I moderate up posts I disagree with simply if I think they make a good argument or provoke interesting discussion. After all, if you see what you think is a wrong point of view, it's useful to everyone for follow-up counter-arguments to be posted. I've even moderated up both sides of an argument just because it's a good argument.
In particular, I've moderated up a lot of posts citing objections against nuclear power even though I think nuclear power is our best CO2-minimal energy source for baseline load.
I also DO NOT moderate up posts I agree with simply because I agree with them. Many posts I agree with are redundant, insipid, or poorly stated.
I don't think I hand out negative moderation points much at all, but I admit I can't recall even a single case where I downmoderated a post I agreed with, so I have that much bias at least.
How about my screwed up shoulder from weightlifting, that I'm currently undergoing physical therapy for?
The physical therapist explained that my issue is usually caused by too much repetitive motion with the arms raised.
So, yes, increased wear and tear.
You can dismiss my firsthand account as anecdotal if you like, but there's also the inference I make from what the PT told me: "your issue is caused, like in other cases, by too much repetitive motion with the arms raised."
I mean, that's what *I* would want to be if I wanted to move between the stars. Don't like the long travel time? Just turn off except for just enough self-repair to keep things in working order for when something interesting is going to happen.
Potentially infinite lifespan, or as long as the universe lasts. Just replace parts, upgrade yourself.
Create backup copies of yourself.
Modest energy and resource needs (depending on your hardware implementation.) High radiation and temperature range tolerance, potentially.
For all we know, the cold outer planets/moons might be crawling with mechanicals observing us, taking advantage of the cool temperatures to keep their brains going at high speed and holding heat-driven entropy at bay.
Yes, but can you buy all of that stuff in really large quantities without making people suspicious? And I doubt any of them are really as simple+effective+safe as your nitrogen-based explosives.
If no plant needs nitrogen fertilizer, does this mean that we can stop producing ammonium nitrate and other nitrates in huge quantities, many of which can be used to make explosives?
Does this mean we could realistically reduce the availability of now-common bomb-making materials?
Plants need phosphorous almost as much as they need nitrogen. Currently, we're using mined sources of phosphorous as fertilizer--and there is a finite supply of really good phosphorous sources.
Potassium (the third major plant nutrient) we can extract from seawater without any problems, but the seawater concentration of phosphorous is much lower.
One of the first things I did with my android smartphone was plug in a USB keyboard and mouse and wonder why they didn't "just work".
Re: sapphire: sapphire is one of the hardest materials there is, I think you could scratch the heck out of 'gorilla glass' with it. Just looked it up, gorilla glass has a "Vickers" hardness of 701 (max) vs. sapphire, at 2300.
That said, sapphire is more brittle and crack-prone, however. Apparently gorilla glass is treated to stop crack propagation. It's quite possible a hammer-blow that wouldn't damage gorilla glass would smash sapphire.
An interesting point from the link you gave (thanks) is that if you're using molten salt, the graphite core (and the fuel) is isolated from oxygen by the salt anyway.
But the reduction in capital costs thanks to not having to contain 150 atmospheres of pressure might make it far more cost-efficient.
However, the carbon moderator core at over 600 C scares me. What if oxygen gets in there? Burning core, reminscent of Chernobyl. Very scary.
Can't they use something that won't burn for the moderator? I'm trying to think of something, water makes a good moderator, but you can't use it at 600C without the pressure coming back to haunt you.
Lithium would probably eat too many neutrons..... And of course, it'll burn too.
Maybe the steam-moderated fast reactor that I read about is the way to go.
Well, I must say I'm really grateful to you for the perfect demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
This is it: From Wikipedia, "The Dunningâ"Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average."
And you're an extremely illustrative case, because even though about four people told you that you were wrong (some more politely and some less), you PERSIST in your belief that E != 1/2 m v^2 (approximately).
I mean, we collectively didn't even manage to inject enough doubt into you that you'd take the trouble to look it up instead of continuing to support your mistaken position in public. Either you're a troll, or you're a REALLY textbook case of Dunning-Kruger.
As for your car, do you REALLY think that you use the same energy every second, continuously and linearly like you claim? I mean, don't you HEAR the engine rev up to higher RPM before it (or you) shifts gears down again? D'you know what that higher RPM means? It means more power (and power, for your information is defined as energy per time).
