I can see Beavis and Butthead saying "Dude! Let's strap a PISTOL to this DRONE and make it SHOOT. Heh heh heh." That shit is so obvious as to be scarcely newsworthy, let alone eyebrow-raising. To make it shoot they use... a solenoid, right? Well Gosh Lolly Good Golly!
If it's man-threatening eyebrow raisin' tech yer interested in, analyze the motion on multiple axes of this Breast Massaging Robot and also Patent CN102058466A for a similar device that has more useful functions and methods than the Mozilla Web API:
The invention discloses a Chinese massage robot, relating to the field of Chinese massage mechanical and automatic devices. The Chinese massage robot is characterized by comprising a bed body (16), a spatial six degrees of freedom main body mechanism and a massage hand (15) and can realize a palm-rubbing technique, a scrubbing method, a pushing manipulation, a wiping manipulation, a pressing manipulation, a pointing method, a finger-nail pressing method, a clapping method, a striking method, a rebounding method, a rolling method, a palm-kneading method, a finger-kneading method, a tremble manipulation, a shaking manipulation, a holding method, a kneading method, a plucking method, a pushing method, a twisting method, a pulling and turning method, a stretching method and other general single-hand and dual-hand massage methods. The invention has the advantages of simple structure, high rigidity, small size, light weight, low cost, large motion space, sensitive and quick action, favorable decoupling, real-time and dynamic response characteristics of system control, and the like.
Let goofballs who are easily amused play with guns and drones. We cannot afford to lose our lead on this technology front.
"Depending on how you want to think about it, it was funny or inevitable or symbolic that the robotic takeover did not start at MIT, NASA, Microsoft or Ford. It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17. It seemed like such a simple thing at the time, but May 17 marked a pivotal moment in human history."
So begins the short story Manna, by Marshall Brain (full text on the web). It's the creepiest dystopian story I've read in a long while... made even creepier by the breezy and cheerful way its central character (who reminds me of Philip J. Fry from Futurama for some reason) tells how the robotic revolution will really go down. Take a few minutes to check it our. Your eyeballs will pop out on springs.
As I write this I'm thinking, should I even mention this story? Someone may think it's a great idea. I'm also thinking, perhaps if enough people read the story they'll have time to think about it and perhaps find a way to stop it from playing out to the end that is described. Some appropriate response that falls short of going full frontal Luddite.
Never mind those cute robots unable to walk up stairs, though some day they will. Forget that silly stuff about Skynet, it doesn't want to hurt you, though some day it will. But the first robots may actually be... people. Starting tomorrow.
But until you actually, and openly, do something about these problems, you are equally guilty. Because you are lazy.
Through the/SARC when it comes down to it you are right of course. Please +mod Parent as an amazingly and thought provoking response, a fine rant response. I must admit that over the years I have been part of the problem. Despite time put in to learn the mechanics of computer language, network, protocol and presentation, applying many an operations-oriented shim or patch or fix.. I have NOT delved deep into any single open-source project, taken the reins, become part of a team, or even one of those prolific lone wolf coders. I have no curriculum vitae in open source. Now that I look back on it that's kind of shameful, especially as I present myself as a critic of the times. I'll try to do better with the next half of my life.
Who are those bad actors and what is bad acting? Leaving aside the potential for cross site scripting, malformed instructions, rooting and malware for a moment. There was a time when smooth continuous motion on the borders of a web page, however clever the item, was considered distracting by static purists, who even objected to looping animation. I was never one of those, though I did see they clearly disliked the intrusive and unexpected. Then came the sounds, loud and lots. In a platform where a mute button or volume control must be explicitly coded few did and if your volume control was up you'd be blasted out of your seat muttering "What were they thinking?" But all that is past and gone. There are no aesthetic elements made possible by Flash that are not not do-able from HTML or JS.
And because migration is now possible some feel migration is necessary. The Register is cheekier than I, spicing urgent reminders with lambasting criticism. Clearly from Adobe's position proactive measures are necessary and a ground-up audit/rewrite is necessary using a compiler framework that (with performance penalty of course) mitigates the silly things like use-after-free. And in Open Source there have been reverse engineering projects and attempts to replicate Flash, lately even shims...
But what has been missing is an publicly audited open source Flash initiative that had begun years ago, begun right as Flash was introduced. Some would call such a thing intellectual property theft. I'd bring up OpenSSL as a shining example except for... certain things that have happened. Are they worse than the things that might have happened if some corporate actor, RSA for example, imposed bin-only blobs on everyone, Windows Linux and Apple? Who can say.
But you won't, and there is one telling phrase why not: "Because in this silly Collectivist world of planned obsolescence..." You have a mindset that can't be reasoned with.
What you really mean is, You reach down and you flip Flash over on its back. Flash lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
I'm so glad there's a move afoot to kill Flash, in which a few well-connected standards goonies who are not satisfied with the rollout for HTML5 think that no campaign to capture hearts and minds is complete without some form of digital strip mining, in which major portions of the Internet heritage are blocked by "newer, better" software and rendered dark, obsolete and broken overnight. It's just like a seat belt law,right? It's all about protecting Joe Sixpack from driving drunk on the web. And the big important players like Facebook have naught but our precious safety as a motive./SARC
I hated Flash for its abuses and excesses at first, but I have grown fond of the things it has become useful for, and does well. Here is a low level instruction set of instruction and vector graphic primitives that has been used to accomplish amazing feats. Even self-contained and offline feats. Things that will never make it to HTML5 without a serious ride in the newer is better and bigger and much slower (though our processors are faster and memory is bigger so we pretend that it's faster and smaller) bloat-mobile./NOTSARC
Remember when the Whole Damned World was ready for a GIF-killer? And PNG was one little tiny step away from doing so? The png image format was so ready to dominate the world, and we were maybe a few open source developer weekends away from having a GIFlike format with comparable non-encumbered LZW compression, and (as promised) simple animation too. To be able to animate in full RGB without shoving palettes down our collective throats. Well, some people on the Standards Committee, some <BLINK>anti-blink tag hipsters</BLINK> who were Running With Scissors cut out that promise and proceeded to punt the animate part of the bargain into the Next MNG generation, which would be a video-killer too and would happen Real Soon Now. The upshot was that the PNG rocket sled hit a big pile of jello, While MNG was languishing, a whole generation of web-folk faced difficult times with GIF in which open source tools generated bloaty files unless you compiled them yourself (because they did not to fork money or paperwork to license the LZW) and the world was treated to... more of GIF! It is today's GIF! And do we have those <BLINK>anti-blink tag hipsters</BLINK> to thank? No, that is not really fair, they just wanted to build a better world. But bad decisions in retrospect do happen./NOTSARC
But Flash is different! Never mind how useful it has become, it must be killed. Because in this silly Collectivist world of planned obsolescence it is not enough to succeed. Something old must be declared evil, be systematically dismantled and ultimately fail not on its own lack of merit, but because some all seeing Standards Committee wishes to keep Joe Sixpack safe while driving drunk on the web. The insurance companies have already factored in the liability for HTML5 vulnerability coverage so we're good there./SARC
From this day forward, any zero day vulnerabilities in HTML5 code will be tolerated in the civilized manner, and any emerging Flash exploits will be blamed on the Iranians and North Koreans, and those who continue to use and support Flash will have their hip-credentials revoked./NOTSARC And we're ready to destroy all those vinyl LP phonograph records too, all the music that matters has been reissued, yeah, fuck that old music./SARC
Because, God Forbid, the whole human race could never just gather to re-write a popular primitive procedural language without creating a shitload of new exploitable errors. It just cannot be done./SARC
Game Theory is an academically sanctioned tabloid fascination with soiled brown underwear, thinly disguised as a tool for analyzing base motives.
Great things have been accomplished by those with brown underwear though they would rather not fixate on it and most historians tend not to record it, because brown underwear it is boring. Game Theory can precisely describe the motivations of Spherical Cows in a vacuum. To use it to describe complicated human beings is a gross insult -- indeed so much of an insult that what you actually reveal in your subjects is tolerance for being insulted in this manner.
Most of modern day ills cannot be described by 'Game Theory' so easily as a simple lack of meaningful consequences from a group's unpopular or immoral actions. Their underwear is clean, and GT's attempt to imply that it is soiled because these people are dancing on the edge of some arcane equation of morality is, needlessly dramatic.
Contract telecom workers who rake in the overtime. Eventually you might see a series of evenly spaced cuts on long runs that are calculated so there is too much light loss, entire cable sections need replacement.
The NSA, who is building out a massive dark fiber intercept network to shunt traffic to Utah and is using the outages as 'cover' as they install separate, secret drop-ins.
Those who hate our freedoms. You know, those folks who keep ranting about those folks who hate our freedoms, and how you have to break eggs to make an omelet, and hey it's been a long time since we invaded another new country.
Book Publishers and People who do know how to use the Internet. I should have listed them first. We must track down these people and watch them closely.
The Amish Mafia and Inner Circle. Slowing the encroachment of microchips at home and abroad. You do not want to mess with these people.
Starbucks. What do repair crews drink the most? Slam dunk! Well... oops, wait. We're talking about the global corporate giant that has built the world's largest IT single point of failure. This is either the cleverest, most insidious plot ever, perfect cover... or the dumbest.
Lawyers and Insurance Companies. In general, and it's our own damned fault.
Until things are so bad that a mob of concerned citizens gathers on the spur of the moment to surround, interrogate and hold telecom crews until they are vetted (or) swift and lethal vigilante justice is delivered... we cannot reasonably expect the world to suck less as time goes by.
Trademarks used herein are sole property of their respective dark fantasies.
I suggest we program all robots with some type of rules that prevent this from happening.
Asimov took an incredible shortcut, glorifying the mere existence of these laws and making their 'immutability' a major plot device... for most of the story he was glossing over the real issues, that is, how do Robots recognize humans? Is it that distinctive Solarian accent?
