What good is erasing your CPU going to do? Or even erasing it's cache? The stuff the feds want is on your hard drive.
Techie cop: "I scanned his CPU."
Detective: "Any evidence?"
Techie cop: "Well, his last operation was 00110001010001101100100110011001 masked through 11001110101110010011011001100110."
Detective: "And what's that mean?"
Techie cop: "The answer is 00000000000000000000000000000000."
Detective: "Aha! Book him."
Coriolis effect is basically negligible across the 12 inches or whatever the major diameter a toilet bowl is. The shape of the bowl and the angle water flows into and out of it at are going to have a greater effect on the direction of flow than Coriolis effect. I wouldn't be surprised if mythbusters has tried this one.
When I first heard this claim, I watched the water drain out of the sink that night when washing dishes. I was a little disturbed when it swirled down the drain clockwise.
They say the "islands" are nonvolatile, but if you get data based on a magnetic field, wouldn't EMI be a big concern or can that be easily controlled? Just to pick a rather shallow example, it wouldn't be cool if you opened up calc and typed in 2+1 and got 3 (10 + 01 = 11), but then your hard drive spins up or somebody sits down next to you in the coffee shop wearing therapeutic magnets that cause a bit to be read wrong by your processor so you get 5 (10 + 11 = 101).
A shotgun is a poor example to begin with. Pretty much nobody commits crimes with shotguns, although Dick Cheney seems to be close in that department (news.google his name today if you don't get it).
Another VIC 20 fanboy, here. Parents got one when I was probably 2-3 years old. My favorite game was choplifter, but tooth invaders was pretty good, too.
My thoughts, as well. This looks just like something out of star trek, or minority report, or star wars, or a ton of other cool sci-fi show. Despite the relatively poor lighting in the video, that's one of the most fascinating technical demonstrations I've seen.
I was most impressed by the fingertip image manipulation, but the Worldwind navigation was pretty darn neat, too.
There was an original episode with some big dinner plate sized gooey sort of things that dropped off the ceiling of buildings on some planet and infected Spock, making him crazy. I don't remember if the episode was titled after Heinlein's puppet masters or not
Re:The *other* kind of transformer.
on
A Real Transformer?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I was going to say the guy who made the original joke was a hopeless nerd, but then you had to go and make a serious response...
The first two links never once use the word temperature. The third link mentions Antarctic temperatures with up to a "1000 year phase lag" related to CO2 levels. Hardly conclusive enough to use the words "close correlation," especially when trying to make judgements on 120 years of direct data, which takes us to the topic of data.
The abstracts you linked to discuss determining long-term CO2 levels based on ice core samples, which is probably a good means of getting CO2 levels, but their method of detemining temperature is based on estimated glacial coverage. How do you verify the legitimacy of that method? Furthermore, how confidently can you link the two? Estimates were that the global average temperatures were around 4 degrees lower than present day during the last major ice age. Best models by global warming proponents also place global average temperatures about 1/2 a degree warmer now than in 1880, when accurate records started. Did CO2 levels naturally flucuate up to 8 times as much for the last ice age as they have since 1880 (despite non-linearity, I find it unlikely considering the less than 1/2 a degree temperature change combined with the cited 19.4% increase since 1959, attributed to human activity), or is it perhaps possible that other factors were involved?
I'm also inclined to take the first article in question for the same reasons. It criticizes a 2003 study that had a nearly opposite conclusion based on uncertainties in their measurement method, but this newer study also relies on indirect measurements: in this case the size of tree rings. Temperature is far from the only thing that affects tree growth, especially considering we're talking about a couple of degrees here. The one thing the article does have going for it is that their method appears to support the "mini ice age" in the middle ages that the 2003 study also indicated occured. Even if the study is correct in concluding that the 20th century is the warmest in 1200 years, that does not conclusively link it to human activity, anymore than it does to the decline of pirates.
I have nothing against the theory of global warming. It's perfectly legitimate and there is a respectable amount of evidence supporting the theory (otherwise it would be easy to toss out), but I get tired of the daily claims that it has been conclusively proven. I respect your post because it does not make such claims, although the quote from the third article is kind of questionable.
PS - I didn't read the wikipedia article. Wikipedia is a great starting point for research, but it is not an authority, as we have discussed here on slashdot repeatedly.
