It all comes back to Fermi's paradox. If there are intelligent (I prefer the term 'sophont') alien life forms out there, why haven't they contacted us?
One solution says 'because they don't want to'. I find that solution very plausible at the current juncture. Odds are that if there is, in fact, a conglomerate of alien nations out there, they've set down a network of powerful signal-dampening sattelites around our solar system (the Oort cloud would be a good hiding place), controlled by a very strong AI which filters the transmissions reaching us, so that only natural phenomena and signals of our own making ever reach us. This could even be standard procedure for worlds below a certain level of technology. This is called the 'Prime Directive' solution, after Gene Roddenberry's Prime Directive from Star Trek.
Of course, another (more Occam-friendly) solution to the paradox is "Because there aren't any"...
I didn't see him state that 'code is dead' any more than 'iron is dead'. He did mention some things that limit the size of the niche for the programmer in the future. It's a process we're already feeling: When was the last time someone said "Become a programmer, and you'll always have a job" and you believed it? About just before the dot-com crash I'll wager - longer ago the longer you saw that crash coming. Since then, at least here in Denmark, programmers have been something you insulate walls with, they are so cheap. Developers, computer scientists, now! That's still good for a job - much like an engineer or architect still is.
Why nis that? Because the programmer, who started existence as the weird guy who could grok punch cards and make computers actually do stuff has made computers capable of doing stuff under the command of others. The CDE and code factory are merely extensions of this. C is a higher level language than assembler is. Thus it is easier to use and can handle larger systems - however some things need assembly instructions written by hand to work. The same goes all the way to the top: Most code that PHB #324 needs will either already have been written, or can be written by someone using a high-level development tool, such as a CDE. This is to a degree the world today - or at least tomorrow. In fact, this is the point of higher-level programming tools and languages. It is the point of using ready-made libraries instead of building from the ground up.
As to your calling fewer programming jobs non sequitur, I wonder. Because that is in fact the whole of the point: There are fewer blacksmith jobs today than 100 years ago. Similarly, the programmer as seen today will suffer a decline in job openings, just as did the 1960-style punch-card programmer. At some point, code smiths will be as rare as iron smiths - and that's what the entire article series is all about.
I'll answer your question with another question: How many codeless development envirnments do you need? I'd say a very few would cover almost any bases you could think of. And that means fewer jobs for programmers capable of writing CDEs...
You don't see many blacksmiths making auto parts by hand, but then you don't see many bookkeepers calculating General Electric's quarterly results by hand, either.
No, but the point is, they probably could, given time and enough paper and ink (plus a few replacement pens). A modern-day mechanic would have a great deal of trouble forging an engine block for a recent car. Not the least of these troubles would be in materials used. If all the progress of the last 200 years disappeared, bookkeepers would keep on trucking, albeit slower - but a blacksmith derivation (an engineer, perhaps) would have to learn a whole new trade to do a blacksmith's job.
This makes me happy that my education points me in the direction of the engineer or architect, rather than the blacksmith.
I find it interesting that conservatives accuse the media of a hard liberal slant, while liberals accuse the media of having a fierce conservative slant. Given my own political leanings, I suppose I'm (as a foreign national) closer to Democrat than Republican, but that both sides decry the media so strongly, that makes me think. Maybe it's time for a break with the two ways or no way at all ideas in US politics? Maybe someone should put up a moderate centrist party, where the moderate Republicans who dislike the hardliners could go, and where the moderate liberals who aren't treehuggers could be?
One of the major energy wastes of the shuttle are the first 10 km of its ascent. Here, the atmosphere is thick enough that it faces a large amount of drag - and this is the part of the atmosphere it goes supersonic in. Comparing the concept behind X-15 and more recently SpaceShipOne, a subsonic transport lifts the craft to a higher altitude, taking it out of the thick part of the atmosphere up to an altitude where acceleration and altitude give it a much better drag configuration. This, in turn, allows the craft to fly off using a much smaller energy expenditure on the first part of its acceleration.
As an aside, the space shuttle is a shoddy old piece of gear, designed and built in an unsafe manner, and thus, as a result, unsafe. It is an over-engineered boondoggle, capable of much more than it needs, and as a result, much less reliable than it should be.
But can fuel cells deliver the power required for a truck, locomotive or airliner.
Some locomotives already operate on electric engines by wire-delivered power. There's little reason to change that as it stands - but a fuel-cell driven electrical 'wireless' loco? Could probably be done, given that you could mount either larger or more fuel cells in the larger chassis (whichever is more efficient). Trucks, well, a similar consideration is applicable. A truck's larger engine compartment will hold more and stronger fuel cells than might a smaller car. The only question, then, becomes one of efficiency. Given that larger engines generally are more efficient than multiple smaller engines (I don't know if this counts for fuel cells too, but it is likely), that might actually be easier than fitting it into a car.
