I have always found software RAID to be faster than hardware. Apparently CPUs can XOR like crazy.
I recently assembled a 4 disk software RAID-5 system for a friend. It read at 300 MBytes/sec, and no, it wasn't in cache. I thought that was pretty impressive.
You do realize that no XOR calculations are done when reading from a RAID-5 system (hardware or software) unless a drive has failed, right?
But yes, in general, parity calculation for writing (or for reading from a degraded array) will be much faster on the host CPU than it would on the processor contained in a typical hardware RAID controller.
What a hardware RAID controller does usually buy you (whether you use the onboard RAID or not) is battery backup of pending writes.
The postal system (at least in the United States) is bad because it's terribly inefficient and overpriced.
You're kidding me, right? Forty two cents to send a physical object across the country in three days. Inefficient and overpriced? Miraculous is more like it.
If it were inefficient and overpriced, wouldn't somebody be doing the same job for less? FedEx will do the same job for 50 times the cost. UPS will do it for 60 times the cost.
Why would there be less entitlements if only the rich were allowed to vote? I think that there would be tons of entitlements, just that the flow would be from the poor to the rich.
In other words, things would be exactly the same as they are now.
I REALLY hate it when people keep saying "Gold Standard", which is never what it was intended to be... it was supposed to be Gold AND Silver, measured against each other
I think you are referring to bimetalism, which is a different beast than the gold standard. Bimetalism didn't show up as a significant force in U.S. monetary policy until the late 19th century. Bimetalism is seriously unstable because it is susceptible to changes in the supply of or demand for either metal. Both silver and gold have significant industrial use that would be greatly impacted by fixing the ratio
For example, if the standard ratio of gold to silver is 20:1 (as bimetalism is usually formulated) and the silver supply expands, that extra silver won't go to other use because it is overpriced relative to supply.
For example the current ratio of gold to silver price is about 75:1. Lets say we went back to a 20:1 bimetalic standard tomorrow. That means gold is overpriced and silver is underpriced. In other words, gold is worth more outside of the monetary realm than it is within it. So gold will get withdrawn from circulation and used for other things. Silver, on the other hand, is worth more as money than it is being put to other uses. Industries will stop using so much silver and turn it into coinage. In the end, the bimetalic standard will disappear because all of the gold will be out of circulation and we will end up on a silver standard. Which is in essence what happened in the 19th century until McKinley was elected in 1896, whereupon we returned to the gold standard.
The problem with a gold standard is that the value of gold does fluctuate according to supply and demand which results in a currency that fluctuates in a manner that is difficult to control. The end result is that governments end up having to hoard gold in an attempt to stabilize their currency which would drive up worldwide gold demand, deflate the currency, and cause economic stagnation.
Of those 30,000 (or so), 19,811 stopped their education with a B.S. or an M.S. That probably means they don't qualify as a scientist. At least IMHO, a scientist is someone who directs original scientific research. I don't run across too many non-Ph.D.s who do so. Frankly, the opinion of someone with a B.S. in Agriculture has little bearing on weather global climate change is a man-made problem.
Of the remainder 2,240 have a degree of M.D. of D.V.M. When I go to see my doctor, I don't ask his opinion of climate change. I, while I trust my vet to prescribe medication for my cats, I don't expect him to be knowledgeable on climate change. There are some undoubtedly M.D.s and D.V.M.s that do lead research. I doubt it's a majority.
The main purpose of the web site is to mislead. They won't provide lists of signers with their specialties and degrees. Are any of the 40 "climatologists" on their list actual climatologists? I don't know. I'm not going to go through a list of 30,000 names to see if any published ones are on it. How about the 25 astronomers. Are there any on the list that I would know?
The law says she can't get worse. It isn't enough to simply slow it down. They have to make an effort to stop it from getting worse. Bleeding out is getting worse, unless they were putting as much blood in at the rate it was going out, they weren't in compliance.
Then they weren't in compliance. Maybe we should have called the cops.
Hospitals get special tax breaks for treating the poor. They are allowed to charge up to 4 or 5 times what they would charge an insured person and then deduct the entire amount as a loss.
Given that most of the hospitals here are "non-profit," I'm sure that they generate exactly enough fake "loss" to make up for their supposedly non-existent profits. If you aren't paying taxes, a further tax break doesn't buy you much.
if someone breaks the law, it isn't a reflection of any of the current political candidates views.
