Upside and Downside
on
Open the Debates
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
There will be no change until, for some reason, the two major parties both think it's in their best interest. And I can't imagine how that would come about.
Everything in an election of this level is measured by how it will affect the candidate's chances. If the upside of staying away is greater than the downside of attending, then the candidate will stay away, period.
Former CIA Director George H.W. Bush lost, in no small part, because he let Perot go over his head to talk directly to the American people. Armed with the facts, the people voted against Bush Sr. That's called "democracy", the same thing we pay lip service to in Iraq and Afghanistan these days.
Of all his daddy's mistakes, this is the one that former Texas Governor George Dubya Bush won't make again. He knows better than to trust the people to make an informed choice.
And to be fair, I don't see an upside for Kerry, either. The Greens' candidate (David Cobb, dude, NOT NADER!) will be happy to call Kerry to account for his own sins.
The movie showed network footage of George W. Bush holding hands with Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. Why was he doing that, aside from the fact that men sometimes hold hands in Saudi Arabia? Why are they so warm with each other that they hold hands in public? One clue: I think we can rule out any idea that Prince Bandar actually likes George W. Bush; that would be very much against Saudi culture.
I was hoping for better than the Fifteen Hundredth Post to make this suggestion, but it goes with your comment. Plus, I need to make my crystal-ball prediction before it comes true.
I've believed, and have since early this summer (when I almost had to pay $2.00 a gallon for regular unleaded in Texas), that the Saudis are planning to play an active role in George Dubya's re-election. How can they do that, when election laws expressly forbid foreign contributions? Simple: adjust the price of oil.
Right now, I see $1.719 and think "wow, what a bargain!" But the night of 9/11, when gas lines were around the block at every station, the same price was absolutely absurd. It's only a bargain compared to the $1.80 I was paying two weeks ago, and the $1.90 I was paying earlier this year.
Now the price is dropping. Here's my prediction: prices will continue to drop right through the election, regardless of world events (short of a 9/11-style cataclysm). When Biff drives his H2 to the polls in Highland Park, he'll be thinking of how nice it is to have cheap gas again, not the 1000+ troops sent to die in Biff's name for that cheap gas.
A very likely cause is that the tumbling cause the decelleration sensor to be incorrectly oriented. The trigger for the parachute sequence is almost certainly a single-axis accelerometer, and if the capsule is not aligned properly, it will never see the proper acceleration, and thus never trigger the sequence.
I thought it was interesting that the acceleration has to go past 3 gees to *arm* the device, then back below three gees to actually *deploy* it. Miss #1 and you don't get armed, and you leave a crater. Miss #2 and you get armed, leave a crater, *and* a little surprise for the recovery crew. Is this a new design, I wonder, or is this a tried-and-true method that's worked better than anything else so far?
By the way, "Brett", why not go ahead and log in? It's (virtually) painless!
Sipping my first coffee of the day, I almost spit it out when I saw "Breaking News" on CNN's site, and a picture of a man staring over a flying saucer.
This looks like a great opportunity to play a round of Fun With Captions!
Foo: Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry. Bar: 30 G's??? I'd say that last millisecond was more like 300 G's.:-)
Good point. Also, you'd think that Spaceflight Now would have said "atmospheric entry" instead of "Earth entry" -- though it did indeed enter the Earth, albeit unexpectedly. Maybe they knew something we didn't.:)
Latest reports have a 10-foot-tall fungal-like growth expanding rapidly and resisting all fire and chemical methods of containment.
Oh, come on. Everyone knows it's going to be nearly impossible to tell what's going on, except that the rubber fittings on the helicopters will spontaneously dissolve, and the only survivors in the nearby town will be the colicky baby and the Sterno swigging wino. Right?
Here are some relevant quotes from the Spaceflight Now play-by-play. It looks like there were a number of things that could have gone wrong. Let's say it again, class... "Space Ain't Easy."
* Starting about 1045 GMT, the spacecraft spins itself up to 10 revolutions per minute. The spinning will provide the unguided sample return capsule with additional stability during entry. The spacecraft then rotates to the proper orientation for release and spins up to 15 revolutions per minute.
* Genesis will be stabilize with its nose down because of the location of its center of gravity, its spin rate and its aerodynamic shape.
