>We know the chances of being hit by an object by looking at how many objects hit planets.
Also, to some degree, by common sense. Most of the dust spinning around our star that is going to collide with something has had five billion years to do so, and the clumps of matter formed in the process do a fairly good job of sweeping up the leftovers around the edges before they can get as close to the Sun as we are here on Earth.
I am not an astronomer, but I would anticipate that (given our star formed later than most) most of our neighbouring systems are in a similar state or even more orderly, so they wouldn't have much left in the way of significant rocks to lose to us in any gravitational tug-of-war.
And after that comes the fact that space is huge relative to the Solar System (making it unlikely any rogue rocks will come significantly within its gravity well), and the Solar System is huge relative to the Earth (making it unlikely any rogue rocks that actually venture into the Solar gravity well will also dip into Earth's). And the Earth itself is tiny so even something flying through our gravity well isn't particularly likely to impact our planet if it's travelling faster than Solar escape velocity (which it pretty much has to have been after falling into the Solar gravity well from outside it).
I gotta tell you... I am not particularly worried about my lack of insurance coverage in the event of loss due to extra-Solar impactor.
It's difficult to define a line between 'unacceptable' and 'merely offensive'... and both those who want to behave unacceptably and those who are easily offended will use any uncertainty as justification for pushing the line in their preferred direction.
Ultimately, it'll come down to some individual's personal preference which may simply be to let a stupid algorithm do it and live with the problems that causes (for instance, try discussing racial slurs on Slashdot without getting blocked by the 'lameness filter').
That's actually an interesting point despite it obviously being intended as a joke.
What is a human's speech worth once other humans are more interested in what the AIs have to say? Even if there's no true intelligence behind them, even if it's a moderately simple algorithm with a BIG dataset to work with... what do we do once a standard chatbot can be given a product or point of view to sell to a target demographic, and do it as convincingly as the most persuasive humans we've ever known?
Money is a measure of wealth, but not a comprehensive one. Wealth is a measure of power, and a pretty damn good one in most cases, especially in the West.
If you force the wealthy to hide their money, they'll do so. They'll have 'nothing' but still live like kings because they have power. It'll just be off the books, that's all. There will be a little more secret politics and a little less numbers in a bank computer (because numbers on little pieces of paper don't represent a significant fraction of wealth anymore).
The uber-rich really are selfish and shortsighted. Selfish I understand, but the shortsightedness is ridiculous. No matter how nice the masses have it (and at least where I live, you have to be pretty poor before you're not 'rich' in a global or historical context), when a relatively small number of people have so much wealth they can buy and sell the rest of us without a care in the world... the masses will eventually revolt.
And it's so stupid, because the uber-rich are wealthy on the backs of a society that runs on the poor, managed by the middle class. They wouldn't be rich at all without everyone else doing their part. And they are so rich it's nearly impossible for them to lose enough to become one of the commoners again no matter how badly they screw up.
Unless you believe they were born better than you by divine blessing, you have to see how ridiculous the current wealth disparity and distribution is.
The problem with trying to fix it is that much of their wealth is liquid, transferable, and fairly easy to disguise; unless we can get every nation in the world to tighten their taxation laws at the same time and in the same way, whoever acts first simply sees wealth hidden a little more carefully, or watches it bleed away to somewhere with more favorable regulation.
Due to a typical but very strange bit of human psychology, I both have difficulty believing the world will actually change significantly in my lifetime while simultaneously wanting to see some kind of apocalypse (under the assumption I somehow manage to survive and thrive post-apocalypse).
I mean, it's worth the end of the world as we know it just to be able to gloat to the survivors that I was right, isn't it?
Just looking at it I'd say it's going to be some kind of customer service kiosk, with probably just a mount post from the waist down. Hook it up to a company directory and a speech recognition / synthesis routine and have a novelty in the company lobby.
