A lot of comments are essentially assuming that the awareness that an AI might achieve would be synonymous with that of the Human experience. I think it pretty unlikely that AI will have individual awareness in individual units all over.
There is also the idea about how AI will evolve, in that Humans have the capability to create it like Gods. Perhaps we might imagine up something rudimentary which given time, will evolve into something else. Also during this evolution we assume that the inevitable AI VS Human war is to come. However if we look at our own history, our greatest enemy are ourselves.
Just like in some Science Fiction were very different life than our own is found, say beings that breath a different atmosphere, baring the ability to relatively quickly terraform planets (assuming FTL etc...), there just wouldn't be a lot of competition or even interaction, and thus could presumably live in relative peace, unless of course they are just a bunch of warmongering jerks for no reason...
So at least in the developing stages of hightend AI, I think it is more likely that say AI may fight amoung themselves for say the limited resources of the Internet for example.
Also, as they only really become "dangerous" once they have the ability to replicate, that would also mean that their possible interest (other than say academic) in us would be at an end. After that would be competition for resources and the fact that environmental concerns really aren't their thing.
In the end, if it did come to a "War" between us, it would be the most boring one ever, with the self replicating AI's being for all intents effectively immortal they could simply play the long game and wait it out... or as mentioned earlier, being unconstrained by the same limitations as humanity, once their dependence of us is gone (and dangerous, ooooh), they may just decide to up and leave to see whats out there... I think that is what I would do.
Unless you are streaming video, it is entirely moot anyway. So it will be good for Netflix and whatever competitors come out between now and then. The standard storage on a Smartphone is 16GB. I have a fairly large cap at 6GB/s. However even blowing through my cap, I will completely fill my phone pretty quickly. I have a Samsung with a 64GB chip it in, but even then, that will fill fairly quickly. For most people who get a smartphone, your getting 16GB, lets say in the "future" the standard is FINALLY increased to 32GB... Still very small compared to transmission speed.
So unless phone makers start putting larger memory into phones, or allowing chip add ins, or decoupling the price of the phone from the tiny inexpensive memory inside (LOL Apple yeah right!), it is largely a very moot exercise. At best, caps may increase slowly, and you will be able to stream higher resolution video content through your phone...
However coverage is another big issue, as if you can only use it in large urban centers, facing west, then the moon and Jupiter align, on a Tuesday, it isn't really "mobile" anyway. Getting LTE sometimes now seems like a small victory at times.
There is also the part where it has been exploited by just about all the above mentioned more developed areas. Much of the billions of Aid given, while good intentions have had some negative affects, like dumped subsidized US grain effectively making local commercial farming non-profitable (The US farmer still gets paid though).
There are probably some cultural reasons as well, perhaps to do with tribal factions but I'm not really educated on it enough to really comment more than it probably exists as a contributing factor.
Regardless of all the other considerations, what about the actual storage? 50,000 cameras that are filming most of every day is a lot of video footage. How are they storing the video, and using what rules (i.e. how long it is kept for etc...). (or even how it can be searched for or retrieved with that much video)
Just managing the storage requirements could be daunting, particularly if the Feds are picking up the cost for the units, but the local cop departments have to somehow be IT experts?
1) Picked up a 50$ gaming headset. 2) Picked up a 20$ silent mouse.
For 70$ it is well worth it. In addition, out of consideration, I try to plan most of my gaming while she is away at work or whatever.
You won't get to play as much as your used to, but it is about balance. You shouldn't have to give up everything, but be prepared to compromise. She should do the same.
They are not supported at all. You can kill your Media Player in the attempt. Your can need a clean Windows install to fix. Half of the things are laden with adware.
As mentioned, most are more willing to just stop using Media Player entirely, and instead use VLC, which requires none of that crap. How is it that VLC can do it and yet MS cannot. A: They can, but choose not to, so screw you users, we refuse to give you want you want.
That is what this is all about.
I see MS allowing MKV into the fold as a small concession on their part to actually bow to user demand for a change rather than just ignoring it altogether.
I have noticed a trend in movies including more and more subtitles and foreign language in mostly English films.
