The article does not say anywhere that you can produce hydrogen while driving. My mistake (last post. Read the article and not the summary)
The article says that Kevin Maloney says "Instead of switching 170,000 gas stations over to hydrogen, using our electrodes could enable consumers to make their own hydrogen, either in the garage or right on [sic] the vehicle,"
Doesn't say 'while driving' It implies that you can supply some sort of power source, presumably plugging the car into an outlet to run the fuelcell backwards and produce hydrogen.
The nano-particles promise to create an electrolyzer which is 96% efficient at making hydrogen and oxygen from water. Next, you could put the oxygen and hydrogen into a car's fuel cell and turn it back into electricity at some efficiency.
You can indeed cut out the middle man and have a car that uses 100% of the electrical energy available. This would mean skipping the whole hydrogen step, and having your car directly connected to the grid, just like the electric trains are today.
But when can it be said that a computer is smarter than a human? A computer can do certain things better than a human can, but irregardless of how many transistors you have, they will never be able to do everything better than a human. Just what will a computer need to be able to do before we say; yup. They've surpassed us.
I think 200 years is a pretty far cry, and would say that 20 is closer. Computers have only been around for about 200 years (they had punch card controlled looms 200 years ago didn't they?)
Think about the high performance computing labs these days. I can't predict global weather patterns. Can you?
What you have is a little blob of animal stem cells with a few human stem cells thrown into the mix. Both are multiplying, but we mostly have animal cells. What would likely happen is once the embryo's cells begin specialization and an immune system develops, it would kill off all the human cells leaving itself crippled, deformed and dying.
I disagree. What about Moore's law? Hubble's law was formulated in 1929.
Again, the theory of evolution, and theories of stellar formation are not mathematical descriptions of observations. They are way too complicated for that. For evolution, the observable would be the fossil record, or the specialization of species in the Galapagos which are both too complicated to be expressed using mathematics. The theory is that of evolution caused by natural selection, and the testable prediction is the slightly unstable information medium passed parents to children (long after being predicted, we found DNA)
We still name things laws. But the math is key. The type of math is also important. For instance, Schroedinger's equation is not a law because it in itself does not describe an observable quantity. You can however use it with some funny statistical mechanics to find observable quantities, but that isn't good enough.
Laws ==> mathematical expressions of observations. Theories ==> expressions of inference.
A law is a mathematical expression of observation. Newtons laws are a set of equations which can be used to predict (within certain experimental limits) how an object will behave. Statement: Under these conditions, the following will happen. (If the 'law' came from the mathematical group, they call it a theorem. But 'law' is a better name)
So the origins of these laws is our observation of the universe.
Someone asks "Why?" Why does this equation accurately describe kinematics. Well, we have these ideas that sorta explain things. We call them 'mass' and 'inertia' These are not based on fact, they are not observations. These are inferences, or ideas we invent so that we can conceptualize the laws. These are our 'theories'. Laws lead to theories.
This theory can allow us to realize another more complicated mathematical description of the universe. Theories lead to laws. Say, we notice that the centre of *mass* of a closed system of *massive* objects always travels at a constant speed. The simplest way to describe this is the law of conservation of momentum.
Now, since laws and theories are so closely interconnected, we confuse the two of them all the time. But if you ever hear the word 'law' you will find an equation, or a set of equations.
Now hold your horses. There's one thing I missed. A theory that does not lead to a new law (or a simpler version of an old law) is useless. If all it does is allow for a neat new way to conceptualize things that we observe, then it is struck down.
So the concept of a 'law of nature' is incorrect. Nature behaves however the heck it wants to. We observe it and describe it and in so doing create 'laws of physics'.
Err. I believe the cost benefit analysis for saving Hubble comes back in the red. I do not have a source for this, but space walks are dangerous and complicated operations and the last time they repaired the Hubble, it almost ended in catastrophe.
There are a few things that Hubble can do that no other telescope can. However, those things will be done much better by the James Webb Space Telescope to be launched sometime after 2013.
You're leaving the site for an unknown period of time which will span at least half a year. The trench would fill with water, and go through a bunch of freeze thaw cycles.
Now, we could presume to seal it with a really nice tent, but really. It's survived millions of years in the ground. One more year won't make any difference.
According to an archeology professor of mine at Queen's University, this is very common. Excavation is a slow process, and one which is dependent on the weather. Furthermore, it is a funding intensive project.
You find a site, then you apply for funding. When you get your funding, you start the dig. Generally you only get the summer as rain, snow or ice can damage artifact and generally make digging harder. At the end of the digging season, you place some sort of modern marker at the edges and bottom of the trench (my professor used soda cans) and fill them in until the next time you can come back.
