I looked into flywheels for my house, but couldn't find anything that was suitable. Everyone I talked to said that it would only be appropriate for industrial applications. I'd like to put one underground in my front yard - do you know anyone actually selling something that might work? My solar rig is only about 4.5 kW.
You have some interesting thoughts, and it's clear that you've put some energy into your opinion, but I'd like to point out a few things.
Bitcoin is currently a small curiosity, it's only just becoming big enough to attract the interest of the real sharks, and I'm not convinced the creators have the resources, motivation or interest to keep the currency fair and secure once serious money becomes involved.
You might consider that this is an excellent argument for starting to play around with (dare I say "invest in"?) bitcoin. If even a small percentage of the word's commerce, or even e-commerce, is transacted with bitcoin, the opportunity is virtually unlimited while your risk is limited to whatever you put into it (a couple hundred bucks? You'll never miss it).
Many of the exchanges are still pitifully insecure (run on VPSs !), the infrastructure is not well managed (witness problem above), and the creators probably never expected it to take off or really thought through the implications.
The part about exchanges may be true, but you don't have to keep your bitcoin or cash with an exchange - you can keep it in your own wallet. As for the creators not having thought through the implications, I'd like you to consider the words of respected security researcher Dan Kaminsky who says that normally when a security researcher looks at this sort of thing it looks good on the surface, but once you start to scratch a little deeper you realize how poorly thought out the whole thing is. Kaminsky claims that bitcoin is rather the opposite- it looks pretty bad on the surface but once you start digging you realize that it is really well thought out. (source: slide 3.
Once there is serious money involved, lots of people are going to want to change the rules. If Bitcoin becomes popular it will be easy to coopt, devalue, and tax until it is just another currency, probably tied to a particular corporation or government. There's absolutely nothing you can do about that as a user of bitcoin. If the developers decided to change the direction of the currency you have your life savings in, devalue it, create a new block chain, you don't even have a vote on the matter.
This and much of the rest of your post is actually quite wrong as already addressed quite well by slashdot user "seizer". I would also encourage you to do some more reading about bitcoin - it's fascinating.
It will take some trial and error to figure out how to get a good medium using this technique - on my regular sized burner on medium-high heat it takes 2-3 minutes a side.
You're foolish if you eat ground beef at medium instead of well done. I enjoy my steak blue, but you wouldn't catch me eating ground beef anything less then well done. Sure, you may have never been sick from it before, but if you do get sick one day there's a not insignificant chance that you'll end up dead.
I'm not sure that's possible. I wasn't able to find it with a quick search, but I think that the two founders (Min Kao and Gary Burrell) still control a large portion of the company.
I like my tablet but I have to keep a microfiber cloth handy to wipe the prints off it. Same with the phone. It's tolerable because these are "sometimes" devices that I don't stare at for hours a day.
That may be true. I live in Thailand and I cannot imagine a more cacophonous style of music than Thai traditional, however the locals seem to enjoy it well enough.
1) you are forced to accept dollars at face value for services and trades.
A small nit to pick: this is not technically true. You have to accept currency in settlement of any debts that are owed to you, but you are under no obligation to accept currency in any other situation.
You can see this 5 second delay on the in-studio monitors in effect because after the live viewer sees the suicide, it cuts to the anchorman who we can see watching it 5 seconds later.
As someone who has a driver, I can tell you that I probably get the urge to take the wheel about once a month. Usually in the morning on a nice day when I want the music loud. FWIW, I would never let my driver sit in the back though - he gets the passenger seat.
It's pretty cool that you can see the heat shield impact the ground at 1:20. (Towards the bottom of the screen, maybe a quarter of a frame from the right side and just a bit up from the bottom).
They can't "push the button" without the launch codes. So, you want someone reasonable to make the decision to use the codes. Once the codes arrive, you want _that_ person to not hesitate to arm and deploy the device. Diesel
From the page: ""Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's Voyager spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real time. It's up to you. You control space and time."
and
"Eyes on the Solar System lets you ride with Curiosity all the way to the surface of Gale crater. Preview the events of Entry Descent and Landing, or watch live!"
And the best part? They're GIVING the device away for FREE to people who pre-ordered. That might just make me a bit more inclined to pre-order from Google in the future. This is a great advertisement for making an early commitment to any Google device. Inherent in any pre-order is some risk. They've just done a pretty good job of making that risk look smaller to future early adopters.
Someone once gave me this thought experiment to help illustrate the problem.
