I couldn't agree with you more - and I think that the reason they are claiming things like this to be 'planets - whoooo!' is really for self promotion. What does it matter what size a solar entity is? Sure, it's nice to explore things and all, but I don't find this to be any more exciting of a discovery than finding another large asteroid in the belt. Of course now the people who 'discovered' this sphere are going to be more well known in the astoronomical community and will probably get more grant money or whatever - but what does anyone else benefit from it?
Humans are so busy classifying things that we often neglect to realize why things like this 'planetoid' are really important - perhaps it will shed some new light on our solar systems evolution or whatever, but I hardly think debating whether or not it is a planet is at all important, after all, what makes a planet any different from a big rock?
I think that's why both MP3.com and Napster exist. I would have to agree with you in that Napster does nothing for advertising, but that's not what it was intended for. I broadcast a jungle/drum 'n bass/reggae show at my University and since we're in Canada I have to broadcast a certain percentage of Canadian music. Well, with genre's like jungle and reggae you don't find too many popular canadian acts so I've frequently gone to MP3.com to find them. I'd just like to point out that people won't follow up on obscure groups unless they are doing so with the intent to do so. How many people walk around the record store looking for new stuff? I would think hardly no-one, since everyone there is going to find something they've allready heard or an artist they allready follow. Napster is the same situation - people only get music from it that they want. While I don't think that advertising would hurt Napster too much, it's hard to say who would have control of it, and unfortunatly I think it would end up in the hands of those money grabbing industry goons in the end.
I think the thing that pisses me off the most about this guy is that he is just a puppet for the labels himself. He spouts nonsense about money appropriation in the big label scenario - why doesn't he go over to an indie label that doesn't work for only a few big sellers and actually cares about it's artists...
Oh wait! I forgot, he probably won't make as much money - he's not one of those poor less popular, higher quality artists.
Most of the stories on slashdot are sent in by it's own readers. While they are screened it isn't like Slashdot is pretending to be a corporate news agency - it works based on the principle that someone else has allready documented the news! Why should something that works fine be subjected to stringencies that don't apply to it's nature in the first place? As far as I'm concerned Slashdot isn't a news website - it's a way for people to inform one another of news that appears in other venues - so in this case Slashdot isn't reporting anything, it's only providing a means for a lot of people with common interests to become aware of news that other people have done.
I was really quite impressed by that website. It matched me up almost perfectly with what I had thought and it even nailed down my political outlook.
Sites like this should be the ones that get more publicity during election time - maybe if more of the 'drone' voters took a try at these types of information sites then they might be more influenced to vote outside their 'traditional party affiliation' and we could start to have a real democracy instead of a sheep herding contest.
I was surprised to see that they didn't include anything about censorship and whatnot though...
I guess that's the beauty of the big bang hypothesis - it started at a singularity, and therefor we don't need to try to understand what happened before Planck time since it is beyond the framework of our science.
The big bang theory (our current one, at least) doesn't attempt to describe anything before or at it's beginning - thereby making it easy for us to forget about it - we automatically assume that our laws of physics would break down at it's inception.
Here is the deal. In the end Science and Religion attempt to describe our reality based on a system of truths. Both exist so that mankind can come to conclusions about how his universe works. Both are also dependant on mankind in they way they are formulated. Now, if one subscribes to the majority of scientific progress, it is fully clear that all we are doing is testing our reality, keeping track of the things that turn out to be true (this is quite complicated in many ways - I'm not going to get into it) until we find out that they are only valid in a certain portion of our reality or incorrect alltogether.
The role of religion is really kind of unimportant when you get down to it. If there is a deity that created/maintains our known reality, do you think he would assume that we were so ignorant that he would send us a book, and leave us be? Do you think that he would consider us his most important creation? I highly doubt it - that is why I avoid all 'book' religions like the plague and prefer the agnostic stance.
Science will continue to be correct (by it's very nature) unless we find fault in our basic concept of what is true. Religion is a personal decision to help justify your existance - and while most western religions hold a focus on the importance of mankind, one can easily find a greater appreciation of their life through many of the eastern religions.
