It's quite possible that it was 110V! The mains AC goes through a transformer and rectifier to DC to charge the battery. The transformer can operate in reverse to generate high voltages! Although the rectifier will not work in reverse to generate AC, a voltage spike from changing the battery current could still drive the transformer. Of course, commercial UPSs should have safeguards to prevent this.
Alternatively, the socket could have a loose connection creating resistance - I had one socket which gave PCs trouble - took ages to work it out as it would work when plugged into another socket.
Working battery powered equipment like a UPS is not like working on a toaster - it is not safe once you pull the plug out of the wall!
Oh come now... I've had some training in swordfighting too, and I *love* Princess Bride-style conversation during swordplay, don't you?:)
Fun maybe, but definately not advisable when facing a lightsabre wielding maniac. But then they are not supposed to be super-realistic movies, the problem with knowing about these things is that I find myself thinking "I would have stabbed him in the left lung just about there".
I'll take your recommendation on AOTC. Though I still think that's gotta be the lamest name it could have. "The Clone War" would have been much better.
I wouldn't call it a fantastic movie (apart from the FX), but I wouldn't let a hate of TPM stop you from seeing it.
1. Turned the force into a scientifically measurable thing. (Mitochondria^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H midi-chlorians) This destroys the mythico-religious symbolism, which was damned important in the later episodes.
This is not mentioned in episode II.
2. Changed Obi-wan's master. In IV his master was Yoda. In I it was Qui-gon. Hmmm.
I believe Qui-gon died before Obi-wan became a fully fledged Jedi. In any case why is it not possible to have more than 1 master?
3. The movies don't even *look* related. How is Lucas going to explain the change in spacecraft design from I and II to IV-VI? The nice thing about SW was that the spacecraft were very polygon-oriented in design, not curvaceous. It looked more *real* compared to modern technology.
Any reason he has to? Maybe it's the influence of imperialist thinking, and the desperation of the alliance to come up with workable designs. I doubt Lucas will bother to explain it (nor should he).
4. The dialog in the fight scenes in IV-VI made the fights more "human"... it gave the fights meaning instead of just fighting for the fighting. There wasn't any of this in I.
Having had some training in swordfighting, I doubt I'd be saying much. Darth maul obviously just wasn't much of a conversationalist.
5. Obi-wan was humble in IV, and it seemed in the original trilogy, the example of a Jedi was a quiet, thoughtful warrior. In I, the Jedi were arrogant, and violence was the first choice, rather than using problem-solving thought process. There was not much "I don't want to fight" and a lot of "I'm going to kick your fscking ass."
Obi-wan is much older in episode IV, in fact I think his development in edpisode 2 is quite interesting. It's true the Jedi are more active and violent, but in the first trilogy they are desperately hiding from the Empire, not masters of all they survey. There is actually a comment in AOTC about the jedi having become arrogant.
6. Jar-Jar Binks. Enough said.There lies the problems. Lucas should have let fans create the prequels. I guarantee they would have done a better job.
I'm sure they couldn't have even made a coherent movie, let alone have complied with every tine continuity detail. And Jar-jar is only in AOTC to screw up royally in the senate, he doesn't even get any slapstick in.
In short, having seen AOTC I think it is much better than TPM, especially from the viewpoint of a fan of the original trilogy. It has some flaws, the "romantic" scenes in particular are pretty ordinary - I almost thought I was watching Dawson's Creek at one point. I also think they could have come up with a better title. Nothing's going to satisfy the die-hard fans, but it's a very enjoyable movie.
Don't forget backlash - imagine paying megabucks for your perfect child only to have them hated and feared because they're different, or an abomination against god. Imagine children screened for disease suffering the same fate because of people abusing the technology.
And no, we are not over-reacting. Are there any big advances that haven't had negative side effects which weren't predicted? Even penicillin (the most beneficial advance I can think of) has been responsible for the evolution of super-bacteria and allergies in humans.
Interesting, these can be divided into groups such as:
Mathematically provable impossibilities: expressing pi as a fraction (I assume you mean rational number).
Mathematic "Hard Problems": NP-complete problems
Physical impossibilities: Increasing mass / energy.
Chaos / complexity physical problems: Predicting 3-body systems (or any systems for that matter).
