Think "Drake Equation". Some time back, someone was referencing the Drake Equation, saying that we'd better hope that the "highly filtering / most likely to fail" hurdles to intelligent life were early ones that we'd already passed. Otherwise they might well still be ahead of us.
So "early hurdles" are in our favor, meaning we've already passed them, while "late hurdles" are against us, meaning we have yet to pass.
Things we think we know...
If interstellar-capable life arises, it should be capable of covering the galaxy within a few million years - on a timescale of billions of years.
We haven't been contacted - yet. (Depending on the material your hat is made of, some would assert that the government has been suppressing the information that we have made contact.)
Therefore the Drake Equation (or rather, think "Drake Test") hasn't been successfully negotiated in the past million years or so. It appears that "early hurdles" + "late hurdles" have been impossible, at least so far.
There is no known life elsewhere in the solar system so far, making those "early hurdles" look hard, leaving some hope that the "late hurdles" might not be so bad.
But now if there is indeed life on Mars, perhaps those "early hurdles" aren't so hard - maybe the "late hurdles" - the ones we have yet to pass - are in fact the harder ones. Of course to put it into perspective, the evidence of life on Mars is not conclusive, and it's not tall, golden-eyed Martians.
And of course it's possible that any species that passes the "late hurdles" also comes up with some concept like the "Prime Directive", meaning that they will deliberately hide their presence from us. We have at least conceived of the concept of a "Prime Directive", so perhaps that would be the most comforting interpretation.
I may have disagreed with Ron Paul, but up until the recent primaries I respected him. Part of his Libertarian agenda WAS personal liberty. Then he bought into the conservative religious agenda, at least publicly.
From the spin I saw tonight on Santorum's departure, he's getting himself poised for 2016: "Last time you nominated a mealy-mouthed moderate, this time nominate a True Conservative!"
The downside to all of this is that now Nehemiah Scudder is out of the running, and 2012 was supposed to be his year.
Out of curiosity, any idea how many other parts on the HST have a known limited lifetime? Obviously thrusters would be one, assuming they have thrusters instead of using gyros for attitude control and torquers to despin the gyros. Another would be the gradual radiation damage to the solar panels. Any others? How does solar panel life compare to gyro life?
They tested the mirror - the problem was that they inserted some pin backwards, and the tests were done wrong. Something was in the wrong position for the tests.
Sure, you could have loaded 50 backup gyros - assuming you knew that the gyro was going to be the part that would fail. Could you launch with 50 backups of every part that could possibly fail?
Hindsight is generally more accurate than foresight, or at least better in assigning blame. Plus accurate foresight is seldom credited.
The alternatives are: 1 - Design for on-orbit repair. 2 - Design with the correct backups and on-orbit sparing. 3 - Design it cheap, to just be replaced.
Pick one, and generally everyone who picked one of the other two will criticize your choice.
Might there be less controversy about Global Warming, Climate Change, or what have you, if it weren't pointing out that the problems are caused by very profitable, heavily entrenched organizations?
I'm surprised that there isn't more discussion of this from a risk management position.
The naysayers basically seem to be stating that the science must be absolutely ironclad before we settle on any course of action, other than what we're doing today.
If they're wrong, and if climate change is real, then we're all in a whole big pile of hurt. I won't say that the Earth will become uninhabitable, because I don't believe that. What I do believe is that the Earth won't sustain the current population or society. It'll be more than bad enough.
If they're right, and climage change isn't happening, then they're out some profitability.
The question is how much remediation we do, how much we cut back, how much we push conservation, and how much we push alternative energy. For the first measure, to fail to push conservation in many forms is absolutely criminal, because it's good, no matter what. Better-insulated houses are just plain better, and will require less fuel, of whatever form. Same thing for higher-mileage cars, obviously balancing for safety. Sometimes I think in America the use of fossil fuel is considered a right, almost a duty - when if it were more properly considered an expense we'd be taking different actions.
