So by that statement I should fly to Rome, go to the Coliseum and watch YouTube?
No. But last time I was in the colisseum, I did search some things in the wikipedia (although the audioguide was magnificent; one of the best I've ever heard.) and I did take phone-pictures to send to my friends.
No, that's part of the problem with this disjointed reality nonsense. "Yeah I'm going to Trajan's column and update my FourSquare status." Part of being there, doing real things, not virtual things, is that you have all of your senses as part of the experience.
I'm convinced that most of the difference between our opinions on this topic are centered on that distinction between real and virtual.
if you're that disconnected from what's going on around you and who you are with, then why go?
I'm not disconnected, I'm only partially there. And I want that portion to be as good as possible. I enjoy having my X% of reality being the collisseum, even if that X isn't 100.
You want that X to be 100 and disconnect from everything else? Go for it. I don't apreciate reality as such a magnificent sensation input as to enjoy cuttin all others. I may well enjoy much more one hour of reading a good novel about the collisseum than standing on the actual stones.
I dont attach any special meaning to the real things. If you could build an exact replica of the collisseum, one where nobody ever fought, one that wasn't built centuries ago. I wouldn't care. And I feel the opposite way of thinking to be animistic and irrational (purposefully exagerated to explain my point, I don't really have strong feeling either way):)
Or pick up any decent* flashlight -- they all have anti-reflection coated front lenses.
Why would someone need an anti-reflection coated front lens in a flashlight? How much power is lost in reflection (taking into account that reflected light will reflect on the flashlight cone and come back)?
i.e.: if you lose 1% in reflection, of that 1% >90% will go out in a second passage. So your anti-reflection coated front lens would have to cost less than adding 0.1% power to not be a marketing gimmick (gold plated hi-fi connectors).
That's pretty hard with the technology I'm talking about (refracting all incoming light "half-sphere" into a flat surface).
I think we'll have such material in a few years, but take into account that at the border you don't know at which point in the surface a ray has impacted it nor it's original angle. All rays come to the edge parallel to the surface.
In a usual lens, rays never aquire equal characteristics. From the angle of incidence you can deduce the point of impact on the lens, and from both you can deduce the original angle. You lose that information as soon as you refract all rays into the same plane.
You were having some interactions with other folks online, which is fine but the choice and place all seem a bit out of place.
They only "seem out of place" to the people who still keep a hard relation between place and activity. That limitation is artificial and dies as soon as technology allows us to perform activities anywhere.
Some centuries ago it would "seem out of place" to watch a performance on your living room. Unless you were the king and had a palace. Now we're all kings.
Eventually (in the next few years) we'll learn to refract all light coming from one side in an angle that sets it parallel to the screen.
At that point we might consider collecting that light on the edges of the screen to charge the device. Or just leave the screen edges uncovered and rounded to let it disperse, leaving a beautiful light "halo" around the device.
The uneven surface means that light won't just bounce back off the screen creating a reflection
What, the film absorbs (almost) everything? If so, where the energy goes? In heating the screen?
(not to mention the "light won't just bounce back..." invites a continuation on the line of "... but also...")
Two options: 1 - Absorbed: It will heat the screen just as much as having it turned upside down heats the back; not much. 2 - Scattered: You can avoid reflection by just scattering the light in a very large angle.
Today I went to lunch and next to where I was, there was a young couple. Both with tablets, both watching stuff, exchanging e-mail and not really talking to each other. So why go to lunch together if you're not going to be part of the actual experience.
The decision of only counting the real world as part of "the actual experience" is yours.
I was recently in a sunny beach, with my wife and friends, using my tablet to watch go games while my wife used hers to watch a movie. We were also both chatting in a long whatsapp thread with the entire group of friends. Some were with us on the beach, some were about to take the plane to come and some were just waking up in their hotels.
My actual experience, at that point was: - Warm sun drying my skin. - A very interesting go game about which I was chatting with people around the world. - A calm breeze. - Laughs with each joke I, or someone else, posted on the whatsapp thread. - And, when I had a free hand, caressing my wive's skin that get's even more beautiful and silky when bronzed.
It's you who haven't half-entered the shared virtual reality, not the other's who don't appreciate the real world.
Greece borrows a fuckton of money, pisses it up the wall and then throws a massive sulk when asked to pay it back.
