tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7408927053520284487..comments2024-03-27T23:12:08.917-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: On Deep Time... SETI... the Neolithic... immortality... and science!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43974556114757353622015-02-10T18:53:12.059-08:002015-02-10T18:53:12.059-08:00Re bird kill and wind power
Its not a big problem...Re bird kill and wind power<br /><br />Its not a big problem NOW<br />The early wind machines used lattice work towers <br />When the blades were stationary birds would perch on them<br />When it all started spinning they would be disorientated and fly into the blades<br /><br />Modern wind machines are designed so that there is nowhere to perch<br />When its stationary - nowhere to perch<br />When its going - birds give it a wide berth<br /><br />The present numbers are about the same as any building of the same size<br /><br />Not so sure about batsDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-7450933939507918882015-02-10T18:01:33.623-08:002015-02-10T18:01:33.623-08:00Onwards, except...
Cats and dogs: I agree in gener...Onwards, except...<br />Cats and dogs: I agree in general, but have met affectionate cats and sociopathic dogs.<br />Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51621104352637261842015-02-10T16:04:30.876-08:002015-02-10T16:04:30.876-08:00onwardonwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51743023349016304592015-02-10T15:43:32.403-08:002015-02-10T15:43:32.403-08:00We won't need to resort to robots.
Rats make ...We won't need to resort to robots.<br /><br />Rats make wonderful pets (albeit a bit messy).<br /><br />And you <i>know</i> that they'll outlast us. :)A.F. Reynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43099545214132037152015-02-10T15:25:15.374-08:002015-02-10T15:25:15.374-08:00The difference between dogs and cats, is that dogs...The difference between dogs and cats, is that dogs were domesticated at least 30,000 years ago, when our ancestors were still mainly hunters. Cats only became useful domesticates when we started transitioning to agriculture and needed help protecting stored foods from much smaller pests. I'm sure in another 10- or 20-thousand years cats will be just as codependent on humans as dogs are now. Or maybe we'll replace all life on Earth with nothing but our own fecundity and our new pets will be robots.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15406148121077985422015-02-10T14:49:43.004-08:002015-02-10T14:49:43.004-08:00"I find they make a decent business deal, whe..."<i>I find they make a decent business deal, when you are prepared to enforce it</i>"<br /><br />I much prefer Dogs' deal: their genuine, <a href="http://mic.com/articles/104474/brain-scans-reveal-what-dogs-really-think-of-us" rel="nofollow">scientifically proven</a> love in exchange of ours.Laurent Weppenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64893753411588456312015-02-10T14:00:13.312-08:002015-02-10T14:00:13.312-08:00Sociopathic, yes. But I find they make a decent bu...Sociopathic, yes. But I find they make a decent business deal, when you are prepared to enforce it. Cat will purr and lower your blood pressure and feign "love" for you, in return for insatiable fur-scratching. A fair deal. But the widespread hallucination that they actually LIKE us? Yeesh. Gullibility thy name is human.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91846056140898079182015-02-10T12:57:47.996-08:002015-02-10T12:57:47.996-08:00@ Alex Tolley
I'm actually allergic to the cr...@ Alex Tolley<br /><br />I'm actually allergic to the critters. It's gotten better now, but when I was a kid, sleeping in a room were a cat was days before could give me heavy asthma boots which drove me very close to death by suffocation.<br /><br />Also, cats are clearly sociopathic bastards: fact.Laurent Weppenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2131379788782639612015-02-10T12:33:49.870-08:002015-02-10T12:33:49.870-08:00@Laurent - not a welcomer of our feline overlords,...@Laurent - not a welcomer of our feline overlords, nor even a cat person. Or you simply haven't been infected by Toxoplasmosis. :)Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91549626861356395312015-02-10T12:16:53.315-08:002015-02-10T12:16:53.315-08:00"Cats are possibly even more deadly"
Ca..."<i>Cats are possibly even more deadly</i>"<br /><br />Cats are evil hellspawn whose existence is fully dedicated to making other living beings suffer as much as possible.Laurent Weppenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-3444882757357660022015-02-10T11:20:33.604-08:002015-02-10T11:20:33.604-08:00@Jumper - always good to put problems in perspecti...@Jumper - always good to put problems in perspective. <br /><br />Cats are possibly even more deadly: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cats-kill-more-one-billion-birds-each-year <br /><br />It is really irritating when the anti-renewables folks claim a small number of windmill or solar thermal power plants kill birds (the horror), when vast numbers are killed by other means, not to mention by hunters.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28747613478954698542015-02-10T11:07:44.861-08:002015-02-10T11:07:44.861-08:00For comparison and proportionality:
http://en.wiki...For comparison and proportionality:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-skyscraper_collisionsJumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-42770038879176767892015-02-10T07:41:08.315-08:002015-02-10T07:41:08.315-08:00SteveO -
Google "speed of a diving falcon&q...SteveO - <br /><br />Google "speed of a diving falcon"...<br /><br />If a painting isn't enough, mount a realistic model on the end of the blade.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71801703856079141842015-02-10T07:13:00.519-08:002015-02-10T07:13:00.519-08:00Anonymous,
