I wondered about that too. The base article says that this device and the Agenda are owned by the same company. But, the link to the linuxdevices article says the Royal Lin@x includes software derived from Century Embedded Software's PIXIL PDA environment. Meanwhile I am pretty sure the Agenda uses X Windows.
QuickFox wrote: Would it be possible to use ordinary parabolic satellite TV antennas for radio telescopy? Could they be combined to create a huge radio telescope?
There was a science fiction movie, starring Charlie Sheen, that used this idea, half a dozen years ago. In addition to the excellent objections to this idea that have been raised already let me add one more. Steerable satellite antennae intended to be used with geosynchronous telecommunications satellites all point to locations above the equator. You can change the longitude they point at, but not the latitude.
To bad it can only focus in one direction and for a limited time as well. The craft doesn't decelerate at 550 A.U. it continues past the point of focus. It would no doubt focus at a range of objects as it moved away from the sun, but all of the objects would be in the same line. The TAU mission that it would also accomplish seems useful though.
I wondered about this too. I figured that the plan would involve slowing down, upon arrival, so the telescope stayed near the 550 AU sphere. Even so steering the telescope so it was looking at some other part of the sky would take decades.
I wondered about a couple of other things. How much power would be required to send a signal from this telescope back to Earth? How big would the receiving antennae have to be?
550 AU, let's see, that is 4,400 light minutes, or
about one light month.
I prefer the original. Sure, the sequel had
more spectacular special effects. Seven years
of technical progress, and a tenfold budget
increase can do that for you. The original cost
just $6,400,000 to make. The sequel cost $100,000,000.
These are both thinking persons action pictures.
I consider the original deeper.
Yes, of course his hair was dead. It was dead
as soon as it emerged from his scalp. That is
not the point.
The note I was replying to was talking about
the ownership issues. Who owns your cells?
Do you own your cells, and your unique(*) genotype? When you die, who owns your body?
If you were unusually tall, do I get to dig up
your skeleton, and display it in a circus sideshow?
How about an antiquities museum?
What if some of your lineal descendants give
permission? What if they all deny permission?
So if very little money was being made, then the family shouldn't be compensated, but if a lot of money is being made, then the family should be compensated? I guess your philosophy is all about the money. If the pot gets big enough, you want a cut.
Did the patient or her family give permission for
her remains to be used? No, they didn't learn
about this for several decades after. That is
unethical. It is deeply, deeply unethical.
What if the patient, or her family, had religious
beliefs that conflicted with her body parts living
on after her death, and being harvested?
Look at the turmoil stirred up about a year ago, over the case of Dr Dick van Velzen.
Van Velzen was the senior pathologist at a
children's hospital in the UK. And it appears
he ordered the surreptious bottling
and preservation of the organs of every baby
who underwent a postmortem at his hospital.
The press reports say this amount to something
like 15,000 individual's organs.
This is not the first case like this I have heard
about. There is an excellent, long-running science show on the radio up here in Canada,
called "Quirks and Quarks", that covered a
similar story about fifteen years ago. The
patient in that case had had a biopsy, and one
of the doctors involved had decided that he had
cells that had some useful, saleable property.
As in this case, the doctor didn't ask anyone's
permission. However, this patient hadn't died.
He was still alive and kicking, and when he found
out he was angry. He sued for a cut. I'd like
to know how the case was resolved.
Unlike the case of this woman, the biopsy was not
taken in the fifties. It would have been the late
seventies or early to mid eighties.
The issues did not arise in the past because cells, unlike property, did not survive outside the body. Now
that they do, all cellular matter inadvertently takes on the attributes of property.
That is not, strictly speaking, true.
Famous people, like Napoleon Bonaparte, used to
snip off locks of their hair, to give to their
loved ones, fans, well-wishers, and those who had
done them favours. I know a number of locks of
his hair have survived to the present day, because
researchers were able to subject them to modern
forensic tests to prove that he was the victim of
chronic Arsenic poisoning.
Should the same marketplace economics be applied
to medically useful living cells as to these
souvenirs?
FWIW, IIRC, a number of people who had access to
his body took the opportunity to snip additional
locks of hair.
Of other Sci-Fi movies of the periods that I think should be mentioned are the following.
Soylent Green (sp?)
The Omega Man
Both classics depicting dark futures and starring Charston Heston as the main character.
Oh, come on, how can you mention great science fiction films of the period, and not mention 2001? 2001 was released the same year as the original
Planet of the Apes.
