Though perhaps they won't need massive amounts of force to subdue humanity; from what I've seen, most people would choose the blue pill.
I've long believed that the physical reality we live in, being entirely a product of energy and thus little more than an illusion, the idea of matter and as such is inherently linked to consciousness. . , that all things in our reality can be observed as and understood to be metaphors for systems and conflicts we are experiencing in our conscious awareness.
-You have to plug humans into the Matrix at the start of their lives when kids are most inquisitive. Red Smarties are the most popular color, and the battle over Blue Smarties rages on. . !
In 2006 it was announced that Nestlé were removing all artificial colourings from Smarties in the UK, owing to consumer concerns over the effect of chemical dyes on children's health. Nestlé decided to replace all synthetic dyes with natural ones, but as they were unable to source a natural blue dye, the blue Smarties were removed from circulation, and white Smarties were introduced in their place. White Smarties were later removed from the range, and blue Smarties were re-introduced in the UK in February 2008, using a natural blue dye derived from the cyanobacteria spirulina.
She added that when consumers are being tested for intolerances, the first color tried out is yellow. "When we are trying to determine if a person is sensitive to food coloring, we test them first on yellow. If there is no reaction we then use red, then blue. We don't start off with blue because it is a the strongest color and gives the worst reactions," she observed.
Humans naturally try to reject the Matrix. "Entire crops were lost."
Are you nuts?? Right from the beginning, the Star Trek universe has included far-out psy stuff like ESP and telekinesis... or did you not see "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
We're all nuts, but some of us have accepted that about ourselves. I don't, for instance, fool myself into believing that I'm not largely a robot driven by automatic/Pavlovian thinking. Though, awareness and observation of this is the first step out of that mire, so perhaps I am less nuts than others. . ?
Anyway. . , the example of Star Trek 'magic' is summed up for me in a quote by Troi's mom where she explained to one of the other characters in a very off-hand manner the nature of Betazoid telepathy. (Using much the same wording that Obi Wan used to describe the Force to Luke in the first Star Wars film.)
But aboard the Enterprise, it was simply unquestioned that all such forces existed within rule-sets which, with enough knowledge, could be manipulated. The technobabble allowed the crew time and again to jerry-rig Federation technology into viable solutions before the timer reached zero, (or whatever). This attitude was what allowed Picard to speak without fear to Q; he may not have understood the nature of the Q's power, but he understood enough about the scientific approach to fit it into his worldview and deal one on one with that alien intelligence rather than fall to his knees and burn goat flesh. -All in all, a very mature attitude for Star Trek. Even the Gods (Prophets) in DS9 were understood on the Federation side to be "Wormhole Aliens", though Benjamin Sisko sort of slipped down the rabbit hole somewhat and became a believer. He was never on the same footing, I felt, as Picard, which in a story sense was probably the reason he was "chosen"; he was easier to manipulate into serving the ends of the so-called Prophets. DS9 was never quite as spiritually mature as Next Generation in this regard. It was that maturity observed on Next Gen which I found most inspiring about the whole franchise, and it is, in my opinion anyway, how the wisest among our race out here in the real world approach the unknown and even the unknowable. Magic is all part of a system, and while that system is astonishing and beautiful, it is remains nonetheless a system. God doesn't play with dice because god can't. Einstein was one smart cookie.
The attitude of tech geeks toward magic reveals, I think, a longing for forces to exist which defy rational thought, a longing in some deep part for a pagan god. The more I think on this, the more I realize that my own negative reaction to the midichlorine idea is just another part of myself which might need excising.
I find it interesting that in a Star Trek film, Midichlorines (sp?) would have been not only accepted, but expected. Magic isn't allowed to exist in Star Trek.
In Star Wars, however, Magic is the rule. It's not allowed to be understood or reduced into a discrete and measurable phenomenon. It has to remain romantic and awe-inspiring.
Cross the line, (in either the Trek or Wars story universe), and it is taken as a grave offense. I was annoyed by it as much as anybody. But I do have to stop and ask, "Why?" In fact, I find this little feature of our culture enormously tremendously interesting. -Technology geeks are perfectly happy with magic; they want it, are enraptured by it, but only when it is safely contained and labeled within the fiction box. Outside that box, it is immediately despised and attacked even at the mere suggestion that it might have some bearing on our real world. Yes, this is a bit of an axe grinding, but nonetheless, it remains a point of un-answered curiosity for me.
Real magic makes many people severely uncomfortable to consider in our day to day lives. The concept of midichlorines, given the general despising of all things unscientific among the tech-geek crowd, should have been applauded by all those who hate the notion of religion or spirituality, etc. And yet, this is obviously not the case.
It is particularly interesting to me that 'real' magic is by no means actual magic, (as I understand it), but rather a collection of rule-driven forces we simply haven't managed to categorize yet. Wanting the concept of the Force to remain in the realm of the purely mysterious makes me think that something else is at play in the collective psyche of the engineer/Sci-Fi geek.
-Just an observation I have kicking around in my head with no formal answer yet.
That car/helicopter reel was a good demo of a 3D animator's skills and might well snag him some decent work in the field. But I think the story in the robot attacky-thing was probably a significant grab for the Hollywood execs. --The video didn't just show animation, but also interation with actors, demonstrating that the director has both versatility and a sense of what people are interested in. People like concepts which stir the imagination.
Cars and helicopters don't really inspire anything new. It was more like a nice screen saver than a "What if?" sci-fi idea.
Of course, unless a decent script can be pulled together, which I don't have high hopes of, this probably won't amount to much. But you never know. As I understand it, the "District 9" director got his start doing similar small animation projects, -though his early work was much more intricately thought out in terms of story and human reactions, whereas this guy's work looks suspiciously like a Uruguayan Roland Emmerich.
