At the computer shop I run we've literally recieved hundreds of these phone calls. The conversation typically goes like this (but relayed, so it takes forever)
Do you sell laptops? No, we don't sell any laptops. How about desktops? Yes, we do desktops. Will you ship overseas? No, no overseas shipments. Ok..ok...how about Los Angeles. We can do that. Ok, I have credit card, I can pay now. We'd need some sort of verification that you are the cardholder.
The conversation goes downhill from there. The first few times we took it seriously, but since then we've refused to take relay calls. If we hear the operator say "This is a relay call" we interrupt and say "Sorry, we don't take relay calls" and then HANG UP. If you don't hang up, the operator will say "hold" while they type out the message and then wait for a response. Waste..of...goddamn...time. Slamming the reciever down helps. If there's any people who genuinely use the service...sorry, we just can't afford to spend hours wading through these phone calls to get to you.
Besides even Bungie has said that Halo bears far more resemblance to a Culture Orbital, from the Iain M. Banks novels. It's much much smaller than a ringworld.
I have a good friend who works at NASA HQ. According to her, the whole moon/mars idea is basically a boondoogle to shift NASA subcontractor jobs into Ohio and Florida, two very important states for the 2004 elections.
So it makes perfect sense that the dems are going to want to block it.
That's one way to put it. Here's another:
One of the side benefits of the whole moon/mars deals, besides increasing the sum of human knowledge, is that it will help the economies of Ohio and Florida and give a lot of people badly needed jobs. Being employed might make some people less angry at the person who began the project that employs them. So of course those short-sighted self righteous democrats are going to block it.
Not that I necessarily agree with either of those viewpoints. But ain't different perspectives fun?
A couple of years ago I went to Disney's California Adventure with my fiancee. They had this sort of animation adventure house. At one area there was a setup where you could pick a scene from a disney movie and speak the lines as they came up on the screen. It would record your voice and play it back with the recordings synced up to the animation. Pretty fun actually. Mufasa, mufasa, mufasa!
If you think that the majority of scifi sucks these days, you aren't looking very hard. Try Iain M. Banks, anything of his, and then look me in the eye and tell me scifi sucks. Ditto for Stephen Baxter, or David Brin, or Greg Bear or Gregory Benford. Hmm...that's a lot of B's....
Chance favors the prepared mind....our military has contingency plans for EVERYTHING. There are departments in every branch whose only job is to constantly think up the most outlandish scenarios, idea, plans, etc. With every possible variant of enemies, allies, strength of forces, technology. I once saw a detailed plan of battle in the event that Canada and Mexico ally and attack the US. This same philosophy applies to funding projects. If congress suddenly gets a bug under it's ass about space defense, the Air Force can whip out this portfolio and say "Well, with only $60 million, we can put these forces in place." What's funny is to watch the public react when some of these plans leak. All sorts of people freak out, like a few years ago when a contingency plan for invading China leaked out at the same time that there was tension regarding Taiwan. Now maybe this proposal for space has advanced beyond that wild ass idea phase, and if that's the case then it's because the Air Force thinks Congress might go for it.
My fiancee got me this awesome programmable remote control. You know, with the touch sensitive lcd, learning functions (works with Bose stereos even!). That cleaned up 5 remotes off of our coffee table. The only remote I refuse to program into it is the Tivo remote. That thing is perfect. Accept no substitute. Every button is well placed, and easy to locate without looking. She understands...
That article is pretty damn skimpy on the details. Check out this one which I found at ArsTechnica. Perhaps the most important detail is that a rhodium-based catalyst needs to be heated to 700 celsius for the reaction to have any efficiency.
Please, PLEASE mark such images as NSF (not suitable for work). I've just been fired because my boss thinks I enjoy looking at skank-hobags during business hours.
First-contact scenarios?
on
The Golden Ratio
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Finally, Livio takes a shot at the idea that mathematics is a universal concept across the entire universe. To be honest, I have always assumed that it was.... The idea that mathematics is a human construction and probably holds no water in another civilization that grew up on the other side of the universe makes a lot of sense to me.
From what I understand, the vast majority of realistic first-contact scenarios postulated involve using mathematics as a common ground to bridge the language barrier. 1 + 1 equals 2 in every language on earth (except New Age holistic 1 + 1 = 3 crap). It makes sense and it works everywhere. It would be awfully damn hard to build a spaceship without mathetmatics, let alone trying to calculate launch trajectories or transfer orbits. Unless they had such an intuitive grasp of higher level mathematics that they don't even consider it worth talking about, I don't see how any species that had no concept of math could ever rise above the level of pointy sticks and sharpened rocks. And even then you'd probably want to keep track of how many rocks you had to make sure Lurg over there didn't *borrow* a few.
The U.S. gov't owns them. But, they're probably considered "Abandoned in place" or something.
