Slashdot Mirror

Actually, no, there are laws saying that you can't put up your own satellites without permission from your government. Even if you don't launch them from your own country. https://www.technologyreview.c...

In the US, you need FCC permission to operate, and FAA permission to launch.

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/

There are also international treaties governing the use of space. By agreement, they take precedence over a government's laws if the government signs the treaty.

For example, geosynchronous orbit is a limited resource. Governments need to agree on how to share it.

Missing link: https://www.technologyreview.c...

On the other hand - unlike municipal and other laws that prevent you from stringing your own cable on telephone poles or under roads: absolutely nothing is stopping you from putting up your own satellites.

Actually, no, there are laws saying that you can't put up your own satellites without permission from your government. Even if you don't launch them from your own country. https://www.technologyreview.c...

In the US, you need FCC permission to operate, and FAA permission to launch.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/

In the 2008 political season the Obama campaign bragged about their data analytics and social networking, something they continued to brag about for 2012 (reference: https://www.technologyreview.c... ).

I do not remember if they used the same firm as the Trump campaign (Cambridge Analytica ) or not, but they did brag about scraping millions of users from Facebook.

The only major difference I am aware of, is that one campaign was loved and supported by both Facebook and the news networks, while the other is hated and reviled.

For Obama it was 'marketing genius' and for Trump is was a crime against Facebook users.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

There is a concise, succinct summary at Technology Review's “The Download” page (link below):

DeepMind’s AI is predicting how much energy Google’s wind turbines will produce

Google’s subsidiary DeepMind has created a machine-learning model to boost the use of wind power by predicting its likely output 36 hours ahead.

Drawbacks: Although the adoption of wind power has grown thanks to cheaper turbine costs, it will always suffer from unpredictability. That limits it compared with other energy sources that can reliably deliver power at a set time.

An experiment: To help solve this problem, last year DeepMind started building algorithms to boost the efficacy of Google’s wind farms in the US, according to a blog post. Researchers trained a neural network on weather forecasts and past turbine data, so it could predict power output 36 hours ahead. On this basis, the model recommends how to allocate power to the grid a full day in advance. This boosted the “value” of Google’s wind farms by about 20%, DeepMind claims, though it hasn’t really specified what form what value takes, or how it’s measured.

Implications: While it’s only been tested out internally so far, it’s not hard to imagine Google hoping to sell this technology to wind farm operators. And it’s another boost to Google’s carbon-free credentials.

Posted by Charlotte Jee
February 27th, 2019 7:28AM

Ref: https://www.technologyreview.c...

There is a concise, succinct summary at Technology Review's “The Download” page (link below):

DeepMind’s AI is predicting how much energy Google’s wind turbines will produce

Google’s subsidiary DeepMind has created a machine-learning model to boost the use of wind power by predicting its likely output 36 hours ahead.

Drawbacks: Although the adoption of wind power has grown thanks to cheaper turbine costs, it will always suffer from unpredictability. That limits it compared with other energy sources that can reliably deliver power at a set time.

An experiment: To help solve this problem, last year DeepMind started building algorithms to boost the efficacy of Google’s wind farms in the US, according to a blog post. Researchers trained a neural network on weather forecasts and past turbine data, so it could predict power output 36 hours ahead. On this basis, the model recommends how to allocate power to the grid a full day in advance. This boosted the “value” of Google’s wind farms by about 20%, DeepMind claims, though it hasn’t really specified what form what value takes, or how it’s measured.

Implications: While it’s only been tested out internally so far, it’s not hard to imagine Google hoping to sell this technology to wind farm operators. And it’s another boost to Google’s carbon-free credentials.

Posted by Charlotte Jee
February 27th, 2019 7:28AM

Ref: https://www.technologyreview.c...

Correct link:
Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked

For the rest of us...right, you're going to use your card to buy a candy bar? Or a sex toy?

Oh, and btw, slashdotters, from MIT:
"Once hailed as unhackable, blockchains are now getting hacked"
https://www.technologyreview.c...

You found an unpublished paper by an economist!!

Yeah that would be the same guy who showed the hockey stick was B.S. while thousands climate scientists were pushing it like the second coming

https://www.technologyreview.c...

So 20+ years ago a researcher published a graph (that got a lot of publicity), and the underlying math had some minor statistical errors that didn't actually affect the result much. And methods without the flaws have consistently produced similar graphs since.

