Someone correct me if I'm worng, but it bears little resemblance to emergence from bankruptcy that US companies enjoy.
Well, US companies can file under chapter 7 or chapter 11. Under chapter 7, they are closed completely, but under chapter 11 they are allowed to continue to operate while they restructure their business.
Many big and high-profile companies file under chapter 11, but in fact there are many more chapter 7 filings in total.
Not that I think people should be kicked out of jobs by robots.
Why not? Why put the interests of a few (the small minority of people with 'traditional' industry jobs) before the common good of the many
(who will enjoy higher standards of living with increased automization).
WOW! That's strong. I used to work with a 1.5-T superconductor magnet, an MRI scanner, and it had a heck of a pull. Enough so that people have been injured or killed when a piece of metal got loose
This is a fair point, but one should keep in mind that what is dangerous is intrinsic to the powers necessary to pull a large ship. A more traditional solution probably involves powerful winches, which of course can pose risks if a cable snaps or somebody gets a hand in the wrong place.
who has probably has forgotten more about crypto than 99.9% of us will ever know
What's the margin of error on that figure?
Actually, this is not one the very common cases of excessive decimals.
Rather this could be rephrased as "less than 0.1%", which has only one significant digit; indicating that it could be for example 0.07% or twice as much, 0.14%. Mathematically the difference is a deduction from 100%, which of course we know with infinite accuracy.
Of course the number was just made up on the spot, but it does not suffer from an excessive amount of decimals.
After reading the specs really quick, here comes a simplified summary of how the games work. Don't sue me if this is wrong, I did not look too carefully and it has been more than a year since I left Caltech.
Basically, the two players get to choose numbers with different pay-offs for themselves and the other player.
If you are short-sighted, it is easy to write an 'optimal' program, you always pick the max payoff for yourself.
However, you can also cooperate so that you maximize the average payoff for both players. Hopefully your opponent will realize this and also start picking numbers in this way, if not it is probably wise to go back and be short-sighted and selfish.
Now, the real object of this is to make (or detect) human-like opponents. I would guess that real human players are very irrational, for example they can get pissed if the other player is too selfish and then demand revenge, even though it does not maximize their own payoff.
Say what you will about Quake 3 and its tendency to provoke violence in children, but at least people who obsess over it are communicating with other people, albeit over the Internet.
Yes, no doubt many rich conversations such as:
F*cking camper!
Rush! Rush!
Boot @ss-man, hes speed-cheeting
You forgot to take into account the rate of speciation. About which we basically know nothing. Lots of theory and fossil evidence, but as to the rate of speciation occurring today, we know nothing.
Well, we know almost nothing about how speciation occurs, but one can make estimates of the rate. If there are 10 million species today, and almost all of them evolved within the last million years, then the rate is probably ten per year, give and take an order of magnitude.
This numbers also illustrate that new the number of new species are not really relevant within this time frame. If 100 or a 1000 or 10000 new species form within the next ten years is of little consequence to a project aiming to categorize 10 million species.
One caveot to all this is that in reality speciation is probably not linear but rather happens more like in bursts. To your point, that would indicate that if we are in the middle of such a burst (which I never have heard suggested, btw) then sure that could mess up our calculations.
Seriously, though, anyone have any ideas as to what widespread application and refinement of this technology would mean to the entire labor force? The economic impact of this could be devastating inside a mere 20 years without changing labor's basic place in economics.
Hum. This argument came up shortly after the invention of 'Spinning Jenny', when enraged workers destroyed the first industrial machines.
Fortunately, they were not very successful in stopping the industrial revolution, and 200 years later we live, relativly speaking, in extreme prosperity, and with similar or lower unemployment rates. This is because whenever old lines of work disappear, new ones seem to appear.
The key to a strong economy is _not_ to stop innovations, and to maximize the amount of labor needed for a given job. And as for labor's basic place in economics, it should be noted that in present day US, only 10% of the work force or so have industrial jobs.
Tor
The economic impact of efficient production is not devastating; quite the opposite.