It is when one of the candidates think too much regulation is the problem.
The amount of care given to the poor won't effect the profitability of a hospital either. The vast majority of the poor get government paid health care and all children from poor families have automatic state coverage.
You seem to think that the "government paid health care" is the same as an insurance plan. As I pointed out in the previous message, the "government paid health care", MediCal, pays about %10 of the cost of care. Doctors are not required to take MediCal. Hospitals are only required to accept it for certain types of care.
Have you ever wondered by hospitals don't have many doctors on staff anymore? All of the doctors have been farmed out to outside medical groups that don't have to take MediCal. Please, pick up a phone and try to find a doctor that accepts MediCal and is taking new patients. If you have that wonderful "government paid health care", the only place you will get care is an emergency room.
It's essentially impossible to find a doctor that takes MediCal.
If your wife isn't aware of this and is turning the poor away, I suggest you mention something to her because it can cost her personally $25,000 a pop.
My wife is quite aware, but she provides a service (outpatient rehab) for which the hospital is not required to take MediCal. Last year the hospital changed it policy to not accept MediCal for her service line. She decided she couldn't work at a hospital that doesn't serve the poor and gave notice that she was quitting. Fortunately she was able to convince the management that the policy was indefensible. So they went back to accepting MediCal.
Until recently that is. All the other hospitals in the area dropped MediCal for outpatient rehab. It was especially surprising when a system of hospitals that got several billion dollars through a state bond measure and claims to serve the poor did the same. Because her hospital is the only one that accepts it, all of the MediCal patients show up there. So management has decided that each staff member is allowed to see one MediCal patient per week. Unfortunately, my wife has developed a health problem and currently needs her employer provided health insurance, threatening to quit isn't an option this time.
To keep her conscience clear, we are personally covering the difference in price between the lowest non-government reimbursement rate and the MediCal rate. (MediCal pays about $40 for a 90 minute evaluation. The lowest insurance reimbursement is about $160 for the same service). So every month we send my wife's employer a $500 donation, so that my wife can serve some poor people. (No, they wouldn't allow her to just not take pay for those evaluations. Her pay is a small fraction of that $160.)
That is a problem with California not health care or coverage in general.
Medicaid pays for the entire cost of a liver transplants so you can thank your state for convolution the p
I've always been fond of this one, which has a lower bound of 5x10^-7.
But it's pretty clear from my own (as yet unpublished) work that given a proper statistical analysis both the lower bound and the expectation value of N are 0, (or more accurately that the log of the value is negative infinity). The upper bound is about 10k. These limits are mostly set by the probability of intelligence evolving on a planet where life originates.
The main issue is that if intelligence is common, it's very difficult for us to have arrived as late in the history of life on Earth as we did. Using our history as a guide, if you ran the last 4.5 billion years over a thousand times, even if you got life here every time, you'd end up with intelligent life once, at most. And life here only has between 100 million and half a billion years left before it starts to get too warm.
I'll stick with small numbers unless someone comes up with a good study of the evolution of complex organisms that indicates that it is likely.
No. But you're apparently not to good with the English language.
It is illegal for an emergency room to deny emergency medical treatment to anyone based on their ability to pay.
And where in my post did I say anyone was denied emergency treatment based upon their ability to pay. The person I helping could have paid for surgery in cash. But, the facility lacked a staff doctor capable of performing the surgery. (Actually given the size of the hospital it's more likely none of the staff physicians were willing to perform the surgery. Why? I don't know.) When we did find a specialist, the condition was treated at that facility.
Even if the hospital couldn't treat the specific emergency condition your dieing friend had to a point that he/she would be stabilized.
That is true. And since she was not bleeding at a rate the would have killed her immediately, apparently the staff felt that, apart from a large amount of pain, she was capable of finding a specialist capable of treating her condition on her own.
they are obligated by law to transport you to a facility that can
Yes, they are. But, provided you aren't going to die in the next hour or so, and are conscious, they apparently don't need to locate a facility or a treating physician for you. The staff members in California hospitals have learned not to waste time on activities that don't generate revenue. If the patient had wanted another $75 Tylenol, I'm sure the staff would have provided it.
