coupling with a large mass actually helps you get more velocity change from a given impulse.
How do you work that out? Impulse = integral (F.dt) = change of momentum, momentum = mass * velocity. Seems the same impulse gives the same velocity change, if the mass remains constant.
Yes, for a given burn you always get the same velocity change, but you gain more kinetic energy if you are deep in a gravity well because of your higher speed (since KE is proportional to the square of your speed.)
If you burn close to a large mass you will always get more speed change, as you come out of the well. It's called a Gravitational Slingshot and it's used all the time on the trajectories for the probes to the outer planets to reduce fuel needs.
The Blu-Ray and DVD war is similar to RCA and Columbia's fight in the 40s to replace the old 78 rpm standard with their 45 and 33 1/3 rpm formats:
Columbia was so eager to have its new system accepted as the standard that it didn't even patent the technology. It was willing to let other record companies use it without paying a royalty. But refusing to admit that they'd been beaten by a competitor, the RCA Victor engineers immediately went to work on their own "new and improved" system. RCA, in fact, would be the last of the major labels to finally release its own 33 1/3 rpm albums, possibly not doing so until 1951.
"RCA decided that they were going to come out with a new system, because they thought that they were powerful enough to get away with it," said George Avakian, another of the team involved in the 33 1/3 rpm LP, in an interview with Michael Hobson of Classic Records in 1998. "In 1962, when I was at RCA, someone finally told me where 45 rpm came from. They apparently took 78 and subtracted 33 which left them with 45, which they went with out of spite."
'At the end of the day, having one person who can make arbitrary decisions and whose word is effectively law probably helps in many cases.'
Benevolent dictatorships have long been known to be a better form of self-organization than outright democracy.
Heh... having the member population at large choose who's in charge?
That's crazy!! Who knows what could happen? Any smiling idiot could be placed in power...
You are absolutely right. In reality there will be many embedded signals, and if you go to the very end of the act, Table W lists what the hardware is supposed to do if it sees or does not see the signals. The devices must even detect "tampered" signals, that are inconsistent.
As an example, in scenario 2 we see what all devices must do if only the VEIL signal is found.
(Step 1) CGMS-A State Detected -- Not present
(Step 2) RCI State Detected -- Not present
(redistribution control bit to be detected with CGMS-A)
(Step 3) VEIL Detected -- YES
Rights Assertion Description -- INCONSISTENT STATE: Rights are being asserted so the CGMS-A was probably tampered and/or the RCI was probably stripped
Technical Content Protection Response -- VIEW ONLY - Protect as Copy Protected Content
It is already illegal to do the things that this technology supposedly is designed to prevent. Does the MPAA really need to be protected by the government, at our expense, like this?
Build a stationary tower with it's top floor at the level of a space orbit, and you'll just feel the Earth's gravity.
Actually, not true.
The GP is correct.
If you built a tower at LEO (low earth orbit) and stood at the top you would definitely feel gravity... pretty much the same gravity as on the surface, as you are not that much higher up, compared to the Earth's radius.
It is only if you built a tower to the height of a geosynchronous orbit (far, far higher) that you would feel weightless. And this is only because the (apparent, I know) centrifugal force of the rotation of the earth. On a non-rotating earth, you could never build a tower high enough to escape Earth's gravity.
Or put another way, on one of the Earth's poles you could never build a tower high enough to escape Earth's gravity. Even one the height of a geosynchronous orbit.
They have territories too: Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, and many more in the Pacific. Until recently, Hawaii and the Panama Canal zone were territories too; one became a state and one got given back.
yo.
The way I used to memorize pi was to cut it at every four digits and try to associate some kind of logic with each chunk. For example, 3.14 1592 6535 8979 3238 4626 each of four digit groups seems to have some kind of pattern, except the first one, no?
The first 50 digits are FULL of patterns.
I memorized the first 50 digits in grade 7, and never forgot them (I refresh the memory every few months.) It's all in how you break up the digitis.
I don't use a hard 4 digit rule: instead I break them logically. In university I would teach people how to recite pi by using my method (invariably after drinking) and it would usually take between 15 and 30 minutes before they had it. I've probably taught 15-20 people.
So here it is: How to learn 50 digits of pi easily.
There are 4 lines of mostly Long/Long/Short/Long, after the "3." Note how most groups have a repeating internal pattern.
Probably a good chunk of slashdot readers would have no problems doing this right now if they put in half an hour. Then you just practice once a day or so for a month, and you've locked it in. Eventually it becomes like a poem.