But you're right; that car reel did look impressive!
I really appreciate this site, as I know many people do. It draws a fantastic mix of knowledge/experience spheres from thousands of individuals, allowing us to collectively learn about the world and put all manner of current information through a tremendous crucible of cross-analysis from countless different perspectives so that we can quickly work out what is really going on out there in the big, ol' world, --and all with humor and zest. It makes learning FUN! I've learned SO many things here, both wonderful and painful lessons about the world and myself; The internet would be a far less grand place without Slashdot. And I'm not even exaggerating. You guys rock!
If you aren't competent enough to know the difference between silicon and silicone, you're nowhere near competent enough to make decisions on the other subjects you mentioned.
I've seen this pattern far too many times; people who are so desperate to avoid thinking, they will latch on to the first flaw, no matter how small and irrelevant, even something as minor as a typo (*cough*), and toss out everything else based on that. --It has been my experience that this never has anything to do with the actual noted flaw, and everything to do with deeper emotional issues.
I knew a guy who told me, in all seriousness, that he didn't like science fiction books, (ALL science fiction books), because one book he'd read had been poorly written. --The actual problem being that he found the act of reading itself difficult (due to minor dyslexia) and so needed an external excuse to not have to engage with books at all.
The difference being that that person was just a kid. Half-baked evasion techniques are excusable in kids.
Energy is indeed being suppressed; people are being manipulated to believe that it is scarce and dangerous and that consuming it is a bad thing. And oil, which most people equate with energy, is indeed scarce at the moment. But, in the form of uranium, thorium, and coal (which can be converted to cleaner forms of energy), among other things, there is PLENTY. The US and world elites are struggling to maintain control over it, which means both ensuring that they have "their" share but also that others do not, since this way others can be manipulated into fighting each other for it and increasing its value. But the resulting shortages that all of us normal people see are PURELY political in nature. Even barring any future technological innovations, there is plenty of energy for all of us, and our descendants, and theirs, for generations to come. We just aren't being allowed to access it.
This is the most insightful and useful comment anybody has made in thus far in this whole thread.
The fact that we haven't seen this particular improvement before just means that no one thought of it. No conspiracy needed.
You're right, but for the wrong reasons.
Ideas are just ideas. They come when they are called for. Finding a more efficient alternative to the existing design paradigm is just a matter of hiring a diverse group of people to come up with novel solutions using the materials and tools available. That's where this idea came from. I doubt very much that it was a brain spark which, upon its discovery, was heralded to the top of the car-making empire by a bright-eyed inventor. No. I suspect that a design team was hired to build an efficient engine capable of burning bio-fuels in response to the shifting nature of the fuel industry.
The, so-called "Conspiracy" is simply that there have been forces present resisting this kind of activity because the old ways are perceived as safer, tried & true and just too risky a flow to work against. I don't call that "conspiracy". I call it cowardly and stupid. It's just plain lazy corruption, greed and the force of people too scared of losing their jobs to rock the boat in any significant manner. Why is it that sceptics perceive every complaint offered against the public-relations brochure/TV version of reality as a claim of conscious and deliberate "Conspiracy"? -A brush up on the fundamentals of basic human nature would go a long way to quelling their desire to rationalize everything into a false reality where no government or corporate body ever tells a lie.
It's never black & white, of course. The human creative muscle has its phases, one idea builds upon the next to be certain. It would be silly to ignore how the process of invention works. But it would be equally silly to pretend that corrupt forces do not exist when it is clearly evident that they do. All I'm saying is that this engine and the people who designed it may well be brilliant, but that it's peanuts compared to what could have been if corrupt forces were not acting on the world as a whole.
Yes, Two stroke engines have been around for a long time. However, this engine purports to be a clean two stroke - something that has not been around a long time. Anyone with an mid-70's two stroke motorcycle could probably go around the block before biking in their own smoke - so yes, this is new.
That's apples and oranges. Two stroke engines of the kind you're referring to had (and still have) oil mixed in with the fuel so that they self-lubricate. As the oil burns, it is indeed very smokey. This has exactly nothing to do with what is being discussed here.
Anybody who suggests that a team of smart engineers in the 70's couldn't have come up with a motor more clean and efficient than a crappy lawn mower engine is not considering things carefully enough.
I'm not saying that this new engine isn't Clever. I'm saying that "Clever" has been around a lot longer than just the last couple of years; And that the thing holding it back has been greed, fear and evil.
So is most of the new technology that you see. Even special relativity is obvious in retrospect.
You appear to be suggesting that everybody who has been thinking about how to improve internal combustion engines over the years simply failed to come up with anything smart.
If you read through just the examples posted among the comments for this story, I think you'll find such a position is untenable. Heck, there's one example in an adjacent response to this exact post which describes a significantly more efficient carburetor mechanism designed by apprentice engineers which was rejected because of the supposed manufacturing costs. (Which is ridiculous; the whole point of the industrial revolution is that manufacturing costs become negligible once factories are tooled up and a market for millions of copies exists.)
The brain spark was burning gasoline in the first place. Everything since then has largely been a matter of mechanics and efficiency management. If good ideas are only just now coming up, then the last half century's worth of engineers have been pretty thick. I think in this instance, one can safely invoke even Occam for guidance on that question!
In all seriousness, this whole big oil conspiracy is a load of junk.
You say that with such certainty that you must have some pretty solid reasoning and knowledge on the subject. --Or be operating from a comfortable state of nearly perfect ignorance. Let's see which it is. . .
I'm sure the oil companies would do that if they could, but look at it from the car company point of view. If a car company could come out and say "Hey! we got a car that gets amazing mpg and behaves just like any other car!" they would have an instant fortune. How exactly would oil companies go about stopping these companies? I've never heard of oil companies buying car companies, left and right. Did they go and kill everyone who has worked on a high efficiency engine program?
