Don't sweat the neutrons. If you stand near an operating fusor of the hobbiest sort the X-rays will give you a to-the-core-sunburn long before the trivial neutron flux will do any worrisome harm.
Actually, it's not all THAT trivial so DO sweat the neutrons. (My post was intended to point out that the X-rays are a stronger and more immediate hazard. I worded it poorly.)
Don't sweat the neutrons. If you stand near an operating fusor of the hobbiest sort the X-rays will give you a to-the-core-sunburn long before the trivial neutron flux will do any worrisome harm.
(Of course sitting for hours on a heavy steel vacuum chamber that can stop the X-rays but not be too worrysome to the neutrons isn't recommended. B-) )
I've watched it happen repeatedly with big-name and little-guy companies here in the valley, and seen news of it elsewhere.
Cutting a deal with Microsoft is an invitation to big trouble and I fail to see how companies keep falling for it. (Perhaps there IS something to the PHB stereotype.)
Cutting a deal with Microsoft for (limited) licensing of their patents is an invitation to accusations of IP infringement - and the first shoe has just dropped.
But (like reading Microsoft source code) it's also an invitation to accidentally contaminating the open-source code base with actual Microsoft IP.
I expect THAT to be the second shoe - with Microsoft first FUDding up the customers, then going after Linux ala SCO, but with their ducks correctly aligned before filing the first suit.
If it is true, you're wife's granddad was sure someone who while I technically should frown upon...
Why "should technically frown upon"? He did the right thing. Nobody killed, only two bad guys hurt, nobody driven off their family land, gang activity aborted (rather than growing with success and ending up killing and/or driving off more people).
Those who initiate deadly force or its threat have chosen to have force used in the interaction and chosen to risk the consequences. Those they impose did not have that choice: They are left with only a choice of how it is to be used. If they, in turn, chose to defend their life and limb with deadly force, the initiator has no gripe.
The victim who defends is on solid moral ground. Any ideology that says otherwise is merely a convenient tool for bullies, crooks, and tyrants.
I got it from her dad (the kid holding the tools - now deceased). However it's also documented in the newspapers of the time - which were involved in the the after-story of how he lived through it all.
Forgot to mention: What he said to the first Klansman (when initially confronted) was something to the effect of "The last batch of people in funny clothes that tried to drive us off this land wore feathers."
My wife's family fought the clan through three generations at least - often with firepower. One of the bits of family wisdom I got from her was, when confronted with a clan mob, to shoot the fenders of their cars. Then you can go into town next Sunday and identify who had been on scene.
Cool - send them a twenty and go download some more stuff.
Reminds me of my wife's granddad and the KKK.
They objected to his choice of wife. One of their members came out to his farm (as he was mending a fence with wife's pop - then a toddler - holding a tools for him) and ordered him off his land and out of the area. He waited until the guy turned around, then beat him unconscious, loaded him onto his mule-drawn wagon, and set the mules walking back home.
Sheriff came out to demand he come into town to be tried for assault. He said he'd be in the next day.
Came in and went to the judge's office. (Judge, of course, also KKK.) Judge told him the fine was something like $100 (a small fortune at the time). He laid down twice the fine.
"What's that for?" asks the judge. "I figure I'll pay for the next one in advance."
Then he beat the tar out of the judge.
(How he avoided the lynch mob is a separate story. And don't try this at home - or in court - these days, kiddies.)
What part of "News Release" don't they understand?
When did the rules change so it was only "news" if a reporter pried it out of people as they kicked and screamed, tricked it out of them, or dug it out of their trash cans?
When did the people operating corporations lose the same free-speech rights, and the expectation that news media would carry their voices when they had something interesting to say, that demonstrators and political candidates enjoy? (Or did THEY lose access to media attention, too?)
If it's news there's no reason not to run it. If the PR operation did the work of making a video it's a cost savings for the broadcaster. And quoting verbatim rather than rephrasing increases the chance of getting it right.
(NONE of which reduces the ethical obligation of the news operation to credit the source (rather than pass it off as their own work), to fact-check (especially if the claims are unreasonable), to present opposing views (if the subject is in dispute) and/or estimates of the credibility of the source, and to make editorial decisions on whether the material is right for their format and target audience.)
And what makes this not waste energy by pumping it in all directions, or not waste energy when there's nothing around to charge?
The antenna is composed of more than a dipole - like a quadrupole or more. (Details aren't clear from the article.)
At large distances the fields cancel out. So energy is not radiated away. At short distances it doesn't cancel out exactly. There another antenna can couple to the transmitting antenna and absorb energy from it.
It's much like total internal reflection with light trying to make it from inside a high-index-of-refraction material to its lower-index surroundings. If the incident angle is increased beyond the angle where the light would be refracted to be parallel to the boundary surface, there's no direction in which the light wave could add up to non-zero strength. Thus the light can't escape. Since the surface isn't "lossy" and can't absorb the energy, the light is totally reflected. But the fields from the light extend a small distance - like a half-wave or so - from the surface (and cancel out rapidly beyond that). If you bring another piece of high-index material close enough to (or touching) the surface, this field will penetrate it. Now the fields add up in a particular direction and the light can travel beyond the formerly totally-reflecting interface. (That's how you measure the refractive index of opaque things like ketchup, and how some fingerprint readers get a clean image.)
