I agree that all planets - in our solar system or elsewhere - should have the same definition.
Now about that definition - in my very naive view, shouldn't the definition of "planet" have something about the body in question orbiting in the plane of the star's equator? I think that would go a long way towards differentiating captured comets, asteroids, etc. from the "classically" formed planets.
All those things are true - assholes, know-it-all kids, hilarious jokers, shills, etc. But they are still vastly outnumbered but the traditional good people. Wikipedia is a place where no one person has a lot of authority, so 'psychopaths' can't gain power. Without power, they are outnumbered and die out.
Example: PR guy posts some article claiming his snake oil being the best. Within a few readers, a 'good' person reads it, knows that this is BS, and changes it. The PR guy might try a few more times, but will always be outnumbered by 'good' people who don't want to be fed propoganda. Unless, his snake oil artile is completely uninteresting, then no one reads it in the first place.
As long as wikipedia is equal for all - i.e. megacorp X cannot buy an article, etc. - the good people who don't want BS will remove it as it comes in, leaving wikipedia relatively clean.
I totally agree, but to be fair, how is a search engine called "Google" or an mp3 player called "iPod" any different??
A name should be descriptive, or a name should take on a life of its own. It's ones in between that cause the confusion, but very few products / apps are instantly successful to become their own identity.
Geeks like geek-speak. Urban kids like their slang. etc...
I hate M$ as much as the next/.er, but isn't "Integration... Now imagine if a whole operating system is geared towards bringing all of these tools together into an integrated, easy-to-use package. Wow." what Microsoft already does (or tries to do) reasonably well??
Re:If they have a software workaround
on
Hopes Rise for RIM
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· Score: 1
I'm not an expert, but wouldn't they have to pay the (retroactive) royalties to NTP if they implemented a workaround (essentially throwing in the towel)?? If they fight it, perhaps the powers that be rule that they don't owe NTP anything...
my roommate and i have modified 'a game of thrones' from a 3-6 person game down to a two person game. we lose the diplomatic aspect, but it's still good enough to keep us coming back a couple times a week.
the expansion adds a lot to the game, especially in our two-man version.
thanks for the reply - when i posted my original comment, i was hoping for some kind of debate. i wasn't trying to be cynical (specifically) with regards to the article on the bbc's website - it was meant as a more general or hypothetical 'pondering'.
i appreciate what you said about someone dropping into the middle of the sahara and the odds of them finding a snake. but we're not looking for snakes on mars (or any other multicellular organism) - we're taking about single celled organisms (or the martian equivalent).
i'm not a biologist, but would you not find life of some sort in the sahara?? e.g. bacteria?? i mean if we dropped the mars lander in the middle of the sahara (or anywhere else with no *visible* life) would there not still be single celled organisms 'hanging out' - even if dormant??
this is what i'm talking about when i was asking about life 'covering' a territory. plants & animals and other complicated life forms don't cover all areas of the earth, but *something* alive does, doesn't it?? (please correct me if i'm wrong.) and these are the things i was suggesting we would find 'in more than a couple of isolated patches' on mars (or anywhere else).
here's a little theory i just thought up (that i'm sure is wrong, i just don't know why - yet):
in this article, they stated that they're looking at "two regions showed a chlorophyll signature in the soil around Pathfinder."
it seems to me that life (using earth as the only analogue) will evolve to fill it's surroundings. in the case of the earth, these are far reaching - from deep sea volcanic vents to below the earth's surface, etc. point being, life adapts in an attempt colonize new areas.
if there was life on mars now (which i *hope* is true, but i doubt for many reasons - this one included), would it not have expanded to be more than a couple of little patches accross a vast plain like this??
there are a few possibilities to reject this hypothesis, but none that i find convincing:
1) the *life* in question has just arrived/come into being, etc. or another way to put it is that it hasn't had time to radiate into the other areas yet. i'm gonna use the 'what are the odds we showed up right when life started' argument against this here.
2) these two areas are 'special' in some way that they can harbour life, but not anywhere else on the plain. as well as the 'what are the odds of us landing here' argument, i'd also like to point out the tenacity that life shows on earth to move into new ground - in this case (apparently) *very* similar to the two areas in question.
