If you think about Conway's game of Life - there are many equation forms that make some kind of "Life" but only a few that make anything interesting.
I suspect that Earth provided a robust environment for many forms of life and Carbon-Water came out dominant, as it probably will in similar environments.
You'd have to have a robust (temperatures supporting a liquid solvent, capable of forming complex molecules without destroying them quickly, etc.) non-Earthlike environment for "other" life to evolve, and many of these "other" forms might not be as fast to evolve and adapt as Carbon-Water has been.
Fair enough... that's how I got my scholarships in Florida, too... but the Florida system was (is) far more spotty and unreliable, nothing you could make a life plan around, more something to hop on while the offer was available.
We've got plenty of ludicrously rigid hardcoded traits, it's just hard to see them as such - having been born and raised here.
One of them, ironically, is how much we hate to see others given stuff that they didn't "work" for.
I think it's more backwards, along the lines of "I never had it so easy, why should anyone else?" Can't people see that their life sucked, and making other people's lives suck equally, while "fair", isn't something to strive for.
Postulate free controllable energy (cold fusion, or whatever.)
Now we can build basically any structure we want, anywhere we want - melt sand and rock to make your building materials, arbitrarily large with arbitrarily thick walls. Honeycomb the surface to make multiple levels of row-crop growing land in a 100% weather and biome controlled environment. Remember free energy? Artificial sunlight in the caverns to grow the plants. On the Earth, Moon, Asteroids, wherever. Need more water for the moon? Just go fetch some comets... The Earth's surface and oceans could be "restored" to a nature park while very pleasant underground living spaces support civilization, on and off planet.
One of the primary remaining scarcity problems would be population control - if everyone averages 4 children per 40 years, we're going to run out of solar system pretty fast. Malthus predicted this before the "New World" and phosphate based fertilizers. Anyone obsessing over "peak oil" should also see a problem coming very soon. If a new energy revolution comes, we can extend the population boom for another 500 years or more, but geometric expansion is really hard to support long term.
Assuming these gems of society are on their own (not backed by mummy and daddy's money), you're heading down "blood from a turnip" road there, opposite of what the article was saying about graduates being richer and better able to pay. I suppose the screw-ups won't accumulate as much debt before being ejected to find a career asking if you want fries with that, but then you'll have the skaters that get by with a D-, or C or whatever the threshold grade is, allowing them to stay in partyland while getting the minimum possible future economic value from their time spent at University.
There's no set of rules that covers all cases - some form of judicial review would actually be a good thing for everyone involved.
My zero interest while attending student loan was already a disincentive to graduate (especially when it turned from zero interest to 8% upon graduation..)
So under this new system, why would I ever stop going to college? This is already a problem with some of the higher level institutions.
What happened to my mod points? This ^^^ in spades. I was remembering the "Freshman flameouts" that occupied dorm rooms, enrolled for classes, and basically partied non-stop until they were academically expelled. If school is free to attend, I see a rapidly growing segment of the University population who are just there for the ride - stretching it out as long as they can get away with it, then moving on with no tax burden because they didn't graduate. Which brings up another thought - people who get within 3 credits of graduation and then don't complete - I know some people who have done this already, without a tax-disincentive to graduate.
I'm all for tax funded higher education, but putting the burden only on the graduates seems regressive.
Since we're moving to a debt based economy, why don't we all start life tax-free, then incur tax loads as we place burdens on society. Using healthcare? Now you're in the healthcare payback tax pool. Got in a car crash? That's fine, we'll cover you as if you were insured, and you'll pay back the cost plus administrative fees as a tax over the next several years. The taxes will have to be higher than actual costs to cover those who don't, or can't, pay back, but they only fall on the users. So, you got into Harvard but can't afford to pay? Finance it with the IRS.
If you're ever completely out of date, you're doing it wrong. Sure, you might not stay at the cutting edge of the latest fads, but the good new tools and techniques take 5 to 10 years to get established. If you're so out of touch that you can't pick up the buzz of something worthwhile after 5 years, and take the time to learn and master that yourself, how did you ever get through engineering school in the first place?
Also, if your company "needs" new tech that didn't exist five years ago, maybe you are too old for that game. There's plenty of worthwhile work out there that doesn't involve gambling on picking "the next big thing" before it happens.
I was hired at a local firm as a "Senior Developer," then promptly given responsibility for managing an international development team, developing a new product architecture from the ground up, updating the infrastructure and driving adoption of best practices, etc. Not a problem, it's what I do, but lately I'm given that "Senior Developer" title because my professional career lacks any big home run projects. Judged not based on abilities or performance of me or my teams, but on the marketplace success of our products.
