You're forgetting that this isn't a technical issue. It's a political one. Yeah, there are going to be electronic ID cards - probably a half dozen non interoperable ones. You can spend a couple of minutes fiddling with this app or another -- which will likely require four different versions of both major mobile phone operating systems. Or you can just whip out the little plastic card and be done with it.
Maybe in a decade or so, but for the near future, no. Likewise the four other ID cards I have to carry - two of them US government, one state government and one local government. The chance of them getting their act together to allow some sort of electronic entry is near zero. I would be nice, I will grant you that, but it's unlikely to happen.
Or if it does, then one of the US government departments will require a Google solution, the other Apple and Alaska will roll it's own totally weird system using Xerox as a vendor which means it will be delayed for five years and buggy the next five, so you'll still need the physical card.
Because a lot of folks are hoping that there is somebody/thing out there that's smarter than we are. These supreme beings / aliens / Progenitors or someone very much like them will one day wander by and get us out of the intractable mess we've seemed to create for ourselves.
The logical problem with this is just that if we came from 'them', 'they' might be just as screwed up as we are.
OK, if we find a hypervelocity star and we do spectrographic analysis, etc - that can help us determine if our galaxy is similar or different from others. That's obviously neat and important.
The bit of 'spreading life' doesn't make sense. Are these stars dragging a solar system (which might have living organisms) around with them? Is there some postulate that life comes from giant nuclear fusion balls?
I live in Alaska. It snows quite a bit. It is not at all obvious that the average driver has any more training or skill in slick road driving than, say, someone from South Florida. We just have more four wheel drive pickups with bald tires. Which makes for generic entertainment, especially around moose.
While soccer (football to the rest of the world) probably has less of a problem, it is still a potentially serious issue. Better suggest golf next time. Or Dungeon and Dragons.
I seem to have slipped in keeping up with science from the standpoint of an educated layman and a big reason is my distaste for what Scientific American has become. What are some recommendations for websites that have the scientific quality of the "old" Scientific American? Thanks!
It'll cost you, but subscriptions for both Science and Nature should keep you rather busy for the rest of your lifetime.
I read recently that the half life of DNA is a few hundred years. No matter how many flies trapped in amber we find, we will never be able to recover enough dinosaur DNA to make Jurassic Park happen.
Not quite. Half life is really not a particularly useful descriptor of how DNA degrades since it is not an 'all or nothing' sort of thing. We're getting better at sequencing DNA from organism tens of thousands of years old. Probably won't be able to get much beyond that, but it is possible than an exceptionally well preserved specimen could be found pushing the date back.
Slippery slope. Pay the ambulance drivers. Then pay the nurses, docs, staff, pay for the building, pay for water treatment plant, pay for security to keep the water treatment plane from being disassembled. Pretty soon, you've taken over the country.
I think most Americans and Europeans have little idea how bad the situation is vis-a-vis a basic, functional government. Until you have one, you can't really do much systematically. Should we take over Western Africa? Probably - if we want the situation to improve. But that is a huge commitment in time and money and has a lot of sticky morality issues attached.
What is the telescope going to use for bandwidth? I'm presuming they aren't storing the data on hard drives and jeeping them around the compound and out to where the data is analyzed (insert joke about bandwidth of a Land Rover full of hard drives here). Are they going to push the data up by satellite? Seems like they could piggyback on whatever the telescope is using.
Yes, the FAA is going to use this to drum up business. Never let a crisis go to waste. But it's still a problem. And the likelihood of a Phantom sized drone actually crashing a commercial jet is low, but nothing on the order of non zero. Airports spend millions of dollars a year on bird mitigation despite the fact that most strikes are just fatal to the bird.
Some strikes hit the engines which, at the very least, cause the plane to be pulled from service and inspected. Sometimes they wipe out both engines. Oops. A bigger concern for me, as someone who spends a lot of time in little planes, is said Phantom womping into the leading edge of a Cessna or Beaver - planes that aren't constructed a whole lot heavier than the drone. That could ruin your day.
