and its tit for tat at this point. White house says foo, NSA says bar. The story has only been "out" for about 20 hours... no point arguing until the smoke settles. (it is possible both parties are right... it is possible to follow the letter of the law, not break any rules and yet violate a constitutional right)
1) innocent until proven guilty -> earliest article I could find via Google was 20 hours ago. This is fresh. Lets give it time for the smoke to settle and see if this is legit.
2) According to the reports, he didn't spy he authorized the NSA. According to Condoleezza and Scott McClellan he "Acted within the law." So right now its tit-for-tat, whose telling the truth? Again, lets wait for the smoke to clear and everyone to get their stories straight
3) According to the accuser "up to 500 people were spied upon." Wow./sarcasm. 500/295,000,000 = 1.6*10^-9 %chance of getting "spied upon." That is in the noise, folks. Now while I understand your ideological concerns with it, much more real concerns to me right now are getting over this damn virus, I've been sick for a week and a half, and getting home to my family for Christmas. Then I'll worry about my 1 in 590,000 chance of having been spied upon. Thanks.
(2) you should have finished reading the article: They would surf the Web -- Disney.com is very popular with them because they like games.
So much for education. The article continues, saying the author had to intervene to introduce more "advanced concepts" and ideas. Basically children are content to pacify themselves with simple gaming and drawing pictures, they don't have a desire to learn. Give them a book and they don't have much of a choice in the matter... (you still need someone in the loop with the ability to teach them to read)
Givings kids cheap notebooks does not equal education. Without learning how to read, or operate the machine the machine is useless. You need the infrastructure in place to have an educational environment before these things can be of any use. We still don't have educational applications for these machines lined up yet.
Truth be told, the laptop really isnt necessary. It could easily be replaced by a good thousand page almanack containing good information on math, science, culture, farming, clean practices, etc. Ever see how cheap reprints are on out-of-copyright works? 3-5$ for 500 page books are not unheard of. We could be mass producing educational works for $8 if we wanted to. But that wouldn't be "cool" because its not a computer. Book has less failure modes, cheap to produce, could be produced under an "open source" license free to distribute...
He was talking about the print edition, not the web edition. No shit they aren't gonna guarantee the website - they have RSS feeds from other sites, etc. They can't guarantee content they can't control. The print edition on the other hand does carry a level of academic credibility and is vetted.
... doesn't mean a better article. Encyclopedias are meant to be concise and to the point. A starting point for research, not a be-all and end-all. And I don't agree with normalizing errors to the length of the article, it should be the number of errors per article. Just because you wrote more stuff it doesn't give you the leeway to screw up more...
What astounds me about this, however, is just how many people go out of their way to be searched.
Its a lot easier to just make with the search. Seriously. Single white male (with a beard? is that it?) traveling alone on airlines, I get asked to step over a lot and get the metal detector run over me. I don't care i have nothing to hide. Just make with it, takes like 30 seconds and if you don't make a fuss everyones a lot happier. Whats up with everyone trying to piss off authority figures. Most of them hate inconveniencing people. But its their job. Most of them just want to feed their families...
No one *made* you purchase that encyclopedia. You saw it. You felt it was a good investment you purchased it. It all comes down to the same argument Pontious Pilate made to Christ - "What Is Truth"? Some things are concrete fact, yes. Some things are evolving events, others are ideas and not set in stone. The print edition you buy is the best stab at capturing the world as we knew it at time X. Encyclopedia are *never* an acceptable reference for a paper. They are a first order reference for general knowlege.
Not really. It requires a constant power level (100MW, according to the article) to operate, plus fuel. Now the upshot is that it requires less fuel since the energy is input from power source. But if you plan on having your power source off of the craft and "beam" the power, beware, because it becomes really inefficient at long distances...
I'm not trying to be a critic, I'm just trying to show where the applications are. Imagine if Voyager had this kind of propulsion system - it could have made its mission in record time and still be making maneuvers today.
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/propul/S SME.html SSME has ~12 *million* horsepower. If you scaled up the ESA's labscale engine - its about maybe a tenth of the size - you are talking about 1,400 horsepower. There is no comparison.
However in interplanetary space this method of propulsion shines since it is very mass efficient. You can grab a stable fuel source like a noble gas and a long-term energy generator like a nuclear power plant and have a long term voyager-style mission, whereas with conventional chemical propellants that would not be an option.
Its not bad terminoligy its bad science. Energy is conserved. First law of thermo. That statement clearly breaks conservation. Therefore it breaks the first law of thermodynamics. Therefore...
Energy source for the SSME is combustion (Hydrogen and Oxygen)
Energy source for this engine is electricity, or rather an energy potential... solar cells, nuclear power plant, etc.
Two different concepts. Two different ballparks. While the article states that this method will deliver "many times more thrust" than ESA's "SMART-1" thruster (70 mN, thats mili-newtons) http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/Space/archives/00034 3.html... even 10*5 times more thrust is only 5 newtons (read: not much). Scale it up to a SSME sized engine and your talking maybe 25-50 newtons. SSME thrust is measured in MILLIONS of newtons.
