You obviously haven't been in the business since the dawn of PCs. It was MITS (Altair), Imsai (8080), Apple (Apple 1), Commodore (PET), Tandy (TRS-80), Osborne (Osborne 1), Kaypro (Kaypro II), and IBM (PC) that brought us personal computers, luggables, and portables - in roughly that order. Microsoft had nothing to do with hardware - they lucked into getting the OS contract for the IBM PC, and bought a cheap CP/M clone and called it 'DOS.'
The point and click GUI was invented in the early 1970's (71?) in the Xerox PARC and brought to the masses with the Apple Macintosh in 1984 (83?).
-G*(m1m2)/r IS the integral of m1m2G/r^2, except I was thinking that it was integrated from h1 to h2 (10km at the surface to 10000km distance) rather than from h2 to infinity
There is life. Anywhere there is no water (Atacama Desert, Chile - no measurable rain in 100 years) there is no life. That's been borne out by every observation of Earth. Although increasingly hostile conditions make for less and simplier life (ie extremophiles), there is still life. Now the question is, 'Does that apply to other planets too?' I imagine that at some point, a planet or moon would need to have a large body of liquid water to facilitate the initial creation of life.
Neutron stars and other things like them do wierd things: Objects that dense and massive, spiraling around each other that fast, create gravitational waves like moving a stick through a pond. Energy is needed to create gravity waves, and it comes from the orbital motion of the neutron stars. Their existing orbits slow down; They fall closer and orbit even faster, generating more gravity waves than before.
If two neutron stars are say, 10,000 km far from each other, what will be the acceleration? (remember, the greater the mass, the greater the acceleration).
Well, the gravitational acceleration from a point mass at a given distance is MG/R^2 (force computed by plugging a second mass in on top). 3 * 10^30 * 6.67 * 10^-11 / (10000000)^2 = 2001000 M/S^2 (I love Google Calculator), or roughly 200000G's that each star applies to the other. Total acceleration: 4002000 M/S^2.
And what speed will they have when they collide?
This is kinda tricky, because they don't just start from rest and fly into eachother (which would no doubt be awesome to watch from a distance). But imagine that two neutron stars just pop up 10000km from each other. Each has a gravitational potential relative to the other: mass * integral g(h) dh from 10k to 10m, where g(h) is gravity at height h (2*10^20 / h^2), or the energy to raise one star's mass from the surface of the other to 10 thousand KM. I get 5 * 10^46 joules each. As they fall, potential turns to kinetic energy: 5 * 10 ^ 46 =.5MV^2 =.5 * (3 * 10^30)V^2. V works out to 182 574 186 meters per second. This is a relativistic speed, so things get wierd and I give up. This never happens though - they spiral around each other, losing orbital speed to gravitational waves until their mutual orbit decays into impact.
Finally, what will be the kinetic force at the time of impact?
I don't think our knowledge of motion even applies to something this massive moving this fast, aka I don't have a clue.
What are you talking about? Fusion only produces energy in elements lighter than Iron, and fission only produces energy in elements heavier than Iron. Iron is the most tightly-bound nucleus (most eV / nucleon) - If you fuse it with another nucleus, the nuclear binding energy of the result will be higher than what you started with, and you lost energy. Furthermore, the energy yield from fusion is highest with hydrogen & helim and decreases rapidly as masses increase.
If you'd like to learn more, type "nuclear binding energy" into Google.
I took a close look at the high-res pictures they offer in TIFF (3MB) and JPEG (120K) format. Even though the jpg contains 1/25th as much information as the tiff, it still looked decent up close. When I tried turning the contrast way up (100) the tiff was far better up close (jpeg turned to gray mush), but at hi con both looked similar at 100%. The tif seemed to have more vibrant colors.
What I'm trying to ask is, does anyone else notice a major difference between the two without using the GIMP @ 7 or 8X zoom?
