 - Last login: 7 weeks agoOgpibakr
- bigfoot is a 29 year old guy from Ohio, USA.
- Likes 417 pages, 50 videos, 41 photos • 25 fans • Received 12 reviews
- Member since Jan 26, 2008
"One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame."
-Willa Cather, "le Lavandou"
Music!
Favorites » His Blog
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May 10, 5:54pm
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"Uncarved block
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied.
"Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
Unlike most traditional Zen koans, this koan has a possible concrete and correct answer: just as the room is not really empty when Minsky shuts his eyes, neither is the neural network really free of preconceptions when it is randomly wired. The network still has preconceptions, they are simply random now, and from a random rather than a human source.
Interestingly, this particular koan seems to have been closely based on a real incident; the following text extract is from Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (chapter 6):
"So Sussman began working on a program. Not long after, this odd-looking bald guy came over. Sussman figured the guy was going to boot him out, but instead the man sat down, asking, "Hey, what are you doing?" Sussman talked over his program with the man, Marvin Minsky. At one point in the discussion, Sussman told Minsky that he was using a certain randomizing technique in his program because he didn't want the machine to have any preconceived notions. Minsky said, "Well, it has them, it's just that you don't know what they are." It was the most profound thing Gerry Sussman had ever heard. And Minsky continued, telling him that the world is built a certain way, and the most important thing we can do with the world is avoid randomness, and figure out ways by which things can be planned. Wisdom like this has its effect on seventeen-year-old freshmen, and from then on Sussman was hooked.""
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May 9, 8:38pm
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"A launch loop or Lofstrom loop is a design for a belt based maglev orbital launch system that would be around 2000 km long and maintained at an altitude of up to 80 km (50 mi). It provides a potential way of non-rocket spacelaunch..
The published cost estimates for a working launch loop are significantly lower than a space elevator, with a greater launch capacity, lower payload costs and similar or greater payload masses; and unlike the space elevator no new materials need to be developed.
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Launch loops launch are expected to launch at high rates (many launches per hour, independent of weather), and are not inherently polluting (rockets create pollution such as nitrates in their exhausts due to high exhaust temperature, and can create greenhouse gases depending on propellant choices)..
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Launch loops are intended for human transportation, and give a safe 3g acceleration which the vast majority of people would be capable of tolerating well..
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Finally, their low payload costs is compatible with large-scale commercial space tourism and even space colonisation."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop]
daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/magnetic_levitation_launch-assist.html [daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/magnetic_levitation_launch-assist.html]
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"Consider that the first magnetic launch systems are expected to propel payloads into orbit at a cost of roughly $750/lb, already a significant improvement over the current rocket-launched cost of around $4,000/lb."
*The savings incurred from this proposed method of space launch could pay for a whole lot of maglev trains and railways.
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May 8, 10:52pm
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UN University Motto: "Advancing knowledge for human security, peace, and development."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNU-MERIT [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNU-MERIT]
"UNU-MERIT provides insights into the social, political and economic factors that drive technological change and innovation. The Center's research and training programs address a broad range of policy questions relating to the national and international governance of science, technology and innovation, with a particular focus on the creation, diffusion and access to knowledge.
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UNU-MERIT explores how countries can catch up in the unequal global playing field of the 21st century, without increasing inequality and social exclusion. This entails going beyond the traditional focus on domestic capacity building to analyze knowledge flows at the regional and global levels, and their impact on local development, employment, and productivity.
As globalization leads to a constantly evolving economic, political and cultural landscape a key question is how knowledge production and learning processes can be managed in the interest of all society, and in ways that promote creativity, diversity and collaboration across a broad range of actors and institutions."
merit.unu.edu [merit.unu.edu]
The cost of not constructing these far outweighs the costs of doing so:
dsc.discovery.com/convergence/engineering/beringstrait/interactive/interact... [dsc.discovery.com/convergence/engineering/beringstrait/interactive/interact...]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKM-World_Link [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKM-World_Link]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Global_Highway [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_Global_Highway]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_Railway [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitan_Railway]
transrapid-usa.com [transrapid-usa.com]
fra.dot.gov/us/press-releases/173 [fra.dot.gov/us/press-releases/173]
"For the first time ever, states will be directly eligible for federal funding to support intercity passenger rail service under a new grant program, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters announced today."
investorvillage.com/smbd.asp [investorvillage.com/smbd.asp]
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May 8, 9:14pm
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"Emotional Maturity Is A Conscious Choice"
By Edward E. Morler, M.B.A., Ph.D.
© 1996-2002 by Edward E. Morler, M.B.A., Ph.D. All rights reserved.
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"Emotional maturity just doesn't happen because you reached a certain age, got a job, finished school, got married, had children, made lots of money, or attained high social position. None of those in themselves make you emotionally mature. Children and adolescents are driven by genes and hormones. However, beyond adolescence, an individual has to choose maturity. While emotional intelligence can be learned, emotional maturity is a choice. If it is not consciously made the individual will not move beyond the emotional immaturity of an adolescent despite any and all trappings of material "success."