And don't think for a minute that the hospitals aren't gaming the system by making sure ambulance companies properly "judge" the location of the nearest "capable" emergency room based upon the "condition ($$$)" of the patient. When that doesn't work, hospitals will close emergency rooms to make sure that they don't have one near the patients in "severe condition". Those patients need to go to the county hospital.
My spouse works as a service provider in one of the "non-profit" mega-hospital conglomerates in the Bay Area. You'd better believe that every quarter everyone gets notified if their department isn't making a profit. And if it's not making a profit, the chopping block isn't too far away.
One of my spouse's current patients needs liver surgery. She's on MediCal (California's version of Medicaid) and she can't find a surgeon who takes MediCal. Why would they? MediCal pays 10 cents on the dollar.
The unfortunate thing is that she probably won't end up in an emergency room until the condition has gotten bad enough that she needs a new liver. And when that happens, she'll either get a new liver, or she'll die. Either way, we will pay a lot more for it than we would have if she had gotten treatment earlier.
All you really need to do is contact your insurance beforehand and CYA. It's not such a big deal.
I don't know where you are living. Here in the SF Bay Area the wait come in trying to see a specialist in the first place. You get a list of potential "service providers" from your insurance and you start calling. The most common response will be "I'm sorry, Dr. Jones isn't taking on any new patients at this time." If you keep calling long enough you might be able to find someone that will see you in 8 months or so.
At one point I was in an emergency room with someone in the process of slowly dying. The nurse handed us a phone book and phone so we could find someone who could perform an emergency procedure. According to Senator McCain, I have a gold plated health plan. Yeah, private health care works great...
A kiloton scale impact is a once a month thing. The only interesting thing about this collision is that we detected the object in advance. All the other ones have hit without warning. A 20 kiloton impact is a once a year event. It's only when you get to 10 megaton events that you have to worry about any effects on the ground, (apart from people looking at the bolide being temporarily or permanently blinded).
Understatement of the century. I think I first learned about the East African Rift in an Oceanography class in 1985. And then again in an anthropology class the following year. How exactly is this newsworthy?
Am I right to assume that by "dollar to donuts" you mean something like "even money" or "an approximate.5 probability".
No. It's more accurately translated as "I'll give you money if I'm wrong" The "nut" in "donut" is actually "naught" as in zero, because donuts are shaped like a zero and made of dough. "Dollars to donuts" therefore means I'll wager a dollar against nothing.
"ultrasonic waves collide alcohol molecules together in the bottle" Bullshit. Sound waves increase molecular collision rates only to the extent that they cause pressure/density/temperature increases. Let's suppose that by some miracle the sound wave causes a factor of two pressure increase as it passes. Averaged over the wave that's about twice the collisions that the molecules in the wine would have had without the ultrasonic device. So you can increase the rate at which wine ages by a factor of two. Maybe. If you also double the diffusion rate of oxygen through the cork. You'd probably be better off trying to heat your wine bottle in the microwave.
I think we can be pretty sure this device does exactly nothing. But once you've spent $800 on this thing are you going to admit you are an idiot that was swindled out of $800? No... You're probably going to tell your friends how much better it makes your wine taste.
Generally I would say wines from France, Spain, Washington, and Australia are nearly always good regardless of the price.
Are you saying here "the wines I buy are good on the day that I buy them?" Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with not aging your wines. If I'm buying red wine to drink tonight an $8 bottle of Ravenswood Zinfandel is fine. But if I'm buying wine for a special occasion that's 5 years away, I'm going to pick a Cabernet that will age well, and I'm unlikely to find one of those for under $40 a bottle. And when I go to the winery to try it, if it tastes "good" today (using the general definition of "good" rather than the wine definition) that means it will probably be bad in 5 years. If I pucker involuntarily from the tannins yet can still get a feeling for what will remain when they're mostly gone, then that's a "good" wine (wine definition) for aging.
Well, the blurby summary may be off, but your analysis is too. Cheap wine aged may get worse, but I'm more inclined to believe that's because of impurities which degrade the flavor over time. Since this isn't actually aging, that might not be the case.
