I wrote commercial code for a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in 1995 - it was 10 years old even then.
I just removed some Java code dating to 2000 from an in-use code base, but haven't deployed to production yet;)
Avatar, Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Men... these are not science movies, they're sci-fi and fantasy. They show you awesome special effects, lots of action, and funny looking aliens/mutants. They lack a "Hero" role in these movies where the character uses, say, the laws of thermodynamics or Newton's laws of motion to save the day. In fact "Evil Science Co Inc." is often the bad evil corporation trying to exploit nature to make a profit (Aliens, Avatar... Frankenstein?).
Good *science* movies are much harder to find. There's some vaguely interesting scientific issues raised in films like 2001 - where did life come from and what would extra-terrastrial intelligent life be like? Solaris perhaps? And film's like Lorenzo's Oil show science in a positive role. I did like Apollo 13 though for showing the engineers doing the almost impossible to save the astronauts. Can anyone help me make a list of others?
7" x 5" index cards, a marker pen, and lots of conversations between the people who'll really create the software and the people who'll really use it. Everyone in between can be ignored. All that other stuff you think is important... it's ceremony and job creation. Also, read the end of The Dilbert Principle - if you're one level removed from your company's core business (creating a policy and writing code rather that writing code, talking about customers rather than talking to customers, quality teams, process teams etc etc), then it's not worth doing.
Is it just me or is everything now being explained through Quantum Mechanics?
Don't understand why people make irrational decisions?
Quantum Mechanics may be at work.
Don't understand how photosynthesis happens?
Quantum Mechanics may be at work.
Don't understand contradictions in quantum mechanics?
Well, that is because sub-atomic paticles may have free will?
Can't we just credit God or something?
Is it just me or is everything now being explained through "science"?
Don't understand why the Sun rises every morning?
Science may be at work.
Don't understand why water falls from the sky sometimes?
Science may be at work.
Don't understand contradictions in scripture?
Well, that's because the mere human authors may have free will.
Can't we just credit nature with being the way it is or something?
(Sorry, might be snarky but I hope you see the equally valid and often more testable point?)
I did study electronic engineering, but it was 14 years ago and I'm not sure my answer's much better...
A popular on-line encyclopaedia says that Silicon has a Van der Waals radius (the size if we pretend the atom is a solid sphere) of 210pm - over 100 times less than the 22nm process. If you also count the need to dope the silicon p-type or n-type, grow layers of insulator like silicon dioxide and avoid quantum stuff that I never really understood, then I'd guess at a lower limit of around 25 or so atoms for a workable structure. Let's call it 5nm - hey that's a factor of 4x less than 22nm like you said!
From a different point of view, I've seen papers by groups who have been fabricating structures at the sub-10nm region. Again, perhaps it can be pushed to 5nm.
Beyond that we'll need to think about alternatives - making electrons move faster, like strained silicon does, or giving up silicon for something like diamond (so we can have super-computer bling:)
If the silicon process shrinks every 2-3 years, we'll hit the limit about 10 years. But they said that 10 years ago too!
OK, dense large planet, interesting... hang on, what about the other bit in the article?!
Other signals detected by the satellite could also indicate the existence of another exoplanet with a radius 1.7 times that of Earth's. The little green men are getting more likely all the time...
Mensa won't take SATs from later than 1/31/94 as an indication of your IQ. That says something about changing test difficulty... 1, 31, 94, ?
x(n) = [3 * x(n-1)] + x(n-2) , where n>3
So it's 313 next, right? Next question please:)
Sweet. Call it the 'Dyson Pizza' and trademark it before the franchises do!
Can't believe they can't do ice cream. Surely space is cold enough in the shadow of the space station (I just watched Sunshine) to make it from the ingredients?
In 2061 (written over 20 years ago now) captain Smith fuels his spacecraft with water from Halley's comet and then flies through a geyser to clean the ship. The 'cosmic car wash manoeuvre' always struck me as crazily risky, but now it looks like someone at NASA thinks it's good clean fun:) Hopefully Cassini won't get too much of a blast at a distance of 50km.
