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Comment: Re:Since it only needs 2C (Score 2) 560

by hutsell (#46298651) Attached to: How Well Do Our Climate Models Match Our Observations?

Darn off-by-one errors.

Anyway, during which ice age did the Earth's tilt change, or eccentricity increase?

With axial obliquity, axial precession, apsidal precession and two orbital Inclinations, maybe someone capable of handling the multitude cyclical combinations affecting weather can come up with an exact answer. It appears one or both of the orbital inclinations are the ones seriously considered responsible for the ice ages.


Axial Obliquity:
~ Every 41,000 years ~ Presently at 23.5 degrees and decreasing toward its minimum of 22 degrees (22 to 24.5).
Axial Precession:
~ Every 26,000 years ~ The average cycle fluctuates depending on the axial tilt — shorter at 22 degrees; longer at 24.5 degrees.
Apsidal Precession:
~ Every 21,000 to 25,000 years ~ The eccentricity of the Earth's elliptical orbit with the expansion and contraction of the eccentricity's perihelion to the Sun (3,000,000 miles).
Orbital Inclinations:
~ Every 70,000 years ~ The inclination of the Earth's fixed orbital plane rising and lowering.
~ Every 100,000 years ~ The Earth's orbital plane taken as a whole, also rises and lowers to the Solar System's monumental plane.

Then there are the Sun cycles, whatever that might be. (Or the speculation of a very large heat absorbing dust cloud in a higher orbital inclination.)

Also worth considering are continual non-cyclical events occurring over several millennia: The continental drift changing the location of land masses or the Moon's distancing slowing the daily rotation and weakening the tidal effects — It seems in the end that past circumstances may not always be indicative of future events.

Comment: Re:Some possible ways (Score 1) 745

by hutsell (#46281161) Attached to: Mathematician: Is Our Universe a Simulation?

Some possible ways to determine if we're living in a simulation:

Look for signs of optimizations/short cuts in the simulation:
Is there a maximum speed?
Is there a minimum size?
Is there a limit as to determining an object's position and momentum? etc. ...

Is there an epoch date: a beginning, instead of an eternal past requiring an infinite amount of data?

Comment: Re:Some requests should be ignored (Score 1) 478

by hutsell (#46279047) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Anti-Camera Device For Use In a Small Bus?

Can anyone come up with a sensible reason to implement such a thing?

Sensibility seems to get lost when the submitter's question is rephrased in the following way: Is there a device that can selectively deactivate cameras of one's choosing? If not, can someone here invent such a method and tell me the solution?

However, imagining some of the possibilities, one would seem to be a paradise for the authorities — something they assuredly would feel to be very sensible.

Comment: Re:Not at all (Score 1) 236

by hutsell (#46269483) Attached to: I'd prefer military fiction books that are ...

Military fiction? Tedious!

More to the point of being true for myself having been there and done that. If it has to be fictional, of the very little that feels believable and much more interesting, are the stories in film or literature based on the actual experiences of their creators.

Whether true or not, only a couple of films seem to get close to getting the feeling right. As far as literature is concerned, memoirs usually work best for myself — Philip Caputo's, A Rumor of War and Robert Mason's two books, particularly the first, Chickenhawk; both of which aren't exclusive to others not mentioned. Another one coming to mind is Vonnegut's classic, Slaughter House Five; I think I'm supposed to say that I'm a somewhat embarrassed to admit that I appreciated the more fictionalized film over the book it was derived from.

If you want the machismo brotherhood cool and clever sound bites with never ending awesome choreographed action scenes with the obligatory shoot 'em up bang bang stuff, then it's not fiction you're looking for; the genre you're looking for, im(h)o, should be called fantasy — or so it seems.

Comment: Re:Is (Score 1) 106

by hutsell (#45876285) Attached to: Stellar Trio Could Put Einstein's Theory of Gravity To the Test

Ok, help my layman ass out here. IIRC, according to Einstein, acceleration and gravity aren't just similar phenomena, but are the exact same phenomena, and, since you are always travelling at c through the combined spacetime continuum, which gravity warps, the gravitational pull is you actually accelerating through this warped spacetime.

