Consider for a moment that Einstein might have been wrong? Since we can't actually study anything at the speed of light properly, it's all down to the calculations and even great minds might make errors.
On the contrary. A number of experiments have, in fact, demonstrated that both special and general relativity are almost certainly valid. More here.
Photons are normally considered to have zero mass, and to be the smallest possible unit of energy.
Check... although photons can have almost any energy. Low-frequency photons (think IR) have low energy, and high-frequency photons (think gamma rays) have high energy.
Yet, they are also "negative", are they not? That is, they move away from their source.
I have no idea what you're saying here. Photons have no charge and no mass. They are not "negative" in any sense of the word I'm familiar with. One of the fundamental properties of photons is that they are always moving at the speed of light - that's why they move away from their source.
Yet, if a photon will be absorbed by some types of objects, bounce off of others, and simply pass through others - it must have some sort of mass.
Why must it? If you begin to study physics seriously, one of the first pre-conceptions you'll have to let go of is that your "common sense" can be trusted to tell you how things behave in the quantum world. Photons have no mass.
Where does a photon go when it's energy is spent?
A typical fate for a photon would be for it to be absorbed by an atom. In the process, the photon's energy is put into raising one of the atom's electrons from a lower energy state to a higher energy state.
There must be a near infinate supply of photons that have no energy or are waiting to aquire it. It would seem that these photons - assuming they do have mass, in the same sense that electrons have a larger mass, could explain both, no?
No. All photons have a non-zero energy which equals something like h * f, where h = Planck's constant and f = the photon's frequency. I may be off by a factor of 2 pi... it's been a long time since I took Modern Physics!
The $142/kg is a MARGINAL cost... the quoted article also says that the development cost for the space elevator "might be" about the same as that for developing the space shuttle. But this number is just made up out of thin air!
I've seen some materials from the company that's plugging the space elevator, and it's the same story. They essentially make up a number for what the cost of the elevator would be, then base their rosy financial picture on that.
His scheme is that only people known to be non-RIAA agents will be able to download the application - which in turn means that the only way RIAA can get in is via cracking/disassembling... illegal under the DMCA.
Whether it's practical to keep RIAA agents out of the network is another question.
Sonar detection is mostly done from surface ships vs. subs, subs vs. subs, or subs vs. surface ships. There are two types: active & passive.
Active sonar is when the searching ship transmits a ping into the water, and listens for reflected pings. From the timing and direction of the reflected ping, you can tell where the target is. Both carbon fiber and traditional steel hulls can be fitted with countermeasures that dampen reflections (think rubberized tiles mounted to the hull), but neither is particularly stealthy to reflected sound without them.
Passive sonar is when the searching ship listens for frequencies likely to be emitted in the course of normal operation of the ship. For example, US ships emit a 60 Hz line from the sound of their electric generators (while European ships emit 50 hz lines from the same equipment). Again, both types of ship can be fitted with countermeasures that minimize the transmission of sound from the ship into the water (think rubber bushings/isolation mounts on your generators), but neither is particularly stealthy without them.
Bottom line: carbon fiber probably doesn't make much difference in sonar detection.
Sean
People talk as though robotic warfare is something that is so far in the future that they don't have to worry about it. These people are wrong. Consider the Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile - it's a robotic airplane with a bomb onboard. It has its own sensors, navigation systems, electronic-counter-countermeasures, propulsion, and target selection logic. When launched, it is essentially told to go to a certain area and start looking for ships (with radar). It knows implicitly how to tell ships from chaff clouds, jamming signals, and weather formations. Given a choice between ships, it'll pick the largest one. Given a choice between approximately equal sized ships, it picks the one it saw first. It knows that its target will be trying to destroy it, so it performs one of a number of maneuvers designed to defeat point defense weapons directed against it. Upon contact with the enemy vessel, it triggers its onboard warhead and explodes.
Is a Harpoon "intelligent"? Not in the sense that people are. But it certainly has a great capacity to conduct a mission autonomously... sounds like a fairly advanced robot to me.
this is different from halon systems that deprive the fire of oxygen.
Your post is good up to this point. HALON does not put out fires by depriving them of oxygen - HALON will effectively put out a fire at relatively low concentrations, and while there's still plenty of O2 present. HALON works by interfering with fire chemistry - more details here.
It specifically states that it's NOT like HALON - it puts out fires by cooling vs. interference with fire chemistry (as HALON does). And it can also be used in "streaming" applications (like water).
Sure, I guess you could go to hand counting. That'll only take a few weeks to verify the results.
Somehow, the Republic managed to survive for a couple hundred years with paper ballots, waiting longer than "a couple weeks" for the results in the days before electronic communciations. What was the problem, again?
