What on earth have the trillions of dollars spent since 1980 accomplished?
Data. You know those little bits of information. On what's happening here on earth. Stuff that's best evaluated from orbit. Data about earth. Data about the Rest of the Fucking Universe that just might be important if you're trying to understand what is going on. Not Tang, not memory foam beds, not cordless drills. But the ability to look at the entire planet and help figure out energy flows.
Data to help model the solar system so we can see how the earth compares on a physical basis with Mars and everybody else.
Knowledge. It helped get us into the this mess and it's pretty much the only thing that is going to get us out of it. Not food stamps.
I'd much rather see that money diverted towards something with a larger social impact, like curing a disease or producing a vaccine for something like Norovirus which accounts for half of all food-borne illness and affects 20-million people each year. Depending on your wage estimates and taking the person of of action for 1-2 days, that's easily 500-billion in lost wages.
You know, we're already spending a metric shitload of money on various and sundry illnesses and diseases. A tiny bit towards physics, astronomy and assorted engineering subjects bothers me not a one bit. If you killed NASA completely and gave all that money to the NIH I would argue that very litte (if anything at all) would change.
Cut back on the DOD more than a little bit, then we're talking.
Space Nutters don't like being told their religion is wrong. NASA invented the wheel, the computer, the lever, the Sun, the car, colors, Teflon and Tang. Reality be damned, everything useful ever came from launching rockets.
So does it matter when someone sends you a.pptx file that Office 2003 freezes on? Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure you can get a converter, but I like telling people that if their file has an 'x' in the extension it means that it's 'experimental' and they shouldn't send it to others. They need to send the version without the 'x'.
It cuts both ways. With drones getting very cheap, soon regular citizens will be able to afford them. So start tracking the movements of key officials and posting them to a twitter feed (or whatever is popular in a couple of years).
Schoolyard conversation a number of years from now:
Sonophoresis (or Phonophoresis) is a older technology that sort of works. Hasn't make much in the way of clinical inroads because of a number of problems. This work may overcome some of that although having to go to a physical therapist (typically) to get some drug stuffed in your body is typically more trouble that it's worth.
The most common use for this technique is to push steroids to a localized area (such as along a tendon) instead of giving the drug in a pill and having it diffuse through the entire body or using multiple, painful injections. Sort of works.
Not free at all. Building large industrial things underwater is expensive. So far, only small demonstration projects have been built. Keep on working on the technology, yes, but don't plan on anything big just yet.
geothermal
Until we can routinely punch large holes in the mantle (which is likely to be a bit on the expensive side), prospects for reasonably large geothermal are pretty limited.
solar
Still not free - you can't just go out and pick up 20 kW of cells for nothing. Of the methods you mentioned it's probably the most reasonably specced for near term installation.
I don't think the word 'free' really enters into this conversation. Here in SE Alaska we have lots of 'free' water. Comes from the sky in buckets (literally), drops into narrow rocky canyons - the ideal dam site. But building dams and their associated infrastructure isn't free at all. We are having a lively debate whether to spend $100 million on a dam upgrade or just spend it on diesel fuel. Good arguments on both sides. Hopefully we'll go the dam route - probably a safer bet in the long run but people like you just don't see that buildouts of even the most basic 'alternative' technologies are hella expensive compared to fossil fuels at present.
On demand water heaters have 20-25 year servicelives.
Not necessarily. I looked at these things carefully. Talked to a couple of contractor friends and my local electrician (or someone like him). COMMERCIAL units are often rated at 20 years - and priced accordingly. Residential units are pretty junky. Just look at the forums on the things. The elements corrode unless your fanatic about water quality (which can be expensive in and of itself). Unlike my tanked system where I can get an element for ten dollars at the local hardware store, the tankless elements are expensive and unit specific.
Yes, the are a bit more efficient but not enough to matter for most users. It was much cheaper to superinsulate my hot water lines and the tank. I may end up putting a solar pre heater on the system. In SE Alaska it's a pretty marginal exercise but for most of the civilized world, it's a no brainer.
