As I understood it, only one type of Firestone tire had the problem - and they claim that the Ford Explorer used it outside of its specification. Ford of course claims they were within spec. In either case, the problem is not all Firestone tires being bad, but one type having an unclear spec, or Ford exceeding the spec, or that one type of tire not actually performing according to spec.
I use Squid to filter web access for my kids and their friends. I have a large safesites file that lists where they can go. They can search google, and ask me to add more sites. They call me at work to ask for a new site.
On the flip site, my wife and I have a different setup. Squid can base permissions on user login. I have a list of banned sites (no you may not have a copy). It comes from the web activities of a child molester at one of our clients (collecting evidence for the police). I add any annoying obscene crap that pops up occasionally. For instance, the last entry occured while googling for info on some history project for school and clicking a link for nero-online.org.
You can make legal backups, however you cannot circumnavigate teh copy protection on the DVD.
But what if I somehow obtain a DVD writer that actually copies the entire DVD. Now I can make a backup copy without bothering to decrypt anything. I suppose buying a DVD writer that actually works or fixing a broken one is illegal too.
To this observer, it doesn't seem like Intel has anything to be ashamed of. Unlike another giant computer related corporation, Intel has brought us a lot of real inventions. I'm thinking of HyperThreading, and even Itanium (which was technically interesting even if a market failure).
Too bad Intel doesn't have the self confidence and class to cheer for the competition, and *then* turn around and get back to the business of leaving them in the dust.
How does that work, since the companies are owned by Republicans?
That datum is not considered relevant. And it probably isn't. Corps like to play both sides of the aisle.
I admit that a big weakness of the Republican Party is a knee jerk "Business Good" reaction which tends to ignore corporate wrongdoing until it smacks them in the face. And this despite the fact that restraining such corporate wrongdoing is an actual constitutional function of the Federal Government (as opposed to most federal social programs).
And the theory afoot amongst fellow Republicans who understand the issue is that electronic voting is a conspiracy by the Democrats to rig elections.
Unfortunately, after a fruitless argument with a Democrat Virginia election official at the Fairfax Fair in October, I suspect the problem is massive ignorance. He assured me condescendingly that he could get a printout of local Vote totals any time he wanted, so what was the point of a paper trail.
Unfortunately, such massive ignorance leaves the system open to abuse by unscrupulous individuals of either party.
I have called my representatives in Washington demanding auditable voting (all Republican - Virginia likes to vote Dems locally and Reps nationally). Since the Republicans are in power at the moment, they are key to getting some kind of auditability requirement passed nationally. Notice that a Republican I voted for, Ken Cuccinelli,
is trying to address the E-voting disaster in Virginia.
Strict conservatives believe that it is the responsibility of the State Government to address such problems, and that the Federal Government should stay out of it. This does not mean that conservatives want unaudited voting - in fact they blame the Federal mandate following the 2000 debacle for causing the current problem.
Modem capping should be viewed as a convenient service provided by the cable company to make it easy for customers to stay within the bandwidth limits of their service plan and avoid large bills - not a draconian limitation on their freedom.
The ideal solution would be to make sure your routers can accurately measure bandwidth usage, then make sure your contracts let you bill for usage beyond what the modem is capped for. When some 13 year old uncaps the modem for the first time, a courtesy call to the parents avising them of why the cable bill is about to increase would be in order.
After that, as long as they pay the bill and the money covers the increased cost, let them go at it.
You might make sure that the same bandwidth via regular capped service is cheaper than the "a la carte" rate paid by uncappers.
One thing to watch out for is a deeper level of fraud. My aunt was billed thousands of dollars for 900 porn calls made by phreaks. The phreaks had hacked into the telco computers to bill their
calls to unsuspecting customers. When relying on bandwidth metering to bill for "a la carte" expanded service, there is the possibility of those records being hacked by the truly evil.
I agree that you can't count two things at once. However, I have no problem using digital watches for taking my own pulse. I use one of two methods (alternated for mental exercise):
Mentally compute what the display will be at the end of the time period, watch for that pattern while counting pulses.
Note the beginning time, count a fixed number of pulses, subtract beginning time from ending time and divide into pulse count.
I would recommend method 1 for an emergency situation, but method 2 gives better practice with mental math.
