If missiles are involved, somehow I doubt you'd be anywhere near them - they've been more or less illegal since 1934, and you have to convince your local cops that you have a good reason to have guided munitions. The standard's rather lower for suppressors and sawn-off shotguns, but I imagine precision guided artillery rockets might provoke some interesting conversations with the chief of police.
Technically, what's usually being discussed (if it's about "printing" something in your living room) is fused deposition manufacturing. All the other techniques are distressingly expensive for a hobbyist.
If I had a Kel-Tec KSG - and if they aren't banned tomorrow - I'd load the left magazine with #0 buckshot and the right magazine with (nonlethal) gel slugs - generally, the best of the bad options. Less likely to blind or maim than rock salt, less than $100 a shot (Taser XRAP), and tend not to be lethal at close range (unlike rubber "bullet" or shot; minimum safe range on them can be as far as 50 feet!).
How else can you set your shotgun to stun? It doesn't always work, but I'd still feel more comfortable if the first shot was a nonlethal. And the second shot could be on short notice - people on PCP don't tend to notice little things like pain or 3" holes clean through them.
The NRA compromises - or compromised - plenty. Problem is, they're asked to compromise away something new every year. The pro-gun types are asked to meet the anti-gun types halfway, and as far as I can tell many of the anti-gun groups with clout actually really do want to disarm civilians entirely.
The phrase I use to describe this sort of plan is "asymptotically approaching disarmament". The NRA figured out the rules of this game a while ago, and don't want to play any more - and I can't really blame them.
100 bullets is a short trip to the range. I typically ring up 4 targets and 200 rounds before the ear protection starts to become so unpleasant I don't want to stick around.
The last data I had is that 95% of all cases of armed self defense end at brandishing a weapon, at which point an assailant flees. This was found in the Uniform Crime Report.
Found in another portion of the same report (early 2000s, I think?) was a claim that immediately complying with an attacker got you in the hospital or morgue 25% of the time, resisting with a knife or unarmed got you hurt or dead 75% of the time, and resisting with a gun got you in trouble 5% of the time.
Really, the study ban - if it truly was the NRA's doing - was a bonehead move. They've got rather a lot of data on their side.
I've spent a year trying to rehab a copy of a book soaked in water by a leaking car. It involves a freezer and a hairdryer and is not a task for the impatient. Otherwise, the pages stick together, and will never open again.
I read in the bath. I only read ebooks there. I stick a cheap eInk reader in a Ziplock with a packet of silica gel, and don't worry about humidity.
I've got most of Baen's back-catalog loaded on there, most of which I get on their bonus-content CDs. Free and free!
Throttleable solid rockets tend to work by opening a valve to lower the operating pressure and decrease burn rate, or closing it partially to increase pressure, burn rate, and therefore thrust. These are used in some air-to-air missiles, and while you can't shut it down and restarts are out of the question, they offer surprisingly deep throttling. I can't find a Wikipedia reference on short notice, but here's a press release.
Close, but not quite - the cyborgs will tempt their human overlords to join them, and eventually the human race will be extinguished. Nobody will mind too much though, because the whole "narrowly escaped their own mortality by becoming cyborgs" thing tends to put things in perspective.
Just to be pedantic, I'm assured that the political science crowd considers the Cold War to be the third world war, and the "global war on terror" to be the fourth. I suspect you're right about the start date, roughly - but it only became really obvious to the masses in the last decade or so, if you know what I mean.
American manufacturing specializes in high-value heavy equipment, and anything you can make with robots. We have the highest per-worker productivity in the world as a result. The problem is that while we export the most in a per-dollar amount, we have terribly few, well-paid people doing all the work. Find me an industry sector capable of absorbing all the workers lost as jobs become obsolete, and we're golden.
If the rich won't do it, why should we? Individually, we plebs don't have enough resources to make a sufficiently large impact to save the nation. If we acted together, efficiently, we probably still don't.
1% of America's population owns 40% of the wealth, plus whatever share of that wealth lies undocumented in tax shelters. The percentage could reach as high as 1% holding 80% depending on how pessimistic reality is.
On the subject of phones, my free choice is what OpenMoko and nothing else? What's wrong with this picture? Let me count the ways.
Not available in America. I must order from:
Spain
India
Belgium
Germany
France
Switzerland
Netherlands
Not available subsidized; costs 300 euro.
Expensive - over $1000 when upgraded, and still generation-gapped.
Subsidizing a handset is part of my cell bill, whether I replace my phone or not.
Not feature complete
Have they got calling working yet?
No camera. To get a 1.3 mp camera, I must buy additional hardware, plug a module into the motherboard, and drill the case myself. Camera board is MIA.
