But then how do you explain the errors in the previous thousands of experiments measuring the speed of light?
If this was within the error range of previous measurements I'm pretty sure the scientists would have said something similar. This is a pretty large error here and contradicts all those other experiments.
My guess is that it's systematic error in their recording equipment either at cern or at their receiver. Unlikely, but less likely than breaking the speed of light. Or we've found new physics.
I'll take a crack at layman's terms. Despite having a less than tenuous grasp on the science.
There are a variety of "faster than light" effects. The key is not transmitting information faster than light. Faster than light effects are technically allowed so long as no information is gained.
For example: quantum computers performing quantum teleportation sends the state saved in one cubit immediately to another cubit in another quantum computer. However, you need information about the state of the original computer in order to "read" the teleported qubit. The other information has to travel through a classical channel so you cannot gain information faster than light.
The light effect you're referring to I believe is group velocity. This is where the wave pattern of the photons drifts forward while the photon itself is already moving at the speed of light - so it's moving faster. It's not a real motion though. You can detect and extend the effect but if you do so enough to transmit information faster than light, the signal becomes so distorted that the information is lost.
If you physically cut the magnet in half, you just have two magnets. If you left the magnet intact you wouldn't be able to shield it from itself. Unless maybe you had an infinite length shielding device spanning the whole universe...
Social Security was supposed to be an investment for retirement. It is the worst retirement fund ever if people actually do the math where people pay in for about 40 years and get a fraction of what they paid in for...
That's not true Social Security is more like economic insurance enforced by the government. Many people think social security is like a retirement plan. That's only half of it.
Social Security also supports disability, unemployment, medicare, medicaid and a number of other programs. That's why you get a fraction of it back. You are not paying into a retirement plan. You are paying into a system to help keep the society healthy and stable by not allowing people to be thrown to the side of the road and left to die.
Is this a good system? Should the government do this? Those are certainly reasonable questions. Misrepresenting what the system is, however, is not useful at all (though I don't think you did that intentionally).
I pay LOTS of money for medical insurance I never use because I remain healthy the vast majority of the time while the money I pay in supports people who smoke, eat wrong, do drugs, engage in risky behavior and more.
When was the last time you had a guarantee of health from god? Staying healthy is something everyone should do. You can still get cancer. You can still break your neck. What about playing sports? That increases chances of serious injury by many times. Should we outlaw sports?
Meanwhile Social Security also covers other problems. I bet you, being so well prepared for the future. Have some money invested to secure your future? Well, what happens when the stock market collapses (like it's just done) and all your money disappears? Don't say you were irresponsible to invest because everyone thought it was a good idea at the time.
Social Security provides certain protections to everyone: retirement benefits - to keep old retirees from starving to death medicare/medicaid - to keep old retirees from dying from lack of medical care unemployment - to keep people and their families/children from starving to death or losing their home - also allowing them to find new jobs disability - to allow disabled people to survive even though they are no longer able to work
If these services are not provided you will have hoovervilles filled with desperately poor people who've lost their homes due to economic trouble. You will have both the elderly and children without health insurance. You will have the elderly choosing food or heat in the winter. You will have the disabled unable to survive.
Keep in mind many of these problems are completely out of your control. No matter how much you prepare there are no guarantees to health or economic security. You could be hit by a bus or your company president could embezzle your earnings and bankrupt your company.
The questions you have to ask yourself are these: Is it the governments right or responsibility to do these things? If these things are not done by Social Security how will they get done? Do you want to live in a society where these protections are not provided?
In my case, I haven't thought it through entirely but my answers are: No They won't No
You could say that for basically any accident scale.
No, that's incorrect. For example, earthquake magnitude is open-ended. Similarly, the area affected by a wildfire. Other metrices such as deaths from the disaster (which in the case of Fukushima is something like half a dozen or less).
Fair enough on the scales. Though you might question whether or not it would be reasonable to implement that sort of scale here.
