irrelevant on an individual scale Yup, and the seat chosen is moot like in the case of my friend Adrien Bisson who burnt to his death last week when the Sao Paulo plane crashed into the building where he was working... RIP.
Try to get an interview for a job there. I had a few and every time I got a tour of (different) facilities: Alice, Atlas, the accelerator. Monster physics. And now I work in particle physics too...
I won't comment on your point, but just to add a bit of offtopic info:
Wild pheasant is far, far healthier. I like that too... but in my parts they release those 'wild pheasants' into the wild two days before shooting season starts. They come to you just to ask for food... Now it's one thing to fill 2 freezers with moose meat in Alaska, but it's a shame about those birds.
Is that the same Dong Young as those pearls of wisdom ?:
"Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans." —Don Young.
"I don't see any justification for the federal government owning land, other than the Statue of Liberty and maybe a few parks, maybe a few refuges. But to just own land to do nothing with it I think is a disservice to the Constitution." —Don Young.
"We wonder why we have got the Freemen or the militants. We wonder why we have got unrest in this country. It is because our government, in fact, has got out of hand and out of line, with the Endangered Species Act." —Don Young.
"If I have my way, I'm going to dissolve the Forest Service. They're in the business of harvesting trees and they're not harvesting trees, so why have them anymore?" —Don Young.
"If you can't eat it, can't sleep under it, can't wear it or make something from it, it's not worth anything." —Don Young.
"The environmentalists — the self-centered bunch, the waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots that don't understand that they're leading this country into environmental disaster." —Don Young.
Two years ago I worked in a place doing some preliminary astronomy experiments previous to going BIG. I was doing atmosphere science. During a chat with the resident astronomer, I asked where their data was publicly available. His answer, in short: "absolutely not, it's our funding, so it's our data. We release only the final paper. We don't want competition from other labs/astronomers."
That answer astounded me as in our own project the point was to make the data public as efficiently as possible. I mean, their funding is public, so why not their data ? I can understand holding onto it until you have a paper published, but after than it should be required in the funding statement. I don't know if this is typical of the field of astronomy, but I've searched high-res sky images in the past without finding anything systematic except some specific projects such the Sloan Sky survey (which are just coordinates) or the odd marketing Hubble shot.
I never drank much soda, but for years I would have one can of coke after lunch. While in the US I started developping sensitive teeth and a friend advised me to stop drinking it. I did and after a month or two, the sensitivity went back to normal. In the meanwhile my coworker would drink a GALLON of coke for BREAKFAST... C:-/
The way I understand it, perpetual energy isn't even really impossible, sub-atomic particles pop into and out of existence all the time and sometimes get separated, thus Hawking radiation and for all practical purposes, perhaps all purposes, demonstrate perpetual motion. The trick would be in harnessing them, tricky bit that, what with the black holes and all. If you figure out how to do it you'd get a lot of cool points. You don't need a black hole to extract energy from virtual particules: check out the Casimir effect, also known as vacuum energy. It's been measured, but is far from being used on an industrial scale !
It's actually the best way to get rid of unwanted radioactive waste. Won't come out until the next full geological age. Of course the greens would go apeshit over the idea of dumping containers of long life radionucleotides into the sea at some precise location (some drilling would make it safer). My, why do you ask, yes I work in nuclear physics ! It's either this or keep the containers downtown in full view of your government heads to motivate them into checking regularly for leaks.
You are right, anyone who think touch screens are a thing of the future hasn't participated in live demos using them in the 80's, before the mouse became ubiquitous. Two words: gorilla arm !
I'm assuming that the vast majority of readers are here for content You'd be surprised, but actualy not. I come here for the discussion. If I have the time I'll even read the discussions on subjects I know nothing about and am not interested in, without RTFA, just to learn if other people's opinion is the same as mine (usually it's not) and if it's something worth looking into.
OK, anyone who wants some more penguin info can check out my sig and the associated FAQ... I just want to add that this is not the first time that penguin fossils are discovered, and some larger than the Emperor penguins (actual largest species) are known.
