I agree, I use Python calculator all the time, and back when desktops had the same CPU phones have today, people were using Jython to get things done. It seems like we should be able to get one of these up and running on phones.

The influence of the US is bound to the strength of its economy, the strength of its economy is bound (currently) to its use of fossil fuels. So if the US acts preemptively, it loses its power to influence others to do the same, it drives up costs for itself while driving down fossil fuel costs for others, so their economy and thus influence increases. Yet, if (in the terms of A Beautiful Mind) "If everybody goes for the blond, nobody gets laid", which is to say if consumption can't be curbed, everybody is doomed.

But the problem, when you said: "tells EVERY NATION that they must partake" You have to ask "who does that?" The bottom line is the US doesn't have an enforcement capability in China, Russia or the rest. They are sovereign nations. In fact there is no world power which can make FORCE every country to do things, especially when their is so much benefit in them defecting.

So the politics actually look incredibly grim. The best hope here is something that can fundamentally alter the equation above, so that there is positive rewards for nations going green. That something would necessarily come from the best and brightest of science and business. An example would be an efficient fossil fuel combustion process that turns an engine while sequestering carbon into a valuable industrial product like carbon fiber... Something like that is more profitable to use than not use, making the transition natural.

I guess my point is, I think its a really good time for techies to start thinking way outside the box on this problem...

source:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
What's your source on say there has been no temperature increase in the last 10 years?

Though they say the natural fields are too short range for this, I suppose you could amplify them, and interfere with other brains.

All I know is that all throughout the history of science, the true theories have been laughed at before they were accepted. I guess its time to pay the piper for all the laughing people at "tinfoil hat" (worn to block the mind influencing beams) conspiracy theorists! :)

The quality of the teachers is important when learning.

That's seriously kind of interesting, actually: It makes me wonder if decades from now software developers will be few and far between, designing the AI algorithms for modern programs while the rest of us find work as software tutors, training those programs to do their business function.

...before Microsoft embraces and extends this format?

I hope so, actually. So long as the core works on both and its open, I'll be happy. Web designers have been waiting for this for years, but its going nowhere without IE support.

But the stereoscopic googles are out there. http://www.i-glassesstore.com/ig-hrvpro.html This would be cool with a couple of small cameras outside the goggles, so you can overlay your view with data. I could see a whole new kind of video game, where you play out in the real world with things nobody else can see (except fellow players) of course you'd look schizophrenic, buy hey, that'd be half the fun.

Lol! You may as well...I mean I feel like the article is missing some fundamental things: "eco-pawprint" equivalent to SUVs? Dogs are natural creatures, part of the environment. If they have a big impact its from the fuel burned to produce and move their artificial food around. Don't blame the dogs for that...

I agree. The core issue is living sustainably. You can buy time with more energy or food, but if the core ideas of living within our means isn't addressed, there will be problems with that too.

I personally think its just a matter of time though. In the big scheme of things the industrial revolution is still a new thing, and it takes cultures a long time to adjust. But in time they do, in fact with time all living things tend toward an equilibrium with their environment, us humans included. The real question is what that eventual equilibrium will look like, and the advent of cheap fusion would dramatically change that outcome. Its really the difference between a large scale return to more agrarian living and the Jetsons. So it really is exciting news if somebody pulls it off.

That's a really great post. It reminds me that any OS which grants their users freedom for their apps to do what they like also grants the freedom for some app running on them to do bad things, whether it effects the OS or not. It will always be like that.

The only solutions I can think of are to 1) create programming languages that result in really secure code through lots of input restrains etc. 2) create a lot of transparency to see what's going on. And even those don't do enough: A language with too much checking will be slow (Java has a much better security name in this department than C for instance) and while seeing if my machine is sending mystery emails out to my friends would be good, what kind of transparency lets me "see" a buffer overflow caused by a Flash movie writing arbitrary code???

but I am doubtful that they'll do much else besides foster Microsoft-centric development of tools and programs

I think you hit the nail on the head there. I honestly think its more of a cultural thing that a strategic one though: whenever Microsoft tries to reach out and diversify, the lower level Microsoft culture makes the whole thing collapse back in on itself. A perfect example is Silverlight. Here is a project where Microsoft had every reason to create universal plugin, a Flash killer, which they alone held the development tools to, as Adobe controls Flash development tools. So they handed it on a platter to the Mono project, who rushed to make the moonlight plugin. But then you install moonlight, and go to the sample sites, only to see that the web devs actually block moonlight because its not Microsoft Silverlight, they won't even let Moonlight try and render it. So Silverlight is yet another thing you can't really install on a site for the world wide web, where you can have an expectation of all viewers accessing the content as you can with Flash.

The relevance of the entire project is diminished by the "Microsoft only" culture of the lower level devs even at the expense of Microsoft. To be honest, I think a dose of open culture may be just what the doctor ordered for these guys, and it may be that the higher ups know it, thus this Foundation. Just a guess. :)

I love my little low power cheap FoxConn r10-s4 barebones ($130, newegg) but the critical issue with netbooks is largely ignored: how easily do they break? IF somebody makes one with an aluminum case and the right padding inside so you can beat it up and spill things on it, I'm sold. Otherwise they've missed the whole point of cheap portable computers: You take them into places ad situations you wouldn't take others.

Exactly. This is what drives me bonkers about the current system: Its about getting everybody to accept the crap you have, rather than improving what you have. If we took the time to overhaul our patent system so it was so good it really created prosperity, the world would accept it overnight.

Its easy to get a 570x increase with parallel cores. You will just have a GPU that is 570 times bigger, costs 570 times more and consumes 570 times more energy. As far as any kind of real break through though, I'm not seeing it from the information at hand.

There is something worthy of note in all this though, which is that the new way of doing business is through massive parallelism. We've all known this was coming for a long time, but its officially here.

To which government are you referring? The sad reality is that it only takes one government to exploit a new technology negatively, and if it gives them the edge to do so, you can bet the US will follow suit, no matter how good are original intentions are. Looking at the way nuclear weapons have effected us over the last half century, I think I'm being pretty level headed in fearing new arms races and their effect on humanity: There is already so much historical precedent for that happening.