Re:Air pressure is critical
on
Bang But No Splash
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
It's rather intuitive in a way. All of the momentum is downward, then converted to radially outward. What makes it go up?
How about a partially elastic collision with the surface (it bounces)?
How about collision with the leading edge of the spreading droplet (there is drag on the spreading drop as it extends across the surface--fast liquid building up behind could still splash over that barrier, even in the complete absence of atmosphere)?
Always be afraid of "intuitive" reasoning in physics when you're dealing with very slow or very fast processes that operate on very small or very large scales.:)
Re:We know quarks, but not this...
on
Bang But No Splash
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It's one of those things that's utterly obvious--after the experiment is done.
Given no a priori knowledge of this experiment, I could come up with convincing thought experiments and analogies to explain either possible outcome (low viscosity or high viscosity being less likely to splash).
For example, what happens when a ball of soft putty drops on a surface? It definitely doesn't produce an apparent splash. The "intuitive" interpretation might be, then, that high viscosity liquids are less able to splash, based on our experience with a large, viscous semisolid.
Are those like cubicals with a roof? Doesnt that mean that when they run out of space they can just turn them into houses and high rises, by stacking them:p
Kind of sucks when the guy in the cube below you has a peaked roof, though.
So what are the other problems with this model ? Well, the integrity of all the participants is much more critical than it was under the old model. There will be pressure on journals to publish things - money changing hands will create that expectation. There is far more potential for major corruption and scandal. I can see scientists and funding agencies threatening to take future papers elsewhere if X is not published, because journals will be directly beholden to scientists for revenue. I can see scientists and funding agencies threatening to take future papers elsewhere if X is not published, because journals will be directly beholden to scientists for revenue.
Nah. Journals live or die based on their prestige among scientists. Any journal that gets a reputation for being a 'vanity press' will see a rapid decline in the quality of manuscripts they receive, as authors doing good science find other outlets. There is no shortage of journals, and scientists will generally try to submit their work to the most prestigous journal they think they can get away with.
A scientist or funding agency threatening to take their publications elsewhere if a journal rejects a manuscript...I just can't see it happening. Papers get rejected all the time, and it's an accepted part of the scientific process. Most scientists don't take it personally, and either resubmit the work elsewhere or rework the paper until it's acceptable to the original journal. The sort of threat you describe would probably cause journal editors and editorial boards to blacklist any scientist or agency involved.
As an ever-evolving, ever-accumulating storehouse of knowledge, the articles are never done and thus never "full-length." A more meaningful statistic might be the total number of words, cross-links, and articles.
Done and done. That's the third link in the Slashdot story, showing totals for words (146 million), internal links (8.4 million), and an article count--though that page only has data to the end of 2004.
The second link in the Slashdot story shows just over 502,000 non-stub articles with at least one internal link, and 1,407,000 total article entries. Of those half-million non-stub articles, about 75% exceed 500 bytes, and more than 30% exceed 2 kilobytes.
But the problem with the 'neutral point of view' (and one seen commonly in American journalism) is that it creates the illusion that all points of view are equally valid. That might be fine in lit crit, but in science it is not.
Actually, that problem is one of which most Wikipedia editors are very much aware. Check out the Wikipedia guide to neutral point of view (NPOV). Scroll down to the section on pseudoscience, which reads (in part),
If we're going to represent the sum total of human knowledge, then we must concede that we will be describing views repugnant to us without asserting that they are false. Things are not, however, as bad as that sounds. The task before us is not to describe disputes as though, for example, pseudoscience were on a par with science; rather, the task is to represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view; and, moreover, to explain how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories. This is all in the purview of the task of describing a dispute fairly.
An encyclopedia should discuss things like remote viewing and palm reading; they have a great deal of social and historical significance, and they have their proponents even today. The important thing is accurately representing the scientific consensus on these issues as well.
Here in Canada, everyone migrated from Google to Wikipedia a long time ago.
It's interesting--for a lot of Google searches, I've noticed that Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirror sites (sites which copy the GFDL-licensed Wikipedia content and wrap it in advertising goodness) are often on the first page of Google results. Frequently Wikipedia material is the number one hit.
