What I don't like about this idea is that the thrust seems to be carried by the actuators holding their position. Come to think of it, they're using 3 actuators to accomplish 2 degree of freedom motion. Great. Armadillo's gimbal doesn't have these problems, but it does have a very limited range of motion in comparison.
It's not difficult (I just did it) to imagine a gimbal with the same or better range of motion, loads not significanlty carried by motors, no hoses (rotary seals), and only two actuators. The weakness in my idea is the need for a set of somewhat large diameter bearings. It's just a trunnion on a swivel base.
What problem is this gimbal supposed to solve in addition to the large range of motion in a space-rated package?
The poster's identity has no bearing on whether his opinion is correct. Beware your ad hominems, please.
Einstein was a greater cosmologist, I think, yet made theoretical "blunders" (cosmological constant).
I can accept that this might be seen as part of the scientific method. I would say that it's a sloppy hypothesis, since it's not based on any observational data that I've heard reported. "Evidence of Other Universes" would make quite a headline.
Einstein's relativity, for example, was created to explain observed data. Namely, that the speed of light is invariant with respect to the observer. Multiverse theory seems to be an attempt to do away with the beginning implied by Big Bang theory. The idea of a cosmic beginning is so repugnant that Einstein introduced the idea of the cosmological constant to get around it. He later called that move the greatest blunder of his career.
As I understand them, the theories you mention are attempts to explain observed phenomena. Without data to suggest multiple universes that theory has no more scientific basis than any form of creationism you might subscribe to. Some say God made the universe. Others say the universe cam out of some super-foam. Both are an appeal to the undetectable, since we can't reach outside the universe from inside.
Well, until a multiverse theory has actualy observational data pointing to it, perhaps it should stay restrained to sci-fi and comic books.
I'm not aware of any widely accepted theory that says we can make observations to prove or disprove any multiverse theory, so it hardly seems logical to classify them as scientific. SciAm should know better, or at least admit that the article is philosophical speculation, and not scientific.
What is the basis for multiverse theories? Is there anything in observed physics to indicate their possible existence? Is there any data pointing to a multiverse other than the fact that the idea of existence having a finite beginning is "philosophically repugnant".
If multiverse theories are based on philosophical preference rather than observed data, are not multiverse theories then properly classified as philosophical or metaphysical rather than scientific? Is there any conceivable test that could prove the existence of another universe? If not, then it seems multiverse theories should be published in philosophical journals, and certainly should not be classified as scientific, since science can neither prove nor disprove them.
This author may be a brilliant scientist, but I think we should keep in mind that he's speculating outside the realm of science.
Don't let a few bad examples prejudice yo uagainst religious people. You will find that TONS of research and progress are being carried out by religious institutions.
I imagine there are plenty of people who would limit stem cell research for non-religious reasons. After all, this quickly degenerates into an abortion debate.
Pro-life reasoning is that human life deserves protection all the way back to conception. Pro-abortion reasoning is that human life deserves protection only after some period of development (varying according to who's talking). Pro-life groups advocate protection all the way back to conception because they see no rational reason to draw the line anywhere else.
It is therefore not necessarily a religious motivation under which Bush limited stem cell research. Not that it wasn't a religious motivation. But an experienced politician at the top of the game knows better than to try to legislate his religious ideas without a separate rational argument.
If you don't want to protect human life as an embryo, why should your human life be protected now? What is your argument that your life is intrinsically more valuable than a human embryo to be used in stem cell research, or the Jews experimented on by the Nazis? Where and how do you draw the line at where the value of human life begins?
The question of when to begin protection of human life, embryo, fetus, child or adult must precede any argument for other uses of potentially adult human embryos, no matter how useful or convenient any use or disuse of the embyo may be. If a human life is deserving of the same rights as any adult or child then no one else has any right to determine how that life is to be spent.
Then stop linking to New Scientist. It seems like every story posted to/. from there is either over-hyped, or wild speculation.
On the other hand, maybe people just really enjoy debunking lousy science news stories. That would fit in with the geek know-it-all mindset. Like I've just demonstrated.
As for my vote, please stick to news from the more level-headed science reporting magazines, such as Science News or maybe Science Daily.
From watching the videos, it appears that this thing does not have the sophistication to be stable on 6 legs in a rough environment. It's just moving it's legs in a crawl forward motion, and it doesn;t know if its putting a foot in a hole or banging it on a rock, or actually making progress.
I build machines that could do that out of Legos when I was a kid. Less sophisticated, but much the same result.
In addition to the negative impact on Christianity. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Catholics, just Roman Catholocism).
Neither am I against science. It's great and useful stuff. It is a mistake to assume that science and religion are incompatible. It can even be argued that Science and Christian theology overlap. (A Christian theologian could argue the the study of nature is a subset of Theology, which is the study of God).
