Stanford Researchers Release Virtual-Reality Simulation That Transports Users To Ocean of the Future (ieee.org)

Tekla Perry writes: Stanford's Jeremy Bailenson and his Virtual Human Interaction Lab have for more than a decade been testing whether experiences from virtual reality can change real-world behavior. Now they are using their knowledge -- and expertise at developing VR software -- in what they hope will be a large-scale move towards making people behave better. The lab this week released, for free, a VR experience for the HTC Vive. It's aimed at giving people the sense of diving down to a coral reef -- but the real goal is getting them to consider how carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is killing the oceans. He hopes, with the dearth of good VR content available, this software will proliferate at least as fast as VR hardware does. Next up for the lab, a deep dive into homelessness. The experience is formally called "The Ocean Acidification Experience" and it's "intended to teach users about the chemistry behind ocean acidification, as well as the problems it causes, and what they can do to help prevent it," according to IEEE Spectrum. Bailenson describes the general story line by saying, "It starts with a globe. We talk about how we can see climate on the coastlines, but nobody can see how carbon dioxide affects the oceans. We then take you into a crowded city. You touch an exhaust pipe, and you then see carbon dioxide go into the atmosphere, and you're told to follow one particular molecule. Then you are in a boat, on the ocean, you see your molecule come towards you. You touch it and push it into the water; when it lands you see the chemical reaction that creates acid; that's the chemistry lesson. Then you are underwater, at this special reef in Ischia, Italy. This reef has naturally occurring carbon dioxide from underwater volcanoes; it shows how all our oceans will look by 2100. We take you to a normal reef, where you see coral, and count sea snails and species of fish. Then you go to an acidified reef; you see that algae have taken over the reef, there is no coral; there are fewer fish species, and no sea snails. The final scene tells you what you can do to help, prevent this future, including managing your own carbon footprint, talking to decision makers, and supporting research organizations."

Comments

VR

[Anonymous Coward]

For banging chicks...not watching nature.

Re:VR

[Anonymous Coward]

VR is a huge fail just like it was 20 years ago. It's a novelty with a 5 minute "oh, that's neat" factor.

Re:VR

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot millennial flower who thinks his very, very limited imagination defines reality.

Spend 5 minutes with an HTC Vive and say that it's a huge fail.

Re: VR

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct. Basically we need to wait for VR generation 3 -- with 5K per eye @ 120fps displays and better positional and movement tracking. Then, VR will be successful. Current VR is at 90fps which can cause some nausea in people. Second, the screen door effect should be gone once we have small enough 5K displays -- the technology for which has already been demonstrated by Sharp by the way (1008 ppi IGZO display). So we basically have the technology it just needs to be put into manufacturing and made cheaper. That should take about 5 years in my estimate -- assuming Oculus and HTC Vive can keep getting sold at a rate to justify the investment of the $3 billion it will take to make it happen. That part is not guaranteed because the only other industry needed ultra high resolution displays is projectors. But they don't get enough sales to justify a $3 billion investment.

So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

So a bunch of retarded "but our... er... SOME... of uh.. our computer models totally show we're all gonna die by 2014! I mean 16! I mean 20! I mean 30!" propaganda?

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump supporter pls go

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it. Humanity has an exponential drop in accuracy the farther out you go. We can predict 2017 well, but hardly 2020 and certainly not 2050.

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Salgak1]

Oh, I can predict the future with high accuracy:

We're all screwed, no matter what we do, and still, we'll muddle on somehow. . .

Re:So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Lets do a scale test. With a bowl of water. How much polutants would we need to add to it in order to make it so much of an acid? Now, scale it up to the worlds oceans. There isn't enough chemicals on the planet to even come close.

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what you are talking about. Start with taking a basic science class. But this time around actually comprhending and retaining the material taught and then passing the class this time around.

Re:So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[JoeMerchant]

You exhale chemicals that make water acidic - you can measure that in a tabletop experiment, bubble exhaled breath through water and read it on a pH meter. It takes a tiny change in pH to start killing coral.

