Actually, this is kind of a good point. The RAT (Rock Abrasion Tool) on one of the Mars rovers wore out some time ago. Maybe NASA should contract the BlendTec guys to design a better one.
They love drainpipes, sheds and dark basements. They are quite spider-like and get rather big and nasty looking. But there's no way they wove webs - those were probably left by nursery-web spiders, or something else of similar size and morphology to those cave crickets.
Could be worse though. Thankfully, you'll never see ones like these in your mom's basement:
Nice strawman there. It would be nice if the corporations were mentioned in the first place.
Huh? It was a hypothetical post about how people might take terraforming as a "bad thing", given the right bent and the opportunity, and if anyone else had come to the same conclusion. Please re-read and take it with a mountain of salt.
Every time I see a story about terraformimg mars, by radically altering the global atmosphere and environment there, I wonder about what might be lost in the process, and who might blow that out of proportion.
Don't get me wrong: I'm all for turning the place into an offworld paradise if it's at all possible. But what about those that will oppose such actions on the basis of loosing billions of years of geologic history in the process*. Better yet, how about those that simply believe in the perservation of things as they are, without human intervention, simply on principle.
If there's one thing that Slashdot has taught me: never underestimate the power of a mob of self-righteous "environmentalists" with entirely too much money and free time on their hands. The idea of an ugly mob of "Protect Mars" activists protesting a rocket launch almost seems like a possible outcome from all this.
(* assuming that changing the atmosphere will alter how erosion and Martian weather works)
Re:The top layer is for growing plants
on
Vertical Farming
·
· Score: 1
Well cemeteries and cremation *are* a pretty awful waste of land when looked at from a conservation standpoint.
"Urban mushroom farmers - *Family* owned since 2007"
Re:Interesting, but I question the concept
on
Vertical Farming
·
· Score: 1
"Other thoughts on other difficulties or solutions to my named problems, anyone?"
Well others have cited that simple thermodynamics are not on the side of the project: sunlight is one part of this.
The only solution I can think of is to scrap the whole project and focus on rooftop farming instead. A means of retrofitting existing tar roofs to support soil, water and crops would go a long way to reclaiming the space occupied by a city as well as reducing the heat-island effect and cleaning the air. These side-benefits might help make it seem more feasable, as the resulting food production would be pretty meager.
Another option is to rebuild the entire city underground, freeing the area above for agricultural use - such a plan has the same likelyhood of success as a vertical farm.
"This seems like an idea better suited to lower-density, urban sprawl (where you can grab relatively large areas without consuming a large percentage of the available space) rather than in the middle of compact urban areas."
Good point - you could probably apply this thinking to suburbia as well. If the real problem is the future rise of petroleum costs, people in the 'burbs will expect to be able to drive shorter distances to get things done, while maintaining the same standard of living. That alone dictates more localized food production, storage and sale than what we have now.
(Now there's a sight: imagine seeing the local metrorail/light-rail towing a few produce cars downtown during your commute)
The irony is a lot of suburban sprawls in the USA are located on what was farmland only 50 years ago.
Pfft... just hook them up with a few pre-releases of Starcraft 2, the latest AD&D sourcebooks and a few complete sets of Magic the Gathering cards and they'll be good to go./local network play for the win.
We found that kin groups allocated less to their fine
root mass than did stranger groups when they
competed below ground, indicating that these plants
could discriminate relatives. Root allocation did not
differ between kin and stranger groups grown in
isolated pots, indicating that the cues for kin recognition
lie in root interactions. Siblings were less competitive than strangers, which is consistent with
kin selection.
I'm not a botanist, but that sounds like a rather profound change in growth behavior just because a nearby root system "looks familiar". Then again, on a biochemical level, maybe that's all there is to it.
Thank you for posting this. I visited this thread expecting something like this to be the first post - the summary certainly set off my crap detector.
So yes, teleportation doesn't give us any advantages with respect to communication latency. But one question has tickled my brain since the concept was first made clear to me: is it still possible to send information reliably (over 50% reliability), and repeatedly, via entanglement of particles? Even more imporantly, is it possible to use this in parallel to create some kind of mega-bandwidth link*?
(*Personally, I doubt it since you still have to send all the individual observations conventionally. But since you're the QP, I figured I'd ask)
I too would be much more encouraged by this development if White Wolf actually did something new and good after 1999. It seems that all the good writing, direction and well, everything went out with smoking clove cigarettes while listening to Sisters of Mercy at nightclubs. This stuff doesn't seem to really be in vogue as much as it used to, which might explain why things aren't what they used to be? Perhaps there's room to exploit something else? (cue: "Emo the Indifference" sourcebook)
"Lots of the recent stuff reminds one of Games Workshop, who are well known for publishing a new edition every few years simply so lots of people buy everything again."
