And P.S. getting on to check your email in the middle of the night isn't the sign of a true geek. It is borderline obsessive:).
Yep, that is correct. A True Geek will never have to get up in the middle of the night to check email. He is up all night on the PC, hacking away some code or watching a Star Trek marathon (and is reading the emails as they come in, on a pine window).
Oh, and you will notice that I linked to a mild article with an actual title of "Palin has not pushed creation science as governor". If you read even that mild article you will still easily realize she just hasn't pushed the issue in the past, yet she does not believe in evolution ("believe in evolution"??? I cringe even typing such a phrase about someone) and she would obviously like to see creationism taught. Go ahead, give her the power:)
Isn't the fact that if it was up to her our schools would be teaching creationism enough for a Slashdot reader? You can call me a troll/off topic, but I think if we have a FAIL in basic science, technology issues are unimportant.
Even though I am an ATI fan (obviously I want nVidia around to drive competition), and I have seen the Inquirer pull off great reports in the past, I still take this with a grain of salt. First of all, I am not aware of any panic about failed products in the various fora. In cases such as the Red Ring of Death, the Deathstar etc you could not visit a tech forum without having hundreds of people complaining. So maybe the problem is not that big. Also, the article centers around the fact that they switched from high-Pb solder to a non-lead one. Well, maybe they are switching to environment friendly? Of course, switching materials a month after launch is highly suspicious. Also, maybe there are failures not at such an alarming rate and also still within warranty so users don't make a big fuss - which would be an indication that a couple of years down the road we might see more failures and out of warranty ones, so it really is a big deal... Oh, well, we'll just wait and see.
25 years is not THAT much, you make the problem sound much harder than it is. Prints is an obvious solution as already mentioned. Then, include a couple of CD copies. Forget about putting IDE drives in there. The CD format has been around for more than 25 years, I am sure we will keep using some sort of optical media that will be CD compatible for a few more years. Even if they don't make CD-R compatible drives in 25 years (which i doubt), it will be easy to find an older drive with the capability. Just make sure you use archival-quality media and don't stick any CD-label on it. Then throw in a usb thumbdrive in case the USB (along with the thumbdrive) survive!
Re:Bourne-Again Shell
on
Bash Cookbook
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Seriously now, this is like posting a LOTR review by someone who thinks it was written by RJ Tokelen. Or a Star Trek review from a fan of "the late Rod N. Barry". You gotta love our editors!
Anyway, back to my review of Dark Night... Chris Nolon did it again!
Are you kidding me? You have to look it up? I even knew the radius/circumference in grade school, I expected this to be the norm in slashdot... Next thing you'll tell me you only know the first 5 decimal places of Pi... Anyway my point still stands, the educated people of the time not only had not improved on the ancient measurements, but they weren't even that sure which what was the best measurement etc.
And yet it would be over 10 years later when a cartographer IIRC finaly realized people were exploring a new continent. It would take even more years for everybody to be convinced and stop appointing "governor of Indies"... My point is that while most educated people knew the earth was round (let's leave the average folk of the era out of this), things like the circumference were not common knowledge even among those circles - they had to look up various tests and change their mind the moment someone says, hey I found India there. Otherwise we would not have movies about Cowboys and Indians...
Not only they knew, they had even measured the circumference of the Earth! It just drives me crazy that all this knowledge was somehow forgotten for over 1000 years... For example, even Colombus who knew the earth was round, should have also known the distance to India going the other way around, so it should be obvious to him that he found a new continent...
Unfortunately Dell has stopped making these great PDA's, so I don't know if you can get them now and at what price (they used to be very competitively priced though), but they had the presentation package which gave you a VGA-out and a powerpoint player compatible with it. A friend of mine who teaches in U. of Miami has given a few lectures using it and is quite pleased. Also, your boss might consider getting an Asus EEE to move around when he doesn't need a laptop with mucho horsepower...
First, there is no such word as "entergizeing" (or "diffinition" - but at least that is sort of close). Second, no, we don't call "microwave" whatever cooks your meal. In the "I-paid-attention-to-my-science-classes circles", microwave is the mm/cm part of the EM spectrum. You are still stuck on the same point. Try re-reading my message, I think I explain it thoroughly. Forget about the specific definitions. If you want to know - although I already explained this - the 1GHz was most likely chosen as a nice round number by the Engineers who "call" EM waves by their frequencies. Physicists prefer wavelengths so the usual definition would be 1m (which is 300MHz in vacuum) to 1mm. You'll just have to live with your microwave-emitting phone for now - sorry... You could try a Bluetooth headset, although that is also microwave (although of lower power than your phone or your oven).