Well, since Saturn is 30AU from the sun, the light there is 900 times dimmer. The picture was taken from ~62000km away; Since NASA says there are 362 meters/pixel, the angular resolution is 3.3/1000 of a degree. If Cassini was going perpendicular to the moon, it was changing perspective by 16/1000 of a degree per second; If the probe were moving directly away from the moon, things were (at that point) shrinking by 2.9 parts per thousand per second. (If I made a mistake, please correct my math!)
They can spin the probe to counter things appearing to slide by, but perspective still changes. And nothing can be done about things shrinking into the distance either, so there was some limit on time exposure. However, more likely than an exposure limit is that Hyperion looks boring in visible light or doesn't show the desired characteristics in it.
Ok, if we assume that a Creator is covered by the 3rd assumption, then wouldn't we have to assume that he/she/it always acts the same way under a given set of circumstances? Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to predict how things will necissarily work because the Creator and his/her/it's interactions would be unpredictable. Or would we be talking about something more like the ascended Ancients (if you're into Stargate)?
On the other hand, quantum uncertainty makes things more interesting. On the subatomic scale, at least, things are generally unpredictable anyway - A creator could very well interact on that scale and it would be impossible to know one way or the other. Any thoughts on this?
How so? The third assumption is that the way the universe acts doesn't change. If a supernatural being creates the universe, then interacts with it in ways such as parting the red sea, then it must have changed the way the universe operates: Because of gravity, water will never naturally leave the lowest available height.
Any possible action is the result of the universe no longer working as predicted: A monopolar force came out of nothing, thin vortices of wind forced the water back, star-trek-style forcefields popped into existance. Since the universe would then demonstrably no longer necessarily act the same way from one moment to the next, science would become meaningless: Steam expanding would not do work on a cylinder if God willed otherwise.
On the other hand, if a supernatural being created the universe and then completely and forever ceased interacting with it, letting everything take it's natural course, I can see no reason why we should speculate about the being or why we would believe it exists at all.
Science is based on 3 fundamental assumptions: That the universe exists (is not a figment of my imagination), that it interacts with us in predictable ways (E=MC^2, PV=nRT, etc), and that the way it interacts with us does not change (E=MC^2 & PV=nRT today, they did yesterday, and they always will). If you believe that God exists and interacts with the universe, then you have to reject science because that invalidates the 3rd assumption as God could change the way the universe works (Hmm... I think I'll make E equal MC^1.5 for reasons that puny mortals cannot comprehend)
If you want to believe that God popped the universe into existance 6000 years ago, that's cool with me. Just don't try to pretend it's scientific, because it isn't. And don't try to sneak it into science classrooms, because it isn't science.
NASA's Deep Impact mission was against a comet. Because comets continually eject large amounts of gas and dust while they are inside Jupiter orbit, it is not possible to track the comet accurately enough to know what changes in it's course were caused by the impact and what was caused by the gas and dust normally ejected. Indeed, it's impossible to predict the exact path of short-period comets because of this.
By launching a projectile at an asteroid instead, we will know that any changes in the asteroid's trajectory were caused by our impactor because asteroids are inert and have otherwise very stable and predictable orbits.
LimeWire (waves hand): This is not the code you are looking for.
RIAA: This is not the code we are looking for.
LimeWire: Our code is clean
RIAA: Their code is clean.
LimeWire: Strip each other naked in the town square and scream 'I'M MADONNA, I'M MADONNA!'
RIAA: Uh... We were kinda planning on doing that anyway...
Note: John Cheese & above animation are NSW; John Cheese may cause serious brain damage!
If you throw a frog in boiling water, he'll immediately jump out. If you put him in water then turn on the burner, he'll slowly boil to death. The average American in stupid, but not so stupid you can openly say 'The federal government wants to keep a DNA database of everyone, innocent or not."
First it's only for pedophiles, then for hardcore criminals, then for run-of-the-mill criminals, then for everyone voluntarily (You are here), then you have no choice.
