What happens if it happens to "resonantly connect" with the springs in your sofa or other metal loops in your house where passing a large current and the associated heating may lead to a fire? The chance of something being exactly the correct dimensions may be small but how small exactly given the number of different locations this might be deployed in? You'll probably need some safety system to ensure that this does not happen.
If a ring tone counts as a public performance then does playing it so loud on your earphones that everyone sitting nearby can recognize the tune also count? If so could ASCAP come after them as well....please!
I'm probably in the minority here but I personally found Fahrenheit 451 terribly ill thought out and completely unbelievable (and highly illogical) and the Martian Chronicles not much better. Perhaps that was because I employed too much critical thought when reading them which would be rather ironic. Having now learnt his views about modern technology I'm actually not surprised that I disliked his novels.
It used to be that I would regularly spend a morning or afternoon in a library looking up papers. I have not done that since I was a grad student because it is so much easier to look them up online. It is the same for novels as well: having them in electronic form is so much more convenient. There is some way to go before electronic books will be capable of replacing paper books but that time will come - the question is just when.
Point is, unless they are researching beer bio, then why are they not in a university
I'd have thought researching beer bio at University would be ideal - you are close to one of your largest markets! Having seen one research group study the physical properties of ice cream (apparently for an industrial producer of the stuff) why not research beer. Indeed there are already groups doing this.
Unless there is a law that protects whistle blowers, you will likely be in trouble.
I thought that there was a law which protected whistleblower's jobs? If not then we need one because an anonymous blogger can not testify in a court of law which is what may be needed if the scheme exposed is illegal.
That is a very good point but if there is a trail that a court can follow then there is also a trail that others can follow i.e. it is not truly anonymous and if someone finds out why should they be prevented from telling as long as they did not behave illegally in obtaining the information? I have no problem with them trying to hide their identity if they wish - that is their choice - but likewise if someone manages to legally find out who they are it should be their choice whether to expose that information. Freedom of speech is a two edged sword.
True at the moment. However if it becomes socially acceptable, and cheaper, for people to do this then more people are likely to - especially if you can filter for things like intelligence. If you could keep the fraction low then I'd agree with you but once someone is allowed to do it the risk is that the demand will increase.
Yes because we all know how rampant those diseases are that only target blonde hair and blue eyes.
What? There are no diseases like that?
Actually there are, off the top of my head: increased risk of skin cancer and I'm sure there are more. If all the genes changed were eye and hair colour I would agree that there would probably be little cause for concern but things don't work like that - there will be affects beyond that. Just look at the effects of monocultures in agriculture and you will see that the risk is quite real e.g. French Wine blight.
It would probably be in the best interests of humanity to cut down on population growth.
...by introducing disease, death and suffering? How is that any better than just letting overpopulation continue and have it sort itself out in the inevitable famines and wars that will result? We cannot destroy the planet via over population but we could destroy our civilization.
If authors who write publically are allowed to remain anonymous then how can there be any accountability for their actions? Suppose the contents of this blog were complete fabrication - why should someone be allowed to get away with libel? There is something to be said for the source+journalist approach. The journalist is responsible for ensuring that the source's story is verifiable and true and can be held accountable for that without having to expose the source.
...this. You can buy them in Switzerland all over the place. If will hurt your teeth less than gold although, being Swiss, the price is about the same.
What's wrong with trying to get the eye color or hair color you want?
There is a big downside: loss of genetic diversity. Having as wide a gene pool as possible is a very good idea if you want a species to survive the next serious pandemic. Limiting diversity for sensible reasons (like no genetic diseases) is fine because there is a clear, obvious benefit. Limiting diversity because you want your baby to have blue eyes and blonde hair is not because there is no real benefit. Choosing a baby's gender is even worse since it can lead to sever social problems if one sex is prefered over the other.
There is one thing you have forgotten about: water (although from what I hear about western Australia perhaps that is forgivable!). Up in Alberta, Canada, more than a good days drive north of these warm southerly locations like North Dakota, we have similar swings of temperature in the summer due to lots of sun and low humidty (although probably a good 10C lower on both ends of your scale!). The temperature swing in the winter is less but this is when the damage occurs.
In the late winter (March/April) period the sun can heat things up enough to melt the snow during the day and then freeze again at night. This allows water to seep into cracks and then expand into ice. This causes far more damage that simple heat/cool cycles without water. At high enough temperatures tarmac becomes pliable and can be pushed out of the way by the weight of a car going over it so perhaps this is what causes your potholes i.e. temperature alone rather than heat/cool.
That's an interesting article. New QCD phases have been postulated for quite a while (colour superconductors etc.) but last time I talked to an expert on it and asked whether it could account for the missing energy in a Supernova (currently SN models seem to fizzle more than explode) his reply was that the phase change was too slow to release enough energy to help the SN go bang. I'll have to read the paper to see it this idea addresses this issue.
