Re: headache from RF?...studies forthcoming!
on
WiMax: When, Not If
·
· Score: 1
1. Leukemia != brain tumor. 2. I notice you don't quote the many studies which show there is no corrolation. 3. AM radio broadcasting towers put out as much as 50,000 Watts. Cell phones are in the milliwatts. That is about a 100,000x difference in power. The frequency is radically different than cell phones
Warsitting, Warlounging, Warloafing, Warsnacking, Warhidingfromthesun are hereby copywrited.
This will live forever in slashdot, so if anyone else uses these terms, prepare to be soooood!
Re: headache from RF?...studies forthcoming!
on
WiMax: When, Not If
·
· Score: 1
as I lost a brother, a heavy cell phone user, to a brain tumor just this year...
And yet here I am brain tumor free. And the dozens of people I know who use cellphones alot. And my grandfather who was a radioman in WW2 (those radios used WATTS of power, and the antenna was right behind the head). And all my friends who operated radio jamming equipment in the gulf war (this requires 1000's of watts of power). Plus all the Hams I know who use 2 meter walkie talkies which put out up to 10 watts. So my anecdote more than cancels yours. I'm sorry about your brother though.
Also my English teacher (read tree hugger) mentioned that you get a headache when you are in one building since it got a cell antena on top. It is noticeable.
I don't think this is reasonable. The first things to be affected by EM radiation are the eyeballs and testicles, which just get hot. Unless your brain is cooking in your head it's not the cell phone tower. In fact, if your brain was cooking in your head you probably wouldn't notice until steam was shooting out of your ears anyway, since the brain doesn't have pain receptors in its interior.
The first answer would not fit with current scientific models of the...
Your right! Of course, this discounts the possibility that our model of the universe isn't exactly right. Also, the situation where life is plentiful is considered further along on the list.
If we assume aliens of sufficient intelligence to create weapons of mass destruction
Maybe we can assume that, but it only considers a very narrow view of the universe. It may well be possible that some scientific discovery which is universally found in itself destroys, say, the entire solar system in which it is found instantly. For example, some heavy subatomic particle that degrades all matter within 1 zillion miles. Let your imagination run wild. But this sort of thing would 1. destroy the civilization which created it. 2. Leave no trace nor chance that a warning could be sent.
There is only one alien civilization? Even if it is true that the timespan is millions
Maybe there are millions of alien civilizations, and some's lifespan overlaps ours. However, who is to say that they would be near us at all? Or that although their lifespan overlaps ours, it doesn't overlap ours so that signals are recieved now? (maybe the signals were coming in like mad until 40,000 BC, and they won't start up again with the next nearby intelligent civilization which overlaps ours until 20000 AD? That gap is only a blip in time)
Given that it does not take a concentrated world-wide effort
This comment is entirely earth-centric and anthropomorphic. Perhaps it is a planet of super intelligent prey-animals. Prey animals don't go adventuring, they prefer well worn paths and cosistancy. These super-guinea pigs might also have functional population control, so that they always have plenty of land and resources. However, they have no wish to draw attention to themselves, due to millions of years of prey-animal evolution effecting their cognition. Of course these animals would think of space exploration as totally insane and rediculous and wouldn't even have to discuss it....
What if every anthill in Africa had intelligent life? Then how likely would it be for any given one to be visited? What if Africa had 100 Trillion anthills, how likely then?
Earth has what resources? Metal? Solar Power? Heavy elements? Everything the earth has is everywhere else, in this case even intelligent life is everywhere. This turns into the 100 trillion anthills example.
So, FACT: We haven't made contact with aliens despite trying with a reasonable amount of effort for a somewhat decent amount of time.
Where are they? There may be more reasons than are given on the list, but all the reasons given are decent.
What can we say about this number X? The real numbers are closed under subtraction, so we know that it is a real number. And |X| > 0, since if |X| = 0 then X = 0. Finally, for any number Y, |Y| > |X|, becuase if you pick any value for Y (!= 0), and consider enough decimal places for 1 -.9999... then |X| is smaller than |Y| . (EG. if we take Y =.001, then we can just look at (1 -.999999999) and see that it is much less than Y. It is apparent that you can do this for any number you pick)
But all of this implies that X is greater than 0 but smaller than every other positive number. However the positive real numbers is an open set, and therefore has no smallest element. QED
This is an example of Proof by Contradiction.
