Interesting. I didn't expect a response for my comment saying I was also tired of the overlord joke, or to be modded down.
Fellas, look, if you're going to be nerds who make fun of people's fads all the time, you can't ignore your own. Once that happens, you're just like the football jocks who gave us all swirlys. Minus the girls. And the muscle. And the good looks. But at least we'll still have the bigger yahoos, am I right?
There already exists a camera pill you can swallow that remotely sends information to a belt you wear for the day. You don't have to stay in the office, and the doctors don't have to waste their time controlling anything. They just watch the movie later in fast forward with some popcorn.
Is there *any* reason that a doctor would need control over this thing? It can't even get biopsies. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the only directions forward and back? Why don't they just just improve the camera they already have to last longer and transmit pictures at a higher rate?
After seeing a lot of random anger and misinformation in our media, I'm *very much* hoping that cooler heads will prevail in this situation.
For those of you saying we should push the inspections and threaten with sanctions, good for you! This is a way to make sure Iran is in compliance without starting a conflict.
For those of you demanding swift military action, remember what happened the LAST TIME we invaded a country without enough information. What if we invade and it turns out Iran is honest afterall? "Oops, sorry for destroying your civilization and killing your babies! CNN told me you guys were bad." But this is of course an exaggeration. In reality, we wouldn't apologize.
For those of you who think I'm full of it and ask "What misinformation is he talking about?", consider this: The expression you most hear that they want to "wipe Israel off the map" makes *no sense* in their language. There's absolutely no reason for them to say that. That'd be like you saying "let's balance our geese in the gutter" or something. But the news is still quoting that routinely. Something is amiss here. Conspiracy theory attack, GO!!
I give up, you win. Try wearing the sign, carrying an assault rifle, then call the cops stupid when they show up. Let me know when you're going so I can watch the news that morning. hort_wort signing off.
If the sign says "I have a bomb and am going to kill you" then yes, he should be badgered by police. Nice try to turn that around though. The difference is in the right to "bear arms" and the right to "scare people intentionally with arms".
Umm, if I saw a person walking into Bungie carrying a gun, one of the thoughts going through my head would be it was a disgruntled programmer going to resign with style. I'd definitely consider calling the police and having them contact the studio to make sure all was well.
When a 20 something person is going down the street carrying a huge gun, replica or not, they deserve to be badgered by police anyway. It's like a gun-nerd equivalent of streaking.
I think everyone would vote to go ahead and take the slight amount of radioactive dust spread over the whole planet, raising our radiation exposure rate by 0.01% or whatever, to go ahead and prevent the Earth from getting smacked by Texas. Ooooo fun: http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/calculate.html
I appreciate you citing his education and not attacking me as most tend to do in a forum. I also agree with what you're saying -- throwing money is definitely a bad idea, and investments are better. I think that's why the administration is trying to get people off of oil, but they're losing focus a bit.
Increasing the fuel efficiency is going to make our oil last a bit longer, but unfortunately, that's STILL a short term solution. Also unfortunate are that people are lobbying to switch to alternative fuels that are also a limited resource. If people were to use solar panels and fuel cells, then there'd be no need to switch again until Mr Fusion is invented. THAT would be an investment. But like you say, it's all political illusion, so we probably won't get there until we burn all the natural gas too. Then of course some situation would come up where we need to use natural gas to save the Earth from alien invasion somehow, and it'll all be gone....
Well, it isn't the best idea to give people incentives to spend money and take advantage of taxpayer dollars, I agree. I think these folks are desperate to give the car companies a boost, not help the environment like they say.
At least they're not declaring war, which was the last attempt to stimulate the economy:(
I see that Peter Schiff is an "investment guru". You have to ask yourself though, if this guy was so good at investing, why is he whoring himself out to do interviews? Never trust gurus on tv... unless they're tv gurus.
I had a professor once who broke a large mercury thermometer in a university lab -- one that got well over 200 people going through it daily. He called the EPA and asked them what to do about it. They told him to just be quiet and soak it up with paper towels as best he could. So of course he told us all about it.
