Glass that consists of nothing other than silicon and oxygen-- chemically known as "silica"-- is referred to as "quartz".
When they say they grew the material in "quartz" tubes, they mean: tubes made of silica glass. (Mineralogists reserve the word for only crystalline silica, but when they say a quartz tube, it's quartz glass, i.e. silica, not the mineral.) When they say that the substrate was "copper-covered quartz" they mean: "copper-covered silica glass". When they say they made glass consisting of two atoms of oxygen and one atom of silicon, they mean: silica glass.
So: they're saying that silica glass is silicon and oxygen, and, also, so is silica glass.
The core problem is that scientists and academics get recognition,raises, and tenure based on publishing papers in journals, and thus there is a demand which Elsevier is feeding, proliferating journals to create places for academics to publish. Worse, drug companies gain credibility in the minds of doctors by publishing studies about their drugs, thus creating a very high dollar value market demand for a journal that will publish these studies.
The fact that temperatures have remained more or less static since 1998 whilst CO2 has increased linearly would give any normal person pause for thought.
The fact that this doesn't make you think there's something wrong with the thesis is kind-of fascinating to me.
And the fact that you can cut a tiny piece out of the end of a long data set and say that it's "static", if you ignore all the rest of the data, is kind of fascinating to me.
Wait, you're quoting a fifteen-year-old article saying that ''some'' of the warming observed twenty years ago ''may'' be due to the 11-year solar cycle? The relevance of this to today's climate is? Seriously: solar intensity is very well monitored by satellites. We have a good measurement of the solar input, and changes in total solar intensity do not account for the observed warming.
One of the things that has always bothered me about the global the warming/climate change thesis that its advocates predict nothing but negative consequences.
You are confusing two different groups of people.
Climate scientists are pointing out that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere increases the temperature, and that this is well known, although the amount still has large error bars-- about plus or minus fifty percent, actually. These aren't "advocates;" this is science: ordinary, messy, plodding, data-intensive, science.
For saying this, however, climate scientists are being attacked relentlessly. It's a politically driven argument, not a scientific argument, which means that it can't be refuted by any amount of data.
There is another question, which is, what will the effects of this warming be? Since the deniers won't even credit that carbon dioxide has a warming effect at all, the odd result is that the ONLY people discussing the effects of temperature increase are the ones looking at negative effects. It's a one-sided debate because the other side has abdicated. They find it easier to attack the scientists than actually look at what the effects will be.
I do predict, however, that eventually the terms of the debate will change, and the deniers will start changing their argument to "well, we may be increasing the temperature, but that's a good thing. We want to increase the temperature."
Actually, I'm looking forward to that shift. First, I really would like to see both sides looking at effects. But, mainly, iI\t's a lot better than the "scientists are frauds and scientific results are a hoax and global warming is a scam" that is currently the argument.
But why risk it? Just use copper oxide, it's far safer (except for maybe the heating part).
Well, except the "solar cell" in the site you link isn't really a solar cell, it's a photoelectrochemical cell. They're using the cuprous oxide as the p-type semiconductor, but they don't have a n-type semiconductor, they're using an electrolyte. To make a solar cell, they'd need to put a n-type semiconductor on top, to make a p-n junction...which would typically be CdO.
"If the materials were slightly less toxic, it might even be a project that kids could do at home."
It's easy to make cad sulfide/copper sulfide solar cells at home-- it takes little more work than dipping a penny in a cad sulfide plating solution. Making not-very-efficient solar cells at home is really nothing new. As long as you don't drink the plating solution, it's not terribly dangerous.
(main reason cadmium sulfide/copper sulfide solar cells never really caught on is lifetime-- they degrade quickly if there's any humidity at all. I don't think I've heard of anybody making them since about 1980.)
Interesting, but I wouldn't sell my stocks in silicon electronics yet. Silicon is way down the learning curve. I wouldn't bet a new semiconductor against it.
