so let me get this straight... you take a bunch of people and put them in a box (a meeting room) and have some expectation they will think "outside the box"? Um?
being around other people introduces an enormous set of implicit norms and expectations. most people follow all these norms completely unconsciously.
To those people with a basic understanding of human personality, this conclusion is obvious. The basic point here is that introverts are not able to function at their highest ability in real-time, face-to-face groups. Duh. . .
It is interesting to note that in some other cultures, (like France, for example) introversion is respected and placed on an equal footing with extroversion. In the US, and in prevalent US-dominated world culture, extroversion is pushed almost exclusively as the norm. Most introverts are forced into physical spaces (cubicles) and interactions (meeting rooms) with lots of other people around. This leaves an introvert drained and unable to function at their highest ability. Also, the general expectation for most interactions is for real-time discussion (face to face or by phone) where extroverts have a distinct advantage solely because if their ability to respond faster verbally. Email is a notable exception to this in generally accepted practice, where the introverts have a distinct upper hand.
Note: when I use the words introvert and extrovert here, I am not talking about the colloquial social definitions, nor the psychological disorder (maladaptive, overt) introversion, but rather the psychological typing used by MBTI, Keirsey, and other systems.
Abusing children is the lowest of the low and anyone caught doing anything to children should be punished to the full extent of the law.
HOWEVER - thoughts and actions are NOT the same. Laws and legal action need to focus on action, not on thoughts. In a free society this is where the line must be drawn: Thoughts are OK, actions are judged.
Solely the possessing of INFORMATION (I assert) is equivalent to one's own thoughts, nothing more.
Selling, distributing, creating, abusing,... these are all actions and should be the focus of legal repercussions.
Some one please explain how and why we have a broad class of information (disgusting as they are, and illegal as it is to make them, sell them, etc.) - that simply possessing that information (in this case, pictures from an illegal act abusing a child) lands a person in prison. Simply posession of information that results in prison... that is a terrible precedent with dire long-term consequences. Such control is the basis of thought control and tyranny. Who is the state to assert what people can and can't think? Which social taboos are so severe as to make information illegal? While most everyone agrees that the taboo against sex with children is severe enough - the problem occurs when the same reasoning (big problem, hard to fix, so make the information illegal) is applied to other kinds of information. There are lots of big problems, and lots of them are hard to fix. Law enforcement is becoming harder and harder to do well in an age of increasing technology and distributed information.
Reading between the lines on this case, it's probably a good thing this man is being removed to prison. His child molestation case was dropped because of a statute of limitations - so there was (most likely) a mountain of reasons this man was a threat, a criminal, and deserved what he got. It is cases like this that make this issue very difficult - because if we did not have such possession laws, this man would likely go free and abuse other children.
A whole lot is lost in translation - in this case taking the story and putting it into words: the original context is lost, and the content is made static and the same for all readers. Without the broader story of me at the time, and what has happened since, I can see how it may seem only slightly relevant. FWIW, I think the relevance is clear, that's why I wrote it.
Second, Slashdot, like many of the other blogs and webites are in an internalized echo chamber that I assert is significantly disconnected from the "real world". I don't mean to sound condescending - but the disconnect is real. People who sped time online - to read and write blogs are all self interested and motivated to make the online "blogosphere" (which slashdot basically birthed in the tech area) more important, and more attractive to the other people who read blogs. That motivation soon becomes at odds with making individual blog posts relevant and accurate. To keep them connected to reality, really. Unfortunately, the number of people who read blogs is still a very small fraction of people. Most people don't read blogs: they drive cars, shop at Wal-mart (in the US), pay rent, and propel the majority of the US economy. While the effect of this dystopic motivation is not exactly the same, it is, ironically, the same motivation that makes Fox news so wacky, and mainstream entertainment so absurd (Lost, American Idol, Survivor) - the blog and online mentality sphere is simply a different slice of the real world with a different bias.
