War has never been the real way to depopulate the earth, grand total deaths through history due to war are likely less than 500 million. The bubonic plague aka black death is credited with killing off 1/3 to 1/2 of the population in Europe and Chine -- much more effective
Of course, we have better ways to kill lots people these days, just a few EMP's weapons could kill billions as civilization collapses. A single truly nasty bio-weapon release -- airborn smallpox or ebola could do the same with direct deaths as well as collapse.
You are not pulling heat out of the atmosphere. More accurately you are pulling heat out of the atmosphere then re-releasing the heat into the atmosphere as the generated electricity or mechanical energy is used. You are simply not introducing additional heat into the atmosphere by not burning coal or splitting atoms, etc.
However, heating the earth's atmosphere via energy generation is negligible. Total earth energy consumption is about 15 terawatts, total earth solar irradiance is about 173,000 terawatts. This raises the global mean temperature by about 0.0065 degrees C
Yes, but if you want to know how obese a city is you now have a new choice. A) Analyze at remains from the sewer B) Analyze photos from Facebook or C) Spend 5 minutes at the local Walmart.
The FCC is still changing their proposed regulation (reportedly over 300 pages worth). The link you reference is about 5 pages worth. The proposed regs have not been released to the public.
No shortage of stupid user interface choices. Some of the ones I've hated the most.
* Hiding menu options, aka personalized menus * Wholesale rearranging and renaming of user interfaces between versions, esp. for infrequently used options * Super secret hidden files. * Windows 8
Nonsense, congress could pass changes that emasculate the FCC in this regard. Certainly the current POTUS would doubtless veto, but the next one might not.
Likelihood of such a restriction on the FCC is another question, and I would guess fairly improbable. Should this regulation become very unpopular, then it would be likely to be overturned by congress.
Greek fire is often thought to include calcium oxide a.k.a. quicklime. This is caustic and has been used as chemical weapon by itself. That is why I originally said it was arguably a chemical weapon though the primary effectiveness is clearly as an incendiary. Primarily I included as a reference because it is more more widely recognized as being used in warfare. The pure chemical weapons go back a long time -- far predating greek fire.
The real difference in the modern era, it has become an economical form of warfare as well as more effective (higher rate of casualties) than older chemical attacks.
Considering that so many are focused on CO2 as a pollutant, they won't care about the pollution scrubbers at the centralized plants because we don't capture the carbon. Ans yes, lots of greens don't appear to understand this connection.
It is not just the Feds cash flood, it is the zero-rate interest. People chasing returns are practically forced into the stock market to try and get returns.
I don't know, if you have a comet or asteroid impact big enough to eject material into space you have to consider that the ejecta is going to be heated by a large amount. Much of the "ejecta" is in the form of vaporized rock, much of the solid ejecta will be fractured. The fireball associated with an impact of this size is also going to be large (10's or 100's of km in diameter), so you get additional heating beyond the heating of atmospheric compression while the ejecta is departing.
Seems like organics would be unlikely to survive the trip most of the time.
The slower eject will not be generally be heated as much, but you won't find those on the moon.
Buckyballs were targeted by the government -- Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), so people tend to assume they were unusually risky. According to the CPSC, 22 kids have been injured, no fatalities.
Bicycles, skateboards, and trampolines -- all much higher risk. Yet, no-one is proposing banning them, because we are used to the risks.
A few grams of radioactives, as providing with the toy, essentially no risk of significant unless you consume them.or use them as an eye patch.
This study does not study what you probably assumed that it study.
The study you expect is. How is the likelihood of a crash altered by using MJ. This study actually studies those involved in crashes and looks at THC, alcohol and other drugs. How many people taking MJ simply avoid driving completely? If 1 out of 2 avoid driving in this condition, this study under reports the accident risk by a factor of 2.
It does refer to several studies that measure impairment based on MJ usage and comments that the impairment in clearly seen in a number of ways.
Also, some THC is not the best measure of the effect of THC. Maybe moderate use has a relaxing effect that actually improves driving by reducing risk taking behavior even if it simultaneous impairs reaction time and judgment while more THC allows the negative effects to outweigh the positive.You would never know in this study.
Given that MJ usage is so widespread, an honest and comprehensive study would be a lot more useful than studies like this one. since MJ is legal now in some places, why not have a real study with various ages, levels of THC, etc. and spend some time in driving simulators. By and large I know people will take recreational drugs and it does not affect me. But I would like to keep them off the roads if this means they are driving while impaired.
