'Dry' science by itself can be very boring, espcially when there is no apparant 'use' or 'good' in the findings presented.
As a (former) scientist, I think it is very important to show the relevance of your work in any presentation. Just emphasize why the story you are telling is important, and how it may affect people or society as a whole.
The only people that can see the value in 'dry' science are scientists in the same field. To any other audience, outlining the consequences of the material you present is essential.
For example, I can imagine that few people care (or even know) that an electron has something called 'spin' that can be in two directions. But many people will be interested in a technology that allows their physician to determine the exact position of a tumor without cutting them open first. If you start with a story about MRI scans, and then move deeper into the fundamentals, some people may actually like to hear the rest of the story. I doubt many people will stick around if you start with the fundamentals of 'spin' and mention medical MRI in your last sentence.
Of course, mentioning the long-term benefits of any more or less fundamental research program is common practice in fund raising... So many scientist already know how it's done, but could use a little motivation to present their ideas accessibly at all occasions...
The main problem in all of this is keeping the 'cold' side cold. You would need a very elborate cooling system to provide a cool 'sink' at room temperature.
It might seem trivial to keep a heatsink well below cpu temperature, but it definitely is not. With coolant exiting the CPU and 70C, and a heatsink at 45C, the efficiency of this energy-regenaration process would be small. (well under 10%). In this very same example, the heatsink would have to be twice as large compared to a heatsink at 70C, in an ambient temperature of 20C.
Although the concept is basically valid here, it would be very impractical to implement. The space used up by the oversize cooling system could be replaced with more batteries, providing a longer battery life at similar size.
Off course, uploading an album in mp3 format and offering that for download is still as forbidden as it ever was.
However, if you would place a link to another website that has this album for download, you would not be infringing copyrights or doing anything illegal whatsoever.
It boils down to, more or less, the idea that you cannot be held responsible for what others place online... which sounds like a reasonable concept to me.
Although 31 years is extremely long a halflife for a metastable nucleus, there are some that last even longer.
242-Americum has a metastable isomer with 141 years halflife, and there are probably more nuclei with a long-lived isomer.
Also, from what i can find out aboutt this weapon, it is not required to achieve population-inversion, which is different from LASERS and MASERS. Radiation is stimulated by photons diffrent in wavelength than the output wavelength.
I this case, a weapon would loose half of its effect in 31 years, but would probably not become totally ineffective due decaying below a certain 'critical point' (50% in true *ASERS).
With those factors combined, I'm not so sure a its impossible to create a durable weapon with this technology.
- The rule quoted above, doesnt seem to question the origin of the horses you breed, just their specifications - and HOW they must reproduce
- Genetically, cloning a male animal and then using the clone to reproduce in a natural way, is identical to having the original reproduce in the same way
If you were to clone a female animal, and reproduce using the clone, there would be a genetic difference. The offspring would then have:
- one strand of DNA from its father
- one strand of DNA from its mother, equal to the 'original'
- mitochondrial DNA from its mother, different from the 'original' female
Since metabolism (partially encoded in the mitochondria) is probably an important factor in racing horses, one could devise a way to create superior animals trough this route. This would require great analytical effort though.
But they make billions selling Stacker 2 to fatties too lazy to excersize and too weak willed to stem their eating.
We could enlessly discuss this, but the ingredients of Stack-II and similar supplements have been proven to work in reducing weight. Those experiments were scientific in nature, performed quite well, and without any (extra) exercise.
If you're interested, run a PubMed search on something like 'ephedrine caffeine metabolism weight'. You'll find some nice articles published in resonable journals from there.
Please don't dismiss any product because it sounds so well. Some of them work, some of them do not.
I see an option for using GRPS now, and UMTS soon on airlines, if they allow this kind of equipment to be active on board. As the frequencies and signal strenghts of these techniques are similar to GSM, I can imagine airlines will allow these devices to.
Personally, I hate flying because the concept of sitting in a mothy pipe with nothing sensible to do but wait does not appeal to me.
Perhaps, affordable internet access in the air could alleviate the burden of being stuck up there for many hours. Even of some of the passengers end up having senseless, loud conversations, it sounds like a good deal.
