Not to mention that a speeding train tends to cause a wind gust. You could get a leaf slight burning by the laser, tossed around by the train's wind currents, and land in a bush or grassy area a few feet away. Drought + Laser Train = Trail of Fire.
Could it also distort the rail itself? Probably not from one train passing over it, but once a few hundred trains zap the rails, it might distort just enough to cause problems.
Not to mention that an FBI backdoor might be exploited by a hacker and then this company's tech products will look horribly inferior to their competitor who didn't put in the back doors.
1) Aliens are technology snobs. They are only willing to contact civilizations with a certain level of technology. We are barely the equivalent of some third world country to them. They want to avoid us as all costs because we are so backwards.
2) Xenophobia. Intelligent species tend to not like other intelligent species for whatever reason. So even if they detect an alien species, they stay away from each other.
3) They don't know we're here. Perhaps they have moved past radio communications and now rely solely on some sort of FTL communication method that we have yet to discover. In doing this, they become invisible to us, but the flip side might be true. They might have been using this communication system for so long that it just doesn't dawn on them to contact us.
And one last one but likely the most probable:
4) We just weren't listening. Think about the history of human communications. How long have we had the ability to receive radio broadcasts? Around 80 years. So if an alien civilization sent a "We're Here" message to us a hundred years ago, it would have zoomed by us without us responding. Maybe they tried contacting us and we just didn't answer to they moved on assuming there wasn't intelligent life on Earth.
At least flashlights are something police departments can use. My county police department got a mine resistant truck. Are there mines buried all over my county that I don't know about?!!! *carefully watches where I step*
You can still do this without eye tracking. Say you've selected Pepperoni and Onions. The order menu could say "People who selected Pepperoni and Onions also liked..." and list other toppings. Amazon does this on their sales pages. You might decide to follow the crowd, so to speak, and toss some more toppings on because other people have eaten them. All it would take is an order history database. You don't even need to store the person's details. Just what pizzas were ordered and possibly the location to narrow it down based on regional preferences.
There's one near me. Of course, the only reason I know this is because there's a good fish fry place right next door. I haven't actually entered the Pizza Hut, but can tell from the outside that it's dine in.
Why use an eye-tracking system, though, over a touchscreen ordering system? You select the toppings you want, submit the order, pay, get your receipt, move down the line, and get your food at a second window. No need to worry that you're tossing pepperoni on the pie because the person's eyes happened to linger there just a little bit too long. (Or have to inconvenience customers by making them remove the pepperoni from their order when the system thought they wanted pepperoni.)
Right now the only thing that has pushed the cable companies to innovate are the likes of Google Fiber and Netflix and Amazon.
Unfortunately, this "innovation" is limited in area when it comes to Google Fiber and - when it comes to Netflix/Amazon - is limited to usage caps and attempts to make "fast lanes" to generate more revenue.
I don't see any actual innovation from the cable companies beyond "tighten our monopoly grip and use that to make sure our TV services business isn't replaced by Internet video."
I played a Flash game like this years ago. (It was called Pandemic. I believe there's a tabletop game with the same name, but I don't know whether they are related.) I'd keep mortality at the lowest amount possible and ramp up infectivity as much as possible. Then, when everyone was infected, I'd make my virus super-lethal. Everyone in the world was dead in a matter of days. Fun times. Completely unrealistic as far as evolution is concerned, but still fun.
Doesn't Ebola only transmit when symptoms present themselves. If John Smith gets infected with Ebola and you are around him, you aren't in any danger. Once he shows symptoms though, he can transmit Ebola to someone else.
There are other viruses, though, that are the exact opposite. Once symptoms show, they are beyond the "spread far and wide" phase.
People don't exist in "bare form". We have a complex and growing plethora of decidedly human artifacts like clothing, houses, governments, and technology. Subsequently, people have evolved to respond very quickly and intelligently to a myriad of environmental threats, ranging from viruses and disease to climate change.
