That's just stupid. I'm assuming everyone here is smart enough to realize there are practical limits invovled. If our minds could easily identify 22^124 dots on a piece of paper, and we had the tools to cut a piece of wood into exactly 22^124 smaller pieces... etc., then yes, 22^124 would be a nice number to use (although 12^144 would be even better).
Well I'm talking about making a quick, useful thermometer, nothing needs to be exact or anything. My point was you need more resources to make a Centrigrade thermomemter (who has boiling water and ice when they're hiking? What if you're stuck on the proverbial desert island?), while you can make a practical Fahrenheit thermometer with much less. Cold salt water is 0 degrees. Inside of your mouth is 96. Make those marks on a piece of paper with whatever you're using (assuming you have the tools to make a thermomemter), and fold it in half (five times over if you can). You'll now have a thermometer with nice whole numbers where the folds are (0, 3, 6...)
Yeah, I was joking. I've got to remember sarcasm doesn't carry over well in posts like this:)
My point was just that, a lot of times, the metric system makes it's base measurement related to something that works out very well 'in the lab', often times at the expense of an already-established base, or one that is easier to create 'in the field'. An example of this is temperature. If you want to make a centigrade thermometer out in the woods, you'll need to get your hand on ice, as well as some boiling water to get the scale right. For Fahrenheit, you can use cold salt water and your own body temperature.
... and it should also be obvious that people need to divide numbers by 4 (and to a lesser extent, 3) much more often than by 5, so it really helps to have those numbers divide evenly.
Number of divisors 10 has: 4
Number of divisors 12 has: 6
I think it's pretty obvious which one wins here.
I'm not saying Imperial is perfect (personally, I like Metric better as it suits my needs), but it clearly would be an advantage if we used base 12 for our measuring systems.
I can... metric is obviously heavily biased to factors of 10 - a pretty useless number as it only has a few divisors (2, which always a factor of the base/radix used, and 5). So when you want to divide your 1 meter board into 4, you're now stuck with 2.5 cm pieces. Okay, not too bad. What about dividing it by 3? A repeating decimal is now your new measurment. Bah, same with 6. If you get stuck in classes for most of your life, you probably won't care about this. But try to build a bar with a metric ruler and you'll see why these are desirable traits.
Compare that with, say, the foot. 12 inches - easily divisible by 3, 4, and 6. Makes building that shit a lot easier:)
Same goes with volumes - it's easy to convert gallons to quarts to pints. You have to memorize more units (which I agree sucks), but it makes making that recepie easier when you realize you have more guests coming.
Not too surprised though - this article kind of sums up the entire metric system - it's very easy to use, and the numbers work out nice (with notable exceptions), so it works for us science types. But it has no practical basis (let's make A0 one square meter instead of using some sort of established paper size!).
It all depends on the level of security involved, but it is usually allowed. In the lab area at my job (a Dept. of Defense contractor), you don't need any clearance to enter, but you do need an escort. We are allowed to have cell phones on, but they aren't allowed to have cameras on them.
For most secure areas in government buildings, cell phones are allowed, but conversations are prohibited, as are cameras. As far as I know, it's up to the person in charge of the building to determine if you have to leave your cell phone outside the secure area.
Then there's really secure areas like the NSA, which don't allow cell phones to be brought onto the premises at all, even if you leave it in your car while you work.
I think people should take reasonable steps to protect their own data - but c'mon, the blame lies on the shoulders of the virus writers. If you leave your door unlocked and someone goes on your property, opens your door, and steals all your stuff... it's not your fault! Sure, you could have prevented it, but it still took the willful act of someone else to break the law. If this happened to you, you should feel a little embarassed, but you have every right to be mad at the burglar. Your argument is like saying it's the womans fault for being raped just because she doesn't carry pepper spray, or never took a self-defense course.
