I think it's time we admit to ourselves that sometimes, we want scientists to do certain things simply because they're cool. That should count as a perfectly adequate reason, so that we can stop this silly game of pretending that we need to do something cool because we inexplicably started caring a lot about settling some very small and boring scientific question.
I see this a lot when people discuss manned missions to Mars. It's a popular idea, but only because it's cool and full of symbolism we like. It's not because people suddenly became nerds about the history of the Martian regolith, and unmanned missions will simply not adequately satisfy their burning curiosity. Of course, the Mars mission would cost an insane fortune. I'm all for cool things, and humanity is pretty rich, but not that rich. Cloning a mammoth, on the other hand... We might be able to afford that!
The military has a huge budget that has to feed and entire ecosystem of contractors and subcontractors. Of course such a system is wasteful, and the scale of military spending is such that it's almost certainly true that the military wastes millions on peanut butter, on underpants, on shampoo, on frying pans and on snake bite kits. Name all the items in your junk drawer, and I bet that the military wastes millions on each of those kinds of things. Wasting millions on satellite capacity doesn't even sound that stupid in comparison. The real shocker would be to find something on which the military actually gets a good deal.
I take it the point is to use the materials in space to first build something. Only once it's built will people actually come. The reason why our space programs are stuck in first gear is that we don't know how to build things in space from materials that are there. This will change soon, because many of the lessons of automated production techniques on Earth can be applied (with modifications) in space. The problem will be one of sourcing the raw materials from which to manufacture something useful. So that demand is perfectly predictable, and asteroid mining companies are now taking the baby steps they need to take to eventually satisfy that demand.
If you're wondering about what's worth making in space, there are many great ideas. Here is just one: A truly gigantic telescope mirror. It might actually be easy to do, because the factors that make mirror production on Earth so hard are not a problem in space. There is no need to worry about sagging, stress and all these other gravity-related issues. Space-built telescopes could get pretty darn big, The question is: what will they be made of? And the most plausible answer is: materials from asteroids. Like I said, that's just one example.
If the current generation of solar powered drone stays up for more than a day, the next generation might stay up for weeks. Basically, what this shows is that we're pretty close to the threshhold where incoming photovoltaic energy over 24 hours matches the energy needs to keep the thing flying. Just a bit more optimization could mean that the thing takes in more energy than it uses, and then it can basically fly until something wears out. All kinds of interesting things then become possible.
I actually think this is great. After all, the patent expires in what, 25 years? I doubt a single engine will be built in that time, but forever afterwards, this idea in the public domain. Consider the alternative, if someone waited to patent this thing until applications were actually ready. Then the patent would prevent competitors from entering the market. But because Boeing hasn't waited, it has basically ensured that nobody will use patent law to put the brakes on innovation when we get around to actually making serious spaceships - which is what this propulsion system is obviously for.
Some people think that we should send someone to Mars as soon as possible, even if they can't do much before they return home. Simply leaving a human bootprint would be worth it. Others think that unmanned missions should first build up enough Martian infrastructure to support human "colonists" with a reasonable level of comfort. Only then should people be sent. Where would you put yourself on this continuum? What sort of activities should Martian astronauts be able to do before you would think the expensive trip there was worth it?
Agreed. As an opt-in feature, it's actually a good idea. I've written down passwords on stick-it notes for visiting friends, and that sort of opt-in password sharing is also not without security issues. My stick-it notes don't self-destruct. I think it also makes it more concrete who really is a friend - a person with whom you're willing to share your wifi password. I think that's actually a pretty good minimum standard for friendship.
It's ironic that we share more of ourselves than ever, pollsters should be having a hard time guessing what we think. From the millions of tweets and Facebook updates and Google searches we collectively make each day, plus modern text parsing and data mining techniques, we should be able to approximate something like the political pulse of the population. I have a feeling that we reveal a lot more with our online behavior than what we ever reveal to pollsters, it's just a matter of someone scooping up and processing the data.
That's what's so great about the DARPA challenge: It reveals the difference between a lab's PR videos and the actual performance of robots they produce. It's not like Berkeley didn't try to score the two million from DARPA. IIRC, they failed. Comically.
How about an Occulus Rift for everyone, which shows you "acceleration-appropriate" visuals to prevent carsickness, but makes it look like you're in a completely transparent bubble canopy driving through someplace that's a lot more interesting than where you actually are? If you get bored, you can add things for you to shoot at with your "laser pistol".