Most of our insights about light and radio have to do with the "far field" - where the observer is so far from the transmitting antenna that the angle between lines-of-sight to its various parts is negligible. In the direction of antenna nulls there is no field, because the total of the field from all the points on the antenna adds to zero. But get close enough that the angles become significant and the distances - and thus the wave phases - no longer add up the same way. Then you're in the "near field", where the signal doesn't cancel out.
With this device, as with total internal reflection, you've got an "antenna null" in every direction. There's a significant amount of electric and magnetic field for a quarter-to-half-wavelength from the antenna, but beyond that the field falls off to essentially zero very quickly. Cancelation means the open space acts like a perfect mirror and puts all the energy back into the transmitting antenna before it gets to far-field distances. So there's no load on the transmitter. (The antenna acts like a short or open circuit on the end of the transmission line and bounces all the energy back into the transmitter.)
But bring a probe close enough to the transmitting antenna that the lines between the probe and the transmitting antenna's parts are no longer near-parallel. Then the differences between the distances to the various transmitting parts deviate from the relationship they had at the large distances. You're "in the near-field" and the signal DOESN'T cancel out. The probe can suck in some of the power, potentially with near-perfect efficiency. The loss of this energy may also disrupt the far-field cancelation a little bit, allowing another part of the energy to leak away. But the leaking energy won't exceed the amount captured, since it consists of the fields that would otherwise have been canceling the energy that was grabbed. And other parts of the receiving antenna - which are at other distances from the transmitting elements so things add up differently - can capture some or all of THAT energy. So the leakage may be very small to non-existent. In that case essentially all the energy lost from the transmitting antenna ends up in the receiving antenna's feedline. The transmitter sees the receiver's load (plus the load of any leakage from imperfect field disruption) and the energy is tranferred with negligible loss.
Doesn't anyone remember Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles?
I remember them all too well. With loathing.
Bradbury doesn't write science fiction. He writes mainstream fiction using science fiction idioms.
The primary distinction is the central message:
Science fiction is the art of technologists. The central message is "You can always fix or improve things if you think about them clearly and carefully. That's what you're SUPPOSED to do. And that's what will make you happy and your life good." Dystopias are permitted, but only of the form: "Here's something you can break SO badly that it CAN'T be fixed afterward - so watch it. (And here's where the fragile point is so you can avoid it - or stop the avalanche before it gets out of hand.)
Mainstream fiction is the art of social control - the "circuses" of "bread-and-...". The central message is: "Your life might be bad now, and getting worse, but anything you do to improve it will bring disaster. Only properly-constituted authorities are able to even retard the slide. The best you can do is shut up, sit down, and follow orders. (And hope your part of the herd isn't slated for slaughter in the near term.)"
And that's why, when the government schools are force-feeding you "literature" as they train you for your place in the machine, they dump on Science Fiction generally (since it would make you less tractable) but turn around and shove a handfull of allegedly-science-fiction "exceptions" down your throat: "The Machine Stops", "1984", "Brave New World", and, of course, anything by Bradbury.
Heinlein used it, too, in "The Man who Sold the Moon" (a "Future History" story about the first moonshot being done by a private entrepreneur).
The hypotheitcal, inexpensive, scheme was to set off a few "skyrockets" from the landing site to dust the moon with soot in a pattern, making the logo by selectively darkening the surface.
The logo of the "6+" (obviously 7up) company would have fit and been visible. So he sells the rights to the story analog of the Coca-Cola company (whose logo would NOT fit). That way they get to do an advertising campaign about how they paid so the moon would NOT be turned into a billboard by their competition, while the private-rocket-company guy gets his bucks and doesn't have to actually do anything (let alone carry a payload full of skyrockets and use them to paint the moon.) B-)
Seems to me that backward compatability issues are an OPPORTUNITY for linux.
Windows API support in linux (ala Wine) not only CAN be done, but it's EASIER for older, frozen, versions of Windows, which are no longer moving targets.
Seems to me that a "tested and seems to work" compatibility list for older Windows commercial apps versus an API emulator/kernel/library version number would provide:
- IT departments with an opportunity to migrate and a starting point for doing their due-dilligence checking
- API emulator project members the feedback they need to find and fix any mis-emulation that is blocking such a migration
- Linux evangelists a selling point
- Management the wake-up call that it is now POSSIBLE to migrate away from their addiction to Microsoft and other proprietary software, and
- Stockholders a hammer to use on management. B-)
Another option would be to use really powerful magnets to shield the car. The radiation in the belts is there because it is charged and is earth's magnetic field keeps it deflects it. Can you say superconductors?
It's also at a narrow range of rather low energies. Trivial for a big magnet to steer around the elevator.
