My Dell's hard drive crashed after a few days or weeks so I posted my experience on my web site, and here. Some second level guy read about it and sent me an external drive as a token. Ultimately I was sufficiently mollified by this that I even bought another Dell a few years later -- Inspiron 530 Q6600 -- still using it. Looks like XP is going to outlast/.
Good point. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we? The Fed *pays* for the minting of coins, whereas the Fed, a private corporation, gets to print their own paper money, that they promptly loan out. So one thing costs the Fed money, the other makes them untold trillions. Which one do you think they are trying to limit? More...
Several years back I tried contacting Slashdot about a variety of issues, with my point being that some of these can/should be fixed for those who subscribe (as I was willing to do).
They, of course, did not change, and so I, of course, did not subscribe.
FWIW, my main point/suggestion was:
There is, at present, zero value in subscribing. Slashdot should take a lesson from Ars Technica -- they let you download the entire article, in PDF format, if you are a subscriber. I suggested Slashdot allow subscribers to load an entire comment thread on a single page (to get rid of the annoying duplicate post bug that has been around for more years than I have fingers). They didn't go for it.
So here we are today, with Slashdot providing nothing of value to subscribers, and losing money. Color me shocked.
- Ubuntu did it with Gnome 3.
- Microsoft did it with Windows 8.
- Numerous sites have done it by forcing facebook login to leave comments, by auto-refreshing & forcing Javascript, and by turning web pages into never-ending feeds (e.g. lifehacker.com's home page).
- Now slashdot is doing it.
Doing what? Getting rid of the gray beards.
There is no money to be sucked from bright bulbs. Those who only want to facebook will carry on like nothing has happened. And ultimately the Internet will be completely controlled by business (i.e. wolves), and populated primarily with sheep.
We, the neck bears, have served their purpose. They no longer need us. THEY are giving US the F.U.
(1) Story about who will win the Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos
(2) 65 comments
(3) Zero mentions of "Seattle" or "Denver" in the comments. ...Priceless
Prime is for those who don't understand marketing.
Why do manufacturers come out with those two-bit coupons? The handling on that $0.25 discount is probably $25.00. What do they get for that?
(1) They get some advertising of their product, sure, but most importantly (2) They lower the barrier to entry/purchase so that (3) More people buy their product with (4) Less thought about it.
Gift cards are a similar idea. Give someone a gift card and they will spend it as a "bonus". Give them cash and they will treat it like all their other cash. When gift cards first came out, they used to offer something extra, for your trouble. That something extra was a tip-of-the-icebergian fraction of what they were gaining from the transaction. Now we are all so accepting of, and enamoured with, gifting hunks of plastic that they charge...up to $10...for a "gift" charge card.
When you have "free shipping" you buy (1) more stuff, (2) more often, (3) with less thought about it. And Amazon laughs all the way to the bank.
If I want something and it is over the $25/35 cutoff, then I order it. Otherwise I put it on the wish list and forget about it. For video watching I use Netflix. Amazon Prime is for $DerogatoryWord.
The spinning is for the astronauts, right? Set up a spinning pod section that was designed for astronauts only.
An astronaut climbs in and presses a button and the system compensates, much like fuel redistribution on a modern plane. Once the system is balanced, it spins up. Astronaut sleeps under gravity. Wakes up. Gets out. Time for next astronaut to sleep. Repeat.
A building is built flat by first cleaving off part of the spherical Earth it will be sitting on. Once that is done, a flat surface remains. No flat Earth assumption is required.
And we don't assume the Earth is flat when building a suspension bridge, as we build each tower vertically, despite that making them not parallel to each other.
The one that shocked me was FoxIt Reader's interface. I thought FoxIt was all about taking down the corporate giant (Adobe) with a leaner, smarter, more secure product. Now I feel like I am interacting with a piece of paper. Someone literally stuck a fork in FoxIt -- it is so done.
Thanks for the reply. I am about out of time on this discussion as well -- insulating the crawl space takes precedence for the rest of the morning at least.
