Toxn
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Everything posted by Toxn
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So I ended up promising a work collegue that I would make him a bow after he kindly gave me some arrows and a foam target. The first bow (Kiaat on the back, lamboo on the belly) blew up during tillering. I subsequently stuck to lamboo until I can figure out what went wrong. The second developed a crack and had to be patched - after which I didn't trust it enough to give to a stranger: The third was a pretty stadard pyramid bow - 1.6m long, around 1cm thick in the limb, a 12cm handle section, 5cm at the widest part and 1.5cm at the tips. It worked beautifully, with only two problems. The first is that the draw was only 30 pounds or so (13.9kg at 75cm), which is a bit disappointing as I was aiming for 50. The second is that I completely forgot to take any photos of the thing, which is a shame as I went to all the trouble of making a wrapped sisal string for it. I'll update if my collegue ever sends pictures.
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With the minor downside of having shafts running all over your fuselage if you want more than a single fan.
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I would value anyone with an engineering or science background throwing in something similar to the above.
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Just to set some boundaries on the wool-gathering, here are my professional opinions on what will be doable in the next two hundred years in terms of biotech: human lifespan increases (most radical approaches are germ-line only) changes to musculature, metabolism, oxygen carrying capacity in adults changes to pigmentation and hair growth in adults inclusion of simple phenotype changes (anything other than simple pathways requiring germ-line changes) in adults removal of nearly all simple genetic defects in the population Limited gross anatomical changes (IE: hox-gene mutants. Germ-line only) Surgical attachment of constructed tissues, organs, limbs etc. Limited changes to neurological/neurochemical phenotypes (most radical approaches are germ-line only) Improved treatments for a number of diseases (low-hanging fruit has been plucked, so rate of drug development is slowing accordingly) Novel/aesthetic body mods using exogenous organisms or tissues (principally limited by our knowledge and control of immune responses) Biological or technological telepathy (already demonstrated in very rough form - has strong societal implications) Limited hibernation/stasis (already demonstrated for use in trauma surgery) Full control over reproduction (gene scanning, zygote selection, germ-line modification, artificial wombs or non-human surrogates - has strong societal implications) Very powerful biocontrol methodologies (gene drives, de novo pathogens, possibly tailored predators or parasites - has strong societal implications) Very generalised bioreactors (multi-feedstock digestors, bioreactors for a wide range of current industrial feedstocks) Third-generation GMOs (genome built up from a minimal gene set or template, or by combining large proportions of genomes amongst disparate species - has strong societal implications) Basic uplifting of candidate species (subset of GMOs, driven by comparative genomic studies - has strong societal implications)
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I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer to the Fermi paradox is ultimately that it is easier and cheaper to create another universe (or hole to the same) than it is to travel widely in our own. My guess is that a truly advanced civilization eventually disappears up its own arse without ever leaving its home system.
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Communism actually makes a lot more sense as a social system when technological progress isn't happening too fast (IMO, of course). As such, if you feel like decelerando is an accurate overall description of technological change then communism might indeed make a comeback. Interstellar travel by anything human is pretty laughble at this point, at least until someone fundamentally breaks the known laws of physics. As for people changing, my point is that we'll most likely see people change beyond recognition long before we see anything like star trek technology. We will never go to the stars, because we're not well designed for flinging into space. And once we redesign (or replace) ourselves, whatever we send up there probably won't think of itself as human.
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Because when you're related to wasps you can never stop trying to live it down.
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You should read that book I linked to. Essentially, fast metabolisms select for improved ROS scavenging at the mitochondrial level, which pays off in terms of increased lifespan. This effect is the underlying reason why exercise improves lifespan.
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Moving to your other comments - we can't design protein de novo, and won't be able to for a while. But we can optimise them pretty well*. In terms of custom design, we're far away from doing large organisms but have now found an approach that works well for bacteria. In theory, all we need to do now is extend this approach to 'circuits' made up of known components added on to blank templates in the form of minimal gene sets. For my part, I think most of the action in creating truly custom organisms (as opposed to ever-more complex mods) will be in the creation of animats by assembly, printing and growth/integration of components and tissues using an assembly-line setup. This would allow you to essentially bypass the complexity development while providing lots of flexibility in terms of sub-assemblies, tissues and the like. * This company used an approach that really impressed me to get good material properties out of bacterial spider silk. Basically, the issue with producing spider silk outside of a spider (or modified silkworm) is that we simply cannot replicate spinnets properly. This company, instead of trying to improve their artificial spinnerets, decided to optimise the silk protein itself for spinning. The approach they used was also pretty boss, as it iterated out a number of modifications in a computer and then tested them in the lab.
