Until now, physicists knew that the laser can push small objects. But now, researchers in China have a new experimental device, whereby the laser borounna pull objects from afar.
(On a related note, where the hell did Google Translate pull 'borounna' from?)
I would say faster than light travel straddles the categories. Time travel may as well. Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku has written about possibilities for both. While I'm not holding out hope to ever see either of these, if we could somehow figure out how to create wormholes, for example, (which I would put in the 'incredibly difficult' category until it's proven otherwise) those could potentially be used for both (though I'll admit, I'm rather skeptical of the claims that they could be used for time travel.)
Of course, it's also debatable if wormholes (if they even exist) could actually be considered faster than light travel, which is another reason why I would say it straddles the two categories. Strictly speaking I suppose you aren't violating that law, you're just finding a way around it.
And yes, I realize that creating a wormhole would involving bending space itself...which is no small feat. But it also seems like it may be no more difficult than something like moving planets around - which is certainly not impossible. Just insane. But that's what people would have said about geo-engineering not too long ago...
What are 'high tech degrees'? I mean, I'm a computer science major - I would call that a high tech degree. But no, we are not being taught much about management - we have room that we can if we so choose, but I don't think too many do. Why? Because that's what the IST (Information Sciences and Technology) major is for. That's what they tell incoming freshmen - IST is management, Computer Science is actually creating things.
Now, I can't say if the IST people are good at management or not - but I would hope so, since that's pretty much what their degree is all about. I would say the issue is more corporations (and some universities - my own included in some ways) not understanding that 'Computer Science' is not a catch-all term for all IT-related needs. I can't tell you how many recruiters I've seen looking for computer science majors when that is probably not the degree they actually want for the kinds of work they're doing.
I've used nothing but ATI and nothing but Linux for 6+ years now and I've never had any issues. I am of course using the proprietary ATI drivers though. And I never buy the latest, top of the line video cards.
I mean harassing your own government/citizenry. Harassment of the Zimbabwe government is up to the people living there - and yes, they damn well better be serious about it if they decide to do so. But you do not face such risks. Hell, harass the Zimbabwe government too while you're at it - just don't go there to do it in person.
Yes...I have noticed much of this myself here in America as well. So much so that I'm quite confident that apathy is the greatest enemy mankind has ever seen.
But still, it is worth keeping in mind that rights are not something that just happens. They aren't given to you, you have to take them. In a case like this, I would say that means going out and raising awareness, and harassing your government until they do something about it. Also, the apathy may seem worse than it is - because people sit there, not doing anything, because they all feel that nobody else gives a damn. Everything has to start somewhere.
When did our options become limited to invasion or not doing a damn thing? How about we start with some diplomatic action? Or even just public demonstrations? No nation can survive on it's own. And dictators actually do sometimes care about how they look to the outside world - that's why they try to keep stuff like this silent.
Because then they'll get sued for false advertising or something when one of the non-US entrants realizes he never had any shot of winning in the first place.
It's not really the government's fault, it's the fault of other corporations who assume these numbers are secret. They aren't. And the government will tell you that.
Seriously though, Mandriva is a MUCH better distro for new Linux users. There's some hardware (big brand OEM laptops, nothing exotic) that I can't get the Ubuntu installer to even boot up on. Meanwhile, I've installed the latest version of Mandriva on everything from top of the line new machines to fifteen year old hardware without ever seeing any issues. And even when you get Ubuntu to install, I've never managed to get everything to actually work easy - usually it's three to four days messing with things - and this is from someone who knows a decent bit about Linux (currently running Arch). With Mandriva, everything just works right out of the install. Even the weird Dell branded Broadcom wifi chips will work fine without any effort in the recent Mandriva releases.
Ah, no I did not. But couldn't you perhaps establish some kind of station to bounce the signal off of that wouldn't add more than a small percentage (i.e., 5 minutes or so) to the transit time?