Those blades move really fast. (IIRC 2...Anonymous,<br /><br />Those blades move really fast. (IIRC 200 mph at the tips) Painting things on them is not likely to be effective. Not sure birds see things that way anyway.<br /><br />Options for bats and birds do include sound deterrence:<br />http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-ways-to-keep-bats-away-from-wind-turbines/<br /><br />http://grist.org/climate-energy/for-the-birds-and-the-bats-8-ways-wind-power-companies-are-trying-to-prevent-deadly-collisions/SteveOnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25764397764339115262015-02-10T07:03:11.786-08:002015-02-10T07:03:11.786-08:00Has anyone tried painting realistic images of divi...Has anyone tried painting realistic images of diving raptors on the blades of wind towers, to perhaps scare away smaller birds and establish territory to keep out other raptors, reducing bird kills? <br /><br />Not sure what you'd do about bats - something with sound?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50979257703741829082015-02-09T22:27:30.597-08:002015-02-09T22:27:30.597-08:00There are still many technical problems with trans...There are still many technical problems with transgenic pigs, but progress in genomics is moving with remarkable speed.<br /><br />There is no reason, however, that a transgenic pig could not be made with the immune system, heart, liver and kidneys matched to a particular human individual's DNA. There is no reason to give a transgenic pig the DNA of a random generic human.<br /><br />Research transgenic animals generally have random generic human DNA, but that is because they are not intended for treatment of a specific individual human.<br /><br />Domestic pigs mature enough within about nine months of the time they are a fertilized ovum to be useful for either organ transplantation or dialysis. Disorders like kidney failure often come on faster than this, but mechanical dialysis could be used to keep the patient alive during the interim.<br /><br />Jerry Emanuelsonhttp://www.futurescience.com/je.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57369629321309197992015-02-09T17:33:53.446-08:002015-02-09T17:33:53.446-08:00The trick with the transgenic pigs is probably goi...The trick with the transgenic pigs is probably going to be difficult to scale-up for all the ways some of us suffer kidney damage. Mine comes as a consequence of an auto-immune disorder. I got a lot of functionality back after the cell slaughter that is modern chemo therapy, but I learned there is a lot of unknown territory when it comes to predicting what a human immune system will do. It struck me as almost as difficult as predicting what a human nervous system does.<br /><br />I suspect the pig will have to be specially tailored for many, many of us or our own immune systems will kill it in short order.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91545034869102500342015-02-09T13:02:19.066-08:002015-02-09T13:02:19.066-08:00In the interests of staying mentally flexible I re...In the interests of staying mentally flexible I regularly visit sites that are a little to either side of me politically.<br /><br />A non political post from an outfit that most of you would argue with in politics but agree that we should not mess with the Monoliths!<br /><br />http://www.gormogons.com/index.php/2015/02/listen-damn-monolith/<br /><br />TacitusTacitushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17007086196578740689noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17064262197848505322015-02-09T12:26:24.470-08:002015-02-09T12:26:24.470-08:00You misunderstand, when we say "hairy", ...You misunderstand, when we say "hairy", we <i>mean</i> hairy.<br /><br />There's two inches behind my wrist, and from my elbow under my upper-arm. That's it.<br /><br />Hell, add the palms of my hands, the bottoms of my feet, a few patches on my upper face, most of my ears, maybe a one inch wide band around the front of my neck. And my penis.<br /><br /><i>All</i> the rest is hair.<br /><br />Oh, except a small patch at the very top/back, of my skull. {sigh}<br /><br />Evolution? Never a doubt.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-73785107183756798372015-02-09T12:19:28.183-08:002015-02-09T12:19:28.183-08:00Hi Steve
I was assuming I would use the underside
...Hi Steve<br />I was assuming I would use the underside<br />I will still need to shave it! Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57838677446636874392015-02-09T11:10:36.671-08:002015-02-09T11:10:36.671-08:00For you hairy-armed guys (and gals?)...use the und...For you hairy-armed guys (and gals?)...use the underside of your arm, not the hairy side. Sheesh! ;-)SteveOnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87741308238271559252015-02-09T06:28:47.888-08:002015-02-09T06:28:47.888-08:00Long sleeves in plain, light colors. Tells you som...Long sleeves in plain, light colors. Tells you something about the t-levels of the techies who came up with it. I'm assuming they'll make it in other colors besides that ugly orange.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78541098747830288782015-02-08T23:38:58.166-08:002015-02-08T23:38:58.166-08:00"I'm afraid my arms would be a bit too ha..."I'm afraid my arms would be a bit too hairy for that bracelet to work well for me."<br /><br />Me too!<br />You would be able to tell the men who owned those by the shaved forarmsDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57145132929549790952015-02-08T21:29:59.070-08:002015-02-08T21:29:59.070-08:00I'm afraid my arms would be a bit too hairy fo...I'm afraid my arms would be a bit too hairy for that bracelet to work well for me.<br /><br />Years ago, though, I used to imagine using my flip-phone as a mouse while it projected a display on the wall in front of me and a keyboard on the desk or table.John's Secret Identity™https://www.blogger.com/profile/03415668996117415753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55853726967365918322015-02-08T18:28:27.243-08:002015-02-08T18:28:27.243-08:00Laurent, you said "Unless our western democra...Laurent, you said "Unless our western democracies collapse and end up being replaced by fascistic corpocracies, in which case, such process may become similar to Voltaire's Droit du Seigneur: not technically legal, but happening in societies where the upper-class' impunity is so high that it boils down to the same." <br />We're getting there already, without our governments collapsing, they are simply being corrupted by the major players in the money game - the international corporations. <br /><br />Jerry, I completely agree that genetic engineering is something that needs much more work, as well as much more scrutiny. Most people seem to be terrified of it, yet in decades of it there has yet to be a Frankenstein's monster or Island of Doctor Morreau. Few realise how many people are alive today because of medicines manufactured by transgenic bacteria, or how many would starve because the human population has once again exceeded the carrying capacity without advances in technology. <br /><br />However, I suspect that the pig thing will not go down so easily, not for another generation or so, at least. One of the largest religious traditions in the world considers pigs to be categorically unclean, and the one of its three branches that has no problem eating pigs still tends to not think of them very highly except on pizza. Humans have had pig hearts transplanted into them, but huge numbers of people resist such things pretty strenuously.<br /> Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.com