As computing power increases, I bet you one trend will be for fans, wherever they can work without patent laws, to do re-touches of popular films, playing Lucas to the films we have about today which people often point at and say, "Almost perfect, but..."
For example, imagine the Lord of the Rings trilogy in which Treebeard had his resolve like in the book, or Saruman wasn't just a bad guy just because. It'll be just like the fan subs made today of popular anime.
Not that the MPAA will like it, but it's bound to happen anyway.
Power in the future isn't going to be wind, geothermal, etc, because it doesn't produce enough power. Obviously, the more we can get that way the better, but they are highly inefficient, and require specific placement. That means you have a limited amount that you can put online.
Two things I want to question about this: define "enough power". A great deal of our problem lies in the fact that we waste so much, manufacture disposable goods using brute force methods, and that people insist on sprawling suburbs with artificially cut lawns. How much of this is actually enhancing the quality of life? We can't just insist on wasting energy reserves; at some point our consumption has to conform to the level of energy entering the system.
Modern industry society, IMHO, spends a lot of time and energy working to accomplish very little of real value. Now say you wanted a system to create perfect microscopic glass spheres? Students of biomimicry have found that a species of sponge makes them better than any process of ours, and it does so as a single living thing, not a huge energy-guzzling factory. That's just one example.
Secondly, you say the green power technologies are "highly inefficient". Compared to what? Waiting for all the solar power to be photosynthesized for millions of years, feed through the food webs and into fossil remains, for humanity to burn it all in a century or two? Or is it the amount of energy a solar panel receives that it manages to convert into usable power? Isn't 5-10% better than nothing when the input is free, especially when the technology has room to grow? And even now, if you were to compare the energy expenditure to manufacture the solar panels to what they'll create over their lifetime, I'm thinking they're a good investment. I think green power is the only game in town for civilization to last millenia into the future.
Uh huh. You just make those limp excuses for the paleontologists. Some runner at a marathon is going to totally blow by you and find that cure, and then they're going to be digging up paleontologist bones with their petrified feet planted firmly in their mouths.;)
I think of two criteria here: first, a planet must be the overall center of gravity in its immediate vicinity; it's certain we're going to find Earth-size moons about some gas giant someday.
Second, I think geological activity sufficient to create a distinct core, mantle, and crust would define the solid planets. The gas giants will obviously have some strata or some differentiation, so until they produce fusion, they count.
You're correct in what you touch on, but the fact that it's happened before doesn't mean that we're immune to the disastrous effects.
If it were just natural climate change, that'd be one thing. But we're also destroying habitat and polluting the biosphere. Species can adapt to a gradual change, but we're pushing things far faster than the natural dependencies can adjust.
Just think, for example, of the plants that don't get their usual pollinators when they bloom, because changing temperatures have shifted the migration patterns. This change is too sudden.
We're in for a lot of die-off, and it's guaranteed to rebound on us.
You're quite right that a city can survive the fallout. Life *can* go on, at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl. Just go back and read a detailed account of those places. Evil people with fingers on the button may deserve the fate of the making, but the rest of the poor fools sure don't.
Oh, you said "necessarily". Never mind:-) maybe we're just agreeing. Well in that case my only nitpick is this, maybe the statement should read "It also favors the most readily reproducible."
Remember, evolution doesn't necessarily favor the fittest. It favors the most readily reproducible. It's also lossy. When you rely on one major advantage to get by, others can deteriorate.
Every single specialized program turns into yet another bloated, all-singing, all-dancing swiss army knife.
We're Unix people, right? Familiar with small tools that do their job right and work well together? I need only one GUI swiss army knife, and it is Konqueror.
I do heartily applaud your gift to charity, and hope it was placed for the maximum benefit.
But as other posts here document well, New Orleans began sinking in the past century as a result of attempts to manage the Mississippi River's flow, and as wetlands were destroyed. Foolish attempts to control nature have bit us all over the place, not just there. But why so much effort invested to begin with? Because the place has significant value to our country. It's a national treasure in logistic, economic, cultural, and historical respects. We're going to feel this loss to the economy, even more so if we abandoned it to the limited resources and abilities of charity.