The most used feature on my digital watch is the digital compass. The second most used feature is the timer. The third most used feature is the alarm.
I had no idea if the time display was still working until I glanced at it just now. I would buy a "watch" with the built-in USB memory stick, but it's got to have a compass too...
The Dec 6 Science News reported a natural mosquito born virus that kills tumor cells without harming normal cells. It is a near magic cure for cancer - except that it only works once (after that, the immune system prevents it from being effective). In 2001, Science News reported a genetically engineered polio virus that kills brain tumor cells without harming normal cells or causing polio. Again, it only works once.
Based on conversations with friends who are physicians, I'm guessing you are discouraged with being a physician because the insurance companies are dictating to you how to treat your patients.
I've got bad news for you. By the time you get into IT in 5 or 10 years, you will have to work at a major company to have the privilege of using a general purpose computer. Patent lawyers will dictate to you how to write your programs.
Not to mention that I never can remember exactly the rights and wrongs in treating slaves; if only I had the Law of Moses to sort out how to treat slaves, then I'd be sooooo moral.
For instance, forcibly making slaves of your fellow Israelites was a capital offense. Furthermore, all slaves, whether foreign captives or debtors who sold themselves, had to be set free every 7 years. If a slave had such a kind master, that he preferred to remain a slave, he could do so by declaring it in front of the congregation and having his ear pierced as a sign. However, every 50 years was the year of Jubilee. All slaves had to then go free, even voluntary ones.
Yes, if the US had actually followed Biblical laws of slavery, it wouldn't have been a problem. In fact, if they had just followed the constitution - those born in America to slaves were naturalized citizens - and slaves working in America could apply for citizenship after 7 years - things would have been different.
In fact, in the early days, before the revolution, both Africans and Europeans came to America as indentured servants. They were essentially slaves for 7 years, and then received a lump sum payment and had the benefit of training in particular skills. If a master was abusive, his indentured servants would often run away. This was a big economic loss. African servants were a minority, and easier to find if they ran away. Africans gradually became preferred as indentured servants for this reason. Eventually, all indentured servants were African. The 7 year time limit was forgotten. By 1776, only a few free Africans remained, and they were in constant fear of being kidnapped as a slave. I am a little worried that the current immigrant worker situation is beginning to look too much like pre-revolutionary indentured service. Will it also turn into full fledged slavery for Hispanics in 100 years?
Like most evils, slavery in America developed gradually as people forgot existing just laws and began to tolerate new oppressive ones. Reminds me of the evolution of copyright law in America, from the Founding Fathers version to the DMCA.
Was the Law of Moses the one that said if you rape a virgin in a field, it is wrong unless you pay the, well, the "virgin rape" price to her parents, or else you at least marry her?
No, it is the one that distinguishes between city and country in evaluating evidence for rape as opposed to consensual fornication. The penalty for rape is death. The penalty for fornication is paying the bride price or else at least marrying the girl.
Exodus 22:16,17 If a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.
The reference to fields you are thinking of concerns accusations of rape.
The problem is that women back then could falsely accuse men of rape, just like today. So if the alleged rape occurred in the city, a charge of rape could be challenged if neighbors did not hear the girls screams or sounds of a struggle. However, if the alleged rape occurred in the field (i.e. in the boonies), then the girls testimony had more weight because "the damsel cried, and there was none to save her". So you didn't want to mess around with country girls. Deuteronomy 22:23-29
Notice that while the penalty for consensual fornication was fairly lenient, the penalty for adultery, even when consensual, was death.
Also, notice that the legal arrangements given to Israel for how to deal with bad behaviour (like when to execute alleged rapists) were specifically for Israel, and while worthy of consideration for a Gentile or secular government, are not directly applicable. The moral prescriptions, e.g. "thou shalt not commit adultery", are generally applicable.
No one "forces" them to lie, they do it of their own volition.... The answer to most of these problems is "education". Education, education, education.
Education has never made people good, and never will. Education merely turns Joe Crowbar into Lex Luthor. The sad fact is that even when they know the right thing to do, people often choose to do the wrong thing instead. Even when they know the long term consequences to themselves personally.
