Cerebral Stasis

Gondero, don't use a cheesy science fiction movie like iRobot as a refence for ideas. In theory, maybe, but in practice, no. The world just doesn't work like that.And Wolves, a computer wouldn't have to have real emotions to give characters in a game emotion. It would simulate the emotion (by reacting to the character's actions in certain ways that we would percieve as emotion), but real emotion would be unnecessary (not to mention possibly impossible).

Uh, yeah. It's called binoculars.Seriously, though, unless one looks at a monitor, one cannot see what's being projected from, for example, outside the building (unless one looks through a window, of course). Monitors release a very small amount of radiation (CRTs do, anyway), and a fairly large amount of heat. That's about it. One cannot reassemble such random outputs into a perfect image of what the screen was showing.

Well, in any case, I wouldn't attempt to purchase this before they've got the "waver" effect completely fixed and cleared up the image quite a bit.

The problem with that, Kawasu, is that making a metal tunnel that went all the way into space would be an enormously expensive (and heavy) project, so if there ever is an elevator, I wouldn't count on it being in an enclosed shaft (unless the shaft was made of something besides metal).

I've been following this "Skycar" for nearly four years already, and although it looks neat, according to Current Science, prospects for it are quite low. It is apparently expensive and very inefficient (or so they say).

I'm sure that at some point I will be forced to upgrade to Windows Vista (what with compatibility issues and lack of support over time), but until that time comes, I doubt I will switch. In any case, I will NEVER buy a brand new Microsoft product. Give them about a year to figure out and at least attempt to fix all the MAJOR bugs, then you can switch and tolerate the minor ones.

A five-second search on Google revealed this

Of course, I've never heard it before, being a lowly American, but after watching this music video, I'm in awe.

The problem is that since hydrogen is so flammable and is very difficult to store (both because it leaks through most materials and because it doesn't compres well), it is very dangerous as a fuel. Some fuel cells, however, can give off electricity rather than hydrogen (which would then need to be pumped into an engine, etc.). See here.

Because for it to be effective, all cars on the highway would have to have this system. If you think that's easy, consider for a moment why that US hasn't converted to Metric. There are so many small appliances that the overall cost of changing would be astronomical. Furthermore, people won't be satisfied with being driven where they want to go. Many youth today find some kind of sick pleasure in driving recklessly, pushing the limits and laws of their car and state.And then, wires in themselves won't tell the car anything. There would need to be spaced Wi-Fi adapters to send the data to the car, but this means a gigantic cost in order to rebuild all the national and international highways with this electronic system. Plus, it would take an astounding amount of electricity to keep it all running, it would be a problem when the road needed work or was flooded, and could potentially break under certain conditions, causing this service to be unavaliable for hundreds if not thousands of miles, leaving the passengers "driving blind."It's a good idea in theory, but only in theory.

I have to disagree, Dragonfly. Eventually, there will be better batteries and better, emission-free methods of harvesting electricity. When that time comes, it may be most efficient to have completely battery-powered cars.

Why create robots or computers with emotions? All we need is a program/computer that can think using reason and logic at a faster pace than we biological entities can. What would be the point of attempting to emulate emotions? It would only pose problems or, if nothing else, waste money. If one wants a dictator, one should use an emotionless computer that cannot be distracted by feelings that skew the facts. If one wants a friend, one can walk down the street and find one. There's no reason to attempt to create what already exists.

For the most part, technology itself is simply laziness put to use. There are thousands of things that we take for granted that we could do without technology, but it's much easier to get them done with.And as for us "playing God", as far as I'm concerned, if The Man has a problem with what we're doing, he can @!#$ well come down and tell us himself.

But in order to project an entire building, it would either take dozens of Heliodisplays working together, or one large one suspended from above. It's a neat idea for an application, though.

Oh, yeah, I read about the Helio display about a year or more ago. It's certainly impressive technology, but really it's not very useful at the moment. Aside from scenereos where portability is key, why would someone buy a Helio display when one could get a normal display for much, MUCH cheaper (even when prices go down, I'm sure that Helio will cost more than standard television/monitor designs for decades to come). As I have said dozens of times, efficiency is the key to business success, and this Helio display, in most cases, wouldn't be the most efficient, which means that most people won't buy it, which means that research and development on it will be slowed due to lack of interest (as far as business is concerned, anyway).NASA has long ago invented an ion drive, but they don't use it because it's not economically efficient.

I'll admit my knowledge of engines is severely limited, so thanks for clearing that up, Moldboy.