Lousy screen - VGA.
Upgrade boards are now MIA, stuck with 350 MHz processor.
Slow - 2G wireless.
I cannot bear the cost of learning to audit my Linux kernels, and I am forced to trust a vendor. I cannot trust Google to respect my pseudonyms - or if I use them, to not brick my phone. I cannot trust Blackberry to stay in business. I cannot trust Microsoft to make a software ecosystem (may as well use a pretty feature-phone!). I cannot trust OpenWebOS to ship hardware. I cannot trust Apple to let me hack my hardware. Only one of these choices implies a phone I can use, and count on continuing to use for the duration of a 2-year phone contract.
That the vendor I choose has sex appeal is just gravy. I'd like to avoid the digital handcuffs, but my choice is one of several sets of said metaphorical handcuffs or a choice that Stallman ignores - a cheap, dumb "burner" phone that makes calls. Then, I'd be free to what? Carry around a non-encumbered 35mm film camera, a relatively unencumbered Diskman and a small selection of about 60 CDs, and hire a courier to deliver a newspaper whenever I'd like to read the news and I'm away from my desk.
I don't disagree with your thesis; I wonder how well we can manage the transition.
My question is somewhat different - how do we allocate resources when we can automate manufacturing, most white-collar work, farming, and what else am I forgetting? How do we make sure people don't starve when the first billion layoffs happen? It's likely that automation is a tragedy-of-the-commons issue; everyone has an incentive to abuse the commons (cut jobs and replace workers with robots) because the people who don't lose first, and lose hardest.
We're also making more and more people; nobody really wants to stop screwing. So we've got more people and less work - how do we allocate enough purchasing power so they can pay for food, medicine, and housing? Two ideas spring to mind: A command economy, which is a terrible idea, and make-work, which is merely bad. Bad because it could either be terrible, or if we get really ambitious, we could make work space exploration, asteroid mining, building orbital elevators and ending our dependence on fossil fuels. So, not necessarily terrible. Except some significant portion of that work is going to be automated.
I don't know the answer, but at least I can direct your attention to the problem.
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If missiles are involved, somehow I doubt you'd be anywhere near them - they've been more or less illegal since 1934, and you have to convince your local cops that you have a good reason to have guided munitions. The standard's rather lower for suppressors and sawn-off shotguns, but I imagine precision guided artillery rockets might provoke some interesting conversations with the chief of police.
Technically, what's usually being discussed (if it's about "printing" something in your living room) is fused deposition manufacturing. All the other techniques are distressingly expensive for a hobbyist.
The more things change...
I'm gonna quote someone from last week's story - " 'Assault Rifle' is a term of the art, and you do. not. misuse. jargon."
Assault rifles are by definition machine guns, but assault weapons include most modern firearms depending on who you ask.
If I had a Kel-Tec KSG - and if they aren't banned tomorrow - I'd load the left magazine with #0 buckshot and the right magazine with (nonlethal) gel slugs - generally, the best of the bad options. Less likely to blind or maim than rock salt, less than $100 a shot (Taser XRAP), and tend not to be lethal at close range (unlike rubber "bullet" or shot; minimum safe range on them can be as far as 50 feet!).
How else can you set your shotgun to stun? It doesn't always work, but I'd still feel more comfortable if the first shot was a nonlethal. And the second shot could be on short notice - people on PCP don't tend to notice little things like pain or 3" holes clean through them.
The NRA compromises - or compromised - plenty. Problem is, they're asked to compromise away something new every year. The pro-gun types are asked to meet the anti-gun types halfway, and as far as I can tell many of the anti-gun groups with clout actually really do want to disarm civilians entirely.
The phrase I use to describe this sort of plan is "asymptotically approaching disarmament". The NRA figured out the rules of this game a while ago, and don't want to play any more - and I can't really blame them.
100 bullets is a short trip to the range. I typically ring up 4 targets and 200 rounds before the ear protection starts to become so unpleasant I don't want to stick around.
Funny, that - the next gun show is also months away.
The last data I had is that 95% of all cases of armed self defense end at brandishing a weapon, at which point an assailant flees. This was found in the Uniform Crime Report.
Found in another portion of the same report (early 2000s, I think?) was a claim that immediately complying with an attacker got you in the hospital or morgue 25% of the time, resisting with a knife or unarmed got you hurt or dead 75% of the time, and resisting with a gun got you in trouble 5% of the time.
Really, the study ban - if it truly was the NRA's doing - was a bonehead move. They've got rather a lot of data on their side.
Yeah, actually, it's not just a proverb, it's something I've seen - and very nearly done.
