It's more of a technology upgrade. They've had nozomi shinkansen (pronounced "no-zo-me-sheen-kahn-sane") making said trip in under two and a half hours, reaching speeds somewhere in the (rough estimate alert) neighborhood of 200 mph (though they can't average their top speed due to curves and acceleration and stuff), since the early nineties.
I live in Japan and speak Japanese. That's definitely not how you pronounce shinkansen.:-)
This is not simply a technology upgrade, like previous shinkansen improvements. This is a new set of tracks following a new inland route, of which around 60% is expected to be tunnel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen has more details. Interestingly, it will be funded privately.
This type of vast infrastructure investment is why Japan's economy works so well despite western economists talking it down for decades now. The problem is that short term econometrics don't account for ongoing infrastructure benefits that keep delivering for decades. Japan has been investing like this since the 50's and that's why the standard of living here is streets ahead of anywhere else I've seen.
Spacefaring civilizations will mine lighter elements from gas giant atmospheres, and dismantle their moons for heavier elements. The debris from the moons will form rings.So look for large ring systems...
The number of aggressive, obscenity laced postings from supposedly "professional" IT practitioners exemplifies the deep problems in that field today.
Over the last 30 or so years, I've had the privilege of working with many truly talented and effective IT people. The best of them, like the best people in all fields, were modest, flexible and had a keen understanding of how they could best contribute to the wider enterprise.
Over the past decade, or so, I've seen a cultural change in IT. There are still a lot of awesome people in the field, and I respect the profession highly. But I've noticed an upswing in practitioners who seem to be poorly skilled and highly aggressive (perhaps to compensate for any self perceived inferiority). Strangely, these people are often not promoted and so they are increasingly in the front line of IT.
So when a person talks to IT, they often are confronted by appalling poor skills and overblown aggression. Overtime, this taints all IT people.
Have you wondered why supposedly smart people do "end runs" around IT? Have you ever experienced people diverting funds that should go to IT into other groups? Do you complain that people never come and talk to IT about their projects anymore?
Conversely, do you find yourself simply saying NO to people rather than trying to solve their problem? Do you find yourself getting angry when people challenge your "authority"? Do you regard IT processes as superior to your organization's goals?
His statement at the end of "this is a national security issue, turn that off" is the obvious smoking gun. This strongly suggests RIM are providing backdoors for Saudi and Indian governments (otherwise he could have just said they weren't), and clearly RIM either do not want to talk about it (or are legally enjoined from doing so).
In some sense, the CEO is being honest. He could have just denied it was happening. So kudos to him.
But the problem runs deeper. Saudi, for instance, has a corrupt government with a history of human right abuses. People could end up being tortured or killed for exercising what we regard as basic human rights, just because they trust RIM's platitudes about privacy. This creates a strong ethical obligation to ensure that these people know that their communications are subject to government intercept. I personally think RIM could and should do more.
The "authorities" by which I suppose you mean TEPCO, NISA and the Cabinet have been releasing large volumes of information. TECPCO was reticent at first, becuase they had no clue what they were doing, but a personal visit from the PM and a frank exchange of views fixed that last Wednesday.
Just saw an official press conference on Japanese TV. The containment vessel is intact. The concrete shell was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. Boric acid is being used as a neutron poison. It's not pretty, but it looks still to be under control.
You have to put this in perspective. We just survived one of the biggest earthquakes ever. Hundreds were killed by horrific tsunamis. tens of thousands are homeless in winter conditions. And yet the hysteria in the western media is over a power plant that is still contained. A bit of perspective please.
