1: Oil
Yes, oil is going to go away. But known oil reserves are different from prospective oil reserves. Known reserves are where geologists went out, found, and measured it, but oil-men haven't sucked it up yet. As-yet-undiscovered oil fields and hard to get to fields will last us a little bit longer. Texas has assuredly hit peak oil and maybe America on the whole, but I don't think the world has hit that yet. And when it does run out, I'm pretty sure we're going to liquefy coal into jet fuel. It's a dirty process, but it's better then going dry. Remember, when gas is $5/gallon, all sorts of oil sources and alternatives become viable. Unfortunately, the last time we were in that position, we learned that $5 gas will stress the populace to the point of breaking and a bubble will burst. Economies collapse, demand for oil (and investors) wane, and the price of oil drops. Which sucks, but there will be planes in 2035 and we won't have to fight off wasteland barbarians. Probably.
2: Doomsayers
You are dangerously close to being one. I'm not sure why but societies always have people that proclaim the end of the world (or the end as we know it) is just around the corner. Maybe you're just a natural pessimist. I've become jaded. Unless you supply a little bit of evidence for said doomsday, then you're going to be ignored.
3: RFTA
Seriously, you think the design looks exactly like all other planes? Yes, it has wings. Woo. But it improves the fuel consumption by having longer thinner wings, a wider fusalage, engines nearer the rear, and yes, a fancy dancy new beveled nose. Did you want lasers and flame decals?
4:Imagineers
No, MIT students and NASA are not paid to fantasize. The dreamers who made those "promises" were science fiction writers and Hollywood. Guess what? They lied to you to make a buck. Mostly. We really do have satellites and flying cars. The engineers and scientists who have been at work for the last few decades made that possible.
So ignore this guy, have some hope for the future, and give MIT and NASA their due respect.
Except cruise ships' main purpose isn't to get you places, they ARE the destination. They are a mobile recreational retreat. If it wasn't for that whole weight limit thing, I could very easily see airships going to luxury cruise route.
Still though, there may be a future for them as cheap freighters. An alternative to semi-trucks when oil goes dry. Viva la Sky Truckers!
Attention flight 1403, this is SUX ground control, we're detecting less then.03 ops* in the cabin. That's below regulatory levels so we advise a hard-bank at the next refreshment run.
*Obscenities per second
But really, if da ebil tewwowists can't manually fly the plane into a sky-scraper, then the majority of the security hole is closed. Sure, a bomb causing hundreds of dead is bad, but it's not the sort of threat that is a matter of national security. It has been nearly a decade, and the powers that be are still working on this. Unbelievable.
Of course it's the behavior that doctors are concerned about. Their entire professional skill of diagnosing medical problems can be handed over to an automated game of twenty questions.
Now, we still need them to look at x-rays, make judgment calls on treatments, and a large list of other things that doctors get trained in, but 95% of diagnoses should be automated. It would have a better hit-rate then doctors, and cost a hell of a lot less then the doctor's rate. And don't hand me that bullshit about insurance picking up the bill.
i pay quite a lot of taxes , which i would expect to go to those who need it...
and she barely gets enough from her pension to live by
Your example isn't exactly the best for showcasing your concerns. Things may be different in Belgium though.
Now, gaming welfare programs is a serious issue and those bastards need to be brought to justice and/or tarred and feathered, but of all the "hardworking" taxpayers around here have no concept of how many and which people are on welfare. To them, anyone beneath them is a scum sucking lazy welfare mooch who deserves to be hated "because we're paying for his sorry ass". The welfare system is the catchall "what's wrong with our country", while in the very next breath they're applauding how well their stocks are doing. You know, thanks to the corporate welfare bailout. Of course, this is the same group that would rather mire themselves and their ex in attorney fees rather then pay the proper child support they owe.
Yep, came here for someone defending Steam. I am not leaving disappointed. I don't like DRM in any form, but by and large I don't really have a big beef with Steam or Valve on a fundamental level. Half-life kicks. But I tried to go pick up Portal for free yesterday. I opened up steam for the first time in a couple years. It asks for a password I don't remember. I try a few from that era, but have to do the recovery thing. And this goes to a address I still use, hurzah! But the damn thing doesn't work. Either they don't like their own temp code or I can't remember what city I was born in. So now I apparently no longer own any of the half-life games or counter-strike. I could probably call someone and jump through hoops to re-connect with what I had purchased, but that's just kind of a pain in the ass isn't it?
