Exactly. Every time I read an article about Israel/Iran "diplomacy", I just switch names of both countries. Sadly, what comes out is equally scary and batshit insane. It doesn't make sense whatsoever, it is rooted in bigotry and hatred, and both sides are positive that it's about good/evil. I suppose it's impossible for non-involved people to really understand what's going on, to take side or to influence what's going to happen. The problem is that the rest of the world might get involved anyway.
Some recent examples : *) Deportation of criminal foreigners *) Interdiction to build minaret *) No prescription for child molesters *) Life sentence for rapists
So yeah, it works great for laws that concern 0.01% of the population but scare 90%. What's next in Switzerland : lynching for cannabis users?
A lot of this stuff was made possible thanks to cheap and abundant energy. I agree it's impossible to predict the future, and to rule things in or out. But without fossil fuels (that amount to 85% of our present primary energy consumption), we might live to see plows pulled by draft animal.
People often misinterpret my message that “we risk collapse,” believing me to say instead that “we’re going to collapse.” It’s interesting to me that the concept of collapse is taboo to the point of coming across as an offensive slap in the face. It clearly touches an emotional nerve. I think we should try to understand that. Personally, this reaction scares me. It suggests an irrational faith that we cannot collapse. If I did not think the possibility for collapse was real, I might just find this reaction intellectually intriguing. But when the elements for collapse are in place (unprecedented stresses, energy challenges, resource limitations, possible overshoot of carrying capacity), the aversion to this possible fate leaves me wondering how we can mitigate a problem we cannot even look in the eye.
Others react by an over-use of the word “just.” We just need to get fusion working. We’ll just paint Arizona with solar panels. We’ll just switch to electric cars. We just need to go full-on nuclear, preferably with thorium reactors. We just need to exploit the oil shales in the Rocky Mountain states. We just need to get the environmentalists off our backs so we can drill, baby, drill. This is the technofix approach. I am trying to chip away at this on Do the Math: the numbers often don’t pan out, or the challenges are much bigger than people appreciate. I have looked for solutions to things we can just do to alleviate the pressures on the system. With the exception of just reducing how much we personally demand, I have been disappointed again and again. I’ll come back to personal reduction in the months to come: lots to say here.
Another common reaction (that I have had myself) is to get excited about a technology that is not yet demonstrated, but seems awfully promising. Some refer to the effect as “hopium,” and yes, it is addictive. What I have found in myself is that the less I know about something, the more prone I am to the “hopium” effect. This is another part of human nature. I have noticed in my professional life that when multiple people are involved in the diagnosis of a complex problem involving many interacting components/subsystems to which each member has contributed some piece, there is a tendency for each person to cast suspicion on the component they understand the least. Conversely, when looking for a solution, we give a pass to the concepts with fewer known, demonstrated hangups.
The future of energy is using less energy : Few or no planes, smaller cars, local food, small houses, better insulation, less AC, less imported gadgets... Mod me down all you want, but the future of energy surely isn't "business as usual"+some nukes in the basement.
Interesting post. I have the exact same feeling towards GMO's. Maybe they're safe and pose no threat to anyone/anything. That actually doesn't matter because they don't appear to have many benefits apart from bringing more power and money to Monsanto.
Aurorae were seen around the world, most notably over the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those over the Rocky Mountains that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.
Holy crap. I'd love to see Aurorae without having to fly to Canada/Norway in winter.
Screw that. The reason people don't want GMO'S is because they are pushed by Monsanto, a company that wouldn't be scared to eat babies and sell grand-parents for profit. Microsoft is all rainbows and unicorns in comparison to them, and a lot of people on/. don't like them.
Too bad the GDP per capita isn't a measure of "a better life". The percentage of obese people, social inequalities, illiteracy, life expectation and pollution should probably be taken into account, among others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index GDP and growths are pretty arbitrary "measurements" and aren't really linked to anything physical.
