Posts by dan1980

Re: so

. . . to help confirm a possible explanation for one of the the most important outstanding questions in the universe - why do things have mass?

To oversimplify, if the Higgs Field does not exist then the standard model is wrong. As the field itself cannot be observed, the discovery of the Higgs Boson is crucial to confirming that the Standard Model is still accurate.

To put it another way, without the Higgs Field, the Standard model cannot account for mass and thus, while it might otherwise explain many things very nicely, it can't explain one of the seemingly simplest properties of the universe - that (most) particles have mass - and thus must be incorrect.

The Standard Model is a base from which other inferences and predictions can be made so how sound the resulting science is is partly dependent on how sound the Standard Model is. Proving the accuracy of the SM is thus rather important and gives physicists confidence to address other questions.

Short version: having a well-supported 'base' (The SM) is important for the advancement of physics.

Re: "...that the public can take a look at,.. "

@Don Jefe

To an extent, yes, but this particular treaty is believed to have some pretty notable effects on privacy and the way copyright and IP law will be managed and enforced.

There is plenty of mundane trade stuff in there, to be sure, but the parts that are causing disquiet are provisions like:

• ISPs having to be more active in identifying and banning users whose accounts have been used for copyright infringement by making them (the ISPs) only covered by the Safe Habour clauses if they are actively policing their networks[1].
• Allowing medical (drug) patents to be extended beyond the usual 20-year period, thus delaying the availability of generic drugs and increasing costs.
• Restrictions on parallel importation.
• Criminalisation of non-commercial copyright breaches.
• Banning re-transmission of TV signals over the Internet.

In short, many of the provisions are simply there to increase the amount of money that flows into the coffers of giant US companies making their billions from IP. That money will be coming from Australian tax payers who will end up paying more for music, movies, software and, most worryingly, medicine.

The fact that some of these large US corporations (like Monsanto and Halliburton) have seen the text but the Australian people haven't is amusing.

So, while I agree that much of what is laid out in these treaties is likely to be complex, I have to respectfully disagree with you that people wouldn't get any insight from reading it. At any rate, there are groups who are able to distill some of the more opaque provisions into information that the people can use to make a decision about whether their government is representing their interests.

[1] - This is a massive issue as it effectively ignores the High Court ruling in the Roadshow Films/AFACT vs iiNet case, which found that ISPs are not responsible for what their users do over the service. The US content firms that pressed that case are trying to get the laws changed after losing, hence these provisions, inserted into the treaty by the US at the command of the MPAA and associated lobby groups.

Re: VC....

@AC

Surely the business plan that the VCs are looking at involves getting bought by another company (like Facebook) for significantly more than has been invested.

Facebook has the goal of being the hub for all social communications so if this app in any way reduces the amount of time that people are communicating using FB's services then that may be something they want to look at.

It's not just the sent 'Yo' - it's that the recipient may well respond and that one 'Yo' will become the launch-point for a whole conversation, which will be carried out via SMS and thus lost to Facebook.

Or maybe not but that seems likely to me.

Re: Snooping on foreigners

@AC

It's not that there's nothing "there to stop the NSA snooping on Britons, GCHQ snooping on Americans and both of them swapping data willy-nilly", it's that they have an active agreement to do EXACTLY THAT.

In case you missed it (and it seems you did), the publicly-known name for that tidy little arrangement is 'Five Eyes' and it includes my own morally-bankrupt government (AU) along with that of the USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

That is one reason why there is so much outrage and a large part of why every word coming out of the mouths of these fucking serpents is treated with such open distrust by all the right-thinking people in those countries. Even when they are telling the truth about technicalities, they are lying about the REAL questions.

To the people actually subject to these abhorrent breaches of personal liberty, 'spying' isn't limited to just the act of collecting the data. So far as I, and a great number of others, are concerned, if you are reading through my e-mails and texts you are spying on me. I care about who captured the data but I care more about who is READING it.

