If this is a true shadow biosphere in the sense that life developed twice independently on this planet, this would be the biggest news in biochemistry, and probably in all science EVER. I am holding my breath there.
Good question. You usually end up with an equilibrium between the two forms, so if the reactivities are as you say, a phosphorus-based organism would incorporate more arsenic than an arsenic-based organism would incorporate phosphorus. So phosphorus might still be toxic to them, but less so than arsenic to us.
Is carbon a deadly posion for an arsenic-based life form?
Such an arsenic-"based" life form would still be made up mostly of carbon, the arsenic would replace phosphor instead. So, carbon would be most likely harmless to them while phosphor might indeed be toxic, in a reversal of the toxicity mechanism of arsenic, which works, among other mechanisms, by replacing the phosphate groups in adenosine triphosphate.
The really interesting question is how an arsenic-based bacterium would avoid the effect of arsenic binding to sulfhydryl groups in proteins.
Ah well, the beauty of modern times is, you do not have to take immediate action as a government in cases like this - especially if the internet is involved. Most likely some moron somewhere will take it on himself to act as your sockpuppet - intentional or not. Then you wipe your hands clean, arrest the poor fool and play the part of the righteously indignated while secretly laughing all the time.
True, but that is the real evil about sufficiently large corporations - they are incapable of operating on any memetic base more complicated that simple greed. And they are powerful enough to shape out politics by that. You don't need an evil global domination masterplan to drive the cart deep into the shit. Just a bunch of powerful actors acting on the basis of simple greed. That's all there is to it. I don't think corporations are really capable of evil masterplans at all - after all they are just huge bureaucracies dominated by very authoritarian command structures, as you say. That brings the usual inefficiencies. The horrible thing is that this is simply bad enough to fuck it up for everyone.
Can we stop this theatralics about the leaked cables? Seriously, with 3 million people having access to SIPRNET, does anyone seriously believe that any major power has not at least 10 informants in there who had access to this data all along? There is nothing in the leaked documents that is new to any major intelligence service. Now, that it has become public though, everyone has to go through the motions, posture, and show righteous indignation.
I still can't decide whether Kristopeit### is a troll, a simple idiot or a horribly failed AI experiment. And btw - your mom is kind of fun, actually;)
The inherent advantage of even the simplest digital camera in your phone over your film-based point and shoot is in the exposure measurement. The point-and-shoot only knows the integral light intensity over the whole image, due to its simple sensor. The digital cam in your phone knows the intensity for each pixel of its sensor, and therefor the complete contrast curve for the picture. In high-contrast situations like you described, the digital will always fare better.
Not necessarily. If you read about the early age of archaeology, you'll find lots of explorer-types venturing into bandit-ridden lands, fighting of robbers (or running like hell from them), smuggling their finds away from money-grubbing local potentates while barely escaping their minions... Some pretty exciting stories there.
E. coli as such is not associated with human disease but rather a normal part of the intestinal flora. There are certain pathogenic strains, but those are in the minority. E. coli count is used for determining water quality, for example, because the presence of E. coli points to the presence of shit, not because of a pathogenic nature of the bacterium.
The main reason to chose E. coli is because it handles very well under lab conditions. Easy to culture, very robust.
It is even better - it is a three sided clash between the OMG!-Terrorists!-faction crying for more security, the OMG!-Pedophiles!-faction thinking of the children and the OMG!-Indecency!-faction going on about the scanners.
As a non-American, I am sitting back at a safe distance with a bucket of popcorn.
The article is just a rant against technology. It nearly reads like a Luddite manifesto.
Fit's right into the new slashdot, where every article regarding a new technology will be tagged "Donotwant" and "Whatcouldpossiblygowrong". News for Nerds, my arse. Most of the nerds have long since left, and those left behind are living a meager life, scavenging the ruins of what once was great.
Well, last time, they came to me on a Saturday morning, at about 9 am. I had been out drinking hard until something like 6 am. So, when they rang, I opened the door in my underpants, wild hair, red eyes, reeking of booze and ranted at them for 5 minutes for waking me up at such an UNHOLY hour. Haven't seen em since.
Sorry, man. I usually don't go into Boeing vs. Airbus trollfights, but seriously? The A320 a 737, 20 years to late? First civilian airliner with fly by wire system, first civilian airliner pure glass cockpit, by then most massive use of fibre-composite materials in the civilian industry - you seriously wanna say the A320 is a 737 knockoff? The 737NG was Boeing's answer to the pressure of Airbus' innovations - and in some aspects still behind the 320.
Apparently. I try not to get too deep into areas of forbidden knowledge like this. The dark arts have this tendency to bite you in the arse. Ia! Ia! Oettinger Ftaghn!
Oettinger - the beer who's name shall not be uttered. I recently observed a feeding frenzy at the local supermarket. Oettinger past its expiration was sold for half price... Not a pretty sight.
They still killed him - by hate and indifference. You do not have to pull the trigger to kill a man. I fully agree that this is one of the most pathetic stories of the modern age.
Airdrop internet enabled cellphones. Lots of them. Access to all ideas and the ability to post undeletable photographic evidence of all shit going on. Think "Singularity Sky"...
But we do have mind engineering - it is called language, propaganda, semantics, redefinition of words and worldviews. The engineering crowd just writes this off as "liberal arts" - but it is what you are talking about. If we want to go there full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes is a completely different question....
Stoned and batshit crazy as it is, the Principia Discordia do offer an amazing amount of insight. Then again, it depicts the ultimate cynical god. What this passage says is just "You are deeply flawed, that's your nature. Fuck off and deal with it." Probably the only way, but I rather go with the subgenius interpretation of discordianism. Slightly more humane. Slack, brother, slack.
