I am able to see the meteor approach the moon before the impact.
That doesn't make sense. Typically the "splat" is at least 1,000 times brighter than the approaching sun-lit rock. I'd guestimate the size of the rock making that spot in the photo is roughly 100 feet across. You are not going to see a 100 foot rock in any amateur telescope. (Except maybe with a long exposure, but that would flood out the moon's image.)
plenty of easily developed land, and policies which encourage home building instead of nimby horseshit that strangles home construction
It's not just houses: water and roads are also in short supply. If we build more dwellings, freeways will be triple-jammed and water yet even more scarce. There are ways around such, but they are not easy and will require life changes.
Maybe we should find a way to fill underutilized areas back up, like the North East and the rust belt. Dwellings sit empty there. We are out of kilter somehow.
Thinning is when you don't take all the trees in an area. Clear cutting is when you do
I meant cutting down sick or dead trees. My apologies if I used the wrong term.
Then white people showed up and started building homes in forests like jackasses.
When population grows, the low-hanging-fruit of ideal living areas goes away. We can thin out people instead of trees, but that won't go over very well with people
[California] has been run by ecological [zealots] who think they are green but actually create the forest fire mess...The trees here -require- regular small fires to clear away the brush which builds up every year. When these [zealots] stop every little fire [then big fires happen]. [edited because/. filters had issues]
It's not that simple. Being an environmentalist doesn't necessarily mean you are against using clearing fires. Often residents got angry when "controlled burns" or preventable fires got out of control and leveled their neighborhood. Any fire has some risk of spreading outside of its predicted or "controlled" area.
Such residents formed lobbying groups, and they asked for evidence that the techniques being used actually worked. Turns out record-keeping was poor such that nobody could present clear evidence. (The "ecology nuts" some refer to are actually lobbyists.)
Plus, clear-cutting (thinning) was an alternative to controlled burns or "allowed" burns, or at least a supplement to reduce their needs and risk. If you thin the forest occasionally, then the need for controlled/allowed burns would go down, at least in theory.
But both State and Federal funds dried up during the Great Recession, and both clear-cutting and the original techniques fell behind schedule. As is typical during big economic slumps, long-term projects get reduced. And climate-change may have made the problem worse.
Multiple things that have at first looked "suspiciously artificial" turned out to be natural. The consistent pulsing of pulsars is one of the most common examples. Occam's Razor says Oumuamua is probably natural in ways we didn't anticipate.
However, it was a curious object that did deserve more inspection even if natural, and hopefully if another one buzzes by, we'll be more ready.
The "begging banner" is indeed quite annoying. I don't mind a relatively small banner, but theirs is often large, orange, and obnoxious*.
Are they really as desperate as the loud banner suggests, or are they just inflicted with artificial drama as some rants on the Interwebs claim? The common theory is that they want to expand their operations, and use alleged desperation to get donations for growth.
* Not intended to reference certain celebrities. The color may be red, not orange. I don't fully remember; it's not up the last I checked.
"AI is going to have as big an impact on our society as electricity"...THAT guy [has a bad record] at predicting the future.
Most would agree with that prediction. But the key is when, which nobody can reliably predict. It may take 10 years or another 500 years before bots have what we call "common sense" (assuming humans don't bleep themselves back to the stone age).
He didn't give a time-frame. That means he may be a forgotten pile of bones before his prediction comes true.
Nobody knows how to give bots general common sense such that nobody can say what's required to do it, even the top current experts.
1. Thou shalt not divide by zero. 2. Thou shalt back up often. 3. Thou shalt rotate backups. 4. Thou shalt not ship beta versions to paying customers. 5. Thou shalt not sign any Oracle contracts. 6. Thou shalt include proper open source license files. 7. Thou shalt not use systemd without a helmet and insurance. 8. Thou shalt not duplicate duplication. 9. Thou shalt check for stack overflows unless performance is absolutely paramount. 10. Thou shalt not mention the orange mortal on Slashdot. 11. Thou shalt check for off-by-one errors.
Perhaps true, but it's not directly related to my main points.
In economics there is the concept of "externalities". Pollution is a well-known externality. Companies that generate pollution typically don't incur the majority of pollution's cost to society, and thus don't factor that into their investment decisions. If a gas-powered plant kills 10,000 people due to respiratory problems, that power plant will probably not have to pay for such loss of life. Such death and illness doesn't show up on their balance sheets. To investors and owners, it's "somebody else's problem". Same with climate change.
IF they had to pay the full cost, then they would have an incentive to invest in "greener" solutions that may otherwise take longer to pay off.
The Free Market has spoken. It doesn't like the finances of nuclear power. It considers it too risky, too long-term.
What's practical for an investor isn't necessarily what's practical for society at a larger scale. The risk of a specific power plant may be more than an investor can stomach (compared to other investments), but the risk spread over a nation or planet may be low on average compared to the alternatives.
For example, Warren Buffett has said that his Berkshire Hathaway fund can accept investment risks that small funds cannot because BH has shares or ownership in a large volume of companies. Any single new investment may be risky by itself, but since it's pooled with a diverse set of other such investments, the extra risk does not matter to BH. It's partly why the "rich get richer": the big cats can gamble and profit off of things smaller cats can't simply because they are smaller.
No, BH is not investing in power plants that I know of, but I'm just making a point that risk is a matter of size and perspective. The risk and payoff equation of an investor will be different than that of society as a whole.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, I missed that in TFA. Anyhow, a football size strengthens my root premise.
