Massively has run another wrap-up article on the announcement:
http://www.massively.com/2009/08/18/ccp-games-reveals-new-eve-online-console-mmo-dust-514/
Details on how exactly this will impact 0.0 soverignty are scarce and as usually happens with the EVE forum when big announcements occur, people are assuming the worst. It's an ambitious plan that has the potential to extend EVE into the console market but there's a lot that could go wrong with it. If past experience is anything to go by though, CCP are certainly capable of doing the "impossible".
As a writer, I will agree that something needs to be done about this. I was gutted the first time I saw an article of mine copy-pasted on a dozen blogs. Now that it happens every week, I've gotten used to it. The most irritating part is that often when looking for an old article I've done, the scrape sites come up higher on google than my actual article.
However, getting the advertisers to hand over a portion of the revenue could do more harm than good by legitimising the process of webscraping (which is, as someone above put it, a way to get "money for nothing"). Even if they hand over all the revenue, there will always be alternate advertisers for them to switch to. I wouldn't like to see my articles reprinted elsewhere with porn ads and flashing "YOU HAVE WON" scams slapped all over it.
EVE was released before WoW. Interestingly, the rate at which players join the game continued increasing at pace all the way through WoW's launch and onward, showing they targetted completely different target demographics.
For your information, Verone is one of the most well-known pirates of all time. He's been CEO of Veto corp for years and if you haven't heard of them you've probably been living under a rock in high security space.
In EVE, Verone is king of the pirates.
It's not a false premise that people want to PvP. I think you've gotten things a little backward. It's not that games should cater for a certain type of player, it's that the developers should make a game the way they want it and only players who are interested in that will sign up. EVE Online is a good example of this, where they decided to make a PvP based MMO based on their experiences in Ultima Online and not what would bring in the most players. They've stuck to that core design ethos all the way through development and although EVE is still considered a niche MMO, it has over 220,000 active accounts.
Additionally, the market for PvP-based MMOs has increaed significantly in the past few years and the open-world PvP system is one of Age of Conan's major selling points. A lot of people WANT a good PvP-based fantasy MMO whether you like PvP or not. If you don't like it, you don't have to play PvP-based MMOs.
I wrote that article:D.
I've always wanted to be slashdotted.
I think the major downfall of PvP-based MMOs is the opt-in system that they tend to choose. Being able to choose not to play in a PvP server creates something an old EVE player once told me about called the cowboy effect. You end up with a server full of cowboys and nobody to play the indians. That is, the only people in the PvP servers are predators and they have no prey.
The idea of being able to completely overwhelm someone who's not prepared for PvP may seem sadistic but in reality it's very good for a game. As long as a player has the option to take appropriate steps to prevent being killed, it's entirely his fault if he's killed. Say you're ganked while mining in EVE - it was your fault that you weren't checking the scanner. In Age of Conan, it'd be like being killed by a hidden player's stealth attack while questing when you could have avoided it by moving around, using the search ability or using aoe abilities to unhide them.
Age of Conan sort of avoids the issue by making pvp open everywhere and forcing players to be vulnerable while questing or grinding. Because everyone can be caught unawares when questing or fighting monsters, everyone can be both predator or prey depending on momentary circumstances. It's and odd system that works because of the hide ability and because a PvP character build is essentially the same as a PvE build. Your character that's questing can turn around and start killing someone with no problem if the need arises. It becomes less about what you're prepared for and more about what you're doing at the moment an attacker comes into play.
Oops, that didn't post correctly:
As a point of fact, the forum thread linked in the article is being heavily moderated. An unmoderated version can be found here:
http://www.eve-search.com/index.dxd?thread=526462.
Doom three has to be worked on a lot because the "leaked" alpha got a bad reception compared to the Half Life Two "leaked" alpha. They claimed the Doom three leaked alpha was on medium settings, so I assume they now have to work very hard to get it to a standard where the highest setting at the moment are medium settings in the game.
Most homes did have access to broadband by 1999 in the UK, with most being defined as more than 50%. Some places int eh Ukstill don't have broadband (I know, I live in one. They are 100m away but refuse to go further until 2010), but the vast majority now do.
