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Better yet, we need the water extractor from Tank Girl that reclaims ALL the water in someone's body. Then use it on you for bringing up Waterworld.

Also ripped off from Dune.

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Purification

I did a little bit of wire-wrapping myself to build an I/O system for Commodore equipment, but not much, and wire wrapping was going out of style even then. Good points about knowledge of physics etc. as a layer below. I do not know off-hand how to make a transistor chemically in practical terms, for example.

As for difficulty of lifework, it's a "standing on the shoulders of giants thing". One success (like with Doug) can enable the next, like the systems Doug Engelbart and Alan Kay and others pioneered in turn support my own ambitions. Compared to about thirty years ago when I started this quixotic scheme, self-replicating space habitats almost seem like an easy reach at this point (even if still decade or two away from a seed launch). Still a lot of work, but I can see how it could possibly happen by a global networked effort, as described here:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/SSI_Fernhout2001_web.html
"We believe that thousands of individuals (such as the people at this conference) are ready and willing to make compromises in their own lives to nurture the space settlement dream at the grassroots level - but in a more direct way than has been attempted thus far. In particular, individuals could collaborate on the iterative development of detailed space habitat designs and simulations using nothing more than the computers they already have at home for playing games. While excellent progress has been made on the general engineering design of space habitats (in terms of basic physics and proof-of-concept projects), many of the details remain to be worked out. There have been individual attempts in some of these areas (e.g., the SSI Matrix effort), but a persistent collaborative community has not yet coalesced around constructing a comprehensive and non-proprietary library of such details."

More floundering efforts towards that:
http://www.openvirgle.net/

A better success by others?
http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://openluna.org/
http://mars-sim.sourceforge.net/

Starting around age 63, my advisor at Princeton, George A. Miller, started plugging away at the (effectively) open source WordNet project and accomplished a lot in 20 years. WordNet underlies much of Google's success. My indirect hand in that:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/openvirgle/PdK35mSNoSU/3zLpZuljHiMJ

But likewise, I can credit his patient systematic work and decision to open source his effort as setting a good example for me.

And, at some point a system can begin to reflect on itself. I agree how little we know individually about how to make stuff in a complex technological environment (compared to day, a family farm, with self-replicating seeds). Thus my suggestion of something like "OSCOMAK" using computer networks to systematize such knowledge on how to make stuff.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
"The OSCOMAK project will foster a community in which many interested individuals will contribute to the creation of a distributed global repository of manufacturing knowledge about past, present and future processes, materials, and products. ... The Oscomak project is an attempt to create a core of communities more in control of their technological destiny and its social implications. No single design for a community or technology will please everyone, or even many people. Nor would a single design be likely to survive. So this project endeavors to gather information and to develop tools and processes that all fit together conceptually like Tinkertoys or Legos. The result will be a library of possibilities that individuals in a community can use to achieve any

You are claiming essentialism, that is, that men and women are essientially different. This is patently false to anyone who actually interacts with and respects women. The page I linked on the Geek Feminism Wiki also includes some scientific results on the topic.

It did not. It was added on in 1981 after ESB was released. Here is an article on Wookiepedia that explains it. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Opening_crawl

From Wookiepedia: "When originally released in 1977, the first film was simply titled Star Wars, as Lucas was not certain if he would follow the film with a sequel. Following The Empire Strikes Back, the film was re-released in 1981 with the subtitle 'Episode IV: A New Hope'. The original version, without the subtitle, was not released until the 2006 limited edition DVDs. "

Didn't the original scrolling intro always say "episode 4"?

Nope, that came later.

Isn't it because they all come from factories located in Nebula M78?

Actually, it wasn't Magic Johnson, but his massive pile of cash.

Alligators

The Uranian system doesn't have Greek names - Oberon, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel, Puck, Miranda...

I heard Miranda had some sort of terraforming accident, but is pretty quiet now.

Interesting timeline here:
http://lifeafterpeople.wikia.com/wiki/Life_After_People

I thought all Irish IT guys were gay... http://theitcrowd.wikia.com/wiki/The_Work_Outing

I would like to know 2 things:

1) What and when is Wiki going to do something about data sets? By this I mean having easy to access, modular data sets which can be used across articles in a user understandable format (ie: a format users can interact with while maintaining the underlying structure needed for templates)

2) What is being done to simplify Wiki code? Here's an example of what a mess it can be:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Approval?action=edit I created this template to do this: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Approval which should be simple but due to the convoluted mess that is wiki code it ballooned into something virtually unreadable.

3) Will citations ever evolve beyond "here's a generic link to a page on the subject"?

