Re:Take THAT, space science nay-sayers!
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Glass In Spaaaaace
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· Score: 1
Well one they do not accelerate the vehicles.. they allow gravity to take over. IE they let it drop. Small nit but an important one. If they acctually accelerated the car you would feel as if you were lifted towards the ceiling rather than experience Free Fall. It is exactly the same sensation as the astronaughts feel on orbit. At its most basic, orbiting the earth is just a continual free fall that misses the ground.
There are in fact many such apparatus on earth. The article itself mentions using the KC 135 vomit comet, there are also several free fall structures used for these kinds of study. The problem is duration of the fall as someone else pointed out. But if you really want to understand the problem work it out for yourself. The acceleration exerted by gravity is 9.8 meters per second or some such. ~20mph. So after one second of free fall you are going 20 some odd miles per hour. After 2 you are going 40, so forth and so on. Thus at the end of say a 10 second fall you are traveling more than 200mph covering 98 meters per second or roughly one football field every second and still accelerating.
At that rate if you went from the highest building ever built to the bottom of the lowest mine ever built you could not manage more than a few seconds of free fall. And you would still have to account for deceleration. For example if you mannage a minute of freefall you are now faced with something traveling at 1,200mph with considerable kinetic energy built up that must be dissapated before it reaches the end of the line else it will do so in a catastrophic manner to say the least. A prime example of that kind of problem is what happend to Columbia.
Hmmm guess I touched a nerve. But I don't necesarrily see an advantage to government backed studies... well barring some means to assure neutrality that is. As is the government is one of the worst bodies these days for funding and interpreting studies to suit their needs.
Intresting point about consumer advocacy groups being poster children... but they paint a freakin target on themsleves with their rabid nature. If they are so in the right then they don't need to hype themselves. The truth should speak for itself. Yet they are often caught with their hands in the cookie jar doing exactly what the continually accuse those big bad powerfull corporations of doing. And the media sits in the middle egging both of them on because a reasoned debate and true search for truth dosn't sell or draw audiences the way a good rabid no holds barred death match between david and goliath does. Ironic since such purient intrest on the part of the the general public to witness a spectecle actively works against their best intrest becasue it assures only muddied waters.
They cannot know this. A better way to put this would be to say there is no observable way for you to go back in time and kill your grandfather. IE if you do it you don't exist to observe it... or anyone else for that matter. Time travel antics are by their nature unobservable. For all we know they happen all the time and we are constantly in a state of flux as the realities of our history change from moment to moment by changing events of the past. The fact that we percieve the past as a continuous unchanging memory is not evidence that alteration of the timeline does not occur. IE we would not remember a former timeline because there would be no other timeline to remember. What happend happend and that goes for any changes as well.
Some are able to grasp that but then they think that if they were the traveler they would be aware of the changes and yet this is not so either given a single world line concept (no multiple demnsions for every possible scenario of existence). IE your memory would be in constant flux as you made the changes. So in the Back to the Future example Marty would never have gone back to the wrong house in BTF II as he would have known what happend because it happend to him.
So in the end time travel breaks down into two arguemnts. The first is always "Is it possible?" The second then becomes a question of the chicken or the egg.
Can you time travel ? No, end of discussion Yes, Can you interact with your environment ? No, Time travel isn't possible Yes, parradox and how do you deal with the chicken and the egg.
if you can't interact (kill your grandfather) you can't do anything cause any interactino would alter the course of events. The parradox of killing an ancestor is simply an easy to grasp alteration but there are any number of other affects a visit to the past could have that did not cause a paradox for you but did cause a paradox for someone completely unrelated to you. The argument of the existence of such a parradox is summed up by the whole "if a tree falls unobserved in the woods does it make a noise" nonsense.
In otherwords the grandfather paradox, along with that damned tree falling are logical equivalents of divide by zero. It is something you can attempt to do but the system or manipulation/discussion cannot account for it. It is approaching but never reaching 1 or 0.
Think you raise good points overall but I have to take issue with one.... the seeming assumption that any study backed by a corporation is inherrently flawed. I grant that studies performed by those with a stake in a particular outcome should be questioned. I just wish that the studies backed by those with a stake in the opposite outcome would be questioned just as closely. However in this day and age most any study backed by an advocacy group (MADD for example ) is largely unquestioned even though they are often founded on the assumption that their view is correct in regards the subject the studies are dealing with.
You know I hear what you are saying, yet at the same time I just don't buy it.
Judging a book by its cover is not right. Plain and simple. Judiging people because of their body art is the same. A tattoo, piercing, clothing style, fabric choice, shoe type, hair color etc.... have crap all to do with someones intelligence, ability or their manigability to which you reffer. You find sheep in the 'counter culture' just as you do in the business prep monoculture as well as leaders and innovators. Make judgements based on sterotypes at your own risk.
The accepted mode of dress simply dictates the whims of those in power and it tends to be a self perpetuating set of values that in time becomes very divorced from any legitimate reason for maintaining them, if indeed there was one to begin with. Hell, most 'dress codes' are derrived historically from caste systems where the clothes you wore actually did place you in society because it was backed up by law. Since there is no longer any legal backing of such systems it has now devolved in an almost entirely aribitrary set of values that have little basis in practical consideration.
Steel toed boots and a hard hat at a construction site is an example of a meaningfull dress code requirement... a shirt and tie over jeans and a T-shirt is a highly arbitrary and artificial judgment that one is more valuable than the other. And one which will be maintained so long as we as a whole allow it to be so. But to start that change, some people have to question/challenge it. Personally I doubt it can withstand much scrutiny especially when it comes to a head over someone who is a stellar performer. In fact it is already become far more common to see that those who excell are rarely called to account for their fashion choices if they choose not to conform.
