First, it isn't clear where the author of the article gets the "trillions of years" lifespan of the universe. Most of hypotheses I've read so far put the heat death at less than a few tens of billions of years, some as early as five billion years. The cited article does not make this claim, although it does make the 92% habitable planets yet to be born claim. So I guess the implication is there would be extremely rapid star and planetary formation in the next few billion years. A kind of last big hurrah before it all goes cold.
The practical application of such a study eludes me though. Given that it takes billions of years for a planet to form and become habitable (to humans), as a species we would likely die out long before ever being able to visit such worlds, or meet an indigenous life form that would evolve on such.
It seems kind of like projecting how many humans have yet to be born until the Earth is no longer habitable (assuming no other factors at play) and stating something like, all of the humans that have ever been born amount to less than.001% of all the humans that will ever be born. It's interesting, but what do we do with that information?
I'm thinking the most interesting part isn't the 92% figure, but rather the rate of formation from which it is derived. Plotting the projection of how many habitable worlds there should be at any given moment, and matching that to our current rate of interstellar exploration for a given number of light years has some practical applications. But given our rate of information gathering and understanding, I'm guessing we make interstellar travel feasible in the next 500-1000 years; which isn't even a tick of the clock in planetary formation time scales.
I've always assumed that the "distance" was merely due to our observations in three-dimensional space, but quantum entangled particles are "touching" at some higher level dimension. It's a guess.
Amen brother Stoddart! Regrettably no mod points to give.
I'd also like to add that this is also one of several reasons why I no longer watch television in favor of ad-free video models. I'm old enough to remember when there was only about 7-10 minutes of advertising per 1 hour of content, and commercials only happened at the top, bottom, and mid-point of the program. That's now about 18 minutes or more throughout the program.
Ad networks, tracking, cookies, etc, allow even disparate ad companies to deduce information about an individual user without having to resort to the "sell your information to spammers" mantra. Google doesn't sell your information to spammers, they instead provide detailed demographic information for better ad targeting. So you add that data to referring URL information on sites that track user movements across the web, the cookies created at the various sites, etc; and you have a pretty good idea of who a person is and what their interests, habits, and proclivities are. There's no doubt that Google has this information, and they likely aren't the only ones. Do a search on something like "how can I better target my advertising online" and behold the cesspool that we've built.
The issue's not whether you're paranoid,... the issue is whether you're paranoid enough.
BTW - uMatrix reports that Slashdot works with the following advertising/tracking networks: Google Analytics, Google Ad Services, Google Tag Services, RPX Now/Janrain, and Taboola. There's also ntv.io, I'm unable to quickly find what that is.
Calling those bodies planets, and adding more as we find them, perfectly illustrates to people that science is not dogmatic, not immutable. As we learn, we adopt; and when necessary, we change. It's good that we all learned nine planets as children. What's maybe not so good was that we learned the universe is static...and of course it is not.
Yeah, maybe I'm a cynic (realist?), but I can't help but think this will have a net-zero effect on the current surveillance state in which we are living.
I met a grad student attending Stanford who was part of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (https://cao.carnegiescience.edu/). She said they flew it over the Central and South America, and her job was counting trees and studying their migrations (if that's the right word). She thought it was a boring subject that few people found interesting, but I was fascinated.
There is also a great RadioLab podcast about Dr. Sacks. He was a regular contributor to the show, and they offered a farewell remembrance of/to him this past spring. The remembrance is the last half of the podcast and starts at about 31:34 if you want to skip to that.
They fire quivers with a bow? I believe the phrase you were looking for was "another arrow in their quiver". Probably a good idea to submit anonymously.
Agreed. While we have certainly improved ways to harm ourselves, the simple fact is that we've doubled the average life expectancy in the last 220 years. I think the question of whether or not the world is safer is self-evident. Even smart people can say something dumb every once in awhile. I do it all the time!
If I felt so inclined, I'm sure I could dig up post-upon-post from previous slashdot stories about how unlikely solar (and wind) power is to take off in any meaningful way, and how electric cars will never be a thing. We are just at the beginning, and the economic incentives took only a few year to become reality. I'm guessing that is due in no small part to subsidies paving the way for investment and growth that so many complained about. An industry, and really a way of life, is slowly being built from the ground-up. It's pretty exciting to watch!
Let me FTFY:...and the sort of thing that should have no place in a "free society".