Unless something dramatically changes in the USA and soon, it's not going to be fun living here anymore. Americans are suffering from burnout. So many special interests have been perverting Washington DC and screwing us in new and interesting ways that we're just giving up hope of saving ourselves. You'd think that after having it's leader investigated for ethics violations three times, people wouldn't give Republican claims of moral superiority much heed, yet they re-elect Bill Frist time and time again. You'd think that people would be up in arms over the Democrat's failure to do anything about serious screwups by the Bush administration time and time again. Although everyone seems to know that both major parties are special-interest whores, their sheepish nature prevents them from voting for anyone who will DO something about it.
At risk of going off on a tangent, I'd say that much of the culprit is businesses that no longer pay people a living wage. In the 1950's and 60's, most people were middle class where one person of the family went to work and earned enough for themself and 3 or 4 others to live comfortably. Thus, people had time to think about things. But $7 an hour is ~$15000 a year for a normal 40 hour work week. ONE person can't live on that, let alone 3 or 4! So today a married couple might work 3 or 4 jobs between them to try and scratch up enough money to pay the bills. They don't have time to think about anything else!
What about Mercury, which has no atmosphere at all beyond a smattering of Helium that streams off the sun? Pluto, whose atmosphere freezes solid when it passes Neptune orbit? Titan, in orbit of Saturn, which has an atmosphere 50% denser than earth's?
The first film-based negatives used a nitrate as the base of the film. As this base is chemically 1 step away from guncotton, it's extremely unstable and can indeed spontaneously combust (more like explode) at room temperature. The next step was film with a base made out of an acetate, which is still used. When this degrades, the film turns into vinegar.
The only way to make a photographic negative last forever is to either cool the plastic to liquid-nitrogen temperatures, which will completely halt the degredation or make the base out of something else. Metal is good (daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes), as is glass (Lumiere plate).
Personally, I feel that the greatest problem to long-term storage and retrieval of data is changing and dying languages. The Japanese could never decrypt Navajo during WWII because they'd never heard it. If it weren't for the Rosetta stone, we would have never figured out ancient Greek. What will happen when we write something down, and in the distant future there are no English speakers left and nothing written in multiple languages?
What are you talking about? The whole concept of a space elevator is that it dangles down from geosynchronous orbit, not that it's built up from the ground. The outward acceleration of the part of the cable that's past geosynch orbit balances the part that's beneath it.
Assholes like you are what eventually ruin everything. You ruin driving on surface streets, you ruin driving on highways, you ruin E-Mail with spam, you ruin online gaming by cheating. Did it ever occur to you, asshole, that there are other people besides you in the world who are negatively impacted by your being an antisocial dick? You are an asshole that shits all over everything, and you are emminently deserving of being thrown in a small jail cell with Mr. Tiny.
People like you make me wish there were a hell so I could savor knowing that you'll go there. OK, I'm done ranting.
I seriously doubt that the energy of two fabrics rubbing could ever make a sound approaching that of a firecracker. Although I will most certainly regret including this link, This makes a sound like a firecracker. Anyone whose clothes could hold enough charge at enough voltage to mimic that would be of great scientific interest...
Rather than simply counting vulnerabilities, take at look at the reports for Firefox and Internet Explorer 6. Firefox 1.x shows 22 holes, 3 unpatched and rated 'less critical.' IE6 has 85 holes, 1/4 unpatched, and a 'highly critical' buffer overflow in ActiveX that's been open since 2003. Now, tell me, which one is more secure?
[Insert usual mantra of anyone being able to fix F/OSS but only MS being able to fix MSIE here] [Append snide remark about companies trying to hide rather than fix vulnerabilities here] [Insert random Zeeky Boogy Doog here]
You're asking about the Hypsithermal Limit - the point where the amount of energy we dump into the atmosphere starts to seriously affect earth's climate. The link is about what it means to the number of nanomachines there can be on earth, but it's still answers your question. Super-short summary: Earth gets ~2X10^17 watts from the sun; The upper safe limit for human power is ~2X10^15 watts; Current human power use is ~1.5X10^13 watts.
