Because the game usually wants to make use the operating system resources. For one, the live CD would not as aware of filesystem permissions you have set up, so could overwrite things you would not want to allow it to. In fact, telling it where to save 'save games' would be tricky in itself, since your filesystem (defined by fstab) would not be immediately available. You'd have to tell it where fstab is every time you load the program in order to make meaningful use of your filesystem. It would be a mess.
Running an OS you are not in control of and know little about on your computer does not seem like a good idea at all.
Yes, the imbalance is intentional, but that doesn't change the fact that peoples' votes aren't equal. I was careful to put 'if that's what we want' everywhere.
I always thought the intentional imbalance was a bit of a hack. If the contract the article describes is legal, couldn't all the little states make a contract to band into one single voting block, giving them unnaturally huge power over everyone else? I guess the idea is that it's hard to do...
I agree. If what we want is for everyone's vote to count an equal percentage, but keep the states separate, we should give each state the exact fraction of power corresponding to their population: If they have 23.4367% of the US' population, they get 23.4367 'points' in the national vote.
With the electoral colelge, it's like we are working with ints. The division is not exact. We need to move to floating point if we want all votes to be equal.
You lost me when you said "I take no position on the proposed legislation".
How fortunate.. you lost him right when he finished!
Also, withholding an opinion (until sufficient analysis is done) is better than jumping to conclusions without careful thought, as you seem apt to do. In fact, the OP's point was that many people posting here hadn't analyzed the story correctly and had the completely wrong idea (and yet are still ranting on)
I think an auction is more than what you imply it is. For you, the auction would
be the same whether or not you could see the current price. You just put in
your bid, without considering anyone else's, and think nothing more of it.
But in an auction, you can see the current bid, and so can take advantage of
low demand for an item. You might be willing to pay $50, but if no one is
bidding above $10, why not go for $15 and get 70% off.
Instead of just paying your price, in an auciton you can pay the minimum of
[your price or current demand]. Sniping is a strategy to abnormally reduce the
current demand.
People get annoyed by sniping because they bid lower than what they're willing
to pay, and then have no chance to react to a new bid. They are paying what they
think is the current demand, but it is actually not because of snipers. Snipers
reduce the apparent demand by not bidding, and then try to take advantage of
this skewed demand. The price no longer reflects the true demand.
Delaying the sale when a bid comes in fixes this, since sniping is not possible
and the price will rise to match demand. Actually I don't get why Ebay doesn't
really want to do this, since it would raise all prices to their true value.
Right now prices are abnormally low. Maybe in the long run it would change
bidding strategies...
What are you talking about? That is how a lot of science is done (ESPECIALLY fluid dynamics): With models.
You can put a mass on a spring, and from its motion you can predict the motion of electrons around atoms by analogy. This is the harmonic oscillator, and you can see it in just about every physical system you can think of. Or, for example, people are currently using microscopic plastic beads to simulate atoms, in order to study crystal/glass formation and phase transitions (which are not well understood). We can't 'see' the motions of individual atoms, so we use beads that have similar interactions, which we CAN see.
Fluid mechanics uses models really often: If two fluid systems have the same reynolds number, they are good models of each other. So you can build a small model of your huge fluid system (like the atmosphere). In fact, it is usually necessary to build models to test since so little in fluid mechanics can actually be mathmatically calculated (it is unsolvable (for now)).
As a side note, I don't really get why this article is marked 'funny'. Its a weird physical effect, but there are lots of those. It looks like interesting science.
I forgot to multiply by 48: One ton of waste is a half meter (0.57 m) cubed, but I want 48 tons, which is (48)^(1/3) times as big per side, giving 2 meters cubed. Still very small. (you method then gives 5442 kg / m^3)
'uranium reserves' only includes discovered resources: The more good locations we discover, the more our reserves increase.
From http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm [uic.com.au]
Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so a significant increase in exploration effort could readily double the known economic resources, and a doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.
From http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Chapter14c.htm [magma.ca]
Large amounts of uranium exist: it is about as abundant as tin. At the current rate of consumption (35,000 tonnes per year) and prices, known uranium resources of four million tonnes represent about 65 years consumption at current rates, comparable with about 42 years for oil and 62 years for natural gas.
