Terrestrial life has evolved to be able to take advantage of mutations; to the point that some bacteria generate their own mutagens. These guys won't be able to unless we program it in (and we certainly aren't good enough to do that yet!).
Given that these organisms will be hand made by scientists using existing genes I would say that, no, there isn't any danger.
For a very, very long time organisms have been thinking of ways to kill, parisitize, and otherwise screw their competition. Even the simpleist disease virus or bacteria is a master peice of inconcievable sybtlety by the standards of what we can cerate in test tubes this way.
The organisms in the article, on the other hand will be very, very simple. They won't even have unexpressed genes that could turn on and cause problems. Before we worry about these things turning into weapons, I'd like to see one capable of surviving outside a peti dish or growth tank.
The real danger from genetic engineering comes from the alteration of existing masterpieces like influenza, AIDS, Ebola, etc. A recent accident in Australia shows that it is possible to make diseases more deatly by simple alterations (in the example cuasing death in rabits rather than sterility).
Nanotechnology also presents dangers, since it allows us to make organisms out of things more robust than sugar, protien, and lipids; but that still seems to be decades in the future.
enhanced vision/augmented reality
on
Synthetic Vision
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· Score: 1
Many other people call this augmented reality, but Steve Mann thinks that of the useful functions of the system would be to screen out advitisements, hence "diminished" as well as "augmented" reality forms "enhanced visions."
One unfortunate thing is that it can be hard to get by when one's enhanced vison is suddenly removed, as Mr. Mann's recent troubles show.
I'd also like to note that ideas about augmented reality are pretty central to ubiquitous computing.
What you're describing usually goes by the name of augmented reality (as opposed to virtual reality). Here is a webpage with some good info on it, but you can always just google.
SO, they're *finally* going to release Laputa? Thank goodness, I don't know how many years Miyazaki fans have been wating for this to happen. Now, if only they'd release Nausicaa (no, that abomination, "Warriors of the Wind," doesn't count).
I'm in complete agreement with you, and would mod you up if I wasn't already in this discussion. I would also add that doing nothing has the added cost of sanctions continueing to cripple Iraq. Here's to a quick successful war and a new president!
Oh my gosh! I would never have thought that our military would be able to so completly shake our love affair with attrition. It looks like, instead of "victory disease," we actually took away lessons from teh Gulf War and all the other small conflicts we've had in the last decade, no, century.
"Theoretically, the magnitude of Shock and Awe Rapid Dominance seeks to impose (in extreme cases) is the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese. The Japanese were prepared for suicidal resistance until both nuclear bombs were used. The impact of those weapons was sufficient to transform both the mindset of the average Japanese citizen and the outlook of the leadership through this condition of Shock and Awe. The Japanese simply could not comprehend the destructive power carried by a single airplane. This incomprehension produced a state of awe."
Whoever thought this up has my greatest admiration. Far to few people realize that war is not about killing the enemy, its about accomplishing one's objectives (like making them surrender).
Aside from the numerous defectors who have told us that Iraq has been concealing things, there was that (supposedly destroyed long ago) scud missile that landed in Kuwait last night.
If I were there I'd be scared, rather than sad; it takes some effor, but I can Imagine myself into how I would feel if I were in Bhagdad right now. If I were a Dove, I could feel angry rather than sad, but I've wanted us to invade Iraq for about six years now, so its a bit late for a conversion. All I can say is that, in the end, I'd want someone to invade my country if I lived I present day Iraq, or Stalinist Russia, or 1984.
Re:I hope they have good reasons
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 1
I imagine that assassinating Saddam wouldn't be very easy to do. He never goes ouside except with a bullet-proof vest and armored hat. He has a bunch of doubles. He sleeps in a different place every night. And finally, he is just plain paranoid.
Mind you, I agree that assasination would probably be one of the best possible ways to end the war with a minimum of casualties. Its just that I don't think we'll be able to do it without occupying Iraq first, defeating the purpose.
I pretty much agree. Of course, 10 years ago we had a lot of allies who were despots, and didn't want any sort of precedent involving the US setting up democracies in Arab states, so I can imagine that it might have been hard to do.
