The sun is not all helium by a long shot. The pressure, at the core, is enough to force SOME fusion which releases heat and light (energy of most all sorts).
The fusion tries to blow the sun apart (like a big, big, big, big, etc., etc., etc.,) hydrogen bomb, but the immense gravity keeps it together in a sort of cosmic balance. That is what keeps it all from going off all at once.
Now, if the sun were much, much larger, it would eventually lose the battle and it would explode in a supernova cataclysm.
This is not 'fire' as we know it, except as it is in a fission/fusion nuclear bomb (and in a growing number of fusion reactors) but, instead, is completely a nuclear reaction - that is what turns the hydrogen into helium, not simply the gravity (although that is what causes the heat necessary to get it going.
Fire, as we normally know it, is a chemical reaction; fusion 'fire' is nuclear. Hydrogen, when burnt, makes water. Hydrogen, when fused, makes helium.
Sorry but I was called out of the country for a couple of weeks. I had no access but I, nevertheless, wrote you a reply. Here it is:
You certainly mix your fears well with your confusion. (That is enough to cause fear in and of itself!)
Remember, it was Janet Reno who trampled the Constitution at Waco, not some republican. Republicans, by and large, are about law and order. You seem to've bought into the fear propagated by the left (media and politicians) that paint republicans as monsters; all the while committing atrocities on our own people (Ruby Ridge ring a bell? How about the media's help to white-wash Waco? How was the Elian Gonzales affair portrayed?).
Hell, man, I haven't even heard Ashcroft's name in the papers in, in, well, I can't remember in how long. How many times was Reno's name in the paper over some abuse or other? (That she was always, somehow, absolved of. They never even tried to serve David Coresh that subpoena, they attempted to serve it at gunpoint through a second story window that they had broken into. (Was the subpoena ever even shown on the news? Was there even a real subpoena?)
The local Sheriff had served them several times and each time they honored the subpoenas as any law abiding citizen would. ATF had subpoenaed them a few years previously without incident; but, ATF lost their case in Federal Court. That was what that debacle was all about. Talk about abuse.
You are right to be vigilant. It is human nature to be abusive of power; but remember that it is the liberals who think the Constitution is a 'living' document, to be interpreted any way the times demand. That is a far, far scarier attitude; those people should be held as far from power as possible; those people are far more likely to abuse it. Be more vigilant of both sides, if you can.
For myself, I'll put my trust in people who think that the Constitution should be read and laws judged by what it says, not what they want it to say. I think there is less potential for abuse there.
What lies did the president tell to get us into Iraq? A lie is when you know a real truth but tell something else. All the President said, at the time, was common knowledge around the world. It was common knowledge in the Senate Intelligence Committee (that Kerry sits on). It was common knowledge when Kerry said it in 1998, 2000, and after 9/11. Why do you think it became a lie only when the President said it? It was the same statements after all. If the information later turns out to have been wrong, that doesn't make it a lie in the first place. Get a grip, one standard for all, please!
Relax, friend, the sky really isn't falling; you can thank God, and an informed electorate for that. There really are terrorists in Iraq and we are killing them. (Better there than here, eh?) There always were terrorists in Iraq and Saddam supported them. Saddam paid a bonus of $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, notice how that activity has diminished? Saddam housed a known top echelon Al-Qaeda leader in Baghdad. There was a connection. (Maybe not to 9/11 directly, but to those who were responsible.)
Our military men and women as well as their families supported the President by a 69% favorability rating in the days before the election. They are on the front line, doing the fighting (and dying), and they think we are doing the right thing.
It sounds like you may have been deceived and are really convinced that black is white and up is down; maybe, if you give it a chance, time will fix that. Perhaps it is just your fears and nightmares getting the best of you?
Look at how the press has been abusing their power. Do you think that the national media should be outright campaigning for one candidate over another and telling lies about the other? (Selling forged documents to 'prove' something is a lie, isn't it?) Of course you may not mind because it was for the 'liberal cause' but really, if they abuse it freely today for your cause what's to stop them from abusing i
As I answered someone earlier, there can be no "long term effects" in the Patriot Act because it has a 'sunset clause' built into it. Vigilant Americans will continue to write to their Congressmen to insure that any and all extensions also have a 'sunset clause' built into them. I do that, why don't you help out and do the same. Posting vitriol here accomplishes nothing! (OK, maybe it's cathartic?)
