I think the general question here is, who's to be the judge of what's relevant and what's not? The beauty of the self-publishing capability of blogging is that you don't have to get past an editor that... editorializes your content. You write it, you post it. If your readers want to read it, they do. If they don't, you write in obscurity.
I think it's a little more disconnected than that. There are thousands (millions, maybe) blogs out there. Some are well written and insightful, others are the blatherings of pre-teen social climbers. Some blogs get traffic, others don't, but you can bet that traffic levels are not directly correlated with the quality of material in the blog. But, just as the talentless boors with nothing to say are constantly surrounded by people listening to their every word, and many of our society's most insightful thinkers can't get anyone to listen to them, there's a disconnect between what's popular and what's good. For evidence, look at the Nielsen ratings.
My sig contains a link to my blog. It gets a little traffic, and the occasional comment posted back. I try to write things that people want to read, and I generally know how to use the English language. I only put up a post every few months on average, because, frankly, I've got other things going. Mostly, though, I post things there because I want to write. One day I'll look back and say, "Hey, look what I was thinking that day," but I don't expect it to make me a living. That's just silly.
So, like a significant portion of bloggers out there, my blog probably appeals to a very, very small fraction of the population of Internet surfers as a whole. But I'm doing something I like to do and I'm serving some sort of mostly anonymous audience. I'll be happy with that for the forseeable future, and I'm probably not going anywhere. I am not, however, doing anything that will supplant "traditional media." I really think that the future will be one where blogs become considered one component of traditional media, some with quality, others lacking. It's the same way in broadcast news and periodical print media.
Actually, the prices Californians pay for power offsets the cost to deliver electricity to customers in the Northwest. I'm reminded of the slogan at Chilkoot Charlie's in Anchorage: "We cheat the other guys and pass the savings along to you."
And, yes, I work for a power company and know how the system works.
So, is there ever a point during ascent where aborting the climb and returning to the launch pad requires more fuel than is available? Abort before apogee requires more fuel than riding it out, but you've got extra fuel because you aborted (theoretically). But is there a "point of no return" zone where you have to press on?
I did read that. I was unaware of the power management capabilities of cell towers. That's actually kind of interesting, and I'd like to know more about how that works. Maybe it sends and adjustment signal based on the power of the inbound signal, but that seems like it would be difficult with moving phones. Furthermore, the initial signal sent by the phone, before being adjusted by the picocell, would still be strong enough to interfere with SETI, if I read all these responses correctly.
Okay, maybe not. So, if they put a picocell on an airplane, how does that stop the signal that's coming from the cell phone? Maybe I should RTFA and find out, but maybe they don't say...
Ah, but the question becomes, will Macs run Windows natively? They run a variety of Linux flavors right now, which (I'm guessing) bypasses any reference to the Mac ROMs (not needing them). Wouln't Windows do the same thing? Then you could, in theory, run OSX on the hardware as a subprocess of Windows.
Of course, the Good Taste Police would immediately come and arrest you. Dunno why you'd want to take a perfectly good computer and run Windows on it. This has been more of an exercise in what could be. We now return you to reality.
One good thing that will come out of this: There won't be any more arguments about which is faster, OS X on PPC or Windows on x86. With the same chips doing different jobs, it'll all be down to the OS.
Chances are good that it's coal. Maybe natural gas. A fair chance that it's gravity (hydroelectric), and very slim chances that it's nuclear fission or wind power. Of course, it could be wheel-bound hamsters, but the likelihood of that is... let's just say small.
$28K per year? Sounds about like a schoolteacher's salary. And you know how lackluster and unskilled they are. Not to mention how quickly they burn out. I mean, sheesh, can't they drum up enough funds for someone as brilliant and skilled as a $100K per year IT department manager. Then you'd see things happening.
I'm fairly certain the dialogue/kneeling posture thing was straight out of Palpatine's office. That's where he was when he sent the new Vader to go to the temple and do his pendulum-swinging deed.
That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Generating light by means of electricity in a fashion that's repeatable by manufacturing techniques of the day and cheap enough for the common man was an incredible achievement and required significant technological advance for the time. We already have many industrial processes for extracting oxygen from oxides (often used for purifying oxidized metals, not recovering the oxygen itself). This prize is just for developing a system that packages those processes in a way that they can be used on the moon. Furthermore, it's not like NASA is asking the developer to warrant the stability of the process or any such thing, just come up with a viable method. Years of development will come afterward, and it might not even be with the prizewinner's system if the second runner up, six months later, comes up with a system that works better.
Okay, we're drifting off topic here, but electronic (or most other means) of tracking guns is only sufficient to track law abiding citizens, really stupid criminals, and people who commit crimes of passion (i.e., those that aren't premeditated).
