What, exactly, makes these midichlorians undetectable?
Well, they won't show up on x-rays because they are NANO-machines. (Hint: "nano" means really, Really, REALLY small.)
In the Pilot, there was mention of finding certain trace materials in a cremated tissue sample of a Humanoid Cylon. This could easily be the burned remains of the nanos.
ALso explains why the one in the space station in the pilot was being effected- his nanos were getting screwed up because of the radiation, and were malfunctioning.
Also explains Baltar's detector. It uses radiation also, and then picks upon the dead nanos, or their by- or waste-products.
And how do they account for superhuman strength?
Humans are AFRAID to exert their bodies to their fullest under normal circumstances. Sure, we could punch and batter our way thru a wall, but we don't. Why not? Because it HURTS. Nanos could dull that pain, and increase cellular repair, shortening the length of the pain. ALso, their brainwashing could make them feel invulverable, and encourage them to strain past the point of pain.
Also, we have actually seen an episode where Cylons are downloaded into new bodies, so that aspect cannot be dismissed as brainwashing.
Really?? I still have not seen the last 4 eps of the second season. I guess it was in one of those.
What, exactly, makes these midichlorians undetectable?,/i>
Well, they won't show up on x-rays because they are NANO-machines. (Hint: "nano" means really, Really, REALLY small.)
In the Pilot, there was mention of finding certain trace materials in a cremated tissue sample of a Humanoid Cylon. This could easily be the burned remains of the nanos.
And how do they account for superhuman strength?
Humans are AFRAID to exert their bodies to their fullest under normal circumstances. Sure, we could punch and batter our way thru a wall, but we don't. Why not? Because it HURTS. Nanos could dull that pain, and increase cellular repair, shortening the length of the pain. ALso, their brainwashing could make them feel invulverable, and encourage them to strain past the point of pain.
Also, we have actually seen an episode where Cylons are downloaded into new bodies, so that aspect cannot be dismissed as brainwashing.
Really?? I still have not seen the last 4 eps of the second season. I guess it was in one of those.
The 'humanoid' cylons are actually humans. The cylons took 12 DNA samples (one from each colony) and produced endless clones. The humans were subjected to endless brainwashing from 'birth' onward, and have nano-machines injected into them. The brainwashing convinces them they are 'cylons', and reinforces their 'religion' (ie: that they 'download' into a new body when they die. What better way to overcome the humans lingering reluctance to die if necessary for the sake of the mission?) The nanos repair tissues and can sense the insertion of a data cable and form an ad hoc interface.
An elderly man living alone was awoken by a stange noise in the middle of the night. He looked out of his back bedroom window and saw two men breaking into his garden shed. So he called 911 to report what was happening. "I'm very sorry," said the sergeant, "but there's no-one available at present. When someone become free I'll send them along to your address." Two minutes later he called 911 again. "I'm sorry to bother you again about this," he explains, "but I called about a couple of minutes ago about a burgary. Don't bother to send anyone out, though, because I've just shot them." Five minutes later the avenue is swarming with policemen and a SWAT team.,There are police vehicles in all the surrounding streets and a helicopter hovering overhead with search lights beaming. They catch the two burglars red handed. "I thought you said you'd shot them," said the police sergeant. "And I thought you said you had nobody available," replied the old man.
how do you explain to Management that they shouldn't run this software until the problem is resolved
"What would you do if you got the door to the breakroom replaced, no one could open it, and the manufacturer's solution was 'Give every single employee a copy of the Master Key for the entire building'?? Well, it's 100 times worse than that."
Seriously, what would be the travel restrictions with these? Will airlines (or more precisely the TSA) allow me onboard with, say a dozen of these? Or even just one?
Imagine you are on a flat plane. There is a line painted on the ground, heading where you want to go. You face yourself along that line, close your eyes, and begin to walk. Will you remain on that line forever? No. Eventually, you will deviate from that line. You see, there are minute differences between the lengths of your legs, the hardness of your shoes, and so on, that mean you will slowly curve away from the line. Normally, when you walk with your eyes open, you unconsciously correct for this deviation.
I see that as an analogy for Society. We started off going the right way, but, after many years, our attention wavered, we 'closed our eyes', so to speak, and we started deviating. Now, there are a few people who have begun to open their eyes, and realize our situation. The question is what to do now.
Option 1: We could just close our eyes again and keep walking. This is, obviously, the easiest answer. But it is also the worst. We'll keep deviating from where we want to go, and become lost. This, unfortunately, is what most people choose to do.