I'd be more worried about damage to the cable itself. Unlike the climber there's enough of it that magnetic shielding might be a "weighty" problem.
(Given that the particles are charged they'll be rapidly decellerated by the loose charges in a conductor, too. Perhaps, if it's thick enough, just having the outer wall of the climber made of a conductive material may be sufficient.)
Any physicists out there know what happens when a high-velocity charged particle tries to pass through a superconductor? (Its motion involves a magnetic pulse which the superconductor will try to exclude.)
> In fact the copyright balancing is the interests of the content producers versus the > interests of the content users (of a number of types - including the content PURCHASERS > who want to format-shift their property in order to player-shift or space-shift it, whom > he carefully ignores).
Actually, the whole copyright thing has been set up to advance the arts in the interest of the PUBLIC.
Which is why I switched from "content publishers" to "content producers" in that sentence.
That was confusing - especially given the meaning of "producer" in motion picture making and broadcasting. I should have said "content creators". Thank you for clarifying it.... the copyright as such has never been intended to guarantee profit for a publisher.
Well, actually it WAS intended to protect domestic publishers as well as authors. (Originally you lost copyright enforcability if you didn't print it in the US and imported too many copies printed elsewhere.) And it wasn't intended to GUARANTEE profit to authors, either: Just to defend them, and their publishers, from parasitization by what are now called "commercial pirates" - other publishers who could otherwise simply clone the work, be spared the costs of creation, and thus out-compete the author's authorized edition.
(Other than those nits I think we're in complete agreement.)
It's hardly surprising that both publishers and authors are protected by a constitutional mechanism. Franklin was both - and thus understood the problem from the viewpoints of all sides (author, publisher, "pirate" publisher, consumer, parodist/satirist, social-engineer,...).
Spider Robinson's work... Is mostly comedy in a recently past setting mixed with a lot (I mean as in a whole several acres lot) of bad puns...
Which is actually a reasonably good match for Heinlein. Heinlein, like Robinson, would often use puns (sometimes bad ones) to ilustrate a point or as a major plot element - or just for humor.
_Stranger in a Strange Land_, for instance, has quite a bit of pun use (and occasionally resulting slapsitck), both in the education of the "Michael" character and in explaining points of both Martian and story-timeline Human societies.
He is attempting to portray the fair-use balance as the interestst of the content publishers versus the interests of the equipment makers. At one point he makes this explicit. At another he talks of balancing the interests of "all players". This is totally bogus.
In fact the copyright balancing is the interests of the content producers versus the interests of the content users (of a number of types - including the content PURCHASERS who want to format-shift their property in order to player-shift or space-shift it, whom he carefully ignores).
The makers of the equipment, software, and other insturmentality that enables the content users' exercise of their fair-use rights DO benefit. So they have a financial incentive to support the content users' position. (Indeed, the industry's activity is an effective way for the content users to fund the defense of their own rights.) And their profit is indeed part of the overall social benefit intended to be promoted by the copyright law. But (despite Sherman's FUD) the copying-equipment industry's interest is NOT the other side of the "balance" of fair-use.
The problem is most third party candidates (at least where I am) are so extreme or so focused on a single topic that voting for them simply doesn't make sense. I research my votes heavily before deciding, and I've yet to find anyone that was even ballpark close to what I'd like to see in office that wasn't a Republican or Democrat.
Third party candidates aren't about getting elected. Third party candidates are about getting the major parties to shift position. They know it: That's why they're each being up-front and extreme about one agenda: To maximize the error signal to the major parties when they wander so far away from that position that mainstream voters are left behind and show it by voting minor-party.
They're in it to get their agenda through (or a competing agenda blocked) by getting a major party to co-opt them. (They only graduate to major-party status if BOTH major parties go stupid and run away from the electorate.)
YOU'RE in it for the same thing: To change the behavior of the government on some important point(s) to something more to your liking.
So when the majors are both really tweaking you off, find the minor who sends the signal you want them to hear and vote for HIM.
The most disappointing thing was, in several cases, my *only* choice was a Democrat or a write-in candidate! Not only were there no Independents to vote for, but Republicans didn't even have anyone running against them!
So next cycle sign YOURSELF up as a Republican. Then run a campaign focused on those issues where you differ with the Democrat - even if there are only a couple.
Don't be afraid to admit to (nay, BRAG about) those where you agree, even (especially) if they're issues where the Republicans are USUALLY on the other side. Then the voters know they have a choice on the ones where you DISagree without jepoardizing the other issues. And even the Republicans will be willing to put up with you - maybe even help you - if it means getting a vote for SOME of their agenda from a district where they'd given up.
It worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Make it work for you.
And have fun doing it even if you think you're doomed.
(In particular: When they try to apply all sorts of social pressure and character assasination, don't get depressed. Instead, REVEL in it and FLAUNT it! It means that you've landed a punch on the bad guys that hurt them and they're floundering.)
When you vote for the lessor devil you elect a devil.
When both major party candidates are bad your vote is already wasted. The most mileage you can get from it then is to use it to show the party brass which way to change their positions to improve their chances next time around.
