Agreed.
In that same vein, people fear nuclear weapons for the same reason. They're hard to build, but once you've got all the components working together, you've got a weapon that could destroy an entire city in a matter of seconds. We better figure out a way to protect ourselves from ourselves. Because somebody will build a weapon eventually--AI or otherwise--no matter how hard we try to prevent it.
I wonder if it could be because of all the radioactive waste that we dropped? Just a shot in the dark, but this map lines up very nicely with the blob: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
It apparently lies between 120W and 150W, and 40N and 55N. That's almost exactly where we've dropped all our radioactive waste. The wikipedia article says that we haven't seen much environmental impact, but it's hard to say, considering how heavy radioactive nuclei are. Why would we see it on the surface?
Right. Would it? Okay. How is that supposed to help me imagine 5000 light years? I already know it's a bloody long way. You might as well have told me it was the length of x football pitches or y times the length of the Amazon river.
A comparison with the diameter of the galaxy in question would have been more useful.
Our galaxy is on the order of 100,000 lightyears in diameter. So 5,000 lightyears is about 1/20 the distance of our galaxy. That's a pretty large distance to lag behind our matter, considering that it also interacts with itself.
as long as I have equal opportunity to get laid.
Hey, where's my paternal leave!
How's that insightful?
I think the slashdot rating system is broken. Every time I get the opportunity to moderate, I do so, and it gets modded up as a much nicer compliment than I intended.
This isn't thinking in the 50's this is standard modern political thinking. Protect profit. The politician is the president of the West Virginia Automobile & Truck Dealers Association and apparently owns dealers in Kentucky.
Tesla basically had ZERO chance here.
Then this is a serious conflict of interest. Is there anything that can be done against this type of scumbagery as a non-constituent of WV?
The comments in this thread are all made from a reasonable understanding of how the Internet works. Sen. Feinstein doesn't seem to share it. Ok, you can laugh about that once. But the contempt for her is beyond normal. It is at troll level. How much do her critics know about politics and running large public organizations? Next to nothing, I bet. And they have even less experience. In line with the season, let me say: think, before you throw the first stone
Seeing the world in a bad light, doesn't make you superior. (source forgotten)
+1
I vote occasionally. Here are some things that would encourage me to vote more:
1. Ranked ballot voting, top 3 choices. This would shut everybody up. Now your vote counts.
2. Online/electronic absentee ballot. I'm lazy. So are most people.
3. Transparency and availability of easy-to-read candidate data. Most of the time I don't know any of the people on the ballot. I want a brief overview of the candidate's stances on core issues as well as record of their past accomplishments. It would also be nice if potential conflicts of interest were listed.
4. Make voting-day a national holiday. If it's a part of the culture, it gains permanent respect. Quality voting is essential to our future. Take the day off? Sounds good to me!
Instead of having it at NASA, can't they just have it at the local Holiday Inn?
Those were my thoughts, too, but it looks like the legislation has been corrected (or at least "clarified"), as it was, apparently, not intended to be used that way.
http://phys.org/news/2013-10-nasa-chinese-scientists-boycott.html
Wolf said NASA officials may have believed that the move was needed because of extra temporary restrictions on foreign nationals after a potential security breach by a Chinese citizen at a NASA facility in Virginia earlier this year.
"I have ordered a moratorium on granting any new access to NASA facilities to individuals from specific designated countries, specifically China, Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan."
I'm not going to lie, our "rivalry" with China kind of worries me sometimes. I wasn't around for the Cold War really, but it seems like we're heading for a second Cold War if we continue to restrict, contradict, spy on and threaten each other. It is undeniable that China is on the rise. They have a quarter of the worlds population. I don't want to start the first half of the century being hated by the Chinese (and everybody else for that matter).
I'm posting this from a hotel with pay-for internet access. I'm paying about $200 a night for two beds (so not too expensive, but expensive for me). As soon as I saw that the internet costs money here, I thought to myself, well shit, I won't be coming to the Hilton again. So yes, I would imagine that it does affect the amount of customers they get, but apparently not enough for them to lose money on charging for access. Fortunately the conference that I'm attending is paying for my internet.
As a side note, they don't offer any free breakfast either.
[/rant]
Males and females have absolutely no difference between them, despite the overwhelming experiential, physiological, neurological, anatomical, and hormonal evidence to the contrary, you sexist pigs, and how dare you even conduct this research into the issue! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go open a jar of mayo for the little lady, though that in no way suggests she lacks the wrist and forearm strength to grasp and twist just as well as any man.
I find your sentiment absolutely discussing!!
I dunno much about the Volt's angry slashdot history, but It seems like a pretty feasible way to transition to an electric car if you're worried about road trips.
Every time I pass one, it catches my eye. I'd say it's right up there in looks with the Model S, which also, in my opinion, looks attractive. If I had the money to choose between those two cars, I'd have to think about it.
Optical trapping can sometimes make use of radiation pressure, but that's generally not how you optically trap a particle, nor is that how they did it. Radiation pressure is characterized by absorption and reflection (like tennis balls hitting a wall). To trap a particle, you use refraction (when modeling the system with ray optics).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_pressure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers
The change in index of refraction between water (or air) and your particle causes the light rays to "change direction" as they enter and leave the particle. There is a net momentum transferred to the particle in the direction of the focus of the laser beam, thus trapping the particle at the focus.
I've noticed several design suggestions in your code.