Also, since there's hydrocarbons on Titan and ice in the rings and moons of Saturn, I think Clarke picked the wrong gas giant to send his characters to! Saturn's got it going on.
"Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide."
VW already have a production car that gets ~80mpg and have had trial cars beat 300mpg in real traffic.
Not sure which car you mean, but VW have several efficient small cars. Here in the UK, the smallest current VW is the Fox and it can get about 45 mpg (combined) - I think that's an imperial gallon, not US. There was a Lupo 3L a couple of years back that was even better - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo
Recently, VW have unveiled the Polo Bluemotion, which is a slightly bigger car than the Fox but can achieve over 70 mpg, and emits 102 grams CO2/km (less than the Prius) and it's not even a hybrid. http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/company/press/feb06_bl uemotion
"I can just see them actively lining up to help sell you a hybrid vehicle that gets over 100 mpg in the USA."
Well, it's up to 'the market' isn't it? If petrol costs $20 per gallon at some point in the future, then you'll really want that high MPG figure and won't be able to afford to run any lower efficiency car. If the manufacturer wants to carry on selling cars, they'll have to make them affordable to run.
I was doubtful about your comment that adding water increased efficiency, but a quick search turned up this water injection reference.
Seems to prevent the air-fuel mix from detonating as opposed to normal burning ('deflagrating'). I didn't real all TFA, but from skimming it I couldn't tell whether it was actually electrolysing the H20 into H2 and O2 and adding it to the mix, or just adding a little water vapour as you suggest.
Also, I don't know think the Jeep Grand Cherokee they used in the test has a turbo charger that would benefit from water-vapour injection. The manufacturer's website says not.
"Most internal combustion engines operate at about 35 per cent efficiency. This means that only 35 per cent of the fuel is fully burned.
No, this means 35 per cent of the available energy is extracted as useful work, the rest being lost to heat/friction. This is typical of all heat engines.
In more common terms (to Brits and US citizens at least), the mpg ratings from the tests on page 4 are 26.1 with the device versus 22.4 according to the manufacturer standard mileage rating. Impressive if true, but I'll be skeptical until a well-recognised motoring group does some tests too.
If it works, it might cut costs for road transport, but what about air transport and industry use? I'm not sure this will save the planet. I'll continue to walk to work for now.
"The detection of deuterium is of interest because the amount of deuterium can be related to the amount of dark matter in the universe, but accurate measurements have been elusive. Because of the way deuterium was created in the Big Bang, an accurate measurement of deuterium would allow scientists to set constraints on models of the Big Bang."
We've got a plentiful supply of deuterium, because as the article says about 1 in 100,000 hydrogen atoms is deuterium. Any water molecule can contain one or more deuterium atoms. This is nothing to do with nuclear power. It's about understanding how the universe go to be the way it is today.
If you want to reduce the impact of placing objects into orbit, then reduce the energy demands of getting up there.
A space elevator (always popular on/.) would be about the cheapest way up in theory provided you write of the energy cost of building the damn thing over a long lifetime.
Still, I think the posts and articles about the environmental impact of the Shuttle are mostly crap. Cars that do 40mpg instead of 20mpg on an urban-cycle would have much more positive impact on the environment. Using the heat from power station cooling systems to heat offices/factories in local areas would do more. Recycling your plastic, glass bottles, cans, and paper would do more.
Nasty as the perchlorate SRBs are, they're worth the inconvenience if NASA can use them to build (say) a 100 ton heavy launcher to replace the Shuttle.
Yes, a good bit of sci-fi really. But without giving too much away, it was "Ice 9" and not some algae/bacteria that caused the trouble. On another tangent to the tangent, Ice 9 is a great Joe Satriani track.
Oh wow! I just checked the Wikipedia article - "The book is currently being adapted into script form by Richard Kelly, the writer and director of Donnie Darko.". Yay!
WTF? "another -1% of O2 and things would not ignite in the free atmosphere".
