I like to program. It makes me feel creative. I like to figure things out, to make things work, to wrap my mind around the beautifully pure, abstract logic of a machine.
Plus, I like the sense of community that working on an open source project gives you. I've made friends with people I never would have met otherwise. Even if you aren't actively coding for a project, just giving feedback, asking/answering questions...just being a part of it somehow is very satisfying.
I am periodically amazed by what has been accomplished in the name of free/open software. When else in the history of the world have so many people, from so many different backgrounds, worked together to make something so complex, so beautiful, and so useful? It's terribly exciting, if you think about it.
What do you mean by "frequency of light"? Light can have any frequency, just about.
And what do you mean by "modulating your personal frequency"? What frequency is my personal frequency? Do I have to register it with the FCC?:)
Perhaps you mean the effective frequency associated with all matter particles, due to the wave/particle duality of matter? Which of the billions of particles that make up my material self shall I choose to represent my "personal" frequency? That frequency can't be modulated, however, so I don't know what you mean...
Don't try to martyr the post as "clear and dispassionate" thinking whose only fault is that it reaches unacceptable conclusions.
I have no problem with the poster's conclusions. He thinks sentience is rare. Fine, me too. But I recognize that it's just speculation, a pure guess. My problem is that his arguments were both unclear and wrong, and I daresay, passionate.
FWIW, the original poster's points (with the exception of the taxpayer $ issue) were all drawn from topics which have been brought up in the peer-reviewed literature.
How can you tell? It was all so badly mangled as to make any similarity to actual scientific knowledge purely coincidental. Like the man said, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".
Sorry, it's just laughable to say that 80% of the stars in our galaxy are too metal-poor to harbor terrestrial planets. Same goes for the implication that most locations in the Galactic disk are too "dangerous" to support life.
Most stars in the Milky Way are shielded from the Galaxy's core just as much as the Sun is.
And to cite a study about zero-metal stars in this context makes no sense. So-called pop III stars were the first to form. They were very massive and short-lived, and they seeded the proto-Galaxy with enriched material, giving all subsequent stellar pops (all those present today) at least some amount of heavy elements. There are currently no known pop III (i.e., zero metallicity) stars.
You're joking, right? You refute my claim that these calculations are speculative with numbers that are based on?.....pure, 200-proof speculation. The mind boggles.
Even taking your most empirical probability, that 4/9 planets are terrestrial. This is pure speculation, because we have no idea how typical our solar system is. The rest of your numbers either suffer from the same reliance on a single known instance from a pool of billions, or from an assumption about what life requires (life needs a large moon? How do you know that?) Life on Earth probably started around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean; why not add plate tectonics to your list of speculations?
It's clear that you made most of this rant up.
Time to fight misinformation....
2. We don't know that sentient life is RARE. It's very possible, but it's difficult to extract our experience on one planet to the rest of the Universe, don't you think? Even if sentient life is RARE, why is that necessarily a BAD thing? If we're the only ones, then that makes us pretty important, in some sense.
3. The Sun is a rather ordinary star. Yes, it is more metal-rich than the average star in our galaxy, but not by much. There are many millions of stars in the Milky Way that are reasonably similar to our beloved Sol.
4. Low metal content does not make a star "unstable" in any way. Heavy elements do not significantly regulate fusion reactions. If anything, they cause a lower burning efficiency, which would make a star burn hotter, which would make its lifetime shorter. There are no stars with "No metals"; all stars have at least some component of heavy elements. Finally, not to nitpick, but stars form from interstellar material, not intergalactic material.
6. This bit of misinformation is why I just had to reply. Ahem... SETI isn't using ANY taxpayer money. None. Several years ago a republican congressman beat his chest about the millions (NOT billions, as you slander) of dollars we were pissing away on little green men, so all federal funding of SETI was ended. They continue operations today on grants from private foundations (Notably, the Packard foundation).
7. The Sun is NOT in a special part of the galaxy. Yes, it is shielded from the harmful radiation at the galaxy center, but so is much of the Milky Way disk, where over 90% of the Mily Way's stars are. Stars do not get more massive as you move toward the galactic center. I have no idea where you get that from.
You seem to know everything about ET (even though he can't possibly exist). You know he won't use radio, and he won't use lasers. I bet he won't use ALL CAPS, either.
Bottom line: nobody has any idea how rare life in the universe is, much less how rare sentience is. Anyone who claims they know how rare life is is lying, or "DUMB". Which are you?
You're right that when they say "circular orbit", they mean "nearly circular orbit". However, circular orbits are perfectly stable. They are simply a special case of the elliptical orbit, with the two foci at the same point.
