How does triggerfish lower the evidentiary bar required to authorize law enforcement to use special sensing technology to search for a cell phone?
Because a using a triggerfish means they don't need to produce a warrant to a third party before executing the warrant. This leaves a big opportunity for a compliant judge to issue a predated warrant after the fact.
It's not that I think telcos are going to act in the public service by refusing to comply with non-warrant requests... it's that there are now negative ramifications for doing so. Instead, the executive branch can sidestep that check on the system, and we are supposed to believe, based on our trust of the system, that no triggerfish searches are being done without a warrant.
Just to note that though they share the same root, vigilantism does not share the exact same etymology as vigilance. Vigilantism comes from vigilante (italian/spanish), whereas vigilance comes from the latin root without the sidetrip into vigilante, where much of the connotation is from.
If there's a guy in a tower with a machine gun taking shots into the crowd bellow, and some subset of the crowd has the ability to DDos, what would you want them to do?
DDos isn't going to do much against a guy with a machine gun. I'd want them to act as a human shield so I could get the fuck out of there. But that's just me.
War is obviously a bad thing and life would be great if no one went to war.
War is not obviously a bad thing, to a pragmatist. War can produce a lot of good things, including reduction of overpopulation (see central Africa's overpopulation & food production problem), stimulation of technological development, and extension of successful economic systems leading to better resource utilization in wider areas (those with the best economic systems will dominate inthe long run).
The point is most people in most countries don't want to see their own people getting killed under most any circumstances.
(emphasis mine)
Agreed. War is about killing the Other.
I don't like war, I think it is a terrible thing -- but let's not pretend that war is always bad. There can be lots of good things to come out of war, and while it may seem sociopathic, sometimes a little population reduction is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Except that by mapping space using coordinates, we can have knowledge of absolute, as well as relative, location.
Sure, everything is moving... without coordinates in an absolute system, it'd pretty pretty damn difficult to calculate how things are moving.
A little bit rambling, but I find it annoying when people use transient landmarks when giving me directions ( thankfully not an issue anymore, due to the internet). "Take the second right after the Mobil station" they say... what if the Mobil station becomes an Exxon station due to their merger? Why can't you just tell me, "Proceed 2.4 miles then turn right onto Elm Street"? See why absolute coordinates are better?
What if I give you directions to get to Alpha Centauri using directions relative to Sol, but you're coming from Betelgeuse IV? Relative directions suck.
If you want to map the universe in a coordinate system, you'd simply add the movement curve and time to the location of an object. So location would be (x, y, z at t=0, t, curve). We'd just need to define the absolute location of (0,0,0,0) -- of course, this is assuming there is no warping of space-time, which is a big assumption... but I think we could adapt for this by compressing/expanding the axes where necessary.
Please explain how in the universe you'd use a non-coordinate system to map the universe.
Just wanted to point out that there are a few small holes in what you're saying:
in all other species, the idea is optimization of genes expressed for maximum survival. it's a feedback loop that has worked very well for billions of years
In all other species, the idea is don't die before you procreate. That's it. Maximum survival has nothing to do with it -- maximum reproductive viability of your offspring is where it's at. For some species, this means living a long time and caring for your family members (apes, elephants, etc). For others, this means having lots of offspring and maximizing the chance of procreation of some of the offspring (praying mantises, where one or two young will devour the rest of the hatchlings as they emege). For some, this means a shotgun approach -- having a ton of offspring, since this maximizes the chance some will survive to procreate.
but our memes, a recent development in civilization that has not stood the test of time and has no direct genetic allegory, has no real stake in the survival of the biological organism which creates them with our language
I disagree. Look at the Birds of Paradise in New Guinea. Their ridiculous mating dances and plumage are just like our memes... especially the mating dances. And the parallel is far wider in scope... due to lack of predators and plenty of food, their plumage and dances have evolved due to preferential mate selection. Predator evasion and food gathering are low on the list in a land of plenty. This is an allegory to the human race, IMO. In re: suicide bombers, I also disagree. Sacrificing oneslef so that those most genetically like you survive and procreate? That occurs in lots of cooperative species.