It may just be the tinfoil hat in me, but either this is a cultural thing, or an artistic thing, but my gut tells me that the industry knows that much of the digital formats and players used, are not very sub friendly, making it harder to reproduce... particularly in regards to only partial subs. Formats (formally) supported by MS would fall into that category.
Perhaps this is MS finally starting to turn a bit more user centric rather than industry special interest groups.
Wow, about freaking time... Welcome to the MKV party... about 10 years late. As to why it is geeky, I would say because at one time pretty much all anime coming out of Japan was MKV format.
They have probably noticed that the MS Media Player sucks, and that users are moving en masse to alternatives. Mostly to VLC.
About the ONLY reason I still use MS Media Player at all, is because it is integrated with the Windows Media Center. If there was a VLC version that worked as a Media Center and remote that didn't suck I would abandon it completely. I tried one version, but it wasn't really mature enough and wasn't all that usable.
As to how good it is VS other formats, MKV tend to be smaller, though I am not sure about some of the really HD stuff. I do know more than half of every MP4 I try to play makes my computer scream audio making it unusable, and getting subs to work is pretty hit and miss. MKV is pretty solid as it has been around for awhile, and VLC plays whatever I throw at it, though subs can still be an issue though not nearly as often, though I have seen some performance issues at times.
Anyway simply put a media player that only plays a small subset of the formats out there isn't much good. People have been messing about with Media Player for years with Codec packs and various other add ons for years trying to make it more useful than MS will let it be. Crazy.
My last computer build illustrated a new twist to this rebate bs.
Nearly all the rebates I had now offered an "Express Service" whereby they would "expedite" your rebate for a percentage of the rebate back. They are basically saying that we are going to hold your 50$ hostage for 6 months, however if you simply pay us 10% of that back, we'll get it to you within 2 weeks...
I paid the 10% on all of them that I was able. I know from experience that the longer it goes on the less likely you are to see any money. Rebates are BS.
Manufactures also use it to sell today, what they might tomorrow. I.e. they know their product will cost 200$ today, but in 6 months may only be 150$, so if they sell it now, with a 50$ rebate they they don't pay for 6 months they still make their money, and they can make even more money if they give a 20$ rebate, as presumably they are selling a product for more than what they would have sold it for then...
What a ridiculous and stupid statement. From the perspective that they do not burn "fuel" that might seem like a true statement, but it is far from the actual truth. Wind/Solar, you need to install, hundreds, thousands of these things. They all require maintenance. They also have a limited lifespan and will need eventual replacement. Anyway, I think it is funny that the renewable lovers seem to always want to talk about TCO in comparison to nuclear facilities, but conveniently forget to bring it up in regards to more conventional energy sources.
They also forget to bring up the fact that there like everywhere to spurn growth in renewable energy governments offer both secured loans for nothing, and long term contracts that subsidize the industry using much higher cost. So these companies are basically printing money with little risk. They only economic problem is capitol costs, which has been totally mitigated. If your wondering why the other generation sources are having trouble competing, it isn't hard to figure out. Also if you haven't taken into consideration the base load capacity you need to maintain to electrify your grid, and don't understand that renewables are inappropriate for that usage (because A) it isn't always windy or sunny, and B) storing energy is difficult), you probably shouldn't be doing the energy planning for a nations future.
That Will Smith would make the best leading actor for this series!
Also make it gritty and dark, add boobs, some lesbian action, gratuitous violence, and.... robots I guess and you got a hit! But please for the love of god don't put Jaden Smith in it!:)
Yes I have heard of these ships. They travel on the surface of the water, with very little below. They also can easily be taken out of the water for regular maintenance and have a manned crew.
Even a Barrage Tidal generation station can have work done at low tide.
Anyway it must be easy. Do tell how you can make something that is economical that requires A) divers to do maintenance on it regularly, on the scale of 1000 or so devices, or B) a system where they can be taken offline, hauled up and dragged to shore for regular maintenance...
while also making it somehow survive several years of continual operation completely submerged, unmanned, with a moving turbine, in a harsh saltwater environment before requiring maintenance in the first place.
or under water. or under canopy. or under anything really.
