This is most likely the approach intended and these plants are already sterile (that term you were looking for).
I personally think that we should lock the humanitarians and the environmentalists in a little room and whoever comes out gets to decide whether the plants are sterile or fertile. If they're fertile then you've got a useful tool for any poor villager to use to check his own fields. Even sowing by hand, w/ a 3-4 week development time, he could start from a known-safe area and at least mark the dangerous areas of his field and get back to growing/harvesting food for his family. Richer poor villagers could follow a herd of livestock through the field in order to trade a few animals for a quicker reclamation of the field. (Quicker because you can segment the field and work on more edges.)
Of course, this is only the first half of a 2 part problem. The second part is how to render safe the landmines, once you know where they are? I personally vote to use spammers and virus writers to dig out and detonate the devices. Each incident of violation (spam recieved/computer infected) requires the removal of 1 mine. I'm a civilized person, so airfare, food and lodging would be provided... health insurance may be problematic, however.
Why is that when someone outside of Slashdots demographic gets busted crossing MPAA/RIAA/BSA there is a groundswell of 'Burn them at the stake' amongst the Slashdot populace? It seems like a more consistent approach would be 'don't bother them, don't bother us'? Maybe it's my excessive naivete and sense of fairplay and consistency getting my cross-threaded w/ the status quo again...
ok... if Gandalf can't touch the Ring to throw it into the volcano... Fly over w/ [Bilbo|Frodo|expendible hobbit of the day] carrying the Ring and toss them in, Ring and all...
Hmmm... Allow me to clarify my position. I believe it is possible to simulate just about anything, assuming infinite resources & knowlege. However, just because a simulation has been written doesn't mean that it's accurate and just because it hasn't been verified doesn't mean that it's not accurate. My point is that until the simulation/prediction has been verified then we just don't know and should behave accordingly.
I believe that the original poster was trying to argue that his hypothesis/theory was embodied in the simulation and the way to verify it was by observing the universe for the proportion of wet & rocky worlds.
Please reread the post I was replying to... he was implying that we did not need to verify the results because we've never seen an electron but we know that they exist.
hmmm... You're absolutely right. If you can't observe the phenomenon then the simulation is both simple and intrinsically correct and should be accepted as Holy Writ(tm).
Seriously, the law of gravity is a model that has been observed and checked against experimental results. Just because it is accepted now, doesn't mean that it didn't go through the scientific process. Remedial Link
Notice how there is a big process between observation and 'Scientific Theory' that involves making a hypothesis (ie I think that this formula will accurately model this phenomenon.)? A computer model must go through the same verification and in this case that verification will involve looking deeply into the universe and carefully counting wet, rocky planets. Doing it this way isn't easy, but, as you so insightfully pointed out, it's really really hard to directly observe the creation of our solar system.
Oh, yeah... if you think it's 'pretty easy' to model the creation of the solar system then give these guys a call. I'm positive they would love to hear from you.
I take it from your post that you are unfamiliar with the computing term 'GIGO'?
The only way to determine if the model is accurate is to check it against reality. All computer simulation for engineering and scientific work must be checked against experimental results to be validated before it is trusted as a predictive tool. Even after this verification, there are cases where it will be inaccurate and the educated and experienced user needs to be constantly aware of those limitations.
However, if you believe everything that you read on a computer or is a result of a computer simulation, please contact me and I will sell you my Wall Street Stock Market Simulator, Guaranteed to predict future performance and make you unimaginably wealthy!!!
The solution to this problem is to remove some of that money from circulation. The most straight forward way would be to make available at auction a few unique expendable items. These items may need to be powerful enough to unbalance other parts of the game, but with limited uses (maybe even just one) this should correct itself rather quickly. If the item is powerful enough it may never be used because some enterprising soul will see it as an 'investment' to be sold on EBay when his real-world life needs a capital infusion.
Actually, you've got it backwards. It is impossible to prove something safe. In order to do so you have to prove that it has no dangerous properties whatsoever. The more useful test is to prove it dangerous. This is like our legal system, the decision is not innocent/not innocent(safe/not safe), it's guilty/not guilty (dangerous/not dangerous).
