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The question isn't whether microsoft will eventually fall, but whether it will be in time to matter to any of us.

"This begs the question... where did that life come from? We can go w/ a relgious answer, say God or all life is energy, or something like that. I suspect that's a "nutter" answer from your perspective."

I don't believe in "nutters" actually... but I digress.

One alternative that you didn't mention, is that for "God" to exist, to create beings made of material in this universe, he too must be made of material in this universe... therefore the universe must have existed before "God" existed. So who created that?

It is against all laws of physics that we currently know of (subject to change at any time), for any being to create the universe in which it lives in.

Another plausible answer (backed up by thousands of cave paintings, artifacts, drawings, writings, and other accounts going back centuries), is that what people perceive as "God" today, was actually extra-terrestrial life itself. "Booming voices from the heavens" (breaking the sound barrier?), "fiery, flying chariots in the sky" (UFOs?), "Ascending into heaven" (levitations? anti-gravity?)

Nutty as it might sound... if you use Occum's Razor to surry this out, its more likely that cavepersons SAW these things first-hand, than "imagined" them in such accurate, intricate detail. (here is a resource I just quickly googled up).

There was a great quote in the movie "Red Planet", where a strongly religious crew member said (quoting from memory here) "What if I turn over a rock on Mars and it says "Made by God" on the bottom?"

What if we find life on Mars (or another nearby planet, or it finds us), and they give us a "Bible" of their religion? What if it differs radically from the ones already established here on Earth?

What if we turn over some stones on Mars and find evidence of language, tablets of writings, tools, or other artifacts of a civilization there?

Lots of possibilities, and the only way to cope with them all is to leave your mind open that these possibilities they might exist... even if we don't agree with them.

I found a very good reference here.

"During the Roman siege of Syracuse, he is said to have single-handedly defended the city by constructing lenses to focus the Sun's light on Roman ships and huge cranes to turn them upside down. When the Romans finally broke the siege, Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier after snapping at him ``Don't disturb my circles,'' a reference to a geometric figure he had outlined on the sand."

Wow, yes, Greece especially. I think you're really way off base regarding slaves
(http://www.crystalinks.com/greekslavery.h tml/) as well as the 'not having an empire' thing (remember some guy called 'Alexander'?). I'm not sure if you'd call it 'colonial', though.

...where do you turn to hear an executive talk straight?

Try one of these. Or these.

I hope some day humans can see them in person. :)


But you can see them in person! Click here to get started!

I saw only one link to the tin-foil-hat sites. I can't believe /. has neglected this opportunity!

http://www.crystalinks.com/haarp.html
http://www.kalamark.com/Kal_Dir/haarp.html
http://www.padrak.com/ine/HAARP97.html
http://www.jerryesmith.com/includes/store.php?p=1

There, now this thread is complete. Of course, anything related to tin-foil-hats simply must be posted AC. :)

The Australian Aboriginal culture (revolving around the Dreamtime or The Dreaming) is estimated to be 50,000+ years old.
Dreamtime
Australian Dreamtime

source = http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html

Was this a mere conincidence? Or could it be proof of intelligent design?

One of the things that we have forgotten in the modern era is how our ancesetors occasionally failed in monumental ways. A good example is the Bent Pyramid at Dhashur which despite untold millions of man hours of work was basically a failure. The thing is, even collossal screwups didn't stop them. They perservered through losses of life and treasure that would stop any project of modern man dead in its tracks. Our current manned space program is suffering from this problem- we have deemed failure so unacceptable that we are have paralyzed ourselves, and are helpless to advance.

And we should never forget: Those living 10,000 years ago were already Homo sapiens sapiens, so no less capable in thinking than we are today. Just because a group of archeologists can't think of a sufficient technology on the spot to fulfill a task humans fulfilled thousands of years ago doesn't mean that such a technology couldn't have existed then. Archeologists need a broad knowledge of different technologies, but so they often have to sacrify deepness. Often the appearent mystery solves if you have some non-archeologist look at the site, who is a specialist on a certain technology.