As for the airliner... I don't quite know - excepting oldtimer aircraft (DC-3 et al.), there's hardly a conventional-ICE airliner in existence. Wrt. jet planes, there is constant work on making jet propulsion more environmentally friendly. Hydrogen jets could appear at some point, and would likely be both powerful and environment-friendly.
What I don't understand is why an internet browser or mail reader can't have an automatic version checker. If there's an update or patch, it notifies the user (unless user has specified otherwise - whether it be to just install the thing or leave it be), who can then select to download and install the update. Mozilla has so many other nifty features that they shouldn't be above a feature which is found in many other programs - be it eMule, GetRight or Trillian. It certainly solves the patching problem.
"not a dime goes to drug producers, hitmen, slave traders or illegal casinos." - danila
Actually you might be paying for hitmen. Having someone killed is usually not profitable. Thus the money you pay the pirate mafia might well be going towards having some schmuck shot dead.
In Copenhagen, there's a cooperation between DSB (danish state railway company) and Kastrup Airport. There's a railstation directly underneath the international terminal of the airport, connected by escalator. You can hop on a train across the country, ride it directly to the airport, then get out and go check in and get on your flight.
There's still a lot of taxi and bus action going on out there, though.
Such a book exists. I read it, and of course now cannot remember the title. Its main charatcer is a perfectly ordinary joe like you or me (or actually, on second thought, not much like you or me, more like the average joe...:) ) who has some very vivid dreams about relativity in between (and during) lectures. The combination allows even the more dense to grasp what relativity and quantum mechanics is all about, in broad terms.
Um... no. The UN has created a treaty regarding space, that makes the area above 100km altitude 'international space', as in international waters - anyone can ply them at will (as long as traffic restrictions are obeyed to avoid accidents). The Moon is "the domain of all mankind", and as such not US property, which it would be if the US could claim it as such. This means that anyone could go to the moon, stake a claim, and set up a base there, provided any previous bases weren't in the way.
From 1927 (Lindbergh's first flight across the Atlantic) to 1937, air transportation developed from tiny cottage industries to a major niche, including regular transatlantic service. I would say regular orbital flights by 2014 is not impossible. In fact, I think it'll happen sooner.
Cars took all of 15 years to gain widespread popularity. Henry Ford would tell you that. The Ford T appeared in 1908, some 12 years after the very first real cars appeared (1896). It was a cultural phenomenon by 1910. Similarly, aircraft, the first controllable type appearing in 1903, were in use for a whole slew of purposes by 1920 - not the least of which having been as weapons in WWI.
Mars has a value as, at least, a forward base for mining the asteroid belt. A single asteroid can contain enough paladium, platinum, silver and gold to make the entire return trip worthwhile several times over. Also, there will be a market for off-world colonization, just as there was a market for transatlantic colonization (an area most US-located readers should be familiar with), for much the same reasons.
As to Mars, I think living inside a bubble is far better than you make it out to be. Mars has pressure, which reduces the need for bulky space suits to move about, and allows aircraft, gravity which allows vehicles to move effectively around, and most importantly: Lots of room. It apparently has water, also, if you're willing to work for it A geodesic dome can be built almost arbitrarily big, also, allowing for breathable atmosphere covering a whole city, as well as a controlled climate. Terraforming (for which the ideas are already appearing; so much for 500 years...) is not by a long stretch a necessity for comfortable habitation on another world.
I think the prospects for the future are far better than the naysayers would have them be. Looking back at previous pioneering works, I'd say this one will likely follow a similar pattern. That makes this century a very interesting one to live in.
Re:Sorry to "deflate" everyone's enthusiasm but...
on
Zeppelin Flies Again
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· Score: 2, Interesting
If the dirigible is made with multiple self-sealing gas cells filled with helium, it is not at all very susceptible to anything short of major explosives, such as surface-to-air missiles. An RPG-7 (such as was used to take down two UH-60 helicopters in Mogadishu back in those recent troubles) might also make a dent and deflate a single cell, slowly - but the remaining cells should be enough to ensure at least a slow descent. If, however the terrorists shoot up a significant number of gas cellls, yes, that will possibly be a problem. The factors will be getting a high enough rate of deflation to actually make it drop at a significant rate, a rate high enough to cause damage.
At any rate, a dirigible is much less vulnerable to attack than, say, a pasenger airplane.
Can a marine freighter fly a 40' container into Afghanistan and put it down in a remote plateau in the mountains? The Cargo dirigible can. It can also land pretty much anywhere else, and a lot cheaper than moving freight by ship. There are a bunch of companies out there building these babies - expect them to make an impact on the world sometime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
It all comes back to Fermi's paradox. If there are intelligent (I prefer the term 'sophont') alien life forms out there, why haven't they contacted us?
