Depends. If the chip companies win on appeal (unlikely) and establish case law that standards-bodies should act in good faith (very unlikely), then that could cause Microsoft problems. Most likely, the appeal will fail and trust (together with the economy) will collapse. The economy? Well, if acts of lawless corruption and deception are ruled valid instruments of commerce, who would you do business with? If Rambus can sell Micron one thing when it is something totally different for the purpose of plunder, all entirely legally, anybody can sell you anything and hand over nothing equally legally.
The Grauniad has an excellent description of the dig and what they expect to find. Knowing they are making such a small dig and that holes are involved likely means they used GPR to sweep the area and find sections of ground that were clearly disturbed in ancient times and were about the right size and depth.
For 90% of Slashdot, its the reason for being. For Slashdotters familiar with British archaeology, there is also a certain level of malice. Many sites in Britain were plundered for treasure by the profession, destroying much. That's why Silbury Hill needed emergency repairs - the damage was about to destroy the remains. We also remember Woodhenge, whose postholes were pumped with concrete, destroying any archaeological data to be had. We remember Seahenge, where the site was destroyed and then the notes kept secret (so when a fire destroyed the warehouse they were in, the data was lost forever). We remember listed monuments, such as a Napoleonic wall in Derbyshire, being illegally destroyed with English Heritage remaining silent. We remember English Heritage destroying more than a few ancient buildings themselves. We remember the campaign to drive a road underground by Stonehenge, which would have destroyed the very sites they are now uncovering.
I think, from what I've seen, that this work is competently done. But to trust an archaeologist much beyond that is asking a lot.
I believe the more prosaic description is that if Stonehenge is a church, Avebury is a cathedral. Avebury - two stone avenues, a giant stone circle, two mini stone circles, and an eight-foot-deep, three-quarter-mile-across trench, is an amazing site/sight. If, however, there is an afterlife, I will personally hunt the ghosts of those who shattered the stones at Avebury with fire, and I will be doing such things to them that should be ectoplasmically impossible.
I don't believe so, no. The larvae had wings, and the only month that insect has wings is August, but in all the studying of archaeological texts and English Heritage books, I have not seen any mention of whether climate or seasonal variations could change this. The fact that it doesn't get mentioned suggests either that has been shown not to be a factor - or that you're the first to think of it. My best recommendation is to e-mail English Heritage and find out if they've any record on what studies were done.
Many strange stone monuments (three stones with a stone on top, common in Cornwall and Europe) are believed to be exactly what you are describing. Many smaller stone circles are also likely the remains of round barrows. Stonehenge's continuous interior building, lating 2,000-2,500 years, suggests it has always been open.
If they do isotope dating, there might possibly be enough material to get to within a few years. In other cases, although they don't know what year Silsbury Hill was made, they do know it was made in August (due to a specific larval stage in insects found in the chalk.)
If our ancient ancestors were alive today, I think the biggest thing on their minds would be "why is it so dark in here?" (with apologies to Terry Pratchett)
Advanced medical technology? Magic? These don't seem to go together...
Advanced medical technology and medicine-man magic do not go together, and I seriously question the interpretation being given on those grounds. Medical experts (for the time) would not have relied on 250-tonne talismen. Now, if someone were to suggest that this was a national hospice or retirement home, where nobody seriously expects to physically recover but where some sort of emotional "recovery" was desired in their final days, that I could see. And, yes, I doubt their knowledge of psychology was up to much, so that might well have been "magic" to some.
The injuries were inconsistant with Stonehenge-type construction, mostly very standard Neolithic injuries. The skull modifications are known from elsewhere as very primitive surgery with an amazingly high survival rate. They've found evidence of healing from the cranial modifications and they've found the tools used - superior to anything less than modern surgical steel. They also have the settlement where the workforce lived and are able to show that the workers were not the ones buried. Also, the Neolithic people were bigger on stealing magic for their own use than destroying it. This is backed up by the fact that those blue stones were deliberately quarried for Stonehenge (they found the quarry). You don't make an enemy something they can use so that you can destroy it... unless you're from Fox News or SCO. In short, the bloodthirsty theory doesn't hold with the available data.
I know, it's the evil site, but you'll find every link I could find from the Timewatch team and the BBC. The Timewatch website gets daily podcats from the dig and hourly news bulletins, so this is no minor event.
