I'd say it gives a whole new reason for the tinfoil hat. Keeps them from reading what's stored on your brain chip. Or reprogramming it. Or installing Windows on it.
I have the same experience all the time. I think of it as dropping a request in the chute, then moving on to something else while my subconscious chugs away in the background. Eventually the answer drops into your conscious mind without warning.
This technique is also useful if you are trying to recall something that you already know. If you have that annoying tip-of-the-tongue thing happening, switch problems and wait for your subconscious to retreive it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the article, and felt it hit the nail on the head on a number of issues. It's very useful to step back and look at the big picture and try to imagine where we are heading. This is truly Stuff that Matters.
That said, I feel disappointed at the apparent lack of interest among/. readers. While a story about the latest Microsoft faux pas might generate 600 or more comments, an article as articulate and thought-provoking as this has drawn, at time of writing, a paltry 40 or so. Seems we don't want to collaborate on collaboration.
My thanks to those of you that RTFA and take the time to compose your thoughts and share them with others. You are the ones who make putting up with all the "frist post"-ers worthwhile.
The garden part is what shows that this project is nothing but talk. I've seen studies that show it's cheaper, lighter and more reliable to pack the food/air/water for a person than to rely on a garden to do the work. And for a 3-year trip? A garden would only be efficient if you are going on a REALLY long trip, like one of those multi-generational ships proposed for interstellar travel.
I think the garden is marketing to the masses, who may not know about the Biosphere debacle but grasp quickly the theoretical concept behind it.
Maybe they should just make the TV show here on Earth and pretend it's in space, sort of like what they claimed the US did with the moon.
I would suggest that hydro power is not the best way to go for an off grid home power system. You really need high volume/high head water source to harvest any appreciable energy; from what you've described, there is no appreciable head (vertical drop) to the river near you. As well, as others have pointed out, building anything in the water entails a lot of bureaucratic red tape.
I would say that solar or wind power is more feasible for most people. Solar is cheap in maintenance costs but expensive to set up, and you really need a lot of panel area to hope to supply your needs. Wind power is cheaper up front, but more maintenance is required because of moving parts, and noise from the rotors can be annoying.
Either solution will require a battery bank to store power to use when the plant is not producing, plus a good inverter to supply consistent 120v 60Hz power. If all you are looking for is protection from outages, the battery bank with a generator may be ideal from a cost/benefit perspective. The payback time of most alternative energy projects is in excess of 50 years, so think carefully before you invest.
It's intrinsically wrong to punish other people for one person's crime. One idiot blazes through a bunch of traffic but everyone has to stop for his speed-induced red light? Aren't there enough causes of road rage already?
Oil prices went up because of the huge hit reserves take when you add a new, huge consumer, namely the US military. It's simple supply and demand.
As to WMDs in Iraq, surely you jest. This is just the way the Bush admin sold the war to the public, with the help of the news herd. If there were WMDs in Iraq, why didn't Hussein use them? If he had them and didn't use them, then why did we invade? The hypocritical use of WMDs as a justification for war is asinine. After all, we don't invade Israel when they break the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by developing their own nukes. We can't even admit they have nukes (a widely accepted fact) because our own laws forbid trade or aid with a country that breaks the NNPT.
I just find it ironic that every time a Texan sits in the White House, we have a war. Is it any coincidence that Haliburton (a company that Dick Cheney headed and still holds huge amounts of stock in) received billions in non-competitive contracts for rebuilding Iraq? And that they are cost-plus contracts, guaranteed to be profitable?
It's kind of sad that the US interferes with the natural market processes that would wean us off oil gradually rather than the cataclysmic reorganization we'll have when oil runs out. Ordinarily, the gradually increasing price of oil as it runs out would make alternatives more viable. By forcing the Middle East to sell oil cheaply at the barrel of a gun, the US prevents other energy production methods from taking off as they are too costly. Yet, if you include the "Defence" budget required to keep oil prices down, the total cost is quite high, not even accounting for the human cost.
The US seems to be like a spoiled child that wants all the remaining cheap energy to feed its ever-increasing needs. We need to use that energy to develop new methods of generating energy, not fueling 1 SUV for every 3 Americans, not to mention the immense, oil-swilling military.
I dread the day when the tap finally runs dry, which it must as oil is a finite, non-recyclable resource. What painful reorganizations will occur when we can only afford a tenth of the energy we used to consume?
