EdEarl

Energy inefficiencies are generally measured as heat losses. But if your objective is to heat something and some energy is lost as radiant energy, the calculations are similar but the meaning is different. A laser light, (e.g., indicator lights on electronic equipment) are very efficient, and an automobile engine is very inefficient.

Shimon Schoken, a professor, says about grading, "I'm sick of it." "Grading takes away all the fun from failing." "We collect your B+s and A-s and aggregate them into a number like 3.4, which is stamped on your forehead and sums up who you are. Well, in my opinion we went too far with this nonsense, and grading has become degrading." The Nand2Tetris open project teaches those who complete it the basics of computer science. One learns how to build a computer from nand gates. Using the computer one built, to develop an assembler. Using the assembler, how to make an operating system. Using the assembler and operating system, how to make a simple java-like compiler. And, using the compiler and other tools, how to code a a game like Tetris. My computer science education began with a BS in Electrical Engineering, because the university I attended did not have an undergraduate computer science curriculum (yes, I am a old). While at the university, I learned Fortran in an engineering class, and started hanging out in the computer lab, where lived an IBM1620 and a remote job entry station {RJE) for the university supercomputer (my cellphone today is more powerful). I used the RJE for classwork, and played (not classwork) on the 1620. I learned its assembler language. The 1620 is a bizarre machine compared to those of today. It did not have hardware to do arithmetic, it had addition and subtraction tables in memory, did arithmetic in the decimal (instead of the binary) number system, had digits of memory instead of bytes, and could add numbers of any length as long as they could fit into its 20,000 digit memory space. Many computer science graduates of today may only vaguely understand how bizarre this machine was, because they have not learned about computers as Nand2Tetris teaches. For those who enjoy learning, this semester long class will be a treat.

Doing things without error is difficult, and the scientific method is supposed to help one eliminate errors. In that regard it is simple. However, doing things without error is difficult, even if we use the scientific method, whether we are novice or an expert. To use the scientific method effectively, we must always question whether our ideas and thoughts are correct or erroneous. In fact, we often need help to be able to see our own errors, because our brains hate for us to be wrong. The scientific method includes a process called peer review to expose our errors. Since you are not ready to share your ideas, you obviously have the same anxiety about sharing ideas as others. You don't want some one to say, you screwed up. Sometimes, new ideas overturn older ones, and these situations sometimes result in bitter battles. Scientists must be tough to endure peer review and accept that they are wrong whenever they are. To prepare, one must do everything in their power to assure themselves their ideas are correct, before they publish. Colleagues can help by reviewing your ideas before you tell the entire world. But, before you tell a colleague, you will want to assure yourself, to the best of your ability, that you have not made an error. Thus, you must use logic, mathematics, experiment, and anything else you can think of to convince yourself you are right. If you have doubts about your ideas, you probably are not ready to publish. Sometimes talking things over with a friend or family member helps to find errors, even if they do not understand what your are talking about.

Single cell organisms ruled for a very long time before the evolution of multicellular organisms; afterwards, evolution went into overdrive. The human race may change soon after the AGI singularity. I think evolution is accelerating. In an case, when Milkydromeda forms, our sun could be tossed out of the galaxy.

I doubt it, but I am surprised by science all the time.

I just saw a documentary about the Piraha, an Amazonian culture, whose language apparently has no recursion. For example it has no conjunctions, so you cannot say Mary and Mike drank water. It has started a war among linguists, with Chomskyians and others getting pretty hostile, kind of like the war between theists and atheists...not very scientific in some cases. There is no linguistics forum, so I didn't know where to post this. There are a couple of references to the Piraha in Religion; they do not have a belief in god. The linguist who reported this language went there as a missionary whom the Piraha converted him to atheism. It was also about the Piraha culture, so I guess this could be posted in sociology, The only social controversy is whether the Piraha should be forced to modernize or left untainted by modernization. The Piraha also had no concept of numbers. I thought it was a very interesting documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqkQJiDXmbA

Clearly more grazing is possible after the land is recovered, because there is more to eat. But, when the land is desert, it may mean a little grazing with many cattle to trample the existing grass flat to provide mulch and add fertilizer. He didn't explain in enough detail to really understand the process completely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTKHHfsM7Y

In theory yes, but I would not recommend human cloning, mainly because I am basically ignorant about the process.

The scientific method is not causal of why we don't know the answer to your question. Quantum mechanics has not been linked to classical physics and relativity, which may be why we don't know the answer to your question. The elusive "Theory of Everything" has not been discovered. Perhaps string theory will be explain everything, maybe not. However, we may never know the answer, even if it is theoretically possible to know the answer, because tools such as CERN are not big enough to discover strings (or whatever) that are smaller than quarks. I heard that it might require an atom smasher as big as the Milky Way galaxy to do the experiments necessary to verify string theory. But, I think we can learn more than we currently know without converting the galaxy into an atom smasher. Progress is often slow. Humanity has been studying the universe for only a 100,000 years or so. Give us a bit more time.