Oh boy. I don't want to be insulting, but this is extremely naive.
You could benefit from some reading on the events of the last century. First of all, it isn't oil companies. It's the oil elect. Many of them are politicians and decision makers in other key industries and boards. Oil is just one of the dominant forms of wealth, and so it is controlled by old money, along with every other significant sector of society, including the media, pharma, arms, banking and information industries. Collectively, this has been variously dubbed the Military Industrial Complex, and you can bet your socks it does whatever necessary to control power and wealth. Usually people don't need to be killed in order for secrets to be kept. Rather, you only hire on people who have been effectively programmed through schooling to be cognitively dissonant, (able to look facts in the face and yet continue believing contrary dictates), you silence them with non-disclosure agreements involving harsh threats for failure to comply, use simple bullying when that is not enough, character assassination when they get out of hand, and when things are dire, resort to murders, of which there are far too many examples. But primarily, simply training people to have a fear of seeking beyond orthodox beliefs is 99% effective. --As a practical example, consider your own reactions; You'd probably have a lot of trouble telling somebody that you believe in Astrology, and not just from any logical perspective, but rather from a deeply-felt gut wrenching imperative stemming from deep within. That sweaty-palmed sick feeling is evidence of the Pavlovian mind programming we've all been exposed to. It is both invisible and ubiquitous throughout society. It is deliberately inserted through simple techniques, it is easy for our controllers to modify after it is implanted, and it is incredibly effective in controlling human behavior.
I barely even know which way to point you on this. Perhaps this book would be a good start."Farewell America" is fairly well accepted to have been authored by the French equivalent of the CIA, and based on hard intelligence gathered from French, Russian, and even American sources. It was originally published in French in 1968, but it was unavailable in the United States for many years. With the coming of the worldwide web, this is no longer true. With regard to this posting thread, it covers the involvement of the oil and arms industry.
What happened that you are back to calling us muggles, rather than beseeching us to join you in your enlightenment and awareness?
Seriously? --It was an incident yesterday where I had to deal with a person in authority making lives difficult with a degree of fortified stubbornness which bordered on mental retardation.
Honestly, I'm FAR from perfect. I know that. I find myself confused by how pissed off I can get with humanity even as I walk around heartbroken by watching people almost seem to enjoy making idiotic choices which lead to harm and suffering. I know the answer is patience and leadership through example, but sometimes cuddling and encouraging people when a dose of unforgiving wake-the-hell-up seems to be more effective.
I'm back and forth on that one. When I get it all figured out, I'll let everybody know. I suspect both are necessary; shocks to the system interrupt sleep and wishful thinking, and hand-holding provides the encouragement necessary to walk a tough path. But I certainly don't have the balance worked out. Heck, I have trouble enough just trying to gauge the value and valance of basic information. I've been fighting tooth and nail with these questions a lot over the years, and I don't anticipate an answer any time soon. I am getting closer, though. Comments like yours help.
What about this is new? Does it exist due to breakthroughs and material science we didn't have available thirty years ago? Not that I can see.
Which means this is nothing that a team of imaginative engineers couldn't have come up with long ago, and likely would have, (and probably did) if they'd been allowed to. Fuel efficiency means the oil billionaires, (the people who have been running things since forever), make less money. The only reason this is happening now is because the corrupt deals being cut in Copenhagen with regard to carbon trading and various other ass-backward plans are a means of making more profit in different ways and promise greater control over every aspect of our lives.
Look, I'm all for efficiency and I'm sure the engineering team on this project are fine people. But this is bullshit. It's a press release which appears in the same breath as that Israeli company and their silicone battery. The people allowing this stuff to float to the top of global media-consciousness don't care about the actual state of human affairs or about the genuinely awesome things we could be actually doing with technology. This is about agendas and sculpting public awareness and making damned sure the slaves are tightly locked down.
So, yeah, thanks Lotus. Very courageous of you to cautiously advance this lukewarm idea past the oil barons. Because crop-based fuels are SUCH a good idea.
There is indeed a great deal going on which we cannot see, but this event didn't fit the patterns of any previous UFO/energetic phenomenon I've seen or read about. It did, however, fit the pattern of a rocket launch gone wrong. Watch the videos on the original news site again. I think the spectacular photographs were not accurately reporting the event as it would have been eye-witnessed. They looked like long exposures to me, and probably were in order to get that level of light. A spinning firework would create much the same effect with the correct camera settings.
Anyway, if you want to consider the subconscious meta-game going on here, remember, this is Slashdot. Such an obvious UFO story like this simply doesn't get exposure here unless the outcome is already instinctively recognized in advance to be mundane. That's how it works. People like you go off half-cocked and look/sound nuts, thus further reinforcing fear in the Muggles of exploring the unknown.
I could pose the counter-question of whether you think there is an Israeli consipracy and want others to know or whether the Israelis hired you to post unprovable speculation under the banner of an Israel critic to discredit all such critics? Can you undeniably prove you're not involved with them?
Point taken. But it's curious that Israel is the villain in both your scenarios.
There's quite a few with "America" or "American" in them.
No there's not. I saw a number of acronyms in that handy wiki-list, but none with the word "America" front & center. "AOL" doesn't pack the same punch as "Technion-Israel", now does it? In the game of media perceptions, this sort of thing makes rather a large difference.
It's interesting to me how almost all conspiracy theorists have the shared characterizations of being both elitist and ignorant at the same time.
Well, elitism is a natural by-product of seeking while others choose to hide. I certainly feel superior to those who repeatedly say and believe false things despite all evidence to the contrary. However the question of ignorance is the thing which is more interesting. Nobody knows everything, and the job is to seek and analyze the information and ideas which flow. This is all I am doing. I have simply come to realize that it is more efficient to assume guilt when it comes to the mainstream media and resolve innocence based on crucibles such as this very one we're in right now. --Anybody who assumes innocence from a main-stream media voice today is, frankly, a fool. --I say that based on what is readily knowable about the long series of endlessly repeating patterns we see in human nature, corporate nature, psychopathic nature, national policy and war.
