I heard the oracle scene was edited and a lot of it cut out. The edited parts made the cookie and the whole scene more understandable. With the edits, the cookie didn't really mean anything.
Io is covered with ice. Below the ice there is theorized to be water. If organism on earth can survive under such extremes of heat, cold and lack of oxygen, then it is possible that some form of life could live or be living on Io somewhere.
However, the question is whether life could have/started/ under those conditions. We know life can survive under those conditions once it has adapted...but can it start there?
It is interesting to note that the Shumerian god Marduk is described as crashing into earth at some set date a long time ago (all their gods are anologies to planets...they kept insanely precise and detailed records of all the stars).
I wouldn't discredit this theory outright.
Also, don't recent findings suggest that all life on earth stems basically from one type of bacteria, which could have been only one of/many/ branches of bacteria that have now been long extinct? If so, then a great impact knocking out those other branches might explain it. Bacteria themselves have greater genetic variance than any other life on earth (I think, bio-geeks correct me here)...it is not implausible to think that there could have been many other branches just as divers flourishing at one time. Life on earth today is stupendously similar. Of all the possible energy producing processes and storage chemicals, we all use an amazingly limited and similar repertoire.
Or...what's stopping you from copying the whole damn thing to your hard drive, deleting some parts of it, and then burning a new DVD or just playing it off your hard drive?
This is exactly like VHS tapes. Did anybody use some stupid encryption scheme to keep people from copying stuff? No. They put up a big annoying sign that said if you copy this illegally, we'll open a can of whoop-ass on you.
If you are giving something to people, there's no way to/force/ them not to do something with it. Same with MP3's etc. I mean, if we really wanted to, we could just hook video and audio out into a VCR or something and record it, or record it to disk without any encryption. It's just dumb.
"religion is simply a placebo for the weak minded"
While I believe organized religion has in the past and currently does act "as a crutch for the weak-minded" in many of its incarnations, and despite the raised hackles of religious zealots, I also think religion is an interesting philosophical thought experiment. I think it is very appropriate to ask physicists, who are perhaps closest to "the mind of god" what they think of religion. Many physicists, and scientists in general, are very mystical people, "religion" aside, and have very intriguing perspectives.
If [a god-like entity] does exist, and is undetectable (does not interact with the universe), does it really "exist"? And if so, if it is undetectable, do we care? Can a near-infinate arrangement of matter with sufficient complexity emulate a god (as Tipler would have you believe)? Would it be benificent?
Then again, physics has shown us, anecdotally, that "not only does God play dice...he cheats".;)
What do you think of Kip Thorne's and John Wheeler's ideas about worm holes and time travel, and what do you think about Matt Visser's and Steve Lamoreaux's experiments in detecting negative energy?
For Slashdot readers, the transcript of the relevant Nova episode is at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2612time. html.
Please take a look at it if you are interested...I originally wanted to take quotes from it, but they were too large and hard to format, and also probably copyrighted.
Re:My Battle with Infinite Information
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 2
If there is not a demand for it, the information won't be replicated, and therefore won't exist in any substantial sense.
Well, I disagree to some extent with this statement. In an ideal world you'd be right, but we're not in an ideal world. When there is competition in information distribution, consumers will pick the best choice. However, the competition has considerably narrowed, and homogenized. This has a lensing affect, "controversial" or non-mainstream information doesn't get distributed that far. I congratulate you for actually having a life outside of media consumption, but I sincerely doubt that even you are immune to its affects. The media *define* how we think, our worldview, etc. I don't think it is that easy to escape. Just try to go to a Japanese restaurant and order wasabi without three gratingly obnoxious guys popping into your head and trying to sell you beer. Try humming a Beatles song for that matter without picturing an automobile or a flat screen tv. I'm sure you've been infected. The only cure is to go live in a small hole in the ground in siberia...but *damn* you'll still be able to get a hottub from Yahoo! there, right?
What the hell are you talking about? The fact is that the "media", those who own and operate the means of dispersal of information, those that create a belief and reality, is in control of fewer and fewer corporations, which, coincidentally, have a profit motive dictating what information they collect and release.
