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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??"
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!)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
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!
-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.
I think aliens would be gamers.
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.
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 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.
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.
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..."