There is no product or substance that is 'safe'. Water drowns, oxygen burns (or makes other things burn), helium... that should be safe, it just makes your voice high and squeaky... unless there is too much of it and it displaces the oxygen (oops).
Everything has problems and causes risks, we have to avaluate those risks and mitigate them as best we can. We cannot ignore every advancement because it may be dangerous.
No, I don't jump into a pool of water w/o knowing how deep the pool is. But by the same token, once I've done some basic investigation, I don't sit on the shore and worry about sharks and alligators and piranha and bacteria and any number of other hazards that/may/ be in there. You can always find an excuse to not do something and you can never have enough knowledge or data to prove that nothing bad will ever happen.
First things, last... You seem to think that because companies are willing to invest in a technology that they are irresponsible. In todays legal climate of no personal responsibility, do you really believe that these companies would release anything that they believed would get them sued? Your argument that because this is new, it needs to be regulated before it can be developed has more than a whiff of Luddite-ism. When has regulation ever advanced anything? How can you regulate something that doesn't exist, other than to say 'Thou Shalt Not'?
Your arguments are the very essence of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
While I agree that what you're saying sounds good, I disagree with it in actual practice. The only products that are engineered to withstand the conceivable worst-case events are Radio Thermal Generators which use radioactive material to provide electricity to satellites. For instance, do you think your car, or anyones, is designed to keep you alive in the worst case collision? Think tanker truck full of gasoline t-boning you at 80mph... Doesn't seem very survivable to me, but that is a low probability event. Cars and everything else are designed to handle what is probable so long as it is economically feasible to do so. A vehicle could be designed to handle the above hypothetical, but I doubt that any of us could afford one.
No, I didn't miss it. What do you suppose the mortality rate is for injecting water into the lungs? And as far as asbestos is concerned... it causes lung cancer and that takes time. I would have been more concerned if this guy studied pesticides and decided that nanotubes were effective/dangerous compared to those. Any number of things can happen by injecting/inserting large amounts of foriegn substances into the body. Regardless of whether they are 'toxic'.
The surest way to stifle innovation is to demand that the innovator prove that the invention will cause no harm. As we all know, proving a negative is a daunting task and 'harm' is a nebulous concept. All articles like this do is spread FUD. Fear of the unknown, Uncertainty about the future, and doubt in the benefits of progress.
Yeah, Isn't the government silly!!! Imagine wanting to test something that will 'probably work.' It's not like there are lives on the line. Ya know, I'll be that wrapping the wing in duct tape would probalby work, too. Or maybe just get a can-o-cheez and spray it on the wing! Seriously, though, probably just doesn't cut it. You make your best effort to develop a solution that will work and then you damn well PROVE that it works in the expected situation, or actually any concievable situation! Overengineered, you say? Sure, unless you actually end up in that situation. I assume you wear your seatbelt in the car. They could have grabbed a 1/4" nylon rope and said 'That'll work!' But they didn't and you would have cried your eyes out if they had because if you get in an accident you don't want to leave a faceprint in the windshield? It's the same thing, except that most gov't projects don't get to take advantage of the economies of scale to spread the R&D cost over thousands or millions of nearly identical items. They pay once and it has to work, so that one item is expensive. It's just a fact of life.
yeah, 6 inches of clearance is all you need to deal with a big snowstorm... assuming you're willing to wait for all the roads to be plowed or for it to melt off. Otherwise a full-sized sport-ute w/ be rolling right by your high-centered station wagon. I've seen real SUV's high centered in snow, too. Just not nearly as often.
Read beyond the first page. On some tests it did twice as well. Particularly on the ProEngineer benchmark. If you've ever tried to spin a model and endured it herky-jerk it's way into position, you know how much a video card is really worth.
What you are saying sounds very good... but have you considered the fact that in order to detect 1 mercury atom in a swimming pool of water you will need to process the whole pool. The chance of finding that one atom in an eye dropper of water is basically nonexistant.
Slashdot Mirror
That's too bad... Mine is merely
This is most likely the approach intended and these plants are already sterile (that term you were looking for).
