In reality, it's probably not going to be much over 10 years. Yes, HDDs will have greater capacity than SDDs, but the difference will likely be similar to why we don't use tape drives today. The primary drive in all non-bargin computers will probably be an SSD by 1017, and probably 2014 for all laptops*. Programs, music, documents, etc. will be stored on the SSD, HD movie content will likely mostly be stored on HDDs. Currently 300 GB is enough for almost any user if one excludes video.
*I was going to add a caveat for the ultra cheap laptops, but they still use flash memory even today, mostly for size, durability and battery life - although the capacity varies between 2-8gb...
Yes, statistically it won't be that many. It may be somewhat incorrect to point this out, but statistically 9/11 wasn't that big an impact. Two cities, which while important comprise maybe 5% of the US, and what % increase over the average deaths in the US? Probably small. The impact it had? Huge. Why? Uncertainty. If someone could (completely) convince people there would be no future attacks, it would have been an easier transition, especially for the financial markets.
The flu would be a much bigger example, because it would impact a far larger segment, and introduce uncertainty for the entire US (and world, which reverberates back to the US). The death rate would increase significantly (enough that the US may decline in population over the year or so this pandemic covered). The airline industry experienced a very significant decline over much lower mortality rate than 2%.
We're also accounting for the fact that even if the mortality rate is.5%, parents will still be protective with their kids and 70+% of the population will likely get at least a minor case of the flu. A minor case + fear = I may die. A moderate case means that you wouldn't be going to work anyway, and if anyone in your family has a moderate case, at least one adult will not be going to work, potentially both (do I want to leave my SO/child, they may be dying.)
It's the prisoner's dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma applied on a massive scale with iterations. The uncertainty makes everything seize up, which causes more uncertainty, which makes everything seize up further, until it reaches a critical point and levels off. You need a surprisingly low amount of uncertainty to do this, and having 1% of the US population die over the course of 6-9 months would likely do this. The debate of if the pandemic will happen is open, but the debate as to the general chaos that will ensue because of it isn't really.
I seriously want them to restart the project that was going to bring a new 2d game to the DS. Not that I haven't enjoyed the prime series, but 2d has something to it. Hell, I wanted a 2d game on the GC/Wii, one that was monstrously large and had very good graphics...
I'd also be happy with a port of super metroid to the DS. Best metroid game of all time, in my opinion.
because the phone companies restrict you to a ridiculously short block of text, and charge quite a bit for sending/receiving a very small amount of data, we have a generation that can't spell?
Those evil phone companies. Just think of how they'll lament when they can only get ppl tht r sbstrd spllrs n cnt do wrk.
For the record it takes me about 3 times as long to do shorthand spelling, especially on the computer, and 2 times as long to do it with texts. t9 is your friend. I also don't need to be texting war and peace to my friends.
Depends exactly what chemicals you use in your sinks/laundry. Standard soaps would probably be alright in limited quantities, but i'd be very cautious about bleach or drain cleaners, etc.
The algae might actually thrive from blackwater - Urine is the primary method for removing nitrogen from the body, and feces generally contain nutrients necessary for plants. Considering that algae thrives from nitrogen and phosphorous...
But in the end if you can find a sanitary way to do this, I could envision a method of reducing strain on sewer systems and generating energy. Granted I wouldn't want to ever have to work on repairing a system that contained algae and sewage, all steeping under the sun, day in and out.
I suspect this wouldn't be an option for most people's back yards - certainly not in the more temperate/polar regions, where'd you'd have to worry about keeping snow off it, preventing it from freezing, etc. It may be well suited as something for integration into waste treatment centers though.
All in all the prospects of such a system, if well designed and planned, could probably put a newly built city well on the way to being carbon negative and having an environmental footprint a quarter or less of what a similarly sized city would be (though it probably would take up somewhat more room).
There are multiple interesting ideas and initiatives along this idea, including a green city going up in china http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_popup.html , (scroll 3/4 down to hear actual plans for the city) Although I can't find it, there was also a 6 spoke fractal design for transportation, which started as a circle crossed by 6 equidistant spokes, each of which had a circle with 6 spokes, a design which continued for 1-3 iterations. I think for a city of 1 million, point-to-point rail transportation within one of the 6 primary circles was 5 minutes, and within the city as a whole 12 minutes. It didn't scale especially well if you added iteration -1, making the city capable of holding 6 times as many people, but it was still competitive with current systems I believe.
The end result is the carbon is removed from the air. It's exactly like trees and other plants, albeit as a likely single celled organism the resulting structure it's stored in isn't usually as useful.
Also I may be wrong, but I believe you'd still run into oxygen depletion in the ocean, though not directly from the algae. An algal bloom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom increases the amount of bacteria present to 'eat' the algae. These bacteria use the oxygen dissolved in the water, and eventually most animals can't survive in it.
