If the EFF truly thought it was illegal, they'd be suing the US government directly.
Unfortunately, suing the government is difficult. It's likely the people suing would be required to show that they have been directly harmed. Since the government won't release any information about who was monitored, it's impossible to prove you have grounds to sue.
The standard would likely be lower for suing AT&T, which could be as simple as breach of a privacy contract. I'm sure AT&T has many privacy agreements with its customers that say that they will not release private information to government agencies without a warrant. Moreover, during the discovery phase, some information about who was monitored might become available at which point suits against the government could proceed.
Then again I'm just a simple country astronomer. I didn't even read TFA.
Even the most uninformed fan knows that it's not just the light, but it's plasma being shaped into a cylindrical shape approximately 1 meter in length (according to the Episode III novel) that gives the lightsaber its power. (Yes, and the Force, but let me just talk about the saber for the moment...)
I have a device that is very much like a light saber that uses no power at all. It consists of a thermal electron plasma which is contained by a matrix of positively charged ions. I can't get it to glow like a "light saber" unless I supply a lot of energy to it, but doing so weakens the ion matrix to the point where it might fail to stand up use.
Electrostatic repulsion and the strength of the ion matrix prevent it from penetrating another saber of similar design, but the same electrostatic repulsion, when focused to specific parts of the blade, is quite adept at slicing through flesh.
There is a picture of a saber of the type I describe right here.
The Atari 2600 joysticks were actually damn good joysticks. There were plenty of knockoff and lookalike joysticks in the aftermarket that sucked, but the actual Atari-manufactured joysticks were of superb quality. They were durable and lasted through years and years of heavy use and abuse. The reviewer probably took some 30 year old worn out third-party sticks and tried them out for 10 minutes before determining that they were inferior.
The design of the Atari 2600 joysticks changed dramatically in about 1980, so it's difficult to directly compare. You can tell an early model joystick (on the off chance you can find one intact) because the button makes a distict click when pressed and has significantly more travel than the late model joystick. There is also more play in the stick itself, with as much as 25 degrees of travel.
The primary distinction is that early model joystick used a spring mechanism for return to center with plastic actuators to press the on the PC board. (Actually I'm trying unsucessfully to recall whether there was a PC board in the early model and whether it used mylar buttons like the late model.) The early model also used a soft rubber D connector. The late model used a semi-rigid plastic ring for both actuation and return to center. By necessity the later version had far less travel. The ring on the late model was stronger than the actuators on the early model. The early models really didn't stand up to more than a year of playing tank plus. The late model was much more sturdy, but they were still susceptible to breakage of the actuating ring.
The other main problem was wear on the rubber D connectors. It was common to jam a couple cartridges under the connectors to improve the connection.
I've got a couple broken early model sticks in a box somewhere. I'll need to pull the out and look at them.
But all in all, the 2600 controllers are far superior to the pads every console since (except colecovision) has had. Little tiny joysticks suck, too. The only thing that makes modern controllers usable is that the games require the multitude of controls that they provide. Nothing on new controllers really provides the precision of large scale digital joystick.
How low does your IQ need to be for you to think "3 years loss at age 11 is an IQ of 100*8/11 or 73 -- a massive loss of 27 points?"
Well, uh, IQ is proportional to age, isn't it?
No, it's not. If it were, consider that 85 is considered to be the bounary between "normal" and "mentally retarded." An 8 year old isn't equivalent to a retarded 11 year old. An 11 year old with an IQ of 73 have some serious developmental and behavioral problems.
Really, the liberal media needs to stop with the baby crap of calling Bush "Mr. Bush". He's the president, show some respect even if you don't agree with his policies and call him "President Bush". Also, for the love of god, stop calling Bill Clinton "President Clinton". It's former President Clinton, like you do for every other one.
I bet you didn't mind when during the blow job scandal the same "liberal" media stopped referring to President Clinton as President Clinton or Mr. Clinton and started referring to him without any title as "Bill Clinton."
I'm also fairly sure that the very same "liberal" news outlet we are discussing delayed stories about illegal actions by Bush until after the 2004 elections for fear they might influence the outcome.
Frankly, you may not have notices but all former Presidents are referred to with the title "President." You may have noticed in the past week there were stories about President Ford being in the hospital.
I'll start referring to GWB with the title "President" after he actually wins a presidential election.
Great theory. Now, if they could only come up with a rigorous definition of "species", we could really get somewhere.
I always thought 'two animals are of the same species if they can mate to produce fertile offspring' was pretty good.
