Has anyone done all the calculations and designed a colony ship? Even down to the nitty gritty details of where to put wiring and plumbing? The problem with designing something is you have to pay people to work on those details. Since open source is all the rage nowadays maybe someone should start an 'open source' starship where people can devote their spare time to figuring out those problems.
I dunno, I think our civilization would be pretty attractive to an alien one. We have an understanding of science, and therefore presumably some common ground with them. We have many interesting and diverse cultures. We're likely different enough from them that they'd want to learn about us, much the same as we'd want to learn about them. If they're so advanced morally compared to us, surely they'd easily able to see past the charade of politicians and intolerant and close-minded people. I would bet somewhere deep in their past they too had the same conflicts that arise from evolutionary competition, and could empathize if nothing else.
There are a lot of people here living in the stone age, morally speaking. But I think there's a lot more that would live up the expectations of civility if given a decent opportunity.
I think the problem with your experimental setup is like many others, is that yeah, the sender could in theory check for the bias in spin of all quadrillion but would still have no influence over the random outcome. So the observers would essentially see the same information, but it's all the same *random* information. Of course that makes me wonder too about a material like a bose-einstein condensate... aren't all those particles in the same state?
One other thing I am curious about is if these state measurements have to be taken simultaneously... or could one wait a half hour (assuming the nothing interfered with their particle) before measuring it? And what is simultaneous anyway when you look at the universe from a relative viewpoint.... these type of things make my head spin!
I'll be an armchair physicist here and say it seems like that would certainly be an experiment that could be set up in theory. Entangle two streams of particles, send them on their separate way towards two diffraction gratings. Start up the slit detector behind grating 1 to cause the particles to have a classic particle distribution, and see if the same happens at grating 2 with no detector.
The problem with this is I think the diffraction grating would potentially cause decoherence, making the whole experiment worthless.
I'm going to say that the real problem isn't navigation, but lack of content that is well adapted to a 3d environment. There's too many common computer uses that the 3d environment adds nothing to.
Word processing? No Spreadsheets? Doubtful Web browsing? Probably not. Music and Video? No
But there are areas where 3d would be great. For example: Virtual tour of a museum Real estate (walkthroughs) Shopping (3d models of products perhaps) Scientific visualization
The problem is that many of these haven't been done adequately in a 2-d environment, let alone a 3d environment. I think that once scanning equipment, or really good alogrithms for encoding 3d from 2d information come along, then we'll see this web-multiverse idea take off. Whether it's true immersive 3d or done through a 2d interface is irrelevant... the content has to come first
Off the top of my head I can rattle off dozens of "AI" problems that if solved would be huge benefit to society and could be very profitable to any company who could implement a solution.
-Sorting random information into useful categories and hierarchies. -Recognizing objects in a video or picture. -Extracting rudimentary 3-dimensional information from a picture. -Summarizing text articles and recognizing context.. -Translating languages. -Steering a car, recognizing obstacles. -Optimizing product and software design.
etc... The thing is, these are really complex, multidisciplinary problems... you need people who are versed in mathematics, engineering, computer science, even psychology and neuroscience to come up with viable solutions... and even then, it's hard to know where to begin on a complex problem. I think we are at the point right now where it is still a lot easier to use "tricks" to come up with half-assed solutions rather than a real form of artificial intelligence.
I don't know if it would be economically feasable to fly it again but...I do like the idea of university involvement with that or any of NASA's science programs.
Someone should create a broader national initiative in colleges and universities for students to work on NASA projects remotely. NASA could partion out some of the work, getting a lot of knowlege and ideas back for free. Make it a class project or a senior thesis to redesign a component on a space vehicle or satellite. University students are on the cutting edge of new technologies and engineering methods. Why not put some of that to a good public use? Maybe it would help rediscover some excitement in NASA and the space program.
I did not realize that generators like that could be had for $150. But you still have to have access to fuel, which cost $$. At $2.50 a gallon, figuring transportation in, you're looking at least $15 a day * 30 days... $450 a month. Ouch. I think quite a few people would be willing to shovel a little poop to save that every month.
Of course, in the first world most of us can get electricity off the grid for considerably cheaper. But if you're really out in the wilderness, you're out of luck. Now a wind generator is a much more elegant solution, which could pay for itself but you have to have steady wind... I don't know how prevalent 12mph winds are in most areas. Good links btw.
