Joatmon

As I understand it the new component is in effect a resistor who's value can be set by altering a voltage. If the voltage is removed the memristor remembers. Therefore the device can be called analogue as it has any value between a maximum and a minimum value and this is retained until power is resumed. (IMO) I suppose for development and experimental purposes you could imagine what you could do with a quantity of ordinary variable resistors if you had all the time in the world. I think saying you could make an analogue computer may be misleading although it undoubtedly would be different to our present digital computers. In any case if you could get the memristor to hold a value that is irrational you would still have the problem of displaying it! I will be interested to see what the boffins can do with it!

Surely a bar-less cage wouldn't have any beer? If a glass of beer is in a forest and falls over when nobody is there to catch it does the beer fall out?

I like electricity, electronics and all that jazz.

Through friendly operators, he received an account with a virtually unlimited amount of computer time; its value at that time has since been variously estimated at $100,000 or $100,000,000.[4] Hart has said he wanted to "give back" this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. Not quite what Alfred said. This is an excerpt from the link:- http://en.wikipedia....oject_Gutenberg No doubt he was time sharing, which would be hardly noticed by other users of the machine.

I was a customer engineer in 1978 working on Univac 1100 series mainframe computers. They were quite common at that time for things like Utility companies and bigger businesses and I think that would have been the case in 1971. A complete installation would cost quite a few million pounds, occupied a couple of rooms and required quite extensive maintenance. Even in 1971 it was a lot less powerful than the laptop I'm using which cost a few hundred pounds!

?? I watched the whole video. At the end both the penguin and the cat disappeared over the cliff. I suppose the penguin had wings he considered useless. I'm probably not really getting the point.

Very sad - but no wings can fly! Added edit:- useless wings can fly?

also tanner (meaning sixpence) dollar (which in my childhood was slang for five shillings- how things have changed!)

I thought the Kama Sutra was part of everybody's education. My wife and I had a look when we were first married - and No! we didn't go shopping for pantaloons. "SEVENTH MANNER — El kelouci (the somersault). The woman must wear a pair of pantaloons, which she lets drop upon her heels; then she stoops, placing her head between her feet, so that her neck is in the opening of her pantaloons. At that moment, the man, seizing her legs, turns her upon her back, making her perform a summersault; then with his legs curved under him............................................... " If you need educating follow the link, but beware, it's very explicit. http://www.sss-now.o...garden/pfg6.htm

and by the way the reason i said do u know how TV's work is because when u turn them off what u see is black A small detail, but what you see is the colour of the screen when no power is applied. In the "olden days" of crt televisions it was often a light shade of grey. It only seemed black by contrast with illuminated parts of the screen. It is true that these days the screens are much darker.

Another experiment. This time I'll post the long URL and if it doesn't load I shall shorten it using "edit" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aLOuvRT9wA Didn't work - try again slightly differently Seems edit works (at least sometimes!)

I may well get some negative votes for this but here goes. A balanced life is the way to real satisfaction in life. (IMO) To know your limitations and find employment that keeps you near the upper limit of your limitations and which makes you feel valued and useful is the ideal. Trying to be more than you are must be very stressful. Knowing you are useful is very pleasant. I speak as someone now retired, who had to leave school at age 16, who has no university degree, but think my epitaph can be "He certainly had a life". I have had time to relax and taste all the other joys and satisfactions of a life well lived. Don't think I have just coasted through life as my intelligence and logical abilities have been used in such tasks as fault finding complex radar systems and as a computer customer engineer (in the 1970's when computer systems were large and unreliable). You only get one shot at life - enjoy it!

This is really a test to see if I can shorten the URL using edit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNNYFdklVJI Found I can shorten it without using edit - Up to now I've used a word processor and recopied! It's easy when you know how!

There seems to an important point nobody has mentioned. That concerns the attitude of the young who feel they are invincible and eternal and therefore have no need to provide for either health care or pension (not yet anyway - I'll leave it until I have become well off). With a system like we have in the UK everyone has to contribute from the start of their working lives. Is this sensible or do some of you see it as limiting freedom of choice?

Strong enough cable would therefore pull the earth and moon together? Or speed up the rotation of the earth? Or slow it down?

Perhaps if the buttons were well separated, say on opposite sides of the screen, it would make you think before pressing and rule out accidental wrong choices?

I live in the UK and am very grateful for our healthcare system. I retired from work 20 years ago with heart disease. I have been hospitalised a few times, have a stent holding one of my arteries open and twice a day I take a mixture of five drugs. Goodness knows what this would have cost me in America! Of course I contributed via the tax system when I was able to work but there are "winners" who live a decent long life and "losers" who die young. The "winners" need the benefit and the "losers" unfortunately don't.

I notice most car ads don't, in fact, tell you anything about the car itself.They are mostly about things like how much fun ownership would be. This is in agreement with your statement above.

Yes, of course you are right. I knew what I meant but it came out wrong! The main fact I wanted to get over was the more complicated problem was easily solved whereas the apparently more simple problem was ,in fact, impossible. Thanks for putting things right.

Thanks for help and interest. My problem was that youtube adds a lot of gunk which needed stripping out. What's wrong with the seedier shops in the wrong part of town? Trying to think where I have posted fractions recently.

If I draw a straight line and ask you to draw a line which represents its square root you cannot do it. If however I give you two lines and ask you to draw a line which represents the square root of their sums squared it's easy. (Right angled triangle). The apparently easy problem is impossible and the more complicated problem is easy!

In the UK the regulator, Ofcom, limits the amount of advertising time to an average of 7 mjns/hour with a limit of 12 mins for any particular hour. I believe one of the rules says any advertisement must be either completely true or so fantastic that it is obviously untrue. They usually pad out American imports with "forthcoming events" etc. I personally watch a lot of recorded programs and digital recorders let you jump quickly through the adverts - which I do.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement#United_Kingdom

Perhaps you should also ask the same questions concerning polyandry (sexual equality and all that!)

The square roots of all numbers which are not perfect squares are irrational. There are lots of them! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number

TonyMcC kicked off quite a long discussion in a topic entitled "Tau versus Pi" on 28th June 2011.