Walking/navigation and power aren't solved issues for humanoid robots operating in areas with heavy human traffic... and you don't bother with a humanoid robot unless you want to interact with humans or use the same equipment that was made for them (the latter of which nobody really does - we build single-purpose robots instead).
Still, the face was pretty impressive, I didn't get an instant sense of 'uncanny valley' from it. On the other hand, the hand movements screamed 'Chuck-E-Cheese animatronics'.
If your skin tone happens to belong to the group seen as doing well... welcome to the other side of racial politics. Your individual case doesn't matter, you're "the man" because of your skin.
Asians are generally perceived as hard working and well educated, so they're now getting lumped in with white people.
The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one.
What if the universe always existed, and always will? Why can't it be infinitely long on the time axis as well as the spatial ones? You ask how it came into existence in the first place, and I say what if it DIDN'T and it's simply always been there?
Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.
It's easier to have salary grades by job description and simply fire your low-performers (though in a unionized environment this can be very difficult - and in a government unionized environment almost impossible).
You can also track seniority in terms of hours worked (not years of employment), which allows for women who take maternity leave to have their career progression paused while they're off, and have a pay scale within the pay grades that is seniority-based.
What I've seen multiple times, though, is 'pay equity' where it's more or less an arbitrary assignment of job value based on comparing apples and oranges and deciding they're identical because there just aren't enough people doing identical work within the organization to compare men to women on an even playing field.
The higher the panel, the less stable it will be and the more of a sail in the event of a high wind.
I really like your idea for a planned, long-term installation, but this is a quick-fix, path-of-least-resistance job.
Still, yeah - I'd be really tempted to look into sinking some solid posts into the ground and mounting the entire array 10' higher than it currently is and creating covered parking as a secondary benefit. Why NOT dual-purpose the space? I just wouldn't worry so much about it in the immediate future where there are likely a lot of more important concerns in a disaster area.
>if you have dirty energy, like much of the USA or worse, India, electric vehicles are a wash.
At break-even, it's still worth switching... because it means as you clean up your power generation (presumably starting as soon as you install a government that isn't made up of global climate change deniers) you don't have to wait to phase out your gas-powered vehicles before you see a benefit.
>I didn't think dating was that bad though I do get approached more when I wear my ring.
Very little attention prior to marriage... three opportunities for affairs after marriage. Of course, there's a social comfort factor at play, too, since I'm a lot more casual with women when I'm not trying to decide if I want to start a serious relationship with them and how to go about that without a hard rejection or other problems.
>I think it's kind of interesting that Millennials and other constant users of smart phones, especially singles, who walk around all day looking at a screen, complain that they can't meet any decent people
Oh come on, that problem pre-dated smart phones... we just outright ignored everybody instead of being entranced by our electronics.
Being 'dating age' sucks, because only welcomed approaches are socially acceptable and you don't know if your approach will be welcomed until after you make it. We don't really have great social customs for young people to meet; it's "be in the same class" or "get drunk at the local meet/meat market".
I'm well and truly happy to be past all that shit and I don't envy young people who - like me - aren't naturally gregarious but still would like to have a partner. ( I still have no idea how I ended up married with children).
>Not that I care if the NSA figures out my porn preferences
You should, so long as there are people out there who would punish you for them. There's a seemingly unending supply of sanctimonious people out there who will outright ruin your life if they find something about you personally distasteful.
Even though you and I are likely so unimportant to the state and they're unlikely to use what they find against you, just on general principles you should want privacy from the government as a general rule whenever it is practical.
When the three letter agencies have access to everyone's secrets, they're no longer serving the public since they have the power to control those who are supposed to be in power.
Exactly. They're all-female / hermaphroditic. There can be no such thing as a naturally reproducing 'all-male' species by the very definition.
But as I said, scientific ignorance is yet another Trek tradition they're honouring here, intentionally or not. (Either way I still don't like it when they use 'science' my kids would laugh at)
No, you've got it; there can be no authoritative transaction between blockchains unless the algorithms agree to respect inputs from each other, in which case you've either created one bigger blockchain with two different units of measure, or made two really insecure blockchains.
