Liquid helium is used as a coolant, much like liquid nitrogen. However, the boiling point of helium is 4.2 Kelvin, rather than the 77 Kelvin for nitrogen.
Sometimes scientists need to be able to make things that cold. For instance, solid state physicists doing experiments with superconductivity, a phenomenon that only manifests at low temperatures. If that's a little too abstract for you, consider this - the superconducting magnets in MRI machines need liquid helium to work.
The issue is reclamation, not from the atmosphere but from the machines themselves. In the lab I worked in whenever possible we would reclaim the helium and reliquify it. There are two problems, however. One, the mass of a helium atom is so light that it can escape from the Earth's gravitational pull - so once it evaporates, it's GONE. Two, helium atoms are tiny, fiddly little buggers that can find their way out of almost anything.
Right now our helium comes from our oil caches, IIRC it was built up there through millions of years of radioactive decay of isotopes that happened to be in organic molecules. Unless we discover cheap fusion by the time that built-up supply runs out, we'll just have whatever is being generated by present-day radioactive decay. Which is a sloooooooow process.
Analog computers don't suffer from rounding like digital computers do, but they suffer from something far worse. Noise. An electronic analog computer can only be relied upon for three or four digits of precision.
Note to science and tech journalists: please stop stringing together "millions" and "billions" in an attempt to make the numbers seem large, impressive, and incomprehensible. Scientific notation and SI exist for a reason.
Those are two different things entirely. "Restoration" is the process of making the art look like what it originally looked like. But the black and white films of the first half of the 20th century were also black and white when they came out.
Here's another example for you:
Restoration - re-releasing Star Wars on DVD, with video and audio copied from the original except visual/audio flaws and artifacts have been removed.
Crapification - re-releasing Star Wars on DVD, except there's all this CG crap in the background that wasn't there before.
And now the ironic thing is that this lawsuit is bringing more publicity to the family and the photo than if they had sat back and done nothing. I.e. the "Streisand effect".
You are under the impression that the family wants to suppress the photo itself, but there's no indication of that. The family either wants to distance themselves from the impressions and associations created by Virgin's marketing campaign, or they want a "piece of the action" (get paid for commercial use). Again, since the photo in and of itself is not embarrassing, attention can only help the family.
I was afraid that the lockout would affect Canada too, but it works just fine for me. So yeah, they have the whole localizing IP addresses thing down pat.
In related news, I get a banner add offering to help me "Find my real sex partner in WATERLOO". But how will Americans find their "real sex partners" without this valuable service?
If Google wants to "do no evil" why don't they fund the removal of [George W. Bush]?
Hey, better yet, why don't they convince the UN to send peacekeepers to Darfur? Why don't they fund alternative energy research? I'm sure they have enough money to get a fusion research lab up and running. Why don't they fight cancer?
The problem is even if they did set up a lab to do research with the intent of "fighting cancer", some asshole like you would complain they're not fighting AIDS.
Anyone who wants to fight to do good in this world only has limited resources to work with, as such, one must pick their battles. Taking on the crooked telco companies is worthy enough for me.
Nobody gives a rat's ass about "the SI unit." These are computers.
Yeah. Making nomenclature consistent across industries is damned inconvenient! Why bother?
Look, I hate marketing dishonesty as much as the next guy, but borrowing the SI prefixes honestly does nothing but add confusion. Hard drives are easy, because one can safely assume that the marketing 'tards went with whatever number was bigger. But what about my phone's data plan? Aside from the whole kB vs kb thing, how do I know which definition of "kilo" my provider has gone with? Do they consider themselves with the "computer industry" or with the rest of the world? And (this is the best question), will the not-very-well-paid support grunt even know the difference?
Would you like it if you agreed to sell a dozen POS systems to a bakery, only to be told after the contract, "Sorry sir. This is the baking industry. You agreed to give us thirteen systems." Or if you got a $30 bill from your ISP with the explanation, "This is the computer industry. Though our adverts say this plan is $30 a month, that's hex. In base-ten dollars, you owe us $48."
You hate marketing people skewing reality. Good. It is only through fighting ambiguity that they can be stopped from getting away with this.
Do you know the difference between a pipe and a tube? If you get into any business involving either, I hope you don't repurpose the words everyone else has settled upon.
You think you're right, but you're not.
It's that extra bit of humility that really makes your post shine.
Okay Slashdot, seriously, what the hell? The first couple of sentences don't even make sense, if you can even call them sentences. Where are the periods? Ugh, thanks Slashdot, for convincing me to get some sleep.
I also wonder how much this result is culturally influenced. I've seen photos of billboards down there with a smiling teenager, reading "I want to be an engineer! Sex can wait!" There's a certain kind of youngster who'll buy into that sort of thing.
