First off, no matter what device you go for, get a palmOS device. The reason for this is that you will be using the adressbook/agenda functions of your device too, since you already have the machine; it would be a waste not to. So make sure your device has decent versions of those apps: so get a palm.
Second, don't get hung up on resolution: that doesn't matter that much for pure reading. 160x160 is enough and 32x320 is just overkill (although it is nice of course, it just isn't neccessarry for reading!).
Thirdly, get a colour device. It's kinda obvious, but I'll say it anyway: with a colour device you can read in true black and white, which is best for reading long texts. All those monochrome devices out there are not black and white: they're grey and black, or green and grey or whatever: they will strain your eyes more than a true colour device.
Fourth, find out where you read. Any device is good indoors, but if you do a fair bit of reading in sunlight, you will have to get a newer machine, because they have screens which can actually be read outside in sunlight.
Fifth and finally, don't get hung up on memory that much. Sure, it's nice to have 128mb to spare, but remember that a large paperback takes up about 200-400 kb. That's less than half a meg. Old devices (like my IIIc) have 8 mb. Which means that with all the other apps I have on there (and it is a fair number), I still have about 8 books in there too. However, if you read a lot of pdf's (but why would you read that crappy format? It's better to copy/paste the text into.txt and use for example isilo to convert that), you might want to have either a device which has a bit more internal ram, or one which can take CF/SD/whatever card you might want.
So, to recap: get a colour palmOS device, and the price will depend on if you read many, many large files and want to be able to read outdoors in bright sunlight.
You're talking about art direction: that's where the immersion comes from. And it's a totally different thing than juts 'better graphics'; it's the (consistent) style a game has.
Too true. And you know what's funny? At the moment, I'm playing Alice...and I'm doing it solely for the visuals, 'cause the gameplay sucks. But that strange world McGee and his cohorts imagined, and the voicework...wow. It's just a shame that the gameplay mechanic is so utterly simple. Shows you how you might be able to dazzle 'em with pretty colours, but gameplay wins in the end (civ 1 did it for me).
No, it'll start with idot senators talking about a 'digital pearl harbour' happening unless DRM is made mandatory. It's already starting too, if you listen closely.
As someone who's wrapping up his first course on nanoscience, I say: Bwahahahahahaha!
Come on! Sure, nanotech is here already...but to be honest, nanotech has been around for millenia. That is, if we're talking about manufactering on a nanoscale level. Fast forwards to now, and we're doing some more refined nanotech: like making tiny gears. We're really only in the pre-industrial revolution stage of nanotech to the level the Diamond age describes. We're decades, if not centuries away from actual !autonomous! nanomachines ('cos to be honest, you could count the tip of an atomic force microscope as a nanomachine...problem being that the rest of the apparatus takes up part of a room and isn't to be miniturised any time soon). Anyway, the blurb ('cos I didn't even bother to RTFA) is at best waaayy too optimistic, and at worst bad science.
Anyway, all I wanna know is if these are the originals, not the remastered ones. Hell, at least put the option of showing the originals on there, it's a dvd after all.
"Sure, a combination of the two would be hard to beat..."
Which pretty much points out the flaws in american schooling (I'm presuming you're american...excuse me if you're not:): a lot of other countries have six years to do this in, and they generally do. Can't help it if the US doesn't...could be due to the time lost on learning computer programs which do all of the 'hard work'.
"Being able to quickly figure out what to do counts for a lot"
True, true. But if you have all the general formulae memorised, you know where to start already, due to the similarities between the general cases and the formula in front of you. Plus, you never have to carry reference books around, and can do your calculation on the back of a napkin.
Get rid of those graphing calculators. Shit, I do applied physics, and although you're allowed to use a graphical calculator since a year or two, it's absolutely not neccessary. Those things dumb you down!
Proof is this: here in the Netherlands, we recently had a change in the secondary schooling system: graphing calculators where al of the sudden in use by the kids. Since the first crop of grapical-calculator-wielding student turneed up, the grades have plumetted. Why? Because of that graphical calculator. And why's that? Precicely for the reason you stated in your post!