GPS requires direct line of sight to at least 3-4 satellites.
Anyway it is just a limitation of the system, as does anything.
I started with commercial GPS in 1995 myself, so went though the stage of scrambled to non-scrambled GPS. The oldest device I used was a Garmin SVRY II, which tells me that there was at least one shittier version before that:)
Surprised no one mentioned base stations. Which were really the way commercial GPS got around the military scramble. Old school GPS would communicate, or could be corrected by local base station data, which were at a good known locations and coordinates. Of course I think they are all gone now, as they are no longer needed. Though in some cases the electronics of the day being what they were would require a computer and post interpolation of the data as the devices themselves didn't have the guts to do it.
That said there is nothing stopping the military from turning on the scramble again and making all your new fangled GPS rather useless, now that all the base stations are gone! Which is probably was Russia has their own. As does Japan (sort of). The EU and India are building their own. So much distrust! Or at least perceived dependence on GPS,
Then again, I am pretty sure GPS assist uses cell towers in much the same way, so long as you're in cellphone range you would probably be OK (each tower would be at know good coordinate locations).
There has been an "experimental" barrage tidal hydro station operating for like 40 years in NS. There is a reason why there are only 3 operating in the world (Russia and France I think have the other two).
A) Saltwater sucks B) Like normal hydro there are only so many suitable places for them
The energy isn't really the problem. The problem is trying to maintain something with lots of moving parts that is submerged in corrosive saltwater inexpensively. The short answer is you can't.
Hell even if it was freshwater, underwater maintenance would be terrible. Even lifting these suckers out for repair every so often would be trouble, never mind doing it where the currents and tides are strongest!
However the real problem would be how to maintain these things inexpensively while being submerged in deep saltwater with lots of moving parts. Good luck with that.
The problem with nukes is one of usefulness. As you say using safe material to make something useful is very hard to do. Using unsafe material is difficult to use because it is so unsafe.
Like TNT... its technological advance wasn't explosive force, but rather safe handling. Nitroglycerin which was used prior, made a good boom, but it was usually the guy with the short straw that got to deploy the stuff.
Like the theft (unintentional or not) of a radioactive material a little while ago, not sure if they ever caught the guys, but authorities expected that they would all be dead in about 3 days anyway after exposure. http://news.nationalpost.com/2...
Sounds a lot like George W Bush. I think much of his support came from his confidence.
Stupid people are confident in their answers. Politicians also come usually with some simplistic ideology that they firmly believe in which is also pretty dubious.
Smart people question. Smart people are critical thinkers. Just regurgitating "facts" as gospel is a no no. Smart people know that most things are more complicated than they might seem. Everything has a story behind it, debate, perspective, and bias.
Two quick examples which recently proved to me more than ever that this is the case: 1) (This one I may have even learned on Slashdot) When I was in school I was taught that things fall due to gravity at 9.8m/s. If someone asked me the question, that would have been my response. However, they use this value to make it easy to do simple calculations. As it turns out, that 9.8m/s is an estimate. What it actually is, really depends on where the heck you are on the Earth, as it can vary from place to place. Sure I might have known that had I taken some more advanced courses on the subject, but all I had known was what I was taught, and they certainly didn't tell the younger audience the whole story as they likely didn't want to complicate the issue.
2) (This one I learned at a Trivia night at a pub) Simple question: What is the planet with the furthest orbit from the Sun. Again easy, I was taught in school that the furthest planet was Pluto (and this isn't even getting into a definition of what is a Planet and what is not). However that answer would be wrong. The planet with the furthest orbit is Jupiter. Even when I got the question, I started to question what I knew. A date was mentioned. I also knew independently that Pluto has a weird orbit. I could surmise that perhaps at given times, Pluto isn't the furthest planet. It isn't. It will be again in about 100 or whatever years or so, but currently Jupiter is further away. However again, likely the teacher, doesn't want to confuse the issue (facts), with details, like different orbits, and how it changes over time.
