It sounds like you're saying that liberals support free speech zones and 'speech codes' (whatever those are)
2004 Democratic National Convention had a free speech zone, and in fact seem to have been first used at the 1998 Democratic National Convention, both times used before Republicans eventually did it. (Source: Wikipedia) (Please do not take this as an endorsement of the republicans).
This is a complicated issue, and apparently one that clashes with some people's "absolutist" views of the 1st amendment (which courts have time and time rejected, including the rejection of absolute free speech with a captive audience). I personally believe free speech zones are wrong, but considering how dangerous large groups of worked up protestors can be (see the Haymarket Riot as a good example), and how much stupider people act in large, angry groups, maybe there's some compromise necessary.
Low cost energy might be what's needed to get us out of the 'all of our eggs are in one basket' problem, which may alleviate some of the issues I suggested may result from the repercussions of that technology. That seems the only way we'd survive that, and at great cost.
Of course, there are theoretical sociological solutions that could be implemented, provided that there was enough survival pressure, but I have little faith in such solutions, as the fundamentals of human nature seem impossible to change no matter how great the need...
Yay! Yet another crackpot GUT on/.! Congratulations.
Considering that GUT is at least PhD level material, I would suggest that no GUT be taken seriously until it has been peer reviewed by experts - something that does not appear to apply to Dr. James H. L. Lawler's theory (what you linked).
I did some searching on this name and found a variety of things, something about "electrical rockets," and a website purporting to show his "Professor Dr.James H.L.Lawler's revolutionary oil recovery method designed to end the oil crisis." Needless to say that web site is no longer up, and our oil problems have not yet been remotely solved.
It is a lot easier to create a GUT than to disprove it. IANAP but I do have a degree in physics, and it's fairly clear to me that what he describes would not work (photons moving at non-lightspeed?!) Interesting reading though.
I'd even go so far as to say that cheap energy for all would save the world.
I'm not certain you're looking at the other side of the coin - Earth has finite resources, and the more energy we have available to us, the more things we will want to do with those resources. Indeed, given our consumerism-driven culture, I hate to think what would become of the environment when the energy to exploit it is so cheap and plentiful.
Furthermore, high density power sources may open up new lines of weaponry (directed energy, magnetic propelled projectiles, ionizing plasma for destroying biomass like humans), and even new defenses against nuclear weapons (which would make them more likely to be used).
Also, I doubt that whoever discovers this "free energy for all" would dare to allow all to have it, much less for free. It is such a powerful economic advantage that any country with that technology would far surpass the rest of the world, resulting in more inequality, not less. With ridiculous amounts of free energy, we could afford to mine/assemble everything here and be nice and isolationist. Who knows, maybe wars will be fought over this technology? Those in power are often reluctant to give it up...
I'd like to see fusion power get to the point where it's a useful substitute, but you should be very careful what you wish for. "With great power comes great responsibility" they say, and if mankind has proven anything over the least fifty thousand years, it is that it is anything but responsible.
Yeah many of my collegues were astoundingly talented, and it was pretty ridiculous that the mission even happened at all (read Dr. Squyre's book "Roving Mars" to see how many times it almost never was).
The sad truth is that considering how inexpensive this mission was, if we had significantly more public support, we could easily have done ten of these without putting even a nick in the federal budget. Alas, it is not to be...
I've mentioned this on/. before. I used to work on MER (one of the devs of Science Activity Planner/Maestro, as featured on/.), and while lasting longer than 90 sols was not considered completely ridiculous, lasting over 1000 sols (with both rovers!!!) definitely was. Our directory structure contained a 3-digit sol number, and a lot of calculations were carried out using only the first 999 sols, including some code I wrote (knowing this to be the case).
Luckily the Operational Softare System team had plenty of time to work this issue, and it even fascilitated the introduction of newer, more capable software into the mission, as if we were already changing everything, why not ad some great stuff. I wish everyone on MER great success with the next 1000 sols!
I have a degree in physics myself (though only did a bit in quantum) and I'd like to thank you for this post. This is the difference between Digg and Slashdot - on slashdot people w/ Physics degrees actually bother to correct the random nonsense that would otherwise fill the conversation by those whose expertise lies elsewhere:)
I started a SL account (should have canceled it sooner, hardly used it) under the nick JeanLucPascal and logged on to the n00b area. Five minutes later I hear the "Captain Picard" techno song playing from somewhere in the game... Someone must have uploaded it when they saw me (the only explaination that doesn't involve freak coincidence).