The study that is the basis for the article mentioned THC detected in about 7% of evening crashes and 9% of weekend crashes. Sounds like a lot of MJ smoking and driving to me.
There is another historically successful method of abolishing slavery. The government compensates slaves owners for their slaves at the same time it abolishes slavery. That is how they did it in Britain, Washington D.C. and basically the rest of the world. Had this been done at the time of the civil war, it would have cost considerably less than the cost of the war.
When writing the US Constitution, there was another option -- abolish it in the future. People are much more likely to agree to something they consider undesirable as long as it is delayed for the next generation.
By 1860, the mindset of the South was such that neither of the previous solutions would work as it was also strong cultural racism and privilege, not just slavery that was involved.
The lunchbox sats are not as capable as a recon sat desired by the NSA, etc. You may perhaps argue that 100 pound sats are all that the NSA needs, but they clearly want a lot more -- IIRC the NSA was getting push back against proposed billion dollar satellites.
I think it is very good assumption that the NSA already knows about the benefits of miniaturization and high-end sensors used in the small sats your referred to . But if a 4 kg or 40 kg sat could satisfy their desires, they would be using them (and likely are using them too). The real spy-eye in the sky will be big for the foreseeable future.
Cost is still $10,000 per pound to LEO. Some existing commercial launch systems already match that price. The 100 pound payload limit is a real problem though as effective recon sats will be considerably heavier in order to have big enough lenses for high res images as well as the transmitter, solar panels, etc. The best recon sats are expected to be roughly equivalent to the Hubble telescope. Note that the Hubble cannot take good images of the earth because it cannot track the ground.
The maximum diameter of the spacecraft is 10 feet or 120 inches with an estimated length something over 43 feet. The long telescope barrel is on the order of 8.94-9.3 feet in diameter. Titan-23D could place 24,600 lbs in polar orbit while Titan-34D could place 27,600 lbs into polar orbit. The KH-11 SSB mass application is about 3,289 lbs dry while its fueled mass is about 10,568 lbs. The whole spacecraft dry mass is about 13,289 kilograms and the fueled mass is estimated between 24,500-25,800-27,500 lbs at orbital insertion depending on which booster is used. The KH-11 KENNON spacecraft was replaced in the early 1990’s by the KH- Advanced Crystal spacecraft.
The real advantages to this design is the small launch cost and the short prep. time needed for a launch (24 hours).
Is this another case of vitality curve management? GE's Jack Welch was the quintessential example of this policy and is considered one of the most effective company leaders ever.
Unless you worked at GE and were condemned to watch the layoffs year after year until you were finally canned due to being part of the bottom 10% -- or watching the dysfunctional games people played because of the policy
You don't have to cheat Einstein to populate the galaxy. Nanotech based Von Neumann machines could easily spread out and cover our galaxy in a million years, the technology is certainly not impossible, indeed it is likely to be developed in the relatively near future should we decide to do so, and the possibility to live indefinitely in mechanical or biological bodies does not seem to be impossible either.
What could we do in a 1000 or 10,000 years. The Fermi Paradox is entirely valid given the assumptions normally made for the prevalence of complex life that would be millions or billions of years ahead of us.
While it may be true that cost savings and the injury and grief associated with accidents is considerable. Few people are willing to pay for it. People want immediate intangible benefits.
Reduced insurance rates, reduced traffic jams including the use of the high-speed auto-drive lane, self-parking cars after drop-off, not having to chauffeur the kids, watching TV while "driving"
These are the reasons people will buy self-driving cars.
Slashdot Mirror
War has never been the real way to depopulate the earth, grand total deaths through history due to war are likely less than 500 million. The bubonic plague aka black death is credited with killing off 1/3 to 1/2 of the population in Europe and Chine -- much more effective
Of course, we have better ways to kill lots people these days, just a few EMP's weapons could kill billions as civilization collapses. A single truly nasty bio-weapon release -- airborn smallpox or ebola could do the same with direct deaths as well as collapse.
You are not pulling heat out of the atmosphere. More accurately you are pulling heat out of the atmosphere then re-releasing the heat into the atmosphere as the generated electricity or mechanical energy is used. You are simply not introducing additional heat into the atmosphere by not burning coal or splitting atoms, etc.
