Re:it puts the scare to foreign oil
on
Is E85 Dead Now?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Most estimates are 5x the Saudi reserves (1.5 trillion bbls vs 300 billion bbls).
The modern water injection (fracking) process has made the exploitation of shale oil/gas much more economical, more or less on a par with foreign oil, so production is ramping up.
I don't know about 100 years from now--who does?--but in about 10-15 years, the U.S. is expected to be an energy exporting giant. Already, this past year, the U.S. became a net exporter of "energy products".
The other major energy reserve in the U.S., coal, remains to be fully exploited. There are estimated to be centuries (plural) of energy in U.S. coal, at current use rates.
All this doesn't mean we should be burning this stuff. The U.S. still wastes massive amounts of energy. Just painting all the government office building rooftops white in California would have prevented the rolling blackouts a few summers ago. Then there's the 18 mpg vehicles most people drive, when we could be driving 40-50 mpg vehicles.
Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline in Brasil, which is the world's top producer. They use sugar cane rather than corn sugar, and sugar cane is a much cheaper and higher yield source of ethanol. Recent discoveries of alternative sources such as switch grass may save ethanol yet. Switch grass is almost maintenance free, doesn't distort food prices, and in a few years is expected to be competitive or cheaper than oil.
In my opinion, car makers should make their E85 vehicle gas tanks a couple of gallons larger, to make up for the less dense energy content of ethanol. Of course, I'd like a few more gallons anyway; why is my Corolla only 11 gallons to begin with?
Regarding the whole energy subsidy controversy, keep in mind that there is a hidden cost to oil--the trillions of dollars we have spent and continue to spend securing foreign oil supplies. There's also a few thousand lives of soldiers sacrificed. No way would we have gone into Iraq in '91 or again in 2003, if it were not a huge oil producer threatening other huge oil producers. Frankly, if we were an energy exporter, we should be delighted to see Iran and Iraq duking it out, or Iraq invading Saudi or Kuwait and jacking up the cost of petroleum. Instead, we have to worry about every little political change in the Persian Gulf as a potential catastrophe for our economy.
Buses are safer to ride in than cars. So if you add in the value of your life, a bus is a tremendous bargain. For $2.50 a ride, you're buying much greater chances of getting there alive, albeit more slowly and inconveniently.
What's more, buses are in fact vastly more economical modes of transport than are cars. If you commute, say, 10 miles to work every day, you're probably burning about a gallon a day, maybe less, maybe more depending on your vehicle and stop-and-go patterns. So you're spending about $3.40/day versus $5/day for two bus tickets.
But your car also requires thousands of dollars a year of insurance, maintenance, and excise taxes. Probably maintenance will be minimal in the first year or so, but averaged over 8-10 years you'll be spending between $500 and $1000 a year to fix stuff, and plus all that collision insurance which is much higher at first, and mandatory injury coverage. When you spend $20 to replace your wipers, that's several bus rides right there.
Then there's the stress factor. In a car, you have to concentrate every second, and you can't realistically multi-task. Even talking to a passenger is a risk factor for a driver. Whereas, as a bus passenger, you can read, surf over 3G, or sleep, and thus maximize your productivity during a time that would otherwise be completely shot. I can tell you, during periods of my life when I took the bus and subway to get to work, it was so relaxing and easy (except when they were late/broken down/stuck).
Anyone know what that tablet is behind the Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus? It looks pretty big, and nicely proportioned, like the iPad. I have a Samsung Tab at work and I don't like the long, narrow aspect ratio; I suppose it's OK for watching movies but not so great for reading/browsing, at least in my experience.
Anyway, I'm glad they've put out this style guide. The developer docs do have some style stuff but it's good to get it all together in one place, and up to date. Hopefully the tablet and handheld experience will be nearly identical for most Android users in a couple of years, and it will spur greater adoption of tablets.
I have an Android phone but an iPad tablet; best of both worlds! But it would be nice not to have to buy apps twice.
You raise some interesting points. I would merely respond that only super-power alliances (not even just one super-power) can currently embark on missions of this scale--a space station, a station on Mars, an asteroid mining facility.
For the economies of scale to kick in, we must first spend trillions of dollars building ever more efficient and economical heavy lift technologies, orbital facilities, space-only craft, complete radiation shielding, 99.999% reliable space suits, oxygen-recycling, centrifugal gravity to prevent bone decay, on and on.
The United States no longer has the trillions (in equivalent 1960s pre-devalued, gold-based dollars) to throw at an Apollo-scale project. We had to borrow money just to overthrow Saddam Hussein and take out the Taliban. We'll have to borrow money just to meet our current entitlement obligations, and when 90 million Baby Boomers retire and expect to receive their Social Security... well, I hope they have their 401K's in good shape.
China is a rising super-power but they can't do this on their own, either. If their economy keeps growing at 8-10% per year for twenty years, they can of course buy the expertise they need from unemployed American and Russian space experts, and ultimately they will probably get part of the way there, but I doubt they can go it alone even with foreign experts helping.
This is a global effort. The colonization of Mars would require pooled resources on a scale we have never achieved. The U.S. with its vast expertise, China with its wealth and cheap labor, Russia with its engineering, and the Europeans with some combination of expertise and wealth and engineering would be able to do this thing, but it would be awesomely complex. But it would be nice to have a shared goal that transcends petty national priorities.
