Also, there is a 6th sense we have (no not ESP) that's called proprioception. It allows us to tell where in physical space our body parts are, and is separate from our other senses.
I thought that our sixth sense was our sense of balance.
If I am totally relaxed and unmoving, I sometimes lose track of where my limbs are (e.g., is my elbow bent or straight, etc.). Just the slightest movement or external stimulus will "snap" my perception of limb position back into place. So, in my case at least, this proprioception seems to be related to the sense of touch.
there is a possibility that we may cause unwanted damage to people
Did you see the episode of Itchy and Scratchy where Scratchy chopped Itchy up into tiny pieces and each piece became a nano-sized Itchy like the brooms in The Sorcerers Apprentice in Fantasia and then Scratchy inhaled the nano-Itchys and they chopped up his cells and he withered away? That's why some people are opposed to nanotechnology. So blame Matt Groening; it's his fault.
Even the Commodore 64 / 1541 had "long" filenames [...] 14 chars, which is enough for most uses. [...] the Cobol Y2k [sic] problem was not a hardware limitation. Just a stupid design.
That's a three-character difference (14 vs 8+3). I remember AT&T UNIX versions 6 and 7 had 14-character filenames. Longer filenames didn't appear until BSD UNIX (around 1980). This was done so that the filename and (16-bit) i-number could fit into 16 bytes. (Note that this limited the number of files on a filesystem to 65536.) I remember using an OS on a PDP-11 that squeezed 6+3 filenames into six bytes (upper-case + digits + some punctuation) back in the 1970s.
Storage was very, very expensive back then. People did what they could to conserve space, including using short file names and two-digit years. Their design decisions were in no way "stupid".
Do you mean all of the PCs in the world, collectively? Because if you mean that each PC contains tons of magnets, I will have to disagree with you. My PC weighs much less than a ton, so it must contain less than a ton of magnets. Or perhaps you were typing figuratively; e.g., tons <==> excrementload. In that case, I would have to also disagree with you, because I am tired and just feel like disagreeing with someone.
What I meant was to use asteroids as the raw materials for building orbital solar panels. What would be launched into space would be factories that would capture asteroids and build solar panels out of them.
So we don't have to "get the huge solar arrays into space", because we build them out of material (asteroids, comets, etc.) that is already there. What has to be launched are the factories. Or go one step further: launch one or two factories into space that use an asteroid/comet to make many solar panel factories. Then the solar panel factories will make the solar panels from other asteroids/comets. This method would require only one or two launches (assuming that the factories are small enough that they don't have to be sent up in pieces), plus maybe a few more to send up components (such as electronics) that are too complicated or require too much infrastructure (e.g., large chip fab plants) to make in space.
Also, once the Space Elevator is built (a little bit further beyond present-day), rocket launches will no longer be necessary.
I have nothing against nuclear energy (I would prefer it to fossil fuels of whatever kind), but IMO, the less mining on Earth, the better. (Some mining would be necessary to get the materials to build the microwave collectors and rockets, but I don't think that it would be as much as mining nuclear fuel and materials to create nuclear power plants.)
While I agree with your argument in general, I think that you need to make a slight correction:
Multiply that by 8 (average number of hours in the day with usable sunlight) [...] And this assumes that it's daytime -- the sun is shining at the time.
You already took daytime into account with the 8-hour figure. Accounting for clouds and rain would probably reduce the daily sunlight average low enough that energy needs wouldn't be met.
An effective way to use renewable energy exclusively is to build huge solar arrays in space (where there is lots of room) and beam the energy to Earth as microwaves. Using asteroids, etc., as raw materials will reduce the pollution/energy costs associated with producing the materials on Earth and sending them into space. The technology to do this is not too far beyond present-day. The main hurdle to this method will be political (misinformed environmentalists, oil companies, etc.).
