Of all the images linked, I think the "Pyramid and underground entrance (at the apex of the pic)" is the most interesting. Sure, there are plenty of non-ET explanations, especially since the view looks pretty skewed. But if there were to be one visible artifact of some long-dead civilization, it would probably be some mostly flat structure on the top of a mound. Anything in a valley would probably have gotten covered up by the dust.
But let's get one thing straight. Even if it does turn out that these shapes were created by intelligent hands, it does NOT mean that ancient Martians built the Egyptian or Mayan pyramids. A cone is simply a stable structure. Saying that Earthly pyramids must have been built by Martians is like saying that the doodlebug holes and ant mounds in the back yard were built by the ancient Egyptians.
If you read the press releases you we learn a little about what they have acheived to date.
Too cool! I thought you were pulling my leg, by finding a company named "Ball Semiconductor" and suggesting that they have something to do with spherical chips. That's why I thought it was more Funny than Informative.
I guess it's a good thing Slashdot won't give me mod points anymore!:(
Are all Texans as offensive as their elected representative?
No, not all of them. Unfortunately, those who dare to express their disgust (especially if CUR_LOCATION != "USA") don't get favorable treatment from certain particularly offensive Texans (who just happen to run country music radio).
I could create a brand new, non-obvious email address on one of my domain accounts and put it in as the Admin Contact for a record I own, and use that email address absolutely nowhere else, and I bet that within three months that email address would be getting buckets full of spam.
That's exactly what I did... and had exactly the result you described. Hundreds of spam messages a week to an address used only for domain registrations.
However, I seem to have found a solution. A poster in the hallowed halls of Slashdot was trying to determine the level of email harvesting, but wasn't getting any bites. But the word "spam" was in his email address... so I tried a new domain registration email address that also has "spam" in it.
Results after about a month: no spam to the "domspam@..." address. I don't know if perhaps they're sending mail to "dom@...", 'cause I'm not monitoring it. But the only messages I've recieved at "domspam" are valid messages from the registrars.
Of course, I haven't bothered to update my snail mail address since I moved. I hope the folks who bought our house are enjoying the offers for low-cost hosting and convenient "renewals". I guess I'll have to add that to my growing dossier of criminal activities...
I must have missed out on those "enhancements" by running Opera. No wonder people love IE so much -- that sounds almost as good as unclosable popups! I myself find life far too enjoyable -- I'll have to start surfing with IE so I can be as irritated as the rest of the Internet.:)
From the article: For an example, let's look at a 200mm silicon wafer, which has about 986cm2 of surface area. That's about the size of a salad plate. Let's say your chips are square (most are) and they measure 10mm on a side?that's 100mm2 per chip. If the silicon wafer was also square you could fit 986 chips on your wafer. Alas, wafers are round so you can really only get about 279 chips on a wafer.
I guess the obvious question, since using squares on a round wafer wastes a certain amount of silicon, is why squares? Why not build a hex grid? That would seem to maximize the usage of the available area.
But then, I suppose cutting them out would be significantly more difficult.
What about triangles, then? Straight lines up and down, and in one (or both) diagonal directions.
On the other hand, someone's already thought of this: Intel's old i960MX microprocessor was octagonal. It was so big its corners had to be cut off.
So my idea has an obvious flaw. The question is... what is it?
The article mentions reel-to-reel tapes in an audio context. In a similar vein, my company still has to supply tax data to most state tax departments on tape cartriges. I think they're 3580 or 3590, the reader looks kind of like this one.
Fortunately, all I have to do is create the data files (using more modern tools). There's a group of folks who take care of writing the tapes... they've been with the company forever, and we're just hoping they don't all retire before the tape cartridge format does!
Actually, I don't know diddly about it! As I noted in my post, I'm a Dish'er.
And finally, you summarize it all with "OMG WTF teh goverment will get j00 OMG LOL". What are you worried about?
