130 HP in a 2700 lb car might not scream off the line, but top speed is only a function of power, aerodynamics, rolling resistance, driveline losses, and gearing. Many vehicles in the mid 100 HP range can hit well over 100 MPH (I've had my 170 HP car up to 135 on a track). Weight only factors into top-speed by a small mutliple in rolling resistance. Typically there's a tradeoff between acceleration and top speed due to mechanical limitations of fixed gear ratio transmissions and tire grip characteristics.
Sorry, but you overlooked the most obvious example. Technology enables communication and communication enables knowledge if its honest communication and not propaganda. Honest communication might be the most powerful force imaginable for putting an end to war, totalitarianism and violence. Pervasive fax machines and communication were integral in keeping Boris Yeltsin in power when the communists attempted to overthow him and return Russia to communism
I'd have to disagree here as well. While I agree that communication and knowledge do tend to mitigate the effects of social problems, they cannot eliminate them. Your example about the events in Russia are interesting - what do you think Yeltsin's support did with the information? They most likely had to use some form of force (violence) to retain power (even if it was just arresting the would-be revolutionists). The information didn't prevent that group of people from wanting to use force (if necessary) to change things.
I would agree, though, that your example shows how information reduced the amount of violence (perhaps) at the time, so technology did help there.
Also, in and of itself, information is useless. Information must be acted upon; it's not really useful for me to know about violence in Palestine, for instance, or wildfires in California (I live in MI) because unless I'm willing to do something about it, it doesn't matter if I knew that information or not. The fact that I know about something might cause me to act on that knowledge where I wouldn't have acted if I didn't know about it, but if I was not already predisposed to act on such things the fact that I can now know about those things isn't going to change that (unless, perhaps, it makes me feel guilty and causes me some mental anguish, which might get me to change - see below).
Basically, while it's true that we can now know more about what other people think about things, and what other people are experiencing in far away places, that knowledge doesn't have any way to change us to act on it. Actually, I would post the hypothesis that the only thing that can cause a human being to change is some form of suffering (physical and/or psychological) to that person. (This is an interesting conundrum, because it means that the only way to change everyone to stop suffering is through suffering - if it were possible at all).
Also, I'm not sure why you seem to think that open communication will prevent people from going "You have that piece of land that I want. I'm going to shoot you unless you move off and let me move there. Or, heck, I might just shoot you anyway...". Those are the types of problems to which I was referring, which no technology can solve. Other things technology can't solve are the debates about abortion, or homosexuality, or intellectual property rights, or if Linux or Windows is better; these are all atechnical issues in my book.
Eh, I wasn't even alive in 1973. I'm talking late 1980s here. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics $28k in 1988 is equivalent to $44,360 in 2004. Even so, most people would choke to think you could own a house, 2 cars, and raise 3 kids on less than $45k/year, even in a low cost of living state like SC (which, incidentally, was the case).
It's really all just a matter of budgeting and not living above one's means (i.e., not lots of debt!); for instance I can live as I am now on a take-home income of $12k / year ($7,580 in 1988 dollars, for comparison) if I absolutely had to (I currently live near Detroit MI, so I'm not exactly in one of the "low cost" areas); my excess is going to pay off loans fast and build some retirement. Of course, I'm not a super-hip materialistic guy, so what do I know?
I always thought that America was built on the notion of getting paid for the work you do
At one point in time, perhaps, but now it seems that most people follow the following plan of action:
1. ??? 2. Sue someone and/or play the lottery 3. Profit!!!
This is kind of cynical, but I hate that in the US there seems to be a real lack of people having the attitude of working for a living. This was perhaps the case in my grandparents' and maybe parents' generation, but how many people run around now and just say, "I deserve this! Why do I have to work for it!?".
It's quite depressing, really; and that's one of my main points. Hope that clarifies things a bit, from my perspective as a United Statesian.
Alas, today I have no mod points: I have been checking to make sure that somewhere out there someone else noticed this. It might be a fine semantic point, but the new legislation just changes around exempt vs. non-exempt classifications. When my company was doing well, I got overtime (I'm salaried, so just got straight-time except holidays, which was time-and-a-half). When my company hit the rocks, I got no overtime. Big whoop, $60k / year is more than enough to live quite nicely. Mostly, though, my management is pretty good about compensable time (gee, you worked 16 hour days the past three days - take a couple days off!) so it's not that bad.
