I've got an idea. There's going to be what, 6 different verions of Vista targeting basic home users, media center users, on up to corporate clients? Why not make different defaults depending on what type of user each version targets. Home users: leave IM and streaming media ports open and close most of the rest. Business users: leave outgoing open and close selected inbound. Best (and worst, but I think we still come out ahead) of both worlds.
Gee that was a tough concept. Somebody should pay me for it. Perhaps Microsoft already thought of it though and somebody, somewhere took something they said out of context. That would be a first.
I forgot to mention, this research wasn't in response to the anthrax attacks a couple years ago. They started looking at anthrax before that. There's also pretty good potential that this method of binding protein receptors to liposomes at statistically calculated densities can be used to deal effectively with other toxins, as well.
The scientists knew that certain protein shapes could bind to toxins produced by the anthrax bacteria. They've found that embedding the proteins in liposomes, which are vesicles comprised of a phospholipid bilayer just like ordinary cell membranes, significantly increased their effectiveness. They've figured out how high of density of proteins to embed in the liposome surfaces so that the distance between proteins matches up with bonding sites on the toxins, forming a stronger bond and a better chance of bonding to begin with.
In their control group, 8 out of 9 rats given the toxin (not the actual anthrax bacteria, though) died. In the test group, only 1 of 9 rats given the toxin plus 500 mg of the protein-embedded liposomes died. Since the protein only targets the toxin, the treatment would have to be used in conjunction with antibiotics to kill the bacteria. There is no mention in the article whether the toxins and liposomes are flushed out of the body or broken down, but the end result is that the toxins can't bind to whatever it is they normally do to cause trouble.
Liposome probably isn't a familiar term, so look up liposome or cell membrane (includes drawing of embedded proteins) if you want to get a better understanding. Wikipedia has a decent article on anthrax, but I googled and found a much better write up from the University of Wisconsin that might help you get a good "big picture" look at what goes on.
From my reading it looks like there are multiple toxins. One causes septic shock through a method that is apparently not yet fully understood. It bonds to a protein in the cell membrane (just like the proteins in the liposomes), and interferes with cellular signalling. Fascinatingly, two other toxins actually cause ATP depletion and swelling in phagocytes (a particular type of cell in the immune system) so that they aren't able to engulf the anthrax bacteria and break them down. It's like a biological counter-countermeasure.
Not karma whoring...I just thought after I'd looked up all that information some other people would be interested, too. All this reminds me why I enjoyed biology so much back in high school.
Better yet, wait until the next Atkins-like fad hits after some clever nutritionist "discovers" that foods which are high in protein are also high in "peptides"... miraculous molecules that can help protect against anthrax, provide increased energy, and help the body heal.
Well, without resorting to nitpicking over dictionary definitions (although I did doublecheck "insurgent" on dictionary.com to make sure I'm not totally off base), I'd say insurgent fits. They are fighting against the currently established authority, and they are the minority. Most Iraqis seem to just want to get on with their lives. I think they want to trust the democratic process, but there's too much other crap going on for it to function like it should (or at least as well as it does in other countries).
I think it's also appropriate to argue that there are some terrorists among their ranks. Remember, those are people who's primary weapon is fear. Beheading people on television is an attempt to instill fear, not win battles. Suicide bombers...I don't know which label I'd apply to them, but blowing up a mosque isn't really a tactical or strategic move.
Given St. Cloud's problems, I've got high expectations for a mess when Portland starts their project. The city is permitting a private company to build a wireless network between 2006 and 2008 offering a $20/month subscription service, or free service paid for by ads. Aside from the fact that the city is giving one lone company permission to build for the whole city (perhaps there's a good reason for that versus accepting bids for specific neighborhoods though), there's also no word yet on how the ads will be delivered, and I'm concerned about interference causing problems using private access points.
I've got mixed feelings about the project. While I'd love to have easy access anywhere, and I'd really love to have some options besides Qwe$t and Comca$t for my home, this looks pretty ambitious. I guess there's some comfort that Portland's project is being privately paid for, rather than forced upon the taxpayers.
Very true. I'm not sure how these people feel about trains, but obviously a train doesn't have quite the mobility or turn around time that a tractor trailer does. I don't hear complaints from these people about freight trains, though. I suspect more because they seldom come in close enough contact with trains to smell the exhaust and feel contaminated by them, as opposed to the lovely french fry smell that comes out of the tail pipe of Jetta burning bio diesel.
Actually, you'll find it's pretty mainstream as far as religious beliefs go, whether in the form of a 7 day sequence of events, evolutionary creationism, or some other form. Maybe I misunderstand the term crackpot though.
