In that case, it was claims of insanely high compression, allowing full-screen video with no loss of quality over your average home connection (even attached to e-mails!). The morons who fell for that deserve what they got for not having a slightly better grasp on the limits of compressibility. There's just too much unique information in video.
I was finding this all very interesting, but your point on bees confused me. Bees dying? You do know that beekeepers go to great lengths to keep their bees alive? The smoke only lulls them, it doesn't (usually) kill them.
In any case, the suffering of the relatively more complex mind of a cow is definitely greater then that of bees.
You're right, and actually, as I was writing the comment, I was thinking of mentioning that method of staying in orbit. I didn't because: A) I hadn't heard of anyone using it, so thought perhaps it was difficult to get adequate speeds. B) I figured I'd better pick the hot propulsion tech of the day if I wanted the question to make sense.
I don't understand why they are burning up $100,000 satellites just to take out trash. Why not build a more expensive satellite that can stay up longer? Would it be possible for one of these satellites to catch the trash, picking up a boost of energy, while deacclerating the garbage? How about a cheap ion engine to keep it in orbit, and a couple of solar panels? Sure $100,000 may be cheaper then an ordrinary satellite, but that isn't including the cost of launching these buggers, and it's still a heck of a lot more expensive then the trash itself - and there is a lot of trash.
Ok, the patch isn't just for timidity
on
Pilot Synthesis
·
· Score: 1
Just realized I had phrased that a little strangely. There are several free players out there that use those samples. The sound is just so incredibly improved.
When you say you dug through the registry, does this mean you deleted them from Run in, I believe, Hkey_Localmachine->Software->Microsoft->Windows->C urrentVersion->?
Sorry if that's not the exact location (and there might be some other Run places), but I'm not about to reboot into Windows just for this question.:)
I agree, if you worked at it, you could probably confuse the system. But for the majority of users, it will work! One of our instructors has on a couple of occasions related his experiments with similar password software (Don you reading? Fill in the details...) He stated that with the software on its most setting forgiving setting, and with him deliberately trying to vary his typing speed, it still recognized him most of the time, and foiled the majority of attempts by others in the lab to duplicate his keyrate (he had given them the password). On it's strictest setting, he, still trying to vary his keystrokes, got in about half the time, but no one else succeeded in doing the same.
I think this could easily catch on. People will not go out of their way to foil it, and our typing patterns can be almost as individual as a retina scan.
Not really, in my opinion. Although it had a certain inevitableness to it. I think the series suffers from the same problem as all series - how to bring it gracefully to an end - although it does better then most...
That's about as far as I can analyze it without ruining the ending for you.:)
Keep in mind, that with the mutation that occurrs between you and your parents (4 significant ones on average) and the mutation that occurs in your cells when they divide going on every single day, and the slow degradation of our mitochondrial DNA... There are none of us over 99.99% accurate anyway. Not that it's entirely clear what the accuracy is measured against, since all humans are different. 99.99% accurate to their sampling?
Oh, and BTW, I would recommend people read the artistdirect.com chat transcript to avoid repeating questions that Metallica&Lawyers have already expertly handled.
We were told that this was to allow system logs and similar to be admissible in the prosecution of crackers. I know we keep short-term logs of what passes through the proxy servers, but we are (amusingly) under orders from higher up to NOT check the logs for sites visited. See, your boss probably doesn't want to be monitored either...
Did you read the New Scientist article?
on
Wormholes? Maybe.
·
· Score: 1
While attempts to unify the fundamental forces of nature suggest that tiny quantum wormholes may exist, most experts suspect that some fundamental law of physics prevents the formation of large wormholes--not least because these would theoretically allow time travellers to go back in time and, say, prevent their own birth by accidentally killing one of their parents.
Yeah, if he hadn't been moderated up I probably wouldn't have bothered. But I'd feel a duty to at least knock him down to 1 again in order to maintain whatever small amount of respect slashdot moderating still has.