This just seems stupid. You don't even need a full-frame camera with an expensive 1.4 lens in order to get good shots. Any camera with manual control over aperture and flash output will do. This "picture blocking beer cooler"(TM)(C) is just an additional light-source with constant output, so consider it as such :
1) Camera set to Manual mode (let's say ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/60, Daylight WB) and low pop-up flash on manual (say 1/16). The pop-up flash only helps to trigger the beer-cooler, and soon won't contribute to the picture. It's on manual to avoid pre-flashes that could mess up the beer-cooler and the exposure. 2) Take a picture with the beer cooler 2 feet apart from your subject. 3) It's probably too bright. Dial down your aperture till you get decent looking light on the subject. Say it's f/11. 4) The cooler will still be much too bright. Either you don't care and leave it in the frame for a cool flare effect, or you move it just outside of your frame, without changing the distance from cooler to subject. 5) Your ambient light is probably too dark, and you only see a well-exposed subject between a big flare and and an almost black background. 6) If other coolers are around, this might look cool, with patches of people well exposed in the background and even more flare. 7) The shutter speed doesn't have any influence on the exposure of the beer-cooler or the flash-lit subject, so you can use a longer exposure to bring back some detail to the environment. 8) You can even use long exposure (say 2 seconds) to get cool looking pictures. You don't care about camera-shake, because the beer-cooler will freeze the moment. You can even zoom or rotate the camera during the exposure. Using rear-curtain flash might bring more natural-looking pictures. 9) Take good pictures all night long without having to change any parameter, without using too much battery because your flash is now outsourced.
Several? Try zero! According to http://www.dxomark.com/ every Nikon (D700, D3, D3X, D3S) and every Canon FF camera (5d, 5dii, 1d...) have higher "low light ISOs" scores than the K5. The K5 is a great camera, and it has very good High ISO performance for an APS-C camera. It seems to be on par with the D7000. But even 3 years old full-frame cameras have the edge on 2011 APS-C cameras.
Finally, you don't have to buy *new* prime lenses for CaNikons. 30 years old AI lenses still work flawlessly on Nikon bodies.
To me, it boils down to this question : "Is there only one future?"
Let's agree we cannot get more information about a system than what the uncertainty principle allows. Fair enough, mere mortals will never be able to get enough information to predict the future, and everything will stay more or less random. Still, if there's only one future, then it's unique, it's well-defined and therefore not random. Are quantum mechanics and fate really incompatible?
Yeah, and a green laser (532nm, 563THz) would be a slightly flat C44. You might say it's too high for the human ear. I might answer you can't hear electro-magnetic waves either, even at 440Hz.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Every time I read an article about Israel/Iran "diplomacy", I just switch names of both countries.
Sadly, what comes out is equally scary and batshit insane.
It doesn't make sense whatsoever, it is rooted in bigotry and hatred, and both sides are positive that it's about good/evil.
I suppose it's impossible for non-involved people to really understand what's going on, to take side or to influence what's going to happen.
The problem is that the rest of the world might get involved anyway.
Some recent examples :
*) Deportation of criminal foreigners
*) Interdiction to build minaret
*) No prescription for child molesters
*) Life sentence for rapists
So yeah, it works great for laws that concern 0.01% of the population but scare 90%.
What's next in Switzerland : lynching for cannabis users?
New petition : "It should be forbidden for any female news anchor between 20 & 40 to wear anything on TV".
You'd get 50 000 votes in a heartbeat.
A lot of this stuff was made possible thanks to cheap and abundant energy.
I agree it's impossible to predict the future, and to rule things in or out.
But without fossil fuels (that amount to 85% of our present primary energy consumption), we might live to see plows pulled by draft animal.
Yeah, right.
"You can't prove a negative" and all that.
Guess what, "You can't prove a negative" is a negative, so how are you gonna prove that?
What if you substitute your proposition with its negation?
Anyway : http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf
Yeah right.
Keep ignoring problems and using straw man, it will surely help to solve small technicalities such as global warming or peak oil.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/the-future-needs-an-attitude-adjustment/
Don't worry. Oil shortage will go a long way towards "few or no planes".
It will become so expensive to fly that only Bill Gates & co will do so.
The future of energy is using less energy :
Few or no planes, smaller cars, local food, small houses, better insulation, less AC, less imported gadgets...
Mod me down all you want, but the future of energy surely isn't "business as usual"+some nukes in the basement.