And as for "memes" being new to civilisation, I think there's some hubris involved in your opinion. Memes are as old as civilisation itself, they are what civilisation is based upon.
One other thing... overpopulation results in competition for scarce resources. Whether or not that competition is expressed as competition for food, water, oil, or whatever, overpopulation results in conflict. Conflict that results in casualties helps solve the overpopulation problem. From a tribal standpoint, it makes sense to wage war on the other, so that your relatives' genes can be passed on. Look at central Africa...
Whose ad revenue is better? Digg, Fark, or Slashdot?
As we've seen with the forced "idle" section, the corporate overlord will occasionally flex their muscle.
Slashdot needs to attract users who are morons, because they make money for the site via more ad clickthroughs and more sales from clickthroughs.
Also please note the impact of the firehose. I have no idea if this article was bumped up in the firehose, and thus fast-tracked to the main page... but for a long time now, slashdot has been catering to the masses that make them cash.
Not that I have a problem with it -- I still come to slashdot for the humor and occasional insight, but if you want good tech discussion, you need to stick to certain sections here.
But, at any rate, you are likely not part of slashdot's target audience anymore... it's a shame, but that's business for you.
"Massive" is a relative term. A year's salary? That's pretty massive, to me -- I'd consider anything I couldn't pay off in one year out of my surplus to be massive. But that's me.
As far as your examples of debt, I'm not sure where you are coming from. Debt is debt whether the loan agreement was entered into for "stupid" or "intelligent" reasons.
As for a mortgage being == 1x gross income, and having payment problems... he could have other debt, and other liabilities, such as alimony or child support. We don't know.
More likely the mortgage company is making him pay up before he retires, which is around 5 to 10 years from his post.
They can't do that without him signing an amended agreement, loan terms cannot be changed by either party without the consent of the other. Far more likely he got a balloon loan with a terrible default refinance agreement, or something like that.
Alan Greenspan's reaction was priceless saying that he'd expected banks to take reasonable risks and not commit suicide. It was in their own interests to self-regulate but surprise surprise, greed won out.
Just to be clear...
First, Greenspan expected banks to make choices in their own self-interest... but instead bank executives made decisions that were in their own self interests. He forgot that corporations are not actual decision-makers, individuals are, and individuals tend to make the choices that are best for them, not the choices that are best for their company.
Second, given the expectation of government bailout, it was no longer in the banks' self-interest to self-regulate, since they got to externalize the risk of bad investments. It's been known for years among financial circles that any bank failures big enough to potentially unhinge the economy would be prevented by government bailout. This information influenced lending decisions.
The simple fact of the matter is that top-level decision-makers at these financial institutions made decisions to maximize their bonuses, and those of their friends. Since the bonuses were not tied to long-term health of the company, the choices made were not optimized for long-term health of the company (or the economy as a whole). Any guilt over the negative repercussions was assuaged by the knowledge that the taxpayer would step in and bail them out.
Really, it was an investor's dream -- privatize the profits, socialize the risks.
Buy into the bankers' hype. My home cost $50k, about a year's income, but the mortgage company just tripled my payments
You sound like you're claiming to be a victim here. You signed the loan. You didn't understand the terms? Seriously? You were about to enter into a massive amount of debt and didn't bother consulting someone to help you understand the terms? That's not being a victim of predatory lending, that's being a victim of stupidity.
Since there is no "education bubble", this is where the lies of the book meet.
Says you. How many "underemployed" college graduates do you think there are? All of those people are data points that show we do have an over-educated population. The problem is, we don't know who additional education will benefit the most (and for whom it will maximize benefit for the economy as a whole), so instead we have too many people with college degrees -- we let competition for jobs determine who it was really worthwhile to educate.
I'm getting off on a tangent a little bit here, but anyone who claims that they were the victim of predatory lending needs to take a long, hard look the mirror and man up. You entered into an agreement without knowing what you were agreeing to. Just plain stupid.
