Stop fucking your customers over with shitty support for your unreliable machines. In case you think I'm trolling, the graphics on my iBook just went out... for the third time. So I guess I need to send the machine off for a fourth motherboard? What bullshit.
if you've ever seen a base jumping video 90% chance it was jeb.
The lift L of an object is described by the equation:
L = 1/2*p*U^2*Cl*S
Where p is density, U is airspeed, Cl is coefficient of lift, and S is the surface area of the airfoil. Minimum airspeed occurs at the maximum Cl, when the airfoil hits its stall angle, and when L is equal to the weight of the aircraft. It's fairly simple to solve for U.
Given a density of 1.225kg/m^3 for the atmosphere, a maximum lift coefficient of 1.2 for a delta wing , a fairly generous surface area of 2m^2 and a mass of 75 kg, I got a stall speed of 22m/s or 50mph. This is a pretty ball-park figure. Is a 50mph landing potentially survivable? Sure, but I think it's just as likely to kill you, and I'd be damn surprised if you came out of it without some serious broken bones. Even if he doubles the surface area he's still coming in at 35 miles an hour. So simple WWI-era algebra shows that you need a hell of a lot more surface area to do this safely. I think this guy's a frigging idiot.
...pick up the four volumes of _Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind_. It's the graphic novel's answer to _Lord of the Rings_. Miyazaki creates technologies, ecologies, empires, religions... and really, really cool villains: there's the vixen princess who lives on hatred, a bored, psychotic immortal king, and a three hundred foot tall cyborg. And I'm not a big fan of most Japanese comic art, but Miyazaki has a very organic drawing style heavily influenced by Moebius, and his art is incredible.
"I hate movies with a moral, I watch to be entertained, not talked down to with a tone that the director needs to educate me. If you want children to grow up with some morals, talk to their parents, not Hollywood."
And the cynical little boy who said this was eaten up by a wolf, but all the little children who liked movies with morals lived happily ever after.
Re:My Retake on the Segway
on
Segway Polo
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· Score: 1
That's the type of thing I never hear from someone who has money.
I've got money enough to meet my needs and more. But every time I see a Hummer I want to spit on it or flip off the owner, and I was recently in the engineering library of a certain filthy-rich East Coast university and noticed that all the chairs in front of the computer terminals were Herman Miller Aeron chairs- six hundred dollars a pop. When I tried doing the math, it made me disgusted and creeped out (and I went to that freaking place).
Everybody has a right to be happy. But once you've got more than enough, what's the point of getting more and never giving it, and it's tasteless to flaunt it when most of the world is still living in poverty. That's just being a selfish bastard.
I wonder if CG hasn't hurt sci-fi more than they've helped it. Blade Runner, The Terminator, The Empire Strikes Back, Wrath of Khan and 2001 all have some incredible visuals, but what really drives them is conflict, character, atmosphere and plot.
Today much of the effort focuses on the eye candy, so we have crap like the second two Matrix movies and the Star Wars prequels. There's a lot of flash and dazzle but it's not necessarily good art, and it often is done at the expense of the story, instead of contributing to it. Some directors can get it right- Lord of the Rings and the latest Harry Potter movie did a good job of using the visuals to further the movie rather than vice versa.
... I can't see Al Qaeda being all that into internet attacks. I somehow can't concieve of a headscarf-wearing Mujahedeen screaming "Allah akbar!" from behind a terminal in a Pakistani internet cafe. More to the point, I doubt they see themselves this way either.
Sure, they are out to damage the United States economically, bin Laden has said that's his ultimate goal, and the internet is a good way to do this. But al Qaeda and its ilk are into doing it in a way that involves dead Americans and suicide bombers. The means of attack is every bit as important to these guys as the ends. That being said, the internet is probably an increasingly important tool for organizing more conventional attacks.
The Geneva Conventions only work if both sides are abiding by them.
The Geneva conventions weren't designed for the kind of conflict we're currently caught up in, and I don't think you can dispute that they need revision. That being said, throwing them out completely is insane. The war on terror is as much a war of ideology as anything else, and we can't win that war without solid principles to guide us.
