A global catastrophe could do a fair job at wiping out humans simply by interrupting the food supply. It would not take long for us to degenerate to savagery in fighting over the remaining resources on a global scale.
We would end up doing most of the work of our own extinction ourselves.
That was, in fact the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this headline. I went to a talk he gave something like 15 years ago, and he looked ancient then.
My first thought was, "Ye gods, he's still alive???"
Scientists are motivated more by prestiage than money -- funding is only a useful tool in developing prestige. Prestige, as measured by academic titles and citations, is based on challenging details of the currently accepted model in order to get attention, but without discrediting the majority of peers by attacking the models foundation. Sure everyone wants scientists to be completely objective, but scientists are people too and an un-biased scientist is about as common as an un-greedy entrepreneur.
I've got news for you, bub. All the scientists I know, including myself, are primarily motivated by the pursuit of knowledge. Publishing results is largely an onerous task necessary to secure funding. It's certainly the least enjoyable part of doing scientific work, principally because it takes away so much time from doing actual research. Attempting to secure funding is even worse - not only does it take up valuable time and resources, but you don't get the satisfaction of producing something useful to the community.
Re:That explains those mysterious hirings
on
Breaking Google's DRM
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Not that I'm a theist or anything silly like that, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The Southern Sun brewery here in Boulder, Colorado makes a fantastic coffee-based beer called the Isadore Java Porter. It's a smooth, dark, full-bodied and creamy beer with a nice mocha flavor, not too strongly hopped, definitely towards the stout end of the porter scale.
It's well worth the effort if you can find a six pack, although I'm not sure how widely the Southern Sun/Mountain Sun beers are distributed.
This sounds like the ultimate button-down weapon to me.
It would be possible to plunk down an antimatter warhead in the middle of a city and legitimately be able to claim that any sort of attempt to defuse the bomb would cause detonation. The enemy (however you define that) is forced to surrender or must abandon the city, which work out to the same thing in practical terms.
Also, of course, such a weapon would be the ultimate tool for a despotic government wishing to control its own people.
...a fairly decent player can thoroughly trounce a beginner.
Sure, for the first week or two. One of the things I love about Go is that it's got a handicap system that scales incredibly well. I give some of my friends a 13 stone handicap and we have really close games, while at the same time a couple of weekends ago I took an 8-stone handicap from a 7-dan (near professional level) and barely edged out a win. If you can get past the first week of getting trounced and start to understand the most basic implications of the rules, every game you play that's properly handicapped will provide an exciting challenge.
One of the cool things about Hikaru is that the games that they show being played in the anime are actual, historical games.
I remember the first time a friend showed me an episode of Hikaru, and about half way through I started getting this intense sensation of deja-vu. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the game that the characters were playing was one I had memorized out of a book of famous games!
Seriously, what use is a thumb drive? Every computer I've used in the past four or five years has had an internet connection. I can download PuTTY onto a windows box in less than a minute and sftp into any one of half a dozen machines I use on a regular basis. What do people actually use these things for?
I mean, I thought the sneaker net went out with 3.5" floppies.
If an AI can parse a human-readable web page, the same AI can generate an RDF description for that page which a human being can then correct.
Sure, the idea that dreamweaver jockeys are going to be able to handle this is nonsense - but Dreamweaver should have no problem with it if that level of AI can be developed in the first place.
Few people here are lawyers so few statements are going to be hole free. Most statements here and elsewhere in the world require a little common sense to interpret correctly.
How long until people just give up and listen to local music? Leave the RIAA to the sheep, and the sheep to the RIAA, and the sheep will get what they deserve.
I'm already writing code from my home office chair and teleconferencing with my team members while you're stuck in traffic. And I get to wear my fuzzy slippers!
Yet another good example of why people should comment their source code. After all, we can regard the Constitution and Bill of Rights as the kernel of our system of government - now wouldn't it be nice if somewhere in there there was something like this in there?
/*
* Temporary fix - revise once message latency is brought down to a reasonable level
*/
struct president electoral_college_vote() { ...
}
I work for the university in Boulder as a research associate as well - and I have to agree that it is pretty close to dream status. Great environment, I can take a couple of classes a year for free during work hours, decent pay, and 22 days of vacation + federal holidays!
Re:Your job shouldn't be your life.
on
Dream Jobs of 2004
·
· Score: 3, Funny
So you're being pretty handily outproduced by a buch of aborigines. Maybe I can use some of my hard earned cash some day to visit the enlightened part of the world, Sweden.
Or, at least, you could if you had the time off to do so!
I've been wondering a lot lately about how much energy is burned during the sleep cycle. A few weeks ago, I got myself a digital scale and started weighing myself before bed and immediately after waking in the morning.
I've been surprised to find that I appear to lose about 3 pounds between the time I go to sleep and the time I wake up, which I then regain the following day. I haven't yet figured out a method to determine how much this weight is lost in water through respiration. I have been sure to check that the temperature is the same at the time of each measurement, in case it might affect the reading of the scale.
Tell that to us out here in Colorado where lots of us are having to spend significant amounts of money xeriscaping to compensate for the effects of our ongoing drought. If the patterns of the last couple of years continue, we won't be able to afford to flush our toilets because of the ever-increasing water rates. Right now, there are plans in the works to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars to run a huge pipe over the Rockies to bring water over from the western slope.