I think the sulk is not even for having to pay it back but for being required to follow a number of rules that might make them stop pissing more fucktons of money up the wall.
Or put in the sticker a password to decrypt the information that would be stored encripted in a database with a password protected too.
The paramedic could have his own QR code (in his "paramedic identification card", or whatever). Then: 1 - Paramedic connects to database. 2 - Paramedic takes a picture of your card to access. 3 - Paramedic takes a picture of the patients QR code to decrypt and download the data. 4 - Patient's password is automatically changed. 5 - System re-encrypts the patient's data with the new password. 6 - System sends the patient home healthy, data safe and with his new QR card password.
There's no legitimate reason for anyone (who's not a researcher or a nuclear plant employee) to be carrying a radiation detector around with them all the time.
Unless you're a spy who might become the target of the russian secret service. Or you live on the apartment next to a spy who might become the target of the russian secret service.
And you never know whether you live next to a spy who might become the target of the russian secret service, so...
This is the sort of thing we need to see real progress in self replicating bio-artificial beings.
Just a few steps remain: - Mutate some bacteria to contain one of those integrated chemical chips as a byproduct of their nutrition. - Mutate that bacteria again to create different (on mytosis) gates depending on fed nutrients, temperature or somesuch. - Find the correct nutrient/temperature/... map (base) over which, when the bacteria are grown, they create a particular circuit. - Find which particular circuit creates a map that self replicates. - Feel proud as our species is replaced by the ultra-intelligent logical-gate-bacteria-overlords.
Now imagine being able to know whether an investigative effort is going to give valuable results.
Forget superman, that one would make a fantastic superpower. You'd also be able to go around in a labcoat instead of wearing your underwear over your tighs.
Well, the thing is that this is not a game that gives a million every thousand tries. Instead it will give a complete surprise - maybe a million bucks, maybe a bullet to the head.
Why do you assume that result of finding aliens will be positive development? There are at least three possible scenarios with unknown probability of happening: 1) Welcome, lesser developed culture! Let us give you all our cool alien tech, cure cancer and end world hunger. 2) So you are humans? Nice, we don't really care. Go away and stop bothering us. Or maybe "Solaris" kind of contact. 3) Oh hello you poor defenseless bastards. We were just in a need of new food source/hunting ground/slave labour.
Why do you assume finding aliens is equal to revealing ourselves to them? Maybe we find them, study them and then decide to push a large meteorite in their general direction. Ignorance is not the solution to dangerous neighbours.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu
Imagine a game that gives you a million times your bet once every thousand tries. It would be reasonable to play that game. Not winning any of the first hundred times wouldn't change the reasonability of playing that game.
You mean like.. a lottery? Yeah, perfectly reasonable;-)
I've decided to take that as a joke.:) (the alternative made me sad and also required a much longer a pedantic answer)
Not limited to actually finding aliens but looking at everything coming out of SETI: What good has come out of SETI so far?
I don't think that's a valid argument.
Imagine a game that gives you a million times your bet once every thousand tries. It would be reasonable to play that game. Not winning any of the first hundred times wouldn't change the reasonability of playing that game.
Maybe you dont't value as high as I do the results of finding there's extraterrestrial intelligence. I do think it would change humanity in a fundamental way and it's such a big price that the current cost of trying is negligible.
Such a big price that if I were to define humanity's priorities, finding whether we're alone would probably fall in my top twenty.
Slashdot Mirror
They use "non-standard units" to give the reader a mental picture of the near miss. It has nothing to do with perceived stupidity.
Ok. I used "stupidity" for "the inability of forming a mental picture for 10000 km".
Speaking of which, how much would 17km/s be in Sheppeis per Tatum grid? Good old "units" doesn't know either of those units.
Sheppey: A measure of distance equal to about 78 of a mile (1.4 km), defined as the closest distance at which sheep remain picturesque.
Tatum Grid: the lowest regular pulse train that a listener intuitively infers from the timing of perceived musical events.
So by that statement I should fly to Rome, go to the Coliseum and watch YouTube?
No. But last time I was in the colisseum, I did search some things in the wikipedia (although the audioguide was magnificent; one of the best I've ever heard.) and I did take phone-pictures to send to my friends.
No, that's part of the problem with this disjointed reality nonsense. "Yeah I'm going to Trajan's column and update my FourSquare status." Part of being there, doing real things, not virtual things, is that you have all of your senses as part of the experience.
