That said, people with my tastes probably represent a tiny fraction of the market.
True. On the other hand, people who have non-mainstream tastes do represent a significant portion of the market. The sooner that television-style content finds a way to address niche tastes, the happier I'll be...
why doesn't Zaphod visibly have three arms and two heads throughout the movie?
Well, he didn't have them all throughout the books either:
"I wish you'd stop sulking about that bloody planet," said Ford. "Who was the lady?"
"Oh just somebody. Well alright, I wasn't doing very well with her. I'd been trying all evening. Hell, she was something though. Beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, at last I'd got her to myself for a bit and was plying her with a bit of talk when this friend of yours barges up and says Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet." I never saw her again."
"Zaphod?" exclaimed Ford.
"Yes," said Arthur, glaring at him and trying not to feel foolish. "He only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but..."
"But you must admit he did turn out to be from another planet," said Trillian wandering into sight at the other end of the bridge. She gave Arthur a pleasant smile which settled on him like a ton of bricks and then turned her attention to the ship's controls again.
The Question is this: "What number am I thinking of?"
But isn't it the case that if the Question and the Answer are ever both known at the same time, the universe is immediately destroyed and replaced by something even stranger?
If so, then that couldn't have been the question, or the universe would have ended before the Krikkit robots could steal Marvin's leg...
The mission statement of the organisation I work for is "Serving Canadians". We really don't serve Canadians, we serve the Queen.
I think you misunderstood. The mission statement's full form is "to be serving Canadians". So if you are Canadian, and you are serving (the Queen), then you are doing just fine...:^)
who's going to feel sorry for you if you get hurt that way?
A jury of your peers, most likely... just before they award you $20 gazillion of the taxpayers' money in damages.
Re:I, for one, welcome our new Exoskeleton Overlor
on
Commercial Exoskeletons
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· Score: 3, Informative
Perhaps the biggest problem: balance
I think balance is starting become a solved problem. Look at the Segway for starters... plus previous Slashdot articles have linked to some very impressive videos of (small) robots doing handstands, ballet, etc. So it appears that balance is just a matter of having a fast enough computer running a clever enough feedback algorithm.
I think a more difficult problem will be energy: how does your exoskeleton carry enough fuel/energy to be useful without adding too much weight or compromising the user's safety?
The guide looks like it was pulled right out of ST:TNG (complete with LCARS)
To be fair, the guide also looked like that in 1981 (back when the whole GUI was created using traditional animation techniques!)... so if anything it is ST:TNG that stole the look and feel from the Guide....
What if someone hacks into it and I wake up in the morning to find everything walled up?
Well, if life is anything like the Sims, you'll wander around aimlessly looking for a way out, become unhappy, piss your pants, and eventually die of thirst...
If that's true, then who are you replying to? Nobody?
From then on the Earth will be as friendly and hospitable as we will want.
... barring any unforseen disasters. (before you argue that we'll be so techologically proficient as to avoid any possible disaster, examine just how gracefully we've handled sudden leaps in technological prowess in the past)
The chances that there is someone who wants to exterminate humans are rather low.
The chances of the existence of humans who would like to exterminate humans is right around 100%. Of course, these humans typically want to exterminate only the 95% of humanity that isn't like them in some way they consider important... but many of them would happily take advantage of an available device to do so, even if there was a good chance of it eventually rendering Earth uninhabitable for themselves too (after all, they are chosen by God, so He will save them from the disaster they unleashed, right?)
There is no need to colonize new star systems beyond what we will need to satisfy our curiosity and desire for fun.
Spoken like someone who can accurately predict several thousand years into the future. How do you do it?
As much as I'd like to, I just can't envision a literal space elevator. Sorry
Me neither. That kind of points to the fact that the name "space elevator" is quite misleading -- people immediately think of a Willy Wonka style building elevator shaft into space. Which is quite silly.
