The black side would get 1 kick per photon, the reflective side 2 kicks per photon. Net result, 1 kick. A better idea would be a mirror sail that transmits light on one face, and reflects it on the other.
It's not a direct comparison... it's an *analogy*...
The reason I chose to use intelligence as an analogy is that it's another psychological quality for which choice plays relatively little part, and as such, I think it's a reasonable analogy. Choice in the many aspects which make up one's identity is an elusive quality.
As to your following comment:
> Comparing intelligence, which requires a condition of using memory and cognition isn't comparable to depression, which is a state brought on by serotonin uptake dysfunction. You can take drugs for somewhat effective depression mitigation.
The current drugs, from personal experience, appear to work for a while (for some value of 'work').
It's possible, perhaps likely, that there is more than one underlying cause for clinical depression. Some mechanism for homeostatis must exist, and in my case, I suspect that my 'set point' for serotonin level is just too low. Drugs increase my levels, I'm happier for a while, but then I revert. This of course assumes that serotonin levels are the only biological factor underlying depression.
Perhaps not currently but, given the work on high level hardware compilation languages, it's only a matter of time before similar techniques are applied to hardware design.
The following links are to a couple of interesting Google Tech Talks on Youtube, covering the subject of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Carlo Rubbia (Nobel-winning physicist) is pushing another class of thorium reactor - the accelerator-driven system.
> i think it's rather difficult to find a more selfish activity than getting stoned and listening to music that you like
That looks like a very subjective statement. In contrast to your depiction, some people might view such activities as glue for social bonding. You do that much?
I lived with a black tom called Bastard. He was unneutered, friendly, and in other respects resembled the descriptions of Greebo in Terry Pratchett's novels. He used to sit in my lap, purr like a road drill, and knead my stomach and breasts with his paws, a behaviour known as 'milk gesturing' - ie, asking for milk. He'd also get turned on, possibly a reaction to my scent. So, it's possible that he saw me as a mother, a sex object, a child, and a non-feline *thing* (based on descriptions of the slightly confused body language that cats using when interacting with humans). This *is* speculation.
> Intelligence comes into it but only to a point . . .
Out of interest, what is that point?
Are you saying that the vast majority of the human race will have a good intuitive understanding of physics if only the argument is put well enough in sufficiently clear english?
> why use three syllables when one will do!
Sometimes you have to use a whole different language. And, some concepts don't transfer well to some people. People are individually *different*.
But the point is that for many ideas, the majority of people are not in a position to evaluate whether the exposition is done well or poorly...
Even a topic as superficially obvious as evolution benefits from a basic mathematical intuition and a nodding acquaintance with mathematical complexity. Most popular descriptions I've seen of the evolutionary process characterise it as 'random chance', whereas it's a more complex mechanism comprising the following elements:
A sieving process - everything that slips through the sieve *dies* or fares less well
A fitness memory - the set of genomes across a genetically similar population, or an *individual* genome where fitness in not communicated.
Optionally, a mechanism for distributing a subset of working fitness characteristics throught a genetically similar population (sexual reproduction or sideways gene transfer).
An underlying randomisation driver in the form of things like cosmic ray damage and other influences that might tend to change the genome data.
So, option (a) random chance or option (b) the more complex system with its attendant subleties?
Option (a) genuinely *does* give irreducible complexity, whereas in option (b), the numbers work and you can use the mechanism to practical effect in genetic algorithms...
Which option sells best when a confident, charismatic person sells it to a typical member of the public? It's the easiest thing in the world to ignore the subtleties inherent to a complex topic. We're set up to do it - if we were not, we'd spend all our time gazing at the intricate designs in the rug and tracing them back to their religious, mathematical, philosophical and social roots. We'd starve or be eaten.