You do that by voting for the minor party whose stated (and non-fake) position is closest to what you want on the most importand issue(s) for you.
So think about what it is that BOTH candidates are doing wrong that annoys you. Then find the third part that gets THAT issue right (even if it's totally goofy on everything else and has NO chance of winning) and vote for THEIR guy. Get enough people to do this and watch one of the majors change their policies to co-opt the issue.
The Socialist party NEVER elected a significant candidate. But over a few decades they got nearly all of their agenda enacted into law by tactics like that.
The very nature of our plurality system ("one man, one vote," winner take all) will inevitably lead to a two-party system,...
Which does NOT mean that a minor-party vote is wasted.
A minor party vote says to the major party candidates: "Here is somebody who cared enough to vote and BOTH of you were so far from his position that NEITHER of you got that vote."
That's easy for the majors to write off as flakes when only a few people do it. But when a lot of people start voting for one minor party, it tells them that they've gotten disconnected from the popular will. This they DO notice.
Then one of the parties - usually the one otherwise more compatible with the minor party's position - will start modifying its position to try to serve these disenfranchised voters, co-opt the third party, and collect the votes. (Generally this happens through internal politics, where the power balance shifts toward those more compatible with the minor party.)
But if BOTH major parties remain refractory in the face of a major issue, the minor will grow to replace the weaker of them - accompanied by other uphevals. (Last time this happened the Republican party graduated to major status and elected its first president - Abraham Lincon.)
The winning strategy for minor-party voting is to vote for a candidate of the minor party whose stated (and true) position is closest to yours on the main point where you diverge from the postions of the corresponding candidates of the major parties. That way you tell the major party brass not just that they've drifted away from the electorate, but which way to go to get back.
I realize that the seemingly correct thing to do is to stay at home. But all that does is ensure the tyranny of those with an agenda.
But that's the POINT!
Voting is NOT to insure that the people elected are popular.
Voting is to stabilize the government by predicting the outcome of a civil war well enough that the losers won't try to reverse the result by violence.
That's ALL it's about. And that's why elections are so full of dirty tricks and backstabbing, why the US has only had one major internal war in over two centuries, and why it DOESN'T stop assasination.
If "those with an agenda" are willing to fight for it (with real fighting), and the rest of the population is not not opposed enough to be willing to fight even harder to block it, they SHOULD get their agenda through. The choice then is between them getting their agenda through with or without a war.
= = = = =
The responsible thing for the original poster to do, if there's even ONE office race or proposition on the ballot that matters strongly to him, is to go vote on THAT, and leave the rest of the ballot blank.
You DON'T have to vote on any race or question where you don't have a strong opinion. And you really shouldn't vote when you don't know what you're voting on or your preference is so weak that you aren't willing to fight - or support a fight - to back up your choice.
There's not a shortage of IT workers in the U.S., there's a shortage of IT workers who will work for $25K a year in the U.S.
AND have a degree from one of a set of (non-State) universities you can count on one hand with fingers left over.
AND are white or oriental.
AND are male.
AND have straight teeth and a blue-state big-city upper-class accent.
There are PLENTY of intelligent, qualified, competent, and dedicated people available to companies that are willing to hire only on capabilities and ignore irrelivant-to-the-job superficialities and stereotypes.
Hmmm... Nested block quotes don't seem to display right in older browsers. Parent should have been equivalent to:
Voter fraud on the part of Democrats was well-documented in 2004, from paying homeless people with crack to go in and vote to signing up dead people as voters.
Voter fraud on the part of Democrats was well-documented in 2004, from paying homeless people with crack to go in and vote to signing up dead people as voters.
Bullshit. You don't have documentation of that.
Did you notice, by the way, that the only actual fraud in 2004 the HBO documentary FOUND was 200 votes stolen FROM Bush in the "troublesome in 2000" Florida precinct they went after first?
(Of course this is still consistent with the theory that, in 2004, the Republicans knew how to rig things untracably and the Democrats had to do their cheating in a tracable way.)
But I'm happy to see the R's take all the heat on this one. That way the D's will be SO paranoid about having things yanked out from under them that they may actually be willing to sign on to a bill that attacks ALL forms of vote fraud - even the ones massively in their favor - if it fixes the potentially overriding "black box voting" problem.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the R officials believe that the Ds do most of the cheating and derive most of the benefits. (And that, even if they were being used in the R's favor, the blackbox hacks are now both blown and available to all parties.) So they'd perceive such a bill as being in their favor.
For the rest of us, eliminating ALL cheating, computerized or otherwise, is in our interest and what we want.
Right?
I think that documentary was brilliant:
- Democrats see the Republicans stealing the elections.
- Republicans see the Democrats stealing the elections.
- So both of them work for cleaning up the process. Which is exactly what *I* want. B-)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't sweat the neutrons. If you stand near an operating fusor of the hobbiest sort the X-rays will give you a to-the-core-sunburn long before the trivial neutron flux will do any worrisome harm.