The mainstream press is largely ignoring this, but DOES take input from "iReporters" and concerned individuals. It's easy for this to go unnoticed, if it goes unreported (as far as 90% of the planet is concerned). Well, why should the mainstream press care? It's not as if readers/viewers worry that much about their wordprocessor. True, but as I've pointed out in e-mails to news outlets, those ISO markers for health and safety aren't there for decoration. If ISO can be bribed once, it can be bribed again. You only get to lose innocence once. It doesn't even matter if you think that's a really unlikely connection, think of a better one if you like. The key is to get the media concerned that there really IS a big story here and they're missing out.
Freenet may be fine and good, but from what I'm seeing, privacy advocates are unhappy with where it is going. That make Tor a more logical system, as it is anonymous, whereas Freenet 0.7 is not. Freenet also has a reputation for being slow and unpredictable, which makes disseminating critical information tortuous and/or unreliable. Encrypted bittorrents are going to be able to deliver the same content, faster and with greater robustness.
This is not to say Freenet is useless, or even that the allegations are entirely fair, but it would seem sensible to expect a higher level of proof when faced with a higher quality of challenge.
I've seen this idea done a few times as fiction. I forget the title of it, but there was one in particular I liked where anthropologists argue that if children growing up with wolves act like wolves, then children growing up with highly intelligent people should act highly intelligently. Ok, so it dives into fantasy - time-shifting, super-humans, etc, but it was still a very fun read.
In the real world, the reason the ancient Greeks despised experimentation was because the real world was "dirty", and many of their greatest minds either lived in isolation or in small scientist-mystic communities. There is little question that, for the education of the time, they had one of the highest levels of intellectual thinking of almost any age.
I would argue that there are some really great sci-fi stories left in this sub-genre, and probably some worthwhile research into how the mind develops, but it's a very specific field of interest and to really explore much more would require something totally astounding. Exploration and (especially) discovery of new sub-genreas would seem more promising.
It's not on the same timescale, but you can accurately date inorganic objects that have been exposed to cosmic rays, because the material actually does mutate. The isotopes change. It takes a few thousand years, but the only Stones not likely to be around that long seem to have found other methods. It's a useful technique in archaeology and geology when carbon dating isn't possible (no carbon or too old or too young).
Wear a radiation badge when you next fly international. I'd love to know if passengers or crew are exposed to levels in violation of accepted limits. Since none have obviously mutated into X-Men-like characters, it may be hazardous but it's not world-threatening.
Yes, you'd need the variance and not just the mean, and you'd need a suitable distribution, which will probably not be symmetrical and certainly not a single spike.
I'd consider the BBC to be very close to unbiased, as it has nobody to answer to. It's not perfect, but there are no US news outlets I'd consider to be remotely close.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but by being the semantical exception to the rule, it thereby becomes unique. Apart from the other one, and vice versa.
Depends. If the chip companies win on appeal (unlikely) and establish case law that standards-bodies should act in good faith (very unlikely), then that could cause Microsoft problems. Most likely, the appeal will fail and trust (together with the economy) will collapse. The economy? Well, if acts of lawless corruption and deception are ruled valid instruments of commerce, who would you do business with? If Rambus can sell Micron one thing when it is something totally different for the purpose of plunder, all entirely legally, anybody can sell you anything and hand over nothing equally legally.
The Grauniad has an excellent description of the dig and what they expect to find. Knowing they are making such a small dig and that holes are involved likely means they used GPR to sweep the area and find sections of ground that were clearly disturbed in ancient times and were about the right size and depth.
I think, from what I've seen, that this work is competently done. But to trust an archaeologist much beyond that is asking a lot.
I believe the more prosaic description is that if Stonehenge is a church, Avebury is a cathedral. Avebury - two stone avenues, a giant stone circle, two mini stone circles, and an eight-foot-deep, three-quarter-mile-across trench, is an amazing site/sight. If, however, there is an afterlife, I will personally hunt the ghosts of those who shattered the stones at Avebury with fire, and I will be doing such things to them that should be ectoplasmically impossible.
I don't believe so, no. The larvae had wings, and the only month that insect has wings is August, but in all the studying of archaeological texts and English Heritage books, I have not seen any mention of whether climate or seasonal variations could change this. The fact that it doesn't get mentioned suggests either that has been shown not to be a factor - or that you're the first to think of it. My best recommendation is to e-mail English Heritage and find out if they've any record on what studies were done.
