Building a space shuttle is orders of magnitude more complex than building a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow is always ready for immediate use -- has 6 sigma reliability -- but something like 40% of shuttle launch attempts get scrubbed because some little component is giving out-of-spec readings. That is the state of our art.
Building a self-replicating organism is several orders of magnitude more complex than building a space shuttle. It's amazing our bodies work as well as we do. Yes, medical science can improve our functioning somewhat. It's fortunate that each human doesn't require the army of support and maintenance technicians that each space shuttle does.
And did you ever think that having some defective organisms is neccessary? If all organisms had seven sigma reliability, and all organisms were equally reliable, there would be no basis for natural selection to determine which ones were fittest. There would be no opportunity for the "design" to advance itself. Nature is constantly trying out new designs -- and the better ones displace the inferior ones only over geologic time frames, so we don't see it. You think childbirth sucks now, maybe 100,000 years ago womens' hips were even narrower and it sucked more.
"Earth was seeded with life from elsewhere" and "the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act" are two totally unrelated hypotheses. They give rise to a four-quadrant matrix of possibilities:
1. Earth was seeded with life from elsewhere, which had its origins in a deliberate intellectual act.
2. Earth was seeded with life from elsewhere, which arose through the blind forces of nature.
3. Life originated on earth, in a deliberate intellectual act.
4. Life originated on earth, through the blind forces of nature.
Do the computer scientists who experiment with genetic algotithms give any thought to how "cruel" their method is to the algorithms that don't make the cut? No.
Likewise, you shouldn't blame the intelligence that first experimented with DNA-based life. They started with microbes -- and they may have had no idea that something sentient would eventually evolve from the whole thing.
And I don't see you coming up with a better method for propagating life. The one we have now is unbelieveably complex. The intelligence that came up with it was not shabby at all. I doubt a better one will be invented in our lifetimes.
The Mac OS port of MAME
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MAME on X-Box
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· Score: 1
Just wanted to point out, MAME runs on Mac OS too: MacMAME.org.
It's pretty easy to change the file types/creator codes. I use Default Folder. Select a file in any open/save dialog, hit command-I, and a nice window comes up where you can edit file types/creator codes to your heart's content, along with view a bunch of other info about the file. Granted, that's not as easy as being able to change file type right there in the Finder. But I'm sure a little searching would turn up some utilities that allow you to change file type even more conveniently -- maybe even right there in the Finder. Point is, changing file type isn't so difficult as to justify your long rant.
As for changing file names of a big batch of files, A Better Finder Rename does this admirably. Not sure if it can also do batch changes of file type -- I'd have to check.
I love the fact that some of my JPGs open in PictureViewer, some of them open in GraphicConverter, and some of them open in AOL.
double-clicking opens in WinAMP, right-clicking and choosing "edit" opens in SoundForge.
That is indeed a nice feature. But it has nothing to do with the fact that the file type metadata is appended to the file name. Apple could choose to implement this type of functionality with file types/creator codes in their present location. (And I wish they would!)
file extensions... make the type of file crystal-clear
Umm, no. I use my Windows box more hours per day than my Mac, and I doubt I will ever memorize what all those three-letter extension signify. Sure, I know the common ones -- DOC, XLS, EXE -- but for 95% of them I have no idea.
In contrast, icons on the Mac are usually so artfully done there's no question what app a document belongs to. Even various flavors of documents for a particular app (for example, the distinctive QuickTime icons for Mov, JPG, MPEG, MP3, etc.). And yes, Apple has human interface guidelines which tell developers how to make application icons quite distinct from document icons. Those guidelines are quite effective.
All joking about getting "incinerated" aside, a simple change of materials -- NOT switching from hydrogen to helium -- has made modern airships much safer. See my other post, Dammit! They're still saying hydrogen is dangerous!
Dammit!They're still saying hydrogen is dangerous!
on
Return of the Zeppelins
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Hydrogen is not to blame for the Hindenburg accident. It would have burned and crashed just the same if it had been filled with helium. The culprit was the highly flammable, electrically conductive aluminum-impregnanted outer skin. The fire had already consumed large portions of that outer skin by the time the inner gelatin-latex gas cells were breached. I repeat, hydrogen didn't even enter the picture until after the destruction of the vehicle was assured. Linky.
