The answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything is 42.
The question is still unknown as the computer responsible for solving it was destroyed shortly before completing its task. That machane has since been rebuilt, but as it was somewhat of a rush job, there is likely some corruption in the results.
At any rate, the most recent known output from said computer is, "What is six times nine?" Which cannot be the ultimate question: six times nine equals fifty-four. so google needs to fix its calculator.
The solar wind is quasineutral. not charged. It is considered to be an equal mixture of positive and negative charged particles with a bulk charge of zero. In this state it is electrically conductive and is affected by magnetic fields. The bow shock is the result of interraction between interstellar plasma, solar wind plasma and the interplanetary magnetic field.
What? educated people question both of those theories. That's like saying people don't question newton's laws.. surely there were people who didn't, but that doesn't mean there isn't more work to do in the area. You've just insulted every scientist working on any kind of unified theory.
You're right. we should only be allowed to vote for incumbants. Organizations with millions of members, the AARP for instance, should not be allowed to field or fund candidates for office.
Why do these inexpensive devices always look like cheap toys though? I can't quite put my finger on why, but I feel more comfortable using the form factor of the more expensive models over these things you can buy in a supermarket even though it appears to be about as feature filled as a palm from 4-5 years ago.
For the same reason I fail to be interested in any of the offerings from sharper image ever.
I think they moved all of their interesting stuff up to digital. "The Science channel! The Science channel! Discovery Science is now The Science channel! The Science channel!"
of course i haven't had digital cable for sometime now (it was that or broadband) so i don't know if it's still interesting. (also.. I may have made the wrong choice...)
Pi day should occur once every year. that's why the american date system works so well.. the natual demarcation between the 3 and the 14. I suppose there are a number of ways to divy it up, but none are quite as elegant: 3.14 -> 3/14 -> March 14 3.14 -> 3-14 -> third day of the 14th month (feb 3?)
-> 31/45 -> 45th day of the 31st month (this makes even less sense)
-> 31-45 -> 31st day of the 45th month
-> 31-4 -> 31st day of the 4th month (second most elegant by far)
both 31st day of april and 14th day of march work if your only criterion is to use as many digits as possible to get somewhat believeable dates (leeway granted on 31 of april since some months do have 31 days) 14th of march satisfies the addional criterion that you use the fraction mark as a natural delimiter.
(Ignoring other, less accurate representations of pi such as 22/7, which translates very nicly into July 22 in the european style dates and is nonsensical in the american style.)
The replica wouldn't have the "this actual object has actually been in space" feel. (assuming they let you touch it) (hmm might be neat to mount it in an observatory and use it as a rediculously overpowered optical telescope)
Which brings to mind the question: Should extra expense be considered to allow for end of life retreival of popular missions. i.e. build the thing with a heat shield and parachute so no expensive mission would be needed to recover it for posterity.
I do agree with your point - why spend a billion dollars to recover an object that would just go in a museum when we can build an exact copy fairly easily for a fraction of that cost. (but a couple extra million for a parachute and heat shield on future projects..that doesn't even have to be guaranteed to work? i'm all for that especially if we can convince a few million like minded people to donate a dollar for the cause and avoid mooching off taxpayers.)
The trouble with composite tanks is that they are difficult to inspect. If a little corrosion starts due to a pinhole in the jacket, the canister can erode away leaving the jacket untouched. This would especially be a problem for anyone filling tank as they would not be able to tell by quick surface exam that the tank is damaged. The environment the tanks will be in is also not very forgiving. Rainwater, roadsalt, mud, show, etc. are not very good for your car's frame, I see know reason these would not be similarly disastrous for the tank.
Actually, corrosion is a problem for all compressed gas containers. Hydrogen powered cars will have to solve this as well. I have seen a compressed air car using liquid nitrogen as its power source but liquid hydrogen storage is more difficult (-250C versus -80C) This technology is interesting, but remember that filling the tanks is not an efficient process. Heat generated during compression is lost to the environment.
Scuba tanks for instance (operating at about the pressures you described) are visually inspected every year (inside and out) and must be hydrostatically (pressurized to much higher than the typical working pressure and strain measured) tested every five years. I do not know the rational for those particular time periods, but believe that they are DOT regulations (and that there is some logic behind it).
I would assume that these tanks would be filled and drained more frequently than most scuba tanks and so increased frequency of inspections might also be warrented. (though some kind of swappable design may mitigate this)
AFAIK the 747 is one of the more efficient designs (in terms of lbs of fuel per passenger mile). Bigger planes get better efficiency in that regard. I don't believe that the hybrid approach would be useful to planes as it is not useful to cars on the highway either. The two main benefits of the hybrid system in cars is that the engine can be allowed to run at its most effective rate regardless of road conditions (many engines are more efficient at 3000 rpm than 2000 rpm if you can take advantage of it) and regenerative breaking. A vehicle which does not vary its speed or make frequent stops will see no benefit from the hybrid system seen in automobiles.
In fact, a perfectly designed hybrid car should be mass independant: it should not matter how much the car weighs. Only it's cross sectional area into the wind and rolling friction should affect mileage since the energy lost in accelerating would be gained back on breaking.