As soon as graphical calculators are used, no-one can do the basics anymore. No-one can plot a graph manually, or determine it's slope, or create the derivative. They might have been taught how, but they then proceed to do it with the machine, and in doing so forget how to do it manually. This is bad, because then they can't approximate a given function (oh, it'll go something like this), but it's even worse because they'll forget what it all means! I've seen students given a graph of something-over-something, and not be abloe to work out what the derivative might mean! Or even have a clue how to determine the derivative, saying 'hey, my calculator used to do that!'.
"Using the old paper and pencil method you'll be lucky to get one done in ten minutes the first time you're teaching it, and then if you want them to actually learn to plot it by hand, it'll take a good 3 days or so of class time before most of your class has grasped it."
Exactly: it's not an easy thing to do! That's why you have to schedule those three days to do it! It'll benefit anyone who's going to do anything remotely scientific (even the phsycologists need to be able to graph error-curves!). And if you really wanna show what can be done with a graph, use a computer/beamer and matlab/mathcad/maple on it.
Just don't skimp on the time to teach kids what they need to know: how to draw a graph, how to get information out of that graph and how to transform that graph (integrate/differentiate) to get even more info out of it. And do it by hand. That is really the only way that people will learn and understand what they're doing. Any other way and people just learn how to push buttons!
BTW, this also gets to the crux of why people don't usually like math. It requires homework(=effort). And it's homework you HAVE to do; skip on that, and you won't get math. Simple but true. One thing which can interest people is advanced math and application of math. I didn't get logarithms until we used them practically (a year or so later!) in physics with soundintensity. And I always wanted to know how to define a given curve with a mathematical expression ('cos I knew what you could do with that expression) and we only worked with an expression, never made our own. Also, no-one ever told me about fractals, or chaos theory, let alone emergent behaviour (which can be modeled with advanced mathematics, to an extent); show the kids what they can do with maths in the future and you'll give 'em something to work to, something which will show 'em their work can pay off. Hell, what always works is simple myth-busting: get a newspaper article or whatever, and, using maths and physiscs, prove that what is stated is wrong. Here's a great one for kids with a few years of physicsa under their belts: show 'em that bridge jumping scene in 'Roadtrip', the one where the kid goes 'I'm never wrong when it comes to physics'. First off, you'll have to explain that the guys figures are totally off (use a screenshot to guestimate the actual slope of the bridge and the length to be jumped), then calculate the distance jumped using his numbers and the ones you got from looking at the screenshot. It's a direct apllication of math and physics in real-world relevance. Much better than graphing calculators to show off what they've learnt. Especially since you can either graph it using a machine or do it with a stick in the sand.
Then again, the people who can and have done the dull, tedious memorisation part (not just the tables, but also the quadratic equation, the vector formulae, the curvilinear coordinate transforms) are much faster than you are at the same equations.
Memorisation most certainly has it's function, the least of which is speed improvement, the best of which is improved insight due to having more information available in your mind to connect the dots with.
And just as an example of how you can make learning tables fun: I had a teacher who would make each kid pass a test on the tables: you get in front of the class, and the class would ask you to multiply two numbers. That made it into a game (=fun!) and motivated you to do the rote memorisation ('cos, hey, do you wanna be the only kid who couldn't do it?).
I kind of used to think the same way. But there's two very good reasons to teach proofs:
1-you actually get taught why something is. No 'that's just the way it is', you actually get show WHY it is. That is very helpfull to some kids who're smart and just don't stand for the 'just because' answer.
2-because it introduces a framework, a way of thinking. If you've never worked out a proof, there are two consequences: you won't get the general principle (knowing the prooof allows you to apply it to any case where it's applicable) and you won't be able to formulate your own proofs. So no proofs = no understanding, no application and no new insight.
