...does that mean there'll be lots of lip service to the Prime Directive while completely ignoring it? Does this mean the captain of an important Federation ship will get into fist fights as part of his duty as well? Will there be significant loss of life among the crew as a regular occurrance during peace time and will the ship regularly engage in ship-to-ship combat during this same peaceful time as well?
If the answer's "yes" then this new production will be faithful to the original.
Hubbert came up with the peak oil hypothesis. It's not a theory until he demonstrates the hypothesis predicts something. He didn't.
I know, I know. Hubbert predicted peak oil in the U.S. putting the date of peak oil as 1972 and lo! U.S. oil output peaked in 1972.
Of course Hubbert didn't predict any such thing. He got lucky.
How do I know for sure? Because he never issued another correct prediction again. A stopped clock is right twice a day but doesn't have much value for keeping time. Hubbert was right just once.
The 100% doesn't move, other than at the pace of geological time frames.
Feel free to reveal the means by which you've nailed down the quantity of oil that amounts to 100%.
Yeah, I could have worded that a bit better. The comment's certainly open to misinterpretation. A couple of folks up the thread have divined the meaning that I wasn't precise enough to make clear.
It's not that you can't build neat stuff with 3-D printers what I contend is, other then AR-15 lowers and high-capacity magazines, there's not much reason to bother. And even in the case of AR-15 lower recievers and high-capacity magazines it's politics that makes building them worthwhile; conventionally-manufactured equivalents are simply better in every regard, including price when you figure in the cost of the printer and the time you'd have to put in to learn to use it.
One respondent has a car door that won't open for want of a plastic part which is known to break. But buying a 3-D printer, and putting in the time to learn how to use the software to draw the part, generate the G-code and deal with the inevitable idiosyncracies of any tool is hardly the sort of solution that most people would embrace. If you were looking for an excuse to buy a 3-D printer that might make the cut but most people would simply buy two of the parts the next time they had to go to a junk yard for one and be done with it.
Another respondent brought up Visicalc which is the sort of thing I had in mind.
The first time those of us of a certain age saw Visicalc in operation is memorable for the harp-accompanied epiphany that results from the realization that a pathologically boring and utterly inescapable task will now evaporate. No one who had to prepare organization budgets had to be sold on Visicalc. It sold itself.
Budgets are still necessary but the only people who now add up long columns of numbers suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder.
That's the sort of transformative change I believe is necessary to propel 3-D printing into society.
Umm, so what's the Keynesian excuse for Japan's "Lost Decade" and more recently, America's non-recovery from the it's-all-Bush's-fault recession?
Lots of Keynesian goodness showered on both economies with nothing but massive government debt to show for it.
As for the observation that economics isn't a science, the complete indifference to the scientific method should have made that obvious. The delightful irony is that when the scientific method's applied to the field of economics, the hypothesis being that economics is a science by virtue of its predictive powers, the hypothesis fails.
I understand the reason for theropods having the need to swallow big hunks of meat but that capability would much more easily come from a wide jaw.
Theropods, I would think, wouldn't need to keep a narrow jaw profile like a snake because theropods didn't have to slither into narrow openings. There doesn't seem to be any obviously good reason for theropods to have a jaw that's narrow when they're not swallowing big hunks of meat and wide when they are.
Not even close to similar. Nothing in common at all and to suggest there is is evidence less of a desire to illuminate then to obscure. Or to find excuses for a failed and brutal ideology.
The Chinese leadership is trying to keep a lid on popular dissent by trying to enforce ignorance of factors which might lead to popular dissent and answers to no one on that score. In representative governments censorship is always a lively issue with those in favor of this or that convenient form of censorship finding themselves very often on the recieving end of unwelcomed attention and not infrequently losing their bid to impose censorship and just occasionally their position of political influence as well.
That's why the results are also not remotely similar. A Chinese citizen who wishes to educate themselves on some contentious issue is very likely to find their way as thoroughly blocked as the strenuous efforts of the Chinese government allows. A British, French or American citizen who wishes to remedy their ignorance on a previously ignored topic will find no such impediments in their path and, as like as not, find information on the topic from government officials.
