If I can verify my vote, I can prove to myself after the fact how I voted, and therefore I can prove it to somebody else.
Not necessarily. If an essential part of the algorithm (a key) is only in your head you can prove the results to yourself, but not to anyone else - especially if a wrong key produces a proof that is just as valid as the one made with the correct key. A simple XOR would be sufficient. You can store and publish such encrypted vote results all you want, only the original voter can tell what those numbers really mean. And if he wants he can disclose a different key, yielding a different "proven vote." The key can be randomly generated in the booth and shown to the voter, but not stored anywhere.
I am unsure how B&N can release a device that will be quickly reprogrammed to act as a free 3G modem. That alone probably guarantees that Nook's functions are securely locked and there is no obvious way (without some major surgery) to access the bootloader and reflash the device.
From experience with other devices it can be said that to do an open source Nook software you need to dump the B&N one and write your own, from scratch. Most likely the 3G access keys will be lost (and you can't just pull them out of the original firmware, legally.)
There are going to be amazing tablet PCs coming soon.
For me that "soon" was about 2 years ago when I bought Samsung Q1 specifically for reading in bed or on a trip. For me the advantage of a generic PC is huge - it supports every single ebook format under the Sun, it runs Firefox for Web browsing, it plays music and video in any format, and can be used as a slow but functional general purpose computer also.
Another advantage - for me - is that I like to read in darkness (or nearly so) and the Q1 has just the right range of backlight adjustment. I do not like to read "dull gray on lighter gray" - why to limit yourself to monochrome? Who would want a monochrome Web browser? The battery life of an eInk device is definitely better, but how often you must read far away from an AC outlet?
I see Kindle, Sony 50x and now Nook as neat devices; however eInk is too slow for my taste, and though a UMPC like Q1 is heavier than the reader, I'm not that weak yet to be bothered. I believe the PC will eventually become as light as a reader, and then single purpose readers will die out like dinosaurs.
And another killer fact is that I often read books in FB2 format and Nook does not seem to support that. So though Nook looks very nice, it is not very useful to me.
you would LEARN what its good for, and make money SHOWING your clients what they can do with it.
Unfortunately SP offers very little to the casual user. To that user, the only important difference from a SMB share is versions. If you don't care about them (and most people, in most businesses, don't [*]) then there SP has zero advantage to you personally.
[*] Why hardly anyone uses versions? Because that's how humans work in real life, and because it is inconvenient (and outright dangerous) to copy versions of files onto laptops, take them on a trip, change them and then try to check in. Do you think your average PHB is going to do merging? Do you think he will be stopped by "File is read-only" warning? No, he'll go ahead and do his edits, and then *you* will be called to "put it back". Versions are a problem. I can agree that if PHBs were to be taught how to use version control systems from their first day in their training then it could be better. Still we have a problem that a laptop can't deal with versions like foo.txt;23 (long live RSX-11 and VMS!). So for everyone it is safer and easier to use file names for version control, just as they would do on paper.
Outside of that little feature, SP does have a lot of other functions - which are typically beyond even understanding of a typical user. So it has calendars, tasks, announcements, personal web pages, personal links... and who needs that? Outlook already has a calendar and tasks; personal web pages are ridiculous for 99.999% of users; so I do have one - and I haven't touched it in months. There is an announcement hanging on the server for, I think, couple of years, and nobody is caring. The UI is quite flexible, if you are into flexing UIs - but again most people couldn't care less.
So the only area where SP is of any use is file management. And does it shine there? No. The mix of Web UI and Windows Explorer UI is horrible. Some functions work in one UI and don't in another. Tables have different formats all over the site and you can't do anything about it yourself (unless you are the admin.) On our SP you couldn't even see the file type (.txt,.pdf etc.) and the icon is a blank sheet of paper, a tiny one to boot. After some haggling the admin added the file type to some tables and not to other; I'm too tired of that mess to keep complaining.
So what SP is good for? I really don't know. It doesn't seem to be much better than a file share; it's worse, actually, because hardly any app knows how to open http://foo/path/foo.pdf and that means you can't open files from the Explorer window, and if you don't do that then your files have to be opened through the browser or downloaded as a copy onto your local drive. As I said, a mess. It does have better logging, though, of who did what, so if that is seriously required then you at least can know who deleted some file (but you won't have the file unless you backed it up.) That's my opinion, I'm just a poor user of that wretched piece of software.
Each time MS has made it clear that the hard drive is NOT to be shipped with the unit so therefore the repair center has no access to the hard drive serial number.