Technological developments should not be discounted, either. Just because we don't yet have sustainable fusion power doesn't mean we never will. We're one or two breakthroughs away from something workable. It would still be a 100 billion dollar machine, which would prevent it from being used for nefarious purposes as you have described, unless the Chinese conceive the (ill-advised) notion to push an asteroid onto the Americans, or vice versa. (Said effort would result in a mass extinction event and probably humans would cease to exist, or at least they would lose their technological base and revert to hunter gatherers; least case scenario, the asteroid would only damage one country, but it would probably lead to World War III which would cause nuclear winter and so forth. Asteroids as weapons--just say no.)
That's a fantastic idea! I forgot about fat. Actually, it would be a way to pay for the mission, too. You will lose 140 pounds over the next 9 months... and you'll get to visit Mars, too! There are tons (no pun intended) of people out there carrying around 140 pounds or more of body fat.
The only catch is that these people are very heavy, and thus we'd need more fuel to get them into orbit, let alone push them to Mars and then lower them safely to its surface.
I suppose an alternative is to put some thin astronauts into Earth orbit, fatten them up for a few months, and then send them on their way.
The obvious and simple solution is cryo-sleep. Just ship some capsules along with a rudimentary habitat, and be prepared to sleep most of the time away. The Mars explorers can't realistically bring 18 months' worth of food and oxygen and medical supplies and whatever else--tampons, contact lenses, etc. So just send a month's supply of food, and they can sleep for 17 months until the return vessel arrives.
Cooling the human body to a near-death state has been demonstrated--actually, it has happened many times when people fall into icy water and are revived many minutes later (google extreme hypothermia).
Another concept might be to simply upload the astronaut's neural net into a very high capacity computer. Once this task is accomplished, the computer can continue to operate a space vessel and otherwise completely imitate a human being's decisionmaking and responses. One possible catch is that the computer, unlike an organic brain, lacks any stimulus from hormonal secretions, adrenaline, etc. This kind of stimulus would have to be simulated. The astronauts themselves would remain on Earth, monitoring the flight. Any mistakes or accidents would be blamed on the individual whose brain had been uploaded, obviously.
Lastly is the idea of telecommuting (similar to the second idea expounded above). A completely automated vessel with remote controls would allow a team of astronauts to "work from home". Unlike an actual trip into space, this virtual exploration would be much safer. In fact, the astronauts' main concern would be cutting themselves while slicing a bagel in the kitchen--the number one injury in the home. Nasa would probably want to ban bagels during this time, or maybe send them pre-sliced versions.
In summary, there are quite a few workarounds for this problem and I look forward to a lively discussion!
Let's set aside all religious and moral/ethical concerns and look at the practicalities. A chimp with near-human intelligence would be a tremendous asset to both the military and private economy. They are much stronger and faster than humans, so would be incredible soldiers. They can ALREADY use sign language to communicate with humans, so just imagine taking that a step further--being able to type or write messages, maybe able to mimic human spoken language.
They would make great athletic coaches, especially for gymnastic training and the like. They would be good nannies and playmates for kids, and could defend the kids from nasty people even more effectively than could a dog.
I guess that leads to the idea of chimeric dogs. Just imagine a dog smart enough to identify someone and testify against him in court. "Yes sir, that's the perpetrator. I can smell him a mile away."
Yes, I've seen several people "promoted" into a manager or VP of Technology type of position who were simply unprepared for the transition. It was felt by the (foolish, ignorant) top execs that the candidate would make a good manager since he was already such a good programmer or architect. The predictable result was catastrophe; the former star programmer became a stupid git who was hated and despised by everyone, and eventually was shown the door after having caused incalculable damage to the organization.
Unfortunately for all parties involved, software engineering and management are two completely separate skills. It's like saying a good surgeon would make a good hospital administrator--where do you pull that out of? They are unrelated and often oppositional jobs. Shoot-from-the-hip, cowboy programmers as well as "team player", 9-5 coders are equally unqualified to manage others, with the team players being slightly better simply because they're less likely to piss everyone off right away.
I've found in my professional experience, as have many others, that really great managers are born, not made. Some people seem to have instinctual abilities to see through the fog of war and focus on the goals, marshal their resources rationally, and avoid letting petty emotions, vindictiveness, oneupmanship, and all the politics that come with human interaction get in the way. You can call them out, tell them to their face that they're full of crap, challenge their assumptions, and they will calmly roll with the punches and adjust accordingly. Their bosses will lean on them, change their priorities, threaten them, etc., and they will push back, educate their superiors, win the time and money they need to achieve the objectives.
It's like sales. Great sales people seem to have an innate ability to close the deal, while crappy sales guys (the majority in the world, I think) piss off the customer, display their ignorance, and basically fumble the ball more often than not.
So, op, proceed cautiously. You are about to step off the cliff and hope you enjoy a soft landing. A few make it, but most don't. I would say, if you're pretty good technically, you should just stay in the tech field where you know you have a good future. But, if you want to learn from bitter experience, be our guest and delve in. Get back to us in a year and let us know how it's going.
And yet, competitors like OpenOffice have been stealing market share from MS Office. By some accounts, OOo now holds over 20% of desktops. Then there's the internet apps like Google Documents, which are steadily increasing in user numbers. Microsoft's response to Google Apps, "Office 365", is a subscription-based product that is not even available without paying a fee. Undoubtedly it's getting some attention in corporate circles, where they like to pay for such things, but no one else cares.
Apple's steadily becoming more common on the desktop, and they make very highly rated laptops, tablets, and phones. Yet, they're not a monopoly in any of these markets, and Android is overtaking the iPhone.