The sad thing about the whole vaccine scare is that vaccines are one of the most selfless things done in medicine today. (That's not to say that the vaccine field is entirely selfless, but your run-of-the-mill vaccines haven't the profits of Viagra.)
At the same time as people are questioning vaccines, there's very little questioning of the "chemical experiments" performed on us during the 50's and 60's, before anyone thought about such concerns. There's a pile of "better living through chemistry" that's so infrastructural we've barely begun to question it - like plastic milk jugs that may have a linkage to female precocious puberty, etc.
Back to vaccines for a moment, in the Muslim world the questioning of vaccines has turned them into a "Western plot" to the extent that many have stopped the practice. As a result, there are places where polio is making a comeback.
I just remembered where "The Ghost of All Ways" came from, though I fear I can remember neither editor nor title. Still, with a few clues it may be easier to find.
It was a collection of stories by authors who had created "worlds" or "universes" with multiple books set there. The idea was to give them a visit to an old friend, yet not be re-opening the place, as another whole book would. Greg Bear did another story set on The Way, Dan Simmons did a story set after all of the Hyperion books, David Brin revisited Jijo after the Uplift series, etc. Orson Scott Card and others were in there, too.
If you want extra time on The Way, there's another novel set there called "Legacy", and I found a novella in another collection, I believe called, "The Ghost of All Ways." Both are Ser Olmy stories.
For humor, Harry Harrison had two wonderful, (more than) slightly over-the-top satires, "Bill, The Galactic hero" and "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers." Both have hints of many other science fiction works in them, but the former primarily hits "Starship Troopers" and the "Foundation" novels, and the latter skewers Doc Smith and space opera in general.
I'll agree that "Sundiver" was a bit of a mixed bag. There were parts in there that weren't well written, but they were wrapped around some neat ideas.
That's usually what Neal Stephenson does. I remember reading "Snow Crash" and sort of noticing all of the flaws, but he was throwing nifty ideas at you so fast that you forgave all of it.
First read "Childhood's End" by Arthur C Clarke. Next read "The Harvest" by Robert Charles Wilson. Finally read "Blood Music" by Greg Bear.
It takes Clarke's concept and twists it into a strange conclusion, but really all 3 are kind of the same story. Too many books by too many authors, including the above, so I'll just put in a few extra plugs.
"Eon" by Greg Bear "Good Omens" by Neal Gaiman and Terry Pratchett "Macroscope" by Piers Anthony (mentioned once already) "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem (the book, not either movie) "Sundiver" and "Startide Rising" by David Brin - the rest of the Uplift books don't reach the same level.
They're working on it, slated for 2013 release. Real information is hidden behind the IMDB Pro paywall, but I believe I once heard that Ridley Scott is directing.
Collecting A.E. Van Vogt has become something of a hobby to me. My wife is pretty good at digging out obscure stuff, so I have both "Weapon Shops of Isher" titles in one book. She also picked up "The Silkie" for me recently. I just checked and I have 10 Van Vogt books, and that doesn't count the above 2.
Then there's EE Doc Smith Lensman and Skylark series, the 2 Subspace Explorer books, one Family deLambert.
Some of the old stuff can be pretty poorly written, but there was an innocence and optimism about it that's missing these days.
Kind of like the good old neutron bomb then, in a way. I was more wondering about some sort of interaction transmuting isotopes into something nasty and longer-lived. Assuming it's only high-energy photons in the burst that probably wouldn't happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Think "Drake Equation". Some time back, someone was referencing the Drake Equation, saying that we'd better hope that the "highly filtering / most likely to fail" hurdles to intelligent life were early ones that we'd already passed. Otherwise they might well still be ahead of us.
So "early hurdles" are in our favor, meaning we've already passed them, while "late hurdles" are against us, meaning we have yet to pass.
Things we think we know...
If interstellar-capable life arises, it should be capable of covering the galaxy within a few million years - on a timescale of billions of years.