Well, I'm not a modelist but I've been their data slave before so I can bring forth some comments. There are basically 2 types of models: meteorological models and climate models. You know the 1st kind, they bring you the day to day forecast and go up to 5 or even 7 days in advance, with a temporal resolution down to about 2 hours and 10km in some countries. Those take into accounts hurricane.
As for climate models they are only interested in long term changes in global parameters (average temperature, CO2 levels, etc...). Local events like hurricanes are part of the model, but only as a statistical occurrence (they'll try to guess the number of hurricanes based on average surface ocean temperature for instance and work from there).
There are attempts to create intermediate models, typically to predict next summer's/winter's temperature and snow levels but they are far from operational.
As much as I like Dyson's other writing, he's full of shit when he says
It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds.
I'm one of those guys who regularly put on winter clothes to go perform atmospheric science measurements on the field. Modelists and field ops feed on each others. When a parameter in a model is too vague, new measurements are planned which in turn lead to better modelisation. This is the simple reason, more so than just increase in computer power, why models keep getting better. And YES, clouds and dust and contrails and solar activity and ocean currents and a lot more parameters are part of those models, the main missing one being volcanic activity.
"Campaign contribution is the same as if you tried to hand a cop a twenty before breaking the law. There are laws against bribery in some contexts, why do we allow it in more important contexts ?"
I just checked the contact form and it was working... Must have been temporary.
About Antarctic job, I have a page with more info somewhere on my site. I don't have too much experience with the US Antarctic program, but jobs, eiother for cook or IT go through Raytheon Polar Services. Look up their site. At McMurdo there's not a huge difference in terms of jobs between summer and winter, simply 3x to 5x more people in summer.
On a different take, in the book Rocheworld, Robert Forward imagines the first spaceship to another start with barely better than now technology. Meaning it's a one-way trip. The important thing is that the life-support system is meant to keep running longer than the natural extension of their life, so it's not strictly a suicide mission. Also in Red Mars, the 2nd team is sent 'until the next mission'...
You say that there are some 64-bit issues. I would like to know more about that. I have some hardware (mainly high-end scanners) that won't run on XP-64 (I tried) and there's no driver for Vista either. So the question is, if a peripheral doesn't work in XP-64, is there a chance that it will run on Vista ?
Note that I've tried those on Ubuntu and Gentoo without driver and they worked fine with ViewScan !
Seriously ! I spent a year with 12 other people in the middle of Antarctica in 2005 and we were being followed by shrinks of the ESA. There's a big difference between a winterover and the proposed experiment: the first has a purpose while the second has not. I mean the only purpose here is to stay in a can. At least when you go to Mars or to Antarctica you have a job to perform and important things to do (science and ensuring your survival because there's no way out). Here you'll have people crack down after a few weeks from a sense of uselessness. I would sign up for another winterover or a Mars mission no questions asked. I wouldn't get canned like this for a heap of gold and an all you can download porn access.
...2007 Office and I must say it's a massive improvement in productivity and ease of use over any office suite out there
Hmmm... Office2007 came with my new Laptop. After searching for the SaveAs menu for 10 minutes on first try, I killed it and went to install Open Office. At least I got a standard user interface.
It reminded me of my most hated type of software: the UIs from DVD/Music playing software. Personnaly I use Media Player Classic for the very reason that I don't want to learn a completely new (and often insane) user interface for each program I use.
I don't play games, but I find this subject interesting. Wouldn't this little kid to elf warrior voice problem be a good application of vocal recognition / synthesis ? Have the player speak up, convert it to text and then read it back with using speech synthesis of a type in tune with the character... I'm sure others have thought about it before...
Slashdot Mirror
Subject says it all. Hard to believe.
Try to get an interview for a job there. I had a few and every time I got a tour of (different) facilities: Alice, Atlas, the accelerator. Monster physics. And now I work in particle physics too...
You mean: to get to the same side, no ?
That answer astounded me as in our own project the point was to make the data public as efficiently as possible. I mean, their funding is public, so why not their data ? I can understand holding onto it until you have a paper published, but after than it should be required in the funding statement. I don't know if this is typical of the field of astronomy, but I've searched high-res sky images in the past without finding anything systematic except some specific projects such the Sloan Sky survey (which are just coordinates) or the odd marketing Hubble shot.
