I think something that never seems to factor into discussions is that we could just change the way we do things: maybe the idea of "you have power whenever you want it" should be considered outdated, and we move to fit our use around the supply, rather than the other way around? Having said that, there are things like pointing solar panels west (instead of north/south towards the equator) that move the production curve closer to the demand curve (if taking a slight penalty in overall efficiency). Nuclear (or hydro, where possible) taking up the slack for wind and solar variability should work (nuclear plants don't step up and down particularly well, but should be enough for a large system).
But, why not just build to handle the variability? It's quite a significant change in how we do things, but seems sensible (even though big users like industry maybe wouldn't like being told when they can and can't run their machinery).
Then again, China might actually solve a big part of our energy problems (Thorium molten-salt reactors are a very, very good idea if we want to get away from fossil fuels). One thing about China's large, centrally-controlled government, is that if they choose to go in a particular direction, 1.3 billion people go in that direction, which no Western country can come close to - it just has to choose the right directions.
Really? I wouldn't be so sure: teh Wiki lists renewables as currently around the 20% mark for energy generation. So, if we can make a 5-fold increase on what we are already doing, we would meet all global energy requirements. That's not that big a stretch goal, and assumes we do nothing to reduce energy use (and there is a lot we can do to reduce energy use - e.g. smart heat recycling on metal smelting, to use your own example (most industries are starting to notice the benefits of these sort of energy-reduction changes). In the real world, global industry and transport are a long way from thermodynamic limits.
What isn't possible though is a continued pursuit of economic growth (a fundamentally-flawed concept that is the basis of most of our economic theory) and achieving 100% renewable energy, but that's a bit of a different discussion. There is a lot of scope for downsizing though.
Actually, wind is about middle of the field. Depending on which figures you take (this seems to be reasonably balanced), solar is the most expensive and either coal or nuclear (or on this graph hydro) are the cheapest. If you want to reduce environmental impact, nuclear is actually your best option in the short term, although we absolutely need to be pursuing renewables long-term.
But, calculating costs is tricky, because if you want a really balanced view, you need to factor in externalities (indirect or down-system effects), and this puts things like coal and other fossil fuels as horribly expensive, and wind, hydro, and nuclear come out on top.
So, depending on how much of it's effect you are measuring, wind actually can be cheaper. (I haven't even gone into subsidies).
I'm a recently-graduated civil engineer, who studied under someone who I think may be a world expert on green roofs, or close to it. No, most roofs are not designed to carry heavy equipment - most are designed around the idea of "it costs more to make it stronger, so don't do more than you need to." However, the load from a well-designed green roof doesn't need to be drastically greater: extensive green roofs (as opposed to intensive ones) are usually only 100-200 millimetres thick at most, and built with highly-porous, lightweight soil mixtures (e.g. pumice or expanded clay - think the clay equivalent of rice bubbles cereal for the latter). You do need to build a stronger roof, but not much stronger (green roof retrofits are possible on most existing buildings without too much extra strengthening).
Also: yay! Green roofs are awesome (they significantly reduce stormwater volume, especially peak flow, and somewhat reduce stormwater pollutants, reduce urban heat island effect and building air-conditioning requirements, prolong roof surface lifetimes, reduce air pollution...)
I think more people need to watch this. It puts the argument in really simple terms: either anthopogenic climate change is real, or it's not, and either we do something, or we don't. And the consequence of being right or wrong pretty much leave us with worst-case scenarios of: it's not real, we did something = we wasted some resources when we didn't need to, versus it is real and we did nothing = existential risk (i.e. civilisation collapse, or in layman's terms, we're screwed). Even if we're wrong (and that's in disagreement with most serious scientists), we're better to do something about it than not (and, as an aside, we're better to be reducing our environmental impacts anyway, so this is a good driver).
For reference: my position was climate change skeptic until I started talking to academics in the field and looking into the data myself. I don't think we've got the models perfect, far from it - climates are crazy-complex systems - but the data is pretty compelling.
Good point about the ozone layer. I live in New Zealand but have done a bit of travel. I could spend most of the day out in the sun in crazy-hot equatorial countries with little or no sunburn, but burn to a crisp in half an hour or so on a cloudy day here in the southern hemisphere. I haven't noticed sunburn as bad recently as back in around the 90s, but then I am a lot more mindful and careful now too.
Also, I think the GP misses the point that global civilisation-threatening risks (i.e. AGW) actually should outweigh localised risks - even if they're not entirely certain, because of the damage potential.
I do wonder if ridiculous amounts of VRAM may end up being useful in game engines that are currently only on the horizon - for example, Outerra's 1:1 scale planet engine renders mostly in GPU. One wonders too about RAM demand of something like Euclideon's "unlimited detail" engine (assuming it isn't vapourware). If we're moving to games that do more in the GPU, then maybe stupid amounts of VRAM might actually get used? Then again, I expect if that were to happen (using complex GPU-based world generators), the compute performance is going to matter too...