However, heating the earth's atmosphere via energy generation is negligible. Total earth energy consumption is about 15 terawatts, total earth solar irradiance is about 173,000 terawatts. This raises the global mean temperature by about 0.0065 degrees C
Yes, but if you want to know how obese a city is you now have a new choice. A) Analyze at remains from the sewer B) Analyze photos from Facebook or C) Spend 5 minutes at the local Walmart.
The FCC is still changing their proposed regulation (reportedly over 300 pages worth). The link you reference is about 5 pages worth. The proposed regs have not been released to the public.
No shortage of stupid user interface choices. Some of the ones I've hated the most.
* Hiding menu options, aka personalized menus
* Wholesale rearranging and renaming of user interfaces between versions, esp. for infrequently used options
* Super secret hidden files.
* Windows 8
Nonsense, congress could pass changes that emasculate the FCC in this regard. Certainly the current POTUS would doubtless veto, but the next one might not.
Likelihood of such a restriction on the FCC is another question, and I would guess fairly improbable. Should this regulation become very unpopular, then it would be likely to be overturned by congress.
Greek fire is often thought to include calcium oxide a.k.a. quicklime. This is caustic and has been used as chemical weapon by itself. That is why I originally said it was arguably a chemical weapon though the primary effectiveness is clearly as an incendiary. Primarily I included as a reference because it is more more widely recognized as being used in warfare. The pure chemical weapons go back a long time -- far predating greek fire.
Greek fire is arguably a chemical weapon and well known.
National Geographic has a nice article about the long history of chemical (and biological) weapons,
The real difference in the modern era, it has become an economical form of warfare as well as more effective (higher rate of casualties) than older chemical attacks.
Considering that so many are focused on CO2 as a pollutant, they won't care about the pollution scrubbers at the centralized plants because we don't capture the carbon. Ans yes, lots of greens don't appear to understand this connection.
It is not just the Feds cash flood, it is the zero-rate interest. People chasing returns are practically forced into the stock market to try and get returns.
Pfft, they should just call the CIA/NSA to get one of their "backup copies".
I don't know, if you have a comet or asteroid impact big enough to eject material into space you have to consider that the ejecta is going to be heated by a large amount. Much of the "ejecta" is in the form of vaporized rock, much of the solid ejecta will be fractured. The fireball associated with an impact of this size is also going to be large (10's or 100's of km in diameter), so you get additional heating beyond the heating of atmospheric compression while the ejecta is departing.
Seems like organics would be unlikely to survive the trip most of the time.
The slower eject will not be generally be heated as much, but you won't find those on the moon.
And if that Chinese family serves you Peking Duck what would you then conclude?
Buckyballs were targeted by the government -- Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), so people tend to assume they were unusually risky. According to the CPSC, 22 kids have been injured, no fatalities.
Bicycles, skateboards, and trampolines -- all much higher risk. Yet, no-one is proposing banning them, because we are used to the risks.
A few grams of radioactives, as providing with the toy, essentially no risk of significant unless you consume them.or use them as an eye patch.
Lawn darts -- lots of fun, only a few deaths, but lots of non-fatal injuries.
Mini Hammocks had 12 fatalities and quite a few non-fatal.
Austin Magic Pistol -- shoot a flame up to 70 feet (calcium carbide and water).
But the true winner has to be the trampoline. Deaths sure, but the thousands of serious injuries per year (visits to the E/R) is without parallel
This study does not study what you probably assumed that it study.
The study you expect is. How is the likelihood of a crash altered by using MJ. This study actually studies those involved in crashes and looks at THC, alcohol and other drugs. How many people taking MJ simply avoid driving completely? If 1 out of 2 avoid driving in this condition, this study under reports the accident risk by a factor of 2.
It does refer to several studies that measure impairment based on MJ usage and comments that the impairment in clearly seen in a number of ways.
Also, some THC is not the best measure of the effect of THC. Maybe moderate use has a relaxing effect that actually improves driving by reducing risk taking behavior even if it simultaneous impairs reaction time and judgment while more THC allows the negative effects to outweigh the positive.You would never know in this study.
Given that MJ usage is so widespread, an honest and comprehensive study would be a lot more useful than studies like this one. since MJ is legal now in some places, why not have a real study with various ages, levels of THC, etc. and spend some time in driving simulators. By and large I know people will take recreational drugs and it does not affect me. But I would like to keep them off the roads if this means they are driving while impaired.