Calling someone a creationist doesn't really attest to crackpottedness. It's a religious belief, not a scientific theory, although some people are a little confused on that point. I think I can also safely assert that anyone who thinks 90% of humanity should be wiped out is not in accord with the overwhelming majority of creationists.
BTW, a wingnut is a nut with "wings" that allow it to be tightened by hand, not a nut on a wing. Hey, at least I'm not grammar trolling.
Maybe investigate how to make 18-wheelers get 5mpg more than they do now.
Sorry, I get a little touchy when people pick on 18-wheelers, because so many of them are irrational about it. I'm not knocking you personally, just using the opportunity to preach a little bit. 18 wheelers are critical to our economy and the cheap availability of basically everything.
Tractor trailer rigs currently get around 5 mpg, so what you're suggesting would be equivalent to doubling their mileage. That's like taking a Toyota Corolla that gets 35 mpg already, and asking for 70 mpg out of it. Not gonna happen.
That said, operators are generally pretty fuel conscious. They would be ecstatic about even a 1 mpg increase in economy, and a lot of them are investing in APU's so they don't have to run the engine as much. Fuel is one of the top three costs, along with capital investment in the truck and the operator's pay. Truckers actually could achieve their best economy somewhere around 40-50 mph, but the fuel savings would be more than offset by the increased time billed by the driver. Any fleet that accrues a significant amount of miles per year keeps their trucks well-tuned to deliver the best mileage. The trucks you see billowing black smoke out the stacks are the ones that don't get driven very much.
There are actually people out there who don't think trucks should exist at all. I'm pretty sure most of them like being able to buy organic food from Ohio, sustainable furniture from Canada, bicycles from Oregon, and compact fluorescent light bulbs from where ever the heck those come from. Unfortunately, if we transported those items in Toyota Priuses, which can hold a driver plus about 700 pounds of cargo and get 60 mpg (but not fully loaded, I'd bet), it would take 85 of them to carry the same amount as a single 18-wheeler. Those 85 Toyota's would burn about 7 times as much fuel in the process and take up as much as 70 times as much space on the roads. Plus it would cost 85 times as much to pay the drivers.
There has been some controversy exactly as you describe from the "I built my house here and don't want to see your windmills" crowd, but all and all this has not been a huge concern.
Nor should it be a concern. It's private property. This isn't even an emminent domain debate. These people should go take a long walk off a short pier...preferrably over a volcano. These are the same type of people who sue their neighbors for painting their house the wrong color and messing up the community's feng shui, which literally happened in my sister's neighborhood. Some people aren't happy unless they have something to be unhappy about.
Noise is a concern to people who have seen the California wind turbines from the 70's in operation. The lower RPM's, improved blade design, and increased tower clearance make the new, larger designs much quieter. I think it's almost eery how quiet they are.
Birds are a pretty minor concern as well. Some people like to point to a valley in California where the hawk population decreased by 90% after the turbines were installed. That was one exceptional region, and the newer designs are also better in that regards. The newer 1.5 MW turbines are huge! The blades typically clear the ground by about 50 meters and the birds generally below the swept area. The lower RPM's also give them more time to dodge the blades if they do get the crazy notion to fly through the swept area.
By the way, I have a bone to pick with you about your turbines over there in eastern Washington. One of your boys got dropped in the middle of our freeways here in Portland last fall. Really messed up traffic to have a 100 ton generator sitting in the road. If that ain't proof that wind power is evil, I don't know what is.
1.) Look for ideas that should work, but you're not smart enough to figure out on your own
2.) Patent said ideas
3.) Sit around and wait for someone else to come up with the idea or whisper it in the ear of someone smart and ambitious
4.) ??? (that is to say, sue the crap out of them)
5.) Profit!
I admit I'm not real up on the details, but that was pretty much my first impression of the lawsuit against Research in Motion for violating "a method to deliver email to a handheld device wirelessly."
You'll have to forgive me for even trying to answer because I'm almost as confused and will probably screw it up, but I'm in the middle of Brian Green's The Incredible Universe, which is about string theory, so I feel smart today. Keep in mind this answer is in the context of string theory and I'm not sure if there is a standard quantum mechanics answer. The reason, as I understand it, is that the masses, charges, and spin states are the expression of the vibrational energy of the strings that constitute the particles. It just happens that a particular energy corresponds to the same charge, but a different mass. Of course, it's entirely possible string theory is wrong, but I'm told by people who are really good at really really really confusing math that the theory is reasonably solid so far.