It's important to note that only for the first class is it pointless to try to find a solution (or can be trivially solved by using a different form of maths). For the second and third class, there are already working theories of how to solve most of these problems (quantum computers, zero-point energy, wormholes, etc.) Note that this document actually has some of these problems being solved (eg. time travel).
The final class is the most interesting, as the problem is not any failure of science or mathematics, but the accuracy of measurements. Both the exact short-term and general long-term behaiviour of these systems can be modelled, however the accuracy of the exact predictions is an exponentially(?) increasing function of the accuracy of the initial measurements. I have a feeling this is not possible to solve, but this is very difficult to prove.
Why isn't there a big blind spot on the opposite side of the calactic center? Can the MASS see through the center, or are they just filling in what they assume is there?
Furthermore, can we see objects farther away on the opposite side of the galactic center? If not, how big is the blind spot?
From what I've read, storing energy as hydrogen is one of the most effecient ways to do so. I wonder why all thos windmills on Route 580 out outside Pleasonton, CA don't use this as opposed to just turning off. I heard that it was because there was not effecient way to store the energy. Couldn't they just generate electriticiy, split water into it's componenets, and store the Hydrogen?
Conversion between different forms of energy results in a low efficiency. Converting from electricity to hydrogen and back would have an efficiency of about 50% (at a guess), not including transport of the hydrogen. The electricity grid has an efficiency of about 75% (again an educated guess), and is very convenient.
Of course, if you are going to generate hydrogen directly it would be great for transport use. this sounds like a great new form of solar power if it works well.
This doesn't make sense. The nebula filters out a certain amount of light, or reflects a certain amount of light from nearby stars. If you were in the middle of the nebula, about half the amount of gas would be between you and the rest of space, so you would still be able to see it - particularly areas of differing density.
Or to put it another way, why would you be able to see the light from far away from the source, but not close to it?
The bit about the spacecraft is true, but only because there would be no movement against the nebula - it's far too spread out. And of course you would not see the nebula moving any more than you can from earth.
Just to clarify, there is nothing in Australia stopping me from accessing any internet site. The blacklist is added to censorware which is sanction by the Government (coincidentally, the censorware companies were big proponents of this rather useless law). The censorware is supposed to be used by everybody and I think by law should provided by ISPs - but no-one is at all interested in enforcing this.
So this story doesn't affect me, or any other internet user in Australia, any more that the broadcasting act does.
I doubt anyone here believes we should all forget about this stupid money stuff and just get along. The point is that employees expect more of employers than just a paycheck. My company has a yearly staff survey, one of the things on it is what would make work better for you. Pay generally comes in near the bottom of the list.
I believe the problem is that many companies are interested solely in the bottom line, this is not compatible with employee expectations that they are treated like human beings, not just another asset. With many analysts saying that employee talent and experience is a huge factor in business success, this is a bit short sighted of these companies. Which would you rather have working for you, the guy who takes pride in his work or the one who is only interested in the paycheck?
I had a student turn in a copy of my own solution, including all my idiosyncratic assumptions, like assuming exactly the same number of blades of grass per cm2, and assuming the same (wrong) width I had guessed for the field.
Sorry, but I have to say this is your fault for setting exactly the same question. If I have to solve a problem when I have already seen a solution, I am going to come up with something very similar even without intentionally cheating. This doesn't excuse an exact copy, but how do you expect students to think about a problem and come up with their own solution when they have already seen it done?
To seperate,process, and manufacture the uranium nad plutonium neccassary for the a-bombs it required 32% of the United States Electrical output, 23% of the US's Silver output (144,000 Troy Ounces was the figure I believe), and 14% of the US's aluminum output to construct the plants (at Oak Ridge, Tennesse and Hartford, Washington).
Over what period? Also, how many did they make, including test cores, etc?
"bringing a plague down on the best minds of the next generation"
I have some symptoms of autism (I'm sure I'm not alone), and have done a fair bit of reading on it. It seems very common that with autisms come some very great intellectual gifts - eg. Rainman. Some these kids need a lot of help, but I have to question whether autism is really a curse.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that mildly autistic people often get better themselves (usually after puberty), and still retain their mental gifts. IMHO we should be trying to develop and harness the abilities of these kids rather than trying to make them normal.
