Do the new revelations about dark matter now prove that there is sufficient mass (both regular matter and dark matter) to cause the universe to collapse back into a singularity?
Scientists for a few years have had a pretty good idea of the mass of the universe. That's why dark matter was postulated, the mass of the universe is vastly more than the mass that we see. Thus, finding dark matter is most likely just going to fill in the mass we suspect we should have instead of adding any additional mass to the universe. Anyway, so far as I've seen a cold death is still the most likely end to our universe.
Since when exactly? Does anyone have any dates? Or is this one of those 'hole in the ozone layer' unquantifiables?
Since it's been our practice to look for and record such things. They aren't claiming it's the closest astroid passing in all of human history, just the closest that we are aware of. Shouldn't that be obvious?
The RIAA provides music that people want, that's the only reason why they are still around. And as for SCO, I have no idea. Maybe McBride is some sort of genetically modified cockroach.
Pity. Now those three people who own them are going to have to learn to walk again. What a shame that people have no concept of stored energy and how it's finite.
For crying out loud dude, this is pathetic. I know it's too much to ask for people to read the articles before commenting, but can't you at the very least read the editors summary?!
The problem is that a movie that gets sent out as a screener has an advantage over movies that don't when it comes to oscar time. Therefore, a major studio isn't likely to stop sending out screeners if the other studios are still sending them.
Then their is the concern that if somehow screeners are banned entirely that would put the indie films at a major disadvantage due to the difficulty of getting to one of their limited screenings.
...Maybe they didn't want a politically motivated basher working for them.
His paper doesn't sound poorly researched, zealous, or politically motivated from what I've seen (only summaries admittedly). Do you have reason to believe otherwise?
Maybe @Stake does want politically motivated bashers working for them. He just bashed the wrong side.
Certainly it should continue to be investigated, but we shouldn't have to change our lifestyle for every Chicken Little that comes along!
Comparing this to Chicken Little is a seriously wrongheaded analogy. In Chicken Little's case their was no real emergency, he was mistaken that there even was a problem. However, so far as global warming is concerned it is definatly happening. People can debate why and whether we are responsible till Denver is swallowed up by the sea, but there is no reasonable opposition that I am aware of to the fact that global average temperatures are rising.
Also, keep in mind that in science, nothing is ever proven absolutely, we have bad theories and good theories of varying degrees. For a problem as complex as global warming it is doubtful that 100% agreement will ever be reached on what the causes are.
Also it is clear that the results of the warming, if it continues as appears it will, are very damaging to all life on earth. Yes, maybe it is a natural cycle. Yes, maybe it has happened before. Meteor strikes capable of massive global extinctions are also periodic and naturally occuring events. Should we always just sit back and let nature takes it's course?
As it stands, it is very reasonable to believe that the human output of greenhouse gasses into the environment may cause global warming (see Venus for evidence) and this theory is widely accepted and not just by corperations and politically backed think tanks as some like to suggest, but it is backed by the majority of scientists who do work in this area.
With all things considered, it seems foolish to delay trying to reverse the warming trend. We have evidence that backs the greenhouse theory. No, it's not definitive and it doesn't convince everyone, but no evidence we will ever convince everyone. Meanwhile, the more we delay fixing out planet, the more damage gets done. We don't have all the time in the world to sit back and debate because damage is accumulating as we speak. Yeah, it's expensive to cut back out emmisions and it may be a real pain in the ass, but the cost of not doing anything could be unthinkably worse.
The creator of the nuclear weapon didn't pull the trigger, but by your argument is somewhat liable for killing millions of Japanese. Aren't we, the scientists, just doing experiments?
Einstein didn't think so. He was a major influence in the creation of the nuclear bomb, and he did take responsibility for it, calling it the greatest mistake of his life.
The plane crash picture wraps around the CD case. On the front you get the regulat tail with the Beasties logo on it, and the back you see the plane crashed into the ground. It's always been like that, it hasn't been changed because of 9/11 or anything like that.
And this is notable, why ? Maya has been a mainstay for movie production involving 3D elements for a long time now. Or is this supposed to conjure images of Maya-on-Linux and thus make it relevant to Slashdot somehow ?
Umm, maybe it's notable because it's cool as shit that Disney and Dali were collaborating on a short film, and now it's finally been completed 60 years later for all of us to see.
The part about Maya being used for it is incidental. They probably threw it in knowing that some geeks think that anything that isn't computer related is irrelevant. Fortunatly almost everyone I know is more interesting than that, but they do exist.
What's good for artists is a red herring. Who cares what's good for artists? They signed a legally binding contract without a gun pointed to their head. If they don't get paid, tough shit.
sure, if you want to be an ass about it. However, I buy cd's from bands because I like the band. Since I like them I want them to make money. If they don't make money, then they don't make new music for me to enjoy. That sucks for me, capisca?
See, you can want what's best for other people without relying on empathy, altruism, or any of that other stupid hippy crap.
They want TVs, DVD players, CD players, general computers, pretty much anything that displays copyrighted digital content to not have any analog output, only digital with DRM controls.
So, when speakers and monitors are made illegal, then we'll all need to get firewire or some other such ports installed in our temporal lobes, right? I hope that my insurance will cover the costs of the surgery.
OT, but as a music store employee I have to comment......is alphabetical order really that complicated? You woulnd't think so, but nevertheless a large percent of the customers in music stores don't put any effort at all into putting cd's back where they came from. Now, if the customers just left stacks of CD in a pile on the floor or on a counter, then it wouldn't be much of a problem. Sure, I would desire to inflict great suffering on them, but the discs could still be easily put back where they belong with no problem. However, the customers aren't happy leaving them in a stack somewhere, instead they put them back in the completely wrong section on the opposite end of the store, thus when someone needs to find the disc it is impossible to locate. I even had a customer complain about not being able to find a CD that I know for a fact he was looking at earlier in the day, but of course he just dropped it off in the Soul section (i found it later) when he previously decided he wasn't going to buy it.
Obviously, the employees do what they can to find cds that are misfiled, but the customers have us vastly outnumbered.
I have been told that our store is actually quite well organized compared to others, so I probably shouldn't take your commment personally, however my store is still not as good as I would like it to be. It's a never ending job. (/rant)
It might raise some interesting questions about the morality of creating these creatures if they become truely sentient though.
What do you mean if they become sentient. I'm sure they are already sentient, just like all other primates. In fact, many, if not most, mammals would probably be considered sentient.
Primates communicate with themselves, can be taught games (as you mentioned) and some even have been taught limited sign language. Do they need to be able to speak english, post on slashdot, and drive an SUV before you will consider them sentient?
The impressive thing here is that it's a large primate that acts rather unlike other primates. My call is either it's a hoax, or it's that missing link anthropologists have been searching for. If it's the latter, it's a huge discovery.
This being a hoax sounds very unlikely to me. This isn't like a bigfoot sighting where the only evidence is grainy footage from amateur's and the like. These creatures have been found and studied by real primatologist, and the DNA in their feces has been analyzed. This would be a stunningly difficult hoax to pull off.
Take the definitions of rate and speed and substitute the classical view of time with my view of time, and the definitions of the words still work. Does that make sense? Since my argument is that there is no such thing as time, the meaning gets a little deeper. Say a car is going 60 miles per hour. We can expand this sentence to "a car is going 60 miles per 5 billion resonances of a cesium atom".
Of course this still makes sense, but you didn't prove anything, you just switched your unit of measurment. A vibration of a cesium atom is a unit of time, no different from an hour.
Not that I disagree from your general idea. It's been shown that quantum mechanics can work just fine without ever using 't' in any equations. However, their are a lot of things that work in the quantum world that our minds are simply not designed to comprehend, so even if the physicists some day decide to throw out 't', you still won't be able to come up with a good metaphor to explain how or why.
Why not? You don't have to pick up the phone. If contacting someone for a purpose they don't appreciate is illegal, we have already lost many of our freedoms. I think the mistake you are making is equating the rights of a company to the rights of an individual. Business' are not people, and individual's rights should almost always trump the rights of a business.
Average speeds are not in the low 80s. That would mean for every person traveling 55, i.e. for every person traveling at the speed limit, there is one traveling 105. That's not true all. It possible that for every person traveling 55, there are 4 traveling at 90. It seems very possible to me that average speed is 80-85.
BTW, how does one go about testing the rightness of an ethical standard? Or is it an arbitrary individual choice? If the latter, is there any good reason why anyone should regard Saddam or Bush or Clinton as 'immoral'?
Depends on your own personal philosophy. If you're religious, then it's easy, you've probably got some standard set for you based on your religions teachings. If you're not religious you still have options. Some people are Ethical Relativist which means that they believe ethics are not absolute, but are determined by your societies standards. Of course this gives you many different ethical standards ranging from those of the Amish to those of the Nazis. I personally prefer the standard that Buddhists use (yes, I realize I was talking about non-religious views) which bases wrongness of an action on whether or not it harms any life (Saddam, Bush and Clinton would all be guilty). There are plenty of books on ethics out there if you're really interested in some good (i.e. not from/.) thoughts on it..
BTW, adding the multiple databases would be a very important update. Also, though the geiger counter design makes it a great prop for détournement, if it was all put into a nice little PDA case it would make a great product.
It's a reasonable assumption because there is no such thing as a Macintosh that you can eat. The fruit is spelled "McIntosh".
