Of course he could. He could take advantage of the unclear antecedent "He." God made, Mercury, for a strange example, and Jesus [read "He"] couldn't move it without help.
I'm glad the rotten produce that one deserves will have to be digital.;)
"As Jesse Jackson said, "The point is moot, that means I don't have to answer."
Being compared to Jesse Jackson: that hurts, but I have to admit I deserved it.:) Thanks for calling me on it. I should have said that reasonable people could disagree; I don't think a definite contradiction could be stated to either position; and I'm lazy and don't want to take the effort on an argument I think nothing will come of.
". . . Islamic parents will want to approach this subject carefully. Reporting on it dispassionately after the fact is another matter entirely, though . .."
For the record, note that I said destroying Al Quaeda, not waging war on Islam. I agree that this could be a sensitive issue with some families. However, that is a very restrictive standard. Consider the following scenario: a site on kids.us wants to make videos of presidential addresses available. Does the site need to censor these addresses? President Bush has even labeled countries as evil and said that we will "hunt the terrorists [read Al Quaeda] down". I think it will be a shame if kids.us is that restrictive. Also, do you censor the anti-war protesters as well? Otherwise, you present an amazingly unbalanced view of the world.
"If we ever do liberate Afghanistan . . . " Well, technically, we did liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban. Though the expression "out of the frying pan and into the fire" does come to mind, doesn't it? I (grossly) oversimplified the matter. I have not paid sufficient attention the news lately (I've been busy with college classes), but the impression I get is that the situation in Afghanistan is still bad, but that it is much better than under Taliban rule. I welcome any references to trustworthy comparisons of life in Afghanistan before and after US intervention (the recent intervention, not the US vs. Soviet one). An unfortunate lesson from the Cold War is that democracy cannot be imposed; I believe a good faith effort was made to organize elections. However, I am not so naive to think that we didn't try and influence who got power. In my opinion, the question of whether Afghanistan was "liberated" comes down to whether Afghanis are freer than they were under the Taliban. Also, is there a clear venue for improvement of the situation? I don't have informed answers to these questions. I welcome information.
"Quakers have computers too, you know, and it'd be nice if they could visit kids.us. I like Quakers, they are the toughest people on earth."
I don't know any personally, but I also admire the concept of pacifism. I don't subscribe to it, but I respect the person for adhering to the belief. However, Quakers are not prohibited from reading about violence, are they? They could still use the site. The standard of "it will offend someone" is impossible to adhere to. The idea of eating a cow is offensive to Hindus. Would McDonalds be banned from advertising hamburgers? Would sites showing pictures of women without a burqa be allowed? Granted, violence could be censored without reference to whether something was hate speech or offensive, but that would imply censoring the history of wars. Also, what about a site that promoted the Britain's stand against Hitler in World War II? It might advocate war, but would "reporting on it disspassionately" really somehow be safer for kids?
"Agreed! But not on kids.us. [Refering to my statement "discussion of whether Al Qaida or Irag pose a sufficient threat to be eliminated by force is reasonable"] Maybe on teens.us but even there it'd be something I'd hate to have to moderate.
I'd hate to see it moderated. I don't see it as a threat to kids. However, I'm not a parent, and I could see how it could be a concern. Still, I have to ask: How do you handle the anti-war site? Do you censor that, too?
"I have never seen those terms [multiculturalism and political correctness] used in any context . . . appropriate for children . .." I don't think I have seen those terms used in an appropriate context--period.:) However, I just had a thought: the standard shouldn't be whether it's appropriate for kids, but whether it's safe for kids. Let me clarify with an example: an organic chemistry text-book is not appropriate for kids, but if someone wants to post it - let them. That way, if a school computer is set to only allow access to kids.us, and a teacher wants to look up some information, they probably still can get it.
The first time my son surfed my spouse walked out of the room for a couple minutes, leaving him on a flash game, and when she came back he was on some other site entirely with a full shopping cart. He was stuck at the payment screen and very upset.
That's cute. Aren't you glad you didn't have one-click-shopping, though?
A lot of these deals are loss leaders. The retailer is losing money on each item sold. However, they are hoping that customers will do their Christmas shopping on other things while in the store (or on the website). From experience they know this is true for the audience they reach, but it is probably not true for the average reader of the deal websites. Also, the readers of the deal website may buy up all your loss leader, annoying your regular customers. It is a rational business decision for the retailers.
That said, this is ridiculous. There needs to be a stiff penalty to threatening legal action when no basis for a lawsuit exists (maybe triple what the damages would have been had there been a case, like for racketeering).
I for one, am willing to have a little bit of product placement in my video games to defray the cost. It's better than pop-up ads. Anyway, of course eating McDonalds is going to increase your stats. Anything that bad for you has to taste good, right?
The input area looks like it is about the same size as one side of the Graffiti input area on my Handspring, which is plenty (assuming you take the time to get used to Graffiti).
The area I would most like to see improved is the screen size. And I have an idea for it: electronic ink (http://www.eink.com/) on a reel, like a very small measuring tape. (Or electronic paper: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1292852.stm). I don't think the displays are flexible enough yet, but being able to view a full line of text at once off your watch would be neat.
Okay, let's look at the large library example. There are certainly risks associated with letting kids roam a large library. Moreover, the risks of them finding something horrid is much greater on the net.
However, many libraries have childrens sections. Is it reasonable to allow children (for argument's sake, let's say of around age 7) to browse these sections unsupervised? I think so.
Is the creation of a children's section in a publicly funded library unconstitutional censorship? If so, whose free speech rights are being violated? Free speech means the right to express your ideas, not the right to be heard.
Why wouldn't this kids.us portion of the web be analogous to a children's section in a public library? Opt-in on the part of both those "speaking" and those "hearing." Most importantly, opt-in on the part of those "hearing."
It doesn't look (to me) like it would be a slippery slope, either. I suppose there is the chance that some libraries might only supply access to the kids.us portion of the net, but I doubt it. If that happens, fight that. I understand the distrust of the government, but this is a low-cost program that might make some parents lives easier and some children a bit safer. If you're a strict constructionist, you could fight it because it is not an explicitly granted power to the federal government. However, if you are a strict constructionist, you have bigger worries.:)
I agree with your statement that commentary on the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor should (and most likely would) not be considered "hate speech" unless it "was structured to incite hatred of the Japanese or some other currently existing group." However, in determining whether something was so structured lies the difficulty.