I'm convinced that most of the difference between our opinions on this topic are centered on that distinction between real and virtual.
if you're that disconnected from what's going on around you and who you are with, then why go?
I'm not disconnected, I'm only partially there. And I want that portion to be as good as possible. I enjoy having my X% of reality being the collisseum, even if that X isn't 100.
You want that X to be 100 and disconnect from everything else? Go for it. I don't apreciate reality as such a magnificent sensation input as to enjoy cuttin all others. I may well enjoy much more one hour of reading a good novel about the collisseum than standing on the actual stones.
I dont attach any special meaning to the real things. If you could build an exact replica of the collisseum, one where nobody ever fought, one that wasn't built centuries ago. I wouldn't care. And I feel the opposite way of thinking to be animistic and irrational (purposefully exagerated to explain my point, I don't really have strong feeling either way) :)
Or pick up any decent* flashlight -- they all have anti-reflection coated front lenses.
Why would someone need an anti-reflection coated front lens in a flashlight? How much power is lost in reflection (taking into account that reflected light will reflect on the flashlight cone and come back)?
i.e.: if you lose 1% in reflection, of that 1% >90% will go out in a second passage. So your anti-reflection coated front lens would have to cost less than adding 0.1% power to not be a marketing gimmick (gold plated hi-fi connectors).
(theoretically, if you could focus the light into a perfect geometrical point, you could hope to achieve fusion with a flashlight. Or not?)
You could certainly hope for it.
Out of curiosity, how many batteries does your megajoule flashlight spend per second? :)
the asteroid was at a distance between the orbit of the space station (about 1 Earth radii) and geosynchronous satellites (about 6 Earth radii)."
How dumb do you have to imagine your audience to create non-standard units on every piece of news?
Also, with give such an imprecise distance as "between 6353km and 38118km"?
At least speed came in km/s instead of Sheppeis per Tatum grid.
It does look like magic. Search a video on youtube about a group of japanese researchers who did that with a window.
We see clean transparent glass by its reflection. When that's removed, it looks like solid air.
That's pretty hard with the technology I'm talking about (refracting all incoming light "half-sphere" into a flat surface).
I think we'll have such material in a few years, but take into account that at the border you don't know at which point in the surface a ray has impacted it nor it's original angle. All rays come to the edge parallel to the surface.
In a usual lens, rays never aquire equal characteristics. From the angle of incidence you can deduce the point of impact on the lens, and from both you can deduce the original angle. You lose that information as soon as you refract all rays into the same plane.
But you weren't in the moment, truly.
Scotsman.
You were having some interactions with other folks online, which is fine but the choice and place all seem
a bit out of place.
They only "seem out of place" to the people who still keep a hard relation between place and activity. That limitation is artificial and dies as soon as technology allows us to perform activities anywhere.
Some centuries ago it would "seem out of place" to watch a performance on your living room. Unless you were the king and had a palace. Now we're all kings.
Eventually (in the next few years) we'll learn to refract all light coming from one side in an angle that sets it parallel to the screen.
At that point we might consider collecting that light on the edges of the screen to charge the device. Or just leave the screen edges uncovered and rounded to let it disperse, leaving a beautiful light "halo" around the device.
The uneven surface means that light won't just bounce back off the screen creating a reflection
What, the film absorbs (almost) everything? If so, where the energy goes? In heating the screen?
(not to mention the "light won't just bounce back..." invites a continuation on the line of "... but also...")
Two options:
1 - Absorbed: It will heat the screen just as much as having it turned upside down heats the back; not much.
2 - Scattered: You can avoid reflection by just scattering the light in a very large angle.
My guess is that it will be a mix of both.
You will regret those comments when SONY becomes a branch of your government.
Today I went to lunch and next to where I was, there was a young couple. Both with tablets, both watching stuff, exchanging e-mail and not really talking to each other. So why go to lunch together if you're not going to be part of the actual experience.
The decision of only counting the real world as part of "the actual experience" is yours.
I was recently in a sunny beach, with my wife and friends, using my tablet to watch go games while my wife used hers to watch a movie. We were also both chatting in a long whatsapp thread with the entire group of friends. Some were with us on the beach, some were about to take the plane to come and some were just waking up in their hotels.
My actual experience, at that point was:
- Warm sun drying my skin.