I am not saying that anything should go... but the emphasis should most certainly be on performing ones job. Not on whether or not you choose to stick a picee of metal through your nose or have someone stab you a few hundred/thousand times with a hot needle.
Yeah whole language is pretty lousy. I agree the concept is important. My point was I think current math classes have by and large become more about learning the process than about the application. And understanding the concepts is how you apply the knowledge. If you understand why you are using addition, multiplication, quadratic equations, differentials etc... then it really dosn't matter what method you use to operate the symbols... be it pencil and paper or punching a sequence of buttons. If you are applying the right sequences of buttons it is the same as the right system of symbols created by pencils.
The whole thing about showing your work is just a place holding system. A more accurate way than trying to keep track of an equation in your head. A calculator properly used simply lifts you up from the grunt work so that you can worry about why you are applying mathmatical theory for as opposed to learning how to accurately interpret equations. By far the more important aspect of math is learning how to derrive the values you use in the initial equation... and knowing which equations are applicable, or if you need to formulate a new one. Knowing the values to choose and equations to apply is the important part... solving at that point is a purely mechanical process.
The classroom has ceased to be about the reason for math and more about the mechanics of solving set equations. Placing a calculator in the hands of a student in that situation simply brings into sharp relife how pointless the age old process of learning by repetition is IMHO. The internalization process of the mechanics of solving an equation on paper is no longer a necesarry evil.
ummmmmm..... that other offtopic monstrosity was not what I posted. Damn it... spent a long time writing a rant and that happens that was really funky. I make no claim to that statement and I am not sure how that happend.... anyway on to the subject at hand.
I don't see what the fuss is about. Math is not about the shuffling of symbols around on a page. It is about application of principles to derrive answers of a numeric nature. Mathmatic notation was developed as an aide to mental arithmatic and to serve as a easy means of communcating with each other about numeric communcation. It is very much the same thing as the development of a written language vrs an oral traddition.
Just as typing does nothing to hurt written language (the tired grammer/spelling saw aside) calculators properly applied do nothing to weaken someones math. The idea that correctly derrived answers using a calculator are somehow inferior is as absured as the notion that a typed statement is infierior to the same statement handwritten.
If you ask me the problem we have with Math in the classroom has not one damn thing to do with whether calculators are allowed or not. It has everything to do with the complete and utter failure to teach a fundamental understanding of applying mathmatics to the real world. Far to many teachers are more concerned with their students ability to shuffle symbols around on a page instead of their ability to critically apply math appropriately to derrive answers that have meaning. Math in a vacume is a meaingless form of academic masturbation.
IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It would be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. There are causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were removed.
Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this origin. This cause would exist among us in full force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United States. There still are discordant and undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all. It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated discussion concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went under the name of crown lands. The States within the limits of whose colonial governments they were comprised have claimed them as their property, the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of the Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the whole. This has been so far accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, to afford a decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this dispute, and would create others on the same subject. At present, a large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least, if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union. If that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the motive of the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made, could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy, remained undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it should be admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a share of this common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. Different principles would be set up by different States for this purpose; and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties, they might not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment.
In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences. The circumstances of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming, admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of such differences. The articles of confederation obliged the parties to submit the
I hope the inventor of the loss leading business model is roasting simultaneously in all the circles of Dante's inferno. Espcially the guy who started the damn give away the razor and overcharge for the blades crap. He should be given the worlds worst case of acne, forced to shave and splace lemon juice on for aftershave.
Why in gods name can't the printer companies just make a freakin printer, charge a reasonable profit for their effort and do the same with replacement ink. If they would do that there wouldn't BE any aftermarket ink war. The barrier of entry to full printer hardware market is far steeper than that to making knockoff ink well cartridges. But no... they have to keep chasing the dream of controling their market and forcing people into the 1000% mark up replacement ink in return for being able to buy at cost or mildly discounted hardware. Hell, if they would simply reduce their attempted price jack back to just merely astromical they could tighten the belts of the aftermarket crowd to the point it might squeeze them out.
Do they not realize the more absurd their markup the more room and incentive to operate they give the aftermarket crowd ? The higher they charge over the intrinsic value of the constituent parts the more money the aftermarkets can charge to re-coup a reverse engineering investment. In the end it just becomes corporate market competition with a sweetspot that is NOT in the consumers best intrest which is what market competition is supposed to be for in the first damn place.
try doing that with a more recent Camaro, say one after 95 or whenever OBD II was mandated. Engines and ECU's have become so intertwined and manufacturers so slow to release diagnostic tools outside of daelerships it is insane. Also the unique tools for most brands means highly expensive niche tools instead of a wide general standard that allows for after market competition.
Additionally, besides diagnostic ability you could also have performance enhancing options as well with control over your EFI system. Higher fuel flow curves for more performance and lower leaner mixtures for better highway cruising etc...
An easy user interface to car computers really does need to happen. Manufacturers are getting away with highway robbery. Diagnosing what is wrong with cars today should be easier, not some black magic they only do in back where you often can't go because of insurance liabilities. Case in point... I can buy a calaculator with a multiline alpha numeric display for less than 50 bucks. A cars ECU is already programmed to relay information. Why then do I not have such a display in my car? Why do I have an idiot check engine light that is a catch all for EVERY error detected by the ECU rather than a simple 4 line LCD readout giving me the error codes and what it means? Its not the cost of such a system, or development of it. Most diagnostic equipment is extrodinarily rudimentary in terms of computing technology and is already developed for use in the dealer repair operations. Tieing that info to an LCD read out would generally involve less sophistication than a low level texas instruments calaculator.