If you envision a robotic future... realize that the definition and algorithms related to human-ness would be supplied by the same patent holders who sell biometric ID systems today. Is that a trembling shudder working up your spine?
I prefer the simple predictable demeanor of farm machinery. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, the machine does not bother to discern the difference between a human or a corn husk. Obligatory reference to standard international warning label as funny as any XKCD People are lazy and machines are not, so if you increase the intelligence of machines people will become more stoopid. Even the clever people fixing intelligent machines will become stoopid, for they will continue to fix them for as long as their brains hold out and the money is good.
When robots begin to lactate and our children imprint onto them, we're screwed!
Said Pepe the Peg-Leg Pirate. Said Frodo of the Nine Fingers. Said the Headless Horseman. Said One-Eye Pete. Said Greasy-Grimy-Finger Gus (based on a true story) Said Sam Beckett the Quantum Leper
We need to all send biometrics patent holders and hardware manufacturers money every month so they can "make money as they sleep" right now, today. Then we'll be able to sleep at night knowing that when we wake the world will not have turned to some shitty 'Orwell' or 'Brazil' nightmare than never ends.
I'm still not sure how In intend to celebrate the IMPENDING DISMAL FAILURE of the EADP Mission fund raiser to raise $200k for producing a set of plans to for a viable asteroid deflection/destruction mission. Win or lose, something besides NOTHING ready to deploy on short notice. What kind of cake would be appropriate for this level of fail?
185 people have contributed $8,803 of $200k. Two of them are me.
WHAT IF a simple test appeared out of the blue one day... something that you could not ignore. Despite any best effort to put a positive spin on it, the moment it flicks into your mind you think to yourself, "All is lost."
A TEST as clear and obvious as it is simple. Something that no amount of explaining away could touch, for which no rational excuse was possible, and even the most carefully constructed counter-arguments reveal themselves as elaborate denial mechanisms, unworthy even of response.
Despite hundreds of trillions of real and imagined dollars in circulation, a populous modern society of the self-proclaimed 'age of enlightenment' cannot raise an amount of money equivalent to that of a single yearly CEO's salary...
We have built the Internet... and connected our world... to.... well shit. I can't even think up a single good reason anymore. It all seems like so much tripe, if we're in the process of failing this simple test.
Non-sequitur much, dumbfuck? What the fuck does posting as AC, the only way I can post since I have no account, have to do with anything?
It means we cannot see your face so we can poo on it, because you squatted and did a poo on Scott Manley because you claim he lacks the "scientific credentials" that enable him to poo properly for science --- despite the clear evidence that he has created a visualization useful to inquiry and debate, has documented his methods and made clear his reasons for pursuing the quest.
Great minds poo ideas. Average minds just poo. Small minds post as AC to squirt liquified poo on those they consider unworthy in the hope that they can trigger some poo-slinging herd response, because they enjoy to watch such things.
If you are God and are posting as AC because the keying of your One True Name as you registered would unwind creation and cause the heavens to become unmade, then that's cool.
The take-away talking points of the threat are no duh. Grab any kid and ask 'em how the dinosaurs died, you'll probably get the right answer. Ask the kid, could it happen tomorrow? They'll probably say, yeah I guess. Now, release the kid.
Now grab some BULLSHIT STATISTICS-ABUSING disaster apologist, you know, the ones that keep repeating with glee that "on average 100 people die every year" from something that could/might/will kill EVERYONE, as if that statistic means anything at all. Now release the apologist, letting 'em fall on their head.
We don't need to raise 'awareness' or make a special flag to wave or make a Youtube video or put a "I made fun of Armageddon on Slashdot" feather in your cap. So many feathers in so many caps around here, thought you'd all be flying around by now. I'm kinda sorry for venting but I've brought up this topic around here and have seen too many answers that translate to, "I dunna give affuck, it's God's Will". I hope the vast bulk of you who haven't commented on this topic at all are open on the idea of weaponizing space for our planet's defense.
If I had wealth or mortgageable assets I'd have ALREADY funded the damned thing. All by MYSELF in one shot. That is embarrassing to me... I really thought that after 50 years on Earth I'd have played my cards better. Now I am reduced to begging, to help raise $200k for a cause I believe to be as 'verdant' and 'just' as any on Earth. And being reduced to begging strangers for money on behalf of this mission makes me even more angry and resentful. I'm a real mess.
Why is this article (in general) ruffling so many feathers?Because it is a thinly-disguised Malthusian Energy hit-piece specifically targeted at the center of IT's most sacred golden calf, the cloud server industry. The reason that the assumptions made in this study are confusing to many (as in, why are we even on this page? Isn't an overall one-third quiescent portion a sign of a properly engineered critical system?) is that it was not motivated by intelligent resource usage concerns at all.
Energy-environmentalists are like beavers these days. Their teeth are always growing, so they have to gnaw on something. So today they are gnawing on you. These hit pieces are everywhere these days.
Energy usage on every conceivable scale is the 'new' pseudo-environmentalism, and the bar of publishable relevance has been set low so that everyone can participate. So they do. In the olden days you could enjoy your hot shower without guilt and read a book in the brilliance of that 100 watt light bulb... secure in the knowledge that so long as you were part of a team that was striving towards a general goal of greater efficiency on some massive scale, or heading off the problem entirely by developing cheaper and less limited sources of energy, you were a net 'positive' for humanity. And you were.
Somewhere along the line WE let tabloid environmentalism take over, and the scale was tipped towards presumptive guilt. WE let this happen. This is a religious mental disorder for which no actual religion is necessary. Now the merest accusation of wastefulness gains traction because it resonates with that "we're fucking up the planet" meme, and the burden of proof has shifted to YOU as the individual to 'prove' you are a net-positive or at least a neutral. Whether you are conscious of it or not you have bought into an idea of Original Sin.
It's time to reject the notion that energy is somehow is in 'short supply', 'expensive' or 'harmful to the planet'. What is actually in short supply these days is actually the innovative drive to secure better base load energy sources. And what there is a useless dearth of are people striving for (and achieving) ten minutes of fame by pointing out some comparatively tiny 'waste' of energy somewhere, and using that fame (a phenomenon enabled by click-through environmentalists)... to put some one-ten-thousandth of one-millionth of humanity's energy usage 'on trial'. It diverts you from your daily pursuit, whatever that is. It may deliver the illusion that you're making a positive contribution just be reading the stuff. Nope.
Beaver-chewing on specific industries that are built with redundancy and a certain amount of slack for various reasons, many good, is a waste of time. The best design is an over-design after all, and the real world is old-school. Only those working on solving the BIG problems at any given time are our best real hope.
Don't distract those people, where ever they may be. For all we know there may be just a few left.
For NASA to build an orbiting depot to refuel/patch its own satellites, and even secret military devices of NATO countries --- the cost/benefit analysis of what is likely to happen can be completely considered --- and no one's job is at stake. Within a government or military entity everything is considered to be a 'mission' that is either a success or a failure.
But the moment this NASA facility drifts into range of someone else's corporate private property... the clouds will part and the night sky will fill with lawyers. Now there is a product being delivered. It's easy to imagine a utopian scenario where everything goes all right, the happy satellite is refueled and goes on its merry way, and its owner shares some of its years of '$free$' money with NASA to help recoup its expenses.
One time fixed price for refueling, or sliding scale based on projected income from satellite? Projected by whom? What if the satellite is still within its original life expectancy? Will the corporation be able to offset the expense of its early demise with the profit from its extended lifespan plus refuel cost... or will it it's profitable orbit began to decay towards Chapter Seven? Because money is involved even a successful mission is not that simple. A large part of the complexity arises because major capital projects are launched for a per-determined time span and a certain expected fixed rate of return. Once those decisions are made corporate boards of directors and the banks behind them are 'locked in' to these projects, win or lose. The scenario where a malfunction or propellant loss takes a satellite out of service has been planned for. It requires corporate courage and applied risk to modify those terms. And courage is rare these days.
That was success. Now on to the risks of failure. It is similar to the escalation of complexity in 1 vs. n-body problems. This would probably be practical for geostationary orbits only, since our facility has lots of mass and finite energy and time to maneuver between jobs. Still there are more things to go wrong than right. Most satellites are 'deployed' with appendages unfolded... how to avoid damaging them? How to tether satellite and repair vehicle safely? The refueling process involves re-pressurization through couplings. What happens if/when tethers snap, couplings fail or tanks burst, escaping propellant slams the satellite against the vehicle, damaging it? What if the failure arises from a corporation or government failing to divulge some key piece of information about the satellite?
Now I'm the last person to go on about planned obsolescence as if it is a good thing, but in geosynchronous orbit it's kind of a good thing. If something has turned to shit and is out of service, it really is best, and safest, to have one certain kind of maintenance satellite up there --- a killer-pusher death satellite to disable and push the junk out of geosynchronous orbit and away from the other precious satellites.
Otherwise the first thing that goes Horribly Wrong will result in a disabled satellite and a satellite repair facility both careening across the heavens. What an awesome spectacle of corporate liability that would be. You could even spot the liability with the naked eye.
This issue exists and persists only to illustrate how many people will seize upon some dark conspiracy that not only 'means' nothing on its face... but if it were true and unraveled completely, would still mean nothing. I mean, think about it: there's absolutely nothing actionable in there.
People whose hobby is to fuck with people fuck with people with this fuck, as a hobby. Fuck those people.
If Moon Hoax stuff is coming from someone you love and respect... heed comments on the subject but adopt the same proud and polite tone as a potty training parent who finds a surprise package on the carpet. You cannot express dismay or anger at their poops because a life long poop anxiety is one of the worst things that can happen to a child. You need to scoop it up with their 'help', making friendly conversation about its texture and color, all the while heading to the toilet. Then it goes in and you say, "THAT's where it goes!" and they get to push the handle.