The Law of Moses helps us know what is right. Science helps us know what can be done. Neither can make people good or practical.
just stop using crappy insecure MS applications. That is too big a pill to swallow for every one of our customers. They spent a lot of money on Microsoft. Far more than they spend on us. They can't stand the thought that all that money just went down a very deep hole. We try to charge more, but they don't have any money left after spending it all on Microsoft.
So we take the gradual approach. Every time they get burned, they are usually willing to give up one Microsoft poison. For instance, their mail is filtered to remove any of a list of banned Microsoft extensions and mime-types that OutHouse likes to execute. However, they insist that they have to have various types of executables, such as.DOC files, for "business reasons". Each time they get hit, they are willing to ban another executable type - and install equivalent open source applications to handle that function without executing the MS code it contains.
Incremental progress.
Recently, we have been banning.ZIP. Outhouse and friends had to work pretty hard to make this otherwise useful archive format automatically executable. Sigh. With all their talk about "security", there is no backing off from automatic execution at M$, and no mention of a decent sandbox to make automatic execution reasonably safe.
So workers in NYC and SFO are way too expensive. This is because it is way too expensive to live in those places. I wouldn't want to live in those places (some people like them, I guess). If a company wants to pay $11000/yr for a talented programmer, what about places in the boonies in America? Appalachia? Arkansas?
What? The people living there have little education? They don't even know how to use a computer? Well, I'd be glad to live in the sticks and telecommute - just like those Indian workers. While some may prefer the city, I'm sure that quite a few geeks would prefer the sticks, like I do.
The problem is, the corporation won't let you live in the sticks. They insist that you relocate to the most expensive regions. Then they complain that you are too expensive - because the cost of living in NYC, NoVa, SFO, LAX, etc is so high - and outsource your job to India.
My distaste for the city prevented my from taking a number of high salary offers. Also partly because the salary wasn't really all that high after talking to people who lived where I would have to move to. My friends were in incredulous that I wouild turn down $90K. But $90K is peanuts in SFO (even 10 years ago when I had the offer). Now I am glad that I stayed away.
There is really only one fundamental problem preventing cheaper Tech labor in America. Lack of infrastructure. Lack of education can be worked around by moving people like me to low cost areas. This creates more demand for technical education, and more qualified native workers will turn up as local kids get turned on to tech. However, telecommuting requires a decent broadband internet connection. In the sticks, you can't get DSL or Cable, so you have to get T1. That runs $600/mo, which adds $7500 to your salary right off the bat.
Start with something that has been done for hundreds of years. In this case, player ranking (Chess, Go, etc).
Phase 1 - Patent player ranking with a computer!
Phase 2 - Patent player ranking with a computer - but on the web!
Phase 3 - Patent player ranking with a computer - but use web services!
I still remember the anecdote that first clued me in to the travesty of justice that is our modern patent system. A programmer had won a contract to design and implement a networked computer bingo system to allow many locations to participate in the same bingo game. When the system was all designed, tested, debugged and operational, he got the letter from a lawyer informing him that his work violated a patent for "playing bingo with a computer". The company suing him did not actually have such a system, of course. He lost his business attempting to defend himself. It made me want to pound that lawyer.
What about unintelligent aliens? How dumb do they have to be before they don't have souls?
The answer to your question is contained in the word "intelligent". It comes from the Latin phrase "inter legere", and literally means "to choose between". Intelligence is the ability to choose between possibilities. This ability is not dependent on a high IQ. Intelligence is what adds information (in the "complex specified" sense) and is the opposite of entropy (which is a statistical measure of the degree to which choices have been eroded by random events). To the extent that you believe human beings or aliens make real choices, as opposed to being complex manifestations of the outworking of the laws of nature (whether deterministic or random), those choices are supernatural. Intelligence in the sense of making real choices is the supernatural component of humans and intelligent aliens.
Maxwell's daemon is a hypothetical entity which is able to choose which molecules pass through a hole, sorting them into fast and slow groups - and thus reversing entropy. To the extent that your choices are real, and not purely determined by physics and psychology, you are a phenomenon just as supernatural as that daemon.