Scientists (in white lab coats) talking
Prof Frink: Uh, excuse me. I mean could I have your atten...would everybody please...
Talking continues
Prof Frink: It's time to get this...oh gliben. PI IS EXACTLY 3!
*Stunned silence*
Prof Frink: I'm sorry I had to resort to this.
Also reminds me how my calculus professor used to joke, "What do you mean pi is irrational? It's the ratio of C to D."
First of all, to stay a little bit on topic, the theoretically observed change in mu is extremely small. Physicists don't know why mu should be about 1836 instead of about 1836.5 or 3 or 11,296,428. My understanding is (and I am not an expert on this), that really small change in mu like we're talking about here wouldn't significantly affect the universe and it would still look largely like it does, but somewhat small change in mu, like an order of magnitude would, a lot. This bugs physicists because they don't know why it is what it is. Why do we have the universe we have instead of something drastically different like one that collapsed or blew apart 10 minutes after the Big Bang? The only answer they can offer is the anthropic principle: It is the way it is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.
The existence of God does not hinge on the constancy of mu. This doesn't even disprove intelligent design, which is as bad from a theological perspective as it is from a scientific perspective, being vain in both schools. Several prominent Catholic theologians have stated as much. The perplexing question of why fundamental particles are the way they are and therefore allow us to exist does not constitute a proof of God's existence, but they are rather suggestive.
For the record, I think a brief discussion of creation concepts would be appropriate in social studies (as part of a survey of religions) or in philosophy classes (the study of being) in public schools, but not in science. I want to point out that if God created the phenomena which allows and upon which we base our science, it's unlikely that we would be able to prove or disprove His existence directly through science.
The concept of "Faith" was a magnificant and powerful creation--a tool that can allow a few people to control millions--and I'd like to meet the amazingly talented P/R man who figured out how to tag such a horrid, evil concept as "Good".
Question Everything
I wasn't going to reply, but it seemed worthwhile to Question this statement. Who is controlled here? The billions of faithful who find meaning in life? In what way are we controlled? By adherence to principles that are conducive to the betterment of mankind like "love your neighbor as yourself" and "Thou shalt not kill?" What is the gain for these scheming, evil leaders and their P/R man? You don't exactly see a lot of priests pimping it up with 22" rims on their Lincolns and an escort on each arm. Celibacy, the difficulties of working with a faith-community, itchy robes, and a badly off-key choir...now there's a good reason to cook up a religion. I'm willing to guarantee you the overwhelming majority of religious leaders really do believe in the faith they profess. Yes there is a large degree of misdirection and a few unscrupulous groups that are nothing more than pyramid schemes or printing companies, but the basic precepts of most religions out there are founded, promoted, and executed with good intent.
Well, along those same lines you could argue that the United States is a collection of tiny dictatorships, yet as a whole we still consider it a democratic republic.
Every piece of private property is owned by someone. As benevolent or tyrannic as he wants to be. Those households that claim they're "democratic" are so because the dictator decided it would be nice to let his or her "peasants", his or her family, act as the ruling body. But ultimately, one person is in charge.
When you look at the internet as a whole, you do see some democratic elements. The community is pretty well agreed that being deliberately misleading, spamming or DOS'ing, etc are inappropriate. There are agreed upon standards, which much like laws, were decided on by trusted representatives that guide the general operation and growth of the internet despite being sometimes broken. I think you get my point.
I'd say it's more fair to compare Slashdot or Digg to place of entertainment (that's what they are, aren't they?) than a nation. If they don't offer what the patrons want, people stop visiting. I think you're kind of going out on a limb trying to draw parallels between a site and state or nation, when in scale and function within the greater internet, the similarities seem much greater between a site and business or private home.
The key here is not really what the model looks like. It's how the model compares to real life. If when LIGO comes online, they detect waves that match what the model predicts they should detect, that gives experimental support that the equations the model is based on are correct. Also, in your example the equation is part of the theory, which is that 7=13, so then the model is 7*2 and the result is 26. If you do an experiment with counting blocks and combine two groups of 7 blocks yet find yourself with 14 blocks instead of 26, you should conclude that your theory is incorrect.
This analogy is kind of clumsy because you're essentially attempting to redefine the meaning of numbers, then directly compare the results of operations under the original number definitions. I think an equivalent situation would be to define an orange as an apple, then ask why, when I show you both an apple and an orange (according to my definitions), the two objects in my hand are different.
