Why? You can get Uranium anywhere. Look on eBay.:) U-238 takes a crapload of energy to fission and isn't a particular threat. U-235, which accounts for 1% of naturally occuring uranium, is what you need to make bombs. And if this plant were like almost every other plant in the US, the fuel is "enriched" to contain - maybe - 5% U-235. Notice that Korea claims to have reprocessed hundreds of spent fuel rods and yet we think they have the capability of builing only a few nuclear weapons? Yeah. This is one of the reasons that the NRC mandates low percentages of fissile elements in nuclear fuels. Back in the day, there were research reactors around the country that had 50+% enrichment. Bad stuff. (Nuclear weapons need at least 90% enrichment, if I recall. Not my field, or one I want to be in.)
Well, then how about a hydrogen-nuclear economy? Several of the Generation III Nuclear reactors can produce hydrogen, and several of the proposed generation IV designs. There is even a government initiative to do so. PDF on the subject
Sure, we all want fusion, but fission isn't the heinous evil that many think it is. One pound of reactor-grade uranium has the energy equivalent of 20,000lbs of coal, which is a hell of a redution in pollution. Nuclear waste is indeed a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Public opinion has discouraged nuclear activity in the US for years. We don't have the nifty reprocessing capabilities the French do, for example. And we haven't needed to have them. We have much, much larger uranium resources to draw from. But it is time we were working to eliminate waste, not just store it. "Throw it away is the American way" can be no longer.
And as for radiation exposure, living near a nuclear plant contributes about a hundredth of what naturally occuring levels of radon in your house does to your yearly radiation allowance. Hell, if you smoke (stupid) you take in the equivalent of 3 chest X-rays per pack. Your average Joe receives about 300mrem per year; a pack-a-day smoker gets upwards of about 1200mrem a year - and a dose-equivalent of up to 12x that in the lungs.
Cigarettes contain, among other nasty things, Polonium 210, which has a half-life of around 300 days and then decays into lead. Neither are very nice things to have in your body. So worry much more about smoking in terms of public safety than nuclear power.
I have wanted a service like this for years. Musical stylings vary from concert to concert and it would be great to be able to say, yeah, I was at THAT concert, just listen to that awsome lick!
This type of program isn't for everyone. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and each has their* own idea of what they want to do. Let those people who want to have their purely technical degree go elsewhere. Engineering isn't easy; if Olin can improve on its breadth without sacrificing depth, then that is wonderful.
I speak as a 5th year Computer Engineering major, who also happens to be a Spanish major. I've also taken a year of Ancient Greek and will be taking my second year of German starting in September. Not to mention playing in an orchestra, etc. I've taken a few humanities courses, and would've taken more, if time allowed. Yeah, it'll take me an extra year to finish up my degree, my GPA isn't quite where I'd like it, and I'm taking on an extra $8000 in loans, but to me it is worth it.
The real "engineers" who do wonderous things are curious about everything. Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, et al. Everyone else is just a techie;)
*they, rather than "he or she" and their rather than "his or her" is perfectly acceptable modern colloquial English and easier to read than that other politcally acceptable crap.
Oh, I must quite agree about WMA. I did a spectral breakdown of the output signal of the WMA of Duel of Fates, after hearing the apalling job it did. (Really, only the 256kbps Ogg did any justice to it.) The audio print looked suspicious.
I converted the WMA back to wave and subtracted it from the original. Lots of noise, with specific, interesting banding patterns at certain frequencies. A lot of the upper vocal had been spottily left out. What surprised me was that some of the voices in the middle of the chorus were mistaken for noise. Previously, one of the strengths that I'd noticed with WMA was that it had been highly optimized to grab 'normal' and 'necessary' frequencies. Duel of Fates had obviously confused the encoder.
On that note, one of the common comments I got about the WMA samples was that 'vocals, guitar leads, etc' were much brighter and easy to hear - after some of those other pesky voices and such had been reduced or taken out.
Re:WMA 8 is the way
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hrmmm... Actually, as part of my senior project, I did a listening test of some different codecs. WMA8/128kbps, Ogg (RC2) 128kbps, lame mp3 VBR nom. 128kbps. Additionally, I tossed in mp3/256kbps and ogg/256kbps, plus the original source wav.
The subjects were allowed to listen to the reference wav at any time, and otherwise, only knew they were listening to "a variety of encoding schemes." They were asked to rate the sample on a scale of 1-10 vs the original and to comment on why they rated the way they did.