On Internet forums with strangers you don't need to actually scoop it up and take it to the potty (it is after all, someone else's web site). Just a dismissive but polite remark at the beginning that is encouraging like "That's a nice little poop you made, but let's try to get it into the potty next time."
Then find something else to discuss related to space, and discuss that.
Heed not anonymous comments on the subject, treat it as if it was Nature's Own Crap falling from the sky. You can infuriate the cowardly attention-seekers by making direct unseeing eye contact with them and their crap only to say, "How delicate is the process of crap-nucleation and how weighty is crap, that it can fall from a clear sky with no crap-clouds even visible! What a blessing!"
Shit can get personal too. The Bart Sibrel response is the only appropriate direct personal response, and of all the explorers Buzz Aldrin the only one 'man enough' to use it. The Right Stuff indeed.
How many friggin' ways are there to hang shoes in your closet? You'd think that just piling your shoes on the floor has been holding us back all these years, and we're just beginning to get a handle on this shoe storage thing. Buy expensive plastic drawers, make things out of moldy cardboard, hang 'em and wrap 'em like flies in a spiderweb, on doors, above your bed. Make labels. How about an entire room full of wax people in various positions to wear our shoes for us? To select a pair just tip over the wax person and take their shoes off. Simple.
There is always some 'Target Number'. No one ever has a bright idea any more, they must save them up until there is a round or round-plus-one number. Only a brain dead doofus would click into '100 uses for a dead cat' when another article promises 101 uses.
Zero-Day Life Hacks are the worst. Mixed in with the rest, at a glance you can tell that they were made up on the spot to help the author achieve the target number, and are not worth the time spend reading them. And there is no way to unread them, no delivered punishment for this crime. The last time someone felt guilty about wasting another person's precious time was back in 1959.
Life hacks don't just present these tips, they go on about them. You can't just be told to slide a friggin' block of wood along the floor to help set molding at the proper height. There has to be a Using A Block Of Wood Smartly video, and there's always a FAQ with dumb questions like, when I slide it into a corner, what then? (start over in another room, maybe it will work there) and What if the wood falls over? (find another piece). Even the most ludicrous and contrived aspects of something generates lengthy discussion, as if we have carved out a Corner of the Universe devoted solely to wood block molding sliding. The comments slide off into oblivion and disappear like they do everywhere else, the Internet is now like a continuous roll of one-sided toilet paper.
The people surfing these 'Hacks' are really asking themselves, I have these opposeable thumbs connected to a brain. What are they for? Well one thing you could do is spend every spare moment of your life in a voyeuristic journey paging through Life Hacks. As the senses dull and the little voice in our head that says, "Now THAT's clever" becomes over-used, our desperate brains are spurting little endorphin rushes that represent the Eureka! moment, and for a split second we pretend to be filing away every Life Hack like some modern day Sherlock Holmes, to regurgitate it some day at the precise moment when it will attract that mate, save that marriage, save your life and impress everybody
The truth is that you are forgetting them as fast as you are absorbing them and your own brain is becoming that one-sided continuous roll of toilet paper. It's a scam and you are both scammer and scamee. When you go to bed tonight, try to remember all the valuable tips you've learned. Then in the morning. In the place of hands-on basic 'aboriginal skills' of problem solving with the use of fingernails, using levers, found objects and baling wire, things upon things --- we're just merely glancing at things
You know those night-time satellite photos that show cities, highways and towns as shimmering webs of light? Well in terms of average depth of human concentration... those lights are winking out. Celebrities who've had their asses reamed by hateful people on Twitter and delete their accounts (whoosh!) to go back to old-fashioned interviews and press conferences teach us an important lesson about modern culture and long term mental health... which I will not share. This is no 'Life Hack' tip here... figure it out yourself.
The nuclear attitude to knowledge ratio, especially about RTG design and Pu238, is the highest I've yet seen in a Slashdot thread. It's like some bizarro-world Sesame Street in here with rabid muppets, shrill music, jumbled alphabets, speaking in tongues, flat-wrong math and horrid fonts, websites that require Javascript, and other horrors. Poor Cookie Monster expects some simple puzzle to solve so he can eat a plate of cookies but in swoop a screaming swarm of flying monkeys showing the same film clip of a mushroom cloud over and over again.
An attack on solar energy was sensed by the Solar Energy Promotion Apparatus, which is also the Nuclear Power Demotion Apparatus. Even the mod system has been overwhelmed and filter=insightful yields little insight because so many are modded up because they are quick with a Fukushima snipe. Let's go after StartsWithABang too, who had the audacity to claim that no contact for seven months was a mission 'fail'. Never mind that properly designed modern RTGs survive launch failure, even reentry failure. Never mind the equivalent ~12kg weight. A simple read of the Wikipedia RTF Page would take the Tang out of the snipes and push all of this fission stuff off-topic in one swoop. It's... cult-like in places. I won't be engaging.
So I'll just post... this.
IT IS TIME dip into the vault of Science and unleash a secret DOOMSDAY weapon, the RTG Powered Teddy Bear. A super-toy capable of sustained periods of play, yet self-charging with a heart of Pu238 that begins with ~2x nominal thermal output so you'd have over 100 years at full activity. The RTG is encased in a radiation proof, blast proof thermoelectric shell that is slightly larger than a six-year-old's gullet. It has adaptive intelligence, damage avoidance and a built-in sewing kit. It keeps your child warm at night, helps build muscle tone as it is carried, but can walk on its own with the same bipedal stance that makes human beings energy-efficient.
RTG Teddy will have the Wikipedia RTF Page embedded in its brain, and so he will be able to recite it you. (along with 10,000 bedtime stories from all cultures and fun language lessons). If you attempt to convince Teddy that he will explode like Chernobyl he will politely remind you that was runaway fission and steam. If you mention Fukushima he will point out that was just hydrogen. If you ask him if he might go 'critical' he'll tell you he will be critical of the mistakes you make, so you can always do better. Teddy even has a radiation monitor and his own power source is so well shielded he will help you identify those badly shielded knockoff bears when they come to visit. If you express an interest in nuclear energy he will start you off with the basics and you'll be a nuclear engineer by age eight, as driven as Kirk Sorensen. If mommy and daddy are talking downstairs and you hear mommy express concern that if Teddy crashes in a plane he might spread radiation over a wide area --- Teddy will whisper in your ear that it's alright, even though he would survive a crash and you wouldn't --- he would do his best to prevent it from happening because he contains an aviation network interface with autopilot and instrument landing procedures for all commercial airliners. He can even fly a helicopter with your help. And don't mind mommy, parents are weird sometimes. Could a solar powered bear do all this?
But the best part of owning an RTG Teddy is visiting with those Solar Powered Bears your friends bring over. He will beat the pants off them in feats of sustained endurance. But after he has mopped the floor with them he'll give them all a pulsed burst of ultraviolet light so they can finish the race without the indignity of falling over. He'll
The decryption key for Bob was not provided to us, but there are rumors that the Russians and Chinese have cracked it and a reconstituted corrupted version of Microsoft Bob was used to infiltrate the Office of Personnel Management.
If your package has been tampered with or Microsoft Bob is smoking a pipe... you have "weaponized Bob", and your product has been contaminated by Slack from this divine pre-Windows entity. Please return the product for a full and cutaneous refund.
MICROSOFT INNOVATION SURVIVAL KIT ONLY BREAK SEAL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Contents of Packet A: New Keyboard button. Contents of Packet B: New Mouse button. Contents of Packet C: New Assistant with Mechanical Voice. Also included: Start Button removal tool, 10-pack of various Wizards (from1997, dehydrated), Clippy spray.
Remember, plumbing is at the heart of civilization - the Romans figured that out for us. Without plumbing, we would be up shit creek.
Hear ye.
I now jet sewers, fix main breaks, drive dump trucks, operate backhoes and repair manholes for a small City in Southern Oklahoma. And I'm happy to report that some 35 years' computer and network experience from the days of Z80/S-100 CP/M to today, starting a BBS, starting a Freenet and running two ISPs with Cisco/OpenBSD/NT/Linux, running a printshop, doing programming at a telco and consulting since age 15... has not left me impaired physically or mentally.
Though some times when we are jack-hammering the street at midnight during an ice storm I have flashbacks.
It's just the most stable job I could find around here and it's bubble-proof. And I like infrastructure. In Austin TX my resumé didn't mean squat because no one returned my applications or calls --- except that boiler room that pays minimum wage for DSL tech support --- which sucked, come live in the big city so you can room with three other people and still struggle to make the rent. Fuck Austin.
KIRK: What's the nearest concentration of life forms, Mister Spock? SPOCK: Bearing one one seven mark four. KIRK: And how much time did you say we have to investigate? SPOCK: If we are to divert the asteroid which is on a collision course with this planet, we must warp out of orbit within thirty minutes. Every second we delay arriving at the deflection point compounds the problem, perhaps past solution. KIRK: You did say thirty minutes? SPOCK: Yes, sir. KIRK: Then let's go. Let's find out what life forms are blessed by this environment. (Standing on the opposite side of the lake from a collection of tipis and a lodge.) MCCOY: Why, they look like. I'd swear they're American Indians.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise arrives at the asteroid and attempt numerous means to disrupt its course. However, these fail to do any significant damage, leaving the ship's weapons and warp systems offline and the asteroid still on a collision course. [...] Spock surmises the obelisk may have failed, and recognize that they only have a short time when they arrive to figure out how to reactivate it, coming to the conclusion that musical notes may be the key as when the device responded to Kirk's communicator. [...] Spock uses a mind meld to reach Kirk's mind, while McCoy tends to Miramanee's wounds. Kirk regains his memories and Spock quickly alerts him to the situation. Kirk uses his communicator again, opening the trap door, and he and Spock go inside to repair the deflector beam. The obelisk activates and deflects the asteroid with minutes to spare.
