Show me an articulated robot that moves around as long as humans do without totally falling apart every 3 days/months/years and we can start this discussion. Even without any moving parts: Show me *any* kind of artificial (non-organic) device that can process information for 70 years without any interference from outside (like my brain can do), and we can start to think about how organic components are less durable than inorganic ones. Until then, my imaginated cyborg is going to have his inorganic mechanics replaced every couple of days/months/years.
Independent from the decision what language to learn, talk to him about artificial life (programming little animats that live in an artificial environment and have artificial genetics). It is such great fun to program little animals running across the screen. IMHO, this is a perfect approach to learn programming: (1) You can start off simple (without any genetics or physics) and already have fun, then add more and more features to your animats and to your environment. (2) The concept of object oriented design is very obvious here: each animat is an instance of a class and has methods and attributes. (3) If you add genetics, your son will develop a natural view on evolution, which in turn will prevent him from becoming a creationist (god willing).
This is the same for my WD drive. After 86 hours, 6000 load/unload cycles. It will reach the end of its lifespan in about 6 months I guess. Does anyone know some more details about that issue?
No, we couldn't. Remember my line: "99.9 percent of the starvation in the world is political in nature". The regimes in those areas want the people to starve. Thus, in order to feed them, we'd have to invade that country. At which point even the US military would become stretched to the breaking point.
Imagine the USA, after the tsunami in asia, would invest as much money to help the victims as they spent for the iraq war. I know, the USA IS giving a lot, but imagine they would give as much as for the war in iraq. That would make people all over the world (and many muslims) think about their attitude towards the USA. If the USA ignores the people all over the world and acts like it does, it will make peace in the middle east impossible and it will make many families grow little terrorists. This will ultimately cost MUCH more life than the people that would have died in Iraq without US intervention.
We go somewhere, people complain, we don't, they still complain.
It is exactly this attitude that make people think the worst about some americans. "Oh, strange, the whole world has a differing opinion. But since we can't be wrong, it must be all of them. They went crazy!"
So, if you try very hard, could you think about a reason that the whole world (except for you ofcourse) is so blatantly silly? Just imagine for one second it would be because the USA invades countries for purely egoistic reasons that do not need to be invaded, but at the same time for purely egoistic reasons does not invade countries that need an intervention. Did you ever hear someone complain that they invaded Germany? And please do not come up with this silly "humanitarian nightmare" argument. With the money the USA spends for the war in Iraq, it could rescue more people from starvation than actually altogether live in Iraq, and without becoming the asshole of the world. Everybody in the world told GWB: do not go to Iraq if you don't have a plan for after the war. Look at it now! It is a bigger mess than before. As soon as the US leaves, there will be civil war. If the USA wants to avoid "humanitarian nightmares" and doesn't find a better way than invading Iraq, there must be some very stupid people in the headquarters!
You forgot to mention the other pseudo-scientific wannabe facts that the rest of the world wants us to believe:
Humans and monkeys have a common ancestor and evolution actually exists.
You get fat from eating too much, not from eating not enough meat.
Being an arrogant asshole in terms of foreign politics increases, not decreases terrorism.
Photosynthesis does not help, either. It fixes the CO2 in the plant, but what do you do with the plant afterwards? Burn it? -> CO2. Let it decompose? -> CO2. Or put it underground, like you could have done with the CO2 in the first place?
Wouldn't it be a good idea to reply to as much spam as possible with subject lines like "I am very interested" or "Please send me more information"? Or actual orders with faked names? I know, that would validate my actual email adress, but if VERY MANY people did that, I bet we could drive the spammers crazy since they couldn't find the one or two real orders in the sheer mass of faked orders. Maybe a little script that sends faked orders (with different text) from various faked adresses?
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Show me an articulated robot that moves around as long as humans do without totally falling apart every 3 days/months/years and we can start this discussion. Even without any moving parts: Show me *any* kind of artificial (non-organic) device that can process information for 70 years without any interference from outside (like my brain can do), and we can start to think about how organic components are less durable than inorganic ones. Until then, my imaginated cyborg is going to have his inorganic mechanics replaced every couple of days/months/years.
Independent from the decision what language to learn, talk to him about artificial life (programming little animats that live in an artificial environment and have artificial genetics). It is such great fun to program little animals running across the screen. IMHO, this is a perfect approach to learn programming:
(1) You can start off simple (without any genetics or physics) and already have fun, then add more and more features to your animats and to your environment.
(2) The concept of object oriented design is very obvious here: each animat is an instance of a class and has methods and attributes.
(3) If you add genetics, your son will develop a natural view on evolution, which in turn will prevent him from becoming a creationist (god willing).
This is the same for my WD drive. After 86 hours, 6000 load/unload cycles. It will reach the end of its lifespan in about 6 months I guess. Does anyone know some more details about that issue?
Since a typical drive has about 10 watts, it will be very difficult to save 50. I think a 50% reduction is pretty impressive, though.
No, we couldn't. Remember my line: "99.9 percent of the starvation in the world is political in nature". The regimes in those areas want the people to starve. Thus, in order to feed them, we'd have to invade that country. At which point even the US military would become stretched to the breaking point.
Imagine the USA, after the tsunami in asia, would invest as much money to help the victims as they spent for the iraq war. I know, the USA IS giving a lot, but imagine they would give as much as for the war in iraq. That would make people all over the world (and many muslims) think about their attitude towards the USA. If the USA ignores the people all over the world and acts like it does, it will make peace in the middle east impossible and it will make many families grow little terrorists. This will ultimately cost MUCH more life than the people that would have died in Iraq without US intervention.
We go somewhere, people complain, we don't, they still complain.
It is exactly this attitude that make people think the worst about some americans. "Oh, strange, the whole world has a differing opinion. But since we can't be wrong, it must be all of them. They went crazy!" So, if you try very hard, could you think about a reason that the whole world (except for you ofcourse) is so blatantly silly? Just imagine for one second it would be because the USA invades countries for purely egoistic reasons that do not need to be invaded, but at the same time for purely egoistic reasons does not invade countries that need an intervention.
Did you ever hear someone complain that they invaded Germany?
And please do not come up with this silly "humanitarian nightmare" argument. With the money the USA spends for the war in Iraq, it could rescue more people from starvation than actually altogether live in Iraq, and without becoming the asshole of the world. Everybody in the world told GWB: do not go to Iraq if you don't have a plan for after the war. Look at it now! It is a bigger mess than before. As soon as the US leaves, there will be civil war. If the USA wants to avoid "humanitarian nightmares" and doesn't find a better way than invading Iraq, there must be some very stupid people in the headquarters!
You forgot to mention the other pseudo-scientific wannabe facts that the rest of the world wants us to believe: Humans and monkeys have a common ancestor and evolution actually exists. You get fat from eating too much, not from eating not enough meat. Being an arrogant asshole in terms of foreign politics increases, not decreases terrorism.
Photosynthesis does not help, either. It fixes the CO2 in the plant, but what do you do with the plant afterwards? Burn it? -> CO2. Let it decompose? -> CO2. Or put it underground, like you could have done with the CO2 in the first place?
Your post only applies to the north pole. Since the southern ice cap afaik sits on massive land, the water level WILL rise, if it melts. No Sig.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to reply to as much spam as possible with subject lines like "I am very interested" or "Please send me more information"? Or actual orders with faked names? I know, that would validate my actual email adress, but if VERY MANY people did that, I bet we could drive the spammers crazy since they couldn't find the one or two real orders in the sheer mass of faked orders. Maybe a little script that sends faked orders (with different text) from various faked adresses?