Therefore no global warming!

Can we try "appeal to the completely irrelevant"?

But thank you for the Ad Hominem and the appeal to authority.

So you misunderstand how "Ad Hominem" work. You can criticize the person's expertise or character when it's relevant to their argument.

COMPLETELY screw up "appeal to authority". It's appealing to an authority in an unrelated field that is the problem. For instance, appealing to the authority of a climate scientist about climate scientist, you're doing it right. Appealing to the authority of an economist on climate scientist... now you're straying towards "appeal to authority".

Now how do you follow up your complete ignorance of logical fallacies?

Did you want to make it any clearer you don't have the intellectual horsepower to discuss the topic on your own ?

LOL

You found an unpublished paper by an economist!!

Yeah that would be the same guy who showed the hockey stick was B.S. while thousands climate scientists were pushing it like the second coming

https://www.technologyreview.c...

But thank you for the Ad Hominem and the appeal to authority. Did you want to make it any clearer you don't have the intellectual horsepower to discuss the topic on your own ?

It is not obvious to me that "after developing industry and copying technology" the next step is inevitable progression to original solutions. Do you have any evidence of anything being developed in-house in China that isn't copied?

It borders on an ethnic insult to argue that 1.4 billion people are incapable of coming up with something original. Even though they're short on political freedom they have lots of bright scientists and engineers. Take high speed rail for example, they did import technology from France, Germany, Japan and Canada 15 years ago but it's now all in-house and they have 60%+ of the high speed rail in the world and 2+ billion customers per year. They have the world's longest HSR line, the world's fastest HSR line and the only commercially operating maglev line in the world. In short, they're market leaders by a huge margin. As much as /. is in love with SpaceX the Chinese actually launched more rockets in 2018 than the US did. Of course their rockets are much like existing rockets but it's not like they bought a design from Russia and called it theirs. But hey, it's only rocket science...

The deathless prose quoted in TFS was burped up by one Erin Winick, who, believe it or not, bills herself as an Associate Editor for MIT's Technology Review newsletter. This despite her seeming inability to comprehend basic English grammar or unwillingness to proofread the writing that appears over her byline. Or both.

We truly live in an age of wonder - as in "I wonder who hired this illiterate dimwit ... ?

Right wing Twitter users thought back to when Obama told laid-off coal miners that they should just learn to code, and decided that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

"President Obama has, as part of his Power Plus Plan, already put $75 million on the table for retraining coal workers. And the Solar Training Network aims to help train 75,000 people for solar jobs by 2020, though that is not limited to retraining programs, or to helping coal workers specifically." -- Can We Really Retrain Coal Workers for Jobs in Solar

The least you could do is get your talking point memes right. Clearly Obama is a socialist who wants to prop up the solar industry with subsidies for coal miners by offering up tax payer money. The bastard! If Obama had wanted people to code, he'd push for it in schools (where he did) and suggest everyone should learn to code (not specifically for a job but as a general skill of the future). The bastard!

Seriously, if anything you could complain about the left-wing media mocking the notion that coal workers could be retrained. And assholes like Bloomberg saying, “You’re not going to teach a coal miner to code.” -- Can You Teach a Coal Miner to Code, but I can see how you could confuse Bloomberg saying *not* to coding with Obama saying something about solar and offering money for retraining.

Having said that, Bloomberg was right to say, “Mark Zuckerberg says you teach them to code and everything will be great. I don’t know how to break it to you . but no.” It's not per se a lack of jobs but getting enough people trained in the right things...and rampant ageism in the industry. Mark Zuckerberg, of course, just wants everyone to code so he can get cheaper workers because of a glut in supply. The media is pretty useless because it doesn't know where the future is going to even know if retraining coal miners for coding, solar, or whatever would actually benefit them.

But, yea, if you want to say there's some goose that's good for the gander, I would say there's some truth to it. It's clearly, though, harassment then. It's not people trying to offer sound advice. If you want to offer assistance to journalists to learn to code, that'd be a whole other thing. Clearly, though, you just want to rub it in because you apparently hate journalists. Perhaps you hate them as much as you hate coal miners.

Machine learning doesn't work like that. You feed data into it and it works out the algorithms itself.

