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Computers, Aliens and Operating Systems?
bhamon writes "Here's something from the you-have-too-much-time-on-your-hands dept. I've been watching the sci-fi show Earth: Final Conflict, it's about aliens that land on earth to bring peace but really want to enslave us ... blah, blah, blah. There's has been much integration between human and alien systems, bringing new technology. What I've been wondering is which current hardware would most be best to integrate with unknown alien technology? Which operating system would be most easily adaptable to be made compatible with alien systems? Would we still include legacy support for DOS applications??"
...it has support for alien filesystems.
Perhaps they read /.
If they did, could be one reason why we haven't been contacted.
We all know that the universal network protocol is AppleTalk. AppleTalk is available on all MacOS and many UNIX operating systems. It seems like the only logical choice. And it worked in Independence Day. If it happened in a movie, it must be real.
And the universal OS of choice is definitely MovieOS. You can do anything you want at any time without actually having to tell the computer what to do. Absolutely amazing.
-Chris
Just watch "Independence Day" again!
It's all there, man. The appz. The aliens. All of it. Right in front of you, man...
(And if you believe that, you probably thought this was a real slashdot story too!)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I was pretty sure from the movies I have seen that they only use 1 application... MacroMedia director... So, OS was not the big issue?
It's always a Mac in the movies, get with the program : b
(I'm sure this wasn't original, but just found out I slept an hour later than I thought I did, sure doesn't feel like it : b So I'm feeling kinda obnoxious.)
G
Try clicking here for everything everyone knows about AYB.
You know I am totally ammazed at how many movies show alien tech that works with ours. What was that movie with Will Smith and the attacking UFO's??? Yeah okay I'll just hack into their system and put them to sleep.
This person has more time on their hands and is watching to much sci fi. Get out of your house dude and get a grip on reality! Get a dog or something! It's just TV. What makes you think that any life other than bacteria is out there? And if there is what makes you think that there tech would even be remotely like ours?
Today's posts are the result of a server in Alaska that has take over Slashdot. Please be prepaired for a meltdown and DDOS at 4pm........ April fools!!!
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
What I've been wondering is which current hardware would most be best to integrate with unknown alien technology? Which operating system would be most easily adaptable to be made compatible with alien systems?
/.
Am I the only one that saw Independence Day? MacOS is the clear winner here. All you need is a powerbook and you can wipe out an entire alien race.
It's also worth noting that the aliens were running tcp/ip. Perhaps they read
--Shoeboy
I assume this is another April fool...
-henrik
Let the aliens use DOS. Whatever.
What I want to know is if ESR's sex tips will help me get it on with a triple-breasted alien chick.
spoo
And then all of their equipment would run so slowly that they'd be completely immobilized! Brilliant tactic, general!
To imagine how integrating a system of lesser technology with one of greater technology, look no further than the last couple centuries expansion of European (and now American) technology into the less technically sophisticated societies of the world.
The aliens, at least some of them, will be jingoistic and look down upon the less technically endowed, some to the point of considering us useless. Others may be kindly and willing to trade. The world leaders will trade for advanced weapons that they will use to subjigate anyone that doesn't also get the advanced weapons (cf. Mongel Empire in India, unification of the Hawaiian islands after arrival of the British). Other trade goods will arrive. These will first be used to enhance the productivity of current economic pursuits, but then will disrupt and destroy those pursuits. For example water well drilling first makes the daily trip for water easier and then plumbing destroys the need. Eventually the society becomes dependant upon technology that the members of the society cannot understand. Even if they did understand the technology, they would not have the economic and technological structure to produce it.
The only way we will be able to survive with our societies intact is to be the cheapest supplier of some valued raw material. Maybe being the sole source of soylent green will save us!
For Ed Wood fans, however, I'd point out that "Glen or Glenda" is probably worse.
For anyone who's actually watched "Earth: Final Conflict": did they fire all the writers last season and replace them with crackheads? There was an episode this season (Zo'or wants all the gold) that was so bad I laughed out loud. Don't make me flame it in detail; don't.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Actually the Unicode Consortium did consider extraterrestrial life, and included UTF-32 as a standard, even though only the first two bytes are ever used (by Earth people).
"4,294,967,296 glyphs (minus a bunch of reserved ones) ought to be enough for any body."
