[QUOTE=only_human;437647][URL="http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/05/technology/ashley-madison-fembots/"]Some Ashley Madison women were actually computer 'fembots'[/URL][/QUOTE]
Bwhaaa! :tu: Love that! Those guys got what they paid for.
Need a woman? Get your ass up and go out to find one. You can't find them inside of the computer screen. A lot of sites selling sex, porn, lottery, whatever (i.e. conning/deceiving people!), will go bankrupt if a lot of idiots would not pay for them... OTOH, the mother of all suckers is always pregnant...

This is another way to say how advanced those bots became... (didn't I tell you? didn't i? hehe).

[YOUTUBE]oWfFco7K9v8[/YOUTUBE]

.

[URL="http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-15/elderly-woman-fills-out-crossword-artwork-in-german-museum/7632800"]91-year-old woman fills out crossword that turns out to be $116k artwork in German museum[/URL]

[URL="http://www.theroot.com/blog/the-grapevine/man-creates-gofundme-so-racists-can-send-him-back-to-africa/"]Man Creates GoFundMe so Racists Can Send Him Back to Africa[/URL]

[QUOTE=only_human;438286][URL="http://www.theroot.com/blog/the-grapevine/man-creates-gofundme-so-racists-can-send-him-back-to-africa/"]Man Creates GoFundMe so Racists Can Send Him Back to Africa[/URL][/QUOTE]
The site supposedly hates racism, but when I try to post they ask me my ethnicity. If they'd asked my race I would've typed "human" just to piss em off.

I don't know which is scarier, the jump scares in The Forgotten(really good movie, especially if you've never seen it) or the idea that Trump could actually become president.

I saw a statistic that said, I forget the actual number, but this RNC has the fewest black delegates in decades. I was thinking,"Whoa, whoa, whoa, there are black people voting for Trump?"

It's been said, I forget who said it most famously, that religion exists because people want the world to make sense. I view things from the opposite perspective and wonder how atheists can stay sane in this bizarre world without at least entertaining the notion that there is a God.

As they like to sometimes put on walls and t-shirts,"No god, no hope; but know God, know hope."

Would the Hitler mustache look good if there weren't any emotional baggage associated with it?

[URL="http://www.abc17news.com/news/public-defenders-office-assigns-governor-criminal-case/41043748"]Public defender's office assigns governor criminal case[/URL]
Governor Nixon (attorney Missouri Bar Number 29603) after he defunded the state's indigent defense system is assigned as to represent a client that can not afford representation.
[QUOTE]"Given the extraordinary circumstances that compel me to entertain any and all avenues of relief, it strikes me that I should begin with the one attorney in the state who not only created this problem, but is in a unique position to address it," Barrett wrote.[/QUOTE]
h/t Lisa “LJ” Cohen on Google+

PDF: [url]http://www.publicdefender.mo.gov/Newsfeed/Delegation_of_Representation.PDF[/url]

[QUOTE=only_human;439303][URL="http://www.abc17news.com/news/public-defenders-office-assigns-governor-criminal-case/41043748"]Public defender's office assigns governor criminal case[/URL]
Governor Nixon (attorney Missouri Bar Number 29603) after he defunded the state's indigent defense system is assigned as to represent a client that can not afford representation.

h/t Lisa “LJ” Cohen on Google+

PDF: [URL]http://www.publicdefender.mo.gov/Newsfeed/Delegation_of_Representation.PDF[/URL][/QUOTE]
Well, at least there is a bit of poetic justice in Missouri, even if the legal kind is in short supply.

Bear hitches ride on garbage truck
 

[URL="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/04/bear-hitches-ride-on-garbage-truck-for-five-miles-in-new-mexico"]A bear has hitched a ride[/URL] on top of a garbage truck in the American state of New Mexico, travelling at least five miles on the vehicle before it was able to make its escape up a tree.

[url]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2015098713/fidget-cube-a-vinyl-desk-toy/[/url]
I 'm not one who fidget but well, some of you might.

[url]http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/new-programming-language-delivers.html[/url] admittedly it's more of an extension and probably wouldn't be necessarily helpful here but it's cool to me at least. the link at the top of the first article leads to another with a little more information [url]http://news.mit.edu/2016/faster-parallel-computing-big-data-0913[/url]

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie 'laughed about Bridgegate'
 

[URL]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37498031[/URL]
The dry drollery of the British press knocks me for a loop twice in one day. First it was the former-nuns-get-married story: "[URL="http://mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=443745&postcount=1638"]Kicking the Habit[/URL]", over at the Guardian, and now THIS from the Beeb.

[QUOTE]At an event in Trenton, New Jersey later on Tuesday, the governor again denied any knowledge.

"I had no knowledge prior to or during" the closures, he said. "There's been no evidence ever put forward that I did.

Mr Wildstein's testimony follows last month's revelations that former Christie ally Christina Renna allegedly texted her colleague, Peter Sheridan, about the governor's knowledge of the plot.

"He just flat out lied about senior staff and [former campaign manager Bill Stepien] not being involved," she allegedly texted, referring to comments Mr Christie made during a news conference that year.

Republicans are probably thanking their lucky stars - as much as they can these days - that [U]Donald Trump didn't go with what was reportedly his [B]gut instinct[/B][/U] and pick Chris Christie to be his vice-presidential running mate.
[/QUOTE]
ROFLMAO!

[URL="https://www.yahoo.com/news/algorithm-solves-cake-cutting-problem-223127214.html"]Algorithm solves cake-cutting problem that has haunted mathematicians[/URL]

[QUOTE]We’ve all been there before: moving into a new apartment with housemates and trying to figure out who owes what each month. It’s easy enough if everyone gets the same identical room, but inevitably there is one person who gets the slightly larger bed, or the nice view with no road noise, or the ceiling that doesn’t leak, or the en-suite bathroom.

The same is true of a variety of other division tasks: from dividing up leftover pizza — does one slice of meat feast equal two slices of cheese? — to more serious examples like divorce settlements.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=science_man_88;444543][URL="https://www.yahoo.com/news/algorithm-solves-cake-cutting-problem-223127214.html"]Algorithm solves cake-cutting problem that has haunted mathematicians[/URL][/QUOTE]

And the darker side of algorithms...

