The probability of catching radio waves from intelligent life forms in a 4 year window is crazy.
I don't know we've been sending signals pretty much continuously for over 50 years. They could be sending something but we just haven't got it yet.
The distances they'd have to travel are enormous, and that civilization is probably long extinct, and the spectrum we are looking at is very narrow, and our definition of intelligence is also very narrow...
I'll give you the first point, the second is doubtfull since they could only be a few hundred away, they've probably changes but extinct? doubtfull. Even if they are extinct does it really matter? We kind of got a speed limit already so chances are we wouldn't have much meaningful communication anyways. The fact is that all we need is a confirmation of their existence, and if we were able to distinguish their signals we might get some interesting TV programs. Which brings we to you narrow spectrum comment. The fact is that we've pretty much saturated the spectrum for quite a region. If the aliens did used radio waves for their communication as well they would be likely to use up a fair region also meaning all we need is one hit from that portion. And I'm not sure what you're getting at with def'n of intelligence. Either thier sending signlas or their not. Maybe that they've found a better means of communication?
what if what we think of cosmic background noise is in actuality encrypted data transmissions, meant to be indistinguishable from background noise? Too many assumptions are taking place, it's really a waste of resources.
Well hopefully they didn't feel the need to encrypt everything. So what if they did maybe someone else didn't. I really don't see anything here to convince me that your assumptions that we won't find anything are any more convincing than the assumptions that could lead us to something. As to a waste of resources perhaps if you consider the cycles that people actually do donate to be a small resource that could better go to curing cancer than perhaps. On the other hand in real economic costs it's almost trivial! Really when it comes down to it we're drilling for oil. We probably won't find anything and it costs a bit to do it but if we ever find something...
According to Professor Basri's definition, a planet must orbit a star, not another planet, and it must be round. That means it must be 700 kilometres in diameter, when gravity moulds it into a sphere, or bigger. Smaller objects are potato-shaped.
That seems like as good a measure as any. For something like this it's nice to have some sort of event like the forming of a sphere (or whatever you consider a sphere) to give a line in the sand rather than picking a nice sounding number.
On the other hand it didn't cover reason the other astronomers wanted to drop Pluto, is it missing some characteristics that the other 8 planets are? He also has a nice upper limit where a planet becomes a sun.
Still being the nitpicker I am one would have to wonder if they found a object as big as Pluto pulling a figure-8 around Jupiter and the sun would it be a planet or not?
I will be amazed if these guys don't get taken down by Google. I mean part of the idea of trademark is to avoid brandname confusion and it took me a few seconds to make sure that this site wasn't affiliated with google. The hacked google logo and the very similar interface didn't help either. True the same arguments might be made for Windows and Lindows, prehaps the reason I never got those confused is that I'm very aware that is something M$ would never do. Either way I except these guys to be getting some strong words from google.
It will never happen! Remember that no technology becomes popular without being embraced by the porn industry and how the heck will the porn industry work with 3D displays?!? It's pointless to think about it I mean it's completely and utterly ridiculo... ooh... ooohhhhhhh!!!
The only thing I can think of is something similar to the robots.txt file...have your webserver have a slashdot.txt file that says something like NoSlashdotLinkage = true in it or something, anything similar to the thing for preventing search engines.
Hmmm, the problem with that is that/. isn't the only site that can cause this problem and it could be hard to differentiate which sites do you want to have link to you and which you don't (maybe expected hits/sec?), agreeing on a format and sites not respecting it... it becomes a real pain.
I think a better solution for/. would to have a list of sites that they don't link to. Of course this would be expensive to maintain and it would be a pain for the editors constantly checking the database to see if they are allowed to link or not. I suspect that they would find it necessary to charge a site a nominal fee for their exception from./ing. Of course many websites not aware of./ might should not be disallowed this service as well. Perhaps the editors could kindly send them an email kindly explaining situation. Of course it wouldn't be unthinkable if the editors now aware of this neat site would post a story linking to it, which of course they wouldn't do if the website had paid their fees. Yes it would be very unfortunate indeed if their server were to be utterly destroyed be the./ effect just because they wouldn't pay the fee... I would think that it could be a great source of revenue for/. to offer this how shall we say... protection to websites. Don't you agree?