I can still remember when I couldn't understand how you'd ever fill a 2GB hard drive... (this was before video on computers was a serious thing, obviously). 12GB VRAM is just bonkers.
Californian accent doesn't have many vowels, when compared with a New Zealand accent.:-) I'm not even going to attempt to explain the differences in pure text, but it's basically that someone from California tends to have a fairly standard set of vowel sounds across words, whereas NZers' vowels are more heterogeneous. There are a couple of places (and sorry, I can't think of them off the top of my head - it was nearly a decade ago that I visited Cali) where I would use a couple of different vowel sounds and a Californian would use the same one (probably use of the letter "e"?). Someone commented once that I use two vowel sounds (one after the other in the same word) where they would use one (I didn't really understand what they meant at the time though). Intonation is much more varied here too I think (which might account for some of the difference) - sometimes Americans have commented that we always sound like we're asking a question because of the way we up-pitch at the end of a sentence.
I don't think anyone there ever got how to pronounce my first name correctly (though admittedly, I had trouble with the way "Claudia" was pronounced in Cali). A lot of American accents are slower, more "drawn out", and more even-toned than the rushed, poorly-enunciated, tonally variegated version used here.:-) Though, again, that's not across all - some American accents (one or two of the southern ones for example) feature much more "sing song" tonal variation than anything I hear in NZ (I actually love those kinds of accents - used to know a girl from South Carolina who could do several of them, and a couple really made me laugh).
You've obviously never had to do data-entry of any kind. Numpads are *much* faster, easier, and accurate if you've got a string of digits/basic calculations to enter in to something (spreadsheets... yay). Having used MS Excel more than I'd like, I would add an equals(=) button and brackets ( ) to it though (anyone know of a keyboard that does this? I remember the Amigas used to have brackets there, which is something I miss).
But, what I do agree with you on is that it's in the wrong place. I would like a keyboard with a detachable numeric keypad, so that I can have it in the standard (right) side, separated off by itself (I thought that just north of where my mouse is would be the ideal place), or even on the left (though I'd have to re-learn the muscle memory with my left hand). This gives the best of both: close access to the mouse, and the efficiency gain of having a numpad (or, potentially, you just disconnect it and store it when not needed).
I thought this article is a really good outline on mechanical keyboards (at least the Cherry MX ones). Mechanical switches don't have to be loud and heavily tactile; something like a Cherry MX Red or Cherry MX Brown is probably well worth you looking at (I'd buy a Brown if/when I have spare funds). You can also get dampeners to make them even quieter. But, even if you choose a switch type, you still have a lot of choices. I would suggest making a list of what you want (as "critical", "want", "might be nice", "don't care", "no way!") - a few ideas:
Media buttons?
Backlighting? Brightness options? Specific keys only (e.g. WASD)? Colours?
Numeric keypad?
Preferred layout style (lots of subtle variations here, more than you would expect, and unless you're used to it, can get really annoying - I have a work laptop that doesn't have the Windows "menu" key on it anywhere - and it's quite a surprise how annoying that is).
Keypress depth of travel/keypress force required (you'd probably have to go into a store and experiment to work these out)
Slope.
Extra features (e.g. alternative key sets, programmable macros, application-specific macros, extra buttons)
You could always go nuts and get something like the "Ultimate Hacking Keyboard"! (Worth looking at just to get an idea of some of the more creative ideas in keyboard design).
I saw your speculation and raised you a further speculation!;-)
But, to actually answer that, I don't think anyone regrets they language learn, as that's what they consider "normal" - unless it causes problems later. I expect they will think the Australian accent is normal, and that American, British, or other accents are a bit strange. I've heard some rather odd (and occasionally amusing) American accents (and yes, some awful Australian ones too).
Most people, whether they realise it or not, have a bias to think that their accent is the "normal" one, and everything else a variant off that. I had to spend quite a number of months overseas before I could recognise what a New Zealand accent sounds like, and why anyone thought it was strange. Since then, I have noticed this common tendency for everyone to consider their own as a baseline, when in reality there is no "normal" or "default" or "unaltered" accent - everyone does it, very few seem to be aware that they do.
I have always been curious to know what an "averaged" accent would sound like though - take away all of the extremes of the various regional versions of English and any obvious variant sounds (so don't use vowels like Australians or New Zealanders - we mangle them in some quite creative ways - but conversely, don't go the other way and sound like a Californian - who seem to only have about 3 vowel sounds). And then try to pick the most intermediate way to say things. I expect you would end up with something that sounds foreign to everyone, though familiar in places. I'd love to hear someone try - and then use this more "neutral" accent for computer voices, instead of what we get now, which is usually a pretty terrible, severely localised version of whatever it is trying to be (although, I haven't ever come across a "New Zealand" accent option on text-to-speech software, so can't compare it easily to my own baseline to know how extreme they are to a native ear).