CHEKOV: Course of asteroid, I mean spaceship two four one mark one seven. SPOCK: Interesting. KIRK: Yes? SPOCK: The course Ensign Chekov just gave for the asteroid would put it on a collision course with Daran Five. KIRK: Daran Five? Inhabited? SPOCK: Correct. Population approximately three billion and seven hundred twenty four million, if memory serves me correctly. Estimated time of impact three hundred ninety six days. KIRK: Mister Sulu, match Enterprise speed with that of the asteroid vessel. Mister Spock and I are transporting aboard. Mister Scott, you have the conn. SCOTT: Aye, sir.
[...] Kirk and Spock enter the temple chamber to retrieve the book and find a way to shut down the Oracle computer. The Oracle becomes furious at their attempts to gain access, and the stones of the chamber begin to glow red-hot. Kirk and Spock retreat, but having seized the book they find a way to bypass the Oracle's defenses and shut the machine down. They also discover a secret room containing the navigation controls for the asteroid ship. [...] With the Oracle disabled, Kirk and Spock enter the room and learn that a malfunction in the navigation system has moved Yonada off its intended course. Kirk and Spock make the proper repairs to the ancient navigation system and redirect Yonada onto its proper heading, sparing both the ship and Daran V.
One need not scan further to see that Commander Spock was 'passionately' concerned about the fate of human populations who find themselves in the path of asteroids, and the United Federation of Planets clearly did not consider an extinction level impact event as something that should be permitted to happen under the Prime Directive. And how fortunate for Leonard Nimoy that his voice so resembled that of Commander Spock, that he could employ his talent for narration to help Spock continue to implore us into space.
SF86 data is extraordinarily sensitive. What they mean is that the attackers made off with a database of the financial problems, drug habits, family problems, hidden crimes, and sex fetishes of anybody that's working on anything sensitive.
Shouldn't that kind of stuff be only on paper, locked inside some kind of... you know... financial problems drug habits family problems hidden crimes and sex fetishes room?
Tabloid fascination with personal problems or consensual crimes, 'sin' for short --- this whole ability to ruin someone by leaking factual information --- is a known vulnerability of the human condition. One no one wants to fix (it involves losing the moral high ground) or even admit that it is a problem. This means past indiscretions can through blackmail, be used by murders to conceal their crimes, or even drive a blackmailed sociopath on by degrees, to commit murder. In the best of cases it hands the rudder to the most oafish bullies, for the dumbest of reasons. And some brilliant and capable, even trustworthy people find themselves in shit.
Q: Why are we just talking about it and why hasn't the problem been fixed? Dr. Pry: Okay. Well, the short answer to that is itâ(TM)s called the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. They are basically the representativeâ" they used to be a trade association or a lobby for the 3,000 electric utilities [...] agency in the U.S. government [...] protect the public safety
Woolsey: [mumble mumble THEY could make a bomb]
I call NO THANKS on this transparent attempt to create yet another regulatory agency arm of DHS, and Jen Bawden who may be as concerned as I am about the grid, but sounds like she wants a boxcar on the gravy train. Mumble mumble THEY could come by boat she says. Then Woolsey and Pry go so far as to declare NERC 'worthless'. Sounds like a gub'mint involvement power grab that has little to do with engineering. To find out how little a political initiative like this will actually improve the grid, just go ahead and create this new agency, just like all the other ones. Before long everyone will be working for the Federal Government and the economy will be supported by a single hot dog vendor in Wash DC. They'll spend their whole budget creating scary power point presentations about bad-people-threats, because they'd rather not go outside.
NERC is populated by people who don't mind going outside to look at things.
NERC does need a kick in the ass though. It needs to worry less about cyberattack (which conveniently does not require you to go outside) and put a more concentrated effort into black start capability --- which is the ability (through planned procedures and simulation) to bring up the grid from complete power down This involves the identification of islands and what are called 'black start resources', stations that can power up first and help others to start. See the working document on EOP-005-x. Whatever the disaster and no matter how pervasive its effects, the first priority needs to be a firm plan for getting things going again and isolating sections that need replacement parts.
Do not let that Carrington Event stuff terrify you too deeply. In the 1859 small gauge telegraph wires were strung hundreds of miles to make the perfect EMP antenna, and its effects were what could be expected of a system that was on no way designed to withstand induced EMF. The modern grid is a lightning-arresting monster of conductor. Many old or improperly maintained components may fail in places, but it's not some slate-wiper, the greatest challenge will be merely to isolate problems and restart the rest.
Unfortunately when it comes to telephone communication this generation is pretty well screwed by a series of shitty little compromises over 30 years that will result in NO PHONES WORKING a week after major sections of the grid has gone dark, no matter if there are portable generators handy. POTS is gone, control has been centralized to distant places. Don't expect that cell tower to let you call your neighbor.
But the essential components and practice of the power grid remains the same as it was in the 70s, robust and reliable. If NERC would spend more time planning and training for black start capability, THAT is the best, possibly only, thing that would make a real difference.
I see this as the New New Orleans. We can find a major disaster; get billions of dollars of aid and instead of wasting it on feeding or housing the poor residents, we can spend it all on DARPA 3D printing experiments which might, theoretically, help a future special case disaster.
3D PRINTING ARTICLES OF THE FUTURE
From Sten Guns to Stem Cells: A Look BackWhat was the world like before ubiquitous crossover technology revolutionized technology and biology? Its difficult to imagine a time when the plastic steak was the brunt of jokes, years before the plastic human was perfected. Now both steak and human alike are produced from the same Universal Cartridge, and this fascinating short documentary pokes fun at the metaphorical difficulties experienced by what we now call '2D Humans' when trying to imagine the possibilities of today.
3D-Printed Food and Furniture for Disaster Relief: Look what's on the menu!The challenge of providing an appropriate and timely response to disaster, such as when Mother Gaia's tummy gets upset, has been hampered by problems of supply and distribution. Thanks to the application of the same advanced computer models used to verify and adjust historical climate records with uncanny precision, it was discovered that there is more than one practical approach to solving the old adage 'Greatest Good for the Greatest Number with Greatest Assurance of Success'. Traditional response models attempted to solve for Greatest Good, providing a comprehensive disaster response to (regrettably) few people. By maximizing instead for Greatest Number and working towards proactive not reactive measures, the new paradigm calls for global distribution of a package of items that provide a complete measure of support --- food, clothing, shelter, on a smaller scale.
Color your world (stuff your printer-gullet) with Rainbow Slime!It walks like a duck, talks like a duck... but it looks like a rainbow! Why make old things look old when everything can look new? Rainbow Slime is made from old things that once came in old colors, in olden times. These old things have been sorted and composted and re-mogrified with the extrusive dynamacism of Rainbow Eye-Searing Technology until the vividness is palpable and delectable. WARNING: The most vivid of the hues, especially those that glow in the dark, are not approved for human consumption.
3D Printed Cellphone Covers Rock Your Worldand are an FDA-approved alternative to unprotected sex. Your time spent selecting a style that is uniquely your own from our catalog is time well spent, because the World of Today is Hand-Crafted To Order (tm). Now that the extrusion of copper wire, electrical engineering, steel fabrication and industrial mass-production has all been supplanted by the industrial mass-production of 3D printers, Mankind now has the leisure time once envisioned by such forward-seers as Orwell and Huxley. Celebrate your future! You are you and you is good. Select a cell phone cover today.
We don't need to gollump across the desert slinging a rifle Mad Max style. We don't need expressive faces. We don't need stair climber ballet dancers. We don't need batteries. We need not rely on radio controlled operation. We don't need autonomous operation. We just need to lean around corners, extend and hook onto things, retract to pull ourselves along and extend again to get a camera and radiation monitor on a swivel close enough to far corners to answer the most pressing questions. A tentacle with two to three stages, each stage consisting of three to six sections that uncurl and and curl back like flower petals controlled by a human operator practiced in this dynamic of movement. Because the apparatus unfolds to navigate yet is flexible in its collapsed form, when there is equipment failure or the mission is accomplished it need only be pulled back out by its umbilicus. By smart apelike hominids flexing their strong muscles. To replace components, refine the actuators or (if based on Nexus 5) harassing or whacking or replacing the flaky power button to keep it from constantly rebooting.
Perhaps the Fukushima prize will be taken by a couple of bicycle mechanics from Kitty Hawk, NC with a design that uses no electronics whatsoever, aside from the payload.
APPLE INNOVATION SURVIVAL KIT ONLY BREAK SEAL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Contents of Packet A: Introduction of new streaming iTunes service. Contents of Packet B: Introduction of new streaming iTunes service. Contents of Packet C: Introduction of new streaming iTunes service.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see Beavis and Butthead saying "Dude! Let's strap a PISTOL to this DRONE and make it SHOOT. Heh heh heh." That shit is so obvious as to be scarcely newsworthy, let alone eyebrow-raising. To make it shoot they use... a solenoid, right? Well Gosh Lolly Good Golly!
If it's man-threatening eyebrow raisin' tech yer interested in, analyze the motion on multiple axes of this Breast Massaging Robot and also Patent CN102058466A for a similar device that has more useful functions and methods than the Mozilla Web API:
The invention discloses a Chinese massage robot, relating to the field of Chinese massage mechanical and automatic devices. The Chinese massage robot is characterized by comprising a bed body (16), a spatial six degrees of freedom main body mechanism and a massage hand (15) and can realize a palm-rubbing technique, a scrubbing method, a pushing manipulation, a wiping manipulation, a pressing manipulation, a pointing method, a finger-nail pressing method, a clapping method, a striking method, a rebounding method, a rolling method, a palm-kneading method, a finger-kneading method, a tremble manipulation, a shaking manipulation, a holding method, a kneading method, a plucking method, a pushing method, a twisting method, a pulling and turning method, a stretching method and other general single-hand and dual-hand massage methods. The invention has the advantages of simple structure, high rigidity, small size, light weight, low cost, large motion space, sensitive and quick action, favorable decoupling, real-time and dynamic response characteristics of system control, and the like.
