I agree with all of that. However, I think it's a (technological) generation or two further away than others are predicting. Consider: first we need to get D-T fusion working. As soon as that happens, simply EVERYONE is going to want to use it. Everyone's going to want He3 fusion too, but supply/demand are going to make it hellishly more expensive than the D-T fusion, to the extent that any one country with a monopoly on supply might be using all of it for themselves.
At the same time, the D-T tech is going to mature faster, due to it's proportionally larger user base. Although a lot of knowledge will work on both variants, there's a certain amount of design finesse that comes only by large scale repetition and tinkering. Gains made in improving D-T fusion will generate feedback - better/cheaper/safer D-T fusion means more demand for D-T fusion, which means ever better D-T fusion implementations. He3 fusion designs will catch up, but slowly. I tend to think that a single-nation monopoly on He3 would slow its development relative to D-T even more - fewer minds/viewpoints working on the project.
In summary: I don't think getting He3 from the moon is worth it now, and I don't think it's even going to be worth it soon - maybe 20 years from now, if we get some sort of fusion working this afternoon. The only reason to go claim that resource immediately is to try for a monopoly, but it's not something that can be easily monopolized when there will be three (US/Russia/China), four (plus EU?), or even five (plus India?) players equally able to get there. I think the Chinese push is simply to be *able* to do the job for that later time where it'll be worthwhile, not do the job right now. I'm much more interested in the Mars race than the moon race.
I trust it this time, but the parent poster does have a point. They could be printing only the positive quotes and leaving out the negative. Kind of like how in the US, every movie, no matter how crappy, has some reviewers supporting it and quoted on the box. China's got 4x the population of the US...I'm sure they can always find *someone* who has the opinion they're looking for.
Cynical, yes, but I'm only holding China to the same standards of cynicism as I do to the rest of the world:)
The variable sword wasn't actually dependent on an infinitely strong weightless fiber, or at least not the impossible type used for the shadow squares.
What it DID need to work was a statis field around it. That's what made it super sharp - unbreakable unbendable fine wire, all the force of a swing put into such a thin area. That, and the blade was nearly invisible.
I think more likely is that we'll use the old method used with sea exploration.
1) Nation sponsors crazy explorer
2a) if explorer dies/fails, explorer is hero but nation is unaffected
2b) if explorer lives/succeeds, explorer is hero AND nation gains prestige and territory.
It's a good deal all around. Using millionaires as bait is even an improvement on the idea - they do the beginning on their own dime, and get funding once they've proven they're on the right track. Nation gets a dozen cheap space programs (while still running its own unmanned version); economy gets new technology; citizens get free entertainment; millionaire explorers get fame to go along with their fortune.
Hmm. And the X-Prize concept could easily be expanded to suit this. Every time someone wins, start it again, but raise the bar.
Well, after the unasked for (by the public) arbitrary retroactive extension of copyright beyond mortal lifespans, the obvious public response is total lack of respect. Something has to give, here. Either the extensions into eternity get pulled back to something saner, or copyright gets a hell of a lot weaker to compensate.
I expect the content creators and owners would much rather see "dead" property being passed around like this than the new stuff they're actively trying to profit from.
Re:3.3% of the data is good enough for me!
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
First, your math is ASS. 78/257 is THIRTY percent, not THREE percent.
Second, deriding this as a "doom and gloom proclamation" based on its incompleteness is inane. If 8 million jobs in just that 30% are affected, then checking the rest would only make it worse, not better.
In other news, if you had *read the article* you'd know that the EU already put tariffs on Hynix's also, equalizing the prices there exactly as the US has done.
When you add in the factor of *motivation*, it turns into a chicken-and-egg problem. We could do so much more by doing the research on Earth, BUT without the interest generated by doing it in space, we lack the political will to do the research at all. I'm not suggesting we try to do it all in space, either, but having the goal of using the stuff in space always in sight makes for a great motivator.
Because Microsoft is a software company pushing into the gaming and home entertainment markets, whereas Sony has been in home entertainment for decades and gaming for a decade. Thus we expect Sony to do this because it's already Sony's core business.