Just because they are normal every day practices does not by any means make them safe. There is a reason why insurence premiums are far higher in highly congested urban areas.
So that your computer goes with you but when you need the space and larger screen etc you have it. With wireless you don't even have to mess around with hooking up a crap load of cables. Wireless mice and Keyboards already exist and it wouldn't take that much to create a wireless display system.
I really wonder if wireless interface systems could get ubiquitous enough that you could more or less forgoe the full key board and mouse on the laptop entirely and just make a mobile processing memory unit say the size of a cell phone. Wirelesss interface stations would be all over the place and you could browse the systems in range and log onto yours.
One idea I like about that is being able to test drive systems at a store before you buy it. Wonder if that new monitor has fast enough refresh ? Enough resolution ? Just attach it to the system on your hip and run a favorit movie/game etc... How about the sound quality of those speakers ? How about wondering if that new system will do what you want ? Access files on your current system while demoing a new unit with similar periphials you have at home. Have an automatic interface with your cars computer... no more dealer visits for codes or wondering what tripped the 'check engine' light.
Ummmmm..... You do realize the US budget is around 2 Trillion. IE that is roughly the amount of income the government makes from taxes. Movies and games etc pull in a few Billion total. They are nothing to our economy when you get down to it. Taxed income represents about a 1/5 or even less of our GDP. So if entertainment all told reaches 100 billion it would be 1% of our GDP.
Movie box office gross was ~10billion last year or about.1% of GDP.
Everyone pointing out that mass production is far more efficent and that a factory of these could never compete.
Thats not the point. These things are not designed to compete at that level. A one step printing process like this will never compete with mass production methods for speed. What it trumps that process in is versitility. How much does a prodection line for a screw cost ? How much does it cost to create a new screw design to implement ? How much to switch between certain templates ? How many must be made and sold to make the process profitable.
In short mass production relies on economies of scale. Makes lots of goods far cheaper than they would be otherwise but at the same time it sort of forces us all into a one size fits all world where the only things that get made are those with a large enough mass demand to support the enourmous intial investment in establishing such a process. Cheap is a very relative term when speaking of mass production. See if you think any of the numbers involved in setting up a first run of an item are 'cheap'. This creates a staggering bar to market entry in many fields.
What they are not good at is adapting to needs and they require enourmous amounts of stock to be made and shipped before demand is established. Distributed production like this would do a great deal to elimnate overstock. It could potentially lower the bar to market entry in any number of areas. For example lets say manufacturing shifted from highly specific highly concentrated mass production to highly disperesed general construction. In otherwords demands to keep such a process running would run the gamut of production needs rather than rely upon one specific need. In other words more smaller factories capable of producing A-Z instead of just differnt sizes of A.
For example If someone could create a rare auto parts fabricator that worked cheaper than machine shop rates for custom replication they would make a fortune. Demand is there for such a thing but no one items demand is large enough in most cases to permit someone to make money setting up a mass production line for it.
Also imagine the new frontiers opened up to product hackers if they could alter the design specs acording to their whims rather than be stuck with what is profitable for a mass production run.
Actually they are quite interchangeable... albeit engine generally is used to reffer to a combustion process it is not limited in that respect.
motor 2 : any of various power units that develop energy or impart motion: as a : a small compact engine b : INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE; especially : a gasoline engine c : a rotating machine that transforms electrical energy into mechanical energy
engine 4 : a machine for converting any of various forms of energy into mechanical force and motion; also : a mechanism or object that serves as an energy source
When checking for synonyms of engine one finds motor and motor for engine.
Not sure how much more interchangeable they could be in fact.
what he was saying is that to have any improovement in range from doing that would imply better than %100 efficency. IE power goes from battery to rear motor to be absorbed by the front wheels back to the battery. If you don't have 100% efficiency then this is a loosing battle. the front wheels would cause drag which would cause higher engery being expended by the rear wheels thus using up your power faster.
In short its like trying to power a sail boat with a fan on board.
Electric cars are already far better at acceleration than gas cars if you keep the weights similar. Electric motors have a flat torque line unlike the curve for ICE which means they get off the line ALOT faster. Top end is a different story. Power delivery and handling becomes a major issue for electric. ICE motors are actually cooled by the fuel flowing through them, you can think of exhaust as a kind of heat pump and of course all that coolant piping through the block (for most). Electric motors on the otherhand are rarely cooled and the heat due to resistence in the windings just builds and builds. Most motors have a continuous rating vrs a peak rating. but the ability to have full access to the engines torque makes their utilization entirely different from that of an ICE.
The difference betwen electric and gas engines is one more people need to be aware of. Probably one upsot of wider use of electric cars will be a better understanding of torque application. Most people don't realize that when they are seeking higher HP that they are really after more available torque. Gas engines have two very important performance curves.. the HP and Torque curves. Any gear head is very familiar with this and even your average joe schmuck buying a car has a vauge notion of what they are. At least that higher HP generally means better acceleration. The thing about Electric motors is that they have no curves in this respect. They apply their full power from 0-max RPM. Thus no power band like with a gas engine.
they are called golf carts and plenty of guys wearing funny pants drive them on a daily basis and many more want to.
Jokes aside though it is becoming impossible to buy a simple car. Something with no electronics to go out, no fancy trim, interior etc. A car mass produced with the tech of say a 60's hunk of iron could probably be made for 5000 bucks today but it just dosn't have the audience (car makers feel) to make it worth making.
