I would argue in fact that it is vital we publish the ballots that people cast. It is the only way to be certain that an election is on the level. The arguments we always hear against this doing this never stand up to scrutiny.
In Zimbabwe, voters were handed a blue and a red sheet of paper with the candidates names and platforms printed on each one. They were then allowed to go behind a screen and secretly place one of the sheets of paper into the voting box. Then they went outside and handed the red sheet of paper to the men carrying machine guns standing outside the polling station.
Similar scenarios have played out to prevent blacks from voting in the US within the last forty years. You really want to go back to that?
Votes have to be anonymous. If my vote is published in any way that can be tied to me, I can no longer vote my conscience. If I owe Guido money, Guido may decide that it's important to my kneecaps for me to vote a certain way. If my vote is truly anonymous, I can vote how I like and lie to Guido to make him leave me alone. If Guido or I can find out how I voted, I will vote exactly how Guido wants me to vote. Not very democratic, now is it?
What you're proposing is Zimbabwe democracy writ small and large. Vote-buying, as it's called, requires some external verification of the vote, like publishing who voted for whom. Without external verification, vote-buying becomes really impractical. Therefore, publishing the ballots that people cast is a really, really awful idea which deserves no consideration as a serious way to improve our democracy.
But I guess that doesn't hold up to scrutiny? This isn't rocket science, your proposal simply doesn't work, though it has been tried many times (with those in power liking your idea the most).
Regards, ross
Re:Don't knock Piers Anthony
on
Singularity Sky
·
· Score: 1
I found that Piers Anthony didn't let me think about any of the neat things that he was so excited about. Instead, he was so keen on drilling through all of the details and applications that he forgot about an effective plot and putting some effort into character development.
In his books, it is inevitable that the work is centered on the toys and the asides into how the toys work. When Neal Stephenson did this with Cryptonomicon, he lost me as a loyal reader. I'm not mentally reverting to 14 just so I can go "gee-whiz!" like I used to.
There's a place for contextual details and there's a place for exposition. You shouldn't do exposition about the details. The details are just that, details. Limit your exposition to what matters to the story, mention the contextual details as if they're completely normal and the story will be stronger for it. Asimov was the master of this in the Foundation Trilogy, but by the time of Foundation and Earth, he'd lost the talent.
Build yourself whatever you like from eBay purchases. What you'll find is usually either generic (new, cheap, microscopes from China) or not under warranty or damaged (get two and piece them together) but it's usually dirt cheap and functional. I built a rather nice darkroom for 33% of the price of new gear with eBay sourced items.
Be public about it and don't worry too much about Big Brother. Meth labs have a conspicuous smell and you're only likely to attract police attention if there is other evidence to tie you to a local drug trade.
If you are planning to make illegal substances, then the eBay purchases will be one more public record that will be used against you in court. But my advice assumes that you are what you say you are, so eBay should be a great resource for you.
You just became my friend. It's refreshing to find someone else who doesn't tolerate unprovoked rudeness and is willing to do something about it.
IMHO, controlled violence is completely justified. Especially in response to violence (like the idiot who verbally assaulted your daughter for his mistake). The way I see it, you were defending her and giving her a quick demonstration of ethics and morality in action. To do other than defend a child in that situation would be unthinkable.
Despite the solid try, however, they never, or rarely, found any bugs.
On our project (~200kLOC), the unit tests have helped find lots of stupid things during initial development, but have really made their money during the huge refactorings needed to follow program management's wildly changing product vision.
We knew that the previous PM's were worthless, so we built a fairly broad solution against the requirements they gave us. The company eventually agreed with us, and hired a new marketing team after 9 months of development. The new team developed a fairly coherent vision of what the system should look like. About 80% of our "broad solution" code was usable, but that meant that 20% had to adapt to the new vision. One part of that adaptation was in the core model classes, and that change ended up touching about 60% of the files in the system (the 20% is a SWAG of the lines of code that ended up changing).
Took me four days to do the full refactoring of that change, but once the unit tests ran again, I declared victory and have never needed to look back. That same story has been retold on our project a number of times. The unit tests make earlier features harder to add, but later features much, much easier.
Oh, and automated UI testing does suck. We're still working out how to do something effective there. But even just on the backend stuff, they make a big difference.