It's a combination of the two. Expensive (red) wines typically spend more time in an oak barrel than inexpensive ones. The barrel aging (which, depending upon the varietal might typically run 3 months to two years) has the property that some of the more obnoxious compounds in wine can be absorbed by the wood or the charcoal in the toasting of the barrel. The wine leeches polyphenols out of the wood. These act as both a flavoring agent and a preservative. The polyphenols are more reactive than the other flavoring agents, so, for example, oxygen diffusing into the bottle will primarily react with the polyphenols rather than the more desirable flavor molecules. Over time in the bottle, the polyphenols will degrade into less reactive but tastier compounds. A wine is at its peak when enough of the polyphenols have degraded, but not so many that other flavors are affected. White wine is aged for less time in oak (or not at all) and this is one of the reasons it doesn't bottle age well.
If not barrel aging is not done, the only polyphenols in the wine are from the grape skins and some of the more obnoxious fermentation byproducts can remain. The nasty fermentation byproducts degrade only slightly faster than the flavor does. So whereas an expensive red wine will taste like an oak branch the day it comes out of the barrel and may be able to age for 10 years before peaking, an inexpensive wine is probably peaking when it gets to the store. Some wines are sold before being properly finished. I'm looking at you Beaujolais Nouveaux, which is French for "How to sell wine without the hassle of making it first."
I predict that this device will do exactly nothing to a closed bottle of wine. To an open bottle, it could possibly maybe mix oxygen with the wine a bit faster than letting the bottle breathe will, but probably slower than decanting will. (The reason to do this is to allow oxygen to mix with the wine which will degrade some of the polyphenols and lead to a more mellow taste. Proper decanting also allows you to avoid the sediment that will inevitably be present in an aged bottle of wine). We're better of spending our money on better wine to begin with.
I was fortunate that I could do just that. I had an unwritten understanding with the Math teacher that I didn't need to do homework and would be graded on the exams only, and that unless I felt I needed to attend class, I could spend my time in the computer or science labs doing things I thought were interesting. Too bad it's not an option in most schools.
Something that'd be much better for your life and career than wasting time with idiots.
You mean that there are careers out there where you don't waste time with idiots? Sign me up. In the world where I live, both wasting time with idiots and how to avoid wasting time with idiots are skills that are essential for any career. Fortunately these skills are taught in every high school.
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I have always found software RAID to be faster than hardware. Apparently CPUs can XOR like crazy. I recently assembled a 4 disk software RAID-5 system for a friend. It read at 300 MBytes/sec, and no, it wasn't in cache. I thought that was pretty impressive.
You do realize that no XOR calculations are done when reading from a RAID-5 system (hardware or software) unless a drive has failed, right?
But yes, in general, parity calculation for writing (or for reading from a degraded array) will be much faster on the host CPU than it would on the processor contained in a typical hardware RAID controller.
What a hardware RAID controller does usually buy you (whether you use the onboard RAID or not) is battery backup of pending writes.
You're kidding me, right? Forty two cents to send a physical object across the country in three days. Inefficient and overpriced? Miraculous is more like it.
If it were inefficient and overpriced, wouldn't somebody be doing the same job for less? FedEx will do the same job for 50 times the cost. UPS will do it for 60 times the cost.
There is speculation that GWB will pardon himself before leaving office.
In other words, things would be exactly the same as they are now.
The last presidential election I voted in back in the town I grew up in there were 9 positions on the ballot where people were running unopposed.
If you've got a problem with people running unopposed, maybe you should have considered running for one of those positions.
I think you are referring to bimetalism, which is a different beast than the gold standard. Bimetalism didn't show up as a significant force in U.S. monetary policy until the late 19th century. Bimetalism is seriously unstable because it is susceptible to changes in the supply of or demand for either metal. Both silver and gold have significant industrial use that would be greatly impacted by fixing the ratio
For example, if the standard ratio of gold to silver is 20:1 (as bimetalism is usually formulated) and the silver supply expands, that extra silver won't go to other use because it is overpriced relative to supply.
For example the current ratio of gold to silver price is about 75:1. Lets say we went back to a 20:1 bimetalic standard tomorrow. That means gold is overpriced and silver is underpriced. In other words, gold is worth more outside of the monetary realm than it is within it. So gold will get withdrawn from circulation and used for other things. Silver, on the other hand, is worth more as money than it is being put to other uses. Industries will stop using so much silver and turn it into coinage. In the end, the bimetalic standard will disappear because all of the gold will be out of circulation and we will end up on a silver standard. Which is in essence what happened in the 19th century until McKinley was elected in 1896, whereupon we returned to the gold standard.