Did you read the right post? Here's how I summarized:
The bottom line, as usual, is simple. Don't buy anything at Kroger, or watch anything on TiVo, that you wouldn't want
[John Ashcroft | your wife's divorce lawyer] to find out about.
Yeah, I tossed out a line about "teh 3v1L government", but more as a humorous aside. Your wife's divorce lawyer, however, may take particular interest in what parts of Nell you were really watching...
When you move out of your parents' basement and start living in the Real World, you'll understand.
Dude, you've obviously gotten me mixed up with someone else. Here in north Texas, the ground shifts too much. We don't have basements.
At first, I thought, "Is the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal not enough of a "major news outlet" for Michael?" Then, I compared the articles... the Lubbock newspaper didn't even mention the now-famous boob, while CNN didn't even mention the privacy implications!
As curious as I may (or may not) be about Janet Jackson's breast, it has never been caught recording my personal viewing habits. Give me the Avalanche-Journal over CNN, any day.
From the article, with emphasis added: Privacy advocates have decried such technologies as invasive, but TiVo officials say they do not pass along information that would identify individual viewers.
When gathering customer marketing research, TiVo says it does not link viewer data to their name, gender or age -- only into one big database that can identify users by ZIP code.
What's interesting is how the article points out what TiVo does not do. They don't "pass along" information "when gathering customer marketing research".
It's not stated outright, but that sounds like they do record all that information... but it's ok, 'cause they don't use it for marketing purposes.
Which, of course, puts TiVo right up there with the so-called loyalty cards "privacy" policies. They promise not to resell personal information, but they do gather it, and it's available to anyone who knows a friendly judge.
The bottom line, as usual, is simple. Don't buy anything at Kroger, or watch anything on TiVo, that you wouldn't want [John Ashcroft | your wife's divorce lawyer] to find out about.
By the way, does anyone know if Dish Network's PVR phones home about my rewinding habits?
I am sorry, but techie geek engineers would never be able to manage a project. That is why there are managers out there.
Very true, great detailed analyisis. Of course, the whole point can be made in three words.
Dot. Com. Bust.
In some large measure, the entire "bubble" economy was built on a bunch of us tech-heads thinking we could solve the world's problems if "traditional" management styles were thrown out the window and we who knew it all took charge. To the surprise of all (except a few wiser, richer folks, think Warren Buffet), the old ways worked in the old days for a reason.
Myself, I'm just lucky to have spent the boom-bust cycle with management that knows when to herd their cats, and when to let their cats hunt on their own.
Ok, I get this comment in M2, and I'm thinking "troll, and not a very good one, either." But I'm curious, so I check out the com.com.com.com source for the blog entry:
Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."
The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.
I'm sure glad I didn't make the contribution to Dean that I'd been planning. I guess it's back to my original choice.
I use PayPal constantly, so I can't very well whine, but I do wish my contribution to Wiki hadn't been diluted by those fees. Almost $29k in US contributions, but almost $1.3k in PayPal fees!
Another problem. Those fees come up to just short of 4.5%. The PayPal fee structure says that at the worst, they should be skimming 2.9% plus 30c per transaction. Does this mean that many/most of Wiki's contributions are in small amounts?
30c is 6% of a $5 donation, but 3% of a $10 donation. I think the lesson is, if you're going to donate, the bigger the better -- unless you like subsidizing my use of PayPal's BillPay!
Should PayPal consider giving registered non-profits a break? Or is this admin overhead unavoidable with charitable causes?
There's also an interactive one, color-coded for lifetimes, here. The half-life of these elements decreases from millenia to microseconds.
Cool link! As usual, since I'm not a physicist, the chart brings up more fun questions than it answers. Here's a question that I hope doesn't get me in trouble with Mr. Ashcroft & co!
According to the page I linked above, Uranium and Plutonium, the most well-known nu-cu-lar bomb materials, have isotopes with half-lives > 100,000 years. That explains how they can be stable enough to be worked into a sub-critical mass that can be compressed explosively into a critical mass.
