Sadly, dictionary.com has a very poor definition of nanotechnology. Perhaps this is to be expected for a non-technical source's treatment of an emerging field, but it is unfortunate nonetheless.
Since nanotechnology is a newly emerging field, there are many definitions in current use among researchers. None of these, as far as I know, is limited to "electronic circuits and devices." Lets look at some contemporary definitions:
Thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter based on molecule-by-molecule control of products and byproducts of molecular manufacturing.
From the web page of the University of Washington Center for Nanotechnology (the first PhD. program in nanotechnology in the world, I believe):
Nanotechnology refers to the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making it possible to build machines using molecular building blocks or create materials and structures from the bottom up, designing properties by controlling structure.
From the sci.nanotech FAQ:
Nanotechnology is an anticipated manufacturing technology giving thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter. The term has sometimes been used to refer to any technique able to work at a submicron scale; Here on sci.nanotech we are interested in what is sometimes called molecular nanotechnology, which means basically "A place for every atom and every atom in its place."
The main reason, I believe, that this work can be considered nanotechnology is because it takes advantage of the concept of self-assembly. Self-assembly is the property of certain molecules to spontaneously assemble themselves into ordered super-molecular structures. Looking for ways to take advantage of self-assembly processes is a major focus of state-of-the-art nanotechnology.
Also, the entire Robotech Saga will run you close to $100 after tax.
I just got it for $40, with shipping, at amazon. Are you talking Canadian dollars?
Actually, as I was writing this, I think I just realized what you mean. The entire Robotech saga includes the southern cross and mospaeda series; so far, only the macross series has been released, at a cost of ~$40 for the box set.
I think I'll post this anyway, in an attempt to clarify for others what so clearly was unclear for me.
Re:But we can't do experiments with self-gravity.
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So we need a way to simulate self-gravity in the lab if we ever hope to realistically reproduce astronomical processes. Any ideas how? Could it be accomplished just by applying pressure to the system, or am I thinking too simplistically?
You seem to imply that self-gravity could be simulated with a charged plasma. How does that work? It seems that giving the plasma a net charge would just introduce repulsive forces, which are in the direction opposite to the desired self-gravitational forces.
The only good post on this topic!!!
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I hate to be one of these guys, but...
What is with the low s/n ratio at slashdot these days! It used to be, when a scientific story was posted, we'd get at least a few informed comments, sparking interesting discussion. These comments would always float to the top of the moderation pool. As I post this comment, however, the top rated comments on this story are either ill-informed speculation about the "dangers" of this research or bad jokes. The one exception, as far as I can tell, is the parent of this comment.
My girlfriend, who mocks me for reading a "news for nerds" website, was doing a web search for some info in her field (astrophysics) last week. She pulled up a related slashdot story, and read the comments. Trust me, the mockery only got worse.
I lost suck just last week; I don't want to have to stop reading slashdot, too...
Re:Jeeze, the uninformed replies nowadays
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Fermi and Einstein were both American citizens; Fermi got his citizenship in 1944, Einstein his in 1940. One of the wonderful things about the US is that we're a nation of immigrants. Cue the Simpsons:
Apu: Today, I am no longer an Indian living in America. I am an Indian-American.
Lisa: You know, in a way, all Americans are immigrants. Except, of course Native Americans.
Sorry about the caps lock, but none of the outraged posters here seem to understand that the dedication to public disclosure embraced in the UD FAQ is NOT equivilent to the free public license of the research results. Public disclosure is part of the patent process, and it would be expected that any patentable results of this work would be patented, disclosed, licensed, and turned into drug company profits. The FAQ does a very good job of eluding this reality.
Also, I didn't want to say it, but some of these outraged comments seem a little astroturf, if you know what I mean.
Keep in mind, however, that this university patent is sold to a pharmecuetical manufacturer. This manufacturer is than free to price the product as they choose, and use the profits according to their shareholders' best interest.
The simple fact that the results will be made public does not preclude the researchers from profiting from them. Publication is an central step in the patent process; all patented biomedical discoveries made in academia are published in the peer-reviewed literature. The faq on the UD website seems to be seeking to dodge this fact by ignoring the patent issue entirely. That the researchers will not be selling the rights to their research does not mean that they won't be licensing any inventions to a manufacturer. That's how it's typically done.
