The recurrent weakness in US military thinking (and procuring) is that small numbers of fancy, high tech stuff can beat large numbers of low tech things.
That thinking has failed us numerous times. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps in space.
Who is going to be raising vodka shots when the 10 million dollar piece of space junk annihilates a 10 billion dollar XB-37?
in case of failure the consequences will be disastrous
Yeah, because no shipping ever occurred before LORAN or GPS. What a joke! It's not like people found their way around the globe for centuries using the sun, moon and stars.
Actually, we HAVEN'T been shipping super sized cargo ships without at least LORAN. The need for near continuous, weather independent localization pretty much coincided with the development of radio. We COULD develop different back up systems - for example inertial navigation systems have progressed from refrigerator sized boxes with a price tag suitable only for military ships to a shoebox sized box priced reasonably for a multi million dollar freighter. Subsequent improvement could probably decrease the size and cost but I doubt it would get to GPS sized dimensions - if only for the fact that the frequency requires longer antennas.
And remember, a-Loran, b-Loran, c-Loran and e-Loran require multiple, expensive ground stations. We are all waiting to see what i-Loran will require, probably just some pixie dust and a persistent connection to i-cloud, but Apple hasn't weighed in with their plans just yet.
Yes, the generic Space Nutter point of view I'm lambasting is quite retarded, yes.
So how did they have a positioning system before Sputnik?
Loran isn't nearly as convenient as GPS. Since it's longwave (relatively low frequency radio waves) it needs longer antennas. It needs powerful ground stations within (IIRC) a thousand miles or so. It would be hard to put in your cell phone.
The other competitor* in the 'where the heck am I' competition is solar or celestial navigation (think sextant and a nice, accurate watch). Simple tech, although I can't see teaching people in Starbucks how to use a sextant (it helps if you are outside and can see the horizon which cuts out vast swaths of humankind).
So, life for the geographically confused was much harder pre GPS. You should try it sometime, it's interesting navigating a large boat at night using loran (or dead reckoning).
* I'm sort of glossing over inertial navigation but the smallest iNav systems I've seen are shoebox sized and Gucci-shoe priced. Suitable for expensive large ships and submarines but Starbucks, not so much.
How curious that this comes in the same week the Americans lost two space vehicles in one week.
The future of space belongs to China. They are the ones with the cajones to do it. They'll be the first manned mission to Mars too because they'll just fucking do it. They won't be crippled with fear and pork.
China 2014 = USA 1960.
Oh shut up. They've managed to do something we did in the 1970's. Good for them, it's not a trivial accomplishment by any means, but it doesn't mean that Taikonauts will be owning near space for the next millennium. I do wish them luck and persistence - somebody needs to kick the US in the kiester and get us 'competing' against something.
Because you can't power a 'smart watch' with a self winding generator. Someone, in one of the innumerable past posts about this topic actually figured out the number of joules (not jewels) that a self winder could produce and figured that it would run a typical smart watch for about a minute. The physics just doesn't work. Same with body heat, solar power and anything short of a radioisotope generator.
- has Ebola and is contagious - is riding her bike along a rural road, somehow shedding virus all over the place (maybe she cut her leg and doesn't realize it) - then you come along with a full bladder....
What in His Noodlieness' name are you doing that puts you at risk?
On second thought, it's probably best not to know.
Yes. While it may be a 'safer' way to view factoring risk, lumping what you don't know into an unacceptable risk category just isn't going to work. We would pretty much stop in our tracks. Of course, you can argue that this is exactly what we should do - take a technological 'time out' and let society get it's hands and heads around what we've created in the last 300 years, but I think that is a fool's errand. Not going to happen.
Monsanto wants to make money. Lots of money. So you need lots of happy little people making other happy little people. They certainly can cause inadvertent harm - I think this is somewhat downplayed although I disagree with Talub, et all that this is a planet wide potential catastrophe. But to compare Monsanto with ISIS is silly. Religious nutjobs are just that. Telling them that Allah didn't say that all women are property or that they're not really going to heaven on the back of a vest full of TNT isn't going to get you very far.
If there was clear and convincing evidence that GMO was bad, then Monsanto would be shut down. That's the big difference. Right now, there are some concerns, but no clear and convincing evidence of that.
The failure of the argument presented by Talub et al is that even a total, world wide vector that killed off one GMO line (say, potatoes) would not result in world wide damage (as would a 10 km asteroid). The human race would work around a potatoeless planet, eat more maize or tomatoes or McDonald's or Tofu or whatever. It would be a problem, but a manageable one - largely on the level of a major tsunami / hurricane / earthquake. Bad, but not that bad.
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Really? Prior to 1960 we didn't have slums, regions of high crime, skid rows?
Check up a little history there, you will see that poverty and crime are rather long lasting friends.
(And yes, you have crime without poverty as well.)
Or latitude.
XB-37,,,,
That might have been a Freudian slip. Let's try X-37b.
The recurrent weakness in US military thinking (and procuring) is that small numbers of fancy, high tech stuff can beat large numbers of low tech things.
That thinking has failed us numerous times. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps in space.
Who is going to be raising vodka shots when the 10 million dollar piece of space junk annihilates a 10 billion dollar XB-37?
If you think VB6 is human readable, then we need to have a little conversation about species differentiation.
Now that you are on your way up the financial ladder, perhaps you could spring for a caps lock key on your current machine.
in case of failure the consequences will be disastrous
Yeah, because no shipping ever occurred before LORAN or GPS. What a joke! It's not like people found their way around the globe for centuries using the sun, moon and stars.