I've often wondered. Suppose you had a time machine, went back, took some random person from the year 1900, and brought them to the present day. How would they fare in the modern world? My guess is that there would be a big adjustment period but they would manage. How about a person from 1850? 1800? 1700? At what point would the person be so totally lost in modern society that they wouldn't be able to function at all. (We can even make it easier for the people by assuming some sort of universal translator so a person from 1700 doesn't have the hurdle of not speaking 21st century English.)
I don't think people with Asperger's/Autism need to be cured, but there are definitely folks who would benefit from some sort of treatment (be it medicine or therapy) that would reduce some of the more severs Autism symptoms so they can function in a neurotypical world. There are options out there. (My guess is that I'm further towards the "more functional" end of the spectrum - for lack of a better description. My Asperger's has been a constant challenge, but I've learned a lot of coping strategies over the decades.)
Sadly, this probably wouldn't have worked on young-me as I didn't always look at people when I talked with them. I'd often start talking to my parents and then continue the "conversation" as I walked into another room. Now my son does it to me. Karma in action!
Even if we could trust the Justice Department 100% with a backdoor into every crypto system developed (and this is one HUGE "if"), having a backdoor would provide hackers the chance to break into the crypto systems also. Do you think having a side entrance of a building will keep thieves out because you hung a "For Government Use Only" sign on it or because you painted the door to kind-of-sort-of look like the wall to hide it?
Except that the machines DID replace people. Go to a factory today and you won't see a line of people repeating tasks over and over along the line. You'll see robots performing the same action over and over. Jobs for people moved into other areas (which caused a temporary harm with people out of work in exchange for long term gains). Thankfully, these machines were dumb and could only be designed to complete one narrow task. Creative work still was the realm of humans.
If we assume the development of strong AI - which is a big assumption as we aren't even close today - this could lead to another round of job losses as jobs previously associated with people move to AI-employment. And if a strong-AI could do everything a human could do, what jobs would be left for people?
Most big employers wouldn't probably jump at the chance to replace a human workforce with AI. The AI could work long hours at 100% productivity, no breaks (minus the rare scheduled system update), and for no pay. What human could compete with this?
The saving grace here is that strong AI is decades away (at least) from being developed.
My son seems to like associating with people older than him (who are more his intellectual peers) and people who are younger than him (who are more his social/emotional peers). Actually, he'll associate with anyone who is kind to him since he can be starved for friendship.
That's one misconception about people with Asperger's. Others think they are anti-social, but we're not. We just find social situations complicated and difficult. We long for social contact but when we get it often can't stand it for long. Growing up (before I even heard of Asperger's), I likened it to seeing a spotlight and wanting more than anything to be inside it. Then, once you stepped inside, being blinded by the spotlight's light and wanting to leave it as quickly as possible. Many Aspies will shy away from social contact rather than deal with the difficulties and this, from the outside, looks like anti-social behavior.
The trouble is that most parents (if they are neurotypical) take the rules of human interaction for granted. They get it and if they have a neurotypical child, that child gets it too. However, their child with Asperger's will often struggle with the simplest of things. For example, with basic hygiene. Growing up I never saw the use of brushing my hair. It just didn't seem important. After all, I don't see my own hair so why should it "look nice"? Brushing my hair also didn't prevent disease like washing my hands or brushing my teeth. So I went for quite some time with completely unkempt hair. (I'm sure my parents picked their battles and allowed this as a minor issue. You can't fight every battle at every moment or you'll wind up losing more than you win.)
Let's assume that a star travelling 1/3rd the speed of light had a habitable planet on it and there was life on that planet. What would moving so fast do to the stars in the sky? Would they be blurred? Would some sections of sky be darker or lighter (or redder/bluer) than others? Would the star patterns change on a regular basis?
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention that a speeding train tends to cause a wind gust. You could get a leaf slight burning by the laser, tossed around by the train's wind currents, and land in a bush or grassy area a few feet away. Drought + Laser Train = Trail of Fire.
