Re:No Problem with Dartmouth Bit
on
The HP Way 2.0
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· Score: 2, Informative
I won't deny that same-sex educational environments can be advantageous and help students focus on their work - avoiding a lot of adolescent nonsense. In the case of Dartmouth co-education, however, the arguments were rarely pedagogical. The arguments, particularly from disgruntled alumni, were more along the lines of "this is our treehouse, girls have cooties."
Dartmouth Co-education
on
The HP Way 2.0
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It is true that there are some curmudgeons out there - mostly associated with Good Ol' Boy networks of the ultra-rich, entitled, privilaged, and (largely) conservative elite - who wish that Dartmouth had remained an all-male institution. As a recent alum, however, I will state emphatically that they are a tiny minority of alumni and current students.
Dartmouth has been co-ed for about 35 years now. Lots of Dartmouth students ca. 1970 griped about co-education. They were in the minority even then; vocal, but a minority. In the intervening years, particularly as their own daughters reached college age, most of those have come to realize that it wasn't the end of the world - it made the College a better place.
After spin injection, electrons in the silicon were then subjected to a magnetic field, which caused their spin direction to "precess" or gyrate (much like gravity's effect on a rotating gyroscope), producing tell-tale oscillations in their measurement.
This sounds like the process used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging. In MRI, they use a BIG magnet to create a very strong magnetic field in a person's body. The main field is usually 1-3 Tesla, depending on the scanner (for reference, Earth's magnetic field is 30-50 microtesla). Then they use smaller magnets to establish a gradient in that main field, and RF pulses to query the spin precession of atoms in the body. In the case of human imaging, I think they focus on the spin precession of a hydrogen nucleus (a proton) in water. In function MRI, they focus on hemoglobin (which contains a little ferromagnetic iron, ya see), to determine where blood is most present. See this for an exhaustive overview of how it works.
Their spintronics methods sound similar, except it's focused on a much smaller volume (a chip instead of a human body), and are tuned to the electrons in doped silicon. Very cool.
'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee.
I know what he meant: that it is more than likely than not that the primary will be non-binding. That is to say, the non-binding part has a more than 50% chance of becoming reality.
However, for the daily dose of pedantry, I first read that quotation and thought "What? Much higher than 50-50? Like 100-100? 1000-1000?" How much higher can we get? There's only 100% you can divy up here, so "much higher than 50-50" seems to defy probability.
Gosh, think of all the man-hours wasted over the years by prosecutors and beat cops, scraping together enough probable cause for a judge to authorize a wiretap, or subpoena a call record. They should have just asked the phone companies to exercise their First Amendment free speech rights!
Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to have flown on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions....
One could almost argue for Gus Grissom to be on that list, too. Second Mercury flight, first Gemini flight, and the commander of Apollo 1. Unfortunately, since Apollo 1 burned on the pad before ever leaving the ground, killing Grissom and his two crew, I guess Schirra stands alone.
Re:Makes a little bit of sense. . .
on
Treating the Dead
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· Score: 5, Informative
I'm not sure if the guidelines vary by country, but the U.S. guideline was 15 compressions for every 2 breaths (5 + 1 if two people are working). The guidelines were changed to 30 + 2 at the end of 2005. The reason for the change, as others have mentioned, is that the circulation of blood is most important. Rescue breathing takes time, is harder to do correctly than chest compressions, and takes time (consider it an operational overhead). Also, the compression of the chest causes some air movement on its own, though it is shallow.
But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we'll get him to own a Zune.
If his uncle isn't in the market for an iPod, what makes him think that he'll be in the market for a Zune, or any other portable media player? Is his uncle such a discerning consumer that he would notice the differences among the devices? Would he merely own and use a Zune to make his nephew happy? (Note that I don't say "buy" a Zune.)
I could understand members of the/. crowd being in the market for a portable media player, and strongly ruling out owning an iPod. I doubt, however, that his 85-year old Uncle is that kind of consumer. For him, there's essentially no difference between the two. If he isn't in the market for one, he probably isn't in the market for any.
It's tough to know who to root for or against in this case: Microsoft vs. AT&T? Man, that's a hard choice! It's like a choice between Goliath and Goliath.