It's not that I'm not familiar with your argument. It's been with our country from the beginning, and the people who take it up often follow through to trashing nearly every other Federal expenditure they can, especially against localized disasters. By your argument, California should have been emptied, and Washington DC and New York left to dry over the past several years, and the Marshall Plan would have been right out. Am I right?
I don't think aid to rebuild at least parts of New Orleans is just humane, I think it's got historical backing as a smart move.
The "shoulders of honest citizens" that civilization is built on are mostly private sector shoulders.
Quite incorrect. The roads are largely public. Not one large industry of our country has been without subsidy or special accomodation. Public schools and colleges have produced the training that is indispensable for all of them; in fact, the brain drain in America's favor that existed until recently was to their credit. Post-1929, I'd like to know where any major financing didn't involve funds in banks where FDIC insurance restored enough public trust to put that system back on its feet.
I realize it's fashionable to focus on the flaws of government programs as an excuse to jettison the whole entire thing, but private enterprise just doesn't have the large-scale planning or accountability, or the distribution of benefit that the good government programs have.
Of course, if you *are* growing your own food and not having to buy from stores dependant on the interstate highway network and trucks, or railways, well and good. I sincerely applaud and envy you. My point is that it's completely fair to pay the dues for the society you benefit from, and I doubt any of us here can claim complete independence from the work that society did as a whole using its public programs. Credit where due.
Unfortunately, you can count the remaining hunter-gatherer societies on the entire planet on one hand. They've been displaced or assimilated into oblivion. There's a recurring pattern of fear and disgust from settled folk when they see other tribes just wandering around.
I think the Raute of Nepal are one of the few exceptions, as their neighbors tend to respect them, but the government is forcing them to settle and give up their way of life, with justifications like the need to immunize against tuberculosis and other such things that require a stationary folk.
A shame, really, since hunter-gatherers demand less from their environment, and have more egalitarian societies than most of the rest of humanity.
You must be one of those completely independent, self-made American pioneers. Please tell me how you built your career without government-built-and-maintained roads, sewage, or water, and ate healthfully at home and away with no FDA standards. Or this nice internet we're on; perhaps you invented it, and not Al Gore, but how did you build such a powerful global economy about it? And how did you accomplish all these feats alone with no public libraries or schools to assist you? And how did you keep big companies from dumping toxic waste near your back yard? These are staggering accomplishments for one individual.
Yes?
Americans need to quit this ludicrous whining and appreciate that their tax dollars are actually some of the best investments they make. You can accomplish what you do because you stand on the shoulders of honest citizens before you. You are not a victim for paying the dues needed to live in a stable, prosperous civilization. That's not communism, that's just the basic needs of developed society.
I'm sure a tax break could let you afford more electronic trinkets in the near future, but when public services get gutted like they did in my home state when politicians pandered to this kind of drivel, high school and college education got badly stripped, environmental cleanups vanished leaving just barebones monitoring, and our economic future took a turn for the worse. Other expenses, especially for those of us taking college courses to adjust to this changing economy, rose and more than ate up our token breaks. Some of us even had to forgo buying more electronic trinkets.
Nobody will win my vote with that nonsense after that.
What I would love to hear is how Chavez is exporting communism and militant Islam, both of them at once! Commies and mujahadeen in lockstep, as so often happens. Pat Robertson knows such interesting things.
What worries me is that the "toxic gumbo", with gasoline on the water and an oil tanker aground, are going to be a scarey thing to deal with. I'm afraid of fire and pollution making this even more untenable.
I also am of the suspicion that there are a lot of buildings that weren't constructed to deal with nine weeks of flooding.
I think the article and the facts on the ground would justify rephrasing this as "why professional programmers get better results on their free time, without pointyhairs, committees, and marketing droids in their way".
Here's my question: is Sedna likely to have a molten core? A mantle or crust? How about Pluto? It seems to me that geological distinctions could be the way to go for defining a planet.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone that had read TFA or other articles linked here would have to disagree as well. Stupid /. editors.
As computing power increases, I bet you one trend will be for fans, wherever they can work without patent laws, to do re-touches of popular films, playing Lucas to the films we have about today which people often point at and say, "Almost perfect, but..."
For example, imagine the Lord of the Rings trilogy in which Treebeard had his resolve like in the book, or Saruman wasn't just a bad guy just because. It'll be just like the fan subs made today of popular anime.