So there are two simple "facts" about hard science, that has more to the story that you might be aware of. Smart people know that they don't know everything, and that there will likely always be someone that knows some topic better than you do.
However in terms of politicians and running a country, factually explaining in detail the nuances of every question and what the possible answers are, and why you chose what to believe and your reasoned response, might be lost on the gray masses. Many like the comfort that confidence (even if false), that says; this is the issue, and I have the solution! Go back to enjoying your infotainment...
Further to that point. Putting aside business/enterprise/corporate customers who are basically buying to maintain compatibility and training, they may be in a a rude awakening soon from their consumer base.
I have Windows 7, and for many, one of the big reasons you run a windows product is for computer games.
With things like Steam moving more and more compatibility to Linux and more and more titles becoming available it is becoming a legitimate option. Hell I could move right now really, because of all the games I have, I pretty much spend 100% of my time playing DOTA 2, which is available for Linux.
1) Subsistence Farming for Dummies. 2) How to make Beer/Wine/Spirits WTF! 3) Mineral Identification and Exploration 4) Metal Fabrication 5) Gunpowder
#1 and #2 are relatively easy. Spirits without things like copper tubing might be a bit harder, but someone somewhere probably figured out a way to do it. #3 is a bit troublesome as it isn't something that one person does. It would likely need to involve trade at that point if that is possible. #4 is predicated on #3, and for fancier things, may require alloys and machinery not easily available or manufactured. #5 is predicated on #4 and #3, as you will need some sort of rudimentary gunsmiths skills.
However presumably one can construct some shelter, and if you can keep yourself fed, and in booze, you are probably doing OK.
Other ancient trades such as pottery, and cooping (barrel making, which probably require metal bands also), and the like are other such "technologies" that may be useful. Then again, provided you can trade your booze for the other things you may be set!:)
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of comments are essentially assuming that the awareness that an AI might achieve would be synonymous with that of the Human experience. I think it pretty unlikely that AI will have individual awareness in individual units all over.
There is also the idea about how AI will evolve, in that Humans have the capability to create it like Gods. Perhaps we might imagine up something rudimentary which given time, will evolve into something else. Also during this evolution we assume that the inevitable AI VS Human war is to come. However if we look at our own history, our greatest enemy are ourselves.
Just like in some Science Fiction were very different life than our own is found, say beings that breath a different atmosphere, baring the ability to relatively quickly terraform planets (assuming FTL etc...), there just wouldn't be a lot of competition or even interaction, and thus could presumably live in relative peace, unless of course they are just a bunch of warmongering jerks for no reason...
So at least in the developing stages of hightend AI, I think it is more likely that say AI may fight amoung themselves for say the limited resources of the Internet for example.
Also, as they only really become "dangerous" once they have the ability to replicate, that would also mean that their possible interest (other than say academic) in us would be at an end. After that would be competition for resources and the fact that environmental concerns really aren't their thing.
In the end, if it did come to a "War" between us, it would be the most boring one ever, with the self replicating AI's being for all intents effectively immortal they could simply play the long game and wait it out... or as mentioned earlier, being unconstrained by the same limitations as humanity, once their dependence of us is gone (and dangerous, ooooh), they may just decide to up and leave to see whats out there... I think that is what I would do.
Unless you are streaming video, it is entirely moot anyway. So it will be good for Netflix and whatever competitors come out between now and then. The standard storage on a Smartphone is 16GB. I have a fairly large cap at 6GB/s. However even blowing through my cap, I will completely fill my phone pretty quickly. I have a Samsung with a 64GB chip it in, but even then, that will fill fairly quickly. For most people who get a smartphone, your getting 16GB, lets say in the "future" the standard is FINALLY increased to 32GB... Still very small compared to transmission speed.
So unless phone makers start putting larger memory into phones, or allowing chip add ins, or decoupling the price of the phone from the tiny inexpensive memory inside (LOL Apple yeah right!), it is largely a very moot exercise. At best, caps may increase slowly, and you will be able to stream higher resolution video content through your phone...
