Is it possible to install Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 simultaneously? I would like to retain an old working version that I'm comfortable with for one thing. Is it possible to have separate cookies, sessions, etc? Maybe I would have FF2 locked down and FF3 with flash installed. Is this possible? I like having multiple browsers.
When I was a founder of a startup back in 1999 I had the opportunity to hire a 16 year old as an intern. (We also hired a 17 year old). Being a startup company in silicon valley we tried to get the most for our money, and these two certainly provided. I was able to lay out a very clear project description that was not too large, nor too small, along with a lot of strategy for implementation. The guy coded it up quite nicely, though I found myself lecturing him about coding style. Note that now he works at google and codes rings around me. We found out about him simply because his father knew a guy in our company. When I interviewed the kid he showed a 3D visualization program he'd written in C++. I checked out the code and it looked good enough. I had been a high school teacher (briefly) and could tell he was smart, and thought he'd be trainable, so we went for it. It was amazing what a good decision that turned out to be.
Interestingly, having been a teacher, I have very mixed feelings about education. I don't have a lot of faith in the educational system. See for instance "An Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/ for a critique. In regards to college, my advice is: if you want to go and you know what to focus on, then go. If you're not sure, or you'd like to take some time off to do something else for a while, then that is a much better choice. That's the route my daughter (now 21) took, and I think it served her as she is able to treat study more like a job, and less like high school with ashtrays.
And as to the military (as another poster mentioned): recruiters will tell you anything to lure you in and then you're a slave to the system--you have to do whatever they tell you to, and it's not usually what you want to do. Don't go over to the dark side; you'll do much better in civilian life.
I was curious about how they actually defined "use the internet" -- being such a net-user as I am it was hard for me to think of someone saying "no" to the question. Does that mean, use the internet _ever_? So I read their PDF then poked around on their website http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/42/dataset_displa y.asp and downloaded the phone survey used. The first question asked is gender, then, I found it very interesting that the next two questions had to do with how the respondent feels about how well the government can be trusted. PRINCETON SURVEY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES PEW INTERNET AND AMERICAN LIFE DAILY TRACKING SURVEYNovember 2003 FINAL REVISED QUESTIONNAIRE N=1400+ adults 18 and older Field Dates: November 18 December 15, 2003 Job#: 23069 Hello, my name is XXXX and I'm calling for Princeton Survey Research. Were conducting a survey to find out what Americans think about some important issues today, and we would like to include your household. May I please speak with the YOUNGEST MALE, age 18 or older, who is now at home? (IF NO MALE, ASK: May I please speak with the OLDEST FEMALE, age 18 or older, who is now at home?) SEX RECORD RESPONDENT SEX 1 Male 2 Female
Q1 Overall, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country today? 1 Satisfied 2 Dissatisfied 9 Dont know/Refused Q2 How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time? 1 Just about always 2 Most of the time 3 Only some of the time 9 Dont know/Refused NO QUESTION 3/4 (READ) On another subject Q5 Do you use a computer at your workplace, at school, at home, or anywhere else on at least an occasional basis? 1 Yes 2 No 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused Q6 Do you ever go online to access the Internet or World Wide Web or to send and receive email? 1 Yes 2 No 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused ASK ALL INTERNET USERS (Q6=1); NON-USERS (Q6=2-9) SKIP TO ART09: Q7 Did you happen to go online or check your email YESTERDAY? 1 Yes, went online yesterday 2 No, did not go online yesterday 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused IF WENT ONLINE YESTERDAY (Q7=1), ASK: Q8 When you went online yesterday, did you go online from HOME? 1 Yes, went online from home 2 No, did not 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused IF WENT ONLINE YESTERDAY (Q7=1), ASK: Q9 Did you go online from WORK yesterday? 1 Yes, went online from work 2 No, did not 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused No Question 10/11 ASK ALL INTERNET USERS (Q6=1): Q12 About how many years have you had access to the Internet?
RECORD NUMBER OF YEARS 0 Under a year 99 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
IF ONLINE UNDER A YEAR (Q12=0) ASK: Q12.1 About how many months is that?
RECORD NUMBER OF MONTHS 99 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused ASK IF (Q7=2,9 OR Q8=2,9), DID NOT GO ONLINE FROM HOME YESTERDAY: Q13 Do you ever go online from HOME? 1 Yes, go online from home 2 No, do not 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused ASK ALL WHO WENT ONLINE FROM HOME YESTERDAY OR IF YES IN PREVIOUS QUESTION (Q8=1 OR Q13=1): Q14 In general, how often do you go online from HOME several times a day, about once a day, 3-5 days a week, 1-2 days a week, once every few weeks, or less often? 1 Several times a day 2 About once a day 3 3-5 days a week 4 1-2 days a week 5 Every few weeks 6 Less often 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused ASK IF (Q7=2,9 OR Q9=2,9), DID NOT GO ONLINE FROM WORK YESTERDAY Q15 Do you ever go online from WORK? 1 Yes, go online from work 2 No, do not 9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused ASK ALL WHO WE
SDSS J090745.0+24507 will escape the galaxy; will it also escape our Local Group of galaxies?