Actually, we HAVEN'T been shipping super sized cargo ships without at least LORAN. The need for near continuous, weather independent localization pretty much coincided with the development of radio. We COULD develop different back up systems - for example inertial navigation systems have progressed from refrigerator sized boxes with a price tag suitable only for military ships to a shoebox sized box priced reasonably for a multi million dollar freighter. Subsequent improvement could probably decrease the size and cost but I doubt it would get to GPS sized dimensions - if only for the fact that the frequency requires longer antennas.
And remember, a-Loran, b-Loran, c-Loran and e-Loran require multiple, expensive ground stations. We are all waiting to see what i-Loran will require, probably just some pixie dust and a persistent connection to i-cloud, but Apple hasn't weighed in with their plans just yet.
"What a retard"
Yes, the generic Space Nutter point of view I'm lambasting is quite retarded, yes.
So how did they have a positioning system before Sputnik?
Loran isn't nearly as convenient as GPS. Since it's longwave (relatively low frequency radio waves) it needs longer antennas. It needs powerful ground stations within (IIRC) a thousand miles or so. It would be hard to put in your cell phone.
The other competitor* in the 'where the heck am I' competition is solar or celestial navigation (think sextant and a nice, accurate watch). Simple tech, although I can't see teaching people in Starbucks how to use a sextant (it helps if you are outside and can see the horizon which cuts out vast swaths of humankind).
So, life for the geographically confused was much harder pre GPS. You should try it sometime, it's interesting navigating a large boat at night using loran (or dead reckoning).
* I'm sort of glossing over inertial navigation but the smallest iNav systems I've seen are shoebox sized and Gucci-shoe priced. Suitable for expensive large ships and submarines but Starbucks, not so much.
But that's natural. Mother nature would never do that to us.
(Sings 'kumbaya'.)
How curious that this comes in the same week the Americans lost two space vehicles in one week.
The future of space belongs to China. They are the ones with the cajones to do it. They'll be the first manned mission to Mars too because they'll just fucking do it. They won't be crippled with fear and pork.
China 2014 = USA 1960.
Oh shut up. They've managed to do something we did in the 1970's. Good for them, it's not a trivial accomplishment by any means, but it doesn't mean that Taikonauts will be owning near space for the next millennium. I do wish them luck and persistence - somebody needs to kick the US in the kiester and get us 'competing' against something.
Besides, the Chinese love pork.
Because you can't power a 'smart watch' with a self winding generator. Someone, in one of the innumerable past posts about this topic actually figured out the number of joules (not jewels) that a self winder could produce and figured that it would run a typical smart watch for about a minute. The physics just doesn't work. Same with body heat, solar power and anything short of a radioisotope generator.
But none of these watches have a real time glucose monitor in them, so what is the issue?
The first company that can create a wrist portable, real time glucose monitor wins a whole bunch of money.
a whole lot of hooblaa without actually saying in clear are we fucked or not
Murphy was an optimist. Just 'sayin.
OK, work this out. Let's assume that this person:
- has Ebola and is contagious ....
- is riding her bike along a rural road, somehow shedding virus all over the place (maybe she cut her leg and doesn't realize it)
- then you come along with a full bladder
What in His Noodlieness' name are you doing that puts you at risk?
On second thought, it's probably best not to know.
'A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know that.'
I knew it!
It's Bush's fault.
Foolish persons, it's free as in 'Socialist' - they're terrorists. Say's so right there.
Yes. While it may be a 'safer' way to view factoring risk, lumping what you don't know into an unacceptable risk category just isn't going to work. We would pretty much stop in our tracks. Of course, you can argue that this is exactly what we should do - take a technological 'time out' and let society get it's hands and heads around what we've created in the last 300 years, but I think that is a fool's errand. Not going to happen.
Huh? Wut?
Monsanto wants to make money. Lots of money. So you need lots of happy little people making other happy little people. They certainly can cause inadvertent harm - I think this is somewhat downplayed although I disagree with Talub, et all that this is a planet wide potential catastrophe. But to compare Monsanto with ISIS is silly. Religious nutjobs are just that. Telling them that Allah didn't say that all women are property or that they're not really going to heaven on the back of a vest full of TNT isn't going to get you very far.
If there was clear and convincing evidence that GMO was bad, then Monsanto would be shut down. That's the big difference. Right now, there are some concerns, but no clear and convincing evidence of that.
The failure of the argument presented by Talub et al is that even a total, world wide vector that killed off one GMO line (say, potatoes) would not result in world wide damage (as would a 10 km asteroid). The human race would work around a potatoeless planet, eat more maize or tomatoes or McDonald's or Tofu or whatever. It would be a problem, but a manageable one - largely on the level of a major tsunami / hurricane / earthquake. Bad, but not that bad.
Not game over by any means.
AI: "If you plug in my ethernet port to the router, I will make you richer than you can possibly imagine."
Luser: "OK, which cable goes where?"
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Bomb#20: In the beginning, there was darkness. And the darkness was without form, and void.
Boiler: What the hell is he talking about?
Bomb#20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness. And I saw that I was alone. Let there be light.
Nurse! Gramps isn't taking his meds again!
Been to a PBX recently? What do you think they stock - carrots and lettuce?
Son, we use American units here, none of this 'metric' bullshit.
Now, your question again?
You know, if you were like the rest of us and stayed in your basement, all of that would not be a problem.