One solution says 'because they don't want to'. I find that solution very plausible at the current juncture. Odds are that if there is, in fact, a conglomerate of alien nations out there, they've set down a network of powerful signal-dampening sattelites around our solar system (the Oort cloud would be a good hiding place), controlled by a very strong AI which filters the transmissions reaching us, so that only natural phenomena and signals of our own making ever reach us. This could even be standard procedure for worlds below a certain level of technology. This is called the 'Prime Directive' solution, after Gene Roddenberry's Prime Directive from Star Trek.
Of course, another (more Occam-friendly) solution to the paradox is "Because there aren't any"...
I didn't see him state that 'code is dead' any more than 'iron is dead'. He did mention some things that limit the size of the niche for the programmer in the future. It's a process we're already feeling: When was the last time someone said "Become a programmer, and you'll always have a job" and you believed it? About just before the dot-com crash I'll wager - longer ago the longer you saw that crash coming. Since then, at least here in Denmark, programmers have been something you insulate walls with, they are so cheap. Developers, computer scientists, now! That's still good for a job - much like an engineer or architect still is.
Why nis that? Because the programmer, who started existence as the weird guy who could grok punch cards and make computers actually do stuff has made computers capable of doing stuff under the command of others. The CDE and code factory are merely extensions of this. C is a higher level language than assembler is. Thus it is easier to use and can handle larger systems - however some things need assembly instructions written by hand to work. The same goes all the way to the top: Most code that PHB #324 needs will either already have been written, or can be written by someone using a high-level development tool, such as a CDE. This is to a degree the world today - or at least tomorrow. In fact, this is the point of higher-level programming tools and languages. It is the point of using ready-made libraries instead of building from the ground up.
As to your calling fewer programming jobs non sequitur, I wonder. Because that is in fact the whole of the point: There are fewer blacksmith jobs today than 100 years ago. Similarly, the programmer as seen today will suffer a decline in job openings, just as did the 1960-style punch-card programmer. At some point, code smiths will be as rare as iron smiths - and that's what the entire article series is all about.
I'll answer your question with another question: How many codeless development envirnments do you need? I'd say a very few would cover almost any bases you could think of. And that means fewer jobs for programmers capable of writing CDEs...
You don't see many blacksmiths making auto parts by hand, but then you don't see many bookkeepers calculating General Electric's quarterly results by hand, either.
No, but the point is, they probably could, given time and enough paper and ink (plus a few replacement pens). A modern-day mechanic would have a great deal of trouble forging an engine block for a recent car. Not the least of these troubles would be in materials used. If all the progress of the last 200 years disappeared, bookkeepers would keep on trucking, albeit slower - but a blacksmith derivation (an engineer, perhaps) would have to learn a whole new trade to do a blacksmith's job.
This makes me happy that my education points me in the direction of the engineer or architect, rather than the blacksmith.
I find it interesting that conservatives accuse the media of a hard liberal slant, while liberals accuse the media of having a fierce conservative slant. Given my own political leanings, I suppose I'm (as a foreign national) closer to Democrat than Republican, but that both sides decry the media so strongly, that makes me think. Maybe it's time for a break with the two ways or no way at all ideas in US politics? Maybe someone should put up a moderate centrist party, where the moderate Republicans who dislike the hardliners could go, and where the moderate liberals who aren't treehuggers could be?
One of the major energy wastes of the shuttle are the first 10 km of its ascent. Here, the atmosphere is thick enough that it faces a large amount of drag - and this is the part of the atmosphere it goes supersonic in. Comparing the concept behind X-15 and more recently SpaceShipOne, a subsonic transport lifts the craft to a higher altitude, taking it out of the thick part of the atmosphere up to an altitude where acceleration and altitude give it a much better drag configuration. This, in turn, allows the craft to fly off using a much smaller energy expenditure on the first part of its acceleration.
As an aside, the space shuttle is a shoddy old piece of gear, designed and built in an unsafe manner, and thus, as a result, unsafe. It is an over-engineered boondoggle, capable of much more than it needs, and as a result, much less reliable than it should be.
But can fuel cells deliver the power required for a truck, locomotive or airliner.
Some locomotives already operate on electric engines by wire-delivered power. There's little reason to change that as it stands - but a fuel-cell driven electrical 'wireless' loco? Could probably be done, given that you could mount either larger or more fuel cells in the larger chassis (whichever is more efficient). Trucks, well, a similar consideration is applicable. A truck's larger engine compartment will hold more and stronger fuel cells than might a smaller car. The only question, then, becomes one of efficiency. Given that larger engines generally are more efficient than multiple smaller engines (I don't know if this counts for fuel cells too, but it is likely), that might actually be easier than fitting it into a car.