I remembering reading something Arthur C. Clarke
wrote about POTA. He wrote about an Oscar POTA
won for best makeup. He commented on
the very detailed and realistic make-up used by
the actors who portrayed the autralopithecines
during "The Dawn of Man" section. He suggested
that perhaps the 2001 makeup was so realistic
that the academy members hadn't realized that
they weren't using real apes.
I just checked the imdb. The Oscar John Chambers,
the makeup director for POTA won was an honorary
Oscar. It was not as Oscar for which 2001 was
in competition.
I think it would have been interesting to see
Bogart (3rd version) play opposite Bette Davis (2nd version).
The 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a remake of the 1964 Bedtime Story. The original starred David Niven opposite a young Marlon Brando. I preferred the
remake, although it would have been interesting
to see Michael Caine play opposite Brando.
Watch both films, back to back, and you will be
amazed at how far superior an actor Michael Caine
is to David Niven. Compared with Caine, Niven
seems more wooden than Pinochio.
The first [Planet of the Apes] movie clearly had racial and class
messages to pass along (it was adapted from La Planete des Singes, a novel
by Pierre Boulle, whose target was European class snobbery).
A lot of the weight in a CRT is the lead in the glass at the front of the tube that protects you from the x-rays
that a color CRT tube would otherwise emit.
Are you sure? I thought the weight was
due to glass needing to be thick for plain
old mechanical strength. CRTs are evacuated.
14 pounds per square inch.
Re:Too bad it wasn't a FRENCH Canadian company
on
Death of a Rebel
·
· Score: 1
The great
thing about democracy is you get to pick and
choose. Have you heard of Sturgeon's Law.
"Sure 90% of science fiction is shit. But 90%
of anything is shit." Yes, I recognize some of
those shows as week. (Although I don't think Bruno
Gerussi's show has been on for over ten years.
And this link I dug up makes it look like it
would be more correct to characterize
the Littlest Hobo as a CTV production.)
As for the subtle digs at right wingers? You
know what, if you talk to those on the lunatic
fringe of the
left they will tell you the CBC has a right
wing bias. They will point out that between them
CBC and CBC Newsworld has something like a dozen
hours a week of business oriented programming -- but
not one labour oriented show.
Pop singer John Denver entered negotiation with
the old Soviet Union to buy a trip to space.
I think he balked over the price -- $10 million.
I wish he had gone. I think it would have had a
very good effect on the Cold War.
...Could his millions have been better spent on those in need rather
than a personal vacation in zero gravity?
"This money should have been spent on the poor. And it was. One hundred
dollars a month is the average salary of a Russian aerospace worker," Tito
quipped.
I've hiked through a peat bog. My recollection
was that water was as brown as tea, but more
turbid. I remember thinking at the time that
it looked like it would be awful to drink.
The article says that some Norwegians draw
their drinking water from peat bogs? Yuck!
What kind of taste does it add to the fish
I wonder?
Re:Too bad it wasn't a FRENCH Canadian company
on
Death of a Rebel
·
· Score: 1
the CBC sucks, the National Film Board sucks...
I should probably
just ignore you, since you don't realize how
not giving any reasons undermines your credibility.
I love the CBC and the NFB. They produce
very intelligent thoughtful stuff. So what
is it that you watch that is so much better?
I assume You dont drive a car then? You've got a greater chance of dying from an auto accident than from a meltdown.
No one should be compelled to explain why they
choose to engage in risky behaviour that doesn't
put others at risk. Engaging in risky behaviour
doesn't remove one's right to
join the debate about risks
imposed on you, whether you like it or not.
Drive a car. Eat red meat. Smoke cigarettes.
Smoke crack cocaine!
Go skydiving. Date high-strung supermodels!
People should be allowed to do these things, when
they don't put others at risk, without exposing
their reasons to scrutiny and ridicule. They
shouldn't have to say what their payoff is.
That is private.
Maybe I would like to try dating a beautiful, high-strung supermodel?
Don't try and stop me! Don't try to make me explain why!
You only have a real democracy when you have
healthy, informed debate. Let's let majority rule
after we have had a full, healthy, informed debate.
Perceived risk? Actual risk? Of course there can be
huge variance between the two.
You can make predictions of risk through modeling,
through statistical examination of similar things
from the past, using other intellectual tools.
It is still just an estimate.