They don't need to do that. Each MS drive is "programmed" at the factory, and as long as the signature on that sector is valid it's all good to go. The drive contains the serial number *and* the signature (in a sector), this way the MS drive is a self-contained unit that will work in any XBox.
Concerning the possibility of reflashing the firmware in the HDD, I presume it is possible to change the serial number on a drive. Naturally, MS might want to sign the hash of the firmware, then any change will invalidate the signature.
There could be [other] cracks in the armor; without a solid, unquestionable ID of some sort you can not authenticate the disk and so the MS scheme will fail... in 0.05% of all cases. But when majority of console gamers can't buy an off the shelf, no-name USB or SATA media - they will buy MS's authorized product because it's easier and the warranty is intact. So in this case MS may get away with a minimally secure protection and still accomplish most of its goals, just like it tolerates 0.1% (or however many) of p1rates who use their products without paying. Those do not matter financially.
making this drive look like the correct corresponding WD1200BEV drive firmware-wise... how will the XBox360 know the difference?
Take the serial number of the drive, sign it with Microsoft private key and put the signed text into the MBR or somewhere else where it will be not touched by the filesystem. Anyone with the Microsoft public key (and certainly any Xbox) can verify who signed the drive.
If you want financial aid or even some scholarships, you have no choice but to take whatever loan they offer you.
You can always walk away and not want the loan. Universities do not posess some secret knowledge, it's all in the books and if you can read you can learn. Smart employers will ignore your lack of degree if instead you present a lot of experience. They know that most of what you learned in university is useless and better be forgotten. It is quite easy to become an expert in programming, FPGA design and hardware design while never leaving your home - if only you can read. For example, analog RF designers with microwave experience and specific knowledge are rare, but needed everywhere - because microwave design is hard, in theory and in practice. But it's not impossible to learn.
Slaves always were paid for their work. Traditionally they were paid by letting them live, or in their daily food and shelter, or in some little privileges among slaves. Those slaves who didn't work well were sold, at loss, to another owner who would be more demanding and less nice. That was a serious incentive, nobody wanted to become a rower on a war galleon.
Today [wage] slaves are paid with money. It doesn't really matter to the owner; he can build barracks for his slaves and feed them, or he can just give them money so that they go and find their own barracks and their own food. Modern slaves are even permitted to move between slave owners because the owners figured out that one slave is not different from another, and all of them want to eat. The legal mechanism of ownership of slaves is abandoned in favor of voluntary service. It is voluntary because you have an option to work for someone (here is your choice) or to die - or to become a business owner if you can.
Therefore, in your examples, Aristotle did not get past step 1. Even the crudest examination of the trajectory of a thrown stone eliminates Aristotle's hypothesis.
Yes, Aristotle was a believer that experiments are unnecessary, and every problem can be solved by thinking about it. I thought him to be a good example for this discussion.
About your examples. They are all nice and good. However, take Ohm's Law for example. It sounded all reasonable since 1827 when it was published, and every scientist of the time would be quick to assure you that it applies to everything and there is no reason to believe that Ohm's law may not apply sometimes. They indeed had no such reason; anyone claiming such possibility would be called a dreamer with no basis in reality. But today we have semiconductor devices (around 1900) and superconductors (1911,) they do not exactly obey Ohm's law. This is an example of a revolutionary discovery that changed quite a lot. And I maintain that we aren't done yet with such discoveries.
Gallileo dropping things from the tower of Pisa did not contradict any of Newtons laws, they actually confirm them.
It's nice to know that Galileo's experiments confirmed Newton's laws, especially considering that Galileo died one year before Isaac Newton was born:-)
Of course Galileo's experiments, if done correctly, would confirm the principles that later became known as Newton's Laws. But Galileo was debating Aristotle and others, who postulated (without careful checking) that heavier things fall faster - because it would feel natural if they do so. This is a lesson to never use human beliefs and "gut feelings" to solve scientific problems.
There is no evidence that faster than light travel is possible. To the contrary in fact, all the evidence we have says it is not possible.
This formula, with FTL replaced with the impossibility of the day, was used for thousands of years to stamp out the undesirable thoughts. All the evidence that we have at this moment depends on theories that are massively incomplete. These theories explain only some aspects of this Universe, but not the entirety of it. The very existence of this Universe is unexplained, let alone what the Universe itself is contained within (and so on.)