Option 2: Keep our eyes open, and slowly adjust our course back to the line. This is difficult. It requires a long, sustained effort from many body parts. More needs to be done than simply keeping the 'eyes' open. The brain must be convinced that a course change is needed, and the legs must be controlled to make that change. A 'real world' equivilent might be starting a political party, and getting elected to Offices across the nation, and using that to slowly change the path of society. Like I said, a long, difficult job.
Option 3: Take total contol of the body for a brief time, and use that contol to 'jump' back to the line. Real world equivilent: Revolution. This is at the same time easier and more difficult than the second option above. A revolution does not need a long, slow effort, but rather can be over in days or weeks. But the rapid changes require enourmous effort, if only for a short time. A short, very difficult job.
So, there you go- the 3 options. Option 1 is useless Option 2 requires a small, but sustained effort, and option 3 would require a 'trigger' that would set off sufficient power. All of them have their disadvantages.
however, the very concept of the 100% accurate lie detector is scary. It would have a huge impact on politics, crime, and even personal issues.
I've read a few SF stories that deal with that. One of them (unfortunatly the 'truth serum' part was only in the second chapter) was 'The Ring' by Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff. A young man is brought to court, and given a drug that will make him tell the truth. Of course, the prosecutor asks loaded questions, making him out to be a sex-crazed kinapper. And the man under the drug is powerless to stop him, as he can only truthfully answer questions directly asked of him, and cannot respond to the side comments made.
Every man (and woman) has some secrets. Evenr one like to look at Members Of The Appropriate Sex. Every one has fantasies. Everyone has hangups. If all these were forced to come out, very few people would remain un-affected.
ANother example is fromthe book 'Body Rides', in which a man winds up with a magical bracelet that allows him to leave his own body and enter the head of anyone else. He is not able to make his presence known in any way, but he had full access to the persons senses and innermost thoughts. He is warned by the person who gives him the braclet to never enter the mind of someone he loves. Sure, being in your lover's mind might seem like a kick... until they start thinking about how they hate how you snore, or thinking how much they hate having you grab their spare tire while you're having sex, or thinking how much better that other person looks than you....
Lies are a form of social lubrication. too much truth, and society stops.
One of the problems with submitting "fake" username/passwords is that there is the slight possibility that the username actually exists for someone else
That's why you make the username something obscene. SOmethignthat Ebay (or whoever) would never allow as a real login.
Fourth, sub-teranian cooling. Once you get a little ways under the surface of the ground, the temperature becomes a pretty consistant mid/high 50's.
Actually, I think you'll find that the deep temperature of the earth is the average between the highs and lows on a yearly basis. In other words, if you live in a hot climate with temps of 120 in summer, 60 in winter, the deep earth temp would be 90. In the frozen arctic, the deep earth temp is below freezing ('permafrost'). Granted, for a lot of the continental US, that means a deep earth temp of around 50. But, remember, putting heat (or cold) into the earth at that depth will cause it's temp to rise (or fall). It is not an infinite heat dump.
...computers... that use PS2 for mouse and keyboard and then have a jumper on the motherboard or a software switch hidden in the BIOS behind a BIOS password that will completly disable all use of USB. If you then combine that with a read-only optical drive and no floppy drive it makes it very hard to get data out of the machine without going over the network somehow.
Um, pull the HD? Unplug the CD-rom and temporarily plug in another HD? COM1 --> Portable Device (Sync to a PDA, etc) COM2 --> Portable Device Parallel port --> Portable Device Parallel port --> Printer (hardcopy!) Unplug network cable, plug in crossover cable going to laptop.
None of these are "very hard".
And I haven't even mentioned weird stuff, like using a sound card to 'play' a file into a tape recorder....
They'd have to setup mini-cell towers at intervals along almost the entire length of the system. It would be prohibitively expensive to try and shoehorn this is after the fact.
Um, why can't you just place cells in the stations? They would cover not just the stations, but down the tunnel to the range of the cell. And since cells operate for miles, and subway stations are just a few blocks from each other, that should cover the entire system. (Except for a few places where the tunnel bends severely just outside a station.)
Point- Windmills no not cause "five menstrual cycles a month".
Point- Windmills do not cause "strokes caused by the sunlight as it pulsates through the spinning turbine blades".
Point- WIndmills produce noise that is barely audible a few hundred feet away. The noise is certainly not like "the noises Nazi troops tortured Jews with during the holocaust".
The mere fact that these people beleive this PROVES they need education.