Always funny to see how knee-jerk people are about Israel, yet how silent/uncaring they are when it comes to similar, and mostly much bloodier, situations - the Algerian government's actions in Darfur, the Chinese in Tibet, Rwanda back in the '90s, etc.
Seems pretty obvious to me. It's all about cultural identity. --I went to high school with guys who now serve in the IDF. I know more Chinese people now, and consequently, the situation in Tibet is closer to my awareness as well.
Anyway, defending one's psychopathic behavior by pointing out other people who are doing the same thing is rather a bullshit defense. And calling people's reaction to butchery, "Knee Jerk" is a little strange, don't you think? After all, it's hardly an automatic response. It takes rather a lot of courage to criticize Israel openly in the current media environment. "Knee-jerk" would more aptly describe those people cringing with Pavlovian response to the threat of being called an Anti-Semite.
Labels are bullshit. What I see are people trying to justify genocide with a bunch of semantic nonsense. And you bloody-well know it.
As much as I despise how Israel behaves as a nation, do not mistake the actions of it's government for that of it's scientists.
I'm sure the guy working on batteries is just a guy working on batteries, and more power to him. But it's the Israeli self-promotion machine using him which I am pointing out here.
Scientists have a long history of tunnel vision. I'm sure the guys making the atom bomb were fine people as well, but that doesn't mean politics aren't always present.
For one, I hope this battery works out well. I want my laptop to last longer on the road. But there is still evil afoot and it's silly not to look at it and recognize its forms. The fact that my post has been modded into the ground as a 'Troll' is evidence that there is some serious dementia at work here.
So we have "hey, let's use a company with a name that will immediately put all the conspiracy theorists on high alert to release research data about a somewhat nice but not very exciting new battery technology so they will let us get away with whatever we want". Sorry, but either the Israelis are complete idiots or this is not a scheme to somehow keep us from scrutinizing them.
You give the population of the Earth, (and certainly the internet), far too much credit, IMHO.
And I notice you had a hard time coming up with company names with the word, "America" (or similar) in them. I did too, otherwise I wouldn't have pointed out the Israeli name thing.
Now. . , the question is, was I modded into Troll Dust because of an unprovable speculation, or because I pointed out the truth of Israel's crimes against humanity in a world where people would prefer to pretend that psychopathic barbarity is A-okay?
So next time, before you write crap, make sure to clean your ass beforehand, ya stupid jerk!
Now buzz off before I scrape your ass from the sky.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Touched one of those nerves they hard-wired into you as a kid, did I? Maybe you should build a wall around me and tear up all my olive trees?
Denial when reality is right there saying the opposite. Cognitive dissonance will in fact tear your brain in half. Either that, or your soul. If you still have one.
I wouldn't put it past the Israeli psyops people to pull a stunt like this.
Please follow the logic.
1. "We're taking a beating in public relations as a nation. What with the whole deliberately bombing civilians, bulldozing homes, withholding vital medical care from those who don't agree to become snitches, and perhaps the creepiest of the lot, abduction and organ harvesting. --Yes we can control the real press no problem, (have you heard those stories given full coverage in the "real" news?), but this internet nuisance. . ! It's out of our control. We tried a massive astro-turfing campaign with demonstrably false talking points (thank-you Jon Stewart for being the only guy in television land for having the gonads to point them out.) while we were bombing Palestine last holiday season, but when people are able to get together on the unrestricted internet and were able to discuss things in forum rather than simply stare at a CRT and nod like zombies, our evil toxic bullshit PR threatened to not be 100% effective. We need to control this internet!"
2. "What is the most vital, most exciting, most anticipated technological breakthrough that people closely associated with the internet have been wishing for? Ah yes. Good battery tech."
3. "Subtle message; keep us safe from repercussions resulting from our numerous crimes against humanity. (The abused sickeningly often turns into the abuser, and in the case of Israel, it's just a typical example. The West Bank IS a concentration camp.) --But just hold off for another 5 years, because if you turn on us now, you won't get these marvelous batteries which can make your laptops last forever, and did we forget to mention, they can also save the world from automotive greenhouse pollution? Copenhagen what? No that's just random timing, honest!"
4. "Profit."
Hm. Actually, now that I think my way through this, it just seems fishier and fishier. Why is the word "Israel" built into the company name? This smells of a psy-ops play for mind share. --Hardly surprising for the only country on the planet which was able to organize a giant astro-turfing campaign to bolster world-wide support for war crimes and atrocities during the so-called "Cast lead" where the IDF used phosphorus on civilian targets. For crying out loud!
Sorry, Israel. I could care less about your religion, (or any religion, for that matter), but your government is evil and like Germany, the world is letting you get away with it. Heck, worse, the US is funding the damned thing.
So, sorry, no, I don't think your oh-so-innocent battery story making headlines is what it says it is.
They'll only reanimate the parts that watch TV, rent movies (repeatedly in a variety of formats, buy mobile phones (repeatedly in a variety of formats) and leave of the rest of the dissident free thinking ganglion parts dormant.
Begins? It's my understanding that they've been doing this for years. I think it started somewhere around the dawn of the industrial revolution and has been been experiencing a geometric growth curve in its rate of effectiveness ever since.
Heck, you pretty much have to be a zombie and/or slave just to enlist in the first place!
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like a vague prelude to some crazy scientology rant. Don't go down that rabbit hole, pal.
Dude. . , "Follow the White Rabbit!"