That seems way too freaking cool to fail at some umpteenth decimal.

I've always found the feeling associated with thinking about the Principle of Equivalence to be exquisite — wistfully thinking something beautiful would be lost if (or when) it was disproven.

Comment: Re:Short answer: no (Score 2) 400

by hutsell (#45778939) Attached to: Is Ruby Dying?

Long answer: a better indicator is how many Google queries for the respective languages are issued. And those suggest that Ruby is standing stronger than ever. Ruby is more than just Rails. And just because there is yet another web apps framework, it doesn't mean that the other ones automatically lose traction.

The Google trends supplied in your link used generic search terms, seriously skewing the results inaccurately about programming languages. Stuff about reptiles, famous comedy acts and things such as an infamous Italian scandal (and whatever else) were being included. By replacing the display with terms specific to programming, this version showing trends for searches about programming languages in Ruby, JavaScript, PHP, Java and Nodejs should show something a little more meaningful.

Since the summary is more interested in just Ruby and Node and those trends with the other 3 are difficult evaluate, showing those two together, separated from the others, helps in the evaluation. (I left out Python, not due to any agenda of my own; there were problems with the search terms I wasn't able to resolve.) Fwiw, when it comes to the top regional preferences for these two languages: Japan is for Ruby while South Korea & Iran are for Nodejs. (Cuba prefers PHP).

Comment: Re:Not a surprise, but still... (Score 1) 464

by hutsell (#45756675) Attached to: Reuters: RSA Weakened Encryption For $10M From NSA

I cringe every time I see elementary school children reciting the pledge of allegiance. Start them young...

Fwiw, the moderation is creepy considering that the first 30 years of the Pledge of Allegiance required everyone to put their right arm straight out, palm down, before it was changed to placing their right hand over their heart.

After my comment was posted (the one I'm replying to now), the OP's moderation changed from +4 Funny to +5 Insightful.

The reference to cringing seemed to be an understatement and appropriate, regardless of the salute's original intentions, due to its negative aspects being brought to light by the fascist states embracing it so well too well as to co-opt its ownership and meaning.

A lot of parents of different religious faiths and political affiliations, in the U.S. at least, don't like the idea of someone getting emotionally involved with their children and telling them to verbally profess allegiance or worship to an idea or image — partly due, correctly or incorrectly, to that bad worldwide experience.


by hutsell (#45752127) Attached to: Reuters: RSA Weakened Encryption For $10M From NSA



Comment: Re:That room on the 6th floor of the Book Deposito (Score 3, Informative) 381

by hutsell (#45534981) Attached to: Intelligence Officials Fear Snowden's 'Doomsday' Cache

... Where did he train?

The Marine Corps. There are 3 levels: marksman, sharpshooter and expert. He was rated as a sharpshooter in 1956. In a 1959 test, his ability declined to marksman.

By the way, his brother (still alive) feels Lee was a whack job that was doing it on his own. Didn't know he had a brother near his own age — the surprises never end.

Comment: Re:mankind is a cancer (Score 1) 366

"The Earth has a skin and that skin has diseases, one of its diseases is called man." - attributed to Nietzsche



~ Agent Smith

Comment: Re:Noon (Score 1) 462

by hutsell (#45322305) Attached to: Re: Daylight Saving Time, I would most like

Set it so that noon is when the sun is at it's apex and be done with it.

I beleive that used to be called Railroad Time.

The many different railway times across the North American continent were based on the local (high-noon) times determined by thousands of communities. The problems it created with the railroads, some serious, eventually resulted in the railroad companies to create and determine the borders of the four time zones presently used; without getting government approval, which included ignoring the demands of everyone who wanted the Sun to be at high-noon in their community.

The die-hards were still using the long list of local times published by the railroad companies well into the late 1950's before.