[url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how-computers-are-setting-us-up-disaster]Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster[/url] | The Guardian

Lots of good stuff re. the "what could go wrong" aspects of the ever-incresing reliance on "the algorithm" in planes, automobiles and sundry aspects of daily life. My favorite part came at the end:
[quote]In the mid-1980s, a Dutch traffic engineer named Hans Monderman was sent to the village of Oudehaske. Two children had been killed by cars, and Monderman’s radar gun showed right away that drivers were going too fast through the village. He pondered the traditional solutions – traffic lights, speed bumps, additional signs pestering drivers to slow down. They were expensive and often ineffective. Control measures such as traffic lights and speed bumps frustrated drivers, who would often speed dangerously between one measure and another.

And so Monderman tried something revolutionary. He suggested that the road through Oudehaske be made to look more like what it was: a road through a village. First, the existing traffic signs were removed. (Signs always irritated Monderman: driving through his home country of the Netherlands with the writer Tom Vanderbilt, he once railed against their patronising redundancy. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he would ask, waving at a sign that stood next to a bridge, notifying people of the bridge.) The signs might ostensibly be asking drivers to slow down. However, argued Monderman, because signs are the universal language of roads everywhere, on a deeper level the effect of their presence is simply to reassure drivers that they were on a road – a road like any other road, where cars rule. Monderman wanted to remind them that they were also in a village, where children might play.

So, next, he replaced the asphalt with red brick paving, and the raised kerb with a flush pavement and gently curved guttering. Where once drivers had, figuratively speaking, sped through the village on autopilot – not really attending to what they were doing – now they were faced with a messy situation and had to engage their brains. It was hard to know quite what to do or where to drive – or which space belonged to the cars and which to the village children. As Tom Vanderbilt describes Monderman’s strategy in his book Traffic, “Rather than clarity and segregation, he had created confusion and ambiguity.”

Perplexed, drivers took the cautious way forward: they drove so slowly through Oudehaske that Monderman could no longer capture their speed on his radar gun. By forcing drivers to confront the possibility of small errors, the chance of them making larger ones was greatly reduced.

Monderman, who died in 2008, was the most famous of a small group of traffic planners around the world who have been pushing against the trend towards an ever-tidier strategy for making traffic flow smoothly and safely. The usual approach is to give drivers the clearest possible guidance as to what they should do and where they should go: traffic lights, bus lanes, cycle lanes, left- and right-filtering traffic signals, railings to confine pedestrians, and of course signs attached to every available surface, forbidding or permitting different manoeuvres.

Laweiplein in the Dutch town of Drachten was a typical such junction, and accidents were common. Frustrated by waiting in jams, drivers would sometimes try to beat the traffic lights by blasting across the junction at speed – or they would be impatiently watching the lights, rather than watching for other road users. (In urban environments, about half of all accidents happen at traffic lights.) With a shopping centre on one side of the junction and a theatre on the other, pedestrians often got in the way, too.

Monderman wove his messy magic and created the “squareabout”. He threw away all the explicit efforts at control. In their place, he built a square with fountains, a small grassy roundabout in one corner, pinch points where cyclists and pedestrians might try to cross the flow of traffic, and very little signposting of any kind. It looks much like a pedestrianisation scheme – except that the square has as many cars crossing it as ever, approaching from all four directions. Pedestrians and cyclists must cross the traffic as before, but now they have no traffic lights to protect them. It sounds dangerous – and surveys show that locals think it is dangerous. It is certainly unnerving to watch the squareabout in operation – drivers, cyclists and pedestrians weave in and out of one another in an apparently chaotic fashion.

Yet the squareabout works. Traffic glides through slowly but rarely stops moving for long. The number of cars passing through the junction has risen, yet congestion has fallen. And the squareabout is safer than the traffic-light crossroads that preceded it, with half as many accidents as before. It is precisely because the squareabout feels so hazardous that it is safer. Drivers never quite know what is going on or where the next cyclist is coming from, and as a result they drive slowly and with the constant expectation of trouble. And while the squareabout feels risky, it does not feel threatening; at the gentle speeds that have become the custom, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians have time to make eye contact and to read one another as human beings, rather than as threats or obstacles. When showing visiting journalists the squareabout, Monderman’s party trick was to close his eyes and walk backwards into the traffic. The cars would just flow around him without so much as a honk on the horn.

In Monderman’s artfully ambiguous squareabout, drivers are never given the opportunity to glaze over and switch to the automatic driving mode that can be so familiar. The chaos of the square forces them to pay attention, work things out for themselves and look out for each other. The square is a mess of confusion. That is why it works.[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;444885]Lots of good stuff re. the "what could go wrong" aspects of the ever-incresing reliance on "the algorithm" in planes, automobiles and sundry aspects of daily life. My favorite part came at the end:[/QUOTE]

OK. So, just to be clear, you are reflecting on science_man_88 for your sanity.

Is that correct?

[QUOTE=ewmayer;444885]My favorite part came at the end:[/QUOTE]Reminds me of the problem that was faced in Taiwan a while back. There was a curved transfer ramp. People were driving too fast, accidents ensued. Signs did not help. So the single lane was narrowed and chevrons were painted (thermoplasticed) in the lane. Drivers perceived that they were driving fast and slowed down. Accidents dropped.

I get to "play in traffic" about once a month. We cone off the kerb lane that we are working in. Many drivers don't "slow for the cone zone". Sometimes I will put cones in the centre turn lane. It makes the area for the cars to appear narrow. I never actual reduce the width of the lane, but drivers feel constricted and don't want to hit the cones with their precious cars. It is very effective.

[url]http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/10/leonard-cohen-says-hes-ready-to-die/[/url]
I will truly grieve when Leonard is gone.

[url=https://medium.com/startup-grind/fuck-you-startup-world-ab6cc72fad0e#.w1jy5ljth]Fuck You, Startup World[/url] – Medium

At least one long-banned user here still apparently...

[URL="https://www.yahoo.com/news/face-science-material-shrinks-heated-233723296.html"]In your face, science! This material shrinks when heated, expands when cooled[/URL] one of the comments got me thinking political "So does a weiner" complete with typo, great one trump is enough.

Darwin award candidate:

[url]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4278524/Man-dies-six-ton-pile-porn-magazines.html[/url]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;454408]Darwin award candidate:

[url]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4278524/Man-dies-six-ton-pile-porn-magazines.html[/url][/QUOTE]

[URL="http://gizmodo.com/that-viral-story-about-a-japanese-man-crushed-to-death-1792986533"]http://gizmodo.com/that-viral-story-about-a-japanese-man-crushed-to-death-1792986533[/URL]

Looks like the Daily Mail flubbed this one. The guy had a bunch of porn, but he died of a heart attack and appears to have fallen on top of the porn collection, according to the original article.