Scientology is messed up and evil, but so what? The universe is beautiful and terrifying and it is not for the meek. Blue Smarties are for the meek.
-FL
Though perhaps they won't need massive amounts of force to subdue humanity; from what I've seen, most people would choose the blue pill.
I've long believed that the physical reality we live in, being entirely a product of energy and thus little more than an illusion, the idea of matter and as such is inherently linked to consciousness. . , that all things in our reality can be observed as and understood to be metaphors for systems and conflicts we are experiencing in our conscious awareness.
-You have to plug humans into the Matrix at the start of their lives when kids are most inquisitive. Red Smarties are the most popular color, and the battle over Blue Smarties rages on. . !
Humans naturally try to reject the Matrix. "Entire crops were lost."
Neat, huh?
-FL
Are you nuts?? Right from the beginning, the Star Trek universe has included far-out psy stuff like ESP and telekinesis... or did you not see "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"
We're all nuts, but some of us have accepted that about ourselves. I don't, for instance, fool myself into believing that I'm not largely a robot driven by automatic/Pavlovian thinking. Though, awareness and observation of this is the first step out of that mire, so perhaps I am less nuts than others. . ?
Anyway. . , the example of Star Trek 'magic' is summed up for me in a quote by Troi's mom where she explained to one of the other characters in a very off-hand manner the nature of Betazoid telepathy. (Using much the same wording that Obi Wan used to describe the Force to Luke in the first Star Wars film.)
But aboard the Enterprise, it was simply unquestioned that all such forces existed within rule-sets which, with enough knowledge, could be manipulated. The technobabble allowed the crew time and again to jerry-rig Federation technology into viable solutions before the timer reached zero, (or whatever). This attitude was what allowed Picard to speak without fear to Q; he may not have understood the nature of the Q's power, but he understood enough about the scientific approach to fit it into his worldview and deal one on one with that alien intelligence rather than fall to his knees and burn goat flesh. -All in all, a very mature attitude for Star Trek. Even the Gods (Prophets) in DS9 were understood on the Federation side to be "Wormhole Aliens", though Benjamin Sisko sort of slipped down the rabbit hole somewhat and became a believer. He was never on the same footing, I felt, as Picard, which in a story sense was probably the reason he was "chosen"; he was easier to manipulate into serving the ends of the so-called Prophets. DS9 was never quite as spiritually mature as Next Generation in this regard. It was that maturity observed on Next Gen which I found most inspiring about the whole franchise, and it is, in my opinion anyway, how the wisest among our race out here in the real world approach the unknown and even the unknowable. Magic is all part of a system, and while that system is astonishing and beautiful, it is remains nonetheless a system. God doesn't play with dice because god can't. Einstein was one smart cookie.
The attitude of tech geeks toward magic reveals, I think, a longing for forces to exist which defy rational thought, a longing in some deep part for a pagan god. The more I think on this, the more I realize that my own negative reaction to the midichlorine idea is just another part of myself which might need excising.
-FL
I find it interesting that in a Star Trek film, Midichlorines (sp?) would have been not only accepted, but expected. Magic isn't allowed to exist in Star Trek.
In Star Wars, however, Magic is the rule. It's not allowed to be understood or reduced into a discrete and measurable phenomenon. It has to remain romantic and awe-inspiring.
Cross the line, (in either the Trek or Wars story universe), and it is taken as a grave offense. I was annoyed by it as much as anybody. But I do have to stop and ask, "Why?" In fact, I find this little feature of our culture enormously tremendously interesting. -Technology geeks are perfectly happy with magic; they want it, are enraptured by it, but only when it is safely contained and labeled within the fiction box. Outside that box, it is immediately despised and attacked even at the mere suggestion that it might have some bearing on our real world. Yes, this is a bit of an axe grinding, but nonetheless, it remains a point of un-answered curiosity for me.
Real magic makes many people severely uncomfortable to consider in our day to day lives. The concept of midichlorines, given the general despising of all things unscientific among the tech-geek crowd, should have been applauded by all those who hate the notion of religion or spirituality, etc. And yet, this is obviously not the case.
It is particularly interesting to me that 'real' magic is by no means actual magic, (as I understand it), but rather a collection of rule-driven forces we simply haven't managed to categorize yet. Wanting the concept of the Force to remain in the realm of the purely mysterious makes me think that something else is at play in the collective psyche of the engineer/Sci-Fi geek.
-Just an observation I have kicking around in my head with no formal answer yet.
-FL
Wow.
That car/helicopter reel was a good demo of a 3D animator's skills and might well snag him some decent work in the field. But I think the story in the robot attacky-thing was probably a significant grab for the Hollywood execs. --The video didn't just show animation, but also interation with actors, demonstrating that the director has both versatility and a sense of what people are interested in. People like concepts which stir the imagination.
Cars and helicopters don't really inspire anything new. It was more like a nice screen saver than a "What if?" sci-fi idea.
Of course, unless a decent script can be pulled together, which I don't have high hopes of, this probably won't amount to much. But you never know. As I understand it, the "District 9" director got his start doing similar small animation projects, -though his early work was much more intricately thought out in terms of story and human reactions, whereas this guy's work looks suspiciously like a Uruguayan Roland Emmerich.
But you're right; that car reel did look impressive!
-FL
Just a chime-in.
You guys do a truly great job!
I really appreciate this site, as I know many people do. It draws a fantastic mix of knowledge/experience spheres from thousands of individuals, allowing us to collectively learn about the world and put all manner of current information through a tremendous crucible of cross-analysis from countless different perspectives so that we can quickly work out what is really going on out there in the big, ol' world, --and all with humor and zest. It makes learning FUN! I've learned SO many things here, both wonderful and painful lessons about the world and myself; The internet would be a far less grand place without Slashdot. And I'm not even exaggerating. You guys rock!
