tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post8383860348122555256..comments2024-03-29T06:22:47.638-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Looking ahead... Science news, predictions and more... including lasers!David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55260354074901405882019-03-16T20:25:40.105-07:002019-03-16T20:25:40.105-07:00Are you tired of being human, having talented brai...Are you tired of being human, having talented brain turning to a vampire in a good posture in ten minutes, Do you want to have power and influence over others, To be charming and desirable, To have wealth, health, without delaying in a good human posture and becoming an immortal? If yes, these your chance. It's a world of vampire where life get easier,We have made so many persons vampires and have turned them rich, You will assured long life and prosperity, You shall be made to be very sensitive to mental alertness, Stronger and also very fast, You will not be restricted to walking at night only even at the very middle of broad day light you will be made to walk, This is an opportunity to have the human vampire virus to perform in a good posture. If you are interested contact us on Vampirelord7878@gmail.com<br /> Or Add up on Whats-app +233248104710Lord Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08802168788305626209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74856038518037010622019-03-13T15:50:09.496-07:002019-03-13T15:50:09.496-07:00The problem with storing energy as heat - especial...The problem with storing energy as heat - especially low temperature heat - is that the energy is not very useful<br />Storing as electricity gives a much much more useful energy<br /><br />At 100C if I convert to electricity I will get less than 15% efficiency - so I need to store 6 times as much electricity<br /><br />Also a modern lithium battery has little or no self discharge - unlike a heat store which will always leak heat<br /><br />Batteries are more expensive just now but I am expecting them to be getting close to the materials cost in a few more years and that is about $10/kWh<br /><br /> duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72598814383798302112019-03-13T14:59:50.029-07:002019-03-13T14:59:50.029-07:00With Facebook collapse, I need your help publicizi...With Facebook collapse, I need your help publicizing that it is onward time!<br /><br />onward.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38655784684634297622019-03-13T12:13:21.779-07:002019-03-13T12:13:21.779-07:00Ratio,
With one charge/ discharge cycle per year, ...Ratio,<br />With one charge/ discharge cycle per year, it will take more than the average life span (100 years) to reach the point in which the cost of the raw materials for the guts of heat battery is equal to the cost of the energy it is storing.<br /><br />I can get a ~500 kilos of sand for 10 dollars and if I bring that material up to 95C I am storing about 10,000 Watt hours worth of energy. <br /><br />(Sure, you loose some energy form heat conduction but insulation is cheep, a big well insulated box is much simpler, way cheaper, and more environmentally friendly than a giant tank of expensive (maybe dangerous) chemicals.)jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07865068658069680309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52625470069110550242019-03-13T10:09:58.808-07:002019-03-13T10:09:58.808-07:00Alfred Differ,
It seems that the development if c...Alfred Differ,<br /><br />It seems that the development if children is to first play with parents, then play with themselves, then play parallel to others. Then finally to play with others. This is a bit separate from their preference for playing where other people are.<br /><br />The current curriculum for US Soccer also has those sorts of phases. At the youngest, it's 'me and my ball'. Then, 'me and my friend and my ball'. Well before 'me and my team and my ball'.<br /><br />As for people disliking themselves, isn't that part of what drives improvement?<br /><br />As for 'others like me', I've never really bought that one, but then I was an introverted nerd. I didn't consider even what few friends I had to be 'like me'. As well, I've always found very funny the idea of having to have teachers who look like their students to be any indicator of success. My elementary school teachers were uniformly unmarried old women. I didn't know anyone like that at all and it never seemed to affect my ability to learn.<br /><br />And I'm pretty sure from direct observation that my children were themselves before they even interacted with peers. And continue to be so.<br /><br />One thing that shows some maturity in children is when they start updating their mental model of someone in absentia of personal contact with that person.<br /><br />Any methodology taken to religious extremes fails. There Is No Silver Bullet.<br /><br />jim,<br /><br />So you only have to be able to charge/discharge 100 times to get your money back? Cool.<br /><br />As for takeover weaponry, I assume takeover is different than exterminate. Therefore, the most effective is being able to look and act like us combined with enough intelligence to figure out how to get to the top of the heap. That's been used several times.<br /><br />I do recall a story where the aliens attempted to infiltrate humanity. They wanted to stay anonymous, so they made their agent as least likely to be noticed as possible. Therefore female. Therefore looking exactly as the statistical averages indicates. Unfortunately for the aliens, such a construct was considered to be the height of beauty in pretty much every culture, which kind of blew the anonymous part.<br /><br />And in the Art Linkletter department, I was walking my daughter to the school bus stop today, and remarked on the current snow level. I said we might have a lot of mosquitoes this year because of the amount of water. She said that people would then buy a lot of bug spray and that might drive the price of bug spray up. Remember, she's in 4th grade. I need to keep moving to stay ahead of her! Fortunately for me, as I'm unlikely to be able to buy my way into good test scores or athletic resumes. Or buy buildings or professors.raitonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-49774316212068033692019-03-13T09:34:53.620-07:002019-03-13T09:34:53.620-07:00I looked into the heat storing molecule.
