If we could get an "ion-drive" to get us there in a month, that will cut down the the bone loss, and exposure to radiation.
Does Mars provide any real protection against radiation?
Yes, by virtue of being made of rock. Just being in orbit will cut out ~half of cosmic radiation, and a surface colony could have buildings underground or covered in sandbags or bricks to get greater protection. People walking on the surface would still get elevated exposure compared to Earth, because the atmosphere is so thin, but having a sleeping shelter that is thoroughly shielded may give the body enough of an opportunity to heal and recover such that the long-term effects are mitigated.
Here's what I think when I hear "Firefox Quantum":
It is an incremental advancement by the smallest possible fundamental unit. (Surely that would be Firefox 56.0.1?)
If I run it on a headless box, it will remain in a superposition of states of "crashed" and "not crashed" until I connect the monitor, at which point its wavefunction will collapse into one state or the other (with ~20/80 odds).
I'll either like it but not be able to explain why it works, or I'll dislike it but be unable to disprove its merits.
(To be clear, I do like the interface better than Chrome's, although I'll reserve judgement until I see how it handles large numbers of tabs -- my key criterion: don't shrink them to slits. I hear that there's an ad blocker around, but I hope that something like RequestPolicy will also exist in the new addon system.)
I can understand him not wanting his world to be weighed down with posthumous publications (looking at you, Dune), and some of his later books were slipping a little compared to his peak (still all worth reading). Nevertheless, I would have liked to know what he was working on.
Going forward, the Watch were some of my favorite characters (and the books where they starred were some of my favorites), so I hope the TV series is successfully completed!
NASA's doing Earth science because NASA's always done Earth science, since Explorer 1 (well, the Army launched it, but JPL built it). They are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so anything that is done in flight could be said to fall under their purview. Human space flight is a major part of their portfolio (and I share your disappointment that there have been no humans beyond LEO since Apollo...I mostly work on small satellites, but I've done a little work on studying human planetary exploration), but it's hardly the only item.
(Technically, NASA does Earth science because Congress tells NASA to do Earth science -- for example, the 1976 NASA authorization bill specifically directed NASA "to conduct a comprehensive program of research, technology and monitoring of the phenomena of the upper atmosphere," including developing satellites for that purpose.)
(I'm assuming you're honestly curious, and not trolling.)
NASA's science directorate includes a division devoted to Planetary Science. Earth is a planet [citation needed], and while NASA's missions to study non-Earth planets get lots of press (and deservedly so), Earth is a useful point of comparison (one that is much easier to reach than any other). Studying Earth informs our understanding of other planets, and of course understanding our planet is very valuable to us who live on it (NASA's motto: "For the Benefit of All"). Additionally, it is very convenient to study Earth from space-based platforms, so I wouldn't begrudge NASA a seat at the table.
You are correct in that there is also an element of self-preservation involved. The Planetary Defense Coordination Office devotes most of its attention to understanding threats from asteroids and developing response contingencies, but many of the effects of asteroid impact are similar to the effects of a supervolcano eruption (or nuclear war, and in fact we get data on meteor and meteorite impacts from their impacts and flashes tripping our nuclear detection sensors and satellites), so there is definitely a good reason for them to be involved in studying this phenomenon.
(As an aside, there is sometimes tension between NASA and other agencies, such as NSF and NOAA, about whether a particular satellite or instrument is studying "planetary science" [NASA/NSF], "climate" [NASA/NSF/NOAA], or "weather" [NOAA], because of course they're all looking at the same thing: Earth. It can sometimes turn into a delicate dance of nomenclature, principal investigatorship, data priority and custody, and funding.)
I visited some family in South Carolina, and some other friends of the family converged there as well. We basically had a little picnic, set up some cameras, and then watched the shrinking Sun with our glasses.
Even at ten minutes prior, it was eerie! Dark as evening, but with the Sun still seventy degrees overhead. I've never experienced conditions like it in my life. The temperature was noticeably cooler, as well.
And then, totality itself! We were on the southern edge of the path, so only about a minute thirty of totality, but my goodness, they should have sent a poet! The sky was as dark as night, but the horizon was lit by the sunlight that made it around the Moon -- not red like a usual sunset, but blue! And of course, the hole in the sky where the Sun used to be.
Even knowing in advance that it would be happening, there are no words to describe the awe we felt. I can hardly begin to understand the panic that people must have felt before we understood what caused them!
