Stars are formed in clouds of gas. Otherwise they have nothing to form from. This object isn't near anything else, so it would have to be the first star forming in a gas cloud -- unlikely. Also, hydrogen should be clearly detected in the spectrum.
The object was watched by other telescopes. Could be a supernova, but astronomers know how a supernova spectrum looks, so that is pretty much ruled out too.
Then what's the point of voting in the first place?
Voting is a way to gain influence. In an election system like the one used for presidential elections in the US, you either vote strategically or your vote doesn't count. You can say that the system should be fixed, but not using your vote is unlikely to accomplish that.
Yes, it's unfair and crap, but it's the system you're stuck with. And the rest of the world is stuck with the result. Please campaign to change it, but until such change happens, please use your vote strategically.
I don't use Compiz, because it's too much hassle on my computer to get 3D acceleration good enough for it to work. Doesn't help though, because Metacity has the exact same problems.
Don't get me started on transparency. It's absolutely useless except as a way to indicate which window is active (and then only at something like 97% opacity). I like the cube a lot though, and the zooming. I'm a sucker for effects, as long as they're really quick and smooth.
I guess I should try a tiling window manager, but I can't be bothered to set up all my shortcuts AGAIN. So I just stick to 8 desktops on Super-Fx, with one full-screen window each.
I am more worried that it will become the new monoculture.
It is relatively easy for most OS's (even non-Unices) to provide a Linux subsystem so that Linux software works. Binary only is harder, but most Linux software is available as source. By running Linux software, they will not be doomed to reinvent the entire software library from scratch.
Anyway, the network effect is extremely strong for operating systems. If you do something very different from what everyone else does (like a secure multi-user single-address-space OS without hardware memory protection), it will always be stuck in a niche.
Of course you can run Linux programs on Windows because Linux libraries are also cross-platform to my knowledge
There is no "of course" about that, and most Linux libraries are cross-platform as long as the platform is Unix-like. Some of them work in Cygwin, but Cygwin has less marketshare than Linux itself. A few have ports to Windows or are ports from Windows.
Yes! Finally a fellow sufferer from Metacity/Compiz/Emerald!
I have completely given up on overlapping windows because of the problems you mention. I agree with "choice-is-bad", because noone wants to spend ages configuring their window manager, but somehow that has gotten turned into "Microsoft Windows behaviour is correct by definition". (Except of course when Windows once in a while gets something right, of course.)
Titanium oxide is a key ingredient in many sunscreen products. There are doubts about exactly how safe it is, but generally the alternatives seem to be worse.
Hello, antitrust lawsuit. Welcome to Microsoft's shoes, Apple.
I don't think the iPhone is popular enough for that yet. They aren't leveraging a monopoly, because they don't have one.
I think it's much more likely that we will see antitrust action about the lock-in between newer iPods and iTunes (Only iTunes can put music on those, because a special hash has to be generated). Apple is very dominant in the mp3-player market, and they are using that to dominate the market for media player software -- and to promote the iTunes store.
many more people would suffer the same level of torture at the hands of sociopaths
See that easily illustrates where utilitarianism is wrong. There is a difference between society deliberately making one person suffer, and society failing to prevent the suffering of someone.
So yes, the crime of Omelas is exactly that they torture one person. The excuse that it prevents the suffering of many is not valid.
Demonstrating their concern for the greater good of the society by going out to kill people, you mean. I would find it more reasonable that people who had been through such a thing would be too psychologically harmed to be trusted with the vote.
Compare 3.3E9 GBP (for 84% coverage) with how much the telecommunications industry makes in the UK every year. Really, it's nothing. Or compare it to the cost of 3G licenses back in 2000 -- they cost more than 5 times as much.
Most people use UTC because most people use UTC, and they need to interoperate. Or because they don't know better.
Basically noone uses UTC because they actually considered their needs and UTC was the best fit. In fact, I challenge you to find someone who did. Outside astronomy, because astronomers need to work with multiple times (or simply correct for the difference) anyway.
It takes significantly longer than a thousand years before it will be several hours out. Once it is several hours out, leap seconds won't cut it anyway, you would have to add them way too often.
One good solution would be inventing new time zones an hour shifted and simply migrate users to the new time zones. It isn't a particularly large problem, and it has been done several times before anyway when areas were moved to different time zones.
Once the day moves beyond 86450 seconds or so, no solution works. Either adjust the length of the second or the number of seconds (minutes, hours) in a day.
UTC is a convenient compromise, with the constant seconds of TAI plus leap seconds to keep it within 0.9s of UT1. It's not good for long duration timing (leap seconds) and it's not good for accurate navigation (could be up to 0.9s), but it's the best compromise for civil time.
TAI would have been the best compromise. UTC is not convenient for anything.
there are other people out there who made an intelligent decision, and depend on it's characteristics.
They are so few and far between they are hardly worth considering. Anyway, switching all of society (including the POSIX clock) to TAI is fine with me. I really don't care what the clock is called, as long as everyone uses it, and it doesn't have leap seconds.
Solar noon is more than 80 minutes away from 12 o'clock right now where I am. If people can live with that, leap seconds are unnecessary.
Slashdot Mirror
They caught it in time, and other observatories saw it too.
Stars are formed in clouds of gas. Otherwise they have nothing to form from. This object isn't near anything else, so it would have to be the first star forming in a gas cloud -- unlikely. Also, hydrogen should be clearly detected in the spectrum.
The object was watched by other telescopes. Could be a supernova, but astronomers know how a supernova spectrum looks, so that is pretty much ruled out too.
that it wasn't in the current location until recently?