You end up with two ways to go, to either work toward completeness, that a theory must be as accurate and complete as possible, at potentially but not necessarily the cost of complexity, or you work toward finding approximations that are simpler and more practical, at the cost of only working within specific bounds and situations.
Totally agree with this. Physics is pushing the "more accuracy" frontier pretty hard these days but at least one drawback of this is...ahem LHC ahem...cost. I think the Higgs particle/field is on the wrong path, so to me the LHC has yet to, and might never, prove itself worth the billions spent.
And chemistry has been built on that simple basis ever since.
You should look into modern physical chemistry... if you think learning about propagators is complicated, then you won't find modern chemistry simple, at least the parts trying to be predictive and starting to allow designer chemicals and materials to be made in silica.
I think you are confusing engineering and science. Engineering is always tough, science only sometimes (i.e. until a good theory is conceived. After a good theory has been developed, the science flows like water).
And I wasn't sure if the idea of speed of light changing 0.25 mph in the last century or so was meant as something based on reported measurements (the speed of light wasn't measured that accurately until the 70s).
That result was part of my calculations section, based on my theory. So it is a predictive calculation I have made.
And speaking to the first line of your latest reply:
I don't know on which end communication is breaking down,
I think we just have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to (1) the potential value of factoring an ether into present & future physics theories, and (2) whether that very ether can also be a lot of other things (like dark energy/vacuum energy).
I wouldn't sweat it if I were you. Personally, I am quite comfortable with us disagreeing.
but I don't have the saintly patience to try until that is figured out, but a couple big picture points:
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I read "saintly patience" as condescending.
Instead I look at this or any other exchange as a chance for someone, or both, to learn something.
If we can't imagine we have something to learn from an exchange, then we will come across as
know-it-all (while we miss out).
By the way, I wouldn't mind knowing who I am talking with. Drop me an email to at least let me know that. I promise I won't spam you (besides email filters handle that sort of thing pretty well).
Usually I assume if someone is interested enough in the topic, especially something history related, they might have at least checked the Wikipedia article on it first. If for someone reason you don't trust/like Wikipedia for an executive summary, that article links to plenty of primary and secondary sources, so there is not much need for me to try to track down online versions of stuff on my bookshelf.
My questions about the sources of your blanket statements
was to point out that YOU were not backing up YOUR statements.
But as previously stated, the properties attributed the aether changed as experiments and new findings invalidated older properties. Sometimes it was different people, but in a few cases it was the same person updating their previous theory.
Einstein never made any mistakes with his theories?
String Theory doesn't change its tune every month?
There is nothing wrong with changing a theory that doesn't work.
In fact, that is my position -- physics today is in the doldrums
because the major theories have major problems. Those trying
to provide something better/different need to be heard if we
are ever going to make further progress in physics.
The aether went from a fluid to a solid to a really stiff fluid,
Talk of solids and fluids reflects the lack of scientific knowledge
that was present a hundred years ago. There is no child today that
would propose that. But there are plenty of scientists that have
maintained that there must be an ether. In other words, there seems
to be something about an ether that could explain stuff, at least
in the minds of Newton, Poincare, De Pretto and Samuel Tolver Preston.
Personally, I think they were on to something.
My theory says the ether is ultra high energy (which is what physicists
calculate space should be composed off anyway...they just haven't
managed to detect it yet), and "mechanically" as
you keep saying, my "particles" are 20 orders of magnitude smaller
than those of the atomic scale. Solids and fluids are at one end of
a very very long scale, and my "springs" are precisely at the opposite
end.
Off the top of your head, what test would you use to detect something
20 orders of magnitude smaller than a proton, and having an energy
sixty to one hundred orders of magnitude higher than the background
energy of space that we presently measure?
it went from negative compressibility to incompressible. Early experiments discounted the idea of the aether drag, but then precision interferometer experiments necessitated reintroduction of aether drag. The properties were not because we measured the aether, but because experiments kept eliminating properties that made it work, and the theories had to be updated.
I am all for eliminating what can not be. That is how science
makes progress. I just think that the last thing we have
eliminated is the ether itself. We need to do more eliminating,
if we can, but we also need to compose theories and models where
an ether is part of the model...and see if such models can produce
the results we see in the world.