[QUOTE=wombatman;454412]Looks like the Daily Mail flubbed this one.[/QUOTE]I'm not so sure about that.[QUOTE=wombatman;454412]The guy had a bunch of porn, but he died of a heart attack and appears to have fallen on top of the porn collection, according to the original article.[/QUOTE]Technically correct, it would seem he wasn't crushed. But the Daily Mail don't care about truth, they only care about eyes on [strike]text[/strike] ads, and by that metric they have succeeded very well. I'd guess the "flub" was deliberate.

Yeah, flubbed was a little generous. :rofl:

Here's a head scratcher.

Google can do all sorts of awesome stuff in search, but it doesn't know the difference between a tab and a bookmark. Apparently, it thinks tabs and bookmarks are the same thing, because when I enter into search,"Why doesn't Edge import my tabs from firefox?" I get a bunch of generic stuff about how to import bookmarks, which I've already done.

The second head scratcher is the search itself. Edge does all sorts of awesome stuff, but it doesn't import tabs. So, I guess I'll stay on POS Firefox, since I don't want to have to keep going back and forth deciding what to throw away and what to keep. (yes, I'm a hoarder, and no, I refuse to start from scratch)

So, yeah, Edge can do lots of cool stuff, but since I can't import tabs, I'm not going to use them. And I can't ask about it on Google because Google doesn't know what a tab is.

Fun times. It's only computer problems that make me want to peel my face off.

[QUOTE=jasong;454707]Here's a head scratcher.

Google can do all sorts of awesome stuff in search, but it doesn't know the difference between a tab and a bookmark. Apparently, it thinks tabs and bookmarks are the same thing, because when I enter into search,"Why doesn't Edge import my tabs from firefox?" I get a bunch of generic stuff about how to import bookmarks, which I've already done.

The second head scratcher is the search itself. Edge does all sorts of awesome stuff, but it doesn't import tabs. So, I guess I'll stay on POS Firefox, since I don't want to have to keep going back and forth deciding what to throw away and what to keep. (yes, I'm a hoarder, and no, I refuse to start from scratch)

So, yeah, Edge can do lots of cool stuff, but since I can't import tabs, I'm not going to use them. And I can't ask about it on Google because Google doesn't know what a tab is.

Fun times. It's only computer problems that make me want to peel my face off.[/QUOTE]

I'm guessing you tried the search Why doesn't Edge import my +tabs from firefox" a tab is the thing you read a webpage in a bookmark is a link to that page.

[QUOTE=science_man_88;454709]I'm guessing you tried the search Why doesn't Edge import my +tabs from firefox" a tab is the thing you read a webpage in a bookmark is a link to that page.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for that.

I don't do well with open-ended questions, I guess I should've stopped to think about how I could've solved the problem.

[url=https://thebaffler.com/salvos/revolution-not-curated-frank]The Revolution Will Not Be Curated[/url] | Thomas Frank, [i]The Baffler[/i]

On the rising secular religion of curatolatry - article does not say as much, but this trend is surely inspired in no small part by the heroic museum curator martyred in Dan Brown's immortal shlock-thriller The Da Vinci Code. [A novel about whose author's english prose stylings you can read more [url=http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html]here[/url], if you want some real giggles.]

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39554421"]Not content with breaking guitars...
[/URL]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;455443][A novel about whose author's english prose stylings you can read more [URL="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html"]here[/URL], if you want some real giggles.][/QUOTE]
Yeah, I enjoyed the book, and I don't have a competency to judge his English, but I was also thinking sometimes that he insults our intelligence, with explanations that could be easily deduced from the description or action.

A "damn interesting" [URL="https://www.damninteresting.com/"]website[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;458294]A "damn interesting" [URL="https://www.damninteresting.com/"]website[/URL][/QUOTE]

Thanks for the tip. I subscribed to the podcast. It will make time driving around the US odd A more fun in August.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;458317]Thanks for the tip. I subscribed to the podcast. It will make time driving around the US odd A more fun in August.[/QUOTE]

You probably already listen to Thinking Sideways.

[QUOTE=rogue;458365]You probably already listen to Thinking Sideways.[/QUOTE]No, haven't heard of it. I currently have 48 podcast feeds. (7 haven't updated in a year, the others within the month, some are daily or more often.) 3 of the series I am a Patreon for. There are about 400 episodes in my backlog.

Macron or LePen?
 

France is up to vote for his next president. Macron or LePen?

I got a good feeling that Macron will make it, but what will happen if LePen wins? Will France leave the EU like GB is doing? This makes me "hmmm"

Dear people from France, there is an message for you:
Votez pour Macron, en sécurité en Europe!


Have a great weekend.

[url]https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/05/23/stack-overflow-helping-one-million-developers-exit-vim/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;459651][url]https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/05/23/stack-overflow-helping-one-million-developers-exit-vim/[/url][/QUOTE]Been there, done that ...

I mean, what's so difficult about C-C C-X ?

[url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/viral-video-of-girl-snatched-by-sea-lion-raises-seal-finger-awareness/[/url]

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;459792][url]http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/viral-video-of-girl-snatched-by-sea-lion-raises-seal-finger-awareness/[/url][/QUOTE]

I actually saw that on the Canadian Broadcasting Company's news. I laughed out loud.

Evolution in action. The parents were dumb letting their little girl play with a wild animal.

[QUOTE=xilman;459672]I mean, what's so difficult about C-C C-X ?[/QUOTE]

Personally I use "[ESC]:w" and then "[CTRL]Z" to do further work, or "[ESC]:wq" if I'm done with the changes. Sometimes I "[ESC]:q!" if I don't want to save my changes.

WTF?
 

[url]http://www.bbc.com/sport/taekwondo/40391326[/url]

Thanks for a good laugh! WTF!

Black vultures outside my cousin's house
 

They have been brooding for years in what was once a chicken house on said cousin's grandfather's farm in North Texas. These are adolescents, with some baby down on their otherwise bare heads.

