...but nobody really seems to be nervous or afraid of this development. I think the only thing that has kept mankind from wiping itself out to date is a) Lack of suitable weaponry and b) Some widespread, if inconsistent sense of empathy toward other humans.
We solved a) in 1945 at Los Alamos, and this development might take care of b). Put them together....
Perhaps I should order a tinfoil hat, but to me, this is one of the scarier ideas coming to life.
The music industry, like many long-standing businesses, does not like to change its business model. There is a reason for this; most businesses lose money and vanish in the first year of operation. The rare business that actually survives and makes money is probably quite institutionally keen to keep what works.
Nonetheless, in the long term, their model is doomed. The whole point of digital data is the ability to copy it repeatedly without degradation, and transmit it quickly over great distances without degradation. It is difficult or impossible (cheaply, anyway) to do this with analog data. Thus, this is a fundamental change in kind; it's not just CD's replacing tapes replacing vinyl. This means the VALUE of the replicators (which really is all a music company is) goes down because that's become easy. Ditto for distribution. The hard part, CREATING the good music, and FINDING the music that you like, are going to be where the money is.
Steve Jobs gets this; hence iTunes working on the FINDING part. If the record companies don't get with the program, musicians may start bypassing them and try to market more directly to customers via mechanisms like Podcasting (a cheap universal distribution method, if you can get people interested in downloading your product).
It's hard for a dinosaur to change its stripes. Usually they get replaced rather than evolve, and it looks like that's what's happening.
We have used cats in aviation for years, as described below.
This is the Cat and Duck method of Instrument Flying.
Basic Instruments - Cat and Duck:
Place a live cat on the cockpit floor. Because a cat always remains upright, it can be used instead of the artificial horizon. Simply watch which way the cat leans to determine if a wing is low, and if so, which one. The duck is used for the instrument approach. Because any sensible duck will refuse to fly under instrument conditions, you only need to hurl your duck out of the aircraft and follow it to the ground.
Limitations to Cat and Duck Method:
Get a wide-awake cat. Most cats don't want to stand up at all. It may be necessary to carry a large dog in the cockpit to make the cat pay attention.
Make sure your cat is clean. Dirty cats spend all their time washing. Trying to follow a washing cat usually results in a snap roll followed by an inverted spin.
Use an old cat. Young cats still have many of their nine lives left, but an old cat has just as much to lose as you do and will be more dependable.
Avoid cowardly ducks. If the duck discovers you are using the cat to keep the wings level, it may refuse to leave without the cat. Ducks are no better at IMC than you are.
Make sure your duck has good eyesight. Nearsighted ducks may fail to realize they are on the gauges and go flailing off into the nearest mountain. Very nearsighted ducks may not realize they have been thrown from the aircraft and will descend to the ground in a sitting position. This is very difficult to follow in an airplane.
Use land-loving ducks. It is very discouraging to break out and find yourself on final to a rice paddy, especially if there are duck hunters around. Duck hunters suffer from temporary insanity after sitting in freezing blinds and will shoot at anything that flies.
Finally, choose your duck carefully. It's easy to confuse ducks with geese because many waterfowl look alike. Geese are competent instrument fliers, but they seldom go where you want them to go. If your duck sets off for Canada or New Zealand, you can sure you've been given the goose.
The way we figure the distance to the furthest objects (in the 1 - 14 billion light-year range) is precisely by the rate of retreat of the astronomical objects we observe. It was noted empirically (back in the 1920's, I think) that the further away an object is from us, the faster it is retreating, in roughly linear proportion. The rate of retreat is figured out by how much the object's spectra shifts (due to the Doppler effect). So yes, some very far away objects are retreating at speeds damned near the speed of light.
Originally, when Einstein came up with his field equations in General Relativity (1915?), they did not have a steady state solution; but an expanding universe WAS a possible solution. Apparently, this disturbed Einstein so much that he threw in a "fudge factor" called the cosmological constant, in just such a way that a steady state solution existed for the general configuration of the universe. Of course, as more and more observations poured in indicating that virtually ALL extra-galactic objects were retreating away from us, with higher speeds the further away, it became clear that the Universe was, in fact, expanding, despite the tastes of Einstein. He removed the mathematically ugly constant, and I think he later said that messing up his original equation with it was the "greatest mistake of my life."
Of course, you may wonder how we figured out how far some objects were to begin with to USE our distance = (constant) x speed formula. This post is getting a bit long, but it turns out that supernova, explosions of very massive stars at the end of their lives, tend to have an absolute maximum brightness that has a simple relationship to the length of time they "explode". Thus, supernovae can serve as a yardstick if we can spot them in other galaxies; and fortunately, they are bright enough so that we can - I think they are the ONLY individual stars we can discern in other galaxies; all the others are just too dim from those distances....
And how do we determine how far away the "first" supernova is? In other words, how did we calibrate that yardstick? Here I'm not sure; we haven't had a supernova go off close by (meaning, in our galaxy) in the last 500 years (and that's a GOOD thing - a supernova can shine as brightly as an entire galaxy at its peak! There was one in one of the Magellanic clouds (a pair of small, neighborhood galaxes) in 1987, I think); I know we have other yardsticks from direct parallax measurements (measuring the shift of nearer stars vs. their further cousins as the Earth shifts its position around the sun - good out to about 1000 light years now, I think), our knowledge of the absolute brightness to temperature as revealed by spectrum/color of stars on the main sequence, and some knowledge of the brightness patterns of ordinary novae...
