How about we consider using this device (or a modified version of it) for sending materials into low Earth orbit? It would be a lot cheaper than sending them up via rocket or space shuttle. Gathering materials in low orbit isn't a major problem (assuming they aren't moving too fast.) People (or anything else living) would have to go conventionally. It'd be like airlines being able to fly your luggage there for pennies on the pound, but you costing quite a bit more.
'. . I miss the days when space exploration didn't have to pay for itself . ..'
And yet, the space program was the only real customer for shrinking the size computers down. It is because of the computing power requirement of Apollo that we all have desktop PCs (with several times the computing power of the Apollo computers.)
When the government invests in science projects, the downstream rewards are difficult to imagine but more than pay for the original investment.
If you'd read the next sentence you'd have seen that I was somewhat less than thrilled with the choice of the WHO as that body. As an American I'd favor the AMA, which has managed to remain less political.
Health information is unique. It makes sense to have some form of objective evaluation of sites providing healthcare information. They may not mean this form or proposal is appropriate and not that I am supportive of censorship. You should be free to claim anything you want on the web. But, if a comittee of unrelated physicians disagrees or supports your results, then they should have the right to say so, and if I ran a website, I'd want to advertise that fact. Making this international could really help a lot.
Actually, my greatuncle ran Nixon's campaign in Illinois in 1960. He was Illinois' senior senator's chief of staff at the time. Nixon called off further inquiries because he felt it would cheapen the results. My uncle did take the time to examine the voting records and found that his mother, my greatgrandmother, who had been dead for 12 years at the time, had voted for Kennedy. All of neighbors, in the eternal resting place, had also voted all consistently Democratic. I've seen the voting rolls from the 1960 election and actually taken them to several Chicago cemeteries. If you gave me a few hours I could prove to anyone that the "win" for Kennedy was a fraud, manufactered by Mayor Daley. Nixon was told this and he called off any official action. An affidavit was prepared, it was not filed.
Remember, the historian who's history you are reading, probably favored Kennedy.
Does anyone else find it incredibly ironic that
the brothers Daley would be on national media crying about election irregularities? Just for the record, their father stole the 1960 presidential election for Kennedy away from Nixon.
This election does matter for high-tech people. Gore would continue to bloat up the federal administration and increase it's effect on high-tech endeavours. Ever read what he did when 'inventing' the internet? He did not want it opened to research, much less public usage.
I've worked in a country with too much direction of high-tech research (Japan). MITI throttles all industrial research in Japan. Al Gore's minions pouring over high tech is the last thing we need here. SDI pushed forward, like Bush wants would do far more to creating high-tech jobs than any of Al Gore's programs.
With genetic screening would come far better ability to predict who is likely to be getting genetic linked diseases. Based on the capitalist ideal that 'if you express a need, someone, somewhere will try to sell it to you', I would say that most firms would want to sell to the genetically imperfect portion of the market at rates more realistic to their real risk. Right now there are firms which sell to diabetics, transplantees and of course a specialty market in buying life insurance policies off of the HIV positive.
Would people be denied coverage by some carriers? Certainly. Would they have no options at all? Not likely.
Actually, I'd say that Mars is like Canada except there are none of the annoying, whining Canadians there. Particularly with their 'stomp the styrafoam project', Monopoly money currency (you pinched our name), constant harping about health care and all that.
This lowers the rates for the majority of us without too many genetic defects, and allows those with such defects to know considerably earlier and take action. I see it as win-win.
Considering that I see my co-workers more than my loved ones, I've always felt choosing work was more imprtant than choosing a spouse. Of course, don't ask me, I've had two spouses and two different computer careers.
My intelligent way of solving traveling salesman involved slapping a regular grid on the area such that an average of seven stops were in each gridbox (cube, n-cube, ..). Use an identical basic plan, basic circle then across the diameter, with orthogonal distance from the paths determining which veered to pick up the odd stops. Start in one corner and work in one basic direction. It gives you a path in P time, that is moderately close to optimal. By virtue of the transformation it can work on all NP problems. Is it conventional? No. Is it algorithmic? No.
Should be possible but by an algorithm?
on
Does P = NP?
