So, like you and the two responses above me, I was really skeptical of this "freezing in space" idea. I even told a student that a reference they had cited was wrong in claiming that you would freeze to death in the Sun's corona, the argument being that you wouldn't freeze for the same reason you wouldn't burn: no particles to transport heat.
But I recently found out, from a colleague over beer, that loss of heat from blackbody radiation is actually much faster than I thought. In the old days, in non-cold places, some people (ancient Egyptions among others) would actually make ice, basically by letting water in a deep, dark place radiate it's heat away. Sure it took hours, and it had to be already pretty cold outside, but considering that the water was also being continually warmed by all the air around it, that's pretty impressive for "only" blackbody radiation.
It's pretty easy to calculate heat loss. According to this, in our 293K atmosphere we lose 95W. In a 2.7K vaccuum this translates to 640W, due to us not getting any energy back from the atmosphere.
With an average human body heat capacity of 3470 Joules per Kelvin per Kilo, a 70Kg person will drop to the freezing point from 305K in less than 3 and a half hours.
Ok, so that's pretty slow. Damn those movies suck.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are solar physicists around the world observing every measurable characteristic of the sun (that we can measure from here) all the time. Seems a bit silly to infer what's going on with the sun by looking at Mars instead of the sun itself. Unless some solar observations back this up, this'll probably be the last we hear of it.
What if the poster is someone that is known to be affiliated with/.? Like cowboyneal or taco. Which one started this thing anyway? Well, if the one who didn't start it or own it makes some libelous claims would/. still be off the hook?
And what's the fine line between a blog and something like Wikipedia?
Maybe TFM will have the answers. Oh wait, TFM is dotted.
I wouldn't be surprised if the comment PopeRatzo was replying to struck a nerve. No, saying that anthropologists can't accurately describe life thousands of years past does not involve race. But the comment started by guestimating that in thousands of years people will think Africans populated America first. And then goes on to say that the dumbest people have the most kids. It's pretty obvious what is implied. Even without race involved, the idea that 'dumb' people have more kids is offensive. But that's a whole other discussion.
Also, I thought it was common knowledge that Hispanics have the highest birth rate in the States. But here you go (pdf). Never heard about the evangelical christian thing though.
What do you think kids of yesteryear did? Sure we had a computer in the classroom. It was an Apple ][ and you had to share it with 23 other classmates. OH NOES!!!
Yeah, but life back then sucked compared to now. I wish I had been born a decade later just so that I would never have had to deal with:
trudging to the library to get info for a report
hand writing essays
typewriters
not to mention non-school related things like:
snail mail
print newspapers
lack of instant free porn
Just because we had to put up with this crap doesn't mean kids should still have to. Or maybe they should... lil' bastards.
I suspect that the "security zone" around US and Canada didn't happen because (from an admittedly Canadian point of view) the US became unreasonable about what security meant. We don't want to turn away everyone that the US does. And there have been several deportation and prison incidents on behalf of the states that have soured the situation further.
For instance, right now there's 9 year old Canadian child being held in jail in Texas. His crime? His parents are Iranian. They were on their way to Canada and were planning on staying there as political refugess from Iran (the parents are not presently Canadian, but were living there illegally a few years ago). On their way to Canada, on a flight that was not supposed to even touch down in America, the plane landed in Texas because a passenger had a heart attack. Somehow security focuses on this family (surprise, surprise) and they get held. Now, they wouldn't have just been let in freely in Canada, but they wouldn't be in jail either. Especially not a child (he's Canadian anyway). They would be allowed to apply and go through the procedure of claiming refugee status as everyone else does. So I just don't think the two countries can agree on who should be let in, and I'd place the blame on incidents like this which the US has committed. Afterall, we haven't locked up any 9 year old American children.
I agree about the tourism thing, but I've had many more rude border security agents from the States than from Canada. When I was living in Canada I got more grief entering the US (I'm a US citizen) than I did entering Canada (on a student visa).
I would invariably get asked why I'm visiting the States and for how long. Why do I have to have a reason to go home? I could understand if they wanted to know what I was doing in Canada, but I can do anything I want for however long I want in the States. I always wanted to say something like "well, things aren't working out in Canada, so I'm returning here to go on welfare". I mean, what could they do, not let me in? It's my country. But I never had the guts. I guess they could've held me at the border for hours.
I believe that most piracy occurs because the technology available today has not yet been widely deployed to make DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers.
So, piracy will go away when DRM-protected legitimate content is available for free, from many sources, comes in many formats, can be copied without restrictions, and works on many devices. Brilliant! We are finally on the same page. Now get working on that.
Well, if you like older games, the Bungie team started out with Marathon, which was in many ways a precursor to Halo, and is now Free for Mac, Linux, and Windows.
I agree that Apple coming out against DRM could prove to be the tipping point, but I'm pretty sure that Yahoo (among other companies) had already made some moves towards this before Jobs gave his views. But, once again, Apple will be seen as the original free-thinking innovators that everyone else follows.
Anyway, I'm not arguing with you, just bitching in general.