Worst of all, they had the animals doing such things as looking at the camera repeatedly, and even spitting out water towards the TV screen!!! I mean, come on! This makes for great ratings (maybe), but pisspoor science, AFAIAC. They had the Neanderthals going around stealing women and raping them without a shred of evidence that such things occurred, save that in our modern human society they do
Your point has actually been widely discussed in scientific circles, and there are two camps. You are basically presenting the argument of the conservative camp: these shows contain so much speculation that they should not be broadcast to the public.
I basically belong to the other camp. I think that these shows can generate huge interest in Dinosaurs and Neandertals, and that is a good thing. It bothers me less that the producers take a lot of liberties in making up details beause they don't know how it really was or because they want to make it more interesting. Of course, this assumes that the basics are presented correctly, which they have been in the shows that I have seen.
Based on what I read in other posts though, this program about future animals seemed to be a bunch of BS.
The number of accessible worlds grows like the cube of the distance (well, until you have made it through the thickness of the galactic disk at least).
No, the number of known worlds is proportional to the cube (of time). The growth of known planets is proportional to the square. Anyway, I could probably have put it more succintly...
Let's say that one of those races is capable of space traveling and it takes 1000 years for that race to spread from planet to another. If they were 1 000 000 years older than us then they would've spread around the universe to 2^1000 planets
Well, unfortunately this calculation assumes that for each of your colonized planets, there are always 2 new ones within 1000 years. This gives you exponential growth for the number of known systems, but in reality the growth is only quadratic, like the surface of an expanding sphere around the starting place.
For example, if we could go to Alpha Centauri in 1000 years (probably not completely unrealisitc) this theory would state that we would reach 2^1000 planets in a million years - this is more planets than in the known universe. But in reality, after one million years we would have gone about 4LY (distance to Alpha Centauri)*1000=4,000 LY from Earth. This will only reach a small portion of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, which is 100,000 LY across.
No matter how many statistical guesses different scientists make, the question of habitable planets, not to mention the question of other intelligences, will not be answered without actually going out and visiting them. This will not happen in your lifetime. You will not know. Sorry!
Well, for the habital planet part you are simply wrong. Within 10-20 years there will probably be telescopes powerful enough to see Earth-sized planets, perhaps even their continents. These telescopes are already on the drawing board.
For the intelligence part, you are certainly right that we wont be able to visit anybody in our lifetime (except possibly in the unlikely event that intelligent life is found on Europa). But that is not the only way to find out for sure. They could come and visit us, or we could intercept a signal (like radio, or laser).
But doesn't the analogy breakdown because the pattern can't truelly repeat scaling down forever? That is, there will have to come a level at which the resolution of the molecules destroy the ever repeating pattern, like grain in a photograph
Yes, this is true for all fractals with a physical manifestation. There is always some lower and upper scale where the fractal properties break down. The lower scale is often, as you suggest, on an atomic level.
A mathematical fractal is an abstraction that has infinite resolution. Such abstractions can be useful to study the properties of physical fractals, even though we know that these are only approximations.
Imagine that you took a thread and tried to put it along the edge of the snowflake. Assuming that the thread was very thin it would take an infinitely long thread to cover the entire edge, because of the way it is folded
Isn't this comparable to the Paradox of Achilles and the turtle [openetwork.com]? Meaning that the thread does not have to be infinitely long?
Well this is a valid but unfortunately rather complicated discussion. When you add an infinite number of objects with size zero (or approaching zero), the sum can turn out to be finite or infinite depending on exactly in what way the objects approach zero size (and sometimes, if I remember correctly, it even depends on the order in which you add them).
In the case of this 'paradox', you add an infinite number of objects (stretches of time) that approach zero so quickly that the total is actually finite. This is what some of the Greek thinkers did not realize.
For fractals, on the other hand, when you add the infinite number of small (approaching zero size) objects they end up taking infinite amount of space. This is a necessary condition; if you add them all and the total is finite then it is not a fractal.