In reality the need for cars is such that they are going to sell them up to a certain point because they are so invaluable in American society. Thus it is like Hotel rooms in popular destinations. People have to have them so they are no longer forced to provide the cheapest option. They simply jack the price up via 'features' till people stop buying them. Supply and demmand is a bitch when it dosn't work to the consumers advantage and cars are a major case in point.
What incentive does a car company have to make a $5-10k car that can last 20 years when they can sell you one for $25-35k that needs replacing in less than 10 ?
They make cars the way they do because that is what makes them the most money. Not because it is the best car for the consumer. Cell phones area similar product.
Yes but do you really think that for a student that finds intrest in these things it takes 18 some odd years of formal education to learn them ?
Current mass education systems are far more successfull at turning out mindless sheep that simply accept what they are told than fundamentally grounded eggheads that push the edges of our knowledge. Basic math, calc and physics do not take years upon years. For someone that is motivated and interested, they can be picked up in days, weeks at the most.
To me the modern classroom is like the equivalent of those A++ certification classes. They cost alot, teach you nothing and give you a stamp of approval that only means a damn thing to HR weenies.
The average age of ground breaking work is going up not because it takes that long to grasp the fundamentals. But because we have a system in place that blocks most from having any reasonable chance to learn, or more importanly apply, those fundamentals before going through a monolitic education process unable to adapt to the needs of the gifted student.
Unless you pay zero tax you also pay into the system for welfare. The money for both is gathered from all via taxes. Its a tomato tomoto argument.
Also it is a big mistake to think of SS as a pay in, pay back system cause that is just not how it works. All your pay in accounts for is determining your level of benefits at retirement. The system itself works on a pay as you go basis where current workers are responsible for the current benifits due. Thus the whole 'locked box' fiasco with Gore who was wanting to earmark any overages in the SS collections for only SS payouts in the future.
Also, the amount you pay in has nothing to do with the max amount you can recieve out. You get paid as long as you live. The system was designed such that on average you were supposed to die before collecting as much as you contributed. But average life span has increased since the 30's and the age of elgibility hasn't been moved back far enough to compensate. Not saying it should be. One thing often overlooked in SS is this pretty underhanded tactic intially employed of setting the retirement age at like 2-3 years before the age of average life expectancy.
If you are not aware, there was a massive increase to SS witholdings a while back in order that the system could stockpile the money for future shortages. Instead of being held in trust or a so called 'locked box', this extra money became a kind of slush fund for any program that needed some extra cash. Supposedly these organizations now owe that money back when it is needed, but there is no bank account from which to draw it. In otherwords when those IOU's come due the only option will be to divert it out of their allocated budget and cut services acordingly, or to raise taxes to cover the shortfall without cutting services. That in a nut shell is the whole SS crisis. It is self created by fiscal mismanagement of the system and it is a tragedy of the first order. The options for fixing it are
1) decrease ss benifits in accord with the short fall. 2) decrease services by programs that used the surpluses to cover the short fall 3) raise taxes to cover the short fall.
or in other words
1) shaft the public 2) shaft the public 3) shaft the public
There is always Bush's plan which takes option number 4... Combination of all of the above. Granted if he had his way and got it swapped to a full private fund process it would become what most people think it is already... a get back what you put in system.
Thanks for the time spent. Been a good one. Did want to leave with two short things. I think we really agree more than we disagree.
I did not make up that 5% number, In fact I was spefically reffering to the article you pointed to ( albeit worst case). I have also encounterd that margian of error number in studies about election systems ( Poly Sci degree ).
If you can trust people you can trust code.... and the code can't change its mind.
Well again I am wondering how strong your understanding is of the system boot process.
That piece of software would not work using this method as its detection process is predicated on operating from inside a compromised system. By doing what I am talking about you would render the process used by that program useless. Power of the plug just means full physical and operational control of the box. Not a big deal for the home user but gets to be a pain when dealing with things like server farms and the like.
If you control the boot process you control the system. If you don't you shouldn't be in charge of the box (professionaly speaking).
You can verify it to whatever extent you like at that point... but I suppose if you want ultimate paranoia you would have to write your clean system yourself and hand copy it yourself etc etc etc. But remember while the hacker only has to make the perfect hack once to make it repeatable. You only have to create a clean system once before it is repeatable.
And thus we create our own problem the same as has been done in the past. Why is it that governments always learn the wrong lessons from such events? Germany screws the pooch and kicks us Eienstien and here we are happily trying to institute similar blocks (albeit no where near as draconian... yet) with the potential to bar the way to a similar aquisition.
To hell with all this paranoia. I'd rather have liberty frought with perils than safety under the jackboot. Franklin put it pretty good when he said those that would trade freedom for safety deserve niether.
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Well one they do not accelerate the vehicles.. they allow gravity to take over. IE they let it drop. Small nit but an important one. If they acctually accelerated the car you would feel as if you were lifted towards the ceiling rather than experience Free Fall. It is exactly the same sensation as the astronaughts feel on orbit. At its most basic, orbiting the earth is just a continual free fall that misses the ground.
There are in fact many such apparatus on earth. The article itself mentions using the KC 135 vomit comet, there are also several free fall structures used for these kinds of study. The problem is duration of the fall as someone else pointed out. But if you really want to understand the problem work it out for yourself. The acceleration exerted by gravity is 9.8 meters per second or some such. ~20mph. So after one second of free fall you are going 20 some odd miles per hour. After 2 you are going 40, so forth and so on. Thus at the end of say a 10 second fall you are traveling more than 200mph covering 98 meters per second or roughly one football field every second and still accelerating.