Further, the Local Group of galaxies is moving at about 600 km/s (relative to the cosmic microwave background) in the direction of the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster.
Nicaragua is the poorest country in Latin America, but I think cheap computers could help there. Being an American who married a Nicaraguan I've visited Nicaragua three times, spending about three weeks there each time. It is very poor. For instance, someone in my mother-in-law's neighborhood was killed over a computer. But that doesn't really tell the story because in a lot of ways people are happier there than here.
The thing I really want to say is the last time I was there I was _stunned_ by how many internet shops were in town. There was one every three to five blocks! I mean it was something like 7-11s here. You could pretty much find one at will. People were using them a lot to call the states, surf the net, look at videos, you name it. And I'm not talking 486 machines.. these were modern machines. You'd pay something like a dollar an hour to rent one (you might imagine I spent a non-trivial amount of time in the internet shop--"then internet" as they called it). Two dollars a day is pretty much market wages there. But there were plenty of people using the machines. I'm thinking I could go there, have a beefy server box running linux and some pretty cheap client boxes running a full gnome or KDE environment and do it cheaper than the competition, thus opening up the market for the middle and lower class Nicaraguans. Maybe this kind of box would work for that.
If this happens I'd like them to do a remake of the famous lemmings commercial. And I'd like it to be honest: if Apple and IBM can merge, how was such an enormous gulf spanned over time?
So does anyone have some links to images to post here on slashdot? My understanding is that there were hundreds or thousands of pictures taken by U.S. soldiers, but only some of these have leaked out into the public sphere. Right around the time of the Abu Ghraib revelations I did a lot of image searching and found maybe 10 or 15 such. Does anyone know more?
Yeah, this whole thread hits the spot for me. I'll be to the point in this post. I was disappointed by the end of Diamond Age. It seemed trivial. Basically, a fascinating idea was evolved with the primer and developed thoroughly, but other parts of the book, particularly the last 100-200 pages, just seemed like a progressive letdown. Compare, for instance, Ender's Game (pun intended?).
I'm trying to be fair because I'm sure this "endings" issue has been discussed who knows how many hundreds of times through time and space. I'm just trying to be straight. I mean, you hear about a good book and you want to read it. You don't want to feel like it missed out on what it could have been.
I'll go on a little: (1) I read Dune some half a dozen times; in reading Herbert's commentary on Dune (was it in Dune Reader?.. don't recall) he wrote that he wanted to leave the reader spinning out of the story, trailing bits and pieces of it behind him. (2) I used to listen to Metallica (pre the fan mp3 attack)--they always had great endings to their songs. Solid, conclusive, unambiguous--in a word, final.
Maybe in the first case above I was always puzzled (thus had to read the book again); in the second case I liked the clarity.
Do I have a question for Mr. Stephenson in all this? Here: In which sci-fi books have YOU particularly enjoyed the endings?
During the Republican National Convention, when the GOP was zealously exploiting 9/11 to sell Bush-Cheney and the endless "war on terror," a poll was released stating that half of New Yorkers now think that Bush team members purposely allowed 9/11 to happen and thus abetted the attacks.
In the first scientific poll of public attitudes about possible government complicity in the 9/11 attacks, Zogby International reported on Monday, August 30th that over 49% of New York City residents believe that U.S. government leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to take action" and 66% called for either Congress or the New York Attorney General to reopen the 9/11 investigation. (See http://zogby.com/news)
"This is yet another demonstration that the 9/11 Commission did not answer or even address most of the victim families' most serious concerns, and that public hunger is now growing for some real 9/11 truth," said Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb.
"Since April 2004 the Greens have been the only political party to express solidarity with victim families exasperated or outraged by the Kean Commission cover-up. We have consistently supported their demands for a new investigation which addresses all of their unanswered questions, especially those suggesting foreknowledge, criminal negligence and complicity."
Like my friend Rick Otten who is a green party state-level candidate I obviously agree with those 49% of New York City residents. My question is this: do you think this country will see anything like a real 9-11 investigation on the order of the Watergate hearings or will the complicity question be swept under the rug?
Sorry folks for some negative feedback about Ringworld Throne here (not Ringworld Children but book #3 in the Ringworld progression). Seeing the Ringworld headline on slashdot just pressed my button and I had to post.
My first experience of reading science fiction included Niven. I was given a few paperbacks, recommended reading, as a way to get started, having come from a background of reading comic books. One of the books was Protector. What a great book! At the time it was just exciting ideas but now I can describe it as good old fashioned hard SF. The whole concept of the third stage of human development after the "breeder" stage being actuated by the consumption of a strange alien root took hold of my mind.