As for Duke Nukem Forever. That'll never come out and we know it ^^
This is one story I would have to say is getting a lot of money to the hosters. The advertising on that webpage takes up almost as much room as the article. The text body of the article was even interrupted by an advertisement for a something (a DVD player, I think) which has absolutely nothing to do with the news story and a Travel agency's website popped up in the background.
I know that's a little off topic, but it should be taken into consideration when articles are approved. I'm sure an alternate place reporting the same thing could have been found if enough effort had gone into it.
ALso, I noticed on the site they said: "Correction: AP erred in reporting FAA approval; agency still considering teams' applications"
I'm just pointing it out because I thought it would be at least marginally relevant.
Laugh if you will, but keep this in mind as you titter: I'm a child. I have my entire life to clear up on things like this. You think they teach this kind of stuff to children? No way. I had to gather what I could from any place I can, which isn't easy. When you were a child, you probably didn't even know what half of those words meant and after you succumb to whatever form of death awaits you, I'll be here... stating a corrected quantum theory.
Oh, actually, I notice what you mean there. ARGH, I wrote in a vacuum there is no energy and what I meant to write was matter, not energy. In a perfect vacuum there's no matter, not no energy.
I'm not the best at phrasing things. If you stopped reading there, you made a big mistake. I went on to explain that een a perfect vacuum has "zero point" energy, known by many names. One of these names is "Vacuum energy" though that encompases more than jsut the lower level of zero point energy.
Your impatience has cost you what might possibly have been a good read.
"Space in finite, but has not borders and is expanding."
Think in terms of energy levels. If we take a perfect vacuum, a space in which nothing exists, there is no energy. Of course, even space isn't a perfect vacuum. Such a vacuum would be expected to be found somehwere outside the measurable distance of the universe. "Beyond the edge," as it were. Thinking in terms of energy levels, we can percieve matter to be the highest energy level. Matter being thought of as energy condensed and slowed to a stable coactive form is not a new idea, but it has been one of the most important principals of Quantum Phyiscs on such issues.
Taking this as true, matter cannot exist as an energy level without energy levels bneath it being full, otherwise the matter would drop down to the lower energy level and release a tremendous ammount of energy in the process. This again, is not that new of a way of thinking. "Zero point" energy, as it is called, is the lowest order of energy. It has been proposed that if we could tap into zero point energy, we could effectively get limitless energy for free, zero point energy being essentially everywhere since if there is a place for anything to exist, that place must have energy levels higher than the zero point and thus the zero point energy levels must be there. Even in a total vacuum, zero point energy exists. However, the potential of "mining" zero point energy is not in the energy you get yourself from removing it. Indeed, it would probably require a tremendous input of power in order to remove zero point energy from an area of space. The theoretical potential which exists for mning zero point energy is the fact that once it is removed, all energy levels above it must drop to fill in the space. Thus, if you took some matter and in the space in which the matter existed, mined out the zero point energy, the matter would convert into a lower energy form than matter, having no energy level to be based on as matter itself. This would, in essence, convert the matter to energy, releasing a tremendous ammount of energy. It is said that the resulting explosion from removing a small potion of zero point energy from matter filled space would make the largest nuke look like a firecracker.
This all said, we have to consider what exists at the "edge" of the universe. With amtter existing based on higher energy levels in places and no matter existing in others, it is reasonable to assume that the energy levels are concentrated towards some kind of central point and thus fade, the further you get from that point. The edge of the universe would then be an area which has few higher energy levels, eventually fading out into a point of having not even zero point energy. This point of not having zero point energy would result in a lack of space existing in the sense that we know it, making a final edge to the expanse of the universe. However, any matter approaching this edge would be converted to energy slowly as it passes the point where there is no energy level below matter in order that the amtter can remain matter. This means we can't actually send matter to the edge of the universe since it is of too high an energy order.
The energy levels diffusing and expanding from the central point of highest energy level (the big bang point, if you like) to lower points of lower energy levels, which is essentially, the universe expanding.
It's all just a theory of mine though.. pieced together from this and that. It works right in my head and I'll probably change it some time if I find out more on the subject.