From what I gather from the article, this device doesn't actually scan the content, but instead has a list of movies which it checks against. Movie on the list? Here's where the bad parts are, filter them out. Not on the list? Guess you're stuck with the fast forward button. I imagine some squeamish high moral type in Salt Lake City is forced to watch all the smut and flag the naughty bits.
Seriously, how effective is a 500 movie list? There must be 10,000 movies out there (that figure from the hip), does this machine help any with the others? The word "subscribers" appears in the article, makes me think that you have to pay for the updated naughty part database. How is such content delivered? How are people duped into buying this thing at Wal-Mart going to feel when they have to subscribe to the service AND pay an ISP to get more movies filtered?
Seems to me that the rating system on TV shows and movies are adequate if parents are paying attention. This seems aimed at those who let the TV babysit their kids, and it's just a security blanket for parents at that. Does anyone really think you can prevent today's technologically adept kids from finding a way to see naughty content? Especially those parents who would buy such a device?
I find this a good example of those phenomena that science can't yet explain. I'm often amused by science types that say something is impossible because it doesn't fit any current theory.
Seems to me any true scientist should always be watching for observations that don't fit the known theory, as they are indicators of a nedd for further refinement.
Sadly, scientists, like most people, are more interested in being right, and tend to look for confirming evidence, sometimes to the detriment of their conclusions.
Before you flame me as an anti-science zealot, let me confess that I'm a science guy as much as your average geek, and I think science is responsible for most of the good changes of the last few centuries. I just think that when we hold too tight to our theories, we leave the realm of skeptical science and enter the world of blind faith.
BTW, I have no plausible explanation for the spontaneous fires. But I am confident that someone will come up wih one that doesn't invole a tinfoil hat.
It remains to be seen which is cheaper and easier to colonize. My suspicion is that the moon will be because the transportation costs are much lower and you don't need to wait more than a day for a launch window. This would be critical in the early stages if a rescue or emergency resupply mission were necessary.
A large enough settlement on the moon could have enough atmosphere to be fairly self-sufficient, like a biosphere project. It would probably need occasional freshening, as biosphere projects have.
Great, let's make it mandatory that budding surgeons play video games 3-5 hours a week (or more) instead of some of those boring classes. Pity there's no reset button on the OR table, and that each of us only have one life instead of the standard three. Does anyone want a surgeon who can be characterized as a "button masher"?
Jokes aside, I wonder if it's hand-eye coordination at play here or just the good results of relaxation. Maybe fly tying would be useful too if it's hand-eye.
It is important for humanity to colonize other worlds for several reasons. First, it gives a degree of protection from disasters of the sort that killed off the dinosaurs. Right now, we have all our eggs in one basket, ripe for extinction. Second, we can't stay on this planet forever, eventually (in a long long time) the sun will die, with it the capacity to support life on this planet. We may have to leave sooner if, as seems likely, we exhaust the natural resources of our lonely planet. Anything that is inevitable has to be faced, the sooner the better.
The moon is important because it will give us valuable experience in colonizing other worlds, and do so fairly cheaply compared to Mars, Europa, etc. Even if the Moon is a bad site to put telescopes, the knowledge gained by inhabiting another world is irreplaceable. There probably exist problems of colonization that haven't been forseen yet, and the only way to discover these problems is to try to do it. We may lose lives in the process, but that is a small price to pay for the continued survival of the species. I don't think they would have any problems finding volunteers to go, I know I would go in a heartbeat.
I dream of the day when we have colonized all the habitable planets and moons in this solar system, and the debate rages about whether it's worthwhile to invest in colonizing others. Same debate, same short-sighted folks complaining that it's too much money for too little gain.
What's wrong with it is that in the US they seem to bail out ANY airline that is about to fail if it is of sufficient size, probably justified as "saving jobs."
Up North here, only Air Canada seems to enjoy this security net, as other airlines have to succeed in the marketplace to survive. This is made worse by AC pricing some flights under cost to "compete," then when competition is eliminated they cry to the govt for loan guarantees or other forms of bailout. They enjoy this arrangement because as Air Canada they are supposed to be our national airline even though they were privatized years ago.
For me, being Canadian, the funniest part of the whole article is how Air Canada's suit is looking for lost profits. Air Canada hasn't made a profit in decades, being a quasi-Crown corporation that can depend on the govt bailing them out when they run out of money.
Seems to me that Air Canada will have to pay WestJet money for "lost profits," since they spared them from losing money on those flights!
