I'm just curious as to what the R-factor would be. The article does not specify this.
Based on the many images I've seen like this one, the R value is high enough not to matter--any pieces thick enough to survive the rigors of construction would provide stunningly effective home insulation.
On a more serious note, the properties of aerogel depend very strongly on the conditions under which it is prepared. There are all manner of tradeoffs that can be made with respect to mass density, insulating properties, and mechanical strength. The other estimates on this thread to the effect of R-200 to R-400 per inch are probably in the right ballpark, however.
For those who are interested, there's some more excellent aerogel photos here.
Currency control is 'digital rights managment' on not just a government level, but also at The World Bank level, as well. Do not underestimate how significant this is!!
Currency control is DRM--well done, torpor. Points for a very inventive troll.
Currency only has value because it's difficult to duplicate. Unlike copying the latest Britney Spears album, adding fresh currency to the money supply has a quantifiable effect on the value of everyone else's dollars. Getting stuck with the fake stuff means you're out of pocket at best.
Which digital rights are being infringed when HP printers refuse to print hundred-dollar bills?
You're welcome to avoid using currency altogether, living under a (regrettably less efficient) barter system. You might also try adopting a private competitor to U.S. currency.
Wow. A country that derives much of its stability and power from its currency wants to defend it. The bank that issues that currency doesn't want people making fakes. What's the problem here?
You've hit the nail quite squarely on the head here, but are we really free if we can't break laws ?
The city transit authority puts fences at the end of subway platforms to keep people from walking into the tunnels. You have to go climb over or around the fence to get into the tunnel. The government has restricted your ability to break the law. Are you no longer free?
I've already seen posts here regarding patches to Photoshop that disable currency detection. It's just like a fence--a deterrent to the casual criminal, but not something to stop a dedicated individual.
IHNJH, IJFLS "Microsoft's Canadian lawyers Smart & Biggar"
I had to look this one up. This is derived from "IHNJH, IJLS", which means "I have no joke here, I just like saying". The addition of the (presumed) expletive F is a relatively new mutation.
We're not talking about the subway station on the corner. Maglevs would only be used for very long-haul routes, meaning you would be going to a central train station serving an entire metropolitan area.
On the other hand, you can put a maglev station in a crowded downtown area--you don't need it to be out in the boonies to avoid tall buildings and expensive real estate. The station facility itself can be smaller, since there are no runways and approach paths. The track itself can probably be run largely on existing right-of-ways.
Of course, all of those arguments also apply to conventional passenger rail, be it Amtrak or ICE.
The guy is tele-commuting!, that's about all this story is. For two weeks per month in the winter, and two weeks over the summer, he works from home.
Yes, I did read the article. Why did his station choose to conceal the fact that he was telecommuting? They could even have made some news out of it, for goodness' sake--their own live newscasts from their man-on-the-scene in Florida. Might add a bit of spice to their otherwise dull and drab weather reports. Heck, he could just have avoided making any comments about being cold. What's wrong with the weather guy just reading the damn weather report, without added inane chatter?
But no, they chose to hide it, and deliberately misled their audience. Sure, in an absolute sense it's not really a big thing, but where should you draw the line? If he had been claiming to be on location in Baghdad, would it then be okay to be outraged?
If a radio station, or any other news outlet, wants to be considered trustworthy, then they must avoid even a hint of deception. It's not appropriate for them to mislead their audience as long as they only mislead about things that they think aren't important.
This would be more helpful if worked with my everyday system taskes ( build, check logs, ect.. ).
The faster I ran on this thing, the faster my compile would go. I'd buy it.
Come on people! It wasn't that long ago that most computing devices were hand cranked. Take this example from the 1920s. Possibly the world's finest mechanical calculator, the Curta, was sold from 1947 to 1973.
About thirty years ago my father worked a summer job as a cashier in a liquor store. The cash register was electromechanical--under normal circumstances, it ran off ordinary wall current. This was a rural community and power outages were not uncommon. When the electricity was off, cashiers could crank a handle for each addition operation. My dad asserts that the mechanism was rather stiff, and a few hours of cranking through purchases was quite a workout.
Of course, if you really want a hand-cranked computer, you should talk to this guy.
Holy crap! Who comes up with stuff like this?!?! It reminds me of the great mystery of Maple Syrup, another "who the hell comes up with this stuff" example.
