The Kyoto protocol (Which I'm sure you've all read too much about over the last couple days) in my opinion is only a start. It'll reduce human-caused temperature forcing by something like 5% if fully implemented. Which of course is taken as an argument by many (read: a lot of the USA, and a lot of conservative/business types here in Canada) as a reason to not do anything.
It's funny when you read the articles arguing against Kyoto, though: they always end with "Kyoto is fatally flawed, and it'll cost too much to cut CO2, so we should wait to do it." Do you think it's going to be any easier to cut GHG emissions even more drastically in 10 years, just as we're realizing oil is getting more expensive and having to switch back to coal?
The funny thing about all of this is that Canada stands to make out really well. Our four-month growing season will probably become more like the American midwest's 6 -8 months, and our boreal forest ecosystem will shift to a St.Lawrence-Deciduous style forest, which is much more habitable for humans. Also we have a ton of oil here.
Of course, there's the problem of Prince Edward Island probably being under water by then. And oh yes, countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives which will be entirely under water if Antartica (i.e. Ross Ice Shelf) starts to melt. My view is that the best thing to do as an individual is a) bike to work (which I intend to do for the first time this summer), b) keep your house colder than you normally would, and c) evangelize energy efficiency. I don't really see that I can do anymore (aside from reading everything I can) as an just one person with no government connections.
What worries me the most is the small savings you get on your insurance for installing a tracker unit that gives the insurance company the right to track you (your speed, time of day, location, etc.). At first it'll be a small savings, then, most people won't care, and everyone will have one, and then it'll basically be a large fine if you don't have one. I guess I'd better continue with my plan of biking everywhere; it's better for me anyway:)
My ass. IBM was once the big bad evil corporation you talk about as a lizard here. They just know that open source is profitable right now. If they realize it isn't , they'd stop all their contributions right away. They can't say 'screw the street' , it's actually illegal to lose the shareholders money. (Which makes sense; it's not the management's money to lose!)
Theorems are discovered. There is a certain famous theorem that says that there are no integer solutions for x^n + y^n = z^n for n > 2. That theorem was discovered, not invented. However, the proof of that theorem was a work of human creativity and thus could (should) be protected.
I also disagree that algorithms shouldn't be patented. An algorithm is a method of computing a certain result: there are other equivalent algorithms that may be more or less efficient, competing products could use one of these.
It's because humans are not forced to follow the idea of ethical living. If a robot is forced by its programming to interpret human moral standards, and then follow them, then it'd work. Grandparent poster has a good point!
Having not gotten used to Outlook's calendaring because Outlook is too overwhelming for me who just wants a calendar, I just downloaded and installed the latest build for Windows (super easy , just unzip!)
Great program, but why no freaking ISO date standard (2004-08-31) ? What is this American/British crap where you can't tell if it's DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY? grr...
That's why you use the solar energy to make hydrogen (use the H2 as a battery) and then transport and use that, but keep a few days/weeks/months supply in the system for when it's cloudy.
Then make H2 from other stuff as well as solar. That's what we need to do.
The problem with the world is not how much energy we use. The only way we're going to make progress as a civilization is to use more energy - I'm sorry, but that's hwo it is.
What we can change, however, is where we get the energy from. It's time to go to full-hydrogen engines in cars. Make the hydrogen from fossil fuels, I'll still be extremely happy about our future, you know why? Because when the oil runs out (okay, not really, just gets too expensive to use for personal transport), we will make the hydrogen from other things, and [i]the engines will already run it[/i].
This SUV is a step in the right direction, but we need to go to full hydrogen (or something equivalent, I'm all for anything that does what H2 does that's easier to transport/use) eventually.
Which is your right, obviously. But don't be accusing anyone who uses it of trading child porn. I was using Freenet a while back just for the novelty of trying it out -- I found it (much like the Gnutella network) unusable for downloading music/movies so I stopped using it.
But my point is just because it can be used for bad purposes does not mean it necessarily will.