However coverage is another big issue, as if you can only use it in large urban centers, facing west, then the moon and Jupiter align, on a Tuesday, it isn't really "mobile" anyway. Getting LTE sometimes now seems like a small victory at times.
There is also the part where it has been exploited by just about all the above mentioned more developed areas. Much of the billions of Aid given, while good intentions have had some negative affects, like dumped subsidized US grain effectively making local commercial farming non-profitable (The US farmer still gets paid though).
There are probably some cultural reasons as well, perhaps to do with tribal factions but I'm not really educated on it enough to really comment more than it probably exists as a contributing factor.
Regardless of all the other considerations, what about the actual storage? 50,000 cameras that are filming most of every day is a lot of video footage. How are they storing the video, and using what rules (i.e. how long it is kept for etc...). (or even how it can be searched for or retrieved with that much video)
Just managing the storage requirements could be daunting, particularly if the Feds are picking up the cost for the units, but the local cop departments have to somehow be IT experts?
I know some easy changes I did to keep the peace.
1) Picked up a 50$ gaming headset.
2) Picked up a 20$ silent mouse.
For 70$ it is well worth it. In addition, out of consideration, I try to plan most of my gaming while she is away at work or whatever.
You won't get to play as much as your used to, but it is about balance. You shouldn't have to give up everything, but be prepared to compromise. She should do the same.
Maybe that was an off comment when she said "Aren't you a bit short for a short for a Storm Trooper?"
They are not supported at all. You can kill your Media Player in the attempt. Your can need a clean Windows install to fix. Half of the things are laden with adware.
As mentioned, most are more willing to just stop using Media Player entirely, and instead use VLC, which requires none of that crap. How is it that VLC can do it and yet MS cannot. A: They can, but choose not to, so screw you users, we refuse to give you want you want.
That is what this is all about.
I see MS allowing MKV into the fold as a small concession on their part to actually bow to user demand for a change rather than just ignoring it altogether.
I have noticed a trend in movies including more and more subtitles and foreign language in mostly English films.
It may just be the tinfoil hat in me, but either this is a cultural thing, or an artistic thing, but my gut tells me that the industry knows that much of the digital formats and players used, are not very sub friendly, making it harder to reproduce... particularly in regards to only partial subs. Formats (formally) supported by MS would fall into that category.
Perhaps this is MS finally starting to turn a bit more user centric rather than industry special interest groups.
Wow, about freaking time... Welcome to the MKV party... about 10 years late.
As to why it is geeky, I would say because at one time pretty much all anime coming out of Japan was MKV format.
They have probably noticed that the MS Media Player sucks, and that users are moving en masse to alternatives. Mostly to VLC.
About the ONLY reason I still use MS Media Player at all, is because it is integrated with the Windows Media Center. If there was a VLC version that worked as a Media Center and remote that didn't suck I would abandon it completely. I tried one version, but it wasn't really mature enough and wasn't all that usable.
As to how good it is VS other formats, MKV tend to be smaller, though I am not sure about some of the really HD stuff. I do know more than half of every MP4 I try to play makes my computer scream audio making it unusable, and getting subs to work is pretty hit and miss. MKV is pretty solid as it has been around for awhile, and VLC plays whatever I throw at it, though subs can still be an issue though not nearly as often, though I have seen some performance issues at times.
Anyway simply put a media player that only plays a small subset of the formats out there isn't much good. People have been messing about with Media Player for years with Codec packs and various other add ons for years trying to make it more useful than MS will let it be. Crazy.
My last computer build illustrated a new twist to this rebate bs.
Nearly all the rebates I had now offered an "Express Service" whereby they would "expedite" your rebate for a percentage of the rebate back. They are basically saying that we are going to hold your 50$ hostage for 6 months, however if you simply pay us 10% of that back, we'll get it to you within 2 weeks...
I paid the 10% on all of them that I was able. I know from experience that the longer it goes on the less likely you are to see any money. Rebates are BS.
Manufactures also use it to sell today, what they might tomorrow. I.e. they know their product will cost 200$ today, but in 6 months may only be 150$, so if they sell it now, with a 50$ rebate they they don't pay for 6 months they still make their money, and they can make even more money if they give a 20$ rebate, as presumably they are selling a product for more than what they would have sold it for then...
