Comment Re:Well THAT is news! (Score 2) 12
I think a more accurate description would be "Canada agrees to pay to access EU Network of Supercomputers".
I think a more accurate description would be "Canada agrees to pay to access EU Network of Supercomputers".
Escape from Pluto is much easier, and the Pluto-Charon distance is 1/20th of the Earth-Moon distance.
The idiots trying to figure out uses for AI remind me of the Kalahari bushmen with the coke bottle.
Which is an unfair comparison as people in developing countries often devise new uses for junk we throw away, that coke bottle can be turned into a water purifier. Devices made from discarded PET plastics are being used to create clean drinking in Africa.
AI execs on the other hand couldn't tell what's useful from their sisters left tit. Hence they're trying to sell the tit.
... to even only seriously consider doing that? These people are operating on the level of totally deranged cultists.
People just don't think of their own security. My mum is in hospital a lot these days so I've been running errands, this means paying bills as most of them are not set up to be done online so I now know her PIN because one of those bills was take $100 out of card A and put it on card B. She didn't even think twice about giving me the PIN (and it's a stupidly obvious number that gets given out a lot).
Fair enough that it's my mum... but people just don't think of security at all. In fact most complain about it. I've had to stop my sister from telling me her PIN in a crowded shopping centre before.
Happens way more than people think.
Just look at how many people donate to Trump whilst he screws them over.
We may end up having a shortage of many things, fuel, food, housing... but one thing we'll never run short on are morons. PT Barnum was quite the optimist to think there was only 1 sucker born every minute.
Does anyone actually have a use case for a touch screen, that can't be better served with a device that prevents it?
Yes, but not for you and me. Graphics designers have been using stylus-displays for years and years, because it's great to draw on the thing you are making instead of drawing on a different surface like a Wacom.
But I'm like you, I don't have a use case for a touchscreen and if you touch my notebook screen I'll be angry because I prefer it without fingerprints, thanks. So my first question is: Do they offer this thing with OLED but without touch? I guess not. Pity.
I've been slowly moving towards my dream setup: Solar panels, battery, EV car, island mode capability. This is one thing that'd be a factor in my buying decision. Using your car as a battery or secondary battery is a big plus, and if they built the necessary equipment to run independent of the power grid, it'd come in a neat package.
While power failures are rare where I live, I expect them to become more common with the move to renewable energies. I support that, but it's more fragile than constantly running power stations. So being able to run your home at least for a few hours on your own energy is something that I consider a good idea.
Thank god for that. It was hard enough to learn 9 (now 8) planets at school. Can you imagine having to learn all the names if the hydrostatic equilibrium definition held?
Since when does science work by a standard of "what is easy for children to memorize lists of"? Do we say "There are 8 rivers in the world, and all others are dwarf rivers, which really aren't rivers" to make it easier on kids? Do we say "There are 8 bones in the human body, and all others are dwarf bones, which don't really count as bones"?
That's not how science works. Science is focused on practical distinctions about how things developed and their physical properties relative to each other. Hydrostatic equilibrium is a very practical definition. The process of undergoing relaxation induces metamorphism and releases heat, altering bodies. You go to non-equilibrium bodies if you want to study the primordial makeup of our solar system. You go to equilibrium bodies if you want to study tectonics, volcanism, non-primordial chemistry, and search for past or present life. The boundary could not be more meaningful. Yes, there is a bit of fuzz between equilibrium and non-equilibrium, but the same applies to pretty much all scientific fields.
Supporters of the IAU definition (which I should add was a deeply biased sample, in that it looked like they were headed toward no definition or a hydrostatic equilibrium definition, so most supporters of that left, but the people trying to switch it to an orbit-clearing definition stayed) will argue that it's cleared if the remaining objects are trivial transients or in orbital resonance. But that's not what the IAU definition says. Also they'll point to the Stern-Levison parameter, but (A) that was based on the ability to scatter today's distribution of asteroids, not the primordial distribution, which included outright planetissimals**; and (B) Mars didn't even clear it's own orbit, Jupiter did. Also, in the paper that introduced the Stern-Levison parameter, they argued for a better definition where you combine adjectives and nouns (each with specific implications about the body) as needed to describe its size, composition, etc.
But the OP's point stands, in that it's stupid to say that something is a "dwarf planet", yet not a planet. It's like saying dwarf stars aren't stars or dwarf galaxies aren't galaxies or whatnot. An adjective-noun is almost always a noun, that's how language works. In the cases where an adjective-noun isn't a noun - say, "shooting star" or "slow worm" or whatnot - we treat these as scientifically erroneous colloquialisms, and formalize corrected scientific terminology. We don't do literally the opposite and have science codify misleading language.
Speak for yourself, Pluto is fascinating. Tectonically active. Cryovolcanism so abundant it appears to have formed large mountains by the merger of individual domes. A gigantic scar exposing its mantle, which over time roils in massive convection cells, pockmarked in sublimation pits. Mountains drifting like icebergs and accumulating on the shore. Penetentes (sublimation ice spikes), the size of large hills. A multilayer blue atmosphere, in which organic chemistry occurs, depositing not just organic matter onto its own surface, but that of its moon as well. Active glaciation. A probable subsurface ocean, in contact with rock. Conditions suggesting it was habitable when it formed.
IMHO, it's way more interesting than a number of recognized planets.
(Also, I'm confused by your response. This isn't about the moon, and the moon has no atmosphere for flying)
Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. -- P. Skelly