But look up a couple of steps. Curium, element 96, has a couple of of isotopes with similar longevity. We know that after WWII, scientists studied the heck out of the trans-uranium elements... I wonder if anyone ever attempted to use Curium as a fissile material? Someone had to have the crazy idea to try Plutonium, so you have to figure someone tried it.
I did a quick Google, and didn't find much. But this article is pretty cool -- it turns out that Curium is patented! Glenn Seaborg (immortialized with his own element, #106 Seaborgium) patented it along with Americium -- the radioactive element in your home smoke detector. Does that mean that nobody can use Curium in their bombs without paying royalties to his estate?
Let me know when wars can be fought where only the 'right people' get hurt.
That should be about the time we actually fight wars because of concern about human rights, like the war we're not fighting in North Korea.
Isn't it funny how the Iraq war is suddenly about the Iraqi people now that he's been proven dead wrong about impending attack by WMDs? How about how Bush crowed about womens' rights in Afghanistan after the fact, when he wouldn't have known a burqa from Big Bertha if Osama had set up his bases in some other country?
(I really, really didn't mean to spend this much time on Iraq today... I just wanted to make a point about relative risk and the space program!)
dude, a lot more than 500 PEOPLE died over there...
Well, duh, I knew that when I posted. But I was trying to post about the space program and the concept of relative risk. I simply wanted to point out that US leadership has no problem expending a lot of lives for a goal with dubious merit. Look where it got me -- an instant +5, then a kick back down to 3 by knee-jerk anti-politicos. It's as if I linked to some radical country group, for crying out loud.:)
For the record:
* 500 troops vastly understates the issue, even if all you care about are US casualties. Last I heard, there were 2000+ troops injured, and we're talking debilitating injuries like limbs, eyes, and parts of brains blown away. Give Bush enough time, and he'll top the WTC numbers.
* Of course, Bush has clearly topped the WTC tally when you count the number of Iraqis killed since we invaded. But relatively few of those deaths are due to direct US action -- they're mostly due to the chaos we caused by invading.
* Even so, it may yet turn out that the 5-year death toll among Iraqis is less than it would have been under Saddam, who was an unmitigated bastard.
* But even if Saddam was a bastard, Bush could have tried not lying about WMDs, and he sure as heck could have planned ahead for the complete lack of order everyone knew our entry would cause. He could have simply asked NPR's Anne Garrels, whose book shows that she had better on-the-ground intelligence than Bush's sources.
* No thanks to Bush, the troops are performing as well as can be expected in the situation they've been ordered into.
So, in your esteemed opinion, have I redeemed my Green Party credentials?
Maybe it is just me, but I don't understand the point of abandoning a space project and crashing it into the earth. Why not push it out to space a little more...
The concept seems so simple, but the reality is much more complex. IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist), but orbital mechanics just don't work at all like you're used to things working on earth (or in Star [Trek|Wars]).
For one thing, if you give an orbiting object a push "up", that doesn't send it away from the planet! It just puts it in a higher orbit, and probably an elliptical one at that. An ellipse (oval) seems fine, but the Earth probably is at a focus, not the "center". If you've lowered the close point (perigee?) into the atmosphere, you've got big trouble.
Hubble simply doesn't have the sort of thruster that could boost it into a higher, more stable orbit. There are proposals to strap on a booster to do that job, but you've either got to send someone up to attach it, or find a foolproof way of doing it robotically. Remember, Hubble wasn't designed to be reboosted by anything but the shuttle!
And things go wrong -- remember the time the Shuttle crew had to build a flyswatter-looking thing to flip a switch on a satellite they'd just launched. More recently, of course, there's Mars, the Ship-Eating Planet.
The Yahoo! article points to savethehubble.com, owned by a Brazilian fan of the telescope. He's posted some of the comments he's received, including a rant from a visitor who takes Hubble proponents to task for "not telling the full story" about the safety concerns of launching another shuttle.
The site owner's response may show where future advances in space will occur.
