A business (corporation or not) is supposed to make money by providing a quality product or service at a
good value. Unfortunately, most large businesses have decided that it's easier to make money by litigating
competition into the ground, and provide their products/services at the lowest possible quality and highest
possible price.
And this is the distinction between what some people see as legitimate "capitalism" and "corporatism".
I was recently talking with my brother and a friend (who we will call Greg, as that is his name) about socialism; Greg attends the University of Utah, which has a socialist-friendly school of economics. Greg has become somewhat socialist, and we were arguing about the merits of capitalist over socialist systems until I realized there really WAS some common ground. Greg declared all capitalists evil, but said there was plenty of room for entreprenuers. That is, someone who raises money for a enterprise that provides useful goods or services and founds it. This is supposed to be one of the foundations of capitalism... and it's OK in a socialist world. And it's the best part.
Of course, Greg didn't beleive that investors (who he called "Capitalists" -- those who front capital but do no other labor) had right to much more than minimal profit from the deal. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I sympathize with the idea that the laborer's sweat equity may be as important to the company as the capital, and wonder why they're rewarded out of proportion. Sure, w/o the investors money, purchasing of materials and wages are impossible. But w/o the labor, the enterprise is impossible, too.
This is why stock options are a good thing....
Anyway, this post has gone on and on and is now venturing into decades old arguments about economics so I think I'll end it now.
When the Mom & Pop shop on the corner overcharges you by
four dollars, nobody cares, but when Amazon does it we get a flurry of Slashdot articles about it.
And when Jon Katz takes note of something, everybody at Slashdot lines up to disagree with him.
Look, I agree that Katz often seems like he's just recycling stuff and that his "serious journalist tackling today's tough issues" tone seems more like "trying way too hard" sometimes.
But really, some of the biggest threats to our liberties ARE powerful monied interests. We know that. That's why there's a YRO section on Slashdot and near-daily carping about this legal machination or that.
The problem, really, is that Katz is preaching to the choir. That, and this particular chorus is too proud to be told what it already knows... so it results to dischord.
1. Kill all your users.
2. Remove all accounts.
3. Detach network and dialups.
4. Turn off machine.
So rather than encasing the computer in titanium and dumping it in the pacific ocean, we do that to the users. After all, computers don't cause computer insecurity -- people do. So securing the computer is peripheral (not to be confused with peripherals).
Of course, we have to be careful when suggesting things like #1 to the US Government. After all, national security is paramount...
"It blew my mind," says his sister, Claire Stevens. "I knew he wrote those books, but it never made a dent. I had absolutely no idea that all these people knew and were touched by him." Claire and Richard's wife, Sally, accepted the award on Stevens' behalf. Stevens died on Sept. 1, 1999. He was 48 years old.
I've spent a little bit of time among some polynesian cultural enclaves in the US, and taken a class or two on polynesian culture, and this statement resonated with an explanation of mana
once given to me (by Paul Cox, in case anyone knows who he is...). It goes something like this...
Most people tend to view mana as a mystical energy, and in some senses it both is this way and is viewed this way by polynesian people. But it's not simply a quality existing in the person; it's the result of the sum of the person's relationships -- their community, their family, etc. Part of it is their standing, but part of it is just the existence relationships themselves.
In US culture, it sometimes seems that we discount these things -- or downplay more subtle things. Sure, people fawn over CEOs and those who are rich and celebrity (which Robert Pirsig says is to social relationships what porn is to sex... celebrity=ersatz mana? or real?), but we miss other things. It's interesting to me that Steven's sister could be entirely unaware of her connection with someone who had a powerful relationship with a community. It's interesting how much we see people as individuals, and often fail to realize all the personal vectors that converge on them... or us.
Does anybody else hate it how posting at some point in a discussion is futile, even if you have something important to say?
Anyway, there's another service called ProPay.com.
I interviewed with them a few weeks ago. Their head developer seemed quite clever, but I asked him a few times if they were worried about PayPal, and what he thought their strengths were. I'm not sure why, but he said "it's the other way around. They're afraid of us." He admitted their market lead, but said they didn't have the technical and marketing edge they did. Hmmmmm.
In the Macintosh world, a number of machines
are easily upgradeable by installing a processor
card. This with even old machines (like PowerMac
6100's, can be found for under $50) to G3's -- despite some fairly serious motherboard differences.
I can't imagine that somebody wouldn't want to try this for PC processor upgrades. Could make a bundle (unless it cost more to do than buying a new motherboard and power supply).