Related to this topic, I read somewhere that NASA has officially stated that the lunar rover vehicle left on the moon is available for anyone who wants it. At a development cost of over $2mil, it's one of the most expensive cars ever developed. I call shotgun!
I believe many photocopiers have somewhat similar detection and preventitive measures for people trying to copy U.S. currency
I don't know about that. At the computer shop I work at, whenever we get a new all-in-one printer fax copier scanners in, we test out the quality by running a $20 bill through the copier. Cut it out nicely, and it's a *great* way to impress the customer with the quality of the copier. As long as you don't do both sides no one could ever accuse you of actually counterfeiting money.
whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis
You make some good points, but you *really* ought to check yourself on this one. Try telling some old Soviet tank commander, or some little old babushka that the Nazis were their friends, and you'll be lucky if you walk away from the incident. A lot of Russians hate and distrust Germans in general, and Nazis in particular, with a passion that most people find hard to comprehend. Considering the nearly 40 million Russians/Soviets that died as the result of 2 German invasions, I can't say I blame them. The USSR did a lot of horrible things, but being friends of the Nazis? Never.
Imagine if your spaceship was the Beagle 2, and not this NASA ship.
We mock what we don't understand.
Imagine if Beagle 2 was a manned mission. We'd sure as hell at least know what happened. And the majority of failed mars missions have failed because there was something wrong that couldn't be fixed by remote. If there was someone on hand to reach over and tweak the long-range antenna, I'm positive the percantage of successful missions would be much higher.
I heard this exact scream TWICE during Return of the King. Within 2 minutes of each other no less. Once from an Orc and once from a human during the main battle sequence. Kinda jarred me for a second. Only heard it once from the Two Towers.
just bury them underground. That's hardly what I think Zubrin and company want.
Umm...guess you haven't read his book. That's *exactly* what Zubrin wants, and advocates in his book "A Case For Mars". Just because someone wants something very badly does not mean they are blind to the realities of their dreams.
You really can't read worth a shit, can you? Failed reading comprehension, did we? This is just getting silly. You just restated several of my points with slightly different wording. We don't know whether or not the universe is infinite, but for all practical purposes, we can consider it to be.
I have no personal agenda as far as extra terrestrial life is concerned. I have no clue where you get the idea that I'm some fucking whacked out UFO nutcase hoping to be picked up off this miserable planet on their next flyby. You couldn't be further from the truth.
I know there are flaws in my "argument". Except I was not making an argument. Just stating possiblities. But apparently you can't handle anything except substantiated facts. So here are some facts for you:
The chances for external life in this universe are exactly the same as they have always been. Rather, we should say that our *understanding* of those chances has been changed by the possible existance of earth-similar worlds. Reality has not changed. We have.
The entire reason I replied to the original poster was because of his use of the term "Universe". Having life exist in the Universe is completely useless. Now, finding intelligent life in our local *galactic* neighborhood, that would be interesting. That was my entire point, for the THIRD FUCKING TIME. Learn to read dipshit.
At the small computer shop I run, we're making quite a bit of money these days cleaning off spyware from computers. Everyone has it, and now that it's getting more publicity, everyone wants to get rid of it. When people suddenly realize that their computer actually *is* slower than when they got it, they want it fixed, rather than buying a new one. Which is fine by us. Spyware removal is pure labor. Download AdAware and Spybot, hit it with a double whammy and it's amazing how much smoother older systems run. Viruses used to be the big money makers. Not anymore. So all you Dell customers out there....we'd be happy to help you clean off your system;)
Oh geez, I'm sorry, I didn't realize opinions weren't allowed on/. My most humble apologies. Asswipe.
I wasn't arguing with the parent, so I don't know what the hell you're going off about. I was simply adding my two bits to his comment. Since you have trouble reading properly, I'll spell out what my points were:
1. Given the infinite (probably) nature of the Universe, other life is a statistical certainty 2. Again, given the infinite nature of the Universe, intelligent life may be seperated from us by great distances in both space and time. 3. My hope is that intelligent life is _so_ common we could communicate with it some day. 4. I say nothing about the likelihood of such a thing occurring. 5. Please remove that bug from your ass and give it a decent burial.
The likelihood of other meaningful life in the Universe just got better
I've always considered the likelihood of other meaningful life in the Univers to be a statistical certainty. The problem lies in having that life exist close to us, both in space _and_ time. What's the use in having dozens of close neighbors that all killed themselves off 2000 years ago? Sure, it would give us some interesting ruins to poke around, and archaeology would be cool again, just like in the early 80's. My point is that other life does exist out there. I'm 100% certain. I just hope that it's close enough and alive enough for us to talk to it and sell it stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Holy crap! Those pictures were amazing. Thank you.
