If you actually understood the meaning of the things you just quoted you'd see that his work is not in fundamental physics and is heavily slanted towards engineering. But to a non-expert like you "plasma physics" probably looks similar to "general relativity". I'm prepared to make a testable prediction: this work will come to nothing. Are you capable of doing more than throwing around insults?
...crackpots but it looks like ESA do too. On the other hand, according to the guy's web page he was sponsored by NASA too so that helps to explain things a bit.
BTW You may look at this guy's web site and wonder how I can accuse someone with those credentials of being a crackpot. But actually he has the hallmarks. In particular he's an engineer who does "fundamental physics" on the side. You gotta watch out for these people.
So mark my words, in a few years time this experiment will be just another cold fusion with nobody able to verify the results are a new gravitational phenomenon. Producing gravitational fields from superconductors has a long history of experimental failure (or successes, if you view them as verifying GR), and there's no theoretical motivation for expecting to see new phenomena here. But I guess that as long as he isn't spending too much taxpayer money he isn't doing any harm.
A 10 month old baby can reach out for objects and pick them up using accurate finger motions, feed itself, perform the balancing act required to sit up, respond to its name, turn towards a sound and can do all kinds of other things. Babies can peform feats of visual processing that blow away the cleverest image processing software. So why is it news that a baby can recognise some words at 10 months, something that even a PocketPC can do?
That's the biggest US computer graphics conference. While people present their papers the halls are usually full of people surfing the web or reading or whatever.
BUT...it's worth thinking about why people do this. I'm as guilty as anyone. The fact is - most paper presentations are incredibly boring. A certain percentage of them are given by people whose first language isn't English and are agony to listen to. Many are simply readings of the paper itself which is of no value to anyone. You have to ask what the purpose of a paper presentation actually is - as far as I can make out it's primary function is as a reward to the paper author, not a means of technical communication. In fact there are a whole bunch of colluding parties here: the conference organisers gain prestige from the presentation of good papers, the authors gain prestige by being able to claim they spoke at SIGGRAPH, and the audience get to have fun for a few days while claiming they were working. Everyone gains.
In fact, the way I use SIGGRAPH is this: I take my laptop with me and use the time away from my desk, in the conference hall, experimenting with speculative algorithms without the pressure of having to deliver anything. Just being in the presence of people talking about algorithms can be incredibly inspiring, even if you ignore the details of what they have to say. This has paid off for me quite well a couple of times in my life. And I'll read the papers later in the conference proceedings if something seems interesting.
So I plan to continue my continuous partial attention at SIGGRAPH every year.
very few students have the discipline to actually prepare for lecture
Woah! Nobody told me you were supposed to do that. No wonder I never understood a thing in lectures and gave up going to them. But maybe it works differently in the UK where I studied.
Place your books on shelves with the spines facing outwards and sorted by name of author. You might also consider a bit of classification beforehand - for example grouping the fiction together and the non-fiction together. If you're really feeling anal you can use the Dewey decimal system to organise your nonfiction.
Let me rephrase this: I've never heard anyone worry about defragging hard drives reducing their lifespan. But lots of people seem to worry about defragging flash drives. It's trivially obvious that defragging any kind of drive reduces its lifespan. What I want is to compare apples to apples. For the same number of writes do flash drives have a worse MTBF than hard drives? Every time I ask this people find ways to avoid answering the question. One reason I ask is that I seem to go through flash drives pretty fast without ever defragging them.
I can't figure out what you're claiming. Are you saying that flash has a longer MTBF as long as you don't defrag it. You appear to be saying that - in which case you're suggesting it has a worse MTBF than hard drives.
When Doug Lenat gets Cyc working we'll have a machine with common sense. Was can then shrink this down to a single chip and implant it in people's brains. Should also solve some other problems like preventing people placing hot coffee between their legs in the car.
"superhero" doesn't refer to anything in particular, but rather a generic set of things
And if Superhero becomes trademarked you can still refer to the same generic set of things. For example Cory Doctorow now refers to them as costumed underwear perverts. The concept is untouched.
What about that bit where God says to Abraham "Sacrifice your child" and when he's about to do it God says "Ha! Ha! Just kidding." I thought that was pretty funny in a macabre sort of way. Or that bit where Adam and Eve are going round naked and God plants this tree in an obvious place with fruit on it that has the bizarre property that when you eat it you suddenly get embarassed about nakedness. What is this stuff if not comedy?
So I take it those 5 minutes to boot weren't made up during the day with your screamingly fast computer?
In CPU time yes, in psychological time no. You can imagine how it is: you get to work and want to read your email. You have to sit there waiting fof the compressor to get going and watch the temperature on the gauge slowly drop. It's a fun novelty thing for the first week or two and after that it's annoying. On the other hand, suppose I trim 5 minutes off a 1 hour fluid simulation (which is what I was doing some of the time). Am I really going to appreciate those 5 minutes? And of course I only had that benefit for a couple of months.
Remember when that company introduced cryogenically cooled PCs? I got one at work. It was amazing - it ran at 1GHz and I had the fastest machine in the building. But a few months later it was no longer the fastest in the building but it was definitely the dumbest machine in the building - especially with the 5 minute wait for it to cool down before booting. I won't make the same mistake with water cooled graphics cards.
