I've seen that demo and that's an exaggeration. The interesting and possibly relevant part is that a balloon filled entirely with hydrogen does explode when you put a match to it, but it's not especially impressive. It's quite a bit louder than a standard popping a balloon noise though. On the other hand, a balloon filled with 2:1 by volume hydrogen gas:oxygen gas is much more impressive- a standard size balloon is very loud even in an auditorium with several hundred people- but it's not 'other side of campus come running' or 'make locals temporarily deaf' loud. It certainly is 'startle the neighboring classrooms' loud though, which may have been how the story got started.
This is relevant because the Hindenburg would have been the first type, a much less impressive explosion... though not as spectacular as the mixed gas, it does explode.
I like getting my moneys worth from a movie ticket, bring on the 3 hour movies.
On the other hand, by showing shorter movies more times per day per screen, theaters can get more movie tickets' worth of money. They like it better that way.
Longer running time can reduce revenue per screen, and potentially reduces the number of screens showing the movie as theaters decide to show shorter films after the initial opening popularity wanes.
People generally aren't willing to pay higher ticket prices for longer films, in spite of it making a lot of sense.
Not quite, if you read the article it argues in come cases that the market isn't reaching equilibrium because of collusion or fraud.
"9) Pilots for major airlines" and "8) West Coast longshoremen" are both claimed to be overpaid because of powerful unions controlling all the labor supply and acting as a monopolist.
"4) Orthodontists" argues that the supply of orthodontists is kept artificially low by "U.S. Dental Schools". I don't necessarily agree with the whole of the argument here, but it's not based on misunderstanding of the funamentals of supply and demand.
"1) Mutual Fund managers" is claiming the whole profession is guilty of fraud, may be an overreaction because of current events, but fraud is certainly a way to be paid more than your fair market value.
Some of the examples cited are bad, but in situations of monopoly, artificial scarcity of supply, or fraud it does happen that people are paid more than their fair market value. (I do agree that most professional athletes are not overpaid... but the article doesn't cite the general case, rather "2) Washed-up pro athletes in long-term contracts", which is more arguable.)
... and by doing so it prevented you from going wherever you were attempting to go.
It's not a large jump to imagine the next generation of router 'redirecting' whenever a user tries to go to a competitor's product site to the analogous Belkin site- or even to redirect requests for democrats.org, rnc.org, aclu.org, nra.org, opensecrets.org, or whatever political sites the manufacturer doesn't like.
The real problem is that they claimed the device was a router. It is designed to not act as a router some of the time, so they're guilty of fraud.
"...most gun deaths (in civilized countries anyway, I'm not sure about the statistics for the US) occur from legal, registered guns..."
His statement is true as phrased, but quite deceptive. (Though I'm not going to use the silly phrase 'gun deaths', as guns can't die.) In the U.S. and other first world nations most human deaths involving a firearm are suicides. I don't have statistics handy, but I expect that almost all of these suicides are done with legally obtained guns.
A determined suicidal individual will manage it quite well without a gun- Japan has a higher suicide rate than the U.S. in spite of the fact that suicides using guns are extremely rare. Banning guns will not stop suicide, so bringing up a statistic phrased to include suicides is disingenuous at best.
I think they decided that all the extra airtime on news/satire shows and additional mentions on forums such as this was worth lying about their product. I'm certain they were expecting it.
After all, the only bad publicity is no publicity, right?
In addition to being free to download and having a free 24 hours-of-actual-played-time trial as others have mentioned, A Tale in the Desert is explicitly intended to have a finite story arc. In theory, it's supposed to last a year, although we're nine months in and as far as I can tell we're about halfway through.
It is expected that there will be a Second Telling once we win/lose this one. (basically, a complete reset with unspecified changes in world/tech/mechanics/etc.) Many people seem interested in staying after this reset, but it remains to be seen what effect this will have on the player base.
Control rods are a good thing if you have a reactor designed to require control rods. Designing a reactor which does not require control rods at all is even better- control rods are one more thing which can go wrong, and moving parts are problematic.
When the corrosion you're concerned with is oxidation (as in this case), liquid sodium is indeed very non-corrosive- it's not likely to oxidize anything. In fact, any oxidizers which somehow get in are likely to react with the sodium rather than the core.