Not that the MPAA will like it, but it's bound to happen anyway.
Power in the future isn't going to be wind, geothermal, etc, because it doesn't produce enough power. Obviously, the more we can get that way the better, but they are highly inefficient, and require specific placement. That means you have a limited amount that you can put online.
Two things I want to question about this: define "enough power". A great deal of our problem lies in the fact that we waste so much, manufacture disposable goods using brute force methods, and that people insist on sprawling suburbs with artificially cut lawns. How much of this is actually enhancing the quality of life? We can't just insist on wasting energy reserves; at some point our consumption has to conform to the level of energy entering the system.
Modern industry society, IMHO, spends a lot of time and energy working to accomplish very little of real value. Now say you wanted a system to create perfect microscopic glass spheres? Students of biomimicry have found that a species of sponge makes them better than any process of ours, and it does so as a single living thing, not a huge energy-guzzling factory. That's just one example.
Secondly, you say the green power technologies are "highly inefficient". Compared to what? Waiting for all the solar power to be photosynthesized for millions of years, feed through the food webs and into fossil remains, for humanity to burn it all in a century or two? Or is it the amount of energy a solar panel receives that it manages to convert into usable power? Isn't 5-10% better than nothing when the input is free, especially when the technology has room to grow? And even now, if you were to compare the energy expenditure to manufacture the solar panels to what they'll create over their lifetime, I'm thinking they're a good investment. I think green power is the only game in town for civilization to last millenia into the future.
Respectfully,
Uh huh. You just make those limp excuses for the paleontologists. Some runner at a marathon is going to totally blow by you and find that cure, and then they're going to be digging up paleontologist bones with their petrified feet planted firmly in their mouths. ;)
I think you're thinking of Pluto and Charon, who are so similar in size that they orbit each other.
I think of two criteria here: first, a planet must be the overall center of gravity in its immediate vicinity; it's certain we're going to find Earth-size moons about some gas giant someday.
Second, I think geological activity sufficient to create a distinct core, mantle, and crust would define the solid planets. The gas giants will obviously have some strata or some differentiation, so until they produce fusion, they count.
How does that sound?
You're correct in what you touch on, but the fact that it's happened before doesn't mean that we're immune to the disastrous effects.
If it were just natural climate change, that'd be one thing. But we're also destroying habitat and polluting the biosphere. Species can adapt to a gradual change, but we're pushing things far faster than the natural dependencies can adjust.
Just think, for example, of the plants that don't get their usual pollinators when they bloom, because changing temperatures have shifted the migration patterns. This change is too sudden.
We're in for a lot of die-off, and it's guaranteed to rebound on us.
You're quite right that a city can survive the fallout. Life *can* go on, at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl. Just go back and read a detailed account of those places. Evil people with fingers on the button may deserve the fate of the making, but the rest of the poor fools sure don't.
Slow-moving corpses are bad enough, but fast-moving ones are just scary! I still haven't gotten 28 Days Later out of my head!
Oh, you said "necessarily". Never mind :-) maybe we're just agreeing. Well in that case my only nitpick is this, maybe the statement should read "It also favors the most readily reproducible."
My hat is tipped to you, sir.
I'll not contest that some public projects are haywire, especially in California.
But would you agree with the cuts they made over the past couple years like these?
Remember, evolution doesn't necessarily favor the fittest. It favors the most readily reproducible. It's also lossy. When you rely on one major advantage to get by, others can deteriorate.
Every single specialized program turns into yet another bloated, all-singing, all-dancing swiss army knife.
We're Unix people, right? Familiar with small tools that do their job right and work well together? I need only one GUI swiss army knife, and it is Konqueror.
I do heartily applaud your gift to charity, and hope it was placed for the maximum benefit.
But as other posts here document well, New Orleans began sinking in the past century as a result of attempts to manage the Mississippi River's flow, and as wetlands were destroyed. Foolish attempts to control nature have bit us all over the place, not just there. But why so much effort invested to begin with? Because the place has significant value to our country. It's a national treasure in logistic, economic, cultural, and historical respects. We're going to feel this loss to the economy, even more so if we abandoned it to the limited resources and abilities of charity.
