Thankyou for explaining that better than I have been:) Something things just make you go 'cool', but it's hard to explain people who just accept everything at face value, or try to explain everything away tritely..
Yeah I've heard of phi before. I didn't know that stuff though. I thought you were just trying to point out how it wasn't a nice neat number, but now I see it. That's pretty cool too:)
So you're trying to say that Joules were defined just for E=MC^2? From Wikipedia:
A joule is the mechanical equivalent of heat meaning the number of units of work in which the unit of heat can perform. Its value was found by James Prescott Joule in experiments that showed the mechanical energy Joule's equivalent, and represented by the symbol J. The term was first introduced by Dr. Mayer of Heilbronn. So did they define the units of weight and heat just for E=MC^2? You can change units to make some formulae more simple, but then you're just moving complexity to the units. And that's not what was even done for E=MC^2. The formula uses standard pre-defined measurements for the speed of light in a vacuum, and standard scientific measurements for energy and mass.. the fact that the energy is exactly the mass times the velocity squared is very neat, and not just made for convenience' sake. One of us is maybe thinking in circles, but from what I can see, all these units were defined before E=MC^2 (although presumably Einstein defined C around the same time, but he does it in SI units)
Wow, you're certainly full of yourself, and overly patronising. I know that a lot of physics is just 'obvious' stuff put into formulae, same as a lot of stuff in psychology is just obvious observable human behaviour then written down and explained away. You have missed the point entirely though. The point is that units for energy and speed were already defined, and C^2 happened to give the right value for E=MC^2. And things like inverse square laws map physical phenomenon perfectly. I understand that you could make obscure units for anything such that you could say E=1*cheese , but the fact is that the universe *does* work with things like squares. I just find that very interesting.
I wasn't saying that it's a proof of God per se, but it is still very cool and IMO thought provoking. Perhaps you don't like to 'think' though, and prefer to dismiss out of hand anything you didn't pick up in a textbook.
No it's not. There's 1/2mv^2 for pressure or whatever, inverse square laws for the strength of light/magnetic fields/any radiation.. and probably a lot of others that I don't know about.
I meant even if the code was not written with the purpose of - or at least was never used for - performing nefarious deeds without authorisation from the user of the computer. Like the RIAA would probably prefer to just get rid of all P2P traffic to make sure that none of their material was being distributed in this way, whether legally or not.
I didn't say I thought they should do that:P Though personally I only use their search services and nothing else.. well, I use youtube sometimes but I don't really think that counts!
Mark my prophecy: Someday some company is going to produce a desktop Linux so good that it's going to catch on and become if not a major competitor in the OS market, then at least the major distro of Linux. And they will suffer the same fate, becoming the punching bag of the Linux community, while lesser distros have no fewer problems and gather fewer complaints. And of those complaining, many will have obtained the free version of the distro. They will be out nothing, but will feel somehow justified because of the stature of their target, and will do so with gusto despite the fact that equally good distros are available to which they could switch. This irrationality will escape them, as it does the author of TFA. Too late, I think UbuntuDupe already fulfilled your prophecy!!
I thought viruses would already do stuff like that, hence why there are 'heuristic' options in some AV programs? Don't tell me that the AV vendors are that dumb? Eek, you're telling me, aren't you?:O
You're possibly giving AV vendors a little too much faith - especially since they want to sell subscriptions rather than one-offs. Any AV that could stop all possible viruses, ever, would destroy the whole market. Sad, but true..
The thing is though, that you don't really need to be very smart to be safe - just better informed. And better defaults on stuff like Windows so that you can see file extensions. Perhaps a few questions that you get asked when you create a new user account, and if you get it wrong you have to go through a tutorial and then take another test? A little education would go a long way here. Even one of my bosses seems to be getting better at avoiding malware.
You're never going to have that 'trust' where the internet is concerned (unless you only ever let traffic through from people you know you can trust - and then, how do you *know* you can trust them?:p ). Sure it would be nice if we didn't need anti-cheat measures in games, but there will always be someone pathetic enough to want to try to feel good about themselves by demolishing others, even though they haven't actually developed the skills to do so.. I don't understand it myself, but it's a clearly observable thing..
As if anyone posting on slashdot would use the phrase 'tap' in an unsarcastic manner. You mean we have to use 'faucet' if we're going to be taken seriously?
Pretty much agree:) I bought S&M, not sure if it was before I heard about the whole Napster thing, which just made me think they were a bunch of imbeciles. They are the last band I expected to release their album online, and it's nice to be proven wrong in this case. Even if they were acting like douches before, IMO everyone deserves to be forgiven if they have truly changed (I know I have done a lot of things that I'm not proud of in my lifetime).
He sounds about right though. If I liked a song way back when, chances are I still like it (unless it got played waaaaaay too much on the radio, which is what happened to Mad World from the Donnie Darko soundtrack.. I liked it in the movie but then they played it about a zillion times a day on the radio..). People who 'like' stuff just because everyone else does.. it's pretty shallow. I know that tastes can change over time, but not liking a song you once liked, without somehow relating it to a negative experience, is weird.