What he should be doing is marketing this to rural farmers in developed countries. If I lived on a farm with access to the fuel, I would love to have a kilowatt generator for $1000 to supplement my electricity use.
Some good points...though more we travel into space the quicker we'll develop the technology to deal with them. It also seems like most of the ones you mentioned could be easily solved with more airflow and better filtration/humidity reduction.
This doesn't mean Yahoo is going to abandon searching by any means. Instead I think this is a message to investors not to grade them by their search marketshare becuase they don't consider that important anymore. If anything, this opens up the door to more innovation because they can be the quiet underdog. Yahoo can focus more on R&D and let google try to struggle to maintain dominance when investors are breathing down their necks about profit numbers and market share
Not too long ago, didn't AMD essentially throw in the towel to Intel by saying they weren't going to compete for the fastest processor anymore? And look at what they are offering today with their 64bit processors. As long as yahoo continues to innovate they aren't dead
A big warning about the previous post.. many fingerprint scanners and touchscreens are actually damaged by alcohol, especially older ones. So unless you want to ruin it for everyone, make darn sure with the manufacturer that it won't cause damage.
There is a lot of bad advice in the thread. Some things I have found that really work 1. The number 1 cause of bad prints is dryness. Make sure your finger is moist. You can do this with lotion or simply rubbing your fingers together 2. Press firmly but don't mash your finger into it. 3. If it doesn't work after a second or two, lift it up and try it again. 4. Make sure you are covering the scanner completely. Don't just scan the tip of your finger. The more area you can cover it with the better. 5. If it still doesn't work, try scooting your finger higher up on the scanner to get the better prints towards the bottom of your pads. 6. Most setups have the option of registering a different finger. Try your middle finger or your thumb instead. 7. If a lot of people are having trouble, they probably have the match settings too high or the scanner is defective. But more than likely, it is probably you.
Someone could be blind and deaf. But then why not use braille? The situation I can imagine is maybe a person knew sign language but then became blind later in life. So that would be one of the only ways to communicate. From what I understand a lot of older people have eyesight problems, so for the deaf this is even worse.
The other use could be for teaching sign language. There's a lot of people that know a little sign language, but perhaps not enough to teach someone. Seeing a robotic hand do it in three dimensions might help.
Also if you develop the technology for a sign language hand there's probably other uses for it. Imagine a robotic hand on the end of a stick that you could use to grab fragile things from high shelves. There's thousands of things it could be used for if you use your imagination
Although I do not personally have one I have heard rave reviews with OTA digital and the Channel Master 4221 and 4228 models, so you may look into those. Not expensive at all, but a little tacky if you don't like stuff on your roof
There's a lot of people that argue that 720p is better for various reasons.
My thinking is it's gotta be compression related specifically affecting cartoons at 720p; all the HD PBS shows I've seen look amazing, but then again, most are slow moving nature or documentary scenes.
That's a good point about anyone with a portable TV not being able to receive digital broadcasts. I wonder how long it will take to come out with a pocket sized digital receiver or if they will ever be sold?
I'm not sure why they don't just keep the standard VHF channels and a handful of the lower UHF ones analog so that way people with old or portable equipment can still use it. Just mandate that any UHF station above say 30 has to switch to a lower frequency. Everything above that can be auctioned off and then no has to have subsidized digital boxes.
That's funny that you mention that, I have the exact same complaint. Family Guy does indeed look worse in HD than standard. Jittery lines seems to be the main problem.
It must be due to the compression, which is odd because other cartoon shows seem to look fine. I have also noticed that other fox shows seem to be lower picture quality than other HD shows, but still better than standard.
I've had a TV with an ATSC tuner for a while now, and let me tell you from experience, if you are having only moderate success receiving OTA analog broadcasts, digital will probably not work much better with your same setup. I live in a major metropolitan area and still have problems with certain channels
A lot of people tout digital as being you either get the picture perfectly or you don't, but that's simply not true in a normal real-world TV watching. Whenever you see static now, you will end up seeing digital artifacts and having the sound skip. Which I personally think is a lot more annoying than a little static.