At that rate if you went from the highest building ever built to the bottom of the lowest mine ever built you could not manage more than a few seconds of free fall. And you would still have to account for deceleration. For example if you mannage a minute of freefall you are now faced with something traveling at 1,200mph with considerable kinetic energy built up that must be dissapated before it reaches the end of the line else it will do so in a catastrophic manner to say the least. A prime example of that kind of problem is what happend to Columbia.
Hmmm guess I touched a nerve. But I don't necesarrily see an advantage to government backed studies... well barring some means to assure neutrality that is. As is the government is one of the worst bodies these days for funding and interpreting studies to suit their needs.
Intresting point about consumer advocacy groups being poster children... but they paint a freakin target on themsleves with their rabid nature. If they are so in the right then they don't need to hype themselves. The truth should speak for itself. Yet they are often caught with their hands in the cookie jar doing exactly what the continually accuse those big bad powerfull corporations of doing. And the media sits in the middle egging both of them on because a reasoned debate and true search for truth dosn't sell or draw audiences the way a good rabid no holds barred death match between david and goliath does. Ironic since such purient intrest on the part of the the general public to witness a spectecle actively works against their best intrest becasue it assures only muddied waters.
They cannot know this. A better way to put this would be to say there is no observable way for you to go back in time and kill your grandfather. IE if you do it you don't exist to observe it... or anyone else for that matter. Time travel antics are by their nature unobservable. For all we know they happen all the time and we are constantly in a state of flux as the realities of our history change from moment to moment by changing events of the past. The fact that we percieve the past as a continuous unchanging memory is not evidence that alteration of the timeline does not occur. IE we would not remember a former timeline because there would be no other timeline to remember. What happend happend and that goes for any changes as well.
Some are able to grasp that but then they think that if they were the traveler they would be aware of the changes and yet this is not so either given a single world line concept (no multiple demnsions for every possible scenario of existence). IE your memory would be in constant flux as you made the changes. So in the Back to the Future example Marty would never have gone back to the wrong house in BTF II as he would have known what happend because it happend to him.
So in the end time travel breaks down into two arguemnts. The first is always "Is it possible?" The second then becomes a question of the chicken or the egg.
Can you time travel ? No, end of discussion
Yes, Can you interact with your environment ?
No, Time travel isn't possible
Yes, parradox and how do you deal with the chicken and the egg.
if you can't interact (kill your grandfather) you can't do anything cause any interactino would alter the course of events. The parradox of killing an ancestor is simply an easy to grasp alteration but there are any number of other affects a visit to the past could have that did not cause a paradox for you but did cause a paradox for someone completely unrelated to you. The argument of the existence of such a parradox is summed up by the whole "if a tree falls unobserved in the woods does it make a noise" nonsense.
In otherwords the grandfather paradox, along with that damned tree falling are logical equivalents of divide by zero. It is something you can attempt to do but the system or manipulation/discussion cannot account for it. It is approaching but never reaching 1 or 0.
Think you raise good points overall but I have to take issue with one.... the seeming assumption that any study backed by a corporation is inherrently flawed. I grant that studies performed by those with a stake in a particular outcome should be questioned. I just wish that the studies backed by those with a stake in the opposite outcome would be questioned just as closely. However in this day and age most any study backed by an advocacy group (MADD for example ) is largely unquestioned even though they are often founded on the assumption that their view is correct in regards the subject the studies are dealing with.
You know I hear what you are saying, yet at the same time I just don't buy it.
Judging a book by its cover is not right. Plain and simple. Judiging people because of their body art is the same. A tattoo, piercing, clothing style, fabric choice, shoe type, hair color etc.... have crap all to do with someones intelligence, ability or their manigability to which you reffer. You find sheep in the 'counter culture' just as you do in the business prep monoculture as well as leaders and innovators. Make judgements based on sterotypes at your own risk.
The accepted mode of dress simply dictates the whims of those in power and it tends to be a self perpetuating set of values that in time becomes very divorced from any legitimate reason for maintaining them, if indeed there was one to begin with. Hell, most 'dress codes' are derrived historically from caste systems where the clothes you wore actually did place you in society because it was backed up by law. Since there is no longer any legal backing of such systems it has now devolved in an almost entirely aribitrary set of values that have little basis in practical consideration.
Steel toed boots and a hard hat at a construction site is an example of a meaningfull dress code requirement... a shirt and tie over jeans and a T-shirt is a highly arbitrary and artificial judgment that one is more valuable than the other. And one which will be maintained so long as we as a whole allow it to be so. But to start that change, some people have to question/challenge it. Personally I doubt it can withstand much scrutiny especially when it comes to a head over someone who is a stellar performer. In fact it is already become far more common to see that those who excell are rarely called to account for their fashion choices if they choose not to conform.
I am not saying that anything should go... but the emphasis should most certainly be on performing ones job. Not on whether or not you choose to stick a picee of metal through your nose or have someone stab you a few hundred/thousand times with a hot needle.
Yeah whole language is pretty lousy. I agree the concept is important. My point was I think current math classes have by and large become more about learning the process than about the application. And understanding the concepts is how you apply the knowledge. If you understand why you are using addition, multiplication, quadratic equations, differentials etc... then it really dosn't matter what method you use to operate the symbols... be it pencil and paper or punching a sequence of buttons. If you are applying the right sequences of buttons it is the same as the right system of symbols created by pencils.
The whole thing about showing your work is just a place holding system. A more accurate way than trying to keep track of an equation in your head. A calculator properly used simply lifts you up from the grunt work so that you can worry about why you are applying mathmatical theory for as opposed to learning how to accurately interpret equations. By far the more important aspect of math is learning how to derrive the values you use in the initial equation... and knowing which equations are applicable, or if you need to formulate a new one. Knowing the values to choose and equations to apply is the important part... solving at that point is a purely mechanical process.