I've tried on no less than 7 occasions to make changes or additions to some rather innocuous pages only to return some moments later to a message telling me to stop defacing or trolling the site.
A couple of thoughts. Have you created a user account on Wikipedia? It's a very quick process, and it might help, depending on your situation.
Wikipedia normally tracks contributions by username. For anonymous editors, Wikipedia reports IP addresses. If you're on a computer network where a lot of machines share a single apparent IP address (a university campus or large corporate network behind a gateway machine), your edits might be lumped in with those of less...helpful contributors. If there is someone on your network who regularly defaces Wikipedia, then you might be getting burned for someone else's edits.
If you're editing as a logged-in user, I can't explain why you would meet such hostility. I've been contributing regularly for the last few months and the community seems to be generally very civil and constructive. As others have requested, could you point us to articles (ideally specific edits) that you've had problems with? If you've been the victim of a troll or vandal (Wikipedia has a few, but certainly not as many as Slashdot) then there are administrative procedures to intervene with problem editors.
Isn't there a problem with free power and free manufacture? Aren't we just going to be churning BTU after BTU of heat into the atmosphere... think global warming is bad now?
Yes and no...we'll take a hit for the difference between what the panels absorb and what the desert they're replacing would take in. On the other hand, they're not going to be dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, so the added heat will be less efficiently retained.
We're still better off than with burning coal, certainly.
China is a country that will incarcerate your for not thinking what you're supposed to. China is a country that will put a bullet in the back of your head and sell your organs to the highest bidder. These people should be revered. They have true bravery.
"Sell your organs to the highest bidder"? Charming. You forgot to call them the "damn Chinks" while you were at it.
These guys refused a government directive, and their weak-kneed employer fired them. Good for them for sticking up for what they believe in, but I notice that they haven't been shot and their organs haven't been sold. They haven't disappeared. If I'm not mistaken, they haven't been arrested.
Oh, and selling organs to the highest bidder would be a very capitalist thing to do. A good socialist would give his organs to a Party memeber who needed them, comrade.
If the make-anything machine uses a high enough amount of energy, this could still be uneconomical and your repair scenario might make more sense. Alternately, you could consider the re-creation process to be a kind of ultimate repair.
Actually, energy is something that we shouldn't have a problem with if we're smart about it. The first major self-assembly project can be to construct solar panels in the Nevada desert or someplace equally sunny. Sure it will cost a few billion dollars up front, but you never have to put any more cash or effort in--the power plant keeps building itself. Power could actually become too cheap to meter. Feel free to add self-assembling windmills and tidal generators into the system, too. They might actually be easier to start with, since you don't have to do semiconductor fabrication.
If I abused someone enough, maybe they would get out of the business. If enough people refused to work in the industry, there would be fewer callers.
Given that there are people (who are often about equally well-paid) who are still willing to work at McDonald's, I'm not sure how you can make the telemarketing experience sufficiently unpleasant.
Incidentally, do you abuse everyone who does things that annoy you, or are you just a sociopath on the telephone where they can't smack you upside the head for being an asshole?
This is like the FBI's report last week that it had no evidence of al Qaeda sleeper cells operating in the United States currently. Only a fool would believe that this means we have defeated terrorism on our own soil.
We're assuming that those terrorist sleeper cells were ever there to be defeated, of course. If you turn your tinfoil hat ninety degrees, you could argue that the idea of Al Qaeda sleeper cells was the product of an administration that wanted to pass draconian legislation without too much fuss. In which case, the FBI isn't incompetent (at least with respect to this issue), but instead is reporting on a PR sham that's part of a White House-directed conspiracy.
So, which flavour of conspiracy theory do you like? Do you prefer "FBI coverup", or "White House misdirection"? I gotta admit they're both pretty plausible.
However, during the civil war (and, arguably, during WWII w.r.t. Japanese internment) Habeas Corpus was suspended outright. Was this a problem? Yes. Was it the end of everything? No.
I imagine if you asked a Japanese-American citizen during WWII--or an Arab-American now--you might have a somewhat less lackadaisical attitude.
Being arrested on secret charges and secret evidence and held indefinitely without trial has a way of affecting one's job, social status, and entire life. For some people so arrested, it might well be the end of everything.
