Slashdot Mirror
Astronomers Invent "Galaxy Game"
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that astronomers have invented a game to help uncover the basis of galactic collisions, showing players images of colliding galaxies and asking them to match those to simulations. These galactic mergers could be the key to why the Universe contains a mixture of different galaxies — some with trailing spiral arms, others more like compact balls of stars. Astronomers say that humans are 'much better than computers' at spotting the patterns and similarities. 'The strength of the game is that it takes results from many people,' says Dr Chris Lintott from Oxford University, one of the members of the Galaxy Zoo team. The developers describe the game as a 'cosmic fruit machine' (i.e., slot machine). The game shows players one real galaxy image and, on command, eight randomly selected simulations pop into the 'slot'" surrounding that image. The aim is for players to choose the simulations that look most similar to the real galaxy and take those through to the next round to examine them further. The simulated images show the different aspects of galaxy formation, so as people play, they will generate data that will help astronomers understand these collisions. 'These collisions take millions of years to unfold,' says Anthony Holincheck, a graduate student at George Mason University and another member of the team. 'All we get from the Universe is a single snapshot of each one. [With] simulations, we will be able to watch each cosmic car crash unfold in the computer.'"
Please use pattern matching.
Yours In Ashgabat,
Kilgore Trout.
P.S.: Please acknowledge this suggestion in Personal Communication in all publications about this method.
And they can quote you the best insurance rates for galactic collisions.
Table-ized A.I.
I thought games were supposed to be fun. This just sounds like grunt work. Don't these researchers have grad students to do this kind of thing?
This is the astronomer equivalent of Hot or Not.
So quit complaining.
Now, why of all places would one post this on /. where no one allows Java in their browser???
There's already a "game" that uses people to find the best way to fold protiens. http://fold.it/portal/info/science
Why is this in science? Shouldn't it be in idle?
$ make available
Argumentum ad populum? On my Slashdot?
More likely than you'd think.
The very first mission is a boss fight :(
Disruptive trolls
The purpose of disruptive trolls are to cause the pages of Slashdot to display in an undesirable way or to otherwise bring attention to themselves. The two major categories of disruptive trolls are crapflooding and page-widening.
[edit] Crapflooding
Crapflooding consists of multiple copies of the same message posted many times with slight variations in order to avoid being stopped by the lameness filter. Scripted crapflooding attacks, in which the process of posting is automated, can be very effective. Usually used in conjunction with a crapflood, some trolls write or copy offtopic stories into their comments. Many involve gratuitous and homoerotic sex scenes with the names of Slashdot's editors or other open source celebrities substituted for the characters in the original story. Other stories generally have no set topic and are usually nonsensical and surreal as well as offensive. Some trolls simply post comments that are completely incoherent on any level. Occasionally, trolls may post Base64 encoded images and comments, which appear nonsensical until decoded, whereupon they appear merely offensive (most of the time).
[edit] Page widening/lengthening
The original page widening posts were simple messages consisting of one long stream of characters with no spaces. This caused browsers to render a very wide page with horizontal scroll bars, making it nearly impossible to read the comments page. Slashdot began inserting spaces into any long run of characters to prevent this and so began the evolutionary battle between Slashcode and the page widening trolls. Newer and more inventive ways of causing page widening were discovered, with the use of blockquote tags and the "." character to cause extreme widening on Internet Explorer. These methods were also eventually closed off by the Slashdot editors. Improvements in browser software have also closed many of the loopholes used to widen pages.
[edit] Offensive trolls
Trolls in this category are those intended to be offensive, or those which take the reader to potentially offensive sites. A popular technique amongst Slashdot trolls is to post links to "shock sites" in order to annoy and offend other readers by tricking them into following the links. This is often accomplished by posting the link under the guise of being another link to the article or a rebuttal to the article.