History is full of scientific theories that work for a while and then fail as scientists look closer. Aristotle said that a thrown stone will fly flat until it "gets tired" and then falls straight down. (He wasn't good at throwing stones, obviously.) That got replaced by a parabola. Then air got involved and the curve got more complex. Add uneven gravity field and the trajectory requires a small computer to calculate. Galileo dropped things from the Pisa tower to prove that "obvious" opinion is not right - and so on.
Attacking a legal problem properly requires a lot of imagination, actually, since the facts of any particular case are rarely clean enough to fit easily into a legal solution.
That could be true - as I said, I don't know much about this field. Still, lawyers (and doctors, if you wish) are a small part of the society, just like programmers and scientists and artists and entrepreneurs. Most professions, however, are simple and involve very little creativity, whether you take a truck driver, or a hamburger assembly operator, or a store clerk.
I know that it might be hard to conceive but you will never travel at more than 299 792 458 m/s.
And the man will never fly, of course.
One day or another, there will not be enough resources to feed all mankind, that can be in 30 years or in 300000 years, you cannot go beyond.
I'll have to believe you because I personally can't see that clearly into the future 300,000 years ahead of me.
if there is not enough for both of us, the strongest of us will take over the weakest, life worked like that for the past 5 billions years, there is no reason for it to change, humanity is pretty much nothing on this time scale.
Humanity is very different from the animal world, and the difference is that humans are sentient creatures, even though you don't seem to grant them use of that qualifier:-) The way of Morlocks is not the only solution.
In the mean time, we have to keep searching for new source of energy before the current one is depleted. Currently, that's not guaranteed, so we have better keep the current one last as long as possible until we found a replacement.
By many estimates we will run out of accessible oil (and gas) within 100 years, if not earlier. There isn't much time to contemplate. Without oil the society will crumble even if you have infinite energy because oil and gas are raw materials for plastics. Which means you need to stop burning the oil ASAP.
A Warp Core? Do you mean a matter antimatter reactor? Warp cores are fictional devices from the star trek universe [...]
That is known to everyone here:
Warp core is the common designation for the main energy reactor powering the propulsion system on warp-capable starships. (link
Furthermore there are other barriers to populating the solar system, such as that none of the other planets are habitable, and they are unlikely to be able to be made habitable except within domes, underground tunnels and the like.
With enough energy you can make them habitable, even using today's technology. We can't drop TBMs on Mars or Moon primarily because we have no power for them. Otherwise we'd have built a Gateway satellite not waiting for Heechee to do the work for us.
Architecture is part art and part dumb labor. I know because I worked in this field. Art occurs at the topmost level, and once the designer is done the rest of the team (90% at least) are stuck with drawing endless elevations, sections and details - and with changing them (usually by redrawing) when the team leader suddenly decides that he wants different window here or a different staircase there.
Medicine is minimally creative, unless you talk about scientists (and scientists are probably all creative.) In medicine you need to match observed symptoms to a set of possible causes, and then narrow it down. Once you settle on a specific cause you open the book and read what treatments are prescribed for it. Very little creativity is required, but a lot of pattern matching, like detective's work. But rare a doctor discovers a new disease; some come up with a new treatment. Look at dentists, they are working like machinists at a factory, doing pretty much the same type of work.
Finally, I don't know much about law firsthand, but still I am pretty sure that rarely a lawyer invents a completely new defense. In most cases old, well known defenses and tactics work just fine. Law is very conservative, and I believe that most cases are solved and tried by methods that were known hundreds of years ago, as far back as the Roman Empire. Their "secret language" is Latin, not Klingon.
perhaps because good programmers have to constantly question assumptions and think outside the box to come up with good designs.
I think that's true for a lot of professions, though.
No, IMO. Most professions involve endless repeats from the same, small box of tricks. Only a few trades could be comparable - arts, for example (but not all arts!), then some small percentage of engineering jobs... I can't think of much else. Majority of workers are employed to simply do their daily job (like driving a bus,) not to invent things.
I'm concerned about the idea of 'endless growth in a finite world'
I'm sure there was a tribe of Neanderthals was also concerned about an idea to build a boat (or just to grab a piece of wood) to cross the river. After all, who knows what dangers lurk there? I'm also pretty sure that such a tribe did not survive. Expansion was, is, and likely will be the way of humans - and there is plenty of places to expand to.
