I can also imagine placing the drones precisely, and detonating their payload in a precisely time succession to create a pressure wave that is either directed or of a magnitude that is greater than what a single bomb of the same mass could produce.
It's technology like this that could change how battles are fought. Much like how firearms ended the days of the mounted knight and high walled castles. Or how warplanes ended the days of the big gun battleships. How effective would a M1 Abrams tank be if a small cheap drone can fly up to it and blow off a track?
So this is what happens when they run out of people willing to sacrifice their one and only life for Allah.
In some way this could be a "good" thing. It shows that they've lost enough numbers and fanatics that suicide attacks aren't as attractive as before. It wasn't that long ago we could read about them using children and the mentally handicapped to carry their suicide weapons. I suspect that this practice ended right quick as it proved very unpopular. These people may be depraved lunatics but it seems they have limits to their depravity.
Uhh.... no. There's been talk of this for decades.
Perhaps but let's think about this. Radio controlled aircraft have been used certainly since WWII. Putting in cameras and TV transmitters for a first person view for piloting was experimented with then, perhaps even used successfully. These were converted light bombers where the controls had to be operated by a trained pilot. One could argue that the pilots would have to be exceptionally skilled since they'd be flying from a different aircraft that was trailing and flying from what could be seen through the cameras (likely B&W and very low resolution given the technology of the 1940s), and maybe from what they could see from the windows of the trailing aircraft. This meant the destruction of a very valuable airframe, and valuable electronics, and would likely only be attempted out of desperation.
Radio controlled airplanes have existed for decades for certain. I vaguely recall a 1980s TV show where the plot of one episode focused on the use of a very unique RC plane loaded with explosives to down an airliner. The plane was flown by line of sight, since no camera and transmitter would fit. RC planes were something of a fad at the time, making the episode appealing to audiences, but even then the planes would have been quite expensive and difficult to control, and therefore be not much better than chucking a grenade unless, as with the WWII experiments, flown as very expensive radio guided missiles into high value targets. This would be true up into the 1990s at least, making the claim of "decades" dubious.
This is the use of inexpensive remote controlled aircraft, capable of hovering over a target, with video resolution sufficient to identify a possible target from hundreds of feet in the air, a radio range far enough that it exceeds the ability of someone to just chuck a grenade, with sufficient on board electronics that a user with minimal training can operate with sufficient control to get within feet of the target in time short enough that the target cannot react, having payload sufficient to carry a deadly explosive and remote detonator, and all of this cheap enough to use against a common soldier, not only a VIP.
I'm pretty sure this technology is a very recent development. People may have been speculating about this for decades but not to sufficient detail to know enough to develop counter measures. People have been talking about a lot of things for a long time but never knowing exactly when the technology would arrive or with enough detail to do anything about it. People have discussed biological and chemical attacks for a long time too but until one knows exactly what kind of chemicals or biological elements one can expect the counter measures can be only very generic and therefore not especially effective.
We might have been able to foresee what a future remote controlled flying grenade might be capable of, but without knowing specifics like the range of the device, the frequencies used, the coding system for the up and down links, etc. the countermeasures would only be very generic. It seems the specifics surprised a lot of people.
I've never seen battle but I know people that have. What is not typical battle gear is a shotgun and trying to shoot down a small drone with a M-4 or M-16 rifle would seem more that just difficult. Not to mention trying to shoot down a drone with a rifle that has an effective range of over a mile does seem like something that might not be safe, even in a war zone, to attempt.
A typical infantry squad in an urban environment will have one of perhaps four soldiers with what they call a "master key". A master key, in this instance, is a short barreled Remington Model 870 shotgun loaded with door breaching rounds. This might serve to down a small drone loaded with explosives, especially if loaded with more appropriate ammunition but there is still a matter of training. The M870 is not a complex piece of equipment but soldiers should have at least some familiarity with it before being expected to shoot down drones with it. Some marksmanship training would certainly be helpful, aiming a rifle is different than pointing a shotgun. Shooting down a drone is certainly very different than taking a door off its hinges.
Also, who says shooting them down is the best idea? That certainly seems like a logical solution but maybe throwing a baseball at it would work better. Or tossing a net at it. Maybe an EMP weapon? The powers that be don't know what does and does not work yet. Also, you point out that the drone once grounded is still a threat. I agree it is a threat but this is different than a booby trap triggered by a string, the soldiers need to be trained on this.
The soldiers in the US Army are the best trained in the world and I expect, as apparently you do, to figure things out quickly. However, this is a new problem and "figuring it out on the fly" as you point out can get soldiers killed. A lot of lives can be saved with even a few minutes of training so soldiers don't repeat mistakes others did while "figuring it out on the fly".
Not only that but how to pull the pin once over the target.
You make it sound trivial but the implications are bigger than the technology employed. I was in the US Army and the tactics taught in basic military training did not include looking for quadcopters with a grenade attached. This is something new that, according to the article at least, the smart people that are supposed to see things like this coming did not foresee. What is worse is that there is no easy fix.
I recall a story from WWII of the US Army seeing big losses of soldiers from drowning. Back then the US Army and US Navy had much greater training and logistic separation than they do now. The Army didn't think that soldiers, people trained to fight on land, would be put in a position where they'd have to worry about drowning. It just was not thought of until ships full of soldiers being carried over the ocean to the battlefield were attacked. Basic water survival has been a part of basic training since.
Another more recent example. Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were getting blown up by booby traps. This is stupid simple technology of putting a wire across a doorway with one end attached to the pin of a grenade. A big problem since there was no training on this. Several different means were used to address this with differing levels of success and time involved to discover the wires. What became the most favored means of detection was to use those cans of "silly string" to spray a brightly colored string onto the wires but not apply enough pressure to pull the pin on the grenade. What was an improvised method became standard equipment and training. I imagine the $5 can of silly string that they used in the beginning has become a $500 can that can withstand temperatures of -50C to 70C, pressures from 0 to 15 atmospheres, and radiation blast from a tactical nuke but that's another story.
Those are a couple examples on how to address known issues in battle with training and simple equipment. What the problem is now is that the powers that be need to find a way to counteract this new development, and do so quickly, or people die. This is not as simple as issuing cans of silly string and training the soldiers how to use it.
I'm sure some SJW will claim that this is all our fault for invading their land and how western nations should just leave them alone and then they will leave us alone. My first instinct is to punch such people in the face but since this is the internet, and I try to keep myself from being arrested for battery, I'll point out that western civilization has been battling these savages for centuries. The words "to the shores of Tripoli" in the USMC song refers to a battle with an Islamic state in 1803. They declared war on the USA since the USA existed.
Assuming a modern cell phone does not use any internal accelerometers for navigation I can understand why. A car navigation system will always know the relative position of the sensors to the motion of the vehicle, as in the accelerometers are attached firmly to the vehicle and will register only the motion of the vehicle. Sensors in a tablet or phone can not be sure of that since someone using the device could be holding it in landscape or portrait mode, be in a backward facing seat, in the hands of a child shaking it feverishly because it's not playing Dora the Explorer, or tumbling off the seat to the floor because the car hit a pothole.
By simply ignoring the motion sensors and using only GPS data the math on computing location gets simpler and likely more accurate. A phone may be able to detect that the motion sensors roughly match the GPS data and decide they are trustworthy, basically the phone assumes it is on a solid mount, and then use it to compute accurate data. What happens then once the GPS signal is lost? Can the motion sensors still be trusted? I can just imagine how people might react to having a phone start giving erroneous location data, people will pick up the phone and start moving it around the cabin to get the signal back. At that point what should the phone do? Should it assume the car is weaving wildly or that someone is moving the phone?
