When windmills were first brought to Ontario, there were a number of bird deaths but after a while these decreased to zero and now you'll see birds fly between the blades of windmills, playing with them. Deer that aren't around humans are easier targets for hunters. Shouldn't the same thing happen with hedgehogs and lawnmowers?
It's a form of (un)natural selection, the hedgehogs's environment has changed and the ones that are more cautious and wary of the lawnmowers will become the ones that survive and move forwards.
When hedgehogs perceive danger they roll up in a ball.
If they evolved to run instead, they might become more vulnerable to predators such as foxes and badgers because they can get past the spines easier.
I use a formula for all of my password websites (but it's actually very different to the one above, I don't think anyone could ever reverse engineer my password to figure out my formula
If I saw your password for two sites I'd know generally what you're doing, and what the invariant portion is. What's left is a 4-6 character alphanumeric password; maximum entropy 31 bits. You really don't gain a great deal with the invariant string, other than fooling password strength meters, and maybe yourself.
Not that I am going to give away my passwords, but I guarantee you wouldn't be able to figure out my formula from knowing any two passwords.:)
I myself rarely get motion sickness but the thought of having a VR unit while the plain is bumping, changing altitudes, speeding up or slowing down just makes me sick thinking of it.
This was my immediate thought and came here to make a similar comment. Some people get travel sickness; many people feel nauseous from VR. Combining the two seem like an absolutely ridiculous idea. The barf bag industry must have petitioned the airline to give VR a try.
I've noticed that economy class seats have got a lot better in the last few years. Used to be that sleeping was next to impossible, there was just no support for your head and lower back. They are still not great but a hell of a lot better than they used to be.
For noise foam earplugs can't be beaten for comfort. The only down side is that there is nowhere to store them when you need to take them out temporarily. The pointless magazine/safety leaflet pouch could be a lot more useful.
How often do you travel? Could it just be you got lucky recently?
Yeah! The BEST most insightful thing to using a phone whose SOLE feature is apps that extend it... is to NOT use apps.
The BEST way to not get viruses from the internet isn't to make secure browsers, but instead, visit ZERO websites. I've been using Internet Explorer 5 for over a decade with no viruses!
You can still get a virus on a machine connected to the internet without visiting a website if you don't have a firewall.
This is why I just use the same password for everything. It's much easier to remember, and more secure since I don't have to write it down or store it anywhere.
Better idea than that... make up a formula something like: The third letter from the name of the website. (so for example Slashdot that would be "a"). Then take that letter's position in the alphabet (1). Then take the 5th letter and do the same. And then finish with some random string you use in common across all websites such as "passwud123##" to pad the length. The formula would give you:
a1h8passwud123##
Easy to remember, and if someone got a hold of one password they wouldn't be able to apply it directly to any other website. I use a formula for all of my password websites (but it's actually very different to the one above, I don't think anyone could ever reverse engineer my password to figure out my formula- the example above they could if they tried- best to use a formula that would only have meaning to you so it can't be reverse engineered but is quick for you to figure out)
Baby dragonflies feast almost exclusively on baby mosquitoes. If you kill all the mosquitoes you will likely kill all the dragonflies. Adult dragonflies are an apex predator in the insect world and there are likely a lot of bugs that dragonflies eat that we wouldn't want more of.
Not almost exclusively. It is certainly a portion of their diet (as it is for many species). They get more nutrition from tadpoles, cadis fly larvae, baby fish, daphnia, ostropods, planaria, snails, and all sorts of other micro fauna. Mosquito larvae is just a part of their diet. They're also not particular about the species of mosquito. Only a small percentage of mosquito species bite people. You could wipe out the dangerous mosquitos and leave "human-friendly" ones alone- so their larvae and adults alike can be consumed.
>...it was discovered that glutamate, a foundational neurotransmitter, modulated the rate of transmission.
Possible tie in with MSG headaches? (Wikipedia says double-blind experiments have failed to find a link between MSG and headache's, but I experience the headaches when not expecting them, only to later determine that something I ate a few hours before did in fact contain MSG.)
I think the problems saying MSG aren't linked to headaches is that- quite likely MSG by itself is not responsible for headaches. MSG combined with lots of salt and oil (as is common in Americanised versions of Asian foods) causes headaches. The combination of those three ingredients in high doses is what causes the problem. Way too many people have "Chinese food" reactions for it to be all in the head. I know I always feel crappy after eating Ameicanized Chinese food but I think it's more a combination of things, salt- fat AND MSG. Salt and fat are combined in lots of food- and MSG is added to other foods without causing problems. I think when you OD on all three- that's when you get the "MSG Reaction".
