Exoplanets are just the next logical step in the indoctrination program. Like the movie says "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." So, how do you introduce extraterrestrial intelligence to a planet without inducing massive culture shock? By boiling the frog, that's how. In the media, aliens have gone from impossible to bug-eyed-monsters to some-good/some-bad. They've also transitioned from coming from Mars or Venus to extrasolar planets.
Now that the concept of exoplanets is taking root in our mass consciousness, the idea of habitable exoplanets is being planted. We are being taken from extraterrestrial life is impossible, to improbable, to possible. Look for this trend to go from possible to likely to the point where a "hey, we may have found something" announcement is going to be met with an "about bloody time" response. In the mean time, we'll get more SETI wow-events, and physics breakthroughs.
But: Airplanes when they are out of fuel do not "fall" out of the sky.
Actually, they do. The autopilot strives to maintain a flight level. As the engines fail, the airspeed drops and the plane starts to sink. The autopilot pitches the plane up in order to maintain the flight level. This drops the airspeed further, which causes the plane to sink more, which causes the autopilot to pitch the nose up even more. Positive feedback loop. The plane eventually stalls and falls out of the sky. They demonstrated this on CNN in the flight simulator.
A better method would have been to use an ROV that had multiple hydrophones and home in on the pings like a missile rather than a towed detector with a single hydrophone and hope you can grid in on the pinger.
I suspect that the animals *expect* to be tortured when males are around, so they steel themselves against it and thus feel pain less. However, when females are administering the pain, it is unexpected, and thus more intense.
Electrical. It can run when the ignition is in the "accessories" position (times out after eight minutes or so to prevent battery drain). It can also run continuously if the engine is running.
Sorry, but to us carnivores, vegan means any substitution of meat for hippy-dippy, new age fairy food. The only thing you should substitute meat with is other meat; chicken or steak burritos for example.
That was about a search for some missing kids. The botulism was just a MacGuffin to get the ball rolling. The kids went camping and mom had packed some ham sandwiches. There was a radio announcement that the manufacturer was recalling canned ham, and when the mom checked the can's serial number... sure enough.
There are about 250 food recalls a year with about a third of them related to microbiological issues like botulism.
Not all botulism in canned food is the result of terrorism or maliciousness. Cans still get dented, and defective cans still make it through the manufacturing line. The chip would replace the "best before" date.
You are right that we are reaching many production peaks, but I think your vision of them is clouded.
Yeah. Toothache./me==cranky.
Oil seems to be on the way out, yes, but most of the coal humanity has ever discovered is still in the ground and easily accessible, enough for 100s of years at least at current consumption levels...
Two issues: The coal that's remaining is of inferior quality. Less joules/kg, which means you need to burn more to get the same energy output. Further, current consumption is the low point. As the population grows and demand for oil substitutes grows, coal consumption is going to skyrocket.
"Peak water" should really be "peak clean fresh water", and so long as people shower and flush their toilets with potable water it's clearly a non-issue.
Actually, should we be using fresh water to flush our toilets? Not that it matters. Domestic use is far outweighed by agricultural and industrial use.
Good luck finding titanium in building girders. It is far too expensive to use for that purpose, except possibly in some specialty cases like nuclear power plants.
Maybe it's the toothache speaking but my concern is that we are at or near so many production peaks (peak oil, peak coal, peak silver, peak fish, peak wood, peak water, peak plankton) that we may be facing final few centuries of civilization. Unless we get serious about living within our planetary means, H Sapiens isn't the one leaving the planet.
In that case you're not extracting oil, you're creating it. And that means you have to put in more energy that you will get from burning that oil later. Where is that energy going to come from if we've lost high technology?
Yes, exactly. Ditto with extracting raw materials from waste. Are our descendants going to be melting down car bumpers to extract chromium to make paint? Are they going to dig down through giant piles of garbage to find puddles of mercury? Will they be able to find the chemicals they will need to extract silver from old photographs and tooth fillings?
Basically, we only get one shot at becoming a culture that reaches the stars. If we don't have the foresight at this stage of the game, the resource wars that follow will forever prevent us.
An ace may be unique in your poker hand, but it isn't unique in the deck. Thus it is more unique in your hand than in the deck. If my hand is the two of hearts, the three, queen, and king of diamonds and the ace of spades, each card is unique, but the two of hearts is more unique than the king of diamonds because there are other diamonds but no other hearts. The ace of spades is the uniquest, because not only are there no other cards of that rank and suit, there are also no other cards of that color.
