With regards to the fridge knowing what's in it... how does that even work, without being a major nuisance? Now if they have a small robot climb around inside the fridge overnight, scanning barcodes & weighing the milk, then that's great. Otherwise, how is this not just a hassle for the user? e.g.
Dammit, I forgot to scan milk when putting it back in the fridge!
Dammit, I didn't align the milk exactly on the milk sensor, and the fridge ordered more!
Dammit, I put the milk on the cheese sensor, and the fridge didn't order more!
The cheapest solution would probably be to have a small camera inside the fridge, and get someone on Mechanical Turk to fill out an inventory for you. And that's just sad.
I don't think it's entirely a matter of education. Even educated people can be tempted to vote for what's good for themselves in the short term, even if it's bad for everybody in the longer term.
True, but I think the parent was implying that uneducated people can be tempted to vote for what's bad for themselves, and everyone else, in the short and long term. However, I disagree with their either-or approach. Uneducated democracies are bad, and two party democracies are also bad. Look at what's happening in France right now. Sarkozy's losing to a socialist rival, so instead of trying to appear more centrist to increase his appeal to everyone, he specifically tries to increase his appeal to the far right, effectively cutting his losses among the left. A binary choice inevitably leads to extreme polarisation. See also: American's Republican Presidential Primaries.
If his "solution" is a free market coupled to endless scientific advance, and that endless scientific advance doesn't deliver, then the market suffers distortion. Perhaps I should have said "Or market distortions caused by people not being able..."
Hey...as long as it happens after I'm dead and gone...what do I care?
Some folk take an interest in events that will happen beyond their own lifespan, and others don't. There appears to be little reconciling these groups. Incidentally, do you care about history, beyond how modern lessons can be learned from it?
Developing countries into modernity lowers the birth rate, and that's the best solution.
But that also increases their demand for resources, per capita. Who consumes more resources globally, 4 starving kids in a refugee camp, or 1 well-off western kid? There's an infographic somewhere (can find it if required) of the number of Earths-worth of resources we'd need if the whole global population were to have western standards of living. Unfortunately, that's way higher even than what we currently consume.
You may mock Roosevelt, but perhaps he was aware, as you seemingly aren't, of how many past civilisations have collapsed due to timber crises... Easter Island being one of the most dramatic. What if someone hadn't invented creosote coatings? Sure, technology provided a solution that time, and many other times in recent history, but there are plenty of other times it hasn't.
Our modern global/western civilisation is big and impressive, I'll give it that. But if you take the historical perspective, the number of civilisations that have collapsed is quite a long list, and some of them were quite big and impressive, too.
So yeah, we've got lots of scientists. You think we're the first civilisation to have lots of scientists? Sure, we're more advanced than our predecessors, but do you really think that our civilisation's size, or even technology like the internet makes us so different from all other civilisations to come before us, that we're immune to collapse? On the contrary, our current civilisation is so big that most efforts to make significant changes seem almost completely ineffectual. And that oil is going to run out.
I've certainly not abandoned hope, but I'd like to think I've got beyond the mindset of thinking that people in history were so radically different from us. Technology may well provide a solution to all our problems, but it also might not. Isn't it wise to prepare, at least slightly, for that eventuality? Isn't believing otherwise just placing blind faith in a deus ex machina?
Or market distortions like people not being able to produce enough energy, due to demand outpacing technological progress.
Sure, the system will still "self-correct," but in that scenario, self-correction can include drastic reduction in the number of people.
Ok, so you're saying that if Big Pharma weren't evil, they'd be trying to rewrite everyone's genetic code at this point? Whereas if they are evil, they'll just try to treat cancer? If that's the choice, give me Evil anyday!
human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors that have been transplanted into mice
Yeah, it helps a mouse immune system kill the tumors. Its likely it would also help a human immune system kill them. Now they need to make sure that it doesn't also kill the non-tumorous parts of the human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, liver and prostate in question.
And they'd have to have the extra fuel to stop at the stations, and then accelerate away again. AAAND they'd have the fun problem of having to time their departure to coincide not only with a reasonable alignment between Earth and Mars, but also enough of the "rest stops"... which would presumably be on their own independent orbits.
