Comment Why don't we just incorporate them? (Score 4, Funny) 362
Why don't we just incorporate them?
Then they'll legally be people, and they can get their own driver's licenses!
Why don't we just incorporate them?
Then they'll legally be people, and they can get their own driver's licenses!
Assuming gravity propagates at the speed of light as a force, rather than being an artifact of space-time, which would mean you don't get any waves. Which we've so far not been able to detect, probably because they don't exist. 8-).
Except for still having to explain the orbital decay of complex objects matching predictions based on GR involving loss of energy due to gravity waves and gravity traveling at the speed of light.
And you don't need a tetrahedron of space craft, just three space craft to confirm or deny the quadrupole nature of gravity waves.
It's a fun gedanken experiment, but I'm not sure the Lisa Pathfinder will be successful; the quadrupole formula requires that the plane of polarization be distinct, and that the orbit be an ellipse. The Lisa experiment has some fundamental assumptions about a collision being the wave source, rather than an orbital source.
It'd totally be a bummer to spend all that money and not see anything because the detector happens to be in a 2D plane coinciding with a detectable event, and the lack of additional planes made it invisible.
Personally, I have to believe that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of something, because we otherwise should have seen them in one of our existing detectors, if they were there to be seen. I don't think the longer baseline Lisa gives us is going to help detect something that we are fundamentally getting wrong somehow.
I used to joke with some of my friends that there's be two great reasons Michelson-Morely might not have shown anything:
(1) The reference frame is sufficiently pinned by the gravity well of the Earth that we don't see any drift through the "luminiferous aether" because we are frame-dragging at a higher degree than the equipment is capable of distinguishing.
(2) The Earth *really is the center of the Universe*, so also: no drift relative to the universe's inertial frame.
It may be that we won't see gravity waves (if any exist) until we get a device pretty far out into interstellar space.
In theory, we can test the idea with a direct experiment, but the cost would be in the multiple billions
It'll be interesting to see how this works out. I'm not certain that a planar detector will work out like they hope.
If Google doesn't want me to be found, then nobody who uses Google will find me on the net.
I shall put a big "Use Yahoo! if you want to find my website" banner on my webstore, that will teach them with their 97% market share!
Alternately... your site could be more relevant, then it would have a higher ranking.
The problem he mentioned was that actual phone operators are for example required to build all kind of gouvernment required bells and whistles into their network (emergency calls, independant power supply, wiretapping access...) while Skype et.al. don't have to spend that money and therefore can undercut them.
Apparently, you are unaware that German police are already tapping Skype calls...
At what point does the Zagat's guide turn into such a monopoly?
September 8, 2011, the day they were acquired by Google?
But Google and Facebook, are very popular, but still not vital. I can change my habits for Google with Yahoo or Bing
Uh... Yahoo uses Bing as their search engine provider. So you can "change your habits for Google with Bing or Bing".
It's arbitrary as far as an individual business is concerned, and that business doesn't necessarily have any control, insight or predictive ability over why it happens.
Sure they do. They can hire an SEO company to link-farm them, and then Google will shut their ass down, like they did to JC Penney.
http://fortune.com/2011/02/14/...
It's absolutely, totally, a negative control knob, but if some dumbass wants to turn that knob, they surely can. And the result is totally and completely predictable.
That being said I fully expect gravitational waves to be discovered.
I am not so sure. There have been other experiments that should have detected them, but didn't. If this experiment also comes up empty, then physics may be facing another Michelson–Morley moment.
I agree. Gravity waves are unlikely. In theory, we can test the idea with a direct experiment, but the cost would be in the multiple billions, and require spacecraft to loft a tetrahedral constellation of some very large masses, and then you'd have to fling another large mass at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, probably via solar slingshot, and (effectively) have it "instantaneously appear" intersecting a non-orthogonal plane vector through the tetrahedral constellation. That'd basically give you a wave delta that you could see based on laser interferometry along the vertices of the tetrahedron.
Assuming gravity propagates at the speed of light as a force, rather than being an artifact of space-time, which would mean you don't get any waves. Which we've so far not been able to detect, probably because they don't exist. 8-).
I don't think you understand the problem. They only get paid while on duty. So they drive from San Francisco to San Jose, let's say 2 hours from start to finish, then you're "off duty" but miles away from you home for at least 8 hours then you get to drive back for 2 hours. During those 8 hours you're essentially a hostage to being near that bus.
I think I would likely keep a car at the parking plaza where the bus ends up sitting. Probably one with a pink mustache.
As far as the Google busses, they basically round trip all day, every day, or when they cycle out, they park at shoreline Amphitheater. The drivers definitely do not "hang out" with the busses, which you can verify just by walking down there. Typically they dead-head back up to wherever by catching a ride on one of the less populated intermediate busses. I know at least one of them has a day job at the Great Mall, and only drives the bus to make some extra cash.
Apple is similar to Google with regard to their busses, but they tend to take charters in the mean time to keep busy.
As far as Facebook is concerned... I haven't worked there, like I have at Apple and Google, so yeah, they might be screwing over the bus drivers, but I think they are likely in exactly the same position that the Apple and Google drivers are in.
Well being not paid to hang around a bus most of the day isn't a state idleness, it's indentured servitude.
They only "have to hang around" while they are driving.
Well, it certainly worked out well for all those unions that just rolled over for management. Your anecdote just shows how good some people are at creating a narrative to justify their actions.
Do you honestly believe that the labor/management collaboration is a zero sum game, and that there is no possible win-win scenario, and the only choices are "labor loses" OR "management loses"?
Because if you do, I'd like to know what business you are in so that I can take the margin on a "win-win" to turn one of the "wins" into a "lose", and you will happily just eat it, because you believe that's how things have to be in what is actually, essentially, a positive sum game.
Yeah, no shit. If an entrepreneur rakes in the cash on a technology with a set end date, he is, "leveraging the current needs of the market". If a working stiff does it, they are, "being shortsighted".
I believe Karmashock's point is that the end date on Teamster labor, unlike the end date on, say, a patent, is *NOT* set.
You would be right, if the company had an extremely long term contract with the Teamsters, and could provide them with work, due to having an extremely long term contract with Yahoo, et. al., but those contracts are generally not on the order of 20 years because the companies contracting their transportation services are not stupid.
Well if I worked for any of those companies and utilized these buses, I'd want to make sure that the guys at the wheel were at least satisfied with what they were doing and not ill nor overworked; especially if I had to put my life in their hands.
Obviously, they should not be ill.
One of their primary complaints is that they are *underworked*, not *overworked*; specifically, they only have work in the morning and evening.
If *the rest of us* don't get to be satisfied, why should *they* get to be satisfied?
Personally, I expected an India closure.
Especially after India "discovered" Nokia "owed" $3.4B in "taxes", as soon as they heard Nokia was being sold to Microsoft.
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach
