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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
05/06/09
What is not explained is how it can flex that much. Normal concrete has virtually zero tensile strength. For it to flex, they have given it tensile strength somehow. I guess you're going to force me to read the NG article.
05/06/09
05/06/09
05/06/09
I'm no physician, just guessing here.
05/06/09
04/21/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
Look, for example, at the zombie apocalypse. Sure, it would seem like we're screwed and all, but look at it this way. Just about every body buried 6 feet underground won't be able to escape, so that right there subtracts that population of zombies. The rest will be even frailer than healthy people, since they're rotting flesh, and will have gulls and turkey vultures overhead to warn us of their presence. They'd be susceptible to maggot attacks, predators that are attracted to the rank odors and probably fall apart if set aflame. I think we'd make it out just fine.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
Here is the thing, we find an eternal energy source we can use it to create heavier element from hydrogen (most abundant element in the universe) by way of fusion...or we could just switch to using carbon and other organic elements harvest from biological processes.
God, so tired of all this doomsday shit...and no global warming isn't goanna get us either, we survived one climatic shift we can survive another..Though to fairly honest I doubt global warming is real, political BS.
[Refer: The Global warming swindle]
Let the dog pile begin!
04/20/09
You do realize that by putting a comma there you just said that you do not believe that global warming is political BS, right?
Also, the majority of that list are people who believe that nature has a greater effect than humans, not that humans don't have an effect. One of the biggest misconceptions that a majority of the people who do not believe in anthropogenic global warming is that scientists are trying to say that humans are the sole cause of global warming. That is not what is being said. What is being said is that we have an impact on the climate and risk affecting the natural balance which could ultimately stop the natural cycles. Most that are against global warming argue Gaia's Hypothesis (the unrevised version) saying that the Earth is a closed system which will eventually fix itself when things get out of whack. Meanwhile, the revised hypothesis and what people who believe in global warming cite is that humans act as an outside force because of their overwhelming ability to change their surroundings and that we have the ability to throw off the natural balance.
04/20/09
(1) Human ingenuity. Imagine running this type of analysis in 1900. You'd worry about having enough hay to feed the horses needed to transport a growing population. We have no idea what resources we'll be using in 50 or a 100 years.
(2) Supply and Demand driving replacement of scarce resources. As a particular resource becomes more scarce, it will become more expensive and replacements will be used (see #1). Copper is a good example. A big current use is in plumbing. But already in a number of places high tech plastic plumbing is taking over.
In short, this chart is about a useful as reading tea leaves or goat entrails.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
Yes, it might be hard to pinpoint to a specific time period when something will be replaced. However, when supply goes down, prices rise and demand subsides. At higher prices, people are more apt to produce (or discover) more of a product or find a replacement.
Julian Simon puts it much more eloquently
"More people, and increased income, cause resources to become more scarce in the short run. Heightened scarcity causes prices to rise. The higher prices present opportunity, and prompt inventors and entrepreneurs to search for solutions. Many fail in the search, at cost to themselves. But in a free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run the new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen. That is, prices eventually become lower than before the increased scarcity occurred."
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
My kids are going to need to know how to improvise explosives from dung to fight off the zombie apocalypse more than their going to need to know about the development of the post-feminist heroine in modern popular literature as a result of the writings of Susan Sontag.
04/20/09
04/20/09
...Not enough zombies.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
:shrug:
Of all the animals on the planet, humans are the only ones who do engage in significant long term planning.
04/20/09
04/20/09
Still, I'm doubting that they're on the money.
Is it safe to assume that computer programs/androids are going to be self aware after we run out of metals?
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
@Jim Topoleski: Look at the right side of the graph. They are accounting for recycling. As for unknown reserves, that is another thing that this graph leaves ambiguous which may be less ambiguous when looking at the paper that goes along with the graph. It is possible that their numbers are assuming that there are unknown reserves.
04/20/09
Will we be able to find more when they run out? Probably, but the fact that we are not using those sources now means they are either small enough to escape our detection, or there are difficulties obtaining them that makes them less efficient. Oil shale is a large untapped supply of possible oil-substitute, but the energy involved in the refinement gives you a much lower net gain.
@Jim Topoleski: If you want to bring up the past, lets talk about ecocide of Easter Island (and resulting cannibalism as resources ran low). Mankind has proven many times in the past to not possess the self-restraint to live within our means.
04/20/09
04/20/09
Either way, you can feel good about yourself for "going green" and all that crap, but none of it matters.
Think of it this way: if these were issues that would end mankind someone would have come back from the future to fix it. Seeing as no one has come back from the future to fix our problems we can come two possible conclusions. Either A, These issues wiped mankind off the face of the earth before we could develop time travel; or B, these issues didn't end mankind and in the end, really weren't much of an issue so there was no point in traveling back in time to change anything.
Everything that is going to happen, has happened.
04/20/09
Try not to base your world views on what images implanted into someone's brain by a computer in a movie says.
04/20/09
Their definition is terrible.
04/20/09
One could argue, quite successfully, I think, that waging long, reckless, and expensive wars is a byproduct of inadequate long term planning.
04/20/09
You must subscribe to Star Trek's view of time travel. A convoluted, constantly changing idea, that the past can and at the same time cannot be changed. And anytime an event is changed or the possibility of different outcomes exist an alternate reality is spawned.
Idea's like that spawn shows like Sliders. I'll stick my "Lost" view of time travel.
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
"... that waging long wars ..."
04/20/09
04/20/09
04/20/09
02/18/09
02/17/09
02/17/09
Diamond's? Shiii-it. Ain't got no class!
I squeeze diamonds out my muthafu***in' ass!
Dolemite is the true rock's name.
And fuckin' up muthaf***ers is its game!
02/17/09
02/17/09
02/17/09
02/17/09