Actually, it's not all THAT trivial so DO sweat the neutrons. (My post was intended to point out that the X-rays are a stronger and more immediate hazard. I worded it poorly.)
Don't sweat the neutrons. If you stand near an operating fusor of the hobbiest sort the X-rays will give you a to-the-core-sunburn long before the trivial neutron flux will do any worrisome harm.
(Of course sitting for hours on a heavy steel vacuum chamber that can stop the X-rays but not be too worrysome to the neutrons isn't recommended. B-) )
A rule of thumb when dealing with Microsoft.
Microsoft ALWAYS shafts their partners.
I've watched it happen repeatedly with big-name and little-guy companies here in the valley, and seen news of it elsewhere.
Cutting a deal with Microsoft is an invitation to big trouble and I fail to see how companies keep falling for it. (Perhaps there IS something to the PHB stereotype.)
Cutting a deal with Microsoft for (limited) licensing of their patents is an invitation to accusations of IP infringement - and the first shoe has just dropped.
But (like reading Microsoft source code) it's also an invitation to accidentally contaminating the open-source code base with actual Microsoft IP.
I expect THAT to be the second shoe - with Microsoft first FUDding up the customers, then going after Linux ala SCO, but with their ducks correctly aligned before filing the first suit.
So I take it that engaging in a (still in progress) conspiracy to murder you and your family is inadequate justification for laying on of fists?
If it is true, you're wife's granddad was sure someone who while I technically should frown upon ...
Why "should technically frown upon"? He did the right thing. Nobody killed, only two bad guys hurt, nobody driven off their family land, gang activity aborted (rather than growing with success and ending up killing and/or driving off more people).
Those who initiate deadly force or its threat have chosen to have force used in the interaction and chosen to risk the consequences. Those they impose did not have that choice: They are left with only a choice of how it is to be used. If they, in turn, chose to defend their life and limb with deadly force, the initiator has no gripe.
The victim who defends is on solid moral ground. Any ideology that says otherwise is merely a convenient tool for bullies, crooks, and tyrants.
I got it from her dad (the kid holding the tools - now deceased). However it's also documented in the newspapers of the time - which were involved in the the after-story of how he lived through it all.
Forgot to mention: What he said to the first Klansman (when initially confronted) was something to the effect of "The last batch of people in funny clothes that tried to drive us off this land wore feathers."
My wife's family fought the clan through three generations at least - often with firepower. One of the bits of family wisdom I got from her was, when confronted with a clan mob, to shoot the fenders of their cars. Then you can go into town next Sunday and identify who had been on scene.
Cool - send them a twenty and go download some more stuff.
Reminds me of my wife's granddad and the KKK.
They objected to his choice of wife. One of their members came out to his farm (as he was mending a fence with wife's pop - then a toddler - holding a tools for him) and ordered him off his land and out of the area. He waited until the guy turned around, then beat him unconscious, loaded him onto his mule-drawn wagon, and set the mules walking back home.
Sheriff came out to demand he come into town to be tried for assault. He said he'd be in the next day.
Came in and went to the judge's office. (Judge, of course, also KKK.) Judge told him the fine was something like $100 (a small fortune at the time). He laid down twice the fine.
"What's that for?" asks the judge. "I figure I'll pay for the next one in advance."
Then he beat the tar out of the judge.
(How he avoided the lynch mob is a separate story. And don't try this at home - or in court - these days, kiddies.)
Let me be ... the first one to say DUH
You got that right.
What part of "News Release" don't they understand?
When did the rules change so it was only "news" if a reporter pried it out of people as they kicked and screamed, tricked it out of them, or dug it out of their trash cans?
When did the people operating corporations lose the same free-speech rights, and the expectation that news media would carry their voices when they had something interesting to say, that demonstrators and political candidates enjoy? (Or did THEY lose access to media attention, too?)
If it's news there's no reason not to run it. If the PR operation did the work of making a video it's a cost savings for the broadcaster. And quoting verbatim rather than rephrasing increases the chance of getting it right.
(NONE of which reduces the ethical obligation of the news operation to credit the source (rather than pass it off as their own work), to fact-check (especially if the claims are unreasonable), to present opposing views (if the subject is in dispute) and/or estimates of the credibility of the source, and to make editorial decisions on whether the material is right for their format and target audience.)
And what makes this not waste energy by pumping it in all directions, or not waste energy when there's nothing around to charge?
The antenna is composed of more than a dipole - like a quadrupole or more. (Details aren't clear from the article.)
At large distances the fields cancel out. So energy is not radiated away. At short distances it doesn't cancel out exactly. There another antenna can couple to the transmitting antenna and absorb energy from it.
It's much like total internal reflection with light trying to make it from inside a high-index-of-refraction material to its lower-index surroundings. If the incident angle is increased beyond the angle where the light would be refracted to be parallel to the boundary surface, there's no direction in which the light wave could add up to non-zero strength. Thus the light can't escape. Since the surface isn't "lossy" and can't absorb the energy, the light is totally reflected. But the fields from the light extend a small distance - like a half-wave or so - from the surface (and cancel out rapidly beyond that). If you bring another piece of high-index material close enough to (or touching) the surface, this field will penetrate it. Now the fields add up in a particular direction and the light can travel beyond the formerly totally-reflecting interface. (That's how you measure the refractive index of opaque things like ketchup, and how some fingerprint readers get a clean image.)