"Controlling nanoscale magnetic fields that exist in less than one dimension may prove problematic..."
Am I the only one having problems understanding that article? I'm not a physicist, but I didn't think anything could exist in less than one dimension. Freaky.
Anything that can be represented as a (or a finite number of) point could be considered to have a dimension of zero.
But in this case it was something more complicated than a point, it was a fractal object with a dimension greater than 0 but smaller than 1.
One way to understand this is to imagine that you want to draw the field on a piece of paper. Unfortunately you can't draw a line to represent this field; it has a dimension that is less than 1. Then you might figure that you could plot one or several small dots to represent the field. Well, bad news again. The field has a dimension that is greater than 0, so it would take an infinite number of points to draw the field.
The snowflake would have a true 3D volume because it is not perfectly thin; it is a physical approximation of a mathematical concept.
The analogy of the snowflake refers to the edge of the snowflake. Imagine that you took a thread and tried to put it along the edge of the snowflake. Assuming that the thread was very thin it would take an infinitely long thread to cover the entire edge, because of the way it is folded. Thus the 'edge' can be said to have a dimension higher than 1 (it does not fit into one dimension). Using mathematical techniques one can also demonstrate that the the infinite thread takes zero space in 2D, thus the dimension is somewhere between 1 and 2; it is a fractal.
Maybe offtopic, but in Sweden, it is illegal to think about how to best create a nuclear power plant.
This is the result of overly ambitious (and probably unconsitutional) laws aiming to make it a 100% certain that no new plants will ever be developed.
Tor
I don't know who had more time on his hands...
on
Star Wars Origami
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
... he who made Star Wars origami or the guy who recreated Episode IV using
ascii animation.
Tor
Re:requisite paranoid response
on
Droning On
·
· Score: 2
or hacked into and then crashed into buildings in NY
Which could not possibly happen if there were human pilots on the plane.
Seriously, this illustrates how important it is to make relevant comparisons. The real test for drones is not whether they are 100% safe (from crashes or hi-jackings or whatever), but whether they are safer than their human counterparts.
Clearly it is just a matter of time (perhaps a long time) before airplanes can be flown cheaper and safer by computers than by humans.
What is wrong with this argument? Bletchley Park. For about 30 years, several thousand people kept the secret that the allies hand broken most of the axis codes during World War II.
Well many (if not most, myself included) people are ready to keep a secret if they think it is the right thing to do, such as hiding codes from the enemy.
Very few people are ready to cover up something so dirty as a faked moon landing - I never would for one.
It is too bad one of the astronauts did not trudge a gigantic NASA WAS HERE into the moon dust so that the image could be seen from a large telescope. That should silence the idiots.
They put plates with reflective material in place. Scientists on Earth shoot lasers on the plates, and get reflections back. The measurements have been used to establish the distance to the moon with extraordinary precision, also that the moon is moving away a couple of inches per year (or was it moving closer... I forgot).
They make it sound as if an artillary shell is a HARDER taregt to hit than a rocket. Rockets accelerate, tumble, and move erratically. Artillery shells move in well understood, computable trajectories. They probably had the damn flight path of the shell computed before they fired it. It's one thing to shoot down a shell when you know it's path ahead of time, another entirely to get a fix on an unknown, erratic rocket and destroy it.
You are right that it is easy to compute the trajectory of an artillery shell if you know the speed (and this you can measure by radar). You just solve the same equations that the artillery battery did before firing. These computations are very well understood. That being said, I disagree with the statement that (cruise) missiles are easier.
First of all, rockets don't really "accelerate, tumble, and move erratically" that much. They can be mostly considered like an artillery shell with a constant forward force. A cruise missle may make one or two smooth turns during its flight, rocket artillery not a single one. If you are firing a laser it is a safe bet that the missile will keep on the same path for a couple of more seconds - and remeber, the laser reaches its target instantaniously so it is easy to cancel or readjust your beam.
