Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of the old west when everyone walked around armed, scores were settled outside of town, and people were generally more polite
You, sir, need to watch less Gunsmoke and more Deadwood. Lawlessness isn't as much fun as it sounds.
I never said they were the same. Blizzard *must* comply with a subpoena, but *may* provide information to the police without one, at their own discretion.
As I posted elsewhere, take away the Internet, and this is similar to the case of a detective walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking for information about a suspect. If asked, a neighborhood shopkeeper *may* volunteer personal information about a suspect ("Yeah, I know the guy, he lives in an apartment across the street"), but may choose not to for any number of reasons.
I don't have a problem with companies helping law enforcement track accused suspects down, I mean there was a warrant out on the guy, but I'd prefer if it were done the right way - with a judge signing off on a subpoena.
The way I see it is, a subpoena is a device which *forces* someone to comply with law enforcement, but voluntary compliance doesn't require one.
The Indiana sherrif's action is the Internet equivalent of walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking shopkeepers "have you seen this guy?". If we're going to require a subpoena for every casual conversation a cop has with a citizen... well, we're gonna need to hire some extra judges.
Nevermind the Internet angle, the real question here is an ancient one: should you cooperate with the police?
I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary -- if you don't, you and I are never going to see eye to eye so you might as well stop reading now. Law enforcement needs information to work properly. If citizens universally refuse to provide that information, the only way to get it is via direct police surveillance.
So you've got three options: A) police act without any information, B) they set up ubiquitous surveillance to get their info, or C) they get information from citizens. I hope we all agree that C) is the lesser of evils.
So our society has set things up so that in certain very limited circumstances, people are *required* to give information to the police (search warrants, subpoenas, etc.) In other situations, police are forbidden from demanding certain kinds of information, to protect the rights of the accused. (Miranda laws, etc)
For everything in between, cooperation is optional and voluntary. We can decide whether to help or not, based on our sense of the severity of the crime, our personal ties to the suspect, our trust of the police, and any details of the case we're familiar with. It's a judgment call.
I think we need to respect the fact that different people or entities are going to make that judgment call differently, based on their own priorities and values.
To say that helping the cops is always the right or the wrong choice is ridiculously simplistic. You can comment on Blizzard's decision in this particular case, but tying it to some absurd moral absolute is asking for trouble.
You can just as easily practice asteroid deflection strategies on an asteroid that has no chance of hitting Earth either before or after. That way the odds of catastrophic fail are zero.
A similar article in the New York Times makes this point, and ends up with the quote, “There are a million asteroids out there. Find another one.”
That *is* science: if you trust my sources and you follow my calculation and agree with my conclusion, it's a legitimate scientific argument.
You're not going to find this result published in the scientific literature, because it's one of those things that every climate scientist has done on the back of the envelope at some point and then not worried about. I ask my students to do it for a problem set every year.
But realclimate.org might have a blog post about it somewhere.
Direct heating of the planet from human energy sources is currently negligible.
World energy usage, 2007: 16 terawatts (eia.doe.gov). This includes everything but food: all this energy eventually ends up as extra heat.
16 TW globally works out to 0.03 watts per square meter of Earth's surface.
In comparison, the averaged energy absorbed from the Sun is about 250 W/m^2, and the expected change in infrared energy input from greenhouse gases over the next century is 2-10 W/m^2 depending on who's counting. (look it up yourself.)
So the direct effect of waste heat from human activity is 100 times less than the indirect effect of greenhouse gases, and can be ignored.
Also consider the decorator crab which also uses pieces of its environment for self-defense.
The octopus may be unique in the way it *modifies* found objects to make them more suitable for the purpose (blowing the mud out of the shells, putting them together), but it all comes down to how you define a "tool".
I'm saying that if the cops want to beat you, you will be beaten. Now, there is a time to oppose arrest, but let's be clear about what we're talking about here.
If you believe the society we live in has some viable mechanisms for nonviolent justice (courts, media, peaceful protest), as I do, then it's your duty as a citizen to make use of those rather than resort to physical self-defense. If you're violent, you A) guarantee yourself rough treatment, and B) lose credibility in the courts and the media, making your case for justice harder.
If you believe that your society is a totally corrupt police state with no justice and no means of nonviolent recourse, your only sensible option is to overthrow it. And if you say you want a revolution, well all right, but I hope you brought some friends.
Violent opposition to the state is hopeless and counterproductive unless you're willing to launch a full-scale insurrection. Which is your inalienable right according to the Declaration of Independence (though not the Constitution)... but anything less than that is a waste of time and teeth.
Rule #1 of cops: there's more where that one came from. As far as a citizen is concerned, there are an infinite number of cops, and the state can *always* bring more firepower to bear than the citizen can. This makes resisting arrest is ultimately pointless, unless you've got your own private army.
