So how much shielding is needed to protect humans from solar radiation on the surface of the moon? It might be easier to get the first few humans on the moon with prefab structures that simply set down, and allow humans to work beneath it. Look at the Bigelow space module. Something like that, with additional protection, could make for a fast settlement where humans can work with robots/tools to do the real heavy lifting (besides, things are a little less heavy on the moon).
I think conventional construction of permanent structures is quiet a long way away.
I work for a 20,000+ private user network that has some pretty critical demands for High Availability. If you are working for a non-profit, chances are that you simply will not be able to afford "true high availability", which requires a plethora of support features that are prohibitively expensive (for example, Cisco Content Switches cost $10,000+).
Until you hit over 1,000+ Unique visitors "per minute" your best bet may be to have your site split amongst several different hosting providers (serverbeach, rackspace, etc.) and use DNS Round Robin to provide a bit of cheap load balancing and cheap redundancy (just give the www for your domain 3 A record entries).
Let me ask the resident experts: With all the different telescopes that litter the earth, how is it that we miss these types of objects coming so close to our planet? I know that space is vast (practically beyond rational imagination), but is there a way to observe a region of space encompassing several days/weeks/months with objects traveling at a certain speed? What would those costs be? (I bet it would be under 700 Billion USD)
I found this article pretty interesting about a space based constellaton of satellites using radar to track objects on the ground. How about something like this pointing away from earth?: http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sr.htm
I think this would be an excellent time for the US to jump back in the lead in science and technology. Take that money going into ideologically based spending, and shove it into space systems that will have actual use. Create methods of early detection of earth impacting objects, and standby means to intercept. The "space industrial complex" could lead to high tech jobs that create a high tech industry that will attract top talent from around the world at rates that rival the early 20th century.
Re:This too was foreseen
on
Designer Babies
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· Score: 0, Troll
I shouldnt, but I do, find the hypocrisy of the intellectual elite startling. On one hand, our "science oriented" peers will sit and debate what is becoming the blurring line of "what life is" and then on the other hand state that a fetus is not a person. A fetus is a person as much as a 120 year old Alzheimer's patient. They are just in different stages of human development. I use the comparison between Alzheimer's patients and a fetus for two very particular reasons: Lack of awareness, and lack of self sustainment. Neither could survive without support from someone else, but neither are less human. Both have the potential to be a major drag on another person, or to be a gift, or neither.
Of course, you will have those who are cavalier about euthanisation, but those people are just a joke (I've got to watch people like that beg for help and cry for mommy when death stared them in the face). For a large majority of the cases of abortion, the decision simply boils down to a matter of convenience. How will this child impact my life. If negative, kill it, if positive, keep it. Or those who will suffer it for the sake of the preservation of life.
Ironically, those very same people who often chose abortion for convenience are the same people who will choose nanny state socialism (Democrats). If you cant understand the irony, it would just take too long to explain.
Jamming cell phones at certain facilities should be allowed, such as in prisons, but using cell jamming technology on the block is chalked full of potential pit falls.
I've dont some consulting with law enforcement and the application of technology in tactical situations, and the bottom line greatest problem with jamming cell phones is that it is a dead ringer that something is about to happen. In a tactical situation, anything that gives the target a reason to raise suspicion, dramatically enhances their reaction time. Jamming equipment's real danger is that using it too early can ruin the element of surprise. Cell phones can be set to alarm when coverage suddenly dissapears.
Now what law enforcement really needs is the ability to emulate any carriers signal and perform intercept and interference, thus removing any form of potential early tip off (such as everyones cell phone suddenly going from 4 bars to 0 bars).
Why not? What is wrong with having a cozy environment to learn?
You know the funniest thing about this thread? If we were talking about the military... or any other organization that uses any fashion of "hazing" to "weed out" people, the slashdot community would have its collective panties in a twist. For some reason, the "intellectual elite" are in favor of sadistic education rituals straight out of the dark ages to "prove" that people can "cut it".
This irrational, industrial era mentality of adaptability fitness needs to go the way of chivalry (not talking about the opening doors, but the dueling in the streets, honor killing, etc..). How many times do we have to read articles about work places employing bullshit work practices, and have a litany of why these practices are "bad", but if you replaced "work" with "school" environment, people would applaud it and say this "weeds out the herd". Sorry, but not everyone learns well under a great amount of duress, and this doesnt make them stupid, weak, or undeserving of a formal education. Ironically enough, while Academia is still stuck in their elitist ways, the US military has gone the opposite direction and actually has done alot to move away from teaching under stressful situations, realizing that the easier it is for someone to learn, the more likely they are going to be able to do it when they really need it.