Why does it piss me off so much when the media continues to misinform the public about this point? Hydrogen is a superior lifting gas, and the airship industry will be much more economically viable when the public becomes educated enough to accept its use. If you want to see these graceful behemoths transporting stuff over your city, get the word out!
Seems to me that if they kept the same design, but replaced the solar cells and electric motors with conventionally-fueled engines, it would be able to fly even higher. All those solar cells are heavy, and a hydrocarbon engine has higher power density (more thrust per kilogram of engine weight).
I realize the point of this research is to eventually have a craft that can charge up during the day and fly on stored energy at night, so it can stay aloft for months at a time. Still, if you were simply trying to break altitude records, wouldn't conventional power be the way to go?
You're misinformed about the morning-after pill if you think it works by making a woman "damn near infertile."
In some cases, the mechanism by which it works is preventing ovulation. But in other cases, it interferes with an already-fertilized egg's ability to implant in the uterine wall. And any time you thwart a living embryo, whether surgically or chemically, it's an abortion.
The first mechanism is identical to conventional birth control pills -- and if that were the only mechanism, it wouldn't be any more controversial than conventional birth control pills. It's the second mechanism that many people have a problem with. (And a lot of people who don't have a problem with the morning-after pill, do, after this mechanism is explained to them.)
my beliefs is that 4-5 cells do not constitue life, if that is the beginnings of life then sue me for masturbating away billions of cells that would HAVE or COULD have brought "life".
What does the number of cells have to do with the value of a life? You and I have about 6 trillion cells in our bodies, and a Hereford cow has about 30 trillion. Are you going to sit there and argue that the cow's life is therefore 5 times more valuable than your own?
And of those who believe that human beings have value while in the "embryo" stage of development, very few believe that sperm cells and unfertilized eggs have any special value. Hardcore Catholics do, I guess. Seems pretty silly to me. The rest of us draw a distinction.
for the religious right wingers who's life is in gods hands, i hope you don't ruin it for people who believe in god but believe in humans and science as well.
If there is an ethical right and wrong on this issue, the arguments must be framed to appeal to religious and non-religious people alike. I'm an atheist, and very much opposed to destroying embryos to extract stem cells. See my other post.
My question is, why do the non supporters feel this is a win? The government didn't stop these companies from getting NEW STEM CELLS, they just stopped the funding on that spcific process.
Bush has no control over how private research dollars are spent -- only over federal research dollars. He did everything he could to prevent additional embryos from being destroyed. A good call.
Why cost of replacing apps isn't always a barrier.
on
Which Laptop To Buy?
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· Score: 1
I picked up Virtual PC for $77 and installed Windows 2000 on top of it. Then I installed about 30 of my Windows apps -- no compatibility problems seen so far. If you regularly work with huge Photoshop images, you'll probably want to stick with your Windows machine, because the emulation causes some performance penalty. But when working with small images you won't notice it.
Yes, we need an new air traffic control paradigm -- but not one that comes from observing locusts.
Consider if you will, a future where...
all aircraft (including small personal craft) have a differential GPS receiver on board that computes position and velocity vectors with great precision;
said aircraft wirelessly network with all other aircraft within, say, a 20 km radius, transmitting their position and velocity vectors;
each aircraft runs an algorithm that would predict any collision or near-collision with another aircraft (or its turbulent wake) well in advance, and automatically makes minor course corrections to prevent them. (Not a big deal, because these personal aircraft won't be actively "piloted" anyway -- the "driver" will simply enter the desired destionation then sit back.)
and each aircraft has a fully redundant system (two GPS receivers, two transmitters, two CPUs) to ensure reliability
Many, many advantages to this kind of system:
no more mid-air collisions due to human error
aircraft can be much more densely packed in the sky -- current spacing regulations have an enormous factor of safety built in, because frequent human error requires it
no more spending $billions to upgrade the ATC system -- the legacy ATC system can be done away with altogether when the last aircraft is retrofitted
VTOL craft can safely land anywhere (parking lots, reinforced roofs)
How are you gonna back up your 80 GB drive? Let's see, you could spend thousands of dollars on a tape drive that can handle that much data, or you can spend $200 on another 80 GB drive.