Mercury is out there already. People with all these paranoid procedures are just being political, it's a fad. The only time I ever worry about mercury is when I go fishing in the local cesspool.
I asked this question of an Environmental Physicist. The answer is that it will *prevent* global warming. The reasoning is this:
Right now, we primarily burn coal to produce energy. This isn't an efficient process at all, putting out about 30% energy and 70% heat. Also, there are all the waste products dumped into the atmosphere associated with burning coal. Meanwhile, beaming the energy back to the Earth will (theoretically) be very, very efficient, as in almost all the energy beamed back will be reclaimed as electricity. Replacing coal with this method would reduce the overall heat by 70%.
So yes, this idea will heat the Earth, but not nearly as much as coal. As far as causing other weather changes, health problems, and electronic problems, those are possibilities that are unknown until they try it. The signal should be directed quite precisely to their receiver on Earth, and with any intelligence, they will have a safety system such that the beam shuts off immediately if the receiver notices a dip in power.
Augmented porn! Walk into a bar, every person in the place is absolutely stunning! Plus you could have NPCs walking around. Never had a gorgeous babe / hunk living across the street? Now you can! I sense a new movie coming on: "How Shallow Hal Got His Groove Back"
To guess an answer to your question, the target audience is a bunch of angry teens who want to rebel against their parents and/or look cool. To that end, they'll do anything to test the limits of what they can get away with. That includes playing violent games with adult humor that they don't even understand yet. The videogame company, of course, will cater to this mindset in an effort to sell more product. It's not art. It's not freedom of speech. It's money.
My nephew likes to play GTA4 whenever anyone his age is around. When it's just his family in the house though, he'll play anything BUT that game. He got bored with it long ago, like any other game after playing it too long. I'll grant you that GTA titles can be fun, but they're just another title to me, nothing special.
I went back home to take care of my terminally ill mother over the last year before she passed away last month, and there was no way I was going to be on other side of the world when she needed me. My boss wouldn't let me stay in town, so I had to quit. I think I'm all grown up now, thanks.
Please don't attack people in forums anymore, what you said made me upset. And you should really log in so someone can send you a message when they don't want to bother the other slashdotters.
I felt it was unreasonable that I had to travel to the other side of the world and live under a lake. I DID pass every exam. I DID build working experiments. I DID give speeches as necessary to explain my results. Did you even read my post?
I agree with Dr Anonymous here somewhat. I was trying to get a PhD in physics for a while, and some of the requirements were unreasonable. There were 3 requirements at my school:
1) Pass a qualifying exam. This is a really difficult test that shows you understood the material. It took me months of continuous study, but I finally passed it. I thought this was a terrible, but a reasonable requirement.
2) Teach a class. I hate giving speeches and the idea of teaching a class terrified me. I didn't want to get a PhD to teach, I actually wanted to do research and add to the world knowledge pool. I didn't like this requirement, but was willing to do it if I had to.
3) Do a research project and write a paper on it. This is the one where I finally dropped the ball. It was required that I give up everything I know and travel around with an experiment to work on. There was mention of an underground lab under a lake in Russia. NO. The funny thing is, it was my understanding that the project would never have to leave the building for me to get my PhD. But funding likes to move around like that and screw you over. Similarly, I could see someone falsifying information for a report if something like this came up. I think 2% of the people getting upset enough to publish a lie is not surprising. I ended up moving back home and haven't done anything worthwhile since. Who committed the bigger sin?
If this tech works, then this is proof there is no other intelligent civilization out there... otherwise every meteor would be examined and found to have several TB of alien porn produced over the past billion years. Then again, maybe it does and we just don't realize it.
*gurgle fritz zelly* (Earth translation) "Is that a unique type of crystallized lithium? hubba hubba!"
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. I didn't expect a response for my comment saying I was also tired of the overlord joke, or to be modded down.
Fellas, look, if you're going to be nerds who make fun of people's fads all the time, you can't ignore your own. Once that happens, you're just like the football jocks who gave us all swirlys. Minus the girls. And the muscle. And the good looks. But at least we'll still have the bigger yahoos, am I right?