Suppose a company on an alien planet decided to outsource production of some product to earth. Further suppose that on this other planet gold was plentiful, and wages were measured in tons of gold per day.
Would social do-gooders on the alien planet be outraged that wages paid to earthlings were thousandths of what the wages would be on the alien planet?
Should they be outraged?
Further, would it be ethical on the part of the alien corporation to pay the same wages to their earth counterparts as was common on their home planet? ie. If they needed 100 humans to make their product, would it be ethical to make those 100 people the richest (most powerful) people on earth in the name of "equality" in their home society?
Usually when we talk about exploitation we are making an ethical judgement. There certainly has to be a point at which to offer substantially higher wages to a subset of a community becomes damaging to the community. The fact is (as ShanghaiBill points out below), the company offers poor people a chance to make money at a rate that they voluntarily accept. How is that exploitative?
In the "top rated comments" section after the article (specifically the comment by user "troop231"), you will see a handful of pictures of Apple and Samsung creations side-by-side.
I'm not an expert in the legal aspects of the case at hand, but I found the comparisons presented to be illuminating.
You totally missed the point: There were functional electric guitars before the Strat was introduced, and there would have been fully functional electric guitars after the 1954 release of the Stratocaster. What would NOT have happened is that every guitar maker and his grandmother would not have made their guitars the same shape as (the suddenly cool) Stratocaster. This was a huge mistake on Fender's part and Apple is not taking any chances. Whether Apple is right or wrong about their claims, as well as whether or not they win their cases is somewhat irrelevant. If they fail to try to protect the look and feel of the products they manufacture then consumers will not associate that look and feel with a product of Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
I looked into flywheels for my house, but couldn't find anything that was suitable.
Everyone I talked to said that it would only be appropriate for industrial applications.
I'd like to put one underground in my front yard - do you know anyone actually selling something that might work? My solar rig is only about 4.5 kW.
You have some interesting thoughts, and it's clear that you've put some energy into your opinion, but I'd like to point out a few things.
Bitcoin is currently a small curiosity, it's only just becoming big enough to attract the interest of the real sharks, and I'm not convinced the creators have the resources, motivation or interest to keep the currency fair and secure once serious money becomes involved.
You might consider that this is an excellent argument for starting to play around with (dare I say "invest in"?) bitcoin. If even a small percentage of the word's commerce, or even e-commerce, is transacted with bitcoin, the opportunity is virtually unlimited while your risk is limited to whatever you put into it (a couple hundred bucks? You'll never miss it).
Many of the exchanges are still pitifully insecure (run on VPSs !), the infrastructure is not well managed (witness problem above), and the creators probably never expected it to take off or really thought through the implications.
The part about exchanges may be true, but you don't have to keep your bitcoin or cash with an exchange - you can keep it in your own wallet. As for the creators not having thought through the implications, I'd like you to consider the words of respected security researcher Dan Kaminsky who says that normally when a security researcher looks at this sort of thing it looks good on the surface, but once you start to scratch a little deeper you realize how poorly thought out the whole thing is. Kaminsky claims that bitcoin is rather the opposite- it looks pretty bad on the surface but once you start digging you realize that it is really well thought out. (source: slide 3.
Once there is serious money involved, lots of people are going to want to change the rules. If Bitcoin becomes popular it will be easy to coopt, devalue, and tax until it is just another currency, probably tied to a particular corporation or government. There's absolutely nothing you can do about that as a user of bitcoin. If the developers decided to change the direction of the currency you have your life savings in, devalue it, create a new block chain, you don't even have a vote on the matter.
This and much of the rest of your post is actually quite wrong as already addressed quite well by slashdot user "seizer". I would also encourage you to do some more reading about bitcoin - it's fascinating.
It will take some trial and error to figure out how to get a good medium using this technique - on my regular sized burner on medium-high heat it takes 2-3 minutes a side.
You're foolish if you eat ground beef at medium instead of well done. I enjoy my steak blue, but you wouldn't catch me eating ground beef anything less then well done. Sure, you may have never been sick from it before, but if you do get sick one day there's a not insignificant chance that you'll end up dead.
Who the hell drinks beer with ice cubes?
Thai people.
I'm not sure that's possible. I wasn't able to find it with a quick search, but I think that the two founders (Min Kao and Gary Burrell) still control a large portion of the company.
I like my tablet but I have to keep a microfiber cloth handy to wipe the prints off it. Same with the phone. It's tolerable because these are "sometimes" devices that I don't stare at for hours a day.