Meanwhile, guys my age who were along for the ride on $100M+ projects are getting titles like "Senior VP" because, well, don't they deserve it after that success? They readily admit that it was a case of being in the right place at the right time, but it doesn't change how executive management makes their hiring decisions.
So, yeah, the rats jumping from the sinking ships are usually rewarded better than the loyal crew members who man the pumps through rough waters.
>internal teams all developing complete stacks in isolation and competing for resources
One of the prime dangers of being big and well resourced. Somebody at the top should have been regularly breaking up the party and selecting "the best of" what was developed to be the companywide platform, then continue from there. Or, better still, train the teams to play in their own sandboxes and trust their colleagues to give them the support they need. Both approaches have drawbacks, but competing with yourself is worse than either.
I never kept up with the names - beyond Qt at least. They always seemed like pre-beta not ready for wasting my time on projects.
If I had gotten Elop's job at Nokia (which I wouldn't have, because I don't have ties to Microsoft, but just fantasize), I would have continued the Linux on phone development with Qt as the UI, put serious resources into a desktop phone emulator that works (unlike my current experience with Eclipse and Android simulation), and focused on making developer friendly software that works and works well. I am completely unfamiliar with the top level corporate politics at Nokia, but I bet impatience was a big factor in the choices they have made lately.
I thought they were close - they certainly seemed closer to success (with Linux or Windows) when Elop was announced than they do now.
My perspective, the terrible decisions and more damaging, lousy execution of plans were already done when Elop took over - the biggest terrible decision of course being to give Elop the job.
They had a rough go with Qt/Maemo, then they changed course, to a dead end street.
I've read elsewhere that Windows is embracing Android, both on the desktop and in their phones, so a pure Android Nokia phone isn't 100% off base, especially if it can do something clever with MS Office and Exchange integration.
Personally, I still want to be able to write phone apps in Qt, but am learning Android in the meantime.
It is also possible to go on with life after having your doctoral studies interrupted... grossly unjust and a good way to build some serious resentment, but if your family has the means to send you to the U.S. for a Ph.D., they are probably well off enough that you don't really have to work to earn the basic necessities of life, either.
If you want to go for genocidal villains, I prefer Hugo Drax...
I'm not saying that the Human condition was ideal during that time period, but the ecosystem is one that supported us and kept us relatively healthy - those of us that weren't struck down by disease, starvation, predators, etc. Starting about 5000 years ago, Homo Sapiens biggest problems mostly came from Homo Sapiens...
So, assuming that we first can "just all get along" - and second are going to steer the global eco-system toward some "ideal" - that ideal ecology probably should resemble 3000 BCE more than 2000 AD - minus the uncontrolled disease, starvation, predation, and other recognizable problems in both times.
I think that "us" evolved out of the ecosystem that was in-place roughly 50,000 to 5,000 years ago, and "us" would be best served by keeping that ecosystem more or less in-tact. I don't seem to have a lot of people who agree with me, but I'm trying:
You mistake amused for mad. Things are screwed up all the time, especially seemingly simple ones like power window control circuits. Our 1999 Dodge RAM has a seatbelt controller failure mode that's particularly annoying, locks you in the seat after 30 minutes, unlocks when the doors open... apparently they went back to "dumb" seatbelt controls a year or two later. If you want to read about potential automotive design flaws with serious repercussions, search for "Flaming Fords."
Back on "Laser" headlamps - presumably, the light will be distributed with greater control, but not greater intensity. If you want greater intensity, replace your 65W high beam bulbs with (not legal for on-road use) 100W bulbs - they're noticeably brighter, and available from J.C. Whitney since at least the 1970s.
If anything, with greater beam control, the laser headlamp's total light output is probably going to be lower than conventional bulbs - just to reach compliance with existing laws. I bet that energy consumption will be lower too.
There have been several significant non-human caused icy climate events in the past - most of them less pleasant than some ice-bridge melting.
The presumed difference between now and then is that we have some concept that our actions affect the future course of the climate, and maybe we should be doing something to keep the climate in a good state for us.
But, who really knows? Maybe there was some planet-wide communication among the dinosaurs, and some of them saw the problems coming and a way to avert them, but ultimately they failed to control the situation for their benefit.
Slashdot Mirror
If you think about Conway's game of Life - there are many equation forms that make some kind of "Life" but only a few that make anything interesting.
I suspect that Earth provided a robust environment for many forms of life and Carbon-Water came out dominant, as it probably will in similar environments.
You'd have to have a robust (temperatures supporting a liquid solvent, capable of forming complex molecules without destroying them quickly, etc.) non-Earthlike environment for "other" life to evolve, and many of these "other" forms might not be as fast to evolve and adapt as Carbon-Water has been.