After the first 50 digits, the nice patterns end. Still, one guy came back to me a week later, and had memorized 80 digits. So I learned 100. Then he learned 125, and I learned 150. When the escalating pi-war reached 300 digits, we had a "tag-team" pi-off in the drunken engineering talent show.
Personally, I reached a maximum of 380 digits, but that was 15 years ago. Right now I can only do 120 (but I can recite them in about 20 seconds.)
The only bit that I find drags is all the DNA/RNA stuff.
Then you didn't get it. Once you realize that DNA is a program, and the proteins that the DNA codes for is a computer that reads and interprets the program, you realize that it's all a wonderful loop. It is truly amazing stuff, and GEB is a good intro to DNA for non-biology-trained geeks.
Read the book again (I too, skimmed over the DNA stuff the first time...)
From his imagined "finding a girlfriend" walkthrough:
I think I need to find the "Conversation Starter" and use it in the
"Social Setting," but I can't get past the troll at the entrance to
"The Castle of Girls I Don't Know."
The sender, Alice, sends a string of bits, choosing randomly to send photons in either the rectilinear or the diagonal modes. The receiver, Bob , makes a similarly random decision about which mode to measure the incoming bits. If Eve tries to intercept this stream of photons she cannot measure both modes, thanks to Heisenberg.
So the big question is:
Why does Alice have so many secrets? Why does she feel compelled to tell Bob everything? And what is up with Eve, always budding in?
Personally I think there's something going on between Eve and Bob, that they're not telling us. But damned if I can't break their code.
I watched the whole thing, partially to look for my friend, whose game Need For Speed was nominated. He was going to accept the award for Best Driving Game (well, best GTO driving game) had NFS beat Burnout. I never saw him, but once he tells me where he sat, I can go back and look for him, if I want to use up another two hours I will never get back.
There were some good points. Katamari Damacy was nominated and shown, which was a nice surprise, seeing as all the other games were very mainstream. Samuel L. Jackson, upon receiving Best Male Performance for his voice in GTA:SA, told Rockstar that he wanted to do his own motion capture next year. Here's an actor who can pick and choose his work, and he sees clearly the value of gaming.
And seeing Motley Crue pull an Ashlee Simpson lip-sync screwup was hilarious, and nicely summed up how artificial and shallow the whole show was.
The coaster [...] shoots over a 129-foot hill, which the company says will make riders feel weightless.
I'm not so sure that weightlessness is something that should be mass-marketed. They don't call it the Vomit Comet for nothing.
If you go on this thing, look around at the other people, and choose somewhere smart to sit.
See video here while it lasts.
yo.
Re:All I know is...
on
The Jobs Crunch
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A recession is when someone you know loses his job.
A depression is when you lose yours.
Yeah, good saying.
Let me add what Reagan said in 1980: "A recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his." (sorry, I'm really a Democrat.)
But just so you know, there is actually a big difference. In a recession, the value of the dollar in your pocket goes DOWN. In a depression, the value of the dollar in your pocket goes UP. It's astounding how few [people|economists] know this.
You think inflation is bad? Try deflation, the oppostite, when prices go down.
Loans are defaulted, because people suddenly owe more, and can't pay. Interest rates go up, since cash itself is more likely to increase in value than an investment. You're used to getting raises, to keep up with inflation... how would you like it if your boss gave you a timely drop in salary, to keep up with the drop in the cost of living? That's deflation, and it happened during the last US depression in the 30s. There has not been a depressed economy since then (possibly excepting New Zealand and Finland.)
Slashdot Mirror
Dumbass. You have no idea what you're talking about.
yo.
If you burn close to a large mass you will always get more speed change, as you come out of the well. It's called a Gravitational Slingshot and it's used all the time on the trajectories for the probes to the outer planets to reduce fuel needs.
yo.
yo.
yo.
Pure humor. Excellent.
Benevolent dictatorships have long been known to be a better form of self-organization than outright democracy.
Heh... having the member population at large choose who's in charge? That's crazy!! Who knows what could happen? Any smiling idiot could be placed in power...
Uh... of Ubuntu.
yo.
As an example, in scenario 2 we see what all devices must do if only the VEIL signal is found.
(Step 1) CGMS-A State Detected -- Not present
(Step 2) RCI State Detected -- Not present
(redistribution control bit to be detected with CGMS-A)
(Step 3) VEIL Detected -- YES
Rights Assertion Description -- INCONSISTENT STATE: Rights are being asserted so the CGMS-A was probably tampered and/or the RCI was probably stripped
Technical Content Protection Response -- VIEW ONLY - Protect as Copy Protected Content
The last encoding technique, VEIL (Video Encoded Invisible Light) is particularly interesting as it was originally developed as a way to transmit information to a series of Batman toys. Now it is supposed to be a DRM watermark technology. Hmmm.... The EFF has weighed in on this too.
