Even though the radiation from the start of "the big one" isn't observed, the "fireball" (ie. CMBR) can still be seen, even though very faintly. And I'd argue that having a direct line of sight to a fireball of any explosion is directly observing that explosion.
But what about the smoke? Automatic smoke screen simulataneously from all tanks in a group should limit the usefulnes of the laser greatly. If laser weapons come common enough, maybe even have just a thin layer of some kind of smoke or dust flake release system (smoke, very fine reflective metal flakes, very fine black coal/graphite powder) as part of standard armouring. When the first laser pulse hits, a localized smoke screen is immediately generated, reducing the effect of the laser to the first pulse.
And about layered armor, like those branches, doesn't that force the focal point to be "off". If laser is focused on the tree branches or camouflage net covering the tank, it won't be as focused when it meets the tank hull. If it isn't focused at the camouflage layer, then it won't hit anything with enough intensity to get the desired effect? Or is the focal poin "longer" than, say, 50cm?
Even if AIDS itself were 100% lethal, there's still difference between being HIV positive and developing AIDS. There definitely is evolutionary pressure for supressing AIDS as long as possibe in HIV positive humans. The longer am HIV positive person stays "just infected", the more they can breed, and also the more they can spread the virus. So actually there is a two-way pressure both on humans and on HI virus to develop so that actual AIDS never starts. So there is an evolutionary pressure for evolving AIDS resistance and immunity.
And then of course there is pressure for being immune to HIV itself. Wether it has developed in any human yet or not, that's unknown I guess, but if it does (by random mutation) happend, then definitely it's an evolutionary advantage and is likely to spread over generations.
Oh please. I don't understand you console jockeys at all- FPS can. not. be played on a controller. None of them can. Hmm, lemme check... [goes to play some Halo3]. Yes, just as I thought. I was still able to play Halo3 with a controller. So you are wrong.
Seriously, FPS with a controller is a slightly different game than FPS with a mouse. What you can't do is compare them as if they were the same thing, because they are not. And if you mix them in multiplayer (put a mouse player against a controller player), the result is not as fun as it was if everybody had same type of controller.
My personal opinion is, that playing with a controller is more fun than playing with a mouse. When I have triggers, and analog control of both looking and moving under my thumbs, the feeling and the immersion is better than with a mouse and a keyboard. Not a lot better, but better is better.
Can video be played by some other method than flash, and even at better quality? Well, yes. This kind of proves, that flash is both crappy quality and uses a lot more processing power (== electricty from limited batter, don't forget that!) than it should even with that crappy quality.
I'd say it's completely fair to blame flash video for being a POS, not iPhone (or any other battery-powered device) for lacking the power to overcome the POSiness of flash.
What cold winter? I thought it was record warm January and February. Not snow but raining, dark and miserable. At least it's not cold, but I'd take cold sunshine over wet darkness any day, or cold starlight over wet darkness any night... Bloody global warming...
(A note to the Gulf Stream: please please please don't stop, I'll still take wet and dark over permafrost...)
That's always a risk in a democracy. You can't have a democracy without a possiblity that the people democratically decide to give up that democracy (usually in a slow process, step by step, with final steps being non-democratic, but all allowed by original democracy nonetheless). I mean, isn't that just what's happening in the US right now? I just hope Western Europe doesn't follow suit...
Indeed, you've got to start somewhere, and for SSL there is this whole PKI thingy, with a few reasonably trustworthy CAs and with a few reasonably trustworthy ways of getting CA root certificates (ie. provided by popular browsers or by OS).
How do you do that with hashes? If all you have is a hash, how do you verify that the hash (and therefore corresponding data) is original and not for example changed by a man-in-the-middle-attack?
If you have *one* service with more information about you than the rest combined, then have a different password (and login if possible) for that one service at least. Not too much hassle, but improves your information security tremendously.
Also, change the password of that one "critical" service regularily.
Otherwise, I agree with you that any form of socialized medicine is undesirable. Non-socialized health care is a contradiction. You can't have a business with a goal to minimize the size of the business. The goal of a health care should be to minimize the size of the business, ie. to keep people as healthy as possible, as productive as possible. A working health system needs a socialized part, otherwise it can't work towards this anti-profit ultimate goal.