Whatever. People will buy into this and as long as the overall trend is 'up', it won't matter. They'll believe until after it finally crashes... and maybe even then.
>The crew are supposed to be "infallible and near-perfect". The whole point is to show an optimistic future where humanity has overcome its petty differences and started actually working for the betterment of all.
Well... first, none of the original crew was perfect. They just did their best (which is more inspiring than their simply being ideal humans to start with).
And humanity will never overcome its differences entirely, that's nature at work. You might as well talk of the day the law of gravity is repealed. Today audiences do expect a little more realistic a portrayal, even in utopian settings.
'Trek' these days is anything with the name slapped on it that uses warp drive and phasers, substitutes technobabble and deus ex machina for good writing, and (in the words of Patricia Tallman) "has a lot of aliens with forehead vaginas".
And melons, cantaloupes, honkers, hooters, fun-bags, ta-tas, boobs, knockers, headlights, bumpers, air bags, lungs, sweater pillows, twins, a rack... apparently guys really like breasts because we have a LOT of names for them.
While vaping likely cuts out a lot of the nasty substances you'd find in a standard cigarette (though for all I know it adds some new ones)... the end result is you're getting dosed with nicotine, and that alone has some negative health effects.
On the other hand, at least I don't have to smell you or see people tossing their cigarette butts everywhere, so please, if you're going to become a slave to a drug that is highly addictive and doesn't give much of a long-term high... vape.
Slashdot Mirror
>We know the chances of being hit by an object by looking at how many objects hit planets.
Also, to some degree, by common sense. Most of the dust spinning around our star that is going to collide with something has had five billion years to do so, and the clumps of matter formed in the process do a fairly good job of sweeping up the leftovers around the edges before they can get as close to the Sun as we are here on Earth.
I am not an astronomer, but I would anticipate that (given our star formed later than most) most of our neighbouring systems are in a similar state or even more orderly, so they wouldn't have much left in the way of significant rocks to lose to us in any gravitational tug-of-war.
And after that comes the fact that space is huge relative to the Solar System (making it unlikely any rogue rocks will come significantly within its gravity well), and the Solar System is huge relative to the Earth (making it unlikely any rogue rocks that actually venture into the Solar gravity well will also dip into Earth's). And the Earth itself is tiny so even something flying through our gravity well isn't particularly likely to impact our planet if it's travelling faster than Solar escape velocity (which it pretty much has to have been after falling into the Solar gravity well from outside it).
I gotta tell you... I am not particularly worried about my lack of insurance coverage in the event of loss due to extra-Solar impactor.
It's difficult to define a line between 'unacceptable' and 'merely offensive'... and both those who want to behave unacceptably and those who are easily offended will use any uncertainty as justification for pushing the line in their preferred direction.
Ultimately, it'll come down to some individual's personal preference which may simply be to let a stupid algorithm do it and live with the problems that causes (for instance, try discussing racial slurs on Slashdot without getting blocked by the 'lameness filter').
You should see a doctor about that humour deficit you're obviously suffering from.
That's actually an interesting point despite it obviously being intended as a joke.
What is a human's speech worth once other humans are more interested in what the AIs have to say? Even if there's no true intelligence behind them, even if it's a moderately simple algorithm with a BIG dataset to work with... what do we do once a standard chatbot can be given a product or point of view to sell to a target demographic, and do it as convincingly as the most persuasive humans we've ever known?
Money is a measure of wealth, but not a comprehensive one. Wealth is a measure of power, and a pretty damn good one in most cases, especially in the West.
If you force the wealthy to hide their money, they'll do so. They'll have 'nothing' but still live like kings because they have power. It'll just be off the books, that's all. There will be a little more secret politics and a little less numbers in a bank computer (because numbers on little pieces of paper don't represent a significant fraction of wealth anymore).
