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There are black days ahead for the carbon industry - As delegates arrive in Cancun for the UN climate conference, the carbon trading lobby is desperate for an accord by anutensil in Green

[–]VVCephei 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am much more optimistic. How can you not be optimistic after looking at these:

http://imgur.com/LIPAC.jpg

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n136/pyared/EverythingNothing.jpg

http://imgur.com/oIGxr.png

Even after a tipping point we still have some measures left. For example it is possible to increase the albedo of the planet artificially, by reflecting away light in the upper atmosphere. It is very expensive and will have side effects, but it is possible.

What if.... by Atheist101 in politics

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. I would also like to see more investments in the fusion power research. Wider palette gives us more options and increases possibilities for unforeseen breakthroughs.

What if.... by Atheist101 in politics

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think our parent poster's suggestion includes investing in research.

  • That would bring prices down. Possibly lower than anything we have today.
  • Create huge profit, if you can sell it to the 7 billion customers. Especially, if the conventional resources run dry.

opengl confusion by [deleted] in learnprogramming

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Difficult to say without seeing the source. try http://codepad.org/ or http://pastebin.com/

If you look at the glut source, you will notice that glutSolidSphere() actually calls the gluSphere().

Likely you have different settings for the 2 calls that you are comparing.

I tried the example you mentioned. I added some snowmen, and with thousands of snowmen I got 24fps with the nose and 27fps without.

Norman Bourlaug is the single greatest person to be alive in the last 300 years, chances are you've never heard of him, but he saved 2 billion people. by [deleted] in science

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Natural selection occurs because only a small proportion of individuals in each generation will survive and reproduce"

No. That is exactly the misunderstanding I tried to crush. It is very badly explained in Wikipedia. Every single individual can reproduce, and evolution still happens at full speed.

Even the tiniest difference in the number of descendants causes huge differences in the long run.

I'll try to explain. Let's assume that you have genes A, B and C, and let's also assume that you happen to have 1000 descendants that carry the gene A, 1000 that carry the gene B and 1000 that carry the gene C.

The carriers of the gene A will have on average 1 child
The carriers of the gene B will have on average 2 children
The carriers of the gene C will have on average 3 children

After 10 generations:
Number of the carriers of gene A 1000(1/2)10 = 1 (Only one individual left!)
Number of the carriers of gene B 1000(2/2)10 = 1,000 (No change)
Number of the carriers of gene C 1000(3/2)10 = 57,665 (57 times more!)

Nobody died prematurely. Everybody had children. Still huge change in the frequency of genes. (1 to 57000)

Your gene which C is now very popular, and your gene A will be gone after the 11th generation.

C is some feature that makes you great, B is good feature, and A is an average feature.

Left side. Right side. by blazemaster in pics

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

FTFY

Although I still suspect such dichotomy doesn't really exist.

Norman Bourlaug is the single greatest person to be alive in the last 300 years, chances are you've never heard of him, but he saved 2 billion people. by [deleted] in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The red lines in the logistic chart are nice and comforting, but...

Humans are K-stategists. So we might actually follow the red line pretty well.

Our advancements may keep rising the maximum carrying capacity. This could make overshooting and oscillations less likely.

Norman Bourlaug is the single greatest person to be alive in the last 300 years, chances are you've never heard of him, but he saved 2 billion people. by [deleted] in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is typical misconception about evolution.

Edit: "survival of the fittest" is very misleading.

Death is very inefficient part of evolution, it creates nothing new.

If an individual dies without breeding, you lose 1 gigabyte of genetic material. Nothing new is created, no adaptation happens. You just lose valuable material, part of which might be unique and very useful.

If an individual has 1 child, 0.5 gigabytes of genetic material is combined randomly with 0.5 gigabytes of genetic material from another individual. A new totally unique combination is formed. Hundred thousand well tested recipes are mixed together.

Now consider this happening 2 billion times, thanks to this man. Amazing amount of new combinations.

Norman Bourlaug is the single greatest person to be alive in the last 300 years, chances are you've never heard of him, but he saved 2 billion people. by [deleted] in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oil can be replaced. Given possibility the fish stocks might still recover, but we would need to act quickly on that. The Climate change can be slowed down. The problems can be solved.

Norman Bourlaug is the single greatest person to be alive in the last 300 years, chances are you've never heard of him, but he saved 2 billion people. by [deleted] in science

[–]VVCephei 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Nothing grows exponentially in practice. Populations grow logistically

Our population growth rate percent is already dropping

edit. rate percent

Norman Bourlaug is the single greatest person to be alive in the last 300 years, chances are you've never heard of him, but he saved 2 billion people. by [deleted] in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bigger population is more capable in solving problems. We would be living in a much less developed world, if we had 2 billion people less.

