Slashdot Mirror


User: Markrian

Markrian's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
12
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 12

  1. An artist's opinion (maybe) on Wolfram Promises Computing That Answers Questions · · Score: 1

    "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
    -- Pablo Picasso (unsourced)

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Picasso

  2. Perpendicular Electric Fields on Motor Made From Liquid Film · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't understand. They seem to be setting up two static, plane electric fields at some angle to one another. Surely the resultant field is just another field at a different angle? Say the two fields are E and J , with
    E = ( E , 0 , 0 )
    J = ( 0 , J , 0 )
    Then you've just got the resultant field, E' = E + J , where
    E' = ( E , J , 0 )
    which is just another static, plane electric field. So, given that two fields are really equivalent to one, if you set up just the resultant field in the first place, would this motor effect still occur?
    What am I missing?

  3. Re:About time! on Black Hole At Center of Milky Way Confirmed · · Score: 1

    I've not heard of this twin-black-hole theory... Any references?

    As for black hole mergers, progress is being made: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/gwave.html .

    And what of the 'sides' of the galaxy? Are these the two ends of the galaxy's axis, or on the disc on opposite sides? In either case, due to the symmetries involved, I don't think what you say makes any sense.

    Why is this modded +5 Interesting?

  4. Re:The article is incorrect with respect to ext4.. on On the State of Linux File Systems · · Score: 1

    I think transami was confusing ad nauseam with reductio ad absurdum.

  5. Re:Don't believe, just ask on LHC Forces Bookmaker To Lower Odds On the Existence of God · · Score: 1

    Are you implying most here have seen evidence of real, dead females? Yikes.

  6. Re:Versus Jupiter on Mars Asteroid Impact More Likely Than Before · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, since the asteroid's mass is negligible to that of the planets, its mass is irrelevant to its trajectory as it can be considered a test particle. We only need to know six pieces of information - three spatial coordinates, and three velocity components. It's easy to measure four of these very accurately, but the radial distance and velocity of the asteroid with respect to us are harder. These are where the majority of the uncertainty comes from.

  7. Erratum for article on Is There Such a Thing As Absolute Hot? · · Score: 1

    At the top right of the article there is a picture of the Sun, and its caption claims that the Sun's core is about 10^17 degrees. This is about 10 orders of magnitude out, whether you're talking Kelvin, Celsius or Fahrenheit! It's more like 1.6×10^7 K, which supports sustained hydrogen fusion. Any hotter and the Sun would blow itself apart.

  8. Re:Question on Hundreds of Black Holes Found · · Score: 1

    Just to be clear, the location of this minimal radius is *not* the same as its event horizon.

  9. Re:Question on Hundreds of Black Holes Found · · Score: 1

    In fact, in classical Newtonian gravity, a stable circular orbit of any radius can be achieved by a test particle around a massive body. In general relativity, however, around extremely massive bodies such as black holes, there is a minimum radius below which no stable circular orbit can be formed. The location of this minimal radius will be somewhere between the object's Schwarzschild radius and a few times that, depending on the degree of the body's rotation.

  10. Re:Damnit... on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta Released · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just to clarify, the upgrade process cannot skip interim releases. That is, to upgrade from 6.06 to 7.04, the recommended and supported path is to go from 6.06 -> 6.10 -> 7.04. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes

  11. LEDs on The Light Bulb That Can Change the World · · Score: 1

    I'm more interested in LED and related light-emitting polymer technologies. With more than five times the life of fluorescent bulbs and comparable energy efficiency they are the future. Of course, the technology still has a ways to go so the efficiency will only improve.

    I've seen them used all over the place: some cars and buses use LED arrays for their brake/indicator lights, and I've seen traffic lights use them too.

    At the moment, unfortunately, it's cheaper to buy five fluorescent bulbs than a single LED-based one. More at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led#Illumination_appl ications .

  12. Re:Very happy with Ubuntu 5.10 on Looking Forward, Ubuntu Linux 6.06 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's easier than that now. If you have the breezy-updates repository enabled (which it should already be, unless you installed Ubuntu from a development version). From the changelog of update-manager, which performs similar functions to the Windows Update applet in the system tray:
    update-manager (0.42.2ubuntu12~breezy1) breezy-updates; urgency=low

    * backported to breezy
    * this update allows upgrades to the dapper version of ubuntu

    -- Michael Vogt <michael.vogt@ubuntu.com> Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:45:40 +0200
    There'll be a GUI to initiate the upgrade to dapper once it's released. That means no more editing of /etc/apt/sources.list.