They may not be able to patent the structure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were awarded a patent for the process of making these. Semiconductor processing is a very finicky business.
Actually, let me refine that. I would be surprised if they were awarded a patent for the process. I suspect that "trade secret" would be a much more appropriate method of protecting their work.
Someone at the University of Waterloo made their own "air conditioner" last year.
Granted, the CoP is probably miles worse than that of a normal heat-engine based A/C, especially when you consider the energy costs of freezing the ice, but . . .
In case of slashdotting, this is what he did:
Fill a bucket with icewater Put a coil of copper tubing on the back of a fan Use rubber hosing to connect the copper tubing to the bucket of icewater Use a 2nd piece of hose between the copper tubing & the window Siphon action pulls the cool water through the copper tube & drains it out the window Fan moves air over the cold copper tubing
If you're not paying utilities, you could even do this with just cold tapwater, in your own home. Or, harvest the waste water for your garden, filling toilet tanks, or whatever!
We recently purchased a Scooba as well, and our manual states that you can use 2oz. of white vinegar instead of the cleaning solution. Of course, they make no claims about what the vinegar will do to sealed hardwood floors, but c'mon, it's dilute acetic acid.
As an added bonus, it will help us because we have hard water. It should prevent lime scale buildup on the robot.
Can't the actual human employees at the head of the line make this determination and alert whomever has the authority to open another lane?
Seeing as the standard "pre-defined length" actually stretches over the horizon, beyond the sightlines of the employees working the security station, then no, they can't. This new system enables them to know when they can have another employee earning money, without detracting from the 3-hour experience of waiting in line that we've all come to know and love.
Just think of the problems if you got through security quickly, and had to kill those three hours waiting on the departures concourse. *shudders*
It was spinning when it formed so it'sa gonna keep spinnin 'till something big enough comes along to stop it.
That "something big enough" is already here. It's called tides. The difference in the force of gravity on the near and far side of the moon have locked it into a 1:1 rotation:orbit configuration with the earth. The same will eventually happen with the earth and the sun. Of course, it will take a much longer time, but barring external influences, it will happen.
I tried to write a poem based on sqrt(-1), but my laptop collapsed in on itself and disappeared. However, if I turn my head 90 degrees, I can still make it out, amongst the shadowy shapes now filling my living room.
PS - this comment was written on my desktop computer.
Umeno believes astronomical cryptography could appeal to anyone who requires high-security communications. He adds that the method does not require a large radio antenna or that the communicating parties be located in the same hemisphere, as radio signals can be broadcast over the internet at high speed.
Basically, he just wants to use the quasars as a source of true randomness, instead of/dev/random, which, although influenced by random events, is largely computed using pseudo-random processes. The data stream from each quasar would be broadcast from a single collection point for all to use, but this to me brings up trust issues. Would you trust that single point of contact? Additionally, with enough horsepower, someone could simply record the bytestream coming from the quasar, and perform an off-line brute-force attack on any encrypted data with relative ease.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if there were cameras in everyone's homes. Imagine how many lives could be saved if everyone was required to wear "pacification collars" that emitted 10,000V shocks to immobilize any person about to commit a crime.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if every non-citizen entering the United States had to be fingerprinted.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if there were a secret list of people that might possibly use a commercial airplane for a criminal act, and those people were denied the use of any commercial airline in the U.S.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if people accused of terrorism by the U.S. government could be held indefinitely, incommunicado, with no access to the rest of their "terrorist cells" (or lawyers, or family members, or the media).
Imagine how many lives could be saved if the government was allowed to listen in on anyone's telephone conversations, without a warrant, and it was illegal to even disclose who was being listened to.
Where will you draw the line?
BTW - the case this subpoena applies to has nothing to do with terrorism. It's a case of fraud, and an attempt by the IRS to track down Pukke's vast ill-gotten gains, so they can tax them. I think that the subpoena is reasonable in this case, and the judge was acting within the intent of the law, and in a manner compliant with common sense.
As others have pointed out above and below, what happens when Google runs a standard backup program _before_ you've deleted your email? It ends up on a tape, and that tape ends up in a fire-proof vault somewhere. Pushing the "delete" button does not cause that email on that tape in that vault to suddenly self-destruct.
Sure, it could take a lot of time, but under a subpoena, Google may be forced to go through all of their archive tapes and grab every piece of data from every time period they have recorded.
The most commonly accepted cause of motion sickness is a discrepancy between the reports from your eyes and your inner ears. If your head says you're moving and your eyes say you aren't, you'll get confused and sick. If your eyes say you're moving and your head says you aren't, same problem.
Do you feel ill when you spin around in a circle until you're dizzy? Same problem.
I have this very issue. I have trouble travelling in cars unless I can look out the front window. Staring at things ahead of me in the distance allows my eyes and inner ear to match up. For video games, playing in a well-lit room with a smaller screen really helps. Yes, I know you've got a giant monitor. Move it farther away from you. What's better - immersion or no nausea?