Later I read Ringworld and loved that too. Still later I read Ringworld Engineers and for whatever reason it just didn't have the same impact. That was sometime in high school, approx half my lifetime ago.
Then came recent time. I had just purchased Calculating God and happened to chance upon a used copy of Ringworld Throne so I bought it too. I didn't even know it existed though it was published some years ago. Going home I started reading Ringworld Throne. After about 15 pages I stopped and picked up Calculating God. That book kept me up 'til about 4:00 in the morning it was so good. I finished it the next day, groggy though I was. One small point in the book was about how people with down syndrome have an extra chromosome 23 in every cell. I had forgotten that factoid from highschool biology.
So, back to Ringworld Throne. I dutifully continued reading it. I slogged my way up to page 99. Then I realized: this book has an extra chromosome 23 on every page! I threw it in the recycler and that was that. I don't think I'll be trying the new Ringworld book.
Having been a 9-11 activist for the last two years I was impressed by the film. Though it doesn't go into great detail about government complicity in making 9-11 happen I felt it was a movie that can actually reach the mainstream because of the quality of the production.
In my group's online discussion I posted the following about my impressions:
First of all I saw Fahrenheit 9-11 in Oakland last night. I felt it was a very powerful movie that could easily reach the mainstream and have what our group would consider a positive effect. Personally I don't worry about a limited hangout re Fahrenheit 9-11 (though I'm sure that would be food for discussion among this group).
Secondly, I'm trying to assess reaction to the movie. Two nights ago on mass media (possibly Fox news, I don't remember) the were commenting on it. They used the term "agitprop", a term I didn't know. They also showed some clips that were rather damning to Congress and the Bush administration.
So I looked up agitprop on dictionary.com:
Political propaganda, especially favoring communism and disseminated through literature, drama, art, or music: "It also is a conspiracy movie, agitprop against today's targets, big government and big business" (George F. Will).
[Russian, short for otdel agitatsii i propagandy, incitement and propaganda section (of the central and local committees of the Russian Communist party); name changed in 1934.]
n : a person who disseminates messages calculated to assist some cause or some government [syn: propagandist]
I then tried a google search for "Fahrenheit 9-11 agitprop"
The search results actually mostly showed stories that were in agreement with our perspectives. However I did find this link:
On October 26th - a date which will live in infamy - the President signed the USA/PATRIOT act, officially known as HR 3162. And you should well note that, according to Representative Ron Paul (R) of Texas - as reported on November 9th by Kelly O'Meara of the Washington Times' Insight Magazine - the bill had not even been printed and members of the House could not read it before they were compelled to vote on it. O'Meara wrote, "Meanwhile, efforts to obtain copies of the new bill were stonewalled even by the committee that wrote it." Most of its provisions have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Under this so-called anti-terrorist measure:
Any federal law enforcement agency may enter your home or business when you are not there, collect evidence, not tell you about it, and then use that evidence to convict you of a crime; (This nullifies the 4th Amendment to the Constitution). And, says the ACLU, it doesn't even have to be a terrorism investigation, just a criminal investigation. [Section 213 - The Sneak and Peek provision].
Any federal law enforcement agency may, if they suspect that you are committing a crime, monitor all of you internet traffic and read your emails. They may also intercept all of your cell phone calls as well. No warrant is required. (This violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution) [Section 202 and 216] [See FTW on Carnivore, Vol. IV, No.2 - April 30, 2001].
The FBI or any other federal law enforcement agency may come to your business and seize any of your business records - if they claim it is connected with a terrorist investigation - and they can arrest you if you tell anyone that they were there. (this violates the First and the Fourth Amendments to the Constitution) [Title II, Section 501
The CIA can now operate inside the U.S. and spy on American citizens. And, as directed by AG Ashcroft on November 13, it is also permitted to share its intelligence files with local law enforcement agencies (and vice versa). The CIA has spied on Americans for decades, but the fruits of that spying have never been admissible in court. Now law enforcement will have the ability rewrite the intelligence as a probable cause statement, conduct an investigation and introduce it as evidence. This, from material that was collected outside the rules of search and seizure. (There goes the Exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment). [Titles 2 & 9].
The foundation for an international secret political police agency is laid by allowing the CIA to receive wiretap information from any local agency and then share it with the intelligence services of any foreign country. [Section 203]
1) "Terroristm" is just a label that the current group of people in power use to move people around, scaring them in the most convenient direction, namely towards claiming middle east oil. Iraq has 11% of world reserves, Saudi Arabie 23+%. Keep your eyes out for who might be our next target. As to Afghanistan.. they wanted to build pipelines through that territory and the Taliban said "no way." Hence "terrorism" conveniently came along to motivate Americans to invade. In August 2001 the administration announced to the taliban that they would be invaded in October. Then came 9-11. Funny how that timing worked out.