An in dash navigation system has other advantages that a phone does not have, like the potential to get more data than just acceleration and GPS. I can imagine a car navigation system would make use of data like vehicle speed and position of the steering wheel. Unless someone goes the the effort of connecting a phone to the on board diagnostic port then it will always have less information than a navigation system built into the vehicle.
Let's assume I am a big Apple fan and absolutely must by a latest and greatest iPhone every year. So last year I had an iPhone with a TRS output for my favorite headphones. This year I buy a new iPhone with out the TRS output on the phone but it has the adapter for my TRS headphones. Next year Apple neglects to include the adapter with the iPhone but I still have the adapter that came with the old iPhone I replaced it with.
At what point is Apple going to be able to "cash in" on this change? The person would have to have their headphones and/or adapter lost, broken, or otherwise unusable for this chain to be broken but then that would be true regardless if Apple included the TRS output or not. If a person didn't like the idea of having a phone that lacked the TRS jack then they are not required to buy an iPhone in the future.
Since Apple supports audio over Bluetooth and WiFi then iPhone users are perfectly able to use one of many different brands of wireless headphones/speakers/whatever for audio input and output. Use of a headset that has a TRS plug on a future iPhone would then require an adapter but then again no one is forced to buy an iPhone. If one still chooses the iPhone and chooses to use a wired headset with a TRS plug then and only then is one "required" to buy this Apple adapter.
At some point in the future I will assume that Apple will again change the charging port on the phones they offer, still not include the TRS port, offer the TRS adapter at additional cost, and also continue to support Bluetooth, WiFi, and/or some other wireless audio standard. At that future time the people inconvenienced by this would be those that somehow are incapable of buying a competitor's phone that has a TRS output (such as compulsive Apple buying behavior or no competitor has a TRS output either) and has been able to keep their TRS headset functional without wearing it out, losing it, or otherwise never finding a reason to get a new headset that is wireless or has a plug compatible with the new iPhone.
At this future date then and only then will Apple be able to "cash in" on this customer by selling them a headset or adapter that costs something like $29. Remember that this is an accessory for a phone that retails for over $700. Even in the unlikely (or rather impossible) event that all of those $29 is profit that is not a lot of take home cash for Apple.
I'm still not seeing the "cash grab" aspect of this.
Right, because so many problems are solved with restrictions on freedom of communications.
In case my snark was missed I will emphatically point out that any restrictions on communications are bad. Allowing drug makers to advertise directly to patients may have had some annoying side effects but I find it difficult to believe that society would be improved by NOT informing the public on what drugs are available to them. I find these advertisements annoying in many ways, since they are often selling drugs for conditions that I'll never or are unlikely to get, or point to conditions I might have to deal with at some future time but would rather not think about. I will also often find them amusing for the list of side effects the drugs can have. How any drug that lists "suicidal ideation" as a side effect can make it to market astonishes me. I'm also amused over such gross and embarrassing possible side effects like "anal seepage". What is especially amusing are drugs with potential side effects that are counter to the reason for taking them, like weight gain for a weight loss drug, or heart attack for a heart drug.
I'm OK what drugs being advertised so long as they are honest, such as the requirement to mention all potential side effects of the drug. A healthy society (for many definitions of "healthy") requires that people can speak freely. This is especially true for things that we might find annoying. If we ban people from talking about things that anger or annoy someone then we could say nothing, since anything someone might say could annoy someone if given a large enough population.
I will also say that this freedom of speaking should apply to political campaigns too. Let the politicians spend as much as they like on TV and radio advertising, so long as they are kept honest. When it comes to politics though so much can be subjective and/or speculative but if we can keep politicians from stating things that are provably false then I say let them talk.
In reading the summary I got the impression that they were going to use the low speed data lines on the USB-C connector as analog output lines. That would make more sense to me than defining some new audio device standard. I thought the USB 2 spec contained enough audio device standards to satisfy any kind of headphone setup people might use on a phone, music player, computer, or whatever else someone might expect to find a USB-C port. With USB 2 data pins being a common and required part of any USB-C alternate mode I'd think that creating a device capable of plugging into a USB-C port and providing audio input and/or output would be trivial and essentially a solved problem. USB 2 is certainly capable, as far as I can tell, of providing multiple audio channels with high fidelity without running into issues of bandwidth or power limits. Perhaps I'm missing an important detail.
I never was a big fan of USB. I thought the spec always was second best to competition like FireWire. The lack of peer to peer was a big problem for me. The confusing connectors are such a problem that it's become a joke that nearly everyone in the world would understand, if there is a place in the world with cell phone coverage then people understand the need to flip a USB connector over 3 or 4 times before being able to plug them in right. Power limitations were also a problem from the start, which lead to many interesting non-standard means to address it. USB 3.1 and the USB-C connector fixed a lot of these problems which basically came down to, IMHO, reinventing FireWire.
While the USB people are fixing the problems with the past versions with USB 3 I have to wonder if they aren't creating more problems with their over use of the "alt mode" feature. With so many optional alternate modes I believe that there may be a problem with consumers getting confused with the capability of the ports on their device and what kind of cables, devices, and adapters they need to do what they want to do. There are three different video alternate modes for USB-C right now, DisplayPort/Thunderbolt, MHL, and HDMI/DVI. I can just imagine the frustration people could have in trying to find the right cable and/or display to connect to a device with a USB-C port.
If the USB people are going to make the audio connection capabilities as complicated as the video connection capabilities then they might be making people avoid USB-C because it offers TOO MUCH capability since people won't be sure how to use it. Ports like PS/2, eSATA, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Ethernet, and so on are simple to use and understand because they do one thing, and do them quite well. Trying to stack too much into one port might be great for the computer geek but not so much for a large portion of the public that just want things to work.
Explain to me how Apple removing the 3.5mm TRS headphone jack from the latest iPhone is a "cash grab" when the adapter for 3.5mm TRS output is included with the phone?
I could see your point if the TRS jack was missing from the iPhone AND the adapter for a TRS output was available only with an Apple adapter at additional cost but, since the adapter comes with the phone then I'm failing to see the money grab aspect here.
I'm an Apple user, I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro and I own three iPods, so perhaps I'm biased. Since the headphone jack on my iPod Touch stopped working I wish there was a cheap adapter available to convert the data/charging port to a headphone jack. I can kind of do that with a small dock but then the iPod won't fit in a pocket any more.
I saw the same, making prostitution illegal rarely helps anyone.
I can recall someone discussing something about prostitution being legal and then illegal. It went something like when prostitution was legal the prostitutes would stay put in their "comfort house" or whatever they called it and the police had little trouble with them. There would be the occasional case of a rough customer and the police would have to come out but the prostitutes generally tended to cause no trouble and word of mouth kept them clean.
When prostitution became illegal then the prostitutes could not stay put any more. They needed customers to pay the bills so they'd go where the customers were. This meant hanging out at truck stops, movie theaters, and so on. The prostitutes were no longer just in the part of town that no one in polite company spoke about. They were now all over town. Parents no longer wanted to take their kids to the movies at night any more. If there was a "rough customer" then the prostitutes were reluctant to report it to the police. Diseases spread because the comfort houses didn't have a reputation to keep any more.
Same for things like child labor laws. Parents generally don't want their children working but if it means the kid works or the kid starves then the kid works. If it is illegal then, like the prostitutes, people are less likely to call police if there is a problem.
Then there are the drug laws. People used to be able to get laudanum, a mix of alcohol and opiates, to treat common ailments like pain, congestion, and diarrhea without a prescription. People abused it, for sure, but generally people used it for what was on the label since it was usually a very bitter drink. When that became a controlled substance then addicts would hold up pharmacies for it, a black market developed, and overdoses were common (since the quality varied). Oh, and people that needed relief from these common ailments had to do with lesser medications, go through the time and expense of going through a physician to get it, and then physicians were reluctant to prescribe it because the government... I'm not sure why they wanted to stop this. Seems kind of stupid if you think about it. If someone is addicted then that is a medical issue, no? How does giving an addict a felony record help their addiction?
