Someone should tell IBM
If they want to be a naval power they need to prioritise engineering over the sales...
1083 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007
Growing lettuces hydroponically in a high CO2 environment works well. It also keeps the bugs down as there isn't enough Oxygen for them. You can't have stupid people working at those facilities unless there are good locks on the doors.
Sadly, politicians wont let you lock stupid people up, because that is their powerbase.
If covering the sides of buildings with solar panels was a good idea, people would already be doing so. They don't because, although it is an /obvious/ idea, it is not a /good/ idea.
Coming down out of the trees wasnt a good idea either, but the trees died off so we had to learn to walk upright..
Solar windows probably sits somewhere on Dabbsies hierarchy of stupid ideas, but it is being done
website at www.solarwindow.com/
All arguments about the poor geometry of window based solar collectors can be countered by -So what else are you doing with that space??
Then it comes down to economics, and that is something that will always start off terrible, and improve with technological advances and manufacturing scale.
as an aside, when solar PV first emerged, people used to joke about solar powered flashlights. Now they are just another item in camping catalogues.
A possibly more common variant of this is the "cat cafe", where you can spend time with various pet-type animals that your lifestyle may not let you keep at home.
Its a nice idea, not as good as the real thing, but some kind of pet-fix for the desperate.
The Platypus, and the Echidna, are classified as monotremes - which are mammals, but distinct from marsupials.
from wikipedia
one of the three main groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria) and marsupials (Metatheria).
We seem to be stuck in a foxhole in the ground underneath a giant tank that we can't possibly move with no hope of rescue. Does the AI battle computer have anything to say about that?
... probably, but since its getting no signal, due to being stuck in a foxhole in the ground underneath a giant tank, you will have to resolve the situation yourself, before you can avail yourself of the AI battle computers advice..
Problem with NATO committing troops.. is that Ukraine isnt part of NATO.
Morally it may be the right thing to do, but if it isnt in the contract, then acting beyond its scope damages its legitimacy.
And Legitimacy outweighs morality at every contest beyond kindergarten.
Honking like mad is not an effective response to transgressions by other road users.
Tesla will instead implement an automated system where any person, vehicle or object that gets too close to their vehicles ( or is occupying a parking spot they might desire), is labelled as a paedophile on social media...
Manufacturers blindly made machines with just 512GB RAM and those machines were actually too slow to be usable
Someday we will look back in fond nostalgia at systems that only needed 512 GB RAM. Such tight, clean programming and minimalist requirements.. Its art I tell you..
but I like the idea of a recording of an idling Harley Davidson, edited to be deeper and slower than any real IC engine could manage - possibly getting towards the drums in the deep, of LOTR fame.
The reasoning is that any E-ridable user wont realise how much more ridiculous it makes them appear,.. and it will probably get them punched by a bikie.
two problems with letting 'the freaks post whatever they want'.
one, the internet is big enough they can find others who agree with them, and feel validated and accepted - which is wonderful for a breastfeeding mother, but less so for a racist neo-nazi or fundamentalist religious nutter.
two, the culture of the internet is all about self-promotion and standing out - however briefly. This drives stupider and more extravagant comments, images and actions, resulting in injury, violence and all the other consequences we have become familiar with.
The internet is not to blame for stupid people... but it has empowered them far beyond anything sane
As a youth, i spent a significant portion of my income on books.
Over time, my collection has grown, and requires a large amount of storage space in the house, Fortunately, we no longer need to move, but my partner did a reorganisation which I still have not fixed, so my dead tree library is currently scrambled.
I mostly work 'Fly-in, Fly-out', where I spend a couple of weeks at a remote 'camp', then a week off back in civilisation.. repeat ad infinitum..
Back before E books i would be carrying half a dozen paperbacks every trip, in my limited luggage space.
These days I have access to the entire online portion of my library, and can get new books even when I am at site.
The sheer convenience of having books available on my phone - not even a separate e-reader device, becomes the difference between having a book or not having a book.
In an organisation with budgets and procedures, there will be a system for organising flights, and a provider to travel with, and a person in the organisation whos job it is to look after that stuff.
Not following the system makes life harder for every else involved, who can respond by making life harder for the offender. The systems will usually be far from perfect, but having an admin who knows what they are doing can make the pot holes invisible to the users.
If your organisation doesnt manage that kind of stuff - you're on your own...
There appears to be a misunderstanding about what the ICO is here for.
It is NOT a wild west sheriff, ruthlessly gunning down rustlers, outlaws, and generic black-bandana wearers, to create a world safe for shopkeepers and school-marms.
Its role is more along the lines of a bus conductor, asking customers to show their tickets and not put their feet on the seats, in order to fit more people onto the the bus.
One of their fundamental beliefs, would be that business is to be encouraged, so punishing companies is going to be done reluctantly.
In a perfect world - as envisaged by me - users get to sue social media organisations, who then get to sue posters of offensive content.
Viewers cannot sue posters, there is no chance of success there, so they must act against the agent of the poster, which is the social media org. The social media org has a relationship with the poster, which they can follow up to achieve redress. If its too hard - its their system, fix it.
There would be lawyers involved sadly, to ensure complaints weren't false or frivolous, but requirements should not be too high as the intent is to encourage social media orgs to do some damned quality control, and the public is doing them a service by pointing out where they are fucking up.
Scomo is desperately searching for relevance, with an upcoming election. Owning a bogan nickname sufficed to get him the last one, but the opposition have fielded 'Albo' to counter that ploy, and the voters have had a few years to find out that behind Scomo's facade, there's...well, nothing.
His greatest success was early in dealing with the pandemic, and it is officially described as forming a national cabinet - where in real terms it was passing all responsibility to the state governments. If the Commonwealth had kept responsibility for quarantine - the way they are supposed to - it would have been a disaster. His strategy is inaction ( with a catchy slogan).
It now looks like his political party are loading all their sins onto him, so he can be sacrificed and the rest of them appear clean and innocent. the term is scapegoat.
- with the assistance of sufficient alcohol (but not too much, cause its bad for the little buggers) - that humanity is the vessel by which E Coli has conquered the world, and all our achievements in art, and science, and architecture are just distractions from our true purpose of spreading our micro-flora across the face of the planet. This article shows that science is not a waste of time, freeing bacteria to colonize beyond colons and potentially into space itself.
The sky is no longer the limit.
To Infinity and Beyond !
In my distant and receding youth, I used to have a small motorbike to get me around town and to whatever work I had. This would be less powerful than most scooters, and with indicators brighter than its headlight.
At this occasion, I was riding to work before dawn in winter, and the local council had apparently decided streetlights werent required at that time of day.. the engine died, the headlight died.. so i was kicking down through the gears to get power to the headlight while fumbling under the fuel tank to switch to the reserve position..
Travelling home after work was during peak hour (such as it was back then), i used to see how much traffic I could get banked up behind my bike on a major highway.
If it wasnt drastic - it wouldnt have happened.
There would have been all sorts of half-arsed pretend implementations, and it would have been unenforceable. Keep it simple, and get it done.
As for the fairness or necessity of it, customers can vote with their feet if they dont like a venues rules and conditions, but the staff/employees dont get much choice.
As long as you're not working for Uber or Amazon or any of the other tech-bros, your employer is not supposed to put your life or health at risk. That can be pushing large aluminium staircases around an airfield in a lightning storm, or breathing toxic chemicals... they certainly wont pay you any extra for doing it.