When did they claim he was invincible? They claimed he was "the one" who would lead humans to overthrow their oppression, and clearly he was endowed with incredible power (or more acurately, self-control). Never do they say he cannot be hurt... perhaps he saves his people by dying for them... it's a familiar theme you know:)
While I love Integral Trees, the movie would have to spend the first half explaining the setup... the average moviegoer wouldn't have a clue where they were, how they got there, and the intriacies of balancing gravity in a rotating frame of reference.
The problem with advocating doing nothing since we really know very little about climate change (while true) is that we're not really doing nothing, we're continuing to grow our emissions.
Now it's very likely that climate change is a very nonlinear event... perturb yourself just slightly out of equilibrium and you risk drastic changes.
The logic of Kyoto was that it's clear we can't halt all emissions, politically this is impossible, but we can slow the growth. Hopefully this will delay the onset of any drastic change until we can better predict the consequences of our actions. If it turns out the cutbacks were unnecessary, fine, then we've suffered a minor economic hardship for nothing. Otherwise we may find that we've saved ourselves from a premature ice age or global flooding.
Of course I agree completely with you that the easy answer is nuclear power. We even have several great techniques for reprocessing fuel which results in less waste, unfortunately since it's similar to the process involved in creating weapons grade fuel, it's banned.
Have you ever looked at MySQL's online documentation? It's wonderful...
Fully indexed, with user comments... I often find new techniques while searching for something completely unrelated. I think the great documentation is one of the reasons why MySQL has taken off, it's just so easy to learn.
The beachballs aren't the neutron stars, which are somewhere around 20 km in radius. So they weren't a direct result of supernova collapse.
The beachballs they are observing are the regions of plasma near the magnetic poles of the neutron star which are causing the large bursts of radio waves.
I was really turned off by that scene as well, but I'm not sure that overall their contiued tension is a bad thing.
One of the worst aspects of television is it's tendency to push oversimplified situations and plotlines onto the viewer leaving them with no room for interpretation or thought (which is of course why so many people like TV).
Nothing about rape or violence between people is simple or straight forward. Buffy is not attempting to take that scene and turn it into a morality play, which I consider a good thing.
So while I didn't like what they did with the characters in creating that particular scene, I like that the show has a little more depth than the average show, and that it isn't cut-and-dry.
Exactly. I missed out on the first few seasons because I chalked it up as a spin-off of the terrible movie.
After living with my girlfriend (now wife) I was forced to watch several episodes as she's a die-hard fan. I must admit I got hooked. Yes it's cheesy, and not always internally consistent, but compared with what else is on, it's great.
Now whether it just shines next to such gems as Joe Millionaire and Married by America (gee thank you FOX), I'm not sure, but its one of just a couple shows on my regular weekly watch list.
They aren't streaming cartalk live, they're streaming it on demand. So anytime you want you can listen to the current week's show.
No, it's not as nice as being able to download the file and listen from your harddrive, but I can understand NPR and cartalk's desire to maintain distribution control over their content. All you need for the system they have now is an internet connection.
Nearly all NPR programs are now available in Real format from npr.org (actually cartalk is only available from the cartalk website, cartalk.cars.com).
Yes, you can only listen to the past week's cartalk show, but most other npr shows let you listen to archived shows as well.
In fact, I don't listen to an actual NPR station anymore, I just listen to Morning Edition, All things Considered, and Wait Wait don't tell me online, that way I have the same advantages as having a pvr for radio. (prr?)
The comparison is not made to imply that X = Z. The problem is that the consumer has no experience or internal valuation of X. Comparing the actual cost (in this case $6.95) of X to Z, something the consumer hopefully uses on a regular basis, and has some idea of whether they consider 6.95 for Z a good deal.
Take the example of 2 video game rentals. If a person rents video games on a regular basis, it gives them the idea that with the same amount of resources, they can give up renting 2 video games per month in order to gain this service. In the ideal situation, the person would rent many more than 2 video games per month, so that giving up 2 for this (supposedly great) service would be no big deal, thus making 6.95 for the service seem trivial.
The real problem with this is whether your mind "clicking" means you are recalling an actual memory, or simply accessing other sensory perceptions and linking them together into a virtual memory (like a dream).
It has been well demonstrated in a lab that you can implant false memories very easily. For example, you can ask a person if they remember being in a certain place when they were young. Then you show them a picture of someone you claim is them (make sure no visual clues invalidate that claim!). Ask the person later if they remember, and they will often claim vivid memory of the event depicted, even though they weren't really there.
Your mind has evolved to be very good at gathering and linking information. Striving to locate memories may trigger intuitive processes (think dreams), which try to fill a request for a memory with something it finds useful, albeit false.
The problem with that is eventually someone is going to want to use the computer and notice it's not working at all anymore.
Non-lethal virii can sit and try to infect remote computers for years (just look at my webserver's logs!).
Also, virii which do damage are quickly covered on the news and word spreads, so the epidemic is more quickly squashed, since normal users get worried about it.