And, as per standard procedure in the world of academic biosciences, any useful findings will certainly be patented prior to disclosure in the peer-reviewed literature. Note that the questions answered above refer only to the publication of the results--publication is perfectly consistent with a patent application, which involves mandatory public disclosure. In fact, UD notes specifically that the results will remain the intellectual property of Oxford, allowing them to license any inventions to a manufacturer. This is simply the way things are done.
Goddard's early work in rocketry was impressive, but he insisted on keeping it secret. Though he launched the first liquid fuel rocket in 1926, the results of his work were kept under wraps until Winkler launched his rocket in 1931, forcing Goddard to chime in if he wanted to get the credit for being first. His contributions could have made a much larger impact on the development of rocketry if he had been willing to collaborate.
This, of course, is a good example of the weakness of the proprietary world view espoused by Goddard and his like. Note those 200-some patents he filed in his lifetime. That paradigm might have worked for an inventor like Edison, who worked on numerous small projects, but it fails for more complex science, like rocketry (or large-scale software development).
As the article says, mice which couldn't make the protein CD45 died very quickly from cancers and auto-immune diseases.
Nowhere in the article does it say this. I read through a few extra times to make sure, but it's just not there. Your comments would be stronger if you refrained from fabricating facts.
The 'scope has a Japanese name because it's a Japanese telescope; built by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. I think that the U of Hawaii gets some free use in return for the land on Mauna Kea.
"Subaru" is the Japanese name of the constellation we call the Pleadies. The name is simply from the constellation, and has nothing to do with the car.
Martyr \Mar"tyr\, n. [AS., from L. martyr, Gr. ma'rtyr, ma'rtys, prop., a witness; cf. Skr. sm[.r] to remember, E. memory.]
1. One who, by his death, bears witness to the truth of the gospel; one who is put to death for his religion; as, Stephen was the first Christian martyr --Chaucer.
2. Hence, one who sacrifices his life, his station, or what is of great value to him, for the sake of principle, or to sustain a cause.
Then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! --Shak.
Griffith was clearly using definition 2: he sacrificed his station, i.e. a student in good academic standing, for the sake of his values and to make a principled point. There, you learn something new each day!
In the words of James Madison . . .
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Please reread the Federalist #10 (I'm assuming that someone proposing such a radical change in our democracy is well acquanted with its current foundations):
"From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who
assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost
every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to
check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of
turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short
in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
Quarntines have been practiced before, without general loss of liberty, and liberty has been sacrificed for less in this century. You seem to have forgoten the polio quarantines that saved so many lives.
What, and polio has an incubation period of maybe a week? With AIDS, we're talking about a disease that can remain asymptomatic yet contagious for periods on the order of a decade. An effective quarantine program would require massive blood test screenings of either every individual in the country or selected "at risk groups" (and who gets to select those?). And if you miss just one person, you have a very good chance of epidemic pockets reemerging--you've sacrificed the liberty of all those people for absolutely no benefit.
You also seem to have forgoten that dissidents were rounded up by both the US and UK for the second world war. The case of Japaneese Americans was particularly bad.
In fact, I have not forgetten this. And it was particularly bad. Which is the point, isn't it?
It is far too early to tell what kind of parents homosexuals will be.
Hey man, just read the Salon article I linked to in my first post. It's been studied. . .
Is it reasonable to trade the freedom of a few thousand (when AIDS was first discovered) for the lives of the millions who have died from AIDS to date?
No, it is not. Though it might seem a workable (I won't say good) idea on the surface, it's scary to think of the governmental mechanisms that need be in place for such a policy to be implimented with adequate swiftness and thoroughness. Any government that could elimate aids victims swiftly enough to stop the spread of the disease could just as easily eliminate dissentors swiftly enough to stop the spread of free thought.
it's biologically impossible for a gay couple to produce children.
Wrong. Gay men can produce children just as well as any other men; all they need is a cooperative woman to be the mother. It's even easier for lesbians, who require only sperm, which is readily available. And on top of it all, homosexuals tend to make excellent parents.
Though Feynman did go to school at Princeton, he never taught there. He taught briefly at Cornell early on, but spent the bulk of his career at Caltech.
