the person is honestly asking for advice. most replies seem helpful; what's with the self-absorbed minority who think it's more productive to denigrate the poster/ his or her company than just lend a hand?
I'm a big Star Trek fan and I've been following the development of this game for over a year. I have to say that some of the visuals and proposed gameplay features seem stunning, but I'm a little disappointed by the extent to which the game's universe seems to diverge from Star Trek's in some respects.
(This is Europe, perhaps it's different in the USA. Do you need to be 21 to go to a nightclub? If so, I can see that would make a difference to the atmosphere. And if so, what do students do on Friday/Saturday night?)
I understand what you're explaining here, but I'm not sure how well it applies to the point I'm trying to make. All I'm saying is that, overall and regardless of how efficiently different countries utilize their ecological footprints or carbon footprints, humans are using the Earth's resources at a rate that is not sustainable. From my point of view, what the resources are being used to make or how efficiently the resources are being used is irrelevant. I understand the unit of ecological footprint per GDP as a measure of how successful a country is at efficiently economizing its resource use - please set me straight if I'm mistaken.
I admit that I am not an expert on this topic, but I would argue that the world is already suffering an overpopulation crises, albeit one that is almost invisible to many people living in the developed west. Even if worldwide population growth dropped to zero tomorrow, we would still use too many resources and generate too much waste for our existence at current numbers to be viable into the more distant future. The science behind "ecological footprinting" sometimes comes under fire, but the practice seems pretty sound to me, and very interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint.
Making the (reasonable but refutable) assumption that the world's population will continue to grow until anti-aging techniques are available to a significant fraction of the world's population, I would say that the introduction of successful anti-aging techniques would significantly amplify the current problem. Of course, this is totally speculative on my part (as is the whole article) and nobody knows what kind of technological boons or busts humans will come up with over the next hundred years.
I would say one of the problems with the empty space argument is that resources are finite and that it takes far more space to support any population than it does only to house that population. The exponential growth of most populations, if left unchecked by death of older individuals, would present a problem.
The dirty truth of it is that overall, humans are in comparatively poor health to what they could be if everyone ate right and had the best health care available and actually made use of it.
Totally agree with you here.
Death is not necessary, it's just a cliche everyone falls for eventually.
I would argue that death of older or less fit individuals is an important natural force in any biological population, but I concede that people may come up with new ways to mitigate imbalances introduced by a much longer-lived population.
Sorry, wasn't attempting to advocate any particular philosophy, just saying that death plays an important role in the maintenance and advancement of a species. I guess the process of natural selection is a good illustration of how death of the individual can ultimately serve a biological population.
If human lifespans are ever extended to a significant degree, there will be significant repercussions as governments attempt to deal with what would inevitably become a very serious overpopulation crisis. Death and suicide are currently viewed as horrible things by the majority of western cultures. Would a practical illustration (catastrophic overpopulation) of why death is a natural and necessary component in the "lifespans" of living things, including human populations, change popular and governmental dispositions towards death and dying?
What kind of effects might this have on policies towards euthanasia? More provocatively, might governments starting offering tax credits or other kinds of awards to families whose eldest members opted to end their lives? Might governments impose penalties on individuals who were older than a certain age?
Companies pay "research" labs to provide favorable results all the time. They do this to defend their products and profits, to satisfy government regulatory bodies, and to be evil and immoral.
Working in a physical chemistry lab, I have always been comforted by the fact that I have the moral high ground over those who work in more profitable fields such as biochemistry, biology, and top-secret superweapons R & D despite the fact that grant money is much more difficult to obtain.
If this oath catches on, where will I be? I'm sure the physicists will agree with me here.
Haha, fair enough. I forgot about things like the DARPA Grand Challenge for a second there. And the fact that DARPA funds some of the chemistry research I'm doing. Sorry DARPA.
One of the interesting aspects of this article is how it highlights the usual thermodynamic balance between entropy and free energy. States of matter in the equilibrium phase attempt to simultaneously maximize entropy, a measure of the statistical likelihood of a given state, and minimize the amount of energy "stored" in the given arrangement of molecules.
The most favorable condition is often a compromise between maximum entropy and minimum energy as highly ordered states, such as tetrahedral or other crystalline arrangements, often act to reduce the amount of stored energy due to minimized interatomic and/or intermolecular interactions and related factors. Pure crystals of substances will often form because the energetic "advantage" of the highly ordered crystalline state is often great enough to overcome entropic barriers.
The model that the researchers propose is interesting because the crystalline state itself introduces a degree of energetic disadvantage due to what is described as "cramming" of the individual crystalline unit cells. I wonder what models they used to form their hypothesis that the glass would eventually form a perfectly crystalline state.
Slashdot Mirror
the person is honestly asking for advice. most replies seem helpful; what's with the self-absorbed minority who think it's more productive to denigrate the poster/ his or her company than just lend a hand?
I'm a big Star Trek fan and I've been following the development of this game for over a year. I have to say that some of the visuals and proposed gameplay features seem stunning, but I'm a little disappointed by the extent to which the game's universe seems to diverge from Star Trek's in some respects.
