Basically, they're ineffective as a weapon to cause death and destruction.
Regarding death, you're right. Regarding destruction, they can be very effective, just a bit more subtle than you imagine. Take a dirty bomb that explodes and spreads radioactivity around the financial districts of Manhattan. What will happen to the property values there? Who will want to live or work in a "hot" neighborhood? Even if there is no significant health hazard, the simple fact of public paranoia alone would be enough to destroy billions of dollars in property values, force businesses to move out, damage the local economy, etc.
Cheap energy for everyone will make the planet warm, and not in the easy to fix way of releasing lots of greenhouse gases
On the other hand, cheap energy would also allow us to regulate the planet's temperature (e.g. by using the cheap energy put some shielding into place between the Earth and the sun)
I'm just a little irritated at the lack of vision of/.ers. I think I've just established quite well why a space elevator is NOT the easiest or cheapest way to move stuff
You're more than a little irritating yourself. You've fallen in love with your laser-lift idea, and it may be a good idea or it may not be, but it's apparently not enough for you to promote your idea, you have to denigrate any other idea that appears to compete with it. This discussion is about space elevators, not about your pet project. Go build your laser-launcher and show us how great it is, then we will all bow down before you. In the meantime, you are contributing nothing to the conversation.
Stuff had damn well better come down the cable, or the thing will deorbit itself.
I don't think you've thought it through. Of course angular momentum isn't free, but that doesn't mean that you have to send things down the cable to keep the elevator from deorbiting. Once a unit of payload mass is lifted past the center of gravity of the cable, it effectively becomes part of the counterweight, increasing the amount of mass the space elevator is capable of lifting from then on (up to the point where the increased tension would cause the cable to snap, anyway).
So where does the "non-free" angular momentum come from? From the angular momentum of the Earth, of course... every time something goes up the elevator, the Earth spins a tiny bit slower -- similar to how an ice skater spins more slowly after she extends her arms. Fortunately, the Earth is massive enough compared to us humans that we'd never conceivably make a noticeable dent in Earth's momentum reserves (famous last words?;^))
That said, a second parallel "down" elevator near the "up" elevator might be useful at some point, for more efficient round trips. But that's for later, the first task is to get a one-way elevator working.
Though I agree, putting solar panels on the cars to power them is sort of silly. I'd run parallel rails up the beanstalk and let the cars tap the electricity.
If you can figure out how to make carbon nanotubes into a room-temperature superconductor, that would probably work. As it is, the problem is that the distances are so large that electricity running up through the cable (even a highly conductive cable) would get largely dissipated as heat before it reached the elevator car (except at the very bottom of the elevator, of course)
Regarding the grandparent's post... why choose one or the other? Neither the space elevator nor the laser launch methods have been proven or disproven to work yet. I say research both methods until it is clear which one is superior.
But don't worry, kids, after we have it we'll find a way to get a trillion dollars out of it!
Actually, unlike other get-rich-in-space-schemes like tourism, a Space Elevator would be a major revenue generator, and not just a novelty. With the ability to safely lift tons of material into space on a daily basis, a lot of industries would become viable: mining, solar power satellites, regular interplanetary travel, zero-gravity factories, non-trivial space stations, etc. Oh yeah, tourism too.
Space right now is like the Wild West before the invention of the train. You can send a few people out there, sure, but it'll never really be settled in any non-trivial way until there is a bulk-shipping infrastructure in place.
I'd imagine from selling computers, the same as they've always done. I don't think OpenSolaris is a profit center for them now, so GPL'ing it shouldn't cost them any profits (at least, not directly).
GPL'ing a product has NEVER been successful for the company or person owning it.
Ever hear of an a little OS called Linux? It's done fairly well under the GPL...
Imagine a strain of bacteria genetically engineered to "consume" some environmentally hazardous substance -- say arsenic -- and produce some environmentally safe substance as a waste by-product -- say nitrogen.
Heh... now imagine a few ounces of that bacteria "accidentally" getting released inside an Apple store.
What recycler would actually have any incentive to turn this stuff into non-hazardous waste?
One that's tired of having to rent out yet another warehouse every month, I would imagine... if that was their strategy, their costs would go up indefinitely over time.