There are some lasers which are not single spatial mode and consequently their light beams diverge more than required by the diffraction limit. However all such devices are classified as "lasers" based on their method of producing that light: stimulated emission. Lasers are employed in applications where light of the required spatial or temporal coherence could not be produced using simpler technologies.
The light originally came from a laser, so it's laser light even though its diverging in all directions. Bollocks.
is a 360 degree laser beam?
Laser light is coherent light travelling in one direction, and this light spreads out in all directions... so what exactly makes this be laser light, once it leaves the fiber? I think the correct technical term would just be "light."
Presumably they first need to either invent a cheap room-temperature superconductor that can be mass-produced, or have this thing be very vulnerable to power cuts.
Likewise, it can be used to toss things into the outer system - the counterweight is moving at far above escape speed (~7000 m/s at 96000 km), so you can just let something go there, and it'll be heading off in the general direction of Jupiter. It won't go as high as Saturn's orbit without a higher counterweight, of course, but lower aphelions are possible by releasing at a lower altitude than the counterweight...
While the GEO station would presumably be a safe enough place to live, you'd have to be very confident that you could avoid any cable-snapping events before the counterweight would cease being an extremely depressing working environment. In the event of a snap, things would be a lot grimmer than in Space 1999... though presumably they could spare some mass for some suitable escape vehicles.
it seems to me that hunting while drinking is no different than driving while drinking.
Kudos to you for doing your part to stop that nonsense.
I'd probably argue that its worse. With driving, you don't want to hit anything. With shooting, there are some far-away moving things that you do want to shoot, and some that you REALLY don't.
If you fly ANY sort of "Drone" over my property, I'm going to shoot it down, and I don't give a fuck what the law says.
Am I the only one reading some of the comments on here who can't help wondering why (some/many) Americans seem to think guns are the solution to just about every problem? I find it hard to believe someone could be so much of an asshole that if a kid across the street with a small RC plane isn't very careful, they're gonna shoot his toy because its somehow violating their rights.
I'm not really trying to be provocative, just... wtf? I don't understand.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, but slashcode ate your <
<3
The cheapest solution would probably be to have a small camera inside the fridge, and get someone on Mechanical Turk to fill out an inventory for you. And that's just sad.
Everybody says
Orly?
I don't think it's entirely a matter of education. Even educated people can be tempted to vote for what's good for themselves in the short term, even if it's bad for everybody in the longer term.
True, but I think the parent was implying that uneducated people can be tempted to vote for what's bad for themselves, and everyone else, in the short and long term. However, I disagree with their either-or approach. Uneducated democracies are bad, and two party democracies are also bad. Look at what's happening in France right now. Sarkozy's losing to a socialist rival, so instead of trying to appear more centrist to increase his appeal to everyone, he specifically tries to increase his appeal to the far right, effectively cutting his losses among the left. A binary choice inevitably leads to extreme polarisation. See also: American's Republican Presidential Primaries.
If his "solution" is a free market coupled to endless scientific advance, and that endless scientific advance doesn't deliver, then the market suffers distortion. Perhaps I should have said "Or market distortions caused by people not being able ..."
Hey...as long as it happens after I'm dead and gone...what do I care?
Some folk take an interest in events that will happen beyond their own lifespan, and others don't. There appears to be little reconciling these groups.
Incidentally, do you care about history, beyond how modern lessons can be learned from it?
Developing countries into modernity lowers the birth rate, and that's the best solution.
But that also increases their demand for resources, per capita. Who consumes more resources globally, 4 starving kids in a refugee camp, or 1 well-off western kid? There's an infographic somewhere (can find it if required) of the number of Earths-worth of resources we'd need if the whole global population were to have western standards of living. Unfortunately, that's way higher even than what we currently consume.
You may mock Roosevelt, but perhaps he was aware, as you seemingly aren't, of how many past civilisations have collapsed due to timber crises... Easter Island being one of the most dramatic. What if someone hadn't invented creosote coatings? Sure, technology provided a solution that time, and many other times in recent history, but there are plenty of other times it hasn't.
Our modern global/western civilisation is big and impressive, I'll give it that. But if you take the historical perspective, the number of civilisations that have collapsed is quite a long list, and some of them were quite big and impressive, too.