Now, that same chemical you exhale is exhaled by cars, trucks, and power plants by the tons per second. Every tree and plant on the planet can be burned to release more of that chemical, and we're deep into the process of doing just that, not only for the current crop of living trees, but also for the geologic deposits of plant growth from the "carboniferous period" when there were no fungi to rot plants when they died, so their dead bodies made coal deposits instead. New coal isn't forming (in bulk) because in today's biosphere, dead plants rot and convert to CO2 gas instead of solid coal.

Is it enough to change the oceans? Surveys in places like the Great Barrier Reef, hundreds of miles from the nearest human activity, say yes - over the last 40 years, mass quantities of corals have bleached and died.

Maybe some millennium new coral will evolve to be more acid resistant. Meanwhile, the ecosystems that depend on them will die off.

Re:So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Jason1729]

Just out of morbid curiosity, what is your definition of the word "chemical". Because it's clearly different from the one most of us use.

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[hackwrench]

Everything is chemicals! https://youtu.be/VGErC6QQdoc

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[HornWumpus]

Explain to us: How much buffer is in solution in the oceans and why the greenies choose to ignore this?

Re: So a bunch of retarded propaganda?

[Anonymous Coward]

10 seconds on google:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Ocean_acidification_vs_Ocean_buffering_effect_How_can_this_be

Why the deniers choose to ignore this?

Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

"In what they hope will be a large-scale move towards making people behave better. The lab this week released"

If this is anything like the 'science' we're losing due to brexit, I'm glad I voted to leave.

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Maritz]

"In what they hope will be a large-scale move towards making people behave better. The lab this week released"

If this is anything like the 'science' we're losing due to brexit, I'm glad I voted to leave.

Uh, you voted leave because you want less foreign-looking (brown) people on the streets. The fact that it's bad for science is just a hidden bonus for anti-intellectual gimps like yourself.

Hopefully in time, you Brits will do me the favour of vacating a place where you're not so welcome yourselves. Even less so now that you're all newly-emboldened racist twats.

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Salgak1]

"They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave. "

- Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

It's long been established that migrants are of net economic benefit to Britain while natives are net cost, so I propose that everyone whose ancestors have been in Britain for more than a certain number of generations have to pass a test to demonstrate that they're worthy to stay, otherwise they face compulsory emigration.

If we applied Brexit arguments rationally, this is what we'd do.

Re: Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical liberal, call they a racist when they don't agree with you to end the discussion. How about you vacate the planet?

Re: Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical liberal, call they a racist when they don't agree with you to end the discussion. How about you vacate the planet?

The "Oceans of the future" will assume 95% of the Earth, leaving 5% total land mass. That will resolve the issue.

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Opportunist]

And where to? What country accepts intellectual refugees willingly?

Don't say Germany, that's been over for a while now.

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

A Brexit is a delicious way to start a busy day :D

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

..vacating a place where you're not so welcome yourselves..

oooeerr!?

Re:Behavioural engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

"... do me the favour of vacating a place where you're not so welcome yourselves". They did this. Now look at the mess that the new governments have made.

Re: Behavioural engineering

[Immerman]

Not even close.

IF the ice caps completely melt, they'll displace 90+% of the current human population of the Earth, but that's only because most of the population chooses to live along the coasts. Most of the land area will be unaffected - generally coastlines will move inland a few miles, though some especially low-lying areas like Florida and Louisiana will be almost completely submerged.

Re: Behavioural engineering

[greythax]

Had to undo mod points to post this, but I feel it needs to be brought up. As a resident of Louisiana, I would like to offer a quick perspective. When Katrina hit, it displaced a paltry 250,000 people, and has taken 10 years to recover that population. The richest country in the world was seemingly unable to handle this overflow well, despite only being around 0.1% of the nations population. Now, can you imagine what kind of nightmarish hellscape the earth will be if 6.3 BILLION people start trying to "move a few miles inland". Considering the timescales that could be involve, it might be more like 14 billion. Even over a drawn out time frame, this will be a very dark period for humanity. Also, you might want to look more carefully at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.... , depending on your definition of "a few miles"