As long as you're still free to decry the PATRIOT act, I don't think we have a major problem.
Quite right. As long as the First Amendment is preserved, why worry about spirit of the Fifth or Sixth Amendments? I'm sure that any detained individuals will be pleased to know that the rest of us are free to protest outside their cells--assuming we're told where they're being held. Hm.
At 9:00pm GMT today , it will be exactly 5 years since the Nasdaq reached its highest level, 5048.62. From there on it has been downhill all the way. [emphasis added]
Well, no. Looking at the five-year chart would seem to suggest it was slowly downhill until the third quarter of 2002, followed by partial recovery through 2003, and a relatively stable index in 2004....
There's an argument to be made that it's been stagnant for a year, but the Dow has been the same way.
It's all toothpaste, really. A very mild abrasive to polish things, some alkaline stuff to neutralize any acidic matter in your mouth, and some minty flavouring to make it all palatable. Pick one with fluoride added; it hardens tooth enamel.
Get a good toothbrush (medium or soft bristles so you don't mangle your gums, smallish head so you can get into the nooks and crannies), and brush regularly. Don't rush; it takes a couple of minutes. Floss regularly, too. It doesn't hurt to chew sugarless gum after meals if you don't have time to brush. (Chewing gum loosens particles of food and stimulates production of saliva to bring the mouth's pH back up.)
I tend to buy whatever brand is on sale at the pharmacy that week; the one with the best flavour might also be a good basis for deciding. Feel free to buy stuff with whitening agents, or not. They won't affect the integrity of your teeth, but the whitening effect will likely be small. If your teeth aren't white enough, cut back on the coffee and cigarettes--they tend to be the worst offenders here.
No, I'm not a dentist--but this stuff isn't rocket science.
No, it didn't pass. But it could have. The method for constitutional change in Canada is to rewrite it. That was my point, and that is the way it is, not FUD.
Isn't that the way constitutional change is done in most places? Legislators make proposals according to the change mechanisms in those selfsame constitutions? Constitutional amendments on various things (flag burning, gay marriage) are often proposed in the United States, too.
Also, doesn't the fact that the amendments you cited didn't pass suggest something? Any law before the House and Senate could pass, but many don't--often due to either common sense or political self-preservation.
You don't ever really know if someone else has your password.
Whatever happened to those little messages on login along the lines of, "User jschmoe last logged in at 23:23:15 on 3 March 2005 to Workstation 122"? If Joe Schmoe knows he went home at five o'clock and that the computer on his desk is Workstation 67, then there's a problem.
As the parent says, it often takes time to leverage a compromised password into useful exploitation. Assuming a modest amount of attention, a user should notice anomalous logins the next time they log in themselves.
how would the employee know the person asking those questions is also an employee trying to detect social engineers OR is a social engineer trying to get info ?
It's a conversation, not an interrogation. Suppose Person A is a social engineer who asks Person B about who B works for, what B does, who supervises B.
Person B is then free to ask the same questions, since we're all being friendly and getting to know our coworkers. Person A can't just reuse B's answers...and in most organizations the response "Um...I'm not sure" isn't a good answer to questions about your duties or supervisor. (Even if the person giving that answer isn't a cracker, he probably needs to be laid off.)
Wasn't Yuri Gagarin "the first person to successfully circle the earth in a nonstop solo flight" in Vostok 1, back in '61? Hyuk.
Yuri left most of his ship behind. GlobalFlyer didn't have disposable drop tanks--in principle, you could gas it up, and fly around the world again in exactly the same craft.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be a ken-by-ten .
How about a partially elastic collision with the surface (it bounces)?
How about collision with the leading edge of the spreading droplet (there is drag on the spreading drop as it extends across the surface--fast liquid building up behind could still splash over that barrier, even in the complete absence of atmosphere)?
Always be afraid of "intuitive" reasoning in physics when you're dealing with very slow or very fast processes that operate on very small or very large scales. :)
Given no a priori knowledge of this experiment, I could come up with convincing thought experiments and analogies to explain either possible outcome (low viscosity or high viscosity being less likely to splash).