Actually, maple syrup's a pretty easy one to stumble on by accident. First, you notice that damaged sugar maples release sweet sap if they're damaged around the spring thaw. This might actually be the least likely step to occur spontaneously, but it's not totally ridiculous.
Heck, there's an appreciable quantity of sap flowing in a lot of different tree species in spring, so it might be recognized fairly readily as a general property of certain classes of trees. From there, people could recognize certain trees produce a sap with a more pleasant or sweeter taste than others.
From that point, someone just has to accidentally leave a container of it out overnight to concentrate by evaporation, and you're on the road to maple syrup.
The discovery of maple syrup probably didn't happen all at once, it was likely an iterative process where each step is not too unlikely nor implausible. If at any point a highly unpleasant intermediate product was formed, then maple syrup would have had to wait for modern food chemistry. It's rather like the arguments for and against evolution. Full-blown human beings are tremendously complex and utterly impossible to create from scratch by random interactions of simple molecules--but there is a strong argument that we arose through small changes and interative improvements to simpler organisms.
Re:Can people be more inventive with the names?
on
Paranoia
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Adam Cassidy? Nicholas Wyatt? Sounds like a bad porn story already...
Tsk, tsk. Everyone knows that those names have nothing to do with porn. Obviously this book is a classic Western tale of gunfights and the wild frontier.
What, you want me to read the article? Tsk again, say I.
I know that the best thing to do is to call a lawyer, but I find it quite unsettling to think that when I'm creating something and giving it away to the world for free, I would need to pay a price to protect my work?
There is something inherently wrong in that - there must be a better way to protect works that have been created for the benefit of others out there than having to pay to protect whats rightfully yours and whats given out in goodwill.
And yet, this doesn't just apply to programming. Suppose you were a brilliant--or just competent--sculptor. You do high quality work, and since you're such a nice guy you want to share your work with your community. You can't just put your sculpture on the lawn in front of your house. Some jackass is going to lift it.
You have to invest in at least some bolts to hold it down. If your work is really sought-after, then you're going to need to buy some security lighting, and maybe even hire a guard to watch your art. Unfortunate, but there are always a few people who will ruin it for the rest of us.
Other posters have noted that you may assign copyright to the FSF. That's like donating your sculpture to a museum--people still get to see your work and enjoy it, but now a central warehouse is paying for the guards (lawyers.)
I don't know how many passengers it holds, but from the brief glimpse I got, it didn't look very big.
Of course, it doesn't need to be very big if it can make lots of trips...you can carry 400 passengers each way in one round trip at 100 km/h, or you can carry 100 passengers each way in four round trips at 400 km/h. (Neglecting the turnaround time at each end.)
For any sort of transportation system, people like to have frequent departures to minimize waiting. Frequent rapid trips by a a small and fast train would fit the bill. It also makes it easier to add or remove capacity from the system--you don't have to have large trains running mostly empty during off-peak hours.
I'm no fan of Bush, but this would actually force the Nasa to focus on something instead of spending money all over the place with no particular goals.
NASA has a number of distinct, clear, innnovative scientific goals. Unfortunately, these keep getting bumped off because the manned program is a politically charged moving target--and consequently an expensive mess. If NASA had stable funding year over year, that would be a great start. If there was a protected minimum fraction of the budget devoted to unmanned scientific missions, I'd also be pleased.
Yes, but we're waiting for them to produce a quine--a scientist program that, when compiled and run, decides to invent a scientist, which, when compiled and run, will decide to invent a scientist, which...on second thought, maybe that's not so useful. Mostly because the successive invented scientists won't be able to get published--reviewers will cite prior art.:)
I read some time ago that a study had been done where they took a group of hyperactive children, and put them on a very strict diet of natural foods (the four basic food-groups WITHOUT preservatives or dyes or any other additives) and the kids hyperactivity cleared right up.
I suspect that the effect isn't necessarily due to the elimination of preservatives and dyes, but rather due to the fact that the kids (through the elimination of preservatives and dyes) are now eating a balanced, healthy diet. Do you have a citation for the study?
This phenomenon isn't limited to children. Look around you at the office. How many people are grumpy or sleepy without their daily hit of caffeine? Falling asleep at their desks because they need frequent hits of concentrated sucrose? (Cola, chocolate, soda, etc.) Moderating the use of caffeine products and a healthy diet that maintains a more stable blood sugar level often improves the concentration and mood of adults, in addition to reducing their risk of diabetes and a number of other disorders. Snacks and treats don't have to be forbidden, just limited to reasonable levels.