·
· Score: 2
Ever since I fumbled with NP completeness and NP hard problems, I've believed that it should be possible to solve several of these problems (including the one in the paper) in a P method, but only by being intelligent about the problem and not solving it cold analytically. This paper seems to present an algorithm that can do it. It's very interesting if it would work but I am skeptical as well.
Can't agree with the Papal analogy either. You've completely ignored the Scholastic movement which utilized Moslem-Judeo translations of originally Greek works as a primary source. Not really controlled by the Papacy (at all.)
Hacking, or better yet 'examining the details of formalized systems without clear direction' is a natural part of intelligence. Should it be surprising that this has been going on for a long time. Radio only developed because of the large number of amateur radio explorers during the first decades of this century. A dozen other advances have required 'hacking' to move from a primitive but advantagous state to a developed state. It is natural that we should all want to explore the limits of every new technology. This natural desire to explore a new system and get ahead can be controlled only by severely restricting access to the technology (either via cost or withholding production) or banning the technology (see Japan and guns.) Since ENIAC first went online, I'm sure somebody was trying to hack the system.
Since the scrolls are being deciphered, albeit very slowly, this is a copyright which probably will eventually expire or at least become meaningless. Several scholars have postulated over the contents of various scrolls which exist, a few details are available from but are mostly held privledged by the translations team. Since this is speculative or deductive work, I don't see why there is a problem with a copyright on it. When (if) the real version becomes available no one will care about this copyrighted version. It will be fully supplanted by the real text, or perhaps different versions of the same material. If there never is another version of this material released then I would feel that strictly enforcing the copyright would be less than helpful to research. Presumably, appropriate citation form or longer acknowledgement, would be adequate copyright enforcement.
Like it or not folks, we live in a capitalist world. Communism may have offered an alternative until a few years ago, but it's gone as a real force now. Corporations survive by getting larger and garnering more power, having more people work for them and selling to more of the populace. Very large corporations are those able to do this better than their competition.
Is revolution a possibility? Revolution to what? Some political-economic system has to be implemented. Differences of scale will always exist guarenteeing that some corporations are always going to be getting larger. Even communism found this out.
Can we work towards a better democracy? Voting would help. Encouraging more responsibility among corporations and universities and political parties would help (a lot.)
Oh great, the records companies (like the lads of Metallica came up with this idea) have decided to call in a new layer of legal action. I wish we had a government which could decide this issue, one way or the other, and make the decision stick.
Three other factors (besides the ones you mentioned) come into play here. First, the need to avoid any type of local storms. Second, relative geological stability. Third, if you can get a couple of kilometers of free height it cuts your costs somewhat.
To get these you need to look for a relatively stable mountain range on the lee side of the prevailing winds. The only mountains near enough the equator are in Kenya with Mt. Kilamanjaro and the Andes on the side away from the Pacific. Since the African rift valley probably isn't stable enough, it looks like Peru/Brazil will be the likely winner.
NASA is already publishing plans to have a 16KM tall launching rail. The links are at the end of the story. Such a tall tower would radically reduce launch costs, but not as low as the elvator would.
This may sound out of fashion but a one-way heat transfer system made from carbon would be a very important component in making nuclear reactors that are considerably safer and efficient than current ones. Heat transfer has always been the weak saftey link in nuclear power. Radioactive carbon does not emit dangerous radiation. Combine this with liquid lithium as the primary insulation medium and you have a reactor that is safer than most coal plants, produces electricty at lower prices and does not become long-term radioactive. Of course, Al Gore has pulled the plug on such research.
Nota Bene: the Templars based their order upon the 'Rule of St Benedict' but where never a branch of the Benedictines. The Benedictines were not and are not militaristic. For that maybe you should check the Jesuits !!!!
The decisions you and I make today about where we buy, what we buy, how much information we permit free access to and how we choose to communicate all will affect the rise of these merchants. The difference between success and failure, early in the life cycle may only be a few customers or complainers. Does my purchase today allow that company to survive and one day develop into a vast empire. Could the first clients of the Hansa League chosen better?
Actually, probably the most important decision you and I will make in the next few months with regards to this is our vote on the 7th of November. One candidate has clearly committed to a socialist taxation/economic system. The other has chosen to continue (and enhance) our current system of supporting business opportunity. Oddly, the incumbent proposes the huge alteration and the challenger the continuity. What a wierd presidential system the USA has.
