So when will all of this destruction and devastation actually happen?
I distinctly recall hearing about how major cities along the U.S. eastern seaboard would be under water "within a decade" back in the mid 1970s. It didn't happen.
Then we were supposed to be completely out of oil by 1990. It didn't happen.
The next prediction was that the ozone layer would be almost completely depleted by 2002. It didn't happen.
Then we were told global warming would spiral out of control by 2011. It didn't happen.
It gets harder and harder to take these claims from environmentalists, scientists and politicians seriously, when they're so wrong again and again and again.
It's not even a case of efforts to mitigate the problems actually having any effect.
Most of the time these efforts haven't even started by the time the problem has either resolved itself, or been shown to have been a load of bullshit in the first place.
When a scientist says "if the current trend continues, X will happen", media reports it as "X will happen".
What they don't report - and what people like you seem unable to understand - is that the current trend DIDN'T continue because people, governments, nations, actually DID something about it.
So the ozone layer is still here (slowly recovering) because we stopped spewing CFCs into the atmosphere. We MADE SURE the trend didn't continue.
We still have oil because we go to silly lengths and spend ridiculous amounts of money to find and extract more. Fracking, anyone? Oil sands? Deep-sea drilling?
The point many scientists - and more and more regular people, and even some politicians in some countries - are making is that unless we DO something, if we allow the current trend of climate change to continue, it is - sooner or later, but most assuredly - going to make this planet a worse place to live than it already is.
It's not going to fix itself, much like the ozone layer wouldn't have just fixed itself. We're going to have to fix it, and a good start is to stop making it worse.
I am all over the place, I guess many programmers are.
Being a programmer is a trade in some parts, and you can get by with good craftsmanship. In other parts it's a creative art, and you can't force creativity.
To write really good code, you need to both have the craftsmanship and the creativity.
But to travel at 800 mph without making your passengers sick and barfing, the route actually needs curves to be 16 times as smooth as the 200 mph CHSR.
Some critics of the Hyperloop concept have focused on the possibly unpleasant and frightening experience of riding in a narrow sealed, windowless capsule, inside a sealed steel tunnel, that is subjected to significant acceleration forces, high noise levels due to air being compressed and ducted around the capsule at near-sonic speeds, and the vibration and jostling created as the capsule shoots through a tube that is not perfectly smooth or level.[25] Even if the tube is smooth upon construction, ground shifting due to settling and ongoing seismic activity will inevitably cause deviations from a perfectly smooth, level path. At speeds approaching 900 feet per second (270 m/s), even 1 millimeter (0.039 in) deviations from a straight path would add considerable buffeting and vibration. With no provisions for passengers to stand, move within the capsule, use a restroom during the trip, or get assistance or relief in case of illness or motion sickness,[26] the potential for a seriously unpleasant travel experience would likely be higher than in any other popular form of public transport.
- Wikipedia
Known around these parts as "eighteen-hundred-froze-to-death".
As in "Wow, that's old. Haven't seen one of those since eighteen-hundred-froze-to-death".
My friends usually look at me weird when I explain that the expression references 1816 and the effects of Mount Tambora exploding and putting lots and lots (and lots) of ash into the atmosphere.
"Hurr durr I'ma sheep" won over the alternative "I like online polls" which got 38% of the votes....in a vote Torvalds asked people not to vote in, and yet 5,796 people did.
In the real poll, "v4.0" beat out "v3.20" by 56% to 44% out of 29,110 votes.
Since nobody ever use the kernel code name, it doesn't matter in the slightest what it's called. Everyone will refer to the kernel as "4.0".
people in 1903 couldn't have dreamed of what the Saturn V would look like or how it would work.
Funny that you chose 1903 as your date, since that was the year Tsiolkovsky published The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices, wherein among other things were mentioned that escape velocity could be achieved with a multistage rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
So yes, at least one person in 1903 not only could have dreamt, but did dream and explicitly state how rockets like the Saturn V would look and work.
Unfortunately, Google Fit won't currently let you correct it. You can change Biking to another activity, but NOT to one that it supposedly automatically supports so you cannot change "biking" to "walking".
This is not true. I've changed "biking" to "walking" in Google Fit so I know it works.
