Well, not everyone is totally enamored with laptops. My daughter, who is in the 11th grade attends a public school that this year provided all students with a laptop. Interestingly enough, she didn't want one and felt no need to have one. She has a pc at home that she uses for school work and thought that was enough; she felt that using a laptop during class would detract from learning, she would rather take notes and write by hand. That was her decision and we strongly supported her in her choice. The school sent out notices to schedule a meeting to pick up the computer and sign paperwork. We contacted the school and informed them that Katy didn't want a computer. We were told it was not optional. We ignored them. We later received another notice that she had been rescheduled. We ignored that also. She never got the computer and is happy for that. All her teachers understood her choice and didn't make a fuss about it. I am convinced that computers do not aid in learning basics; they are great for word processing, basic research, and communication. They are time wasters in lots of other cases. There is another post on slashdot about blackberries and constant connection. I am convinced we are not better for being constantly connected with cell phones, etc. and my daughter feels the same way, thank god. Real learning takes effort and time and was done a long time before computers were invented. Read a book sometimes.
Hey pal, if you had read the story you linked to, you would have known that the engines in this truck are JET engines, with diesel injected at the exhaust outlet to generate flames and smoke for visual effect.
Just because we can make fibres with enough tensile strength to withstand loads for this thing doesn't address the entire construction question. My understanding is that we only have FIBRES. They have to be joined in a matrix of something, and that matrix will not have enough shear to support the tensile strength of the fibres. In carbon fibre materials, for example, an epoxy resin is cured around the carbon fibre. The fibres, because of their orientation and strength make a very strong structure; materials such as unidirectional CF can be used to strengthen the structure along load paths. But if the shear limits of the epoxy are exceeded, the thing will break. A great example of this is a Formula One chassis. Enormously strong becasue of their carbon fibre/epoxy structure, but when the break they shatter. So how will the fibres in the cable be formed into a structure? Seems to me the limit will be the glue, not the carbon.
User interface is a topic that really raises my hackles (whatever the hell they are). Every time I use my DVD player I have to look at the damn thing to figure out what to push to stop and resume play. It is not obvious. These are problably the most used functions on any playback machine, but they sure can be obscure. I take real pleasure in playing VHS tapes (I still have lots) because the damn controls make SENSE. Do designers actually have real people try these things out before they start manufacturing them? Okay, here's another gripe - why is it sometimes so hard to find the PLAY at the beginning of a DVD? I swear, sometimes I look at the screen and really can't see what I am trying to enter. Am I defective? Or what?
I just got this huge flashback to the time I took the Scientology personality test. I was living in Seattle at the time (many years ago) and a friend had lent me the book 'Inside Scientology'. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. I decided to go down to the Scientology joint in Seatle and take the personality test, knowing that it was a rigged deal - but I had a plan. Dressing to fit the part, I went in and described myself as a very unsettled, very gainfully employed person. Lots of income, no friends, etc. The auditor (?) was very happy to talk to me. Came time to take the test and see how really fucked up I was and how Scientology could make my life right. My procedure for answering the questions (three choices, yes, no, maybe) was as follows. In my wasted youth I had memorized pi (the number) to 40 decimal places and could reel that thing off like crazy (still can). Pi is a truely random number. I answered each question by going through the value of pi I knew (3.1415926535897932384626...), using one digit per answer and answering 'yes' for even digits, 'no' for odd digits and an occasional (when it felt right) 'don't know' , repeating the number as many times as necessary to complete the test. I did'nt read the questions before answering them, although I did read them afterwards. After finishing the questionaire the magic results came...I was really fucked up and Scientology could help me!!!! I was amazed (not). After some discussion about my unclear personality and useless life, I told the examiner exactly what I had done and confronted him about the difference between his test and real personality tests. He was absolutely thunder struck. He called in his boss and had me repeat the whole story. I was told to NEVER enter a scientology 'church' again. I was BANNED!!! Taking my broken heart in hand, I left, never to return to Scientology. That was really fun.
Yeah, well I've been seeing that thing (the modified 747) sitting down at the end of Boeing Field for at least the last 10 years (or more) Never seems to fly, in fact it never seems to move, and I haven't seen anything being done to it for as long as I can remember. They used to fly it, but my understanding is there was no way to make the laser powerful enough to do much, given atmospheric effects.