You really think anyone here had the backbone to challenge an employer's contract?
Wow, it's sad that you perceive that. You really need to learn how to negotiate.
First thing to learn about negotiation: don't make it a confrontation. Instead, frame the conversation so that the two of you are working towards common goals.
I've asked for changes to the past three employment contracts. Ask nicely. Explain what the situation is from your point of view and keep an advocate in the person who's hiring you. That person has already decided they want you and is probably in a fairly accomodating mental state. Don't piss them off and you'll probably get what you need along with most of what you want.
They want to hire you. You want to be hired. They don't want you to take what you learn about their business and form a competitive company. You want to protect your ownership of products and product ideas that you've already worked on. You may also want to protect ownership of new products while you work here (but you don't want to make this case since it implies that some of your creative effort will not be spent on their products, so just try to eliminate wording about them owning everything and this can work out).
From these "common goals", you should be able to initiate a conversation (and changes to the default contract) that makes both parties happy. If you think you need help with changes to the terms and you know a decent lawyer, ask them for the help and expect to pay for an hour's time. Get the full hour of time, though. Ask questions about this situation and about the contract in general. There may be other aspects to the contract that are "iffy" and you may look a lot smarter by bringing them up.
Which leads me to another way to present alterations to the default contract: As improvements. If you can present yourself as fairly sophisticated in similar matters (depends on the job you're interviewing for and how you interviewed), this discussion between you and your boss can be an "us vs. the silly lawyers" which can be a decent way to start a professional relationship with your boss.
Regards, Ross
P.S. You may even find that this process helps to build interpersonal relationships with HR staff, which is always helpful throughout an employment relationship. HR people have an enormous influence on how you are perceived as they interact so frequently with your boss's boss and even higher up the chain.
Some poor people do have jobs that they must "get away from". The people mentioned in this article (and many like them) have jobs which are a part of their rich and full lives. The secret is BALANCE: figuring out what's really important to you and acting in such a way to satisfy those desires.
You appear to argue that a job you enjoy going to necessarily excludes other aspects of a full and rich life. I can't for the life of me understand why you think life is such an "either-or" game. Enjoy work or have a full life? That's a false dichotomy. What kind of a full life do you really have if you spend eight hours of every day waiting for 5:00pm and looking forward to the weekend? Just because I look forward to my day at work doesn't mean that I forget what's really important to me. Spending time with my family and friends doesn't get forgotten about just because I love my job. I wouldn't love my job if it didn't afford me the time to spend with my family and friends.
In a good balance, work is enjoyable. Time away from work is also enjoyable, but if you're doing it right, you won't spend your day at work pining for the weekend. IMHO, play and work are inextricably intertwined. For me to get into a superproductive mode (which I call "flow"), I have to turn my job into a game. I know that I am not alone in this method of simultaneously 1) enjoying the thought of another day of work and 2) producing enormous value for my employer. When I'm in a flow state (I can usually get into flow for two to three weeks at a time), I can produce 40-50 tested lines of code per hour, easily 2x or 3x my normal rate. I can't sustain that rate indefinitely, but especially when in flow, taking breaks, going home, enjoying good company, getting a good night's sleep are necessary, not excluded or forgotten about.
As for the title of your posting, you're absolutely right. Your job should not be your life. But your posting doesn't limit itself to that argument. Loving your job doesn't mean that you don't love other things that together make for a wonderful liveable life. And hating (or even tolerating your job) will necessarily compromise having what I personally consider "the best of all worlds".
BTW, the 70mm binoculars that I linked to are only $150. I bought a pair of those exact same binoculars for my first astronomy purchase and absolutely love them.
This may still be too much for a casual purchase, but there aren't too many people reading Slashdot who couldn't save a few dollars here and there and have enough to buy those binocs in a few months.
Ultimately, even a $60 pair of 10x50mm binoculars would really stretch your viewing at star parties and give you a lot more to see on a clear night. Even if you don't stay with the astronomy, 10x50mm are great for sports, cheap seats at the opera, whatever...
Of course, you're right that binoculars do not give you depth perception, but your brain does more with both eyes open than it can with just one. The more expensive binoculars I suggested use telescope eyepieces, so the eye-relief issue is a wash, but the viewing is still undeniably superior than the viewing through a single tube scope (all other things being equal: aperture, focal length, etc.).
