Microsoft's New 'Planetary Computer' Project Will Use Global Environmental Data To Support Sustainability (techcrunch.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Microsoft is embarking on a new sustainability initiative as part of its overall approach to support environmental protection measures, with a project it calls the "Planetary Computer." This will actually be a computing endeavor that uses aggregated global environmental data collected from a number of sources as its input, and that will seek to employ machine learning and other techniques to better understand the challenges faced in planetary health, and provide answers to both Microsoft clients and scientists about how to plan for sustainability.
If all that sounds pretty esoteric to you, you're not alone. But in a blog post, Microsoft president Brad Smith detailed some specific examples of what it hopes the Planetary Computer will actually be capable of doing. Those include things like providing searchable satellite imagery, machine learning and user-sourced data around actual on-the-ground forest borders for use in industrial construction site surveys or forest preservation efforts; providing accurate current measurement sand impact forecast for water use for agricultural planning; providing wildlife biologists with global species habitat information to support preservation efforts; and more.
If all that sounds pretty esoteric to you, you're not alone. But in a blog post, Microsoft president Brad Smith detailed some specific examples of what it hopes the Planetary Computer will actually be capable of doing. Those include things like providing searchable satellite imagery, machine learning and user-sourced data around actual on-the-ground forest borders for use in industrial construction site surveys or forest preservation efforts; providing accurate current measurement sand impact forecast for water use for agricultural planning; providing wildlife biologists with global species habitat information to support preservation efforts; and more.
I already know how it's going to end. (Score:3)
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So long, and thanks for all the fish.
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Frankie and Benjy will be so disappointed.
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Much easier solution: Contraception. (Score:2)
Nobody needs to die. Just don't make so many goddamn kids!
Then again, China tried that. Successfully, but not exactly how we wanna roll.
We're too selfish to not make more than one kid per family on our own.
Wars it is then, I guess ...
Wars and pathogens.
I left no litter behind. So I did more good than a thousand vegans. :) :)
Have fun when I'm gone!
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The kid-less vegans did better than you.
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4chan servers down?
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Just be sure you're the first person to step into the suicide booth. Otherwise, you're just paying lip service to empower the libertarian eugenicists.
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I can even up it one further. Because anyone who understands thermodynamics knows that sustainability is a physical impossibility as you can't win against entropy. You don't even can break even. So there's no REAL sustainability ever. Not in this universe as we understand it anyway.
But if we want to be a bit less black and white about the topic there's a lot of other possible definitions for what can be considere
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Arguing on entropy on a system that's likely to persist for four billion more years is pretty absurd. So no, sustainability, in terms of how long our planet remains inhabitable before the sun exhausts its hydrogen fuel and swells up and bakes all life on Earth, is a meaningful and desirable goal.
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In the past I've had real stupid conversations that twisted and danced around the definition of "sustainability" just in order to avoid the very real issue of discussing how to feasibly slow down the rate at which we're making life on this planet uncomfortable.
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Gees why be such a freak about it. Do it the easy way, supply fun happy drugs free with added birth control substances and the problem will take care of itself. The reality many pregnancies result from nothing more than intoxicated laziness and those people do not even want children yet, they produce hundreds of millions of them. Also how about restricting the universal basic payment to only those who do not have children, as society is already spending money support those children of breeders. The children
This reads like a Dev's spin-off. (Score:2)
Reminds me of a joke. (Score:3)
Bill Gates wants to know if there is a god. ... and asks again: "Is there a god?"
So he connects all the computers in the building, and asks it: "Is there a god?"
Error: "Out of memory!"
He then connects the entire Microsoft network to the cluster, and asks again: "Is there a god?"
Error: "Out of memory!"
Fed up, he spends his entire wealth, to rent every last computer in the world,
Answer: "Now there is!"
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Bill Gates wants to know if there is a god. ... and asks again: "Is there a god?"
So he connects all the computers in the building, and asks it: "Is there a god?"
Computer: "Error: out of memory!"
He then connects the entire Microsoft network to the cluster, and asks again: "Is there a god?"
Computer: "Error: out of memory!"
Fed up, he spends his entire wealth, to rent every last computer in the world,
Computer: "Error: out of memory!"
Fed up, he goes to get a snack from his fridge. While opening the door, he hear
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Yeah, because how humans are behaving right now aren't steering head on into fucking the entire species, not to mention many of the other species that we share the planet with, up. How dare anyone suggest we should try to move towards more sustainable global civilization. Fascists! Freedom can only be achieved by climate change, raping and pillaging every square mile of the surface area of the planet. Don't be a fascist! Pollute!
A computer ... (Score:2)
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Bill Gates wants to know if there is a god. ... and asks again: "Is there a god?"
So he connects all the computers in the building, and asks it: "Is there a god?"
Computer: "Error: out of memory!"
He then connects the entire Microsoft network to the cluster, and asks again: "Is there a god?"
Computer: "Error: out of memory!"
Fed up, he spends his entire wealth, to rent every last computer in the world,
Computer: "There is another system."