Not to mention that this is a statistical phenomenon. I can see all sorts of overbearing parents misapplying the result of this study. "Don't have sex! It'll make you smarter!" or "That child couldn't possibly be very smart. He's had sex!"
...16GB RAM, minimum. And you will need a new UltraMegaPCI spec to run a graphics supercomputer for the "NitroXtreme" interface. And security will still be for shit.
And to cool the damn thing, the whole case will have to be submerged in liquid nitrogen.
I thought there was no such thing as a stupid question? In any case, Stallman's response was no way to win supporters.
I know Red Hat et. al. But as far as I can recall, Stallman didn't talk about them much (not that he was supposed to - he was there to talk about copyright, but one would have thought he brought them up during the questions.)
I would never go so far to say that he's unsuccessful. He thinks he's successful, and that's all that matters. He told me that he's achieved the same as the rich: he has a more money than he needs, and that gives him a lot of freedom. No, he's not a failure at all. But he's not the first person I'd choose as the emissary of "free software."
What do you do? The economics of free software interests me.
Since you didn't want to come up with an analogy in the first place, I know you wouldn't appreciate it if I picked holes in it. So I won't.
Problem #1: There are some things generally considered amoral by the population. Murder. Rape. Hunting a species to extinction" Sure, we can get behind that, throw that on the list. "Closed source software" isn't something that leaps into people's heads, and even if it did I doubt most people would put it in the top fifty. "That guy who drives past all the waiting cars and then cuts into the turning lane" would likely rank higher than "closed source software".
Richard Stallman is not the pope of PCs. His saying closed source is immoral doesn't mean anything. You may agree with him, and I agree that closed source isn't preferable. But while most people mind murder and rape and extinction of cute animals most people don't give a damn about software. For them it's a means to an end, and nothing more. Hence our current situation.
Problem #2: I'm pro free software, but think Stallman is going about promoting it in the wrong way. He's literally giving talks to the programmers of tomorrow and saying, "Don't release closed source. It's immoral." Does he offer alternatives? Somewhat - he did say that one can program for open source on commission, but can one earn a good living at it? He's hardly a proof of principle himself. I know there are examples and whole business models, but he didn't talk about them.
We're talking about two different things. You're assuming that average people, when faced with two options, will pick the difficult one with no benefit to themselves, magically listening to an inconvenient person telling them that the easy option is "amoral". I'm more concerned with how Stallman will get people to actually listen to him. At this rate, he's bound to have as much success as the anti-whalers.
Oh, I'm well aware of all of that. I'm also a photographer, though I haven't done any weddings...yet. I hear wedding photography is pretty stressful compared to, well, anything.
I know people who got married earlier this year, their photographer cost $1600 CDN, and they got the digital files and copyright for that. But most people aren't wise enough to look for that kind of deal, and will pay the photographer for taking pictures plus scads of money for prints. To me it does run parallel to the whole closed-source/free software dichotomy. I wasn't trying to say there isn't value in photography.
(Agreed on the permanence bit, though. Spending a lot of money on the photographer is wise compared to spending a lot of money on napkins or invitations or colourful trinkets.)
What kind of post processing goes into wedding photos? I'm curious.
He's right : who cares about your wedding pictures besides your own family ?
Any trivial software can easily have hundreds of users, so it being proprietary or Free Software is more important than your own pictures.
What's more important: something that matters a little to a lot of people, or matters a lot to a few people?
Your argument is flawed, and here's why: according to your logic, closed source software is more of a crime than the murder of one of your family. I mean, who's going to miss your wife or daughter? Unless she's especially notable, a couple hundred people tops. But free software can benefit all of humanity!
That's not to mention that a lot more people care about wedding photos than free software. If I had to pick one of those causes, I know which one I'd get behind.
Stallman knows this, and he even says it...kind of. But he doesn't emphasize it enough. His talk is too much "closed source is bad" and not enough "here's how you can make money anyway."
The other problem is that model only allows one to make money off of software that is commissioned. If I'm a lone programmer who creates a tool (for sorting photos, for instance) is it really a crime against humanity for me to adopt a shareware scheme and release the full version for 5$? Keep in mind I happen to be a starving university student.
You've been modded as funny, but somehow I don't think you're joking.
Sadly, the only analogies I could think of involve the Catholic Church, but I'm not sure they'd support your point.
Church: You can't say the Sun is the centre of the universe. It's amoral. Galileo: But all the evidence says it is! Church: That's not our problem.
So yeah, you're probably going to have to come up with an analogy.
Anyway, sure, Stallman can call whatever he wants amoral. My point is, if he wants a wide audience to actually listen to him, he needs to offer a means for a programmer to make at least a modest living while avoiding amorality. As I've said, his alternative isn't "pin compatible."
