>... is that the US will use it's diplomatic muscle to force laws like this on those of us who live in the free world.
It's not the diplomatic muscle you have to worry about. For the USA, "diplomacy" now means telling everyone else what's going to happen. Then the ordinary sort of muscle is engaged.
> This is outrageous, how far will the DMCA go before those in charge realize what it's doing to us. How much will it take before soemone decides to put an end to it.
When those in charge realize what it's doing to us, you can kiss the chances of getting it repealed goodbye.
IMO the most important part of the article, though less headline-catching, is the claim that recent results indicate that our universe may be infinite in both size and mass.
I like that result, though I find it very surprising.
At any rate, it is this fact (or claim) that allows the author to conclude that a "level I" parallel universe exists somewhere. Indeed, an infinite number must exist, if the universe is in fact infinite.
He also offers levels II, III, and IV, which arise from more exotic causes. In Sunday's/. discussion I suggested that a level V should also be added, at least if you buy his argument for the existence of the set of level IV universes.
> OK, for the record, when looking in your bookmarks and seeing the 'Open in Tabs' button when you think 'what does this do?'... It opens every bookmark in that menu in it's own tab.
FWIW, this feature is in Galeon too. I don't know how long it has been there; I never knew it existed until I read this thread and thought to look at the bookmarks menu to see whether it did this too.
> talk about a lotta web pages
Yeah, tabs will change your browsing habits. Right now I have 28 browser windows open, with a total of 411 pages (tabs) spread between them, organized by general topic. One reason I didn't know about the bookmarks->tabs feature is that I hardly ever use bookmarks anymore.
Kind of a pain when your browser crashes and you have to wait for 411 pages to load over a phone link when you restart it, though.
> Many of the new jobs that will be created will not be tech jobs as we think of them per se, they will be low end "Answer the phone and listen to an uneducated person whine on the other end" types of jobs.
As opposed to the traditional system, where the ignorant fickwut is on the answering end.
If they ever do make it general they'll encumber the components with so many patents and copyrights that it will be a proprietary format in spite of being XML based.
The people running Microsoft might not be "nice", but they certainly aren't stupid. Moving to an open file format would immediately saw one of the legs out from under their monopoly. Expect them instead to vaporize the file format issue and drag it out as long as possible, so that people and companies tempted to switch to a WP with an open format will think they can get the open formats without switching, if only they wait a little longer and pay for a few more upgrades.
> Um, wouldn't you just ship the genetic material? Ova and sperm take up a lot less mass than full-grown cattle...
Probably so.
What amazes me is that so many people are willing to suspend disbelief regarding a psychic girl and interstellar travel, but then balk at the details of a fictional economy. What gives? Do we tend to nit pick the parts that almost conform to reality, while recognizing that the rest is so fantastical that it would be pointless and silly to criticize it as unrealistic?
> My theory is that its the result of internal wars. Vice Presidents torpedoing the shows of other vice presidents in their lil' dog-eat-dog corporate games. Pettyness seems the only reasonable explication.
That's my hypothesis as well. You see the same thing with IT projects at big corporations. The corporate ladder gets narrower as you ascend, and the climbers feel a need to kick the competition off. You do that by making sure your pet projects "win" and the competition's pet projects get cancelled after haven spent a lot of money.
> I watched the first couple episodes and then abandoned it. I just couldn't get into it, but maybe I should have had more patience.
It definitely got better as it went. I was very dubious after the first episode, and may not have bothered if I hadn't been stuck in a room on Friday nights with a television to go along with the computer.
Also, since it was primarily about characterization I think you had to watch it closely, carefully, and regularly in order to "get" it. I think even the best couple of episodes would have come across as mindless unmotivated attempts at an action/thriller show, to someone who had just tuned in.
"Too good for television", as Bravo used to advertise its fare. In addition to FOX's disgustingly bad handling of Firefly, I think the show may have been too demanding of its audience, for a television serial. (Especially one shown irregularly and out of order, but also at an absolute level that transcended those problems.)