People of Ted Stevens age might actually find the "series of tubes" analogy to be apt if they think of the Internet like a pneumatic tube system. They aren't used much anymore in most businesses, although many hospitals still use them to transport tissue and blood across campuses. Tube systems used to be indispensible in the first half of the last century. The tubes, like the phone system of the same time, had the same architecture: a system to route information from one point to another through one or several centralized switchboards. The routing was usually done by hand and not silicon, but it's the same structure. The pneumatic tube system was even packet-based... with headers!
Though, as you say, even if this analogy was the least-incorrect thing he said that day, he still made quite an ass of himself when you read the entire transcript.
There is, as the article mentions, the problem of electron-hole recombination.
Another difficulty with semiconductor photovoltaics, not addressed by this new development, is that the semiconductors make poor use of energetic photons. There are limitations, derivable from solid-state physics, that limit the maximum light-->electricity efficiency of photovoltaics. A little background:
Depending on the chemistry, the bandgap energy of the semiconductor corresponds to a photon of a certain minimum energy. A photon with less energy (longer wavelength) than the bandgap energy will not have enough umph to create an electron-hole pair, while a photon with energy >= the bandgap energy can create an electron-hole pair. In silicon-based semiconductors, the bandgap energy corresponds to a photon in the very near infrared, almost a visible red.
The electrical energy you get from the electron-hole pair comes from those charges being separated by the electrical potential at the semiconductor junction. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter if the electron-hole pair was created by a red photon, a blue photon, or ultraviolet. You'll get the same amount of electrical energy out of the solar cell from any of these photons.
However, the red, blue, and UV photons have significantly different energies due to their different wavelengths. The UV photon, though more energetic, will produce the same electrical energy output as the less energetic red photon. If you were to shine only red light on the solar cell, it would make quite efficient use of them. Unfortunately, red is only one component of the solar spectrum. The solar cell makes poor use of the higher-energy photons in the solar spectrum, and thus has a seemingly poor light-->electricity conversion efficiency.
If everything else went perfectly, the solid state physics at work limit the maximum efficiency for silicon solar cells to about 25%. Good cells mass-produced today top out at about 21%. One can create multiple junction cells to capture different segments of the spectrum at higher efficiency. Consider this chart of maximum efficiency under lab conditions.
I ask this on every eVoting story that appears on Slashdot, I never get an answer. Why on earth would you WANT to replace a bit of paper and a pencil, with a computer?
I could think of two reasons why one might want to have computerized voting (or computer-assisted paper ballot filling):
1) You are incapable, physically, of using a pencil and paper. You may be blind and unable to read the ballot. You may be paralyzed or have a neurodegenerative disease that keeps you from gripping the pencil. In both of those cases, you wouldn't be capable of filling out the ballot without substantial help from someone else. Voting should be private and accommodating for everyone, not just those who are physically able.
2) You need to have ballots in multiple languages. English may be the de facto official language of the United States (I can't speak for official languages in other countries), but it is not the official language by law. It is possible to be a U.S. citizen and yet have a poor command of the English language (the wisdom of that is an argument for another day). To prevent disenfranchising those people, it is necessary to provide ballots in other languages. How many ballots should you print out for each language minority? Don't know? Well, then, use a computerized system that can present the same ballot in Hmong or Spanish as easily as it does English.
Finally, just because the statement is too pedantic to pass up: I love replacing pencil and paper with a computer every single time I run finite element analyses, or working out a monthly budget, or writing my 300-page thesis.
It's being called Jadarite for the mine near Jadar where it was found. This is fairly common from what (little) I know of minerology. They note that, because it doesn't actually contain any krypton, it can't officially be called kryptonite.
My objection to E-Filing is that I have to pay for it. To E-File my federal and state returns, generated by software running locally on my computer, would have cost me about $30 above the cost of the software. Why? It is not the IRS that charges this fee, E-Filing saves them money and they'd be happier if everyone does it. It is the tax preparation company that generates this fee.
It was a sweetheart deal made in some back room years ago - the IRS will not accept E-Filings from private citizens except via a tax preparation company, who is able (even encouraged, I'd say) to collect a fee for shifting the bits around. This is not limited to just tax software, brick-and-mortar tax firms do this, too. While I could understand the IRS not wanting to deal with every improperly filled-out e-filing from your average Joe, I heavily object to them not accepting a return created with a qualified tax preparation software package, all so that a private company can gouge me.
