Phi for All

You know, the more I thought about it, the list of work that would be automated is what's wrong with this scenario. Before I could answer your questions, I think you'll have to ammend the list: stacking shelves: before they come up with a machine to stock shelves, they would probably get rid of the shelves altogether, delivering your pre-ordered goods right to your home. I've seen models of refrigerators that had a way to track what you took out of them for inventory control and sent out a grocery list to your supermarket at the end of the week. A delivery person dropped the food off in an outside chiller bin using a one-time key code and you stockeed your fridge up when you got home from work. driving buses: not until they come up with AI for vehicles that the insurance companies signed off on. Don't look for this in your lifetime. checkout clerks: they have automated checkout now and it's only used for quick purchases and still requires one person per 4 checkouts to supervize. call centres: there will always be a need for human contact somewhere along the line. Even people who are used to automated telecom operations run into problems there are no buttons for. security: nothing will ever replace people completely in the area of security. Period. cleaning: only if people stop collecting small things to put on display will automated cleaning ever be a reality. The only thing that could clean a modern home as well as a person is a robot built like a person. Building humanoid robots brings on a whole other set of problems. See Asimov. waiters: as long as people view meals as a chance to relax and eat well-prepared food, they will always want to be waited on. The personal touch of a really great waitperson can't be duplicated by a machine. fast food industry: here's your best bet yet. Just drive up, tilt your head back and let the machine squirt a glop of pre-chewed junk-food that tastes good into your mouth. Just swallow, drive away and get on with whatever was so important you couldn't take time out to eat decently. factory work: see Coquina's response above.

When I was in high school in the 70's, all the scientists were predicting that automation and technological advances would guarantee a 25-hour work week, we wouldn't need to spend hardly any time with home maintenance, etc. Guess what? None of it came true. If anything, we work even harder to afford all the technology, with most homes requiring two incomes working 40-55 hours per week. Advances in housekeeping haven't improved the time it takes to manage a household either. I remember a study done 20 years ago that showed that only the automatic washing machine and the vacuum cleaner have improved housekeeping since the beginning of the 20th century. All the fancy cleansers and products were just more expensive and did nothing to improve or automate the time it takes to keep house.

You originally said you were getting lazy. If you can see this, perhaps your parents fear it too. There is a very fine line between conservation of energy and laziness, and it has to do with motivation. It's one thing to use the least amount of effort possible to complete your tasks, and something else altogether when you procrastinate or neglect your responsibilities in favor of more fun pursuits. Perhaps you should pick one of those Bs and figure a way to turn it into an A if you can. To me, it sounds like you know you could get As, and it has nothing to do with your parents griping. That's just an excuse. If that's not the case, and a B is truly what you deserve, then be happy with that.

Really good point and I wish we would invest more into solar research. I think the main problem at this point is having no international coalition to work with it. When a single country, like the US, starts talking about beaming energy from space earthside, no one trusts us not to make military use of it.

Is your project limited to available technology? Research into microwave transmission of energy is difficult because of current international treaties limiting that line of technology (if you can beam energy effectively from space, who on the planet would be safe?). Umbilicals and space elevators are also theoretical at this point, but might prove to be a possibilty for efficient stored energy transmission. Here's a link I found: space elevator.

Jay Leno said last night on The Tonight Show that it was actually Camilla who suggested this but when she did, Charles was all ears.

I'm surprised more people don't bring up the fact that Bush Jr seems to think his dad did a pretty poor job. Flattening Iraq's WMD capability was one of Bush Sr's objectives in the Gulf War. Let's not forget that Bush Sr predicted catastrophe if we tried to depose Saddam Hussein. Even the Saudis thought it was better to devastate him but leave him in power so terrorism wouldn't gain a foothold there (among other reasons).

Funny, I took the test, even though I don't have trouble sleeping, and it told me I worry unneccesarily, but my neck size may be causing me to snore. It suggested I see a specialist about this since life-threatening illnesses could be present. I'm going to be up all night....

Brad Pitt's available, I hear. And he likes monkeys.

Neither your post nor your bio mention your age. You could be experiencing a growth phase if you are not mature physiologically. You don't mention if your dreams wake you up or not. Sometimes if I get woken up during the night a few times, even briefly, I feel it the next day. Personally I would avoid any kind of chemical fix like sleeping pills. Perhaps you could increase your exercise routine (not just before going to bed though), I've heard from many people that being more tired means sleeping sounder.

