Given who has money right now I'd say "to develop a portable microfluidic device that can identify various smells, including drugs with unique odors, such as marijuana" is more likely what we'll see first.
And anyone who smells "black" or "Muslim" or "foreigner".
Disadvantages:
1) An artificial nose will never go on walks with you.
2) An artificial nose will never jump up and down and all over you when you go near him and he hasn't seen you in a few minutes.
3) An artificial nose cannot walk your children to school and find his way home on his own.
Dogs are probably more fun to play with though:).
Yup.
On the other hand, artificial noses don't create bad smells.
From my understanding smell is like taste. They say that by holding your nose, you couldn't tell the difference between an onion and an apple...
Not true: vapors from the food will pass up the back of the throat and trigger the smell receptors anyway. But, the dead taste of things when you have a bad cold is true, since nasal tissue swelling prevents access to the smell receptors.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing nature.
Math itself doesn't explain anything. By formulating and testing mathematical theories, we are "tuning" the math by systematically rejecting anything that leads to unverifiable results. What is left is the math that centuries of experiments have shown to be right (so far). It is this whittling down and paring of theories that leads to good models of nature. The math just reflects the current state of the process.
No, in fact, it's just the opposite. The anthropic principle is far, far, far less rigorous than our soceity is collectively giving it credit for. It represents an objective low point in the progress of science over the last 300 years. I am not being hyperbolic. Never since the days of Newton, or even before then, have so many "eminent" scientists seriously proposed so much philosophical arguments and circular logic as valid science.
The Anthropic Principal is essentially equivalent to the phrase "shit happens". In other words, if things hadn't worked out the way they did, we wouldn't be talking about it right now on/. Which is true, although it doesn't really explain anything.
The reality is that fundamental (I say fundamental mind) theoretical physics has made absolutely no progress whatsoever in the last 40 years!! Our theoretical scientific community is collectively demoralized, burned out and beaten. Rather than admit this, they have resorted to fantastic theory after fantastic theory in an effort to maintain their position as the leaders of societies great leap forward.
You can't conclude that there has been no progress in theoretical science just because you don't understand it.
As I understand it, the two big advantages of an elevator vs a rocket is:
a rocket must carry all of its power source (fuel) with it, and since that weighs a lot, even more fuel is required. In contrast, an elevator can be powered electrically through the ribbon resulting in a much smaller and more efficient load. Another idea is to beam energy to the elevator car by means of earth-bound or tether-bound lasers.
a rocket must accelerate at a certain minimum rate to prevent gravity from dragging it back down, whereas an elevator car can rise as slowly as necessary.
Well, if the ribbon is supposed to be 40,000 km long and the longest current nanotube is about 1mm, then it needs to be (4e7 m)/(1e-3 m) = 40 billion times longer.
I think the 9 billion figure is the amount that the Japanese government is currently willing to allocate to the project. How much it will eventually cost is anyone guess, given that the longest carbon nanotubes currently available are in the order of 10,000,000,000 times too short.
The purpose of John Hodgman was not to "stereotype" PC users. The purpose was to provide a boring image of PCs themselves through the comedy of John Hodgman.
No, John Hodgman is supposed to be boring Bill Gates, while the other guy represents hip, creative Steve Jobs. That's why they piss off Bill so much.
I know this because at an Apple developers conference, they showed a tape of John Hodgman (in the same suit and using the same whiny voice) announce that he had been talking to Steve Jobs recently, and that Steve had told him that "all Mac developers should immediately stop innovating and go help Bill with Vista." Then he added "we need a lot of help with that."
In general, "history of science" information could be taught in history class, but generally isn't since history teachers generally know very little about science. It's not unreasonable for history of science to be taught in science class, and usually is with regards to cosmology (Tortoise Back -> Crystal Spheres -> Geocentric -> Heliocentric -> Expanding Universe).
Nobody that I know of objects to this on the basis that they are afraid that the students will leave class believing that giant earth-bearing tortoises are real.
