This a response from your post way back. I pretty much agree with your response and more. Bush seems to thinks he can launch a useless (well, worse than useless) war based upon the fact that he is pissed that Saddam tried to kill his father. He trumpets the "war on terror" as an excuse to chivvy away at what is left of our constitutional rights. In US history this has been done before. I believe Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. But that was for a war that at least had a likely end, soon. The "war on terrorism", like the "war on drugs" and the "war on crime" is open-ended. So, as long as my fellow apathetic Americans stand for it, we will gladly give away whatever is left of our privacy, citizenship, and right to simply be left alone. Just because I raised a possibility that is very unlikely (though BAD if it happens -- imagine the righteous anger and dissolution of American society if it did) does not mean that I'm not equally scared about the things I wrote of above, if not more. I try not to fit into a neat political or ideological slot, and I don't like labels. Nor, I suppose, do you.
My favorite also concerns my parents, and I am somewhat to blame for not realizing how very basic I had to get. My father called me and said that his computer screen was just dark. I went through the usual routine of "is it plugged in, is the power on, etc." He said, Of course, he had tried everything. I was busy at the time so I foisted it off on my brother, who also works in SW Engineering. Later I called my brother to see if he had been able to help. He said he had. I asked what he did, and my brother said he told him to jiggle the mouse -- the computer had gone into powersave mode and the screen went dark. This is the stuff of urban legends, but I swear it's true. My Dad spent the next siz months becoming as computer literate as he could out of embarrassment.
Can you elaborate on the problems with restart? Are they inherent in the rocket design? Is it something that can be resolved over time, into a solution that does not involve the "many parts" problem?
You're right, I screwed up my chemicals. My bad, mea culpa and all that shit. If you forgive that error, your points and mine are pretty much the same.
Sorry, I was just typing stream-of-consciousness. I realize after some research that it is Nitrous Oxide as the oxidizer and not Hydrogen Peroxide -- perhaps I was on the former when I posted? And the the shredded tires comment was more a metaphor, I'm aware of how HTPD comopunds work -- if not at all aware of how they are made. But I think my point, and yours, still stand.
At the risk of being a kiss-ass, kudos to you for your concise expression of what so many do not understand. It's not the great guy you give power to that you need worry over -- it's the ones who follow after, or even the not-so-great guy he will become. More people should read a bit of history. This should be f'ing obvious.
I was going off the cuff. If you think I hit and then missed, tell me more about how. Unlike the fine fools in control I would like to discuss it. Who knows? It might even make a difference to someone -- somewhere.
I get to scale down my nightmares when a) they are gone, or b) someone else is chosen to have them. Are you volunteering, Senior "Tosh"? {Hint: I volunteered, but not for this, so get a life yourself or shut the fuck up.)
You replied to me, but I think your comments may have been for the parent poster, since we are in basic agreement, especially about the physics and concealability of active radeonulides such as (obviously) fissiles. And your right, a Geiger counter or neutron detector or any other such would be ineffective when even a primary fission device could do damage from the air. Oh and tritium is not at all well controlled on the world market, which vastly decreases the alpha time (reaction-doubling time) and makes weapons-grade fissiles that much more dangerous. It increases the imperative for good human intelligence all the more.
Excuse me? Chimps can do all that and more? Perhaps you only know the difference between other primates and humans at a superficial level:
- Chimpanzees are far stronger than humans (or for that matter, mountain lions), but there is no other animal that can throw a 95 mph fastball. That is not a random skill, it was a huge evolutionary advantage for us when hunting with tools such as spears and rocks. It requires demonstrably superior skills in preconscious coordination of shoulder and arm muscles. Watch ANY other animal attempt to throw. Such skill requires a lot of computational ability, cortical wetware in our case. Nothing in history matches it.
- Can Chimpanzees eat almost anything? They come close but h. sapiens comes a lot closer. Indeed, our spread throughout the world was dependent upon it, our current biology shows our ability to tolerate foodstuffs of a far greater variety than most animals. Unless of course you dispute the fact that we spread throughout the world. Countless species that dominated their time and niche did not do so well when they had to switch diets.
- On to delphinidae, they have evolutionary advantages that we lack, and are missing many of ours. I would say that the latter is foremost, because I did not discuss opposable thumbs or toolmaking in the above paragraphs.