We could use some more snow!
Re:Fermi's paradox?
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Doesn't relativity take care of some of the problems of long travel times between celestial bodies, as well? If one was to travel close enough to the speed of light,the travel time would be negligible for the traveller, or at least limited to close to the time required for acceleration and deceleration. You could go anywhere you wanted, provided that you were willing to leave everything about your life and human civilization as you knew it behind.
Fermi's paradox doesn't say much about the time scale of space travel and the evolution of intelligent species. Out of the 13.7 billion year life of the universe, Earth has only been around for 4.6 billion years and only the past few hundred million years have been tremendously interesting in terms of flora and fauna. It seems to me that the chances of an intelligent, spacefaring race visiting our happy little planet in that time window are pretty small.
Slashdot Mirror
We would end up doing most of the work of our own extinction ourselves.
My first thought was, "Ye gods, he's still alive???"
I've got news for you, bub. All the scientists I know, including myself, are primarily motivated by the pursuit of knowledge. Publishing results is largely an onerous task necessary to secure funding. It's certainly the least enjoyable part of doing scientific work, principally because it takes away so much time from doing actual research. Attempting to secure funding is even worse - not only does it take up valuable time and resources, but you don't get the satisfaction of producing something useful to the community.
Just thought I'd remind you.
The Southern Sun brewery here in Boulder, Colorado makes a fantastic coffee-based beer called the Isadore Java Porter. It's a smooth, dark, full-bodied and creamy beer with a nice mocha flavor, not too strongly hopped, definitely towards the stout end of the porter scale.
It's well worth the effort if you can find a six pack, although I'm not sure how widely the Southern Sun/Mountain Sun beers are distributed.
This sounds like the ultimate button-down weapon to me.
It would be possible to plunk down an antimatter warhead in the middle of a city and legitimately be able to claim that any sort of attempt to defuse the bomb would cause detonation. The enemy (however you define that) is forced to surrender or must abandon the city, which work out to the same thing in practical terms.
Also, of course, such a weapon would be the ultimate tool for a despotic government wishing to control its own people.
What, you expect this house to have some fridge from the '90s that doesn't have wifi?
Thanks, Dave. That webcast was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen.
Hmmm... How does one effectively handicap a martial arts bout?
Sure, for the first week or two. One of the things I love about Go is that it's got a handicap system that scales incredibly well. I give some of my friends a 13 stone handicap and we have really close games, while at the same time a couple of weekends ago I took an 8-stone handicap from a 7-dan (near professional level) and barely edged out a win. If you can get past the first week of getting trounced and start to understand the most basic implications of the rules, every game you play that's properly handicapped will provide an exciting challenge.
I remember the first time a friend showed me an episode of Hikaru, and about half way through I started getting this intense sensation of deja-vu. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the game that the characters were playing was one I had memorized out of a book of famous games!
No doubt. Real geeks don't have the time to use IM socially- we're all too busy writing code!
Seriously, what use is a thumb drive? Every computer I've used in the past four or five years has had an internet connection. I can download PuTTY onto a windows box in less than a minute and sftp into any one of half a dozen machines I use on a regular basis. What do people actually use these things for? I mean, I thought the sneaker net went out with 3.5" floppies.
I call bullshit. Everyone knows there are no conservatives in Boulder.
If an AI can parse a human-readable web page, the same AI can generate an RDF description for that page which a human being can then correct.
Sure, the idea that dreamweaver jockeys are going to be able to handle this is nonsense - but Dreamweaver should have no problem with it if that level of AI can be developed in the first place.
Being excessively anal accomplishes nothing.
You're not a programmer, are you?
Too many sheep.
I'm already writing code from my home office chair and teleconferencing with my team members while you're stuck in traffic. And I get to wear my fuzzy slippers!
* Temporary fix - revise once message latency is brought down to a reasonable level
*/
struct president electoral_college_vote() {
}
Ooh! Ooh! Let's outlaw 2x4's too! And rocks, since you can bash someone over the head with either!
I work for the university in Boulder as a research associate as well - and I have to agree that it is pretty close to dream status. Great environment, I can take a couple of classes a year for free during work hours, decent pay, and 22 days of vacation + federal holidays!
Or, at least, you could if you had the time off to do so!
I've been surprised to find that I appear to lose about 3 pounds between the time I go to sleep and the time I wake up, which I then regain the following day. I haven't yet figured out a method to determine how much this weight is lost in water through respiration. I have been sure to check that the temperature is the same at the time of each measurement, in case it might affect the reading of the scale.
Tell that to us out here in Colorado where lots of us are having to spend significant amounts of money xeriscaping to compensate for the effects of our ongoing drought. If the patterns of the last couple of years continue, we won't be able to afford to flush our toilets because of the ever-increasing water rates. Right now, there are plans in the works to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars to run a huge pipe over the Rockies to bring water over from the western slope.
We could use some more snow!
Fermi's paradox doesn't say much about the time scale of space travel and the evolution of intelligent species. Out of the 13.7 billion year life of the universe, Earth has only been around for 4.6 billion years and only the past few hundred million years have been tremendously interesting in terms of flora and fauna. It seems to me that the chances of an intelligent, spacefaring race visiting our happy little planet in that time window are pretty small.