The entire concept of storing data for a billion years is nothing but ego. It would be akin to our finding a cave with forty-five thousand little paintings of dots, squares and circles - all perfectly preserved. What the ___ does it mean? Curious and interesting to speculate on perhaps, but data? Not so much.
Haven't you heard? When aliens finally stumble upon the Voyager Golden Record, it will point them here and act as a Rosetta Stone which they can use to decode the stored data of the Humanity, long after it extinguished itself via thermonuclear war, greenhouse gasses, budget stalemates, or some yet-to-be-invented Man-made calamity.
The aliens will, of course, find the Voyager LP to be quaintly archaic, having long since moved on to CDs themselves. But they will be delighted to be able to decode from silicon nitride those fascinating Facebook status updates about what each Human had for breakfast on Monday, October 14, 2013. (BTW, what exactly do those Humans mean by "Grape Nuts"?)
Sounds like the kindda stuff Kevin Mitnick was doing to The Phone Company decades ago. He once broke into a local Ma Bell office to steal manuals, as reported in his book "Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker".
The book is a pretty good read. In it, Mitnick repeatedly claims he never profited from any of his adventures - except by selling books and becoming a security consultant, of course. Heck, some of the reported robbers in Silicon Valley might be even more ethical.
I found it remarkable that an article about a system that "stores electricity" (or energy, as you properly suggest) doesn't actually say anything about the energy storage method.
You may be right that heated salts are the method, but I've read that there are significant problems with salt for energy storage that revolves around its high corrosiveness. So, I was hoping that some new storage method would be revealed in the article. Instead, it reveals...wait for it...nothing - not even the well-known salt method.
Anybody who develops or tests radio receivers of any kind (including cell phones) has one or more shield rooms - it's no big deal. As a more economical (though less effective) alternative, many also have screen rooms, which are little rooms built out of two-by-fours that are surrounded with copper screening. It's about as amazing as the fact that Ben & Jerry's R&D department has a freezer.
There are stories of wet nurses "swapping" kids so their blood kin would have a better life. It would be pretty easy to see this being able to happen if a queen died in childbirth and the king wasn't very involved in day to day dealings of the child raising.
Sounds like a plot from some kindda comic opera:
Oh, bitter is my cup!
However could I do it?
I mixed those children up,
And not a creature knew it
In time each little waif
Forsook his foster-mother,
The well born babe was Ralph —
Your captain was the other!
This gives me an excuse to trot out a favorite lyric by Alan Sherman:
If you had been a nicer king, We wouldn't do a thing, But you were bad, you must admit. We're gonna take you and the Queen Down to the guillotine, And shorten you a little bit.
I'm not sure why more manufacturers don't stick with a decent 5mp rather than throwing away dynamic range on silly sensors packed with unnecessary pixels...
Once the government shutdown is over, I predict the FBI will find the missing bitcoins under the cushions of Ulbricht's couch. Or, maybe they'll find his bitcoin wallet in the pocket of his jeans in his mom's washing machine. (Mom never quite understood that thing he said about bitcoins being good for money laundering.)
Though technology may not "destroy" jobs, it certainly shifts them. For example, car factories are increasingly populated with robots. Although that creates economic prosperity that may show up somewhere else, it certainly displaces the unskilled, who previously could at least hold factory jobs.
In my area, we now have garbage trucks that pick up (standardized) trash cans. Presumably, this leads to fewer "garbage men" - who used to be the archetypal unskilled laborers. But the few garbage men that remain now must be skilled as truck drivers.
So, assuming that a certain portion of the population will always be unskilled, and assuming the portion of unskilled jobs is shrinking, the unemployable underclass will continue to grow.
I've had a couple of friends whose Yahoo email contacts, including me, got sent spams which were crafted to appear as though the spam was from the friend. The spams contained links presumed to be armed and dangerous. I wonder if Yahoo has a bug bounty for that one? Heck, I'd chip in ten bucks myself if somebody would fix that.
I bet they used Flash to get in: since Adobe seems to be pushing Flash updates about every 10 minutes lately, it's evidently got some major security problems.
I think Congress has found a powerful new cyberattack vector. With very little technical knowledge, the 535 members have successfully launched a DDoS attack on the health exchange site and most of the other major websites of the United States Government. Imagine what they could do if they put their hacker skills to good purpose. Then again, as Mark Twain noted, "There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."
The simulated sound canvas just isn't complete without the horizontal scanning squeal of the CRT, which is about 15 kHz. Some of us used to be able to hear that 20 years ago. (Can't anymore, darn.)
Around the time the web was born, I once walked past a computer that had a particularly loud CRT. I asked the woman who was using it how she could even stand to be next to the thing - it was that loud. She didn't seem to understand and looked at me like I was crazy. So, I explained it to her. But she still didn't seem to understand. I guess she couldn't hear it at all!
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The entire concept of storing data for a billion years is nothing but ego. It would be akin to our finding a cave with forty-five thousand little paintings of dots, squares and circles - all perfectly preserved. What the ___ does it mean? Curious and interesting to speculate on perhaps, but data? Not so much.
Haven't you heard? When aliens finally stumble upon the Voyager Golden Record, it will point them here and act as a Rosetta Stone which they can use to decode the stored data of the Humanity, long after it extinguished itself via thermonuclear war, greenhouse gasses, budget stalemates, or some yet-to-be-invented Man-made calamity.