We can't allow the terrorists to hide behind our Constitution after all; and only terrorists are affected by the Patriot Act, by carefully worded definitions of what a terrorist that is written within the Patriot Act. (Have you taken some time to read it? Get a large latte, it is a long read.)
The war in Iraq is not illegal. Our Congress, by an overwhelming majority (approaching unanimity), sanctioned it; by definition that made it legal. If you don't like it, change your Congressmen. Better still, stop listening to the agenda-driven media about such things and do some research of your own!
Hmm, you haven't read it, have you? I have. I did because I was worried about the same type of things that you were. I don't just complain, I act!
If you had read it you would see that it has no future to hassle people with latter; it has a 'sunset clause' that makes it all go away, automatically, unless Congress revitalizes it.
What you really need to do it to write your Congressman and Senators and let them know that all revitalizations they do should also have a 'sunset clause' built into them.
We can't allow terrorists to hide behind our Constitution, it isn't a suicide pack after all!
It would seem, by your statement anyway, that you, along with the other 48% are the real "(D)Uhmerkans"... A traitor in the White House would be disaster!
How come we never hear about the wonderful advances being made with adult stem-cells? There are some, you know.
Why do they only count if we get the benefits from aborted babies?
It's like the only way to live forever is to eat our young. Maybe that's what Clinton was getting at?
As long as I'm here, why is immortality such a great idea anyway? Isn't there a growing problem with feeding the people we have now? Oh, maybe immortality will exclusively for the really special people, like Bill Clinton?
The first two are clearly Sci-Fi but the Lucas' films were more fantasy, don't you think?
How about John Carpenter's "The Thing"? That was a pretty good rendition of the story "Who Goes There" (but the author's name eludes me at the moment.)
If you throw fantasy into the mix then there should be lots more contenders ('Willow' comes to mind).
They were breathing in space in the Star Wars movies for crying out loud! (... and why couldn't we understand Wookies? The other strange characters spoke 'English'?...)
That's my $0.02
(There are only 10 types of people: those that understand binary, those that don't, and those that count from 0.)
This is what the staff of the Congressmen are for. They can be lawyers to assist in the drafting of laws for the Congressmen, and usually are. It isn't necessary, nor even desirable, for the actual elected official to be a lawyer; someone with real life experience might have a better understanding of the ramifications of the laws that they write and/or sponsor.
Term limits and a pay scale that encourage them to stay in office just long enough to grind whatever axe brought them there and no longer, would be helpful to eliminate pork also. Their pension plan is so out of touch with reality; they shouldn't get anything better than they give the military.
Otherwise, I agree with your main premise, for what that's worth.
I'm not going to comment on Mr, Moore beyond saying that he's an unconscionable opportunist with a very large agenda.
That said I would like to say that Mr. Moore, in an interview about this film, called it a "movie" and not a "documentary." For others to call it a documentary shows the degree of impression this unscrupulous person intentionally leaves on his audience.
This is a movie - a documentary would depict booth sides of an issue in an unbiased manor. In that regard Mr. Moore has never made a documentary.
This is for 'entertainment' not for 'information' comprendo, amigos?
When will they stop stealing from thieves? This is like Apple/Microsoft of old over the Xerox software!
Next thing you know they'll take this SUPERSET of the other technologies and make it user friendly (just to trick people) and then outsell the competition.
The bastards!
At least we'll be able to rage against them even more now!... and now there will be a company with some resources behind it to finally get that technology to the marketplace - those bastards! IBM and those other companies should have decades to sit on this, after all they thought of it first! So what if they aren't doing anything with it.
Microsoft should just close shop and go away; how dare they try and make things work? They never get it perfect anyway. They should just stop trying so we can get back to a garage company economy.
I went to the site mentioned, followed link or two and found myself on Spymac, a cooperative effort by Apple and Disney, that I signed up on and immediately got a 1GB Mailbox +
250 MB of space to upload pictures in the Spymac Gallery 100 MB free space on Spymac Hosting with WebDAV access* Free iCal Hosting (both public and private)* Access to the Spymac Forums and Shoutbox Your very own Spymac Blog* Access to the Spymac Auctions The ability to create your very own personal Gallery and Forum
So, what's the big deal about the Israeli's, who are two months away, or Google (when did they say?)? It's here right now.
