Well said. When i was in High School (called middelbare school in the Netherlands) we often had discussions. For a while i thought they werent very usefull, people just sticked to their ideas, but now i think it was important for me to get my ideas in a row. Id like to add some exerpts, especially this insane first two: "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is.... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD." I dont know about the video, but HE has a cockeyed view. Ask everyone to refer to the bible every five minutes, why dont you. "Somebody could say you're killing free speech, and my retort to them would be we're encouraging free speech," But then it says that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented,". So you ARE restricting free speech, let people just say their opinion without having to repeat other peoples opinions. I doubt that they would themselves show the other side so much when telling their own opinion. "Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore.." Condoms do belong in school, some of them are going to have sex you know.. "It is the teacher's responsibility to present controversial issues that are free from prejudice and encourage students to form,.." The sentence is a bit distorted, issues themselves dont have prejudice, people do. I agree if it meant that the teacher should present things from multiple sides. If you want the teachers to do this properly, dont restrict them to not showing videos, make sure the teachers do it well by themselves. "..hold and express their own opinions without personal prejudice or discrimination." It their own opinions.. so it has both prejudice and discrimination, silly.
"Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old." Gah, hate people who indoctrinate children reproducing like that. And also teaching!
BTW some people insinuated it would become "hell on earth" because of global warming. Sounds rather unlikely to me, climate change may make some places less habitable, but probably make other places more habitable. (For instance: there were ice-ages in which the sahara was green.)
You are right, kids can be bastards, in one of my classes i was one. But does this mean we should put more regulation on the web? People are afraid what that would lead to.. I was going to say CENSORSHIP for ONE GLASS PAIN, but that is probably not the case here. Either the students are out of control at least in some of the classes or the kid throwing the stone genuinly was mistreated. I am guessing the first one. The problem seems to be in children, parents and teachers, not the internet. Apparently children arent raised to respect the teachers, maybe because the parents themselves are bastards, or they dont actually spend much time with their children. I believe both parents having full time jobs is an irresponsible idea. (although some parents may need the money) Another problem is kids hanging around all day with other kids, making their own morals. As i said i know no solutions.
"I use XFCE for my XUBUNTu desktop but I have not found a way to "tile windows" and "cascade windows" or anything equivalent, I found the ION [cs.tut.fi] window manager which pretty much an overkill solution for what I want to do (just automatically tile more than one file browser and terminal window...)." I have installed the xcfe desktop on ubuntu, and like it. Alt+F1 and such can change things in the windows. Alt F4 was close and Alt F5 fullscreen i think. I also saw one that halved my windows. (maybe tile/cascade windows is one of the alt+something's) I wish that there was a shortcut for changing windows though, like Alt cursor-buttons.
"Name 1 (ONE) programming language or software that you can run on Linux that can NOT be run on Windows XP.... hello?... Thank you." Well, isnt that one of the reasons NOT to use microsoft/nonfree products. GPL-ed product makers are nicer, they PORT it/allow other people to port it so everyone can use it, rather then try lock people in. (which, like point 2 shows, is a reason for MikeRT abandoning ubuntu) Same with the codecs, they would work fine if the specifications were available. (and reasonable)
http://www.bookofparagon.com/Mathematics/SPIE.2002 .Exact.pdf (PDF warning) article seems to directly talk about nullity. (havent read it though) I am quite open to the idea that there is some way of defining something that can deal with x/0 properly. (though i think it will be slightly more complicated (and entirely different) as the complex numbers)
Cows and grass do that, the cows grow from the grass, so its nearly free, however it isnt very efficient, and how do you get the methane? You do get milk and meat though.
(you'll need to read the articles to follow this) Not that i nessesarally agree, but it gives me something to think about.(and i will) I think the writer has a very good point about seperation between power and wealth, which would be nessesary to make sure the wealthly are proportionally productive. It does partially miss that not all wealth is gained fairly, some people are rich because their parents are rich, and some are get so by scamming people. Also if people really produce less, would it not be right for the rich to make sure they get enough to decently live from? (without having to work ridiculously hard) I think you can still take a lot of money from the rich without preventing them from being productive. You also simply need to have money to give people equal chances in life, for things like education.(and i mean education as far as a persons has capability of) Currently it seems clear to me that people dont get the same chances. Also there are other incentives to get productive, people that like their work and have other people to motivate them will do those bits that they dont like about their work without extra financial incentive. Another thing is that is some professions like research where wealth can be produced, there is no way of getting richer of it, thats partly why we have universities, probably the writer thinks this aswel. It may be out of the scope of the article, i should note that it does not say anything about how seperation of power and wealth must be implemented. Another thing i still need to think about is the individualisticness this way of thinking has.
PS Society for Christian Doctrine, Kevin? ewwwww two dirty words, (sorry about that, cant help it), and BTW their site says IE only sdcmusion even more ewwwww, and ye with no broadband shall go to hell:p (Ok, do not take this too seriously)
I may be redundant here, but the EFF article looks great. It is long though, but I just want to post this to encourage you reading it all. It may prevent a couple of misconceptions. (it did for me)
That makes no sense. That you can't disprove something doesnt mean that it isnt there, doesnt mean it is there either... And if you prove anything about those statesments above it doesnt need to say anything about the other statements. Also there is reason (not) to believe in blue dragons, existence of life on mars. There is no reason to believe in god, i think. (havent heard anything satisfactory)
"God exists, and logic can't prove God doesn't exist. There is nothing logical about what you believe and there is nothing logical about what I believe." You're right it makes no sense to believe in a god, there arent any reasons to do so. It also makes no sense believing in blue dragon though, no-one has ever seen one, no reptiles known to fly well. Just like there is no reason to believe in the flying spaggetti monster. (other then annoy religious folks)
Oops i forgot to also say there are physical entities of which you can disprove their existence. But it is easy to make up entities of which you cant. just say its invisible, like the flying spaggetti monster.
