Dr. Ferris:

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.

Rounding errors do not accumulate, but the rounding error becomes larger as the count increases. Once you accept that, the rest follows.

Say your software calculates a time interval as uptime2 minus uptime1 (rounded to 5 significant figures):

t1 = 0.90000
t2 = 0.94000

t2-t1 = round(0.94000) - round( 0.90000) = 0.04000

If same calculation is performed 30+ minutes later, you fuck up:

t1 = 2222.90000
t2 = 2222.94000

t2-t1 = round(2222.94000) - round( 2222.90000) = 0.00000 = 0

Are you sure this was clock drift? My reading of it was that the precision of the clock deteriorated, not the accuracy.

They used a limited number of bits to store an unlimited integer, so the precision got worse as the least significant digits were rounded.
A crude example, if you only have 4 digits to store uptime in seconds, as the time progresses:

0.000 to 9.999 s -- precise to 1 millisecond, 0.5 ms rounding error
100.0 to 999.9 s -- precise to 100 milliseconds, 50 ms rounding error
1000. to 9999. s -- precise to 1000 milliseconds, 500 ms rounding error

Presumably, at some point the error in distance: (time rounding error error) X (target speed) would place the target outside the targeting envelope of the radar, and hence the target disappears.

Here is the original quote I replied to in my post with links here

So when I insert [flat for] into your "about a decade" is an exaggeration, you cry foul?
Sorry guy, but your ability to follow a conversation just plain sucks. And so does your crying over a strawman, while you are the first to bring politics into our discussion (Bush in GP, and now Fox News).

But going back to facts, NIH funding did double in one decade, with 60% growth under Bush (15 to 24 billion from 2000 to 2008). And you complaining about Bush given the decade doubling is like me saying Well, I got a buffet dinner 4 hours ago, but they were starving me after that (except for a few snacks).

Since this is all going to get modded down, let me bring in a strawman of my own: the reason I support increasing skilled immigration is because we need someone to do actual work and create value, to give handouts and support to the dumb crybaby liberals like yourself.

Bet your ass it's an exaggaration. From the link you gave me:

1998: 11.49 billion
2008: 23.84 billion

That's DOUBLE by any reasonable standard, not "essentially flat."

Actually, everything went up faster than inflation. Not even talking about Bush being the
first president to fund stem cell research, or push through actual tests of student/teacher performance.

The only problem I see with Bush's science policy was that he actually gave TOO MUCH to all the Lysenko wannabes over at DoD.

I was going to give a 'you are full of it' reply, but realized you might actually believe this.
So here is some info on the Federal science funding:
NSF funding history
NIH funding trends
Defence funding (PDF file)

I know it's tough, but we must have competition! Unfortunately, that also means that many (most?) people will have to re-tool... Best of luck with your career though.

Probably it's for canceling the plans for the ABM (missiles/radar) in Europe, which he did last month. While it pissed off a lot of Poles, it sure made Russia feel safer.
So the Russians canceled their new short-range nuclear missile deployment in turn, which made a lot of 'Old' Europeans feel safer.

Now, since Obama got a Nobel Prize, he should have no problem applying for an O-1 visa, leading to a green card, and eventually, one day, a US citizenship. I keed, I keed...

In the room cleaning example, you may have reduced the entropy in your room by ordering it, but you have still increased the overall entropy of the Universe. While cleaning the room, your body turned (ordered) food into (unordered) heat at a rate faster than if you had not been doing anything. The garbage can is less ordered. etc. Anything you do to make one thing more orderly will reduce the local entropy of that thing, but will increase the total entropy of the Universe. In the case of a black hole, you take something ordered (i.e. whatever fell into the black hole had *some* structure; it was matter made of atoms, or it was light made of photons vibrating at specific frequencies, etc.), and you remove that order from the Universe. eventually, that matter and energy renters the universe as random heat (i.e. Hawking radiation). So black holes essentially destroy information and order, which is the very definition of increasing entropy.

Sheesus. The proper thing to do in response to this is go on Letterman? Haven't we seen time and time again that fame makes people go crazy, especially the younger they are when they become famous?

How about a proper response being going about a normal life, not trying to sue people, become a Highly Successful Bloggist, or get on David Letterman?

In extreme cases, they are so locked in this mindset that they point-blank refuse to try anything else.

Yeah, I've had this kind of thing happen to me. One of the staff where I work thought I was installing hax on his computer (it was OpenOffice) because it was free. They were so adamant they were right that they went out and spent A$400 on a new copy of MS Office. This person uses Word to write two paragraph advertisements for houses - no formatting (Administration does that). Hey, he could have used Notepad for that.

Crap it annoys me. The only solace I get is that I can laugh in their face (behind their back, of course) at their stupidity.

This idea that Mac users are buying an image is simply nonsense. They are buying a feature set:

The idea that Mac users are buying a feature set is simply nonsense. They are buying the image:

The "look and feel" of a Mac.
The elitist culture.
Shiny white box.
Smugness.

You'll find Mac users care about Aesthetics then care about Unix or application authoring (which as the iphone attests to, is not easy).

It's just a question of priorities. I believe this is evolution at work. With some huge generalizations, here is what I think happens:

In China/SU people will suffer or even starve to death unless they get a skilled/high-tech job. Therefore, one's intelligence is highly valued (by parents, wifes, society in general, etc.)

In America, there is no danger of starvation. Even the unemployed get to have a house, a car, a TV, 5 meals a day, and a dimebag. Therefore, the people focus on more relevant (at this time) things such as personal appearance and personality.

The good news is that us humans are highly adaptable, and our priorities will be adjusted as needed (when the circumstances change).

I think you missed a lesbo joke.

Your mistake here is thinking that these "middle class" Chinese people are not aware of Tiananmen/June 04. Indeed they all know about it, and are still supportive of the government's action. These people are voluntarily chosing to supress dissent and bring down their own blogs to support their government. They are being "patriotic" and that is the attitude, which you have to work to change.

The whole thing is kind of similar to the Iraq War issue over here. My liberal friends think that none of the war supporters are aware of the "Missing WMDs" and related issues. They brandish these as some kind of a trump card, thinking that the moment they mention "missing WMD," any supporter will change their mind. Of course that never actually happens as the other side sees these facts as no big deal. We all agree on the facts, it's just that we disagree on their meaning and context. (Another example: Clinton blowjob/impeachment. We all got the same facts, yet there is a wide disagreement about their significance.)

Or consider forced abortions in China. While injecting formaldehyde into a fetus is highly objectionable to most people in the West, a typical Chinese person will find it a "regrettable" yet appropriate means for population control. They would tell you that the parents were to blame for an unauthorized conception, and the abortion was needed to maintain peace, prosperity, equality, whatever. You need to help the Chinese place knowledge into its proper context, not simply "add it to every message."

That's just stupid. How many Americans do we have in Iraq? How many in NYC? You can't compare murder rates unless you adjust per capita.