Thank-you!
-FL
If you aren't competent enough to know the difference between silicon and silicone, you're nowhere near competent enough to make decisions on the other subjects you mentioned.
I've seen this pattern far too many times; people who are so desperate to avoid thinking, they will latch on to the first flaw, no matter how small and irrelevant, even something as minor as a typo (*cough*), and toss out everything else based on that. --It has been my experience that this never has anything to do with the actual noted flaw, and everything to do with deeper emotional issues.
I knew a guy who told me, in all seriousness, that he didn't like science fiction books, (ALL science fiction books), because one book he'd read had been poorly written. --The actual problem being that he found the act of reading itself difficult (due to minor dyslexia) and so needed an external excuse to not have to engage with books at all.
The difference being that that person was just a kid. Half-baked evasion techniques are excusable in kids.
How old are you?
-FL
Energy is indeed being suppressed; people are being manipulated to believe that it is scarce and dangerous and that consuming it is a bad thing. And oil, which most people equate with energy, is indeed scarce at the moment. But, in the form of uranium, thorium, and coal (which can be converted to cleaner forms of energy), among other things, there is PLENTY. The US and world elites are struggling to maintain control over it, which means both ensuring that they have "their" share but also that others do not, since this way others can be manipulated into fighting each other for it and increasing its value. But the resulting shortages that all of us normal people see are PURELY political in nature. Even barring any future technological innovations, there is plenty of energy for all of us, and our descendants, and theirs, for generations to come. We just aren't being allowed to access it.
This is the most insightful and useful comment anybody has made in thus far in this whole thread.
-FL
The fact that we haven't seen this particular improvement before just means that no one thought of it. No conspiracy needed.
You're right, but for the wrong reasons.
Ideas are just ideas. They come when they are called for. Finding a more efficient alternative to the existing design paradigm is just a matter of hiring a diverse group of people to come up with novel solutions using the materials and tools available. That's where this idea came from. I doubt very much that it was a brain spark which, upon its discovery, was heralded to the top of the car-making empire by a bright-eyed inventor. No. I suspect that a design team was hired to build an efficient engine capable of burning bio-fuels in response to the shifting nature of the fuel industry.
The, so-called "Conspiracy" is simply that there have been forces present resisting this kind of activity because the old ways are perceived as safer, tried & true and just too risky a flow to work against. I don't call that "conspiracy". I call it cowardly and stupid. It's just plain lazy corruption, greed and the force of people too scared of losing their jobs to rock the boat in any significant manner. Why is it that sceptics perceive every complaint offered against the public-relations brochure/TV version of reality as a claim of conscious and deliberate "Conspiracy"? -A brush up on the fundamentals of basic human nature would go a long way to quelling their desire to rationalize everything into a false reality where no government or corporate body ever tells a lie.
It's never black & white, of course. The human creative muscle has its phases, one idea builds upon the next to be certain. It would be silly to ignore how the process of invention works. But it would be equally silly to pretend that corrupt forces do not exist when it is clearly evident that they do. All I'm saying is that this engine and the people who designed it may well be brilliant, but that it's peanuts compared to what could have been if corrupt forces were not acting on the world as a whole.
-FL
Thank-you for offering the first reasonable-sounding notes among this spate of responses.
What a day!
-FL
Yes, Two stroke engines have been around for a long time. However, this engine purports to be a clean two stroke - something that has not been around a long time. Anyone with an mid-70's two stroke motorcycle could probably go around the block before biking in their own smoke - so yes, this is new.
That's apples and oranges. Two stroke engines of the kind you're referring to had (and still have) oil mixed in with the fuel so that they self-lubricate. As the oil burns, it is indeed very smokey. This has exactly nothing to do with what is being discussed here.
Anybody who suggests that a team of smart engineers in the 70's couldn't have come up with a motor more clean and efficient than a crappy lawn mower engine is not considering things carefully enough.
I'm not saying that this new engine isn't Clever. I'm saying that "Clever" has been around a lot longer than just the last couple of years; And that the thing holding it back has been greed, fear and evil.
-FL
So is most of the new technology that you see. Even special relativity is obvious in retrospect.
You appear to be suggesting that everybody who has been thinking about how to improve internal combustion engines over the years simply failed to come up with anything smart.
If you read through just the examples posted among the comments for this story, I think you'll find such a position is untenable. Heck, there's one example in an adjacent response to this exact post which describes a significantly more efficient carburetor mechanism designed by apprentice engineers which was rejected because of the supposed manufacturing costs. (Which is ridiculous; the whole point of the industrial revolution is that manufacturing costs become negligible once factories are tooled up and a market for millions of copies exists.)
The brain spark was burning gasoline in the first place. Everything since then has largely been a matter of mechanics and efficiency management. If good ideas are only just now coming up, then the last half century's worth of engineers have been pretty thick. I think in this instance, one can safely invoke even Occam for guidance on that question!
-FL
In all seriousness, this whole big oil conspiracy is a load of junk.
You say that with such certainty that you must have some pretty solid reasoning and knowledge on the subject. --Or be operating from a comfortable state of nearly perfect ignorance. Let's see which it is. . .
I'm sure the oil companies would do that if they could, but look at it from the car company point of view. If a car company could come out and say "Hey! we got a car that gets amazing mpg and behaves just like any other car!" they would have an instant fortune. How exactly would oil companies go about stopping these companies? I've never heard of oil companies buying car companies, left and right. Did they go and kill everyone who has worked on a high efficiency engine program?
Oh boy. I don't want to be insulting, but this is extremely naive.