We haven't been contacted - yet. (Depending on the material your hat is made of, some would assert that the government has been suppressing the information that we have made contact.)
Therefore the Drake Equation (or rather, think "Drake Test") hasn't been successfully negotiated in the past million years or so. It appears that "early hurdles" + "late hurdles" have been impossible, at least so far.
There is no known life elsewhere in the solar system so far, making those "early hurdles" look hard, leaving some hope that the "late hurdles" might not be so bad.
But now if there is indeed life on Mars, perhaps those "early hurdles" aren't so hard - maybe the "late hurdles" - the ones we have yet to pass - are in fact the harder ones. Of course to put it into perspective, the evidence of life on Mars is not conclusive, and it's not tall, golden-eyed Martians.
And of course it's possible that any species that passes the "late hurdles" also comes up with some concept like the "Prime Directive", meaning that they will deliberately hide their presence from us. We have at least conceived of the concept of a "Prime Directive", so perhaps that would be the most comforting interpretation.
I may have disagreed with Ron Paul, but up until the recent primaries I respected him. Part of his Libertarian agenda WAS personal liberty. Then he bought into the conservative religious agenda, at least publicly.
From the spin I saw tonight on Santorum's departure, he's getting himself poised for 2016: "Last time you nominated a mealy-mouthed moderate, this time nominate a True Conservative!"
The downside to all of this is that now Nehemiah Scudder is out of the running, and 2012 was supposed to be his year.
Out of curiosity, any idea how many other parts on the HST have a known limited lifetime? Obviously thrusters would be one, assuming they have thrusters instead of using gyros for attitude control and torquers to despin the gyros. Another would be the gradual radiation damage to the solar panels. Any others? How does solar panel life compare to gyro life?
They tested the mirror - the problem was that they inserted some pin backwards, and the tests were done wrong. Something was in the wrong position for the tests.
Sure, you could have loaded 50 backup gyros - assuming you knew that the gyro was going to be the part that would fail. Could you launch with 50 backups of every part that could possibly fail?
Hindsight is generally more accurate than foresight, or at least better in assigning blame. Plus accurate foresight is seldom credited.
The alternatives are:
1 - Design for on-orbit repair.
2 - Design with the correct backups and on-orbit sparing.
3 - Design it cheap, to just be replaced.
Pick one, and generally everyone who picked one of the other two will criticize your choice.
Might there be less controversy about Global Warming, Climate Change, or what have you, if it weren't pointing out that the problems are caused by very profitable, heavily entrenched organizations?
I'm surprised that there isn't more discussion of this from a risk management position.
The naysayers basically seem to be stating that the science must be absolutely ironclad before we settle on any course of action, other than what we're doing today.
If they're wrong, and if climate change is real, then we're all in a whole big pile of hurt. I won't say that the Earth will become uninhabitable, because I don't believe that. What I do believe is that the Earth won't sustain the current population or society. It'll be more than bad enough.
If they're right, and climage change isn't happening, then they're out some profitability.
The question is how much remediation we do, how much we cut back, how much we push conservation, and how much we push alternative energy. For the first measure, to fail to push conservation in many forms is absolutely criminal, because it's good, no matter what. Better-insulated houses are just plain better, and will require less fuel, of whatever form. Same thing for higher-mileage cars, obviously balancing for safety. Sometimes I think in America the use of fossil fuel is considered a right, almost a duty - when if it were more properly considered an expense we'd be taking different actions.
The sad thing about the whole vaccine scare is that vaccines are one of the most selfless things done in medicine today. (That's not to say that the vaccine field is entirely selfless, but your run-of-the-mill vaccines haven't the profits of Viagra.)
At the same time as people are questioning vaccines, there's very little questioning of the "chemical experiments" performed on us during the 50's and 60's, before anyone thought about such concerns. There's a pile of "better living through chemistry" that's so infrastructural we've barely begun to question it - like plastic milk jugs that may have a linkage to female precocious puberty, etc.
