Guess what, there is going to be a major, devastating earthquake in California very soon. Though I'm pretty much guaranteed to be right, should I expect everyone to leave CA until it happens?
Fuck, no. I'd also like all the Texans possible to go to CA until after it's over.
My immediate reaction is to say, "Ha! Science, bitches: It works!" and laugh at the officials who denounced the prediction. However, the very fact that the prediction was *so* precise, saying that the devastation would strike on a certain day, seems particularly irresponsible.
My thoughts go to those hurt in this incident. As the official says, though, it's not a habit to plan for stuff like this---perhaps it should become so.
But if they are really testing ICBM's (i.e. not expecting something to reach orbit) they would be a fool to announce it before hand.
They'd be fools to not announce it beforehand. You do not go launching major rockets of any sort, young man, unless people are warned. Otherwise, you run the risk of being very swiftly annihilated.
Think of the difference between the constant g (9.8m/s^2) and the constant G (6.67e-11 m^3/(kg * s^2)). Both refer to the same phenomenon (gravity) but at different scales.
Those are two entirely different constants (OK, both have to do with "gravity", and have Gees of some sort for their abbreviations). They're of totally different dimensions. One (G) is "universal" in a true sense; the other and can be calculated using G, but refers to something entirely different. They're in no way different degrees of the same thing.
gardyloo says that we must certainly look for other evidence, and then he said that it's a strawman argument to claim that we won't look at this evidence on its own merits, which is of course, self-contradicting.
It seems that if we're honest, and take this one case on its own merit without trying to fit it into an over-arching evolutionary paradigm, then this one specific case lends itself well to the so-called Creationist model, which predicts the sudden appearance of a fully-formed animal type.
It seems that if we're honest, we'd certainly try to look for precursors to the octopoid fossil just found, and not go all Harun Yahya on everyone's ass.
Now, few of us will be willing to look at this evidence on its own merits [...]
*cough* Oh, good, this phrase usually indicates a straw-man argument, or a woe-are-we-the-set-upon argument. Go peddle this tripe elsewhere.
Most mathematicians think new species evolution is bunk, the number just DONT ADD UP.
Oh, good. Someone who's drunk the I.D. Kool-Aid. Cite that source (and not Demski, please; if he produces any valid mathematics I'll be wonderfully surprised given his history) or shut the hell up.
But as these rulings do not necessarily mean, as Facebook announced in a press release, that the courts have endorsed Facebook 'as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication.'
isn't even a complete sentence, maybe there was a thought in there to make the disparate bits agree. I wouldn't bet on it, though:) If the first 'as' was taken out, then perhaps that's what the original story submitter meant, though "do not necessarily mean" is an awfully wiggly way to get out of making cogent statements of one's own.
And yet, if you research the legend even on the Wikipedia page you link to, you find out that the way Kennedy used the phrase is perfectly fine, non-idiomatic, and the people of Berlin loved it. The story is interesting, not as an illustration of bad background research by a foreigner, but as an example of a (literal) urban legend.
I don't think this can be examined without language issues. Lojban attempts to make a parsable constructed language (currently undergoing a few grammar issues, but mostly locked down). As we get closer to the Singularity, with regards to infant-style general AI and perhaps even transhuman implants (thought detector or such), we'll see perhaps a myriad of unambiguous languages.
Your cautiousness and pragmatism in the first two sentences was noted and admired. Then you used the word Singularity in the Vinge sense, and my woo-detector pegged.
What if there were a way to shrink the effective size of the plates before pulling them back?
This would be similar to the way ducks paddle--the feet fold up for the forward stroke, then open up for the back stroke.
Interesting idea. Unfortunately, the situations are quite different: the Casimir effect occurs in a field which can be roughly described by a potential gradient (which means, among other things, that the field is _conservative_ over most conditions of non-relativistic movements); each position/size/orientation of the plate is a state function, and there's no way to get from one state to another without doing the same amount of work.
