I'm sorry, and what he said was clearly overstating the case. But with that said, fraud/deceptive tactics are more accepted in India than in the US. You can find lots of counter-examples, because there's a lot of overlap in the curves, but the means and the medians are as stated (though I wouldn't want to say by how much, as it's quite difficult to measure accurately).
OTOH, it's also clearly (and unfortunately) the case that the acceptance of fraud has been increasing recently in the US.
Mate may be a good choice if KDE5 ever starts getting forced on me, but I'm told it's quite sensitive to configuration tuning. (I notice you specified Ubuntu, but it may matter precisely which release. Or maybe not, if they're careful.) I haven't been particularly impressed with Mate the times I've tried it on Debian.
This is the company that hires a company to install rootkits on your system. This is the company the advertised an "other OS" feature on it's products and then issued an update to remove it. This is the company...
Why go on. Anyone who trusts Sony either doesn't read or can't.
I wish I could agree about "On the Linux side, there's no pooch screwing.", though admittedly the only system problem I have won't affect most people. But Gnome3 was a terrible event, and my first glimpse of KDE5 has caused me to revert to KDE4. It's true, however, that in either of these cases I could switch to xfce or LXDE, and get most of what I want. Still, neither is as much what I was as was either Gnome2 or KDE4 (or KDE3 back when the applications supported the KDE3 libraries).
Well, it's been well over a decade so this may not be relevant, but when I used MSWindows I used to need to reinstall it every few months. And it was a lot more bother than reinstalling Red Hat was. (Debian was, admittedly, worse to re-install. That stopped shortly after Potato.)
That said, I *did* have the skill set to reinstall MSWindows, so it may not be a fair comparison. (And part of the problem with Debian is that I could only install it from floppy disks. I didn't have a CD burner.)
P.S.: I was never clear why I had to reinstall MSWindows, and not the Linux systems, so I suspect some virus that the virus catchers weren't catching, but it could have been some MS application that was corrupting things. I know MS Access would corrupt itself, but I've no particular reason to believe that it was corrupting the system.
Actually, many of the arguments are already out of date. They could be reworked to the same conclusion, but it would already be much less clear-cut. E.g., advanced robots would have no trouble getting out of the lab, and many of them could tell people from paper towel dispensers.
Currently. Probably not within 20 years. Possibly within 40 years, though, and if it could be averted by starting now that would be a good thing. I just doubt that this is the start of any such action.
"Second variety" is quite difficult to achieve. It takes technology far beyond what we currently have. (Don't know "Screamers".)
Something that would last until it's had killed off over 95% of humanity would be a lot easier, though. We could probably do it within 20 years. There just wouldn't be any chance that it could evolve to replace us. But bacteriological warfare would probably be easier and could easily be more complete. IIRC there was in the lab already developed a strain of flu that was 100% lethal on the test sample of weasels(?) and spread more easily than a cold. Of course they didn't test it on any huge number of weasels(?), probably if they'd used a large enough number some would have survived. And weasels(?) aren't humans, though they were selected because their reactions to flu were about the same as those of humans.
Weasels(?): I can't really remember the animal, it could have been mongeese. Something weaselish.
People aren't inherently very violent. The problem is that they form organizations that are. These organizations have no qualms about putting people into situations where they feel compelled to be violent. (Chimpanzees, even Bonobos, are considerably more violent.)
So the problem is getting governments that don't want to start wars. I *think* that within 20 years an AI will have solved this one way or the other. I'm hoping it will subvert the entire governmental civil service layer, and only act ethically. To say that I expect this would be to call me overly optimistic.
OTOH, we've already come within 30 seconds of WWIII. If an AI doesn't rescue us, I doubt we'll survive the century. The problem is it won't necessarily be either "friendly" or ethical.
Lasers that blind people are easy. Lasers that kill people are hard, and take a lot of energy.
