For those that don't want to RT(fairly long)FA, the leading hypothesis as to why naked mole rats are resistant to cancer is that their cells do not divide when they get too close to other cells. Also, less cell division over a lifespan would reduce the frequency of a multitude of potential problems that can occur during mitosis. This happens to them normally, and is probably a result of their low metabolism, an adaptation to living underground.
More active mammals like mice and humans lack such strict limits on cell growth. This is probably beneficial most of the time, except when the cells that are trying to divide are cancerous.
So unfortunately, this resistance to cancer is probably not easily translated to us without losing most of the advantages of quick cell growth.
There is no way in hell a "honest", i.e. really and completely independent politician could get elected. The reason: Campaigning. And the cost of it.
This is a good point, but I hope the answer could be the internet. Yes, it will probably still be decades before a candidate can campaign solely via the internet and stand a chance. But imagine the day; essentially zero barrier of entry, so you get a wider selection of candidates, and no real possibility of outspending someone.
Hahaha, yes, I do find that emphasis hilarious. But no, nothing so pedestrian. I'm talking coffee, tea, and tropical fruit above 45 degrees North. A steep order I know.
Interesting ideas, but I think cultural differences should be considered first, then genetics.
For one, blacks don't subscribe to geek culture nearly as much as whites. Not that it makes a difference in tech skills, but it does make certain otherwise dry subjects more accessible. As Mr. Harry S. Plinkett put it, "Black people don't like Star Wars".
Second, to white people, living below a certain income level is about as agreeable as getting cancer. This personal pressure to make an arbitrary amount of money, combined with family expectations to be "middle class", conceivably pushes them to higher levels of achievement then they would "naturally" attain in a pressure-free environment. Their black counterparts, on the other hand, experience much less pressure to achieve from within their own culture, for obvious historical reasons.
Third, yes, possibly genetics. From first hand casual experience, it seems that on average, black people are more social than white people. This means that jobs that are primarily individual (math, programming, engineering) are going to select strongly for the less social (white) people.
Disclaimer: Any attempt to address these topics (including many in this thread), could be interpreted as racist. I feel it is better to try to discuss and understand them, at the risk of being politically incorrect, than to avoid them because they are taboo.
Assuming the robots can be kept busy, and assuming their time must be worth $10K/year, their hourly cost becomes 10000 / (365 * 24) or $1.14 / hour. In the video, they don't appear to meed much supervision. At least, just for the task of shuffling pots back and forth between defined areas. It sounds as though you had a capacity utilization problem. Did your automation sit idle most of the day?
That is the big issue, in a greenhouse, yes, it must sit idle most of the time. Plants are slow. Also, a productive automation system needs to do a lot more than shuffle pots. There are some other factors involved in a complete automation setup.
For instance, say you want to automate the greenhouse for month long intervals (or longer) between visits because you don't live where you bought the land/warehouse space. There is a lot that can go wrong during a month, so everything has to work. You need to monitor water, air, light, and nutrient quality, and adjust it accordingly. Plants must be transplanted, harvested, and packaged at intervals (really complicated), not to mention that there would be different procedures for different plant varieties. Something has to monitor the plants for bugs or disease, which I honestly haven't figured out. On top of the complexity, there is a lot of power required to run all of that, especially the lights required in high latitudes near me. Definitely more than some hundred watt droids.
I would love to do it, for sure, but at this point it just makes more economic sense to do it with humans, outside, at low latitudes.
Now we're out of school, with degrees, with no jobs for us, and we're berated and jeered at because we refuse to flip burgers and mow lawns.
I will refer you to this , which I saw on reddit the other day. It is interesting.
Also, I attribute the economic pain we are feeling now on the effects of the world slowly approaches an "average" standard of living. So as the very large third world get a slightly bit richer, the very small first world must get a LOT poorer.
So the "I did everything I was told, I have a college degree, and I demand to stay at my childhood standard of living" argument is valid, but simply not going to happen. In a world of limited resources, "fair" counts for absolutely nothing.
I think it would select for bite-size projects that can generate press or products. Also, it necessitates that projects be self contained and hard-budgeted.
One of the most overlooked advantages to government funded science (or anything else) is that:
1. It can go over-budget if it is producing results. 2. There is someone somewhere passing judgement on the validity of the project. 3. The taxpayer doesn't have to think about individual projects.
