Except that there's about a million other things they can use the processed toilet water for... Use the water from the aquifers for drinking, and use the processed water for irrigation, cooling, etc. The amount of water they are going to save by doing this still doesn't get them anywhere near being neutral. This is a silly thing to do.
Except that Phoenix is literally under 3 cubic miles of water from the reservoirs in the mountains. Arizona has a 100 year water plan that they have to keep up to date so that it doesn't turn into California, not to mention various water recycling systems throughout the valley. There's plenty of reason to have a city where Phoenix is, mainly in that water runs downhill. There's a lot of dumber places to build a city, like say in hurricane/tornado areas, flood plains, below sea level next to the ocean, a swamp next to the ocean, Texas(kidding), some place where for months on end the roads don't work, etc.
California wouldn't have a problem if it was just the city. Instead, they decided to build and industry that depends on one thing that they don't have a lot of - water. It takes incredibly huge balls to look at a giant swath of dry nothing and go, "We should totally farm here and make our economy dependent on it. Nothing native though. We should grow expensive stuff that can't exist in this environment without a lot of work."
You're spot on. A lot of these grants set the goal and let the researchers figure out how to get there. They know there are fundamental problems, and that's what they are paying for solving. Actually making the device is a small part of solving all of the fundamental problems. If it went the other way, with small grants to solve small problems, we'd have a serious problem. How do you manage a decent research group if you only get small grants for small problems? Sure, with the system as it is you have many different groups working on one large problem, and there is a lot of redundancy, but you also gets different attempts and solutions, with everyone working on the final project and not just the tiny pieces. It's significantly better this way. If you've ever been to a DARPA conference you can really appreciate how everyone is working on the same thing and how many different solutions there are... and how angry people get at each other or thinking differently.
The problem is that they have the system rigged so that you can't just cut defense spending. Defense spending isn't just boots on the ground, it's a lot of research jobs and grants. Those are the programs that would get cut long before you starved the contractors. Not to mention entire towns that depend on whatever military base is nearby or the Boeing/Lockheed plant. Cutting back on military spending has been made to be near completely impossible. You can't just cut the funding and hope they spend the rest responsibly.
If it's wasn't for these grants there would be no fundamental research done. You get work on a very big problem, and yes you generally fail, but in the process countless publications and fundamental problems are solved. Those problems would never get funding on their own. Hell, without DARPA and the like half of our college research groups wouldn't exist.
I still think that well trained people are harder to hack than software, currently. The main issue is that if you manage to hack a person into wrecking a plane, that just works on the one person. If you hack the software for a plane you can hack all of the planes. That's really my only concern about self driving cars. If a car or two here and there freak out and crash it's still safer than people, but if you can somehow manage to freak them all out...
The trouble is, usually people that communicate like you do are the ones that really think they understand, but in reality they don't. Then they start explaining nonsense to other people that just listen because they actually want to learn something instead of assuming they already know everything.
But we were talking about buying insurance for the structure. If the quake is bad enough that it broke your fancy up to date house, then there's probably some significant damage to the surrounding infrastructure.
Could you get insurance that would cover wage loss in an event like that? Having a standing house may not mean so much if the infrastructure and economy are crippled.
Do you know how it was before TSA? Basically no separation between everywhere else and secured areas. Their function is so much as just standing there yelling about your bags, it's separating two areas that for the longest time were not separated. Also, having the cabin secure... crazy idea huh? I'm not for all of the practices, but changing a significant part of the infrastructure for airports is taking some time. Some airports are still adjusting. Sorry, but I do feel a little better knowing that some asshole can't walk in straight off of the street and get on the plane without some form of identification and property checks.
For someone that travels so much you'd think you'd do PreCheck and not even have to deal with that shit? Even in the poverty line things move alright. Outside of the holidays it's extremely rare to have security take more than 30 minutes.
Security overall in US airports is an average hassle compared to most places. TSA isn't going to make any unreasonable demand. You're going to be in a line, read the signs and move through just like everyone else. Don't like millimeter wave? - They've got regular old metal detectors for that. People opt out all the time... mainly because they have no understanding of the technology. There was a harsh transition period when TSA got started because a lot of airports were not designed for having secure areas, and honestly, they didn't know what the hell they were doing. Does it really do anything? I don't know, but it does feel a bit nicer when you're in a tin can miles above the earth.
Isn't this a work around for (3): As an ISP, you reduce the incoming pipe that your customers use. You then charge big data providers for various local hosting services/hardware, maybe even use a different incoming pipe to service this hardware.
That's not technically a fast lane, but it should have the same effect.