I think you have not provided enough information. Is Open URL the knowledge base or Uniform Resource Locator? What parts of the system can your company control or affect? The most important thing I can think of you should do is determine which parts of the system are performing poorly and which are doing well, unless you have identified which "program" needs to go faster. In that case, you need to analyze the program to determine which part or parts of the program are slow. If the "program" is the knowledge base, I don't know anything about it. But, if it is anything like databases, data organization can affect performance.

Internet pictures such as my thumbnail on this page do not contain true colors, only red, green, and blue (RGB), because our eyes only see those colors. That we see all the colors of the rainbow is an illusion. Spectroscopy will not give the same results from internet pictures as actual things.

It sounds like a nervous breakdown to me; the predator brains would terrify the prey brains.

The video is consistent with things I have learned. The power company in San Antonio, Texas is using renewable power sources more an more, because they are less expensive. They are a corporation, not owned by the city. They have been increasing their renewable portfolio for many years, and recently installed a 500MW solar PV farm and decommissioned a coal plant. Elon Musk started Pay Pal and sold it. He has now started three companies, Tesla Motors, SolarX and SpaceX (check out interviews with him on youtube). Tesla makes only electric cars, a sports car that outperforms most other sports cars and can go 250 miles on a single charge, and a sedan similar to other S series cars which also can go 250 miles on a charge. He is now making a less expensive electric designed for the mass market. Several people have stated that electrics use less energy and cause less CO2 emissions, even if they are charged with electricity from a coal powered plant. I consider him a modern day Howard Hughes because he is chief scientist for his companies. Although, he is different from Howard because he seems happily married and not crazy. Corporations are madly reducing their energy costs and installing solar panels on roofs, because it saves them money. Earthship homes need no connection to the grid, and have been built in several countries. If you search the internet, you can find all kinds of stuff about energy savings and alternative technologies, and I don't mean things done by amateurs...though there is a lot of that, too. Here are a few links. http://www.cps-satx.com/Services/Generate_Deliver_Energy/Solar_Power/Blue_Wing_Solar_Farm/ http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/A5FMY-K-o0Q/mqdefault.jpg http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2005/01/07/some-facts-about-wal-marts-energy-conservation-measures http://prakash-t.hubpages.com/hub/Top-10-Energy-Efficient-Skyscrapers http://earthship.com/ PS: Maybe CO2 will be reduced as new deserts are reclaimed for grassland.

Several things similar to your description have been done, including cloning of sheep and the following.

Until recently chip manufacturers have been able to shrink transistors and make faster integrated circuits with higher transistor densities and more capability. Thus, they have not needed a new technology to continue shrinking computers. There is a limit, which they are near or perhaps have already encountered. When they cannot make smaller transistors, they will need a new technology. There are at least two candidates, quantum computing and 3D chips. Labs have made both quantum computers and 3D chips, and the race is on to transfer that technology into production. I do not believe computer improvements will halt, and the exponential rate of technology improvement tends to say once a thing is demonstrated in the lab, it can be mass produced faster than most people estimate. One of the computers I used in university classes was a CDC6600 (a Seymour Cray supercomputer), which had a megabyte of hand-wired cores (magnetic donuts) that cost about a dollar a bit. If you had told me I would someday carry a portable telephone in my shirt pocket with more computer power than that $10M supercomputer, I would not have believed it. Conversely, it is probably hard for students today to understand the size and lack of power in the CDC6600.

A cat can learn a few words, but they forget you taught them, and think you learned their language.

A direct hit by two stars during the Andromeda, Milky Way collision is unlikely. I assume most stars are surrounded by Ort Clouds. If a star from Andromeda passes near our Sun, the interaction of the two Ort Clouds could cause an increase of Comets coming toward us.

tyvm I finally looked up the equation for photosynthesis. The O2 comes from water, not the CO2.

Buy some small electric motors and take them apart. Only some electric motors use permanent magnets. Many, only use electromagnets. You might want to take a university class in electric motors, or at least buy some books used by professors teaching motors classes. There are many youtube videos about electric motors, and other info on the internet...google electric motors.

I am no expert. Currently microchips are characterized as 2D. Although, there are several layers of silicon to make a transistor, these transistors are not stacked one on top of another. However, I have read several reports that labs are working on 3D microchips having multiple layers of transistors. It will allow them to increase gate (transistor) densities which allows faster computers and faster memories. As for carbon heat shielding, the space shuttle used carbon-carbon heat shields, because it has a high melting temperature. However, carbon-carbon, diamond, and graphite are good heat conductors.

tyvm Moontanman and Essay I do not understand the ammonia, methane part of this graph...not oxygen related but curious. There seems too little atmospheric CO2 at 500kyr and 250kyr to account for increased O2 levels. This graph has no spike in O2 at 2.5gyr. Interesting, but there is more to learn.

Eliminate the electorial college. Term limits for congressmen. Alternate voting. The people should vote on tax changes and Supreme Court nominees. The people should be able to veto line items on any bill. Generally line items are unknown to people, because bills are too big and complex. However, some people do read them, and occassionally, a line item gets into the news. Concerned citizens could log in to vote.gov and veto a line item, if a majority of registered voters reject it, it's gone.

Oh! CO2 sequestered in limestone and comes out. That explains a lot. ty

I see no cross in the video. Besides, shit happens.