npts2020

Not physically capable of producing children isn't different? Because that's the ONLY difference I can see between the two(to deny that this difference exists is pretty thick headed, whether or not it matters is a different thing). Other than that, I see no reason why they should be treated differently at all.

There are more than a few heterosexual couples "not capable of producing children" because of age, physical defect or other reasons.

I think they will be just like the congresses I have witnessed in the last 30-40 years and continue to hand over societal and individual rights and resources to corporate interests.

How about a modified version of the plant to power a large ship?

Like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier?

What are the similarities and differences in the two, just the enrichment level of the uranium?

Near as I can tell size is the main difference.

I would like to know how electricity is produced with no moving parts, is it DC? In a typical reactor the only moving parts are the control rods and they are not required in some designs

The orbit of 99942 Apophis takes 7 years. It will come close to earth, but 3.5 years later it's really far away... in fact, it will come relatively close to Jupiter's orbit. Should be quite safe to blast this asteroid over there.

But finally, I must agree that a little push might be better than a big blast. Sadly.

My other point was that it is quite easy to plant any device on this asteroid (whether it's a little nudge-device or a bomb), because it comes so close to us every 7 years.

Wouldn't the debris still travel basically the same orbit? Even if none of the pieces were big enough to cause damage on Earth, you have just basically shot anything in orbit with a shotgun.

I think a better explanation than his essay. At about 45 minutes many will not watch the whole thing, unfortunately. I particularly like the way he ties everything together and kind of sidesteps singularity issues though. If he is correct, and I didn't see anyone telling him he was wrong, it will require a lot of relearning and rewriting. Do you think the LHC will shed any light on this topic?

Dang. I just spent parts of the last 30 or so years learning about time, now I am supposed to forget about it. I am still skeptical and would like to see more of the mathmatics but it is very interesting.

The real problem is how to cultivate altruism in young people who are expected to learn to compete in a system where self interest reigns supreme.

But we don't use it in the manner it was intended so we end up with leaders elected by a public informed with nothing more than gossip and lies. I fail to see how that's better than using an informed body of electors.

In a society where a large number of citizens occupy their time with gossip and trivialities I fail to see how you get an informed electorate. Ever watch J-walking with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show? Unfortunately the people he asks questions are not that atypical of the population at large.

So he can go to to a school that will accept him, or to a public school. What happens when everyone is allowed to go to any college but the college tells you, there isn't any room at our college for your little Johnny since the facilities are already maxed out or he doesn't seem to fit in with our academic objective for whatever reason? You go to a different one.

Or more likely just skip college altogether. Do we want that number of people skipping education altogether?

What we are discussing in this thread, the control system, is pretty much the only technical obstacle remaining for automating highways and railroads. My contention is that we already have the technology, it just hasn't been used for this particular application. The automated systems being built and existing now (I'm thinking Heathrow Airport and Morgantown, W. Va.) are interesting but IMO will never be practical, as they are, on a large scale. Neither system is likely to ever achieve the speeds I would like to see on a national transit system, the vehicles on both are unnecessarily large for personal transit, and I find it hard to believe that either system would be able to handle the volume required (single tracks), if the vast majority of travellers use it, without major modification. My quest is to figure out the best way to modify those current systems for widespread application.

Personally I think a series of Palin/Obama debates would be very interesting, if not particularly enlightening.

MrSkeptic: What happens when everyone is allowed to go to any school but the school tells you, there isn't room at our school for your little Johnny since the facilities are already maxed out or he doesn't seem to fit in with our academic objective for whatever reason?

Cap'nRefsmmat: While I would agree that learning is its own reward, it seems to be a depressingly uncommon sentiment as many people seem to actively avoid trying to learn new things unless forced to.

Well apparently you haven't been paying attention for the past 8 years. We went from a nearly balanced budget to a nearly trillion dollar budget deficit. This comes after Bush gave huge tax breaks to the super-rich, not to mention saddling the government with defense spending topping one trillion dollars a year.

 

Want to spend more? You can't cut taxes at the same time.

Spending more will not guarantee getting any value out of the spending. How much value did we get out of the past 10-30 years of government spending? In Iraq alone The Guardian says 12 billion dollars in cash was delivered in early last year to Baghdad for distribution, of that money about 8.8 billion of it is unaccounted for. That's a single instance and IMO not unique. This doesn't even account for overcharging, graft, etc. I don't know about you but that would pay all of my taxes for more generations than I am ever likely to see. Unless we have some government-run enterprise, there will always be taxes if we expect to get anything from having a government.