Back to vaccines for a moment, in the Muslim world the questioning of vaccines has turned them into a "Western plot" to the extent that many have stopped the practice. As a result, there are places where polio is making a comeback.
Well of course it has. Which begs the question...
Can it be weaponized, like the O.C. tattoos in the "Pandora's Star" series of books, by Peter F Hamilton?
I just remembered where "The Ghost of All Ways" came from, though I fear I can remember neither editor nor title. Still, with a few clues it may be easier to find.
It was a collection of stories by authors who had created "worlds" or "universes" with multiple books set there. The idea was to give them a visit to an old friend, yet not be re-opening the place, as another whole book would. Greg Bear did another story set on The Way, Dan Simmons did a story set after all of the Hyperion books, David Brin revisited Jijo after the Uplift series, etc. Orson Scott Card and others were in there, too.
If you want extra time on The Way, there's another novel set there called "Legacy", and I found a novella in another collection, I believe called, "The Ghost of All Ways." Both are Ser Olmy stories.
For humor, Harry Harrison had two wonderful, (more than) slightly over-the-top satires, "Bill, The Galactic hero" and "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers." Both have hints of many other science fiction works in them, but the former primarily hits "Starship Troopers" and the "Foundation" novels, and the latter skewers Doc Smith and space opera in general.
I'll agree that "Sundiver" was a bit of a mixed bag. There were parts in there that weren't well written, but they were wrapped around some neat ideas.
That's usually what Neal Stephenson does. I remember reading "Snow Crash" and sort of noticing all of the flaws, but he was throwing nifty ideas at you so fast that you forgave all of it.
Are you aware that though they won't let Terry Gilliam make a "Good Omens" movie, someone else is making a BBC miniseries out of it?
Ever watch an old 90's cartoon called, "Freakazoid!"
I've read Eternity, and though it was good, I didn't think it was as good as Eon.
The sequel is called, "Subspace Encounter".
First read "Childhood's End" by Arthur C Clarke.
Next read "The Harvest" by Robert Charles Wilson.
Finally read "Blood Music" by Greg Bear.
It takes Clarke's concept and twists it into a strange conclusion, but really all 3 are kind of the same story. Too many books by too many authors, including the above, so I'll just put in a few extra plugs.
"Eon" by Greg Bear
"Good Omens" by Neal Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
"Macroscope" by Piers Anthony (mentioned once already)
"Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem (the book, not either movie)
"Sundiver" and "Startide Rising" by David Brin - the rest of the Uplift books don't reach the same level.
"Police Your Planet" is by Lester Del Ray, not Heinlien. I like both.
They're working on it, slated for 2013 release. Real information is hidden behind the IMDB Pro paywall, but I believe I once heard that Ridley Scott is directing.
Collecting A.E. Van Vogt has become something of a hobby to me. My wife is pretty good at digging out obscure stuff, so I have both "Weapon Shops of Isher" titles in one book. She also picked up "The Silkie" for me recently. I just checked and I have 10 Van Vogt books, and that doesn't count the above 2.
Then there's EE Doc Smith Lensman and Skylark series, the 2 Subspace Explorer books, one Family deLambert.
Some of the old stuff can be pretty poorly written, but there was an innocence and optimism about it that's missing these days.
Got them all, plus a few more. Love Simak's writing, though at times it does tend to the retread.
I found it the exact opposite - I found "Perelandra" to be quite a grind, and enjoyed "That Hideous Strength."
That's so very very sad.
I'm in silicon design, and I'm doing something in software that's elsewhere done by hand. It's not something that has yielded to automation thus far.
Kind of like the good old neutron bomb then, in a way. I was more wondering about some sort of interaction transmuting isotopes into something nasty and longer-lived. Assuming it's only high-energy photons in the burst that probably wouldn't happen.
I was speaking more of after effects on the planet you've just sterilized. How soon is it usable?