So think of it instead as a space rope. Nothing fancy, just a simple string hanging down from orbit -- but strong enough to not break under its own weight. Once you have that, all you need is a machine that can climb the string, et voila... you can pull stuff up into space on the cheap.
Read the "Mars" series by Kim Stanley Robinson. There is a part where a space tether gets severed and wreaks havoc on the surface of Mars.
The "Mars" series is to the idea of the Space Elevator what the Hindenberg is to the idea of hydrogen powered cars... a fearful image so evocative that it clouds otherwise intelligent peoples' thinking. It's all the more impressive when you consider that unlike the Hindenberg, it's fiction. Robinson made it up. You know, from his imagination.
So, a reality check: even a worst-case-scenario Space Elevator failure would cause much less damage than, say, the 2003 Shuttle disaster. Nothing will come falling out of the sky to hurt anyone. In some cases, bits of ribbon would flutter down like confetti. That's it.
With a beanstalk the only two parts in stable orbit are the endpoints, which would make constuction incredibly difficult.
Difficult, yes, but perhaps not as difficult as you'd think. Here are the steps:
Launch unmanned rocket(s) into GEO with spool of ribbon
Start unspooling ribbon at both ends -- both towards Earth and away from it
Maintain the rockets at GEO through feedback -- anytime they start to wander "up" or "down", you (well, okay, a computer) just adjusts the ribbon-unspooling rate on the opposite ribbon to compensate. Gravity and centripetal force take care of the rest.
When the ribbon touches the ground on Earth, have somebody tie it to a nearby fire hydrant
And that's it, really:^) Much easier than building a bridge across the Atlantic, provided you have a sufficiently strong and lightweight cable.
"would we WANT to make something like that?" To me, it's a novelty idea and nothing more.
Well, barring the whole Cheap Space Travel thing (which would be a grand adventure and yadda yadda) I think the best argument for a space elevator is that having one would make solar power satellites possible. Geosynchronous orbit is a great place to collect solar power -- it's all up there, free for the taking, unfiltered by any atmosphere. But it's impractical to get a satellite with large enough solar panels into space. That's where the space elevator could help, by lifting thousands of tons of solar panels into geosynchronous orbit.
Then we'd finally have what the nuclear fusion guys have been promising for decades... cheap, environmentally friendly, renewable power until the sun dies out. And I think clean renewable power generation is going to be a VERY important factor to the future of mankind... people don't pay attention much yet because fossil fuels are still plentiful, but that won't last too many more decades.
Last I heard, the plan was to use an oil platform (or similar large ocean-going ship/structure) as the "island". That has the advantage of being movable on demand (to avoid debris), and is proven technology that you can buy "off the rack" today...
but experimenting on climbers is like practicing the high jump: if you're jumping twice as high today as last year, I wouldn't start drawing any exponential curves
I disagree. Sometimes, as in your high-jump example, exponential curves are impossible. Sometimes, as in computer speed and storage, they are possible. It all depends on the particular physics and technology involved.
Keep in mind that you are basing your instincts on a lifetime of experience of a world that did not include mass production of carbon nanotubes. It's a reasonable prediction to make, but it's similar to when Thomas Watson said "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." That was also a perfectly reasonable prediction to make -- barring the invention of the transistor. But the transistor was invented, and the rest is history.
Several places in the article/notes it mentions that public funding for the Space Elevator is unlikely to be forthcoming. I wonder, though, if they've tried pitching it to the government of Japan? They certainly seem to be bullish on the whole space technology thing...
At the end, anyone who understands the concept of "nuclear winter" knows that even crazy Koreans (or crazy Bush, or crazh whoever) won't start nuclear war.
Given that Mr. Bush hasn't been able to acknowledge the possibility of "global warming" yet, it's not entirely clear that he understands the concept of "nuclear winter" either.
I'd say most people are, considering most voted for George W. Bush.