Someday I hope to be a professor, teaching my own classes.
I am a professor teaching my own classes and I'm only too happy if my students share their working on how to do things. The point of assignments is to get students doing problems so that they have practice at solving things themselves. Unless they are extremely good this means that they will need help to do some of the assignments. As long as they try the questions themselves first the educational ojectives are satisfied since they have thought about it and will learn and understand how to do things better when they see a solution and then work through it themselves.
Of course some students may just copy the answer but I use online assignments with differing sets of numbers to minimize this. Besides the exams are worth far more than the assignments and copying without understanding will have a big impact on exam results.
I used to be ok with most calculators until I started looking in detail at what they put in them now. I'm fine with graphing and programming but for some insane reason they now put study cards, book chapters and who knows what else into them. As a result I now have no way of reliably telling exactly how big a library a "calculator" has built in and, just as I would not allow a text book in the exam, I now have to have a easily identifiable way to forbid these electronic libraries. Hence my rules are that any device capable of displaying text characters is forbidden. This is harsher than I would ideally like but it is the only simple (i.e. non-model based) rule that I can think of to reliably prevent these electronic libraries from being used in an exam.
For the people not in engineering/math/science, I don't see why they need to be deprived a calculator or similar for a calculus class.
Perhaps it is for the same reason that those people in engineering/math/science aren't allowed to take pre-written paragraphs on relevant topics into an english/history etc. exam and then stitch several relevant of them together to answer a question.
Neutrinos arrived about three hours before visible light
True - but unless things have improved dramatically since I last heard a talk from LIGO it would need to arrive days, weeks or even months in advance! Gravity wave detectors measure vibrations and have to have an incredibly complex understanding of their noise. This takes time.
They are a prediction of GR - they cannot travel faster than light. If we discover that they do then they are not the gravitational waves that are predicted but something else (and far more exciting!).
The Nobel Prize was for discovering a binary pulsar that can be used to test GR. Indeed such systems have been shown to lose energy in a manner consistent with GR predictions of gravitational waves. However that does NOT mean that gravitational waves have been discovered. All it means is that whatever mechanism they have to lose energy is consistent with gravitational waves. Until we actually detect gravitational waves on Earth we cannot be certain that they exist.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously nothing is 100% efficient...
Actually super conductors are. They really have zero resistance. Unfortunately the temperatures involved mean that they are not very practical.
What happens if it happens to "resonantly connect" with the springs in your sofa or other metal loops in your house where passing a large current and the associated heating may lead to a fire? The chance of something being exactly the correct dimensions may be small but how small exactly given the number of different locations this might be deployed in? You'll probably need some safety system to ensure that this does not happen.
If a ring tone counts as a public performance then does playing it so loud on your earphones that everyone sitting nearby can recognize the tune also count? If so could ASCAP come after them as well....please!
I'm probably in the minority here but I personally found Fahrenheit 451 terribly ill thought out and completely unbelievable (and highly illogical) and the Martian Chronicles not much better. Perhaps that was because I employed too much critical thought when reading them which would be rather ironic. Having now learnt his views about modern technology I'm actually not surprised that I disliked his novels.
It used to be that I would regularly spend a morning or afternoon in a library looking up papers. I have not done that since I was a grad student because it is so much easier to look them up online. It is the same for novels as well: having them in electronic form is so much more convenient. There is some way to go before electronic books will be capable of replacing paper books but that time will come - the question is just when.
Point is, unless they are researching beer bio, then why are they not in a university
I'd have thought researching beer bio at University would be ideal - you are close to one of your largest markets! Having seen one research group study the physical properties of ice cream (apparently for an industrial producer of the stuff) why not research beer. Indeed there are already groups doing this.
i.e. second base...oh forget it.
Actually you're right, there's no numbers after 1. It goes zero, one. That's it.
Clearly you never got past second base.
Unless there is a law that protects whistle blowers, you will likely be in trouble.
I thought that there was a law which protected whistleblower's jobs? If not then we need one because an anonymous blogger can not testify in a court of law which is what may be needed if the scheme exposed is illegal.
That is a very good point but if there is a trail that a court can follow then there is also a trail that others can follow i.e. it is not truly anonymous and if someone finds out why should they be prevented from telling as long as they did not behave illegally in obtaining the information? I have no problem with them trying to hide their identity if they wish - that is their choice - but likewise if someone manages to legally find out who they are it should be their choice whether to expose that information. Freedom of speech is a two edged sword.
Don't these guys know ANYTHING about homeopathic medicines?
Clearly not - they must be homeophobes.
True at the moment. However if it becomes socially acceptable, and cheaper, for people to do this then more people are likely to - especially if you can filter for things like intelligence. If you could keep the fraction low then I'd agree with you but once someone is allowed to do it the risk is that the demand will increase.