It's not at all puzzling that we haven't seen malicious virii. Something which destroys its own host hampers its ability to spread (you can't keep infecting new computers after you destroy the current one).
Outbreaks of Ebola and other very quick killing virii stamp themselves out due to lack of new hosts.
I think this is exactly the sort of filler news which is likely to be picked up by local news shows and newspapers which have nothing better to talk about. It makes them seem "net/tech-savvy" and doesn't require any research.
Then the average joe hears about the RIAA (probably for the first time) and that they are evil. Sounds like a great introduction to me.
Very true... At the University of Arizona (in Tucson, the primary institution involved with Kitt Peak) they have a fish-eye-lens picture of the night sky from Kitt Peak. There are two very distinct blobs of light on the horizon, corresponding to Tucson and Phoenix.
Exactly. The idea was that if a robot was in a position to do good for humanity as a whole, but in doing so would harm a human, it was unable to take that action due to the first law. In reality this would make it very difficult for a robot to do anything but menial tasks (i.e. a robot could never make governmental policy decisions, as they always trade the interests of one group of humans off against others).
The zeroth law then allows a robot to have a larger sphere of influence. I was always very concerned about the idea of these laws, however, as it's very unclear how one goes about defining "harm," particularly in the case of the zeroth law. What is humanity anyway.... historically humans have done terrible things to one another and justified it by not including those others in their definition of who is human.
A robot with the zeroth law could easily make the same choice as a member of the KKK or Nazis and label an entire subgroup of humans as non-human. This really works for the first law as well, but it's worse in the case of the zeroth law since the robot might decide that extermination of that subgroup was a greater good for the rest of humanity.
Despite that, I've always loved the Asimov robot stories, and I will give him credit for trying his best to work through all possible consequences of the three laws, their weaknesses and their sucesses.
APOD is a collection of nice images. This project is geared towards professional astronomers, and is a repository for astronomical data, which is quite different than the jpeg's you'll find on APOD.
Slashdot Mirror
When did they claim he was invincible? They claimed he was "the one" who would lead humans to overthrow their oppression, and clearly he was endowed with incredible power (or more acurately, self-control). Never do they say he cannot be hurt... perhaps he saves his people by dying for them... it's a familiar theme you know :)
Doug
While I love Integral Trees, the movie would have to spend the first half explaining the setup... the average moviegoer wouldn't have a clue where they were, how they got there, and the intriacies of balancing gravity in a rotating frame of reference.
Doug
The real problem is we only have data for long-term effects of standard gravity, and of microgravity.
We need to keep people on the moon for a couple of years to understand how 1/6 gravity will affect bone density.
Doug
The problem with advocating doing nothing since we really know very little about climate change (while true) is that we're not really doing nothing, we're continuing to grow our emissions.
Now it's very likely that climate change is a very nonlinear event... perturb yourself just slightly out of equilibrium and you risk drastic changes.
The logic of Kyoto was that it's clear we can't halt all emissions, politically this is impossible, but we can slow the growth. Hopefully this will delay the onset of any drastic change until we can better predict the consequences of our actions. If it turns out the cutbacks were unnecessary, fine, then we've suffered a minor economic hardship for nothing. Otherwise we may find that we've saved ourselves from a premature ice age or global flooding.
Of course I agree completely with you that the easy answer is nuclear power. We even have several great techniques for reprocessing fuel which results in less waste, unfortunately since it's similar to the process involved in creating weapons grade fuel, it's banned.
Doug
Yeah, especially since it's pouring today here in Chicago... ahh, spring...
Doug
Only when acting in their capacity as a priest. This case hardly qualifies as religious.
Doug
Have you ever looked at MySQL's online documentation? It's wonderful...
Fully indexed, with user comments... I often find new techniques while searching for something completely unrelated. I think the great documentation is one of the reasons why MySQL has taken off, it's just so easy to learn.
Doug
Yes, but not in the way you're thinking...
The beachballs aren't the neutron stars, which are somewhere around 20 km in radius. So they weren't a direct result of supernova collapse.
The beachballs they are observing are the regions of plasma near the magnetic poles of the neutron star which are causing the large bursts of radio waves.
Doug
I do the same with my webservers (only two) to balance the load, but it's not really a complete solution...
It provides reasonable load balancing, but isn't fault tolerant (i.e. a server goes down, requests aren't redirected).
Works well enough for me though...
Doug
From the Astronomy Picture of the Day:
Sputnik
Doug
I was really turned off by that scene as well, but I'm not sure that overall their contiued tension is a bad thing.
One of the worst aspects of television is it's tendency to push oversimplified situations and plotlines onto the viewer leaving them with no room for interpretation or thought (which is of course why so many people like TV).
Nothing about rape or violence between people is simple or straight forward. Buffy is not attempting to take that scene and turn it into a morality play, which I consider a good thing.
So while I didn't like what they did with the characters in creating that particular scene, I like that the show has a little more depth than the average show, and that it isn't cut-and-dry.
Doug
Exactly. I missed out on the first few seasons because I chalked it up as a spin-off of the terrible movie.
