Memes or no memes, let's think about what it means to declare that evolution is dead.
Suppose that 50 years from now, one or more companies develop in-vitro superbaby products. We might have 100,000 children across Western Europe, Japan, China, or wherever the world's elite may reside. These children will have a money-back guarantee against Parkinsons, Down's Syndrome, scoliosis, nearsightedness, male pattern baldness, early salt and pepper graying, and a whole host of other traits that we wild-type children have to worry about.
What about the other 6 or more billion people on Earth? Right now, the world's poorest women might average 3-5 children in their lifetimes. As members of the wealthy elite, what do you think the fertility rate of superbaby women would be? Remember that the replacement rate for population stability has to be >2.0.
Let's think about the male superbabies. Suppose that when they turn 18, they all look like Calvin Klein underwear models. They don't speak with stutters, their superior engineering prevents pit-stains in their white dress shirts, and they all have perfect eye color based on years of focus testing. For argument's sake, we'll say that these amazing men are able to spread Y chromosomes as successfully as Genghis Khan.
This is something akin to taking a Siberian Husky and breeding it into a population of 100,000 wolves. The only distinguishing feature of the dog is its lack of genetic diversity vis-a-vis the wolves. It has been carefully selected by man over thousands of generations of inbreeding to become man's conception of what a wolf should be. After a single generation, the offspring would regain much of their lost heritage and be not dogs, but slightly watered-down wolves.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we won't be able to take the easy way out. We all wish we could take our millions from our tech company IPOs and buy the world's best children. However, the real answer is to learn to talk to women. This involves personal grooming, learning to play guitar, going to the gym, and figuring out how to properly hold a knife and fork.
If you don't like the responses, maybe you should be browsing at +4 or +5?
There are many serious responses to this question that have already been posted. The good ones seem to cluster around the power issue. Which power supply sounds more reliable? A PC transformer is 3 pounds and $30-$70, a router transformer is 3 ounces and $3. Many slashdotters are software people, so the usual strategies of "blame the OS" or "blame the user" might be employed. The problem probably amounts to a hardware inadequacy.
I would never use a router without plugging it into the cheapest UPS I can find. Voltage fluctuates. The refrigerator compressor kicks on and the cheap Linksys transformer hiccups.
I've purchased many different versions of Linksys (some old, some new and crippled), Buffalo, Netgear, etc. They ALL go dead after a certain period of time if plugged directly into the wall. The WRT54G 1.1 transformer is physically larger than the 5.0 version. It probably burns more electricity, but it seems to be fairly reliable. I keep one upstairs as an ethernet bridge (no UPS and it has done fine).
Whether you're talking about routers or cable modems/DSL modems, the only way to ensure reliability is to fix the power supply. Are you running 12 gauge copper on a dedicated circuit to your router/switch/modem? Or just buy a UPS for $20-$30 and you can discontinue your daily or weekly reset of your cable modem. Your wireless access point will actually be on when you go to use it. And you can use your laptop or VoIP during a thunder storm.
Still low tech solar options such as parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight and run steam turbines could be good at first.
Don't be dismissive of steam turbines. As long as you're talking about electricity, turbines are the best way to generate it (efficient at the megawatt scale).
When you say "low tech," you really just mean "preexisting." It amuses me that people might unconsciously get caught up in thinking that "low tech" solutions are "good at first."
Concrete is ok for now... until we come up with something better. Steel is fairly strong, but we might be able to replace it pretty soon with transistors and silicon. The jet engine? Nuclear power plants? The Haber-Bosch process? They're good at first. We'll just have to put up with regular technology until nanotechnology can solve all of our problems.
QoS is really a must if you're sharing a connection and somebody runs Bittorrent.
I disagree with the idea that traffic courtesy is the problem. We all want good torrent speeds. There is no reason to arbitrarily limit your torrents to 1/4 of the max upload bandwidth when the connection is probably going unused most of the time. Voluntary bandwidth limiting is still no substitute for a good router.
I have set up both (uncrippled and crippled) versions of Linksys wireless routers and a couple Buffalo routers with the same Broadcom chipsets. The DD-WRT has terrible QoS and should only be used when you need the lite version. Tomato is the way to go, as half of the posters seem to be saying.
You've already got a router up and running. Why not make it do its job efficiently? I think you underestimate the value of prioritizing web traffic and DNS queries. Before trying tomato, I put my uTorrent through the most draconian bandwidth caps I could think of. Upon switching from DD-WRT to Tomato (default settings), my household went from "my firefox doesn't work" to rock solid browsing all the time.
You may believe that diatomic Hydrogen gas is actually "bigger" than a Helium molecule (with only one atom), which would mean Hydrogen leaks out more slowly.
In reality, the speed of the molecules determines diffusion.