You're a dreamer. Which is awesome. Dreamers are a lot more fun to hang out with then cynics.
But
Most of these don't fall into the category of "inventions we have stockpiled". They are not proven, they are not prototyped, they aren't even designed yet. They are dreams that may or may not come real one day.
Like the space elevator. While you are relatively certain it'll work, I am merely hopeful. There are issues and potential pitfalls which could make it unfeasible.
-Powering the lifter is an issue. I think long-range wireless energy transfer is needed and that's yet to come along.
-Radiation belts could wear away the ribbon. Or it could limit the elevator to non-living material.
-And then, you know, we have to actually make the ribbon.
And anti-matter? The Orion project? Come on.
So, you can't say that it's stockpiled and just waiting to happen. Required components and experiments just aren't there. Yet. You know? Sometimes the saddest thing I can think of is the fact I haven't done anything to advance the development of this sort of stuff.
The stripperiffic suits (space activity suits, if you want people to google it) sound awesome. They would have come in handy in Planetes when they're in the pressurized moon buggy with their bulky suits in the depressurized bed of the truck. But somehow they managed to get suited up...
Science marches on, but everything stays the same. What is fundamentally different between the Apollo and the ISS? There is the very real possibility that there will be no revolutionizing breakthroughs in space technology and that we'll have to do it with methods similar to today.
I mean, I'm really hoping that a space elevator will pan out and make space access cheap, but it might be an impossibility.
He's the guy that brought about Wikipedia. He tried several times. For that alone I can forgive him of quite a bit. Seriously, just think about it for a moment. His baby has revolutionized the way we learn about things over the internet. And not the half-cocked ego-inflated entrepreneur trying to butter up investors sort of revolutionary, but an actual shift in the trends of the internet.
Do you remember have to trawl through pages and pages of geocities looking for info on something? Yeah, we don't have to do that anymore thanks to him. He could rape sheep on the side and I'd still have to give him credit. He could hold views out of line with my ideal. As is true, apparently he is less open-minded about porn. Or maybe he just doesn't want wikipedia to suffer the cost of serving smut.
Well, I HAVE used steam, but I haven't actually bashed steam here on slashdot.
Until your post.
Unlike you, I have had non-zero problems with steam. I had a pretty shitty connection at the time, and several times the damn steam client wouldn't let me play CS:Source offline. I'm really not sure why, I didn't troubleshoot it, that's not why I bought the game. But that was years ago, things may be better now. I wouldn't know, I've never gone back.
It very well may be DRM "done right" or the best example of DRM that the corps have to offer. But you know? That's just not enough. It's still restrictive DRM and it's still not the direction I want the game industry to go. Even the code-wheels were better then this.
Well it still requires people with their own money to invest in this stuff. Because we're talking about subsidies. Now, if the government built it entirely, then the government would own it. But they're only encouraging investment in a general direction. A cleaner, safer, more sustainable future.
And ethanol is a fantastic alternative to farm subsidies.
Whoa, so the entire economy is entirely thanks to burning fossil fuels? Wow, kinda makes me less angry over the oil-barons obscene profits and squashing competition. I mean, our entire economy is thanks to these guys.
at some point it will make economic sense to evaluate alternatives.
Well some people can see a little further then you and realize this stuff takes time to develop. It's good to have options BEFORE you desperately need them. And I wouldn't want this stuff made in a rush. That would just be bad planning.
Yes. Yes people have. synaptik (125) (god DAMN that guys old) knew enough to make fun of the concern. elashish14 (1302231) almost got to the environmental concerns. This guy brought up a similar question about natural resources. gandhi_2 (1108023) made a dig against it in reference to bird strikes, even though it's really not a statistical problem.
Heaven knows we don't have enough environmentalists to think about these sort of things.
But are you honestly saying we should NOT have tried to switch from oil UNTIL we "did the calculations"? Really? Because I'm not sure this whole industrial revolution thing has been fully groked yet and maybe we should hold off until we figure it out.
