I think you're missing the point: they were contrasting the macroscopic universe with the subatomic. Ignoring time for the moment (because it acts somewhat differently), the macroscopic universe has 3 spatial dimensions. Several theories, including string theory, believe there are additional spatial dimensions, but they are so small they are only noticeable at the subatomic level.
The point that they're making is a a black hole with a black ring around it can't exist in *only* 3 spatial dimensions, so you won't see any big ones through your telescope. But if there are in fact additional spatial dimensions that only are noticeable at the very small scale, then there could be very small black holes with very small black rings. Such a creation may leave a distinctive decay pattern, so if we analyze the decay patterns from the new collider, we may be able to determine that we must have made something that decayed much like such a black hole would make, and thus, infer that there are in fact additional small spatial dimensions.
The thing that bothers me most about the new rules is that those under 18 are not allowed to fly into space, even with a parent or guardian's permission. It seems like even a teenager that has been emancipated before the age of 18 still isn't allowed. I yell 'boo!' on hard age limits.
Wrong. First of all, if you read the definition of 'sex' used at the time, it would include 'blow job', as it specifically states the sexual gratification may be for either party. But more importantly, if you actually read the Starr Report, you'll see that on at least one occasion where there was genital-genital contact (though not penetration). The idea that 'it was oral sex but not really sex so it's not perjury' is a 'defense' that was floated by talking heads in the media at the time, but not one that was ever used by Clinton as a legitimate excuse or defense.
Sadly most people have bought the conventional wisdom about Clinton's impeachment, and it'll probably be 100 years from now before some historian 'discovers' the truth in reviewing the old documents and manages to influence public opinion.
It sounds like an episode of Salvage, which was a short-lived TV series based on the Andy Griffith movie Salvage One where he makes a amateur rocket to go to the moon and salvage all the junk we left behind up there.
I knew it, CmdrTaco. A website of infinite jest, of most excellent facny. It hath borne my posts on its page a thousand times. And now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
Make a choice: 1. Don't believe in Christianity and live life in sin, waiting until you die to see if Christ really exists... OOPS TOO LATE. 2. Take the prudent side and try to live a good life as a Christian... when you die either nothing happens, or you win.
That's the whole point. This ONE STUDY suspects that, and I pointed out several possible shortcomings of the study. Thus we need MORE STUDIES on the cost of dealing with it. Then we'll be in a better position to act. That will take years, though.
You need to go back and read what I said. I never said it was the first study on the effects of climate change. I did say that, according to the article itself, it was one of the first studies on the ECONOMIC costs of doing something about climate change vs. not doing something. Yes, we've known about global warming for a while now; it would be nice if these ECONOMIC studies had been done earlier too, but they hadn't. So we still need more time.
And your analogy about the house being on fire, while flawed, illustrates a good point. You don't throw water on, say, a grease fire. Fighting a fire by yourself could get you killed... maybe you'd better wait for the fire department. And so on. That's where we are with global warming... we're discussing now WHAT to do, and simply going with your gut instinct to throw water on it may lead to disaster when you find out you live in a desert and that's all the water you had, so now you're going to die.
But we don't know what those consequences are. More importantly, we don't know what the consequences of our actions are. This isn't a situation with which we are very familliar, nor is it one that lends itself easily to analogy. That's the whole point of doing studies like these.
It's good that such a study is FINALLY being done. We can't even seriously address solutions to global warming without knowing whether or not it makes economic sense to do so.
However, we should not take this ONE study as the final word on the subject. More studies are needed. This study needs to be reviewed to check for possible flaws and caveats, such as:
1. What timeframe was considered, for both the cost of doing something and the cost of doing nothing? Multiple timeframes need to be projected.
2. Were the economic BENEFITS of global warming also calculated, and subtracted from the projected costs?
3. Were multiple global warming scenarios considered, both best case and worst case, since we don't know yet just how warm things will get?
4. Were the costs of stopping gllobal warming calculated purely based on one set of solutions (conservation) without also calculating other possibilities like carbon sequestration, nuclear power, sun shield, etc.?
5. What would be the cost projections if ONLY the western world tried to stop it, while China and other developing nations continued to pollute as normal, which would be the likely scenario?
I find it hard to believe that the costs on one side are relatively fixed (1% of GDP) whereas the costs on the other are 5% to 20%, depending on global warmings severity. I suspect, but don't know without looking at the study, that in the 20% scenario, we'd have to spend a lot more than 1% to stop it, especially if China isn't on board.