At least you are not complaining about my wikipedia quote like the other guy:) So, the point is that when you want to say something "is not microwaves", using the IEEE definition of microwaves you have not really understood the continuity of the EM spectrum. Think about this, some phones use the 850/900 band, others use the 1800/1900 band. Do you think the former are "radio wave phones" and the latter "microwave phones" due to the (partly arbitrary) IEEE definition (engineers know frequencies so they used a nice round freq as the boundary)? No, both cell phone bands have similar properties making it easy to create dual band phones, they are absorbed by water (which is the main point your post was criticized about), and can be called microwaves or even radio waves - take your pick. To see how arbitrary the EM boundaries are, think about the fact that the entire microwave spectrum as defined by the IEEE is also considered part of the radio wave spectrum for most applications. I am sure IEEE has "radio bands" defined inside their microwave definition. In fact, when I read your first post I assumed that the common knowledge that our telecom devices transmit "radio waves" was what had confused you into thinking microwaves are unrelated, when they are pretty much the same thing here. In the end, everything's just photons...;)
Exactly! I was reading the summary about how hard yet powerful latex is, yada, yada and I was thinking - hey this guy needs a front-end! Then, he rejects some programs for being frontends to Latex!!! Anyway, I will share my experience from my physics years. So, after messing with the "beloved" MS equation editor, I switched to typing documents in Mathematica, or if I needed to use some Word features I would only type the equations in Mathematica and paste them to a Word document. Some friends of mine preferred the MathType addon with MS Word.
Are you kidding, or are you missing the point of a post on purpose, so that you can passionately pursue your favorite off-topic discussion? It just so happens that I started out as a Physicist, so upon reading the GGP post I found it very amusing that its author did not seem to realize that most of communication devices are on or around the microwave part of the spectrum and would thus have some familiar properties (like water absorption). I do remember that some books tell you microwaves start at 1m, while others at 30cm, but this is totally besides the point. Even if you agree that you are not talking about microwaves, but near-microwave radio waves it is still true that you will find near-microwave properties. You see, in most areas of physics (except quantum) you don't usually find discontinuities. To go back to your specific problem with my post, I do not consider Wikipedia an authoritative source, and I certainly do not conduct research by reading wikipedia. However, how do you propose I post about a pretty simple fact on slashdot? Do I present my credentials and claim myself an authority? Do I cite (MLS of course) 1st year Physics books from my library? Do I quote a wildly popular web encyclopedia on a simple fact I am sure is correct? What would you do?
Adding memory or replacing the hard drive on a MacBook is trivial (as long as you have a size 0 phillips screwdriver). Anyone who can hold a screwdriver and is not legally blind can do it.
The whole point is that a Mac User will never have a Phillips or Sony or even a Toshiba screwdriver. If there is no Apple screwdriver to do the job, the hard drive is irreplaceable as far as the Mac User is concerned.
Oh, yeah, this is slashdot. Microsoft already said they will build on Vista instead of going the microkernel way, and we have discussed that fact to death. Windows 7 will not be "Fresh Air", to the delight of/.ers everywhere. I mean, imagine if MS actually delivered a wonderful, light OS! That would certainly be the end of/. as we know it!
Hmm, in case you are not just trying to be a smart-ass but you actually do have a deficiency when dealing with natural languages, I will try to explain.
Let's try examples:
-Why did you give that guy your money? -He had a gun and he said it was either that, or he would kill me. So, I had no choice!
-Why did you get me a red lipstick. -Well, they only had three colors: "red rose" "passion red" or "cherry". So, I had no choice!
Now, notice that you can say that in both these examples there was a "choice", if we take the world literally, in it's dictionary definition. However, languages usually allow us to convey subtler meanings than those listed in a dictionary, which are context related. So, in both the examples the protagonists considered the available "choices" as not "real" or "worth mentioning" or not what they would expect "choices" to be. If you only speak math, it is a bit hard to understand at first, but reading some literature (no, I don't mean white papers etc) should help. I suggest you start with something by Terry Pratchett or Douglass Adams that will have interesting language constructs for you to study, and great entertainment value to science people. Be careful there are even more complex devices like a "metaphor" or a "hypocatastasis" etc. so be prepared.
