Would a smart mirror array make a difference? You get some attenuation with the cloud cover, but infra-red propagates quite well, and it should still be possible to focus even a diffuse light source with the right mirror design. Ideally, you want a large array with individual elements steerable via microprocessor control based on on ambient lighting conditions. I'd have a go at the figures, but I'm already stealing homework time. Obviously, this still only gives you power during the day, and renders you more vulnerable to climate change due to, say, increased vulcanism or cometary impact. And, yes, I think we *should* plan our power systems for such eventualities.
But, yes. That's been a power play for as long as our ancestors have talked, and perhaps even before. A good kill sorts out issues in the pack hierarchy.
Re:Disingenious backronym
on
Define - /etc?
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· Score: 1
I thought everyone knew that/root was an ETLA, standing for Runs Out Of Trouser Space...
It was originally referred to as/roots, but the more conservative religious admins struck the 's' on the basis that the word 'roots' might cause an elderly judge to have a life-threatening erection. And that's without ever Considering The Children.
I think we should be focusing on colonising the *space* between the planets, using the asteroid belts as a source of raw materials. But, yes, he's dead right.
We-ell... reaching for my tinfoil hat...
Earth's core is a solid lump of mostly crystalline iron, kept so by huge pressures. The core rotation is, surprisingly, not coaxial with the rotation observed at the crust. The solid but cracked crust sits on a fluid with a very high level of viscosity. The moon exerts a differential pull on the earth, according to how far each particle of Earth lies from the moon. Would this system exhibit chaotic behaviour? Could the solid core get so out of shape with respect to the rest of the fluid body that it causes a viscous lock-up (a-la the fluid coupling mechanism in an auto box)?
If this happened, it would be, er, rather spectacular...
The mitochondrial DNA test was used as a dating technique, to attempt a figure for the age of the human race. It assumes that the mutation rate in certain non-conserved sections of mitochondrial DNA is constant, which is probably true until a mutation is reached that has a net beneficial or detrimental effect for the organism, at which point the mutation is either conserved or discarded. Mitochondrial DNA constitutes an extra genome, in effect, and is passed via the female line only (and as far as we know, asexually, which is less than ideal for the avoidance of local optima).
It was one of the factors that brought older estimates of 1 million years plus for the age of the population down to its present 100k years. Unfortunately, no-one ever quotes the confidence factor, which could put the figure at 1 million years, or as little as 10000.
Also, what the dating mechanism tells us is that our population springs from a pool of around 5000 individuals. It doesn't tell us *why*. Of course, this pool might be the true progenitor of modern humans, but then again, it could point to a natural disaster and associated population crunch, rather than a true speciation event. ISTR about 80kyears ago there was a caldera supervolcano event, coinciding with some extinctions.
Bauval's geometric and astronomical study of the pyramids seems quite compelling. Of course, I'm not an Egyptologist, I'm just a physics student.
Actually, a fact not often quoted is that the confidence factor for mitochondrial DNA dating is plus or minus an order of magnitude. I know this because my ex applied for a doctorate position with the team who pioneered this work. She wasn't completely convinced by the science, and chose a position at Cambridge in preference. I'm sure, esoterica aside, that there is a kernel of truth in Hancock and Bauval's position.
I replaced the HT transformer on my grandmother's television when I was 14. I'm still into electronics, I've had a career in IT, and now I'm doing a degree in physics. From my viewpoint, the 'frightening' argument is one that stifles the sense of adventure in children. All life incurs risk, and a boring spoon-fed pathologically protected life incurs a risk of suicide.
Not true. I know people who worked for a company that makes a VM product. They earned much the same amounts as any other programmer. The *company* makes the money. It takes a whole raft of other skills to run a successful software company. A tendency to sociopathic behaviour seems to help, for example...
I read the comparison. I'd agree that the Mac Mini sucks in terms of value-for-money. I'd go for a Shuttle + AMD64 any day of the week. OSX is *not* a stripped down OS similar to Windows CE, though, and you can buy a version of Office for the Mac. The i386+Windows Office version is *not* going to run on a PowerPC OSX system without an emulator. There were other errors, but I'm growing older as I write.
Either the reviewer is utterly clueless, or this is a spoof aimed at lampooning MCSE holders (fair comment, really).