NASA have been playing pass the parcel with the blame for a while, referring accident reports and probability assessments of things going wrong from one committee, to a sub-committee to the next committee and to independant researchers in order to try to prove that their incompetance was not the cause of any wrongdoings. So far, their attempts to blame the government of the USA for causing safety problems by underfunding the project and pressing for results too soon, just so that they could have something to their name (much like the first man on the moon thing) have failed. The US Government will never accept that they were the cause of any safety issues, directly or indirectly, and I can say with complete certainty that the citizens of that huge country won't see how underfunding and budget cuts can lead to problems with safety.
"Safety First, as it seems," applies only when it's affordable to do so.
They need to make sure that word gets around that a certain believable group of people to take the blame, and of course, having exhausted all other options and O'Keefe wanting to keep his nice highly paid job, there was but one option... Go back and admit that it was their Safety Advisory Council's incompetance which caused the problems in safety. The Council would obviously be reluctant to admit that it was their fault and as such never have, but I belive O'Keefe has used this opportunity to bolster the group into resignation, hinting at the possiblity of them having been the cause. This is further indicated by the fact that strong review is going into the old council's contract and practices.
Of course, the press release only says that they are resigning, not what from. They mya still be employees of NASA but be resigning from their post on the Council in order that after review, perhaps another be set up that is mroe to O'Keefe's liking. Motives, I am unsure of, but it seems that the council did have problems in putting safety before cost consideration of the dafety procedure implementation. Perhaps a new council who are more willing to conisder the issue of safety as of the utmost importance could help, but only after stringent review of the practices, methods and objectives of the old Council.
This is quite interesting. It can detect a range of tempratures up to 1000 degrees centigrade, but the article doesn't mention how low it goes or how low it can go without suffering permanant structural damage, and also doesn't mention o fit can tolerate going from hot to cold. In actuality, how robust is this thing?
But that's beside my point. I'm sure many of you will already have thought about this, but it is relevant, nonetheless. Consider medical thermometers today. They are placed in all sorts of places in order to get a reading of external temperature, but for early detection of viruses (characterised by an increase in body temperature as the body attempts to heat the virus to the point of breaking down) you need a good accurate reading of temperature and it would be more useful to be able to find internal temperature than internal temperature. The instrument would need to be sensitive aswell and a healthy range of precise temperatures needed for that specific person so a change can be detected.
With today's advancement in miniaturised technology, it would be possible to engineer these tiny thermometers, stated as being a hundredth of the size of a red blood cell, with a signal transmitter attached. Something harmless like a radio wave (although that would degrade over distance) every minute could be attached to the thermometer in order to make a tiny internal thermometer which travels in th blood stream and doesn't affect the body adversely from within, providing it is the right size and shape. In this way, everyone's temperatures could be monitored from central station in medical centres. Sound expenive, but for those hypocondriacs with money, it would both put their mind at rest and give them a better medical coverage for early dtection of things such as viral infection.
In actuality, such a device would need to obtain its energy from the blood in some way. Alcohol might not be socially acceptable (I know I don't drink) and perhaps combustion of oxygen and glucose in the blood would increase the temperature next to the thermometer, assuming this time combustion unit, transmitter and thermometer are part of the same unit. Size, as I see it, wouldn't be a problem though. The thermometer is less than a hundredth od the size of a red blood cell and the entire unit could be the same size as a red blood cell with absolutely no problem for the blood, except in the event of a blood clot.
In thinking, this could lead the way to pioneering technology in the field of medical nonotechnology. Perhaps blood clots in the future will be dealt with by tiny devices in the bloodstream. In any case, monitoring of human being's health at all times is a must have for the faroff contnuation of a good health system of the future.
Comets are as much the remnants of the formation of teh solar system as the belt is. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the belt is in face a string of comets whicha re being held in place by centripetal forces. Asteroid belts and such tend to hang around for that very reason.
It's the natural order of things. Everything is in a constant state of transition and by definition, once it reaches a more stable state, it is inclined not to leave that state, but remain in a state of stability. Thus, when the comets which reach the state of being in this belt, they are in a mroe stable state and tend to stay in it, compelled by the centripetal force to orbit regularly. Other comets which don't reach that state are more likely to collide with planets and such, since the stable belt is mainly stable due to the non-interferance of other spatial bodies such as the gravity of planets and their moons or other comets or meteors, asteroidsa and the other celestial "brik-a-brak" floating around in space.
So when they are in the belt, they tend to remain in the belt and not to collide and be subsequently absorbed by planets and such. That's why we see these belts. They have stood the test of time.
