddenly they all become in tune with each other.
Not a very good analogy, I know.:) But it does get the point across.....
Oh! I almost forgot. To cool the sample down to 20 nanoKelvin(?), this is what they do:
They use Liquid whatever to cool it down by regular thermal processes.
They trap the sample magnetically to confine it. This of course raises the temperature.
Then they let the most active gas (the fastest moving therefore the hottest) out.
Make the confined area smaller
Repeat the previous two steps until very cool (down to the milliKelvin range I believe.
Then they shoot *lasers* at it! I'm not kidding. The lasers (arranged at the right frequency and polarization) actually cools the suckers the rest of the way
Of course once the condensate forms you can't measure it, b/c as soon as you try the damn thing evaporates!
So you have to observe it using other means....
My father currently uses AOL on WinME. All he wants is email, web access, word processing, printing, and viewing MPEGS (VCDs from China). He uses Unix (Tru64) at work, and is much more comfortable with that than with Windows. However, he gets AOL for free (go figure), so he sticks with windows. He actually wants me to replace his Windows desktop with Linux (b/c it crashes so damn much -- time to reinstall I guess), but can't b/c of AOL. This might help, except you never know when AOL will change their protocol. This is probably not the only case of someone who is stuck in Windows b/c of AOL, but I doubt they are a significant portion of the population.
"Well," said the wolf " then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down and ate the little pig.
No no no. Exchange (5.5/2000/XP) comes with a builtin Web Access. So that you can use any features that Exchange has, even if your regular Outlook Client hasn't caught up yet!
The Super-Conducting Super Collider that was supposed to be built in Texas was, get this, already paid for! when it was canceled. The cost to clean it up would have paid running the facility for 5 years. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
If the Large Hadron Collider, or this new collider, produces black holes (which is easily identifiable from other possibilities), then it will support several theories requiring more than four dimensions. Which is way cool! This is also quite safe, since cosmic rays energetic enough to produce black holes (of the possible 10 dimensional kind) have been observed hitting out atmosphere, and such small temporary black holes would evaporate before they can do anything.
The benefits? Well considering that if we decide to build it now, it won't be ready to collect real data until about 2010 and that the data won't be able to be really analyzed for at least another 5 years means: it will not benefit the current administration at all, regardless of whether or not Bush Jr. gets re-elected.
The real benefits? The thing is, we won't see any real benefits (except for odd offshoots like the WWW) for probably 20 years. Too long for most impatient Americans (myself included). However, that is where a lot of the really "cool" stuff comes from - semiconductors, which makes/. possible, came from experiments in refining "practical" quantum theory. The real (applied) benefits cannot be easily seen, since this will go beyong the limits of our current understanding. However, if you ever want to explore such concepts as anti-gravity, warping space for faster than light travel (required if we are to explore the stars), then this is the only ticket in town.
You can use Outlook Web Access, which comes
with MS Exchange. It's like Outlook, only
it is web based. So in the company that I
used to work for, I could access all the
features (email, directory server, calendar,
scheduling, etc...) from Mozilla under Linux.
Do a google search, or use this sort of useful
link.
There are several advantages for the space station. 1) a launching/refueling point for deep solar missions. 2) I think there will be a vehicle like a space shuttle permanently attached to it, so they can affect repairs on failing satellites in a resonable amount of time. 3) This is a very good way to get several countries to work together; especially the scientific communities of those countries. 4) It is a place to test the "space worthiness" of several products, from solar panels, paints, foods and especially construction methods & tools (a power screw driver will turn the user, and not the screw).
If we ever want to go into space, to attain space travel, we have to START SOMEWHERE. It it such a difficult problem (or series of problems) that it won't be miracously solved one day.