2) You wrote: "The only thing more putrefied than Bush and his administration; is the heart of every citizen in the United States who voted for him."... Yeah, I have a hard time with Americans too -- the ignorance of them. But it's easy to manipulate people when corporations own media and corporations bet on the leaders who will profit them the most. Really, it's not good enough to read the news, you have to go out and research the news. Communicate with people on slashdot. Talk to people you know. Compare sources. Secondly, how do we know that the polls and votes are really accurate? I've never been polled about political issues, nor heard anyone I've ever met mention being polled. Where do the numbers come from? People are easily fooled, it's not just that they're stupid.
Sorry for the flame, but why the #$% do you guys keep putting stories like this on slashdot's front page? This ethanol-->hydrogen thesis is for crack smokers. As pointed out in posts above, the second law of thermodynamics implies that the production of ethanol will kill any energy plus in the equation. For god's sake, all these discussions make me think I'm watching the matrix again with the human battery concept.
One conclusion generally accepted by almost every attendee was that hydrogen, contrary to popularly accepted comfort promotions by writers like Jeremy Rifkin, was not a solution either in the near or long term because of intensive costs of production, inherent energy inefficiencies, lack of infrastructure and impracticalities. Speaking for Daimler Chrysler, which paid lip service to Peak Oil yet acknowledged that it had done extensive research on hydrogen vehicles, Dr. Jorg Wind told the conference that his company did not see hydrogen as a viable alternative to petroleum-based internal combustion engines.
"We use fossil fuels to make hydrogen. That does not result in a significant CO2 reduction. We predict that by 2020 only 5% of fuel use will be hydrogen and that infrastructure and the political framework is the most important factor. In order of relevance and likelihood from the standpoint of the auto industry Wind stated that we would see improved conventional vehicles, starter hybrid vehicles, electric hybrid vehicles and, finally, fuel cell vehicles as solutions, but he had little optimism that fuel cells would ever amount to a significant market share. In a telling left-handed acknowledgement of Peak Oil, Wind noted that one third of all diesel fuels currently used in Germany were biodiesel relying on recycled waste and or plant feedstock. He was particularly critical of ethanol stating that it was not energy efficient.
French presenters confirmed that ethanol was only viable in France due to a three hundred per cent government subsidy to farmers. Otherwise it was a net energy waster.
I wrote an email to chessbase two months ago and actually got a response from Fred Friedel (the Chessbase president). I then replied to him about two classic articles I'd seen on chess as I was interested in seeing more of such in regard to the current match. They did some interesting statistical analysis (here's part five of a series, it links to the other parts) but, of course, I'm still hoping for more more more. Here's some of what I wrote in my email:
In replying to my original email you asked if I had any specific
thing I miss. I can reply that over time I've seen two really good
articles on computer chess. The first was the cover story from
Scientific American in 1990:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0005CCF 5-D9D7-1CF6-93F6809EC5880000
It was about Kasparov vs. Deep Thought.
The second was in 1997 from Byte Magazine:
http://www.byte.com/art/9707/sec6/art6.htm
The thing that stuck in my memory from the second article was this
information:
"Hsu told BYTE that his team chose the RS/6000SP because it was the best
available IBM system for the job, even though its P2SC processors don't
have the best integer performance. Although the P2SC lags in raw integer
horsepower, the RS/6000SP largely makes up for it by uniting 32 of the
processors in a parallel system architecture with high-speed, low-latency
connections."
I would be very interested to see the above sort of coverage of the
current chess match. To put it in colloquial terms I'd like to see a big
fat writeup of the workings of fritz, how it's design is broken down, how
it makes tradeoffs between one kind of technique vs another, how it works
with the intel architecture, how it uses null-move ordering, RAM caching,
and how it fits into the history of human-chess matches.
I watched this show and I was all hyped up to see it. The first hour discussed almost nothing but review. Don't get me wrong, though I have two math degrees my physics knowledge is only very general from reading and one (goofy) freshman physics course. I guess you could say I've read enough to be dangerous:)
The show does give an overview of string theory but it's definitely the PG version. When they were talking about M-Theory (which I read about in Hawking's most recent book) they had these big old letter M's popping out of people's mouths! I was thinking: "Ok, this is PBS, maybe they have a bit too much of that 'Sesame Street' or 'Electric Company' (remember that show?) influence."
The visuals were good, and that kind of intuition is helpful. For instance, at the plank scale they had a drum beat to the chaotic dance of the cosmic substrate (or whatever you call it) and I loved it. Also, they had a little broken clock indicating that you can't tell before from after nor left from right because things are so shaky down there. So here's the one substantive thing I walked away from the show with: String theory calms the action at this 10^-43 scale. I wish I wish I wish they would have told me a little more about HOW!
I think Sagan's "Cosmos" had a tad more dignity. I enjoyed "The Elegant Universe" and don't regret watching it but probably won't watch it again.