So yeah, we've got lots of scientists. You think we're the first civilisation to have lots of scientists? Sure, we're more advanced than our predecessors, but do you really think that our civilisation's size, or even technology like the internet makes us so different from all other civilisations to come before us, that we're immune to collapse? On the contrary, our current civilisation is so big that most efforts to make significant changes seem almost completely ineffectual. And that oil is going to run out.
I've certainly not abandoned hope, but I'd like to think I've got beyond the mindset of thinking that people in history were so radically different from us. Technology may well provide a solution to all our problems, but it also might not. Isn't it wise to prepare, at least slightly, for that eventuality? Isn't believing otherwise just placing blind faith in a deus ex machina?
Or market distortions like people not being able to produce enough energy, due to demand outpacing technological progress. Sure, the system will still "self-correct," but in that scenario, self-correction can include drastic reduction in the number of people.
Yeah the UN hates the US? Rofl.
Ok, so you're saying that if Big Pharma weren't evil, they'd be trying to rewrite everyone's genetic code at this point? Whereas if they are evil, they'll just try to treat cancer? If that's the choice, give me Evil anyday!
at least it has been tested on
human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors that have been transplanted into mice
Yeah, it helps a mouse immune system kill the tumors. Its likely it would also help a human immune system kill them.
Now they need to make sure that it doesn't also kill the non-tumorous parts of the human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, liver and prostate in question.
Hmm, that project needs much more "about" text for me to have a clue why I'd use that rather than just a git script.
BS
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx
http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~ramsey/People.html
And they'd have to have the extra fuel to stop at the stations, and then accelerate away again. AAAND they'd have the fun problem of having to time their departure to coincide not only with a reasonable alignment between Earth and Mars, but also enough of the "rest stops" ... which would presumably be on their own independent orbits.
There are some lasers which are not single spatial mode and consequently their light beams diverge more than required by the diffraction limit. However all such devices are classified as "lasers" based on their method of producing that light: stimulated emission. Lasers are employed in applications where light of the required spatial or temporal coherence could not be produced using simpler technologies.
The light originally came from a laser, so it's laser light even though its diverging in all directions. Bollocks.
is a 360 degree laser beam? Laser light is coherent light travelling in one direction, and this light spreads out in all directions ... so what exactly makes this be laser light, once it leaves the fiber? I think the correct technical term would just be "light."
Presumably they first need to either invent a cheap room-temperature superconductor that can be mass-produced, or have this thing be very vulnerable to power cuts.
Apple or someone else needs to step it up here and offer some true 'CD quality downloads.'
I think what we have here is TFS contradicting itself when it contradicts TFA. Presumably he wants "better than CD quality downloads."
It does seem counter-intuitive. But perhaps we Brits are only eager to hand over our own to the Merrykins.
Likewise, it can be used to toss things into the outer system - the counterweight is moving at far above escape speed (~7000 m/s at 96000 km), so you can just let something go there, and it'll be heading off in the general direction of Jupiter. It won't go as high as Saturn's orbit without a higher counterweight, of course, but lower aphelions are possible by releasing at a lower altitude than the counterweight...
While the GEO station would presumably be a safe enough place to live, you'd have to be very confident that you could avoid any cable-snapping events before the counterweight would cease being an extremely depressing working environment. In the event of a snap, things would be a lot grimmer than in Space 1999... though presumably they could spare some mass for some suitable escape vehicles.
Clarification: filming without the subjects' knowledge is not interfering. Doesn't make you any less of a perv, though! :P
it seems to me that hunting while drinking is no different than driving while drinking.
Kudos to you for doing your part to stop that nonsense.
I'd probably argue that its worse. With driving, you don't want to hit anything. With shooting, there are some far-away moving things that you do want to shoot, and some that you REALLY don't.
If you fly ANY sort of "Drone" over my property, I'm going to shoot it down, and I don't give a fuck what the law says.
Am I the only one reading some of the comments on here who can't help wondering why (some/many) Americans seem to think guns are the solution to just about every problem? I find it hard to believe someone could be so much of an asshole that if a kid across the street with a small RC plane isn't very careful, they're gonna shoot his toy because its somehow violating their rights.
... wtf? I don't understand.
I'm not really trying to be provocative, just