So, a few survive? I guess in a generation or two (in mosquito generations), we're back to starting point, with mosquitoes resistant to the mutation.
If only a few survive then dangerous diseases like malaria would probably NOT survive. So it wouldn't be a problem if mosquito populations bounced back AFTER the diseases are wiped out. Mosquitos aren't the biggest enemy- the diseases they unwittingly spread are the biggest enemy.
Race indeed is a social construct and not something backed up by biology. Certain genes do exists at higher percents in certain populations though; so it is theoretically possible (if not probable) that a "race" could be targeted by a virus... it is a ludicrous idea though.
The great plague was actually good for mankind because it let those that survive live decent lives for a few generations.
He lived in a very different time than us. His theory was correct for his time, but not for ours. Technology has far outpaced our population growth rate since then. Also, earth's human population growth rate is slowing and even declining in many countries. Many industrialised countries produce fewer children than needed to maintain their population. While the developing world may be growing in population, most of the developed world would be shrinking if it weren't for migration effects.
We're not going to hit a Malthusian bubble. Population will stop growing before then.
There are all sorts of things that munch on mosquito's. If you kill the mosquito's, there will be other species that have issues. Everything from the mosquito eggs to the full grown adult, are eaten by other creatures.
Ten dead mosquito's, per cubic meter, ads up to a lot of biomass.
-- In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. - Charles Darwin
Nothing relies heavily on mosquitos for food though. A lot of things eat mosquitos but there is no species that eats ONLY mosquitos. Also, just eliminating species that target humans (a small %) will allow more human-friendly mosquitos to fill the role.
In all the many studies that have been done on this- none have shown mosquitos to be ecologically important to any other species. In fact- mosquitos are regularly wiped out in localized areas using chemical means to control spread of disease and no "food chain crash" has been observed. (although these events are short lived because mosquitos eventually repopulate from neighbouring areas).
The mosquito is probably the safest organism we could eliminate that wouldn't harm the food chain...... they're also easy to breed and keep. We could keep some in a lab and at the rate they repopulate we could reintroduce them to the wild once Malaria and other diseases are wiped out if we noticed a problem being mosquito free.
While I hate mosquitoes, I would suggest caution. Mosquitoes are important in the food chain. If one species of mosquitoes are wiped out, would other insects fill the void? We need to think carefully about the ramifications of this. Of course, reducing the damage and death caused by malaria would be highly beneficial.
It is inconclusive at the moment what long term effect will be, this is something they have done studies on before though.
Mosquitos (and more often their larvae) ARE major source foods for a lot of species- but nothing eats only mosquitos. In areas where mosquitos have been wiped out by chemical means, there was no noticed damage to the rest of the food chain due to no mosquitos as food. (this wasn't long term studies though because Mosquitos always return eventually).
In studies that have been done, it isn't believed wiping out mosquitos will endanger any other species- but we can't be sure and local studies have not been long term.
There is a good chance that wiping out only dangerous species of mosquitos- or perhaps only species that prefer human hosts will be perfectly safe for food chains.
Right. And I just paid my cell phone bill. $40.59 for two phones, mostly on WiFi (and VoIP at home) and that's after taxes. The hidden cost of streaming is right on your phone bill.
Yeah... and it depends on how much data you have and how close you come to using it all.
I use about 1GB streaming Pandora on my phone each month. That's probably listening to it over 4G for a little over an hour per weekday. (I skip songs A LOT- so probably use up more data than the average user). I have a 5GB plan and usually end the month with half my data left so streaming music doesn't cost me more (in terms of data).
Still, he's right what it's not worth $15/month, especially since most of those channels have advertising. If I was a road warrior and was out of internet and radio range a lot, I would buy it. But not worth it otherwise in my opinion.
Ads must be a new phenomenon. I was with Sirius for years and never heard any ads (besides ads for other stations/upcoming features occasionally). I quit earlier in the summer- no ads then.
I do like Pandora at $5 a month because it works on all kinds of devices. I have a friend that had been working on her playlist for months.... I entered her favorite band into Pandora and had it make a playlist, and it had anticipated so many songs that she liked and had in her playlist she kept looking at her phone to confirm it wasn't playing from hers. So, let's hope SiriusXM doesn't destroy Pandora.
