Actually, I'd claim that the theory is really an insult to American kids, not Russians. High school history isn't designed to teach students anything, it's meant to give them a couple facts to learn, and to shovel the dogma of how the US is the greatest country in the Universe in all ways. If teachers tell their young students that one of the world's superpowers could defeat the other simply by sending over a few burger flippers, then that accomplishes the goal. Teaching that kind of crap to kids insults their intelligence and hinders their thinking process.
I agree that it's cool to be able to see more than anyone else, but it's not luck. It was a shitload of hard work, and the accumulated knowlege of all those people in history who never got to see these amazing things.
Luck implies random chance. I think it's not fair to call more hard work that either you or me can shake a stick at luck.
Oh, and by the way, I'm terminating my little experiment early. See my web page for details. To summarize, I was going to post 20 completely bogus posts with the goal of getting people to mod them up instead of down. It worked at first, but then the more clueful moderators came along after 2-3 days and modded the posts down. I wanted to see if I could stay above 45 karma, but was modded down to 42 after 8 posts. The conclusion is that Slashdot's moderation system does work, but not efficiently. It takes some time for the more considered moderations to kick in. After about 3 days a large part of the bogus information will be either responded to or modded down. But still, don't believe everything you read on the Internet!
These globular clusters are very old. The one they are talking about was probably captured by our galaxy billions of years ago, probably 40-50 billion years ago. They are formed by the interactions of two or more quasars, and they travelled billions of light years across our universe where they were captured by the gravitational pull of our galaxy. This one was just unlucky enough to get stuck in an orbit where it crosses the plane of the milky way. One thing that's interesting is that every time it crosses the milky way thousands of stars collide and explode into supernova. That's part of the reason for the trail extending from the cluster to the milky way - it's just plain old star guts blown out from the supernova.
The only bad part about this is that Palomar 5 isn't easy to see. You need at least a 12 inch telescope and very very dark skies, which most people don't have. The thing that I like most about astrology is that there are so many amazing things out there that sometimes it's hard to believe. But it's true!
One thing that's not generally well known (I have no idea why) is that European power is 50hz vs. North American 60hz. Obviously one of those is much more logical than the other, but that's an entirely different topic.
Anyway, that difference in power means that the phase of the radio waves will not match when you travel to Europe. Only 1 in 6 of the cycles will match perfectly, making transmissions much slower than you'd expect. It'll still work, but only at about 1/6th the speed.
There is a solution though. Your laptop power supply will most likely work with no trouble at 50 or 60 Hz. But, you're going to want to get one of those 110/220V converters anyway. Besides boosting the current of the voltage, it will also rephase the European cycles into North American cycles. You'll definitely want one of those. BTW, it'll also keep your BIOS clock running at the right speed. If you find it dropping 6 minutes an hour when you get to Europe, then that's why.
The universe is really a spreadsheet, and since spreadsheets can be Turing equivalent, it's a good reason to call it a computer.
This spread sheet is three dimensional, with each cell corresponding to a cartesian coordinate based on the center of the universe at 0,0,0. Each cell of the spreadsheet is no bigger than the smallest thing, which is the Planke length. Each formula in the cells is really what Wolfram was talking about. Simple formulas, repeated endlessly through each cell of the spreadsheet. There are of course smaller dimensions, and what that means is that there is an embedded spreadsheet (or several) located inside of each cell.
Strangely enough, there are more reasons to believe that the similarity is more than superficial. For example, wrapping of text in a spreadsheet is referred to by scientists as "diffraction" and it can change the course of a light wave. Black holes are thought by some to be where the universe is dividing by zero. Don't laugh, it's true!
Mathematics can be used to compute all of the universe's gyrations with great accuracy. That begs the question, what came first? Math, or the universe? Almost all mathematicians nowadays think that math came first, which naturally leads to the idea that computer programs were invented before computers. This makes a lot of sense. It's a fascinating topic, really. If you're lucky enough to be in college right now and taking math classes, you've got an opportunity to approach your math professor after class and talk to him about these ideas. If that prof got their PhD in the past year or two, they'll know exactly what you're talking about. Profs who got their PhD's more than two years ago probably won't know about it. These are really new and exciting ideas! Just keep asking and find a prof who knows about these ideas. Trust me, it'll be a fascinating experience and will change your life.
