"Please give us an example of a past mass extinction in which the dominant species on earth continued to be so after the extinction occurred."
Your premise is weak. Give me an example of a past life form on earth which was conscious and able to manipulate it's environment to the extent that we can.
Extinction is the history of the earth. If a species is unsuitable for it's environment it dies out and is replaced by something else. Contrary to popular belief, no species has a right to exist.
It would only concern me if key species that humans depend on were dying out.
These particular words are like gold dust and as such are to be worshipped. They are essentially a blank cheque to play with whatever expensive toys you think you can get your grubby mitts on.
Not just that, if you eat most of your calories in the evening, most people sit about and do nothing but watch TV in the evening, your body has nothing to do with the sugar but store it.
You're then hungry in the morning and snacking all day.
"Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."
Anyway. Eat when you need the energy. Eating in the evening when you don't need the energy just leaves you hungry in the morning. Something with whole grain to provide energy for several hours and maybe fish.
Omega-3 fats have been shown to make a significant difference to heart disease and mental ability. Fish oils or flax seed oils. It seems that the human diet may have contained a lot of fish historically. A kipper for breakfast may not be a bad idea.
It's the real performance limitation in data centres as we move to smaller, cheaper machines. Raw MHz horsepower is becoming irrelevant for most applications except games and certain forms of data processing.
Power supply and air conditioning are expensive. Transmeta are substantially better than AMD or Intel, which means you can install far more machines at a higher densities than you can with Intel or AMD.
Course, if you want better still then you need to move away from ix86 to ARM, MIPS, PowerPC etc.
Who cares about the efficiency? What matters is cost per kWh and pipe is cheap. It'd be interesting to see an engineering implementation to compare costs.
The larger the temperature gradient the higher the efficiency of the engine. But then, if you are getting the temperature gradient essentially for free, the efficiency isn't your most important consideration. There are Stirling engines which will run on the temperature gradient between the palm of your hand and ambient air.
Powergen (a UK power company) are rolling out Stirling engines across the country. Replacing conventional central heating boilers with a product they call Whispergen, a Stirling engine.
It ends up in the oceans. 60% of the heat from all of our power stations, including nuclear is pumped directly into the environment right now. Our power stations are only about 40% efficient. Rivers and seas are already used to cool power stations. Some of the heat goes into the water, some to the air. It all ends up increasing the baseline temperature, including the ocean.
In Finland and Denmark they use what is called District Heating and District Cooling, which improve the efficiency of power stations to 80%->90%. Instead of just dumping this "waste" heat they've created they pump it round homes and businesses or use it to power district cooling systems where cold water is pumped round houses and businesses in summer. It does still end up in the environment but it's at least useful first.
You get to see how, well, frankly stupid and ignorant they really are. I predict that within a year, most celebrity blogs will be closed or handed over to their agents to manage with the rest of their publicity.
Maybe, but every Linux PDA device I've seen has had the shitest user interface. Dreadful to use, and this is from a Unix systems administrator typing this post on a Linux based laptop running KDE.
KDE on a laptop is fine, windows, lots of colours, a mouse, big screen, it's easy and it works. Assuming you can just transfer windowing and stuff to a PDA is a big mistake. The Qtopia interface for instance on the Zaurus was *horrible* to use, it wasted huge amounts of screen real estate. I eventually binned mine as more trouble than it was worth.
On a PDA and PDA/smartphone you've *GOT* to get the user interface right, it's far more important than on a desktop even because of the size limitations. I've only found one company which got it right, Psion and they'd been making PDAs since the 1980s, doing more than Palm with less hardware.
The 9300 and 9500 are out so owners are upgrading to the newer sleeker kit. It's basically the next generation Psion palmtop that Psion never made, with a mobile phone attached, a bit of a brick but you'd have all of your information with you, everywhere.
And I mean some weird shit information as well, there's quite a community of people creating stuff for these machines:
e.g.
http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo/
And it has a useful keyboard, unlike all these useless Palm clones. I have one, but I'm terrified to get rid of it, my life would basically stop working without it.
Actually, a lot of UK companies don't realise this yet either.
But the DPA requires:
"Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data."
I'm not sure quantum effects are absolutely necessary, though they are clearly involved, chemistry is based on how the electrons in a molecule behave. Quantum mechanics would obviously still be involved even if biological neurons were replaced with artificial equivalents.
The brain is significantly complex that the outcome for any given input is undeterminable, even if quantum mechanics were not involved. In fact, I would say that the brain is complexity incarnate, because of this I strongly suspect that chaos theory and complexity are *required* for conciousness and intelligence.
The "soul" is a human concept brought about to overcome the fear of death. It was useful for those in power because they could then tell their subjects to go and sacrifice themselves on the behalf of their leaders. The soul going on to experience eternal bliss in valhalla or heaven or whichever afterlife you care to mention.
The soul doesn't exist, there is only conciousness. The only immortality would be, as you mention, to replace individual parts one at a time.
Slashdot Mirror
"Please give us an example of a past mass extinction in which the dominant species on earth continued to be so after the extinction occurred."
Your premise is weak. Give me an example of a past life form on earth which was conscious and able to manipulate it's environment to the extent that we can.
Extinction is the history of the earth. If a species is unsuitable for it's environment it dies out and is replaced by something else. Contrary to popular belief, no species has a right to exist.
It would only concern me if key species that humans depend on were dying out.
"high-end".
These particular words are like gold dust and as such are to be worshipped. They are essentially a blank cheque to play with whatever expensive toys you think you can get your grubby mitts on.