Christianity is neutral on the question of alien life. Actually, if you don't confine your quest to this universe, the Bible is full of wilder aliens than many sci-fi authors dream up. From Angels appearing in human form, to Seraphim with 6 wings, to Living Beings covered with eyes. A major premise of Christian theology is that we are caught in the middle of a war between Angels loyal to God and the rebels. In the book of Daniel, we learn that it takes the Angel 3 weeks to travel from his world (universe and/or planet) to ours, but mostly due to opposition from enemy forces.
The earth centric model of the universe was not a Christian (or Jewish) idea, but a Greek one. Primarily Aristotle. For most of Church history, the Church merely followed secular science (e.g. Aristotle) on scientific issues. For a short time following the Reformation, the Catholic Church foolishly defended Aristotle against mounting evidence. Perhaps they were afraid to admit that the Reformers were right about something.
The Aristoteleans are not dead. You can find their
followers on the web. NOTE - CAI does *not* represent the offical Roman Catholic Church. The Pope is not Catholic enough for CAI.
Today, the Catholic Church is more careful not to take sides prematurely in scientific debates. For instance, the Pope takes no position on evolution as a mechanism or on its historical factuality - but states dogmatically that however life began, it did so by design and not by accident (contrary to the religious statement in most textbooks that it happened without design or purpose and that life has only the appearance of design).
The Bible gives no clue as to whether we are alone in this universe, and no Doctrine hinges on the result. On the speculative question of whether intelligent aliens have souls, all Christian authors I have read agree that they do.
On the other hand, there are two camps on the moral status of aliens in our universe. The first camp (e.g. C.S. Lewis in "Out of the Silent Planet") assumes that only Earth is morally corrupt, and that we don't hear from other intelligent life because we are under quarrantine (Earth is the Silent Planet).
The other camp has alien races meeting similar temptations and some of them falling or having the potential to fall (e.g. C.S. Lewis again in Perelandra).
There is a third wacky fringe element that assumes all space aliens are actually demons. These are generally Protestant versions of CAI. You will likely hear them on "Christian" TV (TBN).
Make the aerogel with hydrogen or helium instead of air, then build a city on it. Might as well use hydrogen, because if an airplane runs into your solid cloud, fire hazard is the least of your worries. There is probably a way to separate aerogel regions so that an accident that shatters or burns one region doesn't spread to other regions.
You probably want the T-ray glasses they use at airport security. Sees through clothes, but not skin. Ok, so security has a monitor instead of glasses, but the pictures in our local paper of what shows up on the monitor were somewhat shocking.
Applying make-up is called 'farding'. I first heard this on Rush Limbaugh, and looked it up in gdict:
"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)" Fard Fard, n. F., prob. fr. OHG. gifarit, gifarwit p. p. of farwjan to color, tinge, fr. farawa color, G. farbe. Paint used on the face. Obs. ``Painted with French fard.'' --J. Whitaker.
"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)" Fard Fard, v. t. F. farder to paint one's face. To paint; -- said esp. of one's face. Obs. --Shenstone.
Free up some of that driving time for important things like cell-phoning, child-swatting, and farding.
That amounts to a free poll. In an ideal world, the politician would base his policy on actual arguments, and numbers for/against would be a secondary consideration as to its practicality. (No matter how good a policy, it's not going to fly if the vast majority of the country hates it).
IMHO, the best punishment suggested so far is to require them to sort spam 8 hours a day for the duration of their prison sentence. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to make their labor productive as well as punitive. For instance, no one would want to use them as a spam filtering service because no one wants their real mail read by such a person.
I use Dspam, which puts adjacent pairs into the dictionary as well. The random English words don't phase it. However, the spammers could start using a Markov generator to defeat it.
My Congressman says there is a 3 week delay before he sees snail mail while it is checked for anthrax. He has trouble with email due to the volume of Spam, and huge number of low cost of entry emails from places like vote.com. When you call on the telephone, the staff person ignores your brilliant explanations, and just writes down "for" or "against" some bill (and hopefully doesn't get it backwards). That leaves fax as the only political communication medium that still works.
Slashdot Mirror
As I understood it, only one type of Firestone tire had the problem - and they claim that the Ford Explorer used it outside of its specification. Ford of course claims they were within spec. In either case, the problem is not all Firestone tires being bad, but one type having an unclear spec, or Ford exceeding the spec, or that one type of tire not actually performing according to spec.