Did you study arts at college? Whether something burns depends on the heat you expose it to, the type of material itself, and also (yes) the availability of oxidiser (O2 in the air). Methane gas, coal, and all your other favourite fossil fuels will burn in 19%-O2 air just fine. They might produce marginally more carbon monoxide, but they wouldn't just stop.
If combustion was that sensitive, I think most candles wouldn't burn because they'd use up the oxygen around them to quickly. And blowing gently on a flame would always put it out rather than increase it, because there's less O2 (about 16%?) and more CO2 in your exhaled breath.
Slashdot Mirror
I wrote commercial code for a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in 1995 - it was 10 years old even then. I just removed some Java code dating to 2000 from an in-use code base, but haven't deployed to production yet ;)
Good *science* movies are much harder to find. There's some vaguely interesting scientific issues raised in films like 2001 - where did life come from and what would extra-terrastrial intelligent life be like? Solaris perhaps? And film's like Lorenzo's Oil show science in a positive role. I did like Apollo 13 though for showing the engineers doing the almost impossible to save the astronauts. Can anyone help me make a list of others?
7" x 5" index cards, a marker pen, and lots of conversations between the people who'll really create the software and the people who'll really use it. Everyone in between can be ignored. All that other stuff you think is important... it's ceremony and job creation. Also, read the end of The Dilbert Principle - if you're one level removed from your company's core business (creating a policy and writing code rather that writing code, talking about customers rather than talking to customers, quality teams, process teams etc etc), then it's not worth doing.
So ... 43 then? 44? Any higher bids?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarantine_(Red_Dwarf) for the unenlightened. Mr Flibble agrees with me, don't you Mr Flibble?
Is it just me or is everything now being explained through Quantum Mechanics? Don't understand why people make irrational decisions? Quantum Mechanics may be at work. Don't understand how photosynthesis happens? Quantum Mechanics may be at work. Don't understand contradictions in quantum mechanics? Well, that is because sub-atomic paticles may have free will? Can't we just credit God or something?
Is it just me or is everything now being explained through "science"?
Don't understand why the Sun rises every morning?
Science may be at work.
Don't understand why water falls from the sky sometimes?
Science may be at work.
Don't understand contradictions in scripture?
Well, that's because the mere human authors may have free will.
Can't we just credit nature with being the way it is or something?
(Sorry, might be snarky but I hope you see the equally valid and often more testable point?)
If it missed the atmosphere, does that mean it made it into orbit? Is it like Arthur Dent going flying?
I did study electronic engineering, but it was 14 years ago and I'm not sure my answer's much better ...
A popular on-line encyclopaedia says that Silicon has a Van der Waals radius (the size if we pretend the atom is a solid sphere) of 210pm - over 100 times less than the 22nm process. If you also count the need to dope the silicon p-type or n-type, grow layers of insulator like silicon dioxide and avoid quantum stuff that I never really understood, then I'd guess at a lower limit of around 25 or so atoms for a workable structure. Let's call it 5nm - hey that's a factor of 4x less than 22nm like you said!
From a different point of view, I've seen papers by groups who have been fabricating structures at the sub-10nm region. Again, perhaps it can be pushed to 5nm.
Beyond that we'll need to think about alternatives - making electrons move faster, like strained silicon does, or giving up silicon for something like diamond (so we can have super-computer bling :)
If the silicon process shrinks every 2-3 years, we'll hit the limit about 10 years. But they said that 10 years ago too!
OK, dense large planet, interesting... hang on, what about the other bit in the article?!
Other signals detected by the satellite could also indicate the existence of another exoplanet with a radius 1.7 times that of Earth's.
The little green men are getting more likely all the time...
x(n) = [3 * x(n-1)] + x(n-2) , where n>3
So it's 313 next, right? Next question please
Sweet. Call it the 'Dyson Pizza' and trademark it before the franchises do! Can't believe they can't do ice cream. Surely space is cold enough in the shadow of the space station (I just watched Sunshine) to make it from the ingredients?