On a side note, I find it humorous that a french company would be using psi to measure the pressure in the tanks and km to measure the distance travelled.
in SI units, this would be 24,131 kPa(240 atm) - 150 km or in standard units, 3500 psi ~ 100 miles. Leaving out, of course, the capacity of the tank.
Under the right conditions they will burn, and over time (much longer than you'll live) they will slowly decay.
In fact, even the wikipedia mentions this, "Thermodynamic stability: At surface air pressure (one atmosphere), diamonds are not as stable as graphite...However, owing to a very large kinetic energy barrier, diamonds are metastable; they will not decay into graphite under normal conditions."
So buy your fiancee a graphite ring.
(I seem to remember that every element lighter than iron is at a higher energy state than iron, and every element heavier is also at a higher energy state, so all elements tend to decay towards iron. So really, only iron is forever.)
See that's the problem with taxes. The code is so complicated that you have to do your OWN taxes. or pay someone to do it. What businesses use this model? Imagine if you never got a power bill: you were expected to account for your own power usage. and you have to keep track of the hours of usage, credit you get for using specially approved devices, archic volumes describing the rate on this day or that according to the time and the position of the sun, different usage levels cost different per kwh, if you have more users, you get some kind of credit/penalty, and for 100 years, not a single word has been struck from the text, but the code is extensively modified, poorly documented and occupies more pages than the bible. (and you better be honest about it or else)
Even a complete moron should be able to understand how to file taxes.
Of course, simplfying the tax code would put thousands of tax preparers out of business.
I wish they took off. Interesting point though: If you're a touch typist, you don't really need the whole outline; Just two dots to know where the "home row" is.
I was told in an ethics class that the language itself is sexist because we use 'he' or 'she' and not some gender-neutral word as the standard pronoun. The problem is that 'them' is plural and it mucks up the language to put that in there and 'he/she' is not a good solution either. Too much punctuation (especially ('s or/'s) is distracting.
Slashdot Mirror
The answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything is 42.
The question is still unknown as the computer responsible for solving it was destroyed shortly before completing its task. That machane has since been rebuilt, but as it was somewhat of a rush job, there is likely some corruption in the results.
At any rate, the most recent known output from said computer is, "What is six times nine?" Which cannot be the ultimate question: six times nine equals fifty-four. so google needs to fix its calculator.
and lunar real estate. How can you claim land you don't intend to occupy?
The solar wind is quasineutral. not charged. It is considered to be an equal mixture of positive and negative charged particles with a bulk charge of zero. In this state it is electrically conductive and is affected by magnetic fields. The bow shock is the result of interraction between interstellar plasma, solar wind plasma and the interplanetary magnetic field.
What? educated people question both of those theories. That's like saying people don't question newton's laws.. surely there were people who didn't, but that doesn't mean there isn't more work to do in the area. You've just insulted every scientist working on any kind of unified theory.
how's that a problem? don't they have CC in japan?
a sufficiently long computation of pi will reproduce the entire works of shakespeare in binary.
You're right. we should only be allowed to vote for incumbants. Organizations with millions of members, the AARP for instance, should not be allowed to field or fund candidates for office.
Why do these inexpensive devices always look like cheap toys though? I can't quite put my finger on why, but I feel more comfortable using the form factor of the more expensive models over these things you can buy in a supermarket even though it appears to be about as feature filled as a palm from 4-5 years ago.
For the same reason I fail to be interested in any of the offerings from sharper image ever.
I think they moved all of their interesting stuff up to digital. "The Science channel! The Science channel! Discovery Science is now The Science channel! The Science channel!"
of course i haven't had digital cable for sometime now (it was that or broadband) so i don't know if it's still interesting. (also.. I may have made the wrong choice...)
seriously, for the unwashed, what is KeyKOS and why are you interested?
"KeyKOS ® is a persistent, pure capability operating system."
Doesn't tell me (a non-CS major) anything useful about it at all.
Pi day should occur once every year. that's why the american date system works so well.. the natual demarcation between the 3 and the 14. I suppose there are a number of ways to divy it up, but none are quite as elegant:
3.14 -> 3/14 -> March 14
3.14 -> 3-14 -> third day of the 14th month (feb 3?)
-> 31/45 -> 45th day of the 31st month (this makes even less sense)
-> 31-45 -> 31st day of the 45th month
-> 31-4 -> 31st day of the 4th month (second most elegant by far)
both 31st day of april and 14th day of march work if your only criterion is to use as many digits as possible to get somewhat believeable dates (leeway granted on 31 of april since some months do have 31 days) 14th of march satisfies the addional criterion that you use the fraction mark as a natural delimiter.
(Ignoring other, less accurate representations of pi such as 22/7, which translates very nicly into July 22 in the european style dates and is nonsensical in the american style.)