I'm only saying this because since Sunday night, two of my friends (neither of which are into computers) had to wipe their hard drives, and most likely because of this virus/worm (PCs constantly rebooted). One friend is a teacher at a University, which usually has excellent IT security. The other is my roommate who is on a network with me (I have a hardware firewall and ZoneAlarm on my PC). Granted, my roommate doesn't do much in terms of anti-virus software, but he does run Norton once in a while. And the teacher, well, he shouldn't have to worry about patching his system. But the end result is two 'normal' users had to wipe their drives. And they're both smart enough not to download crap the don't recognize, which makes them smarter than half the users out there. I just don't see how we can blame them when they make, in my eyes, reasonable efforts to avoid viruses. They *should* do things like run AV once in a while, but anything else, like patching your OS, is crap. Either make a secure OS in the beginning, or have the OS patch itself. We all know most users have no idea what a patch is anyway, so why expect them to do so?
The Flood story of Genesis is a perfect example of a doublet - a story that is found twice, but with different details. Logically, although one (at most) may be true, it is most likely that the story is based on an older legend. And history tells us that through oral tradition, these legends can be greatly exagerrated.
Now onto the fun. If you go ahead and actually read Genesis 7, instead of listening to what your minister/priest told you, you'll find two complete stories completey interwoven with different details. It is believed that there were two main authors of Genesis, one from Judea in the south, and one from Israel in the north. Convienently, they used different names for God (Yahweh and Elohim). The King James Version, thankfully, keeps these names separate by referring them to as "the Lord" and "God". Which makes separating the two flood stories a little easier.
In one version, "God" asks for two of every animal, and they go on the ark two by two. So far so good, right? But it then says the rains kept up for 150 days. And what kind of bird brings back the olive branch proving the land is appearing again? A raven.
The next version, with "the Lord", fills in the gaps we're all used to. In this version, seven pairs of animals are to be loaded up (!?). But it then rains for the familiar 40 days and 40 nights. And then Noah sends out a dove, which returns with the branch.
So the version we learn is a simple hybrid of the two stories that were almost certainly written by different authors at different times.
Sure, one of the stories could be true, but it is most likely based on an older flood myth. From what I've heard, many religions have a flood story, so some people believe there was a great flood, but we just don't have enough evidence.
But the point here is that you may not be able to use this as evidence in court. While you may testify yourself to such events happening, it would be illegal for you to provide this evidence in many cases.
The interesting tidbit from the article was that this happened to a guy using AOL's IM, and the evidence couldn't be used because a chat-logging app was installed over IM. But when it happened to another guy using ICQ, which had a default setting to log conversations, he had the conversation used against him in court, since it was reasonable to assume he knew it was being recorded.
So now with your apps, it might come down to: does the average person know/expect that his actions are being recorded? Kind a weird loophole I think.
Agreed. And you've got a point - 'orbiting' could be taken a different way. Let's blame the English language... And you're right that if it's orbiting, it hasn't really 'escaped'.
You should be able to self-modify as well... like if you know you're unsure... or drunk (like I am now:))
No, the parent post is correct - the mass of the body you're trying to escape has everything to do with escape velocity. You might be thinking of the mass of the escaping object -- in which case you are correct - that doesn't matter.
But the original poster says the "mass of the object you're orbiting", which obvioiusly matters. The escape velocity for a small asteroid is obviously going to be different than the escape velocity of the Earth.
Sorry to butt in, as it looks like you've guys got this problem figured out. But I've got a similar question. The active noice-cancellation that's used in the device this article mentions involves sending a sound wave into the sound coming out of the fan, right? Since energy is being conserved and "equal and opposite reaction" stuff, wouldn't the speaker that creates the cancellation waves have so send compression waves in the opposite direction (now travelling the same direction the sound waves from the fan would've made)? If air is being pushed forward, there must be some force pushing backward (either that, or the device will accelerate). Since it's probably secured to the PC frame, does the sound energy go there? I'm just thinking that the energy goes into the case, but for whatever reason (density changes possibly) the sound changes frequency. It's got to change frquency, or else we'd still hear it. Or can that energy be transferred into the floor/desk somehow? Just trying to figure out where this energy is going....
How about huntsman lite ruby? The light works by pressing on the Victorinox logo, so it's not a toggle, but the pin can be used as a reset switch, so this has everything you want I believe....