As for "real world" - no, DC is not a more Real World than cornfields in Iowa, forests in Alaska, parades in SF, a condo in St Louis, or an arctic research outpost. They all are just what they are. I guess the real point I was trying to make with the post regarding "real world" was about legal affairs: Most people, even in first-world countries, never get a chance (luckily) to go through a trial, get a subpoena, pick a jury, file a motion, get a verdict, etc. etc. These are experiences far disconnected from everyday life - especially from reading Slashdot. They are real, not at all like Matlock, and their eventual occurrence should affect the choices people make.
I also made the post, more obviously, because the act of recording one life carries risks that most people don't realize.
The cycle looks something like this: Dell makes money when they sell new hardware. Microsoft makes money when they sell new OS and software. The reality is, most people don't need either - they just want systems to surf the web, do email, buy clothes and watch porn. Dell can't force you to upgrade that 3 year-old computer, unless the software runs slllooooooowwwwwww. So, Dell LIKES Microsoft products. Microsoft writes software that needs nice shiny new hardware to run well, with and insane amount of RAM just for the OS. Ironically, the worse the efficiency of the Microsoft software, the more money they BOTH make. Intel is not out of the game either - they make money for new chips sold too - but mostly they are just along for the ride because their product has not become commodity yet like PC memory.
I freed myself from the MS empire when my laptop was stolen and I switched to a Mac laptop in Nov 2005. Now everything is either OSX or Linux, and I havent missed it at all. I still use Word and Excel on Mac - but EVERYTHING else is now gone from my computer life from Microsoft and I like it that way.
I read freshmeat for the first time this morning in like 6 months. I was very happy to see many many packages at post-1.0 realease numbers. Not that it means anything quantitative, but encouraging nevertheless.
When I showed up in Washington for my job, I had lunch with the big boss, who was the former chief of staff to the US VP. Big big cheese in DC. The #2 to the #2. I still had on the west-coast, happy-go-friendly naiveté slathered thick.
It was the first week, and the first time the big boss took some interest in me. Lunch was expensive - he paid.
We chatted, dug in. He said a connection I needed to remember and follow up with.
I pulled out 'my book', the latest leather bound notebook I had kept religiously throughout my graduate life and after. It was just the latest book, like the 4 others before it that I had filled and put on the shelf. At any meeting - the date at the top, notes in delicate print, people, emails, good points - all the things I needed to recall later. Two years later, if I needed the name of that person in the 5th seat from the right from BigCo, Inc.,... yup, in the book.
The boss's eyes widened, his head tilted -- he said, bluntly: "What's that?"
"Oh, I keep a book with notes."
"Oh" he said, pausing, "we don't do that here."
There was then an even longer, more awkward pause. I scrunched my brow furiously trying not to look too stupid. My eyes darted. "Huh?" I'm thinking, like "What? Write notes in a restaurant?"
"That is a subpoena waiting to happen", he continued. We then talked at length about how things happen in the real world. That was 4 years ago. I learned a lot from him. I don't keep books any more...
Since then I've quit a few times, been fired a few times, sued, been through 2 trials, won one, lost one, hired and fired a bunch of people, and now I'm running a startup. Fun times.
Long story short:IF I ever did record anything, I'd certainly never tell anyone that I had it. There is simply too much risk of it being used against me in the current litigation-crazy world, both from other people and from the state.
FTA "It is not indeed necessary to find a livable planet but simply a system including a star of a spectral type not very far away from the solar type (K, G or F) and abundance of small bodies. Of course, the presence of a planet offering a practicable surface, of Martian type for example would be very appreciable."
so... if this "ARK" really just needs to find a sun like ours - well hot damn there's one right here!
What we should probably do is build an ark and put into stationary orbit around the sun on the same path as earth. Maybe practice maintaining one for a few hundred years first before shooting one off into the interstellar void.