It's a no brainer. Why is anyone buying tape drives any more?
Bill Weller took four Mars Pathfinder images and created an animated, 3-D stereogram of something popping out from behind a rock. (Hope you are good at crossing your eyes to resolve those "Magic-eye"-type images.)
He nicknamed the organism the "Zolax." (Scroll two-thirds of the way down the page to see it.) If it resembles any earth organism, I would say the tarantula -- although it seems to have a half-dozen or so "tentacles," rather than articulated legs. If you look closely at the lower-left corner of the image, you'll even see one of the tentacles in contact with the ground. The point where it's attached to the body is hidden behind the rock, and it's casting a shadow! If this is a hoax, the hoaxer showed admirable attention to detail.
Disclaimer: the other purported anomalies on this web page are pretty dubious. (Don't you hate when some wacko points to a JPEG artifact and says "look, an artificial structure!" or "look, an organism!") I wish they weren't on the same page as the Zolax, because they hurt its credibility. Nevertheless, the Zolax looks like the real deal. It appears in both the left and right cameras simultaneously, so it can't be an image-processing artifact. It could be a hoax, but it would take a lot of effort to fake a stereo image like this.
It would be nice if we knew the time interval between the two frames -- then we'd have an idea of how fast this critter moves.
all aircraft (including small personal craft) have a differential GPS receiver on board that computes position and velocity vectors with great precision;
said aircraft wirelessly network with all other aircraft within, say, a 20 km radius, transmitting their position and velocity vectors;
each aircraft runs an algorithm that would predict any collision or near-collision with another aircraft (or its turbulent wake) well in advance, and automatically makes minor course corrections to prevent them. (Not a big deal, because these personal aircraft won't be actively "piloted" anyway -- the "driver" will simply enter the desired destionation then sit back.)
and each aircraft has a fully redundant system (two GPS receivers, two transmitters, two CPUs) to ensure reliability
Many, many advantages to this kind of system:
no more mid-air collisions due to human error
aircraft can be much more densely packed in the sky -- current spacing regulations have an enormous factor of safety built in, because frequent human error requires it
no more spending $billions to upgrade the ATC system -- the legacy ATC system can be done away with altogether when the last aircraft is retrofitted
VTOL craft can safely land anywhere (parking lots, reinforced roofs)
You measure the thrust force that those little ducted fans generate -- and even though that force isn't enough to move the droid when it's resting on a lab bench in 1G, a simple F = ma tells you how fast the thrust will make the droid accelerate in 0G.
Slashdot Mirror
Building a space shuttle is orders of magnitude more complex than building a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow is always ready for immediate use -- has 6 sigma reliability -- but something like 40% of shuttle launch attempts get scrubbed because some little component is giving out-of-spec readings. That is the state of our art.
Building a self-replicating organism is several orders of magnitude more complex than building a space shuttle. It's amazing our bodies work as well as we do. Yes, medical science can improve our functioning somewhat. It's fortunate that each human doesn't require the army of support and maintenance technicians that each space shuttle does.
And did you ever think that having some defective organisms is neccessary? If all organisms had seven sigma reliability, and all organisms were equally reliable, there would be no basis for natural selection to determine which ones were fittest. There would be no opportunity for the "design" to advance itself. Nature is constantly trying out new designs -- and the better ones displace the inferior ones only over geologic time frames, so we don't see it. You think childbirth sucks now, maybe 100,000 years ago womens' hips were even narrower and it sucked more.
"Earth was seeded with life from elsewhere" and "the origin of life was a deliberate intellectual act" are two totally unrelated hypotheses. They give rise to a four-quadrant matrix of possibilities:
1. Earth was seeded with life from elsewhere, which had its origins in a deliberate intellectual act.
2. Earth was seeded with life from elsewhere, which arose through the blind forces of nature.
3. Life originated on earth, in a deliberate intellectual act.
4. Life originated on earth, through the blind forces of nature.
I personally tend to believe #1 is true.
Do the computer scientists who experiment with genetic algotithms give any thought to how "cruel" their method is to the algorithms that don't make the cut? No.
