If you want to concentrate on that, here's a nice quote for you from page 8 (emphasis mine):
The curator continues to describe how electricity (presumably from Edison) brought numerous consumer items to market...citing the vacuum cleaner and fans. He carefully neglects to mention that vacuum cleaners and fans use Tesla's AC motors.
If Wagner is going to go to bat for Edison, he at least ought to acknowledge that vacuum cleaners use universal motors, which are series-wound commutated-armature motors. These are just like DC motors (they will run fine on DC or AC) and do not descend from Tesla's induction motor technology. (They are also more expensive and crankier, which is why you don't see them used as widely; Tesla really did create the technology for the ubiquitous fractional-horsepower motors we now take for granted. But vacuum cleaners aren't part of his legacy.) --
The main problem though is that there are a lot of crank cults that have grown up around the subject and their behaviour tends to drop the issue into the lunatic fringe basket. Because of this, anyone who tries to research the subject invariably reacts in a negative way.
It's funny, because you give a textbook example:
His last project revolved around the idea of tapping into natural electric currents generated deep within the Earth.
As the story goes, he suceeded and Morgan was appalled at the idea that this discovery would mean that people wouldn't need to pay for electricity any more once they had the necessary equipment.
No one can prove it, but like I said, on the basis of his other successes, it's plausible.
No, it's been pretty conclusively debunked. There has been a huge amount of work done in the last 20 years with regard to investigating earthquakes and especially trying to predict them. One of the techniques used is georesistivity, looking at the electrical characteristics of the rock and soil around faults. If there was any electric power available from driving electrodes into the earth, experiments such as those (and others in different fields of inquiry) would have discovered it as a byproduct; it would have stuck out like bonfire in the night. Nobody's seen anything. Conclusion: the effect does not exist, and this "suppression of free energy" story is another crackpot myth pushed by the scientifically-illiterate fringe. I didn't mean to be quite so blunt, but that's what it is.
There's plenty of energy available from natural effects on Earth, but that isn't one of them. Serious investigators look for things like geothermal or ocean-thermal power instead. These effects are real, measurable and even usable. --
That sounds like an ion-generator power supply. They can't generate enough continuous current to be harmful, but once the capacitors are charged up they can give you enough of a pulse during the discharge to knock you over. It's like the difference between a trickle from a faucet, and a cup filled from the trickle. --
Wire up cables, sure you can charge everyone, put free power in the air? nooooo, cant do that, no money in that even tho its probably better.
With all the concern about pollution from powerplants and hazards of electromagnetic fields, you'd think you would have some concern about the far greater losses of wireless transmission and the higher EM exposures it would represent. --
The danger of AC is that once you pick up a live wire, you just *can't* let go
That's the danger of DC, not AC. DC causes muscles to clamp; one of the sensations of low-current DC is not being hurt by the sensation, but being unable to let go. There is a very famous photo of the "electric smile generator" which ran a DC current from a ball on one cheek to a ball on the other; this tensed the cheek muscles and produced an involuntary smile. You wouldn't get this with AC.
Edison tried to kill AC by having legislatures sanction its use for executions; this is how we got the electric chair. Ironically, DC would have been much more humane; just run enough current to cause the heart to clamp tight and stay that way, and unconsciousness would follow within seconds without burning. Instead we have convicts bursting into flame; burning at the stake with all the modern improvments. --
The speed you need to get into Earth orbit is roughly 5 miles per second; dropping something in from the Shuttle, as someone suggested, wouldn't start it any slower. (It wouldn't start vertically, but that wasn't my assumption.)
An object falling to Earth from infinity will be moving quite a bit faster, at a minimum of 7 miles per second. Oh, your math is wrong. At constant acceleration, v^2 = 2*a*d. With v = 8000 m/sec and a = 9.81 m/sec^2, d = 8000^2/(2*9.81) = 3.26e6 meters = 2027 miles. Of course, the acceleration isn't constant, it falls off as the inverse square of distance. Are you up to doing the integral of G*M(earth)/r^2 from r=4000 miles to infinity? You might find it illuminating. --
It was the obnoxious Javascript bouncing ball in the Sun ad which finally made me kill Javascript in my browser. I killed animations long ago, and I am now nuking connections to every ad site which tries to serve me a cookie.
I will never see ads from sites which serve cookies, and I will not see anything except the first frame of animated ads. If you want the impression revenue or click-through revenue from me, you should not use cookies or animations from any ad on your ad servers. Rob, Jeff, are you listening? --
Okay, say you did get it up there, or find a rock that big out in space. How the heck do you propose dropping it throught atmosphere without it burning up?