Pardon my rudeness, but it really irks me when people who signed agreements were naive and trusted the guy selling them debt. Would you let someone you barely know hold $50,000 of your money based on their word that they won't steal from you? No? Then why would you sign a document doing the equivalent?
The funny thing here is that people talk about the wealth as people who don't spend money. The wealthy spend a ton of money. They buy stuff which in turn transfers money to people selling stuff.
Ah, good-old Reagonomics at play. I thought that tired old horse had been shot.
The wealthy do not distribute wealth by spending it, they accumulate it. When they do invest, it tends to be in existant companies... so they funds they invest are transferred to the previous owner of stock (and that's even when it's domestic investment). Wealth circulates among the wealthy.
The funny thing here is that there are still so many people who believe the failed economic policies of Reagan and Bush II work. The period of prosperity we enjoyed in the Reagan years had much to do with Reagan catching the upward trend following the bad economic years of Carter and the '82-'83 recession (the upward trend being a result of Volcker's expansionary monetary policy, more than tax cuts for the wealthy), followed by a huge reduction in oil prices in '86 that enabled consumer demand to keep growing.
We enjoyed prosperity under Reagan in spite of Reaganomics, not because of Reaganomics. Deficit spending is what made it work, and when we had to pay the piper, we all suffered for it -- just as we must do now.
I think the "Together Dating" guerrilla marketing behemoth, with its sign spam, is reaching the same shallow end of the gene pool that buys enough v1@g@ra to keep our inboxes full of e-spam. Pretty sad.
With 8-figure revenues, and $3k-$15k per customer, I'm not so sure.
As for the "shallow end" of the gene pool... this is a dating service. A rather expensive one, at that ($3k-$15k per customer). The customers have cash (making the assumption that therefore they have *some* good genes), and they have difficulty finding a match on their own (making the assumption that they don't have the best genes for reproductive success).
Seems to me that this service serves to increase the variability of good genes in the gene pool, since there are probably good traits that the most-likely-to-reproduce-successfully may be less likely to exhibit (or have the genes for).
Lot of assumptions here, and I don't beleive that genetics determine so much of our personalities, etc... just a thought on the genetic implications of matchmaking services like this. Not that it really has anything to do with your point.
Since when is this type of behavior for us restricted to our fields of interest?
Some of us have more (and wider) fields of interest than others.
I notice things all the time that raise questions I'd like answers to... but the only ones I really dig into are the ones that interest me in general. I don't have time to solve all the problems I define, so I only obsess over the ones:
(1) I get paid to obsess over (2) that are in my general fields of interest (3) apply to my general fields of interest as well as the particular field the problem occurs in.
Of course, by looking at things in fields we don't know much about, we often gain insight into the fields we already have good understanding of... so most nerds, I think, enjoy expanding the fields of interest.
But there's no way in hell I'll ever spend time tracking plotlines of daytime soaps in order to get insight into what their producers feel is view-worthy television, and by extension, what daytime TV watchers like to experience vicariously, and how I can use that information to pitch scifi shows and movies to my wife so she'll watch them with me.
Oh crap. Now I'm going to need to do exactly that. Thanks a lot, buddy... there goes the weekend.
Well, since the author kindly provides a plug for his company's services, the translation is:
If you can understand what these terms are, I can communicate with you professionally, and maybe you could use my services.
If you don't understand these terms, I hope you enjoy this story.
If you don't understand these terms, or only somewhat understand them, but feel like you want to use these terms to impress your bosses, you need my help. Contact me and we'll work something out.
Why is it news for nerds? The same reason you found it fascinating.
Guy observes something odd related to his field of work.
Guy notices more oddities, all related.
Guy gets an itch to figure out what is going on, and scratches the itch.
Guy keeps on scratching until he's completely satisfied.