I found this book by William Dunham to be (inexpensive and) a readable account of some of the greatest discoveries in mathematics throughout history. I'm a math guy by training so I've been used to the circuit of class-homework-test for learning math but I found that a story format was very entertaining. For instance, the proof of the pythagorean theorem which is discussed in chapter 2 of the book was state-of-the-art back in Pythagoras' day, so even though it's something taught early in high school, at one time it was something the world's top intellectuals had to unravel. And the later chapters of the book are not inaccessible either. I think none of the book even goes into calculus. So overall it's an easy way to become involved in some of the historical gems of mathematics.
Slashdot Mirror
I use the Rockmelt browser to look at facebook. Shouldn't this be sufficient to prevent facebook cookies on my other browsers?
In Atul Gawande's book "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance", chapter 2, "The Mop Up", he discusses the program to eliminate polio in India.
Is it possible to install Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 simultaneously? I would like to retain an old working version that I'm comfortable with for one thing. Is it possible to have separate cookies, sessions, etc? Maybe I would have FF2 locked down and FF3 with flash installed. Is this possible? I like having multiple browsers.
When I was a founder of a startup back in 1999 I had the opportunity to hire a 16 year old as an intern. (We also hired a 17 year old). Being a startup company in silicon valley we tried to get the most for our money, and these two certainly provided. I was able to lay out a very clear project description that was not too large, nor too small, along with a lot of strategy for implementation. The guy coded it up quite nicely, though I found myself lecturing him about coding style. Note that now he works at google and codes rings around me. We found out about him simply because his father knew a guy in our company. When I interviewed the kid he showed a 3D visualization program he'd written in C++. I checked out the code and it looked good enough. I had been a high school teacher (briefly) and could tell he was smart, and thought he'd be trainable, so we went for it. It was amazing what a good decision that turned out to be.
Interestingly, having been a teacher, I have very mixed feelings about education. I don't have a lot of faith in the educational system. See for instance "An Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/ for a critique. In regards to college, my advice is: if you want to go and you know what to focus on, then go. If you're not sure, or you'd like to take some time off to do something else for a while, then that is a much better choice. That's the route my daughter (now 21) took, and I think it served her as she is able to treat study more like a job, and less like high school with ashtrays.
And as to the military (as another poster mentioned): recruiters will tell you anything to lure you in and then you're a slave to the system--you have to do whatever they tell you to, and it's not usually what you want to do. Don't go over to the dark side; you'll do much better in civilian life.
Does anyone have a version of the proof that can be verified using the matamath proof explorer?
I was curious about how they actually defined "use the internet" -- being such a net-user as I am it was hard for me to think of someone saying "no" to the question. Does that mean, use the internet _ever_? So I read their PDF then poked around on their website http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/42/dataset_displa y.asp and downloaded the phone survey used. The first question asked is gender, then, I found it very interesting that the next two questions had to do with how the respondent feels about how well the government can be trusted.
PRINCETON SURVEY RESEARCH ASSOCIATES PEW INTERNET AND AMERICAN LIFE DAILY TRACKING SURVEYNovember 2003 FINAL REVISED QUESTIONNAIRE N=1400+ adults 18 and older Field Dates: November 18 December 15, 2003 Job#: 23069 Hello, my name is XXXX and I'm calling for Princeton Survey Research. Were conducting a survey to find out what Americans think about some important issues today, and we would like to include your household. May I please speak with the YOUNGEST MALE, age 18 or older, who is now at home? (IF NO MALE, ASK: May I please speak with the OLDEST FEMALE, age 18 or older, who is now at home?)
SEX RECORD RESPONDENT SEX
1 Male
2 Female
Q1 Overall, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country today?
1 Satisfied
2 Dissatisfied
9 Dont know/Refused
Q2 How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always, most of the time, or only some of the time?
1 Just about always
2 Most of the time
3 Only some of the time
9 Dont know/Refused
NO QUESTION 3/4
(READ) On another subject
Q5 Do you use a computer at your workplace, at school, at home, or anywhere else on at least an occasional basis?
1 Yes
2 No
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
Q6 Do you ever go online to access the Internet or World Wide Web or to send and receive email?
1 Yes
2 No
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
ASK ALL INTERNET USERS (Q6=1); NON-USERS (Q6=2-9) SKIP TO ART09:
Q7 Did you happen to go online or check your email YESTERDAY?
1 Yes, went online yesterday
2 No, did not go online yesterday
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
IF WENT ONLINE YESTERDAY (Q7=1), ASK:
Q8 When you went online yesterday, did you go online from HOME?
1 Yes, went online from home
2 No, did not
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
IF WENT ONLINE YESTERDAY (Q7=1), ASK:
Q9 Did you go online from WORK yesterday?
1 Yes, went online from work
2 No, did not
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
No Question 10/11
ASK ALL INTERNET USERS (Q6=1):
Q12 About how many years have you had access to the Internet?