Quite possibly not, when (apart from the accent and a few very odd localisations - and this is from a New Zealander, though we have our own weird idioms too) Australian English is pretty similar to British ["proper", haha] English. In fact, I think places like Australia and New Zealand have an advantage internationally, in that we take the British stance on most language, but much of our media comes from America, making transitions between the various word-use-dialects easier. This is not an advantage that Americans have though, as American mono-culturalism means that (like the GP) you have no idea that your understanding of a word isn't the only option. I would use the words "rubber" and "eraser" interchangeably (though I am quite aware of the "alternative" meaning for "rubber", which would make we quickly correct if I got a perplexed look from a co-worker - although this isn't something I'd expect from a non-native speaker).
So, conversely, I could ask whether you regret having learned "American" instead of "English".;-)
This is exactly the problem: yes, living languages are subject to change, yes, prescriptivists will always look quaint when viewed later, but there is the point that language is syntax to convey meaning. If you don't have common, comprehensible syntax, you by definition cannot have comprehensible communication (try and read poor Engrish or some people's txt speak and tell me if you can get unambiguous meaning out of it). It's a bigger problem, I think, with written rather than spoken language, as you can always ask for clarification when having a conversation (not so with uni-directional speech such as speeches or television though). There is a reason that lawyers are pedantic with grammar in contracts: when errors in meaning have significant monetary impacts, you need a very tight definition.
As noted by the parent, programmers must be extremely precise with their syntax, because computers cannot "guess" (my exposure to software development is also one of the reasons why I tend to be a grammar pedant - especially with punctuation). If you need precision, you need clearly-defined rules; sure, "free-form" grammar and spelling are fine where meaning isn't important (social chatting for example), but not when meaning really matters (academic paper style guides enforce particular rules - it's arguable whether there are the "most correct" forms, but it gives a consistency that ensures clear communication of meaning).
As an aside, seeing as verbal communication with machines is on the rise, is verbal precision going to take on more importance just to get computers to understand us, or will computers be trained specifically to deal with our messy linguistic ambiguities?
You're correct. I was only putting that in as an example, but such things do tend to more follow an S-curve than a pure exponential - though often the steep part of the S-curve is still quite a bit bigger than we would first expect. There's the efficiency paradox too - we tend to be more wasteful when something (energy) is abundant (rising energy cost might be part of why developed nations have plateaued). Peak energy is a very real prospect (maybe not until the other end of the century though), but we are in for some serious wake-up calls before then, as I think we'll have exhausted fossil and easily-extractable uranium well before that point.
Prof Al Bartlett might disagree with you. While supplies at current rates give us probably something approaching your 100,000-year figure (this was the best I could find with a quick search, and about backs that up), that's assuming current rates of use. If our usage increases exponentially (we have always done this in the past with energy), then that 100k years, at a 10% growth rate per annum (probably a bit big, but gets the point across), drops to less than 144 years. We don't often understand exponentials.
A smart move is to position solar panels (for a northern-hemisphere use) facing West, not South. This gives less output overall, but it's peak is much more closely-aligned with peak demand.
All of our power generation will involve adding heat to the overall (global) system - it's basic thermodynamics. Nuclear is probably the biggest "exotic-source" heat (heat that wouldn't enter the system normally on those timescales)... unless you count fossil fuels of course: those add gigantic amount of heat. Arguably, solar might slightly reduce localised heat, due to some of the solar energy being transferred off in a different form.
It is a question I have wondered about though: if we had a magic, free, abundant energy source*, we could solve nearly all of our current problems**, but eventually we would end up with global heat issues as we're adding more energy to the system. No solution is perfect.
Also, you're slightly wrong with the 0.1 degree change being the difference between water boiling or not: while that is technically true, the 0.1 degree from 99.95 to 100.05 is actually a LOT of energy (latent heat of vaporisation).
*Protip: such an energy source is never going to happen. Always be skeptical of someone who says they know how.
Exactly that. I think the argument is best put by this video. (TL;DR: either climate change is real or it's not, and either we do something to stop it or we don't; the consequences of getting our reaction wrong are far, far worse if climate change is real and we do nothing than if it's not and we do something. But go watch the video, it's much more eloquent).
I think the recent trend to try and move away from nuclear is a reactionary thing, due to what happened in Fukushima - so, in a way it's understandable. However, you rightly point out that it's an irrational move, because coal kills many more people than nuclear. It's just not as quick and spectacular. The only two big nuclear disasters we had (Chernobyl and Fukushima) were because of pretty fundamental design flaws - in the Japanese case, compare Fukushima with Okinawa; it all came down to looking at past recorded tsunami wave heights in the area and building an appropriate-height wall (the engineer who pushed for that in Okinawa is a hero).