A better example is to theorize that gravity is proportional to mass (g = G*m1*m2/r^2). You can build a model based on this equation where the gravitational attraction between two masses at a certain distance with the known gravitational constant works out to be 2 Newtons. Then you can actually get the two masses, hold them r meters apart, and measure the force required to keep them apart. If it's 2 N, your theory looks good (it's not technically proven, but it's one step closer). If you get, say 1.9 Newtons, there are several possibilities: you theory is wrong (in this case we know it's right as far as classical physics is concerned), you made the model wrong (ie, you suck at math), or there were other factors influencing the experiment that you failed to account for (perhaps friction in your scale).
Spin is one of the fundamental identifying characteristics of a black hole (in addition to mass and electric charge). Also, if I understand correctly, not all of the mass is necessarily contained at the singularity.
That assumes that not only the person intercepting it realizes the string is a message in the first place, but also that there is only one possible combination in which all the dots line up. Plus, the finer the string, the more difficult it is to keep all your wraps together while you try to make out letters. I know it's not impossible, but I don't think it's trivial.
You're right about needing experts to design good ciphers though. I can't even claim to have thought that one up myself. I just found it a fascinating approach to cryptography predating computers or cipher machines.
A variation I heard that would be much tougher (I think, anyways), is to wrap a string around a stick and write on it. No section of the string would contain a complete letter, making it extremely difficult to find the wrapping interval. The stick is essentially a random unique key and the more unique the shape of the stick the better. Since sticks usually change profile along their length, it's very tough to "guess" the key.
The string and the stick could be delivered seperately. If either messenger were intercepted, one would have a length of dirty string, the other would have a walking stick. The recipient might have trouble wrapping the string around the stick in exactly the same manner, though.
I think a more modern variation would be possible using a bitmap. The original message, perhaps a secret document or maybe a map saved as a bitmap of any legible size. The image is sliced into sections of string with a small diameter, like maybe one pixel, and a certain amount of the margin is removed from each section before they are all spliced together to form a really long skinny bitmap (or rewrapped into a more normal looking ratio for transmission). The amount of margin removed from each piece of the string is analogous to the varying profile of the stick. One communication would carry the bitmap (or the string). The other would carry the original dimensions and the profile of the margin removal, either as a sequence of random pixel counts trimmed off each string section or an equation defining the trimmed amount along the width of the bitmap.
I don't doubt this can be cracked, especially with the help of character recognition, but I think it would require a fair amount of computing and somebody recognizing that it was more than just a dirty length of string and a walking stick.
Glad to see some people coming around to the fact that we aren't really certain any changes that may be occurring to the climate are human-related. There's some good evidence in favor of it, and some good evidence against it.
But it actually is debatable whether or not change is really happening. The global averages temperatures probably really have risen 2/3 of a degree in the past 120 years. There is some uncertainty to that, largely (to the best of my knowledge) due to questions of whether systematic errors exist in the temperature record, but those numbers appear to reflect proper science. Looking at short term trends and saying that it's irrefutable that change is happening, however, is unfounded. Swings of 4-5 degrees have happened over the last 100,000 years or so, lending serious credence to suggestions that current changes are part of a larger trend and not something new.
That the cycle should kill us off in anything resembling the near future (ie, before the sun dies or an asteroid hits us) has little merit. The temperatures rose and fell significantly throughout history without getting out of control. Although some species have died off, none have really shown the same degree of adaptability to change that humans have, since our building skills enable us to create favorable environments even in really unfavorable regions, ranging from the polar tundras to the equatorial deserts.
Generally, the total cost to a company per employee (add on costs of office space, benefits, support staffing) runs 2-3 times their salary, so figure more like $20-30 million. Yikes.
That fact notwithstanding, the money is mostly already spent (assuming this isn't just another joke article). If they drop the game now, the money is definitely gone. If they finish it and release it, they have a chance to recoup at least some of the money, assuming the cost of finishing it doesn't exceed the net income from selling it. It probably wouldn't fare much worse than Doom 3 did.
I'm still really skeptical. I have a hard time believing this isn't just a joke, and that 3DR didn't sink the project 5 years or so ago.