Re:Talking about insanely short-sighted...
on
Weapons in Space
·
· Score: 1
True...but having it first didn't in any way help in the war with Germany. It did shorten the war in the Pacific, but by how long? And, considering the abnormally high cancer rate in modernday Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the resultant death rate, you can ask the question 'was it worth it'? I'd say in a pure human lives equation, it wasn't.
Yeah, that gets me too: 'Don't vote for x! He voted against bill y, which was against [this thing you really hate]!', leaving out the fact that that bill had a nasty rider attached to it.
Not to mention nukes still leave large tracts of land radioactive for decades if not centuries.
But I don't think we have to worry that the US is that smart: they've even re-opened R&D programs for tactical nukes (as alternative bunkerbusters). Amazing...
"On the first issue we were invited there by the King for the purpose of defending that country against an outside threat. We aren't raping and pillaging Mecca and Medina."
Yeah, sure. It really is that simple. There was no US pressure for the Saudi's to do that at all. There is a good reason why 15 out of 19 hijackers where Saudi. I just don't think you grasp it. But then again, somehow I guess you think the Iraqi people want those 110.000 US soldiers in huge bases for the next couple of decades too.
So look at the here and now: what would be safer? Weapons in space, or no weapons in space? Easy decision, even cleaner cut than the call to ban guns, which can be muddied with the cry 'but there are many guns out there already!' (which still doesn't look at the direct corelation that where guns are banned, gun related crime is tiny in comparison to the US).
Thing is, to make the world safer it is better to use money and political weight to take away the root causes of terror; feed people, educate them on how to feed themselves and allow them to decide their own fate. Creating vassal states and spending millions on going to mars (a preposterous propesition with current technology and understanding of biology/medicine in space) which is just a ruse to increase the space budget (much in the way the space program was a ruse to develop ICBM's) is not a smart thing to do.
The US is creating it's own enemies this way, because you can bet your ass that once it has weaponised space, the russians (if they can afford it) and the chinese (who most certainly can) will also put weapons up there.
Now you can use the argument 'if we don't do it now, the chinese/whoever will and we'll be left behind'. But that is ignoring history; the arms race of the cold war was one either side didn't want to and couldn't really afford to fight. The best way to win a fight is to not start one.
"It's a more or less obvious solution for anyone who knows some rudimentary thermodynamics"
Very cute: but I'll tell you that stuff like this isn't even totally obvious for people who know quite advanced thermodynamics. Sure, it helps to know some laws, some integration/differentation techniques. But to actually apply it in such a simple and effective way is a whole different kettle of fish entirely. An idea isn't worth much without application of that idea. And I'd wager that you (and many of the 'oh, this is basic'-posting crowd) people wouldn't have thought this up even with a thermodynamics textbook up their arse. I know I didn't. This idea is only self-evident when you're told about it's solution, and the proof is that, knowing the problems people in africa have with their lack of refregiration,/not one of you/ came up with it. It's a paperclip/washingpeg like idea. And previous invention of the basic idea (as mentioned in some other posts) doesn't detract from the accomplishment; especiallly if theh guy never heard of those.
And by the way, isn't magnetic cooling quite a new concept in refrigeration? And what about lasercooling (even though that's obviously not scalable to the macro-environment)?
"but the most dangerous radioactive components will probably be gone by that time. So you'll have a bunch of somewhat harmless spent uranium burning in the atmosphare and spreading over a wide area."
Wow. I'm/really/ glad you have nothing to do with nuclear physics.
"The spent fuel will burn up in the atmosphere, disintegrating into small particles. It will spread out and deliver a dose probably less than what you get in a doctor's office from an X-ray machine."
That's what you hope will happen, and what probably will. However, we've seen numerous occurances of calculation mistakes. Sy this thing just happens to come in on a shallower orbit, thereby just plunging down (not inconcievable, expecially due to the uncertainties inherrant in a/100 year+/ schedule in combination with the incredible amount of space junk out there.
So put it like this: either the thing will come in on a shallow trajectory, and will skip into space (no troubles) or it will come in shallow and not burn up completely. The odds are against it coming in on it's projected trajectory due to uncertainty in the calculations and the massive amount of variables (space junk).