- I also did not discuss the visual cortex of humans, which comprised a large part of our bio-computational ability prior to the neo-cortex. But then, what about the abilities of tursiops truncatis to "see" in a 3-D world and discriminate a baseball from a tennis ball at 30 meters, or sense a pregnant female at 100 meters? This requires what is called a high "cephalization index", as well as specialized wetware. Dolphins have it, and they have more abilities besides. Do not discount their intelligence.
- As importantly, do not overestimate the intelligence of a Bonobo because it shares a very high percentage of genes with us. If only.01 precent of those genes are in the homeobox system and favor higher brain development for us, as they do, it can make all the difference in the world.
I hate to agree with anyone on Slashdot, it makes me feel like I've spent my time poorly here and will be denigrated by my Slashdot peers, but I do agree with the parent insofar as he/she goes.
Also, there are better technologies available now, both more simple and more complex. For specifics, I was impressed with the H2O2 and "shredded tires" fuel of Spaceship One, for the fact that it is easy to handle and can be turned off with a switch (or as close to it as you can get when you fly a controlled bomb.) I am both a fan of NASA and a harsh critic. I think that their mandate should be separated into different parts, I'm not yet sure what. But NASA should focus on the big research goals, and some other organizations should focus on the big accomplishments vis-a-vis expoloration and commerce.
I am a physicist and I consult on national vulnerability, and I can tell you that a terrorist will not come through an airport with any radionuclides. That is patently ridiculous. What is far more likely to happen is that someone with a bunch of money will find someone in Russia with little to no money (who formerly worked for the Strategic Rocket Forces) to provide them with a working (if decrepit) tactical nuke. Then, they would have some shipping company bring the container to New York or Miami and set it off. That's just to let you know about what OUR nightmares are -- and in the future, post about what you know.
The parent comment brings up some salient points. I unfortunately believe that his/her points only tangentially address the real problems we face now.
Our nation and most importantly our government is showing all of the signs of age, as in biological age. It no longer functions effectively, but that is among the least of our problems, because the intent of Adams and Jefferson was that it would not. However, the problem is that is does not function effectively in representing the body politic. That was never intended. Our government was intended by those who wrote the Constitution ("Oh God, not that pain in the ass document again" as many in the Legislative and Executive branches say) to be inefficient in imposing its will on the populace.
Back to aging, our society and culture seems to have bought into the idea that everything will be fine if only someone ELSE can take care of it for us. We are far too risk-averse, and on our way to proving Ben Franklin's quote about trading liberty for security true in the worst way. It is us, as a people, who bear the burden of responsibility for this. And it can bring us to our collective knees if it does not do us worse.
My family came to this country long ago (about 175 years) and I cannot imagine my Grandparents, to say nothing of my Great-Grandparents, standing by and letting our rights be chivvied away as they are now. But the fact is that we do.
More specifically, in the future we are going to face increasing encroachments on our right to be left alone, because of a fundamental flaw in jurisprudence. We can only expect privacy if it is "reasonable" in the current societal context, and with technology marching on, reasonable privacy is an ever shrinking circle. Could you imagine in the last century that you could not expect privacy in your own back yard. Well now Predator drones are flying overhead, so you cannot. It will go much farther than this.
My bitch about this is done for now. I would only quote from one more free than I:
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their quick brown foxes running over lazy dogs and jumping away to the aid of their party."
If we do not wake up and take the phrase "by the people and for the people" seriously, then we deserve what we get. I can find work anywhere, so what I'll do, if all is lost, is get away from this national and cultural self-destruction. Best of luck to the rest of you.
Yes, because of bijection. But that is disputed, being an algebraic argument for infinite sets; something that falls down if considering things as basic as y=1/x. And Georg Cantor had some points, but remember he died as a psychotic madman. Thinking to much about infinity will do that to us I guess.
I suggest you study the differences between infintiies. There are an infinite number of points between zero and one, but there are provably more on the real number spectrum outside of one and zero. This may seem trite, but giving it consideration will likely do you no wrong. There can be a certain philosophical truth in the ponderance of maths.
As has no doubt been said, string theory concepts have the fault of not being provable, nor disprovable, at this time.
However, string theory and brane theory do have a mathematical advantage. Remember that we are speaking of mere models of reality, and not reality itself.