Likewise, you shouldn't blame the intelligence that first experimented with DNA-based life. They started with microbes -- and they may have had no idea that something sentient would eventually evolve from the whole thing.
And I don't see you coming up with a better method for propagating life. The one we have now is unbelieveably complex. The intelligence that came up with it was not shabby at all. I doubt a better one will be invented in our lifetimes.
I've had tons of fun with MacMAME.
As for changing file names of a big batch of files, A Better Finder Rename does this admirably. Not sure if it can also do batch changes of file type -- I'd have to check.
I love the fact that some of my JPGs open in PictureViewer, some of them open in GraphicConverter, and some of them open in AOL.
double-clicking opens in WinAMP, right-clicking and choosing "edit" opens in SoundForge.
That is indeed a nice feature. But it has nothing to do with the fact that the file type metadata is appended to the file name. Apple could choose to implement this type of functionality with file types/creator codes in their present location. (And I wish they would!)
file extensions... make the type of file crystal-clear
Umm, no. I use my Windows box more hours per day than my Mac, and I doubt I will ever memorize what all those three-letter extension signify. Sure, I know the common ones -- DOC, XLS, EXE -- but for 95% of them I have no idea.
In contrast, icons on the Mac are usually so artfully done there's no question what app a document belongs to. Even various flavors of documents for a particular app (for example, the distinctive QuickTime icons for Mov, JPG, MPEG, MP3, etc.). And yes, Apple has human interface guidelines which tell developers how to make application icons quite distinct from document icons. Those guidelines are quite effective.
www.cargolifter.com
You need to read this.
Read this.
I would mod you up if I could!
All joking about getting "incinerated" aside, a simple change of materials -- NOT switching from hydrogen to helium -- has made modern airships much safer. See my other post, Dammit! They're still saying hydrogen is dangerous!
Airships today should also be using hydrogen for the same reason, but the misinformed public won't allow it. See my other post, Dammit! They're still saying hydrogen is dangerous!
Why does it piss me off so much when the media continues to misinform the public about this point? Hydrogen is a superior lifting gas, and the airship industry will be much more economically viable when the public becomes educated enough to accept its use. If you want to see these graceful behemoths transporting stuff over your city, get the word out!
Dude, don't you remember when Rutan and Yeager flew around the world without refueling? Stayed up 9 days on one tank of gas.
Seems to me that if they kept the same design, but replaced the solar cells and electric motors with conventionally-fueled engines, it would be able to fly even higher. All those solar cells are heavy, and a hydrocarbon engine has higher power density (more thrust per kilogram of engine weight).
I realize the point of this research is to eventually have a craft that can charge up during the day and fly on stored energy at night, so it can stay aloft for months at a time. Still, if you were simply trying to break altitude records, wouldn't conventional power be the way to go?
You're misinformed about the morning-after pill if you think it works by making a woman "damn near infertile."
In some cases, the mechanism by which it works is preventing ovulation. But in other cases, it interferes with an already-fertilized egg's ability to implant in the uterine wall. And any time you thwart a living embryo, whether surgically or chemically, it's an abortion.
The first mechanism is identical to conventional birth control pills -- and if that were the only mechanism, it wouldn't be any more controversial than conventional birth control pills. It's the second mechanism that many people have a problem with. (And a lot of people who don't have a problem with the morning-after pill, do, after this mechanism is explained to them.)
What does the number of cells have to do with the value of a life? You and I have about 6 trillion cells in our bodies, and a Hereford cow has about 30 trillion. Are you going to sit there and argue that the cow's life is therefore 5 times more valuable than your own?
And of those who believe that human beings have value while in the "embryo" stage of development, very few believe that sperm cells and unfertilized eggs have any special value. Hardcore Catholics do, I guess. Seems pretty silly to me. The rest of us draw a distinction.
for the religious right wingers who's life is in gods hands, i hope you don't ruin it for people who believe in god but believe in humans and science as well.
If there is an ethical right and wrong on this issue, the arguments must be framed to appeal to religious and non-religious people alike. I'm an atheist, and very much opposed to destroying embryos to extract stem cells. See my other post.
My question is, why do the non supporters feel this is a win? The government didn't stop these companies from getting NEW STEM CELLS, they just stopped the funding on that spcific process.