Actually it's not all that good. Most species on the planet don't mate to produce offspring. There is also a significant amount of exchange of genetic material between species through plasmid or viral exchange.
Among sexual multicellular organisms are many cases where animals recognized as different species can mate and produce fertile offspring, the most obvious example being Grey Wolves (Canis lupus), Red Wolves(Canis rufus), Coyotes(Canis latrans) and Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris), although there is some disagreement about whether Canis rufus is a true species or a Coyote/Wolf hybrid.
More commonly, species might be defined as genetically distinct populations that do not typically interbreed due to geographical, social, or behavioral reasons. For example, if red wolves are a hybrid they cannot be used to claim coyotes and wolves are the same species because in regions where both grey wolves and coyotes exist this interbreeding does not occur. (i.e. The red wolf range has always been significantly smaller than the overlap between the range of coyotes and wolves.)
Of course, the ID proponent must explain why the "designer" would design wolves and coyotes to produce fertile offspring, yet would design foxes that cannot breed with wolves or coyotes. But they won't.
I always find it strange when people accuse academia of unfair bias. When the majority of the best and brightest in the country all lean towards a particular political philosophy, what should that tell you? (Hint: It's not that they were brainwashed and indoctrinated...)
It probably tells you that they exist in a system that is heavily dependent upon government funding. It probably tells you that they live in a world that is seniority based instead of merit based.
I'm not sure what this has to do with the question at hand. You would think that those that are "heavily dependent upon government funding" would support those in power regardless of their ideology. In reality those who are "heavily dependent upon government funding" are Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Deibold, United Airlines and the like. Look which direction they lean pollitically.
In academia (at the college level), obtaining funding requires convincing your peers that your ideas have merit. Getting requires convincing other members of your department of your worth as both a researcher and a teacher. Academia may be the closest thing to a meritocracy that this country has. On the other hand, outside of academia, getting government funding usually requires bribing a congressman. The right wing seems to have a virtual monopoly on that these days. Academics don't get rich. Bribers and the Bribed usually do.
Despite that, the right wing is usually crying about the lack of a meritocracy in this country. And the right wing philosophy is to equate wealth with merit. Their flawed logic is that if there were a meritocracy, the meritous would get wealthy, therefore the wealthy must be meritous. The first obvious flaw is that we don't live in a meritocracy. The second is that personal wealth is typically secondary to those who actually are meritous. The third is that there are plenty of ways to get wealthy. Very few of them are based upon merit. Very many are based upon unethical behavior.
In many ways this philosophy is a root cause of the corruption seen in the right wing in the U.S. After all, the right wing senators and congressmen consider themselves to be meritous therefore deserving of vast wealth. Therefore they consider any actions involved in the acquisition of wealth to be beyond reproach. Even the better if they are able to contribute to the wealth (and therefore the merit) of the person that is bribing them.
They are likely unionized and depend upon strong union laws make them very hard to fire even when they are well past their prime or the institution the worked for has achieved a higher standard and wants to hire better staff.
Where are you living? Unionized university faculty? Does that really happen? Or are you just molding the world to fit your view of how it must be?
The best and the brightest are not liberal.
I'm sure in your distorted view of the world they couldn't be. After all, if they were the best and the brightest they would be wealthy because they merit wealth. And if there were wealthy they would be right wing because they would believe in the meritocracy that brought them their wealth.
Arguing that all the smart people are liberals is amazing ignorant.
You're arguing against a strawman. Did anyone say that all smart people are liberal?
I'm sure there are some smart people in the Bush administration. They're evil smart people, but that doesn't make them any less smart.
Here's a novel idea. Instead of all the countries in the EU changing their patent law to include software patents, why doesn't the US prohibit software patents? Seems a better way of making a single market to me.
It won't happen in the U.S. because it can't happen in the U.S. without pollitical reform. Parts of Europe are still democratic and the opinions of the voters still hold some weight. The U.S. corporatocracy would never permit it. One can always hope for democratic reforms, but they seem unlikely in the near term.
... Remember research 50 years ago? Huge, vacuum tubes, hundreds of calculations a second (maybe). They thought the world would have maybe 5-10 computers. Who envisioned Doom, or the Internet?
Actually, I'd say that in 1946 (yes, 60 years ago) Murray Leinster essentially predicted the internet. Although he didn't predict how it worked, he certainly predicted computers in the home searching centralized data repositories. Here's an excerpt from "A Logic Named Joe."