I read a lot of estimates of the 'true' amount of uranium, so I'm not sure anyone really knows. Most estimates are around a couple hundred years (more than fossil fuel, but still not a long term solution)
Quite probably, the difference between your quoted number and the grandparent's is that you are talking about weight of fuel used, while the grandparent is talking about the weight of waste generated. Nuclear waste is not pure expended uranium, there is also a lot of other junk that is contaminated.
Also, I always think that it is more relevant to talk about the volume of these things, rather than weight, since no one has an inutituve feel for the weight of uranium in their hands.
Your '2000 metric tons' translates to a cube a little under 5 meters on each side (assuming pure uranium) (will change slightly depending on whether it is enriched or not). Small, eh?
The grandparents '48 tons' (american tons, I assume), if we assume waste is 25% the density of uranium (I have no clue what it really is), comes to a cube half a meter per side per year per power plant. Also very small, right?
Then you can consider that the waste is encased in glass, so is in solid form and not free to roam around our enironment, unlike the fumes generated in fossil fuel plants, which we breathe, and would anyway be much greater in volume if packed into cubes.
A law is different from a theory in that a law is an empirical observation while a theory is a mathematical reasoning for that observation.
I like what wikipedia says about it: Theory A theory is also different from a physical law in that the latter is a model of reality, whereas the former is an explanatory statement of what has been observed, explaining the why and how of the observed physical law.
Then again, I also feel that these word games are irelevant since people in general don't know the exact definitions of these words, and the definitions aren't consistent, so either word is just as vague.
I was curious whether these statistics were true, so I went to my university library to check the interpol books (since you can't look at them online)
I think that site is playing games with statistics, or at least not looking at the meaning of them closely enough.
The numbers they quote are correct, but maybe misinterpreted. (note I did not have the exact same year as them). The bottom row on the tables is for 'total number of crimes according to national crime statistics', and they approximately match the numbers on that site. (Does this mean crime statistics according to interpol or the gov't of that country? The book has no legend to tell me.)
However, the table also has listings by crime type, and the US scores consistently higher than the european countries I looked at in almost every single category. The numbers in the columns don't add up to the value in the bottom row, so I'm not sure what that bottom row actually means. The US has multiple times as many homicides, for example. One thing european countries seemed to have more of was sex offenses, interestingly.
Anyway, that site is based on the numbers in the bottom row, but it's not clear to me what they actually mean, and all the other numbers point to higher crime in the US. I only looked briefly though, the library was closing (6:00 on a sunday)
Many of the French people that come here (NJ) (to work for a year or two) say they were shocked how
old and antiquated everything seemed. The thing that stands out in their mind is all the telephone poles
and the mess of wires over the streets. It's as if we were still in the days of the telegraph. Where they live
all the wires are underground.
They expected the US to be modern and ahead of everyone else. But in fact, because we were the first to
establish a lot of these technologies, we get stuck with the old obsolete version, and then it is too expensive
to replace.
Am I missing something? (as I'm not a system designer)
Why does a voting machine need a complicated OS like windows or a Unix? I imagine all you need is some simple custom hardware and a few hundred/thousand lines code (in assembler even!). You could do it on less than a C64.
It could easily be built from scratch and would be very easy to check for problems, due to its simplicity.
>> True, there are some Xbox-exclusive games, but nothing that would justify my spending $300 on one.
I think that's the whole point of a console, though. You only buy it because of the games that are made for it, not because of the power of the hardware.
You expect that it will have more and better games than a PC because it is much easier to develop for a conslole, since the hardware is known and stable. If that were not the case, then yes, consoles would be silly things to buy. Consoles are firstmost a developer's dream, and only a user's by that association.
In addition to what you said, it's also my understanding that 'uranium reserves' only includes discovered resources: The more good locations we discover, the more our reserves increase.
From http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm
Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so a significant increase in exploration effort could readily double the known economic resources, and a doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.
From http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Chapter14c.htm
Large amounts of uranium exist: it is about as abundant as tin. At the current rate of consumption (35,000 tonnes per year) and prices, known uranium resources of four million tonnes represent about 65 years consumption at current rates, comparable with about 42 years for oil and 62 years for natural gas.
Iv'e seen a lot of estimates of the 'true' amount of uranium, so I'm not sure anyone really knows. Most estimates are around a couple hundred years (more than fossil fuel, but still not a long term solution)
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you are duplicating the light rather than just bending it. Then you can send one copy to your eye and the other out your other side.
But maybe that's impossible to do?