Anyways it gave the willies and I never played again!
Seems to me to be little more than a clever way to couple oscillators using higher order moments (that confine the majority of the energy around the device to be very close as they drop off much faster than inverse squared). The paper contains some interesting preturbation methods for determining how badly other objects in the nearby area would affect such a system, however I haven't had time to go through the math in detail.
Disclaimer: IANAP (but I do have a degree in physics) - any actual physicists like to comment on the mechanism here?
Of all the stories to *not* be tagged with "itsatrap" - just think, you could use this to lure beautiful hitchhiker chicks to your couch or something...
Is there some reason that Google would excel at radio stuff? I mean, sure, they already distribute a lot of ads and why not have a radio presence, but it's not like they have the giant platform that is Google Search to spout better, more targetted ads through. Isn't it much more difficult to target Radio ads properly?
Is there something that I'm missing that Google can really ad to the equation here? Or is this yet another example of a great company moving away from a core competency and expanding towards just being mediocre?
"Don't break up a game just to charge us more for it" is the prevalent thinking. The 'march of progress' has allowed game companies to come up with plenty of new ways to get our money, so it's an understandable fear.
Here's what I don't understand - if someone wants to make a game, what's wrong with them charging whatever they want for it? Don't think that game is worth $50 to you? Then just don't buy it!
A lot of gamers look at games as being some kind of art which should be done for art's sake. That's nice, but that doesn't keep your kids fed and a roof over your head. The sad fact is that many if not most famous artists were not properly appreciated in their time (many died very, very poor), and video games aren't even widely considered art.
If you don't like how corporations make, market, and distribute games, buy from independent game makers, support FOSS, or set up and donate to a nonprofit for making more artistically pleasing video games. The profit motive doesn't have to be the driving force behind a game, but people need to eat, and I'm sorry but to me $50 *is* worth it for a polished game w/ tech support and wide user base vs. most half-abandoned FOSS games that are either clones or poorly balanced and tested.
Not long after I got the internet (back in 1996, but it was AOL so that hardly counts), I envisioned a future where you'd get your TV, radio, phone, movies, music, email and web access all through the same data line. Of course looking back on it now, it's obvious that it was going to happen, but back then not that many people were talking about that kind of convergence.
It's amazing to me to see that what I had thought would require a fiber connection is now totally feasible with a standard cable modem. I get all of that (and some things I never dreampt of back then) though a little box on the wall. A lot of people talk about how there's a lack of innovation in the computer industry, but I say it's mostly been focussed on these kinds of things, and the WWW, rather than just making some silicon faster or fancy schamcy "artifically intelligent" computer programs. The future is here, and it's pretty cool, as long as you don't get sued for using it:)
Global warming will melt ice caps, screw up ocean currents, destroy biodiversity and costal cities, and maybe even toast most of us. But is it possible that having a massive problem that forces humanity to work together as a whole could promote a lasting unity and perhaps end a lot of the problems we currently have with war and poverty in the very long run?
Yes, I also saw the movie, and while I thought it was a good movie and certainly worth watching, I think he totally missed to the boat on the potiental of nuclear energy, and climate engineering. We need better education, more government research, a population that cares about doing the right thing, and a way to take 3rd world countries like china and india on board for a solution.
I'm very skeptical of sociological solutions to problems, I think in the end it's best for everyone to solve this through applied technology. Of course, who knows what problems those solutions will create, but gotta keep our children busy somehow, eh?
I am not an atmospheric scientist, but I have discussed this topic (and this exact issue) with an atmospheric scientist I used to work with when I worked for NASA. The bottom line is that global warming is very real, however we simply don't have good enough models yet to work out the necessary information for making informed policy information - we don't know what the impact on the human race will be if we keep doing what we're doing, because that depends on how well the earth's homeostatic mechanisms will compensate for the additional greenhouse effect. We know it will have a negative effect, that is sure, but we don't know how well cutting greenhouse emissions will help.
Personally I think a long term solution to this will require technology on an unprecidented scale, not merely cutting back emissions. We should be investing in these new technologies and in general scientific and economic progress, and I am concerned that these short-term "band-aid" measures of reducing output could actually increase the amount of time it takes (and thus how bad it gets) before we have the appropriate technology and scientific understanding to regulate the climate of our entire planet.