Concerning the Israel/PLO situation: I question which side would dominate the sites if allowed, but that question is moot. More important is the concept of requiring a "balance" that you admit could not "really be achieved." This is an impossibly strict standard. If Encyclopedia Britannica publishes something ont he kids.us domain, must they lie and put "terra incognita"? Because any border line will be decried as "unbalanced." Somewhat off-topic, but I feel like a rant: I am tired of claims of hate speech choking legitimate debate. For example, our school newspaper refused to run David Horowitz's ad "10 Reasons Why Reparations For Slavery Is a Bad Idea - And Racist Too" (for reference: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.a sp?ID=1153) for fear of the reaction of the student body. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, read the ad and you will see that it is not racist vitriol, but his considered opinion on the subject. I attend a university in California, and claims that speech is "offensive" are used routinely used to justify silencing a dissenting opinion. I was hoping for a reasonably open exchange of ideas, but instead everyone walks on eggshells for fear of offending someone or being unofficially blacklisted out of a major, and stacks of papers are stolen off stands with the justification that they were offensive.
Concerning what would constitute hate speech against Al Quadeda (spelling?): would advocating destroying the organization in defense of the nation constitute "advocat[ing] hate towards them"? What about the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban? Was promoting war in Afghanistan "hate speech"? I hate neither Al Qaida nor Iraq, but discussion of whether they pose a sufficient threat to be eliminated by force is reasonable.
I agree with you that people who ask "Why shield kids from any speech, even if it is vile, racist garbage?" probably don't have kids. I hope they don't keep that attitude if they get kids.
I disagree that terms like "political correctness" and "multiculturalism" should probably be banned. Why?!? No kid is going to be scarred by those two fluff words. Let's not start banning our own pet peeves.:) (A ban on those terms in my college classes would be interesting. We've gone to CE for common era instead of AD and to "complex societies" instead of "civilization." What silly changes. Daydream over: I do not actually advocate any ban of that sort.)
I agree that parents should wait until kids are old enough to introduce the concept that someone might hate you because of the color of you skin. Kids are smart, but they don't need that kind of baggage until they are well prepared to handle it.
Sidenote: is your six-year old really Protestant? (WASP - White AngloSaxon Protestant). (Not criticizing, just publicizing the derivation of the term. You can of course use the term as people usually mean it - privileged Caucasian.)
I agree, an opt-in system is a good compromise. There are potentials for abuses, but the consequences of these abuses are minimized.
Wow - surfing at two? I guess I might have played a Sesame Street game on the Commodore 64 at around that age, but wow. Wanting to be like Dad, I suppose.
From all indications in his post, he is handling his responsibility as a parent. He doesn't "let [his] kids on the internet unless [he's] sitting in the same room." That shows a lot of concern for the welfare of his kids.
And he's right. It does suck. Both for the parents and the kids. Why shouldn't kids (presumably elementary school kids) be able to surf the web while their parents are busy making dinner. It would probably be better for them than passively watching TV. Online references like online dictionaries and online encyclopedias are gradually replacing the printed versions. The freedom for kids to look up answers to their questions on their own is valuable.
Give the poster the benefit of the doubt. He would probably investigate for himself the type of content on the restricted portion of the web. However, limiting internet access to those sites would significantly reduce the chance of the kids stumbling across something they shouldn't.
It would probably be overly restrictive, but the parents could supervise their kids on the whole internet some of the time.
Stop being an irrational, judgemental troll, and allow for the fact that reasonable people can disagree -- specifically with you .
A temporary tatoo of a 2D barcode? What a great idea for temporary storage. As long as you don't mind looking weird and don't plan on washing your hands/arms/[wherever you plan on putting it] before you use it.:)
Then again, I suppose there is no tecnical reason you couldn't implant memory storage that communicated via 802.11 or another wireless solution. You could power it by inductance in the same way that battery powered toothbrushes are charged.
Somehow, though I think people will stick with external storage.
Seriously, though, I agree that the current storage solutions for data need better carrying cases. I expect to see more products that are both wallets and flash card holders.
Actually, a little secure slot for memory cards in the tongue of a tennis shoe would be good for school students. After all, how often have you lost your shoes in the past few years?
You're right about the 1000 factor being used instead of 1024 by many manufacturers of flash memory, hard drives, etc. However, the parent did acccidentally say bit instead of byte.
There are a few unfortunate confusing matters about memory sizes. One is the "gig/meg/kilo" number thing. Another is the use of megabit for modems, ethernet, etc. and megabyte for hard drive storage. Adding to this the fact that the abbreviations differ only by capitalization is also not helpful. Oh well, another silly legacy term. Better than the Calorie/calorie problem.
Your post was very interesting, and it sounds like you've had more experience than most with a good DRM system.
I was wondering what keeps you from emulating a system that could play the original. (What keeps you from lying to the software about the identity of the parts on your computer.) If Windows can be run in Linux as a window using programs like Win4Lin, why couldn't you run Windows under Linux with fake identifiers given to the Windows install?
I imagine I am grossly oversimplifying what it would require, but I am curious about whether an implementation of this approach could beat the system.
"Corrections" of things that are not wrong are one of my pet peeves. The poster you claim is mistaken is not. You correctly note that the MyFi feature is essentially "a normal FM broadcast [low-power, of course] broadcast."
However, that's consistent with what he said. Note that he said "only as an analogue [spelling? - analog?] FM broadcast" not "only other Neuros can tune into." The previous poster is noting the limitation on the desired ability to transfer songs between units. As mentioned in the site
You can also transmit songs from your Neuros to your friend's using MyFi. Find an open frequency and tell your friend to tune their's to the same. When you press play, the music on your Neuros will play through your friend's. If they like what they hear, they can use Neuros' integrated recording feature to capture a sample and identify it using the HiSi feature.
The text on the site that was more confusing was probably, "You can beam music to another Neuros tuned to the same frequency. This and lots more Neuros features here."
I don't mean to be harsh about it, but don't claim people are wrong unless you are sure they are. It's rude.
Also note that while they are plugging the 30-second sample capability, they claim you can record songs from the radio, and not just clips. The emphasis on clips is probably to avoid the wrath of the RIAA.
Similar in functionality, but the key here is that they claim they can do it for an arbitrary 30 second clip from radio or an unlabeled MP3 rather than a static arrangement of data on a CD.
This sounds much harder, but also more useful. I'd be very (pleasantly) surprised if it works well for anything other than Billboard hits and very popular oldies. Still, it could be nice.
Just for the record, the player can also record longer clips by pressing the record button twice.
Also, someone said something earlier about not knowing how long the wireless transfer would take. Well, from the site it seemed that it was transfer via FM radio at the speed you'd normally play it at. So, neat for wireless playing on a car audio system or the boombox at home/work, but not a major file-transfer tool. (You could still broadcast to another unit and record the FM broadcast on the other unit.)
