Being an Aussie as I am, I've known about this product for a bit over a year now. But from my personal point of view, I think 'we' have the wrong focus. The "search" for a bio-friendly fuel frustrates me every time I hear about it, because the answer is simple. Ethenol, and vegetable based oils that are turned into diesel. Apperently Mr Diesel even intended to use vegetable based oils for his fuel source.
I don't like wearing clothing that is made with polyester or other petroleum based products, they're not as comfortable as natural products. I don't like furniture with polyester in it. I don't like linoleum. I don't like carpet (because it collects dust).
I just happen to think that natural products (including linnen, and hemp based products, etc) are the best for getting the job done. With the resources we have today, I think we are now at a stage where we can have _all_ of the creature comforts that we have gotten used to, and design them so that they don't adversly (in a major way) affect the environment we habitate.
I hope this product (and the others like it being developed) has a wide spreading affect on the world as we know it.
Actually, a mob in Australia developed a way of making some very good plastic like products using wheat. They can vary the thickness and other properties of the plastic to suit different ranges of requirements.
If electronic circuit board manufacturers used a plastic that was reasonably solid for, then so long as the board doesn't get soaked in water (which most boards aren't, right), then it'll stay together. If these boards are soaked in water, or if they are left in the open to get rained on or be buryed, then they will decompose.
This would also make it easy to recover metals from an electronic board by simply soaking it in a solution of some kind to disolve the plastic away from the metals.
The solutions are there, they just need someone with enough courage to take them on!
"...maybe my grandkids (I am as yet unmarried at 32) will live to see the very beginings of a space-based human civilzation. But, just because it is such a long way off is no reason to give up - it is a noble and worthy cause."
This was my reason for bringing up the point I made (one that has been thought of before, of course.) Colonising another planet makes little sense when we can't even terraform our own deserts/wastelands into habitable land.
This would be the best place to start, in my opinion. This would give a benifit to desolated/desert areas that aren't self productive (lots of Africa, India, Australia, Greenland, etc), as well as teaching scientists how hard the given task at hand would be.
If you speak in terms of "a long way off" (which you are) then perhaps bringing back alien minerals, etc to earth may be feasable. It's still unlikely though. For the same reason that colonisers don't simply head out into a desert and set up a colony - it's just too hard to gather the resources that would last long enough to make the colony self sustaining. If you take the time of travel to that which it would take to traverse to Mars, and the amount of equipment and supplies that could be sent, and the cost of sending those supplies, then you end up with an equation that "doesn't lend itself" to a viable colony ever being set up.
The same problem would exist on the Moon, however I would have to hazard a guess that an attempt at this will be made some time in the not too distant future (considering they're working on the international space station, the Moon would be the next step).
A "lot of people" (unquoted statistic) generally hold a belief that with enough time, resources, and brain power, humankind can solve any problem. This is an often too strongly desired fallacy. Of course! But common sense still has a place in a scientifically enlightened community. So the question I raised, "why bother", was an attempt to emphasise this point of view.
"Why bother" does not in any way indicate any finality in my point of view. I'd just like to see some thought go in to the structure of when these things become "appropriate". Also a difficult task to acheive, since there are so many people involved.
I'll stop now, as I'm sure I've said enough! I hope you don't get offended by my seemingly narrow point of view. I'm a "round" thinker. I tend to thing of things as if they are inter-connected with a particular "order", and if that way is followed as closely as is feasable then the greatest amount of successful acheivement can be obtained. Does that make any sense? I hope so!
This sounds like not too bad a solution to everyone's concern of condensation. Build an air-tight case, use diver's oxygen as the atmosphere around the case, and have some kind of refrigerant for cooling.
It seems to me from reading the above that the general concensus is that nitro is a no go. Too dangerous. But a case mod like the one mentioned above would solve the condensation problem.
Of course it would make upgrading your cpu/vid card/ram/hard drive/etc an exercise in stretching the leevl of geek-annoyance to the max. But what a small price to pay for such a cool (heh) system!
On the other hand, I'd never do it myself. Too much hard work!