Victorinox makes
several models of knives with LEDs. I have that first model. The LED is red (as to not ruin night vision), so it's not the brightest, but it worked well enough last night to find a hub's power cable in a rat nest of wires. The pen is a real life-saver - although it's not small enough to reset PDAs/hubs/etc. Even when old Swiss Army knives had the pen you took all the way out (this one is on a sliding track), they were still to big to use as a handy reset tool. But the battery and the ink are both replacable, which is nice.
Thanks for clearing that up. After I went to some CPR training sessions, we were told we could easily get certified if we wanted. But then I heard its best to simply remember the CPR training and not get certified, because then the victim could sue you if you performed CPR wrong. But if you weren't certified, you would simply be a 'normal' citizen trying to help out, instead of a negligent CPR-giver. Weird.
it is illegal to refuse to do business with someone due to race, religion, national origion, etc.
Sorry, but it's perfectly legal to do so in what we're talking about (like selling electronics at Best Buy -- insurance companies and housing lenders, thankfully, are regulated and are not allowed to discriminate). Haven't you ever seen the sign in stores that say "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"?
Why do you feel sorry for me? I like to live in a country where we have rights. Keep in mind the system is kept in check by regulating things like housing, insurance, even hotels and restaurants so minorities aren't getting denied essential services. But if some idiot wants to sell his wares to only certain people, that's his right. What if you have a DVD you want to sell to one of your friends, and some random person comes up to you and offers you money to buy it. Do you have to sell it to him? No. It's your DVD, and you can sell it to whomever you want.
Ooh, I meant to have "(and should)" to say "(and should) have the right to".
So I don't think businesses should have policies like refusing service to, say, left-handers, because it's ignorant (not to mention bad for the company). But I do think they should have the right to. A business owner should be able to sell his wares to whomever he wants. A sale is an agreement between the seller and the buyer. If a seller doesn't want to sell to someone else becaues he's black/jewish/whatever, that's his right. Same reason why a buyer can refuse to buy things from blacks/jews/whatever. Again, it's a stupid philosphy to live by, but's it's not illegal to be racist/judgemental.
I'm divided on this issue (mostly with retail stores), and here's why: a business has the right to conduct business on it's own terms. Businesses can (and should) refuse to sell something to any customer for any reason. Likewise, if Best Buy wants to adopt stupid in-store policies like checking me for 'stolen' merchaindise while I shop, that's their deal. If myself or other customers find it that appalling, they'll go elsewhere, and Best Buy will lose out. So I let Best Buy check my bags because, although it's degrading, I'm getting my new so-and-so for $10 cheaper than other places sell it for.
Other times though, if I'm in a hurry, I'll walk right by the people and tell them to fuck off. Mostly because they check you after you complete the purchase. I'm done my sale, and I'm now trying to leave the property. At that point, you have no right to search me.
You make that 56% of people sound like they're doing something wrong. They're not - they don't owe anything to the Internet as if it's some entity that's doing them some service (it's not). Companies and individuals that have websites are providing the service, and they want people to read them, which is why they are there in the first place.
You've probably watched hundreds of hours of TV in your life, but have you ever written anything that ended up on TV? A sitcom epsiode, perhaps written a news story?
I do agree that it would be quite a feat to explain this to the average computer user, but to be honest, they don't have to.
I've noticed this with a lot of ads lately: they make claims about such-and-such.. and that's it. No explanation. Aleve, for example, says they offer fast relief, as well as relief for 24 hours, while "other" pain medications don't. Maybe I'm more cynical, and certainly more skeptical, but I didn't buy into the fact they're better than everyone else. So I looked it up, and sure enough, Aleve's pills are coated twice - once with a substance that dissolves in the stomach, and one that only dissolves after it reaches the intestine, where more of the good stuff is then absorbed into the bloodstream.
My point of this little story is that, assuming the tactics that Aleve uses works, they can simply say:
The new AMD processor: Now with Virus-Safe code to protect your computer
And you know what, people will probably buy into it.
Hey! You owe me a cent for having them distribute the money to more people!:P
I can't wait to spend my $13.86 to register the CD ripping program I use.