There is a really good book called Parallax, which goes into the whole history of how we figured out how far away stuff in the Universe is - it's a fascinating, wonderful read; here is the amazon URL:
Bingo - I have a level of expertise in aviation, mathematics, and physics, and routinely notice errors, ommisions, and general just-missing-the-point in the articles in general pubs about those topics. But that's because I have a level of expertise....
If there is one consistent thing I hear from friends in other fields of expertise, it's how the general press mangles stories in THEIR fields (IT, insurance, archeology, etc.). So, the trend seems to be that the press mangles just about EVERYTHING - but we individually can only detect the errors in a very narrow range.
Thanks for the enlightenment. I thought it stood for "Big Fucking Empty".
The problem is that Science has been TOO successfu
on
Bad Science in the Press
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Think about it. Scientists spend decades figuring out how the universe works, Engineers (and Doctors, and other folks at the application end of things) spend decades figuring out how to apply those rules to create things that do something we could not do before. Lifetimes of research to create... a cell phone a complete moron can use. A pill derived from examining thousands of fly generations with genes knocked out to figure out which ones are crucial in the evolution of a disease... so a moron can live to teach others about Intellegent Design and how Darwin was a godless heathen. Hell, farmers must be pretty irritated at how they are looked at as hayseeds when they produce more food per acre than at any point in history - and I don't know a whole lot about how they do it (and I don't think too many other/.ers do, either - but feel free to enlighten me)
So the problem may boil down to the fact that our science and technology is so advanced that you don't have to have the slightest clue how or why it operates in order to use it. Thus, you can pretty safely ignore why or how it works, and substitue your own suspicions about how the world really works - i.e. human drama stories for many journalists, despite the fact they routinely USE such technological marvels such as cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, helicopters, etc. Such tactics would not work well in a endeavor more closely tied to reality, like launching a space shuttle or flying an aircraft. But a journalist only has to keep an editor happy and circulation up.
"Ok, it's interesting that you chose to bring up logic, then engaged in a classic logical fallacy.
The models used for weather prediction are different than the models used for climate prediction. There are DEGREES of accuracy (understand, or should I go slower?). Are you unable to tell the difference? A stats class would help."
Yes, I am aware that models have different levels of predictive ability. You seemed to ignore that point in your original post. My point was about models in general, not climate models in particular. And, I do seem to recall something about such things on the way to getting my B.A. in Applied Mathematics.
" "Are our models for world climate flawed and imperfect? Certainly. Are their predictions unambigious and all in perfect agreement? Of course not. But do the vast majority of them indicate warming is going on? Blah blah blah..."
I've got one for you. Do we know that decreasing carbon emissions will have a POSITIVE impact on our climate? No, we don't. It might cause an ice age. It might do nothing. It MIGHT mean the extinction of the human race."
That's true. It's also possible that aliens will land and zap the extra CO2 out of our atmosphere with their ray-guns. I don't think it's very probable though. You are right, we don't know anything for sure - but some things are more likely than others, and it seems to be pretty likely that increasing CO2 levels in our atmosphere will lead to unpleasant consequences for the human race.
"So basing our actions on models that are known to be inaccurate, especially on a global scale is dumb. It's bad science, which, based on your post, is something you seem to have an affinity for."
So your suggestion is to ignore our inaccurate models, and replace them with complete ignorance? A "what, me worry?" attitude? Your position, in essence, is that since we don't know exactly what will happen, we might as well keep on doing exactly what we are doing now. In other words, wait until we have a definite, extremely hard to solve problem on our hands rather than try, imperfectly, to head it off a bit. And my illustration with hurricane Katrian and New Orleans was about the follies of that style of decision making, not about the specific predictivites of various models. You also confuse what science is. Science tells you information about the world - it does not tell you what to do with it.
" "I suggest you talk to some people who are barely at the edge of survival now, like about 1/4 of the Earth's population."
So, which should I prioritize then, said people's survival, or the long term prosperity of the human race? WELL?"
For someone who was trying focus me on the different levels of nuance between different models, you seem to have neglected them when it comes to your decision methods. THIS or THAT. WELL?
"While you seem to have the feel good touchy touchy crap down, the science and pragamtism of the situation escapes you.
I suggest you try to develop a more sophisticated view and stop relying on your emotions to make decisions. You'll be able to avoid taking such ridiculous positions in the future."
The most emotional one in this dialogue is you. That's why you are a troll.
Well, by that logic our response to hurricane Katrina was perfect. Our imperfect weather models with their imperfect data inputs indicated that Katrina might score a direct hit on New Orleans, and our imperfect engineering models indicated that such a hit by such a storm might flood New Orleans and kill thousands of people. But rather than try and change the world, we waited until it got much worse and thousands of people were (and are) dying.
There is no such thing as a perfect model nor perfect data; every model is flawed by definition - that's why they are MODELS of reality as opposed to the real thing. But they are the best tool we have; they are what allow us to build planes that fly, microchips that work, and in general make the modern world function.
Are our models for world climate flawed and imperfect? Certainly. Are their predictions unambigious and all in perfect agreement? Of course not. But do the vast majority of them indicate warming is going on? Yes. Does the actual data of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere correlate strongly to the actual data about average world temperature? Yes. Does burning stuff release CO2? Yes. Do we burn a lot of stuff? Yes. If the earth warmed about 2 degrees C, would there be lots of unpleasant (as in land occupied by a Billion plus people go below sea-level) consequences? Highly likely.
Doesn't it seem wise to be a bit more proactive in such a scenario?
