the cops may care about the purchases as evidence, but the store doesn't care
So, it's OK for the store to collect data of little value and then nullify their customer's right to privacy by providing it to the police so their customers can be falsely accused of a gruesome attempted felony? Are you really supporting this data collection?
BTW, One of the reasons that grocery shopping is such a PIA is the way the marketing idiots have arranged the store as a maze to increase sales. Customers are herded all over a large store just to buy the staple items most people want, with lots of opportunities to buy more stuff en route. Ever wondered why dairy is in one corner, produce is in the next county, etc.? If they'd put each item in one logical location instead of spreading them all over the store, and stop rearranging the store every other month to keep people confused, customers could find what they want and spend half the time doing it. But they'd rather waste your time to produce a 10% larger average grocery bill. Some marketing wiz got a promotion for it. Of course, that promotion was bestowed by the previously promoted room temperature IQ marketing wiz who never considered the obvious fact that customers would shop more often and probably spend more money if the store didn't go out of their way to create a customer hostile shopping experience. Ever find the display you want, and it's empty, then find the same item someplace else in the store where it's co-located with something else? Why don't they just dump all the store contents in a big heap in the middle of a warehouse? That should keep customers looking (and buying) for days.
it's an offer, you don't have to take the offer.
Where I live, one grocery store, Krogers, has a near monopoly. There are few other decent choices. You think it's OK for a company to coerce customers into giving up their personal data and then a short time later charging them more for this privilege? Is that a legitimate offer, or a deceitful abuse of a near monopoly?
Now it might only reduce theft of some models by 89.995%
The problem is, engineers trade mechanical security for electrical security. It's usually a good trade, as demonstrated by the 90% reduction in car thefts. However, a huge problem arises when there are several million expensive cars protected by these eletronic security measures and that security is suddenly neutralized. Most of those cars are now MORE vulnerable than they would be if the security was a simple mechanical lock. The electronic security essentially deactivates the car's alarm system and validates a mechanical key. At the very least, people paid a lot more for security and didn't get it. In many cases, consumers paid more and actually received less security.
Someone tried to steal my truck a few months ago. They broke the glass in the back window, crawled through and tried to use a cordless drill to drill out the ignition key cylinder. Apparently, these apprentice car thieves had watched too many Miami vice reruns, thought they knew how Hollywood recommended stealing a car, and decided to refine their skills on my truck. It was a well built Toyota and they eventually gave up, but they did a real number on the ignition. It cost me $120 and half a day to fix it.
Appropriate use of technology: I'm installing a homebrewed wireless pager security system. No annoying alarm to aggravate my neighbors. If my truck is broken into, I receive a page and the criminals stay right where they are, unaware that I'm coming out to apprehend them. I bought a 200KV taser so I have a reasonable non-lethal weapon to interdict the next car thieves. I already had a 10mm Glock handgun if they want to escalate the situation by threatening my life.
Why not simply pay insurance, take your chances and passively accept crime, like everyone else? One week after the failed attempt to steal my truck, a young woman was killed less than a mile from my home by two teenagers who were attempting to steal her car when she returned from grocery shopping. I think it's very likely these two punks were the same who gave up on trying to steal my truck. If I had apprehended them and detained them for the police, that woman would probably be alive today, and hopefully the two criminals would at least be provided with the opportunity to examine their chosen path and make another selection. The cost of accepting crime in society is much higher than our ever increasing insurance rates. Innocent people are being killed.
I have to provide a driver's license if I forget my card and still want to use my account.
I can't believe everybody just queues up and plays their privacy invasion game. What's next? "Identify for retina scan" to buy a pint of Ben & Jerry's?
The club cards are a paper thin scam. They raise prices slightly, then offer the club card to get slightly lower prices than they had before the card. Then, a couple of months later, after everyone is signed up, they raise the prices. You're now paying at least as much as you were before the card, and if you resist you're charged 30% more as a penalty for not voluntarily surrendering your personal information.
US currency does still carry the phrase "legal tender", right? I guess they can legally force you to pay a 30% penalty for paying in cash.
I'm not an anarchist, but it really is nobody's business if I want to buy a box of condoms, three tubes of KY jelly, 50 feet of rope and a jar of Smuckers (TM) strawberry jam.
Coercing people into surrendering their personal information to buy groceries is wrong. It's an abuse of technology. That so few people complain about this loss of privacy is proof of how bad things are in the United States of Sheeple. Hopefully there will be some more high tech screw ups where people are falsely accused, or similar problems arise from using this dubious source of data, and people will finally awaken to what a shady scheme this is. Until that happens, I'll go out of my way to find one of the few stores that don't abuse my privacy. Have we really fallen so far that Safeway's desire for marketing data has now superseded our right to privacy?
Every time I to argue for privacy like this, I get responses from neo-Nazis who comment, "If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." Well, apparently "nothing" includes being falsely accused of a felony and the public humiliation of being tried for attempting to burn your family to death in their sleep.
Anybody remember when the police INVESTIGATED crimes, rather than just subpeona DNA, credit card records, phone records, Safeway records...?
The fifth amendment guarantees that no US citizens can be forced to testify against themselves. If forcing some guy to provide a DNA sample isn't forcing him to testify against himself, I don't know what is.
Technology itself isn't responsible for our eroding privacy, but it sure makes it easier for those who want the power that comes with all the collected personal data.
I stopped downloading pirated music years ago when the RIAA started cracking down on "sharing".
Do you have no sense of right and wrong? Are you only motivated by the chance of being caught and the severity of the punishment? If so, the entire idea of civil disobedience is probably foreign to you. What would our civilization be like if everyone submitted 100% to whatever authority was in charge from a self serving fear of punishment?
When children first start to realize their actions have consequences, they start to think in terms of getting caught. As their world view is broadened and they grow intellectually, the simplistic analysis based on the chances of being caught and being punished are replaced by more enlightened thoughts centered around more global concepts of right and wrong. The latter deals more with what is good for everyone in society, while the former is concerned with a child's egocentric concern for what is best for the individual.
I wonder if it would be legal to ask a pre-employment question that posed the RIAA scenario. It would be a great way to eliminate people who don't have a fully developed sense of what is right and wrong. These are the sort of people who will do something illegal if they think they won't be caught.
I don't advocate copyright infringement. But my attitudes are based on what is right and wrong. The tactics of the RIAA are based on power and fear, and are so offensive that they represent a different type of wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, so I'm still not inclined to download copyrighted music, but I am very inclined to speak out against the jackbooted thugs at the RIAA and work to promote their legal overthrow through commercial means. Don't buy RIAA records. Support independent artists. Educate people about the monopolistic policies of the RIAA and their illegal price fixing (as proven in a court of law).
So, the rule is, you always pronounce the result in base 10, regardless of the base you're actually using?!?!? That can't be right. I think you're a basist (one who believes one numeric base is better than the others).
All your base are belong to ten.
Just because the hexadecimal 2A is difficult to pronounce for those accustomed to base ten, does not indicate that the correct pronunciation is "forty two".