There's a lot of disagreement between the various definitions. Consider a statement like "The witnesses confirmed the victim's account". This clearly has no implication of proof, it merely indicates agreement and a strengthening of evidence. All of the definitions, but one, suggest an increase in the degree of strength rather than a final determination of truth or falsity.
The fact that we have determined these things hit Earth makes them no more likely to hit Earth. I say we carry on ignoring them like we did before anyone had any clue such a thing could happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously you didn't learn anything from the fate of the Battlestar Atlanta.
If you actually understood the meaning of the things you just quoted you'd see that his work is not in fundamental physics and is heavily slanted towards engineering. But to a non-expert like you "plasma physics" probably looks similar to "general relativity". I'm prepared to make a testable prediction: this work will come to nothing. Are you capable of doing more than throwing around insults?
Would that be "peace-loving" as in Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity [so we won't execute him if he converts back]. There's a big difference between claiming to be peace-loving and actually being peace-loving and I've been on this earth long enough not to be fooled by the former.
BTW You may look at this guy's web site and wonder how I can accuse someone with those credentials of being a crackpot. But actually he has the hallmarks. In particular he's an engineer who does "fundamental physics" on the side. You gotta watch out for these people.
So mark my words, in a few years time this experiment will be just another cold fusion with nobody able to verify the results are a new gravitational phenomenon. Producing gravitational fields from superconductors has a long history of experimental failure (or successes, if you view them as verifying GR), and there's no theoretical motivation for expecting to see new phenomena here. But I guess that as long as he isn't spending too much taxpayer money he isn't doing any harm.
I'm sure they could suggest hundreds of places where they'd like to see a new crater. Two birds with one stone 'n' all that.
I think it's best in the original. Translating poetry never does it justice.
A 10 month old baby can reach out for objects and pick them up using accurate finger motions, feed itself, perform the balancing act required to sit up, respond to its name, turn towards a sound and can do all kinds of other things. Babies can peform feats of visual processing that blow away the cleverest image processing software. So why is it news that a baby can recognise some words at 10 months, something that even a PocketPC can do?
BUT...it's worth thinking about why people do this. I'm as guilty as anyone. The fact is - most paper presentations are incredibly boring. A certain percentage of them are given by people whose first language isn't English and are agony to listen to. Many are simply readings of the paper itself which is of no value to anyone. You have to ask what the purpose of a paper presentation actually is - as far as I can make out it's primary function is as a reward to the paper author, not a means of technical communication. In fact there are a whole bunch of colluding parties here: the conference organisers gain prestige from the presentation of good papers, the authors gain prestige by being able to claim they spoke at SIGGRAPH, and the audience get to have fun for a few days while claiming they were working. Everyone gains.
In fact, the way I use SIGGRAPH is this: I take my laptop with me and use the time away from my desk, in the conference hall, experimenting with speculative algorithms without the pressure of having to deliver anything. Just being in the presence of people talking about algorithms can be incredibly inspiring, even if you ignore the details of what they have to say. This has paid off for me quite well a couple of times in my life. And I'll read the papers later in the conference proceedings if something seems interesting.
So I plan to continue my continuous partial attention at SIGGRAPH every year.
There, that wasn't hard was it?
Eg. a bum on the street doesn't suddenly gain the right to take products from a food packed supermarket just because he's starving to death.
Let me rephrase this: I've never heard anyone worry about defragging hard drives reducing their lifespan. But lots of people seem to worry about defragging flash drives. It's trivially obvious that defragging any kind of drive reduces its lifespan. What I want is to compare apples to apples. For the same number of writes do flash drives have a worse MTBF than hard drives? Every time I ask this people find ways to avoid answering the question. One reason I ask is that I seem to go through flash drives pretty fast without ever defragging them.
I can't figure out what you're claiming. Are you saying that flash has a longer MTBF as long as you don't defrag it. You appear to be saying that - in which case you're suggesting it has a worse MTBF than hard drives.
Does that mean that even more people will have their hands amputated? What does Lucas have against hands anyway?
If you like open source, you'll love this. I recommend you use it.
When Doug Lenat gets Cyc working we'll have a machine with common sense. Was can then shrink this down to a single chip and implant it in people's brains. Should also solve some other problems like preventing people placing hot coffee between their legs in the car.
(I have to tidy up some code. One source file is 0.25MB of C++ and is basically one looong function. You'd love to help me wouldn't you?)
What about that bit where God says to Abraham "Sacrifice your child" and when he's about to do it God says "Ha! Ha! Just kidding." I thought that was pretty funny in a macabre sort of way. Or that bit where Adam and Eve are going round naked and God plants this tree in an obvious place with fruit on it that has the bizarre property that when you eat it you suddenly get embarassed about nakedness. What is this stuff if not comedy?
Remember when that company introduced cryogenically cooled PCs? I got one at work. It was amazing - it ran at 1GHz and I had the fastest machine in the building. But a few months later it was no longer the fastest in the building but it was definitely the dumbest machine in the building - especially with the 5 minute wait for it to cool down before booting. I won't make the same mistake with water cooled graphics cards.
There's a lot of disagreement between the various definitions. Consider a statement like "The witnesses confirmed the victim's account". This clearly has no implication of proof, it merely indicates agreement and a strengthening of evidence. All of the definitions, but one, suggest an increase in the degree of strength rather than a final determination of truth or falsity.
The fact that we have determined these things hit Earth makes them no more likely to hit Earth. I say we carry on ignoring them like we did before anyone had any clue such a thing could happen.