While looking at other planets may be fascinating, I don't understand the purpose. Other than for the sake of the interest of astronomers and other such interested parties, what is the purpose of it? To look for alien life perhaps? This would be a weak excuse for spending so much money, wouldn't it? Or is it just me?
No, I'd just come up with another name. With the hundreds of millions of webpages out there, to _expect_ to get YOURNAME.com is not feasable, as it once may have been. (I am of course speaking from a non-multi-millionare-corporation-with-no-ethics background.)
But, this type of thing does raise an interesting issue. There is probably a good way of dealing with the problem of unique domain names that has already been though of by a thousand hackneyed genii somewhere in the world. It's one of the early ponderences I had myself when I first started using the 'net in 1995.
One idea I had was a keyname solution. You type "BIGCORP" in the locator bar and it brings up a page of all the companies/people who have registered that name. Instead of "bigcorp.com", "bigcorp.net" or "bigcorp.zib" etc, there could be a list of the companies you are looking for on the 'search' page.
This wouldn't work well for large lists (eg "freepornhere"), but I'm pretty sure that there would be an elegent solution to that particular problem as well.
This might seem like a bad idea (and probably does to {0 in_between = 100%} of the people reading this post), but the idea behind the idea, ie there has to be a better way to do this, would I am sure have some validity. Although maybe not as much feasability as possible validity.
I plan on personally making it my duty to subvert Microsoft and other monopolious organisations that abuse their position of power with as much stupidity as their bell curve will allow them to have.
Consumer choice.....
But you're right.. M$ are devious, that is obvious (and they enjoy know it's obvious, that's also obvious) - and what's illegal if you aren't caught doing it, right[1]?
-JB
[1] - I am, of course, referring to Gates and his band of buddies, not to myself.
I wonder if this kind of technology could be used in data storage? I haven't seen anywhere mentions of microtech being used in this regard! Would it be feasable?
The thought alone makes me cringe. But really, it's consumer choice that has made Bill Gates a billionare - it has nothing to do with how clever he may (or may not) be.
The consumer is his bread and butter, and in this case his multimillion dollar mansion as well.
Not to forget if they steal all of Nokia's ideas (when they come up with their own OS, that is).
This would be my second greatest grievence with Microsoft - their lack of originality. My greatest is that they charge way too much for software that isn't up to standard.
An observation - If a person wants to build a customised kernel for their machine, that person would probably be someone who is interested in learning more about their machine and/or OS (excepting particular cases). If such a person wants to learn more, how do they do it?
If they feel as though they don't know enough to recompile a kernel without some kind of extra assistance (and most new timers would), but they don't happen to know anyone good at using Linux, then using a piece of software to help them would be the obvious third step (right after obtaining documentation on the matter, which can sometimes be confusing).
How did the "educated few" become educated, if not from the assistance of someone else or from some kind of documentation when they first started getting interested in the deeper aspects of linux? Linus didn't provide much documentation when he first released the kernel(s), and it was only through the efforts of some highly intelligent people who had to pour over the code to work out what it did, but that isn't necessary now. (And many thanks to those people, while I am on the subject.)
If a person is interested in learning more, and the "educated few" decide that since this person isn't educated enough they shouldn't be playing around with what they don't understand, then how do the uneducated "majority" (apperently) learn?
{Opening Sequence:
The camera pans across a messy bedroom. A weedy looking teen male is lying in bed, bare backed, with the sheet tangled around his feet. His alarm goes off at 10:11, he sits up and slides to the end of his bed. He reaches out for something - his monitor switch. He turns it on, waits for it to warm up and then opens up his email client. They finish downloading and he reads the first one. Nothing spectacular, just a comment from one of his buddies. He opens up the next one and a bright flash emits from his monitor! The camera zooms in on the screen, and what can be seen is ghastly and horrendous in every regard! A picture of a can of spam!}
Geek - "Gaaah!" Shades eyes, and then holds his fingers in a "warding off evil" sign.
Geek - "SPAYM!"
