The odds or the human eye "Evolving" is 1^213 i.e. 1:1000000000000000000...(213 zeros)
You mean, the odds of the human-eye evolving from nothing to its present state is 1*10^213, or whatever number you think it is (and how did you figure it out, I might ask? A little selective science going on?) You're not looking the evolutionary steps that came before the human-eye as we know it today, and you are assuming that evolution is a wholly unintelligent, random process.
Well, I went and looked it up. It seems that EV really does refer to speed rather than the energy required to attain that speed. I can see where you're coming from in (b), but I don't think it's quite right.
For example, take The da Vinchi Project. They will (eventually, possibly:p) use a helium balloon to lift their rocket to a high-altitude before firing its engines. I do not know how much energy is required to fill a helium balloon, but I'm sure that if the rocket was capable of reaching EV, the total energy expended by both balloon and rocket stages would be significantly less than if the rocket launched from the ground.
I do not think Escape Velocity is required to reach the Moon. Isn't EV the speed needed at sea-level to propel an object to infinity without any further propulsion? (Discounting the effects of wind-resistance.)
The influence of gravity gets weaker the further from the surface you are. EV at 5,000 meters is less than EV at sea-level. In theory you could fly to the Moon at 1 kmph, assuming you had enough fuel, monstrous engines, and a craft big enough to carry it all.
Have I Got News For You is topical comedy quiz show. It really is a classic, although original presenter Angus Deaton has not been hosting it since his, ahem, allegations. They have a guest presenter for each show, now.
The show stars Paul Merton and Ian Hislop on either side of the two-team format, and each week the teams have their own guest contender (oftentimes the subject of a roasting.)
Detailed plans were drawn up before being thrown out because of the difficulty of dealing with all of the fallout generated. We could probably deal with it today, and build within 20 years an interstellar-capable engine. At the least it would make round-trips to Mars a weekend excursion.
Not that I'm complaining about it, but last time this ran the pictures and video page withstood the Slashdotting. Probably because of the lack of a direct-link to it.
All I can say is Slashdot must be absolutely minted.
I remember reading that article when it was published almost two years ago, and Slashdot still haven't embraced web-standards, even for alleviating their bandwidth bills -- a cool $3,600 a-year saving if they followed that article.
But you do do have the disposable income for it. For some inexplicable reason there exists a defiant mentality towards buying the newest burning technology, no matter how inexpensive it has become. The mentality is fading, but it still exists.
It's not that you can't afford to buy it, you just don't want to because of some deep-rooted opinion against buying a new removable-media drive -- perhaps harking back to the days of the first four-figure price CD-ROMs. You don't need that 8-month old graphics-card either, but I bet you found a use for it once you bought it, right? Well, there are plenty of uses for DVD now that the format has matured.
Are you saying that you can't drop $50 out of your car-budget to buy a DVD-RW? Whatever car you buy, you could haggle off at least that much.
Most of us here are of the ilk that wouldn't bat an eyelid at the thought of upgrading a $400/£200 graphics-card to play the latest $60/£40 games. Yet when it is suggested that the time has come to buy a DVD-burner, the ROM-stalwart will chant "Too expensive!", "I'll never need one!", and "It's too soon!"
Not that I'm saying the parent poster is such a person, but making the observation here felt like the right thing to do.
Bart: "It's my job to be repetitive. My job. My job. Repetitiveness is my job. I am going to go out there tonight and give the best performance of my life." Marge: "The best performance of your life?" Bart: "The best performance of my life!"
I've never seen so many posts trying to justify what is plainly a slip-up posted for humours sake.
60 kilometers per-hour is 60 kilometers per-hour no matter what you're driving and no matter what an inaccurate tacho says.* If a tacho is inaccurate then the car is not doing 60 kmph when the dial reads 60 kmph, is it? It's doing 57 kmph or whatever.
What's next, convincing us that 1,000 lbs of lead is heavier than 1,000 lbs of feathers?
* - Leave General Relativity out of it for the sake of argument, please.:p
Media type HTML4 XHTML1.0 (HTML compatible) XHTML1.0 (other) XHTML Basic / 1.1 XHTML+MathML
text/html SHOULD MAY SHOULD NOT SHOULD NOT SHOULD NOT
XHTML 1.1 is the important one. XHTML 1.1 should not be served as text/plain, yet IE will not recognise it if served as xhtml+xml. That's non-compliance. The only XHTML format that can be served as text/plain is 1.0, which is little more than the HTML 4 specification with XML-tag closing rules.
For the future, you might want to read the article before you cite it, because absolutely nowhere does it specify the degree of IE's support for HTML or XML. You also claim that IE is "fully standards compliant" -- which anyone who has wrestled with CSS2 (a 6 year old standard) will know is plain false.
It is well documented that IE6 does not support XHTML served with the application/xhtml+xml mime-type. You can start here, and Google can help you with the rest.
Simmer down there, it was a joke. (But evidently not as glaring obvious as I thought.)
I'm British myself, although I do admit to preferring the "S" spelling of that particular word. I also tend to drop my "U" in words like "favorite".
But the next time you think to correct someone on regional spelling differences, remember that there are around 2,000 words in the English language that not even the people who write the dictionaries can agree on the spelling of.
I recommend reading Made In America by Bill Bryson for an interesting and accessible history on how English has evolved over the last 500 years, both at home and abroad.
Slashdot Mirror
The odds or the human eye "Evolving" is 1^213 i.e. 1:1000000000000000000...(213 zeros)
You mean, the odds of the human-eye evolving from nothing to its present state is 1*10^213, or whatever number you think it is (and how did you figure it out, I might ask? A little selective science going on?) You're not looking the evolutionary steps that came before the human-eye as we know it today, and you are assuming that evolution is a wholly unintelligent, random process.