* About 45 seconds after entry interface, the capsule will be exposed to a deceleration force three times the force of Earth gravity, or 3 G's. This arms a timer that is started when the deceleration force passes back down through 3 G's. All of the parachute releases are initiated from this timer.
* After one minute of atmospheric descent, the capsule should be at an altitude of 197,000 feet [...] Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry.
* 1554 GMT (11:54 a.m. EDT) The capsule has been spotted high over the planet!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT) The capsule appears to be tumbling!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT) The Genesis sample return capule is rapidly tumbling with no chute.
* 1558 GMT (11:58 a.m. EDT) IMPACT! The capsule has slammed into the Utah desert after failing to deploy its chutes and parafoil.
* 1604 GMT (12:04 p.m. EDT) Mission control says without the drogue chute and subsequent parafoil, the capsule would hit the ground at about 100 mph.
* 1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT) Recovery forces are moving toward the capsule, which has made a very spectacular crater.
(Disclaimer: I posted this in the pre-impact discussion as well.)
Replying to my own post, so shoot me. Here are some relevant quotes from the Spaceflight Now play-by-play:
* Starting about 1045 GMT, the spacecraft spins itself up to 10 revolutions per minute. The spinning will provide the unguided sample return capsule with additional stability during entry. The spacecraft then rotates to the proper orientation for release and spins up to 15 revolutions per minute.
* Genesis will be stabilize with its nose down because of the location of its center of gravity, its spin rate and its aerodynamic shape.
* About 45 seconds after entry interface, the capsule will be exposed to a deceleration force three times the force of Earth gravity, or 3 G's. This arms a timer that is started when the deceleration force passes back down through 3 G's. All of the parachute releases are initiated from this timer.
* After one minute of atmospheric descent, the capsule should be at an altitude of 197,000 feet [...] Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry.
* 1554 GMT (11:54 a.m. EDT) The capsule has been spotted high over the planet!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT) The capsule appears to be tumbling!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT) The Genesis sample return capule is rapidly tumbling with no chute.
* 1558 GMT (11:58 a.m. EDT) IMPACT! The capsule has slammed into the Utah desert after failing to deploy its chutes and parafoil.
* 1604 GMT (12:04 p.m. EDT) Mission control says without the drogue chute and subsequent parafoil, the capsule would hit the ground at about 100 mph.
* 1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT) Recovery forces are moving toward the capsule, which has made a very spectacular crater.
Just checked in with the Spaceflight Now Mission Status Center. The chute failed to deploy, and the capsule is "half-buried" in the Utah desert floor. Looks intact, but then, so did my Fiat after I wrecked it as a teenager.
Furthermore, why, when several of the "third party options" are on the ballots in all 50 states... why are they not allowed to be in the "official" presidential debates?
Just FYI, the first Presidential debate occurred this past weekend, between the Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarians' Michael Badnarik. C-Span covered it -- there's still an audio/video link from their homepage.
Not that the current duopoly will ever allow a third-party player in the debates again. But they're very handy on the local level. A friend of mine, Gary Page, ran as a Green against a shoe-in Republican, a placeholder Democrat, and a lost-in-the-clouds Libertarian. A local group (Realtors, I think) held a debate with all four. Though the Republican won, Gary's performance was so strong that the Democrats recruited him to run for Congress on their behalf this year.
Keep an eye on the grass roots... they're coming up Green.
He was so insistent that everybody who didn't vote Green was ignorant and controlled by the corporations. He used the word ignorant. Nader will save us, he said. Vote Green. Nader for President.
It's painful for me, as an occasional Green activist, when people still associate Nader with the Green ticket. He was very helpful to the party for the last two elections, primarily because of his name recognition.
But somewhere along the way (or possibly all the way along), he forgot that this isn't a Perot-style one-man show. Nader has an agenda that somewhat matches ours, but we have highly divergent ideas of how that agenda should be promulgated. He thinks it's all about the next election. We (or at least, I) believe it's all about the next generation.
The Green Party grew up this year at their national convention. It was no Repo-Demo style coronation, but a raucous exercise in true grass-roots democracy. In the end, one-time Texan David Cobb and his message of "build the party from the bottom up" won out.
I'm looking forward to the next election cycle... not the next Presidential election, but the next local election. Now that people know who we are, and we have leadership that's visibly dedicated to building the party, we can keep electing Greens to the local school board, city council, state legislature... and on up to the national level.