"But you cannot DISPROVE the inexistence of a real entity." You mean a entity inside the universe outside the math, i agree. But you threw the word axiom in there and prove and disprove, which made me think of math. In math your statement is blatently false, which made me write that reply. (my example was by the way very arbrary, just picked something easy) Maybe next time make sure people know its about actual physical entities.
I didn't deny that behavior is emergent from physics in the brain. I don't even deny that people saying the have feelings are emergent from that. But why do you feel it? Why doesnt it just do what it does, why am i in it. The answer I am my brain doesn't cut it, because the brain is just a physical object that just does what physics expects from it, it doesn't feel anything. Sure, it makes brains that make my fingers tap the keyboard saying the very words: 'Why do I feel', but the brain itself doesn't actually feel.
"It is not a coherent idea that 'you' are 'in' your brain; that is just Cartesian mind-body dualism," When i typed "in" by brain i didnt mean it in a spatial/geometric/physical sense, i just meant that same why do i feel it thing. "You can go on to ask some kind of metaphysical question like, 'How can it be that matter (like the brain) feels?" Guess I am asking that question, I was aware of that is what human nervous systems do(see above), but dont think that is a answer the the question.
It isnt the same as asking what happened before the universe began, because i do exist, although i can only prove my brains exist. I dont think a lot about this because there seems no way to get a answer, or something like it. I think you are right that a soul-body dualism wont solve it either, not sure of it though, pretty sure that you cant view physics as a seperate "soul aspect and universe aspect. Maybe there simply isnt a solution.
PS a funny statement a dutch cabaretier (stand up comedian) said about religion, translated: 'A solution is a suspension in which the problem floats coliodally' (I think it was in dutch: "Een oplossing is een suspensie waarin het probleem coillidaal in drijft", damn, cant find his name, shouldve remembered, someone who knows please comment it) This is the kind of solution religion provides for these kinds of problems:p.
"You CANNOT disprove an axiom of existence. You can only disprove an axiom of INEXISTANCE" Uhm x^2=-1 so x=i or x=-i so there isnt a REAL number x that satisfies x^2=-1 so i have DISPROVEN that there exists a real number such that x^2=-1. Plenty of things you can prove existence of. Please don't digg stuff up from math that simply arent true. By the way, axioms aren't used as lemmas or theorems. They are assumptions, and they cannot be disproven at all, it can only be shown that they are in conflict with other axioms. (assumptions) It is also true that at some point some statements cannot be disproven or proven without additional axioms.
By the way, in writing this article i used a couple of axioms, so with other axioms your statement maybe true. Dont think those apply to our universe though.
"Even the soft religious beliefs like "there must be something different about humans" are being challenged. We are just animals, no soul." So, if your behavior is just an effect of the physics in your brain, why are you IN IT? Why do you experience it? (at least i assume you are in it) I myself find this question intrigueing, don't see how physics could answer it. Quantum randomness=soul idea has sprung up in my head, but see if computers(with neglible random effects) can do intelligence convincing of a soul. Lets not be overcertain of ourselves talking about it either.
Not that these people dont say absurd things like dinosaurs lived with man, humans arent animals, earth is the center of the universe, the stars and planets are fixed to a sphere round the earth, any alien actually looks exactly like humans, there is good and evil with some absolute measure.(the latter: your morals are measure enough!) Some less religous one: other species then man never destroy their environment.(right, and Australia isn't big enough for 2 bunnies) Its just there are philosophical questions out there. (humans arent animals statement is partly political, because of fear people losing human rights)
Lets start here, it is unbelievable that this comment was not one the first posts in here! This isnt the first time the obvious is missed before a story get burried in comments. Like, what else is new? shooting my foot may hurt my foot? Throwing my television from the 4th floor will break it? Punching a police officer may get me in trouble? On the other hand, this isnt actually the statement the article makes. The article says it actually helps drive evolution for a large part, rather then just be another influence. Hmmm, nothing new there either, is there, why do we have peacocks anyway?
What are they really trying to do? They entangle two photons and measure the ones after the other? Won't the first measurement set the wavefunction to one of the eigenstates, and determine the other photon's state just as in "ordenary" entanglement. But wait, with relativity, the time-order of the two measurement effects is in some frames of (speed)reference the other way around, my guess the experiment has something to do with it. Guess the article says too little, and the slashdot know to little for a proper discussion. My point is that there is more to it then meets the eye.
Hmm, 20tonnes, 200km/h=50m/s (approx) so m*g*v=20*10^3*10*m/s^2*50*m/s=10 10^6 Watt. WOW they already got about 10 megawats, guess power must be the problem. Maybe combined with wear of the tether. BTW what do you mean with geometry, exactly? Doesn't sound like a good description of the problem i found.
"If you're going to propose theories, try not to stomp-out those presented by others" Ahum, big thing in science is stomping out theories that arent correct.