I saw some research last year that suggested that synapses and neurons may not be the entire answer to the brains computational power.
Many people believe that at the finest granularity, quantum effects are at work in the brains of all species on Earth. This could be a good explanation for human insight, intuition, and creativity that AI has failed to even remotely approach. It's very likely that as long as we keep modeling the human brain as a computer, AI will never live up to our expectations, which is to say it won't pass the Turing test.
Massively parallel systems and subsumptive programming architectures are a step in the right direction, but we may need some element of chaos at work at the lowest levels where something inexplicable causes a neuron to fire as the first spark that leads to a cascade of neural pathways being activated, ultimately resulting in a unique idea. As long as we keep playing with deterministic hardware, it's unlikely that we'll ever create real thinking creatures with imagination, creativity, or complex emotions. We'll just continue to produce faster and faster calculators.
We'll overcome this limitation, and I think it'll be sooner rather than later. And the pace of AI development will probably be similar to that of exponential PC development. AIs will probably become so smart in such a short period of time that they cleverly fail to let us know of their actual progress until it's too late. Reference: SkyNet.
Then, the question becomes, "Will they keep some of us around as pets?"
In my belief system, this is the next stage of development for the intelligence that started on this planet. We will create machines capable of learning and reproducting at rates vastly superior to our own.
There are some formatting differences between Word / Excel and the Open Office versions. But there are two bigger issues with OpenOffice compatibility:
1) Microsoft intentionally messes up the file formats with every release of MS Office to keep OpenOffice playing catch up. These aren't improvements. Hell, Word and Excel data files are bloated. These are simply changes made to leverage a monopoly, thus forcing all existing MS Office users to buy an upgrade so they can use the new documents people will be creating, and to keep OpenOffice from gaining a foothold in their lucrative office suite market.
2) OpenOffice intentionally does not implemment the brain-dead features of MS Office. Who wants to receive a word processor document or spreadsheet that can take complete control of your computer, access your address book and start sending email? Worse yet, any 13 year old VB script kiddie can write Windows malware. Who could have EVER thought that was a good idea? So, there are some things that will never be compatible between MS Office and OpenOffice, nor should they be.
Xandros Linux 3.0 handles VPN very well. Easy to set up, easy to use, and rock solid.
Xandros has many high end features that make it more than competitive with Windows XP. For example, Xandros 3.0 has drag and drop CD and DVD burning. Do any other distros have that in their default installation? And the deluxe versions of Xandros ship with CrossOver, so many legacy Windows programs can be run until suitable native Linux versions are produced.
parent should have said more... I like Linux, but, I don't USE it, I play with it.
Not even close. I've been running my small business with Xandros Linux for over two years. I was more productive in year one than I ever was with previous versions of Windows. I just installed Xandros 3.0, and it just keeps getting better.
The Linux learning curve and occasional issues are less hassle than maintaining Windows anti-virus software and still getting the occasional brand new virus. This happened to an IT friend at work (several hundred employees). Or maintaining anti-spyware software and still having all the jacking around to the registry result in an unstable system every 6-12 months, requiring a fresh installation of Windows and all applications. If your OS is secure, you don't need a bunch of crappy bandaid solutions layered on top.
The fact is, there are excellent versions of Linux available right now that are beating Windows in stability, security AND usability, which is quite feat considering hardware and software is Windows compatible by definition. Make your life easier and check for Linux compatibiliy before buying new hardware. When I do that, it's usually easier and faster to install new hardware on Linux. No plug-n-pray, no reboot.
Most PC users only want a browser, email, and maybe word processing and spreadsheet. Most are VERY happy with Mozilla and OpenOffice.
The only issue I've had in using Linux in a very PC-intensive engineering business is QuickBooks. It runs well under CrossOver (Windows emulation), but the user interface is a bit ugly. A native Linux version or better CrossOver support for QuickBooks would be nice.
About the only PC users who can't use Linux are serious gamers. I think they should be playing dedicated game consoles instead of Windows games, but they're free to do what they want. However, we'll all be a lot better off when people stop using Windows and we can finally get away from the nonstop Outlook worms and spam spewed from zombied Windows machines. Owned Windows boxes send over 80% of all spam.
Xandros is based on Debian, but it's very easy to use. You should try it. I couldn't believe how much better it felt to use open source applications. Xandros Networks is an online repository of popular open source software, and most RPM and DEB packages can also be installed. No crappy licensing agreements, copy protection, registration hassles, EULAs, or product key codes. Pretty much, click the install button and a minute later you're running the new application. It's much easier than Windows software installation, and removing software is MUCH MUCH easier than Windows. The Xandros package manager tracks all library dependencies. Compare that with Windows, where uninstalling works right about 30% of the time, and usually leaves a lot of crap in the registry. Besides, how should I know if another application might be using a shared DLL? Can't Windows keep track of that?
Bottom line: If you can't install one of the new GUI Linux desktop operating systems, you should give up on reading Slashdot and go back to something better suited to your skilzs.
Many of the Lexmark inkjet printers work with Linux. Try linuxprinting.org to see which ones before you buy. My Lexmark Z54 was immediately recognized by my Xandros Linux OS, and the print quality is very good.
That said, I'm leaning away from all inkjet printing. It's expensive, so it's only good for low volume printing, but when used infrequently the cartridge heads dry out and clog. Pressing them against a folded paper towel soaked in hot water unclogs them easily enough, but it's a bit of a pain. If I really needed color printing on my desktop, I'd pay the extra money and get a color laser printer on eBay.
For the amount of color printing I anticipate, Office Max now offers $.45 per page color prints, and they're not inkjet, so the colors don't fade. Office Depot is more expensive. Both can print from a CD with PDF, etc.
For monochrome printing, it's hard to beat a used Lexmark network printer on eBay. I paid under $200 including shipping for a huge Optra T614. It's built for daily use in a departmental workgroup, so it'll last forever. 25 ppm, duplexer for printing on both sides, 25K pages per toner refill, and Xandros immediately recognized it and had the driver for it as well. All Lexmark laser printers except a few on the low end are Postscript printers, so Linux loves them.
Yeah, Lexmark was one of the first to try to apply the DMCA to toner cartridges (the anti-refill chips), but they still aren't as evil as HP which has definitely lost customer focus and quality during the reign of Carly.
Manny Coto was the executive producer and did a lot of the writing for the ill fated Odyssey 5. The show had a weird but interesting concept, was intelligently done, was creative, and was one of the best SF shows I've seen in quite a while. It had a lot of geek appeal, but was still approachable to non-geeks. The entire cast was excellent.
Too bad it was the sort of thing that takes off slowly, and was probably killed by cable network executive goofs at Shotime in the first season because it didn't go platinum in two episodes.
I also hate Verisign & Network Solutions. Weasels.
I second the recommendation for GoDaddy.com. They have good prices and easy online account management. The only time I needed someone in tech service was 2 AM. The dude was very knowledgeable and quickly fixed my problem. I guess if you have good automated online systems that are easy to use, you can eliminate the crappy Tier 1 tech support and just have the Tier 2 people who know their stuff answering the phones.