Many strange stone monuments (three stones with a stone on top, common in Cornwall and Europe) are believed to be exactly what you are describing. Many smaller stone circles are also likely the remains of round barrows. Stonehenge's continuous interior building, lating 2,000-2,500 years, suggests it has always been open.
Don't be silly. What would Dartmoor ponies be doing so far from Tom Bombadil?
If they do isotope dating, there might possibly be enough material to get to within a few years. In other cases, although they don't know what year Silsbury Hill was made, they do know it was made in August (due to a specific larval stage in insects found in the chalk.)
If our ancient ancestors were alive today, I think the biggest thing on their minds would be "why is it so dark in here?" (with apologies to Terry Pratchett)
I think that was Pete Townshend.
Advanced medical technology and medicine-man magic do not go together, and I seriously question the interpretation being given on those grounds. Medical experts (for the time) would not have relied on 250-tonne talismen. Now, if someone were to suggest that this was a national hospice or retirement home, where nobody seriously expects to physically recover but where some sort of emotional "recovery" was desired in their final days, that I could see. And, yes, I doubt their knowledge of psychology was up to much, so that might well have been "magic" to some.
The injuries were inconsistant with Stonehenge-type construction, mostly very standard Neolithic injuries. The skull modifications are known from elsewhere as very primitive surgery with an amazingly high survival rate. They've found evidence of healing from the cranial modifications and they've found the tools used - superior to anything less than modern surgical steel. They also have the settlement where the workforce lived and are able to show that the workers were not the ones buried. Also, the Neolithic people were bigger on stealing magic for their own use than destroying it. This is backed up by the fact that those blue stones were deliberately quarried for Stonehenge (they found the quarry). You don't make an enemy something they can use so that you can destroy it... unless you're from Fox News or SCO. In short, the bloodthirsty theory doesn't hold with the available data.
I know, it's the evil site, but you'll find every link I could find from the Timewatch team and the BBC. The Timewatch website gets daily podcats from the dig and hourly news bulletins, so this is no minor event.
The mainstream press is largely ignoring this, but DOES take input from "iReporters" and concerned individuals. It's easy for this to go unnoticed, if it goes unreported (as far as 90% of the planet is concerned). Well, why should the mainstream press care? It's not as if readers/viewers worry that much about their wordprocessor. True, but as I've pointed out in e-mails to news outlets, those ISO markers for health and safety aren't there for decoration. If ISO can be bribed once, it can be bribed again. You only get to lose innocence once. It doesn't even matter if you think that's a really unlikely connection, think of a better one if you like. The key is to get the media concerned that there really IS a big story here and they're missing out.
This is not to say Freenet is useless, or even that the allegations are entirely fair, but it would seem sensible to expect a higher level of proof when faced with a higher quality of challenge.
In the real world, the reason the ancient Greeks despised experimentation was because the real world was "dirty", and many of their greatest minds either lived in isolation or in small scientist-mystic communities. There is little question that, for the education of the time, they had one of the highest levels of intellectual thinking of almost any age.
I would argue that there are some really great sci-fi stories left in this sub-genre, and probably some worthwhile research into how the mind develops, but it's a very specific field of interest and to really explore much more would require something totally astounding. Exploration and (especially) discovery of new sub-genreas would seem more promising.
You mean they stock his books at the Holliday Inn all those adverts were about?
It's not on the same timescale, but you can accurately date inorganic objects that have been exposed to cosmic rays, because the material actually does mutate. The isotopes change. It takes a few thousand years, but the only Stones not likely to be around that long seem to have found other methods. It's a useful technique in archaeology and geology when carbon dating isn't possible (no carbon or too old or too young).
Wear a radiation badge when you next fly international. I'd love to know if passengers or crew are exposed to levels in violation of accepted limits. Since none have obviously mutated into X-Men-like characters, it may be hazardous but it's not world-threatening.
Asking is no substitute for experimentation.
Yes, you'd need the variance and not just the mean, and you'd need a suitable distribution, which will probably not be symmetrical and certainly not a single spike.
Do you have the statistics to prove that?
I'd consider the BBC to be very close to unbiased, as it has nobody to answer to. It's not perfect, but there are no US news outlets I'd consider to be remotely close.