On the flip site, my wife and I have a different setup. Squid can base permissions on user login. I have a list of banned sites (no you may not have a copy). It comes from the web activities of a child molester at one of our clients (collecting evidence for the police). I add any annoying obscene crap that pops up occasionally. For instance, the last entry occured while googling for info on some history project for school and clicking a link for nero-online.org.
But what if I somehow obtain a DVD writer that actually copies the entire DVD. Now I can make a backup copy without bothering to decrypt anything. I suppose buying a DVD writer that actually works or fixing a broken one is illegal too.
Too bad Intel doesn't have the self confidence and class to cheer for the competition, and *then* turn around and get back to the business of leaving them in the dust.
That datum is not considered relevant. And it probably isn't. Corps like to play both sides of the aisle.
I admit that a big weakness of the Republican Party is a knee jerk "Business Good" reaction which tends to ignore corporate wrongdoing until it smacks them in the face. And this despite the fact that restraining such corporate wrongdoing is an actual constitutional function of the Federal Government (as opposed to most federal social programs).
Unfortunately, after a fruitless argument with a Democrat Virginia election official at the Fairfax Fair in October, I suspect the problem is massive ignorance. He assured me condescendingly that he could get a printout of local Vote totals any time he wanted, so what was the point of a paper trail.
Unfortunately, such massive ignorance leaves the system open to abuse by unscrupulous individuals of either party.
I have called my representatives in Washington demanding auditable voting (all Republican - Virginia likes to vote Dems locally and Reps nationally). Since the Republicans are in power at the moment, they are key to getting some kind of auditability requirement passed nationally. Notice that a Republican I voted for, Ken Cuccinelli, is trying to address the E-voting disaster in Virginia.
Strict conservatives believe that it is the responsibility of the State Government to address such problems, and that the Federal Government should stay out of it. This does not mean that conservatives want unaudited voting - in fact they blame the Federal mandate following the 2000 debacle for causing the current problem.
The ideal solution would be to make sure your routers can accurately measure bandwidth usage, then make sure your contracts let you bill for usage beyond what the modem is capped for. When some 13 year old uncaps the modem for the first time, a courtesy call to the parents avising them of why the cable bill is about to increase would be in order.
After that, as long as they pay the bill and the money covers the increased cost, let them go at it. You might make sure that the same bandwidth via regular capped service is cheaper than the "a la carte" rate paid by uncappers.
One thing to watch out for is a deeper level of fraud. My aunt was billed thousands of dollars for 900 porn calls made by phreaks. The phreaks had hacked into the telco computers to bill their calls to unsuspecting customers. When relying on bandwidth metering to bill for "a la carte" expanded service, there is the possibility of those records being hacked by the truly evil.
-
Mentally compute what the display will be at the end of the time period, watch for that pattern while counting pulses.
-
Note the beginning time, count a fixed number of pulses, subtract beginning time from ending time and divide into pulse count.
I would recommend method 1 for an emergency situation, but method 2 gives better practice with mental math.I had no idea if the time display was still working until I glanced at it just now. I would buy a "watch" with the built-in USB memory stick, but it's got to have a compass too...
The Dec 6 Science News reported a natural mosquito born virus that kills tumor cells without harming normal cells. It is a near magic cure for cancer - except that it only works once (after that, the immune system prevents it from being effective). In 2001, Science News reported a genetically engineered polio virus that kills brain tumor cells without harming normal cells or causing polio. Again, it only works once.
I've got bad news for you. By the time you get into IT in 5 or 10 years, you will have to work at a major company to have the privilege of using a general purpose computer. Patent lawyers will dictate to you how to write your programs.
For instance, forcibly making slaves of your fellow Israelites was a capital offense. Furthermore, all slaves, whether foreign captives or debtors who sold themselves, had to be set free every 7 years. If a slave had such a kind master, that he preferred to remain a slave, he could do so by declaring it in front of the congregation and having his ear pierced as a sign. However, every 50 years was the year of Jubilee. All slaves had to then go free, even voluntary ones.
Yes, if the US had actually followed Biblical laws of slavery, it wouldn't have been a problem. In fact, if they had just followed the constitution - those born in America to slaves were naturalized citizens - and slaves working in America could apply for citizenship after 7 years - things would have been different.