4) Is there an effort underway to clarify complex topic pages such as maths & chemistry which use abstract, unlinkable, symbols?

5) Will we ever see summary previews for links? ie: hover over a wiki link to get the summary of the topic instead of the tooltip.

6) Are their any plans for article perspectives? ie:

Instead of having the following articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_Canada
etc
etc

That you have a single article with tabbed perspectives?

Thanks for your answers!

I would like to know 2 things:

1) What and when is Wiki going to do something about data sets? By this I mean having easy to access, modular data sets which can be used across articles in a user understandable format (ie: a format users can interact with while maintaining the underlying structure needed for templates)

2) What is being done to simplify Wiki code? Here's an example of what a mess it can be:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Approval?action=edit I created this template to do this: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Template:Approval which should be simple but due to the convoluted mess that is wiki code it ballooned into something virtually unreadable.

3) Will citations ever evolve beyond "here's a generic link to a page on the subject"?

4) Is there an effort underway to clarify complex topic pages such as maths & chemistry which use abstract, unlinkable, symbols?

5) Will we ever see summary previews for links? ie: hover over a wiki link to get the summary of the topic instead of the tooltip.

6) Are their any plans for article perspectives? ie:

Instead of having the following articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_Canada
etc
etc

That you have a single article with tabbed perspectives?

Thanks for your answers!

Try the uncyclopedia if you want an intellectual Somalia.

Trajan was born in Hispania which meant he should have been good at salsa , bullfighting and football. However Trajan was always keener to spend more time in the gymnasium where he would go for sweaty naked work outs with like-minded men. This lead to Trajan being called 'Toro Rosso' as he would always emerge from the local Roman baths looking very red and would charge around china shops singing "I am beautiful, no matter what you say". Trajan's father thought it was about time 'Traj' got into the local legion and went off to do some fighting.

Fractal pattern embedded within a set of bones? Now let us hope that the police do not understand regular expressions.

Origin:
before 900; Middle English mot ( e ) meeting, assembly, Old English gemt; cognate with Old Norse mt, Dutch gemoet meeting. See meet1

Wow! I finally understand the term Entmoot. Thanks!

I think we actually need an NID now. Not the plot device, but a real civilian oversight agency. The real question is how do we staff it without getting people just as corrupt as the rest of the government?

Far more logical to programme the routine function of a droid to be pleasurable and to express that pleasure in human understandable terms.

Careful there, it's easy to stray into Sirius Cybernetics's Genuine People Personalities

And nobody likes those machines. Especially the sighing doors, the morose androids, and the hyperactive ship computers.

I find the author's lack of Star Wars knowledge disturbing...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Droids:_Rebellion_3

The internet is for Porn?

I built this ship so that I could retire to some tropical island filled with naked women. That's Zefram Cochrane.

This isn't about profit!

(This is the same AC as the GP.)

Okay. As the sibling points out, counselling is necessary for surgery. I have a friend who is trans* who complained quite a bit about how absurd the counselling requirements are and how he had to essentially lie to the psychologist to be the textbook perfect "good trans* person" in order to be allowed to get surgery.

I do think you are commenting in good faith, but your comments sound a bit like concern trolling, which is why I am poking you to think about your positions.

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger

If I were him I'd sign with Fox to do McBain movies. A parody of himself played by himself. I think it could be hilarious, especially given his age. Sort of the "I-won't-ever-retire" cop that's only a shadow of his former glory.

Tom Riker

There was this from 1987....

I wonder how well it works for longer term decision making? In extreme, is there any risk of training yourself into a fast swimming ADHD Dory?

Agreed. I simply don't trust Canonical, anymore. Shuttleworth's own words sealed the deal for me. Eventually, there will be a port. A Debian phone would be nice. The first release should be codenamed Chatter.

I somewhat was more reminded of "Wayland is where Emperor Palpatine's secret toy-box was. All kinds of nasty dark side things on Wayland."

So, what is really needed is a one seated car with no gadgets installed and which block cell phone traffic. CityEl, this one has 1 seat and not enough room for you to actually move your hands, let alone use your phone - and certainly no room for kids.

I would really rather be driving this car.

This is history in the making, humanity's first hive city. Glory to the Emperor!

There were a couple places like this one in Hong Kong, north of the city even 15 years ago.

Its the scale that is new, not the concept.

This is history in the making, humanity's first hive city. Glory to the Emperor!

Inviting rms over?

Seems you got that wrong. They are fine for human consumption but some Luddites are worried that their god didn't create the crops so they won't buy them or eat them. So they starve with plenty of food available.