Brazil's NGP is about 8% that of US but I guess we could spare some. Nasa has one Brazilian astronaut who, I bet, will go up anytime - as will any american. Last year
21 Brazilian technicians died in an explosion while working on our rocket. The program is still on.
It looks like it's boiling down to a (deceptively) simple question: will you risk your life for your dreams? More importantly: will your country allow you to take that risk?
Brazil's answer seems to be, "yes". Meanwhile, here in the US, we're too busy killing ourselves in our SUVs. And don't get me started on 500+ dead and hundreds of $billions spent on the other side of own ball of rock!
Here are the Journal entries from the Slashdot candidate, Jamie. Classy guy, and I sure hope the Slashdot story didn't nix his chances.
Jan. 21st, 2004 03:37 am
Alas, my journey soon comes to an end...or possibly to a new beginning.
In just a few hours, I leave for San Diego. I can't sleep. I can't relax. I can't think. I'm a giddy/nervous/excited mess. The best way I can describe it is like sitting blindfolded on a chair with my hands and feet bound tight as others around me sing and dance and celebrate. Oh, how I can't wait to open my eyes and see all the wonderment that awaits me.
I thank you all for the outrageous support you've given me and hope I don't let you down. This whole experience has truly been remarkable.
Jan. 25th, 2004 10:07 pm
I made it home safe and sound tonight. I'm so lucky to have had my friends Matt, Tim & Howie along with me. Seriously, I really am not sure how the whole trip would have turned out had you not been there for me.
I didn't get the job, but I sure did have fun trying for it. I'll need a little while to compose my thoughts, but you'll be sure to hear from me with all the details soon. Congratulations to Nathan, Kristi and Aaron. I'm quite fortunate to have been surrounded by such talented and fun people during the competition. I will have fond memories of all the contestants and will smile many times as I think of them in the future.
I'll try to post pics of all the final creations from all the contestants on my website within a few days.
Thank you again to everyone for their encouragement and enthusiasm. I hope to see many of you over the coming weeks.
Personally what I'm most interested in are assistive agents. [...] maybe even subconciously. Think instant google searches based on something you're thinking about, augmenting your memory automatically.
I don't think this is such a good idea.
Even if you don't buy into the urban legend that men think about sex every seven seconds, you're still going to be generating a lot of Google queries about the same thing... over and over...
Or what if you're walking through the mall, and some teenybopper turns up Britney Spears, and you suddenly can't get "Oops, I Did It Again" out of your head because your implanted agent keeps pulling up the lyrics?
And if we're talking wi-fi links to remote systems, then you've got the ability to tap into another person's thoughts. I, for one, do not want the guy giving a presentation on the latest corporate buzzword to know that I'm mentally surfing the competitors' job postings.
And inadvertent cross-associations could be hazardous to your career.
Boss: Go online and find the price of widgets. Thought 1: Online=Slashdot Thought 2: Slashdot=troll Thought 3: troll=goat Thought 4: goat=!!!! Boss: What the hell... you're fired!
No thanks, I'll do my surfing the old fashioned way, if you don't mind!
I've been toying with a related idea - but instead of setting up a 'client' system, I was considering trying to set up a portable "access point" and internal "network" in a vehicle.
What a very cool idea! If you and your extended family were on a trip in multiple vehicles, you could have a multi-vehicle mobile LAN. Kind of like having CB or FRS radios, but more geeky.
As for passing motorists... here's a service you could provide, though it would violate any number of TOS: provide internet access to fellow travellers through whatever network you're using! What keeps someone from paying for (say) T-Mobile at Starbucks for their own purposes, then setting up a wi-fi hub of their own with access to the 'net via the bought-n-paid Starbucks link?
This is similar to a question I've had for a while -- can I take my dialup Internet access (no broadband in my area) and connect it to a wireless home network, and let my neighbors join in if they're geeky enough?