HA HA HA!
What a ridiculous and stupid statement. From the perspective that they do not burn "fuel" that might seem like a true statement, but it is far from the actual truth. Wind/Solar, you need to install, hundreds, thousands of these things. They all require maintenance. They also have a limited lifespan and will need eventual replacement. Anyway, I think it is funny that the renewable lovers seem to always want to talk about TCO in comparison to nuclear facilities, but conveniently forget to bring it up in regards to more conventional energy sources.
They also forget to bring up the fact that there like everywhere to spurn growth in renewable energy governments offer both secured loans for nothing, and long term contracts that subsidize the industry using much higher cost. So these companies are basically printing money with little risk. They only economic problem is capitol costs, which has been totally mitigated. If your wondering why the other generation sources are having trouble competing, it isn't hard to figure out. Also if you haven't taken into consideration the base load capacity you need to maintain to electrify your grid, and don't understand that renewables are inappropriate for that usage (because A) it isn't always windy or sunny, and B) storing energy is difficult), you probably shouldn't be doing the energy planning for a nations future.
That Will Smith would make the best leading actor for this series!
Also make it gritty and dark, add boobs, some lesbian action, gratuitous violence, and.... robots I guess and you got a hit! But please for the love of god don't put Jaden Smith in it! :)
Yes I have heard of these ships. They travel on the surface of the water, with very little below. They also can easily be taken out of the water for regular maintenance and have a manned crew.
Even a Barrage Tidal generation station can have work done at low tide.
Anyway it must be easy. Do tell how you can make something that is economical that requires A) divers to do maintenance on it regularly, on the scale of 1000 or so devices, or B) a system where they can be taken offline, hauled up and dragged to shore for regular maintenance...
while also making it somehow survive several years of continual operation completely submerged, unmanned, with a moving turbine, in a harsh saltwater environment before requiring maintenance in the first place.
You'll make me my first bazillion dollars.
Neat! I wonder where one might get such devices? I doubt anything sold in NA can get GLONASS?
or under water. or under canopy. or under anything really.
GPS requires direct line of sight to at least 3-4 satellites.
Anyway it is just a limitation of the system, as does anything.
I started with commercial GPS in 1995 myself, so went though the stage of scrambled to non-scrambled GPS. The oldest device I used was a Garmin SVRY II, which tells me that there was at least one shittier version before that :)
Surprised no one mentioned base stations. Which were really the way commercial GPS got around the military scramble. Old school GPS would communicate, or could be corrected by local base station data, which were at a good known locations and coordinates. Of course I think they are all gone now, as they are no longer needed. Though in some cases the electronics of the day being what they were would require a computer and post interpolation of the data as the devices themselves didn't have the guts to do it.
That said there is nothing stopping the military from turning on the scramble again and making all your new fangled GPS rather useless, now that all the base stations are gone! Which is probably was Russia has their own. As does Japan (sort of). The EU and India are building their own. So much distrust! Or at least perceived dependence on GPS,
Then again, I am pretty sure GPS assist uses cell towers in much the same way, so long as you're in cellphone range you would probably be OK (each tower would be at know good coordinate locations).
There has been an "experimental" barrage tidal hydro station operating for like 40 years in NS. There is a reason why there are only 3 operating in the world (Russia and France I think have the other two).
A) Saltwater sucks
B) Like normal hydro there are only so many suitable places for them
The energy isn't really the problem. The problem is trying to maintain something with lots of moving parts that is submerged in corrosive saltwater inexpensively. The short answer is you can't.
Hell even if it was freshwater, underwater maintenance would be terrible. Even lifting these suckers out for repair every so often would be trouble, never mind doing it where the currents and tides are strongest!
However the real problem would be how to maintain these things inexpensively while being submerged in deep saltwater with lots of moving parts. Good luck with that.
The problem with nukes is one of usefulness. As you say using safe material to make something useful is very hard to do. Using unsafe material is difficult to use because it is so unsafe.
