Excellent post. I will add, in addition, that land use was also responsible for the coldest period of the Little Ice Age, when CO2 levels plunged from about 1550 to 1610, and then started to recover.
What happened to CO2 levels between 1550 and 1610? Well, starting in 1539 Hernando de Soto, starting with 660 men (carrying typhus, measles, and small pox) began to explore North America. De Soto encountered dense settlements along the Gulf Coast, and rivers of the South East. The next group of explorers found those same areas thinly populated.
It appears that the diseases spread by De Soto and his men started a wave of pandemic sweeping across the densely settled section of North America, killing perhaps 90% of the inhabitants. This meant that the large areas of the continent that had been under agricultural or horticultural care by Indians (large areas were cleared by burning at regular intervals for example) began to regrow forests, and lock up CO2 on a huge scale.
BTW, the hordes of Passenger Pigeons observed by later European observers appear to be a result of this same event. They genetic analysis indicates an enormous population explosion around 1600. Apparently all the now untended nut trees used for food by Indians served as windfall for the pigeons leading to a previously uncommon species to dominate, for awhile.
Reading the summary about how designs look dated after a few years, to me it is like reading about a theological argument within a religion I never heard of. The claims made are completely alien to me, have no reflection in my own experience. I don't think products a few years old look dated. I don't think newer products look sleeker or more sophisticated. Often I think they look stupid and annoying. Can AI make that stop?
30 cases in 26 days in a State of 7.4 million people is a state of emergency?
Well the fire was confined initially to just a pot on the stove, but that was very localized, so we didn't feel it required any immediate action. Then once the cabinets above the stove caught fire, it still seemed really localized, do we thought we should just wait and see. Once we forced out of the kitchen entirely we decided to call the fire department, if it still continued to spread. Well once the living room drapes went up, we thought that emergency action probably was needed, and we did call the fire department, after we finished eating lunch on the lawn.
What couldn't they save our house? Effing gubbmint incompetents.
Hah. I remember talking with people in my grandparents age. I basically got that like for every 5-8 kid family, 1 or 2 died from measles before they were 5, and like 1 or 2 died from the flu before they were 2. Those do not seem like good numbers for me.
Especially when you consider both the effects of having measles and the fact that even today there is no actual cure for it. Either your body fights the disease or you die if you get infected. The only good option is vaccination.
LOL. 1 or 2 dead out of 5-8? Even wikipedia lists measles death rate at 0.2% of those infected. And people wonder why anti-vaxxers feel like they're being lied to by pro-vaxxers, and distrust their advice.
He is citing figures from a few generations ago O Ignorant AC.
A death rate of 1 in 500 is the death rate now with modern medicine, historically it was 10% or greater. But let's take that number which is making you "LOL", 0.2%.
There are about 4 million babies born in the U.S. each year. Without vaccination about 8,000 would be dying every year even with the best medicine, and tens of thousands would have crippling injuries. Laughing really, really loud now? And among those who can't use the vaccine because they are immune-compromised the death rate is about 1 in 3 even today, and put at risk by anti-vaxxers. Hey, killing 1/3 of the vulnerable because of your conspiracy theories. That's a real knee-slapper! Bet your busting a gut over that!
Your father needs to go to a different doctor, who is not an incompetent "pill doctor". He needs to have a "medication reset" wherein only the underlying life or health-threatening medical condition (if any) is treated with medication.
And how do you propose obtaining the private email addresses of your coworkers? IT people hardly interact face-to-face these days, and a corporate email: "Hey send me y'all's' personal email address so that we can plot a revolution" would be arguably disallowed.
I believe that burden is upon the organizers.
How did they do it in the past before there were computers and email?
Employees were (and are) allowed to contact, and interact with other employees on the company premises and on company time on matters of workers rights and interests, including organizing unions.
If the organization is global, interacting electronically, then extending those existing rights to email would be the way to go.
This is proposal for a study yet to be done, which if actually funded and carried out would to some sort of extraction demonstration on the Moon. So we are several steps removed from any actual "mining the Moon" with this.
But manned servicing is not the only option, or even the best option. Robot servicing, if designed from the beginning would be far more cost effective. In fact the a robot to service Hubble did begin development in 2004 and passed critical design review in 2005, before its budget was cut.
The cost of every Shuttle mission was more than a billion dollars (this is the amortized cost of running the Shuttle program, without including the original development). NASA claimed the Shuttle cost $450 million per launch several years ago, but that excluded non-launch costs of operating the shuttle program. If you take the annual appropriation for the Shuttle program and divide that by the number of launches you always get figures in excess of a billion dollars per launch.