- A very interesting go game about which I was chatting with people around the world.
- A calm breeze.
- Laughs with each joke I, or someone else, posted on the whatsapp thread.
- And, when I had a free hand, caressing my wive's skin that get's even more beautiful and silky when bronzed.
It's you who haven't half-entered the shared virtual reality, not the other's who don't appreciate the real world.
Back in my day we started with just an anvil, four copper bars and some booze. And it was FUN!
Greece borrows a fuckton of money, pisses it up the wall and then throws a massive sulk when asked to pay it back.
I think the sulk is not even for having to pay it back but for being required to follow a number of rules that might make them stop pissing more fucktons of money up the wall.
Or put in the sticker a password to decrypt the information that would be stored encripted in a database with a password protected too.
The paramedic could have his own QR code (in his "paramedic identification card", or whatever). Then:
1 - Paramedic connects to database.
2 - Paramedic takes a picture of your card to access.
3 - Paramedic takes a picture of the patients QR code to decrypt and download the data.
4 - Patient's password is automatically changed.
5 - System re-encrypts the patient's data with the new password.
6 - System sends the patient home healthy, data safe and with his new QR card password.
Geiger–Müller
There's no legitimate reason for anyone (who's not a researcher or a nuclear plant employee) to be carrying a radiation detector around with them all the time.
Unless you're a spy who might become the target of the russian secret service. Or you live on the apartment next to a spy who might become the target of the russian secret service.
And you never know whether you live next to a spy who might become the target of the russian secret service, so...
This is the sort of thing we need to see real progress in self replicating bio-artificial beings.
Just a few steps remain:
- Mutate some bacteria to contain one of those integrated chemical chips as a byproduct of their nutrition.
- Mutate that bacteria again to create different (on mytosis) gates depending on fed nutrients, temperature or somesuch.
- Find the correct nutrient/temperature/... map (base) over which, when the bacteria are grown, they create a particular circuit.
- Find which particular circuit creates a map that self replicates.
- Feel proud as our species is replaced by the ultra-intelligent logical-gate-bacteria-overlords.
Now imagine being able to know whether an investigative effort is going to give valuable results.
Forget superman, that one would make a fantastic superpower. You'd also be able to go around in a labcoat instead of wearing your underwear over your tighs.
Tele = remote
Kinesis = movement
You probably mean telepathy.
Tele = remote
Pathos = experience
You probably mean teletubby.
We put all candidates in a sealed arena, each one with a fully equipped lab. Labs are only connected by the air they breathe.
The last one standing becomes the new top bioethicist.
It's not very fair, but nobody wants to argue with the top bioethicist.
Well, the thing is that this is not a game that gives a million every thousand tries. Instead it will give a complete surprise - maybe a million bucks, maybe a bullet to the head.
Why do you assume that result of finding aliens will be positive development? There are at least three possible scenarios with unknown probability of happening:
1) Welcome, lesser developed culture! Let us give you all our cool alien tech, cure cancer and end world hunger.
2) So you are humans? Nice, we don't really care. Go away and stop bothering us. Or maybe "Solaris" kind of contact.
3) Oh hello you poor defenseless bastards. We were just in a need of new food source/hunting ground/slave labour.
Why do you assume finding aliens is equal to revealing ourselves to them? Maybe we find them, study them and then decide to push a large meteorite in their general direction. Ignorance is not the solution to dangerous neighbours.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." - Sun Tzu
Imagine a game that gives you a million times your bet once every thousand tries. It would be reasonable to play that game. Not winning any of the first hundred times wouldn't change the reasonability of playing that game.
You mean like .. a lottery? Yeah, perfectly reasonable ;-)
I've decided to take that as a joke. :) (the alternative made me sad and also required a much longer a pedantic answer)
Not limited to actually finding aliens but looking at everything coming out of SETI: What good has come out of SETI so far?
I don't think that's a valid argument.
Imagine a game that gives you a million times your bet once every thousand tries. It would be reasonable to play that game. Not winning any of the first hundred times wouldn't change the reasonability of playing that game.
Maybe you dont't value as high as I do the results of finding there's extraterrestrial intelligence. I do think it would change humanity in a fundamental way and it's such a big price that the current cost of trying is negligible.
Such a big price that if I were to define humanity's priorities, finding whether we're alone would probably fall in my top twenty.