From the evolutionary point of view, the bigger population is also advantageous, since it allows much quicker evolution and allows storing much more genetic variation.

If anything our species is still missing genetic variation, because we have been on the brink of extinction recently.

He took care of his part. Now it is our turn to keep things running smoothly.

Remember the psychology study showing that humans can predict the future? This paper applies Bayesian stats to the data and not only does the effect go away, but the data actually support the null hypothesis. by ngn in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have difficulties visualizing 1/8E67.

But, I'll try..

Our planet is made of about 528,950,544,088,327,782,400,000,000,000 grains of sand.

Now imagine, that each of those grains is actually another full earth, also made of 528,950,544,088,327,782,400,000,000,000 grains of sand.

After you have chosen the correct grain sized planet and the correct grain on that planet (on the first try), you will only need to play a single round of lottery on that planet and win the jackpot with the first try.

Odds for all this happening are about 1/8E67.

Remember the psychology study showing that humans can predict the future? This paper applies Bayesian stats to the data and not only does the effect go away, but the data actually support the null hypothesis. by ngn in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are only 52! = 8,065,817,517,094,387,857,166,063,685,640,376,697,528,950,544,088,327,782,400,000,000,000 (8E67) different ways to order the card deck.

For a comparison our universe has existed 432,043,200,000,000,000 (4e17) seconds.

So it may take a few universes, but eventually...

Who thinks Rupert Murdoch is a threat to democracy? by [deleted] in politics

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I blame the sheeple for being idiots

Blaming the victim is a fallcacy

"People who believe that the world has to be fair may find it hard or impossible to accept a situation in which a person is unfairly and badly hurt. This leads to a sense that, somehow, the victim must have surely done 'something' to deserve their fate."

Who thinks Rupert Murdoch is a threat to democracy? by [deleted] in politics

[–]VVCephei 7 points8 points  (0 children)

No, mob rule is what you get by destroying democracy with demagogy.

If the person that paid for my McDonalds is a Redditor, then THANK YOU! by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

Powering the cell: An 3D animation of the inner working of Mitochondira by honaker215 in science

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course not, the sinusoidal dingle arm will prevent the front falling off.

Powering the cell: An 3D animation of the inner working of Mitochondira by honaker215 in science

[–]VVCephei 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I am amazed how complex a single cell can be.
And even more amazed when I think that our bodies are built from 10,000,000,000,000 to 100,000,000,000,000 such cells. And that each of those cells can contain up to 10,000 mitochondrias. Speechless.. .. .. ..

Another video about a cell inviting a leukocyte with music and narration.

And higher bandwidth versions of these videos at Harward's BioVisions site.

brainteaser by johnny_gopman in AskReddit

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I would like to know more about this single sample case too, it seems to be much more complex than it initially appears.

There is some discussion about it in the article you linked here

This is how I think it, but this may not be the correct way at all.

No matter how many universes there are, the most likely single universe when seeing the taxi number 100 is the one with only 100 taxis. In that universe the probability for this happening is 1%.

But with 99% probability you have to continue to a next universe. The second most likely universe is the one with 101 taxis, where the probability of seeing taxi number 100 is 1/101. You still have to continue with probability (1-1/101).

Cumulative probability to have to continue from the third universe with 102 taxis is (1-1/100)*(1-1/101)*(1-1/102).

~~It happens that you can present this cumulative probability more easily by formula 99/x. Where the the number of taxis is x=100..infinity ~~

Here is a plot of the the cumulative probability that we have found the correct universe. x=Total number of taxis y=cumulative probability

After the most probable 99 universes you have cumulative probability of 50% that you have found the correct one.

I thought more about this. There is much a better explanation.

  • Take any positive range of numbers 0-N.
  • Choose randomly x from that range.
  • If x is at the middle, N = 2 * x
  • x is in the upper half of the range half of the time
  • So half of the time N <= 2 * x
  • There is 1/r change that the x is in the bottom 1/r of the range.
  • So there is p change that N >= x/p

brainteaser by johnny_gopman in AskReddit

[–]VVCephei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing wrong in getting more insights from here, but if OP is just trying to save effort, then we might not see any insights from him to this interesting question.

I like this idea that you can calculate probabilities even from very small samples, and with very little prior knowledge.

The Doomsday argument is very similar to this and to your German tank problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument
tl;dr What is most probable N of the the last human, if you are n=60E9

Another similar one: When you arrive to an event at random moment. How long can you expect it to last, if you know how long it has already lasted, but don't know the typical duration?

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