Christ on a fucking pogo stick, another one? What's with people who can't admit that maybe, just maybe, humans aren't the best at everything?
Sure we're bad at lots of things. I'd hate to go one on one with a tiger, or to compete in an underwater endurance test with a halibut, but that doesn't make your comment any less wrong.
The visual information leaving the retina seems to be processed into numerous parallel data streams leading into the central nervous system, greatly reducing the analytical requirements at higher levels. As far as I know, there is only a single data stream per eye in human vision. It may be transmitted in parallel, but there is only one image created for each eye. Not so for the vastly superior mantis shrimp. We have trinocular vision in each eye, so suck it, monkey boy!
The human retina has 4 different types of receptors, each specializing in a different flavor of light. These are processed in the retina into several data streams; some specialize in rapid transitions from light to dark, some in colors, some in hi-res, some in lo-res. It is a vastly complicated river of data that squirts along that optic nerve to eventually land in your brain.
I wouldn't, I mean, a mantis shrimp would never consider trading my, I mean his superior eyes for your puny human ones! You are aware, Mr M. Shrimp that different focal planes exist?
and the information is transmitted from the retina in parallel, not serially down a single optic nerve like ours.
Nope, not true. Practically everything our brain does is parallel, and this is definitely true of the optic nerve.
It's certainly a major bottleneck in the system; a lot of compression gets down by the retina before it is transmitted but that's because the optic nerve is long and has to move with the eyeball.
Yes, I think any mantis shrimp capable of self reflection would consider the human eye an upgrade (except for the fact that its too big for the little buggers to swim with)
Wrong, it's absolutely a theory. ANY idea about how things work is a theory, whether well supported or not.
There is a common belief (I think because it's often taught in grade school) that there is a process by which hypotheses graduate into theoryhood, but it's simply not true. Any theory, from the Time Cube to the notion of gravity, is perched on the same knife edge of being falsifiable by the right piece of crucial evidence. That's the true glory of the scientific method.
So the application shouldn't show the user anything that they don't already know how to do. When the user wants to do something new
MS Office does this, with menus that hide unused menu options.
It is THE WORST innovation in UI design that I can think of, off the top of my head.
The user wants consistancy more than anything else. The UI should not evolve or change with the user because invariably, the developer will change it in ways the user doesn't expect.
"What good has the RIAA done for music, musicians, and society in general?"
I think that in the pre internet days, the recording industry did a great deal of good. I would have been exposed to less interesting music growing up. Someone needed to do the hard work of copying all those cassette tapes and distributing them to Smalltown USA.
Not anymore, mind you, but back then it was different. I don't begrudge them their past.
How was this modded informative? The parent links to two articles, the first of which is completely about using nuclear power to launch into orbit. It's a great article by the way, which presents a fascinating concept and addresses many of the potential knee-jerk criticisms that go along with any discussion of nuclear propulsion. Maybe you should - oh, I don't know - read it before replying?
I'll admit, I'd forgotten to read that one.
But I have now. No it is not a great article. It is very light on technical details, and is sophomoric in style.
Specifically, the bit where it talks about using these things for getting into orbit mentions the favorable Isp rating of the engines, which is impressive (indicating low use of propellant per unit of thrust). But without factoring in the weight of engines themselves, it's impossible to know if these things can match the impressive peak thrust capabilties of chemical engines, such as the SRB's which provide 83% of the shuttle's thrust at take off. In such boosters, the engine weighs nearly nothing, it's all propellant.
In these engines, it may certainly be the case that the engine (which contains a working nuclear reactor and nuclear materials are heavy) may be so heavy that orbit is mathemtically unreachable.
In short, more information than the Isp number is necessary to determine if these things are orbit capable, so the article doesn't prove the point, and the flowery prose is not convincing.
And... The cost? The expected lifespan? Go on then, some semi credible numbers please.
I asked you first.
I suggest you start with an analysis of price/kg at current commercial rates and see how many trips it would cost for satellite launchers to pay off a 40 billion price tag.
And even if the first one doesn't pay off (many initial ventures don't) it'll get better the next time around.
What exactly is the bee in your bonnet? You sound like someone doubting that a transcontinental US railroad was a good idea back in the 1800's.
Only for those who believe the initial capital, maintenance and debt servicing costs are insignificant. The last estimates I saw suggested the capital investment required would be a mere $40 billion dollars. Which is laughable considering the ISS is going to cost $130 billion by 2010.