To take it to a childish level, when I was young, sometimes I would swipe my sister's diary on behalf of my brother (peer pressure and all that), whereupon he would read it. Any 10 year old girl will be able to tell you what our governments seem not to accept - it doesn't matter who took it: if you are reading your little sister's diary, you are spying on her. I can vouch that my mother saw it much the same way as both me and my brother were punished equally.

Actually, the metaphor plays out nicely, what with the 'big brother' and all. I suppose what our governments need is someone to break a wooden spoon across their behinds and stop them seeing their friends. That, or what my sister did, which was to break our GI-Joe figures. (Did you ever have that one who was supposed to have a flame-thrower but instead came with this weird catapult that flung out a lumpy orange ball? No? Okay; just me then. I thought it was odd.)

Re: China: Figures

@AC

They were also the first to synthesise a protein when they synthesised insulin from cows, thus not only providing immediate benefits to diabetes reseach* but also also helping to progress a whole industry.

* - the amino acids in insulin are near-identical in many different animals and so cow insulin can be used by human diabetics.

Re: China: Figures

In fact, this company is a pinnacle of the free market the way many in the US view it - capitalism without all those stifling 'regulations'.

Re: China: Figures

Communism responsible for phone jammers. Awesome.

But no, that's just plain wrong. It has nothing to do with communism; quite the opposite. It is a relentless drive for profit and sales that sees these companies selling such products to countries that forbid them. It is an example of rampant profit-seeking behaviour; also known as capitalism,

Re: I used to be a customer

@Psycho Flump

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I don't know you so I have no reason to want to insult you, but I am presuming that you are a freelancer? Is that correct?

I get that from the fact that YOU are controlling the software you use and not the company you are employed by.

What you have said about Ps and Il is even more true of InDesign - especially since Quark fairly imploded. Something so simple as a hands-off way to manage hanging text saved type-setters valuable time and made InDesign and instant winner right from the start. It took Quark EIGHT YEARS to catch up but the war was won long before that. In fact, I would say that InDesign was the beginning of the end for everything that wasn't Adobe. After all, even die-hard Quark users were importing raster art from Photoshop and exporting PDFs through Adobe add-ons.

The short version is that InDesign saved people time and that justified the change. It killed-off the competition by being more valuable to those who bought it and it helped Adobe cement itself as the one-stop design shop solution.

All that is a little beside the point - Adobe are still fleecing their most valuable customers and screwing over all the others - but it is important to understand that Adobe are doing this because they can.

Maybe in a few years the landscape will change but even in the most idealistic case, it will be a long time before a professional designer can feel comfortable without Adobe experience. Until that point, it is a locked-in userbase and Adobe can do what they want.

Re: I used to be a customer

@Trevor_Pott

"So fuck everyone else? They're irrelevant? On behalf of everyone else, fuck you too!

Well, yes. Isn't that exactly the attitude that we are all complaining about?

What I am saying is that those people who are responding to this, as the original poster was, with "well, I'll just keep my old version, then - ha!" are manifestly not the people who Adobe are interested in.

Yes, they would love all the casual users to sign-up to their monthly-reaming but the reason they are able to make this rather extreme move is that the most profitable part of their userbase is more-or-less locked in.

That part is the professionals for whom every job ad they respond to requires familiarity with Adobe products. There will always be people who have not worked with professional designers who will blurt out progams like "GIMP", "Inkscape" and "Scribus" but, while those programs are really very good*, the simple truth is that the Adobe CS applications are the industry standards and proficiency in them is ESSENTIAL for designers.

I'm sorry if that makes you or anyone else unhappy but it's not my opinion - it's the truth. Remember - it is never about which product is better; it's about which one is the standard. Refence my discussion elsewhere on this site about Libre Office; a great product which is the equal of MS Office but it is not the standard.