The aliens will, of course, find the Voyager LP to be quaintly archaic, having long since moved on to CDs themselves. But they will be delighted to be able to decode from silicon nitride those fascinating Facebook status updates about what each Human had for breakfast on Monday, October 14, 2013. (BTW, what exactly do those Humans mean by "Grape Nuts"?)
Sounds like the kindda stuff Kevin Mitnick was doing to The Phone Company decades ago. He once broke into a local Ma Bell office to steal manuals, as reported in his book "Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker".
The book is a pretty good read. In it, Mitnick repeatedly claims he never profited from any of his adventures - except by selling books and becoming a security consultant, of course. Heck, some of the reported robbers in Silicon Valley might be even more ethical.
Imitation of a failed example is the sincerest form of flattery.
I found it remarkable that an article about a system that "stores electricity" (or energy, as you properly suggest) doesn't actually say anything about the energy storage method.
You may be right that heated salts are the method, but I've read that there are significant problems with salt for energy storage that revolves around its high corrosiveness. So, I was hoping that some new storage method would be revealed in the article. Instead, it reveals...wait for it...nothing - not even the well-known salt method.
How do you feel about that?
"In Room With No Heat, Ben & Jerry's Works On Future of Ice Cream"
Good one, wish I'd thought of that. :-)
Anybody who develops or tests radio receivers of any kind (including cell phones) has one or more shield rooms - it's no big deal. As a more economical (though less effective) alternative, many also have screen rooms, which are little rooms built out of two-by-fours that are surrounded with copper screening. It's about as amazing as the fact that Ben & Jerry's R&D department has a freezer.
Has a Nobel Prize ever been awarded before for an achievement that was specifically software-based?
There are stories of wet nurses "swapping" kids so their blood kin would have a better life. It would be pretty easy to see this being able to happen if a queen died in childbirth and the king wasn't very involved in day to day dealings of the child raising.
Sounds like a plot from some kindda comic opera:
Oh, bitter is my cup!
However could I do it?
I mixed those children up,
And not a creature knew it
In time each little waif
Forsook his foster-mother,
The well born babe was Ralph —
Your captain was the other!
- from H.M.S. Pinafore, lyric by W. S. Gilbert
This gives me an excuse to trot out a favorite lyric by Alan Sherman:
If you had been a nicer king,
We wouldn't do a thing,
But you were bad, you must admit.
We're gonna take you and the Queen
Down to the guillotine,
And shorten you a little bit.
From what I hear, Dunder Mifflin has some spare office space - which is already stocked with HP computers.
Sorry 'bout that - sometimes my jokes are a little too subtle for the folks here. :-)
Here's an immediate way to improve the math, reading, and problem-solving skills of the average adult in America: more H-1B visas!
Darn, now that I can no longer counterfeit Ben Franklins with my printer, I'll have to go back to counterfeiting printer cartridges.
Good points.
I'm not sure why more manufacturers don't stick with a decent 5mp rather than throwing away dynamic range on silly sensors packed with unnecessary pixels ...
Marketing, Benjamin - marketing.
Actually, all 106 originals fit on just three master tapes: they're bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.
Once the government shutdown is over, I predict the FBI will find the missing bitcoins under the cushions of Ulbricht's couch. Or, maybe they'll find his bitcoin wallet in the pocket of his jeans in his mom's washing machine. (Mom never quite understood that thing he said about bitcoins being good for money laundering.)
The car catching fire is pretty bad, but at least the car's owner didn't get electrocuted. Now *that* would have been a shocker.
Though technology may not "destroy" jobs, it certainly shifts them. For example, car factories are increasingly populated with robots. Although that creates economic prosperity that may show up somewhere else, it certainly displaces the unskilled, who previously could at least hold factory jobs.
In my area, we now have garbage trucks that pick up (standardized) trash cans. Presumably, this leads to fewer "garbage men" - who used to be the archetypal unskilled laborers. But the few garbage men that remain now must be skilled as truck drivers.
So, assuming that a certain portion of the population will always be unskilled, and assuming the portion of unskilled jobs is shrinking, the unemployable underclass will continue to grow.
I've had a couple of friends whose Yahoo email contacts, including me, got sent spams which were crafted to appear as though the spam was from the friend. The spams contained links presumed to be armed and dangerous. I wonder if Yahoo has a bug bounty for that one? Heck, I'd chip in ten bucks myself if somebody would fix that.
"After initially turning him away, Facebook's new company store eventually agrees to accept Eduardo Saverin's pre-IPO Facebook scrip."
I bet they used Flash to get in: since Adobe seems to be pushing Flash updates about every 10 minutes lately, it's evidently got some major security problems.
Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it
Let's compute the genomic outcomes of combinations which would most likely produce the desired baby
I think Congress has found a powerful new cyberattack vector. With very little technical knowledge, the 535 members have successfully launched a DDoS attack on the health exchange site and most of the other major websites of the United States Government. Imagine what they could do if they put their hacker skills to good purpose. Then again, as Mark Twain noted, "There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."
The simulated sound canvas just isn't complete without the horizontal scanning squeal of the CRT, which is about 15 kHz. Some of us used to be able to hear that 20 years ago. (Can't anymore, darn.) Around the time the web was born, I once walked past a computer that had a particularly loud CRT. I asked the woman who was using it how she could even stand to be next to the thing - it was that loud. She didn't seem to understand and looked at me like I was crazy. So, I explained it to her. But she still didn't seem to understand. I guess she couldn't hear it at all!