The problem is all inside your head, he said to me
The answer is easy, if you see it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggly for privacy
there must be
50 ways to move your email
Get Yahoo, stu...
or Hotmail, Gail..
there's freeshell, Del,
Just listen to me
go get Hush, Gus,
we don't need to discuss much
and get PGP, Lee
and set yourself free
(I don't want to slashdot freeshell, but if you look hard enough, you can find them)
If the company is liable for what goes out under email, then really, they have a good case for having to monitor it.
And if your company is looking at your/their email account, so what? This may have been a bigger deal 6 years ago, when many people's ONLY email account may have been their academic or employer's accounts (that was the case for me, then). However, you've got at least 50 ways to move your mail now, pal. There's enough free email out there to kill mid-sized mamals. Doing personal business at work? Get a free email account.
Shhh. You conspiracy-loving people, come a little closer so you can hear me whisper: this is another plot to take over the internet.
OK, maybe it isn't. But how does Microsoft work? They work very, very hard to control distribution of products and make sure it's to their advantage. With the X-box, they're dropping bunches of semi-closed hardare boxes in people's living rooms. Lots of consumers might think: "Microsoft! What a great reputation! For entertainment, I can't go wrong here! And wait! It does the internet too!" So they capture just a bit more of the client market...
Perhaps this was part of the eventual strategy for WebTV...
Intel has begun to recall their 1.13-GHz chips, which had the best clock speed on
the market due to a glitch that caused the chip "to malfunction in laboratory tests under certain conditions."
Intel executives today cited "ambiguity in language" as the source of the misunderstanding that caused them to release their 1.13 GHz chips a bit too soon.
"We thought that the glitch was what gave us the top speed," said one exec. "Really, that's the impression we had from the report our engineers gave us. And even some Slashdot headlines."
Sources say misuse of commas or failure to see them is becoming a widespread industry problem. "There's so much focus on the dot... some people think that's it, period, as far as punctuation goes. We really also need to look at the comma,"
said an economist somewhere in New York.
In other news, Intel also lost a bundle when they misunderstood some foreign currency prices...
Perhaps memory problems are contagious. First, the computer displays them. Then, the customer mysteriously acquires them ("er, um, no. I don't think we had a memory problem"). Then, the vendor ("why no. I don't recall us pressuring anyone").
Nope. In fact, I'm glad for both of them, and I'm certain most slashdot readers will also benefit more from reading those posts than mine. But your posts wouldn't have existed if it weren't for mine. I didn't post because I was sure the
science was correct; I posted because I thought it was an interesting idea and might provoke educational thought or discussion. It did, with the help of the two posters. What I posted may be wrong, but I don't consider myself "shot down", and I'm not particularly embarrased.
Just in defence of my own comment: I remembered King's rantings about alien spaceships and free energy machines. You may note that I also said I read books with some bad science sometimes. I have no doubt there was some bad science in this book.
However, sometimes speculative science is:
1)fun
2)interesting
3)possibly partly right
4)a good excersize in challenging assumptions
Free energy machines are, of course, impossible. However, getting a very large amount of energy in a local spot through the use of a smaller (maybe even much smaller) expenditure of enery may not be. Make the difference large enough at a cost that's acceptable (and feasible) and you may have what you need.
Of course, S. Weinberg's statement that you made shoots the idea you could use "free energy" to SBN (some burning netherworld)...
This is an abuse of the system, becuase I'm blatantly picking the highest ranked comment and replying to it so this will be seen, but I thought this might be worthwhile enough to risk it. My comment was already posted once, but it's a bit farther down on the rankings.
and IANAP (I am not a Physicist), but I'm an amateur mathematician, and I often read books that are probably full of bad science. So anything I say is suspect. But...
There _is_ a way to mess with gravity. Concentrate enough energy in one spot, and you will bend space (why? Well, there's a mass-energy equivalence, and if you put mass in one spot, you bend space, causing gravity...right?). As everyone knows,
you'd have to get a huge amount of energy, tho'.. so we need a source that's just massive. There's a theoretical entity called the "zero-point" energy that is supposedly available at any point in the universe (from activity of the "quantum foam" that's present even in a vacuum. No, I don't really understand it). The problem is, the energy flows orthogonal to any of the dimensions we live in (at right angles to reality, as Douglas Adams migh say). So, all we have to do is figure out some way to change the angle. Even a small amount of the tapped energy might be enough, causing I bend in space. Put the bend in the right place (say, a safe number of meters above your head), and adjust the magnitude, and you're floating.