The problem with a gold standard is that the value of gold does fluctuate according to supply and demand which results in a currency that fluctuates in a manner that is difficult to control. The end result is that governments end up having to hoard gold in an attempt to stabilize their currency which would drive up worldwide gold demand, deflate the currency, and cause economic stagnation.
I think you misread him... The proper slogan would be
:) for the humor impaired.
"Apple Customers: we're retards who carefully consider the pros and cons but still are willing to spend $600 on a cellphone."
Of those 30,000 (or so), 19,811 stopped their education with a B.S. or an M.S. That probably means they don't qualify as a scientist. At least IMHO, a scientist is someone who directs original scientific research. I don't run across too many non-Ph.D.s who do so. Frankly, the opinion of someone with a B.S. in Agriculture has little bearing on weather global climate change is a man-made problem.
Of the remainder 2,240 have a degree of M.D. of D.V.M. When I go to see my doctor, I don't ask his opinion of climate change. I, while I trust my vet to prescribe medication for my cats, I don't expect him to be knowledgeable on climate change. There are some undoubtedly M.D.s and D.V.M.s that do lead research. I doubt it's a majority.
The main purpose of the web site is to mislead. They won't provide lists of signers with their specialties and degrees. Are any of the 40 "climatologists" on their list actual climatologists? I don't know. I'm not going to go through a list of 30,000 names to see if any published ones are on it. How about the 25 astronomers. Are there any on the list that I would know?
The law says she can't get worse. It isn't enough to simply slow it down. They have to make an effort to stop it from getting worse. Bleeding out is getting worse, unless they were putting as much blood in at the rate it was going out, they weren't in compliance.
Then they weren't in compliance. Maybe we should have called the cops.
Hospitals get special tax breaks for treating the poor. They are allowed to charge up to 4 or 5 times what they would charge an insured person and then deduct the entire amount as a loss.
Given that most of the hospitals here are "non-profit," I'm sure that they generate exactly enough fake "loss" to make up for their supposedly non-existent profits. If you aren't paying taxes, a further tax break doesn't buy you much.
if someone breaks the law, it isn't a reflection of any of the current political candidates views.
It is when one of the candidates think too much regulation is the problem.
The amount of care given to the poor won't effect the profitability of a hospital either. The vast majority of the poor get government paid health care and all children from poor families have automatic state coverage.
You seem to think that the "government paid health care" is the same as an insurance plan. As I pointed out in the previous message, the "government paid health care", MediCal, pays about %10 of the cost of care. Doctors are not required to take MediCal. Hospitals are only required to accept it for certain types of care.
Have you ever wondered by hospitals don't have many doctors on staff anymore? All of the doctors have been farmed out to outside medical groups that don't have to take MediCal. Please, pick up a phone and try to find a doctor that accepts MediCal and is taking new patients. If you have that wonderful "government paid health care", the only place you will get care is an emergency room. It's essentially impossible to find a doctor that takes MediCal.
If your wife isn't aware of this and is turning the poor away, I suggest you mention something to her because it can cost her personally $25,000 a pop.
My wife is quite aware, but she provides a service (outpatient rehab) for which the hospital is not required to take MediCal. Last year the hospital changed it policy to not accept MediCal for her service line. She decided she couldn't work at a hospital that doesn't serve the poor and gave notice that she was quitting. Fortunately she was able to convince the management that the policy was indefensible. So they went back to accepting MediCal.
Until recently that is. All the other hospitals in the area dropped MediCal for outpatient rehab. It was especially surprising when a system of hospitals that got several billion dollars through a state bond measure and claims to serve the poor did the same. Because her hospital is the only one that accepts it, all of the MediCal patients show up there. So management has decided that each staff member is allowed to see one MediCal patient per week. Unfortunately, my wife has developed a health problem and currently needs her employer provided health insurance, threatening to quit isn't an option this time.
To keep her conscience clear, we are personally covering the difference in price between the lowest non-government reimbursement rate and the MediCal rate. (MediCal pays about $40 for a 90 minute evaluation. The lowest insurance reimbursement is about $160 for the same service). So every month we send my wife's employer a $500 donation, so that my wife can serve some poor people. (No, they wouldn't allow her to just not take pay for those evaluations. Her pay is a small fraction of that $160.)
