Herve This is indeed the pioneer of this style - he actually coined the term Molecular Gastronomy.
He's an engaging speaker, even in English, and clearly talented.
Unfortunately, his books (or at least the English translations of them) are pretty poor. Clunky translation, marginal editing, downright lousy typesetting. Mostly anecdotes about food science, precious little of use in the kitchen.
Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen is a far better book than any of This' three volumes that have made it into English translation.
One fiber pair is enough to serve IPTV to 1000 homes, easily. 10 gig ethernet is commodity, that's 10 Mbits per subscriber. Move to wavelength-division multiplexing and you can get 40-320gbits over that single pair. What needs upgrades is not the fiber plant but the neighborhood and head end equipment.
Being a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at one of the big name Ivy League schools, I am yet to see all these "amazing" students. Yes, practically every student get the basics (something that doesn't happen at less selective schools), but give them a problem that requires creativity and you'll see that a handful of students in the class are able to solve it. They might work hard and they are motivated, but it's not like every student is terribly smart.
Motivation to work hard is far more valuable to a future employer than genius. Past a certain size, any enterprise (for proft or otherwise) needs regular hard workers more than it needs hard-working geniuses. This is even true in specialized fields like engineering.
To understand this is to understand the appeal of an Ivy pedigree to employers.
this goes back years. Microsoft used to do the same thing. they would visit a company, see a product, decline to buy it and then it would come up in the next version of WIndows. lately i see that Windows has a lot of third party licensed software.
Two reasons why you see a lot of licensed code in Microsoft products:
1. Other companies got wise and treated Microsoft with the appropriate degree of paranoia. 2. Microsoft realized it was often cheaper to write a check than get burned See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
I'm not sure I follow. Sufferage didn't necessarily mean more or less government. Nor did the civil rights movement. Nor gay rights. Creation vs evolution did not, as there wasn't even a Department of Education until the 70's. Vis-a-vi Brown.
Don't be obtuse. Forbidding private business owners from discriminating based on race, color, religion, or national origin (and enforcing this prohibition) was an expansion of government powers. A valid one, in my view.
When I last went to the National Cryptologic Museum (2002?) they had at least a half-dozen Enigma machines on display, including the rarer 4-rotor Kriegsmarine version. But the really cool thing was that besides the ones behind glass, they had one in the open that you could actually use. They even had some scratch paper and golf pencils nearby for writing out and passing encrypted messages.
I've seen a number of Enigmas behind glass but had never laid hands on one until visiting this museum. I hope it's still set up this way and they haven't removed the hands-on enigma.
Per the measurements given (18kg/(1m^2 * 1cm)) the vault's density is 1.8 grams per cubic centimeter. This is much less dense than aluminum (or steel or lead obviously) - anyone know what the vault is made from?
We need to fix the social problems that cause terrorism before that happens. In real terms, that involves raising the level of education and the quality of life in all parts of the globe to the point where there are no large groups of people who are still so poor that they have nothing to lose, or so ignorant that they have nothing to believe in beyond what their local preacher tells them.
Osama Bin Laden wasn't poor or uneducated; neither were the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, or the recently arrested Americans in Pakistan. While there are recent examples of impoverished masses whipped into a genocidal fury (see Rwanda) I don't see a strong causal link between poverty/lack of education and terrorism. Indeed, access to means and anomic detachment from society seem to be common among perpetrators of mass terrorism.
(Drawing parallels to the organizers of the Iraq ware is left as an exercise for the reader.)
I like e-Ink, I don't like Amazon's proprietary lock-in, so I got a Sony eReader, which handles ePub, PDFs, LRF, and everything else I want to read, Calibre converts for me.
Avoiding proprietary lock-in by buying Sony = laff riot.
Kindle reads unencrypted.mobi,.pdf,.txt natively in addition to its own formats. LRF is Sony's proprietary DRM format and ePub is just another DRM-capable reflowable format like.mobi.
"Theft of services" is a crime recognized in the law everywhere in the US.
It might be technically possible for you to hack your cable box to receive channels you're not paying for, or your electrical meter to receive free juice, but that doesn't make those things legal.
But does this process create feedback over communications systems to create cool sound effects as the ship whooshes by?