I really don't see how Microsoft is more of a monopoly today than in the '90s. It's gradually becoming irrelevant, in fact. People are switching to handheld devices running mainly iOS or Android. In a few years, the average college student may not be using either Windows or MacOS, but instead they will be mainly familiar with these phone/tablet systems. Microsoft is a tiny player in this market so far.
Basically this Wordperfect lawsuit is a bit dated and irrelevant today. I'm surprised it wasn't thrown out long ago.
There are 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and there are probably many billions of planets. Out of all those possibilities, how rare could it be for a planet to be in the "habitable zone" of a star, with a few gas giants farther out? And isn't iron a fairly common element in planets, hence molten core, hence magnetic field protecting the surface from cosmic rays and all that.
If we suppose that Earth-like conditions are one in a billion, which seems exceedingly conservative, nonetheless we're talking about dozens or hundreds of Earth-like planets out there. It's reasonable to suppose that our conditions are not that uncommon, and there might be an order of magnitude more Earth-like planets.
There also would be millions of planets that are much harsher than Earth, yet perhaps some form of life could have evolved.
A counter argument might be that even our world was not always friendly to life; during Earth's first billion years it was quite a harsh place indeed. Subsequently there were several mass extinction events, the last one a mere 60 million years ago. During pre-Cambrian times, it's believed the planet was basically a giant snowball. Alien probes sent here during those periods might have concluded that there was no sustainable life.
I think it will be a good 200 years before we can get out to some of our neighboring stars and investigate up close. Even the closest stars would take multiple lifetimes to get to using any current or upcoming propulsion technologies. Ultimately it will be some kind of intelligent robotic explorer that we send out as a kind of trans-generational emissary, that may come back to entertain our distant descendants with tales of foreign worlds. Sad that trans-light propulsion is nothing but a pipe dream, for now anyway.
Relax, it's just a minor amendment of an existing amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Here's a good explanation of the history of this amendment.
In 1990, Congress adopted free-standing legislation directing DOL to
promulgate regulations defining the status of computer services workers and to
include in that definition an earnings test: not less than 6½ times the federal
minimum wage. Although DOL proceeded as directed, Congress revisited the issue
in 1996. It moved the computer services exemption from Section 13(a)(1), creating
a new categorical exemption in Section 13(a)(17). Here, unburdened by the issue of
defining professional, Congress set its own standard. It also froze the earnings test
at $27.63 per hour. With the increase in the general wage floor, part of the 1996
amendments, that came to equal 5.4 times the minimum wage.
As you can see, the hourly rate and the type of worker involved has not changed at all. It appears that they're merely clarifying the definition of a computer services professional.
Personally (and I know this is going to earn me a few "troll" points from our faithful moderators), I am against mandating things like time-and-a-half and double-time pay. Although it sounds like a good deal for hourly workers, in fact it probably discourages employers from paying people more. They'll just get a part timer to come in and do the extra work, or offshore it, or some such.
I'm in IT and when I'm hourly, I love to work 50-60 hours a week. I don't give a damn about all these overtime rules; I just want to make more money. But since around 2001, companies have been much more reluctant to let people bill more than 40 hours a week unless the top management grants special permission to get some project done or some such.
Frankly I wish the government would just stay out of these matters and let the free market decide what's a fair wage, what's fair hours, etc., but maybe I'm naive:)
Well, I've noticed that when I'm not totally neutral in my tone, some moderators come down really hard. For example, if I say "You ought to do more reading" "where'd you grow up, the south pole?" or anything remotely confrontational or critical, some people will mark it flamebait.
If I say something that gets refuted, however unjustly, by some off-the-cuff and baseless reply, some moderators will apparently read that far, then go back up and mod my posting down as "overrated" because I must have been wrong.
Sometimes these kinds of moderations get overruled, and other times not. So I don't think the system really does withstand rogue (or stupid) moderators, at least in my own experience, and also in some other comments I've seen.
But, I'm willing to concede that this is possibly the best possible existing system that occasionally kills off a healthy comment "for the good of the herd" and we just have to live with that.
eldavojohn #38214056 As of 10:15am EST:
40% Insightful
40% Interesting
20% Troll
This is a great example of the stupidity of moderators. Some misguided soul(s) consider the above to be a "troll" posting. I don't agree with everything eldavojohn said, but I'm not going to down-mod him and effectively remove his comment from the discussion for thousands of readers. That's ridiculous; he has a right to express his opinion.
Now if he had said, "duh, yer a fag" or something similar, then that would earn a flamebait/troll/overrated/offtopic from me and (I hope) most intelligent moderators. Stupid grade school insults are off topic and contribute nothing to the discussion.
Google has a point. Slashdot's moderation is far from perfect; people get modded down for expressing politically incorrect opinions or otherwise taking a stance opposed to that of the majority. You might call it a tyranny of the majority, in fact. I've seen quite intelligent, insightful postings modded to 0 or -1 because the person was taking an unpopular stand on an issue. On more than one occasion, I've seen factual statements dismissed by ignorant posters and moderators.
Suppressing opposing views in a discussion forum does not improve the forum or raise the level of the discussion. People strive to say things that will get them modded up, rather than say what they really believe.
The point of a discussion, or an argument, or a debate, is to allow multiple parties to express their views, and arrive at a consensus or at least understand what the opposing view is. I've often been persuaded to change my mind in these forums, although the strident nature of some of the posters is grating and counter-productive. Criticize the idea, not the person who expresses the idea.