And since you seem to have no fear of things getting "much worse", I suggest you talk to some people who are barely at the edge of survival now, like about 1/4 of the Earth's population. They might have more objections to things getting "much worse" than you.
Riiiiiiight. Look, there are some very unrealistic ideas about what private enterprise will and will not do. While private individuals are motivated by more than money (thrill of exploration, I did it first, I'm doing it better than my rival over there, etc.), the reality is most private individuals who HAVE the money to burn on something this expensive probably have focused on ACQUIRING money for a large portion of their lives. To expect a large subset of money-minded entrepreneurs to suddenly give up their business-like ways and focus on something with little or no fiscal return (like the Hubble) is unrealistic.
In addition, if there is so much potential to private space exploration, why hasn't it been done before? Rocket technology really hasn't changed much since the 60's, and sufficent cheap computing power to figure trajectories has been around since the 80's. The answer? It's hard and expensive, with a very high failure cost, and a small to nonexistent return potential. This is not the kind of thing that draws in money.
I dearly wish that we would focus on basic science (i.e. does not need to be driven by a possible marketable product in 5 years) in the U.S.A. again - the era of Big Science was inaugurated with the Manhattan Project (when those funny talking European immigrants with thier scribbles on a blackboard built the most powerful bomb in the world), has been strong for many years as the link between U.S. world supremacy and science leadership was not questioned, but perhaps is beginning to close. The tone set by the present leadership (sneering at "reality-based" media, desiring "equal-time" for creation research, bragging about how a "C" student can become the president, etc.) does not bode well for the long term future of scientifc research here.
I guess when you know how the Universe was created according to the Bible, you don't need a Hubble to figure it out.
And which large profitable airline would that be? If you are talking the United States, there is only one - Southwest. And since you didn't seem to know, Southwest hedged 85% of its fuel expenses through the end of 2006 at the equivalent of $26 per barrel, not the $60+ it is running presently. And those fuel hedges are running out, and I don't think any banks are willing to bet like that again.
Do the math on that, and its closer to 40% - 50% of operating costs when that runs out; Southwest has freely admitted that it would be losing money just like all the other large U.S. airlines if it was paying market prices for fuel. Presently, Continental and Southwest have industry leading CASMs of about $.09 when running 737s, of which about $.04 is fuel. Make fuel $400 per barrel, and your fuel CASM goes to about $.32, leading to a total CASM of $.37, an increase a factor of 4, not 2.
In addition, if the price of a seat goes up by a factor of 4, a tremendous amount of traffic will die away, which means either the airlines will have to park a tremendous number of airplanes with expensive leases, raise the ticket prices even more than 4 times to cover it, go into bankruptcy to cover the leases, etc. - airlines do NOT shrink in size easily, because they have such high initial capital costs for equipment.... But let's assume that the prices "only" go up by a factor of four.
Hotel in the U.K. (figures taken from friend who just came back) 75 pounds/night /.554 pounds/USD * 21 nights = $2,843 hotel cost.
Flight round trip EWR to Heathrow on Continental (SWA doesn't go international): today's cost: $729.00 round-trip. Times 4? $2,916.
Your holiday just got more expensive.
But I agree with you that $400 a barrel for oil will have much more significant effects than doubling your holiday cost. Quadruple the cost of anything that has to be transported or farmed.
I simply was pointing out that DIA is a symbol of an industry that has peaked, and is on the way downhill, like vinyl records, incadescent light bulbs and CRT manufacture. And it's a bit depressing for me.
And you remind me of the aviation pronosticators in the early 60's who said they wouldn't bother investing in any airline that didn't have all of its growth plans built around super-sonic travel, since that's all that would be flying by 1978. What is possible on millions of dollars per pound launched for a one time shot vs. what is possible on a commerical basis with a one failure or less per billion flights standard of safety are completely different.
Planes will not stop flying, but as a dominant, CHEAP mode of transportation, their day will be done in our lifetime. I base this off of my experience as an airline pilot for 20 years, with degrees in aeronautical engineering and mathematics, watching where the progress in technology has and has not been, as well as available sources of fuel. You seem to base your opinion off of a vauge idea of progress being inevitable.
Back in 1961, a similar law to Moore's law was bandied about, namely that every 15 years, the cruise speed of your typical commerical aircraft would double, because.... well, progress is inevitable, and it was correct since about the time of the Wright brothers.
Where's my damned Mach 8 hypersonic cruiser?
Don't confuse the POSSIBLE with the PROFITABLE, and never forget that innovation and progress are not inevitable, nor just a matter of pouring enough money into the research labs. Nature has rules and limits, and some are harder than others to overcome or work with.
This might be slightly off topic, but what the hey...
The fortunes of aviation are tied almost directly to the cost to make a plane fly; virtually every airplane in the sky gets the energy required to fly from kerosine, a derivative of oil. As oil gets more expensive, so will flying planes; this is rather in contrast to the usual business cycle of lower costs as time goes by and experience is gained and economies of scale work their way in.
This is why aviation and the systems associated with it are dying. The automated baggage system at DIA is but one example; the antiquated (but quite failure-tolerant) ATC system, the fact that supersonic transport is looking further and further away every day, the death of safe retirement plans in aviation, etc.
Normally, as an industry matures, even if its revenues do not go up, its direct costs go down, leaving extra money for future research, expansion, redundancy, employee wages, etc. In aviation it's going the other way, and there is a good chance in the next 20 years will see it end as a form of mass transit and return to a rare form of transit for rich civilians and military necessity.
