EdEarl

The advantages of drive by wire are automation enhancements, such as collision avoidance. I prefer the safest system, whether mechanical or wire, and both have failure modes. Thus, I say look at the statistics and drive safely.

Ten years of construction and twenty of operation sounds to me like it will not be economically successful, even if it is technically. At UT Austin, they built a Tokamak and talked about viability, perhaps in 50 years. IIRC, that was about 50 years ago. I'm skeptical.

Vehicle automation is in its infancy, and its sophistication is low, like DOS applications. Windows applications are usually much better, have more options and settings. It will take years for vehicle automation to become sophisticated, in the mean time we will have to live with cars that assist us or that we assist, because development and deployment seem inevitable. I believe we will see collision avoidance technology become common on all cars; although, we will continue to drive. This technology will improve and eventually take over driving. The trucking industry may want automation that drives between cities in low congestion to allow human drivers to nap, with a push to change laws that extend driving time for the human river. Taxis without drivers will be much more economic, and the occupants might give voice commands like, "Stop." in emergencies. There is a big need for farm equipment that drives itself, and I suspect the same is true for many off-road vehicles.

It might make economic sense to mine the Moon for resources to use in orbit around the Earth. Launch cost per pound from the Earth is very high; whereas, launch from the Moon is much less. One key technology is making a 3D printer that uses stuff from the Moon to print things. Silicon, aluminum and titanium are available. Aluminum and titanium would be good for structural components for a space station, satellites, vehicles. Silicon can be used to make PV panels.

Replicators with super intelligence should be able to make anything from nano to super machines, designed specifically for any job. Although objects are very far apart in space, replicators (machines) have indefinite life times and could presumably recover useful materials from anything they come across. At first, they might visit a moon or small planet to gather required resources. Afterward, I'd think they would only need replacement supplies, and visiting a comet occasionally would supply most needs. BTW, we know fission power is viable, but whether fusion will ever supply power successfully is unknown. Thus, I suggested fissionable material to supply heat and power. If fusion becomes viable, then the replicators would use whichever is better. They might even perfect antimatter power generation and use it.

I'm an expert at tripping on my tongue.

Heat engines would run very efficiently, and replicators (like the Voyagers) could thrive quite well with a bit of fissionable material for heat.

It was a total mess.

The worst situation I have been in was a military contract with requirements to follow a MIL Spec, but my non expert retired Col boss provided a commercial tool that could not follow the MIL Spec, and I was supposed to use the tool to complete the contract, which was impossible. It took months to resolve. The tool was scrapped. And, I suspect that phase of the contract was way over budget. The more expert a manager is, the better a project can be done. I believe Elon Musk and Howard Hughes are examples of expert managers, who have done projects masterfully. No project I have worked on has been done nearly as well.

This kind of manager has a better chance of communicating accurately with the expert than one who knows nothing about the expert's knowledge, but communications between the two may also suffer from misunderstanding and poor performance.

This communication between an expert and non-expert sometimes leads to a misunderstanding with the manager not getting expected results.

Yes, I was speculating. A common test of self-aware is whether an animal recognizes itself in a mirror. I've found a list of ten animals that do recognize themselves, they are: Humans, Orangutans, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bottlenose Dolphins, Elephants, Orcas, Bonobos, Rhesus, Macaques and European Magpies. It is interesting that European Magpies are not listed as one of the five most intelligent birds, which are: African Grey Parrots, Macaws, Amazon Parrots, Cockatoos and Eclectus Parrots. However, I question the accuracy of this list, since intelligence is poorly defined and can be measured in various ways. In any case, the magpie is not on this list. I think technological achievement is more unique than self-aware.

First, I question the spread of replicators (children-machines) at anywhere near the speed of light. Will replicators actually replicate, or will they decide it is not in their best interest to replicate. Perhaps they will realize that living is futile, because their ultimate fate is established by the big chill, and they will self destruct. Perhaps, replicators are out there watching us from afar (e.g., from the Ort Cloud via a Moon sized telescope), but we are not interesting enough to make contact, because we have not created a replicator. Perhaps replicators are out there traveling towards us, but still have thousands or millions of years to travel before they get to Earth. The Universe is so vast that expecting we should have been contacted is IMO egotistical. That we have the WWW is unlikely to make us an interesting species.

That is speculative. We assume that given correct conditions on the planet life will appear, we assume that givn enough time life will develop intelligence, we assume that other civilisations will choose to advance technology. That's a lot of assumptions and all of those are based on observation of exactly one phenomenon - life on Earth. Maybe life is extremely rare, maybe even we're alone... who knows. My entire statement is not a speculation. The 40 billion Earth-sized planets in a habitable zone are an estimate based on observations. The 100 billion galaxies is an estimate based on observations. I did speculate on the meaning of rare.

If this is the explanation of Dark Matter, then such exotic galaxies may contain "Dark Intelligent Life Forms". In this case, we may never make contact.