However, after a few years it became clear that Iraq just wasn't cooperating, and that he was taking resources meant to feed his citizens and finding other uses for them...to the tune of tens of thousands of deaths a year.
I'm scared of a lot of things right now, like VX being used withing Bhagdad or oil wells on fire; but even my most pessimistic estimates of what could be brought on by this war pail in comparison to what has been happening in Iraq every one of the last 10 years.
My eyes water as I write this, because saying this I've endorsed the deaths of more people than I can properly comprehend. I'm also sure that there must be a better way somehow, maybe even one that someone has thought of; but things can't remain as they are, and a war seems like the only thing that is going to change them.
I'm talking about the steady state condition in the above, so there shouldn't be any radial velocity at all.
Re:The necessary material DOESN'T EXIST
on
The Space Elevator
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· Score: 1
Graphite is only slippery when there is some gas between the planes. Early satlite designers didn't know this, and many failures resulted before this was fixed.
Arthur C Clarke actually deal with this issue in "Fountains of Paradise," the book that introduced the concept of the space elivator to the western world. I can assure you he come up with a way of fixing it, and others have too.
I'm not so worried about this thing hitting the water as you are. The falling elivator in KSR's first Mars book was a lot heavier and falling in negligale atmosphere, so it wasn't slowed down at all. A two centimeter wide piece of carbon string just doesn't have a very high terminal velocity, and doens't have enough mass to cause a very big wave-I'd say a meter at the very most.
Actually it would wrap. The section near the Earth is only going at the same velocity as the surface of the Earth, but the parts higher up have to have a higher linear velocity, in order to have the same rotational velocity (lower case omega) as the rest of the structure. Thus, as they fall they will start having a higher and higher velocity with respect to the surface, and they really will wrap.
1: The Red Mars Elivator was much, much, much thicker than the one being proposed here. 2: Earth has a real atmosphere, where you can feel a 20 MPH wind...unlike Mars. 3: Due to 1 and 2, the fact that the Red Mars elivator doens't burn up doesn't even suggest that the proposed one wouldn't.
The "Ringworld" in Halo is much much smaller than The Ringworld, and the details actually seem to come from another source. In Ian M. Bank's Culture series, there are structures called habitats which are like ringworld, except much smaller. Since they are smaller they can be put into real orbits, and don't have to worry about falling into the sun. Also, one habitat rotation producing about 1 G takes 24 hours, eliminating the need for shades like The Ringworld had.
There is another Banks reference in Halo too. When ship is attacked the Captain refers to downloading information into his "neural lace." That is a term Banks used for a computer in someone's head, htough other people have used it too.
Don't judge MOO3's manual before you read it. Oh, and another game that has a really great manual is Europa Universalis. I've learned much more history playing that game than in High School.
No, there is no way a virus from your DNA computer could ever infect you.
Look at a normal virus; it enters your cell and hijacks the cellular machinery to copy itself a zillion times. It may effect the DNA already in the cell, but only to carry out its other goals.
Now look at a DNA virus. There are certain DNA sequences in your genome that can copy over themselvs to other locations when DNA is copied, just like a computer virus. A DNA computer would be vulnerable to this and you are too, but the only way to be infected is from your parents, so you don't have to worry about a DNA computer infecting you... well, at least not accidentally (can't forget retroviruses).
You know, "most" American TV shows and movies don't compare to LOTR either. Just like any other entertainment industry, anime has its exceptional (Grave of the Fireflies), its good (Nadesico), and its bad (Vandread). I think that in some ways the average anime is better than the average American show/movie; but their are exceptions to every rule, and it is impossible to compare single works to entire industries.
And speaking of a comic book winning the Nobel prize: I think that Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, a manga by Miyazaki, is easily the equal of any of the Nobel prize winning novels I've read. The medium; comic book book, novel, animated or live action movie; is of trivial importance when measured against the vision of the creator.
There is one series that I think makes a wonderful companion to Dune, exploring some similar issues with equal depth. Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) by Hayao Miyazaki (the Princess Mononoke guy) is one of the best works of science fiction I've ever read, and is debatably the best Manga ever written.
Slashdot Mirror
Terrestrial life has evolved to be able to take advantage of mutations; to the point that some bacteria generate their own mutagens. These guys won't be able to unless we program it in (and we certainly aren't good enough to do that yet!).