I've concluded that the traditionalist forces and thinkers (read: MPAA, "follow the rules without question simply because they are the rules and everyone follows them") are evolved in such a way as to be unable to adapt once the traditions have been set. Such people simply need to die off more quickly now that the world is changing more quickly thus significantly reducing overall conflict. Rather horrifying, but an unavoidable conclusion.
I think that we need to seriously re-evaluate the idea that information should be owned, and whether people are better off if we use the power of governments to enforce ones ability to own information.
The only way we've been able to support information ownership is the one structure with exclusive right to control the army (the government) also works to enforce the interests of businesses to own information.
While this hellish compact may have made sense in the past, we now exist in a world with near-instantaneous, near-free global communication. Why should the governments enable businesses in own (and necessarily then) hide information from their own citizens? This is not a rhetorical question any longer. The role of governments is to protect the interests of the citizens, not the businesses. I assert that the social contract for information ownership no longer makes sense as currently implemented, and must be seriously reassessed.
In the final analysis, I say the inevitable path for humans to take towards real, global peace is to adopt the open-source mentality for all information, not just source code.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you. Dr. Peter Venkman: What? Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams. Dr. Peter Venkman: Why? Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad. Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"? Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal. Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Or -- put more bluntly -- how can this be turned into a safe consumer product?
Everyone still has the same free access, but paid members are cited as supporters, with the length and amount of their support - creating a public log of how much they have given to support the encyclopedia. This type of membership is directly in line with the non profit purpose of the organization, so the fees are tax deductible donations.
Basically, it will tie in to the same reason why people give time and knowledge - to support the cause.
Memebers get a little "star" or a bold username of something - and membership is like $25/year.
Users who visit the site without a membership are greeted with a splash screen with the current financial information of wikipedia, burn rate, and a simple way to sign up and become a paid donating member.
sorry, things already are difficult. we're running out of energy to support the way we live.
don't leave complex choices to the people - make their machines do it.
giving consumers more information will empower them, and empower product manufacturers to make devices that work better within the whole system. All the consumer/product needs are two numbers: current price, and current usage
price is real time dollar per kilowatt hour for energy, and usage is real time energy rate delivered to the unit (the house, the fridge, the heater, etc.) let the geeks figure out how to meter, timer, track and plot the numbers, and work them into the control systems for teh devices. some items will not care - others that can make changes will. If you have consuption-aware, price-aware appliances that can take advantage of those numbers - all sorts of efficiencies can happen. big condo water heaters keep the water temperature up at night and let it bleed down during the day. freezers cool at off peak hours. home control systems choose to water the lawn at the right time.
I think children should learn programming languages and good software design principles as early as possible, especially scripting languages, and especially software security.
C, Ruby, Javascript, Actionscript/Flash are what I'd push now.
Kindergarten may be a bit early, but certainly by third grade, I think all students should be required to program as an integral part of all the curricula. An emphasis should be placed not on just computer languages, but on robust and secure software design methods.
And yes, you did read that correctly: third grade.
I also think that children should play online strategy games (like prisoner's dilemma, chess, and poker, at different ages) until they reliably and repeatedly win against novice players.
a few thoughts. first off, the real benefit from oil is high energy density (energy/mass) - it is this factor alone that makes it so nice as an energy storage material. most all the alts have much lower... and of course this is tied closely with portability.
second off, don't underestimate the value of portable. getting all the other resources around and to the right place is a huge problem without trucks or trains or airplanes. It is a enormous luxury to fill up and be able to drive 300+ miles, or fly 3000+ on a single tank, and repeat easily and cheaply.
nuclear in the cars? - you bet! don't hold yourself to thinking fission is the only way.
A more general solution is to have the price of electricity usage reflect actual hourly demand. This will create incentives for all electricity users to time shift usage to lower demand time periods if possible.
There is an overhead to this solution in that the metering then needs to be much more precise than current methods. We now meter as an aggregate over about a month. We would need to meter, aggregate, and report energy usage over small increments, like 15-60 minutes blocks to make this work.
Once we have IP over the power lines - maybe it will be a simple thing to have the electric meter report ones usage more often. But talk about privacy issues!
