Actually, it is possible to get more DR (in fact enough for most HDR applications) out of a single sensor, but you need two amplifier/digitizer chains. Typical sensors in DSLR cameras have at least 2 stops of DR that is lost after the sensor! Here is a good discussion of this.
The primary PNAS article is pretty annoying IMHO. One of the main purposes of publishing research is to describe the methods so that others can reproduce it. In the Materials and Methods section, the only description of the fields applied refer to using 70% intensity setting of a commercially available product, the Magstim SuperRapid, which does not even appear on the manufacturer's website. Also, the orientation of the field is described only by referring to the orientation of the handle of the device. I would expect a published article to describe the actual field intensity, orientation, and some description of field geometry.
Guessing that the SuperRapid is equivalent to the Rapid, they are applying 70%*3.5 Tesla = ~ 2.5 Tesla. Holy cow, that's a lot. For comparison, Earth's field is 0.0005 Tesla.
I assume that no one really cares what happens when you apply these kind of fields to the brain given that one doesn't experience anything like this in normal situations. Is the point that we can learn about brain function by poking it in various ways, and this is just a good way to poke it?
...he has a razor that is very useful in these situations. You have three choices: one and two are rather bizarre theories that require significant new physics (reflecting gravitational waves or Heim theory). Choice three uses conventional physics, and is therefore boring. But it explains the GpB data so far.
Until polhode effects can be ruled out, Occam's razor pretty much requires us to stick with this explanation. Don't use a complex experiment to make claims about new physics unless you understand the experiment really, really well. It is just too easy for the "new physics" to turn out to be some subtle effect in the experimental hardware.
My understanding is that a modern twin (777) is less likely to lose one engine than an older quad (747) is to lose three engines. The 777 was more or less required to meet this challenge in order to be certified for over water use.
A 777 certainly does not have to divert to the nearest airport if it loses one engine. After all, the things fly over the Pacific where there are no airports!
Interesting thoughts. You touch on a theme that I have been thinking about lately: zero sum games versus more creative solutions.
So often we get stuck in zero sum games. You give up knowledge: I win; you lose. You get what you want: you win, I lose.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Shared knowledge can mean gains for both parties. Enabling your collaborators (competitors?) allows you to concentrate on your strengths.
Indeed, life does not have to be a chess match. But creativity and innovation are often required to avoid the trap of the zero sum game.
If you try to give the lay person a complete picture of everything that goes into your experiments and conclusions, of course you will fail.
But that does not mean that good scientific journalism is not possible. Good articles give a good flavor for the framework surrounding the experiment without becoming bogged down in the details. And a good article will point out the possible weaknesses in any experiment so that the reader has some idea of the likelihood for future falsification.
Not many writers know how to do this. Tom Standage, who edits The Economist's science and technology section, is about as good as it gets.
I think it's great the source code is getting out, and that we'll find out which devices are crappy and which are better.
But in the end, I don't think any of this matters. Drunk drivers are not prosecuted based on roadside breathalyzer tests. They are prosecuted based on tests done back at the police station using either a blood test or a much better lab-quality breathalyzer. These instruments are regularly tested in a way that makes it easy to convince a jury of the validity of the results. I've seen some of the corresponding tests on a roadside breathalyzer, and they convinced me not to trust the device.
So, it's good advice to decline the roadside tests.
Youtube has a video of the iGasm add here. I guess the add is for the UK market. I wonder if it could even be broadcast in the US with our current FCC situation.
My favorite piece of Windows-only software is Solidworks. It is by far the easiest-to-use solid modelling program out there, and yet it is very powerful.
It is also quite expensive (several k$), so you are unlikely to use it unless your line of work involves mechanical design.
Actually, it's not calculable farther in advance. The Earth's rotation is inconsistent enough that leap seconds are sometimes needed, but the need can't be predicted more than about a year in advance [1]. In other words, there is noise in the Earth's rotation period of about 1 second per year. Atomic clocks are a lot better than this (good to ~50 ns per year [2]!!!), so it's pretty easy to detect the problem.
I find it hard to believe that any company with greater than 10 employess will find the appliance useful given the 50,000 document limit. For reference, I have Google desktop search installed, and it has already indexed > 11,000 items! Granted, half of those are emails, but I do have > 5,000 files indexed. So 10 of me would reach the limit of the appliance. A little lame.
I don't agree that vote-from-home is a bad idea. I am a permanent absentee voter because going to the polling place is such a pain in the ass for me. Despite the fact that I vote from home, I spend a lot of time reading about various candidates and ballot proposals. Vote-from-home doesn't cause me to become so lazy that I don't do the proper research before voting. Can you prove that vote-from-home would lead to less educated voting choices among the general populace?
Also, forcing people to go to the polls during the week does disenfranchise a lot of potential voters. There are plenty of people who routinely work the 12+ hours (perhaps two jobs) that the polls are open , and simply can't get the time off to go to the polls. Slashdot is a pretty white-collar crowd, so not many of us have this problem.
