Reminds me of a post I saw on Get Rich Slowly awhile back on ditching a dream job for a boring one. Interesting perspective. Emotional investment can be taxing in its own way. I started in a job with very interesting problems but lacked meaning, then moved to a job with much more meaning but with less interesting problems (that eventually turned into boring, frustrating, and stupid problems). I've since found one that's more balanced, with interesting problems that I care about to a moderate degree.
Indeed. The growing free software & hardware communities, and the numerous companies they spin off, are an existence proof that patents aren't a requirement of a working economy. They aren't going away any time soon until free hardware makes up a larger proportion of the market, because the current patent holders have too much to lose, and can buy politicians who will keep propping up the current system. So, start more successful free hardware companies that ignore the patent system, gradually rendering patents less relevant and less damaging.
This is one of the most clear & succinct - and more importantly high exposure - statements on the value of open source that I've seen to date. The same message from other sectors like 3D printing has been thoroughly muddied by the proprietary side of the market - who have benefited from the expiration of key patents & widespread open source designs.
One of the most comprehensive guides to diplomatic critiques I've seen was written for the Critters science fiction & fantasy writing workshop. It serves a critical need in that venue:
Washington DC's one of the few places in the US I've seen with that same escalator etiquette in the Metro. I love it. Unfortunately, it doesn't usually apply at shopping malls.
Difference being that police don't make their livelihood from the people they go after; rather, the people the "parasites" prey on. There are a few exceptions, like seizures from drug dealers to augment taxpayer funding.
Physics also identifies the dynamics, which are a special type of constraint. Engineers also consider economics, which usually limits you to far less than physics allows.
The lead author gives a talk at 2:26 in Part 1 that I thought was an excellent example of how to communicate science (or other technical subject) and implications to a general audience.
My controls lab in college (University of Washington, Aeronautics & Astronautics) had an inverted pendulum. I designed a controller to balance it and maintain position along the track for a controls class. We took a picture of Gumby standing on top of it for our report. It used rotary optical encoders to measure the angle, and a motor driven belt to move the base along the track. Somebody in our department developed a controller to flip the inverted pendulum up and balance it. Another stabilized a jointed pendulum in various configurations (both arms up, one up & one down, one down & one up). All are non-trivial problems. Combining them is commendable.
If you go through all the trouble to adapt to living in space for travel between the planets, why bother landing? Colonize the asteroids and short period comets, which are full of resources and much easier to access. No landing vehicles and ascent rockets are required. The gravity is so low that a spacecraft optimized for interplanetary travel can dock with them, or loiter nearby and transfer people & goods with space tugs.
Of course, it's a matter of preference. Many would still prefer to live on a planet. A dispersed civilization that includes the small bodies would be even more resilient to any one collision. More eyes out among the asteroids would also increase the chances of spotting potential collisions.
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/03/18/reader-story-i-...