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Comment Re:say what you will... (Score 1) 105

That kind of attitude will be the cause of our demise. Motivating statements are the fabric on which reposes the well being of London, and, by extension the Earth.

We were at the edge of the precipice, but this is a big step forward. A three sixty degree turn that will allow us to set foot where no one has gone before.

Comment Re:Another materials article (Score 1) 33

The hard part is always inventing the building blocks. Once you have those, there's a billions brains eager to build with whatever blocks you give them.

Actually, I may have gone too conservative there. The hard part is the prototype of the building blocks. Once the prototype works, you can release the knowledge in the human mind soup and it will reproduce and evolve on its own.

I wouldn't dare say it all rests on an idea, because I believe the ratio prototype:result to be close to 1:1 while idea:result falls way short.

Comment Economy (Score 1, Funny) 579

The solution is to create a system that makes it profitable to generate a system with 0 deaths and the shortest travel times from random points A to B.

What the article speaks about is not the problem, it's the symptom. Just as giving the fines money to local governments shortens yellow lights, a system must be found that gives money to the best solution. Which should be easy, as we know how to identify the better solution among the existing ones.

So:
1 - Define rules of best solution.
2 - Give money in direct relation to proximity to best solution
3 - Wait.

Comment Re:Myths are socially hilarious (Score 0) 198

UFOs, Bigfoot, Ghosts!

You would think the modern age of cameras in everyone's phones would produce evidence-a-plenty of these kinds of things.

But reality is far less interesting than we want it to be ...

No magic, no supernatural stuff --- and sadly no bigfoots or aliens that bother to come here and snatch cows.

Can I add divinities to your list? Or being invisible protects them from being proven just as fake.

Comment Re:It's a scandal! (Score 1) 242

It's a scandal that there are countries the NSA isn't allowed to spy on. What if the terrorists are hiding there?

"What if"! That's exactly what a terrorist would say! Terrorists are OBVIOUSLY hiding there:

A - Terrorists are hiding everywhere.
B - Countries are a place.
Ergo, by A and B, terrorists are hiding there!

This is so obvious that the only explanation that makes any sense is that the terrorists that are hiding inside the Court have make a terrorist modification of the sentence to allow this terrorist plot to go on.

Comment Re:A four million year orbit (Score 2) 74

I get your point, but it is pretty speculative to suggest that travel faster than the speed of light will ever be possible. No physical law of nature prevented any of the advances you've quoted - they were just engineering challenges.

No current physical law. All the advances were preceded by a new understanding of how the universe worked. All the advances that will come, will also be preceded by new understandings.

I postulate that the only constant is our own ignorance. I will not argue that we may reach a point where we know everything and thus can't advance any more. I just don't believe that point exists, but I have nothing to support that belief.

Over a span of even thousands of years I'm sure we'll be impressed with what mankind achieves with engineering.

However, I don't think anybody can make any bets either way on whether there are ways to effectively travel faster than the speed of light. There may or may not be new physics out there that we can rely on. We don't get to invent the laws of nature - we can only exploit what we discover, and there may or may not be anything useful to discover.

Oh, I see we did reason in the same direction. Ok, then I agree with you in everything but the "may not be anything useful to discover".

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