Actually, only about 60% of eligible voters actually bothered to vote at all, so given that Bush got approximately half the vote, that means only about 30% of the people voted for Dubya. (and that's a record high turnout since 1968, too!) 40% of the people couldn't be bothered to participate at all... many of them because they feel the game is too rigged to make it worth their time.
Instant Run-off ballots, could be a good start.
I totally agree. With Instant Runoff, third party candidates would not be spoilers, so people wouldn't be afraid to vote for the person they really liked. Right now, you have your choice of Republican, Democrat, or (protest vote that doesn't affect the result one way or another, you might as well stay home).
I think banning all private funds in campaigns would be a good start too.
I don't think that is the right way to do it... people should be allowed to support the candidates they want to. A better method is Public Campaign Financing, where politicians who can get enough signatures and $5 token donations become eligible for public campaign funding. That was we can have politicians who aren't beholden to big benefactors, but only to the public at large -- without any potential 1st Amendment issues.
All of these concerns were addressed hundreds of years ago. Everyone brought up these arguments but this way works best.
How can you know that, given that we've never tried any other way?
It's all about population, the thing that matters and the thing you want it to be based on.
A direct vote would be even more directly based on population...
As there shouldn't be! I think that idea is un-Constitutional at best.
Nope, it's not un-constitutional at all... it's up to each state to decide how they want to select their electors. Colorado even had a proposition on the ballot to start doing just that... it lost, though.
How about getting good candidates to run before you try to fix a non-broken system to elect them.
Are you happy with the quality of the candidates and debate we have seen recently, from either party? Most people aren't. That's a good sign of a system that could be improved.
Thank God we dodged that bullet, eh? With the wrong man in charge we might have ended up, oh, I don't know, invading the wrong country by mistake or something...
If someone doesn't care about murder laws, why the heck would they care about gun laws? [...] The kids at Columbine broke dozens.
Agreed that someone who is willing to murder isn't going to care about gun laws. What they will care about is how easy/difficult it is to do the actual murder. Many crimes (including, perhaps, Columbine) are crimes of opportunity and/or crimes of passion -- that is, they are committed in the heat of the moment, or because they are relatively easy to commit. If the means to commit the crime were not so readily available, the crime very likely would not have occurred, since the would-be criminal would find some other (less destructive) means to vent his frustration.
That said, I agree that it is debatable to what degree current gun control laws can make guns less accessible to unstable individuals. I do think think that mandatory gun-training classes, licensing, criminal background checks, and/or psychological stability tests are all potentially useful means of keeping destructive weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. We license cars for safety reasons, I don't see any good reason why guns shouldn't have something similar.
Finally, the whole overthrow the government thing is still valid! You don't need to be able to win, you just need to be able to resist with enough force to make it not worth it.
I wonder, how much force would it take to make it not worth it? I would think a fairly impressive amount (i.e. tanks, or tens of thousands of people with machine guns)
Slashdot Mirror
True. On the other hand, people who have non-mainstream tastes do represent a significant portion of the market. The sooner that television-style content finds a way to address niche tastes, the happier I'll be...
Well, he didn't have them all throughout the books either:
"I wish you'd stop sulking about that bloody planet," said Ford. "Who was the lady?"
"Oh just somebody. Well alright, I wasn't doing very well with her. I'd been trying all evening. Hell, she was something though. Beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, at last I'd got her to myself for a bit and was plying her with a bit of talk when this friend of yours barges up and says Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet." I never saw her again."
"Zaphod?" exclaimed Ford.
"Yes," said Arthur, glaring at him and trying not to feel foolish. "He only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but
"But you must admit he did turn out to be from another planet," said Trillian wandering into sight at the other end of the bridge. She gave Arthur a pleasant smile which settled on him like a ton of bricks and then turned her attention to the ship's controls again.
But isn't it the case that if the Question and the Answer are ever both known at the same time, the universe is immediately destroyed and replaced by something even stranger?