Thank you for pointing out another one of my problems with the global warming frenzy (note, not a denial, but a factor in my skepticism). When AP runs an article about 1200 scientists signing a letter stating they believe global warming is occuring, what does that mean, aside from more hippies going "see, you're denying science?" Is it 1200 climatologists? If so, why doesn't the article say 1200 climatologists or discuss their findings? I've got a pretty good suspiscion it consists of a handful of climatologists, and a big group of chemists, biologists, physicists, psychiatrists and other science professionals and acedemia who have no more relevant education or research on the matter than I, a lowly engineer, happen to have. I think at this point it's reasonable to note that having looked at the information provided (and most of it has come from global warming proponents), I've come to the conclusion that the case is fairly weak and very overblown.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got an idea. There's going to be what, 6 different verions of Vista targeting basic home users, media center users, on up to corporate clients? Why not make different defaults depending on what type of user each version targets. Home users: leave IM and streaming media ports open and close most of the rest. Business users: leave outgoing open and close selected inbound. Best (and worst, but I think we still come out ahead) of both worlds.
Gee that was a tough concept. Somebody should pay me for it. Perhaps Microsoft already thought of it though and somebody, somewhere took something they said out of context. That would be a first.
I forgot to mention, this research wasn't in response to the anthrax attacks a couple years ago. They started looking at anthrax before that. There's also pretty good potential that this method of binding protein receptors to liposomes at statistically calculated densities can be used to deal effectively with other toxins, as well.
The scientists knew that certain protein shapes could bind to toxins produced by the anthrax bacteria. They've found that embedding the proteins in liposomes, which are vesicles comprised of a phospholipid bilayer just like ordinary cell membranes, significantly increased their effectiveness. They've figured out how high of density of proteins to embed in the liposome surfaces so that the distance between proteins matches up with bonding sites on the toxins, forming a stronger bond and a better chance of bonding to begin with.
In their control group, 8 out of 9 rats given the toxin (not the actual anthrax bacteria, though) died. In the test group, only 1 of 9 rats given the toxin plus 500 mg of the protein-embedded liposomes died. Since the protein only targets the toxin, the treatment would have to be used in conjunction with antibiotics to kill the bacteria. There is no mention in the article whether the toxins and liposomes are flushed out of the body or broken down, but the end result is that the toxins can't bind to whatever it is they normally do to cause trouble.
Liposome probably isn't a familiar term, so look up liposome or cell membrane (includes drawing of embedded proteins) if you want to get a better understanding. Wikipedia has a decent article on anthrax, but I googled and found a much better write up from the University of Wisconsin that might help you get a good "big picture" look at what goes on.
From my reading it looks like there are multiple toxins. One causes septic shock through a method that is apparently not yet fully understood. It bonds to a protein in the cell membrane (just like the proteins in the liposomes), and interferes with cellular signalling. Fascinatingly, two other toxins actually cause ATP depletion and swelling in phagocytes (a particular type of cell in the immune system) so that they aren't able to engulf the anthrax bacteria and break them down. It's like a biological counter-countermeasure. Not karma whoring...I just thought after I'd looked up all that information some other people would be interested, too. All this reminds me why I enjoyed biology so much back in high school.
Just wait until they introduce "polypeptides."
Better yet, wait until the next Atkins-like fad hits after some clever nutritionist "discovers" that foods which are high in protein are also high in "peptides"... miraculous molecules that can help protect against anthrax, provide increased energy, and help the body heal.
Well, without resorting to nitpicking over dictionary definitions (although I did doublecheck "insurgent" on dictionary.com to make sure I'm not totally off base), I'd say insurgent fits. They are fighting against the currently established authority, and they are the minority. Most Iraqis seem to just want to get on with their lives. I think they want to trust the democratic process, but there's too much other crap going on for it to function like it should (or at least as well as it does in other countries).
I think it's also appropriate to argue that there are some terrorists among their ranks. Remember, those are people who's primary weapon is fear. Beheading people on television is an attempt to instill fear, not win battles. Suicide bombers...I don't know which label I'd apply to them, but blowing up a mosque isn't really a tactical or strategic move.
Given St. Cloud's problems, I've got high expectations for a mess when Portland starts their project. The city is permitting a private company to build a wireless network between 2006 and 2008 offering a $20/month subscription service, or free service paid for by ads. Aside from the fact that the city is giving one lone company permission to build for the whole city (perhaps there's a good reason for that versus accepting bids for specific neighborhoods though), there's also no word yet on how the ads will be delivered, and I'm concerned about interference causing problems using private access points.
I've got mixed feelings about the project. While I'd love to have easy access anywhere, and I'd really love to have some options besides Qwe$t and Comca$t for my home, this looks pretty ambitious. I guess there's some comfort that Portland's project is being privately paid for, rather than forced upon the taxpayers.