I try to meta-moderate when I can (weird how they don't have a permanent meta-mod link on the home page, though--sometimes I have to search for it if I don't see the "Have you meta-moderated lately?" link at the top). But it often feels like bailing out a boat with a thimble.
This raises an interesting question: can a medical practitioner really be "perfectly competent" if he rejects some of the science underlying modern evolutionary biology?
Adaptation is something that happens all around us, all the time. It's been proven a million times, in a test tube or in natural settings.
Bacteria adapt to antibiotics, forcing us to reformulate our medicines. What would happen if a doctor believes that bacteria never evolve? Or that the patient is succumbing to an infection not because of resistant bacteria but because God wants him to die?
Not as opposed to PNG and JPEG, simply as a (possibly superior) alternative. JPEG did have some patent issues which fortunately have been resolved (google "jpeg patent"). Probably every graphical format that is successful will attract the attention of lawyers of patent holders and patent trolls. Hopefully Google has thoroughly vetted this technology. Pretty pathetic the hoops one has to jump through these days to create something as abstract as a computer image standard.
No, it's not foolish to say that, unless you're saying the article is foolish as well, in which case perhaps you can provide some countering arguments. Over-prescribing means the chemicals are in widespread use and are likely to be misused, leading to resistant strains. Also, the chemicals can be flushed down the sink or dumped outside, so they enter the ecosystem and foster resistant strains of microbes all over the place. It's just a bad idea to disseminate these drugs so widely.
Google has open-sourced the WebP code and utilities, so (I think) this format will not be encumbered by patents or licensing issues. That is a great contribution in itself. I continue to be amazed by Google and its ability to make money while giving stuff away.
Drug-resistant tuberculosis (extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis - XDR-TB) and drug-resistant staph (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - MRSA) have been reported in the U.S.
Very worrisome trend. Over-prescribing of antibiotics combined with misuse (taking a little, then stopping, instead of taking a full regimen to completely eliminate the pathogen) can result in the survival of resistant strains of microbes. It was bound to happen anyway, but now the trend has accelerated.
We'll have to resort to novel approaches very soon to attack these critters--nanotechnology holds a lot of promise, some forms of radiation, and new drugs.
We should be treating this as a public health emergency and providing appropriate funds to develop cures.
You can't generalize; it's a case-by-case thing. There are all types that go into the military, not just people who have no other career options. A lot of people have economic reasons to enter the military. I encountered some very sharp medical school students who were military, and who were receiving a full ride plus housing stipend, in return for four years medical service following residency. ROTC can be the right move for a college student, versus carrying a $100K student loan after graduation.
The summary is also somewhat stereotypical. Contrary to uninformed opinion, MOST people in the military are not out there shooting people and "breaking things". They have challenging, demanding jobs managing parts inventories, operating telemetry systems, repairing all sorts of equipment, medical, personnel, financial, legal, you name it. The military is a huge world unto itself.
If I were hiring, I'd take military service on someone's resume as a huge plus. It implies self-discipline and respect for authority. Sure, they may need retraining to fit into a civilian approach where there tends to be much less paperwork and bureaucratic process to deal with, but that shouldn't be a reason not to consider someone who's ex-military. I'm more suspicious of people coming out of your average party high school and party college--did they really learn anything? Did they really work hard?
Maybe they can hand Flash to the open source community and let people continue to adapt it to new hardware, etc. Maybe Flash has its flaws, but for at least the next few years it's still necessary. They're not going to convert all those websites that rely on Flash to HTML5 overnight.
And you know for a fact that the Touchpad would not have sold at $200 or $250 or $300 because...?
Everyone you know doesn't mean everyone in the market for a tablet. Several million people want to buy an Amazon Fire which is a lowly 7" tablet that doesn't even run regular Android, only a customized Amazon version, for $200.
WebOS was not declining until they screwed up the phones (that's another whole discussion). It was innovative in its day (a year or two ago). This is my main point. Lower the price of the Touchpad and people would have bought it. It didn't need to go down to $99. I'll bet they could have liquidated them at $200 just as easily, and maybe kept the business running at $300.
The WebOS-based TouchPad was innovative, but it was over-priced. HP proved that by lowering the price to fire-sale levels and it took off. Maybe they should have priced it at about $300 as a loss leader, to build up a market for apps. Amazon's losing money on their Fire tablet, for example. Seems like a smart strategy, and they're big enough to pull it off. Just fire a few of these over-paid execs like Whitman and presto! you have plenty of money for R&D.
Regarding this Slate: at $699 no one's going to buy this moldy old thing. They'll go with Apple or a Fire for $200 or some of the other up and coming budget Android offerings. Come on. Motorola proved that there's no market for a premium priced tablet that under performs compared to an iPad.
And Windows 7--excuse me? Do they really pay these executives millions of dollars to make these kinds of decisions? Heck, I'll take the CEO job for about $250K (with about a $100K golden parachute) and I'll set that house in order. Re-hire the WebOS team that they just fired, develop a world class, well engineered budget tablet to take the low ground away from Apple, and stay in the market for LONGER THAN SIX WEEKS. Offer an Android tablet, too. Come on, you're a $100 billion corporation and you can afford to develop two different platforms.
Oh, and I would keep making PC's and laptops, only make them better. More touch screens, maybe a best-in-class ultra light laptop, etc. Listen to the customers, HP. Corporate America is not dropping out of the desktop and laptop markets any time soon. Consumers don't want a Windows 7 tablet (as far as I know); they want an Apple or an Android.