200,000 GB = 1,600,000 Gb (researcher's unit of measurement) That's 5 square feet. Yeah. DMG is sooooo appropriate. I thank the supreme trickster that I work in SysAdmin.
What a strange coincidence. Those three happen to all be large binaries. One 3MB MP3 would then equal 1024 3k and insightful web pages. Not that it matters, since we're questioning your limited imagination in this product's usefulness.
BTW, how did you calculate your figure of 195 Terabytes of data on a palm top using this technology? Unless this is some obscure marketing math, that would equal 500 square inches using the researcher's projected "400GB per square inch". That's 2 square feet!
I think people objected to your post because it was stupid, not controversial. There are only so many ways to moderate down, however. You'll note you got moderated back up by someone who thought you were funny.
If I wasn't replying in this area, I'd have moderated you down too. A way to vastly increase storage density with less power and faster access times? And all you can think of is to increase HD capacity? It indicates you didn't read the article which listed many other uses.
This is not a question of increasing the storage capacity of regular size devices (mostly). It is a case of being able to store the same amount of information in an incredibly smaller area using much less power. Applications: digital cameras wearables smart appliances CPU cache! (mentioned in article) laptops
"The device is so small, and requires so little power, that it should be possible to combine it with a computer's central processing unit, according to Max Yoder, director of electronics operations at the Office of Naval Research."
Rush off to a lab windows machine. Cannot open 'http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/e2d91ae227744c/ www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_t he_rings/images/click2full.mov'. Please verify that the path and filename are correct and try again.
Suggestion: Check the web site or content source for information about playing this content.
Visiting www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_the_rings/i mages/click2full.mov didn't help either, so maybe someone lost the content at apple.com?
Ok, I'm probably being anal, but why is a movie domain.net? Shouldn't it be.com? Was it just that lordoftherings.com was taken and they really wanted that domain name? Does this sort of stuff even matter anymore?
I read the the Joy interview with increasing surprise at how each of my responses had been anticipated. He had read the same books, (in fact, talked with some of the authors in person), had the same interests, and used as examples scenarios familiar from Science Fiction (The White Plague, various utopias [the book I lent you being a good example], and Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics).
To summarize poorly a very long and in-depth look at the problem, it appears the situation we are facing is this: A) Humanity, in whole or in part, will become wholly dependant on the machines (the Unabomber's fear). B) Humanity will be crowded out by the superior robotic species, either deliberately, or through inevitable struggle for resources. C) Humanity will lose some vital essence that makes us human as we modify ourselves to be something more and more robotic. (The Age of Spiritual Machines scenario) D) We will lose control of our new toys, and wipe out the earth in a biological or mechanical plague.
There is little that can be said to A. It can only be hoped that the decision to increase our dependance upon our technology to such an extent would not be the choice of all (I personally would feel it to be an infringement on my Will - free or no) and that those who did would have no reason to harm those who did not, since after all, the machines would be providing them with all they needed, they would hardly need to enslave or eliminate those who chose to do things themselves. If the results of such a Utopia were to be negative, we would soon see it, and hopefully not all of us would fall to its trap.
B is a little more difficult to argue, but there is one small flaw. The competition for resources is assumed to be in the same ecology. We do not, at the present, compete for resources to a significant extent with, say, giant squid. Yet a giant squid has far more in common with us then a species which would in all probability reproduce by direct mining of ores beneath the earth, or on the moon, or asteroids, or other planets, and use as energy the abundant heat far below the earth, or the far more plentiful radiation outside the earth's atmosphere. We might stay on earth, plodding along our evolutionary route, while the robotic species rapidly evolved beyond our comprehension in the far reaches of space.