The use of RED GREEN and BLUE is very human-specific. These colours are just spikes on the colour spectrum that would be meaningless to any life form that doesn't happen to have RGB cones in their retinas.
I propose we start manufacturing monitors that emit exact light frequencies below, above and between the three emitted by CRTs today.
I'd be terribly embarrassed to have Visitors and no monitor they could use.
no, its from the internationalization dept. Shhh...
I think aliens would be gamers.
But you have to realize that, depending on how much more advanced the aliens are (and they would have to be at least a little more advanced than us in order to get here), they may have a different definition of "sentience" and thus might rank us as being roughly as sentient as cows, or any other creature that we ourselves consider to be lacking "sentience".
does that make keeping more than one core dump on hand being constipated?
/.
Sorry, but that's abotu what I think of this apil fools days rush of bs here at
...that, and I think these pills are doing something to me.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Another race would be smart enough to learn and understand our languages. There is a lot of reference material on this planet to make things clearer, and if a baby can learn a language, so can a very-intelligent alien, with nearly unlimited information harvesting, processing power, and very advanced artificial intelligence.
If our historians can manage to figure out ancient languages, then so can aliens figure ours. If we want to communicate with them, we should make our best efforts to teach them our language.
If you would want to teach an alien anyway, you should probably want to try in multiple ways. The first thing you would have to teach the aliens is the basic vocabulary. A basic touchscreen with videos, each showing several nouns. It will speak out the word, and write it down on the monitor whenever it is touched on the screen. Afterwards you could do the same with verbs and adjectives (e.g. color).
You don't want any device like a keyboard or a mouse, because you don't know what physical properties the alien will have. So a touchscreen is the best choice. The operating system would have to be idiot proof and solidly built (and I don't think blue screens would help the aliens to better understand what's going on).
Numbers should be counted by sticks, e.g. 20 will be represented by 20 sticks. Not very useful for big numbers, but that's the simplest option. A small tutorial about basic maths with a video would also be useful.
Another interesting way to communicate with the aliens would be some variant of the Logo language (one that wouldn't use a keyboard). Or maybe even some simplified paintbrush.
And finally after some basic comprehension has been established, you might try to let the aliens surf the web with a basic browser(or perhaps some slightly filtered version of it - you don't know what will happen if they suddenly get a woody, they might become aggressive). Possible good homepages are Google, the Google Directory, and perhaps AltaVista's image search, and maybe a child education site. The pages would need to be cleaned and simplified. If the aliens manage to physically speak our languages, then maybe voice recognition would be helpful for the web interface.
Has Slashdot been contacted by THEM or something? Suddenly we're worrying about whether THEY get civil rights, how to integrate with THEIR technology, "politics without geographic boundaries" (clearly a reference to the impending colinial government of earth), "Slashdot during wartime," and even "What PDA do you think the Alien Overlords will prefer?"
WILL SOMEBODY CLUE ME IN, or at least get me a job with the Alien I.T. Department? My company just went bankrupt... or did it? MAYBE it's a plot by THEM to get me to turn against MY PLANET! BASTARDS!
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Plus an advanced alien civilization bent on world domination would probably have a lot of respect for a company like Microsoft. And would be unwilling to release it's technology without an equally advanced and world-dominating NDA.
my vote goes out for windows 9x. A few reasons:
If said aliens are going to enslave the human race, shouldn't we make it as hard as possible? Of course showing them that buggy POS would probably make them think less of us (also assuming they aren't using quantum computers and whatnot) But if they're anything like we are anymore, they won't know what to do if their computers aren't working, so forcing them to adapt to windows would at least delay our enlavement.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/
If you're not on somebody's shit list, you're not doing anything worthwhile.....
PLAN 9 From Outer Space
If you're not on somebody's shit list, you're not doing anything worthwhile.....
It was my SETI code segment that contained the original "All your base are belong to us."
What about character sets? I'm sure Unicode won't be able to handle all the alien characters. We'll probably need 32-bit characters.
--
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
Haven't you ever seen Independance Day? When they fly up to the alien mothership, David's Apple Notebook is somehow able to negotiate a compatable protocol with the alien mainframe (maybe they run TCP/IP because they don't have enough lesbian porn on their planet?). Not only that, he also gets enough access to upload a virus.