The classroom has ceased to be about the reason for math and more about the mechanics of solving set equations. Placing a calculator in the hands of a student in that situation simply brings into sharp relife how pointless the age old process of learning by repetition is IMHO. The internalization process of the mechanics of solving an equation on paper is no longer a necesarry evil.
ummmmmm..... that other offtopic monstrosity was not what I posted. Damn it... spent a long time writing a rant and that happens that was really funky. I make no claim to that statement and I am not sure how that happend.... anyway on to the subject at hand.
I don't see what the fuss is about. Math is not about the shuffling of symbols around on a page. It is about application of principles to derrive answers of a numeric nature. Mathmatic notation was developed as an aide to mental arithmatic and to serve as a easy means of communcating with each other about numeric communcation. It is very much the same thing as the development of a written language vrs an oral traddition.
Just as typing does nothing to hurt written language (the tired grammer/spelling saw aside) calculators properly applied do nothing to weaken someones math. The idea that correctly derrived answers using a calculator are somehow inferior is as absured as the notion that a typed statement is infierior to the same statement handwritten.
If you ask me the problem we have with Math in the classroom has not one damn thing to do with whether calculators are allowed or not. It has everything to do with the complete and utter failure to teach a fundamental understanding of applying mathmatics to the real world. Far to many teachers are more concerned with their students ability to shuffle symbols around on a page instead of their ability to critically apply math appropriately to derrive answers that have meaning. Math in a vacume is a meaingless form of academic masturbation.
To the People of the State of New York:
IT IS sometimes asked, with an air of seeming triumph, what inducements could the States have, if disunited, to make war upon each other? It would be a full answer to this question to say--precisely the same inducements which have, at different times, deluged in blood all the nations in the world. But, unfortunately for us, the question admits of a more particular answer. There are causes of differences within our immediate contemplation, of the tendency of which, even under the restraints of a federal constitution, we have had sufficient experience to enable us to form a judgment of what might be expected if those restraints were removed.
Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this origin. This cause would exist among us in full force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United States. There still are discordant and undecided claims between several of them, and the dissolution of the Union would lay a foundation for similar claims between them all. It is well known that they have heretofore had serious and animated discussion concerning the rights to the lands which were ungranted at the time of the Revolution, and which usually went under the name of crown lands. The States within the limits of whose colonial governments they were comprised have claimed them as their property, the others have contended that the rights of the crown in this article devolved upon the Union; especially as to all that part of the Western territory which, either by actual possession, or through the submission of the Indian proprietors, was subjected to the jurisdiction of the king of Great Britain, till it was relinquished in the treaty of peace. This, it has been said, was at all events an acquisition to the Confederacy by compact with a foreign power. It has been the prudent policy of Congress to appease this controversy, by prevailing upon the States to make cessions to the United States for the benefit of the whole. This has been so far accomplished as, under a continuation of the Union, to afford a decided prospect of an amicable termination of the dispute. A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this dispute, and would create others on the same subject. At present, a large part of the vacant Western territory is, by cession at least, if not by any anterior right, the common property of the Union. If that were at an end, the States which made the cession, on a principle of federal compromise, would be apt when the motive of the grant had ceased, to reclaim the lands as a reversion. The other States would no doubt insist on a proportion, by right of representation. Their argument would be, that a grant, once made, could not be revoked; and that the justice of participating in territory acquired or secured by the joint efforts of the Confederacy, remained undiminished. If, contrary to probability, it should be admitted by all the States, that each had a right to a share of this common stock, there would still be a difficulty to be surmounted, as to a proper rule of apportionment. Different principles would be set up by different States for this purpose; and as they would affect the opposite interests of the parties, they might not easily be susceptible of a pacific adjustment.
In the wide field of Western territory, therefore, we perceive an ample theatre for hostile pretensions, without any umpire or common judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend, that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences. The circumstances of the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania, respecting the land at Wyoming, admonish us not to be sanguine in expecting an easy accommodation of such differences. The articles of confederation obliged the parties to submit the
I hope the inventor of the loss leading business model is roasting simultaneously in all the circles of Dante's inferno. Espcially the guy who started the damn give away the razor and overcharge for the blades crap. He should be given the worlds worst case of acne, forced to shave and splace lemon juice on for aftershave.
Why in gods name can't the printer companies just make a freakin printer, charge a reasonable profit for their effort and do the same with replacement ink. If they would do that there wouldn't BE any aftermarket ink war. The barrier of entry to full printer hardware market is far steeper than that to making knockoff ink well cartridges. But no... they have to keep chasing the dream of controling their market and forcing people into the 1000% mark up replacement ink in return for being able to buy at cost or mildly discounted hardware. Hell, if they would simply reduce their attempted price jack back to just merely astromical they could tighten the belts of the aftermarket crowd to the point it might squeeze them out.
Do they not realize the more absurd their markup the more room and incentive to operate they give the aftermarket crowd ? The higher they charge over the intrinsic value of the constituent parts the more money the aftermarkets can charge to re-coup a reverse engineering investment. In the end it just becomes corporate market competition with a sweetspot that is NOT in the consumers best intrest which is what market competition is supposed to be for in the first damn place.
try doing that with a more recent Camaro, say one after 95 or whenever OBD II was mandated. Engines and ECU's have become so intertwined and manufacturers so slow to release diagnostic tools outside of daelerships it is insane. Also the unique tools for most brands means highly expensive niche tools instead of a wide general standard that allows for after market competition.
