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The "Barbie: I can be a computer engineer" book showed her having to ask the boys in her class to code a game for her because she wasn't able to! Not a great message for her fans.
There were other reactors working in the same plant until the last one shut down in 2000 (14 years after the disaster) so there were plenty of people working *in the same building* for a good long time.
Facebook's android app drains battery, is full of bugs and has a wierd non-standard interface. I didn't think they could make it any worse, but here we go - well done Facebook, you really raised the bar on suck there.
To me it all comes down to categorising the data. Some things need backing up daily, others weekly, monthly, annually and others once and never again. Also some things never need backing up.
My first step with backup is to categorise the data when it is stored, then use the right backup strategy. If you don't sort the data properly you end up wasting money backing up stuff that isn't important, and may even miss things that are important.
My servers are based at home, close to the desktop/laptop machines, so though I have RAID for important data, everything is vulnerable to fire/flood/theft etc...
However, I do have a co-located server based 300 miles away to run several websites I look after. When I looked for the hosting provider I factored in the price for extra storage, and then ordered the server with a fair chunk of extra space than I will ever need for the web servers. I now use the colocated server as a rsync destination - no private data (in case it is compromised), but it makes me feel better that me and my family survive a house fire, the family pictures will too.
The ensuing decontamination and decommissioning project was called "the most technically challenging" activity assigned to Bechtel Jacobs under its environmental management contract with the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations organization.
You're exactly right about the conflict between gaming and multi-user computing, and I think the problem has always been that Windows attempts to do both at once when it doesn't really need to. Few games need to have explorer and all the rest running in the background - what games need is (more or less) exclusive access to hardware.
The Amiga had an answer to this - AmigaOS was a multitasking os with all the nice eye candy etc, but there was a API call ( Forbid() ) that you could use to ask the kernel to suspend multitasking, and pretty much everything else except core kernel functions. From there on you had access to the hardware and you could do what was necessary to get gaming performance. If you were doing this the proper way you'd still use API calls to get memory, use resources etc... As long as you followed the rules and put things back as you found them at the end of your program when you re-established multitasking all the old processes would spring back to life as if nothing had happened.
Obviously you wouldn't want to make these kind of calls on your web server today, so there has to be security around what processes are allowed to do this! Still - might work a bit better than Windows current method of trying to be a multi user server and a games console at the same time.
Though you're right that alpha doesn't penetrate the skin, you still need to take extreme care with Polonium. The reason is that it has a tendency to become airbourne even at room temperature, and once in the air it is there is inhalation danger to people nearby unless they are wearing respirators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Chemical_cha racteristics
The high level of alpha decay in Po-210 is responsible for this evaporation (spallation) - alpha collisions with atoms near the surface can cause atoms to be knocked free into the air.
Though I'm not an expert on the high atmosphere testing that went on at that time from what I've read/heard there did seem to be some method to the madness of setting off nuclear bombs in near orbit.
I believe that the US military were experimenting with the idea of creating a (hopefully temporary) layer of trapped radiation in the upper atmosphere in order to destroy/disable ICBM missiles aimed at the USA. There were quite a number of tests leading up to Starfish Prime (particularly Operation Argus in the South Atlantic ). One of the key drivers from a military point of view for these tests was to observe the effect of the trapped radiation in the upper atmosphere on incoming dummy missles.
I don't think that the experiments led to any breakthroughs regarding ballistic missile defence, but there were some interesting discoveries in the science. The effects of EMP from high altitude nuclear detonations weren't fully expected in the first tests (EMP from low altitude tests had been observed before, but in mid altitude testing the EMP was negligable - so significant EMP effect was not expected from high level detonations). The scientists involved in the tests were surprised that Starfish and the other Johnston Island high atmosphere detonations disrupted communications and electronic equipment as much as they did. It turns out that there are two different mechanisms for generating EMP after a nuclear detonation - the one that takes effect at high altitude is the one that causes widespread damage, whereas the low altitude one causes local damage to electronics, but no widespread damage.
Additionally data regarding the Van Allen belts, trapped radiation from man-made detonations and SAMA (the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly ) came in large part from the Starfish Prime and Argus experiments.
Today the idea of setting off nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, let alone in the high atmosphere, seems crazy, but these experiments (along with the experiments done by the other countries involved) should be viewed in the context of the era. In the late 50s and early 60s when these tests were performed by the US the fear of nuclear attack was reaching a peak. Experiments of this sort were tolerated because of the potential benefit that could be had by the side carrying them out. If, for example, the US military had found a way to disable ICBMs with high level detonations of nuclear bombs they could have disabled most of the threat to the USA in one stroke. As it was the US military discovered that high altitude detonations caused a long range EMP effect, and that knowledge allowed them to adjust their strategy for nuclear attack/defence.
For anyone who's interesting in seeing more about these exeriments I would certainly recommend the film The Rainbow Bombs by Peter Kuran. His other films Trinity & Beyond and Atomic Journeys are excellent as well.
With most slots you're right, but saying video poker means you're wrong I'm afraid. With video poker the mean payout is completely driven by:
1) Payoff table
2) Randomness of plays
3) Your skill:-)
1) is printed on the front of the machine, and 2) is enforced by the nevada board of control (or whoever the local gambling authority is). This means that in Vegas you can tell the payoff from a Video Poker machine before you put your first coin in the machine. Expert Video Poker players know good machines from bad (hint: go for a "Jacks or Better" machine paying 9x stake for a full house, and 6x stake for a flush - that's around 99.5% payoff if played perfectly)
If you were talking about other slots apart from video poker the statement about the variable payoffs would probably be right!