Within the solar system, you're talking probably an hour at most (round-trip, unless we colonize Jupiter or something). So yea, instant communication is out, but it's still fairly quick. You could post to slashdot and have your comments appear while the story is still on the front page. I'd imagine popular content will be mirrored by service providers, unpopular content will need to be requested - provider pulls it into the mirror, drops it a while later - for the user, they try to load it, get a page saying 'check back in an hour'.
Once you get out of the solar system - there will be no real communication unless we can find a way to move data faster than light. Minimum of 20 years, one-way..it'll be effective isolation.
Yea...I haven't bought a new router in...well, when I bought it, 54mpbs 802.11g was brand new, cutting-edge stuff. I think that was 6+ years ago. I'm not planning on getting a new one any time soon. Why should I? Router already delivers almost 10x the speed of my internet connection. I don't do file transfers over the network frequently enough to care, it's compatible with EVERYTHING, and...well, if it ain't broke, why fix it?
Cheaper is what you need. And removable. There's a reason nearly ever classroom at my university has a projector and screen rather than just replacing the chalkboard with a massive LCD monitor....
Of course, it helps to have mommy and daddy pay your way so you don't even have to hold a job while in school. I knew some of these people, and frankly, I got much more out of college than they did. Sure, they may have better stories to tell as they were available for every kegger on campus. But I learned how to work to midnight on the far side of town, complete my assignments and still make my 8:00am class.
I know the types you mean...but it has nothing to do with their parents paying their way. It's just that they're spoiled, lazy, and feel entitled to everything. But I've met people like that who don't have a dime to their name as well.
My parents pay my tuition, and my rent, and give me just enough money that if I never left my apartment I would probably break even over the semester. I'm at a school that was ranked #1 party school in the nation last year. I'm in my third year here, and I think I've been to three or four parties...and I've never seen a keg outside of movies. I spend my time contributing to open source projects...working to provide clean water to impoverished regions of the world...working to restore civil rights in America and elsewhere. President/webmaster of the local Amnesty International chapter; President/webmaster of the local ACLU group. Secretary/webmaster of the local ham club. VP of the local LUG. Webmaster of the local college libertarians. And one of about 4 active members of the local YDS (which doesn't really have officers).
Point is, just because mommy and daddy pay for things doesn't mean that person is a dick. It's the people who have free time but choose not to do anything productive with it who are the problem. And there are plenty of highschool/college dropouts like that too. I know plenty of people who decided, instead of going to college, to keep living at home, get a minimum wage job, and spend all their money on video games.
Yea, unless anyone in that house wears glasses, for example. Eyeglass repair kits generally come with those tiny phillips screwdrivers. Or if anyone has ever bought one of those $10 toolboxes - I got one on clearance at Radioshack - hammer, knife, pliers, tape measure, screwdriver and bits, wrenches, and - yup, those tiny phillips and flat screwdrivers. Or if they've ever needed to change a watch battery....etc.
Any household that has more than a hammer will probably have a phillips screwdriver capable of opening an iPhone. Many will probably have tiny torx screwdrivers too, and allen wrenches - those are so common in toolboxes these days, it's hard to find one without them. But pentalobular?
Huh. Flash kills my Chrome all the time, but my flash performance or Firefox 4b9 has been incredible. Flash actually WORKS now! And on Linux! It's a friggin' miracle!
They're CS students, so at least a couple kids in that class have certainly used Linux before. When it comes to teaching the GUI - you shouldn't have to teach anything. It's pretty much the same as Windows or Mac - if they can't figure it out just because it's a little bit different, they certainly shouldn't be in CS - or any science or engineering major for that matter.
As for the command-line: Make the point that it's similar to what they're used to, but far more powerful. I.e., ls instead of dir, cp instead of copy - new names, same commands. But then show something like ffmpeg or some of the Gimp command line options - hammer in the point that you can do complex tasks like video or graphics editing just by typing in a quick command. And then show some piping - that's a big, important part of *nix IMO. Show that you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you can chain things together. And finally do some very basic shell scripting, to show how you would automate some of that stuff.