I know, I know... we all need to feel "better" than everyone else, and being able to say "I can do it this way, therefore, everyone else should have to suffer that way too" is attractive, but its simply not good for society as a whole. People WILL FAIL all on their own, even under the best of circumstances provided. They should fail because they lack the understanding of the material, not because the environment was too difficult to get a proper understanding of the material.
And seriously... for a bunch of fucking nerds... you still want giant Lecture halls? I mean... technology... should probably get its time to shine. 2009... should have better education mediums than 1949....
The number 1 reason not to play CoDX (everything after CoD4) is because all you are getting is a mocked up recycled version of CoD4. CoDWW is a giant piece of shit, like CoD4 turned out to be. Since I'm not all that old, this isnt a get off my lawn type of rant, but for the love of cheeseburgers, wtf is up with non stop explosions just killing everything all game long... its like watching a Pink Floyd video, but instead of random colors, its just random explosions.
The appeal of the old CoD games was that you actually had to work together with other players (CoD multiplayer) in order to win. Now you just get a few kills and call in SPAM X to add more kills so you can keep calling in more SPAM X to kill and then you have 10 more minutes of nothing but explosions. And that is considered a game?
So CoDX is just going to be the same engine as CoD4 with advertisements, but you get to pay another $60 so you can see adds. Oh, maybe they will change the name of the same weapon, or add a new skin or two. But it will be the same 4 stupid kits, with teh same useless buffs or add ons... same ole same ole. Why not just change it from Call of Duty to Call of Madden and get it over with.
Evolution isnt a thinking thing capable of measuring... anything. Its a process that just happens. "It" doesnt care if a species succeeds or fails.... and lots of different species have failed horribly. If evolution was really some sort of progressive force, than less species would die out, as it goes right now, many more species have failed than succeeded.
And terms such as "better" doesnt really do much good. Cockroaches will probably outlive humans. Are they "better" or more "evolved" than human beings? These are subjective measurements, that only matter for academic debate. As far as nature cares, it doesnt care. It doesnt differentiate because nature isnt a thinking thing keeping score. Live, die... oh wells. The sun is going to go super nova anyway, eventually, and all the contests and contestants will be null and void.
Hows that for your daily dosage of existentialism?
I dont want to be too harsh on the parent, but these are pretty false comparisons. To begin with, the "New World" settlers werent in "danger" of contracting diseases from the "New World"... the diseases were from the "old world". This is like saying that our astronauts would have to worry about gang violence on mars. No... gang violence is on earth.
The reason a Mars to New World comparison is a poor comparison is pretty simple. The "New World" had "human beings" already there, thus proving that living there was completely viable. Just because the inhabitants of the "New World" werent white Europeans, doesnt mean the "New World" was somehow inhospitable. No, the whole New World concept is quasi nationalist and insultingly Eurocentric.
A more accurate comparison would be talking about how 14th century Europeans colonized Antartica. Of course, that didnt happen.
Anyone willing to go to Mars would have to be either divorced from the reality of their likely demise.
- You dont need to worry about being lost, because there is nowhere to go. Your on Mars. Each spec of martian terrain is just as unwelcoming to earth life as the next.
- You are completely reliant on technology for your survival. Back on earth, the planet kept you alive, now you are relying on equipment created by the lowest bidder (thats right). If that machine that makes your air happens to blow up, catch fire, etc, you are dead with almost no means to manufacture another. No moving, no anything. End game.
- Dont like your job? Dont like your room mate? Want to see a movie? No. You are stuck in your job, which is to do science and survive. Thats it until someone comes to relieve you, and that is if someone comes to relieve you because...
- Civil war, economic collapse, Plague, zombie apocalypse (left 4 dead ftw), angry congress criters, etc., back on earth means that no rocket ships are coming to get you, resupply you, etc.. Now you are just going to whittle away and die! Yeah! Thats right, there will be no way for people stuck on mars to exist without resupply from earth... not with current technology (or foreseeable future).
I still think we should do it, but it would have to be done right. Not small bases like everyone recommends, but overkill to the extreme. Large initial colonies to support just a small amount of people. Human beings need space, downtime, and certain levels of freedom to avoid the nastiness that comes along with confinement. The price tag would have to be one that would be shared with the entire world as no one country would be able to do it (though the $700 Billion going to wallstreet would be an excellent down payment).