Unfortunately, this gravity source will not only affect you -- near as I can tell, many things in the near vicinity would be pulled straight toward you. Hope you don't have any large household appliances. Then again, this could come in handy around people you find attractive.:)
And in case you're wondering, I got all this stuff from a book called "Tapping the Zero Point Energy" by Moray B. King....
Hmmm... I meant to post this at the top level,
but ended up replying to a comment. So I point
you here. For starters, there _is_ a way to mess with gravity. Concentrate enough energy in one spot, and you will bend space....why? Well, there's a mass-energy equivalence, and if you put mass in one spot, you bend space, causing gravity...right?....
IANAP (I am not a Physicist), but I'm an amateur mathematician, and I often read books that are probably full of bad science. So anything I say is suspect. But...
There _is_ a way to mess with gravity. Concentrate enough energy in one spot, and you will bend space (why? Well, there's a mass-energy equivalence, and if you put mass in one spot, you bend space, causing gravity...right?). As everyone knows, you'd have to get a huge amount of energy, tho'.. so we need a source that's just massive. There's a theoretical entity called the "zero-point" energy that is supposedly available at any point in the universe (from activity of the "quantum foam" that's present even in a vacuum. No, I don't really understand it). The problem is, it flows orthogonal to any of the dimensions we live in (at right angles to reality, as Douglas Adams migh say). So, all we have to do is figure out some way to change the angle. Even a small amount of the tapped energy might be enough, causing I bend in space. Put the bend in the right place (say, a safe number of meters above your head), and adjust the magnitude, and you're floating.
Unfortunately, this gravity source will not only affect you. Near as I can tell, many things in the near vicinity would be pulled straight toward you. Hope you don't have any large household appliances.
And in case you're wondering, I got all this stuff from a book called "Tapping the Zero Point Energy" by Moray B. King....
Like VCRs--which a court has
ruled are legal despite being able to
copy protected movies--Napster also is
capable of "substantial non-infringing
use," the company argued.
Patel dismissed this argument, saying
that Napster's internal documents show
that the company had created the
software largely to facilitate piracy and that company executives knew the piracy was
happening on a massive scale.
If this last part is true (and who doesn't think that it really is), it's really hard to defend Napster. It's _true_ that their product has substantial non-infringing use. It's also true that it's mainly being used for infringement. The same is not true for the internet.
So, want to save Napster? Start using it for large
amounts of legitimate traffic! See if you can route all your downloading somehow through Napster! Maybe we can even route HTTP requests through Napster. With all the legitimate traffic, they'll have to admit it's A-OK. (Of course, there'd still be those meddlesome internal documents about facilitating piracy to deal with....)
You mean, if we beleive what you just told us the Bible says, we beleive nothing.
My reading -- and a fair bit of Christian theology -- of the Bible doesn't necessarily require God to be incomprehensible (Yes, the Athanasian Creed does contain text to that respect, but that isn't the Bible, and therefore not part of this discussion). In fact, some Christians seem to beleive (CS Lewis, mentioned earlier, among them), that following Christ would actually result in attaining his attributes and personality... receiving all that he has, presumably comprehension of him with it. That there are some limits on our ability to know some things now -- or ever, depending on our spiritual state -- really shouldn't be that shocking of an idea.
There have always been limits on what you individually can understand and what mankind collectively understands. We can push at those limits, but they're there.
They're even postulated within certain scientific principles. Remember the formalists? Wanted to put all knowledge within an axiomatic system? Ooops. Goedel's Theorem. Limit on formal knowledge. Then there's the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle -- overused as an example of this type and much misunderstood, but still a limit on certain kinds of knowledge. Some people look at these philosophically and almost take the conclusion you take from the Bible: ouch. We've been told we're limited, that somethings are unknowable under our current epistimological system. Guess we give up -- or reject the principle.
Then there's others, like Roger Penrose (wacky as some of his ideas are), who look for "non-computational physics" -- a different paradigm that might help us expand knowledge.
It's not that different in the Bible. It's simply saying there are limits on what you can know under some epistimological systems -- and showing you some different ones and ways to find out truth. If you dismiss it out of hand, you won't find it.
This is an incredibly interesting idea, and I'm intruiged. Even if nothing ever comes of it, it has the potential to be a great story.
I think, though that there's several passages in the Bible that tend to point to the second coming being something else besides a birth (virgin or otherwise):
Luke 21:27 "...they shall see the Son of Man
coming in a cloud of power and great glory..."
(Mark 13 and Matt 24 contain similar refs)
Acts 1:11 "...This same Jesus, who was taken up
from you into heaven, will so come in like manner
as you saw Him go into heaven..."
