This got me thinking that perhaps we should aim a few containers with microbial life at some nearby "Earth-candidates". That way we can at least ensure that something from here lives on, somewhere. (Hope there isn't already something there, that could mess up their ecosystem, hehe)
Not trying to be too ideological here, but what you might hope for is that these early space tourism efforts become profitable. What we saw with Apollo and the cold war was the government putting a whole load of money into sending Air Force pilots to the moon, and it worked, and it was a great achievement. But once the political goals were reached, the program somewhat stalled. If we had a profitable and lively space tourism economy, perhaps the private sector would get the snowball rolling, and we'd be talking to the Vulcans soon.
Perhaps the thing to look for is some kind of spectral data? That might at least tell us if there's life (similar to ours). I'm not sure what the tell-tale lines for civilization are though.
This just shows that it's hard to build these highly available, low latency, massive usergroup systems. Previously there was a lot of chatter about the platforms (.NET, MSSQL 2003, etc...)
The problem is more likely to be internal organisation than specific platforms.
Interesting medical issue with radiation, but there are other issues with reproduction in space:
1) How do you get people to WANT to shag? The spaceship ain't gonna be big, and there's something called the Westermarck Effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect#Westermarck_effect (Hey how do I put in a link with with just "Westermarck Effect" highlighted as the link?)
2) What's a fair way to divide up the shagging opportunities? On Earth, we seem fine with letting unattractive people go unpaired, but on a spaceship, presumably everyone is needed for something. It might be hard to get motivated if you're not getting any.
I suppose one could feed the troll with something along this line:
Insider traders know what's going on in a company, and thus have a better idea of where the stock price should be. The right stock price would signal to society which enterprises are worthwhile investments, which stops wastage on the wrong investments, and encourages investment in the right ones. This clearly has value.
Anyway, I don't really want to go into why it's bad for some people to trade on insider information. Seems a bit trite.
"We all know Slashdotters love debating the best way to wipe a hard drive clean. Looks like tech-savvy Wall Street Hedge Fund managers also know the best way to do it. From the WSJ article: 'Mr. Longueuil's version of that night's events was recorded later, during a December meeting with former colleague Mr. Freeman, who by then was cooperating with the government and recording conversations, according to the U.S. complaint. "F—in' pulled the external drives apart," Mr. Longueuil told Mr. Freeman during their meeting, according to the criminal complaint. "Put 'em into four separate little baggies, and then at 2 a.m. 2 a.m. on a Friday night, I put this stuff inside my black North Face jacket, and leave the apartment and I go on like a twenty block walk around the city and try to find a, a garbage truck and threw the s—t in the back of like random garbage trucks, different garbage trucks four different garbage trucks."'"
We usually mean banks or the exchange when we speak about Wall Street. If you need a location-based idiom for Hedge Funds, Greenwich CT works. Or Mayfair if you're in London. And yes, banks are different from Hedge Funds. Don't mix up your villains please.
I didn't say it was bad, just that it creates an alternative minimum standard. It's a wonder how dependent we are on other's need for an ever more comfortable life.
Hey that's an interesting article. At the end, it asks this:
And an even bigger question: why hasn't indentured servitude made a comeback in the modern era? Yes, I know, human rights and all that - but if it was profitable to have indentured servants in the modern world, I'm sure that Richard Scaife's think tanks would have no trouble finding justifications, and assorted Christian groups would explain why it's God's will.
My answer: we've replaced "subsistence" with "I need a new TV, car, holiday, etc." There's a new minimum necessary living standard, called endless consumerism.
I don't know what state you are in, but here in California, they can scan the barcode on the back to find out if the tickets are winners or not. You don't even have to do any math.
WTF? Is that not a problem for people? Surely the guys in the shop keep all the winners?
"I remember thinking, I'm gonna be rich! I'm gonna plunder the lottery!" he says. However, these grandiose dreams soon gave way to more practical concerns. "Once I worked out how much money I could make if this was my full-time job, I got a lot less excited," Srivastava says. "I'd have to travel from store to store and spend 45 seconds cracking each card. I estimated that I could expect to make about $600 a day. That's not bad. But to be honest, I make more as a consultant, and I find consulting to be a lot more interesting than scratch lottery tickets."
Seems like a decent, down-to-earth guy; he's pretty well off already (six figure salary, if he's making more than $600/day), so I'm sure it's a prospect that was easier for him to forego than most, but it looks like he's got a good balance between the comfort of money and enjoyment of his work.
Surely he could invest some time in an iPhone app that would reduce the 45 secs? If it took say 5 sec/card, he could do a few cards each morning on the way to work. Plus it would be interesting to write the app.
About ten years ago I had a driving test. My brother had just bought a steering wheel + pedals, so I ended up playing Gran Turismo (I forget the version) the whole day before. Failed due to excessive speeding. No damage though.
between using something like Facebook, and being able to write Facebook? And surely appreciating Big Bang Theory is not the same as being one of the gang?