The Lemelson Foundation was created by Jerome Lemelson, one of the more polarizing figures in modern day patent life. Lemelson obtained more than 500 patents in his life. He did not use these patents to create companies geared toward manufacturing products, however. Instead, he filed lawsuits against a number of companies, including General Motors and Otis Elevator, when elements of his designs allegedly showed up in later products such as bar-code scanners.
Settlements and verdicts in the more than 135 so-called Lemelson lawsuits led to millions for Lemelson and his allies.
This could be taken out of context but the sounds suspiciously like this guy was a patent squatter (although I assume these were legitimate as opposed to the ones ignoring prior art we keep hearing about).
While I'm sure there is a lot of great stuff coming out in this release the thing I'm waiting for is the ability to change the resolution of the X-server without shutting it down. I heard that there was code to that respect in the works does anyone have any information on this?
Regardless of how practical it is in the past few years I've seen a few pieces on completely virtual actors. I'm not sure how much say the actors have in the awards but I can see a lot of big actors being VERY displeased if he got a nomination fearing (whether or not it's realistic) that they may lose their jobs in the future to a completely virtual character. Plus I think it's a little too out there still. I think we need a couple more strong virtual performances for hollywood to take a chance on acknowledging one of them.
as a couple other people said they are only saying that we havn't found them, not that they don't exist on earth. Furthurmore I think the specifics of the statement may be irrelevant. I'm not familiar with biology but I'm assuming that is a certain system they would be able to indetify all the amino acids there most of the time. If they are able to identify all the amino acids in the area where the rock fell then it serves to reason that those amino acids didn't came from the immediate impact area. The next logical conclusion is they were picked up somewhere else (in space maybe?) or by contamination from researchers carrying amino acids from elsewhere.
If you can still be sued for emailing someone on the list if you're outside the US this should be a good thing. However my first thought is that what will end up happening is this list will simply become a convenient repository of addresses for spammers not affected by the law. Does anyone know how this law would apply to spammers outside the US?
Heck that's nothing on my old mac netscape 3.0 would crash at netscape.com! (can't comment on theMircosft site though as I considered it sacrilage to even type in microsoft.com)
You think the powerbook is baked?!?
on
Baked Apple
·
· Score: 1
Humph, Just check out the server when we're done with it, we'll show you baked!!!
Gentlemen start your browsers... Commence slashdotting!!!
a carbon nanotube space elevator Yeah just wait until terrorists detach the astroid it's anchored too and it flattens the equator and they start breaking all the tent cities and burning all the rebels to death and knock the moon out of the sky!!!
Sigh I'm getting into the Mars trilogy way too much...
You're assuming that this analysis is accurate. Does it incorporate materials used in making the factory, what about running the plant or even the fuel used to generate power that eventually reaches plant or the vehicles the employees drive to work? Are any of the materials reused? How do they dispose of them, can they be recycled, are they being recycled? What are the actual damages caused by those materials?
I think putting too much faith in this analysis is very dangerous as you're taking something which would seem easy to quantify but in reality may turn out to be an entirely inaccurate measurement. While it may be interesting to look at I wouldn't put enough trust in these numbers to influence my buying decisions.
Comments were disallowed when this story was originally posted; fixed now. My mistake (although KDE3's stupid mouseover-activates-form-elements user interface, now finally fixed in the latest versions, has to take some blame too).
Sorry! No trolls, no f1rst p0sts, no java sucks, heck no me!! It's not a bug it's a feature and now that it's fixed you'll never find peace again!!
Depends if the waste consists of just #2 or he has to include #1 also. Just #2 you will get some weight increase because it will contain fluid in addition to just the lunch. If he has to carry #1 also it will be just a huge increase. Remember he'll likely get drinking water by melting snow & ice. But even just #2 contains a lot more fluid than the food making up the solid component origionally contained.
I'm still worried about the whole idea that the law applies in Russia, though...
It doesn't exactly apply in Russia, it applies to people selling things in the US that may be illegal under american law. You don't have to like it but if you sell something in a country it's your responsibility to make sure it's legal under their laws. No matter how messed up...knowing that the DMCA's attempts to stifle software innovation have been conquered.