Re:OpenSource ECU code - a real need.
on
Hack Your Car
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· Score: 1
Good post. I rememeber my concern with the issue (I had a 2003 MINI Cooper S before I slammed it into a barrier and totalled it). My May '03 build car had no such problems.
All in all, I don't think MINI/BMW screwed up too much. As you know, the ECU in the MINI is complex, and I sure as well wouldn't honor a warranty if I found out my customer reprogrammed the ECU. But at least having it Open Source means the bug would've been found sooner... I agree with that.
Anywho, enjoy your MINI. If you want to sell it cheap, let me know, I miss mine:)
Re:But if you were going to hack your car...
on
Hack Your Car
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· Score: 1
I tell you, I would love to see this. But it most cases there is a much simpler solution to get performance - downshift. In manual transmissions, downshifting puts your engine in the more optimum part of the torque band (although it also increases the revs to go the same speed - hurting fuel economy). This is an easier solution than hot-programming the ECU via a swtich, which I must admit is cool, and IS an option, but only on very new or very specialized cars. I believe it is/will be an option for the new $66,000 VW Phaeton.
Now, for automatics, recent solutions have come out that are almost the same thing. Cars like the 2004 Nissan Maxima let you upshift/downshift it's automatic tranny as much as you want (acutally, it'll automatically downshift for you when you stop -- so if you drive it as agressively as I did, it's just like driving a clutchless stick).
Plenty of other cars are now coming out with continuous-variable transmissions that control gear ratios without, er, gears -- they uses two pulleys and control the length between them. In a system like this, it's trivial to add a "downshift"/"upshift" feature by, say, moving the gear selector left or right as you drive. The new MINI Cooper is an example of this.
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That's just stupid. I'm assuming everyone here is smart enough to realize there are practical limits invovled. If our minds could easily identify 22^124 dots on a piece of paper, and we had the tools to cut a piece of wood into exactly 22^124 smaller pieces... etc., then yes, 22^124 would be a nice number to use (although 12^144 would be even better).
Well I'm talking about making a quick, useful thermometer, nothing needs to be exact or anything. My point was you need more resources to make a Centrigrade thermomemter (who has boiling water and ice when they're hiking? What if you're stuck on the proverbial desert island?), while you can make a practical Fahrenheit thermometer with much less. Cold salt water is 0 degrees. Inside of your mouth is 96. Make those marks on a piece of paper with whatever you're using (assuming you have the tools to make a thermomemter), and fold it in half (five times over if you can). You'll now have a thermometer with nice whole numbers where the folds are (0, 3, 6...)
My point was just that, a lot of times, the metric system makes it's base measurement related to something that works out very well 'in the lab', often times at the expense of an already-established base, or one that is easier to create 'in the field'. An example of this is temperature. If you want to make a centigrade thermometer out in the woods, you'll need to get your hand on ice, as well as some boiling water to get the scale right. For Fahrenheit, you can use cold salt water and your own body temperature.
... and it should also be obvious that people need to divide numbers by 4 (and to a lesser extent, 3) much more often than by 5, so it really helps to have those numbers divide evenly.
Number of divisors 12 has: 6
I think it's pretty obvious which one wins here.
I'm not saying Imperial is perfect (personally, I like Metric better as it suits my needs), but it clearly would be an advantage if we used base 12 for our measuring systems.
Compare that with, say, the foot. 12 inches - easily divisible by 3, 4, and 6. Makes building that shit a lot easier :)
Same goes with volumes - it's easy to convert gallons to quarts to pints. You have to memorize more units (which I agree sucks), but it makes making that recepie easier when you realize you have more guests coming.
Not too surprised though - this article kind of sums up the entire metric system - it's very easy to use, and the numbers work out nice (with notable exceptions), so it works for us science types. But it has no practical basis (let's make A0 one square meter instead of using some sort of established paper size!).
For most secure areas in government buildings, cell phones are allowed, but conversations are prohibited, as are cameras. As far as I know, it's up to the person in charge of the building to determine if you have to leave your cell phone outside the secure area.
Then there's really secure areas like the NSA, which don't allow cell phones to be brought onto the premises at all, even if you leave it in your car while you work.
