Humodour

Isn't BP in gigantic trouble right now because of this whole thing? Like, major financial losses kind of trouble? I thought I remember Exxon also nearly going belly up after the Valdez incident as well and had to change a bunch of their environmental stuff in order to recover. What I'm saying is I think it is in their best interests, but unfortunately it takes a big disaster to remind them of that. And, it seems, each company can only to learn the lesson itself rather than observing others in the past. This does not give me any confidence since in 20 years time some new oil company, or BP itself when most of the old faces are gone, will likely make the mistake all over again.

It's not irrelevant at all - it's a very important property. It is the basis of lasers (basically putting multiple photons in the same spot), and it is also what allows us to form a BEC from photons. A photon is a boson and a Bose-Einstein condensate can only occur with particles which adhere to Bose statistics (that is: bosons). That is: ONLY particles which don't obey Pauli's Exclusion Principle can form BECs. What you're going to ask me next is: how on earth can atoms form a BEC then, since they're not like light, they're not bosons? Weeeeell... some atoms are fermions (Helium-3) and some ARE like light in a way - they are bosons (Helium-4). It depends entirely on their spin, which is the sum of the spin of the constituent particles (electrons, protons, neutrons etc all have half-spin). So bosonic atoms can form a BEC easily. But fermions can even form a BEC because they become coupled in pairs and thus become bosons as their spin becomes an integer when added together! The trick with atoms is you need temperatures as close to absolute zero as possible or the particles are too energetic and thus move too much and cannot occupy the same wavelength (I believe - I'm a bit rusty on waves). This is a related and interesting technology - the atom laser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_laser

BP ignored Halliburton's safety monitoring to save time. http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/11/27/12...re-To-Save-Time Honestly, how could a state without a government, or with a minimal government, prevent big companies from committing various atrocities if it made them more profit? That one is for taks and Guard Dog and co. Wals, this one is for you: do you still have faith that multinationals like BP would act to prevent environmental disasters and safety issues because it would be in their best interest to do so? And generally, I think BP's ****up is a strong case to dump fossil fuels. Like we didn't already have reason to do so. But we're at a stage where it is now economically feasible to do so - alternative energy costs have fallen, technology has gotten way more efficient and reliable, fossil fuel costs are rising rapidly, and the economic costs of fossil fuels on our health and productivity (through climate change and general air pollution) are starker than they ever have been. In the early 2000's here, the right-wing Howard government met with oil and coal executives to discuss what to do about wind power - it was too successful. So they did what such governments do and listened to the lobbyists. Wind power funding was cut, government investment severely curtailed. In NSW state (home of Sydney), the state government recently toned down the solar rebate scheme because it too was too successful. Too many people were adopting solar panels and the government wanted to waste their money on other things (which incidentally did not include public transport, health, education, or electricity infrastructure - I'm still not sure what NSW Labour has spent the past few years wasting our money on). But Australia is still in a position where wind and solar are extremely viable alternatives to Australia's coal use. We could essentially make the switch now if our government had balls, and what I hear about America paints a similar picture. For instance: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local...ld/2009820.aspx http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/82641/2010...law-pv-mlpm.htm And Australia is at fault in another way, too - we supply China's coal needs. China then pollutes at record levels - they will be driving climate change in the next couple of decades. They're investing in alternative energy sources out of necessity for more energy, but they're also investing in more and more coal each day as well. So on average they're making the situation a lot worse. Australia should be shipping uranium to China, not coal - we own 1/4 of the world's uranium, as does Canada. At least nuclear is a bunch cleaner. A few things to think about. Discuss.

Which approaches holy-****all levels of strange. Considering: a) Many, many more particles were produced from these 'mini big bangs' than the mainstream theories predicted, and b) Mainstream theories predicted a plasma or gas (hence quark-gluon plasma) Then yes, it's very strange. We're pretty much guaranteed to get new physics from this. This rules out a bunch of theories previously thought likely, while strengthening some thought less likely.

If Obsidian's stupid publisher didn't charge $90 on Steam for the Australian version (that's over $90 USD) I would buy it. Hopefully I can get it in a physical retailer for $40 or $50, because I've heard it's quite good.

The three space probes will launch and stay in a triangle formation with each other, firing laser beams accross the large distance between them and measuring results to see if any abnormalities show up.