Kinda sad. Perhaps DIA can be made into a giant museum to remind people of the aviation world at its peak, when it was cheaper to fly than to drive, briefly.
Two of these three are dead, and I suspect Bill Dana is in his 70's, and probably doesn't care much. When you are young, flying on adrenaline and have a pretty high mortality rate, the small regconitions like wings and honors and medals mean a lot more. If it takes 40+ years to deliver them, after you have calmed down a bit and had a full life, it probably doesn't mean a whole lot for the people (well, person) it's being awarded to. I think it's being done to make the institution feel better about itself, not particularly for Dana, McKay, or Walker.
Let's make sure the handcuffs are forged as well as possible, under the scrutiny of as many eyes as possible, so that NOBODY can break out of them. What a great use of the talents of the open source community.
I have not read every last comment, but it seems nobody understands, including the people who mentioned that others wrote and published "E=mc^2" up to ten years before Einstein, what its true significance is, or why Einstein gets credit.
It is somewhat straightforward to derive E=mc^2 from Maxwell's equations, just as Fitzgerald derived the correct equations for the contraction of a moving object in its direction of motion. But the key, the big thing, that Einstein did was not just derive by rote an equation, but assign consistent physical interpetations to those equations and make some pretty bold predictions. He put the thing together.
For instance, many people keep saying "E=mc^2" means that matter and energy can be "converted" from one to another. THat is actually incorrect - the MEANING of the equation is that the TOTAL ENERGY CONTENT of a system can be derived by noting its resistance to changes in motion as a result of applied force; i.e. its mass. In other words, the MASS of an object, as measured objectively, describes the TOTAL ENERGY CONTENT of that object as per E=mc^2. Or, put more simply, a boiling pot of water has slightly more mass than the exact same pot at room temperature. E=mc^2 can be shown to be a consequence of Maxwell's laws; Einstein's boldness was in asserting that ALL forms of energy, not just electromagnetic, are imbued with mass (a resistance to changes in motion) in proportion to the amount of energy within. His general theory of relativity tied this idea of inertial mass with gravitaional mass, by again boldly asserting that they are the same thing; this is by no means obvious (Eotovs experiments back it up to 10 significant figures, tho). And neither gives a clue about how to extract nuclear energy; all it says is that objects have an internal energy as evidenced by the fact they have mass; accessing that energy is a completely different matter.
You know, what you said about us doing a "cargo cult Star Trek" is perfect - it expresses in 4 words what seems to be driving the entire direction of the space program as of late. But sadly, the reason the orginial cargo cult functioned is the exact same reason we have our own version now - a fundamental lack of understanding of the physical limitations of the world, as illustrated by our number #1 Fundamentalist, GWB, who wants little toy heroes wandering around Mars rather than understanding how Mars may have gone from habitable to what it is now. Space opera rather than science.
I'm going to borrow that phase, cargo cult Star Trek - it's real good.
Funny, I thought the free-market system would take care of everything for us. That's what the editorial pages of WSJ have been telling me for the last 30 years. No need for scientists, artists, dreamers, creators, engineers, and all the individual little choices about what is a worthwhile life that lead people to want to create something a bit bigger than themselves. All we need is for our capitalist overlords to set the right priorities and *PooF* - free enterprise will just make it happen!
Police officers liable for crimes that occur in their precinct Firemen liable for fires that occur in their district Teachers responsible for illiterates who move into their school system Politicans responsible for the consequences of the laws they pass on an "eye-for-an-eye" basis
I mean, really. This is beyond silly, on many levels. It is crazy to expect that a librarian can, in detail, monitor (or "spy") a patron's computer usage habits (they have a few other minor responsibilites to attend to). It is silly to think that they should demand ID from everyone who walks in, and check to see if they are child molesters first (For those who didn't RTFA: the person viewing the porn was registered sex offender). And lastly, BOOBS are NOT going to corrupt Western Civilization - but censorship and Big Brother monitoring you will.
So, if I read this right, to use this thing I'll have to have a live internet connection, and if I do something "suspicious" with it, content providers can send the "Packet 'O Death" and kill my player? And they expect me to pay them for this?
I find the studios' obsessive need to "protect" their content, well, stupid. The content will get out one way or another. I don't think early adopters of Crippleware (tm) will give positive reviews to the mainstream, who are pretty content with DVDs, and so they are already digging the grave for this format before it is even released.
One day, the idea that content is pretty easy to duplicate and hardware, is, well, HARD to duplicate will penetrate their little minds, and they might start to emphasise better/more convenient ways for people to watch content, and figure out how to make money from that. Apple's pretty good at that. They might figure out that the first time someone's player goes poof by remote control, they just lost the sales to all that fellow's friends and family. Maybe I'll even live long enough to see these realizations penetrate. Maybe.
"More than 95 pecent computers in the world use one form of Windows OS or another. The remaining being divided between Linux, MAC etc. now lets say MAC has 1 percent, does it make sense for a hacker to create a virus that can at best infect just 1 percent of the computers in the world?"
Is it just me, or is it annoying when an article writer displays ignorance of such basic details as capitalization, punctuation, etc. It's one thing posting comments on Slashdot, it's another thing when you are ostensibly writing a professional article....
Slashdot Mirror
...but nobody really seems to be nervous or afraid of this development. I think the only thing that has kept mankind from wiping itself out to date is a) Lack of suitable weaponry and b) Some widespread, if inconsistent sense of empathy toward other humans.
We solved a) in 1945 at Los Alamos, and this development might take care of b). Put them together....
Perhaps I should order a tinfoil hat, but to me, this is one of the scarier ideas coming to life.