Very true. I'm not sure how these people feel about trains, but obviously a train doesn't have quite the mobility or turn around time that a tractor trailer does. I don't hear complaints from these people about freight trains, though. I suspect more because they seldom come in close enough contact with trains to smell the exhaust and feel contaminated by them, as opposed to the lovely french fry smell that comes out of the tail pipe of Jetta burning bio diesel.
Actually, you'll find it's pretty mainstream as far as religious beliefs go, whether in the form of a 7 day sequence of events, evolutionary creationism, or some other form. Maybe I misunderstand the term crackpot though.
Funniest thing I've read in slashdot all week. Too bad I never remember these shorts people come up with. They would make fantastic sketches.
I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be obsessed with Ruby on Rails this week. You're like 4 coding fads too late (perl, php, python...).
Now I'm just going to sit back and wait for somebody to tell me I'm wrong and it could be done in 3 lines with AJAX
Calling someone a creationist doesn't really attest to crackpottedness. It's a religious belief, not a scientific theory, although some people are a little confused on that point. I think I can also safely assert that anyone who thinks 90% of humanity should be wiped out is not in accord with the overwhelming majority of creationists.
BTW, a wingnut is a nut with "wings" that allow it to be tightened by hand, not a nut on a wing. Hey, at least I'm not grammar trolling.
Tractor trailer rigs currently get around 5 mpg, so what you're suggesting would be equivalent to doubling their mileage. That's like taking a Toyota Corolla that gets 35 mpg already, and asking for 70 mpg out of it. Not gonna happen.
That said, operators are generally pretty fuel conscious. They would be ecstatic about even a 1 mpg increase in economy, and a lot of them are investing in APU's so they don't have to run the engine as much. Fuel is one of the top three costs, along with capital investment in the truck and the operator's pay. Truckers actually could achieve their best economy somewhere around 40-50 mph, but the fuel savings would be more than offset by the increased time billed by the driver. Any fleet that accrues a significant amount of miles per year keeps their trucks well-tuned to deliver the best mileage. The trucks you see billowing black smoke out the stacks are the ones that don't get driven very much.
There are actually people out there who don't think trucks should exist at all. I'm pretty sure most of them like being able to buy organic food from Ohio, sustainable furniture from Canada, bicycles from Oregon, and compact fluorescent light bulbs from where ever the heck those come from. Unfortunately, if we transported those items in Toyota Priuses, which can hold a driver plus about 700 pounds of cargo and get 60 mpg (but not fully loaded, I'd bet), it would take 85 of them to carry the same amount as a single 18-wheeler. Those 85 Toyota's would burn about 7 times as much fuel in the process and take up as much as 70 times as much space on the roads. Plus it would cost 85 times as much to pay the drivers.
Noise is a concern to people who have seen the California wind turbines from the 70's in operation. The lower RPM's, improved blade design, and increased tower clearance make the new, larger designs much quieter. I think it's almost eery how quiet they are.
Birds are a pretty minor concern as well. Some people like to point to a valley in California where the hawk population decreased by 90% after the turbines were installed. That was one exceptional region, and the newer designs are also better in that regards. The newer 1.5 MW turbines are huge! The blades typically clear the ground by about 50 meters and the birds generally below the swept area. The lower RPM's also give them more time to dodge the blades if they do get the crazy notion to fly through the swept area.
By the way, I have a bone to pick with you about your turbines over there in eastern Washington. One of your boys got dropped in the middle of our freeways here in Portland last fall. Really messed up traffic to have a 100 ton generator sitting in the road. If that ain't proof that wind power is evil, I don't know what is.
1.) Look for ideas that should work, but you're not smart enough to figure out on your own
2.) Patent said ideas
3.) Sit around and wait for someone else to come up with the idea or whisper it in the ear of someone smart and ambitious
4.) ??? (that is to say, sue the crap out of them) 5.) Profit!
I admit I'm not real up on the details, but that was pretty much my first impression of the lawsuit against Research in Motion for violating "a method to deliver email to a handheld device wirelessly."
You'll have to forgive me for even trying to answer because I'm almost as confused and will probably screw it up, but I'm in the middle of Brian Green's The Incredible Universe, which is about string theory, so I feel smart today. Keep in mind this answer is in the context of string theory and I'm not sure if there is a standard quantum mechanics answer. The reason, as I understand it, is that the masses, charges, and spin states are the expression of the vibrational energy of the strings that constitute the particles. It just happens that a particular energy corresponds to the same charge, but a different mass. Of course, it's entirely possible string theory is wrong, but I'm told by people who are really good at really really really confusing math that the theory is reasonably solid so far.