{ The picture of spam dissapears, and the body of a spam email can be seen on screen. The geek whacks his delete key in disgust, and life returns to normal, for the moment! }
Like it? I've been planning it for over a year now, but that's all I have so far. Plus that and the fact that I don't have $5 million (although I'm told that a movie can be made on less than $500 thousand if the team is willing to wait for their pay).
I have had this very same argument with a friend of mine. Computers, unbeknownst to some, have no intelligence. Essentially, even with a perfect map of how to win every chess game in every situation - which is not possible in any case, there being always "two" players, not just one - but even if there was such a map, the computer which has no intilligence could not cope with the concept of merely picking the best fit.
Also consider, there is never only one path to take to gain a win. There are always choices. A computer can't choose, it can only calculate (ie compute). A programmer can direct the computer to calculate in such a way that a desirable outcome may be possible, but there is never (ever) going to be 100% certainty that a machine with a perfect set of calculations is going to defeat a human player every time (chess is not a trivial game/problem. You cannot approach it from a trivial perspective).
Deep Blue won iirc 3 our of the 6 games played, and drew 1 (in the rematch) so it was not a one game one win situation. After the rematch (in 1996 iirc) Deep Blue was dismantled. However Gary Kasparov had some queries to IBM about two fo the games in the match - he felt there had been some human intervention. Deep Blue's victory was not "grand" in any sense other than as a marketing stunt for IBM.
-JB.
Re:Quit it with the misunderstanding of commercial
on
MS VP Speech Online
·
· Score: 1
You know what the best thing about this reply is? The sig...
On a completely unrelated topic, I was logged onto a unix server 96 times at my old university. I was just trying to work out how many simultaneous connections 1 person could have. It's amazing how easy it is to abuse official privilages when they are thrust upon you.
In fact, we have the more difficult task of figuring out why some predicted technologies work out, and others languish, even if they seem really cool.
This is something I've thought about a lot, but more along the lines of "what makes a good idea good?" So far, this is what I've concluded.
People make choices on a daily basis, and those choices will often be made to reflect a persons personality. Eg - would you by cream coloured Levi's that are flared at the bottom? There's nothing "technically unsound" about the idea, but it doens't work now!
So there is personal gratification in our decisions. There are exceptions however. Eg - when something is needed to fulfill a particular task. Personal gratification is shelved to some degree, and we then go in search of something to fulfill our "need". If the solution isn't totally accetable, but no other solution is available, we'll buy the product anyway. But there'll be a desire for something "better" (handier/thoughfully designed/cooler looking/more convinient/etc).
The ideal is to combine personal gratification with the fulfillment of a need. What need though?
Does this give the necessary ideas for a successful product? Not at all, but it helps you recognise those ideas that stand out from the fanatical fads that are designed purely for fast money (and there is far too many of those on the market today, it becoming numbing).
Anyhow, I just wanted to exress those ideas in a post. Please don't flame me for it!
Isn't "computer" more of a "mathematical machine" type of term? Would a hybrid transistor still be used only for mass mathematical calculations?
Not that I'm suggesting a possible AI alternative/possibility. I'm actually against (as such) the idea of AI, mainly because I can see already that people (generally speaking) will go to extraordinary lengths to make AI work, and spend massive amounts of money on it - because it's one of those ideas that just doesn't go away. It can't be simply pondered upon, it has to be done!
I already know it won't work, but I also suspect people (once again, generally speaking) will try to cheat to make it work. It won't. Ever. And besides all that, it isn't "necessary".
We don't need it for anything. We're already coping quite well. AI in not science (the study of stuff that exists) nor engineering (building stuff). But that is just my humble opinion. I can't stop people wanting AI. And why would I? Whatever will be, will be!
Did you ever get the feeling that you've gone off on a tangent and forgotten what your original point was?
Slashdot Mirror
Being an Aussie as I am, I've known about this product for a bit over a year now. But from my personal point of view, I think 'we' have the wrong focus. The "search" for a bio-friendly fuel frustrates me every time I hear about it, because the answer is simple. Ethenol, and vegetable based oils that are turned into diesel. Apperently Mr Diesel even intended to use vegetable based oils for his fuel source.
