How exactly did Americans get so completely uptight about boobs and yet graphic violence and games about killing cops are just fine. It's completely insane.
Take care here. Calling something 'insane' or 'evil' or 'nuts' explains nothing, but it kills your own motivation to seek further understanding. Whereas almost all human behavior is actually understandable.
In this case, America is sexually repressed. That is why sex appeal can sell practically anything, and why an unclothed breast gets all the Normals so excited. The clamor for censorship is their way of quieting the ensuing cognitive dissonance.
A possible secondary element is the approach that American women have taken towards nudity. In order to maximize the emotional impact (and hence the indirect financial value) of exposing their own breasts, American women demand a ban on all public sensual exposures of female breasts. They're just maximizing profit by shrinking the supply, you see. Contrast this situation to Europe, in which sensual breast exposures are ubiquitous and so European men get no thrill out of getting the same from their mates.
News.com is running an article on an emotionally-responsive dinosaur robot that the Ugobe company has in the works for 2007.
What an incredibly lame idea. Yet another company makes the mistake of giving consumers what they say they want, rather than what they'll actually pay for. Emotional insensitivity is exactly what I enjoy about working with computers.
Ugobe: A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
And you can't say that nobody is forcing you. Of course, I can choose not to pay for Cinemax, but then I wouldn't be able to use HBO, that I want. If this was a free market, I wouldn't be forced to make that choice.
Do not equate "free market" with "infinitely granular market".
A free market exists when producers can sell their wares whenever, however, and to whomever they wish, with a view towards maximizing profit. Maximum profit often means bundles, bargains, wheeling, dealing, coupons, loss-leaders, lock-ins, etc. etc. etc.
Everyone ultimately benefits because the incentives to produce are maximized. That would not be so in your infinitely granular market, which could not profitably support certain bundles, package deals, and loss leaders.
The ultimate freedom is, of course, still yours: you can sit at home, buy nothing, trade nothing. To ask for more is to ask to have a private right to unilaterally dictate terms to any who are guilty of the crime of production.
No value that we can experience? Did you even read my post? Jeez, do a simple experiment. Study for a test and then get no sleep, and then study for a similar test after sleeping. Guess what? You can feel a difference in how easy it is to remember (as well as concentrate, control mood, etc.).
The whole point of this discussion was that we might develop a pill that provides the same benefits as sleep. Ergo, it will be perfectly easy to remember, concentrate, control mood, etc. without actually having to lie inert for eight hours.
Slashdotters... yeesh. They don't read the article or the comments.
Oh I think they read the comments, but some have trouble with the reading comprehension. Perhaps you need additional sleep.
I'm fairly tired of this "sleep is a waste of time" idea. Do you really think evolution would have cranked out organisms who are as vulnerable as we are during sleep (there's a reason we're afraid of the dark--predators) if not for very good reasons?
Sure. That's not the point. The point is that eight hours is a wasteful amount of time to spend on that sort of maintenance. Especially since that maintenance has no value that we can experience.
This new drug is -- hopefully -- the beginning of our effort to cancel or redirect those "very good reasons". Of course, this first stab at the problem is not a solution at all, it is more of a random shotgun blast into the dark... but at least we have begun to solve the problem. After all, and as I said at the first, the value of an extra eight hours per day is colossal.
There was a case where someone had the bright idea of dumping tires over a huge area of open sea, to offer marine habitat. Years and years later, the barnacles and coral organisms haven't adopted this habitat, because the tide keeps pushing the tires around, unlike heavier debris. It's an eco-disaster, worse than nothing, essentially.
It is still a good idea. That particular project failed because the metal clips -- the things that hold the tires together as a reef -- rusted away.
Yes, you read that right: they used metal clips for a long-term saltwater application. Asshats. But I suppose there weren't a lot of other suitable materials available back in the 1960s when the project was conceived.
Nowadays, kevlar would be the perfect choice, as it is impervious to everything but acid and UV light.
So this pill will surely have some side-effects, and some of them will likely be negative. Fine.
Now think about the value of your time. You get ~100 years here on Earth and that's all. You are wired to spend about a third of that time unconscious. An entire third of your life will be spent not doing or experiencing anything.
