Slashdot Mirror

Well, human brains are about 3 pounds.

But there's also the enteric nervous system: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain

So won't be surprised if there's some interaction amongst the gut bacteria, the gut and brain.

The cost does not come from defending the lawsuit or doing the studies. The cost comes because such lawsuits can create delays. Delays mean that an operator may need to buy power from someone else, build other types of plants (like natural gas) or delay the retirement of obsolete plants. All of these actions carry significant costs.

Safety does have a cost. That doesn't mean that it's not absolutely the right thing to do when you're dealing with a technology that's intrinsically hazardous.

Yeah, after lawsuits delayed Diablo Canyon by 12 years in California, PG&E scrapped all nuclear power plant development. In other words, the Greens lost the battle, but won the war.

If by winning the war, you mean "sticking with burning tons of coal every year and dumping radiation, particulate matter, and CO2 into the atmosphere by enormous amounts while killing lots of people mining it" was a victory for the Greens. Because that's what happened.

By "technology that is intrinsically hazardous" you ARE talking about coal, right? When talking about radiation hazards?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Isn't this the consequence of feminism?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=drivers-med-rearview-mirror-sans-bl-2009-01-19

Then see if the training budget will cover this: :-)
    http://www.humorproject.com/conference/

See also:
    http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/30vitamin.html?permid=196#comment196

By the way, as an alternative to working:
    http://idlenest.freehostia.com/mirror/www.whywork.org/index.html

And, consider:

The US currently spends as much on schooling, social security, and welfare to give every citizen about US$800 a month.
    http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

And it spends enough on Medicare/Medicaid to cover everyone with good health care if it was managed better.
    http://www.singlepayeraction.org/

And the US spends more than twice as much on "defense" in a year than it would take to change the entire country over to using renewable energy and no longer need much of a defense department.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

It's all about the paradigm and a global mindshift beyond narrow vested interests.
    http://www.global-mindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf

Yes this mirror is illegal in the us:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=drivers-med-rearview-mirror-sans-bl-2009-01-19

Man, I want a couple of those for my cars. Any idea if the inventor has marketed them?

Yes this mirror is illegal in the us:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=drivers-med-rearview-mirror-sans-bl-2009-01-19

I would rather listen to these people than some random commenter or on Slashdot.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=smarter-use-of-nuclear-waste

http://energyfromthorium.com/

By the way: there is no such thing as "conservation of entropy". Entropy increases. Period.

I should have said conservation of information - which IIRC is itself somewhat controversial - isn't this an area of rather heated discussion among the physicists?

OTOH, (also IIRC), entropy and (loss of) information are duals or two sides of the same coin - entropy from the information-theoretic point of view is loss of information, which also from the mass-energy point of view is loss of energy. The 'heat death' can also be described as the reduction of all information to randomness. So conservation of energy and conservation of information are equivalent. And, so at least in a negative sense, entropy is conserved as well. Otherwise mass is removed from the universe when it is sucked into a black hole, which would mean its gravitational effect on the universe would be gone - if I got this right.

I think this was the article, which in its first sentence presumes that entropy is conserved: Information in the Holographic Universe.

The article itself requires registration, but here's the first bit from my search on the SciAm website:

# Information in the Holographic Universe: The Entropy of a Black Hole THE ENTROPY OF A BLACK HOLE is proportional to the area of its event horizon,... July 14, 2003 – Scientific American Magazine By Jacob D. Bekenstein

Sheesh. It's been a looong time since I pondered this stuff much. Anyway, thanks for the correction.

You and I, silly people. Why are we deluding ourselves into believing only massive multinational companies can control the web,

You are right that the Web belongs to you and I. And it goes further. TFA asks the question backwards:

Control of this new evolution of the web is up for grabs. Each of the big three computing companies – Microsoft, Apple and Google – has its own radically different vision to promote.

This question is biased. The Web has not been created by corporate entities and is not "up for grabs". The web has evolved out of the cumulative connectedness of public networks through public standards, which development is still overseen by the WWW Consortium. Attempts to privatize parts of it (eg. AOL) have failed and new attempts must fail if we wish to see the Web further innovate.

Read Tim Berners-Lee latest article. It articulates the questions facing the evolution of the Web so much more clearly:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web

“He’s not a threat. He’s not going to pick up your children,” Block said.