I would rather give my money to an organization and trust them to choose the projects, then have to pick individual projects on my own. How exhausting.
Actually, something like this can't really take off precisely because of cheap labor. Cheap bots will only be capable of limited tasks while requiring close supervision, and expensive ones will cost much more than a minimum wage laborer.
Not too long ago I was looking into what it would cost to build a (nearly) fully automated greenhouse. The problem is, no matter how efficient or clever your system is, you simply cannot compete with the cost of human labor at the very bottom of the skills spectrum.
It is frustrating, because it seems like we should automate the more basic and repetitive tasks first, but in a market based economy, is simply isn't, well, economical.
Interesting. First I've heard of this, it's called the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover). Here's the official site and a nice animation.
I agree, the landing sequence looks complex, but maybe the thin atmosphere of Mars makes rockets more reliable than parachutes. Also, it carries a radioisotope power source, so hopefully the dust problem will be avoided this time.
False. File-sharing started because there was no legal alternative. If something like iTunes had existed in the early days, people (including me), would have used it. When iTunes finally did come along, it had a nasty DRM. If it had been open, more people (including me), would have used it.
Recently, I have been seeing more and more artists offering their music on their website without DRM and without a label. This makes me so happy, I usually buy their entire discography (if I like the music of course). It is trivial to offer music on a website, and I imagine artists have realized that people are much more willing to pay for something when they know their money isn't going to a record company.
As for the litigation, that is just the noisy death throes of a once powerful industry, angry about becoming obsolete. It has had zero effect on my behavior (and I read Slashdot), and certainly hasn't affected most people's reasons for file-sharing.
For anyone interested in the recent shenanigans of investment banks, I highly recommend the movie Margin Call (2011). It dramatizes this "cash in or bankrupt" behavior extremely well.
The movie's greatest strength is its portrayal of the enormous pressure many of those guys are under to outperform their colleagues. It is easy to see how serious risks can become commonplace in such a viciously competitive environment.
Tesla cars use batteries, and as much as I love electric cars, I have stopped getting excited about such stories for several reasons:
1. They use Li-ion batteries, which means they will degrade at the same pace as those in my laptop. The horror.
2. Their idea of an "ultra-rapid" charge is one that takes "under an hour". This is a huge problem. Even if the range could be extended to the point where you can drive from LA to 15 min outside of SF, you would still need to stop for an hour to refuel before driving that last 15 min.
3. The price. Because of the above problems, they are unpopular, which prevents any benefits from economies of scale.
This story isn't about fuel cells so I will avoid talking too much about them, but I really believe they are the way forward. Yes, they have their own problems and could benefit from some advances in catalyst technology, but they are unaffected by the range/refueling problem. Also, once you buy one it's final, none of this taking the car in every few years to replace what is essentially the entire price of the car.
I might have gotten a distro to install from a USB drive once, ever. Every other time it doesn't boot, or it boots but cannot install. What am I doing wrong!?!?!
I cannot begin to explain how much frustration this one issue has caused me. It simply DOES NOT WORK!!
So in the interests of my blood pressure, I will continue only installing distros less than 700mb.
For most users, who will never figure out how to enable non-market apps, or will have no desire to anyway, this makes their PC much more secure. For "power users", it's trivial enough to live in the old world.
Yes, Macs are appliances. I don't agonize over not having root privileges on my coffee maker, I just don't care. I actually commend Apple for their ability to finally deliver an appliance-like computing experience.
At one time I seem to remember reading that the they were going to release it under an open-hardware license similar to what Arduino does. But I can't seem to find anything about it now. Was that a marketing ploy or a figment of my imagination?
If the whole planet starts using geothermal, are we not simply transferring energy from inside the earth to the surface where it can radiate into space? How long before our precious magnetic field is gone? This story seems familiar........
But seriously, if anyone with a more rigorous physics background than me could give some insight, I am genuinely curious.
Slashdot Mirror
For those that don't want to RT(fairly long)FA, the leading hypothesis as to why naked mole rats are resistant to cancer is that their cells do not divide when they get too close to other cells. Also, less cell division over a lifespan would reduce the frequency of a multitude of potential problems that can occur during mitosis. This happens to them normally, and is probably a result of their low metabolism, an adaptation to living underground.