What I am against is the advocacy that Biological Evolution is an established fact explaining the origin of life. It is neither of those two things. It is an interpretation of observed facts, and arguably not an observed fact iteslf. I mean to say that the evidences cited for Biological Evolution are debatable, and the theories of the natural origin of life are still very much in flux and being changed on a significant scale to deal with new data. For example, the idea of the primordial soup on Earth is dead, hence all of the focus in the news elsewhere on new ideas of the origin of life (Mars, outer space, other systems). As an explanation of the origin of life, I find it implausible on it's own grounds, apart from what the Bible teaches.
However, within the limits of methodological naturalism, it may be the best explanation. When methodological naturalism fails to supply a convincing answer to the question of life origins, I think it's rational to look elsewhere, and apply scientific methods to supernatural explanations, almost all of which will be mowed down under scientific methods like grass under a mower.
Please also don't assume that Old Earth Creationists don't adhere to the fundamentals of Christianity (are not fundamentalist).
Old Earth Creationists do believe that they are following a literal reading of the Bible, if you read it in Hebrew. That the English translation uses the English word "day" is an artifact of the translation. At the time most English translations were made, reasons to use other meanings of the Hebrew word used were not largely present. The question of whether those Hebrew words as used in Genesis mean a calendar day or a long period of time has been discussed as far back as the early church fathers. That is, within the first few centuries, AD. Or so I'm told. That's several thousand pages to examine, if you want to examine it.
Many English speakers get dogmatic on this point, insisting that the Hebrew used in Genesis can only mean a calendar day. I have heard arguments for both sides, andfind the Old Earth arguments more convinceing, from both a Biblical and scientific viewpoint, independent of one another. I've not yet had the time to examine this myself, but I intend to. I really don't know what speakers of other languages think, or if they have time to care.
Please don't confuse this issue with the ignorant bumper sticker "If it ain't KJV, it ain't Bible".
CAD and engineering analysis in general will always be able to use all the speed you can supply.
If you don't need it, don't buy it. Intel and AMD build and sell these things largely for the same reason Dodge builds Vipers. It's propaganda. But that's far from the only use for them. As an engineer, I always drool over more procesor power. It's not uncommon for me to wait 20-60 minutes for my Athlon 1400 (running 1500) to complete some tasks.
I went looking for this sort of thing recently. I even searched/. I was sure all the geeks here would have discussed proper disposal. Where I'm located, I never found anything better than "Give your old busted hardware to poor people." To which I would have responded at that point in my life, "Oh, boy. An outdated/ broken PC"
Right. When God does not act withing the limitations of this universe, it's called a miracle.
Free will capable of choosing right over wrong, love over hate, that sort of thing, is the whole point. Any other kind of free will, a dog or a cockroach can do.
Theorists I made up? Are you nuts? Did you even look at what's there? Decades of work in theoretical science and theology.
Christian creationists, yes, and not afraid of observed facts. The fact remains that a natural origin of life the universe and everything is not an observed fact. Yes, evolution is an observed fact in some cases, but not in a way sufficient to explain origins.
In most cases, I agree with what you say about the pigs. There is a lot of faulty information on both sides of this issue, and I'm sure we disagree who has more.
The last half, almost always referred to as the New Testament, does not repeal the Law. Jesus said so himself. The law is fulfilled in the New Testament. Go read it again, if you ever did.
And that smarmy comment about rules you consider "Christian" leading to the tragedy of 9/11? Brilliant. [/sarcasm]
How did I convey the idea that Christian morality lead to the 9/11 atrocity?
And I am utterly astounded that people pin the results of a (reportedly) flawed interpretation of Islam on Judaism!
Just exactly where does the Bible condone a rape? There are faulty people all around every event, even the events ordained by God.
You are quite justified in hating atrocities such as genocide. And rape. If you look into the genocides commanded by God, you will find that they were hardly atrocities. He was doing the world a favor, getting rid of those people.
Scottsmen? This is not an appeal to my perception of the ideal Scottsman vs. the faulty Scottsman. Hitler (and Luther, and I) was (were, was) a very faulty Scottsman. What bearing does that have on the ideal scottsman?
The Bible contains a set of fixed ideas. Those ideas may be misinterpreted. Don't mistake the misinterpretations for what the Bible actually contains.
In this context, there really is a "true Scottsman" ideal, although understanding of that ideal may be flawed and should not be mistaken for the real thing.
Correct. You do not have the ability to choose the consequences for a given action.
(e. g. I can't disobey the law of gravity).
If you choose to step off a cliff, you will fall.
Free will applies to moral laws, not physical laws. They are two different things.
God could have created a universe without sin, but that would necessarily by a universe without free will. Free will contains within its definition (theological definition, that's what we're talking about) the potential to choose to sin.
