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Comment Re:Out of our control, sure.... but so what? (Score 1) 199

Have a read of this excellent article, and then have trouble sleeping :o)

A guinea pig is a mammal and on some biological level, I feel a connection to it—but a spider is an insect, with an insect brain, and I feel almost no connection to it. The alien-ness of a tarantula is what gives me the willies. To test this and remove other factors, if there are two guinea pigs, one normal one and one with the mind of a tarantula, I would feel much less comfortable holding the latter guinea pig, even if I knew neither would hurt me.

Now imagine that you made a spider much, much smarter—so much so that it far surpassed human intelligence? Would it then become familiar to us and feel human emotions like empathy and humor and love? No, it wouldn’t, because there’s no reason becoming smarter would make it more human—it would be incredibly smart but also still fundamentally a spider in its core inner workings. I find this unbelievably creepy. I would not want to spend time with a superintelligent spider. Would you??

Comment Re:the collision would have vapourised them (Score 1) 240

I agree, and it reminds me of this quote, from the essay "On Being the Right Size" by J. B. S. Haldane:

You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.

Comment Re:I call bullshit! (Score 1) 255

Treat them properly and they don't cry, why should they?

My kid cried this morning because I gave her a drink in the "wrong" cup. She cried yesterday because she didn't know what she wanted for breakfast. She cried the other week because I stopped her from poking herself in the eye with her fork.

Shame on me for treating her improperly :o)

Comment Re:And? (Score 1) 53

What would make you think that miniaturizing supercapacitors would in any way improve their energy density?

My understanding is that decreasing size and increasing energy density are linked because creating better ways to build better nanostructures underpins both aspects.

Comment Re:And? (Score 1) 53

they could store enough charge to run the phone for days or even weeks.

Not true. Even the best supercaps have an energy density far lower than batteries.

Not true right now, but the article is all about miniaturising supercaps. Miniaturising supercaps to chip-scale could, in theory, massively increase the energy density such that it exceeds that of Lithium batteries. That still looks like it's a long way off though.

Comment Re:And? (Score 1) 53

Basically, a supercapacitor on a chip could be the next generation "battery" everyone is seeking for mobile phones etc.

If this were true, manufacturers would be using existing discrete supercapacitors in phones; but they aren't, are they?

Any existing supercap which stores enough energy to power a phone for a day or more is much too bulky to fit inside a phone, so miniaturising supercaps would bring new applications.

Comment Re:And? (Score 1) 53

Basically, a supercapacitor on a chip could be the next generation "battery" everyone is seeking for mobile phones etc. They would have the advantage of charging in a couple of minutes (or even quicker), and they could store enough charge to run the phone for days or even weeks.

Comment Re:Earth brighter than Moon - surprise? (Score 1) 77

You're just restating what it means to be "brighter". To remove the surprise you have to find a mundane explanation for the difference in albedo.

The surprise should be removed by the fact that we've known each body's albedo for decades. I was surprised that the a space scientist working on DSCOVR wasn't aware of the differences in albedo, or was aware but hadn't actually pictured the difference in his mind. It just seems odd for someone in his position to be surprised by this.

Comment Earth brighter than Moon - surprise? (Score 2) 77

“It is surprising how much brighter Earth is than the moon,” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Our planet is a truly brilliant object in dark space compared to the lunar surface.”

The Moon has an albedo of about 0.1 (similar to coal), while Earth's albedo is three times greater, so this isn't really very surprising at all.

Comment Re:Compensation level is simply absurd (Score 2) 214

I agree the wages are absurd, but the fact is that Fox make an obscene amount of money out of The Simpsons, and it's only fair that a healthy chunk of that dosh goes to the people involved in actually making the programme.

It's the same with the football Premier League here in the UK. We have players that are paid £250,000 every week for several hours work (at most), and most people find that abhorrent. But that fact is that millions of people either pay the extortionate ticket prices, or pay Sky £50 a month in order to watch what these players are doing. All that money has to go somewhere, and it's only fair that a healthy chunk goes to the people actually playing the game that the public are will to collectively pay so much money to watch.

Whatever doesn't go to the people directly involved in the content ends up with someone even less deserving.

Of course, the people earning these massive sums could donate a large percentage of it to charity without even noticing. Feel free to blame them for not doing that :o)

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