Algorithms can most certainly exhibit bias.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

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

https://towardsdatascience.com...

They already are

"Thank you Mr. Trump."

The biggest problem here is supporting Donald Trump, not natural gas, not even rising emissions. Why?

Trump has repeatedly and vociferously supported coal. Natural gas is an easy and logical win versus using coal. It's literally the easiest thing you can do: Convert coal fired electrical plants to natural gas. Natural gas isn't an endpoint in an green economy but it certainly helps.

Yet Trump isn't for natural gas, or solar, or wind, or geothermal, or nuclear, or conservation. He's for "big, beautiful, clean coal". That's rather like being for "honest cheating" in sports. Trump is like an imaginary blanket to keep you warm at night: If only you really believed, you'd be warm! Trump blames you and your lack of faith for being cold.

But isn't this all theoretical? I mean Trump hasn't made empty promises based upon wishful thinking, has he? Oh yes he has:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608191/clean-coals-flagship-project-has-failed/

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Very political yep, the wrong side used the data so it must be somehow illegal.

According to a 2009 article from MIT.

The ones in Shanghai right now have been on the road for three years without incident, without failure whatsoever, which in the bus industry is phenomenal,” says Clare, who adds that his company is in talks with New York City, Chicago, and some towns in Florida about trialing the buses. “It will end up being a third generation of the product, which will give 20 miles [of range per charge] or better."

https://www.technologyreview.c...

...stuff that doesn't work, like emitting less CO2. We can't. We continue to show it, over and over.

Instead, put efforts toward something like this:

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Make that work, put our money in that, build 'em maybe $750 million worth a year all over the globe, and in 100 years we'll be where we need to be maybe. Certainly the world together could afford $750 million a year?

Trying to limit CO2 just makes the prices of everything go up, which punts a bunch more people into poverty, where they die. That is, poverty is deadly. Smoking will take maybe 7 years off your life, but poverty can take 10. Don't do things that make things expensive for the poor, or make middle class people into poor class people. Do something like this and then just the rich and otherwise well-to-do can finance it and leave the poor and middle-classers the hell out of it.

Another potential issue is that China plays a lot faster and looser around ethics than most Western nations. Want to do human genetic experimentation with minimal oversight? How about accelerate your AI research with even looser data privacy and controls than the already weak protections by American tech companies?

...and IBM had a patent (or at least a major tech announcement) regarding a microfluidics system. It was a few years back and concerned using water in IC chips. There are obvious compatibility problems with water in an electrical chip but IBM claimed to have solved those.

Might be this announcement here:

https://www.cytofluidix.com/ibm-researchers-try-to-build-thermal-management-into-microfluidic-chip-designs/

They also sponsor microfluidics research in other areas, especially medical diagnostics:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/416410/ibms-move-in-microfluidics/
https://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/precision_diagnostics/

You should check out Taiwan's crowd sourced government stuff https://www.technologyreview.c...

Energy is going to become more expensive no matter what mix of energy we use. Might as well install as much solar as possible. Arizona is the sunniest state in the Union and installing solar should be a no brainer. We still need a way to store that energy. I hope molten salt batteries, or train car kinetic energy storage or something else will solve that problem. Vote Yes 127

China has succeed achieving this years ago and from space too. When have American scientists got in the culture of making false and exaggerated claims?

I meant to include this link... slashdot does not permit editing so... here it is:
https://www.technologyreview.c...

> when you measure the polarization state of one of the photons it appears to instantly effect the polarization state of the other photon (no matter the distance). It does not matter what photon you measure first, the state seems to instantly impact the state of the other photon

Feynman's explanation was that it was the SAME photon. i.e. There was no "spooky action at a distance."

The funny thing is that the EPR paradox is much older then previously thought.

I would read this and chill-out

A 2014 analysis by the financial advisory firm Lazard captures the economics holding back nuclear expansion. Lazard pegs the cost of building nuclear capacity in the United States at $5.4 million to $8.4 million per megawatt. Adding operating, maintenance, and fuel costs yields an average lifetime cost of $92 to $132 for every megawatt-hour generated. That is far above the unsubsidized costs of utility-scale solar power ($72 to $86 per megawatt-hour) and onshore wind ($37 to $81 per megawatt-hour).

[Nuclear] is a plausible scenario only if governments, reactor suppliers, and plant operators deliver on a long list of proposed policy changes and performance improvements.