Below is major impact to TEPCO's facilities due to the Miyagiken-Oki Earthquake that occurred yesterday at 2:46PM. *new items are underlined
[Nuclear Power Station] Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station:
Units 1 to 3: shutdown due to earthquake
Units 4 to 6: outage due to regular inspection * The national government has instructed evacuation for those local residents within 10km radius of the periphery. * Measurement of radioactive material (Iodine, etc.) by monitoring car indicates increasing value compared to normal level. One of the monitoring posts is also indicating higher than normal level. We will continue monitoring discharge of radioactive material from exhaust stack and discharge canal, etc. * Reactor of Unit 1 has been shut down and steam in reactor has been cooled by isolation condenser, but it is now stopped. Because pressure level in reactor containment vessel is increasing, following the national government instruction, we have done the measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessels in order to fully secure safety and we understand that we have succeeded it at 2:30PM. At present, reactor water level is becoming lower and we are injecting water accordingly. * Reactor of Unit 2 has been shut down and we continue injecting water by Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System. Current reactor water level is lower than normal level, but the water level is steady. Following the national government instruction, we are preparing to implement a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessels in order to fully secure safety. * Reactor of Unit 3 has been shut down and we continue injecting water by Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System. Following the national government instruction, we are preparing to implement a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessels in order to fully secure safety. * We are implementing a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessels, but, one of our employees working in the Unit 1 was irradiated at over 100mSv level(106.3mSv). He received a medical treatment by a special physician.
Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station:
Units 1 to 4: shutdown due to earthquake * The national government has instructed evacuation for those local residents within 3km radius of the periphery and indoor standby for those local residents between 3km and 10km radius of the periphery. * At present, we have decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. These measures are considered to be implemented in Units 1, 2 and 3 and accordingly, we have reported and/or noticed the government agencies concerned. * Unit 3 has been stopped and being "nuclear reactor cooling hot stop" at 12:15PM.
Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Station:
Units 1, 5, 6, 7: normal operation
Units 2 to 4: outage due to regular inspection
[Thermal Power Station] Hirono Thermal Power Station Units 2 and 4: shutdown due to earthquake Hitachinaka Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake Kashima Thermal Power Station Units 2, 3, 5, 6: shutdown due to earthquake Ohi Thermal Power Station Units 2, 3: shutdown due to earthquake Higashi-Ohgishima Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake
[Hydro Power Station] 4 stations in Fukushima Prefecture were shutdown due to earthquake. Power stations in Yamanashi Prefecture have been restored.
The whole point of a conference is to expose yourself to people and ideas that you would not otherwise encounter. Will all the papers be great? No. Can you learn something for all of them. Yes.
I've never seen a paper presented at a conference that I didn't learn from (although some were negative examples). The sort of people who don't get anything out of a conference are the same people who complain about being laid off and unable to find a job in their mid-thirties.
Even if all the people who contribute to a given standard freely contribute their intellectual property, nothing stops a third party showing up at a later date claiming infringement of their patents.
If the U.K. government defines open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis", they have just defined a null set. Not very useful. If they are serious about this, then they should pass laws requiring mandatory licensing of patents required to implement an open standard, with cumulative license fees being capped at a (small) fraction of a given device's cost.
The Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 ROMS were Microsoft code, so MS have been around forever. Back then, they were the good guys. I recall that their Zilog editor/assembler was the best around at the time.
In the real world you can't keep g precisely orthogonal without being able to measure it, because as we previously agreed g is a constantly changing vector. And if you can measure it you don't have to factor it out in this way.
I agree you can construct apparatus to factor out g to a given limit of precision. One can also directly measure g to a given limit of precision. But both of these approaches lead to measurements with an error factor. Such is the nature of the Watt Balance; it is an inherently imprecise (although very accurate) measuring device.
My assertion is that defining the kilogram in terms of fixed fundamental units is far preferable to any definition by measurement. A Watt Balance is a measuring device. Therefore, it doesn't meet my criteria.
Of course others have different criteria, often driven by their specific needs and specialties.The debate at the moment is all about settling on the right compromise. It will be interesting to see where it all ends up.
Not g, but G=6.67300 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2. Can be measured irrespective of the presence of g = 9.81 m/s2, but it is awfully hard to get enough precision (the gravitational field being so weak) - you know, like using a torsion balance.
Alternatively, since measuring distances, angles, time and electric currents can be done with better precision, one can substitute "measuring 1 kg of substance" with "measuring 1 kg of inertial mass" (centrifugal force countered by a spring, use a watt balance to generate a force to compensate the elongation of the spring - so that you don't need to rely on the spring's elastic constant). Granted, the measurement is as good as the hypothesis of "inertial mass=gravitational mass", but if you take the theory of relativity as valid, the hypothesis is good.
We both agree that G is a constant. However I believe that a watt balance works on the principle mgv = UI. That's g due to the local gravitational field. It's not clear to me that this can be reduced to purely rely on G, although you may have a technique in mind that I am unfamiliar with.