That is absolute bull****. USB drives use quantum tunnelling for smeg's sake and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a decent solar array that didn't rely on quantum-mechanical discoveries. Have you ever heard of nanotechnology or materials science? Do you understand the basis of modern polymer science (e.g. conductive polymers via quantum decoherence)? Or chip design? Do you know why graphene is important to tech companies (quantum Hall effect)? Or what an ultracapacitor is? What about OLED's - super LED's which exist because we are able to understand excitons thanks to QM? And what about the scanning tunnelling microscope developed in 1981 (again, quantum tunnelling)? Superconductor science ring any bells? In fact, the basis of lasers is raising electrons into higher quantum states. Lasers rely on a knowledge of quantum mechanics which Einstein first detailed in his work "On the Quantum Theory of Radiation". "Very little applications" my arse. If you want to use a modern computer, many somebodies out there need to understand QM intimately. Very recent inventions, what i'm talking about it's the gap between the formulation of quantum mechanics and the practical applications. What was it, like 20 years or so? So I expect to see this yield fruit in the next 20 years. Also, let's face it; the vast potential of these fields remains yet untapped. This post I agree with entirely. Still, back to your previous post: 20 or 30 years and quantum mechanics has become vital to the smooth operation of the entire world? I'd say that's MORE applications in the amount of time since it's discovery than pretty much any other invention or idea, and it reinforces my belief (and original point) that a technology like this superphoton experiment could become commercialised and mainstream very rapidly. We could not possibly have this information (and hence economic) golden age without quantum mechanics. The field of chemistry alone is pretty much entirely derived from quantum mechanics. I'd write an essay on this but somebody beat me to it: http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~ianb/history/

It's certainly not as easy as that sentence makes it sound. It's not exactly something the Americans would find difficult, either, however. Pretty much the only thing that would be difficult about swiftly eliminating North Korea's military capability would be the risk that they'd get off salvoes at Seoul before they were destroyed. Which would be like somebody firing missiles into the heart of London or New York.

A very decent technical summary for laymen of this phenomena and the ingenious nature of their experiment is here: http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-german...per-photon.html

These are for Archie: http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-large-...primordial.html http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-early-...ults-large.html The early universe was a liquid.

That is absolute bull****. USB drives use quantum tunnelling for smeg's sake and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a decent solar array that didn't rely on quantum-mechanical discoveries. Have you ever heard of nanotechnology or materials science? Do you understand the basis of modern polymer science (e.g. conductive polymers via quantum decoherence)? Or chip design? Do you know why graphene is important to tech companies (quantum Hall effect)? Or what an ultracapacitor is? What about OLED's - super LED's which exist because we are able to understand excitons thanks to QM? And what about the scanning tunnelling microscope developed in 1981 (again, quantum tunnelling)? Superconductor science ring any bells? In fact, the basis of lasers is raising electrons into higher quantum states. Lasers rely on a knowledge of quantum mechanics which Einstein first detailed in his work "On the Quantum Theory of Radiation". "Very little applications" my arse. If you want to use a modern computer, many somebodies out there need to understand QM intimately.

Maybe! Here's a video of the experiment in action: It's pretty cool.

I dunno, sure he's potentially a hypocrite, but supposing somebody like that were non-religious instead, you'd have to start taking some of his points seriously. How would that make you feel?

My rule of thumb is to always pronounce 4 stars **** in my mind as "feck" with a 'u'. This produces varying results. "Today I went to **** Smith Electronics to buy an iPhone 4." "She is an activist-****-politician." "He totally ****-blocked me at the party and that's why I'm urinating on his daffodils." "Good evening, San Diego. I'm Veronica Corningstone. **** McGee is on vacation."

Regina Spektor is pretty amazing

As always, the ABC has a good run-down of the situation: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11...?section=justin

Pffft, that's what they said about light amplification via stimulated emission of radiation (also known as LASER)! From the Nature article:

So somehow those crazy Germans have managed to create a BEC/Bose-Einstein-Condensate/Superatom out of not atoms, but photons! Light! http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/11/26...e-Using-Photons If there was any doubt about the wave-particle duality this certainly must crush those doubts. Nature article the Slashdot link is based on: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/ful...s.2010.630.html Wiki description of BECs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose%E2%80%93...tein_condensate

Why can't I say ****? It's a Latin word which has zero vulgar meaning when not used by idiots. Even when it is used by idiots they can just write 'come' instead. I can't, because come does not equal ****. Stupidly thought-out filter. "Used in indicating a thing with two roles, functions, or natures, or a thing that has changed from one to another. He built a bus-****-greenhouse (= he converted a bus to a greenhouse) that made a bold statement, but the plants in it didn't live very long." **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

A nice mix of brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome NK has going there.

I predict that you will one day do something illegal so I am fining you now. Because I am manly and not a wuss. NK isn't potentially going to do illegal and evil things in the future; it is doing them now and has done them repeatedly in the past. So your analogy is completely idiotic.

Anyway, the moral ambiguity involved with illegal downloading is lessening (i.e. less worthwhile and justifiable), as the greedy publishers **** pointless middle men are being cut out in the digital age. That means lower prices for consumers and higher margins for artists (writers, singers, developers, producers). It may take another 10 years or so but once the bigger developers start doing things like signing their own deals directly with Steam and such as the indie devs do things will really getting exciting.

If a company like CD Projekt talks about piracy, I will listen. I might even disagree (the Slashdot comments elaborate as to why), but I certainly respect their right to protect their interests given how honest and decent they are to their customers. If a company like Ubisoft talks about piracy, I will laugh my ****ing **** off at their poor performance as a company as well as their willingness to try and criminalise their customers and blame their inefficient management on piracy.

Ahhhhh, Rhomal! Man, that was a heaps better name to use.

I wish GOG had Deus Ex 1.