Er, I'm not sure that mankind can compete with nature for worst extinction events.
Take the dino-killer impact. (The Yucatan one, for those who believe in the multiple impact theories.) That released more energy in one event than what would be released if every single nuke on the earth was detonated.
Global nuclear stockpiles: About 5,000 megatons (first google hit).
Yucatan impact: 100,000,000 megatons. (first google hit as well).
Mother nature hates her children somedays. Humanity is a poor second when it comes to the damage nature has done.
People continue to give in to these sort of ridiculous claims due to only one thing: white guilt. People were very mean to them a long time ago and as such many whites feel bad about their hateful and genocidal Caucasian forebearers. The populations that might benefit from this see an opportunity and exploit it just as anybody would. If you told me I could get special benefits just because I was a read-headed guy with Irish parents I'd be all over that. I can't get benefits for this but other people can get benefits for similarly innate characteristics.
Well, looking at my family history as far back as I can trace, I think it is safe to assume that out of the white ancestors I have (the majority), almost all of the hating and killing were against other whites, specifically white Europeans.
In fact, from what I can tell, the side of my family that did most of the killing of non-whites was the small percentage of my ancestors who were non-white. That side was also the side that ended up stealing the land of other non-whites.
That's a pretty good cover story. Really they had to radiation-shield the pentagram that locks down the devil at its center, with lots of authoritarian human bodies to absorb the extremely high frequencies that scorch souls.
What a bunch of superstitious bullshit.
Devils don't exist.
Everyone knows it is a captured shoggoth from the 1930s Miskatonic University Antarctic expedition...
Domestication did happen in the Americas. If nothing else, the llama was domesticated, as was the turkey, guinea pig, etc.
Unfortunately, due to how North and South America are laid out (north to south, instead of east-to-west like Eurasia), domestication from one region didn't tend to spread as quickly (if at all) to other regions. This applies to both domestic animals as well as domestic plants. And without some sort of herding culture becoming widespread, what encouragement is there to attempt to domesticate other animals? (North America alone has the American bison, mountain goats, wild sheep, peccaries, several other large land animals, and plenty of fowl.)
And speaking of domestication, look at Africa. It shares the same North/South orientation as the Americas, and it is very rich in large land animals. However, very few domesticated species arose in Africa. Africa may tend to share another problem that the Americans do: Many of the large animals are, for one reason or another, difficult to domesticate. Preferrably, one wants a creature that forms herds, isn't territorial, recognizes a herd leader, has a fast growth rate, and can be bred in captivity.
Oh come one, you know this is bullshit. Countries like that are still busy getting their economy up and running. You seriously think they should be held to the same standard as the US, who's carbon emission per capita is WAY higher than any of those countries ? (e.g. 6 times higher as China). Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
The US tends to produce about $2,000 worth of goods for every ton of CO2 emissions.
China produces about $500 worth of goods for every ton of CO2 emissions
There's room to grow up (the EU averages about twice as much output as the US, and some EU nations that tend to rely heavily on hydroelectric and/or nuclear do much better than the US, such as France (being a G8 nation, and producing almost 3x as much goods as the US for the same amount of CO2 emissions), but the US is far from being the most inefficient nation.
I suspect that the US will always have higher CO2 emissions than much of Europe, due to the US climate (we do have some large cities in rather cold regions -- Minneapolis, for example), and our lower population density (transportation, including mass transit if viable, won't be as efficient as Europe).
OTOH, the US would do wonders if its electricity generation looked more like France's. If, in the US, we went from 20% nuclear power to 90% nuclear power (replacing the 70% of US power generated from natural gas, coal and petroleum), we'd basically eliminate the third of our greenhouse gasses emissions that come from electricity generation, and end up being producing more goods per ton of CO2 emissions. As a bonus, nuclear power has had an excellent track record powering another industrial nation (France). Too bad that the ecological left in the US tends to hate nuclear power.
Re:Changes over time?
on
MacGyver Physics
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There is a beautiful essay by Feynman about the classical rats-in-a-maze experiment, and how the scientist discovered that he had to change many conditions of the maze before the rats would learn how to run the maze themselves, instead of relying on other navigational information.
Feynman also comments that this scientist's work with rats was more or less completely ignored, and the rest of the field continued to run their rats-in-a-maze experiments the traditional old-fashioned way.
An energy efficient house doesn't command a premium on the market.
Considering that most people do not live in the same house for a long time, why should they build a house and pay much more for an energy efficient house than they'd spend heating a less efficient house for the few years they live there?
PS: I think you are attacking the problem from the wrong angle -- while energy conservation can be useful, going against human nature is hard. The world is going to crave more energy, especially with a richer third world. Lets concentrate on developing new energy sources and encouraging the more widespread use of existing, greener energy sources.