Well, we're not the kind that go 'round spreading rumors, Why really, we're just not the gossippy kind! Oh, you'll never hear one of us repeating gossip. So you'd better be sure and listen close the first time.
He's telling the truth. He's not spreading FUD. He's originating it.
The parent poster's image came from this web page...
I just downloaded the whole lot, converted to.bmp, and will use them as my desktop wallpaper. No problem when I'm working -- I cover my whole screen with windows anyway. But when I leave for the day, anyone who comes to snoop around my PC will fall writhing to the floor...
The problem with most magnets and electromagnets is that they are excellent conductors. In some applications this is desired, in many irrelevant, in some very undesired.
From the article: The new polymer was developed by Naveed Zaidi and his colleagues in Durham's organic electroactive materials group. The team created the new polymer from two compounds, emeraldine base polyaniline (PANi) and tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ). They chose PANi because it is a metal-like electrical conductor that is stable in air. TCNQ was chosen because of its propensity to form charged particles called free radicals.
The article goes on to note that the plastic's magnetism comes from aligning the charged particles, instead of aligning electron spins as in metal.
However, it sounds to me like combining an electrical conductor with charged particles will result in a material that will indeed conduct electricity, if poorly. Since resistance generates heat, you may want to avoid electricty. Accidentally running electricty through the plastic magnet could result in a melted hunk of no-longer-magnetic plastic.
Foo: So, when will you stop beating your wife? Bar: The day before I first met her. Baz: So you went back in time and beat her?
I think he means the wobble-wobble-poof thing from The Butterfly Effect. He went back in time and made sure not to marry her in the first place, so that he wouldn't beat her.
What sort of "interview" only includes four loaded questions? Wired gets hold of the Microsoft "security program manager", and these are all the questions they ask? I'm no M$ fanboy (though I must admit I make a living writing programs for Windows), but surely they can do better than this obvious hatchet job:
WIRED: It's been more than a month since the first news of Download.Ject, and you still haven't issued a real fix for Internet Explorer. How long is it going to take?
In other words: So, when will you stop beating your wife?
Meanwhile, Firefox and Opera look awfully appealing.
Ok, the guy really stepped in it here when he plugged Firefox (though I'm an Opera fan, myself).
What about removing capabilities from IE to beef up security?
You think you'll get him to promise to cut off "capability"-dependent programs (and their programmers) at the knees?
Seems like you're fighting a losing battle.
Objection: counsel is badgering the witness. The only appropriate answer would probably be, "Yes, we are, f*** you very much."
Also, it will not mirror itself. That would have been ironic.
It may not mirror itself, but here's a mirror of a mirror!
http://www.alltooflat.com/geeky/elgoog/ plus mirror.sytes.org equals hours of mirrored fun!
Re:Banana Bread, recipe courtesy of Emeril Lagasse
on
Banana Power!
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Not hard at all...
So you say, and indeed, I can follow your directions very closely and come out with something approaching an edible loaf (cake? lump?) of Banana Bread.
But for someone with 1337 b@k1n6 5k1llz, watching me attempt this feat would be painful! To me, the phrase "Using an electric mixer, cream the shortening and sugar" is as meaningless as "Using a text editor, replace carriage returns with HTML paragraph tags" to a non-geek. Where do I turn the knobby dealie for "cream"? Why do I have to put those angle thingies around the "p"?
We'll both produce acceptable product. But next time, you'll probably let the baker do the baking, and let me code the HTML.
It _IS_ an actual copy of the image. The trolls are trying to confuse us.
Here's what I think is going on: the image is an actual mirror for 2 weeks. After then, the post can't be moderated anymore. If it keeps its up-mod, the troll behind it changes the picture to goatse guy. Trolls rejoice in their little troll-y way over a "+5, Informative" goatse link.
Ironic, then, that my comment got a "-1, Troll" downmod! I love this place.
Lack of elections are a bad example of soviet failure, athough there are many. You should start with the US example, and Florida voters, that is much more recent, and a much more believable illusion.
I'm no fan of the clearly tainted Florida election, though I did go against my fellow liberals when I decided to just accept it as one of the glitches in the democratic process. Even with 20/20 hindsight, I'm not entirely sure that Gore wouldn't have given us his own version of the Patriot Act -- and you've really hit the nail on the head about how little real choice we have in Demoblican vs. Republicrat elections.
