Steuard

59 ms·

481.
by Steuard 13y ago
We're very worried about contaminating other worlds. But in this case, the plan (as I understand it) is to collect samples from the plumes of water that Enceladus shoots out into space, without ever landing on the surface.
482.
by Steuard 13y ago
Just came here to post the same quote. This particular article doesn't give any information that would clearly suggest an actual increase in incidence (rather than an increase in diagnosis).
483.
by Steuard 13y ago
What you're describing may be part of the issue, I can't argue with that, but come on. There are lots of reasons that people might cheat in classes that they enjoy or that they recognize is useful. I've been lucky enough to h
484.
by Steuard 13y ago
That's correct: it's an indirect observation, and really the "observing gravity waves" aspect of this is the least interesting part. There have been other indirect but compelling observations corresponding to gravity wav
485.
by Steuard 13y ago
The issue you're running into here is that you're focusing on the description of this physics in terms of particles. That's usually a very convenient perspective, but it tends to have issues when gravity/spacetime is doi
486.
by Steuard 13y ago
But none of those techniques is applicable to variations in the CMB (the subject of this article), which is a more or less uniform glow at constant (and in some sense, maximal) redshift (and by definition, behind the "background&quot
487.
by Steuard 13y ago
This is a fascinating anomaly, and totally worth studying. But my perspective as a physicist in a different but somewhat related field has always been to tentatively assume it's just a statistical fluctuation. If you look at the graph
488.
by Steuard 13y ago
Document cameras like this work very nicely, but there is one small downside I've noticed: their framerate tends not to be very good. That's usually not a problem at all, but I have a couple of physics demos where I roll things
489.
by Steuard 13y ago
What sort of sensible debate do you think we ought to have? What exactly is the issue, or the claim? "I saw something in the sky that I didn't understand" is a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but it's not usually grou
490.
by Steuard 13y ago
Your comment immediately reminded me of yet another "relevant xkcd": http://xkcd.com/1235/ Regarding some of the other comments here, my sense is that there are some beliefs where mockery really is the best
491.
by Steuard 13y ago
I'm very much a math person, but I think this author is being rather naive. In the current political climate surrounding education, it seems like madness to say, "Teach math more like we teach art!" After all, art classes in
492.
by Steuard 13y ago
I'm not claiming that life on Mars would ever be easier than life on Earth. But there are plenty of ways in which nasty things could happen on Earth that the population here is simply not prepared for. A major asteroid impact or supe
493.
by Steuard 13y ago
If we had a self-sufficient colony on Mars (or wherever), that could provide a reservoir of both population and (perhaps more importantly) civilization and technology that would allow our descendants to return and re-colonize the Earth (or
494.
by Steuard 13y ago
Unless the intelligent Velociraptors had a "World War 3" that featured a massive, targeted asteroid strike near what's now Mexico, I think there's geological evidence for non-intelligent causes for a lot of these. (Or, b
495.
by Steuard 13y ago
Is your point here that cramming extra adverbs into one's writing just for their own sake is poor style? That's what your example seems to illustrate, and I emphatically agree. But when adverbs come up naturally in expressing an i
496.
by Steuard 13y ago
Ah, I see your point now: my cell phone carrier can still trick the bank into unlocking my safe deposit box. But can't we do something similar for every possible system? By controlling my computer's OS, Apple could in principle
497.
by Steuard 13y ago
If I understand Persona correctly, you are entirely welcome to have the bank keep your cell phone number on file instead of your landlord's number. You only need to rely on a landlord if you don't want to go to the trouble of carr
498.
by Steuard 13y ago
Even without action by Facebook like this, it's been clear to me for ages that Upworthy's lifespan will be very, very limited. People will only keep clicking on those links until they build up enough "mental antibodies"
499.
by Steuard 13y ago
Note, though, that the analogous argument for gravity inside a sphere doesn't work: make the sphere very big and stand at some point on the inside. You'd think that you'd feel the same gravity as you would due to an infinite
500.
by Steuard 13y ago
I haven't done this calculation, so I'm not going to immediately say you're wrong, but the example you use (a hollow sphere) doesn't generalize to other shapes. Gravity is zero inside a hollow sphere or inside a hollow i
501.
by Steuard 13y ago
The really interesting thing, which I only learned a few years ago, is that there is actually a reason that we perceive colors in the "purple" range (including violet and magenta) as falling between red and blue on a "color
502.
by Steuard 13y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that v. 10 has not yet been released but is in common use internally at Wolfram.
503.
by Steuard 13y ago
I just came here to say pretty much exactly what you've already said (both paragraphs, in fact). So I'll just chime in (as a physics professor and string theorist) to endorse your take on the article. This is a cool result, and it
504.
by Steuard 13y ago
If you send the password in email, that's at least one instance where it was readable in clear text to everyone on the network between you and the server (and probably things like packet sniffers on the local network, right?). It'
505.
by Steuard 13y ago
Conversion experiences never do translate well to other people, do they? :) But seriously, I hope that a 35-year-old coming to an unexpected new understanding of a concrete issue with measurable consequences for many other people whom he kn
506.
by Steuard 13y ago
In my experience, it's always about offending people. But only theoretically, of course. See, this is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. I share my perception of this issue and that of multiple people I know personally
507.
by Steuard 13y ago
It's difficult for me to see how you read my post as suggesting that the awesome women I know (or women in general) are emotionally fragile. I really tried to go out of my way to avoid giving that impression; that's why I called t
508.
by Steuard 13y ago
For me that moment of realization came about three years ago, on an entirely different forum. I came into a discussion (on a topic similar to this) between a female friend of mine and another guy a few hours after it started. Every post of
509.
by Steuard 13y ago
I've used Sakai in the past, and Moodle for years now. (I think I used Blackboard once, years ago.) They're all a pain, but it would be hard to hand-code something that has even just the features that I use regularly myself. That
510.
by Steuard 13y ago
I can see two important things to say in response here: 1. I'm surprised that you don't know what "brogrammer culture" is, but that's okay. The point, though, is that for a lot of other people (particularly women) i

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