If any similar space platform is flown in the future a robotic service system should be part of the development program. The fact that we did not have robots available, but did have people and a legacy launch platform with limited uses otherwise (the Shuttle was operated well below its operating capacity), does not mean that this was the best option, much less a necessary one. Robotic servicing can make space operations much more cost effective. If you support effective, and cost effective, space programs you should support emphasizing robots in space.
Solar and wind have a huge scaling problem. Land requirements, energy storage and grid connectivity/balancing become increasingly problematic the more you build.
Solar does take up land it is true, so it helps a lot to put it on top of land already in use (buildings, or over roadways). Wind is easily integrated into farming, and land otherwise left in its natural state, off shore wind is an option also. The power grid in effect gets rebuilt every 30 years anyway due to regular maintenance investment, so redesigning it as necessary while doing that reduces additional cost. It is straightforward in any case not "problematic" (sort of like pointing out a new housing development is "problematic" because is requires new roads and streets to be built - you just do it). Balancing and energy storage do become issues as the renewable rises about 30%, but a lot of modeling shows that it does not really become troublesome until above 70%.
So the "huge scaling" problem is no different than the huge anything scaling problem.
It is still a lot, but that isn't the bottle-neck. The real problem is sourcing the raw materials and rare-earths for that much production.
There is no significant demand for rare earths in grid scale renewable power. Solar cells use silicon, boron, and phosphorus. Windmills use conventional electromagnetic generators. Grid scale batteries will use sodium ion batteries when they come on-line. There are no critically scarce materials required.
The last project was something like a 200 MW wind park on an island.
They pocketed the money, build the wind park but never connected it to the grid.
Citation needed.
This sounds like one of those "made up facts" since connecting it to "the grid" is cheap and produces free money (the value of the electricity). Indeed Googling does not find this "fact" anywhere.
Possibly you are confused by the islands not being connected to the grid because - islands.
After the sprouting comes growth. No one has ever raised a plant in a gravity field of 1/6 G. Never. Schemes to simulate it on Earth do not really do that, and while a centrifuge in orbit can do a proper simulation, no one has ever operated such a centrifuge over a plants life cycle.
The new CEO will have to convince investors that Intel's loss of manufacturing leadership -- a cornerstone of its dominance -- won't cost it market share in the lucrative semiconductor market. He or she will also have to deliver on the company's promise to maintain growth by winning orders beyond personal computer and server chips.
The list of demands and assurances for the new CEO are too long. They just need someone who can walk on water.
The problem with cable is not that they offer services in packages - it is that they are monopolies and thus charge excessively, and care nothing about the desires of their customers. The fixed packages that cable offer are because it is convenient for them, and an excuse (to regulators) to charge high prices, regardless of whether the content is desired.
Being able to choose cable providers over a single "wire", creating competition would address this. There is no reason why bundles of services, for which you get one bill, should be fixed bundles. They should be a la carte - the bundle is customized to the desires of the rate-payer.
These are the coast redwoods. Their maximum lifespan is about 2000 years, and most don't make it past 800. They tend to topple in storms around that time, like the Dyerville Giant that toppled in 1991, which is when they discovered it had been the world's tallest tree. It was 1600 years old though.
Several people are feigning horror that cuttings propagated from the largest trees the world has ever known (as far we can tell) are being grown outside of their recent natural range as if propagating any plant in a (currently) foreign location inevitably makes it a threatening weed. As climates change plant ranges naturally change, and they start growing places they couldn't before, and stop growing where they were once found. Nothing inherently dangerous in helping plants move to new, more suitable locations.
One thing to recall is that the "close up" is an extremely artificial way of viewing someone. It does not exist in real life. Do you ever get inches from someone's face while they are talking (without getting smacked good and proper)?
So doing a close-up in 8K with an actual human is going to have very unfortunate consequences unless enhancement if used, and we are used to that and expect it - we call it "make-up". But at sufficiently high resolution even physical make-up probably can't cut it.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent post. I will add, in addition, that land use was also responsible for the coldest period of the Little Ice Age, when CO2 levels plunged from about 1550 to 1610, and then started to recover.
What happened to CO2 levels between 1550 and 1610? Well, starting in 1539 Hernando de Soto, starting with 660 men (carrying typhus, measles, and small pox) began to explore North America. De Soto encountered dense settlements along the Gulf Coast, and rivers of the South East. The next group of explorers found those same areas thinly populated.
It appears that the diseases spread by De Soto and his men started a wave of pandemic sweeping across the densely settled section of North America, killing perhaps 90% of the inhabitants. This meant that the large areas of the continent that had been under agricultural or horticultural care by Indians (large areas were cleared by burning at regular intervals for example) began to regrow forests, and lock up CO2 on a huge scale.