I personally think that we should lock the humanitarians and the environmentalists in a little room and whoever comes out gets to decide whether the plants are sterile or fertile. If they're fertile then you've got a useful tool for any poor villager to use to check his own fields. Even sowing by hand, w/ a 3-4 week development time, he could start from a known-safe area and at least mark the dangerous areas of his field and get back to growing/harvesting food for his family. Richer poor villagers could follow a herd of livestock through the field in order to trade a few animals for a quicker reclamation of the field. (Quicker because you can segment the field and work on more edges.)
Of course, this is only the first half of a 2 part problem. The second part is how to render safe the landmines, once you know where they are? I personally vote to use spammers and virus writers to dig out and detonate the devices. Each incident of violation (spam recieved/computer infected) requires the removal of 1 mine. I'm a civilized person, so airfare, food and lodging would be provided... health insurance may be problematic, however.
Why is that when someone outside of Slashdots demographic gets busted crossing MPAA/RIAA/BSA there is a groundswell of 'Burn them at the stake' amongst the Slashdot populace? It seems like a more consistent approach would be 'don't bother them, don't bother us'? Maybe it's my excessive naivete and sense of fairplay and consistency getting my cross-threaded w/ the status quo again...
Hmmm...
4 Armies/Races.. take over planets to establish galactic dominance...
Sounds familiar.
clicky linky
Sure he belongs here. He's 50 and counting both the girl in the 4th grade he had a crush on and Liv Tyler as Arwen...
Simple answer... They could pack a big enough flash.
ok... if Gandalf can't touch the Ring to throw it into the volcano... Fly over w/ [Bilbo|Frodo|expendible hobbit of the day] carrying the Ring and toss them in, Ring and all...
Hmmm... Allow me to clarify my position. I believe it is possible to simulate just about anything, assuming infinite resources & knowlege. However, just because a simulation has been written doesn't mean that it's accurate and just because it hasn't been verified doesn't mean that it's not accurate. My point is that until the simulation/prediction has been verified then we just don't know and should behave accordingly.
I believe that the original poster was trying to argue that his hypothesis/theory was embodied in the simulation and the way to verify it was by observing the universe for the proportion of wet & rocky worlds.
Please reread the post I was replying to... he was implying that we did not need to verify the results because we've never seen an electron but we know that they exist.
hmmm... You're absolutely right. If you can't observe the phenomenon then the simulation is both simple and intrinsically correct and should be accepted as Holy Writ(tm).
Seriously, the law of gravity is a model that has been observed and checked against experimental results. Just because it is accepted now, doesn't mean that it didn't go through the scientific process.
Remedial Link
Notice how there is a big process between observation and 'Scientific Theory' that involves making a hypothesis (ie I think that this formula will accurately model this phenomenon.)? A computer model must go through the same verification and in this case that verification will involve looking deeply into the universe and carefully counting wet, rocky planets. Doing it this way isn't easy, but, as you so insightfully pointed out, it's really really hard to directly observe the creation of our solar system.
Oh, yeah... if you think it's 'pretty easy' to model the creation of the solar system then give these guys a call. I'm positive they would love to hear from you.
I take it from your post that you are unfamiliar with the computing term 'GIGO'?
The only way to determine if the model is accurate is to check it against reality. All computer simulation for engineering and scientific work must be checked against experimental results to be validated before it is trusted as a predictive tool. Even after this verification, there are cases where it will be inaccurate and the educated and experienced user needs to be constantly aware of those limitations.
However, if you believe everything that you read on a computer or is a result of a computer simulation, please contact me and I will sell you my Wall Street Stock Market Simulator, Guaranteed to predict future performance and make you unimaginably wealthy!!!
Cheers
PS... GIGO = Garbage In, Garbage Out
The solution to this problem is to remove some of that money from circulation. The most straight forward way would be to make available at auction a few unique expendable items. These items may need to be powerful enough to unbalance other parts of the game, but with limited uses (maybe even just one) this should correct itself rather quickly. If the item is powerful enough it may never be used because some enterprising soul will see it as an 'investment' to be sold on EBay when his real-world life needs a capital infusion.
Joe
Yeah... but it's been in the biggest vacuum sealed container in the universe...
Actually, you've got it backwards. It is impossible to prove something safe. In order to do so you have to prove that it has no dangerous properties whatsoever. The more useful test is to prove it dangerous. This is like our legal system, the decision is not innocent/not innocent(safe/not safe), it's guilty/not guilty (dangerous/not dangerous).