Think about it; we ingest A LOT of chemicals in our diet these days, much more than a few generations ago, when this problem was non-existent.
Diagnosis of it was nonexistant, I don't know that the phenomenon was. Carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive strain injuries existed for years in textile and factory workers, but nobody paid any attention to the phenomenon until it began to affect white-collar office workers. Similarly, ADHD children were simply identified as "bad kids", "juvenile delinquents", or "retarded". Although we've come too far the other way now--it's too easy to label a child as ADHD, and the disorder is definitely overdiagnosed and overmedicated--it is unfair to those genuinely affected to deny its existence.
People with bad credit ratings aren't the ones who are going to be flagged by this system. It's the people with little or no credit ratings. It's not the people who are late with car payments, but rather the people who paid cash for their car that are in trouble.
Oh no! My grandmother is a terrorist! Egads. She's always paid cash for things. Any really large purchases on any sort of credit have been handled by my grandfather. She doesn't have a credit card in her name...
Obviously there will be other factors considered (I hope!), but a credit check seems like an awfully a) invasive, and b) unreliable screening technique. I'm waiting for the day when I'm not allowed to board an airplane because I don't have an Air Miles card...
Until there's a better way, air passengers should ship their baggage ahead of time, on cargo planes.
It's a good thing that I won't need my baggage during the day before I depart or during the day after I arrive...
Incidentally, this could increase the number of cargo flights blown up substantially--once terrorists aren't compelled to be aboard the same aircraft as their luggage. (Nominally, a passenger plane doesn't take off unless every piece of luggage in the hold is associated with a physical person in the cabin.) Luggage is already (supposed to be) carefully screened. All this would do is increase cost and inconvenience for everyone involved.
Where is it written that you must purchase a ticket at a certain time in a certain way? By the way, did it ever occurr to you that Al Qaeda or other similar groups could easily defeat this by using a high-interest credit card to purchase the ticket in advance?
Quite right. Also, the September 11 hijackers bought first-class tickets, using credit cards--some were purchased online and the buyers registered for frequent flier points.
Obviously, we need to invasively search all those individuals who fly first class--and those who collect frequent flier miles.
just tie some twine to the tail of the space shuttle as it goes up, of course.
Then you tie a slightly heavier cable to the twine, and have the guys on the space shuttle start tugging it up.
Yeah, but the Shuttle can't reach geosynchronous orbit. So you're just going to wrap the Earth in a giant ball of twine. And if you can't keep playing out twine from the ground at about ten kilometers per second, then you'll pull the shuttle down--*whump*. Bummer.
Yes, I know you were kidding.:) To be fair, the first space elevator cable might well be a very thin ribbon--just enough to stabilize the bits that come down after. I can easily see this being something that grows in diameter (and capacity) with time.
BTW, I'm of the opinion that if there is a disease or imbalance, there is a natural/herbal treatment for it; we may not ever find it, but I bet it is their.
I don't want to come down too hard on you, but you've just asserted an unprovable hypothesis. To say, based on no other evidence, that such treatments exist even if never found seems a remarkable leap of faith...
On the other hand, many (indeed, the vast majority) of drugs in use today are derived from so-called 'natural' sources. The chemistry is often tweaked (more or less heavily) to increase potency and reduce harmful side effects. Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is closely related to the 'natural' salicin found in willow bark. (Indeed, aspirin was originally developed from bark extracts.)
At what point does a product stop counting as 'natural'? Is it all right to extract the active ingredient from a plant and call the product natural? Purification is okay...or not? Milk is still natural after it's been homogenized and pasteurized--right?
Can a drug company generate the same compound in the lab using organic synthetic chemistry? It's the same compound, it should still qualify as 'natural', right?
What if they make a little chemical substitution to cut out an unwanted side effect or two? Does it become unnatural after one methylation? Two? How about an extra acetyl group?
What if instead of coming from a plant, it comes from a bacterium? That's where penicillin first originated...that's natural, right? What if a scientist encourages mutations of the bacterium, and those mutations result in a more potent drug? What if genetic modifications are made deliberately? Is it still natural as long as it comes from a living organism?
At this point, if readers agree that the drug in question is still 'natural', then we're encompassing nearly all drugs in use today. (There's a few exceptions; mostly inorganic drugs like cisplatin for chemotherapy and lithium carbonate for bipolar disorder.)