I don't like wearing clothing that is made with polyester or other petroleum based products, they're not as comfortable as natural products. I don't like furniture with polyester in it. I don't like linoleum. I don't like carpet (because it collects dust).
I just happen to think that natural products (including linnen, and hemp based products, etc) are the best for getting the job done. With the resources we have today, I think we are now at a stage where we can have _all_ of the creature comforts that we have gotten used to, and design them so that they don't adversly (in a major way) affect the environment we habitate.
I hope this product (and the others like it being developed) has a wide spreading affect on the world as we know it.
Actually, a mob in Australia developed a way of making some very good plastic like products using wheat. They can vary the thickness and other properties of the plastic to suit different ranges of requirements.
If electronic circuit board manufacturers used a plastic that was reasonably solid for, then so long as the board doesn't get soaked in water (which most boards aren't, right), then it'll stay together. If these boards are soaked in water, or if they are left in the open to get rained on or be buryed, then they will decompose.
This would also make it easy to recover metals from an electronic board by simply soaking it in a solution of some kind to disolve the plastic away from the metals.
The solutions are there, they just need someone with enough courage to take them on!
-JB
This was my reason for bringing up the point I made (one that has been thought of before, of course.) Colonising another planet makes little sense when we can't even terraform our own deserts/wastelands into habitable land.
This would be the best place to start, in my opinion. This would give a benifit to desolated/desert areas that aren't self productive (lots of Africa, India, Australia, Greenland, etc), as well as teaching scientists how hard the given task at hand would be.
If you speak in terms of "a long way off" (which you are) then perhaps bringing back alien minerals, etc to earth may be feasable. It's still unlikely though. For the same reason that colonisers don't simply head out into a desert and set up a colony - it's just too hard to gather the resources that would last long enough to make the colony self sustaining. If you take the time of travel to that which it would take to traverse to Mars, and the amount of equipment and supplies that could be sent, and the cost of sending those supplies, then you end up with an equation that "doesn't lend itself" to a viable colony ever being set up.
The same problem would exist on the Moon, however I would have to hazard a guess that an attempt at this will be made some time in the not too distant future (considering they're working on the international space station, the Moon would be the next step).
A "lot of people" (unquoted statistic) generally hold a belief that with enough time, resources, and brain power, humankind can solve any problem. This is an often too strongly desired fallacy. Of course! But common sense still has a place in a scientifically enlightened community. So the question I raised, "why bother", was an attempt to emphasise this point of view.
"Why bother" does not in any way indicate any finality in my point of view. I'd just like to see some thought go in to the structure of when these things become "appropriate". Also a difficult task to acheive, since there are so many people involved.
I'll stop now, as I'm sure I've said enough! I hope you don't get offended by my seemingly narrow point of view. I'm a "round" thinker. I tend to thing of things as if they are inter-connected with a particular "order", and if that way is followed as closely as is feasable then the greatest amount of successful acheivement can be obtained. Does that make any sense? I hope so!
JB
It's case hack time!
This sounds like not too bad a solution to everyone's concern of condensation. Build an air-tight case, use diver's oxygen as the atmosphere around the case, and have some kind of refrigerant for cooling.
It seems to me from reading the above that the general concensus is that nitro is a no go. Too dangerous. But a case mod like the one mentioned above would solve the condensation problem.
Of course it would make upgrading your cpu/vid card/ram/hard drive/etc an exercise in stretching the leevl of geek-annoyance to the max. But what a small price to pay for such a cool (heh) system!
On the other hand, I'd never do it myself. Too much hard work!
-JB
While looking at other planets may be fascinating, I don't understand the purpose. Other than for the sake of the interest of astronomers and other such interested parties, what is the purpose of it? To look for alien life perhaps? This would be a weak excuse for spending so much money, wouldn't it? Or is it just me?
-JB
I'd just like to say at this point that slashcode formats "Plain Old Text".