It's redundant because it's the same joke on every topic. It's the slashdot equivalent of "first post!!!11".
There already exists a camera pill you can swallow that remotely sends information to a belt you wear for the day. You don't have to stay in the office, and the doctors don't have to waste their time controlling anything. They just watch the movie later in fast forward with some popcorn.
Is there *any* reason that a doctor would need control over this thing? It can't even get biopsies. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the only directions forward and back? Why don't they just just improve the camera they already have to last longer and transmit pictures at a higher rate?
Am I the only one imagines this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ypZSJ2_RDY
Seriously. They've been faking those things for years.
After seeing a lot of random anger and misinformation in our media, I'm *very much* hoping that cooler heads will prevail in this situation.
For those of you saying we should push the inspections and threaten with sanctions, good for you! This is a way to make sure Iran is in compliance without starting a conflict.
For those of you demanding swift military action, remember what happened the LAST TIME we invaded a country without enough information. What if we invade and it turns out Iran is honest afterall? "Oops, sorry for destroying your civilization and killing your babies! CNN told me you guys were bad."
But this is of course an exaggeration. In reality, we wouldn't apologize.
For those of you who think I'm full of it and ask "What misinformation is he talking about?", consider this: The expression you most hear that they want to "wipe Israel off the map" makes *no sense* in their language. There's absolutely no reason for them to say that. That'd be like you saying "let's balance our geese in the gutter" or something. But the news is still quoting that routinely. Something is amiss here.
Conspiracy theory attack, GO!!
I really enjoyed the music from the ole animated Hobbit. I pretend I'm an orc and run around singing it sometimes while chasing animals up trees.
I give up, you win. Try wearing the sign, carrying an assault rifle, then call the cops stupid when they show up. Let me know when you're going so I can watch the news that morning.
hort_wort signing off.
If the sign says "I have a bomb and am going to kill you" then yes, he should be badgered by police. Nice try to turn that around though. The difference is in the right to "bear arms" and the right to "scare people intentionally with arms".
Umm, if I saw a person walking into Bungie carrying a gun, one of the thoughts going through my head would be it was a disgruntled programmer going to resign with style. I'd definitely consider calling the police and having them contact the studio to make sure all was well.
When a 20 something person is going down the street carrying a huge gun, replica or not, they deserve to be badgered by police anyway. It's like a gun-nerd equivalent of streaking.
I think everyone would vote to go ahead and take the slight amount of radioactive dust spread over the whole planet, raising our radiation exposure rate by 0.01% or whatever, to go ahead and prevent the Earth from getting smacked by Texas. Ooooo fun:
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/calculate.html
Maybe they'll be operating drones this time. It'll be sort of like Star Fox, all the bad guys'll be critters....
Come to my house and let me win the contest. I'll give you $3000. I'd be happy to tell wired the advanced methods I used to win.
I appreciate you citing his education and not attacking me as most tend to do in a forum. I also agree with what you're saying -- throwing money is definitely a bad idea, and investments are better. I think that's why the administration is trying to get people off of oil, but they're losing focus a bit.
Increasing the fuel efficiency is going to make our oil last a bit longer, but unfortunately, that's STILL a short term solution. Also unfortunate are that people are lobbying to switch to alternative fuels that are also a limited resource. If people were to use solar panels and fuel cells, then there'd be no need to switch again until Mr Fusion is invented. THAT would be an investment. But like you say, it's all political illusion, so we probably won't get there until we burn all the natural gas too. Then of course some situation would come up where we need to use natural gas to save the Earth from alien invasion somehow, and it'll all be gone....
Well, it isn't the best idea to give people incentives to spend money and take advantage of taxpayer dollars, I agree. I think these folks are desperate to give the car companies a boost, not help the environment like they say. At least they're not declaring war, which was the last attempt to stimulate the economy :(
I see that Peter Schiff is an "investment guru". You have to ask yourself though, if this guy was so good at investing, why is he whoring himself out to do interviews? Never trust gurus on tv... unless they're tv gurus.
oops, looks like you left out "intelligent"
We've known there to be at most 10 civilizations ever since Master of Orion. A typical scenario is more like 6 though.