The rotating weight on a spring is a brilliant idea, but in a real experiment you would have to account for the gravitational force vector on the weight which gets you back to g again. I suppose you could do such an experiment in deep space to reduce this effect, but that is not really practical right now.
Theoretically, it doesn't need to rely on knowing g (Earth-specific), but G (gravitational constant).
A watt balance uses an electromagnetic force that precisely counterbalances an object, thereby weighing the object. The local gravitational field will indeed affect the outcome.
The proposal to use a watt balance to measure the standard kilo, thereby defining it in terms of current and voltage, has the drawback that the result also depends on g. If one can very precisely measure g at the same spacetime coordinates then that could become the standard kilogram g. But such a measurement will have error, and future measuring technologies will be more sensitive. This will make the measurement obsolete.
But you can't do the experiment again because we know the reference kilogram is changing.
In short if either g or the reference kilogram is constant, a watt balance definition is viable. But that's not the case.
But, speaking about precision and the possibility of control: what's wrong with the Watt balance alone? Maybe I'm wrong, but seems to me as easier to control and replicate the measurements to re-obtain the value for the unit. Besides advances in electronics (for increased precision, if/when needed) are more likely than advances in counting something on the order of 10^23 particles (which should be identical).
The Watt balance relies on knowing g, which is not a constant. In fact g, even in one spot, is continuously varying slightly as tectonic plates move, the moon orbits, etc. Even the presence of the experimenters affects g. Admittedly, these are all small effects. But we are talking about fine measurements here (and with ever better technology in the future).
Sure, the Watt balance will make it easy to repeat experimental measurements. And those experiments will all get slightly different answers. So what is the definition of the kilogram then? An average? Isn't that similar to the current unsatisfactory situation?
Another benefit of using a multiple of daltons (or similar) to define the kilogram is that it would unify the mass scales used at the quantum and macro levels. Such a unification appeals to the scientist in me.
Practical problems with controlling the measuring conditions, I guess.
These practical problems also arise when you want to use the definition of a kilogram (or a derived unit) in any real experiment. This is unavoidable: our ability to measure will always be constrained by technology (and in some cases the Planck Constant).
By defining the kilogram as a multiple of something that (probably) doesn't change (like Carbon 12 atoms) we only have one error term arise... when we use the definition of the kilogram in an experiment. Our error term also decreases as measurement technology improves. This is exactly the approach used to define units like the second and the metre, and it demonstrably works.
The current approach of defining a specific physical object as the kilogram introduces two new error terms: one whenever you measure the object and another as the object itself changes over time. The proposal of averaging measurements from several distinct objects, as mentioned in TFA, only complicates this situation.
There's a perfectly useful Atomic Mass Unit already defined: the dalton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_mass_unit Why not define the kilogram in terms of a given number of Carbon 12 atoms?
Or if that is not stable enough, define it in terms of the electron rest mass. That's been stable for at least half the age of the universe.
Yes, Japan has lots of non-urban land. 66% is forested. 14% is cultivated. There's a lot of mountains.
Japan has some highly urbanized areas like the Tokyo/Kanagawa/Chiba conurb which holds about 30 million people. But 30 to 60 minutes on the train will get you amongst the trees. The difference between North America and Japan is population density. In NA most people live on large lots in sprawling suburbs. Consequently, huge amounts of land is reserved for roadways and parking. In Tokyo, most people live in apartment buildings or on very small lots. Roads are narrow (often barely a car's width) and in central Tokyo it is common for an apartment building to have no car parks.
Consequently, urban land use is highly optimized towards people rather than cars in Japan. This is either a bug or a feature depending on your point of view. In my opinion, high density urban zones are probably better ecologically but more fragile in disasters. When the big one hits Tokyo it isn't going to be pretty...
Having authored several internet drafts, I found the XML format perfectly reasonable.
The IETF is engineering for the long term future. If the RFCs were written in some proprietary format, many would be effectively unreadable today. Imagine if they had decided to standardize on Framemaker or Wordperfect 25 years ago. Instead, the decision to use plain ASCII text for the corpus of RFCs means that we will be able to read these documents for the foreseeable future.