We should think long and hard about what we make illegal. All too often the cure is worse than the disease.
I've often wondered how useful these databases truly are, like driver licenses and automotive registrations. I had a discussion once where the need for driver licenses came up. I think it had something to do with illegal immigrants driving. So I thought I do some searching on the internet on how many people drove without licenses. The truth is that no one knows and very few people have enough information to even estimate it. There could be 10 million unlicensed drivers out there, give or take about 40 million.
What is clear is that unlicensed drivers tend to get in more accidents. This is not surprising. People with a habit of drink driving will eventually lose their license or die trying. Those that are lucky enough to survive having their license revoked will simply drive without a license. There is no requirement to have a license to drive to own a car. I'm not even sure one needs a license to insure the car either, not that a lack of insurance is going to stop these people.
Now we see police officers abusing these databases for their own personal amusement or enrichment. I say we just get rid of the licenses.
The question then inevitably comes up, if we don't license drivers then how do we (the state, the public, whatever) know that people (you know, not me and you, those other people) know how to drive. I say that every day is a driving test, people that fail will be pulled over by law enforcement. Those that are repeat offenders get noted in a database, and if serious enough of an offense they get put in jail. I just said "database" didn't I? Yes, I did. The database is only of offenders, not all drivers. What if a person gets in an accident or causes problems, how will we know who they are? Same way we do it now when people drive without a license. We can ask them their name. If that's not good enough then ask for some identifying document, like a voter registration card (which in my mind is about the only thing honest citizens need a photo ID for). If that's not good enough then haul them to the station, take their picture, take their fingerprints, and make them sit in a cell until all the paperwork goes through.
What about commercial drivers? Do you want the people driving school buses to not have licenses? What of people hauling radioactive waste? I can imagine quite the competitive business in issuing driving certificates, the local community college does this already as I see their trucks on the interstate with a big yellow "STUDENT DRIVER" sign on the trailer and tractor. If a shady certificate agency is issuing certificates in bad faith then they will lose customers real quick. When it comes to people driving for the government there are driving schools run by government agencies already, like the military driving school at Fort Leonard Wood. I'm not sure how that works but anyone that graduates from there gets the equivalent of a commercial driver license. If it's really that important then we already have the schools and certifications for it. For people driving themselves and their family they should not need a license.
Another note on the driving education, the local community college offers classes for passenger vehicles too. I saw four different course types on their website, commercial, "drivers ed" (two kinds here, "high school" and "AARP"), RV training, and "mandated" (as in people with OWI that are court ordered to take a class). It's not like there is a lack of driver training. What's going to force people to take the training if we don't have licensing? How about not getting pulled over for not obeying the traffic laws? As if there is any enforcement now. Remember where I started? Nobody knows how many unlicensed drivers there are now. This might be because the unlicensed drivers are VERY careful and don't want to get pulled over. The safest drivers out there are probably the guys with brownish skin and just downed a pint at the pub. Yep, I just played the "driving while brown" card.
Solar panels? No. Any colony off of Earth will need nuclear power or it's dead. Solar power is far too dilute and fragile. That nuclear power can take the form of a fission reactor or a radio-thermal generator (RTG) but it's nuclear power or death. Even the Apollo missions used RTGs for running their electronics and those were just ten day trips.
While I see your point I believe that there are bigger issues to solve first. The technology is easy compared to many of the non-technological issues that caused colonization efforts to fail before. Take as examples many failed colonies from the age of sail to more recent efforts to create new nations on artificial structures like islands or "floating cities". What caused many of them to fail were not technology but issues like people having disputes over property rights, people not doing their "fair share" of the work to maintain the colony, how crimes are dealt with, taxation disputes, and so forth.
These "soft science" problems in fields like psychology, economics, law, and so forth are (to me at least) bigger questions than "hard science" problems like building a big enough rocket, being able to grow veggies, or creating enough oxygen for people to breathe.
I've thought about how these issues might be solved and considered writing a story basically proposing solutions. You propose sending robots to Mars first to build things for the colonists. What I have to ask is, who owns what the robots build? That might not seem like a big problem at first but for the people on Mars it might be a matter of who lives and dies. I can just imagine a person hoarding valuable items, or even valuable data, and causing problems. Valuable data like how to repair an important item can be a means to declare ownership of something. If one of these robots sent to Mars to build things for the colonists breaks then what? Can a person on Mars then declare ownership of the robot, and therefore anything it builds in the future, by repairing it? Would ownership have to be shared in some way and in what proportion?
I believe that solving the problems on how to live on Mars is more than just what biochemistry and ecology can answer. We can send robots but we'll also have to send lawyers.
I also said, and this is important, that fewer guns means more crime and murder.
Yet I posted a link to research that shows this is not true, and you clearly choose not to accept this.
I wrote a lengthy response to your nonsense but I threw it all away because I found a video that summed up my argument nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If 5Gbps networks become the norm I can imagine something of a return to the VAX and green screen days. Imagine a terminal with ports for display, keyboard, mouse, whatever, and the processing done on a central server somewhere in the building. The terminal could be a small box to turn the RJ-45 into a bunch of USB-C ports for all the peripherals one would need.
Perhaps that is going a bit too far since even at 5Gbps, and allowing for some level of video processing/compression/whatever in the box that might not be enough to meet the needs of what people expect from even a typical office worker. Maybe just the storage be on the network. The terminal would have all the processing but no permanent storage, it boots from the network almost as if it was just a long eSATA line. Some places do this already with 100Mbps networks for small dedicated task workstations but with 5Gbps it would be feasible for so many more things.
I'd think the data security aspects of a net boot system like this could be a big selling point for even small businesses. This assumes a competitive price point, which I believe is quite possible, and the setup not being too difficult, which I think is the hardest part. I've tried playing with net booting before and it is a nightmare. Perhaps I just didn't get enough of the right training but I took Cisco and Microsoft certification courses and I couldn't get it working.
A nice speedy network like this, IPv6, a few other technologies, and the right business case, and net booting could be the norm.
I'm pretty sure you are just trying to be funny but in case you aren't I'll say that orbiting solar satellites is a nice science fiction that in reality will never work.
What might just end up working is the seawater to jet fuel technology the US Navy is researching. The process works by extracting the dissolved CO2 from the water and hydrogen from electrolysis and synthesizing hydrocarbons from them. This technology is intended for nuclear powered warships but would work just as well on land.
But when you say algae biodiesel isn't available today, I think we're discussing two different things. You're saying you can't buy it today, and that's true. I'm saying we have the technology to make it if we wanted, which is also true.
Yes, it appears we are discussing two different things. What I'm pointing out is that unless a technology is cheaper than what it replaces, or has a slight cost increase but gains in some other way, then it cannot succeed. The algae to fuel process in that was described in the article you linked to even points out that the process is very expensive still. The process requires high temperatures and pressures to make it work, where is that going to come from? Is that solar powered too? If so then it can only run in daylight which severely limits output. If using nuclear power for that heat and pressure then why bother with the algae part and not just use a hydrocarbon synthesis process?
I used to believe as you did, that solar power would provide all the power we needed, but now I realize that solar power outside of pocket calculators, communications satellites, and a handful of other places is just not viable.
Think about how the process works and compares to processes we know. Ethanol production has an energy return on energy invested of about 2. If we use better crops for ethanol than corn and we might be able to get to 10. Oil and gas can have an EROEI of more than 20, even bitumen sands can get 3 and there is a lot of that. Algae might be able to beat the EROEI but it will have to rely on some other energy source for that to happen, such as nuclear. Nuclear has an EROEI of 10 now and if we use new technologies like pebble bed or molten salt then it becomes 100. With an EROEI of 100 the algae portion of the energy equation becomes a rounding error. If we use nuclear power to process the algae then so many other processes become viable.