I don't understand how we can talk about near limitless government wiretapping and tracking, and then in the same breath be happy that they took more control over the internet. I'd expect the next move to be some sort of censorship - for the children!!! Then we can look forward to mandatory equipment at the ISPs provided by the government that does all kinds of useful things, like tracking and filtering. They do this on all of the foreign communications (PBS Hardline did an excellent documentary on this) now is the chance to get it done domestically. This is a HUGE overreach. Basic internet access could be qualified as a public utility, some minimum standard that lets you do essential things (ie, things not including streaming HD video), but "Broadband" is non-essential. It's the difference between broadcast radio - because that is essential in emergencies, and all of cable television. We are being given a false choice between corporations or government talking control of the internet. We don't have to give control to either.
I love your take on it. An electric car battery will be more or less a weapon of mass destruction. The rules will still make no sense whatsoever though. Possessing a "high capacity" battery will be a federal offense, but carrying many small batteries will be perfectly legal. I don't know how they'll handle 'wire' in this dystopia
Bullets. Guns aren't worth much if there isn't ammunition, and ammunition has been getting very expensive. Plus, most bullets don't last forever, intentionally. This way you can start shutting down suppliers and really make shooting impractical. You'll be stuck with muskets if you can still buy the gun powder.
I'm just waiting for battery technology to reach the point that we can have usable homemade gauss rifles.
I bought it and can't stand it. I quit halfway through the second mission. Too many silly scripted events and weird key combinations, plus the controls in general feel floaty - which wouldn't be a huge deal if timing and precision weren't an issue. Does it get better after the intro missions? If the rest of the game has this Prince of Persia feel I can't imagine getting through it.
These aren't fusion reactors, and there's no reason with modern technology to have meltdowns that spray debris all over the place... and you don't build them in heavily populated areas to begin with. We've got Palo Verde way out there as a precaution. This is all over reaction. You're way more likely to die from radiation from the extra fun bits in coal than from an actual nuclear disaster.
I think some people may not like it because now there's less of an excuse to have a crappy game. I think it's great. Let's raise the bar and purge some of the garbage.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that there's about a million other things they can use the processed toilet water for... Use the water from the aquifers for drinking, and use the processed water for irrigation, cooling, etc. The amount of water they are going to save by doing this still doesn't get them anywhere near being neutral. This is a silly thing to do.
#NotAllStudents /s
Except that Phoenix is literally under 3 cubic miles of water from the reservoirs in the mountains. Arizona has a 100 year water plan that they have to keep up to date so that it doesn't turn into California, not to mention various water recycling systems throughout the valley. There's plenty of reason to have a city where Phoenix is, mainly in that water runs downhill. There's a lot of dumber places to build a city, like say in hurricane/tornado areas, flood plains, below sea level next to the ocean, a swamp next to the ocean, Texas(kidding), some place where for months on end the roads don't work, etc. California wouldn't have a problem if it was just the city. Instead, they decided to build and industry that depends on one thing that they don't have a lot of - water. It takes incredibly huge balls to look at a giant swath of dry nothing and go, "We should totally farm here and make our economy dependent on it. Nothing native though. We should grow expensive stuff that can't exist in this environment without a lot of work."
You're spot on. A lot of these grants set the goal and let the researchers figure out how to get there. They know there are fundamental problems, and that's what they are paying for solving. Actually making the device is a small part of solving all of the fundamental problems. If it went the other way, with small grants to solve small problems, we'd have a serious problem. How do you manage a decent research group if you only get small grants for small problems? Sure, with the system as it is you have many different groups working on one large problem, and there is a lot of redundancy, but you also gets different attempts and solutions, with everyone working on the final project and not just the tiny pieces. It's significantly better this way. If you've ever been to a DARPA conference you can really appreciate how everyone is working on the same thing and how many different solutions there are... and how angry people get at each other or thinking differently.
The problem is that they have the system rigged so that you can't just cut defense spending. Defense spending isn't just boots on the ground, it's a lot of research jobs and grants. Those are the programs that would get cut long before you starved the contractors. Not to mention entire towns that depend on whatever military base is nearby or the Boeing/Lockheed plant. Cutting back on military spending has been made to be near completely impossible. You can't just cut the funding and hope they spend the rest responsibly.
If it's wasn't for these grants there would be no fundamental research done. You get work on a very big problem, and yes you generally fail, but in the process countless publications and fundamental problems are solved. Those problems would never get funding on their own. Hell, without DARPA and the like half of our college research groups wouldn't exist.
