As the others pointed out, most physicists are pretty sure that space and time should be quantized, but it's not a certainty yet.
Assuming that space is quantized, you're right - the closest you could ever really come is approximating the golden ratio.
A nonterminating decimal could be represented if you had a situation where division makes sense. 4/3 is a nonterminating decimal, but both 4 and 3 are perfectly reasonable values in a quantized system.
Sort of. The golden ratio is apparently related to the E8 lie group, which shows up in string theory and supergravity. WIkipedia says the golden ratio also shows up in relation to quasicrystals.
This one is cool though. My first thought was "creepy."
PS: to the mod who gave all discussion of the irrationality of the golden ratio an offtopic mod: get a life.
Uh oh. Clicking on the first hit on that Google search would tell you that the golden ratio is an irrational number, which means the numbers to the right of the decimal place keep going on forever, without repeating.
Maybe someone got hit. Where I used to live there were a couple of pedestrians hit in crosswalks, including one who was carrying a baby. They put the fine at $500 and the cops started enforcing it. It wasn't really a big problem before, but there was no problem at all afterward.
Isn't the normal way to build shutter glasses with an LCD anyway?
With passive glasses there are a couple of advantages over LCD glasses. You mentioned the first one - the average person watches a LOT of TV, and they're not going to be able to do it all in 3D. The second is that the glasses are cheap enough to be effectively free.
Several companies sell downloadable HD content. It's not as good as Bluray, but it's not bad, and it's usually a lot cheaper. Video compression has come a long way.
LCD panels aren't really that expensive. I'm sure they'd be happy to sell it to you at a 100% premium over a non-3D TV, but an actual second LCD panel probably adds something like 5% - 10% to the actual cost of the TV. Maybe not even that.
You can convert linear polarized light into circularly polarized light with a filter.
The problem with shutter glasses is that you need a set for everyone who wants to watch your TV. I'd buy a box of ten cheap polaroid glasses for when people come over to watch my cool new TV, but I'm probably not going to be buying a full set of wireless shutter glasses.
When did you learn OpenGL? OpenGL took a long time to evolve from the fixed pipeline to the fixed-pipeline-free model, but it has. The fixed pipeline is still around for compatibility though, so you have to watch that the book/tutorial you're using is up to date.
These days if you get a spinning triangle on screen in OpenGL you've already got pixel and vertex shaders going just fine.
DirectX supports more features because it is now so dominant that Microsoft dictates what the features are going to be and the hardware companies implement them.
OpenGL isn't a better choice for cross-platform development. If OpenGL and DirectX are the pool we're choosing from, there is no choice. DirectX only works where MS decides it will work. It's not really a surprise that DirectX works better on Windows than OpenGL. OpenGL works infinitely better (literally) on everything else.
Even though they didn't go all the way, OpenGL is considerably better now than it used to be. You don't actually have to touch the legacy pipeline if you don't want to. It's being still there gives the CAD companies etc. a bit of breathing room, but it is clearly on the chopping block.
One big advantage of an open standard is that you can implement it on whatever system you wish. OpenGL is available pretty much everywhere that's even close to reasonable. DirectX is ONLY available where Microsoft has written an implementation - on MS platforms.
It's starting to bite them now. All the smart phones (except the Windows Mobile ones I guess) are running OpenGL ES.
That's ridiculous. Everybody knows microwaves have an effect on matter. We use them to cook food. What is a much bigger leap is claiming that microwaves at low levels have an unusually large effect on DNA - that is, they can cause cancer without cooking the tissue.
IF this effect is real, it's very, very unlikely it has anything to do with changing DNA, for the worse or better.
Perhaps you might believe that washing a cut with clean water can help it heal faster, but are also of the opinion that water doesn't cause cancer?
I guess the more relevant factor is not that the developers created all kinds of shortcuts for themselves, but that a subset of the users found them and think they're really useful.
As you point out, that doesn't necessarily mean your design is bad, but it's a pretty good indication that you might want to consider the possibility.
Personally I think Windows has gone way too far with the wizards. I was trying to connect to a shared printer the other day and kept going in circles, bouncing from wizard to wizard. Things like the TCP/IP settings and wireless connection wizard seem to keep popping up when you're trying to use Network Neighborhood, which has always seemed to be broken, and manually connecting only works if you know the address AND share name.