Problem: People (children included) seek viable mates via MySpace. Prospective mates turn out to be rapists or sexual deviants.
Solution A: Don't seek mates on MySpace & teach your children common sense about acceptable human mating practices. Show your children how to safely use the internet, how to meet real people and make friends in reality instead of through a virtual layer.
Problem: People seek viable mates via Real Life(tm). Prospective mates turn out to be rapists, sexual deviants, or just plain psycho.
Solution: Don't seek mates in Real Life.
Benefits: More time to read Slashdot, learn tiddlywinks, try Linux From Scratch, and watch every episode of Futurama until the scripts are memorized.
40k fewer deaths to the flu, and 40k more to malaria in Ethiopia.
I dislike this line of thinking, because I think it is fundamentally flawed and treats climate as the single major cause of malaria.
The heat and humidity in Africa may be part of the factor in malaria deaths, but it isn't the only factor.
Right now, I'm looking at a chart of malarious areas in the US. And yes, malaria was once common in the southern US and in southern Europe. Now it is relatively rare. Why? Not because of climate change, but because of healthy economies, active public health policies, prevention and treatment.
You want to reduce malaria cases in Africa? Don't concentrate on preventing any climate change, concentrate on prevention and treatment. Concentrate on improving Africa's economy. Sure, Africa has tropical diseases, but they are major problems because of the horrible poverty in Africa.
PS: Speaking of diseases, measles is one of the major killers in Africa. Yet measles is no longer native to the western hemisphere. Why? Stronger economies and a better focus on public health has lead to measles eradication in North and South America.
If he has "over-unity" devices that work, start selling power back to the power companies. If they get suspicious, attach an old solar cell to your roof.
Use the money from that to keep ramping up the scale until you are a power company. Or do electric car conversions. Or whatnot.
For the record, I'm extremely skeptical of over-unity energy claims. But I do want to point out that a device doesn't have to be scientifically accepted before it makes its owner a ton of money.
However the first dark skinned modern humans to penetrate into the gloomy north would tend towards vit D deficiency and there would be a selective pressure towards lighter skinned individuals, able to produce enough vit d, surviving to reproduce. Nothing todo with inbreeding with archaics, simple eh?
So why do Tasmanians have darker skins than northern Europeans, even though much of northern Europe was still under glaciers when the Tasmanians settled in Tasmania?
While darker skin pigment may be beneficial in sunnier regions, from what I know of vitamin D generation, the case for lighter skin in darker regions isn't that strong, and I'm more prone to believe those who consider skin color to be strongly influenced by a founder effect or by sexual selection.
PS: How sunny is it in the rainforest? Just because a region is equatoral doesn't make it as sunny.
Just switch to nuclear power.
Sure, it will run out eventually (and eventually depends on what fuels you are using, what fuel cycle you have chosen, and if you want to consider exotic fuel sources like seawater extraction of radioactive materials), but if you do things right, you'll end up with many millions of years to find another technology and probably lower the deaths due to traditional power generation.
Of course, nuclear is scary, so this won't happen. After all, nuclear has killed people. Luckily, all other energy sources (especially renewable energy sources) cause no deaths.
Its good to be king, if just for a while
To be there in velvet, yeah, to give em a smile
Its good to get high, and never come down
Its good to be king of your own little town
Yeah the world would swing if I were king
Can I help it if I still dream time to time
If you are talking science in the movies (instead of just computers), "Sneakers" has a very plausible mechanism for a 'universal' decrypter: a mathmatician discovers a way to factor large numbers quickly.
Probably it is. Humans have both an ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions, and a capacity for modifying said environment shared by no other creature on Earth.
So, the issue isn't really, are we ruining the holy earth and should we immediately move heaven and earth (so to speak) to restore it to some static, Platonic, ideal. The issue is, are we prepared to deal with the human fallout when 144x10^6 Bengalis decide they 're not going to quietly slip beneath the waves to avoid inconveniencing us. Foreign aid directed towards building Polders in affected areas, controlled migrations starting now while low-lying areas are converted to non-permanently inhabited farmland, and similar moves are probably warranted, unless you want to take the chance that some enterprising soul isn't going to come up with the "relocate us to Kansas or we set off a Nuke in NY Harbor" solution.
Is Bangladesh's problem due more to global warming and sea level rises or is it due to crushing poverty amplifying the effects of flooding, storms, and rising sea levels?
While wikipedia does blame mild winter for pine beetle outbreaks, it also blames the state of British Columbia forests for the outbreaks, saying that the forests are "overaged" which contributes to the rapid spread of pine beetle outbreaks.
I'm not a forester (nor do I play one on TV), but I wouldn't be surprised if there is more factors than locally mild winters.
Scientists may be baffled by the decline in penguin population, but (judging by the story tag) slashdotters seem to be assuming that it is global warming.