Thank you, that's the best analysis of the US voting system I've read. And it explains a lot.
I never drank much soda, but for years I would have one can of coke after lunch. While in the US I started developping sensitive teeth and a friend advised me to stop drinking it. I did and after a month or two, the sensitivity went back to normal. In the meanwhile my coworker would drink a GALLON of coke for BREAKFAST... C:-/
It's actually the best way to get rid of unwanted radioactive waste. Won't come out until the next full geological age. Of course the greens would go apeshit over the idea of dumping containers of long life radionucleotides into the sea at some precise location (some drilling would make it safer). My, why do you ask, yes I work in nuclear physics ! It's either this or keep the containers downtown in full view of your government heads to motivate them into checking regularly for leaks.
You are right, anyone who think touch screens are a thing of the future hasn't participated in live demos using them in the 80's, before the mouse became ubiquitous. Two words: gorilla arm !
This way you'll know who to blame as you're freezing to death with a broken snowmachine in a polar storm... C;-)
OK, anyone who wants some more penguin info can check out my sig and the associated FAQ... I just want to add that this is not the first time that penguin fossils are discovered, and some larger than the Emperor penguins (actual largest species) are known.
Having a baby too can interfere with day-to-day necessities like working, showering or even eating. That's why I think it's a mental disorder !
Well, I'm not a modelist but I've been their data slave before so I can bring forth some comments. There are basically 2 types of models: meteorological models and climate models. You know the 1st kind, they bring you the day to day forecast and go up to 5 or even 7 days in advance, with a temporal resolution down to about 2 hours and 10km in some countries. Those take into accounts hurricane.
As for climate models they are only interested in long term changes in global parameters (average temperature, CO2 levels, etc...). Local events like hurricanes are part of the model, but only as a statistical occurrence (they'll try to guess the number of hurricanes based on average surface ocean temperature for instance and work from there).
There are attempts to create intermediate models, typically to predict next summer's/winter's temperature and snow levels but they are far from operational.
About Antarctic job, I have a page with more info somewhere on my site. I don't have too much experience with the US Antarctic program, but jobs, eiother for cook or IT go through Raytheon Polar Services. Look up their site. At McMurdo there's not a huge difference in terms of jobs between summer and winter, simply 3x to 5x more people in summer.
Go for it !
On a different take, in the book Rocheworld, Robert Forward imagines the first spaceship to another start with barely better than now technology. Meaning it's a one-way trip. The important thing is that the life-support system is meant to keep running longer than the natural extension of their life, so it's not strictly a suicide mission. Also in Red Mars, the 2nd team is sent 'until the next mission'...
You say that there are some 64-bit issues. I would like to know more about that. I have some hardware (mainly high-end scanners) that won't run on XP-64 (I tried) and there's no driver for Vista either. So the question is, if a peripheral doesn't work in XP-64, is there a chance that it will run on Vista ? Note that I've tried those on Ubuntu and Gentoo without driver and they worked fine with ViewScan !
Seriously ! I spent a year with 12 other people in the middle of Antarctica in 2005 and we were being followed by shrinks of the ESA. There's a big difference between a winterover and the proposed experiment: the first has a purpose while the second has not. I mean the only purpose here is to stay in a can. At least when you go to Mars or to Antarctica you have a job to perform and important things to do (science and ensuring your survival because there's no way out). Here you'll have people crack down after a few weeks from a sense of uselessness. I would sign up for another winterover or a Mars mission no questions asked. I wouldn't get canned like this for a heap of gold and an all you can download porn access.
It reminded me of my most hated type of software: the UIs from DVD/Music playing software. Personnaly I use Media Player Classic for the very reason that I don't want to learn a completely new (and often insane) user interface for each program I use.
I don't play games, but I find this subject interesting. Wouldn't this little kid to elf warrior voice problem be a good application of vocal recognition / synthesis ? Have the player speak up, convert it to text and then read it back with using speech synthesis of a type in tune with the character... I'm sure others have thought about it before...