Well consider it this way, if it's costs $1000, and you know you're never going to buy it, then you're really not the target audience for the product. Whether you pirate the product or not, the producer isn't affected.
Take photoshop for example. It became the de-facto standard for the industry because everyone knew how to use it, and it's also a pretty good tool. But how many people only used photoshop at college, or showed up to a job interview expecting to be taught how to use photoshop on the job? I like their business model; let the pirates use their tools which is essentially free marketing and establishes the industry trend and the companies and professionals pay the price of development. Because that's where the money is. That's a industry tool, and not a toy like games. There is a slight difference. But if you are not part of the potential audience that the company is going to make money off of, why not pirate it? Poor people should be free to pirate, and the rich don't care about the price because they're rich. Personally, I'm still trying to get used to this whole post-college "having money" thing, but so far it's been ok. And my main games of choice in the last few years are: Dungeon Crawl (free) X-Com(pirated/abandoned) Dwarf Fortress(free/donated$40) Deus Ex(pirated/abandoned?) and civ4(paid for, but pirated because I can't find the damned disk).
Yeah, it'd be nice to get a slashdot article about groundbreaking new solar tech being sold rather then articles selling groundbreaking new solar tech.
Actually, having a kids site that clearly and safely explains difficult concepts for kids might be a good idea.
Guns can be dangerous and should be locked away unless an adult is present.
Sometimes touching can be a bad thing. If someone ever touches you in these areas, go tell an adult.
Etc, etc, etc.
Of course, trusting the industries to make a kids-safe non-marketing site would probably blow up in our faces.
Slashdot Mirror
1: Oil
Yes, oil is going to go away. But known oil reserves are different from prospective oil reserves. Known reserves are where geologists went out, found, and measured it, but oil-men haven't sucked it up yet. As-yet-undiscovered oil fields and hard to get to fields will last us a little bit longer. Texas has assuredly hit peak oil and maybe America on the whole, but I don't think the world has hit that yet. And when it does run out, I'm pretty sure we're going to liquefy coal into jet fuel. It's a dirty process, but it's better then going dry. Remember, when gas is $5/gallon, all sorts of oil sources and alternatives become viable. Unfortunately, the last time we were in that position, we learned that $5 gas will stress the populace to the point of breaking and a bubble will burst. Economies collapse, demand for oil (and investors) wane, and the price of oil drops. Which sucks, but there will be planes in 2035 and we won't have to fight off wasteland barbarians. Probably.
2: Doomsayers
You are dangerously close to being one. I'm not sure why but societies always have people that proclaim the end of the world (or the end as we know it) is just around the corner. Maybe you're just a natural pessimist. I've become jaded. Unless you supply a little bit of evidence for said doomsday, then you're going to be ignored.
3: RFTA
Seriously, you think the design looks exactly like all other planes? Yes, it has wings. Woo. But it improves the fuel consumption by having longer thinner wings, a wider fusalage, engines nearer the rear, and yes, a fancy dancy new beveled nose. Did you want lasers and flame decals?
4:Imagineers
No, MIT students and NASA are not paid to fantasize. The dreamers who made those "promises" were science fiction writers and Hollywood. Guess what? They lied to you to make a buck. Mostly. We really do have satellites and flying cars. The engineers and scientists who have been at work for the last few decades made that possible.
So ignore this guy, have some hope for the future, and give MIT and NASA their due respect.
Except cruise ships' main purpose isn't to get you places, they ARE the destination. They are a mobile recreational retreat. If it wasn't for that whole weight limit thing, I could very easily see airships going to luxury cruise route.
Still though, there may be a future for them as cheap freighters. An alternative to semi-trucks when oil goes dry. Viva la Sky Truckers!
Attention flight 1403, this is SUX ground control, we're detecting less then .03 ops* in the cabin. That's below regulatory levels so we advise a hard-bank at the next refreshment run.
*Obscenities per second
But really, if da ebil tewwowists can't manually fly the plane into a sky-scraper, then the majority of the security hole is closed. Sure, a bomb causing hundreds of dead is bad, but it's not the sort of threat that is a matter of national security. It has been nearly a decade, and the powers that be are still working on this. Unbelievable.