The site said recording was to MP3, but didn't specify bit-rate. Anyone know? Other MP3 players that recorded have done so in such low rates that they would only be useful for recording speech.
Also, they have a survey about what other audio formats you'd like to see supported. It wouldn't hurt for all you Ogg Vorbis devotees to go skew the results of the poll.;)
Ugh. A denotative distinction based upon the capitalization of a term. Ugly. The distinction between calorie (1 g water 1 degree Celsius) and Calorie (food calorie, which equals 1000 calories) is bad enough, and in that case the context often makes the distinction clear.
First of all, how do you differentiate between Internet and internet when the terms when they begin a sentence?
More importantly, how would the distinction be conveyed in speech.
I haven't looked up the etymology to evaluate whether "people for whom this distinction proved too subtle invented the equivalent term 'intranet'", but I certainly view the coining of the word intranet as a clever and useful addition to English.
The term intranet seems only to allow clearer communication. Is there a downside to the use of the term "intranet" that I am missing?
It now takes 25% fewer hogsheads of fuel to raise a slug of cargo. However, the rods per acrefoot of fuel must go up significantly to make a Mars mission affordable.
Also, there are cases in which only an e-mail will have the desired functionality.
Consider the following scenario: you are sending an e-mail with an attachment to a salesperson for your company. They leave their laptop connected to their docking station until they are ready to go, and Outlook auto-checks for new mail every five minutes. They get your e-mail, along with 50 others right as they are heading for a plane. They don't read the e-mails, assuming they can read them on the plane. If the 7 meg powerpoint file with vital revisions is attached, they have it to go over on the plane. If you linked to an ftp site, perhaps they can attempt to download it using those phones on the airplane.
Large e-mail attachments occasionally have usefulness besides being easier for Luddites to use. Occasionally, they are the appropriate tool for the job. Review the e-mails with large attachments being sent. Educate users that send large e-mails when inappropriate. For your job's sake, double the e-mail size limits for your boss on up.
Aww, come on. Dirichlet drawer principle sounds so much more intimidating.:)
Seriously, though. What are you using as pigeons, users (currently connected)? And the 10 license seats as pigeon holes? I don't see where you are going with this approach.
It seems like the probability of k successes in n independent Bernoulli trials would be more appropriate.
I freely admit that I don't have any experience with servers, Exchange or otherwise. However, on the SuSE website it says concurrent users logged in . If there is persistence of "logged-in"edness (excuse the word coining), then the question of probable peak number of users connected to the server at once is moot.
It's an interesting question, though, regardless of applicability. If you are right about the time it takes to reconnect and the update frequency, then I am pretty sure I agree with you that 10 concurrent users connected is plenty for 100 users. However, we might as well do the math:
Given 100 users, each polling every two minutes, with each poll taking 1 second to update, how rare is having 11 or more connected at once?
Okay, well, there are 120 seconds in two minutes. To calculate the probability that more than eleven users are connected at once, you have to sum the probability of having 11 users connected, 12 users connected, 13, etc. Or, sum from 0 to 10. Feel free to do the former, but I'm going to sum from 0 to 10.
The probability of k users logged on out of n is C(n,k)*(p^k)*(q^(n-k)). In this case, p is equal to 1/120 and q is equal to 119/120. 0.4330833969 for 0 users. 0.3639356276 for (exactly) 1 user logged on. 0.151384988 for (exactly) 2 users logged on. 0.0415566634 for (exactly) 3 users logged on. 0.0084684797 for (exactly) 4 users logged on. 0.0013663429 for (exactly) 5 users logged on. 1.817963304e-4 for (exactly) 6 users logged on. 2.0514832e-5 for (exactly) 7 users logged on. 2.004074975e-6 for (exactly) 8 users logged on. 1.721520987e-7 for (exactly) 9 users logged on. 1.316457225e-8 for (exactly) 10 users logged on.
1 - (sum of above)= 9.4596*10^-10 or 9.4596*10^-8%= probability of more than 10 users being connected to the server per second.
Thus, after 17 years, a little over half the time you will have had more than 10 users connected. (That wasn't as clear as I'd like. What I meant to say is that for each 34 years you will violate the concurrent connection policy an average of 1 time). That is making the assumption that all 100 computers are continuously on and polling the server at a rate of once per two minutes, regardless of it being day or night.
Okay, well, having run through the numbers, I have to agree with you, assuming you are right about the technical details.
However, there was no need to be so harsh to the previous poster. The original poster could have been referring to being "logged in" rather than actively transmitting/receiving data from the server.
I have thought about getting something very much like that called the Seiko InkLink. Here is the link:
http://www.seikosmart.com/
Instead of a clipboard, it is just a clip. You have to use a special pen, but you can use normal paper. It has IR for a connection to a PDA, and also a USB cable. Anyone have any expericence with it? (It's $100 US.)
Most current population predictions have the world's population levelling out at 10 billion.
Oil can be thought of as starting capital. We can either use it to expand our economy now, or we can use it more gradually over a few centuries. Either way, when we are done we end up with roughly the same amount of extra carbon dioxide in the air.
Or, I suppose, we could leave the oil in the ground to keep carbon dioxide levels low. However, I don't think that is even really under consideration.
The question, then, is whether we are better off expanding the world's economy by using the oil now, or whether we should ration it. If world population growth is a major concern, it may make sense to use it now. The average number of children per woman has gone down quickly as states industrialize and per capita income rises above a few thousand dollars US. Also, controls of toxic waste are usually much better in countries that are rich enough to be able to afford them.
Research should undoubtedly go towards renewable energy. However, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the progress in the field is due to application of research from other fields.
Good point. I hadn't thought about that. Just the slashdot visitors curious about the site will be significant. Also, all the links from the news websites would increase the rank, as well. I wonder if the guy is that clever, or if he just got lucky.
You could set the laptop up to turn off the wireless card when not in use. They only know where you are if you use their network. And it shouldn't be too hard to block pop-ups on you own laptop/handheld that weren't associated with a webpage request on you end.
However, while this won't add much to the most secure systems, it would allow companies to reduce the hassle associated with maintaining a reasonably secure wireless system. For example, a company like Starbucks might want to offer internet access to customers inside the store, but keep people from using it in the unaffiliated bookstore next door. Or, a company might want to offer internet access to visiting consultants, customers, etc. without dealing with setting up each device. (Full disclosure: I have never used a wireless LAN, so I don't know how much trouble it is to connect to one that is properly secured. I would imagine it could become at least an annoyance.) If a company was willing to assume that the building was secure, they could allow access from any point withing the building. If you were paranoid, you could limit this to business hours.