Actual numbers are here (and many other places): coal = 15-100 deaths per TWh, nuclear = 0.04 deaths per TWh (lower even than hydro, wind, or solar).
As much as I don't like to say it (I'm from New Zealand, which is famously anti-nuclear), nuclear is probably the best option (by almost every metric) we have until we can get large-scale solar going - which is probably still decades away. What we should be doing though is looking at safer nuclear, like pebble bed reactors, using fast breeders not light water reactors (less waste*), and probably thorium (thorium molten-salt reactors could be one of the safest and cleanest options available) - and replacing and upgrading old, dangerous reactors (but no one wants to build new ones, so we have to keep the old unsafe ones going...)
I do wonder though: how much is people being irrational, and how much is people being uninformed? The media makes a big deal about nuclear power risks, but I would hazard that most people wouldn't have a clue about the actual numbers. How much different would public opinion be if everyone knew the truth? (I know, not much different... sigh).
* Yeah, I know, breeders are more weaponisable too...
"The Christ myth theory is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed... This theory has very little support among scholars."
The Wikipedia article that quote is from gives a lot more sources. The only people I have ever heard say they don't believe Jesus was a real person are those who don't want him to have existed - never from anyone who has actually studied the subject. You can debate what he did and said, but trying to say he didn't exist shows you haven't studied near-East first century history at all.
And, as is often the case with online debates, both you and the person you are refuting are only partly right (I would argue that the GP, while not very politically-correct, is probably more right). I lived in (East) Africa for almost a year, and have had an interest in learning about cultural differences. Effectively, what this boils down to is whether the culture in question has respect for the rule of law, and in general, a lot of Africa doesn't. You could argue quite effectively that a lack of "respect for the rule of law" is just a "different" culture and not "wrong", but... look at the effects. Western culture developed certain "structures" over the long time periods it took us to develop technologically (a lot of it starting with the Renaissance and, interestingly, the Protestant Reformation). What we see now though are a lot of other cultures which never developed the supporting cultural constructs that make the Western systems work suddenly having access to the end products. Ideas like the importance of honest business dealings just don't exist - you say what you think the other person wants to hear (and considering most of our market system is based on capitalism, I'm sure you can see some of the problems that arise).
Is a culture that says you obey the traffic signals, even when not immediately beneficial to yourself, because it maintains order "better" than one that goes ahead and tries to maximise individual gain, ignoring the rules? It's very hard to argue against the former being objectively better - and certainly not when given the context of tools and systems developed with the former culture as an assumed base. To use an overly-simplistic example, it's like giving matches to children without first teaching them fire safety - if you want the tool, learn the rules, otherwise someone is going to get hurt.
Is it cultural imperialism to expect that cultures in other places should take on our value set? I don't know, but if they want to participate in the benefits of our systems, I don't think it is. The other option of course would be for a culture to develop their own set of systems, rules, and culture around how they want to operate - but that would also mean the tools and systems would look different. (And it won't necessarily be compatible internationally). Maybe though, that's exactly what we are seeing here - something that would get laughed at in the West actually being effective in Africa because of the different perceptions of abstract rules vs a person.
Also, one very slight correction to your final statement: it should read "That doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong." It doesn't mean they're right, either. It's political correctness insanity to say that we should respect a culture on points where it is actually destructive (and I would argue that "respect for the rule of law" is one of these).
You are however correct in saying that most of us don't know why a culture does what it does. Having read a bit about the subject, some of the fundamental assumptions can be so different that we almost cannot understand them (or how those assumptions shape their view on the world), even when they're explained.
The person using a laser weapon would be wearing something to protect their eyes against the specific wavelength of the laser. If they weren't, then they're too stupid to deserve to keep their eyes. As noted elsewhere though, bystanders and burns are a little harder to deal with (though, if you're picking your targets right, if you get a stray reflection back to where you're standing, it should be diffuse enough to be little more than sunlight, or perhaps very minor skin burns - seeing as we would be talking about extremely short exposure times before it toasted the reflective surface). If you happened to walk in front of the beam however...
It is interesting seeing how even with an educated audience (ok, making assumptions about/. here...;-), there is still little understanding about the actual technical aspects and limitations of real laser technology -/. seems more informed by sci-fi than by science (not necessarily your comment, but this discussion in general). No, mirrors aren't going to work. No, we can't carry around a handgun-sized laser with current energy storage tech. Yes, it's going to cause partial blindness to anyone nearby, but no, it's not going to set everything around it on fire due to scattering.
This is a good read for anyone interested in the science side of laser weapons: Atomic Rockets - Sidearms.