Interestingly, because we saw the eclipse from a small farm, we could see the reactions of some non-human animals as well. Chickens went inside their roost during totality (and then came back outside as soon as it was done, no worse for wear), and the gnats all went to ground (and then came back with a vengeance when it was over). We didn't notice any other creatures reactions, so maybe it was over too quickly for them to be concerned. (Incidentally, some neighbors were out of their minds over whether they should get eclipse glasses for their animals...no need to worry, they've been dealing with eclipses for millions of years before we domesticated them.)
Wherever you are in the world, keep your ears open for when the next eclipse is coming near you, and make the effort to see totality -- it's worth it! I'm already looking forward to 2024!
Is this the same data that led to MozColonSlashSlashA's infantilization of the user interface around the late 20s (version number, that is)? What good is getting more data from more users if they will simply make bad decisions based on it? (I've been a grateful user of Classic Theme Restorer since then, but unfortunately it will fall victim to the coming addonpocalypse.)
"However, 64bit Windows XP and Windows versions prior to XP are not supported." -- Of course, the same is true of most legitimate applications as well...
Be careful when choosing to host images via Someone Else's System. If you're not paying them, they've got some other business plan going on, and it may not be to every end user's advantage.
Yeah, the energetics of sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and stuffing it underground are pretty daunting (it took the better part of 300 million years to get down there in the first place). I've seen some interesting news a few years back about converting CO2 back into useful hydrocarbons (using excess power from nuclear reactors, essentially a way to spend their power when demand dips, as they 'throttle' up and down very slowly and move large volumes of air through their cooling towers...but that depends on having lots of nuclear power plants, which is politically challenging) but I can totally believe the big corporations are more interested in being seen to be doing something (and picking up some funds along the way) rather than completely changing their business models.
I saw a talk by a colleague of mine who worked at JPL on climate science in which he talked about some work he'd done studying geoengineering. He said that, in his opinion, geoengineering was one of the stupidest ideas he'd ever heard of, but that not studying it was even stupider. (Especially because it can be done by a wealthy private individual or group, as opposed to the usual industry-scale causes of and proposed solutions to climate change. This makes it more likely to happen, and so more important to understand.)
Later in that talk, he laid out five methods for dealing with climate change:
1. Reductions of emissions. Increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the cause of this trouble, so let's stop making the situation worse.
2. Sequestration of greenhouse gases. Even if we stopped emitting CO2 altogether tomorrow, the atmospheric concentration is still higher than it has ever been in human history, and that can still cause serious climate disruption. Absorbing and storing (or repurposing?) greenhouse gases can move the equilibrium back to historical levels
3. Geoengineering. Tinker with the other variables in the climate system (albedo, sunshades, etc.) to keep the global average temperature the same even though atmospheric CO2 is rising. Climate change happened more or less by accident -- just imagine what we can do on purpose!
4. Adaptation. Rebuild roads and buildings, relocate crops, and shift travel patterns to adapt to changes in local climates (temperature, wet/dry/growing seasons, etc.).
5. Suffering. The above solutions are all incredibly expensive in time and money. However, doing nothing will be expensive in human lives.
We built our roads, farms, and economies to fit in the weather patterns of the last century, assuming they would last forever. It is increasingly obvious that this is not the case (largely due to our own economic activity, though climate change also occurs naturally on longer timescales). Something has to give -- either we have to intervene to keep the climate steady, or we have to adjust our societies to move with it, or the human-nature system will tear itself apart (and the Earth weighs a lot more than we do).
The text on the package is German (with a '.de' URL printed on the box), and it's on the German-language Wikipedia, so I'd say the country is Germany. I didn't notice anything like this when I visited a few months ago, but I went to (what I understand to be) a regular grocery store, not specialized for 'wellness products' or whatever the local euphemism for 'woo' is.
Adam West is best known for starring in the lead role of a TV adaptation of a comic book. His death is obviously news for nerds (and I'm sorry to hear he's gone). That he wrote an op-ed for a 1982 computer gaming magazine is even nerdier -- comics, computers, the '80's, that's like triple nerddom crossover.
swillden has an interesting comment (https://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10611915&cid=54420295) that if a company is serious about keeping their code secret, they should probably use trade secret and contract law, not copyright. He's of the opinion that copyright should only apply to works that are fully 'published', i.e. not applicable to binary-only releases, because even if a binary blob technically times out of copyright, it's not really modifiable and fully-usable by the public without the source. (And even if an entity does seek copyright protection for software and publishes their source accordingly, they don't necessarily have to license it to permit redistribution until support lapses.)
You're probably right about the choice of license -- PD != GPL.