I've spent a year trying to rehab a copy of a book soaked in water by a leaking car. It involves a freezer and a hairdryer and is not a task for the impatient. Otherwise, the pages stick together, and will never open again.
I read in the bath. I only read ebooks there. I stick a cheap eInk reader in a Ziplock with a packet of silica gel, and don't worry about humidity.
I've got most of Baen's back-catalog loaded on there, most of which I get on their bonus-content CDs. Free and free!
Throttleable solid rockets tend to work by opening a valve to lower the operating pressure and decrease burn rate, or closing it partially to increase pressure, burn rate, and therefore thrust. These are used in some air-to-air missiles, and while you can't shut it down and restarts are out of the question, they offer surprisingly deep throttling. I can't find a Wikipedia reference on short notice, but here's a press release.
So do warts.
Let's not forget mining equipment - we lead in that field, too.
Close, but not quite - the cyborgs will tempt their human overlords to join them, and eventually the human race will be extinguished. Nobody will mind too much though, because the whole "narrowly escaped their own mortality by becoming cyborgs" thing tends to put things in perspective.
Are you suggesting that 2010 was when it started, or that I'm going to have to wait until 2050?
Don't forget phosphate rock.
Just to be pedantic, I'm assured that the political science crowd considers the Cold War to be the third world war, and the "global war on terror" to be the fourth. I suspect you're right about the start date, roughly - but it only became really obvious to the masses in the last decade or so, if you know what I mean.
American manufacturing specializes in high-value heavy equipment, and anything you can make with robots. We have the highest per-worker productivity in the world as a result. The problem is that while we export the most in a per-dollar amount, we have terribly few, well-paid people doing all the work. Find me an industry sector capable of absorbing all the workers lost as jobs become obsolete, and we're golden.
If the rich won't do it, why should we? Individually, we plebs don't have enough resources to make a sufficiently large impact to save the nation. If we acted together, efficiently, we probably still don't.
1% of America's population owns 40% of the wealth, plus whatever share of that wealth lies undocumented in tax shelters. The percentage could reach as high as 1% holding 80% depending on how pessimistic reality is.
To be more than human is merely to be human. And I think they probably said the same thing about vaccines and spectacles.
On the subject of phones, my free choice is what OpenMoko and nothing else? What's wrong with this picture? Let me count the ways.
I cannot bear the cost of learning to audit my Linux kernels, and I am forced to trust a vendor. I cannot trust Google to respect my pseudonyms - or if I use them, to not brick my phone. I cannot trust Blackberry to stay in business. I cannot trust Microsoft to make a software ecosystem (may as well use a pretty feature-phone!). I cannot trust OpenWebOS to ship hardware. I cannot trust Apple to let me hack my hardware. Only one of these choices implies a phone I can use, and count on continuing to use for the duration of a 2-year phone contract.
That the vendor I choose has sex appeal is just gravy. I'd like to avoid the digital handcuffs, but my choice is one of several sets of said metaphorical handcuffs or a choice that Stallman ignores - a cheap, dumb "burner" phone that makes calls. Then, I'd be free to what? Carry around a non-encumbered 35mm film camera, a relatively unencumbered Diskman and a small selection of about 60 CDs, and hire a courier to deliver a newspaper whenever I'd like to read the news and I'm away from my desk.
No, just sea-cockroaches. ;)
I don't disagree with your thesis; I wonder how well we can manage the transition.
My question is somewhat different - how do we allocate resources when we can automate manufacturing, most white-collar work, farming, and what else am I forgetting? How do we make sure people don't starve when the first billion layoffs happen? It's likely that automation is a tragedy-of-the-commons issue; everyone has an incentive to abuse the commons (cut jobs and replace workers with robots) because the people who don't lose first, and lose hardest.
And, he got it in one. And it's not really all that niche an idea; even TED has presented talks on the subject. And it's not just the US any more; Foxconn is getting in on the action and replacing workers with a million robots. (Incidentally, this may cause the American lead in precision manufacturing to narrow, or vanish entirely)
But what happens when everyone who is manufacturing anything automates the entire process? Our agricultural system is already hugely centralized and automated. White collar "knowledge work" is on the chopping block next. Why? IBM wants it to happen, and has the ability to make it happen.
We're also making more and more people; nobody really wants to stop screwing. So we've got more people and less work - how do we allocate enough purchasing power so they can pay for food, medicine, and housing? Two ideas spring to mind: A command economy, which is a terrible idea, and make-work, which is merely bad. Bad because it could either be terrible, or if we get really ambitious, we could make work space exploration, asteroid mining, building orbital elevators and ending our dependence on fossil fuels. So, not necessarily terrible. Except some significant portion of that work is going to be automated.
I don't know the answer, but at least I can direct your attention to the problem.