The designer was a Democrat, but had worked many years as an election official, so it wasn't really that she was incompetent. She just screwed up once. The point is, there was no intent to "defraud" voters.
As to why Federal elections are run by local officials - well, there are are benefits as well as downsides.
It prevents the accumulation of power. If the federal government was trying to hold onto power, it could rig the election. With local control, that would be harder to do. (Fraud and influencing the election are probably easier, but a large-scale disregard for the will of the people would be harder.) Also, local officials are already running local elections for various offices, so it's more efficient to do both at once. Of course, the federal government could run all the local elections, but once again that concentrates power.
"Why don't you have a federal election aparatus that can distribute identical Presidential ballots to every American?"
Well, those ballots might not be consistent in layout with local ballots, so they might be confusing. Moreover, while Federal ballots would probably be scrutinized more closely, if there were a mistake, it would affect the whole nation. As it stands, there are probably more mistakes, but they are all small and roughly randomly distributed. Even a very large error rate with a very large number small, randomly distributed errors is unlikely to affect the outcome by much. I'm sorry, that wasn't very clear. Here's an example of what I mean. Imagine that you average 50 numbers, all of which should be 100. Now, flip a coin. If it's heads, add 20 to the first number. If it's tails, subtract 20. Do the same for the second number, the third, etc. Now, find the average of the numbers. Now, let's centralize the system. Flip the coin once. If it's heads, add five to each of the numbers. Otherwise, subtract five. What's the average?
Which has the most difference from the average of 100 you should get? I'd bet it would be the add or subtract five from all the numbers.
"Why are those local officials chosen based on their party loyalty, not their objectivity, and their knowledge of voting technology?" That's a good question. Ideally, they would be. Then again, who gets to evaluate their objectivity?
I believe you are correct in saying that both Republican and Democratic appointees signed off on the defective ballots.
To understand the American system, you have to understand that there is a tradition of being paranoid about the centralization of power. You have to remember that our nation started out as a union of sovereign states, like the European Union. Out of necessity, state sovereignty was gradually given up. How ready are the states that comprise the European Union to relinquish power to the central body? (That's not really a fair comparison. I think the EU is currently run with one vote per state and a rotating president, so there is less representation per person in larger countries.)
My goodness, give the guy a break. People switching away from Windows to Linux is a good thing. It increases the market for programs that run in Linux; it erodes the position of Word documents as the unfortunate de facto standard in text documents; and it makes driver development by hardware vendors for Linux more attractive.
Getting defensive and attacking people when they give constructive criticism on how to make Linux easier to adopt is counter-productive.
Anyway, the guy has a valid point. Open-source software can be much more difficult to figure out how to configure, and this is a barrier to its adoption by people who just want to get something accomplished. For example, I love e-macs. I love the implementation of the incremental search function. The default keyboard shortcuts make sense and are comfortable to use. It formats code in C very well. However, it takes a lot of work to learn. Also, configuration is difficult for newbies. Configuration files are intimidating. A good dissection of a sample configuration (or multiple configuration files) on the official website for each program would make editing configuration files much easier.
I also happened to have a problem trying to get my soundcard working when I first switched to Linux. Granted, it was an old ISA SoundBlaster AWE 32, so I couldn't really expect it to auto-detect. However, when I tried to find out whether I could get it working online, all I could find out is that if I recompiled my kernel with ALSA, I think, it MIGHT work. With Windows, there are a limited number of things to try and it either works or it doesn't.
Also, there are many places to get Windows advice; which is easier to provide because it is more standardized.
If you are going to do the same thing over and over, it makes sense to learn it on Linux. If you only want to do something once or twice, right now it's easier on Windows.
If you are talking about the distance to geosynchronous orbit, it's 36,000 kilometers, not miles.
Also, "1000 mph of lateral accelleration"? Wrong units for accelleration and I am not sure where this figure comes from, but I certainly now agree (after doing the calculations that I thought would prove you wrong) with the point of your post: there would be "whipping" of the ribbon as it fell.
Some back of the envelope calculations: At the moment of breakage, each segment of the cable will be motionless compared to the atmosphere around it. In order to conserve angular momentum, the higher pieces will undergo angular acceleration to counter the decrease in angular momentum associated with a decreased moment of angular inertia about the center of the Earth. Angular momentum is the product of the rotational inertia and the angular velocity. Rotational inertia is SUM(MiRi^2). (Sorry about the poor notation.) Let's assume the designers are smart enough to have a fail-safe that disconnects the ribbon near the geosynchronous orbit level in the event of breakage (lower would make sense, though, as some portion of the cord could be held up by the platform at the far end of the cable). This puts the cable length at ~36,000 kilometers (~22,000 miles). Thus, the end of the cable is currently moving at one rotation per day at ~42,000 kilometers above the center of Earth. (36,000 km + ~6,000 km for the radius of Earth.)
To calculate the starting rotational inertia, the integral of mr^2 needs to be taken from the surface of Earth the breakage point (let's use the worst-case scenario given good planning of right at geo-synchronous orbit). Assuming the linear density is constant with distance from the Earth (not true, but it makes the calculation possible without more detail than is available), the rotational inertia is the linear mass density of the ribbon times ((42,000km)^3)/3 - ((6,000km)^3)/3 or (the linear mass density times 2.462*10^13 km^3). The final rotational inertia (when the whole thing is at rest) is much easier to calculate. It is the total mass times (6,000 km)^2 or total mass times 3.6 * 10^7 km^2 times the mass. To compare the two figures, the first should be changed to units of total mass of the ribbon. This can be done by dividing the result by the length of the ribbon, giving an initial inertia of 6.8 * 10^8 km^2 times the mass of the ribbon. The ratio of these two inertias is approximately 19. Thus, neglecting air friction, and assuming the whole ribbon hits the ground at once (without being held back by the connection Earthside), the ribbon would be going at a linear velocity 19 times that of the surface of the Earth. This is approximately 19 * 1,600 km / hour or 31,000 km / hour.
Obviously, neglecting air friction and neglecting the slowing of the ribbon due to the Earthside connection is inappropriate, but the calculations show that there would be considerable "whipping." (I started this post to disagree with zenofjazz about the whipping, but now see how wrong I was.) However, Due to the surface area, I would think that the majority of the ribbon would burn up in the atmosphere, regardless of how many pieces it broke into. I would imagine that all of the ribbon more than a few miles up would disintegrate due to the horizontal acceleration relative to the atmosphere. I don't have any figures to back this up, though.
