I have subscribed to "Consumer Reports" for over twenty years and have never seen a serious discussion of Linux.
You would think that the advantages of Linux and BSD would make it a natural choice for an organization that tries to help the consumer to get the best deal available. All I have seen are discussions about whether a PC or a Mac is best. It is as if the Consumers Union is in the bizarro universe.
"These lakes appear to be filled with hydrocarbon liquids, possibly making Titan the only place other than Earth known to contain lakes."
This statement is a bit misleading since there are lava lakes on both the Earth and on Jupiter's moon Io. The Earth's lava is primarily silicon, while Io's lava is primarily sulfur, but remember that on Titan water is considered a rock.
...we have a real and current need to figure out how to get construction workers and ordinary people into space, so we can build a realistic presence there....Ok, perhaps I'm thinking too fancifully...
I don't know what is more frightening: that he considers realistic engineering goals more fanciful than this proposed search for hypothetical extra dimensions, or that (given the current political climate) I agree with him.
Gravitational waves will exist in any theory of gravitation that requires the effect of gravity to propagate at a finite speed. Newton's theory of gravity assumes that the effect propagates at an infinite speed, so this theory does not predict gravitational waves.
It should be noted that the primary purpose of the detection of gravitational wave since at least the 1970's has been the both the detection and interpretation of the information contained in these waves. Depending on the frequency of the waves, they contain information about the beginning of the universe (long wave) or the collision of massive bodies (short wave). The advantage of a laser interferometer is that it is a wide band detector, while a Weber bar is a narrow band detector.
I can't help but wonder if there would be efective air exchange in buildings made of Strawjet pannels. From the FAQ:
"Yes straw burns, but StrawCore panels do not. There two reasons why they will not burn;
* The plasters that are used throughout the panels have a high mineral content which render them nonflammable.
* Unlike conventional construction there are no wall cavities, which would otherwise facilitate combustion inside the wall."
This panels seem to be pretty airtight, but effective air exchange supports the safety, comfort, and well-being of building occupants.
Scientists has been doing similar calculations for a long time. For example
Larry Smarr, "Gravitational Radiation from Distant Encounters and Head-On Collisions of Black Holes: The Zero Frequency Limit," Phys. Rev., D15, 2069-2077, 1977.
I cite this paper because Larry Smarr is one of the Nasa panelists for this project, and I heard his talk on this paper at the University of Texas at Austin in the late 1970s. Come to think of it, I remember seeing one of the other panelists, Joan Centrella, at the same talk.
Also speaking as someone who has a Ph.D. in Mathematics...
In at least one case (Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness) it may be possible to come up with a counterexample of the breakdown of a solution. This possiblity is specifically cited in the official problem description. (Such a solution for the Euler equation is also discussed, althought it is not a prize problem.)
Counterexamples are much easier than proofs.
On the other hand, I would take the web site more seriously if it supported MathML.
I, too, have been reading Gutenberg books on a Palm for at least a decade. My current PDA is a used Palm m125 that has the wonderful feature that, when the backlight is on, the letters are lit and the background is dark.
There are currently six large novels on my Palm (Free Space: 5M of 7.7M). Try lugging that many books around. And I replace the 2 AA batteries about once every six weeks.
"All it took to make it worthwhile was a paper-white screen with 320x320 or better resolution."
Am I correct in interpreting this to mean that you read dark characters on a white background?
This has always seemed to me like looking into a light bulb. When my Palm m125 is backlit I see light green characters on a dark background, and I find it much easier on my eyes.
Similarily, when reading a long HTML document I add the line
BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#FFFFFF" LINK="#9690CC"
to get white characters on a black background. I wish slashdot had this option.
I am running FreeBSD 5.4 on a Via Epia ME6000 mini-itx system that cost less than $350 for the motherboard, a half Gig of memory, and a case (all new parts). It has an old hard disk and uses about 40 watts running 24/7 as a mail server, web server, and radio time shifter (see http://www.io.com/~rotenber/ ).
