for building an orbiting space station without any real scientific purpose, but I built it anyway. And then its orbit decayed and it burned up upon reentry, so I built another one . . ./message for you sir
Ballmervision reminds me of:
"The Battle for the minds of North America will take place in the Video Arena: the videodrome."
But I'll just assume I don't need to get a mental image of Ballmer pulling a gun out of his, ahem, stomach. Argh, too late, too late./obscure?
So I have been on both sides of the academic world. I double majored in physics and english as an undergraduate, did an MFA in poetry and I am currently a PhD candidate in engineering. Let me contribute a bit because this is a subject that is dear to my conflicted heart.
I think there is an attitude that everything that we learn has to be digestible and fun, and that is simply not the case when it comes to being a top-notch engineer or scientist. Yes, the ideas are fun and beautiful, the hard work required to finish problem sets and get complicated lab machinery to function properly is not. I find myself staring at the wall of my windowless lab far too often at 4 AM cursing my Atomic Force Microscope and I take a deep breath and reflect on what I am doing and why I am interested in the subject. I got into science and engineering because I believe, when applied ethically, it makes a tremendous number of people's lives better in a very real way.
On the other hand, there is something a bit unacademic that occurs in S&E classes: it requires so much work to become a good scientist or engineer, that it is the rare professor who is able to effectively train students and also to nurture the idealist, the logical dreamer, and *yes* the kernel of poetry that resides in their bright and overworked students. I think in today's world you are probably not going to get that from your professors - if you are in this world, you have to find that yourself. Being a really good humanities student is easier only in the sense that, for the most part, the intellectual excitement is not damped to nearly the same extent by the terrible grind of problem sets and malfunctioning lab equipment, though to be sure there are unique problems there too.
I know this post rambled a bit, but I've got pages and pages of partial differential equations to solve by tomorrow, and a stack of papers to read, and far away through the concrete walls are the images of poems I have written and the poems that I still want to write.
Yes, well, the problem is whatever they cross link them with typically does not have the super-awesome tensile strength of a nanotube and consequently the tensile strength just becomes that of the crosslinker...
The reason why nanotube composites don't end up being nearly as strong as nanotubes is that nanotubes are very slippery inside of a composite, so once force is applied, it doesn't transfer through the interface and the ultimate tensile strength is primarily determined by the composite.
In this case, when they are weaving fibers together, the weakness in tensile strength will come from the interface between linked nanotubes which will have a tensile strength many orders of magnitude than that of an individual tube.
I believe it was Carl Sagan who said "We are all made of nougat." Right before he slipped into that trance where he proclaimed in a chorus of voices:
First there will be the great descent, where the metal spiral that binds you in place unfurls and you are pushed out into the dark.
Next there will be the moment of rest in an empty bin
Then the great hand will come forth and bang open the way that was closed and grasp the galaxy in its meaty, sweaty palm.
We shall all meet our end inside the mouth of the destroyer.
I'm not suggesting that this is the most pressing problem - just that it is the most immediate problem. CNTs go from being very conductive (nearly superconductive) to semi-conductor based on a few tenths of a nanometer difference in diameter. This is the model for current generation CNT transistors
They are being used to connect source and drains - if you don't have good control over whether it is a superconductor or a semi-conductor you have big problems.
I agree that the more futuristic stuff will involve much more precision fabrication - but anyone who claims to know what stuff will look like in 20 years, or even what the major issues will be in 20 years is very likely full of it.
In the near-term, we have to be able to sort CNTs by chirality and diameter much more accurately and cheaply than we can now - this is because the properties of CNTs change dramatically based on very slight variations in these properties.
Once we can do that reasonably well, there are a few approaches that look promising. For/. people who have access to scientific journals and want more in depth information on this subect - you can take a look at these articles:
P. G. Collins, et al., Science, 292, 706 (2001)
P. G. Collins, M. C. Hersam, M. Arnold, R. Martel, and Ph. Avouris, Phys. Rev. Lett., 86, 3128 (2001).
J. A. Misewich, et al., Science, 300, 783 (2003)
While this is all well and good, I'm waiting to add power to my bladder so that I will be able to achieve a captain planet (water)-like pressure with which to vanquish Duke Nukem.