Notice the quotes. A friend of mine spent a year in Canada consuming Canadian news. He said that the experience really opened his eyes to how much propaganda we (as U.S. citizens) are fed through our news outlets. I don't know if that's driven by government or quasi-government led efforts, or simply driven by economic realities of the news business. Either way, this is possibly further damning evidence (albeit anecdotal) giving rise to the notion that the US being a free society is a romanticized pipe dream. The Matrix has you.
Internet crowdfunding has done the same thing for game designers that blogging platforms did for writers: turned them into publishers.
Perhaps, but most of the board game Kickstarters I see are from publishers; and often large ones at that. Most designers will tell you, if you are interested in being a board game designer, do not attempt to publish your game. The amount of work involved is all-consuming as publishers do far more than simple distribution. As a designer board game enthusiast, I listen to a fair amount of podcasts on the subject like The Dice Tower and The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast. Board Games Insider, however, is by the CEOs of Portal Games and Stronghold Games, and is all about the business of board games not the playing of them. It's a really interesting look behind the curtain and I highly recommend it.
Selective breeding and hybridization I don't think are counted as "genetically modified".
Can someone with first-hand knowledge explain to me what the problem, or perceived problem, is with GMO's? It's tough to find this information on the net without feeling an agenda is being pushed. Is it religious nuts scared that science is playing god, or are there real concerns? I think I read at one point there was concern about GMOs causing super-bugs to arise, or a lack of genetic variety could cause an entire crop to wiped out. Are these the primary arguments against GMO's?
Holy carp! That's the Columbia Pictures movie, essentially. I hope the creator is able to successfully sue Columbia. Unfortunately, he may only be able to sure for a percentage of profits. Through the magic of accounting, most movies are not "profitable" in order to avoid paying taxes on the hundreds of millions they earn.
This could potentially explain why WotC was absent at Gen Con 2015. They didn't have a booth in the exhibitor hall, and they didn't have a presence in the gaming hall. Baldman Games was left to run all of the D&D events, and they had to do it in Hall D. Paizo kicked WotC right out of the Sagamore Ballroom. It was a pretty terrible gaming experience, really, and that makes me a sad panda. It was loud and crowded. I had six games and all but one were with seven players. We were hearing from a lot of people that WotC didn't put any money into Gen Con this year, but I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that myself.
It's kind of crazy. A gaming convention that started in Lake Geneva by the guy who created D&D, and really built much of its success on D&D, had D&D's IP owner walk away from it.
Also, I cut those daily amounts in half and put each half in a Blender Bottle. I add water and shake them up; one for breakfast on the morning commute, and one at my desk for lunch. This also serves as my excuse for leaving work an hour early if I feel like it.
Like all Soylent, DIY or otherwise, they are better cold, but not at all bad room temp. The protein is unflavored Now Foods whey protein isolate and I liked that, but I've been experimenting with the flavored WPI from GNC. The cookies and cream was ok, but too much sugar. I'm recently on the vanilla and I like that much better from a flavor/nutritional standpoint, but I need to update the document to reflect that.
I realize after looking at it again (it's been awhile), that I was unintentionally a bit disingenuous about it being nutritionally complete. It's more so than most DIY...but not totally. I'm still trying to find a good source for Vitamin K and I'm a little short in iron, chloride, and carbs (I forgot about that). I do make that up those deficiencies by a sensible dinner, so please don't rely solely on my recipe for nutrition.
The bulk of the cost comes from the almond flour. I'm still trying to find a better source for that. The spreadsheet also contains links to information on how I calculated various aspects of the recipe.
Also, everybody's different so consult your doctor or have your blood work done before and after a trial run. This works well for me, but may not for you. That sounds like a legal disclaimer, but as a good netizen, I don't want anyone to get sick from something I posted on the web.
I don't think it's really meant to be a complete food replacement for most people. I make my own based off of what I saw on the DIY Soylent page. Mine's a bit more nutritionally complete than most DIY stuff, is a little cheaper, and is fewer calories than actual Soylent. It also contains no soy or oats (which can cause gas). I only consume it for breakfast and lunch, Monday through Friday. I really love it though. It's quick, easy, low cost, filling, and nutritionally complete. How much molybdenum do you get? How about Selenium? Enough?