Sometimes we need to carry models along for quite some time, in
tandem with conflicting models. For example, the static versus
expanding universe. Einstein thought it was static. We didn't
kick him to the curb for this. Looking back, it didn't really matter
whether we thought it was expanding or not. What mattered was
that we found a way to prove it was expanding, and we have gone with
that. In the future it may yet prove to not be expanding, or be
expanding faster than we thought, or, or, or.
It doesn't pay to be too smug about a physics theory.
The position of the majority of the physics community on the ether has determined
our direction since the time it was ruled out. And right now
we have ended up with
The credit card company ate the charge. The CC companies must be very big businesses indeed when $2,500 or so of charges is not worth bringing criminal prosecution.
Some time back I had an acquaintance of a friend abuse my credit card. Bought a round trip from Africa to England with my card. Thousands of dollars. I told the CC people I knew who did it and I wanted to prosecute the guy. They weren't interested and not a thing happened to this person.
I appreciate your thoughts. Fair comment that TV does not equal real life. Too bad that 99.9% are getting the TV message though.
I'm curious why you differentiate ether & vacuum energy. Why can't one be the other? A medium for transmitting (ether), is also the force that pushes the Universe apart?
What you are proposing would be healthy for the physics community, so it will never happen. It is imperative that physics appear to be all knowing, especially when you talk about worm holes and the Big Bang and what will happen in 10^^100 years. We know exactly what is going on, right up until everything changes as one flawed theory is replaced by another with new flaws.
I think the other two replies are reacting to the notion that physics doesn't need to be taught, but rather just let everyone "have a go". Personally I don't think that is what you meant.
I find physics at once childish and elitist, and wish it was more humble. For example, with regard to the ether. We thought it was there, then we "proved" it was not...but today it is generally held that there is "vacuum energy" (and/or dark energy). Clearly there is an ether, and it is "made of" energy, not matter. And it is at an energy level vastly higher than 2.7K, so we need to create theories that are comfortable with this. I've done my part.
Slashdot Mirror
My Dell's hard drive crashed after a few days or weeks so I posted my experience on my web site, and here. Some second level guy read about it and sent me an external drive as a token. Ultimately I was sufficiently mollified by this that I even bought another Dell a few years later -- Inspiron 530 Q6600 -- still using it. Looks like XP is going to outlast /.
Hairy, admit to yourself that you have not quit consuming nicotine. If anything you have moved on to the pure drug. Hardly a progressive step.
Your positive future involves the word QUIT. Your negative future involves that river in Egypt.
Someone tries to support you, you call it a rant, and totally miss what they are saying. Epic indeed.
Good point. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we? The Fed *pays* for the minting of coins, whereas the Fed, a private corporation, gets to print their own paper money, that they promptly loan out. So one thing costs the Fed money, the other makes them untold trillions. Which one do you think they are trying to limit? More...
Several years back I tried contacting Slashdot about a variety of issues, with my point being that some of these can/should be fixed for those who subscribe (as I was willing to do).
They, of course, did not change, and so I, of course, did not subscribe.
FWIW, my main point/suggestion was:
There is, at present, zero value in subscribing. Slashdot should take a lesson from Ars Technica -- they let you download the entire article, in PDF format, if you are a subscriber. I suggested Slashdot allow subscribers to load an entire comment thread on a single page (to get rid of the annoying duplicate post bug that has been around for more years than I have fingers). They didn't go for it.
So here we are today, with Slashdot providing nothing of value to subscribers, and losing money. Color me shocked.
Boycott begins tomorrow, for at least a week.
As interesting as that was, this is the story GP referred to.
Wrong. It is still used.
Sadly, I think I've figured it out.
- Ubuntu did it with Gnome 3.
- Microsoft did it with Windows 8.
- Numerous sites have done it by forcing facebook login to leave comments, by auto-refreshing & forcing Javascript, and by turning web pages into never-ending feeds (e.g. lifehacker.com's home page).
- Now slashdot is doing it.