Not sure if you noticed, but it's absurd to compare voluntary ignorance resulting from having too much information from which to choose to mandated ignorance that helps keep in power an authoritarian elite trying to hang onto that power a little longer even though their decrepit ideology has been repudiated everywhere people have the option to do so.
Yes, but those people must, quite properly, defer to their moral and intellectual superiors who know how much meat is allowable, if any and who know how warm you can be allowed to be in winter and who know whether you ought to be allowed to watch TV, how much and what programs and, well, pretty much everything.
Now, isn't it reasonable that the superior should advise the inferior and dictate to them if their inferiority prevents them from properly obeying?
Any reason you're trying to divert the subject from the lack of any mention of Antarctic ice conditions to me? I'd be flattered if it weren't so painfully obvious that you'd prefer the question go unasked.
Other then the fact that the guy ordered the TV from Amazon, what's the connection to computers, software, the Internet and all the rest of the technologicawocal world that Slashdot's supposed to have made it its goal to cover?
"Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner was pretty relentlessly depressing and not just in a worldwide sort of way.
No one in the story was happy or had any reason to be happy or had any hope of being happy. Ever. Till the end of time. Even an end to war turned out to be depressing.
Made "The Road" seem like a carefree romp across the countryside.
If the U.S. were a one-party nation everything would be just fine. Not to put too fine a point on it but has this "one party" thing worked out well in other countries?
Of course the Concorde will be replaced. Or at least its function will be replaced and Branson's venture may, or may not, have what it takes.
Also, I have serious reservations about supersonic anything that doesn't carry bombs. So far the technology's just not there to build supersonic aircraft for civilian use at a price that's not nuts where as Branson might have the makings of much faster travel at a lower price.
As, or perhaps more important, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition like a civilian supersonic exective jet. Branson can sell joy rides at a profit, which he's already doing. That helps amortize the cost of a satellite launch capability which sets the stage, maybe, for a long distance, ballistic passenger/package service. When it absatively, possilutily has to be there in ninety minutes or less Branson Ballistic delivers!
With a supersonic zeckujet you have lots of previous work to draw upon but you have the hurdle of building a commerically-viable supersonic, multi-passenger jet to overcome. So far, no one's managed that trick or even come close. It just may that bypassing the atmosphere is easier then going through it.
I wonder when Branson will announce the intent to start a passanger service?
Ever since the Concorde was grounded there hasn't been anyway for the uber-rich to get from here to there faster then us proles. I'm pretty sure there are folks who'd pay more then a few dollars to get from New York to Paris and back with time left over to flog their yacht crew for letting the boat get wet.
Government-funded education is, by it's nature, a political institution heir to all the compromises inherent to politics and the sport of changing, political winds. The assumption that all supporters of government-funded education make is that they'll be the ones directing public education since to think otherwise requires consideration of the possibilty that there are shortcomings to the idea and then those have to be dealt with. Much easier to simply assume that nothing objectionable will ever occur in public education and secretly keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't.
Well, the unacceptable inevitable is occurring and what's the response? Mostly name-calling. Religious people are stupid or insane or whatever other tedious bit of school yard invective those unwilling to accept the political nature of public education can conjure.
So there's no "letting" going on here but a perfectly legitimate outcome. Don't like the outcome? Maybe it's time to rethink government's role in education.
Get arrested in Japan and see what a wonderfully advanced, democratic state, dedicated to individual rights, Japan looks like then.
Beyond that though a nation doesn't have to be tyrannical to enact civilian disarmament. But is there a single nation that is (or was) tyrannical that didn't impose civilian disarmament?
By your reasoning citizens in those countries should be denied the option of driving a car as well.
Rights aren't predicated on the expertise of those who exercise them but whether they exercise them in a lawful manner by not infringing the rights of other citizens.