What an idiot. Coyotes kill pets, and evidence from the Carolinas indicates they are now affecting deer populations by decimating the survival rates of fawns. Coyotes are dangerous, and they attack humans. There were 142 attacks on humans between 1960 and 2006. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coyotes-suburban-attacks

Coyotes have spread naturally to all lower 48 states because of declines in wolf populations. Another interesting tidbit is that the coyote is the only predator in North America whose recorded population has NEVER decreased, only increased. Why someone would give such an adaptable predator a leg up when it is doing fine is completely beyond me.

Except that quantum superposition happens in aggregates, not just single ... eh ... particles.

(Which is why Q-gates are supposed to work.)

I think the analogy to lazy evaluation is apt, just doesn't help with this particular question.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=100-years-ago-baseballs

“A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked. We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises—not this sort of mental gladiatorship.”

Kryder's Law is an analog to Moore's Law, and states that magnetic disk density doubles every year or so. As long as this law is roughly true, raw disk space per dollar will be cheaper in magnetic disks than flash. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=kryders-law for more information. With the explosion in information out there, I believe disk space per dollar is a critical criteria for many industries and applications.

That said, consumer computing will be dominated by flash memory (it's already half way there). Consumer demand for disk space does not increase exponentially like capacity, so even flash capacity will be overkill at some point. Instead, consumers will value random access speed and dependability (especially in portable computing).

I can tell it's truly News for Nerds because I can barely understand what it's saying and it drops causal references to advanced mathematics

I recommend you start visiting arXiv then.

Are you suggesting the OP, a self-described interested lay person, learns or even mere follow mathematic research by reading arXiv? If so, WTF!?

arXiv is a pre-print archive of original research articles, not exactly a welcoming place for a non-mathematician (or non-subject specialist, e.g. physics, and computer science also use it). Even with an undergrad degree in mathematics, I find it a difficult (and/or useless) place to try to follow progress in the field, without the editorial assistants to filter the wheat from the chaff. And I've been reading original (first source) research papers since the mid-1990s in multiple research disciplines.

You might as well ask him to read Euclid's Elements in its original Greek. Heck, after the translation, it would be more accessible, as it is intended to be a textbook for learning.

I would rather suggest, try reading some of the mathematics journals that are intended to be more accessible, such as from MAA and AMS societies. Some are aimed at students of two-year and four-year "colleges" (aka polytechs / technical colleges and universities), while others are just interesting yet often accessible, such as Journal of Recreational Mathematics and Mathematics Magazine and online columns such as Kevin Devlin's Devlin's Angle.

In the more general sense, I would recommend popular math writers such as Ian Stewart, Simon Singh, Paul J. Nahin, the recently deceased Martin Gardner (slashdot), and many more authors that I cannot recall.

Unfortunately I can't think of any pop-math books or articles on linear algebra, in the vein of "e: The Story of a Number" (Maor), "An Imaginary Tale" (Nahin), "Flatland" (Abbott), "Flatterland" (Stwart), "A Mathematician's Apology" (Hardy), "Fermat's Last Theorm" / "Fermat's Engima" (US) (Singh), "Does God Play Dice?" (Stewart), "Chaos" (Gleick), and many others.

To wit, mathematics is I believe the only discipline where fourth year undergrad students take third or fourth year courses with "introduction" or "elementary" in their course titles. But I digress. My point is that one "problem" is that given mathematics long history, and that is has fascinated people across cultures throughout history, the subject has accumulated such a vast body of knowledge, so it is difficult to get a firm understanding on every field within mathematics. So feeling overwhelmed with all the facts and fields to learn is normal.

You read a LOT of Ayn Rand as a lonely, insecure teenager, didn't you?

Ha! I loathe Rand's work, and since I'm rather anti-capitalist, I'm sure she'd loathe me.

As for the Constitutionality of the Census, Article 1, Section 2. I'll wait while you look it up in your copy of the Constitution.What? You don't have a copy?

I was hosting this on-line copy at an FTP site before the Web existed, thanks.

Article 1, Section 2 authorizes the Feds to conduct an enumeration. That's a count. I don't mind being counted. It does not authorize an investigation into lifestyle. That's why I decline to answer anything on the census form beyond how many people live in my house.

Diverse courts, up to SCOTUS, have affirmed that the Census can ask whatever questions it feels germane to its mission.

The illiteracy of the courts does not change the meaning of the document.

As for the 'toilet' question. Statistics. Watching trends over the decades are very useful.

Except that "statistics" is not an excuse for demanding, under penalty of fine or imprisonment, personally-identifiable answers to questions about my plumbing. Anonymous voluntary surveys can gather the info.

