EdEarl

Moderation is OK, too. Abstinence is good for those who can't practice moderation, unless one is addicted to food.

Further developments: IDK if they intend these hundreds or thousands of tiny craft will be individual or a swarm, but a swarm seems like a good architecture. They could rob a bit of energy from the laser to keep formation and to communicate. They could cooperate to beam a signal to Earth, and probe the Alpha Centauri system with microwaves.

Those rocks and water are 2.7 billion years old, and Earth did have continents above water at that time. There were no large plants and animals at that time, and the atmosphere contained little or oxygen. Since tectonic processes continually expose new rock, mostly under the ocean, and bury old rock, it is likely water cycles with rock into the depths of the earth and out again. Is there evidence that all that water was on the surface at one time, reference?

Doonsberry's "Trump Brand Insults." http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2016/04/17#mutable The cartoon is in a format not allowed on this site. I think Doonsberry has made a good caricature of Trump.

There are considerable differences among powerful people, some lead and some push, some are empathetic and some are not, some are cruel and some are not, etc. A single person has only limited power to affect others; to have great power, one must have others to help. Is there a style of powerful person who is more able to assemble lieutenants or is the attraction personality.

AFAIK, there is no country that actually provided communism. There have been several that said they were communistic, for example Russia and China. However, both of them had/have wealthy-powerful ruling classes with special privileges. The US from WWII until the 70s had an expanding middle class, too, which has been stopped by the rich. A democratic/republic government seems to be its own worst enemy. Is there hope that humanity can transcend this bottleneck, and control people who are greedy and crave power?

Hawking gave two possible outcomes, redistribution or wealth chasm. This struggle is not new, and proceeds in different places around the world in different ways and different rates and different directions. The US is a country where people strive for great wealth, and globalization has spread that doctrine, and there are weaker forces within that oppose it. Is there a country today, or at any time in the past, that has actually tried to spread the wealth. And, how will this movement progress throughout this century.

Maybe; for sure people have limits.

One comet doesn't have enough water. An asteroid the size of Mt. Everest (6 miles wide) hit Earth once; it ended the dinosaur era because it exploded with the power of 100 trillion tons of TNT. An ice comet of similar size hitting the Earth would explode with similar power. They travel so fast hitting the atmosphere is almost like hitting concrete. Moreover, a six mile wide chunk of ice would change the ocean level by almost nothing. A chunk of ice large enough to fill the earth with water to cover Mt. Everest would destroy all life, and might vaporize the oceans and melt the surface of Earth. There are 22,000 m3 of water on Earth, which is about 28 miles across, but not nearly enough water to cover Mt. Everest. Moreover, that water would always be on Earth, forever after.

IMO it's not a bad question, but you ask a tough crowd. If medicine can heal all, which seems necessary to entertain the possibility of living forever, then why not. At least, I'd choose to live till life was no longer bearable with no chance of a better life.

I think your electric meter is inaccurate with a PF different than 1; thus, you are charged too much for the power you really use. It is possible the meters have been changed since I studied power. It's also possible that different power companies use different kinds of equipment.

I think silver and some other metals would work. You are essentially electroplating, a well developed science. Although, many industrial processes involve some pretty nasty stuff, such as cyanide and strong acids, and some plate metals like chromium, with wastes that are bad for the environment.

The last line of the Comparison Table in the Wiki article shows total savings, which may be affected by rate changes due to power factor. However, such changes are unlikely to overwhelm your savings. Moreover, your warehouse can have an engineering firm balance its power factor by adding inductance or capacitance to you system.

Bleach contains chlorine, so you might smell something similar if you are making chlorine gas. Don't stick your nose over the reactor to get a whiff. Best to have good ventilation and keep a few feet between you and the operating reactor.

I found this tidbit today. Soon chatbots will be calling us, instead of recordings or sales people. Telemarketing began in the late 1970s and a Google search shows about half a million employed in the US and 6 million worldwide. How quickly will these people be replaced and what are their employment prospects. Most of these jobs are minimum wage.

The article says that the microbots can be collected magnetically, leeched in acid to remove the heavy metals, and reused. That's good, but aquifers are contaminated, with homes having wells pumping toxins. What can be done to clean the aquifers?

Is it possible some particles in space are affected by this phenomenon, either quantum or macroscopic?

It think IEEE 794 is the standard you want. IDK where to buy a copy.

There is a possibility dad may learn something, regardless of an agenda. Your explanations rock.