And the standard of evidence isn't "until a piece hits you on the head" but something approximating the standard in science, i.e. verifiable and verified predictions. The various substitutes - encouraging mass hysteria by claiming that catastrophic, global warming is so imminent that too much in the way of talk is dangerous or claiming that there's a consensus among scientists - will work for a while but sooner or later the substitute loses its credibility. After all, it's not the real thing.
That's what's happening. The various substitutes are losing their hold and the credence accorded the case for catastrophe is dropping.
I wonder about the long-term viability of such jobs.
Inasmuch as wind power is utterly dependent on subsidies that means the jobs are dependent on the political fortunes of the "green" lobby and the various parasitic, private sector entities that feed off their political power, the industry would disappear if the influence of the "green" lobby declines.
It doesn't happen every day but there are more then a few cases of industries, no longer viable or no longer viable in America, using political power to maintain themselves only to see their subsidies zero out when their political power wanes.
The psychtric diagnoses and barrage of invective may now commence.
Yeah, the problem with the education system is there's not enough profit motive. The facts that education is always best in countries with a more socialist education model and reduction of quality of education in the US and the UK has coincided with a move to the right should be ignored. The free market is as a god and must be worshipped at all costs.
Of course the problem's that there's no profit motive. Saints may be admirable but you just can't count on them showing up when and where they're needed. The profit motive, all frantic claims to the contrary notwithstanding, is everywhere.
It's always been possible to go to private school: your parents pay for it or you earn a scholarship. I did the latter - all I had to do was work hard during and after school for a few months rather than jacking about. It's always been possible to be home schooled. The problem is not a lack of or neutered demand for good education. The problem is that there is no demand whatever for good education because society doesn't want it. What the country demands is ever more unthinking, pliable, robotic cogs, trained to do a few things well and everything else badly. And the current education model is delivering exactly that.
Ah, there's no demand for education and you worked hard to get an education. Got it.
I'm pretty sure the only explanation for that contradiction is that you're better then most people. Lucky you and lucky us for having your around to act as an unrequested role model.
If I am a capitalist education provider then I want as many people as possible adopting my solutions, and I couldn't give a fuck how good they are because 100,000,000 idiots buying my product are better than 1,000 smart people (who aren't stupid enough to buy an education product from a business anyway). And FWIW I worked for a publisher-owned exam board for around a year, before I developed a moral compass. We knew exactly what we were doing. We loved people like you because you were essentially free advertising - the same sort of idiots who use phrases like "choice in healthcare" to mean "expensive, inaccessible private healthcare dominated by inefficient insurers".
If you were a free enterprise education provider you'd last about fifteen minutes.
If you don't give a fuck how good your education solutions are they'd better be better then those offered by people who do give a fuck because if they aren't, you're gone. You see, the guy who does give a fuck is going to do a better job then you at something - advertising, distribution, educational efficacy - and you become a case history of how not to run a business. Seeing as how you don't give a fuck it should be pretty easy to run you out of the market.
Oh, and countries with the socialist education model generally have a pretty shitty education system because there's no incentive to be any better.
When you come across the exceptions, after your hyperventilation and excitment subsides, be sure to take plenty of pictures and swipe some stationary. It's a temporary aberration. Reversion to the mean occurs just as soon as the individual, or the tiny cohort, responsible for the unlikely phenomenon of a good, socialist education system is elbowed out of the way by the political forces that are part and parcel of every socialist solution for everything. Including education.
By the way, very impressive moral compass. I'm guessing that's what causes you to believe you're smarter and better then the people with whom you're forced to share a planet.
Slashdot Mirror
The question ought to be "what could possibly(sic) do wrong ten years from now?"
RTFA, baby since the rocket scientists who now run slashdot can't be bothered to do it for you.
...does that mean there'll be lots of lip service to the Prime Directive while completely ignoring it? Does this mean the captain of an important Federation ship will get into fist fights as part of his duty as well? Will there be significant loss of life among the crew as a regular occurrance during peace time and will the ship regularly engage in ship-to-ship combat during this same peaceful time as well?