RECORD NUMBER OF YEARS
0 Under a year
99 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
IF ONLINE UNDER A YEAR (Q12=0) ASK:
Q12.1 About how many months is that?
RECORD NUMBER OF MONTHS
99 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
ASK IF (Q7=2,9 OR Q8=2,9), DID NOT GO ONLINE FROM HOME YESTERDAY:
Q13 Do you ever go online from HOME?
1 Yes, go online from home
2 No, do not
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
ASK ALL WHO WENT ONLINE FROM HOME YESTERDAY OR IF YES IN PREVIOUS QUESTION (Q8=1 OR Q13=1):
Q14 In general, how often do you go online from HOME several times a day, about once a day, 3-5 days a week, 1-2 days a week, once every few weeks, or less often?
1 Several times a day
2 About once a day
3 3-5 days a week
4 1-2 days a week
5 Every few weeks
6 Less often
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
ASK IF (Q7=2,9 OR Q9=2,9), DID NOT GO ONLINE FROM WORK YESTERDAY
Q15 Do you ever go online from WORK?
1 Yes, go online from work
2 No, do not
9 (DO NOT READ) Don't know/Refused
ASK ALL WHO WE
SDSS J090745.0+24507 will escape the galaxy; will it also escape our Local Group of galaxies?
Further, the Local Group of galaxies is moving at about 600 km/s (relative to the cosmic microwave background) in the direction of the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster.
Will SDSS J090745.0+24507 end up there?
Nicaragua is the poorest country in Latin America, but I think cheap computers could help there. Being an American who married a Nicaraguan I've visited Nicaragua three times, spending about three weeks there each time. It is very poor. For instance, someone in my mother-in-law's neighborhood was killed over a computer. But that doesn't really tell the story because in a lot of ways people are happier there than here.
.. these were modern machines. You'd pay something like a dollar an hour to rent one (you might imagine I spent a non-trivial amount of time in the internet shop--"then internet" as they called it). Two dollars a day is pretty much market wages there. But there were plenty of people using the machines. I'm thinking I could go there, have a beefy server box running linux and some pretty cheap client boxes running a full gnome or KDE environment and do it cheaper than the competition, thus opening up the market for the middle and lower class Nicaraguans. Maybe this kind of box would work for that.
The thing I really want to say is the last time I was there I was _stunned_ by how many internet shops were in town. There was one every three to five blocks! I mean it was something like 7-11s here. You could pretty much find one at will. People were using them a lot to call the states, surf the net, look at videos, you name it. And I'm not talking 486 machines
If this happens I'd like them to do a remake of the famous lemmings commercial. And I'd like it to be honest: if Apple and IBM can merge, how was such an enormous gulf spanned over time?
"Robots today have the collective knowledge and wisdom of a cockroach... a retarded cockroach... a lobotomized, retarded cockroach." -Dr. Michio Kaku
So does anyone have some links to images to post here on slashdot? My understanding is that there were hundreds or thousands of pictures taken by U.S. soldiers, but only some of these have leaked out into the public sphere. Right around the time of the Abu Ghraib revelations I did a lot of image searching and found maybe 10 or 15 such. Does anyone know more?
Yeah, this whole thread hits the spot for me. I'll be to the point in this post. I was disappointed by the end of Diamond Age. It seemed trivial. Basically, a fascinating idea was evolved with the primer and developed thoroughly, but other parts of the book, particularly the last 100-200 pages, just seemed like a progressive letdown. Compare, for instance, Ender's Game (pun intended?).
.. don't recall) he wrote that he wanted to leave the reader spinning out of the story, trailing bits and pieces of it behind him. (2) I used to listen to Metallica (pre the fan mp3 attack)--they always had great endings to their songs. Solid, conclusive, unambiguous--in a word, final.
I'm trying to be fair because I'm sure this "endings" issue has been discussed who knows how many hundreds of times through time and space. I'm just trying to be straight. I mean, you hear about a good book and you want to read it. You don't want to feel like it missed out on what it could have been.
I'll go on a little: (1) I read Dune some half a dozen times; in reading Herbert's commentary on Dune (was it in Dune Reader?
Maybe in the first case above I was always puzzled (thus had to read the book again); in the second case I liked the clarity.
Do I have a question for Mr. Stephenson in all this? Here: In which sci-fi books have YOU particularly enjoyed the endings?
On 911Truth.org there is a story titled Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb Calls for New 9/11 Probe . Here is an excerpt:
Like my friend Rick Otten who is a green party state-level candidate I obviously agree with those 49% of New York City residents. My question is this: do you think this country will see anything like a real 9-11 investigation on the order of the Watergate hearings or will the complicity question be swept under the rug?
Sorry folks for some negative feedback about Ringworld Throne here (not Ringworld Children but book #3 in the Ringworld progression). Seeing the Ringworld headline on slashdot just pressed my button and I had to post.