The uber-rich really are selfish and shortsighted. Selfish I understand, but the shortsightedness is ridiculous. No matter how nice the masses have it (and at least where I live, you have to be pretty poor before you're not 'rich' in a global or historical context), when a relatively small number of people have so much wealth they can buy and sell the rest of us without a care in the world... the masses will eventually revolt.
And it's so stupid, because the uber-rich are wealthy on the backs of a society that runs on the poor, managed by the middle class. They wouldn't be rich at all without everyone else doing their part. And they are so rich it's nearly impossible for them to lose enough to become one of the commoners again no matter how badly they screw up.
Unless you believe they were born better than you by divine blessing, you have to see how ridiculous the current wealth disparity and distribution is.
The problem with trying to fix it is that much of their wealth is liquid, transferable, and fairly easy to disguise; unless we can get every nation in the world to tighten their taxation laws at the same time and in the same way, whoever acts first simply sees wealth hidden a little more carefully, or watches it bleed away to somewhere with more favorable regulation.
Due to a typical but very strange bit of human psychology, I both have difficulty believing the world will actually change significantly in my lifetime while simultaneously wanting to see some kind of apocalypse (under the assumption I somehow manage to survive and thrive post-apocalypse).
I mean, it's worth the end of the world as we know it just to be able to gloat to the survivors that I was right, isn't it?
Just looking at it I'd say it's going to be some kind of customer service kiosk, with probably just a mount post from the waist down. Hook it up to a company directory and a speech recognition / synthesis routine and have a novelty in the company lobby.
Walking/navigation and power aren't solved issues for humanoid robots operating in areas with heavy human traffic... and you don't bother with a humanoid robot unless you want to interact with humans or use the same equipment that was made for them (the latter of which nobody really does - we build single-purpose robots instead).
Still, the face was pretty impressive, I didn't get an instant sense of 'uncanny valley' from it. On the other hand, the hand movements screamed 'Chuck-E-Cheese animatronics'.
If your skin tone happens to belong to the group seen as doing well... welcome to the other side of racial politics. Your individual case doesn't matter, you're "the man" because of your skin.
Asians are generally perceived as hard working and well educated, so they're now getting lumped in with white people.
> Everything should have burned out already in an infinitely old universe.
You have mistakenly interpreted my comment on the existence of the universe being infinite as a claim that the universe is steady-state.
You probably should have paid more attention to my final statement in that post which would have disabused you of that notion.
>Because if it had always existed, there would be dead stars that are infinitely (or nearly infinitely) old. But there aren't.
You have mistakenly interpreted my comment on the existence of the universe being infinite as a claim that the universe is steady-state.
You probably should have paid more attention to my final statement in that post which would have disabused you of that notion.
I just want to know if they wear cowboy hats or if they wear goatees, so I know what kind of universe we're dealing with if we ever decide to visit.
The human mind is particularly bad at handling some concepts... like 'infinity' for one.
What if the universe always existed, and always will? Why can't it be infinitely long on the time axis as well as the spatial ones? You ask how it came into existence in the first place, and I say what if it DIDN'T and it's simply always been there?
Everything our current models tell us about reality, from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the observable universe could very well be nothing more than a finite and insignificant perturbation in the infinity of existence.
It's easier to have salary grades by job description and simply fire your low-performers (though in a unionized environment this can be very difficult - and in a government unionized environment almost impossible).
You can also track seniority in terms of hours worked (not years of employment), which allows for women who take maternity leave to have their career progression paused while they're off, and have a pay scale within the pay grades that is seniority-based.
What I've seen multiple times, though, is 'pay equity' where it's more or less an arbitrary assignment of job value based on comparing apples and oranges and deciding they're identical because there just aren't enough people doing identical work within the organization to compare men to women on an even playing field.
The higher the panel, the less stable it will be and the more of a sail in the event of a high wind.
I really like your idea for a planned, long-term installation, but this is a quick-fix, path-of-least-resistance job.