Does anybody disagree that this is inherently a Bad Thing? That a very few, construct reality for the very many? That these very few have ulterior motives in doing so? TV, radio, the internet, for the most part is a vast wasteland of fluff and marketing tripe, dictating the world around you. Do you also blindly believe everything in your history textbook? Remember, those who win, either historically or economically, get to tell the story they want.
Re:Information *IS* Darwinian
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 3
And guess what? Darwinism isn't always *rational* is it? Darwinism uses a greedy algorithm. The fitness test is *solely* how well the idea reproduces. As any number of internet hoaxes will illustrate to you, the mere ability to reproduce a lot is a piss poor test of value. Some of the dumbest ideas are the most widely held, and some of the smartest die fast because they are just too "unpopular". If information is Darwinian, that should at least be saying something is wrong.
Re:I beg to differ....
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 2
Of *course* they are. But just *their* information on *their* terms. Britney Spears, Mandy Moor, Boy Band Of Your Choice...are evidence that the media can tell people what they want and then sell it to them for outragious prices.
"Most remarkable," writes Gatzer, "is the way that false theories and imagined phenomena sometimes spread through the scientific community.
It seems to me the *reverse* is opposite. The scientific community seems very resistant to new, strange ideas. Otherwise totally rational people, having gotten a certain meme stuck in their head about how implausible or silly something is, totally discount it, refuse to rationally look into it, for fear of being considered a fool by peers. Shouldn't we have gotten over this by kindergarten? Remember, a lot of science is people's egos and careers. Galileo wasn't too popular for his ideas of the earth revolving around the sun, and it took Columbus and Magellen to dispell the stigma on the notion that the world was a sphere. Einstein also shook up those adamant that the entire universe was based on simple Euclidean geometry. New ideas have to fight every way to be recognized. A lot of the "common sense" we take for granted was vehemently opposed by the scientific community at one point.
I'm jumping into this discussion, having found it in the top 10 box.
To say (and not that it/is/ being said) that men and women should constitute a perfect 50-50 ratio in all fields and efforts is quite preposterous. Much of disparity between genders in certain fields is certainly due to some form of discrimination, conscious or unconscious, present or past. _But_, due to simple biological fact, aren't men and women predisposed to different activities in the first place? At my college there was a recent campaign to equalize the gender ratio in the law school, and to push more women in, with the idea that forcing more women in would equalize an unnaturally imbalanced ratio. I say force because I believe no discrimination was occurring in the first place...the admissions ratios were not unnormal, more women were simply dropping out or tranferring than men.
In light of this, isn't it detrimental to attempt to equalize fields in which any gender happen/not/ to be predisposed? I mean, is it a problem that different fields have different gender ratios? Is it not possible that any one gender is simply less predisposed to that type of field? Where are the crusaders for gender equality in the field of veteranarianism, for example?
What must be done is to ensure that both (or all) genders have equal opportunity to take/whatever/ path they/choose/, regardless of the eventual gender ratios that come out of those decisions.
Polymorphic and 'mating' viruses have been around for quite a while. Polymorphic viruses adding random code to their source to 'shape-shift' and attempt to avoid any signature identification (basically sprinkling noops randomly around).
Some viruses are actually pairs of viruses, which, when they find each other (both infect the same file or piece of memory, etc.), will join and/or manifest some new behavior (start their payload).
Very interesting stuff actually. It's too bad that malicious virus writers have tainted the whole topic. Self-replicating, autonomous programs are very interesting.
I always get my moderation points at stupid times...like on quickies, or on some other frivolous topic.
Could moderator-candidates just be assigned a bag of points on a renewable basis to use? I hate reading through all the controversial/good articles and not being able to moderate, yet get my moderation points when all there is to moderate is first post and grits.
My god...this must be like the 5th article about stupid TPM on DVD. Does anybody really give a damn? I don't...
Besides that TPM was just eyecandy and a ridiculously hokey plot, DVD hasn't caught on and probably won't because FMDROM (or whatever that Flourescent technology is called) is already feasible.
So, we can go to Best Buy, and pick up our favorite boxed Linux distribution,/and/ get Microsoft to not only pay for it but hand us @$360 to put in our pocket? heh, sweet...
