> Uh. . . So it has a.2% chance of missing the Earth, but if it doesn't miss, then it is > known for certain exactly when and where it will strike.
No. It is known for certain exactly when and where it is most likely to strike. It is very likely to strike very close to the most probable spot. It is much less likely to strike elsewhere, and there is a small possibility that it will miss entirely.
> A better test would have been two counter rotating holes striking slightly off center.
I'm sure that will be coming, now that they are sure that the model gives the expected results in the "simple" case.
I'd think that the case of two holes rotating in the same direction and colliding in such a way as to maximize the angular momentum of the resultant object would be of more interest, though. Could such a collision be arranged so that the holes merge in one frame and not in another?
> I fail to understand why there should be any expectation that colliding two black holes > head-on would have that effect.
I doubt that the physicists did. I think that this run was just to test the simulation. That wasn't exciting enough for the reporter, though.
> This sounds like pseudo-science... "look, something that wasn't expected to create a > naked singularity doesn't seem to do that in a simulation, so they can't exist!"
No, that's "science journalism" (ok, pretty much the same as psuedo-science).
'How could you possibly allow just anybody to post just anything under your [CNN] label unless you have blazing billboards that say, "None of this has been verified, we've not looked at any of this, we have no idea if this is true?"' he asks."
Why should "citizen journalists" be held to a higher standard? As the recent Bloomberg screwup on the same subject reminds us, it's not like you verify anything your "professional" journalists produce.
If you decide to go ahead with this have a good lawyer go over the contract. You're never going to be able to trust these guys. They are going to try to suck you dry and throw you away. Be sure you have an ironclad agreement that guarantees that you will be fully compensated for what is going to be a very unpleasant experience.
Divorce rates are misleading. The people most likely to get divorced are those who have been divorced before. Some people get married and divorced over and over while others stay married for life.
> Yes we can get work from a non-equilibrium, this would be a different way of doing it. > In fact, if you can get it to produces tine bits of electricity from waste heat, this > would lead to cooler chips.
No, it would lead to warmer chips. Forcing the heat to flow through a heat engine (which this gadget is) rather than directly to the sink inevitably means higher effective thermal resistance.
I thought that these guys were trying to "copy nature" to the extent that that makes sense. You seemed to me to be saying that since some bug can do something amazing they shouldn't bother to try (you did title your article "what's the point".)
My router, an old Aptiva, certainly would support IPv6. What my DSL modem supports when operated as a router is irrelevant since I have no intention of enable those features.
With Linux you want at least a little bit of swap under most circumstances because the kernel works better with it (no, I don't know why, and yes, this may have changed recently). I agree that you probably want no swap on an SSD-only system.
Sometimes we are interested in finding things other than femail bugs. In fact, we usually are, and we usually can't find a bug that want's to find what we want to find.
> That assumed homogeneity in the distribution of matter is now observed to be false...
No it isn't, any more than it was undermined by the observation that the Earth is denser than space. The theory permits inhomogeneity even on this large a scale.
Slashdot Mirror
> Uh. . . So it has a .2% chance of missing the Earth, but if it doesn't miss, then it is
> known for certain exactly when and where it will strike.
No. It is known for certain exactly when and where it is most likely to strike. It is very likely to strike very close to the most probable spot. It is much less likely to strike elsewhere, and there is a small possibility that it will miss entirely.
> A better test would have been two counter rotating holes striking slightly off center.
I'm sure that will be coming, now that they are sure that the model gives the expected results in the "simple" case.
I'd think that the case of two holes rotating in the same direction and colliding in such a way as to maximize the angular momentum of the resultant object would be of more interest, though. Could such a collision be arranged so that the holes merge in one frame and not in another?
> I fail to understand why there should be any expectation that colliding two black holes
> head-on would have that effect.
I doubt that the physicists did. I think that this run was just to test the simulation. That wasn't exciting enough for the reporter, though.
> This sounds like pseudo-science... "look, something that wasn't expected to create a
> naked singularity doesn't seem to do that in a simulation, so they can't exist!"
No, that's "science journalism" (ok, pretty much the same as psuedo-science).
Bloomberg? Oh, well. Totally reliable, then. After all, they would never "accidently" republish an old story about Jobs being dead.
Why should "citizen journalists" be held to a higher standard? As the recent Bloomberg screwup on the same subject reminds us, it's not like you verify anything your "professional" journalists produce.
I think it likely that the spammers could manage the 10-20% accuracy they need on handwriting.
Clever.
Problem is, the CAPTCHA breakers are only about 10-20% accurate. That's good enough for the spammers purposes, but not much else.
Are images of the original hand-written documents available on the Web?
If you decide to go ahead with this have a good lawyer go over the contract. You're never going to be able to trust these guys. They are going to try to suck you dry and throw you away. Be sure you have an ironclad agreement that guarantees that you will be fully compensated for what is going to be a very unpleasant experience.
> i'd much rather developers take this tact than to make it illegal to sell used games/CDs/DVDs.
It is not illegal (in the US) to sell used games/CDs/DVDs though it may under some circumstance be breach of contract.
> ...at least this doesn't encroach on fair use rights...
Fair use has nothing to do with selling used games/CDs/DVDs.
> ...and doesn't take an anti-consumer attitude.
"Anti-consumer"? No, no. They _want_ you to consume. It's your failure to do so to which they object. _Consume_ that game, don't sell it on!
Divorce rates are misleading. The people most likely to get divorced are those who have been divorced before. Some people get married and divorced over and over while others stay married for life.
No, that's WiFi at 2.4GHz, shared with microwave ovens. This system operates at fifty times that frequency.
It was done in 1968 in Barbarella.
It doesn't look like a pyramid.
> Yes we can get work from a non-equilibrium, this would be a different way of doing it.
> In fact, if you can get it to produces tine bits of electricity from waste heat, this
> would lead to cooler chips.
No, it would lead to warmer chips. Forcing the heat to flow through a heat engine (which this gadget is) rather than directly to the sink inevitably means higher effective thermal resistance.
I thought that these guys were trying to "copy nature" to the extent that that makes sense. You seemed to me to be saying that since some bug can do something amazing they shouldn't bother to try (you did title your article "what's the point".)
I seem to have attached the above to the wrong article. Sorry.
There islands in the Indian ocean. People live on them.
My router, an old Aptiva, certainly would support IPv6. What my DSL modem supports when operated as a router is irrelevant since I have no intention of enable those features.
With Linux you want at least a little bit of swap under most circumstances because the kernel works better with it (no, I don't know why, and yes, this may have changed recently). I agree that you probably want no swap on an SSD-only system.
Tycho's nose
Sometimes we are interested in finding things other than femail bugs. In fact, we usually are, and we usually can't find a bug that want's to find what we want to find.
You'll never get anywhere if you just stand around waiting for someone to hand you the answers.
> That assumed homogeneity in the distribution of matter is now observed to be false...
No it isn't, any more than it was undermined by the observation that the Earth is denser than space. The theory permits inhomogeneity even on this large a scale.