I wish I knew more about optical perception in the brain and could speak with more authority on why binocular astronomy results in such a different experience from single-eye viewing... Again, you're right that you aren't getting real depth perception, but something's different and better. *sigh* I hate it when words fail me...
That "linking" of optical telescopes together is called optical interferometry and the linking usually requires that you know the relative location of the two or more optically identical telescopes to within a wavelength of the EM radiation you're viewing in. For radio telescopes, this is a meter (more or less). For optical telescopes, this requires that the telescope tubes be very close together and usually mounted in a rather strong frame.
There are some very cool optical systems that can make the linking easier by eliminating some of the unknowns in location within the optics. There are also some newer control systems that can make this still easier. But the main optics in both tubes still need to be almost identical. The same model of the same brand isn't quite good enough. They usually need to be matched (fabricated at the same time to have the same characteristics).
An alternate (and much more achievable) plan would be to let your brain trial and error out the differences between two tubes in a binocular telescope. There are a number of websites out there describing some of the more successful efforts to do this. Collimation is again critical (the two tubes had better be pointing in the same direction) and even then you're probably going to get a headache.
But while you're rubbing your temples to deal with the headache, you'll be thinking back to those absolutely amazing views you saw through the binocular eyepieces.
There are some bigger binoculars that blur the difference between binocular and telescope. Oberwerk sells some very nice 100mm binoculars with telescope-style eyepieces for under $1600 and just a pair of 100mm binoculars will only set you back $400. Together, those 100mm tubes gather more light than a 5" refractor and the view through properly collimated binoculars is just plain better than through a single tube (IMNSHO). But before you think about laying out that kind of money, get some decent, inexpensive 70mm binoculars and keep going to those local meetings. Once you get to the point where you know you want more, you'll have a bit more experience and have learned a bit more about where to spend your money.
but Mecca is constantly moving in 3 dimensions relative to where you are on the moon
Actually, it's not. The moon does not rotate with respect to the earth. Mecca's only movement with respect to an observer on the moon is the change in location as the earth rotates.
You could put a statue at any point on the surface (or under the surface) of the moon with a metal arrow pointing to the earth and be certain that that arrow is always pointing to Mecca within a degree or so.
This is the only other body in our solar system where this is true, but it's just as easy to to there as it is here.
I disagree with what you said about him not being taught anything.
I agree that he learned something. I disagree that they taught him anything. By going directly to suspending him from school, this group of teapot despots abandoned teaching for something completely different.
The fact that he learned something from this (about power and how capriciously it can be applied, I'll bet), is completely beside the point.
My mom was an English teacher, however, and my speech and writing were frequently corrected during my childhood and adolescence. While annoying at the time, I'm fairly certain my writing skills have been improved as a result.
I just really enjoy writing (and I especially enjoy rhetoric:).
Which grass? The strain of Bermuda that's so appealing in a suburban yard or the 10,000-25,000 plant varieties that are found in unimproved North American meadows?
You've got squirrels, but should we trade hundreds of small mammal and thousands of insect species which used to reside on your land for the variety of squirrels that you find so adequate as their successors?
The parent poster is correctly observing that human development pushes out wildlife (without making a specific value judgement on that). Your post attempts to glibly deny that observation. However, your remarks lack a certain strength in preparation that reveals your desire to post a quick comment despite a lack of reading comprehension.
drag the sacrament of marriage (which by definition can only exist between a man and a woman) in mud
Which definition? And who said anything about the "sacrament of marriage"? I just want it to be legal for two people to legally join their assets, taxes, and interests together. Your church can put whatever restrictions they want on their rituals (of which marriage is probably the most significant for most people).
As for why this is important to me, I'm a human. My S.O. happens to be of the opposite gender, but why do you feel that this issue should be so much less important to straight people? I don't limit my list of friends and family (I'll acknowledge) to just straight people, and as a result, laws that restrict the rights of gays hurt me because they hurt people I care about.
Why don't you actually read that book in the pew in front of you on Sunday?
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (Matthew 7:3)
Corporations and small businesses are entitled to the same legal protection as any individual.
Why, exactly, would you possibly hold this as your carefully considered opinion?
