b) you will never get enough energy through renewables unless solar platforms in orbit start working -- they will, but I would not count on them this century.
What about floating wind turbines off the Atlantic coast? You could certainly generate enough power without NIMBY issues and supply that via the interconnectors to mainland Europe.
Relativisitic blackmail or even genocide is a bit of a conundrum alright, although happily a long enough way off that we might have some response by the time it becomes an issue. Short of near lightspeed bombardment, defensive measures can be taken which should be fairly trivial for a civilisation with a well developed orbital manufacturing layer.
For Christ sake if exhaling can destroy earth's environment, how could de-orbiting a trillion tons do the planet any good?
The only way to gain the riches of mars is to live there. You can't bring it home.
And yet the earth gets hit by tens of thousands of tons of meteors annually, with no apparent adverse effects. Thats not to say that all will be well if we escalate that to millions of tons per year, but since we can control the manner of entry its quite likely that significant reductions in temperatures or emissions as a result of deorbiting can be achieved.
In any case, I think you are quite right in saying that for example raw materials from asteroids will probably not be sent directly back to earth, at least not past the initial stages. The real wealth of space (and what wealth it is!) lies in orbital or deep space factories, returning finished products to earth, and the more automated the better.
But once you have a significant infrastructure in space, even going so far as to say a self sustaining one, the price per kilo to extract and return these precious metals becomes extremely minimal. The real treasures that will be returned from space will be from highly automated orbital manufactories, producing TVs, laptops, cars, planes (or parts thereof), hell even vat grown organs airdropped to wherever you need them in a hurry.
Indeed, it looks like the publishers hiked up the price on iTunes, presumably in full cooperation with Apple, and didn't want Amazon to gain an advantage by having cheaper books. Amazon looks like its on the side of the good guys here, while Apple is the opposite.
Have materially lower living standards (like Ireland)
Would you mind clarifying exactly what you mean by that comment? According to this, Ireland is in the top ten places in the world in terms of standard of living, and was selected as the happiest place on earth by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2005.
but investment in the basics like water treatment leaves much to be desired.
Water treatment is fine, the problem is in the 1940s supply infrastructure, debates in the Dáil have gone on record as saying that 45%+ of the water that is processed leaks from pipes en route to the taps. This is the legacy of the incompetents in charge of the country at the moment, who would rather bow to public sector union demands for pay rises than fix this infrastructure. Not to worry though, the Greens in the ruling coalition are going to inflict a new water rates tax on us to ensure that the unions get their pay rises.
-12 is pretty unusual hereabouts, as evidenced by the way they ran out of salt and grit for the roads in the first place; the local authorities just weren't prepared or expecting it, at the end of the day. Not that they are beacons of competence as a rule anyway, jobs for life and all that.
I think it's a bit unfair to lump all of them together with this whole "China's evil" slogan, don't you think?
I didn't say China was evil. I said the traditions and culture of the Chinese people are something to respect and appreciate for their many merits, to the extent that I speak a smattering of Mandarin myself; the government in China is an entirely different story.
Being able to differentiate the people of a country from those who have managed to worm their way into power in that country is not that difficult.
Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China refers to the practice of removing human organs and tissue from the corpses of criminals executed in China and using these organs for organ transplants.
In the past, capital punishment was carried out by a single shot to the back of the head at execution fields outside Chinese cities and families of the dead were sent a bill for the bullet.
It's a story that has made headlines around the world: Slave laborers have been found in Chinese brick factories. The authorities have freed many of them, but some fear there could be hundreds more being imprisoned, beaten and starved. Some parents have begun searching for their sons on their own.
A company that willingly turns its back on a market of 1 billion people risks having its CEO bludgeoned to death by angry investors.
Google isn't like other companies, the majority of shares are still held by the founders, at least one of whom, Brin, has had personal experience with repressive regimes growing up. They can do whatever they like.
China has a long history of living under a protective hand, thousands of years. The US has a history built in freedoms in the last hundred so years and a resulting society devolving into anarchy and hedonism. Who's to say who's right?
I daresay anyone who was shot, their organs auctioned off, and their families billed for the bullet might have an opinion or two. Its important to differentiate between the beautiful and unique Chinese culture which stretches back thousands of years, and the organlegging jackbooted slavers currently in charge of the country.
As it turns out if you recall the very popular series "Sliders", that explores scenarios where the scientists didn't do that sort of research in alternate earths. Very interesting stuff, we need more of that sort of entertainment, espscially with its emphasis on non violence.