To ask for God to create a universe without both is to ask for a philosophical absudity, similar to asking for 2+2=5. Just because you can ask a question within the syntax of a language does not mean that what you are asking makes sense.
If the Germans had studied their Bibles, they would not have followed Hitler. You can't justify your behavior by claiming "God told me to" unless He actually did.
Again, people who claim religious authority without actually having it are no basis for judging a religion.
For example, I can't discredit evolution based on the flawed arguments presented for it here on/. forums. I'd have to go find out what the real theory of evolution is (more specifialy origin of life studies), then work on that.
Slashdot Mirror
The basic mechanism shown is basically the same.
What I don't like about this idea is that the thrust seems to be carried by the actuators holding their position. Come to think of it, they're using 3 actuators to accomplish 2 degree of freedom motion. Great. Armadillo's gimbal doesn't have these problems, but it does have a very limited range of motion in comparison.
It's not difficult (I just did it) to imagine a gimbal with the same or better range of motion, loads not significanlty carried by motors, no hoses (rotary seals), and only two actuators. The weakness in my idea is the need for a set of somewhat large diameter bearings. It's just a trunnion on a swivel base.
What problem is this gimbal supposed to solve in addition to the large range of motion in a space-rated package?
The poster's identity has no bearing on whether his opinion is correct. Beware your ad hominems, please. Einstein was a greater cosmologist, I think, yet made theoretical "blunders" (cosmological constant).
Einstein's relativity, for example, was created to explain observed data. Namely, that the speed of light is invariant with respect to the observer. Multiverse theory seems to be an attempt to do away with the beginning implied by Big Bang theory. The idea of a cosmic beginning is so repugnant that Einstein introduced the idea of the cosmological constant to get around it. He later called that move the greatest blunder of his career.
As I understand them, the theories you mention are attempts to explain observed phenomena. Without data to suggest multiple universes that theory has no more scientific basis than any form of creationism you might subscribe to. Some say God made the universe. Others say the universe cam out of some super-foam. Both are an appeal to the undetectable, since we can't reach outside the universe from inside.
I'm not aware of any widely accepted theory that says we can make observations to prove or disprove any multiverse theory, so it hardly seems logical to classify them as scientific. SciAm should know better, or at least admit that the article is philosophical speculation, and not scientific.
If multiverse theories are based on philosophical preference rather than observed data, are not multiverse theories then properly classified as philosophical or metaphysical rather than scientific? Is there any conceivable test that could prove the existence of another universe? If not, then it seems multiverse theories should be published in philosophical journals, and certainly should not be classified as scientific, since science can neither prove nor disprove them.
This author may be a brilliant scientist, but I think we should keep in mind that he's speculating outside the realm of science.
IIRC, the Lieutenant Governor with jurisdiction over Rock Ridge found this practice in his legal dictionary under "land, see snatching".
Don't let a few bad examples prejudice yo uagainst religious people. You will find that TONS of research and progress are being carried out by religious institutions.
I imagine there are plenty of people who would limit stem cell research for non-religious reasons. After all, this quickly degenerates into an abortion debate.
Pro-life reasoning is that human life deserves protection all the way back to conception. Pro-abortion reasoning is that human life deserves protection only after some period of development (varying according to who's talking). Pro-life groups advocate protection all the way back to conception because they see no rational reason to draw the line anywhere else.
It is therefore not necessarily a religious motivation under which Bush limited stem cell research. Not that it wasn't a religious motivation. But an experienced politician at the top of the game knows better than to try to legislate his religious ideas without a separate rational argument.
If you don't want to protect human life as an embryo, why should your human life be protected now? What is your argument that your life is intrinsically more valuable than a human embryo to be used in stem cell research, or the Jews experimented on by the Nazis? Where and how do you draw the line at where the value of human life begins?
The question of when to begin protection of human life, embryo, fetus, child or adult must precede any argument for other uses of potentially adult human embryos, no matter how useful or convenient any use or disuse of the embyo may be. If a human life is deserving of the same rights as any adult or child then no one else has any right to determine how that life is to be spent.
Then stop linking to New Scientist. It seems like every story posted to /. from there is either over-hyped, or wild speculation.
On the other hand, maybe people just really enjoy debunking lousy science news stories. That would fit in with the geek know-it-all mindset. Like I've just demonstrated.
As for my vote, please stick to news from the more level-headed science reporting magazines, such as Science News or maybe Science Daily.
From watching the videos, it appears that this thing does not have the sophistication to be stable on 6 legs in a rough environment. It's just moving it's legs in a crawl forward motion, and it doesn;t know if its putting a foot in a hole or banging it on a rock, or actually making progress. I build machines that could do that out of Legos when I was a kid. Less sophisticated, but much the same result.