Every planet has a tilt. The odds of a planet's axis of rotation lining up perpendicular to its orbital plane given a continuous bombardment of asteroids and meteors is infinitesimal. Further, judging by the rocks around here, eighty percent of planets have a moon.
We haven't created or destroyed any elements. We just use them, or modify the chemicals they are in. If we need them (and have dug them all up), we can't mine them from the ground, but we can mine them from the landfills and buildings, like some are doing with copper now. Materials are more easy, not less easy.
Yes, we can build recovery plants and extract oil from all the waste H2O and CO2 we've been dumping into the atmosphere.
Unlikely. As stellar evolution goes, ours is one of the later stars.
Yes, perhaps. On the other hand, you need a good mix of elements to support life (as we know it, anyways), which wouldn't have been around until a few supernovae had spread the heavy atom joy around.
An observation is an observation whether or not it is an accurate one. Again, suppose I set up an experiment that shows that the speed of light is 3,000km/s. That is an observation. Do we throw out decades of conventional physics that says light travels at 300,000km/s based on that observation, or do we take a closer look at the methodology of my experiment?
If the observation was inaccurate, then it really wasn't an observation, was it?
If you have an observation that conflicts with the model, how can you know that it is the model that is wrong and not the observation? You can't just mindlessly choose that the model is wrong. Suppose I set up an experiment that shows that the speed of light is 3,000km/s. Are we to throw out decades of conventional physics that says light travels at 300,000km/s, or are we going to take a closer look at the methodology of my experiment?
If a model conflicts with observation, the model either must be dropped or modified.
That's a little too simplistic. Often, when a model conflicts with observation, the first thing that is questioned is the observation. Is the observation accurate? Is it repeatable? Is the observation made without observer bias (intentional or otherwise)?
Slashdot Mirror
We tell the Corporations any planet with interesting chemistry contains Unobtanium.
They won't go after unobtanium. Monopolium, though...
Exoplanets are just the next logical step in the indoctrination program. Like the movie says "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." So, how do you introduce extraterrestrial intelligence to a planet without inducing massive culture shock? By boiling the frog, that's how. In the media, aliens have gone from impossible to bug-eyed-monsters to some-good/some-bad. They've also transitioned from coming from Mars or Venus to extrasolar planets.
Now that the concept of exoplanets is taking root in our mass consciousness, the idea of habitable exoplanets is being planted. We are being taken from extraterrestrial life is impossible, to improbable, to possible. Look for this trend to go from possible to likely to the point where a "hey, we may have found something" announcement is going to be met with an "about bloody time" response. In the mean time, we'll get more SETI wow-events, and physics breakthroughs.
Transponders have an off switch because there is no need for a transponder while the plane is on the tarmac.
But: Airplanes when they are out of fuel do not "fall" out of the sky.
Actually, they do. The autopilot strives to maintain a flight level. As the engines fail, the airspeed drops and the plane starts to sink. The autopilot pitches the plane up in order to maintain the flight level. This drops the airspeed further, which causes the plane to sink more, which causes the autopilot to pitch the nose up even more. Positive feedback loop. The plane eventually stalls and falls out of the sky. They demonstrated this on CNN in the flight simulator.
A better method would have been to use an ROV that had multiple hydrophones and home in on the pings like a missile rather than a towed detector with a single hydrophone and hope you can grid in on the pinger.
I suspect that the animals *expect* to be tortured when males are around, so they steel themselves against it and thus feel pain less. However, when females are administering the pain, it is unexpected, and thus more intense.
Electrical. It can run when the ignition is in the "accessories" position (times out after eight minutes or so to prevent battery drain). It can also run continuously if the engine is running.
What I want is a self vacuuming car.
The 2014 Honda Odyssey now comes with a built in vacuum cleaner, so technically, it is a self vacuuming vehicle.
Crack fiend don't care if your macbook is pretty. Crack fiend cares if it will buy him his next hit.
Why am I sensing a Honey Badger/Crack Fiend crossover meme developing?
Of note Walter White drove one for the longest time.
Ah! So the lung cancer was only a convenient excuse. It was really the Aztek that made him Break Bad.
...though it's not a vegan product in any sense
Sorry, but to us carnivores, vegan means any substitution of meat for hippy-dippy, new age fairy food. The only thing you should substitute meat with is other meat; chicken or steak burritos for example.
Peas and plants. Because now peas aren't plants? Who wrote that?
Not all peas are plants, and I would imagine these already taste a lot like chicken.