"So how far-fetched is this idea; that a centrifugal mass-displacement on the order of hundreds of metric tons, (remember to include the weight of the tether itself) spinning at a distance further than six times the Earth's own diameter and providing a centripetal force that could literally lift small towns out of the ground, is in any way insignificant?" I should've shown the math the first time.. Guess I owe it to you. Very well, let me show what i mean with getting your scales(orders of size) right. I*w=L=constant impulse moment, with w rotation speed in radians/time. The I before the elevation is I_pre=M*R^2/12 and after I_aft=(M-m)*R^2/12+m*r^2 with R radius of earth, r radial distance of end-station of elevator.(about geostationairy orbit) M is mass of earth, m is mass of station. (ignoring the thether, but that will increase the effect of slowing the earth) Let calculate the factor the earth will slow down, using L=I_pre*w_pre=I_aft*w_aft, so that is:
Now the mass of the station is, uhm lets say m=10^12kg=100 MegaTonnes (grossly overestimated), and M=6.3*10^24. Now, R=6.3*10^6m and r=4.2*10^7m. Bleh now the annoying part of filling em in. M-m=6.3*10^24-10^12kg=6.3*10^24, doh. so
You think we will have trouble with losing 4*10^-12 of the day? We would have to add a day every 1 bilion years or so. You could put ALL machinery made by man on the end of the elevator, and still not have any real effect. Oh ye, if you enter your value 100*10^3kg it becomes more like 1+10^-15. I also re-say my comment that traditional rockets also have (equally neglible) effects on earths rotation. The point is that you underestimate earth size, a person is to a fly what the earth is to the entire humanity+all their equipment+biomass. (nah, the earth is bigger than that)
"Cheeky! I would actually give you the same advice, along with your orders of magnitude. (carry the "1 x 10^23", please) Stop abusing the grey matter, it will bite you in the tuckus!" Don't have that 10^23, have a 10^24kg, 10^12kg, 10^6 and 10^7 though.
""solid earth", eh? Stop skipping your Geology! The "solid" part (crust) is less than 1% of the Earth's mass! Even if you speak of the solid planetary core (still theoretical), which has nothing to do with the atmosphere whatsoever, then you're still neglecting the egg-shell nature of the crust or what an asymmetrical force might do to the inner balance." Glass is also fluid, it is all in what approximation you should use in different cases. You wouldn't say earth is a fluid standing on it, but also the surface is fluid, in a sense. (although less viscous then the mantel) Indeed, this is again orders of (time/force)scale. Anyway, the end of the elevator doesn't have to attach to the earth itself, as long as it can lie (or float) on top of it.
"providing a centripetal force that could literally lift small towns out of the ground" Well ye, it could lift small towns if the tether was strong enough, but the point is that you balance the thing well, or it will either snap the string and fly away, or crash into the earth. (the end station could end up in eliptical orbit) The balance slightly pulls on the ground station, this is nessesary for stability, and because the cargo pulls the space station down. (the way a vertical string pulls on both ends if you grab the middle and pull it horizontally, because of impulse moment of the cariages)
"On top of that, what effect will the stresses on the Earth's crust have on the molten core? Will the Earth's own magnetic fields grow or shrink? Will the pol
I thought you thought air resistence was a problem. I am pretty sure that a rocket for those 100km's could still be quite a problem, they only have 20 tonnes, and that includes all the crew supporting systems.
I agree it is quite a massive undertaking compared to what the Wright brothers and Columbus did compared to the Apollo project i dont know.
Note that I am not saying it is the best way of getting space exploration underway, just that it is probably a realistic one. Ofcourse, if something much better comes along it may be rendered obsolete. In that case, at least we would have spin off of the research needed to make the thing.
"... , but the ump-teen factors of entropy and random disaster loom so closely that it appears doomed from the start...."
What? Huh? Don't use thermal physics without caution. It can make powerfull statements, which are then easily misinterpreted. Happily it stays in this sentence.
"Think of it! Would our very forms of measuring time and the calendar year have to change because of this project? We can already confirm the length of a year to 1/1000 sec., yet a "very small change" would be a negligible difference?! Please!"
The idea that the amount earth rotation slows down is enough to really affect us is totally bonkers.. At has been a long time since we actually measured time with the rotation of the earth. (atomic clocks, pulsars) The length of a day will change totally neglibly.(allthough we may be able to measure it) Probably less then wether effects dynamicly changing solid earths rotation.(Wind, going along with rotation=>solid earth rotates slower, and vice versa) And even if it was noticable, we can always squieze another day in a year somewhere. Get your orders of scale right.
Also, the way any spacecraft leaves earth will affect the earths impuls(moment), so if all the spacecraft left the earth along the rotation of the earth (which is easier), their thrust would push the earth to rotate more slowly, you think that will be a significant effect?
"Calculating the Lagrangian point for Earth/Moon orbits means that it's relatively closer to the Moon than the Earth by a fuzzy factor of six. (still around 280,000km away from Earth) It may be possible, but how is it practical?"
Didnt say it was practical, but a good test project for the real thing, its a lot cheaper. I think plain rockets or linear accelerators are better on the moon, practically.
"I find it interesting that you chose to (try and) pick-apart my contentions about this fanciful science-fiction, and yet completely ignored my mention of actual technologies in the midst of grassroots and only-slightly-sanctioned research."
You're right about this one, I probably should have mentioned. Honistly, I didnt notice, but if i did i wouldnt want to expand the discussion to ideas that are somewhere between might work, works but is ignored somehow, and totally useless. Maybe i should look in to them more.
Btw the vortex thruster (if it actually is better)may replace yet engines, but propelors wont be replaced, because of the same reason yet engines havent fully replaces them. That is, propelors can move more air at lower speeds, which is more efficient. (at higher speeds they simply dont work anymore, and give to much resistence)
I havent looked through all your grassroots propulsion technologies, but I probably electromagnetic propulsion using Burkhard Heim's theory of gravity/electromagnetism is be one of them. I am hoping to learn that theory once, I heard that it isnt properly disproven by experiment yet, so it may be true. (I am physics student, one of my classes right now is General Relativity) I am very sceptical about people claiming that they have actual flying things based on the principle, because it may be a totally other effect. And if it worked, scientist would be happy to devise proper experiments.(and get famous)
PS weird, can find his theory on the wiki article.
"That's the whole point. IF the elevator cable EVER fails : and don't kid yourself, ONE missile strike...not even a nuclear missile, something like a long range cruise missile with a payload of shaped HE, and the entire investment is lost."
You are right about that one, it is however cheap to build a second one using the first one. But regardless you are right about that one.
