The A-29 has been selected by the USAF for use by the Afghanistan military. From the actual article (http://www.builtforthemission.com/jax/bftm.nsf?Open):
"As the aircraft selected for the LAS program, the A-29 Super Tucano will be used to provide light air support, reconnaissance and training capabilities to the Afghanistan military."
The Afghanistan military has a very specific set of needs. They need an aircraft for a very specific ground support mission, and they need an inexpensive aircraft, but to acquire and to maintain. The F-35 does not fit those criteria. They do not need a multi-role, multi-service fighter that incorporates stealth capability or supersonic performance. The title of the post is "click-bait." There was never any chance for the F-35 to be selected for this particular mission.
Middle and lower income households absorb the greatest percentage of social programs, so why shouldn't they be the ones that contribute the most to them?
I'm not really sure how that would work. If I understand your statement correctly, you're making the case that the people who don't have money to come up with the money to pay the taxes to fund what they receive from social programs? Doesn't that seem a bit circular to you?
Does anyone else find it odd that clicking on the About Cuil link yields the following message:
"Oops! We couldnâ(TM)t find that page. Please verify that the URL is correct and try again."
It seems that a number of the company information links result in the same custom 404 error page, including the Contact Us link. I'm not sure that this builds my confidence in the search engine...
Republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive terms as your post seems to imply. The United States of America falls under a number of categories of governmental structure: constitutional republic, representative democracy, and federation are all applicable.
The power of the U.S. federal government devolves from the people, but as you observe, the men (and women) in charge are wont to forget that point. The previous post elaborates on the mechanisms in place that would allow us to do precisely what you suggest - regain control of our federal government.
The emphasis in both posts is on "participatory." Force is not necessary if we participate using the means provided for in the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Federal Code, and our state laws. If we don't participate, we get what our elected and appointed officials give us. Given our population's horrid record of participating, it is no wonder the system is the way it is.
As John F. Kennedy said so eloquently, "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country."
I'd like to know who signed off on Anakin taking a padawan. After the council giving Qui-Gon and Obi Wan the business about taking Anakin as a padawan, did some low-level functionary who could be Force-manipulated get put in charge of assigning padawans? Geez. Even Societe Generale had better fraud controls than that...
Is this going to be anything like the Age of Aquarius? Or perhaps it is New Age technology... Lots of crystals and such. Oh, Lord, now I have images of people with lots of hair dancing with their computers. That can't be good.
I was lucky enough to go to a middle school in rural Maryland that was chosen to pilot a computer science program for the district. We had one TRS-80 Model I for four students. I began my career in computing working in BASIC.
For Christmas in 1981 my Dad came home with a Vic 20. He wanted to see me write a program, so I wrote the standard print/goto loop. He was very impressed until I hit the Break key to end the program. He asked what I did to stop it. Naturally, I told him, "I broke it." He flipped. It took 15 minutes of comedy before the communication breakdown was cleared up. We played cartridge games on it as a family, I wrote simple programs, and did word processing. During high school, I worked with a Commodore 64 that I borrowed from school.
My first serious programming was in college. We did graviation and E&M fields simulations on PCs in Better BASIC. I took Pascal on a VAX. After graduation, I worked on IBM 370s under MVS with TSO. Ah, the green glow of a 3270 terminal in the middle of the night troubleshooting some obscure ALC or COBOL bug in a race against time to get the nightly batch cycle done!
Since then, I've worked in a ton of languages on a variety of platforms. I'll always have fond memories of the TRS-80, though.
Mr. Engberg, while making a few interesting points, demonstrates that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. If the mainstream media want to remain in denial that the nature of communications and journalism is changing, I say let them.
There has been more than enough coverage on the 60 Minutes debacle. One would expect "real" mainstream media journalists to check their sources a bit more thoroughly, particularly one of the patriarchs of the news magazine genre of shows. But let's consider the genre itself for a moment. Mr. Engberg takes the following swipe: "The public is now assaulted by news and pretend-news from many directions, thanks to the now infamous 'information superhighway.'" The same could be said of many of the so-called news magazine shows on the network channels. Even the progenitor of the genre, 60 Minutes, gets the periodic poke in the eye because of shoddy work. A short examination of shows like 20/20, 48 Hours, Extra, and other travesties are shown to be fluff just by ordering and reading the transcripts. They are heavy on hype, light on content, and fill their time slot with repetition of the same information.
Cable has brought us little better. In that realm, we find shows like Anderson Cooper 360, The O'Reilly Factor, Crossfire, and any number of others that serve to spin the news directly at a target audience that already believes precisely what is being said. Debate shows are little more than sound bite shouting matches between pundits, not real newsmakers. They serve to make the host(s) look intelligent while devoting precious little time to actually allowing the expert to thoroughly explain his or her position. This is "real" journalism?