C is difficult to argue with. For change has been, and will continue to occur, and most likely at an ever accelerating rate. What is it that defines humanity anyway? At what point do we cross an invisible line beyond which we are no longer human? There was an interesting quote I read - something along these lines: "Homo sapiens is the missing link between ape and human." Of course, one thinks immediately of all the intermediaries that have been discovered, but why stop with those? Why are we the culmination of evolution? True, we have an innate desire for our own survival, but is that any reason to fear change to our species (BTW, on these lines, are you going to see the new X-Men movie this summer?)? What is it that makes us human? Is it our thoughts, our emotions, our DNA? What is being human that it should be guarded so carefully?
In my opinion, so long as our legacy is sentience, which strives to understand and embrace as much as possible of the universe, it matters little what its form is. To me, while I care a little for C.S. Lewis' "little law", the Law of the Seed, I think it does not matter to any great extent what form we or our descendants take (or even that they be ours!) I care that what we have learned of the universe not be forgotten, that our legacy of knowledge continues, but that is a different hting entirely.
It seems to me that the only option left to avoid is D. This is nothing new. Each increase in knowledge has increased the potential for smaller and smaller groups to harm larger and larger populations. The development of atomic weapons was sucessfully navigated (so far) without the destruction of our world, it is possible we will do the same in the future - self-replicating nanite guardians with high levels of redundancy in their instructions to reduce mutation to safe levels, more effective immune systems to protect against biological plagues and so on. Certainly I agree with many others that the best course is to spread out humanity over as many different planets and environments as possible - to stop putting all our eggs in one basket (I believe that phrase was used by a certain famous astronomer concerning the chances of an asteroid impact?).
In essence, while I understand the depth of Joy's study of this problem, and the fears he feels, I have a greater optimism in our resiliency, and a greater willingness to accept changes to us, then he does. I feel that things will be changing very rapidly, and that we, or our children will live in a world incomprehensible to us right now. I only hope I will live long enough to see it. Change is good - it keeps us from getting bored.
I read the the Joy interview with increasing surprise at how each of my responses had been anticipated. He had read the same books, (in fact, talked with some of the authors in person), had the same interests, and used as examples scenarios familiar from Science Fiction (The White Plague, various utopias [the book I lent you being a good example], and Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics). To summarize poorly a very long and in-depth look at the problem, it appears the situation we are facing is this: A) Humanity, in whole or in part, will become wholly dependant on the machines (the Unabomber's fear). B) Humanity will be crowded out by the superior robotic species, either deliberately, or through inevitable struggle for resources. C) Humanity will lose some vital essence that makes us human as we modify ourselves to be something more and more robotic. (The Age of Spiritual Machines scenario) D) We will lose control of our new toys, and wipe out the earth in a biological or mechanical plaguThere is little that can be said to A. It can only be hoped that the decision to increase our dependance upon our technology to such an extent would not be the choice of all (I personally would feel it to be an infringement on my Will - free or no) and that those who did would have no reason to harm those who did not, since after all, the machines would be providing them with all they needed, they would hardly need to enslave or eliminate those who chose to do things themselves. If the results of such a Utopia were to be negative, we would soon see it, and hopefully not all of us would fall to its trap. B is a little more difficult to argue, but there is one small flaw. The competition for resources is assumed to be in the same ecology. We do not, at the present, compete for resources to a significant extent with, say, giant squid. Yet a giant squid has far more in common with us then a species which would in all probability reproduce by direct mining of ores beneath the earth, or on the moon, or asteroids, or other planets, and use as energy the abundant heat far below the earth, or the far more plentiful radiation outside the earth's atmosphere. We might stay on earth, plodding along our evolutionary route, while the robotic species rapidly evolved beyond our comprehension in the far reaches of space. C is difficult to argue with. For change has been, and will continue to occur, and most likely at an ever accelerating rate. What is it that defines humanity anyway? At what point do we cross an invisible line beyond which we are no longer human? There was an interesting quote I read - something along these lines: "Homo sapiens is the missing link between ape and human." Of course, one thinks immediately of all the intermediaries that have been discovered, but why stop with those? Why are we the culmination of evolution? True, we have an innate desire for our own survival, but is that any reason to fear change to our species (BTW, on these lines, are you going to see the new X-Men movie this summer?)