For the rest, you are being plain silly. From your earlier post:
"Instead of building just a few lasers to beam the energy, lets make a whole bunch of them and use the latest electrically powered pulse laser technology being developed for the joint strike fighter. Our spacecraft is just a payload module with stabiliers BOLTED to a block of inert material. A very short and simple linear accelerator kicks the spacecraft about half a mile into the air, high enough for all the lasers spread across the industrial plant infrastructure to 'see' it."
Electrically powered pulse laser technology being developed for the joint strike fighter, you're being overly specific, lets just talk about lasers powerfull enough to ignite the fuel.
"basically a rocket engine without needing : A nozzle pumps, combustion chambers, volatile fuel, electrical systems, elaborate control systems and sensors, just enormouse amounts of hardware gets taken out of the spacecraft and left sitting on the ground."
But can it really be achieved with lasers? Can the thrust be directed properly? Even if it can be done, there are large amounts of hardware involved with the working end of the rocket, but i don't think removing those will help much. Its at most 10% of the weight, and it doesn't solve the have-to-carry-fuel-along problem. It may save a lot, but then again the installations cost a lot, it will certainly not revolutionize the amounts we can send to space.
"My proposed array of lasers on the ground, working in parallel (there would be a _LOT_ of them, at least 10,000 separately powered and housed lasing modules, maybe 100,000 to approach the output of the space shuttle) would be far less vulnerable. If one laser fails, you shut it down and fix it. You still have the other 9,999 working and available to launch something else."
Where does the 10k-100k number come from?
To demonstrate how you're being silly as hell:
"Oh, and one finally carrot : think about the sort of defense applications 'cutting', highly accurate weapons grade pulse lasers could be used for. Remember, I'm proposing basically taking the super high output pulse laser being developed for the Joint Strike Fighter, one that currently uses a secret breakthrough in technology, and making at least 10,000 copies - after redesigning it to be very cheap to manufacture."
"'cutting', highly accurate weapons grade pulse lasers" wow, cool
"super high output pulse laser" wow, cool puuullssse
"Joint Strike Fighter" really cool
"10,000" yeahhh, that will definitely work.
There is nearly no air above 200km. Look it up. The scale on that picture is logirithmic! Please get your order of scales right before you claim you are right, the density of air goes down approximately exponentially with height.
"Has anyone mentioned that there's a point where the curves of space-time (gravity) and cetrifugal forces would cross?"
Ok, you didn't mean it wasnt, but just to be clear: classical mechanics is more then good enough to discuss this.
"(it would fly higher in a vacuum, given air-resistance on the string and cork) "
yes, as the whole fan would spin faster in vacuum because there is less friction, the height of the cork depends only on gravity, distance from middle, rotation speed.
"The fan moves a lot slower, too. What does that spell for the Earth's spinning core should we ever get such a massive project underway?"
Yes, as we redistribute some of the earth mass outward, conservation of rotation impulse states that the earth will spin slower. EVER SO SLIGHTLY, seriously, we may not even be able to measure it. And for the record i mention we can measure some whether phenomena by measuring earths rotation. (and the atmosphere weighs just about nothing compared to planet)
"Granted, there hasn't really been anything to compare with this sort of physics experiment... short of small-scale models."
Computer simulations, plain back of the envelope estimations, more beefy calculations. Primary physical forces: perfectly covered. Environmental hazards not fully covered yet, but this is hardly the first time big undertakings have been done, with many unknowns. I doubt there will be atmospheric problems, the forces on the string are so much larger then earth winds can create. Also, it is only the first couple of 100km's.. More worrying is the space debri, but guess you could calculate whether the string can dodge those. (by, for instance sending waves along the string)
And we have a test spot, a space elevator on the moon is possible, using the (unstable, but stable if attached to moon with string) Lagrange point between earth and moon. (for which we actually already have sufficient strength materials)
"We'll use nanotubes!"// "The cable will be tapered!"// "It will be made of diamond filaments!""
Its not like humanity has never changed the materials used in making stuff before. Latest development in materials show that required strengths may well be attainable.
"Space elevator lethal? HA! I'd guarantee it! You'd be lucky the Hand of God doesn't come right out of the cosmos with a pair of big, sharp scissors."
The tether is so light it will fall at a safe speed in air, and if it falls from space it will go so fast it will burn up. So it will only kill you if you're somewhere up the elevator. If it doesn't colapse you could die of poisonous materials its made of(but many products can do that already), or you could get a jolt of charge that has build up over the tether.
I am not saying the space elevator will ever be build, but quite frankly this is the same kind of criticism the Wright brothers, Columbus, and the Apollo project got. Imagined unability to predict or deal with, with things that in fact, are perfectly well predictable/solvable.
Although enough water will probably be transported up to shield humans going up, i don't think it will be the main part. My guess most going up will be building material/equipment/food, and partly processed ore down. The whole thing is build for large payloads, and a more serious way of getting into space. Getting an order of scale more equipment up is part of that. Besides, water can for large part be recycled, and air aswell.
I sense a comment coming saying space equipment is too expensive for bulk sending up. Its expensive now, because its custom made (for instance the chips in your computer cant just be sent to space, they would break much quicker due to radiation), because sending it up is expensive (has to be light), and because we don't exactly have much experience in having stuff in space.
That is, if a space lift is ever build.
Slashdot Mirror
Well said. When i was in High School (called middelbare school in the Netherlands) we often had discussions. For a while i thought they werent very usefull, people just sticked to their ideas, but now i think it was important for me to get my ideas in a row. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD." .." .."
Id like to add some exerpts, especially this insane first two:
"The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is.
I dont know about the video, but HE has a cockeyed view. Ask everyone to refer to the bible every five minutes, why dont you.
