Endy0816

7 hours ago, exchemist said:

Heh heh, I admit you had me going there, with these excellent (CIA?) robots.

But where is the Turkey X 500?

 

lol, yeah, they're super realistic. They're from the Spy in the Wild series.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRZWhedLhwllnac-RBxvyw

They're pretty fun to watch, though nobody has been worried about spying on a turkey... yet...

1 hour ago, joigus said:

The hummingbird really gave it away!

Yeah, they can look amazingly realistic but mimicking flight or any real locomotion gives away the game lol.

4 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Er, it's a spoof. And quite a funny one. I love the idea of getting JFK's assassination involved.  

Take a second look at the 'birds'

It's crazy how people would believe that such majestic creatures as these aren't real.

Humans, bots or both; disagreed with, disapproved of, disliked, randomly decided to or accidentally downvoted your post.

4 hours ago, Intoscience said:

You could go back into the past and have no direct impact on your own timeline which would have prevented you going back, so no issues there. It's rather the possibility that you might alter the past to change the future in a way that prevents you going back in the first place which is the problem. These are the paradoxes that would violate causality, so logically there should be some mechanism to prevent the paradoxes happening, or time travel into the past is just impossible.

As far as  we know, Causality is limited to the speed of light. So might be able to avoid paradoxes in some cases.

15 hours ago, Intoscience said:

AFAIK there is no mathematical reason why time travel into the past is not possible (someone may correct me on this).

I think the issue is maybe more around the causality aspect. Essentially unless some rules are introduced, like splitting timelines, multiverses etc... then going back in time creates paradoxes, the "grandfather paradox" probably being the most popular one. Where time travelling into the past may allow effect to precede cause, which violates logic and the laws of nature.  e.g. You go back in time and kill your grandfather, which prevents you being born, which stops you going back in time to kill your grandfather...

Obviously if time travel was possible then there would have to be some mechanism to prevent paradoxes happening, hence timeline splits, or multiverses,  or no matter how you attempt to change the past something happens to prevent it etc... 

In some cases you might be able to hoodwink the Universe.

Jump to the past far enough away and the butterfly effect can't spread back to create paradoxes/loops/etc.

Inside event horizons should be somewhat sheltered regions too.

5 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I don't know why so many people get this idea that we'll become or be superseded by an artificial superintelligence by this century.

We'll probably go on for thousands of years as the same, limited biological species in a civilization "a la star wars/trek".

Fair odds we'll design something with either superhuman intelligence or that will seek such intelligence. Then it all comes down to its goals and how we fit into those goals. There is plenty of space and resources out there, that it could more easily take advantage of so somewhat boringly may not result in either Judgement Day style conflict or Technological Singularity.

Was actually a Star Wars story on this ironically(The Bounty Hunter Wars). All the other robots were reprogrammed into sleeper agents and the Death Star taken over by a rogue AI, just prior to destruction.

6 hours ago, iNow said:

Use it when you want to travel quickly while resting, reading, realizing mass transit is more sustainable, etc. I love using high-speed rail when traveling for work in Europe… you sit down, view the countryside, get up and stretch, and get things done while being quickly carried to your destination. 

True that would be nice benefit without the longer times of taking Amtrak.

Would be cool hopping from nearby light rail station to Brightline at the airport and from there to Miami. Something of a painful drive at around 4 hours, compared with Brighline's 2 hours. There and back has never been something you'd regularly want to do in a single day before.

40 minutes ago, Duda Jarek said:

Sure electricity cost is lower, but total cost (including e.g. hardware) market is willing to pay for $100 banknote is ~$99 ... giving the miner/investor $1 profit, at $99 cost for civilization ... plus e.g. these $37-49 "in health and climate damage" externalities.

 

Sure mining of gold/silver also has externalities - which should be included in evaluation of such investement, compensated e.g. through taxes to those who pay them ... but

1) In contrast to massive hashing, our civilization needs these metals e.g. to make electronics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Electronics   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver#Electronics

2) in contrast to potentially infinite number of various cryptocurrencies which can consume all available resources, real mining has reasonable physical limits for used resources.

We only use around 10% of what we've already mined.

We can make gold artificially too. Just not valued enough for us to do so. We haven't even started seawater extraction yet.

So new Brightline rail is being constructed from Miami up to Orlando and from there over towards the west coast.

Still a bit out but trying to figure out how I should go about comparing ticket prices with alternatives and if there's anything else to consider besides straight roundtrip prices.

Yeah, most currencies are set up that so issuer makes a profit. Pennies and nickles are minted at a loss though so not universally true. Obviously you could use something like gold but then you simply have all the same issues in different forms to worry about.

