If I recall correctly, it requires from 200 ms to 300 ms to activate a muscle(s) once the decision is made to do so. The transmission speed of neural fibers is relatively slow, plus the muscle takes time to contract, etc. The scale of the abscissa on the graph in the article wasn't labeled, so I have no idea how much time they allocated for physical reaction time (as opposed to purely mental decision making).
"... Or will there be some "threat" that those in power say requires them to continue in power?"
You mean like this:
"My commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, has told me that Iran, with the knowledge of President Ahmadinejad, has become a privileged sanctuary for two terrorist organizations â" Hezbollah and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard â" to train, arm and direct terrorist attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, despite repeated promises to halt this murderous practice.
"I have therefore directed U.S. air and naval forces to begin air strikes on these base camps of terror. Our attacks will continue until the Iranian attacks cease."
So they need to find a shape for the combustion chamber/nozzle that has no single large fundamental resonance frequency, but without sacrificing too much thrust efficiency. It will be interesting to see what sort of shape, or baffling system, they devise. Maybe they could use some of the expertise from the manufacturers of firearm sound suppressors who face similar problems, though less serious and demanding. Although resonance isn't the problem firearm suppressors are designed to address, they do considerably reduce the sound levels as the exhaust gases exit the barrel. Maybe tomorrow's spacecraft will launch with a Paladin Armory sound suppressor attached to it.;-)
Yes, but the "official" unit of measurement is the fingertip-to-knuckle distance of the King's index finger, just as the "foot" is the length of the King's foot. Now that we have Kings who are elected by pre-programmed machines every few years, the official fingertip-to-knuckle distance changes with every new administration and creates all sorts of problems in commerce. Ah for the good old days when King George ruled for life. How many would like to see King George Bush's wish granted (ie; to remain King for his lifetime)? We could even resurrect royal descent and eliminate those cumbersome machines that vote for us as well as all the cost of conducting "show" elections for public consumption. The general public would be much happier if the money spent on campaigns and elections were spent on more sex and violence in the entertainment media. Mere cake and circuses don't work anymore.
That's the way it's supposed to work; however, some registrars intentionally violate the rules. For example, BLUEHOST.COM SUCKS TOTALLY because even though I obtained an auth code and sent it to my new registrar, BlueHost still would NOT allow the transfer. I filed a trouble report with them and got back an email saying there was nothing preventing the transfer - hah! Perhaps not, but BlueHost.com never transferred the domain regardless, and I ended up forfeiting the domain and had to switch to another one. So far, I'm very happy with lowpricedomains.com
Bah humbug. All these high level languages like C++, Java, Assembly language, machine code, etc., are all just a waste of time. If you want kids to learn how real computers work, they should be learning a real language like Verilog!
If you can solve the "identity theft" problem, you won't have to worry about this in the future. Whether kiddie porn is involved or not. The authoritarian UK police who are apparently accountable to no one, were the primary problem in this case however. Mr. Bunce could probably have survived the identity theft without the loss of his job, reputation, etc., had it not been for government intervention. The primary cause of Mr. Bunce's problem was not the "identity theft", it was instead the government's "guilty until proven innocent" attitude of assuming we are all criminals that caused Mr. Bunce's problem.
"A real engineer would not be an asset to a terror-seeking team. If it is terror driven by religion, I can guarantee you that the engineer will always be the odd man out that won't want to stick to the rules, be it scheduling of prayers or that pork rinds are not acceptable, etc."
I once tried to enlist in the ROTC while I was in college, but failed the physical when I refused to wear the prescription eyeglasses the military doctor prescribed for me. All I said was "I'd rather not wear glasses because I can use a keypunch just fine without them" (this was before the widespread use of CRT's as mainframe computer terminals, and long before the advent of the microcomputer). All the f*cking doctor did was make a notation on my form and show me the exit. He never even explained the nuances of how the military works (ie; you must be willing to take orders from total morons without questioning those orders). Once I realized what I had narrowly averted purely by my fortuitous audacity in questioning what was implicitly an "order", I resolved to spend the remainder of the Vietnam war in prison or in Canada should the military try to draft me. I'm not sure whether it was my engineering mindset or the fact that I'd always felt like an outsider because of my atheism, but there is no way in Hades I would ever have taken an order from some dufus I thought was wrong and that is why I would have been a "failure" as a soldier.