If your site proves to be interesting, you can get the funding renewed for another summer, and as a rule of thumb they give you funding every 2 years. This allows the funding to be spread out over a wider range of projects, and ensures the scientists have the time to publish what they found during the excavation.
No No. It is clearly the other way around. The witch trials for instance. Witches float, so you tie the accused witch up to ensure she can't swim (because that would add a a second variable of uncertainty) and toss her into the nearest creek. If she floats, and is a which, you then haul her over to the town square to be burned. If she sinks and drowns... An unfortunate casualty of the justice system.
Also... If you're on slashdot, you've probably already heard of Notpron If you haven't, you'll be unproductive for the next 16 hours, at which point you'll be stumped on level 21.
So. Let's imagine for an instant that the medical community knows of an inexpensive cure to cancer and are keeping it hidden. Let's assume the entire medical community is terribly greedy and wants nothing for the world but for their own benefit.
Now, I myself as you may have noticed an an evil medical doctor (not really). Now, I want to get REALLY rich, so I'm going to take this cure for cancer and I'm going to develop it and patent it. THEN I can sell it, and everyone in the world with cancer will give ME money. Screw those other doctors, I don't care about them. I want money for ME.
The same thing goes with the miracle engine you propose. If it really works, then someone who isn't associated with the oil companies will make their fortune off of it. That's the beauty of competition. I'm going to produce the best thing I can and sell it to move money towards me and away from my competitors. I don't care about status quo, or about the pocket books of my competitors. I care about MY pocket book.
If there is a miracle cure for cancer, and there is some group of doctors who have this and aren't sharing it. You need either one moral doctor or one greedy doctor for the cure to become public. Only if the group consists entirely of loyal (and morally indifferent) people would you be able to keep the cure secret.
Suppose police raid your house, and you're deaf and disoriented and you end up swinging at them with a baseball bat. In today's day an age, you may be lucky enough to be tazed rather than shot. If you were to start pointing a gun at the police... you may be sol.
This is the reason why police have a procedure when entering private property. They claim very loudly (over blowhorns if necessary) that they are police and that they are coming in. During a raid, the SWAT team is trained to shout continuously and in unison "Police! Get Down! Police! Get Down!" It's hard to mistaken them for robbers.
There was no electronic report. No computer screen told the swat team to go to the house. All the levels of direct authorization were present. The swat team was dispatched by radio with direct orders from their superiors.
The hacker phoned 911 and told them that he had overdosed on cocaine, had been shot and that someone was trying to kill his sister. The only hacked computer involved was the caller ID which was rigged to make it seem the call was coming from the house in question.
Ok. So Doctors are people too. People with consciences. If a Doctor comes up with a promising cure to Diabetes, there is no corporate ethos in the world that will stop him from developing it.
One of my professors is a radiologist. One day at a banquet, he was seated next to a woman who was DEAD certain that there was a very simple cure to cancer that had already been discovered and that people like him were keeping it hidden so that they could make boatloads of money. After holding his tongue for half an hour, he replied "My mother died of Cancer."
More accurate. I'm pretty sure the folding algorithms are processor intensive because they are monte carlo simulations. These are very precise and very inaccurate.
I'm guessing they're monte carlo because 1. I can't imagine a better way to simulate macro-molecular interactions and 2. because it's the only reason why the giggling picture would be necessary to perform the simulation.
Not at all. To our economist's surprise, the Canadian export economy is coping with the rapidly rising dollar very well. One theory is that the dollar has been rising for such a long time that all the weaker companies have already been weeded out. Canadian organizations are using the high dollar as an opportunity to purchase equipment from the states to make themselves more competitive.
In fact, Canadian economists were also VERY worried about the impact of the American housing market collapse on our economy. This turned out again to be a false alarm. Lumber exports have fallen, but aside from that, the economy just keeps trucking along to everyone's surprise.
You're right. The high dollar shouldn't be good for Canada. But for some reason, it isn't hurting much.
Pretty much the whole article discusses how flying in arctic conditions at low enough speeds to make use of the ground penetrating radar isn't safe for humans.
Slashdot Mirror
The article does not say anywhere that you can produce hydrogen while driving.
My mistake (last post. Read the article and not the summary)
The article says that Kevin Maloney says "Instead of switching 170,000 gas stations over to hydrogen, using our electrodes could enable consumers to make their own hydrogen, either in the garage or right on [sic] the vehicle,"
Doesn't say 'while driving' It implies that you can supply some sort of power source, presumably plugging the car into an outlet to run the fuelcell backwards and produce hydrogen.
No no.
They're saying that rather than taking your car to a fueling station, you would have the electrolizer either in your car, or in your house.