The replica wouldn't have the "this actual object has actually been in space" feel. (assuming they let you touch it) (hmm might be neat to mount it in an observatory and use it as a rediculously overpowered optical telescope)
Which brings to mind the question: Should extra expense be considered to allow for end of life retreival of popular missions. i.e. build the thing with a heat shield and parachute so no expensive mission would be needed to recover it for posterity.
I do agree with your point - why spend a billion dollars to recover an object that would just go in a museum when we can build an exact copy fairly easily for a fraction of that cost. (but a couple extra million for a parachute and heat shield on future projects..that doesn't even have to be guaranteed to work? i'm all for that especially if we can convince a few million like minded people to donate a dollar for the cause and avoid mooching off taxpayers.)
The trouble with composite tanks is that they are difficult to inspect. If a little corrosion starts due to a pinhole in the jacket, the canister can erode away leaving the jacket untouched. This would especially be a problem for anyone filling tank as they would not be able to tell by quick surface exam that the tank is damaged. The environment the tanks will be in is also not very forgiving. Rainwater, roadsalt, mud, show, etc. are not very good for your car's frame, I see know reason these would not be similarly disastrous for the tank.
Actually, corrosion is a problem for all compressed gas containers. Hydrogen powered cars will have to solve this as well. I have seen a compressed air car using liquid nitrogen as its power source but liquid hydrogen storage is more difficult (-250C versus -80C) This technology is interesting, but remember that filling the tanks is not an efficient process. Heat generated during compression is lost to the environment.
Scuba tanks for instance (operating at about the pressures you described) are visually inspected every year (inside and out) and must be hydrostatically (pressurized to much higher than the typical working pressure and strain measured) tested every five years. I do not know the rational for those particular time periods, but believe that they are DOT regulations (and that there is some logic behind it).
I would assume that these tanks would be filled and drained more frequently than most scuba tanks and so increased frequency of inspections might also be warrented. (though some kind of swappable design may mitigate this)
AFAIK the 747 is one of the more efficient designs (in terms of lbs of fuel per passenger mile). Bigger planes get better efficiency in that regard. I don't believe that the hybrid approach would be useful to planes as it is not useful to cars on the highway either. The two main benefits of the hybrid system in cars is that the engine can be allowed to run at its most effective rate regardless of road conditions (many engines are more efficient at 3000 rpm than 2000 rpm if you can take advantage of it) and regenerative breaking. A vehicle which does not vary its speed or make frequent stops will see no benefit from the hybrid system seen in automobiles.
In fact, a perfectly designed hybrid car should be mass independant: it should not matter how much the car weighs. Only it's cross sectional area into the wind and rolling friction should affect mileage since the energy lost in accelerating would be gained back on breaking.
On a side note, I find it humorous that a french company would be using psi to measure the pressure in the tanks and km to measure the distance travelled.
in SI units, this would be 24,131 kPa(240 atm) - 150 km
or in standard units, 3500 psi ~ 100 miles.
Leaving out, of course, the capacity of the tank.
The same oil industry that is selling fuel to oil-burning electric power plants?
what with pi day and all?
how do you know how much it costs them?
That sentence can be parsed two ways. One of which is not amazing at all.
Under the right conditions they will burn, and over time (much longer than you'll live) they will slowly decay.
In fact, even the wikipedia mentions this,
"Thermodynamic stability: At surface air pressure (one atmosphere), diamonds are not as stable as graphite...However, owing to a very large kinetic energy barrier, diamonds are metastable; they will not decay into graphite under normal conditions."
So buy your fiancee a graphite ring.
(I seem to remember that every element lighter than iron is at a higher energy state than iron, and every element heavier is also at a higher energy state, so all elements tend to decay towards iron. So really, only iron is forever.)
See that's the problem with taxes. The code is so complicated that you have to do your OWN taxes. or pay someone to do it. What businesses use this model? Imagine if you never got a power bill: you were expected to account for your own power usage. and you have to keep track of the hours of usage, credit you get for using specially approved devices, archic volumes describing the rate on this day or that according to the time and the position of the sun, different usage levels cost different per kwh, if you have more users, you get some kind of credit/penalty, and for 100 years, not a single word has been struck from the text, but the code is extensively modified, poorly documented and occupies more pages than the bible. (and you better be honest about it or else)
Even a complete moron should be able to understand how to file taxes.
Of course, simplfying the tax code would put thousands of tax preparers out of business.
You don't need that library anymore.. seriously.. how many movies can you watch in a week?
If the hull generated "power" why wasn't that the primary source?
--
If your plan 'B' is better than your plan 'A' then you've planned backwards.
I wish they took off. Interesting point though: If you're a touch typist, you don't really need the whole outline; Just two dots to know where the "home row" is.
I believe my HP calculator is built around a "Dragonball" 4mhz processor.
I was told in an ethics class that the language itself is sexist because we use 'he' or 'she' and not some gender-neutral word as the standard pronoun. The problem is that 'them' is plural and it mucks up the language to put that in there and 'he/she' is not a good solution either. Too much punctuation (especially ('s or /'s) is distracting.
Seriously. How do you get "Farewell, Mayhaps we shall meet again in the future. Goodbye until then" from '73' or "Hugs and kisses" from '88'?