I like the story about Elisha Gray's tangle with Graham Bell. (mentioned in wiki, Elisha Gray) The version I heard may have been spiced up a bit though:
supposedly, Gray submitted his plans to the patent office but did not have a prototype at all, a requirement at the time. Bell's prototype did not work, but since gray did not have a full patent, he was able to look at gray's work and fix his prototype before gray was able to build one. I'm not sure what the lesson was supposed to be though.
Telescopes have wide aperatures for two reasons. Angular resolution and light intensification. At high magnification, the light is more 'spread out' so it is *less* intense.. or would be if the aperature of the telescope was the same as your iris. It is not. The larger aperature area of the telescope can collect much more light, and this is why you must not look at the celestial object without filters. Under high enough magnification (which would probably be well beyond the diffraction limit for most telescopes) you would not need the filter anymore.
White light can be parallel too, and laser light need not be. It's just a function of the focusing system. If using only reflective optics, there should no difference in divergence between white light or laser light.
With refractive optics, there is some benefit to using laser light. It is almost a single wavelength, so there is no need to compensate for chromatic abberation.
Those guys are fun to watch, but keep in mind, they can't tell the differnece between pressure and energy. (case in point: chicken gun)
"oh there's no difference except the frozen chicken decelerates in less time and spreads out less. Busted!"
Last i checked, F=ma, and P=F/A, so P = ma/A. increasing a and decreasing A both increase P, which is what they should've been looknig for in the first place. (so they should've shouted excitedly, "Inconclusive!")
Argh. I really like that show, so that's probably why I just wish they'd do a better job with fact checking and general physics.
Why are missing pages 404 errors? Since they happen so often shouldn't they be higher on the list? are there 403 more important or encountered errors? Am i totally off base in my assumptions?
I once called my phone company (bellsouth) and asked about the extras on my bill:
Billing rate: 9.95/mo. (no long distance)
Bill: $21-30/mo. all in assorted things labeled FCC this and federal that.
I was walked through each one. They are directly passing the cost of government mandated services on to customers. (some were 'government mandated' things they would do anyway, like laying line and fiber to new costomers - well eventually anyway)
The point is that none of those items are a tax collected by the phone company on behalf of the government. All of that money goes to the phone company itself (to pay for services though). Since those items are all ligitimate costs of doing business, they should be folded into the quoted price rather than duplicitiously listed separately.
How would you like it if you went to a gift shop and they charged $1.00 for a post card.. but when you go to pay, they add.15 for storing it,.50 for shipping it,.05 for electricity to the store,.10 for store phone service, and.20 for processing the sale. Then they added.14 actual tax (because the item you're buying is really 2.00 not 1.00.)
None of which are valid uses of a number that's meant to keep track of your contribution to social security. Only the finantial aid dept. would need that information. The university as a whole should not have it. My university insists on using SSN as ID even though there is a perfectly serviceable "collegue number" on everyone's student ID's.
The fact that it is being used as an identification number does not mean that it should be used as an identification number. In fact, it is being used as an end-run around actually creating national ID's and numbers.
In the few classes where professors actually had their own textbooks, They were happy to provide paper-bound versions on-the-cheap (about $20-30 for over 500pages). For students unable to get even these cheap copies, the professors often had extras or photocopied pages (It's fair use if YOU wrote it right?).
I think part of the reason was that they were testing the books on the students, going through a few classes before full-scale publishing. My most expensive textbooks were all mass-published (but very low demand or used in more than one class) I don't believe the professors see very much of the purchase price.
The real criminal here is the school bookstores.
1 + $120 for a textbook you only use once 2 - $30 (coupon) buyback (you don't need it right?) 3 + $90 for the "used" book you only use once 4 - $20 (coupon) buyback 5 + $70per repeat 3,4 until publisher convinces prof to change books
That's incorrect. A quick web search reveals: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020826.html Only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are exclusively reserved for movies. The remainder of the 555 exchange is being parceled out.
What do you call a machine with the body of a man, but the legs of a tank? i think everyone's tired of 'chimera' fever that swept through hollywood recently.
Is more like a few of those super-ball thingies bouncing around a really roomy tank. The particles don't even interract with each other: the most prevalent collision is by far the particles with the surface. In fact, there's some question about solar pressure 'blowing' away the atmosphere. (though it would be replenished by solar wind particles) On earth would be very difficult to get a vacuum of the quality of mercury's "atmosphere." calling it a trace is extremely generous.
Is centripetal force sufficient to maintain the astronauts' bodies? is there something else to living in a planet's gravity well we have not considered? All of these questions and more will not be solved by Space Station Alpha. (aka MIR 2: America Helps).
If it can slide down, it can probably go down in a more dignified way by remaining vertical provided the structure is sturdy enough.. though stopping mid stairs might be interesting.
I would like to see the up-the-stairs competition. Oh yes.. and spikes.. definately spikes.