If the answer's "yes" then this new production will be faithful to the original.
..ten years ago - http://www.gizmag.com/go/2440/ and http://rmax.yamaha-motor.com.au/
Hubbert came up with the peak oil hypothesis. It's not a theory until he demonstrates the hypothesis predicts something. He didn't.
I know, I know. Hubbert predicted peak oil in the U.S. putting the date of peak oil as 1972 and lo! U.S. oil output peaked in 1972.
Of course Hubbert didn't predict any such thing. He got lucky.
How do I know for sure? Because he never issued another correct prediction again. A stopped clock is right twice a day but doesn't have much value for keeping time. Hubbert was right just once.
Feel free to reveal the means by which you've nailed down the quantity of oil that amounts to 100%.
Yeah, I could have worded that a bit better. The comment's certainly open to misinterpretation. A couple of folks up the thread have divined the meaning that I wasn't precise enough to make clear.
It's not that you can't build neat stuff with 3-D printers what I contend is, other then AR-15 lowers and high-capacity magazines, there's not much reason to bother. And even in the case of AR-15 lower recievers and high-capacity magazines it's politics that makes building them worthwhile; conventionally-manufactured equivalents are simply better in every regard, including price when you figure in the cost of the printer and the time you'd have to put in to learn to use it.
One respondent has a car door that won't open for want of a plastic part which is known to break. But buying a 3-D printer, and putting in the time to learn how to use the software to draw the part, generate the G-code and deal with the inevitable idiosyncracies of any tool is hardly the sort of solution that most people would embrace. If you were looking for an excuse to buy a 3-D printer that might make the cut but most people would simply buy two of the parts the next time they had to go to a junk yard for one and be done with it.
Another respondent brought up Visicalc which is the sort of thing I had in mind.
The first time those of us of a certain age saw Visicalc in operation is memorable for the harp-accompanied epiphany that results from the realization that a pathologically boring and utterly inescapable task will now evaporate. No one who had to prepare organization budgets had to be sold on Visicalc. It sold itself.
Budgets are still necessary but the only people who now add up long columns of numbers suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder.
That's the sort of transformative change I believe is necessary to propel 3-D printing into society.
What's holding back 3-D printing is that there's hardly anything worthwhile to be done with it.
Other then printing an AR-15 lower receiver or magazines what can you do with a 3-D printer that's worth the bother?
Umm, so what's the Keynesian excuse for Japan's "Lost Decade" and more recently, America's non-recovery from the it's-all-Bush's-fault recession?
Lots of Keynesian goodness showered on both economies with nothing but massive government debt to show for it.
As for the observation that economics isn't a science, the complete indifference to the scientific method should have made that obvious. The delightful irony is that when the scientific method's applied to the field of economics, the hypothesis being that economics is a science by virtue of its predictive powers, the hypothesis fails.
I understand the reason for theropods having the need to swallow big hunks of meat but that capability would much more easily come from a wide jaw.
Theropods, I would think, wouldn't need to keep a narrow jaw profile like a snake because theropods didn't have to slither into narrow openings. There doesn't seem to be any obviously good reason for theropods to have a jaw that's narrow when they're not swallowing big hunks of meat and wide when they are.
Not even close to similar. Nothing in common at all and to suggest there is is evidence less of a desire to illuminate then to obscure. Or to find excuses for a failed and brutal ideology.
The Chinese leadership is trying to keep a lid on popular dissent by trying to enforce ignorance of factors which might lead to popular dissent and answers to no one on that score. In representative governments censorship is always a lively issue with those in favor of this or that convenient form of censorship finding themselves very often on the recieving end of unwelcomed attention and not infrequently losing their bid to impose censorship and just occasionally their position of political influence as well.
That's why the results are also not remotely similar. A Chinese citizen who wishes to educate themselves on some contentious issue is very likely to find their way as thoroughly blocked as the strenuous efforts of the Chinese government allows. A British, French or American citizen who wishes to remedy their ignorance on a previously ignored topic will find no such impediments in their path and, as like as not, find information on the topic from government officials.