GP is right: the time and place to oppose arrest is afterward, in a court of law or the court of public opinion.
No, it has no special advantages as a range extender for plug-in hybrid use. In fact, its major design feature (switching between high-torque and high-efficiency) aren't needed when the engine is only used to turn a generator.
My guesses: * Economy of scale. There are a lot more companies making parts for cylinder engines than turbines, so it's a lot easier and cheaper to build for the same horsepower. * Repair and maintenance. You take a Prius to your neighborhood dealer, and so long as there's not a problem with the battery or motor/generator, he can fix it. You bring him a turbine engine, and he'll be baffled.
I agree, this looks like a rocket out of control, especially when you look at the videos.
But here's the one remaining question: what's the glowing blue-green "beam" shooting out from the center? It's not the launch trajectory of the rocket, because according to this site (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html) the green beam formed *after* the spiral was visible.
My guess: the rocket fuel gradually became ionized, and the glowing charged ions moved away from the rocket following along magnetic field lines.
Anybody know what cardinal direction these photos are taken in?
Basic physics: the forces involved in a bouncy collision are *greater* than the forces involved in an identical "smooshy" collision. Why? Because the crash has to not just bring you to a stop, but throw you back away again.
What you want is a smooshy collision that takes place over a long time. Thus, airbags.
Unfortunately, once you're dealing with lossy compression schemes (which accounts for the vast majority of compressed data in use today), you can pretty much throw Shannon out the window.
The bit rate of a lossy-compressed signal has very little to do with its content and much more with the limits and tolerance of human perception.
Agree. This is a statistic I've thought about a lot, and eventually come to the conclusion that it can't really be measured.
In addition to your points, other signs that this report is useless:
* Byte count depends on compression. If I watch the same video stream using a new high-tech encoding that halves the bytecount without affecting quality, am I consuming less information? Of course not. If I listen to a CD and then listen to the same album on MP3, am I consuming less information? No.
* Data is not compared apples-to-apples in the report. Computer gaming is supposedly the vast majority of data use by bytecount, but that's only because it's measured by uncompressed video card throughput, while TV is measured by the size of the compressed video stream.
So hang on. You're holding a face-to-face social event to help antisocial people gain more comfort and skill in handling face-to-face social situations?
And you're surprised that nobody showed up?
Next time, why not hold a conference on "Conquering Acrophobia" at the top of the Seattle Space Needle?
Laughing at you for not RTFA: the balloons are on the ground.
But seriously, I think what they'll be doing is looking for the red balloons using satellite surveillance. As I've posted before, I think this is the non-secret half of a cameras-vs-eyeballs contest: can satellites find objects of interest faster than a motivated network of humans?
C'mon, Slashdot, this is rocket science. You shouldn't need help figuring this out on your own.
I'll come out and say it: this is a stupid rocket. As Baldrson points out above, its "specific impulse" (the most important measure of a rocket fuel's usefulness) is less than a quarter that of rocket fuels currently in existence.
Aluminum is readily available on the moon, but not as big old bricks of elemental aluminum lying around. You need to *make* it by electrolyzing rock. (Don't panic, this is how we make aluminum on Earth today.) The reaction is roughly Al2O3 -> 2 Al + 1.5 O2, and oxygen is *always* a major byproduct.
Save that oxygen. You get *much* more energy burning aluminum in oxygen than you do burning aluminum in water. Estimated Isp for an aluminum-oxygen rocket is 285 -- waaay better than aluminum-ice.
Al-Ox rockets are nasty to think about, because the exhaust is a solid -- solid sandpaper, actually. But the rocket from TFA has the same problem: Baldrson's data indicates exhaust that's 1/4 alumina, 3/4 hydrogen gas.
But if water is available, and you're gonna electrolyze something to make rocket fuel, why not electrolyze water to get hydrogen and oxygen? Standard, classic, perfect rocket fuel.
Aluminum-ice has all the drawbacks of an exotic rocket fuel, and no benefits: it's not more abundant, it's not more convenient, and it sure as hell doesn't give better performance.
Slashdot Mirror
Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of the old west when everyone walked around armed, scores were settled outside of town, and people were generally more polite
You, sir, need to watch less Gunsmoke and more Deadwood. Lawlessness isn't as much fun as it sounds.
I never said they were the same. Blizzard *must* comply with a subpoena, but *may* provide information to the police without one, at their own discretion.
As I posted elsewhere, take away the Internet, and this is similar to the case of a detective walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking for information about a suspect. If asked, a neighborhood shopkeeper *may* volunteer personal information about a suspect ("Yeah, I know the guy, he lives in an apartment across the street"), but may choose not to for any number of reasons.