ASCII text isn't perfect. Tables and diagrams are awkward and you can forget about international characters (although UTF-8 seems like a reasonable future upgrade). But the benefits far outweigh the impositions
Interestingly, you are still only required to submit internet drafts as plain ASCII text. The XML tool you complain about simply makes it easy to conform to the prescribed formatting conventions and structure. So please feel free to ignore it.
How many people can really work 10-11 hours a day solidly, every day, and produce high quality code?
If you really want to raise productivity, how about: * get rid of all unnecessary meetings (those that do not directly move the project forward) * get rid of all unnecessary paperwork (including bureaucratic bullshit like timesheets) * hire dedicated sales support rather than distracting core engineers * give engineers a door to close and respect it * encourage working off-site and/or out-of-hours when deep concentration is required * encourage engineers to work at time of peak efficiency (don't make a night person work early, etc.) * establish a culture of no working on weekends
Good engineering management like this can raise productivity 50-100%.
Honestly, I would be a bit disappointed if it turned out that we already know about every possible physical force and/or physical process that could exist in the universe. As long as such experiments are scientifically sound, I see nothing wrong with them.
The Standard Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model) and General Relativity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity) pretty much cover all the physical forces you are ever likely to encounter. To be fair we don't have a ToE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything) yet, but the two separate frameworks have been wildly successful at describing and predicting all of the physics that have yet been observed.
Positing new physical forces that are strong enough to have effect on the macro scale and that show up in haunted houses but not in labs is a bit of an outside proposition.
Slashdot Mirror
It's more of a technology upgrade. They've had nozomi shinkansen (pronounced "no-zo-me-sheen-kahn-sane") making said trip in under two and a half hours, reaching speeds somewhere in the (rough estimate alert) neighborhood of 200 mph (though they can't average their top speed due to curves and acceleration and stuff), since the early nineties.
I live in Japan and speak Japanese. That's definitely not how you pronounce shinkansen. :-)
This is not simply a technology upgrade, like previous shinkansen improvements. This is a new set of tracks following a new inland route, of which around 60% is expected to be tunnel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen has more details. Interestingly, it will be funded privately.
This type of vast infrastructure investment is why Japan's economy works so well despite western economists talking it down for decades now. The problem is that short term econometrics don't account for ongoing infrastructure benefits that keep delivering for decades. Japan has been investing like this since the 50's and that's why the standard of living here is streets ahead of anywhere else I've seen.
Spacefaring civilizations will mine lighter elements from gas giant atmospheres, and dismantle their moons for heavier elements. The debris from the moons will form rings.So look for large ring systems...
The number of aggressive, obscenity laced postings from supposedly "professional" IT practitioners exemplifies the deep problems in that field today.
Over the last 30 or so years, I've had the privilege of working with many truly talented and effective IT people.
The best of them, like the best people in all fields, were modest, flexible and had a keen understanding of how they could best contribute to the wider enterprise.
Over the past decade, or so, I've seen a cultural change in IT. There are still a lot of awesome people in the field, and I respect the profession highly.
But I've noticed an upswing in practitioners who seem to be poorly skilled and highly aggressive (perhaps to compensate for any self perceived inferiority).
Strangely, these people are often not promoted and so they are increasingly in the front line of IT.
So when a person talks to IT, they often are confronted by appalling poor skills and overblown aggression. Overtime, this taints all IT people.
Have you wondered why supposedly smart people do "end runs" around IT? Have you ever experienced people diverting funds that should go to IT into other groups? Do you complain that people never come and talk to IT about their projects anymore?
Conversely, do you find yourself simply saying NO to people rather than trying to solve their problem? Do you find yourself getting angry when people challenge your "authority"? Do you regard IT processes as superior to your organization's goals?
His statement at the end of "this is a national security issue, turn that off" is the obvious smoking gun. This strongly suggests RIM are providing backdoors for Saudi and Indian governments (otherwise he could have just said they weren't), and clearly RIM either do not want to talk about it (or are legally enjoined from doing so).
In some sense, the CEO is being honest. He could have just denied it was happening. So kudos to him.
But the problem runs deeper. Saudi, for instance, has a corrupt government with a history of human right abuses. People could end up being tortured or killed for exercising what we regard as basic human rights, just because they trust RIM's platitudes about privacy. This creates a strong ethical obligation to ensure that these people know that their communications are subject to government intercept. I personally think RIM could and should do more.