Take a few science courses and a valium, will you?
A few years after the United States was formed, in 1796, Treaty of TripoliThe Treaty of Tripoli was signed, proclaiming in Article 11:
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
This treaty was signed unanimously by the Senate and by President John Adams, who signed it with the statement:
Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all others citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfil the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.
The full text of the treaty, along with the above paragraph written by President John Adams, were published in New York and Boston newspapers (copies of which survive to this day).
The article states that the $38M is to be spent over the next 5 years, and that 200 more servers will be added in the next year. Apple then assumes that all the money is spent on the initial set of 300 servers(completely ignoring the 200 specified by the article as being ordered and on the way as well as next 5 years of computer spending) and gets silly results. If you were given a $38M budget for the next five years to buy computers, would you spend it all right now? They didn't either.
Here's another article on the new cluster- apparently the initial 300 servers will be dual 3.06 Xeons connected with Myrinet.
I know what a felony is, but you do not appear to. One example of a felony is grand larceny, the definition of which varies from state to state. In New York it occurs when an individual steals property worth in excess of $1000. I doubt that theft of $200000 would not be considered a felony in any state.
Such a conviction would require that the individual's actions are legally proven to be stealing property worth that amount.
I play ATiTD. It has its flaws, but I'm mostly enjoying it. A few very general things about the game:
It is intended to be finite, lasting a year, starting over in a (presumably) modified form afterwards. There are specific goals (Tests) in the game, in different Disciplines- the players will need to have at least one player for each Discipline who's passed all the tests for that Discipline; and do some other things which are as yet not so clear, and as a group can win the game. Or lose it.
So it's set up as a cooperative game in theory... although individuals will often act in their own self-interest much of the time, of course. Some of the tests are of a familiar accumulate lots of stuff and build a big object type; others require large-scale player cooperation, others are purely competitive; there are art design tests, competitive strategy minigames, design of minigames/puzzles in game... lots of variety.
Another point of difference between this and other MMORPGs: communications and guilds. There is no talk to everyone command (like an Everquest/shout) normally available. A player may belong to any number of guilds (which establish a chat channel between members)- and these guilds run the gamut from full community property to being only a chat channel. There are metaguilds formed to discuss regional issues, to discuss experimentation in some area of the game such as brewing or viticulture, to focus on passing a particular Test or set of Tests, to accomplish some particular large-scale undertaking (e.g. the 'Nileside Cafe', building larger pyramids.) Reputation matters even more than in most other games. There are also now a few microphones, which allow one-way communication to everyone who's joined a corresponding channel to hear the messages.
As to PeteyG's experience: if someone shows up and is willing to make bricks and grow flax or do other other tedious tasks all day, there will be some people happy to tell the newbie to do that... but there's nothing stopping you from leaving and finding something more interesting to do. There are no 'levels', within a few days characters can make most things as rapidly as established characters, and it's usually easy to trade for more difficult items.
It's a free download, and the first 24 hours of in-game play are free as a trial account. It's not for everyone, but if the above sounds interesting give it a try. Finally, in addition to windows it's available in Linux... and this is Slashdot.
Nonsense. Apparently you missed all the other quotes on this thread, or didn't believe them. Just in case it'll help, here is the math. Note that Jupiter is not even close to half of the mass required for sustained fusion.
No, you check facts. They're a conventional explosive in a depleted uranium shell; the depleted uranium is used because of its density and facilitates the armor piercing ability of the bomb.
"Shipments of recorded music have dropped by 26% since 1999. The industry has responded with price rises, and so revenues have fallen by "just" 14%.
Alternatively, one could use the same data to conclude:
"The music industry has raised the average price per unit of its recordings by 16% since 1999, but the market has responded by purchasing 26% less units. This has resulted in a net 14% drop of revenue for the industry."
I'm not sure why the blatantly obvious causality of raising prices resulting in fewer units purchased by the market is ignored by the Economist's phrasing. My phrasing puts all of the blame on the price raises, while I expect the truth is that there are other factors... but no one who's taken even an introductory economics course should assume that the amount of a product demanded is independent of the price of the item. This is a particularly bad assumption for a non-necessary good like music recordings.