Some of what the article says is a little dubious, like the fact that silicon "The surface likes to oxidise - it likes to bind with oxygen... and that makes its electrical properties degrade when you want to make a very thin film." Yes, it forms oxide easily. No, that doesn't "degrade" the electrical properties-- in fact, this is exactly why silicon is so incredibly useful in electronics. Oxide, and the fact that silicon oxide passivates the surface to prevent electron-hole recombination at the dangling bonds, is what makes silicon electronics possible. I note that the moly disulfide transistors use hafnium oxide for a gate. That's a high dielectric constant material that is indeed also used in silicon, but the silicon oxide is still the critical interface.
Nevertheless, if your point is "social security is headed for trouble in the future, we should fix it"-- well, OK, sure.
One of those problems is that it's going to pull a large deficit in the future. It's no longer "paid for".
There are two problems here. One is that there is an ambiguity in meaning of the word "paid for." If I pay for an annuity, it's paid for. If the people I give the money to spend it on, say, a war in Asia, I still paid for it, even if, when it is time for the annuity to be paid, the money isn't there.
The other problem here is that what you just said is that it's going to have a deficit in the future. That's the "projection" part I talked about. Currently-- according to the data YOU linked-- it actually is paid for. (In the other meaning of the word.) So when you say "it's no longer 'paid for'." what the data actually says is "in the near future it will no longer be 'paid for'." (In the other sense of the word "paid for"-- meaning, the service for which people paid social security (i.e, that they paid for) will now require money from the government to be paid for. (i.e., the government has not paid for it.)
Again: I am quite willing to agree that social security has a problem coming up in the future, and this problem should be solved. To the extent that this is your main point: Yes, I concur.
Nice graphs, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with what I said.
For what it's worth, Graphs 3 and 5 say the same thing, and if you phrased that data in the form of the statement "American workers are now 5.5 times as productive as they were in 1950," nobody would look twice. In graph 1, the awful scary stuff is mostly "projection;" the actual data is all the non-scary stuff to the left of the vertical line.
Nevertheless, if your point is "social security is headed for trouble in the future, we should fix it"-- well, OK, sure.
I go the other way, personally. If you're going to carry around an iPad keyboard (and suitable case to fit it all in), why wouldn't you be carrying an 11" MacBook Air instead ?
Mac Air 2.4 pounds iPad 1.33 pounds (depends on model), keyboard/case 0.76 pounds, total 2.1 pounds.
...While the ipad is good for short periods of work, it is still painful for long periods. And its also not suited for alot of tasks, which you don't realize until you actually try to do them.
Since you don't tell me which tasks are the "alot" of tasks that it's not suited for, this is a completely useless post.
So I would agree to a point that 80% of work can be done on an iPad but its that other 20% that kills you.
And that 20% is?????????????
I don't run Mathematica at home; I don't play World of Warcraft; if youtube died tomorrow I wouldn't notice; and I used Photoshop a couple of times and it was ok but I don't have it on my laptop. What "20%" of my use of a computer am I going to have problems with if I switch to an iPad+keyboard for my portable?
The macbook air is light, small, easy to carry around. I am not sure why you would use an iPad over it.
Well, maybe because it weighs half as much and has three times the battery lifetime?
I don't own an iPad, but I'd be interested in knowing specifically what the problems are. I have to say, with all the people here saying how bad iPads are yet not a single one actually mentioning even one specific thing that's bad about them, I'm really questioning whether there is any downside at all, other than the lack of ability to run computational-heavy applications like Mathematica which somebody or other mentioned.
It really was kind of surprising for an author who claims to be writing for Time magazine.
His work is writing, he's using it primarily for writing, and much of the article is about the keyboard, which is the part that makes it useful for writing. What part of this in any way "kind of surprising"?
Now that decent keyboards exist for the iPad, I've been thinking about switching to an iPad for my main portable myself-- despite all the people expressing disdain here, I can't see any downside. Smaller and lighter, thus easier to carry everywhere, and longer battery life-- seems an obvious choice.
I stated that Social Security is a benefit that is paid for. That is to say: I pay money to social security, and in return for this payment, social security pays me when I retire.
You're completely wrong on that. You pay $1, and then demand $1.50 back. Then scream that they are stealing your money if they attempt to reduce it to $1.40.