Is it arrogant and elitist to understand something which the majority of people have difficulty with? In the above instance, no-one is hiding the knowledge, and yet there's no shortage of people who doubt evolution. Finally, it's an argument from personal experience, but I'm from a working-class family. The rest of my family would glaze over and say something rude if I tried to talk about this kind of thing. They don't want to know. Ironically, they *do* believe in evolution, but the keyword here is *believe*. Place them in a different context, around glib people with a different agenda, and they'll believe that the Great Marmoset scooped up its poop and moulded it into a patty-cake, and thus we have the world. Forgive me if my arrogant elitist frustration leaks out all over the floor.
That tendency of unimaginative geeks to piss all over ideas that aren't actually in front of them and in use at that point... It's loathsome and saddening.
Re:Evolution versus artificial modification
on
Cosmetic Neurology
·
· Score: 1
How can you *cheat* evolution if everything you do is an epiphenomenon of evolution?
I'm still using the original XP Media Centre install (now on a new and larger hard disk) that came with my laptop, at least three years ago. I've never had a virus in the history of the internet. I have *no* trouble installing a copy of WIndows/XP from scratch (I'm currently setting up a friend's laptop to dual-boot Kubuntu and XP Pro). I modified *my* laptop a short while back to dual-boot Fedora Core 9 and the resized partition image which contained the aforesaid original version of XP. I've never had any real trouble with XP personally, although I have seen it rot and fail in the hands my family, friends, and previously, workmates.
Microsoft made some huge mistakes - ActiveX, failing to offer cleanable installs in non-admin mode, and others.
But, there's a large element of basic user incompetence as well.
Windows/XP works perfectly well if you don't or *can't* abuse it.
The flash memory that a BIOS lives in comes in a range of integral sizes. The BIOS code itself does not, being written to a set of requisite functionalities, rather than to fill a given size of flash memory. Therefore, the probability is that there will be some free space.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd agree up to 'a company works well with sociopaths'.
What can I say other than 'I agree'?
The black side would get 1 kick per photon, the reflective side 2 kicks per photon. Net result, 1 kick. A better idea would be a mirror sail that transmits light on one face, and reflects it on the other.
E=mc^2
VASIMR?
It's not a direct comparison... it's an *analogy*...
The reason I chose to use intelligence as an analogy is that it's another psychological quality for which choice plays relatively little part, and as such, I think it's a reasonable analogy. Choice in the many aspects which make up one's identity is an elusive quality.
As to your following comment:
> Comparing intelligence, which requires a condition of using memory and cognition isn't comparable to depression, which is a state brought on by serotonin uptake dysfunction. You can take drugs for somewhat effective depression mitigation.
The current drugs, from personal experience, appear to work for a while (for some value of 'work').
It's possible, perhaps likely, that there is more than one underlying cause for clinical depression. Some mechanism for homeostatis must exist, and in my case, I suspect that my 'set point' for serotonin level is just too low. Drugs increase my levels, I'm happier for a while, but then I revert. This of course assumes that serotonin levels are the only biological factor underlying depression.
> You can do the same thing without being depressed and be happier about it.
Tautology...
I've come across so *many* people who just think it's a matter of changing your mind. Trust me, I try.
Why don't dumb people *choose* to be intelligent? Nearly everyone with any hint of ego or self-respect *wants* that...
Perhaps not currently but, given the work on high level hardware compilation languages, it's only a matter of time before similar techniques are applied to hardware design.
How many stars in a sphere of 100 light years radius from the Sun?
I 3 Systems administrators
*searches for naughty underwear*
The following links are to a couple of interesting Google Tech Talks on Youtube, covering the subject of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. Carlo Rubbia (Nobel-winning physicist) is pushing another class of thorium reactor - the accelerator-driven system.
I hope you find them of interest - they're quite long.
Of course you realise... this means War!!!
> i think it's rather difficult to find a more selfish activity than getting stoned and listening to music that you like
That looks like a very subjective statement. In contrast to your depiction, some people might view such activities as glue for social bonding. You do that much?
It's more complicated than that...