But there's still one big difference between Florida and a Soviet election. When we didn't like the way Florida turned out, we were able to protest the results in as open a process as could be expected. When the process gave us Dubya, we retained our ability to continue to protest the results.
John Ashcroft notwithstanding, I can go down the road to Crawford and peacefully register my discontent -- though it took a judge to tell the city to leave protesters alone. I won't have to worry about being sent to Siberia^W Alaska for excersizing my right to protest.
While researchers do not know the full range of conditions under which life can survive, the newly discovered world, with its hot surface, is not the sort of place biologists would expect to find life as we know it.
No, of course not. Life there would posess super-human strength as an adaptation to the enormous gravity. Were inhabitants of this planet to visit Earth, they would be faster than a speeding bullet, and stronger than a locomotive. I wager they'd be able to jump tall buildings with a single bound.
I wonder if anyone's thought of a name for this planet?
(How can there be two dozen comments, but nobody made this connection yet?)
Apple.com agreed to host the trailer after a write-in campaign from Farscape fans.
I RTFA'd, but I don't see the direct link implied in the summary. Event A (write-in campaign) happened before Event B (trailer is available), but I don't see any evidence that Event A caused Event B.
But then, it's nice to feel like you have a voice. They held elections in the old USSR... or should that be, "In Soviet Russia, Elections hold YOU!" ?
joogle.com is already taken by a search spammer, though joogle.net has expired and could become available Any Day Now. I'd love to be able to one day say "I rescued [a-z]oogle!"... or alternatively, "I got a nastygram from Google!"
So, I'm OOgling the 1,430 entries for *oogle.*, just in case there's one somebody else missed...
Slashdot Mirror
There will be no change until, for some reason, the two major parties both think it's in their best interest. And I can't imagine how that would come about.
Everything in an election of this level is measured by how it will affect the candidate's chances. If the upside of staying away is greater than the downside of attending, then the candidate will stay away, period.
Former CIA Director George H.W. Bush lost, in no small part, because he let Perot go over his head to talk directly to the American people. Armed with the facts, the people voted against Bush Sr. That's called "democracy", the same thing we pay lip service to in Iraq and Afghanistan these days.
Of all his daddy's mistakes, this is the one that former Texas Governor George Dubya Bush won't make again. He knows better than to trust the people to make an informed choice.
And to be fair, I don't see an upside for Kerry, either. The Greens' candidate (David Cobb, dude, NOT NADER!) will be happy to call Kerry to account for his own sins.
The movie showed network footage of George W. Bush holding hands with Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. Why was he doing that, aside from the fact that men sometimes hold hands in Saudi Arabia? Why are they so warm with each other that they hold hands in public? One clue: I think we can rule out any idea that Prince Bandar actually likes George W. Bush; that would be very much against Saudi culture.
I was hoping for better than the Fifteen Hundredth Post to make this suggestion, but it goes with your comment. Plus, I need to make my crystal-ball prediction before it comes true.
I've believed, and have since early this summer (when I almost had to pay $2.00 a gallon for regular unleaded in Texas), that the Saudis are planning to play an active role in George Dubya's re-election. How can they do that, when election laws expressly forbid foreign contributions? Simple: adjust the price of oil.
Right now, I see $1.719 and think "wow, what a bargain!" But the night of 9/11, when gas lines were around the block at every station, the same price was absolutely absurd. It's only a bargain compared to the $1.80 I was paying two weeks ago, and the $1.90 I was paying earlier this year.
Now the price is dropping. Here's my prediction: prices will continue to drop right through the election, regardless of world events (short of a 9/11-style cataclysm). When Biff drives his H2 to the polls in Highland Park, he'll be thinking of how nice it is to have cheap gas again, not the 1000+ troops sent to die in Biff's name for that cheap gas.
A very likely cause is that the tumbling cause the decelleration sensor to be incorrectly oriented. The trigger for the parachute sequence is almost certainly a single-axis accelerometer, and if the capsule is not aligned properly, it will never see the proper acceleration, and thus never trigger the sequence.