Ok... tell that to all of the people who've been forced from their hometowns for the better part of a year (and likely a lot longer). Then tell it to all the farmers who had to destroy all their crops and animals because they were irradiated. Then tell it to Tepco which is expected to be to be liable for many billions of dollars in damages.
So what? A bad car accident can be a disaster for me without being a disaster for society...one of the largest earthquakes of modern time and a big tsunami. That's the real disaster.
I think the burden on the evacuees is less than you realize.
What exactly do you base that last statement on? Frankly I find it offensive. Maybe you are involved in the situation and/or are far more knowledgeable about it than I suspect, in which case my offense is misplaced. My suspicion however is that 100% of your knowledge comes from reading a few articles in your spare time.
I live in Japan. Not by the power plant but I know people who did. Ask yourself this question: would you rather have your entire home and all your possessions dragged out to sea OR have your entire town irradiated and not be able to return for years. Did you think about that for any number of seconds? If so they are at least vaguely comparable. Whether or not one is worse they're pretty clearly both disasters.
Again with my original question: what does it take to reach your definition of disaster? Plague? Holocaust?
Misusing words like disaster may cheapen their meaning but the nuclear plant is a disaster by any reasonable consideration. Yes the quake was a bigger disaster (hell the nuclear plant is included in that event) but that's not reason to say it's not a disaster. If you want to specify "disaster for society." The nuclear plant still fits that by any reasonable definition. Living in southern Japan, the earthquake didn't really have any effect on my day to day life. I could make an argument based on that that it's not a disaster for society. It would be a bad argument.
There are two things to note. First, Fukushima is at the same "level" as a nuclear accident which melts the entire Western hemisphere. One should wonder why the nuclear industry has a scale where the top rung of the scale covers such a vast range of accidents.
You could say that for basically any accident scale. Whatever the last level is in any accident scale is going to include "melts entire hemisphere" because that's going to be so far beyond any expected disaster that they wouldn't make a category for it. In this case the level 7 rating is significant because the accident passed the most extreme level they had previously designated on the scale. That alone says something. Maybe they should have had some higher numbers in that scale. Seems pretty obvious that they should really. It's also pretty obvious why they wouldn't do that - once the disasters start getting worse than this they're really bad. Don't want to advertise that.
Second, Fukushima wasn't a disaster in any sense. There's only been as I understand a few deaths tied to the accident.
Ok... tell that to all of the people who've been forced from their hometowns for the better part of a year (and likely a lot longer). Then tell it to all the farmers who had to destroy all their crops and animals because they were irradiated. Then tell it to Tepco which is expected to be to be liable for many billions of dollars in damages.
What's your tipping point for calling something a disaster? Plague? Holocaust?
Meanwhile, I completely support nuclear power. This was a disaster but one that we can learn from. As a lot of people have been pointing out, when nuclear goes bad it goes really bad. That's a good reason to be extra careful and not a good reason to give up. Planes work under similar conditions. Should we give up on planes?
I claim shenanigans. You're either intentionally ignoring the OPs point or didn't understand it.
Your first point about the cabs is an absurd strawman. What the OP meant was that the HFTs contribute nothing of value. He wasn't saying that they're useless because they don't build something, that would be idiotic to claim. He's saying they provide nothing. No physical object, no useful service. They're taking money and giving nothing back. A cab driver takes money and gives back transport. Not at all analogous.
Your second point addresses this. "They provide liquidity." Maybe that's a valuable service but there's been a number of posts here claiming that they don't actually provide that. (Also, I have a 24 hour convenience store here that I never use. There is no way in the world I would pay them just to be there even if I never bought anything from them.)
So you're saying that his business plan, which netted him billions of dollars, shows that his ideas are terrible?
Does Softbank suck? Well, yeah kind of. If you compare their service to Docomo's or AU's service it's basically terrible. It was never Softbank's goal to provide better service than them though.