If your eye picks up enough reference points outside of the viewing screen area, reference points that are not moving, then you're likely to avoid motion sickness. Your brain will decide that those points agree with what your inner ear is telling you, and everything is okay.
I have trouble seeing IMAX films, because the screen is large enough to fill my entire field of view. The moving image & not moving head gives me motion sickness. However, if I stare at the edge of the screen, I start to feel better.
The main reason large telescopes are cooled is because the sensor is a CCD. In CCDs, there is a phenomenon called "dark current." This refers to the electrons captured in the CCD as a result of thermal excitation, rather than optical excitation. Infra-red emitted from the surroundings would still count as optical excitation.
It's a fuzzy number, but the amount of dark current generated _entirely within_ a CCD sensor doubles approximately every 7 degrees celsius when near room temperature.
Associated with dark current is noise as well. The noise is called "shot noise" and has to do with the temporal randomness of electron generation. Shot noise is modelled as the square root of the signal for both photogenerated charge and dark current. Since you can't resolve anything in an image if the signal is lower than your noise floor, reducing the dark current shot noise will give you the ability to see dimmer objects.
BTW - dark current exists for CMOS image sensors as well.
The lawyers can always eat each other, in a cannibalistic battle royale, televised live across the globe. Now THAT'S a reality show that I'd consider watching.
The prize for the final surviving lawyer would be all-you-can-eat McDonalds, so he wouldn't have to worry about eating, and we'd all know he'd be dead in a year or so anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Pay-TV with ads? I think that's been tried and found to be a horrible failure.
Looked at your cable bill lately?
They may not be able to patent the structure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were awarded a patent for the process of making these. Semiconductor processing is a very finicky business.
Actually, let me refine that. I would be surprised if they were awarded a patent for the process. I suspect that "trade secret" would be a much more appropriate method of protecting their work.
Someone at the University of Waterloo made their own "air conditioner" last year.
Granted, the CoP is probably miles worse than that of a normal heat-engine based A/C, especially when you consider the energy costs of freezing the ice, but . . .
In case of slashdotting, this is what he did:
Fill a bucket with icewater
Put a coil of copper tubing on the back of a fan
Use rubber hosing to connect the copper tubing to the bucket of icewater
Use a 2nd piece of hose between the copper tubing & the window
Siphon action pulls the cool water through the copper tube & drains it out the window
Fan moves air over the cold copper tubing
If you're not paying utilities, you could even do this with just cold tapwater, in your own home. Or, harvest the waste water for your garden, filling toilet tanks, or whatever!
We recently purchased a Scooba as well, and our manual states that you can use 2oz. of white vinegar instead of the cleaning solution. Of course, they make no claims about what the vinegar will do to sealed hardwood floors, but c'mon, it's dilute acetic acid.
As an added bonus, it will help us because we have hard water. It should prevent lime scale buildup on the robot.
However, there does seem to be some correlation between the movie "Toy Story" and being shot in the face. Hmm...
(BTW - neat page!)
Can't the actual human employees at the head of the line make this determination and alert whomever has the authority to open another lane?
Seeing as the standard "pre-defined length" actually stretches over the horizon, beyond the sightlines of the employees working the security station, then no, they can't. This new system enables them to know when they can have another employee earning money, without detracting from the 3-hour experience of waiting in line that we've all come to know and love.
Just think of the problems if you got through security quickly, and had to kill those three hours waiting on the departures concourse. *shudders*
It was spinning when it formed so it'sa gonna keep spinnin 'till something big enough comes along to stop it.
That "something big enough" is already here. It's called tides. The difference in the force of gravity on the near and far side of the moon have locked it into a 1:1 rotation:orbit configuration with the earth. The same will eventually happen with the earth and the sun. Of course, it will take a much longer time, but barring external influences, it will happen.
1 cubit = 1.5 feet. From an above post, the glue can hold 10,000 PSI.
10,000 PSI * (2.25 square feet) * (conversion factor = 1E-6 * 144) =
3.24 lbs per square millicubit
Weight of eiffel tower = 10,000 tons = 2,000,000 pounds
Glue force in Eiffel towers per square millicubit:
1.62E-6 eiffel towers per square millicubit.
Sorry... couldn't help myself. God bless America for boobies and donuts!
You're allowed to thank them for the donuts, but boobies are illegal in the U.S.A.
Can I make a fashionable pair of pants out of this new glue? No? Then I'll stick with the good old tried and true, thank you very much.
And if you've invented it, and are making your living off of selling it, how would you then feel if gnu people started offering it for free?
I tried to write a poem based on sqrt(-1), but my laptop collapsed in on itself and disappeared. However, if I turn my head 90 degrees, I can still make it out, amongst the shadowy shapes now filling my living room.
PS - this comment was written on my desktop computer.
"And what would have happened if I hadn't commanded the sun to rise?"