When that sweetheart deal was made a few years ago, the various groups decided to throw a bone to us poor plebians: free online E-Filing. If your adjusted gross income is less than a certain amount, about $52k/housheold I think, then you are entitled to E-file your federal taxes for free using a variety of online services. TurboTax's online software is one such place. For reasons which I think are shared here on slashdot, I refuse on principle to do my taxes through some company online. This year, I fell just outside the AGI cutoff anyway, but not by much.
This year I helped a friend prepare his taxes using TurboTax. His AGI was below the limit for free e-filing. And yet, for some reason, the copy of TurboTax running on his computer never mentioned he was entitled to it. It would only e-file for an additional fee. You would think that, since he had already paid for this software, which is basically the same tax-crunching software that runs Intuit's online service, Intuit would be more willing to e-file his taxes than the taxes from someone who only visited their website and didn't pay for anything. This is not the case, however. The line I (eventually, after an hour) got from their tech support line (in Bangalore) was that anyone who actually purchased the software must have so much money that they'd never qualify for free e-filing. I look at it more along the lines of: shucks, you were such a sucker for buying this software in the first place, surely you'll be enough of a sucker to pay us even more.
I can predict at least two possible reactions from end-users.
First: jumping out of a building due to the terror and pain of sudden withdrawal. It happens to heroin addicts, it can happen here too, folks.
Second: people wandering the streets of major cities bright-eyed and staring in open wonder, as though they were waking up from a long dream. Joining hand in hand, they frolic in the parks or whatever greenspace they can find chanting "Free at Last, Free at Last..." The clouds part, and an auspicious rainbow graces the sky.
Oh, and I suppose there are other reactions: incoherent rage at no one in particular (ever chat with a cold-turkey smoking quitter?), unjustified rage at corporate IT for letting this happen, curling up in a fetal position in the corner, uncontrollable thumb twitching (almost like phantom limb pain).
Then there's another reaction: simply shrugging and going back to computer-based email and cellphones.
He seems to relish the idea that any one of those companies with patents would try to sue him for his offering -- since he's got plenty of evidence going pretty far back concerning what he's been working on....[Y]ou don't need patents if you plan on just competing in the marketplace. This guy didn't rush to the patent office, but he worked on building a product that would satisfy the needs of customers, and know that even though there are bigger players in the market who could "copy" his ideas, he thinks he can stay ahead of the pack by out-innovating them. That doesn't require patents, it just requires knowing your market and continually innovating.
Unfortunately, a small-time innovator does need patents to protect himself. It's all fine and noble (capitalistically pure, you might say) to try and compete in the marketplace solely on the strength of your products. It's great that he has actually built something rather than just patenting a vague idea without a prototype. But, frankly, one frivolous patent lawsuit made against him by a larger player, even a groundless one, and he'll be dead broke, shut out of the marketplace, and left with nothing. Only a solid patent could offer a modicum of protection against that kind of attack, documented prior art alone won't.
Well, at least they are seeking to change the law on the books, instead of flouting it and doing things their own way.
Not that I'm anxious to see a furthering of the surveillance powers of this administration (or any administration, for that matter), certainly not on the terms they want.
My objection to E-Filing is that I have to pay for it. To E-File my federal and state returns, generated by software running locally on my computer, would have cost me about $30 above the cost of the software. Why? It is not the IRS that charges this fee, it is the tax preparation company. It was a sweetheart deal made in some back room years ago - the IRS will not accept E-Filings from private citizens except via a tax preparation company, who is able (even encouraged, I'd say) to collect a fee for shifting the bits around. This is not limited to just tax software, brick-and-mortar tax firms do this, too. While I could understand the IRS not wanting to deal with every improperly filled-out tax return from your average Joe, I heavily object to them not accepting a return created with a qualified tax preparation software package, all so that a private company can gouge me.
When that sweetheart deal was made a few years ago, the various groups decided to throw a bone to us poor plebians: free online E-Filing. If your adjusted gross income is less than a certain amount, about $52k/housheold I think, then you are entitled to E-file your federal taxes for free using a variety of online services. TurboTax's online software is one such place. For reasons which I think are shared here on slashdot, I refuse on principle to do my taxes through some company online.
