A question: What power is the president executing by voicing this `decision'? This is something I should know, but I have yet to see any indication in any of the news stories. Is this an executive order? Does the president have some say in the federal budget, and what is that? I seem to have forgotten. Or, rather, is this just the president voicing his opinion (which I don't believe, because it wouldn't be a big deal)?
Can some less politically-challenged person bring me up to date on our government? I seem to have forgotten.
Maybe I just haven't looked around enough, but I'm not familiar with our planet sending out light signals to indicated our existence as `life' in the universe? Perhaps we would have to know where to send it, this is true, but I wonder if we would even be able to do it if we wanted.
Consider that most shuttle missions and satellite/probe missions are navigated with the aid of numerically-calculated trajectories --- and with good reason: The many-body gravitational problem is hard (or, at least, has yet to be solved abstractly). Compare this with the calculations required to pinpoint a distant planet (at least 22 lyrs away, right?).
Now, maybe I'm not the brightest cookie in the bag, and as a theoretician I don't have the best knowledge of numerical algorithms, but I would think this would be a major hindrance to any attempt of ours to project such light. How long would the directional calculations take to pinpoint a planet 22 lyrs away, and would we be able to achieve the precision necessary to hit a planet at that distance?
I'm thinking not possible. I guess that makes us unintelligent.
Slashdot Mirror
A question: What power is the president executing by voicing this `decision'? This is something I should know, but I have yet to see any indication in any of the news stories. Is this an executive order? Does the president have some say in the federal budget, and what is that? I seem to have forgotten. Or, rather, is this just the president voicing his opinion (which I don't believe, because it wouldn't be a big deal)?
Can some less politically-challenged person bring me up to date on our government? I seem to have forgotten.
Uh, like that is going to work. Let's just think for a minute about how well they'll be able to filter...
alt.binaries.empeethree
alt.binaries.whereis
alt.binaries.mm
Oh, you mean you've decided to filter that too? Well, let me just come up with some derivative names and you're back at the drawing board.
Come on! This is a real good plan, no!?
Maybe I just haven't looked around enough, but I'm not familiar with our planet sending out light signals to indicated our existence as `life' in the universe? Perhaps we would have to know where to send it, this is true, but I wonder if we would even be able to do it if we wanted.
Consider that most shuttle missions and satellite/probe missions are navigated with the aid of numerically-calculated trajectories --- and with good reason: The many-body gravitational problem is hard (or, at least, has yet to be solved abstractly). Compare this with the calculations required to pinpoint a distant planet (at least 22 lyrs away, right?).
Now, maybe I'm not the brightest cookie in the bag, and as a theoretician I don't have the best knowledge of numerical algorithms, but I would think this would be a major hindrance to any attempt of ours to project such light. How long would the directional calculations take to pinpoint a planet 22 lyrs away, and would we be able to achieve the precision necessary to hit a planet at that distance?
I'm thinking not possible. I guess that makes us unintelligent.
Yeah, fusion seems to `get closer to reality' once every ten years or so, and they've been saying the same thing for the past 30 or 40 years:
"Must be funding time again!"