The above {0 in_between = 100%} is meant to read {0 in_between = 100%}
No, I'd just come up with another name. With the hundreds of millions of webpages out there, to _expect_ to get YOURNAME.com is not feasable, as it once may have been. (I am of course speaking from a non-multi-millionare-corporation-with-no-ethics background.)
But, this type of thing does raise an interesting issue. There is probably a good way of dealing with the problem of unique domain names that has already been though of by a thousand hackneyed genii somewhere in the world. It's one of the early ponderences I had myself when I first started using the 'net in 1995.
One idea I had was a keyname solution. You type "BIGCORP" in the locator bar and it brings up a page of all the companies/people who have registered that name. Instead of "bigcorp.com", "bigcorp.net" or "bigcorp.zib" etc, there could be a list of the companies you are looking for on the 'search' page.
This wouldn't work well for large lists (eg "freepornhere"), but I'm pretty sure that there would be an elegent solution to that particular problem as well.
This might seem like a bad idea (and probably does to {0 in_between = 100%} of the people reading this post), but the idea behind the idea, ie there has to be a better way to do this, would I am sure have some validity. Although maybe not as much feasability as possible validity.
-JB
I plan on personally making it my duty to subvert Microsoft and other monopolious organisations that abuse their position of power with as much stupidity as their bell curve will allow them to have.
.. M$ are devious, that is obvious (and they enjoy know it's obvious, that's also obvious) - and what's illegal if you aren't caught doing it, right[1]?
Consumer choice.....
But you're right
-JB
[1] - I am, of course, referring to Gates and his band of buddies, not to myself.
Does that mean you spend 500% more for 1/500th the coverage?
-JB
(laugh, it's funny!)
Nice!
-JB
Maybe if we plead to him he might release his CAD diagrams and other stats?
-JB
Okay, so I'm a moron that doesn't check links before posting about them :(
Apologies!
-JB
This link is entirely relevent, even if it does have the word "troll" in it.
-JB
I wonder if this kind of technology could be used in data storage? I haven't seen anywhere mentions of microtech being used in this regard! Would it be feasable?
This will never happen....
The thought alone makes me cringe. But really, it's consumer choice that has made Bill Gates a billionare - it has nothing to do with how clever he may (or may not) be.
The consumer is his bread and butter, and in this case his multimillion dollar mansion as well.
-JB
Not to forget if they steal all of Nokia's ideas (when they come up with their own OS, that is).
This would be my second greatest grievence with Microsoft - their lack of originality. My greatest is that they charge way too much for software that isn't up to standard.
(Apologies for off topicish post.)
-JB
I hope they do better than "prior" track records show.
-JB
An observation - If a person wants to build a customised kernel for their machine, that person would probably be someone who is interested in learning more about their machine and/or OS (excepting particular cases). If such a person wants to learn more, how do they do it?
If they feel as though they don't know enough to recompile a kernel without some kind of extra assistance (and most new timers would), but they don't happen to know anyone good at using Linux, then using a piece of software to help them would be the obvious third step (right after obtaining documentation on the matter, which can sometimes be confusing).
How did the "educated few" become educated, if not from the assistance of someone else or from some kind of documentation when they first started getting interested in the deeper aspects of linux? Linus didn't provide much documentation when he first released the kernel(s), and it was only through the efforts of some highly intelligent people who had to pour over the code to work out what it did, but that isn't necessary now. (And many thanks to those people, while I am on the subject.)
If a person is interested in learning more, and the "educated few" decide that since this person isn't educated enough they shouldn't be playing around with what they don't understand, then how do the uneducated "majority" (apperently) learn?
Education happens like it does.
Any comments?
-JB
Bernie and Art should be in movies!
{Opening Sequence:
The camera pans across a messy bedroom. A weedy looking teen male is lying in bed, bare backed, with the sheet tangled around his feet. His alarm goes off at 10:11, he sits up and slides to the end of his bed. He reaches out for something - his monitor switch. He turns it on, waits for it to warm up and then opens up his email client. They finish downloading and he reads the first one. Nothing spectacular, just a comment from one of his buddies. He opens up the next one and a bright flash emits from his monitor! The camera zooms in on the screen, and what can be seen is ghastly and horrendous in every regard! A picture of a can of spam!}
Geek - "Gaaah!" Shades eyes, and then holds his fingers in a "warding off evil" sign.
