Real Men(tm) would open the drive (scoffing at the warranty seals) and remove the write-protect detection sensor because real men don't use write-protect!
While over North America, they use the regional encoded DVD with the appropriatately sanctioned player.
Having all sanctioned players on the ISS as well as their DVDs, the ISS will pave the way as a shining example of how the MPAA wishes the whole world to watch.
Strangely enough, glebite was a word bantered about in a response to Ayn Rand's "Who is John Galt?" back in high school. Every once in a while, this guy would say "What's a glebite?"
It's interesting that I just finished reading one of the Dorsai books, Necromancer over the weekend, and the top of that was a mine which operated with only 1 person running the whole schebang!
Of course the antagonist lost his arm, and assisted in the general downfall of civilization as they knew it... D'oh! (Who sees a Simpson's parody of Necromancer with Ned Flanders as World Controller?)
But seriously, this raises a whole pile of issues of what to do with all these people who one day will be out of jobs? Some people might look at it and see the demise of human miners and lost jobs.
Personally, I see eventual adoption of robotic miners as miners begin to retire. It's dirty, thankless work, and it's a killer! A friend of mine (no pun intended - honest) has a father who's worked in the Sudbury mines all his life. He knows no other work, but admits that it's tough!
As more robots come into use, there will be more jobs and opportunities in geology, robotic repair, etc... No lost jobs just like I don't work 20 hour weeks thanks to the fact that everybody in my office has a computer. There'll be work, and plenty of it - just perhaps less risky.
I have one of those split-keyboards which raise up a fair angle, but there's one major drawback that comes up when I use it - mouse control.
Although most of my machine usage is within a shell and using vi as an editor, but on some occasions, I find I need to take one of my hands away from the keyboard to make use of the mouse.
What would be truly cool would be some mouse control on the ergonomic keyboard. That would be handy - bridging these two worlds.
Seriously though - it's nice to see that some of the mechanisms in the human body at the cellular level are starting to come together.
I won't be holding my breath for miracle cures in the next year or two, but in 10 years, I think we could expect directed control over some normally rampant disorders.
I thought about this too - but then I remember where I had seen this before: Dominion Tank Police! Yeah!
I think some of the other commenters made a mentioning about suspension - yeah - it would make for a very bumpy ride on roads, but for things like hospital beds, wheelchairs, etc on smooth floor, I imagine they would be fine.
Other applications could be for a forklift that could move about with 90-degree turns without the need for a transmission!
And what of the ethics? Could this be used to reverse ageing? (unlikely, but if it could, what are the ethics of keeping entire generations around just so they can oppress their descendants).
One big benefit would be a few generations who actually start to think, and still be usefull in a physical sense. As a point, very few young people listen to their elders for advice. As a result, they go and do stupid things, but by the time they are reasonably seasoned/experienced in the world, nobody listens to them anymore.
As for other factors, this would be the first few generations who would have to begin to live with the ramifications of decisions made when they were younger. Politicians should be frightened of this. If it is possible to live 200 years, then they might find themselves in jail for actions that would not normally get a senior imprisoned on compassionate grounds.
Personally I think this would be interesting.
As for disease battling - by all means, this would certainly reduce the need for blood and organ donors - eventually you could have stem cells generated for you to replace organs that have worn out or have been injured.
But yeah, the biggest ramifications will be what to do with a larger population of healthy people - I guess there's the incentive to move to space. Why worry about the damages with radiation when you can replace the damaged parts later?
Oh yeah - this is one future I'm looking forward to.
I just re-read all of the Known Space novels, and I think that a movie would waste it.
But one thing that might work would be a television series - one season involving everything from early exploration and failed Mars missions, The Belt, the Slaver, Protector, Gift from Earth, a Kzin war (not too heavy on this) and the purchase of Hyperdrive. Beowulf Schaefer stories, the introduction to Louis Wu, and then follow up with two movies - Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, and leave it at that!
A nice thing about the series is that it could build up the known space stories for everybody who hasn't read the series.
I agree that Rama will turn out to be a cool film, but The Known Space stories would make an even better television series.