Most of our insights about light and radio have to do with the "far field" - where the observer is so far from the transmitting antenna that the angle between lines-of-sight to its various parts is negligible. In the direction of antenna nulls there is no field, because the total of the field from all the points on the antenna adds to zero. But get close enough that the angles become significant and the distances - and thus the wave phases - no longer add up the same way. Then you're in the "near field", where the signal doesn't cancel out.
With this device, as with total internal reflection, you've got an "antenna null" in every direction. There's a significant amount of electric and magnetic field for a quarter-to-half-wavelength from the antenna, but beyond that the field falls off to essentially zero very quickly. Cancelation means the open space acts like a perfect mirror and puts all the energy back into the transmitting antenna before it gets to far-field distances. So there's no load on the transmitter. (The antenna acts like a short or open circuit on the end of the transmission line and bounces all the energy back into the transmitter.)
But bring a probe close enough to the transmitting antenna that the lines between the probe and the transmitting antenna's parts are no longer near-parallel. Then the differences between the distances to the various transmitting parts deviate from the relationship they had at the large distances. You're "in the near-field" and the signal DOESN'T cancel out. The probe can suck in some of the power, potentially with near-perfect efficiency. The loss of this energy may also disrupt the far-field cancelation a little bit, allowing another part of the energy to leak away. But the leaking energy won't exceed the amount captured, since it consists of the fields that would otherwise have been canceling the energy that was grabbed. And other parts of the receiving antenna - which are at other distances from the transmitting elements so things add up differently - can capture some or all of THAT energy. So the leakage may be very small to non-existent. In that case essentially all the energy lost from the transmitting antenna ends up in the receiving antenna's feedline. The transmitter sees the receiver's load (plus the load of any leakage from imperfect field disruption) and the energy is tranferred with negligible loss.
Does this make any sense yet?
Doesn't anyone remember Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles?
I remember them all too well. With loathing.
Bradbury doesn't write science fiction. He writes mainstream fiction using science fiction idioms.
The primary distinction is the central message:
Science fiction is the art of technologists. The central message is "You can always fix or improve things if you think about them clearly and carefully. That's what you're SUPPOSED to do. And that's what will make you happy and your life good." Dystopias are permitted, but only of the form: "Here's something you can break SO badly that it CAN'T be fixed afterward - so watch it. (And here's where the fragile point is so you can avoid it - or stop the avalanche before it gets out of hand.)
Mainstream fiction is the art of social control - the "circuses" of "bread-and-...". The central message is: "Your life might be bad now, and getting worse, but anything you do to improve it will bring disaster. Only properly-constituted authorities are able to even retard the slide. The best you can do is shut up, sit down, and follow orders. (And hope your part of the herd isn't slated for slaughter in the near term.)"
And that's why, when the government schools are force-feeding you "literature" as they train you for your place in the machine, they dump on Science Fiction generally (since it would make you less tractable) but turn around and shove a handfull of allegedly-science-fiction "exceptions" down your throat: "The Machine Stops", "1984", "Brave New World", and, of course, anything by Bradbury.
Heinlein used it, too, in "The Man who Sold the Moon" (a "Future History" story about the first moonshot being done by a private entrepreneur).
The hypotheitcal, inexpensive, scheme was to set off a few "skyrockets" from the landing site to dust the moon with soot in a pattern, making the logo by selectively darkening the surface.
The logo of the "6+" (obviously 7up) company would have fit and been visible. So he sells the rights to the story analog of the Coca-Cola company (whose logo would NOT fit). That way they get to do an advertising campaign about how they paid so the moon would NOT be turned into a billboard by their competition, while the private-rocket-company guy gets his bucks and doesn't have to actually do anything (let alone carry a payload full of skyrockets and use them to paint the moon.) B-)
Seems to me that backward compatability issues are an OPPORTUNITY for linux.
Windows API support in linux (ala Wine) not only CAN be done, but it's EASIER for older, frozen, versions of Windows, which are no longer moving targets.
Seems to me that a "tested and seems to work" compatibility list for older Windows commercial apps versus an API emulator/kernel/library version number would provide:
- IT departments with an opportunity to migrate and a starting point for doing their due-dilligence checking
- API emulator project members the feedback they need to find and fix any mis-emulation that is blocking such a migration
- Linux evangelists a selling point
- Management the wake-up call that it is now POSSIBLE to migrate away from their addiction to Microsoft and other proprietary software, and
- Stockholders a hammer to use on management. B-)
Another option would be to use really powerful magnets to shield the car. The radiation in the belts is there because it is charged and is earth's magnetic field keeps it deflects it. Can you say superconductors?
It's also at a narrow range of rather low energies. Trivial for a big magnet to steer around the elevator.