Even in salaried positions, there are OSHA regulations which specify maximum continuous hours worked and minimum time off between shifts. I think the only exceptions are for certain health care and emergency personnel, but there are laws for the nonunion employee about allowed work practices.
This whole argument, to me, is kind of silly because people are either uninformed or just angry that they can't get as much of a free lunch as they once did. I'm with all those folks who have no tears for people "in tight financial straits" with a family and going from $100k to $75k salary (my parents raised me and my two siblings on about $28k (gross)/ year, and we even had two functional automobiles and a swimming pool! So yes, I'm biased and think that people with problems that make over $35k / year should shut up and suffer the consequences of poor decisions).
Savings is simple: you always ALWAYS need to have a reserve pile of cash around. Most advisers will tell you to have cash for 3 months of expenses on hand in case of emergencies like layoffs, disasters, or what-not. Also, saving even a little bit (even as little as, say, $10/month) gets you in the habit. Yes, it's painful to only get < 2% return on your savings when you're paying 6% on a loan, but it's better to have that savings then default on all your loans when something awful happens.
I know I'll be mocked for this post, but I think OSS is one of the few things from the last 20,000 years that geniunely might break the cycle of village killing village. That's right, I think software can be the saviour of humankind, and I suspect that deep down underneath your crusty exteriors, you slashdot people believe it too.
I can't tell if you're being serious, funny, or just trolling. However, I'm up for intelligent discourse, so let's see what happens.
I have to respectfully disagree with your hypothesis that some form of technology might be able to "solve" the social problem of violence, or any social problem for that matter. History has shown us that no amount of technology can change the general tendency of a human being to put himself and his desires above those of another. Sometimes upbringing or religious belief or something of that nature will allow a person to choose to sacrifice something for the better of his fellows, but no technology has ever done that. The reason for this is that violence and selfishness and greed and all the "bad" things (which is an interesting discussion in and of itself - "who defines good and bad?" as a previous poster in this thread put it) are internal to a person where technology can only affect the external. Technology won't stop a man from beating or ignoring a wife, won't stop a child from sneaking around behind parent's backs, won't stop people from wanting what other people have, won't stop people from abusing power.
The only way I can see technology doing this is if somehow we become inhuman cyborgs, programmable to do something decided by someone else, and completely lose our free will. While in one sense this might be considered good - "it will be impossible for people to murder or rape or steal or cheat or lie" it is a taking away of something which makes us human; it would be an empty victory (if you could even call it a victory).
If you have any examples of how technology has actually eliminated any human issues, I'd love to hear them; I'm not talking about preventing disease or things like that, but social problems such as poverty (sometimes people choose poverty, believe it or not), unrest, greed, or violence. Technology can give us better conditions for some things, and generally make us less affected by our environment, but technology does not make us less affected by our selves.
I wish that I could have a more optimistic outlook on this, but the world is not a place which breeds optimism on a broad scale. I wish that technology could "save humanity" but that's not what humanity needs. I believe that there is a possible salvation for people though - but it lies in the even more mock-target realm of religion, and even more so because I believe there is only one Way (rather than the popular belief that there are many ways - but how often is the popular belief the correct one?).
At any rate, I applaud the LULA ex-pres for acting on his stand, rather than just paying lip-service, although it is a somewhat impractical gesture (because it likely won't effect any change).
Actually, the most interesting thing I saw is that D defines a type 'ireal' which is an imaginary number. They also have 'creal' which is a complex number. What's funny to me is that, by definition, imaginary and complex numbers are not real at all.
I found this immensely amusing...and yes, I know that's sad.
The interesting thing is that in the US things are emitting tones at 120 Hz, not 60. (however, there is a Bb at ~116Hz and a B at ~123 Hz, so calling this a Bb is still pretty close). Since the current reverses direction *twice* per cycle, metal in transformers, etc. expands and contracts *twice* per cycle, generating sound at twice the current frequency. For more information, see this link on magnetostriction
That's an insufficent link. There is no such thing as a "permanent" magnet, just "really high magnetization strength" magnets. For any material, if you apply a large enough external magnetic field, you can demagnetize that magnet.
