"When I was a little boy in New York City in the 1940s, we swam in the Hudson River. And it was filled with raw sewage. Okay? We swam in raw sewage! You know, to cool off.
At that time the big fear was polio; thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know somethin'? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one. Ever! You know why? Because we swam in raw sewage! It strengthened our immune systems. The polio never had a prayer; we were tempered in raw shiat!"
When you are flying a Cessna it's hard as hell to hear air traffic control, so these really help.
I recently took a helicopter tour of Kauai, and the passengers were given noise-cancelling headphones with closed-circuit audio so we could hear the pilot and talk to each other during the trip. Made a tremendous difference in enjoying the ride, and allowed us to concentrate on the scenery rather than the noise.
Now, if only they'd had motion-sickness-cancelling headphones for my poor girlfriend...
I could argue that humans were essentially fish eaters, but I doubt things are always that simple.
You must be talking about the Aquatic Ape Theory. It theorizes that humanity went through an aquatic or semi-aquatic stage in our evolution, which accounts for several features of our anatomy and physiology.
The big reason I have heard for discontinuing mantanence on the Hubble is it's orbit. If a shuttle goes out to do maintanence and is damaged, the orbit makes it impossible to reach the ISS and difficult to do anything else to save the crew.
Would this change at all as the orbit is lowered over time through atmospheric drag, or is it only a function of the orbital inclination?
And once the gyros are gone, would the telescope begin tumbling unpredictably and thus prevent a subsequent mission to fix/deorbit it? I suppose one "obvious" solution would be to build a second ISS in the same orbit as Hubble...;-)
"Why have one when you can have two at twice the price?"
There's a project underway in my community to replace the septic tanks with something more modern.
I keep suggesting that we do a wireless sewer, but no one ever listens.
Then again, I wonder if sewer gas conducts electricity? Could be onto something... But seriously, we may very well be laying down fiber optic cable alongside the sewer as it's installed. Just as long as both pipes end up with enough bandwidth...
I had a math professor in college who was demonstrating coin-toss probabilities to the class.
He flipped a nickel onto the floor, and it landed... ON ITS EDGE. (There's a classful of witnesses to back him up.) He was known for practicing magic tricks as a hobby, but swears up and down this was pure chance.
I wonder what the probability of this is, and whether it figured into the researchers' coin-flipping calculations?
<John Cleese with a German accent> Good evening. The last scene was interesting from the point of view of a professional logician because it contained a number of logical fallacies; that is, invalid propositional constructions and syllogistic forms, of the type so often committed by my wife.
'All wood burns,' states Sir Bedevere. 'Therefore,' he concludes, 'all that burns is wood.' This is, of course, pure bullshit. Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted: all of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan. Obvious, one would think. However, my wife does not understand this necessary limitation of the conversion of a proposition; consequently, she does not understand me; for how can a woman expect to appreciate a professor of logic, if the simplest cloth-eared syllogism causes her to flounder?
For example, given the premise, 'all fish live underwater' and 'all mackerel are fish', my wife will conclude, not that 'all mackerel live underwater', but that 'if she buys kippers it will not rain', or that 'trout live in trees', or even that 'I do not love her any more.' This she calls 'using her intuition'. I call it 'crap', and it gets me very irritated, because it is not logical. 'There will be no supper tonight,' she will sometimes cry upon my return home. 'Why not?' I will ask. 'Because I have been screwing the milkman all day,' she will say, quite oblivious of the howling error she has made. 'But,' I will wearily point out, 'even given that the activities of screwing the milkman and getting supper are mutually exclusive, now that the screwing is over, surely then, supper may now, logically, be got.' 'You don't love me any more,' she will now often postulate. 'If you did, you would give me one now and again, so that I would not have to rely on that rancid Pakistani for my orgasms.' 'I will give you one after you have got me my supper,' I now usually scream, 'but not before'-- as you understand, making her bang contingent on the arrival of my supper. 'God, you turn me on when you're angry, you ancient brute!' she now mysteriously deduces, forcing her sweetly throbbing tongue down my throat. 'Fuck supper!' I now invariably conclude, throwing logic somewhat joyously to the four winds, and so we thrash about on our milk-stained floor, transported by animal passion, until we sink back, exhausted, onto the cartons of yogurt.
I'm afraid I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original brief. But in a nutshell: sex is more fun than logic-- one cannot prove this, but it 'is' in the same sense that Mount Everest 'is', or that Alma Cogan 'isn't'.
Actually, in the current standard of grading, D is the clearest. This originally came about because of "grade inflation" of diamonds, when it became common practice to label stones as AAA, A+++, and the like. (Similar to eBay auction feedback.)
So, the new standard began with D to avoid any confusion. In practice, no visible difference in color is apparent until you get into H, I, J color diamonds, at least in my limited experience.
Zaphod: Ford, this is Trillian. Hi. Trillian, this is my semi-cousin Ford who shares three of the same mothers as me. Hi. Trillian, is this sort of thing going to happen every time we use the Infinite Improbability Drive? Trillian: Very Probably, I'm afraid. Zaphod:Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi.