Inertia, its the same shower who pumped up the property bubble here in the first place, parish pump politics where politicians do "small favours for large families", people voting for parties regardless of track record, many (60%) of the electorate are so sick of the lack of alternatives that they just didn't vote, there are a lot of reasons. This is why its a good thing to support the nascent small groups as they appear, once they aren't completely off the wall.
The government has the ability to institute a referendum on constitutional alterations, the people have no such right. We're one of the few European nations that even has this much. Some raised the point that this might have fallen through because of the general unpopularity of the government, but this is nonsense given how clear cut the issue is. Even if that were the case, the constitution has stood for decades without this blasphemy law, why bring it in now?
This is a bone being thrown by entrenched political interests who still think the Church has any relevance to modern Ireland after the child abuse scandals.
Well, confiscation and one cent. I'd be surprised if the convention extended to any specification of penalties, as that would infringe on national legislative sovereignty rather a lot. Indeed, one could reduce it to a fully civil matter should one choose to do so, possibly including that private property cannot be entered in order to ascertain violations, and individuals cannot be tried twice for the same violation.
What this means is that any country that wants can effectively sidestep the convention in a trivial fashion, and in all probability start a golden age as media gets opened to the creative public.
With that said, I'd be in favour of harsh penalties for violations of less than twelve years, and strict enforcement of same. We do need to allow media groups to recoup some of the staggering costs associated with such things as movie making.
so the only remaining question to ask is: are you ready for that change; are you just going to "wing it", are you going to stick your head in the sand, or are you just going to sit there until you die, waiting for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring and the gas boiler to provide you with heating again?
No, as usual the only question is how long before and in what format western powers choose to knock the shit out of China again. I don't think China actually has control over these resources however, there are normally many more sources that are just a little more expensive to extract.
It is an utterly idiotic move, and most people in Ireland are indeed horrified by it and the damage it will do to us internationally. Down with the government!
Slashdot Mirror
b) you will never get enough energy through renewables unless solar platforms in orbit start working -- they will, but I would not count on them this century.
What about floating wind turbines off the Atlantic coast? You could certainly generate enough power without NIMBY issues and supply that via the interconnectors to mainland Europe.
Relativisitic blackmail or even genocide is a bit of a conundrum alright, although happily a long enough way off that we might have some response by the time it becomes an issue. Short of near lightspeed bombardment, defensive measures can be taken which should be fairly trivial for a civilisation with a well developed orbital manufacturing layer.
For Christ sake if exhaling can destroy earth's environment, how could de-orbiting a trillion tons do the planet any good?
The only way to gain the riches of mars is to live there. You can't bring it home.
And yet the earth gets hit by tens of thousands of tons of meteors annually, with no apparent adverse effects. Thats not to say that all will be well if we escalate that to millions of tons per year, but since we can control the manner of entry its quite likely that significant reductions in temperatures or emissions as a result of deorbiting can be achieved.
In any case, I think you are quite right in saying that for example raw materials from asteroids will probably not be sent directly back to earth, at least not past the initial stages. The real wealth of space (and what wealth it is!) lies in orbital or deep space factories, returning finished products to earth, and the more automated the better.
But once you have a significant infrastructure in space, even going so far as to say a self sustaining one, the price per kilo to extract and return these precious metals becomes extremely minimal. The real treasures that will be returned from space will be from highly automated orbital manufactories, producing TVs, laptops, cars, planes (or parts thereof), hell even vat grown organs airdropped to wherever you need them in a hurry.
Indeed, it looks like the publishers hiked up the price on iTunes, presumably in full cooperation with Apple, and didn't want Amazon to gain an advantage by having cheaper books. Amazon looks like its on the side of the good guys here, while Apple is the opposite.
Have materially lower living standards (like Ireland)
Would you mind clarifying exactly what you mean by that comment? According to this, Ireland is in the top ten places in the world in terms of standard of living, and was selected as the happiest place on earth by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2005.
but investment in the basics like water treatment leaves much to be desired.
Water treatment is fine, the problem is in the 1940s supply infrastructure, debates in the Dáil have gone on record as saying that 45%+ of the water that is processed leaks from pipes en route to the taps. This is the legacy of the incompetents in charge of the country at the moment, who would rather bow to public sector union demands for pay rises than fix this infrastructure. Not to worry though, the Greens in the ruling coalition are going to inflict a new water rates tax on us to ensure that the unions get their pay rises.