Such is the nature of the niche market. Once you have a perfect product, you're doomed to re-perfect it in order to keep the lights on. On occasion, this can be good like the recent revision to Shadowrun (less focus on VR). But most of the time, we get changes that are hotly debated (D20 D&D) or are universally accepted as bad (gods removed from class D&D).
And on occasion, things are broken in ways that don't kill the franchise, but are generally dumb design decisions. For instance I asked my brother, a former Warhammer 40k guy, how he liked the new 2nd edition rules. He replied:
"Oh, it's great! They streamlined everything to make arguing with your opponent over the rules a more essential part of the game."
Perhaps the poster wasn't intending to come off as polite, but instead, less so?
I for one always felt that "self-censorship" of s*** like that helps make the comment a f***load more profane, than if it were spelled out completely.:)
For example, it even works on perfectly benign speech (and well-known quotes):
What the hell is the script for this going to look like?
Girl: blah, blah blah, blah! Blah blah blah!!::waves arms in a display of frustration:: Boy: blah.::sets carpet on fire:: (continues on page 113)
This will be the most heavily subtitled movie in history, a complete throwback to silent film, or just highly experimental (no understandable dialog, 100% based on body language and pantomime).
Since they have that $49 Bil. figure hanging out there, I'd argue that the number does plenty of harm all by itself. The fact that they're able to cite a figure that large, while they defend the status-quo, makes the idea of CC faud all the more appealing. So it's really worth going after.
It's like putting a sign on a gas station saying: "we got robbed for $20k last year alone - c'mon in."
Sadly, I think this kind of thing falls squarely into "please hack me a new client" territory. Fortunately, grey-area software like this seems to do pretty well (read: not sued into oblivion) provided it doesn't re-bundle any original art assets from the game.
Take a look at TA Spring for a solid example of what can be done to breathe new life into older game content.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this is kind of a good point. The RAT (Rock Abrasion Tool) on one of the Mars rovers wore out some time ago. Maybe NASA should contract the BlendTec guys to design a better one.
I grew up in NoVA myself. What you saw were probably cave crickets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_cricket
They love drainpipes, sheds and dark basements. They are quite spider-like and get rather big and nasty looking. But there's no way they wove webs - those were probably left by nursery-web spiders, or something else of similar size and morphology to those cave crickets.
Could be worse though. Thankfully, you'll never see ones like these in your mom's basement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_spider
Huh? It was a hypothetical post about how people might take terraforming as a "bad thing", given the right bent and the opportunity, and if anyone else had come to the same conclusion. Please re-read and take it with a mountain of salt.
Every time I see a story about terraformimg mars, by radically altering the global atmosphere and environment there, I wonder about what might be lost in the process, and who might blow that out of proportion.
Don't get me wrong: I'm all for turning the place into an offworld paradise if it's at all possible. But what about those that will oppose such actions on the basis of loosing billions of years of geologic history in the process*. Better yet, how about those that simply believe in the perservation of things as they are, without human intervention, simply on principle.
If there's one thing that Slashdot has taught me: never underestimate the power of a mob of self-righteous "environmentalists" with entirely too much money and free time on their hands. The idea of an ugly mob of "Protect Mars" activists protesting a rocket launch almost seems like a possible outcome from all this.
(* assuming that changing the atmosphere will alter how erosion and Martian weather works)
Well cemeteries and cremation *are* a pretty awful waste of land when looked at from a conservation standpoint.
"Urban mushroom farmers - *Family* owned since 2007"
"Other thoughts on other difficulties or solutions to my named problems, anyone?"
Well others have cited that simple thermodynamics are not on the side of the project: sunlight is one part of this.
The only solution I can think of is to scrap the whole project and focus on rooftop farming instead. A means of retrofitting existing tar roofs to support soil, water and crops would go a long way to reclaiming the space occupied by a city as well as reducing the heat-island effect and cleaning the air. These side-benefits might help make it seem more feasable, as the resulting food production would be pretty meager.
Another option is to rebuild the entire city underground, freeing the area above for agricultural use - such a plan has the same likelyhood of success as a vertical farm.
"This seems like an idea better suited to lower-density, urban sprawl (where you can grab relatively large areas without consuming a large percentage of the available space) rather than in the middle of compact urban areas."