Oh, really? I don't see any dodo 2.0, T. Rex 2.0, Neanderthal 2.0, or carrier pidgeon 2.0 around. It is possible to extinct-ify a species. Just get rid of all the adults so they stop procreating, and presto! No more annoying itch!
Slashdot Mirror
Most estimates are 5x the Saudi reserves (1.5 trillion bbls vs 300 billion bbls).
The modern water injection (fracking) process has made the exploitation of shale oil/gas much more economical, more or less on a par with foreign oil, so production is ramping up.
I don't know about 100 years from now--who does?--but in about 10-15 years, the U.S. is expected to be an energy exporting giant. Already, this past year, the U.S. became a net exporter of "energy products".
The other major energy reserve in the U.S., coal, remains to be fully exploited. There are estimated to be centuries (plural) of energy in U.S. coal, at current use rates.
All this doesn't mean we should be burning this stuff. The U.S. still wastes massive amounts of energy. Just painting all the government office building rooftops white in California would have prevented the rolling blackouts a few summers ago. Then there's the 18 mpg vehicles most people drive, when we could be driving 40-50 mpg vehicles.
Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline in Brasil, which is the world's top producer. They use sugar cane rather than corn sugar, and sugar cane is a much cheaper and higher yield source of ethanol. Recent discoveries of alternative sources such as switch grass may save ethanol yet. Switch grass is almost maintenance free, doesn't distort food prices, and in a few years is expected to be competitive or cheaper than oil.
In my opinion, car makers should make their E85 vehicle gas tanks a couple of gallons larger, to make up for the less dense energy content of ethanol. Of course, I'd like a few more gallons anyway; why is my Corolla only 11 gallons to begin with?
Regarding the whole energy subsidy controversy, keep in mind that there is a hidden cost to oil--the trillions of dollars we have spent and continue to spend securing foreign oil supplies. There's also a few thousand lives of soldiers sacrificed. No way would we have gone into Iraq in '91 or again in 2003, if it were not a huge oil producer threatening other huge oil producers. Frankly, if we were an energy exporter, we should be delighted to see Iran and Iraq duking it out, or Iraq invading Saudi or Kuwait and jacking up the cost of petroleum. Instead, we have to worry about every little political change in the Persian Gulf as a potential catastrophe for our economy.
Buses are safer to ride in than cars. So if you add in the value of your life, a bus is a tremendous bargain. For $2.50 a ride, you're buying much greater chances of getting there alive, albeit more slowly and inconveniently.
What's more, buses are in fact vastly more economical modes of transport than are cars. If you commute, say, 10 miles to work every day, you're probably burning about a gallon a day, maybe less, maybe more depending on your vehicle and stop-and-go patterns. So you're spending about $3.40/day versus $5/day for two bus tickets.
But your car also requires thousands of dollars a year of insurance, maintenance, and excise taxes. Probably maintenance will be minimal in the first year or so, but averaged over 8-10 years you'll be spending between $500 and $1000 a year to fix stuff, and plus all that collision insurance which is much higher at first, and mandatory injury coverage. When you spend $20 to replace your wipers, that's several bus rides right there.
Then there's the stress factor. In a car, you have to concentrate every second, and you can't realistically multi-task. Even talking to a passenger is a risk factor for a driver. Whereas, as a bus passenger, you can read, surf over 3G, or sleep, and thus maximize your productivity during a time that would otherwise be completely shot. I can tell you, during periods of my life when I took the bus and subway to get to work, it was so relaxing and easy (except when they were late/broken down/stuck).
Anyone know what that tablet is behind the Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus? It looks pretty big, and nicely proportioned, like the iPad. I have a Samsung Tab at work and I don't like the long, narrow aspect ratio; I suppose it's OK for watching movies but not so great for reading/browsing, at least in my experience.
Anyway, I'm glad they've put out this style guide. The developer docs do have some style stuff but it's good to get it all together in one place, and up to date. Hopefully the tablet and handheld experience will be nearly identical for most Android users in a couple of years, and it will spur greater adoption of tablets.
I have an Android phone but an iPad tablet; best of both worlds! But it would be nice not to have to buy apps twice.
You raise some interesting points. I would merely respond that only super-power alliances (not even just one super-power) can currently embark on missions of this scale--a space station, a station on Mars, an asteroid mining facility.
For the economies of scale to kick in, we must first spend trillions of dollars building ever more efficient and economical heavy lift technologies, orbital facilities, space-only craft, complete radiation shielding, 99.999% reliable space suits, oxygen-recycling, centrifugal gravity to prevent bone decay, on and on.
The United States no longer has the trillions (in equivalent 1960s pre-devalued, gold-based dollars) to throw at an Apollo-scale project. We had to borrow money just to overthrow Saddam Hussein and take out the Taliban. We'll have to borrow money just to meet our current entitlement obligations, and when 90 million Baby Boomers retire and expect to receive their Social Security... well, I hope they have their 401K's in good shape.
China is a rising super-power but they can't do this on their own, either. If their economy keeps growing at 8-10% per year for twenty years, they can of course buy the expertise they need from unemployed American and Russian space experts, and ultimately they will probably get part of the way there, but I doubt they can go it alone even with foreign experts helping.
This is a global effort. The colonization of Mars would require pooled resources on a scale we have never achieved. The U.S. with its vast expertise, China with its wealth and cheap labor, Russia with its engineering, and the Europeans with some combination of expertise and wealth and engineering would be able to do this thing, but it would be awesomely complex. But it would be nice to have a shared goal that transcends petty national priorities.