Isaac Asimov, I think, had a book that postulated the granting of citizenship rights to a genetically engineered chimpanzee. I don't remember the name off hand. The court room scene where the elements of self-awareness and intelligence are examined are impressive, and quite funny at times!
That sounds like a short story by Robert A Heinlein titled Jerry Was a Man.
Actually, I thought that US law states that it is illegal to leave the country for the purpose of participating in sexual activity with a minor.
So the crime isn't sex with a minor (that's outside US jurisdiction) but leaving the country for that purpose.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
First it has been shown water does flow away from Yucca. I didn't find what I was looking for but I did find this about a study DOE will do, DOE to Study Yucca Mountain Water Flow and DOE did not apply its own geologic site criteria (pdf), this subsection is about half way down. Now onto how much radioactivity water will pick up, if the casks are crushed water won't just flow over the top of the casks, water can enter the casks as well. Water will then be irradiated itself as well as carry off radioactive particals that have dissolved.
Just because water is irradiated doesn't necessarily mean that it will become radioactive.
Assuming that ground water is flowing through porous rock, the dispension of any particles should be limited as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would the nanobots reproduce only nanobots?
Repeat the process to get a copy of yourself back. Perhaps it would even be possible to merge the memories and personalities back into the original.
Er, I'm not sure that mankind can compete with nature for worst extinction events.
Take the dino-killer impact. (The Yucatan one, for those who believe in the multiple impact theories.) That released more energy in one event than what would be released if every single nuke on the earth was detonated.
Global nuclear stockpiles: About 5,000 megatons (first google hit).
Yucatan impact: 100,000,000 megatons. (first google hit as well).
Mother nature hates her children somedays. Humanity is a poor second when it comes to the damage nature has done.
Well, looking at my family history as far back as I can trace, I think it is safe to assume that out of the white ancestors I have (the majority), almost all of the hating and killing were against other whites, specifically white Europeans.
In fact, from what I can tell, the side of my family that did most of the killing of non-whites was the small percentage of my ancestors who were non-white. That side was also the side that ended up stealing the land of other non-whites.
What the above means, I don't know.
What a bunch of superstitious bullshit.
Devils don't exist.
Everyone knows it is a captured shoggoth from the 1930s Miskatonic University Antarctic expedition...
Domestication did happen in the Americas. If nothing else, the llama was domesticated, as was the turkey, guinea pig, etc.
Unfortunately, due to how North and South America are laid out (north to south, instead of east-to-west like Eurasia), domestication from one region didn't tend to spread as quickly (if at all) to other regions. This applies to both domestic animals as well as domestic plants. And without some sort of herding culture becoming widespread, what encouragement is there to attempt to domesticate other animals? (North America alone has the American bison, mountain goats, wild sheep, peccaries, several other large land animals, and plenty of fowl.)
And speaking of domestication, look at Africa. It shares the same North/South orientation as the Americas, and it is very rich in large land animals. However, very few domesticated species arose in Africa. Africa may tend to share another problem that the Americans do: Many of the large animals are, for one reason or another, difficult to domesticate. Preferrably, one wants a creature that forms herds, isn't territorial, recognizes a herd leader, has a fast growth rate, and can be bred in captivity.
The US tends to produce about $2,000 worth of goods for every ton of CO2 emissions.
China produces about $500 worth of goods for every ton of CO2 emissions
There's room to grow up (the EU averages about twice as much output as the US, and some EU nations that tend to rely heavily on hydroelectric and/or nuclear do much better than the US, such as France (being a G8 nation, and producing almost 3x as much goods as the US for the same amount of CO2 emissions), but the US is far from being the most inefficient nation.
I suspect that the US will always have higher CO2 emissions than much of Europe, due to the US climate (we do have some large cities in rather cold regions -- Minneapolis, for example), and our lower population density (transportation, including mass transit if viable, won't be as efficient as Europe).
OTOH, the US would do wonders if its electricity generation looked more like France's. If, in the US, we went from 20% nuclear power to 90% nuclear power (replacing the 70% of US power generated from natural gas, coal and petroleum), we'd basically eliminate the third of our greenhouse gasses emissions that come from electricity generation, and end up being producing more goods per ton of CO2 emissions. As a bonus, nuclear power has had an excellent track record powering another industrial nation (France). Too bad that the ecological left in the US tends to hate nuclear power.
There is a beautiful essay by Feynman about the classical rats-in-a-maze experiment, and how the scientist discovered that he had to change many conditions of the maze before the rats would learn how to run the maze themselves, instead of relying on other navigational information.
Feynman also comments that this scientist's work with rats was more or less completely ignored, and the rest of the field continued to run their rats-in-a-maze experiments the traditional old-fashioned way.
Don't ask me, I'm still stuck on how this is 'steampunk'.
