a good deal of the cost of these things is the FDA certification
If there's no surgery, it's just a object - a tool, an item of functional clothing, more-or-less. I'd be surprised and annoyed to find out that any kind of certification was legally required for something like this.
Or that is at least the popular excuse of companies that make prosthetics.
There's also the fact that they actually are traditionally expensive to make and fit.
I think you might have that the wrong way around. From the star's perspective - if the black hole is big enough - nothing untoward occurs. It certainly won't see its own clock slowing down. From an outside perspective, objects approaching an event horizon undergo time dilation and fade from view, but are never seen to cross the horizon.
How can a black hole swallow a star if the star's clock slows to a stop as it approaches the event horizon?
Because it doesn't.
The star's clock may slow to a stop relative to ours, sitting safely outside, but as far as the star is concerned, its clock continues to tick happily away. If the black hole is big enough, the star wouldn't be in the least perturbed by the experience.
This computer is more than 10 years old and served as a back-up for the railcar of the robot arm, the thermal cooling system, solar-wing rotating joints, and more.
Not sure what's meant by "the railcar of the robot arm," but if I remember correctly the arm is used to capture and dock the supply capsule, and doing so without a backup computer might be considered a bit risky, considering the location where all of this is due to happen.
...is with your eyes, at the appropriate time. Don't bother looking earlier; it won't have happened yet! Similarly, if you try to catch the eclipse after it's finished, you'll just see an ordinary full moon.
Couldn't you just draw out a circle with string and a stake, then lay a second piece of string over the drawn circle, then measure the two bits of string with a stick?
Just a note that the linked blog page trots out the old chestnut about Cambridge researchers discovering that it doesn't matter what order you put the letters in a word, as long as you get the first and last ones right. Which is, of course, a load of blockols.
Are the Bay Area's wealthy all part of some sort of illuminati group that identifies each other by license plate instead of secret handshakes? The answer is the state highway patrol
How can "the state highway patrol" be the answer to a question that starts with "Are..."?
I'd be surprised if they were still doing it within the last two decades. Sounds more like the sort of thing you'd have seen in the Ray Harryhausen era.
More relevant car analogy: If you have the specs for a car (hp, torque, weight, drag coefficients, etc.) that had not yet been built you could prove mathematically, without it ever actually happening or the car even existing at the time except on paper, whether or not the car could accelerate to 60 mph.
Not sure about this. They're claiming a proof for the possibility of a particular mechanism behind an event which has already happened.
It still feels like there's an oxymoron* here somewhere...
(*don't!)
What they are saying here is that, according to the math, the universe could have formed this way.
Right, but what if someone comes along later with more math that proves it couldn't have formed this way? What would that do to this "proof"?
Maybe this is the bit that counts:
The proof is developed within a mathematical framework known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation.
Proving something as possible within a certain framework isn't the same as proving it's possible, full stop. Right?
Mathematical Proof That the Cosmos Could Have Formed Spontaneously From Nothing
What does this mean, really? Either a thing did or didn't happen. What does it mean to have proved that it could have happened?
Is there room for someone to come along later and prove that it couldn't have happened for reasons not yet understood?
What if we discover the universe didn't form spontaneously from nothing? Would that disprove this "proof"?
Car analogy time: if I see a car at a certain place, and I measure its speed at 60mph, then I could claim to have "proven" that it could have been 60 miles away an hour ago - based on the little evidence I have. But if I then find out it can't go any faster than 60mph, and the hood is cold, that might prove that it couldn't have been 60 miles away an hour ago.
So, is this just a badly-worded headline, or am I just very very tired?
including, possibly, the much-maligned Google goggles
So if the city wanted to use Google Glass
I don't see any evidence that NYC is actually looking at Google Glass. For all the information in the article, they may have already discounted it. Perhaps they never even considered it.
Science is hard, and we figured out the easy stuff like how to bang the rocks together first.
The latest evidence is a 'Correspondence' published in the journal Nature
That's not evidence that we're running out of things to discover.
seems to confirm the common feeling of an increasing time needed to achieve new discoveries in basic natural sciences—a somewhat worrisome trend
What's worrisome about it? It's awesome that a hairless ape has come so far in understanding how the universe works for little more than the sheer pleasure of understanding*.
Slashdot Mirror
Hard to understate
It's not really important at all.
There, that was easy.
Or, assuming the AC meant "overstate":
Without this audit the lives of every person on this planet are doomed to end in fiery death when the Earth plummets into the Sun in 2017!
Also easy.
a good deal of the cost of these things is the FDA certification
If there's no surgery, it's just a object - a tool, an item of functional clothing, more-or-less. I'd be surprised and annoyed to find out that any kind of certification was legally required for something like this.
Or that is at least the popular excuse of companies that make prosthetics.
There's also the fact that they actually are traditionally expensive to make and fit.
I think you might have that the wrong way around. From the star's perspective - if the black hole is big enough - nothing untoward occurs. It certainly won't see its own clock slowing down. From an outside perspective, objects approaching an event horizon undergo time dilation and fade from view, but are never seen to cross the horizon.