I wouldnt imagine that people would be "much" different back then than they are today. There are still plenty of people who live in conditions that are not much different then they were 5,000 years ago. Its only in Western and developing nations where life is so "alien" compared to what it was before large groups of people started living together.
You can find alot of good articles about people living in near stone age conditions in places like South America in the Amazon, Sub Sahara Africa, and Australia.
As far as primitive inventions, I am sure there were many that were lost in time and space. Back in "the day" there were not so many people, so ideas and inventions did not have good soil to grow in, so many were probably invented and reinvented and lost again over long stretches of time. Its just inevitable. Steam engines are known to have existed right around the turn of the common era, but they were never used for anything more than to make entertainment devices operate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria).
I think what will be truly fascinating in the future, is when we put together a complex puzzle that shows how many times human beings "missed" some very key opportunities to make incredible technological advances due to war, famine, environmental changes, and epidemic diseases.
We are blessed today to live in a world that places real value in technological advances (despite the news reports). Modern advances are almost mind numbing compared to the relatively slow advances in science in the rest of human history.
Of course, this leads to the questions that society is invariably unwilling or unable to ask. Are women actually responsible for causing women to not want to be in "hard science" types of field? This would go contrary to all the high powered/high priced lobbyists that attend that all the problems women face are because of men.
Thankfully, our research departments and universities are full of cool aide drinking liberals that will not accept results which do not lead to their historical preconcieved notions of inequity in our society.
Not that all liberals are bad, just the kool aide drinking ones that like to skew statistics. For example, take a look at "gun violence and children" statistics (also gang violence). The grouping for "children" includes people from the ages of 1 - 24. I know, off topic, but you can probably expect the same exact type of misrepresentation of facts in any study that would lead to the conclusion that women are womens own worse enemy.
Now mod me -2 troll because I supported guns, bashed liberal academics, and said women are their own worse enemy.
Yeah... I come up with the FLU when I google.... NOT.
Go and google "chills + muscle aches"
Third result as follows:
"Symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever begin 4 to 16 days after infection. Persons develop fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, and loss of appetite...."
Yeah... I remember why I stopped using google to look up anything health related. Only a couple of years ago, that same exact search would have returned AIDS info. Talk about making things worse.
Yes, but they would be so smart, they would forsee the attack and dispurse. In fact.. wasnt there an article about walking houses? If these people really are geniuses, they would detect the nuclear attack before it went off, and walk their houses out of the strike zone.
They would then retaliate with "super mice". If you havent heard, science has figured out ways to make mice smarter, faster, and regenerate new body parts (well... an ear on the back isnt too useful, but its a start). These new super mice, infused with robotic implants (as we have seen in other posts where mice with broken backs can operate prostetic legs), will certainly be able to over whelm the attackers.
Seeing the threat humanity poses, these mice will turn on the super smart town of people, knowing that they will figure out a way to fight back. however, the mice, already know how to enhance their intelligence, will begin a spiraling circle of genetic manipulation to make super intelligent offspring. Since mice reproduce so quickly, several generations will go by within a year, making mice hundreds of times smart than humans.
Which enemy was this during the 1990's? As far as I know, the United States closed down alot of military installations, drew down alot of its military presence in Europe, and downsized the military over all, hence the United states inability to respond with sufficient force to the war on terror circa 9/11/2001.
For those of you with "tin foil hats" that buy into this kinda basement thing, do a google for BRAC. Then you can also take a look at the size of the US military 1988 versus 1998. You will see that it is substantially smaller.
For those of you who forgot, the United States was ACTUALLY attacked by "terrorists" known as Al Queda. This is not an "imaginary" enemy as many people somehow seem to believe. Real people were really killed, to the tune of 3,000 civilians in a well orchestrated sneak attack. What makes terrorists difficult to deal with is not identifying them per say, its not unjustly targeting the wrong people. Most people tend to think the US is some "new evil empire" in some fanatical quest... to do something... but do your own research on how much military power the US REALLY HAS and you will see an extreme level of restraint.
Of course, this is slashdot and it seems that some people reflect their experiences with high school bullies to the US... but I digress...
Who gave you "informative"? The parent clearly explained how Buffet is not going to suffer from Obama's tax plan. Care to read it again or was it to complicated for you? Lets try this again:
People who produce traditional income (through wages or sold assets such as products and goods) are going to get a tax increase. Asshats like buffet and the other schmucks that caused this current mess wont be taxed because they deal in "securities" (such as stocks) which will NOT be taxed.