As to the possible problem of breeding an algae which takes over things - this species seems to me like it'd be less likely to survive in the wild, and even if equally as likely, it is probable that in order to cultivate the algae in sufficient quantities, it would have to be fertilized, limiting it's excessive spread to the areas fertilized/naturally containing a large abundance of such nutrients.
It likely would be difficult to harvest the byproduct of multiple millions of acres of algae on the ocean, but I don't see it being significantly easier farming it. Perhaps the easiest solution would be to flood an area near the ocean (or a continental shelf), but these tend to be areas valued by man and inhabited by diverse wildlife where man hasn't chased it away. Regardless you'd need large quantities of water and of land, and they tend to be somewhat exclusive of each other. The great plains aquifers are estimated to run dry as early as 2050, and these are the prime reason why farming the great plains is as productive as it is. I don't know, perhaps I'm missing an obvious solution?
Hydrogen does have quite a lot of energy bang for the buck, though since it's a gas vs a liquid, the comparison by volume is kinda flawed. I'm pretty sure that as a liquid it has considerably more energy density than gasoline, but it is a bitch to keep compressed like that and it's insanely volatile.
So many problems to solve? Yes. But chalking one off the list is a good thing, reducing the fundamental problem with hydrogen power - the fact that the variable cost was so high. If there's an abundant energy rich resource available it gives much greater incentive to find a way to use it. If we didn't have so much oil, we'd probably find a way to use coal to power vehicles (and not simply by converting it to oil.)
The fact remains that building such facilities to produce hydrogen, as well as many other stages required to make hydrogen a practical fuel, is a chicken and the egg problem. Come to think of it, i wonder which will end first - the dominance of gasoline as a fuel, or the dominance of the x86 ISA. The same solution is required, a hybrid which can implement the old way and new way reasonably well (70+%) of a pure implementation of both.
It's not a matter of how much farmland we have, it's oceans (or lakes, if it's a freshwater variety). If this works, it'd be a great boon to the environment - The algae removes C02 from the air, and creates H2, which unlike ethanol or other green fuels releases no CO2 back into the environment.
Granted, there's an issue of oxygen removal from the water and disrupting the balance of an already stressed environment, but if it was done in largely dead ocean areas, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Now if we can only find a fast breeding (but non-disruptive), good tasting fish who likes to eat algae... we'd solve 3 key problems - ocean depletion, CO2 emissions, and an energy source.
Unfortunately I was doing this as a work related project, which somewhat tainted my views (though few to none of your benefits would be very useful for my employer.) I agree social interaction would be good, but my experience was that it wasn't easily done in SL - there wasn't much to do besides roleplay or sit around and virtually chat... Yes you could build things, but in order to really compete you need to have somewhat advanced software, and most of it's already been done. Shops are boring; I never had any money, but I could find most things for free, the problem of having no variable cost. In general the human interaction isn't there. I agree games would be nice, but they aren't well implemented in the game...In general it's too clunky to do much of anything, and as I wasn't interested in pure RP (or sex), i found it to be a very boring experience. Most places are ghost towns, or people (away), camping money mats, or getting free stuff. Nothing too exciting there,and if i'm going to have a random chat, i might as well do IRC or a similar chat where i can easily do other things.
The whole thing in general reminded me of microsoft bob. I don't want to use my computer as a house, i want my computer to be a computer. Likewise i want my chat to be a chat, and SL offered little extra to the experience of chatting, certainly not enough to get over the fact that it's not as good as a regular chatroom.
Yes, you reached exactly the same points I did after using SL for a few minutes, testing it for a company initiative. Graphics need to advance considerably, and beyond that bandwidth/latency issues need to improve.
Even if you could move around freely in a virtual world, I'm not sure why you'd want to. You still can't touch anything, and 3d is still only 2d+; your monitor is only a 2d surface. (Sidenote: they are working on a 3d monitor, similar to an advanced version of the 3d movies/glasses.) It's nice to be able to rotate a picture and examine an object, but I've been able to do that on websites for years, like on cell phone websites, requiring javascript rather than launching a separate client, navigating to the site/store, bumping into objects/people trying to move around the store...and the picture quality is much higher because in most cases they're actual pictures, or a high quality 3d model, and the cell phone is all they need to show. No avatars, no other objects...
SL also doesn't have google, is down fairly frequently, has almost nothing to do commercially (unless you count shopping online, already done much better in a browser/real life), and honestly will fail because there's no real way of winning. People play WoW 20+ hours a week all for the goal of being better. In SL all you can do to be better is get more stuff, much of which is available for free. WoW would end in a few weeks if everyone could get to level 70 in under a week and the best items could be had for almost no effort.
The bottom line? Computers need to be twice as fast as they are presently (to run SL at 2-4 times present graphics, easily), bandwidth/latency needs to increase/decrease by 2-4 times. A new input/output device is needed (3d monitors, a new 'mouse'), and a critical mass needs to be reached, similarly to how now you can find everything online; in 1998 you couldn't find much of anything online to buy. Oh, and an easy learning curve, or a serious incentive for the user to learn the controls/world.