This may sound like a joke, but I'm serious - we will have no idea as to who or what they really sent up in the capsules.
I suspect that they sent up animal specimens, but I wouldn't be surprised at sending humans in the capsule - it really wouldn't be any of our business. Personally, if I was single-minded enough, and was a spacecraft launching country, I'd be hot and bothered to send people up into space. I mean - that's what being in the military is all about right? Do what you have been ordered to do.
Although, the concept of finding out if zero-gee would increase the chances of Pandas mating gives me the giggles. I mean, they've tried everything else...
Panda Marital Aids
Finally - even better materials...
on
Nano-pants
·
· Score: 1
It'll be nice to have even better materials, especially dry ones! Living in Canada and doing work outdoors or even playing, I find that even the warmest clothes get too wet, and then become too cold!
But yeah, blankets made of this material would be beneficial as well in disaster relief - warm and wet.
Too bad I didn't have these clothes last weekend otherwise, I wouldn't have been sick in bed all this week.
Cartoon break...
Brain - And do you understand the ramifications of these nano-fibre pants, Pinky?
But I think you'll be looking at more than just a neural-network, but a hybrid system. I suspect that the neural-network could be trained to recognize some conditions, but there will be a great need for an expert system for handling other issues such as time of the day, day of the year, outside temperature, etc..
But yeah, and AI house which detects whether it's myself or my wife in the house would be great - Kat leaves all the lights on, and I turn them all off as I leave a room. But even beyond that, an intelligent agent which turns on and off the lights while we are gone would be nice.
But one of the greatest apps I could think of would be laundry hamper which could sort out whites and darks and put them in appropriate bins for easy quick wash... No more pink shirts!
I thought I had read about neural-networks being used in thermostat systems with probes throughout the house - a decent balance would be set up based on where the occupants of the house typically were at a given hour based on previous training runs. If I remember where I saw the reference, I'll post it here...
We have tours running out of one of our Prime Minister's bomb shelters - the place is huge! The Diefenbunker in Carp is a riot.
Right now the government is trying to sell it - one party interested in it was a Bike Gang, and another party interested in it is a group who wants to grow the Government sanction marijuana. Hmm... Bikers, marijuana - same group? But I digress...
Seriously, a tour would be cool - I'd pay money to see inside the giant "golf ball". Other people pay money to see other tourist traps. And the neat thing about this one is that it might be out of cell phone operation range! (I hate the buggers - especially people who bring them on vacation.)
What really bothers me is the number of groups that think that we shouldn't be putting our radioactive contaminants and materials into space... There's a heck of a lot more out there to worry about - just look at what's happening to Galileo everytime it flies around IO...
But yeah - liftoff issues are a bit of a bother - that's why we should have nuclear fuel production in space - preferably somewhere handy but not too close to the Earth. Use conventional rockets to ferry people to the moon base, mine, and refine the fuel there. Nuclear fuel appears to be the way to do it now - might as well try to do it right. But then again, we'd need quite the infrastructure to get us there, and that doesn't seem to be happening soon.
And no, nuclear explosions will not hurl the lunar base at interstellar speeds out of the solar system to go on a series of adventures.
This article is available elsewhere on slashdot... Argle... So I'll repost my
comment again too...
Okay - it's based on values dependant on acquiring reasonable quantities of Am... But, what I read into this, is that an application of using another radioactive material in a different alignment/form could generate the power necessary for this short of a trip.
It's almost sounding like more and more like the early attempts at getting controlled fission to work with differing opinions on the actual arrangement of the fuel. They tired different methods, and finally arrived at what they needed.
I wonder if the explosion of distributed computing for medicine could also be applied to configuring radioactive material alignments and shielding to improve reactors?
Drat - I only get 3 weeks vacation a year so Mars is out - I guess I'll have to settle for the Dominican Republic again...
Okay - it's based on values dependant on acquiring reasonable quantities of Am... But, what I read into this, is that an application of using another radioactive material in a different alignment/form could generate the power necessary for this short of a trip.
It's almost sounding like more and more like the early attempts at getting controlled fission to work with differing opinions on the actual arrangement of the fuel. They tired different methods, and finally arrived at what they needed.
