The size of the US Space Shuttle was actually determined by . . ..the width of a Roman Chariot which by no coincidence was determined by the width of the two horses that pulled the chariots.
False. As noted at Snopes. Just in case anyone thought the parent was not a joke ("I saw it on Slashdot! It must be true!") Note: this is not to say it isn't funny. I can neither confirm nor
deny that the parent was funny.
You don't honestly think that you have any idea what the population of china looks like do you? Think major sporting event.
The funny part (I thought) was of course you can't imagine what a billion is, much less a billion billion or sixteen bazookillion or whatever. Guess it was only a billionth as funny as I'd hoped....
No, nobody can really visualize a billion (seriously, try!)
Picture the population of China.
Now picture the population of China each picturing the population of China. Then picture sixteen Latvians each picturing the population of China each picturing the population of China. That's the number from the article.
And regarding another thing, how come so many services require a certificate (such as SSL with email, imap, pop, etc) rather than auto-negotiating it like SSH does?
The reason SSH gets away with this is you have a list of public keys for hosts you talk to. This is assumed to be correct. You're supposed to verify these as necessary, but in fact everyone (okay, me) just says okay when asked if a new unrecognized server key should be accepted. Certificates serve the same function, but there's a trusted third party that vouches for their authenticity.
All the real crypto guys and gals may now feel free to dogpile on my undoubtedly-incorrect simplification . . . .
Heck, the recent Indian elections were ALL electronic.. and the U.S cant even count paper ballots (re: Florida!)
Gee, I bet the party running the place likes that. They probably save
a bunch of that GDP by being able to run their recounts at the touch of a button . . . and the right guy still wins!
Next election will be further optimized by allowing people to remain home and have their votes automatically generated. This reduces reliance on transport, so it's green!
- As far as credit cards are concerned, years ago I've found that the fewer I have, the better off I am. If you're a parent and you know this, how can you let your kids stack up five credit cards? If you don't know this and one day you get a suprise call from the bank, well, I'm sorry - you should have known better.
Hmmm. In the United States, you have kind of limited control over the actions of your adult kids. Like . . . uh . . . none, as far as I can see. I don't think the poster being referred to was talking about their minor children.
And I do agree it's the kid's fault. Which means the parents shouldn't be hearing from some scum creditors on the blower.
Re:Sounds perfect for Florida...
on
Space-Age Houses
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· Score: 1
Should be perfect for Florida and other places with "high winds"[....]
They could make them streamlined with a vertical axis that swivels like the Dymaxion House. (Here's a couple of links that discuss more with less pictures).
Then it'd probably withstand pretty much any level of wind--until something that wasn't streamlined (e.g., palm tree, SS Minnow, old lady on bicycle) slammed into it . . . .
Maybe advanced materials are what's needed to finally achieve Old Bucky's goals (even though they supposedly could have been built for the price of an automobile instead of the price of a house).
I'll buy one.
And yet, finding a SW fan who'll mail nine bucks to UNICEF, instead of going to the midnight show of a movie with a character named Kit Fisto [....]
I remember seeing the first (fourth) movie the day it was released. It was
pretty good. I can't really remember seeing the last few, though I know I
went to at least the one with the Japanese aliens.
Having established my lack of credentials, I must ask: "Kit Fisto?" Did you make that
up?
It sounds like something from a really bad leather movie.
Hmm, you have never seen a Coriolis Clock have you?
For those who don't know, it is a clock with a horizontally rotating flywheel, that you never need to wind. It works provided that you are within a certain lattitude - too close to the equator/poles and it won't work. Very delicate 19th century design - the ones you get in the shops today are immitations and are battery powered.
No, I haven't, and neither has Google. I'm having a hard time imagining how this can work without an external energy source. What spins the flywheel? I'd appreciate a reference.
Frankly, I couldn't care less what the HP die-hard fanboys think. I'd rather listen to someone with a fresh perspective. To me, the 49g+ is the best calculator I've ever used. Maybe if I had also used a 48-series HP, I wouldn't think so. Does it matter? The 49g+ does its job and then some. There's a point where you get to "good enough" and after that the differences just don't matter anymore. Calling a product "mediocre" just because it doesn't live up to very high expectations is neither fair nor rational.
Unfortunately, if we apply this criterion, all discussion effectively ceases. Consider that however atrocious anything is, there is someone who feels it's "good enough." Hell, there're people who think Starbuck's coffee is "good enough."
You then have to ask the question, are those regulations adequate to protect people that might be driving these experimental vehicles that are designed to be lightweight technology demonstrations rather than safe, reliable forms of transportation?
You have to ask the question, "should adults be able to engage in behavior that might place their life or health at risk?" If the answer is "no," then for starters we should ban motorcycles and bicycles and lower the speed limit to ten MPH. I think you'd find these measures would save on the order of 40,000 lives per year in the United States.
Not to mention saving a lot of fuel, since a 1/2 HP engine would be plenty for the largest car.
As you can see, a sequence of a JNZ followed by a JMP can easily be re-written as a JZ followed by a JMP. The program only needs to go through and change each instance to match bitwise value of the "message", treating JNZ-JMP as a bitwise 0 and JZ-JMP as a 1.
So long as none of the jumps is itself the target of a jump. I suspect detecting this in the general case of handwritten code is impossible. Presumably the assumption is that you never have a case like that. I'll have to read the paper.
Of course, it's hard to come up with a reason for a jump to target another jump--unless it's to prevent a program being used to steganographically encode information....
It's fun to see them try, but the physics say that the energy just isn't there. Perhaps if the copter weighed almost nothing, and it was constructed of super-strong materials.