Good point - you could probably apply this thinking to suburbia as well. If the real problem is the future rise of petroleum costs, people in the 'burbs will expect to be able to drive shorter distances to get things done, while maintaining the same standard of living. That alone dictates more localized food production, storage and sale than what we have now.
(Now there's a sight: imagine seeing the local metrorail/light-rail towing a few produce cars downtown during your commute)
The irony is a lot of suburban sprawls in the USA are located on what was farmland only 50 years ago.
Pfft... just hook them up with a few pre-releases of Starcraft 2, the latest AD&D sourcebooks and a few complete sets of Magic the Gathering cards and they'll be good to go. /local network play for the win.
"Oh great, now he's crying."
But you're right - it would get pretty funky in there. Then again, ask yourself: what does it smell like on the ISS *now*.
You can only carry so much activated charcoal into orbit with you.
""'Nintendo Wii has been a successful enterprise, and a very good business model, compared with ours . . . because it's cheaper,' "
In a recent shake-up within the Japan-based electronics juggernaut Sony, Captain Obvious was promoted to the position of CEO.
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/biology_lett
"After all, who do you think's in the burgers? "
I don't know.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. It looks like I have some reading to do. :)
Sequence me if you want to live.
Thank you for posting this. I visited this thread expecting something like this to be the first post - the summary certainly set off my crap detector.
So yes, teleportation doesn't give us any advantages with respect to communication latency. But one question has tickled my brain since the concept was first made clear to me: is it still possible to send information reliably (over 50% reliability), and repeatedly, via entanglement of particles? Even more imporantly, is it possible to use this in parallel to create some kind of mega-bandwidth link*?
(*Personally, I doubt it since you still have to send all the individual observations conventionally. But since you're the QP, I figured I'd ask)
I too would be much more encouraged by this development if White Wolf actually did something new and good after 1999. It seems that all the good writing, direction and well, everything went out with smoking clove cigarettes while listening to Sisters of Mercy at nightclubs. This stuff doesn't seem to really be in vogue as much as it used to, which might explain why things aren't what they used to be? Perhaps there's room to exploit something else? (cue: "Emo the Indifference" sourcebook)
"Lots of the recent stuff reminds one of Games Workshop, who are well known for publishing a new edition every few years simply so lots of people buy everything again."
Such is the nature of the niche market. Once you have a perfect product, you're doomed to re-perfect it in order to keep the lights on. On occasion, this can be good like the recent revision to Shadowrun (less focus on VR). But most of the time, we get changes that are hotly debated (D20 D&D) or are universally accepted as bad (gods removed from class D&D).
And on occasion, things are broken in ways that don't kill the franchise, but are generally dumb design decisions. For instance I asked my brother, a former Warhammer 40k guy, how he liked the new 2nd edition rules. He replied:
"Oh, it's great! They streamlined everything to make arguing with your opponent over the rules a more essential part of the game."
Perhaps the poster wasn't intending to come off as polite, but instead, less so?
:)
I for one always felt that "self-censorship" of s*** like that helps make the comment a f***load more profane, than if it were spelled out completely.
For example, it even works on perfectly benign speech (and well-known quotes):
"The only thing we have to f*** is f*** itself."
What the hell is the script for this going to look like?
::waves arms in a display of frustration:: ::sets carpet on fire::
Girl: blah, blah blah, blah! Blah blah blah!!
Boy: blah.
(continues on page 113)
This will be the most heavily subtitled movie in history, a complete throwback to silent film, or just highly experimental (no understandable dialog, 100% based on body language and pantomime).
Thank you. I was hoping to find some nifty gems in this thread.
The credit card company makes money on the fraudulent transaction.
Wow. Where is Congress when you need 'em?
(seriously, there ought to be a law)
Since they have that $49 Bil. figure hanging out there, I'd argue that the number does plenty of harm all by itself. The fact that they're able to cite a figure that large, while they defend the status-quo, makes the idea of CC faud all the more appealing. So it's really worth going after.
It's like putting a sign on a gas station saying: "we got robbed for $20k last year alone - c'mon in."
No offfense, but all that stuff is what Total Annihilation was for. Order queueing, varied terrain and wreckage: it's all there.
Sadly, I think this kind of thing falls squarely into "please hack me a new client" territory. Fortunately, grey-area software like this seems to do pretty well (read: not sued into oblivion) provided it doesn't re-bundle any original art assets from the game.
Take a look at TA Spring for a solid example of what can be done to breathe new life into older game content.
I agree completely.
Although, since you mentioned DEVO, wouldn't that be better off on "Key-tar Hero" instead?
I always wondered where deep-fried ice-cream came from.