In the end I think the belief in a concept of god/religion is not a requirement for existance, and therefor it falls into the bin of 'things to waste time pondering about', like whether I eat corn or bran flakes for breakfast tomorrow.
Coalite plans to produce up to 35 million litres of oil a year
While it may not solve the oil crisis, it is sufficient to supplement a very desirable commodity. You also have to remember that there are dumps full of old tires that do nothing but take up space - they don't decompose and they aren't worth anything to anyone (unless you like making tire-swings). If anything at least this will free up some landfill space and since many of these tire dumps are unsafe (if they catch on fire you're talking about quite a deadly soup of toxic smoke - it happens!) it's probably a good thing that we get rid of them.
While I think that we should be moving away from fossil fuels, there is no doubt that almost every country on the planet will try to squeeze out every last drop of oil that they can, reusing these tires is just a step in process. Don't be surprised to find a lot of this 'recycling' in the years to come as we quickly work our way down to the bottom of our oil wells - rising oil prices only help to accelerate projects which might currently be deemed uneconomic.
Like a lot of other people have mentioned, the amount of information accessable to humanity is primarily determined by the methods with which we store it. As we create larger and larger data storage systems, we will also generate that much more data (relevance is another issue altogether however).
I remember reading recently that the amount of information stored doubles every 4 years. It was given by some librarian-type so I would expect it to be fairly valid. Our storage media, however, has been increasing in size much faster, so I'm not too sure how they correlate. In the end I think the main factor would have to be the number of people that are storing data, and since our population is increasing exponentially, I guess our quantity of information would be following right along our population growth (I know this is rather simplified, but I'm not going to go into demographics and whatnot).
Still, Smalley cautions, "this isn't the ultimate" when it comes to making SWNTs. The tubes, he says, wind up as a tangled mat rather than perfectly aligned fibers. They also vary slightly in diameter, a drawback that can create tubes with a range of electronic properties.
As one can see, this new technique is definately a step in the right direction, however, I don't think it should be touted as the beginning of implementation for this technology. The complications that Smalley describes make this production method suitable for producing relatively large amounts of nanotubes, however, they are not of sufficient quality for use in many of their proposed applications.
the U.S. government is going overseas to promote in whatever international forum it can find, an expansion of authority that it has not been able to acquire here
I find this pretty interesting - since when did the united states government ever have to get support from abroad to implement policies?
My parents never put me in a Mind-Cage(TM) and I'm not going to restrict my children's ability to make their own moral decisions either. If you teach your kids how to think for themselves and to realize when to click 'back' on the browser or when to close pop-up windows then you wouldn't have anything to worry about.
More than anything this is just another case of the american public trying to shake off one of the problems with it's family structure. First it was "My kid is hyper - better get him on that ritalin!", now it's "My kid has such a fragile mind, better not let him have access to any material that might force him/her to make a moral decision".
The government can't fix the problems that you have with raising your children. Schools can try to help, but in the end it's the parents responsibility to not just protect their children, but to teach them to think for themselves.
This whole debate on filters is really kind of interesting when you realize just how superficial the interest in it is by the government. Everyone is promising to protect the children, but none of them have actually worked on the problem and realized just how thin of a line they will have to walk on. It seems that they have jumped on something that the american public views as being extremely important - protecting the fragile minds of their children, and have made all these promises of providing filters to create internet sanctuaries for these fledgling minds. The whole problem is that while the politicians promise to safegaurd public access machines they don't realize that what they are proposing is next to impossible to implement based on their perfect scheme of morality. To me it just seems like another vote-grabbing opportunity to make a lot of promises about something which they will have little success actually implementing. The fact that congress can't make up it's mind only shows you how much will actually get done on this.
As far as I'm concerned, if your children can't handle using the internet properly (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) then it's your duty as a parent to teach them how to deal with information and what is appropriate. Don't expect the government to provide a quick fix to your faults in upbringing - it's a slim chance it will get implemented soon and if they ever do it's highly likely that it won't work the way everyone would want it to anyway.
