Nice try, but most of the mass-energy of the universe really is in mass. In the very early universe, most of it was in energy, but the density goes down faster with the expansion of the universe than the matter density does (R^-4 instead of R^-3)... the matter is (quick calculation) about 20,000x more important currently.
The new one seems like it's just an attack, no humor involved.
I thought the new one was very funny! Of course, the humour is mostly in the presentation (having her appearing to make a "Heil Hitler" sign, which appears bad, which isn't... but in fact is - classic humour reversal), and less in the content (they're acting like Nazis).
I still don't understand the original one, though. Can someone explain it?
The problem with this line is that it fails miserably for some musical styles.
For a good rock band, hell yeah they should be best when seen live. An orchestra might be good live, but is just as well enjoyed at home with a good stereo. Rhythmic ambient noise would awful live, but great at home late at night on an excellent stereo.
And the thing is... I like all those. I want to support all those. And in some cases that means going to see them live, but in others it necessarily means buying the CD because that's the best way to enjoy it.
I'm sure there must be a tweak to keep sendmail from flailing if it can't resolve the hostname on bootup, but the only one I came up with is to not start sendmail by default, and hope that I remember to start it once I've got the right network settings on.
Most of this is based on the low quadrupole in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) power spectrum.
But... it's not really that much lower than in the concordence model, and is more likely just a result of cosmic variance - you can only measure 2 quadrupoles over the entire sky. The quadrupole power in our observable universe happens to be slightly below average - if you did the same experiment at many random points in the universe (esp. if you include points outside our horizon), you'd get a distribution of values whose mean was the concordence model value, with our observation slightly on the low side of the distribution.
I'm suspicious of this theory that thirteen year old kids are intrinsically messed up. If it's physiological, it should be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists at thirteen? I've read a lot of history, and I don't think I've seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager.
Shakespeare wrote a decent play about 400 years ago about a couple of hormone-crazed teenagers who couldn't see the big picture and committed suicide.
Whether the universe is in a "late expansionary phase", or whether this is something that persists over the "life" of the universe, it is still pretty strong evidence that we live in an open "saddle" universe, not a flat one or a closed one.
Actually, the current evidence, especially from CMB experiments like MAP, strongly suggest that we are in a flat universe. One of the strongest pieces of evidence for dark energy is that by every measurement we've ever made, the mass density of the universe is no more than 1/3 of the closure density, but yet CMB experiments all find that the total energy density is really really close to (if not exactly) the closure density. So the rest of it must be some other form of energy density, and the best current candidate is the cosmological constant.
A space shuttle mission costs around $500 million, versus less than $200 million to get into orbit ontop of an Arriane rocket. It's a rare satellite that is expensive enough by itself to be worthy of repair, instead of replacement.
And thanks to one of those satellites that's too expensive not to repair, we understand an unbelievable amount more about the universe than we did 9 years ago.
Could a cheaper shuttle be developed that doesn't need to be completely rebuilt between missions? Definitely. Does that mean we shouldn't? Of course not.
Saying "manned space travel isn't worth the risk" and then backing it up by talking about the ISS is not a valid argument. ISS is a waste of money with very little value.
Manned space travel, on the other hand, is extremely useful. You can send up a satellite without people, but you can't fix one without people. The crew of STS-61 are heroes amongst all astronomers in the world after the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission fixed the spherical aberration in the primary mirror.
Just because the ISS is a bad idea doesn't mean that all manned space travel is.
They're referring to Fermi's paradox (no, I'm not a transhumanist, but it's a good essay).
The conclusion "technological civilizations only last a short time" is predicated on a number of assumptions, but if you agree with those assumptions it's a plausible conclusion.
What agenda do the "wankers" at CleanFlicks have? An accusation like that should be backed up.
I'm sure Bungi would happily show you evidence of the CleanFlicks employees wanking...
...but they already edited that out of the video.;-)
[TMB]
Re:Do NOT stand in front of one, though....
on
Potato Bazookas
·
· Score: 1
We'd use a screw cap. The most dangerous bit was that we never really came up with a good trigger... our best (!!) solution was to take a main power line from the house, stick one end of the power into each side of a filed down nail with steel wool between the two ends, and improvise a switch by stripping part of the wire and cutting it. To fire: put metal against metal and let 120V course through.:)
I dj at a local independent radio station, and I can attest that they're not money-grubbing whores. And yes, the djs do it for free. I only play my own records, but in fact the station spends very little on new music because they get promo copies of everything plus people donate collections to them when they die (the fans are very devoted to the station). The funding comes in roughly equal parts from (a) public grants, (b) sponsors, and (c) listener donations.