You know the logics setup. You got a logic in your house. It
looks like a vision reciever used to, only it's got keys instead of
dials and you punch keys for what you wanna get. [...] Say you punch
"Station SNAFU" on your logic. Relays in the tank take over an'
whatever vision program SNAFU is telecastin' comes on your logic's
screen. Or you punch "Sally Hancock's Phone" an' the screen blinks
an' sputters an' you're hooked up with the logic in her house an' if
somebody answers youve got a vision-phone connection. But besides
that, if you punch for the weather forecast or who won today's race
at Hialeah or who was mistress at the White House durin' Garfield's
administration or what is PDQ and R sellin' for today, that comes
on the screen, too. [...] Also it does math for you, an' keeps books,
an' acts as consulting chemist, physicist, astronomer an' tealeaf
reader, with an "Advice to Lovelorn" thrown in.
According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.
This is becoming more and more common for the intelligence community to use. You can call it data mining or information retrieval, it has a lot of names (some sound nicer than others).
You can also call it "Six Degrees of Separation" or "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" if you're into that. I'd be willing to bet that no one posting here has spoken on the phone to an member of the leadership of al-Qaeda. However I would imagine that a significant number of us have spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to a member of the leadership of al-Qaeda. The whole idea of a web of connections makes us all suspects.
Now lets go to the next step. How many of you have talked on the phone with someone who has done a Google search containing the term "al-Qaeda?" Or sent an email containing the words "lets do it." If you have, you must be threat to the security of the country.
> The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
That line is just classic Gates, the computer time may have been worth $40,000 but Gates never paid for it. Gates and Allen did not even have authorization to be using the university machines in question, something Gates himself would probably liken to "theft".
Actually, the jist of the story is that Gates did his development on machines owned by the U.S. Government and that's what got him kicked out of Harvard for misuse of federal funds. I assume that efforts of Bill Sr. are what kept him out of jail, why Harvard allows him to say he "dropped out," and why Harvard doesn't talk about the real circumstances of his leaving. (Well, I'm sure the reason they don't talk about it now starts with $ and ends in $.)
Bill started Microsoft based upon theft, and theft has been it's primary business since then. Pardon me if I don't trust his motives in doing charity work.
Here's how to determine if you're dealing with complete scientific quackery or not. Let's examine a quote from the linked article:
"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.
"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
Both quotes show that the guy missed something in his science education (or was misquoted). As scientists it's our job to try our damnedest to prove that we are wrong. If we're lucky, we fail to do so.
It's not possible to show that the science is correct. The best he can hope for it to be unable to show that it is incorrect.
I can tell this is BS because all EZ-bake ovens manufactured since 1963 contain features which prevent them from being modified into satellite tracking devices. These features were necessary for the State Department to allow Mattel to manufacture them in China.
Both were courtesy of Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian, leaders of the Pail and Shovel party at the University of Wisconsin. During their 1978 campaign they promised to raise enough money to buy the Statue of Liberty and fly it to Madison. During transit via helicopter the tow cable cable broke and Lady Liberty plunged into the lake.
My site has photos of lots of quite expensive art that I own. I am not particularly happy that anyone who sees it can simply look up my name and address and find out where I live.
My site has photos of where in my back yard I hid the gold. Maybe if I didn't want to be a target I shouldn't have told the world that I had a pot of gold.
Maybe you shouldn't have registered "wow.lookatmyexpensiveart.thatikeepathome.arentyou jealous.com"
I'll read the article tonight and find out if it's applicable and whether it's better than what we are using. In the SETI@home client processing we already take into account the anticipated form of the signal, so I'm not sure this buys us anything. In fact, other than the exact mathematical description as a multidimensional manifold the text makes it appear that we're already using this technique in our searches for repeated pulses and signals matching the Gaussian profile of a signal drifting through the field of view. Wouldn't be the first time things like this were developed independently, however, I would have thought the technique was fairly obvious. I'd guess a search of early 20th century papers would show that this is an old technique.
In candidate determination our background isn't purely statistical, which complicates matter. (In other words, we see many real signals every day. They just happen to be very local and not at all interesting).
It might be more applicable to Astropulse (our search for evaporating black holes where we will be looking for a deviation from a fairly uniform statistical background), but then again, our current method may be mathematically equivalent.
In operation BOINC works fairly well but on Windows XP it kills performance in some apps.
I get that too. It's really the Windows scheduler that's the problem. There's insufficient dynamic range between normal and idle priority. For that reason, on windows machines I usually have them set up to run only when the user is inactive.
Someone may yet port to these platforms, but unfortunately, we can't afford the time and effort required.