Could it also distort the rail itself? Probably not from one train passing over it, but once a few hundred trains zap the rails, it might distort just enough to cause problems.
Not to mention that an FBI backdoor might be exploited by a hacker and then this company's tech products will look horribly inferior to their competitor who didn't put in the back doors.
A few possibilities:
1) Aliens are technology snobs. They are only willing to contact civilizations with a certain level of technology. We are barely the equivalent of some third world country to them. They want to avoid us as all costs because we are so backwards.
2) Xenophobia. Intelligent species tend to not like other intelligent species for whatever reason. So even if they detect an alien species, they stay away from each other.
3) They don't know we're here. Perhaps they have moved past radio communications and now rely solely on some sort of FTL communication method that we have yet to discover. In doing this, they become invisible to us, but the flip side might be true. They might have been using this communication system for so long that it just doesn't dawn on them to contact us.
And one last one but likely the most probable:
4) We just weren't listening. Think about the history of human communications. How long have we had the ability to receive radio broadcasts? Around 80 years. So if an alien civilization sent a "We're Here" message to us a hundred years ago, it would have zoomed by us without us responding. Maybe they tried contacting us and we just didn't answer to they moved on assuming there wasn't intelligent life on Earth.
At least flashlights are something police departments can use. My county police department got a mine resistant truck. Are there mines buried all over my county that I don't know about?!!! *carefully watches where I step*
Those who ignore history are bound to... LOOK, A TERRORIST!!!!
You can still do this without eye tracking. Say you've selected Pepperoni and Onions. The order menu could say "People who selected Pepperoni and Onions also liked..." and list other toppings. Amazon does this on their sales pages. You might decide to follow the crowd, so to speak, and toss some more toppings on because other people have eaten them. All it would take is an order history database. You don't even need to store the person's details. Just what pizzas were ordered and possibly the location to narrow it down based on regional preferences.
Someone has already done this: http://www.alphaila.com/articles/failure/fast-food-false-advertising-vs-reality/ The real life burgers look really pathetic next to the "ad burger."
If fast food places didn't have pretty pictures on their menus, how would they show you just what your food won't look like?
There's one near me. Of course, the only reason I know this is because there's a good fish fry place right next door. I haven't actually entered the Pizza Hut, but can tell from the outside that it's dine in.
"Honey, honest. I don't know why the eye tracking system ordered that for us! I kept my eyes on the menu the whole time!!!"
Why use an eye-tracking system, though, over a touchscreen ordering system? You select the toppings you want, submit the order, pay, get your receipt, move down the line, and get your food at a second window. No need to worry that you're tossing pepperoni on the pie because the person's eyes happened to linger there just a little bit too long. (Or have to inconvenience customers by making them remove the pepperoni from their order when the system thought they wanted pepperoni.)
Or is touch-screen too much work for people now?
Unfortunately, this "innovation" is limited in area when it comes to Google Fiber and - when it comes to Netflix/Amazon - is limited to usage caps and attempts to make "fast lanes" to generate more revenue.
I don't see any actual innovation from the cable companies beyond "tighten our monopoly grip and use that to make sure our TV services business isn't replaced by Internet video."
I played a Flash game like this years ago. (It was called Pandemic. I believe there's a tabletop game with the same name, but I don't know whether they are related.) I'd keep mortality at the lowest amount possible and ramp up infectivity as much as possible. Then, when everyone was infected, I'd make my virus super-lethal. Everyone in the world was dead in a matter of days. Fun times. Completely unrealistic as far as evolution is concerned, but still fun.
Doesn't Ebola only transmit when symptoms present themselves. If John Smith gets infected with Ebola and you are around him, you aren't in any danger. Once he shows symptoms though, he can transmit Ebola to someone else.
There are other viruses, though, that are the exact opposite. Once symptoms show, they are beyond the "spread far and wide" phase.
