A stab in the dark here, but maybe he's pointing out that the Bush has got where he is today via ill-gotten gains. Consider this: had Prescott Bush not profited greatly from business with the Nazis, would George Snr. have been able to buy a place at Yale for George Jnr.? Would George Snr. have been able to get George Jnr. out of the Vietnam war and into the Texas Air Guard (where Dubya proceeded to go AWOL for 2 years)? Would George Snr. have been able to buy the presidency for George Jnr.?
Oh, the irony of it all: that the neo-cons, who are rabidly Zionist, have as their figurehead a man who got where he is today because his grandpappy profited from the extermination of the Jews.
If you were to use SSE2 you would see an incredible performance boost.
I doubt it, I really do. Present-day x86 chips aren't limited by their FP processing speed, the real problem is memory latency and bandwidth. For instance, my 1.8 GHz P4 regularly performs in excess of 1 Gflops when running benchmark tests for the ATLAS BLAS. However, these benchmarks are specifically designed to fit in cache, to have predictable branching, etc etc.
Unfortunately, in real-world situations cache thrashing is difficult to avoid, and accurate branch prediction is a highly non-trivial affair. When a prediction turns out to be wrong, the cost of refilling a stalled pipeline increases in proportion to the pipeline length. The ever-lengthening pipelines of P4 chips means that, although its FP performance may r0x0r, the overhead of stalls makes production code run like treacle.
I also really hope we don't degenerate into a `hah, you laughed at Beagle, now it's your turn` style flamewar
Agreed, that would be a pity; we should all get excited when a mission succeeds, and all feel disappointed when one fails, irrespective of nationality. I was pissed enough that so many people on/. did laugh when Beagle disappeared; let's hope the same doesn't happen in the other direction.
My question is, how does what American entities do affect you, and why do you care? Can entities from your country (not just NZ but any other) not compete against the American entities in your local markets?
When American companies are heavily subsidised by the US government, they are able to sell produce in other countries way below the production cost. Local economies, not benefitting from such protectionist support (since their government rarely has deep-enough pockets), are unable to compete, and are driven out of business. That is how American entities affect companies in other countries.
The US loves free trade, as long as free trade means "we can dump our products below cost in your markets, but if you try to do business in our markets, we'll slap tariffs over your product quicker than you can break wind."
I attach below the text of a letter recently sent to European astronomers, regarding the demise of Hubble support:
Dear colleague,
As you may know, NASA has decided to cancel all further
servicing missions to Hubble. Servicing Mission 4,
originally scheduled for next Spring/Summer, was
designed to refurbish HST and enable it to continue
operating in the current efficient and successful way.
NASA has decided that all future Shuttle missions will
be devoted to the International Space Station. Hence,
no upgrade in capability or maintenance is planned
for HST. A direct consequence is, of course, the end
of WFC3 and COS as HST instruments. A discussion is
developing, however, on the possibility of launching
one or both of these instruments as part of a
"fast-track 2 meter class telescope" mission.
Without the replacement of failed gyros there is a high
probability that HST will have to be operated in a
two-gyro mode relatively soon, with substantial
restrictions on the science observations.
A controlled de-orbit of the spacecraft will have to
be achieved using a special robotic mission at some
time in the future as yet unspecified.
There is little we Europeans can do directly to change
NASA's decision which, apparently, is final. We believe
strongly, however, that it should be made known how
universal the feeling of disappointment is within the
scientific community. As European members of the
Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC), we have asked
the ST-ECF to open a web page where you can send comments
on the fate of HST and on the loss for the scientific
community. We encourage you to share your views with us,
visiting the site and sending e-mails to the address given.
Would a colony actually *stay* in the lagrange point?
L4 and L5 are the stable Lagrange points; these are the ones in the same orbit as the moon, but leading or trailing by 1/6th of a revolution. The other points, L1-L3, are unstable: while the effective gravitational force at these points is zero, an infinitessimal displacement away from a point will lead to a force which is also directed away from the point, leading to runaway.