Now a couple of factors that makes it harder to kill the artillery shell
-It is much faster than a (cruise) missile
-It is smaller, about one third of the size
-It is not particullary sensitive. The shell is basically a piece of metal shaped like a cone travelling only by momentum; the cruise missile has little wings, complex control systems and yes, it burns rocket fuel.
I think this is quite revolutionary. I venture guess they will put these bastards on Aircraft carriers. Not a hostile shell, missile, airplane or UAV will come within miles. And there are nuclear power plants to drive them.
Is it not reasonable that the FBI, if it gets a court order, can bug a computer or a telephone? Is./ really against bugging in any situation?
If such power is misused then it is cause of great convern, but the article provides no evidence that this is the case.
The author also seems upset that the library staff is not telling him. Well, it is pretty obvious that if you are going to bug something you can't tell the world what you are doing.
I think this is a great move. At least for the general public. It may, however, be a bad business decision for the university. I don't care what/.ers think, freely giving away information very often does not lead to profit.
Universities are not in the business of making profit. If their economy is hard pressed, they could in theory compensate the missing revenues by higher tuition. Then the average cost per student would be the same, but there would be plenty of additional benefits. For example, students will never have to hesitate on whether to get some material, and they can check out material for other classes if the need arises. Not to mention the benefit to society at large, now anyone can get their hands on first-rate material.
That being said, I feel a bit cheated because I recently took a bunch of online courses from Columbia University. At about $1000/credit, it kinda bothers me that people can get something similar for free (of course, you can't get a degree this way).
Please, is this a joke? You were exposed to a system that sucked, and therefore it is unfair if somebody else gets a better deal. Grow up.
I am sure you are perfectly right in that it is a royal pain in the butt to get an inflight gambling sytstem to work properly.
That being said, I am sure it is just a matter of time before it is commonplace. The payoff is just too high, and the airlines are just too hard pressed to let go of a profit opportunity like this.
Slashdot Mirror
Someone correct me if I'm worng, but it bears little resemblance to emergence from bankruptcy that US companies enjoy.
Well, US companies can file under chapter 7 or chapter 11. Under chapter 7, they are closed completely, but under chapter 11 they are allowed to continue to operate while they restructure their business.
Many big and high-profile companies file under chapter 11, but in fact there are many more chapter 7 filings in total.
Tor
Not that I think people should be kicked out of jobs by robots.
Why not? Why put the interests of a few (the small minority of people with 'traditional' industry jobs) before the common good of the many (who will enjoy higher standards of living with increased automization).
WOW! That's strong. I used to work with a 1.5-T superconductor magnet, an MRI scanner, and it had a heck of a pull. Enough so that people have been injured or killed when a piece of metal got loose
This is a fair point, but one should keep in mind that what is dangerous is intrinsic to the powers necessary to pull a large ship. A more traditional solution probably involves powerful winches, which of course can pose risks if a cable snaps or somebody gets a hand in the wrong place.
Tor
who has probably has forgotten more about crypto than 99.9% of us will ever know
What's the margin of error on that figure?
Actually, this is not one the very common cases of excessive decimals.
Rather this could be rephrased as "less than 0.1%", which has only one significant digit; indicating that it could be for example 0.07% or twice as much, 0.14%. Mathematically the difference is a deduction from 100%, which of course we know with infinite accuracy.
Of course the number was just made up on the spot, but it does not suffer from an excessive amount of decimals.
Tor
A 3.7-in. SLCD created with CG-Silicon had a power consumption of 14 mW for color VGA, 8 mW for color QVGA, and 2 mW for monochrome QVGA
I guess I am supposed to be awestruck by this, but in my ignorance I don't have a clue what is common power consumption today. Anybody knows?
Tor
After reading the specs really quick, here comes a simplified summary of how the games work. Don't sue me if this is wrong, I did not look too carefully and it has been more than a year since I left Caltech.
Basically, the two players get to choose numbers with different pay-offs for themselves and the other player.
If you are short-sighted, it is easy to write an 'optimal' program, you always pick the max payoff for yourself.