"Somebody could say you're killing free speech, and my retort to them would be we're encouraging free speech,"
But then it says that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented,". So you ARE restricting free speech, let people just say their opinion without having to repeat other peoples opinions. I doubt that they would themselves show the other side so much when telling their own opinion.
"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore
Condoms do belong in school, some of them are going to have sex you know..
"It is the teacher's responsibility to present controversial issues that are free from prejudice and encourage students to form,
The sentence is a bit distorted, issues themselves dont have prejudice, people do. I agree if it meant that the teacher should present things from multiple sides. If you want the teachers to do this properly, dont restrict them to not showing videos, make sure the teachers do it well by themselves.
"..hold and express their own opinions without personal prejudice or discrimination."
It their own opinions.. so it has both prejudice and discrimination, silly.
"Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old."
Gah, hate people who indoctrinate children reproducing like that. And also teaching!
BTW some people insinuated it would become "hell on earth" because of global warming. Sounds rather unlikely to me, climate change may make some places less habitable, but probably make other places more habitable. (For instance: there were ice-ages in which the sahara was green.)
You are right, kids can be bastards, in one of my classes i was one. But does this mean we should put more regulation on the web? People are afraid what that would lead to.. I was going to say CENSORSHIP for ONE GLASS PAIN, but that is probably not the case here. Either the students are out of control at least in some of the classes or the kid throwing the stone genuinly was mistreated. I am guessing the first one.
The problem seems to be in children, parents and teachers, not the internet. Apparently children arent raised to respect the teachers, maybe because the parents themselves are bastards, or they dont actually spend much time with their children. I believe both parents having full time jobs is an irresponsible idea. (although some parents may need the money) Another problem is kids hanging around all day with other kids, making their own morals.
As i said i know no solutions.
"I use XFCE for my XUBUNTu desktop but I have not found a way to "tile windows" and "cascade windows" or anything equivalent, I found the ION [cs.tut.fi] window manager which pretty much an overkill solution for what I want to do (just automatically tile more than one file browser and terminal window...)."
... ...
I have installed the xcfe desktop on ubuntu, and like it. Alt+F1 and such can change things in the windows. Alt F4 was close and Alt F5 fullscreen i think. I also saw one that halved my windows. (maybe tile/cascade windows is one of the alt+something's) I wish that there was a shortcut for changing windows though, like Alt cursor-buttons.
"Name 1 (ONE) programming language or software that you can run on Linux that can NOT be run on Windows XP.
hello?
Thank you."
Well, isnt that one of the reasons NOT to use microsoft/nonfree products. GPL-ed product makers are nicer, they PORT it/allow other people to port it so everyone can use it, rather then try lock people in. (which, like point 2 shows, is a reason for MikeRT abandoning ubuntu)
Same with the codecs, they would work fine if the specifications were available. (and reasonable)
http://www.bookofparagon.com/Mathematics/SPIE.2002 .Exact.pdf (PDF warning) article seems to directly talk about nullity. (havent read it though) I am quite open to the idea that there is some way of defining something that can deal with x/0 properly. (though i think it will be slightly more complicated (and entirely different) as the complex numbers)
Cows and grass do that, the cows grow from the grass, so its nearly free, however it isnt very efficient, and how do you get the methane? You do get milk and meat though.
(you'll need to read the articles to follow this)
:p (Ok, do not take this too seriously)
Not that i nessesarally agree, but it gives me something to think about.(and i will) I think the writer has a very good point about seperation between power and wealth, which would be nessesary to make sure the wealthly are proportionally productive.
It does partially miss that not all wealth is gained fairly, some people are rich because their parents are rich, and some are get so by scamming people. Also if people really produce less, would it not be right for the rich to make sure they get enough to decently live from? (without having to work ridiculously hard) I think you can still take a lot of money from the rich without preventing them from being productive. You also simply need to have money to give people equal chances in life, for things like education.(and i mean education as far as a persons has capability of) Currently it seems clear to me that people dont get the same chances.
Also there are other incentives to get productive, people that like their work and have other people to motivate them will do those bits that they dont like about their work without extra financial incentive. Another thing is that is some professions like research where wealth can be produced, there is no way of getting richer of it, thats partly why we have universities, probably the writer thinks this aswel.
It may be out of the scope of the article, i should note that it does not say anything about how seperation of power and wealth must be implemented. Another thing i still need to think about is the individualisticness this way of thinking has.
PS Society for Christian Doctrine, Kevin? ewwwww two dirty words, (sorry about that, cant help it), and BTW their site says IE only sdcmusion even more ewwwww, and ye with no broadband shall go to hell
I may be redundant here, but the EFF article looks great. It is long though, but I just want to post this to encourage you reading it all. It may prevent a couple of misconceptions. (it did for me)
That makes no sense. That you can't disprove something doesnt mean that it isnt there, doesnt mean it is there either... And if you prove anything about those statesments above it doesnt need to say anything about the other statements.
Also there is reason (not) to believe in blue dragons, existence of life on mars. There is no reason to believe in god, i think. (havent heard anything satisfactory)
"God exists, and logic can't prove God doesn't exist. There is nothing logical about what you believe and there is nothing logical about what I believe."
You're right it makes no sense to believe in a god, there arent any reasons to do so. It also makes no sense believing in blue dragon though, no-one has ever seen one, no reptiles known to fly well. Just like there is no reason to believe in the flying spaggetti monster. (other then annoy religious folks)
Oops i forgot to also say there are physical entities of which you can disprove their existence. But it is easy to make up entities of which you cant. just say its invisible, like the flying spaggetti monster.
"But you cannot DISPROVE the inexistence of a real entity."
You mean a entity inside the universe outside the math, i agree. But you threw the word axiom in there and prove and disprove, which made me think of math. In math your statement is blatently false, which made me write that reply. (my example was by the way very arbrary, just picked something easy)
Maybe next time make sure people know its about actual physical entities.
