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If my brain was an eyeball it would be bleeding! Why do geeks think prefixing K (or G) to everything is witty? It's not; it's just annoying and confusing.
Don't be ashamed of your short attention span, my brother! These are fast times we are living in, but your brain isn't getting any faster (yet) to process all that information in its entirety... until now!
Try the revolutionary new NeuralInfo(TM) interface chip. It's very simple: all it takes is one person to learn or experience something the hard way, once, then that non-unique pattern of knowledge can shared by billions in a milliseconds.
The "RTFA mod"(TM) is only 50 credits! ("Read" in past tense)
And by 2030 we'll most certainly have "bootstrapped" molecular manufacturing, which means the major effort of building anything -- even mega-structures like the global supersonic subway -- is in solving design problems (with the aid of smart software) rather than brute construction costs.
Here's the abstract from a great paper I once read on the subject of personal maglev transport in frictionless tubes:
A critical review of maglev trains and convention wheeled trains was presented in an attempt to identify performance advantages of maglev. Traditionally claimed advantages of maglev were not found to hold up to wheeled train systems incorporating similar non-contacting propulsion; however, performance advantages were identified for velocities greater than 500 mph (805 km/hr). At these high velocities, travel at atmospheric pressure is not practical, and so, an analysis was made for applications in tubes of reduced pressures.
The feasibility of a personal rapid transit (PRT) system designed with maglev suspension and for travel in tubes of reduced pressure was evaluated. The PRT maglev would have superior service capabilities yet no obvious technological barriers. An economic comparison to maglev train systems suggested that the PRT maglev costs about 40% less while providing appeal to a broader audience. Proposed performance advantages of the PRT maglev include reduced energy consumption, reliance on electrical power, and significantly reduced transit times as compared to air or train systems. A practical approach to implementation is presented and consists of initially using lower velocities, higher tube pressures, and PRT vehicles connected as train units. Proposed evolution of the system includes attaining higher velocities and incorporating superconductive elements in the rail embodiments.
The hard part is building and maintaining the integrity of such a huge global network of underground tunnels. That probably means we'll be waiting a couple decades for the nanotech breakthroughs that allows us to easily "eat" through miles of rock and then build-by-numbers bottom-up.
Imagine feeling weightless in your seat as your train approaches orbital velocity.
if I could buy an 80" LCD display capable of 1920x1080, I'd probably never want for a better display.
Hah! Yeah right. 1920x1080 is nowhere near the resolution limits that human eye can discern. And then there's full FOV stereoscopic immersion. Mmmmmmm...
No, that's not enough said. Flying cars by year 2000 was simply a bad prediction, so why hold it up as the posterchild for being pessimistic about all prognostication?
If you want to make a bad prediction, here's what you do:
Ignore the scientific facts, or guess. (e.g. nuclear power being too cheap to meter & flying cars (that waste more energy fighting gravity, and need still more processing power to make safe flight possible))
Forget to ask whether anyone wants the projected product or situation. (e.g. VideoPhones & Meal-in-a-pill...)
Ignore the costs. (e.g. rocket propulsion will never be cheap)
Try to predict which company or technology will win. (e.g. MicroVision and their retinal display patents)
It's a scary thought to consider that people believe that the phone companies have a right to make money
Aren't those usually the same people who are heavily invested in the stock market (directly or indirectly), and so believe "what's good for bad-business is good for me?"
Obviously the intercity/interstate/etc hierarchy of fast fiber links won't be replaced by slower wireless nodes, but mesh networks plus those fewer stems would be much cheaper and more useful than having some megacorp own the local wired/wireless every step of the way.
There's no reason routers (wireless or not) have to be so stupid.
Throttle the connections based on a moving average of bandwidth usage, then your average Joe can get his email @ max speed, and your average Jane can download her 100MB of wedding pictures @ medium speed, but Johnny 24/7 Pirate will stuck at the remaining capacity (slow) speed.
"Tim says he set up the network because he wants to give Internet access to people who can't afford or access it, especially people living in Third World countries or depressed areas of other countries."
The thing about free wireless (that I love) is that it keeps the Ashcroft-types up at night worrying about anonymous "terrorist" freespeech, and it gives the telco-types and the WISP-wannabes the middleman middle finger.
Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it. It's similar to how FedEx thought they could own the Fax business in the 80s. Can't blame 'em for trying I guess.
And on a more basic level, what kind of tool would patronize a store with such a pathetic name like "BuyMusic"? BUYBUYBUYMusic comes off sounding like a sterile consumer dictate. nice brand.
I saw a documentary called War Photographer about James Nachtwey's travels around the globe to document atrocities.
One of the things I remember most about it -- besides that people are still despicable apes at the core -- is that he had an underling dodge and burn one his prints over and over and over and over until it looked just right. He wanted the subjects bald head to stand out, and the clouds above him to look more ominous.
Anyhoo... one more thing:
Anyone who claims that photography is about objectively and accurately portraying the real scene knows very little about the nonlinear properties of human vision, film, and image reproduction systems and they know even less about art.
No reason to be a pretentious twat (unless that's your particular superiority complex). Some people want realism. Some people want fantastic exageration.
Sorry that YOUR personal line had been crossed (what, the wife have a miscarriage or something and you skipped therapy?), but it's only a movie!, and I'm glad you're not a censor.
Guess I didn't get the NY1.com memo. Anyway, good thing the mta ATMs will continue taking anonymous cash into the forseeable future, eh? eh? eh? Or I might have to start jumping turnstyles again.
You cannot be stopped from going through an EZPass lane with an empty card.
That's a design flaw IMO. Do I get to coast through the cashonly lane if my wallet is empty too?