Slashdot Mirror
Of all the images linked, I think the "Pyramid and underground entrance (at the apex of the pic)" is the most interesting. Sure, there are plenty of non-ET explanations, especially since the view looks pretty skewed. But if there were to be one visible artifact of some long-dead civilization, it would probably be some mostly flat structure on the top of a mound. Anything in a valley would probably have gotten covered up by the dust.
But let's get one thing straight. Even if it does turn out that these shapes were created by intelligent hands, it does NOT mean that ancient Martians built the Egyptian or Mayan pyramids. A cone is simply a stable structure. Saying that Earthly pyramids must have been built by Martians is like saying that the doodlebug holes and ant mounds in the back yard were built by the ancient Egyptians.
If you read the press releases you we learn a little about what they have acheived to date.
:(
Too cool! I thought you were pulling my leg, by finding a company named "Ball Semiconductor" and suggesting that they have something to do with spherical chips. That's why I thought it was more Funny than Informative.
I guess it's a good thing Slashdot won't give me mod points anymore!
Are all Texans as offensive as their elected representative?
No, not all of them. Unfortunately, those who dare to express their disgust (especially if CUR_LOCATION != "USA") don't get favorable treatment from certain particularly offensive Texans (who just happen to run country music radio).
I could create a brand new, non-obvious email address on one of my domain accounts and put it in as the Admin Contact for a record I own, and use that email address absolutely nowhere else, and I bet that within three months that email address would be getting buckets full of spam.
That's exactly what I did... and had exactly the result you described. Hundreds of spam messages a week to an address used only for domain registrations.
However, I seem to have found a solution. A poster in the hallowed halls of Slashdot was trying to determine the level of email harvesting, but wasn't getting any bites. But the word "spam" was in his email address... so I tried a new domain registration email address that also has "spam" in it.
Results after about a month: no spam to the "domspam@..." address. I don't know if perhaps they're sending mail to "dom@...", 'cause I'm not monitoring it. But the only messages I've recieved at "domspam" are valid messages from the registrars.
Of course, I haven't bothered to update my snail mail address since I moved. I hope the folks who bought our house are enjoying the offers for low-cost hosting and convenient "renewals". I guess I'll have to add that to my growing dossier of criminal activities...
IHT? Yuck. Side scrolling javascript web pages...
:)
I must have missed out on those "enhancements" by running Opera. No wonder people love IE so much -- that sounds almost as good as unclosable popups! I myself find life far too enjoyable -- I'll have to start surfing with IE so I can be as irritated as the rest of the Internet.
Or, here's a link to a non-NYT version at the International Herald-Tribune. Enjoy!
...spherical semiconductor circuits. Ball Technologies
:)
Heh heh... good one. And it got modded up as Informative instead of Funny -- I love it when that happens!
Or maybe I just didn't poke around the ballsemi.com site enough to find the pictures of their 3-D wafer fab.
From the article:
For an example, let's look at a 200mm silicon wafer, which has about 986cm2 of surface area. That's about the size of a salad plate. Let's say your chips are square (most are) and they measure 10mm on a side?that's 100mm2 per chip. If the silicon wafer was also square you could fit 986 chips on your wafer. Alas, wafers are round so you can really only get about 279 chips on a wafer.
I guess the obvious question, since using squares on a round wafer wastes a certain amount of silicon, is why squares? Why not build a hex grid? That would seem to maximize the usage of the available area.
But then, I suppose cutting them out would be significantly more difficult.
What about triangles, then? Straight lines up and down, and in one (or both) diagonal directions.
On the other hand, someone's already thought of this:
Intel's old i960MX microprocessor was octagonal. It was so big its corners had to be cut off.
So my idea has an obvious flaw. The question is... what is it?
The article mentions reel-to-reel tapes in an audio context. In a similar vein, my company still has to supply tax data to most state tax departments on tape cartriges. I think they're 3580 or 3590, the reader looks kind of like this one.
Fortunately, all I have to do is create the data files (using more modern tools). There's a group of folks who take care of writing the tapes... they've been with the company forever, and we're just hoping they don't all retire before the tape cartridge format does!