So you'd drive your car home and swap fuel cells, or plug it into the household outlet for recharging.
You misread the article.
The nano-particles promise to create an electrolyzer which is 96% efficient at making hydrogen and oxygen from water. Next, you could put the oxygen and hydrogen into a car's fuel cell and turn it back into electricity at some efficiency.
You can indeed cut out the middle man and have a car that uses 100% of the electrical energy available. This would mean skipping the whole hydrogen step, and having your car directly connected to the grid, just like the electric trains are today.
Hmmm. Interesting.
But when can it be said that a computer is smarter than a human? A computer can do certain things better than a human can, but irregardless of how many transistors you have, they will never be able to do everything better than a human.
Just what will a computer need to be able to do before we say; yup. They've surpassed us.
I think 200 years is a pretty far cry, and would say that 20 is closer. Computers have only been around for about 200 years (they had punch card controlled looms 200 years ago didn't they?)
Think about the high performance computing labs these days. I can't predict global weather patterns. Can you?
What you have is a little blob of animal stem cells with a few human stem cells thrown into the mix. Both are multiplying, but we mostly have animal cells. What would likely happen is once the embryo's cells begin specialization and an immune system develops, it would kill off all the human cells leaving itself crippled, deformed and dying.
I disagree.
What about Moore's law?
Hubble's law was formulated in 1929.
Again, the theory of evolution, and theories of stellar formation are not mathematical descriptions of observations. They are way too complicated for that. For evolution, the observable would be the fossil record, or the specialization of species in the Galapagos which are both too complicated to be expressed using mathematics. The theory is that of evolution caused by natural selection, and the testable prediction is the slightly unstable information medium passed parents to children (long after being predicted, we found DNA)
We still name things laws. But the math is key. The type of math is also important.
For instance, Schroedinger's equation is not a law because it in itself does not describe an observable quantity. You can however use it with some funny statistical mechanics to find observable quantities, but that isn't good enough.
Laws ==> mathematical expressions of observations.
Theories ==> expressions of inference.
This is how I understand things.
A law is a mathematical expression of observation. Newtons laws are a set of equations which can be used to predict (within certain experimental limits) how an object will behave.
Statement: Under these conditions, the following will happen. (If the 'law' came from the mathematical group, they call it a theorem. But 'law' is a better name)
So the origins of these laws is our observation of the universe.
Someone asks "Why?"
Why does this equation accurately describe kinematics. Well, we have these ideas that sorta explain things. We call them 'mass' and 'inertia'
These are not based on fact, they are not observations. These are inferences, or ideas we invent so that we can conceptualize the laws. These are our 'theories'. Laws lead to theories.
This theory can allow us to realize another more complicated mathematical description of the universe. Theories lead to laws. Say, we notice that the centre of *mass* of a closed system of *massive* objects always travels at a constant speed. The simplest way to describe this is the law of conservation of momentum.
Now, since laws and theories are so closely interconnected, we confuse the two of them all the time. But if you ever hear the word 'law' you will find an equation, or a set of equations.
Now hold your horses. There's one thing I missed.
A theory that does not lead to a new law (or a simpler version of an old law) is useless. If all it does is allow for a neat new way to conceptualize things that we observe, then it is struck down.
So the concept of a 'law of nature' is incorrect. Nature behaves however the heck it wants to. We observe it and describe it and in so doing create 'laws of physics'.
Err. I believe the cost benefit analysis for saving Hubble comes back in the red. I do not have a source for this, but space walks are dangerous and complicated operations and the last time they repaired the Hubble, it almost ended in catastrophe.
There are a few things that Hubble can do that no other telescope can. However, those things will be done much better by the James Webb Space Telescope to be launched sometime after 2013.
You're leaving the site for an unknown period of time which will span at least half a year. The trench would fill with water, and go through a bunch of freeze thaw cycles.
Now, we could presume to seal it with a really nice tent, but really. It's survived millions of years in the ground. One more year won't make any difference.
According to an archeology professor of mine at Queen's University, this is very common. Excavation is a slow process, and one which is dependent on the weather. Furthermore, it is a funding intensive project.
You find a site, then you apply for funding. When you get your funding, you start the dig. Generally you only get the summer as rain, snow or ice can damage artifact and generally make digging harder. At the end of the digging season, you place some sort of modern marker at the edges and bottom of the trench (my professor used soda cans) and fill them in until the next time you can come back.
If your site proves to be interesting, you can get the funding renewed for another summer, and as a rule of thumb they give you funding every 2 years. This allows the funding to be spread out over a wider range of projects, and ensures the scientists have the time to publish what they found during the excavation.
No No. It is clearly the other way around.