Of all the streaming services, Pandora seems to handle multi-genre playlists better than the others.
I'm still kind of surprised that Google and Spotify, with all they know about me and my listening habits, can't seem to figure out that I don't just listen to one genre of music, and why it's possible to like Bauhaus or New Order without liking Flock of Seagulls, or why I might want to hear guitarist Bill Frisell, but not Pat Methany. Or Muddy Waters but not B.B. King. What happened to those services from a decade ago that were going to be able to predict your taste from listening habits?
Also, one problem all the streaming services have is that if I want to shuffle-play my 10,000 song playlist, I don't want to just hear the same 50 songs over and over. There's a reason I have a 10,000 song playlist.
I liked LaunchCast circa 2000. It was ahead of its time great formula for finding new songs.
My main problem with Pandora, if I have one is that it seems to keep picking the same songs for me. Even if start a new station with new seeds- they all always end up playing the same 200 songs or so.
Sirius has issue offering value - they have very expensive satellite radio with only a dozen or so channels. For that they try to charge $15/mo.
Before I cancelled I was paying $8 a month with an a la carte plan that let me pick 50 stations (or some ridiculous amount)- I only regularly listen to about 3 or 4 stations. Pretty crazy not to do the a la carte with Sirius instead of the whole shebang.
If you pay $5 more per month you can stream the same channels online. That just makes it even more overpriced at that price point, though. They are saddled with the legacy of satellite launch costs in a world where people are now willing to stream over cellular. This is actually more expensive, but the cost of unlimited throttled bandwidth is somewhat hidden. If you have metered cellular, then you will not want to stream music while driving.
Pandora uses surprisingly little data streaming. I have a 5 gig plan with my cellphone and play Pandora in my car (I switched from Sirius three or four months ago) I never come close to running out of data. If you're only on a gig or 2 a month or less... yeah, Pandora streaming might not be for you.
Slashdot Mirror
When windmills were first brought to Ontario, there were a number of bird deaths but after a while these decreased to zero and now you'll see birds fly between the blades of windmills, playing with them. Deer that aren't around humans are easier targets for hunters. Shouldn't the same thing happen with hedgehogs and lawnmowers?
It's a form of (un)natural selection, the hedgehogs's environment has changed and the ones that are more cautious and wary of the lawnmowers will become the ones that survive and move forwards.
When hedgehogs perceive danger they roll up in a ball.
If they evolved to run instead, they might become more vulnerable to predators such as foxes and badgers because they can get past the spines easier.
So the lawnmower won't cut the lawn when it is 96-100 degrees?
To be fair, neither will I.
You want to execute the robots?
Sure... and the programmers who didn't build in a Hedgehog protection subroutine.
Hurting hedgehogs should be punished by triple execution: Lethal injection, firing squad, and hanging all simultaneously.
Also I wonder if they will just put robots with rock launchers to kill all anime haters.
Wouldn't that lead to the extinction of humanity? We would kill off all our breeding population?
It's a shame it isn't 1999 anymore.
I would have gone with Moonbase Alpha.
I use a formula for all of my password websites (but it's actually very different to the one above, I don't think anyone could ever reverse engineer my password to figure out my formula
If I saw your password for two sites I'd know generally what you're doing, and what the invariant portion is. What's left is a 4-6 character alphanumeric password; maximum entropy 31 bits. You really don't gain a great deal with the invariant string, other than fooling password strength meters, and maybe yourself.
Not that I am going to give away my passwords, but I guarantee you wouldn't be able to figure out my formula from knowing any two passwords. :)
I myself rarely get motion sickness but the thought of having a VR unit while the plain is bumping, changing altitudes, speeding up or slowing down just makes me sick thinking of it.
This was my immediate thought and came here to make a similar comment. Some people get travel sickness; many people feel nauseous from VR. Combining the two seem like an absolutely ridiculous idea. The barf bag industry must have petitioned the airline to give VR a try.
I've noticed that economy class seats have got a lot better in the last few years. Used to be that sleeping was next to impossible, there was just no support for your head and lower back. They are still not great but a hell of a lot better than they used to be.
For noise foam earplugs can't be beaten for comfort. The only down side is that there is nowhere to store them when you need to take them out temporarily. The pointless magazine/safety leaflet pouch could be a lot more useful.
How often do you travel? Could it just be you got lucky recently?