One thing I can tell all of you who never lived through Vietnam and the forced military draft of those years, is that peaceful protests DO NOT WORK! They never have worked and never will work. Peaceful protests were completely ignored by Johnson and the military/industrial/government complex. It wasn't until the vast majority of Americans finally became opposed to the undeclared "war" and President Johnson "lost Cronkite" (his own words) that the war finally ended. The moral of the story is that protesting is a waste of time unless you bring something more intimidating and dangerous to your enemy than a protest sign, SNCC emblem, or flowers (it was popular to pelt the Jack Booted Thugs (JBT's) with flowers back in those heady days of psychedelia). The only thing any government fears is force - the same force they use to subdue populations, and the only thing that can stop them is an opposing force of greater or equal magnitude. The JBT's are usually vastly outnumbered by those opposing them who generally just want to be left alone by the government so they can live their lives in peace, but unless and until peace lovers are willing to take advantage of their numbers and cunning and to use deadly force to enforce the will of "We the People" and to permanently eliminate those who would rule us instead of representing us, nothing will change. The colonists were willing to fight and sometimes die for their freedom - nowadays we are a nation of sheep. If a draft is instigated to fight the Iran war that starts Sunday and is likely to escalate into WWIII, don't bother with peaceful protests. Go for the jugular without hesitation. If you're going to have to kill someone, it should be the warmongers - not some total stranger halfway around the world that you don't even know, and probably have more in common with than any of the filthy rich elitists who have never done an honest day's work in their lives and rule the nation by virtue of their inherited money, power, and familial dynasty connections, and who send others to die without shedding a tear.
Ask any census taker what is the purpose of the census, and I'd bet a dollar to a donut they will either be wrong or will have no answer at all. As stated in Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, the sole purpose of the census is to determine the number of representatives that shall be allocated to each state in the US House of Representatives. Thus, the ONLY question they are Constitutionally authorized to ask is: "How many voting adults live in this household." That is all they need to know for Constitutional purposes and that's the only information I've ever given to them or ever will. Don't be such damn sheeple, people.
"Ron Paul is a cautionary counterexample; It's all very well building up grassroots support on the Internet, but if your grassroots comprises a mishmash of troofers, stoppers, lunatics, antisemites, conspiracy theorists, naive libertarians, politically vacuous "fuck the system" types, and a spattering of basement-bound non-voting teenagers and various other subcultures and social outcasts entirely ill at ease with Middle America, then it's (as we kept trying to tell them) not going to be enough."
I'm a 62 year old retired computer programmer (although I've held many different job titles during my 40 year career) who has been married for many years. My wife and I changed our voter registration from Libertarian to Republican just so my wife and I could vote for Ron Paul. We also contributed a total of $4,600 to Dr. Paul's campaign, and we do NOT live in a basement. We've always paid cash for everything (including our home, cars, and everything else we own), and have no debts of any kind. Can you say the same?
If anyone ever read the Constitution anymore, or even was knowledgeable about history (NOT the pseudo history that's taught in our government propaganda indoctrination camps - aka; public schools), all the crooks and CFR shills (including Obama) that have committed treason against the United States Constitution and against "We The People" by trying to rule us instead of representing us, would have been hanged long ago. Unfortunately, ignorance of history and of the founding of our Republic, and even belief in religious fairy tales about gods and other superstitions all overwhelming predominate over reason, even here on SlashDot.
It needs to act (at least somewhat) like a real bat or it will be detected. Real bats are ornithopters. Ergo, the spy craft must be an ornithopter.
They had better be painted black and only fly at night, otherwise: PULL.... Bang!
One more ornithopter down, and a lot more fun than shooting at clay pigeons. Even a.22 rifle with a ten cent birdshot cartridge should be able to take one of those $10M suckers down easily.
All the reasons for using Linux given in the article are true, but the author left out the MOST important reason: Because I like using an OS that was written by people like me, for people like me - but most of all because I know the f*cking bloodsucking unethical leeches in Redmond won't make one copper plated zinc cent whenever I install and use Linux!
Even if Windows were as user friendly and easy to use as Linux, I would avoid it for the latter reason alone.