Abundant, cheap, efficient energy source will allow to expand that "finite world" of yours. We already have designs of rocket engines that work great in vacuum and only require a Warp core (or fusion core, to start with) for power. The whole Solar system can be populated if you have infinite energy, especially on farther planets (their satellites, mostly.) Even if you don't want to go to space, underwater and underground cities become obvious things to build if you have energy.
How would that be different from the victim photographing the stalker? Should we just dismiss all complaints where there are no live witnesses? IMO in this situation a screen grab is all a typical user can reasonably do, and if the case goes to trial the image should be looked at, and either accepted or rejected by the court, just as any other evidence. There are probably many ways to tell who the screen (or computer) belongs to, especially if the same computer is available for comparison.
The majority of people who don't have insurance have refused the plans offered at work for various reasons, and that is their right.
I did that, and I'm getting extra few hundred dollars in each paycheck. I'm basically self-insured, with no desire to feed the fat medical bureaucracy. Insurance companies are all too willing to take your money, but when you really need the services then they do their best to not pay. I prefer to skip the whole rigamarole, and when you pay cash you can get the best treatment, immediately. I can afford most medical services, and what I can't afford I most likely won't survive anyway (or will not want to, in case of some serious disabilities.) Life is finite, but everyone seems to believe in just the opposite, wasting a fortune to extend their lives by a week or two.
Although with our modern day aversion to risk, I can't see it getting a very enthusiastic welcome from todays "sailors".
People were always risk-averse, and back then - when their entire world often was one small country - they were terrified to live their homes and go to some land far away that they never saw. Today, in comparison, even a trip to Mars is a sure bet - you know exactly how to get there and back, and what you will find there, and how to survive on day #1, and on day #2, etc.
The New World was colonized by people who wanted to get away from Old World's totalitarian governments. Saddam Hussein would be seen as a savior compared to kings and laws of their time. I think Mark Twain, for example, mentioned this somewhere.
As the world unites, however, the prospects of global (and totalitarian) government are not to be dismissed. It's not here yet, but many countries have less than democratic governments, even though they say they are more democratic than anyone else. Rights that were assumed to be natural and inalienable are questioned. There are no telescreens in our homes yet (except in some UK homes) but they are coming (see UK's CCTVs as the first step.) Why? Because a government can only strive for more power, never for less, and it continues to acquire power until it is overthrown, one way or another. However modern governments are far from kings of the past - they are guided by modern social sciences, they know what to do to keep the populace pacified and motionless in front of their telescr^W television sets. So far they are very successful.
Eventually - and it is happening already - the society will stratify, so that a small number of dissidents just can't take it any more. They will come from all directions; you will see racists who are sure that $nation is responsible for all their ills; you will see libertarians who can't exist in a socialism-lite (or not so lite.) You will see conservatives who totally disagree with governments' policies; you will see democrats who do the same; you will see workaholics and entrepreneurs who can't pay confiscatory taxes; you will see atheists who can't live in a theocratic state and you will see theists who can't live in a godless one. This separation will happen when government becomes more intrusive and more insistent on its own agendas. I don't know how many years it will take to recreate the USSR, but I'm sure it will happen - because the USSR is a great, shining example of how to take control and keep it. The USSR fell, but that's only because the leaders were just stupid old fools who were not devious enough and often not fit for the office. These mistakes are correctable, and the resulting society can be very stable and people will be happy enough - and the rulers will be gods of the domain (just as USSR's nomenklatura was.) Science fiction is full of viable frameworks of such future societies.
If that - admittedly dark - future happens then there will be plenty of people willing to go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it is many parsecs away from this pitiful planet. They will carry the seeds of destruction with them, of course, but they will buy a few thousand years of reprieve, maybe.
Given that Somalia and Kenya share a border It's quite possible that many Somali's would come out as "Keynan" and many Kenyans would come out as "Somali".
Especially because DNA can only tell you what ancient tribes your ancestors belonged to. It has nothing to do with nationality, it ignores migration and cross-marriages and displacement of people by wars that ended centuries ago.
In fact you could argue that by letting them come here we're depriving their homeland of their expertise.
I'm sure Zimbabwe is now in great need for rocket scientists and molecular biologists. And it's not strange that some Zimbabweans found money (possibly their last) to send their gifted children to study these sciences abroad.
Yes, why not? Deaf people sometimes read lips, or have hearing aids that are just enough to hear a loud voice nearby (and not the faint bells of a railway crossing.)
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If I can verify my vote, I can prove to myself after the fact how I voted, and therefore I can prove it to somebody else.