Now that all being said, even digital OTA is AWESOME. Crystal clear pictures, extra channels, widescreen, digital sound. Spend the money and get a nice outdoor antenna and I don't think you will have any problems. Also a number of cable companies offer limited hdtv packages for $10-15/mo you may consider looking into, ours includes a few non-broadcast channels like INHD as well.
IIRC, one of the main problems with reversible computing is that it requires insane amounts of memory, since you have to store the state at every point of the calculation. You can't throw away information like we do now (in the form of heat) since you have to remember exactly what calculations were done to be able to reverse it. OK, you might say, slap some big memory chips in there. Not so easy in practice...
On the silicon level, whatever method you are able to use to store the state information (be it capacitors or inductors) will take a certain overhead in energy usage simply to support that reversible process. If you can figure out how to reduce or get rid of that overhead, you'd have companies lining up at your door for your idea! Believe me, they would love to build reversible computers, but no one has discovered a good way of doing it yet. On the silicon level it is probably unrealistic to hope for a working solution. There are some interesting and more exotic ideas involving the 'unzipping' process in DNA, and quantum computing... but not much to show for it yet. Good luck!
An unfortunate shorthand. Not all religious people are fundamentalists but all fundamentalists are acting in the name of religion. We need louder moderates.
This could be said for almost every issue. It's always the vocal minority that seems to influence policy. I'm not sure what the reasons are behind this phenomena; maybe because the moderates either don't have good enough arguments, or more likely, really don't care either way. In issues such as creation vs evolution it really doesn't matter, but this silent majority phenomena has devastating effects when it comes to issues like civil rights and liberties.
I remember when a few of the BBSs I used to go to on a regular basis organized a big meetup at a bowling alley one weekend. I naturally assumed it would be a bunch of nerdy geeks, but the people that showed up were really interesting and varied. You can also imagine my suprise when I found out the sysop of my favorite BBS was actually a woman! It really opened my eyes seeing how diverse the groups were. I even ended up winning a bowling pin decorated by that her, which I still have to this day.
Slashdot Mirror
a. Design a colony ship;
Has anyone done all the calculations and designed a colony ship? Even down to the nitty gritty details of where to put wiring and plumbing? The problem with designing something is you have to pay people to work on those details. Since open source is all the rage nowadays maybe someone should start an 'open source' starship where people can devote their spare time to figuring out those problems.
I dunno, I think our civilization would be pretty attractive to an alien one. We have an understanding of science, and therefore presumably some common ground with them. We have many interesting and diverse cultures. We're likely different enough from them that they'd want to learn about us, much the same as we'd want to learn about them. If they're so advanced morally compared to us, surely they'd easily able to see past the charade of politicians and intolerant and close-minded people. I would bet somewhere deep in their past they too had the same conflicts that arise from evolutionary competition, and could empathize if nothing else.
There are a lot of people here living in the stone age, morally speaking. But I think there's a lot more that would live up the expectations of civility if given a decent opportunity.
Your description of the double slit phenomena is really good. Wikipedia has a good pictoral reference too.
Double-slit_experiment
I think the problem with your experimental setup is like many others, is that yeah, the sender could in theory check for the bias in spin of all quadrillion but would still have no influence over the random outcome. So the observers would essentially see the same information, but it's all the same *random* information. Of course that makes me wonder too about a material like a bose-einstein condensate... aren't all those particles in the same state?
One other thing I am curious about is if these state measurements have to be taken simultaneously... or could one wait a half hour (assuming the nothing interfered with their particle) before measuring it? And what is simultaneous anyway when you look at the universe from a relative viewpoint.... these type of things make my head spin!
I'll be an armchair physicist here and say it seems like that would certainly be an experiment that could be set up in theory. Entangle two streams of particles, send them on their separate way towards two diffraction gratings. Start up the slit detector behind grating 1 to cause the particles to have a classic particle distribution, and see if the same happens at grating 2 with no detector.
The problem with this is I think the diffraction grating would potentially cause decoherence, making the whole experiment worthless.
Mysticgoat, Are you an alien?
It's times like these when I wish slashdot had a "WTF" mod. Until then, mark it informative and revel in the insanity!
How did you transmute the wood into rock? This sounds suspiciously like a totem pole...
I'm going to say that the real problem isn't navigation, but lack of content that is well adapted to a 3d environment. There's too many common computer uses that the 3d environment adds nothing to.