Well, your comment raises an interesting question about encryption; has PGP et. al been broken? Has the NSA got a large number factoring algorithm? There have been persistent rumors that a method for factoring large numbers was discovered and classified in the 1980's. Needless to say, all nerds know that current encryption is based on the product of two large primes.
Personally, I find it MUCH easier to go through paper notes than scroll down a word document. It's way easier and faster to go back and forth between pages, reference other documents at the same time, make marginal notes, etc. When using reference texts, that physical book is much easier to use and somehow more personal. I frequently have three or four books open and stacked on each other; the indexes are available with a flip, and you can instantly get several different slants on a topic. Works for me.
Seems to me, as I recall, when everyone wants to do it and it gets real easy to do, the end is near and the bubble has burst. Is stuff like this (buying real estate sight unseen over the internet, for God's sake)a sign that the real estate has burst? My answer would be yes. When people are so anxious to buy, sight unseen, with the feeling that they can only make money, the end is near. Hold onto your pocketbooks and wallets!
Actualy, if the Poles hadn't been REALLY proactive about truing to break the German Enigma we (the Allies) would have been really fucked. The French had access to Enigma plans but felt that it was impopssible to crack Enigma so they handed all their data to the Poleish intelligence service (Burio Szyfrow)and siad good luck.. Marian Rejewski of the Burio developed an attack on Enigma (absolutely brilliant!!) that actually suceeded in cracking the cipher. The Poles were decrypting German messages on a daily basis until 1938, when the Germans increased the number of scramblers to 5 so that any 3 were available for encryption and also added new plugboards. When Poland was attacked by the Germans the Poles called in the British and gave them spare Enigma replicas they had built, blueprints, and cracking strategies. They were sent to England in diplomatic pouches via Paris. smuggled across the Channel by a French playwrite and his actress wife, so as not to be detected by Geman spies at the Channel ports. Laugh all you want to, but the Poles made it possible to win World War II.
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Well, not everyone is totally enamored with laptops. My daughter, who is in the 11th grade attends a public school that this year provided all students with a laptop. Interestingly enough, she didn't want one and felt no need to have one. She has a pc at home that she uses for school work and thought that was enough; she felt that using a laptop during class would detract from learning, she would rather take notes and write by hand. That was her decision and we strongly supported her in her choice. The school sent out notices to schedule a meeting to pick up the computer and sign paperwork. We contacted the school and informed them that Katy didn't want a computer. We were told it was not optional. We ignored them. We later received another notice that she had been rescheduled. We ignored that also. She never got the computer and is happy for that. All her teachers understood her choice and didn't make a fuss about it. I am convinced that computers do not aid in learning basics; they are great for word processing, basic research, and communication. They are time wasters in lots of other cases. There is another post on slashdot about blackberries and constant connection. I am convinced we are not better for being constantly connected with cell phones, etc. and my daughter feels the same way, thank god. Real learning takes effort and time and was done a long time before computers were invented. Read a book sometimes.
Hey pal, if you had read the story you linked to, you would have known that the engines in this truck are JET engines, with diesel injected at the exhaust outlet to generate flames and smoke for visual effect.
Just because we can make fibres with enough tensile strength to withstand loads for this thing doesn't address the entire construction question. My understanding is that we only have FIBRES. They have to be joined in a matrix of something, and that matrix will not have enough shear to support the tensile strength of the fibres. In carbon fibre materials, for example, an epoxy resin is cured around the carbon fibre. The fibres, because of their orientation and strength make a very strong structure; materials such as unidirectional CF can be used to strengthen the structure along load paths. But if the shear limits of the epoxy are exceeded, the thing will break. A great example of this is a Formula One chassis. Enormously strong becasue of their carbon fibre/epoxy structure, but when the break they shatter. So how will the fibres in the cable be formed into a structure? Seems to me the limit will be the glue, not the carbon.