Um, maybe you let it fall by itself? Fist-sized rocks fall to Earth all the time with no more damage than a thin "fusion crust" melted on one side. Somewhat larger rocks hit the ground at considerable speed. A rock the size of a car, sent down more or less vertically, would arrive largely intact and at hypersonic speed. THAT would be quite a weapon; even falling at a mere 5 miles per second, it would cover the last 50 miles (including all the significant atmosphere) in a just ten seconds. --
Yup. I'm constantly harping on about how we're supposed to have Moon bases and hotels in space, and missions to mars by around about this time.
"People build railroads when it's railroad time." Maybe it's not Mars time yet.
I guess the gravity well is bigger than our ability to overcome it right now, alas...
Let me rephrase that for you: the gravity well is bigger than our need to get people out of it right now. In the 1960's, we had a need to do something big in space. It was a competition with the Russians designed to build national prestige among other nations and keep more countries from defecting to the Communist bloc. We could have had satellites in the 50's, but Von Braun was told "no" by his superiors. We didn't get them until it became a dick-size contest, and we didn't let anyone forget that we bailed Europe AND the USSR out a mere 20 years earlier: our dick really WAS bigger. And once we'd proved it, we took our bat and glove and went home.
Today we have tons of space going on, but national prestige is pretty much out of the picture. It's mostly in the things that pay in the medium of commerce, the greenback. Communications satellites produce revenues in the billions of dollars per year and are definitely worth fighting 5/6 of the way out of Earth's gravity well. We have no similar push to explore the Moon or Mars or return resources from asteroids because there's no profit in it. Space science is science, worth a few billion dollars a year worldwide, otherwise not that big of a deal. The largest manned-space project going today is actually a form of foreign aid and constructive bribery to keep the former USSR from letting its rocket and nuclear scientists go to places like Iraq or North Korea.
When it's railroad time, people will build railroads. What would make it Moon time, or Mars time, or 1992 KD time? Something that would make it pay. Most everything on Earth is far too cheap to be worth going to space to get more. It would certainly be cheaper to get large quantities of iron or oxygen from somewhere in space to ship them to Earth orbit than to launch them up, but there is as yet no market for bulk commodities in orbit to justify the expense of the first mining venture. It is a chicken/egg problem, looking for someone with a clever enough idea to bootstrap it. --
Perhaps now we should make it illegal to say "fuck" in a public place
It's already done in Michigan; there was a case recently where a canoist was cited for the language he used after he got dumped into the Rifle River. Seems that some women and children were within earshot, and that made it unlawful according to the law.
"If the law says that, the law is a ass, a idiot." - Mr. Bumble "The law is an ass, and I have to spank it." - Grafitto in the UM law library --
(did you know 2 or more aspirin before sex constituted "rape" b/c the woman was under the "influence of drugs"?)
What? You mean that "I have a headache" is "no" even when it was a real headache and it's cured? Man, I have to get a new PC Dictionary, that one wasn't in it. --
I swear, people have no sense. Those of us who aren't brainwashed Linux zealots realize that there are actually some very good things about Windows 2000. When Linux users run around chanting "Down with Microsoft!" it just makes me wonder what they're scared of.
Maybe it's the way their DNS is designed to crash Unix DNS. Or maybe it's the way that Microsoft deliberately munged their implementation of Kerberos with a secret encrypted data block so that only W2K servers can be used to speak Kerberos to a W2K workstation. Maybe people are worried that Microsoft will use the DMCA to kill any extensions to Samba which would fix this deliberate incompatibility, thus forcing many companies to replace perfectly good *nix servers with W2K or NT.
Maybe it's Microsoft's anti-competitive practices which attempt to FORCE everyone to get rid of perfectly good non-Microsoft software for no reason other than Microsoft deliberately broke the standards that everyone else keeps. Until Microsoft stops using every product as an anti-competitive wedge, people will oppose Microsoft's wedges and Microsoft products in general. This is as it should be. --
Apparently it's a bandwidth issue, and the people who manage the proxy would rather block the entire site than block transfers of files with.mp3 at the end of the name. They don't appear to be smart enough to pass files under a certain length, nor is a contact e-mail address posted on the proxy's error message (else I would complain locally). (This place is a Windows shop, expecting intelligence from them is probably as unrealistic as hoping for philosophy from a pig.) --
It deals with it mostly by telling patrons, "Deal with it." Some quotes from the AUP:
Libraries and librarians should not deny or limit access to information available via electronic resources because of its controversial content or because of personal beliefs or fears of confrontation.
...the Library cannot protect individuals from information and images which they might find offensive or disturbing.
Parents or guardians are responsible for the Internet information selected and/or accessed by their children.
On the other hand, it does tell people to be respectful of others:
customers are asked to be sensitive of others' values and beliefs when accessing potentially controversial information and images.
Refraining from the transmission of threatening, harassing or abusive language and images.