I took a MBTI test a while back (when it was actually free on some site), and I was an INTJ. I have to say it is dead on.
"An example of an N is a designer who considers wide-ranging possibilities and shrugs off low-level technical issues as "implementation details."
I/love/ to/design/ things...I love to draw diagrams on whiteboards (heh, I have UML diagram syntax sheets pinned to my cube!), map out conceptualizations, and hypothesize about optimal configurations at the abstract design level. However I find very often that I grind to a standstill very fast when 'dirty' implementation details are brought up, because my mind is stuck in the theoretical optimization mode, and at his fine-grained implementation level, I get hung up on stuff others wouldn't; e.g. a matter of an unnecessary byte or cycle.
I usually find that if I am assigned one project, I might take a bit longer than normal to complete that project, but only because I've spawned five more in the process of working on it. (I have lost count of how many partially started projects I have...last time I looked in my dev folder it was over 40).
This article also gives me a bit more confidence, knowing that at least a fifth of us out there are in my "Some college, no degree" boat. I expect that number to rise as people realize that software engineering requires things like a sharp mind, dogged persistence, and a lot of flexibility and creativity...things that knowledge-stuffing colleges can't/give/ you. ("All I ever needed to know I learned from manuals";)
Man, cutlery manufacturers better watch out now that there is a precedent. I mean, Ginsu, by making it's wedge devices, is causing people to stab each other.
----
Seriously, though, there are MANY objects that can be used in an illegal fashion. Blaming the object manufacturer is sort of stupid. It is the person/committing/ the crime that is in the wrong. If I bash someone over the head with a pan,/I'm/ in the wrong, not the pan manufacturer. If I illegally hack into systems and destroy stuff,/I'm/ in the wrong, not the computer manufacturer. Am I the only one who thinks this is incredibly stupid?
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm...does this mean we really will have a Max Headroom popping up and giving us news, instead of human newscasters at a fixed time?
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
I heard the oracle scene was edited and a lot of it cut out. The edited parts made the cookie and the whole scene more understandable. With the edits, the cookie didn't really mean anything.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
Io is covered with ice. Below the ice there is theorized to be water. If organism on earth can survive under such extremes of heat, cold and lack of oxygen, then it is possible that some form of life could live or be living on Io somewhere.
/started/ under those conditions. We know life can survive under those conditions once it has adapted...but can it start there?
However, the question is whether life could have
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It is interesting to note that the Shumerian god Marduk is described as crashing into earth at some set date a long time ago (all their gods are anologies to planets...they kept insanely precise and detailed records of all the stars).
/many/ branches of bacteria that have now been long extinct? If so, then a great impact knocking out those other branches might explain it. Bacteria themselves have greater genetic variance than any other life on earth (I think, bio-geeks correct me here)...it is not implausible to think that there could have been many other branches just as divers flourishing at one time. Life on earth today is stupendously similar. Of all the possible energy producing processes and storage chemicals, we all use an amazingly limited and similar repertoire.
I wouldn't discredit this theory outright.
Also, don't recent findings suggest that all life on earth stems basically from one type of bacteria, which could have been only one of
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
Or...what's stopping you from copying the whole damn thing to your hard drive, deleting some parts of it, and then burning a new DVD or just playing it off your hard drive?
/force/ them not to do something with it. Same with MP3's etc. I mean, if we really wanted to, we could just hook video and audio out into a VCR or something and record it, or record it to disk without any encryption. It's just dumb.
This is exactly like VHS tapes. Did anybody use some stupid encryption scheme to keep people from copying stuff? No. They put up a big annoying sign that said if you copy this illegally, we'll open a can of whoop-ass on you.
If you are giving something to people, there's no way to
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
Here is a better plan:
7 a48b53-051fa9a0
http://www.segfault.org/story.phtml?mode=2&id=3
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
"News director suggests that a good, ethical use of this technology would be 'blocking out objectionable signs or covering up a competitor's logo'."
They have another word for this...