Funny thing is that after I did that (it was during the first week I used Google Fit) it has never confused my walking with biking again - even though I've set numerous "speed records" as I got fitter.
I've been a programmer for more years than I care to mention, and never - not once - has the speed a coder types at been an issue. But fine. I'm sure there's some coding somewhere where typing speed is a significant factor.
Speed coding contests, perhaps?
Swordfish-style hacking-with-a-gun-to-your-head situations just don't crop up that often in my experience - I lead a rather boring life in that regard - but I guess that might count as well.
So what experience do you have that leads you to be so adamant that typing speed is a major factor in coding?
Typing speed is nearly insignificant in GuB-42's coding.
FTFY.
No, he had it right.
If you look at what you actually spend time on when going from specification to release, the actual typing of code is a minor part, and as such your typing speed is largely irrelevant.
I have a colleague who can't touch-type to save his life, uses the mouse to copy/paste/undo (and even step through the debugger - drives me crazy), and while he may take a little longer to type in his code, it's so small a difference to not matter even in the slightest.
So, the problem with his pointing out the lack of "testing, reproduction of results" in prehistoric history tales is... that it isn't good sales?
And that's your scientific objection? To his scientific objection?
No, that's my non-scientific objection to his anti-science rant. A plea against ignorance and the wilful discrediting of a lot of hard-earned science, if you will.
This guy put it a lot better than I ever could; in short, calling these hypotheses "guessing" is ignorant as well as insulting, both to the scientists in the field and to everyone's general level of intelligence.
LOL. Hypothesis is just a fancy way to say "here's my guess". Whether put forward by Joe Schmoe or Johnatan P. Schmoe, PhD it means the same thing.
It really doesn't.
A hypothesis has to make sense, has to be based on observation and/or our best current knowledge of the subject matter. Ideally it is testable somehow, even if only mathematically or theoretically.
A guess doesn't have to have any of those constraints. "Aliens did it" is a guess, but it's not a hypothesis.
Early Universe ideas? Not fact. Not "well-known". Guesses.
That's... really selling science - and the scientific method - way short.
It's not "guesses", it's hypotheses, which are by their nature our best explanations of something given our current understanding of how those things work.
Calling these "guesses" reduces all the science that's actually going on and puts it on the same level as Joe Schmoe's wild-ass guessing on subjects he's not familiar with.
There is a world of difference between Joe guessing what happened in the early days of the universe and a scientist that has devoted several years of his life studying the matter putting forth a hypothesis of what happened.
Please don't paint these as the same thing, it's just doing the anti-science folk a service, and the rest of us a disservice.
I wonder what the fastest possible chemically-propelled-rocket probe is? If the probe was made small and compact to do little more than take photos and spectrographic analysis, how fast could the bugger be made to travel using existing rocket tech?
While not chemically-propelled, Freeman Dyson calculated while working on the Orion project that one of those magnificent bastards could achieve 3.3% of the speed of light (0.03c, 10,000 km/s, or roughly 22 million kph - give or take a few hundred thousand mph - by firing a shaped-charge nuclear bomb behind it every three seconds for ten days straight.
At that speed, Alpha Centauri is just 133 years away, and these ETNOs are really not much farther than down the road to the chemist.
It's a shame that project never came to anything but a few chemical proof-of-concept scale tests.
Slashdot Mirror
So when will all of this destruction and devastation actually happen?
I distinctly recall hearing about how major cities along the U.S. eastern seaboard would be under water "within a decade" back in the mid 1970s. It didn't happen.
Then we were supposed to be completely out of oil by 1990. It didn't happen.
The next prediction was that the ozone layer would be almost completely depleted by 2002. It didn't happen.
Then we were told global warming would spiral out of control by 2011. It didn't happen.
It gets harder and harder to take these claims from environmentalists, scientists and politicians seriously, when they're so wrong again and again and again.
It's not even a case of efforts to mitigate the problems actually having any effect.
Most of the time these efforts haven't even started by the time the problem has either resolved itself, or been shown to have been a load of bullshit in the first place.
When a scientist says "if the current trend continues, X will happen", media reports it as "X will happen".