My only worry is absorption. It's all well and good to say that I am putting the National Institute of Health's RDI of each vitamin, mineral, and macronutrient; but I don't really know if I'm absorbing all of that. Still, I feel great, I'm losing weight, and my bloodwork is good.
My guess is the bottled product is part of a long-term strategy to eventually push to sell the product in grocery stores. It will be meant for grab-and-go eating that some people will pay a higher price for given the convenience. Soylent will wholesale it to the stores who will then mark it back up to a price that Soylent can say people are already comfortable paying.
Goddard was the father of modern rocketry (perhaps 5000 years of Chinese fireworks aside;-), so really any fundamentally new technology is at it's "Goddard level". But it is amazing to think about what Robert Goddard was doing compared to a truly modern launch system, and apply that to what researchers are doing with quantum computing. Where will that be in 80 years? I wish I could be alive to see it.
You have to wonder if we live in a time where any opposing viewpoint merits a "teach the controversy" approach. Can I claim anything, convince hoards of mouth-breathers desperate for something to cling to, and have it taught at a university, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
I'd also like to take a moment to quote Tim Minchin's awesome beat poem rant "Storm" which seems relevant:
"By definition", I begin "Alternative Medicine", I continue "Has either not been proved to work, Or been proved not to work. You know what they call "alternative medicine" That's been proved to work? Medicine."
"salvaging mercury switches, which can be used to detonate explosives"
Was the abandoned building an old bomb factory? No? Well, guess what? Mercury switches have other uses too! Do we raid the houses of everyone who steals hammers or screwdrivers? Why not? Both of those can be used to kill people. The reason is science! Chemistry and electronics are fields most people don't understand, and it's (regrettably) human nature is to fear what is not understood. Everyone understands a hammer, so no panic is induced.
This also gives the bomb squad some legitimacy on paper. They can show at the end of the year that the squad was sent out on 47 runs. Clearly they are needed and need further funding by the tax payers. The fact that not one of those 47 runs involved an actual bomb is not evaluated.
Slashdot Mirror
First, it isn't clear where the author of the article gets the "trillions of years" lifespan of the universe. Most of hypotheses I've read so far put the heat death at less than a few tens of billions of years, some as early as five billion years. The cited article does not make this claim, although it does make the 92% habitable planets yet to be born claim. So I guess the implication is there would be extremely rapid star and planetary formation in the next few billion years. A kind of last big hurrah before it all goes cold.
The practical application of such a study eludes me though. Given that it takes billions of years for a planet to form and become habitable (to humans), as a species we would likely die out long before ever being able to visit such worlds, or meet an indigenous life form that would evolve on such.
It seems kind of like projecting how many humans have yet to be born until the Earth is no longer habitable (assuming no other factors at play) and stating something like, all of the humans that have ever been born amount to less than .001% of all the humans that will ever be born. It's interesting, but what do we do with that information?
I'm thinking the most interesting part isn't the 92% figure, but rather the rate of formation from which it is derived. Plotting the projection of how many habitable worlds there should be at any given moment, and matching that to our current rate of interstellar exploration for a given number of light years has some practical applications. But given our rate of information gathering and understanding, I'm guessing we make interstellar travel feasible in the next 500-1000 years; which isn't even a tick of the clock in planetary formation time scales.
I've always assumed that the "distance" was merely due to our observations in three-dimensional space, but quantum entangled particles are "touching" at some higher level dimension. It's a guess.
Amen brother Stoddart! Regrettably no mod points to give.
I'd also like to add that this is also one of several reasons why I no longer watch television in favor of ad-free video models. I'm old enough to remember when there was only about 7-10 minutes of advertising per 1 hour of content, and commercials only happened at the top, bottom, and mid-point of the program. That's now about 18 minutes or more throughout the program.
Hmm. I don't know.
Ad networks, tracking, cookies, etc, allow even disparate ad companies to deduce information about an individual user without having to resort to the "sell your information to spammers" mantra. Google doesn't sell your information to spammers, they instead provide detailed demographic information for better ad targeting. So you add that data to referring URL information on sites that track user movements across the web, the cookies created at the various sites, etc; and you have a pretty good idea of who a person is and what their interests, habits, and proclivities are. There's no doubt that Google has this information, and they likely aren't the only ones. Do a search on something like "how can I better target my advertising online" and behold the cesspool that we've built.
The issue's not whether you're paranoid,... the issue is whether you're paranoid enough.