The article doesn't go into much detail about the tweezers, but they are actually quite interesting, if you can believe it. They are described as optical tweezers because most of the tweezers are made with light waves. The little micromachines are so small that they can be suspended between the "prongs" of the tweezers with nothing more than light waves. The control of the micromachines is helped along by the element zircon which is dissolved into the oil suspending the micromachine. Because of diffraction of the light in the tweezers, the zircon forms a sort of crust around the tweezers. Anyway, the purpose of the zircon is that the molecule is asymmetric. This assymmetry causes the micromachines to move almost friction free in one direction, but not in the other. That's part of the reason why the micromachines rotate smoothly instead of just twitching back and forth.
-They should have a general idea of how Bill Gates purchased MS-DOS from DEC and how Seymour Cray was out flying his airplane when the IBM sales people came to visit him, virtually guarenteeing that they would choose Microsoft
-They should have general knowlege of how operating systems have evolved, for example the general progression of operating systems. Multics code was used to make UNIX v.7, which was used to make XENIX (by SCO), which was used to make both OS/2 and Windows NT. They should know that Penguins mean Linux.
-They should know about various microprocessors, (8-bit) 8086, 80286, Z80, and i860; (16-bit) 80186, 68020 (32-bit) Pentium, etc.
-It's also nice to know about computer languages, (structured) COBOL, FORTRAN; (OOP) Modula-2, APL; (database) SQL PLUS
programming: general knowlege of algorithms. They should be able to name an efficient sort algorithm (bubble sort) and describe what an array is.
Of course, these are all very general questions that only the most ill-informed would get wrong.
These do-it-yourself UPS thingies are going to require maintenance. Car batteries are designed to deliver about 3400 amps directly into the alternator of a car, only during the time that you turn the key. They they trickle charge very slowly off the engine mains.
By contrast, UPS batteries are designed to discharge at a slower rate, but charge very very quickly to be able to work if the power suddenly cuts out two or more times in a row.
The problem with using one battery where another is required is that a memory effect can develop. That slow discharge on a car battery can cause it to lose capacity and in as little as 6 months it'll be useless for any power failures over about 5 seconds.
How much does a car battery cost? about $50. But, you're going to need one every 6 months or so, making a home built UPS actually many times more expensive than one you buy at Comp USA.
I know it's counter-intuitive, but many things about batteries are.
Finger print readers apparently are easy to foil now. Someone figured out how to make a case of a finger out of silicone to fool most readers on the market. Now, biometrics researchers are zeroing in on a new technique that's not so easily fooled. Buttocks pressure. Don't laugh! Apparently the way a person pushes on their chair with their buttocks is far more unique and foolproof than fingerprints. And the researchers claim they can ignore signal variation caused by weight gain or fidgeting.
Technology is so amazing that sometimes I have a hard time believing it is true...
According to a acquaintance who works for another university considering the same thing (in Europe), their decision to allow students to share work was very contentious. It was ultimately decided when a professor (my friend didn't know the name) pointed out that
1) most students take classes over and over again until they pass, making failure meaningless, and therefore cheating meaningless, and
2) undergraduate degrees are not useful even for the purpose of getting a job. The fact that most people work in fields that are not related to their degrees proved that.
It's a little known fact that Sun Microsystems considered using SCO Xenix on their systems before deciding the write their own. The reason they wrote their own was that their main competitor, Apollo, had a fully System 7 compliant UNIX implementation, and DEC was rumored to be releasing that as well on their VAX hardware. Sun decided thta Xenix wasn't UNIX, so they wrote their own.
I've been ripped off too many times by these idiots.
1) I download and keep MP3's of things that I have the CD for. 2) I download things that I do not have for the purpose of trying them out. 3) If I like what I hear, I buy it. If not, then I delete it.
That's my terms. If you don't agree to them, then you obviously don't want my money.
Holmes' dissenting opinion on another case forms the foundation of our current thinking on the first ammendment. He wasn't dissenting on the fire in the theater opinion.
That cannot possibly be right. I just send a mail to pppp@localhost and the thing worked just fine. localhost resolves to 127.0.0.1
OK, another test. A mail to slashdot-1@pdrap.org works just fine. (I've blocked that address because spammers found it a while ago). But, a mail to slashdot-1@65.188.39.1 does NOT work.