Last year I helped a friend prepare his taxes using TurboTax. His AGI was below the limit for free e-filing. And yet, for some reason, the copy of TurboTax running on his computer never mentioned he was entitled to it. It would only e-file for an additional fee. You would think that, since he had already paid for this software, Intuit would be more willing to e-file his taxes than the taxes from someone who only visited their website and paid didn't pay for anything. This is not the case, however. The line I (eventually, after an hour) got from their tech support line (in Bangalore) was that anyone who actually purchased the software must have so much money that they'd never qualify for free e-filing. I look at it more along the lines of: shucks, you were such a sucker for buying this software in the first place, surely you'll be enough of a sucker to pay us even more.
There can be more information to steal on an iPod than just multimedia. iPods have, for quite a while, been able to store contacts, notes, and calendars, typical PIM stuff. There might be something of value in those. On the other hand, if one were to craft a virus for the new iPhone, there definitely could be some malicious value in that, because it stores more information, accesses email and the internet, and is continuously connected to the outside world. On the other hand, the iPhone is a totally different beast than the iPod (and Linux-on-iPod), and will undoubtedly be a much tougher nut to crack.
I've been using rapid prototyping machines of various sorts for 4-5 years now. I've been working with the NextEngine scanner since its introduction less than a year ago. Before that, I've used Coordinate Measurement Metrology (CMM) devices, calipers, datasheets, and a little artistry to reverse engineer parts and assemblies. Here are my impressions:
We are not even close to the sort of society described in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age , where everything is manufactured on the spot, rapidly and on-demand, from constituent atoms. I can see how we can get from the current state-of-the-art to that eventuality, but it is still a long way off.
The quality of the parts one can get from a rapid prototyper are just that: prototypes. Depending on the prototyping technology, manufacturer, and capital cost, one can get parts with minimum feature sizes of 0.025" - 0.005", with comparable dimensional tolerance, with part costs of $0.50 - $40 / cubic inch, and build times of tens of minutes to hours per cubic inch. I apologize to those who are metric-only. These kinds of parts usually require at least some post-processing, usually to improve the surface finish or strength. Some post-production machining may be necessary to firm up critical dimensions (for instance, reaming out and/or tapping holes).
The options for finished metal parts are slim. What can often happen is that the rapid prototyped parts are used in mold-making (e.g., for investment casting). There are now a few machines that can create metal parts by melting or sintering metal powders, but they are frightfully expensive, the resulting parts require post-processing on wear surfaces, and the material strength is significantly less than cast or machined metals.
With regards to the NextEngine scanner: it is a fine piece of work. It allows complex objects, particularly ones with compound curving surfaces, to be brought into a computer faster and more accurately than building a CAD model from scratch. It isn't all automatic, and a fair bit of polishing is needed to take the output of the scanner and make usable parts (either reproductions of the original part, or else parts designed around the original part). It is a lot easier than other laser scanners I've worked with, but is not within the realm of an Average Joe.
Even though we aren't there yet, we are getting closer. Rapid prototyping and reverse engineering are invaluable tools that seemingly remove the boundaries between what can be designed, and what can be manufactured.
I can see how, in the very near future, rapid prototyping will become more like rapid manufacturing of one-off parts. For instance, being able to create a custom metal implant, like a skull plate, overnight. This kind of thing canbe done now, but it is far from common, and doesn't have one-day turnaround. Another for instance, mentioned by others, is "printing" out an out-of-stock part for an old car. I don't think your average mechanic will be doing that anytime soon, especially since you'd still need a machine shop to do the post-processing. But, a local or regional job-shop, with a legit (i.e., not stolen) database of part models from Delphi an others, could get your mechanic that hard-to-find part in a short time period.
These are exciting times, and the future will only provide more opportunities.
Naturally, before this sees widespread clinical use, it'll have to go through a very stringent set of studies, tests, trials, and approvals. So, it may well be 5-10 years before this sees even pilot-program use. Even once in place, this process won't lessen the demand for blood of all types, merely make the blood supply more available.
I don't know about undergraduate works, but it is common practice at colleges and universities in the United States to have a copyright notice attached to a graduate thesis. Right there, next to my advisor's signature, is "Copyright 2005 Trustees of XXXXXX College." That is the only instance that I've come across where the copyright of a student's work is even mentioned. The student handbook at my alma mater doesn't discuss the subject.
Then again, since we are talking about a public high school, not a public or private university, that kind of thing may or may not apply.