Thor Heyerdahl (ok, no archeologist at all, but an ethnograph) once tried to move one of the statues from the Easter Island out of the quarry it was still in, and all the methods he was trying failed, until one of the local people told him that the statues 'walked upright'. Finally an engineer showed him how you get a statue walk upright: Have it swing slightly from right to left, so one of the edges is on the ground and the other one is lifted. Then you can turn it slightly so that in the next swing the lifted edge lands a little bit further down the road. From a distance it looks as if the statue is swaggering forward. (I was using a similar method to get my washing machine into my house :), works like a charm, and you can do it for yourself, without too much help from others.) And the local people were glad finally someone understood what they were trying to tell them from the beginning. If Thor Heyerdahl had asked any moving contractor before, he would have been done long ago ;).

Often it's not the technology level itself that shows how advanced a civilisation is. Often it's all those little tricks, which use existing technology to its maximum, that makes a civilisation more successful than others. The middle age guilds of craftmanship were basicly competence centers which gave all those little tricks to the next generation of craftsmen. Just by looking at the tools you can't really say what was possible for a craftsman then.

And for the age of Stonehenge: The latest additions to Stonehenge were done around 1500 B.C., when all egyptian pyramids were already built long ago (pyramids as king's tombs were abandoned around 1900 B.C. with the demise of the XIth dynasty), and when the Sky Disc of Nebra (~1600 B.C.) was already cast in bronze.

I must be the only slashdotter that listened to the Art Bell show, and frequent guest Ed Dames. "Psychic teleportation" sounds like nothing more and nothing less than astral projection.

Is this November, or April? (April would explain Tuesday pretty well, but I digress.)

Omphalos actually means belly button.

And I think most people don't realize that the US has plans for just about everything - they had recently released (under the FOIA) plans for invading Canada. We'll probably never go to war against Canada in at least the next 200 years, but I'm glad we're prepared in case something should go terribly wrong. We probably have to have plans to defeat every country (including a secession of US states) and almost every hostile structure of weapons, etc., if the need ever arises. This is only a small part of that. And I'd guess they also have separate plans for dealing with any severe political aftermath.

Canada and the US have mutual plans to annex their neighbors, by mutual consent of the provinces/states or by force to preempt unilateral actions. Many states have these plans, though they are very rarely used. Democratic states typically adhere to the "do as little as possible so as to offend as few as possible so as to get re-elected", a great pacifist.

I think, though, that the USA and Russia have the most extensive contingency plans I have ever heard of. Indeed, both states have vast relatively autonomous underground operations bordering on secret cities. That link is relatively paranoid, justified or no, but it does illustrate the point. The USA and Russia are prepared for many, many situations, many beyond our consideration.

Well, the planet does have a massive security hole, so I wouldn't doubt it.

As opposed to, say, druids?

I wonder how they will accomplish this considering some of the recent findings about the probable locations of Atlantis.

Example

And the old predictions of the Sleeping Prophet Edgar Cayce, who hasn't always been wrong and hasn't always been right.

Cayce Predictions

There's a lot of facts to consider when making a series like this, but I am sure the people at Stargate will do a great job with continuity.

And will make little to no mistakes.
I hope.
This time.
SG-1 Mistakes :)
[cx]

start a geeks-only nation

China shines. They have been geeks almost ever since. Though admittedly difficult to grasp for a "us/eu-pseudo-(first world-muhaha)-civilized" (myself included) mind.

The rest of the world ? WTF.

CC.

Well, I am suprised because I thought that radiation damages all DNA no matter what cell it's in.

I can understand that the effects

on humans, but still suprised that bacteria can handle this. It turns out that the DNA in the bacteria IS damaged, but it is able to repair at a fast enough rate and accurately too:

"Others, such as the radioactivity-resistant Deinococcus radiodurans, can withstand serious damage by repairing their own DNA."

source

So there's only so much the bacteria can handle.

I concur. If dBase II can be said to be relational, then any data persistence mechanism is too. Some other candidates beyond ISAM (non-exhaustive list):

http://www.amherst.edu/~ermace/sth/photos.html
http://www.mkzdk.org/carnac/guiden.html
http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/giza.htm
http://www.crystalinks.com/chinawall.html
http://archaeology.la.asu.edu/teo/intro/sun.htm

I like the one year graph better. It looks like Ayers Rock.