In fact, in the early days, before the revolution, both Africans and Europeans came to America as indentured servants. They were essentially slaves for 7 years, and then received a lump sum payment and had the benefit of training in particular skills. If a master was abusive, his indentured servants would often run away. This was a big economic loss. African servants were a minority, and easier to find if they ran away. Africans gradually became preferred as indentured servants for this reason. Eventually, all indentured servants were African. The 7 year time limit was forgotten. By 1776, only a few free Africans remained, and they were in constant fear of being kidnapped as a slave. I am a little worried that the current immigrant worker situation is beginning to look too much like pre-revolutionary indentured service. Will it also turn into full fledged slavery for Hispanics in 100 years?
Like most evils, slavery in America developed gradually as people forgot existing just laws and began to tolerate new oppressive ones. Reminds me of the evolution of copyright law in America, from the Founding Fathers version to the DMCA.
No, it is the one that distinguishes between city and country in evaluating evidence for rape as opposed to consensual fornication. The penalty for rape is death. The penalty for fornication is paying the bride price or else at least marrying the girl.
Exodus 22:16,17 If a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.
The reference to fields you are thinking of concerns accusations of rape. The problem is that women back then could falsely accuse men of rape, just like today. So if the alleged rape occurred in the city, a charge of rape could be challenged if neighbors did not hear the girls screams or sounds of a struggle. However, if the alleged rape occurred in the field (i.e. in the boonies), then the girls testimony had more weight because "the damsel cried, and there was none to save her". So you didn't want to mess around with country girls. Deuteronomy 22:23-29 Notice that while the penalty for consensual fornication was fairly lenient, the penalty for adultery, even when consensual, was death.
Also, notice that the legal arrangements given to Israel for how to deal with bad behaviour (like when to execute alleged rapists) were specifically for Israel, and while worthy of consideration for a Gentile or secular government, are not directly applicable. The moral prescriptions, e.g. "thou shalt not commit adultery", are generally applicable.
Education has never made people good, and never will. Education merely turns Joe Crowbar into Lex Luthor. The sad fact is that even when they know the right thing to do, people often choose to do the wrong thing instead. Even when they know the long term consequences to themselves personally.
The Law of Moses helps us know what is right. Science helps us know what can be done. Neither can make people good or practical.
So we take the gradual approach. Every time they get burned, they are usually willing to give up one Microsoft poison. For instance, their mail is filtered to remove any of a list of banned Microsoft extensions and mime-types that OutHouse likes to execute. However, they insist that they have to have various types of executables, such as .DOC files, for "business reasons". Each time they get hit, they are willing to ban another executable type - and install equivalent open source applications to handle that function without executing the MS code it contains.
Incremental progress.
Recently, we have been banning .ZIP. Outhouse and friends had to work pretty hard to make this otherwise useful archive format automatically executable. Sigh. With all their talk about "security", there is no backing off from automatic execution at M$, and no mention of a decent sandbox to make automatic execution reasonably safe.
What? The people living there have little education? They don't even know how to use a computer? Well, I'd be glad to live in the sticks and telecommute - just like those Indian workers. While some may prefer the city, I'm sure that quite a few geeks would prefer the sticks, like I do.
The problem is, the corporation won't let you live in the sticks. They insist that you relocate to the most expensive regions. Then they complain that you are too expensive - because the cost of living in NYC, NoVa, SFO, LAX, etc is so high - and outsource your job to India.
My distaste for the city prevented my from taking a number of high salary offers. Also partly because the salary wasn't really all that high after talking to people who lived where I would have to move to. My friends were in incredulous that I wouild turn down $90K. But $90K is peanuts in SFO (even 10 years ago when I had the offer). Now I am glad that I stayed away.
There is really only one fundamental problem preventing cheaper Tech labor in America. Lack of infrastructure. Lack of education can be worked around by moving people like me to low cost areas. This creates more demand for technical education, and more qualified native workers will turn up as local kids get turned on to tech. However, telecommuting requires a decent broadband internet connection. In the sticks, you can't get DSL or Cable, so you have to get T1. That runs $600/mo, which adds $7500 to your salary right off the bat.