Personally I think 3d worlds will be obsolete before they ever meet the requirements the average user needs to use them. Somethings are best done in a 2d medium, just as somethings are best done in command line; there are times for keyboard shortcuts, and times for using a mouse. By and large a 2d interface (browser) with 3d as needed is the best current way.
Perhaps someone can enlighten me, but genocide? Wouldn't anyone in a position to commit such a thing naturally be able to trivially get around ANY filter? Not to mention I doubt detailed plans for most genocides are available online, but most just involved whatever was cheap - Typically guns or sharp objects. Most dictators without a significantly strong (and organized) military can't use more advanced weapons (which were almost always gas)
Also will CSI be banned over there? It gives all sorts of ways to murder, how to cover up most things...and then what the person did wrong in the end! I'm surprised the murder rate hasn't doubled, with the what, 3 different variants on TV?
As for terrorism? Once again how much of this is actually on the internet and relevant? Yes there are terrorist websites, but I imagine most users don't find them through google... if they could, they'd tend to be shut down.
Bomb making is the only one I could see a reason for. And even then, the threat to liberties vs the ease of circumvention (just don't mention certain words...) really isn't worth it.
I've still yet to care about this format war, but this sounds more promising than either of the other two standards. Too bad it will never get off the ground.
This (and a few other comments) ignore the likely path of the singularity. Computers have already gotten to the point where they far exceed a human's ability to process input/output for/from them. A.I. is a step in reducing the problem (making the machines more human in some ways), but the other alternative is the oft used cyberpunk example where humans become more like machines; to the point where they can download themselves into a machine, or have computers implanted directly into themselves.
If the technology takes the 2nd path, humanity won't die so much as super-evolve to become relatively knowledge driven and form independent, unlike any form of typical life usually thought about. I think the 2nd path is more likely, since the first one doesn't help us as much, where as the 2nd one has vast economic frontiers along the way - entertainment (to the point of matrix-like immersion), a human with the ability to process simple information at the speed of a computer...
I'd also say that regardless, once knowledge becomes transferable, the super computer that designs earth won't be obsolete, in a similar manner that when you upgrade to a new machine, you carry over many of the files from your old machine. The physical machine would change, but the soul of the old one would transfer.
And that will be a question debated by many; is it relatively intangible intelligence and personality which defines us, or is it our physical bodies?
It's alright. I'll give them that fair use isn't a consumer right.
I'll just say my wallet isn't a producer right. Go watch steamboat willy in all it's glory. Keep him all to yourself. See how shareholders love you for it.
The point was that the touch has a screen 3.5" (vs 2.5" for the classic), yet has 1/10th the storage, and a slightly shorter battery life.
I know the logic behind it (same as selling the iPhone for 600, and then dropping it, as well as introducing the touch after most sales of the iPhone have been made), but the logical move (to make the best piece of technology) would be to merge the touch and the classic, so you get a larger screen, 10x disk space and wifi.
Keep the nano as it was, but make it a 20+gb flash based player, slim and sleek. I like the old form factor, as mentioned by a few people. Even if it isn't that much bigger, the square is less convenient to put places, and in some instances I just want a music player. Pictures and other things are fine, but I don't want a larger screen that I feel will get scratched easier, use more battery, etc.
Keep the touch largely how it was, basically the lite version of the merged touch/classic.
The problem is that without arbitrary distribution of features, people will tend to never have a player that does all they want. Apple could make a much better player than they are now, but they're saving these ideas for incremental releases, so people will continue buying them. Doing it my way creates product cannibalization, where your own products compete too heavily against themselves, and don't take significant sales away from competitors products.
Myself? I'm going to see if i can get an old nano 8gb for 100-150.
I recall reading a story about attacks on one of the research labs (Los Alamos, I think). Someone noticed something was going on, the attacks were incredibly well disciplined, like a good burglar - get in, get what you can grab quickly, and get out. They didn't spend too much time on anyone thing, they just downloaded anything they could grab and got out, to repeat some other time (~2am local time)
He eventually traced their attacks to a Chinese IP, after they hopped numerous machines in the process. He turned his findings over to the CIA, and in the end got what he deserved; fired, for violating and hacking the Chinese - despite the "We'll ignore how you got this information if you just give it to us" from the CIA.
The point is I'd hope we could figure out who did it.I would hope the computer experts at the Pentagon knew a bit more about hacking/counter hacking than you, and have some idea how to trace the hacking to the root of the problem. The point is that you're assuming they didn't have to do 'work' to get the information. The article doesn't state what they did, but I imagine the Chinese and US both used methods of which the actual implementations are beyond most people on slashdot.
Of course this forgets the prime rule that most people who post on the internet have a PhD in the subject they comment on.