In science, reproducable means that anyone can do the same experiment and get the same result (within expected error margins.) This is fundamental.
Taking a very difficult measurement(one in which experimental error is common and which the observations are barely above the noise level of the apparatus) and occasionally getting a positive result, and then not running any controls (after the initial media frenzy, several labs found the same minute energy increase was also sometimes observed while using non-deuterated water!) does not qualify as reproducable as the word is commonly used in science. Some of the initial results were even worse than irreproducable- small energy increases were extrapolated for higher concentrations as large energy generation and then presented as if they were experimentally generated as data points. Those results were never produced in the first place, let alone being reproducable!
Koonin, Lewis, and another Caltech prof whose name I'm blanking on tried tens of these experiments, did not find any heat that wasn't accounted for from normal, non-cold-fusion sources- and they published their results in a scentific journal and presented them to scientists. The scientists who kept getting tens of millions to do further research on this still haven't come up with anything particularly interesting- the only reproducable results seem to result from a lattice effect of packing a lot of hydrogen in interstitial sites in metals, which is interesting but is not "cold fusion".
Slashdot Mirror
This is relevant because the Hindenburg would have been the first type, a much less impressive explosion... though not as spectacular as the mixed gas, it does explode.
Ventner's new virus is artificial in the sense that it was created from chemicals- but it is identical to a known natural virus.
Longer running time can reduce revenue per screen, and potentially reduces the number of screens showing the movie as theaters decide to show shorter films after the initial opening popularity wanes.
People generally aren't willing to pay higher ticket prices for longer films, in spite of it making a lot of sense.
This is an urban legend- a frog will try to jump out if it's possible for it to do so as the temperature increases. See snopes entry.
"9) Pilots for major airlines" and "8) West Coast longshoremen" are both claimed to be overpaid because of powerful unions controlling all the labor supply and acting as a monopolist.
"4) Orthodontists" argues that the supply of orthodontists is kept artificially low by "U.S. Dental Schools". I don't necessarily agree with the whole of the argument here, but it's not based on misunderstanding of the funamentals of supply and demand.
"1) Mutual Fund managers" is claiming the whole profession is guilty of fraud, may be an overreaction because of current events, but fraud is certainly a way to be paid more than your fair market value.
Some of the examples cited are bad, but in situations of monopoly, artificial scarcity of supply, or fraud it does happen that people are paid more than their fair market value. (I do agree that most professional athletes are not overpaid... but the article doesn't cite the general case, rather "2) Washed-up pro athletes in long-term contracts", which is more arguable.)
Saddam, the WMDs, Elvis, and possibly even a pink unicorn are all being concealed by the real top innovation of 2003- invisibility!
It's not a large jump to imagine the next generation of router 'redirecting' whenever a user tries to go to a competitor's product site to the analogous Belkin site- or even to redirect requests for democrats.org, rnc.org, aclu.org, nra.org, opensecrets.org, or whatever political sites the manufacturer doesn't like.
The real problem is that they claimed the device was a router. It is designed to not act as a router some of the time, so they're guilty of fraud.
His site says he got a check for $500 and a copy of Visual Studio 6.0.
His statement is true as phrased, but quite deceptive. (Though I'm not going to use the silly phrase 'gun deaths', as guns can't die.) In the U.S. and other first world nations most human deaths involving a firearm are suicides. I don't have statistics handy, but I expect that almost all of these suicides are done with legally obtained guns.
A determined suicidal individual will manage it quite well without a gun- Japan has a higher suicide rate than the U.S. in spite of the fact that suicides using guns are extremely rare. Banning guns will not stop suicide, so bringing up a statistic phrased to include suicides is disingenuous at best.
After all, the only bad publicity is no publicity, right?
It is expected that there will be a Second Telling once we win/lose this one. (basically, a complete reset with unspecified changes in world/tech/mechanics/etc.) Many people seem interested in staying after this reset, but it remains to be seen what effect this will have on the player base.
When the corrosion you're concerned with is oxidation (as in this case), liquid sodium is indeed very non-corrosive- it's not likely to oxidize anything. In fact, any oxidizers which somehow get in are likely to react with the sodium rather than the core.
Take a few science courses and a valium, will you?