I see that said about the US often lately, but I'm beginning to wonder how much of it is truth and how much of it is envy. We had a two-superpower world for a while, and it totally sucked. Many of today's problems, which people like to blame on the US, could just as easily be blamed on the superpowers doing nothing (or making minimal proxy efforts) for fear of world war three, generally leaving everything unfinished until problems are so greatly magnified that they can no longer be ignored.
It's not a forgone conclusion that the big players in a multi-superpower world *must* be opposed, but I'm not seeing anything to indicate that a Euro superpower would be an ally - every time I see mention of a Euro power, it's in the context of competition vs the US. Same deal with mention of a Chinese superpower. While I'm not exactly pleased with the current situation, I'm kind of hoping the biggest problems get fixed before the next cold war.
Pessimist? Or Realist? I hope near future history will prove me wrong.
Isn't that fraud? Wouldn't that open up the evil fake employee and evil company to criminal and civil law, doing more damage, in money terms, legal terms, and PR terms, to the evil company than to the victim company?
Let's say the bank ATM recorded what bills it gave you, and all cash registers record what bills they recieved at what times. If you are ever under any investigation... wham, everything you've bought, whether it's relevant to the investigation or not, can be harvested. Between that and already-existing monitoring of credit cards and such, a detailed history of your movements and purchases can be easily assembled. Such information could be used to get you in all sorts of trouble - the most obvious being a police fishing expedition. Nearly everything you do is incriminating in some way, and the very presence of this information, combined with a tiny bit of corruption, and you're screwed. Do you want your insurance company knowing what over-the-counter medication you buy? Do you want the property tax collectors knowing about the tools and supplies you got?
Those examples are only the most mundane. It gets considerably worse if you're in any public position, especially politics, but even being a schoolteacher is bad enough. "OMG! teacher is a porn fiend! FIRE HIM!" It gets even worse depending on the details of the technology. Already-stored info on easily hacked computers? Info displayed on the cash register and readable by the minimum-wage cashier? Stranger brushes against you in the mall, just close enough for his PDA with scanner to register your money's serial numbers?
It doesn't matter how perfect a person you are or how spotless your record - little good will come of having this sort of information available.
You miss the point. It's the classic arms vs armor escalation. The parent post isn't advocating using diamond bullets because it's new and interesting, but using diamond bullets because lesser ones won't penetrate the other guy's new diamond armor. Everything you said is valid and correct for normal bullets, but might be made irrelevant by better armor.
Or the parent poster could just have been making a joke, not realizing how true it was:)
Re:What a joke.
on
Mighty Amazon
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· Score: 3, Informative
Yes, that's what happens when you group a lot of stuff into one package for the free shipping...you have to wait for thing to get shuffled around between the amazon warehouses until all your stuff is in one place. The shipping is still as fast as always when it's just one item, and decently fast when it's two items. Three or four can take forever.
It's better to make two orders of $27 than one order of $54, the way things are set up right now for the free shipping.
The most popular/stable currency is always the one with the biggest counterfeit problem. Once a currency gets commonly used in a foreign country, it's a ripe target for fraud, because those people are less able to detect the fakes. If the euro gets internationally respected at that level, it'll be massively faked too... in non-euro countries, where crappy fakes will be accepted.
It was the umpity-bajillion dollars the RIAA was suing for that would have made the circus trial tactic work, not the actual guilt or innocence of the accused.
This is non-April-related. I read the Discover article yesterday. Neat stuff.
For the conspiracy theorists out there, this one is NOT likely to get squashed by some secretive oil cartel - the process already works, and the oil guys are actually interested in it too, because it can handle the byproducts of current refineries and turn *them* into oil too, thus making them more product and therefore more money.
The inventor's been given money by both the US government and private investors.
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I agree with all of that. However, I think it's a (technological) generation or two further away than others are predicting. Consider: first we need to get D-T fusion working. As soon as that happens, simply EVERYONE is going to want to use it. Everyone's going to want He3 fusion too, but supply/demand are going to make it hellishly more expensive than the D-T fusion, to the extent that any one country with a monopoly on supply might be using all of it for themselves.