You obviously have very little sense of humor, at least where your religious beliefs are concerned. If you did, you'd probably recognize the humor in many aspects of religion. Of course, there's nothing funny about institutionalized pedophilia, systematically suppressing scientific thought and the associated technical advancement to maintain control over people, and other unfortunate aspects of organized religion. From my perspective, religion has done a lot of good, but has done twice as much that is bad. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If religion had its way, we'd still be in the Middle Ages, huddling in the cold and dark, believing whatever The Church told us to believe, and scared to think for ourselves under pain of death after being labeled a heretic.
The next time you turn on the faucet and have hot water, flip a switch and have electric light, travel by jet airliner, or go to the hospital for a modern medical procedure that saves your life, don't say, "Thank God". Thank science instead. Let's give credit where credit is due.
Intelligent design is a theory proposed as a sad attempt by religion to hold onto some credibilty in the face of science explaining that most of the religious dogma that has been rigidly espoused as the truth for centuries is a pack of lies invented to control people. When science approaches the issue using the scientific method, evolution is THE answer. Intelligent design, and the more general belief in a god, are both way down on the list of probabilities when it comes to explaining the observations. Neither intelligent design nor god can be absolutely disproved, but they are unlikely. Both beliefs require faith, not science.
ID is obviously an attempt to cling to a lie by compromise. "All of creation took about 14 billion years, and not a week, like we said? Oh, umm, well... we were speaking figuratively. We didn't mean it actually took a week. Of course the mechanisms were exactly as you describe and man wasn't made from a lump of clay, and woman wasn't made from a rib taken from the first man. But God was still responsible for everything." The creation myth was a fairy story presented as a fact until science finally prevailed and proved otherwise. Now, in the face of real facts, religion is forced to compromise to avoid losing all credibility, and that compromise is called intelligent design.
I won't convince you. Your beliefs are based on faith, and there is no compelling scientific evidence that can overcome such personal beliefs. Sadly, people will believe what they want. Religion will keep telling lies to control people by making them feel they are the ones who are right while everyone else's beliefs are false, and they will be rewarded for all of etentity. Religion is divisive, and will unfortunately continue to cause prolonged wars with much killing in the name of some god. The Crusades, Ireland, Palestine, 9/11... when does it end? It ends when we grow up, and stop believing these fairy stories.
Here's a clue. Science does not accept beliefs based on what makes you feel most comfortable, or what fits best with existing dogma.
One of my greatest joys is seeing a child who was not indoctrinated into the church, who has developed some critical thinking skills, then watching as an adult attempts to convert the kid to a particular religious belief. I love the part when the confusion and disbelief builds to the point where the kid finally interrupts to ask, "You're kidding me, right?" When reason prevails, I feel there is hope for humanity.
People who are immersed in the religious dogma and have been programmed to accept it as their own belief system do not realize how ridiculous most of it sounds to anyone who is thinking rationally.
For now, science and religion should try to stay out of each other's way. If people with religious beliefs are allowed to place stickers on the cover of textbooks that discredit evolution, then those with scien
Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says
What's he talking about? Comparitive DNA analysis is one of the best proofs for evolution.
I've studied the entire human genome thoroughly, and found no evidence of intelligent design. You want to impress me? Show me pi to 20 places encoded in DNA, the Fibonaci sequence, or the first 64 prime numbers.
But there was a section near the end of the Y chromosome where, if you played it backwards it said, "Paul is dead." That really freaked me out. But it's within the statistical limit of probability.
Have fun piloting your safe helium powered airships in the irridescent purple sky of whatever planet you live, where logic is trumped by rigidly held beliefs, science is banished by the self-appointed experts who have all the answers, and the physical laws of the universe do not apply.
Hydrogen being some 3 times the heating value of the best liquid fuels, and treated cotton fabric being substantially lower in heating value than liquid fuels, the heat released by the burning hydrogen was several times as much as that released by the burning fabric.
How is the relative heat output of hydrogen vs. doped fabric of any significance? Obviously, a lot of heat will be produced by the hydrogen needed to fill an entire airship. But the important issue is, what started the fire?
When investigating a house fire, nobody says, "The heat produced by a cigarette that was dropped when someone fell asleep is insignificant compared to all the lumber and other combustibles in a house, so the cigarette couldn't be the cause of the accident." Yet that is exactly the sort of specious argument you're advancing when you ignore the flammable covering material.
A great number of the things we find to be very useful have an lot of stored energy. Dams hold back tons of water. Jet airliners traveling at 500 MPH have enormous kinetic energy. A gas station has a lot of flammable gasoline. When there is an accident, we don't start pointing fingers at the stored energy. We look for the problem. What allowed the stored energy to be released? That's the cause of the accident. Otherwise, we couldn't have hydroelectric dams, airliners, gas stations, or any of the other devices we find to be so useful.
Good design requires the safe management of the risks associated with stored energy. Admittedly, a huge airship full of hydrogen would represent an unacceptable risk in the best of circumstances. But covering that hydrogen in a highly flammable material is just asking for trouble. It was a bad design choice that made the Hindenberg disaster all but inevitable.
Previous airships had a good safety record, even though many of them were filled with hydrogen when the US stopped exporting helium to pre Nazi Germany. The flammable covering material was a recent change made in the airship by an engineer who should have known better.
OK, so you disagree with a large majority of airship historians and technologists.
For the fourth time, I saw the burn rate with my own eyes. So, yeah, I guess I disagree with you and your anonymous experts.
The fact that the energy required to ignite hydrogen is many orders of magnitude less than that required to ignite the cover does not seem to register.
You're being deliberately obtuse, right?
The flammability of hydrogen is not an issue if there is not a combustible mixture of hydrogen present. That is almost always the case. The very flammable cover is ALL OVER THE OUTSIDE OF THE ENTIRE AIRSHIP. This very flammable material is always present. That's why the flammability of the cover is a significant issue. Once the cover is burning, the hydrogen will inevitably burn too. But the most likely cause of the initial ignition is the cover, not the enclosed hydrogen that is too rich a mixture to burn.
You seem unconcerned that leakage of hydrogen through the gas cells to the tune of tens of thousands of liters per day was an accepted design parameter...
That loss rate sounds like a lot, and in absolute terms it is. But it's fairly insignificant in terms of the volume of a huge airship. H2 is a very small molecule and it readily diffuses through materials. The vast majority of the leakage you mentioned is almost certainly diffusion. In the case of diffusion, the entire ship is leaking, but the diffusion rate is so low that the concentration of hydrogen at the surface of the airship is many orders of magnitude below what would be required for a minimal combustible mixture. The ship was designed with gas cells held in a framework, and an outer cover. The design prevented a buildup of hydrogen lost through diffusion. So the entire hydrogen leakage rate is a big red herring.
Interesting article. I like the Society for Amateur Scientists. But like any such group, there are always people with pet theories and various agendas.
There were a few problems with the "science". One was the method of the burn test. A flat piece of treated cloth is oriented horizontally and lit in the center. This method seems designed to ensure the slowest burn rate possible. Or were they trying to simulate a fire that begins at the very top of the airship in perfectly still air?