If not, then where does one draw the line? And a second (but related) question--why is there a presumption that 'natural' remedies are better for you than 'artificial' ones? I can think of any number of totally natural substances that are still quite deadly. Hemlock. Nightshade. Those little brightly-coloured frogs...don't want to lick those.
Pure mechanical watches rely on a weight oscilating from a spring pushing on it to advance "time" within the watch? How well does said watch work in space, where Gravity is "slightly less" than here on earth? It seems a simple quartz digital with a different denominator would be easier to reprogram to mars (or any time) than something which relys on weight (gravity) to work.
More precisely, they rely on a mass oscillating under the influence of a spring. That mass (and its associated moment of inertia) stays fixed regardless of the gravity field you're in (or in freefall, as in orbit). The same goes for the important properties of the spring (within any reasonable gravity field.)
Watches are not gravity dependent--otherwise, you'd be in trouble if you held your arm the wrong way. Pendulum clocks, on the other hand, are very much dependent on gravity--their weight is quite important.
$5 quartz watches still work by giving a quartz crystal juice and dividing its constant Hz by some number to keep time, correct?
Correct, and a quartz oscillator and custom circuitry would certainly produce a perfectly serviceable watch for this purpose. Unfortunately, the minimum lot size for such custom work (as mentioned in the article) is ten thousand units--many more than JPL was anticipating a need for.
Of course, Mars is more exciting. But practicly, exploring Antarctica is many orders of magnitude easier. The barren continent (a few penguins may be) may hold plenty of promise within a much easier reach...
There already exists a permanent manned presence on Antarctica. Its surface is regularly explored, and its depths frequently plumbed. Heck, small meteorites (some of which come from Mars) are often gathered there. (Dark meteorites stand out clearly against the white ice and snow.) Idiots crash their private planes there. More funding for Antarctic research would be nice, but it's already the focus of not-insignificant attention from a number of groups in several countries--including the United States.
IIRC, the temperature is measured by the colour of the sun. That doesn't change the further away you get, so its just as accurate over long distances as short. However, there is the problem of dopler shift if the stars are moving away/toward each other.
True, with minor nitpicks. Temperature is indeed based on careful spectroscopic measurement of colour. However, intervening interstellar dust will slightly redden the appearance of more distant stars. (Shorter, bluer wavelengths are scattered more effectively by dust than longer, redder wavelengths.) Consequently, a correction must be made for this.
Doppler shift is virtually a non-issue. A few kilometres per second will have an essentially negligible effect. Faster relative movement is readily corrected using known features of stars' spectra--hydrogen absorption lines, for instance, will always appear at the same wavelength, allowing a correction to be applied to the rest of the spectrum.
Question... is that real money or some kinda Enron/Parmalat accountancy BS definition of money? Like do Microsoft have a bank statement that says "closing balance $40,000,000,000".
That's real money. The most recent estimate a very lazy scrounging through Google recovered was $49 billion at the end of June 2003. To quote CNN Money on Microsoft's $38.2 billion 2002 end of year total,
At the end of last year, according to the company's most recent filings, its cash (and short-term investments that can be converted to cash in less than a year) totaled a whopping $38.2 billion. The Microsoft juggernaut continues to generate another $1 billion a month, putting the total cash today well above $40 billion.
This is a mind-bogglingly large pile of dough. No other nonfinancial firm has more liquid money at its disposal, and only a handful of banks do. It's more cash than Ford, ExxonMobil and Wal-Mart have combined, and nearly four times as much as Intel, the tech company with the next largest cash balance. [...]
All that cash gives Microsoft a financial solidity and flexibility that most corporate managers would kill for. For investors in the post-Enron era, it also offers assurances that the company's business is very much for real.
So it's real money--lots of it. It's actually a bit of a source of embarrassment in some ways, because there's tremendous pressure from shareholders to declare a large dividend and burn through some of that stockpile.
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Based on the many images I've seen like this one, the R value is high enough not to matter--any pieces thick enough to survive the rigors of construction would provide stunningly effective home insulation.
On a more serious note, the properties of aerogel depend very strongly on the conditions under which it is prepared. There are all manner of tradeoffs that can be made with respect to mass density, insulating properties, and mechanical strength. The other estimates on this thread to the effect of R-200 to R-400 per inch are probably in the right ballpark, however.