At the "Annual Big Science Thingy"
Scientists (in white lab coats) talking
Prof Frink: Uh, excuse me. I mean could I have your atten...would everybody please...
Talking continues
Prof Frink: It's time to get this...oh gliben. PI IS EXACTLY 3!
*Stunned silence*
Prof Frink: I'm sorry I had to resort to this.
Also reminds me how my calculus professor used to joke, "What do you mean pi is irrational? It's the ratio of C to D."
First of all, to stay a little bit on topic, the theoretically observed change in mu is extremely small. Physicists don't know why mu should be about 1836 instead of about 1836.5 or 3 or 11,296,428. My understanding is (and I am not an expert on this), that really small change in mu like we're talking about here wouldn't significantly affect the universe and it would still look largely like it does, but somewhat small change in mu, like an order of magnitude would, a lot. This bugs physicists because they don't know why it is what it is. Why do we have the universe we have instead of something drastically different like one that collapsed or blew apart 10 minutes after the Big Bang? The only answer they can offer is the anthropic principle: It is the way it is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.
The existence of God does not hinge on the constancy of mu. This doesn't even disprove intelligent design, which is as bad from a theological perspective as it is from a scientific perspective, being vain in both schools. Several prominent Catholic theologians have stated as much. The perplexing question of why fundamental particles are the way they are and therefore allow us to exist does not constitute a proof of God's existence, but they are rather suggestive.
For the record, I think a brief discussion of creation concepts would be appropriate in social studies (as part of a survey of religions) or in philosophy classes (the study of being) in public schools, but not in science. I want to point out that if God created the phenomena which allows and upon which we base our science, it's unlikely that we would be able to prove or disprove His existence directly through science.
I wasn't going to reply, but it seemed worthwhile to Question this statement. Who is controlled here? The billions of faithful who find meaning in life? In what way are we controlled? By adherence to principles that are conducive to the betterment of mankind like "love your neighbor as yourself" and "Thou shalt not kill?" What is the gain for these scheming, evil leaders and their P/R man? You don't exactly see a lot of priests pimping it up with 22" rims on their Lincolns and an escort on each arm. Celibacy, the difficulties of working with a faith-community, itchy robes, and a badly off-key choir...now there's a good reason to cook up a religion. I'm willing to guarantee you the overwhelming majority of religious leaders really do believe in the faith they profess. Yes there is a large degree of misdirection and a few unscrupulous groups that are nothing more than pyramid schemes or printing companies, but the basic precepts of most religions out there are founded, promoted, and executed with good intent.
Well, along those same lines you could argue that the United States is a collection of tiny dictatorships, yet as a whole we still consider it a democratic republic.
Every piece of private property is owned by someone. As benevolent or tyrannic as he wants to be. Those households that claim they're "democratic" are so because the dictator decided it would be nice to let his or her "peasants", his or her family, act as the ruling body. But ultimately, one person is in charge.
When you look at the internet as a whole, you do see some democratic elements. The community is pretty well agreed that being deliberately misleading, spamming or DOS'ing, etc are inappropriate. There are agreed upon standards, which much like laws, were decided on by trusted representatives that guide the general operation and growth of the internet despite being sometimes broken. I think you get my point.
I'd say it's more fair to compare Slashdot or Digg to place of entertainment (that's what they are, aren't they?) than a nation. If they don't offer what the patrons want, people stop visiting. I think you're kind of going out on a limb trying to draw parallels between a site and state or nation, when in scale and function within the greater internet, the similarities seem much greater between a site and business or private home.
The key here is not really what the model looks like. It's how the model compares to real life. If when LIGO comes online, they detect waves that match what the model predicts they should detect, that gives experimental support that the equations the model is based on are correct. Also, in your example the equation is part of the theory, which is that 7=13, so then the model is 7*2 and the result is 26. If you do an experiment with counting blocks and combine two groups of 7 blocks yet find yourself with 14 blocks instead of 26, you should conclude that your theory is incorrect.
This analogy is kind of clumsy because you're essentially attempting to redefine the meaning of numbers, then directly compare the results of operations under the original number definitions. I think an equivalent situation would be to define an orange as an apple, then ask why, when I show you both an apple and an orange (according to my definitions), the two objects in my hand are different.
A better example is to theorize that gravity is proportional to mass (g = G*m1*m2/r^2). You can build a model based on this equation where the gravitational attraction between two masses at a certain distance with the known gravitational constant works out to be 2 Newtons. Then you can actually get the two masses, hold them r meters apart, and measure the force required to keep them apart. If it's 2 N, your theory looks good (it's not technically proven, but it's one step closer). If you get, say 1.9 Newtons, there are several possibilities: you theory is wrong (in this case we know it's right as far as classical physics is concerned), you made the model wrong (ie, you suck at math), or there were other factors influencing the experiment that you failed to account for (perhaps friction in your scale).
