Recently I saw on Discovery that many galaxies (if not all) were orbiting around supermassive black holes. And that the orbiting speed of the stars is proportional to the black holes' mass. This is known as the "M-sigma" relation.
This meant that the supermassive black holes actually contributed to the process of galaxy formation.
The theory is more or less the following:
In the center of a galaxy-sized gas cloud, a star collapsed, forming a black hole. The black hole began eating the gas around it, forming a quasar (quasars are the matter just about to be swallowed by a black hole, disintegrating and generating enormous amounts of energy).
The quasar, due to its high temperature and rotational speed, heated the surrounding gas cloud, activating a chain reaction that gave birth to all the stars in the new-forming galaxy.
Eventually, the quasar pushed away the stars, so the black hole could only be fed by the quasar itself. After that, the black hole enters a dormant phase (it has nothing else to eat), and the galaxy is already formed (of course, I'm talking about a process that takes billions of years).
All the chinese have to do to destroy the US is to use some weapon that all the americans will be exposed to. Or maybe even eat it. For example, they could make an instant market of fast food, so all americans will become diabetics, with high blood pressure, high cholesterol - Oh. Nevermind.
As told in the September article, the chinese ALREADY did an experiment of closing the coolant supply to the first test reactor. The chain reaction stopped without human (or machine) intervention, and this eventually lead to the reactor "cooling" itself.
And having many small nuclear power plants is much more safer than having one megasized nuclear power plant to power an entire city. Why? Simple, compare what happens if one huge plant fails than if one small plant fails.
And IIRC, the material to be heated with the reactor is not water, but helium.
Instead of the white-hot fuel rods that fire the heart of a conventional reactor, HTR-10 is powered by 27,000 billiards-sized graphite balls packed with tiny flecks of uranium. Instead of superhot water - intensely corrosive and highly radioactive - the core is bathed in inert helium. The gas can reach much higher temperatures without bursting pipes, which means a third more energy pushing the turbine. No water means no nasty steam, and no billion-dollar pressure dome to contain it in the event of a leak. And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide - designed to last 1 million years - there's no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement.
I think that everything argument against these new nuclear plants is the existing FUD caused (with all reasons) by traditional nuclear plants.
How can we gain knowledge if we don't do research?
How can we learn nuclear physics if we don't test an atomic bomb?
To put this other way, there are millions of species in planet earth that we can test cloning and genetic engineering with (even for therapeutic purposes). Why do we have to start with our own species? Remember we're talking about our kin. A human embryo could be tomorrow's doctor, musician, writer...
If we don't care for human embryos now, what makes you think we will always care for other humans later?
This is a very delicate issue, because we're dealing with human life. Is human life invaluable? Or it has a price? When does human life start? When does it end? Are there any exceptions?
I'm more worried about the moral consequences of cloning, than the more tangible experimental failures. Because experiments can be controlled in a lab - but human morals? Once the public accepts something as "not bad" or "normal", there's no turning back.
What will happen next is what worries me. I don't want to see a world where already-born human babies are experimented with.
William Shatner: You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!
[ a crowd of shocked and dismayed Trekkies.... ]
I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?
[ to "Ears" ] You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl?
[ "Ears" hangs his head ]
I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!
Charlie: Are- are you saying then that we should pay more attention to the movies?
William Shatner: NO!!! THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M SAYING AT ALL!!! HEY, YOU GUYS ARE... THE LAMEST BUNCH... I'VE NEVER SEEN... [ walks away from podium ] I can't believe these people... I mean, I really can't understand what's....
[ Emcee argues with Shatner off-mike, shoves him, Shatner shoves back harder.... ]
Second Emcee: Uh... that was William Shatner, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, I'd like to remind you Trekkers that we have some fine refreshments from all over the galaxy... Coke, Diet Coke, Bubble Up, Orange, I believe. We....
[ Meanwhile, Emcee waves the contract in front of Shatner, who then reluctantly returns to the podium.... ]
William Shatner: Of course, that speech was a "re-creation" of the "Evil Captain Kirk" from um... Episode, um... [ Emcee whispers ] THIRTY-SEVEN... uhh... called... [ another whisper ] "The Enemy Within."
[ Trekkies get happy, applaud ]
William Shatner: Yuh, Yuh, so thank you... and, and... Live Long and Prosper...
[ Trekkies make Vulcan "peace sign".... ]
William Shatner: So everybody... set your phasers on stun, cause... THIS CONVENTION'S AHEAD WARP FACTOR NINE, Y'KNOW? RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! WARP FACTOR NINE!
IMHO that's a lot of FUD. Firefox is not nearly as vulnerable to spyware as IE is. Firefox by default has XPI installation disabled except by approved sites.