Very nice. However, we're still just window dressing the Titanic.
500,000 years+ worth of stored energy in oil has been used in 200 years, and will be gone in another 200. Bummer. We found it, and used it. We have 6 billion people now (and growing fast) who want energy -- lots and lots of it.
All the alternative-fuels scenarios - even in the very best case where we grow vast oceans and fields of seaweed and switchgrass and use yeasts to process cellulosic 5-carbon sugars and make ethanol -- even in these best case scenarios (which incidentally would close the carbon loop), humans are still 1-2 orders of magnitude lower in energy production compared to the current oil-fueled system. If we add to that calculation efficiency measures we get closer, lower population - closer still, conservation - still closer... but: the harsh inescapable reality humanity faces in the next 30-50 years is this: there will just not be enough energy for the growing (first-world) population.
It is one of the clear heralds of the demise of the US system.
Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and '30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems. --Britannica.com
when businesses regularly caves to the government interests, it is a fascist state.
Slashdot Mirror
so let me get this straight... you take a bunch of people and put them in a box (a meeting room) and have some expectation they will think "outside the box"? Um?
being around other people introduces an enormous set of implicit norms and expectations. most people follow all these norms completely unconsciously.
To those people with a basic understanding of human personality, this conclusion is obvious. The basic point here is that introverts are not able to function at their highest ability in real-time, face-to-face groups. Duh. . .
It is interesting to note that in some other cultures, (like France, for example) introversion is respected and placed on an equal footing with extroversion. In the US, and in prevalent US-dominated world culture, extroversion is pushed almost exclusively as the norm. Most introverts are forced into physical spaces (cubicles) and interactions (meeting rooms) with lots of other people around. This leaves an introvert drained and unable to function at their highest ability. Also, the general expectation for most interactions is for real-time discussion (face to face or by phone) where extroverts have a distinct advantage solely because if their ability to respond faster verbally. Email is a notable exception to this in generally accepted practice, where the introverts have a distinct upper hand.
Note: when I use the words introvert and extrovert here, I am not talking about the colloquial social definitions, nor the psychological disorder (maladaptive, overt) introversion, but rather the psychological typing used by MBTI, Keirsey, and other systems.
Abusing children is the lowest of the low and anyone caught doing anything to children should be punished to the full extent of the law.
... these are all actions and should be the focus of legal repercussions.
e 58lr.jpg
HOWEVER - thoughts and actions are NOT the same. Laws and legal action need to focus on action, not on thoughts. In a free society this is where the line must be drawn: Thoughts are OK, actions are judged.
Solely the possessing of INFORMATION (I assert) is equivalent to one's own thoughts, nothing more.
Selling, distributing, creating, abusing,
Some one please explain how and why we have a broad class of information (disgusting as they are, and illegal as it is to make them, sell them, etc.) - that simply possessing that information (in this case, pictures from an illegal act abusing a child) lands a person in prison. Simply posession of information that results in prison... that is a terrible precedent with dire long-term consequences. Such control is the basis of thought control and tyranny. Who is the state to assert what people can and can't think? Which social taboos are so severe as to make information illegal? While most everyone agrees that the taboo against sex with children is severe enough - the problem occurs when the same reasoning (big problem, hard to fix, so make the information illegal) is applied to other kinds of information. There are lots of big problems, and lots of them are hard to fix. Law enforcement is becoming harder and harder to do well in an age of increasing technology and distributed information.
Will this image be illegal to own some day?
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7884/bushfutur
How about books? Software programs? How-To manuals?
Reading between the lines on this case, it's probably a good thing this man is being removed to prison. His child molestation case was dropped because of a statute of limitations - so there was (most likely) a mountain of reasons this man was a threat, a criminal, and deserved what he got. It is cases like this that make this issue very difficult - because if we did not have such possession laws, this man would likely go free and abuse other children.