If we are not using nuclear power to process the algae then we have other problems. If using a fossil fuel to process the algae then we gain nothing. If we use solar or wind then we add the cost of that energy on top of the unreliability of that energy.
Algae fuels are not here today. Nuclear is here today. We have a very safe and plentiful means to harness nuclear energy right now and the only thing holding it back is politics. If we get past the politics then we can develop next generation reactors and gain even more on the energy we can harness, improve the safety, and reduce the costs. All we have with algae is a theoretical process with a known top end on the EROEI of about 10. We can already do better than that with a theoretical fuel synthesis process from nuclear power. It appears to me that for algae fuels to work we'd need nuclear power, if we have nuclear power then we don't need the algae.
I didn't say you did. I used the example of a ban on swimming pools as an example of swimming pool controls. I could have used an example of pools having depth limits, or may contain only salt water (it's more buoyant), or must have trained and licensed life guards. A ban is a kind of control, no? This swimming pool control would mean banning something, like a ban on fresh water pools, or banning private ownership of pools. Controls are bans.
When people talk of gun controls it will result in bans on some level. It will be bans on semi auto rifles, pump action shotguns,bans on standard capacity magazines, people will be banned from owning firearms, or certain kinds of ammunition would be banned. Even a waiting period is a kind of ban since people would be banned from purchasing a firearm on the same day. If you want gun control, but no bans, then explain a gun control law that is not a ban.
Perhaps you can explain a control that is not a ban, but I doubt it.
I can assume by this response that you do agree that less guns means less deaths.
There you go again, not reading what I wrote. I said fewer guns would mean fewer shootings, that is obvious. I also said, and this is important, that fewer guns means more crime and murder. I did a study on this for a statistics class. I took the gun laws as rated by the Brady Campaign and compared that to the murder rates in their respective states. There is a weak correlation there but it is there, the more restrictive the gun laws the higher the murder rate.
You bring up the suicide rates and I did not do a study on that but you linked to one and they state from the beginning that they do not advocate for stricter gun laws. They merely point out that people with access to dangerous items tend to be more successful in their suicide attempts and those that survive their first attempt at suicide tend to not repeat it. The point out several dangerous items used in suicides, great heights, pesticides, firearms, and so on. If people are denied these at the times they feel suicidal then then tend to survive. Again I point out the paper made it clear that this was not to advocate for new laws but a way to monitor and treat the suicidal. That I can understand and support.
There was a book written on this correlation between guns and crime which is widely regarded for its scientific rigor. Look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
When it comes to guns and crime there are three outcomes: - More guns, less crime - More guns. more crime - More guns means just more guns
What no study can show is that more guns equates to more crime. VPC has repeatedly come out with "studies" showing that more guns equates to more shootings, with the intent that people will equate more shootings with more murders even though they must know this is false. What we are left with is more guns means either less crime or just more guns.
I've had someone ask me, if gun control does not increase crime then why oppose it? The answer is that the government has no business in reducing freedom, especially if there is no social benefit. The government wants to reduce our access to weapons promising that it will reduce crimes but there is nothing to support this claim. Even if the government could show gun control reduced crime I could not support it because the government would be punishing the innocent because of the criminal acts of others. That's how parents deal with unruly children, by taking away the toys from all the kids because one had a fit.
I am not a child and I expect my government not to treat me like one.
Pretty much every developed country has some level of gun ownership, they just apply some sensible rules around who can own them and how they can be used. And they all have lower murder rates, both with o
I hope you are never in an accident and need an air ambulance to get to a hospital before you expire. But then I'm sure you'll make an exception in such cases only because I point that out.
Also, you claim that air travel is justifiable if AGW is false? Okay then, I claim that AGW is false. Therefore I am not restricted from air travel.
Oh, that's not how it works you say? Well then I'll stop flying when all those Gulfstream liberals stop flying. They will stop flying about the same time pigs start.
But this approach does have the merit of being available today.
No, it is not available today. What we have now are a handful of small experimental producers that make biodiesel at considerable cost for vanity consumers. The US military is buying a lot of this biodiesel and they are paying something like 4X the price they would for petro-diesel. I don't have a real problem with that since they are funding research that might prove useful in the future. I also don't have a problem with biodiesel research because the US military is also working on synthetic hydrocarbons.
The US Navy has a prototype device that take in electricity and seawater and outputs oxygen and jet fuel. This is shown to work in nearly any weather or location, since it does not require sunlight like the biodiesel. You may ask, where would the electricity come from then? I'm glad you asked. The answer is nuclear power.
Nuclear power is great. It is a technology that works now, and I can prove it with a short drive to the nuclear power plant near me. We get 20% of our electricity from nuclear now, and we'd make a serious dent in our CO2 output if it was more like 80%. We should be building more nuclear power plants.
I've had people claim that we can't build more nuclear power plants because of... reasons. No matter what reason you come up with the answer is that nuclear power has the lowest deaths per MWh produced, is as cheap as coal, is as plentiful as dirt, and has a lower CO2 output than wind or solar.
More nuclear power would reduce our CO2 output even further than switching to natural gas. It's also a carbon free (electric cars) or carbon neutral (synthetic hydrocarbons) way to replace fossil fuels for transportation. Biodiesel may prove to be workable but I have my doubts. Nuclear power works. Synthetic hydrocarbons is a very likely technology that can turn that carbon free nuclear power into fuels and it doesn't take up nearly as much valuable land.
Obviously we both have our favorites. Having grown up on a farm, and worked on a solar powered car in college, I have my doubts on any technology that claims they can turn sunlight into cheap energy. Obviously we can turn sunlight into energy but making it cheaper than fossil fuels is really hard.
If yes your position makes no sense, if no your position flies in the face of actual evidence. So of course you are avoiding the obvious.
What is it that is "obvious" that I am missing? That restricting gun ownership reduces shootings? That's like saying we could reduce pool drownings by banning swimming pools, but when the same number of people drown because they just go to the river to swim then you claim "success"? I made the claim that gun control does not reduce murder and you respond with a flawed study and a "gotcha" question. When I point out that the question is no win then you come back with....
So you are zero from two. Is it sinking in yet?
So you "win" because you asked a no win question even though I did not answer it. How old are you? Does Daddy know you are using his computer?
I point out that gun control does not equate to crime control and you bring out a "report" from a political organization, which has been widely shown to produce flawed, unscientific, and politically motivated "studies" as a response. You don't deny that gun control is ineffective to control crime, instead you focus on the one irrelevant "fact" in the report in order to claim a victory.
Okay, you win. Now brush your teeth and go to bed before Mommy has to remind you its past your bedtime.
Regardless of how I answer you will no doubt find fault with it.
Instead I have some questions for you. Would you rather that these "gun death" suicides were from people jumping out of windows? Would you rather a woman shot her attacker and killed him or that she was stabbed to death by him?
I noticed that the VPC gathered statistics on "gun homicides" but did not specify if those deaths were only murders or included justified shootings in self defense. Since they did not make that distinction I am inclined to believe they included justified homicide numbers in their statistics to pump up the numbers.
There was a case in New Jersey of a woman applying for a permit to acquire a handgun because she feared an attack from her ex. Her permit was held up beyond the time legally allowed by the police. She was stabbed to death in her own driveway while getting into her car by this man. VPC should be proud, no? It is quite possible she'd have killed this man with that gun but since the man used a knife in the woman's murder they can feel proud that they, through their lobbying for strict gun control laws, a "gun death" was prevented.
So, no answers from me, only more questions. Are you pleased that New Jersey gun laws protected this man from a potential "gun death"?
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I can also imagine placing the drones precisely, and detonating their payload in a precisely time succession to create a pressure wave that is either directed or of a magnitude that is greater than what a single bomb of the same mass could produce.