BTW - uMatrix reports that Slashdot works with the following advertising/tracking networks: Google Analytics, Google Ad Services, Google Tag Services, RPX Now/Janrain, and Taboola. There's also ntv.io, I'm unable to quickly find what that is.
Well, they had better get this worked out soon. We'll need their help to get Mark Watney back!
Calling those bodies planets, and adding more as we find them, perfectly illustrates to people that science is not dogmatic, not immutable. As we learn, we adopt; and when necessary, we change. It's good that we all learned nine planets as children. What's maybe not so good was that we learned the universe is static...and of course it is not.
I didn't know Norman from Bates Motel was into radar and em waves. Cool.
Yeah, maybe I'm a cynic (realist?), but I can't help but think this will have a net-zero effect on the current surveillance state in which we are living.
I met a grad student attending Stanford who was part of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (https://cao.carnegiescience.edu/). She said they flew it over the Central and South America, and her job was counting trees and studying their migrations (if that's the right word). She thought it was a boring subject that few people found interesting, but I was fascinated.
It didn't hurt that she happened to be beautiful.
There is also a great RadioLab podcast about Dr. Sacks. He was a regular contributor to the show, and they offered a farewell remembrance of/to him this past spring. The remembrance is the last half of the podcast and starts at about 31:34 if you want to skip to that.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/...
Your continued contributions to the world will be greatly missed by all who knew you, and those of us who had only heard you. Rest well, good sir.
"...another quiver in their bow"
They fire quivers with a bow? I believe the phrase you were looking for was "another arrow in their quiver". Probably a good idea to submit anonymously.
Agreed. While we have certainly improved ways to harm ourselves, the simple fact is that we've doubled the average life expectancy in the last 220 years. I think the question of whether or not the world is safer is self-evident. Even smart people can say something dumb every once in awhile. I do it all the time!
If I felt so inclined, I'm sure I could dig up post-upon-post from previous slashdot stories about how unlikely solar (and wind) power is to take off in any meaningful way, and how electric cars will never be a thing. We are just at the beginning, and the economic incentives took only a few year to become reality. I'm guessing that is due in no small part to subsidies paving the way for investment and growth that so many complained about. An industry, and really a way of life, is slowly being built from the ground-up. It's pretty exciting to watch!
Let me FTFY: ...and the sort of thing that should have no place in a "free society".
Notice the quotes. A friend of mine spent a year in Canada consuming Canadian news. He said that the experience really opened his eyes to how much propaganda we (as U.S. citizens) are fed through our news outlets. I don't know if that's driven by government or quasi-government led efforts, or simply driven by economic realities of the news business. Either way, this is possibly further damning evidence (albeit anecdotal) giving rise to the notion that the US being a free society is a romanticized pipe dream. The Matrix has you.
Internet crowdfunding has done the same thing for game designers that blogging platforms did for writers: turned them into publishers.
Perhaps, but most of the board game Kickstarters I see are from publishers; and often large ones at that. Most designers will tell you, if you are interested in being a board game designer, do not attempt to publish your game. The amount of work involved is all-consuming as publishers do far more than simple distribution. As a designer board game enthusiast, I listen to a fair amount of podcasts on the subject like The Dice Tower and The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast. Board Games Insider, however, is by the CEOs of Portal Games and Stronghold Games, and is all about the business of board games not the playing of them. It's a really interesting look behind the curtain and I highly recommend it.
Selective breeding and hybridization I don't think are counted as "genetically modified".
Can someone with first-hand knowledge explain to me what the problem, or perceived problem, is with GMO's? It's tough to find this information on the net without feeling an agenda is being pushed. Is it religious nuts scared that science is playing god, or are there real concerns? I think I read at one point there was concern about GMOs causing super-bugs to arise, or a lack of genetic variety could cause an entire crop to wiped out. Are these the primary arguments against GMO's?
Holy carp! That's the Columbia Pictures movie, essentially. I hope the creator is able to successfully sue Columbia. Unfortunately, he may only be able to sure for a percentage of profits. Through the magic of accounting, most movies are not "profitable" in order to avoid paying taxes on the hundreds of millions they earn.