It's quite effective for large distribution of eclectic files, since everyone kind-of shares bandwidth.. but for truely mass distribution, BT is extremely INefficient. Since uploading is required at the same time as downloading, there is twice the traffic going over whatever backbone network is used for the bulk of internet transfers. This is not really significant now because BT is not being used as a broadcast standard and most people have asymmetric broadband anyway.
The most efficient way to send things to large amounts of people is to combine cashing with multicast. Cut down on duplicating the bits sent to the greatest extent possible. This is already occuring to a certain extent. My ISP (formerly Time-Warner (and it actually worked BETTER when it was.. go-figure)) has been cashing patches for many online games "locally" for some time now, and provides very good download speeds for things that are 'in-network.' The only thing they are missing is transparency: It would be nice if frequently accessed pages, and infrequently updated but high bandwidth (like patches or ISO's) were cashed more locally, rather than individually downloaded. Digital TV is a sort of multicast method as well.
Dividing up the bandwith among several users and then attempting to re-aggregate that bandwith is a waste of resources for high-volume, high-bandwidth applications. It does however appear to save bandwidth on the initial server, but only as the cost is (hidden) shared by the users.
parent suggested waiting until hubble falls enough to be relatively close to ISS's orbit. (by relatively i mean close enough to transfer to ISS orbit and dock with ISS in the event of trouble)
I don't think this is possible even if they were at the same level orbit. Hubble's inclination is about as low as you can get (launching from kennedy that is), about 28.5 degrees. ISS's orbit was optimized for revinue (passing over as many countries as possible so as to get funding) and is about 51.6 degrees.
their final fee is a percentage of the selling price.
What right do they have to that? Ebay doesn't risk any capital in the sales, they never take posession of the items or add value (by say.. inspecting items) so what claim do they have on the selling price. Now a price per bid, i could see maybe if they wanted to nickle and dime it like that. They sure do make a lot of money for a company that doesn't sell ANYTHING.
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I like the story about Elisha Gray's tangle with Graham Bell. (mentioned in wiki, Elisha Gray) The version I heard may have been spiced up a bit though:
supposedly, Gray submitted his plans to the patent office but did not have a prototype at all, a requirement at the time. Bell's prototype did not work, but since gray did not have a full patent, he was able to look at gray's work and fix his prototype before gray was able to build one. I'm not sure what the lesson was supposed to be though.
I thought patents were meant to encourage inventors to publish by protecting their work for a specified time.
Telescopes have wide aperatures for two reasons. Angular resolution and light intensification. At high magnification, the light is more 'spread out' so it is *less* intense.. or would be if the aperature of the telescope was the same as your iris. It is not. The larger aperature area of the telescope can collect much more light, and this is why you must not look at the celestial object without filters. Under high enough magnification (which would probably be well beyond the diffraction limit for most telescopes) you would not need the filter anymore.
White light can be parallel too, and laser light need not be. It's just a function of the focusing system. If using only reflective optics, there should no difference in divergence between white light or laser light.
With refractive optics, there is some benefit to using laser light. It is almost a single wavelength, so there is no need to compensate for chromatic abberation.
Those guys are fun to watch, but keep in mind, they can't tell the differnece between pressure and energy. (case in point: chicken gun)
"oh there's no difference except the frozen chicken decelerates in less time and spreads out less. Busted!"
Last i checked, F=ma, and P=F/A, so P = ma/A. increasing a and decreasing A both increase P, which is what they should've been looknig for in the first place. (so they should've shouted excitedly, "Inconclusive!")
Argh. I really like that show, so that's probably why I just wish they'd do a better job with fact checking and general physics.
Why are missing pages 404 errors? Since they happen so often shouldn't they be higher on the list? are there 403 more important or encountered errors? Am i totally off base in my assumptions?
I once called my phone company (bellsouth) and asked about the extras on my bill: /mo. all in assorted things labeled FCC this and federal that.
.15 for storing it, .50 for shipping it, .05 for electricity to the store, .10 for store phone service, and .20 for processing the sale. Then they added .14 actual tax (because the item you're buying is really 2.00 not 1.00.)
Billing rate: 9.95/mo. (no long distance)
Bill: $21-30
I was walked through each one. They are directly passing the cost of government mandated services on to customers. (some were 'government mandated' things they would do anyway, like laying line and fiber to new costomers - well eventually anyway)
The point is that none of those items are a tax collected by the phone company on behalf of the government. All of that money goes to the phone company itself (to pay for services though). Since those items are all ligitimate costs of doing business, they should be folded into the quoted price rather than duplicitiously listed separately.
How would you like it if you went to a gift shop and they charged $1.00 for a post card.. but when you go to pay, they add
None of which are valid uses of a number that's meant to keep track of your contribution to social security. Only the finantial aid dept. would need that information. The university as a whole should not have it. My university insists on using SSN as ID even though there is a perfectly serviceable "collegue number" on everyone's student ID's.