I've often wondered. Suppose you had a time machine, went back, took some random person from the year 1900, and brought them to the present day. How would they fare in the modern world? My guess is that there would be a big adjustment period but they would manage. How about a person from 1850? 1800? 1700? At what point would the person be so totally lost in modern society that they wouldn't be able to function at all. (We can even make it easier for the people by assuming some sort of universal translator so a person from 1700 doesn't have the hurdle of not speaking 21st century English.)
I'm married and I disagree with this 100%.
*checks to see if my wife is looking.*
I don't think people with Asperger's/Autism need to be cured, but there are definitely folks who would benefit from some sort of treatment (be it medicine or therapy) that would reduce some of the more severs Autism symptoms so they can function in a neurotypical world. There are options out there. (My guess is that I'm further towards the "more functional" end of the spectrum - for lack of a better description. My Asperger's has been a constant challenge, but I've learned a lot of coping strategies over the decades.)
Sadly, this probably wouldn't have worked on young-me as I didn't always look at people when I talked with them. I'd often start talking to my parents and then continue the "conversation" as I walked into another room. Now my son does it to me. Karma in action!
Even if we could trust the Justice Department 100% with a backdoor into every crypto system developed (and this is one HUGE "if"), having a backdoor would provide hackers the chance to break into the crypto systems also. Do you think having a side entrance of a building will keep thieves out because you hung a "For Government Use Only" sign on it or because you painted the door to kind-of-sort-of look like the wall to hide it?
Except that the machines DID replace people. Go to a factory today and you won't see a line of people repeating tasks over and over along the line. You'll see robots performing the same action over and over. Jobs for people moved into other areas (which caused a temporary harm with people out of work in exchange for long term gains). Thankfully, these machines were dumb and could only be designed to complete one narrow task. Creative work still was the realm of humans.
If we assume the development of strong AI - which is a big assumption as we aren't even close today - this could lead to another round of job losses as jobs previously associated with people move to AI-employment. And if a strong-AI could do everything a human could do, what jobs would be left for people?
Most big employers wouldn't probably jump at the chance to replace a human workforce with AI. The AI could work long hours at 100% productivity, no breaks (minus the rare scheduled system update), and for no pay. What human could compete with this?
The saving grace here is that strong AI is decades away (at least) from being developed.
My son seems to like associating with people older than him (who are more his intellectual peers) and people who are younger than him (who are more his social/emotional peers). Actually, he'll associate with anyone who is kind to him since he can be starved for friendship.
That's one misconception about people with Asperger's. Others think they are anti-social, but we're not. We just find social situations complicated and difficult. We long for social contact but when we get it often can't stand it for long. Growing up (before I even heard of Asperger's), I likened it to seeing a spotlight and wanting more than anything to be inside it. Then, once you stepped inside, being blinded by the spotlight's light and wanting to leave it as quickly as possible. Many Aspies will shy away from social contact rather than deal with the difficulties and this, from the outside, looks like anti-social behavior.
The trouble is that most parents (if they are neurotypical) take the rules of human interaction for granted. They get it and if they have a neurotypical child, that child gets it too. However, their child with Asperger's will often struggle with the simplest of things. For example, with basic hygiene. Growing up I never saw the use of brushing my hair. It just didn't seem important. After all, I don't see my own hair so why should it "look nice"? Brushing my hair also didn't prevent disease like washing my hands or brushing my teeth. So I went for quite some time with completely unkempt hair. (I'm sure my parents picked their battles and allowed this as a minor issue. You can't fight every battle at every moment or you'll wind up losing more than you win.)
Let's assume that a star travelling 1/3rd the speed of light had a habitable planet on it and there was life on that planet. What would moving so fast do to the stars in the sky? Would they be blurred? Would some sections of sky be darker or lighter (or redder/bluer) than others? Would the star patterns change on a regular basis?
It might be interesting to figure this out.
I misread that at first as "Autism Ninja" - which, now that I think about it, would be kind of awesome.