The music industry, like many long-standing businesses, does not like to change its business model. There is a reason for this; most businesses lose money and vanish in the first year of operation. The rare business that actually survives and makes money is probably quite institutionally keen to keep what works.
Nonetheless, in the long term, their model is doomed. The whole point of digital data is the ability to copy it repeatedly without degradation, and transmit it quickly over great distances without degradation. It is difficult or impossible (cheaply, anyway) to do this with analog data. Thus, this is a fundamental change in kind; it's not just CD's replacing tapes replacing vinyl. This means the VALUE of the replicators (which really is all a music company is) goes down because that's become easy. Ditto for distribution. The hard part, CREATING the good music, and FINDING the music that you like, are going to be where the money is.
Steve Jobs gets this; hence iTunes working on the FINDING part. If the record companies don't get with the program, musicians may start bypassing them and try to market more directly to customers via mechanisms like Podcasting (a cheap universal distribution method, if you can get people interested in downloading your product).
It's hard for a dinosaur to change its stripes. Usually they get replaced rather than evolve, and it looks like that's what's happening.
We have used cats in aviation for years, as described below.
This is the Cat and Duck method of Instrument Flying.
Basic Instruments - Cat and Duck:
Place a live cat on the cockpit floor. Because a cat
always remains upright, it can be used instead of the
artificial horizon. Simply watch which way the cat leans to
determine if a wing is low, and if so, which one.
The duck is used for the instrument approach. Because
any sensible duck will refuse to fly under instrument
conditions, you only need to hurl your duck out of the
aircraft and follow it to the ground.
Limitations to Cat and Duck Method:
Get a wide-awake cat. Most cats don't want to stand up
at all. It may be necessary to carry a large dog in the
cockpit to make the cat pay attention.
Make sure your cat is clean. Dirty cats spend all their
time washing. Trying to follow a washing cat usually
results in a snap roll followed by an inverted spin.
Use an old cat. Young cats still have many of their nine
lives left, but an old cat has just as much to lose as you
do and will be more dependable.
Avoid cowardly ducks. If the duck discovers you are
using the cat to keep the wings level, it may refuse to
leave without the cat. Ducks are no better at IMC than
you are.
Make sure your duck has good eyesight. Nearsighted
ducks may fail to realize they are on the gauges and go
flailing off into the nearest mountain. Very nearsighted
ducks may not realize they have been thrown from the
aircraft and will descend to the ground in a sitting
position. This is very difficult to follow in an airplane.
Use land-loving ducks. It is very discouraging to break
out and find yourself on final to a rice paddy, especially if
there are duck hunters around. Duck hunters suffer from
temporary insanity after sitting in freezing blinds and will
shoot at anything that flies.
Finally, choose your duck carefully. It's easy to confuse
ducks with geese because many waterfowl look alike.
Geese are competent instrument fliers, but they seldom
go where you want them to go. If your duck sets off for
Canada or New Zealand, you can sure you've been given
the goose.
"Would you like Regular, Diesel, or Meow Mix?" (Had to be said...)
The way we figure the distance to the furthest objects (in the 1 - 14 billion light-year range) is precisely by the rate of retreat of the astronomical objects we observe. It was noted empirically (back in the 1920's, I think) that the further away an object is from us, the faster it is retreating, in roughly linear proportion. The rate of retreat is figured out by how much the object's spectra shifts (due to the Doppler effect). So yes, some very far away objects are retreating at speeds damned near the speed of light.
5 071334/ref=lpr_g_1/103-7798844-8308625?v=glance&s= books
Originally, when Einstein came up with his field equations in General Relativity (1915?), they did not have a steady state solution; but an expanding universe WAS a possible solution. Apparently, this disturbed Einstein so much that he threw in a "fudge factor" called the cosmological constant, in just such a way that a steady state solution existed for the general configuration of the universe. Of course, as more and more observations poured in indicating that virtually ALL extra-galactic objects were retreating away from us, with higher speeds the further away, it became clear that the Universe was, in fact, expanding, despite the tastes of Einstein. He removed the mathematically ugly constant, and I think he later said that messing up his original equation with it was the "greatest mistake of my life."
Of course, you may wonder how we figured out how far some objects were to begin with to USE our distance = (constant) x speed formula. This post is getting a bit long, but it turns out that supernova, explosions of very massive stars at the end of their lives, tend to have an absolute maximum brightness that has a simple relationship to the length of time they "explode". Thus, supernovae can serve as a yardstick if we can spot them in other galaxies; and fortunately, they are bright enough so that we can - I think they are the ONLY individual stars we can discern in other galaxies; all the others are just too dim from those distances....
And how do we determine how far away the "first" supernova is? In other words, how did we calibrate that yardstick? Here I'm not sure; we haven't had a supernova go off close by (meaning, in our galaxy) in the last 500 years (and that's a GOOD thing - a supernova can shine as brightly as an entire galaxy at its peak! There was one in one of the Magellanic clouds (a pair of small, neighborhood galaxes) in 1987, I think); I know we have other yardsticks from direct parallax measurements (measuring the shift of nearer stars vs. their further cousins as the Earth shifts its position around the sun - good out to about 1000 light years now, I think), our knowledge of the absolute brightness to temperature as revealed by spectrum/color of stars on the main sequence, and some knowledge of the brightness patterns of ordinary novae...
There is a really good book called Parallax, which goes into the whole history of how we figured out how far away stuff in the Universe is - it's a fascinating, wonderful read; here is the amazon URL:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/080
Hope this helps.