So its obvious, the way of the future is the Mac.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
What if we had to communicate with some weird insect alien civilization that used millions of symbols in some weird pictographic languages? Communicating with them would exhaust UTF-8 unicode in 5 nanoseconds. Or perhaps we make contact with millions of alien civilations? Suppose each civilation had hundreds of regional alphabets like we have right now on earth? We'd have to create something like UTF-64 (at the very least) to keep up. I can see an analogy being drawn to the year 2000 problem, where future generations ask "why the hell did they use only two bytes to represent characters when they knew that we'd eventually make contact?" On the bright side, us 21st century coders who'll be considered dinosaurs well past our prime in 2360 might be thawed from cryogenic suspension to become highly-paid consultants dealing with legacy earth systems.
I mean seriously, what in the hell is WRONG with everyone? Slashdot during a war? Geek Sex Tips? Computers, Aliens, and frickin OPERATING SYSTEMS?
This is really starting to piss me off. I mean, is this Slashdot.org or SeventeenMagazine.com?
Sorry to rant, but this is downright disturbing, isnt there any GOOD news out there? Anything at all?
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Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Well, I figured since Slashdot was full of useless crap today, maybe Satire Wire would have actual news... nix on that also.
Guess I'll just have to sit and wonder whether or not I chose the proper processor architecture for interfacing with aliens that don't exist.
And yes, the protagonist (a sentient computer) sent a virus to the alien computer; and yes, I wrote it before Independence Day came out; and no, my explanation wasn't as simple as, "gee, I'll use my powerbook to send a virus out!"
-Legion
Second of all, I think its highly likely that alien technology wouldn't operate on the same principles our technology would thus making interfacing quite dificult and probably the data would be so foreign to make the whole thing maningless in the first place! Case in point: taelons have "biological" computers...
I will note however, my EFC soundtrack came on an audio cd, so cds are clearly the best format for inter-species data exchange.
Lastly, none of lifes higher questions can be answered by pondering a sci-fi show :) While I do watch EFC religiously, it has absolutley no content.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
...this question is almost as retarded as the "Do Aliens Have Civil Rights?" question from yesterday. I hope this is just an April Fools joke, especially since there are much more worthwhile topics in the Ask Slashdot section.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
This is vaguely a spoiler.
:-) [Crell?] Do you eventually learn enough that you become bored? [Q?] Do you no longer desire any contact with the younger races? [B5 First Ones?]
Maybe they want humans to integrate into their biotech?
I just love the way the technology of the really old races is shown on B5. It really made me think.
We've only been doing things this way for 50 years, some things 100 years, some things 150 years. Sure we've invested a lot in building on what we've got, and then building on top of that. But there are other fundamental ways of doing some things which we might just be on the verge of discovering this century. Consider where the state of electronics in, say, 1920. Might biotech/nanotech be about the same right now compared to the turn of the next century? How might we do things in 1000 years from now? 5000? 100,000?
What would happen as we learn to exploit biotech and nanotech? We would eventually be able to live forever. At some point, you want your population to quit expanding. Eventually your technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Anyway, back to the question. If aliens are much more advanced, their technology might not even resemble ours. Heck, their lifeform might not even resemble ours. In fact, they might consider us as resources, or as having fewer rights. They might consider earth uninhabited by intelligent life, and ripe for development/colonization, as we might a jungle or rain forest. Just clear back some of the natural habitat and animals.
The assumption of technology compatibility is assuming a lot. Can we recognize them as intelligent? Can they recognize us as (sufficiently) intelligent? Can we learn to communicate? Finally, if all of the above, then do we have products/services/culture of interest to the other? [Example: how B5 Centuari Prime first traded jumpgate technology in exchange for Earth's improved hair moose formulas.] If so, then the issue of technology integration might arise.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
What's happening over there? Did you have a budget cut and lay off the last people with brains, or what?
What I've been wondering is which current hardware would most be best to integrate with unknown alien technology?
I don't know, but I hope that it would be sensible enough to electrocute anyone who tried to type the phrase 'would most be best'.
My other
Will Slashdot begin posting only hypotetical questions like would space aliens have civil rights?, what OS would best interface with space aliens?, and what would /. be like during war?. Will articles become increasingly self-referential and hypothetical until the only articles posted are idle speculation about whether, if space aliens landed, the only articles /. would post would be about what aliens would think of idle speculation about future /. postings about aliens? This is a burning question, people!
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Despite the obvious lack of thought processes involved in the creation of this question, I'll give an answer.