Because the game usually wants to make use the operating system resources. For one, the live CD would not as aware of filesystem permissions you have set up, so could overwrite things you would not want to allow it to. In fact, telling it where to save 'save games' would be tricky in itself, since your filesystem (defined by fstab) would not be immediately available. You'd have to tell it where fstab is every time you load the program in order to make meaningful use of your filesystem. It would be a mess.
Running an OS you are not in control of and know little about on your computer does not seem like a good idea at all.
'if that's what we want' everywhere.
I always thought the intentional imbalance was a bit of a hack. If the contract the article describes is legal, couldn't all the little states make a contract to band into one single voting block, giving them unnaturally huge power over everyone else? I guess the idea is that it's hard to do...
I agree. If what we want is for everyone's vote to count an equal percentage, but keep the states separate, we should give each state the exact fraction of power corresponding to their population: If they have 23.4367% of the US' population, they get 23.4367 'points' in the national vote.
With the electoral colelge, it's like we are working with ints. The division is not exact. We need to move to floating point if we want all votes to be equal.
That's pretty much what any sport would eventually turn into if you did that. (especially if the point is to witness a "'roid rage")
How fortunate.. you lost him right when he finished!
Also, withholding an opinion (until sufficient analysis is done) is better than jumping to conclusions without careful thought, as you seem apt to do. In fact, the OP's point was that many people posting here hadn't analyzed the story correctly and had the completely wrong idea (and yet are still ranting on)
I think an auction is more than what you imply it is. For you, the auction would be the same whether or not you could see the current price. You just put in your bid, without considering anyone else's, and think nothing more of it.
But in an auction, you can see the current bid, and so can take advantage of low demand for an item. You might be willing to pay $50, but if no one is bidding above $10, why not go for $15 and get 70% off.
Instead of just paying your price, in an auciton you can pay the minimum of [your price or current demand]. Sniping is a strategy to abnormally reduce the current demand.
People get annoyed by sniping because they bid lower than what they're willing to pay, and then have no chance to react to a new bid. They are paying what they think is the current demand, but it is actually not because of snipers. Snipers reduce the apparent demand by not bidding, and then try to take advantage of this skewed demand. The price no longer reflects the true demand.
Delaying the sale when a bid comes in fixes this, since sniping is not possible and the price will rise to match demand. Actually I don't get why Ebay doesn't really want to do this, since it would raise all prices to their true value. Right now prices are abnormally low. Maybe in the long run it would change bidding strategies...
(IANA Economist)
What are you talking about? That is how a lot of science is done (ESPECIALLY fluid dynamics): With models.
You can put a mass on a spring, and from its motion you can predict the motion of electrons around atoms by analogy. This is the harmonic oscillator, and you can see it in just about every physical system you can think of. Or, for example, people are currently using microscopic plastic beads to simulate atoms, in order to study crystal/glass formation and phase transitions (which are not well understood). We can't 'see' the motions of individual atoms, so we use beads that have similar interactions, which we CAN see.
Fluid mechanics uses models really often: If two fluid systems have the same reynolds number, they are good models of each other. So you can build a small model of your huge fluid system (like the atmosphere). In fact, it is usually necessary to build models to test since so little in fluid mechanics can actually be mathmatically calculated (it is unsolvable (for now)).
As a side note, I don't really get why this article is marked 'funny'. Its a weird physical effect, but there are lots of those. It looks like interesting science.
..uhh, damn. You're right.
I forgot to multiply by 48: One ton of waste is a half meter (0.57 m) cubed, but I want 48 tons, which is (48)^(1/3) times as big per side, giving 2 meters cubed. Still very small. (you method then gives 5442 kg / m^3)
I just had to forget the most obvious thing...
Old post of mine:
'uranium reserves' only includes discovered resources: The more good locations we discover, the more our reserves increase.
From http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm [uic.com.au] Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so a significant increase in exploration effort could readily double the known economic resources, and a doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.
From http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Chapter14c.htm [magma.ca] Large amounts of uranium exist: it is about as abundant as tin. At the current rate of consumption (35,000 tonnes per year) and prices, known uranium resources of four million tonnes represent about 65 years consumption at current rates, comparable with about 42 years for oil and 62 years for natural gas.
I read a lot of estimates of the 'true' amount of uranium, so I'm not sure anyone really knows. Most estimates are around a couple hundred years (more than fossil fuel, but still not a long term solution)
Quite probably, the difference between your quoted number and the grandparent's is that you are talking about weight of fuel used, while the grandparent is talking about the weight of waste generated. Nuclear waste is not pure expended uranium, there is also a lot of other junk that is contaminated.