Actually, I don't know diddly about it! As I noted in my post, I'm a Dish'er.
And finally, you summarize it all with "OMG WTF teh goverment will get j00 OMG LOL". What are you worried about?
Did you read the right post? Here's how I summarized:Yeah, I tossed out a line about "teh 3v1L government", but more as a humorous aside. Your wife's divorce lawyer, however, may take particular interest in what parts of Nell you were really watching...
When you move out of your parents' basement and start living in the Real World, you'll understand.
Dude, you've obviously gotten me mixed up with someone else. Here in north Texas, the ground shifts too much. We don't have basements.
If you're looking at my "from the article" quote and wondering what I've been smoking... it's not me! The reference changed!
The Slashdot story now links here, but it originally looked like this:
Sprinkled in the Janet Jackson boob stories is an alarming bit of information: Tivo tracks subscribers' viewing habits.
At first, I thought, "Is the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal not enough of a "major news outlet" for Michael?" Then, I compared the articles... the Lubbock newspaper didn't even mention the now-famous boob, while CNN didn't even mention the privacy implications!
As curious as I may (or may not) be about Janet Jackson's breast, it has never been caught recording my personal viewing habits. Give me the Avalanche-Journal over CNN, any day.
From the article, with emphasis added:
Privacy advocates have decried such technologies as invasive, but TiVo officials say they do not pass along information that would identify individual viewers.
When gathering customer marketing research, TiVo says it does not link viewer data to their name, gender or age -- only into one big database that can identify users by ZIP code.
What's interesting is how the article points out what TiVo does not do. They don't "pass along" information "when gathering customer marketing research".
It's not stated outright, but that sounds like they do record all that information... but it's ok, 'cause they don't use it for marketing purposes.
Which, of course, puts TiVo right up there with the so-called loyalty cards "privacy" policies. They promise not to resell personal information, but they do gather it, and it's available to anyone who knows a friendly judge.
The bottom line, as usual, is simple. Don't buy anything at Kroger, or watch anything on TiVo, that you wouldn't want [John Ashcroft | your wife's divorce lawyer] to find out about.
By the way, does anyone know if Dish Network's PVR phones home about my rewinding habits?
I am sorry, but techie geek engineers would never be able to manage a project. That is why there are managers out there.
Very true, great detailed analyisis. Of course, the whole point can be made in three words.
Dot. Com. Bust.
In some large measure, the entire "bubble" economy was built on a bunch of us tech-heads thinking we could solve the world's problems if "traditional" management styles were thrown out the window and we who knew it all took charge. To the surprise of all (except a few wiser, richer folks, think Warren Buffet), the old ways worked in the old days for a reason.
Myself, I'm just lucky to have spent the boom-bust cycle with management that knows when to herd their cats, and when to let their cats hunt on their own.
Ok, I get this comment in M2, and I'm thinking "troll, and not a very good one, either." But I'm curious, so I check out the com.com.com.com source for the blog entry:
Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."
The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.
I'm sure glad I didn't make the contribution to Dean that I'd been planning. I guess it's back to my original choice.
I use PayPal constantly, so I can't very well whine, but I do wish my contribution to Wiki hadn't been diluted by those fees. Almost $29k in US contributions, but almost $1.3k in PayPal fees!
Another problem. Those fees come up to just short of 4.5%. The PayPal fee structure says that at the worst, they should be skimming 2.9% plus 30c per transaction. Does this mean that many/most of Wiki's contributions are in small amounts?
30c is 6% of a $5 donation, but 3% of a $10 donation. I think the lesson is, if you're going to donate, the bigger the better -- unless you like subsidizing my use of PayPal's BillPay!
Should PayPal consider giving registered non-profits a break? Or is this admin overhead unavoidable with charitable causes?
There's also an interactive one, color-coded for lifetimes, here. The half-life of these elements decreases from millenia to microseconds.
Cool link! As usual, since I'm not a physicist, the chart brings up more fun questions than it answers. Here's a question that I hope doesn't get me in trouble with Mr. Ashcroft & co!
