It's fucking 2010

[Salty]

I'm waiting for some kind of change in our reproductive skills. We should totally keep sex, but drop the whole nine-month gestation thing. It's bad for women's health for starters, and a pain in general.

Pods, people. Pods. We must build them.

For the children.

No, because then it would be even easier for assholes to have even more children, because it would be easy and it wouldn't hurt. It's not really bad for a woman's health assuming she is healthy to begin with and takes care of herself... and doesn't crank them out year after year.

I'm more in favor of male pregnancy, and a genetic alteration that requires BOTH people to consciously desire a pregnancy for it to be able to happen.

I have a skewed view on that as Mrs. Alty reacted to pregnancy badly. Then again she has a pretty bad coke(a cola) habit. From other women I've talked to I've gathered in can go lots of different ways. Some are just fine, like nothing's happening, some are infected with the dreaded case of the babies and just wantitoutohgodgetitoutofme!

I'm all for male pregnancy (whooo lactation!) and the genetic thing. Though...I would be the biggest, laziest candy-ass if I were pregnant. I would work that angle.

[Requia ☣]

How are hydrogen fuel cells worse at energy storage and conversion than rechargeable batteries of other sorts?

Hydrogen fuel cell works kinda like this: hydrogen goes into a box, and the box strips the bare proton away from the bare electron. The electron goes through the circuit, rejoins its brother, hydrogen goes out, meets oxygen, and we have water. Problem is, the easiest way to generate hydrogen is to use an electrolyzer. By the second law of thermodynamics, the hydrogen fuel cell is an overcomplicated contraption that uses a bottle of flammable and highly reactive gas to turn a good battery into a slightly less good battery.

Now, it's quite possible that in some situations a hydrogen fuel tank and fuel cell will be so much lighter than the number of batteries needed to move the same thing that the lost energy is worth it. This is, however, in comparison to an electric car, and with the exception of the Tesla, electric cars generally suck at everything (except for transporting golf clubs). It also does not change the flammability risk, and I figure a tank of hydrogen is probably more flammable than a bunch of nickel metal hydride or lithium-ion batteries.

The other thing, of course, is that you probably want to carry a tank of oxygen around too, in order to make sure that the hydrogen binds to oxygen rather than to something else in the air that will turn nasty. That, of course, makes the whole unit even more flammable, and further makes you wonder why you bothered electrolyzing in the first place -- and then you remember that you can't electrolyze on-board because then you'd just be carrying a battery with more capacity than the fuel cell that you should really be using instead.

Wut?  None of the existing models use an oxygen tank. And the idea isn't to use a tank of hydrogen gas (though most of the existing models do), you bind the hydrogen to something else that has a low energy cost of extraction (tetraborohydride is the candidate I'm familiar with, there are others too), otherwise you can't get enough density and have to refuel every 50 miles.  Hydrogen  can be gathered much more efficiently than electrolysis by extracting it out of coal (this still takes energy, just not as much).

More likely it'll be beaten by the next generation of batteries being able to charge faster (assuming they don't kill the power grid in the process).

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Oh, my bad.

Enki,
Science knowledge courtesy of three attempts at Introductory Engineering Seminar I

[The Johnny]

Im still waiting for soylent green. :pouts:

[The Wizard]

Personally, I sort of like the idea of self cloning. Having a six-pack of clones like in Paranoia. Death would stop being such a scary concept if you could just clone yourself a new one. Now you'd just be afraid of a painful death.

[Remington]

I'm waiting for some kind of change in our reproductive skills. We should totally keep sex, but drop the whole nine-month gestation thing. It's bad for women's health for starters, and a pain in general.

Pods, people. Pods. We must build them.

For the children.

No, because then it would be even easier for assholes to have even more children, because it would be easy and it wouldn't hurt. It's not really bad for a woman's health assuming she is healthy to begin with and takes care of herself... and doesn't crank them out year after year.