So, in answer to the quesiton, a colony at L4 or L5 would stay in position without further assitance. At L1-L3, it would need positioning rockets to stop it from wandering. This in fact is how SOHO (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) remains in its Sun-Earth L1 position (inside the Earth's orbit, on the line between Earth and Sun).
SMART-1 is part of the Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology; these missions are specifically designed to develop new space-based technologies. A sister mission, due for launch in June 2007 is SMART-2, which will be a testbed for laser ranging. The technology will eventually be put to use by LISA (Laser Interferometry Space Antenna), a proposed ESA mission intended to look for the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
The knowhow obtained from SMART-2 will also prove instrumental in developing ESA's Infra-Red Space Interferometer, known informally as Darwin. Darwin, part of ESA's Horizons 2000 programme, will consist of 6 infra-red telescopes flying in precise formation, with the aim of performing nulling interferometry of nearby solar-type stars. Darwin will be sensitive enough to detect the infra-red absorption-line signatures of water, ozone and carbon dioxide in the atmospheres terrestrial-sized planets orbiting one of these stars; these signatures, if detected together, would amount to strong evidence for extraterrestrial life.
just imagine what we have planned as a retort for burninating Washington in 1812
Erm, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Washington attacked in response to the burning of the Canadian Parliament by US forces, during their first abortive attempt at imperialism?
Not according to the law. The law prohibits the SUPPLY of videos to those judged by the BBFC to be too young to watch them, whether you are the parent of the individual or not. If you go into a shop and ask for an 18-rated video "for your 15 year old son", the assistant serving you is obliged by law to refuse service.
Not in the slightest. The BBFC ratings have no legal backing. When a cinema refuses to allow a minor to see an 18-certificate film, then that is at the cinema's discretion, and has no grounds in law. IANAL, but I believe the same applies to videos.
Of course, any cinema which flouted the BBFC's ratings would find itself starved of films by the major distributors, so the point is moot.
Dresden was unnecessary and unjustified. Don't make lame excuses for a horrible crime.
And having put words into my mouth, you then proceed to tear down the strawman. I wasn't excusing the bombing of Dresden; I was pointing out that each side was as bad as the other.
I always found it funny that, in the UK, you can get married and have sex at the age of 16; yet you can't look at porno until you are 18. So it's possible to indulge in the most depraved sexual acts imaginable, but you're not allowed to view depictions of the same acts. Crazy!
I've just had a quick scan through the initial (100 or so) responses to this story. It seems there is little variation between the responses; most of them fall into one of the following categories:
Women account for more spending because they buy lots of vibrators,
Women account for more spending because they are buying gifts for their tech-savvy boyfriends/husbands; they don't buy for themselves,
Although women account for more spending, here is an amusing anecdote which discusses why the are too stupid to be trusted to spend wisely
None of these responses really makes any serious attempt to address the issues behind the story. Instead, they appear to regard the story as an attack on their technical savvy, and by association an attack on their manliness. This may explain why so many responses proceed to trash either the figures quoted, or women themselves. Is it any wonder why so many men on/. complain about not getting laid?
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a measure of the heat conductivity of some stuff (watts/in. degree C)
Jesus, no wonder we're still losing spaceships on Mars!
Whats your fucking point?
A stab in the dark here, but maybe he's pointing out that the Bush has got where he is today via ill-gotten gains. Consider this: had Prescott Bush not profited greatly from business with the Nazis, would George Snr. have been able to buy a place at Yale for George Jnr.? Would George Snr. have been able to get George Jnr. out of the Vietnam war and into the Texas Air Guard (where Dubya proceeded to go AWOL for 2 years)? Would George Snr. have been able to buy the presidency for George Jnr.?
Oh, the irony of it all: that the neo-cons, who are rabidly Zionist, have as their figurehead a man who got where he is today because his grandpappy profited from the extermination of the Jews.
If you were to use SSE2 you would see an incredible performance boost.
