CaptainPanic

No, the supermarkets just (legally) employ 16-year-olds, whose minimum wage is significantly lower than that of adults.

If all robots are owned by a few large corporations (which is quite likely) they already have a union. Except in their case, their union is a large corporate organisation, and the union leader of the CEO of that corporation. But they most definitely have a since organisation representing them! More generally: Of course jobs get automated. Just like most conveyor belt jobs and phone operators connecting the lines were already automated, some other jobs will be automated too. For example, car drivers (taxi, truck, or private drivers) may be automated. All those jobs lost in the past did not lead to unemployment... and future automation will not lead to unemployment either. But you will need a good education to remain of value for the economy, and to ensure a good income for yourself. In the end, it is a simple matter of costs: people cost a certain amount of money, and so does a robot. Robots do not need a salary, but their initial purchase cost may be high, and in some cases maintenance can be costly too. And don't forget that people can be really cheap. Self-checkouts in supermarkets have existed for about a decade how. However, at least in the Netherlands the large majority of supermarkets still employ cashiers. Why? Because they only cost 5 euro/hour, and are just too cheap to fully automate.

I would hope you know of some relevant employers in your field by the time you graduate. Check their websites, as almost all companies/institutes/universities have "career" or "work for us" tabs on their websites where they list current vacancies. There are specific websites too that will offer jobs on behalf of other companies. Depending on the field you want to be in, these may be good too, and may be advertised in the literature in your field. For example, I know of a few chemistry related job websites through the chemistry-related magazine that I receive every now and then. Also, search engines are your friend. Enter some relevant key words (including location if necessary), and just click around. It will be tedious, and at times discouraging, but you may find some interesting vacancies that others didn't find yet. Finally, and possibly the best idea, is to visit relevant job fairs. Universities sometimes will organize those themselves, to bring their students into contact with potential employers (also for internships). See if your school, or other schools in the same field organize one of those. Dress up, look smart, and go shake some hands with recruiters. It may be advisable to print out your resume so you can hand it to the recruiters. It does sound like a lot of work... and it is. At least over here in Europe where I live, the job market is still suffering a little under the slow economy, and companies seem hesitant to hire new people. That just means you gotta work a little harder to find a job.

I don't know... my instinct when I read a post like this is to try to shoot a gaping hole in it to show with several examples that there are many equal partnerships. Two hydrogen atoms seem to partner quite well? Business partners may put in a similar amount of money, and fare well. However, I argee that in almost all organisation, whether in nature or our own human organisations, there is an inequality, where some initiate (lead, hunt, dominate, etc) and others respond (follow, run, submit, etc). Whether the one inequality is related to the inequality of basic particles in the universe, I don't know. Where are you going with this? (Why do you care?). I don't see the predictive power of this theory, so I don't know what is the value of this, even if it is true.

Or, as Phil Plait said it on his blog Bad Astronomy: What the heck are those spots on Ceres? It appears that NASA also has no clue, as they put up a poll (yes, really) where you can vote what you think this is. Can I say what everybody is thinking, but everybody is afraid to say? Wouldn't it be cool if these are artificial, i.e. made by some life form? I know it is very unrealistic, but all other explanations have their problems too. The funny thing is that at this stage, it cannot be ruled out (yet). Hopefully we'll get better pictures as the Dawn spacecraft goes into lower and lower orbits in the next weeks/months.

My question was really which animal would eat wild water melons in the Kalahari... but in good SFN style, a lot of interesting info popped up here because I (deliberately) kept the question quite broad. After some searching myself, it appears that multiple animals eat the wild water melons, including even carnivores: ... providing essential water for everything from antelopes to hyenas to people. ...

I was wondering if anyone knows how a wild water melon would naturally disseminate its seeds? According to wikipedia, wild fruits are up to 20 cm, so what would eat those? Google left me without many answers, and no good sources at all... so maybe one of our experts knows better sources (or someone with superior google prowess can supply me an answer). Btw, this is just out of curiosity, as we're eating lots of water melon in summer time.