It's not that I think there might be some conspiracy to, ahem, flush out certain groups based on toilet info -- though I would be concerned about local governments, or worse yet private homeowner associations, trying to use the data for code enforcement; it's a matter of principle. If you stand up for the little infringements, you're in practice when a big one comes along; if you're in the habit of doing whatever those in Authority ask of you without analysis, you will do horrible things at the request of anyone who can put on the attitude of power.

So, the bottom line is, you just proved yourself to be one of those morons who got their Official Libertarian Panties in a wad over a legitimate question in the Census.

Considering that census data was, in the past, used to herd innocent Americans into concentration camps, anyone who doesn't have at least a tiny drop of concern about census data is woefully ignorant.

"But that data is protected by law!" you protest. It was protected before WWII also. Then the law changed. Anyone who doesn't think that it's at least possible that it could change again is woefully ignorant.

I find it pretty hard to believe that they could do this (I'd love to see anyone here predict an eclipse without using a computer)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=antikythera-mechanism-eclipse-olympics

SB

Neither fat nor carbs are bad for you. It's the extreme exclusion of one or the other that is bad. You know vegetables, fruit and such are carbs, right?

Extremes work in the short term but long term your health will suffer.

This is the nutritionist line that comes up every time someone mentions a low card diet.

There are all the dread long term affects, never very specific, and always based on the assumption someone will stop eating carbs for the rest of their life, or never eat any carbs at all while on a low carb diet.

This just a perpetuation of the misunderstanding of the low carb diet. Yet its been proven in the Military, proven even by organizations that were vocal foes for years. Every serious study has supported the low-card diet.

Low card does not equal No-Carb. And even very-lo-card start-out plans (Atkins) doesn't mean forever. There are simply no studies to support the scare mongering about lo-carb diets.

FYI, the Monarch butterfly report showing harm was discredited due to the concentrations of pollen placed on the milkweed. It was way more than would normally by found in the wild.

And thank your for for the support.

That said, here are some links you might find informative;

Monsanto
more Monsanto
Yet more Monsanto (busy aren't they)
intersting site
Canola
GM canola in the wild
Possible wipe out of terrestrial plant life
another one

Have fun reading.

_

"However other things, like drugs, are not. There is on inherent harm to anyone other than the user."

Wrong. Drugs create wastes in the body and wastes that are expelled from the body that go back into the sewer system, same with drugs. We're pumping a shitload of chemicals into the environment without knowing their long term implications, the idea that the long term risks are known for when these chemicals get into the environment is laughable.

I agree with legalization but I've been reading about just assuming everything you don't know about chemicals or chemistry "must be ok" when you consider the environmental feedback mechanisms.

Environment Canada has officially declared bisphenol A (BPA) toxic. The ubiquitous chemical, found in the lining of nearly all cans used by the food and beverage industry, will have to be phased out in Canada.

BPA is vile stuff. Here's how Scientific American recently described it: "In recent years dozens of scientists around the globe have linked BPA to myriad health effects in rodents: mammary and prostate cancer, genital defects in males, early onset of puberty in females, obesity, and even behavior problems such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=just-how-harmful-are-bisphenol-a-plastics

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carter-white-house-solar-panel-array

Reagan also halved the Energy Department's conservation and alternative fuels budget, reduced research spending on photovoltaics by two-thirds, and removed energy tax credits for homeowners. I think Reagans track record on energy policies can basically sum up how he felt about those solar panels.

And regarding Bush: TFA that you link states that:

Since September, a grid of 167 solar panels on the roof of a maintenance shed has been delivering electricity to the White House grounds. James Doherty, an architect for the National Park Service, decided to install the systems a few years ago.

"A few years ago" from when they were installed in September 2002 would have been before Bush was even president. So how does he get credit for those solar panels, exactly?

Don't you feel stupid for posting that blindly partisan crap just a few seconds after this:

He removed solar thermal panels, probably much less efficient than the evacuated tubes used today, when the roof was being repaired in 1986:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DF113BF937A1575BC0A960948260 [nytimes.com]

I call BS on that. Those panels were removed to make a point, and a partisan point at that - killing alternative energy was one of Reagan's campaign points in 1980. He mentioned it in his frakking debate with Carter. Reagan described the entire alternative energy R&D program as a waste of money, killed it deader than a doornail, and this was part of that campaign. And, by the way, they were only
"donated" to a college because an admin at the college campaigned to get them from whatever GSA warehouse they were stuck in.

Yeah, which is why Reagan the consummate politician TOOK SIX YEARS to make what you think was a "partisan point".