Also, try telling everyone who works with inductive circuits that they're not storing energy in magnetic fields.
If you have more questions take a look here for more information. This is a great site about all sorts of physics concepts.
Well, I can't read the artcile (durn/. effect) but I have actually done a lot of work trying to develop machines of this nature. While it looks like the machine is outputting more energy than is put in, what *must* be happening is one of the following:
1. Conservation of energy is not true. Highly unlikely.
2. The energy stored in the permanent magnets is being used up. This is the most likely (and probably actual) phenomenon. Any magnetic field has stored energy. You can get this energy out by demagnetizing the magnet. I don't know how much energy is in these magnets, and as I can't read the article I can't see if there are any comments on the longevity of the magnets. My guess is these motors would "work" for a while, then suddenly drop down to worse than normal functioning electromotive devices (due to adverse effects of eddy currents, etc). I'd put my wager here. (Especially since it sounds like it only works with large (i.e., lots of stored magnetic energy) magnets.
3. The device somehow draws energy from the environment in some new, undiscovered manner. The combination of moving electromagnetic fields could somehow convert some other energy source (i.e., background radiation) into mechanical forces. Highly speculative and unlikely. If the device were really "creating" energy from the magnets, you could start one up, turn a generator, start another one up, then chain the output of the generator to the input of the motor, then keep them going forever. That would be a neat experiment.
In summary, there is probably a well-understood phenomenon here, and it's nothing out of the ordinary. I applaud the marketing prowess of the "inventor" here, in any case. If the device does work, I look forward to seeing the interesting results as the basic conservation laws are reexamined and we end up neat things like warp drives, levitation, and all the other stuff I've wanted since I was 4!
Call me a pessimist, but this is the issue which concerns me the most: is free speech actually self-correcting? I'm not so sure, because I'm not sure the general public is capable of making correct choices (mostly because I don't believe the general public is aware that there are such a thing as correct and incorrect choices - despite their clamoring to the contrary).
For free speech to be self-correcting, there has to be a solid understanding of "correct" and "incorrect"; otherwise this statement is meaningless. My observation is that while the US constitution is nice in that it calls for free speech, it lacks clarification on where the public should go to judge the merit of free speech. If we all know that, for a silly example, circles are not squares, we quickly ignore people who go campaigning that such is the case. But to where do we go for issues which are not so clear-cut, such as war, sexual orientation, religion, personal responsibility, etc.? For in all of these latter issues, there is no "concrete" standard accepted by everyone on which to make a merit judgement. Sure, we all have (and are in the US legally free to have) personal standards of merit (at least, I hope we all have some sort of internal standard!). But what about those times when, in a "majority loosely rules" democracy, the majority tells us that our views are wrong and the law is tailored to enforce that? (A hot current example: legalizing same-sex marriages and calling them "marriages" in law tells people who believe that marriage is solely "the union between one mand and one woman" that they are wrong. The same is true if the law says that it's only between man and woman - the other group is put out. Free speech - the ability to voice either opinion - does not and cannot give direction on which of these choices to accept. In fact, asbolute freedom of speech is independent of the merit of the statement.)
The dilemma of free speech is that it does not provide any inherent benefit to society other than letting lots of ideas be voiced; it does not provide the mechanism for determining which ideas have merit, or even how to define that merit (i.e., does having the majority opinion give it merit or not?).
I'm all for free speech, when wielded effectively by people who know how to handle it (the Muzzle Awards definitely show that some people don't know how to handle it). The problem is, free speech is a necessary but not sufficient aspect of a progressive society.
Well, since you're the only person who even mentioned GURPS I'll jump in here.:)
As far as systems go, I don't think you can get simpler than GURPS 3d6 for everything (except damage ). I tried picking up AD&D a while ago and got bogged down in the system. GURPS I picked up in about 10 minutes.
Of course, I'm much more into the actual role playing rather than the numbers, so that works for me. When I'm in a munchkin mood, I just play Munchkin.
The goal of a system should be a good compromise between simplicity, realism, and ability to facilitate role playing.