It is already illegal to do the things that this technology supposedly is designed to prevent. Does the MPAA really need to be protected by the government, at our expense, like this?
MPAA - the unfreedom fighters.
yo.
If you built a tower at LEO (low earth orbit) and stood at the top you would definitely feel gravity... pretty much the same gravity as on the surface, as you are not that much higher up, compared to the Earth's radius.
It is only if you built a tower to the height of a geosynchronous orbit (far, far higher) that you would feel weightless. And this is only because the (apparent, I know) centrifugal force of the rotation of the earth. On a non-rotating earth, you could never build a tower high enough to escape Earth's gravity.
Or put another way, on one of the Earth's poles you could never build a tower high enough to escape Earth's gravity. Even one the height of a geosynchronous orbit.
yo.
They have territories too: Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, and many more in the Pacific. Until recently, Hawaii and the Panama Canal zone were territories too; one became a state and one got given back. yo.
yo.
---------
(*)If you actually believe that the Concorde was real. Personally, I'm convinced it was all an elaborate Cold War hoax to beat the Russians.
Print, clip, and save:
3.
1415 92 6535 8979
3238 4 6264 3383
279 50 2884 1971
6939 9 37 510
yo.
I memorized the first 50 digits in grade 7, and never forgot them (I refresh the memory every few months.) It's all in how you break up the digitis.
I don't use a hard 4 digit rule: instead I break them logically. In university I would teach people how to recite pi by using my method (invariably after drinking) and it would usually take between 15 and 30 minutes before they had it. I've probably taught 15-20 people.
So here it is: How to learn 50 digits of pi easily.
After the first 50 digits, the nice patterns end. Still, one guy came back to me a week later, and had memorized 80 digits. So I learned 100. Then he learned 125, and I learned 150. When the escalating pi-war reached 300 digits, we had a "tag-team" pi-off in the drunken engineering talent show.Personally, I reached a maximum of 380 digits, but that was 15 years ago. Right now I can only do 120 (but I can recite them in about 20 seconds.)
yo.
Read the book again (I too, skimmed over the DNA stuff the first time...)
yo.
As a bonus, you can even get it in Ogg.
yo.
It sounded so legitimate.
Oh well. Even if I don't get a free iPod at least I 'm still getting my free flat screen monitor and my free digital camera.
yo.
So the big question is: Why does Alice have so many secrets? Why does she feel compelled to tell Bob everything? And what is up with Eve, always budding in?
Personally I think there's something going on between Eve and Bob, that they're not telling us. But damned if I can't break their code.
yo.
There were some good points. Katamari Damacy was nominated and shown, which was a nice surprise, seeing as all the other games were very mainstream. Samuel L. Jackson, upon receiving Best Male Performance for his voice in GTA:SA, told Rockstar that he wanted to do his own motion capture next year. Here's an actor who can pick and choose his work, and he sees clearly the value of gaming.
And seeing Motley Crue pull an Ashlee Simpson lip-sync screwup was hilarious, and nicely summed up how artificial and shallow the whole show was.
yo.
Darkprofits and Shadowcrew.com? Come on.... they should have gone with shinyfunplace.com or fluffylegitimateactivity.com...
What do you expect to happen if you run imgoingtokillthepresident.com? Happy fun time?
yo.
A cat thinks: "He feeds me, loves me, takes care of me. I must be God."
yo.
If you go on this thing, look around at the other people, and choose somewhere smart to sit. See video here while it lasts.
yo.
A depression is when you lose yours.
Yeah, good saying.
Let me add what Reagan said in 1980: "A recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his." (sorry, I'm really a Democrat.)
But just so you know, there is actually a big difference. In a recession, the value of the dollar in your pocket goes DOWN. In a depression, the value of the dollar in your pocket goes UP. It's astounding how few [people|economists] know this.
You think inflation is bad? Try deflation, the oppostite, when prices go down.
Loans are defaulted, because people suddenly owe more, and can't pay. Interest rates go up, since cash itself is more likely to increase in value than an investment. You're used to getting raises, to keep up with inflation... how would you like it if your boss gave you a timely drop in salary, to keep up with the drop in the cost of living? That's deflation, and it happened during the last US depression in the 30s. There has not been a depressed economy since then (possibly excepting New Zealand and Finland.)
A recession is not a small depression.
yo.
640 pixels ought to be enough for everybody.
It sounds like a portable blood sugar monitor system based on the Gameboy, a cheap and readily available hardware platform.
You could have graphs and stuff.
yo.