Slashdot Mirror
I think something that never seems to factor into discussions is that we could just change the way we do things: maybe the idea of "you have power whenever you want it" should be considered outdated, and we move to fit our use around the supply, rather than the other way around? Having said that, there are things like pointing solar panels west (instead of north/south towards the equator) that move the production curve closer to the demand curve (if taking a slight penalty in overall efficiency). Nuclear (or hydro, where possible) taking up the slack for wind and solar variability should work (nuclear plants don't step up and down particularly well, but should be enough for a large system).
But, why not just build to handle the variability? It's quite a significant change in how we do things, but seems sensible (even though big users like industry maybe wouldn't like being told when they can and can't run their machinery).
Then again, China might actually solve a big part of our energy problems (Thorium molten-salt reactors are a very, very good idea if we want to get away from fossil fuels). One thing about China's large, centrally-controlled government, is that if they choose to go in a particular direction, 1.3 billion people go in that direction, which no Western country can come close to - it just has to choose the right directions.
Really? I wouldn't be so sure: teh Wiki lists renewables as currently around the 20% mark for energy generation. So, if we can make a 5-fold increase on what we are already doing, we would meet all global energy requirements. That's not that big a stretch goal, and assumes we do nothing to reduce energy use (and there is a lot we can do to reduce energy use - e.g. smart heat recycling on metal smelting, to use your own example (most industries are starting to notice the benefits of these sort of energy-reduction changes). In the real world, global industry and transport are a long way from thermodynamic limits.
What isn't possible though is a continued pursuit of economic growth (a fundamentally-flawed concept that is the basis of most of our economic theory) and achieving 100% renewable energy, but that's a bit of a different discussion. There is a lot of scope for downsizing though.
And, there are renewables we haven't even started on, such as ocean thermal gradients.
Actually, wind is about middle of the field. Depending on which figures you take (this seems to be reasonably balanced), solar is the most expensive and either coal or nuclear (or on this graph hydro) are the cheapest. If you want to reduce environmental impact, nuclear is actually your best option in the short term, although we absolutely need to be pursuing renewables long-term.
But, calculating costs is tricky, because if you want a really balanced view, you need to factor in externalities (indirect or down-system effects), and this puts things like coal and other fossil fuels as horribly expensive, and wind, hydro, and nuclear come out on top.
So, depending on how much of it's effect you are measuring, wind actually can be cheaper. (I haven't even gone into subsidies).
I'm a recently-graduated civil engineer, who studied under someone who I think may be a world expert on green roofs, or close to it. No, most roofs are not designed to carry heavy equipment - most are designed around the idea of "it costs more to make it stronger, so don't do more than you need to." However, the load from a well-designed green roof doesn't need to be drastically greater: extensive green roofs (as opposed to intensive ones) are usually only 100-200 millimetres thick at most, and built with highly-porous, lightweight soil mixtures (e.g. pumice or expanded clay - think the clay equivalent of rice bubbles cereal for the latter). You do need to build a stronger roof, but not much stronger (green roof retrofits are possible on most existing buildings without too much extra strengthening).
Also: yay! Green roofs are awesome (they significantly reduce stormwater volume, especially peak flow, and somewhat reduce stormwater pollutants, reduce urban heat island effect and building air-conditioning requirements, prolong roof surface lifetimes, reduce air pollution...)
I think more people need to watch this. It puts the argument in really simple terms: either anthopogenic climate change is real, or it's not, and either we do something, or we don't. And the consequence of being right or wrong pretty much leave us with worst-case scenarios of: it's not real, we did something = we wasted some resources when we didn't need to, versus it is real and we did nothing = existential risk (i.e. civilisation collapse, or in layman's terms, we're screwed). Even if we're wrong (and that's in disagreement with most serious scientists), we're better to do something about it than not (and, as an aside, we're better to be reducing our environmental impacts anyway, so this is a good driver).
For reference: my position was climate change skeptic until I started talking to academics in the field and looking into the data myself. I don't think we've got the models perfect, far from it - climates are crazy-complex systems - but the data is pretty compelling.
Good point about the ozone layer. I live in New Zealand but have done a bit of travel. I could spend most of the day out in the sun in crazy-hot equatorial countries with little or no sunburn, but burn to a crisp in half an hour or so on a cloudy day here in the southern hemisphere. I haven't noticed sunburn as bad recently as back in around the 90s, but then I am a lot more mindful and careful now too.
Also, I think the GP misses the point that global civilisation-threatening risks (i.e. AGW) actually should outweigh localised risks - even if they're not entirely certain, because of the damage potential.
