User: Zaak

Re:~Why Black Holes Go Away~

On: Man-Made Black Holes Looming?

The Hawking radiation coming from a black hole will contain an equal proportion of matter and antimatter. It's not that the antiparticle falls in and annihilates (that wouldn't remove energy from the black hole because annihilation produces as much energy as the mass that is destroyed). It's actually that inside the event horizon of the black hole, particles with negative energy can exist, so when one member of the particle-antiparticle pair falls into the black hole, the net energy of that pair can be zero. This allows the pair to exist separately over an unlimited length of time. Remember that the energy to form the pair in the first place was "borrowed". In order to preserve conservation of energy over macroscopic time scales, the amount of time the "energy loan" can exist is inversely proportional to the amount of energy borrowed.
Interestingly enough, in the vicinity of a rotating black hole, there exist orbits outside of the event horizon that have negative energy. I wonder what effect that has on Hawking radiation. It would allow the particle-antiparticle pair to be created entirely outside the event horizon, just orbiting the hole in opposite directions. Hmm...

Re:It had to happen

On: Ruby-Is it Prettier than Perl?

I suggest you do some research into Multiple Dispatch. It was invented to solve the exact problem you're talking about. The best-known systems which implement it are CLOS, Cecil, and Dylan. There are systems for other languages (Perl!) which can simulate multiple dispatch also.
The basic idea is that instead of choosing which procedure to execute based solely on the type of a single object, the choice is based on the type of several objects. For example (in Dylan):

define generic inspect-vehicle( v :: <vehicle>, i :: <inspector> ) => ();

define method inspect-vehicle( v :: <vehicle>, i :: <inspector> ) => ();
look-for-rust( car );
end;

define method inspect-vehicle( car :: <car>, i :: <inspector> ) => ();
next-method( ); // perform vehicle inspection
check-seat-belts( car );
end;

define method inspect-vehicle( truck :: <truck>, i :: <inspector> ) => ();
next-method( ); // perform vehicle inspection
check-cargo-attachments( truck );
end;

define method inspect-vehicle( car :: <car>, i :: <state-inspector> ) => ();
next-method( ); // perform car inspection
check-insurance( car );
end;

This example was taken from http://www.tpk.net/~ekidd/dylan/multiple-dispatch. html

Re:It's cool, but will it succeed?

On: Wearables From IBM Japan

There were many many attempts at handheld computers until Palm Computing found the right formula. I think wearables will be the same way. Many experiments have been tried, and many more will be tried until somebody comes up with the right trade-off between features and weight/cost/battery life/ease of use. That person will then make lots of money.
As with handhelds, the successful wearable computer isn't likely to be a desktop workalike.

Re:It's all in the ROM

On: Linux on Palm

The original Palm Pilots had their OS in ROM, but the newer ones (Palm 3 and up I believe) have the OS in flash. If you put a copy of Linux on your
Palm, make sure you save the original copy of the OS if you ever want to revert back.
Speaking of which, is there a flash utility that runs under Linux so that you can revert back?

Re:Yuk

On: Massive Bandwidth over Powergrids?

And then we could transmit gigabits/sec of data by modulating the natural gas flow!

"People do not eat at once for all time, even when they eat a good deal."
-- Planchet

Re:More Info That Might Clear Up Questions

On: Black Holes...Pink?

It's not the velocity of the jet that exceeds c. It's the velocity of the spot illuminated by the jet. Things like that are called superluminal sources because they _appear_ to go faster than light. Imagine you shining a flashlight on a wall. If you turn the flashlight fast enough, the spot on the wall will move faster than the speed of light even though the flashlight isn't. There are superluminal sources in the earth's atmosphere during thunderstorms (caused by an em pulse from lightning propagating upward from the cloud).