The initial investment doesn't have to be insignificant for it to be economical. The issue is the *ratio* of utility to cost.
Unlike the ISS, the Space elevator actually does provides a service with a financial return. Do you really understand the idea?
A space elevator makes no economic sense. If by the answer to the launch cost problem you mean "government subsidy for ever". Then yes it might be, otherwise not.
Care to explain for those of us who haven't done the math?
Last I heard it was an extremely economical approach.
This sounds a bit like the fanciful predictions made in the 50's about the moon colonies, flying cars and rocketpacks we'd have by 1990.
To begin, I doubt there are enough people at the top of earth's wealth pyramid to support the thriving tourist industry proposed to exist in 50 years. I think the costs of space travel will continue to remain, pardon the pun, astronomical, for quite a while. (I know, space elevators et al., but I think the spectre of guaranteeing Health and Safety will handicap this industry).
Furthermore, if there's one very important lesson to be learned in the last 20 years, is that rapid advances in space technology requires a very particular combination of scientific accumen and willingness to tolerate risk. The Apollo project had it, but noone has replicated the right mix since. We see the same stunted progress in other industries that are on the high end of the risk spectrum (airline travel, nuclear power).
This is much unlike advancement in the computer industry, to cite one example, which can race ahead at breakneck speed, because there isn't much of a human cost to screwing up.
Thus, I believe that it's a mistake to assume we will necessarily recreate that climate of rapid progress. I can easily imagine another 50 years of sending robotic probes that crash land half of the time (but work marvelously otherwise).
Everybody, even my grandma, knows that the real cost is in the consumables.
I don't think that's true at all. Printers come bundled with everything now and people just get them because they're almost free. Then once they have them and they're used to using it...
very convenient just to shell out for a new cartridge when you need to print out those internets.
We in the western world (either the states, or the UK where I currently live) might be much better off if the media were reporting some good news once in a while. The culture of fear is increasingly pervasive and it's fueled, in part, by the media scare-wagon, which cannot help but tell us about a new thing that is going to kill us or ruin our lives every week.
So why do we have 2 kidneys, why is our brain able to adapt to damage, if it wasn't for the simple fact that this proved to be the more successful way in the long run.
Actually, evolution puts our design under the exact same pressures: do more with less. That is, in fact, the definition of natural selection.
Reliability and redundancy are just one aspect of our optimality, and it's not something that's always at the top of the priority list. One might counter your point about 2 kidneys by asking why we don't have two hearts. We sure as hell should have two hearts more than two kidneys. You can go a day or two without a kidney without even noticing, but 30 seconds without a heartbeat is a bad way to start your day.
I think our internet is about as redundant as we should like and that it doesn't seem likely that these various gloom and doom scenarios are going to play out. Yes there are periodic problems, but they are rarely systemic. Even under various forms of DOS attack and the horrendous inefficiency of spam, when I wake up in the morning, I can visit slashdot so long as my local connection is up.
And that's pretty impressive given the largely unstructured way in which the net has been thrown together. Let's not take what we've got for granted.
You mean, like not considering IP that much of an issue? I think making -copies- (ie: different from stealing) is a lot less amoral than taking advantage (and somewhat indirectly) help maintaining bad work conditions.
We are not "helping" to maintain bad work conditions , we (and indeed the entire global market, smug Europeans take note) are benefitting from China's own lack of regulatory oversight. It is ultimately the responsibility of a self sufficient nation, like China, to ensure the welfare of its own citizens (recognizing that there are places, like the Sudan where the government is not capable of this level of control).
So I don't think these issues aren't the mirror images of one another that you suggest. The appropriate analogy to the worker's rights issues would be a scenario in which the pirated DVD's were produced in the US under the blind eye of our government and sold in China, such that the chinese market were purchasing our pirated exports (in which case you might argue they are "helping" us to pirate).
In that case, the US would be in the wrong for asking China to stop buying. The correct course of action would be to clamp down on copying within our borders.
But since we can't cut down on copying withing *their* borders, the WTO is the appropriate channel and arguments that the US deserves this kind of treatment for their own market presence are largely irrelevant to the question of what's right.
I dunno, maybe something slightly less severe, like not making them our "preferred trading partner?" Something along the lines of refusing to trade with countries that don't have some minimum standard of working conditions?
And, yes, I know that means we'd have to pay more for consumer goods. It's still a much less costly option than trying to invade China.