Even a dryer outlet wouldn't cut it. I think they're 30A/240V, which would translate to 60A/120V. I guess the charger will require either a new circuit in the house or a capacitor to store the charge. Wait a minute, a charger for the charger?
It seems to me that the limiting factor with recharging electric cars wasn't the batteries but the current supply. I think some of them had a 120v charger that would take all night and a 240v 3-phase charger that did it in 4 or 5 hours but required professional installation and wasn't very useful anywhere but at home.
I'm waiting for one that puts a usb port on it so I can connect the laptop and make alterations on the fly. How about having a bunch of different settings saved so that I can switch between them easily?
If you're a hardcore racer, you could have optimised settings for different humidity/temperature conditions, switchable at the touch of a key. Maybe save a set of baseline settings for each race locale and modify for the conditions on race day.
We could be about to regain the tuning freedom that went away when cars switched from carburetors to fuel injection. Everyone can benefit from this, even if you don't race. Most cars today are comprimised for green emissions, even if you live somewhere without smog tests. With a little retuning, you can have more power AND better fuel economy. (Ohh, look out for flames from the green set;-)
Wow, I think you're getting fired up on a non-issue here. Your rights aren't being violated, if you feel that Googol's scanning your mail for ads is invasive, then don't sign up. The analogies youhave madew are all coercive, whereas Gmail is voluntary.
I can CHOOSE to give up my right to privacy in this matter to a company I trust without giving up my Right to Privacy in general, let alone my free speech, voting and assembly.
You seem to be strong on rights. What about Googol's right to offer a service for no money in exchange for policies they lay out in their eula? They are by no means being coercive, they have no monopoly on email and are merely trying to float a new internet service. They are not even being deceitful about it, as we all know about their advertising policy before the service is released to the public.
This is not some mandatory big government service here, merely a private company trying something different.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say it gives a whole new reason for the tinfoil hat. Keeps them from reading what's stored on your brain chip. Or reprogramming it. Or installing Windows on it.
I have the same experience all the time. I think of it as dropping a request in the chute, then moving on to something else while my subconscious chugs away in the background. Eventually the answer drops into your conscious mind without warning.
This technique is also useful if you are trying to recall something that you already know. If you have that annoying tip-of-the-tongue thing happening, switch problems and wait for your subconscious to retreive it.
Oh the joy of parallel processing.
I thoroughly enjoyed the article, and felt it hit the nail on the head on a number of issues. It's very useful to step back and look at the big picture and try to imagine where we are heading. This is truly Stuff that Matters.
/. readers. While a story about the latest Microsoft faux pas might generate 600 or more comments, an article as articulate and thought-provoking as this has drawn, at time of writing, a paltry 40 or so. Seems we don't want to collaborate on collaboration.
That said, I feel disappointed at the apparent lack of interest among
My thanks to those of you that RTFA and take the time to compose your thoughts and share them with others. You are the ones who make putting up with all the "frist post"-ers worthwhile.
The garden part is what shows that this project is nothing but talk. I've seen studies that show it's cheaper, lighter and more reliable to pack the food/air/water for a person than to rely on a garden to do the work. And for a 3-year trip? A garden would only be efficient if you are going on a REALLY long trip, like one of those multi-generational ships proposed for interstellar travel.
I think the garden is marketing to the masses, who may not know about the Biosphere debacle but grasp quickly the theoretical concept behind it.
Maybe they should just make the TV show here on Earth and pretend it's in space, sort of like what they claimed the US did with the moon.
I would suggest that hydro power is not the best way to go for an off grid home power system. You really need high volume/high head water source to harvest any appreciable energy; from what you've described, there is no appreciable head (vertical drop) to the river near you. As well, as others have pointed out, building anything in the water entails a lot of bureaucratic red tape.
I would say that solar or wind power is more feasible for most people. Solar is cheap in maintenance costs but expensive to set up, and you really need a lot of panel area to hope to supply your needs. Wind power is cheaper up front, but more maintenance is required because of moving parts, and noise from the rotors can be annoying.
Either solution will require a battery bank to store power to use when the plant is not producing, plus a good inverter to supply consistent 120v 60Hz power. If all you are looking for is protection from outages, the battery bank with a generator may be ideal from a cost/benefit perspective. The payback time of most alternative energy projects is in excess of 50 years, so think carefully before you invest.
Hear! Hear!