Is it just me or are these tubes jokes just getting old and stale?
Yes, they are, but the important thing is that they are doing their job: crowding out the last of the "overlords" jokes. (and I, for one, look forward to a glorious overlords-free Slashdot)
Actually, if people is too stupid to punch all the way through a card, maybe it's a good thing they can't vote...
At my polling place today was a nice middle-aged lady suffering from Parkinson's syndrome. She was very intelligent and articulate but her hands shook a lot, making it somewhat difficult for her to complete her ballot. I'm sure she'd love to hear from you about how she's too stupid to be allowed to vote.
Let me aquaint you with a little friend of mine. He's called Mr. MD5.;)
And what exactly is going to be running Mr. MD5? Are you going to trust the very voting machine you are trying to test, to run an honest MD5 hash for you, and honestly tell you whether it has been compromised? How would you know whether the machine is actually running the MD5 algorithm, and not simply printing out the "correct" result values that you expected to see?
It's like asking a compulsive liar if they are telling the truth... of course they are going to say yes, but that doesn't mean that they are honest, it only means that they are willing to lie about their honesty also.
Auditing the source code doesn't guarantee anything, because there is no way for you to know whether the machines at the polling centers are running the same program you audited, and running it correctly.
It would be very easy to show the auditors one version of the source code but actually install a different version. Hashcode checks and the like don't help either, because they can easily be faked. And even if you do get the expected object code loaded in to the machine, there's no guarantee that the compiler wasn't hacked to add back-doors to the generated object code, and no guarantee that the hardware itself doesn't have back doors, bugs, or other "special hidden features" in it.
how we have not lost any American lives to terror since 911, vote for Republicans.
What, the 2,800+ Americans killed in Iraq by IEDs, snipers, etc, don't count? By my accounting, that's nearly another September 11th's worth of dead Americans.
Why not? I think this is largely why people forsake personal revenge (mob rule, vigilanteism etc) in favour of the rule of law. The desire for revenge is satisfied, but carried out in a (hopefully) impartial way. I don't see why it would detract from a civilized legal system.
Because revenge is a destructive activity. Revenge is the action of damaging somebody to make yourself feel better about something they previously did to you. It's what people used as an informal version of justice before formal justice was available to sort things out. Now that there is a formal system that has replaced revenge, revenge should no longer be used.
Wouldnt that constitute as checking that the machine counts correctly?
Nope. It wouldn't catch the case where the machine was programmed to work correctly on every day except election day.
Such behavior could definitely happen in the case of deliberate fraud, but it could also happen accidentally... I know I have released programs with bugs where the bug's symptoms only showed up after a certain date.
It also wouldn't catch bugs that happen only once in every 10,000 tries, or bugs that occur in other situations that your test didn't cover. (e.g. bugs that occur only when the election is held in a county whose name is more than 20 characters long)
There is also a financial factor; Killing someone is cheaper than spending money to keep him/her in prison for the rest of his/her life.
Turns out that isn't the case. At least in the USA, it actually costs more to execute someone than to imprison them for the rest of their life. This high cost of execution is due to the lengthy legal process that you have to go through to get to the execution... appeals, etc.
A common reaction to that is to say "well, why not just cut down the appeals process to make it cheaper?" A reasonable suggestion, but the appeals process is there for a good reason -- to make it very unlikely that an innocent person is killed. If you "streamline" the legal system to make if more efficient, you run a real risk of executing innocent people (actually this may sometimes happen anyway, as the review of DNA evidence has shown)... and a system that executes the occasional innocent person along with the guilt is worse than no death penalty at all. (if you find you've wrongly imprisoned somebody, you can apologies and release them. If you find you've wrongly executed somebody, there is no recourse... they are still dead and now it is the state that is the murderer)
Besides which, what do I do if I discover I voted wrong? Nothing.
Of course not. You don't get to go back and change your vote after the election. It's your responsibility to double-check your ballot before turning it in.
What if mine was counted wrong? (don't know how that works, more privacy invasion I imagine) I suppose I could call and ask for a recount (2000 anyone?)
