>Bread and circuses sounds pretty good to me.
>At the risk of waxing existential, what else do you want?
Freedom from tyranny? A future? I mean one that doesn't include the decay of society, military coups, and barbarian invasions.
The 'Bread and Circuses' thing didn't really work out in the long term.
I posted this in reply to someone else who said the same thing in this thread:
No. When you burn oil, coal, or other hydrocarbons, most of the energy liberated is from the oxidation of *hydrogen*, not of carbon.
So it is theoretically possible that you could have a coal powered facility that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, producing graphite bricks and H20.
No. When you burn oil, coal, or other hydrocarbons, most of the energy liberated is from the oxidation of *hydrogen*, not of carbon.
So it is theoretically possible that you could have a coal powered facility that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, producing graphite bricks and H20.
>This is about as useful as assigning a different colour to every ASCII character and then >viewing the works of Shakespeare, arbitrarily wrapped at 3500 characters.
Wow, I'd love to get a look at those Shakespeare pix. Can you post a link?;)
Seriously, you are absolutely right. Except for this part:
>It's not beautiful, it's not insightful, and it's not worth anyone's time.
Granted, it's goofy kid stuff (I did precisely this kind of thing on my C64 when I was 12 years old), but it is kinda fun to look at the patterns and wonder. (Which, of course, is why I did it.)
Well, regardless of how good the trash to energy converting doo-dad is at producing energy, I'd say "...there will be free, unlimited pastry..." IF and ONLY IF there is a "free, unlimited" (and not merely a "good") "supply of fat water and such".
And, of course, if you do have a free , unlimited supply of, let's say fat, then you can get your free unlimited supply of energy by burning that fat in an ordinary incinerator.
The are 14 different solid phases of water, each with it's own crystaline structure and characeristc density.
Ice I, which forms around standard temperature and pressure, is less dense than water.
Under the pressure at a depth of 100 km, water will become solid (even well above 0 degrees celsius, given high enough pressure), and you can call that solid 'ice', but it won't be Ice I, it will be another form of ice, one denser than liquid water.
Fry: "You know the worst thing about being a slave? They make you work but they don't pay you
or let you go..." Leela: "That's the only thing about being a slave."
I'd say "the government makes you go somewhere you don't want to be for a predetermined amount
of time" pretty closely fits the definition of "jail."
You could probably walk on the surface of this thing!
Just because the mass is 13 times that of the earth doesn't mean the surface gravity is. A more massive body is usually also a bigger body in terms of volume, meaning the surface is further out from the center of gravity. And the pull gravity falls of as the *square* of distance, so it's a very significant effect.
Assuming this body has about the same density as Earth (Yes, the material would be under greater pressure and therefore maybe more dense, but how compressible is rock and metal? Not very, I think. Also, a large proportion of the plant might be the 'ice' they mentioned, which is quite a bit less dense than most of the Earth) the diameter would be the cube root of 13 times Earth's = 2.35 earth diameters.
So the mass 13 times Earth but you're 13^(1/3) times as far from the center of mass as you'd be on Earth.
Pull of gravity is proportional to: mass / distance^2 = 13/13^(1/3) = 13^(2/3) = 2.35
In other words, the surface gravity may be only 2.35 times Earth's or even less if a large proportion of the planet's mass is in ice.
IS an IDE. It seemlessly Integrates all the necessesary Development tools into the shell Environment. The Vim Editor, Exuberant Ctags, grep, find, sort, cut, etc.
It's all there and it all integrates together beautifully. Not to mention full featured access to the file system.
And plugins? Forget about it! There are thousands... and making new ones is as simple as writing a program in just about any language you choose.
Why do people feel the need to look for an "IDE" when both the Linux and MAC OSX come preinstalled with the best and most mature one ever developed? And if you're on windows it's a simple matter of installing Cygwin.
Yes, apart from ctags and syntax high-lighting, this environment is not language aware, but that is one of its strengths!
It is comprised mainly of langauge agnostic text processing tools, so it works the same way on any programming language. And when you are developing a system written in multiple languages (right tool for the right job anyone?) transitioning between those languages is seamless.
I also don't think that we'll ever colonise space/other planets/etc. Earth is where humans evolved, and we'll never find a place as well suited for human life.
Human beings evolved in Africa.
Siberia is not nearly as well suited to human life.
It's so poorly suited to human life, in fact, that unitl relatively recently (definetly less than 20,000 years) noone lived there. It was only with the aid of new technology (needle and thread to make snug parkas, pants,
and mittens)that human beings were able to colonize the area.
For many generations now, Eskimos, etc. have been living on frozen, treeless, utterly inhospitable wastelands, erecting domed shelters made of local materials (ice), and walking around in the low-tech equivalent of space suits.
The colonization of inhospitable environments by means of advanced technology has already begun and I see no reason to beleive that it won't or shouldn't continue.
I don't think so. Even if I grant that "we know it can happen", the bigger question is "How likely is it to happen?"
Finding evidence of life on Mars would be extremely helpful/interesting in begining to answer this question. I'd say that is the main reason people are so "obsessed" with finding life on Mars.
Slashdot Mirror
>Pournelle's solo effort "Lucifer's Hammer", about the lead up to and aftermath of a comet impact, is well worth a read.
I have Lucifer's Hammer on my desk right now and the cover says quite clearly: "LARRY NIVEN AND JERRY POURNELLE (Authors of the bestseller FOOTFALL)"
I am not aware of *ANY* good book Pournelle has written on his own.
>Bread and circuses sounds pretty good to me. >At the risk of waxing existential, what else do you want? Freedom from tyranny? A future? I mean one that doesn't include the decay of society, military coups, and barbarian invasions. The 'Bread and Circuses' thing didn't really work out in the long term.