When you look at it that way, this solution is dumb and very lacking in foresight, especially seeing as they could have aimed it towards the Oort cloud or at the sun.
And yeah, I do agree most articles critical of nuclear material are FUD and have no basis in reality. But if you've ever done orbital equations and have had to deal with uncertainties in equations (especially evolving in time), you would realise that this is not a case of FUD, but a case of stupidity and thinking that nothing will go wrong or change.
For that price, I can get a Zodiac^2. I dunno why it keeps masquerading as a gaming platform, because it's one of the best PalmOS devices out ther: huge screen, dual sd, bluetooth, loads more memory (128 mb!)...and of course PalmOS and all the usablity and software that entails:)
Sorry to do this, but further seeking found me this: "The Los Angeles Times reports that while the nation's unemployment rate of 5.9 percent is relatively low, it fails to include the 4.9 million people who want full-time positions but are working part-time jobs. The figure also omits 1.5 million people who have stopped looking for work.
Taken together, the total number of jobless reaches 15.1 million -- or 9.7 percent, up from 9.4 percent a year ago, the Times reports."
Looks like plain bad bookkeeping to me Something the Bush admin is quite good at, if you look at how numerous things are accounted for ('no child left behind' programme, environment, etc etc etc).
Then I looked for the US numbers...only to find out that US unemployment figures are/only on people actively seeking jobs!!!/ Not counted are people who have stopped seeking jobs, or recieve no benefits(anymore). If there are so many seeking, you can bet there are an equal number who can't/won't seek.
Slashdot Mirror
This one's easy...just get it tattood on a potatoe! Nowhere does it say that the tattoo has to be on human skin :)
First off, no matter what device you go for, get a palmOS device. The reason for this is that you will be using the adressbook/agenda functions of your device too, since you already have the machine; it would be a waste not to. So make sure your device has decent versions of those apps: so get a palm.
.txt and use for example isilo to convert that), you might want to have either a device which has a bit more internal ram, or one which can take CF/SD/whatever card you might want.
:)
Second, don't get hung up on resolution: that doesn't matter that much for pure reading. 160x160 is enough and 32x320 is just overkill (although it is nice of course, it just isn't neccessarry for reading!).
Thirdly, get a colour device. It's kinda obvious, but I'll say it anyway: with a colour device you can read in true black and white, which is best for reading long texts. All those monochrome devices out there are not black and white: they're grey and black, or green and grey or whatever: they will strain your eyes more than a true colour device.
Fourth, find out where you read. Any device is good indoors, but if you do a fair bit of reading in sunlight, you will have to get a newer machine, because they have screens which can actually be read outside in sunlight.
Fifth and finally, don't get hung up on memory that much. Sure, it's nice to have 128mb to spare, but remember that a large paperback takes up about 200-400 kb. That's less than half a meg. Old devices (like my IIIc) have 8 mb. Which means that with all the other apps I have on there (and it is a fair number), I still have about 8 books in there too.
However, if you read a lot of pdf's (but why would you read that crappy format? It's better to copy/paste the text into
So, to recap: get a colour palmOS device, and the price will depend on if you read many, many large files and want to be able to read outdoors in bright sunlight.
Or wait for e-ink devices to hit the market
You're talking about art direction: that's where the immersion comes from. And it's a totally different thing than juts 'better graphics'; it's the (consistent) style a game has.
Too true. And you know what's funny? At the moment, I'm playing Alice...and I'm doing it solely for the visuals, 'cause the gameplay sucks.
But that strange world McGee and his cohorts imagined, and the voicework...wow. It's just a shame that the gameplay mechanic is so utterly simple. Shows you how you might be able to dazzle 'em with pretty colours, but gameplay wins in the end (civ 1 did it for me).
No, it'll start with idot senators talking about a 'digital pearl harbour' happening unless DRM is made mandatory. It's already starting too, if you listen closely.
As someone who's wrapping up his first course on nanoscience, I say: Bwahahahahahaha!