Hrm. Arent desktops virtually becoming thin clients with the advent of "cloud computing"? As far as I can tell (working in a hugenormeous corporate environment 20,000+ users), any application worth its salt is being run on big iron servers, where the clients only run browsers written in Java (or some other platform neutral client) where they can perform trivial functions not worth running on the main servers. I cant really think of any software outside of development and video games that are processor intensive that are designed to run primarily on a desktop anyway.
So now we have "thin clients" connecting to the "cloud" in order to do the real work. In this scenario your going to have to make up in networking components what you save in client components for the sake of redundancy and availability.
I wonder if this is just a result of some weird gravitational lensing effect? I'm not very familiar with the technique, but from what I understand, its kind of like looking at a shadow in order to try and figure out the shape of an object... except the light source is light years away and the object is equally far away.... I'm sure as time goes by and our observation techniques improve, we are going to see many different things that we never thought would be possible. Yes yes... physics is physics, but humanity has a problem with adjusting to scales, and space is a very, very big thing.
There is little way to control the environments in order to do controlled experiments, all we have are observations... which at such great distances, must be very susceptible to nearly infinite sources of interference that we simply cannot identify with present means.
With that said... a new category of planets off of one object? Getting carried away much...?
"I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion,
Doesnt anyone else find this ironic?
I'll elaborate for those of you with mod points that dont get it. Its ironic because religion often says you cannot question creation without certain credentials... the parent is essentially creating a religious like environment by saying you need a "degree" from an artificial instution in order to question things... *sigh*
I do not so much mind "targeted adds" as much as I mind "add spam". I would love to know about new electronics, new games, new guns, and who the hottest new chick is, but what I dont care about is: making $10000 a month with a home based business, mortgage rates dropping, dancing women on roof tops, or premium life insurance for the elderly. Yes, adds are intrusive, but they provide incentive for people to put up interesting web sites that I like to frequent, without having to charge me a subscription fee (not sure of any other money making model that has succeeded for web sites).
What are you trying to say? Dont be vague, just say it.
I'm not "addicted" to the theory of CO2 having a negative role in "climate change". I'm as "addicted" to that "theory" as I am "addicted" to the theory of "gravity". I simply dont know any better, logical, explination. Perhaps CO2 impact is more of a hypothesis, but a lot of scientists are pretty sold on it.
So if CO2 isn't a negative catalyst in global climate change, then what effect is it having on our planet? I mean, as far as I know, the CO2 isnt blowing out into outer space. Its going into the atmosphere and staying there (or being sequestered by other catalysts, but the pace of carbon output is known to currently be greater than the system can take it).
I mean, stand in an air tight room, and pump CO2 into that room. You will quickly learn how changing an atmosphere by adding additional gases can really change things up.
Again, for the "anti-greenhouse gas" people, please explain what effects CO2 is having, if its not having an effect on "climate change".
I think that statistic is a bit hopeful. My current understanding of how the "earth" came to be a hospitable place, is due to a cosmic collision on such a scale that it changed the entire ecosystem of earth. The impact was so massive that it made the event that caused the dino's to be wiped out to look like a pin prick.
I'm sure cosmic collisions of that size occur all the time (speaking astronomically), but what are the chances that "large objects" (earth sized), at the right distance from their host start, made up of earth like (at that time) materials get smacked by a large sized object with those type materials, and finally end up with the type atmosphere that is conducive to life (as we know it)? Earth isnt an evolutionary phenomena (from the current explanation) but was created by an accidental collision, and then evolved into what it is today (though I'm sure other series of cosmic impacts also shaped earth to what it is today, but I digress).
So considering how truly random earth is... just try and keep that in mind and now put TIME into the equation. What if impacts like this only happen once every... dunno... say 500 million years? Life could have "come and gone" and dozens of remote planets BEFORE THE EARTH WAS MADE (earth age, 4.6 billion, Universe, 13.7 billion, life on earth, 500 million).
Lets not even get started on how random the chances are for the creation of life. Mix that with how random the chances are that you get an earth... and we are talking random. More random than 1/1000th of 0.01%. Albiet, Time and Space are vast, our observation capabilities are extremely limited, and our understanding of origins is also very limited....
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So how much shielding is needed to protect humans from solar radiation on the surface of the moon? It might be easier to get the first few humans on the moon with prefab structures that simply set down, and allow humans to work beneath it. Look at the Bigelow space module. Something like that, with additional protection, could make for a fast settlement where humans can work with robots/tools to do the real heavy lifting (besides, things are a little less heavy on the moon).