Quite possibly, actually; at the very least, there might be enough radio emissions at audible frequencies as the plasma dissipates in the presence of a magnetic field (i.e. planetary orbit) to induce something audible in a speaker wire or analog amplifier. It's been speculated that such a mechanism is responsible for the phenomena of hissing, whooshing, or popping sounds heard simultaneously with the appearance of meteorites passing through the atmosphere (as opposed to delayed like a sonic boom.)
"Haling" is a perfectly good word. It means to compel to go. Hauling can be a synonym in the same context - they both derive from the Anglo-French 'haler' = to pull.
Anecdotally, I believe most lawyers would use "haled into court" rather than "hauled into court," the former being more mannered.
These tests don't identify the same DNA sequences that are used in criminal databases, and they can't be used to identify people. If an infant does have one of those diseases, that fact eventually goes into their medical record when the parents bring their (dying) child to the pediatrician or emergency room.
Of course it's not the tests for diseases that are at issue - it's the retention of the blood specimens obtained to perform these tests.
Retention policies vary by state - in Washington State, the policy is to retain specimens until age 21, though as far as I know there's no way to verify destruction of the samples (it's not as though they're returned to the parents, for example.) See http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehsphl/PHL/Newborn/privacy.htm.
When I had my child in Washington, I had the tests performed - but subsequently contacted WA DOH to have the sample destroyed pursuant to WAC 246-650-050.
I posted this elsewhere, but it doesn't seem to be common knowledge here (not enough slashdotters with kids):
Every US state plus DC mandates collection of newborn's DNA to screen for genetic diseases. The exact list varies from state to state, but it always includes phenylketoneuria, galactosemia, and hypothyroidism. Some states permit parents to refuse consent on religious grounds, and two more allow objecting on any grounds. Most states specifically exempt collection of these samples from any consent requirements.
What happened to only getting DNA evidence from felons? This seems insane, there's no reason at all that someone ACCUSED of a misdemeanor crime should have to submit (and, most likely, pay for!) DNA samples unless it was important to the court case. If this goes through, I can only wonder what they'll be asking for next. Getting DNA from children to put into a database, like they've done with fingerprints in some places?
Every US state plus DC mandates collection of newborn's DNA to screen for genetic diseases. The exact list varies from state to state, but it always includes phenylketoneuria, galactosemia, and hypothyroidism. Some states permit parents to refuse consent on religious grounds, and two more allow objecting on any grounds. Most states specifically exempt collection of these samples from any consent requirements.
So, yes, the state has the DNA of virtually every person born in the US in the last decade (albeit not necessarily in a form usable by law enforcement agencies, say.)
Actually glossy is a superior technology for imaging hobbled by having only 8bits per color channel. Similar problems have arisen with wide-gamut displays. 8bit precision means fairly coarse steps between shades as the range of reproducible colors (gamut) increases. Glossy screens have better color gamut because environmental light contributes less "white pollution" because most sources are reflected away, not toward the viewer. Using a matte screen is more like looking through a layer of milk. Your mind's eye sees around the matte effect because of its uniformity across the screen, whereas residual reflections are distinctly localized in the glossy case.
Specious. Uniformity across the screen is more important to me than "white pollution" - not a term of art I've ever heard, but I know what you mean.
The detailed reflections on a glossy screen are distracting and really slow me down when working with images in the field (i.e. real world laptop use.) In practice, even in a room with controlled lighting, I can still see my reflected face in the dark areas of images where I'd rather be seeing the image I'm working with.
Gamut doesn't really enter into the glossy vs. matte debate. I only brought up the expanded gamut of the new LG laptop panels with RGB LED backlighting being shipped by Dell and HP as an example of how Apple is failing to deliver a truly premium product for the dollar ask of their latest line of so-called "pro" laptops.
Apple is running away from the niche markets (like imaging) that sustained them through their dark days as fast as they can. The new unibody Macbooks (and the 24" ADC^H^H^HMini-DisplayPort external LCD) are slightly faster but in many ways less functional than the models they replaced. Glossy is a bug, not a feature.
Meanwhile, HP and Dell are shipping laptops with RGB LED-backlit displays with 105% NTSC color gamut. Apple is slipping, badly, from this user's perspective.