According to the page I linked above, Uranium and Plutonium, the most well-known nu-cu-lar bomb materials, have isotopes with half-lives > 100,000 years. That explains how they can be stable enough to be worked into a sub-critical mass that can be compressed explosively into a critical mass.
But look up a couple of steps. Curium, element 96, has a couple of of isotopes with similar longevity. We know that after WWII, scientists studied the heck out of the trans-uranium elements... I wonder if anyone ever attempted to use Curium as a fissile material? Someone had to have the crazy idea to try Plutonium, so you have to figure someone tried it.
I did a quick Google, and didn't find much. But this article is pretty cool -- it turns out that Curium is patented! Glenn Seaborg (immortialized with his own element, #106 Seaborgium) patented it along with Americium -- the radioactive element in your home smoke detector. Does that mean that nobody can use Curium in their bombs without paying royalties to his estate?
IIRC, I read recently that none of the Bismuth isotopes are stable... apparently the one they thought was stable instead has a REALLY long half-life.
Man, that sort of news really gives me a stomach ache...
Let me know when wars can be fought where only the 'right people' get hurt.
That should be about the time we actually fight wars because of concern about human rights, like the war we're not fighting in North Korea.
Isn't it funny how the Iraq war is suddenly about the Iraqi people now that he's been proven dead wrong about impending attack by WMDs? How about how Bush crowed about womens' rights in Afghanistan after the fact, when he wouldn't have known a burqa from Big Bertha if Osama had set up his bases in some other country?
(I really, really didn't mean to spend this much time on Iraq today... I just wanted to make a point about relative risk and the space program!)
dude, a lot more than 500 PEOPLE died over there...
:)
Well, duh, I knew that when I posted. But I was trying to post about the space program and the concept of relative risk. I simply wanted to point out that US leadership has no problem expending a lot of lives for a goal with dubious merit. Look where it got me -- an instant +5, then a kick back down to 3 by knee-jerk anti-politicos. It's as if I linked to some radical country group, for crying out loud.
For the record:
* 500 troops vastly understates the issue, even if all you care about are US casualties. Last I heard, there were 2000+ troops injured, and we're talking debilitating injuries like limbs, eyes, and parts of brains blown away. Give Bush enough time, and he'll top the WTC numbers.
* Of course, Bush has clearly topped the WTC tally when you count the number of Iraqis killed since we invaded. But relatively few of those deaths are due to direct US action -- they're mostly due to the chaos we caused by invading.
* Even so, it may yet turn out that the 5-year death toll among Iraqis is less than it would have been under Saddam, who was an unmitigated bastard.
* But even if Saddam was a bastard, Bush could have tried not lying about WMDs, and he sure as heck could have planned ahead for the complete lack of order everyone knew our entry would cause. He could have simply asked NPR's Anne Garrels, whose book shows that she had better on-the-ground intelligence than Bush's sources.
* No thanks to Bush, the troops are performing as well as can be expected in the situation they've been ordered into.
So, in your esteemed opinion, have I redeemed my Green Party credentials?
Ah, nothing like an AC attack on the last line of a multi-paragraph posting to get the day started. Thanks!
Maybe it is just me, but I don't understand the point of abandoning a space project and crashing it into the earth. Why not push it out to space a little more...
The concept seems so simple, but the reality is much more complex. IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist), but orbital mechanics just don't work at all like you're used to things working on earth (or in Star [Trek|Wars]).
For one thing, if you give an orbiting object a push "up", that doesn't send it away from the planet! It just puts it in a higher orbit, and probably an elliptical one at that. An ellipse (oval) seems fine, but the Earth probably is at a focus, not the "center". If you've lowered the close point (perigee?) into the atmosphere, you've got big trouble.
Hubble simply doesn't have the sort of thruster that could boost it into a higher, more stable orbit. There are proposals to strap on a booster to do that job, but you've either got to send someone up to attach it, or find a foolproof way of doing it robotically. Remember, Hubble wasn't designed to be reboosted by anything but the shuttle!