Computers function based on what can be considered an entirely different language. Such is why we have boundaries between platforms. While it is possible to cross that boundary given certain programs, it is still difficult. Thus, assuming the hardware was compatible, chances are that the software wouldn't be.
The hardware, though, probably wouldn't be either for one main reason: silicon processors aren't powerful enough to manage any of the rigors of long-distance flight aboard a spaceship. We're talking about either the maintenance of an advanced drive system requiring, perhaps billions of billions of billions of operations a nanosecond, or the maintenance of a large colony ship carrying a large gene pool to prevent inbreeding and possessing an entire encapsulated ecosystem. Either way, silicon isn't going to do shit. And once you kill sillicon, chances are that you aren't going to stay in a binary setup. Thus, the hardwares would be incompatible as well.
Pax Digitalia
This is my take on it.
I think Microsoft would form an partnership with the Aliens and trade technology with them. They would put out A/OS (Alien Operating System), then the partnership would brake up because Microsoft wanted to move in a different direction. The Aliens would continue to work on on A/OS and eventually put out A/OS 2. Microsoft would integrate the aliens technology into Windows and release Windows AT (Alien Technology) and proceed to market the Aliens into the ground. The Aliens would go bankrupt, Microsoft would buy the remains of the Company for 10 cents on the dollar.
The Aliens would then move to Silicon Valley to start a new company. They put out software which revolutionizes Networking and the Internet, Microsoft embraces the new software by buying a license and first integrating it into Windows AT, then extending it capabilities with new Windows AT only features. Because 99.9999% of the world is using Windows AT, there is now no need for the Aliens software, they go bankrupt again, Microsoft buys them out for 5 cents on the dollar. The Aliens leave Earth in disgust.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Linus Torvalds: Unless they submit small patches that I can properly analyze, none of the alien code is going to make it into the kernel.
Alan Cox: The aliens can send the patches to me and I'll add them to the ac prepatch tree.
Jean Louis-Gassé: We ported BeOS to the x86; with that experience under our belts I'm sure we can port it to an alien architecture in under three months.
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on a CD-R somewhere
What's with this alien stuff since a few days? has slashdot heard rumors about an invasion that I didn't hear of? :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Don't worry, they are back to bashing Microsort again. (See above post).
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
...is that we'd start over with something completely new.
Have aliens infiltrated Slashdot..??
Microsoft released in a press conference last week that Windows XP and Office XP will be able to communicate with aliens without a problem. This feture will only be in the OuterSpace edition+. More information is at www.microsoft.com/windowsxp
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
This guy is obviously trying to get a flame war started. At least he didn't ask which linux distro would integrate best or what programming language would be the easiest to interface with the alien systems.
I'm not sure. Do our astronomers have any information what kind of hardware the Canadians might be using?
If the alien species in question happened to be the Borg, it wouldn't matter. It would be their problem, really. . . :-)
---
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
If you were an alien trying to take over the world wouldn't you want to distribute your own OS to the people of the earth. An expensive OS which allows the aliens to collect lots of money in their quest. An OS with good enough marketing to get their system installed on most computers all over the world. However they would want the OS to crash a lot. This would make us waste our time dealing with registries or what ever when we should be watching out for the up coming take over. It would have to be closed source so we wouldn't be able to tell that the OS was written in some alien computer language. It seems clear that Bill Gates is really an alien and windows already is alien technology!
Don't believe it? Remember that George Bush the senior used to be head of the CIA. Who knows what he did as part of those Black Budget programs. A perfectly programmed candidate.
Really, this is a joke
Really.
Don't look at those men behind the curtain
Please?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
We choosed this way in the last 50 years, based on our knowledge of electricity. Why should they choose the same thing on an other solar system?They would probably choose something completly different, based on completly different knowledge.
I think interface with an other kind of computer would be really difficult.
A) Take life WAY too seriously, or,
B) Find a great deal of pleasure in being able to attack, kill and destroy anybody or anything which slides under the percieved 'coolness' radar for even a microsecond. Sheesh. Did you get beat up a lot when you were kids, or what?
Slashdot isn't your bread and butter. It's something you read for distraction. The Internet is just a big silly video game and any 'News' about it is equally non-life threatening. Life won't end if you can't play an MP3 or watch a stupid movie or chat with your mates in Australia via email.
