There was no firefighting effort in WTC-7 -- probably because a significant portion of NYPD had just been killed or was otherwise occupied -- if there was, they probably would have been able to keep the temperatures below the critical point where steel loses its structural strength, which is about 1800 deg c (well below the melting point btw). All of the other fires in steel frame high rises have at least had some firefighting effort.
Incidently its estimated the jet fuel in WTC-1 and WTC-2 burned off within the first 10 minutes, but what is important is that it got the fire very hot very quickly. You don't actually need jet fuel to hit 1800 deg C and bring down a building, just an unchecked fire of ordinary office junk.
The NSA does ask questions about sexual orientation and behavior for the "lifestyle polygraph test", which is required for the majority of cases. They explicitly mention this on their website. They don't state any open prejudice regarding what your orientation is, but they want to know.
FWIW 2Wire's routers come this way, at least the ones that SBC sends out to customers. And in my experience networks with the 2WIRE* SSID are much more likely to be WEP secured than the average, suggesting that customers don't bother to go into the control panel and disable it.
The practical limit for dissipation by air-cooling is around 100-150 Watts. Heat is a function of the number of transistors which are powered on *and* the clock rate. If you want to make a single core chip run faster there really only two options -- 1) make more fancy circuitry (branch prediction, new instructions, etc) on the chip but only switch it on when necessary and when heat constraints allow you to and/or 2) ramp up the clock rate. Intel put their money on #2 and they hit the heat wall, hard. But going with #1 gives you diminishing returns after some point because the fancy logic becomes too specialized to have broad applicability.
So the solution is to hit the ball into the other court -- that is, make a chip with multiple cores but a modest overall clock rate so it still fits the heat profile, and tell the OS and application designers to rewrite their code for the parallel architecture.
Lam1969 writes "Hygeia CIO Rod Hamilton doubts that most business users really need 400 hp BMWs, yet the parking lot is full of them: 'Though we are getting a couple to try out the new Toyota Corolla, the need to acquire this new technology for legitimate business purposes is grey at best. The higher fuel consumption which improves driving performance is persuasive for regular speeders, but for the average business person there seems no need to drive that fast. In fact, with the steady increase in speeding tickets given to rich white people in spite of their obvious superior social status it might even be possible to argue that BMWs are just plain excessive.' Alex Scoble disagrees: 'A BMW is a boon for anyone who runs a business and/or has a lot of responsibility, important meetings and pointy hair. Are they worth it at $75000? No, but when you have a choice to drive a junky commuter or a slightly slower 1995 Tercel for 1/20th the price, you are better off getting the top of the line Beemer and that's where we are in the marketplace right now.' An old timer chimes in: 'I can still remember arguing with a sales person that the 20 Mpg BMW was really for inferior people and only the 40 Mpg vehicle was superior enough for those with the gumption to succeed in management. The feeling of smug satisfaction lasted perhaps a week, when my boss got a new 545i and trounced me on the highway'"
I think it might be allowed to store the PIN if its encrypted somehow. My card was replaced recently due to a breach at a VISA vendor and in the letter my bank specified that the leaked information contained the PIN in encrypted form only.
You can replace your standard curbside mailbox with a USPO-approved locking mailboxes for a couple hundred dollars. I used to live in an area that had a lot of mail theft and they were constantly encouraging people to upgrade their boxes. At least one of the mail thieves even went as far as to buy an old USPO mail truck for making the rounds.
I for one welcome the change. I depise the trend of naming software Gnome* just because its a Gnome application (K*, etc). Its a totally intractable approach to naming, not to mention redundant. And "GnomeMeeting" sounds like event planning software for mythical creatures that live in peoples' gardens. At least Ekiga is not at risk of being confounded for something that its not.
Uniqueness is of huge importance for visibilty in text search engines also, i.e., google. When applications are given totally generic names and/or non-unique names, its impossible to find relevant information (e.g. searching for "software phone" vs searching for "ekiga").
As for the neophytes, well they can be dealt with -- descriptive text, tool tips, intelligent menu categorization, help systems. That is what HCI standards are for. In my experience newbies have the most difficulty with the organization of information within applications, not in determining which application to use for what purpose. Worst case, the standard working vocabulary of modern english is some 150000+ words. Learning one more is not a big deal, especially if its something you plan to encounter on a regular basis.