Google specifically states that this actually hurts your Pagerank. Duplication of content and the like causes lower Pageranks.

Kawasu, electric cars were around far before cars with fuel cells. The problem with cars "running on water" is that the conversion process uses a lot of energy, so the final output isn't efficient enough to rival a gasoline engine.Now, an engine that runs on pressurized air is certainly possible, but the problem is that the compressed air in and of itself wouldn't be enough to run a car. The link that was mentioned is for a car that uses a hybrid of compressed air and fuel, but a purely compressed air model would be difficult to create, not to mention would be inefficient.It's all about the efficiency, and the facts are that most ideas just don't have it.

Well, if genetics has nothing to do with one's intelligence, then why are some people born retarded (without any physical problems, such as their mother doing drugs or being dropped as a child)? As for Autistic children, the reason they seem smarter is because they are more focussed in a certain area of expertise, thus making them appear to know more (although, overall, they don't), and that is due to a certain way that their brain is "wired", which IS a genetic thing (I know, I have high-functioning Autism).

Apurva, free speech prevents that.Religion promotes morals, which are important to keep a society functioning (if people are allowed to do whatever they please, anarchy ensues). However, when religion results in stealing, killing, etc., then it no longer helps society and instead inhibits it, at which point the religion should either be stopped or "reset" to it's earlier state.Personally, I don't like religion, because it means that people are blindly following something that may very well not be the truth. It's like watching someone walk down a dirt road that goes East, when the place they want to get to is West. Religion can blind people to certain truths. For example, if scientists were able to discover, without a doubt, that humans actually did evolve, how many devoted religious people do you think would be willing to stop their silliness and turn to the truth for the betterment of mankind (you may ask how this would better mankind, and in many cases it may not matter, but in others, it may distract minds that could otherwiseuse certain knowledge to come up with advances that would help humanity as a whole)? Chances are, very few. Most religion isn't so much a moral or ethical problem as it is "willful ignorance", and I personally despise willful ignorance.

If one had a vacuume with mirrors that were absolutely perfect, it may, in theory, be possible for the light to reflect forever (I assume if one could look inside, although that would release some light, one would simply see the same image being reflected back until it was too small to see, like what happens when you put two mirrors together). Of course, since any light that would leave would mean the amount of light inside would decrease, one could never actually see what's inside, so essentially, it's a loaded question (like the question "can God create a rock too heavy for himself to lift?"). In theory, though, it's possible, but only if there was no light absorbed either through air molecules nor through the molecules in the mirror.

One could consider anything to be a conspiracy. For example, one could consider water a conspiracy, since we need it to live, but it's not always where we need it when we need it, and it's not free (unless you catch it out of the sky or drink it from a stream, but those could have unhealthy results).There are theories that the universe is a hologram, a dream, etc. but I think that it is mostly what it appears to be. We each have our own consciousness and life, and everyone has their own feelings and existance - the universe isn't just our illusion. However, whether or not it's a simulation or an illusion of someone or something much more powerful cannot be determined, so why bother getting a headache over it? All I can say is that we should do our best to expand our understanding of ourselves and what we see, and one day we will know, whether we evolved through natural selection and mutations, are just a coincidental allegience of smaller organisms (cells), or are held together with invisible glue.

The reason is because a two "perminant" magnets means the engine would never be able to be stopped, and furthermore, the energy used by the magnet would wear it down fast enough for it not to be practical. There's no such thing as free energy, there will always have to be some kind of fuel, so that means that having something work without any energy input is impossible.Oh, and gravity isn't the same thing as magnetism. There are many non-magnetic bodies that also have a gravitational field. Heck, we humans have gravitational fields, they're just too small to do much.

Nice link, Moldboy.The problem is that computers don't work with raw sounds, they work with the data that makes up those sounds. They can't distinguish between different parts of music like we can (for example, one could single out a certain instrument in a band if one concentrated, but this would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a computer to accomplish). However, if one writes enough complicated algorithms, the computer can simulate being able to understand music, and in this case, that's good enough. That's exactly why screen readers have that monotone, Stephen-Hawking-stereotypical voice.

The problem, of course, with building one gigantic computer packed with an ultra-fast processor and "more RAM than a traffic jam" is heat. If one could run a computer that wouldn't give off heat (which is physically impossible), that may be the way to go, but then parallel processing does have it's perks, such as being able to break a big operation down into more quickly manageable chunks (like ten moderately powerful trucks pulling an object versus one extra-powerful truck doing it alone).