Technological developments should not be discounted, either. Just because we don't yet have sustainable fusion power doesn't mean we never will. We're one or two breakthroughs away from something workable. It would still be a 100 billion dollar machine, which would prevent it from being used for nefarious purposes as you have described, unless the Chinese conceive the (ill-advised) notion to push an asteroid onto the Americans, or vice versa. (Said effort would result in a mass extinction event and probably humans would cease to exist, or at least they would lose their technological base and revert to hunter gatherers; least case scenario, the asteroid would only damage one country, but it would probably lead to World War III which would cause nuclear winter and so forth. Asteroids as weapons--just say no.)
That's a fantastic idea! I forgot about fat. Actually, it would be a way to pay for the mission, too. You will lose 140 pounds over the next 9 months... and you'll get to visit Mars, too! There are tons (no pun intended) of people out there carrying around 140 pounds or more of body fat.
The only catch is that these people are very heavy, and thus we'd need more fuel to get them into orbit, let alone push them to Mars and then lower them safely to its surface.
I suppose an alternative is to put some thin astronauts into Earth orbit, fatten them up for a few months, and then send them on their way.
The obvious and simple solution is cryo-sleep. Just ship some capsules along with a rudimentary habitat, and be prepared to sleep most of the time away. The Mars explorers can't realistically bring 18 months' worth of food and oxygen and medical supplies and whatever else--tampons, contact lenses, etc. So just send a month's supply of food, and they can sleep for 17 months until the return vessel arrives.
Cooling the human body to a near-death state has been demonstrated--actually, it has happened many times when people fall into icy water and are revived many minutes later (google extreme hypothermia).
Another concept might be to simply upload the astronaut's neural net into a very high capacity computer. Once this task is accomplished, the computer can continue to operate a space vessel and otherwise completely imitate a human being's decisionmaking and responses. One possible catch is that the computer, unlike an organic brain, lacks any stimulus from hormonal secretions, adrenaline, etc. This kind of stimulus would have to be simulated. The astronauts themselves would remain on Earth, monitoring the flight. Any mistakes or accidents would be blamed on the individual whose brain had been uploaded, obviously.
Lastly is the idea of telecommuting (similar to the second idea expounded above). A completely automated vessel with remote controls would allow a team of astronauts to "work from home". Unlike an actual trip into space, this virtual exploration would be much safer. In fact, the astronauts' main concern would be cutting themselves while slicing a bagel in the kitchen--the number one injury in the home. Nasa would probably want to ban bagels during this time, or maybe send them pre-sliced versions.
In summary, there are quite a few workarounds for this problem and I look forward to a lively discussion!
Let's set aside all religious and moral/ethical concerns and look at the practicalities. A chimp with near-human intelligence would be a tremendous asset to both the military and private economy. They are much stronger and faster than humans, so would be incredible soldiers. They can ALREADY use sign language to communicate with humans, so just imagine taking that a step further--being able to type or write messages, maybe able to mimic human spoken language.
They would make great athletic coaches, especially for gymnastic training and the like. They would be good nannies and playmates for kids, and could defend the kids from nasty people even more effectively than could a dog.
I guess that leads to the idea of chimeric dogs. Just imagine a dog smart enough to identify someone and testify against him in court. "Yes sir, that's the perpetrator. I can smell him a mile away."
Yes, I've seen several people "promoted" into a manager or VP of Technology type of position who were simply unprepared for the transition. It was felt by the (foolish, ignorant) top execs that the candidate would make a good manager since he was already such a good programmer or architect. The predictable result was catastrophe; the former star programmer became a stupid git who was hated and despised by everyone, and eventually was shown the door after having caused incalculable damage to the organization.
Unfortunately for all parties involved, software engineering and management are two completely separate skills. It's like saying a good surgeon would make a good hospital administrator--where do you pull that out of? They are unrelated and often oppositional jobs. Shoot-from-the-hip, cowboy programmers as well as "team player", 9-5 coders are equally unqualified to manage others, with the team players being slightly better simply because they're less likely to piss everyone off right away.
I've found in my professional experience, as have many others, that really great managers are born, not made. Some people seem to have instinctual abilities to see through the fog of war and focus on the goals, marshal their resources rationally, and avoid letting petty emotions, vindictiveness, oneupmanship, and all the politics that come with human interaction get in the way. You can call them out, tell them to their face that they're full of crap, challenge their assumptions, and they will calmly roll with the punches and adjust accordingly. Their bosses will lean on them, change their priorities, threaten them, etc., and they will push back, educate their superiors, win the time and money they need to achieve the objectives.
It's like sales. Great sales people seem to have an innate ability to close the deal, while crappy sales guys (the majority in the world, I think) piss off the customer, display their ignorance, and basically fumble the ball more often than not.
So, op, proceed cautiously. You are about to step off the cliff and hope you enjoy a soft landing. A few make it, but most don't. I would say, if you're pretty good technically, you should just stay in the tech field where you know you have a good future. But, if you want to learn from bitter experience, be our guest and delve in. Get back to us in a year and let us know how it's going.
And yet, competitors like OpenOffice have been stealing market share from MS Office. By some accounts, OOo now holds over 20% of desktops. Then there's the internet apps like Google Documents, which are steadily increasing in user numbers. Microsoft's response to Google Apps, "Office 365", is a subscription-based product that is not even available without paying a fee. Undoubtedly it's getting some attention in corporate circles, where they like to pay for such things, but no one else cares.
