Comment Re: So BG does not read books for entertainment? (Score 1) 179
FYI: Bill Gates is an avid book reader. On a variety of subject matter, too.
"Would he? Would he not?" is not what worries me.
The simple fact that this question is on the table, AND that -in this case- a single (1) person holds the power to decide it, indicates a sad state of affairs for humankind. Not to mention that this is history repeated, iirc.
Yep, because we all know stuff we own has never broken, has never had bugs, has never had faulty firmware updates.
And there exist eg. PC mainboards with a dual BIOS, where if flash update fails, you set a jumper, hold a key during bootup or whatever, machine boots normal using the 'good half', and you re-apply the flash update. Or boards where firmware IC is socketed, so that a failed update could leave the board technically 'bricked', but with the problem reduced to popping in a replacement chip (as opposed to shipping device back & forth, or needing technician on-site).
Not to mention complexity of firmware in today's devices. Would it be impossible to have a very small, in practice never-updated 'boot loader', that offers some way to select between X versions of the bulk of the firmware, and thus revert to a working one should update of one of the X versions be a bad one?
TLDR; it's not that solutions to this problem don't exist, it's that they are not implemented. Or that manufacturers have shoddy quality control, but -rather than improving procedures- offload this problem onto consumers. And oh yeah, a couple MB of extra flash memory adds big $$ to the bill of materials lol...
Plants can grow in almost anything as long as they can absorb moisture, and have a supply of nutrients (read: dissolved minerals) which a) doesn't lack any essential nutrients, and b) with concentrations of those nutrients within reasonable range. Optimum / acceptable ranges differing from species to species.
No reason lunar regolith couldn't serve as the source for those nutrients. Maybe regolith from different places, processed mechanically or chemically, and mix the dissolved minerals as required by what you're growing.
If you want soil: the decaying matter of plants already grown, could serve fine as substrate. See for example the top 10...20cm layer in temperate forests. One big 'sponge' of decaying plant matter (and let's not forget: fungi, bacteria, worms, nematodes, larvae, etc etc). Seedlings do fine in this 'sponge', and only hit sand or rock when they've grown bigger.
Using lunar soil directly as substrate... hmm. Structure of particles (sharp edges?) comes into play, which minerals dissolve & which don't, in what concentrations, whether all micronutrients are there, etc, etc. Too much trial & error. Imho better use the regolith as raw material for fertilizer, and maybe inoculate the plants with a few friendly bacteria (like for nitrogen-binding plants). Micronutrients could be shipped in if necessary.
Perhaps a bigger issue is how to obtain the macronutrients if lunar soil is all you've got. That is: the carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur etc that plants need to build themselves (eg. the elements that make up amino acids). Can you extract those elements from moon rock in sufficient amounts? On Mars this should be easier due to its atmosphere which has CO2, some nitrogen, etc.
One way or the other, all participants in Bitcoin together do pay for the resources used. Whether that's via-via-via, exchanges with fiat currency involved or not, or people mining for themselves using hardware & power paid for with real $, €, etc. Whether those costs include all externalities, is the same question as for other human activities.
Which brings us to the next question. As another poster wrote:
The cumulated happiness of Bitcoin investors will, at the end, be a net zero.
People should judge for themselves what makes them happy, what is valuable, what they think is worth doing etc, and what resources they're willing to throw at it. In that respect mining coins is no different from say, gaming, decorating one's yard with Christmas lights, or driving through the countryside on a quad.
That said: Bitcoin started out with a noble goal, but (imho) in practice turned into a vehicle for big players to fleece the pockets of smaller players. But in such a convoluted way to avoid calling it fraud, theft etc outright. Effectively wealth transfer from average Jane & Joe participants to shrewd (usually big) players. With resource waste as collateral damage.
In principle there's nothing wrong with the goals many crypto coins claim to pursue. And I have hope for the future. Just... well, existing crypto coins aren't it (yet). Especially proof-of-work based ones.
Essentially: scientific & engineering progress.
Quantum computers have the potential to solve some types of problems more efficiently and/or faster than classical computers can. In some cases, orders of magnitude better. Which may help to achieve scientific or engineering breakthroughs (from which we ALL profit), that -without quantum computing- would either have been impossible, much more costly, or much more time-consuming.
How important this will become in the overall scheme of things - that remains to be seen. It's mostly still in the realm of research, so we don't have a good grasp of what practical QC may do X years from now. And some problems simply can't be computed regardless of how much 'compute' is thrown at it. QC can't solve such problems either.
