Researchers say? Really? No clue as to where they are from or what they have been trained to do? Because it is sure as hell not anything that uses carbon dating.
Yes the article gives some caveats but it really isn't enough. C14 dating really, really isn't as simple as it looks. As an archaeological scientist (well I trained as one) the one thing that was drummed into our heads was that C14 cannot be accuratly used past 1950 and that C14 dating is a science based upon statistics and will never, ever give you one year as an answer.
The reason C14 can't be used past 1950 is that the whole thing is based upon the idea that in the past the amount of atmospheric C14 has always been the same as in 1950. We know this isn't true however. Since 1950 nuclear testing has really screwed with the amount of C14 in the atmosphere and we know that in the past C14 varied as we have ways of checking (this is mostly done by counting tree rings, I know high tech).
So we have adjust the results we get based upon what we know about the amount of C14 in the atmosphere. I'm going off track here so I'll just point you in the direction of a website that shows how C14 dates are calibrated. http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/embed.php?File=calibration.html#calibration
The main reason that this research is suspect is that C14 really isn't suited to this sort of fine detail work. I'm sure that you can date wine but the result you would get would be pointless. You could probably get a 95% certainty of the wine coming from a certain date range but that range would be so wide as to be of no use. If you want to get a precise date then you can but only by dropping your certainty to an amount to low to have any confidence in. Your magin for error would be astronomical.
I never thought I'd say it but who approves these non-articles to appear on/.?
Ok. It's my turn to do this. At least one person has to everytime Opera comes up here.
Opera is free. It has been for years. No fees, no adverts, free.
With an Oyster card, it costs £0.90 to travel however far you like on one bus, 24 hrs a day. True this does mean that it will cost more if you have to change buses, but I can get from Clapham to Camden or from Archway to Notting Hill Gate on one bus so it's not that limiting.
A point to bear in mind.
If you are using an Oyster card on the buses the charge is capped at £3.00 per day no matter how many bus trips you take.
Oh and do you expect local taxes to be just used to subsidise mass transport? Who pays for all the other services that local authorities provide?
Wasn't there that game... hold on a second it'll come to me...it was something to do with driving...damn, it'll bug me all day now...oh that was it "taking and driving"...nope no thats not it after all...maybe it was just me who played it, but I'm sure that I saw it get a couple of reviews.
Can anyone help me out here?
It depends on the area. When I lived in Bradford (north of England, quite deprived) you could find somewhere to live for about £200 ($390) per month, if you live anywhere near London you are looking at a minimum of £800 ($1550)
Jobseekers allowance is meant to cover basic living costs. Yeah sucks to be unemployed doesn't it? It is true however that you can claim other benefits if you are unemployed such as housing benefit (to pay rental costs) as well as getting money off your council tax (based upon the value of your residence).
For all the talk of people sponging off the state it is rather hard to keep body and soul together on £50 per week.
While continents would have been pretty much in the same positions as they are now there would have been massive differences in the actual landscape. Just going from memory at around 12000BCE you had the Bering Strait land bridge, large parts of (what is now) the North Sea and English Channel were plains like hunting grounds for nomadic societies and western Sweden/southern Norway was much more a land of lakes, inlets and islands due to a higher than present sea level.
Everyone seems to be assuming that sole traders would be the ones selling goods and that they would have to worry about the length of their investment. Corporations (or the interstallar versions of this concept) would have less to worry about. They can afford to have the long term view that given the risks and the timeframe it may be possible to turn a profit from interstellar commerce.
Of course a corporation would still have to balance the risks involved, including whether the corporation will still exist at that point in the future and if inflation would affect negativly any returns, but I thik it could be profitable for an extreamly stable blue chip type company to do.
Now all you have to do is hope that corporations of the future look beyond the next quarters turnover.
I can think of a bread analogy that does work.
Sourdough starter yeast
It's physical yet can be shared. There is also a tradition in some places in Europe of bakers regarding their yeast as a trade secret (and some yeasts are over 100 years old)
Slashdot Mirror
Yes the article gives some caveats but it really isn't enough. C14 dating really, really isn't as simple as it looks. As an archaeological scientist (well I trained as one) the one thing that was drummed into our heads was that C14 cannot be accuratly used past 1950 and that C14 dating is a science based upon statistics and will never, ever give you one year as an answer.
The reason C14 can't be used past 1950 is that the whole thing is based upon the idea that in the past the amount of atmospheric C14 has always been the same as in 1950. We know this isn't true however. Since 1950 nuclear testing has really screwed with the amount of C14 in the atmosphere and we know that in the past C14 varied as we have ways of checking (this is mostly done by counting tree rings, I know high tech).
So we have adjust the results we get based upon what we know about the amount of C14 in the atmosphere. I'm going off track here so I'll just point you in the direction of a website that shows how C14 dates are calibrated. http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/embed.php?File=calibration.html#calibration
The main reason that this research is suspect is that C14 really isn't suited to this sort of fine detail work. I'm sure that you can date wine but the result you would get would be pointless. You could probably get a 95% certainty of the wine coming from a certain date range but that range would be so wide as to be of no use. If you want to get a precise date then you can but only by dropping your certainty to an amount to low to have any confidence in. Your magin for error would be astronomical.
I never thought I'd say it but who approves these non-articles to appear on /.?
Ok. It's my turn to do this. At least one person has to everytime Opera comes up here. Opera is free. It has been for years. No fees, no adverts, free.
And from earlier
But it's this, is it? No enigma... no dignity, nothing classical or poetic... only this... a comic pornographer and a rabble of prostitutes.
Petrol will still be cheaper in the US than here though. So it isn't all bad.
A point to bear in mind.
If you are using an Oyster card on the buses the charge is capped at £3.00 per day no matter how many bus trips you take.
Oh and do you expect local taxes to be just used to subsidise mass transport? Who pays for all the other services that local authorities provide?
Wasn't there that game... hold on a second it'll come to me...it was something to do with driving...damn, it'll bug me all day now...oh that was it "taking and driving"...nope no thats not it after all...maybe it was just me who played it, but I'm sure that I saw it get a couple of reviews. Can anyone help me out here?
It depends on the area. When I lived in Bradford (north of England, quite deprived) you could find somewhere to live for about £200 ($390) per month, if you live anywhere near London you are looking at a minimum of £800 ($1550)
Jobseekers allowance is meant to cover basic living costs. Yeah sucks to be unemployed doesn't it? It is true however that you can claim other benefits if you are unemployed such as housing benefit (to pay rental costs) as well as getting money off your council tax (based upon the value of your residence). For all the talk of people sponging off the state it is rather hard to keep body and soul together on £50 per week.
While continents would have been pretty much in the same positions as they are now there would have been massive differences in the actual landscape. Just going from memory at around 12000BCE you had the Bering Strait land bridge, large parts of (what is now) the North Sea and English Channel were plains like hunting grounds for nomadic societies and western Sweden/southern Norway was much more a land of lakes, inlets and islands due to a higher than present sea level.
But if you are letting you AI out into Second Life and comparing it to intelligence there, surely you are setting the bar rather low?
Of course a corporation would still have to balance the risks involved, including whether the corporation will still exist at that point in the future and if inflation would affect negativly any returns, but I thik it could be profitable for an extreamly stable blue chip type company to do.
Now all you have to do is hope that corporations of the future look beyond the next quarters turnover.
I can think of a bread analogy that does work. Sourdough starter yeast It's physical yet can be shared. There is also a tradition in some places in Europe of bakers regarding their yeast as a trade secret (and some yeasts are over 100 years old)