Yes, but most of the full-body scanners are millimeter-wave scanners. That's non-ionizing. The headline and summary conveniently blurs this distinction-- it says that X-ray scanners are "mandatory" in US Airports, but thats for baggage, not people.
The microwave frequency that heats water is 2.45GHz,
No, it's not. That frequency is used for microwave ovens because it is the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band, and hence you don't need a FCC license every time you turn your microwave on.
Water heating isn't terribly sensitive about what frequency. It's not a resonance-- it would heat equally well at 2.25 or 2.55 GHz. The oscillating electric field adds energy to the water molecule dipoles.
Loyalty has paid off *very* well for me. Not in the short run mind you, but when it really counted (twice)... Stayed in a not very good job, for a very good manager, just because he asked me to.
I will agree: loyalty to a company may be misplaced, but loyalty to a person is often repaid.
actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
Isn't that, well, kind of obvious? How else would one cool anything in space? I'm rather surprised this hasn't been needed for solar cells already.
For most applications, the small gain in efficiency from running the cells cooler is not worth the large loss in terms of cost and complexity of pumped cooling loops. For near sun applications, though, it is worth it
At least they should be able to power it with solar panels...
Actually, powering a probe close to the sun with solar panels is a significant difficulty, since photovoltaic cells perform poorly when they get hot; high temperatures also degrade the lifetime. The European mission will be taking a lot of steps to decrease the intensity on the solar arrays. It's a much worse problem with Solar Probe Plus, which is going much closer. For SPP, designing a power system that works at distances close to the sun was the key enabling element in the mission design. We will be using concentrator solar cells, operating them off-angle, and, for the part of the orbit closest to the sun, actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
But it won't be a record for long, since the Solar Probe Plus will be heading to a distance of 8.5 solar radii from the surface of the sun a year later. http://science.nasa.gov/missions/solar-probe/
Yeah, I think that that statement if you're still writing Cobol code the likelihood is that you won't be employed very long was just a quip-- the author of the article was trying to be funny, and that was the oldest language he could think of. I expect that the workers who can maintain Cobol probably aren't likely to be laid off without warning, because they can't be replaced by twenty-one-year-old coders who are willing to work for ramen noodles and a vague promise of a stake in some future IPO.
The TSA should engage in profiling, as the Israelis do.
They do not. Who made up that myth? In fact, the Israelis explicitly state that they don't trust profiling because terrorists will find out what the profile is, and use terrorists who don't match it. They do intensive, one-on-one interviews with all passengers.
However, some of these words should cause all sorts of innocent amusement. For instance, the word "ejaculated" will not be unfamiliar to readers of Enid Blyton, just as the word "bastard" would be equally recognisable to anyone who has studied the lineage of various royal families.
"Ejaculated" as a synonym for "said" has pretty much left the language except for historical use and in bad-writing-contest entries.
It's hard to see how they can censor "Dick," on the other hand. Some students just can't put their name on homework?
And several of these words have other uses-- "dike" and "cock," for example. (So, in the New Testament, Peter denies Jesus before a bird-that-can't-be-named crows twice?)
Hope none of the students write about Dick van Dyke!
Well, except that many many studies have established that [increasing prices to decrease consumption] does work.
Well OK, it works, in the same way that deconstructing Mont Blanc with a teaspoon works, eventually, but it's far from the best way to do it. You need to go to experimental psychology, not economics, to deal with issues like this
I'm sorry, but no. Economics works. Really. It's hard for pychologists to believe that people would be so simple as to use less of a product when it's more expensive, but actually, yes, they do.
There are some products that are perceived luxury goods that have negative elasticity (where increases price is interpreted to imply increased quality), and (of course) these are the things that psychologists tend to be interested in. But commodities, such as gasoline, aren't.
Well, except that many many studies have established that it does work. This is called "fuel price elasticity," and it is well known. People drive less when the fuel price is higher. The short-term elasticity is relatively low (because it takes a while for people to change their plans), and a long term elasticity, which is much higher.
The thing is, Pennsylvania is where the Drake well was drilled..... There is a creek there named oil creek.. it's named oil creek because the oil production companies used to dump oil into the creek with troughs running straight from the wellheads, then skim the oil at a refinery downstream.
Yow. I have to say, that does not give me good feelings about how conscious the oil and gas companies are about the environment.
"We'll drill the gas out now, and some time in the future, after we've made our profits, other people can clean up any teeny little mess we might have made-- they can worry about that later."
Drillers say they would like to keep the exact formula of the chemicals they use secret because it represents a competitive advantage.