If you use the UN definition of "first world," which depends on GNP, Bangladesh isn't that far from where you'd expect in both birth rates and "first worldness." Their purchasing power GDP (couldn't find a ranking for GNP) is 50th in the world and their birth rate is 71st. Total GNP seems like kind of a silly metric, but that's apparently what the UN uses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bg.html
Your statement "given the actual example of Bangladesh - is that a long term (50 years and counting) drop in fertility to (in the next decade) below replacement levels" is a bit disingenuous. The fertility rate in Bangladesh didn't actually drop below 6 until 1982. (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:BGD&q=fertility+rate+in+Bangladesh#met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:BGD) The long term implications of improving education without improving the economic circumstances of the population would seem to be far from settled, using your own example. Bangladesh has achieved a replacement level fertility rate only in the last few years (it broke 3 in 2000 and 2.5 in 2006).
Checking through Bangladeshi history for events that happened around 1980, when the birth rates started to drop, it seems that the major events were the beginning of a birth control campaign, a regional cooperation agreement and the kickoff, including lots of foreign investment, in the Bangladeshi garment industry, which happens to employ 90% women. Bangladesh did begin some revamping of their education system around 1980, but it's hard to see how that could be the sole cause of a birth rates starting to drop, with no lag.
It's quite possible that simply educating women would decrease birth rates, but Bangladesh doesn't seem to prove your case that education alone does it, or that an education only approach is stable in the long term. I find it much more likely that education and improvement in economic conditions occur in tandem, each feeding on the other. If your family has enough to eat and your kids are not required to work, they're more likely to go to school (the Bangladeshis know this - one of their programs in the 80's involved food for education). An educated population tends to be a driving force behind economic growth.
That doesn't mean that everybody needs a car for birth rates to be low, but most of the world wouldn't necessarily associate a "first world lifestyle" with things like that anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
That's amazing. Well done.
As the others pointed out, most physicists are pretty sure that space and time should be quantized, but it's not a certainty yet.
Assuming that space is quantized, you're right - the closest you could ever really come is approximating the golden ratio.
A nonterminating decimal could be represented if you had a situation where division makes sense. 4/3 is a nonterminating decimal, but both 4 and 3 are perfectly reasonable values in a quantized system.
Sort of. The golden ratio is apparently related to the E8 lie group, which shows up in string theory and supergravity. WIkipedia says the golden ratio also shows up in relation to quasicrystals.
This one is cool though. My first thought was "creepy."
PS: to the mod who gave all discussion of the irrationality of the golden ratio an offtopic mod: get a life.
Uh oh. Clicking on the first hit on that Google search would tell you that the golden ratio is an irrational number, which means the numbers to the right of the decimal place keep going on forever, without repeating.
Bravo. I was going to wait until you got modded informative but it's midnight and I'm going to sleep.
Yes, and journalists have this thing for doing lots of background research to dig up people's middle names just so they can put them in articles.
You'll have to spend the flight lying down in that case. Er, wait, there's a catch here somewhere. I'm just having trouble finding it.
Come on, he can't help his name. Now, using all of them, THAT's pretentious.
Maybe someone got hit. Where I used to live there were a couple of pedestrians hit in crosswalks, including one who was carrying a baby. They put the fine at $500 and the cops started enforcing it. It wasn't really a big problem before, but there was no problem at all afterward.
"Will your viewing experience really be that much elevated watching Lifestyles of Clueless Trust Account Celebutantes in 3D?"
Well, their primary assets are 3D, so in that case, yes, 3D might very well be an improvement.
Isn't the normal way to build shutter glasses with an LCD anyway?
With passive glasses there are a couple of advantages over LCD glasses. You mentioned the first one - the average person watches a LOT of TV, and they're not going to be able to do it all in 3D. The second is that the glasses are cheap enough to be effectively free.
Several companies sell downloadable HD content. It's not as good as Bluray, but it's not bad, and it's usually a lot cheaper. Video compression has come a long way.
It's quite likely the HD TV did make his standard def tv signal look better. Except for the expensive ones, a lot of CRT TVs were really crappy.
LCD panels aren't really that expensive. I'm sure they'd be happy to sell it to you at a 100% premium over a non-3D TV, but an actual second LCD panel probably adds something like 5% - 10% to the actual cost of the TV. Maybe not even that.
You can convert linear polarized light into circularly polarized light with a filter.
The problem with shutter glasses is that you need a set for everyone who wants to watch your TV. I'd buy a box of ten cheap polaroid glasses for when people come over to watch my cool new TV, but I'm probably not going to be buying a full set of wireless shutter glasses.