Bottom line: This is a good first step, but we need another 10 years or so of studies and solutions analysis before we should commit to a global course of response. Overreacting now "just in case" could be far more damaging than doing nothing.
I think that photo must be bad in some way. If you look at other earth at night photos on the web, none of them show any light over there, and there's no land there, so I think it's a problem with that particular nytimes photo.
What you're arguing is a form of Pascal's Wager. If you believe in the logic of your envioronmental stance, then you should also believe in the logic of Pascal's Wager. Pascal said that since the cost of believing in God is minor compared to the cost if you don't and it turns out he does exist, then believing in God is the better bet. So do you believe in God?
In short, we have lab experiments creating H2O2 on Mars and observations confirming what we'd expect. What more do you want?
Better life detection experiments on the ground, like a new version of the LRE. As you point out, MSL will be helpful here, but it took NASA 30 years to revisit the issue.
In truth, there has never been a test on a Martian lander designed to either confirm or identify the nature of this hypothetical strong oxidant. While there are theories that suggest that UV light should create such oxidants, the presence of a higly oxidant Martian surface has never been confirmed by experiment. Rather, it has been invoked as an EXPLANATION why certain other results, such a the Viking LRE, must be faulty.
To date, no subsequent Mars probe has produced data that points to a strong global surface oxidation beyond the usual culprits of H20 and CO2 (which account for the rust).
I think the point is that the source of methane could potentially have been produced by living organisms but there is no other evidence at all of living organisms. Hence the search for what else could be the source.
Given that the ONLY experiment ever designed to specifically test for life on Mars had a POSITIVE RESULT, I think it's highly misleading to say that there is NO evidence for living organisms on Mars. Remember, just because there is evidence for something doesn't mean that something is true. It just means there is evidence that supports that conclusion. Other experiments done on Martian soil and Martian soil analogues suggest that the positive indication of life in the Viking experiment may have been caused by other nonbiological processes. There is evidence to support both arguments, but until recently NASA had no interest in approving a mission that would test for life for Mars, believing the question to already be settled.
The Mars Phoenix lander may finally be able to shed some new light on the issue, but it will by no means be definitive. There is still a very real possibility that microbial life still exists in the soil of Mars.
Politics
This section is for news relevant to United States government politics. It was created primarily to cover the 2004 US Presidential Election, but today exists for occasional stories that fit the bill.
Okay, so if Slashdot is going to have a straight political blog-type section, fine. But where are the posts about the far-bigger political stories this week, such as Clinton going ballistic, Congress ending its session, a Republican resigning due to an Internet sex scandal, and so on?
As I pointed out in the Victoria Crater story, there are places a solar-powered rover can't really explore effectively, or for very long. You can't just land the current MER rovers "anywhere" on Mars and expect them to work. An RTG-powered rover will work longer and better than a MER rover, assuming all other things are equal (not breakdowns elsewhere). Suppose instead Spirit and Opportunity had been RTG-powered... would we now be saying, "Hey, these RTGs work great, so why bother with solar probes anymore?"
But the real answer to your quest is that RTGs aren't dangerous, so the entire premise of the question is flawed. A launch failure isn't going to make Florida a radioactive wasteland. We've launched dozens of RTGs in past missions. The last big "outcry" was over the Cassini mission, and NASA made the correct decision and launched anyway. Hopefully they'll make the correct decision again and use RTGs for the future rovers like MSL. Bottom line: it's not any more risky to launch an RTG powered probe than a solar powered one, so you use RTG power for the missions that need it and solar power for the missions that need it.
Your instinct is incorrect. The "single larger rover" is going to last FAR longer than the MERs, unless something breaks. But it won't be due to the power source; it's RTG powered. It will also be able to drive faster and farther than the MERs. And do a lot more science.
The MER-sized rover is obviously a good design, but they have many drawbacks. For one thing, they really were TOO heavy -- the airbag landing system nearly failed, and the small chute really is vulnerable to high horizontal winds. Moreover, the MER landing system only allows landing such rovers near the equator and near sea level... you can't use them at the poles, or to land on top of, say, Mt. Olympus, because there's not enough atmosphere between space and the ground.
So yes, there is a lot of science that can be done by sending more MER rovers. But they aren't the answer to every Mars mission's needs. We can really only afford to send a couple of probes every two years, and over the next few years we're going to be sending probes to do other things and investigate other places where a MER probe wouldn't work. Will we see more MER-class probes 6-12 years from now? Probably.
It's an Earth-like planet-like body orbiting a Sun-like object.
