The technology on the Prius that this article mentions seems interesting (automatically putting the engine in a sort of standby mode where you just have to push the gas pedal to start it again)
At a human level, I'd say it's very much like space. Sure, you won't be in micro-gravity, but :
- you will die without a pressure suit or a pressured cabin, it's no place for men.
- when you look up, it's dark, no more blue.
- if in a pressure suit, you can experience scorching heat on the side of your body that's towards the Sun, and freezing cold on the other side at the same time
- if you jump from the balloon, you won't experience any speed or acceleration because you're in a near-vacuum, there's not enough atmosphere to ruffle your suit and you're too high up to realize how fast the ground is coming at you.
So to me, it's very near space, and it was very much "space" for Col. Kittinger in 1960. Read up on this guy.
Kittinger's impressions when he jumped off that platform at 102k feet was that there is no sense of acceleration, no sense of speed, because you're in a near-vacuum and there are no points of reference at this altitude for you to see how fast you're going. You're too high up to see how fast the ground is coming at you. He had to turn around and look at the gondola rocketing into space to understand that yes indeed, he was falling.
Besides, eventually you're going to decelerate because the atmosphere is getting thicker the closer you get to the ground, and it offers more resistance. So I don't think there's anything scary about free-falling from the edge of space. I'd bet those rides at amusement parks where they drop you from a height of 30 meters are scarier.
Red delicious, granny, whatever... it all depends on how you want to eat the apple. If I just want to bite down on a juicy, sweet apple I'll take a Fuji from my greengrocer's any day. For cooking (or cider!) purposes there are obviously better varieties.
Some of the participants are going to want to eat the produce from "their" farm, in turn neglecting their local farms and burning more fuel to get the goods sent to them, or traveling to the place. Well, it's all in the UK so it's not as bad as buying passion fruit from the other side of the globe, but still. This experiment is a first, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of it.
I think "Pick Your Own" farms are also a good way of reconnecting people to the source of their food. When you're out there in the fields walking, crouching and bending down to pick a couple of tomatoes for yourself you're really thankful that you don't have to do this every day. Then again, same problem : lots of cars driving to the farm, when a couple of trucks going from the farm to the city's market saves more gas.
(TL;DR : If you're only thinking about art and creation as a job that needs to be paid, you're not thinking about it deeply enough.)
Why is it important to you that we have high culture and high art, at all ?
There are many levels of culture : your personal history ; the stories and the jokes and the little "catchphrases" that you share with your loved one. The stories you share with your family, what you share with your friends, your neighborhood, your region, your country, your continent, the whole world. But why is there more perceived value in culture and art that spreads globally, or is passed down through centuries ?
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love listening to music that was written hundreds of years ago, or admiring antique Greek sculptures. But what do I gain from this ? Warm fuzzies, and an appreciation of my place in the history of mankind. But what if we didn't know anything about Bach, what if we had forgotten about Da Vinci, would our culture be poorer ? You cannot feel a loss when you don't even know what you're missing.
The whole idea of art is absurd. Art is Man rebelling against the absurdity of a life where he has to die, and producing even more absurdity ; arranging shapes, colors or sounds to his will, inventing stories, creating useless things (in the sense that you don't need them to survive) that Nature and Time will eventually destroy, too. Some works will survive their authors, a staggering amount won't. But such is the reward of the artist : finishing a work and saying to himself, I will die but I leave this. The true reward of creation is creation itself. Why should a handful of men and women be chosen and financially supported to make greater art ? Why are their useless things more valuable ? Again, why is it important to have a global culture, or art that lasts for centuries ? Why is creating art a valid career in our societies ?
I play the guitar. I wrote some songs, and I like to play for my friends or my family. I've played in bands and I've had great jam-sessions with other musicians. But what I like best is to improvise stuff on my own. Just making up some more absurdity, to forget about everything else. I don't care that my random jamming only reaches my ears, at least I'm doing it before I die.
He asked Eric Schmidt at a conference, "What are you doing about Web 3.0 ?", and Schmidt replied something like "I think you're the inventor of this term"
Well I have a PLAN to ONE UP this little dipshit. I'm gonna ask the FUCKING POPE, hey Palpatine, what are your thoughts on lolcat-olicism ? And he'll be like, "Dude. You just made that up. How d'you get past security btw ?"
Then I can start my new RELIGION with cool business cards that go like :
LOLCAT-OLICISM (Bros, the Pope says that name was revealed to me and me only, and he, uh, he knows about shit like that huh ?)
OMG my plan is FLAWLESS. Even Google doesn't know about lolcat-olicism.