Doing what? Getting rid of the gray beards.
There is no money to be sucked from bright bulbs. Those who only want to facebook will carry on like nothing has happened. And ultimately the Internet will be completely controlled by business (i.e. wolves), and populated primarily with sheep.
We, the neck bears, have served their purpose. They no longer need us. THEY are giving US the F.U.
Truer words were never spoken.
Let's says that with mod points:
"It can be +1, but still be -1 and/or -2."
Makes. No. Sense.
(1) Story about who will win the Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos
...Priceless
(2) 65 comments
(3) Zero mentions of "Seattle" or "Denver" in the comments.
Prime is for those who don't understand marketing.
Why do manufacturers come out with those two-bit coupons? The handling on that $0.25 discount is probably $25.00. What do they get for that?
(1) They get some advertising of their product, sure, but most importantly (2) They lower the barrier to entry/purchase so that (3) More people buy their product with (4) Less thought about it.
Gift cards are a similar idea. Give someone a gift card and they will spend it as a "bonus". Give them cash and they will treat it like all their other cash. When gift cards first came out, they used to offer something extra, for your trouble. That something extra was a tip-of-the-icebergian fraction of what they were gaining from the transaction. Now we are all so accepting of, and enamoured with, gifting hunks of plastic that they charge...up to $10...for a "gift" charge card.
When you have "free shipping" you buy (1) more stuff, (2) more often, (3) with less thought about it. And Amazon laughs all the way to the bank.
If I want something and it is over the $25/35 cutoff, then I order it. Otherwise I put it on the wish list and forget about it. For video watching I use Netflix. Amazon Prime is for $DerogatoryWord.
The spinning is for the astronauts, right? Set up a spinning pod section that was designed for astronauts only.
An astronaut climbs in and presses a button and the system compensates, much like fuel redistribution on a modern plane. Once the system is balanced, it spins up. Astronaut sleeps under gravity. Wakes up. Gets out. Time for next astronaut to sleep. Repeat.
A building is built flat by first cleaving off part of the spherical Earth it will be sitting on. Once that is done, a flat surface remains. No flat Earth assumption is required.
And we don't assume the Earth is flat when building a suspension bridge, as we build each tower vertically, despite that making them not parallel to each other.
The one that shocked me was FoxIt Reader's interface. I thought FoxIt was all about taking down the corporate giant (Adobe) with a leaner, smarter, more secure product. Now I feel like I am interacting with a piece of paper. Someone literally stuck a fork in FoxIt -- it is so done.
When you scratch platinum you don't lose material
Citation?
Totally agree with this. Physics is pushing the "more accuracy" frontier pretty hard these days but at least one drawback of this is...ahem LHC ahem...cost. I think the Higgs particle/field is on the wrong path, so to me the LHC has yet to, and might never, prove itself worth the billions spent.
And chemistry has been built on that simple basis ever since.
I think you are confusing engineering and science. Engineering is always tough, science only sometimes (i.e. until a good theory is conceived. After a good theory has been developed, the science flows like water).
That result was part of my calculations section, based on my theory. So it is a predictive calculation I have made.
And speaking to the first line of your latest reply:
I think we just have a fundamental difference of opinion when it comes to (1) the potential value of factoring an ether into present & future physics theories, and (2) whether that very ether can also be a lot of other things (like dark energy/vacuum energy).
I wouldn't sweat it if I were you. Personally, I am quite comfortable with us disagreeing.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I read "saintly patience" as condescending. Instead I look at this or any other exchange as a chance for someone, or both, to learn something. If we can't imagine we have something to learn from an exchange, then we will come across as know-it-all (while we miss out).
By the way, I wouldn't mind knowing who I am talking with. Drop me an email to at least let me know that. I promise I won't spam you (besides email filters handle that sort of thing pretty well).
My questions about the sources of your blanket statements was to point out that YOU were not backing up YOUR statements.
Einstein never made any mistakes with his theories?
String Theory doesn't change its tune every month?
There is nothing wrong with changing a theory that doesn't work. In fact, that is my position -- physics today is in the doldrums because the major theories have major problems. Those trying to provide something better/different need to be heard if we are ever going to make further progress in physics.