They were pretty successful. The last pictures showed something like this on the lunar surface. After this, transmissions were cut off.

Some other good links for Voynich information:

• An excellent viewer which lets you quickly see thumbnails of all of the pages at once.
• A good overview page
• The Voynich Mailing List - a site maintained by Jim Gillogly (famous for cracking the first few parts of Kryptos).

Elonka :)

That's right. Why would Japan want a massive reactor on their land... wherever they put it, it's going to be close to cities.

Stick the thing in the middle of Australia. They can hide it under this

"Native Americans" is a myth. There were dozens of primitive tribes that often battled with each other when the first Europeans arrived. If the Europeans had taken another century to get here, more than likely the stronger groups would have grown enough to destroy the smaller ones. The Europeans acted no differently to them then they had to any group that had met before or after. (For example, circa 1600 B.C.E. when they arrived with their chariots in Babylon.) Some groups were friendly and some weren't on both sides. It wasn't until all of the native groups were all together in suffering that they put aside their differences to try to guilt their oppressors into making concessions.

As for the Apache specifically, they were a warrior tribe. Whether they could have come to terms with the Spaniards is now irrelevant. They fought with the Spaniards and the Comanche over territory and food, and the United States government acquired the fight when they acquired New Mexico. At that point negotiation may or may not have been possible - this page doesn't say if it was attempted and it took long enough to find this. In the end the military could either defeat them or be defeated, and the end was unavoidable.

The same thing happened repeatedly throughout history. The Goths, the ancient greeks, ancient Israel, all were harrassed and wiped out to varying degrees by other cultures. The "Native Americans" were not all full of greatness, and there are definitely groups that were treated shamefully. But there has hardly been a century in human history that doesn't have one (or usually more) group that was treated shamefully. To continue to browbeat others who weren't involved is selfish and self defeating. Millions of people have come to the U.S.A. to escape oppression, not to be accused of it.

A good analogy here is the architechtural construction techniques of the Egyptian pharaohs. You can build quite big pyramids if you throw a fortune and an army of slaves at the job. But it doesn't scale, it doesn't advance the state of the art, and, crucially, it doesn't get any cheaper when you do it more often. It was the brick-and-mortar commercial construction industry that led via engineering advances to modern skyscraper construction.

I'm not sure you're on very solid ground there.

Back in the good old days, the pharoahs' tombs were low key affairs. Then along came Imhotep, the architect who designed Djoser's pyramid. Imhotep was the guy who really understood what could be done with stone. He realised that it was a really adaptable material with wonderful mechanical properties and a possibility for great aesthetics.

Imhotep undoubtedly advanced the state of the art in the creation of large-scale buildings, and in several other areas too. Ironically, it was the bricks and mortar construction industry that he killed off with his works in stone. Earlier mud-brick pyramids were not very impressive and most have long since crumbled away. The pyramid he designed for his pharaoh is still in reasonably good condition well over 4600 years later.

As for Imhotep, his reputation as a genius survived for well over 2500 years, certainly until the early Christian era. He seemed to be regarded by his successors much as we now look on with awe at Leonardo da Vinci's brilliance. He's known not only as an engineer and architect, but as a physician, poet, astrologer and high-ranking government official.

Here's a nice intro to Imhotep and here can be found more detail on the pyramid he designed.

Paul

I, for one, would be fascinated if animal mutilations---heck, even one---turned out to be of metaphysical origin. But having seen a whole bunch of pictures of alleged mystical occurrences (whether caused by aliens, satanists, radioactive ants, whatever), I gotta tell you, the metaphysical theories just aren't all that compelling.

Take this photo, for example, taken by an Alabama police officer in 1993. The website says, "There is no evidence of scavenging birds, but rather a precise oval incision which removed the udder while leaving the underlying tissues untouched. The entire operation was bloodless."

It's true---there's no evidence of scavenging birds here, but that doesn't mean that this was an "incision" or "operation," either. There are some basic facts which most of these wide-eyed True Believers never seem to pick up on.