Given a constant temperature (temperature= avg Kinetic Energy of molecules)
Kinetic Energy=.5m*v^2
Hydrogen leaks out 1.414 (radical 2) times faster than Helium. This is true for a balloon, pipes, or really any small hole (small enough that diffusion dominates over fluid dynamics). H2 gas really is the most difficult gas molecule to handle, especially for the problem of metal hydrides you mentioned and the embrittlement of pipes.
hourly employees who don't get vacation time are only costing themselves money
It is not true that hourly employees can skip work one day and "only cost themselves money." Otherwise, they could come in whenever they felt like working and leave when they were satisfied.
It may be the case that certain tasks don't get done because of an unplanned holiday. However, I think you're mostly right and a serious paper wouldn't print an arbitrary figure like $900 bajillion and expect people to believe it.
Nintendo isn't always that great at publicizing their recent products. If you read the article, it would tell you that the DS is Nintendo's new handheld system. Its capabilities are somewhat comparable to the N64, just as the GBA's capabilities are analogous to the Super Nintendo.
The lower of the "dual" screens is touch-sensitive and one uses a stylus to write or steer on it. The system is wireless-enabled and I think it's about time. I pretty much never carry around a gameboy link cable.
I am looking forward to playing Mario 64 on the DS. I think the system's real selling point is the number of N64 titles that have been and will be ported over.
This is a cool story and no doubt a very useful one (though Vanilla Coke remains the obvious choice). I think they should have actually tried to measure the caffeine in the drinks.
It's a pity that the FDA doesn't have manufacturers list milligrams of caffeine per serving on containers (as they generally treat other drugs). Isn't it possible to extract the caffeine from these drinks and weigh it? Most organic students do this in one of their first labs.
Spending every day in lab, it's hard for me to realize it's kinda difficult for non-engineers to get a hold of methylene chloride or nonpolar solvents.
On the other hand, measuring "which soda would rot through a nail the fastest" is much easier. Just get some litmus paper and measure the pH.
Water is the most important greenhouse gas. Dry desert climates cool very quickly at night because clouds are the most effective way to trap heat.
H2 + ½O2 -> H2O
Hydrogen Combustion
I'm pretty sure I see a water on the right side of that equation. I understand that water doesn't accumulate in the atmosphere... it rains. I would just like it if people used the term "greenhouse gas" correctly.
It is not good strategy to practice this "archon rush." The units are so late in the game and expensive that you really must be winning in order to launch one of these attacks. You realize that the real strategy is in expanding to new bases and defending them successfully. Once you have taken 4 bases, you can afford (and deserve) to build mass archons or arbiters or carriers to quickly wipe him out.
(You are a moron if you are complaining about no strategy while playing a map with infinite resources)
Slashdot Mirror
Memes or no memes, let's think about what it means to declare that evolution is dead.
Suppose that 50 years from now, one or more companies develop in-vitro superbaby products. We might have 100,000 children across Western Europe, Japan, China, or wherever the world's elite may reside. These children will have a money-back guarantee against Parkinsons, Down's Syndrome, scoliosis, nearsightedness, male pattern baldness, early salt and pepper graying, and a whole host of other traits that we wild-type children have to worry about.
What about the other 6 or more billion people on Earth? Right now, the world's poorest women might average 3-5 children in their lifetimes. As members of the wealthy elite, what do you think the fertility rate of superbaby women would be? Remember that the replacement rate for population stability has to be >2.0.
Let's think about the male superbabies. Suppose that when they turn 18, they all look like Calvin Klein underwear models. They don't speak with stutters, their superior engineering prevents pit-stains in their white dress shirts, and they all have perfect eye color based on years of focus testing. For argument's sake, we'll say that these amazing men are able to spread Y chromosomes as successfully as Genghis Khan.
This is something akin to taking a Siberian Husky and breeding it into a population of 100,000 wolves. The only distinguishing feature of the dog is its lack of genetic diversity vis-a-vis the wolves. It has been carefully selected by man over thousands of generations of inbreeding to become man's conception of what a wolf should be. After a single generation, the offspring would regain much of their lost heritage and be not dogs, but slightly watered-down wolves.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we won't be able to take the easy way out. We all wish we could take our millions from our tech company IPOs and buy the world's best children. However, the real answer is to learn to talk to women. This involves personal grooming, learning to play guitar, going to the gym, and figuring out how to properly hold a knife and fork.
If you don't like the responses, maybe you should be browsing at +4 or +5?
There are many serious responses to this question that have already been posted. The good ones seem to cluster around the power issue. Which power supply sounds more reliable? A PC transformer is 3 pounds and $30-$70, a router transformer is 3 ounces and $3. Many slashdotters are software people, so the usual strategies of "blame the OS" or "blame the user" might be employed. The problem probably amounts to a hardware inadequacy.
I would never use a router without plugging it into the cheapest UPS I can find. Voltage fluctuates. The refrigerator compressor kicks on and the cheap Linksys transformer hiccups.
I've purchased many different versions of Linksys (some old, some new and crippled), Buffalo, Netgear, etc. They ALL go dead after a certain period of time if plugged directly into the wall. The WRT54G 1.1 transformer is physically larger than the 5.0 version. It probably burns more electricity, but it seems to be fairly reliable. I keep one upstairs as an ethernet bridge (no UPS and it has done fine).