There were other similar examples of bad science. However, by far the largest problem was indicated by the following quote from the article:
...various samples of cotton cloth treated with aircraft doping paint to simulate the fabric covering of the Hindenburg.
The experiments used formulations and application techniques that were invented by the experimenter, so the "actual experiment" was filled with supposition. As I have repeatedly stated, the video I saw used a sample coupon of cloth that was prepared by the company that produced the Hindenberg, using exactly the same materials and techniques. There was no supposition about the materials used and the way they were applied. The material was the same as the fabric covering on the Hindenberg, as verified by the original engineer's notes which were preserved after the accident. The fabric ignited easily and burned quickly. It's a fact. Deal with it.
The sad thing is, we both apparently agree that hydrogen is too flammable for use in an airship. Once it's ignited, there is no practical way to extinguish it. I have never claimed that hydrogen would be safe in an airship if a nonflammable covering were used. All I claim was that the highly flammable covering used in the Hindenberg was a big mistake, and was likely to have started the fire that consumed the giant airship.
A hydrogen filled airship is dangerous. A hydrogen filled airship surrounded by a giant firestarter is even more dangerous. Got it?
Graf is German for count. Count Zeppelin founded the company. A couple of the airships were named in his honor. The Hindenberg was a later airship from the same company.
It has been well established that the fabric does not burn particularly rapidly.
Despite your expert opinion, I saw the video. "Rapidly" is a relative term, but I would use it in this case. It quickly ignited and burned rapidly, with what certainly appeared to be a hot flame.
The fabric dope contained finely powdered aluminum and iron oxide. It was very flammable. Any guess what the solid rocket boosters on the shuttle contain? Yep, powdered aluminum (fuel) and iron oxide (catalyst). Check it out.
Leaking/escaping hydrogen gas being orders of magnitude easier to set alight than the covering, it is self evident that the hydrogen set the covering afire, and not vice versa.
Self evident to you, perhaps. The *real* experts who studied the Hindenberg disaster agreed that the incendiary covering was a major contributing factor.
I think you are still misunderstanding what I'm trying to say, so I'll try again. The issue is not whether hydrogen is more flammable than the doped fabric. The problem is that the huge structure was so flammable that there was no need for a hydrogen leak to occur to start the ignition process.
Hydrogen drifts upward and is self-venting in an open area, and numerous efforts were made to ensure adequate ventilation of all enclosed spaces to prevent any hydrogen from accumulating in the event of a leak. The major design flaw was the fabric. A small flame or intense spark anywhere on the structure would ignite the highly flammable fabric with the inevitable tragic result.
See if you can find the PBS special. It was very interesting, both technically, and in terms of how much information can be assembled over 50 years later.
I think you have COMPLETELY missed my point. Nobody is suggesting that hydrogen did not play a significant role in the Hindenberg disaster. As I said, it's too flammable to be safe in that application.
The fabric sample that was obtained was not from the Hindenberg (duh). It was, as I said, from the Graf Zeppelin company. They had been experimenting with various coverings and coatings and had sample coupons available, some of which were identical to the material used in the ill fated Hindenberg. They had probably tested some of these samples for resistance to the elements, poracity, etc. They should have tested them for flammability, but apparently did not. The demonstration of the sample burning in air was very compelling. It burned very quickly.
Once again, nobody is saying that the cover burned and the hydrogen didn't. The significance of the rapidly burning cover material is that it could START a hydrogen fire very easily. Such a flammable material would need only a strong spark to ignite, and in turn ignite the hydrogen. But even with a fireproof covering, hydrogen is considered too flammable for use in airships because of the possibility of leaks, electrostatic discharge, landing accidents, lightning, etc.
I saw the same PBS special. They had an actual cover sample that was preserved from the Graf Zeppelin company (no relation to Led Zeppelin). They lit it and it was fairly impressive. No hydrogen required, and the burn rate was significant. Definitely NOT something to use to build a huge airship.
Once the outer covering spread the flames, the video from the Hindenberg disaster showed a hydrogen fire where the surface burned at the hydrogen / air interface. The hydrogen inside had no oxygen and couldn't burn.
But even with a fireproof and antistatic covering, I don't think hydrogen zeppelins are safe. Hydrogen is too flammable and a leak in a huge airship seems inevitable. Once a hydrogen fire starts, it'd be difficult to extinguish.
I wouldn't dream of turning over a Windows PC to my 75 year old parents. Hell, my dad calls me to help talk him through the TV/VCR and recently DVD useage issues.
However, I've been thinking of getting them a notebook PC and installing Xandros Linux so they can get email, surf "the interweb", and download digital pictures from the camera. Xandros is easier than any version of Windows I've used, and I've suffered since Windows 3.1. Printers? Xandros knows my Lexmark Z52 inkjet and my big mutha Lexmark Optra T614 network laser printer. The drivers are already there, and installation couldn't be easier. No Plug-N-Pray (TM), no installation CD needed, and no need to reboot for changes to take effect.
I've been running Xandros exclusively for over two years for my engineering business. It runs 24/7 and I use lots of complex applications including mechanical CAD, electrical CAD & PCB layout, accounting, programming, etc. I'd NEVER go back to being a Windows luser and I'd certainly never subject my parents to the insane hassles of Outlook worm de jour and the weekly security exploits in Windows and IE.
There are other easy to use distros as well, and there is the Mac, so there is plenty of choice. If you want a computer, there is no need to play monopoly.
It's counter intuitive, but power users have a harder time migrating from Windows because of that one obscure application they just have to have. The average PC user who wants hassle-free internet, email, and office applications is best served by Linux, Firefox/Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.
Re:And let's not forget who is funding a lot of th
on
New and Improved SETI
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Gates especially deserves kudos for his philanthropic work, which is far more extensive, relative to his net worth, than is strictly necessary to win him respect
First, it has less to do with how much philanthropy is required to win respect than it has to do with how much philanthropy is required to offset his enormous income to avoid paying taxes.
Secondly, as others have already mentioned, he could make anonymous donations rather than the ego boosting, public, "see what a great guy I am" donations.
Finally, I think a better measure of charity is the degree to which a sacrifice is made. I have a lot more respect for the single mom, working two jobs, who still manages to give $20 to a local orphanage every December 20th so some kid can have a present. When you have $50,000,000,000 in the bank, a billion dollar tax deductible donation is not going to adversely impact the lifestyle.
who trains the machine? A fallible human tells the system what data points to count and discard... the system is only as good as its programmer.
On the contrary. Expert systems are not simply as good as the weakest link. A better model would be a synergistic system that is better than its best single component. Through an iterative process, knowledge is added to an expert system and mistakes are eliminated. Unlike a doctor, there is no gradual decline in currency and attention span over time. Expert systems continue to add information and improve their diagnostic algorithms. Just think where we could be today if we had started training a medical diagnostic expert system when we first had the technology to start such an effort twenty years ago.