Seriously, what nerd hasn't done the same thing in their particular field of interest? Whether it's the grepping to find instances of an odd item in your logs, or statistical analysis to compare voting records by state to federal balance of payment figures, or figuring out how to make the pelvic actuators on your girl robot work properly, one thing all nerds have in common is sleuthing.
Nerdhood, to me, is defined by inquisitiveness and a strong dedication to finding answers and increasing our knowledge. So yes, it's news for nerds, since we can all relate to the author's search for truth.
Who cares if the lamp is non-replaceable (not an LCD, anyway).
What is a pocket protector doing with a lamp anyway? I've been ridiculed enough for using one without a lamp, why would I want to light it up and draw even more attention to it?
reposted from below (with corrections) in the comments, since my comment belongs here in response to your comment:
FTA, testing showed a 1.5 mm beam "burnt" 40 meters into a block of copper in 86 microseconds.
So... napkin calculation...
.15 cm * 4000 cm == 600 cm^2.
density of copper is about 9 g/cm^2, so 5600 grams of copper melted per.86 microsecond beam burst.
500 lbs =~ 227 kg, so roughly forty 86 microsecond bursts to melt 500 lbs...
So we're talking roughly 3.5 milliseconds to melt 500 pounds of copper.
That's 70 tons of copper melted per second for a single beam. That's a hell of a lot of energy, but I'm not sure what the standard unit is for energy/time (hiroshimas is just energy; libraries of congress and football fields obviously don't apply). Anyone know what the standard made-up unit is for energy/time?
How long does it take for the beam to melt 500 lbs of copper?
FTA, testing showed a 1.5 mm beam "burnt" 40 meters into a block of copper in 86 microseconds.
So... napkin calculation...
.15 cm * 4000 cm == 600 cm^2.
density of copper is about 9 g/cm^2, so 5600 grams of copper melted per.86 microsecond beam burst.
500 lbs =~ 227 kg, so roughly forty 86 microsecond bursts to melt 500 lbs...
So we're talking roughly 3.5 milliseconds to melt 500 pounds of copper.
We're talking 70 tons of copper melted per second for a single beam per second. That's a hell of a lot of energy, but I'm not sure what the standard unit is for energy/time (hiroshimas is just energy; libraries of congress and football fields obviously don't apply). Anyone know what the standard made-up unit is for energy/time?
Slashdot Mirror
Because a using a triggerfish means they don't need to produce a warrant to a third party before executing the warrant. This leaves a big opportunity for a compliant judge to issue a predated warrant after the fact.
It's not that I think telcos are going to act in the public service by refusing to comply with non-warrant requests... it's that there are now negative ramifications for doing so. Instead, the executive branch can sidestep that check on the system, and we are supposed to believe, based on our trust of the system, that no triggerfish searches are being done without a warrant.
DDos isn't going to do much against a guy with a machine gun. I'd want them to act as a human shield so I could get the fuck out of there. But that's just me.
War is not obviously a bad thing, to a pragmatist. War can produce a lot of good things, including reduction of overpopulation (see central Africa's overpopulation & food production problem), stimulation of technological development, and extension of successful economic systems leading to better resource utilization in wider areas (those with the best economic systems will dominate inthe long run).
(emphasis mine)
Agreed. War is about killing the Other.
I don't like war, I think it is a terrible thing -- but let's not pretend that war is always bad. There can be lots of good things to come out of war, and while it may seem sociopathic, sometimes a little population reduction is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Except that by mapping space using coordinates, we can have knowledge of absolute, as well as relative, location.
Sure, everything is moving... without coordinates in an absolute system, it'd pretty pretty damn difficult to calculate how things are moving.
A little bit rambling, but I find it annoying when people use transient landmarks when giving me directions ( thankfully not an issue anymore, due to the internet). "Take the second right after the Mobil station" they say... what if the Mobil station becomes an Exxon station due to their merger? Why can't you just tell me, "Proceed 2.4 miles then turn right onto Elm Street"? See why absolute coordinates are better?
What if I give you directions to get to Alpha Centauri using directions relative to Sol, but you're coming from Betelgeuse IV? Relative directions suck.