Fair enough... that's how I got my scholarships in Florida, too... but the Florida system was (is) far more spotty and unreliable, nothing you could make a life plan around, more something to hop on while the offer was available.
We've got plenty of ludicrously rigid hardcoded traits, it's just hard to see them as such - having been born and raised here.
One of them, ironically, is how much we hate to see others given stuff that they didn't "work" for.
I think it's more backwards, along the lines of "I never had it so easy, why should anyone else?" Can't people see that their life sucked, and making other people's lives suck equally, while "fair", isn't something to strive for.
Postulate free controllable energy (cold fusion, or whatever.)
Now we can build basically any structure we want, anywhere we want - melt sand and rock to make your building materials, arbitrarily large with arbitrarily thick walls. Honeycomb the surface to make multiple levels of row-crop growing land in a 100% weather and biome controlled environment. Remember free energy? Artificial sunlight in the caverns to grow the plants. On the Earth, Moon, Asteroids, wherever. Need more water for the moon? Just go fetch some comets... The Earth's surface and oceans could be "restored" to a nature park while very pleasant underground living spaces support civilization, on and off planet.
One of the primary remaining scarcity problems would be population control - if everyone averages 4 children per 40 years, we're going to run out of solar system pretty fast. Malthus predicted this before the "New World" and phosphate based fertilizers. Anyone obsessing over "peak oil" should also see a problem coming very soon. If a new energy revolution comes, we can extend the population boom for another 500 years or more, but geometric expansion is really hard to support long term.
We've got plenty of ludicrously rigid hardcoded traits, it's just hard to see them as such - having been born and raised here.
Higher life form evolved from cats.... as any BBC viewer of Red Dwarf knows.
Assuming these gems of society are on their own (not backed by mummy and daddy's money), you're heading down "blood from a turnip" road there, opposite of what the article was saying about graduates being richer and better able to pay. I suppose the screw-ups won't accumulate as much debt before being ejected to find a career asking if you want fries with that, but then you'll have the skaters that get by with a D-, or C or whatever the threshold grade is, allowing them to stay in partyland while getting the minimum possible future economic value from their time spent at University.
There's no set of rules that covers all cases - some form of judicial review would actually be a good thing for everyone involved.
Hmmm.... maybe it's just Germany?
My zero interest while attending student loan was already a disincentive to graduate (especially when it turned from zero interest to 8% upon graduation..)
Actually, this could be a tuition suppression mechanism, if implemented with care....
The tax based tuition would be limited, if the University wants to get tax funded students, they have to do it within the tax reimbursement structure.
Of course, if the tax funded structure offers $10,000 per credit hour, the universities will take it, but let's be sensible about this.
Take a look at European University tuition structures... I believe they are as simple as "paying for it with some taxes."
So under this new system, why would I ever stop going to college? This is already a problem with some of the higher level institutions.
What happened to my mod points? This ^^^ in spades. I was remembering the "Freshman flameouts" that occupied dorm rooms, enrolled for classes, and basically partied non-stop until they were academically expelled. If school is free to attend, I see a rapidly growing segment of the University population who are just there for the ride - stretching it out as long as they can get away with it, then moving on with no tax burden because they didn't graduate. Which brings up another thought - people who get within 3 credits of graduation and then don't complete - I know some people who have done this already, without a tax-disincentive to graduate.
I'm all for tax funded higher education, but putting the burden only on the graduates seems regressive.
Since we're moving to a debt based economy, why don't we all start life tax-free, then incur tax loads as we place burdens on society. Using healthcare? Now you're in the healthcare payback tax pool. Got in a car crash? That's fine, we'll cover you as if you were insured, and you'll pay back the cost plus administrative fees as a tax over the next several years. The taxes will have to be higher than actual costs to cover those who don't, or can't, pay back, but they only fall on the users. So, you got into Harvard but can't afford to pay? Finance it with the IRS.
If you're ever completely out of date, you're doing it wrong. Sure, you might not stay at the cutting edge of the latest fads, but the good new tools and techniques take 5 to 10 years to get established. If you're so out of touch that you can't pick up the buzz of something worthwhile after 5 years, and take the time to learn and master that yourself, how did you ever get through engineering school in the first place?
Also, if your company "needs" new tech that didn't exist five years ago, maybe you are too old for that game. There's plenty of worthwhile work out there that doesn't involve gambling on picking "the next big thing" before it happens.
Story of my life...
I was hired at a local firm as a "Senior Developer," then promptly given responsibility for managing an international development team, developing a new product architecture from the ground up, updating the infrastructure and driving adoption of best practices, etc. Not a problem, it's what I do, but lately I'm given that "Senior Developer" title because my professional career lacks any big home run projects. Judged not based on abilities or performance of me or my teams, but on the marketplace success of our products.