I'm only saying this because since Sunday night, two of my friends (neither of which are into computers) had to wipe their hard drives, and most likely because of this virus/worm (PCs constantly rebooted). One friend is a teacher at a University, which usually has excellent IT security. The other is my roommate who is on a network with me (I have a hardware firewall and ZoneAlarm on my PC). Granted, my roommate doesn't do much in terms of anti-virus software, but he does run Norton once in a while. And the teacher, well, he shouldn't have to worry about patching his system. But the end result is two 'normal' users had to wipe their drives. And they're both smart enough not to download crap the don't recognize, which makes them smarter than half the users out there. I just don't see how we can blame them when they make, in my eyes, reasonable efforts to avoid viruses. They *should* do things like run AV once in a while, but anything else, like patching your OS, is crap. Either make a secure OS in the beginning, or have the OS patch itself. We all know most users have no idea what a patch is anyway, so why expect them to do so?
Now onto the fun. If you go ahead and actually read Genesis 7, instead of listening to what your minister/priest told you, you'll find two complete stories completey interwoven with different details. It is believed that there were two main authors of Genesis, one from Judea in the south, and one from Israel in the north. Convienently, they used different names for God (Yahweh and Elohim). The King James Version, thankfully, keeps these names separate by referring them to as "the Lord" and "God". Which makes separating the two flood stories a little easier.
In one version, "God" asks for two of every animal, and they go on the ark two by two. So far so good, right? But it then says the rains kept up for 150 days. And what kind of bird brings back the olive branch proving the land is appearing again? A raven.
The next version, with "the Lord", fills in the gaps we're all used to. In this version, seven pairs of animals are to be loaded up (!?). But it then rains for the familiar 40 days and 40 nights. And then Noah sends out a dove, which returns with the branch.
So the version we learn is a simple hybrid of the two stories that were almost certainly written by different authors at different times.
Sure, one of the stories could be true, but it is most likely based on an older flood myth. From what I've heard, many religions have a flood story, so some people believe there was a great flood, but we just don't have enough evidence.
But the point here is that you may not be able to use this as evidence in court. While you may testify yourself to such events happening, it would be illegal for you to provide this evidence in many cases. The interesting tidbit from the article was that this happened to a guy using AOL's IM, and the evidence couldn't be used because a chat-logging app was installed over IM. But when it happened to another guy using ICQ, which had a default setting to log conversations, he had the conversation used against him in court, since it was reasonable to assume he knew it was being recorded. So now with your apps, it might come down to: does the average person know/expect that his actions are being recorded? Kind a weird loophole I think.
Agreed. And you've got a point - 'orbiting' could be taken a different way. Let's blame the English language... And you're right that if it's orbiting, it hasn't really 'escaped'.
You should be able to self-modify as well... like if you know you're unsure... or drunk (like I am now :))
But the original poster says the "mass of the object you're orbiting", which obvioiusly matters. The escape velocity for a small asteroid is obviously going to be different than the escape velocity of the Earth.
Sorry to butt in, as it looks like you've guys got this problem figured out. But I've got a similar question. The active noice-cancellation that's used in the device this article mentions involves sending a sound wave into the sound coming out of the fan, right? Since energy is being conserved and "equal and opposite reaction" stuff, wouldn't the speaker that creates the cancellation waves have so send compression waves in the opposite direction (now travelling the same direction the sound waves from the fan would've made)? If air is being pushed forward, there must be some force pushing backward (either that, or the device will accelerate). Since it's probably secured to the PC frame, does the sound energy go there? I'm just thinking that the energy goes into the case, but for whatever reason (density changes possibly) the sound changes frequency. It's got to change frquency, or else we'd still hear it. Or can that energy be transferred into the floor/desk somehow? Just trying to figure out where this energy is going....
How about huntsman lite ruby? The light works by pressing on the Victorinox logo, so it's not a toggle, but the pin can be used as a reset switch, so this has everything you want I believe....