There are so many comets out there that if it weren't for these glimpses into the huge belts that lie in and outside of our solar system, we could nearly assume that the comets are as dense everywhere. Of course, that's not true because planets and moons invariably have gravity which attracts them, which is why you'll see quite a large number of craters on planets and very few regular comets which come close to them.
Maybe that's why it's such a big occasion for us, when a regular comet like Halley's comet. Well, that's just my 0.02 money units.
An interesting note is that many objects that hit the earth contain radioactive isotopes of carbon, which can mess with the carbon-dating technique used to date the craters. As an object of such mass and velocity to cause the destruction of the dinosaurs would vapourise on impact, covering the crater with this radioactive Carbon isotope.
There was a small mountain with a lake and trees coverign it etc somewhere that was dated as much older than the earth itself, because if the readioactive Carbon caused by such a collision. Actually, that radioactive carbon is what heats the lake: It's a regular paradise:)
On the BBC website, I came across some more interesting data on the Wooly Rhino: Wooly Rhino Evidence
And I found a nice artists impression of the creature here: Wooly Rhino Picture
From the pictures, the central horn does seem quite unicornesque. Perhaps low-burried skeletons of it did spawn the legends and superstitions. Since the Unicorn was a very prominent religious icon not too long ago, it is also feasable that the Wooly Rhino may have had an influence in some major world religions.
When reading up on the atomic clock on this site, I read mention aobut the mercury ion clock which would be, when finished, 1000 times more accurate than the standard caesium atomic clock: http://whyfiles.org/078time/2.html
More competition for the new laser-clock, but at 1008 Billion signals per second, I see a major advantage in his laser-research.
Peter Delfyett's area of focus is "increasing the speed of fiber-optic systems" because, according to his research, in the current fibre-optic system:
"beams from several separate lasers, each costing about $1,000, send light wavelengths at the same speed at the same time down the line and the total speed is calculated by multiplying the number of wavelengths by their pulse rates."
Delfyette's current area of research led him to use a "mode-lock laser". This is used to "control the timing and the number of wavelengths that are simultaneously generated"
If you can't see where I'm going with this, think about fibre-optic communications, particularly Fibre-Optic Broadband. This new system can generate 1008 Billion signals per second, each signal having the ability to carry one digital bit, and all this from just one laser, instead of many expensive, bulky convergance lasers. The implications of Peter's new laser-research include the fact that if you had a single fibre-optic fibre for broadband internet access, it would give you a maximum download speed of 120162.9638671875 Megabytes per second, unless I'm mistaken which I could be because my mathematics isn't the best. At any rate, it's much faster than today's fibre-optic broadband connections. Also, since the fibre-optic lines themselves need not be changed, only new laser-systems installed, this technology could be implemented into all current major fibre-optic networks.
I can see Peter's research coming in very handy in the future of land-based communications.
What environment was this shearing done in and was the aluminium used pure? If it was done in a non-sterile environment, acidic particulates could have reacted with the momomolecular aluminium sheet. Assuming the alumininum was pure, they should have left a control which is a polymolecular block of the element, left in the shearing environment. That way they could check the top layer of the control and if any changes had occured, the top momomolecular layer, the experiement would have been invalid because a change would ahve occured in the momomolecular sheet.
Aluminium is quite reactive so was an inert gas placed over the sample as it was sheared?... Otherwise it may have reacted or oxidised. It would require very little contamination to ruin the sheet since it is only one molecule thick.
I know this is late and nobody will probably read this, but I can't believe nobody mentioned this:
It has shrunk by 80% in the last century, overall. But several years ago, the dormant volcano (Mount Kilimanjaro) erupted. I'd say that did more of the ice-melting than a slow increase in heat due to natural waxing and waning of polar regions in the long term, wouldn't you?
Enough about the male-only genetic engineering... Is the next step not to make it possible to genetically engineer postive female-only offspring every time? In this way, the technique could be applied to endangered species, resulting in a vast increase in repopulation rates. If the technology can make a speciaes extinct, so too can it bring a species fromt eh brink of extinction.