Some NASA software engineer reading slashdot is probably shitting his pants right now because he wrote the config line:
MAXSEARCHLENGTH: 50 yards
There is a simple solution for all the MAC and Linux *NIX folks out there.
/sbin/ifconfig -a 2>&1 >> ~/.locate-laptop
/usr/sbin/traceroute -q 1 -nP ICMP 108.169.242.00 2>&1 | head -15 >> ~/.locate-laptop
/etc/crontab /home/username/bin/callhome
Write a small script, I call it "callhome" and a line in your crontab to have it called each hour.
~>cat bin/callhome
#!/bin/bash
rm -f ~/.locate-laptop
date > ~/.locate-laptop
w >> ~/.locate-laptop
scp -q ~/.locate-laptop remote_user@108.169.242.00:~
~>grep callhome
27 * * * * username
You'll have to set up public key login with no passphrase for the scp
to work without a password to the remote machine
A few thoughts to both posts above:
A whole lot is lost in translation - in this case taking the story and putting it into words: the original context is lost, and the content is made static and the same for all readers. Without the broader story of me at the time, and what has happened since, I can see how it may seem only slightly relevant. FWIW, I think the relevance is clear, that's why I wrote it.
Second, Slashdot, like many of the other blogs and webites are in an internalized echo chamber that I assert is significantly disconnected from the "real world". I don't mean to sound condescending - but the disconnect is real. People who sped time online - to read and write blogs are all self interested and motivated to make the online "blogosphere" (which slashdot basically birthed in the tech area) more important, and more attractive to the other people who read blogs. That motivation soon becomes at odds with making individual blog posts relevant and accurate. To keep them connected to reality, really. Unfortunately, the number of people who read blogs is still a very small fraction of people. Most people don't read blogs: they drive cars, shop at Wal-mart (in the US), pay rent, and propel the majority of the US economy.
While the effect of this dystopic motivation is not exactly the same, it is, ironically, the same motivation that makes Fox news so wacky, and mainstream entertainment so absurd (Lost, American Idol, Survivor) - the blog and online mentality sphere is simply a different slice of the real world with a different bias.
As for "real world" - no, DC is not a more Real World than cornfields in Iowa, forests in Alaska, parades in SF, a condo in St Louis, or an arctic research outpost. They all are just what they are. I guess the real point I was trying to make with the post regarding "real world" was about legal affairs: Most people, even in first-world countries, never get a chance (luckily) to go through a trial, get a subpoena, pick a jury, file a motion, get a verdict, etc. etc. These are experiences far disconnected from everyday life - especially from reading Slashdot. They are real, not at all like Matlock, and their eventual occurrence should affect the choices people make.
I also made the post, more obviously, because the act of recording one life carries risks that most people don't realize.
That is the best reason yet to dump Micro$oft.
The cycle looks something like this: Dell makes money when they sell new hardware. Microsoft makes money when they sell new OS and software. The reality is, most people don't need either - they just want systems to surf the web, do email, buy clothes and watch porn. Dell can't force you to upgrade that 3 year-old computer, unless the software runs slllooooooowwwwwww. So, Dell LIKES Microsoft products. Microsoft writes software that needs nice shiny new hardware to run well, with and insane amount of RAM just for the OS. Ironically, the worse the efficiency of the Microsoft software, the more money they BOTH make. Intel is not out of the game either - they make money for new chips sold too - but mostly they are just along for the ride because their product has not become commodity yet like PC memory.
I freed myself from the MS empire when my laptop was stolen and I switched to a Mac laptop in Nov 2005. Now everything is either OSX or Linux, and I havent missed it at all. I still use Word and Excel on Mac - but EVERYTHING else is now gone from my computer life from Microsoft and I like it that way.
I read freshmeat for the first time this morning in like 6 months. I was very happy to see many many packages at post-1.0 realease numbers. Not that it means anything quantitative, but encouraging nevertheless.
When I showed up in Washington for my job, I had lunch with the big boss, who was the former chief of staff to the US VP. Big big cheese in DC. The #2 to the #2. I still had on the west-coast, happy-go-friendly naiveté slathered thick.