I see no difference between a cop behind a camera checking my license plate, and one driving up behind me and checking it.
And that's the problem. You don't see a difference between a cop casually checking one car's plates and an electronic system capable of tracking (potentially) every single car on the road, and keeping the data for, effectively, forever.
There are SOOO many potential abuses for such a system, that I can't name them all.
The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. ... Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit". ... ...she did, after all, spill the coffee into her lap all by herself. The car was stopped, so she presumably was not bumped to cause the spill. Indeed she chose to hold the coffee cup between her knees instead of any number of safer locations as she opened it.
It was NOT McDonalds fault. It was the stupid b!+(4's fault for being careless. She should not have gotten a dime!!
The problem is, what do you use as the second channel? The phone? Phones are trivially easy to tap. At the house, at the pole, at the F1 or F2 terminal boxes. A scrap of cross-connect wire here and there, and you just jumpered some guy's phone line so you can sit miles away and clip onto it. Disconnect the line going to his house, make the bank transfer, and answer his phone line as him when th ebank calls to confirm.
And don't even get me started about the phone wiring of a big city. I could, with a few feet of wire, get your dial tone 10 blocks away.
make about $25/hour. Now, if I really want equipment X, and it's on eBay for $50, what makes more sense? Spend 6 hours farming/questing for it, or put another two hours in at the office and call it even?
Well, I'd rather play a fun game for 6 hours then work for 2 hours, but that's just me.
If you are NOT having fun while playing, then maybe you should try a different game. And if you ARE having fun, why shorten the experience by cheating/twinking/buying gold??
Slashdot Mirror
Damn closing tag typo.
What, exactly, makes these midichlorians undetectable?
Well, they won't show up on x-rays because they are NANO-machines. (Hint: "nano" means really, Really, REALLY small.)
In the Pilot, there was mention of finding certain trace materials in a cremated tissue sample of a Humanoid Cylon. This could easily be the burned remains of the nanos.
ALso explains why the one in the space station in the pilot was being effected- his nanos were getting screwed up because of the radiation, and were malfunctioning.
Also explains Baltar's detector. It uses radiation also, and then picks upon the dead nanos, or their by- or waste-products.
And how do they account for superhuman strength?
Humans are AFRAID to exert their bodies to their fullest under normal circumstances. Sure, we could punch and batter our way thru a wall, but we don't. Why not? Because it HURTS. Nanos could dull that pain, and increase cellular repair, shortening the length of the pain. ALso, their brainwashing could make them feel invulverable, and encourage them to strain past the point of pain.
Also, we have actually seen an episode where Cylons are downloaded into new bodies, so that aspect cannot be dismissed as brainwashing.
Really?? I still have not seen the last 4 eps of the second season. I guess it was in one of those.
What, exactly, makes these midichlorians undetectable?,/i>
Well, they won't show up on x-rays because they are NANO-machines. (Hint: "nano" means really, Really, REALLY small.)
In the Pilot, there was mention of finding certain trace materials in a cremated tissue sample of a Humanoid Cylon. This could easily be the burned remains of the nanos.
And how do they account for superhuman strength?
Humans are AFRAID to exert their bodies to their fullest under normal circumstances. Sure, we could punch and batter our way thru a wall, but we don't. Why not? Because it HURTS. Nanos could dull that pain, and increase cellular repair, shortening the length of the pain. ALso, their brainwashing could make them feel invulverable, and encourage them to strain past the point of pain.
Also, we have actually seen an episode where Cylons are downloaded into new bodies, so that aspect cannot be dismissed as brainwashing.
Really?? I still have not seen the last 4 eps of the second season. I guess it was in one of those.
Simple solution- nano-machines.
The 'humanoid' cylons are actually humans. The cylons took 12 DNA samples (one from each colony) and produced endless clones. The humans were subjected to endless brainwashing from 'birth' onward, and have nano-machines injected into them. The brainwashing convinces them they are 'cylons', and reinforces their 'religion' (ie: that they 'download' into a new body when they die. What better way to overcome the humans lingering reluctance to die if necessary for the sake of the mission?) The nanos repair tissues and can sense the insertion of a data cable and form an ad hoc interface.
I think you're looking for this joke:
An elderly man living alone was awoken by a stange noise in the middle of the night. He looked out of his back bedroom window and saw two men breaking into his garden shed. So he called 911 to report what was happening.
"I'm very sorry," said the sergeant, "but there's no-one available at present. When someone become free I'll send them along to your address."
Two minutes later he called 911 again.