Come on! Sure, nanotech is here already...but to be honest, nanotech has been around for millenia. That is, if we're talking about manufactering on a nanoscale level.
Fast forwards to now, and we're doing some more refined nanotech: like making tiny gears. We're really only in the pre-industrial revolution stage of nanotech to the level the Diamond age describes. We're decades, if not centuries away from actual !autonomous! nanomachines ('cos to be honest, you could count the tip of an atomic force microscope as a nanomachine...problem being that the rest of the apparatus takes up part of a room and isn't to be miniturised any time soon).
Anyway, the blurb ('cos I didn't even bother to RTFA) is at best waaayy too optimistic, and at worst bad science.
Does laserdisc not count?
Anyway, all I wanna know is if these are the originals, not the remastered ones. Hell, at least put the option of showing the originals on there, it's a dvd after all.
Remember, Han shot first!
"Sure, a combination of the two would be hard to beat..."
:): a lot of other countries have six years to do this in, and they generally do. Can't help it if the US doesn't...could be due to the time lost on learning computer programs which do all of the 'hard work'.
Which pretty much points out the flaws in american schooling (I'm presuming you're american...excuse me if you're not
"Being able to quickly figure out what to do counts for a lot"
True, true. But if you have all the general formulae memorised, you know where to start already, due to the similarities between the general cases and the formula in front of you. Plus, you never have to carry reference books around, and can do your calculation on the back of a napkin.
NO!
Get rid of those graphing calculators. Shit, I do applied physics, and although you're allowed to use a graphical calculator since a year or two, it's absolutely not neccessary. Those things dumb you down!
Proof is this: here in the Netherlands, we recently had a change in the secondary schooling system: graphing calculators where al of the sudden in use by the kids. Since the first crop of grapical-calculator-wielding student turneed up, the grades have plumetted. Why? Because of that graphical calculator. And why's that? Precicely for the reason you stated in your post!
As soon as graphical calculators are used, no-one can do the basics anymore. No-one can plot a graph manually, or determine it's slope, or create the derivative. They might have been taught how, but they then proceed to do it with the machine, and in doing so forget how to do it manually. This is bad, because then they can't approximate a given function (oh, it'll go something like this), but it's even worse because they'll forget what it all means! I've seen students given a graph of something-over-something, and not be abloe to work out what the derivative might mean! Or even have a clue how to determine the derivative, saying 'hey, my calculator used to do that!'.
"Using the old paper and pencil method you'll be lucky to get one done in ten minutes the first time you're teaching it, and then if you want them to actually learn to plot it by hand, it'll take a good 3 days or so of class time before most of your class has grasped it."
Exactly: it's not an easy thing to do! That's why you have to schedule those three days to do it! It'll benefit anyone who's going to do anything remotely scientific (even the phsycologists need to be able to graph error-curves!). And if you really wanna show what can be done with a graph, use a computer/beamer and matlab/mathcad/maple on it.
Just don't skimp on the time to teach kids what they need to know: how to draw a graph, how to get information out of that graph and how to transform that graph (integrate/differentiate) to get even more info out of it. And do it by hand. That is really the only way that people will learn and understand what they're doing. Any other way and people just learn how to push buttons!
BTW, this also gets to the crux of why people don't usually like math. It requires homework(=effort). And it's homework you HAVE to do; skip on that, and you won't get math. Simple but true.
One thing which can interest people is advanced math and application of math. I didn't get logarithms until we used them practically (a year or so later!) in physics with soundintensity. And I always wanted to know how to define a given curve with a mathematical expression ('cos I knew what you could do with that expression) and we only worked with an expression, never made our own.
Also, no-one ever told me about fractals, or chaos theory, let alone emergent behaviour (which can be modeled with advanced mathematics, to an extent); show the kids what they can do with maths in the future and you'll give 'em something to work to, something which will show 'em their work can pay off.