As far as using a P&P system on a computer, well, I'm not so sure about that - it depends on how you want to do things. Generally computers aren't limited to P&P systems as far as mathematical complexity, but they do tend to be more limited in adaptability. This, in my opinion, is mostly due to the fact that computers still cannot compete with the human brain on things of non-deterministic nature.
Suffice it to say that P&P RPGs and CRPGs cater to different crowds, and the merits / follies of both are too subjective to categorize in a difinitive manner.
Reminds me of something I read a couple years ago. Check out this page and search for the name 'Albin'. Those parents went a bit farther than just using one digit in the name..
There's some other stuff in the same section about "illegal names" in Denmark.
"I'm sorry, Mister Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, there aren't enough spaces for your name in our database!"
I've always heard snarf used as a verb to describe the phenomenon, "when someone has just put solid or liquid food into their mouth and then laughs, causing said food to spew out of their mouth and/or nose at high velocity."
This has been the definition of snarf in the circles I've seen, spanning at least 3 states (SC, MI, and OH) and it never had anything to do with bicycles or the bathtub; unless, of course, those happened to be the topics which caused the snarf.
Exactly. The issue is not file sharing it's file copying. Libraries don't copy books, they share them. If file sharing was really file sharing, then it wouldn't be an issue.
Contrary to popular belief, semantics are important.
Hrm. Perhaps the USPTO has changed the way it does prior art searches. I think it's crap that they only consider other patents as prior art. If I recall with accuraccy, there is a somewhat "famous" case in which a patent for a waterbed was not granted because such a product was described in a Henlein novel many years before the patent filing; the idea was in the public domain. That prior art was most definitely not a patent, but it was still used to debunk the claim.
If the current examiners aren't using other things besides other patents, then we as voters should do something about it - and by "something" I mean something more than just complaining about it.
whoops - I entered the wrong point in the thread... sorry about that. One of the other replies to your orig. post was about "buying all the X boxes to make MS lost money". Apologies for any confusion, folks.
Oh, actually, you're really hurting the retailers, not MS. What happens is that retailers will buy 10,000 boxes from MS, then have to be sitting on the however much they paid to MS. If you don't buy any then the retailer just ate what they paid MS, but the retailer won't order any more. If you buy them from the retailer, the retailer gets back all that they spent and will order more.
So, the odd thing is, buying or not buying X-boxes really will only hurt MS if they made more boxes than the retailers will purchase. I guess, then, that the original analysis still holds, but is more complicated because there is the retailer involved.
Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but here's an economics lesson for you: if you buy them (even at a loss) you are offsetting their losses. Here's why (numbers are made up - let's say it costs $200 to build an X-box and MS gets the full $150 for them)
Cost to build 10,000 X-boxes: $2,000,000
Scenario 1:
Revenue from selling 10,000 X-boxes: $1,500,000
Net loss: $500,000
Scenario 2:
Revenue from selling 0 X-boxes: $0
Net Loss: $2,000,000
So, because the way businesses work is they spend money to make a product, then hope to get some back, you don't hurt them by purchasing things "at a loss" - you actually reduce their losses. It's better to not buy them at all and have them just eat their initial expenditure.
Ah, but the issue is not complaining about having too many or too few choices. The article refers to a paper/book (which I heard about *outside* the confines of/.) that makes the observation that in a society with more choices (regardless of the quality of those choices) that society has a higher incidence of psychological issues categorized as "unhappy". The findings indicate that that as choices increase from some very low level (i.e., find food and shelter or die) that happiness increases, but there is a point where the happiness ceases to increase and then actually decreases as more choice is given.
You have to realize this is a collective phenomenon, and it doesn't necessarily apply to each individual. I'm not a psychologist or anything, but I have observed this phenomenon.
How do you define God? What is his relationship with 'everything you have seen.'
Important questions, and I'll give you my meanings of these (because, as far as I know, people don't mean the same thing by the word 'god' or 'God'). I will try to specify when definitions are general and when they are things which must be taken by faith - that is, without direct empirical evidence. I should note, though, that it is not just my belief in God that confirms my world view, but my comparing the Christian viewpoint (as presented in the Bible and throughout history) against with how people (individually and as a collective human race) behave. As a good scientist, so far it's the most likely hypothesis I've come across to describe the way the world works, and it's predictable. However, that is not the main point of this particular post.