That is a problem with California not health care or coverage in general. Medicaid pays for the entire cost of a liver transplants so you can thank your state for convolution the p
I've always been fond of this one, which has a lower bound of 5x10^-7.
But it's pretty clear from my own (as yet unpublished) work that given a proper statistical analysis both the lower bound and the expectation value of N are 0, (or more accurately that the log of the value is negative infinity). The upper bound is about 10k. These limits are mostly set by the probability of intelligence evolving on a planet where life originates.
The main issue is that if intelligence is common, it's very difficult for us to have arrived as late in the history of life on Earth as we did. Using our history as a guide, if you ran the last 4.5 billion years over a thousand times, even if you got life here every time, you'd end up with intelligent life once, at most. And life here only has between 100 million and half a billion years left before it starts to get too warm.
I'll stick with small numbers unless someone comes up with a good study of the evolution of complex organisms that indicates that it is likely.
Only if he can see an observatory from his house.
Your a damn liar.
No. But you're apparently not to good with the English language.
It is illegal for an emergency room to deny emergency medical treatment to anyone based on their ability to pay.
And where in my post did I say anyone was denied emergency treatment based upon their ability to pay. The person I helping could have paid for surgery in cash. But, the facility lacked a staff doctor capable of performing the surgery. (Actually given the size of the hospital it's more likely none of the staff physicians were willing to perform the surgery. Why? I don't know.) When we did find a specialist, the condition was treated at that facility.
Even if the hospital couldn't treat the specific emergency condition your dieing friend had to a point that he/she would be stabilized.
That is true. And since she was not bleeding at a rate the would have killed her immediately, apparently the staff felt that, apart from a large amount of pain, she was capable of finding a specialist capable of treating her condition on her own.
they are obligated by law to transport you to a facility that can
Yes, they are. But, provided you aren't going to die in the next hour or so, and are conscious, they apparently don't need to locate a facility or a treating physician for you. The staff members in California hospitals have learned not to waste time on activities that don't generate revenue. If the patient had wanted another $75 Tylenol, I'm sure the staff would have provided it.
And don't think for a minute that the hospitals aren't gaming the system by making sure ambulance companies properly "judge" the location of the nearest "capable" emergency room based upon the "condition ($$$)" of the patient. When that doesn't work, hospitals will close emergency rooms to make sure that they don't have one near the patients in "severe condition". Those patients need to go to the county hospital.
My spouse works as a service provider in one of the "non-profit" mega-hospital conglomerates in the Bay Area. You'd better believe that every quarter everyone gets notified if their department isn't making a profit. And if it's not making a profit, the chopping block isn't too far away.
One of my spouse's current patients needs liver surgery. She's on MediCal (California's version of Medicaid) and she can't find a surgeon who takes MediCal. Why would they? MediCal pays 10 cents on the dollar.
The unfortunate thing is that she probably won't end up in an emergency room until the condition has gotten bad enough that she needs a new liver. And when that happens, she'll either get a new liver, or she'll die. Either way, we will pay a lot more for it than we would have if she had gotten treatment earlier.
And mod the grandparent "-1 Fanboy".
All you really need to do is contact your insurance beforehand and CYA. It's not such a big deal.
I don't know where you are living. Here in the SF Bay Area the wait come in trying to see a specialist in the first place. You get a list of potential "service providers" from your insurance and you start calling. The most common response will be "I'm sorry, Dr. Jones isn't taking on any new patients at this time." If you keep calling long enough you might be able to find someone that will see you in 8 months or so.
At one point I was in an emergency room with someone in the process of slowly dying. The nurse handed us a phone book and phone so we could find someone who could perform an emergency procedure. According to Senator McCain, I have a gold plated health plan. Yeah, private health care works great...
What in the Constitution would give the Government the power to regulate where and when I can use my cell phone?
What in the Constitution would give Government the power to regulate where and when you can kill your neighbors with a pitchfork?
I understand the purpose of a Brazilian, but what does that have to do with voting?
A kiloton scale impact is a once a month thing. The only interesting thing about this collision is that we detected the object in advance. All the other ones have hit without warning. A 20 kiloton impact is a once a year event. It's only when you get to 10 megaton events that you have to worry about any effects on the ground, (apart from people looking at the bolide being temporarily or permanently blinded).
