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In front of their fucking children.

I've emailed these fucking assholes before about this.
http://www.popsci.com/emdrive-...
That link ONLY works in the United States.

As soon as it picks up an Aussie IP address, it does this.
http://www.popsci.com.au/?src=...

They don't mirror the content and it's been going on for multiple years, I'm so fucking sick of it.
Sorry but these people are moronic, it's the internet for fucks sake, there are no borders.

Does anyone with a god damn clue have some kind of contact there, how to stop these assholes doing this stupid shit?

/me points up

Perhaps you should consider that the ISS has been continuously habitated for 16 years.

http://www.popsci.com/science/...

Clearly, we have the technology, but as always it is a financial issue.

And for "potheads" read "about half of Americans".

Where "half" is 10%? Is pot bad for math skills? http://www.popsci.com/survey-s...

I suspect this will turn out not to work. That said, it did remind me of the New York Times article in 1920 saying that Robert Goddard was foolish to think that rockets could work in space (see e.g. http://www.popsci.com/military... for their 1969 retraction).

Audi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Georgia Tech: http://www.popsci.com/georgia-...

Oshkosh: https://oshkoshdefense.com/tec...

Getting sick of how the word "Deep" is being plastered on everything. Like "Dark". It's become another bullshit marketing buzzword. Supposedly it means "a large system of neurons arranged in several hidden layers" but by that token you can call any program with nested subroutines "Deep". This is DEEP software bud. DEEP! I can't explain it to you because it's DEEP. Now break out the checkbook sucker, and I'll throw in this cyber cat brain too.

I am certain that in such a society, the biological urge to reproduce might have to be genetically eradicated.

Come, come, humanity, probably, already has some such mechanisms built in. For example, many more boys are born during war-time. Also, a better-off society has lower fertility rate, than a poor one — that is, the "need" for new people affects fertility rates.

On the other hand, the planet remains largely unsettled — vast expanses of Siberia, Canada, Alaska, American Midwest, Australian Outback, the deserts (think Sahara) and the entire continent of Antarctica all require relatively minor improvements to become "prime" real estate. Plus the ocean floor — if we are replacing human bodies, we can make some fine improvements...

And then come other planets — there is plenty of room for humanity to grow even with the current fertility rates.

Can't do that, if a person's education takes a comparable amount of time as the period during which it can actually be used productively...

Time dilation?

I don't think, you understood my complaint... Today it takes a person 15-20 years to become reasonably well-educated. He can then use this education for another 30-40 years before retiring due to infirmities. Not only his education, but also his valuable experience all die with him... If we could turn those 30-40 years into even mere 60-80, we'd increase the efficiency of humanity tremendously — thus greatly speeding up the rate of scientific advances and quality-of-life improvements. But, if we could go to infinite, we'd become unstoppable...

The first patch went live about a hour ago, and included a fix to the Google Account scope.

http://www.popsci.com/pokemon-...

This article is tagged Japan because "Nihonium takes its name from the Japanese name for Japan and was the first new element discovered there, at the RIKEN lab." ( http://www.popsci.com/four-new... )

Tesla powerwall has/had projected cycle life of 1000–1500 cycles.

you aren't wrong but a recent advancement could change that number by orders of magnitude.

How can encryption have "a profound effect on our ability to collect, particularly against terrorists" when they never found any terrorists to begin with?

You can cite the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s review on section 215, and their specific quotes, this is their words, “We are aware of no instance in which the [mass surveillance] program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack."

On May 31, 2015, the most controversial aspects of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which included the collection of phone records (among others) in bulk, expired.

President Obama did not agree with the board's decision, which was announced in January 2014: "I believe it is important that the capability that this program is designed to meet is preserved."

We can only assume that the justification for bulk collection has little to do with terrorism.

To reach this justification, the FAA turned to 18 U.S.C. 32, a law that in part expands “United States jurisdiction over aircraft sabotage to include destruction of any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States.” The FAA, as the part of government that oversees that sky, could have made an exception when applying this law to small, uncrewed aircraft. That it didn’t fits into a larger pattern: whenever the FAA is given the opportunity to treat drones as regular aircraft, it chooses to do so. That means pilot’s licenses for drone business operators, and it means that when the FAA bans aircraft for miles around the Super Bowl, that ban applies to drones too.