Hell, what always works is simple myth-busting: get a newspaper article or whatever, and, using maths and physiscs, prove that what is stated is wrong. Here's a great one for kids with a few years of physicsa under their belts: show 'em that bridge jumping scene in 'Roadtrip', the one where the kid goes 'I'm never wrong when it comes to physics'. First off, you'll have to explain that the guys figures are totally off (use a screenshot to guestimate the actual slope of the bridge and the length to be jumped), then calculate the distance jumped using his numbers and the ones you got from looking at the screenshot.
It's a direct apllication of math and physics in real-world relevance. Much better than graphing calculators to show off what they've learnt. Especially since you can either graph it using a machine or do it with a stick in the sand.
Then again, the people who can and have done the dull, tedious memorisation part (not just the tables, but also the quadratic equation, the vector formulae, the curvilinear coordinate transforms) are much faster than you are at the same equations.
Memorisation most certainly has it's function, the least of which is speed improvement, the best of which is improved insight due to having more information available in your mind to connect the dots with.
And just as an example of how you can make learning tables fun: I had a teacher who would make each kid pass a test on the tables: you get in front of the class, and the class would ask you to multiply two numbers. That made it into a game (=fun!) and motivated you to do the rote memorisation ('cos, hey, do you wanna be the only kid who couldn't do it?).
I kind of used to think the same way. But there's two very good reasons to teach proofs:
1-you actually get taught why something is. No 'that's just the way it is', you actually get show WHY it is. That is very helpfull to some kids who're smart and just don't stand for the 'just because' answer.
2-because it introduces a framework, a way of thinking. If you've never worked out a proof, there are two consequences: you won't get the general principle (knowing the prooof allows you to apply it to any case where it's applicable) and you won't be able to formulate your own proofs. So no proofs = no understanding, no application and no new insight.
True...but having it first didn't in any way help in the war with Germany. It did shorten the war in the Pacific, but by how long? And, considering the abnormally high cancer rate in modernday Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the resultant death rate, you can ask the question 'was it worth it'? I'd say in a pure human lives equation, it wasn't.
Yeah, that gets me too: 'Don't vote for x! He voted against bill y, which was against [this thing you really hate]!', leaving out the fact that that bill had a nasty rider attached to it.
Not to mention nukes still leave large tracts of land radioactive for decades if not centuries.
But I don't think we have to worry that the US is that smart: they've even re-opened R&D programs for tactical nukes (as alternative bunkerbusters). Amazing...
Problem is, what do you do if it's the cops (or in this case the military might be a more apt analogy) who are pissing in your rose garden?
"On the first issue we were invited there by the King for the purpose of defending that country against an outside threat. We aren't raping and pillaging Mecca and Medina."
Yeah, sure. It really is that simple. There was no US pressure for the Saudi's to do that at all. There is a good reason why 15 out of 19 hijackers where Saudi. I just don't think you grasp it.
But then again, somehow I guess you think the Iraqi people want those 110.000 US soldiers in huge bases for the next couple of decades too.
So look at the here and now: what would be safer? Weapons in space, or no weapons in space? Easy decision, even cleaner cut than the call to ban guns, which can be muddied with the cry 'but there are many guns out there already!' (which still doesn't look at the direct corelation that where guns are banned, gun related crime is tiny in comparison to the US).
Thing is, to make the world safer it is better to use money and political weight to take away the root causes of terror; feed people, educate them on how to feed themselves and allow them to decide their own fate.
Creating vassal states and spending millions on going to mars (a preposterous propesition with current technology and understanding of biology/medicine in space) which is just a ruse to increase the space budget (much in the way the space program was a ruse to develop ICBM's) is not a smart thing to do.
The US is creating it's own enemies this way, because you can bet your ass that once it has weaponised space, the russians (if they can afford it) and the chinese (who most certainly can) will also put weapons up there.
Now you can use the argument 'if we don't do it now, the chinese/whoever will and we'll be left behind'. But that is ignoring history; the arms race of the cold war was one either side didn't want to and couldn't really afford to fight. The best way to win a fight is to not start one.
I love posts like these:
/not one of you/ came up with it. It's a paperclip/washingpeg like idea.