Here is a more constructive proof.
If.99999... 1 then there is some number N such that.9999... N 1 . However, for every N 1 you pick, I can use enough digits of.9999 to make N.9999... . Therefore.9999... = 1. Look up what it means for a set to be "dense" in another set on mathworld if you don't believe me.
Finally, I'll restate this idea in plain english.
If.99999... is some number besides 1, then there is a number between.99999... and 1. What number can you sqeeze in between.9999... and 1? Well, it should be obvious that you can't pick any number to fit, since for any number you can possibly pick,.999... is closer to 1. If two numbers are different then you can ALWAYS find a number between them, as long as the set is dense in itself. Some examples of sets dense in themselves are the real numbers and the rational numbers. Notice that the Natural (counting) numbers aren't dense in themselves, since there is no counting number between 2 and 3, for example.
I especially like the part where he got it to work, and then rebooted. When it didn't work he reinstalled the distro! Congradulations, you are inept.
Next time he might want to figure out *what* is going wrong, and fix that. Of course, it's thinking like this that created linux in the first place. Why fix things when you can just reinstall windows again (which, of course, you have to do every 6 months anyway, just to maintain a useable system).
My wife thinks the same thing. However, since she NEVER drinks Pepsi (since it is gross) shelling out a buck per bottle that always wins is EXACTLY THE SAME as just buying the tracks, except for the gas to get to the store, the wear on the car, and your precious precious time...
H: Jerkoff wannabe hacker kids who are smart like to inflict pain on those who they consider less smart (everyone else), since some tardos give them wedgies in gym. One way to do this is to unleash a virus on the world.
Virii are born of impotence.
Eventually many will grow out of it. Some rationalize (rationalization is a favorate of the ego-scared nerd) this sort of thing and try to make it into some holy crusade (mitnick). Most will just stop once their hormones settle down. Of course, the most damaging attacks will probably come from those who don't grow out of it.
I have taken the simple step of not running Windows at any time. I installed Debian unstable on one computer and Testing on the other, about 2 months ago, and I haven't looked back. Once I got VLC to play itunes DRM'd files my wife was on board as well. Now if only Juk could play itunes music we would be in business.
In fact, the only microsoft products I'm using now are my MS Intellimouse w/ IntelliEye 1.0 (discontinued) and my Microsoft Internet Keyboard. Oh, and Word 97 in wine, just because my job sends me emails with RTF files attached, and they save those files with word. Leave it to microsoft to save files in an open format that can't be opened by any other product!
Microsoft has enough of a history of trying to destroy everything they come in contact with that it makes sense to question they're motivations. What company has Microsoft had dealings with that they didn't screw over?
It never occured to you to bring a piece of cardboard and put it up when you were in the machine? Also, how did you hit the space bar without opposable thumbs?
Sometimes I get the impression that a story is so implausible that the person telling it just wants to tell a story too. So I want to tell a story too, too.
Story Candidate 1: My worst job was when I worked for an amusement park writing software that controlled how fast the cars on the rides would go. It was fun but every time I had to adjust the code someone would beat me with a piece of tree branch until I died. Then they would run off and tell their friends "I killed that GUY!". This happened so much the county coroner knew me on a first name basis.
Story Candidate 2: My wost job ever was this one time when I had to drive pizza's to peoples houses when they called on the phone. My car didn't have a roof so when it rained I would get all wet. Sometimes birds would poop into my car. When I told my boss he just lauged at me and rubbed my belly until I couldn't stop giggling until I cried. Once I ate a pizza and the people were mad and they yelled at me and said they didn't want an empty box and GD. My job is hard but I like it because I like to take care of myself and I am a person just like everyone else.