So, your explanation doesn't fit the observed facts.
Plug the Linksys into the cable modem. Plug the computer into the Linksys. Plug the phone line into your computer. The Linksys should be transparent to you. It should be opaque to the rest of the world.
I'd have to ask you how can you tell he was a bad actor. Even Samuel Jackson didn't meet his usually high standard in this film. If this was the only time I saw SJ in a movie, I'd guess that he was a bad actor as well. But, I know he's not, and I blame all the crappy acting on bad direction.
Analogy time: Michael Jordan is supposed to be the best basketball player of all time. But even he needs a coach. The best actors cannot give their best performances unless the director is skillful at coaching them.
We don't want to be annoyed. We hated Scrappy Doo, we hated Oliver on the Brady Bunch. And we hate Jar Jar. I was HOPING that I wouldn't hear the word "meesa" come out of his mouth, but I did. That's point one.
Point two is that Lucas doesn't seem to demand much from his actors. Everyone in the film was a decent actor, but they were just coasting in this one. Easy work, for a nice fat check. That flew just fine with the original Star Wars, but now it's just stupid looking and awkward feeling.
But, back to the annoying sidekick. They just don't work. They never worked. Everyone hates them. If you like them, you are by definition outside the mainstream. Someday, if I ever become an editor or movie producer, I'm going to insist that every single thing made has an annoying sidekick or two in it. In fact, I'm going to insist that they all say the word "meesa" at least a hundred times. My goal will be to make the world so SICK of annoying sidekicks that future generations will not be plagued by this twist of storytelling idiocy.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I'd claim that the theory is really an insult to American kids, not Russians. High school history isn't designed to teach students anything, it's meant to give them a couple facts to learn, and to shovel the dogma of how the US is the greatest country in the Universe in all ways. If teachers tell their young students that one of the world's superpowers could defeat the other simply by sending over a few burger flippers, then that accomplishes the goal. Teaching that kind of crap to kids insults their intelligence and hinders their thinking process.
How lucky we are to live in such times!
I agree that it's cool to be able to see more than anyone else, but it's not luck. It was a shitload of hard work, and the accumulated knowlege of all those people in history who never got to see these amazing things.
Luck implies random chance. I think it's not fair to call more hard work that either you or me can shake a stick at luck.
Oh, and by the way, I'm terminating my little experiment early. See my web page for details. To summarize, I was going to post 20 completely bogus posts with the goal of getting people to mod them up instead of down. It worked at first, but then the more clueful moderators came along after 2-3 days and modded the posts down. I wanted to see if I could stay above 45 karma, but was modded down to 42 after 8 posts. The conclusion is that Slashdot's moderation system does work, but not efficiently. It takes some time for the more considered moderations to kick in. After about 3 days a large part of the bogus information will be either responded to or modded down. But still, don't believe everything you read on the Internet!
These globular clusters are very old. The one they are talking about was probably captured by our galaxy billions of years ago, probably 40-50 billion years ago. They are formed by the interactions of two or more quasars, and they travelled billions of light years across our universe where they were captured by the gravitational pull of our galaxy. This one was just unlucky enough to get stuck in an orbit where it crosses the plane of the milky way. One thing that's interesting is that every time it crosses the milky way thousands of stars collide and explode into supernova. That's part of the reason for the trail extending from the cluster to the milky way - it's just plain old star guts blown out from the supernova.
The only bad part about this is that Palomar 5 isn't easy to see. You need at least a 12 inch telescope and very very dark skies, which most people don't have. The thing that I like most about astrology is that there are so many amazing things out there that sometimes it's hard to believe. But it's true!
One thing that's not generally well known (I have no idea why) is that European power is 50hz vs. North American 60hz. Obviously one of those is much more logical than the other, but that's an entirely different topic.
Anyway, that difference in power means that the phase of the radio waves will not match when you travel to Europe. Only 1 in 6 of the cycles will match perfectly, making transmissions much slower than you'd expect. It'll still work, but only at about 1/6th the speed.