God (capital 'G') is, in the simplest definition, the creator and sustainer of the universe. To be complete I'll define the three key terms.
By 'creator' I mean an entity that conceived of and realized the universe. Both of these are necessary for the act of creation - the thinking about it and the doing it, if you will (the definition of 'realize' here is not to 'come to an understanding of' but 'to make real'). Humans have some of this 'creator' ability: we can think of objects and make them - the difference is we cannot create things out of nothing; that is, we have to have some raw materials.
By 'sustainer' I mean an entity upon which something else depends. As far as I know, the universe continues to exist because God wills it. If there were no God, or His disposition toward the universe changed, the universe might cease to exist. I do not mean that God must continue to think about every subatomic particle and its behavior, but that if God so willed he could un-create the universe. Humans have some of this power - we can un-create some man-made structures and even eliminate some ideas from the common thought of mankind.
Some of the following definition, as opposed to the first two, definitely hinges on faith. It is also the definition which is, as far as I know, the most difficult to define. I am actually going to use an anthropomorphic definition and simply state that 'universe' is the reality in which we exist, the nature of which we debate as being independent of itself or dependent upon the existence of God. This is not a "complete" definition by any means, but it basically means "everything that would have to have been created, if it was a created thing".
Now, that just covered my first statement, and covers the "what" of God but gives us nothing of the character of God. To understand the relationship between God and the universe, and humans specifically, we have to think about the character of God. A large part of this discussion is faith: there is no unequivocal proof for any of it, but most concepts bear themselves out under certain frames of reference. The faith part comes from the fact that there is nothing inherent in the ability of humans to make observations that makes one viewpoint fundamentally more believable than another. At some point each individual must say to himself, "I just have to make this assumption on faith" or else not be able to have a meaningful thought process when it comes to these philosophical issues. Faith doesn't always pertain to religious things, but I also use faith to be the thing which distinguishes between the camps of "I believe there is an absolute truth" and "I believe truth is relative" camps. There is evidence for both, but the decision is up to the individual.
With that preface done, I'll say what I believe to be the character of what I mean by God. I'll not go into why I believe all these things because that would increase the length of this post several times. My intent is to clarify my statement, "I believe in God".
The major character traits of God I believe are: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, holy, just, creative, relational, an
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130 HP in a 2700 lb car might not scream off the line, but top speed is only a function of power, aerodynamics, rolling resistance, driveline losses, and gearing. Many vehicles in the mid 100 HP range can hit well over 100 MPH (I've had my 170 HP car up to 135 on a track). Weight only factors into top-speed by a small mutliple in rolling resistance. Typically there's a tradeoff between acceleration and top speed due to mechanical limitations of fixed gear ratio transmissions and tire grip characteristics.
I would agree, though, that your example shows how information reduced the amount of violence (perhaps) at the time, so technology did help there.
Also, in and of itself, information is useless. Information must be acted upon; it's not really useful for me to know about violence in Palestine, for instance, or wildfires in California (I live in MI) because unless I'm willing to do something about it, it doesn't matter if I knew that information or not. The fact that I know about something might cause me to act on that knowledge where I wouldn't have acted if I didn't know about it, but if I was not already predisposed to act on such things the fact that I can now know about those things isn't going to change that (unless, perhaps, it makes me feel guilty and causes me some mental anguish, which might get me to change - see below).
Basically, while it's true that we can now know more about what other people think about things, and what other people are experiencing in far away places, that knowledge doesn't have any way to change us to act on it. Actually, I would post the hypothesis that the only thing that can cause a human being to change is some form of suffering (physical and/or psychological) to that person. (This is an interesting conundrum, because it means that the only way to change everyone to stop suffering is through suffering - if it were possible at all).
Also, I'm not sure why you seem to think that open communication will prevent people from going "You have that piece of land that I want. I'm going to shoot you unless you move off and let me move there. Or, heck, I might just shoot you anyway...". Those are the types of problems to which I was referring, which no technology can solve. Other things technology can't solve are the debates about abortion, or homosexuality, or intellectual property rights, or if Linux or Windows is better; these are all atechnical issues in my book.