If creationism were described that way (i.e. this is what people used to believe, but now we know better), then that discussion probably does belong in science class.
If fundamentalist parents don't like that, fuck 'em.
Agreed. The Bible-Belters have been decidedly lukewarm about McCain. If Palin makes some strong pro-life speeches, they might get excited enough to vote, and that can make a big difference.
unless the Israelis start WWIII Is there some corollary to Godwin's law that I don't know about? "As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability that someone will randomly blame Jews for some imaginary travesty approaches one," or something like that?
Get a grip. "Israelis" ! = "Jews"
Israel is a middle-eastern country with a government whose current policies many people, including a great many Jews, strongly disagree with. Lately, this government has been making a lot of noise about having to "take out" Iranian nuclear facilities, which would be a clear act of war.
Judaism, on the other hand, is a religion and a culture.
The deliberate confusing of "Jews" with "the current government of Israel" is a rhetorical gimmick. Just like a Godwin.
The Canadian farmer that made that claim was outed as a lier. What actually happened is that the Monsanto canola seed in question is identical to regular canola seed, except that it is not affected by Monsanto herbicide (Roundup). So, the farmer in question kept spraying Roundup on his own crops to destroy everything except the occasional Roundup-resistant seed that blew onto his land. He would then collect these seeds and eventually set up his own resistant-seed manufacturing operation in a greenhouse.
Since this whole operation depended on the use of Roundup, Monsanto argued that it constituted a ripoff, and won the case.
To me, the whole "should we have intellectual property" thing is irrelevant: the real issue is the ridiculous time periods involved. Multi-decade protection may have made sense in the nineteenth century, but with the current pace of technological change, 10 years for hardware patents and 5 years for everything else should be more than sufficient. Artistic works (including music) should be a fixed term of, say, fifty years.
Slashdot Mirror
Privatize the pain, socialize the pain.
Privatize the gain, socialize the pain.
Fixed.
Given who has money right now I'd say "to develop a portable microfluidic device that can identify various smells, including drugs with unique odors, such as marijuana" is more likely what we'll see first.
And anyone who smells "black" or "Muslim" or "foreigner".
Benefits of an artificial nose over a dog ...
Disadvantages: 1) An artificial nose will never go on walks with you. 2) An artificial nose will never jump up and down and all over you when you go near him and he hasn't seen you in a few minutes. 3) An artificial nose cannot walk your children to school and find his way home on his own.
Dogs are probably more fun to play with though :).
Yup.
On the other hand, artificial noses don't create bad smells.
From my understanding smell is like taste. They say that by holding your nose, you couldn't tell the difference between an onion and an apple ...
Not true: vapors from the food will pass up the back of the throat and trigger the smell receptors anyway. But, the dead taste of things when you have a bad cold is true, since nasal tissue swelling prevents access to the smell receptors.
Somewhere between the two probabilities, it's time to start putting away faith in random unguided chance.
"Faith" and accepting "random unguided chance" are polar opposites.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing nature.
Math itself doesn't explain anything. By formulating and testing mathematical theories, we are "tuning" the math by systematically rejecting anything that leads to unverifiable results. What is left is the math that centuries of experiments have shown to be right (so far). It is this whittling down and paring of theories that leads to good models of nature. The math just reflects the current state of the process.
No, in fact, it's just the opposite. The anthropic principle is far, far, far less rigorous than our soceity is collectively giving it credit for. It represents an objective low point in the progress of science over the last 300 years. I am not being hyperbolic. Never since the days of Newton, or even before then, have so many "eminent" scientists seriously proposed so much philosophical arguments and circular logic as valid science.
The Anthropic Principal is essentially equivalent to the phrase "shit happens". /.
In other words, if things hadn't worked out the way they did, we wouldn't be talking about it right now on
Which is true, although it doesn't really explain anything.
