npts2020

Vesna; I am not a computer programmer but AFAIK any currently available computer and its' associated programming is done with binary code. Does this not require a yes/no answer for every operation of it? By assigning evolutionary potential as a probability, you only defer the problem to defining what equals zero probability, which i believe is where things get confused. Equating the action of a steel spring with that of a cat/human/even AI, is ok from a modelling point of view but completely obviates any need for discussion of what is "life" since even elementary particles or deceased humans could be "life". (I only moonlight as a Sith Lord when my buddy Dick C. is on vacation)

Sorry, wondered why anyone would have much trouble in finding them. I either didn't reread or forgot what the previous posts were:doh:

I have written some about this very subject in relation to bringing our transportation system and communication and power grids into the 21st century by integrating them and automating the road/rail system and powering them with wind and solar energy. I could write all day about this but will try to put a few ideas forth while being brief. Firstly I would like to state for the record that I am less concerned about the actual size of government than I am with its ability to do the things the citizens living under it expect. Secondly, I believe the federal government is the only entity that has a reasonable chance of success at being able to accomplish a project of this scale. Thirdly, creation/conversion (DoT?) of some overseer entity will be required for design, construction, maintanence, and operation of the system and it may be desirable to use novel methods of organizational structure. As anyone who even cursorily views a proposal to bring about wide-scale change in the way land transportation occurs knows, the costs of even small changes is staggering and difficult to estimate with any precision. The best guestimates I have been able to put on a system that covers approximately half of todays public roadways run between $12-50 Trillion, with high end being more likely for anything substantially better than what exists now. Even at the high end, however, I believe the system would be more than cost effective (we spend $1.5-2 trillion every year just for fuel). I see no reason that roadway integrated with utilities cannot be prefabricated and laid more quickly and cheaply than paving takes place today. The bonus is that we eliminate most of the 40% of the petroleum use of our nation that is consumed by transportation and save 40,000 lives a year. An automated personal transit system has recently become technologically feasible on a large scale and for the first time able to be substantially better than the system that currently exists. Trouble is it will do little in the short term.

What I have not heard from anyone supposedly knowledgable about the economy, is how putting money into sectors of the economy that are losing money hand over fist will keep the economy afloat beyond the time money is being poured into it.

I wonder if he was chugging from a whiskey bottle if anybody would have even noticed?

I did not say my definitions were from any dictionary, I said they were the ones I would work with until someone made a better one. Maybe in the definition of evolutionary potential I should have said and/or but I stand by the definition as being essentially correct. I might not expect any AI to reproduce any more than I would expect my 90 year-old grandmother to reproduce but I would expect either to be able to assimilate information and use it to improve their capabilities. If you wish to say that DNA or whatever is required to have life, go ahead and state that and we will change the definition for purposes of this discussion. Not every organism (or system) that can evolve will evolve, certain conditions must be met. What I am saying is that some things (a steel spring, for example) will never evolve regardless of the conditions it could feasibly be placed under. I suppose one could say there is no such thing as "life" per se, only a continuum of existence of matter but I fail to see how such a definition is useful for trying to distinguish if something is alive or not as everything would either be or not be life, no discussion required.

DrDNA; I am not sure about on-line but if you have a local food co-op, health food store, Whole Foods, Foods of All Nations, or similar alternative food store will usually have them both or at least be able to get them.

That is far more common than most people imagine. In general, most radiation workers get lower overall doses than your average well-tanned beach bum.

Cheer up though, there are cosmologists that propose that what you describe actually does happen. Try googling "cosmology/cosmic bounce" (if you just do cosmic bounce you get a ton of video game and band references), there are many good hits there for better information.

As stated by several people, the moon will definitely move. Whether you could, in practice, apply enough force to make it noticeable is a different question........

I like my tandem bike better. There is nothing easier than letting someone else do all the work.

I tend to agree with ParanoiA that those who are responsible for making the law should not be above it. Trouble is that "the land of the free" has been accumulating laws at a far more prodigious rate than it has been repealing them for the past couple of centuries and few people (if any) can even keep up. At any given time there are hundreds of laws being suggested and very few repeals of laws ever even being considered. Maybe every law should have an expiration date?

Glider; I agree pretty much with what you said. It all comes down to whose description of reality is considered the most "objective".

I liked Michael Phelps before the olympics and even more now. I wonder if there could be a jury in South Carolina that would unanimously find him guilty of a crime? IMO he is being pilloried for something that the vast majority of people in America has done at one time or another in their life. I wonder how many of those offended by his behavior have ever won anything, let alone eight gold medals at the olympics.

Well, if the spring happens to be a strand of DNA or RNA I would agree that it has evolutionary potential. The typical spring (a mechanical one anyway) does not. Evolutionary potential has to do with offspring being different from the parent and the ability of an organism to adapt to its surroundings. IMO you could wait forever and the spring would never change other than degrading over time from use, corrosion etc.

Sisyphus; Wouldn't it be more efficient to use the electricity needed to separate water to just power the car to begin with? If you are going to use hydrogen, there is no way currently of producing enough with any device approaching the size of a car that would provide enough to power the vehicle for more than a very short time, hence the talk about infrastructure.

Not by the time I got to it. It was mainly cobalt-60 in microscopic particles in the water. Sometimes more than enough to max out a geiger detector.

Not to be a killjoy or anything but it seems the superconducting magnets (not yet available) would put the price beyond what even todays best racing bikes cost, about $30k-$40k. If it is legal for racing, that would be the market. If not, then very few people would pay that kind of money for a bicycle.

Glider; IMO you are not distinguishing real from corporeal. Ideas can be very real, (pick your favorite governmental "ism" for example) and can't necessarily be dismised only because they are not corporeal. I am sure that to some people unicorns, dragons, or whatever imaginary thing you can come up with are very real as there has never seemed to be any shortage of irrationality in the human organism.

I don't know, but would be willing to bet he was a very superstitious soul.

Well that is what I tried to address in defining life as needing evolutionary potential, how is that ambiguous? If you can explain to me what evolutionary potential a brick or spring has I may concede they are alive. I would think the definition would point more toward a Turing machine being alive than the brain being dead.

You would have had a hard time drowning in the puddles I dealt with. However you could have easily exceeded your allowable annual radiation dose at a single clean-up if you were not careful or didn't know what you were doing.

If anything it would be slowing the moon down since meteorites would strike more frequently on the side of the direction of motion rather than catching up to strike on the other side. Meteorites are mostly tiny and far outweighed by other effects, sort of like trying to knock the ball off of a large stone kugel by throwing stones at it (you probably couldn't even lift a stone large enough to noticably affect it).

Don't be discouraged. You can't let the (unattainable) perfect get in the way of the good. Even if you can't build a perpetual motion machine, even one that is simply more efficient, has better applications, or is cheaper would be very worthwhile.

Mb94; I dont think those are the only viable alternatives. Here I have written about how to go about automating and electrifying our whole transit system. The blog makes more sense if you start from the oldest posts first. I believe you will find some answers there but you will need more sources as well.