I'm not outright against some manned missions, I just don't think they should be our top priority and shouldn't crowd out robotic exploration of new places. A manned "space race" is unlikely to get us much relative to other options.

In addition to the robotic missions I mentioned, powerful telescopes that can detect and do spectrographic analysis of planets of other star systems would be far better science than more manned missions to local rocks. We could detect another Earth with clear-cut life signs, for example. That would be a bigger discovery than simple microbes on Mars (which robotic sample return missions can perform).

There would be no Saturn V, no Falcon HR etc.

They are cool in the "wow, big!" sense, but maybe we don't really need them right now.

Nothing, because those patents don't get patent term adjustment. And while, yes, there are still a few patent applications floating around from that era, that law was changed 20 years ago. It's already been taken care of for everything since then, and since you can't apply it retroactively, there's nothing more that can be done.

AC is great for long distance and certain applications. DC is great locally. The bridge rectifier should be between the grid & the home battery, not between the home battery and the devices it is recharging and/or powering.

The exception to this are high power home applications: Stove, Oven, Microwave, Toaster, Fridge, Dryer, Washing Machine, Dishwasher. The battery charger can be on the same circuit set.

Note that TV is NOT on this list. All video screens can be low power these days. All lighting can be low power. There is no reason why this can't be a simple 5V, 4A circuit with USB compatible plugs, several to a room.

Everyone is making a big deal out of a "problem" that is ridiculously simple to solve:

Every government on Earth says to its citizens: "You can either get this treatment that will make you live this much longer... OR you can have children... but you CANNOT have both." Have a police force charged with enforcing this rule, and nothing more. Make the penalty for disobeying EXTREMELY harsh... like forced abortion, or the child can live but both parents are put to death right after.

Sound harsh? Nope, it's a choice for every single person, nobody is forced into anything.

Think it won't work? It ABSOLUTELY will, and here's why: humans, the VAST majority, are at their core selfish beings. Given the choice between living hundreds of years, or maybe even indefinitely, or having children, MOST of them are going to choose the selfish option and say they'll give up having kids. Guaranteed.

Now, before you say it, this plan needs some tweaks to cover all the bases... for example, there's got to be some minimum age where this decision is made. Is is 18? 21? You want someone to be old enough to make a proper decision of course... but then, what do you do with anyone who has a kid BEFORE that age? I'd suggest maybe a stiff fine, stiff enough to dissuade MOST people from having a kid before the designated age, but you're still going to have some and we don't want to be killing teens, right? But, teen pregnancy has been on the decline anyway, so it seems that education works, so it's probably not a dealbreaker.

Do we perhaps make people have to undergo a procedure to render them unable to have children when they decide? Would certainly make he policing requirement less, but that might be a bit much... worth debating at least.

Of course, you still have to ensure enough people do procreate to keep the species genetically viable and not stagnate... maybe a lottery? Half the population gets to live forever, half have to procreate, and it's all random? Hmm, lots of chances for abuse of course, and that aside, it kinda hurts my "democracy" brain that says everyone should have an equal chance at the good life... maybe just limit it? Like, if you get picked to have kids you can only have one, and you only get to live an extra 200 years or something? That might seem like a good trade-off right now, but when the average lifespan is 1,000 years it's not going to seem like such a good deal.

So yeah, I'm not saying there aren't some holes that have to be plugged to make it all work right, but the point is if you simply give people the choice between children and a massive increase in their own lifespan, the basic problem is going to solve itself based on nothing but simple human nature, that's the bottom line.

That's just plain ridiculous. Countries with the highest quality of life still have people reproducing, just not in huge numbers. So instead of 3-8 kids per couple average, we have 0-2 kids, and end up with a bit less than replacement rate. The only reason populations are expanding is because of immigration.

Eliminate immigration for the most part, and greatly extend lifespans, and you'll still see a stable population.

If everybody gets to live a very long time, then we run out of resources

That entirely depends on the birth and death rates. Eliminating aging won't keep you from dying when a bus hits you. And we've found over and over that when people live comfortable, middle-class lifestyles with a proper education, they generally don't want to have a ton of kids any more. Every western country (plus Japan) is experiencing ZPG right now except for immigration.

If we figure out how to curb over-population and only the really old live, then we run out of viable sperm and eggs in a few generations

You're assuming we won't figure out how to reproduce artificially. That's a really bad assumption. If we can figure out how to stop or reverse aging, you don't think we can figure out how to continue to reproduce with artificial means (or even how to rejuvenate the gonads)?

unless we figure out how to dodge the who reproduction via sperm and eggs thing

Lots of people are already doing that: IVF, frozen sperm and eggs, etc. If for some weird reason we can figure out how to reverse aging in every part of the body *except* the testes/ovaries, you don't think we'd just automatically freeze people's sperm and eggs when they're young?

One thing that could potentially change this entire equation would be extending the range in which humans can live, whether it be orbital habitats, terraformed planets or cozy lintel asteroids.

I don't see why those things couldn't be built. We're just too lazy to make them right now, since we'd rather fight wars with each other over religious idiocy and the like.

But even before any of that is doable, the population thing is a red-herring. Most likely, anti-aging treatments will be expensive, so will be confined to wealthier people, which mainly means westerners, and richer Asians. These people are *already* not having many kids. All the western nations would have to do is stop all immigration, which would immediately give them negative population growth (with current conditions), and then with much greater lifespans, they'll have zero population growth, or maybe slightly positive.

It's not like anti-aging treatments are going to make everyone suddenly want to emulate the Duggars.

You obviously aren't understanding the science behind anti-aging. The whole idea is that your body stays youthful; all the mechanisms in it which repair things work optimally, all the time, instead of falling apart with age like they do now (go find some small kid and a middle aged person, cut them both the same way, and then see how they heal differently). Though teeth might need to be replaced with implants, but most westerners these days have artificial parts in their teeth starting at rather young ages, either fillings or crowns. I challenge you to find me a 40-year-old without some dental work. Anyway, there's no need for artificial hips when you've figured out how to make the body repair itself properly. This might require periodic application of some kind of drug, or permanently-installed nanites, who knows? But no, most likely the future does not involve a bunch of old people with mostly-artificial bodies.

which is unlikely to be touched by a human being ever again

Something slashdot readers can relate to

It's not a flaw, it's a feature.

The skill: "willingness to accept the system, even when it's wrong, and game it for your benefit" is central to engineering, accounting, law, and finance. Almost all of the goof jobs outside of medicine.

Children expect life to be fair. Adults accept that the world is imperfect, and work for success within it (not to say it's not also worth trying to change the bad parts, but in the mean time do something useful with your life).

And it's worth a repost here

-Women aren't in tech because the STEM world is misogynistic
-I'll bet you are a women's studies major
-Yes I am, what has that got to do with it?
-Why didn't you study STEM?

Of course it's not a real thing, it's a stunt. It would never work in any practical sense, and the fact that they have publicised it doesn't exactly help them keep its nature secret from the police. It's just marketing. How much would this much coverage have cost if paid for as TV advertising?

Some of them are good and some are bad, in my opinion. It's just that the reactions are inconsistent. And to be fair, the opposite pattern is probably true when the other party is in power, I just haven't noticed it as much.

There's an app for that now?

A) Where do I download it?

B) Does it need any, er, "peripherals"?

C) What's the best way to clean cum off a phone?

Or was it just a Freudian slip?

That works already. I've tried it, minus the mouse. The phone charges, the keyboard was powered from the hub, HDMI output worked.