I've studied in several (admittedly pretty good) public schools in Russia and I can't remember examples of such behavior. Even though we had ~25-30 kids in one class.
Because there's A LOT of lithium. Nope THERE'S A LOT OF LITHIUM.
It can be mined _extremely_ cheap in Bolivia, literally for several dollars per 1 kg. And a car will probably need just 10-15 kg of lithium for the lifetime of its battery. Which then can be recycled. So, not many problems at all.
If you are prepared tp pay slightly higher price, say $30 per kg, then you'll have so many options, you'll have a hard time choosing which one to use.
Oh, and no-one performed geological surveys to specifically search for lithium ores (because lithium is needed only in small quantities).
For example, CoyotOS (http://www.coyotos.org/) uses BitC and aims for the completely proved kernel. I.e. it will be formally proven that its microkernel CAN'T crash or do something wrong.
Or look at QNX, their microkernel used to be something like 12Kb of hand-written assembly code (and so stable that QNX systems literally work for decades now without reboots). The rest can be done using other tools than plain C.
It's possible, you just need to be able to virtualize the DMA controller. It can be done with the help of IOMMU, which is supported by Intel and AMD now.
Public hospitals were first 'invented' in Greece and Rome (before the Christianity). Nothing unusual here, capability for compassion is a trait of human psychology. Though Christianity later did advance healthcare.
And then Christian Church had halted almost all advances in medicine for a thousand years.
"And second, you would be very surprised at the number of things you take for granted which came about from religious sources."
So what? Food I'm eating was grown in a manure-fertilized field.
I'll even argue that creationism and religion were quite good hypotheses three hundred years ago. Now we don't need them.
Also, don't forget racemization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racemization) - a lot of enantiomeric compounds can spontaneously switch chirality (it's actually a big problem for some extremophile bacteria - they replicate so slowly because they have to expend energy to repair damage from racemization).
"Is it? What is the natural habitat for a modern human (not a caveman)? A couple of times, children have been found that have grown up without contact with any humans or human society, and those children are far from what I would call normal. As a result, it can be strongly argued that for modern humans, a natural setting is one in which they grow up in a human society, and so having access to everything that society provides is "natural"."
Cavemen also had a society. As did Ancient Greeks, Mayans, Romans, African tribes. Which society should we consider 'natural' since they are quite different?
That's why the argument "because it's [not] natural" is worthless. It can be used to justify just about anything.
"When looking at religions from the point of view of the most egregious (and most visible) offenses, religion does look pretty bad, but when looking at it from the point of view of the intellectual debate and social development, religion is not so bad."
Nope. From the point of social development Church is even worse. Christianity (or Christian Church to be precise) is the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity. (hint: Medieval Europe)
"Do you know why we have public hospitals?"
Because church has not managed to kill medicine? Or maybe because humans are compassionate? Or maybe because it's advantageous for the society as a whole to help poor people?
How? Average lifetime of a caveman (you can't get more 'natural' than that) was about 30 years. With horrible child mortality.
That's NATURAL.
"It is not simple. I suggest you go out and read up on the Catholic church's position, the history of various denomination's stances, and natural law. You will find some pretty interesting ideas and arguments out there, even if wrong. They are not to be dismissed so lightly."
I've read tons of literature on history (including Christian history). Frankly, the more I read - the more I despise all religions.
And controlling sex desires is one of the ultimate control methods.
Uhm... Having all your children survive and living more than 35 years is also 'unnatural'. And I'm not even speaking about surgery, dental care and airplanes.
The main reason to deny sex is control. Pure and simple.
Yes, notice the word 'conflicts'. These are not wars, since USA is invulnerable.
Also, USA does not 'Dresden' populations, but instead just 'precisely' bombs villages. Probably with even less military-to-civilian casualty ratio than during the Dresden bombing.
If enemy can't even in principle destroy you - then it's a slaughter, not warfare. It might be a slaughter for noble aims, but it'll still be a slaughter.
And this apparent invulnerability will _inevitably_ lead to more warfare. I can easily imagine that in 2050 several industrialized countries can be fighting a constant warfare with semi-autonomous robots against hordes of AK-74 armed insurgents.
PS: personally, I don't have any problems with pure surveillance drones.
Slashdot Mirror
Since when a computer without AV software is somehow 'insecure'?
Is author so thoroughly conditioned that he can't even imagine that it's perfectly possible to use Windows without getting viruses?
Fuck the mouse. I want _keyboard_ selection in the console.
FAR Manager (http://www.farmanager.com/) rules!
Have you ever wondered why developers prefer DirectX?
Well, because it's just BETTER than the OpenGL mess.
Absolutely. That's why I object to labeling it as 'racism' and perceiving this as a racial issue.
Nope. I'm saying that the current question is not a genetic issue.
In fact, there are some differences in intelligence between different races, but they are pretty minor. But it's not relevant to the question at hand.
I've seen exactly opposite picture in Russian schools.
Is it _that_ _bad_ in the USA?
I've studied in several (admittedly pretty good) public schools in Russia and I can't remember examples of such behavior. Even though we had ~25-30 kids in one class.
That's not a _racial_ issue (i.e. genetics do not really play a role here), that's a _cultural_ issue.