Rare is subjective. Lets look at some numbers. Assuming 40 billion Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone, among the Milky Way's 200 billion stars, means there are on the order of 40 billion such planets * 100 billion galaxies = 4000 billion-billion earth sized planets in a habitable zone in the Visible Universe. If "rare" means 1 intelligent life form in 40 billion earth-sized planets in a habitable zone, then there are 100 billion different intelligent life forms in the visible universe. In one sense that does not seem rare; however, one intelligent life form per galaxy would mean contacting another technological civilization via radio would be unlikely. Our nearest major galaxy neighbor, Andromeda is 2.5 million light years distant. Our radio waves will not reach it for another 2,499,900 years, and they will be extremely weak. Will we ever be able to detect a radio signal from that distance?

That is possible, but if I need chilled water, I will probably need more than such a refrigerator can provide. Ronald might be able to use that method; although, I suspect making high efficiency heat transfer would be difficult.

A chiller is designed to cool water that flows into and out of it through pipes; thus, is different from a refrigerator. swamp cooler = evaporative cooler. I mentioned both. Yes, if you have two uses, your overall process is more cost effective. It is possible to make hot water for industrial or residential use and cool the hydroponic fluid. Often, the exhaust heat from refrigeration is discarded into the environment via a cooling tower. If you need 5 Tons or more of chilled water, you might use an absorption chiller and concentrated solar as a heat source; although, you probably cannot buy such a rig off-the-shelf.

I'm building a small greenhouse or personal use, and have been looking at chilling water for it. Absorption chillers aren't made small AFAIK, the smallest I can find are 5 Tons. The ones used for hydroponics all run on electricity, which is expensive to buy, even if you put up a PV array. A time before CO2 levels increased to 300ppm, it was possible to cool via radiating heat into the night sky, which is about 3 degrees Kelvin. At that time infrared from temperatures as low as 0C would radiate into the sky and in some cases freeze shallow pools of water, even if ambient air temperature was above 0C. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling. With CO2 levels as high as they are today, radiative cooling must be less effective; however, I do not know how much. A refrigeration unit cools most when the exhaust temperature is cool; although, too cold might adversely affect the refrigerator. I am currently considering using a chiller. My preference would be water to water, but those are hard to find in a small size, as are absorption units. If I can find a water to water chiller, then I might cool the water exhausting the heat via evaporation and radiation. Lacking this, I may use an evaporative air cooler to blow air through the water chiller (to cool air being used to exhaust heat from the chiller). One might also, cool the water circulating through the air cooler using radiators exposed to the night sky. If night sky cooling is used, one must have a large tank of water to cool at night, for use during the day to cool the hydroponic fluid and perhaps the greenhouse. I've suggested a complex system with several inefficiencies and unknowns. Just how much of this idea is viable, I don't know. I do know that commercial systems have more options than residential, for several reasons. First, residential systems are driven primarily by low cost installation. Unfortunately, savings on a low cost refrigeration unit may be consumed by operating expenses. Individuals don't know how to calculate such tradeoffs, and may not have the time or desire to evaluate and install a system with higher initial cost and lower operating costs. Consequently, commercial systems have more options than residential systems, including absorption units, and units that operate at night to freeze water in an insulated container, that cools commercial property on hot days. Refrigerators run more efficiently at night and electricity may be less expensive. I will have a 3000 gallon tank in my atrium+greenhouse to store heat in winter and cool in summer. I hope to run it all with PV electricity. I haven't decided how to cool the water in summer, yet. I'll probably start with misting units in the greenhouse and really good ventilation. That's likely to allow temperatures in the greenhouse to rise above 38C, which may be too much. I intend the atrium to be an enclosed-outdoor environment, which compared to outside is warmer in winter and cooler in summer. However, I don't intend to keep it anywhere near as comfortable as people like inside their houses. I want it to be friendly to plants all day and night, and a few hours each day great for people.

These climate summits have so far been futile attempts to forge international agreement on climate change, IMO. On the other hand, the economics of installing renewable energy systems has changed much in favor of renewable energy and against coal and oil fired power plants. As a result, power producing companies are installing renewable energy generating plants at an ever increasing rate, and retiring coal, oil and gas plants as they become uneconomic. Any slow down in global warming will give power producing companies more time to convert, and give researchers and developers more time to improve green technology. Stationary power production is a big part of the climate change solution, but we need even more improvements in the transportation arena. Any climate change slow down gives developers time to improve batteries, which we must hope will lead to electric cars that are less expensive to purchase. Or, perhaps driverless cars will make commercial fleets of electric taxis economical and convenient for people to use when moving around town, rather than individually owned gas guzzlers.

I'm not cherry picking. I've been posting all diet related articles that I see, mainly from ScienceDaily.com, Phy.org, and MedicalXpress.com. I have not commented when people post things that I agree with, but can in the future, just to keep the conversation alive. My original contention was that a vegan diet was best, but have changed my mind a bit based on these articles. I believe our bodies can tolerate some animal products, in line with a Mediterranean diet. Also, it seems people can live well on a diet of sea food, with little else.

The author of the Science Daily article seemed to say this work might be important. Any comments? There are two articles that may be the source of this report. The Nexus graviton: A quantum of Dark Energy and Dark Matter Stuart Marongwe International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics Vol. 11, No. 06, 1450059 (2014) 1450059 The Schwarzschild solution to the Nexus graviton field Stuart Marongwe International Journal of Geometric Methods in Modern Physics Online Ready 1550042