As for his being the "only modern physicist to make the top 10 physicists of all time" . . . In my experience "modern physics" means post-Newtonian type stuff: quantum, special/general relativity, etc. I would hope, therefore, that Feynman was not the only modern physicist to make the list (I'd hope they'd include Einstein, at least). If they defined "modern" differently, I guess we're simply engaged in a semantic argument.
He died in early March 1999, I believe. He was mentioned in the "In memory of..." segment last year; in addition, they had a short tribute to him independant of that segment.
This is indeed an intererting point. How does DVD encryption stop piracy?
My guess is that the original idea was to prevent digital redistribution over the internet; to avoid an mp3-type situation. If you need the decryption keys in the player to see the movie, you can't just save the data to your hard drive and run it through a player program. Of course, this doesn't prevent people burning encrypted data they've obtained electronically to DVD. Anyway, with DeCSS, it's theoretically possible for people to share decrypted movie data electronically and then view it without ever having to burn to DVD or go through a licensed DVD player.
Even so, I think the idea of people commonly sharing DVD-sized files over the internet is a pretty ridiculous one, and you're probably justified in referring to the MPAA's concerns as "groundless paranoia".
This is just my guess as to the purpose of DVD encryption. Does anyone out there know better?
If I remember my number theory correctly, zero doesn't count as an even number. Therefore, the next even year doesn't come till 2/2/2222.
Of course, we all know the new millenium doesn't start till 1/1/2001, but everyone's celebrating on 1/1/2000 anyway. So we might as well consider 2/2/2000 an even day.
You're right: campaign finance laws are a threat to free speech. However, I don't follow your conclusion that big money != political power.
You seem to argue that since rich people are distributed evenly along the political spectrum, big money has no inherent political bias. What you're forgetting, however, is that the real money isn't with the rich people, it's with the rich corporations, and their influence tends to be much more homogenous.
Examples (all admittedly arguable, but that's the fun part):
Continued increased spending on new military technology (boeing, raytheon, etc.) during peacetime.
NAFTA: pretty unpopular policy move with huge corporate support.
There are those who would claim that the war on drugs continues to be supported because of money from the alchohol and tobacco industries.
In addition, there are any number of regulatory issues involving intellectual property and patent law that might become targets for corporate lobbying should free software continue to emerge as a threat. If there's corporate money at stake, congress will be more than willing to ignore what's best for the consumer.
I don't think public financing of campaigns is the best answer, but it's certainly better than the current system. If there are any better ideas out there, I would love to hear them.
Whoa! Did you even read the story? For the record, this was an example of the ACLU getting behind the little guy vs. big bad government overregulation. Which, actually, is pretty typical for them.
I'm certainly not always on the side of the ACLU, but this rhetoric is just bizarre. Care to provide any examples to back up your reasoning? (or rather, your refusal to use reason: anything they're against is okay by me.)
PS Get your paranoid rhetoric right! Stormtroopers are fascist, not socialist.
Slashdot Mirror
Since nanotechnology is a newly emerging field, there are many definitions in current use among researchers. None of these, as far as I know, is limited to "electronic circuits and devices." Lets look at some contemporary definitions:
The foresight institute's official definition of "molecular nanotechnology":
Thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter based on molecule-by-molecule control of products and byproducts of molecular manufacturing.
From the web page of the University of Washington Center for Nanotechnology (the first PhD. program in nanotechnology in the world, I believe):
Nanotechnology refers to the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making it possible to build machines using molecular building blocks or create materials and structures from the bottom up, designing properties by controlling structure.
From the sci.nanotech FAQ:
Nanotechnology is an anticipated manufacturing technology giving thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter. The term has sometimes been used to refer to any technique able to work at a submicron scale; Here on sci.nanotech we are interested in what is sometimes called molecular nanotechnology, which means basically "A place for every atom and every atom in its place."
The main reason, I believe, that this work can be considered nanotechnology is because it takes advantage of the concept of self-assembly. Self-assembly is the property of certain molecules to spontaneously assemble themselves into ordered super-molecular structures. Looking for ways to take advantage of self-assembly processes is a major focus of state-of-the-art nanotechnology.
What are you talking about?
111/106 = 1.04716...
It's not even close to Pi. Are you paying any attention whatsoever to what you're writing? Are you a complete moron?
It's not accurate at all!!