If you want to map the universe in a coordinate system, you'd simply add the movement curve and time to the location of an object. So location would be (x, y, z at t=0, t, curve). We'd just need to define the absolute location of (0,0,0,0) -- of course, this is assuming there is no warping of space-time, which is a big assumption... but I think we could adapt for this by compressing/expanding the axes where necessary. Please explain how in the universe you'd use a non-coordinate system to map the universe.
2600 L?
... cube root of 2600 is about 13.75... we're talking about a cube about 4' x 4' x 4'.
That's nothing. 1L = 1 dM^3
Carnivorous, cartilaginous fish? I think not. Perhaps they have room for some undersize ill-tempered sea bass.
In all other species, the idea is don't die before you procreate. That's it. Maximum survival has nothing to do with it -- maximum reproductive viability of your offspring is where it's at. For some species, this means living a long time and caring for your family members (apes, elephants, etc). For others, this means having lots of offspring and maximizing the chance of procreation of some of the offspring (praying mantises, where one or two young will devour the rest of the hatchlings as they emege). For some, this means a shotgun approach -- having a ton of offspring, since this maximizes the chance some will survive to procreate.
I disagree. Look at the Birds of Paradise in New Guinea. Their ridiculous mating dances and plumage are just like our memes... especially the mating dances. And the parallel is far wider in scope... due to lack of predators and plenty of food, their plumage and dances have evolved due to preferential mate selection. Predator evasion and food gathering are low on the list in a land of plenty. This is an allegory to the human race, IMO. In re: suicide bombers, I also disagree. Sacrificing oneslef so that those most genetically like you survive and procreate? That occurs in lots of cooperative species.
And as for "memes" being new to civilisation, I think there's some hubris involved in your opinion. Memes are as old as civilisation itself, they are what civilisation is based upon.
One other thing... overpopulation results in competition for scarce resources. Whether or not that competition is expressed as competition for food, water, oil, or whatever, overpopulation results in conflict. Conflict that results in casualties helps solve the overpopulation problem. From a tribal standpoint, it makes sense to wage war on the other, so that your relatives' genes can be passed on. Look at central Africa...
Whose ad revenue is better? Digg, Fark, or Slashdot?
As we've seen with the forced "idle" section, the corporate overlord will occasionally flex their muscle.
Slashdot needs to attract users who are morons, because they make money for the site via more ad clickthroughs and more sales from clickthroughs.
Also please note the impact of the firehose. I have no idea if this article was bumped up in the firehose, and thus fast-tracked to the main page... but for a long time now, slashdot has been catering to the masses that make them cash.
Not that I have a problem with it -- I still come to slashdot for the humor and occasional insight, but if you want good tech discussion, you need to stick to certain sections here.
But, at any rate, you are likely not part of slashdot's target audience anymore... it's a shame, but that's business for you.
Fatal error: divide by zero.
The real formula is Facebook/|ln(Myspace)| == something somewhat useful over an absolute log of shit.
As far as your examples of debt, I'm not sure where you are coming from. Debt is debt whether the loan agreement was entered into for "stupid" or "intelligent" reasons.
As for a mortgage being == 1x gross income, and having payment problems... he could have other debt, and other liabilities, such as alimony or child support. We don't know.
They can't do that without him signing an amended agreement, loan terms cannot be changed by either party without the consent of the other. Far more likely he got a balloon loan with a terrible default refinance agreement, or something like that.
Just to be clear...
First, Greenspan expected banks to make choices in their own self-interest... but instead bank executives made decisions that were in their own self interests. He forgot that corporations are not actual decision-makers, individuals are, and individuals tend to make the choices that are best for them, not the choices that are best for their company.
Second, given the expectation of government bailout, it was no longer in the banks' self-interest to self-regulate, since they got to externalize the risk of bad investments. It's been known for years among financial circles that any bank failures big enough to potentially unhinge the economy would be prevented by government bailout. This information influenced lending decisions.