Oh, it's your parents?! GAH!! Don't you just hate it when parents love you and care about what happens to you? It's almost like they think they know you best or something....

I would suggest posting in the Psychology forum, but preface each thread with, "This is actually dealing with Sociology, but there is no separate forum, so...." Get some interesting threads going with a lot of varied members joining in and we'll probably see a sub-forum created. Lots of interest will speak volumes.

Let me step in here a moment us.2u, if you don't mind. No one here is implying anything is wrong with anyone's intelligence, education or articulation. There are all levels on these boards and the ones who make fun of others get smacked down, hard. Or banned. I fear that I might have started a bad tone in an earlier post of mine (which I deleted later) when I asked you if you wanted me to close the thread after Coquina agreed with you. You had said, "Well, I guess that sums it up!" and I made an un-witty comment about preserving your theory. For that I apologize. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, not foot-in-mouth. AzurePhoenix is a good member here and doesn't belittle anyone. Keep your thread topic clear, you're doing fine, backing yourself up with solid evidence and you are definitely holding your own here. Let's stay on topic.

You're looking to put a quantitative measure (maximum) to an unquantifiable concept (knowledge). There is no way to immediately test whether or not your most recent piece of knowledge displaced some piece learned at an earlier point in life. Is this what you're getting at, or were you asking if anyone has ever reached maximum and then been unable to learn a single thing more? There is also no storage unit of measurement for the brain that I know of. Bytes work for computer storage, but not for the brain. There are intelligence quotients and memory quotients, but no encapsulating knowledge quotients that take everything into account.

I think you realize no one but you can do this. As ramin said, hold yourself accountable. Things and other people are only temporary motivation. Motivate from within, otherwise you'll always be looking for others to motivate you. If you're happy with yourself, you can be happy anywhere with nothing BUT yourself. Then things and people can come and go, but you'll still be motivated and happy. And no, I'm not going to put a damn smiley face on this. It'll be hard, but you're smart and tough and you can do it.

One of the best places to observe this is when we are driving, set apart in a microcosm where we're the sole inhabitant. We assume everyone else is either a horrible driver, a drunk, an inconsiderate prig, a rich a**hole, a consummate imbecile, a doddering ancient or a road rage warrior. But if WE cut someone off, or tailgate because we're in a hurry, that's completely different....

I'm not optimistic about him doing much more than looking when I hear he quotes spending increases based on what Congress approved, rather than on the amounts actually spent due to his discretionary powers. He's waving figures about that he's not entitled to since he's hiding the real numbers with the other hand.

So everything non-biological is included in that "etc"? My mistake, never mind, I'll shut up now. *edit* How about the contents of the stomach? Nigerian food, lack of anything comestible from the UK, could that help?

"A Nigerian man, newly arrived in the UK...." This part could be determined by currency from Nigeria in the victim's possession, indicating country of origin and the fact that he hadn't time to convert to British currency yet. No thief/murderer from the EU would balk at taking foreign currency along with any pound notes the victim might have had.

I never gave Enterprise mush of a chance. I saw one episode, lost most of a good dinner and called it quits. I'm a fan of Live long and prosper, but not for that show. Stuff Monkey = a pack rat, one who keeps things indefinitely. Stuffed Monkey = a plush toy, usually kept on a girl's bed. Stuffy Monkey = a Brit with a head cold; a ninjutsu ryu.

I think this thread needs to be moved to the "Only Post IF You Agree With Me" Forum, which I'm advising Administration we create immediately.

This would make some other forums I've seen a much quicker read.

I find the intelligence required to turn on a computer, log onto the internet and navigate to this site to be sufficient. In most cases. Are you suggesting that everyone be a rocket scientist or just a scientist, ROCKET?

If this were the present case, you would get no opposition from me. If we were to defend ourselves while diplomacy shows our good intentions to the rest of the Islamic world, the heat of fanaticism would die and Al Qaeda would be hard-pressed to find a following. Taking the offensive into Iraq and being so brutal about it may make some folks at home proud but it only adds fuel to an already raging inferno over there.

What, you can't throw a piece of straw that high, Mr. Muscles?