3) i'm sure there are other (and better) counter arguments, but i can't think of them so i'm asking you...
this post is not against this finding per se, it's more of a hypothetical question of: "would we ever find tiny pockets of life on a planet (assuming sufficient time for life to evolve/expand)??"
i became hooked on this game in school... a bunch (usually 8 or so) guys would stay after class to play until the kicked us out. this went on for the better part of four months.
but the best flag, imho, is stealth. guided missles are pretty good, but invariably, everyone teams up on the dude with missles. stealth allows you to act as an assasin - picking your targets on your own terms.
some would say this tactic is 'cheap' - i think cheap is getting missles and jumping onto the highest building and firing constantly. stealth isn't 'cheap', it's 'tactical'. 8^)
i like your point of 24/7 zero g emersion to get over the motion sickness, but i still think it is quite possible to have some 'hard-coding' in there.
take language for example. as kids, we all learn language at a phenominal rate. even several different languages are learned easily.
but as we get older (8-9 years old) it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a new language. and when you do learn a new language, most people will have an accent from their 'natural' language. thier first language becomes 'hard coded' in their brain. they think in that language. it cannot be undone by any amount of time spent learning another language.
the same could be true with the 'hard coding' of the effects of gravity. once we learn that we have to compensate for gravity at a young age, at some point it becomes increaingly 'hard coded'. which would also explain how much more quickly the astronauts re-adapted to normal earth gravity when they came back to earth.
this isn't to say necessarily that language & gravity are the only two items that become hard coded over time, or that gravity has a special place in the brain (although i expect that language certainly does). but it is more than just experience in terms of remembering your student id from university.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that all planets - in our solar system or elsewhere - should have the same definition.
Now about that definition - in my very naive view, shouldn't the definition of "planet" have something about the body in question orbiting in the plane of the star's equator? I think that would go a long way towards differentiating captured comets, asteroids, etc. from the "classically" formed planets.
Can someone explain why that doesn't make sense?
All those things are true - assholes, know-it-all kids, hilarious jokers, shills, etc. But they are still vastly outnumbered but the traditional good people. Wikipedia is a place where no one person has a lot of authority, so 'psychopaths' can't gain power. Without power, they are outnumbered and die out.
Example: PR guy posts some article claiming his snake oil being the best. Within a few readers, a 'good' person reads it, knows that this is BS, and changes it. The PR guy might try a few more times, but will always be outnumbered by 'good' people who don't want to be fed propoganda. Unless, his snake oil artile is completely uninteresting, then no one reads it in the first place.
As long as wikipedia is equal for all - i.e. megacorp X cannot buy an article, etc. - the good people who don't want BS will remove it as it comes in, leaving wikipedia relatively clean.
it's not perfect, but very, very little is.
I totally agree, but to be fair, how is a search engine called "Google" or an mp3 player called "iPod" any different??
A name should be descriptive, or a name should take on a life of its own. It's ones in between that cause the confusion, but very few products / apps are instantly successful to become their own identity.
Geeks like geek-speak. Urban kids like their slang. etc...
What's the definition of "vagina"??
The box a penis comes in.
for this story, so we have a 'legitmate' excuse to bring the cartoon story to /.
I hate M$ as much as the next /.er, but isn't "Integration... Now imagine if a whole operating system is geared towards bringing all of these tools together into an integrated, easy-to-use package. Wow." what Microsoft already does (or tries to do) reasonably well??
I'm not an expert, but wouldn't they have to pay the (retroactive) royalties to NTP if they implemented a workaround (essentially throwing in the towel)?? If they fight it, perhaps the powers that be rule that they don't owe NTP anything...
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/25/news/international /davos_fortune/?cnn=yes
He does make some valid points, although I'm not sure I buy everything he's selling...
Seems like a classic case of people not letting the facts get in the way of the truth...
My work has a fingerprint scanner for entry into our office. I've often wondered just what is living on that.
That being said, I'm a complete non-germophobe, and I rarely get sick.
73% of all stats are made up on the spot...
