Except unlike my old password (which I made up and keep in my head) these passwords are answers to real world questions, which means someone who isn't me could look up the answers. Brilliant.
You know, your "mother's maiden name" could be xj7_oSS:19. I bet she didn't mind changing when she got married.
"Contrary to recent reports, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is not planning a consumer version of its current XO laptop, designed for the poorest and most remote children in the world," said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC chairman.
I thought it wasn't for the really poor people. I thought the laptop was for countries that were sufficiently developed that they could focus on education as opposed to sanitation, starvation, etc.
"They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material."
The circumference of the sun is 4,373,000 km. Call "matter of minutes" 10 minutes = 600 seconds. Divide circumference by two since the wave propagates in both directions. The wave is travelling at 3600 km/s. That's pretty damn fast.
You didn't mention the cost of your hard drive. You are right that the CPU specs are quite low for standard definition TV and render the cost of the box quite low. I think that for HD encoding you need a more substantial (read: not obsolete) setup.
Also, just one tuner? A DVR with just one tuner is nothing more than a digital VCR and that is not even in the same genus as a dual tuner system (you can't swap between channels, record one thing and watch something else).
I am half quibbling and half disagreeing. I love my DVR (from the cable company) and have thought a lot about building a MythTV. I can get a box for free but the cost still seems restrictive to me. Say $200 for enough disk space to not have to worry about it. Plus $120 (at your prices) for 2 tuners. That's $320 without considering how long it takes me to setup. The cable company charges me $7 per month and if it breaks it's not my problem. That's for a standard def system. The price would be quite a lot more for an HD system.
This hasn't been an issue before because most astronauts don't get in the way of the van Allen belts. The Apollo astronauts went through super fast (escape velocity is 40,000 km/hr).
"For a space elevator travelling at the current proposed speed of 200 kilometres per hour, however, passengers might spend half a week in the belts. That would hit them with 200 times the radiation experienced by the Apollo astronauts."
The article says that you may not want to add shielding because of the added mass.
Wikipedia says that "an object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per year." I don't know how this would translate for people going through the area, but 3 mm of aluminum doesn't weigh much.
It seems you should have typed assumed, but the d key is pretty far from the n and t keys. Parlez vous francais? Je parle seul un peu. Plus lentemente, s'il vous plait.
I used to get a ton of spam on my guestbook. I tried doing lots of little things in the code and it turns out the spam was being submitted without them filling out the HTML form. To force this to happen, I found a neat idea on some German website (it's down, so I mirrored it). The code will not accept a post if there is no number/checksum pair.
That cut out a lot of the spam. The rest has been gone since I added another, required field "What is my first name?" It is like a captcha but much easier. No one will complain that they get it wrong. For your site, maybe something like "Finish the name of this show 'I Love...' "
I am pretty sure that if you get Vista via OEM, it is much more restricted.
Say your store-bought, Vista pre-installed computer breaks the day after your warranty is up. You now have lots of dead hardware and the Vista CDs. You can't install Vista on another computer.
I can't find a source to back me up here. Am I right?
satire - noun 1. the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2. a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3. a literary genre comprising such compositions.
In what way would pretending to have a rare illness and then pretending to be cured be satire? There is a difference between "lies" and "satire."
It says it may be "the ultimate media center" but only has one tuner. This is a massive pitfall. A Tivo-like system that has only one tuner isn't Tivo-like at all. It is a VCR that records to a hard drive. The difference between 1 tuner and 2 is immense.
I was very surprised to discover that there's only a single TV Tuner supplied. It's DVB-T and unlike the Acer Idea 500 Media Center I recently reviewed, it managed to find a good number of channels first time off but it means you can only watch the channel being recorded - very frustrating. That said, anyone considering a machine like this with the high price premium of the Blu-ray drive probably has a Sky HD box at home.
What about using this thing to shoot water/food/structural materials into space? That is where the savings really come into play. If there is to be a moon base, all the water has to be shipped up there. People need lots of water, so cutting the cost per kilogram to 1% of current levels is a very big deal.
Hmm, I didn't think things really got slashdotted on the weekend. Maybe it is Monday in Australia already...
The greenpeace link
"The real reason is Greenpeace! They came out with a report on how environment friendly consumer electronics manufacturers actually are. And guess what? Apple is close to the last!:(
[More:]
Reproaches against Apple mostly include:
* Overuse of toxic chemicals (brominated flame retardants, polyvinyl chloride) which make recylcing hazardous.
* No timeline to phase these chemicals out.
* Recylcing program limited to the US or where Apple is legally compelled to.
* Products designed to have a short life span.
Of course, Apple prefers to focus on packaging size, energy efficiency (which the all the competition does equally), the fact that flat panels weight less than CRTs (hello!?) and other environment friendly side effects to their marketing strategy.
Ironically, there's this other computer maker Apple likes to make fun of. That company with the computers where the Intel processor is limited to "dull and repetitive tasks". That company called Dell. Well, ironically, Dell is ranking very well: number 2 on the environment scale! (#1 being Nokia)
"It is disappointing to see Apple ranking so low in the overall guide. They are meant to be world leaders in design and marketing, they should also be world leaders in environmental innovation."
--Greenpeace
Don't get me wrong: I love my Mac, I love my iPod, I love the way Steve amazes us all the time. But I'd really really like him to amaze us in a "greener" way...;)
Grrr. I have no problem with most of your post, but you really get off on the wrong foot.