I doubt it, I really do. Present-day x86 chips aren't limited by their FP processing speed, the real problem is memory latency and bandwidth. For instance, my 1.8 GHz P4 regularly performs in excess of 1 Gflops when running benchmark tests for the ATLAS BLAS. However, these benchmarks are specifically designed to fit in cache, to have predictable branching, etc etc.
Unfortunately, in real-world situations cache thrashing is difficult to avoid, and accurate branch prediction is a highly non-trivial affair. When a prediction turns out to be wrong, the cost of refilling a stalled pipeline increases in proportion to the pipeline length. The ever-lengthening pipelines of P4 chips means that, although its FP performance may r0x0r, the overhead of stalls makes production code run like treacle.
IANAM, is there a mathematical term for the shape of a Pringle?
Yes, it's a saddle point, specifically one for which d^2[f]/dx^2 and d^2[f]/dy^2 differ in sign, where the surface is described by z = f(x,y).
The fact that you can easily do ASCII art with C shows what a god-awful language it is. Nice program, though!
Mars had to teach puny proud humans their lesson.
If only there were a -1, Small-minded Twat moderation option....
It's cute how the EUians laugh off their failures.
Shit, not only has Spirit failed, but also your sense of humor. Truly, a dark day for mankind!
So even if Spirit gives up the ghost, her kin can carry on the flame (albeit in a less interesting location).
Not if the problem is due to a design fault. That's the drawback of sending multiple identical probes: if one is intrinsically fucked, they all are.
I also really hope we don't degenerate into a `hah, you laughed at Beagle, now it's your turn` style flamewar
Agreed, that would be a pity; we should all get excited when a mission succeeds, and all feel disappointed when one fails, irrespective of nationality. I was pissed enough that so many people on /. did laugh when Beagle disappeared; let's hope the same doesn't happen in the other direction.
My question is, how does what American entities do affect you, and why do you care? Can entities from your country (not just NZ but any other) not compete against the American entities in your local markets?
When American companies are heavily subsidised by the US government, they are able to sell produce in other countries way below the production cost. Local economies, not benefitting from such protectionist support (since their government rarely has deep-enough pockets), are unable to compete, and are driven out of business. That is how American entities affect companies in other countries.
The US loves free trade, as long as free trade means "we can dump our products below cost in your markets, but if you try to do business in our markets, we'll slap tariffs over your product quicker than you can break wind."
he can no more call himself "Professor" than an unqualified person can call their self "Doctor"
I beg to differ. "Doctor" is a qualification, "Professor" is merely a job title.
...is it whack, or is it whack?
this one relies on the color of the person's aurora,
Er, I think you meant aura there. An aurora is the northern/southern lights; if everyone had one of those, life would be like one large acid trip....
(Note: I don't think people have auras, either. Just B.O.)
It's like passing a law mandating an intelligence test before a computer can be purchased.
Agreed. If a law like this were already in place, we would be spared stupid posts like yours.
Is it good or is it not so good?
That's 'whack', not 'not so good', YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
I attach below the text of a letter recently sent to European astronomers, regarding the demise of Hubble support:
Dear colleague,
As you may know, NASA has decided to cancel all further servicing missions to Hubble. Servicing Mission 4, originally scheduled for next Spring/Summer, was designed to refurbish HST and enable it to continue operating in the current efficient and successful way. NASA has decided that all future Shuttle missions will be devoted to the International Space Station. Hence, no upgrade in capability or maintenance is planned for HST. A direct consequence is, of course, the end of WFC3 and COS as HST instruments. A discussion is developing, however, on the possibility of launching one or both of these instruments as part of a "fast-track 2 meter class telescope" mission.
Without the replacement of failed gyros there is a high probability that HST will have to be operated in a two-gyro mode relatively soon, with substantial restrictions on the science observations. A controlled de-orbit of the spacecraft will have to be achieved using a special robotic mission at some time in the future as yet unspecified.
There is little we Europeans can do directly to change NASA's decision which, apparently, is final. We believe strongly, however, that it should be made known how universal the feeling of disappointment is within the scientific community. As European members of the Space Telescope Users Committee (STUC), we have asked the ST-ECF to open a web page where you can send comments on the fate of HST and on the loss for the scientific community. We encourage you to share your views with us, visiting the site and sending e-mails to the address given.