If that's really a major selling point for vista, then the group of people who actually have a decent reason to get it is even smaller. Half of the computers out there are in the hands of ordinary people who want a flashy interface, but their computers can't handle it. Of the other half, a large proportion are geeks, and gloss on the interface is second to performance, so if it doesn't perform, it ain't worth having.
Or is Microsoft still in bed with Dell and this is intended to bumb up new computer sales?
Rather than let that other guy have all the say, I wanted to note that your statement was pretty well put. He can dodge around your words and happily accuse you and me both of homophobia, but in the end, I would contend that he seems bigoted against us for not sharing his exact views. I, like I suspect you do as well, have nothing against gay people, just like I have nothing against people who fornicate, but I strongly disapprove of their actions.
And I have to say, homophobia is a stupid word (get ready for a seriously non-pc statement...). Since when are we supposed to be afraid of guys wearing turtlenecks?
1.) Label all games in which the red cross is used as "Educational." Surely there's got to be an exclusion of some sort for that kind of use, right? Would a judge really bring the gavel down on an educational program? Honest, this game shows places where the red cross has historically or may in the future be used...
2.) Put a 1 pixel white border around all red crosses used in video games. It's a different logo. Is that really any worse than the red cross logo being made from the inverted colors of the Swiss flag?
Would you send your 12 year old daughter camping with a 35 year old man, or your 12 year old son camping with a 35 year old woman? Well, this is slashdot and a lot of readers don't have a lot of common sense, but I'd wager most people wouldn't. I work with teens a fair amount, and everytime anything happens about which there has been a remotely related lawsuit in the past, the person in charge always says, "this is a big liability." Poison oak: liability. Diving into a river without an OSHA approved diving board: liability. Male chaparone and female student seen walking out of the woods together: holy crap, I think I just dropped a load of liability in my pants!
The boy scouts looked at how much litigation has taken away from really good youth organizations and realized, sending kids camping with a gay guy as their chaparone is just as much a liability as sending them camping with an adult of the opposite sex as their chaparone. Thankfully, we had people who think that political correctness is the greatest good in the world to turn it into a lose-lose situation for the scouts.
Cutting off with the annoying anthropomorphism crap, I am a slashdot poster, and I have something to say
Since we're talking about Sony here, we can be assured that when these discs don't sell very well, they'll raise a fuss and holler about how piracy is killing their profits. Maybe this time around, though, we'll get lucky and Sony will go the way of Beta. Oh irony, how sweet is thy taste!
That wouldn't make a lick of sense at the present time. You could spend hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars sticking up a constellation of navigation satellites for 4 astronauts at a time, or you could spend a couple hundred grand on a radio direction finder system like a mini-LORAN set up at each landing site.
Plus lunar orbits are unstable (the article didn't go into this in detail, but I suppose it's probably due to the big freaking ball of gravity somewhere off in the vicinity of Earth). The satellites would have to frequently adjust their orbits to maintain accuracy. If I remember right, knowing the precisely the orbit of the satellites is critical for the accuracy of GPS.
2 fatal accidents in 114 flights, the causes of which are both understood. One cause has been fixed with a high degree of confidence, one is in the process of being fixed, with fallback plans in place. Why should we expect the outlook for shuttle astronauts to be bleak for the remaining 15-20 launches?
This will probably get lost in the maze of posts beneath yours, but I might as well say my piece.
First, to add to your comment, the Vatican has also noted that intelligent design is baseless as a scientific theory, and empty as a theological concept. I was rather refreshed to read this announcement, but this is straying from the topic at hand.
You are quite correct in noting that global warming is a theory like gravity and electromagnetism. I would like to point out, however, that current proponents of the theory themselves only note a 1/2 degree rise in average global temperatures since accurate records began being made (in the 1880's, I think), and only a rough correlation to increases in CO2 production. And of course, there is the issue of periodic ice ages that everyone likes to talk about when trying to debunk global warming that should be considered, as well. Gravity and electromagnetism, on the other hand, have hundreds of years of observation behind them, and the discrepancies that have been found can usually be explained without changing the theory (with the possible exception of hypothetical dark matter/energy).