If your EZPass is empty then the gate should stay shut until you cough up some cash or credit or (*gasp*) more personal details for sending a fine. Hoards of angry people waiting behind you will be one incentive not to forget; as would your car (and plates) being in the spotlight.
And if the EZPass is close to empty, you should be notified by a scanner & display earlier in the line so you can change lanes and/or add cash to the card via roadside ATMs.
I can buy and refill my Metrocard ANONYMOUSLY. If that wasn't the case -- if I had no other choice than to have it linked to me personally -- then I would still be using those ancient subway tokens.
With EZPass, you don't have the option to pay cash and remain anonymous - you MUST be linked to thing even though there's no good reason for this to be the ONLY option. I can understand that some people don't give a shit about privacy and want to billed, but I'm guessing that there's a LOT of people out there just like me (in the cashonly lane) who would rather prepay in cash and be left alone.
I'm wondering if it would be illegal to setup a EZPass proxy organization?
Close, but not quite. Nanotech's coming economy of abundance won't do anything to get rid of the inherent greed in humans who evolved in environments of scarcity. So, even though anyone will be able have ANYTHING they need or want for virtually no cost, there will still be the selfish incentive to have MORE than the next ape to make your genes appear more secure. (and chicks evolved to lust after the MORE powerful alpha-male types because it served our genes.)
Nanotech will probably bring no utopia without being accompanied by some genetic engineering to cancel out some of our nastier evolutionary baggage.
Slashdot Mirror
If my brain was an eyeball it would be bleeding! Why do geeks think prefixing K (or G) to everything is witty? It's not; it's just annoying and confusing.
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Try the revolutionary new NeuralInfo(TM) interface chip. It's very simple: all it takes is one person to learn or experience something the hard way, once, then that non-unique pattern of knowledge can shared by billions in a milliseconds.
The "RTFA mod"(TM) is only 50 credits! ("Read" in past tense)
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Foresight Institute
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing
Singularity Institute for AI
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Concrete? Surely you mean carbon.
And by 2030 we'll most certainly have "bootstrapped" molecular manufacturing, which means the major effort of building anything -- even mega-structures like the global supersonic subway -- is in solving design problems (with the aid of smart software) rather than brute construction costs.
--
The hard part is building and maintaining the integrity of such a huge global network of underground tunnels. That probably means we'll be waiting a couple decades for the nanotech breakthroughs that allows us to easily "eat" through miles of rock and then build-by-numbers bottom-up.
Imagine feeling weightless in your seat as your train approaches orbital velocity.
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Hah! Yeah right. 1920x1080 is nowhere near the resolution limits that human eye can discern. And then there's full FOV stereoscopic immersion. Mmmmmmm...
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I want augmented and virtual reality ala GhostInTheShell & Matrix, and it won't be SciFi for long.
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And look at the shape of the wheel - still a circle! Essentially unchanged since Ogg The Caveman first carved the corners off a square wheel. :)
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No, that's not enough said. Flying cars by year 2000 was simply a bad prediction, so why hold it up as the posterchild for being pessimistic about all prognostication?
If you want to make a bad prediction, here's what you do:
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Aren't those usually the same people who are heavily invested in the stock market (directly or indirectly), and so believe "what's good for bad-business is good for me?"
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Throttle the connections based on a moving average of bandwidth usage, then your average Joe can get his email @ max speed, and your average Jane can download her 100MB of wedding pictures @ medium speed, but Johnny 24/7 Pirate will stuck at the remaining capacity (slow) speed.
--
The thing about free wireless (that I love) is that it keeps the Ashcroft-types up at night worrying about anonymous "terrorist" freespeech, and it gives the telco-types and the WISP-wannabes the middleman middle finger.
Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it. It's similar to how FedEx thought they could own the Fax business in the 80s. Can't blame 'em for trying I guess.
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(hey, that's not funny!)
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One of the things I remember most about it -- besides that people are still despicable apes at the core -- is that he had an underling dodge and burn one his prints over and over and over and over until it looked just right. He wanted the subjects bald head to stand out, and the clouds above him to look more ominous.
Anyhoo... one more thing:
No reason to be a pretentious twat (unless that's your particular superiority complex). Some people want realism. Some people want fantastic exageration.
--
Sorry that YOUR personal line had been crossed (what, the wife have a miscarriage or something and you skipped therapy?), but it's only a movie!, and I'm glad you're not a censor.
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So the system broke you down eh. Sorry to hear that #543308. :)
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That's a design flaw IMO. Do I get to coast through the cashonly lane if my wallet is empty too?
If your EZPass is empty then the gate should stay shut until you cough up some cash or credit or (*gasp*) more personal details for sending a fine. Hoards of angry people waiting behind you will be one incentive not to forget; as would your car (and plates) being in the spotlight.
And if the EZPass is close to empty, you should be notified by a scanner & display earlier in the line so you can change lanes and/or add cash to the card via roadside ATMs.
--
--
With EZPass, you don't have the option to pay cash and remain anonymous - you MUST be linked to thing even though there's no good reason for this to be the ONLY option. I can understand that some people don't give a shit about privacy and want to billed, but I'm guessing that there's a LOT of people out there just like me (in the cashonly lane) who would rather prepay in cash and be left alone.
I'm wondering if it would be illegal to setup a EZPass proxy organization?
--
Close, but not quite. Nanotech's coming economy of abundance won't do anything to get rid of the inherent greed in humans who evolved in environments of scarcity. So, even though anyone will be able have ANYTHING they need or want for virtually no cost, there will still be the selfish incentive to have MORE than the next ape to make your genes appear more secure. (and chicks evolved to lust after the MORE powerful alpha-male types because it served our genes.)
Nanotech will probably bring no utopia without being accompanied by some genetic engineering to cancel out some of our nastier evolutionary baggage.
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Definitely worth a series, IMO.
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