Really this is a bad statement to make. Yes, theoretically numbers win every time... Or is it technology?
In June 2006 during Exercise Northern Edge (Alaska's largest joint military training exercise), the F-22A achieved a 144-to-zero kill-to-loss ratio against F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s simulating MiG-29 'Fulcrums', Su-30 'Flankers', and other current front line Russian aircraft, which outnumbered the F-22A 5 to 1 at times.[20][33] The small F-22 force of 12 aircraft generated 49% of the total kills for the exercise, and operated with an unprecedented reliability rate of 97%.[29]
The F-22 is extremely difficult to defeat during dogfighting. At Red Flag 2007, RAAF Squadron Leader Stephen Chappell, F-15 exchange pilot in the 65th Aggressor Squadron, commented that "The thing (F-22) denies your ability to put a weapons system on it, even when I can see it through the canopy. It's the most frustrated I've ever been."[34] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F22#Comparisons
Technology allows you to defeat odds of 100 to one, or greater. Imagine a tank during the civil war, or a simple machine gun during the revolutionary war.
By the by, had Germany conducted naval operations more effectively (pursued a better strategy of submarines, not battleships early on), they could have probably completely cut off Britain from US/Canadian supplies. The spending on anti-submarine measures was a pittance, and it was only until 1942-43 that you see subs taking real losses. Also, the cracking of the German code is argued to have shortened the war by 1-2 years...
In general we should be glad WWII wasn't a much longer war than it was. It certainly could have been, and with the proper decisions to produce the right new technologies, Germany probably could have held off the US.
Overpopulation is a bad point for any space exploration. Think about it, you have people a planet who's population is growing at a rate of 1 billion every 20 years. The cost to build such a colony ship would probably measure somewhere in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars, considering it's 1.7 billion to build a shuttle, and hundreds of millions to launch it. Suppose this trillion dollar colony ship holds a million people. Each person costs 1,000,000 to put onto another planet. Bullets cost 30 cents. Abortions cost less. Paying people to not have children costs less. War costs less.
Sorry, but in a post where you swear we're going to have a nuclear war, believing that we'll spend a million plus per person to get them off the planet is unrealistic. Not to mention that in order to slow planetary population growth by half, you need to launch one of these ships about every 2 weeks.
"Processed soybeans are the largest source of protein feed and vegetable oil in the world. The United States is the world's leading soybean producer and exporter." from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/SoybeansOilCrops/
Are you implying that if China (and it's population) disappeared, a significant portion of people in the world would die?
I'm reasonably certain the surrounding regions grow their own rice as well (though they may import some from China - but China's likely higher standards of living and transport costs say this probably isn't true)
The rest of the world depends little on Chinese food, or so I would assume... Also, without China consuming oil, we wouldn't need ethanol, and the amount of ethanol needed to fill a hummer's tank is enough food for one person for a year.
Certainly the US is a net producer of food... at least until our aquifers dry up. But that's predicted in 40-50 years. It's practically forever... http://partiallyclips.com/pclipslite.php?id=1517
It's entirely possible to make multiple choice tests considerably more difficult and telling than the average one, just take off 1/4-1/3 a point for each wrong guess. That way it's only profitable to guess if the student can eliminate 1-2 answers, or has a good feeling about a particular one.
Or you could be like my one professor and simply make all four answers synonyms of each other, or make two obviously wrong answers and two that seem equally right... Though I suppose that really just pisses off students and favors guessing as much as a little (but not a large) amount of knowledge.
Of course this won't be done, and is yet another example of just how weak society is becoming. But hey, on the bright side it looks like Europe is following the same path as the US...
But because she's an idiot, she's very angry and confused when she finds out that RAM just. doesn't. work. like. that.
She's not an idiot. She's just not technical. There is a big difference between the two.
I'll agree to a point either way. Today's society presumes some level of technical (computer) competence regardless of the field.
Also what is and isn't idiocy varies by the time. I'm sure you not knowing the basics of how to farm or handle livestock would have classified you as an idiot 300 years ago, but in no way does so now. Likewise at some point people didn't need to know how to type on a keyboard, at some point being illiterate didn't make you an idiot, etc. In the scope of a judge (or a politician), they should have a reasonable understanding of the topic at hand, be it through self research or expert witnesses. I know that's very wishful thinking, asking people to understand something when their decision impacts others (and it is their job to render such decisions), but hey, one can dream...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure what's funny about this. He's telling the truth, which should easily overcome the 'insult to injury' quip.
In reality, it's probably not going to be much over 10 years. Yes, HDDs will have greater capacity than SDDs, but the difference will likely be similar to why we don't use tape drives today. The primary drive in all non-bargin computers will probably be an SSD by 1017, and probably 2014 for all laptops*. Programs, music, documents, etc. will be stored on the SSD, HD movie content will likely mostly be stored on HDDs. Currently 300 GB is enough for almost any user if one excludes video.