So, what you're saying here is that you don't understand the concept of "interest".
Yes, that's right, when you pay money now for a benefit that returns money in the future, it is expected that the return will be larger than the amount invested.
As it happens, Social Security has an extremely low interest rate. But you seem to be outraged that it pays interest at all.
As to Social Security, it is a con not a deserved benefit. There's no investment of the funds that went in ("pay as you go"), something that a few generations of US voters were willing to ignore. Nor is there an obligation to pay out a particular level of benefit.
You are confusing two arguments.
I stated that Social Security is a benefit that is paid for. That is to say: I pay money to social security, and in return for this payment, social security pays me when I retire. Is that clear enough?
You state "There's no investment of the funds that went in." That assertion is irrelevant to my statement. If I were to pay some money to a private annuity, on the promise that they would pay me an annuity X years later, it makes no difference what they do with the money I pay them. What matters to me is that I have paid for a service (an annuity to be paid in X years). When I state "I paid for this service", a response from the annuity firm of "but we didn't invest your money" does not invalidate my statement "I paid for that."
You go on to state "Nor is there an obligation to pay out a particular level of benefit." This may be true-- congress reserves for itself the right to change the rules-- but it is still irrelevant to my statement. Yes, congress can, if they choose, renege on their obligations. That doesn't change the fact that social security is something that I paid for; it is merely a statement that congress can, if they chose to do so, decide not to give me a service even though I paid for it. True, not relevant. If it were a private annuity, basically you're saying that there's fine print in the contract saying that the elected board of directors of the annuity has the ability to change the payout schedule. Well, you may be right to say that I was not wise to put money into an annuity with a clause like this in the fine print. But, wise or not, while it may change whether I do get the service I paid for, it doesn't change the fact that I did pay for it.
You seem, basically, to be complaining about the way social security works. Your complaints may be true or false, but they don't address my point that social security is a benefit that is paid for.
And before you bemoan corporate cronyism, that isn't the only problem. We give 100% of federal revenue to the old and the poor these days
Huh?
Do you mean social security? Let me remind you, that's not a hand-out; it's paid for. And it's not "100% of federal revenue".
In any case, if you're looking at the US budget, Defense, not "the old and the poor," is the largest share. Here's the discretionary portion of the budget: http://oranges-world.com/the-federal-budget.html
It seems that the Fed is the only organization in America that would rather solve problems than score political points. From all accounds, they saved the economy from a liquidity crisis that would have shut down every business in America. I say, horray for the Fed!
So, is this actually unreasonable? Seems to me that if you don't want machines to be pwned, it would be nice to have somebody look over the ap before it starts controlling processes outside its sandbox. Sudo privilege is nice to have, but it's also something you don't want to give away without oversight.
In about 20 trips these past year I have yet to see a mm wave machine. All I've seen are x-ray.
Depends which airports you go through, I guess. I've never seen a backscatter x-ray detector in the airports I've been to, only millimeter-wave machines
The summary didn't say 100 DEATHS per year. It said 100 cases of cancer per year. And that was the high side.
Right, what it said was ten to a hundred cases of cancer per year. The actual article gave an estimate of six, and continues, "even without the machines, Smith-Bindman said, the same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes."
I'm as anti-scanner as anyone out there, but succumbing to the same style of sensationalist rhetoric as the scanner supporters does our cause no good.
Agree.
What I find most frightening is the possibility that the machines malfunction and produce higher does. The only guard against this, as far as I can see, is the company's statement that "nothing can possibly go wrong."
Slashdot Mirror
"Quartz has a regular crystal structure, glass doesn't."
If you're a mineralogist. Try looking up "quartz glass" or "fused quartz" in google.
Glass and quartz.
Glass that consists of nothing other than silicon and oxygen-- chemically known as "silica"-- is referred to as "quartz".
When they say they grew the material in "quartz" tubes, they mean: tubes made of silica glass. (Mineralogists reserve the word for only crystalline silica, but when they say a quartz tube, it's quartz glass, i.e. silica, not the mineral.) When they say that the substrate was "copper-covered quartz" they mean: "copper-covered silica glass". When they say they made glass consisting of two atoms of oxygen and one atom of silicon, they mean: silica glass.
