whythehellnot

Don't think phones are so much a fad as they are hopefully a dead end.

I would prefer if telecoms died a horrible death so that we could just use the infinitely better infrastructure for moving information, AKA the internet. They only stand to benefit by holding back the internet with bandwidth caps to promote their crappier SMS tech.

That way instead of this marketing abomination called "Smartphones" (Phone/PC hybrid failure mishmash) to using agnostic modular mobile PCs (not laptops) without the GPS tracker and the cellular chipset (both being optional, the magic of modularity). To have a hub that would connect to the mPC, interfacing with all USB/HDMI/Audio devices. Not everyone likes current wireless devices. Adding the ability to install whatever OS you want with an actual friendly & helpful bootloader.

A man can dream...

Given that their full scale solar concentrator could produce 20,000L per day. I think it would take around 10,000 of those concentrators just for aeroplanes to be carbon neutral. To be honest, that isn't too bad considering how much money we waste collecting other fuels much more dangerously. This would be worthwhile if we could construct them quick enough before our transition to our battery powered future.

To be honest this sort of technology would be better used for recycling agriculture fertilisers.

I'll admit that I didn't think of a potentially DRM linchpin good actor that hides from the government and is as untouchable as the incorruptible trillionaire. The reason I think this way is that I'm sure that unless you're a radical/extremist in your principals, your vulnerable to exploitation from authorities and anyone who is a bad actor more powerful than they are.

Which probably also tells you that I think people are generally bad actors by nature. Due to greed & a lack of integrity when endowed with a position of power. Any systems designed with the notion that people are generally good actors tend to be exploited and corrupted over time.

"Are you a good actor, and if so, how do you know?"

Perhaps? I can't know that because I've never been in such a position that would reveal my lesser traits. I've never been given into logical fallacies under pressure from multitudes of bad actors that would love to see me fail so they could get what they want. Which is why I've commented before on why I think the government should be designed in a way that forces bad actors to be good actors by encouraging them to follow their natural instincts to be positively selfish instead of negatively.

Not sure but he might be referring to the fact that the silicon crystals used for these panels require poisonous gases that thousands times worse for the environment than most produced by any E source.

Or the fact that they require huge amounts of energy to produce. Often offsetting the energy they produce themselves by many years. Not to mention the energy for all these panel come mostly from China which uses mostly coal plants. Which also use some of the shittiest, low grade flammable dirt from Australia (it's cheap).

We won't get non-trivial energy coverage by photovoltaic panels until they're unfortunately as cost effective as coal/oil. Which is predicted that it won't be until 2030. Most likely the coal industry will exploit their power to hold back said competition with as long as possible. So it could even take to 2050 before coal use will even start to dwindle.

Literally the only technology worth our time right now is advanced nuclear fission. Occasionally hydroelectric when they're in the appropriate location.

I wish people would realise that solar will only be amazingly useful when we build dyson spheres. But we need Fusion AND Fission to get there.

In terms of total emissions, no we are doing much worse. Many, many gas wells crack and poisons the land and releases enormous amounts of gases hundreds times worse than CO2.

In terms of total pollution, it removes the vast majority toxic waste produced by coal which kills many people. Not to mention the mercury levels in the ocean it's causing.

WE really needed advanced technologies like Nuclear Energy in the face of virtually a coal/gas apocalypse. We are now in serious jeopardy without it. Why do you think China's making Nuclear energy such a massive initiative? Even India is doing decent research on them because they're sitting on a pile of thorium.

This isn't a problem that we can be gambling with. We only get one good try at this because there will be tens of thousands of years of repercussions. The fact that we're settling with "good enough" on this could mean millions will be displaced & billions of people could starve to death. All because we're being controlled by a greedy gov, greedier lobbyists & a population too stupid to do the right thing.

What does DRM have over strong cryptography that does not require good actors in order to work?

Besides, so long so there is government, there can be no useful good actors unless they're untouchable trillionaires that are above the law.

That's nonsense. If anything, governments are guaranteed to break their own laws whenever it's most convenient for them. We absolutely need a communication system that cannot be governed by any government. It does not need to have an altruistic DRM implementation to work. It needs security so pointlessly difficult to break through that it'd be cheaper and easier to do analog surveillance.

No one educated on the issue is criticizing that governments are able to effect positive change. It's that our governments are setup in a way that ineffectually compromises balance with shortsighted popular political stunts & corruption via dealings in secrecy.

I know this is a major tangent but if we want government to represent us, we have to change it in simple ways.

- Force living standards of the middle class onto them. No special treatment like elevated healthcare and huge pensions. They're not kings, the world won't end if they die a shitty death like the rest of us.

- Tie their wages to the average middle class citizen. That way they're rewarded for improving the living standard of most of the country.

- Retirement after office. No chance for lobbying. No bribing them with cushy jobs+bonuses after their term of exploitation.

- Creating a voting system that actually works. Stop this popularity contest BS and genuine altruistic leaders.

- Mandatory factual education per-requisite for voting for specific areas of expertise. No one should be able to vote until they meet a threshold of competency and comprehension of the candidates. These tests should be by a unbiased third party non-profit.

- Make the lives of representatives activities completely public, in real-time. It was their choice to represent hundreds of millions of people. They need to sacrifice their freedom for our own.

Bet this would fix a lot given most of these issues we're getting ourselves into are human problems rather than ideological problems. I would also like to see basic income be tried on a large scale for once, that'd be interesting.

Agreed, a responsible reaction I think. It's probably getting downvoted because their are a few people on HN that are financially invested in facebook becoming obnoxiously ubiquitous.

Our environment can't handle the damage by the time we get fusion to be useful for us or solar/battery become efficient/cost effective. We need to be thinking for today, as in right friggen now. Everyone I have ever seen or heard talk about this issue is always proposing the solution won't be too far away because of X.

NO IDIOT. We have the technology to stop all this right bloody now! One of which is so overlooked it's offensive. Latest Gen Nuclear fission should be replacing coal plants en-mass. The fact that it's not is so disheartening that I just want every coal lobbyist to choke on his own toxic waste...