It appears that the Christian Gallery web site I was pointed to a couple of years ago would be something the Ann Arbor District Library would ask their patrons to avoid viewing in public. Interesting. --
What I can't seem to understand is when we all made the assumption that there were lots of things on the net that children need to be shielded from.
I wouldn't have wanted my kids looking at the Christian Gallery web site. They seem to be off the net now, but one page had, amid a homophobic rant, a number of images including:
an oft-repeated photo of abortuses;
coprophagy;
anal sex;
fisting. Up to the elbow.
No way would I want my kids looking at that, and I imagine most parents wouldn't either. For one thing, can you imagine how red in the face they'd get trying to explain it? --
public libraries don't put Playboy, Hustler, and other skin mags on their magazine shelves.
The last time I checked, the public library in my homedown had Playboy (and Penthouse?) behind the librarian's desk. The sign told you to ask for them if you wanted them. This kept them away from the kiddies while making certain that adults didn't have to buy a copy in order to read, e.g., the latest Jesse Ventura interview. --
The laws--European and American--clearly state that the copyright holder has the right to dictate the means of playback. If MPAA doesn't want to license your machine, it doesn't have to and you can't legally do anything about it.
They do? Does this apply to books, CD's, video and audio tapes too?
I am aware of NO law which dictates how I can "play back" the content of those media, or which allows someone else to dictate it to me. Copyright law dictates how I can or cannot distribute it, but I can project the book on an overhead or point my camcorder at it and display it on my 50-inch TV if I want to, and nobody can tell me not to. I can OCR the book in order to grep the text (archival copying is fair use). I can play a CD or an audio tape through anything that can read it. Ditto for a videotape. If I want to sample the CD or frame-grab and edit bits of the video, I can as long as I don't go beyond the bounds of fair use... and anything that does not transmit copies of the content to someone else or keep copies after I have sent the original to someone else is most assuredly fair use.
We're just out to get the use of what we've paid for, without illegal product tying to a list of "approved" players. This is about interoperability, fair use and the free market. We are on the high road. What other road could it be? --
It gets worse, by the way. You might not realize this, but this same ruling implies that Microsoft can go after anyone who tries to decode Word file formats. The file formats, after all, are not software -- they are a technology.
That was the first thing that sprang to mind when I read that part of the decision. This gives companies like Microsoft carte blanche to ban software which emulates their server functions. Bye bye, Samba.
And I don't think I've ever seen a remark as utterly clueless about the nature of software as this one:
Second, even assuming that DeCSS runs under Linux, it concededly runs under Windows---a far more widely used operating system---as well. It therefore cannot reasonably be said that DeCSS was developed "for the sole purpose'' of achieving interoperability between Linux and DVDs.
Somehow the meaning of "interoperable" and "portable" never got into Kaplan's grasp. Maybe the words have, but the meaning eludes him. Until he is educated, he's going to be extremely dangerous to people who are doing nothing more than trying to use what they've paid for. --
The entire mp3.com domain appears to be blocked from my proxy server. (Seems they aren't smart enough to distinguish between files by extension or size.) Anyway, is this content mirrored anywhere I could read it? --
Merely by buying an SDMI-enabled player, you increase the chance of music ever being released on SDMI *only*.
Worse: Even if it plays other formats, because SDMI will be an orphan format, your player will probably not have any upgrade path (assuming you care). It will be an orphan player for an orphan format, one more piece of junk to clutter your drawers or take up space in a landfill.
I always deny a cookie when I don't know what it is for, especially when it is obviously coming from the Add Banner Script.
You're not doing enough. You're still feeding the ad site your http:referrer and your IP address, plus whatever else your browser is configured to blab about you. I make a point of blocking all access to ad sites which try to set cookies; not only do they not get to set a cookie, they don't get a hit. (I have not seen a doubleclick ad in months. I intend to keep it that way.) If this costs the web site some money, it's their fault for partnering with scum who try to invade my privacy. --
That's a bad link. Also, LinuxOne's news page does not have a single title making a reference to Linuxcare. Neither is there any reference in their IPO announcement, their Power Source announcement, or their Super Com announcement. --
Slashdot Mirror
--
There's plenty of energy available from natural effects on Earth, but that isn't one of them. Serious investigators look for things like geothermal or ocean-thermal power instead. These effects are real, measurable and even usable.
--
That sounds like an ion-generator power supply. They can't generate enough continuous current to be harmful, but once the capacitors are charged up they can give you enough of a pulse during the discharge to knock you over. It's like the difference between a trickle from a faucet, and a cup filled from the trickle.
--
--
Edison tried to kill AC by having legislatures sanction its use for executions; this is how we got the electric chair. Ironically, DC would have been much more humane; just run enough current to cause the heart to clamp tight and stay that way, and unconsciousness would follow within seconds without burning. Instead we have convicts bursting into flame; burning at the stake with all the modern improvments.