Oh, the account is accessible via POP/SMTP as well. Not too shabby so far.
The site does need some tightening up, there are way too many errors going from page to page and its spell checker just errors out and you lose your mail. but hey, like I said, just use the pop/smtp and get around that for now.
I'm telling everybody I know about this, who knows when they'll run out of space/bandwidth? (It already seemed sluggish.)
--- Be careful when you do unto others as you'd have done unto yourself, their tastes may differ!
What exactly were they streaming to/from? That is, what storage device could cough up and/or store data at that rate? You'd need a huge bank of PC-4400 DDR RAM just to keep up with that rate, wouldn't you? Just how much data did they burst at that rate? How often can they send bursts? Is that the sustained rate or just the instantaneous rate for a burst?
It's a nice phenomena but if your storage media can't read/write at nearly that rate, what size FIFO would be needed to transfer, say, a DVD? (At today's speeds I can transfer a DVD as fast as my DVD ROM can read it over my broadband connection. But, to transfer a hundred stored DVDs you still need to read the data from the storage media, then write it to some media at the other end. Is there any storage media that can deal with this bandwidth?)
I'm thinking that there is a lot of technology that needs to catch up with this...
In 1943 the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's claim that his patents predated ANY of Marconi's concerning radio transmission apparatus.
I don't know about other, earlier claims, but Tesla, not Marconi, is the father of modern radio, especially insofar as the superhetrodine transmitter/receiver combination we employ today.
Marconi shamelessly used many of Tesla's patents in his apparatus with no credit, verbal or monetary, to him. Doesn't that make Marconi a thief?
A great deal of the responsibility for Tesla being largely forgotten goes to the Smithsonian Institution. They choose to be totally ignorant of his accomplishments; going so far as displaying some of his inventions in the Edison exhibit. (You could probably build a 1,000HP generator around Tesla spinning in his grave over this - but alas, he was cremated!)
Tesla was in arrears for his subscription to the Smithsonian magazine, perhaps this is their petty way of getting their due from him? He is reported to have met their inquiries to his tardiness with this reply: "I hope, therefore, that you will interpret the term 'immediate attention' in a liberal, I might say geological, sense." They remain humorless to this day. (Quote from "Tesla, Master of Lightning" by Margaret Cheney and Robert Uth - Metrobooks publishing, copyright 1999 by the authors.)
There are a couple of great books on Tesla, if anybody is interested, both by Margaret Cheney:
"Tesla, a Man Out of Time" & "Tesla, Master of Lightning" (with Robert Uth)
They are, IMHO, 'must reads' for anyone interested in looking into the mind of pure genius, albeit, possessing poor to no business acumen. That alone is primarily why he died virtually unknown to academia and hence, future generations.
During the "war of the currents" he actually tore up his licensing agreements with Westinghouse, thereby allowing AC to emerge victorious; but, leaving Tesla a virtual pauper. He had no regrets over that, but was disappointed later in life when Westinghouse turned his back on him.
Nonetheless, his legacy lives on...
The 'and gate' couldn't be patented in the 50's because Tesla already patented the concept in 1898 in his radio controlled ships and torpedoes. (patent #613,809)
There are countless examples of instances like this, where decades and scores of years would go by and some inventor would come up against Tesla for his patents. Yet he remains virtually unknown.
Fly-back transformers (TVs) and ignition coils (cars) are variants of Tesla coils, yet nobody knows him.
We generate and transmit power by means that remain unchanged in the hundred plus years since Tesla invented the system, yet he is a stranger in his adopted country. (He was most proud of his citizenship papers - that was one of the very few documents that he would keep in his safe.)
His bladeless turbine couldn't be made to work in his day due to the lack of strength in the materials he had to work with; but, they are in production today and used in mines, oilfields and elsewhere. It is noteworthy that even with modern materials these turbines can not be run at full efficiency as the rotors tend to flow as a viscus fluid at full operating speed (30,000RPM!)
High energy research today is just coming up to speed with some of Tesla's inventions and ideas: plasma physics, particle beams, and microwave broadcasting of energy are but a few things that he was working on a century ago. Those concepts and designs weren't even understood to science until the fifties!
Some of his apparatus and ideas remain mysterious to this day, but work is progressing.