IAAP
Yes. I am am saying that a discrete-state-system, such as a Markov chain, cannot follow quantum mechanical events. QM state reduction is not beforehand deterministic because it it follows a wave function that be known beforehand in its full vector state (e.g. position and velocity.)
If you wish references I would need to look them up, except for my remembrances of Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking lecturing to me on this subject, and my own experiments. But I can find them. That neither obviates your point or mine. My background is in physics but I work in computer science, and good-enough computational approximations have a way of being "good enough". Perhaps our argument is about "truth", which we model only imperfectly. Or then, perhaps we have no actual argument at all.
Oh, DFT is a good and very useful theorem and practical model, but it does does sidestep the issue of QSR in some cases, as does almost any model of QM. Thx.
At the unfortunate risk of repeating myself on Slashdot (Oh, the Humanity!) you are correct. It is intrinsically impossible for a discrete-state system to model quantum mechanical events, unless you somehow sneaked under the Planck limit (There is no spoon..) So, they're faking it..
However, if it is a good model of "reality", then it is good science. If it can predict, it is useful.
I do as well, as long as they fetch and refrain from unlimited sloberring.
However, frivolous as these pursuits of theirs may seem, remember that very little information is lost in pursuit of software engineering -- it's difficult because it's the chase of entropy's ass. The Japanese, as all other nations at this time, lack the expertise to capitalize on our acheivements -- now. But a day will come when we will incorporate their or someone's discoveries into our own bright ideas, and the reverse. Be forwarned: software is cumulative, and you will one day admire (or fear) what you may have had contempt for before.
No, it's actually a list of all males who buy "feminine products" at noted stores. We'll track and remind you of such purchases at the most inopportune times, unless you pay my Russian friends a "convenience fee:)
I think that a plausible explanation (or at least one that deserves more research) is the Pilot Wave theory proposed by de Broglie-Bohm. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ and other numerous sites for a discusion of this proposition. (Disclaimer: I have never been a big fan of the Copenhagen Interpetation.) Nonetheless, I feel that an explanation which obviates the "observer problem" and explains decoherence merits looking at.
Slashdot Mirror
Face it. To find the best route between two points you have to give in and let your wife ask directions.
This a response from your post way back. I pretty much agree with your response and more. Bush seems to thinks he can launch a useless (well, worse than useless) war based upon the fact that he is pissed that Saddam tried to kill his father. He trumpets the "war on terror" as an excuse to chivvy away at what is left of our constitutional rights. In US history this has been done before. I believe Lincoln suspended habeus corpus. But that was for a war that at least had a likely end, soon. The "war on terrorism", like the "war on drugs" and the "war on crime" is open-ended. So, as long as my fellow apathetic Americans stand for it, we will gladly give away whatever is left of our privacy, citizenship, and right to simply be left alone. Just because I raised a possibility that is very unlikely (though BAD if it happens -- imagine the righteous anger and dissolution of American society if it did) does not mean that I'm not equally scared about the things I wrote of above, if not more. I try not to fit into a neat political or ideological slot, and I don't like labels. Nor, I suppose, do you.
My favorite also concerns my parents, and I am somewhat to blame for not realizing how very basic I had to get. My father called me and said that his computer screen was just dark. I went through the usual routine of "is it plugged in, is the power on, etc." He said, Of course, he had tried everything. I was busy at the time so I foisted it off on my brother, who also works in SW Engineering. Later I called my brother to see if he had been able to help. He said he had. I asked what he did, and my brother said he told him to jiggle the mouse -- the computer had gone into powersave mode and the screen went dark. This is the stuff of urban legends, but I swear it's true. My Dad spent the next siz months becoming as computer literate as he could out of embarrassment.
Can you elaborate on the problems with restart? Are they inherent in the rocket design? Is it something that can be resolved over time, into a solution that does not involve the "many parts" problem?
You're right, I screwed up my chemicals. My bad, mea culpa and all that shit. If you forgive that error, your points and mine are pretty much the same.
Sorry, I was just typing stream-of-consciousness. I realize after some research that it is Nitrous Oxide as the oxidizer and not Hydrogen Peroxide -- perhaps I was on the former when I posted? And the the shredded tires comment was more a metaphor, I'm aware of how HTPD comopunds work -- if not at all aware of how they are made. But I think my point, and yours, still stand.