Bluetooth is a security nightmare. (Seriously, enable it at your own risk in an urban environment.)
Bluetooth mice also eat batteries like crazy and have to deal with a relatively complicated communications stack making them glitch-prone. Logitech's RF protocol is mature, demands very low power consumption (battery charge lasts months, not days), works as smoothly (low latency) as a wire, and is secure enough for mousing use.
Bluetooth is a nice idea but in practice doesn't work as well for mice as other RF protocols.
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Yeah, same guy. Made his nut as CTO of Microsoft in the 90's, but has had a pretty solid career in numerous fields over the years.
-Isaac
Herve This is indeed the pioneer of this style - he actually coined the term Molecular Gastronomy.
He's an engaging speaker, even in English, and clearly talented.
Unfortunately, his books (or at least the English translations of them) are pretty poor. Clunky translation, marginal editing, downright lousy typesetting. Mostly anecdotes about food science, precious little of use in the kitchen.
Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen is a far better book than any of This' three volumes that have made it into English translation.
-Isaac
This is terrible. 3 tabs are enough to spin the fans up on my MacBook Pro. Where's light mode gone?!
-Isaac
One fiber pair is enough to serve IPTV to 1000 homes, easily. 10 gig ethernet is commodity, that's 10 Mbits per subscriber. Move to wavelength-division multiplexing and you can get 40-320gbits over that single pair. What needs upgrades is not the fiber plant but the neighborhood and head end equipment.
Motivation to work hard is far more valuable to a future employer than genius. Past a certain size, any enterprise (for proft or otherwise) needs regular hard workers more than it needs hard-working geniuses. This is even true in specialized fields like engineering.
To understand this is to understand the appeal of an Ivy pedigree to employers.
-Isaac
Two reasons why you see a lot of licensed code in Microsoft products:
1. Other companies got wise and treated Microsoft with the appropriate degree of paranoia.
2. Microsoft realized it was often cheaper to write a check than get burned See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics
Of course, Microsoft was often just as sharp at negotiating those licensing deals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.#Browser_wars which goes back to the importance of point 1.
Don't be obtuse. Forbidding private business owners from discriminating based on race, color, religion, or national origin (and enforcing this prohibition) was an expansion of government powers. A valid one, in my view.
-I
When I last went to the National Cryptologic Museum (2002?) they had at least a half-dozen Enigma machines on display, including the rarer 4-rotor Kriegsmarine version. But the really cool thing was that besides the ones behind glass, they had one in the open that you could actually use.
They even had some scratch paper and golf pencils nearby for writing out and passing encrypted messages.
I've seen a number of Enigmas behind glass but had never laid hands on one until visiting this museum. I hope it's still set up this way and they haven't removed the hands-on enigma.
-Isaac
Titanium is over twice as dense - about 4.5g/cm^3 - so either the material spec is wrong or the dimensions are wrong.
Probably the latter, I guess.
Per the measurements given (18kg/(1m^2 * 1cm)) the vault's density is 1.8 grams per cubic centimeter. This is much less dense than aluminum (or steel or lead obviously) - anyone know what the vault is made from?
-Isaac
The franchise is dead. Lucas killed it. Not worth the emotional investment to lament or analyze.
Move on, people.
Osama Bin Laden wasn't poor or uneducated; neither were the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber, or the recently arrested Americans in Pakistan. While there are recent examples of impoverished masses whipped into a genocidal fury (see Rwanda) I don't see a strong causal link between poverty/lack of education and terrorism. Indeed, access to means and anomic detachment from society seem to be common among perpetrators of mass terrorism.
(Drawing parallels to the organizers of the Iraq ware is left as an exercise for the reader.)
-Isaac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
*cough*
Avoiding proprietary lock-in by buying Sony = laff riot.
Kindle reads unencrypted .mobi, .pdf, .txt natively in addition to its own formats. LRF is Sony's proprietary DRM format and ePub is just another DRM-capable reflowable format like .mobi.
-Isaac
"Theft of services" is a crime recognized in the law everywhere in the US.
It might be technically possible for you to hack your cable box to receive channels you're not paying for, or your electrical meter to receive free juice, but that doesn't make those things legal.
