A couple of points
By reading HN, we tend to get exposed to world class achievements and improvements leading to a high bar to measure our performance. This can lead to stress, anxiety and feelings of burnout.
The other point is while capitalism has numerous advantages and benefits, I do think it may miss some uncosted externalities (Modern western societies have a tremendous impact on the planet which is hidden from market pressures as exploits different resources). Other examples are the cigarette companies hiding evidence about lung cancer and oil companies hiding research into climate change.
If you purely select for profit and no other criteria, it can tend to nasty effects for others
If we understand the mechanisms of aging, perhaps we can reduce the health effects of aging. This might be an easier target than increasing overall life expectancy. Thus reducing the impact on society of caring for seniors.
As I understand it, the metabolic rate in most people is pretty good and constant until about 60 and starts to drop off.
I would be happy with a treatment that provides good strong health from 60 to 100 and then a sudden death. I don’t want to be infirm/disabled by age, not able to enjoy life and be a burden to my family.
In the UK, you see homes in England marked as either freehold ( you own the land) or leasehold (someone else owns the land and you had a long term lease and traditionally paid a small fee each year called ground rent). The issue was if the lease didn’t have long left then selling or getting a mortgage on it was more difficult.
Recently the home builders on new houses have sold the house and then also been selling the leases to a 3rd party as an investment. These 3rd parties have been radically increasing the annual ground to much higher levels. I’m never going for a lease hold property.
“They make a desolation and call it peace.” Gaius Cornelius Tacitus
Regardless of the words used, All I see and hear is the stories of the dead, maimed and traumatised on both sides. I hope that it stops soon but I’ve always been a optimist.
I agree, I’m very fond of Orkney. I’ve been several times on short breaks. Skara Brae is both smaller than you think it should be (studied it in primary school) and more impressive (over 5000 years old). A very peaceful place with great archeology, landscapes and seabirds (got really close to puffins on the last trip) but it is always windy.
Yep, the science is clear and the severe weather events are right in front of you on multiple continents. Some level of climate change is already baked in. Yet the political debates are not reflecting the current situation.
I hope we make the changes in time to avoid the worst models but I doubt that we will.
Read “the ministry for the future” by Kim Stanley Robinson. I believe that there are many possible actions that will improve the situation but there are lots of people downplaying it or just flat out ignoring it.
Where the geography allows, pumped storage should be expanded.
There was an interesting proposal for a massive pumped storage Strathdearn[0]
It has the capacity of about 6800 gigwatt hours (283 gigawatt days)
which is about 1000 times the existing scottish current pumped storage in Cruachen.
The article claims to cover the existing daily power requirements of UK and be able to export to europe.
I am not a civil engineer or geologist so it might be too big, not practical and too expensive.
lots of smaller schemes might be better, but an interesting read
To echo some of the points from the aurora book, I think that the human body is really well optimised for 1G environments. We know that there are issues in zero gravity. As you adapt to 2G, you may well get stronger but the stress and strains may have a severe effect on health, life expectancy. Hate to think about the effects on your blood pressure etc
Was really thinking of an earth orbiting laboratory setup with a radius of about 250m and rotation speeds of about 2-3 rpm. Need to model it when I have some time. Just to gain actual data on different gravities and durations. The starship has plenty of room for the habs to run experiments on plants and people. Each one has propulsion in case of a cable failure. You’re correct, the cable snapping would be big concern.
Yep, see Netflix film Stowaway for example. Once we get Spacex Starship working, fit 2 of them with Hab modules in the nose. Launch them and connect together at the nose and spin at different rates for moon gravity (G/6) and Mars gravity G/3). Use steel cables to increase radius and reduce required spin rate.
A relatively cheap (for space) setup to get some good actual measurements.
Isn’t the ISS inside the van Allen belts and protected( to some degree) from radiation. Moving up to a much higher orbit would increase the amount of radiation that hits it. It would need more shielding (or better radiation shelters) if you are still going to use it as an occupied station.
Not able to research the details just now.
With hopefully the much better launch capability of starship, a new station is probably the best way forward.
Please refer to Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for the real story about humanity, the earth and the mice. We’re just components in a machine to answer questions for the mice.
See you and your fancy metal technologies.
Chalk on slate was good enough for me and my father and his father before. That were tradition and we were glad of it.