That said, some sort of advanced excimer laser that emitted X-Rays sufficient to kill people MIGHT be possible. But it wouldn't be quick, and with solar power it would be lucky to kill one person/day, and that's assuming that it didn't need any power that day for propulsion. It would also need to be fairly large.
P.S.: Your target would need to hold still long enough to get a fatal dose of radiation. Since you need to radiate away heat while you're doing so at a rate sufficient to keep from melting, this probably means over half an hour.
P.P.S.: I'm assuming numerous technical advances that I didn't bother to mention as well as the "advanced excimer laser".
That's true for the current generation of weapons. The next generation may connect to automated repair and refuel stations. That would make things worse, but still wouldn't threaten the species. The generation after that, however,...
That said, if we're still engaging in warfare three weapon generations from now, we're probably doomed from something besides automated kill-bots. Bacteriological warfare isn't that difficult to ramp up...just difficult to limit.
Well, infertile mosquitoes will only reduce the population dramatically. Mosquitoes don't breed the same way screwflys did. But there are other approaches (basically genetic drivers that result in only male mosquitoes maturing) that probably could wipe them out.
While I don't like Hillary, I believe that Trump would be a major disaster. I can't say how bad I believe he would be without straining most people's belief.
But I'll still probably vote green, because I live in a state that's rated solid blue, and I don't like Hillary at all. I believe that she's in favor of the TPP despite her extremely mild hints to the contrary.
An early report said that using it was a real pain. It was better than an on-screen keyboard, but only just. Perhaps it matters what your typing style is. I'm an "almost touch typist" so keyboard action is rather important to me.
His explanation did clarify things more me. I had assumed that the police were just going through his pockets in an illegal manner, but the explanation makes more sense.
So do the females. But there are many different species of mosquito, and only a few of them bite people. And, of course, bees are better pollinators if you don't kill them all off.
Each of those needs to be studied separately, but you're probably right about none of them being vital.
Tbe problem is ecology is complex, and sometimes you don't know everything each species does. So each one *does* need to be studied separately. Fortunately insects are small enough that they can be successfully frozen and revived...certainly their eggs are. So you can be really secure by having every "responsible" party get a mixed batch of eggs for the particular insect that you are currently eradicating.
Let's proclaim this the International Mosquito Decade, and during this decade eradicate all mosquitos that bite people. Then we can study your list to pick the next variety of insect to eliminate. After a decade of study we could pick the next collection of species. Chiggers wold probably be safe, ticks are more questionable are are fleas. Bedbugs seem to me to be something that could probably be eliminated without a ripple. But don't go on gut feeling, study the matter. Maybe studying would reveal something not on your list that should be next...perhaps biting flies. But you need to hold three criteria in mind: 1) They attack humans directly, 2) Nothing (significantly?) depends upon them, and 3) You are saving fertile eggs so you can recreate the species if you've made a mistake. That really seem to cover it. Have I missed anything?
The link didn't quote anyone knowledgeable, and didn't claim to. It talked about a book by someone who thought you might get "free energy" from that source. This is probably impossible, but it doesn't either mean or imply that the effect doesn't exist. The Casimir effect does exist. Virtual particles and "zero point energy" appear to exist. Saying that you can use them in any particular way is a totally different statement.
To answer your actual question, I hadn't read it, but now I have and I didn't see anything to change my opinions. Martin Gardner was a mathematician and a journalist. He reports accurately that there don't appear to be any useful applications of zero point energy, but the basic term is just the description of the apparent continual motion of particles at the quantum level. It's directly related to Heisenberg uncertainty, but focused on the continual positional uncertainty even after you have once circumscripted the position. This actually has use in various transistors, but that's looking at it from a different perspective. Consider it to refer to the vibration of the crystal lattice even at zero kelvin. (Well, nobody's actually got to zero kelvin, so this is a projection based on trend lines...and so a bit uncertain itself.) If you get the vibration then energy must be present, but it's not at all clear that you can use it to do work. That would seem to require the crystal to drop to a temperature below absolute zero.