How much effort do you expend just to shave ten minutes off your commute? Or to save three minutes standing in line?
It is beyond easy, quite doable, to reduce heating and cooling costs to 50% (or less) of what they are now using a combo of off the shelf, nothing exotic techniques. If you have never seen a super insulated home you wouldn't believe it, it is astounding how much the furnace and airconditioning *don't* come on. And it's just planned air in and planned air out, tighter construction, with a small heat exchanger to recover some energy(if you want to), and a lot more insulation all over and better windows and doors. and that's it. It works.
I wonder what the long-term health effects are, of living in such a house as that, where the number of air changes per day is a quarter or an eighth that of a conventional house. Indoor air pollution is serious business, but the costs are difficult to quantify.
[...] the first farnsworth fusors weren't built 'till ~1960....
What, did the professor travel back in time 1050 years in order to plant a research seed?
Farnsworth: "Good news, everybody! Today we go on a one-way trip back through TIME to stimulate the development of nuclear fusion!"
Everybody: *sigh*
Bender: "Do they have money in the past?"
Farnsworth: "Yes. And they carelessly transport it in pockets, wallets, and purses."
Bender: "I'm in." [burps and roars fire out of his mouth]
Leela: "But professor, won't we be stuck in the past, only to live out the rest of our lives in the gruesomely primitive twentieth century?"
Farnsworth: "Well, there is definitely a very slim chance that someone in the twentieth century will invent the electrostatic fusion device needed to power my Time ReturnoWhatsit to send us back home. Perhaps one of the local nerds will invent one in his parents' basement."
Fry: "Yeah right. When I was in the twentieth century, I spent all of *my* time drinking beer, watching TV, and trying to pick up chicks."
Amy: "That's *still* what you do here in the *thirtieth* century."
Fry: "Oh yeah."
Bender: "We're boned."
There are Chevrons all over the place here in Houston... practically on every street corner. And there's one really big one downtown, possibly indicating the epicenter of a larger impact.
Indeed. The Diamond Age has a proud place in my box of "Thou shalt read these" books, which I've spent a lifetime selecting for my sons. I'm going to rear them to be Subversives, or die trying!
For further reading and insightful predictions about the sociological effects of nanotech, see Mr. Neal Stephenson.
Among his other speculations: as nanotech becomes ubiquitous (in the way that bacteria are today), societies will manufacture nanotech-based airborne immune systems for themselves.
It was one of the great scifi authors who pointed out that all timelines in which time-travel is invented are unstable and instantly wipe themselves out. So if our timeline is stable, which it seems to be, then at no point in it will time-travel ever be invented.
This just in! Britney Spears pays $92M to be the first woman to have a child on another spacial body. Sources report that she is no longer content to have child on earth, like the social norm. Critics suggest its just another cry for attention.
Well hopefully she'll have sufficient good taste and historical awareness to name the baby Virginia...
Clearly you haven't read Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. The correct tense is the Present Ultraconditional Subinverted Semi-active Past Subjunctive Deponent Aorist. So he willon on-have scrod it up.
*golf clap*
I'm undone.
If you are located in Houston, please feel free to drop by my apartment to receive your free beer and backrub-by-nerdloving-chick.:)
Wanna know the big secret though? By working on anti-satellite weapons they send out the message that it is ok for other countries to do the same.
Uh huh.
Overheard at the Chinese military high command:
Gen. Chao: "We must develop anti-satellite weapons! The Americans are greatly dependent on their satellites!"
Gen. Tso: "We can't! They haven't worked on anti-satellite weapons yet! So it's not ok for other countries to do the same."
Gen. Pao: "Damnit!!"
My father in law won't even go into the local Michael's craft store, and I'm pretty sure it's because he was helped by someone who he believed was gay - and there are lots of people just like him around here. They're not bad people (the homophobes, that is), they just have no ability to empathise.
While the inability to empathise is not itself bad, I suspect you'll find that all bad acts in our world have that inability as their common prerequisite.