It's really all just a matter of budgeting and not living above one's means (i.e., not lots of debt!); for instance I can live as I am now on a take-home income of $12k / year ($7,580 in 1988 dollars, for comparison) if I absolutely had to (I currently live near Detroit MI, so I'm not exactly in one of the "low cost" areas); my excess is going to pay off loans fast and build some retirement. Of course, I'm not a super-hip materialistic guy, so what do I know?
1. ???
2. Sue someone and/or play the lottery
3. Profit!!!
This is kind of cynical, but I hate that in the US there seems to be a real lack of people having the attitude of working for a living. This was perhaps the case in my grandparents' and maybe parents' generation, but how many people run around now and just say, "I deserve this! Why do I have to work for it!?".
It's quite depressing, really; and that's one of my main points. Hope that clarifies things a bit, from my perspective as a United Statesian.
Even in salaried positions, there are OSHA regulations which specify maximum continuous hours worked and minimum time off between shifts. I think the only exceptions are for certain health care and emergency personnel, but there are laws for the nonunion employee about allowed work practices.
This whole argument, to me, is kind of silly because people are either uninformed or just angry that they can't get as much of a free lunch as they once did. I'm with all those folks who have no tears for people "in tight financial straits" with a family and going from $100k to $75k salary (my parents raised me and my two siblings on about $28k (gross)/ year, and we even had two functional automobiles and a swimming pool! So yes, I'm biased and think that people with problems that make over $35k / year should shut up and suffer the consequences of poor decisions).
Savings is simple: you always ALWAYS need to have a reserve pile of cash around. Most advisers will tell you to have cash for 3 months of expenses on hand in case of emergencies like layoffs, disasters, or what-not. Also, saving even a little bit (even as little as, say, $10/month) gets you in the habit. Yes, it's painful to only get < 2% return on your savings when you're paying 6% on a loan, but it's better to have that savings then default on all your loans when something awful happens.
I have to respectfully disagree with your hypothesis that some form of technology might be able to "solve" the social problem of violence, or any social problem for that matter. History has shown us that no amount of technology can change the general tendency of a human being to put himself and his desires above those of another. Sometimes upbringing or religious belief or something of that nature will allow a person to choose to sacrifice something for the better of his fellows, but no technology has ever done that. The reason for this is that violence and selfishness and greed and all the "bad" things (which is an interesting discussion in and of itself - "who defines good and bad?" as a previous poster in this thread put it) are internal to a person where technology can only affect the external. Technology won't stop a man from beating or ignoring a wife, won't stop a child from sneaking around behind parent's backs, won't stop people from wanting what other people have, won't stop people from abusing power.
The only way I can see technology doing this is if somehow we become inhuman cyborgs, programmable to do something decided by someone else, and completely lose our free will. While in one sense this might be considered good - "it will be impossible for people to murder or rape or steal or cheat or lie" it is a taking away of something which makes us human; it would be an empty victory (if you could even call it a victory).
If you have any examples of how technology has actually eliminated any human issues, I'd love to hear them; I'm not talking about preventing disease or things like that, but social problems such as poverty (sometimes people choose poverty, believe it or not), unrest, greed, or violence. Technology can give us better conditions for some things, and generally make us less affected by our environment, but technology does not make us less affected by our selves.
I wish that I could have a more optimistic outlook on this, but the world is not a place which breeds optimism on a broad scale. I wish that technology could "save humanity" but that's not what humanity needs. I believe that there is a possible salvation for people though - but it lies in the even more mock-target realm of religion, and even more so because I believe there is only one Way (rather than the popular belief that there are many ways - but how often is the popular belief the correct one?).
At any rate, I applaud the LULA ex-pres for acting on his stand, rather than just paying lip-service, although it is a somewhat impractical gesture (because it likely won't effect any change).
I found this immensely amusing...and yes, I know that's sad.
The interesting thing is that in the US things are emitting tones at 120 Hz, not 60. (however, there is a Bb at ~116Hz and a B at ~123 Hz, so calling this a Bb is still pretty close). Since the current reverses direction *twice* per cycle, metal in transformers, etc. expands and contracts *twice* per cycle, generating sound at twice the current frequency. For more information, see this link on magnetostriction
Also, try telling everyone who works with inductive circuits that they're not storing energy in magnetic fields.