The site is now available at http://www.stecf.org/SM_cancellation.html
Best regards,
Eric Emsellem and Monica Tosi
Still, it works, but it's not even as efficient as chemical rocketry
One word: fusion. As soon as fusion comes along, coupled with ion drives, chemical rocketry is history. Period.
Would a colony actually *stay* in the lagrange point?
L4 and L5 are the stable Lagrange points; these are the ones in the same orbit as the moon, but leading or trailing by 1/6th of a revolution. The other points, L1-L3, are unstable: while the effective gravitational force at these points is zero, an infinitessimal displacement away from a point will lead to a force which is also directed away from the point, leading to runaway.
So, in answer to the quesiton, a colony at L4 or L5 would stay in position without further assitance. At L1-L3, it would need positioning rockets to stop it from wandering. This in fact is how SOHO (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) remains in its Sun-Earth L1 position (inside the Earth's orbit, on the line between Earth and Sun).
SMART-1 is part of the Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology; these missions are specifically designed to develop new space-based technologies. A sister mission, due for launch in June 2007 is SMART-2 , which will be a testbed for laser ranging. The technology will eventually be put to use by LISA (Laser Interferometry Space Antenna), a proposed ESA mission intended to look for the gravitational waves predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
The knowhow obtained from SMART-2 will also prove instrumental in developing ESA's Infra-Red Space Interferometer, known informally as Darwin. Darwin, part of ESA's Horizons 2000 programme, will consist of 6 infra-red telescopes flying in precise formation, with the aim of performing nulling interferometry of nearby solar-type stars. Darwin will be sensitive enough to detect the infra-red absorption-line signatures of water, ozone and carbon dioxide in the atmospheres terrestrial-sized planets orbiting one of these stars; these signatures, if detected together, would amount to strong evidence for extraterrestrial life.
just imagine what we have planned as a retort for burninating Washington in 1812
Erm, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Washington attacked in response to the burning of the Canadian Parliament by US forces, during their first abortive attempt at imperialism?
Not according to the law. The law prohibits the SUPPLY of videos to those judged by the BBFC to be too young to watch them, whether you are the parent of the individual or not. If you go into a shop and ask for an 18-rated video "for your 15 year old son", the assistant serving you is obliged by law to refuse service.
Not in the slightest. The BBFC ratings have no legal backing. When a cinema refuses to allow a minor to see an 18-certificate film, then that is at the cinema's discretion, and has no grounds in law. IANAL, but I believe the same applies to videos.
Of course, any cinema which flouted the BBFC's ratings would find itself starved of films by the major distributors, so the point is moot.
And that makes it ok. Right?
Ah yes, a strawman....
Dresden was unnecessary and unjustified. Don't make lame excuses for a horrible crime.
And having put words into my mouth, you then proceed to tear down the strawman. I wasn't excusing the bombing of Dresden; I was pointing out that each side was as bad as the other.
I always found it funny that, in the UK, you can get married and have sex at the age of 16; yet you can't look at porno until you are 18. So it's possible to indulge in the most depraved sexual acts imaginable, but you're not allowed to view depictions of the same acts. Crazy!
I've just had a quick scan through the initial (100 or so) responses to this story. It seems there is little variation between the responses; most of them fall into one of the following categories:
None of these responses really makes any serious attempt to address the issues behind the story. Instead, they appear to regard the story as an attack on their technical savvy, and by association an attack on their manliness. This may explain why so many responses proceed to trash either the figures quoted, or women themselves. Is it any wonder why so many men on /. complain about not getting laid?
It's not just tech, either - lots of women are conned at car dealerships or other sales places. Even if she's smart - she's probably too trusting.
<sarcasm>Yeah, them darn dumbass women, who the fuck let them out of the kitchen?</sarcasm>
Does your fiancee know that you regard her sister as a 'tard?