Not necessarily. If an essential part of the algorithm (a key) is only in your head you can prove the results to yourself, but not to anyone else - especially if a wrong key produces a proof that is just as valid as the one made with the correct key. A simple XOR would be sufficient. You can store and publish such encrypted vote results all you want, only the original voter can tell what those numbers really mean. And if he wants he can disclose a different key, yielding a different "proven vote." The key can be randomly generated in the booth and shown to the voter, but not stored anywhere.
I am unsure how B&N can release a device that will be quickly reprogrammed to act as a free 3G modem. That alone probably guarantees that Nook's functions are securely locked and there is no obvious way (without some major surgery) to access the bootloader and reflash the device.
From experience with other devices it can be said that to do an open source Nook software you need to dump the B&N one and write your own, from scratch. Most likely the 3G access keys will be lost (and you can't just pull them out of the original firmware, legally.)
There are going to be amazing tablet PCs coming soon.
For me that "soon" was about 2 years ago when I bought Samsung Q1 specifically for reading in bed or on a trip. For me the advantage of a generic PC is huge - it supports every single ebook format under the Sun, it runs Firefox for Web browsing, it plays music and video in any format, and can be used as a slow but functional general purpose computer also.
Another advantage - for me - is that I like to read in darkness (or nearly so) and the Q1 has just the right range of backlight adjustment. I do not like to read "dull gray on lighter gray" - why to limit yourself to monochrome? Who would want a monochrome Web browser? The battery life of an eInk device is definitely better, but how often you must read far away from an AC outlet?
I see Kindle, Sony 50x and now Nook as neat devices; however eInk is too slow for my taste, and though a UMPC like Q1 is heavier than the reader, I'm not that weak yet to be bothered. I believe the PC will eventually become as light as a reader, and then single purpose readers will die out like dinosaurs.
And another killer fact is that I often read books in FB2 format and Nook does not seem to support that. So though Nook looks very nice, it is not very useful to me.
you would LEARN what its good for, and make money SHOWING your clients what they can do with it.
Unfortunately SP offers very little to the casual user. To that user, the only important difference from a SMB share is versions. If you don't care about them (and most people, in most businesses, don't [*]) then there SP has zero advantage to you personally.
[*] Why hardly anyone uses versions? Because that's how humans work in real life, and because it is inconvenient (and outright dangerous) to copy versions of files onto laptops, take them on a trip, change them and then try to check in. Do you think your average PHB is going to do merging? Do you think he will be stopped by "File is read-only" warning? No, he'll go ahead and do his edits, and then *you* will be called to "put it back". Versions are a problem. I can agree that if PHBs were to be taught how to use version control systems from their first day in their training then it could be better. Still we have a problem that a laptop can't deal with versions like foo.txt;23 (long live RSX-11 and VMS!). So for everyone it is safer and easier to use file names for version control, just as they would do on paper.
Outside of that little feature, SP does have a lot of other functions - which are typically beyond even understanding of a typical user. So it has calendars, tasks, announcements, personal web pages, personal links ... and who needs that? Outlook already has a calendar and tasks; personal web pages are ridiculous for 99.999% of users; so I do have one - and I haven't touched it in months. There is an announcement hanging on the server for, I think, couple of years, and nobody is caring. The UI is quite flexible, if you are into flexing UIs - but again most people couldn't care less.
So the only area where SP is of any use is file management. And does it shine there? No. The mix of Web UI and Windows Explorer UI is horrible. Some functions work in one UI and don't in another. Tables have different formats all over the site and you can't do anything about it yourself (unless you are the admin.) On our SP you couldn't even see the file type (.txt, .pdf etc.) and the icon is a blank sheet of paper, a tiny one to boot. After some haggling the admin added the file type to some tables and not to other; I'm too tired of that mess to keep complaining.
So what SP is good for? I really don't know. It doesn't seem to be much better than a file share; it's worse, actually, because hardly any app knows how to open http://foo/path/foo.pdf and that means you can't open files from the Explorer window, and if you don't do that then your files have to be opened through the browser or downloaded as a copy onto your local drive. As I said, a mess. It does have better logging, though, of who did what, so if that is seriously required then you at least can know who deleted some file (but you won't have the file unless you backed it up.) That's my opinion, I'm just a poor user of that wretched piece of software.
Each time MS has made it clear that the hard drive is NOT to be shipped with the unit so therefore the repair center has no access to the hard drive serial number.
They don't need to do that. Each MS drive is "programmed" at the factory, and as long as the signature on that sector is valid it's all good to go. The drive contains the serial number *and* the signature (in a sector), this way the MS drive is a self-contained unit that will work in any XBox.