For those who are interested, there's some more excellent aerogel photos here.
Currency control is DRM--well done, torpor. Points for a very inventive troll.
Currency only has value because it's difficult to duplicate. Unlike copying the latest Britney Spears album, adding fresh currency to the money supply has a quantifiable effect on the value of everyone else's dollars. Getting stuck with the fake stuff means you're out of pocket at best.
Which digital rights are being infringed when HP printers refuse to print hundred-dollar bills?
You're welcome to avoid using currency altogether, living under a (regrettably less efficient) barter system. You might also try adopting a private competitor to U.S. currency.
Wow. A country that derives much of its stability and power from its currency wants to defend it. The bank that issues that currency doesn't want people making fakes. What's the problem here?
The city transit authority puts fences at the end of subway platforms to keep people from walking into the tunnels. You have to go climb over or around the fence to get into the tunnel. The government has restricted your ability to break the law. Are you no longer free?
I've already seen posts here regarding patches to Photoshop that disable currency detection. It's just like a fence--a deterrent to the casual criminal, but not something to stop a dedicated individual.
I had to look this one up. This is derived from "IHNJH, IJLS", which means "I have no joke here, I just like saying". The addition of the (presumed) expletive F is a relatively new mutation.
On the other hand, you can put a maglev station in a crowded downtown area--you don't need it to be out in the boonies to avoid tall buildings and expensive real estate. The station facility itself can be smaller, since there are no runways and approach paths. The track itself can probably be run largely on existing right-of-ways.
Of course, all of those arguments also apply to conventional passenger rail, be it Amtrak or ICE.
That's News for Nerds. XOR Stuff that matters. You're incorrectly reading it as News for Nerds. AND Stuff that matters.
Yes, I did read the article. Why did his station choose to conceal the fact that he was telecommuting? They could even have made some news out of it, for goodness' sake--their own live newscasts from their man-on-the-scene in Florida. Might add a bit of spice to their otherwise dull and drab weather reports. Heck, he could just have avoided making any comments about being cold. What's wrong with the weather guy just reading the damn weather report, without added inane chatter?
But no, they chose to hide it, and deliberately misled their audience. Sure, in an absolute sense it's not really a big thing, but where should you draw the line? If he had been claiming to be on location in Baghdad, would it then be okay to be outraged?
If a radio station, or any other news outlet, wants to be considered trustworthy, then they must avoid even a hint of deception. It's not appropriate for them to mislead their audience as long as they only mislead about things that they think aren't important.
The faster I ran on this thing, the faster my compile would go. I'd buy it.
Come on people! It wasn't that long ago that most computing devices were hand cranked. Take this example from the 1920s. Possibly the world's finest mechanical calculator, the Curta, was sold from 1947 to 1973.
About thirty years ago my father worked a summer job as a cashier in a liquor store. The cash register was electromechanical--under normal circumstances, it ran off ordinary wall current. This was a rural community and power outages were not uncommon. When the electricity was off, cashiers could crank a handle for each addition operation. My dad asserts that the mechanism was rather stiff, and a few hours of cranking through purchases was quite a workout.
Of course, if you really want a hand-cranked computer, you should talk to this guy.
Actually, maple syrup's a pretty easy one to stumble on by accident. First, you notice that damaged sugar maples release sweet sap if they're damaged around the spring thaw. This might actually be the least likely step to occur spontaneously, but it's not totally ridiculous.
Heck, there's an appreciable quantity of sap flowing in a lot of different tree species in spring, so it might be recognized fairly readily as a general property of certain classes of trees. From there, people could recognize certain trees produce a sap with a more pleasant or sweeter taste than others.
From that point, someone just has to accidentally leave a container of it out overnight to concentrate by evaporation, and you're on the road to maple syrup.
The discovery of maple syrup probably didn't happen all at once, it was likely an iterative process where each step is not too unlikely nor implausible. If at any point a highly unpleasant intermediate product was formed, then maple syrup would have had to wait for modern food chemistry. It's rather like the arguments for and against evolution. Full-blown human beings are tremendously complex and utterly impossible to create from scratch by random interactions of simple molecules--but there is a strong argument that we arose through small changes and interative improvements to simpler organisms.
Tsk, tsk. Everyone knows that those names have nothing to do with porn. Obviously this book is a classic Western tale of gunfights and the wild frontier.