Also, I always think that it is more relevant to talk about the volume of these things, rather than weight, since no one has an inutituve feel for the weight of uranium in their hands.
Your '2000 metric tons' translates to a cube a little under 5 meters on each side (assuming pure uranium) (will change slightly depending on whether it is enriched or not). Small, eh?
The grandparents '48 tons' (american tons, I assume), if we assume waste is 25% the density of uranium (I have no clue what it really is), comes to a cube half a meter per side per year per power plant. Also very small, right?
Then you can consider that the waste is encased in glass, so is in solid form and not free to roam around our enironment, unlike the fumes generated in fossil fuel plants, which we breathe, and would anyway be much greater in volume if packed into cubes.
A law is different from a theory in that a law is an empirical observation while a theory is a mathematical reasoning for that observation.
I like what wikipedia says about it: Theory
A theory is also different from a physical law in that the latter is a model of reality, whereas the former is an explanatory statement of what has been observed, explaining the why and how of the observed physical law.
Then again, I also feel that these word games are irelevant since people in general don't know the exact definitions of these words, and the definitions aren't consistent, so either word is just as vague.
I was curious whether these statistics were true, so I went to my university library to check the interpol books (since you can't look at them online)
I think that site is playing games with statistics, or at least not looking at the meaning of them closely enough.
The numbers they quote are correct, but maybe misinterpreted. (note I did not have the exact same year as them). The bottom row on the tables is for 'total number of crimes according to national crime statistics', and they approximately match the numbers on that site. (Does this mean crime statistics according to interpol or the gov't of that country? The book has no legend to tell me.)
However, the table also has listings by crime type, and the US scores consistently higher than the european countries I looked at in almost every single category. The numbers in the columns don't add up to the value in the bottom row, so I'm not sure what that bottom row actually means. The US has multiple times as many homicides, for example. One thing european countries seemed to have more of was sex offenses, interestingly.
Anyway, that site is based on the numbers in the bottom row, but it's not clear to me what they actually mean, and all the other numbers point to higher crime in the US. I only looked briefly though, the library was closing (6:00 on a sunday)
Many of the French people that come here (NJ) (to work for a year or two) say they were shocked how old and antiquated everything seemed. The thing that stands out in their mind is all the telephone poles and the mess of wires over the streets. It's as if we were still in the days of the telegraph. Where they live all the wires are underground.
They expected the US to be modern and ahead of everyone else. But in fact, because we were the first to establish a lot of these technologies, we get stuck with the old obsolete version, and then it is too expensive to replace.
Am I missing something? (as I'm not a system designer)
Why does a voting machine need a complicated OS like windows or a Unix? I imagine all you need is some simple custom hardware and a few hundred/thousand lines code (in assembler even!). You could do it on less than a C64.
It could easily be built from scratch and would be very easy to check for problems, due to its simplicity.
>> True, there are some Xbox-exclusive games, but nothing that would justify my spending $300 on one.
I think that's the whole point of a console, though. You only buy it because of the games that are made for it, not because of the power of the hardware.
You expect that it will have more and better games than a PC because it is much easier to develop for a conslole, since the hardware is known and stable. If that were not the case, then yes, consoles would be silly things to buy. Consoles are firstmost a developer's dream, and only a user's by that association.
In addition to what you said, it's also my understanding that 'uranium reserves' only includes discovered resources: The more good locations we discover, the more our reserves increase.
From http://www.uic.com.au/nip75.htm
Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals. Further exploration and higher prices will certainly, on the basis of present geological knowledge, yield further resources as present ones are used up. There was very little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2005, so a significant increase in exploration effort could readily double the known economic resources, and a doubling of price from present levels could be expected to create about a tenfold increase in measured resources, over time.
From http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Chapter14c.htm
Large amounts of uranium exist: it is about as abundant as tin. At the current rate of consumption (35,000 tonnes per year) and prices, known uranium resources of four million tonnes represent about 65 years consumption at current rates, comparable with about 42 years for oil and 62 years for natural gas.
Iv'e seen a lot of estimates of the 'true' amount of uranium, so I'm not sure anyone really knows. Most estimates are around a couple hundred years (more than fossil fuel, but still not a long term solution)