Slashdot Mirror
How about we consider using this device (or a modified version of it) for sending materials into low Earth orbit? It would be a lot cheaper than sending them up via rocket or space shuttle. Gathering materials in low orbit isn't a major problem (assuming they aren't moving too fast.) People (or anything else living) would have to go conventionally. It'd be like airlines being able to fly your luggage there for pennies on the pound, but you costing quite a bit more.
'. . I miss the days when space exploration didn't have to pay for itself . .
And yet, the space program was the only real customer for shrinking the size computers down. It is because of the computing power requirement of Apollo that we all have desktop PCs (with several times the computing power of the Apollo computers.)
When the government invests in science projects, the downstream rewards are difficult to imagine but more than pay for the original investment.
If you'd read the next sentence you'd have seen that I was somewhat less than thrilled with the choice of the WHO as that body. As an American I'd favor the AMA, which has managed to remain less political.
Health information is unique. It makes sense to have some form of objective evaluation of sites providing healthcare information. They may not mean this form or proposal is appropriate and not that I am supportive of censorship. You should be free to claim anything you want on the web. But, if a comittee of unrelated physicians disagrees or supports your results, then they should have the right to say so, and if I ran a website, I'd want to advertise that fact. Making this international could really help a lot.
Actually, my greatuncle ran Nixon's campaign in Illinois in 1960. He was Illinois' senior senator's chief of staff at the time. Nixon called off further inquiries because he felt it would cheapen the results. My uncle did take the time to examine the voting records and found that his mother, my greatgrandmother, who had been dead for 12 years at the time, had voted for Kennedy. All of neighbors, in the eternal resting place, had also voted all consistently Democratic. I've seen the voting rolls from the 1960 election and actually taken them to several Chicago cemeteries. If you gave me a few hours I could prove to anyone that the "win" for Kennedy was a fraud, manufactered by Mayor Daley. Nixon was told this and he called off any official action. An affidavit was prepared, it was not filed.
Remember, the historian who's history you are reading, probably favored Kennedy.
Does anyone else find it incredibly ironic that
the brothers Daley would be on national media crying about election irregularities? Just for the record, their father stole the 1960 presidential election for Kennedy away from Nixon.
This election does matter for high-tech people. Gore would continue to bloat up the federal administration and increase it's effect on high-tech endeavours. Ever read what he did when 'inventing' the internet? He did not want it opened to research, much less public usage.
I've worked in a country with too much direction of high-tech research (Japan). MITI throttles all industrial research in Japan. Al Gore's minions pouring over high tech is the last thing we need here. SDI pushed forward, like Bush wants would do far more to creating high-tech jobs than any of Al Gore's programs.
With genetic screening would come far better ability to predict who is likely to be getting genetic linked diseases. Based on the capitalist ideal that 'if you express a need, someone, somewhere will try to sell it to you', I would say that most firms would want to sell to the genetically imperfect portion of the market at rates more realistic to their real risk. Right now there are firms which sell to diabetics, transplantees and of course a specialty market in buying life insurance policies off of the HIV positive.
Would people be denied coverage by some carriers? Certainly. Would they have no options at all? Not likely.
Actually, I'd say that Mars is like Canada except there are none of the annoying, whining Canadians there. Particularly with their 'stomp the styrafoam project', Monopoly money currency (you pinched our name), constant harping about health care and all that.
This lowers the rates for the majority of us without too many genetic defects, and allows those with such defects to know considerably earlier and take action. I see it as win-win.
Considering that I see my co-workers more than my loved ones, I've always felt choosing work was more imprtant than choosing a spouse. Of course, don't ask me, I've had two spouses and two different computer careers.
Well, I guess you all see why the Prof gave me a C in that class.
My intelligent way of solving traveling salesman involved slapping a regular grid on the area such that an average of seven stops were in each gridbox (cube, n-cube, . .). Use an identical basic plan, basic circle then across the diameter, with orthogonal distance from the paths determining which veered to pick up the odd stops. Start in one corner and work in one basic direction. It gives you a path in P time, that is moderately close to optimal. By virtue of the transformation it can work on all NP problems. Is it conventional? No. Is it algorithmic? No.