I think if you add extra "sky" padding on top to set the horizon line in the middle of the panorama, the effect will be more convincing and less fishbowly. Give it a shot, let us know if it works...
Great pictures... Unfortunate that it doesn't show the scale. How far from the lander to that crater?
From earlier reports, the lander stopped about 330 meters from the first bounce, so the crater is within 500 meters of it, eminently reachable if they get the rover problems fixed soon.( Just don't touch that heatshield if it's still hot! Tssssss!!.... "Houston, we have another problem..") On the other hand, NASA would certainly want to avoid any unnecessary source of non-Martian contamination, heat-sterilized or not. Best to keep looking for them good old-fashioned "organic" Martian craters.
Still, I'd be in favor of at least driving close enough to get a decent look. Who knows what they might dig up?..
As others have pointed out, silver is the best conductor, followed by copper, gold, and aluminum.
This has ramifications in (of all places) the kitchen, where for serious cooking, heat conduction is of the essence. It is, for example, why copper cookware is considered a premium item, and why decent-quality stainless pots and pans have aluminum cores. Stainless steel, by comparison, has a pathetic thermal conductivity, about 5% that of copper. (This is why cheap stainless cookware is, well, cheap.)
Anyway, I thought the comparison was interesting. (Betcha didn't realize your kitchen was full of heatsinks!) Hmm, I wonder if extra virgin olive oil would make a good thermal paste...
I understand that thermal noise can be a cause of noisiness in CCD images. Do the low temperatures on Mars (or in cold places on Earth, for that matter) have any significant effect on digital photo quality? Could the cold temperatures on Mars be taken advantage of to maximize the quality of images taken there?
Slashdot Mirror
Using this technique, could you put in a lump of coal and make a diamond?
If not, how about a lump of coal surrounded by metal to squeeze it? Very spark-ly...
Finally, someone who can correct the historical accident that nickels are larger than dimes!!
Now, if only he could find a way to GROW money... or would that merely consist of nickel-and-diming people to death?
"When I was a little boy in New York City in the 1940s, we swam in the Hudson River. And it was filled with raw sewage. Okay? We swam in raw sewage! You know, to cool off.
At that time the big fear was polio; thousands of kids died from polio every year. But you know somethin'? In my neighborhood no one ever got polio. No one. Ever! You know why? Because we swam in raw sewage! It strengthened our immune systems. The polio never had a prayer; we were tempered in raw shiat!"
-George Carlin
When you are flying a Cessna it's hard as hell to hear air traffic control, so these really help.
I recently took a helicopter tour of Kauai, and the passengers were given noise-cancelling headphones with closed-circuit audio so we could hear the pilot and talk to each other during the trip. Made a tremendous difference in enjoying the ride, and allowed us to concentrate on the scenery rather than the noise.
Now, if only they'd had motion-sickness-cancelling headphones for my poor girlfriend...
I could argue that humans were essentially fish eaters, but I doubt things are always that simple.
You must be talking about the Aquatic Ape Theory. It theorizes that humanity went through an aquatic or semi-aquatic stage in our evolution, which accounts for several features of our anatomy and physiology.
(Admittedly, I'm partial to the Surfing Ape Theory, myself.)
The big reason I have heard for discontinuing mantanence on the Hubble is it's orbit. If a shuttle goes out to do maintanence and is damaged, the orbit makes it impossible to reach the ISS and difficult to do anything else to save the crew.
;-)
Would this change at all as the orbit is lowered over time through atmospheric drag, or is it only a function of the orbital inclination?
And once the gyros are gone, would the telescope begin tumbling unpredictably and thus prevent a subsequent mission to fix/deorbit it? I suppose one "obvious" solution would be to build a second ISS in the same orbit as Hubble...
"Why have one when you can have two at twice the price?"
Yes, absolutely. Otherwise, the LED bugs bite.
That's the truth. It's no fun being bit.
Particularly 8-bit.
(Oddly, 32-bit isn't quite as bad...)
Oh, wait.
Seriously, the next Mars mission should carry an odor sensor, so we can find out what the place smells like.
I mean, what if it turns out we'd have to terraform it with perfume?
There's a project underway in my community to replace the septic tanks with something more modern.
I keep suggesting that we do a wireless sewer, but no one ever listens.
Then again, I wonder if sewer gas conducts electricity? Could be onto something... But seriously, we may very well be laying down fiber optic cable alongside the sewer as it's installed. Just as long as both pipes end up with enough bandwidth...
I had a math professor in college who was demonstrating coin-toss probabilities to the class.
He flipped a nickel onto the floor, and it landed... ON ITS EDGE. (There's a classful of witnesses to back him up.) He was known for practicing magic tricks as a hobby, but swears up and down this was pure chance.
I wonder what the probability of this is, and whether it figured into the researchers' coin-flipping calculations?