For SETI@home, OpenVMS was responsible for less that 0.2% of the results returned. Non-intel Windows generated about 0.06%. That means if I worked non-stop on porting, 8 hours a day, 47 weeks a year, I should probably allocate about 3 hours and 45 minutes anually towards a VMS port, and 1 hour and 8 minutes toward a Alpha/Windows port. I don't think I could accomplish either in that amount of time. Think of it as economics in action.
Unfortunately, I only work about 25% time on SETI@home coding, if that, so divide those numbers by at least four.
It's likely that someone will eventually do these ports. A lot of ports are available here. Just not VMS or AlphaNT yet. Of course, an unsupported binary is more difficult to install.
where a cop who'd been kicked off the force had fabricated evidence to get someone sent to jail
I don't watch the show so I'm relaying this second hand. This was the last episode of "Medium" that my wife watched.
Although in "Medium," the cop wasn't kicked off the force, and it was presented as justified because the cop was sure the bad guy was a bad guy.
Of course, this is "Medium," where people are presumed guilty because some angry messed up white lady had a dream that they, at some time time in the future, might commit a crime.
Total crap. "Based upon a true story." Yeah, right. Some people believe this shit.
No. It's not dangerous and it's not new technology.
Tell that to the people of Pompeii. Their little experiment with geothermal energy was less than sucessful.
Re:panspermia
on
Space Lichens
·
· Score: 2, Informative
2.3 Kelvin? I thought it was closer to 3?
He must be from the future. Today the microwave background is 2.73K. Wait 2.5 billion years and it'll be 2.3K.
That said, in interstellar space the radiation field is a significantly
higher temperature than that. 50-100K or so might be more typical within the galaxy.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, suing the government is difficult. It's likely the people suing would be required to show that they have been directly harmed. Since the government won't release any information about who was monitored, it's impossible to prove you have grounds to sue.
The standard would likely be lower for suing AT&T, which could be as simple as breach of a privacy contract. I'm sure AT&T has many privacy agreements with its customers that say that they will not release private information to government agencies without a warrant. Moreover, during the discovery phase, some information about who was monitored might become available at which point suits against the government could proceed.
Then again I'm just a simple country astronomer. I didn't even read TFA.
I have a device that is very much like a light saber that uses no power at all. It consists of a thermal electron plasma which is contained by a matrix of positively charged ions. I can't get it to glow like a "light saber" unless I supply a lot of energy to it, but doing so weakens the ion matrix to the point where it might fail to stand up use.
Electrostatic repulsion and the strength of the ion matrix prevent it from penetrating another saber of similar design, but the same electrostatic repulsion, when focused to specific parts of the blade, is quite adept at slicing through flesh.
There is a picture of a saber of the type I describe right here.
The design of the Atari 2600 joysticks changed dramatically in about 1980, so it's difficult to directly compare. You can tell an early model joystick (on the off chance you can find one intact) because the button makes a distict click when pressed and has significantly more travel than the late model joystick. There is also more play in the stick itself, with as much as 25 degrees of travel.
The primary distinction is that early model joystick used a spring mechanism for return to center with plastic actuators to press the on the PC board. (Actually I'm trying unsucessfully to recall whether there was a PC board in the early model and whether it used mylar buttons like the late model.) The early model also used a soft rubber D connector. The late model used a semi-rigid plastic ring for both actuation and return to center. By necessity the later version had far less travel. The ring on the late model was stronger than the actuators on the early model. The early models really didn't stand up to more than a year of playing tank plus. The late model was much more sturdy, but they were still susceptible to breakage of the actuating ring.
The other main problem was wear on the rubber D connectors. It was common to jam a couple cartridges under the connectors to improve the connection.
I've got a couple broken early model sticks in a box somewhere. I'll need to pull the out and look at them.
But all in all, the 2600 controllers are far superior to the pads every console since (except colecovision) has had. Little tiny joysticks suck, too. The only thing that makes modern controllers usable is that the games require the multitude of controls that they provide. Nothing on new controllers really provides the precision of large scale digital joystick.
Well, uh, IQ is proportional to age, isn't it?
No, it's not. If it were, consider that 85 is considered to be the bounary between "normal" and "mentally retarded." An 8 year old isn't equivalent to a retarded 11 year old. An 11 year old with an IQ of 73 have some serious developmental and behavioral problems.
At least go for the oldest version they have available: 3.04.
Or the newest version that will run on 16-bit Windows 3.1: 4.08.
Anyone know the last version to run on a 68000 based Mac?