I thought it was interesting that the acceleration has to go past 3 gees to *arm* the device, then back below three gees to actually *deploy* it. Miss #1 and you don't get armed, and you leave a crater. Miss #2 and you get armed, leave a crater, *and* a little surprise for the recovery crew. Is this a new design, I wonder, or is this a tried-and-true method that's worked better than anything else so far?
By the way, "Brett", why not go ahead and log in? It's (virtually) painless!
Sipping my first coffee of the day, I almost spit it out when I saw "Breaking News" on CNN's site, and a picture of a man staring over a flying saucer.
This looks like a great opportunity to play a round of Fun With Captions!
Foo: Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry. :-)
:)
Bar: 30 G's??? I'd say that last millisecond was more like 300 G's.
Good point. Also, you'd think that Spaceflight Now would have said "atmospheric entry" instead of "Earth entry" -- though it did indeed enter the Earth, albeit unexpectedly. Maybe they knew something we didn't.
Latest reports have a 10-foot-tall fungal-like growth expanding rapidly and resisting all fire and chemical methods of containment.
Oh, come on. Everyone knows it's going to be nearly impossible to tell what's going on, except that the rubber fittings on the helicopters will spontaneously dissolve, and the only survivors in the nearby town will be the colicky baby and the Sterno swigging wino. Right?
Here are some relevant quotes from the Spaceflight Now play-by-play. It looks like there were a number of things that could have gone wrong. Let's say it again, class... "Space Ain't Easy."
* Starting about 1045 GMT, the spacecraft spins itself up to 10 revolutions per minute. The spinning will provide the unguided sample return capsule with additional stability during entry. The spacecraft then rotates to the proper orientation for release and spins up to 15 revolutions per minute.
* Genesis will be stabilize with its nose down because of the location of its center of gravity, its spin rate and its aerodynamic shape.
* About 45 seconds after entry interface, the capsule will be exposed to a deceleration force three times the force of Earth gravity, or 3 G's. This arms a timer that is started when the deceleration force passes back down through 3 G's. All of the parachute releases are initiated from this timer.
* After one minute of atmospheric descent, the capsule should be at an altitude of 197,000 feet [...] Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry.
* 1554 GMT (11:54 a.m. EDT)
The capsule has been spotted high over the planet!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT)
The capsule appears to be tumbling!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT)
The Genesis sample return capule is rapidly tumbling with no chute.
* 1558 GMT (11:58 a.m. EDT)
IMPACT! The capsule has slammed into the Utah desert after failing to deploy its chutes and parafoil.
* 1604 GMT (12:04 p.m. EDT)
Mission control says without the drogue chute and subsequent parafoil, the capsule would hit the ground at about 100 mph.
* 1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT)
Recovery forces are moving toward the capsule, which has made a very spectacular crater.
(Disclaimer: I posted this in the pre-impact discussion as well.)
Replying to my own post, so shoot me. Here are some relevant quotes from the Spaceflight Now play-by-play:
* Starting about 1045 GMT, the spacecraft spins itself up to 10 revolutions per minute. The spinning will provide the unguided sample return capsule with additional stability during entry. The spacecraft then rotates to the proper orientation for release and spins up to 15 revolutions per minute.
* Genesis will be stabilize with its nose down because of the location of its center of gravity, its spin rate and its aerodynamic shape.
* About 45 seconds after entry interface, the capsule will be exposed to a deceleration force three times the force of Earth gravity, or 3 G's. This arms a timer that is started when the deceleration force passes back down through 3 G's. All of the parachute releases are initiated from this timer.
* After one minute of atmospheric descent, the capsule should be at an altitude of 197,000 feet [...] Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry.
* 1554 GMT (11:54 a.m. EDT)
The capsule has been spotted high over the planet!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT)
The capsule appears to be tumbling!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT)
The Genesis sample return capule is rapidly tumbling with no chute.
* 1558 GMT (11:58 a.m. EDT)
IMPACT! The capsule has slammed into the Utah desert after failing to deploy its chutes and parafoil.
* 1604 GMT (12:04 p.m. EDT)
Mission control says without the drogue chute and subsequent parafoil, the capsule would hit the ground at about 100 mph.
* 1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT)
Recovery forces are moving toward the capsule, which has made a very spectacular crater.
Just checked in with the Spaceflight Now Mission Status Center. The chute failed to deploy, and the capsule is "half-buried" in the Utah desert floor. Looks intact, but then, so did my Fiat after I wrecked it as a teenager.