It is ver...I looked into the heat storing molecule.<br />It is very interesting in terms of chemistry, but I don't see how it will be a useful technology for handling the enormous problem of seasonal variability for solar (at higher latitudes).<br /><br />You can store 155 Watt hours per kilo with this material.<br />That means you would need about 6.5 kilos of this stuff to store 0.10$ worth of electricity (a kilowatt hour). 6.5 kilos of that stuff today will cost you probably a lot more that 100$ but with a lot of optimization and a huge volume for the material you might be able to get that cost down to ~10 dollars for the 6.5 kilos. So (at best) it is ~ 10 dollars chemicals to store 10 cents worth of energy.<br /><br />That would just be a really expensive way to store heat. I am sure I can do way better with big well insulated box of wet sand and gravel. jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07865068658069680309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76043940185494512732019-03-13T06:14:46.545-07:002019-03-13T06:14:46.545-07:00Dr Brin:
Actually, a good version of the ent'...Dr Brin:<br /><i><br />Actually, a good version of the ent's absurd troglodytism is to only "do" e-stuff the first half hour of every hour. And the 3rd quarter hour you can work at the computer but have no interactions. And the 4th quarter to stand up and do real world things. I find it hard to believe anyone would be that disciplines, but it is probably the ratio that makes sense and that will be healthy and that PROVES you have some discipline.<br /></i><br /><br />I don't want to sound like one of those people who proudly announces "I never watch television (except for my appointment viewing of "American Idol" or "Game of Thrones"). But the fact is, while I was a television addict in the 70s, nothing on tv tempts me any more. And while, like most people now, I have a smartphone, I don't walk around all day checking apps. The app I use the most is the one for viewing the weather forecast. Otherwise, I call or text people when I need to contact them, and that's about it. I'm not on Facebook or Twitter because I don't trust those platforms with personal information, and luckily, my name is so common that if you Google me, you'll likely not be finding me, but someone else of that name. :)<br /><br />I'm not out of touch. I do follow news on tv, newspapers, and yes, on-line. I wouldn't have awakened six months after the fact to be surprised by the travesty in the White House. But I always do find it amusing when someone pontificates about how we really should wean ourselves from our tech addictions, but of course no one ever will do so, because how could you live without Facebook? It's not that hard.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91166890241363746622019-03-13T04:14:14.960-07:002019-03-13T04:14:14.960-07:00Re: Aphantasia
There have been many #jokelists on ...Re: Aphantasia<br />There have been many #jokelists on Twitter/FB over the years such as #WorstDisneyMovieEver, #WorstBookEver, #WorstBookTitleEver, etc, etc.<br />My two contributions to #MostDisappointingBook were: "Aye, Rowboat" and "Neuromincer"<br /><br />Re: Haskell & Forth<br />The problems of too much in the clouds and not scaling up are only issues if one tries to proceed to the middle. Maintaining the duality is more interesting.<br />Mike Willhttp://scidata.canoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-3347474122602396102019-03-12T23:51:55.548-07:002019-03-12T23:51:55.548-07:00>> Mike Will said...