With respect to pronounciation, given my en-US centrism, its probably a unilateral opinion anyways so I won't comment;).
If one considers the parametric space of affine transformations (translation, scaling, etc) relating the image of a function to itself, generally what we refer to as self-similar patterns, i.e. those which are *obviously* self-similar (by visual inspection; the Koch curve or a cantor set for example) the pattern can be described by a small collection of points in this space.
Processes such as brownian motion and stock market data have a more weak form of self-similarity. These phenomena occupy contiguous volumes, possibly infinite, in affine parameter space. The relation to this volume is like that of a probability density function. The result is that under *some* affine transformations of the data it will still retain its statistical properties like its distribution of significant peaks and valleys (i.e. its order statistics). In the case of the stock market data, dilation of the time scale is an affine transformation, but its not necessarily an invarient one for any amount of dilation (though it stands to reason that there are probably many amounts which do work).
1D Brownian motion is described by a "fuzzy plane" in a (translation, dilation, scaling) space. The nature of the volume depends on the Hurst exponent of the noise process.
Interestingly the affine parameter volume can be approximately recovered (sampled) by analysing the wavelet transform of the data. In this manner, any signal can be analyzed for its self-similarity properties (but this does not mean that one will find anything interesting, or that the analysis is necessarily sufficient for the complexity of the data, etc).
Maybe you should read that report again... while the dollar contributions of the US are large, relative to GNP the US is one of the most stingy nations in the world.
In addition to considerations of amperage, resistence, etc there is the issue of the frequency of oscillation in AC -- the periodicity of the signal can interfere with or disrupt the timing / neural control over the heart muscle causing a heart attack.
If you read a New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare (or similar) they put notes explaining the terminology and context of unusual words/phrases on every opposing page. Eventually it becomes intuitive which is when it becomes truely amusing to read. Interestingly, some words today have meanings almost totally opposite of their original meanings, but if you look at the word roots and consider the original meaning, it actually makes more sense.
I am not a cryptologist but it occurs to me that MLS noise (maximum length subsquence) would be a decent candidate for watermarking an audio file. Its basically a sort of white noise process with special algebraic properties that are not destroyed by filtering.
This is seems to be a popular meme about self-driving cars. But does it really have any basis in fact? As far as I can tell, not really -- and there are plenty of counter-examples. For example, there are lots of computer controlled electronics used in the medical industry, but there is no liability crisis there. Why not? Because they have a standards process (and one which is more rigorous than for consumer electronics & software). If their device meets the standard and the company has put in a good faith effort for quality control and engineering process (and a well documented one), then there is no liability when a patient dies, regardless of the reason. If the performance is not good enough, then we take up the issue with the standards board. So, why should it be any different for automobile manufacturers?
There is also an increasing trend among some distributors / manufacturers of publishing false whole sale prices for the purpose of helping retailers fight downward price pressure. (Generally this is with respect to more expensive items than groceries...)
The funny thing is, I happen to know people who work in the wine production industry, and I can tell you that this mumbo-jumbo isn't far off from how wine chemistry actually works. They put all sorts of bizarre and random junk in wine, and not always with clear reasons for doing so.
Note that the wine industry has also lobbied heavily to obtain exemption from ingredient labeling requirements which almost every other product is subject to. They don't want you to know what is in there...
However some scientific studies have found that placebos can have the same effects as the real deal... its one of the great mysteries of the human bodi. So where does that leave us? Maybe it really *does* enhance the flavor to know that its an expensive wine. Maybe its even worth it!
My only complaint is that I think 1 gb of storage is pretty weak. Gmail is giving away more than double that, and many inexpensive webhosts have a lot more. Storage should be cheap.
Slashdot Mirror
There was no firefighting effort in WTC-7 -- probably because a significant portion of NYPD had just been killed or was otherwise occupied -- if there was, they probably would have been able to keep the temperatures below the critical point where steel loses its structural strength, which is about 1800 deg c (well below the melting point btw). All of the other fires in steel frame high rises have at least had some firefighting effort.