However, you can also cooperate so that you maximize the average payoff for both players. Hopefully your opponent will realize this and also start picking numbers in this way, if not it is probably wise to go back and be short-sighted and selfish.
Now, the real object of this is to make (or detect) human-like opponents. I would guess that real human players are very irrational, for example they can get pissed if the other player is too selfish and then demand revenge, even though it does not maximize their own payoff.
Tor
Say what you will about Quake 3 and its tendency to provoke violence in children, but at least people who obsess over it are communicating with other people, albeit over the Internet.
Yes, no doubt many rich conversations such as:
F*cking camper!
Rush! Rush!
Boot @ss-man, hes speed-cheeting
Tor
You forgot to take into account the rate of speciation. About which we basically know nothing. Lots of theory and fossil evidence, but as to the rate of speciation occurring today, we know nothing.
Well, we know almost nothing about how speciation occurs, but one can make estimates of the rate. If there are 10 million species today, and almost all of them evolved within the last million years, then the rate is probably ten per year, give and take an order of magnitude.
This numbers also illustrate that new the number of new species are not really relevant within this time frame. If 100 or a 1000 or 10000 new species form within the next ten years is of little consequence to a project aiming to categorize 10 million species.
One caveot to all this is that in reality speciation is probably not linear but rather happens more like in bursts. To your point, that would indicate that if we are in the middle of such a burst (which I never have heard suggested, btw) then sure that could mess up our calculations.
Tor
Seriously, though, anyone have any ideas as to what widespread application and refinement of this technology would mean to the entire labor force? The economic impact of this could be devastating inside a mere 20 years without changing labor's basic place in economics.
Hum. This argument came up shortly after the invention of 'Spinning Jenny', when enraged workers destroyed the first industrial machines.
Fortunately, they were not very successful in stopping the industrial revolution, and 200 years later we live, relativly speaking, in extreme prosperity, and with similar or lower unemployment rates. This is because whenever old lines of work disappear, new ones seem to appear.
The key to a strong economy is _not_ to stop innovations, and to maximize the amount of labor needed for a given job. And as for labor's basic place in economics, it should be noted that in present day US, only 10% of the work force or so have industrial jobs.
Tor The economic impact of efficient production is not devastating; quite the opposite.
Worst of all, they had the animals doing such things as looking at the camera repeatedly, and even spitting out water towards the TV screen!!! I mean, come on! This makes for great ratings (maybe), but pisspoor science, AFAIAC. They had the Neanderthals going around stealing women and raping them without a shred of evidence that such things occurred, save that in our modern human society they do
Your point has actually been widely discussed in scientific circles, and there are two camps. You are basically presenting the argument of the conservative camp: these shows contain so much speculation that they should not be broadcast to the public.
I basically belong to the other camp. I think that these shows can generate huge interest in Dinosaurs and Neandertals, and that is a good thing. It bothers me less that the producers take a lot of liberties in making up details beause they don't know how it really was or because they want to make it more interesting. Of course, this assumes that the basics are presented correctly, which they have been in the shows that I have seen.
Based on what I read in other posts though, this program about future animals seemed to be a bunch of BS.
Tor
The number of accessible worlds grows like the cube of the distance (well, until you have made it through the thickness of the galactic disk at least).
No, the number of known worlds is proportional to the cube (of time). The growth of known planets is proportional to the square. Anyway, I could probably have put it more succintly...
Tor
Let's say that one of those races is capable of space traveling and it takes 1000 years for that race to spread from planet to another. If they were 1 000 000 years older than us then they would've spread around the universe to 2^1000 planets
Well, unfortunately this calculation assumes that for each of your colonized planets, there are always 2 new ones within 1000 years. This gives you exponential growth for the number of known systems, but in reality the growth is only quadratic, like the surface of an expanding sphere around the starting place.
For example, if we could go to Alpha Centauri in 1000 years (probably not completely unrealisitc) this theory would state that we would reach 2^1000 planets in a million years - this is more planets than in the known universe. But in reality, after one million years we would have gone about 4LY (distance to Alpha Centauri)*1000=4,000 LY from Earth. This will only reach a small portion of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, which is 100,000 LY across.