"Well, then, Discworld would have only been illuminated by a flaming ball of gas."
-- Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
the difference between dogs and humans is that dogs learn from their mistakes.
:(
Tell that to my Schnauser who keeps crapping on the rug
Your friend becomes the CFO, you become the CTO, and you hire me as CEO. Problem solved.
...unless there exists somewhere a Church of the Holy M-Rating.
Damn, I might go to church if there was...
Sure, you can leg-press 180kg instead of 100 when wearing the suit. It's too bad the suit weighs 100kg :(
(Just kidding. Info elsewhere states that it weighs 21kg, so there is a net benefit)
From the article:
/dev/random, which, although influenced by random events, is largely computed using pseudo-random processes. The data stream from each quasar would be broadcast from a single collection point for all to use, but this to me brings up trust issues. Would you trust that single point of contact? Additionally, with enough horsepower, someone could simply record the bytestream coming from the quasar, and perform an off-line brute-force attack on any encrypted data with relative ease.
Umeno believes astronomical cryptography could appeal to anyone who requires high-security communications. He adds that the method does not require a large radio antenna or that the communicating parties be located in the same hemisphere, as radio signals can be broadcast over the internet at high speed.
Basically, he just wants to use the quasars as a source of true randomness, instead of
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if there were cameras in everyone's homes. Imagine how many lives could be saved if everyone was required to wear "pacification collars" that emitted 10,000V shocks to immobilize any person about to commit a crime.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if every non-citizen entering the United States had to be fingerprinted.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if there were a secret list of people that might possibly use a commercial airplane for a criminal act, and those people were denied the use of any commercial airline in the U.S.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if people accused of terrorism by the U.S. government could be held indefinitely, incommunicado, with no access to the rest of their "terrorist cells" (or lawyers, or family members, or the media).
Imagine how many lives could be saved if the government was allowed to listen in on anyone's telephone conversations, without a warrant, and it was illegal to even disclose who was being listened to.
Where will you draw the line?
BTW - the case this subpoena applies to has nothing to do with terrorism. It's a case of fraud, and an attempt by the IRS to track down Pukke's vast ill-gotten gains, so they can tax them. I think that the subpoena is reasonable in this case, and the judge was acting within the intent of the law, and in a manner compliant with common sense.
As others have pointed out above and below, what happens when Google runs a standard backup program _before_ you've deleted your email? It ends up on a tape, and that tape ends up in a fire-proof vault somewhere. Pushing the "delete" button does not cause that email on that tape in that vault to suddenly self-destruct.
Sure, it could take a lot of time, but under a subpoena, Google may be forced to go through all of their archive tapes and grab every piece of data from every time period they have recorded.
The most commonly accepted cause of motion sickness is a discrepancy between the reports from your eyes and your inner ears. If your head says you're moving and your eyes say you aren't, you'll get confused and sick. If your eyes say you're moving and your head says you aren't, same problem.
Do you feel ill when you spin around in a circle until you're dizzy? Same problem.
I have this very issue. I have trouble travelling in cars unless I can look out the front window. Staring at things ahead of me in the distance allows my eyes and inner ear to match up. For video games, playing in a well-lit room with a smaller screen really helps. Yes, I know you've got a giant monitor. Move it farther away from you. What's better - immersion or no nausea?
If your eye picks up enough reference points outside of the viewing screen area, reference points that are not moving, then you're likely to avoid motion sickness. Your brain will decide that those points agree with what your inner ear is telling you, and everything is okay.
I have trouble seeing IMAX films, because the screen is large enough to fill my entire field of view. The moving image & not moving head gives me motion sickness. However, if I stare at the edge of the screen, I start to feel better.
Good luck!
Whoops, you missed:
3) profit!
The main reason large telescopes are cooled is because the sensor is a CCD. In CCDs, there is a phenomenon called "dark current." This refers to the electrons captured in the CCD as a result of thermal excitation, rather than optical excitation. Infra-red emitted from the surroundings would still count as optical excitation.
It's a fuzzy number, but the amount of dark current generated _entirely within_ a CCD sensor doubles approximately every 7 degrees celsius when near room temperature.
Associated with dark current is noise as well. The noise is called "shot noise" and has to do with the temporal randomness of electron generation. Shot noise is modelled as the square root of the signal for both photogenerated charge and dark current. Since you can't resolve anything in an image if the signal is lower than your noise floor, reducing the dark current shot noise will give you the ability to see dimmer objects.
BTW - dark current exists for CMOS image sensors as well.
The lawyers can always eat each other, in a cannibalistic battle royale, televised live across the globe. Now THAT'S a reality show that I'd consider watching.
The prize for the final surviving lawyer would be all-you-can-eat McDonalds, so he wouldn't have to worry about eating, and we'd all know he'd be dead in a year or so anyway.
More of that oceany good taste without the shark to expand your waistline.
99% fat free means the food is 1% fat. I guess we can now conclude that the ocean is 30% shark.