"I'm sorry to bother you again about this," he explains, "but I called about a couple of minutes ago about a burgary. Don't bother to send anyone out, though, because I've just shot them."
Five minutes later the avenue is swarming with policemen and a SWAT team.,There are police vehicles in all the surrounding streets and a helicopter hovering overhead with search lights beaming. They catch the two burglars red handed.
"I thought you said you'd shot them," said the police sergeant.
"And I thought you said you had nobody available," replied the old man.
how do you explain to Management that they shouldn't run this software until the problem is resolved
"What would you do if you got the door to the breakroom replaced, no one could open it, and the manufacturer's solution was 'Give every single employee a copy of the Master Key for the entire building'?? Well, it's 100 times worse than that."
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Try to teach a man to fish, and he'll bitch you're not giving him free fish.
http://www.missilebases.com/new/
of the above. :-)
Seriously, what would be the travel restrictions with these? Will airlines (or more precisely the TSA) allow me onboard with, say a dozen of these? Or even just one?
Bullets that stop make one hole for you to bleed out of.
Bullets that go thru you make 2 holes for you to bleed out of, and go thru more tissue.
My 'walking a straight line' analogy for society:
Imagine you are on a flat plane. There is a line painted on the ground, heading where you want to go. You face yourself along that line, close your eyes, and begin to walk. Will you remain on that line forever? No. Eventually, you will deviate from that line. You see, there are minute differences between the lengths of your legs, the hardness of your shoes, and so on, that mean you will slowly curve away from the line. Normally, when you walk with your eyes open, you unconsciously correct for this deviation.
I see that as an analogy for Society. We started off going the right way, but, after many years, our attention wavered, we 'closed our eyes', so to speak, and we started deviating. Now, there are a few people who have begun to open their eyes, and realize our situation. The question is what to do now.
Option 1: We could just close our eyes again and keep walking. This is, obviously, the easiest answer. But it is also the worst. We'll keep deviating from where we want to go, and become lost. This, unfortunately, is what most people choose to do.
Option 2: Keep our eyes open, and slowly adjust our course back to the line. This is difficult. It requires a long, sustained effort from many body parts. More needs to be done than simply keeping the 'eyes' open. The brain must be convinced that a course change is needed, and the legs must be controlled to make that change. A 'real world' equivilent might be starting a political party, and getting elected to Offices across the nation, and using that to slowly change the path of society. Like I said, a long, difficult job.
Option 3: Take total contol of the body for a brief time, and use that contol to 'jump' back to the line. Real world equivilent: Revolution. This is at the same time easier and more difficult than the second option above. A revolution does not need a long, slow effort, but rather can be over in days or weeks. But the rapid changes require enourmous effort, if only for a short time. A short, very difficult job.
So, there you go- the 3 options. Option 1 is useless Option 2 requires a small, but sustained effort, and option 3 would require a 'trigger' that would set off sufficient power. All of them have their disadvantages.
however, the very concept of the 100% accurate lie detector is scary. It would have a huge impact on politics, crime, and even personal issues.
I've read a few SF stories that deal with that. One of them (unfortunatly the 'truth serum' part was only in the second chapter) was 'The Ring' by Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff. A young man is brought to court, and given a drug that will make him tell the truth. Of course, the prosecutor asks loaded questions, making him out to be a sex-crazed kinapper. And the man under the drug is powerless to stop him, as he can only truthfully answer questions directly asked of him, and cannot respond to the side comments made.
Every man (and woman) has some secrets. Evenr one like to look at Members Of The Appropriate Sex. Every one has fantasies. Everyone has hangups. If all these were forced to come out, very few people would remain un-affected.
ANother example is fromthe book 'Body Rides', in which a man winds up with a magical bracelet that allows him to leave his own body and enter the head of anyone else. He is not able to make his presence known in any way, but he had full access to the persons senses and innermost thoughts. He is warned by the person who gives him the braclet to never enter the mind of someone he loves. Sure, being in your lover's mind might seem like a kick... until they start thinking about how they hate how you snore, or thinking how much they hate having you grab their spare tire while you're having sex, or thinking how much better that other person looks than you....
Lies are a form of social lubrication. too much truth, and society stops.
One of the problems with submitting "fake" username/passwords is that there is the slight possibility that the username actually exists for someone else
That's why you make the username something obscene. SOmethignthat Ebay (or whoever) would never allow as a real login.
Fourth, sub-teranian cooling. Once you get a little ways under the surface of the ground, the temperature becomes a pretty consistant mid/high 50's.