Installing spyware on Firefox would be much more about social engineering (if you want to see this website, follow these instructions: download, choose "save as...". Then double click on it, yadda yadda..."
Of course, with people falling for phishing attacks, it wouldn't surprise me they'd be so stupid to do this. In that case, Firefox should issue a warning about "evil XPI files". At least that way when some moron says "bwaaa they told me firefox was spyware-free", we can ask: "Did you follow the evil website's instructions when they told you to install this XPI?"
Then all we have to do is repeat the worldy-famous Nelson quote.
Is that if some huge comet or asteroid containing billions and billions of tons of water, oxygen and CO2 suddenly crashes on Mars, generating enough heat to start a chain reaction that would terraform it in less than a few decades.
But that ain't happening, so I guess we'll have to stick to the good ol' city domes.
the FUD Bill Gates could make, after dealing for years with an angry anti-Microsoft community, about the same community's ability to create (and get approved for publication) extremely long and antiinteroperable sentences.
Most porn today is found in VIDEO FORMAT. What do you want, pedophiles recording the kids against BLUE SCREENS?
Pornographers won't be able to change the background on photos until automatic tools can do that. I'm sure you won't see one of those guys spending 4 hours with his mouse erasing the contour on a picture with photoshop.
The University of Calgary was the first to standarize a library of text files to test compression programs. It's known as the Calgary Corpus.
Given this, I'd say that Calgary always keeps ahead of other universities in innovation. And certainly we want virus and spam writers on OUR SIDE. i.e. College graduates (versus socially-inadapted anarchists and script-kiddies). Who knows if one of these guys will later make the ultimate anti-spam tool? Remember that the Reed College graduate, Peter Norton, became so famous for his Antivirus tool.
Slashdot Mirror
I call it "Daemon without horns". Hope that's innocent enough. Oh, the gun he's carrying is not a weapon. It's an antivirus.
Compare a book describing the "sophisticated APIs" with a "Visual Basic for dummies".
C'mon guys, where's the RAD for Linux?
"Informative".
:) Since I'm not an astronomer, my knowledge regarting this topic is limited.
Thanks for the info on quasars
The one with Tux dressed as Umma thurman and holding a Katana.
Recently I saw on Discovery that many galaxies (if not all) were orbiting around supermassive black holes. And that the orbiting speed of the stars is proportional to the black holes' mass. This is known as the "M-sigma" relation.
This meant that the supermassive black holes actually contributed to the process of galaxy formation.
The theory is more or less the following:
In the center of a galaxy-sized gas cloud, a star collapsed, forming a black hole. The black hole began eating the gas around it, forming a quasar (quasars are the matter just about to be swallowed by a black hole, disintegrating and generating enormous amounts of energy).
The quasar, due to its high temperature and rotational speed, heated the surrounding gas cloud, activating a chain reaction that gave birth to all the stars in the new-forming galaxy.
Eventually, the quasar pushed away the stars, so the black hole could only be fed by the quasar itself. After that, the black hole enters a dormant phase (it has nothing else to eat), and the galaxy is already formed (of course, I'm talking about a process that takes billions of years).
Odd. They omitted placing a Microsoft OS onto a computer as a sure-fire way to kill it.
No, it also requires tech support telling the user to nuke it whenever a problem arises.
"Oh, just wipe the HD and reinstall from scratch."
All the chinese have to do to destroy the US is to use some weapon that all the americans will be exposed to. Or maybe even eat it. For example, they could make an instant market of fast food, so all americans will become diabetics, with high blood pressure, high cholesterol - Oh. Nevermind.
And having many small nuclear power plants is much more safer than having one megasized nuclear power plant to power an entire city. Why? Simple, compare what happens if one huge plant fails than if one small plant fails.
And IIRC, the material to be heated with the reactor is not water, but helium.
From the sept. wired article:
I think that everything argument against these new nuclear plants is the existing FUD caused (with all reasons) by traditional nuclear plants.
How can we gain knowledge if we don't do research?
How can we learn nuclear physics if we don't test an atomic bomb?
To put this other way, there are millions of species in planet earth that we can test cloning and genetic engineering with (even for therapeutic purposes). Why do we have to start with our own species? Remember we're talking about our kin. A human embryo could be tomorrow's doctor, musician, writer...
If we don't care for human embryos now, what makes you think we will always care for other humans later?
This is a very delicate issue, because we're dealing with human life. Is human life invaluable? Or it has a price? When does human life start? When does it end? Are there any exceptions?
I'm more worried about the moral consequences of cloning, than the more tangible experimental failures. Because experiments can be controlled in a lab - but human morals? Once the public accepts something as "not bad" or "normal", there's no turning back.