Good for you. BTW, do you ever leave your mom's basement? You are right about one thing though, there are thieves everywhere. That's why these peoples good work will be taken down and only allowed by subscription. That's probably what they should have done in the first place in order to stop the petty nit-picking by the plethora of small minded geniuses in hyperspace. It is pretty obvious how much you don't care; if only it were so... Happy surfing, it's all yours one way or another, isn't it? Good for you. Over and out.
Now if only the Smithsonian would stop rewriting history their information might be worth something.
As to the RR site, if you don't like the conditions, don't go there. They don't owe you a thing, or do they? It's there property and if they want to restrict how they share it, that's their business. Again, I'm just glad that they are and said so.
On the other hand, if you don't like their agreement, they did ask for help in wording it properly, why not do something constructive instead if complaining that they aren't giving more for free?
It all works for me; I bookmarked it and will visit as often as I can until they are forced to close due to ingratitude.
(Try taking the Wright Flier home from the Smithsonian...)
I'm thankful that they don't charge and told them so. This sort of thing should be encouraged, not ridiculed. They asked for help with the TOS, I thought that was very friendly. Instead of scorn why don't you offer constructive assistance? Otherwise, if you don't like it, don't go there. It is very simple, really.
Oh, I think it (the TOS?) establishes demarcation, honest people will respect it; dishonest people will cause the site to close. I'm interested to see how long it stays on-line.
Courtesy, like that site, is free; as I didn't have any legal advice to help them I, at least, offered them that. There is a time and place for most things and here, I feel, is the time and place for positive feedback.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Here (at that site) is where that expression will get tested.
(They don't charge admission at the Smithsonian, yet you still can't take the exhibits home with you.)
There seems to be little of that (gratitude) being displayed here. There is a veritable treasure-trove of memorabilia from both the public domain and (mostly) private collections being offered for free with the simple codicil that you don't copy it for any other purpose. BFD! If you're worried about it, don't go there, how simple is that?
Maybe if they charged an admission fee to cover the costs of hosting and maintaining the site, most of the complainers would never have seen it in the first place to complain about it. It's their website and we should simply be grateful that they are sharing this wonderful chapter in the history of the United States free of charge, even if it is exclusivly for viewing. You can't take home exhibits from a 'real' museum, like the Smithsonian Institute without paying a hugh price (money, freedom, etc.), why should this be any different. The exhibits in the Smithsonian Institute are in the public domain, are they not?
Here is the body of the email I sent to them to express my gratitude:
*** This is a truly remarkable website (http://www.cprr.org/Museum/index.html), thank you for sharing these wonderful photographs and histories of one of America's most outstanding achievements. The building of the transcontinental railroad was simply a magnificent accomplishment, a chapter in itself, in the building of a nation. This website is a spectacular way to remind people of the blood, sweat, and tears needed to accomplish this Herculean feat.
I haven't the vocabulary needed to express my thanks for letting me see this museum on-line. Some people think your User Agreement is harsh. Too bad for them! It doesn't take a three digit IQ to see the value and the cost of these exhibits. I do not understand the mentality of those people. Do they expect to take home exhibits from a real (as opposed to virtual) museum, like the Smithsonian Institute? Why should this be any different.
If I were doing a research project, I would find the $50.00 cheap enough to acquire 4000 of the photo's. As it is, I can visit whenever I like and if I desire to share with a friend, all I need do is send them the URL for the Main page and make them aware of the User Agreement Link (http://www.cprr.org/Museum/legal.html). What could be simpler? That I can visit all the exhibits for free is a wonder in itself; for that I am humbly grateful.
At the risk of being redundant, Thank You! ***
That is called being gracious, a seemingly alien concept to some of the folks here. Please don't screw it up by messing with them. All it will accomplish is their taking their site down.
But I forget, everything should be free, shouldn't it? (Of course, you wouldn't want your payroll department to think that now, would you?)
BTW, thank you for sharing that URL, I might not have known that site was there if it weren't for the griping about the EUA.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
The sun is not all helium by a long shot. The pressure, at the core, is enough to force SOME fusion which releases heat and light (energy of most all sorts).
The fusion tries to blow the sun apart (like a big, big, big, big, etc., etc., etc.,) hydrogen bomb, but the immense gravity keeps it together in a sort of cosmic balance. That is what keeps it all from going off all at once.
