I am afraid of getting hit by lightning, and getting bit by a shark, but not so afraid that I won't walk in the rain or swim in the ocean. I just take reasonable precautions.
what reasonable precautions are we taking? with our current program, we'll be lucky to see a killer asteroid coming much less do something about it.
The awareness they are raising is that they want to waste our tax dollars on Yet Another Irrational Fear.
asteroid impacts are not an irrational fear, they are an inevitability. if we do nothing to protect ourselves, an asteroid will wipe out mankind... eventually.
there is nothing specifying its shape, size, battery capacity or even propulsion system.
Except laws of thermodynamics, that is.
my point does not conflict with the law of thermodynamics. either cite a conflict or concede.
It's pretty profoundly useless as a replacement for a commercial airliner or cargo plane(basically the wingspan of a 747; but transports a single pilot at a painfully tedious 50-100km/h);
you have inappropriately conflated the idea of a solar plane with that particular solar plane's design.
Let's say that a solar plane is white, and a commercial airplane is black.
I bet that your "functional airplane" is still very much dark gray : you still need a pilot, copilot, food, toilets, a few luggage and minimum space for feet and belly.
perhaps you should watch the video i linked because it doesn't seem you understand what i have written. in any case, a solar plane only needs to be solar powered. there is nothing specifying its shape, size, battery capacity or even propulsion system.
i made no claim that this ultra-lightweight solar-powered plane could be used for a commercial flight filled with cargo and hundreds of passengers,
You did indeed make that claim:
it's entirely possible to replace our environmentally destructive planes with solar planes
you have inappropriately conflated the idea of a solar plane with that particular solar plane's design.
There's a pretty big difference between a solo flight in an ulta-lightweight solar-powered plane and a commercial flight filled with cargo and hundreds of passengers. Note that they've had to wait for months for a clear weather window, and you're claiming that it's now possible to use commercial solar-powered planes?
by changing my claim, you have used the strawman fallacy. i made no claim that this ultra-lightweight solar-powered plane could be used for a commercial flight filled with cargo and hundreds of passengers, only that the underlying technology made it possible.
it makes it very clear that it's entirely possible to replace our environmentally destructive planes with solar planes.
Once again : Not, it's not possible.
Here's a comment I posted 5 years ago : http://science.slashdot.org/co...
...
Conclusion : The orders of magnitude just don't match, even with 100% efficiency => Commercial flights as we know them & photovoltaics are incompatible.
by adding "[c]ommercial flights as we know them" you have used the black and white fallacy. solar airplanes could be different in many ways but that doesn't mean they suddenly aren't functional airplanes.
this is great because it makes it very clear that it's entirely possible to replace our environmentally destructive planes with solar planes. it wont be a simple fix and but it's possible. though naturally it wont happen until it's either mandated by law or becomes more economical.
Jo Brand and Roseanne Barr got applause when they "joked" about wanting to stab men through the heart. Isn't that far worse than calling someone thin-skinned?
worse? in both cases they are just words, so they are only as bad as the intent behind them and the gravity you give them. comedians tell jokes, it's what they do and they walk the fine line of being offensive and being funny. Louis C.K. "Of course
As an engineer who works developing flexible automation solutions, this stuff is hard and it is expensive.
fortunately, it's only hard and expensive currently. evolutionary neural networks are effectively going to replace you. while we aren't there yet, it's not hard to imagine AI designing and even [re]building entire manufacturing systems without the need for human intervention. in simple terms, the "how?" behind systems is going to be automated. granted, it may take couple decades to make it happen but your job will become and automation optimizer instead of automation designer.
Is data in the cloud vulnerable? Well, yes, all data everywhere is theoretically vulnerable and the cloud is no exception.
"the cloud" has proven time and time again to be not just vulnerable but exceedingly vulnerable to attack. what's worse is that companies are under no obligation to tell you when (not if) they get hacked. worse yet, they aren't held responsible for getting hacked, so all you can do is switch to a new "cloud provider" and pray it doesn't happen again.
Its is a peculiar computer science conceit - that people, with their biases and foibles, can be replaced by sufficiently sophisticated computing resources.
"sufficiently sophisticated computing resources" would have "biases and foibles" of their own and may even be considered people.
yeah, they worked great for Steve Jobs, as i recall.
They didn't work for Steve Jobs because nothing would please Steve Jobs.
nah, he was just holding^W swallowing them wrong.
i said it before and i'll say it again.
there are very few reasons to keep flash installed/enabled. if you must have it, use flashblock but chances are you can just disable/remove it completely. if some site still uses flash to play video, leave a complaint in the comments. those that haven't switched to html5 yet will do so soon enough.
if you still have java plugin installed, you better have a good reason because no (sane) sites use that shit.
"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" -- Comedian Jay Leno