? What is it that makes us human? Is it our thoughts, our emotions, our DNA? What is being human that it should be guarded so carefully? In my opinion, so long as our legacy is sentience, which strives to understand and embrace as much as possible of the universe, it matters little what its form is. To me, while I care a little for C.S. Lewis' "little law", the Law of the Seed, I think it does not matter to any great extent what form we or our descendants take (or even that they be ours!) I care that what we have learned of the universe not be forgotten, that our legacy of knowledge continues, but that is a different thing entirely. It seems to me that the only option left to avoid is D. This is nothing new. Each increase in knowledge has increased the potential for smaller and smaller groups to harm larger and larger populations. The development of atomic weapons was sucessfully navigated (so far) without the destruction of our world, it is possible we will do the same in the future - self-replicating nanite guardians with high levels of redundancy in their instructions to reduce mutation to safe levels, more effective immune systems to protect against biological plagues and so on. Certainly I agree with many others that the best course is to spread out humanity over as many different planets and environments as possible - to stop putting all our eggs in one basket (I believe that phrase was used by a certain famous astronomer concerning the chances of an asteroid impact?). In essence, while I understand the depth of Joy's study of this problem, and the fears he feels, I have a greater optimism in our resiliency, and a greater willingness to accept changes to us, then he does. I feel that things will be changing very rapidly, and that we, or our children will live in a world incomprehensible to us right now. I only hope I will live long enough to see it. Change is good - it keeps us from getting bored.
Slashdot Mirror
In that case, it was claims of insanely high compression, allowing full-screen video with no loss of quality over your average home connection (even attached to e-mails!). The morons who fell for that deserve what they got for not having a slightly better grasp on the limits of compressibility. There's just too much unique information in video.
I was finding this all very interesting, but your point on bees confused me. Bees dying? You do know that beekeepers go to great lengths to keep their bees alive? The smoke only lulls them, it doesn't (usually) kill them.
In any case, the suffering of the relatively more complex mind of a cow is definitely greater then that of bees.
You're right, and actually, as I was writing the comment, I was thinking of mentioning that method of staying in orbit.
I didn't because:
A) I hadn't heard of anyone using it, so thought perhaps it was difficult to get adequate speeds.
B) I figured I'd better pick the hot propulsion tech of the day if I wanted the question to make sense.
I don't understand why they are burning up $100,000 satellites just to take out trash. Why not build a more expensive satellite that can stay up longer? Would it be possible for one of these satellites to catch the trash, picking up a boost of energy, while deacclerating the garbage? How about a cheap ion engine to keep it in orbit, and a couple of solar panels? Sure $100,000 may be cheaper then an ordrinary satellite, but that isn't including the cost of launching these buggers, and it's still a heck of a lot more expensive then the trash itself - and there is a lot of trash.
Just realized I had phrased that a little strangely.
There are several free players out there that use those samples. The sound is just so incredibly improved.
Have you ever heard MIDI using actually instrument samples?
Try installing the 10MB Gus patch for timidity.
I fell back in love with it ever since.
When you say you dug through the registry, does this mean you deleted them fromC urrentVersion->?
:)
Run in, I believe, Hkey_Localmachine->Software->Microsoft->Windows->
Sorry if that's not the exact location (and there might be some other Run places), but I'm not about to reboot into Windows just for this question.
I agree, if you worked at it, you could probably confuse the system. But for the majority of users, it will work!
One of our instructors has on a couple of occasions related his experiments with similar password software (Don you reading? Fill in the details...) He stated that with the software on its most setting forgiving setting, and with him deliberately trying to vary his typing speed, it still recognized him most of the time, and foiled the majority of attempts by others in the lab to duplicate his keyrate (he had given them the password). On it's strictest setting, he, still trying to vary his keystrokes, got in about half the time, but no one else succeeded in doing the same.