It also poses a complication for some local and state laws, like Utah’s proposed HB 420, which would let police shoot down drones in emergency situations. While the FAA may have answered decided that drone shootdowns are already illegal under existing law, we’ll have to see how drone shootdown cases proceed in the courts to know if that assertion will hold.

http://www.popsci.com/it-is-fe...

I came across this from 4yrs ago: http://www.popsci.com/science/...

Chip Scale Atomic Clock - OK, at $1500 it's not super-cheap, but it's your own, it will work whether there is Internet or not. Heck, it will work whether there's civilization or not! Imagine having accurate time during the zombie apocalypse.

http://www.popsci.com/science/...

2013 Solar Panels Now Make More Electricity Than They Use

And by 2020, the solar industry will have completely "paid back" the energy it took to produce the world's panels.

Also--- "rare" earth metals are "rare" at the current low prices. but there are vast quantities available at only slightly higher cost levels. One mine in california has more rare earth than all of china but it's shut down right now because the cost to extract means it isn't profitable right now (partially because of higher labor costs in the U.S. than china which will correct itself by 2045).

Some are stripmined- valid point. Some are conflict materials- a valid point you didn't make.

But that's a case of business externalizing their costs on society.

The future really is solar. Enough solar power to satisfy the globes needs would like like a a half dozen to a dozen little dots scattered around the globe. But even more exciting is decentralized solar power which is

a) Less likely to be stolen/destroyed by bandits.
b) Extends lighted hours (for education and business) far into the night.
c) Can drive laptops, wi-fi, fans, and small food cooler/heaters (for insulin and similar items more than for sodas).

And solar just keeps getting cheaper. Like the space program, solar power investment has a huge payoff for the startup cost the government funded.

And it has an interesting feedback loop with fossil fuels. It reduces their use by just a tiny amount- but that's enough to significantly drop the prices of fossil fuels because the price of all fossil fuel is set by the cost of the most expensive fossil fuel.

If it costs $90 to get out the last barrel, the $10 a barrel is sold for $90. If you destroy demand for oil over $60 a barrel, then all oil will be sold at $60.

But it doesn't change the fact that there's still only 10,000 4-digit passcodes. They could even do a hacky solution like finding a way to disable the wipe after incorrect attempts and brute forcing from there. If they can pick apart the chips, I'm sure they can find a way.

Of course, that's assuming Apple actually wants to help, which I would guess they probably don't (and they shouldn't IMO).

The court order may prove moot.
    http://www.popsci.com/box-can-...

The important part is simply overlooked by the coverage.
Complying with this court order is not about one phone or one crime.
It is about "The First" phone.

One common rant is that this crime is so evil that that we need to do anything
and everything possible. This ignores the reality of what abuses can be
done for First+N phones.

Any court order: civil, criminal, domestic, international must be complied with.
    China, Oregon, Iran, France, Germany will all be able to demand the service.
    All can demand the service be delivered inside their borders as there is no technical reason to not.
Apple has no legal footing to deny any order issued by due process including secret FISA warrants.
Divorce, employment actions...
Apple is not indemnified if there is a flaw in their code.
Apple is not in a position to deny the service even for a stolen or border confiscated phone.

A secret warrant could demand the secret bits be moved from Apple to an undisclosed site
where Apple would no longer have control.

Should the method escape Apple other complications follow.

Recall Apple has skin in this game. Apple Pay, iTunes are serious
cash generation tools that if compromised would risk vastly more than
the considerable value of the present value of Apple.

Point of sale payment is a global issue and may be sufficient
to exclude this writ from the "All Writs Act" that seems to be
central to the FBI strategy.

The other implication is that a writ can compel any company to
develop and engage in any service. "Any service" risks a lot.
There is nothing to exclude FISA writs from forcing Intel to,
from AT&T to, from Comcast to... develop tools and services
to deliver to "Bob" at a loading dock someplace.

Today Apple may be able to sidestep this for a number of months
with this hack:
http://www.popsci.com/box-can-...

This seems small to some but how large is a fulcrum?
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
Add overreaching under the color of the long arm of law and the lever is in place.

Note well this investigation has no bounds or time limit.
Today: http://abc7.com/news/fbi-serve...
the FBI searches Farook's brother's home months after the crime and long
after the FBI knew who and where he was.

There be dragons here....
Pay attention.
This is a big deal.

But it doesn't change the fact that there's still only 10,000 4-digit passcodes. They could even do a hacky solution like finding a way to disable the wipe after incorrect attempts and brute forcing from there. If they can pick apart the chips, I'm sure they can find a way.