1 Thessalonians 4:16 "...for the Lord himself will
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of an archangel..."
These point towards the concept of a not altogether quiet decsension from the heavens. Other things that I've heard include an appearance at the mount of olives during a war. The mountain will split and the conflict end. I don't have a reference for that one; it could be a recollection from a Jewish traditional text or LDS (Mormon) source, since I read those too.
Of course, all of this presuposes you beleive in the Bible. But if you don't, I find it hard to beleive you'd care about a literal second coming (until it happened, anyway...:)
Zoltar, if I remember right. And that was one of
the big shockers... Zoltar was... a woman? I was totally floored. Except I think that might have been one of those things where they unmask "him" and then pass out and then have a fuzzy memory or something.
Much like mine. I've submitted 3 postings about this show now. Maybe I should do something else.
1) Robotech. The first ever cartoon AND soap opera I ever saw. Way coolest plot, though, and it beat the heck out of Transformers and GI Joe. My life during the summer after 7th grade nearly revolved around it. Well, the time I got up, anyway. When the local TV station cancelled it, I even wrote them a letter. To no avail. I had to solace myself with the 50 episodes I'd recorded.
Ah, but Robotech only remeinded me of what I used to get up early to watch during 2nd grade:
2) Star Blazers. I can still sortof remember the song "We're off to outer space... to save the human race... (something about radioactivity from Gamelan starships)... if we don't, in just one year, mother earth will disappear."
Starblazers had the ultimate hack... Some people complain about people trying to shove new computers into old cases (you know, G3 in a Mac Classic, PC in an old NeXT cube). In Starblazers, they put a starship in an old Japanese seacruiser.
Go figure.
3) After school, I watched "Battle of the Planets" (originally Gatchaman). There was a knock-off called G-Force on the Cartoon Network a couple of years ago. I couldn't tell if it was stupid because it was different, or if it was stupid because I was much older.:(
I remember thinking that Thundercats was sortof cool, and Voltron (though extremely predictable with them always drawing the sword at the end... but was that worse than the wave motion gun or main cannon of the SDF-1 or going to the fiery phoenix on Battle of the Planets? Discuss). But the above 3 would be my picks.
>>That seems to be about half the advertised speed
>>of several home DSL services
>Yeah, but it's hell driving anywhere with that
>DSL cable spool in the back of the car,
>especially when a train cuts it, back
>where you drover over a track.
And then there was the time last week when I ran
out of cable after an hour. Jerked my router right out of the back. Haven't seen the thing since.:)
No, I actually don't think half as slow as DSL as a bad thing. Especially for wireless.
>>But does anyone have any idea what satellite
>>bandwidth is?
>While driving? Uh. Dunno, the CHP took away my
>Beetle when they caught me driving around with 6 >foot dish on top.
They would.:)
I think they actually have smaller satellite receivers these days... at least (by which I mean,
largest) briefcase sized... and I've _heard_ rumors of near-handhelds. B'sides, what's a GPS
(some are handheld, right?) but somethign that transmits/receives satellite relayed signals?
>>2. I think cellular price structures are
>>complete works of fiction
>Not unlike Cable TV rates, CD prices, gas prices,
> the herd logic drives the stock market...
All true. Which is why I don't have cable. Or a TV. CDs... well, I do the best I can. Gas... I'm stuck. Stock market... well, I'm a hypocrite.
Sometimes I try to profit from watching herd
logic....
But sometimes I wonder: isn't there anything people can DO about things like cellular pricing and airline flight pricing, where the billing plan has pretty much no resemblance to the company's costs?
> and whatever excuses people come
>up with for needing to talk, surf, play MIDI,
>etc. in their cars at 153Kb/S. This'll all look
>so impressive sitting on a
>roadside picnic table as cities and states pass
>laws ban use of these nice toys by drivers.
Hmmmmm. That's a tough one. Are cell phones
distracting to drivers? I've nearly got in a few
cell-wrecks... both through my own use (I _did_
try a cell phone for a while) and others. Are they
useful while driving? Yep.
But the day you're just surfing or watching movies (ack! in car DVD players!)... maybe that's time for legislation.
Then again, it's not as if there aren't already distractions. One officer in traffic school said he'd caught a lady changing a diaper and driving at the sime time. Save us all.
During an FTP data transfer transmission, the QCT 3G 1x system transferred the file in 59 seconds, compared to an estimated 4.8 minutes for a 28.8-kbit/s landline modem (and 2.5 minutes, 2.2 minutes and 65 seconds, respectively, for 56-kbit/s, 64-kbit/s and 128-kbit/s landline modems).