If, say 5,000 people all find that their votes haven't been registered correctly, they could report it to the elections board, or if that doesn't work, to the news media. At that point an investigation could be started, possibly leading to a nullification of the election if necessary.
but, they can't even verify that mine was the one counted wrong.
Sure they can... show them your receipt, then they can look it up that receipt on their web site just the same way you did. They won't be able to tell who you voted for, but they will be able to tell that the votes you punched in didn't match your vote as they tallied it.
Really pointless and dangerous if you ask me
Try keeping an open mind for a while. Or better yet, reading the article.
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding death, you're right. Regarding destruction, they can be very effective, just a bit more subtle than you imagine. Take a dirty bomb that explodes and spreads radioactivity around the financial districts of Manhattan. What will happen to the property values there? Who will want to live or work in a "hot" neighborhood? Even if there is no significant health hazard, the simple fact of public paranoia alone would be enough to destroy billions of dollars in property values, force businesses to move out, damage the local economy, etc.
On the other hand, cheap energy would also allow us to regulate the planet's temperature (e.g. by using the cheap energy put some shielding into place between the Earth and the sun)
a.k.a. "Yer honor, I couldn't possibly have raped that woman, because she's a slut who gives it away for free"
Wasn't it lethal radiation that created the sea monster in the first place?
You're more than a little irritating yourself. You've fallen in love with your laser-lift idea, and it may be a good idea or it may not be, but it's apparently not enough for you to promote your idea, you have to denigrate any other idea that appears to compete with it. This discussion is about space elevators, not about your pet project. Go build your laser-launcher and show us how great it is, then we will all bow down before you. In the meantime, you are contributing nothing to the conversation.
I don't think you've thought it through. Of course angular momentum isn't free, but that doesn't mean that you have to send things down the cable to keep the elevator from deorbiting. Once a unit of payload mass is lifted past the center of gravity of the cable, it effectively becomes part of the counterweight, increasing the amount of mass the space elevator is capable of lifting from then on (up to the point where the increased tension would cause the cable to snap, anyway).
So where does the "non-free" angular momentum come from? From the angular momentum of the Earth, of course... every time something goes up the elevator, the Earth spins a tiny bit slower -- similar to how an ice skater spins more slowly after she extends her arms. Fortunately, the Earth is massive enough compared to us humans that we'd never conceivably make a noticeable dent in Earth's momentum reserves (famous last words?
That said, a second parallel "down" elevator near the "up" elevator might be useful at some point, for more efficient round trips. But that's for later, the first task is to get a one-way elevator working.
If you can figure out how to make carbon nanotubes into a room-temperature superconductor, that would probably work. As it is, the problem is that the distances are so large that electricity running up through the cable (even a highly conductive cable) would get largely dissipated as heat before it reached the elevator car (except at the very bottom of the elevator, of course)
Regarding the grandparent's post... why choose one or the other? Neither the space elevator nor the laser launch methods have been proven or disproven to work yet. I say research both methods until it is clear which one is superior.
Actually, unlike other get-rich-in-space-schemes like tourism, a Space Elevator would be a major revenue generator, and not just a novelty. With the ability to safely lift tons of material into space on a daily basis, a lot of industries would become viable: mining, solar power satellites, regular interplanetary travel, zero-gravity factories, non-trivial space stations, etc. Oh yeah, tourism too.
Space right now is like the Wild West before the invention of the train. You can send a few people out there, sure, but it'll never really be settled in any non-trivial way until there is a bulk-shipping infrastructure in place.
Are you sure it wasn't a Botched Joke?
I'd imagine from selling computers, the same as they've always done. I don't think OpenSolaris is a profit center for them now, so GPL'ing it shouldn't cost them any profits (at least, not directly).
GPL'ing a product has NEVER been successful for the company or person owning it.
Ever hear of an a little OS called Linux? It's done fairly well under the GPL...
Heh... now imagine a few ounces of that bacteria "accidentally" getting released inside an Apple store.
Oh, the humacnity!
One that's tired of having to rent out yet another warehouse every month, I would imagine... if that was their strategy, their costs would go up indefinitely over time.
Uhh, you judge a person by the computer they use? You must be a... oh, never mind.
