George W. should've put those billions we sunk into the war into this project instead. We could've gotten out of the Middle East, and we be much more secure politically and economically. Instead, we threw all of those billions down the toilet, with a less stable Middle East that likes us a lot less, and a rickety economy.
NASA needs outside competition. Otherwise, they just devolve to being a big pork-barrel project for Houston Texas and defense contractors. Outside competition got us to the moon. Maybe it will get us to Mars and Jupiter?
Japan has an entirely separate comics culture for females. That makes a lot more sense than making superhero comics more woman-friendly.
Truth be told, Manga's diversity is just huge, and shows how paltry comic culture is in the west. There are popular comics about baseball, mountain climbing, boxing, surrealism, relationships, historical fiction, art,... it goes on an on. Such things exist here, but they are little paltry niche items. Those things exist in Japan with commercial distribution and real readership levels.
In Charles Stross' book Glasshouse, the early 21st century is considered by the future one of the "Dark Ages" because of our use of proprietary formats and ephemeral storage media.
I drive a 1995 Mercedes E300 usually using B100 biodiesel. (Though I put a couple of gallons of ultra-low sulfur diesel into the tank last week because the temperature got down to the gel-point of B100 last weekend.) The guy who runs Houston Biodiesel claims a 78% reduction in net carbon footprint.
I bought a Sony Reader for cheap ($50) by buying rewards points from my Sony Visa card account. I did this so that I could use the Sony Reader as a portable tunebook. Guess what? My iPhone is actually better for that purpose! The multi-touch interface, with it's very handy zoom feature makes it better than my Sony Reader. I can quickly zoom in to the tune I need to refresh in my memory. Also, I can just put PDF files in my Box.net account and browse them. With the Sony Reader, I have to format the PDF especially for the Reader, since the zoom is very unwieldy. The slow refresh rate of the e-ink screen just kills interactivity. It would be fine for reading a novel, though.
My point is that the iPhone is surprisingly good as a reader!
The North American Anime distribution companies have been using Bittorrent distribution of fansubs to tell how popular new shows are for years now. The thing is, is that it works very well. The popularity of the fan subbed version either means that there is a strong niche/cult following, or that it will have strong widespread popularity.
The Pelamis wave energy machine folks address the question of effect. Wave energy is reduced. An island, a breakwater, and various irregularities of the ocean bottom have similar effects.
Pelamis is a cool design. It uses commercial off the shelf hydraulic parts, and its design inherently sheds excess energy from storms. Huge storm-driven waves simply wash over the Pelamis machines and fail to transfer energy to them and their moorings. They are probably the most robust wave generation design out there.
John C. Dvorak doesn't like them? Then things are looking up for them! They must've dome something right? Given Dvorak's record, they must be destined for success!
Forget Diesector. Ziggo is awesome! While a lot of the battlebots in the lightweight division were just scoring points from judges by playing patty-cake with each other, this lightweight bot could throw its opponents across the freakin ring!
The thing is very well designed. The outer armor shell *is* its weapon! A motor spins the shell up hella fast, and a clutch disengages, so the only stress is on the bearing, which is very sturdy!
Computer science/engineering in particular have made very little progress over the last decade; most of what is touted as progress now is research results from the 70's and 80's finally being implemented, combined with faster machines. That has had a lot of impact on daily life, but research has stagnated.
True, but the way the implementation is going, and the dissemination of technology know-how is what I'm talking about. The ease with which I can cobble-together pieces of software technology is truly amazing. And this is rapidly getting out into the hands of ordinary people. It's this revolution in implementation I am talking about. And as for research stagnating, I doubt that Google has caused that. Also, I would look outside of academia for what's coming down the pike. (This is also a part of the history of Computer Science.)
It takes time for technological revolutions to be fully absorbed into society, and for their full potential to be developed.
I think many the revolutions to come will be along the lines of human/computer interface.
As for biology, there has been an explosion of new data, but little in terms of fundamentally new understanding.
Again, the revolution here is in implementation. Not only has there been an explosion of new data, but an explosion in the tools that can produce the new data. But you're right, there needs to be some integration now.
Except it's neither instant nor effortless, and most importantly it only contains a sliver of the knowledge in the world (and only a subset of the knowledge on the web). That's great if you want to learn just the basics or summary of a subject but if you want proper depth you often have to look elsewhere.
Vinge also talks about this in Rainbows End. His main character notes that there are lots of kids who can instantly access information, but many of them seem to be unable to demonstrate a deep understanding. He calls these paraliterates. We have plenty of them, especially on this website. (I may be a prime example!)
No, the future is not all roses, but there's a lot of potential there.
I think that's the line where it stops being technology and becomes magic. -- What's another word for thesaurus? Onomasticon! They both sound big and scaly.
Slashdot Mirror
George W. should've put those billions we sunk into the war into this project instead. We could've gotten out of the Middle East, and we be much more secure politically and economically. Instead, we threw all of those billions down the toilet, with a less stable Middle East that likes us a lot less, and a rickety economy.
NASA needs outside competition. Otherwise, they just devolve to being a big pork-barrel project for Houston Texas and defense contractors. Outside competition got us to the moon. Maybe it will get us to Mars and Jupiter?
Open Source hardware is mostly unnecessary! Make open standard platforms that can become commodities, and the benefits of open hardware are yours.
If you have a good idea for a new capability, then make and market an add-on. If it's a good enough idea, then if you don't do it, someone else will.
Make your open standard with a way of extending and upgrading your hardware, and 90% of what you want with open hardware is already yours.