1. In most cases where an animal dies of natural causes, the body stays intact.
2. Once a body is dead, it doesn't tend to bleed much, even when the skin is punctured, particularly when the wound is caused above ground level.
3. Skin naturally retracts when cut for some time after death.
4. Animals (and bugs) tend to go after targets of opportunity with the least possible amount of effort.
5. Softer parts are usually easier to remove and eat, and some parts can be naturally pulled away from the body with some effort (such as ears, 'nads, and so forth). It's also easier to bite into loose skin, such as that around the belly of an animal.
6. Protruding parts are usually easier to remove, but nibbling around existing bodily portals is also good if you're not too particular about where your meat comes from, and most animals aren't particularly famous for their keen sense of microbiology.

In that image, I see a soft, protruding body part was removed. I don't see a "precise oval incision"---in fact, the edges are pretty ragged, and the skin has retracted and slumped away from the wound. It wasn't "bloodless"---there's clotted blood on the surface of the wound. It does appear that part of the wound may have been licked clean, but I see nothing inconsistent with a carnivore finding a dead animal, going after an easy tasty morsel, and leaving before the humans showed up.

Skeptics aren't necessarily curmudgeons. I think skeptics just find it tiresome that some of the most vocal promoters of metaphysical explanations aren't at all interested in finding out whether something's actually metaphysical or not---they just move on to the next "possibility" without stopping for even one moment to engage a single neuron. For a good example, see this breathless account on Paranormal News.

Of course, photos abound. Here's a sampling

• Cow. No details about this image were available; the article in which it appears doesn't make it clear about what's being claimed for this case. However, it is not "bloodless," and it fits rules #5 and #6 above.
• Cow. This comes from the same page referenced above. The article in question gives no details about the image itself---or even mentions it. But I see a fairly clean wound with evidence of retraction (at three o'clock in the image) and tearing (at four o'clock and from seven to nine o'clock). This wasn't a precise operation, and it's not clear what part of the cow this was from. The article purports the image to be of a case that occurred in 2000 in Alberta Canada. The dark area you see in the image (which I would ascribe to oozing tissue permitted to clot and dry in open air) is claimed to be "signs of high heat," whic

I, for one, would be fascinated if animal mutilations---heck, even one---turned out to be of metaphysical origin. But having seen a whole bunch of pictures of alleged mystical occurrences (whether caused by aliens, satanists, radioactive ants, whatever), I gotta tell you, the metaphysical theories just aren't all that compelling.

Take this photo, for example, taken by an Alabama police officer in 1993. The website says, "There is no evidence of scavenging birds, but rather a precise oval incision which removed the udder while leaving the underlying tissues untouched. The entire operation was bloodless."

It's true---there's no evidence of scavenging birds here, but that doesn't mean that this was an "incision" or "operation," either. There are some basic facts which most of these wide-eyed True Believers never seem to pick up on.

1. In most cases where an animal dies of natural causes, the body stays intact.
2. Once a body is dead, it doesn't tend to bleed much, even when the skin is punctured, particularly when the wound is caused above ground level.
3. Skin naturally retracts when cut for some time after death.
4. Animals (and bugs) tend to go after targets of opportunity with the least possible amount of effort.
5. Softer parts are usually easier to remove and eat, and some parts can be naturally pulled away from the body with some effort (such as ears, 'nads, and so forth). It's also easier to bite into loose skin, such as that around the belly of an animal.
6. Protruding parts are usually easier to remove, but nibbling around existing bodily portals is also good if you're not too particular about where your meat comes from, and most animals aren't particularly famous for their keen sense of microbiology.

In that image, I see a soft, protruding body part was removed. I don't see a "precise oval incision"---in fact, the edges are pretty ragged, and the skin has retracted and slumped away from the wound. It wasn't "bloodless"---there's clotted blood on the surface of the wound. It does appear that part of the wound may have been licked clean, but I see nothing inconsistent with a carnivore finding a dead animal, going after an easy tasty morsel, and leaving before the humans showed up.

Skeptics aren't necessarily curmudgeons. I think skeptics just find it tiresome that some of the most vocal promoters of metaphysical explanations aren't at all interested in finding out whether something's actually metaphysical or not---they just move on to the next "possibility" without stopping for even one moment to engage a single neuron. For a good example, see this breathless account on Paranormal News.