Reaching a bit in your hate, are you?

Don't you feel stupid for posting that blindly partisan crap just a few seconds after this:

He removed solar thermal panels, probably much less efficient than the evacuated tubes used today, when the roof was being repaired in 1986:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DF113BF937A1575BC0A960948260 [nytimes.com]

I call BS on that. Those panels were removed to make a point, and a partisan point at that - killing alternative energy was one of Reagan's campaign points in 1980. He mentioned it in his frakking debate with Carter. Reagan described the entire alternative energy R&D program as a waste of money, killed it deader than a doornail, and this was part of that campaign. And, by the way, they were only
"donated" to a college because an admin at the college campaigned to get them from whatever GSA warehouse they were stuck in.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rain-forests-release-carb

Very, very good link and worthy of a bump. Granted, it doesn't mean we need to cut down trees to reduce CO2 but it does demonstrate that we can't just view the situation in such a simplistic "more trees -> less CO2" viewpoint.

1) Frankly, we don't know if there will be a government funded replacement for the shuttle ever.

False. The bill just passed by Congress sets a very specific requirement for the next government funded vehicle. It will be a heavy lift 75-100mt launcher.

The first purpose already has an international language. If someone in any culture hits their hand with a hammer, they all use the same sounds whether or not they ultimately say a curse word. Curse words add no value.

Turns out that swearing is a natural analgesic: Scientific American article on the subject

The second usage is just plain laziness. If you really want to put someone down, you should put some thought into it.

Thoughtless use is not the only use. Nobody could 'cleverly' refer to the case of Arkell v. Pressdram if Pressdram hadn't replied "fuck off".

Besides the fact that the entire idea boils down to "plant a shitload of trees and then bury them" it is a rather uninformed... well... brain-fart. Literally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost_pile#Industrial_systems

Mechanical sorting of mixed waste streams combined with anaerobic digestion or in-vessel composting, is called mechanical biological treatment, increasingly used in developed countries due to regulations controlling the amount of organic matter allowed in landfills.
Treating biodegradable waste before it enters a landfill reduces global warming from fugitive methane; untreated waste breaks down anaerobically in a landfill, producing landfill gas that contains methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

And the "treatment" basically boils down to inducing either pre-emptive anaerobic or aerobic process - which produces either methane or CO2.
Also, being all enthusiastic about the "After all, this is how all that coal and oil formed in the first place", author of the Washington Post story has obviously forgotten that natural gas (i.e. methane) is found in abundance wherever there is oil.

In the end, this could never come even close to being productive. Nor cheap.
HUGE amounts of (agriculturally usable) space to plant the trees/plants would be needed. We're talking about enough trees/plants to suck up all the CO2 produced by every power-plant.
Plants would need to be something that grows year-round, sucks up a lot of CO2, doesn't need fertilizer or nutrient rich soil and preferably grows vertically to take up less space. Hemp would probably be ideal, combined with pines or some other evergreen for the colder months.
Acres and acres would have to be planted for every single power-plant.
Plus, we are back to "carbon-credits" here as it would be physically impossible to plant all that shrubbery around the powerplants.

Then, more space would be needed to build the treatment plants that would suck out the carbon.
Also, energy and money to run it as it would probably not be breaking even monetarily. Would it be breaking even carbon-vise is a whole new ballgame.

Then, the now nearly inert waste would need to be transported to the landfills buried/piled there - i.e. more energy, more CO2 released, more money.

More you go into it, the more does the whole "as big as the plant itself, costing $700 mil." deal sound attractive.
Although, personally, I find the idea of burying the gas underground to be even dumber than the "piling garbage idea".

There was an article here on Slashdot 2+ months ago, about this article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=bully-or-victim-more-similar-than-w-10-07-10

I can't find the original slashdot story, but the gist of the study discussed that "bullies and victims" in school situations have similar problems with social skills and navigating social environments, but where the victims will tend to immerse themselves in schoolwork and studies as an escape, bullies will tend to act out in violent ways.

I wonder if there's not something similar at work here, indicating that at least some of these engineers-who-turn-terrorist are simply more prone to resorting to violence as an expression of their social frustrations? The point is made during the podcast that engineers are "high status" people in their society, but that many of the terrorists are from countries where there's a very constrained job market for their specialized skills, which means low opportunity and difficulty finding work. I'd say it's not that much of a stretch to hypothesize that someone with issues with social interaction who is frustrated by his circumstances ("I'm an engineer, my life wasn't supposed to turn out like this!") would then be more likely to turn to violence and nihilism as a response? The pattern exists in bullying studies, it certainly seems like this would be worth additional investigation.