BTW, the hordes of Passenger Pigeons observed by later European observers appear to be a result of this same event. They genetic analysis indicates an enormous population explosion around 1600. Apparently all the now untended nut trees used for food by Indians served as windfall for the pigeons leading to a previously uncommon species to dominate, for awhile.
All I can say is that "Flying Army of Laser 'Schrodinger's Cats" sure sounds cool!
Maybe they can take on the Sharknado.
Reading the summary about how designs look dated after a few years, to me it is like reading about a theological argument within a religion I never heard of. The claims made are completely alien to me, have no reflection in my own experience. I don't think products a few years old look dated. I don't think newer products look sleeker or more sophisticated. Often I think they look stupid and annoying. Can AI make that stop?
THINK FOR YOURSELF.
Nothing more amusing than a crowd of Trump supporters intoning in unison - "Think... for... yourself. Think... for... yourself."
Wasn't that a scene is Idiocracy?
And most vague unsupported general claims about statistics are just BS.
Your move.
30 cases in 26 days in a State of 7.4 million people is a state of emergency?
Well the fire was confined initially to just a pot on the stove, but that was very localized, so we didn't feel it required any immediate action. Then once the cabinets above the stove caught fire, it still seemed really localized, do we thought we should just wait and see. Once we forced out of the kitchen entirely we decided to call the fire department, if it still continued to spread. Well once the living room drapes went up, we thought that emergency action probably was needed, and we did call the fire department, after we finished eating lunch on the lawn.
What couldn't they save our house? Effing gubbmint incompetents.
Hah. I remember talking with people in my grandparents age. I basically got that like for every 5-8 kid family, 1 or 2 died from measles before they were 5, and like 1 or 2 died from the flu before they were 2. Those do not seem like good numbers for me.
Especially when you consider both the effects of having measles and the fact that even today there is no actual cure for it. Either your body fights the disease or you die if you get infected. The only good option is vaccination.
LOL. 1 or 2 dead out of 5-8? Even wikipedia lists measles death rate at 0.2% of those infected. And people wonder why anti-vaxxers feel like they're being lied to by pro-vaxxers, and distrust their advice.
He is citing figures from a few generations ago O Ignorant AC.
A death rate of 1 in 500 is the death rate now with modern medicine, historically it was 10% or greater. But let's take that number which is making you "LOL", 0.2%.
There are about 4 million babies born in the U.S. each year. Without vaccination about 8,000 would be dying every year even with the best medicine, and tens of thousands would have crippling injuries. Laughing really, really loud now? And among those who can't use the vaccine because they are immune-compromised the death rate is about 1 in 3 even today, and put at risk by anti-vaxxers. Hey, killing 1/3 of the vulnerable because of your conspiracy theories. That's a real knee-slapper! Bet your busting a gut over that!
Your father needs to go to a different doctor, who is not an incompetent "pill doctor". He needs to have a "medication reset" wherein only the underlying life or health-threatening medical condition (if any) is treated with medication.
This site cites five different pollsters all indicating that antivaxx sentiment rates are evenly split between parties.
Anyone here trying to make this into a right/left issue is pushing a false agenda.
So no, not majority left (unless you are pinning your claim on the fact that Republicans are in a minority.
The lawyers are paid by, and represent, Google. They do not do anything that is not "Google really".
Also recall that last year the top corporate sponsor for CPAC, the far right-wing circus that used to be relegated to the fringes, was Google.
I believe that burden is upon the organizers.
How did they do it in the past before there were computers and email?
Employees were (and are) allowed to contact, and interact with other employees on the company premises and on company time on matters of workers rights and interests, including organizing unions.
If the organization is global, interacting electronically, then extending those existing rights to email would be the way to go.
Continuing the new Slashdot's tradition of using crappiest possible links that monetize for the site owner I see. Here is an article that actually has useful coverage of this.
This is proposal for a study yet to be done, which if actually funded and carried out would to some sort of extraction demonstration on the Moon. So we are several steps removed from any actual "mining the Moon" with this.
Has anyone tied this, snowball earth and the great nonconformity together? the eons roughly match.
Yes there was a news story about this three weeks ago.
But manned servicing is not the only option, or even the best option. Robot servicing, if designed from the beginning would be far more cost effective. In fact the a robot to service Hubble did begin development in 2004 and passed critical design review in 2005, before its budget was cut.