Math is a discipline where you learn to think without any emotions or opinions involved. It's pure reasoning, where you start with absolute truths and construct more truths, by using logic and by finding patterns. I don't think the problem is that math teachers do not teach so-called "applied maths", I think the problem is that math students, and possibly a lot of math teachers, do not understand the goal. You heard damn few examples because there is damn few occasions where you can -- or have to -- "apply" mathematic formulas in everyday life.
I think that what GP is saying is that "applied maths" is actually "applied reasoning", like say, physics, philosophy, history or any of those disciplines where you try to find patterns and to reason logically about events that occur in the physical world. But I agree with you that in effect, this isn't what is taught. Every discipline is compartmentalized and the goal is to become good at taking a test in that discipline.
My thoughts exactly. And also, who wants an oversized-peach-headed character to enter public domain ? Seriously, Boop's face gives me the major creeps. Whichever madman created that, let him keep it FOREVER.
Your post made me fire up Icedove (yeah, Debian user) to set it up like that, too. And I realized I had already done that many, many moons ago, but then forgot about it. Well, one hefty backup underway ! Sometimes my past self does pretty cool things for my present self. I wish I could time-travel and high-five myself for that one.
Get your ability tested under a proper scientific experimental protocol and you could win a cool million dollars. Who knows, if you're right we may discover wonderful things about the human brain. If you're wrong, well, you're wrong, and it's ok not to have a special power.
As the other repliers, I have no problem going to work when it's dark if it means I get more sunshine in the evening. My working hours are supposed to be 9 to 6, but I've settled for 8:30AM - 5:30PM. My coworkers who come in at 10AM and leave at 19PM may get some sun in the morning, but what's the use ? Unless you're getting up really early, it makes no sense. Plus you come home in the dark from October to late March. For me the dark evenings are from November to late February.
Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good.
I signed up on Facebook, added some friends, went through all the privacy / apps settings to lock everything down and... nothing interesting happened. I deleted my account and nobody asked me why. If my friends have something really important to say to me, I expect them to tell me face-to-face, on the phone, by email, or using our private message board, in that order. Facebook is just for progress-bar-filling-games and boring personality/trivia tests.
Well thank you sir, I just got an education right there. I'm sorry if my comment came off as insulting in your opinion, I was just feeling cheeky when I wrote it.
Slashdot Mirror
Another way you can potentially safe fuel is by turning off the engine at red lights.
http://www.slate.com/id/2192187/
The technology on the Prius that this article mentions seems interesting (automatically putting the engine in a sort of standby mode where you just have to push the gas pedal to start it again)
Science : it works, bitches.
Cool stuff ! Gave me a smile :) I appreciate that you pronounce "Torvalds" and "Linux" properly ;)
I see what you did there.
At a human level, I'd say it's very much like space. Sure, you won't be in micro-gravity, but :
So to me, it's very near space, and it was very much "space" for Col. Kittinger in 1960. Read up on this guy.
Kittinger's impressions when he jumped off that platform at 102k feet was that there is no sense of acceleration, no sense of speed, because you're in a near-vacuum and there are no points of reference at this altitude for you to see how fast you're going. You're too high up to see how fast the ground is coming at you. He had to turn around and look at the gondola rocketing into space to understand that yes indeed, he was falling.
Besides, eventually you're going to decelerate because the atmosphere is getting thicker the closer you get to the ground, and it offers more resistance. So I don't think there's anything scary about free-falling from the edge of space. I'd bet those rides at amusement parks where they drop you from a height of 30 meters are scarier.
Red delicious, granny, whatever... it all depends on how you want to eat the apple. If I just want to bite down on a juicy, sweet apple I'll take a Fuji from my greengrocer's any day. For cooking (or cider!) purposes there are obviously better varieties.
And also an L.
We don't think the controller doesn't have a video card. We know it doesn't. Nintendo said so at the E3 conference.
Umbrella Corp. pushing out some PR, as usual.
Some of the participants are going to want to eat the produce from "their" farm, in turn neglecting their local farms and burning more fuel to get the goods sent to them, or traveling to the place. Well, it's all in the UK so it's not as bad as buying passion fruit from the other side of the globe, but still. This experiment is a first, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of it.
I think "Pick Your Own" farms are also a good way of reconnecting people to the source of their food. When you're out there in the fields walking, crouching and bending down to pick a couple of tomatoes for yourself you're really thankful that you don't have to do this every day. Then again, same problem : lots of cars driving to the farm, when a couple of trucks going from the farm to the city's market saves more gas.
THIS. Where have all my mod points gone ? DAMNIT
(TL;DR : If you're only thinking about art and creation as a job that needs to be paid, you're not thinking about it deeply enough.)
Why is it important to you that we have high culture and high art, at all ?
