Would the interconnects be fast enough? There's a lot of non-locality in the synaptic connections, so you're going to need some pretty heavy comms between the cores.
Also a selection of neurons are far more heavily connected than 1000s of synapses, and they're fairly essential ones. Might these be a critical path?
Sure would be cool to build such a beast, do some random connections, and see what happens...
There's an element of truth, although it's not the major influence.
A lower magnetic field *may* result in greater penetration of the solar wind into the lower atmosphere. This heats it from above, although this is unlikley to cause heating lower down since it's convectivly stable (hot air rises, so the heat isn't transfered to the troposphere where we live).
The major long term effect would be an increase in the rate at which the solar wind 'blows away' the atmosphere. Some scientists speculate that Mars has lost almost all of its atmosphere due to this process, but we're talking geological time here.
The north pole isn't 'Man Defined' at all. It's the rotational pole. IE: If you stood at the north pole the stars on the horizon would neither rise nor set.
Both the magnetic and rotational poles tend to wander slightly over time. The magnetic pole wanders due to changes in the earth's internal dynamo, and the rotational pole changes due to gravitaional interactions with the moon and other planets.
Driverless cars will be much safer drivers, cutting the number of fatalities
Driverless cars will drive efficiently, saving energy and lowering greenhouse
Driverless cars will make much cheaper cabs, saving people having to own a car
Driverless cars will be able to drive you home if you're drunk/tired/bored/want to read a book
In fact I can't think of a single compelling reason why this shouldn't become a dominant form of transport very rapidly once it's up and running. My grandmother used to have to chop wood if she wanted a hot shower, sure it kept her fit, but would anyone give up their instant hot water heater now days?
The leap second is required because the earth's spin is slowing down in a complex, non-linear way.
Changing the length of the second simply won't work, in a couple of hundred years we'll be right back to where we started again. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second for details.
The leap hour is a daft idea, why change something that isn't broken, if a tad inconvenient.
To quote Greg Egan, the 21st century the biggest conflict will be over the definitions of two words, health and humanity.
If someone has a prosthetic leg, few would argue they're no longer human, but what about if their whole body is prosthetic? Or half their brain is stored in silicon? Is someone who is permanently brain damaged no longer human, and therefore we have no moral imperitive to sustain their life?
Is a self-sufficient and satisfied sociopath unhealthy, and therefore in need of being 'cured'? How about a happy, but mentally handicapped child? By treating either of these people, and changing them essentially into some other person, are we depriving them on their humanity?
It is somewhat of a deal actualy. While the stars themselves don't actualy collide, the dust and gas contained within the galaxies do.
This causes large numbers of new stars to be formed. New stars emit large amounts of hard radiation. Furthermore, many of the new stars are quite massive and soon explode into supernova, providing large, powerful radiation blasts.
How would this affect us? Any sufficiently close supernova would most likley be powerful enough to ionize the entire earth's atmosphere, wiping out all life here.
Slashdot Mirror
Would the interconnects be fast enough? There's a lot of non-locality in the synaptic connections, so you're going to need some pretty heavy comms between the cores.
Also a selection of neurons are far more heavily connected than 1000s of synapses, and they're fairly essential ones. Might these be a critical path?
Sure would be cool to build such a beast, do some random connections, and see what happens...
[x] Your mom.
And for the record, there has never been a randomized, blinded, clinical trial that shows smoking causes cancer.
Yes, but it's hard to believe that cancer causes smoking...
There's an element of truth, although it's not the major influence.
A lower magnetic field *may* result in greater penetration of the solar wind into the lower atmosphere. This heats it from above, although this is unlikley to cause heating lower down since it's convectivly stable (hot air rises, so the heat isn't transfered to the troposphere where we live).
The major long term effect would be an increase in the rate at which the solar wind 'blows away' the atmosphere. Some scientists speculate that Mars has lost almost all of its atmosphere due to this process, but we're talking geological time here.
The north pole isn't 'Man Defined' at all. It's the rotational pole. IE: If you stood at the north pole the stars on the horizon would neither rise nor set.
Both the magnetic and rotational poles tend to wander slightly over time. The magnetic pole wanders due to changes in the earth's internal dynamo, and the rotational pole changes due to gravitaional interactions with the moon and other planets.
- Driverless cars will be much safer drivers, cutting the number of fatalities
- Driverless cars will drive efficiently, saving energy and lowering greenhouse
- Driverless cars will make much cheaper cabs, saving people having to own a car
- Driverless cars will be able to drive you home if you're drunk/tired/bored/want to read a book
In fact I can't think of a single compelling reason why this shouldn't become a dominant form of transport very rapidly once it's up and running. My grandmother used to have to chop wood if she wanted a hot shower, sure it kept her fit, but would anyone give up their instant hot water heater now days?It won't work. The need for leap seconds is non-deterministic and non-linear.
The leap second is required because the earth's spin is slowing down in a complex, non-linear way.
Changing the length of the second simply won't work, in a couple of hundred years we'll be right back to where we started again. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second for details.
The leap hour is a daft idea, why change something that isn't broken, if a tad inconvenient.
To quote Greg Egan, the 21st century the biggest conflict will be over the definitions of two words, health and humanity.
If someone has a prosthetic leg, few would argue they're no longer human, but what about if their whole body is prosthetic? Or half their brain is stored in silicon? Is someone who is permanently brain damaged no longer human, and therefore we have no moral imperitive to sustain their life?
Is a self-sufficient and satisfied sociopath unhealthy, and therefore in need of being 'cured'? How about a happy, but mentally handicapped child? By treating either of these people, and changing them essentially into some other person, are we depriving them on their humanity?
It is somewhat of a deal actualy. While the stars themselves don't actualy collide, the dust and gas contained within the galaxies do.
This causes large numbers of new stars to be formed. New stars emit large amounts of hard radiation. Furthermore, many of the new stars are quite massive and soon explode into supernova, providing large, powerful radiation blasts.
How would this affect us? Any sufficiently close supernova would most likley be powerful enough to ionize the entire earth's atmosphere, wiping out all life here.
here's a picture of a starburst galaxy