The first is that a number of science fiction books I've read over the years have prepared me well for this to happen. In that context what we're seeing is a bunch of the biological equivalent of the early blue boxers and hackers (in the original digital explorer and creator meaning of the term) That means that I find the antics of these bio-hackers very troubling because bio-hacking for malign purposes will always be at the same state of the art as these public activities. I can almost guarantee that for every illicit "researcher" working on a vaccine for HIV or herpes, there is going to be somebody out there looking to weaponize those diseases instead. The thought of, for example, an airborne HIV with a long period (>1 week) of transmissible period is terrifying.
On the other hand, I also know that the explosion of creativity in the phone and network hacking communities helped accelerate the development of IT. Some of the best hackers found work in the legitimate community. My son happens to be one of those people who are in critical need of rapid advances in genetic therapy, CRISPR/Cas-9 being the front runner technique. I've been following the field with a great deal of interest, in hopes that a new break through will come any day. However, as best as I can determine, by the time CRISPR/Cas-9 leads to a proven treatment for Duchennes Musuclar Dystrophy, it will be too late for my son. As of today, he has maybe 10 or 12 years left to live. But, near as I can tell, for him to ever be mobile again, he'd need genetic treatment within the next year or three and there just isn't any chance mainstream medicine is going to release a CRISPR based therapy in that time frame.
So I find myself hoping that, despite the obstacles of lack of formal training and lack of funding, that these guys make some real discoveries and advances.
Let's not overlook the number of probably legal but annoying things they could do first to drive adoption:
1) This will be part of the "infotainment" system obviously. Have the system do a systems check and refuse to operate any of the display screen functions (radio, navigation etc) unless the system passes all checks.
2) The cell radio is also crucial to things like On-Star, so cooperate with the big insurance companies to make a disabled system more expensive to insure. On the basis that On-Star and automatic collision reporting are "vital safety systems"
3) Many cars now have a "limp home mode" where the vehicle will still operate, but with severely reduced performance. This is intended for things like emissions systems failures, engine computer failure and so on. It would be obvious and straight forward to have a car go into limp home mode if any of the many computers, logic controllers or other electronic parts fail the self check.
4) The easiest and most legally defensible, simply have the check engine or service engine light come on when the self check fails.
And assuming that we never manage to make a financially feasible business out of mining in space, I can conceive of old landfills being "mined" for the valuable minerals and stuff that are in there. It doesn't take much gold per ton of raw material to make extraction profitable after all. It's just that current gold extraction techniques would need to change to deal with the fact that the gold is bound up in fiberglass, bakelight and so on, rather than ore.
In some places landfill mining is already being done, but with an eye to reducing the volume of existing waste so that new waste can be added. (Planners have a hell of time finding good sites for a landfill even before the NIMBY crowd get involved.
You're right in that wood does not bend and collapse the way steel does. But what it does do is **feed the fire**. Even wood treated to be less flammable still burns more easily than steel does. (and gives off toxic smoke once the fire overwhelms the chemical resistance. When the wood studs and joists in a home are burned to more than something like 15% of their cross section, they can no longer be expected to carry the load. Wood framed structures collapse more readily than the equivalently steel framed structure. (Note: I am not referring to the thin steel wall studs used to build partition walls, those are never intended to carry any load beyond the weight of the drywall mounted on it. Even a small twist caused by the collapse of an adjoining area totally destroys any load bearing capacity the studs have)
worse yet, even particle board seems to be getting too sturdy and expensive for the bottom end of the furniture market. A depressing amount of furniture is being made out of MDF now, which is basically compressed cardboard. In some applications, the damned stuff sags under it's own weight,. And it seems to be even more vulnerable to moisture than particle board.
Near as I can tell, the word sturdy, in the hands of furniture marketers, has become the exact opposite of what we normally take it to mean. Any piece of furntiure described as "sturdy" is almost certainly the flimsiest thing you'll ever find. Unless of course the description also includes the phrase "wood product"
No, wood chips and glue are called waferboard or chipboard. Particle board is even worse, being sawdust and glue. A rule of thumb, the shorter the bit of wood used to make the product, the weaker it will be. waferboard is made by chipping trees too small for dimensional lumber or plywood. (so scrub trees) while particleboard is made from the waste products of other sawmill operations.
Where I live, it's already almost exclusively online. The provincial government is doing a lot to encourage adoption of the new digital systems and the two local municipalities are making it a point of pride to be leaders in the use of IT to improve lives. From anecdotes from friends and local family, it seems there are only a small handful of doctors who aren't using the new system. Most of those also happen to be of the "crusty country doctor with his office in the converted first floor of a large house" archetype.
The system works well enough that, several times now, I have had my prescription filled and waiting before I could cross town from the doctors office. (and it's a small town). My drug card is also automated as well, so I don't need to have any documentation to pick up my non-narcotic prescriptions. (for my narcotics, they swipe my drivers license and have me physically sign their copy of the receipt.