If I didn't want to support version 1.0 anymore, I'd EOL it and give it up into the public domain, but I'd still have copyright over version 30 (which is actively supported).
And if someone else wanted to 'pirate' v1.0 and release it and build on it themselves, they'd be legal in doing so, but unless they were supporting it themselves, then their modifications would be public-domain as well.
(Of course, my logos and such would be trademarked, not copyrighted, so they'd have to do something like IceWeasel vs. Firefox.)
If Microsoft did have software they were going to support for 70 years, and priced it accordingly, probably it would be too expensive for you or me, but there might be corporate users interested in that kind of long-term stability and commitment. Nothing would stop them from releasing software that is supported for only five years (and that would probably have a low enough price tag that personal users like us would be willing to pay), but once it hits EOL, their copyright on that OS expires as well.
The reason folks turn off Windows Update is that it behaves kind of like malware itself! I'm technologically savvy enough to set my registry and so on to disable the awful "Get Windows Ten" updates, but when so many users got shafted by Windows "self-updating with zero input required from the user" to a completely new operating system (a new operating system that actively thwarts end-user control over updates!), is it any wonder that so many of them switched it off?
The comparison to anti-vaxxers is interesting, and apt in more ways than Troy may have known. Much like Microsoft hijacked their Windows Update program to push Windows 10, the CIA used a Pakistani polio vaccination campaign to gather intelligence about Osama bin Laden (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). This has resulted in the killing of other relief workers and general suspicion of medical aid programs in that region, and so polio persists.
Slashdot generally doesn't like ludicrously-long copyright terms, right? What if we made maintenance a requirement for retaining copyright over software? If Microsoft (or whoever) wants to retain a copyright on their software for 70 years, then they'd better be prepared to commit to 70 years of support. If they want to EOL it after 5 years or 20 years or whatever, and wash their hands of responsibility, that's fine, but then it's public domain. Why should we let companies benefit from software they don't support anymore?
This could also work for art works, as well -- because copyright exists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," we could make it a requirement that an author (or company, or whatever) needs to be distributing (or licensing for distribution) a work to have copyright on it. When it's out of print, it enters the public domain.
Slashdot Mirror
If we could get an "ion-drive" to get us there in a month, that will cut down the the bone loss, and exposure to radiation.
Does Mars provide any real protection against radiation?
Yes, by virtue of being made of rock. Just being in orbit will cut out ~half of cosmic radiation, and a surface colony could have buildings underground or covered in sandbags or bricks to get greater protection. People walking on the surface would still get elevated exposure compared to Earth, because the atmosphere is so thin, but having a sleeping shelter that is thoroughly shielded may give the body enough of an opportunity to heal and recover such that the long-term effects are mitigated.
"God, What An Ass-Hole!"
Oh wait, twice zero is still zero.
Here's what I think when I hear "Firefox Quantum":
(To be clear, I do like the interface better than Chrome's, although I'll reserve judgement until I see how it handles large numbers of tabs -- my key criterion: don't shrink them to slits. I hear that there's an ad blocker around, but I hope that something like RequestPolicy will also exist in the new addon system.)
At $185K per file, I'm reminded of the Music and Film Industry Associations of America... ;)
I can understand him not wanting his world to be weighed down with posthumous publications (looking at you, Dune), and some of his later books were slipping a little compared to his peak (still all worth reading). Nevertheless, I would have liked to know what he was working on.
Going forward, the Watch were some of my favorite characters (and the books where they starred were some of my favorites), so I hope the TV series is successfully completed!
NASA's doing Earth science because NASA's always done Earth science, since Explorer 1 (well, the Army launched it, but JPL built it). They are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so anything that is done in flight could be said to fall under their purview. Human space flight is a major part of their portfolio (and I share your disappointment that there have been no humans beyond LEO since Apollo...I mostly work on small satellites, but I've done a little work on studying human planetary exploration), but it's hardly the only item.
(Technically, NASA does Earth science because Congress tells NASA to do Earth science -- for example, the 1976 NASA authorization bill specifically directed NASA "to conduct a comprehensive program of research, technology and monitoring of the phenomena of the upper atmosphere," including developing satellites for that purpose.)
(I'm assuming you're honestly curious, and not trolling.)
NASA's science directorate includes a division devoted to Planetary Science. Earth is a planet [citation needed], and while NASA's missions to study non-Earth planets get lots of press (and deservedly so), Earth is a useful point of comparison (one that is much easier to reach than any other). Studying Earth informs our understanding of other planets, and of course understanding our planet is very valuable to us who live on it (NASA's motto: "For the Benefit of All"). Additionally, it is very convenient to study Earth from space-based platforms, so I wouldn't begrudge NASA a seat at the table.
