Nuclear weapons have two parts: the warhead, and a conventional explosive that starts the nuclear reaction. The "unreliable" part of the weapon is the conventional explosive; if it fails, there's no way to detonate the nuke. "Unreliable" may also mean "could accidentally go off," but this doesn't seem too feasible to me.
Livermore guys I worked with were experimenting with proton imaging about a year ago to help them figure out if there's not another way to test the conventional explosives than by taking them apart.
The guys behind this decision should, perhaps, pay a visit to Hiroshima before they decide that more nukes are a Good Thing. Does anybody really need more than a handful (one to drop, a few others to hold onto and brandish)? I understand the political uses of nukes, but "don't hit us or we'll hit you back!" doesn't work so well against terrorists. Any current or future leader of the US would have to be crazy or heartless to use nuclear weapons again, and maintaining an arsenal of such weapons as big as the one the US possesses is lunacy.
Here you go. I stumbled upon this article about a year ago, and your comment reminded me. The article's birthday is tomorrow, actually.:)
As a passionate coffee drinker, René G. set a difficult goal for himself, one that took him nearly 80 hours to achieve: through laborious and precise work, he was able to convert a coffee maker into a standard PC shell.
I realize it's bad form to reply to oneself, but I suppose I came across a little unclear in the above comment.
The reason the brick breaks is because the breaker applies a large force in a small time. It doesn't have anything to do with avoiding the brick's recoil, because that happens the moment he applies a force to the brick. It's instantaneous -- there is no time between when his fist hits the brick and when the brick hits him back.
Yes, he'll set up a compression wave (sound) in the brick. However, sound has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he feels a force, or whether or not the brick breaks. If he strikes quickly, the block will break because his hand is in contact with it for a shorter time than if he hit it and didn't pull back, but he imparts the same force to it.
The instant he hits the block, the block hits back. The fact that sound travels through the block is irrelevant to whether or not his hand feels a force.
It is the property of the public, by virtue of having been developed with their money and by their direct agency.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. If the government didn't patent the idea, they would have two options: keep it secret, or allow others to use it who might then patent it themselves.
If the government owns the idea, some thieving corporation does not stand to get rich by leeching off of the taxpayers' money that developed it.
I want to clarify something. In order to use the closed nvidia drivers, it is *not* necessary to rebuild the kernel. The nvidia driver "shim" contains code that compiles as a kernel module. This "shim" is what links to the binary part of the driver, not the kernel.
Are livecds with binary kernels a violation of the GPL? No, not if the kernel is identical to the one on kernel.org. Patches, therefore, need to be available *somewhere*, but they need not be on the cd itself IIRC.
The same concept would seem to apply to the nvidia driver. The source code "shim" part is where the problem would arise, but *only* if it actually uses code from the Linux kernel (originally in the form of includes, etc. I assume). In that case, distributing binaries which are a combination of the GPL code (the "shim") and closed binaries is a violation. Nvidia asserts in a response to Kororaa (on the project's website) that there is no GPL code in the driver. I don't really understand that claim, since in order to compile it I need the kernel headers.:)
I haven't checked the license of the source code piece of the driver.
I do work for MIPP, a sister project of MINOS whose responsibility it is to analyse the MINOS beam, among other things. I know several of the guys on MINOS, and there's a good chance I'll be doing analysis work for them in the near future. MINOS has had a handful of problems in the last year since they turned on, and I'd just like to say congrats! Awesome news to read while away from home.
Odd, though, that I heard it on/. first:)
My daily browsing is about 50% *.us, 25% European, 25% *.jp websites. What's more, I'm currently reading/. from Japan. Would such a change mean no more/. overseas? Perhaps there would be regional mirrors that are synced every so often, with the people who own the borders charging some fee to let data through?
Bad idea, I say. Americans aren't exposed to enough of the world as is that quarantining them further could possibly have a good effect. If anything, I imagine they'd become even less hesitant to offend the rest of the world than they already are.
I think that now any problems Linux is really seeing on the desktop have more to do with mindshare than with usability. The complaints I hear most often from new learners of Linux usually have something to do with this wireless card, or that video card, or a winmodem.
It isn't so much that that system isn't usable once it's up and running, and I know plenty of people who find the Fedora install just as easy as Windows. It's getting there. The problem is more that there isn't as much "official"/manufacturer support for Linux as there is for Windows, and there isn't because the market for Windows products is bigger.
It's interesting to think about what sort of new material developers could come up with once Linux catches up to Windows, though. Feasible replacements for the desktop metaphor, perhaps?:)
But there's a difference -- Apple and Microsoft exist to (supposedly, anyway) cater to their customers. They're in it for profit, whereas Linux developers code to improve the software.
"Good enough" simply means enough people are buying the product to keep the producer in business. As long as there are people who are unhappy with the alternatives, I can't imagine Linux development slowing down -- clearly not the case with Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear weapons have two parts: the warhead, and a conventional explosive that starts the nuclear reaction. The "unreliable" part of the weapon is the conventional explosive; if it fails, there's no way to detonate the nuke. "Unreliable" may also mean "could accidentally go off," but this doesn't seem too feasible to me.
Livermore guys I worked with were experimenting with proton imaging about a year ago to help them figure out if there's not another way to test the conventional explosives than by taking them apart.