The cost of every Shuttle mission was more than a billion dollars (this is the amortized cost of running the Shuttle program, without including the original development). NASA claimed the Shuttle cost $450 million per launch several years ago, but that excluded non-launch costs of operating the shuttle program. If you take the annual appropriation for the Shuttle program and divide that by the number of launches you always get figures in excess of a billion dollars per launch.
If any similar space platform is flown in the future a robotic service system should be part of the development program. The fact that we did not have robots available, but did have people and a legacy launch platform with limited uses otherwise (the Shuttle was operated well below its operating capacity), does not mean that this was the best option, much less a necessary one. Robotic servicing can make space operations much more cost effective. If you support effective, and cost effective, space programs you should support emphasizing robots in space.
The very fact that nuclear waste is radioactive means that the reactor design is inefficient and leaving fuel unburned.
Breeder reactors can burn fuel down to nearly inert lumps of rock.
Only if you leave out all of the fission products. They remain hot at dangerous levels for centuries. Breeder reactors only burn actinides.
Solar and wind have a huge scaling problem. Land requirements, energy storage and grid connectivity/balancing become increasingly problematic the more you build.
Solar does take up land it is true, so it helps a lot to put it on top of land already in use (buildings, or over roadways). Wind is easily integrated into farming, and land otherwise left in its natural state, off shore wind is an option also. The power grid in effect gets rebuilt every 30 years anyway due to regular maintenance investment, so redesigning it as necessary while doing that reduces additional cost. It is straightforward in any case not "problematic" (sort of like pointing out a new housing development is "problematic" because is requires new roads and streets to be built - you just do it). Balancing and energy storage do become issues as the renewable rises about 30%, but a lot of modeling shows that it does not really become troublesome until above 70%.
So the "huge scaling" problem is no different than the huge anything scaling problem.
It is still a lot, but that isn't the bottle-neck. The real problem is sourcing the raw materials and rare-earths for that much production.
There is no significant demand for rare earths in grid scale renewable power. Solar cells use silicon, boron, and phosphorus. Windmills use conventional electromagnetic generators. Grid scale batteries will use sodium ion batteries when they come on-line. There are no critically scarce materials required.
The last project was something like a 200 MW wind park on an island. They pocketed the money, build the wind park but never connected it to the grid.
Citation needed.
This sounds like one of those "made up facts" since connecting it to "the grid" is cheap and produces free money (the value of the electricity). Indeed Googling does not find this "fact" anywhere.
Possibly you are confused by the islands not being connected to the grid because - islands.
Zero-G growth experiments are not 1/6-G growth experiments. This has never been done before.
After the sprouting comes growth. No one has ever raised a plant in a gravity field of 1/6 G. Never. Schemes to simulate it on Earth do not really do that, and while a centrifuge in orbit can do a proper simulation, no one has ever operated such a centrifuge over a plants life cycle.
The new CEO will have to convince investors that Intel's loss of manufacturing leadership -- a cornerstone of its dominance -- won't cost it market share in the lucrative semiconductor market. He or she will also have to deliver on the company's promise to maintain growth by winning orders beyond personal computer and server chips.
The list of demands and assurances for the new CEO are too long. They just need someone who can walk on water.
The problem with cable is not that they offer services in packages - it is that they are monopolies and thus charge excessively, and care nothing about the desires of their customers. The fixed packages that cable offer are because it is convenient for them, and an excuse (to regulators) to charge high prices, regardless of whether the content is desired.
Being able to choose cable providers over a single "wire", creating competition would address this. There is no reason why bundles of services, for which you get one bill, should be fixed bundles. They should be a la carte - the bundle is customized to the desires of the rate-payer.
They take 3-4k years to grow,
These are the coast redwoods. Their maximum lifespan is about 2000 years, and most don't make it past 800. They tend to topple in storms around that time, like the Dyerville Giant that toppled in 1991, which is when they discovered it had been the world's tallest tree. It was 1600 years old though.
Several people are feigning horror that cuttings propagated from the largest trees the world has ever known (as far we can tell) are being grown outside of their recent natural range as if propagating any plant in a (currently) foreign location inevitably makes it a threatening weed. As climates change plant ranges naturally change, and they start growing places they couldn't before, and stop growing where they were once found. Nothing inherently dangerous in helping plants move to new, more suitable locations.
One thing to recall is that the "close up" is an extremely artificial way of viewing someone. It does not exist in real life. Do you ever get inches from someone's face while they are talking (without getting smacked good and proper)?
So doing a close-up in 8K with an actual human is going to have very unfortunate consequences unless enhancement if used, and we are used to that and expect it - we call it "make-up". But at sufficiently high resolution even physical make-up probably can't cut it.
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?
We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
Jack Handey - "Deep Thoughts"