> As for Firefly, I don't know what more Fox could have done for the show.
They said they were planning a media blitz for the last few shows (to regenerate interest after the three-week break at Thanksgiving), but that blitz in actuality consisted of some very sparse commercials on FOX itself. Meanwhile they were running commercials for John Doe everywhere, and saturating their own airwaves with commercials for it.
> The May issue of Scientific American contains a much more in-depth article on parallel universes
Just finished it. (Love that day every month when I drop everything and browse the new issue!)
> The first type of "parallel universe" is just another part of this universe. Because the universe appears to be infinitely large, any configuration of matter - be it Earth, our galaxy, or our entire currently-observable universe - must be duplicated somewhere out there.
I didn't get his calculations. He gives the number of protons that could fit into our observable universe ("Hubble space") and then calculates the permutations of present/absent for each to get the total number of possible configurations. But wouldn't there be more configurations than a present/absent calculation would account for? Such as variants arising from the momentum and quantum state of each proton?
Also, ISTM that many of those states would be impossible, in the sense that the couldn't arise in any part of the universe where the same laws of nature apply. E.g., you won't find neutron stars that are cylinders rather than spheres.
> The fourth type of parallel universe discussed is, as far as I can tell, imaginary universes. The idea is to consider an arbitrary mathematical description of an object a spacetime diagram, and to consider the result of interpretation of this diagram to be a universe.
Yeah, the author admits his prejudice that mathematics is universal (or shall we say "multiversal"), and his level IV is the collection of all mathematically possible universes. Anyone who doesn't share his prejudice (such as me) might posit a level V, which is a collection of level IV universes - one for each possible "variant" mathematics.
> Hey you might think its boring but exercise makes you feel good.
For geeks the badly needed aerobic exercise (walk, run, bicycle, swim, etc.) is a great time to get away from the terminal and think out that problem that you've been throwing code at in vain. My daily walk is some of my most productive "programming" time. Figure out bugs, replace inefficent algorithms, design application architectures - all are easily done during the course of a mile or two's walk. Perhaps done better, for getting away from the terminal and thinking about the problem in more abstract terms, or at least at a higher level than a screen full of source code.
> I lost the will power to keep on the diet and have gained most of that weight back over the last two years, and am currently trying to work up the will power to start it up again.
I am trying a "strategic" diet rather a "tactical" diet. I have no willpower whatsoever, so instead of "going on a diet" I am trying to incrementally revise my lifestyle. I started with a trivial amount of exercise but made myself do it regularly, and then started incrementing the amount very slightly every month. E.g., add two pushups, two situps, and a tenth of a mile to my walk.
As far as eating goes, rather than swearing off red meat and cookies abruptly I have simply cut back on the frequency I get them and the amount I eat of them and everything else.
I have also found that procrastination can work for good causes as well as bad. If I have an inordinate craving for a hamburger I find it easier to say "tomorrow" rather than "no". Maybe I won't have the craving tomorrow, and even if I do I will have stretched out my red meat consumption over a longer period of time, effectively cutting back on my total intake.
I suspect incremental changes of lifestyle will be more sustainable than "diets", and will allow quicker recovery when you do fall off the wagon.
> Its that simple really... Forget all the diets, just burn more then you eat.. you loose weight...
To belabor the increasingly obvious: yep. To a first approximation the cure for "industrial disease" is to 'consume' less energy by eating and 'consume' more energy by exercise. (The second-order approximation spells out some preferences about which items you cut back on, such as sugars, refined starches, saturated fats, and carcigens. But the exercise itself will help with blood sugar and lipoprotein ratios, regardless of diet.)
Some may find it useful to google for "paul davies" creationism.
> But whenever you drop something like God into your explanation, you've only made your job harder. Now instead of explaining life or the universe, you have to explain the existence of this vastly powerful and mysterious creature that made it all take place.
