Oleg Zabluda's blog
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
 
Why is it legal in Yosemite for Andy Lewis to walk naked on slack like with no safety leash or free-climb, but not...
Why is it legal in Yosemite for Andy Lewis to walk naked on slack like with no safety leash or free-climb, but not BASE/bungee jump (like Dan Osman, RIP). As far as I can tell there are 2 main reasons:

1. It would spoil relaxation of the working people (отравляет отдых трудящихся).
2. He can hit somebody over the head (может упасть кому-то на голову)

Both problems can be easily mitigated. First one by implementing quotas, and allowing jumping only at times when nobody cares, say when only the rich are looking up (например, когда только буржуи смотрят вверх), just like what's happening right now in Yosemite anyway. Quotas are best done by cap-and-trade. The money can be used to solve problem #2 by prepositioning rangers who would yell "Heads up", "Rock", or "Timber" if needed (say a parachute didn't open or tangled, or collapsed after hitting the wall, etc...).

Then there is a problem of the body recovery cost, which can be upward of $100K. Say, if an accident rate is 1%, a jumper can either pay $1K fee or leave $100K deposit, which will be either charged posthumously or refunded. A discount can be given to jumpers who either wear radio beacons or bequeath their body to the bears, so that it doesn't have to be recovered.

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- posted by Oleg Zabluda @ 4:47 PM | permalink | | | technorati | bloglines | feedster
 
My condensed version of AP article
My condensed version of AP article

Shechtman is a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. and Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. He is the 10th Israeli Nobel winner.


On April 8, 1982, while on sabbatical at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington - Shechtman first observed what are now called "quasicrystals".

"I told everyone who was ready to listen that I had material with pentagonal symmetry. People just laughed at me," he said in an account released by his university.

"I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying," he recalled. "I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were wrong."

He was asked to leave his research group, and moved to another one within the National Bureau of Standards, Shechtman said. He eventually returned to Israel, where he found one colleague prepared to work with him on an article describing the phenomenon. The article was at first rejected but was finally published in November 1984 to an uproar in the scientific world.

In 1987, friends in France and Japan succeeded in growing crystals large enough for X-rays to verify what he had discovered with the electron microscope.

"The moment I presented that, the community said, `OK, Danny, now you are talking. Now we understand you. Now we accept what you have found,'" Shechtman told reporters.

The shy, 70-year-old Shechtman said he never doubted his findings and considered himself merely the latest in a long line of scientists who advanced their fields by challenging the conventional wisdom and were shunned by the establishment because of it. He never wavered even in the face of stiff criticism from double Nobel winner Linus Pauling, who never accepted Shechtman's findings.

"He would stand on those platforms and declare, 'Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense. There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists.'" Shechtman said. "He really was a great scientist, but he was wrong. It's not the first time he was wrong."
http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-05-EU-SCI-Nobel-Chemistry/id-ef5d94a6639c4462bdf8b673338e8f08
http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-05-EU-SCI-Nobel-Chemistry/id-ef5d94a6639c4462bdf8b673338e8f08

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- posted by Oleg Zabluda @ 3:23 PM | permalink | | | technorati | bloglines | feedster
 
20110904SantaBarbara | 112065430692128821190
20110904SantaBarbara | 112065430692128821190




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- posted by Oleg Zabluda @ 12:40 PM | permalink | | | technorati | bloglines | feedster
 
20110903HearstCastle | 112065430692128821190
20110903HearstCastle | 112065430692128821190




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- posted by Oleg Zabluda @ 12:34 PM | permalink | | | technorati | bloglines | feedster

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