Of course, if all else fails, there's always controlled stratospheric particulate matter injection, and the US and Russia certainly have enough devices for that...
Slashdot Mirror
This is a complicated issue, and apparently one that clashes with some people's "absolutist" views of the 1st amendment (which courts have time and time rejected, including the rejection of absolute free speech with a captive audience). I personally believe free speech zones are wrong, but considering how dangerous large groups of worked up protestors can be (see the Haymarket Riot as a good example), and how much stupider people act in large, angry groups, maybe there's some compromise necessary.
Low cost energy might be what's needed to get us out of the 'all of our eggs are in one basket' problem, which may alleviate some of the issues I suggested may result from the repercussions of that technology. That seems the only way we'd survive that, and at great cost.
Of course, there are theoretical sociological solutions that could be implemented, provided that there was enough survival pressure, but I have little faith in such solutions, as the fundamentals of human nature seem impossible to change no matter how great the need...
Yay! Yet another crackpot GUT on /.! Congratulations.
Considering that GUT is at least PhD level material, I would suggest that no GUT be taken seriously until it has been peer reviewed by experts - something that does not appear to apply to Dr. James H. L. Lawler's theory (what you linked).
I did some searching on this name and found a variety of things, something about "electrical rockets," and a website purporting to show his "Professor Dr.James H.L.Lawler's revolutionary oil recovery method designed to end the oil crisis." Needless to say that web site is no longer up, and our oil problems have not yet been remotely solved.
It is a lot easier to create a GUT than to disprove it. IANAP but I do have a degree in physics, and it's fairly clear to me that what he describes would not work (photons moving at non-lightspeed?!) Interesting reading though.
Furthermore, high density power sources may open up new lines of weaponry (directed energy, magnetic propelled projectiles, ionizing plasma for destroying biomass like humans), and even new defenses against nuclear weapons (which would make them more likely to be used).
Also, I doubt that whoever discovers this "free energy for all" would dare to allow all to have it, much less for free. It is such a powerful economic advantage that any country with that technology would far surpass the rest of the world, resulting in more inequality, not less. With ridiculous amounts of free energy, we could afford to mine/assemble everything here and be nice and isolationist. Who knows, maybe wars will be fought over this technology? Those in power are often reluctant to give it up...
I'd like to see fusion power get to the point where it's a useful substitute, but you should be very careful what you wish for. "With great power comes great responsibility" they say, and if mankind has proven anything over the least fifty thousand years, it is that it is anything but responsible.
Yeah many of my collegues were astoundingly talented, and it was pretty ridiculous that the mission even happened at all (read Dr. Squyre's book "Roving Mars" to see how many times it almost never was).
The sad truth is that considering how inexpensive this mission was, if we had significantly more public support, we could easily have done ten of these without putting even a nick in the federal budget. Alas, it is not to be...
For the love of God don't put any of these near stoners!
I've mentioned this on /. before. I used to work on MER (one of the devs of Science Activity Planner/Maestro, as featured on /.), and while lasting longer than 90 sols was not considered completely ridiculous, lasting over 1000 sols (with both rovers!!!) definitely was. Our directory structure contained a 3-digit sol number, and a lot of calculations were carried out using only the first 999 sols, including some code I wrote (knowing this to be the case).
Luckily the Operational Softare System team had plenty of time to work this issue, and it even fascilitated the introduction of newer, more capable software into the mission, as if we were already changing everything, why not ad some great stuff. I wish everyone on MER great success with the next 1000 sols!
I have a degree in physics myself (though only did a bit in quantum) and I'd like to thank you for this post. This is the difference between Digg and Slashdot - on slashdot people w/ Physics degrees actually bother to correct the random nonsense that would otherwise fill the conversation by those whose expertise lies elsewhere :)
Am I the only one scared by the "Giant Faces" in the article title?
Is there any other kind of Star Wars fan?
I started a SL account (should have canceled it sooner, hardly used it) under the nick JeanLucPascal and logged on to the n00b area. Five minutes later I hear the "Captain Picard" techno song playing from somewhere in the game... Someone must have uploaded it when they saw me (the only explaination that doesn't involve freak coincidence).
Anyways it gave the willies and I never played again!
Here's the actual paper the article is about.
Seems to me to be little more than a clever way to couple oscillators using higher order moments (that confine the majority of the energy around the device to be very close as they drop off much faster than inverse squared). The paper contains some interesting preturbation methods for determining how badly other objects in the nearby area would affect such a system, however I haven't had time to go through the math in detail.
