you smegs

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2011/08/26/kryten-is-the-best-robot-ever/

Although there is no limit for Average-Speed (layman's calculation method), FTL is impossible.

Mind uploading is a form of Immortality.

Immortality, i.e. perpetual youth, is also impossible. The changes we go though define the 'us' that we are.

World Peace means the complete suppression of new ideas and new regimes. It would be bad. We would stop ourselves if we saw us doing it.

Assuming a closed universe, Extinction, has to happen eventually. Allowing an open universe, Extinction happens as soon as we leave this universe.

Extinction probably takes >1B years, Mind uploading probably takes 1M years. I'll go with the Mind. :)

Trying to get what he wants through shaming Comcast, as apposed to the lengthy regulatory path. We shall see if this works. If Comcast is smart, and they are, they would let Netflix have its way on this. On the other-hand, If Comcast is tough, and they VERY much are, they will put Netflix into a long death struggle over this.

I know this is politically sensitive. I am NOT trying to be a troll. I just want to be practical.

The solution is: Birth Control.
More practically, the solution is alleviating the need to have a large family.

Look at the countries that are on the top of this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate

This is REALLY simple folks. You want to have a MASSIVE famine? Step 1 is have a lot of babies.

Really?!?

Did we just see a spy try to claim some kind of moral high ground by defining what he would and would not collect? Spying is Spying. It is an immoral act that if used to protect me/us from getting killed by an enemy obtains 'acceptability' through an 'ends justifies the means' argument.

As an 80%+ correct statement.

Oil makes transportation.

Coal with some Hyrdo and Nuclear makes Electricity.

Natural Gas makes home heating.

Until most cars a electric cars (>15yrs), Hydro can only replace Coal and Nuclear.

With room temp super conductors the reduced i^2-r heat is nice.

But copper is pretty cheap. That room temp super conductor would have to have quite a low price tag on it to replace copper transmission lines. So I doubt electrical-$ losses would drive users to adopt it.

There are situations where the i^2-r heat makes choices for you. Being liberated from those decisions, is most likely the place where you would see i^2-r loss elimination decisions. CPUs and other compact electronics comes to mind.

But, that is just an incremental change. A few more Ghz on your processor at best.

The thing that is REALLY novel about super-conductors is the Meisiner effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meissner_effect

Imagine a floating table.
Imagine a floating bed.
Imagine a floating car lift at a service station. turn the heater on, it drops to the ground, drive the car onto it, pour cold water on it, and up the car goes.

I push the seat as far back as I can and still have full reach of the controls. I put on all the belts they give me. I pull them snug.

I'm also a bad driver, I've been in several medium severity accidents, and I can tell you first hand, the more physically secure you are, the better. And having your legs straight-ish means they flop around less in an accident. When an accident occurs, your strength means NOTHING. You WILL flop around like a rag doll.

Oh, and I'm a 9-3 guy, generally a 3-only guy. The hot gas from the air bags have burned me, but I've never directly contacted inflated airbags.

Be careful out there, I might be driving down your road some day. :)

Solar Output of a star like ours increases by about 10% per GigaYear. It DOES change. very very VERY slowly. In another about 2.5-3.5Gy it should increase enough to create a runaway green house effect with the oceans and destroy all life on earth.(Venuification) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_cycle

The time to change this thing's movement is 2023. The time to start planning the mission is 2018. You don't need anything all that complicated, an 55 gallon drum full of shiny aluminum paint ought to be enough to fix the problem. Either that, or black paint. It would take a lander and a super-low-velocity sprayer.

The reason why I brought up Fermat's Theorem, is that very well argued explanations of what we can't figure-out or do, supplied by very highly credentialed persons, has not been a barrier to actually solving problems. Fermat's is an example of something, that was generally felt to be unsolvable, for centuries, but then was later solved in a way that you could almost call kinda simple.

Making 100s of important problems into what is kinda 1 problem, is the first step in solving 100s of problems all at once.

Considering your argument, if I could turn the 100s of NP-hard problems into something that could be explained to a computer as one problem. I could run an algorithm against it, and from time to time, get marginally better results. Until, I just didn't care about the results being better. Once that is achieved, for me, the problem is solved. Once, most people just don't care about the slightly better results, it has been generally solved.

can't be solved, phish posh.

still being contrary, I suppose.

So the article said that NP problems are all part of one family of problems or just different forms of the same problem. It further says that because these problems are 'hard' they can't be solved by computers. I must say, my gut instinct is that turning this many problems, and problems of this level of importance into one problems is the first step in solving all of them at once. oh, and before you tell me about how we can't see how anyone would really solve the 'NP-hard', first tell me how your so much more clever than the people who told us we would probably never solve this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_Last_Theorem

ok.

On thing is for sure, IF Santorum gets elected president, Google is going to get ONE MIGHTY PRESIDENTIAL BITCH SLAP. Remember what W did to Iraq and Hussien? That's what happens when you make the President made at you.

I agree, if you ARE the person that facebook or twitter thinks you are, you F-ed up. It should be an online advertisement. Why is AWESOME. and at least 15% of the most personal information, should be just false. City of birth, city of residence, favorite things. Come-on, fake-it, be safe.