It is not our business to run around the world ensuring that all workers are treated according to OUR standards, RIGHT NOW. All countries do things differently and for very different reasons. These people work at these wages because it's better than not working at any wages and children in Nike factories would be pretty pissed if their factory was shut down so that *you* could sleep easier at night.
The US went through its own period of poor working conditions, these things will be worked out.
Also remember that the global economy is a delicate organism. Radical changes, such as curtailing US/Chinese trade would be a Bad Thing (of the Great Depression variety). It'd be bad for you, bad for them, pretty much bad for everybody.
It's not like we've shown much in the way of caring for the working conditions they have to suffer to sell the stuff they make for us at super cheap prices.
Oh please, that is a grossly unfair criticism. What exactly are we supposed to do? Declare war on China if they don't legislate improved working conditions?
The WTO exists precisely for the purpose of arbitrating disputes of this sort. The US is following protocol for a legitimate concern.
but the US Gov. is only mad about copies of overpriced products (usually made in China for dirt cheap BTW) to protect the profit of a few cartels
It's likely they're upset about all of them, but this particular form of piracy has the most egregious profit ratio. There is practically zero cost in creating these counterfeits while the US industry is effectively footing the entire bill for making the product.
Sure it's easy to "get out" Don't buy the content, I don't. I rent from Netflix and...
You have not gotten out as you are still part of the MPAA's profit system. Netflix buys DVD's from them, and they use your money to do it.
What you say is true, and reasonable, and I'm not suggesting it's worth NOT renting movies. Just that you are still part of their machine, and don't think otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
NEVER going to happen
I've learned a few things in life and at the top of the list is that people who say this are always wrong.
Sure we're bad at lots of things. I'd hate to go one on one with a tiger, or to compete in an underwater endurance test with a halibut, but that doesn't make your comment any less wrong. The visual information leaving the retina seems to be processed into numerous parallel data streams leading into the central nervous system, greatly reducing the analytical requirements at higher levels. As far as I know, there is only a single data stream per eye in human vision. It may be transmitted in parallel, but there is only one image created for each eye. Not so for the vastly superior mantis shrimp. We have trinocular vision in each eye, so suck it, monkey boy!
The human retina has 4 different types of receptors, each specializing in a different flavor of light. These are processed in the retina into several data streams; some specialize in rapid transitions from light to dark, some in colors, some in hi-res, some in lo-res. It is a vastly complicated river of data that squirts along that optic nerve to eventually land in your brain. I wouldn't, I mean, a mantis shrimp would never consider trading my, I mean his superior eyes for your puny human ones! You are aware, Mr M. Shrimp that different focal planes exist?
I laugh at your primitive optical appendages.
and the information is transmitted from the retina in parallel, not serially down a single optic nerve like ours.
Nope, not true. Practically everything our brain does is parallel, and this is definitely true of the optic nerve.
It's certainly a major bottleneck in the system; a lot of compression gets down by the retina before it is transmitted but that's because the optic nerve is long and has to move with the eyeball.
Yes, I think any mantis shrimp capable of self reflection would consider the human eye an upgrade (except for the fact that its too big for the little buggers to swim with)
There weren't any factories that built Apollo's when we decided to go to the moon but somehow we managed.
I think someone will be on top of this problem when the money is there.
What GPP was saying is NOT a theory.
Wrong, it's absolutely a theory. ANY idea about how things work is a theory, whether well supported or not.
There is a common belief (I think because it's often taught in grade school) that there is a process by which hypotheses graduate into theoryhood, but it's simply not true. Any theory, from the Time Cube to the notion of gravity, is perched on the same knife edge of being falsifiable by the right piece of crucial evidence. That's the true glory of the scientific method.
So the application shouldn't show the user anything that they don't already know how to do. When the user wants to do something new
MS Office does this, with menus that hide unused menu options.
It is THE WORST innovation in UI design that I can think of, off the top of my head.
The user wants consistancy more than anything else. The UI should not evolve or change with the user because invariably, the developer will change it in ways the user doesn't expect.
"What good has the RIAA done for music, musicians, and society in general?"
I think that in the pre internet days, the recording industry did a great deal of good. I would have been exposed to less interesting music growing up. Someone needed to do the hard work of copying all those cassette tapes and distributing them to Smalltown USA.
Not anymore, mind you, but back then it was different. I don't begrudge them their past.