I think conventional construction of permanent structures is quiet a long way away.
I work for a 20,000+ private user network that has some pretty critical demands for High Availability. If you are working for a non-profit, chances are that you simply will not be able to afford "true high availability", which requires a plethora of support features that are prohibitively expensive (for example, Cisco Content Switches cost $10,000+).
Until you hit over 1,000+ Unique visitors "per minute" your best bet may be to have your site split amongst several different hosting providers (serverbeach, rackspace, etc.) and use DNS Round Robin to provide a bit of cheap load balancing and cheap redundancy (just give the www for your domain 3 A record entries).
I know it sounds pretty lame, but it works.
Let me ask the resident experts: With all the different telescopes that litter the earth, how is it that we miss these types of objects coming so close to our planet? I know that space is vast (practically beyond rational imagination), but is there a way to observe a region of space encompassing several days/weeks/months with objects traveling at a certain speed? What would those costs be? (I bet it would be under 700 Billion USD)
I found this article pretty interesting about a space based constellaton of satellites using radar to track objects on the ground. How about something like this pointing away from earth?:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sr.htm
I think this would be an excellent time for the US to jump back in the lead in science and technology. Take that money going into ideologically based spending, and shove it into space systems that will have actual use. Create methods of early detection of earth impacting objects, and standby means to intercept. The "space industrial complex" could lead to high tech jobs that create a high tech industry that will attract top talent from around the world at rates that rival the early 20th century.
I shouldnt, but I do, find the hypocrisy of the intellectual elite startling. On one hand, our "science oriented" peers will sit and debate what is becoming the blurring line of "what life is" and then on the other hand state that a fetus is not a person. A fetus is a person as much as a 120 year old Alzheimer's patient. They are just in different stages of human development. I use the comparison between Alzheimer's patients and a fetus for two very particular reasons: Lack of awareness, and lack of self sustainment. Neither could survive without support from someone else, but neither are less human. Both have the potential to be a major drag on another person, or to be a gift, or neither.
Of course, you will have those who are cavalier about euthanisation, but those people are just a joke (I've got to watch people like that beg for help and cry for mommy when death stared them in the face). For a large majority of the cases of abortion, the decision simply boils down to a matter of convenience. How will this child impact my life. If negative, kill it, if positive, keep it. Or those who will suffer it for the sake of the preservation of life.
Ironically, those very same people who often chose abortion for convenience are the same people who will choose nanny state socialism (Democrats). If you cant understand the irony, it would just take too long to explain.
Jamming cell phones at certain facilities should be allowed, such as in prisons, but using cell jamming technology on the block is chalked full of potential pit falls.
I've dont some consulting with law enforcement and the application of technology in tactical situations, and the bottom line greatest problem with jamming cell phones is that it is a dead ringer that something is about to happen. In a tactical situation, anything that gives the target a reason to raise suspicion, dramatically enhances their reaction time. Jamming equipment's real danger is that using it too early can ruin the element of surprise. Cell phones can be set to alarm when coverage suddenly dissapears.
Now what law enforcement really needs is the ability to emulate any carriers signal and perform intercept and interference, thus removing any form of potential early tip off (such as everyones cell phone suddenly going from 4 bars to 0 bars).
The only way to fix this mess is with more H1-B visa's!!!
"You don't pay for a cozy environment."
Why not? What is wrong with having a cozy environment to learn?
You know the funniest thing about this thread? If we were talking about the military... or any other organization that uses any fashion of "hazing" to "weed out" people, the slashdot community would have its collective panties in a twist. For some reason, the "intellectual elite" are in favor of sadistic education rituals straight out of the dark ages to "prove" that people can "cut it".
This irrational, industrial era mentality of adaptability fitness needs to go the way of chivalry (not talking about the opening doors, but the dueling in the streets, honor killing, etc..). How many times do we have to read articles about work places employing bullshit work practices, and have a litany of why these practices are "bad", but if you replaced "work" with "school" environment, people would applaud it and say this "weeds out the herd". Sorry, but not everyone learns well under a great amount of duress, and this doesnt make them stupid, weak, or undeserving of a formal education. Ironically enough, while Academia is still stuck in their elitist ways, the US military has gone the opposite direction and actually has done alot to move away from teaching under stressful situations, realizing that the easier it is for someone to learn, the more likely they are going to be able to do it when they really need it.