Re: Behavioural engineering

[Immerman]

I agree i would be a major challenge, but as the pace of change accelerated it would have the advantage that a lot fewer people would be stupid enough to move back and rebuild what is obviously doomed land. And insurance companies would presumably start hiking rates long in advance of the inevitable inundation, boosting short-term incentive to relocate inland as well. How much repair and new construction happens in your average city on any given day?. Redirect the vast majority of that to neighboring cities that won't flood in the next 50-100 years (how long does the average building remain in use?) and, if the caps took several centuries to melt, we could probably adapt okay. Whether we can slow things down that much... that's the question, isnt it? We'll probably have at least one or two though.

We'd have to muster the social acceptance that New Orleans had to be abandoned though.

Re: Behavioural engineering

[greythax]

Maybe you should talk to somebody from the Netherlands about what is or is not an obviously doomed land. In fact the using of levees dates back to before there was an America. What doomed New Orleans, was Congress putting off money to maintain the Levee system for more than a decade. As far as the national benefit of New Orleans is concerned, it is still one of our major ports situated right on the Mississippi River. Admittedly a city can be replaced over time, but at what cost? The infrastructure to house a million people doesn't spring up overnight. The buildings, the roads, the industry, the ports, all of those things have a staggering price associated with them. And let's also not forget that we're not just talking about New Orleans. We're also talking about New York. And 100 other coastal cities around the country. Assuming that we can just slowly back away from these places and not feel the tremendous crunch of resources that's bound to follow, is simply naive. And lastly, we're talking about the whole state of Louisiana and Florida, you know the place that grows the most abundant amount of the crops you eat. While the loss of US oranges, cotton ,soybean, sugar and tobacco might not significantly disturb you , it's important to note that almost everywhere in the world , those crops and others are raised on Coastal floodplains. Because coastal plains have been depositing thousands of years of organic sediment that grows crops really well. If you're going to assume that kind of change is benign you need to take into account a lot more factors then just disagreeing with the elevation of a city.

Re: Behavioural engineering

[Immerman]

Yes, if you have sufficient wealth and insufficient land, it may be worth saving certain areas. The cost can be extreme though, and it bears considering that the Netherlands don't face hurricanes, and 65% of their GDP is produced below sea level. What does New Orleans offer to justify such expense?

Yes, the levees should have been maintained, but why should it be Congress that does so? What does it benefit the US to subsidize a poor city location? If you want to live in a city locked in a perpetual (and now losing) fight against nature, why should the rest of the nation pay for your choice?

Yes, that's a cold-hearted approach, but with the majority of the population facing inundation over the next centuries, I think it's one that must at least be considered. In the face of the limited resources we will have to face the challenges that are approaching, if a city can't afford it's own salvation, is it really worth saving?

I shit in the ocean!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you and your hippie vr propaganda

Re:I shit in the ocean!

[Maritz]

Ah slashdot, the site where nobody accepts that humans can do anything to the environment, ever.

And they still expect to be taken seriously.

Re:I shit in the ocean!

[Gilgaron]

What's with that, anyway? I remember back in the day when there'd be creationists trolling the biology threads but the only cranks left seem to be the climategate guys. There aren't even any anti-vaxxers around anymore.

Re:I shit in the ocean!

[rmdingler]

While it is disheartening to see the number of intelligent posters denying anthropogenic impact to the environment, it is also disingenuous to ascribe modifiers like nobody and ever to the phenomenon.

FTS: Showing people a possible future plays on the Ebenezer Scrooge fable, in that people can change if they are simply presented with the results of their actions. I'd like to believe that's the case, but the cynic in me says people are more likely to minimize their personal impact and sustain a planet-wide tragedy of the commons.

Aiming at the wrong target

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless it can convince Chinese industrialists to not run factories, it's going to be... a drop in the ocean. Seriously, people who drive 8-cylinder cars aren't the main problem. But i suppose you tilt at the windmills you can reach.