One of the articles linked to mentions models that predicts a maximum of 4-1/2 degrees temperature rise in the next century, assuming the models take all factors into account properly. Yes, that would cause quite a few changes, many of them very problematic, but it wouldn't be "the end of the world."
My overall point is that we really don't have a good idea what is going on with the climate. It is definitely worth investing resources to study further, and worth taking limited steps to prevent what we think the consequences might be, especially since some of the steps have additional benefits (reduced dependence of foreign oil, increased future energy capacity, etc). Getting upset over special events like lighting the Olympic torch or whining about CO2 emmisions without identifying specific means of improvement, especially coming from celebrities in California who drive Hummers, can't read a weather map, and have no clue what how temperatures compare today with 100 years ago, isn't the fix.
On another business-related tangent, I love this quote from the article:
...and launched a smaller-capacity version of its mid-priced iPod nano, sending its shares up as much as 3 percent.
Yes, it's a decent supposition that stock prices went up because of the new product release, but statements like these are the reason why I generally take everything I hear from reporters, economists, and businessmen with a big grain of salt.
70% reduction in component costs? I guess perhaps we aren't seeing the same price-fixing by flash memory makes that the wonderful RAM manufacturers gave us.
Interesting...I've never installed the QFA. Also, however, I never leave Firefox running for more than a day, so my data obviously varies from people claiming to have it leak up to 400 MB.
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure the mission that inspired the U-571 movie wasn't the first case of an enigma machine being captured. I think the French underground snuck one across the channel while that mission was being planned. Then again, I'm too lazy to fact check...
The article linked to claims that hits were observed...or at least that's the way I read it. Strafing a relatively stationary aerial target should not be too much different from strafing a ground target, and since the CF-18 is a multi-role aircraft, I would think the pilots would be trained to do so.
I believe the standard 20 mm load for aircraft is the M56 or a similar round, which is a combined effects high-explosive/incendiary round. The balloon may well have been too lightweight to trigger the fuses. Regardless, the balloon was several hundred feet tall, and designed to maintain buoyancy at very high altitudes where the density of the atmosphere is very low. Even if the gas in the balloon did pass out of any holes at a significant rate (doubtful at the low pressures invovled), there may still have been plenty of gas remaining above the highest hole in the balloon to keep it aloft at a lower altitude.
Slashdot Mirror
What good is erasing your CPU going to do? Or even erasing it's cache? The stuff the feds want is on your hard drive.
Techie cop: "I scanned his CPU."
Detective: "Any evidence?"
Techie cop: "Well, his last operation was 00110001010001101100100110011001 masked through 11001110101110010011011001100110."
Detective: "And what's that mean?"
Techie cop: "The answer is 00000000000000000000000000000000."
Detective: "Aha! Book him."
Coriolis effect is basically negligible across the 12 inches or whatever the major diameter a toilet bowl is. The shape of the bowl and the angle water flows into and out of it at are going to have a greater effect on the direction of flow than Coriolis effect. I wouldn't be surprised if mythbusters has tried this one.
When I first heard this claim, I watched the water drain out of the sink that night when washing dishes. I was a little disturbed when it swirled down the drain clockwise.
They say the "islands" are nonvolatile, but if you get data based on a magnetic field, wouldn't EMI be a big concern or can that be easily controlled? Just to pick a rather shallow example, it wouldn't be cool if you opened up calc and typed in 2+1 and got 3 (10 + 01 = 11), but then your hard drive spins up or somebody sits down next to you in the coffee shop wearing therapeutic magnets that cause a bit to be read wrong by your processor so you get 5 (10 + 11 = 101).
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." ~H.L. Mencken
A shotgun is a poor example to begin with. Pretty much nobody commits crimes with shotguns, although Dick Cheney seems to be close in that department (news.google his name today if you don't get it).
Another VIC 20 fanboy, here. Parents got one when I was probably 2-3 years old. My favorite game was choplifter, but tooth invaders was pretty good, too.
My thoughts, as well. This looks just like something out of star trek, or minority report, or star wars, or a ton of other cool sci-fi show. Despite the relatively poor lighting in the video, that's one of the most fascinating technical demonstrations I've seen.
I was most impressed by the fingertip image manipulation, but the Worldwind navigation was pretty darn neat, too.