To the original post: Most of the extrasolar planets found so far have orbits that are far more elliptical than any planets in our system. And many of the detections are well above the limits of our abilities (depends on the mass and size of the orbit). Check out these radial velocity diagrams. (Click on the star name to see its plot)
This is misplaced skepticism at its worst. I suggest you actually read about the methods used before spouting off about how they not only don't work, but are some kind of extortion scam put forward by "those darned scientists".
The method is a straightforward application of the doppler effect. Conceptually simple, but it did require the development of new technology to achieve the amazing velocity reslolution quoted in the article.
Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist, has calculated the probability that earth exists with all its characteristics at 10^53
All of its characteristics, eh? Does that include having a Slashdot? It must, with probability like that! One should be very skeptical of "calculations" like this; they are based on pure speculation, nothing more.
How about a "SchoolLinux" distro, specifically designed with as much of the vast complexity (and therefore configurability) locked down and/or hidden from view as possible?
This would fix both the complexity and the non-uniformity issues at once.
I think it's more zealot-like to claim that one can do _nothing_ with Linux, than to claim that Linux can do most things Windows can.
It's true that there are some things that Windows is better for (gaming and interoperability with other Windows machines are two good examples...and whatever fruityloops is, I guess:)
It's also true that there are some things Linux is better for (doing scientific research, professional typesetting (LaTeX), all kinds of development).
It all depends on what you need out of your computer.
It's not hard to predict the future positions of nearby stars, thanks to the Hipparcos satellite, which obtained proper motions (motion across the sky) of hundreds of nearby stars. Combine the proper motion with a radial velocity from spectroscopy, and you have the star's current 3D space velocity wrt the Sun.
Stars in the solar neighborhood are gravitationally isolated, because of the great distances between them (even one light year is a *huge* distance, from a gravitational point of view). So, a star's path is far less complicated than, say, an asteroid's orbit in the solar system.
In any case, the astronomers undoubtedly estimated their uncertainty in the measurement, but as is often the case, the error bars don't make it in the press release.
The article said the *bright* star Antares, not the *brightest* star Antares.
Re:Good movie- Bad ending(SPOILER)...
on
Review: A.I.
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· Score: 1
I too was put off at first when the "aliens" appeared. However, I soon realized that they probably weren't aliens; I'm pretty sure they are evolved mechas. This explains how they can control and interact with David. It also explains their keen interest in finding a "link with humanity" in David-- humans are their creators.
Re:Linus lost the kernel?
on
Just For Fun
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· Score: 1
egads, someone finally uses the word "loose" correctly, and it gets misinterpreted. Where's a grammar nazi when you need one? Oh, wait, I am one.
...or so I've heard. Anyway, I got the impression that he failed in school not because he lacked ability, but because (like Einstein) he lacked interest. I'd also like to make the point that his brand of "toolshed chemistry" probably requires little, if any, math.
Slashdot Mirror
I like to program. It makes me feel creative. I like to figure things out, to make things work, to wrap my mind around the beautifully pure, abstract logic of a machine.
Plus, I like the sense of community that working on an open source project gives you. I've made friends with people I never would have met otherwise. Even if you aren't actively coding for a project, just giving feedback, asking/answering questions...just being a part of it somehow is very satisfying.
I am periodically amazed by what has been accomplished in the name of free/open software. When else in the history of the world have so many people, from so many different backgrounds, worked together to make something so complex, so beautiful, and so useful? It's terribly exciting, if you think about it.
And what do you mean by "modulating your personal frequency"? What frequency is my personal frequency? Do I have to register it with the FCC?
Perhaps you mean the effective frequency associated with all matter particles, due to the wave/particle duality of matter? Which of the billions of particles that make up my material self shall I choose to represent my "personal" frequency? That frequency can't be modulated, however, so I don't know what you mean...
thanks for the info,
I get cpu MHz : 701.597
What the hey? Is this a laptop thing, or is Intel already using this "dirty trick"??
I hope he was anyway
I have no problem with the poster's conclusions. He thinks sentience is rare. Fine, me too. But I recognize that it's just speculation, a pure guess. My problem is that his arguments were both unclear and wrong, and I daresay, passionate.
How can you tell? It was all so badly mangled as to make any similarity to actual scientific knowledge purely coincidental. Like the man said, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".Sorry, it's just laughable to say that 80% of the stars in our galaxy are too metal-poor to harbor terrestrial planets. Same goes for the implication that most locations in the Galactic disk are too "dangerous" to support life. Most stars in the Milky Way are shielded from the Galaxy's core just as much as the Sun is.