Anyway, I gave my best, perhaps a native English speaker might explain it even better. I will now go back to surfing with my "super-fast" Verizon DSL that I "chose" among so many others...
Hmm, let's see. In upper west side (Zip 10023) I have the choice of: 1. Verizon ADSL 3mb/764 for $40/month 2. Speakeasy ADSL2 up to 12mb/1mb for $180/month (brand new choice, not available last year, but it might not go anywhere near 12mb if you are not close to the DSLAM - at least comes with static IP). 3. Time Warner Cable 5mb/512 for $60/month
I went with Verizon + static IP for around $80/month. All my friends in Europe mock me when I tell them.
In Brooklyn (ZIP 11209) I have the exact same "choices".
In our Chelsea/Manhattan location (ZIP 10010) we have the exact same "choices".
FiOS is nowhere to be found of course. May I repeat that my friends in Europe can switch between over 10 providers with up to 24Mbit for less than 30-40 euro (price depends on the country)?
So, no, in NYC we don't have a choice. We are stuck with slow & expensive connections.
First, the coefficient of performance for the type of heat pump you suggest is not much more than 3. Then, to achieve the 48% on the steam turbine we would need a quite complex design... The alcohol idea of course is very bad (for many reasons, one of which is that the common alcohols - methanol and ethanol - have a lower boiling point than water, thus the efficiency would be less).
OR, you could just use photovoltaic cells and convert solar energy directly to electricity and leave the elaborate steam engines to retrofuturistic movies and anime...
Slashdot Mirror
And P.S. getting on to check your email in the middle of the night isn't the sign of a true geek. It is borderline obsessive :).
Yep, that is correct. A True Geek will never have to get up in the middle of the night to check email. He is up all night on the PC, hacking away some code or watching a Star Trek marathon (and is reading the emails as they come in, on a pine window).
We sure didn't see that one coming...
Duh... Famous comedian, member of the Monty Python.
Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
So, is it unclonable like the Titanic was unsinkable?
Oh, and you will notice that I linked to a mild article with an actual title of "Palin has not pushed creation science as governor". If you read even that mild article you will still easily realize she just hasn't pushed the issue in the past, yet she does not believe in evolution ("believe in evolution"??? I cringe even typing such a phrase about someone) and she would obviously like to see creationism taught. Go ahead, give her the power :)
Isn't the fact that if it was up to her our schools would be teaching creationism enough for a Slashdot reader? You can call me a troll/off topic, but I think if we have a FAIL in basic science, technology issues are unimportant.
Even though I am an ATI fan (obviously I want nVidia around to drive competition), and I have seen the Inquirer pull off great reports in the past, I still take this with a grain of salt.
First of all, I am not aware of any panic about failed products in the various fora. In cases such as the Red Ring of Death, the Deathstar etc you could not visit a tech forum without having hundreds of people complaining. So maybe the problem is not that big.
Also, the article centers around the fact that they switched from high-Pb solder to a non-lead one. Well, maybe they are switching to environment friendly?
Of course, switching materials a month after launch is highly suspicious. Also, maybe there are failures not at such an alarming rate and also still within warranty so users don't make a big fuss - which would be an indication that a couple of years down the road we might see more failures and out of warranty ones, so it really is a big deal...
Oh, well, we'll just wait and see.
25 years is not THAT much, you make the problem sound much harder than it is.
Prints is an obvious solution as already mentioned.
Then, include a couple of CD copies. Forget about putting IDE drives in there. The CD format has been around for more than 25 years, I am sure we will keep using some sort of optical media that will be CD compatible for a few more years. Even if they don't make CD-R compatible drives in 25 years (which i doubt), it will be easy to find an older drive with the capability. Just make sure you use archival-quality media and don't stick any CD-label on it.
Then throw in a usb thumbdrive in case the USB (along with the thumbdrive) survive!
Seriously now, this is like posting a LOTR review by someone who thinks it was written by RJ Tokelen. Or a Star Trek review from a fan of "the late Rod N. Barry".