I wonder if the explosion of distributed computing for medicine could also be applied to configuring radioactive material alignments and shielding to improve reactors?
Drat - I only get 3 weeks vacation a year so Mars is out - I guess I'll have to settle for the Dominican Republic again...
Actually they originally placed it on the moon, but considering the state of Earth's space travelling capabilities, they had to lower the bar so to speak to make it easier for us to get to. Even the aliens get impatient with us...
Even more fascinating would be if Babbage had played with Faraday's solenoids - it would have been a more interesting bridge between the mechanical to electro-mechanical to electronic world. I suspect that he would have had greater success storing values in solenoid state RAM.
Punch cards could still be used, but there would be a drive to make the solenoids smaller, and perhaps explore magnetic storage a per core memory at an accelerated pace.
I keep pictures of Charles Babbage and Lady Ada on my wall in my cube, and it's amazing how many people don't realize who they are.
I agree - a few hardliners would abstain, but most could cave in to keep up with the Jones'...
"What do you mean you didn't see last night's show? Are you some sort of rebel anarchist or just crazy?" I can envision people around the workplace having those conversations. Hell - that happens now with me - I don't watch sports, and the few television programmes that I do watch, I tape to view at my convenience...
If they take this ability away from me, I'll find some other form of entertainment. But yeah - will this sway the corporate giants
What I envision will happen is that some group will contest that the sponsors of the television programmes have the right to transmit their commercials without encryption and blocking so they can sell me products. It'll be a merry day in court and all the Lawyers in the village rejoiced!
Slashdot Mirror
Real Men(tm) would open the drive (scoffing at the warranty seals) and remove the write-protect detection sensor because real men don't use write-protect!
How much longer can this go on for?
With it using only 1 side, I'll just break out my trusty old nibble-notcher and get me a dual-sided drive! Wooooooo!
If his task would have been easier if he had the BNF definition for the genome - oh wait, that's what we're looking for.
Pump that puppy through lex and yacc, and there we go - gene assembler!
While over North America, they use the regional encoded DVD with the appropriatately sanctioned player.
Having all sanctioned players on the ISS as well as their DVDs, the ISS will pave the way as a shining example of how the MPAA wishes the whole world to watch.
Or, I should say that I visit:
http://people-who-don't-preview-html-tags.sucks. co m
D'oh
I meant to write:
http://insert-vacuum-vendor>-really-sucks.n et
#define tongue_in_cheek
There goes my plan for my vacuum cleaner promotional fansites:
http://-really-sucks.net
#udefine tongue_in_cheek
I live in The Glebe, hence I am glebite...
Strangely enough, glebite was a word bantered about in a response to Ayn Rand's "Who is John Galt?" back in high school. Every once in a while, this guy would say "What's a glebite?"
I am.
It's interesting that I just finished reading one of the Dorsai books, Necromancer over the weekend, and the top of that was a mine which operated with only 1 person running the whole schebang!
Of course the antagonist lost his arm, and assisted in the general downfall of civilization as they knew it... D'oh! (Who sees a Simpson's parody of Necromancer with Ned Flanders as World Controller?)
But seriously, this raises a whole pile of issues of what to do with all these people who one day will be out of jobs? Some people might look at it and see the demise of human miners and lost jobs.
Personally, I see eventual adoption of robotic miners as miners begin to retire. It's dirty, thankless work, and it's a killer! A friend of mine (no pun intended - honest) has a father who's worked in the Sudbury mines all his life. He knows no other work, but admits that it's tough!
As more robots come into use, there will be more jobs and opportunities in geology, robotic repair, etc... No lost jobs just like I don't work 20 hour weeks thanks to the fact that everybody in my office has a computer. There'll be work, and plenty of it - just perhaps less risky.
I have one of those split-keyboards which raise up a fair angle, but there's one major drawback that comes up when I use it - mouse control.
Although most of my machine usage is within a shell and using vi as an editor, but on some occasions, I find I need to take one of my hands away from the keyboard to make use of the mouse.