Of course, that's assuming Apple actually wants to help, which I would guess they probably don't (and they shouldn't IMO).

The court order may prove moot.
    http://www.popsci.com/box-can-...

The important part is simply overlooked by the coverage.
Complying with this court order is not about one phone or one crime.
It is about "The First" phone.

One common rant is that this crime is so evil that that we need to do anything
and everything possible. This ignores the reality of what abuses can be
done for First+N phones.

Any court order: civil, criminal, domestic, international must be complied with.
    China, Oregon, Iran, France, Germany will all be able to demand the service.
    All can demand the service be delivered inside their borders as there is no technical reason to not.
Apple has no legal footing to deny any order issued by due process including secret FISA warrants.
Divorce, employment actions...
Apple is not indemnified if there is a flaw in their code.
Apple is not in a position to deny the service even for a stolen or border confiscated phone.

A secret warrant could demand the secret bits be moved from Apple to an undisclosed site
where Apple would no longer have control.

Should the method escape Apple other complications follow.

Recall Apple has skin in this game. Apple Pay, iTunes are serious
cash generation tools that if compromised would risk vastly more than
the considerable value of the present value of Apple.

Point of sale payment is a global issue and may be sufficient
to exclude this writ from the "All Writs Act" that seems to be
central to the FBI strategy.

The other implication is that a writ can compel any company to
develop and engage in any service. "Any service" risks a lot.
There is nothing to exclude FISA writs from forcing Intel to,
from AT&T to, from Comcast to... develop tools and services
to deliver to "Bob" at a loading dock someplace.

Today Apple may be able to sidestep this for a number of months
with this hack:
http://www.popsci.com/box-can-...

This seems small to some but how large is a fulcrum?
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
Add overreaching under the color of the long arm of law and the lever is in place.

Note well this investigation has no bounds or time limit.
Today: http://abc7.com/news/fbi-serve...
the FBI searches Farook's brother's home months after the crime and long
after the FBI knew who and where he was.

There be dragons here....
Pay attention.
This is a big deal.

It's not that it's difficult, it's just that it requires more time than the heat death of the universe to execute.

Eh...most phones I've seen limit your key to a 4-digit pin. So we're really talking 10,000 combinations, and that's without taking in consideration the non-uniform distribution of pins people choose.

"I'm not gonna gonna bother dancing around it for ten pages in case it turns out to be bullshit"

No problem. I think it most likely already has.

You got any evidence of that?

You have a possible alternative scenario that also fits the evidence, but you have presented precisely zero facts that imply said scenario is actually true.

This story only broke on the 14th, so it's not like they can have a definitive investigation done.

So far all I've seen from Prof. Infascelli is a fairly standard denial, including the ever-popular "why would I even do that?," accompanied by the tidbit that the only thing that could possibly be relevant is whether his experiment can be repeated by anyone else. Which is very interesting because a) those experiments have not been repeated by anyone else and b) if he had the kind of records he should have there would be no need to talk about repeatability.

That's not definitive proof that he's an Evil Fraud, but it's not vindication either. It's actually pretty much what you'd expect from either an Evil Fraud or an Innocent Victim.

"Read the links at the bottom of the article"

I did, and agreed on that, Bucci's software is useful but not accurate, it spots intentional manipulation, simple mistakes, and lots of false positives:

http://www.popsci.com/article/...
(Software Scans Journal Papers, Finds 1 In 4 Have Suspicious Images)

Interestingly, that article says precisely jack-squat about false positives.

By definition it could catch innocent mistakes, but then any scientist whose actually doing the job right should be doing their utmost to minimize said innocent mistakes.

"Maybe the University also hired the same guy"

You lost me there. I must be misunderstanding you. Could you be more precise?

Pardon me if I misinterpreted you, but you seemed to be saying that Bucci was hired by either the University or Infascelli himself (Bucci is the only expert currently in the conversation), rather then the Senator.

"I'm not gonna gonna bother dancing around it for ten pages in case it turns out to be bullshit"

No problem. I think it most likely already has.

"Read the links at the bottom of the article"

I did, and agreed on that, Bucci's software is useful but not accurate, it spots intentional manipulation, simple mistakes, and lots of false positives:

http://www.popsci.com/article/...
(Software Scans Journal Papers, Finds 1 In 4 Have Suspicious Images)

"Maybe the University also hired the same guy"

You lost me there. I must be misunderstanding you. Could you be more precise?