After living with my girlfriend (now wife) I was forced to watch several episodes as she's a die-hard fan. I must admit I got hooked. Yes it's cheesy, and not always internally consistent, but compared with what else is on, it's great.
Now whether it just shines next to such gems as Joe Millionaire and Married by America (gee thank you FOX), I'm not sure, but its one of just a couple shows on my regular weekly watch list.
Doug
It wouldn't have helped since that shuttle was already in orbit and had nowhere else to go.
Figuring out the cause of the problem allows NASA to fix any design or procedural problems which led to the crash BEFORE another shuttle goes up.
Doug
They aren't streaming cartalk live, they're streaming it on demand. So anytime you want you can listen to the current week's show.
No, it's not as nice as being able to download the file and listen from your harddrive, but I can understand NPR and cartalk's desire to maintain distribution control over their content. All you need for the system they have now is an internet connection.
Doug
One of the links is to play all segments continuously.
Doug
Nearly all NPR programs are now available in Real format from npr.org (actually cartalk is only available from the cartalk website, cartalk.cars.com).
Yes, you can only listen to the past week's cartalk show, but most other npr shows let you listen to archived shows as well.
In fact, I don't listen to an actual NPR station anymore, I just listen to Morning Edition, All things Considered, and Wait Wait don't tell me online, that way I have the same advantages as having a pvr for radio. (prr?)
Doug
The comparison is not made to imply that X = Z. The problem is that the consumer has no experience or internal valuation of X. Comparing the actual cost (in this case $6.95) of X to Z, something the consumer hopefully uses on a regular basis, and has some idea of whether they consider 6.95 for Z a good deal.
Take the example of 2 video game rentals. If a person rents video games on a regular basis, it gives them the idea that with the same amount of resources, they can give up renting 2 video games per month in order to gain this service. In the ideal situation, the person would rent many more than 2 video games per month, so that giving up 2 for this (supposedly great) service would be no big deal, thus making 6.95 for the service seem trivial.
Doug
The real problem with this is whether your mind "clicking" means you are recalling an actual memory, or simply accessing other sensory perceptions and linking them together into a virtual memory (like a dream).
It has been well demonstrated in a lab that you can implant false memories very easily. For example, you can ask a person if they remember being in a certain place when they were young. Then you show them a picture of someone you claim is them (make sure no visual clues invalidate that claim!). Ask the person later if they remember, and they will often claim vivid memory of the event depicted, even though they weren't really there.
Your mind has evolved to be very good at gathering and linking information. Striving to locate memories may trigger intuitive processes (think dreams), which try to fill a request for a memory with something it finds useful, albeit false.
Doug
The problem with that is eventually someone is going to want to use the computer and notice it's not working at all anymore.
Non-lethal virii can sit and try to infect remote computers for years (just look at my webserver's logs!).
Also, virii which do damage are quickly covered on the news and word spreads, so the epidemic is more quickly squashed, since normal users get worried about it.
Doug
It's not at all puzzling that we haven't seen malicious virii. Something which destroys its own host hampers its ability to spread (you can't keep infecting new computers after you destroy the current one).
Outbreaks of Ebola and other very quick killing virii stamp themselves out due to lack of new hosts.
Doug
You have to remember that India is developing very rapidly as an IT power, but the rest of its economy is still struggling.
So the labor costs in India relative to license fees are MUCH lower than in the US. So open source is removing the bulk of operating costs.
Doug
I think this is exactly the sort of filler news which is likely to be picked up by local news shows and newspapers which have nothing better to talk about. It makes them seem "net/tech-savvy" and doesn't require any research.
Then the average joe hears about the RIAA (probably for the first time) and that they are evil. Sounds like a great introduction to me.
Doug
Very true... At the University of Arizona (in Tucson, the primary institution involved with Kitt Peak) they have a fish-eye-lens picture of the night sky from Kitt Peak. There are two very distinct blobs of light on the horizon, corresponding to Tucson and Phoenix.
Doug
Exactly. The idea was that if a robot was in a position to do good for humanity as a whole, but in doing so would harm a human, it was unable to take that action due to the first law. In reality this would make it very difficult for a robot to do anything but menial tasks (i.e. a robot could never make governmental policy decisions, as they always trade the interests of one group of humans off against others).
The zeroth law then allows a robot to have a larger sphere of influence. I was always very concerned about the idea of these laws, however, as it's very unclear how one goes about defining "harm," particularly in the case of the zeroth law. What is humanity anyway.... historically humans have done terrible things to one another and justified it by not including those others in their definition of who is human.
A robot with the zeroth law could easily make the same choice as a member of the KKK or Nazis and label an entire subgroup of humans as non-human. This really works for the first law as well, but it's worse in the case of the zeroth law since the robot might decide that extermination of that subgroup was a greater good for the rest of humanity.
Despite that, I've always loved the Asimov robot stories, and I will give him credit for trying his best to work through all possible consequences of the three laws, their weaknesses and their sucesses.
Doug
APOD is a collection of nice images. This project is geared towards professional astronomers, and is a repository for astronomical data, which is quite different than the jpeg's you'll find on APOD.
Doug