I remember reading about patents that you can't just take 2 existing things, combine them, and then patent the result. For example, you couldn't patent the thing in Stallmans article because people already use digital music, and people already use the web, so sending digital music over the web is just a combination of the two. (otherwise, I might have a valid patent for a method to recieve digital messages using a telecomunications device and a central server, and specially formatted user input which is known only to the server and the user, such that it is re-inputable, difficult to guess, and possible for the user to recall using only a graphite recording utility wand and some pressed and possibly bleached, dried wood pulp... nah) or even stupid things, like a car that also makes coffee, and a car that also is a generator for emergencies, or a blank that is also a blankety when blank and blankety are already known.
I've downloaded a bunch of songs from itunes. The main problem I have with downloading music there, as apposed to downloading off of kazaa or just buying the CD at CDepot or something is the quality that the music is encoded at. If I purchase a CD I can encode it to [favorite format] at [prefered quality] and then later at [lower quality] for my mp3 player. With itunes you seem to be limited to 128k. At least with Kazaa you can search for, say 256k or above, although you might have to download the same song several times to find a copy that sounds good.
On the other hand, itunes has several advantages. Anything you download, though encoded at 128k, is encoded properly and sounds as good as the bitrate allows (with whatever format they use). On top of that, everything is consistant in volume and so on, and it orginizes itself.
I guess what I'm saying here is that buying the CD is just better, but itunes is great for getting music to listen to on your computer at work or on an ipod. If you are cheap, like me, and have a new fashioned mp3 only device, itunes is somewhat lacking. This is because when you convert the music to mp3 you lose alot of quality for obvious reasons.
When they start offering online music encoded in a lossless way I'll be all over it.
It isn't likely that you will be able to find such a book. In order to gain even a rudimentary understanding of math or physics requires several years of undergraduate work and a few years of graduate, at which point you might have a decent grasp of the subject you studied. Certainly these are broad areas, and you will still barely be scratching the surface.
Euclid was once employed as a tutor of mathematics in the royal household of King Ptolemy I, who complained about the difficulty of the theorems which Euclid expected him to learn. When the king asked whether there might be an easier way to approach the subject, Euclid gently reproached him: "Sire," he said, "there is no royal road to geometry."
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1. Leukemia != brain tumor.
2. I notice you don't quote the many studies which show there is no corrolation.
3. AM radio broadcasting towers put out as much as 50,000 Watts. Cell phones are in the milliwatts. That is about a 100,000x difference in power. The frequency is radically different than cell phones
Warsitting, Warlounging, Warloafing, Warsnacking, Warhidingfromthesun are hereby copywrited.
This will live forever in slashdot, so if anyone else uses these terms, prepare to be soooood!
as I lost a brother, a heavy cell phone user, to a brain tumor just this year...
And yet here I am brain tumor free. And the dozens of people I know who use cellphones alot. And my grandfather who was a radioman in WW2 (those radios used WATTS of power, and the antenna was right behind the head). And all my friends who operated radio jamming equipment in the gulf war (this requires 1000's of watts of power). Plus all the Hams I know who use 2 meter walkie talkies which put out up to 10 watts. So my anecdote more than cancels yours. I'm sorry about your brother though.
1 Billion Anecdotes != Data
Also my English teacher (read tree hugger) mentioned that you get a headache when you are in one building since it got a cell antena on top. It is noticeable.
I don't think this is reasonable. The first things to be affected by EM radiation are the eyeballs and testicles, which just get hot. Unless your brain is cooking in your head it's not the cell phone tower. In fact, if your brain was cooking in your head you probably wouldn't notice until steam was shooting out of your ears anyway, since the brain doesn't have pain receptors in its interior.
The first answer would not fit with current scientific models of the...
...
Your right! Of course, this discounts the possibility that our model of the universe isn't exactly right. Also, the situation where life is plentiful is considered further along on the list.
If we assume aliens of sufficient intelligence to create weapons of mass destruction
Maybe we can assume that, but it only considers a very narrow view of the universe. It may well be possible that some scientific discovery which is universally found in itself destroys, say, the entire solar system in which it is found instantly. For example, some heavy subatomic particle that degrades all matter within 1 zillion miles. Let your imagination run wild. But this sort of thing would 1. destroy the civilization which created it. 2. Leave no trace nor chance that a warning could be sent.