Yes because we all know how rampant those diseases are that only target blonde hair and blue eyes. What? There are no diseases like that?
Actually there are, off the top of my head: increased risk of skin cancer and I'm sure there are more. If all the genes changed were eye and hair colour I would agree that there would probably be little cause for concern but things don't work like that - there will be affects beyond that. Just look at the effects of monocultures in agriculture and you will see that the risk is quite real e.g. French Wine blight.
It would probably be in the best interests of humanity to cut down on population growth.
If authors who write publically are allowed to remain anonymous then how can there be any accountability for their actions? Suppose the contents of this blog were complete fabrication - why should someone be allowed to get away with libel? There is something to be said for the source+journalist approach. The journalist is responsible for ensuring that the source's story is verifiable and true and can be held accountable for that without having to expose the source.
...this. You can buy them in Switzerland all over the place. If will hurt your teeth less than gold although, being Swiss, the price is about the same.
What's wrong with trying to get the eye color or hair color you want?
There is a big downside: loss of genetic diversity. Having as wide a gene pool as possible is a very good idea if you want a species to survive the next serious pandemic. Limiting diversity for sensible reasons (like no genetic diseases) is fine because there is a clear, obvious benefit. Limiting diversity because you want your baby to have blue eyes and blonde hair is not because there is no real benefit. Choosing a baby's gender is even worse since it can lead to sever social problems if one sex is prefered over the other.
There is one thing you have forgotten about: water (although from what I hear about western Australia perhaps that is forgivable!). Up in Alberta, Canada, more than a good days drive north of these warm southerly locations like North Dakota, we have similar swings of temperature in the summer due to lots of sun and low humidty (although probably a good 10C lower on both ends of your scale!). The temperature swing in the winter is less but this is when the damage occurs.
In the late winter (March/April) period the sun can heat things up enough to melt the snow during the day and then freeze again at night. This allows water to seep into cracks and then expand into ice. This causes far more damage that simple heat/cool cycles without water. At high enough temperatures tarmac becomes pliable and can be pushed out of the way by the weight of a car going over it so perhaps this is what causes your potholes i.e. temperature alone rather than heat/cool.
That's an interesting article. New QCD phases have been postulated for quite a while (colour superconductors etc.) but last time I talked to an expert on it and asked whether it could account for the missing energy in a Supernova (currently SN models seem to fizzle more than explode) his reply was that the phase change was too slow to release enough energy to help the SN go bang. I'll have to read the paper to see it this idea addresses this issue.
Wish them good luck - it's allowed, as is an abacus.
Someday I hope to be a professor, teaching my own classes.
I am a professor teaching my own classes and I'm only too happy if my students share their working on how to do things. The point of assignments is to get students doing problems so that they have practice at solving things themselves. Unless they are extremely good this means that they will need help to do some of the assignments. As long as they try the questions themselves first the educational ojectives are satisfied since they have thought about it and will learn and understand how to do things better when they see a solution and then work through it themselves.
Of course some students may just copy the answer but I use online assignments with differing sets of numbers to minimize this. Besides the exams are worth far more than the assignments and copying without understanding will have a big impact on exam results.
I used to be ok with most calculators until I started looking in detail at what they put in them now. I'm fine with graphing and programming but for some insane reason they now put study cards, book chapters and who knows what else into them. As a result I now have no way of reliably telling exactly how big a library a "calculator" has built in and, just as I would not allow a text book in the exam, I now have to have a easily identifiable way to forbid these electronic libraries. Hence my rules are that any device capable of displaying text characters is forbidden. This is harsher than I would ideally like but it is the only simple (i.e. non-model based) rule that I can think of to reliably prevent these electronic libraries from being used in an exam.
For the people not in engineering/math/science, I don't see why they need to be deprived a calculator or similar for a calculus class.
Perhaps it is for the same reason that those people in engineering/math/science aren't allowed to take pre-written paragraphs on relevant topics into an english/history etc. exam and then stitch several relevant of them together to answer a question.
No, some Brits don't want Britain in the EU but only someone incredibly ignorant of geography would claim that Britain is not part of Europe.
Neutrinos arrived about three hours before visible light
True - but unless things have improved dramatically since I last heard a talk from LIGO it would need to arrive days, weeks or even months in advance! Gravity wave detectors measure vibrations and have to have an incredibly complex understanding of their noise. This takes time.
They are a prediction of GR - they cannot travel faster than light. If we discover that they do then they are not the gravitational waves that are predicted but something else (and far more exciting!).
The Nobel Prize was for discovering a binary pulsar that can be used to test GR. Indeed such systems have been shown to lose energy in a manner consistent with GR predictions of gravitational waves. However that does NOT mean that gravitational waves have been discovered. All it means is that whatever mechanism they have to lose energy is consistent with gravitational waves. Until we actually detect gravitational waves on Earth we cannot be certain that they exist.