I think this could easily catch on. People will not go out of their way to foil it, and our typing patterns can be almost as individual as a retina scan.
Not really, in my opinion. Although it had a certain inevitableness to it.
:)
I think the series suffers from the same problem as all series - how to bring it gracefully to an end - although it does better then most...
That's about as far as I can analyze it without ruining the ending for you.
Keep in mind, that with the mutation that occurrs between you and your parents (4 significant ones on average) and the mutation that occurs in your cells when they divide going on every single day, and the slow degradation of our mitochondrial DNA...
There are none of us over 99.99% accurate anyway.
Not that it's entirely clear what the accuracy is measured against, since all humans are different. 99.99% accurate to their sampling?
Has anyone seen it yet? :) .com/features/feature-metallicaletter.html
http://www.brunching
Oh, and BTW, I would recommend people read the artistdirect.com chat transcript to avoid repeating questions that Metallica&Lawyers have already expertly handled.
We were told that this was to allow system logs and similar to be admissible in the prosecution of crackers.
I know we keep short-term logs of what passes through the proxy servers, but we are (amusingly) under orders from higher up to NOT check the logs for sites visited.
See, your boss probably doesn't want to be monitored either...
While attempts to unify the fundamental forces of nature suggest that tiny quantum wormholes may exist, most experts suspect that some fundamental law of physics prevents the formation of large wormholes--not least because these would theoretically allow time travellers to go back in time and, say, prevent their own birth by accidentally killing one of their parents.
This was in the second paragraph.
Yeah, if he hadn't been moderated up I probably wouldn't have bothered. But I'd feel a duty to at least knock him down to 1 again in order to maintain whatever small amount of respect slashdot moderating still has.
200,000 GB = 1,600,000 Gb (researcher's unit of measurement)
That's 5 square feet.
Yeah. DMG is sooooo appropriate.
I thank the supreme trickster that I work in SysAdmin.
What a strange coincidence.
Those three happen to all be large binaries.
One 3MB MP3 would then equal 1024 3k and insightful web pages.
Not that it matters, since we're questioning your limited imagination in this product's usefulness.
BTW, how did you calculate your figure of 195 Terabytes of data on a palm top using this technology? Unless this is some obscure marketing math, that would equal 500 square inches using the researcher's projected "400GB per square inch".
That's 2 square feet!
But I guess it is now. Oh well, so long as I don't get moderated down below 1 by some over-zealous moderator, I can accept the rating.
I think people objected to your post because it was stupid, not controversial.
There are only so many ways to moderate down, however.
You'll note you got moderated back up by someone who thought you were funny.
If I wasn't replying in this area, I'd have moderated you down too.
A way to vastly increase storage density with less power and faster access times?
And all you can think of is to increase HD capacity? It indicates you didn't read the article which listed many other uses.
This is intended to replace current hard drives, which are just as vulnerable to that kind of attack, and which the military is using.
This is not a question of increasing the storage capacity of regular size devices (mostly). It is a case of being able to store the same amount of information in an incredibly smaller area using much less power.
Applications:
digital cameras
wearables
smart appliances
CPU cache! (mentioned in article)
laptops
I'm sure people could think of more...
"The device is so small, and requires so little power, that it should be possible to combine it with a computer's central processing unit, according to Max Yoder, director of electronics operations at the Office of Naval Research."
Super sized cache!!!
Rush off to a lab windows machine./ www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_t he_rings/images/click2full.mov'. Please verify that the path and filename are correct and try again.
i mages/click2full.mov didn't help either, so maybe someone lost the content at apple.com?
Cannot open 'http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/e2d91ae227744c
Suggestion: Check the web site or content source for information about playing this content.
Visiting www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_the_rings/
Ok, I'm probably being anal, but why is a movie domain .net? .com?