If you are going to be honest about using modeling
to estimate a risk, you state your assumptions up
front. State the ones you know about at least, as
there are always going to be unstated, unexamined
assumptions.
The assumptions a model is based on are all good
provinces for informed debate. Your opponents get to ask you
searching questions to determine your
credibility.
"the chances of dying from a nuclear accident in
space are outweighed by the lives saved by using nuclear power to
stop an asteroid"
Yes, I saw Armageddon
and Deep Impact too.
They were highly diverting. And
Liv Tyler and
Tea Leoni are
beautiful gals, but let's not insult the other people
in this discussion by turning to a pair of movies
to back up your reasoning over a serious issue.
I challenge you to cite any deeply thought out reasoning predicting
the dangers of nukes in space. And, as for the difficulty of
diverting even the smallest comet? I challenge you to show you have
done any serious research on this question.
I challenge you to cite any hard numbers for the estimate of how
often comets smash into the earth. How many orders of magnitude
separate the direst prediction from the most optimistic? Let's be
frank, the estimates are very fuzzy. They depend on all kinds of
assumptions we can't be accurate about. So these predictions are
ballpark estimates.
Let me suggest that it is a big mistake to cite ballpark predictions
as hard facts. You weaken your own side of the debate when you do
so. Human nature being what it is, you taint your colleagues who
do back their arguments up solidly, by association with your sloppy
thinking.
So what does it mean when you say the one risk "outweighs"
the other? How much credibility should we attach to your comparison
of these two risks?
You try to use this second comparison to bolster your first comparison.
Nuclear reactors are safer than cars.
Cars last about a decade, and we have about a hundred years of
statistics on their use. And we have built and junked hundreds
of millions or perhaps billions of cars. So, I won't challenge you
to show that we can use statistical analysis of past events to
make a very accurate prediction of how safe my next trip in an auto
will be.
We have been building Nuclear reactors for fifty years, and we have
built thousands of reactors for power generation.
I don't know if you have noticed, this is a lot smaller statistical
sample.
Nuclear reactors last longer than cars too. Should we assume
they last thirty years? Opponents of nuclear power generation would
challenge that assumption. They would argue that the real lifetime
extends far beyond the period when it is actively generating power.
In a healthy democracy we get to challenge one another's assumptions.
May I suggest that an ongoing debate over the real lifetime of a
nuclear power plant very seriously weakens a statistical argument
for the safety of nuclear reactors?
But let me return to your first point.
You've got a heck of a lot of nerve telling others what reasoning
they can and can't use when your own reasoning is so specious.
I kidded about wanting to date a supermodel because the risk
of choosing to date a super-model obviously
has nothing to do with whether I get to share in
the debate over nuclear energy. Choosing to drive
a car also has nothing to do with my right to join
the debate, but it is not so obvious.
So, what is the difference between the "perfectly
acceptable" $600 computer I mentioned and the
$1000 "decent" computer this anonymous coward challenged me with?
I was replying to someone who said you needed to
spend $1500 CAD to get a computer powerful enough
to take full advantage of a fast internet connection.
The $600 CAD computer might only have 64MB of
RAM. It might only have a 10gig drive. It might
only have an 800Mhz processor. It might have
its video mounted on the motherboard, restricting
one to just 8MB of video RAM. But do any of these
limits restrict it from being a perfectly acceptable computer for internet cruising?
This other article says there were five Burans
built, and that the most advanced was sold to
an australian over a year ago. It says that another one was being auctioned, and it looked like it might go for a few million.
Slashdot Mirror
I wondered about that too. The base article says that this device and the Agenda are owned by the same company. But, the link to the linuxdevices article says the Royal Lin@x includes software derived from Century Embedded Software's PIXIL PDA environment. Meanwhile I am pretty sure the Agenda uses X Windows.
There was a science fiction movie, starring Charlie Sheen, that used this idea, half a dozen years ago. In addition to the excellent objections to this idea that have been raised already let me add one more. Steerable satellite antennae intended to be used with geosynchronous telecommunications satellites all point to locations above the equator. You can change the longitude they point at, but not the latitude.
I wondered about this too. I figured that the plan would involve slowing down, upon arrival, so the telescope stayed near the 550 AU sphere. Even so steering the telescope so it was looking at some other part of the sky would take decades.
I wondered about a couple of other things. How much power would be required to send a signal from this telescope back to Earth? How big would the receiving antennae have to be?
550 AU, let's see, that is 4,400 light minutes, or
about one light month.