Anyway, I'm going to see if I can preserve this thread as a case study in Dunning-Kruger (or perhaps internet trolling), though even if you are a troll, it's STILL a great demo of Dunning-Kruger.
OK, so I gave a crude, nonrelativistic calculation of how much energy increase would be required to accelerate from 500mph to 1/2 the speed of light.
I came up with a number, based on the nonrelativistic equation "E=1/2 m * v^2" and added the remark that my estimate was off because of my neglect of relativity.
I explicitly deny that "goes up v^2 because of friction" is true. Furthermore, the relativistic equation isn't even that hard. Let's start with this:
E_kinetic = m * (gamma-1) * c^2 where gamma = 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)
For 1/2 speed of light, (gamma-1) = 0.1547. For 500mph, (gamma-1) = 2.78 x 10^-13.
To compare the two, note that E_kinetic(1/2 c) / E_kinetic(500mph) = (.1547/2.78x 10^-13) which yields an energy ratio of 5.56 x 10^11.
So to increase "normal" transport speeds from 500mph to 1/2c, we only need to use 556 billion times more energy.
It took us 200 years to increase normal-ish transport speeds from 5mph to 500mph. (Though bulk transport is still more like 30mph.)
We've got a LOT of technology to develop if we want to increase normal-ish transport speeds from 500mph to 1/2 light speed.
It's just about a million times faster than current tech. Even if you assume we get 100x speedup every 200 years, that's another 600 years of tech, though of course I concede that development doesn't need to be 100x every 200 years.
Making this even worse is the fact that energy required (nonrelativistic) goes as v^2. So we need ~10^12 as much energy to move stuff at 1/2 light speed (actually worse due to the relativistic factor.)
Your confidence in technology is nice, but I for one find the numbers involved downright sobering.
This person said he was having symptoms, namely, feeling the cold and being significantly tired. Having a messed up thyroid, even if not immediately fatal, is no fun at all.
>>- back in the day old people had the grace to die of diabetes or a heart attack, now they live until 90, but don't work the last 30 years of their lives, effectively eating the seed corn of the new generation.
If you're able and society needs you to work, then you should work, even in the last "30 years of your life" and even if you've done far more than provide for your own retirement.
Good human beings don't live solely for themselves--they also work to help others out.
However, I'm NOT in favor of the masses continuing to work all the way to death solely so that the 1% can pile more gold up onto their hoards.
You're kidding, right? If every single Chinaman had a rifle, and only a rifle, they couldn't hurt America, not all billion of them.
They couldn't even get here, not being able to walk from there to here. In the same way, those armed with just small arms can't take on the US Military if the US Military is willing to engage in wholesale slaughter.
The people who don't control the technological military live and are free only because the technological military withholds its power, not because any amount of small arms enables them to fight back effectively.
Or if only the top.1% of people are sufficiently "creative" to be required in the role of "creative" work such that anyone would pay them?
For example, in entertainment, there used to be millions employed. Now, the top of the top entertain the whole planet, and there's no paying market AT ALL for anyone else.
And if only "creative" work exists, what do you do with all the people who aren't fit for that work? Disintegration booths? They won't be able to be paid to dig ditches anymore.
Also, what happens when there're jobs enough in the "creative" fields for 10% of the population, but 100% of the population wants those jobs? Those jobs won't pay much anymore. The people who own the robots will enslave everyone else.
If there are very few jobs and a LOT of out-of-work people, market forces dictate that the price of labor will drop very low. Lots of supply, little demand.
So, in the situation you describe, it'll be like today, except worse. There's been massive degradation in the reward/hour worked ever since 1973 for everyone except CEOs and other 1%-ers. Imagine when there are 1000 qualified people for every job, and they're all starving. You could pay minimum wage and get someone with a PhD. Just like the PhD's who're driving limousines in Silicon Valley.
When most jobs are automated, there will have to be MASSIVE government intervention in markets or most people will just starve to death for lack of any way to make money.
Your point also applies to books that go out of print. If you can't get a copy, you're SOL.
Maybe laws should be passed putting all scientific papers in public escrow: if rapacious profiteering occurs or other market failure to provide copyrighted scientific works at a reasonable price, the Library of Congress makes it available online free.
I think $0.25 per page up to a maximum of $5 for an article is pretty reasonable, how about you?
You CAN make a big bomb with TNT, nuke sized even.