There is a solution though. Your laptop power supply will most likely work with no trouble at 50 or 60 Hz. But, you're going to want to get one of those 110/220V converters anyway. Besides boosting the current of the voltage, it will also rephase the European cycles into North American cycles. You'll definitely want one of those. BTW, it'll also keep your BIOS clock running at the right speed. If you find it dropping 6 minutes an hour when you get to Europe, then that's why.
The universe is really a spreadsheet, and since spreadsheets can be Turing equivalent, it's a good reason to call it a computer.
This spread sheet is three dimensional, with each cell corresponding to a cartesian coordinate based on the center of the universe at 0,0,0. Each cell of the spreadsheet is no bigger than the smallest thing, which is the Planke length. Each formula in the cells is really what Wolfram was talking about. Simple formulas, repeated endlessly through each cell of the spreadsheet. There are of course smaller dimensions, and what that means is that there is an embedded spreadsheet (or several) located inside of each cell.
Strangely enough, there are more reasons to believe that the similarity is more than superficial. For example, wrapping of text in a spreadsheet is referred to by scientists as "diffraction" and it can change the course of a light wave. Black holes are thought by some to be where the universe is dividing by zero. Don't laugh, it's true!
Mathematics can be used to compute all of the universe's gyrations with great accuracy. That begs the question, what came first? Math, or the universe? Almost all mathematicians nowadays think that math came first, which naturally leads to the idea that computer programs were invented before computers. This makes a lot of sense. It's a fascinating topic, really. If you're lucky enough to be in college right now and taking math classes, you've got an opportunity to approach your math professor after class and talk to him about these ideas. If that prof got their PhD in the past year or two, they'll know exactly what you're talking about. Profs who got their PhD's more than two years ago probably won't know about it. These are really new and exciting ideas! Just keep asking and find a prof who knows about these ideas. Trust me, it'll be a fascinating experience and will change your life.
The article doesn't go into much detail about the tweezers, but they are actually quite interesting, if you can believe it. They are described as optical tweezers because most of the tweezers are made with light waves. The little micromachines are so small that they can be suspended between the "prongs" of the tweezers with nothing more than light waves. The control of the micromachines is helped along by the element zircon which is dissolved into the oil suspending the micromachine. Because of diffraction of the light in the tweezers, the zircon forms a sort of crust around the tweezers. Anyway, the purpose of the zircon is that the molecule is asymmetric. This assymmetry causes the micromachines to move almost friction free in one direction, but not in the other. That's part of the reason why the micromachines rotate smoothly instead of just twitching back and forth.
computer history:
-They should have a general idea of how Bill Gates purchased MS-DOS from DEC and how Seymour Cray was out flying his airplane when the IBM sales people came to visit him, virtually guarenteeing that they would choose Microsoft
-They should have general knowlege of how operating systems have evolved, for example the general progression of operating systems. Multics code was used to make UNIX v.7, which was used to make XENIX (by SCO), which was used to make both OS/2 and Windows NT. They should know that Penguins mean Linux.
-They should know about various microprocessors, (8-bit) 8086, 80286, Z80, and i860; (16-bit) 80186, 68020 (32-bit) Pentium, etc.
-It's also nice to know about computer languages, (structured) COBOL, FORTRAN; (OOP) Modula-2, APL; (database) SQL PLUS
programming: general knowlege of algorithms. They should be able to name an efficient sort algorithm (bubble sort) and describe what an array is.
Of course, these are all very general questions that only the most ill-informed would get wrong.
These do-it-yourself UPS thingies are going to require maintenance. Car batteries are designed to deliver about 3400 amps directly into the alternator of a car, only during the time that you turn the key. They they trickle charge very slowly off the engine mains.
By contrast, UPS batteries are designed to discharge at a slower rate, but charge very very quickly to be able to work if the power suddenly cuts out two or more times in a row.
The problem with using one battery where another is required is that a memory effect can develop. That slow discharge on a car battery can cause it to lose capacity and in as little as 6 months it'll be useless for any power failures over about 5 seconds.
How much does a car battery cost? about $50. But, you're going to need one every 6 months or so, making a home built UPS actually many times more expensive than one you buy at Comp USA.
I know it's counter-intuitive, but many things about batteries are.