FWIW I am in Tokyo.
The "authorities" by which I suppose you mean TEPCO, NISA and the Cabinet have been releasing large volumes of information. TECPCO was reticent at first, becuase they had no clue what they were doing, but a personal visit from the PM and a frank exchange of views fixed that last Wednesday.
I have been graphing the TEPCO data: http://www.paddon.org/wiki/mwp/Fukushima
In any case, please don't make comments without educating yourself first (sigh, I know. this is slashdot).
Just saw an official press conference on Japanese TV. The containment vessel is intact. The concrete shell was damaged by a hydrogen explosion. Boric acid is being used as a neutron poison. It's not pretty, but it looks still to be under control.
You have to put this in perspective. We just survived one of the biggest earthquakes ever. Hundreds were killed by horrific tsunamis. tens of thousands are homeless in winter conditions. And yet the hysteria in the western media is over a power plant that is still contained. A bit of perspective please.
Here is the latest bulletin:
Below is major impact to TEPCO's facilities due to the Miyagiken-Oki
Earthquake that occurred yesterday at 2:46PM.
*new items are underlined
[Nuclear Power Station]
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station:
Units 1 to 3: shutdown due to earthquake
Units 4 to 6: outage due to regular inspection
* The national government has instructed evacuation for those local
residents within 10km radius of the periphery.
* Measurement of radioactive material (Iodine, etc.) by monitoring car
indicates increasing value compared to normal level. One of the
monitoring posts is also indicating higher than normal level. We will
continue monitoring discharge of radioactive material from exhaust stack
and discharge canal, etc.
* Reactor of Unit 1 has been shut down and steam in reactor has been
cooled by isolation condenser, but it is now stopped. Because pressure
level in reactor containment vessel is increasing, following the national
government instruction, we have done the measure to reduce the pressure of
the reactor containment vessels in order to fully secure safety and we
understand that we have succeeded it at 2:30PM.
At present, reactor water level is becoming lower and we are injecting
water accordingly.
* Reactor of Unit 2 has been shut down and we continue injecting water by
Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System. Current reactor water level is
lower than normal level, but the water level is steady. Following the
national government instruction, we are preparing to implement a measure
to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessels in order to
fully secure safety.
* Reactor of Unit 3 has been shut down and we continue injecting water by
Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System. Following the national government
instruction, we are preparing to implement a measure to reduce the
pressure of the reactor containment vessels in order to fully secure
safety.
* We are implementing a measure to reduce the pressure of the reactor
containment vessels, but, one of our employees working in the Unit 1 was
irradiated at over 100mSv level(106.3mSv). He received a medical treatment
by a special physician.
Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Station:
Units 1 to 4: shutdown due to earthquake
* The national government has instructed evacuation for those local
residents within 3km radius of the periphery and indoor standby for those
local residents between 3km and 10km radius of the periphery.
* At present, we have decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce
the pressure of the reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air
containing radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety.
These measures are considered to be implemented in Units 1, 2 and 3 and
accordingly, we have reported and/or noticed the government agencies
concerned.
* Unit 3 has been stopped and being "nuclear reactor cooling hot stop" at
12:15PM.
Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Station:
Units 1, 5, 6, 7: normal operation
Units 2 to 4: outage due to regular inspection
[Thermal Power Station]
Hirono Thermal Power Station Units 2 and 4: shutdown due to earthquake
Hitachinaka Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake
Kashima Thermal Power Station Units 2, 3, 5, 6: shutdown due to earthquake
Ohi Thermal Power Station Units 2, 3: shutdown due to earthquake
Higashi-Ohgishima Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake
[Hydro Power Station]
4 stations in Fukushima Prefecture were shutdown due to earthquake.
Power stations in Yamanashi Prefecture have been restored.
[Transmission System, etc.]
5 substations shown below have been shutdown:
- Naka Substation
- Shin Motegi Substation
- Joban Substation
- Ibaraki Substation
- Nishi Mito Substation
[Blackout in TEPCO's Service Area]
Total of about 0.6 million households are o
Tokyo Electric Power Company is providing regular updates with real information:
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/index-e.html
It appears the news services are reporting from a parallel universe where things are completely different.