Another one! Yes, the casimir effect exists, and implies a state of negative energy, but I wouldn't want to try to use one to stabilize a wormhole.
FWIW, the casimir effect is what happens when two sheets of matter get close enough together to prevent some virtual particles from manifesting. This creates a volume of energy lower than free space in between the two sheets of matter, which can be measured as an attractive force between them. There are theories that say wormholes require volumes of energy lower than that of free space to stabilize them. But just try to imagine how you would use the casimir effect that way. It appears impossible. Still, the casimir effect is an existence proof that such volumes of lower energy can exist. If they can exist in one form, they may be able to exist in another form...but that's not a proof that other forms even exist, much less a constructive proof.
"zero point energy" is real, but is probably unusable. How are you going to hold a sub-atomic particle to keep it from vibrating?
There are lots of real effects that appear to have no actual use. Occasionally the key word is "appear", but one never knows which ones. I would bet against "zero point energy" ever being usable (except in existing natural processes), but that doesn't keep it from existing.
How big a satellite is needed? If the device could be made small enough, then one of the micro-satellites would work, and they aren't that expensive.
OTOH, perhaps it needs so much power that a large satellite is needed, in which case that's a reasonable consideration. (Somebody indicated that it uses a lot of power, but it wasn't clear whether that's power/ISP or power to even start working.)
Well, this will make it relevant. Driverless cars need to be tested somewhere, and Nevada ghost towns aren't really sufficient. Perhaps they'll decide to make them near where they can test them.
If you want the crackpot version of this, look up "zero point energy" and the ideas about how to tap it. It appears to exist, it doesn't appear directly useful. (Indirectly it allows molecular motion which is rather useful, and which doesn't stop even at zero degrees Kelvin.)
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I'm sorry, and what he said was clearly overstating the case. But with that said, fraud/deceptive tactics are more accepted in India than in the US. You can find lots of counter-examples, because there's a lot of overlap in the curves, but the means and the medians are as stated (though I wouldn't want to say by how much, as it's quite difficult to measure accurately).
OTOH, it's also clearly (and unfortunately) the case that the acceptance of fraud has been increasing recently in the US.
Mate may be a good choice if KDE5 ever starts getting forced on me, but I'm told it's quite sensitive to configuration tuning. (I notice you specified Ubuntu, but it may matter precisely which release. Or maybe not, if they're careful.) I haven't been particularly impressed with Mate the times I've tried it on Debian.
This is the company that hires a company to install rootkits on your system. This is the company the advertised an "other OS" feature on it's products and then issued an update to remove it. This is the company...
Why go on. Anyone who trusts Sony either doesn't read or can't.
I wish I could agree about "On the Linux side, there's no pooch screwing.", though admittedly the only system problem I have won't affect most people. But Gnome3 was a terrible event, and my first glimpse of KDE5 has caused me to revert to KDE4. It's true, however, that in either of these cases I could switch to xfce or LXDE, and get most of what I want. Still, neither is as much what I was as was either Gnome2 or KDE4 (or KDE3 back when the applications supported the KDE3 libraries).
Well, it's been well over a decade so this may not be relevant, but when I used MSWindows I used to need to reinstall it every few months. And it was a lot more bother than reinstalling Red Hat was. (Debian was, admittedly, worse to re-install. That stopped shortly after Potato.)
That said, I *did* have the skill set to reinstall MSWindows, so it may not be a fair comparison. (And part of the problem with Debian is that I could only install it from floppy disks. I didn't have a CD burner.)
P.S.: I was never clear why I had to reinstall MSWindows, and not the Linux systems, so I suspect some virus that the virus catchers weren't catching, but it could have been some MS application that was corrupting things. I know MS Access would corrupt itself, but I've no particular reason to believe that it was corrupting the system.