However, I do NOT think that you can fool US detection. I'm not familiar with the techniques used exactly, but don't you think the seismic signature of a nuke and a big conventional bomb would be very different? How about neutrino fluxes? Can't fake that with TNT. How about "the flash" (other than neutrinos), like long-wave EMP radiation that might make it through the ground, and maybe a trace of high energy stuff? How about residual radionucleotides that escape?
I don't think Government lying could even be done successfully--it's not just the US who has capability of analyzing seismic data to determine if it's nuke or not. I bet Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, and Israel could ALL do that too. If the US gov't tried to lie about it, they'd be caught out immediately.
NK has nukes. Period. Due to all the arguments above, I believe it is a fools bet to think otherwise. The news reports do say they're pretty lousy nukes, but they're nukes.
How long did it take the US to decapitate Al Qaeda? I mean, seriously, d'you think finding and destroying enemy heads of state is easy?
Saddam Hussein was NOT easy to find. He had his whole country to hide in--and he did. The US didn't get him until US had control of his country.
The US also missed Qaddafi--he stayed free until he lost control of his country too! NOTICE A PATTERN HERE?
US got lucky with Bin Laden--and Bin Laden didn't control Pakistan nor have control of a country's resources to help him hide.
And if US tries the same thing on NK's leaders, US not only face a high probability of failure, US faces almost certain nuclear retaliation, perhaps not against US, but against US interests at the least.
The reason US/TheWest don't routinely 'decapitate' is not only because TheWest just CAN'T do it (history demonstrates this), it's because it's stupid to try it unless your enemy is incapable of retaliation.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd support limted use of DDT for bedbug control, however, using DDT is probably futile.
Like all pesticides, the bugs they're used against become resistant to them.
Google it yourself or check out:
http://www.panna.org/blog/DDT-for-bedbugs
Best,
--PM
I moderate up posts I disagree with simply if I think they make a good argument or provoke interesting discussion. After all, if you see what you think is a wrong point of view, it's useful to everyone for follow-up counter-arguments to be posted. I've even moderated up both sides of an argument just because it's a good argument.
In particular, I've moderated up a lot of posts citing objections against nuclear power even though I think nuclear power is our best CO2-minimal energy source for baseline load.
I also DO NOT moderate up posts I agree with simply because I agree with them. Many posts I agree with are redundant, insipid, or poorly stated.
I don't think I hand out negative moderation points much at all, but I admit I can't recall even a single case where I downmoderated a post I agreed with, so I have that much bias at least.
--PM
How about my screwed up shoulder from weightlifting, that I'm currently undergoing physical therapy for?
The physical therapist explained that my issue is usually caused by too much repetitive motion with the arms raised.
So, yes, increased wear and tear.
You can dismiss my firsthand account as anecdotal if you like, but there's also the inference I make from what the PT told me: "your issue is caused, like in other cases, by too much repetitive motion with the arms raised."
--PM
--PeterM
I mean, that's what *I* would want to be if I wanted to move between the stars. Don't like the long travel time? Just turn off except for just enough self-repair to keep things in working order for when something interesting is going to happen.
Potentially infinite lifespan, or as long as the universe lasts. Just replace parts, upgrade yourself.
Create backup copies of yourself.
Modest energy and resource needs (depending on your hardware implementation.) High radiation and temperature range tolerance, potentially.
For all we know, the cold outer planets/moons might be crawling with mechanicals observing us, taking advantage of the cool temperatures to keep their brains going at high speed and holding heat-driven entropy at bay.
Funny, your mention of risotto made me recall a beetle risotto that I made and ate once.
I'd made the risotto, and then I looked at the rice I made it from (there was some I hadn't used) and there were plenty of little beetles in it.
I decided I was damned if I was going to let my neuroses force me to waste so much effort. So I ate it.
Tasted fine. No ill effects.
Yes, but can you buy all of that stuff in really large quantities without making people suspicious? And I doubt any of them are really as simple+effective+safe as your nitrogen-based explosives.
--PM
If no plant needs nitrogen fertilizer, does this mean that we can stop producing ammonium nitrate and other nitrates in huge quantities, many of which can be used to make explosives?
Does this mean we could realistically reduce the availability of now-common bomb-making materials?
--PeterM
Plants need phosphorous almost as much as they need nitrogen. Currently, we're using mined sources of phosphorous as fertilizer--and there is a finite supply of really good phosphorous sources.
Potassium (the third major plant nutrient) we can extract from seawater without any problems, but the seawater concentration of phosphorous is much lower.
