According to the article, they use a die made of quartz. Any materials science whizzes out there know how well 10nm-wide quartz features hold up under compression and heat?
I'd assume it doesn't take much heat to melt a 10nm-wide strip of silicon. Then again, it likely wouldn't take much to damage quartz at that size, either. And how well would the heat dissipate?
Take note of that third section: no nasty chemicals, they claim. If their claim holds, a company using this tech could make a lot of political capital from it.
Natural questions arise: just how dirty is the current process? Will the details of the method really prove to be as clean as they say?
Thing is, he did get a counteroffer, so #3 never happened. Indeed, if #3 had happened, this guy would've taken the other job already, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.:-)
There are two ways I can see this having played out in your current employer's mind.
1. Crap. This one's leaving, but I gotta keep him here for now. I'll give him a raise, get him to finish the project, and see what happens later.
2. This is what I get for not paying attention to pay rates enough. This guy really is worth more than he's getting to me; after all, I was paying him more before the dotcom bust. Maybe I'll offer him the raise he deserves.
Obviously, #1 implies your employer sees you as a merc for hire. #2 means your employer actually cares. Believe me, I've been around enough to know that #2 is practically worth working for at your current pay (assuming it's enough to live on).
You know your employer better than I do. The question is, do you think your employer cares about you and your career? If so, I'd take the counteroffer, and just to make your loyalty clear, work some longer hours for a while to show how much you appreciate it. If you think #1 is closer to the case, decline politely and enjoy your new job.
The day/night cycle isn't much of a problem on Mars, or shouldn't be at least. A Martian day is almost exactly one Earth day - 24 hours, 25 minutes (I think).
If we should meet menacing aliens in the future, I think it would behoove us to begin consuming all sorts of synthetic preservatives, MSG, tarry cigarettes, etc., so as to taste as bad as possible. Let us learn from the stinkbugs!
I would expect the US, China, Europe, Japan, India, and maybe others to each have their own "colonies" on Mars, for a while. But then cultural trends would start pushing these colonies to band together, and eventually declare independence from any and all Earth nations. They'd have much more in common with each other than each colony would have with its mother nation, after all (2/5 gravity, food scarcity, etc.).
Then there's the communications gap. Absolute minimum of, I forget, 20 minutes round trip to get a response from Earth? Going up to 40 minutes? Not a huuuge gap, but it's there.
The main thing tying Martian colonies to Earth would be dependence on resources and infrastructure - heavy machinery, for instance - until the means exists to produce it locally. But that would just be a matter of time.
In short, humans, by nature, will band together where convenient, and declare independence when convenient as well.
It's even better for hard drive space, which doubles every 12 months. I bought a 100Gb drive the other day for ~US$200. That's about 10^12 bits. Every ten years, that exponent grows by 3, which means the entire universe will fit on an affordable hard drive in 260 years.
I agree with this, as well as the parent. Naturally, you wouldn't get the experience, and you might about as strong a resemblance as identical twins do now (perhaps less, due to different environment).
Thing is, you just know someone would want to do it. It'd be an interesting gedanken. What if you cloned fifty Bobby Fischers, and then raised them in households scattered all over the country? (Or pick your own candidate.) Would they all be like the original to some extent? Or would you get some that were just completely different? Just how much does Nature play into these things?
This feels like the sort of thing Philip K. Dick would write about. Worried about that extinct species? Just save a specimen in a jar; we can bring it back later.
What are the limits? Could someone theoretically clone Abraham Lincoln from his remains?
Well that sucks. Now, I like the DLLs, since if your system used only XP stuff, the shared DLLs keep the code from taking up even more space.
If Microsoft were really on the ball about this, they'd publish the APIs to their DLLs, and allow independent developers to then use those DLLs, or supply competing DLLs, etc. Then the consumer would truly have options when it comes to modularity. Naturally this would deflate Microsoft's revenue like a busted balloon, but that's another story.
AotC had an automatic audience? So did Spider-Man. He's been in comics for longer than I've been alive.