Furthermore, why, when several of the "third party options" are on the ballots in all 50 states ... why are they not allowed to be in the "official" presidential debates?
Just FYI, the first Presidential debate occurred this past weekend, between the Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarians' Michael Badnarik. C-Span covered it -- there's still an audio/video link from their homepage.
Not that the current duopoly will ever allow a third-party player in the debates again. But they're very handy on the local level. A friend of mine, Gary Page, ran as a Green against a shoe-in Republican, a placeholder Democrat, and a lost-in-the-clouds Libertarian. A local group (Realtors, I think) held a debate with all four. Though the Republican won, Gary's performance was so strong that the Democrats recruited him to run for Congress on their behalf this year.
Keep an eye on the grass roots... they're coming up Green.
He was so insistent that everybody who didn't vote Green was ignorant and controlled by the corporations. He used the word ignorant. Nader will save us, he said. Vote Green. Nader for President.
It's painful for me, as an occasional Green activist, when people still associate Nader with the Green ticket. He was very helpful to the party for the last two elections, primarily because of his name recognition.
But somewhere along the way (or possibly all the way along), he forgot that this isn't a Perot-style one-man show. Nader has an agenda that somewhat matches ours, but we have highly divergent ideas of how that agenda should be promulgated. He thinks it's all about the next election. We (or at least, I) believe it's all about the next generation.
The Green Party grew up this year at their national convention. It was no Repo-Demo style coronation, but a raucous exercise in true grass-roots democracy. In the end, one-time Texan David Cobb and his message of "build the party from the bottom up" won out.
I'm looking forward to the next election cycle... not the next Presidential election, but the next local election. Now that people know who we are, and we have leadership that's visibly dedicated to building the party, we can keep electing Greens to the local school board, city council, state legislature... and on up to the national level.
It's a great time to be Green!
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt,' said the CEO of the company [Steve Ballmer]"
- There's a first time for everything.
Or maybe it's akin to the old Hee Haw skit:
Well, we're not the kind that go 'round spreading rumors,
Why really, we're just not the gossippy kind!
Oh, you'll never hear one of us repeating gossip.
So you'd better be sure and listen close the first time.
He's telling the truth. He's not spreading FUD. He's originating it.
The parent poster's image came from this web page...
.bmp, and will use them as my desktop wallpaper. No problem when I'm working -- I cover my whole screen with windows anyway. But when I leave for the day, anyone who comes to snoop around my PC will fall writhing to the floor...
I just downloaded the whole lot, converted to
The problem with most magnets and electromagnets is that they are excellent conductors. In some applications this is desired, in many irrelevant, in some very undesired.
From the article:
The new polymer was developed by Naveed Zaidi and his colleagues in Durham's organic electroactive materials group. The team created the new polymer from two compounds, emeraldine base polyaniline (PANi) and tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ). They chose PANi because it is a metal-like electrical conductor that is stable in air. TCNQ was chosen because of its propensity to form charged particles called free radicals.
The article goes on to note that the plastic's magnetism comes from aligning the charged particles, instead of aligning electron spins as in metal.
However, it sounds to me like combining an electrical conductor with charged particles will result in a material that will indeed conduct electricity, if poorly. Since resistance generates heat, you may want to avoid electricty. Accidentally running electricty through the plastic magnet could result in a melted hunk of no-longer-magnetic plastic.
Foo: So, when will you stop beating your wife?
Bar: The day before I first met her.
Baz: So you went back in time and beat her?
I think he means the wobble-wobble-poof thing from The Butterfly Effect. He went back in time and made sure not to marry her in the first place, so that he wouldn't beat her.
What sort of "interview" only includes four loaded questions? Wired gets hold of the Microsoft "security program manager", and these are all the questions they ask? I'm no M$ fanboy (though I must admit I make a living writing programs for Windows), but surely they can do better than this obvious hatchet job:
WIRED: It's been more than a month since the first news of Download.Ject, and you still haven't issued a real fix for Internet Explorer. How long is it going to take?
In other words: So, when will you stop beating your wife?
Meanwhile, Firefox and Opera look awfully appealing.
Ok, the guy really stepped in it here when he plugged Firefox (though I'm an Opera fan, myself).