Finally some (non-expert) advice. This is just stuff that would have helped me when I was younger. If your kid is really autistic, you need professional help:
Let them do their own thing. Many things which are normal for most people are very stressful for autistic people, they need their own routine / fantasy world / etc. to relax and get them selves together. I would suggest managing a team of specialists for your kid 80 hours a week is not the best approach. At the same time, it's important not to let them obsess for hours on end. Find something they like to break the routine occaisionally.
Find some physical excercise they enjoy. In school predominantly team sports are played, autistics typically don't like these. Try individual or one-on-one sports. Excercise I got into (in spite of being very non-physical) included swimming, running, tennis and martial arts. Creative pursuits are also good - particularly visual arts and music.
Above all, remember that your kid does not have to be normal - no-one is. For every time you lament their lack of friends or weird behaviour there will be a time you are amazed at their accomplishments.
Ever wondered about the difference between the successful guys and your rather pathetic self. Ever wished you could get off your butt and accomplish the things you want to do? I certainly have, and it has occurred to me many times that the difference is willpower.
I completed a masters degree on my own, mostly at home unsupervised. Now I'm trying to do some work on open source projects but I mainly surf the internet and play Empire Earth when I'm on the computer. I don't really have any less motivation - just less willpower.
I do need to do those things - you have to relax now and again. The difference is, when I come home from work I start playing and don't stop until I have to go to bed. When I have the willpower, I can just say right, now I'm going to stop and do some real work.
The trouble is, I don't know what makes the difference - some days I can do it, some I'm a slob. Two things come to mind. Sometimes I'll stop gaming to lie down and relax, meditate a bit, that definately helps. The other thing that helps is Linux. No I'm not talk about how good it is - the simple fact is, once I boot into Linux I can't play those fancy games. And of course, once I get stuck into something useful it's just as "addictive" as the gaming - ever tried to stop coding when you've only got one bug to go?
It is funny how every company he talks about lost to MS. Seriously though, one of the things he does say is:
Fortunately for Microsoft, they did this with parallel teams, and had never stopped working on the old code base, so they had something to ship, making it merely a financial disaster, not a strategic one.
IOW, have more money than God and throw it at any problem you're having trouble with. The minnows in the pond get beaten up by the 800lb gorilla (or something).
In "A Brief History of Time" by Steven Hawking, radiation from black holes is discussed. Basically, they harness zero-point energy when the "quantum foam" effect occurs at the event horizon and one particle of the matter / antimatter pair is dragged into the hole. The particle that escapes appears as radiation while the trapped particle actually reduces the black hole's mass by matter / antimatter annihilation, returning the borrowed Planck energy. In this way black holes evaporate.
All you have to do to generate energy from a black hole is to harness this radiation, effectively directly converting mass from the black hole into energy. You can keep it going by dumping anything you like into the black hole.
Disclaimer: it's a long time since my physics days, there are probably a lot of errors in the above. And it's only a theory anyway. And black holes can be dangerous - please do not attempt this without adult supervision.
Think of a rocket engine - the explosion is focussed by the nozzle so that all the exhaust goes in one direction, so the reaction pushes the engine in the other direciton. The mirror would have to do the same - send a majority of the radiation in the opposite direction to that which you want to travel. This would push the mirror, presumably gravity drags the black hole along. The whole thing would be in a very precarious balance.
You could just drag the black hole with a mass and a large rocket engine, or push a mass into it - but the mirror scenario uses the black hole for power.
I hate to be objective when it comes to Microsoft, but I'm afraid that they do not have good or evil motives. They simply want to turn a profit and they will attempt to alter circumstances in whatever ways allow them to produce the maximum profit. On the short term their actions may sometimes seem contradictory to this purpose, however it is their long term goal.
Complete nonsense. By this argument someone who makes his money by killing and robbing is not evil - he's just trying to make a living like everyone else. The notion that corporations should be outside ethics and moral considerations is ridiculous.
On the other hand, shouldn't it tell the DOJ / attourneys etc. something if another company is willing to do the same thing as Microsoft's punishment for free? Like maybe it's not a punishment? Like maybe BillG and pals are cackling evilly and toasting each other as soon as they get out of the coutroom as they are "punished" by further extending their power while at the same time looking like goody 2-shoes?