I didn't deny that behavior is emergent from physics in the brain. I don't even deny that people saying the have feelings are emergent from that. But why do you feel it? Why doesnt it just do what it does, why am i in it. The answer I am my brain doesn't cut it, because the brain is just a physical object that just does what physics expects from it, it doesn't feel anything. Sure, it makes brains that make my fingers tap the keyboard saying the very words: 'Why do I feel', but the brain itself doesn't actually feel.
:p.
"It is not a coherent idea that 'you' are 'in' your brain; that is just Cartesian mind-body dualism,"
When i typed "in" by brain i didnt mean it in a spatial/geometric/physical sense, i just meant that same why do i feel it thing.
"You can go on to ask some kind of metaphysical question like, 'How can it be that matter (like the brain) feels?"
Guess I am asking that question, I was aware of that is what human nervous systems do(see above), but dont think that is a answer the the question.
It isnt the same as asking what happened before the universe began, because i do exist, although i can only prove my brains exist. I dont think a lot about this because there seems no way to get a answer, or something like it. I think you are right that a soul-body dualism wont solve it either, not sure of it though, pretty sure that you cant view physics as a seperate "soul aspect and universe aspect. Maybe there simply isnt a solution.
PS a funny statement a dutch cabaretier (stand up comedian) said about religion, translated: 'A solution is a suspension in which the problem floats coliodally'
(I think it was in dutch: "Een oplossing is een suspensie waarin het probleem coillidaal in drijft", damn, cant find his name, shouldve remembered, someone who knows please comment it)
This is the kind of solution religion provides for these kinds of problems
"You CANNOT disprove an axiom of existence. You can only disprove an axiom of INEXISTANCE"
Uhm x^2=-1 so x=i or x=-i so there isnt a REAL number x that satisfies x^2=-1 so i have DISPROVEN that there exists a real number such that x^2=-1. Plenty of things you can prove existence of.
Please don't digg stuff up from math that simply arent true. By the way, axioms aren't used as lemmas or theorems. They are assumptions, and they cannot be disproven at all, it can only be shown that they are in conflict with other axioms. (assumptions) It is also true that at some point some statements cannot be disproven or proven without additional axioms.
By the way, in writing this article i used a couple of axioms, so with other axioms your statement maybe true. Dont think those apply to our universe though.
"Even the soft religious beliefs like "there must be something different about humans" are being challenged. We are just animals, no soul."
So, if your behavior is just an effect of the physics in your brain, why are you IN IT? Why do you experience it? (at least i assume you are in it)
I myself find this question intrigueing, don't see how physics could answer it. Quantum randomness=soul idea has sprung up in my head, but see if computers(with neglible random effects) can do intelligence convincing of a soul. Lets not be overcertain of ourselves talking about it either.
Not that these people dont say absurd things like dinosaurs lived with man, humans arent animals, earth is the center of the universe, the stars and planets are fixed to a sphere round the earth, any alien actually looks exactly like humans, there is good and evil with some absolute measure.(the latter: your morals are measure enough!) Some less religous one: other species then man never destroy their environment.(right, and Australia isn't big enough for 2 bunnies) Its just there are philosophical questions out there.
(humans arent animals statement is partly political, because of fear people losing human rights)
Wow you mean that in the Egyptians ~3k yr history you found a big flood? AMAZING.
Lets start here, it is unbelievable that this comment was not one the first posts in here! This isnt the first time the obvious is missed before a story get burried in comments.
Like, what else is new? shooting my foot may hurt my foot? Throwing my television from the 4th floor will break it? Punching a police officer may get me in trouble?
On the other hand, this isnt actually the statement the article makes. The article says it actually helps drive evolution for a large part, rather then just be another influence. Hmmm, nothing new there either, is there, why do we have peacocks anyway?
What are they really trying to do?
They entangle two photons and measure the ones after the other? Won't the first measurement set the wavefunction to one of the eigenstates, and determine the other photon's state just as in "ordenary" entanglement. But wait, with relativity, the time-order of the two measurement effects is in some frames of (speed)reference the other way around, my guess the experiment has something to do with it.
Guess the article says too little, and the slashdot know to little for a proper discussion. My point is that there is more to it then meets the eye.
Hmm, 20tonnes, 200km/h=50m/s (approx) so m*g*v=20*10^3*10*m/s^2*50*m/s=10 10^6 Watt. WOW they already got about 10 megawats, guess power must be the problem. Maybe combined with wear of the tether.
BTW what do you mean with geometry, exactly? Doesn't sound like a good description of the problem i found.
"If you're going to propose theories, try not to stomp-out those presented by others"
/(6.3*10^24))=1+12*43*10^-12=1+4*10^-12
Ahum, big thing in science is stomping out theories that arent correct.
"So how far-fetched is this idea; that a centrifugal mass-displacement on the order of hundreds of metric tons, (remember to include the weight of the tether itself) spinning at a distance further than six times the Earth's own diameter and providing a centripetal force that could literally lift small towns out of the ground, is in any way insignificant?"