... yup, in the book.
It was the first week, and the first time the big boss took some interest in me. Lunch was expensive - he paid.
We chatted, dug in. He said a connection I needed to remember and follow up with.
I pulled out 'my book', the latest leather bound notebook I had kept religiously throughout my graduate life and after. It was just the latest book, like the 4 others before it that I had filled and put on the shelf. At any meeting - the date at the top, notes in delicate print, people, emails, good points - all the things I needed to recall later. Two years later, if I needed the name of that person in the 5th seat from the right from BigCo, Inc.,
The boss's eyes widened, his head tilted -- he said, bluntly: "What's that?"
"Oh, I keep a book with notes."
"Oh" he said, pausing, "we don't do that here."
There was then an even longer, more awkward pause. I scrunched my brow furiously trying not to look too stupid. My eyes darted. "Huh?" I'm thinking, like "What? Write notes in a restaurant?"
"That is a subpoena waiting to happen", he continued. We then talked at length about how things happen in the real world. That was 4 years ago. I learned a lot from him. I don't keep books any more...
Since then I've quit a few times, been fired a few times, sued, been through 2 trials, won one, lost one, hired and fired a bunch of people, and now I'm running a startup. Fun times.
Long story short: IF I ever did record anything, I'd certainly never tell anyone that I had it. There is simply too much risk of it being used against me in the current litigation-crazy world, both from other people and from the state.
FTA "It is not indeed necessary to find a livable planet but simply a system including a star of a spectral type not very far away from the solar type (K, G or F) and abundance of small bodies. Of course, the presence of a planet offering a practicable surface, of Martian type for example would be very appreciable."
so... if this "ARK" really just needs to find a sun like ours - well hot damn there's one right here!
What we should probably do is build an ark and put into stationary orbit around the sun on the same path as earth. Maybe practice maintaining one for a few hundred years first before shooting one off into the interstellar void.
someday? there is a high probability it already has.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414993/
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf
I've concluded that the traditionalist forces and thinkers (read: MPAA, "follow the rules without question simply because they are the rules and everyone follows them") are evolved in such a way as to be unable to adapt once the traditions have been set. Such people simply need to die off more quickly now that the world is changing more quickly thus significantly reducing overall conflict. Rather horrifying, but an unavoidable conclusion.
I think that we need to seriously re-evaluate the idea that information should be owned, and whether people are better off if we use the power of governments to enforce ones ability to own information.
The only way we've been able to support information ownership is the one structure with exclusive right to control the army (the government) also works to enforce the interests of businesses to own information.
While this hellish compact may have made sense in the past, we now exist in a world with near-instantaneous, near-free global communication. Why should the governments enable businesses in own (and necessarily then) hide information from their own citizens? This is not a rhetorical question any longer. The role of governments is to protect the interests of the citizens, not the businesses. I assert that the social contract for information ownership no longer makes sense as currently implemented, and must be seriously reassessed.
In the final analysis, I say the inevitable path for humans to take towards real, global peace is to adopt the open-source mentality for all information, not just source code.
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Or -- put more bluntly -- how can this be turned into a safe consumer product?
I'd rather see paid memberships before ads.
Everyone still has the same free access, but paid members are cited as supporters, with the length and amount of their support - creating a public log of how much they have given to support the encyclopedia. This type of membership is directly in line with the non profit purpose of the organization, so the fees are tax deductible donations.
Basically, it will tie in to the same reason why people give time and knowledge - to support the cause.
Memebers get a little "star" or a bold username of something - and membership is like $25/year.
Users who visit the site without a membership are greeted with a splash screen with the current financial information of wikipedia, burn rate, and a simple way to sign up and become a paid donating member.