Yeah, there are two rational ways to order dates: big endian and little. Americans choose the third way.
Yes. You should definitely go.
The whole point of a conference is to expose yourself to people and ideas that you would not otherwise encounter. Will all the papers be great? No. Can you learn something for all of them. Yes.
I've never seen a paper presented at a conference that I didn't learn from (although some were negative examples). The sort of people who don't get anything out of a conference are the same people who complain about being laid off and unable to find a job in their mid-thirties.
Even if all the people who contribute to a given standard freely contribute their intellectual property, nothing stops a third party showing up at a later date claiming infringement of their patents.
If the U.K. government defines open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis", they have just defined a null set. Not very useful. If they are serious about this, then they should pass laws requiring mandatory licensing of patents required to implement an open standard, with cumulative license fees being capped at a (small) fraction of a given device's cost.
Sounds like some kind of crap chain restaurant passing off faux Japanese cooking.
The Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 ROMS were Microsoft code, so MS have been around forever. Back then, they were the good guys. I recall that their Zilog editor/assembler was the best around at the time.
"Google labs has created"... I think not. Actually I suspect talented people have created. How about their names?
Or have they been totally borged?
People create. Corporations monetize.
In the real world you can't keep g precisely orthogonal without being able to measure it, because as we previously agreed g is a constantly changing vector. And if you can measure it you don't have to factor it out in this way.
I agree you can construct apparatus to factor out g to a given limit of precision. One can also directly measure g to a given limit of precision. But both of these approaches lead to measurements with an error factor. Such is the nature of the Watt Balance; it is an inherently imprecise (although very accurate) measuring device.
My assertion is that defining the kilogram in terms of fixed fundamental units is far preferable to any definition by measurement. A Watt Balance is a measuring device. Therefore, it doesn't meet my criteria.
Of course others have different criteria, often driven by their specific needs and specialties.The debate at the moment is all about settling on the right compromise. It will be interesting to see where it all ends up.
Not g, but G=6.67300 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2. Can be measured irrespective of the presence of g = 9.81 m/s2, but it is awfully hard to get enough precision (the gravitational field being so weak) - you know, like using a torsion balance.
Alternatively, since measuring distances, angles, time and electric currents can be done with better precision, one can substitute "measuring 1 kg of substance" with "measuring 1 kg of inertial mass" (centrifugal force countered by a spring, use a watt balance to generate a force to compensate the elongation of the spring - so that you don't need to rely on the spring's elastic constant).
Granted, the measurement is as good as the hypothesis of "inertial mass=gravitational mass", but if you take the theory of relativity as valid, the hypothesis is good.
We both agree that G is a constant. However I believe that a watt balance works on the principle mgv = UI. That's g due to the local gravitational field. It's not clear to me that this can be reduced to purely rely on G, although you may have a technique in mind that I am unfamiliar with.
The rotating weight on a spring is a brilliant idea, but in a real experiment you would have to account for the gravitational force vector on the weight which gets you back to g again. I suppose you could do such an experiment in deep space to reduce this effect, but that is not really practical right now.
Theoretically, it doesn't need to rely on knowing g (Earth-specific), but G (gravitational constant).
A watt balance uses an electromagnetic force that precisely counterbalances an object, thereby weighing the object. The local gravitational field will indeed affect the outcome.
The proposal to use a watt balance to measure the standard kilo, thereby defining it in terms of current and voltage, has the drawback that the result also depends on g. If one can very precisely measure g at the same spacetime coordinates then that could become the standard kilogram g. But such a measurement will have error, and future measuring technologies will be more sensitive. This will make the measurement obsolete.
But you can't do the experiment again because we know the reference kilogram is changing.
In short if either g or the reference kilogram is constant, a watt balance definition is viable. But that's not the case.
But, speaking about precision and the possibility of control: what's wrong with the Watt balance alone? Maybe I'm wrong, but seems to me as easier to control and replicate the measurements to re-obtain the value for the unit. Besides advances in electronics (for increased precision, if/when needed) are more likely than advances in counting something on the order of 10^23 particles (which should be identical).
The Watt balance relies on knowing g, which is not a constant. In fact g, even in one spot, is continuously varying slightly as tectonic plates move, the moon orbits, etc. Even the presence of the experimenters affects g. Admittedly, these are all small effects. But we are talking about fine measurements here (and with ever better technology in the future).