That was about a search for some missing kids. The botulism was just a MacGuffin to get the ball rolling. The kids went camping and mom had packed some ham sandwiches. There was a radio announcement that the manufacturer was recalling canned ham, and when the mom checked the can's serial number... sure enough.
There are about 250 food recalls a year with about a third of them related to microbiological issues like botulism.
Not all botulism in canned food is the result of terrorism or maliciousness. Cans still get dented, and defective cans still make it through the manufacturing line. The chip would replace the "best before" date.
You are right that we are reaching many production peaks, but I think your vision of them is clouded.
Yeah. Toothache. /me==cranky.
Oil seems to be on the way out, yes, but most of the coal humanity has ever discovered is still in the ground and easily accessible, enough for 100s of years at least at current consumption levels...
Two issues: The coal that's remaining is of inferior quality. Less joules/kg, which means you need to burn more to get the same energy output. Further, current consumption is the low point. As the population grows and demand for oil substitutes grows, coal consumption is going to skyrocket.
"Peak water" should really be "peak clean fresh water", and so long as people shower and flush their toilets with potable water it's clearly a non-issue.
Actually, should we be using fresh water to flush our toilets? Not that it matters. Domestic use is far outweighed by agricultural and industrial use.
Good luck finding titanium in building girders. It is far too expensive to use for that purpose, except possibly in some specialty cases like nuclear power plants.
Maybe it's the toothache speaking but my concern is that we are at or near so many production peaks (peak oil, peak coal, peak silver, peak fish, peak wood, peak water, peak plankton) that we may be facing final few centuries of civilization. Unless we get serious about living within our planetary means, H Sapiens isn't the one leaving the planet.
In that case you're not extracting oil, you're creating it. And that means you have to put in more energy that you will get from burning that oil later. Where is that energy going to come from if we've lost high technology?
Yes, exactly. Ditto with extracting raw materials from waste. Are our descendants going to be melting down car bumpers to extract chromium to make paint? Are they going to dig down through giant piles of garbage to find puddles of mercury? Will they be able to find the chemicals they will need to extract silver from old photographs and tooth fillings?
Basically, we only get one shot at becoming a culture that reaches the stars. If we don't have the foresight at this stage of the game, the resource wars that follow will forever prevent us.
If nobody can duplicate your results, then I would say that you most certainly did not observe the speed of light as being 3,000km/s.
Clearly you are questioning the observation, and not the model. So you agree. Model sometimes trumps observation.
An ace may be unique in your poker hand, but it isn't unique in the deck. Thus it is more unique in your hand than in the deck. If my hand is the two of hearts, the three, queen, and king of diamonds and the ace of spades, each card is unique, but the two of hearts is more unique than the king of diamonds because there are other diamonds but no other hearts. The ace of spades is the uniquest, because not only are there no other cards of that rank and suit, there are also no other cards of that color.
Every planet has a tilt. The odds of a planet's axis of rotation lining up perpendicular to its orbital plane given a continuous bombardment of asteroids and meteors is infinitesimal. Further, judging by the rocks around here, eighty percent of planets have a moon.
We haven't created or destroyed any elements. We just use them, or modify the chemicals they are in. If we need them (and have dug them all up), we can't mine them from the ground, but we can mine them from the landfills and buildings, like some are doing with copper now. Materials are more easy, not less easy.
Yes, we can build recovery plants and extract oil from all the waste H2O and CO2 we've been dumping into the atmosphere.
Maybe we're just the first to develop?
Unlikely. As stellar evolution goes, ours is one of the later stars.
Yes, perhaps. On the other hand, you need a good mix of elements to support life (as we know it, anyways), which wouldn't have been around until a few supernovae had spread the heavy atom joy around.
An observation is an observation whether or not it is an accurate one. Again, suppose I set up an experiment that shows that the speed of light is 3,000km/s. That is an observation. Do we throw out decades of conventional physics that says light travels at 300,000km/s based on that observation, or do we take a closer look at the methodology of my experiment?
If the observation was inaccurate, then it really wasn't an observation, was it?
If you have an observation that conflicts with the model, how can you know that it is the model that is wrong and not the observation? You can't just mindlessly choose that the model is wrong. Suppose I set up an experiment that shows that the speed of light is 3,000km/s. Are we to throw out decades of conventional physics that says light travels at 300,000km/s, or are we going to take a closer look at the methodology of my experiment?
If a model conflicts with observation, the model either must be dropped or modified.
That's a little too simplistic. Often, when a model conflicts with observation, the first thing that is questioned is the observation. Is the observation accurate? Is it repeatable? Is the observation made without observer bias (intentional or otherwise)?