Are rayguns steampunk technology?
Or has the 'steampunk' genre evolved into anything goes in a Victorian-era setting?
An energy efficient house doesn't command a premium on the market.
Considering that most people do not live in the same house for a long time, why should they build a house and pay much more for an energy efficient house than they'd spend heating a less efficient house for the few years they live there?
PS: I think you are attacking the problem from the wrong angle -- while energy conservation can be useful, going against human nature is hard. The world is going to crave more energy, especially with a richer third world. Lets concentrate on developing new energy sources and encouraging the more widespread use of existing, greener energy sources.
Problem: People seek viable mates via Real Life(tm). Prospective mates turn out to be rapists, sexual deviants, or just plain psycho.
Solution: Don't seek mates in Real Life.
Benefits: More time to read Slashdot, learn tiddlywinks, try Linux From Scratch, and watch every episode of Futurama until the scripts are memorized.
I dislike this line of thinking, because I think it is fundamentally flawed and treats climate as the single major cause of malaria.
The heat and humidity in Africa may be part of the factor in malaria deaths, but it isn't the only factor.
Right now, I'm looking at a chart of malarious areas in the US. And yes, malaria was once common in the southern US and in southern Europe. Now it is relatively rare. Why? Not because of climate change, but because of healthy economies, active public health policies, prevention and treatment.
You want to reduce malaria cases in Africa? Don't concentrate on preventing any climate change, concentrate on prevention and treatment. Concentrate on improving Africa's economy. Sure, Africa has tropical diseases, but they are major problems because of the horrible poverty in Africa.
PS: Speaking of diseases, measles is one of the major killers in Africa. Yet measles is no longer native to the western hemisphere. Why? Stronger economies and a better focus on public health has lead to measles eradication in North and South America.
Fuck that.
If he has "over-unity" devices that work, start selling power back to the power companies. If they get suspicious, attach an old solar cell to your roof.
Use the money from that to keep ramping up the scale until you are a power company. Or do electric car conversions. Or whatnot.
For the record, I'm extremely skeptical of over-unity energy claims. But I do want to point out that a device doesn't have to be scientifically accepted before it makes its owner a ton of money.
So why do Tasmanians have darker skins than northern Europeans, even though much of northern Europe was still under glaciers when the Tasmanians settled in Tasmania?
While darker skin pigment may be beneficial in sunnier regions, from what I know of vitamin D generation, the case for lighter skin in darker regions isn't that strong, and I'm more prone to believe those who consider skin color to be strongly influenced by a founder effect or by sexual selection.
PS: How sunny is it in the rainforest? Just because a region is equatoral doesn't make it as sunny.
Just switch to nuclear power. Sure, it will run out eventually (and eventually depends on what fuels you are using, what fuel cycle you have chosen, and if you want to consider exotic fuel sources like seawater extraction of radioactive materials), but if you do things right, you'll end up with many millions of years to find another technology and probably lower the deaths due to traditional power generation. Of course, nuclear is scary, so this won't happen. After all, nuclear has killed people. Luckily, all other energy sources (especially renewable energy sources) cause no deaths.
I thought that Evan Bayh would be viable Democratic candidate for '08, due to his more centralist views.
Too bad he dropped out in December of last year.
Its good to be king, if just for a while
To be there in velvet, yeah, to give em a smile
Its good to get high, and never come down
Its good to be king of your own little town
Yeah the world would swing if I were king
Can I help it if I still dream time to time
If you are talking science in the movies (instead of just computers), "Sneakers" has a very plausible mechanism for a 'universal' decrypter: a mathmatician discovers a way to factor large numbers quickly.
The cyanobacteria and kin are laughing at you.
Is Bangladesh's problem due more to global warming and sea level rises or is it due to crushing poverty amplifying the effects of flooding, storms, and rising sea levels?
While wikipedia does blame mild winter for pine beetle outbreaks, it also blames the state of British Columbia forests for the outbreaks, saying that the forests are "overaged" which contributes to the rapid spread of pine beetle outbreaks.
I'm not a forester (nor do I play one on TV), but I wouldn't be surprised if there is more factors than locally mild winters.
Scientists may be baffled by the decline in penguin population, but (judging by the story tag) slashdotters seem to be assuming that it is global warming.
Credit Suisse silver pieces?
That sounds like a short story by Robert A Heinlein titled Jerry Was a Man.
Actually, I thought that US law states that it is illegal to leave the country for the purpose of participating in sexual activity with a minor. So the crime isn't sex with a minor (that's outside US jurisdiction) but leaving the country for that purpose. Disclaimer: IANAL.
Just because water is irradiated doesn't necessarily mean that it will become radioactive.
Assuming that ground water is flowing through porous rock, the dispension of any particles should be limited as well.