The results: WMA came in dead last. mp3 & ogg at 128kbps were evenly matched, with ogg edging out mp3 by a few tenths. The highest rated samples were the mp3 and ogg at 256, although the ogg won by a significant lead - many times it was mistaken for the wave file.
Here's the interesting bit. When broken into age groups, the majority of the testers (college students, 18-24 years old) were dead on the averages above. The other significant group in the study, people 35 and older, often *did* rate the WMA files as better than the mp3 and ogg. But then again, the range of scores they assigned to all of the samples was much tighter, and they reported hearing far fewer discrepencies between the files. Conclusion: young ears hear better. But then again, I'd hope you'd expect that.
For those wondering, the samples used were taken from Peal Jam's Daughter, Fool's Garden's Lemon Tree, and John William's Duel of Fates, for their wide variety encoding nightmares:)
>I can honestly recommend, no exaggeration, is to >stay as far away from Engineering as possible >unlessyou really, really don't mind working your >arse off. I am by no means implying that Computer >Science students don't work hard.
Lol. I can attest to the fact that Engineering students work harder, being one myself. Just looking at the classload at my university, CompE majors basically have no opportunity for electives at all - we max out every quarter with major-classes. CS people, on the other hand, will generally take 2, maybe 3 courses for their major per term (as opposed to engineering's 4 every term)
Our CompE degree is basically a Electrical Degree, with the analog electronic and power systems courses, and the addition of almost an entire CS major:)
My two cents.
I graduated from high school two years ago, and am currently persuing a degree in Computer Engineering. I was by far an exception in my high school in terms of computer knowlege. The "computer lab" in my high school (around 500 students) consisted of 18 IBM XTs on which a few students typed papers during study hall. It was used for one class...a quarter of Basica programming for accounting class. This lab was just replaced THIS LAST SCHOOLYEAR by 25 Pentium 200s, and they are hoping to add a comptuer class or two to the curriculum. Now, I find it wonderful that some schools have better computer curriculums. I have to vent a bit of anger that all of our US schools don't have even basic coursework or equipment. If students 'get bored' with the AP CS coursework, send them off for post-secondary at nearby university somewhere. The government will pay for that. I wish they'd pool more money into high schools earmarked for technology and training, and bring them all up to par...not make some elitist while others scrape by. (It is different for private schools, understandably) I think most small schools are in trouble in this technological age. My small town is still in the grips of the 'athletics is everything' bug as well. I don't have a solution. This is merely my view on the matter.
Well, I wouldn't recommend totally forgetting qwerty. It's what everyone uses. Try Dvorak. I personally don't like it - then again, I'm not a touch typist, but still get about 80 words a minute. It's all personal preference...
Slakware an advanced distro? It's what I started with... Of course, I was primarily running DOS 5.0 at the time. I don't think that Win95 had reared it's ugly head yet...
Let me clear up something too. I wasn't intending to say that Australians had no choice in their government. I must have accidently missed a sentence there. No, I never said that Australia was a Tyranny. Sheesh. Sorry folks.
As an American, used at least to a semblance of free speech as stated in our Constitution, the thought of my government taking any such action to limit my freedom both frightens and angers me.
I feel a certain sympathy for other peoples that have no choice due to their less democratically organized rulership. In this case for Australia though, I am mostly appalled. And perhaps a little bit apprehensive. Now, I'm not a doomsayer or such, but - regardless of the fact that this law may be unenforceable - I fear for the future. Things happen gradually; what is unacceptable now may be perfectly normal down the road. Look at how much custom has changed, this century alone.
In the short run, consider this: If Hitler had stood up in 1929 and said "Let's slaughter millions of people, let's conquer the world, we can do it, we are superior!" - what would have happened? Most likely, he would have been run out on a rail. Given a decade in politics, a change in information and propaganda, hundred of thousands of people worshiped the man, and gave their lives to his cause.
As I said, I'm not saying its the end of the world, not by any means. As a whole, especially with the internet now as it is, we world wide, are overall more eduacated peoples. My thought is just this one: can't we just learn from the past, and not take the chance, even though it be a slim one?
Well, that's just my opinion. Yet another nosy American.:)
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Why? You can get Uranium anywhere. Look on eBay. :) U-238 takes a crapload of energy to fission and isn't a particular threat. U-235, which accounts for 1% of naturally occuring uranium, is what you need to make bombs. And if this plant were like almost every other plant in the US, the fuel is "enriched" to contain - maybe - 5% U-235.