Think before you post, and at least have the minimal, reptilian, common sense to check your fucking numbers.
Also, the entire Robotech Saga will run you close to $100 after tax.
I just got it for $40, with shipping, at amazon. Are you talking Canadian dollars?
Actually, as I was writing this, I think I just realized what you mean. The entire Robotech saga includes the southern cross and mospaeda series; so far, only the macross series has been released, at a cost of ~$40 for the box set.
I think I'll post this anyway, in an attempt to clarify for others what so clearly was unclear for me.
So we need a way to simulate self-gravity in the lab if we ever hope to realistically reproduce astronomical processes. Any ideas how? Could it be accomplished just by applying pressure to the system, or am I thinking too simplistically?
You seem to imply that self-gravity could be simulated with a charged plasma. How does that work? It seems that giving the plasma a net charge would just introduce repulsive forces, which are in the direction opposite to the desired self-gravitational forces.
I hate to be one of these guys, but...
What is with the low s/n ratio at slashdot these days! It used to be, when a scientific story was posted, we'd get at least a few informed comments, sparking interesting discussion. These comments would always float to the top of the moderation pool. As I post this comment, however, the top rated comments on this story are either ill-informed speculation about the "dangers" of this research or bad jokes. The one exception, as far as I can tell, is the parent of this comment.
My girlfriend, who mocks me for reading a "news for nerds" website, was doing a web search for some info in her field (astrophysics) last week. She pulled up a related slashdot story, and read the comments. Trust me, the mockery only got worse.
I lost suck just last week; I don't want to have to stop reading slashdot, too...
Apu: Today, I am no longer an Indian living in America. I am an Indian-American.
Lisa: You know, in a way, all Americans are immigrants. Except, of course Native Americans.
Homer: Yeah, Native Americans like us.
Lisa: No, I mean American Indians.
Apu: Like me.
Also, I didn't want to say it, but some of these outraged comments seem a little astroturf, if you know what I mean.
Keep in mind, however, that this university patent is sold to a pharmecuetical manufacturer. This manufacturer is than free to price the product as they choose, and use the profits according to their shareholders' best interest.
The simple fact that the results will be made public does not preclude the researchers from profiting from them. Publication is an central step in the patent process; all patented biomedical discoveries made in academia are published in the peer-reviewed literature. The faq on the UD website seems to be seeking to dodge this fact by ignoring the patent issue entirely. That the researchers will not be selling the rights to their research does not mean that they won't be licensing any inventions to a manufacturer. That's how it's typically done.
And, as per standard procedure in the world of academic biosciences, any useful findings will certainly be patented prior to disclosure in the peer-reviewed literature. Note that the questions answered above refer only to the publication of the results--publication is perfectly consistent with a patent application, which involves mandatory public disclosure. In fact, UD notes specifically that the results will remain the intellectual property of Oxford, allowing them to license any inventions to a manufacturer. This is simply the way things are done.
This, of course, is a good example of the weakness of the proprietary world view espoused by Goddard and his like. Note those 200-some patents he filed in his lifetime. That paradigm might have worked for an inventor like Edison, who worked on numerous small projects, but it fails for more complex science, like rocketry (or large-scale software development).
You're right, as far as I can tell.
On my Mandrake 7.2 system:
10 = 9
On a random AIX system:
10 = 10
Could someone please explain this?
Nowhere in the article does it say this. I read through a few extra times to make sure, but it's just not there. Your comments would be stronger if you refrained from fabricating facts.
"Subaru" is the Japanese name of the constellation we call the Pleadies. The name is simply from the constellation, and has nothing to do with the car.
Martyr \Mar"tyr\, n. [AS., from L. martyr, Gr. ma'rtyr, ma'rtys, prop., a witness; cf. Skr. sm[.r] to remember, E. memory.]
1. One who, by his death, bears witness to the truth of the gospel; one who is put to death for his religion; as, Stephen was the first Christian martyr --Chaucer.
2. Hence, one who sacrifices his life, his station, or what is of great value to him, for the sake of principle, or to sustain a cause.
Then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! --Shak.
Griffith was clearly using definition 2: he sacrificed his station, i.e. a student in good academic standing, for the sake of his values and to make a principled point. There, you learn something new each day!
"From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
KA-CHING!!