A reasonable, although not completely accurate comparison can be made with the game of chess. There are rules and lots of subtle strategies. On first examination, it'd be easy to say that a computer would be difficult to program to play chess. But there was no equivalent of the AMA to become offended by chess playing programs, which are essentially a sort of expert system. Who can beat the best computer at chess today? Nobody. I want a doctor that can diagnose illnesses as well as Deep Blue plays chess.
Except experience counts in medicine, and it counts big.
Again, I feel that you're making my points for me. How much better would it be to have the combined diagnostic experience of 2000 of the best medical diagnosticians in the world, combined into one expert system? With feedback from mistaken diagnoses corrected almost immediately, it becomes better, and better, and better. Imagine if every doctor in the world learned from every mistake made by every other doctor in the world, and never forgot anything.
I don't know how you train a computer system to do that.
The expert system I originally referred to was a simple rule based system, if I recall correctly. There are languages such as Prolog that were created specifically for the deveopment of automated expert systems, although those programs were more like a smart database that could be queried. A true medical expert system would be more active. Rather than answering questions, it would be asking the questions, ordering tests, analyzing test results, etc. This system could be coded in a fairly straight forward manner in C++, or a language could be developed to take a database of medical information and automatically develop the appropriate diagnostic routines. Such a data driven approach would be more flexible when introducing new medical information, but would be more difficult to test and verify. Test and verification would be important features for a medical expert system.
There are also expert systems based on neural networks. They train themselves from the data in a manner that is seldom intuitive to humans. They often produce surprising solutions (aka "diagnoses") that would almost never occur to a human, particularly in situations where people would have a difficult time making a diagnosis. Neural networks can be very efficient, and they almost write themselves, but it's difficult for people to trust them for an important application such as medical diagnostics.
the engineer may have invented it to fill a medical need, but somebody has to implant it
The typical Slashdot reader would be fairly inclined to credit the technology rather than the medical practitioner. But how many people in the general population would marvel at the engineering behind the scenes, and how many would simply say, "It's amazing what doctors can do these days?"
I agree that it's fairly insignificant who gets the credit. What is important is improving the quality of healthcare, improving access to that high quality healthcare, and reducing the cost so we can afford high quality healthcare. I think that diagnostic techno
Slashdot Mirror
Q: Why do you have a 10 mm handgun?
A: Because they don't make an 11 mm.
So, it's OK for the store to collect data of little value and then nullify their customer's right to privacy by providing it to the police so their customers can be falsely accused of a gruesome attempted felony? Are you really supporting this data collection?
BTW, One of the reasons that grocery shopping is such a PIA is the way the marketing idiots have arranged the store as a maze to increase sales. Customers are herded all over a large store just to buy the staple items most people want, with lots of opportunities to buy more stuff en route. Ever wondered why dairy is in one corner, produce is in the next county, etc.? If they'd put each item in one logical location instead of spreading them all over the store, and stop rearranging the store every other month to keep people confused, customers could find what they want and spend half the time doing it. But they'd rather waste your time to produce a 10% larger average grocery bill. Some marketing wiz got a promotion for it. Of course, that promotion was bestowed by the previously promoted room temperature IQ marketing wiz who never considered the obvious fact that customers would shop more often and probably spend more money if the store didn't go out of their way to create a customer hostile shopping experience. Ever find the display you want, and it's empty, then find the same item someplace else in the store where it's co-located with something else? Why don't they just dump all the store contents in a big heap in the middle of a warehouse? That should keep customers looking (and buying) for days.
Where I live, one grocery store, Krogers, has a near monopoly. There are few other decent choices. You think it's OK for a company to coerce customers into giving up their personal data and then a short time later charging them more for this privilege? Is that a legitimate offer, or a deceitful abuse of a near monopoly?
The problem is, engineers trade mechanical security for electrical security. It's usually a good trade, as demonstrated by the 90% reduction in car thefts. However, a huge problem arises when there are several million expensive cars protected by these eletronic security measures and that security is suddenly neutralized. Most of those cars are now MORE vulnerable than they would be if the security was a simple mechanical lock. The electronic security essentially deactivates the car's alarm system and validates a mechanical key. At the very least, people paid a lot more for security and didn't get it. In many cases, consumers paid more and actually received less security.
Someone tried to steal my truck a few months ago. They broke the glass in the back window, crawled through and tried to use a cordless drill to drill out the ignition key cylinder. Apparently, these apprentice car thieves had watched too many Miami vice reruns, thought they knew how Hollywood recommended stealing a car, and decided to refine their skills on my truck. It was a well built Toyota and they eventually gave up, but they did a real number on the ignition. It cost me $120 and half a day to fix it.
Appropriate use of technology: I'm installing a homebrewed wireless pager security system. No annoying alarm to aggravate my neighbors. If my truck is broken into, I receive a page and the criminals stay right where they are, unaware that I'm coming out to apprehend them. I bought a 200KV taser so I have a reasonable non-lethal weapon to interdict the next car thieves. I already had a 10mm Glock handgun if they want to escalate the situation by threatening my life.
Why not simply pay insurance, take your chances and passively accept crime, like everyone else? One week after the failed attempt to steal my truck, a young woman was killed less than a mile from my home by two teenagers who were attempting to steal her car when she returned from grocery shopping. I think it's very likely these two punks were the same who gave up on trying to steal my truck. If I had apprehended them and detained them for the police, that woman would probably be alive today, and hopefully the two criminals would at least be provided with the opportunity to examine their chosen path and make another selection. The cost of accepting crime in society is much higher than our ever increasing insurance rates. Innocent people are being killed.
I can't believe everybody just queues up and plays their privacy invasion game. What's next? "Identify for retina scan" to buy a pint of Ben & Jerry's?
The club cards are a paper thin scam. They raise prices slightly, then offer the club card to get slightly lower prices than they had before the card. Then, a couple of months later, after everyone is signed up, they raise the prices. You're now paying at least as much as you were before the card, and if you resist you're charged 30% more as a penalty for not voluntarily surrendering your personal information.
US currency does still carry the phrase "legal tender", right? I guess they can legally force you to pay a 30% penalty for paying in cash.
I'm not an anarchist, but it really is nobody's business if I want to buy a box of condoms, three tubes of KY jelly, 50 feet of rope and a jar of Smuckers (TM) strawberry jam.
Coercing people into surrendering their personal information to buy groceries is wrong. It's an abuse of technology. That so few people complain about this loss of privacy is proof of how bad things are in the United States of Sheeple. Hopefully there will be some more high tech screw ups where people are falsely accused, or similar problems arise from using this dubious source of data, and people will finally awaken to what a shady scheme this is. Until that happens, I'll go out of my way to find one of the few stores that don't abuse my privacy. Have we really fallen so far that Safeway's desire for marketing data has now superseded our right to privacy?
Every time I to argue for privacy like this, I get responses from neo-Nazis who comment, "If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear." Well, apparently "nothing" includes being falsely accused of a felony and the public humiliation of being tried for attempting to burn your family to death in their sleep.