Bruce
Re:Well, that is not exactly true...
on
Sweden's Watergate
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The association of Red=Republican and Blue=Democrat in the states is actually a rather recent development. In the past, different media organizations used red and blue as they saw fit; quite often, they were swapped. Only with the Bush/Gore race in 2000 and the phrase "Red State America" has the color association become standardized.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're missing the point: they were contrasting the macroscopic universe with the subatomic. Ignoring time for the moment (because it acts somewhat differently), the macroscopic universe has 3 spatial dimensions. Several theories, including string theory, believe there are additional spatial dimensions, but they are so small they are only noticeable at the subatomic level.
The point that they're making is a a black hole with a black ring around it can't exist in *only* 3 spatial dimensions, so you won't see any big ones through your telescope. But if there are in fact additional spatial dimensions that only are noticeable at the very small scale, then there could be very small black holes with very small black rings. Such a creation may leave a distinctive decay pattern, so if we analyze the decay patterns from the new collider, we may be able to determine that we must have made something that decayed much like such a black hole would make, and thus, infer that there are in fact additional small spatial dimensions.
Bruce
Terrible!
Bruce
Do the sharks have logos on them?
Bruce
The thing that bothers me most about the new rules is that those under 18 are not allowed to fly into space, even with a parent or guardian's permission. It seems like even a teenager that has been emancipated before the age of 18 still isn't allowed. I yell 'boo!' on hard age limits.
Bruce
Wrong. First of all, if you read the definition of 'sex' used at the time, it would include 'blow job', as it specifically states the sexual gratification may be for either party. But more importantly, if you actually read the Starr Report, you'll see that on at least one occasion where there was genital-genital contact (though not penetration). The idea that 'it was oral sex but not really sex so it's not perjury' is a 'defense' that was floated by talking heads in the media at the time, but not one that was ever used by Clinton as a legitimate excuse or defense.
Sadly most people have bought the conventional wisdom about Clinton's impeachment, and it'll probably be 100 years from now before some historian 'discovers' the truth in reviewing the old documents and manages to influence public opinion.
Bruce
It sounds like an episode of Salvage, which was a short-lived TV series based on the Andy Griffith movie Salvage One where he makes a amateur rocket to go to the moon and salvage all the junk we left behind up there.
Bruce
Alas, poor Slashdot!
I knew it, CmdrTaco. A website of infinite jest, of most excellent facny. It hath borne my posts on its page a thousand times. And now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
Bruce
Make a choice: ... OOPS TOO LATE. ... when you die either nothing happens, or you win.
1. Don't believe in Christianity and live life in sin, waiting until you die to see if Christ really exists
2. Take the prudent side and try to live a good life as a Christian
It's the same logic, really.
Bruce
That's the whole point. This ONE STUDY suspects that, and I pointed out several possible shortcomings of the study. Thus we need MORE STUDIES on the cost of dealing with it. Then we'll be in a better position to act. That will take years, though.
Bruce
You need to go back and read what I said. I never said it was the first study on the effects of climate change. I did say that, according to the article itself, it was one of the first studies on the ECONOMIC costs of doing something about climate change vs. not doing something. Yes, we've known about global warming for a while now; it would be nice if these ECONOMIC studies had been done earlier too, but they hadn't. So we still need more time.
And your analogy about the house being on fire, while flawed, illustrates a good point. You don't throw water on, say, a grease fire. Fighting a fire by yourself could get you killed... maybe you'd better wait for the fire department. And so on. That's where we are with global warming... we're discussing now WHAT to do, and simply going with your gut instinct to throw water on it may lead to disaster when you find out you live in a desert and that's all the water you had, so now you're going to die.
Bruce
But we don't know what those consequences are. More importantly, we don't know what the consequences of our actions are. This isn't a situation with which we are very familliar, nor is it one that lends itself easily to analogy. That's the whole point of doing studies like these.
Bruce
It's good that such a study is FINALLY being done. We can't even seriously address solutions to global warming without knowing whether or not it makes economic sense to do so.
However, we should not take this ONE study as the final word on the subject. More studies are needed. This study needs to be reviewed to check for possible flaws and caveats, such as:
1. What timeframe was considered, for both the cost of doing something and the cost of doing nothing? Multiple timeframes need to be projected.
2. Were the economic BENEFITS of global warming also calculated, and subtracted from the projected costs?
3. Were multiple global warming scenarios considered, both best case and worst case, since we don't know yet just how warm things will get?