There was an original episode with some big dinner plate sized gooey sort of things that dropped off the ceiling of buildings on some planet and infected Spock, making him crazy. I don't remember if the episode was titled after Heinlein's puppet masters or not
I was going to say the guy who made the original joke was a hopeless nerd, but then you had to go and make a serious response...
The first two links never once use the word temperature. The third link mentions Antarctic temperatures with up to a "1000 year phase lag" related to CO2 levels. Hardly conclusive enough to use the words "close correlation," especially when trying to make judgements on 120 years of direct data, which takes us to the topic of data.
The abstracts you linked to discuss determining long-term CO2 levels based on ice core samples, which is probably a good means of getting CO2 levels, but their method of detemining temperature is based on estimated glacial coverage. How do you verify the legitimacy of that method? Furthermore, how confidently can you link the two? Estimates were that the global average temperatures were around 4 degrees lower than present day during the last major ice age. Best models by global warming proponents also place global average temperatures about 1/2 a degree warmer now than in 1880, when accurate records started. Did CO2 levels naturally flucuate up to 8 times as much for the last ice age as they have since 1880 (despite non-linearity, I find it unlikely considering the less than 1/2 a degree temperature change combined with the cited 19.4% increase since 1959, attributed to human activity), or is it perhaps possible that other factors were involved?
I'm also inclined to take the first article in question for the same reasons. It criticizes a 2003 study that had a nearly opposite conclusion based on uncertainties in their measurement method, but this newer study also relies on indirect measurements: in this case the size of tree rings. Temperature is far from the only thing that affects tree growth, especially considering we're talking about a couple of degrees here. The one thing the article does have going for it is that their method appears to support the "mini ice age" in the middle ages that the 2003 study also indicated occured. Even if the study is correct in concluding that the 20th century is the warmest in 1200 years, that does not conclusively link it to human activity, anymore than it does to the decline of pirates.
I have nothing against the theory of global warming. It's perfectly legitimate and there is a respectable amount of evidence supporting the theory (otherwise it would be easy to toss out), but I get tired of the daily claims that it has been conclusively proven. I respect your post because it does not make such claims, although the quote from the third article is kind of questionable.
PS - I didn't read the wikipedia article. Wikipedia is a great starting point for research, but it is not an authority, as we have discussed here on slashdot repeatedly.
If that's really a major selling point for vista, then the group of people who actually have a decent reason to get it is even smaller. Half of the computers out there are in the hands of ordinary people who want a flashy interface, but their computers can't handle it. Of the other half, a large proportion are geeks, and gloss on the interface is second to performance, so if it doesn't perform, it ain't worth having.
Or is Microsoft still in bed with Dell and this is intended to bumb up new computer sales?
Rather than let that other guy have all the say, I wanted to note that your statement was pretty well put. He can dodge around your words and happily accuse you and me both of homophobia, but in the end, I would contend that he seems bigoted against us for not sharing his exact views. I, like I suspect you do as well, have nothing against gay people, just like I have nothing against people who fornicate, but I strongly disapprove of their actions.
And I have to say, homophobia is a stupid word (get ready for a seriously non-pc statement...). Since when are we supposed to be afraid of guys wearing turtlenecks?
1.) Label all games in which the red cross is used as "Educational." Surely there's got to be an exclusion of some sort for that kind of use, right? Would a judge really bring the gavel down on an educational program? Honest, this game shows places where the red cross has historically or may in the future be used...
2.) Put a 1 pixel white border around all red crosses used in video games. It's a different logo. Is that really any worse than the red cross logo being made from the inverted colors of the Swiss flag?
Would you send your 12 year old daughter camping with a 35 year old man, or your 12 year old son camping with a 35 year old woman? Well, this is slashdot and a lot of readers don't have a lot of common sense, but I'd wager most people wouldn't. I work with teens a fair amount, and everytime anything happens about which there has been a remotely related lawsuit in the past, the person in charge always says, "this is a big liability." Poison oak: liability. Diving into a river without an OSHA approved diving board: liability. Male chaparone and female student seen walking out of the woods together: holy crap, I think I just dropped a load of liability in my pants!