*I was going to add a caveat for the ultra cheap laptops, but they still use flash memory even today, mostly for size, durability and battery life - although the capacity varies between 2-8gb...
opps. only one way to back out of an accidental mod to troll...
Yes, statistically it won't be that many. It may be somewhat incorrect to point this out, but statistically 9/11 wasn't that big an impact. Two cities, which while important comprise maybe 5% of the US, and what % increase over the average deaths in the US? Probably small. The impact it had? Huge. Why? Uncertainty. If someone could (completely) convince people there would be no future attacks, it would have been an easier transition, especially for the financial markets.
.5%, parents will still be protective with their kids and 70+% of the population will likely get at least a minor case of the flu. A minor case + fear = I may die. A moderate case means that you wouldn't be going to work anyway, and if anyone in your family has a moderate case, at least one adult will not be going to work, potentially both (do I want to leave my SO/child, they may be dying.)
The flu would be a much bigger example, because it would impact a far larger segment, and introduce uncertainty for the entire US (and world, which reverberates back to the US). The death rate would increase significantly (enough that the US may decline in population over the year or so this pandemic covered). The airline industry experienced a very significant decline over much lower mortality rate than 2%.
We're also accounting for the fact that even if the mortality rate is
It's the prisoner's dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma applied on a massive scale with iterations. The uncertainty makes everything seize up, which causes more uncertainty, which makes everything seize up further, until it reaches a critical point and levels off. You need a surprisingly low amount of uncertainty to do this, and having 1% of the US population die over the course of 6-9 months would likely do this. The debate of if the pandemic will happen is open, but the debate as to the general chaos that will ensue because of it isn't really.
I seriously want them to restart the project that was going to bring a new 2d game to the DS. Not that I haven't enjoyed the prime series, but 2d has something to it. Hell, I wanted a 2d game on the GC/Wii, one that was monstrously large and had very good graphics...
I'd also be happy with a port of super metroid to the DS. Best metroid game of all time, in my opinion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_(series)#Metroid_Dread
because the phone companies restrict you to a ridiculously short block of text, and charge quite a bit for sending/receiving a very small amount of data, we have a generation that can't spell?
Those evil phone companies. Just think of how they'll lament when they can only get ppl tht r sbstrd spllrs n cnt do wrk.
For the record it takes me about 3 times as long to do shorthand spelling, especially on the computer, and 2 times as long to do it with texts. t9 is your friend. I also don't need to be texting war and peace to my friends.
Depends exactly what chemicals you use in your sinks/laundry. Standard soaps would probably be alright in limited quantities, but i'd be very cautious about bleach or drain cleaners, etc.
The algae might actually thrive from blackwater - Urine is the primary method for removing nitrogen from the body, and feces generally contain nutrients necessary for plants. Considering that algae thrives from nitrogen and phosphorous...
But in the end if you can find a sanitary way to do this, I could envision a method of reducing strain on sewer systems and generating energy. Granted I wouldn't want to ever have to work on repairing a system that contained algae and sewage, all steeping under the sun, day in and out.
I suspect this wouldn't be an option for most people's back yards - certainly not in the more temperate/polar regions, where'd you'd have to worry about keeping snow off it, preventing it from freezing, etc. It may be well suited as something for integration into waste treatment centers though.
All in all the prospects of such a system, if well designed and planned, could probably put a newly built city well on the way to being carbon negative and having an environmental footprint a quarter or less of what a similarly sized city would be (though it probably would take up somewhat more room).
There are multiple interesting ideas and initiatives along this idea, including a green city going up in china http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_popup.html , (scroll 3/4 down to hear actual plans for the city) Although I can't find it, there was also a 6 spoke fractal design for transportation, which started as a circle crossed by 6 equidistant spokes, each of which had a circle with 6 spokes, a design which continued for 1-3 iterations. I think for a city of 1 million, point-to-point rail transportation within one of the 6 primary circles was 5 minutes, and within the city as a whole 12 minutes. It didn't scale especially well if you added iteration -1, making the city capable of holding 6 times as many people, but it was still competitive with current systems I believe.
The end result is the carbon is removed from the air. It's exactly like trees and other plants, albeit as a likely single celled organism the resulting structure it's stored in isn't usually as useful.
Also I may be wrong, but I believe you'd still run into oxygen depletion in the ocean, though not directly from the algae. An algal bloom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom increases the amount of bacteria present to 'eat' the algae. These bacteria use the oxygen dissolved in the water, and eventually most animals can't survive in it.
As to the possible problem of breeding an algae which takes over things - this species seems to me like it'd be less likely to survive in the wild, and even if equally as likely, it is probable that in order to cultivate the algae in sufficient quantities, it would have to be fertilized, limiting it's excessive spread to the areas fertilized/naturally containing a large abundance of such nutrients.