Now, if the sun were much, much larger, it would eventually lose the battle and it would explode in a supernova cataclysm.
This is not 'fire' as we know it, except as it is in a fission/fusion nuclear bomb (and in a growing number of fusion reactors) but, instead, is completely a nuclear reaction - that is what turns the hydrogen into helium, not simply the gravity (although that is what causes the heat necessary to get it going.
Fire, as we normally know it, is a chemical reaction; fusion 'fire' is nuclear. Hydrogen, when burnt, makes water. Hydrogen, when fused, makes helium.
Does that help?
Sorry but I was called out of the country for a couple of weeks. I had no access but I, nevertheless, wrote you a reply. Here it is:
You certainly mix your fears well with your confusion. (That is enough to cause fear in and of itself!)
Remember, it was Janet Reno who trampled the Constitution at Waco, not some republican. Republicans, by and large, are about law and order. You seem to've bought into the fear propagated by the left (media and politicians) that paint republicans as monsters; all the while committing atrocities on our own people (Ruby Ridge ring a bell? How about the media's help to white-wash Waco? How was the Elian Gonzales affair portrayed?).
Hell, man, I haven't even heard Ashcroft's name in the papers in, in, well, I can't remember in how long. How many times was Reno's name in the paper over some abuse or other? (That she was always, somehow, absolved of. They never even tried to serve David Coresh that subpoena, they attempted to serve it at gunpoint through a second story window that they had broken into. (Was the subpoena ever even shown on the news? Was there even a real subpoena?)
The local Sheriff had served them several times and each time they honored the subpoenas as any law abiding citizen would. ATF had subpoenaed them a few years previously without incident; but, ATF lost their case in Federal Court. That was what that debacle was all about. Talk about abuse.
You are right to be vigilant. It is human nature to be abusive of power; but remember that it is the liberals who think the Constitution is a 'living' document, to be interpreted any way the times demand. That is a far, far scarier attitude; those people should be held as far from power as possible; those people are far more likely to abuse it. Be more vigilant of both sides, if you can.
For myself, I'll put my trust in people who think that the Constitution should be read and laws judged by what it says, not what they want it to say. I think there is less potential for abuse there.
What lies did the president tell to get us into Iraq? A lie is when you know a real truth but tell something else. All the President said, at the time, was common knowledge around the world. It was common knowledge in the Senate Intelligence Committee (that Kerry sits on). It was common knowledge when Kerry said it in 1998, 2000, and after 9/11. Why do you think it became a lie only when the President said it? It was the same statements after all. If the information later turns out to have been wrong, that doesn't make it a lie in the first place. Get a grip, one standard for all, please!
Relax, friend, the sky really isn't falling; you can thank God, and an informed electorate for that. There really are terrorists in Iraq and we are killing them. (Better there than here, eh?) There always were terrorists in Iraq and Saddam supported them. Saddam paid a bonus of $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, notice how that activity has diminished? Saddam housed a known top echelon Al-Qaeda leader in Baghdad. There was a connection. (Maybe not to 9/11 directly, but to those who were responsible.)
Our military men and women as well as their families supported the President by a 69% favorability rating in the days before the election. They are on the front line, doing the fighting (and dying), and they think we are doing the right thing.
It sounds like you may have been deceived and are really convinced that black is white and up is down; maybe, if you give it a chance, time will fix that. Perhaps it is just your fears and nightmares getting the best of you?
Look at how the press has been abusing their power. Do you think that the national media should be outright campaigning for one candidate over another and telling lies about the other? (Selling forged documents to 'prove' something is a lie, isn't it?) Of course you may not mind because it was for the 'liberal cause' but really, if they abuse it freely today for your cause what's to stop them from abusing i
As I answered someone earlier, there can be no "long term effects" in the Patriot Act because it has a 'sunset clause' built into it. Vigilant Americans will continue to write to their Congressmen to insure that any and all extensions also have a 'sunset clause' built into them. I do that, why don't you help out and do the same. Posting vitriol here accomplishes nothing! (OK, maybe it's cathartic?)
We can't allow the terrorists to hide behind our Constitution after all; and only terrorists are affected by the Patriot Act, by carefully worded definitions of what a terrorist that is written within the Patriot Act. (Have you taken some time to read it? Get a large latte, it is a long read.)