What would be truly cool would be some mouse control on the ergonomic keyboard. That would be handy - bridging these two worlds.
Cell turns on, cell turns off...
Seriously though - it's nice to see that some of the mechanisms in the human body at the cellular level are starting to come together.
I won't be holding my breath for miracle cures in the next year or two, but in 10 years, I think we could expect directed control over some normally rampant disorders.
I thought about this too - but then I remember where I had seen this before: Dominion Tank Police! Yeah!
I think some of the other commenters made a mentioning about suspension - yeah - it would make for a very bumpy ride on roads, but for things like hospital beds, wheelchairs, etc on smooth floor, I imagine they would be fine.
Other applications could be for a forklift that could move about with 90-degree turns without the need for a transmission!
And what of the ethics? Could this be used to reverse ageing? (unlikely, but if it could, what are the ethics of keeping entire generations around just so they can oppress their descendants).
One big benefit would be a few generations who actually start to think, and still be usefull in a physical sense. As a point, very few young people listen to their elders for advice. As a result, they go and do stupid things, but by the time they are reasonably seasoned/experienced in the world, nobody listens to them anymore.
As for other factors, this would be the first few generations who would have to begin to live with the ramifications of decisions made when they were younger. Politicians should be frightened of this. If it is possible to live 200 years, then they might find themselves in jail for actions that would not normally get a senior imprisoned on compassionate grounds.
Personally I think this would be interesting.
As for disease battling - by all means, this would certainly reduce the need for blood and organ donors - eventually you could have stem cells generated for you to replace organs that have worn out or have been injured.
But yeah, the biggest ramifications will be what to do with a larger population of healthy people - I guess there's the incentive to move to space. Why worry about the damages with radiation when you can replace the damaged parts later?
Oh yeah - this is one future I'm looking forward to.
I just re-read all of the Known Space novels, and I think that a movie would waste it.
But one thing that might work would be a television series - one season involving everything from early exploration and failed Mars missions, The Belt, the Slaver, Protector, Gift from Earth, a Kzin war (not too heavy on this) and the purchase of Hyperdrive. Beowulf Schaefer stories, the introduction to Louis Wu, and then follow up with two movies - Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, and leave it at that!
A nice thing about the series is that it could build up the known space stories for everybody who hasn't read the series.
I agree that Rama will turn out to be a cool film, but The Known Space stories would make an even better television series.
This may sound like a joke, but I'm serious - we will have no idea as to who or what they really sent up in the capsules.
I suspect that they sent up animal specimens, but I wouldn't be surprised at sending humans in the capsule - it really wouldn't be any of our business. Personally, if I was single-minded enough, and was a spacecraft launching country, I'd be hot and bothered to send people up into space. I mean - that's what being in the military is all about right? Do what you have been ordered to do.
Although, the concept of finding out if zero-gee would increase the chances of Pandas mating gives me the giggles. I mean, they've tried everything else... Panda Marital Aids
It'll be nice to have even better materials, especially dry ones! Living in Canada and doing work outdoors or even playing, I find that even the warmest clothes get too wet, and then become too cold!
But yeah, blankets made of this material would be beneficial as well in disaster relief - warm and wet.
Too bad I didn't have these clothes last weekend otherwise, I wouldn't have been sick in bed all this week.
Cartoon break...
Brain - And do you understand the ramifications of these nano-fibre pants, Pinky?
Pinky - Oooooh - they're shiny!
Brain - Yes, they are shiny...
was also a pickup line for geeks:
Don't be afraid baby - I won't byte but I might nibble a bit or two...
It was cute at the time...
But I think you'll be looking at more than just a neural-network, but a hybrid system. I suspect that the neural-network could be trained to recognize some conditions, but there will be a great need for an expert system for handling other issues such as time of the day, day of the year, outside temperature, etc..
But yeah, and AI house which detects whether it's myself or my wife in the house would be great - Kat leaves all the lights on, and I turn them all off as I leave a room. But even beyond that, an intelligent agent which turns on and off the lights while we are gone would be nice.