Also, since there's hydrocarbons on Titan and ice in the rings and moons of Saturn, I think Clarke picked the wrong gas giant to send his characters to! Saturn's got it going on.
Maybe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPM_37093 But you're unlikely to get your hand on it. Still it's nice to imagine isn't it?
Because Newton wasn't quite right, and matter bends space-time which means photons do noticeably bend around really massive objects. Cool.
"Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick, But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide."
Not sure which car you mean, but VW have several efficient small cars. Here in the UK, the smallest current VW is the Fox and it can get about 45 mpg (combined) - I think that's an imperial gallon, not US. There was a Lupo 3L a couple of years back that was even better - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo
Recently, VW have unveiled the Polo Bluemotion, which is a slightly bigger car than the Fox but can achieve over 70 mpg, and emits 102 grams CO2/km (less than the Prius) and it's not even a hybrid. http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/company/press/feb06_bl uemotion
For those wanting a bigger car, there'll be a Passat Bluemotion later this year - 55 mpg for a family saloon. http://motorshow.cars.uk.msn.com/motorshow/geneva2 007/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=3820465
Well, it's up to 'the market' isn't it? If petrol costs $20 per gallon at some point in the future, then you'll really want that high MPG figure and won't be able to afford to run any lower efficiency car. If the manufacturer wants to carry on selling cars, they'll have to make them affordable to run.
It's just a theory.
Seems to prevent the air-fuel mix from detonating as opposed to normal burning ('deflagrating'). I didn't real all TFA, but from skimming it I couldn't tell whether it was actually electrolysing the H20 into H2 and O2 and adding it to the mix, or just adding a little water vapour as you suggest.
Also, I don't know think the Jeep Grand Cherokee they used in the test has a turbo charger that would benefit from water-vapour injection. The manufacturer's website says not.
No, this means 35 per cent of the available energy is extracted as useful work, the rest being lost to heat/friction. This is typical of all heat engines.
In more common terms (to Brits and US citizens at least), the mpg ratings from the tests on page 4 are 26.1 with the device versus 22.4 according to the manufacturer standard mileage rating. Impressive if true, but I'll be skeptical until a well-recognised motoring group does some tests too.
If it works, it might cut costs for road transport, but what about air transport and industry use? I'm not sure this will save the planet. I'll continue to walk to work for now.
We've got a plentiful supply of deuterium, because as the article says about 1 in 100,000 hydrogen atoms is deuterium. Any water molecule can contain one or more deuterium atoms. This is nothing to do with nuclear power. It's about understanding how the universe go to be the way it is today.
Butthead: Huh-uh-huh... he said doggy.
A space elevator (always popular on /.) would be about the cheapest way up in theory provided you write of the energy cost of building the damn thing over a long lifetime.
Still, I think the posts and articles about the environmental impact of the Shuttle are mostly crap. Cars that do 40mpg instead of 20mpg on an urban-cycle would have much more positive impact on the environment. Using the heat from power station cooling systems to heat offices/factories in local areas would do more. Recycling your plastic, glass bottles, cans, and paper would do more.
Nasty as the perchlorate SRBs are, they're worth the inconvenience if NASA can use them to build (say) a 100 ton heavy launcher to replace the Shuttle.
Oh wow! I just checked the Wikipedia article - "The book is currently being adapted into script form by Richard Kelly, the writer and director of Donnie Darko.". Yay!
Did you study arts at college? Whether something burns depends on the heat you expose it to, the type of material itself, and also (yes) the availability of oxidiser (O2 in the air). Methane gas, coal, and all your other favourite fossil fuels will burn in 19%-O2 air just fine. They might produce marginally more carbon monoxide, but they wouldn't just stop.
If combustion was that sensitive, I think most candles wouldn't burn because they'd use up the oxygen around them to quickly. And blowing gently on a flame would always put it out rather than increase it, because there's less O2 (about 16%?) and more CO2 in your exhaled breath.
That is just the best mixed-metaphore that I've heard all day. Kudos, please mod the parent up!
And it's begging for a "this is a dead parrot" joke...