Japan has an entirely separate comics culture for females. That makes a lot more sense than making superhero comics more woman-friendly.
Truth be told, Manga's diversity is just huge, and shows how paltry comic culture is in the west. There are popular comics about baseball, mountain climbing, boxing, surrealism, relationships, historical fiction, art,... it goes on an on. Such things exist here, but they are little paltry niche items. Those things exist in Japan with commercial distribution and real readership levels.
Comiket, or Comic Market is held twice a year, and yet has over half a million attendees!
The center of comics culture is Japan.
A Sony format WON!? Did Nostradamus talk about this? Maybe Sony Blu-Ray DRM is the "Seventh Seal?"
Already covered on Slashdot!
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=403744&cid=21885926
Definition of Computer Scientist - someone with enough knowledge and skills to implement their own computer language.
Definition of Gentleman Computer Scientist - someone with enough knowledge and skills to implement their own computer language, but doesn't.
How about sperm powered fembots? They could remake this movie!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0270688/plotsummary
In Charles Stross' book Glasshouse, the early 21st century is considered by the future one of the "Dark Ages" because of our use of proprietary formats and ephemeral storage media.
I suspect he's onto something!
I drive a 1995 Mercedes E300 usually using B100 biodiesel. (Though I put a couple of gallons of ultra-low sulfur diesel into the tank last week because the temperature got down to the gel-point of B100 last weekend.) The guy who runs Houston Biodiesel claims a 78% reduction in net carbon footprint.
I bought a Sony Reader for cheap ($50) by buying rewards points from my Sony Visa card account. I did this so that I could use the Sony Reader as a portable tunebook. Guess what? My iPhone is actually better for that purpose! The multi-touch interface, with it's very handy zoom feature makes it better than my Sony Reader. I can quickly zoom in to the tune I need to refresh in my memory. Also, I can just put PDF files in my Box.net account and browse them. With the Sony Reader, I have to format the PDF especially for the Reader, since the zoom is very unwieldy. The slow refresh rate of the e-ink screen just kills interactivity. It would be fine for reading a novel, though.
My point is that the iPhone is surprisingly good as a reader!
The thing is, this also works with Guitar Hero.
Seriously!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml
http://www.explosm.net/comics/897/
Oh, yeah? According to this, some guys can get laid just by having a guitar near them and never taking it out of the case!
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/105596028.html
Have Bart writing "I will not turn /. into Digg" 100 times.
The North American Anime distribution companies have been using Bittorrent distribution of fansubs to tell how popular new shows are for years now. The thing is, is that it works very well. The popularity of the fan subbed version either means that there is a strong niche/cult following, or that it will have strong widespread popularity.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno
The Pelamis wave energy machine folks address the question of effect. Wave energy is reduced. An island, a breakwater, and various irregularities of the ocean bottom have similar effects.
Pelamis is a cool design. It uses commercial off the shelf hydraulic parts, and its design inherently sheds excess energy from storms. Huge storm-driven waves simply wash over the Pelamis machines and fail to transfer energy to them and their moorings. They are probably the most robust wave generation design out there.
I wonder if rooms full of dogs could be trained to recognize stupidity? Maybe they could be trained to edit YouTube and Slashdot comments?
(Could you imagine a Beowoof cluster...?)
John C. Dvorak doesn't like them? Then things are looking up for them! They must've dome something right? Given Dvorak's record, they must be destined for success!
Forget Diesector. Ziggo is awesome! While a lot of the battlebots in the lightweight division were just scoring points from judges by playing patty-cake with each other, this lightweight bot could throw its opponents across the freakin ring!
http://www.battlebots.com/battlebots_detail.asp?ID=88
The thing is very well designed. The outer armor shell *is* its weapon! A motor spins the shell up hella fast, and a clutch disengages, so the only stress is on the bearing, which is very sturdy!
Computer science/engineering in particular have made very little progress over the last decade; most of what is touted as progress now is research results from the 70's and 80's finally being implemented, combined with faster machines. That has had a lot of impact on daily life, but research has stagnated.
True, but the way the implementation is going, and the dissemination of technology know-how is what I'm talking about. The ease with which I can cobble-together pieces of software technology is truly amazing. And this is rapidly getting out into the hands of ordinary people. It's this revolution in implementation I am talking about. And as for research stagnating, I doubt that Google has caused that. Also, I would look outside of academia for what's coming down the pike. (This is also a part of the history of Computer Science.)
It takes time for technological revolutions to be fully absorbed into society, and for their full potential to be developed.
http://www.cra.org/Activities/grand.challenges/kay.pdf
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521
I think many the revolutions to come will be along the lines of human/computer interface.
As for biology, there has been an explosion of new data, but little in terms of fundamentally new understanding.
Again, the revolution here is in implementation. Not only has there been an explosion of new data, but an explosion in the tools that can produce the new data. But you're right, there needs to be some integration now.
Except it's neither instant nor effortless, and most importantly it only contains a sliver of the knowledge in the world (and only a subset of the knowledge on the web). That's great if you want to learn just the basics or summary of a subject but if you want proper depth you often have to look elsewhere.
Vinge also talks about this in Rainbows End. His main character notes that there are lots of kids who can instantly access information, but many of them seem to be unable to demonstrate a deep understanding. He calls these paraliterates. We have plenty of them, especially on this website. (I may be a prime example!)
No, the future is not all roses, but there's a lot of potential there.
--
What's another word for thesaurus? Onomasticon! They both sound big and scaly.