Of course it's the behavior that doctors are concerned about. Their entire professional skill of diagnosing medical problems can be handed over to an automated game of twenty questions.
Now, we still need them to look at x-rays, make judgment calls on treatments, and a large list of other things that doctors get trained in, but 95% of diagnoses should be automated. It would have a better hit-rate then doctors, and cost a hell of a lot less then the doctor's rate. And don't hand me that bullshit about insurance picking up the bill.
i pay quite a lot of taxes , which i would expect to go to those who need it...
and she barely gets enough from her pension to live by
Your example isn't exactly the best for showcasing your concerns. Things may be different in Belgium though.
Now, gaming welfare programs is a serious issue and those bastards need to be brought to justice and/or tarred and feathered, but of all the "hardworking" taxpayers around here have no concept of how many and which people are on welfare. To them, anyone beneath them is a scum sucking lazy welfare mooch who deserves to be hated "because we're paying for his sorry ass". The welfare system is the catchall "what's wrong with our country", while in the very next breath they're applauding how well their stocks are doing. You know, thanks to the corporate welfare bailout. Of course, this is the same group that would rather mire themselves and their ex in attorney fees rather then pay the proper child support they owe.
Yep, came here for someone defending Steam. I am not leaving disappointed. I don't like DRM in any form, but by and large I don't really have a big beef with Steam or Valve on a fundamental level. Half-life kicks. But I tried to go pick up Portal for free yesterday. I opened up steam for the first time in a couple years. It asks for a password I don't remember. I try a few from that era, but have to do the recovery thing. And this goes to a address I still use, hurzah! But the damn thing doesn't work. Either they don't like their own temp code or I can't remember what city I was born in. So now I apparently no longer own any of the half-life games or counter-strike. I could probably call someone and jump through hoops to re-connect with what I had purchased, but that's just kind of a pain in the ass isn't it?
You're a dreamer. Which is awesome. Dreamers are a lot more fun to hang out with then cynics.
But
Most of these don't fall into the category of "inventions we have stockpiled". They are not proven, they are not prototyped, they aren't even designed yet. They are dreams that may or may not come real one day.
Like the space elevator. While you are relatively certain it'll work, I am merely hopeful. There are issues and potential pitfalls which could make it unfeasible.
-Powering the lifter is an issue. I think long-range wireless energy transfer is needed and that's yet to come along.
-Radiation belts could wear away the ribbon. Or it could limit the elevator to non-living material.
-And then, you know, we have to actually make the ribbon.
And anti-matter? The Orion project? Come on.
So, you can't say that it's stockpiled and just waiting to happen. Required components and experiments just aren't there. Yet.
You know? Sometimes the saddest thing I can think of is the fact I haven't done anything to advance the development of this sort of stuff.
The stripperiffic suits (space activity suits, if you want people to google it) sound awesome. They would have come in handy in Planetes when they're in the pressurized moon buggy with their bulky suits in the depressurized bed of the truck. But somehow they managed to get suited up...
Science marches on, but everything stays the same. What is fundamentally different between the Apollo and the ISS? There is the very real possibility that there will be no revolutionizing breakthroughs in space technology and that we'll have to do it with methods similar to today.
I mean, I'm really hoping that a space elevator will pan out and make space access cheap, but it might be an impossibility.
He's the guy that brought about Wikipedia. He tried several times. For that alone I can forgive him of quite a bit. Seriously, just think about it for a moment. His baby has revolutionized the way we learn about things over the internet. And not the half-cocked ego-inflated entrepreneur trying to butter up investors sort of revolutionary, but an actual shift in the trends of the internet.
Do you remember have to trawl through pages and pages of geocities looking for info on something? Yeah, we don't have to do that anymore thanks to him. He could rape sheep on the side and I'd still have to give him credit. He could hold views out of line with my ideal. As is true, apparently he is less open-minded about porn. Or maybe he just doesn't want wikipedia to suffer the cost of serving smut.
I'm just saying he deserves some leeway.
Well, I HAVE used steam, but I haven't actually bashed steam here on slashdot.
Until your post.