... did you not understand? A quote for your convenience:
POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385): A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize
supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc. while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.
Emphasis mine. I've done lots of these, and never was the USCG officer asked to "leave CIC to avoid violating the PC act". Providing intel support for drug LE ops is specifically permitted by the PC act as amended.
Luckily (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), satisfying the privacy desires of other parts of the world isn't part of the NSAs charter. Their business is to provide signals intelligence to the US military for the purpose of increasing our national security. If they don't like it in Andorra, et. al... sorry.
There was no "official" cooperation between the military and the Coast Guard on this, but when you get orders on the secure circuit to "think about getting to these coordinates in exactly 12 hours" which result in the Coastie on watch saying "Oh hey -- there's a boat... let's board him!" can you deny that there is unofficial cooperation going on?
No, I can't deny that cooperation is going on, because it is, and it's perfectly legal. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from conducting law enforcement operations itself, but it specifically permits the military to SUPPORT law enforcement agencies to conduct LEO, especially drug related ones. See the link for more info.
By the way, I was in the Navy as well, and participated in many, many of these operations. The fact that the Navy was actively cooperating with the Coast Guard was widely known and unclassified.
This is a real problem in car-oriented places, as people who don't use mass transit don't want to pay for it, and gov't operation somehow seems to lead to collective payment/subsidy.
I don't use the interstate highway system, and I don't want to pay for it. So let's get the government out of the business of building roads.
You are aware that something like two thirds of the cost of building roads comes out of general revenues (i.e. NOT gas taxes, licensing fees, etc), right?
"Smart growth" policies that simply require new development to pay for new infrastructure are a great starting point. Houses out in the boonies are much cheaper per square foot, and not just because of land prices and lack of cleanup issues... currently, most municipalities shell out to bring sewers, roads, and schools to greenfield developments. By simply removing this subsidy, we can go a long way to equalizing the costs of greenfield and infill development.
But don't the localities recoup at least some of this in the form of proffers from developers? I know that in my area, if a developer wants to make a new development of any kind, he/she has to fork over an enormous amount of money to the city/county government - I thought that this was specifically intended to compensate the local government for utility rollout costs.
Transportation is too cheap, also. We subsidize private auto use very heavily.
Besides if it was piracy then you could go to an unfriendly country and get a letter and become a privateer and legaly pirate assuming you paid your taxes.
The letter you refer to is called a letter of marque, but you won't have much luck trying to get one. They've been deemed illegal under international law for many, many years.
Not all that relevant to a discussion about the RIAA, but some may find it interesting.
Without commenting on the rest of your thread, I can personally attest to the fact that "it's been happening for years" - we've used these "scantron" type ballots in my precinct for as long as I've voted here, which amounts to more than three years, and included several national, local, and primary elections.
Slashdot Mirror
On the contrary. A number of experiments have, in fact, demonstrated that both special and general relativity are almost certainly valid. More here.
Sean
That "dark suckers" page makes my personal top-10 list of "Hardest-To-Read Web Sites of All Time".
This moment of crankiness brought to you by Jakob Nielsen.
Sean
Some responses...
Check... although photons can have almost any energy. Low-frequency photons (think IR) have low energy, and high-frequency photons (think gamma rays) have high energy.
I have no idea what you're saying here. Photons have no charge and no mass. They are not "negative" in any sense of the word I'm familiar with. One of the fundamental properties of photons is that they are always moving at the speed of light - that's why they move away from their source.
Why must it? If you begin to study physics seriously, one of the first pre-conceptions you'll have to let go of is that your "common sense" can be trusted to tell you how things behave in the quantum world. Photons have no mass.
A typical fate for a photon would be for it to be absorbed by an atom. In the process, the photon's energy is put into raising one of the atom's electrons from a lower energy state to a higher energy state.
No. All photons have a non-zero energy which equals something like h * f, where h = Planck's constant and f = the photon's frequency. I may be off by a factor of 2 pi... it's been a long time since I took Modern Physics!
Hope this helps.
Sean
Full-justify all text!
Sean
The $142/kg is a MARGINAL cost... the quoted article also says that the development cost for the space elevator "might be" about the same as that for developing the space shuttle. But this number is just made up out of thin air!
I've seen some materials from the company that's plugging the space elevator, and it's the same story. They essentially make up a number for what the cost of the elevator would be, then base their rosy financial picture on that.
Sean
His scheme is that only people known to be non-RIAA agents will be able to download the application - which in turn means that the only way RIAA can get in is via cracking/disassembling... illegal under the DMCA.
Whether it's practical to keep RIAA agents out of the network is another question.