The boy scouts looked at how much litigation has taken away from really good youth organizations and realized, sending kids camping with a gay guy as their chaparone is just as much a liability as sending them camping with an adult of the opposite sex as their chaparone. Thankfully, we had people who think that political correctness is the greatest good in the world to turn it into a lose-lose situation for the scouts.
Cutting off with the annoying anthropomorphism crap, I am a slashdot poster, and I have something to say
Since we're talking about Sony here, we can be assured that when these discs don't sell very well, they'll raise a fuss and holler about how piracy is killing their profits. Maybe this time around, though, we'll get lucky and Sony will go the way of Beta. Oh irony, how sweet is thy taste!
That wouldn't make a lick of sense at the present time. You could spend hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars sticking up a constellation of navigation satellites for 4 astronauts at a time, or you could spend a couple hundred grand on a radio direction finder system like a mini-LORAN set up at each landing site.
Plus lunar orbits are unstable (the article didn't go into this in detail, but I suppose it's probably due to the big freaking ball of gravity somewhere off in the vicinity of Earth). The satellites would have to frequently adjust their orbits to maintain accuracy. If I remember right, knowing the precisely the orbit of the satellites is critical for the accuracy of GPS.
2 fatal accidents in 114 flights, the causes of which are both understood. One cause has been fixed with a high degree of confidence, one is in the process of being fixed, with fallback plans in place. Why should we expect the outlook for shuttle astronauts to be bleak for the remaining 15-20 launches?
This will probably get lost in the maze of posts beneath yours, but I might as well say my piece.
First, to add to your comment, the Vatican has also noted that intelligent design is baseless as a scientific theory, and empty as a theological concept. I was rather refreshed to read this announcement, but this is straying from the topic at hand.
You are quite correct in noting that global warming is a theory like gravity and electromagnetism. I would like to point out, however, that current proponents of the theory themselves only note a 1/2 degree rise in average global temperatures since accurate records began being made (in the 1880's, I think), and only a rough correlation to increases in CO2 production. And of course, there is the issue of periodic ice ages that everyone likes to talk about when trying to debunk global warming that should be considered, as well. Gravity and electromagnetism, on the other hand, have hundreds of years of observation behind them, and the discrepancies that have been found can usually be explained without changing the theory (with the possible exception of hypothetical dark matter/energy).
One of the articles linked to mentions models that predicts a maximum of 4-1/2 degrees temperature rise in the next century, assuming the models take all factors into account properly. Yes, that would cause quite a few changes, many of them very problematic, but it wouldn't be "the end of the world."
My overall point is that we really don't have a good idea what is going on with the climate. It is definitely worth investing resources to study further, and worth taking limited steps to prevent what we think the consequences might be, especially since some of the steps have additional benefits (reduced dependence of foreign oil, increased future energy capacity, etc). Getting upset over special events like lighting the Olympic torch or whining about CO2 emmisions without identifying specific means of improvement, especially coming from celebrities in California who drive Hummers, can't read a weather map, and have no clue what how temperatures compare today with 100 years ago, isn't the fix.
70% reduction in component costs? I guess perhaps we aren't seeing the same price-fixing by flash memory makes that the wonderful RAM manufacturers gave us.
Interesting...I've never installed the QFA. Also, however, I never leave Firefox running for more than a day, so my data obviously varies from people claiming to have it leak up to 400 MB.
Over-rated? I didn't realize it was a sin to use my Karma bonus. Sorry to whichever mod I offended!
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure the mission that inspired the U-571 movie wasn't the first case of an enigma machine being captured. I think the French underground snuck one across the channel while that mission was being planned. Then again, I'm too lazy to fact check...
The article linked to claims that hits were observed...or at least that's the way I read it. Strafing a relatively stationary aerial target should not be too much different from strafing a ground target, and since the CF-18 is a multi-role aircraft, I would think the pilots would be trained to do so.
I believe the standard 20 mm load for aircraft is the M56 or a similar round, which is a combined effects high-explosive/incendiary round. The balloon may well have been too lightweight to trigger the fuses. Regardless, the balloon was several hundred feet tall, and designed to maintain buoyancy at very high altitudes where the density of the atmosphere is very low. Even if the gas in the balloon did pass out of any holes at a significant rate (doubtful at the low pressures invovled), there may still have been plenty of gas remaining above the highest hole in the balloon to keep it aloft at a lower altitude.