It likely would be difficult to harvest the byproduct of multiple millions of acres of algae on the ocean, but I don't see it being significantly easier farming it. Perhaps the easiest solution would be to flood an area near the ocean (or a continental shelf), but these tend to be areas valued by man and inhabited by diverse wildlife where man hasn't chased it away. Regardless you'd need large quantities of water and of land, and they tend to be somewhat exclusive of each other. The great plains aquifers are estimated to run dry as early as 2050, and these are the prime reason why farming the great plains is as productive as it is. I don't know, perhaps I'm missing an obvious solution?
Hydrogen does have quite a lot of energy bang for the buck, though since it's a gas vs a liquid, the comparison by volume is kinda flawed. I'm pretty sure that as a liquid it has considerably more energy density than gasoline, but it is a bitch to keep compressed like that and it's insanely volatile.
So many problems to solve? Yes. But chalking one off the list is a good thing, reducing the fundamental problem with hydrogen power - the fact that the variable cost was so high. If there's an abundant energy rich resource available it gives much greater incentive to find a way to use it. If we didn't have so much oil, we'd probably find a way to use coal to power vehicles (and not simply by converting it to oil.)
The fact remains that building such facilities to produce hydrogen, as well as many other stages required to make hydrogen a practical fuel, is a chicken and the egg problem. Come to think of it, i wonder which will end first - the dominance of gasoline as a fuel, or the dominance of the x86 ISA. The same solution is required, a hybrid which can implement the old way and new way reasonably well (70+%) of a pure implementation of both.
It's not a matter of how much farmland we have, it's oceans (or lakes, if it's a freshwater variety). If this works, it'd be a great boon to the environment - The algae removes C02 from the air, and creates H2, which unlike ethanol or other green fuels releases no CO2 back into the environment.
Granted, there's an issue of oxygen removal from the water and disrupting the balance of an already stressed environment, but if it was done in largely dead ocean areas, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Now if we can only find a fast breeding (but non-disruptive), good tasting fish who likes to eat algae... we'd solve 3 key problems - ocean depletion, CO2 emissions, and an energy source.
Unfortunately I was doing this as a work related project, which somewhat tainted my views (though few to none of your benefits would be very useful for my employer.) I agree social interaction would be good, but my experience was that it wasn't easily done in SL - there wasn't much to do besides roleplay or sit around and virtually chat... Yes you could build things, but in order to really compete you need to have somewhat advanced software, and most of it's already been done. Shops are boring; I never had any money, but I could find most things for free, the problem of having no variable cost. In general the human interaction isn't there. I agree games would be nice, but they aren't well implemented in the game...In general it's too clunky to do much of anything, and as I wasn't interested in pure RP (or sex), i found it to be a very boring experience. Most places are ghost towns, or people (away), camping money mats, or getting free stuff. Nothing too exciting there,and if i'm going to have a random chat, i might as well do IRC or a similar chat where i can easily do other things.
The whole thing in general reminded me of microsoft bob. I don't want to use my computer as a house, i want my computer to be a computer. Likewise i want my chat to be a chat, and SL offered little extra to the experience of chatting, certainly not enough to get over the fact that it's not as good as a regular chatroom.
Yes, you reached exactly the same points I did after using SL for a few minutes, testing it for a company initiative. Graphics need to advance considerably, and beyond that bandwidth/latency issues need to improve.
Even if you could move around freely in a virtual world, I'm not sure why you'd want to. You still can't touch anything, and 3d is still only 2d+; your monitor is only a 2d surface. (Sidenote: they are working on a 3d monitor, similar to an advanced version of the 3d movies/glasses.) It's nice to be able to rotate a picture and examine an object, but I've been able to do that on websites for years, like on cell phone websites, requiring javascript rather than launching a separate client, navigating to the site/store, bumping into objects/people trying to move around the store...and the picture quality is much higher because in most cases they're actual pictures, or a high quality 3d model, and the cell phone is all they need to show. No avatars, no other objects...
SL also doesn't have google, is down fairly frequently, has almost nothing to do commercially (unless you count shopping online, already done much better in a browser/real life), and honestly will fail because there's no real way of winning. People play WoW 20+ hours a week all for the goal of being better. In SL all you can do to be better is get more stuff, much of which is available for free. WoW would end in a few weeks if everyone could get to level 70 in under a week and the best items could be had for almost no effort.
The bottom line? Computers need to be twice as fast as they are presently (to run SL at 2-4 times present graphics, easily), bandwidth/latency needs to increase/decrease by 2-4 times. A new input/output device is needed (3d monitors, a new 'mouse'), and a critical mass needs to be reached, similarly to how now you can find everything online; in 1998 you couldn't find much of anything online to buy. Oh, and an easy learning curve, or a serious incentive for the user to learn the controls/world.
