One of the issues people tend to overlook when making this argument is that nature has searched only a part of the available solution space - the part that basically must start as an autocatalytic set.
Of course, we don't know that this is true. If nanoorganisms that self-reproduce in the wild by external construction using metal crystals are possible, then they might have evolved naturally. The fact that there are no such organisms may mean that nature hasn't "explored" that part of the solution space as you said, or it may mean that there are no solutions in that space--that power requirements etc. make such self-replicating machines unviable (in the wild).
The problem with that statement is that nature has to work within the confines of nature.
And you think our hypothetical nanomachines don't? If we make nanomachines capable of replicating and spreading "in the wild", they will have to deal with the same kinds of forces and constraints as natural organisms do. Using completely different chemistry from natural organisms might give them some kind of advantage, and might mean that they don't have to compete directly with natural organisms (i.e. no natural predators), but the fact remains that evolution is an exceedingly efficient engineer. It is unlikely that we will make anything anytime soon that compares in performance and robustness with natural organisms.
I wish, in criticizing WIPO's physics, that IP Justice had at least gotten their own physics right. In #2 on their top 10, and elsewhere on the site, they complain that broadcast signals cannot become "fixed" since "broadcast signals exist only in the air and dissolve upon reaching [solid] matter". This is bullshit. I am a physicist. Broadcast signals (e.g. RF) pass right through many solid materials. They are absorbed by other materials to varying degrees. They certainly do not "dissolve" on contact with solid matter, however. By criticizing supposedly-bad physics from WIPO with bad physics of their own, IP Justice just lowers their own credibility.
You may be right. I imagined the student playing the simulation several times, however. If the first time through WWII doesn't happen, the student has learned something about the causes of the war. He/she can always play the simulation again and try other possible courses of action. What is really critical is that the software be well designed, with guidance from historians on possible scenarios and outcomes of actions, and input from educators so that the software guides the student through the learning process (e.g. ensuring that a student who avoids starting WWII does learn what caused the war somehow.) If the software is not well designed, I certainly see potential for the kind of problems you are worried about.
I find it hard to believe that anyone moderated your post 'insightful'. Ultimately, serious financial crimes pretty much require punishment by jail time. I didn't RTFA in this case, but certainly con artists and other 'white collar' criminals do sometimes do irreparable harm to their victims. In many cases people's lives are nearly destroyed by such crimes.
Furthermore, there is no way a fine can provide adequate deterrent. To effectively deter a financial crime, the fine would have to be much larger than the amount of money that was misappropriated (otherwise the cost-benefit ratio favors the crime). The criminal is unlikely to be able to actually pay such a fine.
You seem to be viewing history as just a collection of facts--what happened and when. Unfortunately, high school curricula tend to encourage this kind of thinking. What makes history interesting and useful however is the analysis of why things happened. Encouraging students to explore alternate possible sequences of events may help them to begin to think about history on this deeper level. Of course this depends on the software being well written, with some academic insight going into the alternate possibilities and some guidance provided to make sure the student does learn what really happened.
Ironically, this strategy can have unintended effects. I read once that a state (California?) at one point increased the penalty for kidnapping to be the same as the penalty for murder. Sounds good, right? Kidnapping is a serious crime and we certainly want to do everything possible to prevent it.
The problem: if the penalty for kidnapping is the same as murder, it's in a kidnapper's best interests to always kill the victim. The punishment is the same, and you eliminate a witness. They can only execute you or throw you in jail for life once.
You would have the same problem if the punishment for virus writing were death. It would be in the virus writer's interest to do anything to avoid being caught and convicted, up to and including killing potential witnesses.
Of course, if you do that you are a "potential" threat. What really matters is how well they handle potential threats, given that the majority are probably not actual threats.
Dude, the fact that you can find photos of bridges online is not in any way evidence that photographers aren't being harassed for taking pictures of bridges. You need to take a course in logic and critical thinking or something.
Besides the obvious fact that some of the photos you found were probably taken before the current security precautions were implemented, the fact that some people succeeded in photographing bridges tells you nothing about how many failed.
Using that link to make a specious argument against the parent's claims probably contributed to your 'flamebait' status. The fact that you didn't get flamed is a testament to the maturity of the readership.:)
Call your senators (you have two) and tell them to oppose this bill.
Better still, write to your senators (on paper) and tell them to oppose this bill, and why. Politicians place greater emphasis on number of letters received from their constituents than they do on number of phone calls or emails.
Beyond this, the Sun is a tremendously inefficient fusion generator. It produces large amounts of energy only because it is so huge. The power produced per cubic meter is only a few Watts (if I recall correctly from a course taken years ago). In order to make a practical fusion power plant, the product of temperature and pressure needs to be much higher than that in the Sun.