So what do we do about phosphorous?
--PeterM
And that government in turn gives the people who elected it more dollars. It's led to an instability, I hope it doesn't lead to catastrophe.
--PM
One of the first things I did with my android smartphone was plug in a USB keyboard and mouse and wonder why they didn't "just work".
Re: sapphire: sapphire is one of the hardest materials there is, I think you could scratch the heck out of 'gorilla glass' with it. Just looked it up, gorilla glass has a "Vickers" hardness of 701 (max) vs. sapphire, at 2300.
That said, sapphire is more brittle and crack-prone, however. Apparently gorilla glass is treated to stop crack propagation. It's quite possible a hammer-blow that wouldn't damage gorilla glass would smash sapphire.
--PM
Hello,
An interesting point from the link you gave (thanks) is that if you're using molten salt, the graphite core (and the fuel) is isolated from oxygen by the salt anyway.
--PM
But the reduction in capital costs thanks to not having to contain 150 atmospheres of pressure might make it far more cost-efficient.
However, the carbon moderator core at over 600 C scares me. What if oxygen gets in there? Burning core, reminscent of Chernobyl. Very scary.
Can't they use something that won't burn for the moderator?
I'm trying to think of something, water makes a good moderator, but you can't use it at 600C without the pressure coming back to haunt you.
Lithium would probably eat too many neutrons..... And of course, it'll burn too.
Maybe the steam-moderated fast reactor that I read about is the way to go.
--PM
Well, I must say I'm really grateful to you for the perfect demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
This is it:
From Wikipedia, "The Dunningâ"Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average."
And you're an extremely illustrative case, because even though about four people told you that you were wrong (some more politely and some less), you PERSIST in your belief that E != 1/2 m v^2 (approximately).
I mean, we collectively didn't even manage to inject enough doubt into you that you'd take the trouble to look it up instead of continuing to support your mistaken position in public. Either you're a troll, or you're a REALLY textbook case of Dunning-Kruger.
As for your car, do you REALLY think that you use the same energy every second, continuously and linearly like you claim? I mean, don't you HEAR the engine rev up to higher RPM before it (or you) shifts gears down again? D'you know what that higher RPM means? It means more power (and power, for your information is defined as energy per time).
As for my calculation of some 500 billion times more energy required to accelerate to 1/2 light vs. 500mph, I showed my work, and you can find the basic equation I used on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy#Relativistic_kinetic_energy_of_rigid_bodies
Anyway, I'm going to see if I can preserve this thread as a case study in Dunning-Kruger (or perhaps internet trolling), though even if you are a troll, it's STILL a great demo of Dunning-Kruger.
--PeterM
OK, so I gave a crude, nonrelativistic calculation of how much energy increase would be required to accelerate from 500mph to 1/2 the speed of light.
I came up with a number, based on the nonrelativistic equation "E=1/2 m * v^2" and added the remark that my estimate was off because of my neglect of relativity.
I explicitly deny that "goes up v^2 because of friction" is true. Furthermore, the relativistic equation isn't even that hard. Let's start with this:
E_kinetic = m * (gamma-1) * c^2 where
gamma = 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)
For 1/2 speed of light, (gamma-1) = 0.1547.
For 500mph, (gamma-1) = 2.78 x 10^-13.
To compare the two, note that
E_kinetic(1/2 c) / E_kinetic(500mph) = (.1547/2.78x 10^-13)
which yields an energy ratio of 5.56 x 10^11.
So to increase "normal" transport speeds from 500mph to 1/2c, we only need to use 556 billion times more energy.
--PM
It took us 200 years to increase normal-ish transport speeds from 5mph to 500mph. (Though bulk transport is still more like 30mph.)
We've got a LOT of technology to develop if we want to increase normal-ish transport speeds from 500mph to 1/2 light speed.
It's just about a million times faster than current tech. Even if you assume we get 100x speedup every 200 years, that's another 600 years of tech, though of course I concede that development doesn't need to be 100x every 200 years.
Making this even worse is the fact that energy required (nonrelativistic) goes as v^2. So we need ~10^12 as much energy to move stuff at 1/2 light speed (actually worse due to the relativistic factor.)
Your confidence in technology is nice, but I for one find the numbers involved downright sobering.
--PM
I immediately recognized Burbank, so his fame is arguable.
--PM
Hello,
This person said he was having symptoms, namely, feeling the cold and being significantly tired. Having a messed up thyroid, even if not immediately fatal, is no fun at all.