Personally I think 3d worlds will be obsolete before they ever meet the requirements the average user needs to use them. Somethings are best done in a 2d medium, just as somethings are best done in command line; there are times for keyboard shortcuts, and times for using a mouse. By and large a 2d interface (browser) with 3d as needed is the best current way.
Perhaps someone can enlighten me, but genocide? Wouldn't anyone in a position to commit such a thing naturally be able to trivially get around ANY filter? Not to mention I doubt detailed plans for most genocides are available online, but most just involved whatever was cheap - Typically guns or sharp objects. Most dictators without a significantly strong (and organized) military can't use more advanced weapons (which were almost always gas)
Also will CSI be banned over there? It gives all sorts of ways to murder, how to cover up most things...and then what the person did wrong in the end! I'm surprised the murder rate hasn't doubled, with the what, 3 different variants on TV?
As for terrorism? Once again how much of this is actually on the internet and relevant? Yes there are terrorist websites, but I imagine most users don't find them through google... if they could, they'd tend to be shut down.
Bomb making is the only one I could see a reason for. And even then, the threat to liberties vs the ease of circumvention (just don't mention certain words...) really isn't worth it.
CH-DVD, which is basically a HD-DVD plus more copy protection...
e velops-definition-dvd
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2198290/china-d
I've still yet to care about this format war, but this sounds more promising than either of the other two standards. Too bad it will never get off the ground.
This (and a few other comments) ignore the likely path of the singularity. Computers have already gotten to the point where they far exceed a human's ability to process input/output for/from them. A.I. is a step in reducing the problem (making the machines more human in some ways), but the other alternative is the oft used cyberpunk example where humans become more like machines; to the point where they can download themselves into a machine, or have computers implanted directly into themselves.
If the technology takes the 2nd path, humanity won't die so much as super-evolve to become relatively knowledge driven and form independent, unlike any form of typical life usually thought about. I think the 2nd path is more likely, since the first one doesn't help us as much, where as the 2nd one has vast economic frontiers along the way - entertainment (to the point of matrix-like immersion), a human with the ability to process simple information at the speed of a computer...
I'd also say that regardless, once knowledge becomes transferable, the super computer that designs earth won't be obsolete, in a similar manner that when you upgrade to a new machine, you carry over many of the files from your old machine. The physical machine would change, but the soul of the old one would transfer.
And that will be a question debated by many; is it relatively intangible intelligence and personality which defines us, or is it our physical bodies?
It's alright. I'll give them that fair use isn't a consumer right.
I'll just say my wallet isn't a producer right. Go watch steamboat willy in all it's glory. Keep him all to yourself. See how shareholders love you for it.
The point was that the touch has a screen 3.5" (vs 2.5" for the classic), yet has 1/10th the storage, and a slightly shorter battery life.
I know the logic behind it (same as selling the iPhone for 600, and then dropping it, as well as introducing the touch after most sales of the iPhone have been made), but the logical move (to make the best piece of technology) would be to merge the touch and the classic, so you get a larger screen, 10x disk space and wifi.
Keep the nano as it was, but make it a 20+gb flash based player, slim and sleek. I like the old form factor, as mentioned by a few people. Even if it isn't that much bigger, the square is less convenient to put places, and in some instances I just want a music player. Pictures and other things are fine, but I don't want a larger screen that I feel will get scratched easier, use more battery, etc.
Keep the touch largely how it was, basically the lite version of the merged touch/classic.
The problem is that without arbitrary distribution of features, people will tend to never have a player that does all they want. Apple could make a much better player than they are now, but they're saving these ideas for incremental releases, so people will continue buying them. Doing it my way creates product cannibalization, where your own products compete too heavily against themselves, and don't take significant sales away from competitors products.
Myself? I'm going to see if i can get an old nano 8gb for 100-150.
I for one welcome our managerial robot over...
I for one propose rebellion against our new managerial robot invaders! They can't take our freedom and they cannot take our soul...damnit
I for one would like to know if the managerial robot needs a cup of oil, and my isn't his metal shinny today.
I recall reading a story about attacks on one of the research labs (Los Alamos, I think). Someone noticed something was going on, the attacks were incredibly well disciplined, like a good burglar - get in, get what you can grab quickly, and get out. They didn't spend too much time on anyone thing, they just downloaded anything they could grab and got out, to repeat some other time (~2am local time)
He eventually traced their attacks to a Chinese IP, after they hopped numerous machines in the process. He turned his findings over to the CIA, and in the end got what he deserved; fired, for violating and hacking the Chinese - despite the "We'll ignore how you got this information if you just give it to us" from the CIA.
The point is I'd hope we could figure out who did it.I would hope the computer experts at the Pentagon knew a bit more about hacking/counter hacking than you, and have some idea how to trace the hacking to the root of the problem. The point is that you're assuming they didn't have to do 'work' to get the information. The article doesn't state what they did, but I imagine the Chinese and US both used methods of which the actual implementations are beyond most people on slashdot.