My first experience of reading science fiction included Niven. I was given a few paperbacks, recommended reading, as a way to get started, having come from a background of reading comic books. One of the books was Protector. What a great book! At the time it was just exciting ideas but now I can describe it as good old fashioned hard SF. The whole concept of the third stage of human development after the "breeder" stage being actuated by the consumption of a strange alien root took hold of my mind.
Later I read Ringworld and loved that too. Still later I read Ringworld Engineers and for whatever reason it just didn't have the same impact. That was sometime in high school, approx half my lifetime ago.
Then came recent time. I had just purchased Calculating God and happened to chance upon a used copy of Ringworld Throne so I bought it too. I didn't even know it existed though it was published some years ago. Going home I started reading Ringworld Throne. After about 15 pages I stopped and picked up Calculating God. That book kept me up 'til about 4:00 in the morning it was so good. I finished it the next day, groggy though I was. One small point in the book was about how people with down syndrome have an extra chromosome 23 in every cell. I had forgotten that factoid from highschool biology.
So, back to Ringworld Throne. I dutifully continued reading it. I slogged my way up to page 99. Then I realized: this book has an extra chromosome 23 on every page! I threw it in the recycler and that was that. I don't think I'll be trying the new Ringworld book.
Having been a 9-11 activist for the last two years I was impressed by the film. Though it doesn't go into great detail about government complicity in making 9-11 happen I felt it was a movie that can actually reach the mainstream because of the quality of the production.
In my group's online discussion I posted the following about my impressions:
First of all I saw Fahrenheit 9-11 in Oakland last night. I felt it was a
very powerful movie that could easily reach the mainstream and have what
our group would consider a positive effect. Personally I don't worry
about a limited hangout re Fahrenheit 9-11 (though I'm sure that would be
food for discussion among this group).
Secondly, I'm trying to assess reaction to the movie. Two nights ago on
mass media (possibly Fox news, I don't remember) the were commenting on
it. They used the term "agitprop", a term I didn't know. They also
showed some clips that were rather damning to Congress and the Bush
administration.
So I looked up agitprop on dictionary.com:
Political propaganda, especially favoring communism and disseminated
through literature, drama, art, or music: "It also is a conspiracy movie,
agitprop against today's targets, big government and big business" (George
F. Will).
[Russian, short for otdel agitatsii i propagandy, incitement and
propaganda section (of the central and local committees of the Russian
Communist party); name changed in 1934.]
n : a person who disseminates messages calculated to assist some cause or
some government [syn: propagandist]
I then tried a google search for "Fahrenheit 9-11 agitprop"
The search results actually mostly showed stories that were in agreement
with our perspectives. However I did find this link:
http://fim.ondragonswing.com/archives/006272.html
who's home page is:
http://fim.ondragonswing.com/
which linked to a critique from Slate:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/#ContinueArticle
These sources give a good perspective of some of the more competent
criticism we may face.
As another poster pointed out, the application of relativity theory keeps GPS satellites accurate. This is a tangible practical application
From my understanding the media is not magnetic therefore wouldn't be affected by static electricity. It's just like a denser CD. Right?
I think he's that evil.
On October 26th - a date which will live in infamy - the President signed the USA/PATRIOT act, officially known as HR 3162. And you should well note that, according to Representative Ron Paul (R) of Texas - as reported on November 9th by Kelly O'Meara of the Washington Times' Insight Magazine - the bill had not even been printed and members of the House could not read it before they were compelled to vote on it. O'Meara wrote, "Meanwhile, efforts to obtain copies of the new bill were stonewalled even by the committee that wrote it." Most of its provisions have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Under this so-called anti-terrorist measure:
Yeah, I agree with you.
.. they wanted to build pipelines through that territory and the Taliban said "no way." Hence "terrorism" conveniently came along to motivate Americans to invade. In August 2001 the administration announced to the taliban that they would be invaded in October. Then came 9-11. Funny how that timing worked out.
... Yeah, I have a hard time with Americans too -- the ignorance of them. But it's easy to manipulate people when corporations own media and corporations bet on the leaders who will profit them the most. Really, it's not good enough to read the news, you have to go out and research the news. Communicate with people on slashdot. Talk to people you know. Compare sources. Secondly, how do we know that the polls and votes are really accurate? I've never been polled about political issues, nor heard anyone I've ever met mention being polled. Where do the numbers come from? People are easily fooled, it's not just that they're stupid.
1) "Terroristm" is just a label that the current group of people in power use to move people around, scaring them in the most convenient direction, namely towards claiming middle east oil. Iraq has 11% of world reserves, Saudi Arabie 23+%. Keep your eyes out for who might be our next target. As to Afghanistan
2) You wrote: "The only thing more putrefied than Bush and his administration; is the heart of every citizen in the United States who voted for him."