So 4-5 times the transmission spead of a 28.8 modem.
That seems to be about half the advertised speed of several home DSL services round my way. Not bad. But does anyone have any idea what satellite bandwidth is? I've often thought about a cellular
modem, but haven't moved on getting one because:
Cellular coverage really isn't that great. I'd want to be portable so I could run up to the canyons for work, and still be connected.
I think cellular price structures are complete works of fiction
Perhaps a combined cellular-satellite solution could be the answer to #1... of course, I don't know what the performance of satellite is like, and I'm sure the pricing has the potential to be totally insane...
Slashdot Mirror
No, no, you've got it all wrong. Though we are an alarmist crowd, the things you've described are business as usual.
The Top 10 Geek Signs Hell Was Freezing Over would go like this:
A business (corporation or not) is supposed to make money by providing a quality product or service at a
good value. Unfortunately, most large businesses have decided that it's easier to make money by litigating
competition into the ground, and provide their products/services at the lowest possible quality and highest
possible price.
And this is the distinction between what some people see as legitimate "capitalism" and "corporatism".
I was recently talking with my brother and a friend (who we will call Greg, as that is his name) about socialism; Greg attends the University of Utah, which has a socialist-friendly school of economics. Greg has become somewhat socialist, and we were arguing about the merits of capitalist over socialist systems until I realized there really WAS some common ground. Greg declared all capitalists evil, but said there was plenty of room for entreprenuers. That is, someone who raises money for a enterprise that provides useful goods or services and founds it. This is supposed to be one of the foundations of capitalism... and it's OK in a socialist world. And it's the best part.
Of course, Greg didn't beleive that investors (who he called "Capitalists" -- those who front capital but do no other labor) had right to much more than minimal profit from the deal. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I sympathize with the idea that the laborer's sweat equity may be as important to the company as the capital, and wonder why they're rewarded out of proportion. Sure, w/o the investors money, purchasing of materials and wages are impossible. But w/o the labor, the enterprise is impossible, too.
This is why stock options are a good thing....
Anyway, this post has gone on and on and is now venturing into decades old arguments about economics so I think I'll end it now.
When the Mom & Pop shop on the corner overcharges you by
four dollars, nobody cares, but when Amazon does it we get a flurry of Slashdot articles about it.
And when Jon Katz takes note of something, everybody at Slashdot lines up to disagree with him.
Look, I agree that Katz often seems like he's just recycling stuff and that his "serious journalist tackling today's tough issues" tone seems more like "trying way too hard" sometimes.
But really, some of the biggest threats to our liberties ARE powerful monied interests. We know that. That's why there's a YRO section on Slashdot and near-daily carping about this legal machination or that.
The problem, really, is that Katz is preaching to the choir. That, and this particular chorus is too proud to be told what it already knows... so it results to dischord.
Attributed to David A. Guidry:
network security:
1. Kill all your users.
2. Remove all accounts.
3. Detach network and dialups.
4. Turn off machine.
So rather than encasing the computer in titanium and dumping it in the pacific ocean, we do that to the users. After all, computers don't cause computer insecurity -- people do. So securing the computer is peripheral (not to be confused with peripherals).
Of course, we have to be careful when suggesting things like #1 to the US Government. After all, national security is paramount...
"It blew my mind," says his sister, Claire Stevens. "I knew he wrote those books, but it never made a dent. I had absolutely no idea that all these people knew and were touched by him." Claire and Richard's wife, Sally, accepted the award on Stevens' behalf. Stevens died on Sept. 1, 1999. He was 48 years old.
I've spent a little bit of time among some polynesian cultural enclaves in the US, and taken a class or two on polynesian culture, and this statement resonated with an explanation of mana
once given to me (by Paul Cox, in case anyone knows who he is...). It goes something like this...
Most people tend to view mana as a mystical energy, and in some senses it both is this way and is viewed this way by polynesian people. But it's not simply a quality existing in the person; it's the result of the sum of the person's relationships -- their community, their family, etc. Part of it is their standing, but part of it is just the existence relationships themselves.
In US culture, it sometimes seems that we discount these things -- or downplay more subtle things. Sure, people fawn over CEOs and those who are rich and celebrity (which Robert Pirsig says is to social relationships what porn is to sex... celebrity=ersatz mana? or real?), but we miss other things. It's interesting to me that Steven's sister could be entirely unaware of her connection with someone who had a powerful relationship with a community. It's interesting how much we see people as individuals, and often fail to realize all the personal vectors that converge on them... or us.