We can also detect distant stars, even though they are far, far smaller than the angular resolution of any telescope. A candle flame on the moon would cover such a small angle that it would appear as a diffraction-limited dot.
Slashdot Mirror
Are An Idiot!
You obviously haven't been in the business since the dawn of PCs. It was MITS (Altair), Imsai (8080), Apple (Apple 1), Commodore (PET), Tandy (TRS-80), Osborne (Osborne 1), Kaypro (Kaypro II), and IBM (PC) that brought us personal computers, luggables, and portables - in roughly that order. Microsoft had nothing to do with hardware - they lucked into getting the OS contract for the IBM PC, and bought a cheap CP/M clone and called it 'DOS.'
The point and click GUI was invented in the early 1970's (71?) in the Xerox PARC and brought to the masses with the Apple Macintosh in 1984 (83?).
-G*(m1m2)/r IS the integral of m1m2G/r^2, except I was thinking that it was integrated from h1 to h2 (10km at the surface to 10000km distance) rather than from h2 to infinity
There is life. Anywhere there is no water (Atacama Desert, Chile - no measurable rain in 100 years) there is no life. That's been borne out by every observation of Earth. Although increasingly hostile conditions make for less and simplier life (ie extremophiles), there is still life. Now the question is, 'Does that apply to other planets too?' I imagine that at some point, a planet or moon would need to have a large body of liquid water to facilitate the initial creation of life.
Neutron stars and other things like them do wierd things: Objects that dense and massive, spiraling around each other that fast, create gravitational waves like moving a stick through a pond. Energy is needed to create gravity waves, and it comes from the orbital motion of the neutron stars. Their existing orbits slow down; They fall closer and orbit even faster, generating more gravity waves than before.
What are you talking about? Fusion only produces energy in elements lighter than Iron, and fission only produces energy in elements heavier than Iron. Iron is the most tightly-bound nucleus (most eV / nucleon) - If you fuse it with another nucleus, the nuclear binding energy of the result will be higher than what you started with, and you lost energy. Furthermore, the energy yield from fusion is highest with hydrogen & helim and decreases rapidly as masses increase.
If you'd like to learn more, type "nuclear binding energy" into Google.
I took a close look at the high-res pictures they offer in TIFF (3MB) and JPEG (120K) format. Even though the jpg contains 1/25th as much information as the tiff, it still looked decent up close. When I tried turning the contrast way up (100) the tiff was far better up close (jpeg turned to gray mush), but at hi con both looked similar at 100%. The tif seemed to have more vibrant colors.
What I'm trying to ask is, does anyone else notice a major difference between the two without using the GIMP @ 7 or 8X zoom?
Well, since Saturn is 30AU from the sun, the light there is 900 times dimmer. The picture was taken from ~62000km away; Since NASA says there are 362 meters/pixel, the angular resolution is 3.3/1000 of a degree. If Cassini was going perpendicular to the moon, it was changing perspective by 16/1000 of a degree per second; If the probe were moving directly away from the moon, things were (at that point) shrinking by 2.9 parts per thousand per second. (If I made a mistake, please correct my math!)
They can spin the probe to counter things appearing to slide by, but perspective still changes. And nothing can be done about things shrinking into the distance either, so there was some limit on time exposure. However, more likely than an exposure limit is that Hyperion looks boring in visible light or doesn't show the desired characteristics in it.
Ok, if we assume that a Creator is covered by the 3rd assumption, then wouldn't we have to assume that he/she/it always acts the same way under a given set of circumstances? Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to predict how things will necissarily work because the Creator and his/her/it's interactions would be unpredictable. Or would we be talking about something more like the ascended Ancients (if you're into Stargate)?
On the other hand, quantum uncertainty makes things more interesting. On the subatomic scale, at least, things are generally unpredictable anyway - A creator could very well interact on that scale and it would be impossible to know one way or the other. Any thoughts on this?