A variation on this theme is for a troll to accuse a legitimate link or comment as being a link or reference to a shock site. In some cases this can have the desired effect of a genuinely insightful comment being moderated downward. Another technique is to embed a shock site link in a comment that otherwise appears relevant to the discussion, in the hope that unwitting moderators will mod up the post. The Holy Grail of this type of troll may be to slip a story submission containing a "shock site" link past the Slashdot editors. This situation occurred in July 2003 and June 2004 when disgruntled webmasters configured their servers to redirect to a shock site when the HTTP referrer was Slashdot.
One particular "shock site" which is overwhelmingly preferred to others is Goatse.cx. This has spawned a large number of other references such as ASCII art of its signature image (hello.jpg) within a square border, and with a derogatory word written inside the anus of the man in the picture. The 'Penis bird' troll, a crude ASCII representation of a bird perched on an erect penis, is another common variant. Troll postings often contain an ASCII art representation of some offensive image, often related to shock sites, with a nonsensical or provocative subject line.
As a result of these trolling techniques, the Slashdot team introduced a feature which appends the domain name a link points to immediately behind that link in every comment to make disguising links more difficult. (e.g. "See Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]") When this was implemented, people used mirrors and CGI redirection scripts run by Yahoo!, Slashdot or other servers to circumve
First thing that came to my mind, that planet pool scene from Red Dwarf:
Red Dwarf - Planet Pool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBmgZv6YAxE
Colliding galaxies together? Watch out for celebrity endorsement by Mike Meyers: "Smashing Baby!"
(((dB)))
A lot of people are bashing this. I think its kind of neat. I will "play" for a while.
This has been around for two and a half years and they relaunched it as Galaxy Zoo 2 back in Feb. of this year. Wonder why the BBC is rehashing the story now...
Sorry, but British scientists already screwed up with their climate "research" so I'll wait for the next go 'round...
Ramen
A game. Pssht. I have better games to play. Now make it a type of CAPTCHA and you will have your data prompto.
The day I became an adult is the same day I realized I could have bacon anytime I want.
I'm torn. On the one hand there are very very few opportunities for someone with basic education to help scientists, and especially astronomers do real work. On the other hand as a "game" this is about as boring as you can get. I think there are enough amateur astronomers who are willing to help , especially in bite sized chunks (just look at the amateur effort tracking variable stars!) so why not call it what it is - volunteer work - and drop the lame game interface?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
http://www.coolforsale.com/ Dear ladies and gentlemen Hello, In order to meet Christmas, Site launched Christmas spree, welcome new and old customers come to participate in the there are unexpected surprises, look forward to your arrival. Only this site have this treatmentOur goal is "Best quality, Best reputation , Best services". Your satisfaction is our main pursue. You can find the best products from us, meeting your different needs.Ladies and Gentlemen weicome to my coolforsale.com.Here,there are the most fashion products . Pass by but don't miss it.Select your favorite clothing! Welcome to come next time ! Thank you!http://www.coolforsale.com/productlist.asp?id=s76 (Tracksuit w) ugg boot,POLO hoody,Jacket, Air jordan(1-24)shoes $33 Nike shox(R4,NZ,OZ,TL1,TL2,TL3) $35 Handbags(Coach lv fendi d&g) $35 Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $16
free shipping
Thanks!!! Advance wish you a merry Christmas.
I see what you did there...
If they added this kind of stuff to loading / zoning screens in online games i'm sure people would use it to kill a few seconds
Slashdot is crowdsourcing. Welcome to the hivemind. Everything is fractal and you have your branch and I have mine.
Shh.
If I remember correctly, many years ago Sydney University (Australia) built up a PC with LINUX just to study what happens when Galaxies collide. They may have come a long way with their calculations by now.
Unfortunately I do not remember who was doing the work but I built that PC.
They get the young ones interested in exploring the universe (I'd loved this 10 years ago!), a lil better than being productive on joecartoon. Those gerbils are too damn cute though...
Other groups have aleready made games out of protein folding puzzles.
Wow, I remember this from when was in high school, learning about polynomials.
For perspective, I have anxieties about having too little time to prepare for the GRE nowadays. (Glances at source) Oh, of course. Does anybody know a site like slashdot, you know, news for nerds stuff, only the news are actually... Umm... new?
Actually, your mom loves that game ;)