But one of the greatest apps I could think of would be laundry hamper which could sort out whites and darks and put them in appropriate bins for easy quick wash... No more pink shirts!
I thought I had read about neural-networks being used in thermostat systems with probes throughout the house - a decent balance would be set up based on where the occupants of the house typically were at a given hour based on previous training runs. If I remember where I saw the reference, I'll post it here...
Sure - sounds good...
We have tours running out of one of our Prime Minister's bomb shelters - the place is huge! The Diefenbunker in Carp is a riot.
Right now the government is trying to sell it - one party interested in it was a Bike Gang, and another party interested in it is a group who wants to grow the Government sanction marijuana. Hmm... Bikers, marijuana - same group? But I digress...
Seriously, a tour would be cool - I'd pay money to see inside the giant "golf ball". Other people pay money to see other tourist traps. And the neat thing about this one is that it might be out of cell phone operation range! (I hate the buggers - especially people who bring them on vacation.)
What really bothers me is the number of groups that think that we shouldn't be putting our radioactive contaminants and materials into space... There's a heck of a lot more out there to worry about - just look at what's happening to Galileo everytime it flies around IO...
But yeah - liftoff issues are a bit of a bother - that's why we should have nuclear fuel production in space - preferably somewhere handy but not too close to the Earth. Use conventional rockets to ferry people to the moon base, mine, and refine the fuel there. Nuclear fuel appears to be the way to do it now - might as well try to do it right. But then again, we'd need quite the infrastructure to get us there, and that doesn't seem to be happening soon.
And no, nuclear explosions will not hurl the lunar base at interstellar speeds out of the solar system to go on a series of adventures.
This article is available elsewhere on slashdot... Argle... So I'll repost my comment again too...
Okay - it's based on values dependant on acquiring reasonable quantities of Am... But, what I read into this, is that an application of using another radioactive material in a different alignment/form could generate the power necessary for this short of a trip.
It's almost sounding like more and more like the early attempts at getting controlled fission to work with differing opinions on the actual arrangement of the fuel. They tired different methods, and finally arrived at what they needed.
I wonder if the explosion of distributed computing for medicine could also be applied to configuring radioactive material alignments and shielding to improve reactors?
Drat - I only get 3 weeks vacation a year so Mars is out - I guess I'll have to settle for the Dominican Republic again...
Okay - it's based on values dependant on acquiring reasonable quantities of Am... But, what I read into this, is that an application of using another radioactive material in a different alignment/form could generate the power necessary for this short of a trip.
It's almost sounding like more and more like the early attempts at getting controlled fission to work with differing opinions on the actual arrangement of the fuel. They tired different methods, and finally arrived at what they needed.
I wonder if the explosion of distributed computing for medicine could also be applied to configuring radioactive material alignments and shielding to improve reactors?
Drat - I only get 3 weeks vacation a year so Mars is out - I guess I'll have to settle for the Dominican Republic again...
Actually they originally placed it on the moon, but considering the state of Earth's space travelling capabilities, they had to lower the bar so to speak to make it easier for us to get to. Even the aliens get impatient with us...
Even more fascinating would be if Babbage had played with Faraday's solenoids - it would have been a more interesting bridge between the mechanical to electro-mechanical to electronic world. I suspect that he would have had greater success storing values in solenoid state RAM.
Punch cards could still be used, but there would be a drive to make the solenoids smaller, and perhaps explore magnetic storage a per core memory at an accelerated pace.
I keep pictures of Charles Babbage and Lady Ada on my wall in my cube, and it's amazing how many people don't realize who they are.
"What do you mean you didn't see last night's show? Are you some sort of rebel anarchist or just crazy?" I can envision people around the workplace having those conversations. Hell - that happens now with me - I don't watch sports, and the few television programmes that I do watch, I tape to view at my convenience...
If they take this ability away from me, I'll find some other form of entertainment. But yeah - will this sway the corporate giants
What I envision will happen is that some group will contest that the sponsors of the television programmes have the right to transmit their commercials without encryption and blocking so they can sell me products. It'll be a merry day in court and all the Lawyers in the village rejoiced!
that's the wildlife channel... Eeeewwww....