How so? The third assumption is that the way the universe acts doesn't change. If a supernatural being creates the universe, then interacts with it in ways such as parting the red sea, then it must have changed the way the universe operates: Because of gravity, water will never naturally leave the lowest available height.
Any possible action is the result of the universe no longer working as predicted: A monopolar force came out of nothing, thin vortices of wind forced the water back, star-trek-style forcefields popped into existance. Since the universe would then demonstrably no longer necessarily act the same way from one moment to the next, science would become meaningless: Steam expanding would not do work on a cylinder if God willed otherwise.
On the other hand, if a supernatural being created the universe and then completely and forever ceased interacting with it, letting everything take it's natural course, I can see no reason why we should speculate about the being or why we would believe it exists at all.
There is no such thing as 'creation science.'
Science is based on 3 fundamental assumptions: That the universe exists (is not a figment of my imagination), that it interacts with us in predictable ways (E=MC^2, PV=nRT, etc), and that the way it interacts with us does not change (E=MC^2 & PV=nRT today, they did yesterday, and they always will). If you believe that God exists and interacts with the universe, then you have to reject science because that invalidates the 3rd assumption as God could change the way the universe works (Hmm... I think I'll make E equal MC^1.5 for reasons that puny mortals cannot comprehend)
If you want to believe that God popped the universe into existance 6000 years ago, that's cool with me. Just don't try to pretend it's scientific, because it isn't. And don't try to sneak it into science classrooms, because it isn't science.
NASA's Deep Impact mission was against a comet. Because comets continually eject large amounts of gas and dust while they are inside Jupiter orbit, it is not possible to track the comet accurately enough to know what changes in it's course were caused by the impact and what was caused by the gas and dust normally ejected. Indeed, it's impossible to predict the exact path of short-period comets because of this.
By launching a projectile at an asteroid instead, we will know that any changes in the asteroid's trajectory were caused by our impactor because asteroids are inert and have otherwise very stable and predictable orbits.
Or the John Cheesified version:
LimeWire (waves hand): This is not the code you are looking for.
RIAA: This is not the code we are looking for.
LimeWire: Our code is clean
RIAA: Their code is clean.
LimeWire: Strip each other naked in the town square and scream 'I'M MADONNA, I'M MADONNA!'
RIAA: Uh... We were kinda planning on doing that anyway...
Note: John Cheese & above animation are NSW; John Cheese may cause serious brain damage!
If you throw a frog in boiling water, he'll immediately jump out. If you put him in water then turn on the burner, he'll slowly boil to death. The average American in stupid, but not so stupid you can openly say 'The federal government wants to keep a DNA database of everyone, innocent or not."
/rant tag here]
First it's only for pedophiles, then for hardcore criminals, then for run-of-the-mill criminals, then for everyone voluntarily (You are here), then you have no choice.
Unless something dramatically changes in the USA and soon, it's not going to be fun living here anymore. Americans are suffering from burnout. So many special interests have been perverting Washington DC and screwing us in new and interesting ways that we're just giving up hope of saving ourselves. You'd think that after having it's leader investigated for ethics violations three times, people wouldn't give Republican claims of moral superiority much heed, yet they re-elect Bill Frist time and time again. You'd think that people would be up in arms over the Democrat's failure to do anything about serious screwups by the Bush administration time and time again. Although everyone seems to know that both major parties are special-interest whores, their sheepish nature prevents them from voting for anyone who will DO something about it.
At risk of going off on a tangent, I'd say that much of the culprit is businesses that no longer pay people a living wage. In the 1950's and 60's, most people were middle class where one person of the family went to work and earned enough for themself and 3 or 4 others to live comfortably. Thus, people had time to think about things. But $7 an hour is ~$15000 a year for a normal 40 hour work week. ONE person can't live on that, let alone 3 or 4! So today a married couple might work 3 or 4 jobs between them to try and scratch up enough money to pay the bills. They don't have time to think about anything else!