What they don't report - and what people like you seem unable to understand - is that the current trend DIDN'T continue because people, governments, nations, actually DID something about it.
So the ozone layer is still here (slowly recovering) because we stopped spewing CFCs into the atmosphere. We MADE SURE the trend didn't continue.
We still have oil because we go to silly lengths and spend ridiculous amounts of money to find and extract more. Fracking, anyone? Oil sands? Deep-sea drilling?
The point many scientists - and more and more regular people, and even some politicians in some countries - are making is that unless we DO something, if we allow the current trend of climate change to continue, it is - sooner or later, but most assuredly - going to make this planet a worse place to live than it already is.
It's not going to fix itself, much like the ozone layer wouldn't have just fixed itself. We're going to have to fix it, and a good start is to stop making it worse.
To paraphrase Torvalds:
If it compiles, it's good. If it runs, ship it.
I am all over the place, I guess many programmers are.
Being a programmer is a trade in some parts, and you can get by with good craftsmanship.
In other parts it's a creative art, and you can't force creativity.
To write really good code, you need to both have the craftsmanship and the creativity.
But to travel at 800 mph without making your passengers sick and barfing, the route actually needs curves to be 16 times as smooth as the 200 mph CHSR.
Some critics of the Hyperloop concept have focused on the possibly unpleasant and frightening experience of riding in a narrow sealed, windowless capsule, inside a sealed steel tunnel, that is subjected to significant acceleration forces, high noise levels due to air being compressed and ducted around the capsule at near-sonic speeds, and the vibration and jostling created as the capsule shoots through a tube that is not perfectly smooth or level.[25] Even if the tube is smooth upon construction, ground shifting due to settling and ongoing seismic activity will inevitably cause deviations from a perfectly smooth, level path. At speeds approaching 900 feet per second (270 m/s), even 1 millimeter (0.039 in) deviations from a straight path would add considerable buffeting and vibration. With no provisions for passengers to stand, move within the capsule, use a restroom during the trip, or get assistance or relief in case of illness or motion sickness,[26] the potential for a seriously unpleasant travel experience would likely be higher than in any other popular form of public transport.
- Wikipedia
There was a sequel to Highlander?
No. "There can be only one", remember?
Deckard and Rachel are both supposed to be dead by their targeted end of life engineering as replicants.
Only the Nexus 6 replicants had targeted end of life (the 4-year lifespan).
Deckard and Rachel can thus not be Nexus 6 replicants if they're still alive 4 years later, but they CAN still be another version of replicant .
You know: "It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?".
Humans have an end of life too, you know? We're not exactly immortal.
No, no, and no.
But it's 3D-PRINTED! It's THE FUTURE! :/
Known around these parts as "eighteen-hundred-froze-to-death".
As in "Wow, that's old. Haven't seen one of those since eighteen-hundred-froze-to-death".
My friends usually look at me weird when I explain that the expression references 1816 and the effects of Mount Tambora exploding and putting lots and lots (and lots) of ash into the atmosphere.
To quote the (only) movie: "There can be only one".
I refuse to acknowledge that the fantastic movie Highlander ever has had any sequels, prequels, tv shows, a franchise or anything else.
Just that one movie, with its marvellous soundtrack and the mystery of who the immortals were, where they came from, and why there could be only one.
None of this "they came from space. No, the future!" malarkey. It is and was a mystery, never explained.
"Hurr durr I'ma sheep" won over the alternative "I like online polls" which got 38% of the votes. ...in a vote Torvalds asked people not to vote in, and yet 5,796 people did.
In the real poll, "v4.0" beat out "v3.20" by 56% to 44% out of 29,110 votes.
Since nobody ever use the kernel code name, it doesn't matter in the slightest what it's called. Everyone will refer to the kernel as "4.0".
people in 1903 couldn't have dreamed of what the Saturn V would look like or how it would work.
Funny that you chose 1903 as your date, since that was the year Tsiolkovsky published The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices, wherein among other things were mentioned that escape velocity could be achieved with a multistage rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
So yes, at least one person in 1903 not only could have dreamt, but did dream and explicitly state how rockets like the Saturn V would look and work.
Make that three. My OCZ Vertex II is still happily chugging along after a couple of years of use.
paedophile* At least spell it correctly.