There is only one alien civilization? Even if it is true that the timespan is millions
Maybe there are millions of alien civilizations, and some's lifespan overlaps ours. However, who is to say that they would be near us at all? Or that although their lifespan overlaps ours, it doesn't overlap ours so that signals are recieved now? (maybe the signals were coming in like mad until 40,000 BC, and they won't start up again with the next nearby intelligent civilization which overlaps ours until 20000 AD? That gap is only a blip in time)
Given that it does not take a concentrated world-wide effort
This comment is entirely earth-centric and anthropomorphic. Perhaps it is a planet of super intelligent prey-animals. Prey animals don't go adventuring, they prefer well worn paths and cosistancy. These super-guinea pigs might also have functional population control, so that they always have plenty of land and resources. However, they have no wish to draw attention to themselves, due to millions of years of prey-animal evolution effecting their cognition. Of course these animals would think of space exploration as totally insane and rediculous and wouldn't even have to discuss it.
What if every anthill in Africa had intelligent life? Then how likely would it be for any given one to be visited? What if Africa had 100 Trillion anthills, how likely then?
Earth has what resources? Metal? Solar Power? Heavy elements? Everything the earth has is everywhere else, in this case even intelligent life is everywhere. This turns into the 100 trillion anthills example.
So, FACT: We haven't made contact with aliens despite trying with a reasonable amount of effort for a somewhat decent amount of time.
Where are they? There may be more reasons than are given on the list, but all the reasons given are decent.
You are all making this too complicated.
.99999... = 1 .
.9999... != 1 .
.9999... != 0 . .9999... = X .
.9999... then |X| is smaller than |Y| . (EG. if we take Y = .001, then we can just look at (1 - .999999999) and see that it is much less than Y. It is apparent that you can do this for any number you pick)
.99999... 1 then there is some number N such that .9999... N 1 . However, for every N 1 you pick, I can use enough digits of .9999 to make N .9999... . Therefore .9999... = 1. Look up what it means for a set to be "dense" in another set on mathworld if you don't believe me.
.99999... is some number besides 1, then there is a number between .99999... and 1. What number can you sqeeze in between .9999... and 1? Well, it should be obvious that you can't pick any number to fit, since for any number you can possibly pick, .999... is closer to 1. If two numbers are different then you can ALWAYS find a number between them, as long as the set is dense in itself. Some examples of sets dense in themselves are the real numbers and the rational numbers. Notice that the Natural (counting) numbers aren't dense in themselves, since there is no counting number between 2 and 3, for example.
We want to show that
Well, let's assume that
Then 1 -
Let's say 1 -
What can we say about this number X?
The real numbers are closed under subtraction, so we know that it is a real number.
And |X| > 0, since if |X| = 0 then X = 0.
Finally, for any number Y, |Y| > |X|, becuase if you pick any value for Y (!= 0), and consider enough decimal places for 1 -
But all of this implies that X is greater than 0 but smaller than every other positive number. However the positive real numbers is an open set, and therefore has no smallest element. QED
This is an example of Proof by Contradiction.
Here is a more constructive proof.
If
Finally, I'll restate this idea in plain english.
If
I especially like the part where he got it to work, and then rebooted. When it didn't work he reinstalled the distro! Congradulations, you are inept.
Next time he might want to figure out *what* is going wrong, and fix that. Of course, it's thinking like this that created linux in the first place. Why fix things when you can just reinstall windows again (which, of course, you have to do every 6 months anyway, just to maintain a useable system).
My wife thinks the same thing. However, since she NEVER drinks Pepsi (since it is gross) shelling out a buck per bottle that always wins is EXACTLY THE SAME as just buying the tracks, except for the gas to get to the store, the wear on the car, and your precious precious time...
H: Jerkoff wannabe hacker kids who are smart like to inflict pain on those who they consider less smart (everyone else), since some tardos give them wedgies in gym. One way to do this is to unleash a virus on the world.
Virii are born of impotence.
Eventually many will grow out of it. Some rationalize (rationalization is a favorate of the ego-scared nerd) this sort of thing and try to make it into some holy crusade (mitnick). Most will just stop once their hormones settle down. Of course, the most damaging attacks will probably come from those who don't grow out of it.