The ducks' feet case occurs in a flow regime (referring to the fluids through which they move) governed by high Reynold's numbers. This means that the motion is dissipative, and fluid turbulence carries fluid energy and entropy away from the duck's feet. The foot position and shape is *not* describable by a state function, and the motion is *not* conservative (it's analogous to a ratchet movement, which happens preferentially in one direction if heat can flow from the ratchet to the surroundings).
A better fluid flow analogy for the Casimir plate effect is that of a bacterium swimming. At that size, the situation is in the low Reynold's number regime, and things are very nearly reversible (a human shrunk to the size of a bacterium, or even quite a bit larger, could not make headway in one complete stroke cycle when swimming -- you'd go backwards just as much as forwards). A good exposition on this is here: http://brodylab.eng.uci.edu/~jpbrody/reynolds/lowpurcell.html.
Just attach something to the back of both these plates that will be pulled on by the plates as they try to move together. The "something" would not allow the plates to get together, but as far as my understanding goes, the plates would "perpetually" try to move together and you'd have a constant generation of energy.
All you'd have in that case is a constant (and very, _very_ small, even for large plates) force. To actually do useful work, that force has to move something through a distance (which itself would have to be very small, because the plates have to be close together). Even if that were done, you'd then have to pull the plates apart to repeat the process, and to pull them apart takes just as much work as you'd get from letting them be pulled together.
Also note that people have predicted (I'll go to a talk next week on this) that the Casimir force might be able to be reversed (that is, there's a repellent force between the plates) if the plates have certain materials properties (in this case, probably a "left-handed" electromagnetic coupling -- that is, their permeability should be negative).
Slashdot Mirror
Guess what, there is going to be a major, devastating earthquake in California very soon. Though I'm pretty much guaranteed to be right, should I expect everyone to leave CA until it happens?
Fuck, no. I'd also like all the Texans possible to go to CA until after it's over.
Anyone who can claim "horologist" as an official title earns my respect.
You cannot evacuate cities for long periods just to find out that it was a false alarm.
Perhaps not, but tell that to people who lost loved ones in the earthquake.
My immediate reaction is to say, "Ha! Science, bitches: It works!" and laugh at the officials who denounced the prediction. However, the very fact that the prediction was *so* precise, saying that the devastation would strike on a certain day, seems particularly irresponsible.
My thoughts go to those hurt in this incident. As the official says, though, it's not a habit to plan for stuff like this---perhaps it should become so.
But if they are really testing ICBM's (i.e. not expecting something to reach orbit) they would be a fool to announce it before hand.
They'd be fools to not announce it beforehand. You do not go launching major rockets of any sort, young man, unless people are warned. Otherwise, you run the risk of being very swiftly annihilated.
*slaps with rolled-up newspaper*
I will pay substantive amounts of money to have that face-stab-over-the-internet machine now.
You're just a negative nancy.
Just the sort of phrase I want to hear from a person I'm going to be stuck with in the midst of space, in cramped quarters.
Think of the difference between the constant g (9.8m/s^2) and the constant G (6.67e-11 m^3/(kg * s^2)). Both refer to the same phenomenon (gravity) but at different scales.
Those are two entirely different constants (OK, both have to do with "gravity", and have Gees of some sort for their abbreviations). They're of totally different dimensions. One (G) is "universal" in a true sense; the other and can be calculated using G, but refers to something entirely different. They're in no way different degrees of the same thing.
When one makes a distinction between so-called microevolution and macroevolution, then there's a hint that one has been absorbing far too much ID woo.
IAAP, but IANARP. Lynchings for everybody!
how much science per dollar NASA and its tax payers are getting for their effort.
Which units do you want that in? Parsnips per flimflam?
Colbert should be ashamed of himself. If some elected official put his name on some NASA component, we'd be relentlessly critical.
Fractal irony.
They'll just affix it somehow with some massive brass balls.
Mostly come at night?
gardyloo says that we must certainly look for other evidence, and then he said that it's a strawman argument to claim that we won't look at this evidence on its own merits, which is of course, self-contradicting.
Logic fail.
It seems that if we're honest, and take this one case on its own merit without trying to fit it into an over-arching evolutionary paradigm, then this one specific case lends itself well to the so-called Creationist model, which predicts the sudden appearance of a fully-formed animal type.