Meanwhile, if you see how effective Softbank was at accomplish what they were actually trying to do (i.e. sell lots of phones/service) they've done pretty damn well.
The whole point of softbank is that it's cheap. They have reasonable coverage in all the reasonably sized cities. That covers a huge percentage of the population and allows them to charge a lot less than the other companies (since they have that spotty service in all the mountains in between). It was a smart idea, that was implemented effectively (partially due to all that advertising you seem to have vilified).
I fail to see how this shows his electrical grid idea is bad.
I remember when someone I knew (who thought he was great with computers but actually didn't know what he was doing) decided to overclock his K6. It ran so hot that it fused to his motherboard before booting into windows.
If that 737 was built for far less than Boeing by a group of students at some college? Then probably yes, everyone would be excited. In this case, a private company building space rockets to replace the richest country in the worlds program? Yes, it's interesting.
If you had one of those programmable toy car things that could work. Set up basic functions like "move forward one unit" "Turn left" and then make tasks or a maze for them and see if they can get the car through. The PB&J example earlier sounds similar and might be easier and more fun though.
This is interesting. I always heard from everyone, everywhere that WinME was soooo horrible. Yet I remember upgrading a couple machines to WinME way back when and they ran perfectly. Faster than before and no problems whatsoever for years. I never even used 2k, it was slower. I was always confused as to why everyone hated it so much. I guess this makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Your question is a re-statement of the last sentence of my post.
But then how do you explain the errors in the previous thousands of experiments measuring the speed of light?
If this was within the error range of previous measurements I'm pretty sure the scientists would have said something similar. This is a pretty large error here and contradicts all those other experiments.
My guess is that it's systematic error in their recording equipment either at cern or at their receiver. Unlikely, but less likely than breaking the speed of light. Or we've found new physics.
I'll take a crack at layman's terms. Despite having a less than tenuous grasp on the science.
There are a variety of "faster than light" effects. The key is not transmitting information faster than light. Faster than light effects are technically allowed so long as no information is gained.
For example: quantum computers performing quantum teleportation sends the state saved in one cubit immediately to another cubit in another quantum computer. However, you need information about the state of the original computer in order to "read" the teleported qubit. The other information has to travel through a classical channel so you cannot gain information faster than light.
The light effect you're referring to I believe is group velocity. This is where the wave pattern of the photons drifts forward while the photon itself is already moving at the speed of light - so it's moving faster. It's not a real motion though. You can detect and extend the effect but if you do so enough to transmit information faster than light, the signal becomes so distorted that the information is lost.
The details of this I can't explain.
magnets don't have sides.
What do you mean by "shield one side"?
If you physically cut the magnet in half, you just have two magnets. If you left the magnet intact you wouldn't be able to shield it from itself. Unless maybe you had an infinite length shielding device spanning the whole universe...
hmmm...
trolled weren't I now?
Argument by analogy is a logical fallacy in itself.
No, it's not.
Also, I might recommend you use simpler words and sentences. While it's nice to feel fancy, it's not going to help your argument.
Clarity, Clarity, Clarity.
Social Security was supposed to be an investment for retirement. It is the worst retirement fund ever if people actually do the math where people pay in for about 40 years and get a fraction of what they paid in for...
That's not true Social Security is more like economic insurance enforced by the government. Many people think social security is like a retirement plan. That's only half of it.
Social Security also supports disability, unemployment, medicare, medicaid and a number of other programs. That's why you get a fraction of it back. You are not paying into a retirement plan. You are paying into a system to help keep the society healthy and stable by not allowing people to be thrown to the side of the road and left to die.
Is this a good system? Should the government do this? Those are certainly reasonable questions. Misrepresenting what the system is, however, is not useful at all (though I don't think you did that intentionally).
I pay LOTS of money for medical insurance I never use because I remain healthy the vast majority of the time while the money I pay in supports people who smoke, eat wrong, do drugs, engage in risky behavior and more.
