XKCD: It's more than a comic

From Wikipedia's "Future of Earth":

The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based upon the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at Earth's surface, the rate of cooling of the planet's interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity. An uncertain factor in this extrapolation is the ongoing influence of technology introduced by humans, such as climate engineering,[2] which could cause significant changes to the planet.[3][4] The current Holocene extinction[5] is being caused by technology[6] and the effects may last for up to five million years.[7] In turn, technology may result in the extinction of humanity, leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes.[8][9]

Over time intervals of hundreds of millions of years, random celestial events pose a global risk to the biosphere, which can result in mass extinctions. These include impacts by comets or asteroids with diameters of 5–10 km (3.1–6.2 mi) or more, and the possibility of a massive stellar explosion, called a supernova, within a 100-light-year radius of the Sun, called a Near-Earth supernova. Other large-scale geological events are more predictable. If the long-term effects of global warming are disregarded, Milankovitch theory predicts that the planet will continue to undergo glacial periods at least until the Quaternary glaciation comes to an end. These periods are caused by variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit.[10] As part of the ongoing supercontinent cycle, plate tectonics will probably result in a supercontinent in 250–350 million years. Some time in the next 1.5–4.5 billion years, the axial tilt of the Earth may begin to undergo chaotic variations, with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90°.

During the next four billion years, the luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, resulting in a rise in the solar radiation reaching the Earth. This will result in a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years from now, the level of CO 2 will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method, allowing them to persist at CO 2 concentrations as low as 10 parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The extinction of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life, since plants are the base of the food chain on Earth.[11]

In about one billion years, the solar luminosity will be 10% higher than at present. This will cause the atmosphere to become a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics will come to an end, and with them the entire carbon cycle.[12] Following this event, in about 2−3 billion years, the planet's magnetic dynamo may cease, causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere. Four billion years from now, the increase in the Earth's surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect, heating the surface enough to melt it. By that point, all life on the Earth will be extinct.[13][14] The most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded to cross the planet's current orbit.

edited 11th Apr '17 5:23:38 PM by Redmess

Considering how much technological change there has been in the past 1000 years, it seems reasonable to conclude that if humanity survives for long enough for the sun expanding to be a concern (millions of years), we'll have sufficient technology to leave the planet and live somewhere else long before then. A state of technology that's as far ahead of the present day as 1000 was from 2000 is pretty well beyond the scope of our imagination.

And technological progress appears to accelerate over time (the change in technology from AD 1000 to 2000 is larger than the technological changes from 3000 BC to AD 1000). The pace of technological development has slowed greatly in the latter half of the 20th century and the 21st relative to what it was in 1800-1950, but that's an insignificant amount of time on the scales we're talking about.

edited 12th Apr '17 5:36:20 AM by Galadriel

It is difficult to conceive of any technology allowing us to evacuate Earth's entire population, unless we solve FTL and build a portal network. I mean, maybe we'll have moved up the scale of Evolutionary Levels and become Energy Beings by then, but the nature of technological change is such that it's largely impossible to predict more than a few decades in advance, never mind a hundred million years.

edited 12th Apr '17 5:40:27 AM by Fighteer

#1823: Hottest Editors

Let the text editor wars begin anew! Because we can't let that sleeping dog lie, oh no. Incidentally, I used and liked Emacs back in the day, although now I swear by Notepad++.

CRISPR isn't a text editor. And what the heck is Sublime Text?

CRISPR is a gene editor. That's the joke.

edited 12th Apr '17 10:07:32 AM by TParadox

Sublime text is a text editor. It seems to be what college kids these days use, at least the technical-minded sort.

We used it to write Arduino code in high school.

Kate and Vim are the standards on my campus

I use Edit Pad Lite (because OF COURSE its spelled lite...), its better than the standard notepad in any case. What is the best one to use?

I prefer vim. I also heard about Evil, whihch is a vim input mode plugin for emacs.

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... wait, what? :S

Funny, I thought the LERX on the Hornet would be more prominent...

"7 Eleven"

Cute joke about the differences in planetary rotation speeds.

Combined with a joke about daylight savings and how the Earth does not have a perfect 365 day cycle around the sun. Joke reference efficiency ratio is on-point.

Why are the ones in Arizona and Hawaii "honest"? :S ^_^;;

They're the only two states that don't observe daylight savings, meaning there's never days that magically have an extra hour or lose an hour.

It's slightly wrong though. The solar day on Mars is 24 hours and 40 minutes. It's the sidereal day (i.e. the rotation period relative to the background stars) that lasts 24 hours and 37 minutes (on Earth it's 23 hours and 56 minutes).

edited 18th Apr '17 5:41:25 AM by Aetol

I think gaining an extra hour of sleep is a pretty good deal, though. :)

You give it up on the tail end, and the change in sleep cycles causes a noticeable spike in traffic accidents. Overall, it's not really worthwhile.

They say it doesn't even really save on energy anymore because electricity usage is so disconnected from daylight between our computers and our tendency to wake up early and stay up late, using artificial light on both ends.

I always thought it was to keep our (supposed) sleep schedules more in sync with the day/night cycle. So instead of the sun rising at 4:30 and being really annoying to light sleepers, it rises at a slightly more tolerable 5:30. Or possibly to keep hours of daylight in sync with hours that we usually go outside and do things. I never did figure out why we have daylight savings time though, so this is just my rationalization.

The circadian rhythms of our bodies have long since been suborned to our society's activity patterns, so it's really a moot point. It does more harm to alter your sleep cycle by 1 hour than any notional advantage you get from waking up in daylight or whatever.

edited 18th Apr '17 8:28:23 AM by Fighteer

Daylight savings actually wastes more electricity. We're waking up earlier and going to work earlier, meaning we also end work and go home earlier in the summer, while it's still daylight out, meaning more people are gonna be using their air conditioners at home.

edited 18th Apr '17 8:32:05 AM by danime91

I remember seeing a video that noted it's not really clear whether daylight's saving ends up costing or saving more money overall, but either way the difference is trivial.