I posted this in reply to someone else who said the same thing in this thread:
No. When you burn oil, coal, or other hydrocarbons, most of the energy liberated is from the oxidation of *hydrogen*, not of carbon.
So it is theoretically possible that you could have a coal powered facility that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, producing graphite bricks and H20.
No. When you burn oil, coal, or other hydrocarbons, most of the energy liberated is from the oxidation of *hydrogen*, not of carbon.
So it is theoretically possible that you could have a coal powered facility that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, producing graphite bricks and H20.
>This is about as useful as assigning a different colour to every ASCII character and then >viewing the works of Shakespeare, arbitrarily wrapped at 3500 characters.
;)
Wow, I'd love to get a look at those Shakespeare pix. Can you post a link?
Seriously, you are absolutely right. Except for this part:
>It's not beautiful, it's not insightful, and it's not worth anyone's time.
Granted, it's goofy kid stuff (I did precisely this kind of thing on my C64 when I was 12 years old), but it is kinda fun to look at the patterns and wonder. (Which, of course, is why I did it.)
Well, regardless of how good the trash to energy converting doo-dad is at producing energy,
I'd say "...there will be free, unlimited pastry..." IF and ONLY IF there is a "free, unlimited"
(and not merely a "good") "supply of fat water and such".
And, of course, if you do have a free , unlimited supply of, let's say fat, then you can get your free unlimited supply of energy by burning that fat in an ordinary incinerator.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118242&cid=999 4109
The are 14 different solid phases of water, each with it's own
crystaline structure and characeristc density.
Ice I, which forms around standard temperature and pressure, is less dense than water.
Under the pressure at a depth of 100 km, water will become solid (even well
above 0 degrees celsius, given high enough pressure), and you can call that solid 'ice',
but it won't be Ice I, it will be another form of ice, one denser than liquid water.
Fry: "You know the worst thing about being a slave? They make you work but they don't pay you
or let you go..."
Leela: "That's the only thing about being a slave."
I'd say "the government makes you go somewhere you don't want to be for a predetermined amount
of time" pretty closely fits the definition of "jail."
Quite true. Funny how few people realize this.
I suppose it's because we don't have the notion of the conservation of energy really internalized.
We still think of things like power as being consumed rather than just converted from one form to
another.
Nobody does it like Molten Boron!
I believe the correct Futurama quote is: 'Nobody doesn't like molten boron.'
It's a play on the 'Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee' slogan/jingle used to hawk Sara Lee pastries.
This post made me laughed out. And you are completely right.
Ooops. Pull of gravity is proportional to: mass / distance^2 = 13/(13^(1/3))^2 = 13^(1/3) = 2.35
You could probably walk on the surface of this thing!
Just because the mass is 13 times that of the earth doesn't mean the surface gravity is. A more massive body is usually also a bigger body in terms of volume, meaning the surface is further out from the center of gravity. And the pull gravity falls of as the *square* of distance, so it's a very significant effect.
Assuming this body has about the same density as Earth (Yes, the material would be under greater pressure and therefore maybe more dense, but how compressible is rock and metal? Not very, I think. Also, a large proportion of the plant might be the 'ice' they mentioned, which is quite a bit less dense than most of the Earth) the diameter would be the cube root of 13 times Earth's = 2.35 earth diameters.
So the mass 13 times Earth but you're 13^(1/3) times as far from the center of mass as you'd be on Earth.
Pull of gravity is proportional to:
mass / distance^2 = 13/13^(1/3) = 13^(2/3) = 2.35
In other words, the surface gravity may be only 2.35 times Earth's or even less if a large proportion of the planet's mass is in ice.
Wrong, I just read your comment. The AC lives!
It's all there and it all integrates together beautifully. Not to mention full featured access to the file system.
And plugins? Forget about it! There are thousands... and making new ones is as simple as writing a program in just about any language you choose.
Why do people feel the need to look for an "IDE" when both the Linux and MAC OSX come preinstalled with the best and most mature one ever developed? And if you're on windows it's a simple matter of installing Cygwin.
Yes, apart from ctags and syntax high-lighting, this environment is not language aware, but that is one of its strengths!
It is comprised mainly of langauge agnostic text processing tools, so it works the same way on any programming language. And when you are developing a system written in multiple languages (right tool for the right job anyone?) transitioning between those languages is seamless.
So come back to the shell: the one true IDE.
Simpsons quotes: Yes. Obligatory.
Futurama: Encouraged.
Family Guy: Purely optional.
I also don't think that we'll ever colonise space/other planets/etc. Earth is where humans evolved, and we'll never find a place as well suited for human life.
Human beings evolved in Africa.
Siberia is not nearly as well suited to human life.
It's so poorly suited to human life, in fact, that unitl relatively recently (definetly less than 20,000 years)
noone lived there. It was only with the aid of new technology (needle and
thread to make snug parkas, pants, and mittens)that human beings were able to
colonize the area.
For many generations now, Eskimos, etc. have been living on frozen, treeless, utterly
inhospitable wastelands, erecting domed shelters made of local materials (ice), and walking
around in the low-tech equivalent of space suits.
The colonization of inhospitable environments by means of advanced technology has already begun
and I see no reason to beleive that it won't or shouldn't continue.
I'd say the comparison is quite appropriate; and, sure, Virgil isn't Homer, but he's not exactly chopped liver either, now is he?
Sorry. You are 100% right. I apologize for my tone. It was completely uncalled for. Also, my sincere condolences.
Ints? Well I just typed this in my Python interpreter:
Looks like an object to me.
Finding evidence of life on Mars would be extremely helpful/interesting in begining to answer this question. I'd say that is the main reason people are so "obsessed" with finding life on Mars.
He said it was *a* victory, i.e., a step in the right direction.
Sure does.
this what I meant to do