Mad Rocket Scientist Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 1 hour ago, Nivee~ said: I was feeling oddly philosophical... Has the modern, post industrial revolution society reached the top of the bell curve? Will there be only decline in the future? Are we, as a society, doomed to fail? A new faction popping up every day with their own set of demands.. Established tradition and institutions being 'changed' just to satisfy a couple of vain people? Scientific progress held back by stupid stuff.. I watched a couple of videos of Isaac Arthur, an optimistic futurism channel on youtube. After every video, i was thinking, "Let's not kid ourself... we will never progress that far out in the future.' I think I understand the Fermi Paradox now. Aliens have not contacted us, because just like us, their society falls into ruins after a couple of centuries... They can never free themselves of the shackles of their home planet,let alone contact other advanced cultures. We were born here, and we are doomed to die on this pitiful little planet of dirt and rocks... Sorry for the rant... Sorry, these kind of existential crises really can be a bummer. I personally like this philosophy for dealing with this kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubinator Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 22 hours ago, Nivee~ said: I was feeling oddly philosophical... Has the modern, post industrial revolution society reached the top of the bell curve? Will there be only decline in the future? Are we, as a society, doomed to fail? A new faction popping up every day with their own set of demands.. Established tradition and institutions being 'changed' just to satisfy a couple of vain people? Scientific progress held back by stupid stuff.. I watched a couple of videos of Isaac Arthur, an optimistic futurism channel on youtube. After every video, i was thinking, "Let's not kid ourself... we will never progress that far out in the future.' I think I understand the Fermi Paradox now. Aliens have not contacted us, because just like us, their society falls into ruins after a couple of centuries... They can never free themselves of the shackles of their home planet,let alone contact other advanced cultures. We were born here, and we are doomed to die on this pitiful little planet of dirt and rocks... Sorry for the rant... It seems to me that our brains may be reaching their highest capacity for how much an individual can do in life. Think about this - the "tutorial" stage where you are figuring out how to exist and do things lasts 18 years or more in many cultures. And the pace of technological advance is tremendous, we're hardly able to keep up with it all, and it shows no signs of stopping. This may be a sign that we are nearing the end of what we can do. However, we do have a few things going for us. We are finding ways to live longer. If it takes a person 22 or 30 years to get up to speed on life, it won't be a significant detriment if they are being a productive member of society for 100 or 200 more years. This will likely be feasible within the century. Another major potential lifesaver we have is interplanetary travel. Very soon we will be attempting to send people to Mars. If we can reinforce that infrastructure once it becomes active, we will be able to eventually send people all over the solar system, hopefully developing enough to stop destroying ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordFerret Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 22 hours ago, Nivee~ said: Has the modern, post industrial revolution society reached the top of the bell curve? Will there be only decline in the future? Are we, as a society, doomed to fail? A new faction popping up every day with their own set of demands.. Established tradition and institutions being 'changed' just to satisfy a couple of vain people? Scientific progress held back by stupid stuff.. Yes, you're watching the decline of 'western civilization'. You're going to witness it in your lifetime. I'm glad I'm on the way out. The world has been here before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 I would like to have words with whomever decided it was a good idea to put physical switches on laptops to toggle the wifi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_v Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 25 minutes ago, Geonovast said: I would like to have words with whomever decided it was a good idea to put physical switches on laptops to toggle the wifi. Probably the same people who decided laptop webcams need a physical shutter. And a free tinfoil hat OFC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nivee~ Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 Apparently Nasa had to defend the name of Ultima Thule amid questions about <German N-Word> connections....smh... <Deep breath in, deep breath out> 1 hour ago, LordFerret said: Yes, you're watching the decline of 'western civilization'. You're going to witness it in your lifetime. I'm glad I'm on the way out. It would be impolite to say this, but yeah, you are very lucky... 1 hour ago, cubinator said: Another major potential lifesaver we have is interplanetary travel. Goodness I hope so... I hope the industrial spinoffs because of interplanetary travel keep mankind busy for a couple of centuries... I used to watch an anime, where one villain often used to say that humans will not appreciate peace if they haven't seen war... Maybe, just maybe if something drastic happens in near future, it will jolt humans out of inaction? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 2 hours ago, steve_v said: Probably the same people who decided laptop webcams need a physical shutter. And a free tinfoil hat OFC. +1 Why use tinfoil when one can just stick a piece of band-aid, like me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richfiles Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 (edited) 4 hours ago, cubinator said: Another major potential lifesaver we have is interplanetary travel. Very soon we will be attempting to send people to Mars. If we can reinforce that infrastructure once it becomes active, we will be able to eventually send people all over the solar system, hopefully developing enough to stop destroying ourselves. Every time I see this statement, I have to roll my eyes... Yes, we can certainly use interplanetary travel to save ourselves from our planet's ultimate doom, provided some version of ourselves is around to flee when the sun starts expanding... Sure, thats true... Thing is, anyone who thinks Mars will save us from destroying ourselves in the near future is... kinda bein' silly. If