At the computer shop I run we've literally recieved hundreds of these phone calls. The conversation typically goes like this (but relayed, so it takes forever)
Do you sell laptops?
No, we don't sell any laptops.
How about desktops?
Yes, we do desktops.
Will you ship overseas?
No, no overseas shipments.
Ok..ok...how about Los Angeles.
We can do that.
Ok, I have credit card, I can pay now.
We'd need some sort of verification that you are the cardholder.
The conversation goes downhill from there. The first few times we took it seriously, but since then we've refused to take relay calls. If we hear the operator say "This is a relay call" we interrupt and say "Sorry, we don't take relay calls" and then HANG UP. If you don't hang up, the operator will say "hold" while they type out the message and then wait for a response. Waste..of...goddamn...time. Slamming the reciever down helps. If there's any people who genuinely use the service...sorry, we just can't afford to spend hours wading through these phone calls to get to you.
Besides even Bungie has said that Halo bears far more resemblance to a Culture Orbital, from the Iain M. Banks novels. It's much much smaller than a ringworld.
I have a good friend who works at NASA HQ. According to her, the whole moon/mars idea is basically a boondoogle to shift NASA subcontractor jobs into Ohio and Florida, two very important states for the 2004 elections.
So it makes perfect sense that the dems are going to want to block it.
That's one way to put it. Here's another:
One of the side benefits of the whole moon/mars deals, besides increasing the sum of human knowledge, is that it will help the economies of Ohio and Florida and give a lot of people badly needed jobs. Being employed might make some people less angry at the person who began the project that employs them. So of course those short-sighted self righteous democrats are going to block it.
Not that I necessarily agree with either of those viewpoints. But ain't different perspectives fun?
A couple of years ago I went to Disney's California Adventure with my fiancee. They had this sort of animation adventure house. At one area there was a setup where you could pick a scene from a disney movie and speak the lines as they came up on the screen. It would record your voice and play it back with the recordings synced up to the animation. Pretty fun actually. Mufasa, mufasa, mufasa!
-------------
If you think that the majority of scifi sucks these days, you aren't looking very hard. Try Iain M. Banks, anything of his, and then look me in the eye and tell me scifi sucks. Ditto for Stephen Baxter, or David Brin, or Greg Bear or Gregory Benford. Hmm...that's a lot of B's....
Chance favors the prepared mind....our military has contingency plans for EVERYTHING. There are departments in every branch whose only job is to constantly think up the most outlandish scenarios, idea, plans, etc. With every possible variant of enemies, allies, strength of forces, technology. I once saw a detailed plan of battle in the event that Canada and Mexico ally and attack the US. This same philosophy applies to funding projects. If congress suddenly gets a bug under it's ass about space defense, the Air Force can whip out this portfolio and say "Well, with only $60 million, we can put these forces in place." What's funny is to watch the public react when some of these plans leak. All sorts of people freak out, like a few years ago when a contingency plan for invading China leaked out at the same time that there was tension regarding Taiwan. Now maybe this proposal for space has advanced beyond that wild ass idea phase, and if that's the case then it's because the Air Force thinks Congress might go for it.
My fiancee got me this awesome programmable remote control. You know, with the touch sensitive lcd, learning functions (works with Bose stereos even!). That cleaned up 5 remotes off of our coffee table. The only remote I refuse to program into it is the Tivo remote. That thing is perfect. Accept no substitute. Every button is well placed, and easy to locate without looking. She understands...
That article is pretty damn skimpy on the details. Check out this one which I found at ArsTechnica. Perhaps the most important detail is that a rhodium-based catalyst needs to be heated to 700 celsius for the reaction to have any efficiency.
Please, PLEASE mark such images as NSF (not suitable for work). I've just been fired because my boss thinks I enjoy looking at skank-hobags during business hours.
From what I understand, the vast majority of realistic first-contact scenarios postulated involve using mathematics as a common ground to bridge the language barrier. 1 + 1 equals 2 in every language on earth (except New Age holistic 1 + 1 = 3 crap). It makes sense and it works everywhere. It would be awfully damn hard to build a spaceship without mathetmatics, let alone trying to calculate launch trajectories or transfer orbits. Unless they had such an intuitive grasp of higher level mathematics that they don't even consider it worth talking about, I don't see how any species that had no concept of math could ever rise above the level of pointy sticks and sharpened rocks. And even then you'd probably want to keep track of how many rocks you had to make sure Lurg over there didn't *borrow* a few.
The U.S. gov't owns them. But, they're probably considered "Abandoned in place" or something.
Related to this topic, I read somewhere that NASA has officially stated that the lunar rover vehicle left on the moon is available for anyone who wants it. At a development cost of over $2mil, it's one of the most expensive cars ever developed. I call shotgun!
Professor Jonathan Vos Post /. but keep forgetting password...