What, and polio has an incubation period of maybe a week? With AIDS, we're talking about a disease that can remain asymptomatic yet contagious for periods on the order of a decade. An effective quarantine program would require massive blood test screenings of either every individual in the country or selected "at risk groups" (and who gets to select those?). And if you miss just one person, you have a very good chance of epidemic pockets reemerging--you've sacrificed the liberty of all those people for absolutely no benefit.
You also seem to have forgoten that dissidents were rounded up by both the US and UK for the second world war. The case of Japaneese Americans was particularly bad.
In fact, I have not forgetten this. And it was particularly bad. Which is the point, isn't it?
It is far too early to tell what kind of parents homosexuals will be.
Hey man, just read the Salon article I linked to in my first post. It's been studied. . .
No, it is not. Though it might seem a workable (I won't say good) idea on the surface, it's scary to think of the governmental mechanisms that need be in place for such a policy to be implimented with adequate swiftness and thoroughness. Any government that could elimate aids victims swiftly enough to stop the spread of the disease could just as easily eliminate dissentors swiftly enough to stop the spread of free thought.
it's biologically impossible for a gay couple to produce children.
Wrong. Gay men can produce children just as well as any other men; all they need is a cooperative woman to be the mother. It's even easier for lesbians, who require only sperm, which is readily available. And on top of it all, homosexuals tend to make excellent parents.
Though Feynman did go to school at Princeton, he never taught there. He taught briefly at Cornell early on, but spent the bulk of his career at Caltech.
As for his being the "only modern physicist to make the top 10 physicists of all time" . . .
In my experience "modern physics" means post-Newtonian type stuff: quantum, special/general relativity, etc. I would hope, therefore, that Feynman was not the only modern physicist to make the list (I'd hope they'd include Einstein, at least). If they defined "modern" differently, I guess we're simply engaged in a semantic argument.
He died in early March 1999, I believe. He was mentioned in the "In memory of..." segment last year; in addition, they had a short tribute to him independant of that segment.
This is indeed an intererting point. How does DVD encryption stop piracy?
My guess is that the original idea was to prevent digital redistribution over the internet; to avoid an mp3-type situation. If you need the decryption keys in the player to see the movie, you can't just save the data to your hard drive and run it through a player program. Of course, this doesn't prevent people burning encrypted data they've obtained electronically to DVD. Anyway, with DeCSS, it's theoretically possible for people to share decrypted movie data electronically and then view it without ever having to burn to DVD or go through a licensed DVD player.
Even so, I think the idea of people commonly sharing DVD-sized files over the internet is a pretty ridiculous one, and you're probably justified in referring to the MPAA's concerns as "groundless paranoia".
This is just my guess as to the purpose of DVD encryption. Does anyone out there know better?
If I remember my number theory correctly, zero doesn't count as an even number. Therefore, the next even year doesn't come till 2/2/2222.
Of course, we all know the new millenium doesn't start till 1/1/2001, but everyone's celebrating on 1/1/2000 anyway. So we might as well consider 2/2/2000 an even day.
You seem to argue that since rich people are distributed evenly along the political spectrum, big money has no inherent political bias. What you're forgetting, however, is that the real money isn't with the rich people, it's with the rich corporations, and their influence tends to be much more homogenous.
Examples (all admittedly arguable, but that's the fun part):
Continued increased spending on new military technology (boeing, raytheon, etc.) during peacetime.
NAFTA: pretty unpopular policy move with huge corporate support.
There are those who would claim that the war on drugs continues to be supported because of money from the alchohol and tobacco industries.
In addition, there are any number of regulatory issues involving intellectual property and patent law that might become targets for corporate lobbying should free software continue to emerge as a threat. If there's corporate money at stake, congress will be more than willing to ignore what's best for the consumer.
I don't think public financing of campaigns is the best answer, but it's certainly better than the current system. If there are any better ideas out there, I would love to hear them.
Whoa! Did you even read the story? For the record, this was an example of the ACLU getting behind the little guy vs. big bad government overregulation. Which, actually, is pretty typical for them.
I'm certainly not always on the side of the ACLU, but this rhetoric is just bizarre. Care to provide any examples to back up your reasoning? (or rather, your refusal to use reason: anything they're against is okay by me.)
PS Get your paranoid rhetoric right! Stormtroopers are fascist, not socialist.