Sorry for the flame, but why the #$% do you guys keep putting stories like this on slashdot's front page? This ethanol-->hydrogen thesis is for crack smokers. As pointed out in posts above, the second law of thermodynamics implies that the production of ethanol will kill any energy plus in the equation. For god's sake, all these discussions make me think I'm watching the matrix again with the human battery concept.
Here's from FTW:
One conclusion generally accepted by almost every attendee was that hydrogen, contrary to popularly accepted comfort promotions by writers like Jeremy Rifkin, was not a solution either in the near or long term because of intensive costs of production, inherent energy inefficiencies, lack of infrastructure and impracticalities. Speaking for Daimler Chrysler, which paid lip service to Peak Oil yet acknowledged that it had done extensive research on hydrogen vehicles, Dr. Jorg Wind told the conference that his company did not see hydrogen as a viable alternative to petroleum-based internal combustion engines.
"We use fossil fuels to make hydrogen. That does not result in a significant CO2 reduction. We predict that by 2020 only 5% of fuel use will be hydrogen and that infrastructure and the political framework is the most important factor. In order of relevance and likelihood from the standpoint of the auto industry Wind stated that we would see improved conventional vehicles, starter hybrid vehicles, electric hybrid vehicles and, finally, fuel cell vehicles as solutions, but he had little optimism that fuel cells would ever amount to a significant market share. In a telling left-handed acknowledgement of Peak Oil, Wind noted that one third of all diesel fuels currently used in Germany were biodiesel relying on recycled waste and or plant feedstock. He was particularly critical of ethanol stating that it was not energy efficient.
French presenters confirmed that ethanol was only viable in France due to a three hundred per cent government subsidy to farmers. Otherwise it was a net energy waster.
"Stuff that matters?"
What, pray, is this <censored/> doing on the front page of Slashdot?
Just thought I'd echo the other guy's comment.
I wrote an email to chessbase two months ago and actually got a response from Fred Friedel (the Chessbase president). I then replied to him about two classic articles I'd seen on chess as I was interested in seeing more of such in regard to the current match. They did some interesting statistical analysis (here's part five of a series, it links to the other parts) but, of course, I'm still hoping for more more more. Here's some of what I wrote in my email:
F 5-D9D7-1CF6-93F6809EC5880000
In replying to my original email you asked if I had any specific thing I miss. I can reply that over time I've seen two really good articles on computer chess. The first was the cover story from Scientific American in 1990:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0005CC
It was about Kasparov vs. Deep Thought. The second was in 1997 from Byte Magazine:
http://www.byte.com/art/9707/sec6/art6.htm
The thing that stuck in my memory from the second article was this information:
"Hsu told BYTE that his team chose the RS/6000SP because it was the best available IBM system for the job, even though its P2SC processors don't have the best integer performance. Although the P2SC lags in raw integer horsepower, the RS/6000SP largely makes up for it by uniting 32 of the processors in a parallel system architecture with high-speed, low-latency connections."
I would be very interested to see the above sort of coverage of the current chess match. To put it in colloquial terms I'd like to see a big fat writeup of the workings of fritz, how it's design is broken down, how it makes tradeoffs between one kind of technique vs another, how it works with the intel architecture, how it uses null-move ordering, RAM caching, and how it fits into the history of human-chess matches.
I watched this show and I was all hyped up to see it. The first hour discussed almost nothing but review. Don't get me wrong, though I have two math degrees my physics knowledge is only very general from reading and one (goofy) freshman physics course. I guess you could say I've read enough to be dangerous :)
The show does give an overview of string theory but it's definitely the PG version. When they were talking about M-Theory (which I read about in Hawking's most recent book) they had these big old letter M's popping out of people's mouths! I was thinking: "Ok, this is PBS, maybe they have a bit too much of that 'Sesame Street' or 'Electric Company' (remember that show?) influence."
The visuals were good, and that kind of intuition is helpful. For instance, at the plank scale they had a drum beat to the chaotic dance of the cosmic substrate (or whatever you call it) and I loved it. Also, they had a little broken clock indicating that you can't tell before from after nor left from right because things are so shaky down there. So here's the one substantive thing I walked away from the show with: String theory calms the action at this 10^-43 scale. I wish I wish I wish they would have told me a little more about HOW!
I think Sagan's "Cosmos" had a tad more dignity. I enjoyed "The Elegant Universe" and don't regret watching it but probably won't watch it again.
I found this book by William Dunham to be (inexpensive and) a readable account of some of the greatest discoveries in mathematics throughout history. I'm a math guy by training so I've been used to the circuit of class-homework-test for learning math but I found that a story format was very entertaining. For instance, the proof of the pythagorean theorem which is discussed in chapter 2 of the book was state-of-the-art back in Pythagoras' day, so even though it's something taught early in high school, at one time it was something the world's top intellectuals had to unravel. And the later chapters of the book are not inaccessible either. I think none of the book even goes into calculus. So overall it's an easy way to become involved in some of the historical gems of mathematics.