Geek - "SPAYM!"
{ The picture of spam dissapears, and the body of a spam email can be seen on screen. The geek whacks his delete key in disgust, and life returns to normal, for the moment! }
Like it? I've been planning it for over a year now, but that's all I have so far. Plus that and the fact that I don't have $5 million (although I'm told that a movie can be made on less than $500 thousand if the team is willing to wait for their pay).
-JB
Deep Thought could beat Deep Fritz and Deep Blue with Marvin tied behind his back! (So there!)
.sig
-JB.
----
There is no
I have had this very same argument with a friend of mine. Computers, unbeknownst to some, have no intelligence. Essentially, even with a perfect map of how to win every chess game in every situation - which is not possible in any case, there being always "two" players, not just one - but even if there was such a map, the computer which has no intilligence could not cope with the concept of merely picking the best fit.
Also consider, there is never only one path to take to gain a win. There are always choices. A computer can't choose, it can only calculate (ie compute). A programmer can direct the computer to calculate in such a way that a desirable outcome may be possible, but there is never (ever) going to be 100% certainty that a machine with a perfect set of calculations is going to defeat a human player every time (chess is not a trivial game/problem. You cannot approach it from a trivial perspective).
Deep Blue won iirc 3 our of the 6 games played, and drew 1 (in the rematch) so it was not a one game one win situation. After the rematch (in 1996 iirc) Deep Blue was dismantled. However Gary Kasparov had some queries to IBM about two fo the games in the match - he felt there had been some human intervention. Deep Blue's victory was not "grand" in any sense other than as a marketing stunt for IBM.
-JB.
You know what the best thing about this reply is? The sig...
Seriously, it's worthy of it's own thread!
-Jedi
On a completely unrelated topic, I was logged onto a unix server 96 times at my old university. I was just trying to work out how many simultaneous connections 1 person could have. It's amazing how easy it is to abuse official privilages when they are thrust upon you.
This is something I've thought about a lot, but more along the lines of "what makes a good idea good?" So far, this is what I've concluded.
People make choices on a daily basis, and those choices will often be made to reflect a persons personality. Eg - would you by cream coloured Levi's that are flared at the bottom? There's nothing "technically unsound" about the idea, but it doens't work now!
So there is personal gratification in our decisions. There are exceptions however. Eg - when something is needed to fulfill a particular task. Personal gratification is shelved to some degree, and we then go in search of something to fulfill our "need". If the solution isn't totally accetable, but no other solution is available, we'll buy the product anyway. But there'll be a desire for something "better" (handier/thoughfully designed/cooler looking/more convinient/etc).
The ideal is to combine personal gratification with the fulfillment of a need. What need though?
Does this give the necessary ideas for a successful product? Not at all, but it helps you recognise those ideas that stand out from the fanatical fads that are designed purely for fast money (and there is far too many of those on the market today, it becoming numbing).
Anyhow, I just wanted to exress those ideas in a post. Please don't flame me for it!
-JB
Isn't "computer" more of a "mathematical machine" type of term? Would a hybrid transistor still be used only for mass mathematical calculations?
Not that I'm suggesting a possible AI alternative/possibility. I'm actually against (as such) the idea of AI, mainly because I can see already that people (generally speaking) will go to extraordinary lengths to make AI work, and spend massive amounts of money on it - because it's one of those ideas that just doesn't go away. It can't be simply pondered upon, it has to be done!
I already know it won't work, but I also suspect people (once again, generally speaking) will try to cheat to make it work. It won't. Ever. And besides all that, it isn't "necessary".
We don't need it for anything. We're already coping quite well. AI in not science (the study of stuff that exists) nor engineering (building stuff). But that is just my humble opinion. I can't stop people wanting AI. And why would I? Whatever will be, will be!
Did you ever get the feeling that you've gone off on a tangent and forgotten what your original point was?
-JB