As for the airliner... I don't quite know - excepting oldtimer aircraft (DC-3 et al.), there's hardly a conventional-ICE airliner in existence. Wrt. jet planes, there is constant work on making jet propulsion more environmentally friendly. Hydrogen jets could appear at some point, and would likely be both powerful and environment-friendly.
-A.
What I don't understand is why an internet browser or mail reader can't have an automatic version checker. If there's an update or patch, it notifies the user (unless user has specified otherwise - whether it be to just install the thing or leave it be), who can then select to download and install the update. Mozilla has so many other nifty features that they shouldn't be above a feature which is found in many other programs - be it eMule, GetRight or Trillian. It certainly solves the patching problem.
"not a dime goes to drug producers, hitmen, slave traders or illegal casinos." - danila
Actually you might be paying for hitmen. Having someone killed is usually not profitable. Thus the money you pay the pirate mafia might well be going towards having some schmuck shot dead.
In Copenhagen, there's a cooperation between DSB (danish state railway company) and Kastrup Airport. There's a railstation directly underneath the international terminal of the airport, connected by escalator. You can hop on a train across the country, ride it directly to the airport, then get out and go check in and get on your flight. There's still a lot of taxi and bus action going on out there, though.
Such a book exists. I read it, and of course now cannot remember the title. Its main charatcer is a perfectly ordinary joe like you or me (or actually, on second thought, not much like you or me, more like the average joe... :) ) who has some very vivid dreams about relativity in between (and during) lectures. The combination allows even the more dense to grasp what relativity and quantum mechanics is all about, in broad terms.
Um... no. The UN has created a treaty regarding space, that makes the area above 100km altitude 'international space', as in international waters - anyone can ply them at will (as long as traffic restrictions are obeyed to avoid accidents). The Moon is "the domain of all mankind", and as such not US property, which it would be if the US could claim it as such. This means that anyone could go to the moon, stake a claim, and set up a base there, provided any previous bases weren't in the way.
From 1927 (Lindbergh's first flight across the Atlantic) to 1937, air transportation developed from tiny cottage industries to a major niche, including regular transatlantic service. I would say regular orbital flights by 2014 is not impossible. In fact, I think it'll happen sooner.
Cars took all of 15 years to gain widespread popularity. Henry Ford would tell you that. The Ford T appeared in 1908, some 12 years after the very first real cars appeared (1896). It was a cultural phenomenon by 1910. Similarly, aircraft, the first controllable type appearing in 1903, were in use for a whole slew of purposes by 1920 - not the least of which having been as weapons in WWI.
Mars has a value as, at least, a forward base for mining the asteroid belt. A single asteroid can contain enough paladium, platinum, silver and gold to make the entire return trip worthwhile several times over. Also, there will be a market for off-world colonization, just as there was a market for transatlantic colonization (an area most US-located readers should be familiar with), for much the same reasons.
As to Mars, I think living inside a bubble is far better than you make it out to be. Mars has pressure, which reduces the need for bulky space suits to move about, and allows aircraft, gravity which allows vehicles to move effectively around, and most importantly: Lots of room. It apparently has water, also, if you're willing to work for it A geodesic dome can be built almost arbitrarily big, also, allowing for breathable atmosphere covering a whole city, as well as a controlled climate. Terraforming (for which the ideas are already appearing; so much for 500 years...) is not by a long stretch a necessity for comfortable habitation on another world.
I think the prospects for the future are far better than the naysayers would have them be. Looking back at previous pioneering works, I'd say this one will likely follow a similar pattern. That makes this century a very interesting one to live in.
If the dirigible is made with multiple self-sealing gas cells filled with helium, it is not at all very susceptible to anything short of major explosives, such as surface-to-air missiles. An RPG-7 (such as was used to take down two UH-60 helicopters in Mogadishu back in those recent troubles) might also make a dent and deflate a single cell, slowly - but the remaining cells should be enough to ensure at least a slow descent. If, however the terrorists shoot up a significant number of gas cellls, yes, that will possibly be a problem. The factors will be getting a high enough rate of deflation to actually make it drop at a significant rate, a rate high enough to cause damage.
At any rate, a dirigible is much less vulnerable to attack than, say, a pasenger airplane.
Can a marine freighter fly a 40' container into Afghanistan and put it down in a remote plateau in the mountains? The Cargo dirigible can. It can also land pretty much anywhere else, and a lot cheaper than moving freight by ship. There are a bunch of companies out there building these babies - expect them to make an impact on the world sometime soon.