You are correct in that there is also an element of self-preservation involved. The Planetary Defense Coordination Office devotes most of its attention to understanding threats from asteroids and developing response contingencies, but many of the effects of asteroid impact are similar to the effects of a supervolcano eruption (or nuclear war, and in fact we get data on meteor and meteorite impacts from their impacts and flashes tripping our nuclear detection sensors and satellites), so there is definitely a good reason for them to be involved in studying this phenomenon.
(As an aside, there is sometimes tension between NASA and other agencies, such as NSF and NOAA, about whether a particular satellite or instrument is studying "planetary science" [NASA/NSF], "climate" [NASA/NSF/NOAA], or "weather" [NOAA], because of course they're all looking at the same thing: Earth. It can sometimes turn into a delicate dance of nomenclature, principal investigatorship, data priority and custody, and funding.)
I visited some family in South Carolina, and some other friends of the family converged there as well. We basically had a little picnic, set up some cameras, and then watched the shrinking Sun with our glasses.
Even at ten minutes prior, it was eerie! Dark as evening, but with the Sun still seventy degrees overhead. I've never experienced conditions like it in my life. The temperature was noticeably cooler, as well.
And then, totality itself! We were on the southern edge of the path, so only about a minute thirty of totality, but my goodness, they should have sent a poet! The sky was as dark as night, but the horizon was lit by the sunlight that made it around the Moon -- not red like a usual sunset, but blue! And of course, the hole in the sky where the Sun used to be.
Even knowing in advance that it would be happening, there are no words to describe the awe we felt. I can hardly begin to understand the panic that people must have felt before we understood what caused them!
Interestingly, because we saw the eclipse from a small farm, we could see the reactions of some non-human animals as well. Chickens went inside their roost during totality (and then came back outside as soon as it was done, no worse for wear), and the gnats all went to ground (and then came back with a vengeance when it was over). We didn't notice any other creatures reactions, so maybe it was over too quickly for them to be concerned. (Incidentally, some neighbors were out of their minds over whether they should get eclipse glasses for their animals...no need to worry, they've been dealing with eclipses for millions of years before we domesticated them.)
Wherever you are in the world, keep your ears open for when the next eclipse is coming near you, and make the effort to see totality -- it's worth it! I'm already looking forward to 2024!
Is this the same data that led to MozColonSlashSlashA's infantilization of the user interface around the late 20s (version number, that is)? What good is getting more data from more users if they will simply make bad decisions based on it? (I've been a grateful user of Classic Theme Restorer since then, but unfortunately it will fall victim to the coming addonpocalypse.)
I look at Slashdot at least once every twenty seconds!
"However, 64bit Windows XP and Windows versions prior to XP are not supported." -- Of course, the same is true of most legitimate applications as well...
How many people here actually search for gifs on Giphy (or any other gif-hosting site)? Mostly I share and find links to Giphy from other sites.
Be careful when choosing to host images via Someone Else's System. If you're not paying them, they've got some other business plan going on, and it may not be to every end user's advantage.
Yeah, the energetics of sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and stuffing it underground are pretty daunting (it took the better part of 300 million years to get down there in the first place). I've seen some interesting news a few years back about converting CO2 back into useful hydrocarbons (using excess power from nuclear reactors, essentially a way to spend their power when demand dips, as they 'throttle' up and down very slowly and move large volumes of air through their cooling towers...but that depends on having lots of nuclear power plants, which is politically challenging) but I can totally believe the big corporations are more interested in being seen to be doing something (and picking up some funds along the way) rather than completely changing their business models.
I saw a talk by a colleague of mine who worked at JPL on climate science in which he talked about some work he'd done studying geoengineering. He said that, in his opinion, geoengineering was one of the stupidest ideas he'd ever heard of, but that not studying it was even stupider. (Especially because it can be done by a wealthy private individual or group, as opposed to the usual industry-scale causes of and proposed solutions to climate change. This makes it more likely to happen, and so more important to understand.)
Later in that talk, he laid out five methods for dealing with climate change:
1. Reductions of emissions. Increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the cause of this trouble, so let's stop making the situation worse.