I'd be more worried about damage to the cable itself. Unlike the climber there's enough of it that magnetic shielding might be a "weighty" problem.
(Given that the particles are charged they'll be rapidly decellerated by the loose charges in a conductor, too. Perhaps, if it's thick enough, just having the outer wall of the climber made of a conductive material may be sufficient.)
Any physicists out there know what happens when a high-velocity charged particle tries to pass through a superconductor? (Its motion involves a magnetic pulse which the superconductor will try to exclude.)
> In fact the copyright balancing is the interests of the content producers versus the
... the copyright as such has never been intended to guarantee profit for a publisher.
...).
> interests of the content users (of a number of types - including the content PURCHASERS
> who want to format-shift their property in order to player-shift or space-shift it, whom
> he carefully ignores).
Actually, the whole copyright thing has been set up to advance the arts in the interest of the PUBLIC.
Which is why I switched from "content publishers" to "content producers" in that sentence.
That was confusing - especially given the meaning of "producer" in motion picture making and broadcasting. I should have said "content creators". Thank you for clarifying it.
Well, actually it WAS intended to protect domestic publishers as well as authors. (Originally you lost copyright enforcability if you didn't print it in the US and imported too many copies printed elsewhere.) And it wasn't intended to GUARANTEE profit to authors, either: Just to defend them, and their publishers, from parasitization by what are now called "commercial pirates" - other publishers who could otherwise simply clone the work, be spared the costs of creation, and thus out-compete the author's authorized edition.
(Other than those nits I think we're in complete agreement.)
It's hardly surprising that both publishers and authors are protected by a constitutional mechanism. Franklin was both - and thus understood the problem from the viewpoints of all sides (author, publisher, "pirate" publisher, consumer, parodist/satirist, social-engineer,
Spider Robinson's work ... Is mostly comedy in a recently past setting mixed with a lot (I mean as in a whole several acres lot) of bad puns...
Which is actually a reasonably good match for Heinlein. Heinlein, like Robinson, would often use puns (sometimes bad ones) to ilustrate a point or as a major plot element - or just for humor.
_Stranger in a Strange Land_, for instance, has quite a bit of pun use (and occasionally resulting slapsitck), both in the education of the "Michael" character and in explaining points of both Martian and story-timeline Human societies.
He is attempting to portray the fair-use balance as the interestst of the content publishers versus the interests of the equipment makers. At one point he makes this explicit. At another he talks of balancing the interests of "all players". This is totally bogus.
In fact the copyright balancing is the interests of the content producers versus the interests of the content users (of a number of types - including the content PURCHASERS who want to format-shift their property in order to player-shift or space-shift it, whom he carefully ignores).
The makers of the equipment, software, and other insturmentality that enables the content users' exercise of their fair-use rights DO benefit. So they have a financial incentive to support the content users' position. (Indeed, the industry's activity is an effective way for the content users to fund the defense of their own rights.) And their profit is indeed part of the overall social benefit intended to be promoted by the copyright law. But (despite Sherman's FUD) the copying-equipment industry's interest is NOT the other side of the "balance" of fair-use.
The problem is most third party candidates (at least where I am) are so extreme or so focused on a single topic that voting for them simply doesn't make sense. I research my votes heavily before deciding, and I've yet to find anyone that was even ballpark close to what I'd like to see in office that wasn't a Republican or Democrat.
Third party candidates aren't about getting elected. Third party candidates are about getting the major parties to shift position. They know it: That's why they're each being up-front and extreme about one agenda: To maximize the error signal to the major parties when they wander so far away from that position that mainstream voters are left behind and show it by voting minor-party.
They're in it to get their agenda through (or a competing agenda blocked) by getting a major party to co-opt them. (They only graduate to major-party status if BOTH major parties go stupid and run away from the electorate.)
YOU'RE in it for the same thing: To change the behavior of the government on some important point(s) to something more to your liking.
So when the majors are both really tweaking you off, find the minor who sends the signal you want them to hear and vote for HIM.
The most disappointing thing was, in several cases, my *only* choice was a Democrat or a write-in candidate! Not only were there no Independents to vote for, but Republicans didn't even have anyone running against them!
So next cycle sign YOURSELF up as a Republican. Then run a campaign focused on those issues where you differ with the Democrat - even if there are only a couple.
Don't be afraid to admit to (nay, BRAG about) those where you agree, even (especially) if they're issues where the Republicans are USUALLY on the other side. Then the voters know they have a choice on the ones where you DISagree without jepoardizing the other issues. And even the Republicans will be willing to put up with you - maybe even help you - if it means getting a vote for SOME of their agenda from a district where they'd given up.
It worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Make it work for you.
And have fun doing it even if you think you're doomed.
(In particular: When they try to apply all sorts of social pressure and character assasination, don't get depressed. Instead, REVEL in it and FLAUNT it! It means that you've landed a punch on the bad guys that hurt them and they're floundering.)
When you vote for the lessor devil you elect a devil.