More active mammals like mice and humans lack such strict limits on cell growth. This is probably beneficial most of the time, except when the cells that are trying to divide are cancerous.
So unfortunately, this resistance to cancer is probably not easily translated to us without losing most of the advantages of quick cell growth.
Anonymous has nothing on the Chinese!
Yes! Mod parent up. That should be in the summary!
There is no way in hell a "honest", i.e. really and completely independent politician could get elected. The reason: Campaigning. And the cost of it.
This is a good point, but I hope the answer could be the internet. Yes, it will probably still be decades before a candidate can campaign solely via the internet and stand a chance. But imagine the day; essentially zero barrier of entry, so you get a wider selection of candidates, and no real possibility of outspending someone.
add global warming and bitcoin and you'd have the perfect story.
Hahaha, yes, I do find that emphasis hilarious. But no, nothing so pedestrian. I'm talking coffee, tea, and tropical fruit above 45 degrees North. A steep order I know.
Interesting ideas, but I think cultural differences should be considered first, then genetics.
For one, blacks don't subscribe to geek culture nearly as much as whites. Not that it makes a difference in tech skills, but it does make certain otherwise dry subjects more accessible. As Mr. Harry S. Plinkett put it, "Black people don't like Star Wars".
Second, to white people, living below a certain income level is about as agreeable as getting cancer. This personal pressure to make an arbitrary amount of money, combined with family expectations to be "middle class", conceivably pushes them to higher levels of achievement then they would "naturally" attain in a pressure-free environment. Their black counterparts, on the other hand, experience much less pressure to achieve from within their own culture, for obvious historical reasons.
Third, yes, possibly genetics. From first hand casual experience, it seems that on average, black people are more social than white people. This means that jobs that are primarily individual (math, programming, engineering) are going to select strongly for the less social (white) people.
Disclaimer: Any attempt to address these topics (including many in this thread), could be interpreted as racist. I feel it is better to try to discuss and understand them, at the risk of being politically incorrect, than to avoid them because they are taboo.
Assuming the robots can be kept busy, and assuming their time must be worth $10K/year, their hourly cost becomes 10000 / (365 * 24) or $1.14 / hour. In the video, they don't appear to meed much supervision. At least, just for the task of shuffling pots back and forth between defined areas. It sounds as though you had a capacity utilization problem. Did your automation sit idle most of the day?
That is the big issue, in a greenhouse, yes, it must sit idle most of the time. Plants are slow. Also, a productive automation system needs to do a lot more than shuffle pots. There are some other factors involved in a complete automation setup.
For instance, say you want to automate the greenhouse for month long intervals (or longer) between visits because you don't live where you bought the land/warehouse space. There is a lot that can go wrong during a month, so everything has to work. You need to monitor water, air, light, and nutrient quality, and adjust it accordingly. Plants must be transplanted, harvested, and packaged at intervals (really complicated), not to mention that there would be different procedures for different plant varieties. Something has to monitor the plants for bugs or disease, which I honestly haven't figured out. On top of the complexity, there is a lot of power required to run all of that, especially the lights required in high latitudes near me. Definitely more than some hundred watt droids.
I would love to do it, for sure, but at this point it just makes more economic sense to do it with humans, outside, at low latitudes.
Now we're out of school, with degrees, with no jobs for us, and we're berated and jeered at because we refuse to flip burgers and mow lawns.
I will refer you to this , which I saw on reddit the other day. It is interesting.
Also, I attribute the economic pain we are feeling now on the effects of the world slowly approaches an "average" standard of living. So as the very large third world get a slightly bit richer, the very small first world must get a LOT poorer.
So the "I did everything I was told, I have a college degree, and I demand to stay at my childhood standard of living" argument is valid, but simply not going to happen. In a world of limited resources, "fair" counts for absolutely nothing.
I think it would select for bite-size projects that can generate press or products. Also, it necessitates that projects be self contained and hard-budgeted.
One of the most overlooked advantages to government funded science (or anything else) is that:
1. It can go over-budget if it is producing results.
2. There is someone somewhere passing judgement on the validity of the project.
3. The taxpayer doesn't have to think about individual projects.
I would rather give my money to an organization and trust them to choose the projects, then have to pick individual projects on my own. How exhausting.