When I wish I can fire up XORG, Xfce4, and Firefox to surf the web, and as far as I can tell this does not slow down any of the other services.
In my opinion this system is the perfect server, although I would probably choose a different case since both case fans died in the first year of service.
I am also running FC3 on a Epia ME10000, so I am pretty sure the ME6000 would run Linux as well (be sure to use the VIA video driver).
"I'd like to make a further point though, having had exactly such conversation many many times myself. Whenever I probe a little deeper it is almost always the case that the person liked and was good at mathematics at some point, usually very early primary/elementary school, but at some point along the ay they 'had a bad teacher', or were given the impression that mathematics was hard, fell a little behind - and once behind the problems compounded at higher and higher levels and they quickly grew to hate the subject. The 'bad teacher' is an all too common explanation."
Perhaps this is a common explanation because the speaker prefers not to take responsibility for their own failure? Certainly bad teachers exist, but so do students who have lost interest in academics, found success with easier subjects, or are simply burnt out.
You do not say whether you have been a teacher yourself, but I have and believe that both the student and the teacher must make an effort for learning to occur.
I heard Jack Kilby speak at an MAA meeting a couple of years ago, and I was astonished to learn that all his IC patents (and, consequently, his Nobel Prize) were based on his notarized notebook entries and not on publications (those came later).
In the last ten years as a software developer I have had only one employer require me to keep a bound notebook of my work, while the others did not. I kept a notebook anyway, but I had to pay for it myself.
Back in the 1980's students performed the same prank on Don Cohen in the Firestone building. Beginning Friday night they filled in his door flush to the wall, painted it the same color as the wall, and (when it dried) hung a photo of Prof. Cohen titled 'Professor Emeritus'. When he came in on Monday it appeared that there had never been an office in that part of the hall.
In keeping with the Caltech tradition, student 'volenteers' repaired everything, but I saw the photo in his office in 1986 and heard the story.
This prank occured so long ago that last year Don Cohen actually did become a Profesor Emeritus.
I recently read and enjoyed "Mathematics" by Keith Devlin (revised and enlarged edition, March 15, 2001). Each chapter is a readable discussion of an important 20th century mathematical theorem: Four color map theorem, Fermat's last theorem, etc. Since so many important results have been found in the last century, it is not a short book.
The Wikipedia article is quite good. It even explains the difference between gravity waves and gravitational waves.
However, I would like to point out that any theory of gravitation that requires the effect of gravity to move at a finite speed will predict gravitational waves. Only the details of the wave will provide a confirmation of Einstien's theory.
Why choose a site just west of three of the ten most populous cities in the United States?
From Wikipedia: "Cape Canaveral was chosen for rocket launches to take advantage of the earth's rotation. At the equator, the centrifugal force of earth's rotation is the maximum. The direction of earth's rotation is such that to take advantage of the rotation, rockets should be launched eastward. It is also highly desirable to have the downrange area sparsely populated, ideally an ocean, in case of accidents. Thus rockets should be launched from a continent's east coast as close to the equator as possible. For the United States, Florida is the most southerly east coast location."
While it is true that this site is for suborbital flights, it will still be necessary to expend energy NOT to fly westward toward the population centers.
I, too, would like to recommend "Science News". When I see a news story online or in the local newspaper that is scientific in nature I normally just skim it and wait until my issue of Science News arrives to read about it in depth.
Other good sources of information: The Economist and the "Science Times" (Tuesday) and "Circuits" (Thursday) sections of the New York Times.
Slashdot Mirror
I have subscribed to "Consumer Reports" for over twenty years and have never seen a serious discussion of Linux.
You would think that the advantages of Linux and BSD would make it a natural choice for an organization that tries to help the consumer to get the best deal available. All I have seen are discussions about whether a PC or a Mac is best. It is as if the Consumers Union is in the bizarro universe.