That doesn't make sense. Typically the "splat" is at least 1,000 times brighter than the approaching sun-lit rock. I'd guestimate the size of the rock making that spot in the photo is roughly 100 feet across. You are not going to see a 100 foot rock in any amateur telescope. (Except maybe with a long exposure, but that would flood out the moon's image.)
It's not just houses: water and roads are also in short supply. If we build more dwellings, freeways will be triple-jammed and water yet even more scarce. There are ways around such, but they are not easy and will require life changes.
Maybe we should find a way to fill underutilized areas back up, like the North East and the rust belt. Dwellings sit empty there. We are out of kilter somehow.
I'm waiting for autonomous boots that kick jerks in the ass.
Douglass fir: "This town ain't big enough for the both of us!"
We did it? You are not a troll, you are an Agitation Engineer.
I meant cutting down sick or dead trees. My apologies if I used the wrong term.
When population grows, the low-hanging-fruit of ideal living areas goes away. We can thin out people instead of trees, but that won't go over very well with people
It's not about the wall. Giving in will just encourage him and similar political personalities to do it again.
We don't have Gov. Brown's side of the story in that opinion piece.
It's not that simple. Being an environmentalist doesn't necessarily mean you are against using clearing fires. Often residents got angry when "controlled burns" or preventable fires got out of control and leveled their neighborhood. Any fire has some risk of spreading outside of its predicted or "controlled" area.
Such residents formed lobbying groups, and they asked for evidence that the techniques being used actually worked. Turns out record-keeping was poor such that nobody could present clear evidence. (The "ecology nuts" some refer to are actually lobbyists.)
Plus, clear-cutting (thinning) was an alternative to controlled burns or "allowed" burns, or at least a supplement to reduce their needs and risk. If you thin the forest occasionally, then the need for controlled/allowed burns would go down, at least in theory.
But both State and Federal funds dried up during the Great Recession, and both clear-cutting and the original techniques fell behind schedule. As is typical during big economic slumps, long-term projects get reduced. And climate-change may have made the problem worse.
It's possible two (formerly) big asteroids collided fairly recently, creating a lot of debris.
Multiple things that have at first looked "suspiciously artificial" turned out to be natural. The consistent pulsing of pulsars is one of the most common examples. Occam's Razor says Oumuamua is probably natural in ways we didn't anticipate.
However, it was a curious object that did deserve more inspection even if natural, and hopefully if another one buzzes by, we'll be more ready.
JesOS
The speaker controls what they are intending to talk about, but whether listeners will understand or agree on a definition or point is another matter.
The "begging banner" is indeed quite annoying. I don't mind a relatively small banner, but theirs is often large, orange, and obnoxious*.
Are they really as desperate as the loud banner suggests, or are they just inflicted with artificial drama as some rants on the Interwebs claim? The common theory is that they want to expand their operations, and use alleged desperation to get donations for growth.
* Not intended to reference certain celebrities. The color may be red, not orange. I don't fully remember; it's not up the last I checked.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Darwin Awards.
Most would agree with that prediction. But the key is when, which nobody can reliably predict. It may take 10 years or another 500 years before bots have what we call "common sense" (assuming humans don't bleep themselves back to the stone age).
He didn't give a time-frame. That means he may be a forgotten pile of bones before his prediction comes true.
Nobody knows how to give bots general common sense such that nobody can say what's required to do it, even the top current experts.
"No, I don't want you to play ZZ Top, now stop waking me!"
1. Thou shalt not divide by zero.
2. Thou shalt back up often.
3. Thou shalt rotate backups.
4. Thou shalt not ship beta versions to paying customers.
5. Thou shalt not sign any Oracle contracts.
6. Thou shalt include proper open source license files.
7. Thou shalt not use systemd without a helmet and insurance.
8. Thou shalt not duplicate duplication.
9. Thou shalt check for stack overflows unless performance is absolutely paramount.
10. Thou shalt not mention the orange mortal on Slashdot.
11. Thou shalt check for off-by-one errors.
Perhaps true, but it's not directly related to my main points.
In economics there is the concept of "externalities". Pollution is a well-known externality. Companies that generate pollution typically don't incur the majority of pollution's cost to society, and thus don't factor that into their investment decisions. If a gas-powered plant kills 10,000 people due to respiratory problems, that power plant will probably not have to pay for such loss of life. Such death and illness doesn't show up on their balance sheets. To investors and owners, it's "somebody else's problem". Same with climate change.
IF they had to pay the full cost, then they would have an incentive to invest in "greener" solutions that may otherwise take longer to pay off.
What's practical for an investor isn't necessarily what's practical for society at a larger scale. The risk of a specific power plant may be more than an investor can stomach (compared to other investments), but the risk spread over a nation or planet may be low on average compared to the alternatives.
For example, Warren Buffett has said that his Berkshire Hathaway fund can accept investment risks that small funds cannot because BH has shares or ownership in a large volume of companies. Any single new investment may be risky by itself, but since it's pooled with a diverse set of other such investments, the extra risk does not matter to BH. It's partly why the "rich get richer": the big cats can gamble and profit off of things smaller cats can't simply because they are smaller.
No, BH is not investing in power plants that I know of, but I'm just making a point that risk is a matter of size and perspective. The risk and payoff equation of an investor will be different than that of society as a whole.
I guessed they touched you then
Cue the obligatory PHP-vs-Python fights in 3...2...1...
You are right, I should have said "spray tan".
Adding astronaut feces would be a good test. It's what colonists would probably have to rely on.
I'd hate to be the person at NASA in charge of creating the poop experiment, though.
"Dad, what do you do at work?"
"Why, I prepare important poop for important rockets, Mikey."
"Dad, is my poop important?..."
(I avoided a Uranus joke; that alone should get me mod points.)