Slashdot Mirror

There was an excelent ariticle at Scientific American on exactly that, with nice diagrams etc..
It is a slightly depressing for those star trek style optimists like me. :) But of course there is an infinate number of possibilities in the Universe! Have a look at Possible Solutions to get you thinking more..

There are so many considerations though, for instance Not all habitable zones equal. but one that really peaked my interest is an article about how our moon in many made our world. (sorry cant find the link) Basically the theorised formation of our moon, ie big planetoid crashing into proto-earth, ejecting large portion of earths crust into orbit with remains of other planetoid. Basically creating the plate-tectonic's we have on earth, which i might add do not exist on any other planet/moon observered.

Meaning that the plate tectonics are extremly rare, if you'll note a big factor in the creating on mountains, continents, etc is the continual movement of the plates. Getting to the point, if we didnt have a moon (and the results of its formation) and we still had water, then Earth would be a completly water world! Because without the continual movement, creation of continents / mountains etc, water would erode any land mass's in time.

I find that so interesting (even if it's all theoretical) as it's just another very rare factor that contributed to us being here. Rather than us being whales or some such. :)

So just maybe for the optimists (like me) most worlds out there which are habitable dont have inteligence because a huge portion of them are just water with no land. Then comes the argument of why would inteligence such as ours evolve on such a world?

First, a bit about LiveJournal. We are a site with around 65,000 users, doubling in size every three months. Unlike Blogger, we are a free interactive online community created, designed, and supported by the people who use it.

LiveJournal enables its users to easily create online journals and communities. Updating your journal or community is as simple as typing into a software client or web browser screen and hitting submit... no html is needed, and spell checking, linking, and adding images to your journal is standard for all our major software clients. We have clients for every platform I can think of practically... Linux? PalmOS? BeOS? No problem. Since LiveJournal volunteers design, expand, and constantly improve the site's features, we expect to develop open source community-based applications at an increasing rate.

Why are weblogs important? Well, any new idea has a novelty phase, where people say "Neat, but what can it do?".. there are serious business applications for weblogs. For instance, LiveJournal uses its own communities, such as lj_dev and lj_biz to organize the sites' business and development efforts. I know that these communities are a great alternative to organizing groups with maillists; LiveJournal communities have about 15 times more posts per user per month than comparable maillist communities, according to our statsistics. If you also figure in that you can add other web-based applications as part of your community, such as chat, planning, calendar, and organization-oriented applications, maillists and Usenet-like solutions start looking pretty dated.

If you think about it, all weblogs really are is a modern-day adaptation of Usenet for web browsers. Weblogs can be used for numerous purposes, such as journals, communities, and weblogs... but ultimately, their real value to people is when they are connected together, allowing people to interact.

Our long-term goal is an Internet where websites are much more dynamic than today... where you can essentially add the content and the people that interest you to a friends list. Want to add your favorite musician to your friends list and hear their latest songs over the Internet? How about your favorite underground comic strip? As you can see, there are applications that are far bigger than just reading your friends journal. We have the opportunity to create a uniquely open source kind of media that isn't controlled by the powers that be. Unlike push technology (that pushed ads on your desktop) you can have customized webpages designed to keep you connected with the latest entries from your friends, in communities, websites (such as Slashdot), and some of the most interesting people all over the Internet.

So, yeah. Weblogs are important if you think that the ability to fundamentally change the nature of the Internet matters.

Curious? Interested? Want to help develop something great? Feel free to visit our site, or drop me an e-mail. I'd be glad to hear from you.

Go here It's Bungle Fever. Mr Bungle is a band with Mike Patton (Faith No More's lead singer before they broke up!!) and buddies who play some ass kickin music. One of the videos on this site is a live cover of the Theme to Super Mario Bros. Excellent. You need vivo to play it though. There is a MP3 of the same song on the site too!!! Check them out.. leimy

check out addronics cases: www.addtronics.com

I have the 6890a and it has great cooling solutions, its about 1 to 2 inches wider than most cases which allows for a fan mounted on both sides of the case next to the drive bays, check out the picture

Use this case with an ultra quit power supply from pcpowercooling and some of their case fans you got a really cool and really quiet solution. I have their power supply and my friend has their fans, you cant hear the power supply over your own keyboard and the fans are quiet for their speed.

My machine is a dual 450 and it almost never gets to be more than 5 deg (F) or so higher than room temp w/addtronics case and pcpowercooling power supply, and is still quiet.

Chris

Addtronics 6890a

And personally, I LOVE this sucker. Nice and open, even with tons of stuff in it, and it can take about 5 extra fans. Oh, and the Mo-Bo tray slides out with all the expansion cards in place with 4 screws removed.

I wonder how many other Slashdot readers are into Pinkwater?.

Quite a few, I'd expect.

Back at college I was in a group called Storyreading which was kind of like cookies and bed-time stories for post-adolescents. We read all sorts of stuff, including lots of children's literature and ocassional Pinkwater (mostly the picture books). And (dare I say it) most of us were nerds, some the kind that would read Slashdot.

Hmmm... any other storyreaders current or former reading this thread?

I think that much as Slashdot readers are disproprionately interested in SF and comic books and anime many (although perhaps fewer) would appreciate DMP.

I prefer Operation Mindfuck, myself...fnord.

Check out Addtronics' "extra" series full tower or server tower at http://www.wco.com/~addtron/index.html. I have a 6890a, and like it quite a bit; it looks like the '91 and '92 series cases are the same as the '90 series intenally, but have nicer looking fronts. You can put fans in all the usual places plus blowing sideways across the 5.25" exposed drive bays.

And if you're reading this, you definitely want the casters. They give you the ability to pull out your case much more easily (or put it out of the way where it goes much more easily)! You probably want them even if you never close the case...

Just a happy customer...