Of course, photos abound. Here's a sampling

• Cow. No details about this image were available; the article in which it appears doesn't make it clear about what's being claimed for this case. However, it is not "bloodless," and it fits rules #5 and #6 above.
• Cow. This comes from the same page referenced above. The article in question gives no details about the image itself---or even mentions it. But I see a fairly clean wound with evidence of retraction (at three o'clock in the image) and tearing (at four o'clock and from seven to nine o'clock). This wasn't a precise operation, and it's not clear what part of the cow this was from. The article purports the image to be of a case that occurred in 2000 in Alberta Canada. The dark area you see in the image (which I would ascribe to oozing tissue permitted to clot and dry in open air) is claimed to be "signs of high heat," whic

By the way, the link doesn't work. Try this.

I remembered reading a while back a theory that the Arc of the Covenant was actually a battery. This (so the article claimed) was the reason that when people touched it they died. It was an interesting theory.

I did my best to find a link to such a writeup, but Google keeps sending me to sites about UFO's. I can't speak for the validity of the site, but here is a mention of the theory. Right down to him referring to the Arc as 'Old Sparky'.

Hitler had an obsession with sexual perversions. He put all his hopes and dreams into one lottery ticket when he was 17, and when he lost he nearly went mad. He was an artist who failed miserably, and he had difficulty attaining corporal status due to a "lack of leadership qualities." He also had involvements in the occult rituals of the Thule Society.

Source:
"The Unknown Hitler"
by Wulf Schwarzwäller

Dang, I think I'm being trolled again. You're doing it gently and politely, I'll grant, but I think you're trolling all the same. That makes the second time recently for me.

I'm terribly sorry for inconveniencing you with an impression that I am trolling, however, I stand by my opinion and let you have yours. *giggle* ;-)

Have you found any? Care to share? It's not up to others to find evidence for an unconvincing case.

I'll let RedBear speak for me, as he does it much more elegantly than me. A reply to his post is also worth an extra glance. These are not evidence per se, but they are very compelling reasons to investigate further. It's better to read books about the subject than what's on the net (so much crap).

There are tons more of these little facts: It's happening all over the world in varying degrees. Crop circles have been reported in mostly barley and wheat. But, they also appear in corn, oats, oilseed rape (canola), grass, ricefields, trees, sand, and even snow. When investigators come early to an authentic ring, there are no footprints or traces of the creators, even on a rainy day with muddy ground. Many rings are made in canola, which you cannot step into without turning completely yellow, and breaking the fragile crop leaving trails into the crops. The earliest known formation was in 1647 in England (see the picture of the devil bending the crop), so it's not new of date. The microscopic structure of the plants themselves seem to have changed, which cannot be explained by conventional methods. Claims have been made that the cropgrowth are boosted (also researched). This means that many times you can see cropcircles of last year, in the new crop this year, as faint shadows because of longer crops. The genuine cropcircles also exhibits more complexity, whirls within the circles, especially in the middle. They are much more complex when you get a closer look at them.

All in all, there's alot of interesting stuff. Perhaps it's all made up of kooks and hoaxers as you seem to suggest, but I'm not that paranoid to believe such a grand conspiracy. There's too much work involved, both in design, planning and

Also, you missed the bit about keeping an open mind, even when one has a firm position/opnion. Clearly you find it difficult to believe that one can both have an opinion on topic X and an open mind on topic X. You've certainly shown that the reverse is true - one can have no opinion on a topic and a closed mind on it!! :-)

But I do have an opinion, and it is not convinced that humans are doing this. You are the one who cannot for the life of you accept the possibility of ETs or anything extraordinary. But it's typical to attack others for your own lacks..

Clearly, some of these works of art involve more than planks of wood and string, hence my reference to smart people. But I think you know this already - you were just defeating a straw man there (attacking a position I did not take).

Why would anybody with all the knowledge behind circles spend their time sweating in the long dark hours, without even being detected? What is the motive?

And let me repeat my question - which do you REALLY think is more likely? C'mon - say it! You really think it's 50-50? I don't know who did it either, but I have an opinion on the most likely explanation - do you?