Slashdot Mirror
If this is a true shadow biosphere in the sense that life developed twice independently on this planet, this would be the biggest news in biochemistry, and probably in all science EVER. I am holding my breath there.
Good question. You usually end up with an equilibrium between the two forms, so if the reactivities are as you say, a phosphorus-based organism would incorporate more arsenic than an arsenic-based organism would incorporate phosphorus. So phosphorus might still be toxic to them, but less so than arsenic to us.
Is carbon a deadly posion for an arsenic-based life form?
Such an arsenic-"based" life form would still be made up mostly of carbon, the arsenic would replace phosphor instead. So, carbon would be most likely harmless to them while phosphor might indeed be toxic, in a reversal of the toxicity mechanism of arsenic, which works, among other mechanisms, by replacing the phosphate groups in adenosine triphosphate.
The really interesting question is how an arsenic-based bacterium would avoid the effect of arsenic binding to sulfhydryl groups in proteins.
Ah well, the beauty of modern times is, you do not have to take immediate action as a government in cases like this - especially if the internet is involved. Most likely some moron somewhere will take it on himself to act as your sockpuppet - intentional or not. Then you wipe your hands clean, arrest the poor fool and play the part of the righteously indignated while secretly laughing all the time.
True, but that is the real evil about sufficiently large corporations - they are incapable of operating on any memetic base more complicated that simple greed. And they are powerful enough to shape out politics by that. You don't need an evil global domination masterplan to drive the cart deep into the shit. Just a bunch of powerful actors acting on the basis of simple greed. That's all there is to it. I don't think corporations are really capable of evil masterplans at all - after all they are just huge bureaucracies dominated by very authoritarian command structures, as you say. That brings the usual inefficiencies. The horrible thing is that this is simply bad enough to fuck it up for everyone.
Can we stop this theatralics about the leaked cables? Seriously, with 3 million people having access to SIPRNET, does anyone seriously believe that any major power has not at least 10 informants in there who had access to this data all along? There is nothing in the leaked documents that is new to any major intelligence service. Now, that it has become public though, everyone has to go through the motions, posture, and show righteous indignation.
Your meds. Take em.
I still can't decide whether Kristopeit### is a troll, a simple idiot or a horribly failed AI experiment. And btw - your mom is kind of fun, actually ;)
Says a lot about slashdot's current state that the only non-retarded comment is by an AC.
Bacteriophages ate my homework...
The inherent advantage of even the simplest digital camera in your phone over your film-based point and shoot is in the exposure measurement. The point-and-shoot only knows the integral light intensity over the whole image, due to its simple sensor. The digital cam in your phone knows the intensity for each pixel of its sensor, and therefor the complete contrast curve for the picture. In high-contrast situations like you described, the digital will always fare better.
The mental stench of your racism sure managed to propagated through the vacuum in your skull.
Not necessarily. If you read about the early age of archaeology, you'll find lots of explorer-types venturing into bandit-ridden lands, fighting of robbers (or running like hell from them), smuggling their finds away from money-grubbing local potentates while barely escaping their minions... Some pretty exciting stories there.
The main reason to chose E. coli is because it handles very well under lab conditions. Easy to culture, very robust.
It is even better - it is a three sided clash between the OMG!-Terrorists!-faction crying for more security, the OMG!-Pedophiles!-faction thinking of the children and the OMG!-Indecency!-faction going on about the scanners.
As a non-American, I am sitting back at a safe distance with a bucket of popcorn.
The article is just a rant against technology. It nearly reads like a Luddite manifesto.
Fit's right into the new slashdot, where every article regarding a new technology will be tagged "Donotwant" and "Whatcouldpossiblygowrong". News for Nerds, my arse. Most of the nerds have long since left, and those left behind are living a meager life, scavenging the ruins of what once was great.
Well, last time, they came to me on a Saturday morning, at about 9 am. I had been out drinking hard until something like 6 am. So, when they rang, I opened the door in my underpants, wild hair, red eyes, reeking of booze and ranted at them for 5 minutes for waking me up at such an UNHOLY hour. Haven't seen em since.
Sorry, man. I usually don't go into Boeing vs. Airbus trollfights, but seriously? The A320 a 737, 20 years to late? First civilian airliner with fly by wire system, first civilian airliner pure glass cockpit, by then most massive use of fibre-composite materials in the civilian industry - you seriously wanna say the A320 is a 737 knockoff? The 737NG was Boeing's answer to the pressure of Airbus' innovations - and in some aspects still behind the 320.
Apparently. I try not to get too deep into areas of forbidden knowledge like this. The dark arts have this tendency to bite you in the arse. Ia! Ia! Oettinger Ftaghn!
Oettinger - the beer who's name shall not be uttered. I recently observed a feeding frenzy at the local supermarket. Oettinger past its expiration was sold for half price... Not a pretty sight.
Ah well - *raises a glass of Augustiner*
They still killed him - by hate and indifference. You do not have to pull the trigger to kill a man. I fully agree that this is one of the most pathetic stories of the modern age.
Airdrop internet enabled cellphones. Lots of them. Access to all ideas and the ability to post undeletable photographic evidence of all shit going on. Think "Singularity Sky"...
Probably, yes. Doesn't mean we have to resort to pure defeatism. At least I like to think that we can salvage at least something of that claim.
But we do have mind engineering - it is called language, propaganda, semantics, redefinition of words and worldviews. The engineering crowd just writes this off as "liberal arts" - but it is what you are talking about. If we want to go there full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes is a completely different question....
Stoned and batshit crazy as it is, the Principia Discordia do offer an amazing amount of insight. Then again, it depicts the ultimate cynical god. What this passage says is just "You are deeply flawed, that's your nature. Fuck off and deal with it." Probably the only way, but I rather go with the subgenius interpretation of discordianism. Slightly more humane. Slack, brother, slack.