Does anybody else hate it how posting at some point in a discussion is futile, even if you have something important to say?
Anyway, there's another service called ProPay.com.
I interviewed with them a few weeks ago. Their head developer seemed quite clever, but I asked him a few times if they were worried about PayPal, and what he thought their strengths were. I'm not sure why, but he said "it's the other way around. They're afraid of us." He admitted their market lead, but said they didn't have the technical and marketing edge they did. Hmmmmm.
In the Macintosh world, a number of machines
are easily upgradeable by installing a processor
card. This with even old machines (like PowerMac
6100's, can be found for under $50) to G3's -- despite some fairly serious motherboard differences.
I can't imagine that somebody wouldn't want to try this for PC processor upgrades. Could make a bundle (unless it cost more to do than buying a new motherboard and power supply).
The problem is all inside your head, he said to me
The answer is easy, if you see it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggly for privacy
there must be
50 ways to move your email
Get Yahoo, stu...
or Hotmail, Gail..
there's freeshell, Del,
Just listen to me
go get Hush, Gus,
we don't need to discuss much
and get PGP, Lee
and set yourself free
(I don't want to slashdot freeshell, but if you look hard enough, you can find them)
If the company is liable for what goes out under email, then really, they have a good case for having to monitor it.
And if your company is looking at your/their email account, so what? This may have been a bigger deal 6 years ago, when many people's ONLY email account may have been their academic or employer's accounts (that was the case for me, then). However, you've got at least 50 ways to move your mail now, pal. There's enough free email out there to kill mid-sized mamals. Doing personal business at work? Get a free email account.
Shhh. You conspiracy-loving people, come a little closer so you can hear me whisper: this is another plot to take over the internet.
OK, maybe it isn't. But how does Microsoft work? They work very, very hard to control distribution of products and make sure it's to their advantage. With the X-box, they're dropping bunches of semi-closed hardare boxes in people's living rooms. Lots of consumers might think: "Microsoft! What a great reputation! For entertainment, I can't go wrong here! And wait! It does the internet too!" So they capture just a bit more of the client market...
Perhaps this was part of the eventual strategy for WebTV...
Intel has begun to recall their 1.13-GHz chips, which had the best clock speed on
the market due to a glitch that caused the chip "to malfunction in laboratory tests under certain conditions."
Intel executives today cited "ambiguity in language" as the source of the misunderstanding that caused them to release their 1.13 GHz chips a bit too soon.
"We thought that the glitch was what gave us the top speed," said one exec. "Really, that's the impression we had from the report our engineers gave us. And even some Slashdot headlines."
Sources say misuse of commas or failure to see them is becoming a widespread industry problem. "There's so much focus on the dot... some people think that's it, period, as far as punctuation goes. We really also need to look at the comma,"
said an economist somewhere in New York.
In other news, Intel also lost a bundle when they misunderstood some foreign currency prices...
Darn Jedi mind tricks...
Nope. In fact, I'm glad for both of them, and I'm certain most slashdot readers will also benefit more from reading those posts than mine. But your posts wouldn't have existed if it weren't for mine. I didn't post because I was sure the
science was correct; I posted because I thought it was an interesting idea and might provoke educational thought or discussion. It did, with the help of the two posters. What I posted may be wrong, but I don't consider myself "shot down", and I'm not particularly embarrased.
In short: I hope people DO read the replies refuting what I posted... both of them.
However, sometimes speculative science is:
1)fun
2)interesting
3)possibly partly right
4)a good excersize in challenging assumptions
Free energy machines are, of course, impossible. However, getting a very large amount of energy in a local spot through the use of a smaller (maybe even much smaller) expenditure of enery may not be. Make the difference large enough at a cost that's acceptable (and feasible) and you may have what you need.
Of course, S. Weinberg's statement that you made shoots the idea you could use "free energy" to SBN (some burning netherworld)...
This is an abuse of the system, becuase I'm blatantly picking the highest ranked comment and replying to it so this will be seen, but I thought this might be worthwhile enough to risk it. My comment was already posted once, but it's a bit farther down on the rankings.
:)
and IANAP (I am not a Physicist), but I'm an amateur mathematician, and I often read books that are probably full of bad science. So anything I say is suspect. But...