I have taken the simple step of not running Windows at any time. I installed Debian unstable on one computer and Testing on the other, about 2 months ago, and I haven't looked back. Once I got VLC to play itunes DRM'd files my wife was on board as well. Now if only Juk could play itunes music we would be in business.
In fact, the only microsoft products I'm using now are my MS Intellimouse w/ IntelliEye 1.0 (discontinued) and my Microsoft Internet Keyboard. Oh, and Word 97 in wine, just because my job sends me emails with RTF files attached, and they save those files with word. Leave it to microsoft to save files in an open format that can't be opened by any other product!
Bill and Ted said "Non non non hanous" and "Bogus"
Wayne and Garth said "We're not worthy!"
Microsoft has enough of a history of trying to destroy everything they come in contact with that it makes sense to question they're motivations. What company has Microsoft had dealings with that they didn't screw over?
It never occured to you to bring a piece of cardboard and put it up when you were in the machine? Also, how did you hit the space bar without opposable thumbs?
Sometimes I get the impression that a story is so implausible that the person telling it just wants to tell a story too. So I want to tell a story too, too.
Story Candidate 1:
My worst job was when I worked for an amusement park writing software that controlled how fast the cars on the rides would go. It was fun but every time I had to adjust the code someone would beat me with a piece of tree branch until I died. Then they would run off and tell their friends "I killed that GUY!". This happened so much the county coroner knew me on a first name basis.
Story Candidate 2:
My wost job ever was this one time when I had to drive pizza's to peoples houses when they called on the phone. My car didn't have a roof so when it rained I would get all wet. Sometimes birds would poop into my car. When I told my boss he just lauged at me and rubbed my belly until I couldn't stop giggling until I cried. Once I ate a pizza and the people were mad and they yelled at me and said they didn't want an empty box and GD. My job is hard but I like it because I like to take care of myself and I am a person just like everyone else.
Seventh POST!!!
I remember reading about patents that you can't just take 2 existing things, combine them, and then patent the result. For example, you couldn't patent the thing in Stallmans article because people already use digital music, and people already use the web, so sending digital music over the web is just a combination of the two. (otherwise, I might have a valid patent for a method to recieve digital messages using a telecomunications device and a central server, and specially formatted user input which is known only to the server and the user, such that it is re-inputable, difficult to guess, and possible for the user to recall using only a graphite recording utility wand and some pressed and possibly bleached, dried wood pulp... nah) or even stupid things, like a car that also makes coffee, and a car that also is a generator for emergencies, or a blank that is also a blankety when blank and blankety are already known.
What am I missing?
I've downloaded a bunch of songs from itunes. The main problem I have with downloading music there, as apposed to downloading off of kazaa or just buying the CD at CDepot or something is the quality that the music is encoded at. If I purchase a CD I can encode it to [favorite format] at [prefered quality] and then later at [lower quality] for my mp3 player. With itunes you seem to be limited to 128k. At least with Kazaa you can search for, say 256k or above, although you might have to download the same song several times to find a copy that sounds good.
On the other hand, itunes has several advantages. Anything you download, though encoded at 128k, is encoded properly and sounds as good as the bitrate allows (with whatever format they use). On top of that, everything is consistant in volume and so on, and it orginizes itself.
I guess what I'm saying here is that buying the CD is just better, but itunes is great for getting music to listen to on your computer at work or on an ipod. If you are cheap, like me, and have a new fashioned mp3 only device, itunes is somewhat lacking. This is because when you convert the music to mp3 you lose alot of quality for obvious reasons.
When they start offering online music encoded in a lossless way I'll be all over it.
It isn't likely that you will be able to find such a book. In order to gain even a rudimentary understanding of math or physics requires several years of undergraduate work and a few years of graduate, at which point you might have a decent grasp of the subject you studied. Certainly these are broad areas, and you will still barely be scratching the surface.
Euclid was once employed as a tutor of mathematics in the royal household of King Ptolemy I, who complained about the difficulty of the theorems which Euclid expected him to learn.
When the king asked whether there might be an easier way to approach the subject, Euclid gently reproached him: "Sire," he said, "there is no royal road to geometry."
I'm sure unformed meant that there are less females then males applying to be beta testers, smartass.