Oo.. I also hadn't read the bit down further in which he does get into the math of it.
He makes a more impressive case there, although he's still waving his hands quite a bit about engine technologies that haven't yet been fleshed out.
But he's clearly a smart guy, maybe there's something to it.
How was this modded informative? The parent links to two articles, the first of which is completely about using nuclear power to launch into orbit. It's a great article by the way, which presents a fascinating concept and addresses many of the potential knee-jerk criticisms that go along with any discussion of nuclear propulsion. Maybe you should - oh, I don't know - read it before replying?
I'll admit, I'd forgotten to read that one.
But I have now. No it is not a great article. It is very light on technical details, and is sophomoric in style.
Specifically, the bit where it talks about using these things for getting into orbit mentions the favorable Isp rating of the engines, which is impressive (indicating low use of propellant per unit of thrust). But without factoring in the weight of engines themselves, it's impossible to know if these things can match the impressive peak thrust capabilties of chemical engines, such as the SRB's which provide 83% of the shuttle's thrust at take off. In such boosters, the engine weighs nearly nothing, it's all propellant.
In these engines, it may certainly be the case that the engine (which contains a working nuclear reactor and nuclear materials are heavy) may be so heavy that orbit is mathemtically unreachable.
In short, more information than the Isp number is necessary to determine if these things are orbit capable, so the article doesn't prove the point, and the flowery prose is not convincing.
And... The cost? The expected lifespan? Go on then, some semi credible numbers please.
I asked you first.
I suggest you start with an analysis of price/kg at current commercial rates and see how many trips it would cost for satellite launchers to pay off a 40 billion price tag.
And even if the first one doesn't pay off (many initial ventures don't) it'll get better the next time around.
What exactly is the bee in your bonnet? You sound like someone doubting that a transcontinental US railroad was a good idea back in the 1800's.
Only for those who believe the initial capital, maintenance and debt servicing costs are insignificant. The last estimates I saw suggested the capital investment required would be a mere $40 billion dollars. Which is laughable considering the ISS is going to cost $130 billion by 2010.
The initial investment doesn't have to be insignificant for it to be economical. The issue is the *ratio* of utility to cost.
Unlike the ISS, the Space elevator actually does provides a service with a financial return. Do you really understand the idea?
A space elevator makes no economic sense. If by the answer to the launch cost problem you mean "government subsidy for ever". Then yes it might be, otherwise not.
Care to explain for those of us who haven't done the math?
Last I heard it was an extremely economical approach.
Except we can change the launch costs
Err... the article refers to solutions starting from LEO. That's the easy part.
Getting the whole thing into orbit in the first place is the hard part, because the fuel has to lift itself out of the gravity well.
The space elevator is the answer to the *launch* cost problem, not nuclear power.
This sounds a bit like the fanciful predictions made in the 50's about the moon colonies, flying cars and rocketpacks we'd have by 1990.
To begin, I doubt there are enough people at the top of earth's wealth pyramid to support the thriving tourist industry proposed to exist in 50 years. I think the costs of space travel will continue to remain, pardon the pun, astronomical, for quite a while. (I know, space elevators et al., but I think the spectre of guaranteeing Health and Safety will handicap this industry).
Furthermore, if there's one very important lesson to be learned in the last 20 years, is that rapid advances in space technology requires a very particular combination of scientific accumen and willingness to tolerate risk. The Apollo project had it, but noone has replicated the right mix since. We see the same stunted progress in other industries that are on the high end of the risk spectrum (airline travel, nuclear power).
This is much unlike advancement in the computer industry, to cite one example, which can race ahead at breakneck speed, because there isn't much of a human cost to screwing up.
Thus, I believe that it's a mistake to assume we will necessarily recreate that climate of rapid progress. I can easily imagine another 50 years of sending robotic probes that crash land half of the time (but work marvelously otherwise).
Face it, the American people care for their rights, up into the moment choosing between those rights and getting the newest, shiney toy.
I know it's trendy to bash Americans these days but this isn't the place.
Your experiment would have the same results in just about any record store.
Everybody, even my grandma, knows that the real cost is in the consumables.
I don't think that's true at all. Printers come bundled with everything now and people just get them because they're almost free. Then once they have them and they're used to using it...
very convenient just to shell out for a new cartridge when you need to print out those internets.