Rather than pulling numbers out of your ass, maybe you should have real estimates of what it costs to make a plastic mirror. Considering you can make wood flooring for.68 a square foot, I'd say $20 a square foot for some plastic mirror material is totally ridiculous. Beyond that I have no idea how much it'd cost, but I don't think anyone would be talking about this seriously if it cost a billion dollars to just create the mirrors.
I think the poster meant the $20 quote to include the cost of mounting brackets and stands, rotator mechanisms, and the control system with its associated wiring. The mirrors themselves will surely be a small part of the overall cost of the complete reflecting mechanism.
banning all employees from being affiliated with any political party?
Yeah, great idea. I can see it now:
HR department: "Do you have an affiliation with any political party?"
Job applicant: "Uh... should I?"
HR department: "No."
Job applicant: "Ah. Then, no."
HR department: "You're hired."
LOL! A government entity giving a fuck about something? That'll be the day.
I understand the sentiment... but, isn't it usually our complaint that they poke thumbs into too many pies that would be better left to market forces?
Remember, market forces (and 'tit for tat' in general) have a tough time dealing with sophisticated frauds, especially when the perpetrators remain anonymous. Force and fraud are the very reason why we need a government.
Slashdot Mirror
Take care here. Calling something 'insane' or 'evil' or 'nuts' explains nothing, but it kills your own motivation to seek further understanding. Whereas almost all human behavior is actually understandable.
In this case, America is sexually repressed. That is why sex appeal can sell practically anything, and why an unclothed breast gets all the Normals so excited. The clamor for censorship is their way of quieting the ensuing cognitive dissonance.
A possible secondary element is the approach that American women have taken towards nudity. In order to maximize the emotional impact (and hence the indirect financial value) of exposing their own breasts, American women demand a ban on all public sensual exposures of female breasts. They're just maximizing profit by shrinking the supply, you see. Contrast this situation to Europe, in which sensual breast exposures are ubiquitous and so European men get no thrill out of getting the same from their mates.
What an incredibly lame idea. Yet another company makes the mistake of giving consumers what they say they want, rather than what they'll actually pay for. Emotional insensitivity is exactly what I enjoy about working with computers.
Ugobe: A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
So an infusion of ten minutes' worth of information caused a shift away from the political middle.
And you are surprised by this?
Do not equate "free market" with "infinitely granular market".
A free market exists when producers can sell their wares whenever, however, and to whomever they wish, with a view towards maximizing profit. Maximum profit often means bundles, bargains, wheeling, dealing, coupons, loss-leaders, lock-ins, etc. etc. etc.
Everyone ultimately benefits because the incentives to produce are maximized. That would not be so in your infinitely granular market, which could not profitably support certain bundles, package deals, and loss leaders.
The ultimate freedom is, of course, still yours: you can sit at home, buy nothing, trade nothing. To ask for more is to ask to have a private right to unilaterally dictate terms to any who are guilty of the crime of production.
The whole point of this discussion was that we might develop a pill that provides the same benefits as sleep. Ergo, it will be perfectly easy to remember, concentrate, control mood, etc. without actually having to lie inert for eight hours.
Oh I think they read the comments, but some have trouble with the reading comprehension. Perhaps you need additional sleep.
I'll bet global methane emissions can be shown to track the gross sales of Taco Bell.
Hmmmm... their stock has climbed steadily since August. Perhaps the methane readings are due to their recent switch to Canola oil.
Sure. That's not the point. The point is that eight hours is a wasteful amount of time to spend on that sort of maintenance. Especially since that maintenance has no value that we can experience.
This new drug is -- hopefully -- the beginning of our effort to cancel or redirect those "very good reasons". Of course, this first stab at the problem is not a solution at all, it is more of a random shotgun blast into the dark... but at least we have begun to solve the problem. After all, and as I said at the first, the value of an extra eight hours per day is colossal.
It is still a good idea. That particular project failed because the metal clips -- the things that hold the tires together as a reef -- rusted away.
Yes, you read that right: they used metal clips for a long-term saltwater application. Asshats. But I suppose there weren't a lot of other suitable materials available back in the 1960s when the project was conceived.
Nowadays, kevlar would be the perfect choice, as it is impervious to everything but acid and UV light.