Not sure if you noticed, but it's absurd to compare voluntary ignorance resulting from having too much information from which to choose to mandated ignorance that helps keep in power an authoritarian elite trying to hang onto that power a little longer even though their decrepit ideology has been repudiated everywhere people have the option to do so.
Yes, but those people must, quite properly, defer to their moral and intellectual superiors who know how much meat is allowable, if any and who know how warm you can be allowed to be in winter and who know whether you ought to be allowed to watch TV, how much and what programs and, well, pretty much everything.
Now, isn't it reasonable that the superior should advise the inferior and dictate to them if their inferiority prevents them from properly obeying?
Any reason you're trying to divert the subject from the lack of any mention of Antarctic ice conditions to me? I'd be flattered if it weren't so painfully obvious that you'd prefer the question go unasked.
There is another polar ice cap. Anyone know what's happening there with regard to ice coverage?
Seems to me that if you're telling only half the story you can't possibly be telling more then half the truth.
If that.
Other then the fact that the guy ordered the TV from Amazon, what's the connection to computers, software, the Internet and all the rest of the technologicawocal world that Slashdot's supposed to have made it its goal to cover?
Is the news that UPS screwed up?
"Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner was pretty relentlessly depressing and not just in a worldwide sort of way.
No one in the story was happy or had any reason to be happy or had any hope of being happy. Ever. Till the end of time. Even an end to war turned out to be depressing.
Made "The Road" seem like a carefree romp across the countryside.
I think I understand.
If the U.S. were a one-party nation everything would be just fine. Not to put too fine a point on it but has this "one party" thing worked out well in other countries?
Of course the Concorde will be replaced. Or at least its function will be replaced and Branson's venture may, or may not, have what it takes.
Also, I have serious reservations about supersonic anything that doesn't carry bombs. So far the technology's just not there to build supersonic aircraft for civilian use at a price that's not nuts where as Branson might have the makings of much faster travel at a lower price.
As, or perhaps more important, it's not an all-or-nothing proposition like a civilian supersonic exective jet. Branson can sell joy rides at a profit, which he's already doing. That helps amortize the cost of a satellite launch capability which sets the stage, maybe, for a long distance, ballistic passenger/package service. When it absatively, possilutily has to be there in ninety minutes or less Branson Ballistic delivers!
With a supersonic zeckujet you have lots of previous work to draw upon but you have the hurdle of building a commerically-viable supersonic, multi-passenger jet to overcome. So far, no one's managed that trick or even come close. It just may that bypassing the atmosphere is easier then going through it.
I wonder when Branson will announce the intent to start a passanger service?
Ever since the Concorde was grounded there hasn't been anyway for the uber-rich to get from here to there faster then us proles. I'm pretty sure there are folks who'd pay more then a few dollars to get from New York to Paris and back with time left over to flog their yacht crew for letting the boat get wet.
What do you mean "letting"?
Government-funded education is, by it's nature, a political institution heir to all the compromises inherent to politics and the sport of changing, political winds. The assumption that all supporters of government-funded education make is that they'll be the ones directing public education since to think otherwise requires consideration of the possibilty that there are shortcomings to the idea and then those have to be dealt with. Much easier to simply assume that nothing objectionable will ever occur in public education and secretly keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't.
Well, the unacceptable inevitable is occurring and what's the response? Mostly name-calling. Religious people are stupid or insane or whatever other tedious bit of school yard invective those unwilling to accept the political nature of public education can conjure.
So there's no "letting" going on here but a perfectly legitimate outcome. Don't like the outcome? Maybe it's time to rethink government's role in education.
Get arrested in Japan and see what a wonderfully advanced, democratic state, dedicated to individual rights, Japan looks like then.
Beyond that though a nation doesn't have to be tyrannical to enact civilian disarmament. But is there a single nation that is (or was) tyrannical that didn't impose civilian disarmament?