So yes, it's being hyped but the underlying problem is real. It would, however, be nice if the FAA actually did something about it. However, the FAA is a government entity for whom speed is an unknown quality. They probably think they're going balls-to-the-wall here and both interns working on the problem haven't been able to go to lunch for weeks.
(An as aside, a pilot friend of mine thinks the answer to this issue is to arm the planes. A small gatling type gun with say, hard plastic bullets would take down any drone in existence. Think of the fun! You could hook them to an airliner's video feed and charge passengers to look out and possibly shoot drones and birds and UFOs. Better than an in flight magazine any day.)
Well, lots of people since DNA is pretty easy to destroy using a bunsen burner. That said, this isn't all that impressive. Lots of handwaving and little actual instrumentation (did the temperature actually get to 1000 degrees near that screw head or was it protected). It does point out that even naked DNA on something like a meteorite could well survive the entire trip down in a viable conformation.
That opens lots of possibilities such as panspermia.
Slashdot Mirror
You're forgetting that this isn't a technical issue. It's a political one. Yeah, there are going to be electronic ID cards - probably a half dozen non interoperable ones. You can spend a couple of minutes fiddling with this app or another -- which will likely require four different versions of both major mobile phone operating systems. Or you can just whip out the little plastic card and be done with it.
Maybe in a decade or so, but for the near future, no. Likewise the four other ID cards I have to carry - two of them US government, one state government and one local government. The chance of them getting their act together to allow some sort of electronic entry is near zero. I would be nice, I will grant you that, but it's unlikely to happen.
Or if it does, then one of the US government departments will require a Google solution, the other Apple and Alaska will roll it's own totally weird system using Xerox as a vendor which means it will be delayed for five years and buggy the next five, so you'll still need the physical card.
I'm not cynical. Not at all.
Hmm. We need something to stop the camera from falling to the ground.... A wall perhaps. A table. A chair, or perhaps a rock.
If you want to get serious you can always use a tripod but that's for geeky people. I guess that these things don't exist in the selfie world.
Because a lot of folks are hoping that there is somebody/thing out there that's smarter than we are. These supreme beings / aliens / Progenitors or someone very much like them will one day wander by and get us out of the intractable mess we've seemed to create for ourselves.
The logical problem with this is just that if we came from 'them', 'they' might be just as screwed up as we are.
And that's not a very comforting thought.
If that's what it takes to make me 'happy', thanks - but I'll stick with the peyote.
OK, if we find a hypervelocity star and we do spectrographic analysis, etc - that can help us determine if our galaxy is similar or different from others. That's obviously neat and important.
The bit of 'spreading life' doesn't make sense. Are these stars dragging a solar system (which might have living organisms) around with them? Is there some postulate that life comes from giant nuclear fusion balls?
Aliens?
If deer crossings turn out to be a problem then they can have slower night time speed limits.
Or more venison.
Your obviously not American. There's that thing on the right, typically referred to as a 'shoulder'. Handy for many uses. Picnics, passing, whatever.
I live in Alaska. It snows quite a bit. It is not at all obvious that the average driver has any more training or skill in slick road driving than, say, someone from South Florida. We just have more four wheel drive pickups with bald tires. Which makes for generic entertainment, especially around moose.
While soccer (football to the rest of the world) probably has less of a problem, it is still a potentially serious issue. Better suggest golf next time. Or Dungeon and Dragons.
He said human.
I seem to have slipped in keeping up with science from the standpoint of an educated layman and a big reason is my distaste for what Scientific American has become. What are some recommendations for websites that have the scientific quality of the "old" Scientific American? Thanks!
It'll cost you, but subscriptions for both Science and Nature should keep you rather busy for the rest of your lifetime.