String theory is a scientific theory that has neither been proved nor disproved to my knowledge. I could speculate all day on whether or not it is fact but from what I've read, I will make a few statements.
In the context of science, "theory" does not mean "unproven." It is very far from "guess." We have "the theory of gravity" and "the theory of evolution." When someone says "evolution is *just* a theory," remind them that gravity is just a theory too, but that seems to be working out okay.
It seems that a lot of confusion can be cleared up by remembering the definition of theory. From the wiki:
In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it often does in other contexts. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from and/or is supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations that is predictive, logical and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections or inclusion in a yet wider theory.
It seems like you are confusing "physics" with "engineering."
1) space elevators: I think this would be a material science endeavor.
2) blimps: not sure what you want done with blimps. Aerospace engineering.
3) levees: civil engineering.
4) monolithic dome: umm?
5) sustainable housing: not sure what this means either, but it isn't physics.
6) alternative energy: a little too broad for me to classify.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, your "mother's maiden name" could be xj7_oSS:19. I bet she didn't mind changing when she got married.
Speaking of "An Inconvenient Truth," this reminded me of all the before and after pictures of glaciers and such. Here are a few: melt
I thought it wasn't for the really poor people. I thought the laptop was for countries that were sufficiently developed that they could focus on education as opposed to sanitation, starvation, etc.
"The poor have fewer alternative ways to invest, in real estate, the stock market or elsewhere, so the lottery is seen less as play and more as a chance to transform their lives,"
I don't think JRPG is a typo since J is far from R, space and W. Wikipedia says it stands for Japanese RPG. Hmm. Any other ideas?
Modding the parent post "Funny" would be funny.
The circumference of the sun is 4,373,000 km. Call "matter of minutes" 10 minutes = 600 seconds. Divide circumference by two since the wave propagates in both directions. The wave is travelling at 3600 km/s. That's pretty damn fast.
Bad, bad modding.
In no way is the parent "Funny." James Kim is a reference to the cNET editor who (along with his family) was lost in Oregon and died. Try "Interesting" or "Insightful."
You didn't mention the cost of your hard drive. You are right that the CPU specs are quite low for standard definition TV and render the cost of the box quite low. I think that for HD encoding you need a more substantial (read: not obsolete) setup.
Also, just one tuner? A DVR with just one tuner is nothing more than a digital VCR and that is not even in the same genus as a dual tuner system (you can't swap between channels, record one thing and watch something else).
I am half quibbling and half disagreeing. I love my DVR (from the cable company) and have thought a lot about building a MythTV. I can get a box for free but the cost still seems restrictive to me. Say $200 for enough disk space to not have to worry about it. Plus $120 (at your prices) for 2 tuners. That's $320 without considering how long it takes me to setup. The cable company charges me $7 per month and if it breaks it's not my problem. That's for a standard def system. The price would be quite a lot more for an HD system.
"the LEGO Group has calculated that just six eight-stud bricks can be arranged in 915,103,765 different ways."
Can anyone reproduce this for me?
Holy cow! 20 angstroms? You can't get much thinner than that. The Si-O bond length is probably 3-4 angstroms. That is stunning.
There are a lot of WoW stories. I have a hole in my understanding: what happens if you die in the game?
The article says that you may not want to add shielding because of the added mass. Wikipedia says that "an object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per year." I don't know how this would translate for people going through the area, but 3 mm of aluminum doesn't weigh much.
It seems you should have typed assumed, but the d key is pretty far from the n and t keys. Parlez vous francais? Je parle seul un peu. Plus lentemente, s'il vous plait.
I used to get a ton of spam on my guestbook. I tried doing lots of little things in the code and it turns out the spam was being submitted without them filling out the HTML form. To force this to happen, I found a neat idea on some German website (it's down, so I mirrored it). The code will not accept a post if there is no number/checksum pair. ...' "
That cut out a lot of the spam. The rest has been gone since I added another, required field "What is my first name?" It is like a captcha but much easier. No one will complain that they get it wrong. For your site, maybe something like "Finish the name of this show 'I Love
I am pretty sure that if you get Vista via OEM, it is much more restricted.
Say your store-bought, Vista pre-installed computer breaks the day after your warranty is up. You now have lots of dead hardware and the Vista CDs. You can't install Vista on another computer.
I can't find a source to back me up here. Am I right?
Civ 4 is $50 and Civ 3 is $30.
The latter seems quite high for a 5 year old game.
In what way would pretending to have a rare illness and then pretending to be cured be satire? There is a difference between "lies" and "satire."
What about using this thing to shoot water/food/structural materials into space? That is where the savings really come into play. If there is to be a moon base, all the water has to be shipped up there. People need lots of water, so cutting the cost per kilogram to 1% of current levels is a very big deal.
mirrordot
The greenpeace link
It seems that a lot of confusion can be cleared up by remembering the definition of theory. From the wiki:
It seems like you are confusing "physics" with "engineering."
1) space elevators: I think this would be a material science endeavor.
2) blimps: not sure what you want done with blimps. Aerospace engineering.
3) levees: civil engineering.
4) monolithic dome: umm?
5) sustainable housing: not sure what this means either, but it isn't physics.
6) alternative energy: a little too broad for me to classify.