Re:Aiming at the wrong target

[war4peace]

Not only that, but whoever affords to buy a VR headset is likely already having a larger carbon footprint than the ones who don't afford said gizmo. Bigger house leads to more energy spent heading and maintaining it. More electronics mean more energy consumed. Likely bigger cars with worse mileage too. And so on.
telling them about the coral reef dying will scare them in the wrong direction: "OMG where the hell would I go snorkeling then?"

Re:Aiming at the wrong target

[PingSpike]

"OMG where the hell would I go snorkeling then?"

Well, there's this new VR thing that has an ocean level I heard about somewhere.

Re:Aiming at the wrong target

[Immerman]

That's a whole lot of assumptions there. A more expensive house can also involve a lot better insulation, solar gain, photovoltaics, etc. Any one of which can reduce the carbon footprint below that of a much smaller house. Similarly cars - almost *any* new car will be more efficient than a beater that's been on the road for 20-30 years, and an increasing number of modern cars are putting efficiency front and center, with electrics and hybrids forming the vanguard.

Perhaps most relevantly - those with VR headsets are disproportionately likely to have the time and/or wealth to be able to actually make changes in their own lifestyle and/or contribute to bringing political pressure to change things on a larger scale. Not much point proselytizing to people who are barely making ends meet - they can't really do a whole lot to help.

Re:Aiming at the wrong target

[Oligonicella]

almost *any* new car will be more efficient than a beater that's been on the road for 20-30 years

The cost it takes to manufacture vs the already existing car has to be weighed in. That's a lot of carbon. Reality dictates we start measuring effect from the now.

Re:Aiming at the wrong target

[war4peace]

Your lot of assumptions versus my lot of assumptions...

Re:Aiming at the wrong target

[Immerman]

But, unless we have a realistic alternative, that purchase is going to happen regardless, so it may as well be in a positive direction. And it's not like the old car is shredded - it enters the stream of multipl-owner vehicles that trickles down all the way to those ancient beaters - most of those are on the road for for lack of ability to afford something newer after all, and the sooner we get cleaner alternatives trickling down, the better.

Of course, a re-imagining of transportation would be vastly preferable, but FAR more difficult and expensive to pull off (personally I like the idea of fast, reliable public transportation coupled with something like electric skateboards/scooters for the "last mile")

And, to get back to the original point - it's largely those middle-class families with disposable income who collectively decide the direction of society (and first-owner technology) - everyone else gets dragged along for the ride...though politiciains, bankers, and the media have gotten somewhat better at guiding the bull.

is it

[Anonymous Coward]

empty apart from bits of plastic?

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

OT: 5 posts quickly written and they're all nonsensical.

Now, back on-topic, I think we're late to start deploying technologies to deal with excess CO2 in the atmosphere -- be it something new like converting it to ethanol to traditional means like what that Indian guy did by creating an entire forest with his hands. It's like he created an army of minions (the plants!) out of thin air...

And if we succeed -- there's a place nearby full of CO2...

Re:Wow!

[Salgak1]

Converting CO2 to Ethanol is cool, but impress me.

Convert it to Scotch. . . . (grin)

Re:Wow!

[Opportunist]

Pour that Ethanol over oak shavings and wait for a while.

Re:Wow!

[HornWumpus]

Add the contents of one medicinal iodine bottle and some peat moss.

An idea

[Hognoxious]

Can they run a simulation to see how many a-with-a-hat(TM)s slashdot stories will have if they sack all the editors?

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with this people?

[Anonymous Coward]

in what they hope will be a large-scale move towards making people behave better

Let me translate for you:

 

in what they hope will be a large-scale move towards making people adhere to their strict illiberal authoritarian political values...

I suppose we should be grateful they've chosen a medium pretty much guaranteed to induce nausea, if the earnest pontificating hasn't already.

So...FUD propaganda then?

[argStyopa]

"no coral"

Let's remember that coral is - literally - one of the oldest life forms on the planet.
They existed in much warmer, higher CO2 environments for hundreds of millions of years.