Well, if the see a unicorn, perhaps they are in India -- home of Rhinoceros Unicornis unlike the bicorns native to Africa.
The study that is the basis for the article mentioned THC detected in about 7% of evening crashes and 9% of weekend crashes. Sounds like a lot of MJ smoking and driving to me.
There is another historically successful method of abolishing slavery. The government compensates slaves owners for their slaves at the same time it abolishes slavery. That is how they did it in Britain, Washington D.C. and basically the rest of the world. Had this been done at the time of the civil war, it would have cost considerably less than the cost of the war.
When writing the US Constitution, there was another option -- abolish it in the future. People are much more likely to agree to something they consider undesirable as long as it is delayed for the next generation.
By 1860, the mindset of the South was such that neither of the previous solutions would work as it was also strong cultural racism and privilege, not just slavery that was involved.
The lunchbox sats are not as capable as a recon sat desired by the NSA, etc. You may perhaps argue that 100 pound sats are all that the NSA needs, but they clearly want a lot more -- IIRC the NSA was getting push back against proposed billion dollar satellites.
I think it is very good assumption that the NSA already knows about the benefits of miniaturization and high-end sensors used in the small sats your referred to . But if a 4 kg or 40 kg sat could satisfy their desires, they would be using them (and likely are using them too). The real spy-eye in the sky will be big for the foreseeable future.
Probably not great for cheap spy satellites.
Cost is still $10,000 per pound to LEO. Some existing commercial launch systems already match that price. The 100 pound payload limit is a real problem though as effective recon sats will be considerably heavier in order to have big enough lenses for high res images as well as the transmitter, solar panels, etc. The best recon sats are expected to be roughly equivalent to the Hubble telescope. Note that the Hubble cannot take good images of the earth because it cannot track the ground.
From the article on KH-11 recon sat
The maximum diameter of the spacecraft is 10 feet or 120 inches with an estimated length something over 43 feet. The long telescope barrel is on the order of 8.94-9.3 feet in diameter. Titan-23D could place 24,600 lbs in polar orbit while Titan-34D could place 27,600 lbs into polar orbit. The KH-11 SSB mass application is about 3,289 lbs dry while its fueled mass is about 10,568 lbs. The whole spacecraft dry mass is about 13,289 kilograms and the fueled mass is estimated between 24,500-25,800-27,500 lbs at orbital insertion depending on which booster is used. The KH-11 KENNON spacecraft was replaced in the early 1990’s by the KH- Advanced Crystal spacecraft.
The real advantages to this design is the small launch cost and the short prep. time needed for a launch (24 hours).
Is this another case of vitality curve management? GE's Jack Welch was the quintessential example of this policy and is considered one of the most effective company leaders ever.
Unless you worked at GE and were condemned to watch the layoffs year after year until you were finally canned due to being part of the bottom 10% -- or watching the dysfunctional games people played because of the policy
You don't have to cheat Einstein to populate the galaxy. Nanotech based Von Neumann machines could easily spread out and cover our galaxy in a million years, the technology is certainly not impossible, indeed it is likely to be developed in the relatively near future should we decide to do so, and the possibility to live indefinitely in mechanical or biological bodies does not seem to be impossible either.
What could we do in a 1000 or 10,000 years. The Fermi Paradox is entirely valid given the assumptions normally made for the prevalence of complex life that would be millions or billions of years ahead of us.
While it may be true that cost savings and the injury and grief associated with accidents is considerable. Few people are willing to pay for it. People want immediate intangible benefits.
Reduced insurance rates, reduced traffic jams including the use of the high-speed auto-drive lane, self-parking cars after drop-off, not having to chauffeur the kids, watching TV while "driving"
These are the reasons people will buy self-driving cars.
Sure, there are large layoffs in the tech industry, but big layoffs are not a new thing.
Two of the largest layoffs in US history occurred in 1993. 60K employees at IBM and 50K employees at Sears/KMart.
Big layoffs are a result of other business conditions, including.
An actual need to cut expenses -- bloated, slow-moving companies find themselves in the condition of declining sales, and big losses.
A desire to increase profit margins, often linked to increased stock prices -- CEO's can get lots of bonus compensation in this form
A result of chopping up a company, perhaps resulting from a hostile takeover.
None of these are unique to technology companies.