Slashdot Mirror
Massively has run another wrap-up article on the announcement: http://www.massively.com/2009/08/18/ccp-games-reveals-new-eve-online-console-mmo-dust-514/ Details on how exactly this will impact 0.0 soverignty are scarce and as usually happens with the EVE forum when big announcements occur, people are assuming the worst. It's an ambitious plan that has the potential to extend EVE into the console market but there's a lot that could go wrong with it. If past experience is anything to go by though, CCP are certainly capable of doing the "impossible".
As a writer, I will agree that something needs to be done about this. I was gutted the first time I saw an article of mine copy-pasted on a dozen blogs. Now that it happens every week, I've gotten used to it. The most irritating part is that often when looking for an old article I've done, the scrape sites come up higher on google than my actual article. However, getting the advertisers to hand over a portion of the revenue could do more harm than good by legitimising the process of webscraping (which is, as someone above put it, a way to get "money for nothing"). Even if they hand over all the revenue, there will always be alternate advertisers for them to switch to. I wouldn't like to see my articles reprinted elsewhere with porn ads and flashing "YOU HAVE WON" scams slapped all over it.
EVE was released before WoW. Interestingly, the rate at which players join the game continued increasing at pace all the way through WoW's launch and onward, showing they targetted completely different target demographics.
For your information, Verone is one of the most well-known pirates of all time. He's been CEO of Veto corp for years and if you haven't heard of them you've probably been living under a rock in high security space. In EVE, Verone is king of the pirates.
It's not a false premise that people want to PvP. I think you've gotten things a little backward. It's not that games should cater for a certain type of player, it's that the developers should make a game the way they want it and only players who are interested in that will sign up. EVE Online is a good example of this, where they decided to make a PvP based MMO based on their experiences in Ultima Online and not what would bring in the most players. They've stuck to that core design ethos all the way through development and although EVE is still considered a niche MMO, it has over 220,000 active accounts. Additionally, the market for PvP-based MMOs has increaed significantly in the past few years and the open-world PvP system is one of Age of Conan's major selling points. A lot of people WANT a good PvP-based fantasy MMO whether you like PvP or not. If you don't like it, you don't have to play PvP-based MMOs.
Appologies for that wall of text, my carraige returns didn't appear to work.
I wrote that article :D.
I've always wanted to be slashdotted.
I think the major downfall of PvP-based MMOs is the opt-in system that they tend to choose. Being able to choose not to play in a PvP server creates something an old EVE player once told me about called the cowboy effect. You end up with a server full of cowboys and nobody to play the indians. That is, the only people in the PvP servers are predators and they have no prey.
The idea of being able to completely overwhelm someone who's not prepared for PvP may seem sadistic but in reality it's very good for a game. As long as a player has the option to take appropriate steps to prevent being killed, it's entirely his fault if he's killed. Say you're ganked while mining in EVE - it was your fault that you weren't checking the scanner. In Age of Conan, it'd be like being killed by a hidden player's stealth attack while questing when you could have avoided it by moving around, using the search ability or using aoe abilities to unhide them.
Age of Conan sort of avoids the issue by making pvp open everywhere and forcing players to be vulnerable while questing or grinding. Because everyone can be caught unawares when questing or fighting monsters, everyone can be both predator or prey depending on momentary circumstances. It's and odd system that works because of the hide ability and because a PvP character build is essentially the same as a PvE build. Your character that's questing can turn around and start killing someone with no problem if the need arises. It becomes less about what you're prepared for and more about what you're doing at the moment an attacker comes into play.
Oops, that didn't post correctly: As a point of fact, the forum thread linked in the article is being heavily moderated. An unmoderated version can be found here: http://www.eve-search.com/index.dxd?thread=526462.
As a point of fact, the forum thread linked in the article is being heavily moderated. An unmoderated version can be found here.
Doom three has to be worked on a lot because the "leaked" alpha got a bad reception compared to the Half Life Two "leaked" alpha. They claimed the Doom three leaked alpha was on medium settings, so I assume they now have to work very hard to get it to a standard where the highest setting at the moment are medium settings in the game.
Most homes did have access to broadband by 1999 in the UK, with most being defined as more than 50%. Some places int eh Ukstill don't have broadband (I know, I live in one. They are 100m away but refuse to go further until 2010), but the vast majority now do.