--The only alternative is bigger government and more Federal oversight of the process through the FTC and other administrative bodies
While I would agree that there isn't much of an alternative in the matter, I would not like to answer to foreign government agencies when dealing with this process. Besides the usual 'paranoia' aspects of having a government agency in charge of things, I think that internet related policies should not be dictated by any one country.
Thus, the issue of whether the global ozone layer shows a steadily depleting trend is still controversial.
Taken right from the essay. Although I would agree with you in that I'm not totally convinced on the issue of 'ozone layer depletion' either, it is interesting to see that this article begins with a scientific basis of 'the uncertainty' of research on ozone layer cause and effect and quickly progresses to the fact that it costs lots of money to phase out 'potential' ozone depleting chemicals and whether or not it is in the US's interest to stay in potentially expensive environmental pacts.
I think one of the key things that we have come to realize at the end of this century is that many of the large scale phenomena we witness here on Earth are the products of an extremely complex and often non-linear series of events. Our technology has reached the point where it can and often does cause serious changes to our environment. One of the problems with the point of view that this essay takes is that it neglects 'precaution' in favour of the idea that we should be more concerned with short term economical gain.
If something has the potential to possibly cause damage, isn't it more logical to stop using it? Even if we are only right 1 in 10 times on whether something can cause damage to the environment, I would rather waste the money controlling the nine than sweeping the one under the rug.
It's pretty funny actually, I get the same thing while cramming for final exams. The night before the exam I usually end up having a nightmare about solving problems, and I never, ever get them right (sometimes I wonder if my dream problems even have correct answers!). I always do good on my exams though. Maybe it's just my brain compiling all my problem solving techniques!
I tried to submit this article on science policy yesterday but it got rejected. It's an article in Physics Today showing Bush and Gore's answers to 10 of the most important science related issues.
If you're going to get informed on the platforms, you might as well get informed on the decisions that really matter.
Someone earlier talked about UV light destroying organic matter. It might be harmful to humans - but organic matter itself?
Actually, UV radiation is harmful to most organic molecules since it is of sufficient energy to break many of the bonds which hold the molecules together. That is also why it is harmful to us (in the most fundamental sense).
Astronomers have found organic molecules in space (spectroscopic methods), and when they do they only find them in situations where they are shielded from higher energy electromagnetic radiation. Things like the insides of dust clouds make for good organic incubators since the outside layers absorb most of the radiation emitted from nearby stars. Mind you, they never really find anything too complex (mostly just basic organic molecules) but it does give some insight into how chemistry works on the interstellar scale.
The animal was found in samples taken in 1994 from a well in Isunngua on Disco island in northwestern Greenland
First it's named Greenland in hopes of attracting settlers, then they name one of the islands Disco island! What a vacation that would be - you're all set for a week of fun in the lushness of Greenland on the party island of Disco, and when you get there you realize that it's 40 below and taken over by worms 0.1 mm long with complex jaws!
Now when they start selling Great Dane versions, that's when it will really start getting interesting!
All you'd have to do is write your own little mailman identification script, and ta da! What a grand home movie that would make! You could even watch from the dog's point of view!
We're talking about an association that plays around with millions of dollars. To have set this up with the expectations that it wouldn't be cracked would have been a complete waste of time, they must have known it would be done.
When you're at the top, you don't leave any options unturned and you definately do not create situations which can bring about your downfall. It's more than likely that we're going to see something fly out of their sleeve that no-one expected, and I just hope it can be dealt with as easily as this SDMI crap.
I couldn't agree with you more about the cheap mp3 thing. You would definately still have piracy, but I think that people would have much less incentive to pirate music.