;)
Woodbury University
have an accounton
and here I thought "absent-minded professor" was just a cliche
I believe many photocopiers have somewhat similar detection and preventitive measures for people trying to copy U.S. currency
I don't know about that. At the computer shop I work at, whenever we get a new all-in-one printer fax copier scanners in, we test out the quality by running a $20 bill through the copier. Cut it out nicely, and it's a *great* way to impress the customer with the quality of the copier. As long as you don't do both sides no one could ever accuse you of actually counterfeiting money.
whereas the USSR enslaved as much of the world as it could as had their friends the Nazis
You make some good points, but you *really* ought to check yourself on this one. Try telling some old Soviet tank commander, or some little old babushka that the Nazis were their friends, and you'll be lucky if you walk away from the incident. A lot of Russians hate and distrust Germans in general, and Nazis in particular, with a passion that most people find hard to comprehend. Considering the nearly 40 million Russians/Soviets that died as the result of 2 German invasions, I can't say I blame them. The USSR did a lot of horrible things, but being friends of the Nazis? Never.
We mock what we don't understand.
Imagine if Beagle 2 was a manned mission. We'd sure as hell at least know what happened. And the majority of failed mars missions have failed because there was something wrong that couldn't be fixed by remote. If there was someone on hand to reach over and tweak the long-range antenna, I'm positive the percantage of successful missions would be much higher.
I heard this exact scream TWICE during Return of the King. Within 2 minutes of each other no less. Once from an Orc and once from a human during the main battle sequence. Kinda jarred me for a second. Only heard it once from the Two Towers.
just bury them underground. That's hardly what I think Zubrin and company want.
Umm...guess you haven't read his book. That's *exactly* what Zubrin wants, and advocates in his book "A Case For Mars". Just because someone wants something very badly does not mean they are blind to the realities of their dreams.
[red sign posted on my professors door]
If this sign looks blue...SLOW DOWN
Guess we'll just have to take the long way around any pastel blue routers we find.
You really can't read worth a shit, can you? Failed reading comprehension, did we? This is just getting silly. You just restated several of my points with slightly different wording. We don't know whether or not the universe is infinite, but for all practical purposes, we can consider it to be.
I have no personal agenda as far as extra terrestrial life is concerned. I have no clue where you get the idea that I'm some fucking whacked out UFO nutcase hoping to be picked up off this miserable planet on their next flyby. You couldn't be further from the truth.
I know there are flaws in my "argument". Except I was not making an argument. Just stating possiblities. But apparently you can't handle anything except substantiated facts. So here are some facts for you:
The chances for external life in this universe are exactly the same as they have always been. Rather, we should say that our *understanding* of those chances has been changed by the possible existance of earth-similar worlds. Reality has not changed. We have.
The entire reason I replied to the original poster was because of his use of the term "Universe". Having life exist in the Universe is completely useless. Now, finding intelligent life in our local *galactic* neighborhood, that would be interesting. That was my entire point, for the THIRD FUCKING TIME. Learn to read dipshit.
At the small computer shop I run, we're making quite a bit of money these days cleaning off spyware from computers. Everyone has it, and now that it's getting more publicity, everyone wants to get rid of it. When people suddenly realize that their computer actually *is* slower than when they got it, they want it fixed, rather than buying a new one. Which is fine by us. Spyware removal is pure labor. Download AdAware and Spybot, hit it with a double whammy and it's amazing how much smoother older systems run. Viruses used to be the big money makers. Not anymore. So all you Dell customers out there....we'd be happy to help you clean off your system ;)
Oh geez, I'm sorry, I didn't realize opinions weren't allowed on /. My most humble apologies. Asswipe.
I wasn't arguing with the parent, so I don't know what the hell you're going off about. I was simply adding my two bits to his comment. Since you have trouble reading properly, I'll spell out what my points were:
1. Given the infinite (probably) nature of the Universe, other life is a statistical certainty
2. Again, given the infinite nature of the Universe, intelligent life may be seperated from us by great distances in both space and time.
3. My hope is that intelligent life is _so_ common we could communicate with it some day.
4. I say nothing about the likelihood of such a thing occurring.
5. Please remove that bug from your ass and give it a decent burial.
The likelihood of other meaningful life in the Universe just got better
I've always considered the likelihood of other meaningful life in the Univers to be a statistical certainty. The problem lies in having that life exist close to us, both in space _and_ time. What's the use in having dozens of close neighbors that all killed themselves off 2000 years ago? Sure, it would give us some interesting ruins to poke around, and archaeology would be cool again, just like in the early 80's. My point is that other life does exist out there. I'm 100% certain. I just hope that it's close enough and alive enough for us to talk to it and sell it stuff.
I'd just like to add that "Silky Smooth Dog Turds" is a great name for a punk band.