We might figure out warp drives, but to get stuff from the surface into space, and what to make the ship out of, what they need, etc. We won't know until we try it now.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you know there are "Java" rings -- rings that have tiny microprocessors on them that runs a JVM ;)
Actually, if the Universe is dense enough to form a gravastar, then it's dense enough to form a black hole as well. In fact we might all be living in a black hole -- there would be no way to tell that we are in an event horizon.
Remember that if there is enough matter/energy in the universe to make it collapse, then nothing in the universe can escape it's "edge" -- one of the definitions for a black hole.
Along the lines of other posts, it seems that the only storage technology that scales with the speed of growth of hard drives seems to be other hard drives. Your best bet is probably to get an external hard drive enclosure, and swap out the hard drives like you would a tape drive....only the hard drives are faster and cheaper.
You can get one such from Addonics.
They have USB1.1, USB2.0, Firewire, PCMCIA, and CardBus interfaces. Plus the thing supports Linux and Solaris (although not yet in Firewire, but check with the Linux Firewire people about that...I think they are supported now).
Electronic books and paper have been "just around the corner" for ages. How many times have we heard about this new break through which will make paper useless?
:) ).
Ahh, but we *will* get there eventually, and probably soon (soon == 5 to 10 years)
First off, paper is easily portable and fairly robust. Moreover, most people prefer to read from paper rather than from screen. This is due to the fact that conventional screens are just tiring for the eyes.
Go look at the tech from E-Ink. Their tech have the same contrast as normal paper (since they use pigments (ie, ink) embedded in sheets.
Also, paper is easy to use, and you can just write on printed paper and make marks in all the colours you have available to you. Easy stuff!
I'm sure it's easy to create an overlay -- one that you plug in to your e-paper and put on top of it. A touch screen that you can use to "write" on the e-paper. Later on they might make special pens that can change the state of the e-paper -- creating marks or erasing them.
Cost is also an issue, e-paper is still way too expensive. Normal paper is cheap and cheerful.
True, but if you can reuse it, to total cost of ownership might be less. Think about why people own cars instead of calling a cab every time -- the cost of each cab ride is MUCH MUCH less than a car + storage of the car + gas + insurance + repairs, yet people buy a lot of cars anyways. If I pay a fixed amount for the special equipment to write/erase these things (a fixed cost, amortized over time), and suppose I pay $10 per sheet (I'm sure it'll get less than this with mass production), then I'd much rather use one of these than a $0.01 sheet of paper. Even if the final cost per sheet is more, the less impact on the environment (creating the paper, stores having to ship truckloads of it around, disposing of trash) is more than worth it.
While the reusability of e-paper is great, it's unclear for publishers how to create a good business model from it. People will be much more prone to copy e-books than normal books (ever seen anybody read a book on photocopied sheets of paper?) Thus, a good business model needs to deal with people copying things.
True. This problem is already happening w/ CDs and soon movies. It will probably be "solved" one way or the other (new business model or draconian laws) by the time the book publishers have to really worry about it.
And people just like to hold some physical publication in their hands. Books, magazines, newspapers, printed paper just feels more real.
E-Ink's paper supposedly feels just like paper (or very close), so people will get used to it. You can fold it, bend it, roll it into a loop, make paper airplanes (although another poster does not think it makes a very good airplane
And finally, some documents need to be physical to have legal status.
There is already a federal standard for electronic signatures. I'm sure that in the future, we'll be able to "sign" documents using biometric technology (a unique signature given our voice or fingerprint or blood sample, etc).
These are all reasons why, even when technology wise e-paper is mature, society will not be leaping to accept it.
I'm sure one day people of the Earth will be saying, "You know the ancients use to write on sheets of flattened, strained, chemically processed wood pulp? How did their civilization ever survive under all that waste is beyond me.".
Also, in reply to those who says that their e-paper has to be low power....E-Ink's tech does not require power to display the content (it is just pigments suspended in solution)! It only needs power when changing the contents of the paper (which is supplied by the interface).
1) You can use it on a sidewalk (bikes in most states must share the roads with cars -- a scary prospect).