It's intrinsically wrong to punish other people for one person's crime. One idiot blazes through a bunch of traffic but everyone has to stop for his speed-induced red light? Aren't there enough causes of road rage already?
Oil prices went up because of the huge hit reserves take when you add a new, huge consumer, namely the US military. It's simple supply and demand.
As to WMDs in Iraq, surely you jest. This is just the way the Bush admin sold the war to the public, with the help of the news herd. If there were WMDs in Iraq, why didn't Hussein use them? If he had them and didn't use them, then why did we invade? The hypocritical use of WMDs as a justification for war is asinine. After all, we don't invade Israel when they break the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by developing their own nukes. We can't even admit they have nukes (a widely accepted fact) because our own laws forbid trade or aid with a country that breaks the NNPT.
I just find it ironic that every time a Texan sits in the White House, we have a war. Is it any coincidence that Haliburton (a company that Dick Cheney headed and still holds huge amounts of stock in) received billions in non-competitive contracts for rebuilding Iraq? And that they are cost-plus contracts, guaranteed to be profitable?
It's kind of sad that the US interferes with the natural market processes that would wean us off oil gradually rather than the cataclysmic reorganization we'll have when oil runs out. Ordinarily, the gradually increasing price of oil as it runs out would make alternatives more viable. By forcing the Middle East to sell oil cheaply at the barrel of a gun, the US prevents other energy production methods from taking off as they are too costly. Yet, if you include the "Defence" budget required to keep oil prices down, the total cost is quite high, not even accounting for the human cost.
The US seems to be like a spoiled child that wants all the remaining cheap energy to feed its ever-increasing needs. We need to use that energy to develop new methods of generating energy, not fueling 1 SUV for every 3 Americans, not to mention the immense, oil-swilling military.
I dread the day when the tap finally runs dry, which it must as oil is a finite, non-recyclable resource. What painful reorganizations will occur when we can only afford a tenth of the energy we used to consume?
Water wet, fire hot.
C'mon, "Trains are loud"? Talk about a slow news day.
From what I gather from the article, this device doesn't actually scan the content, but instead has a list of movies which it checks against. Movie on the list? Here's where the bad parts are, filter them out. Not on the list? Guess you're stuck with the fast forward button. I imagine some squeamish high moral type in Salt Lake City is forced to watch all the smut and flag the naughty bits.
Seriously, how effective is a 500 movie list? There must be 10,000 movies out there (that figure from the hip), does this machine help any with the others? The word "subscribers" appears in the article, makes me think that you have to pay for the updated naughty part database. How is such content delivered? How are people duped into buying this thing at Wal-Mart going to feel when they have to subscribe to the service AND pay an ISP to get more movies filtered?
Seems to me that the rating system on TV shows and movies are adequate if parents are paying attention. This seems aimed at those who let the TV babysit their kids, and it's just a security blanket for parents at that. Does anyone really think you can prevent today's technologically adept kids from finding a way to see naughty content? Especially those parents who would buy such a device?
Anyone else find it amusing that the banner ads supplied by Google on the article page are all for pop-up blockers?
This is possibly the funniest exchange ever between Principal Skinner and Superintendant Chalmers.
re-Verse, you steam a fine ham.
I find this a good example of those phenomena that science can't yet explain. I'm often amused by science types that say something is impossible because it doesn't fit any current theory.
Seems to me any true scientist should always be watching for observations that don't fit the known theory, as they are indicators of a nedd for further refinement.
Sadly, scientists, like most people, are more interested in being right, and tend to look for confirming evidence, sometimes to the detriment of their conclusions.
Before you flame me as an anti-science zealot, let me confess that I'm a science guy as much as your average geek, and I think science is responsible for most of the good changes of the last few centuries. I just think that when we hold too tight to our theories, we leave the realm of skeptical science and enter the world of blind faith.
BTW, I have no plausible explanation for the spontaneous fires. But I am confident that someone will come up wih one that doesn't invole a tinfoil hat.
It remains to be seen which is cheaper and easier to colonize. My suspicion is that the moon will be because the transportation costs are much lower and you don't need to wait more than a day for a launch window. This would be critical in the early stages if a rescue or emergency resupply mission were necessary.
A large enough settlement on the moon could have enough atmosphere to be fairly self-sufficient, like a biosphere project. It would probably need occasional freshening, as biosphere projects have.
Great, let's make it mandatory that budding surgeons play video games 3-5 hours a week (or more) instead of some of those boring classes. Pity there's no reset button on the OR table, and that each of us only have one life instead of the standard three. Does anyone want a surgeon who can be characterized as a "button masher"?