Given that these organisms will be hand made by scientists using existing genes I would say that, no, there isn't any danger.
For a very, very long time organisms have been thinking of ways to kill, parisitize, and otherwise screw their competition. Even the simpleist disease virus or bacteria is a master peice of inconcievable sybtlety by the standards of what we can cerate in test tubes this way.
The organisms in the article, on the other hand will be very, very simple. They won't even have unexpressed genes that could turn on and cause problems. Before we worry about these things turning into weapons, I'd like to see one capable of surviving outside a peti dish or growth tank.
The real danger from genetic engineering comes from the alteration of existing masterpieces like influenza, AIDS, Ebola, etc. A recent accident in Australia shows that it is possible to make diseases more deatly by simple alterations (in the example cuasing death in rabits rather than sterility).
Nanotechnology also presents dangers, since it allows us to make organisms out of things more robust than sugar, protien, and lipids; but that still seems to be decades in the future.
Many other people call this augmented reality, but Steve Mann thinks that of the useful functions of the system would be to screen out advitisements, hence "diminished" as well as "augmented" reality forms "enhanced visions."
One unfortunate thing is that it can be hard to get by when one's enhanced vison is suddenly removed, as Mr. Mann's recent troubles show.
I'd also like to note that ideas about augmented reality are pretty central to ubiquitous computing.
What you're describing usually goes by the name of augmented reality (as opposed to virtual reality). Here is a webpage with some good info on it, but you can always just google.
Even if you can't do everything with this gear that you could with good weather, it can still be very valuable.
SO, they're *finally* going to release Laputa? Thank goodness, I don't know how many years Miyazaki fans have been wating for this to happen. Now, if only they'd release Nausicaa (no, that abomination, "Warriors of the Wind," doesn't count).
I'm in complete agreement with you, and would mod you up if I wasn't already in this discussion. I would also add that doing nothing has the added cost of sanctions continueing to cripple Iraq. Here's to a quick successful war and a new president!
Don't forget those iraqi dissidents in other countries who sometimes get videos in the Mail of the family they left behind being rapes either.
Nor the Iraqis killed for making a point of not boting for the candidates Saddam has offered them.
Nor the Shiites, who make up the repressed majority of the Iraq population.
Oh my gosh! I would never have thought that our military would be able to so completly shake our love affair with attrition. It looks like, instead of "victory disease," we actually took away lessons from teh Gulf War and all the other small conflicts we've had in the last decade, no, century.
"Theoretically, the magnitude of Shock and Awe Rapid Dominance seeks to impose (in extreme cases) is the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese. The Japanese were prepared for suicidal resistance until both nuclear bombs were used. The impact of those weapons was sufficient to transform both the mindset of the average Japanese citizen and the outlook of the leadership through this condition of Shock and Awe. The Japanese simply could not comprehend the destructive power carried by a single airplane. This incomprehension produced a state of awe."
Whoever thought this up has my greatest admiration. Far to few people realize that war is not about killing the enemy, its about accomplishing one's objectives (like making them surrender).
Aside from the numerous defectors who have told us that Iraq has been concealing things, there was that (supposedly destroyed long ago) scud missile that landed in Kuwait last night.
If I were there I'd be scared, rather than sad; it takes some effor, but I can Imagine myself into how I would feel if I were in Bhagdad right now. If I were a Dove, I could feel angry rather than sad, but I've wanted us to invade Iraq for about six years now, so its a bit late for a conversion. All I can say is that, in the end, I'd want someone to invade my country if I lived I present day Iraq, or Stalinist Russia, or 1984.
I imagine that assassinating Saddam wouldn't be very easy to do. He never goes ouside except with a bullet-proof vest and armored hat. He has a bunch of doubles. He sleeps in a different place every night. And finally, he is just plain paranoid.
Mind you, I agree that assasination would probably be one of the best possible ways to end the war with a minimum of casualties. Its just that I don't think we'll be able to do it without occupying Iraq first, defeating the purpose.
I pretty much agree. Of course, 10 years ago we had a lot of allies who were despots, and didn't want any sort of precedent involving the US setting up democracies in Arab states, so I can imagine that it might have been hard to do.