The tocsin that 'coral are dying' (implying that they're going to die out) is one of the more nakedly disingenuous pleas coming from the AGW crowd.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. If their ancestors survived the Permian extinction, I think they can survive the dire effects of "Global Warming".

Besides, if all of the apocalyptic predictions come true, there will be a mass die-off of homo sapiens long before the year 2100. If homo sapiens are the driving force behind "Global Warming", then it's a self correcting problem. I think the corals can hang on until then.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[Anonymous Coward]

The mass bleaching of the great barrier reef where 20% where bleached and died off in one year would tend to disagree with you

But hey... Can't let actual facts get in the way of hating on science now can we?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/07/the-great-barrier-reef-a-catastrophe-laid-bare

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/20/great-barrier-reef-given-d-for-health-fifth-year-in-a-row

Edit: haha... captcha "bespeak"

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be right that coral won't die out (I really have no idea), but your argument as to why is rather flawed.

Its not so much the falling or the lying on the ground that kills you, but how rapidly you transition between the two. Living a really long time and spending a lot of that time on the ground is not a good way to gauge how well a person would survive falling off a roof.

Obligatory XKCD would indicate we are transitioning rather quickly at the moment: https://xkcd.com/1732/

I'd need proof Grandpa had fallen off the roof lots of times before with no ill effects to not be worried, and I'd need proof that coral had survived similar rapid transitions before to not be worried.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll just say this... When I read about virtual reality simulations to transport the user to the ocean of the future with acid, I had a very very different idea of what it would be. This article is Trump level trolling.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[UnknownSoldier]

Speaking of the ocean a great documentary is Mission Blue (available on Netflix)

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Let's remember that coral is - literally - one of the oldest life forms on the planet.
They existed in much warmer, higher CO2 environments for hundreds of millions of years.

First, let's also remember that we've seen sudden significant die-offs in coral in the past couple decades (and especially in recent years). So something verifiable is happening that seems to be having a widespread and large-scale effect on coral. The question is the magnitude and ramifications.

Second, the question I'd have to ask is why exactly many of the world's experts in coral would be sounding an alarm if there was nothing to worry about. What exactly do these folks have to gain by lying about that? There's still a LOT more lobbying money available for paid shills from fossil fuel companies than there is from environmental groups. What's the benefit for all of these scientists to lie? (And if they actually believe what they say, then perhaps they likely know something more about why things are happening and the flexibility/adaptability of coral than some random guy posting on Slashdot.)

Finally, I'd just note that I could survive quite well living at sea level. I could also survive quite well living on a submarine, or on a high mountain. But if you transported me rapidly from one of those areas to another, I might suffer from severe reactions to altitude or pressure effects on the human body. The rate of change matters. And if the mountain was livable but gradually started cooling down, I've have plenty of time to migrate down. But if a rapid storm came up and plunged the temperature to well below zero unexpectedly, I might not survive.

The question really has to do with RATE of change here. Yes, coral have lived through all sorts of conditions on earth over hundreds of millions of years. But unlike humans, they can't just get up and move a hundred miles away when the weather turns. Migrating and rebuilding takes long periods of time. And they're not good with handling rapid temperature fluctuations.

The acidification is relevant because (as I understand it) it makes it even slower to build and repair damage to coral. Again, it's not necessarily about whether they could survive a CONSTANT pH level once they were established and adapted to those conditions. The question is whether the changing pH will make it even harder for adaptation to occur, on top of more rapidly changing temperatures.

Sure, we don't know everything, and we're extrapolating a lot of stuff about the way we think things happened in the past vs. the way things happen today. But simply saying, "These things have been around forever, so obviously they're going to survive and anyone else is an idiot!" doesn't make it true.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[khallow]

The mass bleaching of the great barrier reef where 20% where bleached and died off in one year would tend to disagree with you

Unless of course, that happens all the time, including before human-caused global warming. Then I guess it wouldn't tend to agree with you.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I raise coral in a few tanks so take what I say with two gains of sand rather than one but not much more...