The elevation of a corporation to equality with human beings is in current US law, however, my analysis implies to me that this is because it suits the interests of those with the money to purchase laws. Something is not true simply because wealthy people desire it to be true.
The masses can appreciate the finished product but only the artist can truly appreciate what it took to create this masterpiece of film making.
As an engineer and a craftsman, I too can appreciate what it took to create this masterpiece. But then, perhaps you meant "artist" in the more general sense:)
Regards, Ross
Re:Interesting Statistic
on
Global Dimming
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually, the fact that the skin doping was a highly flammable lacquer, akin to gasoline, seems to have had more to do with the flammability of the Hindenburg's fabric envelope than the hydrogen inside.
They painted the entire fabric skin of the ship with explosively flammable paint/sealant and they were suprised when it burned so readily.
Helium in the envelope wouldn't have saved the Hindenburg. But it was a convenient explanation at the time.
You would still have to defocus then refocus your eyes.
Focusing at a different depth is substantially better (less disruptive to your attention) than changing the entire field of view from the road to the dash instruments and back again.
Also, the focus change isn't as extreme as you might think. A HUD uses optics to project the image into your field of view. Those optics can provide an apparent focal distance of whatever they want. The HUD's used in fighter planes put the focal plane at the same distance as the current target, or at infinity if there is no target.
This system, while not having the luxury of knowing exactly how far away you're looking, could just put the HUD focal plane at common traffic distances (as a guess: 100 ft/30 meters) and you'd never notice the moment it took your eyes to focus on the speedo and then back on the brake lights that just lit up in front of you. Certainly less work for your eyes than transferring from the road scene to the 2-3 foot distant dash and back...
Actually, contrary to those pushing for helmet laws, the Hurt report does not support a conclusion that all motorcyclists should wear helmets.
Instead, the Hurt report supports a conclusion that those who would choose to leave their head unprotected are the same ones most likely to end up in a serious motorcycle accident.
Forcing a helmet on someone stupid enough to choose to ride without one isn't going to change anything but allow for an open casket at the funeral. Under the minimal helmet is still the same unskilled, gotta-prove-something attitude that made that type of person "overrepresented" in the first place.
IMHO, of course. *ahem*. As for supporting ABATE, well, I'm fairly happy with the reduced injury and fatality rates associated with the helmet laws here in CA. Especially among those riders without insurance, whose medical care would ultimately be paid by me. If they were to pass a law which allowed hospitals and doctors to refuse to care for helmetless riders without insurance, I'd definitely support repealing the helmet laws. But since that's not going to happen for lots of reasons, ABATE just doesn't have a cause I'm interested in.
I do agree with your remarks about motorcycle training making a real difference, however. I also feel that all motorcyclists should be required to take the ERC every 5-10 years to renew their license.
IBM has more attorneys on staff than most of the large law firms in the US.
The marginal cost is close to zero, since those guys would still be collecting their salaries, but they're obviously pushing other things down the priority tree, so there is a cost to IBM.
The military/government term is "unclassified, but sensitive".
Casually mistreating that kind of information will get you a reprimand and in the nearly worst case, lose you your clearance and your job, but there's little risk of prosecution unless they have reason to believe that you had malicious intent.
If you don't work for them (as in this case), they're pretty much asking you for a favor to pretty please, don't blab about our sensitive information. Again, however, if they have reason to believe that your disclosures are motivated by malice or greed or... then you most definitely can be prosecuted for them.
With Ashcroft and Bush in office, it's anybody's guess as to whether they'd label you a terrorist before prosecuting you for writing a humorous account of your interview with the NSA. I'm glad this person wrote this as I really enjoyed reading it, but I probably wouldn't have written it if I had the same interview experience as the author.
Slashdot Mirror
I would argue in fact that it is vital we publish the ballots that people cast. It is the only way to be certain that an election is on the level. The arguments we always hear against this doing this never stand up to scrutiny.
In Zimbabwe, voters were handed a blue and a red sheet of paper with the candidates names and platforms printed on each one. They were then allowed to go behind a screen and secretly place one of the sheets of paper into the voting box. Then they went outside and handed the red sheet of paper to the men carrying machine guns standing outside the polling station.
Similar scenarios have played out to prevent blacks from voting in the US within the last forty years. You really want to go back to that?