The war in Iraq is not illegal. Our Congress, by an overwhelming majority (approaching unanimity), sanctioned it; by definition that made it legal. If you don't like it, change your Congressmen. Better still, stop listening to the agenda-driven media about such things and do some research of your own!
Hmm, you haven't read it, have you? I have. I did because I was worried about the same type of things that you were. I don't just complain, I act!
... A traitor in the White House would be disaster!
If you had read it you would see that it has no future to hassle people with latter; it has a 'sunset clause' that makes it all go away, automatically, unless Congress revitalizes it.
What you really need to do it to write your Congressman and Senators and let them know that all revitalizations they do should also have a 'sunset clause' built into them.
We can't allow terrorists to hide behind our Constitution, it isn't a suicide pack after all!
It would seem, by your statement anyway, that you, along with the other 48% are the real "(D)Uhmerkans"
How come we never hear about the wonderful advances being made with adult stem-cells? There are some, you know.
Why do they only count if we get the benefits from aborted babies?
It's like the only way to live forever is to eat our young. Maybe that's what Clinton was getting at?
As long as I'm here, why is immortality such a great idea anyway? Isn't there a growing problem with feeding the people we have now? Oh, maybe immortality will exclusively for the really special people, like Bill Clinton?
The first two are clearly Sci-Fi but the Lucas' films were more fantasy, don't you think?
How about John Carpenter's "The Thing"? That was a pretty good rendition of the story "Who Goes There" (but the author's name eludes me at the moment.)
If you throw fantasy into the mix then there should be lots more contenders ('Willow' comes to mind).
They were breathing in space in the Star Wars movies for crying out loud! (... and why couldn't we understand Wookies? The other strange characters spoke 'English'?...)
That's my $0.02
(There are only 10 types of people: those that understand binary, those that don't, and those that count from 0.)
Wouldn't Xerox have had something to say about Copyrighting the MAC GUI?
This is what the staff of the Congressmen are for. They can be lawyers to assist in the drafting of laws for the Congressmen, and usually are. It isn't necessary, nor even desirable, for the actual elected official to be a lawyer; someone with real life experience might have a better understanding of the ramifications of the laws that they write and/or sponsor.
Term limits and a pay scale that encourage them to stay in office just long enough to grind whatever axe brought them there and no longer, would be helpful to eliminate pork also. Their pension plan is so out of touch with reality; they shouldn't get anything better than they give the military.
Otherwise, I agree with your main premise, for what that's worth.
Word
I'm not going to comment on Mr, Moore beyond saying that he's an unconscionable opportunist with a very large agenda.
That said I would like to say that Mr. Moore, in an interview about this film, called it a "movie" and not a "documentary." For others to call it a documentary shows the degree of impression this unscrupulous person intentionally leaves on his audience.
This is a movie - a documentary would depict booth sides of an issue in an unbiased manor. In that regard Mr. Moore has never made a documentary.
This is for 'entertainment' not for 'information' comprendo, amigos?
When will they stop stealing from thieves? This is like Apple/Microsoft of old over the Xerox software!
... and now there will be a company with some resources behind it to finally get that technology to the marketplace - those bastards! IBM and those other companies should have decades to sit on this, after all they thought of it first! So what if they aren't doing anything with it.
Next thing you know they'll take this SUPERSET of the other technologies and make it user friendly (just to trick people) and then outsell the competition.
The bastards!
At least we'll be able to rage against them even more now!
Microsoft should just close shop and go away; how dare they try and make things work? They never get it perfect anyway. They should just stop trying so we can get back to a garage company economy.
What else is there to say?
If the theory doesn't test out against the Universe, just change the definition of the Universe until it does! Ahh, but doesn't that mean that = 0 ?!?
Just keep banging those rocks together guys!
I went to the site mentioned, followed link or two and found myself on Spymac, a cooperative effort by Apple and Disney, that I signed up on and immediately got a 1GB Mailbox +
250 MB of space to upload pictures in the Spymac Gallery
100 MB free space on Spymac Hosting with WebDAV access*
Free iCal Hosting (both public and private)*
Access to the Spymac Forums and Shoutbox
Your very own Spymac Blog*
Access to the Spymac Auctions
The ability to create your very own personal Gallery and Forum
So, what's the big deal about the Israeli's, who are two months away, or Google (when did they say?)? It's here right now.