Moreover, the existence of an all-powerful agent that acts on its whim of the day is compatible with any observation, and thus is absolutely useless as an explanation for anything. One universe exists? God wanted it that way! An infinite number of universes exist? God wanted it that way!
The only things incompatible with the "theory" of creation by a willful omnipotent agent are the things the believers in that agent don't choose to believe (such as biological evolution, in much of the USA).
> > Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life?
> Well, this is one to ponder, granted that you consider life to be basically an earthbound form or entity. It always amuses me that there is talk about whether this place or that could support life. Just because we, as earthbound beings, rely on certain conditions to live, who is to say that other lifeforms would live in something that we'd consider completely destructive to our own very nature. How do we know that there aren't life forms out there that don't depend on breathing molten gold in the same way we need to breathe oxygen? Or to take it even farther, who says they need to breath at all?
Also, when people start arguing that the universe is uniquely suited for life it is useful to ask them what percentage of the universe is actually hospitable to life AWKI.
A thin crust at the surface of a few planets, out of the entire volume of the universe? It looks to me like the universe was "designed" for something else altogether, and life found a few rare, small cracks to hide in. As well to say that the lobby of a fine hotel was designed to harbor dust particles.
Slashdot Mirror
> Sick of the USA? Move to Europe!
Better if we stayed here and voted.
At least until things get a little worse; then the brain drain begins.
>
It's not the diplomatic muscle you have to worry about. For the USA, "diplomacy" now means telling everyone else what's going to happen. Then the ordinary sort of muscle is engaged.
> This is outrageous, how far will the DMCA go before those in charge realize what it's doing to us. How much will it take before soemone decides to put an end to it.
When those in charge realize what it's doing to us, you can kiss the chances of getting it repealed goodbye.
>
I've been plotting the convergence, hoping it will tip me off on the end of the world.
(Think of the killing I'll make by selling off all my stocks 10 minutes before it all ends!)
IMO the most important part of the article, though less headline-catching, is the claim that recent results indicate that our universe may be infinite in both size and mass.
I like that result, though I find it very surprising.
At any rate, it is this fact (or claim) that allows the author to conclude that a "level I" parallel universe exists somewhere. Indeed, an infinite number must exist, if the universe is in fact infinite.
He also offers levels II, III, and IV, which arise from more exotic causes. In Sunday's
> OK, for the record, when looking in your bookmarks and seeing the 'Open in Tabs' button when you think 'what does this do?'
FWIW, this feature is in Galeon too. I don't know how long it has been there; I never knew it existed until I read this thread and thought to look at the bookmarks menu to see whether it did this too.
> talk about a lotta web pages
Yeah, tabs will change your browsing habits. Right now I have 28 browser windows open, with a total of 411 pages (tabs) spread between them, organized by general topic. One reason I didn't know about the bookmarks->tabs feature is that I hardly ever use bookmarks anymore.
Kind of a pain when your browser crashes and you have to wait for 411 pages to load over a phone link when you restart it, though.
> Many of the new jobs that will be created will not be tech jobs as we think of them per se, they will be low end "Answer the phone and listen to an uneducated person whine on the other end" types of jobs.
As opposed to the traditional system, where the ignorant fickwut is on the answering end.
If they ever do make it general they'll encumber the components with so many patents and copyrights that it will be a proprietary format in spite of being XML based.
The people running Microsoft might not be "nice", but they certainly aren't stupid. Moving to an open file format would immediately saw one of the legs out from under their monopoly. Expect them instead to vaporize the file format issue and drag it out as long as possible, so that people and companies tempted to switch to a WP with an open format will think they can get the open formats without switching, if only they wait a little longer and pay for a few more upgrades.
> Um, wouldn't you just ship the genetic material? Ova and sperm take up a lot less mass than full-grown cattle...
Probably so.