One of the problems with cheap music is that RIAA won't make as much money, plain and simple. They figure they've got their optimum price right now - if they could make more money by selling music cheaper there's no doubt in my mind they'd have allready implemented it. The root of the problem is the RIAA itself. Maybe a non-profit organization (government regulated??) should be implemented to take care of this. In Canada the goverment funds most of the up-and-coming talent through cultural grants and whatnot since it is harder for canadian acts to break into the US market. I don't see how it would be that much harder to set up a federal organization for recording artists - shit, we got one for pretty much everything else up here.
The sad thing is that most artists probably don't even get 25 cents for each song that they sell - it's all gobbled up by the middle man - the RIAA.
If you view mankind as a portion of the matter in the universe that has evolved to a certain complex state (I know that is an extremely simplified view, I'm not trying to flamebait) maybe in the end a humankind-created black hole will be one of the final steps of our evolution as we like to think of it!
Seeing as there might be trillions (who knows, just shooting in the dark) of civilizations in the universe, how many of them might end up with the same fate (assuming that most civilizations eventually persue scientific research of this nature)? If it is part of the learning process in particle physics maybe it is happening everywhere! Then again maybe there are some civilizations that have come to realize the impending 'black hole research doom' and have sent out signals warning against self annhilation by means of black holes. Fire up your Seti@home!
I think that there is something else going on here, it definately makes for a good conspiracy!
Since man first made his own spears, the main outlet for anger and violence has been through the art of warfare. You got a kid who likes to destroy and cause violence? Send him to the army! That way he can persue his violent tendencies and promote the interests of the nation at the same time, everyone wins!
Now, with the advent of violent media/games, most of these aspiring killing machines have been pacified by the realistic killing environments that have been created for them in movies/games/comic books/etc, and have no interest in becoming professional 'real-life' killers, they just want to become another Quake World Champion!
The United States, being a military superpower, realizes that it's next generation of soldiers are quickly dwindling due to lost interest in serving in the armed forces. So in the end, the new political agenda isn't about children causing violence, it's about the upcoming lack of violent children enrolling in the armed forces!
Slashdot Mirror
Humans are so busy classifying things that we often neglect to realize why things like this 'planetoid' are really important - perhaps it will shed some new light on our solar systems evolution or whatever, but I hardly think debating whether or not it is a planet is at all important, after all, what makes a planet any different from a big rock?
I think the thing that pisses me off the most about this guy is that he is just a puppet for the labels himself. He spouts nonsense about money appropriation in the big label scenario - why doesn't he go over to an indie label that doesn't work for only a few big sellers and actually cares about it's artists...
Oh wait! I forgot, he probably won't make as much money - he's not one of those poor less popular, higher quality artists.
Sites like this should be the ones that get more publicity during election time - maybe if more of the 'drone' voters took a try at these types of information sites then they might be more influenced to vote outside their 'traditional party affiliation' and we could start to have a real democracy instead of a sheep herding contest.
I was surprised to see that they didn't include anything about censorship and whatnot though...
I guess that's the beauty of the big bang hypothesis - it started at a singularity, and therefor we don't need to try to understand what happened before Planck time since it is beyond the framework of our science.
The big bang theory (our current one, at least) doesn't attempt to describe anything before or at it's beginning - thereby making it easy for us to forget about it - we automatically assume that our laws of physics would break down at it's inception.
Here is the deal. In the end Science and Religion attempt to describe our reality based on a system of truths. Both exist so that mankind can come to conclusions about how his universe works. Both are also dependant on mankind in they way they are formulated. Now, if one subscribes to the majority of scientific progress, it is fully clear that all we are doing is testing our reality, keeping track of the things that turn out to be true (this is quite complicated in many ways - I'm not going to get into it) until we find out that they are only valid in a certain portion of our reality or incorrect alltogether.
The role of religion is really kind of unimportant when you get down to it. If there is a deity that created/maintains our known reality, do you think he would assume that we were so ignorant that he would send us a book, and leave us be? Do you think that he would consider us his most important creation? I highly doubt it - that is why I avoid all 'book' religions like the plague and prefer the agnostic stance.