Anyone have a copy of Mozilla from before it was called Netscape?
I bet you didn't mind when during the blow job scandal the same "liberal" media stopped referring to President Clinton as President Clinton or Mr. Clinton and started referring to him without any title as "Bill Clinton."
I'm also fairly sure that the very same "liberal" news outlet we are discussing delayed stories about illegal actions by Bush until after the 2004 elections for fear they might influence the outcome.
Frankly, you may not have notices but all former Presidents are referred to with the title "President." You may have noticed in the past week there were stories about President Ford being in the hospital.
I'll start referring to GWB with the title "President" after he actually wins a presidential election.
Actually it's not all that good. Most species on the planet don't mate to produce offspring. There is also a significant amount of exchange of genetic material between species through plasmid or viral exchange.
Among sexual multicellular organisms are many cases where animals recognized as different species can mate and produce fertile offspring, the most obvious example being Grey Wolves (Canis lupus), Red Wolves(Canis rufus), Coyotes(Canis latrans) and Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris), although there is some disagreement about whether Canis rufus is a true species or a Coyote/Wolf hybrid.
More commonly, species might be defined as genetically distinct populations that do not typically interbreed due to geographical, social, or behavioral reasons. For example, if red wolves are a hybrid they cannot be used to claim coyotes and wolves are the same species because in regions where both grey wolves and coyotes exist this interbreeding does not occur. (i.e. The red wolf range has always been significantly smaller than the overlap between the range of coyotes and wolves.)
Of course, the ID proponent must explain why the "designer" would design wolves and coyotes to produce fertile offspring, yet would design foxes that cannot breed with wolves or coyotes. But they won't.
In academia (at the college level), obtaining funding requires convincing your peers that your ideas have merit. Getting requires convincing other members of your department of your worth as both a researcher and a teacher. Academia may be the closest thing to a meritocracy that this country has. On the other hand, outside of academia, getting government funding usually requires bribing a congressman. The right wing seems to have a virtual monopoly on that these days. Academics don't get rich. Bribers and the Bribed usually do.
Despite that, the right wing is usually crying about the lack of a meritocracy in this country. And the right wing philosophy is to equate wealth with merit. Their flawed logic is that if there were a meritocracy, the meritous would get wealthy, therefore the wealthy must be meritous. The first obvious flaw is that we don't live in a meritocracy. The second is that personal wealth is typically secondary to those who actually are meritous. The third is that there are plenty of ways to get wealthy. Very few of them are based upon merit. Very many are based upon unethical behavior.
In many ways this philosophy is a root cause of the corruption seen in the right wing in the U.S. After all, the right wing senators and congressmen consider themselves to be meritous therefore deserving of vast wealth. Therefore they consider any actions involved in the acquisition of wealth to be beyond reproach. Even the better if they are able to contribute to the wealth (and therefore the merit) of the person that is bribing them.
Where are you living? Unionized university faculty? Does that really happen? Or are you just molding the world to fit your view of how it must be? I'm sure in your distorted view of the world they couldn't be. After all, if they were the best and the brightest they would be wealthy because they merit wealth. And if there were wealthy they would be right wing because they would believe in the meritocracy that brought them their wealth. You're arguing against a strawman. Did anyone say that all smart people are liberal?I'm sure there are some smart people in the Bush administration. They're evil smart people, but that doesn't make them any less smart.
It won't happen in the U.S. because it can't happen in the U.S. without pollitical reform. Parts of Europe are still democratic and the opinions of the voters still hold some weight. The U.S. corporatocracy would never permit it. One can always hope for democratic reforms, but they seem unlikely in the near term.
Actually, I'd say that in 1946 (yes, 60 years ago) Murray Leinster essentially predicted the internet. Although he didn't predict how it worked, he certainly predicted computers in the home searching centralized data repositories. Here's an excerpt from "A Logic Named Joe."
Not too far off the mark for 1946.
You can also call it "Six Degrees of Separation" or "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" if you're into that. I'd be willing to bet that no one posting here has spoken on the phone to an member of the leadership of al-Qaeda. However I would imagine that a significant number of us have spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to someone who has spoken on the phone to a member of the leadership of al-Qaeda. The whole idea of a web of connections makes us all suspects.
Now lets go to the next step. How many of you have talked on the phone with someone who has done a Google search containing the term "al-Qaeda?" Or sent an email containing the words "lets do it." If you have, you must be threat to the security of the country.
That line is just classic Gates, the computer time may have been worth $40,000 but Gates never paid for it. Gates and Allen did not even have authorization to be using the university machines in question, something Gates himself would probably liken to "theft".