You misunderstand. The problem is that technophiles, Luddites, atheists, zealots and everyone in between are worried they will be compelled to worship and pay tithes to this new god Monsanto if they buy or eat Monsanto's grain. Whether they already have a god or not, that's a lot of commitment to ask for eating some bread.

Others see Monsanto more like the fictional crime lord Lao Che (who trades Indiana Jones a diamond for the ashes of the emperor of the first Manchu Dynasty and then poisons Jones's drink so he can "sell" him the antidote in exchange for the diamond), concerned that if they buy and eat Monsanto Che's poison grain, they will be compelled to buy and eat Monsanto Che's antidote for the rest of their lives.

Still others see Monsanto as a biological patent troll. Monsanto releases its identifiable GMO wheat into the wild, it spreads naturally and mixes with natural un-patented wheat, and then Monsanto sues everyone who has a trace of their Monsanto wheat in their wheat. It's sort of like using a crop duster to spray liquified radioactive shit all over other people's farms and then claiming they stole your fertilizer because their crops are radioactive. Not only is it disingenuous, but the edibility of the innocent farmers' crops is now questionable.

Canon must not mind people hacking on their firmware. There is another project, the CHDK project, that allows you to replace the firmware on most Canon point and shoot cameras, again coming up with great features not originally on the camera. Things like:
RAW, bracketing, full manual control over exposure, zebra mode, live histogram, grids, motion detection and Scripting using ubasic and Lua scripts.

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

It is the reason I will only buy canon cameras.

Now that is a kickass hack!

Is different to the Canon Hack Development Kit that I remember using quite a few years back to add extra features (manual focus, RAW mode, etc) to my point and click Digital Ixus?

The power-outlet differs between countries, but they all use 240V so using a simple adaptor will work... Laptop's AC adaptors are usually designed for anything between 110-240V...

Internet in most countries in europe is quite good, and you can buy fairly cheap 3g prepaid cards for pure data too..... and loads of cafe's have free wifi too...
Some prices for Sweden : http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/Sweden
So buy a prepaid sim for the wanted duration and plug it into a cheap android phone and you have a perfect way to get online where ever you might be..

http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Panchaea

Dystopian Future HO!

The officially stated purpose of Panchaea is to counter the effects of the global warming. In order to do so, the facility promotes growth of phytoplankton by dispersing iron into the ocean. The underlying expectation is that more carbon will be trapped in biomass and then deposited on the ocean floor as sediment.

I thought the Y-shaped capacitor was what allowed time travel.

So...this.

Not going to bullseye any womp rats in this.

Of course not. For that, you would need a full-sized Lego model of a T-16.

wings

I think you mean S-foils.

You can turn in your nerd card at the door.

Logic 101:

All S-foils are wings. Not all wings are S-foils.

The clue is in the name "X-wing".

wings

I think you mean S-foils.

You can turn in your nerd card at the door.

But look Charlie AC, Google Keep will help you organize your personal thoughts and this time they promise not to take it away!

http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Angel

Maybe in Petoria, but other than that, I don't know.

Ask Peter, he runs the place. Or ran it, before the Yankee invasion.

"Almost as bad as the AT&T white page listing fees. It's $0.35/mo to be listed in the phone book, and $0.45/mo NOT to be listed."

So, basically like this?

http://deusex.wikia.com/wiki/Bob_Page

Has a severe god complex.

*this post is entirely fictional for those of you who have a hard time separating reality from bullshit.

No, no whoosh today—you'll recall that Slashdot users made jokes about the LHC black hole thing, too. I even used the word "joke" in my post!

The thing is, culture (especially Western culture) is full of paranoid anxieties about science. From Frankenstein to Terminator, there's always some cynical writer somewhere creating dystopias because pain sells. The longer these ideas remain embedded in culture, the more chance they have to affect public opinion. Eventually this causes a distrust in science to fester, and that's something we need to stand against if we're ever going to survive the next century. I'm generally fine with making young-earth creationism jokes (I've had more than a few myself) because people here are sufficiently well-informed to be able to recite the truth.

But after a certain point it gets worrying that the first response to "look, a glimpse into the ancient past!" is "quick, call CEDA!" What experience does Sparticus789 actually have with biology? If he(?) encounters someone who genuinely believes a George Romero-style outbreak could happen at any moment, what would he say to rebuff them? Would he even have the confidence to speak up? Enough parroting of a meme can kill knowledge of the truth, and at the very least, that must be guarded against. With biology this is particularly sensitive because most people know only a very little amount about it, and yet embracing or rejecting biological research stands to affect us immensely in the future.

So +1 for speaking up, but -1 for reducing that to "whoosh."