2. Sequestration of greenhouse gases. Even if we stopped emitting CO2 altogether tomorrow, the atmospheric concentration is still higher than it has ever been in human history, and that can still cause serious climate disruption. Absorbing and storing (or repurposing?) greenhouse gases can move the equilibrium back to historical levels
3. Geoengineering. Tinker with the other variables in the climate system (albedo, sunshades, etc.) to keep the global average temperature the same even though atmospheric CO2 is rising. Climate change happened more or less by accident -- just imagine what we can do on purpose!
4. Adaptation. Rebuild roads and buildings, relocate crops, and shift travel patterns to adapt to changes in local climates (temperature, wet/dry/growing seasons, etc.).
5. Suffering. The above solutions are all incredibly expensive in time and money. However, doing nothing will be expensive in human lives.
We built our roads, farms, and economies to fit in the weather patterns of the last century, assuming they would last forever. It is increasingly obvious that this is not the case (largely due to our own economic activity, though climate change also occurs naturally on longer timescales). Something has to give -- either we have to intervene to keep the climate steady, or we have to adjust our societies to move with it, or the human-nature system will tear itself apart (and the Earth weighs a lot more than we do).
The text on the package is German (with a '.de' URL printed on the box), and it's on the German-language Wikipedia, so I'd say the country is Germany. I didn't notice anything like this when I visited a few months ago, but I went to (what I understand to be) a regular grocery store, not specialized for 'wellness products' or whatever the local euphemism for 'woo' is.
Pronounced "eks-bonks".
Adam West is best known for starring in the lead role of a TV adaptation of a comic book. His death is obviously news for nerds (and I'm sorry to hear he's gone). That he wrote an op-ed for a 1982 computer gaming magazine is even nerdier -- comics, computers, the '80's, that's like triple nerddom crossover.
"Zis tabakonist is scratched. I weel not buy eet."
"My hovercraft is full of eels. Do you want to come back to my place, bouncy-bouncy?"
Of course, it's the German gag dub that's the real killer: "Wenn ist das Nunnstuck, git und Slotermayer..."
swillden has an interesting comment (https://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10611915&cid=54420295) that if a company is serious about keeping their code secret, they should probably use trade secret and contract law, not copyright. He's of the opinion that copyright should only apply to works that are fully 'published', i.e. not applicable to binary-only releases, because even if a binary blob technically times out of copyright, it's not really modifiable and fully-usable by the public without the source. (And even if an entity does seek copyright protection for software and publishes their source accordingly, they don't necessarily have to license it to permit redistribution until support lapses.)
You're probably right about the choice of license -- PD != GPL.
If I didn't want to support version 1.0 anymore, I'd EOL it and give it up into the public domain, but I'd still have copyright over version 30 (which is actively supported).
And if someone else wanted to 'pirate' v1.0 and release it and build on it themselves, they'd be legal in doing so, but unless they were supporting it themselves, then their modifications would be public-domain as well.
(Of course, my logos and such would be trademarked, not copyrighted, so they'd have to do something like IceWeasel vs. Firefox.)
If Microsoft did have software they were going to support for 70 years, and priced it accordingly, probably it would be too expensive for you or me, but there might be corporate users interested in that kind of long-term stability and commitment. Nothing would stop them from releasing software that is supported for only five years (and that would probably have a low enough price tag that personal users like us would be willing to pay), but once it hits EOL, their copyright on that OS expires as well.
The reason folks turn off Windows Update is that it behaves kind of like malware itself! I'm technologically savvy enough to set my registry and so on to disable the awful "Get Windows Ten" updates, but when so many users got shafted by Windows "self-updating with zero input required from the user" to a completely new operating system (a new operating system that actively thwarts end-user control over updates!), is it any wonder that so many of them switched it off?
The comparison to anti-vaxxers is interesting, and apt in more ways than Troy may have known. Much like Microsoft hijacked their Windows Update program to push Windows 10, the CIA used a Pakistani polio vaccination campaign to gather intelligence about Osama bin Laden (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). This has resulted in the killing of other relief workers and general suspicion of medical aid programs in that region, and so polio persists.
Slashdot generally doesn't like ludicrously-long copyright terms, right? What if we made maintenance a requirement for retaining copyright over software? If Microsoft (or whoever) wants to retain a copyright on their software for 70 years, then they'd better be prepared to commit to 70 years of support. If they want to EOL it after 5 years or 20 years or whatever, and wash their hands of responsibility, that's fine, but then it's public domain. Why should we let companies benefit from software they don't support anymore?
This could also work for art works, as well -- because copyright exists "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," we could make it a requirement that an author (or company, or whatever) needs to be distributing (or licensing for distribution) a work to have copyright on it. When it's out of print, it enters the public domain.