So: they're saying that silica glass is silicon and oxygen, and, also, so is silica glass.
"...an air leak caused the copper to react with the quartz, which is also made of silicon and oxygen,"
"Also"?
Copper is not made of silicon and oxygen. Graphite is not made of silicon and oxygen. What do you mean by "also"?
The core problem is that scientists and academics get recognition,raises, and tenure based on publishing papers in journals, and thus there is a demand which Elsevier is feeding, proliferating journals to create places for academics to publish. Worse, drug companies gain credibility in the minds of doctors by publishing studies about their drugs, thus creating a very high dollar value market demand for a journal that will publish these studies.
The fact that temperatures have remained more or less static since 1998 whilst CO2 has increased linearly would give any normal person pause for thought.
Yes, here's the graph of the data you're referring to:
data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3
The fact that this doesn't make you think there's something wrong with the thesis is kind-of fascinating to me.
And the fact that you can cut a tiny piece out of the end of a long data set and say that it's "static", if you ignore all the rest of the data, is kind of fascinating to me.
Unless by "static" you mean "noise."
Wait, you're quoting a fifteen-year-old article saying that ''some'' of the warming observed twenty years ago ''may'' be due to the 11-year solar cycle? The relevance of this to today's climate is?
Seriously: solar intensity is very well monitored by satellites. We have a good measurement of the solar input, and changes in total solar intensity do not account for the observed warming.
One of the things that has always bothered me about the global the warming/climate change thesis that its advocates predict nothing but negative consequences.
You are confusing two different groups of people.
Climate scientists are pointing out that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere increases the temperature, and that this is well known, although the amount still has large error bars-- about plus or minus fifty percent, actually. These aren't "advocates;" this is science: ordinary, messy, plodding, data-intensive, science.
For saying this, however, climate scientists are being attacked relentlessly. It's a politically driven argument, not a scientific argument, which means that it can't be refuted by any amount of data.
There is another question, which is, what will the effects of this warming be? Since the deniers won't even credit that carbon dioxide has a warming effect at all, the odd result is that the ONLY people discussing the effects of temperature increase are the ones looking at negative effects. It's a one-sided debate because the other side has abdicated. They find it easier to attack the scientists than actually look at what the effects will be.
I do predict, however, that eventually the terms of the debate will change, and the deniers will start changing their argument to "well, we may be increasing the temperature, but that's a good thing. We want to increase the temperature."
Actually, I'm looking forward to that shift. First, I really would like to see both sides looking at effects. But, mainly, iI\t's a lot better than the "scientists are frauds and scientific results are a hoax and global warming is a scam" that is currently the argument.
Concrete houses was Edison's great dream a hundred years ago; cheap and mass producable.
They never caught on then. Why would we think they'd catch on now?
-some of the Edison houses are still around.
http://www.google.com/search?q=edison+concrete+houses
The right question is why Microsoft is interested in Adjustable Rate Mortgages in the first place.
But why risk it? Just use copper oxide, it's far safer (except for maybe the heating part).
Well, except the "solar cell" in the site you link isn't really a solar cell, it's a photoelectrochemical cell. They're using the cuprous oxide as the p-type semiconductor, but they don't have a n-type semiconductor, they're using an electrolyte. To make a solar cell, they'd need to put a n-type semiconductor on top, to make a p-n junction ...which would typically be CdO.
"If the materials were slightly less toxic, it might even be a project that kids could do at home."
It's easy to make cad sulfide/copper sulfide solar cells at home-- it takes little more work than dipping a penny in a cad sulfide plating solution. Making not-very-efficient solar cells at home is really nothing new. As long as you don't drink the plating solution, it's not terribly dangerous.
(main reason cadmium sulfide/copper sulfide solar cells never really caught on is lifetime-- they degrade quickly if there's any humidity at all. I don't think I've heard of anybody making them since about 1980.)
Moly disulfide is mostly known as a lubricant.