Actually, the jist of the story is that Gates did his development on machines owned by the U.S. Government and that's what got him kicked out of Harvard for misuse of federal funds. I assume that efforts of Bill Sr. are what kept him out of jail, why Harvard allows him to say he "dropped out," and why Harvard doesn't talk about the real circumstances of his leaving. (Well, I'm sure the reason they don't talk about it now starts with $ and ends in $.)
Bill started Microsoft based upon theft, and theft has been it's primary business since then. Pardon me if I don't trust his motives in doing charity work.
I'm sure Capone did some nice charity work, too.
"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.
"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
Both quotes show that the guy missed something in his science education (or was misquoted). As scientists it's our job to try our damnedest to prove that we are wrong. If we're lucky, we fail to do so.
It's not possible to show that the science is correct. The best he can hope for it to be unable to show that it is incorrect.
That's not the way it works in the U.S. at least. If I give you $10 million then I have to pay the gift tax on it.
The giver of a gift is responsible for the gift taxes.
I can tell this is BS because all EZ-bake ovens manufactured since 1963 contain features which prevent them from being modified into satellite tracking devices. These features were necessary for the State Department to allow Mattel to manufacture them in China.
Both were courtesy of Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian, leaders of the Pail and Shovel party at the University of Wisconsin. During their 1978 campaign they promised to raise enough money to buy the Statue of Liberty and fly it to Madison. During transit via helicopter the tow cable cable broke and Lady Liberty plunged into the lake.
My site has photos of where in my back yard I hid the gold. Maybe if I didn't want to be a target I shouldn't have told the world that I had a pot of gold.
Maybe you shouldn't have registered "wow.lookatmyexpensiveart.thatikeepathome.arentyou jealous.com"
I'll read the article tonight and find out if it's applicable and whether it's better than what we are using. In the SETI@home client processing we already take into account the anticipated form of the signal, so I'm not sure this buys us anything. In fact, other than the exact mathematical description as a multidimensional manifold the text makes it appear that we're already using this technique in our searches for repeated pulses and signals matching the Gaussian profile of a signal drifting through the field of view. Wouldn't be the first time things like this were developed independently, however, I would have thought the technique was fairly obvious. I'd guess a search of early 20th century papers would show that this is an old technique.
In candidate determination our background isn't purely statistical, which complicates matter. (In other words, we see many real signals every day. They just happen to be very local and not at all interesting).
It might be more applicable to Astropulse (our search for evaporating black holes where we will be looking for a deviation from a fairly uniform statistical background), but then again, our current method may be mathematically equivalent.
I'll check it out anyway.
I get that too. It's really the Windows scheduler that's the problem. There's insufficient dynamic range between normal and idle priority. For that reason, on windows machines I usually have them set up to run only when the user is inactive.
Try http://www.lb.shuttle.de/apastron/boincDown.shtml.
You'll need to download both boinc and the SETI@home executable and use the anonymous platform mechanism.
For SETI@home, OpenVMS was responsible for less that 0.2% of the results returned. Non-intel Windows generated about 0.06%. That means if I worked non-stop on porting, 8 hours a day, 47 weeks a year, I should probably allocate about 3 hours and 45 minutes anually towards a VMS port, and 1 hour and 8 minutes toward a Alpha/Windows port. I don't think I could accomplish either in that amount of time. Think of it as economics in action.
Unfortunately, I only work about 25% time on SETI@home coding, if that, so divide those numbers by at least four.
It's likely that someone will eventually do these ports. A lot of ports are available here. Just not VMS or AlphaNT yet. Of course, an unsupported binary is more difficult to install.
Sorry, but that's just the way reality works.
We're not aware of any such reports.
I don't watch the show so I'm relaying this second hand. This was the last episode of "Medium" that my wife watched.
Although in "Medium," the cop wasn't kicked off the force, and it was presented as justified because the cop was sure the bad guy was a bad guy.
Of course, this is "Medium," where people are presumed guilty because some angry messed up white lady had a dream that they, at some time time in the future, might commit a crime.
Total crap. "Based upon a true story." Yeah, right. Some people believe this shit.
Tell that to the people of Pompeii. Their little experiment with geothermal energy was less than sucessful.
He must be from the future. Today the microwave background is 2.73K. Wait 2.5 billion years and it'll be 2.3K.
That said, in interstellar space the radiation field is a significantly higher temperature than that. 50-100K or so might be more typical within the galaxy.