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Nah, that's actually pretty accurate. As far as we can tell, aging is simply the accumulation of errors and damage that, in turn, begat more of themselves until the organism fails in some catastrophic way. Though there are some 'general' causes of aging, such as ongoing damage caused by respiratory byproducts*, the end result is more like all of the parts exceeding their warranty than it is a simple countdown clock which could be pushed back. Although lifespan increases and, more importantly, healthy lifespan increases are going to be available within the next few decades, I don't see biological immortality becoming a thing before radical body mods. Speaking of immortality, one of the side effects if it ever did happen is that it would pretty much end any society which adopted it. This has been explored by many science-fiction writers, so I don't feel that it needs to be elaborated too much further here. * This book makes the case that more efficient mitochondria could allow people to live to 300 or so if they could ever be properly integrated into cells. Note that this would be a germ-line insertion, so no anti-ageing treatments for us on that front. On the other hand, research seems to show that lifespan can be marginally increased while radically improving other age-related complications simply by clearing senescent cells from the body - something that can be done using drugs right now. On the downside, this seems to have the side effect of reducing wound regeneration.
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Ding ding ding.
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I doubt any hegemony could last long. But yeah, this is supposed to be the most optimistic future. The others are... less so, at least for H. sapiens.
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It's honesty one of the few options for something we would recognise as human to be around in 10 000 years. Damn near everything else involves us replacing ourselves in some way or another.
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Also handy: rifle, pistol, knife, truncheon, assegai, dog, hand signals. -
Alternate version: The bayonet: for when a rock is too little, but a bullet is too much.
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To start with, a possible future which may be arrived at through a number of avenues (some of them horrible): The earth is now a garden again, but not in the edenic sense. Rather, it is a very well-managed place where everything is ordered and maintained by human hands. Humans, or at last people we would recognise as human, still live here. But their numbers are drastically lower than were. All around their small settlements, the ruins of a more crowded past slowly return to nature. For the average person life is long, easy and uneventful. War and struggle still exist, but it takes place at scales and energies beyond what the inhabitants of the planet would be able to partake of. Disease is all but eliminated, with people expecting ill health only right before the end of their lives. Injuries are rare, and rarely fatal. Pests and other biological nuicances are firmly under control. Work is nearly optional, because few are capable of contributing much beyond the abundance that the self-perpetuating infrastructure already provides. Entertainment and information are easily available, and the scattered people of the planet are connected in ways that go beyond what we are capable of now. Education is... different to the present, being essentially another form of entertainment rather than a means to make a living. Even so, there are philosophers, artists, engineers and scientists in the world. This is a future where what we recognise as humanity has been bypassed by history; left to eddy in the wake of larger powers. Perhaps the people there are kept as a living museum, or perhaps as an exercise in hedging bets. Perhaps simple gratitude on behalf of whatever succeeds us keeps people around. In any case, it is a future where, for perhaps millions of years, the cycles of life return to something like an idealised version of the past - a long golden age where, for one group of our potential descendents, all of the hard problems have been solved and there is nothing much left to do but live good lives. This is the future of humanity made redundant; put out to pasture by beneficient forces.
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The bayonet: perfect for when you've run out of artillery, air support, armour support, rockets, grenades, machinegun ammunition, rifle ammunition and pistol ammunition.
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The bullshit populist version, sure, but also one of our possible futures. This thread is for musing on how things will go, with an an emphasis on accuracy. As all I can really speak to is biotech stuff, I will be posting a bit in that line here and there. For the rest, I invite our learned electronics engineers/internet pedants to provide their views on how things will go from here on out.
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Had the weirdest day yesterday. Started with some dude recognising me for my flying (to which: wat?), continued with getting shat on by a teammate because my engine got shot out and how dare I glide back to base?!?. Ended with my P40 duelling a spaded Yak1b with elite pilot in centre of map. Dude was good, I got rekt when my pilot lost control.
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Via TFB, from the guy who represented the airport OC jamoke: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/02/marc-j-victor/carry-gun-america/
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The Saudi Arabia is a Backwards, Laughable Shithole Thread
Toxn replied to Collimatrix's topic in Open Discussion
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/02/saudi-arabia-collapse/463212/ Side issue: Someone unintentionally outed US domestic policy, methinks. -
AI any good? Or is the joy in just flying the things out?
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An example from last night: I flew out in my A6M2-N banana plane over that Chinese map that seems to be cropping up more frequently. I flew at mid altitude (2000m) and we had a bunch of Ki-43s and 44s on high. The opposing team (mainly Yak 7s) went in low to catch our bomber and Ki-45 (who went in fast and low, of course), and got down to trying to gang-bang two of our fighters who went in as well. I got in and targeted one of the 7s just as the Kis jumped them, and within about a minute we had eleminated them almost completely (2 kills, 3 assists for me). Then we spent the next 20 minutes strafing ground for lack of anything else to do. Eventually I got so bored that I parked my plane on a river, at which point the remaining enemy team (a Mig-3 and Lagg-3) jumped me. This one was actually borderline, as the enemy team was being pretty sneaky and waiting for us to disperse rather than just going AFK. Still, the fact that you can just wait out the opposing team like that (with, as I mentioned earlier, a 7:2 advantage thanks to good team work) under your impenetrable bubble of base AA grates a bit, as boring the enemy to death is one of the lowest exploits I can think of. This was also the final straw in a bad night for me, as my lag issues coincide damn near perfectly with WT having anyone to fight (last three matches ended with my connection spazzing out and my plane diving into the ground). The mornings, where my internet is better, generally see all of 15000 on the EU server. So 5+ min waits are common. So yeah, no fun brigade wins again. Please advise on single-player flying games that I can enjoy.
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Oof that sounds good.