I do wonder if ridiculous amounts of VRAM may end up being useful in game engines that are currently only on the horizon - for example, Outerra's 1:1 scale planet engine renders mostly in GPU. One wonders too about RAM demand of something like Euclideon's "unlimited detail" engine (assuming it isn't vapourware). If we're moving to games that do more in the GPU, then maybe stupid amounts of VRAM might actually get used? Then again, I expect if that were to happen (using complex GPU-based world generators), the compute performance is going to matter too...
I can still remember when I couldn't understand how you'd ever fill a 2GB hard drive... (this was before video on computers was a serious thing, obviously). 12GB VRAM is just bonkers.
Californian accent doesn't have many vowels, when compared with a New Zealand accent. :-) I'm not even going to attempt to explain the differences in pure text, but it's basically that someone from California tends to have a fairly standard set of vowel sounds across words, whereas NZers' vowels are more heterogeneous. There are a couple of places (and sorry, I can't think of them off the top of my head - it was nearly a decade ago that I visited Cali) where I would use a couple of different vowel sounds and a Californian would use the same one (probably use of the letter "e"?). Someone commented once that I use two vowel sounds (one after the other in the same word) where they would use one (I didn't really understand what they meant at the time though). Intonation is much more varied here too I think (which might account for some of the difference) - sometimes Americans have commented that we always sound like we're asking a question because of the way we up-pitch at the end of a sentence.
I don't think anyone there ever got how to pronounce my first name correctly (though admittedly, I had trouble with the way "Claudia" was pronounced in Cali). A lot of American accents are slower, more "drawn out", and more even-toned than the rushed, poorly-enunciated, tonally variegated version used here. :-) Though, again, that's not across all - some American accents (one or two of the southern ones for example) feature much more "sing song" tonal variation than anything I hear in NZ (I actually love those kinds of accents - used to know a girl from South Carolina who could do several of them, and a couple really made me laugh).
You've obviously never had to do data-entry of any kind. Numpads are *much* faster, easier, and accurate if you've got a string of digits/basic calculations to enter in to something (spreadsheets... yay). Having used MS Excel more than I'd like, I would add an equals(=) button and brackets ( ) to it though (anyone know of a keyboard that does this? I remember the Amigas used to have brackets there, which is something I miss).
But, what I do agree with you on is that it's in the wrong place. I would like a keyboard with a detachable numeric keypad, so that I can have it in the standard (right) side, separated off by itself (I thought that just north of where my mouse is would be the ideal place), or even on the left (though I'd have to re-learn the muscle memory with my left hand). This gives the best of both: close access to the mouse, and the efficiency gain of having a numpad (or, potentially, you just disconnect it and store it when not needed).
I thought this article is a really good outline on mechanical keyboards (at least the Cherry MX ones). Mechanical switches don't have to be loud and heavily tactile; something like a Cherry MX Red or Cherry MX Brown is probably well worth you looking at (I'd buy a Brown if/when I have spare funds). You can also get dampeners to make them even quieter. But, even if you choose a switch type, you still have a lot of choices. I would suggest making a list of what you want (as "critical", "want", "might be nice", "don't care", "no way!") - a few ideas:
You could always go nuts and get something like the "Ultimate Hacking Keyboard"! (Worth looking at just to get an idea of some of the more creative ideas in keyboard design).
I saw your speculation and raised you a further speculation! ;-)
But, to actually answer that, I don't think anyone regrets they language learn, as that's what they consider "normal" - unless it causes problems later. I expect they will think the Australian accent is normal, and that American, British, or other accents are a bit strange. I've heard some rather odd (and occasionally amusing) American accents (and yes, some awful Australian ones too).
Most people, whether they realise it or not, have a bias to think that their accent is the "normal" one, and everything else a variant off that. I had to spend quite a number of months overseas before I could recognise what a New Zealand accent sounds like, and why anyone thought it was strange. Since then, I have noticed this common tendency for everyone to consider their own as a baseline, when in reality there is no "normal" or "default" or "unaltered" accent - everyone does it, very few seem to be aware that they do.
I have always been curious to know what an "averaged" accent would sound like though - take away all of the extremes of the various regional versions of English and any obvious variant sounds (so don't use vowels like Australians or New Zealanders - we mangle them in some quite creative ways - but conversely, don't go the other way and sound like a Californian - who seem to only have about 3 vowel sounds). And then try to pick the most intermediate way to say things. I expect you would end up with something that sounds foreign to everyone, though familiar in places. I'd love to hear someone try - and then use this more "neutral" accent for computer voices, instead of what we get now, which is usually a pretty terrible, severely localised version of whatever it is trying to be (although, I haven't ever come across a "New Zealand" accent option on text-to-speech software, so can't compare it easily to my own baseline to know how extreme they are to a native ear).