What "radiation-soaked interior" are you speaking of? The only radiation generated are the energy itself and the neutrons which are fairly easy to manage. This is fusion, not fission.
Radiation-soaked is a good enough description. Neutrons are not that easy to manage, especially if the reactor has to run for decades without maintenance. Neutrons are hard to stop, and metals that are exposed to intense neutron radiation become radioactive over time. In the long run we may develop reactor materials that are resistant to neutron activation, or develop more advanced fusion processes that don't produce significant amounts of neutrons (thereby also increasing efficiency).
Even so, he is right that colonization of space is unlikely to ever relieve population pressures on Earth. We can't possibly send enough people and build the infrastructure necessary to support them on another planet. We can and should colonize space, but for other reasons.
Not very likely. Somebody went to the trouble of carving that on a monument. It probably meant something to him. Most likely, of course, it is of no importance to anyone living. Figuring it out will be good fun for the cipher geeks, anyway.
Not necessarily. Canada, for example, uses the metric system but still uses a decimal point rather than a comma and uses "billion" for 1000 times one million. Not sure about the current status of comma-vs-space for separating the thousands in large numbers. Spaces are a pain on computers with word wrapping.
you can fold an a4 piece of paper in half and it will fit nicely in an a5 envelope.
Not quite. The envelope would be exactly the same size as the folded paper, which would be too tight a fit. The A4 paper folded in half fits beautifully into a C5 envelope, however, and if you fold it in half again it will fit in a C6. If you don't want to fold your document, you buy a C4 envelope. What a neat system.
People have known the Earth was round for a lot longer than you think. The ancient Greeks not only knew it was round, they had a reasonably accurate estimate of the diameter.
This is an implementation problem. If anyone with a basic knowledge of programming can come up with a similar solution, then the patent is invalid. Obvious ideas are (theoretically) not patentable. The problem is that the Patent Office is failing in its responsibility to evaluate patents for obviousness.
When experiment and existing theory produce different results, you need a new theory. That's how science works. The universe is never wrong.
Actually, that's not quite how science works. Go read something by Kant. You first have to convince the scientific community that the experiment has been done correctly. In general this is a nontrivial problem. There is no objective way to prove that an experiment has been done correctly. When the experiment disagrees with existing theory it is very hard to determine whether the problem is that the theory is wrong or that the experiment is flawed.
I doubt the law forbids them from demanding that exempt employees be present during normal office hours. They just can't deduct anything from your salary if you are late or work less than the normal number of hours. As someone else said, pretty much all they can do is fire you.
Unfortunately, way too many systems only accept 8-character passwords. Worse, many of those will allow you to enter more than 8 characters when creating the password, but will reject the password when you try to log in, unless you only enter the first 8 characters.
Many systems will not allow either "MyGoldenRetrieverIsUberCool" or "MyGolden" since neither contains any numbers or punctuation symbols.
I gave up on passphrases after one too many times trying to figure out which variant of my standard passphrase I needed for a particular system.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, we don't know that this is true. If nanoorganisms that self-reproduce in the wild by external construction using metal crystals are possible, then they might have evolved naturally. The fact that there are no such organisms may mean that nature hasn't "explored" that part of the solution space as you said, or it may mean that there are no solutions in that space--that power requirements etc. make such self-replicating machines unviable (in the wild).
And you think our hypothetical nanomachines don't? If we make nanomachines capable of replicating and spreading "in the wild", they will have to deal with the same kinds of forces and constraints as natural organisms do. Using completely different chemistry from natural organisms might give them some kind of advantage, and might mean that they don't have to compete directly with natural organisms (i.e. no natural predators), but the fact remains that evolution is an exceedingly efficient engineer. It is unlikely that we will make anything anytime soon that compares in performance and robustness with natural organisms.
I wish, in criticizing WIPO's physics, that IP Justice had at least gotten their own physics right. In #2 on their top 10, and elsewhere on the site, they complain that broadcast signals cannot become "fixed" since "broadcast signals exist only in the air and dissolve upon reaching [solid] matter". This is bullshit. I am a physicist. Broadcast signals (e.g. RF) pass right through many solid materials. They are absorbed by other materials to varying degrees. They certainly do not "dissolve" on contact with solid matter, however. By criticizing supposedly-bad physics from WIPO with bad physics of their own, IP Justice just lowers their own credibility.
You may be right. I imagined the student playing the simulation several times, however. If the first time through WWII doesn't happen, the student has learned something about the causes of the war. He/she can always play the simulation again and try other possible courses of action. What is really critical is that the software be well designed, with guidance from historians on possible scenarios and outcomes of actions, and input from educators so that the software guides the student through the learning process (e.g. ensuring that a student who avoids starting WWII does learn what caused the war somehow.) If the software is not well designed, I certainly see potential for the kind of problems you are worried about.