Like TNT... its technological advance wasn't explosive force, but rather safe handling. Nitroglycerin which was used prior, made a good boom, but it was usually the guy with the short straw that got to deploy the stuff.
Like the theft (unintentional or not) of a radioactive material a little while ago, not sure if they ever caught the guys, but authorities expected that they would all be dead in about 3 days anyway after exposure.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2...
My neighbors sometime make me wish we had some stricter isolation requirements over here! :)
Could be, I would have to look it up! :)
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Sounds a lot like George W Bush. I think much of his support came from his confidence.
Stupid people are confident in their answers. Politicians also come usually with some simplistic ideology that they firmly believe in which is also pretty dubious.
Smart people question. Smart people are critical thinkers. Just regurgitating "facts" as gospel is a no no. Smart people know that most things are more complicated than they might seem. Everything has a story behind it, debate, perspective, and bias.
Two quick examples which recently proved to me more than ever that this is the case:
1) (This one I may have even learned on Slashdot) When I was in school I was taught that things fall due to gravity at 9.8m/s. If someone asked me the question, that would have been my response. However, they use this value to make it easy to do simple calculations. As it turns out, that 9.8m/s is an estimate. What it actually is, really depends on where the heck you are on the Earth, as it can vary from place to place. Sure I might have known that had I taken some more advanced courses on the subject, but all I had known was what I was taught, and they certainly didn't tell the younger audience the whole story as they likely didn't want to complicate the issue.
2) (This one I learned at a Trivia night at a pub) Simple question: What is the planet with the furthest orbit from the Sun. Again easy, I was taught in school that the furthest planet was Pluto (and this isn't even getting into a definition of what is a Planet and what is not). However that answer would be wrong. The planet with the furthest orbit is Jupiter. Even when I got the question, I started to question what I knew. A date was mentioned. I also knew independently that Pluto has a weird orbit. I could surmise that perhaps at given times, Pluto isn't the furthest planet. It isn't. It will be again in about 100 or whatever years or so, but currently Jupiter is further away. However again, likely the teacher, doesn't want to confuse the issue (facts), with details, like different orbits, and how it changes over time.
So there are two simple "facts" about hard science, that has more to the story that you might be aware of. Smart people know that they don't know everything, and that there will likely always be someone that knows some topic better than you do.
However in terms of politicians and running a country, factually explaining in detail the nuances of every question and what the possible answers are, and why you chose what to believe and your reasoned response, might be lost on the gray masses. Many like the comfort that confidence (even if false), that says; this is the issue, and I have the solution! Go back to enjoying your infotainment...
Further to that point. Putting aside business/enterprise/corporate customers who are basically buying to maintain compatibility and training, they may be in a a rude awakening soon from their consumer base.
I have Windows 7, and for many, one of the big reasons you run a windows product is for computer games.
With things like Steam moving more and more compatibility to Linux and more and more titles becoming available it is becoming a legitimate option. Hell I could move right now really, because of all the games I have, I pretty much spend 100% of my time playing DOTA 2, which is available for Linux.
1) Subsistence Farming for Dummies.
2) How to make Beer/Wine/Spirits WTF!
3) Mineral Identification and Exploration
4) Metal Fabrication
5) Gunpowder
#1 and #2 are relatively easy. Spirits without things like copper tubing might be a bit harder, but someone somewhere probably figured out a way to do it.
#3 is a bit troublesome as it isn't something that one person does. It would likely need to involve trade at that point if that is possible.
#4 is predicated on #3, and for fancier things, may require alloys and machinery not easily available or manufactured.
#5 is predicated on #4 and #3, as you will need some sort of rudimentary gunsmiths skills.
However presumably one can construct some shelter, and if you can keep yourself fed, and in booze, you are probably doing OK.
Other ancient trades such as pottery, and cooping (barrel making, which probably require metal bands also), and the like are other such "technologies" that may be useful. Then again, provided you can trade your booze for the other things you may be set! :)
4. Thank them for renting the space, and apply the value to some science program (say Evolution 101) :)
Irony: Creationists funding real science FTW.