Well, I don't know about the rest of the Android owners, but I upgraded my Android device to Froyo not long ago. And it's got Angstrom Linux. And the original Android (1.6) OS, triple booting. That took all of half an hour to get set up. Would have been faster but I ignored half the directions because I thought I knew exactly what I was doing, and had to redo some of them later. Oops.
Um, when he pulls the plug - he inserts it at 1:03, the device is mostly booted by 1:06, but the video feed isn't restored until 1:08. In other words, I'd say at least 3 seconds, I'd call it 5 seconds to fully boot and load the application.
Don't get me wrong, still impressive, but it seems to be a bit more than one second...
On an unrelated note: Why the hell does Slashdot still not work properly with Google Chrome? It's the only site I've ever had any problems with....
What I say when I'm on the phone with my friends isn't private, but I still don't want the government snooping on all those calls. What I do while I'm out in public isn't private, but I don't want a cop following me every time I step out the door. The fact that it isn't private (and there are plenty of ways to communicate privately in facebook BTW,) doesn't mean it's OK for the government to secretly monitor everything you do there.
A large number of people in Guantanamo were arrested and put there without _ANY_ justification, and (for the lucky ones) were released later without _ANY_ charges. For a quick example off the top of my head: Moazzam Begg.
Also, worth noting that CIA memos have shown that, in other prisons in other areas of the world, there were times when the CIA KNEW they had the wrong person, they KNEW the person they were holding was innocent, and they tried to continue holding the person anyway, just for the hell of it. They even got Sec. of State Rice in on it, coercing Germany to drop charges against the agents responsible.
Unfortunately, "We don't like him" is probably more valid than the reasons why a lot of people ended up in Gitmo....
Slashdot Mirror
I want a repulsor beam.
...you mean like a rocket? Or a bigass fan?
Or a regular laser. From TFA:
Until now, physicists knew that the laser can push small objects. But now, researchers in China have a new experimental device, whereby the laser borounna pull objects from afar.
(On a related note, where the hell did Google Translate pull 'borounna' from?)
I would say faster than light travel straddles the categories. Time travel may as well. Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku has written about possibilities for both. While I'm not holding out hope to ever see either of these, if we could somehow figure out how to create wormholes, for example, (which I would put in the 'incredibly difficult' category until it's proven otherwise) those could potentially be used for both (though I'll admit, I'm rather skeptical of the claims that they could be used for time travel.)
Of course, it's also debatable if wormholes (if they even exist) could actually be considered faster than light travel, which is another reason why I would say it straddles the two categories. Strictly speaking I suppose you aren't violating that law, you're just finding a way around it.
And yes, I realize that creating a wormhole would involving bending space itself...which is no small feat. But it also seems like it may be no more difficult than something like moving planets around - which is certainly not impossible. Just insane. But that's what people would have said about geo-engineering not too long ago...
It's a guy's NAME! What next, political protestors being silenced for using the name of a politician?
What are 'high tech degrees'? I mean, I'm a computer science major - I would call that a high tech degree. But no, we are not being taught much about management - we have room that we can if we so choose, but I don't think too many do. Why? Because that's what the IST (Information Sciences and Technology) major is for. That's what they tell incoming freshmen - IST is management, Computer Science is actually creating things.
Now, I can't say if the IST people are good at management or not - but I would hope so, since that's pretty much what their degree is all about. I would say the issue is more corporations (and some universities - my own included in some ways) not understanding that 'Computer Science' is not a catch-all term for all IT-related needs. I can't tell you how many recruiters I've seen looking for computer science majors when that is probably not the degree they actually want for the kinds of work they're doing.
I've used nothing but ATI and nothing but Linux for 6+ years now and I've never had any issues. I am of course using the proprietary ATI drivers though. And I never buy the latest, top of the line video cards.
I mean harassing your own government/citizenry. Harassment of the Zimbabwe government is up to the people living there - and yes, they damn well better be serious about it if they decide to do so. But you do not face such risks. Hell, harass the Zimbabwe government too while you're at it - just don't go there to do it in person.