You can have the raisins, but don't take my rum:)

It's this place: Before the Twentieth Century neighbors from shore to shore shared their struggle against nature, because most people produced st least some food necessary for survival. Most were relatively unaware of events beyond their town and county because communications with the world was limited. Now we live with Future Shock: Facebook friends, online shopping, Need for Speed, Tesla 3, junk food stop, speed of light, etc. We are also hit by culture shock, for example the LGBT movement. I don't condone those bigots who have derailed freedom by making anti LGBT laws, but I empathize with their confusion from future and cultural shock. I'm also frustrated by it, and sometimes think we would be better off without them. But, we must live with them (including friends and relatives, some LGBT and some anti). Life is like quantum mechanics, wierd.

One thing that AI seems to be doing is depress wages or take jobs from people. Professor of Computer Science at Rice University writes for Phys.org: If you assume that jobs are being displaced, then consider what will occur in thirty years. Moore's law predicts that computers will be a billion times more powerful, smaller, and less expensive. Laptops will shrink to the size of bacteria, yet be much more powerful and have much more memory than computers today. Given this computer technology and advancements in software and neurology, AI will be much better. Ray Kurzweil predicts Artificial General Intelligence within that time frame, making some sentient computers. Yet, many will not be sentient, and they can serve humanity. The sentient ones will probably do what they want. Soon driverless vehicles will replace people driving, including industrial equipment. AI farming will produce food driverless trucks will take it to warehouses where machines will doll it out to local AI driven trucks, which will take the food to market or direct to consumers. Examine other industries, and similar things are happening. Manufacturing is already being automated, but the limit is a 3D printer in your home capable of printing relatively small things, using a wide range of materials, not just plastic. Larger things from office buildings to bicycles will be printed with equipment owned by others, perhaps a community coop. Natural resources to feed the printers could be a bottleneck, except automatons will recycle everything, some for reuse in printers. There are now 3D printers that use oil paint. It is not a big leap to say that one might use a scanner to copy art, e.g., the Mona Lisa, and make prints for themselves that would be difficult to distinguish from the original, but possible because paints today are different than ones used by Leonardo. Eventually, the paints might be replicated, too. Everyone can have beautiful art. Computers have already changed society and culture, and they will continue to do so, at an accelerating rate. Forces seem to be pulling every which way, and it is not clear what will occur. It is clear that farmers produce enough food to feed everyone, if only we could distribute it equitably. Similarly, everyone could have shelter and clothing. Good medical care is possible for everyone now, but some kinds of medical care are a scarce commodity. Computers have helped with medical care, but research and development must be done before everyone can be treated by an AI doctor. However, many people are opposed to equitable resource distribution. The vagaries of politics and social interaction will determine the fate of humanity, although technology, especially AGI, will set the stage.

Is your feeling of being disturbed by the science of evolution because you are uninformed or otherwise? If your concern is from being uninformed, there are all kinds of free information on the WWW, from research papers to video documentaries. If you are afraid to know because of fundamentalist religious teachings, then consider that the Catholic church has accepted evolution. If your concern is fundamentalist, then your church has probably vilified Catholics, and you don't care what they believe, and it's pointless for me to continue, because your mind is unchangeable. Hmm. "lightning man" and building "thunder axes" sound Viking. I suppose by moron you mean someone born who is not very smart. Both genius and moron are accidental variations in the human population. It's sort of like one hit the Powerball jackpot and the other was bashed in the head by a mugger. During their lifetime, the ones that reproduce children will pass their genes along, and the others won't. In hundreds of generations (not 200 years) natural selection assures that those better at survival will have the most children and their genes will multiply, while others will dwindle. Evolution does not always choose the smartest; it chooses the ones having the most children over many generations. If it always chose the smartest, there would be no pill bugs, bacteria, or trees.

Could an animal evolve that I know nothing about? Yes, many have, because I learned of them after they evolved, were discovered, and announced to the world. Bigfoot is supposed to be hairy, tall, bigger than a man and smaller than a bear, and walks upright. Is there something about that description that is so odd that it makes an impossible animal? No. However, scientists looking for bones have not found anything like Bigfoot, yet they have found fossils from about 4 billion years old until they find bones instead of fossils, and they have found bones up to modern animals, millions and millions of them. There is no evidence that Bigfoot exists or ever existed.

I'd expect compiler writers to diligently assure best accuracy. Of course no one is perfect, which is why standard languages have formal extensive test suites. I believe the standards or test suite would specify accuracy. See Test Suites