Votes have to be anonymous. If my vote is published in any way that can be tied to me, I can no longer vote my conscience. If I owe Guido money, Guido may decide that it's important to my kneecaps for me to vote a certain way. If my vote is truly anonymous, I can vote how I like and lie to Guido to make him leave me alone. If Guido or I can find out how I voted, I will vote exactly how Guido wants me to vote. Not very democratic, now is it?
What you're proposing is Zimbabwe democracy writ small and large. Vote-buying, as it's called, requires some external verification of the vote, like publishing who voted for whom. Without external verification, vote-buying becomes really impractical. Therefore, publishing the ballots that people cast is a really, really awful idea which deserves no consideration as a serious way to improve our democracy.
But I guess that doesn't hold up to scrutiny? This isn't rocket science, your proposal simply doesn't work, though it has been tried many times (with those in power liking your idea the most).
Regards,
ross
I found that Piers Anthony didn't let me think about any of the neat things that he was so excited about. Instead, he was so keen on drilling through all of the details and applications that he forgot about an effective plot and putting some effort into character development.
In his books, it is inevitable that the work is centered on the toys and the asides into how the toys work. When Neal Stephenson did this with Cryptonomicon, he lost me as a loyal reader. I'm not mentally reverting to 14 just so I can go "gee-whiz!" like I used to.
There's a place for contextual details and there's a place for exposition. You shouldn't do exposition about the details. The details are just that, details. Limit your exposition to what matters to the story, mention the contextual details as if they're completely normal and the story will be stronger for it. Asimov was the master of this in the Foundation Trilogy, but by the time of Foundation and Earth, he'd lost the talent.
IMHO, of course.
Regards,
Ross
Build yourself whatever you like from eBay purchases. What you'll find is usually either generic (new, cheap, microscopes from China) or not under warranty or damaged (get two and piece them together) but it's usually dirt cheap and functional. I built a rather nice darkroom for 33% of the price of new gear with eBay sourced items.
Be public about it and don't worry too much about Big Brother. Meth labs have a conspicuous smell and you're only likely to attract police attention if there is other evidence to tie you to a local drug trade.
If you are planning to make illegal substances, then the eBay purchases will be one more public record that will be used against you in court. But my advice assumes that you are what you say you are, so eBay should be a great resource for you.
Regards,
Ross
You just became my friend. It's refreshing to find someone else who doesn't tolerate unprovoked rudeness and is willing to do something about it.
IMHO, controlled violence is completely justified. Especially in response to violence (like the idiot who verbally assaulted your daughter for his mistake). The way I see it, you were defending her and giving her a quick demonstration of ethics and morality in action. To do other than defend a child in that situation would be unthinkable.
Regards,
Ross
Despite the solid try, however, they never, or rarely, found any bugs.
On our project (~200kLOC), the unit tests have helped find lots of stupid things during initial development, but have really made their money during the huge refactorings needed to follow program management's wildly changing product vision.
We knew that the previous PM's were worthless, so we built a fairly broad solution against the requirements they gave us. The company eventually agreed with us, and hired a new marketing team after 9 months of development. The new team developed a fairly coherent vision of what the system should look like. About 80% of our "broad solution" code was usable, but that meant that 20% had to adapt to the new vision. One part of that adaptation was in the core model classes, and that change ended up touching about 60% of the files in the system (the 20% is a SWAG of the lines of code that ended up changing).
Took me four days to do the full refactoring of that change, but once the unit tests ran again, I declared victory and have never needed to look back. That same story has been retold on our project a number of times. The unit tests make earlier features harder to add, but later features much, much easier.
Oh, and automated UI testing does suck. We're still working out how to do something effective there. But even just on the backend stuff, they make a big difference.
Regards,
Ross
You really think anyone here had the backbone to challenge an employer's contract?
Wow, it's sad that you perceive that. You really need to learn how to negotiate.
First thing to learn about negotiation: don't make it a confrontation. Instead, frame the conversation so that the two of you are working towards common goals.
I've asked for changes to the past three employment contracts. Ask nicely. Explain what the situation is from your point of view and keep an advocate in the person who's hiring you. That person has already decided they want you and is probably in a fairly accomodating mental state. Don't piss them off and you'll probably get what you need along with most of what you want.