You could benefit from some reading on the events of the last century. First of all, it isn't oil companies. It's the oil elect. Many of them are politicians and decision makers in other key industries and boards. Oil is just one of the dominant forms of wealth, and so it is controlled by old money, along with every other significant sector of society, including the media, pharma, arms, banking and information industries. Collectively, this has been variously dubbed the Military Industrial Complex, and you can bet your socks it does whatever necessary to control power and wealth. Usually people don't need to be killed in order for secrets to be kept. Rather, you only hire on people who have been effectively programmed through schooling to be cognitively dissonant, (able to look facts in the face and yet continue believing contrary dictates), you silence them with non-disclosure agreements involving harsh threats for failure to comply, use simple bullying when that is not enough, character assassination when they get out of hand, and when things are dire, resort to murders, of which there are far too many examples. But primarily, simply training people to have a fear of seeking beyond orthodox beliefs is 99% effective. --As a practical example, consider your own reactions; You'd probably have a lot of trouble telling somebody that you believe in Astrology, and not just from any logical perspective, but rather from a deeply-felt gut wrenching imperative stemming from deep within. That sweaty-palmed sick feeling is evidence of the Pavlovian mind programming we've all been exposed to. It is both invisible and ubiquitous throughout society. It is deliberately inserted through simple techniques, it is easy for our controllers to modify after it is implanted, and it is incredibly effective in controlling human behavior.
I barely even know which way to point you on this. Perhaps this book would be a good start. "Farewell America" is fairly well accepted to have been authored by the French equivalent of the CIA, and based on hard intelligence gathered from French, Russian, and even American sources. It was originally published in French in 1968, but it was unavailable in the United States for many years. With the coming of the worldwide web, this is no longer true. With regard to this posting thread, it covers the involvement of the oil and arms industry.
Good luck.
-FL
What happened that you are back to calling us muggles, rather than beseeching us to join you in your enlightenment and awareness?
Seriously? --It was an incident yesterday where I had to deal with a person in authority making lives difficult with a degree of fortified stubbornness which bordered on mental retardation.
Honestly, I'm FAR from perfect. I know that. I find myself confused by how pissed off I can get with humanity even as I walk around heartbroken by watching people almost seem to enjoy making idiotic choices which lead to harm and suffering. I know the answer is patience and leadership through example, but sometimes cuddling and encouraging people when a dose of unforgiving wake-the-hell-up seems to be more effective.
I'm back and forth on that one. When I get it all figured out, I'll let everybody know. I suspect both are necessary; shocks to the system interrupt sleep and wishful thinking, and hand-holding provides the encouragement necessary to walk a tough path. But I certainly don't have the balance worked out. Heck, I have trouble enough just trying to gauge the value and valance of basic information. I've been fighting tooth and nail with these questions a lot over the years, and I don't anticipate an answer any time soon. I am getting closer, though. Comments like yours help.
-FL
This drives me nuts.
What about this is new? Does it exist due to breakthroughs and material science we didn't have available thirty years ago? Not that I can see.
Which means this is nothing that a team of imaginative engineers couldn't have come up with long ago, and likely would have, (and probably did) if they'd been allowed to. Fuel efficiency means the oil billionaires, (the people who have been running things since forever), make less money. The only reason this is happening now is because the corrupt deals being cut in Copenhagen with regard to carbon trading and various other ass-backward plans are a means of making more profit in different ways and promise greater control over every aspect of our lives.
Look, I'm all for efficiency and I'm sure the engineering team on this project are fine people. But this is bullshit. It's a press release which appears in the same breath as that Israeli company and their silicone battery. The people allowing this stuff to float to the top of global media-consciousness don't care about the actual state of human affairs or about the genuinely awesome things we could be actually doing with technology. This is about agendas and sculpting public awareness and making damned sure the slaves are tightly locked down.
So, yeah, thanks Lotus. Very courageous of you to cautiously advance this lukewarm idea past the oil barons. Because crop-based fuels are SUCH a good idea.
-FL
There is indeed a great deal going on which we cannot see, but this event didn't fit the patterns of any previous UFO/energetic phenomenon I've seen or read about. It did, however, fit the pattern of a rocket launch gone wrong. Watch the videos on the original news site again. I think the spectacular photographs were not accurately reporting the event as it would have been eye-witnessed. They looked like long exposures to me, and probably were in order to get that level of light. A spinning firework would create much the same effect with the correct camera settings.
Anyway, if you want to consider the subconscious meta-game going on here, remember, this is Slashdot. Such an obvious UFO story like this simply doesn't get exposure here unless the outcome is already instinctively recognized in advance to be mundane. That's how it works. People like you go off half-cocked and look/sound nuts, thus further reinforcing fear in the Muggles of exploring the unknown.
Just another, "Fake Moon Landing", I'm afraid.
-FL
Nice back-peddle.
There's hope for you yet if you recognize that such things are sometimes required. It's the same as saying, "Ouch. I was wrong."
Doesn't mean you have a soul, though. A genuine feeling of "Ooops" versus a simple tactical maneuver are two very different things.
-FL
I could pose the counter-question of whether you think there is an Israeli consipracy and want others to know or whether the Israelis hired you to post unprovable speculation under the banner of an Israel critic to discredit all such critics? Can you undeniably prove you're not involved with them?
Point taken. But it's curious that Israel is the villain in both your scenarios.
-FL
There's quite a few with "America" or "American" in them.
No there's not. I saw a number of acronyms in that handy wiki-list, but none with the word "America" front & center. "AOL" doesn't pack the same punch as "Technion-Israel", now does it? In the game of media perceptions, this sort of thing makes rather a large difference.
It's interesting to me how almost all conspiracy theorists have the shared characterizations of being both elitist and ignorant at the same time.