Victorinox makes several models of knives with LEDs. I have that first model. The LED is red (as to not ruin night vision), so it's not the brightest, but it worked well enough last night to find a hub's power cable in a rat nest of wires. The pen is a real life-saver - although it's not small enough to reset PDAs/hubs/etc. Even when old Swiss Army knives had the pen you took all the way out (this one is on a sliding track), they were still to big to use as a handy reset tool. But the battery and the ink are both replacable, which is nice.
Thanks for clearing that up. After I went to some CPR training sessions, we were told we could easily get certified if we wanted. But then I heard its best to simply remember the CPR training and not get certified, because then the victim could sue you if you performed CPR wrong. But if you weren't certified, you would simply be a 'normal' citizen trying to help out, instead of a negligent CPR-giver. Weird.
it is illegal to refuse to do business with someone due to race, religion, national origion, etc. Sorry, but it's perfectly legal to do so in what we're talking about (like selling electronics at Best Buy -- insurance companies and housing lenders, thankfully, are regulated and are not allowed to discriminate). Haven't you ever seen the sign in stores that say "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"? Why do you feel sorry for me? I like to live in a country where we have rights. Keep in mind the system is kept in check by regulating things like housing, insurance, even hotels and restaurants so minorities aren't getting denied essential services. But if some idiot wants to sell his wares to only certain people, that's his right. What if you have a DVD you want to sell to one of your friends, and some random person comes up to you and offers you money to buy it. Do you have to sell it to him? No. It's your DVD, and you can sell it to whomever you want.
Ooh, I meant to have "(and should)" to say "(and should) have the right to". So I don't think businesses should have policies like refusing service to, say, left-handers, because it's ignorant (not to mention bad for the company). But I do think they should have the right to. A business owner should be able to sell his wares to whomever he wants. A sale is an agreement between the seller and the buyer. If a seller doesn't want to sell to someone else becaues he's black/jewish/whatever, that's his right. Same reason why a buyer can refuse to buy things from blacks/jews/whatever. Again, it's a stupid philosphy to live by, but's it's not illegal to be racist/judgemental.
Other times though, if I'm in a hurry, I'll walk right by the people and tell them to fuck off. Mostly because they check you after you complete the purchase. I'm done my sale, and I'm now trying to leave the property. At that point, you have no right to search me.
You've probably watched hundreds of hours of TV in your life, but have you ever written anything that ended up on TV? A sitcom epsiode, perhaps written a news story?
I've noticed this with a lot of ads lately: they make claims about such-and-such.. and that's it. No explanation. Aleve, for example, says they offer fast relief, as well as relief for 24 hours, while "other" pain medications don't. Maybe I'm more cynical, and certainly more skeptical, but I didn't buy into the fact they're better than everyone else. So I looked it up, and sure enough, Aleve's pills are coated twice - once with a substance that dissolves in the stomach, and one that only dissolves after it reaches the intestine, where more of the good stuff is then absorbed into the bloodstream.
My point of this little story is that, assuming the tactics that Aleve uses works, they can simply say:
The new AMD processor: Now with Virus-Safe code to protect your computer
And you know what, people will probably buy into it.
Hey! You owe me a cent for having them distribute the money to more people! :P
I can't wait to spend my $13.86 to register the CD ripping program I use.
All in all, I don't think MINI/BMW screwed up too much. As you know, the ECU in the MINI is complex, and I sure as well wouldn't honor a warranty if I found out my customer reprogrammed the ECU. But at least having it Open Source means the bug would've been found sooner... I agree with that.
Anywho, enjoy your MINI. If you want to sell it cheap, let me know, I miss mine :)
Now, for automatics, recent solutions have come out that are almost the same thing. Cars like the 2004 Nissan Maxima let you upshift/downshift it's automatic tranny as much as you want (acutally, it'll automatically downshift for you when you stop -- so if you drive it as agressively as I did, it's just like driving a clutchless stick).
Plenty of other cars are now coming out with continuous-variable transmissions that control gear ratios without, er, gears -- they uses two pulleys and control the length between them. In a system like this, it's trivial to add a "downshift"/"upshift" feature by, say, moving the gear selector left or right as you drive. The new MINI Cooper is an example of this.