I for one enjoy pondering hypothetical questions, and I am willing to bet that practically every last person out there slagging this site has spent hundreds of hours in highschool hallways talking about exactly that kind of shit.
Don't be such a bunch of tight-ass jerks. Life is fun!
Anyway, interfacing alien with human technology is a moot point. If aliens want to install devices on this planet with human help, they'd simply get us to build the hardware ourselves based on physical concepts which, even if we hadn't come upon them yet ourselves, will remain standard no matter which part of the universe you hail from. We'd just build the stuff with appropriate interfaces for human useage. Read up on Montauk and the Philadelphia experiment to see an example of how it works.
Also, oral language is easy enough to learn when you can communicate through psychic means to establish common bearings. No big deal.
Remember: This isn't Star Trek. They're here to kill us. It's organized and it's smart and it's effective, and they've done it countless times before. And aliens are only a piece of the over-all scenario. There's a ton of frightful weirdness on the way, and it's all going to hit between 1 and 12 years from now. So do what you can to get your shit together, because all the rules are about to change. In the words of Henry Rollins; "Relax. Be Drinkable."
Fantastic Lad --That arrogant fuck isn't serious, is he? Wow. Glad I'm not messed in the head like that!
Start learning x86 assembly language now, before the main fleet arrives!
***
... you'd know that the only OS compatible with alien networks is Mac OS! I this film, we can see Jeff Goldblum easily uploading his virus into the mainframe, using Apple Talk! It's as easy as that!
April FOOLS! Right? Well? April fools!
p.s. blow horn when you are there. For great justice!
For anyone else who's wondering about the 3-breasted chick, it's NOT the one on "Total Recall", it's none other but Erotica Gallumbits, author of the great book "Everything you didn't want to know about sex, but were forced to learn anyway". Check your local "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" for more information.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
There's been much integration between our technology and alien technology?
If so, I hope I don't have any close encounters.
[Fleeb] Hey! What do you mean, plucking me out of my sleep like that? And what's with the big eyes?
[Alien] Oh, we're just going to do the usual... probing around for flora and fauna... oh, and they're easier to see you with.
[A sinister-looking device enters the room. One of its protruberances enters where one dares not say.]
[Fleeb, screaming] You bastards! The thing is drilling a hole through my lower intestines! It's killing me!
[Alien to other alien] What do you mean 'I loaded that WinCE OS thing into it'? You fool! You know how it damn near threw us into the star when we installed it to the navigation system!
And so it goes.
Alien computers
Star Wars most violent movie ever, despite PG rating
Can slashdot actually do anything useful? NO. (the war story)
Geek sex tips, obviously designed to invoke images of ESR in bed (with someone else)
Alien civil rights
This is the dumbest slashdot in the history of the universe and I'm going to stop reading slashdot for all time. Unsanitary will be my veng... Oh. April 1. Never mind.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Don't you *get* it? That's why Linux is so popular, man! Everybody knows it's the bastard child of the UNIX world, but everybody uses it! You know why? It's Linus, man! He's one of them! C'mon, look at the word - Transmeta. Just like something out of X-Files. It's Linus, man. He's gonna have us using that bastardized Ext2FS on their slave ships! Rebel now before they get all of us! http://www.freebsd.org/
We contact you just about every day. Does "All your base are belong to us" sound familiar. You are on your way to destruction, make your time. --Cats
This statement is false.
Of course, if we get visited by the Borg, we're doomed.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Yes, DOS. What did most of today's Linux users use before Linus even started work on it? DOS. And what was the most popular version of DOS? MS-DOS (mostly because IBM kept fouling up numerous things in their version, PC-DOS).
Face it, most of the hardcore Linux users here used DOS before Linux existed. Unless, of course, they used Apple computers ever since the Apple II back in the late 70's. Or, in some RARE circumstances, used UNIX back when AT&T was still working on it.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Another really stupid alien-related question on "Ask Slashdot" this weekend. I really hope this is an April Fool's question...
Bill was sent here from some far off Vulcan like world to contaminate the Earth with DOS and windows. Weakening are computational powers, rendering the Earth defenseless to the oncoming horde.