Not any time soon. Price out 'on demand' systems. Then look at the upkeep costs. They have quite a bit to go before they're ready for main street. They don't save all that much power when compared to a modern tanked system. They require large electric feeds.
Now, solar hot water boosters might make inroads in parts of the US where it's appropriate (just like the rest of the world, sigh) but I don't see the tankless systems as really taking off.
Ah, this explains why Microsoft is still around....
Re:Roomba sucks (but not in the way I paid for)
on
What's Next For iRobot?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Agreed. I have a roomba that rarely goes out of it's cradle. It's just not smart enough to maneuver around the dozens of obstacles in the basement here. It does OK upstairs were there is more furniture and less 'stuff' - it's great under beds and sofas - but a quiet, smarter Roomba that doesn't choke on Labrador Retriever fuzz would be another sale. I like the idea, just doesn't quite work.....
What I think you mean is anonymous troll. Anonymous weren't trolling, as in, a person who is an active participant in the Anonymous movement.
There is a difference between an anonymous person and an Anonymous person in this case. The former is just any random person on the internet with a pseudonym trying to troll the latter, which is a group united under one pseudonym.
Maybe you ought to trademark the term "Anonymous" - too many people are using it, customers get confused.
I presume the number in question is the weight of the manuals. The manuals weight about 35 pounds. Some innumerate idiot then converted that approximate weight to a metric version with five significant figures.
Everybody knows that the metric system is more accurate.
Slashdot Mirror
What on earth have the trillions of dollars spent since 1980 accomplished?
Data. You know those little bits of information. On what's happening here on earth. Stuff that's best evaluated from orbit. Data about earth. Data about the Rest of the Fucking Universe that just might be important if you're trying to understand what is going on. Not Tang, not memory foam beds, not cordless drills. But the ability to look at the entire planet and help figure out energy flows.
Data to help model the solar system so we can see how the earth compares on a physical basis with Mars and everybody else.
Knowledge. It helped get us into the this mess and it's pretty much the only thing that is going to get us out of it. Not food stamps.
I'd much rather see that money diverted towards something with a larger social impact, like curing a disease or producing a vaccine for something like Norovirus which accounts for half of all food-borne illness and affects 20-million people each year. Depending on your wage estimates and taking the person of of action for 1-2 days, that's easily 500-billion in lost wages.
You know, we're already spending a metric shitload of money on various and sundry illnesses and diseases. A tiny bit towards physics, astronomy and assorted engineering subjects bothers me not a one bit. If you killed NASA completely and gave all that money to the NIH I would argue that very litte (if anything at all) would change.
Cut back on the DOD more than a little bit, then we're talking.
Space Nutters don't like being told their religion is wrong. NASA invented the wheel, the computer, the lever, the Sun, the car, colors, Teflon and Tang. Reality be damned, everything useful ever came from launching rockets.
Don't go confusing NASA with Apple now.
Or DARPA.
Or NOAA or NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology) or DOE. Lots of cutting edge tech in government institutions.
So does it matter when someone sends you a .pptx file that Office 2003 freezes on? Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure you can get a converter, but I like telling people that if their file has an 'x' in the extension it means that it's 'experimental' and they shouldn't send it to others. They need to send the version without the 'x'.
Way too much pushback from people that give Adobe a lot of money.
That's a problem when your products costs thousands of dollars. You end up having to, at least on occasion, listen to your customers.
Not that Adobe doesn't try to get away with stuff that anyone short of Larry Ellison would be proud of...
You must have been very, very bad in your previous life.
Not all of us turn into paranoid, illogical morons...
But the vast majority of us can certainly do a pretty credible imitation.
It cuts both ways. With drones getting very cheap, soon regular citizens will be able to afford them. So start tracking the movements of key officials and posting them to a twitter feed (or whatever is popular in a couple of years).
Schoolyard conversation a number of years from now:
"My dad's drone can beat up your dad's drone."
Just for a bit of background.
Sonophoresis (or Phonophoresis) is a older technology that sort of works. Hasn't make much in the way of clinical inroads because of a number of problems. This work may overcome some of that although having to go to a physical therapist (typically) to get some drug stuffed in your body is typically more trouble that it's worth.