If you have more questions take a look here for more information. This is a great site about all sorts of physics concepts.
4. It's not true at all. Measurement error, rounding errors, ballot stuffing, etc. ;-)
1. Conservation of energy is not true. Highly unlikely.
2. The energy stored in the permanent magnets is being used up. This is the most likely (and probably actual) phenomenon. Any magnetic field has stored energy. You can get this energy out by demagnetizing the magnet. I don't know how much energy is in these magnets, and as I can't read the article I can't see if there are any comments on the longevity of the magnets. My guess is these motors would "work" for a while, then suddenly drop down to worse than normal functioning electromotive devices (due to adverse effects of eddy currents, etc). I'd put my wager here. (Especially since it sounds like it only works with large (i.e., lots of stored magnetic energy) magnets.
3. The device somehow draws energy from the environment in some new, undiscovered manner. The combination of moving electromagnetic fields could somehow convert some other energy source (i.e., background radiation) into mechanical forces. Highly speculative and unlikely. If the device were really "creating" energy from the magnets, you could start one up, turn a generator, start another one up, then chain the output of the generator to the input of the motor, then keep them going forever. That would be a neat experiment.
In summary, there is probably a well-understood phenomenon here, and it's nothing out of the ordinary. I applaud the marketing prowess of the "inventor" here, in any case. If the device does work, I look forward to seeing the interesting results as the basic conservation laws are reexamined and we end up neat things like warp drives, levitation, and all the other stuff I've wanted since I was 4!
For free speech to be self-correcting, there has to be a solid understanding of "correct" and "incorrect"; otherwise this statement is meaningless. My observation is that while the US constitution is nice in that it calls for free speech, it lacks clarification on where the public should go to judge the merit of free speech. If we all know that, for a silly example, circles are not squares, we quickly ignore people who go campaigning that such is the case. But to where do we go for issues which are not so clear-cut, such as war, sexual orientation, religion, personal responsibility, etc.? For in all of these latter issues, there is no "concrete" standard accepted by everyone on which to make a merit judgement. Sure, we all have (and are in the US legally free to have) personal standards of merit (at least, I hope we all have some sort of internal standard!). But what about those times when, in a "majority loosely rules" democracy, the majority tells us that our views are wrong and the law is tailored to enforce that? (A hot current example: legalizing same-sex marriages and calling them "marriages" in law tells people who believe that marriage is solely "the union between one mand and one woman" that they are wrong. The same is true if the law says that it's only between man and woman - the other group is put out. Free speech - the ability to voice either opinion - does not and cannot give direction on which of these choices to accept. In fact, asbolute freedom of speech is independent of the merit of the statement.)
The dilemma of free speech is that it does not provide any inherent benefit to society other than letting lots of ideas be voiced; it does not provide the mechanism for determining which ideas have merit, or even how to define that merit (i.e., does having the majority opinion give it merit or not?).
I'm all for free speech, when wielded effectively by people who know how to handle it (the Muzzle Awards definitely show that some people don't know how to handle it). The problem is, free speech is a necessary but not sufficient aspect of a progressive society.
You are correct, though, in that he used trial and error.
As far as systems go, I don't think you can get simpler than GURPS 3d6 for everything (except damage ). I tried picking up AD&D a while ago and got bogged down in the system. GURPS I picked up in about 10 minutes.
Of course, I'm much more into the actual role playing rather than the numbers, so that works for me. When I'm in a munchkin mood, I just play Munchkin.
The goal of a system should be a good compromise between simplicity, realism, and ability to facilitate role playing.
As far as using a P&P system on a computer, well, I'm not so sure about that - it depends on how you want to do things. Generally computers aren't limited to P&P systems as far as mathematical complexity, but they do tend to be more limited in adaptability. This, in my opinion, is mostly due to the fact that computers still cannot compete with the human brain on things of non-deterministic nature.
Suffice it to say that P&P RPGs and CRPGs cater to different crowds, and the merits / follies of both are too subjective to categorize in a difinitive manner.
There's some other stuff in the same section about "illegal names" in Denmark.
"I'm sorry, Mister Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, there aren't enough spaces for your name in our database!"