Not just that, if you eat most of your calories in the evening, most people sit about and do nothing but watch TV in the evening, your body has nothing to do with the sugar but store it.
You're then hungry in the morning and snacking all day.
"Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."
Anyway. Eat when you need the energy. Eating in the evening when you don't need the energy just leaves you hungry in the morning. Something with whole grain to provide energy for several hours and maybe fish.
Omega-3 fats have been shown to make a significant difference to heart disease and mental ability. Fish oils or flax seed oils. It seems that the human diet may have contained a lot of fish historically. A kipper for breakfast may not be a bad idea.
I could never figure out what was so wrong with the OSI NSAP addressing that required IP6 instead. Other than NIH that is. Anyway...
It's the real performance limitation in data centres as we move to smaller, cheaper machines. Raw MHz horsepower is becoming irrelevant for most applications except games and certain forms of data processing.
Power supply and air conditioning are expensive. Transmeta are substantially better than AMD or Intel, which means you can install far more machines at a higher densities than you can with Intel or AMD.
Course, if you want better still then you need to move away from ix86 to ARM, MIPS, PowerPC etc.
Who cares about the efficiency? What matters is cost per kWh and pipe is cheap. It'd be interesting to see an engineering implementation to compare costs.
Sterling is a currency, or a grade of silver.
l /TechnologyAndInitiative.aspx?id=30
The larger the temperature gradient the higher the efficiency of the engine. But then, if you are getting the temperature gradient essentially for free, the efficiency isn't your most important consideration. There are Stirling engines which will run on the temperature gradient between the palm of your hand and ambient air.
e.g.
http://www.stirlingengine.com/
Powergen (a UK power company) are rolling out Stirling engines across the country. Replacing conventional central heating boilers with a product they call Whispergen, a Stirling engine.
e.g.
http://www.powergen.co.uk/pub/Dom/A/ui/Residentia
I can't comment on the inability of others to build a reliable engine.
In Finland and Denmark they use what is called District Heating and District Cooling , which improve the efficiency of power stations to 80%->90%. Instead of just dumping this "waste" heat they've created they pump it round homes and businesses or use it to power district cooling systems where cold water is pumped round houses and businesses in summer. It does still end up in the environment but it's at least useful first.
You get to see how, well, frankly stupid and ignorant they really are. I predict that within a year, most celebrity blogs will be closed or handed over to their agents to manage with the rest of their publicity.
Or was that someone else?
Maybe, but every Linux PDA device I've seen has had the shitest user interface. Dreadful to use, and this is from a Unix systems administrator typing this post on a Linux based laptop running KDE.
KDE on a laptop is fine, windows, lots of colours, a mouse, big screen, it's easy and it works. Assuming you can just transfer windowing and stuff to a PDA is a big mistake. The Qtopia interface for instance on the Zaurus was *horrible* to use, it wasted huge amounts of screen real estate. I eventually binned mine as more trouble than it was worth.
On a PDA and PDA/smartphone you've *GOT* to get the user interface right, it's far more important than on a desktop even because of the size limitations. I've only found one company which got it right, Psion and they'd been making PDAs since the 1980s, doing more than Palm with less hardware.
The 9300 and 9500 are out so owners are upgrading to the newer sleeker kit. It's basically the next generation Psion palmtop that Psion never made, with a mobile phone attached, a bit of a brick but you'd have all of your information with you, everywhere.
And I mean some weird shit information as well, there's quite a community of people creating stuff for these machines:
e.g.
http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk/pocketinfo/
And it has a useful keyboard, unlike all these useless Palm clones. I have one, but I'm terrified to get rid of it, my life would basically stop working without it.
Search Google for "Codd".
Report being unable to confirm the discovery of the region in American subjects.
Man, I'm on *fire* today!
Actually, a lot of UK companies don't realise this yet either.
But the DPA requires:
"Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data."
Companies are required to put "technical and organisational measures" in place to protect data.
# sch1ptI
If you can read legalese. The principles:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/80029--l.htm
Course, I'm not entirely sure how big the teeth are.
I suspect you may not be her type.
Isn't there a US equivalent of the Data Protection Act?
h ttp://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm
A few holes, especially principle eight, but overall it does what it's supposed to.
No, but to do it scientifically he'd have to record the experiment somehow and that might be entertaining in a Darwin Awards type of way.
Think on this agnostic. Your whole approach to life can be determined by your belief or lack of it in a soul and an afterlife.
Would you fight for George Bush?
If you knew that in the event of your death you *would* go to paradise would you fight for George Bush?
The concepts of a soul and afterlife exist for a very good reason.
Like the eye, good ideas are rediscovered again and again.
I'm not sure quantum effects are absolutely necessary, though they are clearly involved, chemistry is based on how the electrons in a molecule behave. Quantum mechanics would obviously still be involved even if biological neurons were replaced with artificial equivalents.
The brain is significantly complex that the outcome for any given input is undeterminable, even if quantum mechanics were not involved. In fact, I would say that the brain is complexity incarnate, because of this I strongly suspect that chaos theory and complexity are *required* for conciousness and intelligence.
The "soul" is a human concept brought about to overcome the fear of death. It was useful for those in power because they could then tell their subjects to go and sacrifice themselves on the behalf of their leaders. The soul going on to experience eternal bliss in valhalla or heaven or whichever afterlife you care to mention.
The soul doesn't exist, there is only conciousness. The only immortality would be, as you mention, to replace individual parts one at a time.
I don't. My conciousness is interrupted once every day.