It seems that if we're honest, we'd certainly try to look for precursors to the octopoid fossil just found, and not go all Harun Yahya on everyone's ass.
Now, few of us will be willing to look at this evidence on its own merits [...]
*cough* Oh, good, this phrase usually indicates a straw-man argument, or a woe-are-we-the-set-upon argument. Go peddle this tripe elsewhere.
Most mathematicians think new species evolution is bunk, the number just DONT ADD UP.
Oh, good. Someone who's drunk the I.D. Kool-Aid. Cite that source (and not Demski, please; if he produces any valid mathematics I'll be wonderfully surprised given his history) or shut the hell up.
Well, since
But as these rulings do not necessarily mean, as Facebook announced in a press release, that the courts have endorsed Facebook 'as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication.'
isn't even a complete sentence, maybe there was a thought in there to make the disparate bits agree. I wouldn't bet on it, though :) If the first 'as' was taken out, then perhaps that's what the original story submitter meant, though "do not necessarily mean" is an awfully wiggly way to get out of making cogent statements of one's own.
So does 'stiffen penalties'.
But throwing money at teachers doesn't make them suddenly extremely good
It may make most of them a little better. And a little better is a lot when it comes to inspiring people to learn.
And yet, if you research the legend even on the Wikipedia page you link to, you find out that the way Kennedy used the phrase is perfectly fine, non-idiomatic, and the people of Berlin loved it. The story is interesting, not as an illustration of bad background research by a foreigner, but as an example of a (literal) urban legend.
I don't think this can be examined without language issues. Lojban attempts to make a parsable constructed language (currently undergoing a few grammar issues, but mostly locked down). As we get closer to the Singularity, with regards to infant-style general AI and perhaps even transhuman implants (thought detector or such), we'll see perhaps a myriad of unambiguous languages.
Your cautiousness and pragmatism in the first two sentences was noted and admired. Then you used the word Singularity in the Vinge sense, and my woo-detector pegged.
Interesting idea. Unfortunately, the situations are quite different: the Casimir effect occurs in a field which can be roughly described by a potential gradient (which means, among other things, that the field is _conservative_ over most conditions of non-relativistic movements); each position/size/orientation of the plate is a state function, and there's no way to get from one state to another without doing the same amount of work.
The ducks' feet case occurs in a flow regime (referring to the fluids through which they move) governed by high Reynold's numbers. This means that the motion is dissipative, and fluid turbulence carries fluid energy and entropy away from the duck's feet. The foot position and shape is *not* describable by a state function, and the motion is *not* conservative (it's analogous to a ratchet movement, which happens preferentially in one direction if heat can flow from the ratchet to the surroundings).
A better fluid flow analogy for the Casimir plate effect is that of a bacterium swimming. At that size, the situation is in the low Reynold's number regime, and things are very nearly reversible (a human shrunk to the size of a bacterium, or even quite a bit larger, could not make headway in one complete stroke cycle when swimming -- you'd go backwards just as much as forwards). A good exposition on this is here: http://brodylab.eng.uci.edu/~jpbrody/reynolds/lowpurcell.html.
Yes. But the problem is that there's no force gradient in that case, and the floor will suck just as much as your vacuum nozzle :)
Just attach something to the back of both these plates that will be pulled on by the plates as they try to move together. The "something" would not allow the plates to get together, but as far as my understanding goes, the plates would "perpetually" try to move together and you'd have a constant generation of energy.
All you'd have in that case is a constant (and very, _very_ small, even for large plates) force. To actually do useful work, that force has to move something through a distance (which itself would have to be very small, because the plates have to be close together). Even if that were done, you'd then have to pull the plates apart to repeat the process, and to pull them apart takes just as much work as you'd get from letting them be pulled together.
Also note that people have predicted (I'll go to a talk next week on this) that the Casimir force might be able to be reversed (that is, there's a repellent force between the plates) if the plates have certain materials properties (in this case, probably a "left-handed" electromagnetic coupling -- that is, their permeability should be negative).