At the same time, the D-T tech is going to mature faster, due to it's proportionally larger user base. Although a lot of knowledge will work on both variants, there's a certain amount of design finesse that comes only by large scale repetition and tinkering. Gains made in improving D-T fusion will generate feedback - better/cheaper/safer D-T fusion means more demand for D-T fusion, which means ever better D-T fusion implementations. He3 fusion designs will catch up, but slowly. I tend to think that a single-nation monopoly on He3 would slow its development relative to D-T even more - fewer minds/viewpoints working on the project.
In summary: I don't think getting He3 from the moon is worth it now, and I don't think it's even going to be worth it soon - maybe 20 years from now, if we get some sort of fusion working this afternoon. The only reason to go claim that resource immediately is to try for a monopoly, but it's not something that can be easily monopolized when there will be three (US/Russia/China), four (plus EU?), or even five (plus India?) players equally able to get there. I think the Chinese push is simply to be *able* to do the job for that later time where it'll be worthwhile, not do the job right now. I'm much more interested in the Mars race than the moon race.
I trust it this time, but the parent poster does have a point. They could be printing only the positive quotes and leaving out the negative. Kind of like how in the US, every movie, no matter how crappy, has some reviewers supporting it and quoted on the box. China's got 4x the population of the US...I'm sure they can always find *someone* who has the opinion they're looking for.
:)
Cynical, yes, but I'm only holding China to the same standards of cynicism as I do to the rest of the world
The variable sword wasn't actually dependent on an infinitely strong weightless fiber, or at least not the impossible type used for the shadow squares.
What it DID need to work was a statis field around it. That's what made it super sharp - unbreakable unbendable fine wire, all the force of a swing put into such a thin area. That, and the blade was nearly invisible.
I think more likely is that we'll use the old method used with sea exploration.
1) Nation sponsors crazy explorer
2a) if explorer dies/fails, explorer is hero but nation is unaffected
2b) if explorer lives/succeeds, explorer is hero AND nation gains prestige and territory.
It's a good deal all around. Using millionaires as bait is even an improvement on the idea - they do the beginning on their own dime, and get funding once they've proven they're on the right track. Nation gets a dozen cheap space programs (while still running its own unmanned version); economy gets new technology; citizens get free entertainment; millionaire explorers get fame to go along with their fortune.
Hmm. And the X-Prize concept could easily be expanded to suit this. Every time someone wins, start it again, but raise the bar.
Well, after the unasked for (by the public) arbitrary retroactive extension of copyright beyond mortal lifespans, the obvious public response is total lack of respect. Something has to give, here. Either the extensions into eternity get pulled back to something saner, or copyright gets a hell of a lot weaker to compensate.
I expect the content creators and owners would much rather see "dead" property being passed around like this than the new stuff they're actively trying to profit from.
First, your math is ASS. 78/257 is THIRTY percent, not THREE percent.
Second, deriding this as a "doom and gloom proclamation" based on its incompleteness is inane. If 8 million jobs in just that 30% are affected, then checking the rest would only make it worse, not better.
In other news, if you had *read the article* you'd know that the EU already put tariffs on Hynix's also, equalizing the prices there exactly as the US has done.
"Goliath online!"
Yeah...I'm a gamer...
What the heck is it these days with people dropping "evil" into the names of...
d'oh!
When you add in the factor of *motivation*, it turns into a chicken-and-egg problem. We could do so much more by doing the research on Earth, BUT without the interest generated by doing it in space, we lack the political will to do the research at all. I'm not suggesting we try to do it all in space, either, but having the goal of using the stuff in space always in sight makes for a great motivator.
Because Microsoft is a software company pushing into the gaming and home entertainment markets, whereas Sony has been in home entertainment for decades and gaming for a decade. Thus we expect Sony to do this because it's already Sony's core business.