Sure, you can't in a philosophical sense claim absolute truth in a science class, I'll give you that. And Newton was wrong as well. But there's a mountain of evidence in favour of most of the things we teach in high school, and it's not too far a stretch to expect people to know it. The idea of letting kids continue to believe the earth is 6000 years old and we were all made by some guy who controls everything is bordering on child abuse.
One point of note that you touch on is that you might not convince anyone of the merits of science by humiliating them. I'm not informed enough about pedagogic principles to know what the best way forward would have been.
Now the evolutionary theory, which follows a degree of scientific rigor (compare it to other theories to explain the same phenomenon) is controversial. What's next? Advanced physics teaching that the sun goes around the earth? Carbon dating deemed heresy because we all know the earth was created in 7 days?
God Bless America.
What's funny about this is there's plenty of science that sounds completely non-nonsensical, but the religulous (sic) people don't fight it because they don't consider it their turf (or it isn't important to them). Evolution though, is so weird that is just cant be true to them.
Quantum tunnelling? No objection. Superfluid helium? No objection. Relativity? No problem.
I went to an international school in Europe, where evolution isn't really up for debate. Not the high school level material anyway. So, one day, a girl from the US, a recent arrival, says "wait a minute, I've read that it isn't that way and my bible studies guy says it's different. The Earth isn't that old, etc..."
So teacher says something ala "Don't be ridiculous! That stuff you've been told isn't science, in fact it's all lies, and you won't pass the exams saying things like that."
The exchange went on for a bit, but in the end we ended up having a bubbling, tearful American girl crying her eyes out. Come to think of it, I didn't give bio teacher as much credit at the time as I should have. She truth, while painful, is good for you.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why not? Surely we could develop a delivery method that can take its time to get to nearby star systems?
This got me thinking that perhaps we should aim a few containers with microbial life at some nearby "Earth-candidates". That way we can at least ensure that something from here lives on, somewhere. (Hope there isn't already something there, that could mess up their ecosystem, hehe)
Not trying to be too ideological here, but what you might hope for is that these early space tourism efforts become profitable. What we saw with Apollo and the cold war was the government putting a whole load of money into sending Air Force pilots to the moon, and it worked, and it was a great achievement. But once the political goals were reached, the program somewhat stalled. If we had a profitable and lively space tourism economy, perhaps the private sector would get the snowball rolling, and we'd be talking to the Vulcans soon.
I hope we connect before intergalactic IPv6 runs out of addresses.
Perhaps the thing to look for is some kind of spectral data? That might at least tell us if there's life (similar to ours). I'm not sure what the tell-tale lines for civilization are though.
This just shows that it's hard to build these highly available, low latency, massive usergroup systems. Previously there was a lot of chatter about the platforms (.NET, MSSQL 2003, etc...)
The problem is more likely to be internal organisation than specific platforms.
You're right, Ebay would make more sense. The hitmen could offer their services to the highest bidder. Gives sniping a whole new meaning.
Interesting medical issue with radiation, but there are other issues with reproduction in space:
1) How do you get people to WANT to shag? The spaceship ain't gonna be big, and there's something called the Westermarck Effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect#Westermarck_effect (Hey how do I put in a link with with just "Westermarck Effect" highlighted as the link?)
2) What's a fair way to divide up the shagging opportunities? On Earth, we seem fine with letting unattractive people go unpaired, but on a spaceship, presumably everyone is needed for something. It might be hard to get motivated if you're not getting any.
Good example. FYI this trick used to be legal. Have a look at the book "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" by Edwin Lefebvre.
That works too.
I suppose one could feed the troll with something along this line:
Insider traders know what's going on in a company, and thus have a better idea of where the stock price should be. The right stock price would signal to society which enterprises are worthwhile investments, which stops wastage on the wrong investments, and encourages investment in the right ones. This clearly has value.
Anyway, I don't really want to go into why it's bad for some people to trade on insider information. Seems a bit trite.
"We all know Slashdotters love debating the best way to wipe a hard drive clean. Looks like tech-savvy Wall Street Hedge Fund managers also know the best way to do it. From the WSJ article: 'Mr. Longueuil's version of that night's events was recorded later, during a December meeting with former colleague Mr. Freeman, who by then was cooperating with the government and recording conversations, according to the U.S. complaint. "F—in' pulled the external drives apart," Mr. Longueuil told Mr. Freeman during their meeting, according to the criminal complaint. "Put 'em into four separate little baggies, and then at 2 a.m. 2 a.m. on a Friday night, I put this stuff inside my black North Face jacket, and leave the apartment and I go on like a twenty block walk around the city and try to find a, a garbage truck and threw the s—t in the back of like random garbage trucks, different garbage trucks four different garbage trucks."'"