[Insert
What about Mercury, which has no atmosphere at all beyond a smattering of Helium that streams off the sun? Pluto, whose atmosphere freezes solid when it passes Neptune orbit? Titan, in orbit of Saturn, which has an atmosphere 50% denser than earth's?
Just nitpicking about early films:
The first film-based negatives used a nitrate as the base of the film. As this base is chemically 1 step away from guncotton, it's extremely unstable and can indeed spontaneously combust (more like explode) at room temperature. The next step was film with a base made out of an acetate, which is still used. When this degrades, the film turns into vinegar.
The only way to make a photographic negative last forever is to either cool the plastic to liquid-nitrogen temperatures, which will completely halt the degredation or make the base out of something else. Metal is good (daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes), as is glass (Lumiere plate).
Personally, I feel that the greatest problem to long-term storage and retrieval of data is changing and dying languages. The Japanese could never decrypt Navajo during WWII because they'd never heard it. If it weren't for the Rosetta stone, we would have never figured out ancient Greek. What will happen when we write something down, and in the distant future there are no English speakers left and nothing written in multiple languages?
What are you talking about? The whole concept of a space elevator is that it dangles down from geosynchronous orbit, not that it's built up from the ground. The outward acceleration of the part of the cable that's past geosynch orbit balances the part that's beneath it.
Assholes like you are what eventually ruin everything. You ruin driving on surface streets, you ruin driving on highways, you ruin E-Mail with spam, you ruin online gaming by cheating. Did it ever occur to you, asshole, that there are other people besides you in the world who are negatively impacted by your being an antisocial dick? You are an asshole that shits all over everything, and you are emminently deserving of being thrown in a small jail cell with Mr. Tiny.
People like you make me wish there were a hell so I could savor knowing that you'll go there. OK, I'm done ranting.
I seriously doubt that the energy of two fabrics rubbing could ever make a sound approaching that of a firecracker. Although I will most certainly regret including this link, This makes a sound like a firecracker. Anyone whose clothes could hold enough charge at enough voltage to mimic that would be of great scientific interest...
Rather than simply counting vulnerabilities, take at look at the reports for Firefox and Internet Explorer 6. Firefox 1.x shows 22 holes, 3 unpatched and rated 'less critical.' IE6 has 85 holes, 1/4 unpatched, and a 'highly critical' buffer overflow in ActiveX that's been open since 2003. Now, tell me, which one is more secure?
[Insert usual mantra of anyone being able to fix F/OSS but only MS being able to fix MSIE here] [Append snide remark about companies trying to hide rather than fix vulnerabilities here] [Insert random Zeeky Boogy Doog here]
Venus' gravity is 10% LOWER than earth's; It's atmospheric pressure is equal to the bottom of earth's oceans, only with sulphuric acid.
You're asking about the Hypsithermal Limit - the point where the amount of energy we dump into the atmosphere starts to seriously affect earth's climate. The link is about what it means to the number of nanomachines there can be on earth, but it's still answers your question. Super-short summary: Earth gets ~2X10^17 watts from the sun; The upper safe limit for human power is ~2X10^15 watts; Current human power use is ~1.5X10^13 watts.
We can also detect distant stars, even though they are far, far smaller than the angular resolution of any telescope. A candle flame on the moon would cover such a small angle that it would appear as a diffraction-limited dot.
Since the submitter didn't bother including one, and the editor didn't do any better, here's one:
n z1
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=re6qx
It's already running so slow it's useless. What I managed to get screams crackpot:
24 August 2005
Supernova 1987A Decoded
13 July 2005
Comet Tempel 1's Electrifying Impact
03 July 2005
The Deep Impact of Comet Theory
26 March 2005
The Dragon Storm
08 February 2005
Columbia downed by Megalightning
05 February 2005
Saturn's Strange Hot Spot Explained
30 January 2005
Titan - A Rosetta Stone for early Earth?
25 December 2004
Megalightning at Saturn
25 November 2004
Titan puzzles scientists
27 October 2004
The True State of the Universe