Terrorists and guerillas need popular support- the terrorists are the fish and the people are the sea. Deprive them of popular support and they have nowhere to hide, nowhere to get funding , nowhere to get recruits. But incidents like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and summary executions of captives have increasingly turned the Muslim world against us, and towards the people we're fighting. These incidents have also helped to isolate us from our allies. The fine print of the Geneva conventions may be outdated, but we need their spirit now more than ever.
Well, I think the SMB movie bombed because the producers/writers didn't give a rats ass about anything other than the cash, and therefore had no respect for the franchise itself or the impact it has made in not only the entertainment world, but mainstream society as a whole.
Yeah, they just totally did not get the artistic vision of Super Mario Bros. How could they have messed this one up? The guy eats mushrooms, gets big, goes through pipes, and then kicks around turtles- the script practically writes itself!
These people are morons. Evolution means to kill them off.
If being a moron caused AIDS you'd be on your deathbed choking out your last gasp. There are plenty of ways to get AIDS that don't involve irresponsible behavior. Being born to an HIV positive mother is one. Being raped by an HIV positive man is one. Having a partner who cheats on you is yet another. And many people in Africa contract the disease when they try to care for relatives dying of AIDS and come into contact with their open sores.
Also, many people don't have the same options and advantages we do in the developed world. Condoms cost money, one thing that a lot of Africans don't have much of. Practicing safe sex requires education, another thing that is often in short supply there. And many women don't have the luxury of deciding whether to be a prostitute or not.
I can think of a couple 30- year old PhD students I knew who had hair streaked through with silver. Personally, I make an effort to enjoy video games, drinking, travel, and a romantic life... but most of all, my studies. Doing stuff that interests me (instead of dreadful stuff that I think other people might like) has made work seem like play again. Plus, I play a lot when I should be working (and vice versa). I figure I ought to enjoy it- if I'm going to be miserable doing work I should head to Wall Street and at least get paid well.
The "work smarter" thing has a lot of truth to it. I used to work like crazy to get nothing done. These days I work less, but on problems that are vastly more interesting, which hopefully will benefit my career, and I'm more productive than I ever was before, since I focus on what I put out of my work, and not what I put in. The other thing is thinking long term. I figure an academic career spans decades, and you have to pace yourself so you don't get burned out.
... the government promises not to do anything bad with the list?
Re:Does /. want endorsements from the NY Times?
on
Buggy Voting Machines
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· Score: 2, Insightful
he says didn't mean to actualy USE force, well he shouldn't have voted that way then IMHO
That's like saying that voting to build nuclear bombs during the Cold War is the same thing as voting to nuke Russia. If you build nukes, it's obvious that you're putting it on the table as an option, but it doesn't logically follow that you automatically support excercising the option to bomb the Soviets back to the stone age. The point of these weapons was the threat they posed; likewise Kerry's position was always that he supported force as an option which would improve the leverage of the United States... which would be available when all other options were exhausted. But from the beginning of the situation, it's clear that war was Bush's first choice.
Yeah, Kerry was too much of a politician- trying to please all Americans simultaneously- but in my mind that would have beat the hell out of W. trying to please just the warmongering neocons, bigoted Bible-thumpers, and greedy Halliburton execs.
promote more research into adult stem cells as the intelligent alternative.
This is great that cord blood cells work here. However, I'm still left with two questions:
(1) are cord blood cells capable of doing everything that embryonic stem cells can do?
(2) if not, then haven't we sort of sidestepped the issue of whether ethical objections to destroying small clumps of human cells (which could potentially, but will not, produce babies) trump the research benefits of embryonic stem cell research.
I doubt Ornithopters will ever be popular (except maybe as a sideshow at larger fairs and airshows) but as a case study for engineers... It would be superb!
The main interest in ornithopters today is in Micro Air Vehicles- small (~6 inches) military reconnaissance robots. Incidentally, the aerodynamics of flapping flight at small sizes are very different from those of aircraft. Insects use lots of weird mechanisms, such as the ability to generate high lift with leading edge vortices.
I would describe my experience with it as not really doing anything for the pain, but putting me in a state where I really didn't care about it
Yeah, that's probably a slightly more accurate description of how I felt. A shot of valium though... woo! That's the shit. You instantly go off to the Land Where Everything is Groovy, and your muscles sort of turn to jelly.