This has been the definition of snarf in the circles I've seen, spanning at least 3 states (SC, MI, and OH) and it never had anything to do with bicycles or the bathtub; unless, of course, those happened to be the topics which caused the snarf.
Interesting alternate definition though... uh... yeah.
Contrary to popular belief, semantics are important.
If the current examiners aren't using other things besides other patents, then we as voters should do something about it - and by "something" I mean something more than just complaining about it.
whoops - I entered the wrong point in the thread... sorry about that. One of the other replies to your orig. post was about "buying all the X boxes to make MS lost money". Apologies for any confusion, folks.
So, the odd thing is, buying or not buying X-boxes really will only hurt MS if they made more boxes than the retailers will purchase. I guess, then, that the original analysis still holds, but is more complicated because there is the retailer involved.
Cost to build 10,000 X-boxes: $2,000,000
Scenario 1:
Revenue from selling 10,000 X-boxes: $1,500,000
Net loss: $500,000
Scenario 2:
Revenue from selling 0 X-boxes: $0
Net Loss: $2,000,000
So, because the way businesses work is they spend money to make a product, then hope to get some back, you don't hurt them by purchasing things "at a loss" - you actually reduce their losses. It's better to not buy them at all and have them just eat their initial expenditure.
You have to realize this is a collective phenomenon, and it doesn't necessarily apply to each individual. I'm not a psychologist or anything, but I have observed this phenomenon.
Important questions, and I'll give you my meanings of these (because, as far as I know, people don't mean the same thing by the word 'god' or 'God'). I will try to specify when definitions are general and when they are things which must be taken by faith - that is, without direct empirical evidence. I should note, though, that it is not just my belief in God that confirms my world view, but my comparing the Christian viewpoint (as presented in the Bible and throughout history) against with how people (individually and as a collective human race) behave. As a good scientist, so far it's the most likely hypothesis I've come across to describe the way the world works, and it's predictable. However, that is not the main point of this particular post.
God (capital 'G') is, in the simplest definition, the creator and sustainer of the universe. To be complete I'll define the three key terms.
By 'creator' I mean an entity that conceived of and realized the universe. Both of these are necessary for the act of creation - the thinking about it and the doing it, if you will (the definition of 'realize' here is not to 'come to an understanding of' but 'to make real'). Humans have some of this 'creator' ability: we can think of objects and make them - the difference is we cannot create things out of nothing; that is, we have to have some raw materials.
By 'sustainer' I mean an entity upon which something else depends. As far as I know, the universe continues to exist because God wills it. If there were no God, or His disposition toward the universe changed, the universe might cease to exist. I do not mean that God must continue to think about every subatomic particle and its behavior, but that if God so willed he could un-create the universe. Humans have some of this power - we can un-create some man-made structures and even eliminate some ideas from the common thought of mankind.
Some of the following definition, as opposed to the first two, definitely hinges on faith. It is also the definition which is, as far as I know, the most difficult to define. I am actually going to use an anthropomorphic definition and simply state that 'universe' is the reality in which we exist, the nature of which we debate as being independent of itself or dependent upon the existence of God. This is not a "complete" definition by any means, but it basically means "everything that would have to have been created, if it was a created thing".
Now, that just covered my first statement, and covers the "what" of God but gives us nothing of the character of God. To understand the relationship between God and the universe, and humans specifically, we have to think about the character of God. A large part of this discussion is faith: there is no unequivocal proof for any of it, but most concepts bear themselves out under certain frames of reference. The faith part comes from the fact that there is nothing inherent in the ability of humans to make observations that makes one viewpoint fundamentally more believable than another. At some point each individual must say to himself, "I just have to make this assumption on faith" or else not be able to have a meaningful thought process when it comes to these philosophical issues. Faith doesn't always pertain to religious things, but I also use faith to be the thing which distinguishes between the camps of "I believe there is an absolute truth" and "I believe truth is relative" camps. There is evidence for both, but the decision is up to the individual.
With that preface done, I'll say what I believe to be the character of what I mean by God. I'll not go into why I believe all these things because that would increase the length of this post several times. My intent is to clarify my statement, "I believe in God".
The major character traits of God I believe are: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, holy, just, creative, relational, an