Dominance means direct access to the oceans. China wants to get direct access to the Pacific and Indian oceans. This is btw also why the US is so concerned with these developments. Direct access is necessary for stability of trade and military options (because nobody can block your ports). Unfortunately for China, it is completely surrounded by other nations. It is my opinion that China is just taking natural steps to increase its influence (an influence which corresponds to the growth of its economy). Naturally, that makes other nations nervous, especially the current dominant nation (the US). But I really do not think that China is looking to invade other countries. China wants to have influence, but prefers to do that through puppet states and contracts, rather than invasion and occupation.

Lol! I tried uploading two selfies of Van Gogh, but it didn't recognize any faces. Tsk.

At the equator, the earth's circumference is (about) 40,000 km. It rotates once per 24 hrs, so we could say that the velocity of the surface of the earth is abiyt 1670 km/h, or 460 m/s. If you can fly up in a rocket, and come down 12 hrs later (and in the meantime have the earth rotate under you), then this should also work by just jumping up, right? So you could you just jump up, and land 1 second later again, and have the earth rotate under you... According to your logic, it should rotate about 460 meters away in that 1 second... but it doesn't. Others have already given some explanations on what is going on. I just wanted to give this example to make you think about it.

Controlled Habitat and Experimental Enclosure in a Semi-natural Environment (CHEESE).

We're in for a long debate between fans and haters. But I am quite optimistic, as I believe a large part of the story was written (or at least conceptually planned) by George Lucas early on, and not under pressure by the movie industry. Most really bad sequels are so horrible because the budget was arranged first, and the story came later. Here, the reverse may be true. Of course, that does not necessarily mean it will be a good story... but at least it was not a script that was written under massive time pressure by dozens of different writers, while being poorly managed by the industry. Best use for a golf course, imho. You don't need a square kilometer for whacking a little ball around, but you do need so much space for crash landing airplanes.

I think that for employment reasons, Linkedin is the default network. Focus on that, and make sure that is up to date. Other than that, I think that some content might be important: projects, hobbies related to work, or results from a job. In my case, searching on my name will give you some projects I worked on as well as Linkedin. These appear through websites that belong to the projects, but if you don't have those, a blog may work fine. I'd be far more worried about the wrong results popping up. So, rather than joining lots of websites to be more visible, it might be more important to keep your name off other websites that you do not want to be visible. I would actually recommend not to use Facebook for work-purposes, and even to keep all colleagues off your facebook. It is far more difficult to keep it clean. Others can post things, and link you or tag you. Those links and tags are not always material you want your (future) employer to see. While it is true that you have some control over your content, I still think that people underestimate how damaging it can be to your online image.

Heya, I don't want to start some petty bickering here, but I'd rather have mayonnaise on chips and no tie than a tomato sauce and a tie. But then, fashion is not an exact science, and this discussion will probably never end. Let's call it a tie.

I.e. a good idea. Fun fact: Prince Claus of the Netherlands (1926-2002) famously took off his tie and spoke the words: Tie wearers of all nations unite Cast off the rope that binds you. Risk your neck. Liberate yourself and venture forth into open collar paradise. Youtube of that speech is found here.

Surely you were not just given these questions, without any textbook explanation or other resource? Look into whatever source you have, and try to understand the shapes of molecules. It is not very hard, actually, but being a good student will require that you look into the resources you were given. For example, Q17, those 4 answers (A, B, C and D) come from somewhere. Find where in your books/handout these numbers are explained, and you will probably find the answer to all your problems.

You must have a big house. *jealous* Slightly related, this TEDx talk from a few years ago (2011) is very entertaining, and addresses how we got to take quite a few dinosaurs off our list because they were never a separate species.

Last Saturday at about 2:00 AM, I swear I saw it. I was walking home from the pub... in a very straight line too, I may add.