I think the problem with adoption boils down to the usual culprits, time and money. The archetypical doctor in his own practice and one or two medical secretaries is generally too busy to afford the time it would take to change a core function. Plus, it requires certified training ($) for every staff member, upkeep on the internet connection ($) licensing for the software ($) and enough cooperation from the local hospitals, imaging centres, blood labs, pharmacies and so on to make it worth while. ($$$$) after all, what's the point in having an online Rx submission system if the pharmacist isn't also part of the network?
I agree that the field of computer intelligence is in its infancy and that what we've achieved so far is amazing. And yes; if we look under the hood of current AI in the form of expert systems, machine learning and so on, it doesn't look like intelligence any more, just a very relatively simple machine. As I said further down, what we can achieve right now is the equivalent of a cockroach or lizard. We can duplicate the abilities of the reptilian hind brain and some of the functions of the limbic system, but not consciousness. Self awareness seems to be an emergent property of the complexity of the cerebrum. But the cerebrum is so intertwined with the limbic and brain stem that I don't think any system that tries to replicate the cerebrum alone can become self aware.
However, I don't think our learning exactly how consciousness arises and how to duplicate it will deprive it entirely of its magic and wonder.
To me, AI means that the system is conscious, self aware. The only intelligence(s) we know of also possess that quality, so it is not a stretch to assume a) In order to build an AI, we'd have to understand our own intelligence far better and b) That any system we build based on our understanding of ourselves is going to resemble us a great deal.
Right now, as far as I understand the field, we are building intelligences on par with a cockroach or small lizard. If we are to duplicate the intelligence and consciousness we have, the next step would be to overlay that reptilian intelligence with a limbic system analogue to create intelligences on par with mammals.
Once that is done, then we can work on the equivalent of the cerebrum.
If we do succeed in building an intelligence in our own image, our understanding of intelligence will be advanced enough to build rules of behaviour into the very fabric of the system. This is where Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics comes in to play. Obviously far too simplified compared to what will actually go into the design of an AI system, but a very useful starting point. The Good Doctor wrote a few stories where adherence to the laws of robotics produced unexpected results. Our own development of AI will require rule building that is so sophisticated that it's bone simple. We need to avoid the Monkey's Paw problem, where setting up rules and requirements doesn't create worse problems.
I think an overlooked factor in that change in bank branch deployment is the lack of need for a huge honkin' vault to store cash reserves and safety deposit boxes. With the advent of ATMs and broad uptake of point of sale debit machines, your local branch just doesn't need to store as much cash as it did 20 or 30 years ago. The tellers at my local branch no longer keep a 500$ float in their tills. They have only about 50$ or less in coins each. All the bills they require are stored in one or two central ATM like cash dispensing machines. Those machines get tucked into the vault at night I'm sure, but only because they still have one that was installed in the 40's. Some of those pop-up mall and corner banks just have what amounts to a reinforced room and no safety deposit boxes. Those smaller branches only need to keep a small amount of funds on hand, not enough to justify the expense and floor space needed for a proper vault. Any time they need more than what they have on hand, armoured couriers can have it there in a few hours. Because of those wide spread ATM's everywhere, the armed and armoured transport industry has also boomed, bringing down the costs of shuttling cash around.
I used to be a roofer, I used to be an electricians apprentice. I've done retro-fit PV panels, stand alone fixed arrays, trombe walls and passive solar pool heaters., I've done pretty much all residential construction tasks from foundation pours to roofing (flat hot roof and shingles), with the exception of installing pre-hung windows. So I feel comfortable in voicing my opinion on the matter of PV panels in new build vs retrofit.
You're correct in saying that clay tiles are not equal to asphalt. They are typically 25% to 35% more costly in materials, but only about 5% more in terms of labour. However, the advantage is in lifespan and durability. Clay tiles are fireproof, roofs built with clay or concrete tile in mind have stronger joists (the most commonly overlooked extra cost) so while they shed snow better, they also stand up better to the weight of snow from big storms. Typically, clay or concrete tile has twice the lifespan of asphalt.
However; the parents point wasn't that asphalt and clay are comparable. It was that PV shingle systems are comparable to clay roofs and even then, he was only claiming they were comparable in upfront cost. (and I don't know if he is including the subsidies many areas offer in that comparison) With the PV shingle systems available now, a integrated PV system is about the same in labour and joist costs as asphalt shingle. PV shingles are about the same weight as 35 yr asphalt per m^2, but come in larger sections, much like some metal roof systems. The big catch is, although they cost roughly the same as clay or concrete tile, I am not completely convinced they offer the same durability and longevity. Current PV panels only have roughly a 20 to 25 year lifespan before the output drops too far. And all the systems I know of use a clear plastic layer, not glass as you see in the bigger stand alone systems. Because of that, I expect their fire resistance to be lower and for the plastic to yellow over time, accelerating the drop in output.
