Think of the frequent flyer miles. First class to the moon and back on PanAm!
How Philosphy, Math, Physics, & Politics Inter
on
Anathem
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· Score: 1
First, if you expect a retread of Snow Crash, go read something else.
I had a lot of "WTF!?" moments in reading Anathem. However, the book paid off. This is the next logical step in the progression from Cryptonomicon to the Baroque Cycle. In each book, he has tried to build a book around one or more important concepts. Baroque Cycle examined how the financial system (and the modern world) came to be out of the stew of European power struggles, the invention of advanced math, and the Reformation.
Anathem takes philosophy, physics and politics and blends them. If you have read some philosphy (esp. Plato), as well as quantum physics, it makes a lot more sense.
Claiming that their design allows for an almost self-sufficient energy footprint and, obviously, economy of space, the real trick would be getting 1.1 million people to live in such close proximity.
The trick in Niven and Pournelle's book was to have a feudalistic, corporate government run by enlightened technocrats with computer implants in their heads.
So this super duper collection of fear-detection techniques is (a) inconveniencing the sh*t out of a ton of innocents, and (b) producing results that a blind monkey could produce just as well through sheer statistical accident.
Let's do some stats, because people don't realize how many passengers fly each day in the US.
The article says it's been in use at SeaTac in Seattle for about a month (started in November of 2007, article written in December). SeaTac had about 2.5 million passengers board per month in 2006, according to their web site. The SeaTac program had between 600 and 700 passengers selected for further screening by this. That is 1 in 4167 to 1 in 3571 (0.024% to 0.028%) of the total passengers boarding. Hardly "a ton" of passengers being selected.
As others have mentioned, this is considered one of the best techniques for screening by the experts.
One of the Australian researchers involved in the project said that it was the first time that astronomers have been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart.
I carry a Plain Old Cell Phone from Sprint, a Sanyo-built Sprint-labeled model, and got one for my tech-challenged mom. I didn't want one with a camera, as I can't carry a camera model into some worksites I visit.
Orion does not have the ability to carry as much weight as the shuttle; thus, some things can not be brought back.
The pressurized cargo version of Orion, or the commercial cargo vehicles being developed now, could carry the suits back if the ISS program made room/mass available. The crew version of Orion may or may not have space/mass for the EMUs. The exact cargo capability available in the post-Shuttle era will determine what comes back and what doesn't.
when exactly are they supposed to depose him if not on a school day?
Well, it's not just any school day they picked. It's TAKS testing day - a statewide test in Texas that has to be passed to graduate from high school. They picked one of the worst possible days of the year to compel him to show up. They are either evil or ignorant, in my opinion.
I don't know how anyone wrote software back in the days before dual high resolution screens. We used paper tape or punch cards. If we were lucky, there was a line editor available on the TSO (Time Sharing Option) terminals. Getting one compile a day makes you very, very cautious and detail oriented in your programmming.
Besides, it's a great feeling when you can take an offending block of code out of the deck and rip it to shreds
At the time the FORTRAN work was done, people didn't believe that a compiler could produce code that was fast enough.
I've written code in multiple dialects of FORTRAN over the years: FORTRAN II, FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN 77, MS FORTRAN for Windows, etc. I used paper tape, cards, and online editing. It was on mainframes, PCs, and minicomputers. It just worked. Sure, you could write brain dead code in FORTRAN, but you can in any language.
It also was, as TwobyTwo said, fast. Some of the systems I worked on were pushing the state of the art in what was possible in computing. We had to make every clock cycle count - and still had to hand code some algorithms in assembler - but FORTRAN optimizers were so good that only a few of our key code chunks needed that kind of care. If you wanted to build a huge, real-time distributed system in the 70s or 80s, FORTRAN was the language of choice.
A few pointers - I've been a model rocket flyer since the mid 60s.
Be very careful with modle rocket igniters - the modern ones do require very little current to ignite, which means that your circuits need to be designed right. There are other types of igniters that take even less current, so be cautious if you use them.
I'd suggest that you check the archives of the Usenet group rec.pyrotechnics for pointers to safe techniques. There are amateur pyrotechnic groups that do very impressive shows.
I'd also be careful not to run afoul of local, state, and federal laws on fireworks. And be very, very careful - "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"
It's not just large corporations that do it. I've seen VNRs and the like from law firms trolling for plaintiffs to join class action suits or to gin up sympathy for one of their cases in advance of jury selection.
It's the storage requirements that basically block anyone from keeping any of the stuff.
Yep. I live in Houston, TX and the city has decided that you need an explosive storage permit to keep any. And they won't give a permit to anyone in a residential area. (A club member found out after paying the non-refundable permit fee of over $200.
Obviously there are strict guidelines for storing it near high population areas, but that doesn't really affect hobbyists since they need wide open spaces anyway.
So where do you keep it if not at home? Look, the ATF people have refused to discuss any kind of compromise on this. They want it treated like all other low explosives, even though lab tests show that it's not an explosive.