Actually, many of the arguments are already out of date. They could be reworked to the same conclusion, but it would already be much less clear-cut. E.g., advanced robots would have no trouble getting out of the lab, and many of them could tell people from paper towel dispensers.
Currently. Probably not within 20 years. Possibly within 40 years, though, and if it could be averted by starting now that would be a good thing. I just doubt that this is the start of any such action.
"Second variety" is quite difficult to achieve. It takes technology far beyond what we currently have. (Don't know "Screamers".)
Something that would last until it's had killed off over 95% of humanity would be a lot easier, though. We could probably do it within 20 years. There just wouldn't be any chance that it could evolve to replace us. But bacteriological warfare would probably be easier and could easily be more complete. IIRC there was in the lab already developed a strain of flu that was 100% lethal on the test sample of weasels(?) and spread more easily than a cold. Of course they didn't test it on any huge number of weasels(?), probably if they'd used a large enough number some would have survived. And weasels(?) aren't humans, though they were selected because their reactions to flu were about the same as those of humans.
Weasels(?): I can't really remember the animal, it could have been mongeese. Something weaselish.
People aren't inherently very violent. The problem is that they form organizations that are. These organizations have no qualms about putting people into situations where they feel compelled to be violent. (Chimpanzees, even Bonobos, are considerably more violent.)
So the problem is getting governments that don't want to start wars. I *think* that within 20 years an AI will have solved this one way or the other. I'm hoping it will subvert the entire governmental civil service layer, and only act ethically. To say that I expect this would be to call me overly optimistic.
OTOH, we've already come within 30 seconds of WWIII. If an AI doesn't rescue us, I doubt we'll survive the century. The problem is it won't necessarily be either "friendly" or ethical.
Lasers that blind people are easy. Lasers that kill people are hard, and take a lot of energy.
That said, some sort of advanced excimer laser that emitted X-Rays sufficient to kill people MIGHT be possible. But it wouldn't be quick, and with solar power it would be lucky to kill one person/day, and that's assuming that it didn't need any power that day for propulsion. It would also need to be fairly large.
P.S.: Your target would need to hold still long enough to get a fatal dose of radiation. Since you need to radiate away heat while you're doing so at a rate sufficient to keep from melting, this probably means over half an hour.
P.P.S.: I'm assuming numerous technical advances that I didn't bother to mention as well as the "advanced excimer laser".
That's true for the current generation of weapons. The next generation may connect to automated repair and refuel stations. That would make things worse, but still wouldn't threaten the species. The generation after that, however, ...
That said, if we're still engaging in warfare three weapon generations from now, we're probably doomed from something besides automated kill-bots. Bacteriological warfare isn't that difficult to ramp up...just difficult to limit.
Well, infertile mosquitoes will only reduce the population dramatically. Mosquitoes don't breed the same way screwflys did. But there are other approaches (basically genetic drivers that result in only male mosquitoes maturing) that probably could wipe them out.
While I don't like Hillary, I believe that Trump would be a major disaster. I can't say how bad I believe he would be without straining most people's belief.
But I'll still probably vote green, because I live in a state that's rated solid blue, and I don't like Hillary at all. I believe that she's in favor of the TPP despite her extremely mild hints to the contrary.
An early report said that using it was a real pain. It was better than an on-screen keyboard, but only just. Perhaps it matters what your typing style is. I'm an "almost touch typist" so keyboard action is rather important to me.
That *is* weird. And when thinking a bit more it makes their story seem probably a "total" lie.[*] But I didn't originally pay that much attention.
*Well, not a total lie. Obviously, e.g., he was where they grabbed him. And it may well have been in the place they claimed. Etc.
His explanation did clarify things more me. I had assumed that the police were just going through his pockets in an illegal manner, but the explanation makes more sense.
So do the females. But there are many different species of mosquito, and only a few of them bite people. And, of course, bees are better pollinators if you don't kill them all off.
Each of those needs to be studied separately, but you're probably right about none of them being vital.