If so, then that couldn't have been the question, or the universe would have ended before the Krikkit robots could steal Marvin's leg...
I think you misunderstood. The mission statement's full form is "to be serving Canadians". So if you are Canadian, and you are serving (the Queen), then you are doing just fine...
A jury of your peers, most likely... just before they award you $20 gazillion of the taxpayers' money in damages.
I think balance is starting become a solved problem. Look at the Segway for starters... plus previous Slashdot articles have linked to some very impressive videos of (small) robots doing handstands, ballet, etc. So it appears that balance is just a matter of having a fast enough computer running a clever enough feedback algorithm.
I think a more difficult problem will be energy: how does your exoskeleton carry enough fuel/energy to be useful without adding too much weight or compromising the user's safety?
To be fair, the guide also looked like that in 1981 (back when the whole GUI was created using traditional animation techniques!)... so if anything it is ST:TNG that stole the look and feel from the Guide....
Well, if life is anything like the Sims, you'll wander around aimlessly looking for a way out, become unhappy, piss your pants, and eventually die of thirst...
If that's true, then who are you replying to? Nobody?
From then on the Earth will be as friendly and hospitable as we will want.
The chances that there is someone who wants to exterminate humans are rather low.
The chances of the existence of humans who would like to exterminate humans is right around 100%. Of course, these humans typically want to exterminate only the 95% of humanity that isn't like them in some way they consider important... but many of them would happily take advantage of an available device to do so, even if there was a good chance of it eventually rendering Earth uninhabitable for themselves too (after all, they are chosen by God, so He will save them from the disaster they unleashed, right?)
There is no need to colonize new star systems beyond what we will need to satisfy our curiosity and desire for fun.
Spoken like someone who can accurately predict several thousand years into the future. How do you do it?
Me neither. That kind of points to the fact that the name "space elevator" is quite misleading -- people immediately think of a Willy Wonka style building elevator shaft into space. Which is quite silly.
So think of it instead as a space rope. Nothing fancy, just a simple string hanging down from orbit -- but strong enough to not break under its own weight. Once you have that, all you need is a machine that can climb the string, et voila... you can pull stuff up into space on the cheap.
The "Mars" series is to the idea of the Space Elevator what the Hindenberg is to the idea of hydrogen powered cars... a fearful image so evocative that it clouds otherwise intelligent peoples' thinking. It's all the more impressive when you consider that unlike the Hindenberg, it's fiction. Robinson made it up. You know, from his imagination.
So, a reality check: even a worst-case-scenario Space Elevator failure would cause much less damage than, say, the 2003 Shuttle disaster. Nothing will come falling out of the sky to hurt anyone. In some cases, bits of ribbon would flutter down like confetti. That's it.
make constuction incredibly difficult.
Difficult, yes, but perhaps not as difficult as you'd think. Here are the steps:
And that's it, really
Well, barring the whole Cheap Space Travel thing (which would be a grand adventure and yadda yadda) I think the best argument for a space elevator is that having one would make solar power satellites possible. Geosynchronous orbit is a great place to collect solar power -- it's all up there, free for the taking, unfiltered by any atmosphere. But it's impractical to get a satellite with large enough solar panels into space. That's where the space elevator could help, by lifting thousands of tons of solar panels into geosynchronous orbit.
Then we'd finally have what the nuclear fusion guys have been promising for decades... cheap, environmentally friendly, renewable power until the sun dies out. And I think clean renewable power generation is going to be a VERY important factor to the future of mankind... people don't pay attention much yet because fossil fuels are still plentiful, but that won't last too many more decades.
Last I heard, the plan was to use an oil platform (or similar large ocean-going ship/structure) as the "island". That has the advantage of being movable on demand (to avoid debris), and is proven technology that you can buy "off the rack" today...
Nobody said space travel was gonna be easy.... suck it up and jump, ya pansy!