I should've shown the math the first time.. Guess I owe it to you. Very well, let me show what i mean with getting your scales(orders of size) right. I*w=L=constant impulse moment, with w rotation speed in radians/time. The I before the elevation is I_pre=M*R^2/12 and after I_aft=(M-m)*R^2/12+m*r^2 with R radius of earth, r radial distance of end-station of elevator.(about geostationairy orbit) M is mass of earth, m is mass of station. (ignoring the thether, but that will increase the effect of slowing the earth) Let calculate the factor the earth will slow down, using L=I_pre*w_pre=I_aft*w_aft, so that is:
w_aft/w_pre=I_aft/I_pre=((M-m)*R^2/12+m*r^2)/(M*R^ 2/12)
Now the mass of the station is, uhm lets say m=10^12kg=100 MegaTonnes (grossly overestimated), and M=6.3*10^24. Now, R=6.3*10^6m and r=4.2*10^7m. Bleh now the annoying part of filling em in. M-m=6.3*10^24-10^12kg=6.3*10^24, doh. so
aft/w_pre=((M-m)*R^2/12+m*r^2)/(M*R^2/12)=12*((M-m )/12+m*(r/R)^2)/M=(6.3*10^24 +12*10^12*(4.2*10^7m/6.3*10^6m)^2 )/6.3*10^24=
(1 +12*10^12*(6.6)^2
You think we will have trouble with losing 4*10^-12 of the day? We would have to add a day every 1 bilion years or so. You could put ALL machinery made by man on the end of the elevator, and still not have any real effect. Oh ye, if you enter your value 100*10^3kg it becomes more like 1+10^-15.
I also re-say my comment that traditional rockets also have (equally neglible) effects on earths rotation.
The point is that you underestimate earth size, a person is to a fly what the earth is to the entire humanity+all their equipment+biomass. (nah, the earth is bigger than that)
"Cheeky! I would actually give you the same advice, along with your orders of magnitude. (carry the "1 x 10^23", please) Stop abusing the grey matter, it will bite you in the tuckus!"
Don't have that 10^23, have a 10^24kg, 10^12kg, 10^6 and 10^7 though.
""solid earth", eh? Stop skipping your Geology! The "solid" part (crust) is less than 1% of the Earth's mass! Even if you speak of the solid planetary core (still theoretical), which has nothing to do with the atmosphere whatsoever, then you're still neglecting the egg-shell nature of the crust or what an asymmetrical force might do to the inner balance."
Glass is also fluid, it is all in what approximation you should use in different cases. You wouldn't say earth is a fluid standing on it, but also the surface is fluid, in a sense. (although less viscous then the mantel) Indeed, this is again orders of (time/force)scale. Anyway, the end of the elevator doesn't have to attach to the earth itself, as long as it can lie (or float) on top of it.
"providing a centripetal force that could literally lift small towns out of the ground"
Well ye, it could lift small towns if the tether was strong enough, but the point is that you balance the thing well, or it will either snap the string and fly away, or crash into the earth. (the end station could end up in eliptical orbit) The balance slightly pulls on the ground station, this is nessesary for stability, and because the cargo pulls the space station down. (the way a vertical string pulls on both ends if you grab the middle and pull it horizontally, because of impulse moment of the cariages)
"On top of that, what effect will the stresses on the Earth's crust have on the molten core? Will the Earth's own magnetic fields grow or shrink? Will the pol
I thought you thought air resistence was a problem. I am pretty sure that a rocket for those 100km's could still be quite a problem, they only have 20 tonnes, and that includes all the crew supporting systems.
I agree it is quite a massive undertaking compared to what the Wright brothers and Columbus did compared to the Apollo project i dont know.
..."
Note that I am not saying it is the best way of getting space exploration underway, just that it is probably a realistic one. Ofcourse, if something much better comes along it may be rendered obsolete. In that case, at least we would have spin off of the research needed to make the thing.
"... , but the ump-teen factors of entropy and random disaster loom so closely that it appears doomed from the start.
What? Huh? Don't use thermal physics without caution. It can make powerfull statements, which are then easily misinterpreted. Happily it stays in this sentence.
"Think of it! Would our very forms of measuring time and the calendar year have to change because of this project? We can already confirm the length of a year to 1/1000 sec., yet a "very small change" would be a negligible difference?! Please!"
The idea that the amount earth rotation slows down is enough to really affect us is totally bonkers.. At has been a long time since we actually measured time with the rotation of the earth. (atomic clocks, pulsars) The length of a day will change totally neglibly.(allthough we may be able to measure it) Probably less then wether effects dynamicly changing solid earths rotation.(Wind, going along with rotation=>solid earth rotates slower, and vice versa) And even if it was noticable, we can always squieze another day in a year somewhere. Get your orders of scale right.
Also, the way any spacecraft leaves earth will affect the earths impuls(moment), so if all the spacecraft left the earth along the rotation of the earth (which is easier), their thrust would push the earth to rotate more slowly, you think that will be a significant effect?
"Calculating the Lagrangian point for Earth/Moon orbits means that it's relatively closer to the Moon than the Earth by a fuzzy factor of six. (still around 280,000km away from Earth) It may be possible, but how is it practical?"
Didnt say it was practical, but a good test project for the real thing, its a lot cheaper. I think plain rockets or linear accelerators are better on the moon, practically.
"I find it interesting that you chose to (try and) pick-apart my contentions about this fanciful science-fiction, and yet completely ignored my mention of actual technologies in the midst of grassroots and only-slightly-sanctioned research."
You're right about this one, I probably should have mentioned. Honistly, I didnt notice, but if i did i wouldnt want to expand the discussion to ideas that are somewhere between might work, works but is ignored somehow, and totally useless. Maybe i should look in to them more.
Btw the vortex thruster (if it actually is better)may replace yet engines, but propelors wont be replaced, because of the same reason yet engines havent fully replaces them. That is, propelors can move more air at lower speeds, which is more efficient. (at higher speeds they simply dont work anymore, and give to much resistence)
I havent looked through all your grassroots propulsion technologies, but I probably electromagnetic propulsion using Burkhard Heim's theory of gravity/electromagnetism is be one of them. I am hoping to learn that theory once, I heard that it isnt properly disproven by experiment yet, so it may be true. (I am physics student, one of my classes right now is General Relativity) I am very sceptical about people claiming that they have actual flying things based on the principle, because it may be a totally other effect. And if it worked, scientist would be happy to devise proper experiments.(and get famous)
PS weird, can find his theory on the wiki article.