[Note: Although I've never contributed to a Linux distro, I have written many small special purpose preemptive multi-tasking operating systems and many other innumerable really fun projects during my 35 year career in computers, which I now look back on from retirement with fondness. I can also say that I had a career that I truly enjoyed (most of the time)]
As a fifth generation American, I find it bizarre that most people seem to be aware that we are being governed by hired prostitutes, and yet everyone seems to think it's "normal".
This is the first time in history that I've ever thought a SlashDot comment was so funny that I had to print it out on PAPER to share with others, har, har. I have mod points and would love to give you more, but you're already at +5
Nasa chief Griffin wants Europe to waste hundreds of millions of dollars like the USA has wasted putting people in space and keeping them there, instead of using the money for legitimate scientific research with unmanned spacecraft!? The future of space belongs to robots. People have no place in space. Perhaps someday robots will be intelligent enough to prepare habitats on the moon or even Mars for human beings, but involving humans in the process is tremendously costly because of the need to insulate humans from the harsh environment - whereas properly designed automated machines work quite nicely even in the hard vacuum and temperature extremes of space. This is the lesson the Europeans are teaching NASA with their highly Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The ATV and its descendents will prove the superiority and cost effectiveness of robots in space over humans.
If the Europeans are smart, they will strap a couple of rockets onto the International Space Station (ISS) and develop a control system smart enough to slowly tug the ISS out of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and into Low Moon Orbit (LMO) autonomously. It could then be used as a way station in the journey from the Earth to the Moon, or even crashed on the Moon with the intent of salvaging it for scrap and building materials later. It takes roughly the same amount of energy to move a mass from the earth's surface into LEO as it does to move that same mass from LEO outwards fast enough to reach escape velocity from the Earth altogether. Even nicer, the trip to the Moon could be slow and leisurely because the impatient and gluttonous humans wouldn't be along. We machines might even be able to make do with Ion engines for the cruise phase from the Earth to the Moon.
Haven't you watched enough Science Fiction movies to know that as soon as a national ID card, token, or implant is required in order to purchase anything (including food), travel anywhere, or engage in any form of trade, that your chip will be deactivated by some faceless evil bureaucratic villain and you will be placed on the "Terrorist" watchlist? How many hundreds of thousands of people are already on the "No Fly" list, eh?
Furthermore, if you were American you would know that the United States Constitution does not constrain or apply to individual people (citizens) at all; it pertains to and constrains only the United States Government - or used to at least. Read it sometime, you might enjoy it.
"One thing, though: The past seven years has certainly changed my opinion of the Second Amendment. And I choose to extend the "right to bear arms" to the "cyber" type, including the best crypto I can find. Maybe not to use every day, but to keep for the inevitable."
Welcome to the "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" club. The way things are looking, we may need to use all the weapons in our arsenals to restore Constitutional government and defeat the ruling fascists.
~ RKBA
I keep hoping for a Linux distro that automatically loads all the proprietary and "illegal" codecs in existence so that I don't have to hunt for them all over the net and install them all individually. It could have a disclaimer like this:
"I acknowledge that I am a crook, a thief, a pirate, and all manner of other evil, and that I eat little kittens for breakfast. Please download and install all the non-GPL programs and all utilities and codecs that our corrupt legal system deems 'illegal.'" Check: YES or NO
How about having your ID card canceled ON PURPOSE by a government that mistakenly puts you on the "terrorist" watch list, or because you didn't happen to bend over far enough for some beady eyed scumbag bureaucrat.
Slashdot Mirror
If I recall correctly, it requires from 200 ms to 300 ms to activate a muscle(s) once the decision is made to do so. The transmission speed of neural fibers is relatively slow, plus the muscle takes time to contract, etc. The scale of the abscissa on the graph in the article wasn't labeled, so I have no idea how much time they allocated for physical reaction time (as opposed to purely mental decision making).
You mean like this :
"My commanding general in Iraq, David Petraeus, has told me that Iran, with the knowledge of President Ahmadinejad, has become a privileged sanctuary for two terrorist organizations â" Hezbollah and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard â" to train, arm and direct terrorist attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, despite repeated promises to halt this murderous practice.
"I have therefore directed U.S. air and naval forces to begin air strikes on these base camps of terror. Our attacks will continue until the Iranian attacks cease."