Yeah! The BEST most insightful thing to using a phone whose SOLE feature is apps that extend it... is to NOT use apps.
The BEST way to not get viruses from the internet isn't to make secure browsers, but instead, visit ZERO websites. I've been using Internet Explorer 5 for over a decade with no viruses!
You can still get a virus on a machine connected to the internet without visiting a website if you don't have a firewall.
This is why I just use the same password for everything. It's much easier to remember, and more secure since I don't have to write it down or store it anywhere.
Better idea than that... make up a formula something like: The third letter from the name of the website. (so for example Slashdot that would be "a"). Then take that letter's position in the alphabet (1). Then take the 5th letter and do the same. And then finish with some random string you use in common across all websites such as "passwud123##" to pad the length. The formula would give you:
a1h8passwud123##
Easy to remember, and if someone got a hold of one password they wouldn't be able to apply it directly to any other website. I use a formula for all of my password websites (but it's actually very different to the one above, I don't think anyone could ever reverse engineer my password to figure out my formula- the example above they could if they tried- best to use a formula that would only have meaning to you so it can't be reverse engineered but is quick for you to figure out)
Baby dragonflies feast almost exclusively on baby mosquitoes. If you kill all the mosquitoes you will likely kill all the dragonflies. Adult dragonflies are an apex predator in the insect world and there are likely a lot of bugs that dragonflies eat that we wouldn't want more of.
Not almost exclusively. It is certainly a portion of their diet (as it is for many species). They get more nutrition from tadpoles, cadis fly larvae, baby fish, daphnia, ostropods, planaria, snails, and all sorts of other micro fauna. Mosquito larvae is just a part of their diet. They're also not particular about the species of mosquito. Only a small percentage of mosquito species bite people. You could wipe out the dangerous mosquitos and leave "human-friendly" ones alone- so their larvae and adults alike can be consumed.
>...it was discovered that glutamate, a foundational neurotransmitter, modulated the rate of transmission.
Possible tie in with MSG headaches? (Wikipedia says double-blind experiments have failed to find a link between MSG and headache's, but I experience the headaches when not expecting them, only to later determine that something I ate a few hours before did in fact contain MSG.)
I think the problems saying MSG aren't linked to headaches is that- quite likely MSG by itself is not responsible for headaches. MSG combined with lots of salt and oil (as is common in Americanised versions of Asian foods) causes headaches. The combination of those three ingredients in high doses is what causes the problem. Way too many people have "Chinese food" reactions for it to be all in the head. I know I always feel crappy after eating Ameicanized Chinese food but I think it's more a combination of things, salt- fat AND MSG. Salt and fat are combined in lots of food- and MSG is added to other foods without causing problems. I think when you OD on all three- that's when you get the "MSG Reaction".
So, a few survive? I guess in a generation or two (in mosquito generations), we're back to starting point, with mosquitoes resistant to the mutation.
If only a few survive then dangerous diseases like malaria would probably NOT survive. So it wouldn't be a problem if mosquito populations bounced back AFTER the diseases are wiped out. Mosquitos aren't the biggest enemy- the diseases they unwittingly spread are the biggest enemy.
Race indeed is a social construct and not something backed up by biology. Certain genes do exists at higher percents in certain populations though; so it is theoretically possible (if not probable) that a "race" could be targeted by a virus... it is a ludicrous idea though.
Indeed. Google the Malthusian Trap.
The great plague was actually good for mankind because it let those that survive live decent lives for a few generations.
He lived in a very different time than us. His theory was correct for his time, but not for ours. Technology has far outpaced our population growth rate since then. Also, earth's human population growth rate is slowing and even declining in many countries. Many industrialised countries produce fewer children than needed to maintain their population. While the developing world may be growing in population, most of the developed world would be shrinking if it weren't for migration effects.
We're not going to hit a Malthusian bubble. Population will stop growing before then.
There are all sorts of things that munch on mosquito's. If you kill the mosquito's, there will be other species that have issues. Everything from the mosquito eggs to the full grown adult, are eaten by other creatures.
Ten dead mosquito's, per cubic meter, ads up to a lot of biomass.
--
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. - Charles Darwin
Nothing relies heavily on mosquitos for food though. A lot of things eat mosquitos but there is no species that eats ONLY mosquitos. Also, just eliminating species that target humans (a small %) will allow more human-friendly mosquitos to fill the role.