In order to do a proper comparison, you really need to sit down with a local professional installer and look at construction costs (with labour and material listed separately), applicable subsidies and tax breaks, expected PV output at your latitude and so on. It's my professional opinion that a PV shingle system makes good economic sense in far more builds than their are actually being used for.
I don't think this is an effective way to protest. Sure it gets on the news, but we've seen that certain members of the FCC really don't pay attention to public opinion. All it really achieves is inconveniencing members of the general public, and most of them support net neutrality already.
Ajit Pai's home address is already known to the public, so this deliberate slow down of traffic could have and, I'd argue, should have occurred outside his own home. Slow down his commute to work unless he agrees to pay an extra toll on top of the gas, tire and municipal taxes he is paying to support road infrastructure. (but we must maintain our own integrity, if we manage to get him to cough up money, those funds in their entirety should be handed over to the local city works department.
Second, he is a lawyer and most likely in good standing with the bar association of D.C. and/or Virginia. His actions certainly appear to be in direct conflict with the public interest, a critical ethical standard for any attorney working as a public servant. Write letters to the Bar Association protesting his unethical actions and request (not demand, the Bar is only a quasi public body being a mandatory but still private corporate entity in D.C. and many States) that he be called before their ethics board to explain and/or defend his actions. A casual review of the D.C. Bar rules of professional conduct mention several areas where Mr Pai may have violated his professional and fiduciary duties. But I'm not a barrister or solicitor, so I can't say with any degree of certainty.
Chicken used to be the most expensive of farm raised meats. That's why the political slogan "a chicken in every pot" is a promise of prosperity. Aggressive breeding tactics and modern nutrition have produced chickens that gain weight to market value MUCH faster than historically was the case. I read somewhere chickens now grow four times bigger than pre-WWII and in less time. Modern agricultural science made chicken cheap.
I expect that cultured meat has the same potential to bring down the cost of meat. However, while I can't recall what it's called right now, there is an effect known in economics that making a product more efficient actually ends up using even more energy because more efficiency means cheaper cost to the consumer and that in turn drives more consumer use. Given the high status of meat, I expect cheap cultured meat may well wind up using even more resources than the current meat industry.
While I agree, in theory, that there are times when the common people are right in revolting, that bloody revolution might become necessary, I do not think that the current situation even comes close to requiring it.
There is no sane, controlled way of conducting a bloody revolution. The killing of public officials out of hand is a rejection of law and order, not the imposition of it. Unless you can change the political character of the public, you'll only be substituting politically skilled people with people skilled at murder and mayhem.
What I think is needed is a major change (I won't argue with the term revolution) in how the public thinks about, and interacts with, the political system in their country. Democracy works better than any other system we know of, but works best when the public actually participates. Here are the problems I see with democracy as practised in the G7, but most strongly and clearly in the U.S.A.
1) Voter apathy : The sources I check don't agree on an exact number, but all would agree with the statement that less than 60% of those eligible to vote in the 2017 US presidential election actually did so. According to Wikipedia, there is over 235 Million eligible voters in the US, with a 60% voter turnout, that means over 93 Million people weren't involved.
2) There is a significant number of people who vote for a particular party, pretty much regardless of current platform or candidates. "Straight ticket voters" ensure that even weak candidates are going to have a significant voter base if they can win the parties nomination for a position. 10 US states make it very easy to vote straight ticket
3) Low voter turnout combined with straight ticket voting means that the more extreme voices on either end of the spectrum carry far more weight in politics than the raw numbers would justify. It also means that a politician can court the more extreme factions fairly safely without risking alienating their core voter base. It is my personal, unsupported opinion that the more extreme factions on either end of the political spectrum are far less likely to engage in even the minimal thought that your average voter does in choosing candidates. As long as a politician says the right things (dog whistling and rabble rousing) he or she can get away with behaviour in office that is totally different from their campaign platform.
4) Those three factors together mean that the voters, regardless of faction, do not have as much influence on the actions of the elected official as they should. That in turn means it is easier for lobbyists to influence, or even control what bills the official submits and what that official votes for. It is rare for a politician to be held accountable for going against his constituents interests. Most of the time they are only subject to repercussions if they get involved in some scandal that touches on morality and even then, often only if that scandal occurs in an election year. Being a dirty politician or puppet of the lobbyists is not a problem because for those with the deep pockets funding campaigns and the top people who control a party are used to that, it's business as usual. Cheating on your wife, being caught in a gay and/or underage sex scandal though is political death.
Bottomline; I believe the voting public needs to be a) better informed b) pay attention to, and remember a politicians actions while in office and hole them accountable at the next election and c) be more willing to vote based on the individual candidate and issue rather than party lines.
Well, since the article says that the chunk broke off what is now Canada, it should be entertaining* to watch Trump try come up with an even half way plausible basis for a US claim on that rock.