Anybody remember when the police INVESTIGATED crimes, rather than just subpeona DNA, credit card records, phone records, Safeway records...?
The fifth amendment guarantees that no US citizens can be forced to testify against themselves. If forcing some guy to provide a DNA sample isn't forcing him to testify against himself, I don't know what is.
Technology itself isn't responsible for our eroding privacy, but it sure makes it easier for those who want the power that comes with all the collected personal data.
Do you have no sense of right and wrong? Are you only motivated by the chance of being caught and the severity of the punishment? If so, the entire idea of civil disobedience is probably foreign to you. What would our civilization be like if everyone submitted 100% to whatever authority was in charge from a self serving fear of punishment?
When children first start to realize their actions have consequences, they start to think in terms of getting caught. As their world view is broadened and they grow intellectually, the simplistic analysis based on the chances of being caught and being punished are replaced by more enlightened thoughts centered around more global concepts of right and wrong. The latter deals more with what is good for everyone in society, while the former is concerned with a child's egocentric concern for what is best for the individual.
I wonder if it would be legal to ask a pre-employment question that posed the RIAA scenario. It would be a great way to eliminate people who don't have a fully developed sense of what is right and wrong. These are the sort of people who will do something illegal if they think they won't be caught.
I don't advocate copyright infringement. But my attitudes are based on what is right and wrong. The tactics of the RIAA are based on power and fear, and are so offensive that they represent a different type of wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, so I'm still not inclined to download copyrighted music, but I am very inclined to speak out against the jackbooted thugs at the RIAA and work to promote their legal overthrow through commercial means. Don't buy RIAA records. Support independent artists. Educate people about the monopolistic policies of the RIAA and their illegal price fixing (as proven in a court of law).
So, the rule is, you always pronounce the result in base 10, regardless of the base you're actually using?!?!? That can't be right. I think you're a basist (one who believes one numeric base is better than the others).
All your base are belong to ten.
Just because the hexadecimal 2A is difficult to pronounce for those accustomed to base ten, does not indicate that the correct pronunciation is "forty two".
Many people believe that at the finest granularity, quantum effects are at work in the brains of all species on Earth. This could be a good explanation for human insight, intuition, and creativity that AI has failed to even remotely approach. It's very likely that as long as we keep modeling the human brain as a computer, AI will never live up to our expectations, which is to say it won't pass the Turing test.
Massively parallel systems and subsumptive programming architectures are a step in the right direction, but we may need some element of chaos at work at the lowest levels where something inexplicable causes a neuron to fire as the first spark that leads to a cascade of neural pathways being activated, ultimately resulting in a unique idea. As long as we keep playing with deterministic hardware, it's unlikely that we'll ever create real thinking creatures with imagination, creativity, or complex emotions. We'll just continue to produce faster and faster calculators.
We'll overcome this limitation, and I think it'll be sooner rather than later. And the pace of AI development will probably be similar to that of exponential PC development. AIs will probably become so smart in such a short period of time that they cleverly fail to let us know of their actual progress until it's too late. Reference: SkyNet.
Then, the question becomes, "Will they keep some of us around as pets?"
In my belief system, this is the next stage of development for the intelligence that started on this planet. We will create machines capable of learning and reproducting at rates vastly superior to our own.
There are some formatting differences between Word / Excel and the Open Office versions. But there are two bigger issues with OpenOffice compatibility:
1) Microsoft intentionally messes up the file formats with every release of MS Office to keep OpenOffice playing catch up. These aren't improvements. Hell, Word and Excel data files are bloated. These are simply changes made to leverage a monopoly, thus forcing all existing MS Office users to buy an upgrade so they can use the new documents people will be creating, and to keep OpenOffice from gaining a foothold in their lucrative office suite market.
2) OpenOffice intentionally does not implemment the brain-dead features of MS Office. Who wants to receive a word processor document or spreadsheet that can take complete control of your computer, access your address book and start sending email? Worse yet, any 13 year old VB script kiddie can write Windows malware. Who could have EVER thought that was a good idea? So, there are some things that will never be compatible between MS Office and OpenOffice, nor should they be.
Xandros Linux 3.0 handles VPN very well. Easy to set up, easy to use, and rock solid.
Xandros has many high end features that make it more than competitive with Windows XP. For example, Xandros 3.0 has drag and drop CD and DVD burning. Do any other distros have that in their default installation? And the deluxe versions of Xandros ship with CrossOver, so many legacy Windows programs can be run until suitable native Linux versions are produced.
That said, I'm leaning away from all inkjet printing. It's expensive, so it's only good for low volume printing, but when used infrequently the cartridge heads dry out and clog. Pressing them against a folded paper towel soaked in hot water unclogs them easily enough, but it's a bit of a pain. If I really needed color printing on my desktop, I'd pay the extra money and get a color laser printer on eBay.
For the amount of color printing I anticipate, Office Max now offers $.45 per page color prints, and they're not inkjet, so the colors don't fade. Office Depot is more expensive. Both can print from a CD with PDF, etc.
For monochrome printing, it's hard to beat a used Lexmark network printer on eBay. I paid under $200 including shipping for a huge Optra T614. It's built for daily use in a departmental workgroup, so it'll last forever. 25 ppm, duplexer for printing on both sides, 25K pages per toner refill, and Xandros immediately recognized it and had the driver for it as well. All Lexmark laser printers except a few on the low end are Postscript printers, so Linux loves them.
Yeah, Lexmark was one of the first to try to apply the DMCA to toner cartridges (the anti-refill chips), but they still aren't as evil as HP which has definitely lost customer focus and quality during the reign of Carly.
Manny Coto was the executive producer and did a lot of the writing for the ill fated Odyssey 5. The show had a weird but interesting concept, was intelligently done, was creative, and was one of the best SF shows I've seen in quite a while. It had a lot of geek appeal, but was still approachable to non-geeks. The entire cast was excellent.
Too bad it was the sort of thing that takes off slowly, and was probably killed by cable network executive goofs at Shotime in the first season because it didn't go platinum in two episodes.
I second the recommendation for GoDaddy.com. They have good prices and easy online account management. The only time I needed someone in tech service was 2 AM. The dude was very knowledgeable and quickly fixed my problem. I guess if you have good automated online systems that are easy to use, you can eliminate the crappy Tier 1 tech support and just have the Tier 2 people who know their stuff answering the phones.
Repeat after me. It... was... a... joke.
You obviously have very little sense of humor, at least where your religious beliefs are concerned. If you did, you'd probably recognize the humor in many aspects of religion. Of course, there's nothing funny about institutionalized pedophilia, systematically suppressing scientific thought and the associated technical advancement to maintain control over people, and other unfortunate aspects of organized religion. From my perspective, religion has done a lot of good, but has done twice as much that is bad. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If religion had its way, we'd still be in the Middle Ages, huddling in the cold and dark, believing whatever The Church told us to believe, and scared to think for ourselves under pain of death after being labeled a heretic.
The next time you turn on the faucet and have hot water, flip a switch and have electric light, travel by jet airliner, or go to the hospital for a modern medical procedure that saves your life, don't say, "Thank God". Thank science instead. Let's give credit where credit is due.