\\If one can hold both ...>> Mike Will said...<br />\\If one can hold both the Stratos-dwelling art of Haskell/Scala and the RNA-crunching machinery of Forth together in their mind...<br /><br />Problem is... that "stratos-dwelling art" tend to remain in stratos only (and I'm not about clouds here ;)). Like that soup of sand salmon. :))<br />And "machinery" have big problems when someone tries to scale it up.<br /><br />\\"Aphantasia" - worst Disney movie ever.<br /><br />Is it pun? Joke? As I recall that was "Fantasia".<br /><br /><br />>> Tim Wolter said...<br />\\The classic examples of course are any ray guns in the Star Wars, Stargate, Star Trek genre...<br /><br />Well. Stargate have plausibility denial, properly verbalized in one of series. That weapon of goaulds... is for show, and for terror.<br /><br />While, yep, blaster with 3 barrels can kill any jedi... even Joda. :) If he'd try to block instead of evade.<br />Well, except if the whole SW Universe is 2D one. :)))<br /><br />\\Anybody want to nominate the most plausible alien take over weaponry?<br /><br />By no means. It's vanity. Like in that serial where nasty reptiloids came disgusted as proper white men...<br /><br /><br />>> Tony Fisk said...<br />\\The Centauri's use of mass drivers against the Narn homeworld (Babylon 5: "Long, Twilight Struggle") was portrayed as a war crime, although nothing much came of that.<br /><br />Genocidal level of kills and making all planet desert... well, yeah, nothing much.(like that Syria bombing... for reference)<br /><br />And yeah, that comment about tripds... looks awefully like our ukrainian story of Crimea and DLNR takeout.<br /><br /><br />>> Larry Hart said...<br />\\Maybe they even try to undermine our confidence by convincing us that we don't exist. :)<br /><br />That one was hillarious. But it is very sad killarity.<br /><br />Well. Let me show some of XXI thinking here.<br />We can understand/remember nothing, except in its relations to other things.<br />And when you start to understand that relations matter, you start to care that they'd be as correct as possible.<br /><br />And on the contrary. The fewer things you know, the more tend to concentrate on That One Thing. That way, beliefs in "absolute truthes" emerges.<br /><br /><br />>> Treebeard said...<br /><br />TiBi, its just fallback mechanism for "old true" stuff.<br />Why do you think novice memes are bad, while old ones... good??? :)<br />It's like proposal to exchange nowadays "bad-bad,ugly" AIDS... for "old good" bubonic plague. ;)<br /><br />\\And despite the snarkiness, who are you and what have you done with that terminally loony-traitor grouch we normally see here?<br /><br />And why you didn't feel that smell... :) t-s-s, that is the big secret.progressbotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67418813836786540312019-03-12T21:49:28.929-07:002019-03-12T21:49:28.929-07:00Actually, a good version of the ent's absurd t...Actually, a good version of the ent's absurd troglodytism is to only "do" e-stuff the first half hour of every hour. And the 3rd quarter hour you can work at the computer but have no interactions. And the 4th quarter to stand up and do real world things. I find it hard to believe anyone would be that disciplines, but it is probably the ratio that makes sense and that will be healthy and that PROVES you have some discipline.<br /><br />And despite the snarkiness, who are you and what have you done with that terminally loony-traitor grouch we normally see here?<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-91795113971436124992019-03-12T18:29:47.219-07:002019-03-12T18:29:47.219-07:00The Centauri's use of mass drivers against the...The Centauri's use of mass drivers against the Narn homeworld (Babylon 5: "Long, Twilight Struggle") was portrayed as a war crime, although nothing much came of that.Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44451581089052254762019-03-12T18:17:12.240-07:002019-03-12T18:17:12.240-07:00Tony Fisk:
I think the weakest aspect of mass min...Tony Fisk:<br /><i><br />I think the weakest aspect of mass mind control is how aliens manage to obtain a detailed understanding of the human psyche.<br /></i><br /><br />These days, the answer is painfully obvious. They visit on-line sites like this one and take careful notes. They obviously have some trouble with the local languages and customs, but that can be passed off by pretending to be from a non-English-speaking <b>country</b>.<br /><br />Maybe they even try to undermine our confidence by convincing us that we don't exist. :)<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74318574887685582392019-03-12T18:13:32.295-07:002019-03-12T18:13:32.295-07:00Tony Fisk:
For an admittedly whimisical bit of sc...Tony Fisk:<br /><i><br />For an admittedly whimisical bit of sci-fi, I have to say this all sounds eerily like current affairs (even the name is uncomfortably close to the mark! Hail the Trumpod?).<br /></i><br /><br />I can totally believe that MAGA hats perpetrate mind control. Maybe they work like Asimov's visi-sonor, amplifying Benedict Donald's "Mule" powers.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83694409324516514662019-03-12T16:58:42.820-07:002019-03-12T16:58:42.820-07:00Re-The aliens come and take over
The only one tha...Re-The aliens come and take over<br /><br />The only one that has humans with a "plausible" chance of winning is David Webers "Out of the Dark"<br /><br />And that "plausible" chance is NOT very Plausible! - In this case a spoiler would really work to spoil the book <br /><br />Any situation where the aliens own the high orbitals humans are sunk - a single unarmed freighter from Star Wars could conquer the earthduncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-29247235727884266192019-03-12T16:21:41.476-07:002019-03-12T16:21:41.476-07:00Raito,