And to cite a study about zero-metal stars in this context makes no sense. So-called pop III stars were the first to form. They were very massive and short-lived, and they seeded the proto-Galaxy with enriched material, giving all subsequent stellar pops (all those present today) at least some amount of heavy elements. There are currently no known pop III (i.e., zero metallicity) stars.
Even taking your most empirical probability, that 4/9 planets are terrestrial. This is pure speculation, because we have no idea how typical our solar system is. The rest of your numbers either suffer from the same reliance on a single known instance from a pool of billions, or from an assumption about what life requires (life needs a large moon? How do you know that?) Life on Earth probably started around hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean; why not add plate tectonics to your list of speculations?
2. We don't know that sentient life is RARE. It's very possible, but it's difficult to extract our experience on one planet to the rest of the Universe, don't you think? Even if sentient life is RARE, why is that necessarily a BAD thing? If we're the only ones, then that makes us pretty important, in some sense.
3. The Sun is a rather ordinary star. Yes, it is more metal-rich than the average star in our galaxy, but not by much. There are many millions of stars in the Milky Way that are reasonably similar to our beloved Sol.
4. Low metal content does not make a star "unstable" in any way. Heavy elements do not significantly regulate fusion reactions. If anything, they cause a lower burning efficiency, which would make a star burn hotter, which would make its lifetime shorter. There are no stars with "No metals"; all stars have at least some component of heavy elements. Finally, not to nitpick, but stars form from interstellar material, not intergalactic material.
6. This bit of misinformation is why I just had to reply. Ahem...
SETI isn't using ANY taxpayer money. None. Several years ago a republican congressman beat his chest about the millions (NOT billions, as you slander) of dollars we were pissing away on little green men, so all federal funding of SETI was ended. They continue operations today on grants from private foundations (Notably, the Packard foundation).
7. The Sun is NOT in a special part of the galaxy. Yes, it is shielded from the harmful radiation at the galaxy center, but so is much of the Milky Way disk, where over 90% of the Mily Way's stars are. Stars do not get more massive as you move toward the galactic center. I have no idea where you get that from.
You seem to know everything about ET (even though he can't possibly exist). You know he won't use radio, and he won't use lasers. I bet he won't use ALL CAPS, either.
Bottom line: nobody has any idea how rare life in the universe is, much less how rare sentience is. Anyone who claims they know how rare life is is lying, or "DUMB". Which are you?
To the original post: Most of the extrasolar planets found so far have orbits that are far more elliptical than any planets in our system. And many of the detections are well above the limits of our abilities (depends on the mass and size of the orbit). Check out these radial velocity diagrams. (Click on the star name to see its plot)
The method is a straightforward application of the doppler effect. Conceptually simple, but it did require the development of new technology to achieve the amazing velocity reslolution quoted in the article.
Nice! I'll try not to spill beer on mine, though, just in case...
Uh, NASA still uses FORTRAN. Well, at least some NASA scientists do in their research. It's a good, workhorse programming language.
sounds like Funcom didn't really listen to their beta testers, when they said there were networking problems...
This would fix both the complexity and the non-uniformity issues at once.
It's true that there are some things that Windows is better for (gaming and interoperability with other Windows machines are two good examples...and whatever fruityloops is, I guess :)
It's also true that there are some things Linux is better for (doing scientific research, professional typesetting (LaTeX), all kinds of development).
It all depends on what you need out of your computer.
Stars in the solar neighborhood are gravitationally isolated, because of the great distances between them (even one light year is a *huge* distance, from a gravitational point of view). So, a star's path is far less complicated than, say, an asteroid's orbit in the solar system.
In any case, the astronomers undoubtedly estimated their uncertainty in the measurement, but as is often the case, the error bars don't make it in the press release.
The article said the *bright* star Antares, not the *brightest* star Antares.
I too was put off at first when the "aliens" appeared. However, I soon realized that they probably weren't aliens; I'm pretty sure they are evolved mechas. This explains how they can control and interact with David. It also explains their keen interest in finding a "link with humanity" in David-- humans are their creators.
OK, one more time:
this is the opposite of "find":
lose
this is the opposite of "find", on drugs:
loose
Any questions???
IIRC, there was a fourth stage, the Where. As in, where shall we have lunch?
You mean 10 lbs! Don't try to make 2 55-lb chunks of weapons-grade U-235, as each will produce a huge uncontrolled reaction. Double boom.
...or so I've heard. Anyway, I got the impression that he failed in school not because he lacked ability, but because (like Einstein) he lacked interest. I'd also like to make the point that his brand of "toolshed chemistry" probably requires little, if any, math.