Let goofballs who are easily amused play with guns and drones. We cannot afford to lose our lead on this technology front.
"Depending on how you want to think about it, it was funny or inevitable or symbolic that the robotic takeover did not start at MIT, NASA, Microsoft or Ford. It started at a Burger-G restaurant in Cary, NC on May 17. It seemed like such a simple thing at the time, but May 17 marked a pivotal moment in human history."
So begins the short story Manna, by Marshall Brain (full text on the web). It's the creepiest dystopian story I've read in a long while... made even creepier by the breezy and cheerful way its central character (who reminds me of Philip J. Fry from Futurama for some reason) tells how the robotic revolution will really go down. Take a few minutes to check it our. Your eyeballs will pop out on springs.
As I write this I'm thinking, should I even mention this story? Someone may think it's a great idea. I'm also thinking, perhaps if enough people read the story they'll have time to think about it and perhaps find a way to stop it from playing out to the end that is described. Some appropriate response that falls short of going full frontal Luddite.
Never mind those cute robots unable to walk up stairs, though some day they will. Forget that silly stuff about Skynet, it doesn't want to hurt you, though some day it will. But the first robots may actually be... people. Starting tomorrow.
Also by the author,
Robotic Nation
The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches
But until you actually, and openly, do something about these problems, you are equally guilty. Because you are lazy.
Through the /SARC when it comes down to it you are right of course. Please +mod Parent as an amazingly and thought provoking response, a fine rant response. I must admit that over the years I have been part of the problem. Despite time put in to learn the mechanics of computer language, network, protocol and presentation, applying many an operations-oriented shim or patch or fix.. I have NOT delved deep into any single open-source project, taken the reins, become part of a team, or even one of those prolific lone wolf coders. I have no curriculum vitae in open source. Now that I look back on it that's kind of shameful, especially as I present myself as a critic of the times. I'll try to do better with the next half of my life.
Who are those bad actors and what is bad acting? Leaving aside the potential for cross site scripting, malformed instructions, rooting and malware for a moment. There was a time when smooth continuous motion on the borders of a web page, however clever the item, was considered distracting by static purists, who even objected to looping animation. I was never one of those, though I did see they clearly disliked the intrusive and unexpected. Then came the sounds, loud and lots. In a platform where a mute button or volume control must be explicitly coded few did and if your volume control was up you'd be blasted out of your seat muttering "What were they thinking?" But all that is past and gone. There are no aesthetic elements made possible by Flash that are not not do-able from HTML or JS.
And because migration is now possible some feel migration is necessary. The Register is cheekier than I, spicing urgent reminders with lambasting criticism. Clearly from Adobe's position proactive measures are necessary and a ground-up audit/rewrite is necessary using a compiler framework that (with performance penalty of course) mitigates the silly things like use-after-free. And in Open Source there have been reverse engineering projects and attempts to replicate Flash, lately even shims...
But what has been missing is an publicly audited open source Flash initiative that had begun years ago, begun right as Flash was introduced. Some would call such a thing intellectual property theft. I'd bring up OpenSSL as a shining example except for... certain things that have happened. Are they worse than the things that might have happened if some corporate actor, RSA for example, imposed bin-only blobs on everyone, Windows Linux and Apple? Who can say.
But you won't, and there is one telling phrase why not:
"Because in this silly Collectivist world of planned obsolescence..."
You have a mindset that can't be reasoned with.
What you really mean is, You reach down and you flip Flash over on its back. Flash lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Point taken.
I'm so glad there's a move afoot to kill Flash, in which a few well-connected standards goonies who are not satisfied with the rollout for HTML5 think that no campaign to capture hearts and minds is complete without some form of digital strip mining, in which major portions of the Internet heritage are blocked by "newer, better" software and rendered dark, obsolete and broken overnight. It's just like a seat belt law,right? It's all about protecting Joe Sixpack from driving drunk on the web. And the big important players like Facebook have naught but our precious safety as a motive. /SARC
I hated Flash for its abuses and excesses at first, but I have grown fond of the things it has become useful for, and does well. Here is a low level instruction set of instruction and vector graphic primitives that has been used to accomplish amazing feats. Even self-contained and offline feats. Things that will never make it to HTML5 without a serious ride in the newer is better and bigger and much slower (though our processors are faster and memory is bigger so we pretend that it's faster and smaller) bloat-mobile. /NOTSARC
Remember when the Whole Damned World was ready for a GIF-killer? And PNG was one little tiny step away from doing so? The png image format was so ready to dominate the world, and we were maybe a few open source developer weekends away from having a GIFlike format with comparable non-encumbered LZW compression, and (as promised) simple animation too. To be able to animate in full RGB without shoving palettes down our collective throats. Well, some people on the Standards Committee, some <BLINK>anti-blink tag hipsters</BLINK> who were Running With Scissors cut out that promise and proceeded to punt the animate part of the bargain into the Next MNG generation, which would be a video-killer too and would happen Real Soon Now. The upshot was that the PNG rocket sled hit a big pile of jello, While MNG was languishing, a whole generation of web-folk faced difficult times with GIF in which open source tools generated bloaty files unless you compiled them yourself (because they did not to fork money or paperwork to license the LZW) and the world was treated to... more of GIF! It is today's GIF! And do we have those <BLINK>anti-blink tag hipsters</BLINK> to thank? No, that is not really fair, they just wanted to build a better world. But bad decisions in retrospect do happen. /NOTSARC
But Flash is different! Never mind how useful it has become, it must be killed. Because in this silly Collectivist world of planned obsolescence it is not enough to succeed. Something old must be declared evil, be systematically dismantled and ultimately fail not on its own lack of merit, but because some all seeing Standards Committee wishes to keep Joe Sixpack safe while driving drunk on the web. The insurance companies have already factored in the liability for HTML5 vulnerability coverage so we're good there. /SARC
From this day forward, any zero day vulnerabilities in HTML5 code will be tolerated in the civilized manner, and any emerging Flash exploits will be blamed on the Iranians and North Koreans, and those who continue to use and support Flash will have their hip-credentials revoked. /NOTSARC And we're ready to destroy all those vinyl LP phonograph records too, all the music that matters has been reissued, yeah, fuck that old music. /SARC
Because, God Forbid, the whole human race could never just gather to re-write a popular primitive procedural language without creating a shitload of new exploitable errors. It just cannot be done. /SARC
Game Theory is an academically sanctioned tabloid fascination with soiled brown underwear, thinly disguised as a tool for analyzing base motives.
Great things have been accomplished by those with brown underwear though they would rather not fixate on it and most historians tend not to record it, because brown underwear it is boring. Game Theory can precisely describe the motivations of Spherical Cows in a vacuum. To use it to describe complicated human beings is a gross insult -- indeed so much of an insult that what you actually reveal in your subjects is tolerance for being insulted in this manner.
Most of modern day ills cannot be described by 'Game Theory' so easily as a simple lack of meaningful consequences from a group's unpopular or immoral actions. Their underwear is clean, and GT's attempt to imply that it is soiled because these people are dancing on the edge of some arcane equation of morality is, needlessly dramatic.
Contract telecom workers who rake in the overtime. Eventually you might see a series of evenly spaced cuts on long runs that are calculated so there is too much light loss, entire cable sections need replacement.
The NSA, who is building out a massive dark fiber intercept network to shunt traffic to Utah and is using the outages as 'cover' as they install separate, secret drop-ins.
Those who hate our freedoms. You know, those folks who keep ranting about those folks who hate our freedoms, and how you have to break eggs to make an omelet, and hey it's been a long time since we invaded another new country.
Book Publishers and People who do know how to use the Internet. I should have listed them first. We must track down these people and watch them closely.
The Amish Mafia and Inner Circle. Slowing the encroachment of microchips at home and abroad. You do not want to mess with these people.
Starbucks. What do repair crews drink the most? Slam dunk! Well... oops, wait. We're talking about the global corporate giant that has built the world's largest IT single point of failure. This is either the cleverest, most insidious plot ever, perfect cover... or the dumbest.
Lawyers and Insurance Companies. In general, and it's our own damned fault.
Until things are so bad that a mob of concerned citizens gathers on the spur of the moment to surround, interrogate and hold telecom crews until they are vetted (or) swift and lethal vigilante justice is delivered... we cannot reasonably expect the world to suck less as time goes by.
Trademarks used herein are sole property of their respective dark fantasies.
I suggest we program all robots with some type of rules that prevent this from happening.
Asimov took an incredible shortcut, glorifying the mere existence of these laws and making their 'immutability' a major plot device... for most of the story he was glossing over the real issues, that is, how do Robots recognize humans? Is it that distinctive Solarian accent?
If you envision a robotic future... realize that the definition and algorithms related to human-ness would be supplied by the same patent holders who sell biometric ID systems today. Is that a trembling shudder working up your spine?
I prefer the simple predictable demeanor of farm machinery. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, the machine does not bother to discern the difference between a human or a corn husk. Obligatory reference to standard international warning label as funny as any XKCD People are lazy and machines are not, so if you increase the intelligence of machines people will become more stoopid. Even the clever people fixing intelligent machines will become stoopid, for they will continue to fix them for as long as their brains hold out and the money is good.
When robots begin to lactate and our children imprint onto them, we're screwed!
Never. Use. Biometrics. For. Authentication.
Said Pepe the Peg-Leg Pirate.
Said Frodo of the Nine Fingers.
Said the Headless Horseman.
Said One-Eye Pete.