Ah. Got it. The caching capability of prox...Raito,<br /><br />Ah. Got it. The caching capability of proxies looks a lot like what I was imagining even with null results. I’d still be tempted to stick to ‘instance’ as a term, though, because it’s implemented on the same hardware and if the person doing it dislikes themselves enough, there is a risk of personality bifurcation. What was once a copy could potentially take over? There is also the question of just how much of a person a toddler is before they’ve had a chance to aggregate low-fidelity copies of friends. I’ve seen an interesting argument that a toddler’s personality IS the aggregate and this continues until the rate of accretion cannot swamp the aggregate… roughly age seven but maybe earlier. Think about when children develop a sense of ‘others like me’. That’s the guess expressed in the argument. Anyway, I thought the OOP terminology was sorta useful if not taken to religious extremes, much like the ‘brain as computer’ analogy is. The brain computes, but not like a machine with registers and such.<br /><br />I found OOP stuff to be more useful when doing physics, though it is a pain to find and encode all the assumed behaviors of particles. Physicists are awful lazy at times. Our papers look mathematical, but most of the meaning to encode isn’t written in the mathematics language. The written and unwritten natural language text nearby matters a great deal. It’s bugged me for ages that software developers have to acquire too much of a physics education to use OOP safely. Physicists should have written this stuff out already and keep up the libraries. What I’ve seen is weak and disjointed because the problems and theories are written in a disjointed, multi-language manner.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87997031203052220532019-03-12T16:12:09.930-07:002019-03-12T16:12:09.930-07:00Plausible alien take over weaponry?
John Christop...Plausible alien take over weaponry?<br /><br />John Christopher (aka Sam Youd) got a bit nettled by Brian Aldiss' critique of his YA Tripod books. Yes, he said, of *course* the tripods were no match for earth-based weaponry. The Masters' strategy was a lot more subtle. Christopher alluded to it in "The City of Gold and Lead, but later decided to give it the full treatment in a prequel "When the Tripods Came".<br /><br />There is a schoolyard game (I call it "Rover") where a mass of children race from one end of the yard to the other. The single catcher is joined by one, then two, and so on until, quite suddenly, the mass of runners is reduced to a a couple of holdouts.<br /><br />It started with "the Tripod Show", a seemingly innocuous parody of the ridiculous aliens who had recently attempted to conquer the Earth with three ludicrous craft. It proved to be a runaway success, with thousands, hundreds of thousands, glued to their afternoon TVs. Clubs formed. Movements. Cults dedicated to the simpler lifestyle advocated in the show.<br /><br />By the time it was realised that "Hailing the Tripod" was more sinister than a mere Doctor Who fad, a sizable fraction of the population from all walks had fallen under its sway. Masses flocked to protect the tripods when they next appeared. Governments and the military were compromised. The issue of the hallmark baseball "caps" provided the Masters with a more powerful and nuanced control than the crude subliminal techniques employed up until then. The capped could also be more proactive in subjugating the rest of Humanity. Thus the world fell.<br /><br />For an admittedly whimisical bit of sci-fi, I have to say this all sounds eerily like current affairs (even the name is uncomfortably close to the mark! Hail the Trumpod?).<br /><br />It's basically the SF version of zombie apocalypse, and there are plenty of other SF tales that use the idea (eg The Puppet Masters). I think the weakest aspect of mass mind control is how aliens manage to obtain a detailed understanding of the human psyche. (Is this evidence that Putin is not an alien? ;-)Tony Fiskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14578160528746657971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36819814927028899442019-03-12T15:20:40.003-07:002019-03-12T15:20:40.003-07:00Anybody want to nominate the most plausible alien ...Anybody want to nominate the most plausible alien take over weaponry? <br /><br />If I get to assume the enemy has had time to research us and intends take over instead of genocide, I'd argue for a biological editor like a virus. The result should be something we like, though, along with something that enables easily putting us to sleep or makes us temporarily docile. If the leading edge experience involved heightened orgasms, we'd probably self-infect enough of the population to make the hold-outs rather powerless when our masters actually showed up. Something as simple as enabling a guy to go multiple rounds each night would probably do the trick too, so I imagine something that messed with us hormonally.<br /><br />If genocide is the plan, but they want to keep the world and most of its biosphere, the 'viral' agent should obviously attack our domesticated crops. What should be equally obvious is that we shouldn't be writing a bunch of how-to material for people to use to make this happen. 8)Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90792323975745577692019-03-12T15:17:50.218-07:002019-03-12T15:17:50.218-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83052064640530679522019-03-12T14:34:17.255-07:002019-03-12T14:34:17.255-07:00Footfall!