Bingo - I have a level of expertise in aviation, mathematics, and physics, and routinely notice errors, ommisions, and general just-missing-the-point in the articles in general pubs about those topics. But that's because I have a level of expertise....
If there is one consistent thing I hear from friends in other fields of expertise, it's how the general press mangles stories in THEIR fields (IT, insurance, archeology, etc.). So, the trend seems to be that the press mangles just about EVERYTHING - but we individually can only detect the errors in a very narrow range.
I feel like putting on a tinfoil hat now.
Thank you. I have always been curious about those little buggers. Little nuggets of information like this are what makes reading /. fun.
Thanks for the enlightenment. I thought it stood for "Big Fucking Empty".
Think about it. Scientists spend decades figuring out how the universe works, Engineers (and Doctors, and other folks at the application end of things) spend decades figuring out how to apply those rules to create things that do something we could not do before. Lifetimes of research to create... a cell phone a complete moron can use. A pill derived from examining thousands of fly generations with genes knocked out to figure out which ones are crucial in the evolution of a disease... so a moron can live to teach others about Intellegent Design and how Darwin was a godless heathen. Hell, farmers must be pretty irritated at how they are looked at as hayseeds when they produce more food per acre than at any point in history - and I don't know a whole lot about how they do it (and I don't think too many other /.ers do, either - but feel free to enlighten me)
So the problem may boil down to the fact that our science and technology is so advanced that you don't have to have the slightest clue how or why it operates in order to use it. Thus, you can pretty safely ignore why or how it works, and substitue your own suspicions about how the world really works - i.e. human drama stories for many journalists, despite the fact they routinely USE such technological marvels such as cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, helicopters, etc. Such tactics would not work well in a endeavor more closely tied to reality, like launching a space shuttle or flying an aircraft. But a journalist only has to keep an editor happy and circulation up.
"Ok, it's interesting that you chose to bring up logic, then engaged in a classic logical fallacy.
The models used for weather prediction are different than the models used for climate prediction. There are DEGREES of accuracy (understand, or should I go slower?). Are you unable to tell the difference? A stats class would help."
Yes, I am aware that models have different levels of predictive ability. You seemed to ignore that point in your original post. My point was about models in general, not climate models in particular. And, I do seem to recall something about such things on the way to getting my B.A. in Applied Mathematics.
" "Are our models for world climate flawed and imperfect? Certainly. Are their predictions unambigious and all in perfect agreement? Of course not. But do the vast majority of them indicate warming is going on? Blah blah blah..."
I've got one for you. Do we know that decreasing carbon emissions will have a POSITIVE impact on our climate? No, we don't. It might cause an ice age. It might do nothing. It MIGHT mean the extinction of the human race."
That's true. It's also possible that aliens will land and zap the extra CO2 out of our atmosphere with their ray-guns. I don't think it's very probable though. You are right, we don't know anything for sure - but some things are more likely than others, and it seems to be pretty likely that increasing CO2 levels in our atmosphere will lead to unpleasant consequences for the human race.
"So basing our actions on models that are known to be inaccurate, especially on a global scale is dumb. It's bad science, which, based on your post, is something you seem to have an affinity for."
So your suggestion is to ignore our inaccurate models, and replace them with complete ignorance? A "what, me worry?" attitude? Your position, in essence, is that since we don't know exactly what will happen, we might as well keep on doing exactly what we are doing now. In other words, wait until we have a definite, extremely hard to solve problem on our hands rather than try, imperfectly, to head it off a bit. And my illustration with hurricane Katrian and New Orleans was about the follies of that style of decision making, not about the specific predictivites of various models. You also confuse what science is. Science tells you information about the world - it does not tell you what to do with it.
" "I suggest you talk to some people who are barely at the edge of survival now, like about 1/4 of the Earth's population."
So, which should I prioritize then, said people's survival, or the long term prosperity of the human race? WELL?"
For someone who was trying focus me on the different levels of nuance between different models, you seem to have neglected them when it comes to your decision methods. THIS or THAT. WELL?
"While you seem to have the feel good touchy touchy crap down, the science and pragamtism of the situation escapes you.
I suggest you try to develop a more sophisticated view and stop relying on your emotions to make decisions. You'll be able to avoid taking such ridiculous positions in the future."
The most emotional one in this dialogue is you. That's why you are a troll.
You know, you probably already know about this website, but if not, I think you would appreciate it....
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html
Hope it gives you a laugh!
Cheers,
(I've never tried feeding a Troll before...)
Well, by that logic our response to hurricane Katrina was perfect. Our imperfect weather models with their imperfect data inputs indicated that Katrina might score a direct hit on New Orleans, and our imperfect engineering models indicated that such a hit by such a storm might flood New Orleans and kill thousands of people. But rather than try and change the world, we waited until it got much worse and thousands of people were (and are) dying.
There is no such thing as a perfect model nor perfect data; every model is flawed by definition - that's why they are MODELS of reality as opposed to the real thing. But they are the best tool we have; they are what allow us to build planes that fly, microchips that work, and in general make the modern world function.
Are our models for world climate flawed and imperfect? Certainly. Are their predictions unambigious and all in perfect agreement? Of course not. But do the vast majority of them indicate warming is going on? Yes. Does the actual data of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere correlate strongly to the actual data about average world temperature? Yes. Does burning stuff release CO2? Yes. Do we burn a lot of stuff? Yes. If the earth warmed about 2 degrees C, would there be lots of unpleasant (as in land occupied by a Billion plus people go below sea-level) consequences? Highly likely.