As for Duke Nukem Forever. That'll never come out and we know it ^^
This is one story I would have to say is getting a lot of money to the hosters. The advertising on that webpage takes up almost as much room as the article. The text body of the article was even interrupted by an advertisement for a something (a DVD player, I think) which has absolutely nothing to do with the news story and a Travel agency's website popped up in the background.
I know that's a little off topic, but it should be taken into consideration when articles are approved. I'm sure an alternate place reporting the same thing could have been found if enough effort had gone into it.
ALso, I noticed on the site they said:
"Correction: AP erred in reporting FAA approval; agency still considering teams' applications"
I'm just pointing it out because I thought it would be at least marginally relevant.
Laugh if you will, but keep this in mind as you titter: I'm a child. I have my entire life to clear up on things like this. You think they teach this kind of stuff to children? No way. I had to gather what I could from any place I can, which isn't easy. When you were a child, you probably didn't even know what half of those words meant and after you succumb to whatever form of death awaits you, I'll be here... stating a corrected quantum theory.
Oh, actually, I notice what you mean there. ARGH, I wrote in a vacuum there is no energy and what I meant to write was matter, not energy. In a perfect vacuum there's no matter, not no energy.
my appologies, what a stupid mistake.
I'm not the best at phrasing things. If you stopped reading there, you made a big mistake. I went on to explain that een a perfect vacuum has "zero point" energy, known by many names. One of these names is "Vacuum energy" though that encompases more than jsut the lower level of zero point energy.
Your impatience has cost you what might possibly have been a good read.
"Space in finite, but has not borders and is expanding."
Think in terms of energy levels. If we take a perfect vacuum, a space in which nothing exists, there is no energy. Of course, even space isn't a perfect vacuum. Such a vacuum would be expected to be found somehwere outside the measurable distance of the universe. "Beyond the edge," as it were. Thinking in terms of energy levels, we can percieve matter to be the highest energy level. Matter being thought of as energy condensed and slowed to a stable coactive form is not a new idea, but it has been one of the most important principals of Quantum Phyiscs on such issues.
Taking this as true, matter cannot exist as an energy level without energy levels bneath it being full, otherwise the matter would drop down to the lower energy level and release a tremendous ammount of energy in the process. This again, is not that new of a way of thinking. "Zero point" energy, as it is called, is the lowest order of energy. It has been proposed that if we could tap into zero point energy, we could effectively get limitless energy for free, zero point energy being essentially everywhere since if there is a place for anything to exist, that place must have energy levels higher than the zero point and thus the zero point energy levels must be there. Even in a total vacuum, zero point energy exists. However, the potential of "mining" zero point energy is not in the energy you get yourself from removing it. Indeed, it would probably require a tremendous input of power in order to remove zero point energy from an area of space. The theoretical potential which exists for mning zero point energy is the fact that once it is removed, all energy levels above it must drop to fill in the space. Thus, if you took some matter and in the space in which the matter existed, mined out the zero point energy, the matter would convert into a lower energy form than matter, having no energy level to be based on as matter itself. This would, in essence, convert the matter to energy, releasing a tremendous ammount of energy. It is said that the resulting explosion from removing a small potion of zero point energy from matter filled space would make the largest nuke look like a firecracker.
This all said, we have to consider what exists at the "edge" of the universe. With amtter existing based on higher energy levels in places and no matter existing in others, it is reasonable to assume that the energy levels are concentrated towards some kind of central point and thus fade, the further you get from that point. The edge of the universe would then be an area which has few higher energy levels, eventually fading out into a point of having not even zero point energy. This point of not having zero point energy would result in a lack of space existing in the sense that we know it, making a final edge to the expanse of the universe. However, any matter approaching this edge would be converted to energy slowly as it passes the point where there is no energy level below matter in order that the amtter can remain matter. This means we can't actually send matter to the edge of the universe since it is of too high an energy order.
The energy levels diffusing and expanding from the central point of highest energy level (the big bang point, if you like) to lower points of lower energy levels, which is essentially, the universe expanding.
It's all just a theory of mine though.. pieced together from this and that. It works right in my head and I'll probably change it some time if I find out more on the subject.