Jokes aside, I wonder if it's hand-eye coordination at play here or just the good results of relaxation. Maybe fly tying would be useful too if it's hand-eye.
It is important for humanity to colonize other worlds for several reasons. First, it gives a degree of protection from disasters of the sort that killed off the dinosaurs. Right now, we have all our eggs in one basket, ripe for extinction. Second, we can't stay on this planet forever, eventually (in a long long time) the sun will die, with it the capacity to support life on this planet. We may have to leave sooner if, as seems likely, we exhaust the natural resources of our lonely planet. Anything that is inevitable has to be faced, the sooner the better.
The moon is important because it will give us valuable experience in colonizing other worlds, and do so fairly cheaply compared to Mars, Europa, etc. Even if the Moon is a bad site to put telescopes, the knowledge gained by inhabiting another world is irreplaceable. There probably exist problems of colonization that haven't been forseen yet, and the only way to discover these problems is to try to do it. We may lose lives in the process, but that is a small price to pay for the continued survival of the species. I don't think they would have any problems finding volunteers to go, I know I would go in a heartbeat.
I dream of the day when we have colonized all the habitable planets and moons in this solar system, and the debate rages about whether it's worthwhile to invest in colonizing others. Same debate, same short-sighted folks complaining that it's too much money for too little gain.
What's wrong with it is that in the US they seem to bail out ANY airline that is about to fail if it is of sufficient size, probably justified as "saving jobs."
Up North here, only Air Canada seems to enjoy this security net, as other airlines have to succeed in the marketplace to survive. This is made worse by AC pricing some flights under cost to "compete," then when competition is eliminated they cry to the govt for loan guarantees or other forms of bailout. They enjoy this arrangement because as Air Canada they are supposed to be our national airline even though they were privatized years ago.
For me, being Canadian, the funniest part of the whole article is how Air Canada's suit is looking for lost profits. Air Canada hasn't made a profit in decades, being a quasi-Crown corporation that can depend on the govt bailing them out when they run out of money.
Seems to me that Air Canada will have to pay WestJet money for "lost profits," since they spared them from losing money on those flights!
Even a dryer outlet wouldn't cut it. I think they're 30A/240V, which would translate to 60A/120V. I guess the charger will require either a new circuit in the house or a capacitor to store the charge. Wait a minute, a charger for the charger?
A few people mentioned about Ringworld being an obvious ripoff of Halo, but I haven't seen anone mention the ripoff from Wing Commander.
C'mon, those Kzinti are obviously Kilrathi warmed over.
Should be 60 times as much, given that it's doing the same job in 1/60th the time. Assuming same efficiency and battery capacity.
It seems to me that the limiting factor with recharging electric cars wasn't the batteries but the current supply. I think some of them had a 120v charger that would take all night and a 240v 3-phase charger that did it in 4 or 5 hours but required professional installation and wasn't very useful anywhere but at home.
You can see a picture of it here:
r o/
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/FR/TNKS/TNKSHM/newp
I'm waiting for one that puts a usb port on it so I can connect the laptop and make alterations on the fly. How about having a bunch of different settings saved so that I can switch between them easily?
;-)
If you're a hardcore racer, you could have optimised settings for different humidity/temperature conditions, switchable at the touch of a key. Maybe save a set of baseline settings for each race locale and modify for the conditions on race day.
We could be about to regain the tuning freedom that went away when cars switched from carburetors to fuel injection. Everyone can benefit from this, even if you don't race. Most cars today are comprimised for green emissions, even if you live somewhere without smog tests. With a little retuning, you can have more power AND better fuel economy. (Ohh, look out for flames from the green set
Wow, I think you're getting fired up on a non-issue here. Your rights aren't being violated, if you feel that Googol's scanning your mail for ads is invasive, then don't sign up. The analogies youhave madew are all coercive, whereas Gmail is voluntary.
I can CHOOSE to give up my right to privacy in this matter to a company I trust without giving up my Right to Privacy in general, let alone my free speech, voting and assembly.
You seem to be strong on rights. What about Googol's right to offer a service for no money in exchange for policies they lay out in their eula? They are by no means being coercive, they have no monopoly on email and are merely trying to float a new internet service. They are not even being deceitful about it, as we all know about their advertising policy before the service is released to the public.
This is not some mandatory big government service here, merely a private company trying something different.