User interface is a topic that really raises my hackles (whatever the hell they are). Every time I use my DVD player I have to look at the damn thing to figure out what to push to stop and resume play. It is not obvious. These are problably the most used functions on any playback machine, but they sure can be obscure. I take real pleasure in playing VHS tapes (I still have lots) because the damn controls make SENSE. Do designers actually have real people try these things out before they start manufacturing them? Okay, here's another gripe - why is it sometimes so hard to find the PLAY at the beginning of a DVD? I swear, sometimes I look at the screen and really can't see what I am trying to enter. Am I defective? Or what?
I just got this huge flashback to the time I took the Scientology personality test. I was living in Seattle at the time (many years ago) and a friend had lent me the book 'Inside Scientology'. It was pretty interesting, to say the least. I decided to go down to the Scientology joint in Seatle and take the personality test, knowing that it was a rigged deal - but I had a plan. Dressing to fit the part, I went in and described myself as a very unsettled, very gainfully employed person. Lots of income, no friends, etc. The auditor (?) was very happy to talk to me. Came time to take the test and see how really fucked up I was and how Scientology could make my life right. My procedure for answering the questions (three choices, yes, no, maybe) was as follows. In my wasted youth I had memorized pi (the number) to 40 decimal places and could reel that thing off like crazy (still can). Pi is a truely random number. I answered each question by going through the value of pi I knew (3.1415926535897932384626...), using one digit per answer and answering 'yes' for even digits, 'no' for odd digits and an occasional (when it felt right) 'don't know' , repeating the number as many times as necessary to complete the test. I did'nt read the questions before answering them, although I did read them afterwards. After finishing the questionaire the magic results came...I was really fucked up and Scientology could help me!!!! I was amazed (not). After some discussion about my unclear personality and useless life, I told the examiner exactly what I had done and confronted him about the difference between his test and real personality tests. He was absolutely thunder struck. He called in his boss and had me repeat the whole story. I was told to NEVER enter a scientology 'church' again. I was BANNED!!! Taking my broken heart in hand, I left, never to return to Scientology. That was really fun.
Yeah, well I've been seeing that thing (the modified 747) sitting down at the end of Boeing Field for at least the last 10 years (or more) Never seems to fly, in fact it never seems to move, and I haven't seen anything being done to it for as long as I can remember. They used to fly it, but my understanding is there was no way to make the laser powerful enough to do much, given atmospheric effects.
Well, your comment raises an interesting question about encryption; has PGP et. al been broken? Has the NSA got a large number factoring algorithm? There have been persistent rumors that a method for factoring large numbers was discovered and classified in the 1980's. Needless to say, all nerds know that current encryption is based on the product of two large primes.
Yeah, but the real problem with this method is that you can't find out if it worked until you open the box.
Personally, I find it MUCH easier to go through paper notes than scroll down a word document. It's way easier and faster to go back and forth between pages, reference other documents at the same time, make marginal notes, etc. When using reference texts, that physical book is much easier to use and somehow more personal. I frequently have three or four books open and stacked on each other; the indexes are available with a flip, and you can instantly get several different slants on a topic. Works for me.
Seems to me, as I recall, when everyone wants to do it and it gets real easy to do, the end is near and the bubble has burst. Is stuff like this (buying real estate sight unseen over the internet, for God's sake)a sign that the real estate has burst? My answer would be yes. When people are so anxious to buy, sight unseen, with the feeling that they can only make money, the end is near. Hold onto your pocketbooks and wallets!
Sorry about the spelling errors. It's late and I should be in bed.
Actualy, if the Poles hadn't been REALLY proactive about truing to break the German Enigma we (the Allies) would have been really fucked. The French had access to Enigma plans but felt that it was impopssible to crack Enigma so they handed all their data to the Poleish intelligence service (Burio Szyfrow)and siad good luck.. Marian Rejewski of the Burio developed an attack on Enigma (absolutely brilliant!!) that actually suceeded in cracking the cipher. The Poles were decrypting German messages on a daily basis until 1938, when the Germans increased the number of scramblers to 5 so that any 3 were available for encryption and also added new plugboards. When Poland was attacked by the Germans the Poles called in the British and gave them spare Enigma replicas they had built, blueprints, and cracking strategies. They were sent to England in diplomatic pouches via Paris. smuggled across the Channel by a French playwrite and his actress wife, so as not to be detected by Geman spies at the Channel ports. Laugh all you want to, but the Poles made it possible to win World War II.