It's not that I'm not familiar with your argument. It's been with our country from the beginning, and the people who take it up often follow through to trashing nearly every other Federal expenditure they can, especially against localized disasters. By your argument, California should have been emptied, and Washington DC and New York left to dry over the past several years, and the Marshall Plan would have been right out. Am I right?
I don't think aid to rebuild at least parts of New Orleans is just humane, I think it's got historical backing as a smart move.
The "shoulders of honest citizens" that civilization is built on are mostly private sector shoulders.
Quite incorrect. The roads are largely public. Not one large industry of our country has been without subsidy or special accomodation. Public schools and colleges have produced the training that is indispensable for all of them; in fact, the brain drain in America's favor that existed until recently was to their credit. Post-1929, I'd like to know where any major financing didn't involve funds in banks where FDIC insurance restored enough public trust to put that system back on its feet.
I realize it's fashionable to focus on the flaws of government programs as an excuse to jettison the whole entire thing, but private enterprise just doesn't have the large-scale planning or accountability, or the distribution of benefit that the good government programs have.
Of course, if you *are* growing your own food and not having to buy from stores dependant on the interstate highway network and trucks, or railways, well and good. I sincerely applaud and envy you. My point is that it's completely fair to pay the dues for the society you benefit from, and I doubt any of us here can claim complete independence from the work that society did as a whole using its public programs. Credit where due.
Unfortunately, you can count the remaining hunter-gatherer societies on the entire planet on one hand. They've been displaced or assimilated into oblivion. There's a recurring pattern of fear and disgust from settled folk when they see other tribes just wandering around.
I think the Raute of Nepal are one of the few exceptions, as their neighbors tend to respect them, but the government is forcing them to settle and give up their way of life, with justifications like the need to immunize against tuberculosis and other such things that require a stationary folk.
A shame, really, since hunter-gatherers demand less from their environment, and have more egalitarian societies than most of the rest of humanity.
You must be one of those completely independent, self-made American pioneers. Please tell me how you built your career without government-built-and-maintained roads, sewage, or water, and ate healthfully at home and away with no FDA standards. Or this nice internet we're on; perhaps you invented it, and not Al Gore, but how did you build such a powerful global economy about it? And how did you accomplish all these feats alone with no public libraries or schools to assist you? And how did you keep big companies from dumping toxic waste near your back yard? These are staggering accomplishments for one individual.
Yes?
Americans need to quit this ludicrous whining and appreciate that their tax dollars are actually some of the best investments they make. You can accomplish what you do because you stand on the shoulders of honest citizens before you. You are not a victim for paying the dues needed to live in a stable, prosperous civilization. That's not communism, that's just the basic needs of developed society.
I'm sure a tax break could let you afford more electronic trinkets in the near future, but when public services get gutted like they did in my home state when politicians pandered to this kind of drivel, high school and college education got badly stripped, environmental cleanups vanished leaving just barebones monitoring, and our economic future took a turn for the worse. Other expenses, especially for those of us taking college courses to adjust to this changing economy, rose and more than ate up our token breaks. Some of us even had to forgo buying more electronic trinkets.
Nobody will win my vote with that nonsense after that.
Mmm-hmm. Quite the shameless love-in. Decent folks the world over had to protest.
An off the cuff guess? About that warm spot and tiger stripe at Encaladus's south pole?
a ssini-080505.html
Meteor impact, and seismic aftereffects.
After all, it has the "Death Star" moon for a neighbor: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/c
Condimied? Rhymes with formaldehyde? With jimmied? Are you a perl programmer, perchance?
What I would love to hear is how Chavez is exporting communism and militant Islam, both of them at once! Commies and mujahadeen in lockstep, as so often happens. Pat Robertson knows such interesting things.
What worries me is that the "toxic gumbo", with gasoline on the water and an oil tanker aground, are going to be a scarey thing to deal with. I'm afraid of fire and pollution making this even more untenable.
I also am of the suspicion that there are a lot of buildings that weren't constructed to deal with nine weeks of flooding.
I think the people of Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Australia wouldn't feel like they'd missed out.
why Amateurs can outperform Professionals
I think the article and the facts on the ground would justify rephrasing this as "why professional programmers get better results on their free time, without pointyhairs, committees, and marketing droids in their way".
Here's my question: is Sedna likely to have a molten core? A mantle or crust? How about Pluto? It seems to me that geological distinctions could be the way to go for defining a planet.