NASA have been playing pass the parcel with the blame for a while, referring accident reports and probability assessments of things going wrong from one committee, to a sub-committee to the next committee and to independant researchers in order to try to prove that their incompetance was not the cause of any wrongdoings. So far, their attempts to blame the government of the USA for causing safety problems by underfunding the project and pressing for results too soon, just so that they could have something to their name (much like the first man on the moon thing) have failed. The US Government will never accept that they were the cause of any safety issues, directly or indirectly, and I can say with complete certainty that the citizens of that huge country won't see how underfunding and budget cuts can lead to problems with safety.
"Safety First, as it seems," applies only when it's affordable to do so.
They need to make sure that word gets around that a certain believable group of people to take the blame, and of course, having exhausted all other options and O'Keefe wanting to keep his nice highly paid job, there was but one option... Go back and admit that it was their Safety Advisory Council's incompetance which caused the problems in safety. The Council would obviously be reluctant to admit that it was their fault and as such never have, but I belive O'Keefe has used this opportunity to bolster the group into resignation, hinting at the possiblity of them having been the cause. This is further indicated by the fact that strong review is going into the old council's contract and practices.
Of course, the press release only says that they are resigning, not what from. They mya still be employees of NASA but be resigning from their post on the Council in order that after review, perhaps another be set up that is mroe to O'Keefe's liking. Motives, I am unsure of, but it seems that the council did have problems in putting safety before cost consideration of the dafety procedure implementation. Perhaps a new council who are more willing to conisder the issue of safety as of the utmost importance could help, but only after stringent review of the practices, methods and objectives of the old Council.
This is quite interesting. It can detect a range of tempratures up to 1000 degrees centigrade, but the article doesn't mention how low it goes or how low it can go without suffering permanant structural damage, and also doesn't mention o fit can tolerate going from hot to cold. In actuality, how robust is this thing?
But that's beside my point. I'm sure many of you will already have thought about this, but it is relevant, nonetheless. Consider medical thermometers today. They are placed in all sorts of places in order to get a reading of external temperature, but for early detection of viruses (characterised by an increase in body temperature as the body attempts to heat the virus to the point of breaking down) you need a good accurate reading of temperature and it would be more useful to be able to find internal temperature than internal temperature. The instrument would need to be sensitive aswell and a healthy range of precise temperatures needed for that specific person so a change can be detected.
With today's advancement in miniaturised technology, it would be possible to engineer these tiny thermometers, stated as being a hundredth of the size of a red blood cell, with a signal transmitter attached. Something harmless like a radio wave (although that would degrade over distance) every minute could be attached to the thermometer in order to make a tiny internal thermometer which travels in th blood stream and doesn't affect the body adversely from within, providing it is the right size and shape. In this way, everyone's temperatures could be monitored from central station in medical centres. Sound expenive, but for those hypocondriacs with money, it would both put their mind at rest and give them a better medical coverage for early dtection of things such as viral infection.
In actuality, such a device would need to obtain its energy from the blood in some way. Alcohol might not be socially acceptable (I know I don't drink) and perhaps combustion of oxygen and glucose in the blood would increase the temperature next to the thermometer, assuming this time combustion unit, transmitter and thermometer are part of the same unit. Size, as I see it, wouldn't be a problem though. The thermometer is less than a hundredth od the size of a red blood cell and the entire unit could be the same size as a red blood cell with absolutely no problem for the blood, except in the event of a blood clot.
In thinking, this could lead the way to pioneering technology in the field of medical nonotechnology. Perhaps blood clots in the future will be dealt with by tiny devices in the bloodstream. In any case, monitoring of human being's health at all times is a must have for the faroff contnuation of a good health system of the future.
I appologise for the lack of paragraphing. I really did paragraph it, but I forgot to add the br tags. I should preview in future
Comets are as much the remnants of the formation of teh solar system as the belt is. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the belt is in face a string of comets whicha re being held in place by centripetal forces. Asteroid belts and such tend to hang around for that very reason. It's the natural order of things. Everything is in a constant state of transition and by definition, once it reaches a more stable state, it is inclined not to leave that state, but remain in a state of stability. Thus, when the comets which reach the state of being in this belt, they are in a mroe stable state and tend to stay in it, compelled by the centripetal force to orbit regularly. Other comets which don't reach that state are more likely to collide with planets and such, since the stable belt is mainly stable due to the non-interferance of other spatial bodies such as the gravity of planets and their moons or other comets or meteors, asteroidsa and the other celestial "brik-a-brak" floating around in space. So when they are in the belt, they tend to remain in the belt and not to collide and be subsequently absorbed by planets and such. That's why we see these belts. They have stood the test of time. There are so many comets out there that if it weren't for these glimpses into the huge belts that lie in and outside of our solar system, we could nearly assume that the comets are as dense everywhere. Of course, that's not true because planets and moons invariably have gravity which attracts them, which is why you'll see quite a large number of craters on planets and very few regular comets which come close to them. Maybe that's why it's such a big occasion for us, when a regular comet like Halley's comet. Well, that's just my 0.02 money units.