I know, I know... we all need to feel "better" than everyone else, and being able to say "I can do it this way, therefore, everyone else should have to suffer that way too" is attractive, but its simply not good for society as a whole. People WILL FAIL all on their own, even under the best of circumstances provided. They should fail because they lack the understanding of the material, not because the environment was too difficult to get a proper understanding of the material.
And seriously... for a bunch of fucking nerds... you still want giant Lecture halls? I mean... technology... should probably get its time to shine. 2009... should have better education mediums than 1949....
The number 1 reason not to play CoDX (everything after CoD4) is because all you are getting is a mocked up recycled version of CoD4. CoDWW is a giant piece of shit, like CoD4 turned out to be. Since I'm not all that old, this isnt a get off my lawn type of rant, but for the love of cheeseburgers, wtf is up with non stop explosions just killing everything all game long... its like watching a Pink Floyd video, but instead of random colors, its just random explosions.
The appeal of the old CoD games was that you actually had to work together with other players (CoD multiplayer) in order to win. Now you just get a few kills and call in SPAM X to add more kills so you can keep calling in more SPAM X to kill and then you have 10 more minutes of nothing but explosions. And that is considered a game?
So CoDX is just going to be the same engine as CoD4 with advertisements, but you get to pay another $60 so you can see adds. Oh, maybe they will change the name of the same weapon, or add a new skin or two. But it will be the same 4 stupid kits, with teh same useless buffs or add ons... same ole same ole. Why not just change it from Call of Duty to Call of Madden and get it over with.
Evolution isnt a thinking thing capable of measuring... anything. Its a process that just happens. "It" doesnt care if a species succeeds or fails.... and lots of different species have failed horribly. If evolution was really some sort of progressive force, than less species would die out, as it goes right now, many more species have failed than succeeded.
And terms such as "better" doesnt really do much good. Cockroaches will probably outlive humans. Are they "better" or more "evolved" than human beings? These are subjective measurements, that only matter for academic debate. As far as nature cares, it doesnt care. It doesnt differentiate because nature isnt a thinking thing keeping score. Live, die... oh wells. The sun is going to go super nova anyway, eventually, and all the contests and contestants will be null and void.
Hows that for your daily dosage of existentialism?
I dont want to be too harsh on the parent, but these are pretty false comparisons. To begin with, the "New World" settlers werent in "danger" of contracting diseases from the "New World"... the diseases were from the "old world". This is like saying that our astronauts would have to worry about gang violence on mars. No... gang violence is on earth.
The reason a Mars to New World comparison is a poor comparison is pretty simple. The "New World" had "human beings" already there, thus proving that living there was completely viable. Just because the inhabitants of the "New World" werent white Europeans, doesnt mean the "New World" was somehow inhospitable. No, the whole New World concept is quasi nationalist and insultingly Eurocentric.
A more accurate comparison would be talking about how 14th century Europeans colonized Antartica. Of course, that didnt happen.
Anyone willing to go to Mars would have to be either divorced from the reality of their likely demise.
- You dont need to worry about being lost, because there is nowhere to go. Your on Mars. Each spec of martian terrain is just as unwelcoming to earth life as the next.
- You are completely reliant on technology for your survival. Back on earth, the planet kept you alive, now you are relying on equipment created by the lowest bidder (thats right). If that machine that makes your air happens to blow up, catch fire, etc, you are dead with almost no means to manufacture another. No moving, no anything. End game.
- Dont like your job? Dont like your room mate? Want to see a movie? No. You are stuck in your job, which is to do science and survive. Thats it until someone comes to relieve you, and that is if someone comes to relieve you because...
- Civil war, economic collapse, Plague, zombie apocalypse (left 4 dead ftw), angry congress criters, etc., back on earth means that no rocket ships are coming to get you, resupply you, etc.. Now you are just going to whittle away and die! Yeah! Thats right, there will be no way for people stuck on mars to exist without resupply from earth... not with current technology (or foreseeable future).
I still think we should do it, but it would have to be done right. Not small bases like everyone recommends, but overkill to the extreme. Large initial colonies to support just a small amount of people. Human beings need space, downtime, and certain levels of freedom to avoid the nastiness that comes along with confinement. The price tag would have to be one that would be shared with the entire world as no one country would be able to do it (though the $700 Billion going to wallstreet would be an excellent down payment).
Just remember, there is no such thing as a "soft landing" on Venus.