There _is_ a way to mess with gravity. Concentrate enough energy in one spot, and you will bend space (why? Well, there's a mass-energy equivalence, and if you put mass in one spot, you bend space, causing gravity...right?). As everyone knows,
you'd have to get a huge amount of energy, tho'.. so we need a source that's just massive. There's a theoretical entity called the "zero-point" energy that is supposedly available at any point in the universe (from activity of the "quantum foam" that's present even in a vacuum. No, I don't really understand it). The problem is, the energy flows orthogonal to any of the dimensions we live in (at right angles to reality, as Douglas Adams migh say). So, all we have to do is figure out some way to change the angle. Even a small amount of the tapped energy might be enough, causing I bend in space. Put the bend in the right place (say, a safe number of meters above your head), and adjust the magnitude, and you're floating.
Unfortunately, this gravity source will not only affect you -- near as I can tell, many things in the near vicinity would be pulled straight toward you. Hope you don't have any large household appliances. Then again, this could come in handy around people you find attractive.
And in case you're wondering, I got all this stuff from a book called "Tapping the Zero Point Energy" by Moray B. King....
but ended up replying to a comment. So I point
you here. For starters, there _is_ a way to mess with gravity. Concentrate enough energy in one spot, and you will bend space
More info? Read the comment..
There _is_ a way to mess with gravity. Concentrate enough energy in one spot, and you will bend space (why? Well, there's a mass-energy equivalence, and if you put mass in one spot, you bend space, causing gravity...right?). As everyone knows, you'd have to get a huge amount of energy, tho'.. so we need a source that's just massive. There's a theoretical entity called the "zero-point" energy that is supposedly available at any point in the universe (from activity of the "quantum foam" that's present even in a vacuum. No, I don't really understand it). The problem is, it flows orthogonal to any of the dimensions we live in (at right angles to reality, as Douglas Adams migh say). So, all we have to do is figure out some way to change the angle. Even a small amount of the tapped energy might be enough, causing I bend in space. Put the bend in the right place (say, a safe number of meters above your head), and adjust the magnitude, and you're floating.
Unfortunately, this gravity source will not only affect you. Near as I can tell, many things in the near vicinity would be pulled straight toward you. Hope you don't have any large household appliances.
And in case you're wondering, I got all this stuff from a book called "Tapping the Zero Point Energy" by Moray B. King....
Patel dismissed this argument, saying that Napster's internal documents show that the company had created the software largely to facilitate piracy and that company executives knew the piracy was happening on a massive scale.
If this last part is true (and who doesn't think that it really is), it's really hard to defend Napster. It's _true_ that their product has substantial non-infringing use. It's also true that it's mainly being used for infringement. The same is not true for the internet. So, want to save Napster? Start using it for large amounts of legitimate traffic! See if you can route all your downloading somehow through Napster! Maybe we can even route HTTP requests through Napster. With all the legitimate traffic, they'll have to admit it's A-OK. (Of course, there'd still be those meddlesome internal documents about facilitating piracy to deal with....)
You mean, if we beleive what you just told us the Bible says, we beleive nothing.
My reading -- and a fair bit of Christian theology -- of the Bible doesn't necessarily require God to be incomprehensible (Yes, the Athanasian Creed does contain text to that respect, but that isn't the Bible, and therefore not part of this discussion). In fact, some Christians seem to beleive (CS Lewis, mentioned earlier, among them), that following Christ would actually result in attaining his attributes and personality... receiving all that he has, presumably comprehension of him with it. That there are some limits on our ability to know some things now -- or ever, depending on our spiritual state -- really shouldn't be that shocking of an idea.
There have always been limits on what you individually can understand and what mankind collectively understands. We can push at those limits, but they're there. They're even postulated within certain scientific principles. Remember the formalists? Wanted to put all knowledge within an axiomatic system? Ooops. Goedel's Theorem. Limit on formal knowledge. Then there's the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle -- overused as an example of this type and much misunderstood, but still a limit on certain kinds of knowledge. Some people look at these philosophically and almost take the conclusion you take from the Bible: ouch. We've been told we're limited, that somethings are unknowable under our current epistimological system. Guess we give up -- or reject the principle. Then there's others, like Roger Penrose (wacky as some of his ideas are), who look for "non-computational physics" -- a different paradigm that might help us expand knowledge.
It's not that different in the Bible. It's simply saying there are limits on what you can know under some epistimological systems -- and showing you some different ones and ways to find out truth. If you dismiss it out of hand, you won't find it.
This is an incredibly interesting idea, and I'm intruiged. Even if nothing ever comes of it, it has the potential to be a great story.
:)
I think, though that there's several passages in the Bible that tend to point to the second coming being something else besides a birth (virgin or otherwise):
Luke 21:27 "...they shall see the Son of Man
coming in a cloud of power and great glory..."