We should thank anyone who is willing to provide free stuff to schools (tobacco companies excluded), but MS was supposed to be being punished. It pisses people off to see them suggesting their own punishment and then refusing anything else. Its a double standard and displays the lack of integrity of the US justice system.
I can't be the only one here who uses cracks of my favourite games (that I've already bought) just to avoid having to swap CDs all the time. In fact I have a laptop without CD drive and this is the only way I can run games on it.
The CD-key is similarly annoying. I can see the point if they are going to check for online gaming, but why do they insist on needing it for single player games? (I rarely game online at all) Even for online gaming, they can only block 2 people trying to connect to the same gameserver with the same key - they could do this just by storing a serial number that the game uses on each CD, avoiding the silly mistake-prone key typing.
I can't understand why they keep using these methods of "copy protection", when they obviously don't work and the games sell huge amounts (the good ones anyway).
(BTW, I'm sure the game is great, I can't wait to relive the glory days of SS impersonating and grenade throwing I used to have in school.)
C# deserves a little more credit than many give, at least if you're working in a strict Windows environment. It's worth a look.
If I'm working in a strict windows environment why would I not just use C/C++? I'm not trying to flame but I would like an answer as I've had no reason to even investigate C# since it was announced.
To put it another way, platform independance has always been Java's biggest drawcard. What is then the attraction of C# - simply the integration with.NET?
Even worse, if I write a program in c# it cannot be ported to another platform (as with C++), until C# starts working on it.
A pilot plant for extracting hydrogen by electrolysis, driven by solar cells [ucr.edu] was built in Riverside, California in the early 1990s. Overall efficiency was 4.7%, which isn't too good.
Doesn't sound too good until you realise that the input energy is free. As typical solar cells have an efficiency of around 15% (from memory), that make the rest of this plant about 30% efficient, not good but not terrible compared to other energy conversions.
The real question is how much money, resources and most importantly energy is needed to built and maintain the plant. This scheme couldn't fuel our current road system without consuming huge resources, but it isn't useless as a starting point. Quoting meaningless numbers which make it look like crap doesn't help anyone, I don't see why they use this as the main result in their report.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds great, and looks really snazzy but doing the math I am less and less confident in the potential of PV cells:
Max. power output: 630kW
Hours in a year: 8760
It's quite possible that it was 110V! The mains AC goes through a transformer and rectifier to DC to charge the battery. The transformer can operate in reverse to generate high voltages! Although the rectifier will not work in reverse to generate AC, a voltage spike from changing the battery current could still drive the transformer. Of course, commercial UPSs should have safeguards to prevent this. Alternatively, the socket could have a loose connection creating resistance - I had one socket which gave PCs trouble - took ages to work it out as it would work when plugged into another socket. Working battery powered equipment like a UPS is not like working on a toaster - it is not safe once you pull the plug out of the wall!
Oh come now... I've had some training in swordfighting too, and I *love* Princess Bride-style conversation during swordplay, don't you? :)
Fun maybe, but definately not advisable when facing a lightsabre wielding maniac. But then they are not supposed to be super-realistic movies, the problem with knowing about these things is that I find myself thinking "I would have stabbed him in the left lung just about there".
I'll take your recommendation on AOTC. Though I still think that's gotta be the lamest name it could have. "The Clone War" would have been much better.
I wouldn't call it a fantastic movie (apart from the FX), but I wouldn't let a hate of TPM stop you from seeing it.
1. Turned the force into a scientifically measurable thing. (Mitochondria^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H midi-chlorians) This destroys the mythico-religious symbolism, which was damned important in the later episodes.
This is not mentioned in episode II.
2. Changed Obi-wan's master. In IV his master was Yoda. In I it was Qui-gon. Hmmm.
I believe Qui-gon died before Obi-wan became a fully fledged Jedi. In any case why is it not possible to have more than 1 master?
3. The movies don't even *look* related. How is Lucas going to explain the change in spacecraft design from I and II to IV-VI? The nice thing about SW was that the spacecraft were very polygon-oriented in design, not curvaceous. It looked more *real* compared to modern technology.