I don't have a problem with companies helping law enforcement track accused suspects down, I mean there was a warrant out on the guy, but I'd prefer if it were done the right way - with a judge signing off on a subpoena.
The way I see it is, a subpoena is a device which *forces* someone to comply with law enforcement, but voluntary compliance doesn't require one.
The Indiana sherrif's action is the Internet equivalent of walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking shopkeepers "have you seen this guy?". If we're going to require a subpoena for every casual conversation a cop has with a citizen... well, we're gonna need to hire some extra judges.
On what grounds? Their actions are consistent with the EULA the player agreed to when they started playing.
Nevermind the Internet angle, the real question here is an ancient one: should you cooperate with the police?
I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary -- if you don't, you and I are never going to see eye to eye so you might as well stop reading now. Law enforcement needs information to work properly. If citizens universally refuse to provide that information, the only way to get it is via direct police surveillance.
So you've got three options: A) police act without any information, B) they set up ubiquitous surveillance to get their info, or C) they get information from citizens. I hope we all agree that C) is the lesser of evils.
So our society has set things up so that in certain very limited circumstances, people are *required* to give information to the police (search warrants, subpoenas, etc.) In other situations, police are forbidden from demanding certain kinds of information, to protect the rights of the accused. (Miranda laws, etc)
For everything in between, cooperation is optional and voluntary. We can decide whether to help or not, based on our sense of the severity of the crime, our personal ties to the suspect, our trust of the police, and any details of the case we're familiar with. It's a judgment call.
I think we need to respect the fact that different people or entities are going to make that judgment call differently, based on their own priorities and values.
To say that helping the cops is always the right or the wrong choice is ridiculously simplistic. You can comment on Blizzard's decision in this particular case, but tying it to some absurd moral absolute is asking for trouble.
It's not so much that he's bad, he just doesn't play very seriously. Most of his gear is from older dungeons designed for small groups.
He's set up his character to specialize in healing, but serious players would question some of the choices he made in doing that.
Anyway, this has the look of a player who only plays a couple hours a week. Which makes sense, since he has some real-life issues to take care of.
Mod parent up.
If the post-soviet Russian space agency tells you they're going to put some people in low Earth orbit, believe them.
If they tell you they're going to launch something outside Earth's orbit, don't bet on it.
If they tell you they're doing anything else, snicker and move on to the next news article.
Feel free to test asteroid diversion schemes on an asteroid that has no chance of hitting Earth whether you succeed or fail.
A related New York Times article makes this point.
You can just as easily practice asteroid deflection strategies on an asteroid that has no chance of hitting Earth either before or after. That way the odds of catastrophic fail are zero.
A similar article in the New York Times makes this point, and ends up with the quote, “There are a million asteroids out there. Find another one.”
That *is* science: if you trust my sources and you follow my calculation and agree with my conclusion, it's a legitimate scientific argument.
You're not going to find this result published in the scientific literature, because it's one of those things that every climate scientist has done on the back of the envelope at some point and then not worried about. I ask my students to do it for a problem set every year.
But realclimate.org might have a blog post about it somewhere.
Direct heating of the planet from human energy sources is currently negligible.
World energy usage, 2007: 16 terawatts (eia.doe.gov). This includes everything but food: all this energy eventually ends up as extra heat.
16 TW globally works out to 0.03 watts per square meter of Earth's surface.
In comparison, the averaged energy absorbed from the Sun is about 250 W/m^2, and the expected change in infrared energy input from greenhouse gases over the next century is 2-10 W/m^2 depending on who's counting. (look it up yourself.)
So the direct effect of waste heat from human activity is 100 times less than the indirect effect of greenhouse gases, and can be ignored.
Reality is a really crappy game. Its rules were written by a sadistic game designer with no sense of balance, proportion, pacing, or fun.
Also consider the decorator crab which also uses pieces of its environment for self-defense.
The octopus may be unique in the way it *modifies* found objects to make them more suitable for the purpose (blowing the mud out of the shells, putting them together), but it all comes down to how you define a "tool".
I'm saying that if the cops want to beat you, you will be beaten. Now, there is a time to oppose arrest, but let's be clear about what we're talking about here.
If you believe the society we live in has some viable mechanisms for nonviolent justice (courts, media, peaceful protest), as I do, then it's your duty as a citizen to make use of those rather than resort to physical self-defense. If you're violent, you A) guarantee yourself rough treatment, and B) lose credibility in the courts and the media, making your case for justice harder.
If you believe that your society is a totally corrupt police state with no justice and no means of nonviolent recourse, your only sensible option is to overthrow it. And if you say you want a revolution, well all right, but I hope you brought some friends.