Interesting, but I wouldn't sell my stocks in silicon electronics yet. Silicon is way down the learning curve. I wouldn't bet a new semiconductor against it.
Some of what the article says is a little dubious, like the fact that silicon "The surface likes to oxidise - it likes to bind with oxygen... and that makes its electrical properties degrade when you want to make a very thin film." Yes, it forms oxide easily. No, that doesn't "degrade" the electrical properties-- in fact, this is exactly why silicon is so incredibly useful in electronics. Oxide, and the fact that silicon oxide passivates the surface to prevent electron-hole recombination at the dangling bonds, is what makes silicon electronics possible. I note that the moly disulfide transistors use hafnium oxide for a gate. That's a high dielectric constant material that is indeed also used in silicon, but the silicon oxide is still the critical interface.
By the way, I think there's slightly better info from eetimes http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4212757/New-material-for-semis-said-to-beat-silicon or physicsworld http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45056
...
Nevertheless, if your point is "social security is headed for trouble in the future, we should fix it"-- well, OK, sure.
One of those problems is that it's going to pull a large deficit in the future. It's no longer "paid for".
There are two problems here. One is that there is an ambiguity in meaning of the word "paid for." If I pay for an annuity, it's paid for. If the people I give the money to spend it on, say, a war in Asia, I still paid for it, even if, when it is time for the annuity to be paid, the money isn't there.
The other problem here is that what you just said is that it's going to have a deficit in the future. That's the "projection" part I talked about. Currently-- according to the data YOU linked-- it actually is paid for. (In the other meaning of the word.) So when you say "it's no longer 'paid for'." what the data actually says is "in the near future it will no longer be 'paid for'." (In the other sense of the word "paid for"-- meaning, the service for which people paid social security (i.e, that they paid for) will now require money from the government to be paid for. (i.e., the government has not paid for it.)
Again: I am quite willing to agree that social security has a problem coming up in the future, and this problem should be solved. To the extent that this is your main point: Yes, I concur.
Nice graphs, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with what I said.
For what it's worth, Graphs 3 and 5 say the same thing, and if you phrased that data in the form of the statement "American workers are now 5.5 times as productive as they were in 1950," nobody would look twice. In graph 1, the awful scary stuff is mostly "projection;" the actual data is all the non-scary stuff to the left of the vertical line.
Nevertheless, if your point is "social security is headed for trouble in the future, we should fix it"-- well, OK, sure.
I go the other way, personally. If you're going to carry around an iPad keyboard (and suitable case to fit it all in), why wouldn't you be carrying an 11" MacBook Air instead ?
Mac Air 2.4 pounds
iPad 1.33 pounds (depends on model), keyboard/case 0.76 pounds, total 2.1 pounds.
Plus a longer battery life on the iPad.
How's life without Flash support? It means no web video.
In my opinion, that's a feature, not a bug.
...While the ipad is good for short periods of work, it is still painful for long periods. And its also not suited for alot of tasks, which you don't realize until you actually try to do them.
Since you don't tell me which tasks are the "alot" of tasks that it's not suited for, this is a completely useless post.
So I would agree to a point that 80% of work can be done on an iPad but its that other 20% that kills you.
And that 20% is?????????????
I don't run Mathematica at home; I don't play World of Warcraft; if youtube died tomorrow I wouldn't notice; and I used Photoshop a couple of times and it was ok but I don't have it on my laptop. What "20%" of my use of a computer am I going to have problems with if I switch to an iPad+keyboard for my portable?
The macbook air is light, small, easy to carry around. I am not sure why you would use an iPad over it.
Well, maybe because it weighs half as much and has three times the battery lifetime?
I don't own an iPad, but I'd be interested in knowing specifically what the problems are. I have to say, with all the people here saying how bad iPads are yet not a single one actually mentioning even one specific thing that's bad about them, I'm really questioning whether there is any downside at all, other than the lack of ability to run computational-heavy applications like Mathematica which somebody or other mentioned.
It really was kind of surprising for an author who claims to be writing for Time magazine.
His work is writing, he's using it primarily for writing, and much of the article is about the keyboard, which is the part that makes it useful for writing. What part of this in any way "kind of surprising"?