Concerning the possibility of reflashing the firmware in the HDD, I presume it is possible to change the serial number on a drive. Naturally, MS might want to sign the hash of the firmware, then any change will invalidate the signature.
There could be [other] cracks in the armor; without a solid, unquestionable ID of some sort you can not authenticate the disk and so the MS scheme will fail ... in 0.05% of all cases. But when majority of console gamers can't buy an off the shelf, no-name USB or SATA media - they will buy MS's authorized product because it's easier and the warranty is intact. So in this case MS may get away with a minimally secure protection and still accomplish most of its goals, just like it tolerates 0.1% (or however many) of p1rates who use their products without paying. Those do not matter financially.
making this drive look like the correct corresponding WD1200BEV drive firmware-wise ... how will the XBox360 know the difference?
Take the serial number of the drive, sign it with Microsoft private key and put the signed text into the MBR or somewhere else where it will be not touched by the filesystem. Anyone with the Microsoft public key (and certainly any Xbox) can verify who signed the drive.
If you want financial aid or even some scholarships, you have no choice but to take whatever loan they offer you.
You can always walk away and not want the loan. Universities do not posess some secret knowledge, it's all in the books and if you can read you can learn. Smart employers will ignore your lack of degree if instead you present a lot of experience. They know that most of what you learned in university is useless and better be forgotten. It is quite easy to become an expert in programming, FPGA design and hardware design while never leaving your home - if only you can read. For example, analog RF designers with microwave experience and specific knowledge are rare, but needed everywhere - because microwave design is hard, in theory and in practice. But it's not impossible to learn.
Slaves don't get paid for their work.
Slaves always were paid for their work. Traditionally they were paid by letting them live, or in their daily food and shelter, or in some little privileges among slaves. Those slaves who didn't work well were sold, at loss, to another owner who would be more demanding and less nice. That was a serious incentive, nobody wanted to become a rower on a war galleon.
Today [wage] slaves are paid with money. It doesn't really matter to the owner; he can build barracks for his slaves and feed them, or he can just give them money so that they go and find their own barracks and their own food. Modern slaves are even permitted to move between slave owners because the owners figured out that one slave is not different from another, and all of them want to eat. The legal mechanism of ownership of slaves is abandoned in favor of voluntary service. It is voluntary because you have an option to work for someone (here is your choice) or to die - or to become a business owner if you can.
Therefore, in your examples, Aristotle did not get past step 1. Even the crudest examination of the trajectory of a thrown stone eliminates Aristotle's hypothesis.
Yes, Aristotle was a believer that experiments are unnecessary, and every problem can be solved by thinking about it. I thought him to be a good example for this discussion.
About your examples. They are all nice and good. However, take Ohm's Law for example. It sounded all reasonable since 1827 when it was published, and every scientist of the time would be quick to assure you that it applies to everything and there is no reason to believe that Ohm's law may not apply sometimes. They indeed had no such reason; anyone claiming such possibility would be called a dreamer with no basis in reality. But today we have semiconductor devices (around 1900) and superconductors (1911,) they do not exactly obey Ohm's law. This is an example of a revolutionary discovery that changed quite a lot. And I maintain that we aren't done yet with such discoveries.
Gallileo dropping things from the tower of Pisa did not contradict any of Newtons laws, they actually confirm them.
It's nice to know that Galileo's experiments confirmed Newton's laws, especially considering that Galileo died one year before Isaac Newton was born :-)
Of course Galileo's experiments, if done correctly, would confirm the principles that later became known as Newton's Laws. But Galileo was debating Aristotle and others, who postulated (without careful checking) that heavier things fall faster - because it would feel natural if they do so. This is a lesson to never use human beliefs and "gut feelings" to solve scientific problems.
There is no evidence that faster than light travel is possible. To the contrary in fact, all the evidence we have says it is not possible.
This formula, with FTL replaced with the impossibility of the day, was used for thousands of years to stamp out the undesirable thoughts. All the evidence that we have at this moment depends on theories that are massively incomplete. These theories explain only some aspects of this Universe, but not the entirety of it. The very existence of this Universe is unexplained, let alone what the Universe itself is contained within (and so on.)