The simple fact of the matter is that top-level decision-makers at these financial institutions made decisions to maximize their bonuses, and those of their friends. Since the bonuses were not tied to long-term health of the company, the choices made were not optimized for long-term health of the company (or the economy as a whole). Any guilt over the negative repercussions was assuaged by the knowledge that the taxpayer would step in and bail them out.
Really, it was an investor's dream -- privatize the profits, socialize the risks.
You sound like you're claiming to be a victim here. You signed the loan. You didn't understand the terms? Seriously? You were about to enter into a massive amount of debt and didn't bother consulting someone to help you understand the terms? That's not being a victim of predatory lending, that's being a victim of stupidity.
Says you. How many "underemployed" college graduates do you think there are? All of those people are data points that show we do have an over-educated population. The problem is, we don't know who additional education will benefit the most (and for whom it will maximize benefit for the economy as a whole), so instead we have too many people with college degrees -- we let competition for jobs determine who it was really worthwhile to educate.
I'm getting off on a tangent a little bit here, but anyone who claims that they were the victim of predatory lending needs to take a long, hard look the mirror and man up. You entered into an agreement without knowing what you were agreeing to. Just plain stupid.
Pardon my rudeness, but it really irks me when people who signed agreements were naive and trusted the guy selling them debt. Would you let someone you barely know hold $50,000 of your money based on their word that they won't steal from you? No? Then why would you sign a document doing the equivalent?
Ah, good-old Reagonomics at play. I thought that tired old horse had been shot.
The wealthy do not distribute wealth by spending it, they accumulate it. When they do invest, it tends to be in existant companies... so they funds they invest are transferred to the previous owner of stock (and that's even when it's domestic investment). Wealth circulates among the wealthy.
The funny thing here is that there are still so many people who believe the failed economic policies of Reagan and Bush II work. The period of prosperity we enjoyed in the Reagan years had much to do with Reagan catching the upward trend following the bad economic years of Carter and the '82-'83 recession (the upward trend being a result of Volcker's expansionary monetary policy, more than tax cuts for the wealthy), followed by a huge reduction in oil prices in '86 that enabled consumer demand to keep growing.
We enjoyed prosperity under Reagan in spite of Reaganomics, not because of Reaganomics. Deficit spending is what made it work, and when we had to pay the piper, we all suffered for it -- just as we must do now.
With 8-figure revenues, and $3k-$15k per customer, I'm not so sure.
As for the "shallow end" of the gene pool... this is a dating service. A rather expensive one, at that ($3k-$15k per customer). The customers have cash (making the assumption that therefore they have *some* good genes), and they have difficulty finding a match on their own (making the assumption that they don't have the best genes for reproductive success).
Seems to me that this service serves to increase the variability of good genes in the gene pool, since there are probably good traits that the most-likely-to-reproduce-successfully may be less likely to exhibit (or have the genes for).
Lot of assumptions here, and I don't beleive that genetics determine so much of our personalities, etc... just a thought on the genetic implications of matchmaking services like this. Not that it really has anything to do with your point.
Some of us have more (and wider) fields of interest than others.
I notice things all the time that raise questions I'd like answers to... but the only ones I really dig into are the ones that interest me in general. I don't have time to solve all the problems I define, so I only obsess over the ones:
(1) I get paid to obsess over
(2) that are in my general fields of interest
(3) apply to my general fields of interest as well as the particular field the problem occurs in.
Of course, by looking at things in fields we don't know much about, we often gain insight into the fields we already have good understanding of... so most nerds, I think, enjoy expanding the fields of interest.
But there's no way in hell I'll ever spend time tracking plotlines of daytime soaps in order to get insight into what their producers feel is view-worthy television, and by extension, what daytime TV watchers like to experience vicariously, and how I can use that information to pitch scifi shows and movies to my wife so she'll watch them with me.
Oh crap. Now I'm going to need to do exactly that. Thanks a lot, buddy... there goes the weekend.
Well, since the author kindly provides a plug for his company's services, the translation is:
If you can understand what these terms are, I can communicate with you professionally, and maybe you could use my services.