Word processing? No
Spreadsheets? Doubtful
Web browsing? Probably not.
Music and Video? No
But there are areas where 3d would be great. For example:
Virtual tour of a museum
Real estate (walkthroughs)
Shopping (3d models of products perhaps)
Scientific visualization
The problem is that many of these haven't been done adequately in a 2-d environment, let alone a 3d environment. I think that once scanning equipment, or really good alogrithms for encoding 3d from 2d information come along, then we'll see this web-multiverse idea take off. Whether it's true immersive 3d or done through a 2d interface is irrelevant... the content has to come first
Off the top of my head I can rattle off dozens of "AI" problems that if solved would be huge benefit to society and could be very profitable to any company who could implement a solution.
-Sorting random information into useful categories and hierarchies.
-Recognizing objects in a video or picture.
-Extracting rudimentary 3-dimensional information from a picture.
-Summarizing text articles and recognizing context..
-Translating languages.
-Steering a car, recognizing obstacles.
-Optimizing product and software design.
etc...
The thing is, these are really complex, multidisciplinary problems... you need people who are versed in mathematics, engineering, computer science, even psychology and neuroscience to come up with viable solutions... and even then, it's hard to know where to begin on a complex problem. I think we are at the point right now where it is still a lot easier to use "tricks" to come up with half-assed solutions rather than a real form of artificial intelligence.
I don't know if it would be economically feasable to fly it again but...I do like the idea of university involvement with that or any of NASA's science programs.
Someone should create a broader national initiative in colleges and universities for students to work on NASA projects remotely. NASA could partion out some of the work, getting a lot of knowlege and ideas back for free. Make it a class project or a senior thesis to redesign a component on a space vehicle or satellite. University students are on the cutting edge of new technologies and engineering methods. Why not put some of that to a good public use? Maybe it would help rediscover some excitement in NASA and the space program.
I did not realize that generators like that could be had for $150. But you still have to have access to fuel, which cost $$. At $2.50 a gallon, figuring transportation in, you're looking at least $15 a day * 30 days... $450 a month. Ouch. I think quite a few people would be willing to shovel a little poop to save that every month.
Of course, in the first world most of us can get electricity off the grid for considerably cheaper. But if you're really out in the wilderness, you're out of luck. Now a wind generator is a much more elegant solution, which could pay for itself but you have to have steady wind... I don't know how prevalent 12mph winds are in most areas. Good links btw.
What he should be doing is marketing this to rural farmers in developed countries. If I lived on a farm with access to the fuel, I would love to have a kilowatt generator for $1000 to supplement my electricity use.
Some good points...though more we travel into space the quicker we'll develop the technology to deal with them. It also seems like most of the ones you mentioned could be easily solved with more airflow and better filtration/humidity reduction.
Now now, it does too have a user interface... it just happens to only be slightly more complicated than the UI of a light switch.
This doesn't mean Yahoo is going to abandon searching by any means. Instead I think this is a message to investors not to grade them by their search marketshare becuase they don't consider that important anymore. If anything, this opens up the door to more innovation because they can be the quiet underdog. Yahoo can focus more on R&D and let google try to struggle to maintain dominance when investors are breathing down their necks about profit numbers and market share
Not too long ago, didn't AMD essentially throw in the towel to Intel by saying they weren't going to compete for the fastest processor anymore? And look at what they are offering today with their 64bit processors. As long as yahoo continues to innovate they aren't dead
A big warning about the previous post.. many fingerprint scanners and touchscreens are actually damaged by alcohol, especially older ones. So unless you want to ruin it for everyone, make darn sure with the manufacturer that it won't cause damage.
There is a lot of bad advice in the thread. Some things I have found that really work
1. The number 1 cause of bad prints is dryness. Make sure your finger is moist. You can do this with lotion or simply rubbing your fingers together
2. Press firmly but don't mash your finger into it.
3. If it doesn't work after a second or two, lift it up and try it again.
4. Make sure you are covering the scanner completely. Don't just scan the tip of your finger. The more area you can cover it with the better.
5. If it still doesn't work, try scooting your finger higher up on the scanner to get the better prints towards the bottom of your pads.
6. Most setups have the option of registering a different finger. Try your middle finger or your thumb instead.
7. If a lot of people are having trouble, they probably have the match settings too high or the scanner is defective. But more than likely, it is probably you.