Now that decent keyboards exist for the iPad, I've been thinking about switching to an iPad for my main portable myself-- despite all the people expressing disdain here, I can't see any downside. Smaller and lighter, thus easier to carry everywhere, and longer battery life-- seems an obvious choice.
I stated that Social Security is a benefit that is paid for. That is to say: I pay money to social security, and in return for this payment, social security pays me when I retire.
You're completely wrong on that. You pay $1, and then demand $1.50 back. Then scream that they are stealing your money if they attempt to reduce it to $1.40.
So, what you're saying here is that you don't understand the concept of "interest".
Yes, that's right, when you pay money now for a benefit that returns money in the future, it is expected that the return will be larger than the amount invested.
As it happens, Social Security has an extremely low interest rate. But you seem to be outraged that it pays interest at all.
As to Social Security, it is a con not a deserved benefit. There's no investment of the funds that went in ("pay as you go"), something that a few generations of US voters were willing to ignore. Nor is there an obligation to pay out a particular level of benefit.
You are confusing two arguments.
I stated that Social Security is a benefit that is paid for. That is to say: I pay money to social security, and in return for this payment, social security pays me when I retire. Is that clear enough?
You state "There's no investment of the funds that went in." That assertion is irrelevant to my statement. If I were to pay some money to a private annuity, on the promise that they would pay me an annuity X years later, it makes no difference what they do with the money I pay them. What matters to me is that I have paid for a service (an annuity to be paid in X years). When I state "I paid for this service", a response from the annuity firm of "but we didn't invest your money" does not invalidate my statement "I paid for that."
You go on to state "Nor is there an obligation to pay out a particular level of benefit." This may be true-- congress reserves for itself the right to change the rules-- but it is still irrelevant to my statement. Yes, congress can, if they choose, renege on their obligations. That doesn't change the fact that social security is something that I paid for; it is merely a statement that congress can, if they chose to do so, decide not to give me a service even though I paid for it. True, not relevant. If it were a private annuity, basically you're saying that there's fine print in the contract saying that the elected board of directors of the annuity has the ability to change the payout schedule. Well, you may be right to say that I was not wise to put money into an annuity with a clause like this in the fine print. But, wise or not, while it may change whether I do get the service I paid for, it doesn't change the fact that I did pay for it.
You seem, basically, to be complaining about the way social security works. Your complaints may be true or false, but they don't address my point that social security is a benefit that is paid for.
And before you bemoan corporate cronyism, that isn't the only problem. We give 100% of federal revenue to the old and the poor these days
Huh?
Do you mean social security? Let me remind you, that's not a hand-out; it's paid for. And it's not "100% of federal revenue".
In any case, if you're looking at the US budget, Defense, not "the old and the poor," is the largest share. Here's the discretionary portion of the budget: http://oranges-world.com/the-federal-budget.html
It seems that the Fed is the only organization in America that would rather solve problems than score political points. From all accounds, they saved the economy from a liquidity crisis that would have shut down every business in America. I say, horray for the Fed!
So, is this actually unreasonable? Seems to me that if you don't want machines to be pwned, it would be nice to have somebody look over the ap before it starts controlling processes outside its sandbox. Sudo privilege is nice to have, but it's also something you don't want to give away without oversight.
In about 20 trips these past year I have yet to see a mm wave machine. All I've seen are x-ray.
Depends which airports you go through, I guess. I've never seen a backscatter x-ray detector in the airports I've been to, only millimeter-wave machines
The summary didn't say 100 DEATHS per year. It said 100 cases of cancer per year. And that was the high side.
Right, what it said was ten to a hundred cases of cancer per year. The actual article gave an estimate of six, and continues, "even without the machines, Smith-Bindman said, the same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes."
I'm as anti-scanner as anyone out there, but succumbing to the same style of sensationalist rhetoric as the scanner supporters does our cause no good.
Agree.
What I find most frightening is the possibility that the machines malfunction and produce higher does. The only guard against this, as far as I can see, is the company's statement that "nothing can possibly go wrong."
--wait, isn't that a /. meme?