Yes...I have noticed much of this myself here in America as well. So much so that I'm quite confident that apathy is the greatest enemy mankind has ever seen.
But still, it is worth keeping in mind that rights are not something that just happens. They aren't given to you, you have to take them. In a case like this, I would say that means going out and raising awareness, and harassing your government until they do something about it.
Also, the apathy may seem worse than it is - because people sit there, not doing anything, because they all feel that nobody else gives a damn. Everything has to start somewhere.
When did our options become limited to invasion or not doing a damn thing? How about we start with some diplomatic action? Or even just public demonstrations? No nation can survive on it's own. And dictators actually do sometimes care about how they look to the outside world - that's why they try to keep stuff like this silent.
Because then they'll get sued for false advertising or something when one of the non-US entrants realizes he never had any shot of winning in the first place.
It's not really the government's fault, it's the fault of other corporations who assume these numbers are secret. They aren't. And the government will tell you that.
Pfff, I hated Ubuntu before it was cool :P
Seriously though, Mandriva is a MUCH better distro for new Linux users. There's some hardware (big brand OEM laptops, nothing exotic) that I can't get the Ubuntu installer to even boot up on. Meanwhile, I've installed the latest version of Mandriva on everything from top of the line new machines to fifteen year old hardware without ever seeing any issues. And even when you get Ubuntu to install, I've never managed to get everything to actually work easy - usually it's three to four days messing with things - and this is from someone who knows a decent bit about Linux (currently running Arch). With Mandriva, everything just works right out of the install. Even the weird Dell branded Broadcom wifi chips will work fine without any effort in the recent Mandriva releases.
Ah, no I did not. But couldn't you perhaps establish some kind of station to bounce the signal off of that wouldn't add more than a small percentage (i.e., 5 minutes or so) to the transit time?
Within the solar system, you're talking probably an hour at most (round-trip, unless we colonize Jupiter or something). So yea, instant communication is out, but it's still fairly quick. You could post to slashdot and have your comments appear while the story is still on the front page. I'd imagine popular content will be mirrored by service providers, unpopular content will need to be requested - provider pulls it into the mirror, drops it a while later - for the user, they try to load it, get a page saying 'check back in an hour'.
Once you get out of the solar system - there will be no real communication unless we can find a way to move data faster than light. Minimum of 20 years, one-way..it'll be effective isolation.
Sheevaplug doesn't (at least not the first generation ones), but it does have a USB port, so you could potentially use that...
Yea...I haven't bought a new router in...well, when I bought it, 54mpbs 802.11g was brand new, cutting-edge stuff. I think that was 6+ years ago. I'm not planning on getting a new one any time soon. Why should I? Router already delivers almost 10x the speed of my internet connection. I don't do file transfers over the network frequently enough to care, it's compatible with EVERYTHING, and...well, if it ain't broke, why fix it?
Cheaper is what you need. And removable. There's a reason nearly ever classroom at my university has a projector and screen rather than just replacing the chalkboard with a massive LCD monitor....
Of course, it helps to have mommy and daddy pay your way so you don't even have to hold a job while in school. I knew some of these people, and frankly, I got much more out of college than they did. Sure, they may have better stories to tell as they were available for every kegger on campus. But I learned how to work to midnight on the far side of town, complete my assignments and still make my 8:00am class.
I know the types you mean...but it has nothing to do with their parents paying their way. It's just that they're spoiled, lazy, and feel entitled to everything. But I've met people like that who don't have a dime to their name as well.
My parents pay my tuition, and my rent, and give me just enough money that if I never left my apartment I would probably break even over the semester. I'm at a school that was ranked #1 party school in the nation last year. I'm in my third year here, and I think I've been to three or four parties...and I've never seen a keg outside of movies. I spend my time contributing to open source projects...working to provide clean water to impoverished regions of the world...working to restore civil rights in America and elsewhere. President/webmaster of the local Amnesty International chapter; President/webmaster of the local ACLU group. Secretary/webmaster of the local ham club. VP of the local LUG. Webmaster of the local college libertarians. And one of about 4 active members of the local YDS (which doesn't really have officers).