Intelligent design is a theory proposed as a sad attempt by religion to hold onto some credibilty in the face of science explaining that most of the religious dogma that has been rigidly espoused as the truth for centuries is a pack of lies invented to control people. When science approaches the issue using the scientific method, evolution is THE answer. Intelligent design, and the more general belief in a god, are both way down on the list of probabilities when it comes to explaining the observations. Neither intelligent design nor god can be absolutely disproved, but they are unlikely. Both beliefs require faith, not science.
ID is obviously an attempt to cling to a lie by compromise. "All of creation took about 14 billion years, and not a week, like we said? Oh, umm, well... we were speaking figuratively. We didn't mean it actually took a week. Of course the mechanisms were exactly as you describe and man wasn't made from a lump of clay, and woman wasn't made from a rib taken from the first man. But God was still responsible for everything." The creation myth was a fairy story presented as a fact until science finally prevailed and proved otherwise. Now, in the face of real facts, religion is forced to compromise to avoid losing all credibility, and that compromise is called intelligent design.
I won't convince you. Your beliefs are based on faith, and there is no compelling scientific evidence that can overcome such personal beliefs. Sadly, people will believe what they want. Religion will keep telling lies to control people by making them feel they are the ones who are right while everyone else's beliefs are false, and they will be rewarded for all of etentity. Religion is divisive, and will unfortunately continue to cause prolonged wars with much killing in the name of some god. The Crusades, Ireland, Palestine, 9/11... when does it end? It ends when we grow up, and stop believing these fairy stories.
Here's a clue. Science does not accept beliefs based on what makes you feel most comfortable, or what fits best with existing dogma.
One of my greatest joys is seeing a child who was not indoctrinated into the church, who has developed some critical thinking skills, then watching as an adult attempts to convert the kid to a particular religious belief. I love the part when the confusion and disbelief builds to the point where the kid finally interrupts to ask, "You're kidding me, right?" When reason prevails, I feel there is hope for humanity.
People who are immersed in the religious dogma and have been programmed to accept it as their own belief system do not realize how ridiculous most of it sounds to anyone who is thinking rationally.
For now, science and religion should try to stay out of each other's way. If people with religious beliefs are allowed to place stickers on the cover of textbooks that discredit evolution, then those with scien
What's he talking about? Comparitive DNA analysis is one of the best proofs for evolution.
I've studied the entire human genome thoroughly, and found no evidence of intelligent design. You want to impress me? Show me pi to 20 places encoded in DNA, the Fibonaci sequence, or the first 64 prime numbers.
But there was a section near the end of the Y chromosome where, if you played it backwards it said, "Paul is dead." That really freaked me out. But it's within the statistical limit of probability.
Have fun piloting your safe helium powered airships in the irridescent purple sky of whatever planet you live, where logic is trumped by rigidly held beliefs, science is banished by the self-appointed experts who have all the answers, and the physical laws of the universe do not apply.
Thanks for playing. OK, Bye-bye.
How is the relative heat output of hydrogen vs. doped fabric of any significance? Obviously, a lot of heat will be produced by the hydrogen needed to fill an entire airship. But the important issue is, what started the fire?
When investigating a house fire, nobody says, "The heat produced by a cigarette that was dropped when someone fell asleep is insignificant compared to all the lumber and other combustibles in a house, so the cigarette couldn't be the cause of the accident." Yet that is exactly the sort of specious argument you're advancing when you ignore the flammable covering material.
A great number of the things we find to be very useful have an lot of stored energy. Dams hold back tons of water. Jet airliners traveling at 500 MPH have enormous kinetic energy. A gas station has a lot of flammable gasoline. When there is an accident, we don't start pointing fingers at the stored energy. We look for the problem. What allowed the stored energy to be released? That's the cause of the accident. Otherwise, we couldn't have hydroelectric dams, airliners, gas stations, or any of the other devices we find to be so useful.
Good design requires the safe management of the risks associated with stored energy. Admittedly, a huge airship full of hydrogen would represent an unacceptable risk in the best of circumstances. But covering that hydrogen in a highly flammable material is just asking for trouble. It was a bad design choice that made the Hindenberg disaster all but inevitable.
Previous airships had a good safety record, even though many of them were filled with hydrogen when the US stopped exporting helium to pre Nazi Germany. The flammable covering material was a recent change made in the airship by an engineer who should have known better.
For the fourth time, I saw the burn rate with my own eyes. So, yeah, I guess I disagree with you and your anonymous experts.
You're being deliberately obtuse, right?
The flammability of hydrogen is not an issue if there is not a combustible mixture of hydrogen present. That is almost always the case. The very flammable cover is ALL OVER THE OUTSIDE OF THE ENTIRE AIRSHIP. This very flammable material is always present. That's why the flammability of the cover is a significant issue. Once the cover is burning, the hydrogen will inevitably burn too. But the most likely cause of the initial ignition is the cover, not the enclosed hydrogen that is too rich a mixture to burn.
That loss rate sounds like a lot, and in absolute terms it is. But it's fairly insignificant in terms of the volume of a huge airship. H2 is a very small molecule and it readily diffuses through materials. The vast majority of the leakage you mentioned is almost certainly diffusion. In the case of diffusion, the entire ship is leaking, but the diffusion rate is so low that the concentration of hydrogen at the surface of the airship is many orders of magnitude below what would be required for a minimal combustible mixture. The ship was designed with gas cells held in a framework, and an outer cover. The design prevented a buildup of hydrogen lost through diffusion. So the entire hydrogen leakage rate is a big red herring.
Interesting article. I like the Society for Amateur Scientists. But like any such group, there are always people with pet theories and various agendas.
There were a few problems with the "science". One was the method of the burn test. A flat piece of treated cloth is oriented horizontally and lit in the center. This method seems designed to ensure the slowest burn rate possible. Or were they trying to simulate a fire that begins at the very top of the airship in perfectly still air?
There were other similar examples of bad science. However, by far the largest problem was indicated by the following quote from the article:
The experiments used formulations and application techniques that were invented by the experimenter, so the "actual experiment" was filled with supposition. As I have repeatedly stated, the video I saw used a sample coupon of cloth that was prepared by the company that produced the Hindenberg, using exactly the same materials and techniques. There was no supposition about the materials used and the way they were applied. The material was the same as the fabric covering on the Hindenberg, as verified by the original engineer's notes which were preserved after the accident. The fabric ignited easily and burned quickly. It's a fact. Deal with it.
The sad thing is, we both apparently agree that hydrogen is too flammable for use in an airship. Once it's ignited, there is no practical way to extinguish it. I have never claimed that hydrogen would be safe in an airship if a nonflammable covering were used. All I claim was that the highly flammable covering used in the Hindenberg was a big mistake, and was likely to have started the fire that consumed the giant airship.
A hydrogen filled airship is dangerous. A hydrogen filled airship surrounded by a giant firestarter is even more dangerous. Got it?