Even the trade off between the risk of dying from a crash and (almost) dying from boredom tends to shift towards the first option for me;)
The risk you mention is an obvious one, but with most genetically modified organisms its unlikely they would be superior competitors for the wild type.
I doubt that glowing in the dark would benefit a zebrafish. Its very unlikely they'd be more attractive to the opposite sex here, zebrafish are not used to looking for glowing mates. Also, glowing in the dark could be quite a disadvantage if any predators are near.
In case of GM'd crops (resistance to pests etc.) the modified organism could well be superior to the wildtype.
But even if an advantage is introduced, its still questionable if replacing the wild type with the improved version is a bad thing.
What does humanity lose when all soybean plants become roundup-resistant? Would the world be a worse planet to live on if all zebrafish glowed in the dark?
Besides the fact that it lacks caffeine, and tastes mediocre at best, I wonder what the problem is with currect decaf.
Decaf is nowadays produced by removing caffeine from coffee beans using liquid or supercritical CO2, instead of organic solvents used in the old days. The current process is friendly to the environment (CO2 can easily be recycled), and safe to the consumer as well.
Personally, I do not object genetic modification of the plants, but I think many people (especially Europeans) do. Decaf is also considered a 'healthy' product, and it might be a bad marketing match to introduce modern biotech there. Furthermore, I doubt it will taste any better, since caffeine itself has a bitter flavor to it that might be important in the taste of 'real' coffee.
One question remains: Where does the caffeine they currently remove go? And: Will caffeine become more expensive when there are no 'leftovers' from removing it from coffee?
Re:If you really want to work at / very near home.
on
Teleworking in the UK?
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· Score: 1
I think most of the self-employed out there will agree with me that putting in long hours is way easier if its your own company.
But I do agree it takes a lot of self-motivation at some points, especially when you need to do things you do not enjoy.
Most of the business-owners will have no problem spending lots and lots of time on their product or core service, but 'we' also need to spend a lot of time and effort on things like marketing, account management and administration.
For me the bottom line is: Being self-employed allows one to combine play and work. As an employee, all work and no fun does make you a dull boy;)
Re:If you really want to work at / very near home.
on
Teleworking in the UK?
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· Score: 1
Absolutely!
Working in your own business has many more advantages, but some disadvantages as well. You should consider trading security for freedom if you choose this option.
The good thing is, with borders becoming more open and broadband internet more common, it will probably get easier to do so. At least within the EU, which is more and more becoming one big country rather than a collection of small ones.
Although that development itself has a myraid of disadvantages, it could improve freedom of choice regarding residence and clientele.
There is a major point overlooked in most (if not all) plans to ban cars from cities (or create new cities without cars in them): People ENJOY driving their cars.
I simply do not want to get wet when it rains, I don't want to wait for any form of public transportation either. Busses, subways and trains go from some point I'm not at, to a place that I do not need to go. And, usually, at a timepoint I dont need to travel.
For this luxury, I'm quite willing to sacrifice some environmental aspects, and I dont mind taking the risk of being ran over too...
Fortunately, I can choose not to live in a city like this:)
How often is code actually re-used?
on
The Post-OOP Paradigm
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Often, I wonder how often code is actually re-used, and adapted later on.
Both conditions will have to be met to make the big idea behing OOP work. I'm sort-of an P/R fan and programmer, and I see no reason to assume that OO as a whole has been a good thing.
Lets just get rid of it, never speak the words or acronym again, and revert to P/R programming. If someone could think up a great acronym for this process, I am convinced corporate management is quite willing to accept it.
If you where to glue those cardbord discs really well to the elastic surface, they would eventually shear to pieces on continual expansion.
In case of space-time, one could differentiate between two scenarios:
- objects get 'blown' further apart in space with time
- space itself expands with time
I would state the the last statement would have to be true (not implying the first one is not), since the 'big bang' theory starts out with the absence of space itself.