Self-centeredness and self-importance are characteristics of children and adolescents. They demand special treatment, make little real contributions themselves, and complain that life isn't meeting their demands. This does not make them "bad." This is part of the maturation process. However, these behaviors are not characteristics of the emotionally mature. When those characteristics manifest chronically in a "grown-up," they are indications that person is not in fact a mature, responsive adult, but rather still reacting out of their self-centered child or self-important adolescent.
In fact, there are a great many people who "look grown up" and "appear" to be successful by contemporary standards, but emotionally still behave like children and adolescents. They emotionally never "grew up." Perhaps it was because they saw how their parents modeled "adulthood" and "responsibility" and said, "If that's what it is, I don't want it." If the only models of "adults" they were exposed to were reactive ones, it is likely that they will model the same behavior or its reactive counterpart. Regardless of the why or the what, they are caught in reactive, not responsive behavior and tend to erroneously view maturity and responsibility as "burdensome" things to be avoided.
In this avoidance, the adolescent can be incredibly adaptive in creating images and behavior that "pass" for grownup. However, emotionally they are not adults and they never will be until they consciously choose to be.
Truly growing up, becoming emotionally mature, is about being in the NOW and letting go of the past. Hanging onto the past becomes a convenient way to scapegoat parents for our relationship problems and rationalize our loneliness and lack of love. Our parents may not have been ideal and they did have a significant impact. But, that was then and this is NOW! We have to honestly look at, "Who's recreating the issue NOW?"
A vital part of the route from adolescence to adult maturity is letting go of blaming others for our pain. A large part of that is about allowance and learning to forgive (ourselves as well as others). As blame is only about the past, growing up is about responsibly taking charge of our lives NOW. Not tomorrow, for tomorrow is always tomorrow. We either do that NOW or we continue to act like children or adolescents waiting for "it" to happen, blaming others when it doesn't, and reacting to and being controlled by dysfunctional actions of the past. Until that conscious choice is made, the person will manifest all the fears, insecurities, pretense and limitations of a child or an adolescent.
Once past teenager, each individual, unless they are brain damaged or have a chemical imbalance, can choose to be adult. They do have a choice to be emotionally mature, with all the power and freedom it provides."
morler.com/emotional_maturity.pdf [morler.com/emotional_maturity.pdf]
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May 5, 8:32pm
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_away [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_away]
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May 5, 8:17pm
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May 5, 2:27pm
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"Thirty percent of the electricity used in the U.S is alone for lighting. Here is an elegant new lighting system that could save millions in the energy cost, it could improve worker productivity. It's called Hybrid solar lighting. Some buildings are already seeing the light. It works by installing a solar collector- this system consists of a 48 inch diameter primary mirror that concentrates the light towards the secondary mirror. This secondary mirror strips of UV and infrared wave-lines. Taking off the UV wave-lines there is a heat in the fiber optics and why not, we can't see that light anyway. The visible light is focused towards the fiber optic receiver, the fiber optical receiver contains optical fiber that in pass into the building and hear you out for building lighting."
parans.com/ParansProducts/tabid/892/Default.aspx [parans.com/ParansProducts/tabid/892/Default.aspx]
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May 4, 4:23pm
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May 3, 12:10pm
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engadget.com/2007/11/26/maglev-wind-turbines-1000x-more-effiencient-than-no... [engadget.com/2007/11/26/maglev-wind-turbines-1000x-more-effiencient-than-no...]
"According to developers, the technology is capable of scaling to massive sizes, with a proposed $53M turbine able enough to replace 1000 traditional windmills and power 750 thousand homes. Additional benefits include the ability to generate power with winds as slow as three miles per hour, operational costs some 50 percent cheaper than windmills, and an estimated lifespan of 500 years. That all sounds great, but the real proof will come when these things get put to use, which may happen sooner than you'd think: Development is proceeding rapidly in both the US and China, with Chinese power company Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology currently building a $5M factory to produce the turbines in capacities from 400 to 5,000 watts."
goodcleantech.com/2007/11/zhongke_hengyuan_energy_techno.php [goodcleantech.com/2007/11/zhongke_hengyuan_energy_techno.php]
"The 400-million-yuan project (about $54 million) was funded by Guangzhou-based Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology Co. Ltd.--who expect to see a yearly revenue of 1.6 billion yuan, four times its initial expenditure.
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It's notable for a frictionless design--meaning that it can start producing power with wind speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second."
Wind energy is ideal for powering the Arctic and Antarctic stations. (I hear it's windy)
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ipy.org/index.php [ipy.org/index.php]
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May 3, 11:00am
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"Welcome to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), a part of the National Weather Service (NWS). NDBC designs, develops, operates, and maintains a network of data collecting buoys and coastal stations.
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NDBC provides hourly observations from a network of about 90 buoys and 60 Coastal Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) stations to help meet these needs. All stations measure wind speed, direction, and gust; barometric pressure; and air temperature. In addition, all buoy stations, and some C-MAN stations, measure sea surface temperature and wave height and period. Conductivity and water current are measured at selected stations."
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"The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is a system of systems that routinely and continuously provides quality controlled data and information on current and future states of the oceans and Great Lakes from the global scale of ocean basins to local scales of coastal ecosystems."
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ocean.us [ocean.us]
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