First of all, if you'd RTFA, or even the summary, or even other posts above yours, you'd have seen that they made this decision because proprietary drivers aren't reliable enough to install by default. How the crap is that not a sane reason?
If the music industry ends up deciding to scrap DRM on its' own, that will be a tremendous opportunity for us to tell the FSF and the fanatical element of the Debian Project to STFU once and for all...I say we take it.
That makes absolutely no sense. The FSF doesn't make Doomsday predictions just to piss companies off or because they are pessimistic. They make those predictions so that people will get off their asses and do something about the situation before the Doomsday prediction becomes a reality.
If DRM is scrapped it's a win for anybody against DRM, especially the FSF who have been telling people about the flaws of DRM since the beginning.
Well, I wasn't arguing that absolutely no closed source apps should be allowed. And I didn't say anything to the contrary to your first point.
All I was saying is that an "I don't give a damn about the principles of Free software, I just want it to work" attitude is not what got Linux where it is today, and will get Linux no further. If no one cared about the principles of Free software, no one would code it.
So please, learn to take a sentence as it is, and don't put words in my mouth. I don't have a 'free software revolution' waiting to happen, and I never outright rejected all non-Free apps.
Ubuntu was never created to be a Free distro the way Debian was.
That's not true. Even on today's Ubuntu front page:
The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
These freedoms make Ubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works the way you want it to.
You can't customize non-Free software in whatever way you want to.
Some people don't know their history and are extremely shortsighted. It's the Free that got Linux where it is today. If people had your attitude when this thing was starting up there'd be no Ubuntu, Linspire, or CNR. If people continue to have your attitude we will always have to jump through hoops just to get the latest codec/flash/nex-gen dvd playing on our systems.
There's a silver lining: the poor reliability of floppies is what taught me my good backup habits.
The !silver lining is that because of their poor reliability and the stress it's caused me, whenever I see floppies (or tapes) I throw them to the ground and stomp them to bits. Even if they're not mine.
So I know lots of apps can print to pdf. But the only app I've seen that can open up an existing pdf and change it is Adobe's writer.
Anyone know if other apps will be able to do this now? Or if some already do? I've heard of pdftk, but it doesn't seem to actually edit the content itself.
Slashdot Mirror
So, like you and the two responses above me, I was really skeptical of this "freezing in space" idea. I even told a student that a reference they had cited was wrong in claiming that you would freeze to death in the Sun's corona, the argument being that you wouldn't freeze for the same reason you wouldn't burn: no particles to transport heat.
But I recently found out, from a colleague over beer, that loss of heat from blackbody radiation is actually much faster than I thought. In the old days, in non-cold places, some people (ancient Egyptions among others) would actually make ice, basically by letting water in a deep, dark place radiate it's heat away. Sure it took hours, and it had to be already pretty cold outside, but considering that the water was also being continually warmed by all the air around it, that's pretty impressive for "only" blackbody radiation.
It's pretty easy to calculate heat loss. According to this, in our 293K atmosphere we lose 95W. In a 2.7K vaccuum this translates to 640W, due to us not getting any energy back from the atmosphere. With an average human body heat capacity of 3470 Joules per Kelvin per Kilo, a 70Kg person will drop to the freezing point from 305K in less than 3 and a half hours.
Ok, so that's pretty slow. Damn those movies suck.
Ya but what changes? Can we measure said changes?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are solar physicists around the world observing every measurable characteristic of the sun (that we can measure from here) all the time. Seems a bit silly to infer what's going on with the sun by looking at Mars instead of the sun itself. Unless some solar observations back this up, this'll probably be the last we hear of it.
Here.
Debian derivative. Uses Solaris as it's kernel.
TFA, I meant TFA. And no, TFA does not have the answers, it's hardly longer than the summary.
What if the poster is someone that is known to be affiliated with /.? Like cowboyneal or taco. Which one started this thing anyway? Well, if the one who didn't start it or own it makes some libelous claims would /. still be off the hook?
And what's the fine line between a blog and something like Wikipedia?
Maybe TFM will have the answers. Oh wait, TFM is dotted.
I wouldn't be surprised if the comment PopeRatzo was replying to struck a nerve. No, saying that anthropologists can't accurately describe life thousands of years past does not involve race. But the comment started by guestimating that in thousands of years people will think Africans populated America first. And then goes on to say that the dumbest people have the most kids. It's pretty obvious what is implied. Even without race involved, the idea that 'dumb' people have more kids is offensive. But that's a whole other discussion.
Also, I thought it was common knowledge that Hispanics have the highest birth rate in the States. But here you go (pdf). Never heard about the evangelical christian thing though.
What do you think kids of yesteryear did? Sure we had a computer in the classroom. It was an Apple ][ and you had to share it with 23 other classmates. OH NOES!!!
Yeah, but life back then sucked compared to now. I wish I had been born a decade later just so that I would never have had to deal with:
trudging to the library to get info for a report
hand writing essays
typewriters
not to mention non-school related things like:
snail mail
print newspapers
lack of instant free porn
Just because we had to put up with this crap doesn't mean kids should still have to. Or maybe they should... lil' bastards.