I wouldnt imagine that people would be "much" different back then than they are today. There are still plenty of people who live in conditions that are not much different then they were 5,000 years ago. Its only in Western and developing nations where life is so "alien" compared to what it was before large groups of people started living together.
You can find alot of good articles about people living in near stone age conditions in places like South America in the Amazon, Sub Sahara Africa, and Australia.
As far as primitive inventions, I am sure there were many that were lost in time and space. Back in "the day" there were not so many people, so ideas and inventions did not have good soil to grow in, so many were probably invented and reinvented and lost again over long stretches of time. Its just inevitable. Steam engines are known to have existed right around the turn of the common era, but they were never used for anything more than to make entertainment devices operate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria).
I think what will be truly fascinating in the future, is when we put together a complex puzzle that shows how many times human beings "missed" some very key opportunities to make incredible technological advances due to war, famine, environmental changes, and epidemic diseases.
We are blessed today to live in a world that places real value in technological advances (despite the news reports). Modern advances are almost mind numbing compared to the relatively slow advances in science in the rest of human history.
Of course, this leads to the questions that society is invariably unwilling or unable to ask. Are women actually responsible for causing women to not want to be in "hard science" types of field? This would go contrary to all the high powered/high priced lobbyists that attend that all the problems women face are because of men.
Thankfully, our research departments and universities are full of cool aide drinking liberals that will not accept results which do not lead to their historical preconcieved notions of inequity in our society.
Not that all liberals are bad, just the kool aide drinking ones that like to skew statistics. For example, take a look at "gun violence and children" statistics (also gang violence). The grouping for "children" includes people from the ages of 1 - 24. I know, off topic, but you can probably expect the same exact type of misrepresentation of facts in any study that would lead to the conclusion that women are womens own worse enemy.
Now mod me -2 troll because I supported guns, bashed liberal academics, and said women are their own worse enemy.
If she is that smart, I think she will figure out what she wants to do on her own without you getting in the way.
sheesh!
Yeah... I come up with the FLU when I google.... NOT.
Go and google "chills + muscle aches"
Third result as follows:
"Symptoms of Ebola hemorrhagic fever begin 4 to 16 days after infection. Persons develop fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, and loss of appetite. ..."
Yeah... I remember why I stopped using google to look up anything health related. Only a couple of years ago, that same exact search would have returned AIDS info. Talk about making things worse.
When I'm sick, I'll just call a doctor.
Yes, but they would be so smart, they would forsee the attack and dispurse. In fact.. wasnt there an article about walking houses? If these people really are geniuses, they would detect the nuclear attack before it went off, and walk their houses out of the strike zone.
They would then retaliate with "super mice". If you havent heard, science has figured out ways to make mice smarter, faster, and regenerate new body parts (well... an ear on the back isnt too useful, but its a start). These new super mice, infused with robotic implants (as we have seen in other posts where mice with broken backs can operate prostetic legs), will certainly be able to over whelm the attackers.
Seeing the threat humanity poses, these mice will turn on the super smart town of people, knowing that they will figure out a way to fight back. however, the mice, already know how to enhance their intelligence, will begin a spiraling circle of genetic manipulation to make super intelligent offspring. Since mice reproduce so quickly, several generations will go by within a year, making mice hundreds of times smart than humans.
Hence will begin the reign of "The Brain". Narf!
Which enemy was this during the 1990's? As far as I know, the United States closed down alot of military installations, drew down alot of its military presence in Europe, and downsized the military over all, hence the United states inability to respond with sufficient force to the war on terror circa 9/11/2001.
For those of you with "tin foil hats" that buy into this kinda basement thing, do a google for BRAC. Then you can also take a look at the size of the US military 1988 versus 1998. You will see that it is substantially smaller.
For those of you who forgot, the United States was ACTUALLY attacked by "terrorists" known as Al Queda. This is not an "imaginary" enemy as many people somehow seem to believe. Real people were really killed, to the tune of 3,000 civilians in a well orchestrated sneak attack. What makes terrorists difficult to deal with is not identifying them per say, its not unjustly targeting the wrong people. Most people tend to think the US is some "new evil empire" in some fanatical quest... to do something... but do your own research on how much military power the US REALLY HAS and you will see an extreme level of restraint.
Of course, this is slashdot and it seems that some people reflect their experiences with high school bullies to the US... but I digress...
Who gave you "informative"? The parent clearly explained how Buffet is not going to suffer from Obama's tax plan. Care to read it again or was it to complicated for you? Lets try this again:
People who produce traditional income (through wages or sold assets such as products and goods) are going to get a tax increase. Asshats like buffet and the other schmucks that caused this current mess wont be taxed because they deal in "securities" (such as stocks) which will NOT be taxed.