Actually, I think you'll find that the deep temperature of the earth is the average between the highs and lows on a yearly basis. In other words, if you live in a hot climate with temps of 120 in summer, 60 in winter, the deep earth temp would be 90. In the frozen arctic, the deep earth temp is below freezing ('permafrost'). Granted, for a lot of the continental US, that means a deep earth temp of around 50. But, remember, putting heat (or cold) into the earth at that depth will cause it's temp to rise (or fall). It is not an infinite heat dump.
CHeck out http://www.axwoodfarm.com/PAHS/UmbrellaHouse.html for more info.
if the LPT, COM and USB ports are disabled, laptops & PDAs are restricted or banned and opening the case is made difficult
Just saying it's a tad bit more than "disable all use of USB and no floppy drive".
...computers ... that use PS2 for mouse and keyboard and then have a jumper on the motherboard or a software switch hidden in the BIOS behind a BIOS password that will completly disable all use of USB. If you then combine that with a read-only optical drive and no floppy drive it makes it very hard to get data out of the machine without going over the network somehow.
Um, pull the HD?
Unplug the CD-rom and temporarily plug in another HD?
COM1 --> Portable Device (Sync to a PDA, etc)
COM2 --> Portable Device
Parallel port --> Portable Device
Parallel port --> Printer (hardcopy!)
Unplug network cable, plug in crossover cable going to laptop.
None of these are "very hard".
And I haven't even mentioned weird stuff, like using a sound card to 'play' a file into a tape recorder....
They'd have to setup mini-cell towers at intervals along almost the entire length of the system. It would be prohibitively expensive to try and shoehorn this is after the fact.
Um, why can't you just place cells in the stations? They would cover not just the stations, but down the tunnel to the range of the cell. And since cells operate for miles, and subway stations are just a few blocks from each other, that should cover the entire system. (Except for a few places where the tunnel bends severely just outside a station.)
Did you RTFA?? (duh, this is /.)
The people they mentioned are woefully ignorant.
Point- Windmills do not cause "mange in cattle".
Point- Windmills no not cause "five menstrual cycles a month".
Point- Windmills do not cause "strokes caused by the sunlight as it pulsates through the spinning turbine blades".
Point- WIndmills produce noise that is barely audible a few hundred feet away. The noise is certainly not like "the noises Nazi troops tortured Jews with during the holocaust".
The mere fact that these people beleive this PROVES they need education.
Yeah, because spammers would NEVER pretend to be other people....
OK, genius - how exactly do you know which companies are which, you know, *before* they release their product?
1) You can get a good idea from other products they have released in the past.
2) You let the other suckers buy the product, and wait to see if they have any problems. IF they don't, THEN you buy it.
How about those 'flat' refigerator magnets? Make a sheet of those with the picture of a license plate on it, and simple apply/remove as needed.
I see no difference between a cop behind a camera checking my license plate, and one driving up behind me and checking it.
And that's the problem. You don't see a difference between a cop casually checking one car's plates and an electronic system capable of tracking (potentially) every single car on the road, and keeping the data for, effectively, forever.
There are SOOO many potential abuses for such a system, that I can't name them all.
From www.stellaawards.com :
The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever.
...
...
...she did, after all, spill the coffee into her lap all by herself. The car was stopped, so she presumably was not bumped to cause the spill. Indeed she chose to hold the coffee cup between her knees instead of any number of safer locations as she opened it.
Coffee is supposed to be served in the range of 185 degrees! The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit".
It was NOT McDonalds fault. It was the stupid b!+(4's fault for being careless. She should not have gotten a dime!!
The problem is, what do you use as the second channel? The phone? Phones are trivially easy to tap. At the house, at the pole, at the F1 or F2 terminal boxes. A scrap of cross-connect wire here and there, and you just jumpered some guy's phone line so you can sit miles away and clip onto it. Disconnect the line going to his house, make the bank transfer, and answer his phone line as him when th ebank calls to confirm.
And don't even get me started about the phone wiring of a big city. I could, with a few feet of wire, get your dial tone 10 blocks away.
make about $25/hour. Now, if I really want equipment X, and it's on eBay for $50, what makes more sense? Spend 6 hours farming/questing for it, or put another two hours in at the office and call it even?
Well, I'd rather play a fun game for 6 hours then work for 2 hours, but that's just me.
If you are NOT having fun while playing, then maybe you should try a different game. And if you ARE having fun, why shorten the experience by cheating/twinking/buying gold??