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
"religion is simply a placebo for the weak minded"
;)
While I believe organized religion has in the past and currently does act "as a crutch for the weak-minded" in many of its incarnations, and despite the raised hackles of religious zealots, I also think religion is an interesting philosophical thought experiment. I think it is very appropriate to ask physicists, who are perhaps closest to "the mind of god" what they think of religion. Many physicists, and scientists in general, are very mystical people, "religion" aside, and have very intriguing perspectives.
If [a god-like entity] does exist, and is undetectable (does not interact with the universe), does it really "exist"? And if so, if it is undetectable, do we care? Can a near-infinate arrangement of matter with sufficient complexity emulate a god (as Tipler would have you believe)? Would it be benificent?
Then again, physics has shown us, anecdotally, that "not only does God play dice...he cheats".
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
Females also consume less food and oxygen than males, and give off less heat, if that is important.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
um, yes, I certainly would
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
What do you think of Kip Thorne's and John Wheeler's ideas about worm holes and time travel, and what do you think about Matt Visser's and Steve Lamoreaux's experiments in detecting negative energy?
. html.
For Slashdot readers, the transcript of the relevant Nova episode is at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2612time
Please take a look at it if you are interested...I originally wanted to take quotes from it, but they were too large and hard to format, and also probably copyrighted.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
If there is not a demand for it, the information won't be replicated, and therefore won't exist in any substantial sense.
Well, I disagree to some extent with this statement. In an ideal world you'd be right, but we're not in an ideal world. When there is competition in information distribution, consumers will pick the best choice. However, the competition has considerably narrowed, and homogenized. This has a lensing affect, "controversial" or non-mainstream information doesn't get distributed that far. I congratulate you for actually having a life outside of media consumption, but I sincerely doubt that even you are immune to its affects. The media *define* how we think, our worldview, etc. I don't think it is that easy to escape. Just try to go to a Japanese restaurant and order wasabi without three gratingly obnoxious guys popping into your head and trying to sell you beer. Try humming a Beatles song for that matter without picturing an automobile or a flat screen tv. I'm sure you've been infected. The only cure is to go live in a small hole in the ground in siberia...but *damn* you'll still be able to get a hottub from Yahoo! there, right?
What the hell are you talking about? The fact is that the "media", those who own and operate the means of dispersal of information, those that create a belief and reality, is in control of fewer and fewer corporations, which, coincidentally, have a profit motive dictating what information they collect and release.
Does anybody disagree that this is inherently a Bad Thing? That a very few, construct reality for the very many? That these very few have ulterior motives in doing so? TV, radio, the internet, for the most part is a vast wasteland of fluff and marketing tripe, dictating the world around you. Do you also blindly believe everything in your history textbook? Remember, those who win, either historically or economically, get to tell the story they want.
And guess what? Darwinism isn't always *rational* is it? Darwinism uses a greedy algorithm. The fitness test is *solely* how well the idea reproduces. As any number of internet hoaxes will illustrate to you, the mere ability to reproduce a lot is a piss poor test of value. Some of the dumbest ideas are the most widely held, and some of the smartest die fast because they are just too "unpopular". If information is Darwinian, that should at least be saying something is wrong.
Of *course* they are. But just *their* information on *their* terms. Britney Spears, Mandy Moor, Boy Band Of Your Choice...are evidence that the media can tell people what they want and then sell it to them for outragious prices.
It seems to me the *reverse* is opposite. The scientific community seems very resistant to new, strange ideas. Otherwise totally rational people, having gotten a certain meme stuck in their head about how implausible or silly something is, totally discount it, refuse to rationally look into it, for fear of being considered a fool by peers. Shouldn't we have gotten over this by kindergarten? Remember, a lot of science is people's egos and careers. Galileo wasn't too popular for his ideas of the earth revolving around the sun, and it took Columbus and Magellen to dispell the stigma on the notion that the world was a sphere. Einstein also shook up those adamant that the entire universe was based on simple Euclidean geometry. New ideas have to fight every way to be recognized. A lot of the "common sense" we take for granted was vehemently opposed by the scientific community at one point.
I'm jumping into this discussion, having found it in the top 10 box.