Gene Spafford's Rob Morris FAQ
Haven't you posted this message several times already in other threads?
So some might say.
I prefer the original. Sure, the sequel had more spectacular special effects. Seven years of technical progress, and a tenfold budget increase can do that for you. The original cost just $6,400,000 to make. The sequel cost $100,000,000.
These are both thinking persons action pictures. I consider the original deeper.
The note I was replying to was talking about the ownership issues. Who owns your cells? Do you own your cells, and your unique(*) genotype? When you die, who owns your body? If you were unusually tall, do I get to dig up your skeleton, and display it in a circus sideshow?
How about an antiquities museum? What if some of your lineal descendants give permission? What if they all deny permission?
(*) Unless you have an identical twin.
Did the patient or her family give permission for her remains to be used? No, they didn't learn about this for several decades after. That is unethical. It is deeply, deeply unethical.
What if the patient, or her family, had religious beliefs that conflicted with her body parts living on after her death, and being harvested?
Look at the turmoil stirred up about a year ago, over the case of Dr Dick van Velzen. Van Velzen was the senior pathologist at a children's hospital in the UK. And it appears he ordered the surreptious bottling and preservation of the organs of every baby who underwent a postmortem at his hospital. The press reports say this amount to something like 15,000 individual's organs.
Hospital rejects Van Velzen's claims
Van Velzen pleads guilty to improperly storing children's organs
UK Doctor Organ Harvest Outrage
You've got to get permission for stuff like this.
As in this case, the doctor didn't ask anyone's permission. However, this patient hadn't died. He was still alive and kicking, and when he found out he was angry. He sued for a cut. I'd like to know how the case was resolved.
Unlike the case of this woman, the biopsy was not taken in the fifties. It would have been the late seventies or early to mid eighties.
That is not, strictly speaking, true. Famous people, like Napoleon Bonaparte, used to snip off locks of their hair, to give to their loved ones, fans, well-wishers, and those who had done them favours. I know a number of locks of his hair have survived to the present day, because researchers were able to subject them to modern forensic tests to prove that he was the victim of chronic Arsenic poisoning.
Should the same marketplace economics be applied to medically useful living cells as to these souvenirs?
FWIW, IIRC, a number of people who had access to his body took the opportunity to snip additional locks of hair.
Risks13-19.3
Risks13-32.1
Risks13-37.2
Risks13-46.4
Or modify the software to continue to allow anonymous posting, but restrict anonymous posts from containing working hypertext links.
Has anyone wondered whether this "goat sex" guy is a good reason to get rid of the ability to post anonymously?
Oh, come on, how can you mention great science fiction films of the period, and not mention 2001? 2001 was released the same year as the original Planet of the Apes.
I remembering reading something Arthur C. Clarke wrote about POTA. He wrote about an Oscar POTA won for best makeup. He commented on the very detailed and realistic make-up used by the actors who portrayed the autralopithecines during "The Dawn of Man" section. He suggested that perhaps the 2001 makeup was so realistic that the academy members hadn't realized that they weren't using real apes.
I just checked the imdb. The Oscar John Chambers, the makeup director for POTA won was an honorary Oscar. It was not as Oscar for which 2001 was in competition.
The Maltese Falcon (1931)
Satan met a Lady (1936)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
I think it would have been interesting to see Bogart (3rd version) play opposite Bette Davis (2nd version).
The 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a remake of the 1964 Bedtime Story. The original starred David Niven opposite a young Marlon Brando. I preferred the remake, although it would have been interesting to see Michael Caine play opposite Brando. Watch both films, back to back, and you will be amazed at how far superior an actor Michael Caine is to David Niven. Compared with Caine, Niven seems more wooden than Pinochio.
Pierre Boulle wrote another book made into a terrific movie The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) .
Are you sure? I thought the weight was due to glass needing to be thick for plain old mechanical strength. CRTs are evacuated. 14 pounds per square inch.
As for the subtle digs at right wingers? You know what, if you talk to those on the lunatic fringe of the left they will tell you the CBC has a right wing bias. They will point out that between them CBC and CBC Newsworld has something like a dozen hours a week of business oriented programming -- but not one labour oriented show.
Pop singer John Denver entered negotiation with the old Soviet Union to buy a trip to space. I think he balked over the price -- $10 million. I wish he had gone. I think it would have had a very good effect on the Cold War.