What will happen next is what worries me. I don't want to see a world where already-born human babies are experimented with.
Is that the same Longhorn that was supposed to have such high level requirements for operation that no current system can run it
:P
Perhaps they're already testing it on cell processors...
How to fry an egg on an XP
(complete version found at: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/86/86hgetalife.phtml
William Shatner: You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!
[ a crowd of shocked and dismayed Trekkies.... ]
I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?
[ to "Ears" ] You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl?
[ "Ears" hangs his head ]
I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!
Charlie: Are- are you saying then that we should pay more attention to the movies?
William Shatner: NO!!! THAT'S NOT WHAT I'M SAYING AT ALL!!! HEY, YOU GUYS ARE... THE LAMEST BUNCH... I'VE NEVER SEEN... [ walks away from podium ] I can't believe these people... I mean, I really can't understand what's....
[ Emcee argues with Shatner off-mike, shoves him, Shatner shoves back harder.... ]
Second Emcee: Uh... that was William Shatner, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, I'd like to remind you Trekkers that we have some fine refreshments from all over the galaxy... Coke, Diet Coke, Bubble Up, Orange, I believe. We....
[ Meanwhile, Emcee waves the contract in front of Shatner, who then reluctantly returns to the podium.... ]
William Shatner: Of course, that speech was a "re-creation" of the "Evil Captain Kirk" from um... Episode, um... [ Emcee whispers ] THIRTY-SEVEN... uhh... called... [ another whisper ] "The Enemy Within."
[ Trekkies get happy, applaud ]
William Shatner: Yuh, Yuh, so thank you... and, and... Live Long and Prosper...
[ Trekkies make Vulcan "peace sign".... ]
William Shatner: So everybody... set your phasers on stun, cause... THIS CONVENTION'S AHEAD WARP FACTOR NINE, Y'KNOW? RIGHT! ALL RIGHT! WARP FACTOR NINE!
[ fade out ]
IMHO that's a lot of FUD. Firefox is not nearly as vulnerable to spyware as IE is. Firefox by default has XPI installation disabled except by approved sites.
Installing spyware on Firefox would be much more about social engineering (if you want to see this website, follow these instructions: download, choose "save as...". Then double click on it, yadda yadda..."
Of course, with people falling for phishing attacks, it wouldn't surprise me they'd be so stupid to do this. In that case, Firefox should issue a warning about "evil XPI files". At least that way when some moron says "bwaaa they told me firefox was spyware-free", we can ask: "Did you follow the evil website's instructions when they told you to install this XPI?"
Then all we have to do is repeat the worldy-famous Nelson quote.
running in the background. I wonder if this will make Linux machines more "efficient" than Windows on a "real-world" comparison.
Yeah like you'd need to buy a man-in-the-middle software for your private company network.
Is that if some huge comet or asteroid containing billions and billions of tons of water, oxygen and CO2 suddenly crashes on Mars, generating enough heat to start a chain reaction that would terraform it in less than a few decades.
But that ain't happening, so I guess we'll have to stick to the good ol' city domes.
Otherwise, I doubt that people would push the LSB2.0 as strongly as they are now.
Let's hope their efforts bring us the fruit that finally crushes down Microsoft's evil.
Spyware-free tinfoil hats.
the FUD Bill Gates could make, after dealing for years with an angry anti-Microsoft community, about the same community's ability to create (and get approved for publication) extremely long and antiinteroperable sentences.
Can anybody tell me who was the [beep] who labelled this "offtopic"? It's TFA text! And signed as AC (no karma whoring).
(note: It wasn't me who posted it, just in case you thought)
Doesn't Steam do this as well, using its friends list?
Wait, isn't that PRIOR ART? Then it would make the patent become void. (I think...)
Public service, wireless... and without encryption. Nelson, your line.
I am of course talking about film. It is very very easy now to write digital images onto film, not very much more difficult than it is to scan film.
And it is even EASIER to burn film. Yeah. Great preservation, indeed.
Most porn today is found in VIDEO FORMAT. What do you want, pedophiles recording the kids against BLUE SCREENS?
Pornographers won't be able to change the background on photos until automatic tools can do that. I'm sure you won't see one of those guys spending 4 hours with his mouse erasing the contour on a picture with photoshop.
The University of Calgary was the first to standarize a library of text files to test compression programs. It's known as the Calgary Corpus.
Given this, I'd say that Calgary always keeps ahead of other universities in innovation. And certainly we want virus and spam writers on OUR SIDE. i.e. College graduates (versus socially-inadapted anarchists and script-kiddies). Who knows if one of these guys will later make the ultimate anti-spam tool? Remember that the Reed College graduate, Peter Norton, became so famous for his Antivirus tool.