Actually, according to these people, swimming in molasses should be about as fast as swimming in water. They won the Ig-Nobel Award for Chemistry in 2005 for that work, too.
Actually, it is gizmag's server that can't take it. Luvaglio's site is probably quite a light load on a webserver, considering that it consists of just two pages - a homepage that says "By Appointment Only," and a page with contact info. No pics, no specs, not even a product announcement. Are we supposed to take these people seriously?
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I won't deny that same-sex educational environments can be advantageous and help students focus on their work - avoiding a lot of adolescent nonsense. In the case of Dartmouth co-education, however, the arguments were rarely pedagogical. The arguments, particularly from disgruntled alumni, were more along the lines of "this is our treehouse, girls have cooties."
It is true that there are some curmudgeons out there - mostly associated with Good Ol' Boy networks of the ultra-rich, entitled, privilaged, and (largely) conservative elite - who wish that Dartmouth had remained an all-male institution. As a recent alum, however, I will state emphatically that they are a tiny minority of alumni and current students.
Dartmouth has been co-ed for about 35 years now. Lots of Dartmouth students ca. 1970 griped about co-education. They were in the minority even then; vocal, but a minority. In the intervening years, particularly as their own daughters reached college age, most of those have come to realize that it wasn't the end of the world - it made the College a better place.
This sounds like the process used in Magnetic Resonance Imaging. In MRI, they use a BIG magnet to create a very strong magnetic field in a person's body. The main field is usually 1-3 Tesla, depending on the scanner (for reference, Earth's magnetic field is 30-50 microtesla). Then they use smaller magnets to establish a gradient in that main field, and RF pulses to query the spin precession of atoms in the body. In the case of human imaging, I think they focus on the spin precession of a hydrogen nucleus (a proton) in water. In function MRI, they focus on hemoglobin (which contains a little ferromagnetic iron, ya see), to determine where blood is most present. See this for an exhaustive overview of how it works.
Their spintronics methods sound similar, except it's focused on a much smaller volume (a chip instead of a human body), and are tuned to the electrons in doped silicon. Very cool.
'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee.
I know what he meant: that it is more than likely than not that the primary will be non-binding. That is to say, the non-binding part has a more than 50% chance of becoming reality.
However, for the daily dose of pedantry, I first read that quotation and thought "What? Much higher than 50-50? Like 100-100? 1000-1000?" How much higher can we get? There's only 100% you can divy up here, so "much higher than 50-50" seems to defy probability.
Gosh, think of all the man-hours wasted over the years by prosecutors and beat cops, scraping together enough probable cause for a judge to authorize a wiretap, or subpoena a call record. They should have just asked the phone companies to exercise their First Amendment free speech rights!
Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to have flown on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions....
One could almost argue for Gus Grissom to be on that list, too. Second Mercury flight, first Gemini flight, and the commander of Apollo 1. Unfortunately, since Apollo 1 burned on the pad before ever leaving the ground, killing Grissom and his two crew, I guess Schirra stands alone.
I'm not sure if the guidelines vary by country, but the U.S. guideline was 15 compressions for every 2 breaths (5 + 1 if two people are working). The guidelines were changed to 30 + 2 at the end of 2005. The reason for the change, as others have mentioned, is that the circulation of blood is most important. Rescue breathing takes time, is harder to do correctly than chest compressions, and takes time (consider it an operational overhead). Also, the compression of the chest causes some air movement on its own, though it is shallow.
But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we'll get him to own a Zune.
/. crowd being in the market for a portable media player, and strongly ruling out owning an iPod. I doubt, however, that his 85-year old Uncle is that kind of consumer. For him, there's essentially no difference between the two. If he isn't in the market for one, he probably isn't in the market for any.
If his uncle isn't in the market for an iPod, what makes him think that he'll be in the market for a Zune, or any other portable media player? Is his uncle such a discerning consumer that he would notice the differences among the devices? Would he merely own and use a Zune to make his nephew happy? (Note that I don't say "buy" a Zune.)
I could understand members of the
It's tough to know who to root for or against in this case: Microsoft vs. AT&T? Man, that's a hard choice! It's like a choice between Goliath and Goliath.