Except for the fact that ElcomSoft withdrew the software in question. I'm not sure about you but I would consider withdrawing the software in question to be stifling innovation:(
Tolkien himself rejected this notion many times during his lifetime. The story was not a cipher for WWII or the atom bomb. It was just a story. If Brin did something more than simply topical reading/viewing, he would know this. The perpetuation of this myth is just out and out intellectual laziness.
Remindes me of something Issac Asimov wrote once. One time some literary critic (or reviewer maybe) talked to Asimov about how his foundation series had many socialist ideaologies (or something like that). Asimov denied this fact since he had no intention of doing it and said he didn't think the guy was correct. To which the critic replied "Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you understand it!". And you know what, Asimov agreed later saying authors often make the most critics of their books, the author doesn't always understand all of the motivations that cause him to write the things he do. I've read the series and I've seen a lot of things that remeind me of WWII (I'd list them now but I'm supposed to be studying for a final:). Just because Tolkien said it was true doesn't make it so.
Re:Listen up, this is the last time I'll say this
on
Decentralization
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Oh come on, this is a major overreaction. I'm sick of these "it's either this way, or that way" people. Well the poster wasn't one of those people, perhaps I should include the next sentence which you mentioned and yet completely ignored. Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.'"
And he's right, can you honestly tell me there isn't a bit of truth to that statement. The fact is that he made a statement that in general that held true. Of course it isn't this way or that way. He wasn't thinking that when he wrote it I didn't think that when I read it and I'm sure that you were perceptive enough to realize it. This has nothing to do with any form of discrimination. It really irritates me when people make that mistake. The truth is that some groups are more prone to crime and to be less productive. Why? It has nothing to do with culture or ethnic backgrough. It's simply the fact that they have been placed in socio-economic circumstances that make it very hard to succeed. Too often because of political correctness people ignore these problems and nothing gets done. Meanwhile people who hold discriminatory views continue to hold them because they don't know better since no one who knows better is willing to discuss the situation. Of course I don't know if you fall into any of these categories but I will mention a couple things in closing. One if you don't make generalizations it's very difficult to have any sort of higher level conversations and two, if you are criticising the generalizations the poster made I will point out that you made more generalizations about him than he did about "suits" and "geeks".
Slashdot Mirror
Oh and that removable, throwable ball in the mouse is also an unfair advantage over your opponent.
:)
Yet another reason why I bought a track ball
The probability of catching radio waves from intelligent life forms in a 4 year window is crazy.
I don't know we've been sending signals pretty much continuously for over 50 years. They could be sending something but we just haven't got it yet.
The distances they'd have to travel are enormous, and that civilization is probably long extinct, and the spectrum we are looking at is very narrow, and our definition of intelligence is also very narrow...
I'll give you the first point, the second is doubtfull since they could only be a few hundred away, they've probably changes but extinct? doubtfull. Even if they are extinct does it really matter? We kind of got a speed limit already so chances are we wouldn't have much meaningful communication anyways. The fact is that all we need is a confirmation of their existence, and if we were able to distinguish their signals we might get some interesting TV programs. Which brings we to you narrow spectrum comment. The fact is that we've pretty much saturated the spectrum for quite a region. If the aliens did used radio waves for their communication as well they would be likely to use up a fair region also meaning all we need is one hit from that portion. And I'm not sure what you're getting at with def'n of intelligence. Either thier sending signlas or their not. Maybe that they've found a better means of communication?
what if what we think of cosmic background noise is in actuality encrypted data transmissions, meant to be indistinguishable from background noise? Too many assumptions are taking place, it's really a waste of resources.
Well hopefully they didn't feel the need to encrypt everything. So what if they did maybe someone else didn't. I really don't see anything here to convince me that your assumptions that we won't find anything are any more convincing than the assumptions that could lead us to something. As to a waste of resources perhaps if you consider the cycles that people actually do donate to be a small resource that could better go to curing cancer than perhaps. On the other hand in real economic costs it's almost trivial! Really when it comes down to it we're drilling for oil. We probably won't find anything and it costs a bit to do it but if we ever find something...