So for that 50 TiB total, you need 50/1.4 = 36 systems. 36 systems * 8 drives = 288 SATA drives spinning. How often do you have to replace one? I'm just wondering as I have had 4 x 200 GB drives in RAID 5 in my personal system for just under a year now and I've already had to replace one. Didn't lose anything, and it was under warranty, but in a month, I'll be out of WD's crappy one-year warranty and I'll have to start buying drives as they fail to keep my data.
That six-lane each way simulation is awesome, but they had better modify the thing before actually rolling it out so that the cars don't go so damn close to each other. Computer control or not, I don't want another guy's car 7" from my bumper at 70 km/h...
It has to do with all the possible quantum states of the system. I.e. if each transistor has two states, there's 2^100 quantum states of the system when the system contains 100 transistors.
Actually making use of those squillions of quantum states is something else entirely. It's not like you can just store that much information in 100 transistors, it's that it contains all possible combinations of those 2^100 quantum states while it's running.
The porn isn't being sold to the kids, it's just that they sometimes get to see it when they shouldn't. It's not like the cigarette companies which were (are?) directly advertising to minors.
But remember to make the thing move to the side, you wouldn't need _all_ that much force, compared to the force to move the boat. You're not trying to slow it down, just deflect it so that it hits the water a few hundred meters away from your boat.
Of course this could be a problem as you'd probably only have a few microsecond to move it, if it's moving at mach 6 !
He's not considering buying a new P3 or something. He's wondering if the new processors give the 2x (or 4x, or 10x, or 1.1x, or whatever...) benefit that would convince him to upgrade.
You can't even use the old specs because the spec programs change every year in order to keep up with the latest featuers (at least with graphics spec programs).
We don't necessarily need to see Linux destroy Microsoft - I'd be happy if all it does if force them to make good, secure, software that isn't insanely expensive.
Except that when gas hits $10 a gallon, we won't just see the average American "switch", because they won't have money to switch.
Why? Because they lost their job, because the economy collapsed because there was no gasoline available and the majority of industries couldn't just "switch" like the average consumer can.
People have to realize it's not just people driving to work that use petrochemicals - the entire world economy is pretty much driven (lol) by them.
You also have no idea what kind of FTP server your computer has become, what kind of child porn people are downloading, how much spam you're forwarding. This doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
With multiple cores, and Intel's hyperthreading, does that mean that my PC will soon 'see' four processors instead of the two I now see with hyperthreading?
That would be pretty cool, and it would have the benefit of making multi-core things more mainstream. This creates more of an incentive for software developers to write things that can take advantage of multiple threads. And that can only be a good thing!
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It's funny when you read the articles arguing against Kyoto, though: they always end with "Kyoto is fatally flawed, and it'll cost too much to cut CO2, so we should wait to do it." Do you think it's going to be any easier to cut GHG emissions even more drastically in 10 years, just as we're realizing oil is getting more expensive and having to switch back to coal?
The funny thing about all of this is that Canada stands to make out really well. Our four-month growing season will probably become more like the American midwest's 6 -8 months, and our boreal forest ecosystem will shift to a St.Lawrence-Deciduous style forest, which is much more habitable for humans. Also we have a ton of oil here.
Of course, there's the problem of Prince Edward Island probably being under water by then. And oh yes, countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives which will be entirely under water if Antartica (i.e. Ross Ice Shelf) starts to melt. My view is that the best thing to do as an individual is a) bike to work (which I intend to do for the first time this summer), b) keep your house colder than you normally would, and c) evangelize energy efficiency. I don't really see that I can do anymore (aside from reading everything I can) as an just one person with no government connections.
What worries me the most is the small savings you get on your insurance for installing a tracker unit that gives the insurance company the right to track you (your speed, time of day, location, etc.). At first it'll be a small savings, then, most people won't care, and everyone will have one, and then it'll basically be a large fine if you don't have one. I guess I'd better continue with my plan of biking everywhere; it's better for me anyway :)
My ass. IBM was once the big bad evil corporation you talk about as a lizard here. They just know that open source is profitable right now. If they realize it isn't , they'd stop all their contributions right away. They can't say 'screw the street' , it's actually illegal to lose the shareholders money. (Which makes sense; it's not the management's money to lose!)