The University of Arizona is currently working on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)- see: http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/index.sh tml. The thing has twin 8.4 meter mirrors- their light gathering power is equivalent to a single 11.8 meter telescope, and their resolving power is equivalent to a 22.8 meter telescope. It is supposed to have more light gathering power and much sharper images than Hubble http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/lbt_othe rtelescopes.shtml. Supposedly the LBT is be able to get around the blurring from the atmosphere by using adaptive optics- deforming the secondary mirrors to correct for distortions. They claim that the construction costs are $80 million. So, an order of magnitude more resolution for an order of magnitude less money. If it performs even close to specifications, it sounds like a good deal. The dedication ceremony has already taken place and the thing is supposed to be operational in 2006.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, obviously you've never tried the new enriched uranium pop-rocks.
Stop fucking your customers over with shitty support for your unreliable machines. In case you think I'm trolling, the graphics on my iBook just went out... for the third time. So I guess I need to send the machine off for a fourth motherboard? What bullshit.
On a more serious note, if state-of-the-art 20 years ago look like such crap today, I wonder what the graphics will look like twenty years from now.
You mean we should flood their mailboxes with offers for viagra and penis enlargement?
The lift L of an object is described by the equation:
L = 1/2*p*U^2*Cl*S
Where p is density, U is airspeed, Cl is coefficient of lift, and S is the surface area of the airfoil. Minimum airspeed occurs at the maximum Cl, when the airfoil hits its stall angle, and when L is equal to the weight of the aircraft. It's fairly simple to solve for U.
Given a density of 1.225kg/m^3 for the atmosphere, a maximum lift coefficient of 1.2 for a delta wing , a fairly generous surface area of 2m^2 and a mass of 75 kg, I got a stall speed of 22m/s or 50mph. This is a pretty ball-park figure. Is a 50mph landing potentially survivable? Sure, but I think it's just as likely to kill you, and I'd be damn surprised if you came out of it without some serious broken bones. Even if he doubles the surface area he's still coming in at 35 miles an hour. So simple WWI-era algebra shows that you need a hell of a lot more surface area to do this safely. I think this guy's a frigging idiot.
it's those solar panel gnomes.
...pick up the four volumes of _Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind_. It's the graphic novel's answer to _Lord of the Rings_. Miyazaki creates technologies, ecologies, empires, religions... and really, really cool villains: there's the vixen princess who lives on hatred, a bored, psychotic immortal king, and a three hundred foot tall cyborg. And I'm not a big fan of most Japanese comic art, but Miyazaki has a very organic drawing style heavily influenced by Moebius, and his art is incredible.
And the cynical little boy who said this was eaten up by a wolf, but all the little children who liked movies with morals lived happily ever after.
I've got money enough to meet my needs and more. But every time I see a Hummer I want to spit on it or flip off the owner, and I was recently in the engineering library of a certain filthy-rich East Coast university and noticed that all the chairs in front of the computer terminals were Herman Miller Aeron chairs- six hundred dollars a pop. When I tried doing the math, it made me disgusted and creeped out (and I went to that freaking place).
Everybody has a right to be happy. But once you've got more than enough, what's the point of getting more and never giving it, and it's tasteless to flaunt it when most of the world is still living in poverty. That's just being a selfish bastard.
Today much of the effort focuses on the eye candy, so we have crap like the second two Matrix movies and the Star Wars prequels. There's a lot of flash and dazzle but it's not necessarily good art, and it often is done at the expense of the story, instead of contributing to it. Some directors can get it right- Lord of the Rings and the latest Harry Potter movie did a good job of using the visuals to further the movie rather than vice versa.
Sure, they are out to damage the United States economically, bin Laden has said that's his ultimate goal, and the internet is a good way to do this. But al Qaeda and its ilk are into doing it in a way that involves dead Americans and suicide bombers. The means of attack is every bit as important to these guys as the ends. That being said, the internet is probably an increasingly important tool for organizing more conventional attacks.
The Geneva conventions weren't designed for the kind of conflict we're currently caught up in, and I don't think you can dispute that they need revision. That being said, throwing them out completely is insane. The war on terror is as much a war of ideology as anything else, and we can't win that war without solid principles to guide us.