It's technology like this that could change how battles are fought. Much like how firearms ended the days of the mounted knight and high walled castles. Or how warplanes ended the days of the big gun battleships. How effective would a M1 Abrams tank be if a small cheap drone can fly up to it and blow off a track?
So this is what happens when they run out of people willing to sacrifice their one and only life for Allah.
In some way this could be a "good" thing. It shows that they've lost enough numbers and fanatics that suicide attacks aren't as attractive as before. It wasn't that long ago we could read about them using children and the mentally handicapped to carry their suicide weapons. I suspect that this practice ended right quick as it proved very unpopular. These people may be depraved lunatics but it seems they have limits to their depravity.
Uhh.... no. There's been talk of this for decades.
Perhaps but let's think about this. Radio controlled aircraft have been used certainly since WWII. Putting in cameras and TV transmitters for a first person view for piloting was experimented with then, perhaps even used successfully. These were converted light bombers where the controls had to be operated by a trained pilot. One could argue that the pilots would have to be exceptionally skilled since they'd be flying from a different aircraft that was trailing and flying from what could be seen through the cameras (likely B&W and very low resolution given the technology of the 1940s), and maybe from what they could see from the windows of the trailing aircraft. This meant the destruction of a very valuable airframe, and valuable electronics, and would likely only be attempted out of desperation.
Radio controlled airplanes have existed for decades for certain. I vaguely recall a 1980s TV show where the plot of one episode focused on the use of a very unique RC plane loaded with explosives to down an airliner. The plane was flown by line of sight, since no camera and transmitter would fit. RC planes were something of a fad at the time, making the episode appealing to audiences, but even then the planes would have been quite expensive and difficult to control, and therefore be not much better than chucking a grenade unless, as with the WWII experiments, flown as very expensive radio guided missiles into high value targets. This would be true up into the 1990s at least, making the claim of "decades" dubious.
This is the use of inexpensive remote controlled aircraft, capable of hovering over a target, with video resolution sufficient to identify a possible target from hundreds of feet in the air, a radio range far enough that it exceeds the ability of someone to just chuck a grenade, with sufficient on board electronics that a user with minimal training can operate with sufficient control to get within feet of the target in time short enough that the target cannot react, having payload sufficient to carry a deadly explosive and remote detonator, and all of this cheap enough to use against a common soldier, not only a VIP.
I'm pretty sure this technology is a very recent development. People may have been speculating about this for decades but not to sufficient detail to know enough to develop counter measures. People have been talking about a lot of things for a long time but never knowing exactly when the technology would arrive or with enough detail to do anything about it. People have discussed biological and chemical attacks for a long time too but until one knows exactly what kind of chemicals or biological elements one can expect the counter measures can be only very generic and therefore not especially effective.
We might have been able to foresee what a future remote controlled flying grenade might be capable of, but without knowing specifics like the range of the device, the frequencies used, the coding system for the up and down links, etc. the countermeasures would only be very generic. It seems the specifics surprised a lot of people.
I've never seen battle but I know people that have. What is not typical battle gear is a shotgun and trying to shoot down a small drone with a M-4 or M-16 rifle would seem more that just difficult. Not to mention trying to shoot down a drone with a rifle that has an effective range of over a mile does seem like something that might not be safe, even in a war zone, to attempt.
A typical infantry squad in an urban environment will have one of perhaps four soldiers with what they call a "master key". A master key, in this instance, is a short barreled Remington Model 870 shotgun loaded with door breaching rounds. This might serve to down a small drone loaded with explosives, especially if loaded with more appropriate ammunition but there is still a matter of training. The M870 is not a complex piece of equipment but soldiers should have at least some familiarity with it before being expected to shoot down drones with it. Some marksmanship training would certainly be helpful, aiming a rifle is different than pointing a shotgun. Shooting down a drone is certainly very different than taking a door off its hinges.
Also, who says shooting them down is the best idea? That certainly seems like a logical solution but maybe throwing a baseball at it would work better. Or tossing a net at it. Maybe an EMP weapon? The powers that be don't know what does and does not work yet. Also, you point out that the drone once grounded is still a threat. I agree it is a threat but this is different than a booby trap triggered by a string, the soldiers need to be trained on this.
The soldiers in the US Army are the best trained in the world and I expect, as apparently you do, to figure things out quickly. However, this is a new problem and "figuring it out on the fly" as you point out can get soldiers killed. A lot of lives can be saved with even a few minutes of training so soldiers don't repeat mistakes others did while "figuring it out on the fly".
Not only that but how to pull the pin once over the target.
You make it sound trivial but the implications are bigger than the technology employed. I was in the US Army and the tactics taught in basic military training did not include looking for quadcopters with a grenade attached. This is something new that, according to the article at least, the smart people that are supposed to see things like this coming did not foresee. What is worse is that there is no easy fix.
I recall a story from WWII of the US Army seeing big losses of soldiers from drowning. Back then the US Army and US Navy had much greater training and logistic separation than they do now. The Army didn't think that soldiers, people trained to fight on land, would be put in a position where they'd have to worry about drowning. It just was not thought of until ships full of soldiers being carried over the ocean to the battlefield were attacked. Basic water survival has been a part of basic training since.
Another more recent example. Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were getting blown up by booby traps. This is stupid simple technology of putting a wire across a doorway with one end attached to the pin of a grenade. A big problem since there was no training on this. Several different means were used to address this with differing levels of success and time involved to discover the wires. What became the most favored means of detection was to use those cans of "silly string" to spray a brightly colored string onto the wires but not apply enough pressure to pull the pin on the grenade. What was an improvised method became standard equipment and training. I imagine the $5 can of silly string that they used in the beginning has become a $500 can that can withstand temperatures of -50C to 70C, pressures from 0 to 15 atmospheres, and radiation blast from a tactical nuke but that's another story.
Those are a couple examples on how to address known issues in battle with training and simple equipment. What the problem is now is that the powers that be need to find a way to counteract this new development, and do so quickly, or people die. This is not as simple as issuing cans of silly string and training the soldiers how to use it.
I'm sure some SJW will claim that this is all our fault for invading their land and how western nations should just leave them alone and then they will leave us alone. My first instinct is to punch such people in the face but since this is the internet, and I try to keep myself from being arrested for battery, I'll point out that western civilization has been battling these savages for centuries. The words "to the shores of Tripoli" in the USMC song refers to a battle with an Islamic state in 1803. They declared war on the USA since the USA existed.
Assuming a modern cell phone does not use any internal accelerometers for navigation I can understand why. A car navigation system will always know the relative position of the sensors to the motion of the vehicle, as in the accelerometers are attached firmly to the vehicle and will register only the motion of the vehicle. Sensors in a tablet or phone can not be sure of that since someone using the device could be holding it in landscape or portrait mode, be in a backward facing seat, in the hands of a child shaking it feverishly because it's not playing Dora the Explorer, or tumbling off the seat to the floor because the car hit a pothole.
By simply ignoring the motion sensors and using only GPS data the math on computing location gets simpler and likely more accurate. A phone may be able to detect that the motion sensors roughly match the GPS data and decide they are trustworthy, basically the phone assumes it is on a solid mount, and then use it to compute accurate data. What happens then once the GPS signal is lost? Can the motion sensors still be trusted? I can just imagine how people might react to having a phone start giving erroneous location data, people will pick up the phone and start moving it around the cabin to get the signal back. At that point what should the phone do? Should it assume the car is weaving wildly or that someone is moving the phone?
An in dash navigation system has other advantages that a phone does not have, like the potential to get more data than just acceleration and GPS. I can imagine a car navigation system would make use of data like vehicle speed and position of the steering wheel. Unless someone goes the the effort of connecting a phone to the on board diagnostic port then it will always have less information than a navigation system built into the vehicle.