The witch trials for instance. Witches float, so you tie the accused witch up to ensure she can't swim (because that would add a a second variable of uncertainty) and toss her into the nearest creek. If she floats, and is a which, you then haul her over to the town square to be burned. If she sinks and drowns... An unfortunate casualty of the justice system.
Woah Woah! Pull the numeric values out of bitmaps? Dude!
I've been stumped on that level for ages. Thanks!
Hapland is one of my favorites. Not abundantly popular, but it makes for a really good think.
http://www.foon.co.uk/farcade/hapland/
Also... If you're on slashdot, you've probably already heard of Notpron
If you haven't, you'll be unproductive for the next 16 hours, at which point you'll be stumped on level 21.
Hey ImitationEnergy
So. Let's imagine for an instant that the medical community knows of an inexpensive cure to cancer and are keeping it hidden. Let's assume the entire medical community is terribly greedy and wants nothing for the world but for their own benefit.
Now, I myself as you may have noticed an an evil medical doctor (not really). Now, I want to get REALLY rich, so I'm going to take this cure for cancer and I'm going to develop it and patent it. THEN I can sell it, and everyone in the world with cancer will give ME money. Screw those other doctors, I don't care about them. I want money for ME.
The same thing goes with the miracle engine you propose. If it really works, then someone who isn't associated with the oil companies will make their fortune off of it. That's the beauty of competition. I'm going to produce the best thing I can and sell it to move money towards me and away from my competitors. I don't care about status quo, or about the pocket books of my competitors. I care about MY pocket book.
If there is a miracle cure for cancer, and there is some group of doctors who have this and aren't sharing it. You need either one moral doctor or one greedy doctor for the cure to become public. Only if the group consists entirely of loyal (and morally indifferent) people would you be able to keep the cure secret.
Oh right! One more thing.
Suppose police raid your house, and you're deaf and disoriented and you end up swinging at them with a baseball bat. In today's day an age, you may be lucky enough to be tazed rather than shot.
If you were to start pointing a gun at the police... you may be sol.
This is the reason why police have a procedure when entering private property.
They claim very loudly (over blowhorns if necessary) that they are police and that they are coming in. During a raid, the SWAT team is trained to shout continuously and in unison "Police! Get Down! Police! Get Down!" It's hard to mistaken them for robbers.
This goes to elrous0 and to the 4 moderators.
READ THE F*CKING ARTICLE!!!
There was no electronic report. No computer screen told the swat team to go to the house. All the levels of direct authorization were present. The swat team was dispatched by radio with direct orders from their superiors.
The hacker phoned 911 and told them that he had overdosed on cocaine, had been shot and that someone was trying to kill his sister. The only hacked computer involved was the caller ID which was rigged to make it seem the call was coming from the house in question.
Please eat recycled food. Recycled food is good for the environment, and okay for you.
Ok. So Doctors are people too. People with consciences. If a Doctor comes up with a promising cure to Diabetes, there is no corporate ethos in the world that will stop him from developing it.
One of my professors is a radiologist. One day at a banquet, he was seated next to a woman who was DEAD certain that there was a very simple cure to cancer that had already been discovered and that people like him were keeping it hidden so that they could make boatloads of money. After holding his tongue for half an hour, he replied "My mother died of Cancer."
Agreed!
Don't download this song either!
More accurate.
I'm pretty sure the folding algorithms are processor intensive because they are monte carlo simulations. These are very precise and very inaccurate.
I'm guessing they're monte carlo because 1. I can't imagine a better way to simulate macro-molecular interactions and 2. because it's the only reason why the giggling picture would be necessary to perform the simulation.
Not at all. To our economist's surprise, the Canadian export economy is coping with the rapidly rising dollar very well. One theory is that the dollar has been rising for such a long time that all the weaker companies have already been weeded out. Canadian organizations are using the high dollar as an opportunity to purchase equipment from the states to make themselves more competitive.
In fact, Canadian economists were also VERY worried about the impact of the American housing market collapse on our economy. This turned out again to be a false alarm. Lumber exports have fallen, but aside from that, the economy just keeps trucking along to everyone's surprise.
You're right. The high dollar shouldn't be good for Canada. But for some reason, it isn't hurting much.
Double Kill
Multi Kill
Mega Kill!
ULTRA KILL!!
M-m-m-monster Kill.
LUDACRIS KILL!
H O L Y S H I T!
R E A L I T Y KILL!!!!!
Nevermind.
Reading is fun...
Pretty much the whole article discusses how flying in arctic conditions at low enough speeds to make use of the ground penetrating radar isn't safe for humans.
If the meridian can only fly for 13 hours at a time, what is the point of using it rather than a manned aircraft? Especially at such a pricetag.