50-50 of WHAT?? Crop circles are interesting, even with humans making them. When you really study them, they're impressive.

Actually you are, and that's OK! Stand firm! Express an opinion! You clearly think it's likely that I'm wrong!

How can you be wrong, when you offer no hypothesis and motive? You're just dismissing the whole thing as 'uninteresting', and that's your right..

Close! I have a negative attitude to anything non-existent. And I take a very, VERY broad interpretation of what existence means. But if it's invisible, unmeasurable, unpredictable, with no form or substance, and no effect on the world whatsoever (all in the broadest sense), then it doesn't exist.

Then in 1800, atoms and molecules didn't exist for you. They could not be measured or understood at the time, so they didn't exist, except for the "nutcracks" and "kooks" that persisted in researching what building blocks the world is made of.

Times certainly doesn't change much..

And your evidence for that assertion? Let me guess - I disagree with you, so I mustn't have done the research!

Seems so to me. The only other explanation is that you're AFRAID to find out that something fantastic really exists.

Sure I do, that's why I don't need to make stuff up.

They're not made up, you can visit crop circles yourself.

Tangent? I feel like I stepped into the middle of a different conversation.

Hint: It's to do with your dismissal attitude.

Hey - anything's possible! ;-)

If only more people actually believed that, they would be open to new discoveries.

Instead, a witchhunt is clearly taking place. Ok, some of the kooks clearly "deserves it". However, that doesn't justify a crucifiction IMHO.

The Oxygen in earths atmosphere came from the earliest living organisms.
It has always been my understanding that the first life used oxygen rather than producing it. Life forms capable of producing oxygen came shortly after.
has been established for billions of years
Had you said millions I would have believed you.

Scientists had long suspected that organisms called cyanobacteria first started converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into food energy and oxygen billions of years ago....They discovered a durable molecular signature - "fingerprints" - unique to certain cyanobacteria that lived on the shores of the ancient oceans, long before plants, animals and other complex life emerged...The microbes may have been pumping oxygen into the atmosphere for as long as 3 1/2 billion years.

Here's a link: the reptilian brain It refers to the brain stem, which, being (on the evolutionary scale) relatively old ... well, read the article. I see from the second part of your post that you are an Asimov fan. It was in one of his books that I saw the first reference in this fashion to the brain stem.

this is an interesting article that partially deals with how the brain works in a manner similar to what you suggest. It's way out there but it's an interesting angle, at least.

The Voynich Manuscript has been dubbed 'The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World'. It is named after its discoverer, the American antique book dealer and collector, Wilfrid M. Voynich, who discovered it in 1912, amongst a collection of ancient manuscripts kept in villa Mondragone in Frascati, near Rome, which had been by then turned into a Jesuit College (closed in 1953).

I hope the government won't insist on keeping the masonic symbols that they print on the one dollar bill. Those symbols are relics of a dead paradigm that was always followed by a minority and thus should not appear on anything as significant and pervasive as the US National ID card.

As far as I know, the free masons fashioned themselves to be cryptic, disguised, and ubiquitous; the dollar bill is exactly where they want to put their symbol, because (1) everybody sees it all the time, yet (2) nobody knows what it means. But those are the masons, and I just wonder: what the hell was the government thinking when they pasted that bizarre symbol on its currency? If they embed it into a 21st century ID card, it's not going to make any sense at all!

Actually, the polarity supposedly switches roughly every 200,000 years, and according to that school of thought we're currently way overdue to the tune of about 780,000 years. See here.

Assuming you believe all that, of course. As far as I know it's just a theory.

Does the move to Earths gravitation have to do with an approaching planet?

Spiritually eight is the goal of the initiate, having gone through the seven stages. Eight is the number of Paradise regained.

Eight is solidarity as the first cube and it denotes perfection by virtue of it's six surfaces. There are eight winds and intermediate directions of space. Eight represents the pairs of opposites. The octagon is the beginning of the transformation of the square into a circle and vice versa.

CULTURAL REFERENCES

Eight in many cultures and ideologies seems to have similar meanings:
Felicity
Perfect rhythm
Regeneration
Resurrection

[...]