The contention that the human body can only produce 0.26 HP because the body generates 200 W of heat is interesting, but I think that's the body at rest. This link claims "Over very short time intervals top athletes can manage a maximum output power of about 0.5 horsepower." Apparently there is at least some dispute over your figure. Remember, they were shooting for one minute, not continuous.
These were engineering students, and yet no one thought to do the basic physics calculations (like: what is the power required and can a human generate it) before building a prototype. I thought that was what engineering is all about.
I know it's kind of expected that no one on Slashdot reads the references before pontificating, but this (click on "choosing the final Thunderbird design") seems to indicate they did do the calculations and they did expect a human could produce enough power.
It appears they were in error, or that there were other things (e.g., stability) that interfered. That's no reason to expect they won't improve the design and get it working, though. I think it's a pretty cool challenge and certainly beats the usual student project of "design another <known thing>".
"Right now we're all taking bets on what's going to fail first"
Sounds like this venture was well planned!
Actually, that's how you engineer something for the lightest possible weight. If nothing fails, you've overbuilt the whole structure. If something fails you beef that part up a little and try again. I imagine that light weight is really critical with this design, even if you can find a really brawny little bike racer to pump the thing. One of those guys that basically a pair of legs supporting a pair of lungs . . . .
Of course, you do it differently if there's human life involved, but I can't imagine a human-powered helicopter getting high enough for this to be a major concern.
If you check out you state laws, you'll find that the local police, state highway patrol, etc. are exempt from the speed limit. Call your local congressman and complain.
I think it's usually only in cases where they're supposedly engaged in speed-enforcement activities, e.g., clocking someone. Of course, that is universally ignored.
Man I screwed that up. I meant that 1 out of 1 x 10^500000 suns. My point seems kind silly the other way around. Spent too much time with the scientific notation.
Hmmm. I think the number of particles in the universe is estimated at around
something like 10^200. That means your number is too large by a factor of something like 10^500000.
I'm a little suprised no one else commented on it. Either a) I'm a pedantic bastard or b) . . . hmmm . . . I can't think of an alternative.
From what I've heard on previous discussions on slashdot and elsewhere, these things as a general rule only record a continuous 15-second queue of material - storing 100,000 miles worth of one second data plots covering speed, breaking force, steering direction, etc would be fairly difficult without more extensive equipment and storage, not to mention largely unproductive. The black boxes are only interested in what happened the last 15 seconds before the crash, which is useful information.
You don't think that things like "maximum speed" or "average speed over the last ten minutes" would be useful? Certainly "max speed" would be useful to the car manufacturer when they wanted to deny warantee coverage. So . . . I'd expect things like that to be recorded. Doing a little data reduction on the fly allows all kinds of interesting (and potentially damaging to the owner) information to be recorded.
As the boxes get successfully challenged, they'll include more interlocking data so that it's harder to argue that that 192 MPH reading was just random data....
That's a bit more doubtful. One of the sniper's biggest advantages is his extreme distance (sometimes as far as miles away). Even a high powered military scope would have difficulty in finding the target at that range. However, that doesn't mean that you couldn't use it to target someone in the building next door. You'll have to be satisfied with increased risk, however.
Not to mention that shooting someone through a wall is kind of inaccurate. I guess it depends on a) what the wall is made of and b) what you're shooting. That 155mm "sniper rifle" would probably work pretty well. Another problem might be telling who you're looking at. You could probably distinguish a large from a small person, but what if there are three 180 pound guys?
I guess with the 155mm solution, again it just doesn't matter.
My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas. -- Call me Ishmael.
My respect for the slashdot moderation system would rise if the parent were moderated "funny" at least +4.
I won't explain it, though--that would spoil it.
Maybe my sense of humor is just different than everyone else's....
Slashdot Mirror
I really liked the '59 goats with the big tail fins better, though.
Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?
All the real crypto guys and gals may now feel free to dogpile on my undoubtedly-incorrect simplification . . . .
Next election will be further optimized by allowing people to remain home and have their votes automatically generated. This reduces reliance on transport, so it's green!
And I do agree it's the kid's fault. Which means the parents shouldn't be hearing from some scum creditors on the blower.
Then it'd probably withstand pretty much any level of wind--until something that wasn't streamlined (e.g., palm tree, SS Minnow, old lady on bicycle) slammed into it . . . .
Maybe advanced materials are what's needed to finally achieve Old Bucky's goals (even though they supposedly could have been built for the price of an automobile instead of the price of a house). I'll buy one.
Having established my lack of credentials, I must ask: "Kit Fisto?" Did you make that up? It sounds like something from a really bad leather movie.
I think they should give "special" attention to all passengers with paid first class tickets. Not upgrades, though. I get upgrades sometimes....
Not to mention saving a lot of fuel, since a 1/2 HP engine would be plenty for the largest car.
Of course, it's hard to come up with a reason for a jump to target another jump--unless it's to prevent a program being used to steganographically encode information....
It appears they were in error, or that there were other things (e.g., stability) that interfered. That's no reason to expect they won't improve the design and get it working, though. I think it's a pretty cool challenge and certainly beats the usual student project of "design another <known thing>".
Of course, you do it differently if there's human life involved, but I can't imagine a human-powered helicopter getting high enough for this to be a major concern.
I'm a little suprised no one else commented on it. Either a) I'm a pedantic bastard or b) . . . hmmm . . . I can't think of an alternative.
As the boxes get successfully challenged, they'll include more interlocking data so that it's harder to argue that that 192 MPH reading was just random data....
I guess with the 155mm solution, again it just doesn't matter.
Now, will they be able to sell it for $3.98 through the back of comic books?