People of Ted Stevens age might actually find the "series of tubes" analogy to be apt if they think of the Internet like a pneumatic tube system. They aren't used much anymore in most businesses, although many hospitals still use them to transport tissue and blood across campuses. Tube systems used to be indispensible in the first half of the last century. The tubes, like the phone system of the same time, had the same architecture: a system to route information from one point to another through one or several centralized switchboards. The routing was usually done by hand and not silicon, but it's the same structure. The pneumatic tube system was even packet-based ... with headers!
Though, as you say, even if this analogy was the least-incorrect thing he said that day, he still made quite an ass of himself when you read the entire transcript.
There is, as the article mentions, the problem of electron-hole recombination.
Another difficulty with semiconductor photovoltaics, not addressed by this new development, is that the semiconductors make poor use of energetic photons. There are limitations, derivable from solid-state physics, that limit the maximum light-->electricity efficiency of photovoltaics. A little background:
Depending on the chemistry, the bandgap energy of the semiconductor corresponds to a photon of a certain minimum energy. A photon with less energy (longer wavelength) than the bandgap energy will not have enough umph to create an electron-hole pair, while a photon with energy >= the bandgap energy can create an electron-hole pair. In silicon-based semiconductors, the bandgap energy corresponds to a photon in the very near infrared, almost a visible red.
The electrical energy you get from the electron-hole pair comes from those charges being separated by the electrical potential at the semiconductor junction. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter if the electron-hole pair was created by a red photon, a blue photon, or ultraviolet. You'll get the same amount of electrical energy out of the solar cell from any of these photons.
However, the red, blue, and UV photons have significantly different energies due to their different wavelengths. The UV photon, though more energetic, will produce the same electrical energy output as the less energetic red photon. If you were to shine only red light on the solar cell, it would make quite efficient use of them. Unfortunately, red is only one component of the solar spectrum. The solar cell makes poor use of the higher-energy photons in the solar spectrum, and thus has a seemingly poor light-->electricity conversion efficiency.
If everything else went perfectly, the solid state physics at work limit the maximum efficiency for silicon solar cells to about 25%. Good cells mass-produced today top out at about 21%. One can create multiple junction cells to capture different segments of the spectrum at higher efficiency. Consider this chart of maximum efficiency under lab conditions.
I ask this on every eVoting story that appears on Slashdot, I never get an answer. Why on earth would you WANT to replace a bit of paper and a pencil, with a computer?
I could think of two reasons why one might want to have computerized voting (or computer-assisted paper ballot filling):
1) You are incapable, physically, of using a pencil and paper. You may be blind and unable to read the ballot. You may be paralyzed or have a neurodegenerative disease that keeps you from gripping the pencil. In both of those cases, you wouldn't be capable of filling out the ballot without substantial help from someone else. Voting should be private and accommodating for everyone, not just those who are physically able.
2) You need to have ballots in multiple languages. English may be the de facto official language of the United States (I can't speak for official languages in other countries), but it is not the official language by law. It is possible to be a U.S. citizen and yet have a poor command of the English language (the wisdom of that is an argument for another day). To prevent disenfranchising those people, it is necessary to provide ballots in other languages. How many ballots should you print out for each language minority? Don't know? Well, then, use a computerized system that can present the same ballot in Hmong or Spanish as easily as it does English.
Finally, just because the statement is too pedantic to pass up: I love replacing pencil and paper with a computer every single time I run finite element analyses, or working out a monthly budget, or writing my 300-page thesis.
It's being called Jadarite for the mine near Jadar where it was found. This is fairly common from what (little) I know of minerology. They note that, because it doesn't actually contain any krypton, it can't officially be called kryptonite.
Still, couldn't they have made a push for another superman-inspired name. Some suggestions are: Jorelite, Kalelite, Metropolite, or Lutherite.
My objection to E-Filing is that I have to pay for it. To E-File my federal and state returns, generated by software running locally on my computer, would have cost me about $30 above the cost of the software. Why? It is not the IRS that charges this fee, E-Filing saves them money and they'd be happier if everyone does it. It is the tax preparation company that generates this fee.
It was a sweetheart deal made in some back room years ago - the IRS will not accept E-Filings from private citizens except via a tax preparation company, who is able (even encouraged, I'd say) to collect a fee for shifting the bits around. This is not limited to just tax software, brick-and-mortar tax firms do this, too. While I could understand the IRS not wanting to deal with every improperly filled-out e-filing from your average Joe, I heavily object to them not accepting a return created with a qualified tax preparation software package, all so that a private company can gouge me.