Mr. Engberg then continues with: "Let me tell you a few things about 'exit polls'..." Oh please do sir. After all, your profession gave us the "Bush wins Florida"/"Too close to call" mess in the 2000 election. Apparently our friends in the mainstream media weren't listening to the "PhD-style" expertise very hard. This year, we saw the races in places like Vermont, Georgia, and several other states called before more than a few percent of the vote was in, and less than an hour after the polls closed in those areas. Ah, responsible use of exit polls. In addition, it was widely reported by the mainstream media sources that Kerry was getting strong support. As a result, the stock market began to dip at the end of trading on November 2nd. Again, more of that "PhD-style" expertise, serving us so well. This is in direct conflict with this statement from the article: "You did not see any of the networks or the AP put out misleading reports of a Kerry lead nationally." Apparently he didn't bother to check his facts against what Wall Street already knew.
Finally, it galls me to no end that this fellow seems to believe that we're all college students studying something fluffy. I know there are PhDs who read this forum, and post to a good number of blogs on a regular basis. A great number of us have degrees in mathematical sciences, and as such, know very well the limitations of statistical analysis. In fact, we know it much better than the average journalist since we were required to take those classes in college or university. Just because Mr. Engberg hasn't studied enough math to understand the statistical magic doesn't mean his readers haven't.
If the mainstream media wish to stick their heads in the sand, so much the better. As an intelligent consumer of news and information, I will continue to rely on multiple media and sources for what I need, and it will continue to include political blogs, thank you very much.
This would be an interesting survey topic, but unfortunately the Slashdot poll feature is too limited. Here's my breakdown:
1) 0% 2) 10% 3) 0% 4) 90% 5) 0%
I personally resent Ballmer calling me a thief. It is as offensive to me as saying, "All Microsoft Windows users are idiots." Neither statement is true in the main, and Ballmer makes himself a liar by stating it.
I'm sorry my comments weren't clearer on this point, but my intention was to answer the original question of the how common research on backscattering is. I pointed to backscattering research that I did as an undergraduate. We studied the x-ray backscattering produced by accelerating electrons at thin films of metal. The x-rays themselves were examples of bremsstrahlung, or braking radiation, that occurs when a charged particle deccelerates or changes direction. We studied the energy and angle of the x-ray produced. I provided a link to anyone who might be interested in that phenomenon as well.
My intent was not to comment directly on the Z backscatter technology describe in the article, nor the Compton effect it on which it seems to be based, but to illustrate the backscattering is common, and fairly well understood by the physics community. Again, my bad for not making the intent of my post more clear.
I will remember in future comments the literalist nature of some persons on this forum and be more detailed in my replies. Considering, Mr. Coward, how little you know of me, I suspect you're not the right person to be making suggestions about getting a refund for my tuition.
X-ray backscattering has been studied on an experimental level pretty extensively for quite a while. Perform a Google search on bremsstrahlung. Bremsstrahlung means "braking radiation." Electron bremsstrahlung is the most common. When an electron is deflected by the electron cloud of an atom, that acceleration produces an X-ray at an angle that is oblique to the original direction of the electron's path.
My Bachelor's degree is in Physics, and my junior/senior research back in 1987-1989 was on bremsstrahlung. You can find more on the subject at:
-- sarcasm on -- Guess what everyone! I just found out that sales, marketing, and advertising departments are PAID to present corporate products in the BEST POSSIBLE LIGHT, even if that means not telling the reader all the facts! Who could have possibly guessed? -- sarcasm off --
OK, for those of you who don't already know this: There are a lot of caveats and unlevel playing fields in the world of marketing, advertising, and sales. Companies pay these people to sell product, even if it isn't the best or fastest or whatever by whatever standard someone likes to choose. Every company does this -- whether they're selling computers or trucks or detergent. This is not news.
So Apple presents the benchmarks in the best possible light and puts a lot of fine print in to cover themselves. Who cares? The benchmarks are only vaguely interesting in an academic way. The only real way to know how the system will perform is to do your own homework.
I don't know about you all, but I'm still holding out for something like the ScreenMedia device that was discussed a few months ago on Slashdot.
I want to be able to read the Wall Street Journal on-line edition and Slashdot at the breakfast table, or in bed, or on the couch without having to worry about a keyboard and mouse. The ScreenMedia device seems to be the perfect wireless solution.
Anyone have new information? Their website looks the same as it did months ago...
Umm... learn your history a little better there buddy. The Internet was designed to survive going down due to nuclear attack. That doesn't mean the nuked nodes would survive. It means the rest of the network would continue to function despite those resources being off-line.