What about removing capabilities from IE to beef up security?
You think you'll get him to promise to cut off "capability"-dependent programs (and their programmers) at the knees?
Seems like you're fighting a losing battle.
Objection: counsel is badgering the witness. The only appropriate answer would probably be, "Yes, we are, f*** you very much."
Also, it will not mirror itself. That would have been ironic.
It may not mirror itself, but here's a mirror of a mirror!
http://www.alltooflat.com/geeky/elgoog/
plus
mirror.sytes.org
equals
hours of mirrored fun!
Not hard at all...
So you say, and indeed, I can follow your directions very closely and come out with something approaching an edible loaf (cake? lump?) of Banana Bread.
But for someone with 1337 b@k1n6 5k1llz, watching me attempt this feat would be painful! To me, the phrase "Using an electric mixer, cream the shortening and sugar" is as meaningless as "Using a text editor, replace carriage returns with HTML paragraph tags" to a non-geek. Where do I turn the knobby dealie for "cream"? Why do I have to put those angle thingies around the "p"?
We'll both produce acceptable product. But next time, you'll probably let the baker do the baking, and let me code the HTML.
Worry not! The trolling mods are being counteracted. A couple more 'underrated' mods and you'll have the coveted "Score 5: Troll"!
Heh. It'll make a good addition to my collection!
It _IS_ an actual copy of the image. The trolls are trying to confuse us.
Here's what I think is going on: the image is an actual mirror for 2 weeks. After then, the post can't be moderated anymore. If it keeps its up-mod, the troll behind it changes the picture to goatse guy. Trolls rejoice in their little troll-y way over a "+5, Informative" goatse link.
Ironic, then, that my comment got a "-1, Troll" downmod! I love this place.
I love off-topic discussions!
Lack of elections are a bad example of soviet failure, athough there are many.
You should start with the US example, and Florida voters, that is much more recent, and a much more believable illusion.
I'm no fan of the clearly tainted Florida election, though I did go against my fellow liberals when I decided to just accept it as one of the glitches in the democratic process. Even with 20/20 hindsight, I'm not entirely sure that Gore wouldn't have given us his own version of the Patriot Act -- and you've really hit the nail on the head about how little real choice we have in Demoblican vs. Republicrat elections.
But there's still one big difference between Florida and a Soviet election. When we didn't like the way Florida turned out, we were able to protest the results in as open a process as could be expected. When the process gave us Dubya, we retained our ability to continue to protest the results.
John Ashcroft notwithstanding, I can go down the road to Crawford and peacefully register my discontent -- though it took a judge to tell the city to leave protesters alone. I won't have to worry about being sent to Siberia^W Alaska for excersizing my right to protest.
Although I may have trouble getting on a plane...
mirror (Score:4, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward on Tue Aug 24, '04 11:55 PM (#10064748)
strange-gadget.jpg [img15.exs.cx]
greetz to GNAA
Strike 1: AC posting
Strike 2: Hosted on "exs.cx" ("excess sex"?)
Strike 3: Blatant troll reference
You think I'm going to risk this at work? You're out of your mind.
While researchers do not know the full range of conditions under which life can survive, the newly discovered world, with its hot surface, is not the sort of place biologists would expect to find life as we know it.
No, of course not. Life there would posess super-human strength as an adaptation to the enormous gravity. Were inhabitants of this planet to visit Earth, they would be faster than a speeding bullet, and stronger than a locomotive. I wager they'd be able to jump tall buildings with a single bound.
I wonder if anyone's thought of a name for this planet?
(How can there be two dozen comments, but nobody made this connection yet?)
Apple.com agreed to host the trailer after a write-in campaign from Farscape fans.
I RTFA'd, but I don't see the direct link implied in the summary. Event A (write-in campaign) happened before Event B (trailer is available), but I don't see any evidence that Event A caused Event B.
But then, it's nice to feel like you have a voice. They held elections in the old USSR... or should that be, "In Soviet Russia, Elections hold YOU!" ?
joogle.com is already taken by a search spammer, though joogle.net has expired and could become available Any Day Now. I'd love to be able to one day say "I rescued [a-z]oogle!"... or alternatively, "I got a nastygram from Google!"
So, I'm OOgling the 1,430 entries for *oogle.*, just in case there's one somebody else missed...