First of all, this is the link that the story should have included. It includes updates of the scoreboard, etc. On it you will see that even though the brains are collectively beating Claudico, the computer is actually over $100,000 ahead against Jason Les, a feat that almost no human could match. Yes, Claudico is down against the other three, but these are the top players in the world, and most human pros would get clobbered much worse by these guys. Are we really so hard to impress? This is the first time that something like this has been tried, and already, the computer is performing on a level that most poker pros would love to reach.
"Geoengineering is a bad idea." "Why?"
"Because it hasn't been tested and could have unpredictable consequences."
"So let's do some testing and improve our models of how it works."
"No way, we can't be doing research on geoengineering!" "Why not?"
"Because geoengineering is such a bad idea!" "Why?"
"Because it hasn't been tested and could have unpredictable consequences." ...
I'm not so sure. You didn't need to be wearing stupid goggles to use Bob. But yeah, I made the same connection when I saw this demo: It's Bob, in threeee deeeeeeee! There's even a virtual yellow dog.
Nobody said that the nerves are going to work. Post transplant, the person will certainly be paralyzed from the neck down. That's why this kind of surgery is only appropriate for a paraplegic whose body is about to fail. He or she is not going to stop being a paraplegic, but might get many extra years of life by acquiring a robust new body.
It's pretty simple. If the excess power I generate has more value to me if I store it in a battery, rather than sell it to the grid, then I can just cut my connection to the grid. The fact that they're being such jerks would increase my incentive to cut them off.
If Norway does the right thing and opens up the FM spectrum for people and personal their short range transmitters, maybe we'll find something more useful to do with the FM bands. And since Norway are doing this first, they have a special opportunity to set a good precedent.
I doubt that this is right. It's just a misconception to say that in a first-world society, fertility is pretty much the same thing as attractiveness. It's not. In fact, the people who are broadly judged to be most desirable - the people with Ph.D's, sixpack abs and fancy jobs - have fewer children that the average. A much stronger driver of first-world fertility in a place like NL is: Who's sloppy with their birth control, who's impulsive enough to think things like "Yeah, I should just have the baby!", who's someone that thinks that having a child is going to fix the problems in their relationship, etc.
For these fertility increasers to be correlated with height is just weird and hard to explain, but it's obviously real, so there much be some mechanism. But that mechanism is not as simple as "Taller men get more girls".
I'll make one prediction right now: No car of the future, clever or dumb, will be accelerated and decelerated with a single pedal oval, the right half of which does the former and the left half does the latter. We might all think that's completely obvious, but look at the interior photo of the prototype. Even Steve Jobs would think it's suicidal.
The ISS was a huge waste of NASA money, costing as much as all of NASA's "space exploration activities" combined (source:). This prevented, killed and neutered many missions that would have produced genuine science. It was simply a mistake. So hooray, let's make a bigger one!
Do you really think there are going to be humans in LEO turning bolts with hand-held wrenches, and that's how the Mars ship will be built? Did you not notice that even in the safety of Earth's factories, humans aren't really doing that kind of stuff anymore? By the time we get around to building a Mars ship, I doubt our automated manufacturing machines will be worse than now, and unlike humans, these machines can actually be designed to perform optimally in space.
Check out these facts about Finnish teachers, and weep (if you're American) (source):
Becoming a teacher in Finland is as competitive as getting into an Ivy League school, and Finland offers no other route into the profession. So, there is no Teach for Finland. To teach in Finland requires a five-year master's degree in education. Admission to a teacher preparation program includes a national entrance exam and a personal interview. Only one of every 10 applicants is accepted into a teacher preparation program in Finland; competition to become a primary school teacher is even tougher, with 1,789 applicants for only 120 spots, for example, at the University of Helsinki in 2011-12. Only eight universities offer teacher preparation programs in Finland, which allows the country to ensure consistency from program to program. Contrast that with Minnesota which has about the same population as Finland (5.2 million) but about 30 colleges that offer teacher preparation programs.
I also remember reading that about 90% of Finnish teachers graduated in the top quintile of their class. In the US, that figure is more like 4%. American students of education typically get the worst SAT and GRE scores of all the majors. We cannot ignore these facts when we're comparing educational systems. In the US it's easier to get into med school than it is for a smart Finn to get into teacher school. The quality of the people who make it through means that pretty much every innovation they try is bound to produce satisfactory results, because highly their best and brightest are in charge.
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I think it's time we admit to ourselves that sometimes, we want scientists to do certain things simply because they're cool. That should count as a perfectly adequate reason, so that we can stop this silly game of pretending that we need to do something cool because we inexplicably started caring a lot about settling some very small and boring scientific question.