With the Unlikely Elephants ;-)
I thin...Footfall!<br /><br />With the Unlikely Elephants ;-)<br /><br />I think the impact of the Foot was very underplayed in the novel, it should have been much worse. <br /><br />And I couldn't keep my disbelief suspended for the aliens. Their society was reasonably interesting, with internal tensions, but it didn't get more than two-dimensional for me.<br /><br />I liked the flight of the Orion best in the whole book.Twomindshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03406691129776855720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64179652895274672032019-03-12T14:22:51.835-07:002019-03-12T14:22:51.835-07:00Jon S:
If we're still Earth-bound, rocks. Not...Jon S:<br /><i><br />If we're still Earth-bound, rocks. Nothing like the Dinosaur Killer, just a few dozen tons dropped from space onto major targets like national capitols,<br /></i><br /><br />You're old enough to remember "Space Invaders", right?Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2916928137920392732019-03-12T14:21:28.369-07:002019-03-12T14:21:28.369-07:00A.F. Rey:
I would have come back to find Donald T...A.F. Rey:<br /><i><br />I would have come back to find Donald Trump president!<br /></i><br /><br />The secret is not coming back. Just as the cure for hangovers is "not sobering up".Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59905007399774345092019-03-12T13:16:52.335-07:002019-03-12T13:16:52.335-07:00"Anybody want to nominate the most plausible ...<i>"Anybody want to nominate the most plausible alien take over weaponry?"</i><br /><br />If we're still Earth-bound, rocks. Nothing like the Dinosaur Killer, just a few dozen tons dropped from space onto major targets like national capitols, then an announcement that unless we capitulate pretty doggone chop-chop (the aliens were watching old movies from Earth on the way in) the strikes will continue.<br /><br />As for lightsabers, my personal favorite weapon to defeat a Force-wielder is an automatic shotgun loaded with buckshot. Lots of luck deflecting all those pellets, my space-wizard friend!Jon S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13585842845661267920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-681091432944447322019-03-12T13:06:15.858-07:002019-03-12T13:06:15.858-07:00What I find worrisome about the Treebeard Challeng...What I find worrisome about the Treebeard Challenge is that if I had started it in Mid-May of 2016, I would have come back to find Donald Trump president! :o<br /><br />I'm not sure we can spare 6 months these days.A.F. Reyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08102355714883828348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60109230576465996692019-03-12T10:14:36.326-07:002019-03-12T10:14:36.326-07:00No snark, but the Treebeard Challenge is how I liv...No snark, but the Treebeard Challenge is how I live anyway.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18722658431559030182019-03-12T09:50:20.298-07:002019-03-12T09:50:20.298-07:00The easiest way to defeat the outrage industry, th...The easiest way to defeat the outrage industry, the culture, language and meme engineers, the product pushers, and other assorted pathologies that pass for mass culture in Ozmerica, is simply to tune them all out. Don't let the Wizard get a vector into your mind. That means no TV, no movies, no news, no facebook, and restrict your internet use to a few high quality blogs and youtube channels. Read books, spend time outside, and create your own culture instead of being a passive consumer of other people's fake culture. The Treebeard Challenge is to try this for six months, and see if your mental state improves, and if you feel you are missing out on anything, compared to what you have gained.Treebeardnoreply@blogger.com