So, your business model for your Orbital Garbage Recovery Expedition (OGRE) has two sources of income: 1. The actual scrap value. Since the total mass of debris is estimated to be 5500 ton, you should be able to make a low and a high estimate of its value and calculate an income. Note that there are an estimated 500,000 particles larger than 1 cm in orbit. 2. The value of a clean orbit. As a first estimate, I would see if you can find infomation about the frequency of orbital adjustments to avoid debris, and the fuel needed to avoid debris. Putting fuel in space costs a lot of money, and avoiding spending fuel is your income. However, you may not have to catch all the small particles yet. A study seems to suggest that it is the large bodies in orbit that (on the long term) pose the largest threat, and therefore these should be removed with priority. So, in order to generate income, you don't have to catch fast-moving particles. All you may have to do is carefully plan the removal of a few dozen drifting obsolete satellites. Interestingly, there are quite a few initiatives out there already. The Japanese apparently even launched a net into space to catch debris, although this satellite will only test part of the functionality, and will not actually catch any debris yet. That is planned for 2019.

This made me chuckle...

Coal costs about 50 $/tonne, oil (at its current low price of 50$/barrel) costs about 50$/barrel, or 50$/159 liter. Assuming an oil density of 0.8 kg/liter, there are about 7.8 barrels in a ton of oil. Or, you could say, that oil costs about 393 $/ton. Oil is about 8 times as expensive as coal, at roughly the same energy density. And that is why they try to make oil out of these algae, not coal pellets. Also, oil doesn't dissolve in water, so if you do it well, you do not have to evaporate water out of your fuel, making it an efficient process.

! Moderator Note joshgreen, The personal attacks such as in your last post stop now. In addition, this is the Speculations forum, and it has some rules. For example, it says: If your speculation is untestable, or you don't give us evidence (or a prediction that is testable), your thread will be moved to the Trash Can. As far as I can see, you came up with this analogy (and you also started the thread), so, in the discussion who has to show the maths, it is you. Everyone, I often get the feeling that there is some miscommunication in threads like this, and it would be helpful if people (both sides) made an effort to explain things a little more. It can sometimes be very refreshing to read what the other side means with terms like "the same". (For example, do you mean every atom behaves the same, or at bulk scale you observe the same?). Please do not respond to this example. Instead, read the thread, and see if there may be some miscommunication that needs to be cleared up. Do not respond to this moderator note at all. If you have any issues with it, use the report button below.

We will always need carbon-based materials (and food). So, we will always have carbon-based waste. Since combustion is a good way to get rid of the carbon-based materials that cannot be recycled, I think it will be around for a long time. Therefore, nuclear will never be the only source of energy. Will fossil energy ever be reduced to zero? Probably not in the near future, but in the far future it might. At some point, it might be too valuable to just burn such resources. Will nuclear be the only source of energy to step into the gap left by fossil fuels? No. Sustainable energy (wind & solar) are getting cheaper every day, and I haven't observed the same trend for nuclear power (which, I admit can also be due to poor searching on my side). Now that some countries decided to shut down nuclear power stations, and want to clean them up, we finally get an idea of the actual costs of cleaning up nuclear power. Cleaning up a nuclear power station brings huge costs with it, and judging by several news articles, those costs were severely underestimated. Obviously, you can just build a nuclear plant, run it for profit, then run out of money or even go bankrupt and let the government pay for the clean up. But although that seems to be exactly how the nuclear sector runs its business, that is not a fair comparison, and I did not take that into account in my vision of the future. Summarizing: We'll always be burning stuff because we need carbon-based products. Sustainable energy (wind / solar) keeps getting cheaper. Now that we learn about clean-up costs of nuclear, it appears nuclear is more expensive than we thought. Therefore the answer to both questions in the OP is "no".

I was amused last night that one website broadcast a Iowa-state election advertisement on my screen (I'm in the Netherlands, which is in Europe, which is the wrong continent).

! Moderator Note The thread, or rather, the last part of it, was reviewed, and I am glad to say that while you're all seem to be bickering and seem completely stuck in your trenches, there were few obvious personal attacks and logical fallacies (although I admit that I may have missed some - this thread is long!). A few comments: I warn people to stay on topic. Even small jabs and comments that are off topic can derail this thread easily. Just don't do it. Stating an opinion is not against the rules (but also does not add any useful information). The FAQ has a comment on this (#10). Responding to opinions is equally useless as stating one. Responding to any off-topic comments is also off-topic. The thread is open again.