Tor
No matter how many statistical guesses different scientists make, the question of habitable planets, not to mention the question of other intelligences, will not be answered without actually going out and visiting them. This will not happen in your lifetime. You will not know. Sorry! Well, for the habital planet part you are simply wrong. Within 10-20 years there will probably be telescopes powerful enough to see Earth-sized planets, perhaps even their continents. These telescopes are already on the drawing board.
For the intelligence part, you are certainly right that we wont be able to visit anybody in our lifetime (except possibly in the unlikely event that intelligent life is found on Europa). But that is not the only way to find out for sure. They could come and visit us, or we could intercept a signal (like radio, or laser).
Tor
But doesn't the analogy breakdown because the pattern can't truelly repeat scaling down forever? That is, there will have to come a level at which the resolution of the molecules destroy the ever repeating pattern, like grain in a photograph
Yes, this is true for all fractals with a physical manifestation. There is always some lower and upper scale where the fractal properties break down. The lower scale is often, as you suggest, on an atomic level.
A mathematical fractal is an abstraction that has infinite resolution. Such abstractions can be useful to study the properties of physical fractals, even though we know that these are only approximations.
Tor
Imagine that you took a thread and tried to put it along the edge of the snowflake. Assuming that the thread was very thin it would take an infinitely long thread to cover the entire edge, because of the way it is folded
Isn't this comparable to the Paradox of Achilles and the turtle [openetwork.com]? Meaning that the thread does not have to be infinitely long? Well this is a valid but unfortunately rather complicated discussion. When you add an infinite number of objects with size zero (or approaching zero), the sum can turn out to be finite or infinite depending on exactly in what way the objects approach zero size (and sometimes, if I remember correctly, it even depends on the order in which you add them).
In the case of this 'paradox', you add an infinite number of objects (stretches of time) that approach zero so quickly that the total is actually finite. This is what some of the Greek thinkers did not realize.
For fractals, on the other hand, when you add the infinite number of small (approaching zero size) objects they end up taking infinite amount of space. This is a necessary condition; if you add them all and the total is finite then it is not a fractal.
Tor
"Controlling nanoscale magnetic fields that exist in less than one dimension may prove problematic..."
Am I the only one having problems understanding that article? I'm not a physicist, but I didn't think anything could exist in less than one dimension. Freaky.
Anything that can be represented as a (or a finite number of) point could be considered to have a dimension of zero.
But in this case it was something more complicated than a point, it was a fractal object with a dimension greater than 0 but smaller than 1.
One way to understand this is to imagine that you want to draw the field on a piece of paper. Unfortunately you can't draw a line to represent this field; it has a dimension that is less than 1. Then you might figure that you could plot one or several small dots to represent the field. Well, bad news again. The field has a dimension that is greater than 0, so it would take an infinite number of points to draw the field.
Tor
The snowflake would have a true 3D volume because it is not perfectly thin; it is a physical approximation of a mathematical concept.
The analogy of the snowflake refers to the edge of the snowflake. Imagine that you took a thread and tried to put it along the edge of the snowflake. Assuming that the thread was very thin it would take an infinitely long thread to cover the entire edge, because of the way it is folded. Thus the 'edge' can be said to have a dimension higher than 1 (it does not fit into one dimension). Using mathematical techniques one can also demonstrate that the the infinite thread takes zero space in 2D, thus the dimension is somewhere between 1 and 2; it is a fractal.
Tor
Maybe offtopic, but in Sweden, it is illegal to think about how to best create a nuclear power plant.
This is the result of overly ambitious (and probably unconsitutional) laws aiming to make it a 100% certain that no new plants will ever be developed.
Tor
... he who made Star Wars origami or the guy who recreated Episode IV using ascii animation.
Tor
or hacked into and then crashed into buildings in NY
Which could not possibly happen if there were human pilots on the plane.