Also, that should read, "also requires programmers to not buy a house, get married, and otherwise have a normal life." This is what happens when Slashdot posts are written in haste at four in the morning.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I'm a science type.
Liquid helium is used as a coolant, much like liquid nitrogen. However, the boiling point of helium is 4.2 Kelvin, rather than the 77 Kelvin for nitrogen.
Sometimes scientists need to be able to make things that cold. For instance, solid state physicists doing experiments with superconductivity, a phenomenon that only manifests at low temperatures. If that's a little too abstract for you, consider this - the superconducting magnets in MRI machines need liquid helium to work.
The issue is reclamation, not from the atmosphere but from the machines themselves. In the lab I worked in whenever possible we would reclaim the helium and reliquify it. There are two problems, however. One, the mass of a helium atom is so light that it can escape from the Earth's gravitational pull - so once it evaporates, it's GONE. Two, helium atoms are tiny, fiddly little buggers that can find their way out of almost anything.
Right now our helium comes from our oil caches, IIRC it was built up there through millions of years of radioactive decay of isotopes that happened to be in organic molecules. Unless we discover cheap fusion by the time that built-up supply runs out, we'll just have whatever is being generated by present-day radioactive decay. Which is a sloooooooow process.
Analog computers don't suffer from rounding like digital computers do, but they suffer from something far worse. Noise. An electronic analog computer can only be relied upon for three or four digits of precision.
In other words, 27 Exabytes?
Note to science and tech journalists: please stop stringing together "millions" and "billions" in an attempt to make the numbers seem large, impressive, and incomprehensible. Scientific notation and SI exist for a reason.
Damn - upon further research, I find that it was EA that bought Westwood, not Activision. Now I feel really stupid.
It's too bad too. Imagine how awesome it would be to have a game where orcs could be pwned by an Obelisk of Light.
World of Command and Conquer?
So when a website asks me if I would like to be redirected to the https version of their site, I should click...no?
WTF?
Those are two different things entirely. "Restoration" is the process of making the art look like what it originally looked like. But the black and white films of the first half of the 20th century were also black and white when they came out.
Here's another example for you:
Restoration - re-releasing Star Wars on DVD, with video and audio copied from the original except visual/audio flaws and artifacts have been removed.
Crapification - re-releasing Star Wars on DVD, except there's all this CG crap in the background that wasn't there before.
See the difference?
The Canadian mint must have been inspired by all the similar antics that happen in America.
Canadians can't stand for this. We have to stamp the crazy out now, before it spreads.
There's no irony there.
I was afraid that the lockout would affect Canada too, but it works just fine for me. So yeah, they have the whole localizing IP addresses thing down pat.
In related news, I get a banner add offering to help me "Find my real sex partner in WATERLOO". But how will Americans find their "real sex partners" without this valuable service?
Yup. North America contains the United States and Mexico. We're certainly not forgetting anyone, eh?
Hey, better yet, why don't they convince the UN to send peacekeepers to Darfur? Why don't they fund alternative energy research? I'm sure they have enough money to get a fusion research lab up and running. Why don't they fight cancer?
The problem is even if they did set up a lab to do research with the intent of "fighting cancer", some asshole like you would complain they're not fighting AIDS.
Anyone who wants to fight to do good in this world only has limited resources to work with, as such, one must pick their battles. Taking on the crooked telco companies is worthy enough for me.
Look, I hate marketing dishonesty as much as the next guy, but borrowing the SI prefixes honestly does nothing but add confusion. Hard drives are easy, because one can safely assume that the marketing 'tards went with whatever number was bigger. But what about my phone's data plan? Aside from the whole kB vs kb thing, how do I know which definition of "kilo" my provider has gone with? Do they consider themselves with the "computer industry" or with the rest of the world? And (this is the best question), will the not-very-well-paid support grunt even know the difference?
Would you like it if you agreed to sell a dozen POS systems to a bakery, only to be told after the contract, "Sorry sir. This is the baking industry. You agreed to give us thirteen systems." Or if you got a $30 bill from your ISP with the explanation, "This is the computer industry. Though our adverts say this plan is $30 a month, that's hex. In base-ten dollars, you owe us $48."
You hate marketing people skewing reality. Good. It is only through fighting ambiguity that they can be stopped from getting away with this.
Do you know the difference between a pipe and a tube? If you get into any business involving either, I hope you don't repurpose the words everyone else has settled upon.
It's that extra bit of humility that really makes your post shine.Okay Slashdot, seriously, what the hell? The first couple of sentences don't even make sense, if you can even call them sentences. Where are the periods? Ugh, thanks Slashdot, for convincing me to get some sleep.
Damn. I wonder which way the causality goes.