I see this a lot when people discuss manned missions to Mars. It's a popular idea, but only because it's cool and full of symbolism we like. It's not because people suddenly became nerds about the history of the Martian regolith, and unmanned missions will simply not adequately satisfy their burning curiosity. Of course, the Mars mission would cost an insane fortune. I'm all for cool things, and humanity is pretty rich, but not that rich. Cloning a mammoth, on the other hand... We might be able to afford that!
So no perverse incentives could result from these being put on standardized tests for kids? Come on, think creatively!
The military has a huge budget that has to feed and entire ecosystem of contractors and subcontractors. Of course such a system is wasteful, and the scale of military spending is such that it's almost certainly true that the military wastes millions on peanut butter, on underpants, on shampoo, on frying pans and on snake bite kits. Name all the items in your junk drawer, and I bet that the military wastes millions on each of those kinds of things. Wasting millions on satellite capacity doesn't even sound that stupid in comparison. The real shocker would be to find something on which the military actually gets a good deal.
I take it the point is to use the materials in space to first build something. Only once it's built will people actually come. The reason why our space programs are stuck in first gear is that we don't know how to build things in space from materials that are there. This will change soon, because many of the lessons of automated production techniques on Earth can be applied (with modifications) in space. The problem will be one of sourcing the raw materials from which to manufacture something useful. So that demand is perfectly predictable, and asteroid mining companies are now taking the baby steps they need to take to eventually satisfy that demand.
If you're wondering about what's worth making in space, there are many great ideas. Here is just one: A truly gigantic telescope mirror. It might actually be easy to do, because the factors that make mirror production on Earth so hard are not a problem in space. There is no need to worry about sagging, stress and all these other gravity-related issues. Space-built telescopes could get pretty darn big, The question is: what will they be made of? And the most plausible answer is: materials from asteroids. Like I said, that's just one example.
If the current generation of solar powered drone stays up for more than a day, the next generation might stay up for weeks. Basically, what this shows is that we're pretty close to the threshhold where incoming photovoltaic energy over 24 hours matches the energy needs to keep the thing flying. Just a bit more optimization could mean that the thing takes in more energy than it uses, and then it can basically fly until something wears out. All kinds of interesting things then become possible.
I actually think this is great. After all, the patent expires in what, 25 years? I doubt a single engine will be built in that time, but forever afterwards, this idea in the public domain. Consider the alternative, if someone waited to patent this thing until applications were actually ready. Then the patent would prevent competitors from entering the market. But because Boeing hasn't waited, it has basically ensured that nobody will use patent law to put the brakes on innovation when we get around to actually making serious spaceships - which is what this propulsion system is obviously for.
Some people think that we should send someone to Mars as soon as possible, even if they can't do much before they return home. Simply leaving a human bootprint would be worth it. Others think that unmanned missions should first build up enough Martian infrastructure to support human "colonists" with a reasonable level of comfort. Only then should people be sent. Where would you put yourself on this continuum? What sort of activities should Martian astronauts be able to do before you would think the expensive trip there was worth it?
Agreed. As an opt-in feature, it's actually a good idea. I've written down passwords on stick-it notes for visiting friends, and that sort of opt-in password sharing is also not without security issues. My stick-it notes don't self-destruct. I think it also makes it more concrete who really is a friend - a person with whom you're willing to share your wifi password. I think that's actually a pretty good minimum standard for friendship.
It's ironic that we share more of ourselves than ever, pollsters should be having a hard time guessing what we think. From the millions of tweets and Facebook updates and Google searches we collectively make each day, plus modern text parsing and data mining techniques, we should be able to approximate something like the political pulse of the population. I have a feeling that we reveal a lot more with our online behavior than what we ever reveal to pollsters, it's just a matter of someone scooping up and processing the data.
That's what's so great about the DARPA challenge: It reveals the difference between a lab's PR videos and the actual performance of robots they produce. It's not like Berkeley didn't try to score the two million from DARPA. IIRC, they failed. Comically.
How about an Occulus Rift for everyone, which shows you "acceleration-appropriate" visuals to prevent carsickness, but makes it look like you're in a completely transparent bubble canopy driving through someplace that's a lot more interesting than where you actually are? If you get bored, you can add things for you to shoot at with your "laser pistol".