Understatement of the century. I think I first learned about the East African Rift in an Oceanography class in 1985. And then again in an anthropology class the following year. How exactly is this newsworthy?
No. It's more accurately translated as "I'll give you money if I'm wrong" The "nut" in "donut" is actually "naught" as in zero, because donuts are shaped like a zero and made of dough. "Dollars to donuts" therefore means I'll wager a dollar against nothing.
Don't forget Otis Redding sitting on the dock singing along.
"ultrasonic waves collide alcohol molecules together in the bottle" Bullshit. Sound waves increase molecular collision rates only to the extent that they cause pressure/density/temperature increases. Let's suppose that by some miracle the sound wave causes a factor of two pressure increase as it passes. Averaged over the wave that's about twice the collisions that the molecules in the wine would have had without the ultrasonic device. So you can increase the rate at which wine ages by a factor of two. Maybe. If you also double the diffusion rate of oxygen through the cork. You'd probably be better off trying to heat your wine bottle in the microwave.
I think we can be pretty sure this device does exactly nothing. But once you've spent $800 on this thing are you going to admit you are an idiot that was swindled out of $800? No... You're probably going to tell your friends how much better it makes your wine taste.
Are you saying here "the wines I buy are good on the day that I buy them?" Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with not aging your wines. If I'm buying red wine to drink tonight an $8 bottle of Ravenswood Zinfandel is fine. But if I'm buying wine for a special occasion that's 5 years away, I'm going to pick a Cabernet that will age well, and I'm unlikely to find one of those for under $40 a bottle. And when I go to the winery to try it, if it tastes "good" today (using the general definition of "good" rather than the wine definition) that means it will probably be bad in 5 years. If I pucker involuntarily from the tannins yet can still get a feeling for what will remain when they're mostly gone, then that's a "good" wine (wine definition) for aging.
It's a combination of the two. Expensive (red) wines typically spend more time in an oak barrel than inexpensive ones. The barrel aging (which, depending upon the varietal might typically run 3 months to two years) has the property that some of the more obnoxious compounds in wine can be absorbed by the wood or the charcoal in the toasting of the barrel. The wine leeches polyphenols out of the wood. These act as both a flavoring agent and a preservative. The polyphenols are more reactive than the other flavoring agents, so, for example, oxygen diffusing into the bottle will primarily react with the polyphenols rather than the more desirable flavor molecules. Over time in the bottle, the polyphenols will degrade into less reactive but tastier compounds. A wine is at its peak when enough of the polyphenols have degraded, but not so many that other flavors are affected. White wine is aged for less time in oak (or not at all) and this is one of the reasons it doesn't bottle age well.
If not barrel aging is not done, the only polyphenols in the wine are from the grape skins and some of the more obnoxious fermentation byproducts can remain. The nasty fermentation byproducts degrade only slightly faster than the flavor does. So whereas an expensive red wine will taste like an oak branch the day it comes out of the barrel and may be able to age for 10 years before peaking, an inexpensive wine is probably peaking when it gets to the store. Some wines are sold before being properly finished. I'm looking at you Beaujolais Nouveaux, which is French for "How to sell wine without the hassle of making it first."
I predict that this device will do exactly nothing to a closed bottle of wine. To an open bottle, it could possibly maybe mix oxygen with the wine a bit faster than letting the bottle breathe will, but probably slower than decanting will. (The reason to do this is to allow oxygen to mix with the wine which will degrade some of the polyphenols and lead to a more mellow taste. Proper decanting also allows you to avoid the sediment that will inevitably be present in an aged bottle of wine). We're better of spending our money on better wine to begin with.
Are those building blocks, or are you giving her mental blocks to play with?
Sure building blocks are fun now, but mental blocks she'll keep for the rest of her life.
I was fortunate that I could do just that. I had an unwritten understanding with the Math teacher that I didn't need to do homework and would be graded on the exams only, and that unless I felt I needed to attend class, I could spend my time in the computer or science labs doing things I thought were interesting. Too bad it's not an option in most schools.
You mean that there are careers out there where you don't waste time with idiots? Sign me up. In the world where I live, both wasting time with idiots and how to avoid wasting time with idiots are skills that are essential for any career. Fortunately these skills are taught in every high school.