If you don't understand these terms, I hope you enjoy this story.
If you don't understand these terms, or only somewhat understand them, but feel like you want to use these terms to impress your bosses, you need my help. Contact me and we'll work something out.
Why is it news for nerds? The same reason you found it fascinating.
Guy observes something odd related to his field of work.
Guy notices more oddities, all related.
Guy gets an itch to figure out what is going on, and scratches the itch.
Guy keeps on scratching until he's completely satisfied.
Seriously, what nerd hasn't done the same thing in their particular field of interest? Whether it's the grepping to find instances of an odd item in your logs, or statistical analysis to compare voting records by state to federal balance of payment figures, or figuring out how to make the pelvic actuators on your girl robot work properly, one thing all nerds have in common is sleuthing.
Nerdhood, to me, is defined by inquisitiveness and a strong dedication to finding answers and increasing our knowledge. So yes, it's news for nerds, since we can all relate to the author's search for truth.
Well, that's the trouble with trebles.
Should you, by some chance, become aware of related patents, you can dismiss the treble problem by beaming them over to Redmond.
What? Like 90% of slashdot considers Microsoft to be far worse than the Klingons anyway.
Who cares if the lamp is non-replaceable (not an LCD, anyway).
What is a pocket protector doing with a lamp anyway? I've been ridiculed enough for using one without a lamp, why would I want to light it up and draw even more attention to it?
Is this some new kind of nerd bling?
Meh. You and your hypothetical third dimension.
Besides, it's a napkin calculation, being off by only two powers of ten is not that bad.
Ah, you're referring to the hypothetical z-axis of the third dimension.
Thanks for catching the error.
So it's only about 3 tonnes melted copper per second... still a lot of power.
~300 kJ to melt 0.0635 kg (1 mole) of copper.
Did the calcs... roughly 87 MW... not even close to the power of one SSRB.
Can you come up with something a little lestt powerful?
So the message is... turn the TV off and go to Facebook instead?
No thanks. I'd rather have my eyelids stapled open and be forced to watch 72 hours of "The View" without a break than go to Facebook.
But that's just me. YMMV.
reposted from below (with corrections) in the comments, since my comment belongs here in response to your comment:
.15 cm * 4000 cm == 600 cm^2.
.86 microsecond beam burst.
FTA, testing showed a 1.5 mm beam "burnt" 40 meters into a block of copper in 86 microseconds.
So... napkin calculation...
density of copper is about 9 g/cm^2, so 5600 grams of copper melted per
500 lbs =~ 227 kg, so roughly forty 86 microsecond bursts to melt 500 lbs...
So we're talking roughly 3.5 milliseconds to melt 500 pounds of copper.
That's 70 tons of copper melted per second for a single beam. That's a hell of a lot of energy, but I'm not sure what the standard unit is for energy/time (hiroshimas is just energy; libraries of congress and football fields obviously don't apply). Anyone know what the standard made-up unit is for energy/time?
How long does it take for the beam to melt 500 lbs of copper?
.86 microsecond beam burst.
FTA, testing showed a 1.5 mm beam "burnt" 40 meters into a block of copper in 86 microseconds.
So... napkin calculation...
.15 cm * 4000 cm == 600 cm^2.
density of copper is about 9 g/cm^2, so 5600 grams of copper melted per
500 lbs =~ 227 kg, so roughly forty 86 microsecond bursts to melt 500 lbs...
So we're talking roughly 3.5 milliseconds to melt 500 pounds of copper.
We're talking 70 tons of copper melted per second for a single beam per second. That's a hell of a lot of energy, but I'm not sure what the standard unit is for energy/time (hiroshimas is just energy; libraries of congress and football fields obviously don't apply). Anyone know what the standard made-up unit is for energy/time?
18/f/ny [1]
I browse slashdot in lynx too, and my problem is that I only wake up for the last word of a comment.
[1] If you believe that, I have some penis pills to sell you.