iwwr

73 ms·

691.
by iwwr 15y ago
Software patents should be a good enough reason to think patents in general stifle innovation. Patent trolls have moved beyond mere monopolistic enforcement and into mafia-style shakedown operations.
692.
by iwwr 15y ago
AFAIK, there is such a thing as a CMB 'rest frame' (the Earth-Sun is moving relative to it at about 600km/s). As for the weird distances, just imagine an ant moving across a rubber surface at constant velocity. The rubber is slowly stretche
693.
by iwwr 15y ago
Distances derived from purely the Hubble law would have pretty large margins for error, wouldn't they?
694.
by iwwr 15y ago
Autonomous swarms of robots which process lunar soil to build more copies of themselves. The only problem is the prototypes cost <Voice name="DrEvil">100 trillion dollars</Voice>.
695.
by iwwr 15y ago
Politicians are only temporarily in office, but get to reap immediate rewards, regardless of the longer sustainability of the process. Also, from a political perspective, future people are not present voters, so present voters may themselve
696.
by iwwr 15y ago
What is 'post-materialism'? Any relationship to post-scarcity economics?
697.
Build and fly your own rocket: Kerbal Space Program (indie game)(kerbalspaceprogram.com)
1 points by iwwr 15y ago|0 comments
698.
by iwwr 15y ago
A second Moon program could not hope to elicit the same combination of fear, funding reduction immunity and pure profiteering (shielded by 'national security' and state secrets). But it appears the NSA even has their own secret space progra
699.
by iwwr 15y ago
The Indian nuclear program has long been hobbled by an international embargo, to the extent they are developing thorium cycle reactors (more expensive and difficult to pursue technologically). This find may prove a respite and diminish the
700.
by iwwr 15y ago
Much lower. You can still read off the light of the full moon, barely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude#Table_of_not... For comparison's sake, if the Sun were 600au away, it would be as bright as the full moon. This red dwa
701.
by iwwr 15y ago
Still, it won't look like 'two suns in the sky', but more like Venus.
702.
by iwwr 15y ago
By its nature, a big rocky planet could hold on to a thicker atmosphere; it would also have greater internal heat, a thinner crust, so more geologic activity, greater volcanism.
703.
by iwwr 15y ago
A red dwarf from 1000 au would only look like a moderately bright star, won't it? On the other hand, it would be close enough that if aliens inhabited, they could send a probe with present-day human level of technology. That is, the nearby
704.
Refuse to be terrorized (2006)(wired.com)
207 points by iwwr 15y ago|83 comments
705.
by iwwr 15y ago
I mean, really which rogue state can or will possibly launch a nuclear missile over Switzerland? FTFY Seriously now, nukes are not toys available at every street corner. And the idea of rogue states is more or less fanciful. The dangerous
706.
by iwwr 15y ago
The beginning of the euro internet firewall.
707.
by iwwr 15y ago
When will we see consumer devices rated at above 1gigabit?
708.
by iwwr 15y ago
Only exacerbated because the ECB is not a central bank in the traditional sense. Traditionally, the central bank (or a related institution) would just print up money to make up for the shortfall. The logic of modern politics leads inevitabl
709.
by iwwr 15y ago
The propaganda is mutual. The US finds it convenient to have an enemy while Iranians are cowed into supporting the aytollahs for fear of US invasion. This is a dangerous kind of equilibrium.
710.
Suicide by C++ And How to Avoid It(blogs.oracle.com)
8 points by iwwr 15y ago|0 comments
711.
by iwwr 15y ago
For a long time Excel was/is the best (feature-wise, UI) spreadsheet program out there. Even if OO/LibreOffice or other F/OSS have duplicated most of the functionality, it still makes sense to get an actual licensed copy if you need it for
712.
Evgeny Kaspersky: the Net Will Soon Become a War Zone(spiegel.de)
2 points by iwwr 15y ago|0 comments
713.
by iwwr 15y ago
Valuations are still quite speculative and difficulty can increase by an order of magnitude. Still, if you're not using the GPU but still using the computer, you may as well throw in a miner as a low priority process.
714.
by iwwr 15y ago
Anyone have a mirror?
715.
by iwwr 15y ago
Why rule out a concrete multi-generational goal? The project would be doomed to failure without intermediary objectives. Long term planning is difficult as it is and politics adds to the implausibility.
716.
by iwwr 15y ago
The thorium cycle is a higher technological level and more expensive to develop, so a state capable of developing one is more than capable of a conventional uranium bomb program.
717.
by iwwr 15y ago
Large infrastructure projects are wasteful no matter how you cut it, so at least they should have precise objectives (much shorter than 20 years) and per-objective pricing (rather than cost-plus).
718.
by iwwr 15y ago
Interestingly, there is a concept called hybrid fission, which uses a fusion process as just a neutron source, deriving most of the energy from the fission itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion-fission_hybrid
719.
by iwwr 15y ago
Less proliferation risk, but not zero. It's still possible to build a bomb from U233 (obtained from the thorium cycle).
720.
by iwwr 15y ago
For every year they sit empty, they depreciate physically and they also need regular maintenance. Those are actual resources being used. And if the buildings are in the wrong location altogether, it may be cheaper to just tear them down tha

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