Sean
Sean
Sonar detection is mostly done from surface ships vs. subs, subs vs. subs, or subs vs. surface ships. There are two types: active & passive. Active sonar is when the searching ship transmits a ping into the water, and listens for reflected pings. From the timing and direction of the reflected ping, you can tell where the target is. Both carbon fiber and traditional steel hulls can be fitted with countermeasures that dampen reflections (think rubberized tiles mounted to the hull), but neither is particularly stealthy to reflected sound without them. Passive sonar is when the searching ship listens for frequencies likely to be emitted in the course of normal operation of the ship. For example, US ships emit a 60 Hz line from the sound of their electric generators (while European ships emit 50 hz lines from the same equipment). Again, both types of ship can be fitted with countermeasures that minimize the transmission of sound from the ship into the water (think rubber bushings/isolation mounts on your generators), but neither is particularly stealthy without them. Bottom line: carbon fiber probably doesn't make much difference in sonar detection. Sean
If someone passes a law against the ship, I imagine it will still keep afloat... wait, did you mean ordnance?
Sean
People talk as though robotic warfare is something that is so far in the future that they don't have to worry about it. These people are wrong. Consider the Harpoon anti-ship cruise missile - it's a robotic airplane with a bomb onboard. It has its own sensors, navigation systems, electronic-counter-countermeasures, propulsion, and target selection logic. When launched, it is essentially told to go to a certain area and start looking for ships (with radar). It knows implicitly how to tell ships from chaff clouds, jamming signals, and weather formations. Given a choice between ships, it'll pick the largest one. Given a choice between approximately equal sized ships, it picks the one it saw first. It knows that its target will be trying to destroy it, so it performs one of a number of maneuvers designed to defeat point defense weapons directed against it. Upon contact with the enemy vessel, it triggers its onboard warhead and explodes.
Is a Harpoon "intelligent"? Not in the sense that people are. But it certainly has a great capacity to conduct a mission autonomously... sounds like a fairly advanced robot to me.
Sean
Your post is good up to this point. HALON does not put out fires by depriving them of oxygen - HALON will effectively put out a fire at relatively low concentrations, and while there's still plenty of O2 present. HALON works by interfering with fire chemistry - more details here.
Sean
It specifically states that it's NOT like HALON - it puts out fires by cooling vs. interference with fire chemistry (as HALON does). And it can also be used in "streaming" applications (like water).
Sean
Sean
Somehow, the Republic managed to survive for a couple hundred years with paper ballots, waiting longer than "a couple weeks" for the results in the days before electronic communciations. What was the problem, again?
Sean
Emphasis mine. I've done lots of these, and never was the USCG officer asked to "leave CIC to avoid violating the PC act". Providing intel support for drug LE ops is specifically permitted by the PC act as amended.
Sean
Luckily (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), satisfying the privacy desires of other parts of the world isn't part of the NSAs charter. Their business is to provide signals intelligence to the US military for the purpose of increasing our national security. If they don't like it in Andorra, et. al... sorry.
Sean
No, I can't deny that cooperation is going on, because it is, and it's perfectly legal. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from conducting law enforcement operations itself, but it specifically permits the military to SUPPORT law enforcement agencies to conduct LEO, especially drug related ones. See the link for more info.
By the way, I was in the Navy as well, and participated in many, many of these operations. The fact that the Navy was actively cooperating with the Coast Guard was widely known and unclassified.
Sean
I don't use the interstate highway system, and I don't want to pay for it. So let's get the government out of the business of building roads.
You are aware that something like two thirds of the cost of building roads comes out of general revenues (i.e. NOT gas taxes, licensing fees, etc), right?
Sean
But don't the localities recoup at least some of this in the form of proffers from developers? I know that in my area, if a developer wants to make a new development of any kind, he/she has to fork over an enormous amount of money to the city/county government - I thought that this was specifically intended to compensate the local government for utility rollout costs.
Concur. Wholeheartedly.
Sean
No. The reason that we haven't converted to ethanol is that until a few years ago, it took more energy to produce a given amount of ethanol than you could get out of the ethanol by burning it. It was more cost effective to just mine your energy. No conspiracy here.
Sean
The letter you refer to is called a letter of marque, but you won't have much luck trying to get one. They've been deemed illegal under international law for many, many years.
Not all that relevant to a discussion about the RIAA, but some may find it interesting.
Sean
Without commenting on the rest of your thread, I can personally attest to the fact that "it's been happening for years" - we've used these "scantron" type ballots in my precinct for as long as I've voted here, which amounts to more than three years, and included several national, local, and primary elections.
Sean
That's right, dammit! We're only prepared to put up with perpetual market distortion for a little while!
Sean
... but what have you got against embedded punctuation? How the hell is anyone supposed to read your post?
Sean
http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850
sEAN