(Mark 13 and Matt 24 contain similar refs)
Acts 1:11 "...This same Jesus, who was taken up
from you into heaven, will so come in like manner
as you saw Him go into heaven..."
1 Thessalonians 4:16 "...for the Lord himself will
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of an archangel..."
These point towards the concept of a not altogether quiet decsension from the heavens. Other things that I've heard include an appearance at the mount of olives during a war. The mountain will split and the conflict end. I don't have a reference for that one; it could be a recollection from a Jewish traditional text or LDS (Mormon) source, since I read those too.
Of course, all of this presuposes you beleive in the Bible. But if you don't, I find it hard to beleive you'd care about a literal second coming (until it happened, anyway...
Much like mine. I've submitted 3 postings about this show now. Maybe I should do something else.
The odd little one's name was Keeyop (not sure of spelling). Don't know who did the voices, though.
You perhaps could find some info at http://members.aol.com/gtchaman/Page1.ht ml... a website for "Gatchaman", the anime forerunner of Battle...
Some of my earlier discussion on Battle is here...
Ah, but Robotech only remeinded me of what I used to get up early to watch during 2nd grade:
2) Star Blazers. I can still sortof remember the song "We're off to outer space... to save the human race... (something about radioactivity from Gamelan starships) ... if we don't, in just one year, mother earth will disappear."
Starblazers had the ultimate hack... Some people complain about people trying to shove new computers into old cases (you know, G3 in a Mac Classic, PC in an old NeXT cube). In Starblazers, they put a starship in an old Japanese seacruiser. Go figure.
3) After school, I watched "Battle of the Planets" (originally Gatchaman). There was a knock-off called G-Force on the Cartoon Network a couple of years ago. I couldn't tell if it was stupid because it was different, or if it was stupid because I was much older. :(
I remember thinking that Thundercats was sortof cool, and Voltron (though extremely predictable with them always drawing the sword at the end... but was that worse than the wave motion gun or main cannon of the SDF-1 or going to the fiery phoenix on Battle of the Planets? Discuss). But the above 3 would be my picks.
>>That seems to be about half the advertised speed
:)
:)
>>of several home DSL services
>Yeah, but it's hell driving anywhere with that
>DSL cable spool in the back of the car,
>especially when a train cuts it, back
>where you drover over a track.
And then there was the time last week when I ran
out of cable after an hour. Jerked my router right out of the back. Haven't seen the thing since.
No, I actually don't think half as slow as DSL as a bad thing. Especially for wireless.
>>But does anyone have any idea what satellite
>>bandwidth is?
>While driving? Uh. Dunno, the CHP took away my
>Beetle when they caught me driving around with 6 >foot dish on top.
They would.
I think they actually have smaller satellite receivers these days... at least (by which I mean,
largest) briefcase sized... and I've _heard_ rumors of near-handhelds. B'sides, what's a GPS
(some are handheld, right?) but somethign that transmits/receives satellite relayed signals?
>>2. I think cellular price structures are
>>complete works of fiction
>Not unlike Cable TV rates, CD prices, gas prices,
> the herd logic drives the stock market...
All true. Which is why I don't have cable. Or a TV. CDs... well, I do the best I can. Gas... I'm stuck. Stock market... well, I'm a hypocrite.
Sometimes I try to profit from watching herd
logic....
But sometimes I wonder: isn't there anything people can DO about things like cellular pricing and airline flight pricing, where the billing plan has pretty much no resemblance to the company's costs?
> and whatever excuses people come
>up with for needing to talk, surf, play MIDI,
>etc. in their cars at 153Kb/S. This'll all look
>so impressive sitting on a
>roadside picnic table as cities and states pass
>laws ban use of these nice toys by drivers.
Hmmmmm. That's a tough one. Are cell phones
distracting to drivers? I've nearly got in a few
cell-wrecks... both through my own use (I _did_
try a cell phone for a while) and others. Are they
useful while driving? Yep.
But the day you're just surfing or watching movies (ack! in car DVD players!)... maybe that's time for legislation.
Then again, it's not as if there aren't already distractions. One officer in traffic school said he'd caught a lady changing a diaper and driving at the sime time. Save us all.
So 4-5 times the transmission spead of a 28.8 modem.
That seems to be about half the advertised speed of several home DSL services round my way. Not bad. But does anyone have any idea what satellite bandwidth is? I've often thought about a cellular
modem, but haven't moved on getting one because:
Perhaps a combined cellular-satellite solution could be the answer to #1... of course, I don't know what the performance of satellite is like, and I'm sure the pricing has the potential to be totally insane...