First hit's always free dummy.
Let's assume I am a big Apple fan and absolutely must by a latest and greatest iPhone every year. So last year I had an iPhone with a TRS output for my favorite headphones. This year I buy a new iPhone with out the TRS output on the phone but it has the adapter for my TRS headphones. Next year Apple neglects to include the adapter with the iPhone but I still have the adapter that came with the old iPhone I replaced it with.
At what point is Apple going to be able to "cash in" on this change? The person would have to have their headphones and/or adapter lost, broken, or otherwise unusable for this chain to be broken but then that would be true regardless if Apple included the TRS output or not. If a person didn't like the idea of having a phone that lacked the TRS jack then they are not required to buy an iPhone in the future.
Since Apple supports audio over Bluetooth and WiFi then iPhone users are perfectly able to use one of many different brands of wireless headphones/speakers/whatever for audio input and output. Use of a headset that has a TRS plug on a future iPhone would then require an adapter but then again no one is forced to buy an iPhone. If one still chooses the iPhone and chooses to use a wired headset with a TRS plug then and only then is one "required" to buy this Apple adapter.
At some point in the future I will assume that Apple will again change the charging port on the phones they offer, still not include the TRS port, offer the TRS adapter at additional cost, and also continue to support Bluetooth, WiFi, and/or some other wireless audio standard. At that future time the people inconvenienced by this would be those that somehow are incapable of buying a competitor's phone that has a TRS output (such as compulsive Apple buying behavior or no competitor has a TRS output either) and has been able to keep their TRS headset functional without wearing it out, losing it, or otherwise never finding a reason to get a new headset that is wireless or has a plug compatible with the new iPhone.
At this future date then and only then will Apple be able to "cash in" on this customer by selling them a headset or adapter that costs something like $29. Remember that this is an accessory for a phone that retails for over $700. Even in the unlikely (or rather impossible) event that all of those $29 is profit that is not a lot of take home cash for Apple.
I'm still not seeing the "cash grab" aspect of this.
Right, because so many problems are solved with restrictions on freedom of communications.
In case my snark was missed I will emphatically point out that any restrictions on communications are bad. Allowing drug makers to advertise directly to patients may have had some annoying side effects but I find it difficult to believe that society would be improved by NOT informing the public on what drugs are available to them. I find these advertisements annoying in many ways, since they are often selling drugs for conditions that I'll never or are unlikely to get, or point to conditions I might have to deal with at some future time but would rather not think about. I will also often find them amusing for the list of side effects the drugs can have. How any drug that lists "suicidal ideation" as a side effect can make it to market astonishes me. I'm also amused over such gross and embarrassing possible side effects like "anal seepage". What is especially amusing are drugs with potential side effects that are counter to the reason for taking them, like weight gain for a weight loss drug, or heart attack for a heart drug.
I'm OK what drugs being advertised so long as they are honest, such as the requirement to mention all potential side effects of the drug. A healthy society (for many definitions of "healthy") requires that people can speak freely. This is especially true for things that we might find annoying. If we ban people from talking about things that anger or annoy someone then we could say nothing, since anything someone might say could annoy someone if given a large enough population.
I will also say that this freedom of speaking should apply to political campaigns too. Let the politicians spend as much as they like on TV and radio advertising, so long as they are kept honest. When it comes to politics though so much can be subjective and/or speculative but if we can keep politicians from stating things that are provably false then I say let them talk.
In reading the summary I got the impression that they were going to use the low speed data lines on the USB-C connector as analog output lines. That would make more sense to me than defining some new audio device standard. I thought the USB 2 spec contained enough audio device standards to satisfy any kind of headphone setup people might use on a phone, music player, computer, or whatever else someone might expect to find a USB-C port. With USB 2 data pins being a common and required part of any USB-C alternate mode I'd think that creating a device capable of plugging into a USB-C port and providing audio input and/or output would be trivial and essentially a solved problem. USB 2 is certainly capable, as far as I can tell, of providing multiple audio channels with high fidelity without running into issues of bandwidth or power limits. Perhaps I'm missing an important detail.
I never was a big fan of USB. I thought the spec always was second best to competition like FireWire. The lack of peer to peer was a big problem for me. The confusing connectors are such a problem that it's become a joke that nearly everyone in the world would understand, if there is a place in the world with cell phone coverage then people understand the need to flip a USB connector over 3 or 4 times before being able to plug them in right. Power limitations were also a problem from the start, which lead to many interesting non-standard means to address it. USB 3.1 and the USB-C connector fixed a lot of these problems which basically came down to, IMHO, reinventing FireWire.
While the USB people are fixing the problems with the past versions with USB 3 I have to wonder if they aren't creating more problems with their over use of the "alt mode" feature. With so many optional alternate modes I believe that there may be a problem with consumers getting confused with the capability of the ports on their device and what kind of cables, devices, and adapters they need to do what they want to do. There are three different video alternate modes for USB-C right now, DisplayPort/Thunderbolt, MHL, and HDMI/DVI. I can just imagine the frustration people could have in trying to find the right cable and/or display to connect to a device with a USB-C port.
If the USB people are going to make the audio connection capabilities as complicated as the video connection capabilities then they might be making people avoid USB-C because it offers TOO MUCH capability since people won't be sure how to use it. Ports like PS/2, eSATA, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Ethernet, and so on are simple to use and understand because they do one thing, and do them quite well. Trying to stack too much into one port might be great for the computer geek but not so much for a large portion of the public that just want things to work.
Explain to me how Apple removing the 3.5mm TRS headphone jack from the latest iPhone is a "cash grab" when the adapter for 3.5mm TRS output is included with the phone?
I could see your point if the TRS jack was missing from the iPhone AND the adapter for a TRS output was available only with an Apple adapter at additional cost but, since the adapter comes with the phone then I'm failing to see the money grab aspect here.
I'm an Apple user, I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro and I own three iPods, so perhaps I'm biased. Since the headphone jack on my iPod Touch stopped working I wish there was a cheap adapter available to convert the data/charging port to a headphone jack. I can kind of do that with a small dock but then the iPod won't fit in a pocket any more.
I saw the same, making prostitution illegal rarely helps anyone.
I can recall someone discussing something about prostitution being legal and then illegal. It went something like when prostitution was legal the prostitutes would stay put in their "comfort house" or whatever they called it and the police had little trouble with them. There would be the occasional case of a rough customer and the police would have to come out but the prostitutes generally tended to cause no trouble and word of mouth kept them clean.
When prostitution became illegal then the prostitutes could not stay put any more. They needed customers to pay the bills so they'd go where the customers were. This meant hanging out at truck stops, movie theaters, and so on. The prostitutes were no longer just in the part of town that no one in polite company spoke about. They were now all over town. Parents no longer wanted to take their kids to the movies at night any more. If there was a "rough customer" then the prostitutes were reluctant to report it to the police. Diseases spread because the comfort houses didn't have a reputation to keep any more.
Same for things like child labor laws. Parents generally don't want their children working but if it means the kid works or the kid starves then the kid works. If it is illegal then, like the prostitutes, people are less likely to call police if there is a problem.
Then there are the drug laws. People used to be able to get laudanum, a mix of alcohol and opiates, to treat common ailments like pain, congestion, and diarrhea without a prescription. People abused it, for sure, but generally people used it for what was on the label since it was usually a very bitter drink. When that became a controlled substance then addicts would hold up pharmacies for it, a black market developed, and overdoses were common (since the quality varied). Oh, and people that needed relief from these common ailments had to do with lesser medications, go through the time and expense of going through a physician to get it, and then physicians were reluctant to prescribe it because the government... I'm not sure why they wanted to stop this. Seems kind of stupid if you think about it. If someone is addicted then that is a medical issue, no? How does giving an addict a felony record help their addiction?