Shouldn't it be
Was it just that lordoftherings.com was taken and they really wanted that domain name?
Does this sort of stuff even matter anymore?
Oh well. Take 2.
I read the the Joy interview with increasing surprise at how each of my
responses had been anticipated. He had read the same books, (in fact,
talked with some of the authors in person), had the same interests, and
used as examples scenarios familiar from Science Fiction (The White
Plague, various utopias [the book I lent you being a good example], and
Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics).
To summarize poorly a very long and in-depth look at the problem, it
appears the situation we are facing is this:
A) Humanity, in whole or in part, will become wholly dependant on the
machines (the Unabomber's fear).
B) Humanity will be crowded out by the superior robotic species, either
deliberately, or through inevitable struggle for resources.
C) Humanity will lose some vital essence that makes us human as we modify
ourselves to be something more and more robotic. (The Age of Spiritual
Machines scenario)
D) We will lose control of our new toys, and wipe out the earth in a
biological or mechanical plague.
There is little that can be said to A. It can only be hoped that the
decision to increase our dependance upon our technology to such an extent
would not be the choice of all (I personally would feel it to be an
infringement on my Will - free or no) and that those who did would have no
reason to harm those who did not, since after all, the machines would be
providing them with all they needed, they would hardly need to enslave or
eliminate those who chose to do things themselves. If the results of such
a Utopia were to be negative, we would soon see it, and hopefully not all
of us would fall to its trap.
B is a little more difficult to argue, but there is one small flaw.
The competition for resources is assumed to be in the same ecology.
We do not, at the present, compete for resources to a significant extent
with, say, giant squid. Yet a giant squid has far more in common with us
then a species which would in all probability reproduce by direct mining
of ores beneath the earth, or on the moon, or asteroids, or other planets,
and use as energy the abundant heat far below the earth, or the far more
plentiful radiation outside the earth's atmosphere. We might stay on
earth, plodding along our evolutionary route, while the robotic species
rapidly evolved beyond our comprehension in the far reaches of space.
C is difficult to argue with. For change has been, and will continue to
occur, and most likely at an ever accelerating rate. What is it that
defines humanity anyway? At what point do we cross an invisible line
beyond which we are no longer human? There was an interesting quote I
read - something along these lines:
"Homo sapiens is the missing link between ape and human."
Of course, one thinks immediately of all the intermediaries that have been
discovered, but why stop with those? Why are we the culmination of
evolution? True, we have an innate desire for our own survival, but is
that any reason to fear change to our species (BTW, on these lines, are
you going to see the new X-Men movie this summer?)?
What is it that makes us human? Is it our thoughts, our emotions, our
DNA?
What is being human that it should be guarded so carefully?
In my opinion, so long as our legacy is sentience, which strives to
understand and embrace as much as possible of the universe, it matters
little what its form is.
To me, while I care a little for C.S. Lewis' "little law", the Law of the
Seed, I think it does not matter to any great extent what form we or our
descendants take (or even that they be ours!) I care that what we have
learned of the universe not be forgotten, that our legacy of knowledge
continues, but that is a different hting entirely.
It seems to me that the only option left to avoid is D. This is nothing
new. Each increase in knowledge has increased the potential for smaller
and smaller groups to harm larger and larger populations. The development
of atomic weapons was sucessfully navigated (so far) without the
destruction of our world, it is possible we will do the same in the
future - self-replicating nanite guardians with high levels of redundancy
in their instructions to reduce mutation to safe levels, more effective
immune systems to protect against biological plagues and so on.
Certainly I agree with many others that the best course is to spread out
humanity over as many different planets and environments as possible - to
stop putting all our eggs in one basket (I believe that phrase was used
by a certain famous astronomer concerning the chances of an asteroid
impact?).
In essence, while I understand the depth of Joy's study of this problem,
and the fears he feels, I have a greater optimism in our resiliency, and a
greater willingness to accept changes to us, then he does.