However, I agree with you on atoms and molecules staying the way they are in the 'short' term. With continual expansion in the 'long' term however, it seems plausible these strong structures could be torn apart. Breaking up molecules and atoms would 'cost' a great deal of energy, but would 'yield' an enormous amount of entropy once the universe became infinitely large.
My guess is that any data in that secret box has probably been destroyed in the crash. If it would still have any value after being toasted in descent and ramming into the ground at a few 100 mph, the US government might consider making their 'secret boxes' less sturdy...
Slashdot Mirror
As a (former) scientist, I think it is very important to show the relevance of your work in any presentation. Just emphasize why the story you are telling is important, and how it may affect people or society as a whole.
The only people that can see the value in 'dry' science are scientists in the same field. To any other audience, outlining the consequences of the material you present is essential.
For example, I can imagine that few people care (or even know) that an electron has something called 'spin' that can be in two directions. But many people will be interested in a technology that allows their physician to determine the exact position of a tumor without cutting them open first. If you start with a story about MRI scans, and then move deeper into the fundamentals, some people may actually like to hear the rest of the story. I doubt many people will stick around if you start with the fundamentals of 'spin' and mention medical MRI in your last sentence.
Of course, mentioning the long-term benefits of any more or less fundamental research program is common practice in fund raising... So many scientist already know how it's done, but could use a little motivation to present their ideas accessibly at all occasions...
It might seem trivial to keep a heatsink well below cpu temperature, but it definitely is not. With coolant exiting the CPU and 70C, and a heatsink at 45C, the efficiency of this energy-regenaration process would be small. (well under 10%). In this very same example, the heatsink would have to be twice as large compared to a heatsink at 70C, in an ambient temperature of 20C.
Although the concept is basically valid here, it would be very impractical to implement. The space used up by the oversize cooling system could be replaced with more batteries, providing a longer battery life at similar size.
However, if you would place a link to another website that has this album for download, you would not be infringing copyrights or doing anything illegal whatsoever.
It boils down to, more or less, the idea that you cannot be held responsible for what others place online... which sounds like a reasonable concept to me.
242-Americum has a metastable isomer with 141 years halflife, and there are probably more nuclei with a long-lived isomer.
Also, from what i can find out aboutt this weapon, it is not required to achieve population-inversion, which is different from LASERS and MASERS. Radiation is stimulated by photons diffrent in wavelength than the output wavelength.
I this case, a weapon would loose half of its effect in 31 years, but would probably not become totally ineffective due decaying below a certain 'critical point' (50% in true *ASERS).
With those factors combined, I'm not so sure a its impossible to create a durable weapon with this technology.
- The rule quoted above, doesnt seem to question the origin of the horses you breed, just their specifications - and HOW they must reproduce
- Genetically, cloning a male animal and then using the clone to reproduce in a natural way, is identical to having the original reproduce in the same way
If you were to clone a female animal, and reproduce using the clone, there would be a genetic difference. The offspring would then have:
- one strand of DNA from its father
- one strand of DNA from its mother, equal to the 'original'
- mitochondrial DNA from its mother, different from the 'original' female
Since metabolism (partially encoded in the mitochondria) is probably an important factor in racing horses, one could devise a way to create superior animals trough this route. This would require great analytical effort though.
But they make billions selling Stacker 2 to fatties too lazy to excersize and too weak willed to stem their eating. We could enlessly discuss this, but the ingredients of Stack-II and similar supplements have been proven to work in reducing weight. Those experiments were scientific in nature, performed quite well, and without any (extra) exercise. If you're interested, run a PubMed search on something like 'ephedrine caffeine metabolism weight'. You'll find some nice articles published in resonable journals from there. Please don't dismiss any product because it sounds so well. Some of them work, some of them do not.
Personally, I hate flying because the concept of sitting in a mothy pipe with nothing sensible to do but wait does not appeal to me.
Perhaps, affordable internet access in the air could alleviate the burden of being stuck up there for many hours. Even of some of the passengers end up having senseless, loud conversations, it sounds like a good deal.