"It's a more or less obvious solution for anyone who knows some rudimentary thermodynamics"
Very cute: but I'll tell you that stuff like this isn't even totally obvious for people who know quite advanced thermodynamics. Sure, it helps to know some laws, some integration/differentation techniques. But to actually apply it in such a simple and effective way is a whole different kettle of fish entirely.
An idea isn't worth much without application of that idea. And I'd wager that you (and many of the 'oh, this is basic'-posting crowd) people wouldn't have thought this up even with a thermodynamics textbook up their arse. I know I didn't. This idea is only self-evident when you're told about it's solution, and the proof is that, knowing the problems people in africa have with their lack of refregiration,
And previous invention of the basic idea (as mentioned in some other posts) doesn't detract from the accomplishment; especiallly if theh guy never heard of those.
And by the way, isn't magnetic cooling quite a new concept in refrigeration? And what about lasercooling (even though that's obviously not scalable to the macro-environment)?
And what do you think the next step (or a couple of steps down the line) is going to be?
Ah, the infamous "relational/absolute notation" cluestick! I always had fun teaching secretaries that one.
:)
Granted, 99% of the time all I got was cow-eyes, but the 1% where I got an 'aha-erlebniss' was almost worth it. The paycheck did the rest
"but the most dangerous radioactive components will probably be gone by that time. So you'll have a bunch of somewhat harmless spent uranium burning in the atmosphare and spreading over a wide area."
/really/ glad you have nothing to do with nuclear physics.
Wow. I'm
"The spent fuel will burn up in the atmosphere, disintegrating into small particles. It will spread out and deliver a dose probably less than what you get in a doctor's office from an X-ray machine."
/100 year+/ schedule in combination with the incredible amount of space junk out there.
That's what you hope will happen, and what probably will. However, we've seen numerous occurances of calculation mistakes. Sy this thing just happens to come in on a shallower orbit, thereby just plunging down (not inconcievable, expecially due to the uncertainties inherrant in a
So put it like this: either the thing will come in on a shallow trajectory, and will skip into space (no troubles) or it will come in shallow and not burn up completely. The odds are against it coming in on it's projected trajectory due to uncertainty in the calculations and the massive amount of variables (space junk).
When you look at it that way, this solution is dumb and very lacking in foresight, especially seeing as they could have aimed it towards the Oort cloud or at the sun.
And yeah, I do agree most articles critical of nuclear material are FUD and have no basis in reality. But if you've ever done orbital equations and have had to deal with uncertainties in equations (especially evolving in time), you would realise that this is not a case of FUD, but a case of stupidity and thinking that nothing will go wrong or change.
For that price, I can get a Zodiac^2. I dunno why it keeps masquerading as a gaming platform, because it's one of the best PalmOS devices out ther: huge screen, dual sd, bluetooth, loads more memory (128 mb!)...and of course PalmOS and all the usablity and software that entails :)
Sorry to do this, but further seeking found me this: "The Los Angeles Times reports that while the nation's unemployment rate of 5.9 percent is relatively low, it fails to include the 4.9 million people who want full-time positions but are working part-time jobs. The figure also omits 1.5 million people who have stopped looking for work.
Taken together, the total number of jobless reaches 15.1 million -- or 9.7 percent, up from 9.4 percent a year ago, the Times reports."
Looks like plain bad bookkeeping to me Something the Bush admin is quite good at, if you look at how numerous things are accounted for ('no child left behind' programme, environment, etc etc etc).
"Finally, US unemployment is among the lowest in the western world"
I DN =1507348&-home=home
:)
/only on people actively seeking jobs!!!/ Not counted are people who have stopped seeking jobs, or recieve no benefits(anymore). If there are so many seeking, you can bet there are an equal number who can't/won't seek.
I could scarcely believe this, so I had a look 'round. First up a look at unemployment in the EU (both pre and post the ten new members coming in):
http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe?204&O
Nice site, I think I'll bookmark that one
Then I looked for the US numbers...only to find out that US unemployment figures are