"two quantum channels with zero capacity can carry information"
Feynman once said that nobody understands quantum mechanics, and this is why.
Go to science.com and read the actual research paper from the MIT team before blasting their work.
Here is a link to the actual paper published by the MIT team:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/321/5886/226
(This is Europe, perhaps it's different in the USA. Do you need to be 21 to go to a nightclub? If so, I can see that would make a difference to the atmosphere. And if so, what do students do on Friday/Saturday night?)
Fake ID
I, for one, welcome our new Citysense-equipped computer-science-professor-overlord. Where shall I hang out tonight, O Omniscient One?
Can you make us dough?
I understand what you're explaining here, but I'm not sure how well it applies to the point I'm trying to make. All I'm saying is that, overall and regardless of how efficiently different countries utilize their ecological footprints or carbon footprints, humans are using the Earth's resources at a rate that is not sustainable. From my point of view, what the resources are being used to make or how efficiently the resources are being used is irrelevant. I understand the unit of ecological footprint per GDP as a measure of how successful a country is at efficiently economizing its resource use - please set me straight if I'm mistaken.
I admit that I am not an expert on this topic, but I would argue that the world is already suffering an overpopulation crises, albeit one that is almost invisible to many people living in the developed west. Even if worldwide population growth dropped to zero tomorrow, we would still use too many resources and generate too much waste for our existence at current numbers to be viable into the more distant future. The science behind "ecological footprinting" sometimes comes under fire, but the practice seems pretty sound to me, and very interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint.
Making the (reasonable but refutable) assumption that the world's population will continue to grow until anti-aging techniques are available to a significant fraction of the world's population, I would say that the introduction of successful anti-aging techniques would significantly amplify the current problem. Of course, this is totally speculative on my part (as is the whole article) and nobody knows what kind of technological boons or busts humans will come up with over the next hundred years.
The dirty truth of it is that overall, humans are in comparatively poor health to what they could be if everyone ate right and had the best health care available and actually made use of it.
Totally agree with you here.
Death is not necessary, it's just a cliche everyone falls for eventually.
I would argue that death of older or less fit individuals is an important natural force in any biological population, but I concede that people may come up with new ways to mitigate imbalances introduced by a much longer-lived population.
Sorry, wasn't attempting to advocate any particular philosophy, just saying that death plays an important role in the maintenance and advancement of a species. I guess the process of natural selection is a good illustration of how death of the individual can ultimately serve a biological population.
If human lifespans are ever extended to a significant degree, there will be significant repercussions as governments attempt to deal with what would inevitably become a very serious overpopulation crisis. Death and suicide are currently viewed as horrible things by the majority of western cultures. Would a practical illustration (catastrophic overpopulation) of why death is a natural and necessary component in the "lifespans" of living things, including human populations, change popular and governmental dispositions towards death and dying?
What kind of effects might this have on policies towards euthanasia? More provocatively, might governments starting offering tax credits or other kinds of awards to families whose eldest members opted to end their lives? Might governments impose penalties on individuals who were older than a certain age?
@7 l335t th3 p@r3|\|tz d0|\|7 k|\|0w l337 5p33k y37
Next, they'll be teaching computers to read lips. Anyone who has seen 2001: A Space Odyssey knows that this is a bad idea.
Until cells, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles start publishing blogs, the scientific method will remain useful.
You should send me your root passwords, I promise to look after your servers while you're gone.
OMG ok wat ur email?!??/!!!!1/??A Scientific American article (links directly to a PDF).
Companies pay "research" labs to provide favorable results all the time. They do this to defend their products and profits, to satisfy government regulatory bodies, and to be evil and immoral.
Working in a physical chemistry lab, I have always been comforted by the fact that I have the moral high ground over those who work in more profitable fields such as biochemistry, biology, and top-secret superweapons R & D despite the fact that grant money is much more difficult to obtain.
If this oath catches on, where will I be? I'm sure the physicists will agree with me here.
Haha, fair enough. I forgot about things like the DARPA Grand Challenge for a second there. And the fact that DARPA funds some of the chemistry research I'm doing. Sorry DARPA.
Too late - the British already did that.
... I had a totally sweet aritifical intelligence lead, but I already told China about it, and they said I shouldn't tell anyone else.
:-/
One of the interesting aspects of this article is how it highlights the usual thermodynamic balance between entropy and free energy. States of matter in the equilibrium phase attempt to simultaneously maximize entropy, a measure of the statistical likelihood of a given state, and minimize the amount of energy "stored" in the given arrangement of molecules.
The most favorable condition is often a compromise between maximum entropy and minimum energy as highly ordered states, such as tetrahedral or other crystalline arrangements, often act to reduce the amount of stored energy due to minimized interatomic and/or intermolecular interactions and related factors. Pure crystals of substances will often form because the energetic "advantage" of the highly ordered crystalline state is often great enough to overcome entropic barriers.
The model that the researchers propose is interesting because the crystalline state itself introduces a degree of energetic disadvantage due to what is described as "cramming" of the individual crystalline unit cells. I wonder what models they used to form their hypothesis that the glass would eventually form a perfectly crystalline state.