It's a fact that he is an alien. The NSA and FBI did a scientific study on him back in the 60's, to see if he posed a threat to the US. During the final and decisive test, a researcher threw a red dodge ball at his head in order to test his reflexes. Bill failed to move or even raise his arms in self defense The ball bounced clean off of his forehead. Flustered by the impact to his face, Mr. Gates began to stare at dodge ball angrily until a Microsoft windows logo appeared on its side. The FBI and NSA felt that Bill Gates posed no immediate threat to the nation, seeing how he used his powers for capitalistic purposes and not for communist propaganda they let him go.
If they're really an advanced alien species, let's see them prove it: interface the human operating system with their technology. The things we could learn from such a project would be incredible.
Well, not for those in whom the attempt "crashes..."
Take care,
Mark
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
Will articles become increasingly self-referential and hypothetical until the only articles posted are idle speculation about whether, if space aliens landed, the only articles /. would post would be about what aliens would think of idle speculation about future /. postings about aliens? This is a burning question, people!
HAHAH mod this up!!
combining Ryo-Ohki with a GPS system
"pr0n": An anagram of "porn," possibly indicating the use of pornography. - www.microsoft.com
NONE of our existing technology would be compatible with any alien technology. They are probably completely different beings, with completely different stuff. We probably couldn't communicate with them without years of research even with their help. However, just for us slashdotters, I would have to say that the first human alien translation program would probably be for Linux :)
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I have noticed alot of people having a go at the Will Smith movie, Independance Day. Saying that it was stupid how a notebook computer could infect an alien ship with a virus using TCP/IP.
I don't know how you guys know he used TCP/IP, but that's not the issue here. I always presumed that since they had the small alien fighter that was captured many, many years before, that they would have had time to figure out how the computers worked and how to communicate with them.
I mean wasn't that the whole point of the scene where the old man tells the president about the Roswell incident? I don't know maybe I just like watching a movie that has an African American Comic Lead that flies alien space ships, for the comic content and special effects and not for the references to TCP/IP and viruses.
Id have to say that our technology would probably be so far behind that of any alien species that we encountered that there would be no point in interfacing our technologies. If we were able to replicate or atleast learn from thier systems we would probably be able to jump decades if not centuries ahead in almost all hardware and software. They would probably have things like quantum computers, or all optical computers or another technology not yet concieved here. Hell i wouldnt be surprised if the first "aliens" we meet are machines, since i think that after the development of AI by extraterrestrials it could produce a quantum leap in technology. If you think human AI is a problem just thinkk that maybe it aliens have already done it...
Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind...
The borg survives by assimilating, they will see our planet controled by Microsoft Products, they will assimilate Microsoft Code and then the Borg will go down hill. They would have to rebuild the cubes every few months for no reason, just to keep of with the newest version of Borg XP. Parts of the Borg will attack themselves, causing the cube to lose its scary grey metal to take on the blue screen of death motif. The new cube will return to the Borg colony and be completely incompatable with everyother cube, it will spred viruses like mad, destroying the borg way of life, changing from a collective to seperate conflicting thought, then they will recive the licencing agreement, which will cause the end of the Borg, the we will cheer for Bill Gates for making such crap, but then he reveales himself as the new Borg Kind, Embrace and Extend.
The aliens in ID4 cracked our own satelite system so they could communicate with themselves, which leads me to believe they have a fair understanding of our communication protocols and the deployment and useage of such. I believe Dr. Levinson was using the first release of LinuxPPC to gain access into the alien's n00bie unsecured Linux box. See?
Head off to LP 944-20, off Eta Carinae Nebula. Where we are par-tay!
p.s. blow horn when you are there.
If aliens were to read this discussion, they would undoubtably enslave us immediatly.
Never heard of redundancy? What would happen as your brain cells died? Had an accident? You need unspecialised cells to try and take over.
Plus, smart people can do more with _less_ effort (ie. more efficient).
Or I could be talking out my arse *shrug*
Dear god, I can't belive anything written today, since it is April Fools.
Best answer would be an Open Source OS, Probabal legacy support, and what ever else you want, 'cause I don't see this happening anytime soon. Also keep in mind that aliens might use different base number systems, might also have no new technology ( Their MIR crashed into us instead of their ocean ) and, well... they just might not be corporeial.
blah
Anyways,
If aliens decided to secretly take over...
its quite possible, but we'd find out somehow and we'd have an all out war..
But using our OSes...heh, they'd start laughing at us and take us down in a day.