For example, what happens when a ball of soft putty drops on a surface? It definitely doesn't produce an apparent splash. The "intuitive" interpretation might be, then, that high viscosity liquids are less able to splash, based on our experience with a large, viscous semisolid.
I'm glad they're still finding time for that hard-hitting journalism.
Kind of sucks when the guy in the cube below you has a peaked roof, though.
Nah. Journals live or die based on their prestige among scientists. Any journal that gets a reputation for being a 'vanity press' will see a rapid decline in the quality of manuscripts they receive, as authors doing good science find other outlets. There is no shortage of journals, and scientists will generally try to submit their work to the most prestigous journal they think they can get away with.
A scientist or funding agency threatening to take their publications elsewhere if a journal rejects a manuscript...I just can't see it happening. Papers get rejected all the time, and it's an accepted part of the scientific process. Most scientists don't take it personally, and either resubmit the work elsewhere or rework the paper until it's acceptable to the original journal. The sort of threat you describe would probably cause journal editors and editorial boards to blacklist any scientist or agency involved.
Done and done. That's the third link in the Slashdot story, showing totals for words (146 million), internal links (8.4 million), and an article count--though that page only has data to the end of 2004.
The second link in the Slashdot story shows just over 502,000 non-stub articles with at least one internal link, and 1,407,000 total article entries. Of those half-million non-stub articles, about 75% exceed 500 bytes, and more than 30% exceed 2 kilobytes.
Actually, that problem is one of which most Wikipedia editors are very much aware. Check out the Wikipedia guide to neutral point of view (NPOV). Scroll down to the section on pseudoscience, which reads (in part),
An encyclopedia should discuss things like remote viewing and palm reading; they have a great deal of social and historical significance, and they have their proponents even today. The important thing is accurately representing the scientific consensus on these issues as well.It's interesting--for a lot of Google searches, I've noticed that Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirror sites (sites which copy the GFDL-licensed Wikipedia content and wrap it in advertising goodness) are often on the first page of Google results. Frequently Wikipedia material is the number one hit.
A couple of thoughts. Have you created a user account on Wikipedia? It's a very quick process, and it might help, depending on your situation.
Wikipedia normally tracks contributions by username. For anonymous editors, Wikipedia reports IP addresses. If you're on a computer network where a lot of machines share a single apparent IP address (a university campus or large corporate network behind a gateway machine), your edits might be lumped in with those of less...helpful contributors. If there is someone on your network who regularly defaces Wikipedia, then you might be getting burned for someone else's edits.
If you're editing as a logged-in user, I can't explain why you would meet such hostility. I've been contributing regularly for the last few months and the community seems to be generally very civil and constructive. As others have requested, could you point us to articles (ideally specific edits) that you've had problems with? If you've been the victim of a troll or vandal (Wikipedia has a few, but certainly not as many as Slashdot) then there are administrative procedures to intervene with problem editors.
Yes and no...we'll take a hit for the difference between what the panels absorb and what the desert they're replacing would take in. On the other hand, they're not going to be dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, so the added heat will be less efficiently retained.
We're still better off than with burning coal, certainly.
"Sell your organs to the highest bidder"? Charming. You forgot to call them the "damn Chinks" while you were at it.
These guys refused a government directive, and their weak-kneed employer fired them. Good for them for sticking up for what they believe in, but I notice that they haven't been shot and their organs haven't been sold. They haven't disappeared. If I'm not mistaken, they haven't been arrested.
Oh, and selling organs to the highest bidder would be a very capitalist thing to do. A good socialist would give his organs to a Party memeber who needed them, comrade.
Actually, energy is something that we shouldn't have a problem with if we're smart about it. The first major self-assembly project can be to construct solar panels in the Nevada desert or someplace equally sunny. Sure it will cost a few billion dollars up front, but you never have to put any more cash or effort in--the power plant keeps building itself. Power could actually become too cheap to meter. Feel free to add self-assembling windmills and tidal generators into the system, too. They might actually be easier to start with, since you don't have to do semiconductor fabrication.
Given that there are people (who are often about equally well-paid) who are still willing to work at McDonald's, I'm not sure how you can make the telemarketing experience sufficiently unpleasant.