They'd better not use Lux Aeterana in the movie. We'll all be having 2001: A Space Odyssey flashbacks.
Neither am I against science. It's great and useful stuff. It is a mistake to assume that science and religion are incompatible. It can even be argued that Science and Christian theology overlap. (A Christian theologian could argue the the study of nature is a subset of Theology, which is the study of God).
What I am against is the advocacy that Biological Evolution is an established fact explaining the origin of life. It is neither of those two things. It is an interpretation of observed facts, and arguably not an observed fact iteslf. I mean to say that the evidences cited for Biological Evolution are debatable, and the theories of the natural origin of life are still very much in flux and being changed on a significant scale to deal with new data. For example, the idea of the primordial soup on Earth is dead, hence all of the focus in the news elsewhere on new ideas of the origin of life (Mars, outer space, other systems). As an explanation of the origin of life, I find it implausible on it's own grounds, apart from what the Bible teaches.
However, within the limits of methodological naturalism, it may be the best explanation. When methodological naturalism fails to supply a convincing answer to the question of life origins, I think it's rational to look elsewhere, and apply scientific methods to supernatural explanations, almost all of which will be mowed down under scientific methods like grass under a mower.
Old Earth Creationists do believe that they are following a literal reading of the Bible, if you read it in Hebrew. That the English translation uses the English word "day" is an artifact of the translation. At the time most English translations were made, reasons to use other meanings of the Hebrew word used were not largely present. The question of whether those Hebrew words as used in Genesis mean a calendar day or a long period of time has been discussed as far back as the early church fathers. That is, within the first few centuries, AD. Or so I'm told. That's several thousand pages to examine, if you want to examine it.
Many English speakers get dogmatic on this point, insisting that the Hebrew used in Genesis can only mean a calendar day. I have heard arguments for both sides, andfind the Old Earth arguments more convinceing, from both a Biblical and scientific viewpoint, independent of one another. I've not yet had the time to examine this myself, but I intend to. I really don't know what speakers of other languages think, or if they have time to care.
Please don't confuse this issue with the ignorant bumper sticker "If it ain't KJV, it ain't Bible".
If you don't need it, don't buy it. Intel and AMD build and sell these things largely for the same reason Dodge builds Vipers. It's propaganda. But that's far from the only use for them. As an engineer, I always drool over more procesor power. It's not uncommon for me to wait 20-60 minutes for my Athlon 1400 (running 1500) to complete some tasks.
I went looking for this sort of thing recently. I even searched /. I was sure all the geeks here would have discussed proper disposal. Where I'm located, I never found anything better than "Give your old busted hardware to poor people." To which I would have responded at that point in my life, "Oh, boy. An outdated/ broken PC"
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/index .html?main
Free will capable of choosing right over wrong, love over hate, that sort of thing, is the whole point. Any other kind of free will, a dog or a cockroach can do.
Christian creationists, yes, and not afraid of observed facts. The fact remains that a natural origin of life the universe and everything is not an observed fact. Yes, evolution is an observed fact in some cases, but not in a way sufficient to explain origins.
In most cases, I agree with what you say about the pigs. There is a lot of faulty information on both sides of this issue, and I'm sure we disagree who has more.
And that smarmy comment about rules you consider "Christian" leading to the tragedy of 9/11? Brilliant. [/sarcasm]
How did I convey the idea that Christian morality lead to the 9/11 atrocity?
The Jewish power structure was also operating outside of a correct interpretation of their scriptures. So what?
Your examples of the misuse if a thing do not invalidate the thing itself.
Just exactly where does the Bible condone a rape? There are faulty people all around every event, even the events ordained by God.
You are quite justified in hating atrocities such as genocide. And rape. If you look into the genocides commanded by God, you will find that they were hardly atrocities. He was doing the world a favor, getting rid of those people.
The Bible contains a set of fixed ideas. Those ideas may be misinterpreted. Don't mistake the misinterpretations for what the Bible actually contains.
In this context, there really is a "true Scottsman" ideal, although understanding of that ideal may be flawed and should not be mistaken for the real thing.
(e. g. I can't disobey the law of gravity).
If you choose to step off a cliff, you will fall.
Free will applies to moral laws, not physical laws. They are two different things.
God could have created a universe without sin, but that would necessarily by a universe without free will. Free will contains within its definition (theological definition, that's what we're talking about) the potential to choose to sin.
To ask for God to create a universe without both is to ask for a philosophical absudity, similar to asking for 2+2=5. Just because you can ask a question within the syntax of a language does not mean that what you are asking makes sense.
Again, people who claim religious authority without actually having it are no basis for judging a religion.
For example, I can't discredit evolution based on the flawed arguments presented for it here on /. forums. I'd have to go find out what the real theory of evolution is (more specifialy origin of life studies), then work on that.