When that sweetheart deal was made a few years ago, the various groups decided to throw a bone to us poor plebians: free online E-Filing. If your adjusted gross income is less than a certain amount, about $52k/housheold I think, then you are entitled to E-file your federal taxes for free using a variety of online services. TurboTax's online software is one such place. For reasons which I think are shared here on slashdot, I refuse on principle to do my taxes through some company online. This year, I fell just outside the AGI cutoff anyway, but not by much.
This year I helped a friend prepare his taxes using TurboTax. His AGI was below the limit for free e-filing. And yet, for some reason, the copy of TurboTax running on his computer never mentioned he was entitled to it. It would only e-file for an additional fee. You would think that, since he had already paid for this software, which is basically the same tax-crunching software that runs Intuit's online service, Intuit would be more willing to e-file his taxes than the taxes from someone who only visited their website and didn't pay for anything. This is not the case, however. The line I (eventually, after an hour) got from their tech support line (in Bangalore) was that anyone who actually purchased the software must have so much money that they'd never qualify for free e-filing. I look at it more along the lines of: shucks, you were such a sucker for buying this software in the first place, surely you'll be enough of a sucker to pay us even more.
I don't use TurboTax anymore.
I can predict at least two possible reactions from end-users.
First: jumping out of a building due to the terror and pain of sudden withdrawal. It happens to heroin addicts, it can happen here too, folks.
Second: people wandering the streets of major cities bright-eyed and staring in open wonder, as though they were waking up from a long dream. Joining hand in hand, they frolic in the parks or whatever greenspace they can find chanting "Free at Last, Free at Last..." The clouds part, and an auspicious rainbow graces the sky. Oh, and I suppose there are other reactions: incoherent rage at no one in particular (ever chat with a cold-turkey smoking quitter?), unjustified rage at corporate IT for letting this happen, curling up in a fetal position in the corner, uncontrollable thumb twitching (almost like phantom limb pain).
Then there's another reaction: simply shrugging and going back to computer-based email and cellphones.
Well, at least they are seeking to change the law on the books, instead of flouting it and doing things their own way.
Not that I'm anxious to see a furthering of the surveillance powers of this administration (or any administration, for that matter), certainly not on the terms they want.
My objection to E-Filing is that I have to pay for it. To E-File my federal and state returns, generated by software running locally on my computer, would have cost me about $30 above the cost of the software. Why? It is not the IRS that charges this fee, it is the tax preparation company. It was a sweetheart deal made in some back room years ago - the IRS will not accept E-Filings from private citizens except via a tax preparation company, who is able (even encouraged, I'd say) to collect a fee for shifting the bits around. This is not limited to just tax software, brick-and-mortar tax firms do this, too. While I could understand the IRS not wanting to deal with every improperly filled-out tax return from your average Joe, I heavily object to them not accepting a return created with a qualified tax preparation software package, all so that a private company can gouge me.
When that sweetheart deal was made a few years ago, the various groups decided to throw a bone to us poor plebians: free online E-Filing. If your adjusted gross income is less than a certain amount, about $52k/housheold I think, then you are entitled to E-file your federal taxes for free using a variety of online services. TurboTax's online software is one such place. For reasons which I think are shared here on slashdot, I refuse on principle to do my taxes through some company online.
Last year I helped a friend prepare his taxes using TurboTax. His AGI was below the limit for free e-filing. And yet, for some reason, the copy of TurboTax running on his computer never mentioned he was entitled to it. It would only e-file for an additional fee. You would think that, since he had already paid for this software, Intuit would be more willing to e-file his taxes than the taxes from someone who only visited their website and paid didn't pay for anything. This is not the case, however. The line I (eventually, after an hour) got from their tech support line (in Bangalore) was that anyone who actually purchased the software must have so much money that they'd never qualify for free e-filing. I look at it more along the lines of: shucks, you were such a sucker for buying this software in the first place, surely you'll be enough of a sucker to pay us even more.
I don't use TurboTax anymore.
There can be more information to steal on an iPod than just multimedia. iPods have, for quite a while, been able to store contacts, notes, and calendars, typical PIM stuff. There might be something of value in those. On the other hand, if one were to craft a virus for the new iPhone, there definitely could be some malicious value in that, because it stores more information, accesses email and the internet, and is continuously connected to the outside world. On the other hand, the iPhone is a totally different beast than the iPod (and Linux-on-iPod), and will undoubtedly be a much tougher nut to crack.