[QUOTE=kladner;462857]They have been brooding for years in what was once a chicken house on said cousin's grandfather's farm in North Texas. These are adolescents, with some baby down on their otherwise bare heads.[/QUOTE]

Speaking of the Chicken Ranch in Texas, Dolly Parton was the best singer, of course, but Charles Durning had a nice sidestep.
[YOUTUBE]NJG75FJkjr8[/YOUTUBE]

[QUOTE=only_human;462858]Speaking of the Chicken Ranch in Texas, Dolly Parton was the best singer, of course, but Charles Durning had a nice sidestep.
[/QUOTE]
I traveled past Lagrange many times, going between Houston and Austin. I knew about where the road to the reputed "ranch" was, but never turned off there. A sensationalist, crusading Houston TV reporter (Marvin Zindler, EYE WITNESS NEWS) made a stink about the brothel, of which the locals were well aware. After it was shut down, local clergy and law enforcement lamented that while the Ranch was in business, they knew where to look for wayward young men. :razz: Take That, Prohibitionists!

I am carrying this remark over from another thread:
[QUOTE=Batalov;463055]
I just recently heard that Bolshoi Theater cancelled the almost ready-to-go new ballet about life and work of [URL="https://www.nureyev.org/"]Rudolf Nureyev[/URL]. Some people naively think that formally it was because (thought it is a ballet) it was expected to have some dialogs which (true to life!) had a solid fraction of Russian obscene language (Nureyev was known to use it profusely).
[/QUOTE]
Might it be that a halfway truthful story of his life would amount to "Homosexual Propaganda" in Russian law?

Summer Shakespeare-in-the-park, SF bay area Identity-Politics-style: Went to see “Hamlet” at our local park this evening; the San Francisco Shakespeare festival troupe has been doing free shows there (plus several other bay area venues, 2-3 weekends each) every summer for over 20 years. Usually lighter fare, but not always. As in Shakespeare’s day – although IIRC back then it was invariably men playing the female roles – lots of gender bending in the supporting and same-actor-multiple-character roles, but not in the principals. Tonight we had an interesting such casting in several close-to-principal roles: The blathering-to-excess Polonius very funnily played by a woman, “his” fair daughter Ophelia played by a man. Said man’s voice was quite feminine, but the contrast with the five-o’clock shadow, the lantern jaw and the Adam’s apple was rather striking, shall we say. Lots of chattering questions by children to their parents when that bit of casting was revealed. To be fair, Ophelia’s “brother” Laertes was played by a rather attractive gal, so all’s fair in love, war and SF IdPol, I say.

With apologies to The Kinks:
[i]
I met her in a club down in Elsino’
Where you drink poison wine and it tastes just like it will keel-ya
K I L L keel-ya
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said Ophelia
O P H E LYA Ophelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia

Well I’m not the world’s most physical Dane
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly spilled my brain
Oh my Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
Why she talks like a woman but shaves like a man
Oh my Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia

Well we drank champagne and fought all night
I said get thee to a nunn’ry and outta my sight
She picked me up and sat me on her knee
And said antic prince won’t you come home with me
Well I’m not the world’s most passionate guy
But when I looked in her eyes well I almost fell for my Phelia

Fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia
Ophelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia
I pushed her away
I walked to the door
I fell to the floor
I got down on my knees
Then I looked at her and she at me

Well that’s the way that I want it to stay
And I always want it to be that way for my Phelia
Fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Phelia
Fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia

Well I left home just a week before
And I’d never ever kissed a woman before
But Phelia smiled and took me under her wing
And said little prince I’m gonna make you a king

Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is Phelia
Fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia
Ophelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia fa-fa-fa-fa Phelia[/i]

[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/15/roomba-robot-vacuum-poopocalypse-facebook-post[/URL]

:poop:

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;464221][URL]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/15/roomba-robot-vacuum-poopocalypse-facebook-post[/URL]

:poop:[/QUOTE]
AND...it will send your floor plans to the company so it can sell more info on you.

[QUOTE=kladner;464225]AND...it will send your floor plans to the company so it can sell more info on you.[/QUOTE]

The amusing thing to me is that every cell phone anyone owns is already doing this. And, also, outside of the house....

I regularly get notices from Google saying "Would you be willing to improve our user's experience? Post your pictures...

Usually the pictures are of my "junk", from my pocket. But they have the exact LAT/LONG. But usually very low-light pictures of my junk. And I wear underwear.

No wonder there has been a ~60% loss of fertility amongst western men....

[QUOTE=chalsall;464228]The amusing thing to me is that every cell phone anyone owns is already doing this. And, also, outside of the house also....

I regularly get notices from Google saying "Would you be willing to improve our user's experience? Post your pictures...

Usually the pictures are of my "junk", from my pocket. But they have the exact LAT/LONG.

No wonder there has been a ~60 loss of fertility amongst western men....[/QUOTE]

Taking pictures of the inside of your pocket can not be good for your fertility. Just saying.

[COLOR="White"]Where is the tinfoil hat emoji?[/COLOR]

[QUOTE=masser;464229]Taking pictures of the inside of your pocket can not be good for your fertility. Just saying.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I don't know. I don't see a real downside of taking pictures from within my pocket which could possibly affect my reproductive strategy.

Are you talking about the photons which show I am only average?

Or the photons which might cause my sperm to be inactive?

Please answer.

[QUOTE]
New Zealand's government has confirmed that Australia's deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, is a dual citizen.
Dual citizens are not allowed to run for public office under Australia's constitution.
Mr Joyce revealed earlier that he may have New Zealand citizenship by descent, but said he will take his case to the nation's High Court.
PM Malcolm Turnbull's government risks losing its grip on power if Mr Joyce is ruled ineligible.
[/QUOTE]Press article: [URL]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40920141[/URL]

This sounds suspiciously like a logical error in Australia's constitution.
Any country wishing to pressure an Australian government minister could simply threaten to make them a citizen.

[QUOTE=Nick;465492]Press article: [URL]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40920141[/URL]

This sounds suspiciously like a logical error in Australia's constitution.
Any country wishing to pressure an Australian government minister could simply threaten to make them a citizen.[/QUOTE]

well the last constitutional ties to Britain apparently weren't severed until 1986 ( wikipedia)

I was reminded of this oldie-but-goodie today:

[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_paradox"]The smallest integer that cannot be expressed in less than thirteen words.[/URL]

[QUOTE=masser;465608]I was reminded of this oldie-but-goodie today:

[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_paradox"]The smallest integer that cannot be expressed in less than thirteen words.[/URL][/QUOTE]I really fail to understand why this is regarded as a paradox.