When was the last time you had a guarantee of health from god? Staying healthy is something everyone should do. You can still get cancer. You can still break your neck. What about playing sports? That increases chances of serious injury by many times. Should we outlaw sports?
Meanwhile Social Security also covers other problems. I bet you, being so well prepared for the future. Have some money invested to secure your future? Well, what happens when the stock market collapses (like it's just done) and all your money disappears? Don't say you were irresponsible to invest because everyone thought it was a good idea at the time.
Social Security provides certain protections to everyone:
retirement benefits - to keep old retirees from starving to death
medicare/medicaid - to keep old retirees from dying from lack of medical care
unemployment - to keep people and their families/children from starving to death or losing their home - also allowing them to find new jobs
disability - to allow disabled people to survive even though they are no longer able to work
If these services are not provided you will have hoovervilles filled with desperately poor people who've lost their homes due to economic trouble. You will have both the elderly and children without health insurance. You will have the elderly choosing food or heat in the winter. You will have the disabled unable to survive.
Keep in mind many of these problems are completely out of your control. No matter how much you prepare there are no guarantees to health or economic security. You could be hit by a bus or your company president could embezzle your earnings and bankrupt your company.
The questions you have to ask yourself are these:
Is it the governments right or responsibility to do these things?
If these things are not done by Social Security how will they get done?
Do you want to live in a society where these protections are not provided?
In my case, I haven't thought it through entirely but my answers are:
No
They won't
No
Which leaves one with a conundrum.
You could say that for basically any accident scale.
No, that's incorrect. For example, earthquake magnitude is open-ended. Similarly, the area affected by a wildfire. Other metrices such as deaths from the disaster (which in the case of Fukushima is something like half a dozen or less).
Fair enough on the scales. Though you might question whether or not it would be reasonable to implement that sort of scale here.
Ok... tell that to all of the people who've been forced from their hometowns for the better part of a year (and likely a lot longer). Then tell it to all the farmers who had to destroy all their crops and animals because they were irradiated. Then tell it to Tepco which is expected to be to be liable for many billions of dollars in damages.
So what? A bad car accident can be a disaster for me without being a disaster for society...one of the largest earthquakes of modern time and a big tsunami. That's the real disaster.
I think the burden on the evacuees is less than you realize.
What exactly do you base that last statement on? Frankly I find it offensive. Maybe you are involved in the situation and/or are far more knowledgeable about it than I suspect, in which case my offense is misplaced. My suspicion however is that 100% of your knowledge comes from reading a few articles in your spare time.
I live in Japan. Not by the power plant but I know people who did. Ask yourself this question: would you rather have your entire home and all your possessions dragged out to sea OR have your entire town irradiated and not be able to return for years. Did you think about that for any number of seconds? If so they are at least vaguely comparable. Whether or not one is worse they're pretty clearly both disasters.
Again with my original question: what does it take to reach your definition of disaster? Plague? Holocaust?
Misusing words like disaster may cheapen their meaning but the nuclear plant is a disaster by any reasonable consideration. Yes the quake was a bigger disaster (hell the nuclear plant is included in that event) but that's not reason to say it's not a disaster. If you want to specify "disaster for society." The nuclear plant still fits that by any reasonable definition. Living in southern Japan, the earthquake didn't really have any effect on my day to day life. I could make an argument based on that that it's not a disaster for society. It would be a bad argument.
So...to make me be more sensitive to animals, they put up a bunch of videos of porn and animal cruelty next to each other? Riiiiight.
Next up: The American Heart Association makes a porn website devoted to people having sex while eating fast food followed by heart attacks.
There are two things to note. First, Fukushima is at the same "level" as a nuclear accident which melts the entire Western hemisphere. One should wonder why the nuclear industry has a scale where the top rung of the scale covers such a vast range of accidents.