I'm not worried about crypto myself. We can always just switch to a fresh currency or drop the historical transaction data.

28 minutes ago, Hans de Vries said:

Why would US want to invade Canada out of thin air?

It had good relations with Canada due to economic and cultural ties.

Was to prevent our weak northern border from being used against us in a conflict with Britain.

34 minutes ago, MigL said:

Ha !
Niagara Falls would be the Americans' Borodino.
After that, Canadian winter would set in, and the Americans would have to retreat with their tails between their legs.
( reference to Napoleon's invasion of Russia )

Yeah I have a feeling we would have been at the very least bogged down come winter lol.

56 minutes ago, studiot said:

The 'Drielanderpunkt' is point where the borders of 3 countries meet.

So you can step from Germany to Belgium to the Netherlands around it.

On the German side there is nothing but wooded country.

On the Dutch side there is a small tourist park.

On the Belgian side there is the war memorial commemorating the 1944 - 1945 war  and more wooded countryside.

Got my dates mixed up, you're right actually.

Not sure on the plaque then.

47 minutes ago, studiot said:

An interesting historical point.

Would some Americans like to comment on what they regard as the dates for ww1 and ww2 ?

I ask because there is a memorial to the 1944 - 1945 war at the 'Drielanderpunkt'.

1914 and 1941. Though we do focus on broad causes for the war and US entry.

Is that plaque at Brockhall by any chance? Thought may be in reference to the espionage work that went on.

3 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

Not really since ww1 was mostly caused by two people, Wilhelm II and Conrad von Hotzendorf. 

Germany itself estimated that by 1916 Russia will be too strong to defeat. If ww1 is avoided for a few more years and there will be a high chance it never happens. Germanyu was the Silicon Valley of early 1900s and it would make the kenel of European integration as it did after ww2

Think it would of simply had another random touch off event.

Something along the lines of an accelerated timeline War Plan Red going awry instead, for instance. Canada is invaded by the US. England calls in help from their allies. With Russia and France fighting the US, Germany is soon convinced to join the American side.

I think once Haber-Bosch process was discovered a big war was inevitable.

Not really a waste if that is what people value. Higly probable there will be a variety of choices in the future though. No single currency can offer all options.

There are less computationally demanding versions too.

ie. Proof of Stake vs Bitcoin's Proof of Work

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Assignment for work in APJ a few months and good friends 

Very fortunate.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

It’s amazing, indeed. I stayed there briefly about a decade ago.

How did that happen?

They did a mini recreation of Kowloon in Second Life, pretty cool looking.

Setting of pretty popular SCP too,

'The Architect'

http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-184

We didn't evolve to be totally one way or the other. There are species that entirely lack pair bonding and species that mate for life. Most humans will disagree with either extreme.

2 hours ago, CapNoOne said:

Hi there,

I have a question for you all.

Sometime, after processing cord blood samples, the bc count is higher than the whole blood count.

It happens with an average of 10% of the total samples

I'm trying  to understand how this can be possible, because obviously it is impossible to create cells.

I'm using a sepax device and after the count is made with an horiba device.

Some people told me that it could be either a problem during the blood mix or bc mix, but even with a right mix the problem persists.

Thank you for your help.

 

Are the white blood cells dividing a possibility?

There is star lifting that can work to extend the sun's lifetime. In combination with new material for fusion added, could keep sun going for far longer than it's natural span.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting

Scale of engineering involved is main hurdle as physics is actually fairly well understood. Removing what is hard to fuse, adding what is easy.

There's also options like man made Fusion and chemical energy that could keep us going as well.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

You get training on this if you are in a position where you might inadvertently leak. The sensible management here will likely involve in revocation of clearances, and quite possibly discharged/fired, if they catch the perpetrators 

Yeah, that's the limit of what you can do though.

This is the eighth modern accidental leak, I've either seen or heard of. All I can muster in response is a shrug.

Pretty much a fact that people inadvertently leak info all the time. Better just to sensibly manage the problem, than think it possible to prevent.

Seems like robots only replace cost of living/raising with those of maintenance/manufacture.

Is a difference in that you can deliberately increase the size of your robotic labor force. Feed output of automation into increasing automation. That might well drive down profits. Depending on opportunity costs people would eventually start leaving the Market though, increasing profits again.

Yeah, I guess I've seen too many times where there's a more probable explanation(something falls in while processing) or where the object in question looks to be from the same time period as when it was found.

Personally I find pondering how our ancestors might have used their brains and scarce resources to still achieve their goals to be more interesting.