Personally, I don't know the first thing about being a criminal beyond what I watch on TV. I do know, however, that my buddy, who's a competition marksman, loads his own rounds and occasionally casts his own bullets because he wants consistency that he can't get from factory ammunition. Is someone going to "require" him to chip each bullet he casts? Even if they do, what's stopping a criminally-minded person from not abiding by that law?
If you put RFID tags in guns, what's stopping someone who wants to use it in a criminal act from taking the tag out? Are you going to somehow make the gun inoperable if it doesn't have the chip? It's not a computer. A gun is a fantastically simple device at the basic level, and not terribly complicated at the most advanced level. Someone who took metal shop in high school could easily crank out a simple shooter.
I agree that guns present a huge issue in our society that needs to be addressed, but you have to understand that, in doing it, you just drive real criminals to step up their game. Also, at what point does the defense of "my gun got cloned" come up in court?
Is that dependent on the DVD-ROM drive, or is it a software thing? I occasionally run across movies that I want to own on DVD that are not available in Region 1. I wouldn't mind buying them if I could slurp them up and burn them to a Region 1-compatible DVD-R. Or, for that matter, leave them resident on a hard drive.
But seriously, yes, at the bottom of Valles Marineris at noon on a summer's day, you could probably stand the weather if you had on a good parka and a breathing mask. Of course, then there's the radiation that would give any exposed skin a serious sunburn in just a few minutes; at least that's the way I understand it.
I suspect you understood that I was just saying that, due to our media exposure to a very familiar looking place, we're slowly getting indoctrinated to the idea of living on Mars. It's kind of neat, really. We look at pictures of Venus and think we'd never want to go near such a hellish place. Mars, on the other hand, looks more inviting than some places on Earth.
It's funny how the more earthlike features we find on Mars, the more habitable it seems to become. That is, until you stop to realize that the atmosphere is still really thin, almost vacuum, and comprised of nothing we can breathe.
I've got a Thinkpad R40, and I'm fairly pleased with it. I bought it because it's one of the models certified to run SUSE. It's not as fast as I'd like (Celeron 1.6), but the screen is large and bright (15"), the combo drive works as expected, and it has a ton of I/O ports (though it's missing Bluetooth). It doesn't weigh much, even though it's no flyweight, and it's sturdy as hell. The work-issued HP laptop that I have feels far flimsier.
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What would you suggest I do to increase the quality, in your view, of the contents of my blog? Seriously, what would you rather see me write?
I think the general question here is, who's to be the judge of what's relevant and what's not? The beauty of the self-publishing capability of blogging is that you don't have to get past an editor that ... editorializes your content. You write it, you post it. If your readers want to read it, they do. If they don't, you write in obscurity.
The word for the day is "freedom."
I think it's a little more disconnected than that. There are thousands (millions, maybe) blogs out there. Some are well written and insightful, others are the blatherings of pre-teen social climbers. Some blogs get traffic, others don't, but you can bet that traffic levels are not directly correlated with the quality of material in the blog. But, just as the talentless boors with nothing to say are constantly surrounded by people listening to their every word, and many of our society's most insightful thinkers can't get anyone to listen to them, there's a disconnect between what's popular and what's good. For evidence, look at the Nielsen ratings.
My sig contains a link to my blog. It gets a little traffic, and the occasional comment posted back. I try to write things that people want to read, and I generally know how to use the English language. I only put up a post every few months on average, because, frankly, I've got other things going. Mostly, though, I post things there because I want to write. One day I'll look back and say, "Hey, look what I was thinking that day," but I don't expect it to make me a living. That's just silly.
So, like a significant portion of bloggers out there, my blog probably appeals to a very, very small fraction of the population of Internet surfers as a whole. But I'm doing something I like to do and I'm serving some sort of mostly anonymous audience. I'll be happy with that for the forseeable future, and I'm probably not going anywhere. I am not, however, doing anything that will supplant "traditional media." I really think that the future will be one where blogs become considered one component of traditional media, some with quality, others lacking. It's the same way in broadcast news and periodical print media.
Oh, enough already. I'm starting to blather.
Actually, the prices Californians pay for power offsets the cost to deliver electricity to customers in the Northwest. I'm reminded of the slogan at Chilkoot Charlie's in Anchorage: "We cheat the other guys and pass the savings along to you."
And, yes, I work for a power company and know how the system works.
So, is there ever a point during ascent where aborting the climb and returning to the launch pad requires more fuel than is available? Abort before apogee requires more fuel than riding it out, but you've got extra fuel because you aborted (theoretically). But is there a "point of no return" zone where you have to press on?
"All your passengers are belong to us."
Maybe not...
I did read that. I was unaware of the power management capabilities of cell towers. That's actually kind of interesting, and I'd like to know more about how that works. Maybe it sends and adjustment signal based on the power of the inbound signal, but that seems like it would be difficult with moving phones. Furthermore, the initial signal sent by the phone, before being adjusted by the picocell, would still be strong enough to interfere with SETI, if I read all these responses correctly.