You could say that for basically any accident scale. Whatever the last level is in any accident scale is going to include "melts entire hemisphere" because that's going to be so far beyond any expected disaster that they wouldn't make a category for it.
In this case the level 7 rating is significant because the accident passed the most extreme level they had previously designated on the scale. That alone says something. Maybe they should have had some higher numbers in that scale. Seems pretty obvious that they should really. It's also pretty obvious why they wouldn't do that - once the disasters start getting worse than this they're really bad. Don't want to advertise that.
Second, Fukushima wasn't a disaster in any sense. There's only been as I understand a few deaths tied to the accident.
Ok... tell that to all of the people who've been forced from their hometowns for the better part of a year (and likely a lot longer). Then tell it to all the farmers who had to destroy all their crops and animals because they were irradiated. Then tell it to Tepco which is expected to be to be liable for many billions of dollars in damages.
What's your tipping point for calling something a disaster? Plague? Holocaust?
Meanwhile, I completely support nuclear power. This was a disaster but one that we can learn from. As a lot of people have been pointing out, when nuclear goes bad it goes really bad. That's a good reason to be extra careful and not a good reason to give up. Planes work under similar conditions. Should we give up on planes?
I claim shenanigans. You're either intentionally ignoring the OPs point or didn't understand it.
Your first point about the cabs is an absurd strawman. What the OP meant was that the HFTs contribute nothing of value. He wasn't saying that they're useless because they don't build something, that would be idiotic to claim. He's saying they provide nothing. No physical object, no useful service. They're taking money and giving nothing back. A cab driver takes money and gives back transport. Not at all analogous.
Your second point addresses this. "They provide liquidity." Maybe that's a valuable service but there's been a number of posts here claiming that they don't actually provide that. (Also, I have a 24 hour convenience store here that I never use. There is no way in the world I would pay them just to be there even if I never bought anything from them.)
Come on, why not 1024? Seriously!
So you're saying that his business plan, which netted him billions of dollars, shows that his ideas are terrible?
Does Softbank suck? Well, yeah kind of. If you compare their service to Docomo's or AU's service it's basically terrible. It was never Softbank's goal to provide better service than them though.
Meanwhile, if you see how effective Softbank was at accomplish what they were actually trying to do (i.e. sell lots of phones/service) they've done pretty damn well.
The whole point of softbank is that it's cheap. They have reasonable coverage in all the reasonably sized cities. That covers a huge percentage of the population and allows them to charge a lot less than the other companies (since they have that spotty service in all the mountains in between). It was a smart idea, that was implemented effectively (partially due to all that advertising you seem to have vilified).
I fail to see how this shows his electrical grid idea is bad.
I remember when someone I knew (who thought he was great with computers but actually didn't know what he was doing) decided to overclock his K6.
It ran so hot that it fused to his motherboard before booting into windows.
Right, this is no big deal.
I mean, it's not like anyone else has ever put any suborbital spacecraft up before or anything.
Oh wait...
Yeah this Bezos guy must be a real dummy. I mean, his first test rocket exploded.
Governments have been doing this for years with expensive, thoroughly tested equipment.
Could you imagine if one of their rockets exploded just last week? Oh... err... wait...
If that 737 was built for far less than Boeing by a group of students at some college? Then probably yes, everyone would be excited. In this case, a private company building space rockets to replace the richest country in the worlds program? Yes, it's interesting.
If you had one of those programmable toy car things that could work. Set up basic functions like "move forward one unit" "Turn left" and then make tasks or a maze for them and see if they can get the car through. The PB&J example earlier sounds similar and might be easier and more fun though.
This is interesting. I always heard from everyone, everywhere that WinME was soooo horrible. Yet I remember upgrading a couple machines to WinME way back when and they ran perfectly. Faster than before and no problems whatsoever for years. I never even used 2k, it was slower. I was always confused as to why everyone hated it so much. I guess this makes sense.
It would also be blind and probably get cancer very easily among other things