But interestingly, testosterone seems to have the opposite effect on women.

Women who received a placebo but believed they had received testosterone offered fair money splits only 10 percent of the time, probably because they harbored a negative stereotype of testosterone's effects. Women who were given testosterone but thought it was a placebo, on the other hand, offered fair-share splits 60 percent of the time--significantly more often than those who correctly guessed they got testosterone (30 percent) or a placebo (50 percent).

The difference is 10%. Neither TFA or this FA mention sample size (boo!), but unless it was tragically low, this should be significant.

Bad math and Jenny McCarthy-style pseudo science (with a Fox question mark no less!).

I'm ashamed of you slashdot.

Fluorescents are 3x as efficient as incandescents. Yes, the efficiency is exaggerated on the labels because the bulbs don't quite put out as much light as the incandescents they are comparing against. But even if you correct for that fluorescents are far more efficient.

Heck, to prove it, just light up a bulb and touch it. Feel that heat on the incandescent? That's wasted energy that didn't go to light. Now touch an equivalently bright fluorescent bulb, it's only a little warm.

Power factor doesn't mean it's using more power than you would think from the wattage, it means it's using more CURRENT and less voltage. Anyway, changing phase like this (low power factor) doesn't mean that the meter isn't measuring correctly. If this were true, people would be strapping inductors onto the lines in their house right before the meter to get free power.

Power factor is only an issue for the electric company, they have to adjust for it. And they are adept at adjusting for it. This is evidenced by how the electric companies are very interested in you using CFLs, my electric company sends me mail about it twice a year. If the low power factors of CFLs presented problems to them, they wouldn't do this, would they?

If you don't like bluish CFLs, get yellowish ones. There are 3 colors, one is very yellow.

I agree LEDs still have limitations. I'd like to get some for my hallway but I"m not ready to make that move yet.

Dimmers are not suitable for fluorescent or LED bulbs, each should really be dimmed with a control signal instead of a rheostat. Hopefully this kind of technology will be common in homes soon so we can get rid of the buzzing from dimming fluorescent and LEDs.

The government is subsidizing your fossil fuels significantly. You don't see it in your bill, because it isn't being subsidized by giving you money to give the electric companies to pay for electricity. We massively subsidize oil drilling and production.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=how-much-in-subsidies-do-fossil-fue-2009-09-18

Your electric bill would be noticeably higher without these subsidies and solar would look correspondingly a little cheaper.

Foul on both of you. I see no citations in either case. I'd love for this to be an honest debate or discussion. In fact, GP even states desire for good honest debate, but I see nothing in the post to back up the various "facts."

As for parent... The Irrelevant replies I'll agree with because the associated points don't deal with facts. Observations and feelings don't count for much in a discussion talking about a lack of facts. As for the "wrong" entries, I'd love to see counter-examples. I'll certainly grant that in a 10 point post, it's hard to come up with enough sources.

I'll attempt to contribute something useful now:
Point #2, or the Hockey stick, considers more than just the last 10-15 years... To see the "stick" you have to look at the last 1000 years. Assuming measurements are proper, there is a noted effect in the last 100 years... Unfortunately, this does depend heavily on "proxy" indicators. There is a good size error field, which certainly contributes to the debate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3569604.stm
Point #4 may be mostly irrelevant, but I'd like to know why it's also wrong. The Global Cooling idea is certainly ingrained in the doubters, and it certainly does call into question what the research is indicating.
Point #5 does have an example in the Aral Sea. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=reclaiming-the-aral-sea&sc=rss

Be careful with those warm, fuzzy computer moments. The oxytocin that triggers may make you trust them too much. Think of it as a new sort of user vulnerability.

Most of the costs are "per year" mind you.

Price of childhood trauma from witnessing your parents gunned down in front of you and "other eventualities" was not included for obvious reasons.

BP dumped millions of gallons of oil into the ocean, what is going to be the result? You'd have to wait, probably some people will die from something related to this incident not counting the 11 dead already. So then what's the difference?

The difference is that if BP had to drill on their own property or on property of some actual owner and not a government "nobody's" property, they'd be more liable for any damage, they'd have to carry real insurance, they'd have to pay attention to their equipment and procedures because they costs would not have been capped by any corrupted gov't.

Because when you have neighbors and private properties, you can't ignore them as easily as when it's all government's and really nobody owns it, nobody cares about it.