Doesn't it seem wise to be a bit more proactive in such a scenario?
And since you seem to have no fear of things getting "much worse", I suggest you talk to some people who are barely at the edge of survival now, like about 1/4 of the Earth's population. They might have more objections to things getting "much worse" than you.
Riiiiiiight. Look, there are some very unrealistic ideas about what private enterprise will and will not do. While private individuals are motivated by more than money (thrill of exploration, I did it first, I'm doing it better than my rival over there, etc.), the reality is most private individuals who HAVE the money to burn on something this expensive probably have focused on ACQUIRING money for a large portion of their lives. To expect a large subset of money-minded entrepreneurs to suddenly give up their business-like ways and focus on something with little or no fiscal return (like the Hubble) is unrealistic.
In addition, if there is so much potential to private space exploration, why hasn't it been done before? Rocket technology really hasn't changed much since the 60's, and sufficent cheap computing power to figure trajectories has been around since the 80's. The answer? It's hard and expensive, with a very high failure cost, and a small to nonexistent return potential. This is not the kind of thing that draws in money.
I dearly wish that we would focus on basic science (i.e. does not need to be driven by a possible marketable product in 5 years) in the U.S.A. again - the era of Big Science was inaugurated with the Manhattan Project (when those funny talking European immigrants with thier scribbles on a blackboard built the most powerful bomb in the world), has been strong for many years as the link between U.S. world supremacy and science leadership was not questioned, but perhaps is beginning to close. The tone set by the present leadership (sneering at "reality-based" media, desiring "equal-time" for creation research, bragging about how a "C" student can become the president, etc.) does not bode well for the long term future of scientifc research here.
I guess when you know how the Universe was created according to the Bible, you don't need a Hubble to figure it out.
Sigh.
And which large profitable airline would that be? If you are talking the United States, there is only one - Southwest. And since you didn't seem to know, Southwest hedged 85% of its fuel expenses through the end of 2006 at the equivalent of $26 per barrel, not the $60+ it is running presently. And those fuel hedges are running out, and I don't think any banks are willing to bet like that again.
l
0 ,8816,1074147,00.html
1 40-2005Apr14.html
.554 pounds/USD * 21 nights = $2,843 hotel cost.
http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1111087731.htm
http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/printout/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55
Do the math on that, and its closer to 40% - 50% of operating costs when that runs out; Southwest has freely admitted that it would be losing money just like all the other large U.S. airlines if it was paying market prices for fuel. Presently, Continental and Southwest have industry leading CASMs of about $.09 when running 737s, of which about $.04 is fuel. Make fuel $400 per barrel, and your fuel CASM goes to about $.32, leading to a total CASM of $.37, an increase a factor of 4, not 2.
In addition, if the price of a seat goes up by a factor of 4, a tremendous amount of traffic will die away, which means either the airlines will have to park a tremendous number of airplanes with expensive leases, raise the ticket prices even more than 4 times to cover it, go into bankruptcy to cover the leases, etc. - airlines do NOT shrink in size easily, because they have such high initial capital costs for equipment.... But let's assume that the prices "only" go up by a factor of four.
Hotel in the U.K. (figures taken from friend who just came back)
75 pounds/night /
Flight round trip EWR to Heathrow on Continental (SWA doesn't go international): today's cost: $729.00 round-trip. Times 4? $2,916.
Your holiday just got more expensive.
But I agree with you that $400 a barrel for oil will have much more significant effects than doubling your holiday cost. Quadruple the cost of anything that has to be transported or farmed.
I simply was pointing out that DIA is a symbol of an industry that has peaked, and is on the way downhill, like vinyl records, incadescent light bulbs and CRT manufacture. And it's a bit depressing for me.
And you remind me of the aviation pronosticators in the early 60's who said they wouldn't bother investing in any airline that didn't have all of its growth plans built around super-sonic travel, since that's all that would be flying by 1978. What is possible on millions of dollars per pound launched for a one time shot vs. what is possible on a commerical basis with a one failure or less per billion flights standard of safety are completely different.
Planes will not stop flying, but as a dominant, CHEAP mode of transportation, their day will be done in our lifetime. I base this off of my experience as an airline pilot for 20 years, with degrees in aeronautical engineering and mathematics, watching where the progress in technology has and has not been, as well as available sources of fuel. You seem to base your opinion off of a vauge idea of progress being inevitable.
Back in 1961, a similar law to Moore's law was bandied about, namely that every 15 years, the cruise speed of your typical commerical aircraft would double, because.... well, progress is inevitable, and it was correct since about the time of the Wright brothers.
Where's my damned Mach 8 hypersonic cruiser?
Don't confuse the POSSIBLE with the PROFITABLE, and never forget that innovation and progress are not inevitable, nor just a matter of pouring enough money into the research labs. Nature has rules and limits, and some are harder than others to overcome or work with.
This might be slightly off topic, but what the hey...
The fortunes of aviation are tied almost directly to the cost to make a plane fly; virtually every airplane in the sky gets the energy required to fly from kerosine, a derivative of oil. As oil gets more expensive, so will flying planes; this is rather in contrast to the usual business cycle of lower costs as time goes by and experience is gained and economies of scale work their way in.
This is why aviation and the systems associated with it are dying. The automated baggage system at DIA is but one example; the antiquated (but quite failure-tolerant) ATC system, the fact that supersonic transport is looking further and further away every day, the death of safe retirement plans in aviation, etc.