We in the western world (either the states, or the UK where I currently live) might be much better off if the media were reporting some good news once in a while. The culture of fear is increasingly pervasive and it's fueled, in part, by the media scare-wagon, which cannot help but tell us about a new thing that is going to kill us or ruin our lives every week.
Enough is enough. Let's do the Putin thing.
So why do we have 2 kidneys, why is our brain able to adapt to damage, if it wasn't for the simple fact that this proved to be the more successful way in the long run.
Actually, evolution puts our design under the exact same pressures: do more with less. That is, in fact, the definition of natural selection.
Reliability and redundancy are just one aspect of our optimality, and it's not something that's always at the top of the priority list. One might counter your point about 2 kidneys by asking why we don't have two hearts. We sure as hell should have two hearts more than two kidneys. You can go a day or two without a kidney without even noticing, but 30 seconds without a heartbeat is a bad way to start your day.
I think our internet is about as redundant as we should like and that it doesn't seem likely that these various gloom and doom scenarios are going to play out. Yes there are periodic problems, but they are rarely systemic. Even under various forms of DOS attack and the horrendous inefficiency of spam, when I wake up in the morning, I can visit slashdot so long as my local connection is up.
And that's pretty impressive given the largely unstructured way in which the net has been thrown together. Let's not take what we've got for granted.
Good points. I'm certainly inclined to feel sympathy towards nations like Vietnam.
But not so much for China, I consider that nation to be the master of its own destiny at this point.
You mean, like not considering IP that much of an issue? I think making -copies- (ie: different from stealing) is a lot less amoral than taking advantage (and somewhat indirectly) help maintaining bad work conditions.
We are not "helping" to maintain bad work conditions , we (and indeed the entire global market, smug Europeans take note) are benefitting from China's own lack of regulatory oversight. It is ultimately the responsibility of a self sufficient nation, like China, to ensure the welfare of its own citizens (recognizing that there are places, like the Sudan where the government is not capable of this level of control).
So I don't think these issues aren't the mirror images of one another that you suggest. The appropriate analogy to the worker's rights issues would be a scenario in which the pirated DVD's were produced in the US under the blind eye of our government and sold in China, such that the chinese market were purchasing our pirated exports (in which case you might argue they are "helping" us to pirate).
In that case, the US would be in the wrong for asking China to stop buying. The correct course of action would be to clamp down on copying within our borders.
But since we can't cut down on copying withing *their* borders, the WTO is the appropriate channel and arguments that the US deserves this kind of treatment for their own market presence are largely irrelevant to the question of what's right.
Speaking as a European, you may be right about fat and lazy, but the fear is just in the USA.
Speaking as an American living in Europe, you are an idiot.
I dunno, maybe something slightly less severe, like not making them our "preferred trading partner?" Something along the lines of refusing to trade with countries that don't have some minimum standard of working conditions?
And, yes, I know that means we'd have to pay more for consumer goods. It's still a much less costly option than trying to invade China.
It is not our business to run around the world ensuring that all workers are treated according to OUR standards, RIGHT NOW. All countries do things differently and for very different reasons. These people work at these wages because it's better than not working at any wages and children in Nike factories would be pretty pissed if their factory was shut down so that *you* could sleep easier at night.
The US went through its own period of poor working conditions, these things will be worked out.
Also remember that the global economy is a delicate organism. Radical changes, such as curtailing US/Chinese trade would be a Bad Thing (of the Great Depression variety). It'd be bad for you, bad for them, pretty much bad for everybody.
It's not like we've shown much in the way of caring for the working conditions they have to suffer to sell the stuff they make for us at super cheap prices.
Oh please, that is a grossly unfair criticism. What exactly are we supposed to do? Declare war on China if they don't legislate improved working conditions?
The WTO exists precisely for the purpose of arbitrating disputes of this sort. The US is following protocol for a legitimate concern.
but the US Gov. is only mad about copies of overpriced products (usually made in China for dirt cheap BTW) to protect the profit of a few cartels
It's likely they're upset about all of them, but this particular form of piracy has the most egregious profit ratio. There is practically zero cost in creating these counterfeits while the US industry is effectively footing the entire bill for making the product.
Sure it's easy to "get out" Don't buy the content, I don't. I rent from Netflix and ...
You have not gotten out as you are still part of the MPAA's profit system. Netflix buys DVD's from them, and they use your money to do it.
What you say is true, and reasonable, and I'm not suggesting it's worth NOT renting movies. Just that you are still part of their machine, and don't think otherwise.