@ISS, taking a dump.
s/Zeig/Sieg/
Interesting post.
I have the exact same feeling towards GMO's. Maybe they're safe and pose no threat to anyone/anything.
That actually doesn't matter because they don't appear to have many benefits apart from bringing more power and money to Monsanto.
http://lifehacker.com/5542041/block-sites-from-using-your-facebook-login-with-adblock-plus
Holy crap. I'd love to see Aurorae without having to fly to Canada/Norway in winter.
Screw that. /. don't like them.
The reason people don't want GMO'S is because they are pushed by Monsanto, a company that wouldn't be scared to eat babies and sell grand-parents for profit.
Microsoft is all rainbows and unicorns in comparison to them, and a lot of people on
Both points seem valid.
No Nobel prize. Less range than a Prius. Lame.
Let me guess: you're a drunk troll that uses /dev/random as sources and Excel 2007 for calculations.
Once and for all.
What about oil peak?
ONCE AND FOR ALL!
Too bad the GDP per capita isn't a measure of "a better life".
The percentage of obese people, social inequalities, illiteracy, life expectation and pollution should probably be taken into account, among others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
GDP and growths are pretty arbitrary "measurements" and aren't really linked to anything physical.
This just seems stupid.
You don't even need a full-frame camera with an expensive 1.4 lens in order to get good shots.
Any camera with manual control over aperture and flash output will do.
This "picture blocking beer cooler"(TM)(C) is just an additional light-source with constant output, so consider it as such :
1) Camera set to Manual mode (let's say ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/60, Daylight WB) and low pop-up flash on manual (say 1/16). The pop-up flash only helps to trigger the beer-cooler, and soon won't contribute to the picture. It's on manual to avoid pre-flashes that could mess up the beer-cooler and the exposure.
2) Take a picture with the beer cooler 2 feet apart from your subject.
3) It's probably too bright. Dial down your aperture till you get decent looking light on the subject. Say it's f/11.
4) The cooler will still be much too bright. Either you don't care and leave it in the frame for a cool flare effect, or you move it just outside of your frame, without changing the distance from cooler to subject.
5) Your ambient light is probably too dark, and you only see a well-exposed subject between a big flare and and an almost black background.
6) If other coolers are around, this might look cool, with patches of people well exposed in the background and even more flare.
7) The shutter speed doesn't have any influence on the exposure of the beer-cooler or the flash-lit subject, so you can use a longer exposure to bring back some detail to the environment.
8) You can even use long exposure (say 2 seconds) to get cool looking pictures. You don't care about camera-shake, because the beer-cooler will freeze the moment. You can even zoom or rotate the camera during the exposure. Using rear-curtain flash might bring more natural-looking pictures.
9) Take good pictures all night long without having to change any parameter, without using too much battery because your flash is now outsourced.
Okay, I'll bite.
Several? Try zero!
According to http://www.dxomark.com/ every Nikon (D700, D3, D3X, D3S) and every Canon FF camera (5d, 5dii, 1d...) have higher "low light ISOs" scores than the K5.
The K5 is a great camera, and it has very good High ISO performance for an APS-C camera. It seems to be on par with the D7000.
But even 3 years old full-frame cameras have the edge on 2011 APS-C cameras.
Finally, you don't have to buy *new* prime lenses for CaNikons. 30 years old AI lenses still work flawlessly on Nikon bodies.
According to simple calculations on this blog
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
and assuming we follow our historical 2.9% energy increase per year, earth average ambient temperature will reach 100C in less than 400 years.
Well, some 25-40% of English words are of French origin, so this thread could easily become the longest ever on /.
To me, it boils down to this question :
"Is there only one future?"
Let's agree we cannot get more information about a system than what the uncertainty principle allows. Fair enough, mere mortals will never be able to get enough information to predict the future, and everything will stay more or less random.
Still, if there's only one future, then it's unique, it's well-defined and therefore not random.
Are quantum mechanics and fate really incompatible?
Yeah, and a green laser (532nm, 563THz) would be a slightly flat C44.
You might say it's too high for the human ear.
I might answer you can't hear electro-magnetic waves either, even at 440Hz.