*problem is, world leaders, elected officials and the like aren't supposed to be entertaining, they're supposed to be competent. Picking a leader on the basis of who might provide the most lulz strikes me as a Bad Thing.
To be fair though, if you had used GIMP for the past decade and had recently switched to Photoshop, you'd still be muttering "where's the shortcut for this?"
My personal criticism of GIMP is that even some basic stuff is ever so slightly different than how Photoshop does it. Just different enough to avoid copyright infringement is also different enough that many entry level user tutorials don't work and comparable versions of specialized plugins just don't exist.
I seem to recall a minor scandal from a few years back where the US federal government provided a lot of funding to ISPs, particularly in the South for the express purpose of a) expanding coverage to include more rural areas and b) increase backbone capacity. Millions of dollars were earmarked, goals were set. But despite not meeting any of the goals, the ISPs got all that money anyway. (quelle surprise!)
From the summary, it sounds like they are talking about easy access to cheap or even free federal land on which to locate and cash subsidies to cover the costs of expanding and enhancing coverage. How many of us here think the cash will get paid, but the work will never get done? (beyond perhaps a mere token effort)
I seem to recall several scandals of this nature over the years. Routers, backup appliances, firewall appliances (!), cable modems, the list goes on. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that some of the Smart Home hubs on the market today have similar deliberate security flaws. My question goes out to all the slashdotters who are in an I.T. support or admin role or who are on the design team for any internet capable device.
Have these deliberately crafted backdoors ever had much legitimate use? Bear in mind I'm not talking about devices that go into a special access mode when physical buttons are pressed. (like some printers and copiers IIRC). I understand the reasoning that it gives a simple way for the call centre support folks to gain access to their companies devices so they can reset the machine. But as far as I know, this capability is never given to the call centre staff, not even at the tier 2 or higher levels. And I don't think it can be justified from a pre-release unit testing POV either, since the same function could be provided by switching a jumper, enabling a wire trace or plugging into a serial port inside the device, all methods easy enough to disable when the device goes into full production. (and all require physical access to the device anyway, so the security risk is minimal)
I used to work in a call centre, providing support for a US Internet provider. For DOCSIS 2.0 and higher modems, there are some things the support staff could do remotely, but all of them required knowing the serial # for the device. In most markets, that info was not found in the customers file, we had to ask the customer to read it to us from a label on the bottom or back of the modem. Entering the serial number in a tool we had led to a query against the ISP database and provided the MAC and from there we could perform a subset of functions. Anything major though required it go to depot where a technician could connect to the serial port inside the modem case. I see no reason why the same strategy couldn't be used for routers, printers et al.
Cut off the front? VW tried that with the Transporter. They stopped making it when it turned out to be real hard to build in the crash safety in a cab-over that was becoming required in their major markets. The Japanese Kei trucks have the same problem. Medium duty and larger trucks go cab-over to maximise cargo space for a given wheelbase, but they don't have to pass passenger vehicle safety requirements. They also tend to create far more drag, which is one reason why the big semi's moved away from that after the 80's. And, for what it's worth, the concept art of the Tesla truck really shows the semi truck DNA in its design, it's not quite a hood, not quite a true cab over.
Air spring suspensions? Many light trucks have this already as an option, sometimes found in conjunction with the tow package or upfitters package.
Electric power points? Powerpoints supplying AC in line voltages and amperages have been available for decades, originally as an aftermarket for work trucks, but now even some mini vans have them. (Though a minivan 110VAC port is probably limited to under 10 amps, so running power tools would be asking to much of it) Hell, I used to drive a Dodge truck that had a welding generator installed on the engine like a bigger auxiliary alternator. That was a dealership option, not factory though IIRC.
Interchangeable beds? Again, already done in the aftermarket, with two basic approached: one is a winch and rollers that pulls the bed up onto a tilting frame. The other uses a travelling hook and arm like some dumpster trucks use. Both seem to raise the CG of the truck appreciably. Having an option that didn't do that would be a big improvement for that market segment, but not really a game changer IMHO.
Now, putting all of the above into a factory stock truck aimed at the work truck demographic would be a game changer, but my feeling is that Tesla wouldn't try to do all of these things at once. Things like the interchangeable beds would pretty much require a body on frame design, but doing so throws away the weight advantages of unibody. On the other hand the Honda Ridgeline and Chevrolet Avalanche design teams can tell you how hard it is to get a unibody pickup rigid enough. Body on frame pick-ups are designed to have a certain amount of torsion in the frame when moving over rough terrain whereas a classic unibody would have to have a soft suspension to handle it and soft suspensions and work loads don't mix well.