While interesting, I propose NOT to discuss subject matter on duped stories, only the fact that it was a dupe. Dupes should be ignored. And any discussion should be about how stupid the editors are for posting dupes, how recent the original story came along, how easy it was to spot the dupe, etc. To discuss the subject matter: previous story is recent enough & still open for comments.
I mean sure, if a subject discussed months or years ago suddenly picks up renewed interest, or there are new developments that warrant re-posting the story or a closely related one: go ahead.
But this? Sadly is a typical example of dupes on
Let's see if we can start a new trend here: editor posts a dupe, naming & shaming ensues. Here we go:
Editor BeauHD, you're a STUPID IDIOT for posting such an easy-to-spot dupe! Your colleague EditorDavid posted same story yesterday.
There, now I feel better
How can 1% of the OS be proprietary? I thought the whole point of open source was that it was viral, precisely to stop this kind of thing.
Separate binaries. Each with their own license.
If you have a set of source code files, and they compile into (for example) a single binary, then any changes or additions are 'drawn in' with the open source files. That's the 'viral' part. Which isn't bad or 'dangerous', it just means changes / additions that you include, are covered under the same license as what you started with. If you want to keep those changes / additions proprietary, then don't contribute them to be part of open source projects.
Therefore if you want to distribute a binary compiled from open-source files, but want to run proprietary software with that, you can choose to:
There's a bit of an issue how this works for libraries that are distributed as separate (binary) files, but linked together in the same executable later. For example BSD style licenses should allow this, iirc probably some other open source licenses too. Depending on the license details, this may even differ for static and dynamic linking. Better consult a specialist lawyer if you run into this
I also think incineration should count as recycling if it is offsetting additional fossil fuels being pumped from the ground.
Recycling means re-use of the material itself. Not (for example) burning & re-use the CO2 that comes out. But I do agree that incineration is a good option if a) the feedstock is from a sustainable source - eg. bio based plastics, b) the incineration process itself is relatively clean, and c) incineration happens to have a lower environmental impact than sorting & recycling the same material(s). Which brings us to an important reason why plastic recycling is so difficult in practice: the sheer # of different plastics in common use.
Some studies / reports say that for a large swathe of single-use consumer packaging (like shampoo bottles), we could get by with maybe a half dozen to a dozen different plastics. And it's often not necessary to use different plastics for cap & bottle. If so, recycling such packaging could be much easier & effective. Or -alternatively- burning them a clean process.
But what we do? Even for single-use packaging or common household stuff, many dozens if not hundreds of different plastics are in use. Which makes sorting & recycling those very difficult. Add to that humanity's fetish for chlorinated or fluorinated hydrocarbons, which produce all kinds of nasties like dioxins when incinerated. For example polyethylene can't do that no matter what the incineration conditions are, since it doesn't contain chlorine or other halogen compounds.
Yes, some specialist applications require specialist plastics for strength, resistance to wear & tear, chemical attack or UV light, elevated temperatures, compatibility with specific glues, optical properties and so on. But such specialist applications don't make up the bulk of plastic waste. Do we really need 20, 50 or 100+ different plastics for food packaging, or common household items like buckets, tooth brushes & and so on? And do we need those to be, or even contain (as additives) halogenated compounds?
NO, WE DON'T.
Icebergs and entire ice sheets of many km^2 break off all by themselves & float away in the ocean. Nothing stops anyone from grabbing such a chunk of ice, and drag it somewhere to use the meltwater. This idea has floated around for ages, and technically it's probably doable. Basically an engineering + economics problem.
Worth doing? 'Profitable'? Less likely. Remember there's no shortage of water in most (populated) areas around the world. Just fresh (and unpolluted!) water, in the right amounts, at useful intervals.
For places that suffer from flooding some days, and droughts at other times, throwing an iceberg into the equation isn't the fix. What's needed there is water storage, and/or improving water retention in the soil to act as a buffer between wet & dry periods.
Desalination is a solved problem, there are several methods. It just takes energy, and coincidence has it that many places which could need water, are also rich in solar energy. Use that (either as heat or through solar panels) + seawater to run a desalination plant, and presto! Fresh water.
Which leaves places far from any coast, that receive little rainfall at all. For such places one should wonder if it's a good idea to pipe in water from far away. And if so, [desalination plant near the coast] or [iceberg towed to the nearest coast] or [meltwater in a mountain range far away] is essentially the same problem: how to transport water a long way over land.