Wow, you really sound like the life of the party.
nerdfest is appalled
by your po-em's crappiness
but this haiku's worse
That may be true.
I live in Thailand and I cannot imagine a more cacophonous style of music than Thai traditional, however the locals seem to enjoy it well enough.
I think it's no coincidence that all the major media players use exactly the same words to describe events.
Absolutely.
Case in point? Conan O'Brian collects a montage of talking heads all parroting the same line about "pushing the envelope". The interesting bit starts at 1:19, or click here to go right to that point in the video.
If this isn't evidence that everyone is getting their talking points from the same source, I don't know what is.
Assistant to the manager.
1) you are forced to accept dollars at face value for services and trades.
A small nit to pick: this is not technically true. You have to accept currency in settlement of any debts that are owed to you, but you are under no obligation to accept currency in any other situation.
Source: Slate.
You can see this 5 second delay on the in-studio monitors in effect because after the live viewer sees the suicide, it cuts to the anchorman who we can see watching it 5 seconds later.
As someone who has a driver, I can tell you that I probably get the urge to take the wheel about once a month. Usually in the morning on a nice day when I want the music loud. FWIW, I would never let my driver sit in the back though - he gets the passenger seat.
It's pretty cool that you can see the heat shield impact the ground at 1:20. (Towards the bottom of the screen, maybe a quarter of a frame from the right side and just a bit up from the bottom).
It's French.
...IIRC did not even have a music player...
FWIW, it did have a music player.
Diesel.
They can't "push the button" without the launch codes.
So, you want someone reasonable to make the decision to use the codes.
Once the codes arrive, you want _that_ person to not hesitate to arm and deploy the device.
Diesel
I wish I could mod this up to a 6.
Check out http://eyes.nasa.gov/
From the page:
""Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's Voyager spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real time. It's up to you. You control space and time."
and
"Eyes on the Solar System lets you ride with Curiosity all the way to the surface of Gale crater. Preview the events of Entry Descent and Landing, or watch live!"
And the best part? They're GIVING the device away for FREE to people who pre-ordered. That might just make me a bit more inclined to pre-order from Google in the future. This is a great advertisement for making an early commitment to any Google device. Inherent in any pre-order is some risk. They've just done a pretty good job of making that risk look smaller to future early adopters.
Someone once gave me this thought experiment to help illustrate the problem.
Suppose a company on an alien planet decided to outsource production of some product to earth.
Further suppose that on this other planet gold was plentiful, and wages were measured in tons of gold per day.
Would social do-gooders on the alien planet be outraged that wages paid to earthlings were thousandths of what the wages would be on the alien planet?
Should they be outraged?
Further, would it be ethical on the part of the alien corporation to pay the same wages to their earth counterparts as was common on their home planet? ie. If they needed 100 humans to make their product, would it be ethical to make those 100 people the richest (most powerful) people on earth in the name of "equality" in their home society?
Usually when we talk about exploitation we are making an ethical judgement. There certainly has to be a point at which to offer substantially higher wages to a subset of a community becomes damaging to the community. The fact is (as ShanghaiBill points out below), the company offers poor people a chance to make money at a rate that they voluntarily accept. How is that exploitative?
I came across the following article this morning that helped me identify some of the issues that Apple might have with Samsung:
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/31/apples-opening-court-statement-focuses-on-samsungs-radical-shift-in-phone-design/
In the "top rated comments" section after the article (specifically the comment by user "troop231"), you will see a handful of pictures of Apple and Samsung creations side-by-side.
I'm not an expert in the legal aspects of the case at hand, but I found the comparisons presented to be illuminating.
You totally missed the point:
There were functional electric guitars before the Strat was introduced, and there would have been fully functional electric guitars after the 1954 release of the Stratocaster. What would NOT have happened is that every guitar maker and his grandmother would not have made their guitars the same shape as (the suddenly cool) Stratocaster. This was a huge mistake on Fender's part and Apple is not taking any chances. Whether Apple is right or wrong about their claims, as well as whether or not they win their cases is somewhat irrelevant. If they fail to try to protect the look and feel of the products they manufacture then consumers will not associate that look and feel with a product of Apple.
I had to search for that and came up with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcSujceZDmg
It is a pretty funny laugh.
If it's Texas.... should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.
Eleventy billion dollar grant.
Yeah, except that Nobel laureate Leon Lederman wanted to call it the Goddamn particle (because it was so elusive), but his editor wouldn't let him:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.cern/print