I still think that well trained people are harder to hack than software, currently. The main issue is that if you manage to hack a person into wrecking a plane, that just works on the one person. If you hack the software for a plane you can hack all of the planes. That's really my only concern about self driving cars. If a car or two here and there freak out and crash it's still safer than people, but if you can somehow manage to freak them all out...
The trouble is, usually people that communicate like you do are the ones that really think they understand, but in reality they don't. Then they start explaining nonsense to other people that just listen because they actually want to learn something instead of assuming they already know everything.
But we were talking about buying insurance for the structure. If the quake is bad enough that it broke your fancy up to date house, then there's probably some significant damage to the surrounding infrastructure.
Could you get insurance that would cover wage loss in an event like that? Having a standing house may not mean so much if the infrastructure and economy are crippled.
Seriously. Sluts are awesome.
Who would even replace him if they keep the same format? That poor guy is going to get sooooo much hate. Unless... unless it's a lady.
It's such a better name for a contest that uses robots to perform monotonous jobs currently done by hand.
Do you know how it was before TSA? Basically no separation between everywhere else and secured areas. Their function is so much as just standing there yelling about your bags, it's separating two areas that for the longest time were not separated. Also, having the cabin secure... crazy idea huh? I'm not for all of the practices, but changing a significant part of the infrastructure for airports is taking some time. Some airports are still adjusting. Sorry, but I do feel a little better knowing that some asshole can't walk in straight off of the street and get on the plane without some form of identification and property checks.
For someone that travels so much you'd think you'd do PreCheck and not even have to deal with that shit? Even in the poverty line things move alright. Outside of the holidays it's extremely rare to have security take more than 30 minutes.
Security overall in US airports is an average hassle compared to most places. TSA isn't going to make any unreasonable demand. You're going to be in a line, read the signs and move through just like everyone else. Don't like millimeter wave? - They've got regular old metal detectors for that. People opt out all the time... mainly because they have no understanding of the technology. There was a harsh transition period when TSA got started because a lot of airports were not designed for having secure areas, and honestly, they didn't know what the hell they were doing. Does it really do anything? I don't know, but it does feel a bit nicer when you're in a tin can miles above the earth.
Isn't this a work around for (3): As an ISP, you reduce the incoming pipe that your customers use. You then charge big data providers for various local hosting services/hardware, maybe even use a different incoming pipe to service this hardware. That's not technically a fast lane, but it should have the same effect.
I don't understand how we can talk about near limitless government wiretapping and tracking, and then in the same breath be happy that they took more control over the internet. I'd expect the next move to be some sort of censorship - for the children!!! Then we can look forward to mandatory equipment at the ISPs provided by the government that does all kinds of useful things, like tracking and filtering. They do this on all of the foreign communications (PBS Hardline did an excellent documentary on this) now is the chance to get it done domestically. This is a HUGE overreach. Basic internet access could be qualified as a public utility, some minimum standard that lets you do essential things (ie, things not including streaming HD video), but "Broadband" is non-essential. It's the difference between broadcast radio - because that is essential in emergencies, and all of cable television. We are being given a false choice between corporations or government talking control of the internet. We don't have to give control to either.
I don't understand what you are supposed to do with a beefy chromebook. What can you run that needs that much HP that isn't just horribly optimized?
I love your take on it. An electric car battery will be more or less a weapon of mass destruction. The rules will still make no sense whatsoever though. Possessing a "high capacity" battery will be a federal offense, but carrying many small batteries will be perfectly legal. I don't know how they'll handle 'wire' in this dystopia
Bullets. Guns aren't worth much if there isn't ammunition, and ammunition has been getting very expensive. Plus, most bullets don't last forever, intentionally. This way you can start shutting down suppliers and really make shooting impractical. You'll be stuck with muskets if you can still buy the gun powder. I'm just waiting for battery technology to reach the point that we can have usable homemade gauss rifles.
I bought it and can't stand it. I quit halfway through the second mission. Too many silly scripted events and weird key combinations, plus the controls in general feel floaty - which wouldn't be a huge deal if timing and precision weren't an issue. Does it get better after the intro missions? If the rest of the game has this Prince of Persia feel I can't imagine getting through it.
These aren't fusion reactors, and there's no reason with modern technology to have meltdowns that spray debris all over the place... and you don't build them in heavily populated areas to begin with. We've got Palo Verde way out there as a precaution. This is all over reaction. You're way more likely to die from radiation from the extra fun bits in coal than from an actual nuclear disaster.
I think some people may not like it because now there's less of an excuse to have a crappy game. I think it's great. Let's raise the bar and purge some of the garbage.
I keep getting mod points that I can't use because the dropdown isn't rendering anymore.