Still, yeah - I'd be really tempted to look into sinking some solid posts into the ground and mounting the entire array 10' higher than it currently is and creating covered parking as a secondary benefit. Why NOT dual-purpose the space? I just wouldn't worry so much about it in the immediate future where there are likely a lot of more important concerns in a disaster area.
>if you have dirty energy, like much of the USA or worse, India, electric vehicles are a wash.
At break-even, it's still worth switching... because it means as you clean up your power generation (presumably starting as soon as you install a government that isn't made up of global climate change deniers) you don't have to wait to phase out your gas-powered vehicles before you see a benefit.
>I didn't think dating was that bad though I do get approached more when I wear my ring.
Very little attention prior to marriage... three opportunities for affairs after marriage. Of course, there's a social comfort factor at play, too, since I'm a lot more casual with women when I'm not trying to decide if I want to start a serious relationship with them and how to go about that without a hard rejection or other problems.
>I think it's kind of interesting that Millennials and other constant users of smart phones, especially singles, who walk around all day looking at a screen, complain that they can't meet any decent people
Oh come on, that problem pre-dated smart phones... we just outright ignored everybody instead of being entranced by our electronics.
Being 'dating age' sucks, because only welcomed approaches are socially acceptable and you don't know if your approach will be welcomed until after you make it. We don't really have great social customs for young people to meet; it's "be in the same class" or "get drunk at the local meet/meat market".
I'm well and truly happy to be past all that shit and I don't envy young people who - like me - aren't naturally gregarious but still would like to have a partner. ( I still have no idea how I ended up married with children).
>Not that I care if the NSA figures out my porn preferences
You should, so long as there are people out there who would punish you for them. There's a seemingly unending supply of sanctimonious people out there who will outright ruin your life if they find something about you personally distasteful.
Even though you and I are likely so unimportant to the state and they're unlikely to use what they find against you, just on general principles you should want privacy from the government as a general rule whenever it is practical.
When the three letter agencies have access to everyone's secrets, they're no longer serving the public since they have the power to control those who are supposed to be in power.
You are obviously not watching the same show I am.
Exactly. They're all-female / hermaphroditic. There can be no such thing as a naturally reproducing 'all-male' species by the very definition.
But as I said, scientific ignorance is yet another Trek tradition they're honouring here, intentionally or not. (Either way I still don't like it when they use 'science' my kids would laugh at)
No, you've got it; there can be no authoritative transaction between blockchains unless the algorithms agree to respect inputs from each other, in which case you've either created one bigger blockchain with two different units of measure, or made two really insecure blockchains.
Whatever. People will buy into this and as long as the overall trend is 'up', it won't matter. They'll believe until after it finally crashes... and maybe even then.
>The crew are supposed to be "infallible and near-perfect". The whole point is to show an optimistic future where humanity has overcome its petty differences and started actually working for the betterment of all.
Well... first, none of the original crew was perfect. They just did their best (which is more inspiring than their simply being ideal humans to start with).
And humanity will never overcome its differences entirely, that's nature at work. You might as well talk of the day the law of gravity is repealed. Today audiences do expect a little more realistic a portrayal, even in utopian settings.
'Trek' these days is anything with the name slapped on it that uses warp drive and phasers, substitutes technobabble and deus ex machina for good writing, and (in the words of Patricia Tallman) "has a lot of aliens with forehead vaginas".
>Back in the 1980s they used "tits" and "jugs".
And melons, cantaloupes, honkers, hooters, fun-bags, ta-tas, boobs, knockers, headlights, bumpers, air bags, lungs, sweater pillows, twins, a rack... apparently guys really like breasts because we have a LOT of names for them.
While vaping likely cuts out a lot of the nasty substances you'd find in a standard cigarette (though for all I know it adds some new ones)... the end result is you're getting dosed with nicotine, and that alone has some negative health effects.
On the other hand, at least I don't have to smell you or see people tossing their cigarette butts everywhere, so please, if you're going to become a slave to a drug that is highly addictive and doesn't give much of a long-term high... vape.