As for AotC opening in mid-week, one could argue that if it had opened on Friday like Spider-Man, everyone who ended up seeing it Wed or Thu would've seen it on Fri or Sat, and AotC's opening would've been much more spectacular.
Even so, I think it would've been an uphill battle for Spider-Man, and I'm thrilled that it did as well as it did. In fact, it kicked major ass.
Our village elders agree with you. I'd say more, but we're on a hunt for witches and evil spirits right now, and the others tend to get suspicious if I don't join in...
Don't forget the hidden nozzles. Don't like that proposal Ted came up with at the board meeting? Press a button, and give him an instant dose of chlorine...
Nowadays, the most likely experiment students would grasp would be the effects of beer.
Seriously though... Anyone who went to UT Austin and took physics would likely have heard of Prof. Rory Coker and his Physics Circus. All sorts of beautiful experiments there. Among them was a demonstration of airflow. Put a three-foot high glass cylinder, open at both ends, over the top of a candle, the cylinder being flat on the table so no air gets in that way. The candle will go out, even though the top is still open. Do it the same way, and slip a simple piece of cardboard into the top of the cylinder, making an "outflow" and an "inflow". Even though the cardboard is maybe six inches long, it's enough to keep the candle from going out.
Then there's the experiment where Coker gets on a bed of nails and has his assistant bust cement blocks on a piece of plywood on his stomach.
Speaking of math, the depiction of the Mandlebrot Set is definitely within the reach of students. I wrote a program doing this in Turbo Pascal as a teenager. (Granted, I had help from Turbo Technix Magazine...) Until then, no one realized how complicated a form could arise from an exceedingly simple iterative equation.
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Well, I'm a happy camper. Full coverage until I'm age 85, just $3/month. My insurer? matrix342.
According to the article, they use a die made of quartz. Any materials science whizzes out there know how well 10nm-wide quartz features hold up under compression and heat?
I'd assume it doesn't take much heat to melt a 10nm-wide strip of silicon. Then again, it likely wouldn't take much to damage quartz at that size, either. And how well would the heat dissipate?
Take note of that third section: no nasty chemicals, they claim. If their claim holds, a company using this tech could make a lot of political capital from it.
Natural questions arise: just how dirty is the current process? Will the details of the method really prove to be as clean as they say?
Sure, their frontpage looks great and all, but look at the location!
Thing is, he did get a counteroffer, so #3 never happened. Indeed, if #3 had happened, this guy would've taken the other job already, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. :-)
There are two ways I can see this having played out in your current employer's mind.
1. Crap. This one's leaving, but I gotta keep him here for now. I'll give him a raise, get him to finish the project, and see what happens later.
2. This is what I get for not paying attention to pay rates enough. This guy really is worth more than he's getting to me; after all, I was paying him more before the dotcom bust. Maybe I'll offer him the raise he deserves.
Obviously, #1 implies your employer sees you as a merc for hire. #2 means your employer actually cares. Believe me, I've been around enough to know that #2 is practically worth working for at your current pay (assuming it's enough to live on).
You know your employer better than I do. The question is, do you think your employer cares about you and your career? If so, I'd take the counteroffer, and just to make your loyalty clear, work some longer hours for a while to show how much you appreciate it. If you think #1 is closer to the case, decline politely and enjoy your new job.
The day/night cycle isn't much of a problem on Mars, or shouldn't be at least. A Martian day is almost exactly one Earth day - 24 hours, 25 minutes (I think).
If we should meet menacing aliens in the future, I think it would behoove us to begin consuming all sorts of synthetic preservatives, MSG, tarry cigarettes, etc., so as to taste as bad as possible. Let us learn from the stinkbugs!
I would expect the US, China, Europe, Japan, India, and maybe others to each have their own "colonies" on Mars, for a while. But then cultural trends would start pushing these colonies to band together, and eventually declare independence from any and all Earth nations. They'd have much more in common with each other than each colony would have with its mother nation, after all (2/5 gravity, food scarcity, etc.).
Then there's the communications gap. Absolute minimum of, I forget, 20 minutes round trip to get a response from Earth? Going up to 40 minutes? Not a huuuge gap, but it's there.