I can understand taxation of usage of the telephone network because the government subsidized the original construction of this network and continues to subsidize it's maintenance. I don't understand how one can justify taxing a company's private telephone network, let alone their computer network. The government provides no infrastructure for either! Sounds like a blatant revenue grab to me.
So now I have to *pay* to listen to Howard Stern just because some other folks don't like his show or find it offensive? I don't think it's acceptable to just push offensive shows from the free airwaves to fee-based broadcast systems.
For the record, I don't actually like Howard Stern's show, but I think people who want to listen to it should be free to.
I must disagree with the assertion that the truth usually lies in the middle. I think that assertion comes from a culture of inclusion and relativism which results in a lack of ability to recognize that some "points of view" are JUST WRONG.
In this case, ignoring good scientific information is JUST WRONG. There's no middle ground here.
As discussed in the report and articles, the scientists are not taking issue with the policy decisions, becuase that is a much more complicated issue. The scientists just object to the exclusion of good science from the decision making process. How can you argue with that?
If it were simply the Bush administration not always following the policy recommendations of the scientific community, it would be an entirely different matter. Policy making requires cost/benefit analysis. Good science should be used to inform this analysis.
For some reason He3 has gotten quite a bit cheaper in the last decade or so. That is strange given that it comes from nucear reactors that are used to breed Plutonium for fission bombs.
Anyway, He3 costs about $100/standard gaseous liter these days. Still pretty expensive, when you consider that translates to about $700/liter in the liquid state!
I don't think Baja dust is really comparable, because the soil on mars is composed of "fines," which are extremely small (micron sized, I think). The gap on a log scale between fines and Baja dust is probably comparabel to the gap between Baja dust and gravel. Tough to keep out!
Vivismo might not be able to beat google in the sense that google beat yahoo et al. But if their underlying technology is good enough, then maybe google will buy them and integrate their ideas into google. That might be their best strategy at this point!
Times like these make me glad I have an ACLU member card in my pocket. I don't always agree with their stands, but I generally like their damned ideological persistence in defending civil rights.
What possible reason can SCO have for encouraging people to switch over to Windows (as the article indicates they might) unless they are in bed with Microsoft? Has SCO become a front for Microsoft in it's war against Linux? That is a scary prospect, because SCO doesn't care about it's reputation and so can do really nasty things that Microsoft would never get away with on it's own.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it is possible to get more DR (in fact enough for most HDR applications) out of a single sensor, but you need two amplifier/digitizer chains. Typical sensors in DSLR cameras have at least 2 stops of DR that is lost after the sensor! Here is a good discussion of this.
But they won't be allowed to ship that to Europe! RoHS and all that...
The primary PNAS article is pretty annoying IMHO. One of the main purposes of publishing research is to describe the methods so that others can reproduce it. In the Materials and Methods section, the only description of the fields applied refer to using 70% intensity setting of a commercially available product, the Magstim SuperRapid, which does not even appear on the manufacturer's website. Also, the orientation of the field is described only by referring to the orientation of the handle of the device. I would expect a published article to describe the actual field intensity, orientation, and some description of field geometry.
Guessing that the SuperRapid is equivalent to the Rapid, they are applying 70%*3.5 Tesla = ~ 2.5 Tesla. Holy cow, that's a lot. For comparison, Earth's field is 0.0005 Tesla.
I assume that no one really cares what happens when you apply these kind of fields to the brain given that one doesn't experience anything like this in normal situations. Is the point that we can learn about brain function by poking it in various ways, and this is just a good way to poke it?
...he has a razor that is very useful in these situations. You have three choices: one and two are rather bizarre theories that require significant new physics (reflecting gravitational waves or Heim theory). Choice three uses conventional physics, and is therefore boring. But it explains the GpB data so far.
Until polhode effects can be ruled out, Occam's razor pretty much requires us to stick with this explanation. Don't use a complex experiment to make claims about new physics unless you understand the experiment really, really well. It is just too easy for the "new physics" to turn out to be some subtle effect in the experimental hardware.
My understanding is that a modern twin (777) is less likely to lose one engine than an older quad (747) is to lose three engines. The 777 was more or less required to meet this challenge in order to be certified for over water use.
A 777 certainly does not have to divert to the nearest airport if it loses one engine. After all, the things fly over the Pacific where there are no airports!
Interesting thoughts. You touch on a theme that I have been thinking about lately: zero sum games versus more creative solutions.
So often we get stuck in zero sum games. You give up knowledge: I win; you lose. You get what you want: you win, I lose.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Shared knowledge can mean gains for both parties. Enabling your collaborators (competitors?) allows you to concentrate on your strengths.
Indeed, life does not have to be a chess match. But creativity and innovation are often required to avoid the trap of the zero sum game.
If you try to give the lay person a complete picture of everything that goes into your experiments and conclusions, of course you will fail.