Six years out of date, even. I guess I really am out of touch
Yes, they are, but the important thing is that they are doing their job: crowding out the last of the "overlords" jokes. (and I, for one, look forward to a glorious overlords-free Slashdot)
No, not Prince... you know, thingy. I'd tell you his new name, but the Unicode character set hasn't been updated to support him yet.
I think the word you were looking for is 'bush'. (Or, possibly, 'shrub').
At my polling place today was a nice middle-aged lady suffering from Parkinson's syndrome. She was very intelligent and articulate but her hands shook a lot, making it somewhat difficult for her to complete her ballot. I'm sure she'd love to hear from you about how she's too stupid to be allowed to vote.
Jerk.
And what exactly is going to be running Mr. MD5? Are you going to trust the very voting machine you are trying to test, to run an honest MD5 hash for you, and honestly tell you whether it has been compromised? How would you know whether the machine is actually running the MD5 algorithm, and not simply printing out the "correct" result values that you expected to see?
It's like asking a compulsive liar if they are telling the truth... of course they are going to say yes, but that doesn't mean that they are honest, it only means that they are willing to lie about their honesty also.
Auditing the source code doesn't guarantee anything, because there is no way for you to know whether the machines at the polling centers are running the same program you audited, and running it correctly.
It would be very easy to show the auditors one version of the source code but actually install a different version. Hashcode checks and the like don't help either, because they can easily be faked. And even if you do get the expected object code loaded in to the machine, there's no guarantee that the compiler wasn't hacked to add back-doors to the generated object code, and no guarantee that the hardware itself doesn't have back doors, bugs, or other "special hidden features" in it.
What, the 2,800+ Americans killed in Iraq by IEDs, snipers, etc, don't count? By my accounting, that's nearly another September 11th's worth of dead Americans.
Because revenge is a destructive activity. Revenge is the action of damaging somebody to make yourself feel better about something they previously did to you. It's what people used as an informal version of justice before formal justice was available to sort things out. Now that there is a formal system that has replaced revenge, revenge should no longer be used.
Nope. It wouldn't catch the case where the machine was programmed to work correctly on every day except election day.
Such behavior could definitely happen in the case of deliberate fraud, but it could also happen accidentally... I know I have released programs with bugs where the bug's symptoms only showed up after a certain date.
It also wouldn't catch bugs that happen only once in every 10,000 tries, or bugs that occur in other situations that your test didn't cover. (e.g. bugs that occur only when the election is held in a county whose name is more than 20 characters long)
Turns out that isn't the case. At least in the USA, it actually costs more to execute someone than to imprison them for the rest of their life. This high cost of execution is due to the lengthy legal process that you have to go through to get to the execution... appeals, etc.
A common reaction to that is to say "well, why not just cut down the appeals process to make it cheaper?" A reasonable suggestion, but the appeals process is there for a good reason -- to make it very unlikely that an innocent person is killed. If you "streamline" the legal system to make if more efficient, you run a real risk of executing innocent people (actually this may sometimes happen anyway, as the review of DNA evidence has shown)... and a system that executes the occasional innocent person along with the guilt is worse than no death penalty at all. (if you find you've wrongly imprisoned somebody, you can apologies and release them. If you find you've wrongly executed somebody, there is no recourse... they are still dead and now it is the state that is the murderer)
Of course not. You don't get to go back and change your vote after the election. It's your responsibility to double-check your ballot before turning it in.
What if mine was counted wrong? (don't know how that works, more privacy invasion I imagine) I suppose I could call and ask for a recount (2000 anyone?)
If, say 5,000 people all find that their votes haven't been registered correctly, they could report it to the elections board, or if that doesn't work, to the news media. At that point an investigation could be started, possibly leading to a nullification of the election if necessary.
but, they can't even verify that mine was the one counted wrong.
Sure they can... show them your receipt, then they can look it up that receipt on their web site just the same way you did. They won't be able to tell who you voted for, but they will be able to tell that the votes you punched in didn't match your vote as they tallied it.
Really pointless and dangerous if you ask me
Try keeping an open mind for a while. Or better yet, reading the article.