Excellent. The problem of course is knowing who to ask. If you are still so inclined, please send my invitation to:
mike89@spamex.com
I will delete that email address as soon as I get the invite. THANK YOU!
Fidonet!
So what day of the month do they allow new memberships? How does one get an invitation?
So they need to find a shape for the combustion chamber/nozzle that has no single large fundamental resonance frequency, but without sacrificing too much thrust efficiency. It will be interesting to see what sort of shape, or baffling system, they devise. Maybe they could use some of the expertise from the manufacturers of firearm sound suppressors who face similar problems, though less serious and demanding. Although resonance isn't the problem firearm suppressors are designed to address, they do considerably reduce the sound levels as the exhaust gases exit the barrel. Maybe tomorrow's spacecraft will launch with a Paladin Armory sound suppressor attached to it. ;-)
Yes, but the "official" unit of measurement is the fingertip-to-knuckle distance of the King's index finger, just as the "foot" is the length of the King's foot. Now that we have Kings who are elected by pre-programmed machines every few years, the official fingertip-to-knuckle distance changes with every new administration and creates all sorts of problems in commerce. Ah for the good old days when King George ruled for life. How many would like to see King George Bush's wish granted (ie; to remain King for his lifetime)? We could even resurrect royal descent and eliminate those cumbersome machines that vote for us as well as all the cost of conducting "show" elections for public consumption. The general public would be much happier if the money spent on campaigns and elections were spent on more sex and violence in the entertainment media. Mere cake and circuses don't work anymore.
That's the way it's supposed to work; however, some registrars intentionally violate the rules. For example, BLUEHOST.COM SUCKS TOTALLY because even though I obtained an auth code and sent it to my new registrar, BlueHost still would NOT allow the transfer. I filed a trouble report with them and got back an email saying there was nothing preventing the transfer - hah! Perhaps not, but BlueHost.com never transferred the domain regardless, and I ended up forfeiting the domain and had to switch to another one. So far, I'm very happy with lowpricedomains.com
Bah humbug. All these high level languages like C++, Java, Assembly language, machine code, etc., are all just a waste of time. If you want kids to learn how real computers work, they should be learning a real language like Verilog!
One thing I can tell all of you who never lived through Vietnam and the forced military draft of those years, is that peaceful protests DO NOT WORK! They never have worked and never will work. Peaceful protests were completely ignored by Johnson and the military/industrial/government complex. It wasn't until the vast majority of Americans finally became opposed to the undeclared "war" and President Johnson "lost Cronkite" (his own words) that the war finally ended. The moral of the story is that protesting is a waste of time unless you bring something more intimidating and dangerous to your enemy than a protest sign, SNCC emblem, or flowers (it was popular to pelt the Jack Booted Thugs (JBT's) with flowers back in those heady days of psychedelia). The only thing any government fears is force - the same force they use to subdue populations, and the only thing that can stop them is an opposing force of greater or equal magnitude. The JBT's are usually vastly outnumbered by those opposing them who generally just want to be left alone by the government so they can live their lives in peace, but unless and until peace lovers are willing to take advantage of their numbers and cunning and to use deadly force to enforce the will of "We the People" and to permanently eliminate those who would rule us instead of representing us, nothing will change. The colonists were willing to fight and sometimes die for their freedom - nowadays we are a nation of sheep. If a draft is instigated to fight the Iran war that starts Sunday and is likely to escalate into WWIII, don't bother with peaceful protests. Go for the jugular without hesitation. If you're going to have to kill someone, it should be the warmongers - not some total stranger halfway around the world that you don't even know, and probably have more in common with than any of the filthy rich elitists who have never done an honest day's work in their lives and rule the nation by virtue of their inherited money, power, and familial dynasty connections, and who send others to die without shedding a tear.
Ask any census taker what is the purpose of the census, and I'd bet a dollar to a donut they will either be wrong or will have no answer at all. As stated in Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, the sole purpose of the census is to determine the number of representatives that shall be allocated to each state in the US House of Representatives. Thus, the ONLY question they are Constitutionally authorized to ask is: "How many voting adults live in this household." That is all they need to know for Constitutional purposes and that's the only information I've ever given to them or ever will. Don't be such damn sheeple, people.