<John Cleese with a German accent>
Good evening. The last scene was interesting from the point of view of a professional logician because it contained a number of logical fallacies; that is, invalid propositional constructions and syllogistic forms, of the type so often committed by my wife.
'All wood burns,' states Sir Bedevere. 'Therefore,' he concludes, 'all that burns is wood.' This is, of course, pure bullshit. Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted: all of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan. Obvious, one would think. However, my wife does not understand this necessary limitation of the conversion of a proposition; consequently, she does not understand me; for how can a woman expect to appreciate a professor of logic, if the simplest cloth-eared syllogism causes her to flounder?
For example, given the premise, 'all fish live underwater' and 'all mackerel are fish', my wife will conclude, not that 'all mackerel live underwater', but that 'if she buys kippers it will not rain', or that 'trout live in trees', or even that 'I do not love her any more.' This she calls 'using her intuition'. I call it 'crap', and it gets me very irritated, because it is not logical. 'There will be no supper tonight,' she will sometimes cry upon my return home. 'Why not?' I will ask. 'Because I have been screwing the milkman all day,' she will say, quite oblivious of the howling error she has made. 'But,' I will wearily point out, 'even given that the activities of screwing the milkman and getting supper are mutually exclusive, now that the screwing is over, surely then, supper may now, logically, be got.' 'You don't love me any more,' she will now often postulate. 'If you did, you would give me one now and again, so that I would not have to rely on that rancid Pakistani for my orgasms.' 'I will give you one after you have got me my supper,' I now usually scream, 'but not before'-- as you understand, making her bang contingent on the arrival of my supper. 'God, you turn me on when you're angry, you ancient brute!' she now mysteriously deduces, forcing her sweetly throbbing tongue down my throat. 'Fuck supper!' I now invariably conclude, throwing logic somewhat joyously to the four winds, and so we thrash about on our milk-stained floor, transported by animal passion, until we sink back, exhausted, onto the cartons of yogurt.
I'm afraid I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original brief. But in a nutshell: sex is more fun than logic-- one cannot prove this, but it 'is' in the same sense that Mount Everest 'is', or that Alma Cogan 'isn't'.
Goodnight.
</Cleese>
Diamonds are graded on color. A is the clearest
Actually, in the current standard of grading, D is the clearest. This originally came about because of "grade inflation" of diamonds, when it became common practice to label stones as AAA, A+++, and the like. (Similar to eBay auction feedback.)
So, the new standard began with D to avoid any confusion. In practice, no visible difference in color is apparent until you get into H, I, J color diamonds, at least in my limited experience.
After all, Ford grew up with Zaphod, right?
Zaphod: Ford, this is Trillian. Hi. Trillian, this is my semi-cousin Ford who shares three of the same mothers as me. Hi. Trillian, is this sort of thing going to happen every time we use the Infinite Improbability Drive?
Trillian: Very Probably, I'm afraid.
Zaphod:Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. Hi.
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I think if you add extra "sky" padding on top to set the horizon line in the middle of the panorama, the effect will be more convincing and less fishbowly. Give it a shot, let us know if it works...
I can't guess what a good screw would be worth on Mars.
"Oh goody! My Dildonium Q36 explosive space copulator!"
Great pictures... Unfortunate that it doesn't show the scale. How far from the lander to that crater?
From earlier reports, the lander stopped about 330 meters from the first bounce, so the crater is within 500 meters of it, eminently reachable if they get the rover problems fixed soon.( Just don't touch that heatshield if it's still hot! Tssssss!!.... "Houston, we have another problem..") On the other hand, NASA would certainly want to avoid any unnecessary source of non-Martian contamination, heat-sterilized or not. Best to keep looking for them good old-fashioned "organic" Martian craters.
Still, I'd be in favor of at least driving close enough to get a decent look. Who knows what they might dig up?..
Flash RAID array.
(Can this even be done?)
so the audience should be able to vote for which rover is going to be kicked out of the show.
Which rover is going to be voted off the planet, you mean.
No hash, no pot, in hash pot-taters...
As others have pointed out, silver is the best conductor, followed by copper, gold, and aluminum.
This has ramifications in (of all places) the kitchen, where for serious cooking, heat conduction is of the essence. It is, for example, why copper cookware is considered a premium item, and why decent-quality stainless pots and pans have aluminum cores. Stainless steel, by comparison, has a pathetic thermal conductivity, about 5% that of copper. (This is why cheap stainless cookware is, well, cheap.)
Anyway, I thought the comparison was interesting. (Betcha didn't realize your kitchen was full of heatsinks!) Hmm, I wonder if extra virgin olive oil would make a good thermal paste...
You say Lucas is 60 now (that's in 2004)... if so, then how will he be 66 in 2012, *eight* years from now?
Too many jumps to hyperspace, I'd wager.
I understand that thermal noise can be a cause of noisiness in CCD images. Do the low temperatures on Mars (or in cold places on Earth, for that matter) have any significant effect on digital photo quality? Could the cold temperatures on Mars be taken advantage of to maximize the quality of images taken there?