Apple's steadily becoming more common on the desktop, and they make very highly rated laptops, tablets, and phones. Yet, they're not a monopoly in any of these markets, and Android is overtaking the iPhone.
I really don't see how Microsoft is more of a monopoly today than in the '90s. It's gradually becoming irrelevant, in fact. People are switching to handheld devices running mainly iOS or Android. In a few years, the average college student may not be using either Windows or MacOS, but instead they will be mainly familiar with these phone/tablet systems. Microsoft is a tiny player in this market so far.
Basically this Wordperfect lawsuit is a bit dated and irrelevant today. I'm surprised it wasn't thrown out long ago.
There are 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and there are probably many billions of planets. Out of all those possibilities, how rare could it be for a planet to be in the "habitable zone" of a star, with a few gas giants farther out? And isn't iron a fairly common element in planets, hence molten core, hence magnetic field protecting the surface from cosmic rays and all that.
If we suppose that Earth-like conditions are one in a billion, which seems exceedingly conservative, nonetheless we're talking about dozens or hundreds of Earth-like planets out there. It's reasonable to suppose that our conditions are not that uncommon, and there might be an order of magnitude more Earth-like planets.
There also would be millions of planets that are much harsher than Earth, yet perhaps some form of life could have evolved.
A counter argument might be that even our world was not always friendly to life; during Earth's first billion years it was quite a harsh place indeed. Subsequently there were several mass extinction events, the last one a mere 60 million years ago. During pre-Cambrian times, it's believed the planet was basically a giant snowball. Alien probes sent here during those periods might have concluded that there was no sustainable life.
I think it will be a good 200 years before we can get out to some of our neighboring stars and investigate up close. Even the closest stars would take multiple lifetimes to get to using any current or upcoming propulsion technologies. Ultimately it will be some kind of intelligent robotic explorer that we send out as a kind of trans-generational emissary, that may come back to entertain our distant descendants with tales of foreign worlds. Sad that trans-light propulsion is nothing but a pipe dream, for now anyway.
As you can see, the hourly rate and the type of worker involved has not changed at all. It appears that they're merely clarifying the definition of a computer services professional.
Personally (and I know this is going to earn me a few "troll" points from our faithful moderators), I am against mandating things like time-and-a-half and double-time pay. Although it sounds like a good deal for hourly workers, in fact it probably discourages employers from paying people more. They'll just get a part timer to come in and do the extra work, or offshore it, or some such.
I'm in IT and when I'm hourly, I love to work 50-60 hours a week. I don't give a damn about all these overtime rules; I just want to make more money. But since around 2001, companies have been much more reluctant to let people bill more than 40 hours a week unless the top management grants special permission to get some project done or some such.
Frankly I wish the government would just stay out of these matters and let the free market decide what's a fair wage, what's fair hours, etc., but maybe I'm naive :)
Well, I've noticed that when I'm not totally neutral in my tone, some moderators come down really hard. For example, if I say "You ought to do more reading" "where'd you grow up, the south pole?" or anything remotely confrontational or critical, some people will mark it flamebait.
If I say something that gets refuted, however unjustly, by some off-the-cuff and baseless reply, some moderators will apparently read that far, then go back up and mod my posting down as "overrated" because I must have been wrong.
Sometimes these kinds of moderations get overruled, and other times not. So I don't think the system really does withstand rogue (or stupid) moderators, at least in my own experience, and also in some other comments I've seen.
But, I'm willing to concede that this is possibly the best possible existing system that occasionally kills off a healthy comment "for the good of the herd" and we just have to live with that.
Metamoderate for several days in a row, and you should get some points soon. I've noticed if I quit metamodding for a while, I stop getting points.
eldavojohn #38214056 As of 10:15am EST:
40% Insightful
40% Interesting
20% Troll
This is a great example of the stupidity of moderators. Some misguided soul(s) consider the above to be a "troll" posting. I don't agree with everything eldavojohn said, but I'm not going to down-mod him and effectively remove his comment from the discussion for thousands of readers. That's ridiculous; he has a right to express his opinion.
Now if he had said, "duh, yer a fag" or something similar, then that would earn a flamebait/troll/overrated/offtopic from me and (I hope) most intelligent moderators. Stupid grade school insults are off topic and contribute nothing to the discussion.
Google has a point. Slashdot's moderation is far from perfect; people get modded down for expressing politically incorrect opinions or otherwise taking a stance opposed to that of the majority. You might call it a tyranny of the majority, in fact. I've seen quite intelligent, insightful postings modded to 0 or -1 because the person was taking an unpopular stand on an issue. On more than one occasion, I've seen factual statements dismissed by ignorant posters and moderators.
Suppressing opposing views in a discussion forum does not improve the forum or raise the level of the discussion. People strive to say things that will get them modded up, rather than say what they really believe.
The point of a discussion, or an argument, or a debate, is to allow multiple parties to express their views, and arrive at a consensus or at least understand what the opposing view is. I've often been persuaded to change my mind in these forums, although the strident nature of some of the posters is grating and counter-productive. Criticize the idea, not the person who expresses the idea.
I try to meta-moderate when I can (weird how they don't have a permanent meta-mod link on the home page, though--sometimes I have to search for it if I don't see the "Have you meta-moderated lately?" link at the top). But it often feels like bailing out a boat with a thimble.
This raises an interesting question: can a medical practitioner really be "perfectly competent" if he rejects some of the science underlying modern evolutionary biology?