At the risk of being a kiss-ass, kudos to you for your concise expression of what so many do not understand. It's not the great guy you give power to that you need worry over -- it's the ones who follow after, or even the not-so-great guy he will become. More people should read a bit of history. This should be f'ing obvious.
I was going off the cuff. If you think I hit and then missed, tell me more about how. Unlike the fine fools in control I would like to discuss it. Who knows? It might even make a difference to someone -- somewhere.
I get to scale down my nightmares when a) they are gone, or b) someone else is chosen to have them. Are you volunteering, Senior "Tosh"? {Hint: I volunteered, but not for this, so get a life yourself or shut the fuck up.)
You replied to me, but I think your comments may have been for the parent poster, since we are in basic agreement, especially about the physics and concealability of active radeonulides such as (obviously) fissiles. And your right, a Geiger counter or neutron detector or any other such would be ineffective when even a primary fission device could do damage from the air. Oh and tritium is not at all well controlled on the world market, which vastly decreases the alpha time (reaction-doubling time) and makes weapons-grade fissiles that much more dangerous. It increases the imperative for good human intelligence all the more.
- Chimpanzees are far stronger than humans (or for that matter, mountain lions), but there is no other animal that can throw a 95 mph fastball. That is not a random skill, it was a huge evolutionary advantage for us when hunting with tools such as spears and rocks. It requires demonstrably superior skills in preconscious coordination of shoulder and arm muscles. Watch ANY other animal attempt to throw. Such skill requires a lot of computational ability, cortical wetware in our case. Nothing in history matches it.
- Can Chimpanzees eat almost anything? They come close but h. sapiens comes a lot closer. Indeed, our spread throughout the world was dependent upon it, our current biology shows our ability to tolerate foodstuffs of a far greater variety than most animals. Unless of course you dispute the fact that we spread throughout the world. Countless species that dominated their time and niche did not do so well when they had to switch diets.
- On to delphinidae, they have evolutionary advantages that we lack, and are missing many of ours. I would say that the latter is foremost, because I did not discuss opposable thumbs or toolmaking in the above paragraphs.
- I also did not discuss the visual cortex of humans, which comprised a large part of our bio-computational ability prior to the neo-cortex. But then, what about the abilities of tursiops truncatis to "see" in a 3-D world and discriminate a baseball from a tennis ball at 30 meters, or sense a pregnant female at 100 meters? This requires what is called a high "cephalization index", as well as specialized wetware. Dolphins have it, and they have more abilities besides. Do not discount their intelligence.
- As importantly, do not overestimate the intelligence of a Bonobo because it shares a very high percentage of genes with us. If only .01 precent of those genes are in the homeobox system and favor higher brain development for us, as they do, it can make all the difference in the world.
I hate to agree with anyone on Slashdot, it makes me feel like I've spent my time poorly here and will be denigrated by my Slashdot peers, but I do agree with the parent insofar as he/she goes. Also, there are better technologies available now, both more simple and more complex. For specifics, I was impressed with the H2O2 and "shredded tires" fuel of Spaceship One, for the fact that it is easy to handle and can be turned off with a switch (or as close to it as you can get when you fly a controlled bomb.) I am both a fan of NASA and a harsh critic. I think that their mandate should be separated into different parts, I'm not yet sure what. But NASA should focus on the big research goals, and some other organizations should focus on the big accomplishments vis-a-vis expoloration and commerce.
I am a physicist and I consult on national vulnerability, and I can tell you that a terrorist will not come through an airport with any radionuclides. That is patently ridiculous. What is far more likely to happen is that someone with a bunch of money will find someone in Russia with little to no money (who formerly worked for the Strategic Rocket Forces) to provide them with a working (if decrepit) tactical nuke. Then, they would have some shipping company bring the container to New York or Miami and set it off. That's just to let you know about what OUR nightmares are -- and in the future, post about what you know.