I'm glad he got treatment and hope it helped.
--PM
>>- back in the day old people had the grace to die of diabetes or a heart attack, now they live until 90, but don't work the last 30 years of their lives, effectively eating the seed corn of the new generation.
If you're able and society needs you to work, then you should work, even in the last "30 years of your life" and even if you've done far more than provide for your own retirement.
Good human beings don't live solely for themselves--they also work to help others out.
However, I'm NOT in favor of the masses continuing to work all the way to death solely so that the 1% can pile more gold up onto their hoards.
--PM
You're kidding, right? If every single Chinaman had a rifle, and only a rifle, they couldn't hurt America, not all billion of them.
They couldn't even get here, not being able to walk from there to here.
In the same way, those armed with just small arms can't take on the US Military if the US Military is willing to engage in wholesale slaughter.
The people who don't control the technological military live and are free only because the technological military withholds its power, not because any amount of small arms enables them to fight back effectively.
--PM
Or if only the top .1% of people are sufficiently "creative" to be required in the role of "creative" work such that anyone would pay them?
For example, in entertainment, there used to be millions employed. Now, the top of the top entertain the whole planet, and there's no paying market AT ALL for anyone else.
And if only "creative" work exists, what do you do with all the people who aren't fit for that work? Disintegration booths? They won't be able to be paid to dig ditches anymore.
Also, what happens when there're jobs enough in the "creative" fields for 10% of the population, but 100% of the population wants those jobs? Those jobs won't pay much anymore. The people who own the robots will enslave everyone else.
--PM
When you talk about "paid well".
If there are very few jobs and a LOT of out-of-work people, market forces dictate that the price of labor will drop very low. Lots of supply, little demand.
So, in the situation you describe, it'll be like today, except worse. There's been massive degradation in the reward/hour worked ever since 1973 for everyone except CEOs and other 1%-ers. Imagine when there are 1000 qualified people for every job, and they're all starving. You could pay minimum wage and get someone with a PhD.
Just like the PhD's who're driving limousines in Silicon Valley.
When most jobs are automated, there will have to be MASSIVE government intervention in markets or most people will just starve to death for lack of any way to make money.
--PM
Lie? I remember hearing about something called "stop loss", where soldiers had to return to Iraq/Afghanistan even after their enlistment was up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy
--PM
Your point also applies to books that go out of print. If you can't get a copy, you're SOL.
Maybe laws should be passed putting all scientific papers in public escrow: if rapacious profiteering occurs or other market failure to provide copyrighted scientific works at a reasonable price, the Library of Congress makes it available online free.
I think $0.25 per page up to a maximum of $5 for an article is pretty reasonable, how about you?
--PM
You CAN make a big bomb with TNT, nuke sized even.
However, I do NOT think that you can fool US detection. I'm not familiar with the techniques used exactly, but don't you think the seismic signature of a nuke and a big conventional bomb would be very different? How about neutrino fluxes? Can't fake that with TNT. How about "the flash" (other than neutrinos), like long-wave EMP radiation that might make it through the ground, and maybe a trace of high energy stuff? How about residual radionucleotides that escape?
I don't think Government lying could even be done successfully--it's not just the US who has capability of analyzing seismic data to determine if it's nuke or not. I bet Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, and Israel could ALL do that too. If the US gov't tried to lie about it, they'd be caught out immediately.
NK has nukes. Period. Due to all the arguments above, I believe it is a fools bet to think otherwise. The news reports do say they're pretty lousy nukes, but they're nukes.
--PM
How long did it take the US to decapitate Al Qaeda? I mean, seriously, d'you think finding and destroying enemy heads of state is easy?
Saddam Hussein was NOT easy to find. He had his whole country to hide in--and he did. The US didn't get him until US had control of his country.
The US also missed Qaddafi--he stayed free until he lost control of his country too! NOTICE A PATTERN HERE?
US got lucky with Bin Laden--and Bin Laden didn't control Pakistan nor have control of a country's resources to help him hide.
And if US tries the same thing on NK's leaders, US not only face a high probability of failure, US faces almost certain nuclear retaliation, perhaps not against US, but against US interests at the least.
The reason US/TheWest don't routinely 'decapitate' is not only because TheWest just CAN'T do it (history demonstrates this), it's because it's stupid to try it unless your enemy is incapable of retaliation.
--PM