What, you want me to read the article? Tsk again, say I.
There is something inherently wrong in that - there must be a better way to protect works that have been created for the benefit of others out there than having to pay to protect whats rightfully yours and whats given out in goodwill.
And yet, this doesn't just apply to programming. Suppose you were a brilliant--or just competent--sculptor. You do high quality work, and since you're such a nice guy you want to share your work with your community. You can't just put your sculpture on the lawn in front of your house. Some jackass is going to lift it.
You have to invest in at least some bolts to hold it down. If your work is really sought-after, then you're going to need to buy some security lighting, and maybe even hire a guard to watch your art. Unfortunate, but there are always a few people who will ruin it for the rest of us.
Other posters have noted that you may assign copyright to the FSF. That's like donating your sculpture to a museum--people still get to see your work and enjoy it, but now a central warehouse is paying for the guards (lawyers.)
Of course, it doesn't need to be very big if it can make lots of trips...you can carry 400 passengers each way in one round trip at 100 km/h, or you can carry 100 passengers each way in four round trips at 400 km/h. (Neglecting the turnaround time at each end.)
For any sort of transportation system, people like to have frequent departures to minimize waiting. Frequent rapid trips by a a small and fast train would fit the bill. It also makes it easier to add or remove capacity from the system--you don't have to have large trains running mostly empty during off-peak hours.
To be fair, the lunar module tested on Apollo 10 was named Snoopy.
NASA has a number of distinct, clear, innnovative scientific goals. Unfortunately, these keep getting bumped off because the manned program is a politically charged moving target--and consequently an expensive mess. If NASA had stable funding year over year, that would be a great start. If there was a protected minimum fraction of the budget devoted to unmanned scientific missions, I'd also be pleased.
Yes, but we're waiting for them to produce a quine--a scientist program that, when compiled and run, decides to invent a scientist, which, when compiled and run, will decide to invent a scientist, which...on second thought, maybe that's not so useful. Mostly because the successive invented scientists won't be able to get published--reviewers will cite prior art. :)
I suspect that the effect isn't necessarily due to the elimination of preservatives and dyes, but rather due to the fact that the kids (through the elimination of preservatives and dyes) are now eating a balanced, healthy diet. Do you have a citation for the study?
This phenomenon isn't limited to children. Look around you at the office. How many people are grumpy or sleepy without their daily hit of caffeine? Falling asleep at their desks because they need frequent hits of concentrated sucrose? (Cola, chocolate, soda, etc.) Moderating the use of caffeine products and a healthy diet that maintains a more stable blood sugar level often improves the concentration and mood of adults, in addition to reducing their risk of diabetes and a number of other disorders. Snacks and treats don't have to be forbidden, just limited to reasonable levels.
Think about it; we ingest A LOT of chemicals in our diet these days, much more than a few generations ago, when this problem was non-existent.
Diagnosis of it was nonexistant, I don't know that the phenomenon was. Carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive strain injuries existed for years in textile and factory workers, but nobody paid any attention to the phenomenon until it began to affect white-collar office workers. Similarly, ADHD children were simply identified as "bad kids", "juvenile delinquents", or "retarded". Although we've come too far the other way now--it's too easy to label a child as ADHD, and the disorder is definitely overdiagnosed and overmedicated--it is unfair to those genuinely affected to deny its existence.
Oh no! My grandmother is a terrorist! Egads. She's always paid cash for things. Any really large purchases on any sort of credit have been handled by my grandfather. She doesn't have a credit card in her name...
Obviously there will be other factors considered (I hope!), but a credit check seems like an awfully a) invasive, and b) unreliable screening technique. I'm waiting for the day when I'm not allowed to board an airplane because I don't have an Air Miles card...
It's a good thing that I won't need my baggage during the day before I depart or during the day after I arrive...
Incidentally, this could increase the number of cargo flights blown up substantially--once terrorists aren't compelled to be aboard the same aircraft as their luggage. (Nominally, a passenger plane doesn't take off unless every piece of luggage in the hold is associated with a physical person in the cabin.) Luggage is already (supposed to be) carefully screened. All this would do is increase cost and inconvenience for everyone involved.
Quite right. Also, the September 11 hijackers bought first-class tickets, using credit cards--some were purchased online and the buyers registered for frequent flier points.
Obviously, we need to invasively search all those individuals who fly first class--and those who collect frequent flier miles.