The main thing tying Martian colonies to Earth would be dependence on resources and infrastructure - heavy machinery, for instance - until the means exists to produce it locally. But that would just be a matter of time.
In short, humans, by nature, will band together where convenient, and declare independence when convenient as well.
From what I hear, the Palomar system is just a bunch of trailer parks anyway.
It's even better for hard drive space, which doubles every 12 months. I bought a 100Gb drive the other day for ~US$200. That's about 10^12 bits. Every ten years, that exponent grows by 3, which means the entire universe will fit on an affordable hard drive in 260 years.
According to Planck, 10^43 FPS. Experts say this is the absolute maximum, but whadda they know?
And by that time, Windows will require several million galaxies' worth of bits to run.
Don't even think about asking for the install disks.
I agree with this, as well as the parent. Naturally, you wouldn't get the experience, and you might about as strong a resemblance as identical twins do now (perhaps less, due to different environment).
Thing is, you just know someone would want to do it. It'd be an interesting gedanken. What if you cloned fifty Bobby Fischers, and then raised them in households scattered all over the country? (Or pick your own candidate.) Would they all be like the original to some extent? Or would you get some that were just completely different? Just how much does Nature play into these things?
This feels like the sort of thing Philip K. Dick would write about. Worried about that extinct species? Just save a specimen in a jar; we can bring it back later.
What are the limits? Could someone theoretically clone Abraham Lincoln from his remains?
Well that sucks. Now, I like the DLLs, since if your system used only XP stuff, the shared DLLs keep the code from taking up even more space.
If Microsoft were really on the ball about this, they'd publish the APIs to their DLLs, and allow independent developers to then use those DLLs, or supply competing DLLs, etc. Then the consumer would truly have options when it comes to modularity. Naturally this would deflate Microsoft's revenue like a busted balloon, but that's another story.
Ah yes. This from the "laptop robots show the darnedest things" department.
In fact, you could dress it up in a little mini trenchcoat and have it roll through the park, flashing people. Technological progress at work.
It means Wolfram has been killed in a duel by now...
AotC had an automatic audience? So did Spider-Man. He's been in comics for longer than I've been alive.
As for AotC opening in mid-week, one could argue that if it had opened on Friday like Spider-Man, everyone who ended up seeing it Wed or Thu would've seen it on Fri or Sat, and AotC's opening would've been much more spectacular.
Even so, I think it would've been an uphill battle for Spider-Man, and I'm thrilled that it did as well as it did. In fact, it kicked major ass.
Ruh? Doom -was- in space. (Well, a Martian moon, but that's practically the same thing in this case.)
Why is it so essential to try to analyze something that should just be left alone.
You're new to the Internet, aren'tcha.
Our village elders agree with you. I'd say more, but we're on a hunt for witches and evil spirits right now, and the others tend to get suspicious if I don't join in...
Don't forget the hidden nozzles. Don't like that proposal Ted came up with at the board meeting? Press a button, and give him an instant dose of chlorine...
Nowadays, the most likely experiment students would grasp would be the effects of beer.
Seriously though... Anyone who went to UT Austin and took physics would likely have heard of Prof. Rory Coker and his Physics Circus. All sorts of beautiful experiments there. Among them was a demonstration of airflow. Put a three-foot high glass cylinder, open at both ends, over the top of a candle, the cylinder being flat on the table so no air gets in that way. The candle will go out, even though the top is still open. Do it the same way, and slip a simple piece of cardboard into the top of the cylinder, making an "outflow" and an "inflow". Even though the cardboard is maybe six inches long, it's enough to keep the candle from going out.
Then there's the experiment where Coker gets on a bed of nails and has his assistant bust cement blocks on a piece of plywood on his stomach.
Speaking of math, the depiction of the Mandlebrot Set is definitely within the reach of students. I wrote a program doing this in Turbo Pascal as a teenager. (Granted, I had help from Turbo Technix Magazine...) Until then, no one realized how complicated a form could arise from an exceedingly simple iterative equation.