Even the trade off between the risk of dying from a crash and (almost) dying from boredom tends to shift towards the first option for me ;)
I doubt that glowing in the dark would benefit a zebrafish. Its very unlikely they'd be more attractive to the opposite sex here, zebrafish are not used to looking for glowing mates. Also, glowing in the dark could be quite a disadvantage if any predators are near.
In case of GM'd crops (resistance to pests etc.) the modified organism could well be superior to the wildtype.
But even if an advantage is introduced, its still questionable if replacing the wild type with the improved version is a bad thing.
What does humanity lose when all soybean plants become roundup-resistant? Would the world be a worse planet to live on if all zebrafish glowed in the dark?
Decaf is nowadays produced by removing caffeine from coffee beans using liquid or supercritical CO2, instead of organic solvents used in the old days. The current process is friendly to the environment (CO2 can easily be recycled), and safe to the consumer as well.
Personally, I do not object genetic modification of the plants, but I think many people (especially Europeans) do. Decaf is also considered a 'healthy' product, and it might be a bad marketing match to introduce modern biotech there. Furthermore, I doubt it will taste any better, since caffeine itself has a bitter flavor to it that might be important in the taste of 'real' coffee.
One question remains: Where does the caffeine they currently remove go? And: Will caffeine become more expensive when there are no 'leftovers' from removing it from coffee?
But I do agree it takes a lot of self-motivation at some points, especially when you need to do things you do not enjoy.
Most of the business-owners will have no problem spending lots and lots of time on their product or core service, but 'we' also need to spend a lot of time and effort on things like marketing, account management and administration.
For me the bottom line is: Being self-employed allows one to combine play and work. As an employee, all work and no fun does make you a dull boy ;)
Working in your own business has many more advantages, but some disadvantages as well. You should consider trading security for freedom if you choose this option.
The good thing is, with borders becoming more open and broadband internet more common, it will probably get easier to do so. At least within the EU, which is more and more becoming one big country rather than a collection of small ones.
Although that development itself has a myraid of disadvantages, it could improve freedom of choice regarding residence and clientele.
There is a major point overlooked in most (if not all) plans to ban cars from cities (or create new cities without cars in them): People ENJOY driving their cars.
:)
I simply do not want to get wet when it rains, I don't want to wait for any form of public transportation either.
Busses, subways and trains go from some point I'm not at, to a place that I do not need to go. And, usually, at a timepoint I dont need to travel.
For this luxury, I'm quite willing to sacrifice some environmental aspects, and I dont mind taking the risk of being ran over too...
Fortunately, I can choose not to live in a city like this
Often, I wonder how often code is actually re-used, and adapted later on.
Both conditions will have to be met to make the big idea behing OOP work. I'm sort-of an P/R fan and programmer, and I see no reason to assume that OO as a whole has been a good thing.
Lets just get rid of it, never speak the words or acronym again, and revert to P/R programming. If someone could think up a great acronym for this process, I am convinced corporate management is quite willing to accept it.
I'm considering buying a second-hand laser printer for my home office.
Personally, the better b/w quality of a laser printer is more important that the color printing available on inkjets.
Sure, a toner & drum package costs as much as a complete color inkjet, but it also lasts for 1000s of pages of crisp black text!
A 10-pack of CDR's in jewel cases resebles a cube quite well.. Finish the surfaces with some scrap PCB's and you'll have a fine desktop cube ;)
If you where to glue those cardbord discs really well to the elastic surface, they would eventually shear to pieces on continual expansion. In case of space-time, one could differentiate between two scenarios: - objects get 'blown' further apart in space with time - space itself expands with time I would state the the last statement would have to be true (not implying the first one is not), since the 'big bang' theory starts out with the absence of space itself. However, I agree with you on atoms and molecules staying the way they are in the 'short' term. With continual expansion in the 'long' term however, it seems plausible these strong structures could be torn apart. Breaking up molecules and atoms would 'cost' a great deal of energy, but would 'yield' an enormous amount of entropy once the universe became infinitely large.
My guess is that any data in that secret box has probably been destroyed in the crash. If it would still have any value after being toasted in descent and ramming into the ground at a few 100 mph, the US government might consider making their 'secret boxes' less sturdy...