Incidently its estimated the jet fuel in WTC-1 and WTC-2 burned off within the first 10 minutes, but what is important is that it got the fire very hot very quickly. You don't actually need jet fuel to hit 1800 deg C and bring down a building, just an unchecked fire of ordinary office junk.
The NSA does ask questions about sexual orientation and behavior for the "lifestyle polygraph test", which is required for the majority of cases. They explicitly mention this on their website. They don't state any open prejudice regarding what your orientation is, but they want to know.
FWIW 2Wire's routers come this way, at least the ones that SBC sends out to customers. And in my experience networks with the 2WIRE* SSID are much more likely to be WEP secured than the average, suggesting that customers don't bother to go into the control panel and disable it.
OMG SOOOOOOOO HOT!!!
I'm still trying to figure out how to delete slashdot from the internet.
The practical limit for dissipation by air-cooling is around 100-150 Watts. Heat is a function of the number of transistors which are powered on *and* the clock rate. If you want to make a single core chip run faster there really only two options -- 1) make more fancy circuitry (branch prediction, new instructions, etc) on the chip but only switch it on when necessary and when heat constraints allow you to and/or 2) ramp up the clock rate. Intel put their money on #2 and they hit the heat wall, hard. But going with #1 gives you diminishing returns after some point because the fancy logic becomes too specialized to have broad applicability.
So the solution is to hit the ball into the other court -- that is, make a chip with multiple cores but a modest overall clock rate so it still fits the heat profile, and tell the OS and application designers to rewrite their code for the parallel architecture.
Lam1969 writes "Hygeia CIO Rod Hamilton doubts that most business users really need 400 hp BMWs, yet the parking lot is full of them: 'Though we are getting a couple to try out the new Toyota Corolla, the need to acquire this new technology for legitimate business purposes is grey at best. The higher fuel consumption which improves driving performance is persuasive for regular speeders, but for the average business person there seems no need to drive that fast. In fact, with the steady increase in speeding tickets given to rich white people in spite of their obvious superior social status it might even be possible to argue that BMWs are just plain excessive.' Alex Scoble disagrees: 'A BMW is a boon for anyone who runs a business and/or has a lot of responsibility, important meetings and pointy hair. Are they worth it at $75000? No, but when you have a choice to drive a junky commuter or a slightly slower 1995 Tercel for 1/20th the price, you are better off getting the top of the line Beemer and that's where we are in the marketplace right now.' An old timer chimes in: 'I can still remember arguing with a sales person that the 20 Mpg BMW was really for inferior people and only the 40 Mpg vehicle was superior enough for those with the gumption to succeed in management. The feeling of smug satisfaction lasted perhaps a week, when my boss got a new 545i and trounced me on the highway'"
I think it might be allowed to store the PIN if its encrypted somehow. My card was replaced recently due to a breach at a VISA vendor and in the letter my bank specified that the leaked information contained the PIN in encrypted form only.
You can replace your standard curbside mailbox with a USPO-approved locking mailboxes for a couple hundred dollars. I used to live in an area that had a lot of mail theft and they were constantly encouraging people to upgrade their boxes. At least one of the mail thieves even went as far as to buy an old USPO mail truck for making the rounds.
I for one welcome the change. I depise the trend of naming software Gnome* just because its a Gnome application (K*, etc). Its a totally intractable approach to naming, not to mention redundant. And "GnomeMeeting" sounds like event planning software for mythical creatures that live in peoples' gardens. At least Ekiga is not at risk of being confounded for something that its not.
;).
Uniqueness is of huge importance for visibilty in text search engines also, i.e., google. When applications are given totally generic names and/or non-unique names, its impossible to find relevant information (e.g. searching for "software phone" vs searching for "ekiga").
As for the neophytes, well they can be dealt with -- descriptive text, tool tips, intelligent menu categorization, help systems. That is what HCI standards are for. In my experience newbies have the most difficulty with the organization of information within applications, not in determining which application to use for what purpose. Worst case, the standard working vocabulary of modern english is some 150000+ words. Learning one more is not a big deal, especially if its something you plan to encounter on a regular basis.