I lived with a black tom called Bastard. He was unneutered, friendly, and in other respects resembled the descriptions of Greebo in Terry Pratchett's novels. He used to sit in my lap, purr like a road drill, and knead my stomach and breasts with his paws, a behaviour known as 'milk gesturing' - ie, asking for milk. He'd also get turned on, possibly a reaction to my scent. So, it's possible that he saw me as a mother, a sex object, a child, and a non-feline *thing* (based on descriptions of the slightly confused body language that cats using when interacting with humans). This *is* speculation.
Have you ever noticed how many non-technical writers use the word 'Cartesian' like an insult? Dipshits.
CP/M 80; BBC Basic; VM/CMS and UTS on an IBM 3081, then VAX/VMS and Ultrix. And get off my lawn!
> Intelligence comes into it but only to a point . . .
Out of interest, what is that point?
Are you saying that the vast majority of the human race will have a good intuitive understanding of physics if only the argument is put well enough in sufficiently clear english?
> why use three syllables when one will do! Sometimes you have to use a whole different language. And, some concepts don't transfer well to some people. People are individually *different*.
> It can be done, or it can be done poorly.
But the point is that for many ideas, the majority of people are not in a position to evaluate whether the exposition is done well or poorly...
Even a topic as superficially obvious as evolution benefits from a basic mathematical intuition and a nodding acquaintance with mathematical complexity. Most popular descriptions I've seen of the evolutionary process characterise it as 'random chance', whereas it's a more complex mechanism comprising the following elements:
So, option (a) random chance or option (b) the more complex system with its attendant subleties?
Option (a) genuinely *does* give irreducible complexity, whereas in option (b), the numbers work and you can use the mechanism to practical effect in genetic algorithms...
Which option sells best when a confident, charismatic person sells it to a typical member of the public? It's the easiest thing in the world to ignore the subtleties inherent to a complex topic. We're set up to do it - if we were not, we'd spend all our time gazing at the intricate designs in the rug and tracing them back to their religious, mathematical, philosophical and social roots. We'd starve or be eaten.
Is it arrogant and elitist to understand something which the majority of people have difficulty with? In the above instance, no-one is hiding the knowledge, and yet there's no shortage of people who doubt evolution. Finally, it's an argument from personal experience, but I'm from a working-class family. The rest of my family would glaze over and say something rude if I tried to talk about this kind of thing. They don't want to know. Ironically, they *do* believe in evolution, but the keyword here is *believe*. Place them in a different context, around glib people with a different agenda, and they'll believe that the Great Marmoset scooped up its poop and moulded it into a patty-cake, and thus we have the world. Forgive me if my arrogant elitist frustration leaks out all over the floor.
OS-9?
That tendency of unimaginative geeks to piss all over ideas that aren't actually in front of them and in use at that point... It's loathsome and saddening.
How can you *cheat* evolution if everything you do is an epiphenomenon of evolution?
I'm still using the original XP Media Centre install (now on a new and larger hard disk) that came with my laptop, at least three years ago. I've never had a virus in the history of the internet. I have *no* trouble installing a copy of WIndows/XP from scratch (I'm currently setting up a friend's laptop to dual-boot Kubuntu and XP Pro). I modified *my* laptop a short while back to dual-boot Fedora Core 9 and the resized partition image which contained the aforesaid original version of XP. I've never had any real trouble with XP personally, although I have seen it rot and fail in the hands my family, friends, and previously, workmates.
Microsoft made some huge mistakes - ActiveX, failing to offer cleanable installs in non-admin mode, and others.
But, there's a large element of basic user incompetence as well.
Windows/XP works perfectly well if you don't or *can't* abuse it.
The flash memory that a BIOS lives in comes in a range of integral sizes. The BIOS code itself does not, being written to a set of requisite functionalities, rather than to fill a given size of flash memory. Therefore, the probability is that there will be some free space.
My dog used to scorn me for being so useless at chasing rabbits. Except when we used the the 4WD. Then, he was Rommel, and I was his tank driver.