...against white hip-hop artists?
Actually, something like this can't really take off precisely because of cheap labor. Cheap bots will only be capable of limited tasks while requiring close supervision, and expensive ones will cost much more than a minimum wage laborer.
Not too long ago I was looking into what it would cost to build a (nearly) fully automated greenhouse. The problem is, no matter how efficient or clever your system is, you simply cannot compete with the cost of human labor at the very bottom of the skills spectrum.
It is frustrating, because it seems like we should automate the more basic and repetitive tasks first, but in a market based economy, is simply isn't, well, economical.
Interesting. First I've heard of this, it's called the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover). Here's the official site and a nice animation.
I agree, the landing sequence looks complex, but maybe the thin atmosphere of Mars makes rockets more reliable than parachutes. Also, it carries a radioisotope power source, so hopefully the dust problem will be avoided this time.
False. File-sharing started because there was no legal alternative. If something like iTunes had existed in the early days, people (including me), would have used it. When iTunes finally did come along, it had a nasty DRM. If it had been open, more people (including me), would have used it.
Recently, I have been seeing more and more artists offering their music on their website without DRM and without a label. This makes me so happy, I usually buy their entire discography (if I like the music of course). It is trivial to offer music on a website, and I imagine artists have realized that people are much more willing to pay for something when they know their money isn't going to a record company.
As for the litigation, that is just the noisy death throes of a once powerful industry, angry about becoming obsolete. It has had zero effect on my behavior (and I read Slashdot), and certainly hasn't affected most people's reasons for file-sharing.
... you are not important enough to show.
For anyone interested in the recent shenanigans of investment banks, I highly recommend the movie Margin Call (2011). It dramatizes this "cash in or bankrupt" behavior extremely well.
The movie's greatest strength is its portrayal of the enormous pressure many of those guys are under to outperform their colleagues. It is easy to see how serious risks can become commonplace in such a viciously competitive environment.
Tesla cars use batteries, and as much as I love electric cars, I have stopped getting excited about such stories for several reasons:
1. They use Li-ion batteries, which means they will degrade at the same pace as those in my laptop. The horror.
2. Their idea of an "ultra-rapid" charge is one that takes "under an hour". This is a huge problem. Even if the range could be extended to the point where you can drive from LA to 15 min outside of SF, you would still need to stop for an hour to refuel before driving that last 15 min.
3. The price. Because of the above problems, they are unpopular, which prevents any benefits from economies of scale.
This story isn't about fuel cells so I will avoid talking too much about them, but I really believe they are the way forward. Yes, they have their own problems and could benefit from some advances in catalyst technology, but they are unaffected by the range/refueling problem. Also, once you buy one it's final, none of this taking the car in every few years to replace what is essentially the entire price of the car.
The U.S. and China have the exact same land area, but they have four times the population. We should be doing the selling.
I might have gotten a distro to install from a USB drive once, ever. Every other time it doesn't boot, or it boots but cannot install. What am I doing wrong!?!?!
I cannot begin to explain how much frustration this one issue has caused me. It simply DOES NOT WORK!!
So in the interests of my blood pressure, I will continue only installing distros less than 700mb.
Perhaps the most appropriate department title I have seen.
For most users, who will never figure out how to enable non-market apps, or will have no desire to anyway, this makes their PC much more secure. For "power users", it's trivial enough to live in the old world.
Yes, Macs are appliances. I don't agonize over not having root privileges on my coffee maker, I just don't care. I actually commend Apple for their ability to finally deliver an appliance-like computing experience.
If you want a unix, get one that is free.
While technically not an engineer, Merkel studied Physics in school has a PhD in Quantum Chemistry.
You don't see many of those running for office in your hometown do you?
At one time I seem to remember reading that the they were going to release it under an open-hardware license similar to what Arduino does. But I can't seem to find anything about it now. Was that a marketing ploy or a figment of my imagination?
If the whole planet starts using geothermal, are we not simply transferring energy from inside the earth to the surface where it can radiate into space? How long before our precious magnetic field is gone? This story seems familiar........
But seriously, if anyone with a more rigorous physics background than me could give some insight, I am genuinely curious.
What a pi in the sky project.