2) It has a much smaller footprint....so you can store more of them, or put one in your truck.
3) You can collide with others (pedistrians or others on IT), without causing damage (unlike a car or a biycle)
4) You can stop faster than a bike
5) You can't fall off of it (or at least it's much harder to fall off)
6) It takes less coordination than a bike
7) It takes less skill to ride than a bike
8) It has much better manuverability
and I'm sure it has other benefits.
Ha! I didn't think you were serious until I did the nslookups myself. That is **waaaayyyy** too funny!
Don't let them be root. /home/username/lib etc....
/opt /lib) local to the user, but their home directories (and perhaps /etc) on a central server. That way you can back it up regularly. Just treat it as a thick server / thick client situation.
If they want to install software, they
have to install it to
/home/username/bin
or request that you install it for everyone. Everyone's computers should be mirror images of each other. There are tools (I'm not sure of the package names) that allow you to do this.
preferably have all the applications (/usr
You might want to look into the Cyrus distributed file system.
But Kai and company are not *selling* the 'patch'. It's more of a fan based mod-pack. So there is not intellectual property problems (if those things are actually valid in the first place). The main problem, as you and the story pointed out, is that Infogrames Germany will lose money, because they will try to sell the German version themselves, and receive no money from Germans buying the US version and applying Kai's patch.
[Disclaimer: I'm a Chinese born, naturalized US citizen.]
;)
A new 'Cold War' might not be such a bad thing.
As long as it doesn't become a hot war, that is.
It helps people focus on real issues, instead of whether our current leader wears boxers or briefs.
China knows it *has* to find new resources. Right now it has 6 times the US population, crammed in 1/6 the usable living space (the rest are mountains and deserts). China will use up half of its water table soon (by 2010 the last I read). The population is still growing.....
Yes China is an aggressive nation. Yes they are dangerous. But they are *much* less hostile towards the US than the USSR ever was. Why? Because there is no Europe to fight over. So the only two possible points of contention are South Korea and Taiwan.
Just as a side note, in both China *and* Taiwan, the schools doesn't exactly teach that the other is a separate nation....you kinda have to figure that out for yourselves....
China is westernizing right now at a sickening pace (if you ever watch Chinese Central Television, and compare it to what it was 10 years ago, you'd swear there are two different countries). China right now is purely capitalist country (economically, a totalarian government politically). As such it is uneconomical to ever fight a war that isn't over quickly (or one that will earn you disapproval with your economic partners, such as the US, Europe, Russia, etc).
So while China may disapprove of the "western world" politically, it will never damage the absolutely wonderful markets abroad.
Of course this is assuming party hard-liners don't come to power (they were probably the ones who delayed the return of the US spy plane pilots).
But they are a dying breed anyways.
As an optimist, I believe that once we start colonizing another planet (moon, Mars, others), many of our current social and political differences will seem minor, and so will disappear (it's much easier to resolve small differences, such as race, religion, sexual orientation -- yes they really *are* small differences!)
So I'm all for exploration of space, whether by US, Europe, Russia, China, or anyone and everyone else.
The funny thing about progress is that once you have it, it's really hard to change back. As China will only become less close minded (the real danger) as they progress.
Well, I think thats enough for today Timmy, a pop quiz for tomorrow!
Over the past several years I've had several things delivered via UPS.
I no longer use them.....
Why? Let's count the ways...
1) every computer case (I've built around 30+ systems from scratch) sent through them was not neccessarily damaged itself, but at least the outer box had a *hole* in it. EVERY TIME. One place I used to order cases from actually put the box with the computer in *inside another (well packaged) box*! So now the outer box gets trashed and the inner one is fine (for the most part).
2) Once I watched a UPS delivery person deliver a box of computer memory to my door. He dropped it *twice* on the way from the UPS truck to my door!!!! The box was the size of a small clock radio -- and maybe weighs 1/2 a pound. Twice in about 30 feet...he didn't look drunk, but....