We usually mean banks or the exchange when we speak about Wall Street. If you need a location-based idiom for Hedge Funds, Greenwich CT works. Or Mayfair if you're in London. And yes, banks are different from Hedge Funds. Don't mix up your villains please.
I didn't say it was bad, just that it creates an alternative minimum standard. It's a wonder how dependent we are on other's need for an ever more comfortable life.
Hey that's an interesting article. At the end, it asks this:
And an even bigger question: why hasn't indentured servitude made a comeback in the modern era? Yes, I know, human rights and all that - but if it was profitable to have indentured servants in the modern world, I'm sure that Richard Scaife's think tanks would have no trouble finding justifications, and assorted Christian groups would explain why it's God's will.
My answer: we've replaced "subsistence" with "I need a new TV, car, holiday, etc." There's a new minimum necessary living standard, called endless consumerism.
Over here in Britain, there's been several stories about people who've followed the GPS directions into a body of water.
Google it ..."gps drive into lake". Seems to be a worldwide phenomenon.
I don't know what state you are in, but here in California, they can scan the barcode on the back to find out if the tickets are winners or not. You don't even have to do any math.
WTF? Is that not a problem for people? Surely the guys in the shop keep all the winners?
He comments on the issue in TFA:
"I remember thinking, I'm gonna be rich! I'm gonna plunder the lottery!" he says. However, these grandiose dreams soon gave way to more practical concerns. "Once I worked out how much money I could make if this was my full-time job, I got a lot less excited," Srivastava says. "I'd have to travel from store to store and spend 45 seconds cracking each card. I estimated that I could expect to make about $600 a day. That's not bad. But to be honest, I make more as a consultant, and I find consulting to be a lot more interesting than scratch lottery tickets."
Seems like a decent, down-to-earth guy; he's pretty well off already (six figure salary, if he's making more than $600/day), so I'm sure it's a prospect that was easier for him to forego than most, but it looks like he's got a good balance between the comfort of money and enjoyment of his work.
Surely he could invest some time in an iPhone app that would reduce the 45 secs? If it took say 5 sec/card, he could do a few cards each morning on the way to work. Plus it would be interesting to write the app.
About ten years ago I had a driving test. My brother had just bought a steering wheel + pedals, so I ended up playing Gran Turismo (I forget the version) the whole day before. Failed due to excessive speeding. No damage though.
between using something like Facebook, and being able to write Facebook? And surely appreciating Big Bang Theory is not the same as being one of the gang?
Sure, you can't in a philosophical sense claim absolute truth in a science class, I'll give you that. And Newton was wrong as well. But there's a mountain of evidence in favour of most of the things we teach in high school, and it's not too far a stretch to expect people to know it. The idea of letting kids continue to believe the earth is 6000 years old and we were all made by some guy who controls everything is bordering on child abuse.
One point of note that you touch on is that you might not convince anyone of the merits of science by humiliating them. I'm not informed enough about pedagogic principles to know what the best way forward would have been.
Now the evolutionary theory, which follows a degree of scientific rigor (compare it to other theories to explain the same phenomenon) is controversial. What's next? Advanced physics teaching that the sun goes around the earth? Carbon dating deemed heresy because we all know the earth was created in 7 days?
God Bless America.
What's funny about this is there's plenty of science that sounds completely non-nonsensical, but the religulous (sic) people don't fight it because they don't consider it their turf (or it isn't important to them). Evolution though, is so weird that is just cant be true to them.
Quantum tunnelling? No objection.
Superfluid helium? No objection.
Relativity? No problem.
I went to an international school in Europe, where evolution isn't really up for debate. Not the high school level material anyway. So, one day, a girl from the US, a recent arrival, says "wait a minute, I've read that it isn't that way and my bible studies guy says it's different. The Earth isn't that old, etc..."
So teacher says something ala "Don't be ridiculous! That stuff you've been told isn't science, in fact it's all lies, and you won't pass the exams saying things like that."
The exchange went on for a bit, but in the end we ended up having a bubbling, tearful American girl crying her eyes out. Come to think of it, I didn't give bio teacher as much credit at the time as I should have. She truth, while painful, is good for you.
Yeah, and restrict them to lawful alignments...
dirty bits!
True story: a mate of mine was working at a firm that was looking to expand. Boss comes in, ask the secretary what she's up to.
Secretary: "Sorting through this big pile of CVs!"
Boss takes half the pile, throws it in the trash.
Secretary: "Why'd you do that?"
Boss: "We don't hire unlucky people!"
You'll get dinged for a lot less than not having a qualification.
Hmm, you do know that "The Office" was a work of fiction, don't you?
I don't remember that scene, but it not too far fetched to think the guy watched it and decided there was something to learn from it...