It is spelled "pedo-" in USA spelling and "paedo-" in British spelling.
Unfortunately, Google Fit won't currently let you correct it. You can change Biking to another activity, but NOT to one that it supposedly automatically supports so you cannot change "biking" to "walking".
This is not true. I've changed "biking" to "walking" in Google Fit so I know it works.
Funny thing is that after I did that (it was during the first week I used Google Fit) it has never confused my walking with biking again - even though I've set numerous "speed records" as I got fitter.
I've been a programmer for more years than I care to mention, and never - not once - has the speed a coder types at been an issue. But fine. I'm sure there's some coding somewhere where typing speed is a significant factor.
Speed coding contests, perhaps?
Swordfish-style hacking-with-a-gun-to-your-head situations just don't crop up that often in my experience - I lead a rather boring life in that regard - but I guess that might count as well.
So what experience do you have that leads you to be so adamant that typing speed is a major factor in coding?
Typing speed is nearly insignificant in GuB-42's coding.
FTFY.
No, he had it right.
If you look at what you actually spend time on when going from specification to release, the actual typing of code is a minor part, and as such your typing speed is largely irrelevant.
I have a colleague who can't touch-type to save his life, uses the mouse to copy/paste/undo (and even step through the debugger - drives me crazy), and while he may take a little longer to type in his code, it's so small a difference to not matter even in the slightest.
Corporation Death Penalty
This is one death penalty I can get behind.
Yet one of Saturn's moon's, Iapetus, is unique
Aren't they all unique?
So, the problem with his pointing out the lack of "testing, reproduction of results" in prehistoric history tales is ... that it isn't good sales?
And that's your scientific objection? To his scientific objection?
No, that's my non-scientific objection to his anti-science rant. A plea against ignorance and the wilful discrediting of a lot of hard-earned science, if you will.
This guy put it a lot better than I ever could; in short, calling these hypotheses "guessing" is ignorant as well as insulting, both to the scientists in the field and to everyone's general level of intelligence.
LOL. Hypothesis is just a fancy way to say "here's my guess". Whether put forward by Joe Schmoe or Johnatan P. Schmoe, PhD it means the same thing.
It really doesn't.
A hypothesis has to make sense, has to be based on observation and/or our best current knowledge of the subject matter. Ideally it is testable somehow, even if only mathematically or theoretically.
A guess doesn't have to have any of those constraints. "Aliens did it" is a guess, but it's not a hypothesis.
Early Universe ideas? Not fact. Not "well-known". Guesses.
That's... really selling science - and the scientific method - way short.
It's not "guesses", it's hypotheses, which are by their nature our best explanations of something given our current understanding of how those things work.
Calling these "guesses" reduces all the science that's actually going on and puts it on the same level as Joe Schmoe's wild-ass guessing on subjects he's not familiar with.
There is a world of difference between Joe guessing what happened in the early days of the universe and a scientist that has devoted several years of his life studying the matter putting forth a hypothesis of what happened.
Please don't paint these as the same thing, it's just doing the anti-science folk a service, and the rest of us a disservice.
Thank you Captain Obvious.
Although you should perhaps note that the term "stargazer" is often used as a description of "an observational astronomer, particularly an amateur".
Yep. 300,000 1-megaton yield nukes at 1 metric ton each.
The proposed design had a departure mass of 400,000 tons, with a 50,000 ton payload.
I wonder what the fastest possible chemically-propelled-rocket probe is? If the probe was made small and compact to do little more than take photos and spectrographic analysis, how fast could the bugger be made to travel using existing rocket tech?
While not chemically-propelled, Freeman Dyson calculated while working on the Orion project that one of those magnificent bastards could achieve 3.3% of the speed of light (0.03c, 10,000 km/s, or roughly 22 million kph - give or take a few hundred thousand mph - by firing a shaped-charge nuclear bomb behind it every three seconds for ten days straight.
At that speed, Alpha Centauri is just 133 years away, and these ETNOs are really not much farther than down the road to the chemist.
It's a shame that project never came to anything but a few chemical proof-of-concept scale tests.
"Why choose the lesser of two evils? Vote Cthulhu for President 2016"