Meanwhile, guys my age who were along for the ride on $100M+ projects are getting titles like "Senior VP" because, well, don't they deserve it after that success? They readily admit that it was a case of being in the right place at the right time, but it doesn't change how executive management makes their hiring decisions.
So, yeah, the rats jumping from the sinking ships are usually rewarded better than the loyal crew members who man the pumps through rough waters.
>internal teams all developing complete stacks in isolation and competing for resources
One of the prime dangers of being big and well resourced. Somebody at the top should have been regularly breaking up the party and selecting "the best of" what was developed to be the companywide platform, then continue from there. Or, better still, train the teams to play in their own sandboxes and trust their colleagues to give them the support they need. Both approaches have drawbacks, but competing with yourself is worse than either.
Sounds like an unused retainer agreement to me - I had one of those once...
I never kept up with the names - beyond Qt at least. They always seemed like pre-beta not ready for wasting my time on projects.
If I had gotten Elop's job at Nokia (which I wouldn't have, because I don't have ties to Microsoft, but just fantasize), I would have continued the Linux on phone development with Qt as the UI, put serious resources into a desktop phone emulator that works (unlike my current experience with Eclipse and Android simulation), and focused on making developer friendly software that works and works well. I am completely unfamiliar with the top level corporate politics at Nokia, but I bet impatience was a big factor in the choices they have made lately.
I thought they were close - they certainly seemed closer to success (with Linux or Windows) when Elop was announced than they do now.
My perspective, the terrible decisions and more damaging, lousy execution of plans were already done when Elop took over - the biggest terrible decision of course being to give Elop the job.
They had a rough go with Qt/Maemo, then they changed course, to a dead end street.
I've read elsewhere that Windows is embracing Android, both on the desktop and in their phones, so a pure Android Nokia phone isn't 100% off base, especially if it can do something clever with MS Office and Exchange integration.
Personally, I still want to be able to write phone apps in Qt, but am learning Android in the meantime.
It is also possible to go on with life after having your doctoral studies interrupted... grossly unjust and a good way to build some serious resentment, but if your family has the means to send you to the U.S. for a Ph.D., they are probably well off enough that you don't really have to work to earn the basic necessities of life, either.
If you want to go for genocidal villains, I prefer Hugo Drax...
I'm not saying that the Human condition was ideal during that time period, but the ecosystem is one that supported us and kept us relatively healthy - those of us that weren't struck down by disease, starvation, predators, etc. Starting about 5000 years ago, Homo Sapiens biggest problems mostly came from Homo Sapiens...
So, assuming that we first can "just all get along" - and second are going to steer the global eco-system toward some "ideal" - that ideal ecology probably should resemble 3000 BCE more than 2000 AD - minus the uncontrolled disease, starvation, predation, and other recognizable problems in both times.
$4 million to fix this one, how many simply suffered similar injustice silently and got on with their lives?
I think that "us" evolved out of the ecosystem that was in-place roughly 50,000 to 5,000 years ago, and "us" would be best served by keeping that ecosystem more or less in-tact. I don't seem to have a lot of people who agree with me, but I'm trying:
http://5050by2150.wordpress.co...
You mistake amused for mad. Things are screwed up all the time, especially seemingly simple ones like power window control circuits. Our 1999 Dodge RAM has a seatbelt controller failure mode that's particularly annoying, locks you in the seat after 30 minutes, unlocks when the doors open... apparently they went back to "dumb" seatbelt controls a year or two later. If you want to read about potential automotive design flaws with serious repercussions, search for "Flaming Fords."
Back on "Laser" headlamps - presumably, the light will be distributed with greater control, but not greater intensity. If you want greater intensity, replace your 65W high beam bulbs with (not legal for on-road use) 100W bulbs - they're noticeably brighter, and available from J.C. Whitney since at least the 1970s.
If anything, with greater beam control, the laser headlamp's total light output is probably going to be lower than conventional bulbs - just to reach compliance with existing laws. I bet that energy consumption will be lower too.
There have been several significant non-human caused icy climate events in the past - most of them less pleasant than some ice-bridge melting.
The presumed difference between now and then is that we have some concept that our actions affect the future course of the climate, and maybe we should be doing something to keep the climate in a good state for us.
But, who really knows? Maybe there was some planet-wide communication among the dinosaurs, and some of them saw the problems coming and a way to avert them, but ultimately they failed to control the situation for their benefit.
I like the '70s luxury car "side beams" that would illuminate in the direction of the turn signals, I wonder why those went out of fashion?