On their front page, they claim: "At Sendmails Corporation, we move the data that drives the Internet, delivering millions of emails daily..." Shouldn't they instead claim: "At Sendmails Corporation, we move the data that slows the Internet to a crawl and costs businesses and individuals millions of dollars in lost productivity..."?
Take a look at the interfaces used in [...] Minority Report
That was a bad interface. If I want to dismiss a window or move it to the next virtual screen, it's only one or two keystrokes/mouse clicks/drags, requiring the movement of a few fingers and maybe a slight movement of my forearm(s) or wrist. In Minority Report, T.C. was wildly waving his arms about. I would be very tired after a few hours of that.
Free Software IS Open Source software. ... Free software is a perfect subset of Open Source software.
No, it's not. For example, the Borland free C/C++ compiler is free software, but it is not open source. OTOH, I can't think of any open source software that is not also free software. So I think that you have it the wrong way 'round; i.e., open source is a subset of free.
i read that 'any' tampering whatsoever with the optics holding/being the key, is going to break the cryptic armour.
This is actually a "feature" that will let the communicating parties know that someone is trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. The information cannot be (logically) routed, tunneled, or NATted, because the actual physical photons must travel from source to destination without being "touched". All logical routing, tunneling, and NATting involves reading information from a packet, which destroys its "quantumality". Now, if the routing information part of the packet could be read and a router could physically switch an optical fiber before the quantum-encrypted part of the packet arrived, it might be possible to physically route photons, and thus a quantum-encrypted message. AFAIK, this is beyond the capability of existing hardware.
Transmission security is great, but what happens when someone steals the hard drive out of the server?
Agreed. To the question asked by the artcle submitter:
Does this spell the end of the field of cryptography?
the answer is no (at least, not yet), because quantum cryptography (in its present form) may be useful for encrypting communications, but it is ineffective for encrypting stored data.
No, as long as it doesn't create a fire hazard. What is immoral is to try to pass a Constitutional amendmant that would have people thrown in jail for burning a piece of cloth.
Which is worse, denying one individual the right to spoil something, or denying a billion people the right to think of the moon as unspoiled?
It doesn't matter, becasue the Moon has tons of junk on it already. The problem is, these people want to dump garbage on "property" that they don't own. I don't know who, if anybody, owns the Moon, but they certainly don't. And if the Moon is owned by humanity in general, individuals or groups shouldn't be allowed to litter it any more than they should be allowed to throw trash in the street.
Slashdot Mirror
Just the slightest movement or external stimulus will "snap" my perception of limb position back into place.
So, in my case at least, this proprioception seems to be related to the sense of touch.
As in "Listen (hear) to what this person has to say!"
Or "It's worth hearing this person out!"
Etc.
It does not mean "This place; this place!" or "Over here!" as your spelling seems to indicate.
That's why some people are opposed to nanotechnology.
So blame Matt Groening; it's his fault.
I remember AT&T UNIX versions 6 and 7 had 14-character filenames.
Longer filenames didn't appear until BSD UNIX (around 1980).
This was done so that the filename and (16-bit) i-number could fit into 16 bytes.
(Note that this limited the number of files on a filesystem to 65536.)
I remember using an OS on a PDP-11 that squeezed 6+3 filenames into six bytes (upper-case + digits + some punctuation) back in the 1970s.
Storage was very, very expensive back then.
People did what they could to conserve space, including using short file names and two-digit years.
Their design decisions were in no way "stupid".
A generic interface should be usable by most people.
That's not fat.
I am, however, lazy, but so are most people.
Because if you mean that each PC contains tons of magnets, I will have to disagree with you.
My PC weighs much less than a ton, so it must contain less than a ton of magnets.
Or perhaps you were typing figuratively; e.g., tons <==> excrementload.
In that case, I would have to also disagree with you, because I am tired and just feel like disagreeing with someone.
Seriously, the product is only 51% paper.
Who knows what noxious chemicals are in the other 49%?
