Recent content by luckycharms

I wasn't sure what forum to put this in, but I thought maybe some civil engineers might have an answer. What is the average annual cost per lane-mile for highway maintenance? Ballpark answer/order of magnitude is all I'm looking for. I know there are a lot of variables, so assume typical...

Electric field breakdown strength (Ebd) is a material quality that you can find referenced fairly easily, but for oxide it depends on the deposition method. For example, CVD deposited oxide has a different breakdown strength than thermally grown oxide. Generally, it ranges somewhere from...

I think they're moving Rove because there won't be any policy issues if Bush can't rebound politically. If they lose the House, the administration will be permanently playing defense. They need Rove full-time on politics. And I think it's a good move for them. By November Rove will have the...

Looked it up. Berkeley has a few thousand more undergrads, twice as many grad students, and twice as many faculty. It probably has the edge on lab facilities and almost definitely on research funding. Again, I'm just going by reputation and hearsay. It seems to me like Berkeley might have...

Both. I think in this case Berkeley is bigger in size and name. I'm an east-coaster, but my understanding of the UC system is that Berkeley is considered the big tamale.

You make a good point. I just don't think that this is what the politicians are getting in an uproar about. They're selling a far simpler product: "Look at that rich guy and look at your life. Vote for me."

He's probably the wrong one to pick on for unfair executive compensation. Under his tenure, he took the company from $280 bn market cap to $388 bn. That means he added $108 bn to the company's value and is keeping <0.4% for himself. In principle, I'd probably agree, but I'd guess that most...

Subway rider and/or walker here. My seldom used car gets 30+ mpg. If you don't like his retirement package, don't buy his product.

Are diagonal moves allowed (example D to R)? I guess I'm asking if we should have a coordination number of 4 or 8? The QWERTY keyboard isn't very well configured for this. The vowels are on the fringes of the keyboard, have low coordination numbers, UIO is clustered, and they're generally...

Anyone read this book by John McPhee? I'm almost finished and it has been one of the most delightful reads I've come across in a long time. It's a really wonderful way to introduce yourself to the topic of geology. I understand it's a broad overview of intro geology and perhaps...

What is your eventual career goal? If you don't end up working in physics, Berkeley will probably sound more prestigious to someone who doesn't know the difference. It all depends on your personality, but I generally favor the bigger school for an undergraduate experience unless you're 100%...

Generally speaking, you can do whatever you want for your thesis as long as you can convince your advisor, committee members, and department to go along with it. Depends on your university, but generally you can't jump departments without reapplying and fulfilling the new class/generals...

It's all sabre-rattling. You don't say the nuke option is off the table, even if you have no intention of using it. We did this all the time with the Russians.

By far the most common technology is Indium Tin Oxide (ITO). ITO is a transparent conductor. This allows a thin film of it to be applied to a glass surface (say a screen) but still allow the image to transmit through. The typical installation consists of two ITO films separatated by tiny bumps...

Most current photonics research is for the telecomm industry. Basically, the industry would like to go to an "all-optical" network. Currently, the light signal comes in on a fiber, hits a photodetector, and gets converted to an electrical signal and all the logic and routing operations are...