So this pill will surely have some side-effects, and some of them will likely be negative. Fine.
Now think about the value of your time. You get ~100 years here on Earth and that's all. You are wired to spend about a third of that time unconscious. An entire third of your life will be spent not doing or experiencing anything.
How much effort do you expend just to shave ten minutes off your commute? Or to save three minutes standing in line?
What, then, would 33 extra years be worth?
I wonder what the long-term health effects are, of living in such a house as that, where the number of air changes per day is a quarter or an eighth that of a conventional house. Indoor air pollution is serious business, but the costs are difficult to quantify.
What, did the professor travel back in time 1050 years in order to plant a research seed?
Farnsworth: "Good news, everybody! Today we go on a one-way trip back through TIME to stimulate the development of nuclear fusion!"
Everybody: *sigh*
Bender: "Do they have money in the past?"
Farnsworth: "Yes. And they carelessly transport it in pockets, wallets, and purses."
Bender: "I'm in." [burps and roars fire out of his mouth]
Leela: "But professor, won't we be stuck in the past, only to live out the rest of our lives in the gruesomely primitive twentieth century?"
Farnsworth: "Well, there is definitely a very slim chance that someone in the twentieth century will invent the electrostatic fusion device needed to power my Time ReturnoWhatsit to send us back home. Perhaps one of the local nerds will invent one in his parents' basement."
Fry: "Yeah right. When I was in the twentieth century, I spent all of *my* time drinking beer, watching TV, and trying to pick up chicks."
Amy: "That's *still* what you do here in the *thirtieth* century."
Fry: "Oh yeah."
Bender: "We're boned."
Malkovich.
Malkovich malkovich malkovich?
Malkovich!
Malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich malkovich.
Malkovich malkovich?
There are Chevrons all over the place here in Houston... practically on every street corner. And there's one really big one downtown, possibly indicating the epicenter of a larger impact.
Indeed. The Diamond Age has a proud place in my box of "Thou shalt read these" books, which I've spent a lifetime selecting for my sons. I'm going to rear them to be Subversives, or die trying!
...is, of course, Ripoff. It's an old vector-drawn arcade game. You can find it freely available for download from a ROM site and run it under MAME.
...to the Diamond Age.
For further reading and insightful predictions about the sociological effects of nanotech, see Mr. Neal Stephenson.
Among his other speculations: as nanotech becomes ubiquitous (in the way that bacteria are today), societies will manufacture nanotech-based airborne immune systems for themselves.
Scotty: "Would *that* be werth somethin' to ye?"
It was one of the great scifi authors who pointed out that all timelines in which time-travel is invented are unstable and instantly wipe themselves out. So if our timeline is stable, which it seems to be, then at no point in it will time-travel ever be invented.
Well hopefully she'll have sufficient good taste and historical awareness to name the baby Virginia...
*golf clap*
I'm undone.
If you are located in Houston, please feel free to drop by my apartment to receive your free beer and backrub-by-nerdloving-chick. :)
Uh huh.
Overheard at the Chinese military high command:
Gen. Chao: "We must develop anti-satellite weapons! The Americans are greatly dependent on their satellites!"
Gen. Tso: "We can't! They haven't worked on anti-satellite weapons yet! So it's not ok for other countries to do the same."
Gen. Pao: "Damnit!!"
While the inability to empathise is not itself bad, I suspect you'll find that all bad acts in our world have that inability as their common prerequisite.
I think the poster meant the $20 quote to include the cost of mounting brackets and stands, rotator mechanisms, and the control system with its associated wiring. The mirrors themselves will surely be a small part of the overall cost of the complete reflecting mechanism.
Yeah, great idea. I can see it now:
HR department: "Do you have an affiliation with any political party?"
Job applicant: "Uh... should I?"
HR department: "No."
Job applicant: "Ah. Then, no."
HR department: "You're hired."
I understand the sentiment... but, isn't it usually our complaint that they poke thumbs into too many pies that would be better left to market forces?
Remember, market forces (and 'tit for tat' in general) have a tough time dealing with sophisticated frauds, especially when the perpetrators remain anonymous. Force and fraud are the very reason why we need a government.