Yeah I agree.
This is about like when they were trying to get what we today call processed cheese called embalmed cheese.

Otherwise there are a few things I think they ought not do
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/...

I hope they are not still trying to make drugs with open air outdoor farms.

I doubt they are.

But I really don't know the current state of things my subscription to popsci lapsed many years ago. And most of the talk ive heard on gmos has been this stupid labeling discussion.

Just make sure gmos don't qualify as organic and most everyone will be happy. Because most people who don't buy organic really don't care all that much about it and will be quite content with higher yields, larger fruit and possibly more flavorful food.

On the other hand when I see something that is labeled 100% beef I don't expect there to be horse meat in it.
Even though it is probably just as safe as beef. Its not something we are used to. so I don't want it in there so I kind of understand how the gmo label people may feel.

Gmo I am most want to see?
Roses that still smell like roses.
Most commercially grown roses are bred to be pretty and no longer have that rose smell. Its currently handled with a spritz of rose scent at the flowershop. Wouldn't it be nice if they just smelled like they were supposed to?

For those who are trying to hand wave the issue with a broader "well, we shouldn't do things that make people angry *tsk* *tsk*", while addressing the root drivers will help mitigate the numbers of potential incidents, in a world where people have differing opinions, you'll always have a few folks who disagree strongly enough that they may just try to do something like deliver a dangerous payload via unmanned platform. Very least, you're going to have criminal elements that are going to try and exploit this technology for recon or more direct support in committing crimes, maybe even violent support. Therefore, you're going to need this technology to some degree whether through jamming or even outright shooting it out of the sky.

I wasn't concerned so much with the radioactivity as with the massive amount of black carbon that would be thrown up into the atmosphere, causing significantly diminished sunlight (potentially worldwide) for several years thereafter, with the resulting diminished crop production causing food shortages.

Perfect indoor drone is at the CES... safe, fun and cute... http://www.popsci.com/fleye-dr...

I've been told how simple, easy, and cheap "in situ resource utilization" will be on Mars, so clearly it should be super simple to do it right here?

I guess we're just lacking the political will to do it, though.

Typical ISRU proposals for Mars are designed for an operating lifetime of 2.2 years, which is the amount of time between Mars launch windows.

I'll also point out that, "The Martian" notwithstanding, there aren't destructive sand storms on Mars.

On the downside, magnesium can be bear to put out when it gets going.

That probably takes the understatement of the thread award...
http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2008-06/let-burning-metals-lie

With interpixel distance = wavelength of visible light, is this the smallest possible scale for a visible color image? There are tricks to see slightly smaller pixels with a light microscope, but I guess not much smaller.

Overpopulation + 1?

About this, I'll bring one of my answer to a similar statement about the fear of overpopulation.

I actually want to start this argument.

What is the problem with "overpopulation" How do you define it?

Is a planet overpopulated because we can't produce enough food for everyone? About this, here's a conceptual 21th centory farming tower : http://www.popsci.com/cliff-ku...

With this, you can produce food for 50k people with a 30 story tower. So, unless I make a huge mistake somewhere, it's untrue that the earth can only produce food for 10 or so billion people.

Or is it the pollution and the destruction of the nature? I am going to say something really sad here, but will humanity really need nature to survive in the 22th century? A good image is the planet Coruscant from the Star Wars franchise, the planet is one big city, nothing else. Yeah it's sad and I love nature too, but there's tech to remove our dependency of mother nature.

Or is it the pollution and the global warming? Well, there is something to be worried. But I'm a optimist one. The reason why we are slow to fight global warming is mostly an economical one. But guess what, one of the first city to drown will be New York with a estimated GMP over a trillion dollars. So I think that, soon enough, there'll suddenly a lot more money available to fight global warming (Well, "soon" is a long shot since the sea is rising a few millimetres each years). And I also have faith in new green tech on the way to help us out.

And a cure for world overpopulation

And climate change? Are the visionaries working on those, too?

I actually want to start this argument.

What is the problem with "overpopulation" How do you define it?

Is a planet overpopulated because we can't produce enough food for everyone? About this, here's a conceptual 21th centory farming tower : http://www.popsci.com/cliff-ku...

With this, you can produce food for 50k people with a 30 story tower. So, unless I make a huge mistake somewhere, it's untrue that the earth can only produce food for 10 or so billion people.