According to Professor Basri's definition, a planet must orbit a star, not another planet, and it must be round. That means it must be 700 kilometres in diameter, when gravity moulds it into a sphere, or bigger. Smaller objects are potato-shaped.
That seems like as good a measure as any. For something like this it's nice to have some sort of event like the forming of a sphere (or whatever you consider a sphere) to give a line in the sand rather than picking a nice sounding number.
On the other hand it didn't cover reason the other astronomers wanted to drop Pluto, is it missing some characteristics that the other 8 planets are? He also has a nice upper limit where a planet becomes a sun.
Still being the nitpicker I am one would have to wonder if they found a object as big as Pluto pulling a figure-8 around Jupiter and the sun would it be a planet or not?
Was I the only one who expected the dangers of the internet link in the post to point to Mr. Goatse?
I will be amazed if these guys don't get taken down by Google. I mean part of the idea of trademark is to avoid brandname confusion and it took me a few seconds to make sure that this site wasn't affiliated with google. The hacked google logo and the very similar interface didn't help either. True the same arguments might be made for Windows and Lindows, prehaps the reason I never got those confused is that I'm very aware that is something M$ would never do. Either way I except these guys to be getting some strong words from google.
It will never happen! Remember that no technology becomes popular without being embraced by the porn industry and how the heck will the porn industry work with 3D displays?!? It's pointless to think about it I mean it's completely and utterly ridiculo...
ooh...
ooohhhhhhh!!!
ummmm nevermind
The only thing I can think of is something similar to the robots.txt file...have your webserver have a slashdot.txt file that says something like NoSlashdotLinkage = true in it or something, anything similar to the thing for preventing search engines.
Hmmm, the problem with that is that
I think a better solution for
The Lemelson Foundation was created by Jerome Lemelson, one of the more polarizing figures in modern day patent life. Lemelson obtained more than 500 patents in his life. He did not use these patents to create companies geared toward manufacturing products, however. Instead, he filed lawsuits against a number of companies, including General Motors and Otis Elevator, when elements of his designs allegedly showed up in later products such as bar-code scanners.
Settlements and verdicts in the more than 135 so-called Lemelson lawsuits led to millions for Lemelson and his allies.
This could be taken out of context but the sounds suspiciously like this guy was a patent squatter (although I assume these were legitimate as opposed to the ones ignoring prior art we keep hearing about).
While I'm sure there is a lot of great stuff coming out in this release the thing I'm waiting for is the ability to change the resolution of the X-server without shutting it down. I heard that there was code to that respect in the works does anyone have any information on this?
The acting should also be a lot better in there :)
Actually it will redirect to slashdot and have everything twice!
Regardless of how practical it is in the past few years I've seen a few pieces on completely virtual actors. I'm not sure how much say the actors have in the awards but I can see a lot of big actors being VERY displeased if he got a nomination fearing (whether or not it's realistic) that they may lose their jobs in the future to a completely virtual character. Plus I think it's a little too out there still. I think we need a couple more strong virtual performances for hollywood to take a chance on acknowledging one of them.
as a couple other people said they are only saying that we havn't found them, not that they don't exist on earth. Furthurmore I think the specifics of the statement may be irrelevant. I'm not familiar with biology but I'm assuming that is a certain system they would be able to indetify all the amino acids there most of the time. If they are able to identify all the amino acids in the area where the rock fell then it serves to reason that those amino acids didn't came from the immediate impact area. The next logical conclusion is they were picked up somewhere else (in space maybe?) or by contamination from researchers carrying amino acids from elsewhere.
If you can still be sued for emailing someone on the list if you're outside the US this should be a good thing. However my first thought is that what will end up happening is this list will simply become a convenient repository of addresses for spammers not affected by the law. Does anyone know how this law would apply to spammers outside the US?
Heck that's nothing on my old mac netscape 3.0 would crash at netscape.com! (can't comment on theMircosft site though as I considered it sacrilage to even type in microsoft.com)
Humph, Just check out the server when we're done with it, we'll show you baked!!!
Gentlemen start your browsers...