oh, I agree that an electric truck might not be able to match many of the specs typical trucks have. I can't see an electric (current tech) pick-up up-fitted to be a tow truck for example. But, to be fair, there are a sizeable number of truck owners out there who never come near the edges of their trucks performance envelope. As we've seen with the cars and semi, an electric truck could absolutely boast better torque and better 0-60 times while being able to supply enough range to satisfy a significant fraction of the market for each vehicle class. I'm one of those people who would drive a truck and rarely make use of its towing and hauling capacity. (I need the room, the seating angle is more favourable to arthritic joints and I just like having a truck for those rare occasions I do need the capacity)
I wonder if Elon is referring to a trunk in the front? I seem to recall that, back in the 90's GM did some design studies on electric vehicles. That was were the "skateboard platform" for vehicles came from. (assuming I am remembering it correctly)
Since then, a company called Bollinger has come up with an all electric SUV (that is really reminiscent of old Land Rovers or maybe a LEGO version of a Jeep). Jalopnik had a good article on it with a focus on the "front trunk" Something like that in a pickup truck could very well be a game changer and since Bollinger isn't nearly as well known as Tesla, Elon's outfit could easily garner credit for the invention in the public perception.
Technically, no, the proper term for the study of Mars planetary formation, mineral chemistry etc is areology. However, according to wikipedia, geology in the broader sense is still used for the study of solid planets in general. Using the more general term avoids having to coin a new neologism every time a particular planetary body becomes a significant field of study.
Plus, geology is a much wider used and understood term. If I say I am working in the field of geology specializing in the mineral chemistry of Mercury, your average layman will understand me, but the term Hermeology might cause confusion.
I think the problem in your examples, as in most cases, as that people in authority tend to conflate dissent as an attack on their authority and that any attack on their authority is also an attack against the nation. The problem becomes even worse and harder to combat when the dissent conflicts with the authority figures personal convictions.
You see something in the sky, you report to the Air Force or FBI. They have a duty to investigate it if it seems at all like a credible sighting. They are responsible for the safety of the public after all, and need to at the very least, confirm that the sighting is no threat. Further, the Air Force and the Armed Forces in general, have to know that they don't always have complete intelligence about the actions and capabilities of hostile and potentially hostile countries and groups. For most "lights in the sky" that are spotted, the VAST majority are terrestrial aircraft or terrestrial phenomenon. The term UFO properly means just that the witness couldn't recognize it.
I remember a video that was going around the UFO community that had them all in a flap. It was a hourglass shaped object, seen hovering and darting around in a vertical posture in dusk conditions around Buenos Aires or something like that. The UFO nuts were saying that there was no such aircraft and it moved too fast to be of human manufacturer. I recognized it though. It was a CL-227 Sentinel UAV. The UFO nuts didn't notice the co-axial rotors around it's waist and misjudged how far away it was, leading them to over-estimate how fast it was moving. As far as I was concerned, the only interesting bit was that I didn't know that any South American nations even had any of them. My training identified them as being Canadian and only in use by NATO members. This is exactly the sort of thing I'd expect the US Air Force to investigate. People see funny lights or objects in the sky, the Air Force needs to find out if it's a mistaken report, a legitimate but unrecognised aircraft, or just possibly another group sending drones into US airspace for intelligence gathering.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, I also know that the explosion of creativity in the phone and network hacking communities helped accelerate the development of IT. Some of the best hackers found work in the legitimate community. My son happens to be one of those people who are in critical need of rapid advances in genetic therapy, CRISPR/Cas-9 being the front runner technique. I've been following the field with a great deal of interest, in hopes that a new break through will come any day. However, as best as I can determine, by the time CRISPR/Cas-9 leads to a proven treatment for Duchennes Musuclar Dystrophy, it will be too late for my son. As of today, he has maybe 10 or 12 years left to live. But, near as I can tell, for him to ever be mobile again, he'd need genetic treatment within the next year or three and there just isn't any chance mainstream medicine is going to release a CRISPR based therapy in that time frame.
So I find myself hoping that, despite the obstacles of lack of formal training and lack of funding, that these guys make some real discoveries and advances.
1) This will be part of the "infotainment" system obviously. Have the system do a systems check and refuse to operate any of the display screen functions (radio, navigation etc) unless the system passes all checks.
2) The cell radio is also crucial to things like On-Star, so cooperate with the big insurance companies to make a disabled system more expensive to insure. On the basis that On-Star and automatic collision reporting are "vital safety systems"
3) Many cars now have a "limp home mode" where the vehicle will still operate, but with severely reduced performance. This is intended for things like emissions systems failures, engine computer failure and so on. It would be obvious and straight forward to have a car go into limp home mode if any of the many computers, logic controllers or other electronic parts fail the self check.
4) The easiest and most legally defensible, simply have the check engine or service engine light come on when the self check fails.
In some places landfill mining is already being done, but with an eye to reducing the volume of existing waste so that new waste can be added. (Planners have a hell of time finding good sites for a landfill even before the NIMBY crowd get involved.