No movement was detected. Red shift is unknown, since the spectrum doesn't match anything. It isn't a star which decided to teleport.
Yes, they did. It's all in the paper. The "speck of dust" theory is wrong.
Except the has hash been broken.
That's why I put "newer" in there. The iPod Touch and the iPhones v2 are tied to iTunes.
Then what's the point of voting in the first place?
Voting is a way to gain influence. In an election system like the one used for presidential elections in the US, you either vote strategically or your vote doesn't count. You can say that the system should be fixed, but not using your vote is unlikely to accomplish that.
Yes, it's unfair and crap, but it's the system you're stuck with. And the rest of the world is stuck with the result. Please campaign to change it, but until such change happens, please use your vote strategically.
Does it also bother you that Europeans are supporting Obama almost unanimously?
I don't use Compiz, because it's too much hassle on my computer to get 3D acceleration good enough for it to work. Doesn't help though, because Metacity has the exact same problems.
Don't get me started on transparency. It's absolutely useless except as a way to indicate which window is active (and then only at something like 97% opacity). I like the cube a lot though, and the zooming. I'm a sucker for effects, as long as they're really quick and smooth.
I guess I should try a tiling window manager, but I can't be bothered to set up all my shortcuts AGAIN. So I just stick to 8 desktops on Super-Fx, with one full-screen window each.
Just click no, it should install anyway. Otherwise the installer is broken and you should file a bug.
the iPhone is much more open then a typical phone that doesn't run user created apps.
Practically all phones run user created apps these days. The ones that don't generaly don't run apps at all.
I am more worried that it will become the new monoculture.
It is relatively easy for most OS's (even non-Unices) to provide a Linux subsystem so that Linux software works. Binary only is harder, but most Linux software is available as source. By running Linux software, they will not be doomed to reinvent the entire software library from scratch.
Anyway, the network effect is extremely strong for operating systems. If you do something very different from what everyone else does (like a secure multi-user single-address-space OS without hardware memory protection), it will always be stuck in a niche.
Of course you can run Linux programs on Windows because Linux libraries are also cross-platform to my knowledge
There is no "of course" about that, and most Linux libraries are cross-platform as long as the platform is Unix-like. Some of them work in Cygwin, but Cygwin has less marketshare than Linux itself. A few have ports to Windows or are ports from Windows.
Yes! Finally a fellow sufferer from Metacity/Compiz/Emerald!
I have completely given up on overlapping windows because of the problems you mention. I agree with "choice-is-bad", because noone wants to spend ages configuring their window manager, but somehow that has gotten turned into "Microsoft Windows behaviour is correct by definition". (Except of course when Windows once in a while gets something right, of course.)
Titanium oxide is a key ingredient in many sunscreen products. There are doubts about exactly how safe it is, but generally the alternatives seem to be worse.
Hello, antitrust lawsuit. Welcome to Microsoft's shoes, Apple.
I don't think the iPhone is popular enough for that yet. They aren't leveraging a monopoly, because they don't have one.
I think it's much more likely that we will see antitrust action about the lock-in between newer iPods and iTunes (Only iTunes can put music on those, because a special hash has to be generated). Apple is very dominant in the mp3-player market, and they are using that to dominate the market for media player software -- and to promote the iTunes store.
didn't put vmware out of business
They're pushing VMWare to the high end. Going high end rarely works out for a company. SGI. Or Sun, for that matter.
Most Unices == Old Linux versions, in this case. And the mainframe printer explanation sounds completely made up.
But I bet your version will become the official one now.
many more people would suffer the same level of torture at the hands of sociopaths
See that easily illustrates where utilitarianism is wrong. There is a difference between society deliberately making one person suffer, and society failing to prevent the suffering of someone.
So yes, the crime of Omelas is exactly that they torture one person. The excuse that it prevents the suffering of many is not valid.
Demonstrating their concern for the greater good of the society by going out to kill people, you mean. I would find it more reasonable that people who had been through such a thing would be too psychologically harmed to be trusted with the vote.
Compare 3.3E9 GBP (for 84% coverage) with how much the telecommunications industry makes in the UK every year. Really, it's nothing. Or compare it to the cost of 3G licenses back in 2000 -- they cost more than 5 times as much.
Most people use UTC because most people use UTC, and they need to interoperate. Or because they don't know better.
Basically noone uses UTC because they actually considered their needs and UTC was the best fit. In fact, I challenge you to find someone who did. Outside astronomy, because astronomers need to work with multiple times (or simply correct for the difference) anyway.
It takes significantly longer than a thousand years before it will be several hours out. Once it is several hours out, leap seconds won't cut it anyway, you would have to add them way too often.
One good solution would be inventing new time zones an hour shifted and simply migrate users to the new time zones. It isn't a particularly large problem, and it has been done several times before anyway when areas were moved to different time zones.
Once the day moves beyond 86450 seconds or so, no solution works. Either adjust the length of the second or the number of seconds (minutes, hours) in a day.
UTC is a convenient compromise, with the constant seconds of TAI plus leap seconds to keep it within 0.9s of UT1. It's not good for long duration timing (leap seconds) and it's not good for accurate navigation (could be up to 0.9s), but it's the best compromise for civil time.
TAI would have been the best compromise. UTC is not convenient for anything.
there are other people out there who made an intelligent decision, and depend on it's characteristics.
They are so few and far between they are hardly worth considering. Anyway, switching all of society (including the POSIX clock) to TAI is fine with me. I really don't care what the clock is called, as long as everyone uses it, and it doesn't have leap seconds.
Solar noon is more than 80 minutes away from 12 o'clock right now where I am. If people can live with that, leap seconds are unnecessary.