Seriously, this illustrates how important it is to make relevant comparisons. The real test for drones is not whether they are 100% safe (from crashes or hi-jackings or whatever), but whether they are safer than their human counterparts.
Clearly it is just a matter of time (perhaps a long time) before airplanes can be flown cheaper and safer by computers than by humans.
Tor
What is wrong with this argument? Bletchley Park. For about 30 years, several thousand people kept the secret that the allies hand broken most of the axis codes during World War II.
Well many (if not most, myself included) people are ready to keep a secret if they think it is the right thing to do, such as hiding codes from the enemy.
Very few people are ready to cover up something so dirty as a faked moon landing - I never would for one.
Tor
It is too bad one of the astronauts did not trudge a gigantic NASA WAS HERE into the moon dust so that the image could be seen from a large telescope. That should silence the idiots.
They put plates with reflective material in place. Scientists on Earth shoot lasers on the plates, and get reflections back. The measurements have been used to establish the distance to the moon with extraordinary precision, also that the moon is moving away a couple of inches per year (or was it moving closer... I forgot).
Tor
They make it sound as if an artillary shell is a HARDER taregt to hit than a rocket. Rockets accelerate, tumble, and move erratically. Artillery shells move in well understood, computable trajectories. They probably had the damn flight path of the shell computed before they fired it. It's one thing to shoot down a shell when you know it's path ahead of time, another entirely to get a fix on an unknown, erratic rocket and destroy it.
You are right that it is easy to compute the trajectory of an artillery shell if you know the speed (and this you can measure by radar). You just solve the same equations that the artillery battery did before firing. These computations are very well understood. That being said, I disagree with the statement that (cruise) missiles are easier.
First of all, rockets don't really "accelerate, tumble, and move erratically" that much. They can be mostly considered like an artillery shell with a constant forward force. A cruise missle may make one or two smooth turns during its flight, rocket artillery not a single one. If you are firing a laser it is a safe bet that the missile will keep on the same path for a couple of more seconds - and remeber, the laser reaches its target instantaniously so it is easy to cancel or readjust your beam.
Now a couple of factors that makes it harder to kill the artillery shell
-It is much faster than a (cruise) missile -It is smaller, about one third of the size -It is not particullary sensitive. The shell is basically a piece of metal shaped like a cone travelling only by momentum; the cruise missile has little wings, complex control systems and yes, it burns rocket fuel.
I think this is quite revolutionary. I venture guess they will put these bastards on Aircraft carriers. Not a hostile shell, missile, airplane or UAV will come within miles. And there are nuclear power plants to drive them.
Tor (served in the Swedish artillery)
Is it not reasonable that the FBI, if it gets a court order, can bug a computer or a telephone? Is ./ really against bugging in any situation?
If such power is misused then it is cause of great convern, but the article provides no evidence that this is the case.
The author also seems upset that the library staff is not telling him. Well, it is pretty obvious that if you are going to bug something you can't tell the world what you are doing.
Tor
I think this is a great move. At least for the general public. It may, however, be a bad business decision for the university. I don't care what /.ers think, freely giving away information very often does not lead to profit.
Universities are not in the business of making profit. If their economy is hard pressed, they could in theory compensate the missing revenues by higher tuition. Then the average cost per student would be the same, but there would be plenty of additional benefits. For example, students will never have to hesitate on whether to get some material, and they can check out material for other classes if the need arises. Not to mention the benefit to society at large, now anyone can get their hands on first-rate material.
That being said, I feel a bit cheated because I recently took a bunch of online courses from Columbia University. At about $1000/credit, it kinda bothers me that people can get something similar for free (of course, you can't get a degree this way).
Please, is this a joke? You were exposed to a system that sucked, and therefore it is unfair if somebody else gets a better deal. Grow up.
Tor
I am sure you are perfectly right in that it is a royal pain in the butt to get an inflight gambling sytstem to work properly.
That being said, I am sure it is just a matter of time before it is commonplace. The payoff is just too high, and the airlines are just too hard pressed to let go of a profit opportunity like this.
Tor