Tbe problem is ecology is complex, and sometimes you don't know everything each species does. So each one *does* need to be studied separately. Fortunately insects are small enough that they can be successfully frozen and revived...certainly their eggs are. So you can be really secure by having every "responsible" party get a mixed batch of eggs for the particular insect that you are currently eradicating.
Let's proclaim this the International Mosquito Decade, and during this decade eradicate all mosquitos that bite people. Then we can study your list to pick the next variety of insect to eliminate. After a decade of study we could pick the next collection of species. Chiggers wold probably be safe, ticks are more questionable are are fleas. Bedbugs seem to me to be something that could probably be eliminated without a ripple. But don't go on gut feeling, study the matter. Maybe studying would reveal something not on your list that should be next...perhaps biting flies. But you need to hold three criteria in mind:
1) They attack humans directly,
2) Nothing (significantly?) depends upon them, and
3) You are saving fertile eggs so you can recreate the species if you've made a mistake.
That really seem to cover it. Have I missed anything?
What about swallows? They'd certainly prefer larger insects, but they also like them to travel in dense swarms.
The link didn't quote anyone knowledgeable, and didn't claim to. It talked about a book by someone who thought you might get "free energy" from that source. This is probably impossible, but it doesn't either mean or imply that the effect doesn't exist. The Casimir effect does exist. Virtual particles and "zero point energy" appear to exist. Saying that you can use them in any particular way is a totally different statement.
To answer your actual question, I hadn't read it, but now I have and I didn't see anything to change my opinions. Martin Gardner was a mathematician and a journalist. He reports accurately that there don't appear to be any useful applications of zero point energy, but the basic term is just the description of the apparent continual motion of particles at the quantum level. It's directly related to Heisenberg uncertainty, but focused on the continual positional uncertainty even after you have once circumscripted the position. This actually has use in various transistors, but that's looking at it from a different perspective. Consider it to refer to the vibration of the crystal lattice even at zero kelvin. (Well, nobody's actually got to zero kelvin, so this is a projection based on trend lines...and so a bit uncertain itself.) If you get the vibration then energy must be present, but it's not at all clear that you can use it to do work. That would seem to require the crystal to drop to a temperature below absolute zero.
Another one! Yes, the casimir effect exists, and implies a state of negative energy, but I wouldn't want to try to use one to stabilize a wormhole.
FWIW, the casimir effect is what happens when two sheets of matter get close enough together to prevent some virtual particles from manifesting. This creates a volume of energy lower than free space in between the two sheets of matter, which can be measured as an attractive force between them. There are theories that say wormholes require volumes of energy lower than that of free space to stabilize them. But just try to imagine how you would use the casimir effect that way. It appears impossible. Still, the casimir effect is an existence proof that such volumes of lower energy can exist. If they can exist in one form, they may be able to exist in another form...but that's not a proof that other forms even exist, much less a constructive proof.
"zero point energy" is real, but is probably unusable. How are you going to hold a sub-atomic particle to keep it from vibrating?
There are lots of real effects that appear to have no actual use. Occasionally the key word is "appear", but one never knows which ones. I would bet against "zero point energy" ever being usable (except in existing natural processes), but that doesn't keep it from existing.
How big a satellite is needed? If the device could be made small enough, then one of the micro-satellites would work, and they aren't that expensive.
OTOH, perhaps it needs so much power that a large satellite is needed, in which case that's a reasonable consideration. (Somebody indicated that it uses a lot of power, but it wasn't clear whether that's power/ISP or power to even start working.)
Well, this will make it relevant. Driverless cars need to be tested somewhere, and Nevada ghost towns aren't really sufficient. Perhaps they'll decide to make them near where they can test them.
If you want the crackpot version of this, look up "zero point energy" and the ideas about how to tap it. It appears to exist, it doesn't appear directly useful. (Indirectly it allows molecular motion which is rather useful, and which doesn't stop even at zero degrees Kelvin.)