Oh, the account is accessible via POP/SMTP as well. Not too shabby so far.
The site does need some tightening up, there are way too many errors going from page to page and its spell checker just errors out and you lose your mail. but hey, like I said, just use the pop/smtp and get around that for now.
I'm telling everybody I know about this, who knows when they'll run out of space/bandwidth? (It already seemed sluggish.)
--- Be careful when you do unto others as you'd have done unto yourself, their tastes may differ!
What exactly were they streaming to/from? That is, what storage device could cough up and/or store data at that rate? You'd need a huge bank of PC-4400 DDR RAM just to keep up with that rate, wouldn't you? Just how much data did they burst at that rate? How often can they send bursts? Is that the sustained rate or just the instantaneous rate for a burst?
It's a nice phenomena but if your storage media can't read/write at nearly that rate, what size FIFO would be needed to transfer, say, a DVD? (At today's speeds I can transfer a DVD as fast as my DVD ROM can read it over my broadband connection. But, to transfer a hundred stored DVDs you still need to read the data from the storage media, then write it to some media at the other end. Is there any storage media that can deal with this bandwidth?)
I'm thinking that there is a lot of technology that needs to catch up with this...
In 1943 the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's claim that his patents predated ANY of Marconi's concerning radio transmission apparatus.
I don't know about other, earlier claims, but Tesla, not Marconi, is the father of modern radio, especially insofar as the superhetrodine transmitter/receiver combination we employ today.
Marconi shamelessly used many of Tesla's patents in his apparatus with no credit, verbal or monetary, to him. Doesn't that make Marconi a thief?
A great deal of the responsibility for Tesla being largely forgotten goes to the Smithsonian Institution. They choose to be totally ignorant of his accomplishments; going so far as displaying some of his inventions in the Edison exhibit. (You could probably build a 1,000HP generator around Tesla spinning in his grave over this - but alas, he was cremated!)
Tesla was in arrears for his subscription to the Smithsonian magazine, perhaps this is their petty way of getting their due from him? He is reported to have met their inquiries to his tardiness with this reply: "I hope, therefore, that you will interpret the term 'immediate attention' in a liberal, I might say geological, sense." They remain humorless to this day. (Quote from "Tesla, Master of Lightning" by Margaret Cheney and Robert Uth - Metrobooks publishing, copyright 1999 by the authors.)
There are a couple of great books on Tesla, if anybody is interested, both by Margaret Cheney:
"Tesla, a Man Out of Time" & "Tesla, Master of Lightning" (with Robert Uth)
They are, IMHO, 'must reads' for anyone interested in looking into the mind of pure genius, albeit, possessing poor to no business acumen. That alone is primarily why he died virtually unknown to academia and hence, future generations.
During the "war of the currents" he actually tore up his licensing agreements with Westinghouse, thereby allowing AC to emerge victorious; but, leaving Tesla a virtual pauper. He had no regrets over that, but was disappointed later in life when Westinghouse turned his back on him.
Nonetheless, his legacy lives on...
The 'and gate' couldn't be patented in the 50's because Tesla already patented the concept in 1898 in his radio controlled ships and torpedoes. (patent #613,809)
There are countless examples of instances like this, where decades and scores of years would go by and some inventor would come up against Tesla for his patents. Yet he remains virtually unknown.
Fly-back transformers (TVs) and ignition coils (cars) are variants of Tesla coils, yet nobody knows him.
We generate and transmit power by means that remain unchanged in the hundred plus years since Tesla invented the system, yet he is a stranger in his adopted country. (He was most proud of his citizenship papers - that was one of the very few documents that he would keep in his safe.)
His bladeless turbine couldn't be made to work in his day due to the lack of strength in the materials he had to work with; but, they are in production today and used in mines, oilfields and elsewhere. It is noteworthy that even with modern materials these turbines can not be run at full efficiency as the rotors tend to flow as a viscus fluid at full operating speed (30,000RPM!)
High energy research today is just coming up to speed with some of Tesla's inventions and ideas: plasma physics, particle beams, and microwave broadcasting of energy are but a few things that he was working on a century ago. Those concepts and designs weren't even understood to science until the fifties!
Some of his apparatus and ideas remain mysterious to this day, but work is progressing.
