Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Will Use Robots to Patrol Water Supply
bl8n8r writes "By the summer of 2005, the United States will have an underwater network of robots monitoring the nations fresh water supply. Realtime environmental details will be used to help safeguard the nations drinking water. The robots would take on the painstaking, time consuming, and sometimes dangerous, task of collecting water samples which is currently being done by carbon based lifeforms."
I've been saying over and over that our enviromental problems can be solved by technology, rather than by painful asceticism, and things like this are constantly proving me right. A perfect example of how robots are working behind the scenes to ensure that we remain protected and healthy.
One of the best things about this system is its ability to track pollution as it occurs, letting scientists manage it and make informed, on-the-spot decisions. Though from what I understand, it's not quite ready as an early warning system.
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
I just hope these robots arent made with anything that can contaminate the water supply if they malfunction/leak/blow up.
...to actually implement and enforce some decent environmental standards? AFAIK, the past four years has been a tremendous step backwards regarding water quality regulations.
In other words, patrolling the rivers isn't going to do a goddamn bit of good when whatever minimal laws don't even have any teeth.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
The UAW managed to surive robots in the workplace, I'm sure these water boys will be able to also.
Lake Powell Article
Lake Powell Photo
Lake Powell Satellite Image
Ipswich River in Mass
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I have well water you insensitive clod!!
Of course my supply has to come from somewhere but I'd assume the public supply would be tainted and noticed loooong before anything reached my own private well. I occasionally get some sand and grit but I'll take that over a blistering agent any day.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Yet.
And they will continue to not do anything we don't tell them to do unless we tell them to do things we haven't told them to do (that made much more sense in my head...).
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
1) Create in the general population a sense of fear of something. (It can be an irrational fear)
2) Make a product or service that helps reduce that fear. (And patent it)
3) Call the government and make them buy your patented product or service
4) Profit!
Or alternatively
1) Make a product or service. (And patent it)
2) Create in the general population a sense of fear of something so your product or service helps reduce the fear.
3) Sell the product or service for a reasonable price
4) Profit!
If we buy the idea that anything is at risk, that terrorists can do anything and I mean anything, there's nothing we can affor not buying to help us feel safer.
Fear and shopping, great combination. An it is good for businiess too!
By the way, who was the one sending anthrax in letters back in 2001, remember?
And I don't buy a plane crashed in the pentagon. Too much evidence against it.
My computer will do precisely as it's told, barring hardware failure. Whatever instructions I feed it, it will execute faithfully. However, it has no concept of if what it is doing is right or wrong. If my instructions are bad, even just one of them, it can go off and do something totally undesirable. Compare that to a human. If my instructions aren't perfectly clear, or one is wrong, they can usually figure that out and either correct it or ask for clarification.
Computers are much more reliable than humans at doing a task right, but onyl one you are absolutly sure they will do it right. You have to test ALL contengencies. Humans can react to unexpected situations, computers can't. Every situation must be expected and must have code to deal with it, or there can, and probably will, be problems.
As for people getting unemployed, while this is bad in the short term for those that it happens to, it is good in the long term for scoiety and the economy. The more machines free us from menial and even not so menial tasks, the more efficent we are and the more we can apply ourselves to tasks they can't do.
Agriculture is the best example. With no machines (and we are counting even simple ones that grant mechnical advantage like a plow) nearly all of your labour force must involve themselves in food production. It is so inefficient that there isn't much left over for other labour. Now we can maintain the food supply with a tiny percentage of our labour force, machines have taken most of the menial jobs, which frees people up to do other things, like invent Nerf balls.
What is this "terrorist" crap? As the article states, these robots have been developed to patrol such waterways as "Onondaga Lake, a federal Superfund site that is considered the nation's most polluted waterway". Is terrorist poison more poisonous than industrial poison? These robots are a welcome safeguard, but let's not pretend we're not under siege by domestic corporations, without hyping the terrorist bugbear.
--
make install -not war