With respect to pronounciation, given my en-US centrism, its probably a unilateral opinion anyways so I won't comment
watermarking, annotations, making buttons... etc. typical applications requiring batch drawing.
If one considers the parametric space of affine transformations (translation, scaling, etc) relating the image of a function to itself, generally what we refer to as self-similar patterns, i.e. those which are *obviously* self-similar (by visual inspection; the Koch curve or a cantor set for example) the pattern can be described by a small collection of points in this space.
Processes such as brownian motion and stock market data have a more weak form of self-similarity. These phenomena occupy contiguous volumes, possibly infinite, in affine parameter space. The relation to this volume is like that of a probability density function. The result is that under *some* affine transformations of the data it will still retain its statistical properties like its distribution of significant peaks and valleys (i.e. its order statistics). In the case of the stock market data, dilation of the time scale is an affine transformation, but its not necessarily an invarient one for any amount of dilation (though it stands to reason that there are probably many amounts which do work).
1D Brownian motion is described by a "fuzzy plane" in a (translation, dilation, scaling) space. The nature of the volume depends on the Hurst exponent of the noise process.
Interestingly the affine parameter volume can be approximately recovered (sampled) by analysing the wavelet transform of the data. In this manner, any signal can be analyzed for its self-similarity properties (but this does not mean that one will find anything interesting, or that the analysis is necessarily sufficient for the complexity of the data, etc).
At least with Python one is forced to learn proper indentation on day one.
Two words. Laptop pants. Ouick, somebody call Steve Jobs! Its not too lata to put the G5 in the macbook!
That's silly. The aisle of an airplane is not nearly wide enough to deliver a roundhouse kick.
Maybe you should read that report again... while the dollar contributions of the US are large, relative to GNP the US is one of the most stingy nations in the world.
In addition to considerations of amperage, resistence, etc there is the issue of the frequency of oscillation in AC -- the periodicity of the signal can interfere with or disrupt the timing / neural control over the heart muscle causing a heart attack.
If you read a New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare (or similar) they put notes explaining the terminology and context of unusual words/phrases on every opposing page. Eventually it becomes intuitive which is when it becomes truely amusing to read. Interestingly, some words today have meanings almost totally opposite of their original meanings, but if you look at the word roots and consider the original meaning, it actually makes more sense.
I am not a cryptologist but it occurs to me that MLS noise (maximum length subsquence) would be a decent candidate for watermarking an audio file. Its basically a sort of white noise process with special algebraic properties that are not destroyed by filtering.
This is seems to be a popular meme about self-driving cars. But does it really have any basis in fact? As far as I can tell, not really -- and there are plenty of counter-examples. For example, there are lots of computer controlled electronics used in the medical industry, but there is no liability crisis there. Why not? Because they have a standards process (and one which is more rigorous than for consumer electronics & software). If their device meets the standard and the company has put in a good faith effort for quality control and engineering process (and a well documented one), then there is no liability when a patient dies, regardless of the reason. If the performance is not good enough, then we take up the issue with the standards board. So, why should it be any different for automobile manufacturers?
There is also an increasing trend among some distributors / manufacturers of publishing false whole sale prices for the purpose of helping retailers fight downward price pressure. (Generally this is with respect to more expensive items than groceries...)
The funny thing is, I happen to know people who work in the wine production industry, and I can tell you that this mumbo-jumbo isn't far off from how wine chemistry actually works. They put all sorts of bizarre and random junk in wine, and not always with clear reasons for doing so.
Note that the wine industry has also lobbied heavily to obtain exemption from ingredient labeling requirements which almost every other product is subject to. They don't want you to know what is in there...
After a certain point, it's all placebo.
However some scientific studies have found that placebos can have the same effects as the real deal... its one of the great mysteries of the human bodi. So where does that leave us? Maybe it really *does* enhance the flavor to know that its an expensive wine. Maybe its even worth it!
My only complaint is that I think 1 gb of storage is pretty weak. Gmail is giving away more than double that, and many inexpensive webhosts have a lot more. Storage should be cheap.
Yeah. Marketing. Hold'em is a fast game. Its been marketed into ubiquity because its the most profitable type of poker game that a casino can run.