What amazes me is that so many people are willing to suspend disbelief regarding a psychic girl and interstellar travel, but then balk at the details of a fictional economy. What gives? Do we tend to nit pick the parts that almost conform to reality, while recognizing that the rest is so fantastical that it would be pointless and silly to criticize it as unrealistic?
> My theory is that its the result of internal wars. Vice Presidents torpedoing the shows of other vice presidents in their lil' dog-eat-dog corporate games. Pettyness seems the only reasonable explication.
That's my hypothesis as well. You see the same thing with IT projects at big corporations. The corporate ladder gets narrower as you ascend, and the climbers feel a need to kick the competition off. You do that by making sure your pet projects "win" and the competition's pet projects get cancelled after haven spent a lot of money.
> I watched the first couple episodes and then abandoned it. I just couldn't get into it, but maybe I should have had more patience.
It definitely got better as it went. I was very dubious after the first episode, and may not have bothered if I hadn't been stuck in a room on Friday nights with a television to go along with the computer.
Also, since it was primarily about characterization I think you had to watch it closely, carefully, and regularly in order to "get" it. I think even the best couple of episodes would have come across as mindless unmotivated attempts at an action/thriller show, to someone who had just tuned in.
"Too good for television", as Bravo used to advertise its fare. In addition to FOX's disgustingly bad handling of Firefly, I think the show may have been too demanding of its audience, for a television serial. (Especially one shown irregularly and out of order, but also at an absolute level that transcended those problems.)
> Honestly, I didn't like the show because it never really felt like space to me.
It wasn't about space, it was about people. They could have set it in the Danish Renaissance with very little change to what they were trying to do.
> As for Firefly, I don't know what more Fox could have done for the show.
They said they were planning a media blitz for the last few shows (to regenerate interest after the three-week break at Thanksgiving), but that blitz in actuality consisted of some very sparse commercials on FOX itself. Meanwhile they were running commercials for John Doe everywhere, and saturating their own airwaves with commercials for it.
Someone a FOX didn't want Firefly to succeed.
> The whole economic system the show portrayed just didn't make sense (e.g. paying for an interstellar trip by hauling some cattle around).
Ever stop to think how much those ships that haul bananas around cost to acquire and operate?
> The May issue of Scientific American contains a much more in-depth article on parallel universes
Just finished it. (Love that day every month when I drop everything and browse the new issue!)
> The first type of "parallel universe" is just another part of this universe. Because the universe appears to be infinitely large, any configuration of matter - be it Earth, our galaxy, or our entire currently-observable universe - must be duplicated somewhere out there.
I didn't get his calculations. He gives the number of protons that could fit into our observable universe ("Hubble space") and then calculates the permutations of present/absent for each to get the total number of possible configurations. But wouldn't there be more configurations than a present/absent calculation would account for? Such as variants arising from the momentum and quantum state of each proton?
Also, ISTM that many of those states would be impossible, in the sense that the couldn't arise in any part of the universe where the same laws of nature apply. E.g., you won't find neutron stars that are cylinders rather than spheres.
> The fourth type of parallel universe discussed is, as far as I can tell, imaginary universes. The idea is to consider an arbitrary mathematical description of an object a spacetime diagram, and to consider the result of interpretation of this diagram to be a universe.
Yeah, the author admits his prejudice that mathematics is universal (or shall we say "multiversal"), and his level IV is the collection of all mathematically possible universes. Anyone who doesn't share his prejudice (such as me) might posit a level V, which is a collection of level IV universes - one for each possible "variant" mathematics.
> The DirectFB project has 2D going nicely, and is working on 3D. It's Linux-only at the moment, but [...]
Ah, remember the good old days when Linux was the OS that you couldn't get stuff for?
> Hey you might think its boring but exercise makes you feel good.