You're right in that wood does not bend and collapse the way steel does. But what it does do is **feed the fire**. Even wood treated to be less flammable still burns more easily than steel does. (and gives off toxic smoke once the fire overwhelms the chemical resistance. When the wood studs and joists in a home are burned to more than something like 15% of their cross section, they can no longer be expected to carry the load. Wood framed structures collapse more readily than the equivalently steel framed structure. (Note: I am not referring to the thin steel wall studs used to build partition walls, those are never intended to carry any load beyond the weight of the drywall mounted on it. Even a small twist caused by the collapse of an adjoining area totally destroys any load bearing capacity the studs have)
Near as I can tell, the word sturdy, in the hands of furniture marketers, has become the exact opposite of what we normally take it to mean. Any piece of furntiure described as "sturdy" is almost certainly the flimsiest thing you'll ever find. Unless of course the description also includes the phrase "wood product"
No, wood chips and glue are called waferboard or chipboard. Particle board is even worse, being sawdust and glue. A rule of thumb, the shorter the bit of wood used to make the product, the weaker it will be. waferboard is made by chipping trees too small for dimensional lumber or plywood. (so scrub trees) while particleboard is made from the waste products of other sawmill operations.
The system works well enough that, several times now, I have had my prescription filled and waiting before I could cross town from the doctors office. (and it's a small town). My drug card is also automated as well, so I don't need to have any documentation to pick up my non-narcotic prescriptions. (for my narcotics, they swipe my drivers license and have me physically sign their copy of the receipt.
I think the problem with adoption boils down to the usual culprits, time and money. The archetypical doctor in his own practice and one or two medical secretaries is generally too busy to afford the time it would take to change a core function. Plus, it requires certified training ($) for every staff member, upkeep on the internet connection ($) licensing for the software ($) and enough cooperation from the local hospitals, imaging centres, blood labs, pharmacies and so on to make it worth while. ($$$$) after all, what's the point in having an online Rx submission system if the pharmacist isn't also part of the network?
However, I don't think our learning exactly how consciousness arises and how to duplicate it will deprive it entirely of its magic and wonder.
Right now, as far as I understand the field, we are building intelligences on par with a cockroach or small lizard. If we are to duplicate the intelligence and consciousness we have, the next step would be to overlay that reptilian intelligence with a limbic system analogue to create intelligences on par with mammals.
Once that is done, then we can work on the equivalent of the cerebrum.
If we do succeed in building an intelligence in our own image, our understanding of intelligence will be advanced enough to build rules of behaviour into the very fabric of the system. This is where Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics comes in to play. Obviously far too simplified compared to what will actually go into the design of an AI system, but a very useful starting point. The Good Doctor wrote a few stories where adherence to the laws of robotics produced unexpected results. Our own development of AI will require rule building that is so sophisticated that it's bone simple. We need to avoid the Monkey's Paw problem, where setting up rules and requirements doesn't create worse problems.
I think an overlooked factor in that change in bank branch deployment is the lack of need for a huge honkin' vault to store cash reserves and safety deposit boxes. With the advent of ATMs and broad uptake of point of sale debit machines, your local branch just doesn't need to store as much cash as it did 20 or 30 years ago. The tellers at my local branch no longer keep a 500$ float in their tills. They have only about 50$ or less in coins each. All the bills they require are stored in one or two central ATM like cash dispensing machines. Those machines get tucked into the vault at night I'm sure, but only because they still have one that was installed in the 40's. Some of those pop-up mall and corner banks just have what amounts to a reinforced room and no safety deposit boxes. Those smaller branches only need to keep a small amount of funds on hand, not enough to justify the expense and floor space needed for a proper vault. Any time they need more than what they have on hand, armoured couriers can have it there in a few hours. Because of those wide spread ATM's everywhere, the armed and armoured transport industry has also boomed, bringing down the costs of shuttling cash around.
You're correct in saying that clay tiles are not equal to asphalt. They are typically 25% to 35% more costly in materials, but only about 5% more in terms of labour. However, the advantage is in lifespan and durability. Clay tiles are fireproof, roofs built with clay or concrete tile in mind have stronger joists (the most commonly overlooked extra cost) so while they shed snow better, they also stand up better to the weight of snow from big storms. Typically, clay or concrete tile has twice the lifespan of asphalt.
However; the parents point wasn't that asphalt and clay are comparable. It was that PV shingle systems are comparable to clay roofs and even then, he was only claiming they were comparable in upfront cost. (and I don't know if he is including the subsidies many areas offer in that comparison) With the PV shingle systems available now, a integrated PV system is about the same in labour and joist costs as asphalt shingle. PV shingles are about the same weight as 35 yr asphalt per m^2, but come in larger sections, much like some metal roof systems. The big catch is, although they cost roughly the same as clay or concrete tile, I am not completely convinced they offer the same durability and longevity. Current PV panels only have roughly a 20 to 25 year lifespan before the output drops too far. And all the systems I know of use a clear plastic layer, not glass as you see in the bigger stand alone systems. Because of that, I expect their fire resistance to be lower and for the plastic to yellow over time, accelerating the drop in output.