In all the many studies that have been done on this- none have shown mosquitos to be ecologically important to any other species. In fact- mosquitos are regularly wiped out in localized areas using chemical means to control spread of disease and no "food chain crash" has been observed. (although these events are short lived because mosquitos eventually repopulate from neighbouring areas).
The mosquito is probably the safest organism we could eliminate that wouldn't harm the food chain... ... they're also easy to breed and keep. We could keep some in a lab and at the rate they repopulate we could reintroduce them to the wild once Malaria and other diseases are wiped out if we noticed a problem being mosquito free.
While I hate mosquitoes, I would suggest caution. Mosquitoes are important in the food chain. If one species of mosquitoes are wiped out, would other insects fill the void? We need to think carefully about the ramifications of this. Of course, reducing the damage and death caused by malaria would be highly beneficial.
It is inconclusive at the moment what long term effect will be, this is something they have done studies on before though.
Mosquitos (and more often their larvae) ARE major source foods for a lot of species- but nothing eats only mosquitos. In areas where mosquitos have been wiped out by chemical means, there was no noticed damage to the rest of the food chain due to no mosquitos as food. (this wasn't long term studies though because Mosquitos always return eventually).
In studies that have been done, it isn't believed wiping out mosquitos will endanger any other species- but we can't be sure and local studies have not been long term.
There is a good chance that wiping out only dangerous species of mosquitos- or perhaps only species that prefer human hosts will be perfectly safe for food chains.
So is the true source of Spiderman's spidey-sense the huntsman spider he stuck up his butt?
My phone carrier doesn't offer less, and it's already the cheapest carrier for my family.
Right. And I just paid my cell phone bill. $40.59 for two phones, mostly on WiFi (and VoIP at home) and that's after taxes. The hidden cost of streaming is right on your phone bill.
Yeah... and it depends on how much data you have and how close you come to using it all.
I use about 1GB streaming Pandora on my phone each month. That's probably listening to it over 4G for a little over an hour per weekday. (I skip songs A LOT- so probably use up more data than the average user). I have a 5GB plan and usually end the month with half my data left so streaming music doesn't cost me more (in terms of data).
Still, he's right what it's not worth $15/month, especially since most of those channels have advertising. If I was a road warrior and was out of internet and radio range a lot, I would buy it. But not worth it otherwise in my opinion.
Ads must be a new phenomenon. I was with Sirius for years and never heard any ads (besides ads for other stations/upcoming features occasionally). I quit earlier in the summer- no ads then.
Of all the streaming services, Pandora seems to handle multi-genre playlists better than the others.
I'm still kind of surprised that Google and Spotify, with all they know about me and my listening habits, can't seem to figure out that I don't just listen to one genre of music, and why it's possible to like Bauhaus or New Order without liking Flock of Seagulls, or why I might want to hear guitarist Bill Frisell, but not Pat Methany. Or Muddy Waters but not B.B. King. What happened to those services from a decade ago that were going to be able to predict your taste from listening habits?
Also, one problem all the streaming services have is that if I want to shuffle-play my 10,000 song playlist, I don't want to just hear the same 50 songs over and over. There's a reason I have a 10,000 song playlist.
I liked LaunchCast circa 2000. It was ahead of its time great formula for finding new songs.
My main problem with Pandora, if I have one is that it seems to keep picking the same songs for me. Even if start a new station with new seeds- they all always end up playing the same 200 songs or so.
Sirius has issue offering value - they have very expensive satellite radio with only a dozen or so channels. For that they try to charge $15/mo.
Before I cancelled I was paying $8 a month with an a la carte plan that let me pick 50 stations (or some ridiculous amount)- I only regularly listen to about 3 or 4 stations. Pretty crazy not to do the a la carte with Sirius instead of the whole shebang.
50 stations oughta be enough for anyone
-- Bill Gates
If you pay $5 more per month you can stream the same channels online. That just makes it even more overpriced at that price point, though. They are saddled with the legacy of satellite launch costs in a world where people are now willing to stream over cellular. This is actually more expensive, but the cost of unlimited throttled bandwidth is somewhat hidden. If you have metered cellular, then you will not want to stream music while driving.
Pandora uses surprisingly little data streaming. I have a 5 gig plan with my cellphone and play Pandora in my car (I switched from Sirius three or four months ago) I never come close to running out of data. If you're only on a gig or 2 a month or less... yeah, Pandora streaming might not be for you.