Said Greasy-Grimy-Finger Gus (based on a true story)
Said Sam Beckett the Quantum Leper
We need to all send biometrics patent holders and hardware manufacturers money every month so they can "make money as they sleep" right now, today. Then we'll be able to sleep at night knowing that when we wake the world will not have turned to some shitty 'Orwell' or 'Brazil' nightmare than never ends.
I'm starting to nod off. Can we watch in shifts?
I'm still not sure how In intend to celebrate the IMPENDING DISMAL FAILURE of the EADP Mission fund raiser to raise $200k for producing a set of plans to for a viable asteroid deflection/destruction mission. Win or lose, something besides NOTHING ready to deploy on short notice. What kind of cake would be appropriate for this level of fail?
185 people have contributed $8,803 of $200k. Two of them are me.
WHAT IF a simple test appeared out of the blue one day... something that you could not ignore. Despite any best effort to put a positive spin on it, the moment it flicks into your mind you think to yourself, "All is lost."
A TEST as clear and obvious as it is simple. Something that no amount of explaining away could touch, for which no rational excuse was possible, and even the most carefully constructed counter-arguments reveal themselves as elaborate denial mechanisms, unworthy even of response.
Despite hundreds of trillions of real and imagined dollars in circulation, a populous modern society of the self-proclaimed 'age of enlightenment' cannot raise an amount of money equivalent to that of a single yearly CEO's salary...
We have built the Internet... and connected our world... to.... well shit.
I can't even think up a single good reason anymore.
It all seems like so much tripe, if we're in the process of failing this simple test.
Non-sequitur much, dumbfuck? What the fuck does posting as AC, the only way I can post since I have no account, have to do with anything?
It means we cannot see your face so we can poo on it, because you squatted and did a poo on Scott Manley because you claim he lacks the "scientific credentials" that enable him to poo properly for science --- despite the clear evidence that he has created a visualization useful to inquiry and debate, has documented his methods and made clear his reasons for pursuing the quest.
Great minds poo ideas.
Average minds just poo.
Small minds post as AC to squirt liquified poo on those they consider unworthy in the hope that they can trigger some poo-slinging herd response, because they enjoy to watch such things.
If you are God and are posting as AC because the keying of your One True Name as you registered would unwind creation and cause the heavens to become unmade, then that's cool.
EADP HAIV Funding campaign has only 12 days left. Only 177 people and $8,475 of $200k raised.
C'mon please. For short notice impact threats this mission is/would be the ONLY thing on the table.
Please, just go there and read what they have to say, what the plan is. Only 12 days left.
I am so extremely fucking embarrassed for my species right now.
The take-away talking points of the threat are no duh. Grab any kid and ask 'em how the dinosaurs died, you'll probably get the right answer. Ask the kid, could it happen tomorrow? They'll probably say, yeah I guess. Now, release the kid.
Now grab some BULLSHIT STATISTICS-ABUSING disaster apologist, you know, the ones that keep repeating with glee that "on average 100 people die every year" from something that could/might/will kill EVERYONE, as if that statistic means anything at all. Now release the apologist, letting 'em fall on their head.
We don't need to raise 'awareness' or make a special flag to wave or make a Youtube video or put a "I made fun of Armageddon on Slashdot" feather in your cap. So many feathers in so many caps around here, thought you'd all be flying around by now. I'm kinda sorry for venting but I've brought up this topic around here and have seen too many answers that translate to, "I dunna give affuck, it's God's Will". I hope the vast bulk of you who haven't commented on this topic at all are open on the idea of weaponizing space for our planet's defense.
If I had wealth or mortgageable assets I'd have ALREADY funded the damned thing.
All by MYSELF in one shot.
That is embarrassing to me...
I really thought that after 50 years on Earth I'd have played my cards better.
Now I am reduced to begging, to help raise $200k
for a cause I believe to be as 'verdant' and 'just' as any on Earth.
And being reduced to begging strangers for money on behalf of this mission
makes me even more angry and resentful.
I'm a real mess.
3 for 3.
One for all, and all for one!
Why is this article (in general) ruffling so many feathers? Because it is a thinly-disguised Malthusian Energy hit-piece specifically targeted at the center of IT's most sacred golden calf, the cloud server industry. The reason that the assumptions made in this study are confusing to many (as in, why are we even on this page? Isn't an overall one-third quiescent portion a sign of a properly engineered critical system?) is that it was not motivated by intelligent resource usage concerns at all.
Energy-environmentalists are like beavers these days. Their teeth are always growing, so they have to gnaw on something. So today they are gnawing on you. These hit pieces are everywhere these days.
Energy usage on every conceivable scale is the 'new' pseudo-environmentalism, and the bar of publishable relevance has been set low so that everyone can participate. So they do. In the olden days you could enjoy your hot shower without guilt and read a book in the brilliance of that 100 watt light bulb... secure in the knowledge that so long as you were part of a team that was striving towards a general goal of greater efficiency on some massive scale, or heading off the problem entirely by developing cheaper and less limited sources of energy, you were a net 'positive' for humanity. And you were.
Somewhere along the line WE let tabloid environmentalism take over, and the scale was tipped towards presumptive guilt. WE let this happen. This is a religious mental disorder for which no actual religion is necessary. Now the merest accusation of wastefulness gains traction because it resonates with that "we're fucking up the planet" meme, and the burden of proof has shifted to YOU as the individual to 'prove' you are a net-positive or at least a neutral. Whether you are conscious of it or not you have bought into an idea of Original Sin.
It's time to reject the notion that energy is somehow is in 'short supply', 'expensive' or 'harmful to the planet'. What is actually in short supply these days is actually the innovative drive to secure better base load energy sources . And what there is a useless dearth of are people striving for (and achieving) ten minutes of fame by pointing out some comparatively tiny 'waste' of energy somewhere, and using that fame (a phenomenon enabled by click-through environmentalists)... to put some one-ten-thousandth of one-millionth of humanity's energy usage 'on trial'. It diverts you from your daily pursuit, whatever that is. It may deliver the illusion that you're making a positive contribution just be reading the stuff. Nope.
Beaver-chewing on specific industries that are built with redundancy and a certain amount of slack for various reasons, many good, is a waste of time. The best design is an over-design after all, and the real world is old-school. Only those working on solving the BIG problems at any given time are our best real hope.
Don't distract those people, where ever they may be.
For all we know there may be just a few left.
The campaign to develop standard plans for a launch vehicle to intercept asteroid threats stands at 174 people and $8,447 raised of $200k with 20 days left to go. If it was some silly little Raspberry Pi thing it would be funded already many times over. And I was hoping this was the Smartest Generation.
For NASA to build an orbiting depot to refuel/patch its own satellites, and even secret military devices of NATO countries --- the cost/benefit analysis of what is likely to happen can be completely considered --- and no one's job is at stake. Within a government or military entity everything is considered to be a 'mission' that is either a success or a failure.
But the moment this NASA facility drifts into range of someone else's corporate private property... the clouds will part and the night sky will fill with lawyers. Now there is a product being delivered. It's easy to imagine a utopian scenario where everything goes all right, the happy satellite is refueled and goes on its merry way, and its owner shares some of its years of '$free$' money with NASA to help recoup its expenses.
One time fixed price for refueling, or sliding scale based on projected income from satellite? Projected by whom? What if the satellite is still within its original life expectancy? Will the corporation be able to offset the expense of its early demise with the profit from its extended lifespan plus refuel cost... or will it it's profitable orbit began to decay towards Chapter Seven? Because money is involved even a successful mission is not that simple. A large part of the complexity arises because major capital projects are launched for a per-determined time span and a certain expected fixed rate of return. Once those decisions are made corporate boards of directors and the banks behind them are 'locked in' to these projects, win or lose. The scenario where a malfunction or propellant loss takes a satellite out of service has been planned for. It requires corporate courage and applied risk to modify those terms. And courage is rare these days.
That was success. Now on to the risks of failure. It is similar to the escalation of complexity in 1 vs. n-body problems. This would probably be practical for geostationary orbits only, since our facility has lots of mass and finite energy and time to maneuver between jobs. Still there are more things to go wrong than right. Most satellites are 'deployed' with appendages unfolded... how to avoid damaging them? How to tether satellite and repair vehicle safely? The refueling process involves re-pressurization through couplings. What happens if/when tethers snap, couplings fail or tanks burst, escaping propellant slams the satellite against the vehicle, damaging it? What if the failure arises from a corporation or government failing to divulge some key piece of information about the satellite?
Now I'm the last person to go on about planned obsolescence as if it is a good thing, but in geosynchronous orbit it's kind of a good thing. If something has turned to shit and is out of service, it really is best, and safest, to have one certain kind of maintenance satellite up there --- a killer-pusher death satellite to disable and push the junk out of geosynchronous orbit and away from the other precious satellites.
Otherwise the first thing that goes Horribly Wrong will result in a disabled satellite and a satellite repair facility both careening across the heavens. What an awesome spectacle of corporate liability that would be. You could even spot the liability with the naked eye.
This issue exists and persists only to illustrate how many people will seize upon some dark conspiracy that not only 'means' nothing on its face... but if it were true and unraveled completely, would still mean nothing. I mean, think about it: there's absolutely nothing actionable in there.
People whose hobby is to fuck with people fuck with people with this fuck, as a hobby. Fuck those people.
If Moon Hoax stuff is coming from someone you love and respect... heed comments on the subject but adopt the same proud and polite tone as a potty training parent who finds a surprise package on the carpet. You cannot express dismay or anger at their poops because a life long poop anxiety is one of the worst things that can happen to a child. You need to scoop it up with their 'help', making friendly conversation about its texture and color, all the while heading to the toilet. Then it goes in and you say, "THAT's where it goes!" and they get to push the handle.
On Internet forums with strangers you don't need to actually scoop it up and take it to the potty (it is after all, someone else's web site). Just a dismissive but polite remark at the beginning that is encouraging like "That's a nice little poop you made, but let's try to get it into the potty next time."