Well the humans on the space shuttle give up control of their vehicle every time they land it and to my knowledge computer difficulty has never been an issue. At any rate it seems unlikely that free driven cars will ever completely go away, even if the government stopped building and maintaining roads for them (e.g. NASCAR). It has only been the last few years that computers have been able to consistently beat the best human players at chess, thereby surpassing the raw computing power of the human brain. This plus the fact that computers have been shown to be much faster than humans for reaction times, makes me skeptical that any human could outperform a well designed machine in avoiding an accident. When one thinks about accidents, I don't think anyone would argue the vast majority of them are caused by distracted or intoxicated drivers (90% sticks in my mind but am not sure how good that figure is). How often would a computer be distracted or intoxicated? Many of the other things that cause accidents should not occur on an automated system. If someone is sabotaging a car they will be caught on camera doing it, if every car has them for an avoidance system of some kind it is a relatively simple matter to also use it as a surveillance camera as well. Carrying an uncovered or unsecured load of any kind should be impossible if the vehicle encloses them. Furthermore, freight would only use the slowest lanes of travel (still more than fast enough to cause a serious accident) and could require inspection, permit, or whatever if the freight is not completely enclosed. If vehicles self monitor performance and are regularly inspected, mechanical failures should almost never happen to the point of causing an accident. Nobody can guarantee that no accident will ever happen but it should be a much rarer occurrance than are major airplane crashes.

One thing seems for sure to me, is that it will never be used as a form of high-speed transportation. Maybe for touring a city or something similar.....

Wow - you've found a cure for the common cold? you're going to be extremely rich

I wish. But even if there was a cure it would probably be too much trouble for most people to follow since it would likely involve changes in diet, exercise, cleanliness habits, etc. rather than just taking a pill.

It would seem more effective if they were involved in the front end of the nomination process. I would almost rather see a slate of candidates selected by them, and then a popular vote, for one of that lot, by the people. That would ensure a quality pool, while retaining popular election. That would also satisfy the intent of the founders to compromise between congressional and popular selection.

Isn't this what Americans complain about happening in Iran and other places?

If homosexuality could be "cured" through genetics, why hasn't it happened in the thousands of years it has been around? Do homosexuals propogate in some manner I am un aware of?

Maybe Mr. Obama will audit the DoD himself now that he has a high enough security clearance to view any relevant documents. This is where the vast majority of all of our money goes. IMO much of the secrecy involved is to cover up what is basically ripping off the government.

I don't feel sorry for Joe. The Dems did let him hang around when they needed him tho.

Obama has an awesome plan for reducing the deficit. It's called: collect more tax revenue.

Eventually, it will be like squeezing blood from a rock if a major shift in the economy does not take place. We cannot continue to have petroleum based vehicle production, war, and shady investing as mainstays of our economy without collapse at some point. The problem in my lifetime has not so much been collecting enough taxes, as seeing that those taxes are put to good use. Also consumerism is all well and good but how long can you consume more than you produce? The point is that taxation doesn't really address the underlying causes of our problems.

Back to the thread. I look for Rahm Emanuel to be Obama's attack dog when he wants one.

WOW! and I used to think building and flying kites was pretty cool.

waitforufo: It is not easy to accumulate information on this topic, partly because a lot of it is proprietary. One of the ways that the Darpa vehicles dealt with the misidentification problem was to have an array of (optical?) sensors to give better triangulation. One of the differences in the view I have and what you are talking about is that in my scenario the vehicles are basically drones that dont do anything until a central processor tells them what to do. This will allow traffic to be better coordinated. If the system is enclosed only rudimentary avoidance technology will be necessary anyway. RF tags could be embedded in the roof, along with solar panels and wind mills. It unfortunately seems likely that the federal government is the only entity that could ever finance, complete, and take on the liability possibilities of any such project.

I consider a cure to be a magic bullet. It stops something dead in its tracks and prevents something from ever occuring again.

If I cure the cold I am catching just before having any of the effects then catch a cold 10 years later, I didn't "cure" it the first time?

iNow: You are welcome. At that price I can even afford to buy it and donate it to our local library.