Consider all possible strings of thirteen words with repetition taken from a specified dictionary. Arrange them according to a defined lexicographical ordering and let the integer value of that string be its position in that ordering. On the assumption that all words in the so-called paradoxical string are contained within the dictionary, the string "[I]The smallest integer that cannot be expressed in less than thirteen words[/I]" uniquely defines a single integer and there is no paradox because there is but a single mapping.

I guess I'm a constructivist. Intuitionism, a la Brouwer, also has a great appeal to me.

[QUOTE=xilman;465619]... the string "[I]The smallest integer that cannot be expressed in less than thirteen words[/I]" uniquely defines a single integer and there is no paradox because there is but a single mapping..[/QUOTE]The statement itself is twelve words long so ...

[QUOTE=retina;465620]The statement itself is twelve words long so ...[/QUOTE]So what? It uniquely defines a single integer, as does any other string of words from the dictionary of admissible words.

As I see it, the so-called paradox arises from sloppy reasoning which confuses mathematical constructs with natural language semantics. Remove that confusion and the paradox disappears. Natural language is full of such ambiguity. For a well-known example, consider the following English sentence and its French translation:

Time flies like an arrow.
Chronométrez-vous les mouches comme une flèche.

[QUOTE=xilman;465653]So what?[/QUOTE]At twelve words long it describes a number that cannot be described in fewer than thirteen words. Looks to me like a paradox. What did I miss?

[QUOTE=retina;465658]At twelve words long it describes a number that cannot be described in fewer than thirteen words. Looks to me like a paradox. What did I miss?[/QUOTE]You missed the difference between defining integers in a rigorous manner and giving a description in an ambiguous language. Definition is not identical to description. The paradox arises from the ambiguity. Ambiguous language very easily produces paradoxes and the "proof" of falsities.

Another nice example: it is well-known and widely accepted that the pope is a Catholic and bears shit in the woods. I ask you, has anyone any evidence whatsoever for the pope bearing shit in the woods?

[QUOTE=xilman;465661]Another nice example: it is well-known and widely accepted that the pope is a Catholic and bears shit in the woods. I ask you, has anyone any evidence whatsoever for the pope bearing shit in the woods?[/QUOTE]I hadn't heard it described like that before. I thought it was bears that were Catholic and the pope that shits in the wood. I must have been misled all this time.

[url]https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/why-novatis-apos-475k-car-191007313.html[/url]

[url]http://allrgb.com/[/url]

Scientists recently discovered the optimal color for solar panels to generate maximum energy from photons. Guess what color is optimal?

Chlorophyll green. No lie. I'm not saying that I already knew, but, dear god, millions must've been spent on the research.

Can't you picture the scientists going on long walks, staring at trees and grass, pondering what the optimal color could possibly be?

And now I can't find the article...Should've posted when I first read it. Finding a lot of stuff about blue and black solar panels, I guess from old articles.

[url]https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/01/plants-green-us-air-force-behind-new-solar-cell-research-breakthrough/[/url]

[QUOTE=jasong;466807]Scientists recently discovered the optimal color for solar panels to generate maximum energy from photons. Guess what color is optimal?

Chlorophyll green.[/QUOTE]I find that surprising. Why would they want to reflect the green light (and thus waste it) instead of absorbing it and convert it to electricity? Having no reflection, i.e. a black surface, would provide more opportunity to convert photons into moving electrons.

[QUOTE=retina;466808]I find that surprising. Why would they want to reflect the green light (and thus waste it) instead of absorbing it and convert it to electricity? Having no reflection, i.e. a black surface, would provide more opportunity to convert photons into moving electrons.[/QUOTE]
Whether one believes in blind evolution or intelligent design, I think it's a mistake to poopoo the solution mother nature came up with. We might have "better" ways, but the chlorophyll-type route is probably the most optimized and sustainable.

[QUOTE=jasong;466810]Whether one believes in blind evolution or intelligent design, I think it's a mistake to poopoo the solution mother nature came up with. We might have "better" ways, but the chlorophyll-type route is probably the most optimized and sustainable.[/QUOTE]But if the goals are different then it is also a mistake to blindly follow nature as the one true guiding solution. If the goals are aligned then for sure nature has some very good solutions, and ignoring them would be foolish. But nature has some poor solutions also, for example the wheel is great for long distance travel but nature never figured out that one.

So the question comes down to "are the goals aligned here?" From the article it appears as though the goal was not to maximise conversion, but to minimise difficulties with supporting hardware. Actually I'm not entirely sure my parsing is correct because the article is very vague.

[QUOTE=retina;466808]I find that surprising. Why would they want to reflect the green light (and thus waste it) instead of absorbing it and convert it to electricity? Having no reflection, i.e. a black surface, would provide more opportunity to convert photons into moving electrons.[/QUOTE]

first thought after a cursory search on wavelength is maybe it's it the wrong part of the spectrum of wavelength to work ?

[QUOTE=jasong;466810]Whether one believes in blind evolution or intelligent design, I think it's a mistake to poopoo the solution mother nature came up with. We might have "better" ways, but the chlorophyll-type route is probably the most optimized and sustainable.[/QUOTE]

As one who is actively involved in solar energy and solar cell research, you're both right and wrong. Chlorophyll-type routes are optimized, but for sustainability/longevity, not efficiency.

The maximum efficiency is obtained by absorbing most of the visible spectrum (and ideally infrared too, though there's issues there). Silicon, which starts absorbing at around 1000 nm, has efficiencies ranging from 15-25%, but oxidizes very easily without protection. The newest type of solar cell, lead halide perovskites, have already proven to be 15-20% efficient, but not on commercial scales yet.

Chlorophyll's route is something like 1% efficient. So the question is: can we get chlorophyll's stability while increasing the efficiency.

In short, it's not a "no duh" answer as you seem to think. There's also the matter that chlorophyll by itself very quickly dies off, as there are several exactly aligned pieces of the photosynthetic pathway. Further, we only recently got a good feel for what the pieces were and how they actually go together.

TL;DR: Yeah, green is an obvious choice, but it's not necessarily the actual best, and it's important to understand WHY plants ended up there.


Edit: With all that said, the actual article looks interesting, and I think I'll be reading it tomorrow.

Mocking Trump, this Michigan mayor was just impeached after banning 'heterosexuals'
 

[URL]https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/31/1694865/-This-mayor-was-impeached-for-banning-heterosexuals-He-was-inspired-by-Trump[/URL]
[QUOTE]His mayoral proclamation explains that when he was growing up, he was often told that homosexuals would go to hell. But “now the heterosexuals are trying to take that from us too,” Daniel wrote.