An interesting side-note: What would be the behavior of the carbon nanotube ribbons be upon exceeding the tensile strength? Would they shatter? If so, this improves the chance of them burning up and increases the friction, thus further reducing the final air speed.
Sorry about the some-what incoherent post. It's late.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course he could. He could take advantage of the unclear antecedent "He." God made, Mercury, for a strange example, and Jesus [read "He"] couldn't move it without help.
;)
I'm glad the rotten produce that one deserves will have to be digital.
"As Jesse Jackson said, "The point is moot, that means I don't have to answer."
:) Thanks for calling me on it. I should have said that reasonable people could disagree; I don't think a definite contradiction could be stated to either position; and I'm lazy and don't want to take the effort on an argument I think nothing will come of.
."
." :)
Being compared to Jesse Jackson: that hurts, but I have to admit I deserved it.
". . . Islamic parents will want to approach this subject carefully. Reporting on it dispassionately after the fact is another matter entirely, though . .
For the record, note that I said destroying Al Quaeda, not waging war on Islam. I agree that this could be a sensitive issue with some families. However, that is a very restrictive standard. Consider the following scenario: a site on kids.us wants to make videos of presidential addresses available. Does the site need to censor these addresses? President Bush has even labeled countries as evil and said that we will "hunt the terrorists [read Al Quaeda] down". I think it will be a shame if kids.us is that restrictive. Also, do you censor the anti-war protesters as well? Otherwise, you present an amazingly unbalanced view of the world.
"If we ever do liberate Afghanistan . . . "
Well, technically, we did liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban. Though the expression "out of the frying pan and into the fire" does come to mind, doesn't it? I (grossly) oversimplified the matter. I have not paid sufficient attention the news lately (I've been busy with college classes), but the impression I get is that the situation in Afghanistan is still bad, but that it is much better than under Taliban rule. I welcome any references to trustworthy comparisons of life in Afghanistan before and after US intervention (the recent intervention, not the US vs. Soviet one). An unfortunate lesson from the Cold War is that democracy cannot be imposed; I believe a good faith effort was made to organize elections. However, I am not so naive to think that we didn't try and influence who got power. In my opinion, the question of whether Afghanistan was "liberated" comes down to whether Afghanis are freer than they were under the Taliban. Also, is there a clear venue for improvement of the situation? I don't have informed answers to these questions. I welcome information.
"Quakers have computers too, you know, and it'd be nice if they could visit kids.us. I like Quakers, they are the toughest people on earth."
I don't know any personally, but I also admire the concept of pacifism. I don't subscribe to it, but I respect the person for adhering to the belief. However, Quakers are not prohibited from reading about violence, are they? They could still use the site. The standard of "it will offend someone" is impossible to adhere to. The idea of eating a cow is offensive to Hindus. Would McDonalds be banned from advertising hamburgers? Would sites showing pictures of women without a burqa be allowed? Granted, violence could be censored without reference to whether something was hate speech or offensive, but that would imply censoring the history of wars. Also, what about a site that promoted the Britain's stand against Hitler in World War II? It might advocate war, but would "reporting on it disspassionately" really somehow be safer for kids?
"Agreed! But not on kids.us. [Refering to my statement "discussion of whether Al Qaida or Irag pose a sufficient threat to be eliminated by force is reasonable"] Maybe on teens.us but even there it'd be something I'd hate to have to moderate.
I'd hate to see it moderated. I don't see it as a threat to kids. However, I'm not a parent, and I could see how it could be a concern. Still, I have to ask: How do you handle the anti-war site? Do you censor that, too?
"I have never seen those terms [multiculturalism and political correctness] used in any context . . . appropriate for children . .
I don't think I have seen those terms used in an appropriate context--period.
However, I just had a thought: the standard shouldn't be whether it's appropriate for kids, but whether it's safe for kids. Let me clarify with an example: an organic chemistry text-book is not appropriate for kids, but if someone wants to post it - let them. That way, if a school computer is set to only allow access to kids.us, and a teacher wants to look up some information, they probably still can get it.
The first time my son surfed my spouse walked out of the room for a couple minutes, leaving him on a flash game, and when she came back he was on some other site entirely with a full shopping cart. He was stuck at the payment screen and very upset.
That's cute. Aren't you glad you didn't have one-click-shopping, though?
A lot of these deals are loss leaders. The retailer is losing money on each item sold. However, they are hoping that customers will do their Christmas shopping on other things while in the store (or on the website). From experience they know this is true for the audience they reach, but it is probably not true for the average reader of the deal websites. Also, the readers of the deal website may buy up all your loss leader, annoying your regular customers. It is a rational business decision for the retailers.
That said, this is ridiculous. There needs to be a stiff penalty to threatening legal action when no basis for a lawsuit exists (maybe triple what the damages would have been had there been a case, like for racketeering).
I for one, am willing to have a little bit of product placement in my video games to defray the cost. It's better than pop-up ads. Anyway, of course eating McDonalds is going to increase your stats. Anything that bad for you has to taste good, right?
The input area looks like it is about the same size as one side of the Graffiti input area on my Handspring, which is plenty (assuming you take the time to get used to Graffiti).
The area I would most like to see improved is the screen size. And I have an idea for it: electronic ink (http://www.eink.com/) on a reel, like a very small measuring tape. (Or electronic paper: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1292852.stm). I don't think the displays are flexible enough yet, but being able to view a full line of text at once off your watch would be neat.
Okay, let's look at the large library example. There are certainly risks associated with letting kids roam a large library. Moreover, the risks of them finding something horrid is much greater on the net.
:)
However, many libraries have childrens sections. Is it reasonable to allow children (for argument's sake, let's say of around age 7) to browse these sections unsupervised? I think so.
Is the creation of a children's section in a publicly funded library unconstitutional censorship?
If so, whose free speech rights are being violated? Free speech means the right to express your ideas, not the right to be heard.
Why wouldn't this kids.us portion of the web be analogous to a children's section in a public library? Opt-in on the part of both those "speaking" and those "hearing." Most importantly, opt-in on the part of those "hearing."
It doesn't look (to me) like it would be a slippery slope, either. I suppose there is the chance that some libraries might only supply access to the kids.us portion of the net, but I doubt it. If that happens, fight that. I understand the distrust of the government, but this is a low-cost program that might make some parents lives easier and some children a bit safer. If you're a strict constructionist, you could fight it because it is not an explicitly granted power to the federal government. However, if you are a strict constructionist, you have bigger worries.