I had a professor once who broke a large mercury thermometer in a university lab -- one that got well over 200 people going through it daily. He called the EPA and asked them what to do about it. They told him to just be quiet and soak it up with paper towels as best he could. So of course he told us all about it.
Mercury is out there already. People with all these paranoid procedures are just being political, it's a fad. The only time I ever worry about mercury is when I go fishing in the local cesspool.
I asked this question of an Environmental Physicist. The answer is that it will *prevent* global warming. The reasoning is this:
Right now, we primarily burn coal to produce energy. This isn't an efficient process at all, putting out about 30% energy and 70% heat. Also, there are all the waste products dumped into the atmosphere associated with burning coal. Meanwhile, beaming the energy back to the Earth will (theoretically) be very, very efficient, as in almost all the energy beamed back will be reclaimed as electricity. Replacing coal with this method would reduce the overall heat by 70%.
So yes, this idea will heat the Earth, but not nearly as much as coal. As far as causing other weather changes, health problems, and electronic problems, those are possibilities that are unknown until they try it. The signal should be directed quite precisely to their receiver on Earth, and with any intelligence, they will have a safety system such that the beam shuts off immediately if the receiver notices a dip in power.
Augmented porn! Walk into a bar, every person in the place is absolutely stunning! Plus you could have NPCs walking around. Never had a gorgeous babe / hunk living across the street? Now you can! I sense a new movie coming on: "How Shallow Hal Got His Groove Back"
Don't forget the names that truly boggle the mind. What about clever, obscure titles like "Madden NFL 09"?
To guess an answer to your question, the target audience is a bunch of angry teens who want to rebel against their parents and/or look cool. To that end, they'll do anything to test the limits of what they can get away with. That includes playing violent games with adult humor that they don't even understand yet. The videogame company, of course, will cater to this mindset in an effort to sell more product. It's not art. It's not freedom of speech. It's money.
My nephew likes to play GTA4 whenever anyone his age is around. When it's just his family in the house though, he'll play anything BUT that game. He got bored with it long ago, like any other game after playing it too long. I'll grant you that GTA titles can be fun, but they're just another title to me, nothing special.
I went back home to take care of my terminally ill mother over the last year before she passed away last month, and there was no way I was going to be on other side of the world when she needed me. My boss wouldn't let me stay in town, so I had to quit. I think I'm all grown up now, thanks.
Please don't attack people in forums anymore, what you said made me upset. And you should really log in so someone can send you a message when they don't want to bother the other slashdotters.
I felt it was unreasonable that I had to travel to the other side of the world and live under a lake. I DID pass every exam. I DID build working experiments. I DID give speeches as necessary to explain my results. Did you even read my post?
I agree with Dr Anonymous here somewhat. I was trying to get a PhD in physics for a while, and some of the requirements were unreasonable. There were 3 requirements at my school:
1) Pass a qualifying exam. This is a really difficult test that shows you understood the material. It took me months of continuous study, but I finally passed it. I thought this was a terrible, but a reasonable requirement.
2) Teach a class. I hate giving speeches and the idea of teaching a class terrified me. I didn't want to get a PhD to teach, I actually wanted to do research and add to the world knowledge pool. I didn't like this requirement, but was willing to do it if I had to.
3) Do a research project and write a paper on it. This is the one where I finally dropped the ball. It was required that I give up everything I know and travel around with an experiment to work on. There was mention of an underground lab under a lake in Russia. NO. The funny thing is, it was my understanding that the project would never have to leave the building for me to get my PhD. But funding likes to move around like that and screw you over. Similarly, I could see someone falsifying information for a report if something like this came up. I think 2% of the people getting upset enough to publish a lie is not surprising. I ended up moving back home and haven't done anything worthwhile since. Who committed the bigger sin?
If this tech works, then this is proof there is no other intelligent civilization out there... otherwise every meteor would be examined and found to have several TB of alien porn produced over the past billion years. Then again, maybe it does and we just don't realize it.
*gurgle fritz zelly* (Earth translation) "Is that a unique type of crystallized lithium? hubba hubba!"