You're just feeding a troll. Look at the guy's history. Mods: Mod grandparent 'flamebait'.
Furthermore, there is no way a fine can provide adequate deterrent. To effectively deter a financial crime, the fine would have to be much larger than the amount of money that was misappropriated (otherwise the cost-benefit ratio favors the crime). The criminal is unlikely to be able to actually pay such a fine.
You seem to be viewing history as just a collection of facts--what happened and when. Unfortunately, high school curricula tend to encourage this kind of thinking. What makes history interesting and useful however is the analysis of why things happened. Encouraging students to explore alternate possible sequences of events may help them to begin to think about history on this deeper level. Of course this depends on the software being well written, with some academic insight going into the alternate possibilities and some guidance provided to make sure the student does learn what really happened.
The problem: if the penalty for kidnapping is the same as murder, it's in a kidnapper's best interests to always kill the victim. The punishment is the same, and you eliminate a witness. They can only execute you or throw you in jail for life once.
You would have the same problem if the punishment for virus writing were death. It would be in the virus writer's interest to do anything to avoid being caught and convicted, up to and including killing potential witnesses.
Of course, if you do that you are a "potential" threat. What really matters is how well they handle potential threats, given that the majority are probably not actual threats.
Besides the obvious fact that some of the photos you found were probably taken before the current security precautions were implemented, the fact that some people succeeded in photographing bridges tells you nothing about how many failed.
Using that link to make a specious argument against the parent's claims probably contributed to your 'flamebait' status. The fact that you didn't get flamed is a testament to the maturity of the readership. :)
Better still, write to your senators (on paper) and tell them to oppose this bill, and why. Politicians place greater emphasis on number of letters received from their constituents than they do on number of phone calls or emails.
Beyond this, the Sun is a tremendously inefficient fusion generator. It produces large amounts of energy only because it is so huge. The power produced per cubic meter is only a few Watts (if I recall correctly from a course taken years ago). In order to make a practical fusion power plant, the product of temperature and pressure needs to be much higher than that in the Sun.
Radiation-soaked is a good enough description. Neutrons are not that easy to manage, especially if the reactor has to run for decades without maintenance. Neutrons are hard to stop, and metals that are exposed to intense neutron radiation become radioactive over time. In the long run we may develop reactor materials that are resistant to neutron activation, or develop more advanced fusion processes that don't produce significant amounts of neutrons (thereby also increasing efficiency).
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
ITER stands for International Thermonuclear Test Reactor.
Even so, he is right that colonization of space is unlikely to ever relieve population pressures on Earth. We can't possibly send enough people and build the infrastructure necessary to support them on another planet. We can and should colonize space, but for other reasons.
Not very likely. Somebody went to the trouble of carving that on a monument. It probably meant something to him. Most likely, of course, it is of no importance to anyone living. Figuring it out will be good fun for the cipher geeks, anyway.
Not necessarily. Canada, for example, uses the metric system but still uses a decimal point rather than a comma and uses "billion" for 1000 times one million. Not sure about the current status of comma-vs-space for separating the thousands in large numbers. Spaces are a pain on computers with word wrapping.
Not quite. The envelope would be exactly the same size as the folded paper, which would be too tight a fit. The A4 paper folded in half fits beautifully into a C5 envelope, however, and if you fold it in half again it will fit in a C6. If you don't want to fold your document, you buy a C4 envelope. What a neat system.
People have known the Earth was round for a lot longer than you think. The ancient Greeks not only knew it was round, they had a reasonably accurate estimate of the diameter.
Only if you don't mind losing 1" of your content in the narrow direction and having 1.5" of extra margin in the other direction.
This is an implementation problem. If anyone with a basic knowledge of programming can come up with a similar solution, then the patent is invalid. Obvious ideas are (theoretically) not patentable. The problem is that the Patent Office is failing in its responsibility to evaluate patents for obviousness.
Actually, that's not quite how science works. Go read something by Kant. You first have to convince the scientific community that the experiment has been done correctly. In general this is a nontrivial problem. There is no objective way to prove that an experiment has been done correctly. When the experiment disagrees with existing theory it is very hard to determine whether the problem is that the theory is wrong or that the experiment is flawed.
I doubt the law forbids them from demanding that exempt employees be present during normal office hours. They just can't deduct anything from your salary if you are late or work less than the normal number of hours. As someone else said, pretty much all they can do is fire you.
Many systems will not allow either "MyGoldenRetrieverIsUberCool" or "MyGolden" since neither contains any numbers or punctuation symbols.
I gave up on passphrases after one too many times trying to figure out which variant of my standard passphrase I needed for a particular system.