I agree with your statement that commentary on the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor should (and most likely would) not be considered "hate speech" unless it "was structured to incite hatred of the Japanese or some other currently existing group." However, in determining whether something was so structured lies the difficulty.
a sp?ID=1153) for fear of the reaction of the student body. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, read the ad and you will see that it is not racist vitriol, but his considered opinion on the subject. I attend a university in California, and claims that speech is "offensive" are used routinely used to justify silencing a dissenting opinion. I was hoping for a reasonably open exchange of ideas, but instead everyone walks on eggshells for fear of offending someone or being unofficially blacklisted out of a major, and stacks of papers are stolen off stands with the justification that they were offensive.
:) (A ban on those terms in my college classes would be interesting. We've gone to CE for common era instead of AD and to "complex societies" instead of "civilization." What silly changes. Daydream over: I do not actually advocate any ban of that sort.)
Concerning the Israel/PLO situation: I question which side would dominate the sites if allowed, but that question is moot. More important is the concept of requiring a "balance" that you admit could not "really be achieved." This is an impossibly strict standard. If Encyclopedia Britannica publishes something ont he kids.us domain, must they lie and put "terra incognita"? Because any border line will be decried as "unbalanced."
Somewhat off-topic, but I feel like a rant:
I am tired of claims of hate speech choking legitimate debate. For example, our school newspaper refused to run David Horowitz's ad "10 Reasons Why Reparations For Slavery Is a Bad Idea - And Racist Too" (for reference: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.
Concerning what would constitute hate speech against Al Quadeda (spelling?): would advocating destroying the organization in defense of the nation constitute "advocat[ing] hate towards them"? What about the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban? Was promoting war in Afghanistan "hate speech"? I hate neither Al Qaida nor Iraq, but discussion of whether they pose a sufficient threat to be eliminated by force is reasonable.
I agree with you that people who ask "Why shield kids from any speech, even if it is vile, racist garbage?" probably don't have kids. I hope they don't keep that attitude if they get kids.
I disagree that terms like "political correctness" and "multiculturalism" should probably be banned. Why?!? No kid is going to be scarred by those two fluff words. Let's not start banning our own pet peeves.
I agree that parents should wait until kids are old enough to introduce the concept that someone might hate you because of the color of you skin. Kids are smart, but they don't need that kind of baggage until they are well prepared to handle it.
Sidenote: is your six-year old really Protestant? (WASP - White AngloSaxon Protestant). (Not criticizing, just publicizing the derivation of the term. You can of course use the term as people usually mean it - privileged Caucasian.)
I agree, an opt-in system is a good compromise. There are potentials for abuses, but the consequences of these abuses are minimized.
Wow - surfing at two? I guess I might have played a Sesame Street game on the Commodore 64 at around that age, but wow. Wanting to be like Dad, I suppose.
From all indications in his post, he is handling his responsibility as a parent. He doesn't "let [his] kids on the internet unless [he's] sitting in the same room." That shows a lot of concern for the welfare of his kids.
And he's right. It does suck. Both for the parents and the kids. Why shouldn't kids (presumably elementary school kids) be able to surf the web while their parents are busy making dinner. It would probably be better for them than passively watching TV. Online references like online dictionaries and online encyclopedias are gradually replacing the printed versions. The freedom for kids to look up answers to their questions on their own is valuable.
Give the poster the benefit of the doubt. He would probably investigate for himself the type of content on the restricted portion of the web. However, limiting internet access to those sites would significantly reduce the chance of the kids stumbling across something they shouldn't.
It would probably be overly restrictive, but the parents could supervise their kids on the whole internet some of the time.
Stop being an irrational, judgemental troll, and allow for the fact that reasonable people can disagree -- specifically with you .
Why not?
:)
A temporary tatoo of a 2D barcode? What a great idea for temporary storage. As long as you don't mind looking weird and don't plan on washing your hands/arms/[wherever you plan on putting it] before you use it.
Then again, I suppose there is no tecnical reason you couldn't implant memory storage that communicated via 802.11 or another wireless solution. You could power it by inductance in the same way that battery powered toothbrushes are charged.
Somehow, though I think people will stick with external storage.
Seriously, though, I agree that the current storage solutions for data need better carrying cases. I expect to see more products that are both wallets and flash card holders.
Actually, a little secure slot for memory cards in the tongue of a tennis shoe would be good for school students. After all, how often have you lost your shoes in the past few years?
You're right about the 1000 factor being used instead of 1024 by many manufacturers of flash memory, hard drives, etc. However, the parent did acccidentally say bit instead of byte.
There are a few unfortunate confusing matters about memory sizes. One is the "gig/meg/kilo" number thing. Another is the use of megabit for modems, ethernet, etc. and megabyte for hard drive storage. Adding to this the fact that the abbreviations differ only by capitalization is also not helpful. Oh well, another silly legacy term. Better than the Calorie/calorie problem.
Your post was very interesting, and it sounds like you've had more experience than most with a good DRM system.
I was wondering what keeps you from emulating a system that could play the original. (What keeps you from lying to the software about the identity of the parts on your computer.) If Windows can be run in Linux as a window using programs like Win4Lin, why couldn't you run Windows under Linux with fake identifiers given to the Windows install?
I imagine I am grossly oversimplifying what it would require, but I am curious about whether an implementation of this approach could beat the system.
Any thoughts/corrections about the above?
Rereading my post, I realized I overreacted. Sorry, semaj.
However, that's consistent with what he said. Note that he said "only as an analogue [spelling? - analog?] FM broadcast" not "only other Neuros can tune into." The previous poster is noting the limitation on the desired ability to transfer songs between units. As mentioned in the siteThe text on the site that was more confusing was probably, "You can beam music to another Neuros tuned to the same frequency. This and lots more Neuros features here."
I don't mean to be harsh about it, but don't claim people are wrong unless you are sure they are. It's rude.
Also note that while they are plugging the 30-second sample capability, they claim you can record songs from the radio, and not just clips. The emphasis on clips is probably to avoid the wrath of the RIAA.
Similar in functionality, but the key here is that they claim they can do it for an arbitrary 30 second clip from radio or an unlabeled MP3 rather than a static arrangement of data on a CD.
;)
This sounds much harder, but also more useful. I'd be very (pleasantly) surprised if it works well for anything other than Billboard hits and very popular oldies. Still, it could be nice.
Just for the record, the player can also record longer clips by pressing the record button twice.
Also, someone said something earlier about not knowing how long the wireless transfer would take. Well, from the site it seemed that it was transfer via FM radio at the speed you'd normally play it at. So, neat for wireless playing on a car audio system or the boombox at home/work, but not a major file-transfer tool. (You could still broadcast to another unit and record the FM broadcast on the other unit.)
The site said recording was to MP3, but didn't specify bit-rate. Anyone know? Other MP3 players that recorded have done so in such low rates that they would only be useful for recording speech.