Right wing ... airplane. That's funny!
Okay, maybe not. So, if they put a picocell on an airplane, how does that stop the signal that's coming from the cell phone? Maybe I should RTFA and find out, but maybe they don't say...
Of course, the Good Taste Police would immediately come and arrest you. Dunno why you'd want to take a perfectly good computer and run Windows on it. This has been more of an exercise in what could be. We now return you to reality.
One good thing that will come out of this: There won't be any more arguments about which is faster, OS X on PPC or Windows on x86. With the same chips doing different jobs, it'll all be down to the OS.
I wonder if it will support Mac OS X...
Chances are good that it's coal. Maybe natural gas. A fair chance that it's gravity (hydroelectric), and very slim chances that it's nuclear fission or wind power. Of course, it could be wheel-bound hamsters, but the likelihood of that is... let's just say small.
I was looking for the Mr. Fusion reference, but yeah, a Star Trek reference would suffice. Slow Tuesday, I guess.
You have no sense of humor, do you?
"If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." [Pardon the paraphrasing]
You work here too? Where's your cube? ;^)
$28K per year? Sounds about like a schoolteacher's salary. And you know how lackluster and unskilled they are. Not to mention how quickly they burn out. I mean, sheesh, can't they drum up enough funds for someone as brilliant and skilled as a $100K per year IT department manager. Then you'd see things happening.
[/sarcasm]
I'm fairly certain the dialogue/kneeling posture thing was straight out of Palpatine's office. That's where he was when he sent the new Vader to go to the temple and do his pendulum-swinging deed.
That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Generating light by means of electricity in a fashion that's repeatable by manufacturing techniques of the day and cheap enough for the common man was an incredible achievement and required significant technological advance for the time. We already have many industrial processes for extracting oxygen from oxides (often used for purifying oxidized metals, not recovering the oxygen itself). This prize is just for developing a system that packages those processes in a way that they can be used on the moon. Furthermore, it's not like NASA is asking the developer to warrant the stability of the process or any such thing, just come up with a viable method. Years of development will come afterward, and it might not even be with the prizewinner's system if the second runner up, six months later, comes up with a system that works better.
Yeah. Even better, put a link to your web site in the story...
Personally, I don't know the first thing about being a criminal beyond what I watch on TV. I do know, however, that my buddy, who's a competition marksman, loads his own rounds and occasionally casts his own bullets because he wants consistency that he can't get from factory ammunition. Is someone going to "require" him to chip each bullet he casts? Even if they do, what's stopping a criminally-minded person from not abiding by that law?
If you put RFID tags in guns, what's stopping someone who wants to use it in a criminal act from taking the tag out? Are you going to somehow make the gun inoperable if it doesn't have the chip? It's not a computer. A gun is a fantastically simple device at the basic level, and not terribly complicated at the most advanced level. Someone who took metal shop in high school could easily crank out a simple shooter.
I agree that guns present a huge issue in our society that needs to be addressed, but you have to understand that, in doing it, you just drive real criminals to step up their game. Also, at what point does the defense of "my gun got cloned" come up in court?
Is that dependent on the DVD-ROM drive, or is it a software thing? I occasionally run across movies that I want to own on DVD that are not available in Region 1. I wouldn't mind buying them if I could slurp them up and burn them to a Region 1-compatible DVD-R. Or, for that matter, leave them resident on a hard drive.
I don't want to know, really I don't.
But seriously, yes, at the bottom of Valles Marineris at noon on a summer's day, you could probably stand the weather if you had on a good parka and a breathing mask. Of course, then there's the radiation that would give any exposed skin a serious sunburn in just a few minutes; at least that's the way I understand it.
I suspect you understood that I was just saying that, due to our media exposure to a very familiar looking place, we're slowly getting indoctrinated to the idea of living on Mars. It's kind of neat, really. We look at pictures of Venus and think we'd never want to go near such a hellish place. Mars, on the other hand, looks more inviting than some places on Earth.
"...a vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas" (from the MSNBC article)
and watch you squirm.
But seriously, doesn't filling a chamber with something sort of nullify the whole vacuum thing?
It's funny how the more earthlike features we find on Mars, the more habitable it seems to become. That is, until you stop to realize that the atmosphere is still really thin, almost vacuum, and comprised of nothing we can breathe.
I've got a Thinkpad R40, and I'm fairly pleased with it. I bought it because it's one of the models certified to run SUSE. It's not as fast as I'd like (Celeron 1.6), but the screen is large and bright (15"), the combo drive works as expected, and it has a ton of I/O ports (though it's missing Bluetooth). It doesn't weigh much, even though it's no flyweight, and it's sturdy as hell. The work-issued HP laptop that I have feels far flimsier.