Science will continue to be correct (by it's very nature) unless we find fault in our basic concept of what is true. Religion is a personal decision to help justify your existance - and while most western religions hold a focus on the importance of mankind, one can easily find a greater appreciation of their life through many of the eastern religions.
In the end I think the belief in a concept of god/religion is not a requirement for existance, and therefor it falls into the bin of 'things to waste time pondering about', like whether I eat corn or bran flakes for breakfast tomorrow.
Just my opinion. (It was asked for!)
While it may not solve the oil crisis, it is sufficient to supplement a very desirable commodity. You also have to remember that there are dumps full of old tires that do nothing but take up space - they don't decompose and they aren't worth anything to anyone (unless you like making tire-swings). If anything at least this will free up some landfill space and since many of these tire dumps are unsafe (if they catch on fire you're talking about quite a deadly soup of toxic smoke - it happens!) it's probably a good thing that we get rid of them.
While I think that we should be moving away from fossil fuels, there is no doubt that almost every country on the planet will try to squeeze out every last drop of oil that they can, reusing these tires is just a step in process. Don't be surprised to find a lot of this 'recycling' in the years to come as we quickly work our way down to the bottom of our oil wells - rising oil prices only help to accelerate projects which might currently be deemed uneconomic.
I remember reading recently that the amount of information stored doubles every 4 years. It was given by some librarian-type so I would expect it to be fairly valid. Our storage media, however, has been increasing in size much faster, so I'm not too sure how they correlate. In the end I think the main factor would have to be the number of people that are storing data, and since our population is increasing exponentially, I guess our quantity of information would be following right along our population growth (I know this is rather simplified, but I'm not going to go into demographics and whatnot).
As one can see, this new technique is definately a step in the right direction, however, I don't think it should be touted as the beginning of implementation for this technology. The complications that Smalley describes make this production method suitable for producing relatively large amounts of nanotubes, however, they are not of sufficient quality for use in many of their proposed applications.
I find this pretty interesting - since when did the united states government ever have to get support from abroad to implement policies?
My parents never put me in a Mind-Cage(TM) and I'm not going to restrict my children's ability to make their own moral decisions either. If you teach your kids how to think for themselves and to realize when to click 'back' on the browser or when to close pop-up windows then you wouldn't have anything to worry about.
More than anything this is just another case of the american public trying to shake off one of the problems with it's family structure. First it was "My kid is hyper - better get him on that ritalin!", now it's "My kid has such a fragile mind, better not let him have access to any material that might force him/her to make a moral decision".
The government can't fix the problems that you have with raising your children. Schools can try to help, but in the end it's the parents responsibility to not just protect their children, but to teach them to think for themselves.
As far as I'm concerned, if your children can't handle using the internet properly (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) then it's your duty as a parent to teach them how to deal with information and what is appropriate. Don't expect the government to provide a quick fix to your faults in upbringing - it's a slim chance it will get implemented soon and if they ever do it's highly likely that it won't work the way everyone would want it to anyway.
While I would agree that there isn't much of an alternative in the matter, I would not like to answer to foreign government agencies when dealing with this process. Besides the usual 'paranoia' aspects of having a government agency in charge of things, I think that internet related policies should not be dictated by any one country.
I wonder what type of 'tests' they are going to implement?
Thus, the issue of whether the global ozone layer shows a steadily depleting trend is still controversial.
Taken right from the essay. Although I would agree with you in that I'm not totally convinced on the issue of 'ozone layer depletion' either, it is interesting to see that this article begins with a scientific basis of 'the uncertainty' of research on ozone layer cause and effect and quickly progresses to the fact that it costs lots of money to phase out 'potential' ozone depleting chemicals and whether or not it is in the US's interest to stay in potentially expensive environmental pacts.
I think one of the key things that we have come to realize at the end of this century is that many of the large scale phenomena we witness here on Earth are the products of an extremely complex and often non-linear series of events. Our technology has reached the point where it can and often does cause serious changes to our environment. One of the problems with the point of view that this essay takes is that it neglects 'precaution' in favour of the idea that we should be more concerned with short term economical gain.