Also, they have a survey about what other audio formats you'd like to see supported. It wouldn't hurt for all you Ogg Vorbis devotees to go skew the results of the poll.
Ugh. A denotative distinction based upon the capitalization of a term. Ugly. The distinction between calorie (1 g water 1 degree Celsius) and Calorie (food calorie, which equals 1000 calories) is bad enough, and in that case the context often makes the distinction clear.
First of all, how do you differentiate between Internet and internet when the terms when they begin a sentence?
More importantly, how would the distinction be conveyed in speech.
I haven't looked up the etymology to evaluate whether "people for whom this distinction proved too subtle invented the equivalent term 'intranet'", but I certainly view the coining of the word intranet as a clever and useful addition to English.
The term intranet seems only to allow clearer communication. Is there a downside to the use of the term "intranet" that I am missing?
It now takes 25% fewer hogsheads of fuel to raise a slug of cargo. However, the rods per acrefoot of fuel must go up significantly to make a Mars mission affordable.
(Sorry, offtopic, I know.)
Also, there are cases in which only an e-mail will have the desired functionality.
Consider the following scenario: you are sending an e-mail with an attachment to a salesperson for your company. They leave their laptop connected to their docking station until they are ready to go, and Outlook auto-checks for new mail every five minutes. They get your e-mail, along with 50 others right as they are heading for a plane. They don't read the e-mails, assuming they can read them on the plane. If the 7 meg powerpoint file with vital revisions is attached, they have it to go over on the plane. If you linked to an ftp site, perhaps they can attempt to download it using those phones on the airplane.
Large e-mail attachments occasionally have usefulness besides being easier for Luddites to use. Occasionally, they are the appropriate tool for the job. Review the e-mails with large attachments being sent. Educate users that send large e-mails when inappropriate. For your job's sake, double the e-mail size limits for your boss on up.
Seriously, though. What are you using as pigeons, users (currently connected)? And the 10 license seats as pigeon holes? I don't see where you are going with this approach.
It seems like the probability of k successes in n independent Bernoulli trials would be more appropriate.
I freely admit that I don't have any experience with servers, Exchange or otherwise. However, on the SuSE website it says concurrent users logged in . If there is persistence of "logged-in"edness (excuse the word coining), then the question of probable peak number of users connected to the server at once is moot.
It's an interesting question, though, regardless of applicability. If you are right about the time it takes to reconnect and the update frequency, then I am pretty sure I agree with you that 10 concurrent users connected is plenty for 100 users. However, we might as well do the math:
Okay, well, there are 120 seconds in two minutes. To calculate the probability that more than eleven users are connected at once, you have to sum the probability of having 11 users connected, 12 users connected, 13, etc. Or, sum from 0 to 10. Feel free to do the former, but I'm going to sum from 0 to 10.
The probability of k users logged on out of n is C(n,k)*(p^k)*(q^(n-k)).
In this case, p is equal to 1/120 and q is equal to 119/120.
0.4330833969 for 0 users.
0.3639356276 for (exactly) 1 user logged on.
0.151384988 for (exactly) 2 users logged on.
0.0415566634 for (exactly) 3 users logged on.
0.0084684797 for (exactly) 4 users logged on.
0.0013663429 for (exactly) 5 users logged on.
1.817963304e-4 for (exactly) 6 users logged on.
2.0514832e-5 for (exactly) 7 users logged on.
2.004074975e-6 for (exactly) 8 users logged on.
1.721520987e-7 for (exactly) 9 users logged on.
1.316457225e-8 for (exactly) 10 users logged on.
1 - (sum of above)= 9.4596*10^-10 or 9.4596*10^-8%= probability of more than 10 users being connected to the server per second.
Thus, after 17 years, a little over half the time you will have had more than 10 users connected. (That wasn't as clear as I'd like. What I meant to say is that for each 34 years you will violate the concurrent connection policy an average of 1 time). That is making the assumption that all 100 computers are continuously on and polling the server at a rate of once per two minutes, regardless of it being day or night.
Okay, well, having run through the numbers, I have to agree with you, assuming you are right about the technical details.
However, there was no need to be so harsh to the previous poster. The original poster could have been referring to being "logged in" rather than actively transmitting/receiving data from the server.
I have thought about getting something very much like that called the Seiko InkLink. Here is the link:
http://www.seikosmart.com/
Instead of a clipboard, it is just a clip. You have to use a special pen, but you can use normal paper. It has IR for a connection to a PDA, and also a USB cable. Anyone have any expericence with it? (It's $100 US.)
Most current population predictions have the world's population levelling out at 10 billion.
Oil can be thought of as starting capital. We can either use it to expand our economy now, or we can use it more gradually over a few centuries. Either way, when we are done we end up with roughly the same amount of extra carbon dioxide in the air.
Or, I suppose, we could leave the oil in the ground to keep carbon dioxide levels low. However, I don't think that is even really under consideration.
The question, then, is whether we are better off expanding the world's economy by using the oil now, or whether we should ration it. If world population growth is a major concern, it may make sense to use it now. The average number of children per woman has gone down quickly as states industrialize and per capita income rises above a few thousand dollars US. Also, controls of toxic waste are usually much better in countries that are rich enough to be able to afford them.
Research should undoubtedly go towards renewable energy. However, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the progress in the field is due to application of research from other fields.
Good point. I hadn't thought about that.
Just the slashdot visitors curious about the site will be significant. Also, all the links from the news websites would increase the rank, as well.
I wonder if the guy is that clever, or if he just got lucky.
You could set the laptop up to turn off the wireless card when not in use. They only know where you are if you use their network. And it shouldn't be too hard to block pop-ups on you own laptop/handheld that weren't associated with a webpage request on you end.
However, while this won't add much to the most secure systems, it would allow companies to reduce the hassle associated with maintaining a reasonably secure wireless system. For example, a company like Starbucks might want to offer internet access to customers inside the store, but keep people from using it in the unaffiliated bookstore next door. Or, a company might want to offer internet access to visiting consultants, customers, etc. without dealing with setting up each device. (Full disclosure: I have never used a wireless LAN, so I don't know how much trouble it is to connect to one that is properly secured. I would imagine it could become at least an annoyance.) If a company was willing to assume that the building was secure, they could allow access from any point withing the building. If you were paranoid, you could limit this to business hours.
Here is a link to an interview with the designer of the "butterfly ballot", which is the one most widely cited as defective.
w s/ lepore001221.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNe
The designer was a Democrat, but had worked many years as an election official, so it wasn't really that she was incompetent. She just screwed up once.
The point is, there was no intent to "defraud" voters.