In a nutshell, nuclear sucks compared to everything else.

It wasn't that long ago that Nokia and Motorola had mobile phone factories in the US - I was there in the 90's. Many computers were also made in the US before. The manufacturing of mobile phones is becoming more and more automated. Even in the Foxconn factory (I've been there too), they are using fewer and fewer workers. The main things making the cost of manufacturing in the US higher than China are regulations related to pollution and taxes. The labor cost in China is getting very close to the US - close enough that it is already making no sense to make some things there and then ship them all the way to the other side of the planet.

China stopped being the lowest labor cost place to manufacture for many industries, years ago. An analysis in 2016 found the cost to assemble iphones in the US would only add roughly 5% to the cost - this was 2 years ago. My only point is entire industries that were in the US and EU 25yrs ago could be moved back home.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

We can dump iron in the oceans as a fertilizer which produces bigger fish harvests and sinks co2.

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

We could use calcium too.
https://www.technologyreview.c...
https://www.wired.com/2008/07/...

We could farm Kelp.
https://www.scienceforums.net/...

But unless we stop emitting co2 this will not be enough. We should really consider Thorium reactors especially if they are as safe as scientists are claiming.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/...

Sorry about the quality of the links but it should be a good starting point for some research. None of these by themselves will be enough but we have many options even terrible ones like reflective aerosols.

~matthekc

That's hilarious. The scale of electronic collection operations increased dramatically under Obama. Or do you think the Utah Data Center was built for shits and giggles?

But regardless, this is not/should not be a partisan issue, and one of the most compelling reasons to limit offensive operations and strengthen vulnerability disclosure rules is that we all use the same shit. If the NSA or other TLA is actively exploiting vulnerabilities in common platforms such as OSes, routers, or cellular infrastructure, then they are, by definition, leaving America's identical technology vulnerable to the exact same attacks by our adversaries. By leaving ourselves vulnerable, we are trading access to our own secrets -- from classified government information, to corporate trade secrets, to political party internals -- for access to information that we should reasonably be able to collect through other means. It's shooting ourselves in the foot and hoping the ricochet hits our enemies.

The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid.

Islands typically have much higher electricity prices and small demands, and still, none have successfully transitioned to wind and solar. When are people going to wake up and look at the evidence? All over the world, aggressive deployment of renewables has a terrible record in actually offsetting carbon emissions. The genuinely green nations are using a combination of nuclear and/or hydro.

Desalination plants are ineffective, even more costly, and there are over a dozen better options including using the power to convince farmers to not waste so much water.

Interesting eco-mantra not borne out by Israel's experience with the same issue:

MIT Technology Review

You're making assumptions on how the system works. It's actually beautifully simple, as the chemicals are mixed right into the jet fuel. Thus, you don't really need any special equipment on the airplane, as the chemicals are stored right in the fuel tanks and dispersed per the normal operation of the aircraft. Their is no separate tanks, and the ground crews and pilots have no need to know about the system at all.

You mean the extremely volatile jet fuel? What's the mix of fuel and chemicals? By you definition of "normal operation of the aircraft" you are asserting that dumping the fuel (which the plane needs to fly) is the only way to get the chemicals out. First of all, now you are further diluting the chemicals by mixing them in the fuel. Second the dumping of fuel is something that pilots and crew and passengers would tend to notice. Third, it doesn't reduce the need for fuel to carry extra weight but it complicates the ability of pilots and airlines to do the necessary calculations. Right now, the weight of the cargo and plane is factored against the weight of fuel for simplicity. If the fuel is diluted, that dramatically affects the calculations.

Admittedly, this did have one big snag, as it is a bit tricky to get the chemicals to survive the extreme heat of the engines. However, the breakthrough came with the newer, more fuel efficient engines that also happen to run a bit cooler, allowing the chemicals to pass through the engine and be dispersed. This is why, a few years back, all the airlines were quick to replace all their planes in the name of "fuel efficiency" and being green.

Oh, you're saying it comes through the combustion chamber. Well that's address your points: 1) combustion would destroy the chemicals. 2) More fuel efficient engines does not mean "cooler" combustions. Nowhere do I read that one way to make engines more efficient is to lower the combustion chamber temperature. Typically combustion chambers are at 2000C. Lowering that a few hundred C still would combust any other chemicals 3) the new designs bypass more air not fuel. 4) the airlines replaced their planes as they were retired because it saves them money in the long run. No airline went out and just replaced all their planes in a day.