The article says that some Norwegians draw their drinking water from peat bogs? Yuck!
What kind of taste does it add to the fish I wonder?
I should probably just ignore you, since you don't realize how not giving any reasons undermines your credibility.
I love the CBC and the NFB. They produce very intelligent thoughtful stuff. So what is it that you watch that is so much better?
No one should be compelled to explain why they choose to engage in risky behaviour that doesn't put others at risk. Engaging in risky behaviour doesn't remove one's right to join the debate about risks imposed on you, whether you like it or not.
Drive a car. Eat red meat. Smoke cigarettes. Smoke crack cocaine! Go skydiving. Date high-strung supermodels! People should be allowed to do these things, when they don't put others at risk, without exposing their reasons to scrutiny and ridicule. They shouldn't have to say what their payoff is. That is private.
Maybe I would like to try dating a beautiful, high-strung supermodel? Don't try and stop me! Don't try to make me explain why!
You only have a real democracy when you have healthy, informed debate. Let's let majority rule after we have had a full, healthy, informed debate.
Perceived risk? Actual risk? Of course there can be huge variance between the two.
You can make predictions of risk through modeling, through statistical examination of similar things from the past, using other intellectual tools.
It is still just an estimate.
If you are going to be honest about using modeling to estimate a risk, you state your assumptions up front. State the ones you know about at least, as there are always going to be unstated, unexamined assumptions.
The assumptions a model is based on are all good provinces for informed debate. Your opponents get to ask you searching questions to determine your credibility.
Yes, I saw Armageddon and Deep Impact too. They were highly diverting. And Liv Tyler and Tea Leoni are beautiful gals, but let's not insult the other people in this discussion by turning to a pair of movies to back up your reasoning over a serious issue.
I challenge you to cite any deeply thought out reasoning predicting the dangers of nukes in space. And, as for the difficulty of diverting even the smallest comet? I challenge you to show you have done any serious research on this question.
Here is a link to a review of Deep Impact by an astronomer, who addresses some of these questions, just to get you started. It is aimed at the average intelligent person.
I challenge you to cite any hard numbers for the estimate of how often comets smash into the earth. How many orders of magnitude separate the direst prediction from the most optimistic? Let's be frank, the estimates are very fuzzy. They depend on all kinds of assumptions we can't be accurate about. So these predictions are ballpark estimates.
Let me suggest that it is a big mistake to cite ballpark predictions as hard facts. You weaken your own side of the debate when you do so. Human nature being what it is, you taint your colleagues who do back their arguments up solidly, by association with your sloppy thinking.
So what does it mean when you say the one risk "outweighs" the other? How much credibility should we attach to your comparison of these two risks?
You try to use this second comparison to bolster your first comparison. Nuclear reactors are safer than cars.
Cars last about a decade, and we have about a hundred years of statistics on their use. And we have built and junked hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of cars. So, I won't challenge you to show that we can use statistical analysis of past events to make a very accurate prediction of how safe my next trip in an auto will be.
We have been building Nuclear reactors for fifty years, and we have built thousands of reactors for power generation. I don't know if you have noticed, this is a lot smaller statistical sample.
Nuclear reactors last longer than cars too. Should we assume they last thirty years? Opponents of nuclear power generation would challenge that assumption. They would argue that the real lifetime extends far beyond the period when it is actively generating power.
In a healthy democracy we get to challenge one another's assumptions.
May I suggest that an ongoing debate over the real lifetime of a nuclear power plant very seriously weakens a statistical argument for the safety of nuclear reactors?
But let me return to your first point.
You've got a heck of a lot of nerve telling others what reasoning they can and can't use when your own reasoning is so specious.
I kidded about wanting to date a supermodel because the risk of choosing to date a super-model obviously has nothing to do with whether I get to share in the debate over nuclear energy. Choosing to drive a car also has nothing to do with my right to join the debate, but it is not so obvious.
I was replying to someone who said you needed to spend $1500 CAD to get a computer powerful enough to take full advantage of a fast internet connection.
The $600 CAD computer might only have 64MB of RAM. It might only have a 10gig drive. It might only have an 800Mhz processor. It might have its video mounted on the motherboard, restricting one to just 8MB of video RAM. But do any of these limits restrict it from being a perfectly acceptable computer for internet cruising?
http://www.space.com/news/spaceshuttles/buran_boug ht_000303.html
So, how come this discussion has so few comments. It didn't show up on my main /. page. I don't know why.