Well, elitism is a natural by-product of seeking while others choose to hide. I certainly feel superior to those who repeatedly say and believe false things despite all evidence to the contrary. However the question of ignorance is the thing which is more interesting. Nobody knows everything, and the job is to seek and analyze the information and ideas which flow. This is all I am doing. I have simply come to realize that it is more efficient to assume guilt when it comes to the mainstream media and resolve innocence based on crucibles such as this very one we're in right now. --Anybody who assumes innocence from a main-stream media voice today is, frankly, a fool. --I say that based on what is readily knowable about the long series of endlessly repeating patterns we see in human nature, corporate nature, psychopathic nature, national policy and war.
-FL
Always funny to see how knee-jerk people are about Israel, yet how silent/uncaring they are when it comes to similar, and mostly much bloodier, situations - the Algerian government's actions in Darfur, the Chinese in Tibet, Rwanda back in the '90s, etc.
Seems pretty obvious to me. It's all about cultural identity. --I went to high school with guys who now serve in the IDF. I know more Chinese people now, and consequently, the situation in Tibet is closer to my awareness as well.
Anyway, defending one's psychopathic behavior by pointing out other people who are doing the same thing is rather a bullshit defense. And calling people's reaction to butchery, "Knee Jerk" is a little strange, don't you think? After all, it's hardly an automatic response. It takes rather a lot of courage to criticize Israel openly in the current media environment. "Knee-jerk" would more aptly describe those people cringing with Pavlovian response to the threat of being called an Anti-Semite.
Labels are bullshit. What I see are people trying to justify genocide with a bunch of semantic nonsense. And you bloody-well know it.
-FL
As much as I despise how Israel behaves as a nation, do not mistake the actions of it's government for that of it's scientists.
I'm sure the guy working on batteries is just a guy working on batteries, and more power to him. But it's the Israeli self-promotion machine using him which I am pointing out here.
Scientists have a long history of tunnel vision. I'm sure the guys making the atom bomb were fine people as well, but that doesn't mean politics aren't always present.
For one, I hope this battery works out well. I want my laptop to last longer on the road. But there is still evil afoot and it's silly not to look at it and recognize its forms. The fact that my post has been modded into the ground as a 'Troll' is evidence that there is some serious dementia at work here.
Truth hurts.
-FL
So we have "hey, let's use a company with a name that will immediately put all the conspiracy theorists on high alert to release research data about a somewhat nice but not very exciting new battery technology so they will let us get away with whatever we want". Sorry, but either the Israelis are complete idiots or this is not a scheme to somehow keep us from scrutinizing them.
You give the population of the Earth, (and certainly the internet), far too much credit, IMHO.
And I notice you had a hard time coming up with company names with the word, "America" (or similar) in them. I did too, otherwise I wouldn't have pointed out the Israeli name thing.
Now. . , the question is, was I modded into Troll Dust because of an unprovable speculation, or because I pointed out the truth of Israel's crimes against humanity in a world where people would prefer to pretend that psychopathic barbarity is A-okay?
-FL
So next time, before you write crap, make sure to clean your ass beforehand, ya stupid jerk!
Now buzz off before I scrape your ass from the sky.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Touched one of those nerves they hard-wired into you as a kid, did I? Maybe you should build a wall around me and tear up all my olive trees?
Denial when reality is right there saying the opposite. Cognitive dissonance will in fact tear your brain in half. Either that, or your soul. If you still have one.
-FL
I wouldn't put it past the Israeli psyops people to pull a stunt like this.
Please follow the logic.
1. "We're taking a beating in public relations as a nation. What with the whole deliberately bombing civilians, bulldozing homes, withholding vital medical care from those who don't agree to become snitches, and perhaps the creepiest of the lot, abduction and organ harvesting. --Yes we can control the real press no problem, (have you heard those stories given full coverage in the "real" news?), but this internet nuisance. . ! It's out of our control. We tried a massive astro-turfing campaign with demonstrably false talking points (thank-you Jon Stewart for being the only guy in television land for having the gonads to point them out.) while we were bombing Palestine last holiday season, but when people are able to get together on the unrestricted internet and were able to discuss things in forum rather than simply stare at a CRT and nod like zombies, our evil toxic bullshit PR threatened to not be 100% effective. We need to control this internet!"
2. "What is the most vital, most exciting, most anticipated technological breakthrough that people closely associated with the internet have been wishing for? Ah yes. Good battery tech."
3. "Subtle message; keep us safe from repercussions resulting from our numerous crimes against humanity. (The abused sickeningly often turns into the abuser, and in the case of Israel, it's just a typical example. The West Bank IS a concentration camp.) --But just hold off for another 5 years, because if you turn on us now, you won't get these marvelous batteries which can make your laptops last forever, and did we forget to mention, they can also save the world from automotive greenhouse pollution? Copenhagen what? No that's just random timing, honest!"
4. "Profit."
Hm. Actually, now that I think my way through this, it just seems fishier and fishier. Why is the word "Israel" built into the company name? This smells of a psy-ops play for mind share. --Hardly surprising for the only country on the planet which was able to organize a giant astro-turfing campaign to bolster world-wide support for war crimes and atrocities during the so-called "Cast lead" where the IDF used phosphorus on civilian targets. For crying out loud!
Sorry, Israel. I could care less about your religion, (or any religion, for that matter), but your government is evil and like Germany, the world is letting you get away with it. Heck, worse, the US is funding the damned thing.
So, sorry, no, I don't think your oh-so-innocent battery story making headlines is what it says it is.
-FL
They'll only reanimate the parts that watch TV, rent movies (repeatedly in a variety of formats, buy mobile phones (repeatedly in a variety of formats) and leave of the rest of the dissident free thinking ganglion parts dormant.
Begins? It's my understanding that they've been doing this for years. I think it started somewhere around the dawn of the industrial revolution and has been been experiencing a geometric growth curve in its rate of effectiveness ever since.
Heck, you pretty much have to be a zombie and/or slave just to enlist in the first place!
-FL