An interesting note is that many objects that hit the earth contain radioactive isotopes of carbon, which can mess with the carbon-dating technique used to date the craters. As an object of such mass and velocity to cause the destruction of the dinosaurs would vapourise on impact, covering the crater with this radioactive Carbon isotope.
:)
There was a small mountain with a lake and trees coverign it etc somewhere that was dated as much older than the earth itself, because if the readioactive Carbon caused by such a collision. Actually, that radioactive carbon is what heats the lake: It's a regular paradise
On the BBC website, I came across some more interesting data on the Wooly Rhino:
Wooly Rhino Evidence
And I found a nice artists impression of the creature here:
Wooly Rhino Picture
From the pictures, the central horn does seem quite unicornesque. Perhaps low-burried skeletons of it did spawn the legends and superstitions. Since the Unicorn was a very prominent religious icon not too long ago, it is also feasable that the Wooly Rhino may have had an influence in some major world religions.
When reading up on the atomic clock on this site, I read mention aobut the mercury ion clock which would be, when finished, 1000 times more accurate than the standard caesium atomic clock: http://whyfiles.org/078time/2.html
More competition for the new laser-clock, but at 1008 Billion signals per second, I see a major advantage in his laser-research.
Peter Delfyett's area of focus is "increasing the speed of fiber-optic systems" because, according to his research, in the current fibre-optic system:
"beams from several separate lasers, each costing about $1,000, send light wavelengths at the same speed at the same time down the line and the total speed is calculated by multiplying the number of wavelengths by their pulse rates."
Delfyette's current area of research led him to use a "mode-lock laser". This is used to "control the timing and the number of wavelengths that are simultaneously generated"
If you can't see where I'm going with this, think about fibre-optic communications, particularly Fibre-Optic Broadband. This new system can generate 1008 Billion signals per second, each signal having the ability to carry one digital bit, and all this from just one laser, instead of many expensive, bulky convergance lasers. The implications of Peter's new laser-research include the fact that if you had a single fibre-optic fibre for broadband internet access, it would give you a maximum download speed of 120162.9638671875 Megabytes per second, unless I'm mistaken which I could be because my mathematics isn't the best. At any rate, it's much faster than today's fibre-optic broadband connections. Also, since the fibre-optic lines themselves need not be changed, only new laser-systems installed, this technology could be implemented into all current major fibre-optic networks.
I can see Peter's research coming in very handy in the future of land-based communications.
What environment was this shearing done in and was the aluminium used pure? If it was done in a non-sterile environment, acidic particulates could have reacted with the momomolecular aluminium sheet. Assuming the alumininum was pure, they should have left a control which is a polymolecular block of the element, left in the shearing environment. That way they could check the top layer of the control and if any changes had occured, the top momomolecular layer, the experiement would have been invalid because a change would ahve occured in the momomolecular sheet. Aluminium is quite reactive so was an inert gas placed over the sample as it was sheared?... Otherwise it may have reacted or oxidised. It would require very little contamination to ruin the sheet since it is only one molecule thick.
I know this is late and nobody will probably read this, but I can't believe nobody mentioned this:
It has shrunk by 80% in the last century, overall. But several years ago, the dormant volcano (Mount Kilimanjaro) erupted. I'd say that did more of the ice-melting than a slow increase in heat due to natural waxing and waning of polar regions in the long term, wouldn't you?
Enough about the male-only genetic engineering... Is the next step not to make it possible to genetically engineer postive female-only offspring every time? In this way, the technique could be applied to endangered species, resulting in a vast increase in repopulation rates. If the technology can make a speciaes extinct, so too can it bring a species fromt eh brink of extinction.