But that does not mean that good scientific journalism is not possible. Good articles give a good flavor for the framework surrounding the experiment without becoming bogged down in the details. And a good article will point out the possible weaknesses in any experiment so that the reader has some idea of the likelihood for future falsification.Not many writers know how to do this. Tom Standage, who edits The Economist's science and technology section, is about as good as it gets.
I think it's great the source code is getting out, and that we'll find out which devices are crappy and which are better.
But in the end, I don't think any of this matters. Drunk drivers are not prosecuted based on roadside breathalyzer tests. They are prosecuted based on tests done back at the police station using either a blood test or a much better lab-quality breathalyzer. These instruments are regularly tested in a way that makes it easy to convince a jury of the validity of the results. I've seen some of the corresponding tests on a roadside breathalyzer, and they convinced me not to trust the device.
So, it's good advice to decline the roadside tests.
Youtube has a video of the iGasm add here. I guess the add is for the UK market. I wonder if it could even be broadcast in the US with our current FCC situation.
It is also quite expensive (several k$), so you are unlikely to use it unless your line of work involves mechanical design.
Actually, it's not calculable farther in advance. The Earth's rotation is inconsistent enough that leap seconds are sometimes needed, but the need can't be predicted more than about a year in advance [1]. In other words, there is noise in the Earth's rotation period of about 1 second per year. Atomic clocks are a lot better than this (good to ~50 ns per year [2]!!!), so it's pretty easy to detect the problem.
Sorry, I can't help with the second question.
[1] See this Wikipedia article.
[2] See this Wikipedia figure.
I find it hard to believe that any company with greater than 10 employess will find the appliance useful given the 50,000 document limit. For reference, I have Google desktop search installed, and it has already indexed > 11,000 items! Granted, half of those are emails, but I do have > 5,000 files indexed. So 10 of me would reach the limit of the appliance. A little lame.
I don't agree that vote-from-home is a bad idea. I am a permanent absentee voter because going to the polling place is such a pain in the ass for me. Despite the fact that I vote from home, I spend a lot of time reading about various candidates and ballot proposals. Vote-from-home doesn't cause me to become so lazy that I don't do the proper research before voting. Can you prove that vote-from-home would lead to less educated voting choices among the general populace?
Also, forcing people to go to the polls during the week does disenfranchise a lot of potential voters. There are plenty of people who routinely work the 12+ hours (perhaps two jobs) that the polls are open , and simply can't get the time off to go to the polls. Slashdot is a pretty white-collar crowd, so not many of us have this problem.
I can understand taxation of usage of the telephone network because the government subsidized the original construction of this network and continues to subsidize it's maintenance. I don't understand how one can justify taxing a company's private telephone network, let alone their computer network. The government provides no infrastructure for either! Sounds like a blatant revenue grab to me.
Are they going to tax home LANs, too?
So now I have to *pay* to listen to Howard Stern just because some other folks don't like his show or find it offensive? I don't think it's acceptable to just push offensive shows from the free airwaves to fee-based broadcast systems.
For the record, I don't actually like Howard Stern's show, but I think people who want to listen to it should be free to.
I must disagree with the assertion that the truth usually lies in the middle. I think that assertion comes from a culture of inclusion and relativism which results in a lack of ability to recognize that some "points of view" are JUST WRONG.
In this case, ignoring good scientific information is JUST WRONG. There's no middle ground here.
As discussed in the report and articles, the scientists are not taking issue with the policy decisions, becuase that is a much more complicated issue. The scientists just object to the exclusion of good science from the decision making process. How can you argue with that?
If it were simply the Bush administration not always following the policy recommendations of the scientific community, it would be an entirely different matter. Policy making requires cost/benefit analysis. Good science should be used to inform this analysis.
For some reason He3 has gotten quite a bit cheaper in the last decade or so. That is strange given that it comes from nucear reactors that are used to breed Plutonium for fission bombs.
Anyway, He3 costs about $100/standard gaseous liter these days. Still pretty expensive, when you consider that translates to about $700/liter in the liquid state!
I don't think Baja dust is really comparable, because the soil on mars is composed of "fines," which are extremely small (micron sized, I think). The gap on a log scale between fines and Baja dust is probably comparabel to the gap between Baja dust and gravel. Tough to keep out!
...because it's too damned hard to type!
Vivismo might not be able to beat google in the sense that google beat yahoo et al. But if their underlying technology is good enough, then maybe google will buy them and integrate their ideas into google. That might be their best strategy at this point!
Times like these make me glad I have an ACLU member card in my pocket. I don't always agree with their stands, but I generally like their damned ideological persistence in defending civil rights.
You can join too: www.aclu.org.
Does anyone else think the name Ransom Love sounds like a porn star pseudonym?
I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but...
What possible reason can SCO have for encouraging people to switch over to Windows (as the article indicates they might) unless they are in bed with Microsoft? Has SCO become a front for Microsoft in it's war against Linux? That is a scary prospect, because SCO doesn't care about it's reputation and so can do really nasty things that Microsoft would never get away with on it's own.
It's a lot more than 2.4%! (1024/1000)^5=1.13 => 13% error.