Lest he seem bigoted, Daniel offered local heterosexuals a chance to stay in Hell for a price: Fork over $84,000, which they would get back after one year of abstinence from straight sex.

“Reparative therapy” to find one’s gay side was also to be strongly encouraged. The alternative: being forced to wear a scarlet H and cargo shorts in the town square every morning for some public straight-shaming.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=wombatman;466814]Chlorophyll's route is something like 1% efficient.[/QUOTE]

Wikipedia [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency]says 3-6%[/url].

I stand partially corrected. Maybe I'm thinking of attempts to utilize chlorophyll analogues in artificial photosynthetic cells.

Regardless, my main points about stability versus efficiency remain. Long-term stabilization of photoactive materials is one of the primary problems that has to be addressed for further commercialization of solar cells. Fortunately, there are many people working on it, and the future is bright. :smile:

I won't believe that green solar panels are of any use. Except that they look nice. My understanding is that the panels must be totally black, to retain all the radiation (energy), and not reflect it back.

Green panels being more efficient than black panels, this is bullshit.

Plants are not efficient.

These things (like Calvin Cycle, etc) are very well known and understood. Plants are not efficient. Full stop. They do what they can. Same as humans. That is actually my main argument against creationism: only a completely idiot god would design such imperfect and inefficient thing like a human being.

Now, about switching to solar energy to reduce global warming, c'mon! this is another silly idea. On long term, actually, this is a bad idea... Most solar panels are black, or dark in color, exactly from the reasons explained, and using more and more of them (beside of the fact that they pollute the earth the same way as the batteries, or coal, just think about what you will do with, and where and how you will deposit all this stuff, when it will be out of life - tones and tones of batteries and solar cell materials, that are produced daily, and they are not bio-degradable, otherwise your solar panel will not last too long, they are made to last for years, and still can last thousands of years after being disaffected), so, beside of it, using more and more dark panels will actually make the Earth retain [U]more[/U] solar energy. It decreases the "[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo"]albedo[/URL]" of the planet. So, instead of reflecting back to space the solar energy, and staying cool, the Earth will retain this energy, getting hot (i.e. changing it in electricity, which later, one way or another, becomes heat).

The best way to keep the planet cool is actually burning methane. Do you remember my pledge about CNG cars? :razz:

Future is not electric. Future is CNG.

[QUOTE=LaurV;467034]The best way to keep the planet cool is actually burning methane.[/QUOTE]Erm, burning something keeps us cool? :confused:

Anyhow, why not nuclear energy? Maybe not using uranium, but thorium. Molten salt reactors using thorium can be made intrinsically safe; if something breaks the reaction simply stops. Also, you can make them small. Only large enough to power one house; bury it in the back yard. So there is no concentration of fuel all in one place, it is distributed everywhere. After ten years when it is spent, dig it up and put in a new one. And you can paint them green if you want to, for the aesthetics.

[QUOTE=LaurV;467034]I won't believe that green solar panels are of any use. Except that they look nice. My understanding is that the panels must be totally black, to retain all the radiation (energy), and not reflect it back. Green panels being more efficient than black panels, this is bullshit.[/QUOTE]

Completely agree. As everyone /should/ know, the amount of energy in a photon is a function of its frequency (to humans: its colour). [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum"]Electromagnetic spectrum[/URL] -- there is approximately two orders of magnitude (base 10) difference in the energy between Near ultraviolet and Near infrared; green is roughly midway.

[QUOTE=LaurV;467034]Earth will retain this energy, getting hot (i.e. changing it in electricity, which later, one way or another, becomes heat).[/QUOTE]

I understand, but disagree, with your premise.

Lowering the planet's albedo does indeed increase the amount of heat retained in the system. But it would take a tiny amount of the earth's surface turned black (with solar collectors of one form or another) to power our entire civilization. And earth is not a closed system.

[QUOTE=retina;467041]Anyhow, why not nuclear energy? Maybe not using uranium, but thorium. Molten salt reactors using thorium can be made intrinsically safe; if something breaks the reaction simply stops.[/QUOTE]

I resonate with what you say here. But thorium reactors need to be started with a fissile charge (such as U-233 or U-235), since thorium is only fertile.

Rather than having a thorium reactor in every backyard, why not use the fusion reactor most of us find for half of the day in the sky?

[QUOTE=chalsall;467085]Rather than having a thorium reactor in every backyard, why not use the fusion reactor most of us we find for half the day in the sky?[/QUOTE]We can have both. But access to the big ball of fire in the sky isn't reliable, we need to have alternatives to fill the gaps.

[QUOTE=retina;467086]We can have both. But access to the big ball of fire in the sky isn't reliable, we need to have alternatives to fill the gaps.[/QUOTE]

Yeah. Battery storage. Pumping water up hills. Windmills.

Holding one's breath....

Do you honestly think it makes sense to burn hydrocarbons???

[QUOTE=chalsall;467092]Do you honestly think it makes sense to burn hydrocarbons???[/QUOTE]You asking me? I suggested nuclear, not burning stuff.

[QUOTE=retina;467093]You asking me? I suggested nuclear, not burning stuff.[/QUOTE]

OK. But I also pointed out that it took rare radioactive Uranium isotopes to charge a Thorium reactor.

[QUOTE=chalsall;467094]OK. But I also pointed out that it took rare radioactive Uranium isotopes to charge a Thorium reactor.[/QUOTE]
[STRIKE]Is the Uranium charge a one-time thing?[/STRIKE]
OK. I see there are many variables and many designs with different intentions. I think I understand that some thorium setups can end up with reduced waste products. There does seem to be a lot of separation and reprocessing required, but I guess that is true of most fission processes.
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle[/url]

[QUOTE=retina;467041]Erm, burning something keeps us cool? :confused:

Anyhow, why not nuclear energy? Maybe not using uranium, but thorium. Molten salt reactors using thorium can be made intrinsically safe; if something breaks the reaction simply stops. Also, you can make them small. Only large enough to power one house; bury it in the back yard. So there is no concentration of fuel all in one place, it is distributed everywhere. After ten years when it is spent, dig it up and put in a new one. And you can paint them green if you want to, for the aesthetics.[/QUOTE]

Say, I don't know much about thorium, I would like to have a bucket of it in my yard and I will paint it green every day, knowing it can run my GPU farm for free.... but [U]YES[/U], burning methane actually [U]does[/U] keep the planet cool.