This could potentially explain why WotC was absent at Gen Con 2015. They didn't have a booth in the exhibitor hall, and they didn't have a presence in the gaming hall. Baldman Games was left to run all of the D&D events, and they had to do it in Hall D. Paizo kicked WotC right out of the Sagamore Ballroom. It was a pretty terrible gaming experience, really, and that makes me a sad panda. It was loud and crowded. I had six games and all but one were with seven players. We were hearing from a lot of people that WotC didn't put any money into Gen Con this year, but I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that myself.
It's kind of crazy. A gaming convention that started in Lake Geneva by the guy who created D&D, and really built much of its success on D&D, had D&D's IP owner walk away from it.
Also, I cut those daily amounts in half and put each half in a Blender Bottle. I add water and shake them up; one for breakfast on the morning commute, and one at my desk for lunch. This also serves as my excuse for leaving work an hour early if I feel like it.
Like all Soylent, DIY or otherwise, they are better cold, but not at all bad room temp. The protein is unflavored Now Foods whey protein isolate and I liked that, but I've been experimenting with the flavored WPI from GNC. The cookies and cream was ok, but too much sugar. I'm recently on the vanilla and I like that much better from a flavor/nutritional standpoint, but I need to update the document to reflect that.
Recipe: https://docs.google.com/spread...
I realize after looking at it again (it's been awhile), that I was unintentionally a bit disingenuous about it being nutritionally complete. It's more so than most DIY...but not totally. I'm still trying to find a good source for Vitamin K and I'm a little short in iron, chloride, and carbs (I forgot about that). I do make that up those deficiencies by a sensible dinner, so please don't rely solely on my recipe for nutrition.
The bulk of the cost comes from the almond flour. I'm still trying to find a better source for that. The spreadsheet also contains links to information on how I calculated various aspects of the recipe.
Also, everybody's different so consult your doctor or have your blood work done before and after a trial run. This works well for me, but may not for you. That sounds like a legal disclaimer, but as a good netizen, I don't want anyone to get sick from something I posted on the web.
I don't think it's really meant to be a complete food replacement for most people. I make my own based off of what I saw on the DIY Soylent page. Mine's a bit more nutritionally complete than most DIY stuff, is a little cheaper, and is fewer calories than actual Soylent. It also contains no soy or oats (which can cause gas). I only consume it for breakfast and lunch, Monday through Friday. I really love it though. It's quick, easy, low cost, filling, and nutritionally complete. How much molybdenum do you get? How about Selenium? Enough?
My only worry is absorption. It's all well and good to say that I am putting the National Institute of Health's RDI of each vitamin, mineral, and macronutrient; but I don't really know if I'm absorbing all of that. Still, I feel great, I'm losing weight, and my bloodwork is good.
My guess is the bottled product is part of a long-term strategy to eventually push to sell the product in grocery stores. It will be meant for grab-and-go eating that some people will pay a higher price for given the convenience. Soylent will wholesale it to the stores who will then mark it back up to a price that Soylent can say people are already comfortable paying.
Goddard was the father of modern rocketry (perhaps 5000 years of Chinese fireworks aside ;-), so really any fundamentally new technology is at it's "Goddard level". But it is amazing to think about what Robert Goddard was doing compared to a truly modern launch system, and apply that to what researchers are doing with quantum computing. Where will that be in 80 years? I wish I could be alive to see it.
No, those will be Tyrell Corporation Nexus 6 series basic pleasure models. Ask for Pris.
You have to wonder if we live in a time where any opposing viewpoint merits a "teach the controversy" approach. Can I claim anything, convince hoards of mouth-breathers desperate for something to cling to, and have it taught at a university, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
I'd also like to take a moment to quote Tim Minchin's awesome beat poem rant "Storm" which seems relevant:
"By definition", I begin
"Alternative Medicine", I continue
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call "alternative medicine"
That's been proved to work?
Medicine."
If you haven't seen or heard it, I highly recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"salvaging mercury switches, which can be used to detonate explosives"
Was the abandoned building an old bomb factory? No? Well, guess what? Mercury switches have other uses too! Do we raid the houses of everyone who steals hammers or screwdrivers? Why not? Both of those can be used to kill people. The reason is science! Chemistry and electronics are fields most people don't understand, and it's (regrettably) human nature is to fear what is not understood. Everyone understands a hammer, so no panic is induced.
This also gives the bomb squad some legitimacy on paper. They can show at the end of the year that the squad was sent out on 47 runs. Clearly they are needed and need further funding by the tax payers. The fact that not one of those 47 runs involved an actual bomb is not evaluated.