If you're going to take the bait, at least argue your point intelligently.
what right did the scientists of the Renaissance have telling you that the earth was not flat, and not in the center of the universe?
No facts of the matter have been found to be different. You do know this don't you? This is an argument over linguistics, not over science. Ancient Greeks (and others) realised that the world wasn't flat. This was an actual discovery about the world - not an argument about the meaning of the word 'flat'.
same "tiny group of people" who told you that it exists and can prove it exists are the ones taking it away
The first "tiny group" made a scientific discovery. The second tiny group have done no such thing, they're simply voting on how everyone else should use a word that is millennia older than they are.
You really do seem to be under the impression that tha IAU have performed something other than linguistic sleight of hand by confusing it with real scientific discovery. This gives me quite a bit of insight into why so many people seem so accepting of this new pronouncement.
if Pluto is a planet then there are lots of other objects that would also be planets
Maybe to someone simple-minded enough to think that words need to have clean cut definitions despite the fact that philosophers have demonstrated for at least a century that word meanings can form 'family resemblances' without there being a single point in common between them. And what is the problem with counting new objects as planets? We have a notion of 'planet'. We look through telescopes and see more of the same. People discover new things all the time. Nobody has said "this spider can't be an animal because we've just hit the maximum quota for the number of animals".
Whine all you like, your children will think you are a dinosaur.
The next generation needs no excuse like this to call the older generation dinosaurs.
It's amazing how a tiny group of people can hoodwink the rest of the world.
The meanings of words are not decided by vote - not even technical words. Imagine a bunch of doctors, even podiatrists, decided to redefine the meaning of the word 'leg'. Would anyone take them seriously? Of course not, not matter how expert they may be on the physiology of legs. So just because the IAU has made this vote here is no reason for anyone else to follow. The IAU, as they are free to do, have simply defined a technical usage for the word 'planet' for their personal use, but there is absolutely no reason why the public should follow. What's incredible, however, is that the rest of the word will. Despite the fact that billions of non-astronomers have been using the word 'planet' quite happily for millennia the rest of the world will simply fall into line because they have been deluded into thinking that a small astronomer elite can make linguistic decisions for them. Astronomers are experts in astronomy, not the arbiters of language.
What next? Mathematicians having a conference to decide whether or not zero is a natural number?
What is it with these Linux geeks. They think the whole world works on the command line. Everyone knows that this car was built by double clicking on "Car", selecting "diesel" in the "Car Design Wizard" and then pushing the speed slider to the top. And apparently there's a hidden option in the registry that increases the range of the speed slider so we expect this record to be broken again very soon.
Yup. Just about every book (and many web sites) on alternative propulsion and interstellar travel discusses the original Orion project at some point. What's more, the new project is similar enough to be confusing (they're both about long range propulsion of humans) but not close enough to be considered the same thing. Calling a Mars rover 'Orion', say, would be fine. And it's not like there's a shortage of mythological characters with great sounding names.
Project Orion is already well known as the name of a hypothetical propulsion method that uses nuclear explosions to literally blast the vehicle forward. As this new project seems entirely unrelated it's a bit inappropriate to take this name. The original Project Orion has had that name for decades and it's had a few reputable names behind it so we're not just talking about stealing a name from some crackpot's pet project.
It'd be nice if there were a properly documented version of that story somewhere, or something similar. Everything I said was basically just "in principle" but you've given a perfect example of it!
So I just read 200 pages of the Illuminatus Trilogy, finding it to be one of the most boring things I have read. (Sold it on Amazon for a loss, but it was worth it to reclaim the valuable space in my house.) But it was all worthwhile now that I have seen and recgnised your sig.
Got bored of Fark a few years back. But you'll be glad to know that it was a temporary blip. The hype has finally arrived and one minute ago my employer declared a screening of Snakes at work!
I surf the web plenty. I hang out on/. and boingboing and read the headlines on news.google.com. I have my own blog and I dip into the web sites of the major news outlets. Occasionally I'll check what's popular on youtube. I even listen to the radio and read billboards on the way to work. Oh...and I work in the movie business and hear gossip.
I don't remember seeing any of this 'hype' stuff. I remember seeing a couple of mentions on the web, and then a few days before release I saw some news stories claiming that there was lots of hype - probably fewer than I'd expect for a major summer movie release. So someone, please tell me before I miss the next lot of hype. Where do I see this 'hype' stuff? Is there a 'hype' web site? Is there a mailing list I need to subscribe to? Without it I just feel like I'm not connecting with therest of society.
Every time I use my gadgets I think "some of the money I paid for this went to help poor families in China who without my input of dollars would probably be one step closer to starvation." It warms my heart.
Of course if Steorn have managed to generate...
on
Dark Matter Exists
·
· Score: 1
...free energy then this is all completely irrelevant. All of the computations for any of the dark matter or MOND models assume that energy is conserved. If energy isn't conserved then galaxies can do whatever the hell they like - spin this way and that, jump up and down and form themselves into obscene words for the benefit of astronomers peering through telescopes. Well, maybe not that bad, but questions about the rotation curve of galaxies kinda become moot.
...information. You can only explore so much of the game tree and there is little theory about what goes on down the tree. Because you don't know what's in the game tree outside of what you can evaluate you need to take risks. You can't calculate every possible consequence of your actions. Additionally, nor can your opponent. So when you're trying to decide what parts of the tree you need to search, you need to make guesses about the type of move your opponent is evaluating. If you think that a sequence of moves is not your opponent's style it may be worth exploring it for consequences that your opponent won't foresee. None of these features are present in a game of complete information where the entire game tree can be laid bare. Remember how IBM tweaked their machines between games against Kasparov. They were responding to Kasparov's style, not the rules of chess which they obviously knew fully beforehand.