They want to hire you. You want to be hired. They don't want you to take what you learn about their business and form a competitive company. You want to protect your ownership of products and product ideas that you've already worked on. You may also want to protect ownership of new products while you work here (but you don't want to make this case since it implies that some of your creative effort will not be spent on their products, so just try to eliminate wording about them owning everything and this can work out).
From these "common goals", you should be able to initiate a conversation (and changes to the default contract) that makes both parties happy. If you think you need help with changes to the terms and you know a decent lawyer, ask them for the help and expect to pay for an hour's time. Get the full hour of time, though. Ask questions about this situation and about the contract in general. There may be other aspects to the contract that are "iffy" and you may look a lot smarter by bringing them up.
Which leads me to another way to present alterations to the default contract: As improvements. If you can present yourself as fairly sophisticated in similar matters (depends on the job you're interviewing for and how you interviewed), this discussion between you and your boss can be an "us vs. the silly lawyers" which can be a decent way to start a professional relationship with your boss.
Regards,
Ross
P.S. You may even find that this process helps to build interpersonal relationships with HR staff, which is always helpful throughout an employment relationship. HR people have an enormous influence on how you are perceived as they interact so frequently with your boss's boss and even higher up the chain.
Wow, did you miss the point.
Some poor people do have jobs that they must "get away from". The people mentioned in this article (and many like them) have jobs which are a part of their rich and full lives. The secret is BALANCE: figuring out what's really important to you and acting in such a way to satisfy those desires.
You appear to argue that a job you enjoy going to necessarily excludes other aspects of a full and rich life. I can't for the life of me understand why you think life is such an "either-or" game. Enjoy work or have a full life? That's a false dichotomy. What kind of a full life do you really have if you spend eight hours of every day waiting for 5:00pm and looking forward to the weekend? Just because I look forward to my day at work doesn't mean that I forget what's really important to me. Spending time with my family and friends doesn't get forgotten about just because I love my job. I wouldn't love my job if it didn't afford me the time to spend with my family and friends.
In a good balance, work is enjoyable. Time away from work is also enjoyable, but if you're doing it right, you won't spend your day at work pining for the weekend. IMHO, play and work are inextricably intertwined. For me to get into a superproductive mode (which I call "flow"), I have to turn my job into a game. I know that I am not alone in this method of simultaneously 1) enjoying the thought of another day of work and 2) producing enormous value for my employer. When I'm in a flow state (I can usually get into flow for two to three weeks at a time), I can produce 40-50 tested lines of code per hour, easily 2x or 3x my normal rate. I can't sustain that rate indefinitely, but especially when in flow, taking breaks, going home, enjoying good company, getting a good night's sleep are necessary, not excluded or forgotten about.
As for the title of your posting, you're absolutely right. Your job should not be your life. But your posting doesn't limit itself to that argument. Loving your job doesn't mean that you don't love other things that together make for a wonderful liveable life. And hating (or even tolerating your job) will necessarily compromise having what I personally consider "the best of all worlds".
Regards,
Ross
BTW, the 70mm binoculars that I linked to are only $150. I bought a pair of those exact same binoculars for my first astronomy purchase and absolutely love them.
This may still be too much for a casual purchase, but there aren't too many people reading Slashdot who couldn't save a few dollars here and there and have enough to buy those binocs in a few months.
Ultimately, even a $60 pair of 10x50mm binoculars would really stretch your viewing at star parties and give you a lot more to see on a clear night. Even if you don't stay with the astronomy, 10x50mm are great for sports, cheap seats at the opera, whatever...
Regards,
Ross
Of course, you're right that binoculars do not give you depth perception, but your brain does more with both eyes open than it can with just one. The more expensive binoculars I suggested use telescope eyepieces, so the eye-relief issue is a wash, but the viewing is still undeniably superior than the viewing through a single tube scope (all other things being equal: aperture, focal length, etc.).
I wish I knew more about optical perception in the brain and could speak with more authority on why binocular astronomy results in such a different experience from single-eye viewing... Again, you're right that you aren't getting real depth perception, but something's different and better. *sigh* I hate it when words fail me...