The parent comment brings up some salient points. I unfortunately believe that his/her points only tangentially address the real problems we face now. Our nation and most importantly our government is showing all of the signs of age, as in biological age. It no longer functions effectively, but that is among the least of our problems, because the intent of Adams and Jefferson was that it would not. However, the problem is that is does not function effectively in representing the body politic. That was never intended. Our government was intended by those who wrote the Constitution ("Oh God, not that pain in the ass document again" as many in the Legislative and Executive branches say) to be inefficient in imposing its will on the populace. Back to aging, our society and culture seems to have bought into the idea that everything will be fine if only someone ELSE can take care of it for us. We are far too risk-averse, and on our way to proving Ben Franklin's quote about trading liberty for security true in the worst way. It is us, as a people, who bear the burden of responsibility for this. And it can bring us to our collective knees if it does not do us worse. My family came to this country long ago (about 175 years) and I cannot imagine my Grandparents, to say nothing of my Great-Grandparents, standing by and letting our rights be chivvied away as they are now. But the fact is that we do. More specifically, in the future we are going to face increasing encroachments on our right to be left alone, because of a fundamental flaw in jurisprudence. We can only expect privacy if it is "reasonable" in the current societal context, and with technology marching on, reasonable privacy is an ever shrinking circle. Could you imagine in the last century that you could not expect privacy in your own back yard. Well now Predator drones are flying overhead, so you cannot. It will go much farther than this. My bitch about this is done for now. I would only quote from one more free than I: "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their quick brown foxes running over lazy dogs and jumping away to the aid of their party." If we do not wake up and take the phrase "by the people and for the people" seriously, then we deserve what we get. I can find work anywhere, so what I'll do, if all is lost, is get away from this national and cultural self-destruction. Best of luck to the rest of you.
Yes, because of bijection. But that is disputed, being an algebraic argument for infinite sets; something that falls down if considering things as basic as y=1/x. And Georg Cantor had some points, but remember he died as a psychotic madman. Thinking to much about infinity will do that to us I guess.
Are you saying that your "brane" aches?
I suggest you study the differences between infintiies. There are an infinite number of points between zero and one, but there are provably more on the real number spectrum outside of one and zero. This may seem trite, but giving it consideration will likely do you no wrong. There can be a certain philosophical truth in the ponderance of maths.
As has no doubt been said, string theory concepts have the fault of not being provable, nor disprovable, at this time. However, string theory and brane theory do have a mathematical advantage. Remember that we are speaking of mere models of reality, and not reality itself. IAAP
Yes. I am am saying that a discrete-state-system, such as a Markov chain, cannot follow quantum mechanical events. QM state reduction is not beforehand deterministic because it it follows a wave function that be known beforehand in its full vector state (e.g. position and velocity.) If you wish references I would need to look them up, except for my remembrances of Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking lecturing to me on this subject, and my own experiments. But I can find them. That neither obviates your point or mine. My background is in physics but I work in computer science, and good-enough computational approximations have a way of being "good enough". Perhaps our argument is about "truth", which we model only imperfectly. Or then, perhaps we have no actual argument at all. Oh, DFT is a good and very useful theorem and practical model, but it does does sidestep the issue of QSR in some cases, as does almost any model of QM. Thx.
At the unfortunate risk of repeating myself on Slashdot (Oh, the Humanity!) you are correct. It is intrinsically impossible for a discrete-state system to model quantum mechanical events, unless you somehow sneaked under the Planck limit (There is no spoon..) So, they're faking it.. However, if it is a good model of "reality", then it is good science. If it can predict, it is useful.
I do as well, as long as they fetch and refrain from unlimited sloberring. However, frivolous as these pursuits of theirs may seem, remember that very little information is lost in pursuit of software engineering -- it's difficult because it's the chase of entropy's ass. The Japanese, as all other nations at this time, lack the expertise to capitalize on our acheivements -- now. But a day will come when we will incorporate their or someone's discoveries into our own bright ideas, and the reverse. Be forwarned: software is cumulative, and you will one day admire (or fear) what you may have had contempt for before.
No, it's actually a list of all males who buy "feminine products" at noted stores. We'll track and remind you of such purchases at the most inopportune times, unless you pay my Russian friends a "convenience fee :)
Gee.. I don't know. Maybe because that is what is important?
I think that a plausible explanation (or at least one that deserves more research) is the Pilot Wave theory proposed by de Broglie-Bohm. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ and other numerous sites for a discusion of this proposition. (Disclaimer: I have never been a big fan of the Copenhagen Interpetation.) Nonetheless, I feel that an explanation which obviates the "observer problem" and explains decoherence merits looking at.
Good Lord, man, this is Slashdot. Stop bothering us with pointless questions about futile pursuits.