First of all, this is the link that the story should have included. It includes updates of the scoreboard, etc. On it you will see that even though the brains are collectively beating Claudico, the computer is actually over $100,000 ahead against Jason Les, a feat that almost no human could match. Yes, Claudico is down against the other three, but these are the top players in the world, and most human pros would get clobbered much worse by these guys. Are we really so hard to impress? This is the first time that something like this has been tried, and already, the computer is performing on a level that most poker pros would love to reach.
"Geoengineering is a bad idea." "Why?"
"Because it hasn't been tested and could have unpredictable consequences."
"So let's do some testing and improve our models of how it works."
"No way, we can't be doing research on geoengineering!" "Why not?"
"Because geoengineering is such a bad idea!" "Why?"
"Because it hasn't been tested and could have unpredictable consequences."
...
I'm not so sure. You didn't need to be wearing stupid goggles to use Bob. But yeah, I made the same connection when I saw this demo: It's Bob, in threeee deeeeeeee! There's even a virtual yellow dog.
Nobody said that the nerves are going to work. Post transplant, the person will certainly be paralyzed from the neck down. That's why this kind of surgery is only appropriate for a paraplegic whose body is about to fail. He or she is not going to stop being a paraplegic, but might get many extra years of life by acquiring a robust new body.
It's pretty simple. If the excess power I generate has more value to me if I store it in a battery, rather than sell it to the grid, then I can just cut my connection to the grid. The fact that they're being such jerks would increase my incentive to cut them off.
If Norway does the right thing and opens up the FM spectrum for people and personal their short range transmitters, maybe we'll find something more useful to do with the FM bands. And since Norway are doing this first, they have a special opportunity to set a good precedent.
...anyone can know what's coming...
I hope it's not winter.
Everybody seems to be saying: "Oh noes, this is soooo bad! It's gonna make China get up off its ass and finally give Intel some actual competition!!!"
And here I am, thinking that we all stand to benefit if Intel got some actual competition.
I doubt that this is right. It's just a misconception to say that in a first-world society, fertility is pretty much the same thing as attractiveness. It's not. In fact, the people who are broadly judged to be most desirable - the people with Ph.D's, sixpack abs and fancy jobs - have fewer children that the average. A much stronger driver of first-world fertility in a place like NL is: Who's sloppy with their birth control, who's impulsive enough to think things like "Yeah, I should just have the baby!", who's someone that thinks that having a child is going to fix the problems in their relationship, etc.
For these fertility increasers to be correlated with height is just weird and hard to explain, but it's obviously real, so there much be some mechanism. But that mechanism is not as simple as "Taller men get more girls".
I'll make one prediction right now: No car of the future, clever or dumb, will be accelerated and decelerated with a single pedal oval, the right half of which does the former and the left half does the latter. We might all think that's completely obvious, but look at the interior photo of the prototype. Even Steve Jobs would think it's suicidal.
The ISS was a huge waste of NASA money, costing as much as all of NASA's "space exploration activities" combined (source:). This prevented, killed and neutered many missions that would have produced genuine science. It was simply a mistake. So hooray, let's make a bigger one!
Do you really think there are going to be humans in LEO turning bolts with hand-held wrenches, and that's how the Mars ship will be built? Did you not notice that even in the safety of Earth's factories, humans aren't really doing that kind of stuff anymore? By the time we get around to building a Mars ship, I doubt our automated manufacturing machines will be worse than now, and unlike humans, these machines can actually be designed to perform optimally in space.
Australian geeks and scientists: The weather is also nice in Silicon Valley, and they pay better. Do you really need another reason to leave?
Becoming a teacher in Finland is as competitive as getting into an Ivy League school, and Finland offers no other route into the profession. So, there is no Teach for Finland. To teach in Finland requires a five-year master's degree in education. Admission to a teacher preparation program includes a national entrance exam and a personal interview. Only one of every 10 applicants is accepted into a teacher preparation program in Finland; competition to become a primary school teacher is even tougher, with 1,789 applicants for only 120 spots, for example, at the University of Helsinki in 2011-12. Only eight universities offer teacher preparation programs in Finland, which allows the country to ensure consistency from program to program. Contrast that with Minnesota which has about the same population as Finland (5.2 million) but about 30 colleges that offer teacher preparation programs.
I also remember reading that about 90% of Finnish teachers graduated in the top quintile of their class. In the US, that figure is more like 4%. American students of education typically get the worst SAT and GRE scores of all the majors. We cannot ignore these facts when we're comparing educational systems. In the US it's easier to get into med school than it is for a smart Finn to get into teacher school. The quality of the people who make it through means that pretty much every innovation they try is bound to produce satisfactory results, because highly their best and brightest are in charge.