Incidentally, do you abuse everyone who does things that annoy you, or are you just a sociopath on the telephone where they can't smack you upside the head for being an asshole?
We're assuming that those terrorist sleeper cells were ever there to be defeated, of course. If you turn your tinfoil hat ninety degrees, you could argue that the idea of Al Qaeda sleeper cells was the product of an administration that wanted to pass draconian legislation without too much fuss. In which case, the FBI isn't incompetent (at least with respect to this issue), but instead is reporting on a PR sham that's part of a White House-directed conspiracy.
So, which flavour of conspiracy theory do you like? Do you prefer "FBI coverup", or "White House misdirection"? I gotta admit they're both pretty plausible.
I imagine if you asked a Japanese-American citizen during WWII--or an Arab-American now--you might have a somewhat less lackadaisical attitude.
Being arrested on secret charges and secret evidence and held indefinitely without trial has a way of affecting one's job, social status, and entire life. For some people so arrested, it might well be the end of everything.
As long as you're still free to decry the PATRIOT act, I don't think we have a major problem.
Quite right. As long as the First Amendment is preserved, why worry about spirit of the Fifth or Sixth Amendments? I'm sure that any detained individuals will be pleased to know that the rest of us are free to protest outside their cells--assuming we're told where they're being held. Hm.
Well, no. Looking at the five-year chart would seem to suggest it was slowly downhill until the third quarter of 2002, followed by partial recovery through 2003, and a relatively stable index in 2004....
There's an argument to be made that it's been stagnant for a year, but the Dow has been the same way.
It's all toothpaste, really. A very mild abrasive to polish things, some alkaline stuff to neutralize any acidic matter in your mouth, and some minty flavouring to make it all palatable. Pick one with fluoride added; it hardens tooth enamel.
Get a good toothbrush (medium or soft bristles so you don't mangle your gums, smallish head so you can get into the nooks and crannies), and brush regularly. Don't rush; it takes a couple of minutes. Floss regularly, too. It doesn't hurt to chew sugarless gum after meals if you don't have time to brush. (Chewing gum loosens particles of food and stimulates production of saliva to bring the mouth's pH back up.)
I tend to buy whatever brand is on sale at the pharmacy that week; the one with the best flavour might also be a good basis for deciding. Feel free to buy stuff with whitening agents, or not. They won't affect the integrity of your teeth, but the whitening effect will likely be small. If your teeth aren't white enough, cut back on the coffee and cigarettes--they tend to be the worst offenders here.
No, I'm not a dentist--but this stuff isn't rocket science.
But it could have.
The method for constitutional change in Canada is to rewrite it. That was my point, and that is the way it is, not FUD.
Isn't that the way constitutional change is done in most places? Legislators make proposals according to the change mechanisms in those selfsame constitutions? Constitutional amendments on various things (flag burning, gay marriage) are often proposed in the United States, too.
Also, doesn't the fact that the amendments you cited didn't pass suggest something? Any law before the House and Senate could pass, but many don't--often due to either common sense or political self-preservation.
Right. Smart. Working long hours for low pay, instead of fame, fortune, and easy work. Hm.
Sounds like Mitnick's still the best at making people do his bidding.
Whatever happened to those little messages on login along the lines of, "User jschmoe last logged in at 23:23:15 on 3 March 2005 to Workstation 122"? If Joe Schmoe knows he went home at five o'clock and that the computer on his desk is Workstation 67, then there's a problem.
As the parent says, it often takes time to leverage a compromised password into useful exploitation. Assuming a modest amount of attention, a user should notice anomalous logins the next time they log in themselves.
It's a conversation, not an interrogation. Suppose Person A is a social engineer who asks Person B about who B works for, what B does, who supervises B.
Person B is then free to ask the same questions, since we're all being friendly and getting to know our coworkers. Person A can't just reuse B's answers...and in most organizations the response "Um...I'm not sure" isn't a good answer to questions about your duties or supervisor. (Even if the person giving that answer isn't a cracker, he probably needs to be laid off.)
Yuri left most of his ship behind. GlobalFlyer didn't have disposable drop tanks--in principle, you could gas it up, and fly around the world again in exactly the same craft.
And yes, I know you were kidding. :)
Hey, if it can happen to a 767....