Hrm. Arent desktops virtually becoming thin clients with the advent of "cloud computing"? As far as I can tell (working in a hugenormeous corporate environment 20,000+ users), any application worth its salt is being run on big iron servers, where the clients only run browsers written in Java (or some other platform neutral client) where they can perform trivial functions not worth running on the main servers. I cant really think of any software outside of development and video games that are processor intensive that are designed to run primarily on a desktop anyway.
So now we have "thin clients" connecting to the "cloud" in order to do the real work. In this scenario your going to have to make up in networking components what you save in client components for the sake of redundancy and availability.
I wonder if this is just a result of some weird gravitational lensing effect? I'm not very familiar with the technique, but from what I understand, its kind of like looking at a shadow in order to try and figure out the shape of an object... except the light source is light years away and the object is equally far away.... I'm sure as time goes by and our observation techniques improve, we are going to see many different things that we never thought would be possible. Yes yes... physics is physics, but humanity has a problem with adjusting to scales, and space is a very, very big thing.
There is little way to control the environments in order to do controlled experiments, all we have are observations... which at such great distances, must be very susceptible to nearly infinite sources of interference that we simply cannot identify with present means.
With that said... a new category of planets off of one object? Getting carried away much...?
"I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion,
Doesnt anyone else find this ironic?
I'll elaborate for those of you with mod points that dont get it. Its ironic because religion often says you cannot question creation without certain credentials... the parent is essentially creating a religious like environment by saying you need a "degree" from an artificial instution in order to question things... *sigh*
Oh yes... I'm buying stock in Tinfoil!
I do not so much mind "targeted adds" as much as I mind "add spam". I would love to know about new electronics, new games, new guns, and who the hottest new chick is, but what I dont care about is: making $10000 a month with a home based business, mortgage rates dropping, dancing women on roof tops, or premium life insurance for the elderly. Yes, adds are intrusive, but they provide incentive for people to put up interesting web sites that I like to frequent, without having to charge me a subscription fee (not sure of any other money making model that has succeeded for web sites).
Ok. I'll bite.
What are you trying to say? Dont be vague, just say it.
I'm not "addicted" to the theory of CO2 having a negative role in "climate change". I'm as "addicted" to that "theory" as I am "addicted" to the theory of "gravity". I simply dont know any better, logical, explination. Perhaps CO2 impact is more of a hypothesis, but a lot of scientists are pretty sold on it.
So if CO2 isn't a negative catalyst in global climate change, then what effect is it having on our planet? I mean, as far as I know, the CO2 isnt blowing out into outer space. Its going into the atmosphere and staying there (or being sequestered by other catalysts, but the pace of carbon output is known to currently be greater than the system can take it).
I mean, stand in an air tight room, and pump CO2 into that room. You will quickly learn how changing an atmosphere by adding additional gases can really change things up.
Again, for the "anti-greenhouse gas" people, please explain what effects CO2 is having, if its not having an effect on "climate change".
1/1000th of 0.01%
I think that statistic is a bit hopeful. My current understanding of how the "earth" came to be a hospitable place, is due to a cosmic collision on such a scale that it changed the entire ecosystem of earth. The impact was so massive that it made the event that caused the dino's to be wiped out to look like a pin prick.
I'm sure cosmic collisions of that size occur all the time (speaking astronomically), but what are the chances that "large objects" (earth sized), at the right distance from their host start, made up of earth like (at that time) materials get smacked by a large sized object with those type materials, and finally end up with the type atmosphere that is conducive to life (as we know it)? Earth isnt an evolutionary phenomena (from the current explanation) but was created by an accidental collision, and then evolved into what it is today (though I'm sure other series of cosmic impacts also shaped earth to what it is today, but I digress).
So considering how truly random earth is... just try and keep that in mind and now put TIME into the equation. What if impacts like this only happen once every... dunno... say 500 million years? Life could have "come and gone" and dozens of remote planets BEFORE THE EARTH WAS MADE (earth age, 4.6 billion, Universe, 13.7 billion, life on earth, 500 million).
Lets not even get started on how random the chances are for the creation of life. Mix that with how random the chances are that you get an earth... and we are talking random. More random than 1/1000th of 0.01%. Albiet, Time and Space are vast, our observation capabilities are extremely limited, and our understanding of origins is also very limited....