Sure, the Watt balance will make it easy to repeat experimental measurements. And those experiments will all get slightly different answers. So what is the definition of the kilogram then? An average? Isn't that similar to the current unsatisfactory situation?
Another benefit of using a multiple of daltons (or similar) to define the kilogram is that it would unify the mass scales used at the quantum and macro levels. Such a unification appeals to the scientist in me.
Practical problems with controlling the measuring conditions, I guess.
These practical problems also arise when you want to use the definition of a kilogram (or a derived unit) in any real experiment. This is unavoidable: our ability to measure will always be constrained by technology (and in some cases the Planck Constant).
By defining the kilogram as a multiple of something that (probably) doesn't change (like Carbon 12 atoms) we only have one error term arise... when we use the definition of the kilogram in an experiment. Our error term also decreases as measurement technology improves. This is exactly the approach used to define units like the second and the metre, and it demonstrably works.
The current approach of defining a specific physical object as the kilogram introduces two new error terms: one whenever you measure the object and another as the object itself changes over time. The proposal of averaging measurements from several distinct objects, as mentioned in TFA, only complicates this situation.
There's a perfectly useful Atomic Mass Unit already defined: the dalton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_mass_unit
Why not define the kilogram in terms of a given number of Carbon 12 atoms?
Or if that is not stable enough, define it in terms of the electron rest mass. That's been stable for at least half the age of the universe.
Just following orders? Ask Eichmann how well that defense flies...
Yes, Japan has lots of non-urban land. 66% is forested. 14% is cultivated. There's a lot of mountains.
Japan has some highly urbanized areas like the Tokyo/Kanagawa/Chiba conurb which holds about 30 million people. But 30 to 60 minutes on the train will get you amongst the trees. The difference between North America and Japan is population density. In NA most people live on large lots in sprawling suburbs. Consequently, huge amounts of land is reserved for roadways and parking. In Tokyo, most people live in apartment buildings or on very small lots. Roads are narrow (often barely a car's width) and in central Tokyo it is common for an apartment building to have no car parks.
Consequently, urban land use is highly optimized towards people rather than cars in Japan. This is either a bug or a feature depending on your point of view. In my opinion, high density urban zones are probably better ecologically but more fragile in disasters. When the big one hits Tokyo it isn't going to be pretty...
Having authored several internet drafts, I found the XML format perfectly reasonable.
The IETF is engineering for the long term future. If the RFCs were written in some proprietary format, many would be effectively unreadable today. Imagine if they had decided to standardize on Framemaker or Wordperfect 25 years ago. Instead, the decision to use plain ASCII text for the corpus of RFCs means that we will be able to read these documents for the foreseeable future.
ASCII text isn't perfect. Tables and diagrams are awkward and you can forget about international characters (although UTF-8 seems like a reasonable future upgrade). But the benefits far outweigh the impositions
Interestingly, you are still only required to submit internet drafts as plain ASCII text. The XML tool you complain about simply makes it easy to conform to the prescribed formatting conventions and structure. So please feel free to ignore it.
How many people can really work 10-11 hours a day solidly, every day, and produce high quality code?
If you really want to raise productivity, how about:
* get rid of all unnecessary meetings (those that do not directly move the project forward)
* get rid of all unnecessary paperwork (including bureaucratic bullshit like timesheets)
* hire dedicated sales support rather than distracting core engineers
* give engineers a door to close and respect it
* encourage working off-site and/or out-of-hours when deep concentration is required
* encourage engineers to work at time of peak efficiency (don't make a night person work early, etc.)
* establish a culture of no working on weekends
Good engineering management like this can raise productivity 50-100%.
Honestly, I would be a bit disappointed if it turned out that we already know about every possible physical force and/or physical process that could exist in the universe. As long as such experiments are scientifically sound, I see nothing wrong with them.
The Standard Model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model) and General Relativity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity) pretty much cover all the physical forces you are ever likely to encounter. To be fair we don't have a ToE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything) yet, but the two separate frameworks have been wildly successful at describing and predicting all of the physics that have yet been observed.
Positing new physical forces that are strong enough to have effect on the macro scale and that show up in haunted houses but not in labs is a bit of an outside proposition.