If you crunch the actual numbers, you'll see that while the newer planes do use a bit less fuel and therefore are slightly cheaper to run, it doesn't really make economic sense to replace an aircraft that costs hundreds of millions of dollars and still has useful life in it for what amounts to rather meager fuel savings.

Again no airline just went out and replaced their airplanes in a day because the new models got better fuel economy. What they did was replace their one plane at a time when those plane were set to retire. What airlines would do is change their plans when it came to buying new aircraft. For example, an airline could convert some of their 757 orders to more 737s back in the day. Or an airline getting more Airbus 320s that are more fuel efficient than the 737 Next Gen and before the 737 Max was released.

Which is why, of course, the major cargo carriers (that don't disperse chemtrails) were more than happy to buy up all these "obselete" aircraft at bargain basement prices.

First of all what is your proof that major cargo carriers don't disperse chemtrails? This is a UPS plane with contrails. Second, whether airlines were spraying chemtrails or not would not affect the major cargo carriers decision to buy older aircraft. They buy older aircraft because they are cheaper and their requirements for a airplane are far less than a passenger commercial airline. Also the major cargo carrier buy new aircraft all the time to meet their needs. For example

There will be situations where the autonomy must deliberately kill people.

Like what? Robocars only need one rule: if there is an obstacle ahead (any obstacle) and there isn't time to safely drive around it, then hit the brakes and hope for the best.

Way overly simplified There is an ethical dillemma that pops up from time to time that occurs in driving. The unavoidable accident where there is no good decision, where each decision will lead to death of people. Humans caught in such a dilemma have to make these decisions - and slamming on the brakes might be the worst possible decision Maybe hitting the two bicyclists coming the other way will kill less people than running into the10 bicyclists in your lane as you round the blind corner. Maybe driving off the cliff will only kill you. Which will it be?

MIT has a good read on this: https://www.technologyreview.c...

...And here is the REAL problem with Musk and his massive LiON battery banks. Cobalt.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Yeah, it MAY be solved and then again. H2 solves it now and for a long time. yes, fuel cells use platinum... About as much as is used in a catalytic convertor.

so we stop making catalytic convertors and start making fuel cells. net zero change

In the end retail customers and especially the poorest retail customers will pay through the nose, because they are paying both for the backup generating capacity AND the expensive solar. Meanwhile industry will get free electricity throughout the day because of the vast oversupply of renewable energy ...

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Win win, fuck the poor, reward the rich. Until the poor can't get any more loans to buy shit with, but worry about that later.

I've only been doing this for a couple od decades. I'm sure that this will be good.

[First,] You can't patent things

The USPTO explicitly disagrees with you ("35 U.S.C. 101 defines the four categories of invention that Congress deemed to be the appropriate subject matter of a patent: processes, machines, manufactures and compositions of matter. The latter three categories define 'things' or 'products' while the first category defines 'actions' (i.e., inventions that consist of a series of steps or acts to be performed)."). You can, in fact, patent things.

"[Second,] You can't patent ideas

Good thing that I didn't mention patenting ideas. I mentioned patenting a genetically modified plant. Which, again, you can, in fact, do.

"And thirdly, you can't patent the obvious.

Merely calling something obvious does not make it so. How do you propose to do it? With what gene, inserted where within the genome, using what promoter, via what vector or editing process?

"A general incentive does not make obvious a particular result, nor does the existence of techniques by which those efforts can be carried out." In re Deuel, 51 F.3d 1552 (Fed.Cir.1995). Trying "each of numerous possible choices until one possibly arrived at a successful result, where the prior art gave either no indication of which parameters were critical or no direction as to which of many possible choices is likely to be successful" is not a disqualifying sort of "obviousness," and neither is "explor[ing] a new technology or general approach that seemed to be a promising field of experimentation, where the prior art gave only general guidance as to the particular form of the claimed invention or how to achieve it." In re Kubin, 561 F.3d 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2009)

It might be possible to patent the specific process of copying the genes from one organism to another (if it's novel enough), but not the result and not the idea of doing so.