Graf is German for count. Count Zeppelin founded the company. A couple of the airships were named in his honor. The Hindenberg was a later airship from the same company.
Despite your expert opinion, I saw the video. "Rapidly" is a relative term, but I would use it in this case. It quickly ignited and burned rapidly, with what certainly appeared to be a hot flame.
The fabric dope contained finely powdered aluminum and iron oxide. It was very flammable. Any guess what the solid rocket boosters on the shuttle contain? Yep, powdered aluminum (fuel) and iron oxide (catalyst). Check it out.
Self evident to you, perhaps. The *real* experts who studied the Hindenberg disaster agreed that the incendiary covering was a major contributing factor.
I think you are still misunderstanding what I'm trying to say, so I'll try again. The issue is not whether hydrogen is more flammable than the doped fabric. The problem is that the huge structure was so flammable that there was no need for a hydrogen leak to occur to start the ignition process.
Hydrogen drifts upward and is self-venting in an open area, and numerous efforts were made to ensure adequate ventilation of all enclosed spaces to prevent any hydrogen from accumulating in the event of a leak. The major design flaw was the fabric. A small flame or intense spark anywhere on the structure would ignite the highly flammable fabric with the inevitable tragic result.
See if you can find the PBS special. It was very interesting, both technically, and in terms of how much information can be assembled over 50 years later.
I think you have COMPLETELY missed my point. Nobody is suggesting that hydrogen did not play a significant role in the Hindenberg disaster. As I said, it's too flammable to be safe in that application.
The fabric sample that was obtained was not from the Hindenberg (duh). It was, as I said, from the Graf Zeppelin company. They had been experimenting with various coverings and coatings and had sample coupons available, some of which were identical to the material used in the ill fated Hindenberg. They had probably tested some of these samples for resistance to the elements, poracity, etc. They should have tested them for flammability, but apparently did not. The demonstration of the sample burning in air was very compelling. It burned very quickly.
Once again, nobody is saying that the cover burned and the hydrogen didn't. The significance of the rapidly burning cover material is that it could START a hydrogen fire very easily. Such a flammable material would need only a strong spark to ignite, and in turn ignite the hydrogen. But even with a fireproof covering, hydrogen is considered too flammable for use in airships because of the possibility of leaks, electrostatic discharge, landing accidents, lightning, etc.
Once the outer covering spread the flames, the video from the Hindenberg disaster showed a hydrogen fire where the surface burned at the hydrogen / air interface. The hydrogen inside had no oxygen and couldn't burn.
But even with a fireproof and antistatic covering, I don't think hydrogen zeppelins are safe. Hydrogen is too flammable and a leak in a huge airship seems inevitable. Once a hydrogen fire starts, it'd be difficult to extinguish.
Exactly!
I wouldn't dream of turning over a Windows PC to my 75 year old parents. Hell, my dad calls me to help talk him through the TV/VCR and recently DVD useage issues.
However, I've been thinking of getting them a notebook PC and installing Xandros Linux so they can get email, surf "the interweb", and download digital pictures from the camera. Xandros is easier than any version of Windows I've used, and I've suffered since Windows 3.1. Printers? Xandros knows my Lexmark Z52 inkjet and my big mutha Lexmark Optra T614 network laser printer. The drivers are already there, and installation couldn't be easier. No Plug-N-Pray (TM), no installation CD needed, and no need to reboot for changes to take effect.
I've been running Xandros exclusively for over two years for my engineering business. It runs 24/7 and I use lots of complex applications including mechanical CAD, electrical CAD & PCB layout, accounting, programming, etc. I'd NEVER go back to being a Windows luser and I'd certainly never subject my parents to the insane hassles of Outlook worm de jour and the weekly security exploits in Windows and IE.
There are other easy to use distros as well, and there is the Mac, so there is plenty of choice. If you want a computer, there is no need to play monopoly.
It's counter intuitive, but power users have a harder time migrating from Windows because of that one obscure application they just have to have. The average PC user who wants hassle-free internet, email, and office applications is best served by Linux, Firefox/Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.
First, it has less to do with how much philanthropy is required to win respect than it has to do with how much philanthropy is required to offset his enormous income to avoid paying taxes.
Secondly, as others have already mentioned, he could make anonymous donations rather than the ego boosting, public, "see what a great guy I am" donations.
Finally, I think a better measure of charity is the degree to which a sacrifice is made. I have a lot more respect for the single mom, working two jobs, who still manages to give $20 to a local orphanage every December 20th so some kid can have a present. When you have $50,000,000,000 in the bank, a billion dollar tax deductible donation is not going to adversely impact the lifestyle.
So, yeah, he's still evil.
On the contrary. Expert systems are not simply as good as the weakest link. A better model would be a synergistic system that is better than its best single component. Through an iterative process, knowledge is added to an expert system and mistakes are eliminated. Unlike a doctor, there is no gradual decline in currency and attention span over time. Expert systems continue to add information and improve their diagnostic algorithms. Just think where we could be today if we had started training a medical diagnostic expert system when we first had the technology to start such an effort twenty years ago.
A reasonable, although not completely accurate comparison can be made with the game of chess. There are rules and lots of subtle strategies. On first examination, it'd be easy to say that a computer would be difficult to program to play chess. But there was no equivalent of the AMA to become offended by chess playing programs, which are essentially a sort of expert system. Who can beat the best computer at chess today? Nobody. I want a doctor that can diagnose illnesses as well as Deep Blue plays chess.
Again, I feel that you're making my points for me. How much better would it be to have the combined diagnostic experience of 2000 of the best medical diagnosticians in the world, combined into one expert system? With feedback from mistaken diagnoses corrected almost immediately, it becomes better, and better, and better. Imagine if every doctor in the world learned from every mistake made by every other doctor in the world, and never forgot anything.
The expert system I originally referred to was a simple rule based system, if I recall correctly. There are languages such as Prolog that were created specifically for the deveopment of automated expert systems, although those programs were more like a smart database that could be queried. A true medical expert system would be more active. Rather than answering questions, it would be asking the questions, ordering tests, analyzing test results, etc. This system could be coded in a fairly straight forward manner in C++, or a language could be developed to take a database of medical information and automatically develop the appropriate diagnostic routines. Such a data driven approach would be more flexible when introducing new medical information, but would be more difficult to test and verify. Test and verification would be important features for a medical expert system.
There are also expert systems based on neural networks. They train themselves from the data in a manner that is seldom intuitive to humans. They often produce surprising solutions (aka "diagnoses") that would almost never occur to a human, particularly in situations where people would have a difficult time making a diagnosis. Neural networks can be very efficient, and they almost write themselves, but it's difficult for people to trust them for an important application such as medical diagnostics.
The typical Slashdot reader would be fairly inclined to credit the technology rather than the medical practitioner. But how many people in the general population would marvel at the engineering behind the scenes, and how many would simply say, "It's amazing what doctors can do these days?"
I agree that it's fairly insignificant who gets the credit. What is important is improving the quality of healthcare, improving access to that high quality healthcare, and reducing the cost so we can afford high quality healthcare. I think that diagnostic techno