Normally, as an industry matures, even if its revenues do not go up, its direct costs go down, leaving extra money for future research, expansion, redundancy, employee wages, etc. In aviation it's going the other way, and there is a good chance in the next 20 years will see it end as a form of mass transit and return to a rare form of transit for rich civilians and military necessity.
Kinda sad. Perhaps DIA can be made into a giant museum to remind people of the aviation world at its peak, when it was cheaper to fly than to drive, briefly.
Two of these three are dead, and I suspect Bill Dana is in his 70's, and probably doesn't care much. When you are young, flying on adrenaline and have a pretty high mortality rate, the small regconitions like wings and honors and medals mean a lot more. If it takes 40+ years to deliver them, after you have calmed down a bit and had a full life, it probably doesn't mean a whole lot for the people (well, person) it's being awarded to. I think it's being done to make the institution feel better about itself, not particularly for Dana, McKay, or Walker.
Let's make sure the handcuffs are forged as well as possible, under the scrutiny of as many eyes as possible, so that NOBODY can break out of them. What a great use of the talents of the open source community.
I have not read every last comment, but it seems nobody understands, including the people who mentioned that others wrote and published "E=mc^2" up to ten years before Einstein, what its true significance is, or why Einstein gets credit.
It is somewhat straightforward to derive E=mc^2 from Maxwell's equations, just as Fitzgerald derived the correct equations for the contraction of a moving object in its direction of motion. But the key, the big thing, that Einstein did was not just derive by rote an equation, but assign consistent physical interpetations to those equations and make some pretty bold predictions. He put the thing together.
For instance, many people keep saying "E=mc^2" means that matter and energy can be "converted" from one to another. THat is actually incorrect - the MEANING of the equation is that the TOTAL ENERGY CONTENT of a system can be derived by noting its resistance to changes in motion as a result of applied force; i.e. its mass. In other words, the MASS of an object, as measured objectively, describes the TOTAL ENERGY CONTENT of that object as per E=mc^2. Or, put more simply, a boiling pot of water has slightly more mass than the exact same pot at room temperature. E=mc^2 can be shown to be a consequence of Maxwell's laws; Einstein's boldness was in asserting that ALL forms of energy, not just electromagnetic, are imbued with mass (a resistance to changes in motion) in proportion to the amount of energy within. His general theory of relativity tied this idea of inertial mass with gravitaional mass, by again boldly asserting that they are the same thing; this is by no means obvious (Eotovs experiments back it up to 10 significant figures, tho). And neither gives a clue about how to extract nuclear energy; all it says is that objects have an internal energy as evidenced by the fact they have mass; accessing that energy is a completely different matter.
You know, what you said about us doing a "cargo cult Star Trek" is perfect - it expresses in 4 words what seems to be driving the entire direction of the space program as of late. But sadly, the reason the orginial cargo cult functioned is the exact same reason we have our own version now - a fundamental lack of understanding of the physical limitations of the world, as illustrated by our number #1 Fundamentalist, GWB, who wants little toy heroes wandering around Mars rather than understanding how Mars may have gone from habitable to what it is now. Space opera rather than science. I'm going to borrow that phase, cargo cult Star Trek - it's real good.
Funny, I thought the free-market system would take care of everything for us. That's what the editorial pages of WSJ have been telling me for the last 30 years. No need for scientists, artists, dreamers, creators, engineers, and all the individual little choices about what is a worthwhile life that lead people to want to create something a bit bigger than themselves. All we need is for our capitalist overlords to set the right priorities and *PooF* - free enterprise will just make it happen!
Right?
Let's make:
Police officers liable for crimes that occur in their precinct
Firemen liable for fires that occur in their district
Teachers responsible for illiterates who move into their school system
Politicans responsible for the consequences of the laws they pass on an "eye-for-an-eye" basis
I mean, really. This is beyond silly, on many levels. It is crazy to expect that a librarian can, in detail, monitor (or "spy") a patron's computer usage habits (they have a few other minor responsibilites to attend to). It is silly to think that they should demand ID from everyone who walks in, and check to see if they are child molesters first (For those who didn't RTFA: the person viewing the porn was registered sex offender). And lastly, BOOBS are NOT going to corrupt Western Civilization - but censorship and Big Brother monitoring you will.
Sheesh.
So, if I read this right, to use this thing I'll have to have a live internet connection, and if I do something "suspicious" with it, content providers can send the "Packet 'O Death" and kill my player? And they expect me to pay them for this?
I find the studios' obsessive need to "protect" their content, well, stupid. The content will get out one way or another. I don't think early adopters of Crippleware (tm) will give positive reviews to the mainstream, who are pretty content with DVDs, and so they are already digging the grave for this format before it is even released.
One day, the idea that content is pretty easy to duplicate and hardware, is, well, HARD to duplicate will penetrate their little minds, and they might start to emphasise better/more convenient ways for people to watch content, and figure out how to make money from that. Apple's pretty good at that. They might figure out that the first time someone's player goes poof by remote control, they just lost the sales to all that fellow's friends and family. Maybe I'll even live long enough to see these realizations penetrate. Maybe.
Sigh.
"More than 95 pecent computers in the world use one form of Windows OS or another. The remaining being divided between Linux, MAC etc. now lets say MAC has 1 percent, does it make sense for a hacker to create a virus that can at best infect just 1 percent of the computers in the world?" Is it just me, or is it annoying when an article writer displays ignorance of such basic details as capitalization, punctuation, etc. It's one thing posting comments on Slashdot, it's another thing when you are ostensibly writing a professional article....
What price sheet have you been reading? Or do you know the difference between hardware and software?