So basically, different tech that won't scale to drive a vehicle out of a gravity well. But it is useful for orbital/stationkeeping/interplanetary maneuvers if you have the time.
Because these are very low thrust engines, they can't hold a candle to gravitational forces. Where they shine in interplanetary and stationkeeping (orbit and orientation) applications.
I don't think all that highly of myself. My point is that amoung MMO's, WoW is probably the most watered down. The mechanics are damn simple compared to its predecessors, like Everquest or... well prettymuch any of them. I played WoW for 2 months. Hit 60 in less than that (on a PVP server), with a full time job and a pregnant wife. Wasn't hard. I'm not bragging - a lot of people on my server did. The game mechanics are easy to figure out. Everquest on the other hand will keep you busy longer trying to grind out 70 (if you are legit and don't power level) with much more complex character builds and game mechanics. And then you still have AA's (extra abilities that become unlocked when you funnel experiance into them).
Ever played D&D? Its based off the D&D core ruleset. Go get yourself a book. 3.5 is the current ruleset. It'll blow your mind away. The rules are way more complex than WoW. Thats all I was sayin'
I know many people who also will not try other MMOs because their current one is too infatuating.
Dude, you probably aren't their target then. If WoW is your life you probably arent "deep" enough to get into a true D&D MMO. WoW is the most simplistic MMO I ever played... its very point to point, the classes are very simple, the quests are very simple. D&D mechanics are far more in depth and a lot more complicated.
They support Firefox (they've said it explicitly in the past)... I've personally been on live.com with firefox and IE. Can't speak for whatever you apple people use...
Good luck with that tech degree. You probably won't go far... is it accredited by ABET? Didn't think so... that's the gold standard in this field, anything else is just playing around.
Slashdot Mirror
and its tit for tat at this point. White house says foo, NSA says bar. The story has only been "out" for about 20 hours... no point arguing until the smoke settles. (it is possible both parties are right... it is possible to follow the letter of the law, not break any rules and yet violate a constitutional right)
-everphilski-
1) innocent until proven guilty -> earliest article I could find via Google was 20 hours ago. This is fresh. Lets give it time for the smoke to settle and see if this is legit.
/sarcasm. 500/295,000,000 = 1.6*10^-9 %chance of getting "spied upon." That is in the noise, folks. Now while I understand your ideological concerns with it, much more real concerns to me right now are getting over this damn virus, I've been sick for a week and a half, and getting home to my family for Christmas. Then I'll worry about my 1 in 590,000 chance of having been spied upon. Thanks.
2) According to the reports, he didn't spy he authorized the NSA. According to Condoleezza and Scott McClellan he "Acted within the law." So right now its tit-for-tat, whose telling the truth? Again, lets wait for the smoke to clear and everyone to get their stories straight
3) According to the accuser "up to 500 people were spied upon." Wow.
-everphilski-
(1) you are starting with a different assumption
(2) you should have finished reading the article: They would surf the Web -- Disney.com is very popular with them because they like games.
So much for education. The article continues, saying the author had to intervene to introduce more "advanced concepts" and ideas. Basically children are content to pacify themselves with simple gaming and drawing pictures, they don't have a desire to learn. Give them a book and they don't have much of a choice in the matter... (you still need someone in the loop with the ability to teach them to read)
-everphilski-
Givings kids cheap notebooks does not equal education. Without learning how to read, or operate the machine the machine is useless. You need the infrastructure in place to have an educational environment before these things can be of any use. We still don't have educational applications for these machines lined up yet.
Truth be told, the laptop really isnt necessary. It could easily be replaced by a good thousand page almanack containing good information on math, science, culture, farming, clean practices, etc. Ever see how cheap reprints are on out-of-copyright works? 3-5$ for 500 page books are not unheard of. We could be mass producing educational works for $8 if we wanted to. But that wouldn't be "cool" because its not a computer. Book has less failure modes, cheap to produce, could be produced under an "open source" license free to distribute...
-everphilski-
He was talking about the print edition, not the web edition. No shit they aren't gonna guarantee the website - they have RSS feeds from other sites, etc. They can't guarantee content they can't control. The print edition on the other hand does carry a level of academic credibility and is vetted.
-everphilski-
yeah, kW, sorry, typo... MW would be hard to do :)
... doesn't mean a better article. Encyclopedias are meant to be concise and to the point. A starting point for research, not a be-all and end-all. And I don't agree with normalizing errors to the length of the article, it should be the number of errors per article. Just because you wrote more stuff it doesn't give you the leeway to screw up more...
What astounds me about this, however, is just how many people go out of their way to be searched.