This is a well done hardware project, but there was no analysis demonstrating that he could generate random numbers using this hardware.
g enerator
p
i s_200201/ai_n9046353
For example, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandom_number_
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/General/rand_rate.ph
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3742/
On the Cassini-Huygens Home page ( http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm ) we read that:
"These lakes appear to be filled with hydrocarbon liquids, possibly making Titan the only place other than Earth known to contain lakes."
This statement is a bit misleading since there are lava lakes on both the Earth and on Jupiter's moon Io. The Earth's lava is primarily silicon, while Io's lava is primarily sulfur, but remember that on Titan water is considered a rock.
I don't know what is more frightening: that he considers realistic engineering goals more fanciful than this proposed search for hypothetical extra dimensions, or that (given the current political climate) I agree with him.
Gravitational waves will exist in any theory of gravitation that requires the effect of gravity to propagate at a finite speed. Newton's theory of gravity assumes that the effect propagates at an infinite speed, so this theory does not predict gravitational waves.
i on
It should be noted that the primary purpose of the detection of gravitational wave since at least the 1970's has been the both the detection and interpretation of the information contained in these waves. Depending on the frequency of the waves, they contain information about the beginning of the universe (long wave) or the collision of massive bodies (short wave). The advantage of a laser interferometer is that it is a wide band detector, while a Weber bar is a narrow band detector.
It was still being argued as late as the 1960's whether Einstein Theory gravatation waves could transmit energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_radiat
I can't help but wonder if there would be efective air exchange in buildings made of Strawjet pannels. From the FAQ:
"Yes straw burns, but StrawCore panels do not. There two reasons why they will not burn;
* The plasters that are used throughout the panels have a high mineral content which render them nonflammable.
* Unlike conventional construction there are no wall cavities, which would otherwise facilitate combustion inside the wall."
This panels seem to be pretty airtight, but effective air exchange supports the safety, comfort, and well-being of building occupants.
Scientists has been doing similar calculations for a long time. For example
Larry Smarr, "Gravitational Radiation from Distant Encounters and Head-On Collisions of Black Holes: The Zero Frequency Limit," Phys. Rev., D15, 2069-2077, 1977.
I cite this paper because Larry Smarr is one of the Nasa panelists for this project, and I heard his talk on this paper at the University of Texas at Austin in the late 1970s. Come to think of it, I remember seeing one of the other panelists, Joan Centrella, at the same talk.
Also speaking as someone who has a Ph.D. in Mathematics...
In at least one case (Navier-Stokes Existence and Smoothness) it may be possible to come up with a counterexample of the breakdown of a solution. This possiblity is specifically cited in the official problem description. (Such a solution for the Euler equation is also discussed, althought it is not a prize problem.)
Counterexamples are much easier than proofs.
On the other hand, I would take the web site more seriously if it supported MathML.
And the screen does not even have to be a touchscreen. All that is needed is a touchpad like a laptop and a stylus.
Price? No more than $20.
Much better than 'Cold Front Enters the Southern United States'.
I, too, have been reading Gutenberg books on a Palm for at least a decade. My current PDA is a used Palm m125 that has the wonderful feature that, when the backlight is on, the letters are lit and the background is dark.
There are currently six large novels on my Palm (Free Space: 5M of 7.7M). Try lugging that many books around. And I replace the 2 AA batteries about once every six weeks.
"All it took to make it worthwhile was a paper-white screen with 320x320 or better resolution."
Am I correct in interpreting this to mean that you read dark characters on a white background?
This has always seemed to me like looking into a light bulb. When my Palm m125 is backlit I see light green characters on a dark background, and I find it much easier on my eyes.
Similarily, when reading a long HTML document I add the line
BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#FFFFFF" LINK="#9690CC"
to get white characters on a black background. I wish slashdot had this option.
So when will I be able to fetch/wget/ftp my voice mail as speex/ogg/mp3 files from any mobile network operator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier-Stokes/
...a cliche checker.
I am running FreeBSD 5.4 on a Via Epia ME6000 mini-itx system that cost less than $350 for the motherboard, a half Gig of memory, and a case (all new parts). It has an old hard disk and uses about 40 watts running 24/7 as a mail server, web server, and radio time shifter (see http://www.io.com/~rotenber/ ).