Well, if my neighbor's house catches on fire, it would be kinda nice if the fire department knew that x amount of explosives were stored in the house, so they could evacuate surrounding homes, etc.
The problem is that the composite propellant they regulate isn't an explosive. It just burns hot and fast. Homes have all kinds of items more dangerous to firefighters in them and no permit is needed, including: gasoline in cans, aerosol cans, propane bottles (I have 6 for my grill), insecticides, ammo for guns, etc.
This is about a government agency that did something wrong and won't back down.
If fingerprint sensors were any good, the TLAs would be using them to protect classified data. Instead, companies that have such data have been told that they are not to use fingerprint scanners for that purpose.
Most major health care organizations use outside auditors to look at privacy compliance. It is taken very, very seriouly by hospitals and the other organizations. My wife has dealt with the auditors at the ambulatory surgery center where she practices. They have made all kinds of nit-picky changes to their procedures, many of which make no sense. Example: when patients with dentures or retainers go in for surgery, they have to take the appliance out and it is placed in a plastic container of water. The container has a label from the medical records printout attached. After the patient leaves, procedure was to throw the empty plastic container in the medical waste bin for disposal by burning. The auditor demanded that they peel the label off after use and shred it.
My late father had to have an outside auditor survey his office in order to remain on the list of authorized providers at several major insurance companies.
The regulations are ambiguous as can be, so violations are going to happen until the appropriate practices are worked out.
financial problems - antibiotics are simply not profitable for pharmaceutical companies - may kill it.
There has been at least one bill in Congress that would have helped: If you bring a new antibiotic type to market, the company would get to:
- extended patent protection on it. IIRC, one proposal was for the patent clock to start ticking at the time it passed FDA approval.
- you could pick any other drug in your patent portfolio and extend it's patent two years
I later worked on a PDP-10 and PDP-8 in high school and PDP-11, IBM 1103, 360 and 370 series in college. Moved up to job programming PDP-11s. Later bought a Sinclair ZX-81, but it SUX0R3D, so I got an original IBM PC.
With BPL, utilities can quickly identify where outages have taken place, read meters remotely, and conduct preventive maintenance, such as replacing a transformer before it fails, by monitoring unusual "noise" on the system.
One of the real reasons for this is the remote meter reading capability. It eliminates the need for manual meter reading (or, for places with remote read systems, to have a van drive by getting the data.) But, it allows this camel's nose into the tent: the meter will be smart enough to allow time-of-day-based rates for electricity, like large commercial customers already pay. You'll pay more for usage during peak hours, less for off-peak use. Note: this is fair, as during peak times, electricity often is generated using higher-cost sources such as natural gas plants.
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Think of the frequent flyer miles. First class to the moon and back on PanAm!
First, if you expect a retread of Snow Crash, go read something else.
I had a lot of "WTF!?" moments in reading Anathem. However, the book paid off. This is the next logical step in the progression from Cryptonomicon to the Baroque Cycle. In each book, he has tried to build a book around one or more important concepts. Baroque Cycle examined how the financial system (and the modern world) came to be out of the stew of European power struggles, the invention of advanced math, and the Reformation.
Anathem takes philosophy, physics and politics and blends them. If you have read some philosphy (esp. Plato), as well as quantum physics, it makes a lot more sense.
Claiming that their design allows for an almost self-sufficient energy footprint and, obviously, economy of space, the real trick would be getting 1.1 million people to live in such close proximity.
The trick in Niven and Pournelle's book was to have a feudalistic, corporate government run by enlightened technocrats with computer implants in their heads.
Let's do some stats, because people don't realize how many passengers fly each day in the US.
The article says it's been in use at SeaTac in Seattle for about a month (started in November of 2007, article written in December). SeaTac had about 2.5 million passengers board per month in 2006, according to their web site. The SeaTac program had between 600 and 700 passengers selected for further screening by this. That is 1 in 4167 to 1 in 3571 (0.024% to 0.028%) of the total passengers boarding. Hardly "a ton" of passengers being selected.
As others have mentioned, this is considered one of the best techniques for screening by the experts.
Votes are mailed in a double secret envelope that allows verification but does not tie votes to voters.
If you cast a fradulent vote, are you put on Double Secret Probation?
One of the Australian researchers involved in the project said that it was the first time that astronomers have been able to instantaneously connect telescopes half a world apart.
This is the real story - FTL communications!
I carry a Plain Old Cell Phone from Sprint, a Sanyo-built Sprint-labeled model, and got one for my tech-challenged mom. I didn't want one with a camera, as I can't carry a camera model into some worksites I visit.
Orion does not have the ability to carry as much weight as the shuttle; thus, some things can not be brought back.
The pressurized cargo version of Orion, or the commercial cargo vehicles being developed now, could carry the suits back if the ISS program made room/mass available. The crew version of Orion may or may not have space/mass for the EMUs. The exact cargo capability available in the post-Shuttle era will determine what comes back and what doesn't.
whats going to happen if god-forbid they need to emergency evac the ISS and the only thing left to leave on is a Orion?