Any reason he has to? Maybe it's the influence of imperialist thinking, and the desperation of the alliance to come up with workable designs. I doubt Lucas will bother to explain it (nor should he).
4. The dialog in the fight scenes in IV-VI made the fights more "human"... it gave the fights meaning instead of just fighting for the fighting. There wasn't any of this in I.
Having had some training in swordfighting, I doubt I'd be saying much. Darth maul obviously just wasn't much of a conversationalist.
5. Obi-wan was humble in IV, and it seemed in the original trilogy, the example of a Jedi was a quiet, thoughtful warrior. In I, the Jedi were arrogant, and violence was the first choice, rather than using problem-solving thought process. There was not much "I don't want to fight" and a lot of "I'm going to kick your fscking ass."
Obi-wan is much older in episode IV, in fact I think his development in edpisode 2 is quite interesting. It's true the Jedi are more active and violent, but in the first trilogy they are desperately hiding from the Empire, not masters of all they survey. There is actually a comment in AOTC about the jedi having become arrogant.
6. Jar-Jar Binks. Enough said.There lies the problems. Lucas should have let fans create the prequels. I guarantee they would have done a better job.
I'm sure they couldn't have even made a coherent movie, let alone have complied with every tine continuity detail. And Jar-jar is only in AOTC to screw up royally in the senate, he doesn't even get any slapstick in.
In short, having seen AOTC I think it is much better than TPM, especially from the viewpoint of a fan of the original trilogy. It has some flaws, the "romantic" scenes in particular are pretty ordinary - I almost thought I was watching Dawson's Creek at one point. I also think they could have come up with a better title. Nothing's going to satisfy the die-hard fans, but it's a very enjoyable movie.
Don't forget backlash - imagine paying megabucks for your perfect child only to have them hated and feared because they're different, or an abomination against god. Imagine children screened for disease suffering the same fate because of people abusing the technology.
And no, we are not over-reacting. Are there any big advances that haven't had negative side effects which weren't predicted? Even penicillin (the most beneficial advance I can think of) has been responsible for the evolution of super-bacteria and allergies in humans.
Interesting, these can be divided into groups such as:
It's important to note that only for the first class is it pointless to try to find a solution (or can be trivially solved by using a different form of maths). For the second and third class, there are already working theories of how to solve most of these problems (quantum computers, zero-point energy, wormholes, etc.) Note that this document actually has some of these problems being solved (eg. time travel).
The final class is the most interesting, as the problem is not any failure of science or mathematics, but the accuracy of measurements. Both the exact short-term and general long-term behaiviour of these systems can be modelled, however the accuracy of the exact predictions is an exponentially(?) increasing function of the accuracy of the initial measurements. I have a feeling this is not possible to solve, but this is very difficult to prove.
Well, that's my ramble for the day.
Why isn't there a big blind spot on the opposite side of the calactic center? Can the MASS see through the center, or are they just filling in what they assume is there?
Furthermore, can we see objects farther away on the opposite side of the galactic center? If not, how big is the blind spot?
From what I've read, storing energy as hydrogen is one of the most effecient ways to do so. I wonder why all thos windmills on Route 580 out outside Pleasonton, CA don't use this as opposed to just turning off. I heard that it was because there was not effecient way to store the energy. Couldn't they just generate electriticiy, split water into it's componenets, and store the Hydrogen?
Conversion between different forms of energy results in a low efficiency. Converting from electricity to hydrogen and back would have an efficiency of about 50% (at a guess), not including transport of the hydrogen. The electricity grid has an efficiency of about 75% (again an educated guess), and is very convenient.
Of course, if you are going to generate hydrogen directly it would be great for transport use. this sounds like a great new form of solar power if it works well.
This doesn't make sense. The nebula filters out a certain amount of light, or reflects a certain amount of light from nearby stars. If you were in the middle of the nebula, about half the amount of gas would be between you and the rest of space, so you would still be able to see it - particularly areas of differing density.
Or to put it another way, why would you be able to see the light from far away from the source, but not close to it?
The bit about the spacecraft is true, but only because there would be no movement against the nebula - it's far too spread out. And of course you would not see the nebula moving any more than you can from earth.
Of course you realise that's $300,000 for every drug dealer put in jail, just for the phone taps. Anyone still think the drug war is worth it?