However, after a few years it became clear that Iraq just wasn't cooperating, and that he was taking resources meant to feed his citizens and finding other uses for them...to the tune of tens of thousands of deaths a year.
I'm scared of a lot of things right now, like VX being used withing Bhagdad or oil wells on fire; but even my most pessimistic estimates of what could be brought on by this war pail in comparison to what has been happening in Iraq every one of the last 10 years.
My eyes water as I write this, because saying this I've endorsed the deaths of more people than I can properly comprehend. I'm also sure that there must be a better way somehow, maybe even one that someone has thought of; but things can't remain as they are, and a war seems like the only thing that is going to change them.
I'm talking about the steady state condition in the above, so there shouldn't be any radial velocity at all.
Graphite is only slippery when there is some gas between the planes. Early satlite designers didn't know this, and many failures resulted before this was fixed.
Arthur C Clarke actually deal with this issue in "Fountains of Paradise," the book that introduced the concept of the space elivator to the western world. I can assure you he come up with a way of fixing it, and others have too.
I'm not so worried about this thing hitting the water as you are. The falling elivator in KSR's first Mars book was a lot heavier and falling in negligale atmosphere, so it wasn't slowed down at all. A two centimeter wide piece of carbon string just doesn't have a very high terminal velocity, and doens't have enough mass to cause a very big wave-I'd say a meter at the very most.
Actually it would wrap. The section near the Earth is only going at the same velocity as the surface of the Earth, but the parts higher up have to have a higher linear velocity, in order to have the same rotational velocity (lower case omega) as the rest of the structure. Thus, as they fall they will start having a higher and higher velocity with respect to the surface, and they really will wrap.
Some points:
1: The Red Mars Elivator was much, much, much thicker than the one being proposed here.
2: Earth has a real atmosphere, where you can feel a 20 MPH wind...unlike Mars.
3: Due to 1 and 2, the fact that the Red Mars elivator doens't burn up doesn't even suggest that the proposed one wouldn't.
The "Ringworld" in Halo is much much smaller than The Ringworld, and the details actually seem to come from another source. In Ian M. Bank's Culture series, there are structures called habitats which are like ringworld, except much smaller. Since they are smaller they can be put into real orbits, and don't have to worry about falling into the sun. Also, one habitat rotation producing about 1 G takes 24 hours, eliminating the need for shades like The Ringworld had.
There is another Banks reference in Halo too. When ship is attacked the Captain refers to downloading information into his "neural lace." That is a term Banks used for a computer in someone's head, htough other people have used it too.
Don't judge MOO3's manual before you read it. Oh, and another game that has a really great manual is Europa Universalis. I've learned much more history playing that game than in High School.
No, there is no way a virus from your DNA computer could ever infect you.
Look at a normal virus; it enters your cell and hijacks the cellular machinery to copy itself a zillion times. It may effect the DNA already in the cell, but only to carry out its other goals.
Now look at a DNA virus. There are certain DNA sequences in your genome that can copy over themselvs to other locations when DNA is copied, just like a computer virus. A DNA computer would be vulnerable to this and you are too, but the only way to be infected is from your parents, so you don't have to worry about a DNA computer infecting you... well, at least not accidentally (can't forget retroviruses).
You know, "most" American TV shows and movies don't compare to LOTR either. Just like any other entertainment industry, anime has its exceptional (Grave of the Fireflies), its good (Nadesico), and its bad (Vandread). I think that in some ways the average anime is better than the average American show/movie; but their are exceptions to every rule, and it is impossible to compare single works to entire industries.
And speaking of a comic book winning the Nobel prize: I think that Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, a manga by Miyazaki, is easily the equal of any of the Nobel prize winning novels I've read. The medium; comic book book, novel, animated or live action movie; is of trivial importance when measured against the vision of the creator.
There is one series that I think makes a wonderful companion to Dune, exploring some similar issues with equal depth. Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind) by Hayao Miyazaki (the Princess Mononoke guy) is one of the best works of science fiction I've ever read, and is debatably the best Manga ever written.
You know, outlawing explosive bullets in war actually worked pretty well.