And things go wrong -- remember the time the Shuttle crew had to build a flyswatter-looking thing to flip a switch on a satellite they'd just launched. More recently, of course, there's Mars, the Ship-Eating Planet.
The site owner's response may show where future advances in space will occur.It looks like it's boiling down to a (deceptively) simple question: will you risk your life for your dreams? More importantly: will your country allow you to take that risk?
Brazil's answer seems to be, "yes". Meanwhile, here in the US, we're too busy killing ourselves in our SUVs. And don't get me started on 500+ dead and hundreds of $billions spent on the other side of own ball of rock!
Here are the Journal entries from the Slashdot candidate, Jamie. Classy guy, and I sure hope the Slashdot story didn't nix his chances.
Jan. 21st, 2004
03:37 am
Alas, my journey soon comes to an end...or possibly to a new beginning.
In just a few hours, I leave for San Diego. I can't sleep. I can't relax. I can't think. I'm a giddy/nervous/excited mess. The best way I can describe it is like sitting blindfolded on a chair with my hands and feet bound tight as others around me sing and dance and celebrate. Oh, how I can't wait to open my eyes and see all the wonderment that awaits me.
I thank you all for the outrageous support you've given me and hope I don't let you down. This whole experience has truly been remarkable.
Jan. 25th, 2004
10:07 pm
I made it home safe and sound tonight. I'm so lucky to have had my friends Matt, Tim & Howie along with me. Seriously, I really am not sure how the whole trip would have turned out had you not been there for me.
I didn't get the job, but I sure did have fun trying for it. I'll need a little while to compose my thoughts, but you'll be sure to hear from me with all the details soon. Congratulations to Nathan, Kristi and Aaron. I'm quite fortunate to have been surrounded by such talented and fun people during the competition. I will have fond memories of all the contestants and will smile many times as I think of them in the future.
I'll try to post pics of all the final creations from all the contestants on my website within a few days.
Thank you again to everyone for their encouragement and enthusiasm. I hope to see many of you over the coming weeks.
Personally what I'm most interested in are assistive agents. [...] maybe even subconciously. Think instant google searches based on something you're thinking about, augmenting your memory automatically.
I don't think this is such a good idea.
Even if you don't buy into the urban legend that men think about sex every seven seconds, you're still going to be generating a lot of Google queries about the same thing... over and over...
Or what if you're walking through the mall, and some teenybopper turns up Britney Spears, and you suddenly can't get "Oops, I Did It Again" out of your head because your implanted agent keeps pulling up the lyrics?
And if we're talking wi-fi links to remote systems, then you've got the ability to tap into another person's thoughts. I, for one, do not want the guy giving a presentation on the latest corporate buzzword to know that I'm mentally surfing the competitors' job postings.
And inadvertent cross-associations could be hazardous to your career.
Boss: Go online and find the price of widgets.
Thought 1: Online=Slashdot
Thought 2: Slashdot=troll
Thought 3: troll=goat
Thought 4: goat=!!!!
Boss: What the hell... you're fired!
No thanks, I'll do my surfing the old fashioned way, if you don't mind!
I've been toying with a related idea - but instead of setting up a 'client' system, I was considering trying to set up a portable "access point" and internal "network" in a vehicle.
What a very cool idea! If you and your extended family were on a trip in multiple vehicles, you could have a multi-vehicle mobile LAN. Kind of like having CB or FRS radios, but more geeky.
As for passing motorists... here's a service you could provide, though it would violate any number of TOS: provide internet access to fellow travellers through whatever network you're using! What keeps someone from paying for (say) T-Mobile at Starbucks for their own purposes, then setting up a wi-fi hub of their own with access to the 'net via the bought-n-paid Starbucks link?
This is similar to a question I've had for a while -- can I take my dialup Internet access (no broadband in my area) and connect it to a wireless home network, and let my neighbors join in if they're geeky enough?