I've been using rapid prototyping machines of various sorts for 4-5 years now. I've been working with the NextEngine scanner since its introduction less than a year ago. Before that, I've used Coordinate Measurement Metrology (CMM) devices, calipers, datasheets, and a little artistry to reverse engineer parts and assemblies. Here are my impressions:
We are not even close to the sort of society described in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age , where everything is manufactured on the spot, rapidly and on-demand, from constituent atoms. I can see how we can get from the current state-of-the-art to that eventuality, but it is still a long way off.
The quality of the parts one can get from a rapid prototyper are just that: prototypes. Depending on the prototyping technology, manufacturer, and capital cost, one can get parts with minimum feature sizes of 0.025" - 0.005", with comparable dimensional tolerance, with part costs of $0.50 - $40 / cubic inch, and build times of tens of minutes to hours per cubic inch. I apologize to those who are metric-only. These kinds of parts usually require at least some post-processing, usually to improve the surface finish or strength. Some post-production machining may be necessary to firm up critical dimensions (for instance, reaming out and/or tapping holes).
The options for finished metal parts are slim. What can often happen is that the rapid prototyped parts are used in mold-making (e.g., for investment casting). There are now a few machines that can create metal parts by melting or sintering metal powders, but they are frightfully expensive, the resulting parts require post-processing on wear surfaces, and the material strength is significantly less than cast or machined metals.
With regards to the NextEngine scanner: it is a fine piece of work. It allows complex objects, particularly ones with compound curving surfaces, to be brought into a computer faster and more accurately than building a CAD model from scratch. It isn't all automatic, and a fair bit of polishing is needed to take the output of the scanner and make usable parts (either reproductions of the original part, or else parts designed around the original part). It is a lot easier than other laser scanners I've worked with, but is not within the realm of an Average Joe. Even though we aren't there yet, we are getting closer. Rapid prototyping and reverse engineering are invaluable tools that seemingly remove the boundaries between what can be designed, and what can be manufactured.
I can see how, in the very near future, rapid prototyping will become more like rapid manufacturing of one-off parts. For instance, being able to create a custom metal implant, like a skull plate, overnight. This kind of thing canbe done now, but it is far from common, and doesn't have one-day turnaround. Another for instance, mentioned by others, is "printing" out an out-of-stock part for an old car. I don't think your average mechanic will be doing that anytime soon, especially since you'd still need a machine shop to do the post-processing. But, a local or regional job-shop, with a legit (i.e., not stolen) database of part models from Delphi an others, could get your mechanic that hard-to-find part in a short time period.
These are exciting times, and the future will only provide more opportunities.
NY Times article
Alstom's own press release, with some additional details on the train configuration and tests
Wikipedia's entry on land speed rail records
Naturally, before this sees widespread clinical use, it'll have to go through a very stringent set of studies, tests, trials, and approvals. So, it may well be 5-10 years before this sees even pilot-program use. Even once in place, this process won't lessen the demand for blood of all types, merely make the blood supply more available.
So, in the meantime, everyone who is able should at least consider donating blood. It is fast, easy, and (nearly) painless. Many may object to the exclusion criteria used by the Red Cross and other organizations, but the overwhelming majority of eligible donors simply do not give. Chances are good that, at some point in your life, you too will need a blood transfusion.
Find a blood drive near you.
I don't know about undergraduate works, but it is common practice at colleges and universities in the United States to have a copyright notice attached to a graduate thesis. Right there, next to my advisor's signature, is "Copyright 2005 Trustees of XXXXXX College." That is the only instance that I've come across where the copyright of a student's work is even mentioned. The student handbook at my alma mater doesn't discuss the subject.
Then again, since we are talking about a public high school, not a public or private university, that kind of thing may or may not apply.
Actually, according to these people, swimming in molasses should be about as fast as swimming in water. They won the Ig-Nobel Award for Chemistry in 2005 for that work, too.
Actually, it is gizmag's server that can't take it. Luvaglio's site is probably quite a light load on a webserver, considering that it consists of just two pages - a homepage that says "By Appointment Only," and a page with contact info. No pics, no specs, not even a product announcement. Are we supposed to take these people seriously?