So your idea: likely doable. But probably not making economic sense. Otherwise it would likely have been done by now (or it was tried & didn't work out?).
In the distant past, humans hunted & and ate wild pigs, because they had to for survival. Until killed, those wild pigs could move around freely. Then we moved onto pigs held in captivity, but often with some space to let pigs move around & 'enjoy life as a pig'. Then we moved on to industrial scale, farming pigs as if they're a product no different from potatoes grown in a field. Every single pig living a miserable life from birth to slaughter. Even tough the 'need' to use pig meat for food is essentially gone. Humans today can do without, and live a healthy life - if they so choose.
And now moving on to farming pigs just to harvest their organs. I know - essentially the same as farming pigs for meat. Destroying our planet's biosphere in the process.
You think the ethics don't matter? That somehow humans are superior to pigs & deserve to life a happy life more than their animal counterparts? That ethics shouldn't get in the way of medical choices, or science itself? If yes, please explain why.
So: if you're a pig, stick your nose wherever you can, pick up as many viruses as you can, and your future brothers & sisters will thank you! To the pig involved in this case: well done!
Growing spare organs outside the body, bio-reactor style, now that is another matter entirely. Bring it on! Doesn't hurt to have a box of spare parts lying around.
Disclaimer: yes, I'm a vegetarian. Please don't hate me. I'm only a messenger here. You decide ethics for yourself.
People should have learned the lesson when we all were discussing the tobacco industry.
Politics doesn't seem to work well when huge commercial interests are involved. So (in a capitalist society like ours) the fix is the same as it was before: stop buying their product. Works for big oil as well as tobacco.
Sure, you consume a real resource to product btc. However that resource (electricity generating the compute power plus a small fraction of the cost of the hardware in wear and tear) then disappears and can no longer be used.
Yes: opportunity cost. Had all the electricity used to mine bitcoin (and fossil fuels used to generate that), all the hardware thrown at mining, been used elsewhere like on gaming, engineering or science projects (or not spent at all, saving the effort to produce that gear) - quite possible the world as a whole would have been a better / nicer one today.
Note that I have nothing against crypto currencies in principle. But wasting enormous compute resources & energy on something that (essentially) could be pulled from thin air? Beside wasteful that's just dumb.
Maybe that would be a good way to judge specific crypto coins: resources needed for their creation, compute power / bandwidth used for handling it, etc. 'Embedded gear-friendly' coins vs. coins that require more serious hardware, compute-heavy vs. bandwidth-heavy coins, Joules required to perform a $10 / $100 / $1000 value transaction, and so on. Beside their ideological properties, just hold some yardsticks against the many coins around & see how they measure up.
No-one believes CO2 emissions will cause catastrophe. No-one believes that the measures currently proposed (conversion to wind and solar power generation, mainly) are either possible, affordable or effective.
Speak for yourself. Especially the younger generation today has a very different take on the urgency to curb CO2 emissions. Exploration for new fossil reserves is slowly grinding to a halt, because while emptying currently productive reserves is (mostly) still profitable, investment to bring new reserves online makes less & less economic sense. Why? Sustainable sources like solar, wind etc. have become too cheap to ignore. The storage problem is being solved as we speak. Over time, this will curb emissions drastically. Slow but steady abandonment of fossils will also reduce the fossil industry's economic / political clout which has slowed progress for too long.
Whatever the US and the UK and EU do in the next few years, we are going to see global emissions well north of 40 billion tons a year by 2035. Read the IEA reports if you doubt this.
Yes, climate change is happening, and will continue for many decades or centuries to come. CO2 emissions are still massive. And with it will come radical change to many of Earth's ecosystems. Beside human suffering due to rising sea levels and extreme weather events. Mostly by people who least contributed to the problem.
Also: unforeseen consequences. 2nd order effects of climate change, its impact on global food supplies, wars due to mass migration or resource conflicts, the confluence of economic & environmental crises, etc. I suspect this aspect is what's most underestimated / below many people's radar. What we've seen in the last decade or so, is only the beginning. Though times ahead.
But global doom? A (human!) extinction event? Not so much. Solutions are coming online. Humanity as a species will survive for a while longer. How many of us, under what conditions, and how much damage we'll do to this planet's ecosystems & its biodiversity, that remains to be seen.
The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