What system is a "toss" under, imperial or metric? :)
I see that said about the US often lately, but I'm beginning to wonder how much of it is truth and how much of it is envy. We had a two-superpower world for a while, and it totally sucked. Many of today's problems, which people like to blame on the US, could just as easily be blamed on the superpowers doing nothing (or making minimal proxy efforts) for fear of world war three, generally leaving everything unfinished until problems are so greatly magnified that they can no longer be ignored.
It's not a forgone conclusion that the big players in a multi-superpower world *must* be opposed, but I'm not seeing anything to indicate that a Euro superpower would be an ally - every time I see mention of a Euro power, it's in the context of competition vs the US. Same deal with mention of a Chinese superpower. While I'm not exactly pleased with the current situation, I'm kind of hoping the biggest problems get fixed before the next cold war.
Pessimist? Or Realist? I hope near future history will prove me wrong.
Isn't that fraud? Wouldn't that open up the evil fake employee and evil company to criminal and civil law, doing more damage, in money terms, legal terms, and PR terms, to the evil company than to the victim company?
Let's say the bank ATM recorded what bills it gave you, and all cash registers record what bills they recieved at what times. If you are ever under any investigation... wham, everything you've bought, whether it's relevant to the investigation or not, can be harvested. Between that and already-existing monitoring of credit cards and such, a detailed history of your movements and purchases can be easily assembled. Such information could be used to get you in all sorts of trouble - the most obvious being a police fishing expedition. Nearly everything you do is incriminating in some way, and the very presence of this information, combined with a tiny bit of corruption, and you're screwed. Do you want your insurance company knowing what over-the-counter medication you buy? Do you want the property tax collectors knowing about the tools and supplies you got?
Those examples are only the most mundane. It gets considerably worse if you're in any public position, especially politics, but even being a schoolteacher is bad enough. "OMG! teacher is a porn fiend! FIRE HIM!" It gets even worse depending on the details of the technology. Already-stored info on easily hacked computers? Info displayed on the cash register and readable by the minimum-wage cashier? Stranger brushes against you in the mall, just close enough for his PDA with scanner to register your money's serial numbers?
It doesn't matter how perfect a person you are or how spotless your record - little good will come of having this sort of information available.
You miss the point. It's the classic arms vs armor escalation. The parent post isn't advocating using diamond bullets because it's new and interesting, but using diamond bullets because lesser ones won't penetrate the other guy's new diamond armor. Everything you said is valid and correct for normal bullets, but might be made irrelevant by better armor.
:)
Or the parent poster could just have been making a joke, not realizing how true it was
Yes, that's what happens when you group a lot of stuff into one package for the free shipping...you have to wait for thing to get shuffled around between the amazon warehouses until all your stuff is in one place. The shipping is still as fast as always when it's just one item, and decently fast when it's two items. Three or four can take forever.
It's better to make two orders of $27 than one order of $54, the way things are set up right now for the free shipping.
The most popular/stable currency is always the one with the biggest counterfeit problem. Once a currency gets commonly used in a foreign country, it's a ripe target for fraud, because those people are less able to detect the fakes. If the euro gets internationally respected at that level, it'll be massively faked too... in non-euro countries, where crappy fakes will be accepted.
tax income: $1.9 trillion
military budget: $380 billion
that'd be 20%.
It was the umpity-bajillion dollars the RIAA was suing for that would have made the circus trial tactic work, not the actual guilt or innocence of the accused.
What about those treaties about not putting weapons in space?
There's a lot less friction at the altitude the concorde flies.
Why would we need large diamonds for small chips? Why not just use the industrial diamond coating techniques we already have?
Just coat something else with a thin diamond layer and cut away at it.
You're judging an entire country by its movie critics? Aahahahahhahahahahha
This is non-April-related. I read the Discover article yesterday. Neat stuff.
For the conspiracy theorists out there, this one is NOT likely to get squashed by some secretive oil cartel - the process already works, and the oil guys are actually interested in it too, because it can handle the byproducts of current refineries and turn *them* into oil too, thus making them more product and therefore more money.
The inventor's been given money by both the US government and private investors.