Additionally, besides diagnostic ability you could also have performance enhancing options as well with control over your EFI system. Higher fuel flow curves for more performance and lower leaner mixtures for better highway cruising etc...
An easy user interface to car computers really does need to happen. Manufacturers are getting away with highway robbery. Diagnosing what is wrong with cars today should be easier, not some black magic they only do in back where you often can't go because of insurance liabilities. Case in point... I can buy a calaculator with a multiline alpha numeric display for less than 50 bucks. A cars ECU is already programmed to relay information. Why then do I not have such a display in my car? Why do I have an idiot check engine light that is a catch all for EVERY error detected by the ECU rather than a simple 4 line LCD readout giving me the error codes and what it means? Its not the cost of such a system, or development of it. Most diagnostic equipment is extrodinarily rudimentary in terms of computing technology and is already developed for use in the dealer repair operations. Tieing that info to an LCD read out would generally involve less sophistication than a low level texas instruments calaculator.
Just because they are normal every day practices does not by any means make them safe. There is a reason why insurence premiums are far higher in highly congested urban areas.
Mild correction... I described what Blue Tooth is capable. Bit of a ways from making it actually happen though.
So that your computer goes with you but when you need the space and larger screen etc you have it. With wireless you don't even have to mess around with hooking up a crap load of cables. Wireless mice and Keyboards already exist and it wouldn't take that much to create a wireless display system.
I really wonder if wireless interface systems could get ubiquitous enough that you could more or less forgoe the full key board and mouse on the laptop entirely and just make a mobile processing memory unit say the size of a cell phone. Wirelesss interface stations would be all over the place and you could browse the systems in range and log onto yours.
One idea I like about that is being able to test drive systems at a store before you buy it. Wonder if that new monitor has fast enough refresh ? Enough resolution ? Just attach it to the system on your hip and run a favorit movie/game etc... How about the sound quality of those speakers ? How about wondering if that new system will do what you want ? Access files on your current system while demoing a new unit with similar periphials you have at home. Have an automatic interface with your cars computer... no more dealer visits for codes or wondering what tripped the 'check engine' light.
Ummmmm..... You do realize the US budget is around 2 Trillion. IE that is roughly the amount of income the government makes from taxes. Movies and games etc pull in a few Billion total. They are nothing to our economy when you get down to it. Taxed income represents about a 1/5 or even less of our GDP. So if entertainment all told reaches 100 billion it would be 1% of our GDP.
.1% of GDP.
Movie box office gross was ~10billion last year or about
Everyone pointing out that mass production is far more efficent and that a factory of these could never compete.
Thats not the point. These things are not designed to compete at that level. A one step printing process like this will never compete with mass production methods for speed. What it trumps that process in is versitility. How much does a prodection line for a screw cost ? How much does it cost to create a new screw design to implement ? How much to switch between certain templates ? How many must be made and sold to make the process profitable.
In short mass production relies on economies of scale. Makes lots of goods far cheaper than they would be otherwise but at the same time it sort of forces us all into a one size fits all world where the only things that get made are those with a large enough mass demand to support the enourmous intial investment in establishing such a process. Cheap is a very relative term when speaking of mass production. See if you think any of the numbers involved in setting up a first run of an item are 'cheap'. This creates a staggering bar to market entry in many fields.
What they are not good at is adapting to needs and they require enourmous amounts of stock to be made and shipped before demand is established. Distributed production like this would do a great deal to elimnate overstock. It could potentially lower the bar to market entry in any number of areas. For example lets say manufacturing shifted from highly specific highly concentrated mass production to highly disperesed general construction. In otherwords demands to keep such a process running would run the gamut of production needs rather than rely upon one specific need. In other words more smaller factories capable of producing A-Z instead of just differnt sizes of A.
For example If someone could create a rare auto parts fabricator that worked cheaper than machine shop rates for custom replication they would make a fortune. Demand is there for such a thing but no one items demand is large enough in most cases to permit someone to make money setting up a mass production line for it.
Also imagine the new frontiers opened up to product hackers if they could alter the design specs acording to their whims rather than be stuck with what is profitable for a mass production run.
Actually they are quite interchangeable... albeit engine generally is used to reffer to a combustion process it is not limited in that respect.
motor
2 : any of various power units that develop energy or impart motion: as a : a small compact engine b : INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE; especially : a gasoline engine c : a rotating machine that transforms electrical energy into mechanical energy
engine
4 : a machine for converting any of various forms of energy into mechanical force and motion; also : a mechanism or object that serves as an energy source
When checking for synonyms of engine one finds motor and motor for engine.
Not sure how much more interchangeable they could be in fact.
what he was saying is that to have any improovement in range from doing that would imply better than %100 efficency. IE power goes from battery to rear motor to be absorbed by the front wheels back to the battery. If you don't have 100% efficiency then this is a loosing battle. the front wheels would cause drag which would cause higher engery being expended by the rear wheels thus using up your power faster.
In short its like trying to power a sail boat with a fan on board.
Electric cars are already far better at acceleration than gas cars if you keep the weights similar. Electric motors have a flat torque line unlike the curve for ICE which means they get off the line ALOT faster. Top end is a different story. Power delivery and handling becomes a major issue for electric. ICE motors are actually cooled by the fuel flowing through them, you can think of exhaust as a kind of heat pump and of course all that coolant piping through the block (for most). Electric motors on the otherhand are rarely cooled and the heat due to resistence in the windings just builds and builds. Most motors have a continuous rating vrs a peak rating. but the ability to have full access to the engines torque makes their utilization entirely different from that of an ICE.