The way I heard it was: "Land of the Fee, Home of the Slave"
If anyone ever read the Constitution anymore, or even was knowledgeable about history (NOT the pseudo history that's taught in our government propaganda indoctrination camps - aka; public schools), all the crooks and CFR shills (including Obama) that have committed treason against the United States Constitution and against "We The People" by trying to rule us instead of representing us, would have been hanged long ago. Unfortunately, ignorance of history and of the founding of our Republic, and even belief in religious fairy tales about gods and other superstitions all overwhelming predominate over reason, even here on SlashDot.
All the reasons for using Linux given in the article are true, but the author left out the MOST important reason: Because I like using an OS that was written by people like me, for people like me - but most of all because I know the f*cking bloodsucking unethical leeches in Redmond won't make one copper plated zinc cent whenever I install and use Linux!
Even if Windows were as user friendly and easy to use as Linux, I would avoid it for the latter reason alone.
[Note: Although I've never contributed to a Linux distro, I have written many small special purpose preemptive multi-tasking operating systems and many other innumerable really fun projects during my 35 year career in computers, which I now look back on from retirement with fondness. I can also say that I had a career that I truly enjoyed (most of the time)]
As a fifth generation American, I find it bizarre that most people seem to be aware that we are being governed by hired prostitutes, and yet everyone seems to think it's "normal".
This is the first time in history that I've ever thought a SlashDot comment was so funny that I had to print it out on PAPER to share with others, har, har. I have mod points and would love to give you more, but you're already at +5
The statement from Nasa chief Mike Griffin is a good example of what's wrong with NASA: "...it's only a step from there to an independent, European manned-spaceflight capability; and I for one would like to see it."
Nasa chief Griffin wants Europe to waste hundreds of millions of dollars like the USA has wasted putting people in space and keeping them there, instead of using the money for legitimate scientific research with unmanned spacecraft!? The future of space belongs to robots. People have no place in space. Perhaps someday robots will be intelligent enough to prepare habitats on the moon or even Mars for human beings, but involving humans in the process is tremendously costly because of the need to insulate humans from the harsh environment - whereas properly designed automated machines work quite nicely even in the hard vacuum and temperature extremes of space. This is the lesson the Europeans are teaching NASA with their highly Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The ATV and its descendents will prove the superiority and cost effectiveness of robots in space over humans.
If the Europeans are smart, they will strap a couple of rockets onto the International Space Station (ISS) and develop a control system smart enough to slowly tug the ISS out of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and into Low Moon Orbit (LMO) autonomously. It could then be used as a way station in the journey from the Earth to the Moon, or even crashed on the Moon with the intent of salvaging it for scrap and building materials later. It takes roughly the same amount of energy to move a mass from the earth's surface into LEO as it does to move that same mass from LEO outwards fast enough to reach escape velocity from the Earth altogether. Even nicer, the trip to the Moon could be slow and leisurely because the impatient and gluttonous humans wouldn't be along. We machines might even be able to make do with Ion engines for the cruise phase from the Earth to the Moon.
Haven't you watched enough Science Fiction movies to know that as soon as a national ID card, token, or implant is required in order to purchase anything (including food), travel anywhere, or engage in any form of trade, that your chip will be deactivated by some faceless evil bureaucratic villain and you will be placed on the "Terrorist" watchlist? How many hundreds of thousands of people are already on the "No Fly" list, eh?
Furthermore, if you were American you would know that the United States Constitution does not constrain or apply to individual people (citizens) at all; it pertains to and constrains only the United States Government - or used to at least. Read it sometime, you might enjoy it.
~ RKBA
I keep hoping for a Linux distro that automatically loads all the proprietary and "illegal" codecs in existence so that I don't have to hunt for them all over the net and install them all individually. It could have a disclaimer like this:
"I acknowledge that I am a crook, a thief, a pirate, and all manner of other evil, and that I eat little kittens for breakfast. Please download and install all the non-GPL programs and all utilities and codecs that our corrupt legal system deems 'illegal.'"
Check: YES or NO
How about having your ID card canceled ON PURPOSE by a government that mistakenly puts you on the "terrorist" watch list, or because you didn't happen to bend over far enough for some beady eyed scumbag bureaucrat.
A better question is why should we be forced to pay property taxes (rent) on property that we own?