While I think we need to do more to stop the co2 production and oceanic acidification, there is a lot of hype about corals we just don't know about. For instance bleaching is not always death. I've had a lot of hard corals bleach and come back after a rapid change of conditions and had a lot that bleached and didn't. Reefs are made on the skeletons of dead corals, so that means they do have to die at some point. We don't really know if they go through long cycles of death and recovery or if large scale bleaching is a natural part of the cycle that maybe only happens every few hundred years or is never supposed to happen.

My point is, we should stop and roll back the co2 production and limit all the other wastes dumped in the ocean, we should even start banking more coral species to help farm and recover them in areas that have been damaged and died off, but we need to use facts the and science to save and protect coral, not hyperbole which the media is good at latching on to.

If we stop the pollution or at least roll it back to say 1990s levels we should be able to recover within a century but it will require as much as it has taken to protect national parks or many of the forests in Europe.

Since the pollution problem is not going to be solved overnight, I would start by establishing breeding farms and limit wild collection of species. Maybe giving a 5-10 year grace period for areas to switch from harvesting natural fields to inland coral farming and industrialized stretches of ocean farms. That long window should give us time to develop a large cross-section of genetic diversity.

Then I would take a serious look in to advancements made in using low level DC currents in sea water to grow bio-rock. Its been shown that coral grows like gangbusters in low-level electrical fields. So it is possible that we could slow down or stop the rate of reef collapse by wiring them up to a low-grid.

There are solutions that go beyond 'Just stop polluting' that include ways to counter some of the damage already done, but we have to look at it objectively or we will never solve the problem and they really will die out.

Re:So...FUD propaganda then?

[argStyopa]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, not that extraordinary proof is required to dismiss them. I can "prove" that corals have existed for hundreds of millions of years. During this span, the world has suffered long-duration changes AS WELL AS extremely catastrophic short-duration changes - supervolcanoes, meteorite impacts, etc - that changed the climate for decades.

Coral survived.

Look at the historical temp record - there's a 'pulse' of temp and CO2 every 120k-140k years. Just like we're experiencing now. And the last one was about 120k-140k years ago (so this would be right on time).

Corals survived.

So...there you go.

I already know the ocean is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

But I need more reason to care. No, future generations and their problems is not enough for me to care. Make ME care, in the present.

And then, if you can somehow make me care enough to do something about it, you aren't going to make countries like China and India care.

co2 and not trash of course

[Anonymous Coward]

why the focus on co2, and not trash, pesticides, chemicals, industrial pollutants and toxins?

Guys at Stanford never heard of GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH?

Re:co2 and not trash of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys at Stanford seem to think current CO2 levels are somehow unusual. They also seem to think that CO2 is poisonous to the biosphere, even though most of the biosphere (plants, algae) feed on it.

In short the guys at Stanford are fucking morons, fishing for grant money from gullible, foolish politicians.

Re:co2 and not trash of course

[Jzanu]

You fucking retard look into something called ecology - everything kills when it occurs in the wrong ratios in a given environment. Eat lead and see how it goes. Lead is natural and has been around for trillions of years and we are alive, so use your "logic" and try it out. Or grow the fuck up.

Re: co2 and not trash of course

[hackwrench]

Better yet... arsenic.

Dearth of good VR content

[Anonymous Coward]

They hope that since there's such a shortage of good content, people will be happy to play an environmentally-preachy 'game' that sounds incredibly boring?
I can't help but think this will do more to raise global warming than to counter it, because of the energy consumed to download the game by thousands of people seeking a free game.

So?

[Opportunist]

I'll be dead before that matters. Now excuse me, my SUV needs to be gassed up.

sure, but other researchers? not so glorious

[nimbius]

When stanford does it theyre being progressive and advanced, with newspapers calling them "brilliant" but when i do it im being "unprofessional" and "dangerously irresponsible" with nothing more than a bystander or two remarking that ive "flooded the bathroom" with a "wad of paper towels in the sink." Some appreciation for showing you the ocean of the future on the fourth floor near the copier.

And yet the earth is getting greener...