Its a lot easier to just make with the search. Seriously. Single white male (with a beard? is that it?) traveling alone on airlines, I get asked to step over a lot and get the metal detector run over me. I don't care i have nothing to hide. Just make with it, takes like 30 seconds and if you don't make a fuss everyones a lot happier. Whats up with everyone trying to piss off authority figures. Most of them hate inconveniencing people. But its their job. Most of them just want to feed their families...
-everphilski-
If not, what is it I'm paying for?
No one *made* you purchase that encyclopedia. You saw it. You felt it was a good investment you purchased it. It all comes down to the same argument Pontious Pilate made to Christ - "What Is Truth"? Some things are concrete fact, yes. Some things are evolving events, others are ideas and not set in stone. The print edition you buy is the best stab at capturing the world as we knew it at time X. Encyclopedia are *never* an acceptable reference for a paper. They are a first order reference for general knowlege.
-everphilski-
Not really. It requires a constant power level (100MW, according to the article) to operate, plus fuel. Now the upshot is that it requires less fuel since the energy is input from power source. But if you plan on having your power source off of the craft and "beam" the power, beware, because it becomes really inefficient at long distances...
I'm not trying to be a critic, I'm just trying to show where the applications are. Imagine if Voyager had this kind of propulsion system - it could have made its mission in record time and still be making maneuvers today.
-everphilski-
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/propul/S SME.html SSME has ~12 *million* horsepower. If you scaled up the ESA's labscale engine - its about maybe a tenth of the size - you are talking about 1,400 horsepower. There is no comparison.
However in interplanetary space this method of propulsion shines since it is very mass efficient. You can grab a stable fuel source like a noble gas and a long-term energy generator like a nuclear power plant and have a long term voyager-style mission, whereas with conventional chemical propellants that would not be an option.
-everphilski-
Its not bad terminoligy its bad science. Energy is conserved. First law of thermo. That statement clearly breaks conservation. Therefore it breaks the first law of thermodynamics. Therefore...
-everphilski-
more bad science.... and from the official esa too *tsk* *tsk*
-everphilski-
Energy source for the SSME is combustion (Hydrogen and Oxygen)
4 3.html ... even 10*5 times more thrust is only 5 newtons (read: not much). Scale it up to a SSME sized engine and your talking maybe 25-50 newtons. SSME thrust is measured in MILLIONS of newtons.
Energy source for this engine is electricity, or rather an energy potential... solar cells, nuclear power plant, etc.
Two different concepts. Two different ballparks. While the article states that this method will deliver "many times more thrust" than ESA's "SMART-1" thruster (70 mN, thats mili-newtons) http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/Space/archives/0003
So basically, different tech that won't scale to drive a vehicle out of a gravity well. But it is useful for orbital/stationkeeping/interplanetary maneuvers if you have the time.
-everphilski-
Because these are very low thrust engines, they can't hold a candle to gravitational forces. Where they shine in interplanetary and stationkeeping (orbit and orientation) applications.
-everphilski-
And you know nothing of my work -Neptune
I could never bring myself to play SWG. I love Star Wars way too much, I knew SOE/Lucas/someone would break it someday and break my heart.
-everphilski-
Havent looked into the tradeskilling yet. Too bad Sony broke SWG :(
-everphilski-
I don't think all that highly of myself. My point is that amoung MMO's, WoW is probably the most watered down. The mechanics are damn simple compared to its predecessors, like Everquest or ... well prettymuch any of them. I played WoW for 2 months. Hit 60 in less than that (on a PVP server), with a full time job and a pregnant wife. Wasn't hard. I'm not bragging - a lot of people on my server did. The game mechanics are easy to figure out. Everquest on the other hand will keep you busy longer trying to grind out 70 (if you are legit and don't power level) with much more complex character builds and game mechanics. And then you still have AA's (extra abilities that become unlocked when you funnel experiance into them).
Ever played D&D? Its based off the D&D core ruleset. Go get yourself a book. 3.5 is the current ruleset. It'll blow your mind away. The rules are way more complex than WoW. Thats all I was sayin'
-everphilski-
gah. f'n mismatched tags.
-everphilski-
Here we have a possible new MMO
Its not possibly a MMO, it is a MMO
I know many people who also will not try other MMOs because their current one is too infatuating.
Dude, you probably aren't their target then. If WoW is your life you probably arent "deep" enough to get into a true D&D MMO. WoW is the most simplistic MMO I ever played... its very point to point, the classes are very simple, the quests are very simple. D&D mechanics are far more in depth and a lot more complicated.
-everphilski-
No, you print it out... carefully cut and glue it together. No weighting it!!!
-everphilski-
How can you play a video game with only 1 mouse button?
-everphilski-
They support Firefox (they've said it explicitly in the past)... I've personally been on live.com with firefox and IE. Can't speak for whatever you apple people use...
-everphilski-
Good luck with that tech degree. You probably won't go far... is it accredited by ABET? Didn't think so... that's the gold standard in this field, anything else is just playing around.
-everphilski-