My point about somebody going to jail for drugs is just that it appears a gov't can put a person it doesn't like to jail, so it's not impossible to punish individuals and it should be possible to punish corporations AND individuals, this entire idea of 'limited liability' is a nice trick played on all people, there is no such thing, it's always possible to find somebody responsible for any action.

People's lives are only important to gov't because those people pay taxes, they are really just resources to be milked. So in a way it is true, nobody cares if you got killed except for your family/friends. But I didn't say anything specific about how a Justice system should be structured and how such events should be approached, I am not a judge or a lawyer.

But I never said that Justice system must be funded by separate people case by case, it has to be funded from taxes obviously, I have problem with taxes on income, but not with levies on sales. Sales tax is the tax that gives incentive to produce and takes away incentive to consume, and that is what economy needs: more production, less consumption on borrowed/printed money.

People argue it's unfair to the poorest, the sales taxes are. Well, if you feel you are too poor to pay those taxes, you would have to file your income statement to prove that you do not have means to pay taxes and your taxes then can be returned to you. Instead what we do is we force everybody, including those who doesn't want to ask gov't for anything to waste their time and give up their Freedoms and file their income taxes, telling the gov't everything we do and letting the gov't decide how much it will let us keep of our money we earned, that's really turning people into slaves, taking away their ability to save and invest on their own, exercising authority over people's lives.

--
As to water supplies, again this is about class action lawsuit that can totally be filed on behalf of all the consumers of that water, not owners of that water, just consumers. There must be no liability caps and there must be personal responsibility. There are plenty of cases just like that one WITH gov't in power and supposedly taking care of this, but they are obviously not taking care of this because gov't can be lobbied and paid to give special privileges, which also destroys competition.

Government involvement into economy is truly the root of all evil, people are still learning about this.

Brian Greene himself, in his book, describes it as "The only game in town". Weinberg says the same thing - quoted here

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=1917

(I know Woit's blog reads non-partisan, but the quote is genuine).

Now, I think string theory is a great idea. It's really elegant, it has nice features, but personally I don't think it's right. I prefer background independence, and it's my belief (totally unsupported) that diff invariance is the main lesson of GR that we should take over to quantum mechanics. But, as someone working on other theories, I go to conferences and see brilliant ideas handwavingly dismissed because they're not strings.

If you listen to Smolin (again, not totally unbiased I admit) he tells of colleagues working on strings because they're the only way to get a job:
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-inelegant-universe

Or if you just talk to LQG researchers, like Rovelli, Ashtekar, Smolin, Friedel etc they'll all tell you about being told to give up on it and do strings.

I don't like title case because it adds extra complexity for the author and the reader. The author must be more selective of his title, lest confusion present itself in cases like the /. summary. A writer for a professional publisher would prefer a title such as 'USAF Establishes Falconry to Protect Falcon Wildlife.' It avoids connotation with the USAF 'Falcon' jet aircraft. But a normal sentence is not affected because of the allowable nuance. It's acceptable to write 'USAF establishes falconry to protect falcons.'

I don't agree wrt skimming. That was not the basic intent behind it to my limited understanding.

Try comparing websites to see which you prefer. Scientific American v. New Scientist is the first example that I could think of. I can barely read SA, and I AM an American.

Geothermal has a minor issue with causing earthquakes.

Actually, it's not correct.

It is genetic mutations that in the vast majority of cases lead to twins. The genetic mutations may not, however, be sufficient to be noticeable. ie: results in identical twins in spite of their DNA being slightly different.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical

Tracking one person around a city with RFID would be a nuisance.

For people driving, it could be pretty automatic using the RFIDs in your tires. They have all had them for some time now. It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to add the ability to read those through the sensor systems that input into traffic-light controllers.

There are already places using RFID to allow prepaid drivers through highway toll-gates.

Integration with your cell, On-Star system, and facial/plate recognition through traffic cams at no extra charge.

Speaking of exit monitoring... That sweater you bought has an RFID chip the size of a grain of sand, and a thread for an antenna. Thanks your using your shopping bonus buy loyalty membership card. Did the flu shot hurt a little more than usual? Gotta chip on your shoulder? Not exactly, but you're getting warm...

Thank you for shopping with us, and enjoying the milk. Our cows trust us with our oxytocin linked hormones, and so will you...

Yes, there seem to be medications getting into the water supply, but don't worry, we've optimized them. When you get your new remotely read digital water meter, we'll be able to optimize by address.