The explanation stays in the capacity of different atmospheric "garbage" to function as a greenhouse shell. When sun heats the earth, the surface of the earth gets hot. That is why down is hotter than up. The atmosphere does not get hot. The heat from the ground level travels up with the mass of the air, but the most of the heat (solar radiation) is actually reflected back into space. However, when it goes back, it meets the upper layers of the atmosphere, which act as the glass of a glasshouse, reflecting back the radiation.

This is what causes the heating of the planet. The "garbage" existent in the air, like freons, carbon dioxide, methane, water vapors, etc. If no atmosphere, then we would be hot like hell in the day, and cold like Mars in the night. And dead, because we could not breath... hehe...

Now, the water comes down as rains, the carbon dioxide is gulped by the plants and lots of little guys in the oceans called plankton, we don't make much freons anymore, but the methane is there to stay.

People make so much fuss about producing carbon dioxide. Producing carbon dioxide is no bother. Some volcano deciding to erupt somewhere is just producing carbon dioxide and sulphur stuff in five minutes in the same amount that it was produced by humanity in centuries. We are not so significant as we think we are, you know? All the carbon dioxide we produce in an year is gulped by few cubic kilometers of plankton in few weeks. Well, many cubic kilometers, but they are a lot, oceans are filled with them, actually, they are few hundred times more than necessary...

So, we make of carbon dioxide, so what? This just keeps plants and plankton happy. They gulp the carbon dioxide and thrive. Then they die. And when they die, they rot. If other things do not eat them. But generally, they have the bad habit to rot, directly, or indirectly, like the cow that ate the plants and the tiger that ate the cow... they all rot.

And when they rot and decay, they also have the bad habit to fall to the bottom of the ponds, Atlantic pond, Pacific Pond, etc, and transform into methane. Especially tigers, see the life of 3.14159...

Coal and gasoline will sooner or later end, because they need millions of years and lots of pressure to be made. But methane, well... any swamp is gurgling of it, because any leaf and any shoe, and any organic material that falls into it becomes methane in few years.

Which raises in the atmosphere, with water vapors, carbon dioxide, flying pigs, farts, and other garbage.

And from all the mentioned chemicals, guess which has one of the highest greenhouse effects?

Replacing few gigatones of methane with few gigatones of CO2 and water vapours, actually [U]will[/U] make the planet colder. Not much, but it will. Do this repeatedly...

In fact, this can be calculated, methane is about [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Global_warming_potential"]10 to 80 times[/URL] more effective in heating the planet than the carbon dioxide is, for a given time horizon of 20 to 100 years (depending on the pressure, and on its combination with water). We are talking here about "few Celsius degrees cooler", not about "few hundreds of a degree", as environmentalists complain the planet is hotter..

Wake up people!

BTW, the methane can also be very easily produced, for example in bacteria farms - there are bacteria that actually produce methane from water and carbon dioxide, releasing the oxygen into the atmosphere, and they can be "cultivated" in "methane farms", in case we "run out of methane" for our cars.

What stopped the (for example) automobile industry to adopt the CNG was the same reason which stopped it to become electric: impossibility (with actual technology) to store enough amount of energy in a given volume (comparable with the volume of a gasoline/diesel tank).

Fill in a gasoline tank and you go 600 kilometers. A lot of autonomy. If you ask me to refuel my tank every 50 km, you lost me, I would not buy your car.

Making a car battery to last 600km, with a reasonable volume, was not possible until very recently, and it is still prohibitive in price, and extremely pollutant (think about disposing aged batteries), and making a steel tank able to store so much methane, is not possible yet. If you find a way to store methane efficiently, you will be a billionaire next day.

Opposite to water and LPG, which have "polar" molecules and can be easily liquefied, methane (CNG) can not. It has a sturdy tetrahedral molecule, with hydrogens in all directions, which repel each other. Compressing is like putting millions of soap balloons that do not break and do not stick to each-other, in a triangular plastic bag.

But this is another subject I was repeatedly talking about...

Electric cars will never became so numerous, or at least, not in the near future, because is the physics that opposes, and not the administration. You can not "refill" the battery fast as you refill a gasoline tank, the actual materials do not allow it, new materials are needed. And even so, imagine you find the magic battery that you can charge in minutes, you need to put a lot of energy into it, to keep your car moving 600km, therefore imagine the thickness of the conductors when millions of cars are coming to the "pumps", nation-wide, during the "rush hours". They have to support millions and millions of amperes and be "yards" in diameters. Or a system of exchanging batteries must be invented, and supported by insurance companies, etc, that would not require me to give you my new battery because it is discharged, and get another one charged, but old. Car owners won't go for that, unless they do not own the battery at all.

Etc...

Need to go home... 6 PM here.

The problem with methane is that it does not neatly confine itself to our containers. Once those sandstone layers are fractured methane starts leaking. From wells to power plants is a long, very leaky journey.

How much benefit are we getting from methane burning if only half of it makes it to the boiler, and the other half goes into the atmosphere? Don't dismiss this possibility out of hand. Every new study, by anyone but the producers, reveals that much more is leaking than was previously thought.

[QUOTE=kladner;467162]The problem with methane is that it does not neatly confine itself to our containers. Once those sandstone layers are fractured methane starts leaking. From wells to power plants is a long, very leaky journey.

How much benefit are we getting from methane burning if only half of it makes it to the boiler, and the other half goes into the atmosphere? Don't dismiss this possibility out of hand. Every new study, by anyone but the producers, reveals that much more is leaking than was previously thought.[/QUOTE]

:goodposting:

I'd add that if it were true that plankton in the ocean were actually taking up man-made carbon dioxide, we wouldn't see the sharp rise in atmospheric CO2 that just happens to start with industrialization.

I was curious how much CO2 volcanoes contribute, especially as compared to people, and I found this article: [URL="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/06/06/how-much-co2-does-a-single-volcano-emit/"]https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/06/06/how-much-co2-does-a-single-volcano-emit/[/URL]

The TL;DR:
[QUOTE=Forbes]When you realize that volcanism contributes 645 million tons of CO2 per year – and it becomes clearer if you write it as 0.645 billion tons of CO2 per year – compared to humanity's 29 billion tons per year, it's overwhelmingly clear what's caused the carbon dioxide increase in Earth's atmosphere since 1750.