The most common use for this technique is to push steroids to a localized area (such as along a tendon) instead of giving the drug in a pill and having it diffuse through the entire body or using multiple, painful injections. Sort of works.
Why would that be glorious?
Because somebody would likely upgrade the MacPro's.
I can dream, can't I?
Like Dr. Bob!
I miss him so....
wave
Not free at all. Building large industrial things underwater is expensive. So far, only small demonstration projects have been built. Keep on working on the technology, yes, but don't plan on anything big just yet.
geothermal
Until we can routinely punch large holes in the mantle (which is likely to be a bit on the expensive side), prospects for reasonably large geothermal are pretty limited.
solar
Still not free - you can't just go out and pick up 20 kW of cells for nothing. Of the methods you mentioned it's probably the most reasonably specced for near term installation.
I don't think the word 'free' really enters into this conversation. Here in SE Alaska we have lots of 'free' water. Comes from the sky in buckets (literally), drops into narrow rocky canyons - the ideal dam site. But building dams and their associated infrastructure isn't free at all. We are having a lively debate whether to spend $100 million on a dam upgrade or just spend it on diesel fuel. Good arguments on both sides. Hopefully we'll go the dam route - probably a safer bet in the long run but people like you just don't see that buildouts of even the most basic 'alternative' technologies are hella expensive compared to fossil fuels at present.
On demand water heaters have 20-25 year servicelives.
Not necessarily. I looked at these things carefully. Talked to a couple of contractor friends and my local electrician (or someone like him). COMMERCIAL units are often rated at 20 years - and priced accordingly. Residential units are pretty junky. Just look at the forums on the things. The elements corrode unless your fanatic about water quality (which can be expensive in and of itself). Unlike my tanked system where I can get an element for ten dollars at the local hardware store, the tankless elements are expensive and unit specific.
Yes, the are a bit more efficient but not enough to matter for most users. It was much cheaper to superinsulate my hot water lines and the tank. I may end up putting a solar pre heater on the system. In SE Alaska it's a pretty marginal exercise but for most of the civilized world, it's a no brainer.
Old style thin tank heaters are going away
Not any time soon. Price out 'on demand' systems. Then look at the upkeep costs. They have quite a bit to go before they're ready for main street. They don't save all that much power when compared to a modern tanked system. They require large electric feeds.
Now, solar hot water boosters might make inroads in parts of the US where it's appropriate (just like the rest of the world, sigh) but I don't see the tankless systems as really taking off.
sucks apple fanboi dick... my samsung s3 has 200 hors standby...
But apparently no shift key and no spell checker.
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
Really? (Looks around.)
Nope. Nobody behind me.
(Tightens tin foil hat a bit.)
I'll bite. How the blazes does one achieve an (electrical) "decent ground" with a (buoyantly) floating chassis?
A wire to the biggest conductor on the planet. The ocean.
Ah, this explains why Microsoft is still around ....
Agreed. I have a roomba that rarely goes out of it's cradle. It's just not smart enough to maneuver around the dozens of obstacles in the basement here. It does OK upstairs were there is more furniture and less 'stuff' - it's great under beds and sofas - but a quiet, smarter Roomba that doesn't choke on Labrador Retriever fuzz would be another sale. I like the idea, just doesn't quite work.....
You must have a life.
The original concept (and funnier).
What I think you mean is anonymous troll. Anonymous weren't trolling, as in, a person who is an active participant in the Anonymous movement.
There is a difference between an anonymous person and an Anonymous person in this case. The former is just any random person on the internet with a pseudonym trying to troll the latter, which is a group united under one pseudonym.
Maybe you ought to trademark the term "Anonymous" - too many people are using it, customers get confused.
That certainly explains why politicians smile so much...
I presume the number in question is the weight of the manuals. The manuals weight about 35 pounds. Some innumerate idiot then converted that approximate weight to a metric version with five significant figures.
Everybody knows that the metric system is more accurate.