The fact that it is being used as an identification number does not mean that it should be used as an identification number. In fact, it is being used as an end-run around actually creating national ID's and numbers.
look up is-ought fallacy sometime.
Uh.. did you just verb the word noun?
--
"Verbing weirds language" - Calvin (Bill Watterson)
Maybe you don't have any real money?
It could be what they're thinking.. I know I feel stupid when I forget to hit the ATM and have to charge something like toothpaste.
In the few classes where professors actually had their own textbooks, They were happy to provide paper-bound versions on-the-cheap (about $20-30 for over 500pages). For students unable to get even these cheap copies, the professors often had extras or photocopied pages (It's fair use if YOU wrote it right?).
I think part of the reason was that they were testing the books on the students, going through a few classes before full-scale publishing. My most expensive textbooks were all mass-published (but very low demand or used in more than one class) I don't believe the professors see very much of the purchase price.
The real criminal here is the school bookstores.
1 + $120 for a textbook you only use once
2 - $30 (coupon) buyback (you don't need it right?)
3 + $90 for the "used" book you only use once
4 - $20 (coupon) buyback
5 + $70per repeat 3,4 until publisher convinces prof to change books
I could tell the difference. The card-shuffle movies would be much better.
That's incorrect. A quick web search reveals: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020826.html Only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are exclusively reserved for movies. The remainder of the 555 exchange is being parceled out.
AFAIK, this was not always the case though.
You should WANT everyone else to not vote. It makes your vote more valuable.
What do you call a machine with the body of a man, but the legs of a tank? i think everyone's tired of 'chimera' fever that swept through hollywood recently.
We will be beholden to Australia!
Seriously though, Uranium won't last as long as you think. That's why we need Breeder Reactors.
AFAIK, cassini was the NASA part of the Cassini-Huygens mission.
Is more like a few of those super-ball thingies bouncing around a really roomy tank. The particles don't even interract with each other: the most prevalent collision is by far the particles with the surface. In fact, there's some question about solar pressure 'blowing' away the atmosphere. (though it would be replenished by solar wind particles) On earth would be very difficult to get a vacuum of the quality of mercury's "atmosphere." calling it a trace is extremely generous.
Is centripetal force sufficient to maintain the astronauts' bodies? is there something else to living in a planet's gravity well we have not considered? All of these questions and more will not be solved by Space Station Alpha. (aka MIR 2: America Helps).
If it can slide down, it can probably go down in a more dignified way by remaining vertical provided the structure is sturdy enough.. though stopping mid stairs might be interesting.
I would like to see the up-the-stairs competition. Oh yes.. and spikes.. definately spikes.
it's not just the other 30%.. the ones who didn't fall for it last time so were not told about it... (what's the turnover in the IRS anyway?)
It's quite effective for large distribution of eclectic files, since everyone kind-of shares bandwidth.. but for truely mass distribution, BT is extremely INefficient. Since uploading is required at the same time as downloading, there is twice the traffic going over whatever backbone network is used for the bulk of internet transfers. This is not really significant now because BT is not being used as a broadcast standard and most people have asymmetric broadband anyway.
The most efficient way to send things to large amounts of people is to combine cashing with multicast. Cut down on duplicating the bits sent to the greatest extent possible. This is already occuring to a certain extent. My ISP (formerly Time-Warner (and it actually worked BETTER when it was.. go-figure)) has been cashing patches for many online games "locally" for some time now, and provides very good download speeds for things that are 'in-network.' The only thing they are missing is transparency: It would be nice if frequently accessed pages, and infrequently updated but high bandwidth (like patches or ISO's) were cashed more locally, rather than individually downloaded. Digital TV is a sort of multicast method as well.
Dividing up the bandwith among several users and then attempting to re-aggregate that bandwith is a waste of resources for high-volume, high-bandwidth applications. It does however appear to save bandwidth on the initial server, but only as the cost is (hidden) shared by the users.
why does my cell phone need a color display?
I want to know the number i'm calling and maybe the number that's calling me.
parent suggested waiting until hubble falls enough to be relatively close to ISS's orbit. (by relatively i mean close enough to transfer to ISS orbit and dock with ISS in the event of trouble)
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I don't think this is possible even if they were at the same level orbit.
Hubble's inclination is about as low as you can get (launching from kennedy that is), about 28.5 degrees. ISS's orbit was optimized for revinue (passing over as many countries as possible so as to get funding) and is about 51.6 degrees.
http://www.spacetelescope.org/about/general/orbit
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast01dec_
The delta-V required for an inclination change is much greater than that required for a transfer (from high low orbit).
Ebay's pricing policy: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
their final fee is a percentage of the selling price.
What right do they have to that? Ebay doesn't risk any capital in the sales, they never take posession of the items or add value (by say.. inspecting items) so what claim do they have on the selling price. Now a price per bid, i could see maybe if they wanted to nickle and dime it like that. They sure do make a lot of money for a company that doesn't sell ANYTHING.