The reality is that fundamental (I say fundamental mind) theoretical physics has made absolutely no progress whatsoever in the last 40 years!! Our theoretical scientific community is collectively demoralized, burned out and beaten. Rather than admit this, they have resorted to fantastic theory after fantastic theory in an effort to maintain their position as the leaders of societies great leap forward.
You can't conclude that there has been no progress in theoretical science just because you don't understand it.
What if the judge agrees with your opponent's idea of "reasonableness" and not with yours?
Well, if the ribbon is supposed to be 40,000 km long and the longest current nanotube is about 1mm, then it needs to be (4e7 m)/(1e-3 m) = 40 billion times longer.
I think the 9 billion figure is the amount that the Japanese government is currently willing to allocate to the project.
How much it will eventually cost is anyone guess, given that the longest carbon nanotubes currently available are in the order of 10,000,000,000 times too short.
As the saying goes...
What do you call someone who graduated at the bottom of his med school class?
Doctor.
The purpose of John Hodgman was not to "stereotype" PC users. The purpose was to provide a boring image of PCs themselves through the comedy of John Hodgman.
No, John Hodgman is supposed to be boring Bill Gates, while the other guy represents hip, creative Steve Jobs. That's why they piss off Bill so much.
I know this because at an Apple developers conference, they showed a tape of John Hodgman (in the same suit and using the same whiny voice) announce that he had been talking to Steve Jobs recently, and that Steve had told him that "all Mac developers should immediately stop innovating and go help Bill with Vista."
Then he added "we need a lot of help with that."
In general, "history of science" information could be taught in history class, but generally isn't since history teachers generally know very little about science. It's not unreasonable for history of science to be taught in science class, and usually is with regards to cosmology (Tortoise Back -> Crystal Spheres -> Geocentric -> Heliocentric -> Expanding Universe). Nobody that I know of objects to this on the basis that they are afraid that the students will leave class believing that giant earth-bearing tortoises are real.
If creationism were described that way (i.e. this is what people used to believe, but now we know better), then that discussion probably does belong in science class.
If fundamentalist parents don't like that, fuck 'em.
The basic principal of advertising is:
If everyone is talking about it, it worked.
Agreed. The Bible-Belters have been decidedly lukewarm about McCain. If Palin makes some strong pro-life speeches, they might get excited enough to vote, and that can make a big difference.
Worked for GW, twice.
Nobody will really know until Palin and Biden debate sometime next month.
Who knows? They are all wearing burkas.
shut up, dumbass.
C'mon: that should be at least +2 funny.
.. and stop calling it "Windows". I've always hated that name.
It was good enough for BarterTown.
None of the examples you give involve money leaving the country. That's the whole point.
If I see any more WOOSHES I'll strain my neck.
What part of "He is devoted full-time now to charitable works, such as providing 19th century gold plated toilet plungers for Africa!" didn't you get?
Israel is a middle-eastern country with a government whose current policies many people, including a great many Jews, strongly disagree with. Lately, this government has been making a lot of noise about having to "take out" Iranian nuclear facilities, which would be a clear act of war. Judaism, on the other hand, is a religion and a culture.
The deliberate confusing of "Jews" with "the current government of Israel" is a rhetorical gimmick. Just like a Godwin.
Actually, that's a myth.
The Canadian farmer that made that claim was outed as a lier. What actually happened is that the Monsanto canola seed in question is identical to regular canola seed, except that it is not affected by Monsanto herbicide (Roundup). So, the farmer in question kept spraying Roundup on his own crops to destroy everything except the occasional Roundup-resistant seed that blew onto his land. He would then collect these seeds and eventually set up his own resistant-seed manufacturing operation in a greenhouse.
Since this whole operation depended on the use of Roundup, Monsanto argued that it constituted a ripoff, and won the case.
To me, the whole "should we have intellectual property" thing is irrelevant: the real issue is the ridiculous time periods involved. Multi-decade protection may have made sense in the nineteenth century, but with the current pace of technological change, 10 years for hardware patents and 5 years for everything else should be more than sufficient. Artistic works (including music) should be a fixed term of, say, fifty years.