/is/ being said) that men and women should constitute a perfect 50-50 ratio in all fields and efforts is quite preposterous. Much of disparity between genders in certain fields is certainly due to some form of discrimination, conscious or unconscious, present or past. _But_, due to simple biological fact, aren't men and women predisposed to different activities in the first place? At my college there was a recent campaign to equalize the gender ratio in the law school, and to push more women in, with the idea that forcing more women in would equalize an unnaturally imbalanced ratio. I say force because I believe no discrimination was occurring in the first place...the admissions ratios were not unnormal, more women were simply dropping out or tranferring than men.
/not/ to be predisposed? I mean, is it a problem that different fields have different gender ratios? Is it not possible that any one gender is simply less predisposed to that type of field? Where are the crusaders for gender equality in the field of veteranarianism, for example?
/whatever/ path they /choose/, regardless of the eventual gender ratios that come out of those decisions.
To say (and not that it
In light of this, isn't it detrimental to attempt to equalize fields in which any gender happen
What must be done is to ensure that both (or all) genders have equal opportunity to take
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
Polymorphic and 'mating' viruses have been around for quite a while. Polymorphic viruses adding random code to their source to 'shape-shift' and attempt to avoid any signature identification (basically sprinkling noops randomly around).
Some viruses are actually pairs of viruses, which, when they find each other (both infect the same file or piece of memory, etc.), will join and/or manifest some new behavior (start their payload).
Very interesting stuff actually. It's too bad that malicious virus writers have tainted the whole topic. Self-replicating, autonomous programs are very interesting.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
I always get my moderation points at stupid times...like on quickies, or on some other frivolous topic.
Could moderator-candidates just be assigned a bag of points on a renewable basis to use? I hate reading through all the controversial/good articles and not being able to moderate, yet get my moderation points when all there is to moderate is first post and grits.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
My god...this must be like the 5th article about stupid TPM on DVD. Does anybody really give a damn? I don't...
Besides that TPM was just eyecandy and a ridiculously hokey plot, DVD hasn't caught on and probably won't because FMDROM (or whatever that Flourescent technology is called) is already feasible.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
So, we can go to Best Buy, and pick up our favorite boxed Linux distribution, /and/ get Microsoft to not only pay for it but hand us @$360 to put in our pocket? heh, sweet...
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
doh, sed/INTJ/INTP/g
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
And, yes I realize this description is probably not unique to me...
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
I took a MBTI test a while back (when it was actually free on some site), and I was an INTJ. I have to say it is dead on.
/love/ to /design/ things...I love to draw diagrams on whiteboards (heh, I have UML diagram syntax sheets pinned to my cube!), map out conceptualizations, and hypothesize about optimal configurations at the abstract design level. However I find very often that I grind to a standstill very fast when 'dirty' implementation details are brought up, because my mind is stuck in the theoretical optimization mode, and at his fine-grained implementation level, I get hung up on stuff others wouldn't; e.g. a matter of an unnecessary byte or cycle.
/give/ you. ("All I ever needed to know I learned from manuals" ;)
"An example of an N is a designer who considers wide-ranging possibilities and shrugs off low-level technical issues as "implementation details."
I
I usually find that if I am assigned one project, I might take a bit longer than normal to complete that project, but only because I've spawned five more in the process of working on it. (I have lost count of how many partially started projects I have...last time I looked in my dev folder it was over 40).
This article also gives me a bit more confidence, knowing that at least a fifth of us out there are in my "Some college, no degree" boat. I expect that number to rise as people realize that software engineering requires things like a sharp mind, dogged persistence, and a lot of flexibility and creativity...things that knowledge-stuffing colleges can't
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
Man, cutlery manufacturers better watch out now that there is a precedent. I mean, Ginsu, by making it's wedge devices, is causing people to stab each other.
/committing/ the crime that is in the wrong. If I bash someone over the head with a pan, /I'm/ in the wrong, not the pan manufacturer. If I illegally hack into systems and destroy stuff, /I'm/ in the wrong, not the computer manufacturer.
----
Seriously, though, there are MANY objects that can be used in an illegal fashion. Blaming the object manufacturer is sort of stupid. It is the person
Am I the only one who thinks this is incredibly stupid?
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla