Actually they did not really have the money when they announced the prize. They actually announced the prize, hoping they could gather the money from donations before anyone could claim the prize. It seems a questionable thing to do, but looks like they will get away with it.
San diego is the sixth largest city in the US and the Uion Tribune is its major newspaper. In fact the union tribune reaches much more people than this suggests, as there are a lot of people living in suburban towns around san diego who consider themselves san diegans and read the union tribune.
Also, san diego is a huge tech center, (although it is more focused on biotech than computers).
"If they really wanted to do this neat, they would stream the data live to a website, rather than can up the data until they are ready to release it."
The problem is the data is meaningless, unless you know a lot about the instruments sensors, their tolerances, outputs etc. I am sure a lot of math has to be done in order to come up with usefull data.
So they will have to post blue prints on the site as well as describe each electrical element used. It will be quite a PITA.
You know how there is an electric force caused by electric charges and a magnetic force caused by the movement of electric charges. Then when you study maxwell they tell you that the electric and magnetic forces are really two aspects of one force.
Is frame dragging the result of a force that is equivalent to magnetism for gravity. In SAT analogy terms, is:
I guess one could accuse certain modern physicists of coming up with "theories that fit reality". But we should remember that Einstein came up with his theories when most of them could not have been possibly proven correct or wrong, so there are at least some theories there, that are not after the fact descriptors of reality but true predictors of the behaviour of the universe.
As far as the usefulness of this, it is also usefull to know how the world around you works. Take nuclear physics -- i am sure people would have characterized the early experiments with radium as pointless, but now the long term future of humanity depends on nuclear energy. The ultimate destruction of humanity also depends on nuclear energy. So whether you are pro or anti humans, nuclear energy is your best bet!!!
Many people support the idea that subsidies to trains should be stopped and trains should be left to the free market. I think it is generally a sensible idea and is in accordance with the economic theories you obviously believe in. So please dont take this as a flame.
But there is a HUGE problem with this idea (in the US), that everyone always overlooks. And that is that the competitors of trains, cars and airplanes are subject to much higher subsidies than trains.
It is an amzing achievement of the automobile, and airline industry lobies that everyone always complains about goverment subsidies for trains and nobody mentions the subsidies for automobiles, roads and airlines (as well as airplane development).
Do a search for Amtrack in Lexis and you will find a bunch of conservative senators and various "think tank" "scholars" (although i think "whores" is a more appropriate term for the think tank people) explaining how Amtrack is just syphoning off tax money and if it cannot compete in the marketplace, it should be shut down. Truth is the government money spent on amtrack is dwarfed by the money spent on other modes of transportation. The money spent on roads in a single relatively large city in america (such as san diego for example) dwarfes the money spent on amtrack in the whole country. Add to that the money spent on federal and state level and the funding for Amtrack is just a drop in the bucket. As it is amtrack is probably the most free market mode of transportation because it recovers most of its cost by selling tickets. This is not true for cars, which rely and almost entirely government subsidized roads.
Of course the airline industry should be mentioned as well... it currently operates almost entirely on federally backed loans. The same congressmen that are trying to kill amtrack, eagerly dole out subsidies for the airlines, because somehow the airlines are of national importance and the rails presumably arent. Thus, we have the economically nonsensical situation, where the so called hub-and-spoke airlines are servicing many routes in america, which would be much better serviced by rail.
So if you believe in these free market principles, you (and everybody else) should hold every single industry to the same standard. In the current state of affairs free market principles seem to be only applied to rails, which has been proven the most efficient mode of transportation. Less efficient modes of transportation are subsidized as a result, and we end up with the very expensive transportation network we have today.
Lets look at the current example. We are arguing about 12 million of research money going for maglevs, only 2 million of which is federal. Now lets think of how much state money is going into carr development. Well first of all there are a shitload of government funded "smart highway" programs, each drawing many millions of dollars. Then there is the investments in the hydrogen car research programs. And so on, I have not done the reasearch but just remembering news stories, the govt spending for automobile research is in the billions.
Now you talk about the dangers of maglev running out of power... well these dangers need not be as high as they sound. First of all modern maglevs are elevated only sentimeters (or even millimeters) off a rail. Thus, it seems reasonable to design a train that would fall on its rails if the power is cut off. Secondly, if the magnets arecoil based electric magnets (which they always are AFAIK), they will not shut off imidiately when power stops. Instead, they will continue operating for a while on the principle of electric induction and will slowly power down. Which would make it easier for a train to glide back on its rails. So, this is not really a problem. Not nearly as big of a problem, than for example the power of a plain shutting down.
"The petition was filed by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), not Clear Channel. "
Well seeing as how Clear Channel is the largest radio broadcaster and owns 1200 radio stations in the US, it is pretty safe to say they dominate the NAB, especially in issues related to radio. I am sure that is why Reuters inserted their name into the rpess release.
"Secondly, how is local radio a failed business model? "
Local radio may not be a failed bussiness model but it is very well documented that most clear channel's stations have been steadily losing audiences since being taken over by clear channel. Thus, clear channel is a failed bussiness model. And quite fittingly, their stock prices have been steadily decreasing ever since they obtained this large number of stations (around 2000).
The fact that satelite radio exists is further proof for the bad quality of local radio. Think about it -- people install additional devices in their cars and buy monthly subscriptions to get satelite radio, while they can get local radio for free. Well local radio must really suck.
There is a law like that 35 usc 103 - covering obviousness. However obviousness is a very tricky thing, and usually a patent examiners opinion of what is obvious is a lot narrower than that of the usual engineer.
"That's one of the illegitimate worries of environmentalists when it comes to GM crops. To suggest that the genetic information can magically be recombined into other chromosomes is like saying you shouldn't smell flowers because the genes of the pollen will recombine into the chromosomes of the cells in your lungs. "
You should study envrionmentalist concerns more carefully before you criticize them. Nobody is saying that the GM material will magically combine with a persons DNA. But what is very likely to happen, is that pollen from GM modified fields fertilizes normal rice, an then when you go to the store to buy some rice, it is GM modified rice containing all kinds of weird drugs in it.
And needless to say, drugs that are not perscribed (and which you dont even know you are taking nontheless) can be very dangerous.
I am sorry slashdot put in an extra space in my url. please delete the space before the n for the link to work. Yes, I am too lazy to make an HTML link.
This article pretty much sums up the essence of Thomas Friedman: http://www.exile.ru/185/outsourcing_tho mas_friedma n.html
Basicly he is a person who is relatively sure that his job will never be outsourced as long as he keeps writing articles about how outsourcing is good for everyone.
I cant wait to read a whole thread of slashdot people saying "i told you so".
However, i feel bad for the "slashdot team" of the microsoft PR department. I doubt those guys will have presidents day off. They might even have to pay extra for an additional delivery of "bulk mod points".
I really doubt anything could have escaped earth's gravitational field.
Remember that rockets etc use continuous trust to get out. If something gets "kicked up" by a meterite it will not have continuous trust but only an initial velocity which will keep decreasing from the earth's gravitational force and the drag from the atmosphere. Also the air drag forces are proportional to velocity, so the fastest the initial velocity is, the faster it will get decreased by air drag.
Now the problem is not only excaping from the atmosphere, one must escape from earth's gravity as well. That is a piece of debree that escapes from the atmosphere, will likely end up in some kind orbit around earth. In order not to get caugh in such an orbit, the piece of debris must be going even faster!
If you assume that these processes of debris getting "kicked up" are more or less random, it follows that if a highly unlikely thing such as a piece of debris escaping earths gravity has happened, than the less unlikely thing, that is a piece of debris escaping the atmosphere and getting caught in earths orbit would happen much more often. But, as far as i know, nobody has found earth debris in orbit around earth (excluding of course man made stuff). So it is pretty safe bet to say that no piece of earth has naturally escaped the earth atmosphere.
why do you think there will be size and speed gains?
the complexity of most logical and arithmetic operations that have to be performed on a bit increase exponentially with the number of possible states in the bit.
Can you see trough how many hoops you have to jump to explain this?
But no, the war was illegal. The "original mandate" ended a long time ago and the UN refused to create a new one.
Also, before the invasion all the arms inspectors were unanimous that they were able to do their job and were not finding any significant violations of un resolutions. It turns out they were probably right, since the US-UK coalition have not been able to find any either. Of course even if there were violations the UN would have to authorize any military intervention.
Spain was never a serious contender for the reactor because they:
- provided only a small part of the funding - do not remotely have the number and quality of nuclear scientists and engineers japan and france have.
One little known fact is that japan and france are two of the very few contries that produce most of their energy from nuclear reactors.
This story has been developing for a while, i have been reading articles about it in the new scientist from several months ago.
What actually happened was that the Bush government was lobbying for spain from the time spain announced they were joining the coalition to attack iraq. This really pissed off the europeans, because the Bush administration had recently pulled out US funding from the project, causing a huge setback. The europeans thought that once the US pulled out of the project, it was none of their bussines where the reactor would be built. This of course caused a huge setback to the Spain location. But Spain was a very unlikely choice to begin with, for the reasons i gave in the begining of the post.
Slashdot Mirror
That is true. Problem is Lucas stopped ripping Kurusawa off, and his movies started sucking. So he should get back to what works.
Actually they did not really have the money when they announced the prize. They actually announced the prize, hoping they could gather the money from donations before anyone could claim the prize. It seems a questionable thing to do, but looks like they will get away with it.
I took in Pascal and got a 5. I'd just like you all to know that.
So you are one of those people that read the whole story.
San diego is the sixth largest city in the US and the Uion Tribune is its major newspaper. In fact the union tribune reaches much more people than this suggests, as there are a lot of people living in suburban towns around san diego who consider themselves san diegans and read the union tribune.
Also, san diego is a huge tech center, (although it is more focused on biotech than computers).
Philosophical.
"If they really wanted to do this neat, they would stream the data live to a website, rather than can up the data until they are ready to release it."
The problem is the data is meaningless, unless you know a lot about the instruments sensors, their tolerances, outputs etc. I am sure a lot of math has to be done in order to come up with usefull data.
So they will have to post blue prints on the site as well as describe each electrical element used. It will be quite a PITA.
A question for physicists?
:: electricity:magnetism
You know how there is an electric force caused by electric charges and a magnetic force caused by the movement of electric charges. Then when you study maxwell they tell you that the electric and magnetic forces are really two aspects of one force.
Is frame dragging the result of a force that is equivalent to magnetism for gravity. In SAT analogy terms, is:
gravity:frame dragging force
I guess one could accuse certain modern physicists of coming up with "theories that fit reality". But we should remember that Einstein came up with his theories when most of them could not have been possibly proven correct or wrong, so there are at least some theories there, that are not after the fact descriptors of reality but true predictors of the behaviour of the universe.
As far as the usefulness of this, it is also usefull to know how the world around you works. Take nuclear physics -- i am sure people would have characterized the early experiments with radium as pointless, but now the long term future of humanity depends on nuclear energy. The ultimate destruction of humanity also depends on nuclear energy. So whether you are pro or anti humans, nuclear energy is your best bet!!!
Many people support the idea that subsidies to trains should be stopped and trains should be left to the free market. I think it is generally a sensible idea and is in accordance with the economic theories you obviously believe in. So please dont take this as a flame.
... it currently operates almost entirely on federally backed loans. The same congressmen that are trying to kill amtrack, eagerly dole out subsidies for the airlines, because somehow the airlines are of national importance and the rails presumably arent. Thus, we have the economically nonsensical situation, where the so called hub-and-spoke airlines are servicing many routes in america, which would be much better serviced by rail.
But there is a HUGE problem with this idea (in the US), that everyone always overlooks. And that is that the competitors of trains, cars and airplanes are subject to much higher subsidies than trains.
It is an amzing achievement of the automobile, and airline industry lobies that everyone always complains about goverment subsidies for trains and nobody mentions the subsidies for automobiles, roads and airlines (as well as airplane development).
Do a search for Amtrack in Lexis and you will find a bunch of conservative senators and various "think tank" "scholars" (although i think "whores" is a more appropriate term for the think tank people) explaining how Amtrack is just syphoning off tax money and if it cannot compete in the marketplace, it should be shut down. Truth is the government money spent on amtrack is dwarfed by the money spent on other modes of transportation. The money spent on roads in a single relatively large city in america (such as san diego for example) dwarfes the money spent on amtrack in the whole country. Add to that the money spent on federal and state level and the funding for Amtrack is just a drop in the bucket. As it is amtrack is probably the most free market mode of transportation because it recovers most of its cost by selling tickets. This is not true for cars, which rely and almost entirely government subsidized roads.
Of course the airline industry should be mentioned as well
So if you believe in these free market principles, you (and everybody else) should hold every single industry to the same standard. In the current state of affairs free market principles seem to be only applied to rails, which has been proven the most efficient mode of transportation. Less efficient modes of transportation are subsidized as a result, and we end up with the very expensive transportation network we have today.
Lets look at the current example. We are arguing about 12 million of research money going for maglevs, only 2 million of which is federal. Now lets think of how much state money is going into carr development. Well first of all there are a shitload of government funded "smart highway" programs, each drawing many millions of dollars. Then there is the investments in the hydrogen car research programs. And so on, I have not done the reasearch but just remembering news stories, the govt spending for automobile research is in the billions.
Now you talk about the dangers of maglev running out of power... well these dangers need not be as high as they sound. First of all modern maglevs are elevated only sentimeters (or even millimeters) off a rail. Thus, it seems reasonable to design a train that would fall on its rails if the power is cut off. Secondly, if the magnets arecoil based electric magnets (which they always are AFAIK), they will not shut off imidiately when power stops. Instead, they will continue operating for a while on the principle of electric induction and will slowly power down. Which would make it easier for a train to glide back on its rails. So, this is not really a problem. Not nearly as big of a problem, than for example the power of a plain shutting down.
"The petition was filed by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), not Clear Channel. "
Well seeing as how Clear Channel is the largest radio broadcaster and owns 1200 radio stations in the US, it is pretty safe to say they dominate the NAB, especially in issues related to radio. I am sure that is why Reuters inserted their name into the rpess release.
"Secondly, how is local radio a failed business model? "
Local radio may not be a failed bussiness model but it is very well documented that most clear channel's stations have been steadily losing audiences since being taken over by clear channel. Thus, clear channel is a failed bussiness model. And quite fittingly, their stock prices have been steadily decreasing ever since they obtained this large number of stations (around 2000).
The fact that satelite radio exists is further proof for the bad quality of local radio. Think about it -- people install additional devices in their cars and buy monthly subscriptions to get satelite radio, while they can get local radio for free. Well local radio must really suck.
You are lucky. My favourite hard rock station in San Diego was taken over by clear channel and is now pretty lame.
they do kind of. there is a 700 filing fee and the pto keeps it whether the patent gets issued or not.
There is a law like that 35 usc 103 - covering obviousness. However obviousness is a very tricky thing, and usually a patent examiners opinion of what is obvious is a lot narrower than that of the usual engineer.
"That's one of the illegitimate worries of environmentalists when it comes to GM crops. To suggest that the genetic information can magically be recombined into other chromosomes is like saying you shouldn't smell flowers because the genes of the pollen will recombine into the chromosomes of the cells in your lungs. "
You should study envrionmentalist concerns more carefully before you criticize them. Nobody is saying that the GM material will magically combine with a persons DNA. But what is very likely to happen, is that pollen from GM modified fields fertilizes normal rice, an then when you go to the store to buy some rice, it is GM modified rice containing all kinds of weird drugs in it.
And needless to say, drugs that are not perscribed (and which you dont even know you are taking nontheless) can be very dangerous.
I am sorry slashdot put in an extra space in my url. please delete the space before the n for the link to work. Yes, I am too lazy to make an HTML link.
This article pretty much sums up the essence of Thomas Friedman:o mas_friedma n.html
http://www.exile.ru/185/outsourcing_th
Basicly he is a person who is relatively sure that his job will never be outsourced as long as he keeps writing articles about how outsourcing is good for everyone.
this is one of those rare jokes that only works when you know at least 2 languages.
I cant wait to read a whole thread of slashdot people saying "i told you so".
However, i feel bad for the "slashdot team" of the microsoft PR department. I doubt those guys will have presidents day off. They might even have to pay extra for an additional delivery of "bulk mod points".
I really doubt anything could have escaped earth's gravitational field.
Remember that rockets etc use continuous trust to get out. If something gets "kicked up" by a meterite it will not have continuous trust but only an initial velocity which will keep decreasing from the earth's gravitational force and the drag from the atmosphere. Also the air drag forces are proportional to velocity, so the fastest the initial velocity is, the faster it will get decreased by air drag.
Now the problem is not only excaping from the atmosphere, one must escape from earth's gravity as well. That is a piece of debree that escapes from the atmosphere, will likely end up in some kind orbit around earth. In order not to get caugh in such an orbit, the piece of debris must be going even faster!
If you assume that these processes of debris getting "kicked up" are more or less random, it follows that if a highly unlikely thing such as a piece of debris escaping earths gravity has happened, than the less unlikely thing, that is a piece of debris escaping the atmosphere and getting caught in earths orbit would happen much more often. But, as far as i know, nobody has found earth debris in orbit around earth (excluding of course man made stuff). So it is pretty safe bet to say that no piece of earth has naturally escaped the earth atmosphere.
why do you think there will be size and speed gains?
the complexity of most logical and arithmetic operations that have to be performed on a bit increase exponentially with the number of possible states in the bit.
Can you see trough how many hoops you have to jump to explain this?
But no, the war was illegal. The "original mandate" ended a long time ago and the UN refused to create a new one.
Also, before the invasion all the arms inspectors were unanimous that they were able to do their job and were not finding any significant violations of un resolutions. It turns out they were probably right, since the US-UK coalition have not been able to find any either. Of course even if there were violations the UN would have to authorize any military intervention.
So, yes the war was illegal.
Or maybe they have not watched Fox news enough to be ingrained with the bizarre idea that attacking iraq would somehow combat islamic fundamentalism.
Spain was never a serious contender for the reactor because they:
- provided only a small part of the funding
- do not remotely have the number and quality of nuclear scientists and engineers japan and france have.
One little known fact is that japan and france are two of the very few contries that produce most of their energy from nuclear reactors.
This story has been developing for a while, i have been reading articles about it in the new scientist from several months ago.
What actually happened was that the Bush government was lobbying for spain from the time spain announced they were joining the coalition to attack iraq. This really pissed off the europeans, because the Bush administration had recently pulled out US funding from the project, causing a huge setback. The europeans thought that once the US pulled out of the project, it was none of their bussines where the reactor would be built. This of course caused a huge setback to the Spain location. But Spain was a very unlikely choice to begin with, for the reasons i gave in the begining of the post.
But apparently it is possible to repeat the same lame joke on slashdot 1 000 000 times and still be moderated as insightful.
I urge slashdotters to read some european history, so they can realize how stupid these jokes are.