And Japanese are not economically that much worse off than Americans.
Because there's A LOT of lithium. Nope THERE'S A LOT OF LITHIUM.
It can be mined _extremely_ cheap in Bolivia, literally for several dollars per 1 kg. And a car will probably need just 10-15 kg of lithium for the lifetime of its battery. Which then can be recycled. So, not many problems at all.
If you are prepared tp pay slightly higher price, say $30 per kg, then you'll have so many options, you'll have a hard time choosing which one to use.
Oh, and no-one performed geological surveys to specifically search for lithium ores (because lithium is needed only in small quantities).
Uhmm... We've had those 'virtual meeting rooms' since like 1992. They are called 'IRC chat rooms'.
Assembly can be more secure because it doesn't depend on a compiler :)
In any case, 12 Kb of asm/C code is vanishingly small quantity for modern operation systems. For most purposes 12 Kb is the same as 'none'.
"How intrinsically secure is the languange, in and of itself? What does it have that makes it special?"
It allows you to maintain _invariants_, checking them automatically. Including very complex invariants expressed as theorems.
Formal correctness checking is not feasible for large programs, but a formally proved microkernel is quite possible.
Dropping C is possible.
For example, CoyotOS (http://www.coyotos.org/) uses BitC and aims for the completely proved kernel. I.e. it will be formally proven that its microkernel CAN'T crash or do something wrong.
Or look at QNX, their microkernel used to be something like 12Kb of hand-written assembly code (and so stable that QNX systems literally work for decades now without reboots). The rest can be done using other tools than plain C.
It's possible, you just need to be able to virtualize the DMA controller. It can be done with the help of IOMMU, which is supported by Intel and AMD now.
This is NOT yet known for certain: http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_and_deaths_in_health.php#more
Actually, no.
Public hospitals were first 'invented' in Greece and Rome (before the Christianity). Nothing unusual here, capability for compassion is a trait of human psychology. Though Christianity later did advance healthcare.
And then Christian Church had halted almost all advances in medicine for a thousand years.
"And second, you would be very surprised at the number of things you take for granted which came about from religious sources."
So what? Food I'm eating was grown in a manure-fertilized field.
I'll even argue that creationism and religion were quite good hypotheses three hundred years ago. Now we don't need them.
Also, don't forget racemization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racemization) - a lot of enantiomeric compounds can spontaneously switch chirality (it's actually a big problem for some extremophile bacteria - they replicate so slowly because they have to expend energy to repair damage from racemization).
Amateurs!
I have installed Debian Zombie on my dead badger: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040405/badger.shtml
"Is it? What is the natural habitat for a modern human (not a caveman)? A couple of times, children have been found that have grown up without contact with any humans or human society, and those children are far from what I would call normal. As a result, it can be strongly argued that for modern humans, a natural setting is one in which they grow up in a human society, and so having access to everything that society provides is "natural"."
Cavemen also had a society. As did Ancient Greeks, Mayans, Romans, African tribes. Which society should we consider 'natural' since they are quite different?
That's why the argument "because it's [not] natural" is worthless. It can be used to justify just about anything.
"When looking at religions from the point of view of the most egregious (and most visible) offenses, religion does look pretty bad, but when looking at it from the point of view of the intellectual debate and social development, religion is not so bad."
Nope. From the point of social development Church is even worse. Christianity (or Christian Church to be precise) is the worst thing that has ever happened to humanity. (hint: Medieval Europe)
"Do you know why we have public hospitals?"
Because church has not managed to kill medicine? Or maybe because humans are compassionate? Or maybe because it's advantageous for the society as a whole to help poor people?
"Arguable both ways."
How? Average lifetime of a caveman (you can't get more 'natural' than that) was about 30 years. With horrible child mortality.
That's NATURAL.
"It is not simple. I suggest you go out and read up on the Catholic church's position, the history of various denomination's stances, and natural law. You will find some pretty interesting ideas and arguments out there, even if wrong. They are not to be dismissed so lightly."
I've read tons of literature on history (including Christian history). Frankly, the more I read - the more I despise all religions.
And controlling sex desires is one of the ultimate control methods.
Uhm... Having all your children survive and living more than 35 years is also 'unnatural'. And I'm not even speaking about surgery, dental care and airplanes.
The main reason to deny sex is control. Pure and simple.
1.21GW?
Tsar Bomba generated about 5.4 yottawatts (5.4*10^24 Watts) of power! Now that's what I call 'powerful'.
Unless you patch wrong genes in the stem cells before the transplantation.
Yes, notice the word 'conflicts'. These are not wars, since USA is invulnerable.
Also, USA does not 'Dresden' populations, but instead just 'precisely' bombs villages. Probably with even less military-to-civilian casualty ratio than during the Dresden bombing.
If enemy can't even in principle destroy you - then it's a slaughter, not warfare. It might be a slaughter for noble aims, but it'll still be a slaughter.
And this apparent invulnerability will _inevitably_ lead to more warfare. I can easily imagine that in 2050 several industrialized countries can be fighting a constant warfare with semi-autonomous robots against hordes of AK-74 armed insurgents.
PS: personally, I don't have any problems with pure surveillance drones.
That's another point: drones are useless or they are weapons of slaughter.