By your reasoning citizens in those countries should be denied the option of driving a car as well.
Rights aren't predicated on the expertise of those who exercise them but whether they exercise them in a lawful manner by not infringing the rights of other citizens.
...and Chicken Little's problems was, no proof.
And the standard of evidence isn't "until a piece hits you on the head" but something approximating the standard in science, i.e. verifiable and verified predictions. The various substitutes - encouraging mass hysteria by claiming that catastrophic, global warming is so imminent that too much in the way of talk is dangerous or claiming that there's a consensus among scientists - will work for a while but sooner or later the substitute loses its credibility. After all, it's not the real thing.
That's what's happening. The various substitutes are losing their hold and the credence accorded the case for catastrophe is dropping.
I am comforted though that the Club of Rome's predictions were conclusively disproven in fact. I'll let the principles take care of themselves.
I wonder about the long-term viability of such jobs.
Inasmuch as wind power is utterly dependent on subsidies that means the jobs are dependent on the political fortunes of the "green" lobby and the various parasitic, private sector entities that feed off their political power, the industry would disappear if the influence of the "green" lobby declines.
It doesn't happen every day but there are more then a few cases of industries, no longer viable or no longer viable in America, using political power to maintain themselves only to see their subsidies zero out when their political power wanes.
The psychtric diagnoses and barrage of invective may now commence.
Yeah, the problem with the education system is there's not enough profit motive. The facts that education is always best in countries with a more socialist education model and reduction of quality of education in the US and the UK has coincided with a move to the right should be ignored. The free market is as a god and must be worshipped at all costs.
Of course the problem's that there's no profit motive. Saints may be admirable but you just can't count on them showing up when and where they're needed. The profit motive, all frantic claims to the contrary notwithstanding, is everywhere.
It's always been possible to go to private school: your parents pay for it or you earn a scholarship. I did the latter - all I had to do was work hard during and after school for a few months rather than jacking about. It's always been possible to be home schooled. The problem is not a lack of or neutered demand for good education. The problem is that there is no demand whatever for good education because society doesn't want it. What the country demands is ever more unthinking, pliable, robotic cogs, trained to do a few things well and everything else badly. And the current education model is delivering exactly that.
Ah, there's no demand for education and you worked hard to get an education. Got it.
I'm pretty sure the only explanation for that contradiction is that you're better then most people. Lucky you and lucky us for having your around to act as an unrequested role model.
If I am a capitalist education provider then I want as many people as possible adopting my solutions, and I couldn't give a fuck how good they are because 100,000,000 idiots buying my product are better than 1,000 smart people (who aren't stupid enough to buy an education product from a business anyway). And FWIW I worked for a publisher-owned exam board for around a year, before I developed a moral compass. We knew exactly what we were doing. We loved people like you because you were essentially free advertising - the same sort of idiots who use phrases like "choice in healthcare" to mean "expensive, inaccessible private healthcare dominated by inefficient insurers".
If you were a free enterprise education provider you'd last about fifteen minutes.
If you don't give a fuck how good your education solutions are they'd better be better then those offered by people who do give a fuck because if they aren't, you're gone. You see, the guy who does give a fuck is going to do a better job then you at something - advertising, distribution, educational efficacy - and you become a case history of how not to run a business. Seeing as how you don't give a fuck it should be pretty easy to run you out of the market.
Oh, and countries with the socialist education model generally have a pretty shitty education system because there's no incentive to be any better.
When you come across the exceptions, after your hyperventilation and excitment subsides, be sure to take plenty of pictures and swipe some stationary. It's a temporary aberration. Reversion to the mean occurs just as soon as the individual, or the tiny cohort, responsible for the unlikely phenomenon of a good, socialist education system is elbowed out of the way by the political forces that are part and parcel of every socialist solution for everything. Including education.
By the way, very impressive moral compass. I'm guessing that's what causes you to believe you're smarter and better then the people with whom you're forced to share a planet.