Notice that Korea claims to have reprocessed hundreds of spent fuel rods and yet we think they have the capability of builing only a few nuclear weapons? Yeah. This is one of the reasons that the NRC mandates low percentages of fissile elements in nuclear fuels. Back in the day, there were research reactors around the country that had 50+% enrichment. Bad stuff. (Nuclear weapons need at least 90% enrichment, if I recall. Not my field, or one I want to be in.)
Well, then how about a hydrogen-nuclear economy? Several of the Generation III Nuclear reactors can produce hydrogen, and several of the proposed generation IV designs. There is even a government initiative to do so.
PDF on the subject
Sure, we all want fusion, but fission isn't the heinous evil that many think it is. One pound of reactor-grade uranium has the energy equivalent of 20,000lbs of coal, which is a hell of a redution in pollution. Nuclear waste is indeed a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Public opinion has discouraged nuclear activity in the US for years. We don't have the nifty reprocessing capabilities the French do, for example. And we haven't needed to have them. We have much, much larger uranium resources to draw from. But it is time we were working to eliminate waste, not just store it. "Throw it away is the American way" can be no longer.
And as for radiation exposure, living near a nuclear plant contributes about a hundredth of what naturally occuring levels of radon in your house does to your yearly radiation allowance. Hell, if you smoke (stupid) you take in the equivalent of 3 chest X-rays per pack.
Your average Joe receives about 300mrem per year; a pack-a-day smoker gets upwards of about 1200mrem a year - and a dose-equivalent of up to 12x that in the lungs.
Cigarettes contain, among other nasty things, Polonium 210, which has a half-life of around 300 days and then decays into lead. Neither are very nice things to have in your body. So worry much more about smoking in terms of public safety than nuclear power.
I can see it now:
Input: A/S/L?
Output: E/S/L (Edad/Sexo/Localización [or lugar?])
Or better yet:
Input: Hiya! I want 2 meet u 4 lunch. tty l8r
Output: Yo quiero dos reunión u cuatro almuerzo.
tty lochor.
*shudder*
Duke Nukem Forever has gone gold!!!!
as "Al in Sci-Fi". As in Al Lowe.
Think Leisure Suit Larry: Attack of the Space Babes
I have wanted a service like this for years. Musical stylings vary from concert to concert and it would be great to be able to say, yeah, I was at THAT concert, just listen to that awsome lick!
Oh, stop your negatism :-)
;)
This type of program isn't for everyone. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and each has their* own idea of what they want to do.
Let those people who want to have their purely technical degree go elsewhere. Engineering isn't easy; if Olin can improve on its breadth without sacrificing depth, then that is wonderful.
I speak as a 5th year Computer Engineering major, who also happens to be a Spanish major. I've also taken a year of Ancient Greek and will be taking my second year of German starting in September. Not to mention playing in an orchestra, etc. I've taken a few humanities courses, and would've taken more, if time allowed. Yeah, it'll take me an extra year to finish up my degree, my GPA isn't quite where I'd like it, and I'm taking on an extra $8000 in loans, but to me it is worth it.
The real "engineers" who do wonderous things are curious about everything. Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, et al. Everyone else is just a techie
*they, rather than "he or she" and their rather than "his or her" is perfectly acceptable modern colloquial English and easier to read than that other politcally acceptable crap.
Oh, I must quite agree about WMA. I did a spectral breakdown of the output signal of the WMA of Duel of Fates, after hearing the apalling job it did. (Really, only the 256kbps Ogg did any justice to it.) The audio print looked suspicious.
I converted the WMA back to wave and subtracted it from the original. Lots of noise, with specific, interesting banding patterns at certain frequencies. A lot of the upper vocal had been spottily left out. What surprised me was that some of the voices in the middle of the chorus were mistaken for noise. Previously, one of the strengths that I'd noticed with WMA was that it had been highly optimized to grab 'normal' and 'necessary' frequencies. Duel of Fates had obviously confused the encoder.
On that note, one of the common comments I got about the WMA samples was that 'vocals, guitar leads, etc' were much brighter and easy to hear - after some of those other pesky voices and such had been reduced or taken out.
Hrmmm... Actually, as part of my senior project, I did a listening test of some different codecs. WMA8/128kbps, Ogg (RC2) 128kbps, lame mp3 VBR nom. 128kbps. Additionally, I tossed in mp3/256kbps and ogg/256kbps, plus the original source wav.
:)
The subjects were allowed to listen to the reference wav at any time, and otherwise, only knew they were listening to "a variety of encoding schemes." They were asked to rate the sample on a scale of 1-10 vs the original and to comment on why they rated the way they did.
