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Comment Re:Why Under the Sea? (Score 1) 149

That's called an immersed tube tunnel. The way it's done is they dig a trench at the bottom, lower concrete tunnel elements to form the tunnel and then cover the structure with rock and sand. This method has been used many times in the past and will be used in the future, for example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Immersed tunnels aren't always cheaper than boring or blasting through rock. For one thing, it is cumbersome and expensive to dig a trench in deep waters.

Comment Re: If they stick the landing... (Score 1) 75

US military application of existing GPS satellites can already achieve fixes down to 5cm. Centimeter-accurate positioning will never be allowed for civilian use, no matter how many satellite constellations you put up there.

I don't know about that. Is there anything malicious that a person could do with centimeter positioning that they can't already do with meter positioning?

Hell, I doubt that that there has ever been an instance where someone has managed to commit a crime because their GPS was meter-accurate, as opposed to for example 10-meter accurate or 100-meter accurate.

If I'm not mistaken the accuracy restrictions are mainly there to prevent foreign forces from developing munitions such as these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M..., but those restrictions will be extremely difficult to keep up when Russia, China, EU and others (India, Brazil, etc) have fully operational satellite constellations. You will pretty much need to get everyone to not compete on accuracy while there will be massive demand from the market for things like more accurate autonomous vehicles.

Comment Re: If they stick the landing... (Score 1) 75

I wonder how long it will take for the magnitude of that achievement to be noticed, let alone to sink in with T.C. Mits. I have a feeling that it will get mentioned, and Bill Nye will share a few words on CNN, but that it won't get much play in the mainstream press. We'll find out soon enough, I guess.

Keeping fingers crossed... ;-)

It probably won't, but the fruits of it will be noticed. I think the general public will like ubiquitous cell and data coverage, even in remote areas, or centimeter-accurate positioning. All of this stuff will be worldwide by nature.

Those are just two things that would be possible if it was cheap to launch and maintain thousands of satellites.

Comment Re:If all goes well. . . (Score 1) 228

Sigh. This is how it works:

Big corporation A: Would you please share your most private information with us?
Average person: No way, creeps.
Big corporation B: Would you please share your most private information with everyone on the planet and us?
Average person: OMGOMGOMG!!!! Am I gonna be a famous person?! HeretakemyinfoshowittoeveryoneNOWNOWNOW!!!! I swear once everyone realizes how awesome I am I'm definitely going to be famous and I'll be friends with famous people and I'll... Have you taken my information yet???! Here, here's a picture of my new awesome outfit! I should be a fashion model.

Comment Re:Dammit, Europe! (Score 3, Insightful) 219

In case you've been living under a rock for the last 14 years, they already have a war with the West/NATO.

In a somewhat ironic turn of events, Muslim fundamentalists in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Gaza now have an actual real honest-to-science angry skydaddy with winged creatures that shoot fire from the sky.

Of course, this does not really bring us any closer to peace with the Islamists. If anything it probably helps them recruit.

Comment Re:Pressure versus mechanism (Score 1) 154

Chimpanzees sometimes make tools, so tool making almost certainly preceded language, unless Chimpanzees are descended from animals that had language but lost it.

Possibly the most interesting thing about humans is that there is an exponential increase in diversity of objects in the archaeological record, which seems to start somewhere around 100.000 to 50.000 ago. This exponential increase in diversity of objects produced continues to this day, especially if you count virtual objects like digital art.

What happened 100.000 years ago? One possible answer is "nothing in particular". Due to archaeological sampling bias and the nature of exponential growth it may just be that the exponential increase in diversity began much earlier than 100.000 years ago.

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