When both major party candidates are bad your vote is already wasted. The most mileage you can get from it then is to use it to show the party brass which way to change their positions to improve their chances next time around.
You do that by voting for the minor party whose stated (and non-fake) position is closest to what you want on the most importand issue(s) for you.
So think about what it is that BOTH candidates are doing wrong that annoys you. Then find the third part that gets THAT issue right (even if it's totally goofy on everything else and has NO chance of winning) and vote for THEIR guy. Get enough people to do this and watch one of the majors change their policies to co-opt the issue.
The Socialist party NEVER elected a significant candidate. But over a few decades they got nearly all of their agenda enacted into law by tactics like that.
The very nature of our plurality system ("one man, one vote," winner take all) will inevitably lead to a two-party system, ...
Which does NOT mean that a minor-party vote is wasted.
A minor party vote says to the major party candidates: "Here is somebody who cared enough to vote and BOTH of you were so far from his position that NEITHER of you got that vote."
That's easy for the majors to write off as flakes when only a few people do it. But when a lot of people start voting for one minor party, it tells them that they've gotten disconnected from the popular will. This they DO notice.
Then one of the parties - usually the one otherwise more compatible with the minor party's position - will start modifying its position to try to serve these disenfranchised voters, co-opt the third party, and collect the votes. (Generally this happens through internal politics, where the power balance shifts toward those more compatible with the minor party.)
But if BOTH major parties remain refractory in the face of a major issue, the minor will grow to replace the weaker of them - accompanied by other uphevals. (Last time this happened the Republican party graduated to major status and elected its first president - Abraham Lincon.)
The winning strategy for minor-party voting is to vote for a candidate of the minor party whose stated (and true) position is closest to yours on the main point where you diverge from the postions of the corresponding candidates of the major parties. That way you tell the major party brass not just that they've drifted away from the electorate, but which way to go to get back.
I realize that the seemingly correct thing to do is to stay at home. But all that does is ensure the tyranny of those with an agenda.
But that's the POINT!
Voting is NOT to insure that the people elected are popular.
Voting is to stabilize the government by predicting the outcome of a civil war well enough that the losers won't try to reverse the result by violence.
That's ALL it's about. And that's why elections are so full of dirty tricks and backstabbing, why the US has only had one major internal war in over two centuries, and why it DOESN'T stop assasination.
If "those with an agenda" are willing to fight for it (with real fighting), and the rest of the population is not not opposed enough to be willing to fight even harder to block it, they SHOULD get their agenda through. The choice then is between them getting their agenda through with or without a war.
= = = = =
The responsible thing for the original poster to do, if there's even ONE office race or proposition on the ballot that matters strongly to him, is to go vote on THAT, and leave the rest of the ballot blank.
You DON'T have to vote on any race or question where you don't have a strong opinion. And you really shouldn't vote when you don't know what you're voting on or your preference is so weak that you aren't willing to fight - or support a fight - to back up your choice.
There's not a shortage of IT workers in the U.S., there's a shortage of IT workers who will work for $25K a year in the U.S.
AND have a degree from one of a set of (non-State) universities you can count on one hand with fingers left over.
AND are white or oriental.
AND are male.
AND have straight teeth and a blue-state big-city upper-class accent.
There are PLENTY of intelligent, qualified, competent, and dedicated people available to companies that are willing to hire only on capabilities and ignore irrelivant-to-the-job superficialities and stereotypes.
You never hear about a CEO shortage even when they make millions a year.
Actually, you DO hear about CEO shortages. Whenever somebody complains about how much CEOs get in pay and benefits. B-)
Hmmm... Nested block quotes don't seem to display right in older browsers. Parent should have been equivalent to:
...
Voter fraud on the part of Democrats was well-documented in 2004, from paying homeless people with crack to go in and vote to signing up dead people as voters.
Bullshit. You don't have documentation of that.
Did you notice
Bullshit. You don't have documentation of that.
Did you notice, by the way, that the only actual fraud in 2004 the HBO documentary FOUND was 200 votes stolen FROM Bush in the "troublesome in 2000" Florida precinct they went after first?
(Of course this is still consistent with the theory that, in 2004, the Republicans knew how to rig things untracably and the Democrats had to do their cheating in a tracable way.)
But I'm happy to see the R's take all the heat on this one. That way the D's will be SO paranoid about having things yanked out from under them that they may actually be willing to sign on to a bill that attacks ALL forms of vote fraud - even the ones massively in their favor - if it fixes the potentially overriding "black box voting" problem.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the R officials believe that the Ds do most of the cheating and derive most of the benefits. (And that, even if they were being used in the R's favor, the blackbox hacks are now both blown and available to all parties.) So they'd perceive such a bill as being in their favor.
For the rest of us, eliminating ALL cheating, computerized or otherwise, is in our interest and what we want.
Right?
I think that documentary was brilliant:
- Democrats see the Republicans stealing the elections.
- Republicans see the Democrats stealing the elections.
- So both of them work for cleaning up the process.
Which is exactly what *I* want. B-)