Disclaimer: IANAP (but I do have a degree in physics) - any actual physicists like to comment on the mechanism here?
Of all the stories to *not* be tagged with "itsatrap" - just think, you could use this to lure beautiful hitchhiker chicks to your couch or something...
Dang... why do I always get funny comments moderated "insightful" and insightful comments moderated as "funny"? :(
I can't be the only person on here that thought that Google's CEO was going to run off with our data or something from the title...
Is there some reason that Google would excel at radio stuff? I mean, sure, they already distribute a lot of ads and why not have a radio presence, but it's not like they have the giant platform that is Google Search to spout better, more targetted ads through. Isn't it much more difficult to target Radio ads properly?
Is there something that I'm missing that Google can really ad to the equation here? Or is this yet another example of a great company moving away from a core competency and expanding towards just being mediocre?
Does anyone know why very few comments are being moderated up lately? Is this some kind of mod system bug?
Sorry for the OT post...
Seriously, I think that's the single most insightful post I've seen anywhere on Google+YouTube.
A lot of gamers look at games as being some kind of art which should be done for art's sake. That's nice, but that doesn't keep your kids fed and a roof over your head. The sad fact is that many if not most famous artists were not properly appreciated in their time (many died very, very poor), and video games aren't even widely considered art.
If you don't like how corporations make, market, and distribute games, buy from independent game makers, support FOSS, or set up and donate to a nonprofit for making more artistically pleasing video games. The profit motive doesn't have to be the driving force behind a game, but people need to eat, and I'm sorry but to me $50 *is* worth it for a polished game w/ tech support and wide user base vs. most half-abandoned FOSS games that are either clones or poorly balanced and tested.
Not long after I got the internet (back in 1996, but it was AOL so that hardly counts), I envisioned a future where you'd get your TV, radio, phone, movies, music, email and web access all through the same data line. Of course looking back on it now, it's obvious that it was going to happen, but back then not that many people were talking about that kind of convergence.
:)
It's amazing to me to see that what I had thought would require a fiber connection is now totally feasible with a standard cable modem. I get all of that (and some things I never dreampt of back then) though a little box on the wall. A lot of people talk about how there's a lack of innovation in the computer industry, but I say it's mostly been focussed on these kinds of things, and the WWW, rather than just making some silicon faster or fancy schamcy "artifically intelligent" computer programs. The future is here, and it's pretty cool, as long as you don't get sued for using it
It turns out that Alexander Ratushnyak was the only person to even meet the challenge's guidelines
Wow, that makes me really wish I had entered. There are some great multipass lossless text compression systems that would work well for Wikipedia...
Wow. I have no idea what your post is supposed to mean.
Global warming will melt ice caps, screw up ocean currents, destroy biodiversity and costal cities, and maybe even toast most of us. But is it possible that having a massive problem that forces humanity to work together as a whole could promote a lasting unity and perhaps end a lot of the problems we currently have with war and poverty in the very long run?
Yes, I also saw the movie, and while I thought it was a good movie and certainly worth watching, I think he totally missed to the boat on the potiental of nuclear energy, and climate engineering. We need better education, more government research, a population that cares about doing the right thing, and a way to take 3rd world countries like china and india on board for a solution.
I'm very skeptical of sociological solutions to problems, I think in the end it's best for everyone to solve this through applied technology. Of course, who knows what problems those solutions will create, but gotta keep our children busy somehow, eh?
I am not an atmospheric scientist, but I have discussed this topic (and this exact issue) with an atmospheric scientist I used to work with when I worked for NASA. The bottom line is that global warming is very real, however we simply don't have good enough models yet to work out the necessary information for making informed policy information - we don't know what the impact on the human race will be if we keep doing what we're doing, because that depends on how well the earth's homeostatic mechanisms will compensate for the additional greenhouse effect. We know it will have a negative effect, that is sure, but we don't know how well cutting greenhouse emissions will help.
Personally I think a long term solution to this will require technology on an unprecidented scale, not merely cutting back emissions. We should be investing in these new technologies and in general scientific and economic progress, and I am concerned that these short-term "band-aid" measures of reducing output could actually increase the amount of time it takes (and thus how bad it gets) before we have the appropriate technology and scientific understanding to regulate the climate of our entire planet.
Of course, if all else fails, there's always controlled stratospheric particulate matter injection, and the US and Russia certainly have enough devices for that...