As for engineers having that mindset, reading any form of geek site, it seems like there's a lot of fundamentalism among this group. GNU, the FSF, and much of Open Source shows *strong* signs of fundamentalism. That's not just "engineering types", that's humans overall. Just think of sports fans, patriots, brand loyalists (in cars, clothes etc)... Wanting to belong to a group and being against another group is part of human nature, nothing to do with "engineering mindset".
the upgrades put in place were the result of technological advancements over time, not that the original telescope was poorly designed. No, the design was ok, but making it was seriously screwed up. The first "upgrade" was not upgrade, it was a repair kit to fix the screw up and meet the original design. And now this designed upgrade is an actual upgrade over the original design, and it's "just" 60% improvement, very nice but a far cry from the claimed 90 times improvement over original design.
The resulting instrument will be 90 times as powerful as Hubble was designed to be when launched, and 60% more capable than it was after its flawed optics were repaired in 1993. Is it just my reading comprehension, or does above text actually claim, that Hubble was designed to be launched with a faulty optics, that optics repair then improved it some 30 times, and now the new upgrades will improve it 3 times more...?
Or, to put it the other way, is this improvement actually 60% (still a lot!) over current situation, and the "90 times as powerful" is basically just bullshit hype?
It is the reduction of CO2 to produce CO and O2, which, for any technology besides the humble plant, is quite a difficult feat. But it took a planet sized laboratory and a billion years and probably a few trillions of generations with massively parallel evolutionary algorithms to come up with just the *prototype* of the method used by humble plants. To actually get the method currently in production use by humble plants, it took a few billion years more of additional R&D.
So I'd say we humans are doing our R&D pretty fast;-)
Why not use the solar energy to compress air? 1. You can't store very much energy in a small space, because the pressure would have to be too great. And the bigger the tank volume, the stronger it needs to be, so you can't just make arbitarily large pressure tanks.
2. Pressurised air container is essentially a bomb with explosive power equal to stored energy. Difference to a tank of gasoline is, that gasoline must be mixed with air (oxygen) in just the right concentration to get an explosion. A pressure tank will just go *BOOM* if it ruptures.
3. Compressing air will generate a lot of heat, which is essentially wasted energy which can't be recovered when you use the pressurised air. Instead, you get a cooling efect when you release the pressure, and that can actually create freezing problems with valves etc if you release the pressure too rapidly.
For some limited uses, such as using air tools, pressurised air is a fine way to store energy. But if energy efficiency or large energy capacity is needed, then it's not a way to go.
I seem to recall that "photosynthesis" is already taken. I think "photosynthesis" refers to some obscure and unimportant process in biology, so for a lay-person it might not matter, but still it's best to avoid confusion and invent a new name for this new synthesis process.
Even at WORK I use the drying paper towel to manipulate the door handle. ...
I realize that if we OVERinsulate ourselves, we will be more vulnerable due to less immunity, Sounds like you are OVERinsulating yourself... In a normal environment, where there aren't any unusual, contagious pathogens floating around, you don't need to and you should not go to extremes like that. You are putting yourself at risk by not giving your immune system normal level of "exercise", and also probably increase your a risk of getting allergies (if your immune system doesn't have real threats, it'll invent them...).
Now if there is something like a flu epidemic, or if you're in hospital, then be as hygienic as you can. But if you make "hygienia paranoia" part of your daily life, you're just hurting yourself in the long run.
No copyright governs use. Copyright only governs distribution! In this context "use" means "use in a product" as in "use as a part of a product". This kind of use implies distribution, and therefore is governed by copyright.
Or, to put it more simply: If you want to use some copyrighted software, you need a license. If you can't get a license you want to accept, then you don't get a license, and can't use the software.
DRM relies on a secret in order to work. If the DRM is standardized, that secret it out and the DRM is broken. The secret of working (as much as it theoretically can be) DRM is to have the algorithms and formats public and open, but to have asymmetric encryption and possibility of changing keys. So in the actual scheme itself, there's nothing to "break", except of course the asymmetric encryption, and that's practically impossible with any reasonable key size (choose algorithm that can't be quantum-cracked for future-proofing). When a private key is leaked or cracked, you "just" start to use a new one. And then there can easily be several competing DRM key management companies offering their services to device makers and content suppliers.
Of course this system has all the inherent limitations of any DRM scheme, but it has them "openly". So businesses could build their business logic around reality of DRM, not the marketing bluff of DRM. Also, then it would be possible to legislate specifically against distributing DRM keys without licence, because "a DRM key" would be a well defined virtual object. So no need for "cracking is illegal" DMCA blanket laws, but specific laws that can't be abused to take down grandma's cookie receipt archive.