How can a black hole swallow a star if the star's clock slows to a stop as it approaches the event horizon?
Because it doesn't.
The star's clock may slow to a stop relative to ours, sitting safely outside, but as far as the star is concerned, its clock continues to tick happily away. If the black hole is big enough, the star wouldn't be in the least perturbed by the experience.
This computer is more than 10 years old and served as a back-up for the railcar of the robot arm, the thermal cooling system, solar-wing rotating joints, and more.
Not sure what's meant by "the railcar of the robot arm," but if I remember correctly the arm is used to capture and dock the supply capsule, and doing so without a backup computer might be considered a bit risky, considering the location where all of this is due to happen.
I'm afraid I can't do that.
That makes no sense. How can you bounce stuff off the moon? There’s no gravity.
It's awesome having a wife who's an astronomer/PhD.
I sadly suspect I will only ever be able to take your word for that.
The Best Way To Watch the "Blood Moon" Tonight
...is with your eyes, at the appropriate time. Don't bother looking earlier; it won't have happened yet! Similarly, if you try to catch the eclipse after it's finished, you'll just see an ordinary full moon.
Get it? Got it? Good.
Couldn't you just draw out a circle with string and a stake, then lay a second piece of string over the drawn circle, then measure the two bits of string with a stick?
Swap the gun for some tin snips and a scale.
Why not swap the gun for an encyclopedia instead? Come to think of it, use the gun to threaten the encyclopedia salesman. Win-win.
Just a note that the linked blog page trots out the old chestnut about Cambridge researchers discovering that it doesn't matter what order you put the letters in a word, as long as you get the first and last ones right. Which is, of course, a load of blockols.
This presumes you have access to magnets.
Did the apocalypse stop all the magnets working? There are probably a few dozen within 20 feet of me right now.
Are the Bay Area's wealthy all part of some sort of illuminati group that identifies each other by license plate instead of secret handshakes? The answer is the state highway patrol
How can "the state highway patrol" be the answer to a question that starts with "Are..."?
And if you don't want the plugin:
http://ffeathers.wordpress.com...
It looks like someone built it in their garage
It looks they built it out of their garage.
Try it out!
Make me!
I'd be surprised if they were still doing it within the last two decades. Sounds more like the sort of thing you'd have seen in the Ray Harryhausen era.
More relevant car analogy: If you have the specs for a car (hp, torque, weight, drag coefficients, etc.) that had not yet been built you could prove mathematically, without it ever actually happening or the car even existing at the time except on paper, whether or not the car could accelerate to 60 mph.
Not sure about this. They're claiming a proof for the possibility of a particular mechanism behind an event which has already happened.
It still feels like there's an oxymoron* here somewhere...
(*don't!)
What they are saying here is that, according to the math, the universe could have formed this way.
Right, but what if someone comes along later with more math that proves it couldn't have formed this way? What would that do to this "proof"?
Maybe this is the bit that counts:
The proof is developed within a mathematical framework known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation.
Proving something as possible within a certain framework isn't the same as proving it's possible, full stop. Right?
Mathematical Proof That the Cosmos Could Have Formed Spontaneously From Nothing
What does this mean, really? Either a thing did or didn't happen. What does it mean to have proved that it could have happened?
Is there room for someone to come along later and prove that it couldn't have happened for reasons not yet understood?
What if we discover the universe didn't form spontaneously from nothing? Would that disprove this "proof"?
Car analogy time: if I see a car at a certain place, and I measure its speed at 60mph, then I could claim to have "proven" that it could have been 60 miles away an hour ago - based on the little evidence I have. But if I then find out it can't go any faster than 60mph, and the hood is cold, that might prove that it couldn't have been 60 miles away an hour ago.
So, is this just a badly-worded headline, or am I just very very tired?
Hint: it could be both.
Have you actually registered and looked at live data?
The author himself states, in response to a comment making the same point as you, that:
The actual bike data that you download from the TFL website contains customer record numbers
NYC eyes Google Glass for restaurant inspections
including, possibly, the much-maligned Google goggles
So if the city wanted to use Google Glass
I don't see any evidence that NYC is actually looking at Google Glass. For all the information in the article, they may have already discounted it. Perhaps they never even considered it.
In other words, made-up shit.
He was working on New Years Eve
Friends don't let friends commit drunk.
You're green and fuzzy with a bad aftertaste?
Hey, at least they got some punctuation in there.
Science is hard, and we figured out the easy stuff like how to bang the rocks together first.
The latest evidence is a 'Correspondence' published in the journal Nature
That's not evidence that we're running out of things to discover.
seems to confirm the common feeling of an increasing time needed to achieve new discoveries in basic natural sciences—a somewhat worrisome trend
What's worrisome about it? It's awesome that a hairless ape has come so far in understanding how the universe works for little more than the sheer pleasure of understanding*.
*also, patent royalties.