Ever since I fumbled with NP completeness and NP hard problems, I've believed that it should be possible to solve several of these problems (including the one in the paper) in a P method, but only by being intelligent about the problem and not solving it cold analytically. This paper seems to present an algorithm that can do it. It's very interesting if it would work but I am skeptical as well.
Is that was 'bezeihungsweise' means?
Can't agree with the Papal analogy either. You've completely ignored the Scholastic movement which utilized Moslem-Judeo translations of originally Greek works as a primary source. Not really controlled by the Papacy (at all.)
Hacking, or better yet 'examining the details of formalized systems without clear direction' is a natural part of intelligence. Should it be surprising that this has been going on for a long time. Radio only developed because of the large number of amateur radio explorers during the first decades of this century. A dozen other advances have required 'hacking' to move from a primitive but advantagous state to a developed state. It is natural that we should all want to explore the limits of every new technology. This natural desire to explore a new system and get ahead can be controlled only by severely restricting access to the technology (either via cost or withholding production) or banning the technology (see Japan and guns.) Since ENIAC first went online, I'm sure somebody was trying to hack the system.
Since the scrolls are being deciphered, albeit very slowly, this is a copyright which probably will eventually expire or at least become meaningless. Several scholars have postulated over the contents of various scrolls which exist, a few details are available from but are mostly held privledged by the translations team. Since this is speculative or deductive work, I don't see why there is a problem with a copyright on it. When (if) the real version becomes available no one will care about this copyrighted version. It will be fully supplanted by the real text, or perhaps different versions of the same material. If there never is another version of this material released then I would feel that strictly enforcing the copyright would be less than helpful to research. Presumably, appropriate citation form or longer acknowledgement, would be adequate copyright enforcement.
Like it or not folks, we live in a capitalist world. Communism may have offered an alternative until a few years ago, but it's gone as a real force now. Corporations survive by getting larger and garnering more power, having more people work for them and selling to more of the populace. Very large corporations are those able to do this better than their competition.
Is revolution a possibility? Revolution to what? Some political-economic system has to be implemented. Differences of scale will always exist guarenteeing that some corporations are always going to be getting larger. Even communism found this out.
Can we work towards a better democracy? Voting would help. Encouraging more responsibility among corporations and universities and political parties would help (a lot.)
Oh great, the records companies (like the lads of Metallica came up with this idea) have decided to call in a new layer of legal action. I wish we had a government which could decide this issue, one way or the other, and make the decision stick.
Three other factors (besides the ones you mentioned) come into play here. First, the need to avoid any type of local storms. Second, relative geological stability. Third, if you can get a couple of kilometers of free height it cuts your costs somewhat.
To get these you need to look for a relatively stable mountain range on the lee side of the prevailing winds. The only mountains near enough the equator are in Kenya with Mt. Kilamanjaro and the Andes on the side away from the Pacific. Since the African rift valley probably isn't stable enough, it looks like Peru/Brazil will be the likely winner.
NASA is already publishing plans to have a 16KM tall launching rail. The links are at the end of the story. Such a tall tower would radically reduce launch costs, but not as low as the elvator would.
This may sound out of fashion but a one-way heat transfer system made from carbon would be a very important component in making nuclear reactors that are considerably safer and efficient than current ones. Heat transfer has always been the weak saftey link in nuclear power. Radioactive carbon does not emit dangerous radiation. Combine this with liquid lithium as the primary insulation medium and you have a reactor that is safer than most coal plants, produces electricty at lower prices and does not become long-term radioactive. Of course, Al Gore has pulled the plug on such research.
Nota Bene: the Templars based their order upon the 'Rule of St Benedict' but where never a branch of the Benedictines. The Benedictines were not and are not militaristic. For that maybe you should check the Jesuits !!!!
The decisions you and I make today about where we buy, what we buy, how much information we permit free access to and how we choose to communicate all will affect the rise of these merchants. The difference between success and failure, early in the life cycle may only be a few customers or complainers. Does my purchase today allow that company to survive and one day develop into a vast empire. Could the first clients of the Hansa League chosen better?
Actually, probably the most important decision you and I will make in the next few months with regards to this is our vote on the 7th of November. One candidate has clearly committed to a socialist taxation/economic system. The other has chosen to continue (and enhance) our current system of supporting business opportunity. Oddly, the incumbent proposes the huge alteration and the challenger the continuity. What a wierd presidential system the USA has.