[Chir]

Gosh darn those pesky plants taking in billions of tons of CO2!! They are not toe'ing the "We are Dooooomed" narrative. Stop growing! http://www.nasa.gov/feature/go...

More propaganda???

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot must be getting paid pretty well to keep posting this dreck.

Of course, only if you ignore facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Reefs, coral have proven to be far more resilient than climate alarmists want to admit. Acidification of reefs, particularly the Great Barrier Reef, been proven a faux issue. In ten of the twelve sites tested over the past ten years, the coral is flourishing, not bleached. In the other two, the damage is not nearly as bad as predicted, and there is evidence of recent growth.

Re:Of course, only if you ignore facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Some coral, somewhere, doesn't matter to the coral in a given location. Where all the other animals surviving on it also live. Damage to THAT coral kills them all.

Re:Of course, only if you ignore facts

[Oligonicella]

Damage to THAT coral kills them all.

No it doesn't. What kind of logical point are you trying to make?

What matters is the algae live

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleh. It's always big animals going extinct that people care about, like polar bears. As long as most of the algae and plants live, I will be fine. Algae can evolve.

Not with _that_ attitude!

[Thud457]

That's your solution to everything: to move under the sea.
It's not going to happen!

Great Job Anti-Nuclear Body

[Anonymous Coward]

Had we been building nuclear power plants for the last few decades this likely wouldn't have happened.

Oh well, too late now. At least we'll be able to use our HTC Vive to look what the oceans used to be like.

Re: Great Job Anti-Nuclear Body

[hackwrench]

Not that much different than the ocean has looked at any given point in time? Sure the ocean has its interesting bits of space-time, but it is largely a snooze-fest.

Ocean Acidification, AGW's forgotten cousin

[sackvillian]

It always struck me as intentional that there is far too much focus around global warming because its complexity lends itself to endless debate/FUD about the relative contributions of the solar cycle/volanoes, etc, the differences between climate and weather, and so on.

Ocean acidification alone would probably justify more than even the most extreme carbon-policies that are being negotiated, but it's almost never discussed publicly -- probably because anyone with a glass of water and pH meter can demonstrate the cause and there's so much less room for manufactured doubt.

Re: VR still holds promise for me, but VIVE = big

[hackwrench]

Alright, so GameStop had a VIVE demo. The big problem for me was drawing a bead on a flying target an the aim was off.
The two sensors and lame controllers are also no gos for an apartment. Now the PSVR's modular approach allows pieces to be acquired pieces at a time. I just bought a used PS Move and games mainly because I wanted to try out the Portal 2 optional feature, and I understand that the same Move periperals that work with the PS3 will work with the PS4 and VR. Too bad I have to keep more consoles around if I want to play older titles, but that could be reversed in the future. Also, augmented reality may make a number of things moot. Eventually I will be able to don goggles that correct to my eye prescription and add enhanced depth cues.

Re: Bad for science?

[hackwrench]

Just what do you think science is?

Re: Basic science classes

[hackwrench]

people take basic science classes throughout K-12.

Re:i hump dino bones

[Anonymous Coward]

Mohammed: Did you see Mohammed at the meeting today?
Mohammed: No, but his brother Mohammed showed up.
Mohammed: What did Mohammed talk about?
Mohammed: Mohammed introduced us to Mohammed who is also a mason!
Mohammed: A mason? No shit? How long has he been one?
Mohammed: About five years. He was referred to the local lodge by Mohammed.
Mohammed: Ah, yes, Mohammed. He has a shit ton of connections around town!
Mohammed: Yes, and our brothers, police be upon them, Mohammed and Mohammed from Egypt came, too.
Mohammed: I've been thinking of becoming a clown.
Mohammed: A clown, Mohammed, why?
Mohammed: So I can film myself being gay.
Mohammed: Oh, you.
Mohammed: So anyway, is Mohammed, Mohammed, and Mohammed coming to the next party?
Mohammed: Indeed. Mohammed was so funny last time.
Mohammed: Well it wouldn't be a party without Mohammed.
Mohammed: Yes, my friend. POLICE BE UPON THEM!