Yup, you need food to live. Funny how food is even more basic than health care, and yet there is not the clamoring for a socialized food system. If you got rid of bogus government-corporate created "intellectual property" patents and copyright, health care would continue to increase in quality and decrease in price, just like all free market technological sectors. Yet socialized medicine causes poorer quality and a greater price (that remains hidden through strict socialist rationing and typical government bogus accounting methods). And then you have blatant propagandists like yourself who outright lie that the only way socialist countries health care "costs" less is because of rationing, and criminalizing those who would offer free trade terms. No, "socialist" health care costs less, because it has no incentive to give the business owners more and more profits. Private health "care" has big incentive to grow and produce more and more profit, because after all, that's what private businesses are *meant* to do. Now, health care industry has two ways to grow: make health care more expensive, or make people less healthy. Thanks, but no thanks.
Oh, and at least I need food daily, I know how much it is going to cost me on daily basis, and I'm not overly surprised if I get hungry when not eating... OTOH, I don't need health care daily, I don't know how much money I need to spend on it if I get a bit sick or even seriously ill, and usually I can't anticipate getting ill, it's more like an accident if it happens. So, food supply and health care seem totally different, and therefore should be evaluated independently.
The energy put out by the sun isn't renewable, rather it's plentiful. Oh yes, solar energy is "renewable". It's simply a matter of what the term "renewable energy" means. And the definition of "renewable energy" means that solar energy is renewable. The term doesn't mean things that humans can "renew" (a rechargable battery is not "renewable energy source"), and it doesn't require the energy source to last eternally. It simply means energy sources that aren't depleted by using them.
Now you are of course free to use the term in some other way, and declare that solar energy is not renewable by your definition. Just don't be surprised, if others reject your definition and think you don't know what you're talking about;-).
However, I don't see health and welfare in the same argument. Everyone is dealt some cards at birth....financial and genetic ones. How you live and deal with them is a private, personal concern. If I were born with a horrible genetic problem, is it up to YOU to support me and my problems, when you and your family are healthy? No...I don't really think so. Is it my duty, to support you financially at a point in your life where you either didn't work hard to educate yourself and get a real job, or did something stupid like waste it all gambling or on booze and hookers? Again, I don't think so. Well, fortunately most people do thinkso. Those with life-long disabilities and other problems not of their making, they should be taken care of by the rest of the society. They should not be left to live or perish according to their own, disability-limited ability. Some (including me) might say that's even part of a civilized society, and not doing it is barbaric. YMMV.
Well, the thrust of the suit is that they are building Ipods using a third-party decoder chip, which has WMA support already, and then they are actively disabling it. It's not a matter of failing to implement the competitor's file format; the argument is that they are buying off-the-shelf hardware and disabling formats they wish to kill. Is Apple actively disabiling it 'cos they want to, or is Apple just not paying for requied the WMA licenses, and therefore is legally obligated to disable WMA?
Slashdot Mirror
Even though the radiation from the start of "the big one" isn't observed, the "fireball" (ie. CMBR) can still be seen, even though very faintly. And I'd argue that having a direct line of sight to a fireball of any explosion is directly observing that explosion.
You talk about uselessnes of reflection.
But what about the smoke? Automatic smoke screen simulataneously from all tanks in a group should limit the usefulnes of the laser greatly. If laser weapons come common enough, maybe even have just a thin layer of some kind of smoke or dust flake release system (smoke, very fine reflective metal flakes, very fine black coal/graphite powder) as part of standard armouring. When the first laser pulse hits, a localized smoke screen is immediately generated, reducing the effect of the laser to the first pulse.
And about layered armor, like those branches, doesn't that force the focal point to be "off". If laser is focused on the tree branches or camouflage net covering the tank, it won't be as focused when it meets the tank hull. If it isn't focused at the camouflage layer, then it won't hit anything with enough intensity to get the desired effect? Or is the focal poin "longer" than, say, 50cm?
Even if AIDS itself were 100% lethal, there's still difference between being HIV positive and developing AIDS. There definitely is evolutionary pressure for supressing AIDS as long as possibe in HIV positive humans. The longer am HIV positive person stays "just infected", the more they can breed, and also the more they can spread the virus. So actually there is a two-way pressure both on humans and on HI virus to develop so that actual AIDS never starts. So there is an evolutionary pressure for evolving AIDS resistance and immunity.
And then of course there is pressure for being immune to HIV itself. Wether it has developed in any human yet or not, that's unknown I guess, but if it does (by random mutation) happend, then definitely it's an evolutionary advantage and is likely to spread over generations.
Yes, just as I thought. I was still able to play Halo3 with a controller. So you are wrong.
Seriously, FPS with a controller is a slightly different game than FPS with a mouse. What you can't do is compare them as if they were the same thing, because they are not. And if you mix them in multiplayer (put a mouse player against a controller player), the result is not as fun as it was if everybody had same type of controller.
My personal opinion is, that playing with a controller is more fun than playing with a mouse. When I have triggers, and analog control of both looking and moving under my thumbs, the feeling and the immersion is better than with a mouse and a keyboard. Not a lot better, but better is better.
Can video be played by some other method than flash, and even at better quality? Well, yes. This kind of proves, that flash is both crappy quality and uses a lot more processing power (== electricty from limited batter, don't forget that!) than it should even with that crappy quality.
I'd say it's completely fair to blame flash video for being a POS, not iPhone (or any other battery-powered device) for lacking the power to overcome the POSiness of flash.
What cold winter? I thought it was record warm January and February. Not snow but raining, dark and miserable. At least it's not cold, but I'd take cold sunshine over wet darkness any day, or cold starlight over wet darkness any night... Bloody global warming...
(A note to the Gulf Stream: please please please don't stop, I'll still take wet and dark over permafrost...)
That's always a risk in a democracy. You can't have a democracy without a possiblity that the people democratically decide to give up that democracy (usually in a slow process, step by step, with final steps being non-democratic, but all allowed by original democracy nonetheless). I mean, isn't that just what's happening in the US right now? I just hope Western Europe doesn't follow suit...
Indeed, you've got to start somewhere, and for SSL there is this whole PKI thingy, with a few reasonably trustworthy CAs and with a few reasonably trustworthy ways of getting CA root certificates (ie. provided by popular browsers or by OS).
How do you do that with hashes? If all you have is a hash, how do you verify that the hash (and therefore corresponding data) is original and not for example changed by a man-in-the-middle-attack?
How do you verify the integrity of the hash data?
If you have *one* service with more information about you than the rest combined, then have a different password (and login if possible) for that one service at least. Not too much hassle, but improves your information security tremendously.
Also, change the password of that one "critical" service regularily.
Or, to put it the other way, is this improvement actually 60% (still a lot!) over current situation, and the "90 times as powerful" is basically just bullshit hype?
So I'd say we humans are doing our R&D pretty fast
2. Pressurised air container is essentially a bomb with explosive power equal to stored energy. Difference to a tank of gasoline is, that gasoline must be mixed with air (oxygen) in just the right concentration to get an explosion. A pressure tank will just go *BOOM* if it ruptures.
3. Compressing air will generate a lot of heat, which is essentially wasted energy which can't be recovered when you use the pressurised air. Instead, you get a cooling efect when you release the pressure, and that can actually create freezing problems with valves etc if you release the pressure too rapidly.
For some limited uses, such as using air tools, pressurised air is a fine way to store energy. But if energy efficiency or large energy capacity is needed, then it's not a way to go.
I seem to recall that "photosynthesis" is already taken. I think "photosynthesis" refers to some obscure and unimportant process in biology, so for a lay-person it might not matter, but still it's best to avoid confusion and invent a new name for this new synthesis process.
Now if there is something like a flu epidemic, or if you're in hospital, then be as hygienic as you can. But if you make "hygienia paranoia" part of your daily life, you're just hurting yourself in the long run.
Or, to put it more simply: If you want to use some copyrighted software, you need a license. If you can't get a license you want to accept, then you don't get a license, and can't use the software.
Very very simple.
Of course this system has all the inherent limitations of any DRM scheme, but it has them "openly". So businesses could build their business logic around reality of DRM, not the marketing bluff of DRM. Also, then it would be possible to legislate specifically against distributing DRM keys without licence, because "a DRM key" would be a well defined virtual object. So no need for "cracking is illegal" DMCA blanket laws, but specific laws that can't be abused to take down grandma's cookie receipt archive.
Oh, and at least I need food daily, I know how much it is going to cost me on daily basis, and I'm not overly surprised if I get hungry when not eating... OTOH, I don't need health care daily, I don't know how much money I need to spend on it if I get a bit sick or even seriously ill, and usually I can't anticipate getting ill, it's more like an accident if it happens. So, food supply and health care seem totally different, and therefore should be evaluated independently.
Now you are of course free to use the term in some other way, and declare that solar energy is not renewable by your definition. Just don't be surprised, if others reject your definition and think you don't know what you're talking about