The full text of the treaty, along with the above paragraph written by President John Adams, were published in New York and Boston newspapers (copies of which survive to this day).
The United States was not
Here's another article on the new cluster- apparently the initial 300 servers will be dual 3.06 Xeons connected with Myrinet.
...except that 700k in the example was spent producing the album which the record company then owns. They did not do better than a million.
Such a conviction would require that the individual's actions are legally proven to be stealing property worth that amount.
It is intended to be finite, lasting a year, starting over in a (presumably) modified form afterwards. There are specific goals (Tests) in the game, in different Disciplines- the players will need to have at least one player for each Discipline who's passed all the tests for that Discipline; and do some other things which are as yet not so clear, and as a group can win the game. Or lose it.
So it's set up as a cooperative game in theory... although individuals will often act in their own self-interest much of the time, of course. Some of the tests are of a familiar accumulate lots of stuff and build a big object type; others require large-scale player cooperation, others are purely competitive; there are art design tests, competitive strategy minigames, design of minigames/puzzles in game... lots of variety.
Another point of difference between this and other MMORPGs: communications and guilds. There is no talk to everyone command (like an Everquest /shout) normally available. A player may belong to any number of guilds (which establish a chat channel between members)- and these guilds run the gamut from full community property to being only a chat channel. There are metaguilds formed to discuss regional issues, to discuss experimentation in some area of the game such as brewing or viticulture, to focus on passing a particular Test or set of Tests, to accomplish some particular large-scale undertaking (e.g. the 'Nileside Cafe', building larger pyramids.) Reputation matters even more than in most other games. There are also now a few microphones, which allow one-way communication to everyone who's joined a corresponding channel to hear the messages.
As to PeteyG's experience: if someone shows up and is willing to make bricks and grow flax or do other other tedious tasks all day, there will be some people happy to tell the newbie to do that... but there's nothing stopping you from leaving and finding something more interesting to do. There are no 'levels', within a few days characters can make most things as rapidly as established characters, and it's usually easy to trade for more difficult items.
It's a free download, and the first 24 hours of in-game play are free as a trial account. It's not for everyone, but if the above sounds interesting give it a try. Finally, in addition to windows it's available in Linux... and this is Slashdot.
Nonsense. Apparently you missed all the other quotes on this thread, or didn't believe them. Just in case it'll help, here is the math. Note that Jupiter is not even close to half of the mass required for sustained fusion.
The fact that a right is not enumerated in the Constitution does not mean that it doesn't exist.
Calling such bombs nuclear is absolutely false.
Why exactly does that make it a stupid idea for the RIAA? That's exactly what they want people to do. Credit them with a smidgen of subtlety.
"The music industry has raised the average price per unit of its recordings by 16% since 1999, but the market has responded by purchasing 26% less units. This has resulted in a net 14% drop of revenue for the industry."
I'm not sure why the blatantly obvious causality of raising prices resulting in fewer units purchased by the market is ignored by the Economist's phrasing. My phrasing puts all of the blame on the price raises, while I expect the truth is that there are other factors... but no one who's taken even an introductory economics course should assume that the amount of a product demanded is independent of the price of the item. This is a particularly bad assumption for a non-necessary good like music recordings.
I know I do.
Taking a very difficult measurement(one in which experimental error is common and which the observations are barely above the noise level of the apparatus) and occasionally getting a positive result, and then not running any controls (after the initial media frenzy, several labs found the same minute energy increase was also sometimes observed while using non-deuterated water!) does not qualify as reproducable as the word is commonly used in science. Some of the initial results were even worse than irreproducable- small energy increases were extrapolated for higher concentrations as large energy generation and then presented as if they were experimentally generated as data points. Those results were never produced in the first place, let alone being reproducable!
Koonin, Lewis, and another Caltech prof whose name I'm blanking on tried tens of these experiments, did not find any heat that wasn't accounted for from normal, non-cold-fusion sources- and they published their results in a scentific journal and presented them to scientists. The scientists who kept getting tens of millions to do further research on this still haven't come up with anything particularly interesting- the only reproducable results seem to result from a lattice effect of packing a lot of hydrogen in interstitial sites in metals, which is interesting but is not "cold fusion".