Whether you're talking about routers or cable modems/DSL modems, the only way to ensure reliability is to fix the power supply. Are you running 12 gauge copper on a dedicated circuit to your router/switch/modem? Or just buy a UPS for $20-$30 and you can discontinue your daily or weekly reset of your cable modem. Your wireless access point will actually be on when you go to use it. And you can use your laptop or VoIP during a thunder storm.
No, I don't work for the battery company.
Don't be dismissive of steam turbines. As long as you're talking about electricity, turbines are the best way to generate it (efficient at the megawatt scale).
When you say "low tech," you really just mean "preexisting." It amuses me that people might unconsciously get caught up in thinking that "low tech" solutions are "good at first."
Concrete is ok for now... until we come up with something better. Steel is fairly strong, but we might be able to replace it pretty soon with transistors and silicon. The jet engine? Nuclear power plants? The Haber-Bosch process? They're good at first. We'll just have to put up with regular technology until nanotechnology can solve all of our problems.
QoS is really a must if you're sharing a connection and somebody runs Bittorrent.
I disagree with the idea that traffic courtesy is the problem. We all want good torrent speeds. There is no reason to arbitrarily limit your torrents to 1/4 of the max upload bandwidth when the connection is probably going unused most of the time. Voluntary bandwidth limiting is still no substitute for a good router.
I have set up both (uncrippled and crippled) versions of Linksys wireless routers and a couple Buffalo routers with the same Broadcom chipsets. The DD-WRT has terrible QoS and should only be used when you need the lite version. Tomato is the way to go, as half of the posters seem to be saying.
You've already got a router up and running. Why not make it do its job efficiently? I think you underestimate the value of prioritizing web traffic and DNS queries. Before trying tomato, I put my uTorrent through the most draconian bandwidth caps I could think of. Upon switching from DD-WRT to Tomato (default settings), my household went from "my firefox doesn't work" to rock solid browsing all the time.
You may believe that diatomic Hydrogen gas is actually "bigger" than a Helium molecule (with only one atom), which would mean Hydrogen leaks out more slowly.
In reality, the speed of the molecules determines diffusion.
Given a constant temperature (temperature= avg Kinetic Energy of molecules)
Kinetic Energy=.5m*v^2
Hydrogen leaks out 1.414 (radical 2) times faster than Helium. This is true for a balloon, pipes, or really any small hole (small enough that diffusion dominates over fluid dynamics). H2 gas really is the most difficult gas molecule to handle, especially for the problem of metal hydrides you mentioned and the embrittlement of pipes.
It could be worse. We'd really be in trouble if we needed methyl isocyanate to run our cars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster/
It is not true that hourly employees can skip work one day and "only cost themselves money." Otherwise, they could come in whenever they felt like working and leave when they were satisfied.
It may be the case that certain tasks don't get done because of an unplanned holiday. However, I think you're mostly right and a serious paper wouldn't print an arbitrary figure like $900 bajillion and expect people to believe it.
Nintendo isn't always that great at publicizing their recent products. If you read the article, it would tell you that the DS is Nintendo's new handheld system. Its capabilities are somewhat comparable to the N64, just as the GBA's capabilities are analogous to the Super Nintendo.
The lower of the "dual" screens is touch-sensitive and one uses a stylus to write or steer on it. The system is wireless-enabled and I think it's about time. I pretty much never carry around a gameboy link cable.
I am looking forward to playing Mario 64 on the DS. I think the system's real selling point is the number of N64 titles that have been and will be ported over.
This is a cool story and no doubt a very useful one (though Vanilla Coke remains the obvious choice). I think they should have actually tried to measure the caffeine in the drinks.
It's a pity that the FDA doesn't have manufacturers list milligrams of caffeine per serving on containers (as they generally treat other drugs). Isn't it possible to extract the caffeine from these drinks and weigh it? Most organic students do this in one of their first labs.
Spending every day in lab, it's hard for me to realize it's kinda difficult for non-engineers to get a hold of methylene chloride or nonpolar solvents.
On the other hand, measuring "which soda would rot through a nail the fastest" is much easier. Just get some litmus paper and measure the pH.
Water is the most important greenhouse gas. Dry desert climates cool very quickly at night because clouds are the most effective way to trap heat.
H2 + ½O2 -> H2O
Hydrogen Combustion
I'm pretty sure I see a water on the right side of that equation. I understand that water doesn't accumulate in the atmosphere... it rains. I would just like it if people used the term "greenhouse gas" correctly.
Is this news? All you need is a flute.
Read Robert Browning's poem.
It is not good strategy to practice this "archon rush." The units are so late in the game and expensive that you really must be winning in order to launch one of these attacks. You realize that the real strategy is in expanding to new bases and defending them successfully. Once you have taken 4 bases, you can afford (and deserve) to build mass archons or arbiters or carriers to quickly wipe him out.
(You are a moron if you are complaining about no strategy while playing a map with infinite resources)