History is full of scientific theories that work for a while and then fail as scientists look closer. Aristotle said that a thrown stone will fly flat until it "gets tired" and then falls straight down. (He wasn't good at throwing stones, obviously.) That got replaced by a parabola. Then air got involved and the curve got more complex. Add uneven gravity field and the trajectory requires a small computer to calculate. Galileo dropped things from the Pisa tower to prove that "obvious" opinion is not right - and so on.
Attacking a legal problem properly requires a lot of imagination, actually, since the facts of any particular case are rarely clean enough to fit easily into a legal solution.
That could be true - as I said, I don't know much about this field. Still, lawyers (and doctors, if you wish) are a small part of the society, just like programmers and scientists and artists and entrepreneurs. Most professions, however, are simple and involve very little creativity, whether you take a truck driver, or a hamburger assembly operator, or a store clerk.
I know that it might be hard to conceive but you will never travel at more than 299 792 458 m/s.
And the man will never fly, of course.
One day or another, there will not be enough resources to feed all mankind, that can be in 30 years or in 300000 years, you cannot go beyond.
I'll have to believe you because I personally can't see that clearly into the future 300,000 years ahead of me.
if there is not enough for both of us, the strongest of us will take over the weakest, life worked like that for the past 5 billions years, there is no reason for it to change, humanity is pretty much nothing on this time scale.
Humanity is very different from the animal world, and the difference is that humans are sentient creatures, even though you don't seem to grant them use of that qualifier :-) The way of Morlocks is not the only solution.
In the mean time, we have to keep searching for new source of energy before the current one is depleted. Currently, that's not guaranteed, so we have better keep the current one last as long as possible until we found a replacement.
By many estimates we will run out of accessible oil (and gas) within 100 years, if not earlier. There isn't much time to contemplate. Without oil the society will crumble even if you have infinite energy because oil and gas are raw materials for plastics. Which means you need to stop burning the oil ASAP.
A Warp Core? Do you mean a matter antimatter reactor? Warp cores are fictional devices from the star trek universe [...]
That is known to everyone here:
Warp core is the common designation for the main energy reactor powering the propulsion system on warp-capable starships. (link
Furthermore there are other barriers to populating the solar system, such as that none of the other planets are habitable, and they are unlikely to be able to be made habitable except within domes, underground tunnels and the like.
With enough energy you can make them habitable, even using today's technology. We can't drop TBMs on Mars or Moon primarily because we have no power for them. Otherwise we'd have built a Gateway satellite not waiting for Heechee to do the work for us.
Architecture is part art and part dumb labor. I know because I worked in this field. Art occurs at the topmost level, and once the designer is done the rest of the team (90% at least) are stuck with drawing endless elevations, sections and details - and with changing them (usually by redrawing) when the team leader suddenly decides that he wants different window here or a different staircase there.
Medicine is minimally creative, unless you talk about scientists (and scientists are probably all creative.) In medicine you need to match observed symptoms to a set of possible causes, and then narrow it down. Once you settle on a specific cause you open the book and read what treatments are prescribed for it. Very little creativity is required, but a lot of pattern matching, like detective's work. But rare a doctor discovers a new disease; some come up with a new treatment. Look at dentists, they are working like machinists at a factory, doing pretty much the same type of work.
Finally, I don't know much about law firsthand, but still I am pretty sure that rarely a lawyer invents a completely new defense. In most cases old, well known defenses and tactics work just fine. Law is very conservative, and I believe that most cases are solved and tried by methods that were known hundreds of years ago, as far back as the Roman Empire. Their "secret language" is Latin, not Klingon.
No, IMO. Most professions involve endless repeats from the same, small box of tricks. Only a few trades could be comparable - arts, for example (but not all arts!), then some small percentage of engineering jobs... I can't think of much else. Majority of workers are employed to simply do their daily job (like driving a bus,) not to invent things.
I'm concerned about the idea of 'endless growth in a finite world'
I'm sure there was a tribe of Neanderthals was also concerned about an idea to build a boat (or just to grab a piece of wood) to cross the river. After all, who knows what dangers lurk there? I'm also pretty sure that such a tribe did not survive. Expansion was, is, and likely will be the way of humans - and there is plenty of places to expand to.
Abundant, cheap, efficient energy source will allow to expand that "finite world" of yours. We already have designs of rocket engines that work great in vacuum and only require a Warp core (or fusion core, to start with) for power. The whole Solar system can be populated if you have infinite energy, especially on farther planets (their satellites, mostly.) Even if you don't want to go to space, underwater and underground cities become obvious things to build if you have energy.