If there were weapons systems that had to be placed in space in order to protect space assets than I suppose there might be a good argument for space weapons. However, that is simply not the case. I cannot think of a single potential threat to military or civilian satellites that cannot be countered from the ground more effectively for orders of magnitude less money. Really, the only argument for putting weapons into space is that it seems cool and would be intimidating - I'm tired of our military spending money this way. More accurately, there are a group of people in the present administration who believe that it is important to 'unfetter' the U.S.'s hands from any treaties or taboos in the event that somewhere down the line there will be something useful with this stuff we need to do. This is not wise.
The taboo is actually valuable to us, because having explosions go off in space ends up creating debris fields which threaten present assets in space (which could be disastrous in Geosynchronous orbit) - and the U.S. is the country with the most military and civilian assets in space.
In short - it costs more to use space weapons, it is less effective, and it removes a taboo which is primarily protecting U.S. space assets. Until those factors change, seems pretty dumb to me.
Packet sniffers
on
When Pigs Wifi
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm all for this happening - and it has to happen if the U.S. wants to stay competitive with the rest of the world. However, I foresee a large upswing in the popularity of packet sniffers and more opportunities for fraud. Cities that want to set these networks up are going to have to do some serious thinking about security.
Slashdot Mirror
The main problem - which is still not being addressed - is that the decepticons will just steal them for energon cubes.
It is more like they are in the parasite business!
*shakes fist at paper-clip man*
I can't wait until my future surgical overlords can slice me open using their Play Station Portable.
for building an orbiting space station without any real scientific purpose, but I built it anyway. And then its orbit decayed and it burned up upon reentry, so I built another one . . . /message for you sir
Ballmervision reminds me of: "The Battle for the minds of North America will take place in the Video Arena: the videodrome." But I'll just assume I don't need to get a mental image of Ballmer pulling a gun out of his, ahem, stomach. Argh, too late, too late. /obscure?
So I have been on both sides of the academic world. I double majored in physics and english as an undergraduate, did an MFA in poetry and I am currently a PhD candidate in engineering. Let me contribute a bit because this is a subject that is dear to my conflicted heart.
I think there is an attitude that everything that we learn has to be digestible and fun, and that is simply not the case when it comes to being a top-notch engineer or scientist. Yes, the ideas are fun and beautiful, the hard work required to finish problem sets and get complicated lab machinery to function properly is not. I find myself staring at the wall of my windowless lab far too often at 4 AM cursing my Atomic Force Microscope and I take a deep breath and reflect on what I am doing and why I am interested in the subject. I got into science and engineering because I believe, when applied ethically, it makes a tremendous number of people's lives better in a very real way.
On the other hand, there is something a bit unacademic that occurs in S&E classes: it requires so much work to become a good scientist or engineer, that it is the rare professor who is able to effectively train students and also to nurture the idealist, the logical dreamer, and *yes* the kernel of poetry that resides in their bright and overworked students. I think in today's world you are probably not going to get that from your professors - if you are in this world, you have to find that yourself. Being a really good humanities student is easier only in the sense that, for the most part, the intellectual excitement is not damped to nearly the same extent by the terrible grind of problem sets and malfunctioning lab equipment, though to be sure there are unique problems there too. I know this post rambled a bit, but I've got pages and pages of partial differential equations to solve by tomorrow, and a stack of papers to read, and far away through the concrete walls are the images of poems I have written and the poems that I still want to write.
88 mph my iPod nano goes back in time two generations and the battery life sucks! How can I generate enough jiggawatts to get back to the future?
These Apple nanos are going to replicate out of control and turn us all into grey goo! Or kinda whitish goo, I guess.
When you can download the audio off bittorrent?
And if you are a conspiracy theorist, you'll get a free pair of 3-D glasses and get punched out by Buzz Aldrin!