The results: WMA came in dead last. mp3 & ogg at 128kbps were evenly matched, with ogg edging out mp3 by a few tenths. The highest rated samples were the mp3 and ogg at 256, although the ogg won by a significant lead - many times it was mistaken for the wave file.
Here's the interesting bit. When broken into age groups, the majority of the testers (college students, 18-24 years old) were dead on the averages above. The other significant group in the study, people 35 and older, often *did* rate the WMA files as better than the mp3 and ogg. But then again, the range of scores they assigned to all of the samples was much tighter, and they reported hearing far fewer discrepencies between the files. Conclusion: young ears hear better. But then again, I'd hope you'd expect that.
For those wondering, the samples used were taken from Peal Jam's Daughter, Fool's Garden's Lemon Tree, and John William's Duel of Fates, for their wide variety encoding nightmares
Ah, but we're still on quarters :)
Man, I even used the preview button :P
<i>Without</i> the analog, etc... is what I meant.
>I can honestly recommend, no exaggeration, is to >stay as far away from Engineering as possible >unlessyou really, really don't mind working your >arse off. I am by no means implying that Computer >Science students don't work hard.
:)
Lol. I can attest to the fact that Engineering students work harder, being one myself. Just looking at the classload at my university, CompE majors basically have no opportunity for electives at all - we max out every quarter with major-classes. CS people, on the other hand, will generally take 2, maybe 3 courses for their major per term (as opposed to engineering's 4 every term)
Our CompE degree is basically a Electrical Degree, with the analog electronic and power systems courses, and the addition of almost an entire CS major
My two cents.
Amen. I'll have to come visit the Netherlands some time. I'm sick of PC and all the related crap that goes with it.
I graduated from high school two years ago, and am currently persuing a degree in Computer Engineering. I was by far an exception in my high school in terms of computer knowlege.
The "computer lab" in my high school (around 500 students) consisted of 18 IBM XTs on which a few students typed papers during study hall. It was used for one class...a quarter of Basica programming for accounting class. This lab was just replaced THIS LAST SCHOOLYEAR by 25 Pentium 200s, and they are hoping to add a comptuer class or two to the curriculum.
Now, I find it wonderful that some schools have better computer curriculums. I have to vent a bit of anger that all of our US schools don't have even basic coursework or equipment. If students 'get bored' with the AP CS coursework, send them off for post-secondary at nearby university somewhere. The government will pay for that. I wish they'd pool more money into high schools earmarked for technology and training, and bring them all up to par...not make some elitist while others scrape by. (It is different for private schools, understandably)
I think most small schools are in trouble in this technological age. My small town is still in the grips of the 'athletics is everything' bug as well. I don't have a solution. This is merely my view on the matter.
Well, I wouldn't recommend totally forgetting
qwerty. It's what everyone uses. Try Dvorak. I personally don't like it - then again, I'm not a touch typist, but still get about 80 words a minute. It's all personal preference...
Slakware an advanced distro? It's what I started with... Of course, I was primarily running DOS 5.0 at the time. I don't think that Win95 had reared it's ugly head yet...
Let me clear up something too. I wasn't intending
to say that Australians had no choice in their
government. I must have accidently missed a
sentence there. No, I never said that Australia
was a Tyranny. Sheesh. Sorry folks.
As an American, used at least to a semblance of
:)
free speech as stated in our Constitution, the
thought of my government taking any such action
to limit my freedom both frightens and angers me.
I feel a certain sympathy for other peoples
that have no choice due to their less
democratically organized rulership. In this case
for Australia though, I am mostly appalled. And
perhaps a little bit apprehensive. Now, I'm not
a doomsayer or such, but - regardless of the fact
that this law may be unenforceable - I fear for
the future. Things happen gradually; what is
unacceptable now may be perfectly normal down the
road. Look at how much custom has changed, this
century alone.
In the short run, consider this:
If Hitler had stood up in 1929 and said "Let's
slaughter millions of people, let's conquer the
world, we can do it, we are superior!" - what would have happened? Most likely, he would have
been run out on a rail. Given a decade in
politics, a change in information and propaganda,
hundred of thousands of people worshiped the man,
and gave their lives to his cause.
As I said, I'm not saying its the end of the
world, not by any means. As a whole, especially
with the internet now as it is, we world wide, are
overall more eduacated peoples. My thought is just
this one: can't we just learn from the past, and
not take the chance, even though it be a slim one?
Well, that's just my opinion. Yet another
nosy American.