You gotta love our editors!
Anyway, back to my review of Dark Night... Chris Nolon did it again!
Are you kidding me? You have to look it up? I even knew the radius/circumference in grade school, I expected this to be the norm in slashdot... Next thing you'll tell me you only know the first 5 decimal places of Pi...
Anyway my point still stands, the educated people of the time not only had not improved on the ancient measurements, but they weren't even that sure which what was the best measurement etc.
And yet it would be over 10 years later when a cartographer IIRC finaly realized people were exploring a new continent. It would take even more years for everybody to be convinced and stop appointing "governor of Indies"...
My point is that while most educated people knew the earth was round (let's leave the average folk of the era out of this), things like the circumference were not common knowledge even among those circles - they had to look up various tests and change their mind the moment someone says, hey I found India there. Otherwise we would not have movies about Cowboys and Indians...
Not only they knew, they had even measured the circumference of the Earth! It just drives me crazy that all this knowledge was somehow forgotten for over 1000 years... For example, even Colombus who knew the earth was round, should have also known the distance to India going the other way around, so it should be obvious to him that he found a new continent...
Unfortunately Dell has stopped making these great PDA's, so I don't know if you can get them now and at what price (they used to be very competitively priced though), but they had the presentation package which gave you a VGA-out and a powerpoint player compatible with it.
A friend of mine who teaches in U. of Miami has given a few lectures using it and is quite pleased.
Also, your boss might consider getting an Asus EEE to move around when he doesn't need a laptop with mucho horsepower...
First, there is no such word as "entergizeing" (or "diffinition" - but at least that is sort of close). Second, no, we don't call "microwave" whatever cooks your meal. In the "I-paid-attention-to-my-science-classes circles", microwave is the mm/cm part of the EM spectrum.
You are still stuck on the same point. Try re-reading my message, I think I explain it thoroughly. Forget about the specific definitions. If you want to know - although I already explained this - the 1GHz was most likely chosen as a nice round number by the Engineers who "call" EM waves by their frequencies. Physicists prefer wavelengths so the usual definition would be 1m (which is 300MHz in vacuum) to 1mm. You'll just have to live with your microwave-emitting phone for now - sorry... You could try a Bluetooth headset, although that is also microwave (although of lower power than your phone or your oven).
At least you are not complaining about my wikipedia quote like the other guy :) ;)
So, the point is that when you want to say something "is not microwaves", using the IEEE definition of microwaves you have not really understood the continuity of the EM spectrum. Think about this, some phones use the 850/900 band, others use the 1800/1900 band. Do you think the former are "radio wave phones" and the latter "microwave phones" due to the (partly arbitrary) IEEE definition (engineers know frequencies so they used a nice round freq as the boundary)? No, both cell phone bands have similar properties making it easy to create dual band phones, they are absorbed by water (which is the main point your post was criticized about), and can be called microwaves or even radio waves - take your pick.
To see how arbitrary the EM boundaries are, think about the fact that the entire microwave spectrum as defined by the IEEE is also considered part of the radio wave spectrum for most applications. I am sure IEEE has "radio bands" defined inside their microwave definition. In fact, when I read your first post I assumed that the common knowledge that our telecom devices transmit "radio waves" was what had confused you into thinking microwaves are unrelated, when they are pretty much the same thing here.
In the end, everything's just photons...
Exactly! I was reading the summary about how hard yet powerful latex is, yada, yada and I was thinking - hey this guy needs a front-end!
Then, he rejects some programs for being frontends to Latex!!!
Anyway, I will share my experience from my physics years. So, after messing with the "beloved" MS equation editor, I switched to typing documents in Mathematica, or if I needed to use some Word features I would only type the equations in Mathematica and paste them to a Word document. Some friends of mine preferred the MathType addon with MS Word.
Are you kidding, or are you missing the point of a post on purpose, so that you can passionately pursue your favorite off-topic discussion?
It just so happens that I started out as a Physicist, so upon reading the GGP post I found it very amusing that its author did not seem to realize that most of communication devices are on or around the microwave part of the spectrum and would thus have some familiar properties (like water absorption). I do remember that some books tell you microwaves start at 1m, while others at 30cm, but this is totally besides the point. Even if you agree that you are not talking about microwaves, but near-microwave radio waves it is still true that you will find near-microwave properties. You see, in most areas of physics (except quantum) you don't usually find discontinuities.
