This article (supposedly appearing in a "Chinese military newspaper"?) seems to be little more than a combination of wishful thinking and posing for the purpose of intimidating rivals to power.
I look forward to seeing this used as a justification for an escalation of military spending, further rollback of individual rights in the US, and any use of force that those in power deem necessary (whether for real or purely propagandistic reasons).
This article (supposedly appearing in a "Chinese military newspaper"?) seems to be little more than a combination of wishful thinking and posing for the purpose of intimidating rivals to power. It's reminiscent of Microsoft's vaporware tactics in its various "wars" with real or potential competitors (in some respects--obviously, it's not a perfect analogy).
Actually, I remember hearing an anthropology prof state something along the lines of it being unknown whether a chimp and human could successfully mate, but perhaps possible because we're so closely related. I don't think anyone's tried though. I'd like to hear of any evidence one way or another.
Define "successful mating.";-P
Also: 1. Humans and chimps have different numbers of chromosomes. 2. There are some significant differences between human and chimp pelvises, which would make a Caesarean absolutely necessary. 3. Humans and chimps have rather differently shaped pink bits. 4. Doesn't it seem rather likely that it's already been tried at least a few times? (In human history.)
I believe Enigma was broken mainly because Polish spies managed to acquire a working Enigma machine or the plans for one in the early years of the war. I have actually seen an Enigma machine. It looks like the bastard son of a gearbox and a typewriter. Actually (don't you hate replies that begin with "actually?"), Polish intelligence were decades ahead of English intelligence (Room 40 during WW1, GSCS later) and made significant steps toward breaking one of the keys for a very early version of Enigma (a 3-rotor machine). The keys and the machines were changed regularly, however, and the work of the Poles offered little towards Turing (and others') efforts at Bletchley Park (GSCS) toward decrypting Enigma messages. Turing's methods depended heavily upon selecting individual encrypted words from Enigma messages, guessing what they were, and running the Bombes through (at a rate of 20 operations per second) the possible positions of the Enigma machine until finding one that could generate the corresponding guessed word, and then checking to see if, when set to that position, the machine could decrypt the rest of the message into anything intelligible. Upon the addition of more rotors to the Enigma, Turing made use of modern telephone switching technology to create a machine that could perform logical operations using electrical (not mechanical) states. A significant leap (and one which brought him closer to his long-dreamt-of Universal Turing Machine, a machine which, given certain elementary logic, could solve any solvable problem (Godel had already shown that not all problems were solvable). And so on...
One good thing about experiance as time goes on is that people no matter how conservative start to lose their desire for war and seek other means of conflict resolution with more vigor. Is this assumption really warranted? To quote Phil Ochs, "it's always the old who lead us to the war, always the young to fall." However, this new culture would probably be world-encompassing and if I might be so bold I would venture to guess it would bring mankind closer together in the long run. Perhaps you want this, but I'm not sure everyone else will. Do they have a choice? You may be happy to impose this emerging world culture on everyone else, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of pushing my aesthetic, political, or economic sensibilities onto others. Would you like to see your culture--your economic, political, kinship, etc. systems--destroyed or coopted by another group simply because that group had the arrogance to believe in the superiority of its way of life and the power to do whatever it liked to you? Also, consider the cultures you mention: Japan, China, "Europe" (meaning...?). Highly formalized, traditional, stagnant, heirarchical... this doesn't get me jumping with excitement. Perhaps we can think of a better alternative to our empty plastic culture than reviving the spirit of rigid, *dead* empires.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely Tucker produced one of the greatest hacks of all time.
This article (supposedly appearing in a "Chinese military newspaper"?) seems to be little more than a combination of wishful thinking and posing for the purpose of intimidating rivals to power.
I look forward to seeing this used as a justification for an escalation of military spending, further rollback of individual rights in the US, and any use of force that those in power deem necessary (whether for real or purely propagandistic reasons).
This article (supposedly appearing in a "Chinese military newspaper"?) seems to be little more than a combination of wishful thinking and posing for the purpose of intimidating rivals to power.
It's reminiscent of Microsoft's vaporware tactics in its various "wars" with real or potential competitors (in some respects--obviously, it's not a perfect analogy).
OT: I have just read they are selling Playstation here in Helsinki for 700 FIM (~145 US$) Do you think it's a fair price?
:/
With Finlandia going for $300 a bottle, I'd say it's a hell of a deal.
Dammit, off-topic again.
Bob Young? Wow I heard he was a Scientologist!
;-P
Ouch. Vicious character assasination.
My apologies for the off-topic humor...
Actually, I remember hearing an anthropology prof state something along the lines of it being unknown whether a chimp and human could successfully mate, but perhaps possible because we're so closely related. I don't think anyone's tried though. I'd like to hear of any evidence one way or another.
;-P
Define "successful mating."
Also:
1. Humans and chimps have different numbers of chromosomes.
2. There are some significant differences between human and chimp pelvises, which would make a Caesarean absolutely necessary.
3. Humans and chimps have rather differently shaped pink bits.
4. Doesn't it seem rather likely that it's already been tried at least a few times? (In human history.)
I believe Enigma was broken mainly because Polish spies managed to acquire a working Enigma machine or the plans for one in the early years of the war. I have actually seen an Enigma machine. It looks like the bastard son of a gearbox and a typewriter.
Actually (don't you hate replies that begin with "actually?"), Polish intelligence were decades ahead of English intelligence (Room 40 during WW1, GSCS later) and made significant steps toward breaking one of the keys for a very early version of Enigma (a 3-rotor machine). The keys and the machines were changed regularly, however, and the work of the Poles offered little towards Turing (and others') efforts at Bletchley Park (GSCS) toward decrypting Enigma messages. Turing's methods depended heavily upon selecting individual encrypted words from Enigma messages, guessing what they were, and running the Bombes through (at a rate of 20 operations per second) the possible positions of the Enigma machine until finding one that could generate the corresponding guessed word, and then checking to see if, when set to that position, the machine could decrypt the rest of the message into anything intelligible. Upon the addition of more rotors to the Enigma, Turing made use of modern telephone switching technology to create a machine that could perform logical operations using electrical (not mechanical) states. A significant leap (and one which brought him closer to his long-dreamt-of Universal Turing Machine, a machine which, given certain elementary logic, could solve any solvable problem (Godel had already shown that not all problems were solvable). And so on...
One good thing about experiance as time goes on is that people no matter how conservative start to lose their desire for war and seek other means of conflict resolution with more vigor. Is this assumption really warranted? To quote Phil Ochs, "it's always the old who lead us to the war, always the young to fall." However, this new culture would probably be world-encompassing and if I might be so bold I would venture to guess it would bring mankind closer together in the long run. Perhaps you want this, but I'm not sure everyone else will. Do they have a choice? You may be happy to impose this emerging world culture on everyone else, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of pushing my aesthetic, political, or economic sensibilities onto others. Would you like to see your culture--your economic, political, kinship, etc. systems--destroyed or coopted by another group simply because that group had the arrogance to believe in the superiority of its way of life and the power to do whatever it liked to you? Also, consider the cultures you mention: Japan, China, "Europe" (meaning...?). Highly formalized, traditional, stagnant, heirarchical... this doesn't get me jumping with excitement. Perhaps we can think of a better alternative to our empty plastic culture than reviving the spirit of rigid, *dead* empires.