Terrorists and guerillas need popular support- the terrorists are the fish and the people are the sea. Deprive them of popular support and they have nowhere to hide, nowhere to get funding , nowhere to get recruits. But incidents like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and summary executions of captives have increasingly turned the Muslim world against us, and towards the people we're fighting. These incidents have also helped to isolate us from our allies. The fine print of the Geneva conventions may be outdated, but we need their spirit now more than ever.
No. John Woo is currently working on the big screen adaptation of "Duck Hunt". Nicolas Cage will play the dog.
Yeah, they just totally did not get the artistic vision of Super Mario Bros. How could they have messed this one up? The guy eats mushrooms, gets big, goes through pipes, and then kicks around turtles- the script practically writes itself!
Hm, have they considered making one for the /. crowd?
If being a moron caused AIDS you'd be on your deathbed choking out your last gasp. There are plenty of ways to get AIDS that don't involve irresponsible behavior. Being born to an HIV positive mother is one. Being raped by an HIV positive man is one. Having a partner who cheats on you is yet another. And many people in Africa contract the disease when they try to care for relatives dying of AIDS and come into contact with their open sores.
Also, many people don't have the same options and advantages we do in the developed world. Condoms cost money, one thing that a lot of Africans don't have much of. Practicing safe sex requires education, another thing that is often in short supply there. And many women don't have the luxury of deciding whether to be a prostitute or not.
The "work smarter" thing has a lot of truth to it. I used to work like crazy to get nothing done. These days I work less, but on problems that are vastly more interesting, which hopefully will benefit my career, and I'm more productive than I ever was before, since I focus on what I put out of my work, and not what I put in. The other thing is thinking long term. I figure an academic career spans decades, and you have to pace yourself so you don't get burned out.
We should be going after them as angry mobs armed with pitchforks and torches.
... the government promises not to do anything bad with the list?
That's like saying that voting to build nuclear bombs during the Cold War is the same thing as voting to nuke Russia. If you build nukes, it's obvious that you're putting it on the table as an option, but it doesn't logically follow that you automatically support excercising the option to bomb the Soviets back to the stone age. The point of these weapons was the threat they posed; likewise Kerry's position was always that he supported force as an option which would improve the leverage of the United States... which would be available when all other options were exhausted. But from the beginning of the situation, it's clear that war was Bush's first choice.
Yeah, Kerry was too much of a politician- trying to please all Americans simultaneously- but in my mind that would have beat the hell out of W. trying to please just the warmongering neocons, bigoted Bible-thumpers, and greedy Halliburton execs.
This is great that cord blood cells work here. However, I'm still left with two questions:
(1) are cord blood cells capable of doing everything that embryonic stem cells can do?
(2) if not, then haven't we sort of sidestepped the issue of whether ethical objections to destroying small clumps of human cells (which could potentially, but will not, produce babies) trump the research benefits of embryonic stem cell research.
AHHH! The stem cells have created undead cannibal zombies!!! AHHH!!!
The main interest in ornithopters today is in Micro Air Vehicles- small (~6 inches) military reconnaissance robots. Incidentally, the aerodynamics of flapping flight at small sizes are very different from those of aircraft. Insects use lots of weird mechanisms, such as the ability to generate high lift with leading edge vortices.
Yeah, that's probably a slightly more accurate description of how I felt. A shot of valium though... woo! That's the shit. You instantly go off to the Land Where Everything is Groovy, and your muscles sort of turn to jelly.
The University of Arizona is currently working on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)- see: http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/index.sh tml. The thing has twin 8.4 meter mirrors- their light gathering power is equivalent to a single 11.8 meter telescope, and their resolving power is equivalent to a 22.8 meter telescope. It is supposed to have more light gathering power and much sharper images than Hubble http://www.nd.edu/~science/core/binocular/lbt_othe rtelescopes.shtml. Supposedly the LBT is be able to get around the blurring from the atmosphere by using adaptive optics- deforming the secondary mirrors to correct for distortions. They claim that the construction costs are $80 million. So, an order of magnitude more resolution for an order of magnitude less money. If it performs even close to specifications, it sounds like a good deal. The dedication ceremony has already taken place and the thing is supposed to be operational in 2006.