Spin is one of the fundamental identifying characteristics of a black hole (in addition to mass and electric charge). Also, if I understand correctly, not all of the mass is necessarily contained at the singularity.
That assumes that not only the person intercepting it realizes the string is a message in the first place, but also that there is only one possible combination in which all the dots line up. Plus, the finer the string, the more difficult it is to keep all your wraps together while you try to make out letters. I know it's not impossible, but I don't think it's trivial.
You're right about needing experts to design good ciphers though. I can't even claim to have thought that one up myself. I just found it a fascinating approach to cryptography predating computers or cipher machines.
A variation I heard that would be much tougher (I think, anyways), is to wrap a string around a stick and write on it. No section of the string would contain a complete letter, making it extremely difficult to find the wrapping interval. The stick is essentially a random unique key and the more unique the shape of the stick the better. Since sticks usually change profile along their length, it's very tough to "guess" the key.
The string and the stick could be delivered seperately. If either messenger were intercepted, one would have a length of dirty string, the other would have a walking stick. The recipient might have trouble wrapping the string around the stick in exactly the same manner, though.
I think a more modern variation would be possible using a bitmap. The original message, perhaps a secret document or maybe a map saved as a bitmap of any legible size. The image is sliced into sections of string with a small diameter, like maybe one pixel, and a certain amount of the margin is removed from each section before they are all spliced together to form a really long skinny bitmap (or rewrapped into a more normal looking ratio for transmission). The amount of margin removed from each piece of the string is analogous to the varying profile of the stick. One communication would carry the bitmap (or the string). The other would carry the original dimensions and the profile of the margin removal, either as a sequence of random pixel counts trimmed off each string section or an equation defining the trimmed amount along the width of the bitmap.
I don't doubt this can be cracked, especially with the help of character recognition, but I think it would require a fair amount of computing and somebody recognizing that it was more than just a dirty length of string and a walking stick.
Glad to see some people coming around to the fact that we aren't really certain any changes that may be occurring to the climate are human-related. There's some good evidence in favor of it, and some good evidence against it.
But it actually is debatable whether or not change is really happening. The global averages temperatures probably really have risen 2/3 of a degree in the past 120 years. There is some uncertainty to that, largely (to the best of my knowledge) due to questions of whether systematic errors exist in the temperature record, but those numbers appear to reflect proper science. Looking at short term trends and saying that it's irrefutable that change is happening, however, is unfounded. Swings of 4-5 degrees have happened over the last 100,000 years or so, lending serious credence to suggestions that current changes are part of a larger trend and not something new.
That the cycle should kill us off in anything resembling the near future (ie, before the sun dies or an asteroid hits us) has little merit. The temperatures rose and fell significantly throughout history without getting out of control. Although some species have died off, none have really shown the same degree of adaptability to change that humans have, since our building skills enable us to create favorable environments even in really unfavorable regions, ranging from the polar tundras to the equatorial deserts.
Generally, the total cost to a company per employee (add on costs of office space, benefits, support staffing) runs 2-3 times their salary, so figure more like $20-30 million. Yikes.
That fact notwithstanding, the money is mostly already spent (assuming this isn't just another joke article). If they drop the game now, the money is definitely gone. If they finish it and release it, they have a chance to recoup at least some of the money, assuming the cost of finishing it doesn't exceed the net income from selling it. It probably wouldn't fare much worse than Doom 3 did.
I'm still really skeptical. I have a hard time believing this isn't just a joke, and that 3DR didn't sink the project 5 years or so ago.
Thank you for pointing out another one of my problems with the global warming frenzy (note, not a denial, but a factor in my skepticism). When AP runs an article about 1200 scientists signing a letter stating they believe global warming is occuring, what does that mean, aside from more hippies going "see, you're denying science?" Is it 1200 climatologists? If so, why doesn't the article say 1200 climatologists or discuss their findings? I've got a pretty good suspiscion it consists of a handful of climatologists, and a big group of chemists, biologists, physicists, psychiatrists and other science professionals and acedemia who have no more relevant education or research on the matter than I, a lowly engineer, happen to have. I think at this point it's reasonable to note that having looked at the information provided (and most of it has come from global warming proponents), I've come to the conclusion that the case is fairly weak and very overblown.