--
An object falling to Earth from infinity will be moving quite a bit faster, at a minimum of 7 miles per second. Oh, your math is wrong. At constant acceleration, v^2 = 2*a*d. With v = 8000 m/sec and a = 9.81 m/sec^2, d = 8000^2/(2*9.81) = 3.26e6 meters = 2027 miles. Of course, the acceleration isn't constant, it falls off as the inverse square of distance. Are you up to doing the integral of G*M(earth)/r^2 from r=4000 miles to infinity? You might find it illuminating.
--
I will never see ads from sites which serve cookies, and I will not see anything except the first frame of animated ads. If you want the impression revenue or click-through revenue from me, you should not use cookies or animations from any ad on your ad servers. Rob, Jeff, are you listening?
--
--
Today we have tons of space going on, but national prestige is pretty much out of the picture. It's mostly in the things that pay in the medium of commerce, the greenback. Communications satellites produce revenues in the billions of dollars per year and are definitely worth fighting 5/6 of the way out of Earth's gravity well. We have no similar push to explore the Moon or Mars or return resources from asteroids because there's no profit in it. Space science is science, worth a few billion dollars a year worldwide, otherwise not that big of a deal. The largest manned-space project going today is actually a form of foreign aid and constructive bribery to keep the former USSR from letting its rocket and nuclear scientists go to places like Iraq or North Korea.
When it's railroad time, people will build railroads. What would make it Moon time, or Mars time, or 1992 KD time? Something that would make it pay. Most everything on Earth is far too cheap to be worth going to space to get more. It would certainly be cheaper to get large quantities of iron or oxygen from somewhere in space to ship them to Earth orbit than to launch them up, but there is as yet no market for bulk commodities in orbit to justify the expense of the first mining venture. It is a chicken/egg problem, looking for someone with a clever enough idea to bootstrap it.
--
"If the law says that, the law is a ass, a idiot." - Mr. Bumble
"The law is an ass, and I have to spank it." - Grafitto in the UM law library
--
--
Maybe it's Microsoft's anti-competitive practices which attempt to FORCE everyone to get rid of perfectly good non-Microsoft software for no reason other than Microsoft deliberately broke the standards that everyone else keeps. Until Microsoft stops using every product as an anti-competitive wedge, people will oppose Microsoft's wedges and Microsoft products in general. This is as it should be.
--
Apparently it's a bandwidth issue, and the people who manage the proxy would rather block the entire site than block transfers of files with .mp3 at the end of the name. They don't appear to be smart enough to pass files under a certain length, nor is a contact e-mail address posted on the proxy's error message (else I would complain locally). (This place is a Windows shop, expecting intelligence from them is probably as unrealistic as hoping for philosophy from a pig.)
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Some of us can't read that open letter, because our proxies block mp3.com. How about mirroring it, or quoting it?
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For those of us behind proxies which block the entire mp3.com site, would someone please put up a mirror for these news items? Thanks!
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--
--
- an oft-repeated photo of abortuses;
- coprophagy;
- anal sex;
- fisting. Up to the elbow.
No way would I want my kids looking at that, and I imagine most parents wouldn't either. For one thing, can you imagine how red in the face they'd get trying to explain it?--
--
I am aware of NO law which dictates how I can "play back" the content of those media, or which allows someone else to dictate it to me. Copyright law dictates how I can or cannot distribute it, but I can project the book on an overhead or point my camcorder at it and display it on my 50-inch TV if I want to, and nobody can tell me not to. I can OCR the book in order to grep the text (archival copying is fair use). I can play a CD or an audio tape through anything that can read it. Ditto for a videotape. If I want to sample the CD or frame-grab and edit bits of the video, I can as long as I don't go beyond the bounds of fair use... and anything that does not transmit copies of the content to someone else or keep copies after I have sent the original to someone else is most assuredly fair use.
We're just out to get the use of what we've paid for, without illegal product tying to a list of "approved" players. This is about interoperability, fair use and the free market. We are on the high road. What other road could it be?
--
And I don't think I've ever seen a remark as utterly clueless about the nature of software as this one:
Somehow the meaning of "interoperable" and "portable" never got into Kaplan's grasp. Maybe the words have, but the meaning eludes him. Until he is educated, he's going to be extremely dangerous to people who are doing nothing more than trying to use what they've paid for.--
The entire mp3.com domain appears to be blocked from my proxy server. (Seems they aren't smart enough to distinguish between files by extension or size.) Anyway, is this content mirrored anywhere I could read it?
--
SDMI: Just Say No.
--
--
That's a bad link. Also, LinuxOne's news page does not have a single title making a reference to Linuxcare. Neither is there any reference in their IPO announcement, their Power Source announcement, or their Super Com announcement.
--