There are many levels of culture : your personal history ; the stories and the jokes and the little "catchphrases" that you share with your loved one. The stories you share with your family, what you share with your friends, your neighborhood, your region, your country, your continent, the whole world. But why is there more perceived value in culture and art that spreads globally, or is passed down through centuries ?
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love listening to music that was written hundreds of years ago, or admiring antique Greek sculptures. But what do I gain from this ? Warm fuzzies, and an appreciation of my place in the history of mankind. But what if we didn't know anything about Bach, what if we had forgotten about Da Vinci, would our culture be poorer ? You cannot feel a loss when you don't even know what you're missing.
The whole idea of art is absurd. Art is Man rebelling against the absurdity of a life where he has to die, and producing even more absurdity ; arranging shapes, colors or sounds to his will, inventing stories, creating useless things (in the sense that you don't need them to survive) that Nature and Time will eventually destroy, too. Some works will survive their authors, a staggering amount won't. But such is the reward of the artist : finishing a work and saying to himself, I will die but I leave this. The true reward of creation is creation itself. Why should a handful of men and women be chosen and financially supported to make greater art ? Why are their useless things more valuable ? Again, why is it important to have a global culture, or art that lasts for centuries ? Why is creating art a valid career in our societies ?
I play the guitar. I wrote some songs, and I like to play for my friends or my family. I've played in bands and I've had great jam-sessions with other musicians. But what I like best is to improvise stuff on my own. Just making up some more absurdity, to forget about everything else. I don't care that my random jamming only reaches my ears, at least I'm doing it before I die.
He asked Eric Schmidt at a conference, "What are you doing about Web 3.0 ?", and Schmidt replied something like "I think you're the inventor of this term"
Well I have a PLAN to ONE UP this little dipshit. I'm gonna ask the FUCKING POPE, hey Palpatine, what are your thoughts on lolcat-olicism ? And he'll be like, "Dude. You just made that up. How d'you get past security btw ?"
Then I can start my new RELIGION with cool business cards that go like :
LOLCAT-OLICISM
(Bros, the Pope says that name was revealed to me and me only, and he, uh, he knows about shit like that huh ?)
OMG my plan is FLAWLESS. Even Google doesn't know about lolcat-olicism.
I agree, it's not taught that way.
Math is a discipline where you learn to think without any emotions or opinions involved. It's pure reasoning, where you start with absolute truths and construct more truths, by using logic and by finding patterns. I don't think the problem is that math teachers do not teach so-called "applied maths", I think the problem is that math students, and possibly a lot of math teachers, do not understand the goal. You heard damn few examples because there is damn few occasions where you can -- or have to -- "apply" mathematic formulas in everyday life.
I think that what GP is saying is that "applied maths" is actually "applied reasoning", like say, physics, philosophy, history or any of those disciplines where you try to find patterns and to reason logically about events that occur in the physical world. But I agree with you that in effect, this isn't what is taught. Every discipline is compartmentalized and the goal is to become good at taking a test in that discipline.
Flied right above your head, didn't it ?
You can't comment on a feed or "Like" a feed.
My date format is DD/MM/YYYY, you insensitive clod !
I just typed the first letters of the url in the address bar, pressed down and then held Shift + Del to clear the entries (using Firefox)
My thoughts exactly. And also, who wants an oversized-peach-headed character to enter public domain ? Seriously, Boop's face gives me the major creeps. Whichever madman created that, let him keep it FOREVER.
Your post made me fire up Icedove (yeah, Debian user) to set it up like that, too. And I realized I had already done that many, many moons ago, but then forgot about it. Well, one hefty backup underway ! Sometimes my past self does pretty cool things for my present self. I wish I could time-travel and high-five myself for that one.
Looks like a valid claim for the JREF's million dollar challenge.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
Get your ability tested under a proper scientific experimental protocol and you could win a cool million dollars. Who knows, if you're right we may discover wonderful things about the human brain. If you're wrong, well, you're wrong, and it's ok not to have a special power.
As the other repliers, I have no problem going to work when it's dark if it means I get more sunshine in the evening. My working hours are supposed to be 9 to 6, but I've settled for 8:30AM - 5:30PM. My coworkers who come in at 10AM and leave at 19PM may get some sun in the morning, but what's the use ? Unless you're getting up really early, it makes no sense. Plus you come home in the dark from October to late March. For me the dark evenings are from November to late February.
I signed up on Facebook, added some friends, went through all the privacy / apps settings to lock everything down and... nothing interesting happened. I deleted my account and nobody asked me why. If my friends have something really important to say to me, I expect them to tell me face-to-face, on the phone, by email, or using our private message board, in that order. Facebook is just for progress-bar-filling-games and boring personality/trivia tests.
Well thank you sir, I just got an education right there. I'm sorry if my comment came off as insulting in your opinion, I was just feeling cheeky when I wrote it.