Well - an academic can put their papers on the web for free, as long as the journal they sent it to, who take the copyright for it as a condition for publication, allow you to.
Are online papers free?
A few are, but the vast majority are not, like Nature, which makes you pay directly, or Science , that makes you pay indirectly through society memberships.
I go to regular scientific meetings that occur one a fortnight, that usually have 12 speakers, and roughly 50 people in the audience. Now, lets say each of these people really squeeze their talk down to about 5 slides, at least half those used in most presentations.
That's 3000 pages a meeting, or about 150,000 pages a year. For one group!
Powerpoint is a pain, transparancies don't work well in showing what you want, but printing everything out is a crazy waste of paper.
Exactly. We have more diamonds in this world than we could ever possibly -need-. And De Beers hide them away and have a billion dollar industry based around them. It's the capitalist dream*.
It doesn't really go that much further up, to be honest. While the atmosphere extends some way out into space, it reduces very quickly. At about three miles the atmospheric pressure is already 2/3's. Its drop off slows as you get higher, but by about 20 miles, 99% of the atmosphere is beneath you, and at 60 miles 99.9999% is beneath you.
Have you read the article? What am I thinking, stupid question.
From
page 2 of the article: The RV-4 is an efficient airframe with good cross country capability, but it was not designed as a world cruiser. When thoughts of distance flying became impossible to ignore, Jon started to look seriously at the modifications that would be required.
While it is a kit plane, he made significant modifications to it, adding extensive fuel tanks, and no end of sponser provided electronic technology. It's hardly a standard model.
Somewhere in the article, it said that BP were covering the costs of all his fuel on his first trip round the world. Now - if that remains in place, wouldn't you want to pay whatever it takes to be able to fly out, rather than ship?
I'm glad 0.4 has finally been released, since I've been clicking on the site to check periodically over the last three weeks, in the hope that the new one would come out. I've been wanting to move away from outlook for a long time, and finally took the plunge with 0.3 - but the move over was driven by stubborness rather than joy-filled happiness. Outlook has a *lot* of good things going for it, and if it weren't for the huge gapping security holes and lack of spam filtering, I'd still be using it. I almost gave up a couple of times, trying to get Thunderbird set up the way I want it.
I hope that things are getting better; when a piece of software is still in such early stage its development a little churlish to complain, but it's still not ready for the standard user. I contrast this with Firebird, which is further along its development path and that is something I *would* advise someone to use (repeatedly, in an annoying voice).
Perhaps a better example would be the introduction of non-native animals into the 'new' world. By transporting creatures like Rabbits, Rats, Horses, Dogs and Camels, the colonial visitors have managed to devestate the large majority of life native to places like Austrailia. Now, I'm not saying there is a direct analogue between that and genetic modification, but it is definately something that we should be worried about. It's not Ludditism, but anti-radical colonism.
True, but the real problem, as far as I've heard, is that Saturn V used a lot of little things, stuff like screws, that they just bought in from other manufacturers. All these things are no longer made to specification, so in order to follow the original plans, you'd have to make all the separate parts in house. Not impossible, but incredibly expensive, since it would all require retesting. In the end, it might be better and cheaper to redesign from scratch.
While I agree with you that the next big target should be Mars, since that is the more interesting place in terms of scientific questions like the origins of life, but the Moon has a lot going for it too.
The Moon would make a perfect base for a suite of telescopes. The dark side is the best location in the solar system (planet-side or in orbit) for radar telescopes. Both optical and infrared telescopes would also be well served by the location, with a combination of both very clear conditions, and a solid structure from which to build. The very low gravity means that you can build structures that would be completely unstable on either Earth or Mars. Mars has massive dust storms that makes the planet a far less useful observing platform.
There is also a significant advantage in travelling to both Mars and the Moon for geological investigation. Mars has lost of erosion and possible life, but the Moon is a pure surface, recording the past right back to the earliest history.
Not only does this give you a lot of information on the Earth-Moon system, but it also means you could use the subsurface in the same way that the ice cores from Arctic are used to measure the atmosphere back into the past, to record the history of the Solar wind back billions of years.
There are lots of reasons to send people to the Moon, and to establish a permanent base there; it needn't be Mars or nothing.
We have Dell Latitudes at work, and of three computers we have, we have had the same graphics card fault four times. I know of at least one other machine in our department that has failed in exactly the same way.
I've bought HP, Sony, Fujitsu, but I'll never by a Dell.