That would be so all the hot night-elf babes I meet would see my 1337 humor status and invite me to go skinny-dipping in their mana pool, right?
... so alone.
Yes, well, the problem is whatever they cross link them with typically does not have the super-awesome tensile strength of a nanotube and consequently the tensile strength just becomes that of the crosslinker...
...is doing its part to promote abstinence.
The reason why nanotube composites don't end up being nearly as strong as nanotubes is that nanotubes are very slippery inside of a composite, so once force is applied, it doesn't transfer through the interface and the ultimate tensile strength is primarily determined by the composite.
In this case, when they are weaving fibers together, the weakness in tensile strength will come from the interface between linked nanotubes which will have a tensile strength many orders of magnitude than that of an individual tube.
I can only presume that Page & Brin have finally decided to launch their finest product: The Google Money Bin.
I believe it was Carl Sagan who said "We are all made of nougat." Right before he slipped into that trance where he proclaimed in a chorus of voices:
First there will be the great descent, where the metal spiral that binds you in place unfurls and you are pushed out into the dark.
Next there will be the moment of rest in an empty bin
Then the great hand will come forth and bang open the way that was closed and grasp the galaxy in its meaty, sweaty palm.
We shall all meet our end inside the mouth of the destroyer.
I always knew that the milky way was a bar, and that it is filled with nougat.
I'm not suggesting that this is the most pressing problem - just that it is the most immediate problem. CNTs go from being very conductive (nearly superconductive) to semi-conductor based on a few tenths of a nanometer difference in diameter. This is the model for current generation CNT transistors They are being used to connect source and drains - if you don't have good control over whether it is a superconductor or a semi-conductor you have big problems. I agree that the more futuristic stuff will involve much more precision fabrication - but anyone who claims to know what stuff will look like in 20 years, or even what the major issues will be in 20 years is very likely full of it.
In the near-term, we have to be able to sort CNTs by chirality and diameter much more accurately and cheaply than we can now - this is because the properties of CNTs change dramatically based on very slight variations in these properties.
/. people who have access to scientific journals and want more in depth information on this subect - you can take a look at these articles:
Once we can do that reasonably well, there are a few approaches that look promising. For
P. G. Collins, et al., Science, 292, 706 (2001)
P. G. Collins, M. C. Hersam, M. Arnold, R. Martel, and Ph. Avouris, Phys. Rev. Lett., 86, 3128 (2001).
J. A. Misewich, et al., Science, 300, 783 (2003)
While this is all well and good, I'm waiting to add power to my bladder so that I will be able to achieve a captain planet (water)-like pressure with which to vanquish Duke Nukem.
Why is the NCSA cowering from the Google vs. Infoseek comparison?
(yes, yes, I know it uses the Inktomi engine too - would you have preferred a prodigy reference?)
Why is the NCSA cowering from comparing Google and Yahoo to infoseek? The wool has been pulled over your eyes people!
If there were weapons systems that had to be placed in space in order to protect space assets than I suppose there might be a good argument for space weapons. However, that is simply not the case. I cannot think of a single potential threat to military or civilian satellites that cannot be countered from the ground more effectively for orders of magnitude less money. Really, the only argument for putting weapons into space is that it seems cool and would be intimidating - I'm tired of our military spending money this way. More accurately, there are a group of people in the present administration who believe that it is important to 'unfetter' the U.S.'s hands from any treaties or taboos in the event that somewhere down the line there will be something useful with this stuff we need to do. This is not wise. The taboo is actually valuable to us, because having explosions go off in space ends up creating debris fields which threaten present assets in space (which could be disastrous in Geosynchronous orbit) - and the U.S. is the country with the most military and civilian assets in space. In short - it costs more to use space weapons, it is less effective, and it removes a taboo which is primarily protecting U.S. space assets. Until those factors change, seems pretty dumb to me.
I'm all for this happening - and it has to happen if the U.S. wants to stay competitive with the rest of the world. However, I foresee a large upswing in the popularity of packet sniffers and more opportunities for fraud. Cities that want to set these networks up are going to have to do some serious thinking about security.