1 question: why do you need to carry oxygen?
Just to clarify, there is nothing in Australia stopping me from accessing any internet site. The blacklist is added to censorware which is sanction by the Government (coincidentally, the censorware companies were big proponents of this rather useless law). The censorware is supposed to be used by everybody and I think by law should provided by ISPs - but no-one is at all interested in enforcing this.
So this story doesn't affect me, or any other internet user in Australia, any more that the broadcasting act does.
I doubt anyone here believes we should all forget about this stupid money stuff and just get along. The point is that employees expect more of employers than just a paycheck. My company has a yearly staff survey, one of the things on it is what would make work better for you. Pay generally comes in near the bottom of the list.
I believe the problem is that many companies are interested solely in the bottom line, this is not compatible with employee expectations that they are treated like human beings, not just another asset. With many analysts saying that employee talent and experience is a huge factor in business success, this is a bit short sighted of these companies. Which would you rather have working for you, the guy who takes pride in his work or the one who is only interested in the paycheck?
I had a student turn in a copy of my own solution, including all my idiosyncratic assumptions, like assuming exactly the same number of blades of grass per cm2, and assuming the same (wrong) width I had guessed for the field.
Sorry, but I have to say this is your fault for setting exactly the same question. If I have to solve a problem when I have already seen a solution, I am going to come up with something very similar even without intentionally cheating. This doesn't excuse an exact copy, but how do you expect students to think about a problem and come up with their own solution when they have already seen it done?
To seperate,process, and manufacture the uranium nad plutonium neccassary for the a-bombs it required 32% of the United States Electrical output, 23% of the US's Silver output (144,000 Troy Ounces was the figure I believe), and 14% of the US's aluminum output to construct the plants (at Oak Ridge, Tennesse and Hartford, Washington).
Over what period? Also, how many did they make, including test cores, etc?
"bringing a plague down on the best minds of the next generation"
I have some symptoms of autism (I'm sure I'm not alone), and have done a fair bit of reading on it. It seems very common that with autisms come some very great intellectual gifts - eg. Rainman. Some these kids need a lot of help, but I have to question whether autism is really a curse.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that mildly autistic people often get better themselves (usually after puberty), and still retain their mental gifts. IMHO we should be trying to develop and harness the abilities of these kids rather than trying to make them normal.
Finally some (non-expert) advice. This is just stuff that would have helped me when I was younger. If your kid is really autistic, you need professional help:
Let them do their own thing. Many things which are normal for most people are very stressful for autistic people, they need their own routine / fantasy world / etc. to relax and get them selves together. I would suggest managing a team of specialists for your kid 80 hours a week is not the best approach. At the same time, it's important not to let them obsess for hours on end. Find something they like to break the routine occaisionally.
Find some physical excercise they enjoy. In school predominantly team sports are played, autistics typically don't like these. Try individual or one-on-one sports. Excercise I got into (in spite of being very non-physical) included swimming, running, tennis and martial arts. Creative pursuits are also good - particularly visual arts and music.
Above all, remember that your kid does not have to be normal - no-one is. For every time you lament their lack of friends or weird behaviour there will be a time you are amazed at their accomplishments.
Ever wondered about the difference between the successful guys and your rather pathetic self. Ever wished you could get off your butt and accomplish the things you want to do? I certainly have, and it has occurred to me many times that the difference is willpower.
I completed a masters degree on my own, mostly at home unsupervised. Now I'm trying to do some work on open source projects but I mainly surf the internet and play Empire Earth when I'm on the computer. I don't really have any less motivation - just less willpower.
I do need to do those things - you have to relax now and again. The difference is, when I come home from work I start playing and don't stop until I have to go to bed. When I have the willpower, I can just say right, now I'm going to stop and do some real work.
The trouble is, I don't know what makes the difference - some days I can do it, some I'm a slob. Two things come to mind. Sometimes I'll stop gaming to lie down and relax, meditate a bit, that definately helps. The other thing that helps is Linux. No I'm not talk about how good it is - the simple fact is, once I boot into Linux I can't play those fancy games. And of course, once I get stuck into something useful it's just as "addictive" as the gaming - ever tried to stop coding when you've only got one bug to go?