I read recently that the half life of DNA is a few hundred years. No matter how many flies trapped in amber we find, we will never be able to recover enough dinosaur DNA to make Jurassic Park happen.
Not quite. Half life is really not a particularly useful descriptor of how DNA degrades since it is not an 'all or nothing' sort of thing. We're getting better at sequencing DNA from organism tens of thousands of years old. Probably won't be able to get much beyond that, but it is possible than an exceptionally well preserved specimen could be found pushing the date back.
Slippery slope. Pay the ambulance drivers. Then pay the nurses, docs, staff, pay for the building, pay for water treatment plant, pay for security to keep the water treatment plane from being disassembled. Pretty soon, you've taken over the country.
I think most Americans and Europeans have little idea how bad the situation is vis-a-vis a basic, functional government. Until you have one, you can't really do much systematically. Should we take over Western Africa? Probably - if we want the situation to improve. But that is a huge commitment in time and money and has a lot of sticky morality issues attached.
Well yes, both teams of lawyers will work to ensure that justice is done. Justice to their various bank accounts, that is.
Of course not. But it's a lot of fun to think about. PewPewPew!
Wait. What?
What is the telescope going to use for bandwidth? I'm presuming they aren't storing the data on hard drives and jeeping them around the compound and out to where the data is analyzed (insert joke about bandwidth of a Land Rover full of hard drives here). Are they going to push the data up by satellite? Seems like they could piggyback on whatever the telescope is using.
KORBEN
(sighs)
I don't need one.
FINGER (V.O.)
You forgetting who sat next to you for
a thousand missions.
I know how you drive.
KORBEN
Finger! I'm driving a cab now, not a
space fighter!!
FINGER (V.O.)
How many points you got left on your
license?
KORBEN
(lying)
Uh... at least fifty.
FINGER (V.O.)
In your dreams! See you tonight!
Yes, the FAA is going to use this to drum up business. Never let a crisis go to waste. But it's still a problem. And the likelihood of a Phantom sized drone actually crashing a commercial jet is low, but nothing on the order of non zero. Airports spend millions of dollars a year on bird mitigation despite the fact that most strikes are just fatal to the bird.
Some strikes hit the engines which, at the very least, cause the plane to be pulled from service and inspected. Sometimes they wipe out both engines. Oops. A bigger concern for me, as someone who spends a lot of time in little planes, is said Phantom womping into the leading edge of a Cessna or Beaver - planes that aren't constructed a whole lot heavier than the drone. That could ruin your day.
So yes, it's being hyped but the underlying problem is real. It would, however, be nice if the FAA actually did something about it. However, the FAA is a government entity for whom speed is an unknown quality. They probably think they're going balls-to-the-wall here and both interns working on the problem haven't been able to go to lunch for weeks.
(An as aside, a pilot friend of mine thinks the answer to this issue is to arm the planes. A small gatling type gun with say, hard plastic bullets would take down any drone in existence. Think of the fun! You could hook them to an airliner's video feed and charge passengers to look out and possibly shoot drones and birds and UFOs. Better than an in flight magazine any day.)
Them's fightin' words ....
It's just a load of bulls....[carrier lost]
It can't be 'the Internet of things' if you are still on dial up.
Indeed. Every single bit of technology ever devised has been used to kill people. It's what we do.
Unless you're writing cheesy made-for-TV movies, nothing to see here. Move along.
Well, lots of people since DNA is pretty easy to destroy using a bunsen burner. That said, this isn't all that impressive. Lots of handwaving and little actual instrumentation (did the temperature actually get to 1000 degrees near that screw head or was it protected). It does point out that even naked DNA on something like a meteorite could well survive the entire trip down in a viable conformation.
That opens lots of possibilities such as panspermia.
Maybe they can keep birds away, but frogs, not so much.
This news story is as boring as the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey..
I believe you are on the wrong web site for your personal proclivities. I suggest, perhaps, e! (or maybe Vogue, Elle or just the National Enquirer).