Theorems are discovered. There is a certain famous theorem that says that there are no integer solutions for x^n + y^n = z^n for n > 2. That theorem was discovered, not invented. However, the proof of that theorem was a work of human creativity and thus could (should) be protected.
I also disagree that algorithms shouldn't be patented. An algorithm is a method of computing a certain result: there are other equivalent algorithms that may be more or less efficient, competing products could use one of these.
It's because humans are not forced to follow the idea of ethical living. If a robot is forced by its programming to interpret human moral standards, and then follow them, then it'd work. Grandparent poster has a good point!
Great program, but why no freaking ISO date standard (2004-08-31) ? What is this American/British crap where you can't tell if it's DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY? grr...
Then make H2 from other stuff as well as solar. That's what we need to do.
What we can change, however, is where we get the energy from. It's time to go to full-hydrogen engines in cars. Make the hydrogen from fossil fuels, I'll still be extremely happy about our future, you know why? Because when the oil runs out (okay, not really, just gets too expensive to use for personal transport), we will make the hydrogen from other things, and [i]the engines will already run it[/i].
This SUV is a step in the right direction, but we need to go to full hydrogen (or something equivalent, I'm all for anything that does what H2 does that's easier to transport/use) eventually.
But my point is just because it can be used for bad purposes does not mean it necessarily will.
So for that 50 TiB total, you need 50/1.4 = 36 systems. 36 systems * 8 drives = 288 SATA drives spinning. How often do you have to replace one? I'm just wondering as I have had 4 x 200 GB drives in RAID 5 in my personal system for just under a year now and I've already had to replace one. Didn't lose anything, and it was under warranty, but in a month, I'll be out of WD's crappy one-year warranty and I'll have to start buying drives as they fail to keep my data.
That six-lane each way simulation is awesome, but they had better modify the thing before actually rolling it out so that the cars don't go so damn close to each other. Computer control or not, I don't want another guy's car 7" from my bumper at 70 km/h...
Actually making use of those squillions of quantum states is something else entirely. It's not like you can just store that much information in 100 transistors, it's that it contains all possible combinations of those 2^100 quantum states while it's running.
As I recall, the internal combustion engine will come along in a few years and replace it anyway, so don't worry too much.
The porn isn't being sold to the kids, it's just that they sometimes get to see it when they shouldn't. It's not like the cigarette companies which were (are?) directly advertising to minors.
I know your problem. You have "Reality" confused with the movie "Eraser". A common mistake.
Of course this could be a problem as you'd probably only have a few microsecond to move it, if it's moving at mach 6 !
He's not considering buying a new P3 or something. He's wondering if the new processors give the 2x (or 4x, or 10x, or 1.1x, or whatever...) benefit that would convince him to upgrade. You can't even use the old specs because the spec programs change every year in order to keep up with the latest featuers (at least with graphics spec programs).
And I say this as one who actually buys quite a few CDs, then rips them to FLAC because the computer is where I do most of my listening anyway.
Seriously. All the electricity put in has to end up as heat eventually, right? It's not like your computer saves any energy for next time.
And it seems to be working.
Why? Because they lost their job, because the economy collapsed because there was no gasoline available and the majority of industries couldn't just "switch" like the average consumer can.
People have to realize it's not just people driving to work that use petrochemicals - the entire world economy is pretty much driven (lol) by them.
You also have no idea what kind of FTP server your computer has become, what kind of child porn people are downloading, how much spam you're forwarding. This doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
You know that tl;dr is bannable, right?
That would be pretty cool, and it would have the benefit of making multi-core things more mainstream. This creates more of an incentive for software developers to write things that can take advantage of multiple threads. And that can only be a good thing!