To go back to your specific problem with my post, I do not consider Wikipedia an authoritative source, and I certainly do not conduct research by reading wikipedia. However, how do you propose I post about a pretty simple fact on slashdot? Do I present my credentials and claim myself an authority? Do I cite (MLS of course) 1st year Physics books from my library? Do I quote a wildly popular web encyclopedia on a simple fact I am sure is correct? What would you do?
Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths ranging from 1 mm to 1 m, or frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz.
Woops.
Apple has a monopoly on "cool" operating systems though...
Adding memory or replacing the hard drive on a MacBook is trivial (as long as you have a size 0 phillips screwdriver). Anyone who can hold a screwdriver and is not legally blind can do it.
The whole point is that a Mac User will never have a Phillips or Sony or even a Toshiba screwdriver. If there is no Apple screwdriver to do the job, the hard drive is irreplaceable as far as the Mac User is concerned.
Oh, yeah, this is slashdot. /.ers everywhere. I mean, imagine if MS actually delivered a wonderful, light OS! That would certainly be the end of /. as we know it!
Microsoft already said they will build on Vista instead of going the microkernel way, and we have discussed that fact to death.
Windows 7 will not be "Fresh Air", to the delight of
Hmm, in case you are not just trying to be a smart-ass but you actually do have a deficiency when dealing with natural languages, I will try to explain.
Let's try examples:
-Why did you give that guy your money?
-He had a gun and he said it was either that, or he would kill me. So, I had no choice!
-Why did you get me a red lipstick.
-Well, they only had three colors: "red rose" "passion red" or "cherry". So, I had no choice!
Now, notice that you can say that in both these examples there was a "choice", if we take the world literally, in it's dictionary definition. However, languages usually allow us to convey subtler meanings than those listed in a dictionary, which are context related. So, in both the examples the protagonists considered the available "choices" as not "real" or "worth mentioning" or not what they would expect "choices" to be.
If you only speak math, it is a bit hard to understand at first, but reading some literature (no, I don't mean white papers etc) should help. I suggest you start with something by Terry Pratchett or Douglass Adams that will have interesting language constructs for you to study, and great entertainment value to science people. Be careful there are even more complex devices like a "metaphor" or a "hypocatastasis" etc. so be prepared.
Anyway, I gave my best, perhaps a native English speaker might explain it even better. I will now go back to surfing with my "super-fast" Verizon DSL that I "chose" among so many others...
Well, I guess if telco customers are like you, we will never have real, competitive choices.
I am sorry but having the following options:
1. Rather slow, not really cheap.
2. Decent speed, exorbitantly expensive.
3. Pathetically low upstream, high cost.
when most of the world has dozens of faster & lower cost providers to choose from, really falls under my definition of "having no choice".
Hmm, let's see.
In upper west side (Zip 10023) I have the choice of:
1. Verizon ADSL 3mb/764 for $40/month
2. Speakeasy ADSL2 up to 12mb/1mb for $180/month (brand new choice, not available last year, but it might not go anywhere near 12mb if you are not close to the DSLAM - at least comes with static IP).
3. Time Warner Cable 5mb/512 for $60/month
I went with Verizon + static IP for around $80/month. All my friends in Europe mock me when I tell them.
In Brooklyn (ZIP 11209) I have the exact same "choices".
In our Chelsea/Manhattan location (ZIP 10010) we have the exact same "choices".
FiOS is nowhere to be found of course.
May I repeat that my friends in Europe can switch between over 10 providers with up to 24Mbit for less than 30-40 euro (price depends on the country)?
So, no, in NYC we don't have a choice. We are stuck with slow & expensive connections.
First, the coefficient of performance for the type of heat pump you suggest is not much more than 3. Then, to achieve the 48% on the steam turbine we would need a quite complex design... The alcohol idea of course is very bad (for many reasons, one of which is that the common alcohols - methanol and ethanol - have a lower boiling point than water, thus the efficiency would be less).
OR, you could just use photovoltaic cells and convert solar energy directly to electricity and leave the elaborate steam engines to retrofuturistic movies and anime...