Start with something that has been done for hundreds of years. In this case, player ranking (Chess, Go, etc).
I still remember the anecdote that first clued me in to the travesty of justice that is our modern patent system. A programmer had won a contract to design and implement a networked computer bingo system to allow many locations to participate in the same bingo game. When the system was all designed, tested, debugged and operational, he got the letter from a lawyer informing him that his work violated a patent for "playing bingo with a computer". The company suing him did not actually have such a system, of course. He lost his business attempting to defend himself. It made me want to pound that lawyer.
The answer to your question is contained in the word "intelligent". It comes from the Latin phrase "inter legere", and literally means "to choose between". Intelligence is the ability to choose between possibilities. This ability is not dependent on a high IQ. Intelligence is what adds information (in the "complex specified" sense) and is the opposite of entropy (which is a statistical measure of the degree to which choices have been eroded by random events). To the extent that you believe human beings or aliens make real choices, as opposed to being complex manifestations of the outworking of the laws of nature (whether deterministic or random), those choices are supernatural. Intelligence in the sense of making real choices is the supernatural component of humans and intelligent aliens.
Maxwell's daemon is a hypothetical entity which is able to choose which molecules pass through a hole, sorting them into fast and slow groups - and thus reversing entropy. To the extent that your choices are real, and not purely determined by physics and psychology, you are a phenomenon just as supernatural as that daemon.
The earth centric model of the universe was not a Christian (or Jewish) idea, but a Greek one. Primarily Aristotle. For most of Church history, the Church merely followed secular science (e.g. Aristotle) on scientific issues. For a short time following the Reformation, the Catholic Church foolishly defended Aristotle against mounting evidence. Perhaps they were afraid to admit that the Reformers were right about something.
The Aristoteleans are not dead. You can find their followers on the web. NOTE - CAI does *not* represent the offical Roman Catholic Church. The Pope is not Catholic enough for CAI.
Today, the Catholic Church is more careful not to take sides prematurely in scientific debates. For instance, the Pope takes no position on evolution as a mechanism or on its historical factuality - but states dogmatically that however life began, it did so by design and not by accident (contrary to the religious statement in most textbooks that it happened without design or purpose and that life has only the appearance of design).
The Bible gives no clue as to whether we are alone in this universe, and no Doctrine hinges on the result. On the speculative question of whether intelligent aliens have souls, all Christian authors I have read agree that they do.
On the other hand, there are two camps on the moral status of aliens in our universe. The first camp (e.g. C.S. Lewis in "Out of the Silent Planet") assumes that only Earth is morally corrupt, and that we don't hear from other intelligent life because we are under quarrantine (Earth is the Silent Planet). The other camp has alien races meeting similar temptations and some of them falling or having the potential to fall (e.g. C.S. Lewis again in Perelandra).
There is a third wacky fringe element that assumes all space aliens are actually demons. These are generally Protestant versions of CAI. You will likely hear them on "Christian" TV (TBN).
Make the aerogel with hydrogen or helium instead of air, then build a city on it. Might as well use hydrogen, because if an airplane runs into your solid cloud, fire hazard is the least of your worries. There is probably a way to separate aerogel regions so that an accident that shatters or burns one region doesn't spread to other regions.
You probably want the T-ray glasses they use at airport security. Sees through clothes, but not skin. Ok, so security has a monitor instead of glasses, but the pictures in our local paper of what shows up on the monitor were somewhat shocking.
IMHO, the best punishment suggested so far is to require them to sort spam 8 hours a day for the duration of their prison sentence. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to make their labor productive as well as punitive. For instance, no one would want to use them as a spam filtering service because no one wants their real mail read by such a person.
I use Dspam, which puts adjacent pairs into the dictionary as well. The random English words don't phase it. However, the spammers could start using a Markov generator to defeat it.
My Congressman says there is a 3 week delay before he sees snail mail while it is checked for anthrax. He has trouble with email due to the volume of Spam, and huge number of low cost of entry emails from places like vote.com. When you call on the telephone, the staff person ignores your brilliant explanations, and just writes down "for" or "against" some bill (and hopefully doesn't get it backwards). That leaves fax as the only political communication medium that still works.