Thank you for putting on that tin-foil hat, we've found the resonant frequency and it helps us track you... by detecting incidental phase modulation of microwave signals reflected from it, we can hear what you hear.

Please get that TV/monitor with 240 Hz refresh. It's so much better for flashing subliminal messages... uhhh I mean WoW explosions and digital artifacts.

Don't worry... none of this is real. It's all a dream. Unfortunately that means you aren't real either. Oh well... you can wake up now

A seedling is capable of germinating without sunlight, because the fruit (the pea) has within it all the necessary nutrients to sprout.

Photosynthesis serves the function of producing sugar from sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide by transfering an electron through several enzymatic structures. It is conceivable that (in order of likelihood), a) the half-inch long seedling was still being fully fed from the fruit, b) simple diffusion of sugar from the blood stream was able to supply the plant with enough sugar to sustain itself, c) free radicals were able to diffuse into the seedling's tissue, donating an electron to the photosynthetic chain.

"Scientists Grow Plants without Sunlight or Water": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-grow-plants-wi

Trouble with the all-electrics is that, based on where you live, they may RAISE the amount of carbon released due to the fuel sources used to create electricity.
See this Scientific American article - they show a map of the entire US with the percentage mix of fuel sources by region
with projections as to how much more or less carbon will be emitted by plug-in hybrids.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-dirty-truth-about-plug-in-hybrids

I've held the belief that, at least for the next decade, something like the Volt will be the vehicle of choice for North American buyers - but the price will have to come down quite a bit. And, the shift to low-carbon fuel sources must accelerate by at least fivefold, everywhere.

So, the EEstor is a non-starter? Too bad, indeed, that could have been a game changer. It's good to see that there are folks out there who are doing everything they can to make electrics as convenient as petroleum vehicles, e.g. building charge stations, like Better Place or battery swaps in Tokyo.
I've heard a lot of naysaying about the space and hassle of swapping batteries but would it be anymore space-consuming and impractical than a busy car wash?

In this context the claimed proof of Riemann's Hypothesis we discussed a while back is relevant, as well as the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Somehow they found enough experts to point out the open issues and mistakes yet to sail around, even though these were 50-100 page pieces.

But in any case, these are major contributions, as they recombine and connect pieces of maths in new ways, and perhaps see them in a light no one ever has looked at before. The list of areas Vinay Deolalikar pulls his ideas from is just amazing, I mean who'd have thought of using statistical physics to solve a deterministic logic problem. Not me anyway. Maybe next time.

Scientific American did a good piece of limb regeneration back in April 2008(Regrowing Limbs: Can People Regenerate Body Parts? Preview - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=regrowing-human-limbs) Key points are that salamanders are best at complete limb regeneration but humans (and many other animals) scar instead of regenerating. However, if we turn off the scar system and prime the regeneration system, we may be able to regenerate whole limbs, too. One of the neat points made in the article is that salamanders cells seem to know how to re-build the lost limb with first growing a "baby" version. In other words, lose your limb and an "adult" one will regenerate without you having to wait 15 years for it to grow to the right size.

They've got a lot of catching up to do, 26% of land area on earth is used for grazing, not to mention an area almost as large to grow grains to feed cows. Large tracts of land are being dehydrated as water is pumped in from elsewhere to feed these cattle. It takes 7000lbs of water just to produce 7lbs of feedlot grain which in turn is sufficient to grow 1lb of beef.

The impact of the oil and automobile industries are small concerns in comparison. If you want to help the planet, eat less (ideally no) meat.

where before a mind might contemplate philosophy, literature, art, now you have an interrupt cycle which turns this person into a drug seeking zombie

I'll see that & raise it with a....

"If you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fucking high on drugs. The Beatles were so fucking high, they let Ringo sing a few songs." --Bill Hicks

Also, let's not forget Keith Richards.

Anyhow, I personally don't want the selling of cocaine, heroin & meth to be legalized or decriminalized. I do want personal possession of all drugs to be decriminalized, however.

This is exactly what they have done in Portugal, and it's been a smashing success across the board.

No, instead of actually doing something they were just praying. As they found out, prayer doesn't actually work: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=no-prayer-prescription

Concur that the whole lifecycle as well as all dependencies need to be checked here... for example, using an all-electric car in West Virginia actually increases your carbon footprint something like 2-3x over using a conventional gasoline automobile (because nearly 100% of WV's electricity is generated by coal). linky

New GE plants are tested by the FDA, the NIH, and the EPA.