Commence slashdotting!!!
a carbon nanotube space elevator
Yeah just wait until terrorists detach the astroid it's anchored too and it flattens the equator and they start breaking all the tent cities and burning all the rebels to death and knock the moon out of the sky!!!
Sigh I'm getting into the Mars trilogy way too much...
You're assuming that this analysis is accurate. Does it incorporate materials used in making the factory, what about running the plant or even the fuel used to generate power that eventually reaches plant or the vehicles the employees drive to work? Are any of the materials reused? How do they dispose of them, can they be recycled, are they being recycled? What are the actual damages caused by those materials?
I think putting too much faith in this analysis is very dangerous as you're taking something which would seem easy to quantify but in reality may turn out to be an entirely inaccurate measurement. While it may be interesting to look at I wouldn't put enough trust in these numbers to influence my buying decisions.
Comments were disallowed when this story was originally posted; fixed now. My mistake (although KDE3's stupid mouseover-activates-form-elements user interface, now finally fixed in the latest versions, has to take some blame too).
Sorry! No trolls, no f1rst p0sts, no java sucks, heck no me!! It's not a bug it's a feature and now that it's fixed you'll never find peace again!!
MUWHAHAHA!!!
Depends if the waste consists of just #2 or he has to include #1 also. Just #2 you will get some weight increase because it will contain fluid in addition to just the lunch. If he has to carry #1 also it will be just a huge increase. Remember he'll likely get drinking water by melting snow & ice. But even just #2 contains a lot more fluid than the food making up the solid component origionally contained.
I'm still worried about the whole idea that the law applies in Russia, though...
..knowing that the DMCA's attempts to stifle software innovation have been conquered.
:(
It doesn't exactly apply in Russia, it applies to people selling things in the US that may be illegal under american law. You don't have to like it but if you sell something in a country it's your responsibility to make sure it's legal under their laws. No matter how messed up.
Except for the fact that ElcomSoft withdrew the software in question. I'm not sure about you but I would consider withdrawing the software in question to be stifling innovation
Tolkien himself rejected this notion many times during his lifetime. The story was not a cipher for WWII or the atom bomb. It was just a story. If Brin did something more than simply topical reading/viewing, he would know this. The perpetuation of this myth is just out and out intellectual laziness.
Remindes me of something Issac Asimov wrote once. One time some literary critic (or reviewer maybe) talked to Asimov about how his foundation series had many socialist ideaologies (or something like that). Asimov denied this fact since he had no intention of doing it and said he didn't think the guy was correct. To which the critic replied "Just because you wrote it doesn't mean you understand it!". And you know what, Asimov agreed later saying authors often make the most critics of their books, the author doesn't always understand all of the motivations that cause him to write the things he do. I've read the series and I've seen a lot of things that remeind me of WWII (I'd list them now but I'm supposed to be studying for a final:). Just because Tolkien said it was true doesn't make it so.
Oh come on, this is a major overreaction.
I'm sick of these "it's either this way, or that way" people.
Well the poster wasn't one of those people, perhaps I should include the next sentence which you mentioned and yet completely ignored.
Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.'"
And he's right, can you honestly tell me there isn't a bit of truth to that statement. The fact is that he made a statement that in general that held true. Of course it isn't this way or that way. He wasn't thinking that when he wrote it I didn't think that when I read it and I'm sure that you were perceptive enough to realize it. This has nothing to do with any form of discrimination. It really irritates me when people make that mistake. The truth is that some groups are more prone to crime and to be less productive. Why? It has nothing to do with culture or ethnic backgrough. It's simply the fact that they have been placed in socio-economic circumstances that make it very hard to succeed. Too often because of political correctness people ignore these problems and nothing gets done. Meanwhile people who hold discriminatory views continue to hold them because they don't know better since no one who knows better is willing to discuss the situation. Of course I don't know if you fall into any of these categories but I will mention a couple things in closing. One if you don't make generalizations it's very difficult to have any sort of higher level conversations and two, if you are criticising the generalizations the poster made I will point out that you made more generalizations about him than he did about "suits" and "geeks".
You don't have to necessarily read them as long as you make sure to use a well respected credible resources!
Play a DVD
Do you mean with DeCSS? Hmm, break the law on national TV... Great way to attract people to linux!