I don't get the question. They've just become used to Windows games/apps, because they used Windows before, and had those apps. Is it so strange?
"That's the whole point. IF the elevator cable EVER fails : and don't kid yourself, ONE missile strike...not even a nuclear missile, something like a long range cruise missile with a payload of shaped HE, and the entire investment is lost."
You are right about that one, it is however cheap to build a second one using the first one. But regardless you are right about that one.
For the rest, you are being plain silly. From your earlier post:
"Instead of building just a few lasers to beam the energy, lets make a whole bunch of them and use the latest electrically powered pulse laser technology being developed for the joint strike fighter. Our spacecraft is just a payload module with stabiliers BOLTED to a block of inert material. A very short and simple linear accelerator kicks the spacecraft about half a mile into the air, high enough for all the lasers spread across the industrial plant infrastructure to 'see' it."
Electrically powered pulse laser technology being developed for the joint strike fighter, you're being overly specific, lets just talk about lasers powerfull enough to ignite the fuel.
"basically a rocket engine without needing : A nozzle pumps, combustion chambers, volatile fuel, electrical systems, elaborate control systems and sensors, just enormouse amounts of hardware gets taken out of the spacecraft and left sitting on the ground."
But can it really be achieved with lasers? Can the thrust be directed properly? Even if it can be done, there are large amounts of hardware involved with the working end of the rocket, but i don't think removing those will help much. Its at most 10% of the weight, and it doesn't solve the have-to-carry-fuel-along problem. It may save a lot, but then again the installations cost a lot, it will certainly not revolutionize the amounts we can send to space.
"My proposed array of lasers on the ground, working in parallel (there would be a _LOT_ of them, at least 10,000 separately powered and housed lasing modules, maybe 100,000 to approach the output of the space shuttle) would be far less vulnerable. If one laser fails, you shut it down and fix it. You still have the other 9,999 working and available to launch something else."
Where does the 10k-100k number come from?
To demonstrate how you're being silly as hell:
"Oh, and one finally carrot : think about the sort of defense applications 'cutting', highly accurate weapons grade pulse lasers could be used for. Remember, I'm proposing basically taking the super high output pulse laser being developed for the Joint Strike Fighter, one that currently uses a secret breakthrough in technology, and making at least 10,000 copies - after redesigning it to be very cheap to manufacture."
"'cutting', highly accurate weapons grade pulse lasers" wow, cool
"super high output pulse laser" wow, cool puuullssse
"Joint Strike Fighter" really cool
"10,000" yeahhh, that will definitely work.
No air resistence.
There is nearly no air above 200km. Look it up. The scale on that picture is logirithmic! Please get your order of scales right before you claim you are right, the density of air goes down approximately exponentially with height.
"Has anyone mentioned that there's a point where the curves of space-time (gravity) and cetrifugal forces would cross?"
// "The cable will be tapered!" // "It will be made of diamond filaments!""
Ok, you didn't mean it wasnt, but just to be clear: classical mechanics is more then good enough to discuss this.
"(it would fly higher in a vacuum, given air-resistance on the string and cork) "
yes, as the whole fan would spin faster in vacuum because there is less friction, the height of the cork depends only on gravity, distance from middle, rotation speed.
"The fan moves a lot slower, too. What does that spell for the Earth's spinning core should we ever get such a massive project underway?"
Yes, as we redistribute some of the earth mass outward, conservation of rotation impulse states that the earth will spin slower. EVER SO SLIGHTLY, seriously, we may not even be able to measure it. And for the record i mention we can measure some whether phenomena by measuring earths rotation. (and the atmosphere weighs just about nothing compared to planet)
"Granted, there hasn't really been anything to compare with this sort of physics experiment... short of small-scale models."
Computer simulations, plain back of the envelope estimations, more beefy calculations. Primary physical forces: perfectly covered. Environmental hazards not fully covered yet, but this is hardly the first time big undertakings have been done, with many unknowns. I doubt there will be atmospheric problems, the forces on the string are so much larger then earth winds can create. Also, it is only the first couple of 100km's.. More worrying is the space debri, but guess you could calculate whether the string can dodge those. (by, for instance sending waves along the string)
And we have a test spot, a space elevator on the moon is possible, using the (unstable, but stable if attached to moon with string) Lagrange point between earth and moon. (for which we actually already have sufficient strength materials)
"We'll use nanotubes!"
Its not like humanity has never changed the materials used in making stuff before. Latest development in materials show that required strengths may well be attainable.
"Space elevator lethal? HA! I'd guarantee it! You'd be lucky the Hand of God doesn't come right out of the cosmos with a pair of big, sharp scissors."
The tether is so light it will fall at a safe speed in air, and if it falls from space it will go so fast it will burn up. So it will only kill you if you're somewhere up the elevator. If it doesn't colapse you could die of poisonous materials its made of(but many products can do that already), or you could get a jolt of charge that has build up over the tether.
I am not saying the space elevator will ever be build, but quite frankly this is the same kind of criticism the Wright brothers, Columbus, and the Apollo project got. Imagined unability to predict or deal with, with things that in fact, are perfectly well predictable/solvable.
Although enough water will probably be transported up to shield humans going up, i don't think it will be the main part. My guess most going up will be building material/equipment/food, and partly processed ore down. The whole thing is build for large payloads, and a more serious way of getting into space. Getting an order of scale more equipment up is part of that. Besides, water can for large part be recycled, and air aswell.
I sense a comment coming saying space equipment is too expensive for bulk sending up. Its expensive now, because its custom made (for instance the chips in your computer cant just be sent to space, they would break much quicker due to radiation), because sending it up is expensive (has to be light), and because we don't exactly have much experience in having stuff in space.
That is, if a space lift is ever build.