-Isaac
Quite possibly, actually; at the very least, there might be enough radio emissions at audible frequencies as the plasma dissipates in the presence of a magnetic field (i.e. planetary orbit) to induce something audible in a speaker wire or analog amplifier. It's been speculated that such a mechanism is responsible for the phenomena of hissing, whooshing, or popping sounds heard simultaneously with the appearance of meteorites passing through the atmosphere (as opposed to delayed like a sonic boom.)
-Isaac
"Haling" is a perfectly good word. It means to compel to go. Hauling can be a synonym in the same context - they both derive from the Anglo-French 'haler' = to pull.
Anecdotally, I believe most lawyers would use "haled into court" rather than "hauled into court," the former being more mannered.
-Isaac
I believe this is the flash mafia, not a flash mob.
-Isaac
Of course it's not the tests for diseases that are at issue - it's the retention of the blood specimens obtained to perform these tests.
Retention policies vary by state - in Washington State, the policy is to retain specimens until age 21, though as far as I know there's no way to verify destruction of the samples (it's not as though they're returned to the parents, for example.) See http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehsphl/PHL/Newborn/privacy.htm.
When I had my child in Washington, I had the tests performed - but subsequently contacted WA DOH to have the sample destroyed pursuant to WAC 246-650-050.
-Isaac
I posted this elsewhere, but it doesn't seem to be common knowledge here (not enough slashdotters with kids):
Every US state plus DC mandates collection of newborn's DNA to screen for genetic diseases. The exact list varies from state to state, but it always includes phenylketoneuria, galactosemia, and hypothyroidism. Some states permit parents to refuse consent on religious grounds, and two more allow objecting on any grounds. Most states specifically exempt collection of these samples from any consent requirements.
See http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/screeningprivacy.htm [ncsl.org]
Who needs footprints? The states already have the DNA of almost every kid born in the last decade.
-Isaac
Every US state plus DC mandates collection of newborn's DNA to screen for genetic diseases. The exact list varies from state to state, but it always includes phenylketoneuria, galactosemia, and hypothyroidism. Some states permit parents to refuse consent on religious grounds, and two more allow objecting on any grounds. Most states specifically exempt collection of these samples from any consent requirements.
See http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/screeningprivacy.htm which is unfortunately from 2002.
So, yes, the state has the DNA of virtually every person born in the US in the last decade (albeit not necessarily in a form usable by law enforcement agencies, say.)
-Isaac
Specious. Uniformity across the screen is more important to me than "white pollution" - not a term of art I've ever heard, but I know what you mean.
The detailed reflections on a glossy screen are distracting and really slow me down when working with images in the field (i.e. real world laptop use.) In practice, even in a room with controlled lighting, I can still see my reflected face in the dark areas of images where I'd rather be seeing the image I'm working with.
Gamut doesn't really enter into the glossy vs. matte debate. I only brought up the expanded gamut of the new LG laptop panels with RGB LED backlighting being shipped by Dell and HP as an example of how Apple is failing to deliver a truly premium product for the dollar ask of their latest line of so-called "pro" laptops.
-Isaac
Apple is running away from the niche markets (like imaging) that sustained them through their dark days as fast as they can. The new unibody Macbooks (and the 24" ADC^H^H^HMini-DisplayPort external LCD) are slightly faster but in many ways less functional than the models they replaced. Glossy is a bug, not a feature.
Meanwhile, HP and Dell are shipping laptops with RGB LED-backlit displays with 105% NTSC color gamut. Apple is slipping, badly, from this user's perspective.
-Isaac
Coca-Cola. It's not like they're going to make a new and improved Coke so marketing is all they have.
-Isaac
Bluetooth is a security nightmare. (Seriously, enable it at your own risk in an urban environment.)
Bluetooth mice also eat batteries like crazy and have to deal with a relatively complicated communications stack making them glitch-prone. Logitech's RF protocol is mature, demands very low power consumption (battery charge lasts months, not days), works as smoothly (low latency) as a wire, and is secure enough for mousing use.
Bluetooth is a nice idea but in practice doesn't work as well for mice as other RF protocols.
-Isaac