To continue using my apt enough metaphor - as far as I can tell, even if their device worked, it's hardly on a scale that would make it worthwhile to sell the energy produced.
I know how to send a rocket to the moon. Just stick some chemical propellant along with oxygen in a tube and light it. But if I actually wanted to send someone to the moon I'd probably have to advertise what I was doing to attract attention from people who could actually fill in the details and build the required rocket. This is no different. (Except for the small fact that these guys are lying...)
You can make the energy required to move round a magnetic field as small as you like. The force on a moving charge in a magnetic field is perpendicular to the direction of motion. This quantity is the power required to move in the field so the poer required to move a charge along a path is essentially zero. That's Electromagnetics 101.
Of course, the same argument also shows you cannot extract energy from a magnetic field by moving along such a path...
Slashdot Mirror
You really do seem to be under the impression that tha IAU have performed something other than linguistic sleight of hand by confusing it with real scientific discovery. This gives me quite a bit of insight into why so many people seem so accepting of this new pronouncement.
The meanings of words are not decided by vote - not even technical words. Imagine a bunch of doctors, even podiatrists, decided to redefine the meaning of the word 'leg'. Would anyone take them seriously? Of course not, not matter how expert they may be on the physiology of legs. So just because the IAU has made this vote here is no reason for anyone else to follow. The IAU, as they are free to do, have simply defined a technical usage for the word 'planet' for their personal use, but there is absolutely no reason why the public should follow. What's incredible, however, is that the rest of the word will. Despite the fact that billions of non-astronomers have been using the word 'planet' quite happily for millennia the rest of the world will simply fall into line because they have been deluded into thinking that a small astronomer elite can make linguistic decisions for them. Astronomers are experts in astronomy, not the arbiters of language.
What next? Mathematicians having a conference to decide whether or not zero is a natural number?
I just hope that UB313 keeps the name Xena.
Yeah, but can you imagine the response of green activists when they discover a plan that could make space radioactive. :-)
Yup. Just about every book (and many web sites) on alternative propulsion and interstellar travel discusses the original Orion project at some point. What's more, the new project is similar enough to be confusing (they're both about long range propulsion of humans) but not close enough to be considered the same thing. Calling a Mars rover 'Orion', say, would be fine. And it's not like there's a shortage of mythological characters with great sounding names.
Project Orion is already well known as the name of a hypothetical propulsion method that uses nuclear explosions to literally blast the vehicle forward. As this new project seems entirely unrelated it's a bit inappropriate to take this name. The original Project Orion has had that name for decades and it's had a few reputable names behind it so we're not just talking about stealing a name from some crackpot's pet project.
It'd be nice if there were a properly documented version of that story somewhere, or something similar. Everything I said was basically just "in principle" but you've given a perfect example of it!
So I just read 200 pages of the Illuminatus Trilogy, finding it to be one of the most boring things I have read. (Sold it on Amazon for a loss, but it was worth it to reclaim the valuable space in my house.) But it was all worthwhile now that I have seen and recgnised your sig.
Got bored of Fark a few years back. But you'll be glad to know that it was a temporary blip. The hype has finally arrived and one minute ago my employer declared a screening of Snakes at work!
I don't remember seeing any of this 'hype' stuff. I remember seeing a couple of mentions on the web, and then a few days before release I saw some news stories claiming that there was lots of hype - probably fewer than I'd expect for a major summer movie release. So someone, please tell me before I miss the next lot of hype. Where do I see this 'hype' stuff? Is there a 'hype' web site? Is there a mailing list I need to subscribe to? Without it I just feel like I'm not connecting with therest of society.
Terrorism is no light matter. Obviously you don't fully appreciate the gravity of the situation.
or is it
Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by greed
I forget.
I've heard the expressions "sick as a dog" and "dog ugly" but "play Zelda as well as a dog" is new to me.
Every time I use my gadgets I think "some of the money I paid for this went to help poor families in China who without my input of dollars would probably be one step closer to starvation." It warms my heart.
Children? After reading some of those search queries it's the dogs I'm worried about.
pluton27 pluton234 pluton342 pluton542 pluton654 pluton8234
...free energy then this is all completely irrelevant. All of the computations for any of the dark matter or MOND models assume that energy is conserved. If energy isn't conserved then galaxies can do whatever the hell they like - spin this way and that, jump up and down and form themselves into obscene words for the benefit of astronomers peering through telescopes. Well, maybe not that bad, but questions about the rotation curve of galaxies kinda become moot.
What's silly about proposing that we can't see all of the matter in the universe?
Examine the data they released more closely. It may be that they have already done this.
...information. You can only explore so much of the game tree and there is little theory about what goes on down the tree. Because you don't know what's in the game tree outside of what you can evaluate you need to take risks. You can't calculate every possible consequence of your actions. Additionally, nor can your opponent. So when you're trying to decide what parts of the tree you need to search, you need to make guesses about the type of move your opponent is evaluating. If you think that a sequence of moves is not your opponent's style it may be worth exploring it for consequences that your opponent won't foresee. None of these features are present in a game of complete information where the entire game tree can be laid bare. Remember how IBM tweaked their machines between games against Kasparov. They were responding to Kasparov's style, not the rules of chess which they obviously knew fully beforehand.
To continue using my apt enough metaphor - as far as I can tell, even if their device worked, it's hardly on a scale that would make it worthwhile to sell the energy produced.
I know how to send a rocket to the moon. Just stick some chemical propellant along with oxygen in a tube and light it. But if I actually wanted to send someone to the moon I'd probably have to advertise what I was doing to attract attention from people who could actually fill in the details and build the required rocket. This is no different. (Except for the small fact that these guys are lying...)
Of course, the same argument also shows you cannot extract energy from a magnetic field by moving along such a path...