I suspect that the "security zone" around US and Canada didn't happen because (from an admittedly Canadian point of view) the US became unreasonable about what security meant. We don't want to turn away everyone that the US does. And there have been several deportation and prison incidents on behalf of the states that have soured the situation further.
For instance, right now there's 9 year old Canadian child being held in jail in Texas. His crime? His parents are Iranian. They were on their way to Canada and were planning on staying there as political refugess from Iran (the parents are not presently Canadian, but were living there illegally a few years ago). On their way to Canada, on a flight that was not supposed to even touch down in America, the plane landed in Texas because a passenger had a heart attack. Somehow security focuses on this family (surprise, surprise) and they get held. Now, they wouldn't have just been let in freely in Canada, but they wouldn't be in jail either. Especially not a child (he's Canadian anyway). They would be allowed to apply and go through the procedure of claiming refugee status as everyone else does. So I just don't think the two countries can agree on who should be let in, and I'd place the blame on incidents like this which the US has committed. Afterall, we haven't locked up any 9 year old American children.
There was a general pardon for draft dodgers some years ago. It's not automatic, you do have to apply, but I hear it's pretty easy to get.
I agree about the tourism thing, but I've had many more rude border security agents from the States than from Canada. When I was living in Canada I got more grief entering the US (I'm a US citizen) than I did entering Canada (on a student visa).
I would invariably get asked why I'm visiting the States and for how long. Why do I have to have a reason to go home? I could understand if they wanted to know what I was doing in Canada, but I can do anything I want for however long I want in the States. I always wanted to say something like "well, things aren't working out in Canada, so I'm returning here to go on welfare". I mean, what could they do, not let me in? It's my country. But I never had the guts. I guess they could've held me at the border for hours.
..could be bad.
The physicist in question didn't call it cold fusion, nor, I think, did anyone else besides the /. submitter.
-1. Build time machine, go back in time and step on whatever goo we evolved from.
I believe that most piracy occurs because the technology available today has not yet been widely deployed to make DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers.
So, piracy will go away when DRM-protected legitimate content is available for free, from many sources, comes in many formats, can be copied without restrictions, and works on many devices. Brilliant! We are finally on the same page. Now get working on that.
Well, if you like older games, the Bungie team started out with Marathon, which was in many ways a precursor to Halo, and is now Free for Mac, Linux, and Windows.
I agree that Apple coming out against DRM could prove to be the tipping point, but I'm pretty sure that Yahoo (among other companies) had already made some moves towards this before Jobs gave his views. But, once again, Apple will be seen as the original free-thinking innovators that everyone else follows.
Anyway, I'm not arguing with you, just bitching in general.
First of all, if you'd RTFA, or even the summary, or even other posts above yours, you'd have seen that they made this decision because proprietary drivers aren't reliable enough to install by default. How the crap is that not a sane reason?
If the music industry ends up deciding to scrap DRM on its' own, that will be a tremendous opportunity for us to tell the FSF and the fanatical element of the Debian Project to STFU once and for all...I say we take it.
That makes absolutely no sense. The FSF doesn't make Doomsday predictions just to piss companies off or because they are pessimistic. They make those predictions so that people will get off their asses and do something about the situation before the Doomsday prediction becomes a reality. If DRM is scrapped it's a win for anybody against DRM, especially the FSF who have been telling people about the flaws of DRM since the beginning.
So, what you're saying is, this is a good way to get the US to bomb itself?
See here.
Well, I wasn't arguing that absolutely no closed source apps should be allowed. And I didn't say anything to the contrary to your first point.
All I was saying is that an "I don't give a damn about the principles of Free software, I just want it to work" attitude is not what got Linux where it is today, and will get Linux no further. If no one cared about the principles of Free software, no one would code it.
So please, learn to take a sentence as it is, and don't put words in my mouth. I don't have a 'free software revolution' waiting to happen, and I never outright rejected all non-Free apps.
Ubuntu was never created to be a Free distro the way Debian was.
That's not true. Even on today's Ubuntu front page:
The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
These freedoms make Ubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works the way you want it to.
You can't customize non-Free software in whatever way you want to.
Some people don't know their history and are extremely shortsighted. It's the Free that got Linux where it is today. If people had your attitude when this thing was starting up there'd be no Ubuntu, Linspire, or CNR. If people continue to have your attitude we will always have to jump through hoops just to get the latest codec/flash/nex-gen dvd playing on our systems.
There's a silver lining: the poor reliability of floppies is what taught me my good backup habits.
The !silver lining is that because of their poor reliability and the stress it's caused me, whenever I see floppies (or tapes) I throw them to the ground and stomp them to bits. Even if they're not mine.
Thanks, I even use some of those now, obviously not very extensively.
But I just tried KWord for the first time and, holy crap, that thing is great. Now I have to resist another temptation to switch to KDE.
So I know lots of apps can print to pdf. But the only app I've seen that can open up an existing pdf and change it is Adobe's writer.
Anyone know if other apps will be able to do this now? Or if some already do? I've heard of pdftk, but it doesn't seem to actually edit the content itself.