Or is it the pollution and the destruction of the nature? I am going to say something really sad here, but will humanity really need nature to survive in the 22th century? A good image is the planet Coruscant from the Star Wars franchise, the planet is one big city, nothing else. Yeah it's sad and I love nature too, but there's tech to remove our dependency of mother nature.

Or is it the pollution and the global warming? Well, there is something to be worried. But I'm a optimist one. The reason why we are slow to fight global warming is mostly an economical one. But guess what, one of the first city to drown will be New York with a estimated GMP over a trillion dollars. So I think that, soon enough, there'll suddenly a lot more money available to fight global warming (Well, "soon" is a long shot since the sea is rising a few millimetres each years). And I also have faith in new green tech on the way to help us out.

http://www.popsci.com/science/...

Magnetism can affect the brain directly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Various studies have seemed to indicate some sensitivity. Most studies have not. However, some of the major studies had flaws such as only testing for a few minutes per subject.

Lots of low incidence problems are often put off as in people's heads until a way is discovered to objectively measure the problem (such as the ATP cycle for chronic fatigue).

I'd look into bad power supplies and other noise creators first but I'm not discounting the possibility it could be electrical fields.

We run on electricity.
http://blog.brainfacts.org/201...

So it's not crazy to think electric fields could interfere with some individuals personal electric fields.

Fortunately, I'm not one.

Glass was always "stronger" than steel in that it will take more stress without bending. Glass will just shatter, whereas steel will bend but not break. Glass has more "strength," but steel has more "toughness." An article at Popular Science explores this distinction: "Strength refers to how much force a material can take before it deforms. Toughness explains the energy required to fracture or break something." The article is from 2011, and is entitled "NEW METALLIC GLASS BEATS STEEL AS THE TOUGHEST, STRONGEST MATERIAL YET."

Leave the phone at home. Alternate solution: buy something like this. http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/...

Overall, I agree with you.
Also, there are counterproofs that someone can be "smarter" (in unusual ways):

When Brain Damage Unlocks The Genius Within
http://www.popsci.com/science/...
http://www.livescience.com/453...

Medical devices have gone under the guise of "security by obscurity" for far too long. They have no standards. They are plugged into the network without any worry at all to what could happen. Insulin pumps are terrible at this. Even Dick Cheney had to have special consideration taken for his pacemaker, since the technology is so bad. It isn't just device makers. In general most don't give a shit about security. From banking "apps" to healthcare "apps" - security is generally the last checkbox checked before shipping. It isn't a core tenet of technology for companies, it is feature you may or may not get to. Until there are actual penalties for ignoring basic information security practices, no one will waste time (aka money) securing things they "don't have to."

Because if the government actually created security standards and enforced them, that would cost Merican jobs due to all the over-regulation. Best not to think about how creating standards would cost the taxpayer, either. Govment has no business interfering in the private sector.

Medical devices have gone under the guise of "security by obscurity" for far too long. They have no standards. They are plugged into the network without any worry at all to what could happen. Insulin pumps are terrible at this.

Even Dick Cheney had to have special consideration taken for his pacemaker, since the technology is so bad.

It isn't just device makers. In general most don't give a shit about security. From banking "apps" to healthcare "apps" - security is generally the last checkbox checked before shipping. It isn't a core tenet of technology for companies, it is feature you may or may not get to.

Until there are actual penalties for ignoring basic information security practices, no one will waste time (aka money) securing things they "don't have to."

At least so far, drones have not been flocking (that would be scary.

erm. http://www.popsci.com/watch-fl...

Sorry for scaring you. Search Google for a real horror show.

I know they have sandstorms, sometimes dense enough to hide the surface. But with an atmosphere that never exceeds 2% the density of Earth's, can it blow people down and topple spaceships?

The short answer is no.

It would have been a good time to charge up BOB the Big 'Ol Battery in Presidio Texas; it probably takes 40MW/hrs to charge that sucker up.

Some other AC wrote some time ago:
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

Out of all the people who responded to my comment here http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

I'll respond here. Really, this shit should be put on the front page of Slashdot maybe some old school readers would actually be interested.

That link hairyfeet added above is the last piece of the puzzle. The Czech guy checked here http://localghost.org/posts/a-...