Why should they put all that effort in, if a alien race was to come and want our planet, I'm sure they'd have the technology to finish us
that freedom to bear arms amendment, well, guns wouldn't help us much lol, but the gun nuts can start using that for an argument
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
Thefirst question is whether they use binary, or if they have discovered something superior. if binary we can have a sort of basic understanding, but we still woulkdn't under stand the encoding. But if we use lzip the world will be saved.
> You realize that we use only ten percent of our brains?
The Ten Percent Myth
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
they have the logo that looks like an alien (even though it is supposed to be an eye and an ear).
I think that they will have some version of non-stop machines.
That is what *I* would've put in a intersteller space ship.
OR you can take the NASA's approach, two totaly different hardware & software for anything, so no single bug can take any thing, plus a backup.
I don't think that it would be very hard to comuunicate, morse code is possibly the best thing for this.
There is simply *no way* they don't have the means to pick it up.
What you send, however, is a matter of choice.
You go to the library, pick up some texts about contacting with aliens, there should be couple of dozens of articles that you can use.
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Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
I'd say the best hardware would be one of those Java chips running Java OS. Then we could explain to the aliens the benefit of porting the Java virtual machine to their hardware ...
I found another Dune series fan!
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Just a guy with an opinion
Not a hardware system, but a protocol family that has allowed very different hardware devices to share information. Anyway, it was obvious, wasn't it?
u r of course assuming that an alien race would have similar (if not exactly the same) senses as us. That is NOT a realistic assumption.
Does NetBSD support clustering? I suppose they'd probably beat linux to a stable Alien-Technology port.
Their time zone means that by the time they get this, it will no longer be April Fools Day.
Aliens = Australians, they both start with an "A"
I am not a lawyer but my sister is, so don't mess with me
I think the real question should be if the aliens use the same currency as any of us on earth. Since the answer is no, that rules out micro$oft. Really the only way to go would be open source!
Okay, today there has been two april's fools jokes ("power boots" and "lossy compression"), but there has also been three truly weird "ask slashdot" questions. What slashdot would do during a war, AIs and aliens seeking political asylum, and now this: alien software compatibility!!
:-) )
Most of the time, we are kept strictly on topic by the moderation system, all the lovely digressions that appear on usenet and on other web-bulletin boards just don't survive here (I'm talking about real offtopic discussion here, some idiot advertising his porn site doesn't count)
But now, it seems Slashdot itself is providing us with these weird threads. They have strayed offtopic themselves.
I suppose it's some sort of new form of april's fools humor. I rather like it. Now we can speak more freely than we are sued to (I let that typo stand
As to how alien sofware would interact with ours...
You didn't seriously expect me to write something sensible on that did you??
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I really think that the only transferable information would be in 1's and 0's, but then again, maybe I'm just an idiot.
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"Anonymous cowards are just K-whores afraid of their accounts being modded down." - Bob the O (me)
Well I dont know about dos interoperability but I hear the Bill Clinton wanted to contact them to see if he could clone monica lewenski from his cigar.
Aliens would have no systems for us to interface with, so the question is moot.
Seti@Home got signal last Friday.
By early Thursday morning, the message was decoded and unmistakable, it was a single phrase repeated over and over again...
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US
ALL YOUR...
This weekend is spring cleaning weekend at the VA Linux offices. Unfortunatly, they didn't open any windows and are now taking story submissions from the scrubbing bubbles that are sitting on their shoulders.
Watch for press releases from LNUX tomorrow. "Our space robots are happy and will revolutionize the world! And SPACE!!! These are forward looking statements and..."
I think you need to look at a more simpler concept first. Simple mathamatics is the basis of all computer chips. Math is one thing that we can definatly say that we have in common with any alien anywhere. The other things are physics and chemistry. Now if the aliens base their computers on math we have a slight chance. If its chemical I wouldn't give us any odds. If it physics based we could maybe figure it out. We all know that they are working with light to make a computer. Any ways, 1+1 is always 2. Computers started out as calculating machines and have grown from there, The huge problem comes when the logic system comes into play. Would an alien compare two values and make a decision based on that? how about storing values i.e memory. How complex is their math? what if they've evolved based on an acoustic model like the bat? they would not even have a monitor? But then all of the computers now are based on alien tech from roswell....yeah right.
They would load windows , then crash in Norway , six months later , there is a new (Realy new) version of Linux ....
I know nothing...It is Ok because I am from Barcelona!