3) I was watching another UPS delivery person (3 years later, in a different state) deliver a package to a neighbor -- a 3ft x 3ft x 4ft box. Marked fragile -- was a bunch of plates---very well packaged. He looked very professional -- took the box to the door and, get this, *dropped it* from a height of maybe 3 ft. He could have easily set it down, but no....had to drop it. Then of course he kicked the box "into place" outside the door, ran the doorbell, and left.
I could go on, but there are better things I can do with my time, so.....
Moral of the story? Don't send anything via UPS unless (a) it's not expensive, (b) it's replacable, (c) it's very very well packaged against dropping, kicking, slashings with a knife, etc.
And don't sent a computer unless you have a backup of *all* your data, since your HD probably won't make the trip....
Of course, teasers such as "New Data Collected by Astrophysicists Confirm Current Theory -- Story at 11" just doesn't cut it.
:)
There are experiments every day that confirm and/or expand our understanding of the universe. However, the only "newsworthy" items are the ones that are either really new and interesting; or conflict current theories to a large degree. For the other "discoveries", you have to read scientific journals, and not the Honolulu Star.
I've read a lot of posts on how this will be difficult to implement using voltages and circuits....and you know what? It *IS* difficult to sense 3 different voltage.
The solution? Don't use electric circuits...don't use transistors.
Electric circuits will only get us so far, and then we'll have to move on to more 'exotic' hardware -- optical computing, molecular computing, quantum computing.......
Suppose a qubit's state is describe by the spin polarization of an electron pair -- they can either be both up, both down, or one of each -- you can't tell which one, so it's actually 3 states (balanced at that)......
In optical computing, suppose you can push the frequency of the lasers a little in either direction of 'neutral'...this is also base 3.
So what I'm trying to say is, don't just say "base-3 computing is not practical with current technology" -- because it isn't, but it WILL be practical (perhaps even more so than binary computing) with future technology.
And to finish with something lighter...
troolean x, y, z;
x = true;
y = false;
z = existentialism;
:)
This is not (meant to be) a troll, so please bear with me.
:) where each word is pronounce consistently from the written word, and each word is distinct and each syllable contains a vowel.
English is just such a hard language to pronounce consistently. It's not the consonants -- it's the fact that we have to pronounce consonants that are not followed by vowels.
Think about that for a while. Then say the word 'eighths'. Notice the 'g-h-t-h-s', in which the g and the h are not pronounced, but the t, h, and s are -- as two syllables in fact!
Even words like 'what', contain that ending consonant that is pronounced, but is very hard to pick up.
Some people claim that English is a phonetic language, but only barely if it is at all.
I use Dragon Dictate/Naturally Speaking, and I get around a 95% recognition rate. You have no idea how surprising that is!!!
That actually is only slightly less than what people can do. Of course we don't need to actually hear every word correctly.
So what we all need to do is to speak a decent language, maybe Esperanto
Of course my vote is for Mandarin Chinese -- each word is exactly one syllable long; there is no pause at the end of words, only sentences; each syllable is either a vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel; words are distiguished by intonations (which is easily picked up by any speech recognition software); and there is no conjugation! (that means there is no be/is/am/are/been/being, no infinitives (to go) to split, no silly grammar like 'Where do you live?' where the sentence goes object-subject-verb, etc...)
Of course the written language has to go...50,000 distinct characters *grumble grumble*.
In a meeting of top RIAA execs.....
Hilary: Ok everyone, how do we stop these thieves? Well, geek boy?
Geek Boy: Well, there really isn't a technically feasible way...
[Hilary glares, Geek Boy shudders..]
Geek Boy: And......do you have to put your hair in points like that?
Hilary: Alright, that's the last time!
[Hilary pushes button; the floor opens and Geek Boy falls into a burning pit.]