Quite possibly not, when (apart from the accent and a few very odd localisations - and this is from a New Zealander, though we have our own weird idioms too) Australian English is pretty similar to British ["proper", haha] English. In fact, I think places like Australia and New Zealand have an advantage internationally, in that we take the British stance on most language, but much of our media comes from America, making transitions between the various word-use-dialects easier. This is not an advantage that Americans have though, as American mono-culturalism means that (like the GP) you have no idea that your understanding of a word isn't the only option. I would use the words "rubber" and "eraser" interchangeably (though I am quite aware of the "alternative" meaning for "rubber", which would make we quickly correct if I got a perplexed look from a co-worker - although this isn't something I'd expect from a non-native speaker).
So, conversely, I could ask whether you regret having learned "American" instead of "English". ;-)
This is Slashdot. Posting without reading the article is almost required etiquette, is it not? ;-)
(Just realised my comment comes out so much better if the first sentence is read like the line "This. is. Sparta!" from the movie 300).
This is exactly the problem: yes, living languages are subject to change, yes, prescriptivists will always look quaint when viewed later, but there is the point that language is syntax to convey meaning. If you don't have common, comprehensible syntax, you by definition cannot have comprehensible communication (try and read poor Engrish or some people's txt speak and tell me if you can get unambiguous meaning out of it). It's a bigger problem, I think, with written rather than spoken language, as you can always ask for clarification when having a conversation (not so with uni-directional speech such as speeches or television though). There is a reason that lawyers are pedantic with grammar in contracts: when errors in meaning have significant monetary impacts, you need a very tight definition.
As noted by the parent, programmers must be extremely precise with their syntax, because computers cannot "guess" (my exposure to software development is also one of the reasons why I tend to be a grammar pedant - especially with punctuation). If you need precision, you need clearly-defined rules; sure, "free-form" grammar and spelling are fine where meaning isn't important (social chatting for example), but not when meaning really matters (academic paper style guides enforce particular rules - it's arguable whether there are the "most correct" forms, but it gives a consistency that ensures clear communication of meaning).
As an aside, seeing as verbal communication with machines is on the rise, is verbal precision going to take on more importance just to get computers to understand us, or will computers be trained specifically to deal with our messy linguistic ambiguities?
You're correct. I was only putting that in as an example, but such things do tend to more follow an S-curve than a pure exponential - though often the steep part of the S-curve is still quite a bit bigger than we would first expect. There's the efficiency paradox too - we tend to be more wasteful when something (energy) is abundant (rising energy cost might be part of why developed nations have plateaued). Peak energy is a very real prospect (maybe not until the other end of the century though), but we are in for some serious wake-up calls before then, as I think we'll have exhausted fossil and easily-extractable uranium well before that point.
Prof Al Bartlett might disagree with you. While supplies at current rates give us probably something approaching your 100,000-year figure (this was the best I could find with a quick search, and about backs that up), that's assuming current rates of use. If our usage increases exponentially (we have always done this in the past with energy), then that 100k years, at a 10% growth rate per annum (probably a bit big, but gets the point across), drops to less than 144 years. We don't often understand exponentials.
A smart move is to position solar panels (for a northern-hemisphere use) facing West, not South. This gives less output overall, but it's peak is much more closely-aligned with peak demand.
All of our power generation will involve adding heat to the overall (global) system - it's basic thermodynamics. Nuclear is probably the biggest "exotic-source" heat (heat that wouldn't enter the system normally on those timescales)... unless you count fossil fuels of course: those add gigantic amount of heat. Arguably, solar might slightly reduce localised heat, due to some of the solar energy being transferred off in a different form.
It is a question I have wondered about though: if we had a magic, free, abundant energy source*, we could solve nearly all of our current problems**, but eventually we would end up with global heat issues as we're adding more energy to the system. No solution is perfect.
Also, you're slightly wrong with the 0.1 degree change being the difference between water boiling or not: while that is technically true, the 0.1 degree from 99.95 to 100.05 is actually a LOT of energy (latent heat of vaporisation).
*Protip: such an energy source is never going to happen. Always be skeptical of someone who says they know how.
**Clean water: check, wastewater treatment: check, waste reduction: check, wars over location-specific resources (water, energy): check...
Exactly that. I think the argument is best put by this video. (TL;DR: either climate change is real or it's not, and either we do something to stop it or we don't; the consequences of getting our reaction wrong are far, far worse if climate change is real and we do nothing than if it's not and we do something. But go watch the video, it's much more eloquent).
I think the recent trend to try and move away from nuclear is a reactionary thing, due to what happened in Fukushima - so, in a way it's understandable. However, you rightly point out that it's an irrational move, because coal kills many more people than nuclear. It's just not as quick and spectacular. The only two big nuclear disasters we had (Chernobyl and Fukushima) were because of pretty fundamental design flaws - in the Japanese case, compare Fukushima with Okinawa; it all came down to looking at past recorded tsunami wave heights in the area and building an appropriate-height wall (the engineer who pushed for that in Okinawa is a hero).