We should think long and hard about what we make illegal. All too often the cure is worse than the disease.
I've often wondered how useful these databases truly are, like driver licenses and automotive registrations. I had a discussion once where the need for driver licenses came up. I think it had something to do with illegal immigrants driving. So I thought I do some searching on the internet on how many people drove without licenses. The truth is that no one knows and very few people have enough information to even estimate it. There could be 10 million unlicensed drivers out there, give or take about 40 million.
What is clear is that unlicensed drivers tend to get in more accidents. This is not surprising. People with a habit of drink driving will eventually lose their license or die trying. Those that are lucky enough to survive having their license revoked will simply drive without a license. There is no requirement to have a license to drive to own a car. I'm not even sure one needs a license to insure the car either, not that a lack of insurance is going to stop these people.
Now we see police officers abusing these databases for their own personal amusement or enrichment. I say we just get rid of the licenses.
The question then inevitably comes up, if we don't license drivers then how do we (the state, the public, whatever) know that people (you know, not me and you, those other people) know how to drive. I say that every day is a driving test, people that fail will be pulled over by law enforcement. Those that are repeat offenders get noted in a database, and if serious enough of an offense they get put in jail. I just said "database" didn't I? Yes, I did. The database is only of offenders, not all drivers. What if a person gets in an accident or causes problems, how will we know who they are? Same way we do it now when people drive without a license. We can ask them their name. If that's not good enough then ask for some identifying document, like a voter registration card (which in my mind is about the only thing honest citizens need a photo ID for). If that's not good enough then haul them to the station, take their picture, take their fingerprints, and make them sit in a cell until all the paperwork goes through.
What about commercial drivers? Do you want the people driving school buses to not have licenses? What of people hauling radioactive waste? I can imagine quite the competitive business in issuing driving certificates, the local community college does this already as I see their trucks on the interstate with a big yellow "STUDENT DRIVER" sign on the trailer and tractor. If a shady certificate agency is issuing certificates in bad faith then they will lose customers real quick. When it comes to people driving for the government there are driving schools run by government agencies already, like the military driving school at Fort Leonard Wood. I'm not sure how that works but anyone that graduates from there gets the equivalent of a commercial driver license. If it's really that important then we already have the schools and certifications for it. For people driving themselves and their family they should not need a license.
Another note on the driving education, the local community college offers classes for passenger vehicles too. I saw four different course types on their website, commercial, "drivers ed" (two kinds here, "high school" and "AARP"), RV training, and "mandated" (as in people with OWI that are court ordered to take a class). It's not like there is a lack of driver training. What's going to force people to take the training if we don't have licensing? How about not getting pulled over for not obeying the traffic laws? As if there is any enforcement now. Remember where I started? Nobody knows how many unlicensed drivers there are now. This might be because the unlicensed drivers are VERY careful and don't want to get pulled over. The safest drivers out there are probably the guys with brownish skin and just downed a pint at the pub. Yep, I just played the "driving while brown" card.
Everyone uses the DMV as to
Solar panels? No. Any colony off of Earth will need nuclear power or it's dead. Solar power is far too dilute and fragile. That nuclear power can take the form of a fission reactor or a radio-thermal generator (RTG) but it's nuclear power or death. Even the Apollo missions used RTGs for running their electronics and those were just ten day trips.
While I see your point I believe that there are bigger issues to solve first. The technology is easy compared to many of the non-technological issues that caused colonization efforts to fail before. Take as examples many failed colonies from the age of sail to more recent efforts to create new nations on artificial structures like islands or "floating cities". What caused many of them to fail were not technology but issues like people having disputes over property rights, people not doing their "fair share" of the work to maintain the colony, how crimes are dealt with, taxation disputes, and so forth.
These "soft science" problems in fields like psychology, economics, law, and so forth are (to me at least) bigger questions than "hard science" problems like building a big enough rocket, being able to grow veggies, or creating enough oxygen for people to breathe.
I've thought about how these issues might be solved and considered writing a story basically proposing solutions. You propose sending robots to Mars first to build things for the colonists. What I have to ask is, who owns what the robots build? That might not seem like a big problem at first but for the people on Mars it might be a matter of who lives and dies. I can just imagine a person hoarding valuable items, or even valuable data, and causing problems. Valuable data like how to repair an important item can be a means to declare ownership of something. If one of these robots sent to Mars to build things for the colonists breaks then what? Can a person on Mars then declare ownership of the robot, and therefore anything it builds in the future, by repairing it? Would ownership have to be shared in some way and in what proportion?
I believe that solving the problems on how to live on Mars is more than just what biochemistry and ecology can answer. We can send robots but we'll also have to send lawyers.
I also said, and this is important, that fewer guns means more crime and murder.
Yet I posted a link to research that shows this is not true, and you clearly choose not to accept this.
I wrote a lengthy response to your nonsense but I threw it all away because I found a video that summed up my argument nicely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That's been my advice for 20 years.
Just had another "I'm getting old" moment there.
If 5Gbps networks become the norm I can imagine something of a return to the VAX and green screen days. Imagine a terminal with ports for display, keyboard, mouse, whatever, and the processing done on a central server somewhere in the building. The terminal could be a small box to turn the RJ-45 into a bunch of USB-C ports for all the peripherals one would need.
Perhaps that is going a bit too far since even at 5Gbps, and allowing for some level of video processing/compression/whatever in the box that might not be enough to meet the needs of what people expect from even a typical office worker. Maybe just the storage be on the network. The terminal would have all the processing but no permanent storage, it boots from the network almost as if it was just a long eSATA line. Some places do this already with 100Mbps networks for small dedicated task workstations but with 5Gbps it would be feasible for so many more things.
I'd think the data security aspects of a net boot system like this could be a big selling point for even small businesses. This assumes a competitive price point, which I believe is quite possible, and the setup not being too difficult, which I think is the hardest part. I've tried playing with net booting before and it is a nightmare. Perhaps I just didn't get enough of the right training but I took Cisco and Microsoft certification courses and I couldn't get it working.
A nice speedy network like this, IPv6, a few other technologies, and the right business case, and net booting could be the norm.
I'm pretty sure you are just trying to be funny but in case you aren't I'll say that orbiting solar satellites is a nice science fiction that in reality will never work.
What might just end up working is the seawater to jet fuel technology the US Navy is researching. The process works by extracting the dissolved CO2 from the water and hydrogen from electrolysis and synthesizing hydrocarbons from them. This technology is intended for nuclear powered warships but would work just as well on land.
But when you say algae biodiesel isn't available today, I think we're discussing two different things. You're saying you can't buy it today, and that's true. I'm saying we have the technology to make it if we wanted, which is also true.
Yes, it appears we are discussing two different things. What I'm pointing out is that unless a technology is cheaper than what it replaces, or has a slight cost increase but gains in some other way, then it cannot succeed. The algae to fuel process in that was described in the article you linked to even points out that the process is very expensive still. The process requires high temperatures and pressures to make it work, where is that going to come from? Is that solar powered too? If so then it can only run in daylight which severely limits output. If using nuclear power for that heat and pressure then why bother with the algae part and not just use a hydrocarbon synthesis process?
I used to believe as you did, that solar power would provide all the power we needed, but now I realize that solar power outside of pocket calculators, communications satellites, and a handful of other places is just not viable.
Think about how the process works and compares to processes we know. Ethanol production has an energy return on energy invested of about 2. If we use better crops for ethanol than corn and we might be able to get to 10. Oil and gas can have an EROEI of more than 20, even bitumen sands can get 3 and there is a lot of that. Algae might be able to beat the EROEI but it will have to rely on some other energy source for that to happen, such as nuclear. Nuclear has an EROEI of 10 now and if we use new technologies like pebble bed or molten salt then it becomes 100. With an EROEI of 100 the algae portion of the energy equation becomes a rounding error. If we use nuclear power to process the algae then so many other processes become viable.