When I wish I can fire up XORG, Xfce4, and Firefox to surf the web, and as far as I can tell this does not slow down any of the other services.
In my opinion this system is the perfect server, although I would probably choose a different case since both case fans died in the first year of service.
I am also running FC3 on a Epia ME10000, so I am pretty sure the ME6000 would run Linux as well (be sure to use the VIA video driver).
"I'd like to make a further point though, having had exactly such conversation many many times myself. Whenever I probe a little deeper it is almost always the case that the person liked and was good at mathematics at some point, usually very early primary/elementary school, but at some point along the ay they 'had a bad teacher', or were given the impression that mathematics was hard, fell a little behind - and once behind the problems compounded at higher and higher levels and they quickly grew to hate the subject. The 'bad teacher' is an all too common explanation."
Perhaps this is a common explanation because the speaker prefers not to take responsibility for their own failure? Certainly bad teachers exist, but so do students who have lost interest in academics, found success with easier subjects, or are simply burnt out.
You do not say whether you have been a teacher yourself, but I have and believe that both the student and the teacher must make an effort for learning to occur.
I heard Jack Kilby speak at an MAA meeting a couple of years ago, and I was astonished to learn that all his IC patents (and, consequently, his Nobel Prize) were based on his notarized notebook entries and not on publications (those came later).
In the last ten years as a software developer I have had only one employer require me to keep a bound notebook of my work, while the others did not. I kept a notebook anyway, but I had to pay for it myself.
Back in the 1980's students performed the same prank on Don Cohen in the Firestone building. Beginning Friday night they filled in his door flush to the wall, painted it the same color as the wall, and (when it dried) hung a photo of Prof. Cohen titled 'Professor Emeritus'. When he came in on Monday it appeared that there had never been an office in that part of the hall.
In keeping with the Caltech tradition, student 'volenteers' repaired everything, but I saw the photo in his office in 1986 and heard the story.
This prank occured so long ago that last year Don Cohen actually did become a Profesor Emeritus.
I recently read and enjoyed "Mathematics" by Keith Devlin (revised and enlarged edition, March 15, 2001). Each chapter is a readable discussion of an important 20th century mathematical theorem: Four color map theorem, Fermat's last theorem, etc. Since so many important results have been found in the last century, it is not a short book.
The Wikipedia article is quite good. It even explains the difference between gravity waves and gravitational waves.
However, I would like to point out that any theory of gravitation that requires the effect of gravity to move at a finite speed will predict gravitational waves. Only the details of the wave will provide a confirmation of Einstien's theory.
"Yes, baryonic matter is pretty much everything we interact with."
You must be floating in the dark.
I constantly interact with photons and gravitons as well as baryons.
Why choose a site just west of three of the ten most populous cities in the United States?
From Wikipedia:
"Cape Canaveral was chosen for rocket launches to take advantage of the earth's rotation. At the equator, the centrifugal force of earth's rotation is the maximum. The direction of earth's rotation is such that to take advantage of the rotation, rockets should be launched eastward. It is also highly desirable to have the downrange area sparsely populated, ideally an ocean, in case of accidents. Thus rockets should be launched from a continent's east coast as close to the equator as possible. For the United States, Florida is the most southerly east coast location."
While it is true that this site is for suborbital flights, it will still be necessary to expend energy NOT to fly westward toward the population centers.
How can anyone talk about games in the 1970s and omit Milton Bradley's "Mystery Date"? (The orginal and not the recent Hasbro version.)
n er.php?channel=535&format=tv&theme=toyland
See http://tesla.liketelevision.com/liketelevision/tu
Easily the dumbest, most sexist board game ever created.
I, too, would like to recommend "Science News". When I see a news story online or in the local newspaper that is scientific in nature I normally just skim it and wait until my issue of Science News arrives to read about it in depth.
Other good sources of information: The Economist and the "Science Times" (Tuesday) and "Circuits" (Thursday) sections of the New York Times.