we are gonna destroy ourselves socially... What makes anyone think humanity has any future anywhere... Humans carry human nature with them wherever they go. We've done it everywhere we've traveled Earth, and we'll do it again when we travel to Mars, or beyond. Human nature is engrained into us, and "picking up, and leaving home" has never left it behind once. Whatever social doom might befall us here on Earth... It'll follow us to the planets and stars. Now... If it's climate destruction that we are fearing, then fleeing to Mars is downright delusional. I hear the climate on Mars is in even worse shape than the climate here... If we ever reach the point where we can terraform an entire planet to be habitable... Then the only reason to go there is expansion, and not fleeing a world we are destroying... If we develop the tech to modify a word that drastically, then we will have a far EASIER time modifying our own world that isn't trying quite so hard to murder all life on its surface! I love space travel, and I do belive we should try... But the reasons so many people give these days, are nothing more than pure hype and fear mongering, disguising the real reason to go out there... To DISCOVER! To EXPLORE! Sadly, those reasons aren't good enough for certain... "Down to Earth" folks. Many people out there don't "get" the "waste of money", so they don't care, or worse, are even opposed to space travel. As such, we get this personal, media, corporate, and government hype over how "Mars will save Humanity"... I don't buy it... I'm still happy to fund and promote exploration though. I just hate that it's being done through a hype filter... We risk even greater apathy, or worse... resistance... to Mars exploration and beyond once the hype filter cracks. That's just my opinion though. Sorry for stinkin' up the place... Edited January 12, 2019 by richfiles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_v Posted January 12, 2019 Share Posted January 12, 2019 3 hours ago, kerbiloid said: +1 Why use tinfoil when one can just stick a piece of band-aid, like me. Honestly, I don't get this paranoia. Don't want your webcam spying on you? Don't install malware. Easy. That these features exist kinda says the manufacturers have given up on the software not doing bad things, so are working around it in hardware. What the actual frack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Rocket Scientist Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 40 minutes ago, steve_v said: Honestly, I don't get this paranoia. Don't want your webcam spying on you? Don't install malware. Easy. That these features exist kinda says the manufacturers have given up on the software not doing bad things, so are working around it in hardware. What the actual frack. I use a sticky note over my laptop's webcam, not because I think it likely that I will install malware, but so I can ignore phishing attacks without worrying. I know one person who got an email claiming to have webcam video, but nothing ever came of it when it was ignored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_v Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 12 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said: I know one person who got an email claiming to have webcam video, but nothing ever came of it when it was ignored. I have 100's of these in my spam bin. Obvious phishing spam is obvious, still no need to cover webcams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 1 hour ago, steve_v said: I have 100's of these in my spam bin. Obvious phishing spam is obvious, still no need to cover webcams. It's an easy failsafe, as you can be sure that even if your PC was somehow compromised, at least the camera won't give anyone anything. But do tinfoil hats work against the microphone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_v Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 20 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said: It's an easy failsafe It's an easy way to ensure that you forget to slide the shutter and wonder why your webcam isn't working, or an easy way to have to carry tape and to leave sticky crap on the lens. Not having your PC compromised is pretty easy, and something one should do regardless - at which point covering your webcam is redundant. I really don't get why people assume a PC is insecure... Unless of course they run windows, in which case they might as well give up any illusion of privacy right now. Suit yourself though, on the hat too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 (edited) 32 minutes ago, steve_v said: It's an easy way to ensure that you forget to slide the shutter and wonder why your webcam isn't working, or an easy way to have to carry tape and to leave sticky crap on the lens. Not having your PC compromised is pretty easy, and something one should do regardless - at which point covering your webcam is redundant. I really don't get why people assume a PC is insecure... Unless of course they run windows, in which case they might as well give up any illusion of privacy right now. Suit yourself though, on the hat too. Well, I don't worry about my PC. But as much as I try to make them foolproof, my kids always seem to find a way to mess up their PC when I'm not looking... Edited January 13, 2019 by StrandedonEarth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 20 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said: Well, I don't worry about my PC. But as much as I try to make them foolproof, my kids always seem to find a way to mess up their PC when I'm not looking... Depending on their age, you should probably retain an admin account on their computers for yourself and give them a limited account that can't do much without your password. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Phil Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Reading old papers and stuff from the 60s and 70s about the future of space travel is kind of depressing. They’re somewhat optimistic, but with the benefit of hindsight it’s just sad. So I’m complaining that space travel wasn’t well supported after Apollo. It makes sense though. It was a political program and the main justification was military. Once it was all said and done the government didn’t even want to have Apollo 17, maybe even 16. We’re lucky we got as many landings as we did... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSaint Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 1 hour ago, Geonovast said: Depending on their age, you should probably retain an admin account on their computers for yourself and give them a limited account that can't do much without your password. Actually, unless it's a computer that you just care nothing about (like my gaming PC) then everyone who uses the computer should be using a non-admin account, and you should only log on to the computer with an admin account when you need to do admin things. It's actually standard best security practice these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Phil Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 3 minutes ago, TheSaint said: Actually, unless it's a computer that you just care nothing about (like my gaming PC) then everyone who uses the computer should be using a non-admin account, and you should only log on to the computer with an admin account when you need to do admin things. It's actually standard best security practice these days. I use my admin account and I’m still not allowed to do certain things without admin account access... which I have. Or at least should have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 (edited) 6 hours ago, steve_v said: Don't install malware. Easy. Like in the old jokes "This virus can not be run in DOS mode." and "Virus is abnormally terminated. Send a crash report to the developer?" 6 hours ago, steve_v said: That these features exist kinda says the manufacturers have given up on the software not doing bad things, so are working around it in hardware. 1. After the WIn10 self-reporting campaign I'm not sure. 2. First I was trying to be nice and just switch off the webcam which I don't need. (If I want a videoskyping, I have an external one for that, and it takes a second to put it into USB.) But every time I switched the notebook on (ASUS, btw, not a noname, I always buy asusbooks), the webcam again was self-enabled in the settings. (I tried CMOS, Windows settings, device settings - nothing works). So, when it knows better, it should know nothing at all. I can't see any nice reason in the developer's intentions when it does so. 3. My main PC is a desktop. A notebook is an auxilliary thing aside of it which I from time to time take to somewhere. 3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said: But do tinfoil hats work against the microphone? That's a problem, of course, but when I'm sitting alone, they can listen just harsh words if something goes wrong. And if I take this notebook to place with humans, I guess that @steve_v is right, and this is a paranoia. Why should I care about the people who don't stick their webcams and mics. 3 hours ago, steve_v said: an easy way to have to carry tape and to leave sticky crap on the lens. I put a piece of paper between the band-aid and the lens. If I was going to kill it, I would just use a drop of color. 3 hours ago, steve_v said: I really don't get why people assume a PC is insecure... Unless of course they run windows, in which case they might as well give up any illusion of privacy right now. That old holywar. I would like to use something better, but irl most part of specialized software uses Windows, and *nix still has nothing even close to ActiveX/COM/OLE automation. Also, Linux don't have a lot of viruses highly likely just because their users are either guru admins (too inedible for viruses), or inspired noobs (replacing Linux every week). So, when there are tens of Linux versions on several percents of PC, nobody gains a joy writing linux viruses. Also those who can do it usually are busy with more proper things. 2 hours ago, Geonovast said: Depending on their age, you should probably retain an admin account on their computers for yourself and give them a limited account that can't do much without your password. If the notebook allows to switch off the webcam. Edited January 13, 2019 by kerbiloid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 17 hours ago, steve_v said: 18 hours ago, Geonovast said: I would like to have words with whomever decided it was a good idea to put physical switches on laptops to toggle the wifi. Probably the same people who decided laptop webcams need a physical shutter. And a free tinfoil hat OFC. You probably has put all your gurning face out on some social media stuff anyway, or your friends or relatives has. And they have CCTVs and streetview... Sure, cock-up before conspiracy, but then nobody ever thinks the same. On 1/12/2019 at 1:17 AM, Nivee~ said: I was feeling oddly philosophical... Has the modern, post industrial revolution society reached the top of the bell curve? 5 hours ago, Bill Phil said: Reading old papers and stuff from the 60s and 70s about the future of space travel is kind of depressing. You should try read what common people think about today from 100 year ago. Spoiler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDE Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 On 1/12/2019 at 1:27 AM, SpaceMouse said: Mutually assured destruction is a thing though, and no-one benefits from a nuclear war. It's utterly one-sided. It exists to prevent nuclear weapons to be an option on the table. The Pentagon never conceded to that. So, for example, during Able Archer 83 five days into an all-out European war, SACEUR requested and received permission to nuke Kiev to deter the conventional Soviet onslaught. And the people at Oak Ridge come this short of calling Carl Sagan a Commie fellow traveler in their civil defense pamphlets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munlander1 Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 I think I got bronchitis, not sure but was miserable over the weekend. I was horribly sick over the weekend. Still sick rn, but doing better. My parents don’t allow me to play video games on the weekend. My mom wouldn’t let me play videogames this weekend because I didn’t go to work and my room was dirty. I didn’t leave my bed basically all weekend and was way to sick to clean my room... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Phil Posted January 16, 2019 Share Posted January 16, 2019 I’ve been sick recently. Cold, sore throat. All that. I’ve decided I won’t let it prevent me from enjoying food (it makes swallowing painful). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razark Posted January 17, 2019 Share Posted January 17, 2019 Just got out of an all-hands meeting. Now I'm just waiting on the official "don't come back until we say so" notice. Well, @#^*#$@! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSaint Posted January 17, 2019 Share Posted January 17, 2019 29 minutes ago, razark said: Just got out of an all-hands meeting. Now I'm just waiting on the official "don't come back until we say so" notice. Well, @#^*#$@! Temp work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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