As to why Federal elections are run by local officials - well, there are are benefits as well as downsides.
It prevents the accumulation of power. If the federal government was trying to hold onto power, it could rig the election. With local control, that would be harder to do. (Fraud and influencing the election are probably easier, but a large-scale disregard for the will of the people would be harder.) Also, local officials are already running local elections for various offices, so it's more efficient to do both at once. Of course, the federal government could run all the local elections, but once again that concentrates power.
"Why don't you have a federal election aparatus that can distribute identical Presidential ballots to every American?"
Well, those ballots might not be consistent in layout with local ballots, so they might be confusing. Moreover, while Federal ballots would probably be scrutinized more closely, if there were a mistake, it would affect the whole nation. As it stands, there are probably more mistakes, but they are all small and roughly randomly distributed. Even a very large error rate with a very large number small, randomly distributed errors is unlikely to affect the outcome by much.
I'm sorry, that wasn't very clear.
Here's an example of what I mean. Imagine that you average 50 numbers, all of which should be 100. Now, flip a coin. If it's heads, add 20 to the first number. If it's tails, subtract 20. Do the same for the second number, the third, etc.
Now, find the average of the numbers. Now, let's centralize the system. Flip the coin once. If it's heads, add five to each of the numbers. Otherwise, subtract five. What's the average?
Which has the most difference from the average of 100 you should get? I'd bet it would be the add or subtract five from all the numbers.
"Why are those local officials chosen based on their party loyalty, not their objectivity, and their knowledge of voting technology?"
That's a good question. Ideally, they would be. Then again, who gets to evaluate their objectivity?
I believe you are correct in saying that both Republican and Democratic appointees signed off on the defective ballots.
To understand the American system, you have to understand that there is a tradition of being paranoid about the centralization of power. You have to remember that our nation started out as a union of sovereign states, like the European Union. Out of necessity, state sovereignty was gradually given up. How ready are the states that comprise the European Union to relinquish power to the central body? (That's not really a fair comparison. I think the EU is currently run with one vote per state and a rotating president, so there is less representation per person in larger countries.)
My goodness, give the guy a break. People switching away from Windows to Linux is a good thing. It increases the market for programs that run in Linux; it erodes the position of Word documents as the unfortunate de facto standard in text documents; and it makes driver development by hardware vendors for Linux more attractive.
Getting defensive and attacking people when they give constructive criticism on how to make Linux easier to adopt is counter-productive.
Anyway, the guy has a valid point. Open-source software can be much more difficult to figure out how to configure, and this is a barrier to its adoption by people who just want to get something accomplished. For example, I love e-macs. I love the implementation of the incremental search function. The default keyboard shortcuts make sense and are comfortable to use. It formats code in C very well. However, it takes a lot of work to learn. Also, configuration is difficult for newbies. Configuration files are intimidating. A good dissection of a sample configuration (or multiple configuration files) on the official website for each program would make editing configuration files much easier.
I also happened to have a problem trying to get my soundcard working when I first switched to Linux. Granted, it was an old ISA SoundBlaster AWE 32, so I couldn't really expect it to auto-detect. However, when I tried to find out whether I could get it working online, all I could find out is that if I recompiled my kernel with ALSA, I think, it MIGHT work. With Windows, there are a limited number of things to try and it either works or it doesn't.
Also, there are many places to get Windows advice; which is easier to provide because it is more standardized.
If you are going to do the same thing over and over, it makes sense to learn it on Linux. If you only want to do something once or twice, right now it's easier on Windows.
If you are talking about the distance to geosynchronous orbit, it's 36,000 kilometers, not miles.
Also, "1000 mph of lateral accelleration"?
Wrong units for accelleration and I am not sure where this figure comes from, but I certainly now agree (after doing the calculations that I thought would prove you wrong) with the point of your post: there would be "whipping" of the ribbon as it fell.
Some back of the envelope calculations:
At the moment of breakage, each segment of the cable will be motionless compared to the atmosphere around it. In order to conserve angular momentum, the higher pieces will undergo angular acceleration to counter the decrease in angular momentum associated with a decreased moment of angular inertia about the center of the Earth. Angular momentum is the product of the rotational inertia and the angular velocity. Rotational inertia is SUM(MiRi^2). (Sorry about the poor notation.) Let's assume the designers are smart enough to have a fail-safe that disconnects the ribbon near the geosynchronous orbit level in the event of breakage (lower would make sense, though, as some portion of the cord could be held up by the platform at the far end of the cable). This puts the cable length at ~36,000 kilometers (~22,000 miles). Thus, the end of the cable is currently moving at one rotation per day at ~42,000 kilometers above the center of Earth. (36,000 km + ~6,000 km for the radius of Earth.)
To calculate the starting rotational inertia, the integral of mr^2 needs to be taken from the surface of Earth the breakage point (let's use the worst-case scenario given good planning of right at geo-synchronous orbit). Assuming the linear density is constant with distance from the Earth (not true, but it makes the calculation possible without more detail than is available), the rotational inertia is the linear mass density of the ribbon times ((42,000km)^3)/3 - ((6,000km)^3)/3 or (the linear mass density times 2.462*10^13 km^3).
The final rotational inertia (when the whole thing is at rest) is much easier to calculate. It is the total mass times (6,000 km)^2 or total mass times 3.6 * 10^7 km^2 times the mass.
To compare the two figures, the first should be changed to units of total mass of the ribbon. This can be done by dividing the result by the length of the ribbon, giving an initial inertia of 6.8 * 10^8 km^2 times the mass of the ribbon. The ratio of these two inertias is approximately 19. Thus, neglecting air friction, and assuming the whole ribbon hits the ground at once (without being held back by the connection Earthside), the ribbon would be going at a linear velocity 19 times that of the surface of the Earth. This is approximately 19 * 1,600 km / hour or 31,000 km / hour.
Obviously, neglecting air friction and neglecting the slowing of the ribbon due to the Earthside connection is inappropriate, but the calculations show that there would be considerable "whipping." (I started this post to disagree with zenofjazz about the whipping, but now see how wrong I was.) However, Due to the surface area, I would think that the majority of the ribbon would burn up in the atmosphere, regardless of how many pieces it broke into. I would imagine that all of the ribbon more than a few miles up would disintegrate due to the horizontal acceleration relative to the atmosphere. I don't have any figures to back this up, though.
An interesting side-note: What would be the behavior of the carbon nanotube ribbons be upon exceeding the tensile strength? Would they shatter? If so, this improves the chance of them burning up and increases the friction, thus further reducing the final air speed.
Sorry about the some-what incoherent post. It's late.