Then find something else to discuss related to space, and discuss that.
Heed not anonymous comments on the subject, treat it as if it was Nature's Own Crap falling from the sky. You can infuriate the cowardly attention-seekers by making direct unseeing eye contact with them and their crap only to say, "How delicate is the process of crap-nucleation and how weighty is crap, that it can fall from a clear sky with no crap-clouds even visible! What a blessing!"
Shit can get personal too. The Bart Sibrel response is the only appropriate direct personal response, and of all the explorers Buzz Aldrin the only one 'man enough' to use it. The Right Stuff indeed.
How many friggin' ways are there to hang shoes in your closet? You'd think that just piling your shoes on the floor has been holding us back all these years, and we're just beginning to get a handle on this shoe storage thing. Buy expensive plastic drawers, make things out of moldy cardboard, hang 'em and wrap 'em like flies in a spiderweb, on doors, above your bed. Make labels. How about an entire room full of wax people in various positions to wear our shoes for us? To select a pair just tip over the wax person and take their shoes off. Simple.
There is always some 'Target Number'. No one ever has a bright idea any more, they must save them up until there is a round or round-plus-one number. Only a brain dead doofus would click into '100 uses for a dead cat' when another article promises 101 uses.
Zero-Day Life Hacks are the worst. Mixed in with the rest, at a glance you can tell that they were made up on the spot to help the author achieve the target number, and are not worth the time spend reading them. And there is no way to unread them, no delivered punishment for this crime. The last time someone felt guilty about wasting another person's precious time was back in 1959.
Life hacks don't just present these tips, they go on about them. You can't just be told to slide a friggin' block of wood along the floor to help set molding at the proper height. There has to be a Using A Block Of Wood Smartly video, and there's always a FAQ with dumb questions like, when I slide it into a corner, what then? (start over in another room, maybe it will work there) and What if the wood falls over? (find another piece). Even the most ludicrous and contrived aspects of something generates lengthy discussion, as if we have carved out a Corner of the Universe devoted solely to wood block molding sliding. The comments slide off into oblivion and disappear like they do everywhere else, the Internet is now like a continuous roll of one-sided toilet paper.
The people surfing these 'Hacks' are really asking themselves, I have these opposeable thumbs connected to a brain. What are they for? Well one thing you could do is spend every spare moment of your life in a voyeuristic journey paging through Life Hacks. As the senses dull and the little voice in our head that says, "Now THAT's clever" becomes over-used, our desperate brains are spurting little endorphin rushes that represent the Eureka! moment, and for a split second we pretend to be filing away every Life Hack like some modern day Sherlock Holmes, to regurgitate it some day at the precise moment when it will attract that mate, save that marriage, save your life and impress everybody
The truth is that you are forgetting them as fast as you are absorbing them and your own brain is becoming that one-sided continuous roll of toilet paper. It's a scam and you are both scammer and scamee. When you go to bed tonight, try to remember all the valuable tips you've learned. Then in the morning. In the place of hands-on basic 'aboriginal skills' of problem solving with the use of fingernails, using levers, found objects and baling wire, things upon things --- we're just merely glancing at things
You know those night-time satellite photos that show cities, highways and towns as shimmering webs of light? Well in terms of average depth of human concentration... those lights are winking out. Celebrities who've had their asses reamed by hateful people on Twitter and delete their accounts (whoosh!) to go back to old-fashioned interviews and press conferences teach us an important lesson about modern culture and long term mental health... which I will not share. This is no 'Life Hack' tip here... figure it out yourself.
Life Hacks also eat up idle quiet time, in which the mind fits things together in silly ways that are uniquely your own. We must use the Internet -- to find the slow tides of thought, laughter and fable we wish to use to construct our worlds, and spend equal time out in the most desperate emotional wildernesses of our time, to tame them to our liking. Not passively surf 'Life Hacks'.
The nuclear attitude to knowledge ratio, especially about RTG design and Pu238, is the highest I've yet seen in a Slashdot thread. It's like some bizarro-world Sesame Street in here with rabid muppets, shrill music, jumbled alphabets, speaking in tongues, flat-wrong math and horrid fonts, websites that require Javascript, and other horrors. Poor Cookie Monster expects some simple puzzle to solve so he can eat a plate of cookies but in swoop a screaming swarm of flying monkeys showing the same film clip of a mushroom cloud over and over again.
An attack on solar energy was sensed by the Solar Energy Promotion Apparatus, which is also the Nuclear Power Demotion Apparatus. Even the mod system has been overwhelmed and filter=insightful yields little insight because so many are modded up because they are quick with a Fukushima snipe. Let's go after StartsWithABang too, who had the audacity to claim that no contact for seven months was a mission 'fail'. Never mind that properly designed modern RTGs survive launch failure, even reentry failure. Never mind the equivalent ~12kg weight. A simple read of the Wikipedia RTF Page would take the Tang out of the snipes and push all of this fission stuff off-topic in one swoop. It's... cult-like in places. I won't be engaging.
So I'll just post... this.
IT IS TIME dip into the vault of Science and unleash a secret DOOMSDAY weapon, the RTG Powered Teddy Bear. A super-toy capable of sustained periods of play, yet self-charging with a heart of Pu238 that begins with ~2x nominal thermal output so you'd have over 100 years at full activity. The RTG is encased in a radiation proof, blast proof thermoelectric shell that is slightly larger than a six-year-old's gullet. It has adaptive intelligence, damage avoidance and a built-in sewing kit. It keeps your child warm at night, helps build muscle tone as it is carried, but can walk on its own with the same bipedal stance that makes human beings energy-efficient.
RTG Teddy will have the Wikipedia RTF Page embedded in its brain, and so he will be able to recite it you. (along with 10,000 bedtime stories from all cultures and fun language lessons). If you attempt to convince Teddy that he will explode like Chernobyl he will politely remind you that was runaway fission and steam. If you mention Fukushima he will point out that was just hydrogen. If you ask him if he might go 'critical' he'll tell you he will be critical of the mistakes you make, so you can always do better. Teddy even has a radiation monitor and his own power source is so well shielded he will help you identify those badly shielded knockoff bears when they come to visit. If you express an interest in nuclear energy he will start you off with the basics and you'll be a nuclear engineer by age eight, as driven as Kirk Sorensen. If mommy and daddy are talking downstairs and you hear mommy express concern that if Teddy crashes in a plane he might spread radiation over a wide area --- Teddy will whisper in your ear that it's alright, even though he would survive a crash and you wouldn't --- he would do his best to prevent it from happening because he contains an aviation network interface with autopilot and instrument landing procedures for all commercial airliners. He can even fly a helicopter with your help. And don't mind mommy, parents are weird sometimes. Could a solar powered bear do all this?
But the best part of owning an RTG Teddy is visiting with those Solar Powered Bears your friends bring over. He will beat the pants off them in feats of sustained endurance. But after he has mopped the floor with them he'll give them all a pulsed burst of ultraviolet light so they can finish the race without the indignity of falling over. He'll
What, no happy face Microsoft Bob button?
Microsoft Bob and and Jimmy Hoffa have left us by similar means, one digital and one analog, I'm afraid, but we were able to incorporate Bob's essence --- the packaging material of the Kit is comprised of 100% recycled encrypted Bob! . While we strive to include at least "a Bob's worth in every Kit"... due to variations in manufacture and settling part of him is missing or arrived too late, so you'll need to purchase five or more kits to ensure you have a whole Bob.
The decryption key for Bob was not provided to us, but there are rumors that the Russians and Chinese have cracked it and a reconstituted corrupted version of Microsoft Bob was used to infiltrate the Office of Personnel Management.
If your package has been tampered with or Microsoft Bob is smoking a pipe... you have "weaponized Bob", and your product has been contaminated by Slack from this divine pre-Windows entity. Please return the product for a full and cutaneous refund.
MICROSOFT INNOVATION SURVIVAL KIT
ONLY BREAK SEAL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Contents of Packet A: New Keyboard button.
Contents of Packet B: New Mouse button.
Contents of Packet C: New Assistant with Mechanical Voice.
Also included: Start Button removal tool, 10-pack of various Wizards (from1997, dehydrated), Clippy spray.
Customers who purchased this also bought:
Apple Innovation Survival Kit
Remember, plumbing is at the heart of civilization - the Romans figured that out for us. Without plumbing, we would be up shit creek.
Hear ye.
I now jet sewers, fix main breaks, drive dump trucks, operate backhoes and repair manholes for a small City in Southern Oklahoma. And I'm happy to report that some 35 years' computer and network experience from the days of Z80/S-100 CP/M to today, starting a BBS, starting a Freenet and running two ISPs with Cisco/OpenBSD/NT/Linux, running a printshop, doing programming at a telco and consulting since age 15... has not left me impaired physically or mentally.
Though some times when we are jack-hammering the street at midnight during an ice storm I have flashbacks.
It's just the most stable job I could find around here and it's bubble-proof. And I like infrastructure. In Austin TX my resumé didn't mean squat because no one returned my applications or calls --- except that boiler room that pays minimum wage for DSL tech support --- which sucked, come live in the big city so you can room with three other people and still struggle to make the rent. Fuck Austin.
[tunes TV set]
KIRK: What's the nearest concentration of life forms, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: Bearing one one seven mark four.
KIRK: And how much time did you say we have to investigate?
SPOCK: If we are to divert the asteroid which is on a collision course with this planet, we must warp out of orbit within thirty minutes. Every second we delay arriving at the deflection point compounds the problem, perhaps past solution.
KIRK: You did say thirty minutes?
SPOCK: Yes, sir.
KIRK: Then let's go. Let's find out what life forms are blessed by this environment.
(Standing on the opposite side of the lake from a collection of tipis and a lodge.)