In that article is this:

Information transmitted

All text typed on the keyboard is stored in temporary files, and sent (once per 30 mins) to:

oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
pre.footprintpredict.com
reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com

Ok so you look for whois nsatc.net

NSATC.NET - Domain Informationnew
Domain NSATC.NET [ Site Info Traceroute RBL/DNSBL lookup ]
Registrar MARKMONITOR INC. MarkMonitor, Inc.
Registrar URL http://www.markmonitor.com/
Whois server whois.markmonitor.com
Created 27-Sep-2001
Updated 01-Dec-2014
Expires 27-Sep-2015
Time Left 30 days 0 hours 4 minutes
Status clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clien... clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clien... clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clien... clientUpdateProhibited (https://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited) clientTransferProhibited (https://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited) clientDeleteProhibited (https://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited)
DNS servers A.NS.NSATC.NET 199.93.44.45
B.NS.NSATC.NET 8.12.212.49
C.NS.NSATC.NET 64.152.2.44
D.NS.NSATC.NET 205.128.93.51
E.NS.NSATC.NET 212.187.162.134
G.NS.NSATC.NET 205.128.88.25
L.NS.NSATC.NET 8.255.48.47
g.ns.nsatc.net 205.128.88.25
e.ns.nsatc.net 212.187.162.134
d.ns.nsatc.net 205.128.93.51
a.ns.nsatc.net 199.93.44.45
b.ns.nsatc.net 8.12.212.49
l.ns.nsatc.net 8.255.48.47
c.ns.nsatc.net 64.152.2.44

Now who is MarkMonitor, Inc?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.popsci.com/technolo...
https://torrentfreak.com/torre...

Ok so what happened? Microsoft took consumers money for decades of virus-laden shitware. Botnets, anti-virus suites, ransomware, all that shit.... you bought it hook line and sinker. They profited. Now they used the money consumers gave them to hire career lawyers. World gov's said hey, what the fuck? Anti-trust, etc.. then they started fuckin.

You will want to uninstall your Windows 10 "The Spyware of all Spywares Edition" because the only anti-virus that will work is Linux or other *nix.

If you installed Windows 10 because of lies about being free, or DX12, your homework is:
https://www.google.com/#q=roll...

You have 30 days after you took the spyware upgrade to roll back or it self-deletes the backup files.

You may or may not decide to keep any Windows at all... but you won't want any new ones. Microsoft surely should by fried for this gig, but they used consumer money to buy lawyers so you can see how they do shit. You can't buy a ticket to the Resurrection according to Tony Montana in Scarface.

distrowatch.com
KDE on Linux for anything that's not a Windows game.

Make that 2008: http://www.popsci.com/holly-ot...

There's a good overview over at Popular Science (heh.. no such thing, man... more like "Nerdular Nerdence!")

The definition of "drone" has varied over the years, and between military and civilian usage, but AFAIK nobody has authority to make an "official" definition. The term goes back at least to the 1920s when it pretty much meant "unmanned autopiloted aircraft." Well before R/C model planes were common.

For me, it's a drone if it's unmanned + has telepresence piloting, that is, a camera gives the remote pilot a POV from the aircraft. Just watching and controlling it from the ground isn't enough.

forcing terminal crops on us

Please stop spreading FUD, it makes you look like an idiot.

The crops are not terminal

http://www.popsci.com/blog-net...

It is not only possible, but the easiest option, to "blow them up Armageddon style" (minus the drilling and the like). There's a lot of simulation work going on right now and the results have been consistently encouraging that even a small nuclear weapon could obliterate quite a large asteroid into little fragments that won't re-coalesce, while simultaneously kicking them out of their current orbit. A few years ago they were just doing 2d calcs, now they've gotten full 3d runs.

Think for a second about what nuclear weapons can do on Earth. Here's the crater of a 100kt nuclear weapon test. It's 100 meters deep and 320 meters wide. You could nearly fit a sizeable asteroid like Itokawa inside the hole. And that thing had Earth's intense gravity field working against it and was only 1/10th the size of weapons being considered here. In space you don't need to "blast out" debris with great force like on Earth, you merely need to give it a fractional meter-per-second kick and it's no longer gravitationally bound. And the ability of a nuclear shockwave to shatter rock is almost unthinkably powerful - just ignoring that many if not most asteroids are rubble piles and thus come already pre-shattered. Look at the "rubble chimneys" kicked up by even small nuclear blasts several kilometers underground (in rock compressed by Earth's gravity). Or the size of the underground cavity created by the wimpy 3kT Gnome blast - 28000 cubic meters. Just ignoring that it had to do that, again, working against Earth's compression deep underground, if you scale that up to a 1MT warhead the cavity would be the size of Itokawa itself.