There is no product or substance that is 'safe'. Water drowns, oxygen burns (or makes other things burn), helium... that should be safe, it just makes your voice high and squeaky... unless there is too much of it and it displaces the oxygen (oops).
Everything has problems and causes risks, we have to avaluate those risks and mitigate them as best we can. We cannot ignore every advancement because it may be dangerous.
Ok, Last things, first...
/may/ be in there. You can always find an excuse to not do something and you can never have enough knowledge or data to prove that nothing bad will ever happen.
No, I don't jump into a pool of water w/o knowing how deep the pool is. But by the same token, once I've done some basic investigation, I don't sit on the shore and worry about sharks and alligators and piranha and bacteria and any number of other hazards that
First things, last...
You seem to think that because companies are willing to invest in a technology that they are irresponsible. In todays legal climate of no personal responsibility, do you really believe that these companies would release anything that they believed would get them sued? Your argument that because this is new, it needs to be regulated before it can be developed has more than a whiff of Luddite-ism. When has regulation ever advanced anything? How can you regulate something that doesn't exist, other than to say 'Thou Shalt Not'?
Your arguments are the very essence of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
While I agree that what you're saying sounds good, I disagree with it in actual practice. The only products that are engineered to withstand the conceivable worst-case events are Radio Thermal Generators which use radioactive material to provide electricity to satellites. For instance, do you think your car, or anyones, is designed to keep you alive in the worst case collision? Think tanker truck full of gasoline t-boning you at 80mph... Doesn't seem very survivable to me, but that is a low probability event. Cars and everything else are designed to handle what is probable so long as it is economically feasible to do so. A vehicle could be designed to handle the above hypothetical, but I doubt that any of us could afford one.
No, I didn't miss it. What do you suppose the mortality rate is for injecting water into the lungs? And as far as asbestos is concerned... it causes lung cancer and that takes time. I would have been more concerned if this guy studied pesticides and decided that nanotubes were effective/dangerous compared to those. Any number of things can happen by injecting/inserting large amounts of foriegn substances into the body. Regardless of whether they are 'toxic'.
I say again... FUD.
The surest way to stifle innovation is to demand that the innovator prove that the invention will cause no harm. As we all know, proving a negative is a daunting task and 'harm' is a nebulous concept. All articles like this do is spread FUD. Fear of the unknown, Uncertainty about the future, and doubt in the benefits of progress.
Just a little bit of inaccuracy here...
Open office 1.1
SodiPodi 0.32
gnome 2.4
New Scientist
Yeah, Isn't the government silly!!! Imagine wanting to test something that will 'probably work.' It's not like there are lives on the line. Ya know, I'll be that wrapping the wing in duct tape would probalby work, too. Or maybe just get a can-o-cheez and spray it on the wing!
Seriously, though, probably just doesn't cut it. You make your best effort to develop a solution that will work and then you damn well PROVE that it works in the expected situation, or actually any concievable situation! Overengineered, you say? Sure, unless you actually end up in that situation. I assume you wear your seatbelt in the car. They could have grabbed a 1/4" nylon rope and said 'That'll work!' But they didn't and you would have cried your eyes out if they had because if you get in an accident you don't want to leave a faceprint in the windshield? It's the same thing, except that most gov't projects don't get to take advantage of the economies of scale to spread the R&D cost over thousands or millions of nearly identical items. They pay once and it has to work, so that one item is expensive. It's just a fact of life.
Does the phrase 'Big Ass Sky' ring any bells?
yeah, 6 inches of clearance is all you need to deal with a big snowstorm... assuming you're willing to wait for all the roads to be plowed or for it to melt off. Otherwise a full-sized sport-ute w/ be rolling right by your high-centered station wagon. I've seen real SUV's high centered in snow, too. Just not nearly as often.
Joe
Read beyond the first page. On some tests it did twice as well. Particularly on the ProEngineer benchmark. If you've ever tried to spin a model and endured it herky-jerk it's way into position, you know how much a video card is really worth.
Joe
What you are saying sounds very good... but have you considered the fact that in order to detect 1 mercury atom in a swimming pool of water you will need to process the whole pool. The chance of finding that one atom in an eye dropper of water is basically nonexistant.
Joe