Re:Forced password changes
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 1
My brother hacked his school's computer on the last day of term, and stopped all the printers from working, for a prank. He 'hacked' in by using a teachers surname as the username, and using the password: password
I remember hearing this, and wondered why he kept going on about it. He sounded desparate that we should understand that he has a big part in the movie, which rang false for me when he heard it. Perhaps he was actually desparately trying to get to stay in the movie, and influence the decision by making such over the top comments.
The story is about importing books from England, which is also a traditional home from brewing real ale. He bought all his books in England, except, ironically, the brewing one.
Nope. That works. Just about... Wait a minute. Yeh. That works.
I second that totally. I've bought a lot of great music on CDBaby. Last year, for instance, I bought a Trespasser Williams CD, and it was finally released in the UK on a 'big' label, and played on my favourate radio station, this year.
And you know what? Not only was it cheaper a year ago than it is now, but the artists got more of my cash the CDBaby route.
On as basic level, it's why fire rescue services use infrared googles going into a burning building. All the smoke obscures the visible light, but the heat (aka infrared light) passes through the smoke more easily.
Of course, using highly calibrated equipment allows you to look in a very specific region of the 'wavelength window', so you can cut out as much of the obscuring material as possible. One man's target is another man's smoke - you pick your wavelength to include or exclude depending on what you want to see.
While in the strictest sense, data is the pluralised form of datum, following a running battle with my boss (a grammer whore), I've found many examples in which data is allowed as a 'single mass entity'. eg dictionary.com
SETI really assumes that the signals are intentionally *beamed* at us for the purpose of discovery. Detection of the latest episode of ER or whatever is unlikely to happen because the strength of the signal is likely to be too low to detect, but a directly beamed signal will travel better, and is more likely to be dectectable.
If you are looking for signals they have sent to us to be seen by us, it's most likely going to be the most basic detection signal - radio. Unless a race evolves to use quantum-thinies before electromagnetics, which I think is unlikely, they should use radio to talk to us.
Of course, maybe they figure that we're not smart enough to talk to until we can use quantum-thingies. Perhaps the first use of quantum-thingies is a first contact event.
If they're not beaming at us (and it takes one hell of an effort to know about and beam to every Earth like planet is the galaxy), we might never detect a race far enough away... It's possible perhaps that we're just not being talked to...
Slashdot Mirror
Are online papers free? A few are, but the vast majority are not, like Nature, which makes you pay directly, or Science , that makes you pay indirectly through society memberships.
I go to regular scientific meetings that occur one a fortnight, that usually have 12 speakers, and roughly 50 people in the audience. Now, lets say each of these people really squeeze their talk down to about 5 slides, at least half those used in most presentations.
That's 3000 pages a meeting, or about 150,000 pages a year. For one group!
Powerpoint is a pain, transparancies don't work well in showing what you want, but printing everything out is a crazy waste of paper.
No - the difference between a geek and a nerd is a geek gets laid...
Actually, that's kinda what you said!
I prefer dork myself. Now that's elitist.
Exactly. We have more diamonds in this world than we could ever possibly -need-. And De Beers hide them away and have a billion dollar industry based around them. It's the capitalist dream*.
*(it isn't really, it's the corporations dream, shhh don't tell anyone)
It doesn't really go that much further up, to be honest. While the atmosphere extends some way out into space, it reduces very quickly. At about three miles the atmospheric pressure is already 2/3's. Its drop off slows as you get higher, but by about 20 miles, 99% of the atmosphere is beneath you, and at 60 miles 99.9999% is beneath you.
Somewhere in the article, it said that BP were covering the costs of all his fuel on his first trip round the world. Now - if that remains in place, wouldn't you want to pay whatever it takes to be able to fly out, rather than ship?
I'm glad 0.4 has finally been released, since I've been clicking on the site to check periodically over the last three weeks, in the hope that the new one would come out. I've been wanting to move away from outlook for a long time, and finally took the plunge with 0.3 - but the move over was driven by stubborness rather than joy-filled happiness. Outlook has a *lot* of good things going for it, and if it weren't for the huge gapping security holes and lack of spam filtering, I'd still be using it. I almost gave up a couple of times, trying to get Thunderbird set up the way I want it.
I hope that things are getting better; when a piece of software is still in such early stage its development a little churlish to complain, but it's still not ready for the standard user. I contrast this with Firebird, which is further along its development path and that is something I *would* advise someone to use (repeatedly, in an annoying voice).
Isn't impatience a terrible thing?
Yeh - I have friends who *STILL* say "you youngsters are hopeless, in my day we used punch-cards".
There are always people older than you, and people younger than you. Ever feel it was us that were fading into insignificance?