Of course this forgets the prime rule that most people who post on the internet have a PhD in the subject they comment on.
Really this is a bad statement to make. Yes, theoretically numbers win every time... Or is it technology?
In June 2006 during Exercise Northern Edge (Alaska's largest joint military training exercise), the F-22A achieved a 144-to-zero kill-to-loss ratio against F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s simulating MiG-29 'Fulcrums', Su-30 'Flankers', and other current front line Russian aircraft, which outnumbered the F-22A 5 to 1 at times.[20][33] The small F-22 force of 12 aircraft generated 49% of the total kills for the exercise, and operated with an unprecedented reliability rate of 97%.[29]
The F-22 is extremely difficult to defeat during dogfighting. At Red Flag 2007, RAAF Squadron Leader Stephen Chappell, F-15 exchange pilot in the 65th Aggressor Squadron, commented that "The thing (F-22) denies your ability to put a weapons system on it, even when I can see it through the canopy. It's the most frustrated I've ever been."[34] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F22#Comparisons
Technology allows you to defeat odds of 100 to one, or greater. Imagine a tank during the civil war, or a simple machine gun during the revolutionary war.
By the by, had Germany conducted naval operations more effectively (pursued a better strategy of submarines, not battleships early on), they could have probably completely cut off Britain from US/Canadian supplies. The spending on anti-submarine measures was a pittance, and it was only until 1942-43 that you see subs taking real losses. Also, the cracking of the German code is argued to have shortened the war by 1-2 years...
In general we should be glad WWII wasn't a much longer war than it was. It certainly could have been, and with the proper decisions to produce the right new technologies, Germany probably could have held off the US.
Overpopulation is a bad point for any space exploration. Think about it, you have people a planet who's population is growing at a rate of 1 billion every 20 years. The cost to build such a colony ship would probably measure somewhere in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars, considering it's 1.7 billion to build a shuttle, and hundreds of millions to launch it. Suppose this trillion dollar colony ship holds a million people. Each person costs 1,000,000 to put onto another planet. Bullets cost 30 cents. Abortions cost less. Paying people to not have children costs less. War costs less.
Sorry, but in a post where you swear we're going to have a nuclear war, believing that we'll spend a million plus per person to get them off the planet is unrealistic. Not to mention that in order to slow planetary population growth by half, you need to launch one of these ships about every 2 weeks.
"Processed soybeans are the largest source of protein feed and vegetable oil in the world. The United States is the world's leading soybean producer and exporter." from http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/SoybeansOilCrops/
e nt_4221719.htm
Also
"China's annual grain production is expected to hit a new high of 520 million tons in five years but rising consumption will still leave a shortfall"
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/24/cont
You can argue vegetables or meat, but the vast majority of the world gets almost all their calories from grains.
I believe the US exports at least a sizable portion of any grain it produces, but I could be wrong.
Are you implying that if China (and it's population) disappeared, a significant portion of people in the world would die?
I'm reasonably certain the surrounding regions grow their own rice as well (though they may import some from China - but China's likely higher standards of living and transport costs say this probably isn't true)
The rest of the world depends little on Chinese food, or so I would assume... Also, without China consuming oil, we wouldn't need ethanol, and the amount of ethanol needed to fill a hummer's tank is enough food for one person for a year.
Certainly the US is a net producer of food... at least until our aquifers dry up. But that's predicted in 40-50 years. It's practically forever...
http://partiallyclips.com/pclipslite.php?id=1517
It's entirely possible to make multiple choice tests considerably more difficult and telling than the average one, just take off 1/4-1/3 a point for each wrong guess. That way it's only profitable to guess if the student can eliminate 1-2 answers, or has a good feeling about a particular one.
Or you could be like my one professor and simply make all four answers synonyms of each other, or make two obviously wrong answers and two that seem equally right... Though I suppose that really just pisses off students and favors guessing as much as a little (but not a large) amount of knowledge.
Of course this won't be done, and is yet another example of just how weak society is becoming. But hey, on the bright side it looks like Europe is following the same path as the US...
But because she's an idiot, she's very angry and confused when she finds out that RAM just. doesn't. work. like. that.
She's not an idiot. She's just not technical. There is a big difference between the two.
I'll agree to a point either way. Today's society presumes some level of technical (computer) competence regardless of the field.
Also what is and isn't idiocy varies by the time. I'm sure you not knowing the basics of how to farm or handle livestock would have classified you as an idiot 300 years ago, but in no way does so now. Likewise at some point people didn't need to know how to type on a keyboard, at some point being illiterate didn't make you an idiot, etc. In the scope of a judge (or a politician), they should have a reasonable understanding of the topic at hand, be it through self research or expert witnesses. I know that's very wishful thinking, asking people to understand something when their decision impacts others (and it is their job to render such decisions), but hey, one can dream...