Finger print readers apparently are easy to foil now. Someone figured out how to make a case of a finger out of silicone to fool most readers on the market. Now, biometrics researchers are zeroing in on a new technique that's not so easily fooled. Buttocks pressure. Don't laugh! Apparently the way a person pushes on their chair with their buttocks is far more unique and foolproof than fingerprints. And the researchers claim they can ignore signal variation caused by weight gain or fidgeting.
Technology is so amazing that sometimes I have a hard time believing it is true...
According to a acquaintance who works for another university considering the same thing (in Europe), their decision to allow students to share work was very contentious. It was ultimately decided when a professor (my friend didn't know the name) pointed out that
1) most students take classes over and over again until they pass, making failure meaningless, and therefore cheating meaningless, and
2) undergraduate degrees are not useful even for the purpose of getting a job. The fact that most people work in fields that are not related to their degrees proved that.
Can you believe that?
It's a little known fact that Sun Microsystems considered using SCO Xenix on their systems before deciding the write their own. The reason they wrote their own was that their main competitor, Apollo, had a fully System 7 compliant UNIX implementation, and DEC was rumored to be releasing that as well on their VAX hardware. Sun decided thta Xenix wasn't UNIX, so they wrote their own.
True story.
I've been ripped off too many times by these idiots.
1) I download and keep MP3's of things that I have the CD for.
2) I download things that I do not have for the purpose of trying them out.
3) If I like what I hear, I buy it. If not, then I delete it.
That's my terms. If you don't agree to them, then you obviously don't want my money.
Damn, it's not actually.
Holmes' dissenting opinion on another case forms the foundation of our current thinking on the first ammendment. He wasn't dissenting on the fire in the theater opinion.
You CAN yell fire in a crowded theater. That phrase comes from a dissenting opinion by Justice Holmes.
*light goes on*
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.
Parity? What are you talking about?
Thanks, that was the secret.
That cannot possibly be right. I just send a mail to pppp@localhost and the thing worked just fine. localhost resolves to 127.0.0.1
OK, another test. A mail to slashdot-1@pdrap.org works just fine. (I've blocked that address because spammers found it a while ago). But, a mail to slashdot-1@65.188.39.1 does NOT work.
So, your explanation doesn't fit the observed facts.
What am I missing?
Plug the Linksys into the cable modem. Plug the computer into the Linksys. Plug the phone line into your computer. The Linksys should be transparent to you. It should be opaque to the rest of the world.
Can anyone tell me the origin of that type of address? I have NEVER found a mail server that liked it. For example, here's Exim's error message:
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (Exim).
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:
pppp@127.0.0.1
unrouteable mail domain "127.0.0.1"
So, if it's not a legal address, why do so many think that it is?
Very curious.
OK, I understand your point. Thanks.
Were you talking, or were you doing something else at the same time, such as trespassing, etc?
Be honest with me. I seriously doubt that you were arrested for talking.
What are you, some kind of base-ist? Hex Power! Is that your slogan?
Jeez man, I think using decimal to specify a memory size is just fine.
I'd have to ask you how can you tell he was a bad actor. Even Samuel Jackson didn't meet his usually high standard in this film. If this was the only time I saw SJ in a movie, I'd guess that he was a bad actor as well. But, I know he's not, and I blame all the crappy acting on bad direction.
Analogy time: Michael Jordan is supposed to be the best basketball player of all time. But even he needs a coach. The best actors cannot give their best performances unless the director is skillful at coaching them.
We don't want to be annoyed. We hated Scrappy Doo, we hated Oliver on the Brady Bunch. And we hate Jar Jar. I was HOPING that I wouldn't hear the word "meesa" come out of his mouth, but I did. That's point one.
Point two is that Lucas doesn't seem to demand much from his actors. Everyone in the film was a decent actor, but they were just coasting in this one. Easy work, for a nice fat check. That flew just fine with the original Star Wars, but now it's just stupid looking and awkward feeling.
But, back to the annoying sidekick. They just don't work. They never worked. Everyone hates them. If you like them, you are by definition outside the mainstream. Someday, if I ever become an editor or movie producer, I'm going to insist that every single thing made has an annoying sidekick or two in it. In fact, I'm going to insist that they all say the word "meesa" at least a hundred times. My goal will be to make the world so SICK of annoying sidekicks that future generations will not be plagued by this twist of storytelling idiocy.