Violent opposition to the state is hopeless and counterproductive unless you're willing to launch a full-scale insurrection. Which is your inalienable right according to the Declaration of Independence (though not the Constitution)... but anything less than that is a waste of time and teeth.
Rule #1 of cops: there's more where that one came from. As far as a citizen is concerned, there are an infinite number of cops, and the state can *always* bring more firepower to bear than the citizen can. This makes resisting arrest is ultimately pointless, unless you've got your own private army.
GP is right: the time and place to oppose arrest is afterward, in a court of law or the court of public opinion.
No, it has no special advantages as a range extender for plug-in hybrid use. In fact, its major design feature (switching between high-torque and high-efficiency) aren't needed when the engine is only used to turn a generator.
My guesses:
* Economy of scale. There are a lot more companies making parts for cylinder engines than turbines, so it's a lot easier and cheaper to build for the same horsepower.
* Repair and maintenance. You take a Prius to your neighborhood dealer, and so long as there's not a problem with the battery or motor/generator, he can fix it. You bring him a turbine engine, and he'll be baffled.
I agree, this looks like a rocket out of control, especially when you look at the videos.
But here's the one remaining question: what's the glowing blue-green "beam" shooting out from the center? It's not the launch trajectory of the rocket, because according to this site (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html) the green beam formed *after* the spiral was visible.
My guess: the rocket fuel gradually became ionized, and the glowing charged ions moved away from the rocket following along magnetic field lines.
Anybody know what cardinal direction these photos are taken in?
Basic physics: the forces involved in a bouncy collision are *greater* than the forces involved in an identical "smooshy" collision. Why? Because the crash has to not just bring you to a stop, but throw you back away again.
What you want is a smooshy collision that takes place over a long time. Thus, airbags.
Unfortunately, once you're dealing with lossy compression schemes (which accounts for the vast majority of compressed data in use today), you can pretty much throw Shannon out the window.
The bit rate of a lossy-compressed signal has very little to do with its content and much more with the limits and tolerance of human perception.
Agree. This is a statistic I've thought about a lot, and eventually come to the conclusion that it can't really be measured.
In addition to your points, other signs that this report is useless:
* Byte count depends on compression. If I watch the same video stream using a new high-tech encoding that halves the bytecount without affecting quality, am I consuming less information? Of course not. If I listen to a CD and then listen to the same album on MP3, am I consuming less information? No.
* Data is not compared apples-to-apples in the report. Computer gaming is supposedly the vast majority of data use by bytecount, but that's only because it's measured by uncompressed video card throughput, while TV is measured by the size of the compressed video stream.
Interesting topic, useless conclusions.
So hang on. You're holding a face-to-face social event to help antisocial people gain more comfort and skill in handling face-to-face social situations?
And you're surprised that nobody showed up?
Next time, why not hold a conference on "Conquering Acrophobia" at the top of the Seattle Space Needle?
Laughing at you for not RTFA: the balloons are on the ground.
But seriously, I think what they'll be doing is looking for the red balloons using satellite surveillance. As I've posted before, I think this is the non-secret half of a cameras-vs-eyeballs contest: can satellites find objects of interest faster than a motivated network of humans?
Actually red is a standard weather balloon color, it's easier to see against a cloudy sky. But the really big ones don't seem to come in red very often.
C'mon, Slashdot, this is rocket science. You shouldn't need help figuring this out on your own.
I'll come out and say it: this is a stupid rocket. As Baldrson points out above, its "specific impulse" (the most important measure of a rocket fuel's usefulness) is less than a quarter that of rocket fuels currently in existence.
Aluminum is readily available on the moon, but not as big old bricks of elemental aluminum lying around. You need to *make* it by electrolyzing rock. (Don't panic, this is how we make aluminum on Earth today.) The reaction is roughly Al2O3 -> 2 Al + 1.5 O2, and oxygen is *always* a major byproduct.
Save that oxygen. You get *much* more energy burning aluminum in oxygen than you do burning aluminum in water. Estimated Isp for an aluminum-oxygen rocket is 285 -- waaay better than aluminum-ice.
Al-Ox rockets are nasty to think about, because the exhaust is a solid -- solid sandpaper, actually. But the rocket from TFA has the same problem: Baldrson's data indicates exhaust that's 1/4 alumina, 3/4 hydrogen gas.
But if water is available, and you're gonna electrolyze something to make rocket fuel, why not electrolyze water to get hydrogen and oxygen? Standard, classic, perfect rocket fuel.
Aluminum-ice has all the drawbacks of an exotic rocket fuel, and no benefits: it's not more abundant, it's not more convenient, and it sure as hell doesn't give better performance.