I disagree. Sometimes, as in your high-jump example, exponential curves are impossible. Sometimes, as in computer speed and storage, they are possible. It all depends on the particular physics and technology involved.
Keep in mind that you are basing your instincts on a lifetime of experience of a world that did not include mass production of carbon nanotubes. It's a reasonable prediction to make, but it's similar to when Thomas Watson said "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." That was also a perfectly reasonable prediction to make -- barring the invention of the transistor. But the transistor was invented, and the rest is history.
Several places in the article/notes it mentions that public funding for the Space Elevator is unlikely to be forthcoming. I wonder, though, if they've tried pitching it to the government of Japan? They certainly seem to be bullish on the whole space technology thing...
Given that Mr. Bush hasn't been able to acknowledge the possibility of "global warming" yet, it's not entirely clear that he understands the concept of "nuclear winter" either.
Just a thought to brighten up your day....
an enemy combatant (at least as well as a human soldier can, anyway...)?
Dunno, but it might be argued that a robot could do a better job than, say, a land mine...
If a comparable open-source SCM had existed at the time, I'm sure they would have considered it. (and no, CVS didn't count as comparable
Actually, only about 60% of eligible voters actually bothered to vote at all, so given that Bush got approximately half the vote, that means only about 30% of the people voted for Dubya. (and that's a record high turnout since 1968, too!) 40% of the people couldn't be bothered to participate at all... many of them because they feel the game is too rigged to make it worth their time.
Instant Run-off ballots, could be a good start.
I totally agree. With Instant Runoff, third party candidates would not be spoilers, so people wouldn't be afraid to vote for the person they really liked. Right now, you have your choice of Republican, Democrat, or (protest vote that doesn't affect the result one way or another, you might as well stay home).
I think banning all private funds in campaigns would be a good start too.
I don't think that is the right way to do it... people should be allowed to support the candidates they want to. A better method is Public Campaign Financing, where politicians who can get enough signatures and $5 token donations become eligible for public campaign funding. That was we can have politicians who aren't beholden to big benefactors, but only to the public at large -- without any potential 1st Amendment issues.
How can you know that, given that we've never tried any other way?
It's all about population, the thing that matters and the thing you want it to be based on.
A direct vote would be even more directly based on population...
As there shouldn't be! I think that idea is un-Constitutional at best.
Nope, it's not un-constitutional at all... it's up to each state to decide how they want to select their electors. Colorado even had a proposition on the ballot to start doing just that... it lost, though.
How about getting good candidates to run before you try to fix a non-broken system to elect them.
Are you happy with the quality of the candidates and debate we have seen recently, from either party? Most people aren't. That's a good sign of a system that could be improved.
Thank God we dodged that bullet, eh? With the wrong man in charge we might have ended up, oh, I don't know, invading the wrong country by mistake or something...
So you'd like some quotes from non-government-funded developers of a networking system whose development was wholly government-funded?
I think you're likely to get killed at the next zebra crossing.
Agreed that someone who is willing to murder isn't going to care about gun laws. What they will care about is how easy/difficult it is to do the actual murder. Many crimes (including, perhaps, Columbine) are crimes of opportunity and/or crimes of passion -- that is, they are committed in the heat of the moment, or because they are relatively easy to commit. If the means to commit the crime were not so readily available, the crime very likely would not have occurred, since the would-be criminal would find some other (less destructive) means to vent his frustration.
That said, I agree that it is debatable to what degree current gun control laws can make guns less accessible to unstable individuals. I do think think that mandatory gun-training classes, licensing, criminal background checks, and/or psychological stability tests are all potentially useful means of keeping destructive weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. We license cars for safety reasons, I don't see any good reason why guns shouldn't have something similar.
Finally, the whole overthrow the government thing is still valid! You don't need to be able to win, you just need to be able to resist with enough force to make it not worth it.
I wonder, how much force would it take to make it not worth it? I would think a fairly impressive amount (i.e. tanks, or tens of thousands of people with machine guns)