For geeks the badly needed aerobic exercise (walk, run, bicycle, swim, etc.) is a great time to get away from the terminal and think out that problem that you've been throwing code at in vain. My daily walk is some of my most productive "programming" time. Figure out bugs, replace inefficent algorithms, design application architectures - all are easily done during the course of a mile or two's walk. Perhaps done better, for getting away from the terminal and thinking about the problem in more abstract terms, or at least at a higher level than a screen full of source code.
> It's human nature to choose the easier wrong over the harder right. .
Heck, I think it human nature to choose the harder wrong over the easier right!
> I lost the will power to keep on the diet and have gained most of that weight back over the last two years, and am currently trying to work up the will power to start it up again.
I am trying a "strategic" diet rather a "tactical" diet. I have no willpower whatsoever, so instead of "going on a diet" I am trying to incrementally revise my lifestyle. I started with a trivial amount of exercise but made myself do it regularly, and then started incrementing the amount very slightly every month. E.g., add two pushups, two situps, and a tenth of a mile to my walk.
As far as eating goes, rather than swearing off red meat and cookies abruptly I have simply cut back on the frequency I get them and the amount I eat of them and everything else.
I have also found that procrastination can work for good causes as well as bad. If I have an inordinate craving for a hamburger I find it easier to say "tomorrow" rather than "no". Maybe I won't have the craving tomorrow, and even if I do I will have stretched out my red meat consumption over a longer period of time, effectively cutting back on my total intake.
I suspect incremental changes of lifestyle will be more sustainable than "diets", and will allow quicker recovery when you do fall off the wagon.
> Its that simple really... Forget all the diets, just burn more then you eat.. you loose weight...
To belabor the increasingly obvious: yep. To a first approximation the cure for "industrial disease" is to 'consume' less energy by eating and 'consume' more energy by exercise. (The second-order approximation spells out some preferences about which items you cut back on, such as sugars, refined starches, saturated fats, and carcigens. But the exercise itself will help with blood sugar and lipoprotein ratios, regardless of diet.)
There was a really nice article suggesting a revised food pyramid in the January 2003 issue of Scientific American, and interestingly the base of the new pyramid was "exercise".
> Paul Davies is a religious person.
Some may find it useful to google for "paul davies" creationism.
> But whenever you drop something like God into your explanation, you've only made your job harder. Now instead of explaining life or the universe, you have to explain the existence of this vastly powerful and mysterious creature that made it all take place.
Moreover, the existence of an all-powerful agent that acts on its whim of the day is compatible with any observation, and thus is absolutely useless as an explanation for anything. One universe exists? God wanted it that way! An infinite number of universes exist? God wanted it that way!
The only things incompatible with the "theory" of creation by a willful omnipotent agent are the things the believers in that agent don't choose to believe (such as biological evolution, in much of the USA).
> > Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life?
> Well, this is one to ponder, granted that you consider life to be basically an earthbound form or entity. It always amuses me that there is talk about whether this place or that could support life. Just because we, as earthbound beings, rely on certain conditions to live, who is to say that other lifeforms would live in something that we'd consider completely destructive to our own very nature. How do we know that there aren't life forms out there that don't depend on breathing molten gold in the same way we need to breathe oxygen? Or to take it even farther, who says they need to breath at all?
Also, when people start arguing that the universe is uniquely suited for life it is useful to ask them what percentage of the universe is actually hospitable to life AWKI.
A thin crust at the surface of a few planets, out of the entire volume of the universe? It looks to me like the universe was "designed" for something else altogether, and life found a few rare, small cracks to hide in. As well to say that the lobby of a fine hotel was designed to harbor dust particles.
> Reminds me of a Futurama episode, where people encircle a ship so that it won't move. The ship just moves up and speeds away.
Ah yes, the penguin episode. Best Futurama ever.
How about instead of this childish fixation on size, give us some specs on fuel economy and MTBFs.
> And only after two posts!!!
This one's so important that everyone decided to actually read the article before posting.