Talk of solids and fluids reflects the lack of scientific knowledge that was present a hundred years ago. There is no child today that would propose that. But there are plenty of scientists that have maintained that there must be an ether. In other words, there seems to be something about an ether that could explain stuff, at least in the minds of Newton, Poincare, De Pretto and Samuel Tolver Preston. Personally, I think they were on to something.
My theory says the ether is ultra high energy (which is what physicists calculate space should be composed off anyway...they just haven't managed to detect it yet), and "mechanically" as you keep saying, my "particles" are 20 orders of magnitude smaller than those of the atomic scale. Solids and fluids are at one end of a very very long scale, and my "springs" are precisely at the opposite end.
Off the top of your head, what test would you use to detect something 20 orders of magnitude smaller than a proton, and having an energy sixty to one hundred orders of magnitude higher than the background energy of space that we presently measure?
I am all for eliminating what can not be. That is how science makes progress. I just think that the last thing we have eliminated is the ether itself. We need to do more eliminating, if we can, but we also need to compose theories and models where an ether is part of the model...and see if such models can produce the results we see in the world.
Sometimes we need to carry models along for quite some time, in tandem with conflicting models. For example, the static versus expanding universe. Einstein thought it was static. We didn't kick him to the curb for this. Looking back, it didn't really matter whether we thought it was expanding or not. What mattered was that we found a way to prove it was expanding, and we have gone with that. In the future it may yet prove to not be expanding, or be expanding faster than we thought, or, or, or.
It doesn't pay to be too smug about a physics theory.
The position of the majority of the physics community on the ether has determined our direction since the time it was ruled out. And right now we have ended up with
It was Visa. It was also 20 years ago. In Canada.
The credit card company ate the charge. The CC companies must be very big businesses indeed when $2,500 or so of charges is not worth bringing criminal prosecution.
Some time back I had an acquaintance of a friend abuse my credit card. Bought a round trip from Africa to England with my card. Thousands of dollars. I told the CC people I knew who did it and I wanted to prosecute the guy. They weren't interested and not a thing happened to this person.
...pre-history of money...blah, blah, blah...Federal Reserve scam...
It was, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto that popularized BitCoin - by deciding to *NOT* stopping others from mining their own coins.
As the masses started to get comfortable with BitCoin, it moved up-stream again, back to the elites.
The dedicated minor machines were intended for the masses but instead were used by big companies to shake the last easy coins out of the tree.
Then it became a device for the masses again (pensioner, mom & dad, Johnny-come-latelys).
Tick - - - tock - - - tick - - - and now... tock
I appreciate your thoughts. Fair comment that TV does not equal real life. Too bad that 99.9% are getting the TV message though.
I'm curious why you differentiate ether & vacuum energy. Why can't one be the other? A medium for transmitting (ether), is also the force that pushes the Universe apart?
What you are proposing would be healthy for the physics community, so it will never happen. It is imperative that physics appear to be all knowing, especially when you talk about worm holes and the Big Bang and what will happen in 10^^100 years. We know exactly what is going on, right up until everything changes as one flawed theory is replaced by another with new flaws.
I think the other two replies are reacting to the notion that physics doesn't need to be taught, but rather just let everyone "have a go". Personally I don't think that is what you meant.
I find physics at once childish and elitist, and wish it was more humble. For example, with regard to the ether. We thought it was there, then we "proved" it was not...but today it is generally held that there is "vacuum energy" (and/or dark energy). Clearly there is an ether, and it is "made of" energy, not matter. And it is at an energy level vastly higher than 2.7K, so we need to create theories that are comfortable with this. I've done my part.
I ran into someone yesterday with an MSN address -- the 72-year-old contractor about to repair my sidewalk.
The only person I deal with regularly using an AOL account is my in-law/accountant -- age 74.
Sounds like a two horse race to me. Wait, what about webtv?
The Rare Earth hypothesis is much more scientific. I'm not sure why the Drake "rule of thumb" gets any mention on /.