Yes you can (see claim 24). And the Supreme Court of the U.S. will even let you enforce the patent.

I'm surprised that they didn't engineer some way to at least superficially clean the panels. The panels are hinged and they were folded in transit. Obviously something so delicate wasn't spring loaded to smack open. Could they really not reprogram the servos to have the panels tilt up and down to let the sand fall off?

Dust sticks electrostatically. I think the panels are fixed, but the rover can tilt. Unfortunately you really you can't shake it enough to overcome the electrostatic attraction of the dust.

To actually clean the panel (rather than just leave it to occasional opportunistic car washes by martian dust-storms) the only ways appear to be: to actually smack it (vibrate it) enough to overcome the electrostatic dust attraction OR use some sort of electric field to manipulate the dust.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Yes, you may be saving energy in the short term. But are you really saving all that much after mining for the exotic raw materials to build these cars, ewaste, highway repair due to heavier vehicles, heavier load on our electrical infrastructure which requires higher generation of electricity(see fossil fuel still being used).

here is one source, I have stuff to do this morning or I could find some more

From what I can read this alleged bias has been rebutted:

https://www.theatlantic.com/te...

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Here's one for $44 trillion, but that is 2014, just 4 years ago. The figure I heard was what the AGW alarmists were saying about 15 years ago.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

Oh and it's not a fuel either. It's just a storage medium, like a battery except more dangerous, unreliable, and expensive.

If you think it's a fuel, link me to a hydrogen well or hydrogen mine.

https://www.popularmechanics.c...
https://www.triplepundit.com/2...
http://collegeofcuriosity.com/...
https://www.technologyreview.c...
https://phys.org/news/2006-12-...

Yeah, sorry, the party is over. The cheap energy blowout of the post-WWII techno-bonanza is coming to a close. Your children are already expected to have a shorter life span than you and will likely face a 19th century existence, but without cheap coal.

Related to this, Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that Autopilot is safer than human drivers.

This claim is extremely exaggerated for a few reasons.

First of all, Musk is comparing autopilot to a human driver crash rates for ALL existing vehicles and ALL types of drivers.

But Tesla drivers are very much a self-selected subset of all drivers. Drivers of other similar expensive luxury type cars are quite a lot safer drivers than average.

Furthermore, vehicles in the similar price range to Teslas have many advanced safety features, ranging from crash-resistant construction to automated collision avoidance systems. So this type of vehicle is a few times safer than the average vehicle--which include older vehicles, pickup trucks, etc etc etc.

Finally, "Autopilot" is most typically used on the type of roads that are quite a lot safer than the average road. These roads are roughly 2X safer than average.

Putting this all together, Tesla "Autopilot" is approximately 10X more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than similar vehicles with similar drivers operating on similar roads. More detailed analysis here and here.

This type of analysis might go over the heads of the average citizen, but it's the type of thing Slashdot readers should be able to get their minds around.

And Musk really needs to get some pushback from the technical community when he makes this type of unsupportable claim.

Honestly it is a pretty amazing accomplishment that Tesla's Autopilot is even in the same ballpark as human drivers. It does give some reasonable hope that technical advances will be able to advance automated driving until it is actually safer than humans (though Tesla systems are unlikely to ever get there, as their sensors simply are not up to the task).

But still the "Autopilot" system is a whole order of magnitude more dangerous than similar vehicles with similar drivers on similar roads.

Both Tesla drivers and the general public need to understand that. When you switch on "Autopilot" you are literally trading convenience for safety.

There was a recent item about carbon capture with peridotite (but I am linking to an older story about it). Peridotite exists in huge surface formations in several areas of the world.

Perhaps an additional stage could be added to cement manufacture wherein the CO2 released is passed through a second kiln loaded with quarried peridotite to capture the CO2, producing calcium carbonate (again). Since calcium carbonate (limestone) is a starting material processed in the first kiln it could possible be recycled to make more cement. This would mean that you would build the plants near peridotite deposits, and import only a starting amount of calcium carbonate to the site.

> While there is a lot of tactics and strategy to work out, a huge part of a game like this is simply the ability to click on and order units about as fast as possible

= Short Answer =

TL:DR; False. Even 19,000 APM won't save you.