The guys behind this decision should, perhaps, pay a visit to Hiroshima before they decide that more nukes are a Good Thing. Does anybody really need more than a handful (one to drop, a few others to hold onto and brandish)? I understand the political uses of nukes, but "don't hit us or we'll hit you back!" doesn't work so well against terrorists. Any current or future leader of the US would have to be crazy or heartless to use nuclear weapons again, and maintaining an arsenal of such weapons as big as the one the US possesses is lunacy.
Here you go. I stumbled upon this article about a year ago, and your comment reminded me. The article's birthday is tomorrow, actually. :)
d ding/index.html
As a passionate coffee drinker, René G. set a difficult goal for himself, one that took him nearly 80 hours to achieve: through laborious and precise work, he was able to convert a coffee maker into a standard PC shell.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/13/extreme_mo
Exactly. Funny how you get modded insightful, while I'm a troll. *grin*
Who the hell is Alex P Keaton? Think you've got the wrong guy :)
Google is appearing more and more like a Real American Corporation(TM) with each passing day. Shame on them.
Unless you're a girl. :)
Whatever font /. uses now is ugly :(
What's wrong with mutual masturbation? :)
Huh, interesting. Hadn't thought of it like that. So we've been arguing about different ideas, eh? :p
I realize it's bad form to reply to oneself, but I suppose I came across a little unclear in the above comment.
The reason the brick breaks is because the breaker applies a large force in a small time. It doesn't have anything to do with avoiding the brick's recoil, because that happens the moment he applies a force to the brick. It's instantaneous -- there is no time between when his fist hits the brick and when the brick hits him back.
Yes, he'll set up a compression wave (sound) in the brick. However, sound has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he feels a force, or whether or not the brick breaks. If he strikes quickly, the block will break because his hand is in contact with it for a shorter time than if he hit it and didn't pull back, but he imparts the same force to it.
Yes, I understand exactly why it works. It just doesn't have anything to do with sound. Sound is, rather, a consequence.
It's the same reason why paintballs that bounce hurt a hell of a lot more than ones that break -- energy transfer.
Eh, no. Wrong.
The instant he hits the block, the block hits back. The fact that sound travels through the block is irrelevant to whether or not his hand feels a force.
Because sound is slower than light, and travels in a medium?
You're mixing up mechanical and electromagnetic waves. I don't see the connection to cinderblocks at all.
Mod parent up!
It is the property of the public, by virtue of having been developed with their money and by their direct agency. Yes, you're absolutely correct. If the government didn't patent the idea, they would have two options: keep it secret, or allow others to use it who might then patent it themselves. If the government owns the idea, some thieving corporation does not stand to get rich by leeching off of the taxpayers' money that developed it.
I'd mod you up if I had points.
:)
I want to clarify something. In order to use the closed nvidia drivers, it is *not* necessary to rebuild the kernel. The nvidia driver "shim" contains code that compiles as a kernel module. This "shim" is what links to the binary part of the driver, not the kernel.
Are livecds with binary kernels a violation of the GPL? No, not if the kernel is identical to the one on kernel.org. Patches, therefore, need to be available *somewhere*, but they need not be on the cd itself IIRC.
The same concept would seem to apply to the nvidia driver. The source code "shim" part is where the problem would arise, but *only* if it actually uses code from the Linux kernel (originally in the form of includes, etc. I assume). In that case, distributing binaries which are a combination of the GPL code (the "shim") and closed binaries is a violation. Nvidia asserts in a response to Kororaa (on the project's website) that there is no GPL code in the driver. I don't really understand that claim, since in order to compile it I need the kernel headers.
I haven't checked the license of the source code piece of the driver.
Japan has love hotels! All the advantages of seedy motels, bundled together with bedside karaoke and free porn.
Obviously the law is always righteous, in all situations, because otherwise God would send his lightning bolts to strike down the lawmakers, right?
I do work for MIPP, a sister project of MINOS whose responsibility it is to analyse the MINOS beam, among other things. I know several of the guys on MINOS, and there's a good chance I'll be doing analysis work for them in the near future. MINOS has had a handful of problems in the last year since they turned on, and I'd just like to say congrats! Awesome news to read while away from home. Odd, though, that I heard it on /. first :)
My daily browsing is about 50% *.us, 25% European, 25% *.jp websites. What's more, I'm currently reading /. from Japan. Would such a change mean no more /. overseas? Perhaps there would be regional mirrors that are synced every so often, with the people who own the borders charging some fee to let data through?
Bad idea, I say. Americans aren't exposed to enough of the world as is that quarantining them further could possibly have a good effect. If anything, I imagine they'd become even less hesitant to offend the rest of the world than they already are.
I think that now any problems Linux is really seeing on the desktop have more to do with mindshare than with usability. The complaints I hear most often from new learners of Linux usually have something to do with this wireless card, or that video card, or a winmodem. :)
It isn't so much that that system isn't usable once it's up and running, and I know plenty of people who find the Fedora install just as easy as Windows. It's getting there. The problem is more that there isn't as much "official"/manufacturer support for Linux as there is for Windows, and there isn't because the market for Windows products is bigger.
It's interesting to think about what sort of new material developers could come up with once Linux catches up to Windows, though. Feasible replacements for the desktop metaphor, perhaps?
But there's a difference -- Apple and Microsoft exist to (supposedly, anyway) cater to their customers. They're in it for profit, whereas Linux developers code to improve the software. "Good enough" simply means enough people are buying the product to keep the producer in business. As long as there are people who are unhappy with the alternatives, I can't imagine Linux development slowing down -- clearly not the case with Microsoft.