Slashdot Mirror
https://www.dailydot.com/parse... The "Barbie: I can be a computer engineer" book showed her having to ask the boys in her class to code a game for her because she wasn't able to! Not a great message for her fans.
There were other reactors working in the same plant until the last one shut down in 2000 (14 years after the disaster) so there were plenty of people working *in the same building* for a good long time.
Surely for wrestling there are much more important events such as Wrestlemaina and the Summer Slam? :-)
Why does a driver for a game controller need to be incorporated into the kernel?
Yeah, and monkeys _could_ fly out of my butt by 2050 too. They'd have more chance of powering the grid at night though...
Facebook's android app drains battery, is full of bugs and has a wierd non-standard interface. I didn't think they could make it any worse, but here we go - well done Facebook, you really raised the bar on suck there.
To me it all comes down to categorising the data. Some things need backing up daily, others weekly, monthly, annually and others once and never again. Also some things never need backing up. My first step with backup is to categorise the data when it is stored, then use the right backup strategy. If you don't sort the data properly you end up wasting money backing up stuff that isn't important, and may even miss things that are important. My servers are based at home, close to the desktop/laptop machines, so though I have RAID for important data, everything is vulnerable to fire/flood/theft etc... However, I do have a co-located server based 300 miles away to run several websites I look after. When I looked for the hosting provider I factored in the price for extra storage, and then ordered the server with a fair chunk of extra space than I will ever need for the web servers. I now use the colocated server as a rsync destination - no private data (in case it is compromised), but it makes me feel better that me and my family survive a house fire, the family pictures will too.
From the Wikipedia MSRE page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment ):
The ensuing decontamination and decommissioning project was called "the most technically challenging" activity assigned to Bechtel Jacobs under its environmental management contract with the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations organization.
You're exactly right about the conflict between gaming and multi-user computing, and I think the problem has always been that Windows attempts to do both at once when it doesn't really need to. Few games need to have explorer and all the rest running in the background - what games need is (more or less) exclusive access to hardware.
The Amiga had an answer to this - AmigaOS was a multitasking os with all the nice eye candy etc, but there was a API call ( Forbid() ) that you could use to ask the kernel to suspend multitasking, and pretty much everything else except core kernel functions. From there on you had access to the hardware and you could do what was necessary to get gaming performance. If you were doing this the proper way you'd still use API calls to get memory, use resources etc... As long as you followed the rules and put things back as you found them at the end of your program when you re-established multitasking all the old processes would spring back to life as if nothing had happened.
Obviously you wouldn't want to make these kind of calls on your web server today, so there has to be security around what processes are allowed to do this! Still - might work a bit better than Windows current method of trying to be a multi user server and a games console at the same time.
Stair
Though you're right that alpha doesn't penetrate the skin, you still need to take extreme care with Polonium. The reason is that it has a tendency to become airbourne even at room temperature, and once in the air it is there is inhalation danger to people nearby unless they are wearing respirators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Chemical_cha racteristics
The high level of alpha decay in Po-210 is responsible for this evaporation (spallation) - alpha collisions with atoms near the surface can cause atoms to be knocked free into the air.
I believe that the US military were experimenting with the idea of creating a (hopefully temporary) layer of trapped radiation in the upper atmosphere in order to destroy/disable ICBM missiles aimed at the USA. There were quite a number of tests leading up to Starfish Prime (particularly Operation Argus in the South Atlantic ). One of the key drivers from a military point of view for these tests was to observe the effect of the trapped radiation in the upper atmosphere on incoming dummy missles.
I don't think that the experiments led to any breakthroughs regarding ballistic missile defence, but there were some interesting discoveries in the science. The effects of EMP from high altitude nuclear detonations weren't fully expected in the first tests (EMP from low altitude tests had been observed before, but in mid altitude testing the EMP was negligable - so significant EMP effect was not expected from high level detonations). The scientists involved in the tests were surprised that Starfish and the other Johnston Island high atmosphere detonations disrupted communications and electronic equipment as much as they did. It turns out that there are two different mechanisms for generating EMP after a nuclear detonation - the one that takes effect at high altitude is the one that causes widespread damage, whereas the low altitude one causes local damage to electronics, but no widespread damage.
Additionally data regarding the Van Allen belts, trapped radiation from man-made detonations and SAMA (the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly ) came in large part from the Starfish Prime and Argus experiments.
Today the idea of setting off nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, let alone in the high atmosphere, seems crazy, but these experiments (along with the experiments done by the other countries involved) should be viewed in the context of the era. In the late 50s and early 60s when these tests were performed by the US the fear of nuclear attack was reaching a peak. Experiments of this sort were tolerated because of the potential benefit that could be had by the side carrying them out. If, for example, the US military had found a way to disable ICBMs with high level detonations of nuclear bombs they could have disabled most of the threat to the USA in one stroke. As it was the US military discovered that high altitude detonations caused a long range EMP effect, and that knowledge allowed them to adjust their strategy for nuclear attack/defence.
For anyone who's interesting in seeing more about these exeriments I would certainly recommend the film The Rainbow Bombs by Peter Kuran. His other films Trinity & Beyond and Atomic Journeys are excellent as well.
1) Payoff table :-)
2) Randomness of plays
3) Your skill
1) is printed on the front of the machine, and 2) is enforced by the nevada board of control (or whoever the local gambling authority is). This means that in Vegas you can tell the payoff from a Video Poker machine before you put your first coin in the machine. Expert Video Poker players know good machines from bad (hint: go for a "Jacks or Better" machine paying 9x stake for a full house, and 6x stake for a flush - that's around 99.5% payoff if played perfectly)
If you were talking about other slots apart from video poker the statement about the variable payoffs would probably be right!