Someone could be blind and deaf. But then why not use braille? The situation I can imagine is maybe a person knew sign language but then became blind later in life. So that would be one of the only ways to communicate. From what I understand a lot of older people have eyesight problems, so for the deaf this is even worse.
The other use could be for teaching sign language. There's a lot of people that know a little sign language, but perhaps not enough to teach someone. Seeing a robotic hand do it in three dimensions might help.
Also if you develop the technology for a sign language hand there's probably other uses for it. Imagine a robotic hand on the end of a stick that you could use to grab fragile things from high shelves. There's thousands of things it could be used for if you use your imagination
I am curious then exactly what the process is that they use, since gold is typically alloyed with other materials that do oxidize
Although I do not personally have one I have heard rave reviews with OTA digital and the Channel Master 4221 and 4228 models, so you may look into those. Not expensive at all, but a little tacky if you don't like stuff on your roof
There's a lot of people that argue that 720p is better for various reasons.
My thinking is it's gotta be compression related specifically affecting cartoons at 720p; all the HD PBS shows I've seen look amazing, but then again, most are slow moving nature or documentary scenes.
That's a good point about anyone with a portable TV not being able to receive digital broadcasts. I wonder how long it will take to come out with a pocket sized digital receiver or if they will ever be sold?
I'm not sure why they don't just keep the standard VHF channels and a handful of the lower UHF ones analog so that way people with old or portable equipment can still use it. Just mandate that any UHF station above say 30 has to switch to a lower frequency. Everything above that can be auctioned off and then no has to have subsidized digital boxes.
That's funny that you mention that, I have the exact same complaint. Family Guy does indeed look worse in HD than standard. Jittery lines seems to be the main problem.
It must be due to the compression, which is odd because other cartoon shows seem to look fine. I have also noticed that other fox shows seem to be lower picture quality than other HD shows, but still better than standard.
I've had a TV with an ATSC tuner for a while now, and let me tell you from experience, if you are having only moderate success receiving OTA analog broadcasts, digital will probably not work much better with your same setup. I live in a major metropolitan area and still have problems with certain channels
A lot of people tout digital as being you either get the picture perfectly or you don't, but that's simply not true in a normal real-world TV watching. Whenever you see static now, you will end up seeing digital artifacts and having the sound skip. Which I personally think is a lot more annoying than a little static.
Now that all being said, even digital OTA is AWESOME. Crystal clear pictures, extra channels, widescreen, digital sound. Spend the money and get a nice outdoor antenna and I don't think you will have any problems. Also a number of cable companies offer limited hdtv packages for $10-15/mo you may consider looking into, ours includes a few non-broadcast channels like INHD as well.
IIRC, one of the main problems with reversible computing is that it requires insane amounts of memory, since you have to store the state at every point of the calculation. You can't throw away information like we do now (in the form of heat) since you have to remember exactly what calculations were done to be able to reverse it. OK, you might say, slap some big memory chips in there. Not so easy in practice...
On the silicon level, whatever method you are able to use to store the state information (be it capacitors or inductors) will take a certain overhead in energy usage simply to support that reversible process. If you can figure out how to reduce or get rid of that overhead, you'd have companies lining up at your door for your idea! Believe me, they would love to build reversible computers, but no one has discovered a good way of doing it yet. On the silicon level it is probably unrealistic to hope for a working solution. There are some interesting and more exotic ideas involving the 'unzipping' process in DNA, and quantum computing... but not much to show for it yet. Good luck!
This could be said for almost every issue. It's always the vocal minority that seems to influence policy. I'm not sure what the reasons are behind this phenomena; maybe because the moderates either don't have good enough arguments, or more likely, really don't care either way. In issues such as creation vs evolution it really doesn't matter, but this silent majority phenomena has devastating effects when it comes to issues like civil rights and liberties.
I remember when a few of the BBSs I used to go to on a regular basis organized a big meetup at a bowling alley one weekend. I naturally assumed it would be a bunch of nerdy geeks, but the people that showed up were really interesting and varied. You can also imagine my suprise when I found out the sysop of my favorite BBS was actually a woman! It really opened my eyes seeing how diverse the groups were. I even ended up winning a bowling pin decorated by that her, which I still have to this day.