Since /. requires a car analogy in every discussion, here is one:
Engine, transmission and wheels are sufficient to move the car. However not many of us would buy a car that consists only of those three parts.
- The only evidence thus far is a screen grab
How would that be different from the victim photographing the stalker? Should we just dismiss all complaints where there are no live witnesses? IMO in this situation a screen grab is all a typical user can reasonably do, and if the case goes to trial the image should be looked at, and either accepted or rejected by the court, just as any other evidence. There are probably many ways to tell who the screen (or computer) belongs to, especially if the same computer is available for comparison.
Abandon all hope - it's a virus. You need to reformat and reinstall.
The majority of people who don't have insurance have refused the plans offered at work for various reasons, and that is their right.
I did that, and I'm getting extra few hundred dollars in each paycheck. I'm basically self-insured, with no desire to feed the fat medical bureaucracy. Insurance companies are all too willing to take your money, but when you really need the services then they do their best to not pay. I prefer to skip the whole rigamarole, and when you pay cash you can get the best treatment, immediately. I can afford most medical services, and what I can't afford I most likely won't survive anyway (or will not want to, in case of some serious disabilities.) Life is finite, but everyone seems to believe in just the opposite, wasting a fortune to extend their lives by a week or two.
Although with our modern day aversion to risk, I can't see it getting a very enthusiastic welcome from todays "sailors".
People were always risk-averse, and back then - when their entire world often was one small country - they were terrified to live their homes and go to some land far away that they never saw. Today, in comparison, even a trip to Mars is a sure bet - you know exactly how to get there and back, and what you will find there, and how to survive on day #1, and on day #2, etc.
The New World was colonized by people who wanted to get away from Old World's totalitarian governments. Saddam Hussein would be seen as a savior compared to kings and laws of their time. I think Mark Twain, for example, mentioned this somewhere.
As the world unites, however, the prospects of global (and totalitarian) government are not to be dismissed. It's not here yet, but many countries have less than democratic governments, even though they say they are more democratic than anyone else. Rights that were assumed to be natural and inalienable are questioned. There are no telescreens in our homes yet (except in some UK homes) but they are coming (see UK's CCTVs as the first step.) Why? Because a government can only strive for more power, never for less, and it continues to acquire power until it is overthrown, one way or another. However modern governments are far from kings of the past - they are guided by modern social sciences, they know what to do to keep the populace pacified and motionless in front of their telescr^W television sets. So far they are very successful.
Eventually - and it is happening already - the society will stratify, so that a small number of dissidents just can't take it any more. They will come from all directions; you will see racists who are sure that $nation is responsible for all their ills; you will see libertarians who can't exist in a socialism-lite (or not so lite.) You will see conservatives who totally disagree with governments' policies; you will see democrats who do the same; you will see workaholics and entrepreneurs who can't pay confiscatory taxes; you will see atheists who can't live in a theocratic state and you will see theists who can't live in a godless one. This separation will happen when government becomes more intrusive and more insistent on its own agendas. I don't know how many years it will take to recreate the USSR, but I'm sure it will happen - because the USSR is a great, shining example of how to take control and keep it. The USSR fell, but that's only because the leaders were just stupid old fools who were not devious enough and often not fit for the office. These mistakes are correctable, and the resulting society can be very stable and people will be happy enough - and the rulers will be gods of the domain (just as USSR's nomenklatura was.) Science fiction is full of viable frameworks of such future societies.
If that - admittedly dark - future happens then there will be plenty of people willing to go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it is many parsecs away from this pitiful planet. They will carry the seeds of destruction with them, of course, but they will buy a few thousand years of reprieve, maybe.
Given that Somalia and Kenya share a border It's quite possible that many Somali's would come out as "Keynan" and many Kenyans would come out as "Somali".
Especially because DNA can only tell you what ancient tribes your ancestors belonged to. It has nothing to do with nationality, it ignores migration and cross-marriages and displacement of people by wars that ended centuries ago.
In fact you could argue that by letting them come here we're depriving their homeland of their expertise.
I'm sure Zimbabwe is now in great need for rocket scientists and molecular biologists. And it's not strange that some Zimbabweans found money (possibly their last) to send their gifted children to study these sciences abroad.
It's the unilateral opinion that anything that isn't physical, or can be easily copied, is suddenly lacking of all artistic merit and value
Poor Mozart...
Talking to deaf passengers...?
Yes, why not? Deaf people sometimes read lips, or have hearing aids that are just enough to hear a loud voice nearby (and not the faint bells of a railway crossing.)