And they should be allowed to keep their formulas secret.
However, if they do, they shouldn't be allowed to inject them into the environment.
(COMPANY: "I need approval to make a chemical release into the environment." EPA: "OK, what chemical?" COMPANY: "We can't tell you, it's secret." EPA: "OK, here's your permit."
A science show does not counteract Fox News. It's really very important, so it deserves repeating.
Actually, it's worse than merely "not counteracting" the manure shown on Fox News-- it is an attempt to give legitimacy to the stuff pumped out under the Fox aegis: "Fox hosts Cosmos! They must know about science stuff."
Yes, the summary is biased. As the article points out, it is in fact the large cars that are dangerous-- they are, however, dangerous to the smaller cars. Making cars smaller doesn't result in more deaths-- unless you have large cars on the road as well. It is the larger cars that are killing people. (and the bogus statistic comes from the "National Center for Policy Analysis"-- read: political action group paid to shill for oil companies.)
That may well be true, but which would you rather be driving in a collision, the large car or the small one?
Indeed. But that's a different question. If the article had said "when you a drive big car, you kill other people in accidents, isn't that what you want?" instead of "small cars are dangerous," I wouldn't have called the article biased.
But there's an important difference between saying "I drive a big car because I like safety" and "I drive a big car because I'd rather have the other guy die if I get in an accident instead of me."
I've heard this asserted, but never seen any actual reason to believe it.
They are not different. They are two brands put out by the same company, one for "entertaining" stuff, like telling America that the Apollo landings were a hoax, and one for "serious" stuff, like telling America that evolution is a hoax.
Slashdot Mirror
X-rays are ionizing radiation.
Yes, but most of the full-body scanners are millimeter-wave scanners. That's non-ionizing. The headline and summary conveniently blurs this distinction-- it says that X-ray scanners are "mandatory" in US Airports, but thats for baggage, not people.
Because you want more than one mouse button, for instance?
Then go buy one?
Exactly. You want a mouse, buy one. A macs allows you to plug in whatever mouse you want.
That effect was explained by Randall Munroe: http://xkcd.com/925/
The microwave frequency that heats water is 2.45GHz,
No, it's not. That frequency is used for microwave ovens because it is the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band, and hence you don't need a FCC license every time you turn your microwave on.
Water heating isn't terribly sensitive about what frequency. It's not a resonance-- it would heat equally well at 2.25 or 2.55 GHz. The oscillating electric field adds energy to the water molecule dipoles.
The article has been reprinted several other places on the web. Try this link, for example:
http://aerospaceblog.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/not-such-a-stretch-to-reach-for-the-stars/
Loyalty has paid off *very* well for me. Not in the short run mind you, but when it really counted (twice)...
Stayed in a not very good job, for a very good manager, just because he asked me to.
I will agree: loyalty to a company may be misplaced, but loyalty to a person is often repaid.
Tell your current company about the offer, and see if you get a counter-offer.
(and if they don't counter, you know how you're valued. Leave.)
actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
Isn't that, well, kind of obvious? How else would one cool anything in space? I'm rather surprised this hasn't been needed for solar cells already.
For most applications, the small gain in efficiency from running the cells cooler is not worth the large loss in terms of cost and complexity of pumped cooling loops. For near sun applications, though, it is worth it
I've actually made silicon carbide solar cells. They're not very efficient, though. (Bandgap is too wide).
At least they should be able to power it with solar panels...
Actually, powering a probe close to the sun with solar panels is a significant difficulty, since photovoltaic cells perform poorly when they get hot; high temperatures also degrade the lifetime. The European mission will be taking a lot of steps to decrease the intensity on the solar arrays. It's a much worse problem with Solar Probe Plus, which is going much closer. For SPP, designing a power system that works at distances close to the sun was the key enabling element in the mission design. We will be using concentrator solar cells, operating them off-angle, and, for the part of the orbit closest to the sun, actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
But it won't be a record for long, since the Solar Probe Plus will be heading to a distance of 8.5 solar radii from the surface of the sun a year later. http://science.nasa.gov/missions/solar-probe/
Yeah, I think that that statement if you're still writing Cobol code the likelihood is that you won't be employed very long was just a quip-- the author of the article was trying to be funny, and that was the oldest language he could think of. I expect that the workers who can maintain Cobol probably aren't likely to be laid off without warning, because they can't be replaced by twenty-one-year-old coders who are willing to work for ramen noodles and a vague promise of a stake in some future IPO.
The TSA should engage in profiling, as the Israelis do.
