This is just what the suburbs needed, more identical boxes. New subdivisions already look like they're being built by robots. Cubes of vinyl siding, barely ten feet apart. Some don't even bother to alternate designs, so they're absolutely identical. And soon, we'll be able to crank out one a day. "They will not be popular if they resemble concrete bunkers more than elegant, graceful homes." Well, that's so, but it looks like we have a hard enough time with elegant and graceful the old-fashioned way.
That said, this is really some pretty sweet technology. In my personal opinion, it's not right for a residential area, but it would be great for Mars. (If they get started soon, I'll be able to go up there and blast demons in real life!) Other terrestrial construction would be pretty well-suited to this technique, too. Especially in earthquake-prone areas. And for the Koreans, combine this with their upcoming armed robots, and they won't need any people to patrol and build bunkers and everything. Of course, that leaves tens of thousands of people out of a job, but you know, it happens. I'm sure they won't mind leaving a war zone.
"Driving, observing and shooting are always done with a man in the loop," the Foster-Miller spokesman said. "The labs like autonomy, but the users themselves always like to have control."
It's really not too shocking to think about a computer in charge of deadly force. Sure, think about Arnold in Terminator, but this is not a new idea. We've put computers in charge of our weapons systems for years. Back in the days when strategic bombers with nuclear weapons were our primary deterrent, the computer (such as it existed in the 50s and 60s) was in charge of dropping the bombs. This was even more common on conventional platforms, where accuracy actually mattered. The computer can figure out where the best place to pickle off the bomb is, and all the pilot does is flip a consent switch that actually allows the plane to release a weapon. All the pilot knew was that the bomb would release at some point. This system offers a lot more control to the human operator, who I guess will be playing an FPS in real-life.
I agree wholeheartedly. Honestly, you can't base all future funding decisions on the current state of the art. "It doesn't work now, so quit pouring money in that hole." If there's one thing that we as a species are singularly bad at, it's predicting the future.
"Line those planes up where I can see them, here at Pearl Harbor we have sabotage to worry about!"
A number of people have read the reports of the researchers who reviewed the experiments, and laughed or pooh-poohed at the inconclusive nature of the conclusions. But remember, that just means it hasn't been proven to work. It also hasn't been proven NOT to work. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. The researchers who dissented presented highly valid concerns about the technical accuracy and experimental setup used, but no one presented a convincing theoretical argument that fusion cannot occur at a few eV. Essentially, there's an interesting phenomenon that we can't completely explain. It might be an experimental error, but then again, it might not. It's at least worth checking out.
Re:Wait, a vaccine?
on
HIV Vaccine
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Seriously, curing HIV is just dealing with a symptom of a problem. If the groups that promote AIDS and STD education in Africa could get just a tiny portion of the funding that goes into HIV medical research, the spread of AIDS would run into a wall. In South Africa, they have billboards that say things like "You can catch AIDS by having sex with an infected woman." Americans think, well, no kidding, but very few people have bothered to tell the South Africans that. AIDS is a problem that has to be attacked on all fronts.
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This is just what the suburbs needed, more identical boxes. New subdivisions already look like they're being built by robots. Cubes of vinyl siding, barely ten feet apart. Some don't even bother to alternate designs, so they're absolutely identical. And soon, we'll be able to crank out one a day. "They will not be popular if they resemble concrete bunkers more than elegant, graceful homes." Well, that's so, but it looks like we have a hard enough time with elegant and graceful the old-fashioned way. That said, this is really some pretty sweet technology. In my personal opinion, it's not right for a residential area, but it would be great for Mars. (If they get started soon, I'll be able to go up there and blast demons in real life!) Other terrestrial construction would be pretty well-suited to this technique, too. Especially in earthquake-prone areas. And for the Koreans, combine this with their upcoming armed robots, and they won't need any people to patrol and build bunkers and everything. Of course, that leaves tens of thousands of people out of a job, but you know, it happens. I'm sure they won't mind leaving a war zone.
Seriously, curing HIV is just dealing with a symptom of a problem. If the groups that promote AIDS and STD education in Africa could get just a tiny portion of the funding that goes into HIV medical research, the spread of AIDS would run into a wall. In South Africa, they have billboards that say things like "You can catch AIDS by having sex with an infected woman." Americans think, well, no kidding, but very few people have bothered to tell the South Africans that. AIDS is a problem that has to be attacked on all fronts.