What I meant was to use asteroids as the raw materials for building orbital solar panels.
What would be launched into space would be factories that would capture asteroids and build solar panels out of them.
So we don't have to "get the huge solar arrays into space", because we build them out of material (asteroids, comets, etc.) that is already there.
What has to be launched are the factories.
Or go one step further: launch one or two factories into space that use an asteroid/comet to make many solar panel factories.
Then the solar panel factories will make the solar panels from other asteroids/comets.
This method would require only one or two launches (assuming that the factories are small enough that they don't have to be sent up in pieces), plus maybe a few more to send up components (such as electronics) that are too complicated or require too much infrastructure (e.g., large chip fab plants) to make in space.
Also, once the Space Elevator is built (a little bit further beyond present-day), rocket launches will no longer be necessary.
I have nothing against nuclear energy (I would prefer it to fossil fuels of whatever kind), but IMO, the less mining on Earth, the better.
(Some mining would be necessary to get the materials to build the microwave collectors and rockets, but I don't think that it would be as much as mining nuclear fuel and materials to create nuclear power plants.)
Accounting for clouds and rain would probably reduce the daily sunlight average low enough that energy needs wouldn't be met.
An effective way to use renewable energy exclusively is to build huge solar arrays in space (where there is lots of room) and beam the energy to Earth as microwaves.
Using asteroids, etc., as raw materials will reduce the pollution/energy costs associated with producing the materials on Earth and sending them into space.
The technology to do this is not too far beyond present-day.
The main hurdle to this method will be political (misinformed environmentalists, oil companies, etc.).
- Park them in your garage (at least, not easily).
- Land them in any parking lot, e.g., to go grocery shopping.
- Ride with the top down.
Now, you can do some of these things with ultra-lights, but ultralights aren't very comfortable and don't go very fast.Also, did you notice that this company, which makes its living by delivering email, doesn't publish its email address on its website?
On their front page, they claim: "At Sendmails Corporation, we move the data that drives the Internet, delivering millions of emails daily..."
Shouldn't they instead claim: "At Sendmails Corporation, we move the data that slows the Internet to a crawl and costs businesses and individuals millions of dollars in lost productivity..."?
If I want to dismiss a window or move it to the next virtual screen, it's only one or two keystrokes/mouse clicks/drags, requiring the movement of a few fingers and maybe a slight movement of my forearm(s) or wrist.
In Minority Report, T.C. was wildly waving his arms about.
I would be very tired after a few hours of that.
For example, the Borland free C/C++ compiler is free software, but it is not open source.
OTOH, I can't think of any open source software that is not also free software.
So I think that you have it the wrong way 'round; i.e., open source is a subset of free.
The information cannot be (logically) routed, tunneled, or NATted, because the actual physical photons must travel from source to destination without being "touched".
All logical routing, tunneling, and NATting involves reading information from a packet, which destroys its "quantumality".
Now, if the routing information part of the packet could be read and a router could physically switch an optical fiber before the quantum-encrypted part of the packet arrived, it might be possible to physically route photons, and thus a quantum-encrypted message.
AFAIK, this is beyond the capability of existing hardware.
Perhaps you meant "find the prime factors of any number".
To the question asked by the artcle submitter:the answer is no (at least, not yet), because quantum cryptography (in its present form) may be useful for encrypting communications, but it is ineffective for encrypting stored data.
What is immoral is to try to pass a Constitutional amendmant that would have people thrown in jail for burning a piece of cloth.It doesn't matter, becasue the Moon has tons of junk on it already.
The problem is, these people want to dump garbage on "property" that they don't own.
I don't know who, if anybody, owns the Moon, but they certainly don't.
And if the Moon is owned by humanity in general, individuals or groups shouldn't be allowed to litter it any more than they should be allowed to throw trash in the street.
(Also, it's spelled "Neil", not "Neal".)
Yes, you are.
It would have been funnier if you had typed "weapons of maternal destruction".