In fact, even if we include the rare, very large volcanic eruptions, like 1980's Mount St. Helens or 1991's Mount Pinatubo eruption, they only emitted 10 and 50 million tons of CO2 each, respectively. It would take three Mount St. Helens and one Mount Pinatubo eruption every day to equal the amount that humanity is presently emitting.[/QUOTE]

So it looks like humans produce far more CO2 (at least in recent times) than volcanic activity is responsible for.

[QUOTE=wombatman;467167]:goodposting:

I'd add that if it were true that plankton in the ocean were actually taking up man-made carbon dioxide, we wouldn't see the sharp rise in atmospheric CO2 that just happens to start with industrialization.

I was curious how much CO2 volcanoes contribute, especially as compared to people, and I found this article: [URL="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/06/06/how-much-co2-does-a-single-volcano-emit/"]https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/06/06/how-much-co2-does-a-single-volcano-emit/[/URL]

The TL;DR:


So it looks like humans produce far more CO2 (at least in recent times) than volcanic activity is responsible for.[/QUOTE]Aww, geez, there you go inserting facts into the discussion. :wink:

Nuclear! Nuclear! Newclear! Newclair!

I'm no expert, but I'm of the opinion that nuclear in some variety will replace coal plants as the "backbone" electrical source with a smattering of wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, and other renewables as dictated by region optimization.

[QUOTE=wombatman;467178]I'm no expert, but I'm of the opinion that nuclear in some variety will replace coal plants as the "backbone" electrical source with a smattering of wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, and other renewables as dictated by region optimization.[/QUOTE]

I will agree with you that coal is effectually dead. But even the traditional nuclear solutions are falling out of favour. Please see for example [URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/news/a28025/duke-energy-abandons-nuclear-plant-for-solar-farm/"]this recent article[/URL].

The issue in my mind is that uranium based power generation is incredibly dangerous; so many things can go wrong ***really*** quickly. And we still don't have a place to safely store the waste. In most economic analyses the cost of REALLY long term storage isn't factored in, nor the cost of safely decommissioning plants which have had a major accident (there have been three so far; Fukushima is now estimated to cost ~$188 billion USD).

The thorium cycle makes a lot of sense in many ways. It is worth noting that China is currently on the forefront of research in this space.

[QUOTE=chalsall;467185]I will agree with you that coal is effectually dead. But even the traditional nuclear solutions are falling out of favour. Please see for example [URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/news/a28025/duke-energy-abandons-nuclear-plant-for-solar-farm/"]this recent article[/URL].

The issue in my mind is that uranium based power generation is incredibly dangerous; so many things can go wrong ***really*** quickly. And we still don't have a place to safely store the waste. In most economic analyses the cost of REALLY long term storage isn't factored in, nor the cost of safely decommissioning plants which have had a major accident (there have been three so far; Fukushima is now estimated to cost ~$188 billion USD).

The thorium cycle makes a lot of sense in many ways. It is worth noting that China is currently on the forefront of research in this space.[/QUOTE]

Oh yeah, I'd be stunned if uranium-based wins out (at least longer term). I'm honestly excited to see what technologies are developed over the next few decades.

[QUOTE=LaurV;467152]Fill in a gasoline tank and you go 600 kilometers. A lot of autonomy. If you ask me to refuel my tank every 50 km, you lost me, I would not buy your car.[/QUOTE]

I have a lot of respect for you. But I fundamentally disagree with you on this point.

Modern electric cars have distance capacity in the 300 to 400 km range. Very *very* few people travel that far in a week.

Also, in a few years most people won't even bother to own cars; they will simply rent a vehicle or hire a ride (often without having to pay a human to drive). Similar to today where many organizations (and some indivuals) are moving to the "compute cloud" -- let someone else deal with the "kit", and rent when and only when you need it.

[QUOTE=chalsall;467195]Also, in a few years most people won't even bother to own cars; they will simply rent a vehicle or hire a ride (often without having to pay a human to drive). Similar to today where many organizations (and some indivuals) are moving to the "compute cloud" -- let someone else deal with the "kit", and rent when and only when you need it.[/QUOTE]Society as a Service.

But why bother with all the roads and cars and stuff when we can use the fibre cables to give us Reality as a Service. Reminds me of the movie "Surrogates", Experiences as a Service.

Life as a Service, if you forget to pay your bill you lose the service.

[QUOTE=retina;467200]But why bother with all the roads and cars and stuff when we can use the fibre cables to give us Reality as a Service.[/QUOTE]

Sometimes we still need to move atoms to do work, rather than simply moving bits to entertain.

I understand that your post was mostly a joke, but it still surprises me how few people consider walking, or riding a bike, to buy their groceries or to go and from their work.

And then I watch all the ads on the US of A channels offering a two-top pizza for something like 8 bucks (delivered), and an "all you can eat buffet" for something like 10 bucks.

And then we wonder why 1/3 of American adults, and 1/4 of American children, are obese -- not just overweight, but obese!

[QUOTE=chalsall;467205]... but it still surprises me how few people consider walking, or riding a bike, to buy their groceries or to go and from their work.[/QUOTE]It doesn't surprise me anymore. I've heard all the excuses imaginable. It's too hot. It's too cold. It might rain. It'd too dark. There might be an unexpected eclipse. I might get a puncture. I don't have time. I might get sunburn. Someone might rob me. Someone might steal my bike. The groceries are too heavy to carry. The extra travel time will melt all the cold things. I'll arrive all sweaty. etc. etc. etc. People looking for a way out will find one. Even the weakest of weak excuses is enough if they are determined enough.

I have often made the slightly less than a mile to my job on foot, and arrived at about the same time as the bus I would have waited for.

Then, too, I just now came up with a very conservative estimate of how much I walk at work. Assume that I walk 3 MPH, and that I spend 2 hours of my 7 hour shift walking, so I walk at least 6 miles. However, I walk faster than that, and I am probably walking for 4 or 5 of those hours.

One caveat about hot days and waiting for the bus. I am always sweaty at work. It is discouraging to arrive heated up and already soaked. :max:

[url]https://reddit.com/r/unexpectedfactorial[/url]

[QUOTE=kladner;467215]One caveat about hot days and waiting for the bus. I am always sweaty at work. It is discouraging to arrive heated up and already soaked. :max:[/QUOTE]

I hear you loud and clear.

I recently had a client which needed my help, and paid me well. I chose to walk to work, which involved climbing over 30 metres vertically and 2 km laterally.

I showed up for work drenched in sweat. Fortunately I had a change of clothes and could quickly get to work.