The fact that the power in E=mc^2 and other equations is something that has perplexed scientists for decades at least. It's like my electromagnetism lecturer pointed out, we go through pages of turgid mathematics only to end up with these elegantly simple equations... Thankyou. That was kind of my point - it's just something I'd noticed before, but you've put it into much better terms:)
Yes, but it's squared, and not squared plus a bit. Squared gives you the right answer, but it's a very neat and elegant answer. Also, for stuff like magnetic fields and such, you have inverse squares. Perfect inverse squares. Someone further down made a joke about intelligent design, but when faced with stuff like this, I think people are just retarded to not even consider the possibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm.. okay I see your point, I was thinking that 1/2mv^2 must be related to e=mc^2 in some way.
Thankyou for explaining that better than I have been :) Something things just make you go 'cool', but it's hard to explain people who just accept everything at face value, or try to explain everything away tritely..
Yeah I've heard of phi before. I didn't know that stuff though. I thought you were just trying to point out how it wasn't a nice neat number, but now I see it. That's pretty cool too :)
Wow, you're certainly full of yourself, and overly patronising. I know that a lot of physics is just 'obvious' stuff put into formulae, same as a lot of stuff in psychology is just obvious observable human behaviour then written down and explained away. You have missed the point entirely though. The point is that units for energy and speed were already defined, and C^2 happened to give the right value for E=MC^2. And things like inverse square laws map physical phenomenon perfectly. I understand that you could make obscure units for anything such that you could say E=1*cheese , but the fact is that the universe *does* work with things like squares. I just find that very interesting.
I wasn't saying that it's a proof of God per se, but it is still very cool and IMO thought provoking. Perhaps you don't like to 'think' though, and prefer to dismiss out of hand anything you didn't pick up in a textbook.
No it's not. There's 1/2mv^2 for pressure or whatever, inverse square laws for the strength of light/magnetic fields/any radiation.. and probably a lot of others that I don't know about.
I meant even if the code was not written with the purpose of - or at least was never used for - performing nefarious deeds without authorisation from the user of the computer. Like the RIAA would probably prefer to just get rid of all P2P traffic to make sure that none of their material was being distributed in this way, whether legally or not.
I didn't say I thought they should do that :P Though personally I only use their search services and nothing else.. well, I use youtube sometimes but I don't really think that counts!
I thought the exact same thing when I read about the future post capability.. great way to leave a suicide note :)
I think he meant that they would go back to doing *only* that, not that they didn't currently have a decent search service.
Nah - musta taken them at least 4 years to get that 'glass' effect just right!
If you're telling the truth, you'd better hope they don't find out where 'home' is! Hehe
I thought viruses would already do stuff like that, hence why there are 'heuristic' options in some AV programs? Don't tell me that the AV vendors are that dumb? Eek, you're telling me, aren't you? :O
You're possibly giving AV vendors a little too much faith - especially since they want to sell subscriptions rather than one-offs. Any AV that could stop all possible viruses, ever, would destroy the whole market. Sad, but true..
The thing is though, that you don't really need to be very smart to be safe - just better informed. And better defaults on stuff like Windows so that you can see file extensions. Perhaps a few questions that you get asked when you create a new user account, and if you get it wrong you have to go through a tutorial and then take another test? A little education would go a long way here. Even one of my bosses seems to be getting better at avoiding malware.
You're never going to have that 'trust' where the internet is concerned (unless you only ever let traffic through from people you know you can trust - and then, how do you *know* you can trust them? :p ). Sure it would be nice if we didn't need anti-cheat measures in games, but there will always be someone pathetic enough to want to try to feel good about themselves by demolishing others, even though they haven't actually developed the skills to do so.. I don't understand it myself, but it's a clearly observable thing..
I wonder how long before they start lobbying for it to be illegal to even write something that could be used as malware..
Pretty much agree :) I bought S&M, not sure if it was before I heard about the whole Napster thing, which just made me think they were a bunch of imbeciles. They are the last band I expected to release their album online, and it's nice to be proven wrong in this case. Even if they were acting like douches before, IMO everyone deserves to be forgiven if they have truly changed (I know I have done a lot of things that I'm not proud of in my lifetime).
He sounds about right though. If I liked a song way back when, chances are I still like it (unless it got played waaaaaay too much on the radio, which is what happened to Mad World from the Donnie Darko soundtrack.. I liked it in the movie but then they played it about a zillion times a day on the radio..). People who 'like' stuff just because everyone else does.. it's pretty shallow. I know that tastes can change over time, but not liking a song you once liked, without somehow relating it to a negative experience, is weird.
Yes, but c was defined before that equation was created, was it not?
Yes, but it's squared, and not squared plus a bit. Squared gives you the right answer, but it's a very neat and elegant answer. Also, for stuff like magnetic fields and such, you have inverse squares. Perfect inverse squares. Someone further down made a joke about intelligent design, but when faced with stuff like this, I think people are just retarded to not even consider the possibility.