Unlike you, I have had non-zero problems with steam. I had a pretty shitty connection at the time, and several times the damn steam client wouldn't let me play CS:Source offline. I'm really not sure why, I didn't troubleshoot it, that's not why I bought the game. But that was years ago, things may be better now. I wouldn't know, I've never gone back.
It very well may be DRM "done right" or the best example of DRM that the corps have to offer. But you know? That's just not enough. It's still restrictive DRM and it's still not the direction I want the game industry to go. Even the code-wheels were better then this.
Well it still requires people with their own money to invest in this stuff. Because we're talking about subsidies. Now, if the government built it entirely, then the government would own it. But they're only encouraging investment in a general direction. A cleaner, safer, more sustainable future.
And ethanol is a fantastic alternative to farm subsidies.
Yes. But I don't see how that could move turbines here on earth.
Aww, frick, no you didn't... sorry. Mods, lemme have it.
No no, let's think about this. Mr. Bearhouse is concerned about killing off the biomass of the oceans by BLOCKING OUT THE SUN with KITES.
Whoa, so the entire economy is entirely thanks to burning fossil fuels? Wow, kinda makes me less angry over the oil-barons obscene profits and squashing competition. I mean, our entire economy is thanks to these guys.
at some point it will make economic sense to evaluate alternatives.
Well some people can see a little further then you and realize this stuff takes time to develop. It's good to have options BEFORE you desperately need them. And I wouldn't want this stuff made in a rush. That would just be bad planning.
Yes. Yes people have.
synaptik (125) (god DAMN that guys old) knew enough to make fun of the concern.
elashish14 (1302231) almost got to the environmental concerns.
This guy brought up a similar question about natural resources.
gandhi_2 (1108023) made a dig against it in reference to bird strikes, even though it's really not a statistical problem.
Heaven knows we don't have enough environmentalists to think about these sort of things.
But are you honestly saying we should NOT have tried to switch from oil UNTIL we "did the calculations"? Really? Because I'm not sure this whole industrial revolution thing has been fully groked yet and maybe we should hold off until we figure it out.
Yur gul-durned tidal power is throwin off me coal-fi'ed atomic clock! Ain't chou hippies ever tink 'bout keepin proper TIME!
oooo! I haven't gotten to do this yet! Ahem:
WHOOOSH!
Well ok. Anything wrong with that?
Yeah, it'd be great if they could try to make some sort of proof of concept, or trial version to test it out before investing in it whole-hog....
Well consider it this way, if it's costs $1000, and you know you're never going to buy it, then you're really not the target audience for the product. Whether you pirate the product or not, the producer isn't affected.
Take photoshop for example. It became the de-facto standard for the industry because everyone knew how to use it, and it's also a pretty good tool. But how many people only used photoshop at college, or showed up to a job interview expecting to be taught how to use photoshop on the job? I like their business model; let the pirates use their tools which is essentially free marketing and establishes the industry trend and the companies and professionals pay the price of development. Because that's where the money is.
That's a industry tool, and not a toy like games. There is a slight difference. But if you are not part of the potential audience that the company is going to make money off of, why not pirate it? Poor people should be free to pirate, and the rich don't care about the price because they're rich. Personally, I'm still trying to get used to this whole post-college "having money" thing, but so far it's been ok. And my main games of choice in the last few years are:
Dungeon Crawl (free)
X-Com(pirated/abandoned)
Dwarf Fortress(free/donated$40)
Deus Ex(pirated/abandoned?)
and civ4(paid for, but pirated because I can't find the damned disk).
While every +5 insightful post on Slashdot is guaranteed to be true, every +5 funny post is guaranteed to be full of lies and villainy.
Yeah, it'd be nice to get a slashdot article about groundbreaking new solar tech being sold rather then articles selling groundbreaking new solar tech.
Still though, congrats to solar cell researchers.
Actually, having a kids site that clearly and safely explains difficult concepts for kids might be a good idea.
Guns can be dangerous and should be locked away unless an adult is present.
Sometimes touching can be a bad thing. If someone ever touches you in these areas, go tell an adult.
Etc, etc, etc.
Of course, trusting the industries to make a kids-safe non-marketing site would probably blow up in our faces.