With respect to Chicago going down due to a cable cut, the Internet only promises that the rest of the network will continue to function without Chicago. Don't blame the Internet, blame the backhoe operator.
Slashdot Mirror
Oracle was in the smartphone market?!? When the heck was that?
The A-29 has been selected by the USAF for use by the Afghanistan military. From the actual article (http://www.builtforthemission.com/jax/bftm.nsf?Open):
"As the aircraft selected for the LAS program, the A-29 Super Tucano will be used to provide light air support, reconnaissance and training capabilities to the Afghanistan military."
The Afghanistan military has a very specific set of needs. They need an aircraft for a very specific ground support mission, and they need an inexpensive aircraft, but to acquire and to maintain. The F-35 does not fit those criteria. They do not need a multi-role, multi-service fighter that incorporates stealth capability or supersonic performance. The title of the post is "click-bait." There was never any chance for the F-35 to be selected for this particular mission.
Middle and lower income households absorb the greatest percentage of social programs, so why shouldn't they be the ones that contribute the most to them?
I'm not really sure how that would work. If I understand your statement correctly, you're making the case that the people who don't have money to come up with the money to pay the taxes to fund what they receive from social programs? Doesn't that seem a bit circular to you?
The breakthrough I'm hoping for is cheap free fusion energy, generated in my backyard, from trash, branded "Mr Fusion."
...as opposed to expensive free fusion energy?
Nah, he meant as opposed to cheap *constrained* fusion energy...
"hard to be sure"
Ha! Who would have guessed - uncertainty in quantum mechanics!
Well, it seems to be fixed now. At least they're responsive.
Does anyone else find it odd that clicking on the About Cuil link yields the following message:
"Oops! We couldnâ(TM)t find that page. Please verify that the URL is correct and try again."
It seems that a number of the company information links result in the same custom 404 error page, including the Contact Us link. I'm not sure that this builds my confidence in the search engine...
Republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive terms as your post seems to imply. The United States of America falls under a number of categories of governmental structure: constitutional republic, representative democracy, and federation are all applicable.
The power of the U.S. federal government devolves from the people, but as you observe, the men (and women) in charge are wont to forget that point. The previous post elaborates on the mechanisms in place that would allow us to do precisely what you suggest - regain control of our federal government.
The emphasis in both posts is on "participatory." Force is not necessary if we participate using the means provided for in the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Federal Code, and our state laws. If we don't participate, we get what our elected and appointed officials give us. Given our population's horrid record of participating, it is no wonder the system is the way it is.
As John F. Kennedy said so eloquently, "Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country."
I'd like to know who signed off on Anakin taking a padawan. After the council giving Qui-Gon and Obi Wan the business about taking Anakin as a padawan, did some low-level functionary who could be Force-manipulated get put in charge of assigning padawans? Geez. Even Societe Generale had better fraud controls than that...
I heartily agree. It would be nice to have a reference for that quote...
Is this going to be anything like the Age of Aquarius? Or perhaps it is New Age technology... Lots of crystals and such. Oh, Lord, now I have images of people with lots of hair dancing with their computers. That can't be good.
For Christmas in 1981 my Dad came home with a Vic 20. He wanted to see me write a program, so I wrote the standard print/goto loop. He was very impressed until I hit the Break key to end the program. He asked what I did to stop it. Naturally, I told him, "I broke it." He flipped. It took 15 minutes of comedy before the communication breakdown was cleared up. We played cartridge games on it as a family, I wrote simple programs, and did word processing. During high school, I worked with a Commodore 64 that I borrowed from school.
My first serious programming was in college. We did graviation and E&M fields simulations on PCs in Better BASIC. I took Pascal on a VAX. After graduation, I worked on IBM 370s under MVS with TSO. Ah, the green glow of a 3270 terminal in the middle of the night troubleshooting some obscure ALC or COBOL bug in a race against time to get the nightly batch cycle done!
Since then, I've worked in a ton of languages on a variety of platforms. I'll always have fond memories of the TRS-80, though.
Mr. Engberg, while making a few interesting points, demonstrates that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. If the mainstream media want to remain in denial that the nature of communications and journalism is changing, I say let them.
There has been more than enough coverage on the 60 Minutes debacle. One would expect "real" mainstream media journalists to check their sources a bit more thoroughly, particularly one of the patriarchs of the news magazine genre of shows. But let's consider the genre itself for a moment. Mr. Engberg takes the following swipe: "The public is now assaulted by news and pretend-news from many directions, thanks to the now infamous 'information superhighway.'" The same could be said of many of the so-called news magazine shows on the network channels. Even the progenitor of the genre, 60 Minutes, gets the periodic poke in the eye because of shoddy work. A short examination of shows like 20/20, 48 Hours, Extra, and other travesties are shown to be fluff just by ordering and reading the transcripts. They are heavy on hype, light on content, and fill their time slot with repetition of the same information.