Orion will have its own suit design.
The main article is /.ed. Here is a link to a story at the Houston Chronicle, which might be available.
e ws/4766843.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nb/fortbend/n
when exactly are they supposed to depose him if not on a school day?
Well, it's not just any school day they picked. It's TAKS testing day - a statewide test in Texas that has to be passed to graduate from high school. They picked one of the worst possible days of the year to compel him to show up. They are either evil or ignorant, in my opinion.
Besides, it's a great feeling when you can take an offending block of code out of the deck and rip it to shreds
I've written code in multiple dialects of FORTRAN over the years: FORTRAN II, FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN 77, MS FORTRAN for Windows, etc. I used paper tape, cards, and online editing. It was on mainframes, PCs, and minicomputers. It just worked. Sure, you could write brain dead code in FORTRAN, but you can in any language.
It also was, as TwobyTwo said, fast. Some of the systems I worked on were pushing the state of the art in what was possible in computing. We had to make every clock cycle count - and still had to hand code some algorithms in assembler - but FORTRAN optimizers were so good that only a few of our key code chunks needed that kind of care. If you wanted to build a huge, real-time distributed system in the 70s or 80s, FORTRAN was the language of choice.
A few pointers - I've been a model rocket flyer since the mid 60s.
Be very careful with modle rocket igniters - the modern ones do require very little current to ignite, which means that your circuits need to be designed right. There are other types of igniters that take even less current, so be cautious if you use them.
I'd suggest that you check the archives of the Usenet group rec.pyrotechnics for pointers to safe techniques. There are amateur pyrotechnic groups that do very impressive shows.
I'd also be careful not to run afoul of local, state, and federal laws on fireworks. And be very, very careful - "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!"
It's not just large corporations that do it. I've seen VNRs and the like from law firms trolling for plaintiffs to join class action suits or to gin up sympathy for one of their cases in advance of jury selection.
Yep. I live in Houston, TX and the city has decided that you need an explosive storage permit to keep any. And they won't give a permit to anyone in a residential area. (A club member found out after paying the non-refundable permit fee of over $200.
So where do you keep it if not at home? Look, the ATF people have refused to discuss any kind of compromise on this. They want it treated like all other low explosives, even though lab tests show that it's not an explosive.
The problem is that the composite propellant they regulate isn't an explosive. It just burns hot and fast. Homes have all kinds of items more dangerous to firefighters in them and no permit is needed, including: gasoline in cans, aerosol cans, propane bottles (I have 6 for my grill), insecticides, ammo for guns, etc.
This is about a government agency that did something wrong and won't back down.
Don't they teach elementary physics anymore?
"If you push something hard enough, it will fall over!" - Fudd's First Law of Opposition.
Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
What did I do with that boxcar of industrial coke?
If fingerprint sensors were any good, the TLAs would be using them to protect classified data. Instead, companies that have such data have been told that they are not to use fingerprint scanners for that purpose.
Most major health care organizations use outside auditors to look at privacy compliance. It is taken very, very seriouly by hospitals and the other organizations. My wife has dealt with the auditors at the ambulatory surgery center where she practices. They have made all kinds of nit-picky changes to their procedures, many of which make no sense. Example: when patients with dentures or retainers go in for surgery, they have to take the appliance out and it is placed in a plastic container of water. The container has a label from the medical records printout attached. After the patient leaves, procedure was to throw the empty plastic container in the medical waste bin for disposal by burning. The auditor demanded that they peel the label off after use and shred it.
My late father had to have an outside auditor survey his office in order to remain on the list of authorized providers at several major insurance companies.
The regulations are ambiguous as can be, so violations are going to happen until the appropriate practices are worked out.
financial problems - antibiotics are simply not profitable for pharmaceutical companies - may kill it.
There has been at least one bill in Congress that would have helped: If you bring a new antibiotic type to market, the company would get to:
- extended patent protection on it. IIRC, one proposal was for the patent clock to start ticking at the time it passed FDA approval.
- you could pick any other drug in your patent portfolio and extend it's patent two years
Did I forget anything?
Yes. The books (at least for A&D, DVC, and DP) take place over 24 hours.
In fact, the producer of the DVC movie originally tried to buy the rights for the TV show 24.
The RoundUp Ready line of crops are specifically engineered to resist pesticides so that higher levels can be used.
Nope. They are herbicide resistant, so you can spray RoundUp herbicide on them without killing them.
My first computer was a plastic and metal mechanical computer called the "Digi-Comp 1". Got it for Christmas in 1963 or 64 See http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Digicomp-Kit -1963.htm and http://www.csparks.com/gallery/Digi-comp for pictures. It was a 3 bit machine and could do all the basic operations via mechanical connections of flip flops.
I later worked on a PDP-10 and PDP-8 in high school and PDP-11, IBM 1103, 360 and 370 series in college. Moved up to job programming PDP-11s. Later bought a Sinclair ZX-81, but it SUX0R3D, so I got an original IBM PC.