Breaking news: Poster misses the point again
on
Camouflage in Motion
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· Score: 1
The scientists aren't claiming to have discovered the well known fact that stationary objects in a visual field are difficult to see. The surprising discovery is that a primitive insect like a dragon fly is able to take advantage of that knowledge to hide from its prey.
Slashdot Mirror
Do the new revelations about dark matter now prove that there is sufficient mass (both regular matter and dark matter) to cause the universe to collapse back into a singularity?
Scientists for a few years have had a pretty good idea of the mass of the universe. That's why dark matter was postulated, the mass of the universe is vastly more than the mass that we see. Thus, finding dark matter is most likely just going to fill in the mass we suspect we should have instead of adding any additional mass to the universe. Anyway, so far as I've seen a cold death is still the most likely end to our universe.
Since when exactly? Does anyone have any dates? Or is this one of those 'hole in the ozone layer' unquantifiables?
Since it's been our practice to look for and record such things. They aren't claiming it's the closest astroid passing in all of human history, just the closest that we are aware of. Shouldn't that be obvious?
The RIAA provides music that people want, that's the only reason why they are still around. And as for SCO, I have no idea. Maybe McBride is some sort of genetically modified cockroach.
Yeah, good call. Show them how secure their open source server is. That'll win them over.
Pity. Now those three people who own them are going to have to learn to walk again. What a shame that people have no concept of stored energy and how it's finite.
For crying out loud dude, this is pathetic. I know it's too much to ask for people to read the articles before commenting, but can't you at the very least read the editors summary?!
The problem is that a movie that gets sent out as a screener has an advantage over movies that don't when it comes to oscar time. Therefore, a major studio isn't likely to stop sending out screeners if the other studios are still sending them.
Then their is the concern that if somehow screeners are banned entirely that would put the indie films at a major disadvantage due to the difficulty of getting to one of their limited screenings.
...Maybe they didn't want a politically motivated basher working for them.
His paper doesn't sound poorly researched, zealous, or politically motivated from what I've seen (only summaries admittedly). Do you have reason to believe otherwise?
Maybe @Stake does want politically motivated bashers working for them. He just bashed the wrong side.
Certainly it should continue to be investigated, but we shouldn't have to change our lifestyle for every Chicken Little that comes along!
Comparing this to Chicken Little is a seriously wrongheaded analogy. In Chicken Little's case their was no real emergency, he was mistaken that there even was a problem. However, so far as global warming is concerned it is definatly happening. People can debate why and whether we are responsible till Denver is swallowed up by the sea, but there is no reasonable opposition that I am aware of to the fact that global average temperatures are rising.
Also, keep in mind that in science, nothing is ever proven absolutely, we have bad theories and good theories of varying degrees. For a problem as complex as global warming it is doubtful that 100% agreement will ever be reached on what the causes are.
Also it is clear that the results of the warming, if it continues as appears it will, are very damaging to all life on earth. Yes, maybe it is a natural cycle. Yes, maybe it has happened before. Meteor strikes capable of massive global extinctions are also periodic and naturally occuring events. Should we always just sit back and let nature takes it's course?
As it stands, it is very reasonable to believe that the human output of greenhouse gasses into the environment may cause global warming (see Venus for evidence) and this theory is widely accepted and not just by corperations and politically backed think tanks as some like to suggest, but it is backed by the majority of scientists who do work in this area.
With all things considered, it seems foolish to delay trying to reverse the warming trend. We have evidence that backs the greenhouse theory. No, it's not definitive and it doesn't convince everyone, but no evidence we will ever convince everyone. Meanwhile, the more we delay fixing out planet, the more damage gets done. We don't have all the time in the world to sit back and debate because damage is accumulating as we speak. Yeah, it's expensive to cut back out emmisions and it may be a real pain in the ass, but the cost of not doing anything could be unthinkably worse.
The creator of the nuclear weapon didn't pull the trigger, but by your argument is somewhat liable for killing millions of Japanese. Aren't we, the scientists, just doing experiments?
r st
Einstein didn't think so. He was a major influence in the creation of the nuclear bomb, and he did take responsibility for it, calling it the greatest mistake of his life.
http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/einstein.shtml#fi
The plane crash picture wraps around the CD case. On the front you get the regulat tail with the Beasties logo on it, and the back you see the plane crashed into the ground. It's always been like that, it hasn't been changed because of 9/11 or anything like that.
And this is notable, why ?
Maya has been a mainstay for movie production involving 3D elements for a long time now. Or is this supposed to conjure images of Maya-on-Linux and thus make it relevant to Slashdot somehow ?
Umm, maybe it's notable because it's cool as shit that Disney and Dali were collaborating on a short film, and now it's finally been completed 60 years later for all of us to see.
The part about Maya being used for it is incidental. They probably threw it in knowing that some geeks think that anything that isn't computer related is irrelevant. Fortunatly almost everyone I know is more interesting than that, but they do exist.