My good friend Tim Aron and Josh Rady built a water adder at Bowdoin in 1994, capable of adding 2 8-bit values.
e cts/html/wateradder2.shtml
http://academic.bowdoin.edu/computer-science/proj
sorry, things already are difficult. we're running out of energy to support the way we live.
don't leave complex choices to the people - make their machines do it.
giving consumers more information will empower them, and empower product manufacturers to make devices that work better within the whole system. All the consumer/product needs are two numbers: current price, and current usage
price is real time dollar per kilowatt hour for energy, and usage is real time energy rate delivered to the unit (the house, the fridge, the heater, etc.) let the geeks figure out how to meter, timer, track and plot the numbers, and work them into the control systems for teh devices. some items will not care - others that can make changes will. If you have consuption-aware, price-aware appliances that can take advantage of those numbers - all sorts of efficiencies can happen. big condo water heaters keep the water temperature up at night and let it bleed down during the day. freezers cool at off peak hours. home control systems choose to water the lawn at the right time.
I think children should learn programming languages and good software design principles as early as possible, especially scripting languages, and especially software security.
C, Ruby, Javascript, Actionscript/Flash are what I'd push now.
Kindergarten may be a bit early, but certainly by third grade, I think all students should be required to program as an integral part of all the curricula. An emphasis should be placed not on just computer languages, but on robust and secure software design methods.
And yes, you did read that correctly: third grade.
I also think that children should play online strategy games (like prisoner's dilemma, chess, and poker, at different ages) until they reliably and repeatedly win against novice players.
horrifying
a few thoughts. first off, the real benefit from oil is high energy density (energy/mass) - it is this factor alone that makes it so nice as an energy storage material. most all the alts have much lower ... and of course this is tied closely with portability.
second off, don't underestimate the value of portable. getting all the other resources around and to the right place is a huge problem without trucks or trains or airplanes. It is a enormous luxury to fill up and be able to drive 300+ miles, or fly 3000+ on a single tank, and repeat easily and cheaply.
nuclear in the cars? - you bet! don't hold yourself to thinking fission is the only way.
A more general solution is to have the price of electricity usage reflect actual hourly demand. This will create incentives for all electricity users to time shift usage to lower demand time periods if possible.
There is an overhead to this solution in that the metering then needs to be much more precise than current methods. We now meter as an aggregate over about a month. We would need to meter, aggregate, and report energy usage over small increments, like 15-60 minutes blocks to make this work.
Once we have IP over the power lines - maybe it will be a simple thing to have the electric meter report ones usage more often. But talk about privacy issues!
Very nice. However, we're still just window dressing the Titanic.
s -wet-biomass-conversion.html
500,000 years+ worth of stored energy in oil has been used in 200 years, and will be gone in another 200. Bummer. We found it, and used it. We have 6 billion people now (and growing fast) who want energy -- lots and lots of it.
All the alternative-fuels scenarios - even in the very best case where we grow vast oceans and fields of seaweed and switchgrass and use yeasts to process cellulosic 5-carbon sugars and make ethanol -- even in these best case scenarios (which incidentally would close the carbon loop), humans are still 1-2 orders of magnitude lower in energy production compared to the current oil-fueled system. If we add to that calculation efficiency measures we get closer, lower population - closer still, conservation - still closer... but: the harsh inescapable reality humanity faces in the next 30-50 years is this: there will just not be enough energy for the growing (first-world) population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol
http://bioconversion.blogspot.com/2006/08/celunol
We need to perfect nuclear power engineering, software, and extremely long term storage processes as soon as possible.
It is one of the clear heralds of the demise of the US system.
Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state's authority, and harsh suppression of dissent. Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and '30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems.
--Britannica.com
when businesses regularly caves to the government interests, it is a fascist state.
there is a "more info" button at the top which goes to
http://www.getindi.com/index2.html
with all the details
see http://getindi.com/
If adopted by these large companies, it will be a liability morass.
They are going to add an addictive stimulant into cheap, unhealthy
food, and then sell it to the public? Sounds just peachy. Cha-CHING!
This idea makes the fast food and the tobacco industry look a lot less evil.
Have people gone completely insane?