As I understand it, the warmer the water, the stronger and more powerful the hurricane. So bigger and more hurricane in the mid-latitudes (Caribbean, southern US). Not a good prospect, at all.
Climate change was sometimes dismissed (or reduced) by saying that’s it an issue for our grandchildren. With those error bars (NOW to +40 years), the immediate nature of the problem and the required response should hit home. Given recent heatwaves, I think nature is starting to hit us with the clue stick. I hope the important people are listening.
In addition, he also wrote a collection of science fiction stories “the voice of the dolphins”. I’ll need to get it from the attic and see if I still like them. I thought they were pretty good but that was a long time ago. Thanks for making me think of him, again.
While the codebase is critically important, the most important aspect is how that codebase translates into user experience. How the design/software changes impact what the customer expects and how the company manages the expectations of both existing and new clients are both vital factors.
Managing that journey for both internal software teams and the wider client base to achieve the overall objectives is the real landscape for managers.
Especially for small companies, the impact of poor commits can have huge impacts for important clients which then takes time to educate and assist them to handle.
In addition, it gets very difficult to critique a commit made by a manager (or worse a director who still wants to code) which is not consistent with rest of the team or the technical goals. They may have the best intentions but not reflect the current design/techniques that the rest of the team are using to improve the code base. The power structure just doesn’t allow the team to work. Seen many good people quit over this.
I’ll shout out for ADA as well. Really enjoyed working with it.
Compiler was a nit picking monster but the rigour ensured that you really considered your program. Thanks for making me remember.
In general, most people hate change. We have divided life, knowledge, every aspect into little known boxes. Change requires us to work, adapt to the alteration. Perhaps reconsider our viewpoints, re-actions and even occupation.
Change happens more typically when the new idea slowly seep into main stream society and old ways recede as people retire (or die).
Modern technology has vastly increased the rate of change (ideas, lifestyles, jobs etc) by making the transmission of idea much easier and faster. But this places a high demand on anybody reading the news (drinking the firehouse of the internet) and trying to keep up.
Additional difficult questions that need to determined before a final vote.
5) exact geographic boundaries for oil/gas fields
6) exact rights on fishing areas
7) how to split the financial assets of the UK
8) how trade deals continue / stop
Scotland has approx 10% of the UK population, should that be used as the criteria for the separation ? Should we get 10% of the assets held by the Bank of England
Whenever the people vote for it. The SNP (and Greens) were crystal clear in their manifestos in the last elections and people voted for it. In general, people hope that the politicians should do what they said that they would.
With Brexit and Tory policies over 10 years, it seems reasonable to have the vote. I would prefer one vote to start the process and final confirmation vote once the exact deal is established. Always a good idea to know exactly what is being offered before taking the deal (total opposite of Brexit) [scot living in Scotland]
As a fellow Scot, i will vote SNP in next years Scottish election. That election could be a landslide for them, Leading to another independence vote. Even before the effects of Brexit are felt, there is a slight lead for the yes camp. Perhaps we need to be a poor small country in Europe with a voice rather than ignored in Westminster. A sad day.
Just finished “Camelot 30K” also by Robert L Forward. Humans meet aliens out in the Kuiper belt. Interesting ideas for alien life at very cold temperatures. Similar style to Dragon’s Egg (Mentioned in list) and equally enjoyable.
Thank you for information. As a Scot, with a relative involved (she got what she needed), I am grateful, that the Scot gov changed their minds and used teachers grades without moderation. Even though our mocks (“prelims”) are produced by the SQA who also do the main exams.
It’s a unprecedented situation, let’s cut some slack and base it on the best info that we have, the teachers view.
I hope English gov see sense but so far they don’t have demonstrated much.
Given the extent of some candidates differences and the impact to their life (denied entrance to offered Uni courses for that year) there’s some very serious outrage. If you were part of good class in a school with a poor record, then you’re stuffed. It’s a unprecedented situation and the only guide that you have are teacher grades.
Just finished “Atomic” by Tim Baggot. A history of the development of the bomb. From my reading, lots of the physicists knew. They pushed forward as they didn’t know the extent of the german project (who had stalled due to lack of resources and a belief that while possible, a bomb wasn’t practical due to a need for a large amount of material). The safe-cracking was for amusement.