In order to do a proper comparison, you really need to sit down with a local professional installer and look at construction costs (with labour and material listed separately), applicable subsidies and tax breaks, expected PV output at your latitude and so on. It's my professional opinion that a PV shingle system makes good economic sense in far more builds than their are actually being used for.
Ajit Pai's home address is already known to the public, so this deliberate slow down of traffic could have and, I'd argue, should have occurred outside his own home. Slow down his commute to work unless he agrees to pay an extra toll on top of the gas, tire and municipal taxes he is paying to support road infrastructure. (but we must maintain our own integrity, if we manage to get him to cough up money, those funds in their entirety should be handed over to the local city works department.
Second, he is a lawyer and most likely in good standing with the bar association of D.C. and/or Virginia. His actions certainly appear to be in direct conflict with the public interest, a critical ethical standard for any attorney working as a public servant. Write letters to the Bar Association protesting his unethical actions and request (not demand, the Bar is only a quasi public body being a mandatory but still private corporate entity in D.C. and many States) that he be called before their ethics board to explain and/or defend his actions. A casual review of the D.C. Bar rules of professional conduct mention several areas where Mr Pai may have violated his professional and fiduciary duties. But I'm not a barrister or solicitor, so I can't say with any degree of certainty.
I expect that cultured meat has the same potential to bring down the cost of meat. However, while I can't recall what it's called right now, there is an effect known in economics that making a product more efficient actually ends up using even more energy because more efficiency means cheaper cost to the consumer and that in turn drives more consumer use. Given the high status of meat, I expect cheap cultured meat may well wind up using even more resources than the current meat industry.
There is no sane, controlled way of conducting a bloody revolution. The killing of public officials out of hand is a rejection of law and order, not the imposition of it. Unless you can change the political character of the public, you'll only be substituting politically skilled people with people skilled at murder and mayhem.
What I think is needed is a major change (I won't argue with the term revolution) in how the public thinks about, and interacts with, the political system in their country. Democracy works better than any other system we know of, but works best when the public actually participates. Here are the problems I see with democracy as practised in the G7, but most strongly and clearly in the U.S.A.
1) Voter apathy : The sources I check don't agree on an exact number, but all would agree with the statement that less than 60% of those eligible to vote in the 2017 US presidential election actually did so. According to Wikipedia, there is over 235 Million eligible voters in the US, with a 60% voter turnout, that means over 93 Million people weren't involved.
2) There is a significant number of people who vote for a particular party, pretty much regardless of current platform or candidates. "Straight ticket voters" ensure that even weak candidates are going to have a significant voter base if they can win the parties nomination for a position. 10 US states make it very easy to vote straight ticket
3) Low voter turnout combined with straight ticket voting means that the more extreme voices on either end of the spectrum carry far more weight in politics than the raw numbers would justify. It also means that a politician can court the more extreme factions fairly safely without risking alienating their core voter base. It is my personal, unsupported opinion that the more extreme factions on either end of the political spectrum are far less likely to engage in even the minimal thought that your average voter does in choosing candidates. As long as a politician says the right things (dog whistling and rabble rousing) he or she can get away with behaviour in office that is totally different from their campaign platform. 4) Those three factors together mean that the voters, regardless of faction, do not have as much influence on the actions of the elected official as they should. That in turn means it is easier for lobbyists to influence, or even control what bills the official submits and what that official votes for. It is rare for a politician to be held accountable for going against his constituents interests. Most of the time they are only subject to repercussions if they get involved in some scandal that touches on morality and even then, often only if that scandal occurs in an election year. Being a dirty politician or puppet of the lobbyists is not a problem because for those with the deep pockets funding campaigns and the top people who control a party are used to that, it's business as usual. Cheating on your wife, being caught in a gay and/or underage sex scandal though is political death.
Bottomline; I believe the voting public needs to be a) better informed b) pay attention to, and remember a politicians actions while in office and hole them accountable at the next election and c) be more willing to vote based on the individual candidate and issue rather than party lines.
*problem is, world leaders, elected officials and the like aren't supposed to be entertaining, they're supposed to be competent. Picking a leader on the basis of who might provide the most lulz strikes me as a Bad Thing.
My personal criticism of GIMP is that even some basic stuff is ever so slightly different than how Photoshop does it. Just different enough to avoid copyright infringement is also different enough that many entry level user tutorials don't work and comparable versions of specialized plugins just don't exist.