Adaptation is something that happens all around us, all the time. It's been proven a million times, in a test tube or in natural settings.
Bacteria adapt to antibiotics, forcing us to reformulate our medicines. What would happen if a doctor believes that bacteria never evolve? Or that the patient is succumbing to an infection not because of resistant bacteria but because God wants him to die?
Not as opposed to PNG and JPEG, simply as a (possibly superior) alternative. JPEG did have some patent issues which fortunately have been resolved (google "jpeg patent"). Probably every graphical format that is successful will attract the attention of lawyers of patent holders and patent trolls. Hopefully Google has thoroughly vetted this technology. Pretty pathetic the hoops one has to jump through these days to create something as abstract as a computer image standard.
No, it's not foolish to say that, unless you're saying the article is foolish as well, in which case perhaps you can provide some countering arguments. Over-prescribing means the chemicals are in widespread use and are likely to be misused, leading to resistant strains. Also, the chemicals can be flushed down the sink or dumped outside, so they enter the ecosystem and foster resistant strains of microbes all over the place. It's just a bad idea to disseminate these drugs so widely.
Google has open-sourced the WebP code and utilities, so (I think) this format will not be encumbered by patents or licensing issues. That is a great contribution in itself. I continue to be amazed by Google and its ability to make money while giving stuff away.
Drug-resistant tuberculosis (extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis - XDR-TB) and drug-resistant staph (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - MRSA) have been reported in the U.S.
Very worrisome trend. Over-prescribing of antibiotics combined with misuse (taking a little, then stopping, instead of taking a full regimen to completely eliminate the pathogen) can result in the survival of resistant strains of microbes. It was bound to happen anyway, but now the trend has accelerated.
We'll have to resort to novel approaches very soon to attack these critters--nanotechnology holds a lot of promise, some forms of radiation, and new drugs.
We should be treating this as a public health emergency and providing appropriate funds to develop cures.
You can't generalize; it's a case-by-case thing. There are all types that go into the military, not just people who have no other career options. A lot of people have economic reasons to enter the military. I encountered some very sharp medical school students who were military, and who were receiving a full ride plus housing stipend, in return for four years medical service following residency. ROTC can be the right move for a college student, versus carrying a $100K student loan after graduation.
The summary is also somewhat stereotypical. Contrary to uninformed opinion, MOST people in the military are not out there shooting people and "breaking things". They have challenging, demanding jobs managing parts inventories, operating telemetry systems, repairing all sorts of equipment, medical, personnel, financial, legal, you name it. The military is a huge world unto itself.
If I were hiring, I'd take military service on someone's resume as a huge plus. It implies self-discipline and respect for authority. Sure, they may need retraining to fit into a civilian approach where there tends to be much less paperwork and bureaucratic process to deal with, but that shouldn't be a reason not to consider someone who's ex-military. I'm more suspicious of people coming out of your average party high school and party college--did they really learn anything? Did they really work hard?
Maybe they can hand Flash to the open source community and let people continue to adapt it to new hardware, etc. Maybe Flash has its flaws, but for at least the next few years it's still necessary. They're not going to convert all those websites that rely on Flash to HTML5 overnight.
And you know for a fact that the Touchpad would not have sold at $200 or $250 or $300 because...?
Everyone you know doesn't mean everyone in the market for a tablet. Several million people want to buy an Amazon Fire which is a lowly 7" tablet that doesn't even run regular Android, only a customized Amazon version, for $200.
WebOS was not declining until they screwed up the phones (that's another whole discussion). It was innovative in its day (a year or two ago). This is my main point. Lower the price of the Touchpad and people would have bought it. It didn't need to go down to $99. I'll bet they could have liquidated them at $200 just as easily, and maybe kept the business running at $300.
Agree about Win7 fail.
The WebOS-based TouchPad was innovative, but it was over-priced. HP proved that by lowering the price to fire-sale levels and it took off. Maybe they should have priced it at about $300 as a loss leader, to build up a market for apps. Amazon's losing money on their Fire tablet, for example. Seems like a smart strategy, and they're big enough to pull it off. Just fire a few of these over-paid execs like Whitman and presto! you have plenty of money for R&D.
Regarding this Slate: at $699 no one's going to buy this moldy old thing. They'll go with Apple or a Fire for $200 or some of the other up and coming budget Android offerings. Come on. Motorola proved that there's no market for a premium priced tablet that under performs compared to an iPad.
And Windows 7--excuse me? Do they really pay these executives millions of dollars to make these kinds of decisions? Heck, I'll take the CEO job for about $250K (with about a $100K golden parachute) and I'll set that house in order. Re-hire the WebOS team that they just fired, develop a world class, well engineered budget tablet to take the low ground away from Apple, and stay in the market for LONGER THAN SIX WEEKS. Offer an Android tablet, too. Come on, you're a $100 billion corporation and you can afford to develop two different platforms.
Oh, and I would keep making PC's and laptops, only make them better. More touch screens, maybe a best-in-class ultra light laptop, etc. Listen to the customers, HP. Corporate America is not dropping out of the desktop and laptop markets any time soon. Consumers don't want a Windows 7 tablet (as far as I know); they want an Apple or an Android.
Oh, really? I don't see any dodo 2.0, T. Rex 2.0, Neanderthal 2.0, or carrier pidgeon 2.0 around. It is possible to extinct-ify a species. Just get rid of all the adults so they stop procreating, and presto! No more annoying itch!