You of course don't have to destroy an asteroid if you don't want to - nuclear weapons can also gently kick them off their path. Again, you're depositing energy in the form of X-rays into the surface of the asteroid on one side. If it's a tremendous amount of energy, you create a powerful shattering shockwave moving throughout the body of the asteroid. If it's lesser, however, you're simply creating a broad planar gas/plasma/dust jet across the asteroid, turning that whole side into one gigantic thruster that will keep pushing and kicking off matter until it cools down.

The last detail is that nuclear weapons are just so simple of a solution. There's no elaborate spacecraft design and testing program needed - you have an already extant, already-built device which is designed to endure launch G-forces / vibrations and tolerate the vacuum of space, and you simply need to get it "near" your target - the sort of navigation that pretty much every space mission we've launched in the past several decades has managed. In terms of mission design simplicity, pretty much nothing except kinetic impactors (which are far less powerful) comes close, and even then it's a tossup. Assuming roughly linear scaling with the simulations done thusfar, with enough advance warning, even a Chicxulub-scale impactor could be deflected / destroyed with a Tsar Bomba-sized device with a uranium tamper. Even though it was not designed to be light for space operations, its 27-tonne weight could be launched to LEO by a single Delta-IV Heavy and hauled off to intercept by a second launch vehicle.

Don't get me wrong, I care a damn lot about the planet, but is recycling help the planet that much?

I mean, in 2014
How much % of world total pollution is avoided because of recycling?
How much % of world total greenhouse gas is avoided because of recycling?
How much % of world total landfill is avoided because of recycling?

And I mean the real number that are recycled, not the quantity that enter recycling center because half is sent to the landfill anyway and another half is lost in the transforming process (except maybe aluminium and some others)

Unless someone convince me of recycling efficiency, I think we should start thinking about other mean.I know there's still a lot of issue, but plasma gasification seem to have a bigger potential than recycling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/...

Less Harm, huh? (Hint: people allergic to penicillin and a few seizing babies might disagree with you)

As consumers we expect labeling to be accurate and truthful. Labels on homeopathic medications are neither. They claim to treat illnesses that they cannot possibly treat and they may cause someone to delay seeking actual, helpful medical interventions. It is modern snake oil and it can ONLY harm. Even if it has neutral effects on your health, it takes away attention and resources from valid medications and treatments. It needs to go away for good.

PS: A very large body of evidence on PubMed awaits you detailing the effectiveness of NSAID's in the treatment of pain. No placebo effect necessary.

The plan did go through. US production restarted in 2013.

I remember this article from a few years ago showing how much food we can create on earth. For instance, this self sufficient bulding can make food for as much as 50 000 people : http://www.popsci.com/cliff-ku....

And there's no end on on much bulding you can create. With nano-technology advance, we'll build highter and highter and bigger and bigger until we run out of material (and then we'll get them from space). Of course it also mean we'll eventually wipe out all "untouched" nature on the process but if humanity survive, it'll come to that.

One of many quality of humanity is his ability to adapt. If we cure the greatest cause of mortality then the devellopped country that will benefit first from it will have to put regulation to place to ensure decent population that follow our devellopement. Also, by living "forever" the whole retirement process will need to be rethinked. On top of my head, something like "2 years education - 36 years work - 10 years retirement (1 children)" indefinite loop could be an idea so, at any time, there's 2 worker for 1 retired adult and an (more and more) insignifiant number of children.

Lies

Many birds have four color receptors. Some have five.

Mammal eyes suck. Primates have about the best color perception of all mammals, and even the best is still pretty poor by bird standards.

It's not so cut and dried, actually. A lot of colour vision requires processing in the cortex so there isn't necessarily a clear cut relationship between the number of cone classes and an animal's colour acuity. A great example is the mantis shrimp which has a large number of different cone classes yet has crap colour vision. I don't know what bird colour acuity is or how it compares to our own, but don't assume it's necessarily better because they are tetrachromats. For instance, the wikipedia says that pigeons are pentachromats but they may not have access to the fifth channel. Many birds also have colour oil droplets in front of some photoreceptors in order to further tune their range. In effect, this may give them more than 4 cone classes.