22% of all people know that.
my roommate and i have modified 'a game of thrones' from a 3-6 person game down to a two person game. we lose the diplomatic aspect, but it's still good enough to keep us coming back a couple times a week.
the expansion adds a lot to the game, especially in our two-man version.
a few sites people might find interesting - but most riddled with spoilers...
http://www.westeros.org/ - the most complete asoiaf reference on the web
http://pub26.ezboard.com/basoiaf - a message board with over 80,000 postings
http://www.georgerrmartin.com - the authour's official home page (not so interesting most of the time).
http://www.amoka.net - some fantastic art by a russian dude.
thanks for the reply - when i posted my original comment, i was hoping for some kind of debate. i wasn't trying to be cynical (specifically) with regards to the article on the bbc's website - it was meant as a more general or hypothetical 'pondering'.
i appreciate what you said about someone dropping into the middle of the sahara and the odds of them finding a snake. but we're not looking for snakes on mars (or any other multicellular organism) - we're taking about single celled organisms (or the martian equivalent).
i'm not a biologist, but would you not find life of some sort in the sahara?? e.g. bacteria?? i mean if we dropped the mars lander in the middle of the sahara (or anywhere else with no *visible* life) would there not still be single celled organisms 'hanging out' - even if dormant??
this is what i'm talking about when i was asking about life 'covering' a territory. plants & animals and other complicated life forms don't cover all areas of the earth, but *something* alive does, doesn't it?? (please correct me if i'm wrong.) and these are the things i was suggesting we would find 'in more than a couple of isolated patches' on mars (or anywhere else).
here's a little theory i just thought up (that i'm sure is wrong, i just don't know why - yet):
in this article, they stated that they're looking at "two regions showed a chlorophyll signature in the soil around Pathfinder."
it seems to me that life (using earth as the only analogue) will evolve to fill it's surroundings. in the case of the earth, these are far reaching - from deep sea volcanic vents to below the earth's surface, etc. point being, life adapts in an attempt colonize new areas.
if there was life on mars now (which i *hope* is true, but i doubt for many reasons - this one included), would it not have expanded to be more than a couple of little patches accross a vast plain like this??
there are a few possibilities to reject this hypothesis, but none that i find convincing:
1) the *life* in question has just arrived/come into being, etc. or another way to put it is that it hasn't had time to radiate into the other areas yet.
i'm gonna use the 'what are the odds we showed up right when life started' argument against this here.
2) these two areas are 'special' in some way that they can harbour life, but not anywhere else on the plain.
as well as the 'what are the odds of us landing here' argument, i'd also like to point out the tenacity that life shows on earth to move into new ground - in this case (apparently) *very* similar to the two areas in question.
3) i'm sure there are other (and better) counter arguments, but i can't think of them so i'm asking you...
this post is not against this finding per se, it's more of a hypothetical question of:
"would we ever find tiny pockets of life on a planet (assuming sufficient time for life to evolve/expand)??"
"the fish-eye gives you an advantage..."
dude - that's what the RADAR is for...
and i suppose colour blindness is an advantage so you don't feel guilty for killing your teammates?? 8^)
i became hooked on this game in school... a bunch (usually 8 or so) guys would stay after class to play until the kicked us out. this went on for the better part of four months.
but the best flag, imho, is stealth. guided missles are pretty good, but invariably, everyone teams up on the dude with missles. stealth allows you to act as an assasin - picking your targets on your own terms.
some would say this tactic is 'cheap' - i think cheap is getting missles and jumping onto the highest building and firing constantly. stealth isn't 'cheap', it's 'tactical'. 8^)
slightly off topic, but does the u.s. frowning on those issues stop them from happening with its borders??
if you smile at them, you can monitor and contorl them - not to mention tax them.
and the dutch *love* their money. 8^)
morgan
i like your point of 24/7 zero g emersion to get over the motion sickness, but i still think it is quite possible to have some 'hard-coding' in there.
take language for example. as kids, we all learn language at a phenominal rate. even several different languages are learned easily.
but as we get older (8-9 years old) it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a new language. and when you do learn a new language, most people will have an accent from their 'natural' language. thier first language becomes 'hard coded' in their brain. they think in that language. it cannot be undone by any amount of time spent learning another language.
the same could be true with the 'hard coding' of the effects of gravity. once we learn that we have to compensate for gravity at a young age, at some point it becomes increaingly 'hard coded'. which would also explain how much more quickly the astronauts re-adapted to normal earth gravity when they came back to earth.
this isn't to say necessarily that language & gravity are the only two items that become hard coded over time, or that gravity has a special place in the brain (although i expect that language certainly does). but it is more than just experience in terms of remembering your student id from university.
morgan
(as homer is sucked into said blackhole)
mmmm.... intergalactic donut...
d'oooooooohhhhhhh!!