I'm more in favor of male pregnancy, and a genetic alteration that requires BOTH people to consciously desire a pregnancy for it to be able to happen.

I have a skewed view on that as Mrs. Alty reacted to pregnancy badly. Then again she has a pretty bad coke(a cola) habit. From other women I've talked to I've gathered in can go lots of different ways. Some are just fine, like nothing's happening, some are infected with the dreaded case of the babies and just wantitoutohgodgetitoutofme!

I'm all for male pregnancy (whooo lactation!) and the genetic thing. Though...I would be the biggest, laziest candy-ass if I were pregnant. I would work that angle.

So long as guys can lactate something manly. Like beer, or antifreeze.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Personally, I sort of like the idea of self cloning. Having a six-pack of clones like in Paranoia. Death would stop being such a scary concept if you could just clone yourself a new one. Now you'd just be afraid of a painful death.

The key to that is mind transference, which is quite a bit harder. We've cloned all sorts of things successfully; we have, however, only recently simulated the brain of a cat (or attempted to, and not even all of the brain of a cat). Cloning as a technology is a lot more advanced than mind transference, and if you had mind transference, you could do without cloning at all -- just put your mind on the internet. Make seven back up copies, and load them into robots upon your death. Build an android that looks like you but has six times the strength and seven telescoping vibrating glow in the dark penises with built in can-openers, and then jack into it when you're bored.

[The Wizard]

Hmm. Your idea is better.

[Reginald Ret]

We can have flying cars you know, the technology is close enough to do it.
its just that no company is gonna develop a product that will never be allowed to be used.
damn government, cramping our style.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

We can have flying cars you know, the technology is close enough to do it.
its just that no company is gonna develop a product that will never be allowed to be used.
damn government, cramping our style.

Flying cars were marketed in the 30s. Nobody bought them. Still, I'd be happy enough if cars stopped being run on fire.

[Kai]

an illustration of how some things have changed significantly in the last twenty years.

My mom and I were talking about book ordering, and the particular systems they have in libraries now to minimize cost and maximize circulation. One of these is an automatic purchase of bestsellers and other books with high sale rates; they don't even have to be ordered, they are delivered directly to the library. This discussion lead into amazon.com, alibris and other web booksellers, and I realized that up until very recently, it was a HELL of a trial to be a bibliophile. To purchase any books, they would have to either order out of a catelogue or at a book store. To find a copy of an older book may have taken years of searching in used bookstores. Now I just search google, find the title, check the seller sites for price comparison, purchase for a relatively low price, and have it shipped to my house in two weeks.

I'm a bibliophile. To me, thats pretty fucking incredible. Not that I don't enjoy used book stores, but man, I just returned to my office today to find five packages of books for me, one of them a 1909 copy of Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle.

[rong]

who needs flying cars and lazers when you can spend all day on the internet?

[Cainad (dec.)]

Lasers are for consumer electronics or warfare. Flying cars require that average spags become pilots, and that very notion is silly.

No, this future is an interconnected network of silicon-based counting machines accessible by anyone who can afford it.

[Reginald Ret]

Lasers are for consumer electronics or warfare. SAFE Flying cars require that average spags become pilots, and that very notion is silly.

No, this future is an interconnected network of silicon-based counting machines accessible by anyone who can afford it.

fixed.

screw safe, that is not the point of flying cars.
make em suicidal deathtraps and slap a "enter at own risk" sign on 'em.
oh and make 'em loud as fuck(staple a whistle on the front or something) so only deaf people will be hit by one falling out of the sky.
we wouldn't want our tranportation to end a lot of lives now would we?


Killed in car accidents   42,116*
Killed by the common flu   20,000*
Killed by murders   15,517*
Killed in airline crashes
(of 477m passenger trips)   120 (1)
Killed by lightning strikes   90*
Killed by Anthrax   5
(1) Annual average over 19 year period.
*Average annual totals in United States.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

The Delorean from 'Back to the Future' DAMMIT!!!   





Personally, I would be happier with more affordable solar power options!