From the summary, it sounds like they are talking about easy access to cheap or even free federal land on which to locate and cash subsidies to cover the costs of expanding and enhancing coverage. How many of us here think the cash will get paid, but the work will never get done? (beyond perhaps a mere token effort)
Have these deliberately crafted backdoors ever had much legitimate use? Bear in mind I'm not talking about devices that go into a special access mode when physical buttons are pressed. (like some printers and copiers IIRC). I understand the reasoning that it gives a simple way for the call centre support folks to gain access to their companies devices so they can reset the machine. But as far as I know, this capability is never given to the call centre staff, not even at the tier 2 or higher levels. And I don't think it can be justified from a pre-release unit testing POV either, since the same function could be provided by switching a jumper, enabling a wire trace or plugging into a serial port inside the device, all methods easy enough to disable when the device goes into full production. (and all require physical access to the device anyway, so the security risk is minimal)
I used to work in a call centre, providing support for a US Internet provider. For DOCSIS 2.0 and higher modems, there are some things the support staff could do remotely, but all of them required knowing the serial # for the device. In most markets, that info was not found in the customers file, we had to ask the customer to read it to us from a label on the bottom or back of the modem. Entering the serial number in a tool we had led to a query against the ISP database and provided the MAC and from there we could perform a subset of functions. Anything major though required it go to depot where a technician could connect to the serial port inside the modem case. I see no reason why the same strategy couldn't be used for routers, printers et al.
I think what you're talking about is Boehm's curve. Got a link to that ARM chart you mentioned?
Air spring suspensions? Many light trucks have this already as an option, sometimes found in conjunction with the tow package or upfitters package.
Electric power points? Powerpoints supplying AC in line voltages and amperages have been available for decades, originally as an aftermarket for work trucks, but now even some mini vans have them. (Though a minivan 110VAC port is probably limited to under 10 amps, so running power tools would be asking to much of it) Hell, I used to drive a Dodge truck that had a welding generator installed on the engine like a bigger auxiliary alternator. That was a dealership option, not factory though IIRC.
Interchangeable beds? Again, already done in the aftermarket, with two basic approached: one is a winch and rollers that pulls the bed up onto a tilting frame. The other uses a travelling hook and arm like some dumpster trucks use. Both seem to raise the CG of the truck appreciably. Having an option that didn't do that would be a big improvement for that market segment, but not really a game changer IMHO.
Now, putting all of the above into a factory stock truck aimed at the work truck demographic would be a game changer, but my feeling is that Tesla wouldn't try to do all of these things at once. Things like the interchangeable beds would pretty much require a body on frame design, but doing so throws away the weight advantages of unibody. On the other hand the Honda Ridgeline and Chevrolet Avalanche design teams can tell you how hard it is to get a unibody pickup rigid enough. Body on frame pick-ups are designed to have a certain amount of torsion in the frame when moving over rough terrain whereas a classic unibody would have to have a soft suspension to handle it and soft suspensions and work loads don't mix well.
oh, I agree that an electric truck might not be able to match many of the specs typical trucks have. I can't see an electric (current tech) pick-up up-fitted to be a tow truck for example. But, to be fair, there are a sizeable number of truck owners out there who never come near the edges of their trucks performance envelope. As we've seen with the cars and semi, an electric truck could absolutely boast better torque and better 0-60 times while being able to supply enough range to satisfy a significant fraction of the market for each vehicle class. I'm one of those people who would drive a truck and rarely make use of its towing and hauling capacity. (I need the room, the seating angle is more favourable to arthritic joints and I just like having a truck for those rare occasions I do need the capacity)
Since then, a company called Bollinger has come up with an all electric SUV (that is really reminiscent of old Land Rovers or maybe a LEGO version of a Jeep). Jalopnik had a good article on it with a focus on the "front trunk" Something like that in a pickup truck could very well be a game changer and since Bollinger isn't nearly as well known as Tesla, Elon's outfit could easily garner credit for the invention in the public perception.
Plus, geology is a much wider used and understood term. If I say I am working in the field of geology specializing in the mineral chemistry of Mercury, your average layman will understand me, but the term Hermeology might cause confusion.
I think the problem in your examples, as in most cases, as that people in authority tend to conflate dissent as an attack on their authority and that any attack on their authority is also an attack against the nation. The problem becomes even worse and harder to combat when the dissent conflicts with the authority figures personal convictions.
I remember a video that was going around the UFO community that had them all in a flap. It was a hourglass shaped object, seen hovering and darting around in a vertical posture in dusk conditions around Buenos Aires or something like that. The UFO nuts were saying that there was no such aircraft and it moved too fast to be of human manufacturer. I recognized it though. It was a CL-227 Sentinel UAV. The UFO nuts didn't notice the co-axial rotors around it's waist and misjudged how far away it was, leading them to over-estimate how fast it was moving. As far as I was concerned, the only interesting bit was that I didn't know that any South American nations even had any of them. My training identified them as being Canadian and only in use by NATO members. This is exactly the sort of thing I'd expect the US Air Force to investigate. People see funny lights or objects in the sky, the Air Force needs to find out if it's a mistaken report, a legitimate but unrecognised aircraft, or just possibly another group sending drones into US airspace for intelligence gathering.