Mmm... Weird. I've always prized the unfamiliar. I like music that can surprise me. Britney Spears (note the spelling) will always send me reaching for the sick bag.
I'm more inclined to think that a minority of people like music, and the majority are sheep.
Search for 'accelerator driven systems'. It's a new type of fission reaction that requires an external fast neutron input to sustain it.
This is where we should be looking, both for civil reactors, and for power sources for space drives.
Perhaps we're seeing emerging specialisations. A couple does not necessarily have to express all of the potential information in its mutual geneset to benefit from children who thmselves express subsets unexpressed by the parents, particularly if large families are the norm (as has usually been the case through our history).
> On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. . . .
Tell that to the sheep who fall back on 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof', where the definition of 'extraordinary' is decided by the flock, and the quantity and nature of proof is decided by just how high the flocks' dudgeon flyeth.
Beware of high flying dudgeon...
People are not only shallow, they function to some degree as pre-programmed automata. How much free will are you displaying when your opinions are so heavily influenced by, say, the symmetry of someone's face?
Respect is determined by many largely irrelevant factors:- body language, confidence (which does not necessarily correlate with ability), perceived social class, looks, peer group, religion, et cetera.
By most people's standards, I'm pretty bright, but I have to fight my own innate tendencies to judge people by facile criteria. Note the word *fight*.
Google for 'Carlo Rubbia' and 'Thorium'. This will provide you with a raft of links on a type of fission reaction that is not self-sustaining, unlike that used by conventional fission reactors. For the reaction to happen, it needs to be continuously pumped with fast neutrons, for example, as produced by a cyclotron irradiating a beryllium target. In addition, it produces rather less nuclear waste. Thorium, the fuel, is about as common as lead.
This is a relatively simple, cheap, and intrinsically much safer approach to fission.
Carlo Rubbia holds a Nobel Laureate in Physics, and currently works at CERN.
Slashdot Mirror
They have 6000 thousand finger? I knew inbreeding was a problem, but seriously.
I'm not normally very sentimental about human remains, but this is cool. It's an expression of hope. I loved Scotty...
Isn't this called *multiplexing*?
Would a smart mirror array make a difference? You get some attenuation with the cloud cover, but infra-red propagates quite well, and it should still be possible to focus even a diffuse light source with the right mirror design. Ideally, you want a large array with individual elements steerable via microprocessor control based on on ambient lighting conditions. I'd have a go at the figures, but I'm already stealing homework time. Obviously, this still only gives you power during the day, and renders you more vulnerable to climate change due to, say, increased vulcanism or cometary impact. And, yes, I think we *should* plan our power systems for such eventualities.
But, yes. That's been a power play for as long as our ancestors have talked, and perhaps even before. A good kill sorts out issues in the pack hierarchy.
I thought everyone knew that /root was an ETLA, standing for Runs Out Of Trouser Space...
It was originally referred to as /roots, but the more conservative religious admins struck the 's' on the basis that the word 'roots' might cause an elderly judge to have a life-threatening erection. And that's without ever Considering The Children.
I think we should be focusing on colonising the *space* between the planets, using the asteroid belts as a source of raw materials. But, yes, he's dead right.
We-ell... reaching for my tinfoil hat... Earth's core is a solid lump of mostly crystalline iron, kept so by huge pressures. The core rotation is, surprisingly, not coaxial with the rotation observed at the crust. The solid but cracked crust sits on a fluid with a very high level of viscosity. The moon exerts a differential pull on the earth, according to how far each particle of Earth lies from the moon. Would this system exhibit chaotic behaviour? Could the solid core get so out of shape with respect to the rest of the fluid body that it causes a viscous lock-up (a-la the fluid coupling mechanism in an auto box)? If this happened, it would be, er, rather spectacular...
The mitochondrial DNA test was used as a dating technique, to attempt a figure for the age of the human race. It assumes that the mutation rate in certain non-conserved sections of mitochondrial DNA is constant, which is probably true until a mutation is reached that has a net beneficial or detrimental effect for the organism, at which point the mutation is either conserved or discarded. Mitochondrial DNA constitutes an extra genome, in effect, and is passed via the female line only (and as far as we know, asexually, which is less than ideal for the avoidance of local optima). It was one of the factors that brought older estimates of 1 million years plus for the age of the population down to its present 100k years. Unfortunately, no-one ever quotes the confidence factor, which could put the figure at 1 million years, or as little as 10000. Also, what the dating mechanism tells us is that our population springs from a pool of around 5000 individuals. It doesn't tell us *why*. Of course, this pool might be the true progenitor of modern humans, but then again, it could point to a natural disaster and associated population crunch, rather than a true speciation event. ISTR about 80kyears ago there was a caldera supervolcano event, coinciding with some extinctions. Bauval's geometric and astronomical study of the pyramids seems quite compelling. Of course, I'm not an Egyptologist, I'm just a physics student.