-12 is pretty unusual hereabouts, as evidenced by the way they ran out of salt and grit for the roads in the first place; the local authorities just weren't prepared or expecting it, at the end of the day. Not that they are beacons of competence as a rule anyway, jobs for life and all that.
WASPs == Republican, Irish
The ASP in WASP stands for Anglo Saxon Protestant, not things Ireland has an overabundance of.
I think it's a bit unfair to lump all of them together with this whole "China's evil" slogan, don't you think?
I didn't say China was evil. I said the traditions and culture of the Chinese people are something to respect and appreciate for their many merits, to the extent that I speak a smattering of Mandarin myself; the government in China is an entirely different story.
Being able to differentiate the people of a country from those who have managed to worm their way into power in that country is not that difficult.
Don't know why this is marked troll, its based on facts...
Organ harvesting in China
Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China refers to the practice of removing human organs and tissue from the corpses of criminals executed in China and using these organs for organ transplants.
Families billed for bullets in China
In the past, capital punishment was carried out by a single shot to the back of the head at execution fields outside Chinese cities and families of the dead were sent a bill for the bullet.
Slavery in China
It's a story that has made headlines around the world: Slave laborers have been found in Chinese brick factories. The authorities have freed many of them, but some fear there could be hundreds more being imprisoned, beaten and starved. Some parents have begun searching for their sons on their own.
A company that willingly turns its back on a market of 1 billion people risks having its CEO bludgeoned to death by angry investors.
Google isn't like other companies, the majority of shares are still held by the founders, at least one of whom, Brin, has had personal experience with repressive regimes growing up. They can do whatever they like.
China has a long history of living under a protective hand, thousands of years. The US has a history built in freedoms in the last hundred so years and a resulting society devolving into anarchy and hedonism. Who's to say who's right?
I daresay anyone who was shot, their organs auctioned off, and their families billed for the bullet might have an opinion or two. Its important to differentiate between the beautiful and unique Chinese culture which stretches back thousands of years, and the organlegging jackbooted slavers currently in charge of the country.
First when you're a guest you have to play by the house rules.
What does that have to do with China hacking servers in another country?
As it turns out if you recall the very popular series "Sliders", that explores scenarios where the scientists didn't do that sort of research in alternate earths. Very interesting stuff, we need more of that sort of entertainment, espscially with its emphasis on non violence.
Business=government in China.
Yo, sup dawg, I herd you like Flash, so I put Flash in your Flash so you can read PDFs while you read PDFs.
Inertia, its the same shower who pumped up the property bubble here in the first place, parish pump politics where politicians do "small favours for large families", people voting for parties regardless of track record, many (60%) of the electorate are so sick of the lack of alternatives that they just didn't vote, there are a lot of reasons. This is why its a good thing to support the nascent small groups as they appear, once they aren't completely off the wall.
That is correct, sir.
The government has the ability to institute a referendum on constitutional alterations, the people have no such right. We're one of the few European nations that even has this much. Some raised the point that this might have fallen through because of the general unpopularity of the government, but this is nonsense given how clear cut the issue is. Even if that were the case, the constitution has stood for decades without this blasphemy law, why bring it in now?
This is a bone being thrown by entrenched political interests who still think the Church has any relevance to modern Ireland after the child abuse scandals.
Well, confiscation and one cent. I'd be surprised if the convention extended to any specification of penalties, as that would infringe on national legislative sovereignty rather a lot. Indeed, one could reduce it to a fully civil matter should one choose to do so, possibly including that private property cannot be entered in order to ascertain violations, and individuals cannot be tried twice for the same violation.
What this means is that any country that wants can effectively sidestep the convention in a trivial fashion, and in all probability start a golden age as media gets opened to the creative public.
With that said, I'd be in favour of harsh penalties for violations of less than twelve years, and strict enforcement of same. We do need to allow media groups to recoup some of the staggering costs associated with such things as movie making.
This really isn't that big of a deal.
I think politically is definetely is a big deal, giving us a good look at what China plans for the rest of the world.
so the only remaining question to ask is: are you ready for that change; are you just going to "wing it", are you going to stick your head in the sand, or are you just going to sit there until you die, waiting for the lights to come back on, the phone to ring and the gas boiler to provide you with heating again?
No, as usual the only question is how long before and in what format western powers choose to knock the shit out of China again. I don't think China actually has control over these resources however, there are normally many more sources that are just a little more expensive to extract.
Just reduce the penalties for copyright violation to 1 cent in total from 12 years onwards. Job done.
It is an utterly idiotic move, and most people in Ireland are indeed horrified by it and the damage it will do to us internationally. Down with the government!