MCCOY: Why, they look like. I'd swear they're American Indians.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise arrives at the asteroid and attempt numerous means to disrupt its course. However, these fail to do any significant damage, leaving the ship's weapons and warp systems offline and the asteroid still on a collision course. [...] Spock surmises the obelisk may have failed, and recognize that they only have a short time when they arrive to figure out how to reactivate it, coming to the conclusion that musical notes may be the key as when the device responded to Kirk's communicator. [...] Spock uses a mind meld to reach Kirk's mind, while McCoy tends to Miramanee's wounds. Kirk regains his memories and Spock quickly alerts him to the situation. Kirk uses his communicator again, opening the trap door, and he and Spock go inside to repair the deflector beam. The obelisk activates and deflects the asteroid with minutes to spare.
~~Star Trek Original Series, "The Paradise Syndrome
CHEKOV: Course of asteroid, I mean spaceship two four one mark one seven.
SPOCK: Interesting.
KIRK: Yes?
SPOCK: The course Ensign Chekov just gave for the asteroid would put it on a collision course with Daran Five.
KIRK: Daran Five? Inhabited?
SPOCK: Correct. Population approximately three billion and seven hundred twenty four million, if memory serves me correctly. Estimated time of impact three hundred ninety six days.
KIRK: Mister Sulu, match Enterprise speed with that of the asteroid vessel. Mister Spock and I are transporting aboard. Mister Scott, you have the conn.
SCOTT: Aye, sir.
[...] Kirk and Spock enter the temple chamber to retrieve the book and find a way to shut down the Oracle computer. The Oracle becomes furious at their attempts to gain access, and the stones of the chamber begin to glow red-hot. Kirk and Spock retreat, but having seized the book they find a way to bypass the Oracle's defenses and shut the machine down. They also discover a secret room containing the navigation controls for the asteroid ship. [...] With the Oracle disabled, Kirk and Spock enter the room and learn that a malfunction in the navigation system has moved Yonada off its intended course. Kirk and Spock make the proper repairs to the ancient navigation system and redirect Yonada onto its proper heading, sparing both the ship and Daran V.
~~Star Trek Original Series, "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
One need not scan further to see that Commander Spock was 'passionately' concerned about the fate of human populations who find themselves in the path of asteroids, and the United Federation of Planets clearly did not consider an extinction level impact event as something that should be permitted to happen under the Prime Directive. And how fortunate for Leonard Nimoy that his voice so resembled that of Commander Spock, that he could employ his talent for narration to help Spock continue to implore us into space.
It gladdens my heart to see that
SF86 data is extraordinarily sensitive. What they mean is that the attackers made off with a database of the financial problems, drug habits, family problems, hidden crimes, and sex fetishes of anybody that's working on anything sensitive.
Shouldn't that kind of stuff be only on paper, locked inside some kind of... you know... financial problems drug habits family problems hidden crimes and sex fetishes room?
Tabloid fascination with personal problems or consensual crimes, 'sin' for short --- this whole ability to ruin someone by leaking factual information --- is a known vulnerability of the human condition. One no one wants to fix (it involves losing the moral high ground) or even admit that it is a problem. This means past indiscretions can through blackmail, be used by murders to conceal their crimes, or even drive a blackmailed sociopath on by degrees, to commit murder. In the best of cases it hands the rudder to the most oafish bullies, for the dumbest of reasons. And some brilliant and capable, even trustworthy people find themselves in shit.
Looks like the USG has handed over it all. Beware, my friend, shit winds are a-comin'
I recommend Peter McWilliams' book AIN'T NOBODY'S BUSINESS IF YOU DO: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country, placed on the web with the deceased author's permission, to help sort out (culturally) what should be an actionable --- or blackmail-worthy --- crime. Also check out this (failed) submission on the DEA and my suggestion to implement duress codes (like a blackmail canary) into society.
Q: Why are we just talking about it and why hasn't the problem been fixed?
Dr. Pry: Okay. Well, the short answer to that is itâ(TM)s called the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. They are basically the representativeâ" they used to be a trade association or a lobby for the 3,000 electric utilities [...] agency in the U.S. government [...] protect the public safety
Woolsey: [mumble mumble THEY could make a bomb]
I call NO THANKS on this transparent attempt to create yet another regulatory agency arm of DHS, and Jen Bawden who may be as concerned as I am about the grid, but sounds like she wants a boxcar on the gravy train. Mumble mumble THEY could come by boat she says. Then Woolsey and Pry go so far as to declare NERC 'worthless'. Sounds like a gub'mint involvement power grab that has little to do with engineering. To find out how little a political initiative like this will actually improve the grid, just go ahead and create this new agency, just like all the other ones. Before long everyone will be working for the Federal Government and the economy will be supported by a single hot dog vendor in Wash DC. They'll spend their whole budget creating scary power point presentations about bad-people-threats, because they'd rather not go outside.
NERC is populated by people who don't mind going outside to look at things.
NERC does need a kick in the ass though. It needs to worry less about cyberattack (which conveniently does not require you to go outside) and put a more concentrated effort into black start capability --- which is the ability (through planned procedures and simulation) to bring up the grid from complete power down This involves the identification of islands and what are called 'black start resources', stations that can power up first and help others to start. See the working document on EOP-005-x. Whatever the disaster and no matter how pervasive its effects, the first priority needs to be a firm plan for getting things going again and isolating sections that need replacement parts.
Do not let that Carrington Event stuff terrify you too deeply. In the 1859 small gauge telegraph wires were strung hundreds of miles to make the perfect EMP antenna, and its effects were what could be expected of a system that was on no way designed to withstand induced EMF. The modern grid is a lightning-arresting monster of conductor. Many old or improperly maintained components may fail in places, but it's not some slate-wiper, the greatest challenge will be merely to isolate problems and restart the rest.
Unfortunately when it comes to telephone communication this generation is pretty well screwed by a series of shitty little compromises over 30 years that will result in NO PHONES WORKING a week after major sections of the grid has gone dark, no matter if there are portable generators handy. POTS is gone, control has been centralized to distant places. Don't expect that cell tower to let you call your neighbor.
But the essential components and practice of the power grid remains the same as it was in the 70s, robust and reliable. If NERC would spend more time planning and training for black start capability, THAT is the best, possibly only, thing that would make a real difference.
I see this as the New New Orleans. We can find a major disaster; get billions of dollars of aid and instead of wasting it on feeding or housing the poor residents, we can spend it all on DARPA 3D printing experiments which might, theoretically, help a future special case disaster.
3D PRINTING ARTICLES OF THE FUTURE
From Sten Guns to Stem Cells: A Look Back What was the world like before ubiquitous crossover technology revolutionized technology and biology? Its difficult to imagine a time when the plastic steak was the brunt of jokes, years before the plastic human was perfected. Now both steak and human alike are produced from the same Universal Cartridge, and this fascinating short documentary pokes fun at the metaphorical difficulties experienced by what we now call '2D Humans' when trying to imagine the possibilities of today.
3D-Printed Food and Furniture for Disaster Relief: Look what's on the menu! The challenge of providing an appropriate and timely response to disaster, such as when Mother Gaia's tummy gets upset, has been hampered by problems of supply and distribution. Thanks to the application of the same advanced computer models used to verify and adjust historical climate records with uncanny precision, it was discovered that there is more than one practical approach to solving the old adage 'Greatest Good for the Greatest Number with Greatest Assurance of Success'. Traditional response models attempted to solve for Greatest Good, providing a comprehensive disaster response to (regrettably) few people. By maximizing instead for Greatest Number and working towards proactive not reactive measures, the new paradigm calls for global distribution of a package of items that provide a complete measure of support --- food, clothing, shelter, on a smaller scale.
Color your world (stuff your printer-gullet) with Rainbow Slime! It walks like a duck, talks like a duck... but it looks like a rainbow! Why make old things look old when everything can look new? Rainbow Slime is made from old things that once came in old colors, in olden times. These old things have been sorted and composted and re-mogrified with the extrusive dynamacism of Rainbow Eye-Searing Technology until the vividness is palpable and delectable. WARNING: The most vivid of the hues, especially those that glow in the dark, are not approved for human consumption.
3D Printed Cellphone Covers Rock Your World and are an FDA-approved alternative to unprotected sex. Your time spent selecting a style that is uniquely your own from our catalog is time well spent, because the World of Today is Hand-Crafted To Order (tm). Now that the extrusion of copper wire, electrical engineering, steel fabrication and industrial mass-production has all been supplanted by the industrial mass-production of 3D printers, Mankind now has the leisure time once envisioned by such forward-seers as Orwell and Huxley. Celebrate your future! You are you and you is good. Select a cell phone cover today.
We don't need to gollump across the desert slinging a rifle Mad Max style. We don't need expressive faces. We don't need stair climber ballet dancers. We don't need batteries. We need not rely on radio controlled operation. We don't need autonomous operation. We just need to lean around corners, extend and hook onto things, retract to pull ourselves along and extend again to get a camera and radiation monitor on a swivel close enough to far corners to answer the most pressing questions. A tentacle with two to three stages, each stage consisting of three to six sections that uncurl and and curl back like flower petals controlled by a human operator practiced in this dynamic of movement. Because the apparatus unfolds to navigate yet is flexible in its collapsed form, when there is equipment failure or the mission is accomplished it need only be pulled back out by its umbilicus. By smart apelike hominids flexing their strong muscles. To replace components, refine the actuators or (if based on Nexus 5) harassing or whacking or replacing the flaky power button to keep it from constantly rebooting.
Perhaps the Fukushima prize will be taken by a couple of bicycle mechanics from Kitty Hawk, NC with a design that uses no electronics whatsoever, aside from the payload.
APPLE INNOVATION SURVIVAL KIT
ONLY BREAK SEAL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
Contents of Packet A: Introduction of new streaming iTunes service.
Contents of Packet B: Introduction of new streaming iTunes service.
Contents of Packet C: Introduction of new streaming iTunes service.