Actually, a fact not often quoted is that the confidence factor for mitochondrial DNA dating is plus or minus an order of magnitude. I know this because my ex applied for a doctorate position with the team who pioneered this work. She wasn't completely convinced by the science, and chose a position at Cambridge in preference. I'm sure, esoterica aside, that there is a kernel of truth in Hancock and Bauval's position.
I replaced the HT transformer on my grandmother's television when I was 14. I'm still into electronics, I've had a career in IT, and now I'm doing a degree in physics. From my viewpoint, the 'frightening' argument is one that stifles the sense of adventure in children. All life incurs risk, and a boring spoon-fed pathologically protected life incurs a risk of suicide.
Not true. I know people who worked for a company that makes a VM product. They earned much the same amounts as any other programmer. The *company* makes the money. It takes a whole raft of other skills to run a successful software company. A tendency to sociopathic behaviour seems to help, for example...
I read the comparison. I'd agree that the Mac Mini sucks in terms of value-for-money. I'd go for a Shuttle + AMD64 any day of the week. OSX is *not* a stripped down OS similar to Windows CE, though, and you can buy a version of Office for the Mac. The i386+Windows Office version is *not* going to run on a PowerPC OSX system without an emulator. There were other errors, but I'm growing older as I write.
Either the reviewer is utterly clueless, or this is a spoof aimed at lampooning MCSE holders (fair comment, really).
Mmm... Weird. I've always prized the unfamiliar. I like music that can surprise me. Britney Spears (note the spelling) will always send me reaching for the sick bag. I'm more inclined to think that a minority of people like music, and the majority are sheep.
> If, on the other hand, the first person with points happens to have a wit worthy of Falstaff Well, that worked. I'm amused.
So, what's your plan?
I'd like to join the queue.
Isn't a disk (or a plane) the minimum energy configuration for more than a pair of orbiting bodies?
> This led DoE to fight industry wherever a non-DoE hopful new idea appeared.
Is this why accelerator-driven fission reactor systems of the kind suggsted by Carlo Rubbia et al, are given little publicity?
Search for 'accelerator driven systems'. It's a new type of fission reaction that requires an external fast neutron input to sustain it. This is where we should be looking, both for civil reactors, and for power sources for space drives.
Perhaps we're seeing emerging specialisations. A couple does not necessarily have to express all of the potential information in its mutual geneset to benefit from children who thmselves express subsets unexpressed by the parents, particularly if large families are the norm (as has usually been the case through our history).
> On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. . . . Tell that to the sheep who fall back on 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof', where the definition of 'extraordinary' is decided by the flock, and the quantity and nature of proof is decided by just how high the flocks' dudgeon flyeth. Beware of high flying dudgeon...
People are not only shallow, they function to some degree as pre-programmed automata. How much free will are you displaying when your opinions are so heavily influenced by, say, the symmetry of someone's face? Respect is determined by many largely irrelevant factors:- body language, confidence (which does not necessarily correlate with ability), perceived social class, looks, peer group, religion, et cetera. By most people's standards, I'm pretty bright, but I have to fight my own innate tendencies to judge people by facile criteria. Note the word *fight*.
It's Nu-ku-lar.
Google for 'Carlo Rubbia' and 'Thorium'. This will provide you with a raft of links on a type of fission reaction that is not self-sustaining, unlike that used by conventional fission reactors. For the reaction to happen, it needs to be continuously pumped with fast neutrons, for example, as produced by a cyclotron irradiating a beryllium target. In addition, it produces rather less nuclear waste. Thorium, the fuel, is about as common as lead.
This is a relatively simple, cheap, and intrinsically much safer approach to fission.
Carlo Rubbia holds a Nobel Laureate in Physics, and currently works at CERN.
This is an important technology.