What's good for artists is a red herring. Who cares what's good for artists? They signed a legally binding contract without a gun pointed to their head. If they don't get paid, tough shit.
sure, if you want to be an ass about it. However, I buy cd's from bands because I like the band. Since I like them I want them to make money. If they don't make money, then they don't make new music for me to enjoy. That sucks for me, capisca?
See, you can want what's best for other people without relying on empathy, altruism, or any of that other stupid hippy crap.
They want TVs, DVD players, CD players, general computers, pretty much anything that displays copyrighted digital content to not have any analog output, only digital with DRM controls.
So, when speakers and monitors are made illegal, then we'll all need to get firewire or some other such ports installed in our temporal lobes, right? I hope that my insurance will cover the costs of the surgery.
OT, but as a music store employee I have to comment... ...is alphabetical order really that complicated?
You woulnd't think so, but nevertheless a large percent of the customers in music stores don't put any effort at all into putting cd's back where they came from. Now, if the customers just left stacks of CD in a pile on the floor or on a counter, then it wouldn't be much of a problem. Sure, I would desire to inflict great suffering on them, but the discs could still be easily put back where they belong with no problem. However, the customers aren't happy leaving them in a stack somewhere, instead they put them back in the completely wrong section on the opposite end of the store, thus when someone needs to find the disc it is impossible to locate. I even had a customer complain about not being able to find a CD that I know for a fact he was looking at earlier in the day, but of course he just dropped it off in the Soul section (i found it later) when he previously decided he wasn't going to buy it.
Obviously, the employees do what they can to find cds that are misfiled, but the customers have us vastly outnumbered.
I have been told that our store is actually quite well organized compared to others, so I probably shouldn't take your commment personally, however my store is still not as good as I would like it to be. It's a never ending job. (/rant)
Primates communicate with themselves, can be taught games (as you mentioned) and some even have been taught limited sign language. Do they need to be able to speak english, post on slashdot, and drive an SUV before you will consider them sentient?
...or maybe the North Korean's, free from the worries of capitalism, have all taken up a fun and rewarding interest in astronomy.
"Stating the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." - George Orwell.
Perhaps, but an intelligent man would do more than just his first duty.
Take the definitions of rate and speed and substitute the classical view of time with my view of time, and the definitions of the words still work. Does that make sense? Since my argument is that there is no such thing as time, the meaning gets a little deeper. Say a car is going 60 miles per hour. We can expand this sentence to "a car is going 60 miles per 5 billion resonances of a cesium atom".
Of course this still makes sense, but you didn't prove anything, you just switched your unit of measurment. A vibration of a cesium atom is a unit of time, no different from an hour.
Not that I disagree from your general idea. It's been shown that quantum mechanics can work just fine without ever using 't' in any equations. However, their are a lot of things that work in the quantum world that our minds are simply not designed to comprehend, so even if the physicists some day decide to throw out 't', you still won't be able to come up with a good metaphor to explain how or why.
Why not? You don't have to pick up the phone. If contacting someone for a purpose they don't appreciate is illegal, we have already lost many of our freedoms.
I think the mistake you are making is equating the rights of a company to the rights of an individual. Business' are not people, and individual's rights should almost always trump the rights of a business.
Average speeds are not in the low 80s. That would mean for every person traveling 55, i.e. for every person traveling at the speed limit, there is one traveling 105.
That's not true all. It possible that for every person traveling 55, there are 4 traveling at 90. It seems very possible to me that average speed is 80-85.
BTW, how does one go about testing the rightness of an ethical standard? Or is it an arbitrary individual choice? If the latter, is there any good reason why anyone should regard Saddam or Bush or Clinton as 'immoral'?
/.) thoughts on it..
Depends on your own personal philosophy. If you're religious, then it's easy, you've probably got some standard set for you based on your religions teachings. If you're not religious you still have options. Some people are Ethical Relativist which means that they believe ethics are not absolute, but are determined by your societies standards. Of course this gives you many different ethical standards ranging from those of the Amish to those of the Nazis. I personally prefer the standard that Buddhists use (yes, I realize I was talking about non-religious views) which bases wrongness of an action on whether or not it harms any life (Saddam, Bush and Clinton would all be guilty). There are plenty of books on ethics out there if you're really interested in some good (i.e. not from
BTW, adding the multiple databases would be a very important update. Also, though the geiger counter design makes it a great prop for détournement, if it was all put into a nice little PDA case it would make a great product.
It's a reasonable assumption because there is no such thing as a Macintosh that you can eat. The fruit is spelled "McIntosh".
The scientists aren't claiming to have discovered the well known fact that stationary objects in a visual field are difficult to see. The surprising discovery is that a primitive insect like a dragon fly is able to take advantage of that knowledge to hide from its prey.