Actual numbers are here (and many other places): coal = 15-100 deaths per TWh, nuclear = 0.04 deaths per TWh (lower even than hydro, wind, or solar).
As much as I don't like to say it (I'm from New Zealand, which is famously anti-nuclear), nuclear is probably the best option (by almost every metric) we have until we can get large-scale solar going - which is probably still decades away. What we should be doing though is looking at safer nuclear, like pebble bed reactors, using fast breeders not light water reactors (less waste*), and probably thorium (thorium molten-salt reactors could be one of the safest and cleanest options available) - and replacing and upgrading old, dangerous reactors (but no one wants to build new ones, so we have to keep the old unsafe ones going...)
I do wonder though: how much is people being irrational, and how much is people being uninformed? The media makes a big deal about nuclear power risks, but I would hazard that most people wouldn't have a clue about the actual numbers. How much different would public opinion be if everyone knew the truth? (I know, not much different... sigh).
* Yeah, I know, breeders are more weaponisable too...
Looks like you're just going to have to get over that loss... :-p
I'm just going to leave this here:
"The Christ myth theory is the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth never existed... This theory has very little support among scholars."
The Wikipedia article that quote is from gives a lot more sources. The only people I have ever heard say they don't believe Jesus was a real person are those who don't want him to have existed - never from anyone who has actually studied the subject. You can debate what he did and said, but trying to say he didn't exist shows you haven't studied near-East first century history at all.
And, as is often the case with online debates, both you and the person you are refuting are only partly right (I would argue that the GP, while not very politically-correct, is probably more right). I lived in (East) Africa for almost a year, and have had an interest in learning about cultural differences. Effectively, what this boils down to is whether the culture in question has respect for the rule of law, and in general, a lot of Africa doesn't. You could argue quite effectively that a lack of "respect for the rule of law" is just a "different" culture and not "wrong", but... look at the effects. Western culture developed certain "structures" over the long time periods it took us to develop technologically (a lot of it starting with the Renaissance and, interestingly, the Protestant Reformation). What we see now though are a lot of other cultures which never developed the supporting cultural constructs that make the Western systems work suddenly having access to the end products. Ideas like the importance of honest business dealings just don't exist - you say what you think the other person wants to hear (and considering most of our market system is based on capitalism, I'm sure you can see some of the problems that arise).
Is a culture that says you obey the traffic signals, even when not immediately beneficial to yourself, because it maintains order "better" than one that goes ahead and tries to maximise individual gain, ignoring the rules? It's very hard to argue against the former being objectively better - and certainly not when given the context of tools and systems developed with the former culture as an assumed base. To use an overly-simplistic example, it's like giving matches to children without first teaching them fire safety - if you want the tool, learn the rules, otherwise someone is going to get hurt.
Is it cultural imperialism to expect that cultures in other places should take on our value set? I don't know, but if they want to participate in the benefits of our systems, I don't think it is. The other option of course would be for a culture to develop their own set of systems, rules, and culture around how they want to operate - but that would also mean the tools and systems would look different. (And it won't necessarily be compatible internationally). Maybe though, that's exactly what we are seeing here - something that would get laughed at in the West actually being effective in Africa because of the different perceptions of abstract rules vs a person.
Also, one very slight correction to your final statement: it should read "That doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong." It doesn't mean they're right, either. It's political correctness insanity to say that we should respect a culture on points where it is actually destructive (and I would argue that "respect for the rule of law" is one of these).
You are however correct in saying that most of us don't know why a culture does what it does. Having read a bit about the subject, some of the fundamental assumptions can be so different that we almost cannot understand them (or how those assumptions shape their view on the world), even when they're explained.
The person using a laser weapon would be wearing something to protect their eyes against the specific wavelength of the laser. If they weren't, then they're too stupid to deserve to keep their eyes. As noted elsewhere though, bystanders and burns are a little harder to deal with (though, if you're picking your targets right, if you get a stray reflection back to where you're standing, it should be diffuse enough to be little more than sunlight, or perhaps very minor skin burns - seeing as we would be talking about extremely short exposure times before it toasted the reflective surface). If you happened to walk in front of the beam however...
It is interesting seeing how even with an educated audience (ok, making assumptions about /. here... ;-), there is still little understanding about the actual technical aspects and limitations of real laser technology - /. seems more informed by sci-fi than by science (not necessarily your comment, but this discussion in general). No, mirrors aren't going to work. No, we can't carry around a handgun-sized laser with current energy storage tech. Yes, it's going to cause partial blindness to anyone nearby, but no, it's not going to set everything around it on fire due to scattering.
This is a good read for anyone interested in the science side of laser weapons: Atomic Rockets - Sidearms.