You know that the light from all LCDs is already polarized, right?
You're 6'5" tall? No, sorry. Now, if you were 6'5" wide then yeah, you're entitled to extra space for free.
When did you learn OpenGL? OpenGL took a long time to evolve from the fixed pipeline to the fixed-pipeline-free model, but it has. The fixed pipeline is still around for compatibility though, so you have to watch that the book/tutorial you're using is up to date.
These days if you get a spinning triangle on screen in OpenGL you've already got pixel and vertex shaders going just fine.
Find someone with an iPhone or Android based phone.
There's your killer app.
DirectX supports more features because it is now so dominant that Microsoft dictates what the features are going to be and the hardware companies implement them.
OpenGL isn't a better choice for cross-platform development. If OpenGL and DirectX are the pool we're choosing from, there is no choice. DirectX only works where MS decides it will work. It's not really a surprise that DirectX works better on Windows than OpenGL. OpenGL works infinitely better (literally) on everything else.
Even though they didn't go all the way, OpenGL is considerably better now than it used to be. You don't actually have to touch the legacy pipeline if you don't want to. It's being still there gives the CAD companies etc. a bit of breathing room, but it is clearly on the chopping block.
One big advantage of an open standard is that you can implement it on whatever system you wish. OpenGL is available pretty much everywhere that's even close to reasonable. DirectX is ONLY available where Microsoft has written an implementation - on MS platforms.
It's starting to bite them now. All the smart phones (except the Windows Mobile ones I guess) are running OpenGL ES.
That's ridiculous. Everybody knows microwaves have an effect on matter. We use them to cook food. What is a much bigger leap is claiming that microwaves at low levels have an unusually large effect on DNA - that is, they can cause cancer without cooking the tissue.
IF this effect is real, it's very, very unlikely it has anything to do with changing DNA, for the worse or better.
Perhaps you might believe that washing a cut with clean water can help it heal faster, but are also of the opinion that water doesn't cause cancer?
I guess the more relevant factor is not that the developers created all kinds of shortcuts for themselves, but that a subset of the users found them and think they're really useful.
As you point out, that doesn't necessarily mean your design is bad, but it's a pretty good indication that you might want to consider the possibility.
Personally I think Windows has gone way too far with the wizards. I was trying to connect to a shared printer the other day and kept going in circles, bouncing from wizard to wizard. Things like the TCP/IP settings and wireless connection wizard seem to keep popping up when you're trying to use Network Neighborhood, which has always seemed to be broken, and manually connecting only works if you know the address AND share name.
If you use the UN definition of "first world," which depends on GNP, Bangladesh isn't that far from where you'd expect in both birth rates and "first worldness." Their purchasing power GDP (couldn't find a ranking for GNP) is 50th in the world and their birth rate is 71st. Total GNP seems like kind of a silly metric, but that's apparently what the UN uses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bg.html
Your statement "given the actual example of Bangladesh - is that a long term (50 years and counting) drop in fertility to (in the next decade) below replacement levels" is a bit disingenuous. The fertility rate in Bangladesh didn't actually drop below 6 until 1982.
(http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:BGD&q=fertility+rate+in+Bangladesh#met=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&idim=country:BGD) The long term implications of improving education without improving the economic circumstances of the population would seem to be far from settled, using your own example. Bangladesh has achieved a replacement level fertility rate only in the last few years (it broke 3 in 2000 and 2.5 in 2006).
Checking through Bangladeshi history for events that happened around 1980, when the birth rates started to drop, it seems that the major events were the beginning of a birth control campaign, a regional cooperation agreement and the kickoff, including lots of foreign investment, in the Bangladeshi garment industry, which happens to employ 90% women. Bangladesh did begin some revamping of their education system around 1980, but it's hard to see how that could be the sole cause of a birth rates starting to drop, with no lag.
It's quite possible that simply educating women would decrease birth rates, but Bangladesh doesn't seem to prove your case that education alone does it, or that an education only approach is stable in the long term. I find it much more likely that education and improvement in economic conditions occur in tandem, each feeding on the other. If your family has enough to eat and your kids are not required to work, they're more likely to go to school (the Bangladeshis know this - one of their programs in the 80's involved food for education). An educated population tends to be a driving force behind economic growth.
That doesn't mean that everybody needs a car for birth rates to be low, but most of the world wouldn't necessarily associate a "first world lifestyle" with things like that anyway.