Point is, just because mommy and daddy pay for things doesn't mean that person is a dick. It's the people who have free time but choose not to do anything productive with it who are the problem. And there are plenty of highschool/college dropouts like that too. I know plenty of people who decided, instead of going to college, to keep living at home, get a minimum wage job, and spend all their money on video games.
Yea, unless anyone in that house wears glasses, for example. Eyeglass repair kits generally come with those tiny phillips screwdrivers. Or if anyone has ever bought one of those $10 toolboxes - I got one on clearance at Radioshack - hammer, knife, pliers, tape measure, screwdriver and bits, wrenches, and - yup, those tiny phillips and flat screwdrivers. Or if they've ever needed to change a watch battery....etc.
Any household that has more than a hammer will probably have a phillips screwdriver capable of opening an iPhone. Many will probably have tiny torx screwdrivers too, and allen wrenches - those are so common in toolboxes these days, it's hard to find one without them. But pentalobular?
Huh. Flash kills my Chrome all the time, but my flash performance or Firefox 4b9 has been incredible. Flash actually WORKS now! And on Linux! It's a friggin' miracle!
They're CS students, so at least a couple kids in that class have certainly used Linux before. When it comes to teaching the GUI - you shouldn't have to teach anything. It's pretty much the same as Windows or Mac - if they can't figure it out just because it's a little bit different, they certainly shouldn't be in CS - or any science or engineering major for that matter.
As for the command-line: Make the point that it's similar to what they're used to, but far more powerful. I.e., ls instead of dir, cp instead of copy - new names, same commands. But then show something like ffmpeg or some of the Gimp command line options - hammer in the point that you can do complex tasks like video or graphics editing just by typing in a quick command. And then show some piping - that's a big, important part of *nix IMO. Show that you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you can chain things together. And finally do some very basic shell scripting, to show how you would automate some of that stuff.
There's a much better article on this in Cnet, by the excellent Chris Matyszczyk:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20028638-71.html?tag=mncol;title
Well, I don't know about the rest of the Android owners, but I upgraded my Android device to Froyo not long ago. And it's got Angstrom Linux. And the original Android (1.6) OS, triple booting. That took all of half an hour to get set up. Would have been faster but I ignored half the directions because I thought I knew exactly what I was doing, and had to redo some of them later. Oops.
Um, when he pulls the plug - he inserts it at 1:03, the device is mostly booted by 1:06, but the video feed isn't restored until 1:08. In other words, I'd say at least 3 seconds, I'd call it 5 seconds to fully boot and load the application.
Don't get me wrong, still impressive, but it seems to be a bit more than one second...
On an unrelated note: Why the hell does Slashdot still not work properly with Google Chrome? It's the only site I've ever had any problems with....
Why is that at all relevant?
What I say when I'm on the phone with my friends isn't private, but I still don't want the government snooping on all those calls. What I do while I'm out in public isn't private, but I don't want a cop following me every time I step out the door. The fact that it isn't private (and there are plenty of ways to communicate privately in facebook BTW,) doesn't mean it's OK for the government to secretly monitor everything you do there.
A large number of people in Guantanamo were arrested and put there without _ANY_ justification, and (for the lucky ones) were released later without _ANY_ charges. For a quick example off the top of my head: Moazzam Begg.
Also, worth noting that CIA memos have shown that, in other prisons in other areas of the world, there were times when the CIA KNEW they had the wrong person, they KNEW the person they were holding was innocent, and they tried to continue holding the person anyway, just for the hell of it. They even got Sec. of State Rice in on it, coercing Germany to drop charges against the agents responsible.
Unfortunately, "We don't like him" is probably more valid than the reasons why a lot of people ended up in Gitmo....