I feel that things will be changing very rapidly, and that we, or our
children will live in a world incomprehensible to us right now.
I only hope I will live long enough to see it.
Change is good - it keeps us from getting bored.
I read the the Joy interview with increasing surprise at how each of my responses had been anticipated. He had read the same books, (in fact, talked with some of the authors in person), had the same interests, and used as examples scenarios familiar from Science Fiction (The White Plague, various utopias [the book I lent you being a good example], and Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics). To summarize poorly a very long and in-depth look at the problem, it appears the situation we are facing is this: A) Humanity, in whole or in part, will become wholly dependant on the machines (the Unabomber's fear). B) Humanity will be crowded out by the superior robotic species, either deliberately, or through inevitable struggle for resources. C) Humanity will lose some vital essence that makes us human as we modify ourselves to be something more and more robotic. (The Age of Spiritual Machines scenario) D) We will lose control of our new toys, and wipe out the earth in a biological or mechanical plaguThere is little that can be said to A. It can only be hoped that the decision to increase our dependance upon our technology to such an extent would not be the choice of all (I personally would feel it to be an infringement on my Will - free or no) and that those who did would have no reason to harm those who did not, since after all, the machines would be providing them with all they needed, they would hardly need to enslave or eliminate those who chose to do things themselves. If the results of such a Utopia were to be negative, we would soon see it, and hopefully not all of us would fall to its trap. B is a little more difficult to argue, but there is one small flaw. The competition for resources is assumed to be in the same ecology. We do not, at the present, compete for resources to a significant extent with, say, giant squid. Yet a giant squid has far more in common with us then a species which would in all probability reproduce by direct mining of ores beneath the earth, or on the moon, or asteroids, or other planets, and use as energy the abundant heat far below the earth, or the far more plentiful radiation outside the earth's atmosphere. We might stay on earth, plodding along our evolutionary route, while the robotic species rapidly evolved beyond our comprehension in the far reaches of space. C is difficult to argue with. For change has been, and will continue to occur, and most likely at an ever accelerating rate. What is it that defines humanity anyway? At what point do we cross an invisible line beyond which we are no longer human? There was an interesting quote I read - something along these lines: "Homo sapiens is the missing link between ape and human." Of course, one thinks immediately of all the intermediaries that have been discovered, but why stop with those? Why are we the culmination of evolution? True, we have an innate desire for our own survival, but is that any reason to fear change to our species (BTW, on these lines, are you going to see the new X-Men movie this summer?)? What is it that makes us human? Is it our thoughts, our emotions, our DNA? What is being human that it should be guarded so carefully? In my opinion, so long as our legacy is sentience, which strives to understand and embrace as much as possible of the universe, it matters little what its form is. To me, while I care a little for C.S. Lewis' "little law", the Law of the Seed, I think it does not matter to any great extent what form we or our descendants take (or even that they be ours!) I care that what we have learned of the universe not be forgotten, that our legacy of knowledge continues, but that is a different thing entirely. It seems to me that the only option left to avoid is D. This is nothing new. Each increase in knowledge has increased the potential for smaller and smaller groups to harm larger and larger populations. The development of atomic weapons was sucessfully navigated (so far) without the destruction of our world, it is possible we will do the same in the future - self-replicating nanite guardians with high levels of redundancy in their instructions to reduce mutation to safe levels, more effective immune systems to protect against biological plagues and so on. Certainly I agree with many others that the best course is to spread out humanity over as many different planets and environments as possible - to stop putting all our eggs in one basket (I believe that phrase was used by a certain famous astronomer concerning the chances of an asteroid impact?). In essence, while I understand the depth of Joy's study of this problem, and the fears he feels, I have a greater optimism in our resiliency, and a greater willingness to accept changes to us, then he does. I feel that things will be changing very rapidly, and that we, or our children will live in a world incomprehensible to us right now. I only hope I will live long enough to see it. Change is good - it keeps us from getting bored.