Bush has no control over how private research dollars are spent -- only over federal research dollars. He did everything he could to prevent additional embryos from being destroyed. A good call.
I picked up Virtual PC for $77 and installed Windows 2000 on top of it. Then I installed about 30 of my Windows apps -- no compatibility problems seen so far. If you regularly work with huge Photoshop images, you'll probably want to stick with your Windows machine, because the emulation causes some performance penalty. But when working with small images you won't notice it.
Now I can create a recording of Will Rogers saying, "I never met a man I didn't like... until I met JonKatz!"
Consider if you will, a future where...
all aircraft (including small personal craft) have a differential GPS receiver on board that computes position and velocity vectors with great precision;
said aircraft wirelessly network with all other aircraft within, say, a 20 km radius, transmitting their position and velocity vectors;
each aircraft runs an algorithm that would predict any collision or near-collision with another aircraft (or its turbulent wake) well in advance, and automatically makes minor course corrections to prevent them. (Not a big deal, because these personal aircraft won't be actively "piloted" anyway -- the "driver" will simply enter the desired destionation then sit back.)
and each aircraft has a fully redundant system (two GPS receivers, two transmitters, two CPUs) to ensure reliability
Many, many advantages to this kind of system:
no more mid-air collisions due to human error
aircraft can be much more densely packed in the sky -- current spacing regulations have an enormous factor of safety built in, because frequent human error requires it
no more spending $billions to upgrade the ATC system -- the legacy ATC system can be done away with altogether when the last aircraft is retrofitted
VTOL craft can safely land anywhere (parking lots, reinforced roofs)
How are you gonna back up your 80 GB drive? Let's see, you could spend thousands of dollars on a tape drive that can handle that much data, or you can spend $200 on another 80 GB drive.
It's a no brainer. Why is anyone buying tape drives any more?
He nicknamed the organism the "Zolax." (Scroll two-thirds of the way down the page to see it.) If it resembles any earth organism, I would say the tarantula -- although it seems to have a half-dozen or so "tentacles," rather than articulated legs. If you look closely at the lower-left corner of the image, you'll even see one of the tentacles in contact with the ground. The point where it's attached to the body is hidden behind the rock, and it's casting a shadow! If this is a hoax, the hoaxer showed admirable attention to detail.
Disclaimer: the other purported anomalies on this web page are pretty dubious. (Don't you hate when some wacko points to a JPEG artifact and says "look, an artificial structure!" or "look, an organism!") I wish they weren't on the same page as the Zolax, because they hurt its credibility. Nevertheless, the Zolax looks like the real deal. It appears in both the left and right cameras simultaneously, so it can't be an image-processing artifact. It could be a hoax, but it would take a lot of effort to fake a stereo image like this.
It would be nice if we knew the time interval between the two frames -- then we'd have an idea of how fast this critter moves.
all aircraft (including small personal craft) have a differential GPS receiver on board that computes position and velocity vectors with great precision;
said aircraft wirelessly network with all other aircraft within, say, a 20 km radius, transmitting their position and velocity vectors;
each aircraft runs an algorithm that would predict any collision or near-collision with another aircraft (or its turbulent wake) well in advance, and automatically makes minor course corrections to prevent them. (Not a big deal, because these personal aircraft won't be actively "piloted" anyway -- the "driver" will simply enter the desired destionation then sit back.)
and each aircraft has a fully redundant system (two GPS receivers, two transmitters, two CPUs) to ensure reliability
Many, many advantages to this kind of system:
no more mid-air collisions due to human error
aircraft can be much more densely packed in the sky -- current spacing regulations have an enormous factor of safety built in, because frequent human error requires it
no more spending $billions to upgrade the ATC system -- the legacy ATC system can be done away with altogether when the last aircraft is retrofitted
VTOL craft can safely land anywhere (parking lots, reinforced roofs)
I for one would drink it after it's been run through a simple little reverse osmosis unit.
You measure the thrust force that those little ducted fans generate -- and even though that force isn't enough to move the droid when it's resting on a lab bench in 1G, a simple F = ma tells you how fast the thrust will make the droid accelerate in 0G.
Got a link to the story of that extremely lucky flight attendant? I'd like to see something that indicates this is more than urban legend.