Perhaps a better example would be the introduction of non-native animals into the 'new' world. By transporting creatures like Rabbits, Rats, Horses, Dogs and Camels, the colonial visitors have managed to devestate the large majority of life native to places like Austrailia. Now, I'm not saying there is a direct analogue between that and genetic modification, but it is definately something that we should be worried about. It's not Ludditism, but anti-radical colonism.
True, but the real problem, as far as I've heard, is that Saturn V used a lot of little things, stuff like screws, that they just bought in from other manufacturers. All these things are no longer made to specification, so in order to follow the original plans, you'd have to make all the separate parts in house. Not impossible, but incredibly expensive, since it would all require retesting. In the end, it might be better and cheaper to redesign from scratch.
While I agree with you that the next big target should be Mars, since that is the more interesting place in terms of scientific questions like the origins of life, but the Moon has a lot going for it too.
The Moon would make a perfect base for a suite of telescopes. The dark side is the best location in the solar system (planet-side or in orbit) for radar telescopes. Both optical and infrared telescopes would also be well served by the location, with a combination of both very clear conditions, and a solid structure from which to build. The very low gravity means that you can build structures that would be completely unstable on either Earth or Mars. Mars has massive dust storms that makes the planet a far less useful observing platform.
There is also a significant advantage in travelling to both Mars and the Moon for geological investigation. Mars has lost of erosion and possible life, but the Moon is a pure surface, recording the past right back to the earliest history.
Not only does this give you a lot of information on the Earth-Moon system, but it also means you could use the subsurface in the same way that the ice cores from Arctic are used to measure the atmosphere back into the past, to record the history of the Solar wind back billions of years.
There are lots of reasons to send people to the Moon, and to establish a permanent base there; it needn't be Mars or nothing.
Yeh! Flush it down the toilet!
Woo-Ho!
We have Dell Latitudes at work, and of three computers we have, we have had the same graphics card fault four times. I know of at least one other machine in our department that has failed in exactly the same way.
I've bought HP, Sony, Fujitsu, but I'll never by a Dell.
My brother hacked his school's computer on the last day of term, and stopped all the printers from working, for a prank. He 'hacked' in by using a teachers surname as the username, and using the password: password
Sometimes, forced changes are useful!
More Jupiter Rock
Yet More Jupiter Rock
If you can call Tori Amos rock, that is...
I live my life in service to the God Jupiter, I think I should be able to make bad jokes about him.
I remember hearing this, and wondered why he kept going on about it. He sounded desparate that we should understand that he has a big part in the movie, which rang false for me when he heard it. Perhaps he was actually desparately trying to get to stay in the movie, and influence the decision by making such over the top comments.
The story is about importing books from England, which is also a traditional home from brewing real ale. He bought all his books in England, except, ironically, the brewing one.
Nope. That works. Just about... Wait a minute. Yeh. That works.
"Hell has frozen over" proclaims the front page of Apple.com.
Maybe they mean: "I'll pay for music when I can download it for free, when....."
I second that totally. I've bought a lot of great music on CDBaby. Last year, for instance, I bought a Trespasser Williams CD, and it was finally released in the UK on a 'big' label, and played on my favourate radio station, this year.
And you know what? Not only was it cheaper a year ago than it is now, but the artists got more of my cash the CDBaby route.
Now how can that be wrong?
On as basic level, it's why fire rescue services use infrared googles going into a burning building. All the smoke obscures the visible light, but the heat (aka infrared light) passes through the smoke more easily.
Of course, using highly calibrated equipment allows you to look in a very specific region of the 'wavelength window', so you can cut out as much of the obscuring material as possible. One man's target is another man's smoke - you pick your wavelength to include or exclude depending on what you want to see.
While in the strictest sense, data is the pluralised form of datum, following a running battle with my boss (a grammer whore), I've found many examples in which data is allowed as a 'single mass entity'. eg dictionary.com
SETI really assumes that the signals are intentionally *beamed* at us for the purpose of discovery. Detection of the latest episode of ER or whatever is unlikely to happen because the strength of the signal is likely to be too low to detect, but a directly beamed signal will travel better, and is more likely to be dectectable.
If you are looking for signals they have sent to us to be seen by us, it's most likely going to be the most basic detection signal - radio. Unless a race evolves to use quantum-thinies before electromagnetics, which I think is unlikely, they should use radio to talk to us.
Of course, maybe they figure that we're not smart enough to talk to until we can use quantum-thingies. Perhaps the first use of quantum-thingies is a first contact event.
If they're not beaming at us (and it takes one hell of an effort to know about and beam to every Earth like planet is the galaxy), we might never detect a race far enough away... It's possible perhaps that we're just not being talked to...