So according to this, it must be a very good day. Now, what does a good day mean in that context? Well, if you want to see it: Good weather!

Unfortunately you can't as simply google for the astrological side. So the astrological weather forecast remains unknown. Well, a hint might be that the eighth planet is Neptun, which is certainly associated with water. Therefore one might expect rain ...

...for the big guns in the sky.

The accuracy with which these "images" are "drawn" seems to fall into two categories, foot-trodden, and laser-like. Many seem, to me, to be the latter.

Some of these images are very complex, and yet so accurately drawn, that the very notion they were trod out with plank and rope by a couple of old codgers (or a team of college students even) is pretty unthinkable. They would need sight lines and all sorts of technique for making sure each one of their stompings went right where it's supposed to -otherwise they'd not look so perfect as they do, no?

These highly accurate-looking images are, in my view, a combination test pattern and non-subtle message, imaged with microwave or other high-energy, non-visible laser, mounted on an orbital "Star Wars" missile defense test platform.

The message being, "notice the accuracy with which we draw on your front lawn? we can focus that beam on anybody who pisses us off!" (except Saddam or Osama, inexplicably) There was a hilarious scene along these lines at the begining of the Val Kilmer movie "Real Genius".

An article in New Scientist Magazine asked "How long before we see a manifestation of a Mandelbrot [set] in the fields?" One year to the day after the publication of that question, a mandelbrot set appeared in a field near Cambridge University -where Benoit Mandelbrot had taught.

Those really streight lines that people say no one could make unless they were in the air? Heard of string?

No.. the straight ones are pretty mundane. Its the animals and birds and things that get wierd.. because they are only truly visible from the air.
The are called "nasca" or "nazca" lines, and they are in Peru. (Which, if you believe the UFO-ians, is a real hotbed of interplanetary activity nightly. Most of the really good sightings tend to come from South America.)

anyway.. linkage:

Check it out! neat stuff.. and very likely *NOT* hoaxed.

maeryk

i thought of putting this in 'ask slashdot' to be honest, but here goes ... what kind of effort is required to invent a reasonably efficient language which of course only you and your confederates would be able to use. esperanto, es an example, required a mere *eight* years.

the advantage with this is that it requires practically no encryption, if any.

"jan? khlaz tuirt'kah dar gangan Mbou!"

any idea what it means? nope, me either. and if you want an example of how strong this kind of 'encryption' is, simply take a look at the puzzles linguistics has tried to crack over the years: Linear B, (Linear A is still a mystery), hieroglyphics, etc., etc. For an example of something which is *still in plaintext and not deciphered*, check out the Voynich Manuscript.

OK, I'm not saying that one can simply go off and invent a perfect language in a coupla weeks, but look at the pseudo-languages like Elvish, Klingon and whatnot. Ideas, criticisms, reactions??

Plus of course, if someone is holding a cattleprod to your crown jewels and you're standing in a bucket of water, it doesn't *really* matter whether u used gazillion-bit keys anyway...

nalfy

And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier.

Actually, the Egyptians discovered New South Wales between 1779 and 2748 BC. Hieroglyphic carvings in Hunter Valley, 100 km north of Sydney, relate how Djes-eb, one of the sons of the Pharaoh Ra Djedef, died from a snake bite.

Australia also appears on the map of Eratosthenes, compiled in 194 BC. This Erasthosthenes was the same person who devised the famous method of calculating prime numbers, still used as a benchmark today.

Developmental psychology is not the easiest to research, but one can find any number of sources for material on the theories of Jean Piaget, whom the poster was probably referring to.

http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html

Not exactly current data format, but suitable for messages to other civilizations.

How long does it take these moons to complete 1 orbit, and will they cause problems in our solar system when they return?

Like, I dunno, smashing a planet and creating an asteroid belt, subsequently causing the extinction of the dinosaurs....

Zacharia Sitchen yo.

don't forget mars, the moon and venus too.

Zecharia Sitchen has written a series of books that cover the existance of Nibiru, a planet with an elliptical orbit that comes close to the earth every 3,600 years. The return of this planet closely parallels jumps in the human experience(beginnings of agriculture, metalworking, etc).