They do not. Who made up that myth? In fact, the Israelis explicitly state that they don't trust profiling because terrorists will find out what the profile is, and use terrorists who don't match it. They do intensive, one-on-one interviews with all passengers.
However, some of these words should cause all sorts of innocent amusement. For instance, the word "ejaculated" will not be unfamiliar to readers of Enid Blyton, just as the word "bastard" would be equally recognisable to anyone who has studied the lineage of various royal families.
"Ejaculated" as a synonym for "said" has pretty much left the language except for historical use and in bad-writing-contest entries.
It's hard to see how they can censor "Dick," on the other hand. Some students just can't put their name on homework?
And several of these words have other uses-- "dike" and "cock," for example. (So, in the New Testament, Peter denies Jesus before a bird-that-can't-be-named crows twice?)
Hope none of the students write about Dick van Dyke!
Right. If I read the abstract correctly, the data is from peoples' self reporting of how much they exercise
So, the data doesn't show whether exercising makes you live longer, or whether people who are healthier also are more likely to exercise.
Well, except that many many studies have established that [increasing prices to decrease consumption] does work.
Well OK, it works, in the same way that deconstructing Mont Blanc with a teaspoon works, eventually, but it's far from the best way to do it. You need to go to experimental psychology, not economics, to deal with issues like this
I'm sorry, but no. Economics works. Really. It's hard for pychologists to believe that people would be so simple as to use less of a product when it's more expensive, but actually, yes, they do.
There are some products that are perceived luxury goods that have negative elasticity (where increases price is interpreted to imply increased quality), and (of course) these are the things that psychologists tend to be interested in. But commodities, such as gasoline, aren't.
Tax the fuel.
Doesn't work
Well, except that many many studies have established that it does work. This is called "fuel price elasticity," and it is well known. People drive less when the fuel price is higher. The short-term elasticity is relatively low (because it takes a while for people to change their plans), and a long term elasticity, which is much higher.
http://www.vtpi.org/elasticities.pdf
The thing is, Pennsylvania is where the Drake well was drilled..... There is a creek there named oil creek.. it's named oil creek because the oil production companies used to dump oil into the creek with troughs running straight from the wellheads, then skim the oil at a refinery downstream.
Yow. I have to say, that does not give me good feelings about how conscious the oil and gas companies are about the environment.
"We'll drill the gas out now, and some time in the future, after we've made our profits, other people can clean up any teeny little mess we might have made-- they can worry about that later."
Drillers say they would like to keep the exact formula of the chemicals they use secret because it represents a competitive advantage.
And they should be allowed to keep their formulas secret.
However, if they do, they shouldn't be allowed to inject them into the environment.
(COMPANY: "I need approval to make a chemical release into the environment." EPA: "OK, what chemical?" COMPANY: "We can't tell you, it's secret." EPA: "OK, here's your permit."
WTF?
I do have a few questions.
1. How do they know he has a FB account in the first place? I mean, I've never seen an employment form that asked for such information.
http://www.rtonmainstreet.com/2011/02/articles/employment-law/condition-of-employment-facebook-login-and-password/
I have a friend that has 3 PHD's in Archaeology...
!!!
Three PhDs? In the same subject?
Why?
This should be both +5 Funny and +5 insighful.
I am mulling over the concept of a comment that is "sighful."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=lingering-lies
A science show does not counteract Fox News. It's really very important, so it deserves repeating.
Actually, it's worse than merely "not counteracting" the manure shown on Fox News-- it is an attempt to give legitimacy to the stuff pumped out under the Fox aegis: "Fox hosts Cosmos! They must know about science stuff."
Yes, the summary is biased. As the article points out, it is in fact the large cars that are dangerous-- they are, however, dangerous to the smaller cars.
Making cars smaller doesn't result in more deaths-- unless you have large cars on the road as well. It is the larger cars that are killing people. (and the bogus statistic comes from the "National Center for Policy Analysis"-- read: political action group paid to shill for oil companies.)
That may well be true, but which would you rather be driving in a collision, the large car or the small one?
Indeed. But that's a different question. If the article had said "when you a drive big car, you kill other people in accidents, isn't that what you want?" instead of "small cars are dangerous," I wouldn't have called the article biased.
But there's an important difference between saying "I drive a big car because I like safety" and "I drive a big car because I'd rather have the other guy die if I get in an accident instead of me."
Fox and Fox News have always been very different.
I've heard this asserted, but never seen any actual reason to believe it.
They are not different. They are two brands put out by the same company, one for "entertaining" stuff, like telling America that the Apollo landings were a hoax, and one for "serious" stuff, like telling America that evolution is a hoax.