= Long Answer =

First off, a few terms so those that are't familiar with StarCraft aren't completely lost:

* APM = Acronym for Actions Per Minute. How fast you can click.
* micro -- ability to control your units individually (i.e. tactical positioning of units taking advantage of how many "game frames" they take to execute rotations and moves, along with taking advantage of speed and range of units)
* macro -- ability to produce units and keep all of your production buildings busy
* multitasking -- how well you can do both, and adapt to new strategy

Short term, someone with superior micro will destroy someone with better macro.
Long term, someone with better macro will destroy someone with better micro.

How well you can balance micro and macro IS what the game is about.

> Is there something I don't understand about the game here?

Yes. You are under the assumption that ALL you need to do win is have a high APM, which is false. While there is SOME truth to -- better players have a higher APM -- it ISN'T an absolute.

i.e. Spam clicking can get you up to ~400 APM. That doesn't mean you are efficient at micro and macro -- only that you can click like crazy.

The 2nd TL:DR; High APM doesn't tell me how good your macro is!

Correlation != Causation. A high APM suggests you are a better player; it does NOT guarantee it.

During the lifetime of a game your APM can and will vary. From the link above:

You can play the first 5 minutes of the game with perfect macro with 20 APM, then progress to 150APM by mid to end game and avg it out as 50

Another part of the problem is that APM has no standardized calculation; ergo some players use eAPM -- effective Actions Per Minute -- instead, which drop redundant commands

For example:

S...1...2...X

If a unit starts at 'S' and the user clicks on the sequence 1, 2,X -- that is 3 clicks -- where the first two are redundant. Does that mean they have a high APM? Technically yes, BUT the eAPM is closer to the "actual" APM.

The differences between low vs high APM has been debated for ages. There are:

* Bad players with low APM -- we don't care about these
* Bad players with high APM -- proof #1 that APM isn't as important as Strategy
* Good players with high APM
* Good players with low APM -- proof #2 that APM isn't as important as Strategy.

If you have two good players who can balance micro/macro then you'll see some VERY interesting, evenly matched games. The APM is only an indicator of potential problems.

> A computer could very obviously do this faster than any human unless it was artificially limited.

You are forgetting that all the "hard" AIs in RTS games typically cheat in 2 ways:

* They can see the entire map (doesn't have "for of war" -- it knows instantly where your base is without scouting)
* They are given more starting resources and/or can harvest resources faster

In Starcraft 2, Elite AI often has like 300 - 500 APM. With the HOTS (Heart of the Swarm) expansion Blizzard replaced the "Insane" with "Elite AI". The old AI is a che

Revenue is up significantly across the board. They've got tens of thousands of robots working for them not requiring a wage.
If anything, I'd say this is in preparation for dropping reliance on the US Postal service due to Trump's inflammatory rhetoric.

I'm really bad at this? You linked to a deflection from the author and vendor of the system. Here's why it actually doesn't disprove the problems pointed out in the propublica article, it merely tries to reframe them in a way that looks less damning.

I mean, it should be obvious that something is wrong when the counterpoint basically boils down to "we're discriminating against people in a way that turns out to be statistically correct overall, therefore it's not wrong." So much for treating people like individuals!

How can you even aspire to achieve colorblindness (or as I like to call it, "babby's first attempt at not being a racist asshat through pretending that different ethnicities and cultures with histories aren't a thing") if you're willing to justify discrimination by painting whole ethnic groups with one broad brush? In your previous post you casually brushed away the legacy of centuries of slavery and segregation, can't you see that this thinking is sending you down a bad path?

Here are some citations that contradict you and support my claims

"Germany’s carbon emissions haven’t declined for nearly a decade and the German Environment Agency calculated that Germany emitted 906 million tons of CO2 in 2016 — the highest in Europe — compared to 902 million in 2015. And 2017’s interim numbers suggest emissions are going to tick up again this year.

Germany is now in serious danger of hitting neither its 2020 nor its 2030 emissions targets, the very benchmarks that it browbeat other nations into adopting at previous climate conferences. Leading German think tanks agree that Germany can’t, at its current rate, slash emissions enough in the next two years to reduce its carbon output by 40 percent (compared to its 1990 levels) or 55 percent by 2030. "

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/...

MIT review:

"Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables

Even as Germany adds lots of wind and solar power to the electric grid, the country’s carbon emissions are rising. Will the rest of the world learn from its lesson?"

https://www.technologyreview.c...