Hilary: Well, that's the last of them....I guess we have the make Congress let us import more of them, eh? [grins evil grin]
Hilary: Any other suggestion? Johnson?
Johnson: Uhh.....well.....I've always learned that a good offense is a good defense! We can attack their computers!
Hilary: Yeah! That's a great idea! [frowns; looks at the smoking spot where Geek Boy was sitting.....] Umm...who do we have that can do that?
Johnson: Well...I have a couple of 13 year old boys......
*snicker*
Satyendranath Bose was a Indian Physicist.
Bosons (named after him) are particles that can be in the same quantum state.
The consequence of that is they can be in the same location.
While Fermions (such as electrons) cannot be in the same location (unless they are in Cooper pairs, which is how superconductors work, but I digress).
This is why electrons must exist in ever increasing shells around an atom -- they can never be in the same "location".
Einstein's contribution (at least I think this was his contribution), is to propose the following:
As well all know
To explain: If a particle is at location 'x', think of a Gaussian function centered at 'x', where the height of the function determines the probability that the particle is at that location.
A particle that is very well localized is traveling very fast, and vise versa.
And as the particle slows, the particle is less well localized, and it's wave function (that Gaussian) widens.
As Bosons (of the same type, say Rubidium atoms) cool, they slow down.
As they slow down, their wave functions expand.
At some point, their wave functions will overlap.
Now here is the cool bit. The atoms are in different quantum states and different internal energy levels to start with, but as soon as their wave functions overlap enough, they ALL immediately drop down to their ground state (which is the same for all of them), and you can no longer distinguish which atom is which!
The analogy would be to imagine an orchestra.
They are all tuning their instruments, but because they are all moving very fast, they cannot hear each other, and all the instruments are (or can be) in a slightly different tune.
When they all slow down (in the same room), they can hear each other, and suddenly they all become in tune with each other.
Not a very good analogy, I know.
Oh! I almost forgot. To cool the sample down to 20 nanoKelvin(?), this is what they do:
Of course once the condensate forms you can't measure it, b/c as soon as you try the damn thing evaporates!
So you have to observe it using other means....
My father currently uses AOL on WinME. All he wants is email, web access, word processing, printing, and viewing MPEGS (VCDs from China). He uses Unix (Tru64) at work, and is much more comfortable with that than with Windows. However, he gets AOL for free (go figure), so he sticks with windows. He actually wants me to replace his Windows desktop with Linux (b/c it crashes so damn much -- time to reinstall I guess), but can't b/c of AOL. This might help, except you never know when AOL will change their protocol. This is probably not the only case of someone who is stuck in Windows b/c of AOL, but I doubt they are a significant portion of the population.
"Well," said the wolf " then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in." So he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down and ate the little pig.
No no no. Exchange (5.5/2000/XP) comes with a builtin Web Access. So that you can use any features that Exchange has, even if your regular Outlook Client hasn't caught up yet!
You can use Outlook Web Access, which comes with MS Exchange. It's like Outlook, only it is web based. So in the company that I used to work for, I could access all the features (email, directory server, calendar, scheduling, etc...) from Mozilla under Linux. Do a google search, or use this sort of useful link.
1) a launching/refueling point for deep solar missions.
2) I think there will be a vehicle like a space shuttle permanently attached to it, so they can affect repairs on failing satellites in a resonable amount of time.
3) This is a very good way to get several countries to work together; especially the scientific communities of those countries.
4) It is a place to test the "space worthiness" of several products, from solar panels, paints, foods and especially construction methods & tools (a power screw driver will turn the user, and not the screw).
If we ever want to go into space, to attain space travel, we have to START SOMEWHERE. It it such a difficult problem (or series of problems) that it won't be miracously solved one day.
We might figure out warp drives, but to get stuff
from the surface into space, and what to make the ship out of, what they need, etc. We won't know until we try it now.
just my 2 cents.
Get your pictures here.