I also wonder how much this result is culturally influenced. I've seen photos of billboards down there with a smiling teenager, reading "I want to be an engineer! Sex can wait!" There's a certain kind of youngster who'll buy into that sort of thing.
Not to mention that this is a statistical phenomenon. I can see all sorts of overbearing parents misapplying the result of this study. "Don't have sex! It'll make you smarter!" or "That child couldn't possibly be very smart. He's had sex!"
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Of course they're high in the list of spam relaying countries. They are on the butt end of a lot of spam.
It's because the people in countries sending the spam know who the real ousted prince of Nigeria is.
Because this time people will code to it, dammit.
I thought there was no such thing as a stupid question? In any case, Stallman's response was no way to win supporters.
I know Red Hat et. al. But as far as I can recall, Stallman didn't talk about them much (not that he was supposed to - he was there to talk about copyright, but one would have thought he brought them up during the questions.)
I would never go so far to say that he's unsuccessful. He thinks he's successful, and that's all that matters. He told me that he's achieved the same as the rich: he has a more money than he needs, and that gives him a lot of freedom. No, he's not a failure at all. But he's not the first person I'd choose as the emissary of "free software."
What do you do? The economics of free software interests me.
Since you didn't want to come up with an analogy in the first place, I know you wouldn't appreciate it if I picked holes in it. So I won't.
Problem #1: There are some things generally considered amoral by the population. Murder. Rape. Hunting a species to extinction" Sure, we can get behind that, throw that on the list. "Closed source software" isn't something that leaps into people's heads, and even if it did I doubt most people would put it in the top fifty. "That guy who drives past all the waiting cars and then cuts into the turning lane" would likely rank higher than "closed source software".
Richard Stallman is not the pope of PCs. His saying closed source is immoral doesn't mean anything. You may agree with him, and I agree that closed source isn't preferable. But while most people mind murder and rape and extinction of cute animals most people don't give a damn about software. For them it's a means to an end, and nothing more. Hence our current situation.
Problem #2: I'm pro free software, but think Stallman is going about promoting it in the wrong way. He's literally giving talks to the programmers of tomorrow and saying, "Don't release closed source. It's immoral." Does he offer alternatives? Somewhat - he did say that one can program for open source on commission, but can one earn a good living at it? He's hardly a proof of principle himself. I know there are examples and whole business models, but he didn't talk about them.
We're talking about two different things. You're assuming that average people, when faced with two options, will pick the difficult one with no benefit to themselves, magically listening to an inconvenient person telling them that the easy option is "amoral". I'm more concerned with how Stallman will get people to actually listen to him. At this rate, he's bound to have as much success as the anti-whalers.
Oh, I'm well aware of all of that. I'm also a photographer, though I haven't done any weddings...yet. I hear wedding photography is pretty stressful compared to, well, anything.
I know people who got married earlier this year, their photographer cost $1600 CDN, and they got the digital files and copyright for that. But most people aren't wise enough to look for that kind of deal, and will pay the photographer for taking pictures plus scads of money for prints. To me it does run parallel to the whole closed-source/free software dichotomy. I wasn't trying to say there isn't value in photography.
(Agreed on the permanence bit, though. Spending a lot of money on the photographer is wise compared to spending a lot of money on napkins or invitations or colourful trinkets.)
What kind of post processing goes into wedding photos? I'm curious.
What's more important: something that matters a little to a lot of people, or matters a lot to a few people?
Your argument is flawed, and here's why: according to your logic, closed source software is more of a crime than the murder of one of your family. I mean, who's going to miss your wife or daughter? Unless she's especially notable, a couple hundred people tops. But free software can benefit all of humanity!
That's not to mention that a lot more people care about wedding photos than free software. If I had to pick one of those causes, I know which one I'd get behind.
Stallman knows this, and he even says it...kind of. But he doesn't emphasize it enough. His talk is too much "closed source is bad" and not enough "here's how you can make money anyway."
The other problem is that model only allows one to make money off of software that is commissioned. If I'm a lone programmer who creates a tool (for sorting photos, for instance) is it really a crime against humanity for me to adopt a shareware scheme and release the full version for 5$? Keep in mind I happen to be a starving university student.
You've been modded as funny, but somehow I don't think you're joking.
Sadly, the only analogies I could think of involve the Catholic Church, but I'm not sure they'd support your point.So yeah, you're probably going to have to come up with an analogy.
Anyway, sure, Stallman can call whatever he wants amoral. My point is, if he wants a wide audience to actually listen to him, he needs to offer a means for a programmer to make at least a modest living while avoiding amorality. As I've said, his alternative isn't "pin compatible."
Also, that should read, "also requires programmers to not buy a house, get married, and otherwise have a normal life." This is what happens when Slashdot posts are written in haste at four in the morning.