If something has the potential to possibly cause damage, isn't it more logical to stop using it? Even if we are only right 1 in 10 times on whether something can cause damage to the environment, I would rather waste the money controlling the nine than sweeping the one under the rug.
It's pretty funny actually, I get the same thing while cramming for final exams. The night before the exam I usually end up having a nightmare about solving problems, and I never, ever get them right (sometimes I wonder if my dream problems even have correct answers!). I always do good on my exams though. Maybe it's just my brain compiling all my problem solving techniques!
If you're going to get informed on the platforms, you might as well get informed on the decisions that really matter.
Actually, UV radiation is harmful to most organic molecules since it is of sufficient energy to break many of the bonds which hold the molecules together. That is also why it is harmful to us (in the most fundamental sense).
Astronomers have found organic molecules in space (spectroscopic methods), and when they do they only find them in situations where they are shielded from higher energy electromagnetic radiation. Things like the insides of dust clouds make for good organic incubators since the outside layers absorb most of the radiation emitted from nearby stars. Mind you, they never really find anything too complex (mostly just basic organic molecules) but it does give some insight into how chemistry works on the interstellar scale.
First it's named Greenland in hopes of attracting settlers, then they name one of the islands Disco island! What a vacation that would be - you're all set for a week of fun in the lushness of Greenland on the party island of Disco, and when you get there you realize that it's 40 below and taken over by worms 0.1 mm long with complex jaws!
Talk about false advertising!
All you'd have to do is write your own little mailman identification script, and ta da! What a grand home movie that would make! You could even watch from the dog's point of view!
We're talking about an association that plays around with millions of dollars. To have set this up with the expectations that it wouldn't be cracked would have been a complete waste of time, they must have known it would be done.
When you're at the top, you don't leave any options unturned and you definately do not create situations which can bring about your downfall. It's more than likely that we're going to see something fly out of their sleeve that no-one expected, and I just hope it can be dealt with as easily as this SDMI crap.
One of the problems with cheap music is that RIAA won't make as much money, plain and simple. They figure they've got their optimum price right now - if they could make more money by selling music cheaper there's no doubt in my mind they'd have allready implemented it. The root of the problem is the RIAA itself. Maybe a non-profit organization (government regulated??) should be implemented to take care of this. In Canada the goverment funds most of the up-and-coming talent through cultural grants and whatnot since it is harder for canadian acts to break into the US market. I don't see how it would be that much harder to set up a federal organization for recording artists - shit, we got one for pretty much everything else up here.
The sad thing is that most artists probably don't even get 25 cents for each song that they sell - it's all gobbled up by the middle man - the RIAA.
If you view mankind as a portion of the matter in the universe that has evolved to a certain complex state (I know that is an extremely simplified view, I'm not trying to flamebait) maybe in the end a humankind-created black hole will be one of the final steps of our evolution as we like to think of it!
Seeing as there might be trillions (who knows, just shooting in the dark) of civilizations in the universe, how many of them might end up with the same fate (assuming that most civilizations eventually persue scientific research of this nature)? If it is part of the learning process in particle physics maybe it is happening everywhere! Then again maybe there are some civilizations that have come to realize the impending 'black hole research doom' and have sent out signals warning against self annhilation by means of black holes. Fire up your Seti@home!
Since man first made his own spears, the main outlet for anger and violence has been through the art of warfare. You got a kid who likes to destroy and cause violence? Send him to the army! That way he can persue his violent tendencies and promote the interests of the nation at the same time, everyone wins!
Now, with the advent of violent media/games, most of these aspiring killing machines have been pacified by the realistic killing environments that have been created for them in movies/games/comic books/etc, and have no interest in becoming professional 'real-life' killers, they just want to become another Quake World Champion!
The United States, being a military superpower, realizes that it's next generation of soldiers are quickly dwindling due to lost interest in serving in the armed forces. So in the end, the new political agenda isn't about children causing violence, it's about the upcoming lack of violent children enrolling in the armed forces!