Regards,
Ross
That "linking" of optical telescopes together is called optical interferometry and the linking usually requires that you know the relative location of the two or more optically identical telescopes to within a wavelength of the EM radiation you're viewing in. For radio telescopes, this is a meter (more or less). For optical telescopes, this requires that the telescope tubes be very close together and usually mounted in a rather strong frame.
There are some very cool optical systems that can make the linking easier by eliminating some of the unknowns in location within the optics. There are also some newer control systems that can make this still easier. But the main optics in both tubes still need to be almost identical. The same model of the same brand isn't quite good enough. They usually need to be matched (fabricated at the same time to have the same characteristics).
An alternate (and much more achievable) plan would be to let your brain trial and error out the differences between two tubes in a binocular telescope. There are a number of websites out there describing some of the more successful efforts to do this. Collimation is again critical (the two tubes had better be pointing in the same direction) and even then you're probably going to get a headache.
But while you're rubbing your temples to deal with the headache, you'll be thinking back to those absolutely amazing views you saw through the binocular eyepieces.
There are some bigger binoculars that blur the difference between binocular and telescope. Oberwerk sells some very nice 100mm binoculars with telescope-style eyepieces for under $1600 and just a pair of 100mm binoculars will only set you back $400. Together, those 100mm tubes gather more light than a 5" refractor and the view through properly collimated binoculars is just plain better than through a single tube (IMNSHO). But before you think about laying out that kind of money, get some decent, inexpensive 70mm binoculars and keep going to those local meetings. Once you get to the point where you know you want more, you'll have a bit more experience and have learned a bit more about where to spend your money.
Regards,
Ross
but Mecca is constantly moving in 3 dimensions relative to where you are on the moon
Actually, it's not. The moon does not rotate with respect to the earth. Mecca's only movement with respect to an observer on the moon is the change in location as the earth rotates.
You could put a statue at any point on the surface (or under the surface) of the moon with a metal arrow pointing to the earth and be certain that that arrow is always pointing to Mecca within a degree or so.
This is the only other body in our solar system where this is true, but it's just as easy to to there as it is here.
Regards,
Ross
I disagree with what you said about him not being taught anything.
I agree that he learned something. I disagree that they taught him anything. By going directly to suspending him from school, this group of teapot despots abandoned teaching for something completely different.
The fact that he learned something from this (about power and how capriciously it can be applied, I'll bet), is completely beside the point.
Regards,
Ross
Are you an English teacher?
:).
Nope, I'm a software developer.
My mom was an English teacher, however, and my speech and writing were frequently corrected during my childhood and adolescence. While annoying at the time, I'm fairly certain my writing skills have been improved as a result.
I just really enjoy writing (and I especially enjoy rhetoric
Regards,
Ross
Best to teach them good net-iquette than to lock down the machines to the point that they're really not all that useful.
The operative word being teach. Which none of the administration, the principal, and the teacher decided to do.
So why were you congradulating everyone but the victim again?
Regards,
Ross
Which grass? The strain of Bermuda that's so appealing in a suburban yard or the 10,000-25,000 plant varieties that are found in unimproved North American meadows?
You've got squirrels, but should we trade hundreds of small mammal and thousands of insect species which used to reside on your land for the variety of squirrels that you find so adequate as their successors?
The parent poster is correctly observing that human development pushes out wildlife (without making a specific value judgement on that). Your post attempts to glibly deny that observation. However, your remarks lack a certain strength in preparation that reveals your desire to post a quick comment despite a lack of reading comprehension.
Do better next time.
Regards,
Ross
It's successful for that individual running the business, but not for the business in any longer term measure.
Since there is little incentive provided other than to pump the stock price no matter what, the short term view wins.
Also, Larry doesn't care what happens when he's gone. As long as he can get his money out, he's sitting pretty for the rest of his life...
Regards,
Ross
drag the sacrament of marriage (which by definition can only exist between a man and a woman) in mud
Which definition? And who said anything about the "sacrament of marriage"? I just want it to be legal for two people to legally join their assets, taxes, and interests together. Your church can put whatever restrictions they want on their rituals (of which marriage is probably the most significant for most people).
As for why this is important to me, I'm a human. My S.O. happens to be of the opposite gender, but why do you feel that this issue should be so much less important to straight people? I don't limit my list of friends and family (I'll acknowledge) to just straight people, and as a result, laws that restrict the rights of gays hurt me because they hurt people I care about.