If we are not using nuclear power to process the algae then we have other problems. If using a fossil fuel to process the algae then we gain nothing. If we use solar or wind then we add the cost of that energy on top of the unreliability of that energy.
Algae fuels are not here today. Nuclear is here today. We have a very safe and plentiful means to harness nuclear energy right now and the only thing holding it back is politics. If we get past the politics then we can develop next generation reactors and gain even more on the energy we can harness, improve the safety, and reduce the costs. All we have with algae is a theoretical process with a known top end on the EROEI of about 10. We can already do better than that with a theoretical fuel synthesis process from nuclear power. It appears to me that for algae fuels to work we'd need nuclear power, if we have nuclear power then we don't need the algae.
No-one said anything about banning anything.
I didn't say you did. I used the example of a ban on swimming pools as an example of swimming pool controls. I could have used an example of pools having depth limits, or may contain only salt water (it's more buoyant), or must have trained and licensed life guards. A ban is a kind of control, no? This swimming pool control would mean banning something, like a ban on fresh water pools, or banning private ownership of pools. Controls are bans.
When people talk of gun controls it will result in bans on some level. It will be bans on semi auto rifles, pump action shotguns,bans on standard capacity magazines, people will be banned from owning firearms, or certain kinds of ammunition would be banned. Even a waiting period is a kind of ban since people would be banned from purchasing a firearm on the same day. If you want gun control, but no bans, then explain a gun control law that is not a ban.
Perhaps you can explain a control that is not a ban, but I doubt it.
I can assume by this response that you do agree that less guns means less deaths.
There you go again, not reading what I wrote. I said fewer guns would mean fewer shootings, that is obvious. I also said, and this is important, that fewer guns means more crime and murder. I did a study on this for a statistics class. I took the gun laws as rated by the Brady Campaign and compared that to the murder rates in their respective states. There is a weak correlation there but it is there, the more restrictive the gun laws the higher the murder rate.
You bring up the suicide rates and I did not do a study on that but you linked to one and they state from the beginning that they do not advocate for stricter gun laws. They merely point out that people with access to dangerous items tend to be more successful in their suicide attempts and those that survive their first attempt at suicide tend to not repeat it. The point out several dangerous items used in suicides, great heights, pesticides, firearms, and so on. If people are denied these at the times they feel suicidal then then tend to survive. Again I point out the paper made it clear that this was not to advocate for new laws but a way to monitor and treat the suicidal. That I can understand and support.
There was a book written on this correlation between guns and crime which is widely regarded for its scientific rigor. Look it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
When it comes to guns and crime there are three outcomes:
- More guns, less crime
- More guns. more crime
- More guns means just more guns
What no study can show is that more guns equates to more crime. VPC has repeatedly come out with "studies" showing that more guns equates to more shootings, with the intent that people will equate more shootings with more murders even though they must know this is false. What we are left with is more guns means either less crime or just more guns.
I've had someone ask me, if gun control does not increase crime then why oppose it? The answer is that the government has no business in reducing freedom, especially if there is no social benefit. The government wants to reduce our access to weapons promising that it will reduce crimes but there is nothing to support this claim. Even if the government could show gun control reduced crime I could not support it because the government would be punishing the innocent because of the criminal acts of others. That's how parents deal with unruly children, by taking away the toys from all the kids because one had a fit.
I am not a child and I expect my government not to treat me like one.
Pretty much every developed country has some level of gun ownership, they just apply some sensible rules around who can own them and how they can be used. And they all have lower murder rates, both with o
I hope you are never in an accident and need an air ambulance to get to a hospital before you expire. But then I'm sure you'll make an exception in such cases only because I point that out.
Also, you claim that air travel is justifiable if AGW is false? Okay then, I claim that AGW is false. Therefore I am not restricted from air travel.
Oh, that's not how it works you say? Well then I'll stop flying when all those Gulfstream liberals stop flying. They will stop flying about the same time pigs start.
Those are your questions? I'd rather hear more about the hookers.
But this approach does have the merit of being available today.
No, it is not available today. What we have now are a handful of small experimental producers that make biodiesel at considerable cost for vanity consumers. The US military is buying a lot of this biodiesel and they are paying something like 4X the price they would for petro-diesel. I don't have a real problem with that since they are funding research that might prove useful in the future. I also don't have a problem with biodiesel research because the US military is also working on synthetic hydrocarbons.
The US Navy has a prototype device that take in electricity and seawater and outputs oxygen and jet fuel. This is shown to work in nearly any weather or location, since it does not require sunlight like the biodiesel. You may ask, where would the electricity come from then? I'm glad you asked. The answer is nuclear power.
Nuclear power is great. It is a technology that works now, and I can prove it with a short drive to the nuclear power plant near me. We get 20% of our electricity from nuclear now, and we'd make a serious dent in our CO2 output if it was more like 80%. We should be building more nuclear power plants.
I've had people claim that we can't build more nuclear power plants because of... reasons. No matter what reason you come up with the answer is that nuclear power has the lowest deaths per MWh produced, is as cheap as coal, is as plentiful as dirt, and has a lower CO2 output than wind or solar.
More nuclear power would reduce our CO2 output even further than switching to natural gas. It's also a carbon free (electric cars) or carbon neutral (synthetic hydrocarbons) way to replace fossil fuels for transportation. Biodiesel may prove to be workable but I have my doubts. Nuclear power works. Synthetic hydrocarbons is a very likely technology that can turn that carbon free nuclear power into fuels and it doesn't take up nearly as much valuable land.
Obviously we both have our favorites. Having grown up on a farm, and worked on a solar powered car in college, I have my doubts on any technology that claims they can turn sunlight into cheap energy. Obviously we can turn sunlight into energy but making it cheaper than fossil fuels is really hard.
If yes your position makes no sense, if no your position flies in the face of actual evidence. So of course you are avoiding the obvious.
What is it that is "obvious" that I am missing? That restricting gun ownership reduces shootings? That's like saying we could reduce pool drownings by banning swimming pools, but when the same number of people drown because they just go to the river to swim then you claim "success"? I made the claim that gun control does not reduce murder and you respond with a flawed study and a "gotcha" question. When I point out that the question is no win then you come back with....
So you are zero from two. Is it sinking in yet?
So you "win" because you asked a no win question even though I did not answer it. How old are you? Does Daddy know you are using his computer?
I point out that gun control does not equate to crime control and you bring out a "report" from a political organization, which has been widely shown to produce flawed, unscientific, and politically motivated "studies" as a response. You don't deny that gun control is ineffective to control crime, instead you focus on the one irrelevant "fact" in the report in order to claim a victory.
Okay, you win. Now brush your teeth and go to bed before Mommy has to remind you its past your bedtime.
Regardless of how I answer you will no doubt find fault with it.
Instead I have some questions for you. Would you rather that these "gun death" suicides were from people jumping out of windows? Would you rather a woman shot her attacker and killed him or that she was stabbed to death by him?
I noticed that the VPC gathered statistics on "gun homicides" but did not specify if those deaths were only murders or included justified shootings in self defense. Since they did not make that distinction I am inclined to believe they included justified homicide numbers in their statistics to pump up the numbers.
There was a case in New Jersey of a woman applying for a permit to acquire a handgun because she feared an attack from her ex. Her permit was held up beyond the time legally allowed by the police. She was stabbed to death in her own driveway while getting into her car by this man. VPC should be proud, no? It is quite possible she'd have killed this man with that gun but since the man used a knife in the woman's murder they can feel proud that they, through their lobbying for strict gun control laws, a "gun death" was prevented.
So, no answers from me, only more questions. Are you pleased that New Jersey gun laws protected this man from a potential "gun death"?
Citation:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/n...