Man out of time, indeed! A pox on Marconi!
No, all contructive comments were ignored. You're welcome to the last, no doubt inane, word. Have at it.
Good for you
Good for you. BTW, do you ever leave your mom's basement?
You are right about one thing though, there are thieves everywhere. That's why these peoples good work will be taken down and only allowed by subscription. That's probably what they should have done in the first place in order to stop the petty nit-picking by the plethora of small minded geniuses in hyperspace.
It is pretty obvious how much you don't care; if only it were so...
Happy surfing, it's all yours one way or another, isn't it?
Good for you.
Over and out.
Now if only the Smithsonian would stop rewriting history their information might be worth something.
As to the RR site, if you don't like the conditions, don't go there. They don't owe you a thing, or do they? It's there property and if they want to restrict how they share it, that's their business. Again, I'm just glad that they are and said so.
On the other hand, if you don't like their agreement, they did ask for help in wording it properly, why not do something constructive instead if complaining that they aren't giving more for free?
It all works for me; I bookmarked it and will visit as often as I can until they are forced to close due to ingratitude.
(Try taking the Wright Flier home from the Smithsonian...)
I'm thankful that they don't charge and told them so. This sort of thing should be encouraged, not ridiculed. They asked for help with the TOS, I thought that was very friendly. Instead of scorn why don't you offer constructive assistance? Otherwise, if you don't like it, don't go there. It is very simple, really.
Oh, I think it (the TOS?) establishes demarcation, honest people will respect it; dishonest people will cause the site to close. I'm interested to see how long it stays on-line.
Courtesy, like that site, is free; as I didn't have any legal advice to help them I, at least, offered them that. There is a time and place for most things and here, I feel, is the time and place for positive feedback.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Here (at that site) is where that expression will get tested.
(They don't charge admission at the Smithsonian, yet you still can't take the exhibits home with you.)
It isn't them I'm worried about...
There seems to be little of that (gratitude) being displayed here. There is a veritable treasure-trove of memorabilia from both the public domain and (mostly) private collections being offered for free with the simple codicil that you don't copy it for any other purpose. BFD! If you're worried about it, don't go there, how simple is that?
:-)
Maybe if they charged an admission fee to cover the costs of hosting and maintaining the site, most of the complainers would never have seen it in the first place to complain about it. It's their website and we should simply be grateful that they are sharing this wonderful chapter in the history of the United States free of charge, even if it is exclusivly for viewing. You can't take home exhibits from a 'real' museum, like the Smithsonian Institute without paying a hugh price (money, freedom, etc.), why should this be any different. The exhibits in the Smithsonian Institute are in the public domain, are they not?
Here is the body of the email I sent to them to express my gratitude:
***
This is a truly remarkable website (http://www.cprr.org/Museum/index.html), thank you for sharing these wonderful photographs and histories of one of America's most outstanding achievements. The building of the transcontinental railroad was simply a magnificent accomplishment, a chapter in itself, in the building of a nation. This website is a spectacular way to remind people of the blood, sweat, and tears needed to accomplish this Herculean feat.
I haven't the vocabulary needed to express my thanks for letting me see this museum on-line. Some people think your User Agreement is harsh. Too bad for them! It doesn't take a three digit IQ to see the value and the cost of these exhibits. I do not understand the mentality of those people. Do they expect to take home exhibits from a real (as opposed to virtual) museum, like the Smithsonian Institute? Why should this be any different.
If I were doing a research project, I would find the $50.00 cheap enough to acquire 4000 of the photo's. As it is, I can visit whenever I like and if I desire to share with a friend, all I need do is send them the URL for the Main page and make them aware of the User Agreement Link (http://www.cprr.org/Museum/legal.html). What could be simpler? That I can visit all the exhibits for free is a wonder in itself; for that I am humbly grateful.
At the risk of being redundant, Thank You!
***
That is called being gracious, a seemingly alien concept to some of the folks here. Please don't screw it up by messing with them. All it will accomplish is their taking their site down.
But I forget, everything should be free, shouldn't it? (Of course, you wouldn't want your payroll department to think that now, would you?)
BTW, thank you for sharing that URL, I might not have known that site was there if it weren't for the griping about the EUA.
Indeed it is. Tell me about it when it's finished, OK?
I'll be brief. Let them build it on the moon!