Well, I went and looked it up. It seems that EV really does refer to speed rather than the energy required to attain that speed. I can see where you're coming from in (b), but I don't think it's quite right.
:p) use a helium balloon to lift their rocket to a high-altitude before firing its engines. I do not know how much energy is required to fill a helium balloon, but I'm sure that if the rocket was capable of reaching EV, the total energy expended by both balloon and rocket stages would be significantly less than if the rocket launched from the ground.
For example, take The da Vinchi Project. They will (eventually, possibly
I do not think Escape Velocity is required to reach the Moon. Isn't EV the speed needed at sea-level to propel an object to infinity without any further propulsion? (Discounting the effects of wind-resistance.)
The influence of gravity gets weaker the further from the surface you are. EV at 5,000 meters is less than EV at sea-level. In theory you could fly to the Moon at 1 kmph, assuming you had enough fuel, monstrous engines, and a craft big enough to carry it all.
Clearly, you missed out on the birth of yet another /. meme.
You tell him, Abonimous Cobard.
Oops, forgot the Wiki-link:
Y ou
;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_I_Got_News_For_
Try not to read the spoilers, though.
Have I Got News For You is topical comedy quiz show. It really is a classic, although original presenter Angus Deaton has not been hosting it since his, ahem, allegations. They have a guest presenter for each show, now.
The show stars Paul Merton and Ian Hislop on either side of the two-team format, and each week the teams have their own guest contender (oftentimes the subject of a roasting.)
Hilarity usually ensues.
...like that proposed for Project Orion?
Detailed plans were drawn up before being thrown out because of the difficulty of dealing with all of the fallout generated. We could probably deal with it today, and build within 20 years an interstellar-capable engine. At the least it would make round-trips to Mars a weekend excursion.
Not that I'm complaining about it, but last time this ran the pictures and video page withstood the Slashdotting. Probably because of the lack of a direct-link to it.
Anyway, the Coral-cached version of the page is currently working fine.
That didn't happen with fission power, but perhaps it will happen with fusion power.
It won't happen with either, so long as oil remains absurdly profitable and we're not choking to death on carbon-dioxide.
Sweet zombie Jesus
I think that's the whole point...
I think that's "waffa" thin. ;)
If you take the article-title literally, you're half-right:
Who Will Google Buy Next? (Internet)
All I can say is Slashdot must be absolutely minted.
I remember reading that article when it was published almost two years ago, and Slashdot still haven't embraced web-standards, even for alleviating their bandwidth bills -- a cool $3,600 a-year saving if they followed that article.
Man, you'd be great at a party. :p
But you do do have the disposable income for it. For some inexplicable reason there exists a defiant mentality towards buying the newest burning technology, no matter how inexpensive it has become. The mentality is fading, but it still exists.
It's not that you can't afford to buy it, you just don't want to because of some deep-rooted opinion against buying a new removable-media drive -- perhaps harking back to the days of the first four-figure price CD-ROMs. You don't need that 8-month old graphics-card either, but I bet you found a use for it once you bought it, right? Well, there are plenty of uses for DVD now that the format has matured.
Are you saying that you can't drop $50 out of your car-budget to buy a DVD-RW? Whatever car you buy, you could haggle off at least that much.
It's the one where Bart becomes the "I didn't do it" kid.
I forget which season.
I find the burner-upgrade phenomenon fascinating.
Most of us here are of the ilk that wouldn't bat an eyelid at the thought of upgrading a $400/£200 graphics-card to play the latest $60/£40 games. Yet when it is suggested that the time has come to buy a DVD-burner, the ROM-stalwart will chant "Too expensive!", "I'll never need one!", and "It's too soon!"
Not that I'm saying the parent poster is such a person, but making the observation here felt like the right thing to do.
Bart: "It's my job to be repetitive. My job. My job. Repetitiveness is my job. I am going to go out there tonight and give the best performance of my life."
Marge: "The best performance of your life?"
Bart: "The best performance of my life!"
Fine. 1 metric tonne of lead vs. 1 metric tonne of feathers. :p
I've never seen so many posts trying to justify what is plainly a slip-up posted for humours sake.
:p
60 kilometers per-hour is 60 kilometers per-hour no matter what you're driving and no matter what an inaccurate tacho says.* If a tacho is inaccurate then the car is not doing 60 kmph when the dial reads 60 kmph, is it? It's doing 57 kmph or whatever.
What's next, convincing us that 1,000 lbs of lead is heavier than 1,000 lbs of feathers?
* - Leave General Relativity out of it for the sake of argument, please.
XHTML 1.1 is the important one. XHTML 1.1 should not be served as text/plain, yet IE will not recognise it if served as xhtml+xml. That's non-compliance. The only XHTML format that can be served as text/plain is 1.0, which is little more than the HTML 4 specification with XML-tag closing rules.
For the future, you might want to read the article before you cite it, because absolutely nowhere does it specify the degree of IE's support for HTML or XML. You also claim that IE is "fully standards compliant" -- which anyone who has wrestled with CSS2 (a 6 year old standard) will know is plain false.
It is well documented that IE6 does not support XHTML served with the application/xhtml+xml mime-type. You can start here, and Google can help you with the rest.
...so long as it doesn't try and take my brain on its search for the meaning of life.
Simmer down there, it was a joke. (But evidently not as glaring obvious as I thought.)
I'm British myself, although I do admit to preferring the "S" spelling of that particular word. I also tend to drop my "U" in words like "favorite".
But the next time you think to correct someone on regional spelling differences, remember that there are around 2,000 words in the English language that not even the people who write the dictionaries can agree on the spelling of.
I recommend reading Made In America by Bill Bryson for an interesting and accessible history on how English has evolved over the last 500 years, both at home and abroad.