Cable has brought us little better. In that realm, we find shows like Anderson Cooper 360, The O'Reilly Factor, Crossfire, and any number of others that serve to spin the news directly at a target audience that already believes precisely what is being said. Debate shows are little more than sound bite shouting matches between pundits, not real newsmakers. They serve to make the host(s) look intelligent while devoting precious little time to actually allowing the expert to thoroughly explain his or her position. This is "real" journalism?
Mr. Engberg then continues with: "Let me tell you a few things about 'exit polls'..." Oh please do sir. After all, your profession gave us the "Bush wins Florida"/"Too close to call" mess in the 2000 election. Apparently our friends in the mainstream media weren't listening to the "PhD-style" expertise very hard. This year, we saw the races in places like Vermont, Georgia, and several other states called before more than a few percent of the vote was in, and less than an hour after the polls closed in those areas. Ah, responsible use of exit polls. In addition, it was widely reported by the mainstream media sources that Kerry was getting strong support. As a result, the stock market began to dip at the end of trading on November 2nd. Again, more of that "PhD-style" expertise, serving us so well. This is in direct conflict with this statement from the article: "You did not see any of the networks or the AP put out misleading reports of a Kerry lead nationally." Apparently he didn't bother to check his facts against what Wall Street already knew.
Finally, it galls me to no end that this fellow seems to believe that we're all college students studying something fluffy. I know there are PhDs who read this forum, and post to a good number of blogs on a regular basis. A great number of us have degrees in mathematical sciences, and as such, know very well the limitations of statistical analysis. In fact, we know it much better than the average journalist since we were required to take those classes in college or university. Just because Mr. Engberg hasn't studied enough math to understand the statistical magic doesn't mean his readers haven't.
If the mainstream media wish to stick their heads in the sand, so much the better. As an intelligent consumer of news and information, I will continue to rely on multiple media and sources for what I need, and it will continue to include political blogs, thank you very much.
This would be an interesting survey topic, but unfortunately the Slashdot poll feature is too limited. Here's my breakdown:
1) 0%
2) 10%
3) 0%
4) 90%
5) 0%
I personally resent Ballmer calling me a thief. It is as offensive to me as saying, "All Microsoft Windows users are idiots." Neither statement is true in the main, and Ballmer makes himself a liar by stating it.
My intent was not to comment directly on the Z backscatter technology describe in the article, nor the Compton effect it on which it seems to be based, but to illustrate the backscattering is common, and fairly well understood by the physics community. Again, my bad for not making the intent of my post more clear.
I will remember in future comments the literalist nature of some persons on this forum and be more detailed in my replies. Considering, Mr. Coward, how little you know of me, I suspect you're not the right person to be making suggestions about getting a refund for my tuition.
X-ray backscattering has been studied on an experimental level pretty extensively for quite a while. Perform a Google search on bremsstrahlung. Bremsstrahlung means "braking radiation." Electron bremsstrahlung is the most common. When an electron is deflected by the electron cloud of an atom, that acceleration produces an X-ray at an angle that is oblique to the original direction of the electron's path.
h lung.html
My Bachelor's degree is in Physics, and my junior/senior research back in 1987-1989 was on bremsstrahlung. You can find more on the subject at:
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Bremsstra
-- sarcasm on --
Guess what everyone! I just found out that sales, marketing, and advertising departments are PAID to present corporate products in the BEST POSSIBLE LIGHT, even if that means not telling the reader all the facts! Who could have possibly guessed?
-- sarcasm off --
OK, for those of you who don't already know this: There are a lot of caveats and unlevel playing fields in the world of marketing, advertising, and sales. Companies pay these people to sell product, even if it isn't the best or fastest or whatever by whatever standard someone likes to choose. Every company does this -- whether they're selling computers or trucks or detergent. This is not news.
So Apple presents the benchmarks in the best possible light and puts a lot of fine print in to cover themselves. Who cares? The benchmarks are only vaguely interesting in an academic way. The only real way to know how the system will perform is to do your own homework.
I want to be able to read the Wall Street Journal on-line edition and Slashdot at the breakfast table, or in bed, or on the couch without having to worry about a keyboard and mouse. The ScreenMedia device seems to be the perfect wireless solution.
Anyone have new information? Their website looks the same as it did months ago...
With respect to Chicago going down due to a cable cut, the Internet only promises that the rest of the network will continue to function without Chicago. Don't blame the Internet, blame the backhoe operator.