Then you tie a slightly heavier cable to the twine, and have the guys on the space shuttle start tugging it up.
Yeah, but the Shuttle can't reach geosynchronous orbit. So you're just going to wrap the Earth in a giant ball of twine. And if you can't keep playing out twine from the ground at about ten kilometers per second, then you'll pull the shuttle down--*whump*. Bummer.
Yes, I know you were kidding. :) To be fair, the first space elevator cable might well be a very thin ribbon--just enough to stabilize the bits that come down after. I can easily see this being something that grows in diameter (and capacity) with time.
I don't want to come down too hard on you, but you've just asserted an unprovable hypothesis. To say, based on no other evidence, that such treatments exist even if never found seems a remarkable leap of faith...
On the other hand, many (indeed, the vast majority) of drugs in use today are derived from so-called 'natural' sources. The chemistry is often tweaked (more or less heavily) to increase potency and reduce harmful side effects. Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is closely related to the 'natural' salicin found in willow bark. (Indeed, aspirin was originally developed from bark extracts.)
At what point does a product stop counting as 'natural'? Is it all right to extract the active ingredient from a plant and call the product natural? Purification is okay...or not? Milk is still natural after it's been homogenized and pasteurized--right?
Can a drug company generate the same compound in the lab using organic synthetic chemistry? It's the same compound, it should still qualify as 'natural', right?
What if they make a little chemical substitution to cut out an unwanted side effect or two? Does it become unnatural after one methylation? Two? How about an extra acetyl group?
What if instead of coming from a plant, it comes from a bacterium? That's where penicillin first originated...that's natural, right? What if a scientist encourages mutations of the bacterium, and those mutations result in a more potent drug? What if genetic modifications are made deliberately? Is it still natural as long as it comes from a living organism?
At this point, if readers agree that the drug in question is still 'natural', then we're encompassing nearly all drugs in use today. (There's a few exceptions; mostly inorganic drugs like cisplatin for chemotherapy and lithium carbonate for bipolar disorder.) If not, then where does one draw the line? And a second (but related) question--why is there a presumption that 'natural' remedies are better for you than 'artificial' ones? I can think of any number of totally natural substances that are still quite deadly. Hemlock. Nightshade. Those little brightly-coloured frogs...don't want to lick those.
More precisely, they rely on a mass oscillating under the influence of a spring. That mass (and its associated moment of inertia) stays fixed regardless of the gravity field you're in (or in freefall, as in orbit). The same goes for the important properties of the spring (within any reasonable gravity field.)
Watches are not gravity dependent--otherwise, you'd be in trouble if you held your arm the wrong way. Pendulum clocks, on the other hand, are very much dependent on gravity--their weight is quite important.
$5 quartz watches still work by giving a quartz crystal juice and dividing its constant Hz by some number to keep time, correct?
Correct, and a quartz oscillator and custom circuitry would certainly produce a perfectly serviceable watch for this purpose. Unfortunately, the minimum lot size for such custom work (as mentioned in the article) is ten thousand units--many more than JPL was anticipating a need for.
There already exists a permanent manned presence on Antarctica. Its surface is regularly explored, and its depths frequently plumbed. Heck, small meteorites (some of which come from Mars) are often gathered there. (Dark meteorites stand out clearly against the white ice and snow.) Idiots crash their private planes there. More funding for Antarctic research would be nice, but it's already the focus of not-insignificant attention from a number of groups in several countries--including the United States.
True, with minor nitpicks. Temperature is indeed based on careful spectroscopic measurement of colour. However, intervening interstellar dust will slightly redden the appearance of more distant stars. (Shorter, bluer wavelengths are scattered more effectively by dust than longer, redder wavelengths.) Consequently, a correction must be made for this.
Doppler shift is virtually a non-issue. A few kilometres per second will have an essentially negligible effect. Faster relative movement is readily corrected using known features of stars' spectra--hydrogen absorption lines, for instance, will always appear at the same wavelength, allowing a correction to be applied to the rest of the spectrum.
That's real money. The most recent estimate a very lazy scrounging through Google recovered was $49 billion at the end of June 2003. To quote CNN Money on Microsoft's $38.2 billion 2002 end of year total,
So it's real money--lots of it. It's actually a bit of a source of embarrassment in some ways, because there's tremendous pressure from shareholders to declare a large dividend and burn through some of that stockpile.