This is even more important in design because professional users of these programs rarely work in an isolated environment. They have to pass files back and forward between different internal designers, off to clients, across to the web team and out to printers. In those environments, time is money** and fidelity and consistency of output is paramount. If you are using a program that can't manage colour separation (Inkscape) then you are wasting time and money and risking the output.

That doesn't even go into the efficiencies of having InDesign natively understanding layers, alpha channels and clipping masks created in Photoshop.

I don't support what Adobe is doing - I am just pointing out what they are doing and why they are able to do it.

* - And I fully recommend all users take the time to learn how to use these products.

** - If time is not money for a designer then they are not in really Adobe's target market.

Re: I used to be a customer

@AC

Yes and no. There are plenty of people for whom 5.5 will be fine almost in perpetuity. But then those people would likely also be fine with CS2 or 3.

Adobe does not make its money from people who use the software casually or at semi-professionally; they make their money from professionals who work with the software everyday. Those people upgrade regularly, usually skipping no more than one version. This is to get the latest features and, moreover, to make sure everything stays nice and compatible.

Yes, PSD is an open format and so largely fine; yes, Illustrator can save back a few versions and yes, InDesign can export to IDML. BUT, that all takes time and if you have to ask someone to re-save the file it might take a day to get it back and there's no guarantee that it will be identical. Worse, you'll likely end up with multiple copies of the same file.

With the potential for smaller but more frequent updates, we might find that incompatibility creeps in ever more rapidly. That's not a problem if you've got a CC subscription but if you're using CS6 then how long before it becomes a complete PITA to open a file created in CC?

The model itself is not actually that bad - it's relatively inexpensive (at least by Australian standards) and the product is a good one. New versions of the programs generally are improvements and, though some have only added minor or niche functionality, they don't usually make things worse (cf. every other vendor . . .).

What is problematic is that software delieved via an internet-activated subscription model is subject to risks based on internet connectivity and server availability. For the model to be painless, the vendor must understand that these problems WILL happen and, if not handled well, WILL result in significant inconvenience for paying customers.

Having to check in only once every thirty days is good; that day being hard-set as the 23rd of your monhtly billing cycle is not.

Re: Perfect Opportunity

Couldn't you just excise Delaware? (And East Texas, of course.)

The 'shitting on everything' tactic does sound distinctly American, though.

Re: Music networking ?

@Fihart

I'm very much a CD guy. I have lots of them and I listen to my music one album at a time. I like the restriction enforced by having to choose a CD, pop it in the player and sit back down. I have a short attention span so putting a barrier of effort between me an my desire to play amateur DJ is a good thing and I enjoy my music more.

BUT, even for me there is amazing utility in a multi-room, HDD-based music system. The ability to flick my playlist from the lounge room into the kitchen has meant that I neglect to feed myself less than I used to.

I have also found that I actually enjoy leaving the system on random. I have a relatively large and diverse collection of music and sometimes it's great to just leave it up to fate.

There are many benefits to such a system - once you try one (setup properly) you will know.

Re: Bible Thumpers Rejoice

@JDX

Okay, let's say that the source of the water was natural - this mantle-borne almost-water.

You then get to the question of how it was released in a way that it hasn't since; what was the catalyst for this event?

Here is where you get to a deep problem with the 'worldwide divine vengeance' theory. If the process was all natural, without requiring any miraculous intervention, in what sense was it sent by God? The only way for this event to have been through God's will but still natural is if the planet was 'created' not only with the potential for this devastation but also with a timer built in.

The last part is important because for this to be natural, the process that started it must be natural too; you can't say that it was a geological process, explainable by science if the instigation of that process was magical. A meteor colliding with the Earth is one thing; to claim that the meteor was deliberately, magically, plucked from it's orbit and hurled to the Earth is something rather different.