As a professional astronomer, that list is quite different from what I'd give... here's my go:
1. Dark matter - what the hell is it? 2. Dark energy - what is it and why is it the strength it is? (#1 in the article) 3. Short period gamma ray bursts - what the hell are they? 4. Long period gamma ray bursts - what the hell are they? 5. How prevalent is life and intelligent life in the universe? (#6 in the article) 6. Star formation - what determines where and when it happens? 7. Gravitational waves - can we detect them? what will they tell us? 8. Was the universe reionized by stars or quasars, and when? 9. How does solar activity couple to the Earth's climate? 10. How does the feedback from stellar winds and supernovae into the interstellar medium affect it?
They're not the same sort of beast. SDSS, which is a sky survey, will be one of the many sets of data linked by NVO. So will the digitized version of the original Palomar Sky Survey. As will all the HST archive data. And the Chandra archive data. And the 2 Micron All Sky Survey. Etc.
There is a way of breaking out, which looks like it might happen. Scenario:
1. Company B copy protects all CDs. Companies W, S, and U have plans to copy protect all CDs, but company B is out the door first by about 2 months. 2. During those 2 months, Company B's sales drop much faster than those of Companies W, S, and U....at that point, it's obvious even to a lawmaker that the drop is not due to piracy. Imagine that after a couple of months, Company W starts copy-protecting all CDs... and its sales drop much faster than those of Companies S and U!
If there's a sufficient delay, there is the potential to demonstrate once and for all that copy protection hurts the bottom line.
We have a second phone line and 28k access (the modem does 56k, but the quality of the phone lines isn't good enough to usually get more than about 29k... I'm ecstatic when I connect at 33.6k) because neither the cable companies nor the phone company believe that our corner of town exists.
Yes, broadband is worth it... but it needs to be universally available. Until then, some of us will still be sucking through a 28k straw.
Does anybody know if there are any retailers taking advantage of this price difference?
I don't know about retailers, but as a consumer, I save up all my CD buying for the 2-3 times a year I'm back in Toronto or (even better) Vancouver (CDs are slightly cheaper in Alberta and BC than in the rest of the country). Though I wonder whether prices have gone up since Sam's went out of business?
Even staying in the States, it's often worth it to buy online from HMV. They used to have this incredible deal where you got free shipping within North America on orders of 4 or more units... unfortunately they stopped that a year ago or so. No longer the steal it used to be, but still often worth it.
On an unrelated note, it doesn't specify anywhere in the article what consumers are supposed to do to get their share of the jackpot. Anyone know? I'm pretty sure I don't still have receipts for the CDs I bought back in the late 90s...
Okay, I might buy that... but then why does Obi-wan send Luke to Yoda for training in the first place? If Yoda doesn't really repent until he's on his deathbed, why send him directly into the hands of the enemy?
Slashdot Mirror
Nice try, but most of the mass-energy of the universe really is in mass. In the very early universe, most of it was in energy, but the density goes down faster with the expansion of the universe than the matter density does (R^-4 instead of R^-3)... the matter is (quick calculation) about 20,000x more important currently.
[TMB]
Yeah, but how much do you pay per gig in blank media?
I thought the new one was very funny! Of course, the humour is mostly in the presentation (having her appearing to make a "Heil Hitler" sign, which appears bad, which isn't... but in fact is - classic humour reversal), and less in the content (they're acting like Nazis).
I still don't understand the original one, though. Can someone explain it?
[TMB]
The problem with this line is that it fails miserably for some musical styles.
For a good rock band, hell yeah they should be best when seen live. An orchestra might be good live, but is just as well enjoyed at home with a good stereo. Rhythmic ambient noise would awful live, but great at home late at night on an excellent stereo.
And the thing is... I like all those. I want to support all those. And in some cases that means going to see them live, but in others it necessarily means buying the CD because that's the best way to enjoy it.
[TMB]
Hear hear!
I'm sure there must be a tweak to keep sendmail from flailing if it can't resolve the hostname on bootup, but the only one I came up with is to not start sendmail by default, and hope that I remember to start it once I've got the right network settings on.
But now that'll be a non-issue... yay!
[TMB]
Most of this is based on the low quadrupole in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) power spectrum.
But... it's not really that much lower than in the concordence model, and is more likely just a result of cosmic variance - you can only measure 2 quadrupoles over the entire sky. The quadrupole power in our observable universe happens to be slightly below average - if you did the same experiment at many random points in the universe (esp. if you include points outside our horizon), you'd get a distribution of values whose mean was the concordence model value, with our observation slightly on the low side of the distribution.
[TMB]
Dude, RTFA yourself.
[TMB]
He really misses the boat on hormones...
Shakespeare wrote a decent play about 400 years ago about a couple of hormone-crazed teenagers who couldn't see the big picture and committed suicide.
[TMB]
The top layer, i.e. what you would be getting a spectrum of, is carbon dioxide. The water is underneath.
[TMB]
Actually, the current evidence, especially from CMB experiments like MAP, strongly suggest that we are in a flat universe. One of the strongest pieces of evidence for dark energy is that by every measurement we've ever made, the mass density of the universe is no more than 1/3 of the closure density, but yet CMB experiments all find that the total energy density is really really close to (if not exactly) the closure density. So the rest of it must be some other form of energy density, and the best current candidate is the cosmological constant.
[TMB]
And thanks to one of those satellites that's too expensive not to repair, we understand an unbelievable amount more about the universe than we did 9 years ago.
Could a cheaper shuttle be developed that doesn't need to be completely rebuilt between missions? Definitely. Does that mean we shouldn't? Of course not.
[TMB]
Saying "manned space travel isn't worth the risk" and then backing it up by talking about the ISS is not a valid argument. ISS is a waste of money with very little value.
Manned space travel, on the other hand, is extremely useful. You can send up a satellite without people, but you can't fix one without people. The crew of STS-61 are heroes amongst all astronomers in the world after the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission fixed the spherical aberration in the primary mirror.
Just because the ISS is a bad idea doesn't mean that all manned space travel is.
[TMB]
They're referring to Fermi's paradox (no, I'm not a transhumanist, but it's a good essay).
The conclusion "technological civilizations only last a short time" is predicated on a number of assumptions, but if you agree with those assumptions it's a plausible conclusion.
[TMB]
I'm sure Bungi would happily show you evidence of the CleanFlicks employees wanking...
...but they already edited that out of the video. ;-)
[TMB]
We'd use a screw cap. The most dangerous bit was that we never really came up with a good trigger... our best (!!) solution was to take a main power line from the house, stick one end of the power into each side of a filed down nail with steel wool between the two ends, and improvise a switch by stripping part of the wire and cutting it. To fire: put metal against metal and let 120V course through. :)
[TMB]
I dj at a local independent radio station, and I can attest that they're not money-grubbing whores. And yes, the djs do it for free. I only play my own records, but in fact the station spends very little on new music because they get promo copies of everything plus people donate collections to them when they die (the fans are very devoted to the station). The funding comes in roughly equal parts from (a) public grants, (b) sponsors, and (c) listener donations.
[TMB]
Then you should spoil your ballot, which is perfectly legal.
[TMB]
As a professional astronomer, that list is quite different from what I'd give... here's my go:
1. Dark matter - what the hell is it?
2. Dark energy - what is it and why is it the strength it is? (#1 in the article)
3. Short period gamma ray bursts - what the hell are they?
4. Long period gamma ray bursts - what the hell are they?
5. How prevalent is life and intelligent life in the universe? (#6 in the article)
6. Star formation - what determines where and when it happens?
7. Gravitational waves - can we detect them? what will they tell us?
8. Was the universe reionized by stars or quasars, and when?
9. How does solar activity couple to the Earth's climate?
10. How does the feedback from stellar winds and supernovae into the interstellar medium affect it?
[TMB]
They're not the same sort of beast. SDSS, which is a sky survey, will be one of the many sets of data linked by NVO. So will the digitized version of the original Palomar Sky Survey. As will all the HST archive data. And the Chandra archive data. And the 2 Micron All Sky Survey. Etc.
[TMB]
It also has about 3 clear nights a year. ;-)
[TMB]
There is a way of breaking out, which looks like it might happen. Scenario:
...at that point, it's obvious even to a lawmaker that the drop is not due to piracy. Imagine that after a couple of months, Company W starts copy-protecting all CDs... and its sales drop much faster than those of Companies S and U!
1. Company B copy protects all CDs. Companies W, S, and U have plans to copy protect all CDs, but company B is out the door first by about 2 months.
2. During those 2 months, Company B's sales drop much faster than those of Companies W, S, and U.
If there's a sufficient delay, there is the potential to demonstrate once and for all that copy protection hurts the bottom line.
[TMB]
Sounds like you're looking for something like The Orchard.
[TMB]
Oh to be able to get DSL or cable... .
We have a second phone line and 28k access (the modem does 56k, but the quality of the phone lines isn't good enough to usually get more than about 29k... I'm ecstatic when I connect at 33.6k) because neither the cable companies nor the phone company believe that our corner of town exists.
Yes, broadband is worth it... but it needs to be universally available. Until then, some of us will still be sucking through a 28k straw.
[TMB]
I don't know about retailers, but as a consumer, I save up all my CD buying for the 2-3 times a year I'm back in Toronto or (even better) Vancouver (CDs are slightly cheaper in Alberta and BC than in the rest of the country). Though I wonder whether prices have gone up since Sam's went out of business?
Even staying in the States, it's often worth it to buy online from HMV. They used to have this incredible deal where you got free shipping within North America on orders of 4 or more units... unfortunately they stopped that a year ago or so. No longer the steal it used to be, but still often worth it.
On an unrelated note, it doesn't specify anywhere in the article what consumers are supposed to do to get their share of the jackpot. Anyone know? I'm pretty sure I don't still have receipts for the CDs I bought back in the late 90s...
[TMB]
Okay, I might buy that... but then why does Obi-wan send Luke to Yoda for training in the first place? If Yoda doesn't really repent until he's on his deathbed, why send him directly into the hands of the enemy?
[TMB]