The difference betwen electric and gas engines is one more people need to be aware of. Probably one upsot of wider use of electric cars will be a better understanding of torque application. Most people don't realize that when they are seeking higher HP that they are really after more available torque. Gas engines have two very important performance curves.. the HP and Torque curves. Any gear head is very familiar with this and even your average joe schmuck buying a car has a vauge notion of what they are. At least that higher HP generally means better acceleration. The thing about Electric motors is that they have no curves in this respect. They apply their full power from 0-max RPM. Thus no power band like with a gas engine.
they are called golf carts and plenty of guys wearing funny pants drive them on a daily basis and many more want to.
Jokes aside though it is becoming impossible to buy a simple car. Something with no electronics to go out, no fancy trim, interior etc. A car mass produced with the tech of say a 60's hunk of iron could probably be made for 5000 bucks today but it just dosn't have the audience (car makers feel) to make it worth making.
In reality the need for cars is such that they are going to sell them up to a certain point because they are so invaluable in American society. Thus it is like Hotel rooms in popular destinations. People have to have them so they are no longer forced to provide the cheapest option. They simply jack the price up via 'features' till people stop buying them. Supply and demmand is a bitch when it dosn't work to the consumers advantage and cars are a major case in point.
What incentive does a car company have to make a $5-10k car that can last 20 years when they can sell you one for $25-35k that needs replacing in less than 10 ?
They make cars the way they do because that is what makes them the most money. Not because it is the best car for the consumer. Cell phones area similar product.
Yes but do you really think that for a student that finds intrest in these things it takes 18 some odd years of formal education to learn them ?
Current mass education systems are far more successfull at turning out mindless sheep that simply accept what they are told than fundamentally grounded eggheads that push the edges of our knowledge. Basic math, calc and physics do not take years upon years. For someone that is motivated and interested, they can be picked up in days, weeks at the most.
To me the modern classroom is like the equivalent of those A++ certification classes. They cost alot, teach you nothing and give you a stamp of approval that only means a damn thing to HR weenies.
The average age of ground breaking work is going up not because it takes that long to grasp the fundamentals. But because we have a system in place that blocks most from having any reasonable chance to learn, or more importanly apply, those fundamentals before going through a monolitic education process unable to adapt to the needs of the gifted student.
Unless you pay zero tax you also pay into the system for welfare. The money for both is gathered from all via taxes. Its a tomato tomoto argument.
Also it is a big mistake to think of SS as a pay in, pay back system cause that is just not how it works. All your pay in accounts for is determining your level of benefits at retirement. The system itself works on a pay as you go basis where current workers are responsible for the current benifits due. Thus the whole 'locked box' fiasco with Gore who was wanting to earmark any overages in the SS collections for only SS payouts in the future.
Also, the amount you pay in has nothing to do with the max amount you can recieve out. You get paid as long as you live. The system was designed such that on average you were supposed to die before collecting as much as you contributed. But average life span has increased since the 30's and the age of elgibility hasn't been moved back far enough to compensate. Not saying it should be. One thing often overlooked in SS is this pretty underhanded tactic intially employed of setting the retirement age at like 2-3 years before the age of average life expectancy.
If you are not aware, there was a massive increase to SS witholdings a while back in order that the system could stockpile the money for future shortages. Instead of being held in trust or a so called 'locked box', this extra money became a kind of slush fund for any program that needed some extra cash. Supposedly these organizations now owe that money back when it is needed, but there is no bank account from which to draw it. In otherwords when those IOU's come due the only option will be to divert it out of their allocated budget and cut services acordingly, or to raise taxes to cover the shortfall without cutting services. That in a nut shell is the whole SS crisis. It is self created by fiscal mismanagement of the system and it is a tragedy of the first order. The options for fixing it are
1) decrease ss benifits in accord with the short fall.
2) decrease services by programs that used the surpluses to cover the short fall
3) raise taxes to cover the short fall.
or in other words
1) shaft the public
2) shaft the public
3) shaft the public
There is always Bush's plan which takes option number 4... Combination of all of the above. Granted if he had his way and got it swapped to a full private fund process it would become what most people think it is already... a get back what you put in system.
Thanks for the time spent. Been a good one. Did want to leave with two short things. I think we really agree more than we disagree.
I did not make up that 5% number, In fact I was spefically reffering to the article you pointed to ( albeit worst case). I have also encounterd that margian of error number in studies about election systems ( Poly Sci degree ).
If you can trust people you can trust code.... and the code can't change its mind.
Well again I am wondering how strong your understanding is of the system boot process.
That piece of software would not work using this method as its detection process is predicated on operating from inside a compromised system. By doing what I am talking about you would render the process used by that program useless. Power of the plug just means full physical and operational control of the box. Not a big deal for the home user but gets to be a pain when dealing with things like server farms and the like.
If you control the boot process you control the system. If you don't you shouldn't be in charge of the box (professionaly speaking).
You can verify it to whatever extent you like at that point... but I suppose if you want ultimate paranoia you would have to write your clean system yourself and hand copy it yourself etc etc etc. But remember while the hacker only has to make the perfect hack once to make it repeatable. You only have to create a clean system once before it is repeatable.
I think the latest verstion of x-plane can be run in Linux. www.x-plane.com I think
And thus we create our own problem the same as has been done in the past. Why is it that governments always learn the wrong lessons from such events? Germany screws the pooch and kicks us Eienstien and here we are happily trying to institute similar blocks (albeit no where near as draconian... yet) with the potential to bar the way to a similar aquisition.
To hell with all this paranoia. I'd rather have liberty frought with perils than safety under the jackboot. Franklin put it pretty good when he said those that would trade freedom for safety deserve niether.