I got this from "Whole Earth Discipline" by Stewart Brand, page 127. http://books.google.com/books?ct=result&id=1tTtAAAAMAAJ&dq=stewart+brand+whole+earth&q=national+institutes

He seems to be wrong. The NIH has no direct responsibility or authority over foodstuffs. They do regulate gene therapy for humans, but that's completely different thing.

Gene therapy is one area I fully support genetic engineering research, and application.

Here's the real story:
http://www.fda.gov/food/biotechnology/default.htm

The FDA considers GM foods basically safe, and looks over safety tests performed by the company selling the product to ensure they have not overlooked potential dangers. In cases that new proteins or pesticide resistance the burden of proof is much higher then swapping genes already in foodstuff.

Is that the same FDA that approved drugs that were later found to be bad?

I disagree with him on the things that fall outside his expertise of biology and ecology.

I don't see what his qualifications or expertize is on the Google or on the Amazon page. His wiki entry has some info but it doesn't say what those qualifications are either. It says he studied design at an art institute but doesn't say what degree he got if any.

Having said that I like that he worked with The Whole Earth Catalog and started the WELL (which I wanted to join). I wonder what he thinks of (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay, I love that song.

For instance, I'm not as convinced nuclear power is our only hope.

I'm a long way from being convinced nuclear power is any hope for energy, instead I believe the oppose and believe that the money used in it's research can better be used in other research. As it is the nuclear power industry is Hooked on Subsidies. The SciAm article A Solar Grand Plan says "A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." And the NREL's Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the wind potential of different regions of the US. One analysis I read of it concluded the Rockies have enough potential to supply the 48 contiguous states with electricity.

The video you link to brought up one problem with alternative energy, the lack of a reliable baseload. However geothermal energy can supply some. And until storage technology is developed that is large scale, natural gas fired and nuclear power plants can be kept online. However which ever way it goes I want to see an end to subsidies whether it's the billion dollars alternative energy gets or the billions more coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and petroleum get. And that includes external costs such as pollution.

Falcon

Oh, on the FDA, I want it abolished. The NIH, which I'd like privatized, can take over some of what the FDA does. As for drug approvals, I believe people should be able to take whatever drug they want without a prescription.

Scientific American recently did an article about the soil bacteria mycobacterium vaccae, which you're likely to be exposed to in a forest. Apparently it gives mice a temporary, but fairly large boost in maze solving ability. No clue if it applies to humans as well, but there's certainly no harm in getting out of the city every once in a while.

Josh Silver already has a better way to correct vision, and at a much cheaper cost too. No need for an optometrist either.
Movie demonstration: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/josh_silver_demos_adjustable_liquid_filled_eyeglasses.html
Text Article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=adjustable-eyeglasses-poor

My question about the whole benefits of yeast produced ethanol thing is whether, in the long term, it can actually produce enough energy to make the whole process carbon neutral. Can we power all the devices that produce the industrial byproducts with all of the energy from those by products?

The process is, or can be, carbon neutral. It can actually be carbon negative, taking more carbon out of the atmosphere than what's released when farmed then used. That's because the residue, what's left after the alcohol is produced, can be added to or buried in the soil keeping some carbon in the ground. A benefit is that that increases the fertility of the soil so more can be grown on poor land.

However is there enough land to grow crops to produce alcohol? Or Diesel fuel? I doubt it.

Does it even make sense, in the long term, to invest the time, money, and fossil fuels in the process of developing this type of technology (biofuels, in general) in favor of more direct methods of harnessing the Sun's energy (like solar panels (and thus necessarily batteries/fuel cells), and sort of by extension, fusion)?

This is my own opinion, which others also have, is that future energy needs will require a number of different energy sources to be developed. In warm arid areas algae can be farmed to produce hydrogen and or biofuels. Other biofuels such as this can be produced on land where food crops will not grow. In places where ground source heat is close to the surface geothermal energy can be used. Geothermal energy can even be used as a baseload. Where sunny solar, concentrated solar, PVs, and solar thermal energy can be used. Then where windy, wind turbines can be used.

SciAm has the article A Solar Grand Plan concluding solar energy "could supply 69 percent of the U.S.'s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050." As regards wind the NREL Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details the wind potential of various regions of the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind potential to provide the 48 contiguous states with electricity. So what's needed next is a national smart grid and baseloads. According to another SciAm article currently blackouts, brownouts, and other power losses cost US businesses $80 Billion a year so it makes sense to build a new grid and make it smart. Then for the baseload, as stated above geothermal can provide some with Natural Gas fired power plants supplying more until a cleaner baseload source is developed.

Falcon