So, either this was always going to happen or it was caused by supernatural forces. If the former then you get into some real problems. Having built a doomsday clock into the Earth, God must have foreknown that man would reach a state where drowning them in their millions was the only recourse (save for one family) - else why build it that way? But, having known this from the start, how could he then have been deeply troubled to the point of regretting having ever made humankind? (Gen 6:6-7)

Of course, God made the Earth and the waters before humans so it's a bit odd that he would have built a doomsday device set to wipe out almost every living thing on the planet, then proceed to create living things and, taking a step back to admire his handiwork, claim that it was all proceeding smashingly. (Gen 1:31)

So, if it seems a bit odd (not to mention cruel) that God would create humans with the full knowledge that they would reach a level of "wickedness" and "evil" (Gen 6:5) requiring annihilation then one must propose supernatural intervention to open these vents where otherwise they would have remained closed.

If so you still have a non-natural agent messing about with physics - forcing tectonic plates apart or creating some artificial pressure in the mantle forcing the water up, etc... Whatever the case, energy 'ex nihilo' was inserted into a system creating a reaction for which there was no natural action, which is every bit as magical as conjuring up a flood wholesale.

As with a meteor being deliberately sent on a collision course with Earth, that the end result was mediated by natural forces (momentum and gravity in the case of the meteor) is to focus on the action of a bullet out of a gun rather than the person pulling the trigger.

Of course, you then have another problem, which is the emptying and subsequent re-filling of these water sources. As per the article, the pressure at that depth is not inconsiderable. If this 'water' was liberated and emptied from these 'reservoirs', that, surely, would have some effect on the makeup of these zones. One way or another, once emptied, the space previously occupied by this water would no longer be available for the water to 'recede' back into. The bible is very clear on this point. Some flood-folks say that the pressure downwards compressed the magma and forced it up in chains, thus saying that the earth was raised rather than the waters lowering but this is saying that that the bible is not really accurate when it says the waters had "receded" (NIV), "gone" (NLT), "subsided" (ESV), "decreased" (NSV), "abated" (KJV). (Gen 8:11.)

Whichever way you cut it, at some point in the process you need to rely on miraculous intervention - whether it's to let the water loose, get rid of it again or create it all in the first place - and at that point, the entire argument of proving a biblical, whole-world, flood with science is scuppered.

Re: It's all a matter of perspective

@G R Goslin

"You have to remember that the theories of the scientific communities are almost always wrong. Sad but true (Just count them up), so these theories are just that. Inspired guesses."

That's a strong statement unless you define exactly what you by "theories" and "wrong".

Are you talking "theories"* or theories? Presumably the former, as a theory in science is somewhat more robust than an "inspired guess".

And what exactly does "wrong" mean? If you define it to mean anything not 100% complete and accurate down to the last detail then sure - even at the exalted level of a theory, they're all "wrong" by that logic. But then so is almost every other pronouncement across every field throughout all of time so it's not really even worth mentioning if that is the yardstick being used.

* - I.e. does your description of a "theory" accord with that of evolutionists (for whom evolution is 'only a theory') or with that of scientific bodies?

Re: Suppose........

@Arachnoid

It was my understanding that this is the source of the superheated water that comes out of the undersea vents and the cycle is exactly that - water taken into the crust by subduction then, over rather long time spans, having minerals stripped from it and eventually returned as fresh water to the ocean.

In that way the water is, kind of, 'cleaned' of all the minerals (salts) which go back into the mantle and go on to form new crust.

At least that's my understanding of it, but then it was also my understanding that this mechanism was already accepted so perhaps I have misunderstood!

Re: Bible Thumpers Rejoice

@Grikath

You don't need that either. Once you've allowed yourself the 'explanatory' luxury of a supernatural agent, unbounded by thermodynamics, gravity or the laws of conservation, then I can't see why you need to point to something so mundane as terrestrial geology.

That's what always gets me about those types of claims - the ones making them are happy to have God stop the sun in the sky, turn people to salt and, well, create the Earth in six days, but then seem to get quite specific when trying to explain a well-worn transposed myth.