4. Were the costs of stopping gllobal warming calculated purely based on one set of solutions (conservation) without also calculating other possibilities like carbon sequestration, nuclear power, sun shield, etc.?
5. What would be the cost projections if ONLY the western world tried to stop it, while China and other developing nations continued to pollute as normal, which would be the likely scenario?
I find it hard to believe that the costs on one side are relatively fixed (1% of GDP) whereas the costs on the other are 5% to 20%, depending on global warmings severity. I suspect, but don't know without looking at the study, that in the 20% scenario, we'd have to spend a lot more than 1% to stop it, especially if China isn't on board.
Bottom line: This is a good first step, but we need another 10 years or so of studies and solutions analysis before we should commit to a global course of response. Overreacting now "just in case" could be far more damaging than doing nothing.
Bruce
It's a suppository!
Bruce
I think that photo must be bad in some way. If you look at other earth at night photos on the web, none of them show any light over there, and there's no land there, so I think it's a problem with that particular nytimes photo.
Bruce
What you're arguing is a form of Pascal's Wager. If you believe in the logic of your envioronmental stance, then you should also believe in the logic of Pascal's Wager. Pascal said that since the cost of believing in God is minor compared to the cost if you don't and it turns out he does exist, then believing in God is the better bet. So do you believe in God?
Bruce
What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.
Bruce
Bruce
Ahhh, the old "highly oxidative" argument.
In truth, there has never been a test on a Martian lander designed to either confirm or identify the nature of this hypothetical strong oxidant. While there are theories that suggest that UV light should create such oxidants, the presence of a higly oxidant Martian surface has never been confirmed by experiment. Rather, it has been invoked as an EXPLANATION why certain other results, such a the Viking LRE, must be faulty.
To date, no subsequent Mars probe has produced data that points to a strong global surface oxidation beyond the usual culprits of H20 and CO2 (which account for the rust).
Bruce
The Mars Phoenix lander may finally be able to shed some new light on the issue, but it will by no means be definitive. There is still a very real possibility that microbial life still exists in the soil of Mars.
Bruce
Do you know the history of psychiatry?
Bruce
Okay, so if Slashdot is going to have a straight political blog-type section, fine. But where are the posts about the far-bigger political stories this week, such as Clinton going ballistic, Congress ending its session, a Republican resigning due to an Internet sex scandal, and so on?
Bruce
As I pointed out in the Victoria Crater story, there are places a solar-powered rover can't really explore effectively, or for very long. You can't just land the current MER rovers "anywhere" on Mars and expect them to work. An RTG-powered rover will work longer and better than a MER rover, assuming all other things are equal (not breakdowns elsewhere). Suppose instead Spirit and Opportunity had been RTG-powered... would we now be saying, "Hey, these RTGs work great, so why bother with solar probes anymore?"
But the real answer to your quest is that RTGs aren't dangerous, so the entire premise of the question is flawed. A launch failure isn't going to make Florida a radioactive wasteland. We've launched dozens of RTGs in past missions. The last big "outcry" was over the Cassini mission, and NASA made the correct decision and launched anyway. Hopefully they'll make the correct decision again and use RTGs for the future rovers like MSL. Bottom line: it's not any more risky to launch an RTG powered probe than a solar powered one, so you use RTG power for the missions that need it and solar power for the missions that need it.
Bruce
Your instinct is incorrect. The "single larger rover" is going to last FAR longer than the MERs, unless something breaks. But it won't be due to the power source; it's RTG powered. It will also be able to drive faster and farther than the MERs. And do a lot more science.
The MER-sized rover is obviously a good design, but they have many drawbacks. For one thing, they really were TOO heavy -- the airbag landing system nearly failed, and the small chute really is vulnerable to high horizontal winds. Moreover, the MER landing system only allows landing such rovers near the equator and near sea level... you can't use them at the poles, or to land on top of, say, Mt. Olympus, because there's not enough atmosphere between space and the ground.
So yes, there is a lot of science that can be done by sending more MER rovers. But they aren't the answer to every Mars mission's needs. We can really only afford to send a couple of probes every two years, and over the next few years we're going to be sending probes to do other things and investigate other places where a MER probe wouldn't work. Will we see more MER-class probes 6-12 years from now? Probably.
Bruce
It's an Earth-like planet-like body orbiting a Sun-like object.
Bruce
The association of Red=Republican and Blue=Democrat in the states is actually a rather recent development. In the past, different media organizations used red and blue as they saw fit; quite often, they were swapped. Only with the Bush/Gore race in 2000 and the phrase "Red State America" has the color association become standardized.
Bruce