Why don't you actually read that book in the pew in front of you on Sunday?
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (Matthew 7:3)
Regards,
Ross
Corporations and small businesses are entitled to the same legal protection as any individual.
Why, exactly, would you possibly hold this as your carefully considered opinion?
The elevation of a corporation to equality with human beings is in current US law, however, my analysis implies to me that this is because it suits the interests of those with the money to purchase laws. Something is not true simply because wealthy people desire it to be true.
The rest of your statement stands, however.
Regards,
Ross
The masses can appreciate the finished product but only the artist can truly appreciate what it took to create this masterpiece of film making.
:)
As an engineer and a craftsman, I too can appreciate what it took to create this masterpiece. But then, perhaps you meant "artist" in the more general sense
Regards,
Ross
Actually, the fact that the skin doping was a highly flammable lacquer, akin to gasoline, seems to have had more to do with the flammability of the Hindenburg's fabric envelope than the hydrogen inside.
They painted the entire fabric skin of the ship with explosively flammable paint/sealant and they were suprised when it burned so readily.
Helium in the envelope wouldn't have saved the Hindenburg. But it was a convenient explanation at the time.
Regards,
Ross
You would still have to defocus then refocus your eyes.
Focusing at a different depth is substantially better (less disruptive to your attention) than changing the entire field of view from the road to the dash instruments and back again.
Also, the focus change isn't as extreme as you might think. A HUD uses optics to project the image into your field of view. Those optics can provide an apparent focal distance of whatever they want. The HUD's used in fighter planes put the focal plane at the same distance as the current target, or at infinity if there is no target.
This system, while not having the luxury of knowing exactly how far away you're looking, could just put the HUD focal plane at common traffic distances (as a guess: 100 ft/30 meters) and you'd never notice the moment it took your eyes to focus on the speedo and then back on the brake lights that just lit up in front of you. Certainly less work for your eyes than transferring from the road scene to the 2-3 foot distant dash and back...
Regards,
Ross
Have the Brits figured out electronics yet?
:)
Give them time to figure out electrics first. Have to crawl before you run and all that...
Regards,
Ross
Actually, contrary to those pushing for helmet laws, the Hurt report does not support a conclusion that all motorcyclists should wear helmets.
Instead, the Hurt report supports a conclusion that those who would choose to leave their head unprotected are the same ones most likely to end up in a serious motorcycle accident.
Forcing a helmet on someone stupid enough to choose to ride without one isn't going to change anything but allow for an open casket at the funeral. Under the minimal helmet is still the same unskilled, gotta-prove-something attitude that made that type of person "overrepresented" in the first place.
IMHO, of course. *ahem*. As for supporting ABATE, well, I'm fairly happy with the reduced injury and fatality rates associated with the helmet laws here in CA. Especially among those riders without insurance, whose medical care would ultimately be paid by me. If they were to pass a law which allowed hospitals and doctors to refuse to care for helmetless riders without insurance, I'd definitely support repealing the helmet laws. But since that's not going to happen for lots of reasons, ABATE just doesn't have a cause I'm interested in.
I do agree with your remarks about motorcycle training making a real difference, however. I also feel that all motorcyclists should be required to take the ERC every 5-10 years to renew their license.
Regards,
Ross
IBM has more attorneys on staff than most of the large law firms in the US.
The marginal cost is close to zero, since those guys would still be collecting their salaries, but they're obviously pushing other things down the priority tree, so there is a cost to IBM.
Regards,
Ross
The military/government term is "unclassified, but sensitive".
Casually mistreating that kind of information will get you a reprimand and in the nearly worst case, lose you your clearance and your job, but there's little risk of prosecution unless they have reason to believe that you had malicious intent.
If you don't work for them (as in this case), they're pretty much asking you for a favor to pretty please, don't blab about our sensitive information. Again, however, if they have reason to believe that your disclosures are motivated by malice or greed or... then you most definitely can be prosecuted for them.
With Ashcroft and Bush in office, it's anybody's guess as to whether they'd label you a terrorist before prosecuting you for writing a humorous account of your interview with the NSA. I'm glad this person wrote this as I really enjoyed reading it, but I probably wouldn't have written it if I had the same interview experience as the author.
Regards,
Ross