It is funny how every company he talks about lost to MS. Seriously though, one of the things he does say is:
Fortunately for Microsoft, they did this with parallel teams, and had never stopped working on the old code base, so they had something to ship, making it merely a financial disaster, not a strategic one.
IOW, have more money than God and throw it at any problem you're having trouble with. The minnows in the pond get beaten up by the 800lb gorilla (or something).
In "A Brief History of Time" by Steven Hawking, radiation from black holes is discussed. Basically, they harness zero-point energy when the "quantum foam" effect occurs at the event horizon and one particle of the matter / antimatter pair is dragged into the hole. The particle that escapes appears as radiation while the trapped particle actually reduces the black hole's mass by matter / antimatter annihilation, returning the borrowed Planck energy. In this way black holes evaporate.
All you have to do to generate energy from a black hole is to harness this radiation, effectively directly converting mass from the black hole into energy. You can keep it going by dumping anything you like into the black hole.
Disclaimer: it's a long time since my physics days, there are probably a lot of errors in the above. And it's only a theory anyway. And black holes can be dangerous - please do not attempt this without adult supervision.
Think of a rocket engine - the explosion is focussed by the nozzle so that all the exhaust goes in one direction, so the reaction pushes the engine in the other direciton. The mirror would have to do the same - send a majority of the radiation in the opposite direction to that which you want to travel. This would push the mirror, presumably gravity drags the black hole along. The whole thing would be in a very precarious balance.
You could just drag the black hole with a mass and a large rocket engine, or push a mass into it - but the mirror scenario uses the black hole for power.
Complete nonsense. By this argument someone who makes his money by killing and robbing is not evil - he's just trying to make a living like everyone else. The notion that corporations should be outside ethics and moral considerations is ridiculous.
On the other hand, shouldn't it tell the DOJ / attourneys etc. something if another company is willing to do the same thing as Microsoft's punishment for free? Like maybe it's not a punishment? Like maybe BillG and pals are cackling evilly and toasting each other as soon as they get out of the coutroom as they are "punished" by further extending their power while at the same time looking like goody 2-shoes?
We should thank anyone who is willing to provide free stuff to schools (tobacco companies excluded), but MS was supposed to be being punished. It pisses people off to see them suggesting their own punishment and then refusing anything else. Its a double standard and displays the lack of integrity of the US justice system.
I can't be the only one here who uses cracks of my favourite games (that I've already bought) just to avoid having to swap CDs all the time. In fact I have a laptop without CD drive and this is the only way I can run games on it.
The CD-key is similarly annoying. I can see the point if they are going to check for online gaming, but why do they insist on needing it for single player games? (I rarely game online at all) Even for online gaming, they can only block 2 people trying to connect to the same gameserver with the same key - they could do this just by storing a serial number that the game uses on each CD, avoiding the silly mistake-prone key typing.
I can't understand why they keep using these methods of "copy protection", when they obviously don't work and the games sell huge amounts (the good ones anyway).
(BTW, I'm sure the game is great, I can't wait to relive the glory days of SS impersonating and grenade throwing I used to have in school.)
C# deserves a little more credit than many give, at least if you're working in a strict Windows environment. It's worth a look.
If I'm working in a strict windows environment why would I not just use C/C++? I'm not trying to flame but I would like an answer as I've had no reason to even investigate C# since it was announced.
To put it another way, platform independance has always been Java's biggest drawcard. What is then the attraction of C# - simply the integration with .NET?
Even worse, if I write a program in c# it cannot be ported to another platform (as with C++), until C# starts working on it.
A pilot plant for extracting hydrogen by electrolysis, driven by solar cells [ucr.edu] was built in Riverside, California in the early 1990s. Overall efficiency was 4.7%, which isn't too good.
Doesn't sound too good until you realise that the input energy is free. As typical solar cells have an efficiency of around 15% (from memory), that make the rest of this plant about 30% efficient, not good but not terrible compared to other energy conversions.
The real question is how much money, resources and most importantly energy is needed to built and maintain the plant. This scheme couldn't fuel our current road system without consuming huge resources, but it isn't useless as a starting point. Quoting meaningless numbers which make it look like crap doesn't help anyone, I don't see why they use this as the main result in their report.