A dialogue with apologies to Terry Bisson Shamefully adapted From "Alien/Nation" in the April 1991 issue of Omni Magazine.
"They're made out of silicon."
"silicon?"
"silicon. They're made out of silicon."
"silicon?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely silicon."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. silicon made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can silicon make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient silicon."
"I'm not asking you, I 'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of silicon."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a silicon stage."
"Nope. They're born silicon and they die silicon. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of silicon?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part silicon. You know, like the Weddilei. A silicon head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have silicon heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're silicon all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of silicon!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The silicon."
"Thinking silicon! You're asking me to believe in thinking silicon!"
"Yes, thinking silicon! Conscious silicon! Loving silicon. Dreaming silicon. The silicon is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of silicon."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out silicon. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the silicon have in mind."
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to silicon?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with silicon."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? silicon sounds. You know how when you slap or flap silicon it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their silicon at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their silicon."
"Omigod. Singing silicon. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with silicon?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, silicon. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special silicon containers, but they can't live on them. And being silicon, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and make
Why not have an Opensource Botnet that anyone can voluntarily participate in... "the collective" actions of the botnet can be submitted by anyone and voted on... only actions where greater than 50% of members agree on would be executed.
It's not free, but the best most scalable non-microsoft solution has got to be CommuniGate, it could scale to millions of accounts easily. Supports just about any OS and even includes almost any messaging protocol you can think of. Check it out at www.stalker.com.
Extending 6 billion lives to 1000 years or more will just introduce massive world famine and the average person may not actually live much longer at all. Intead of dying of old age we'll just starve to death instead.
Not to mention the planet will be destroyed by 6 billions people driving Hummers to work. Car dealerships would start offering 100 year financing terms.
I have found that alot of great classic games were completely ruined by making them 3D. It ruins the playability. Sure it looks cool, but you forget about that after a few minutes and then are annoyed when things are hidden behind walls where your character should be able to see it but you cannot. I'm all for 3D games that make sense (ie FPS), but just making things 3D for the sake of it looking cool is not always so good. I think RTS and RPG's should almost always be top down view with no playability hampering 3D to screw things up.
The website guarantees you'll have your skycar by Dec 31st, 2006 if you make your $100,000 deposit (and pay nearly $1M more on delivery).... except their not accepting orders yet. I've been watching this for years, and the Freedom Ship. They should get together and then everyone could have skycars on the freedomship instead of needing that massive runway.
Here's my script for continuously refreshing the page and watching for 1337 in the results. No guarantee this will work at all since I don't know what is actually required when you get the winning page. I just dump the winning html into a file and hopefully it can be used to claim the prize somehow. As of sometime today I don't seem to be able to access gmailmachine at all anymore, either I'm blacklisted for running this script or the site is down. ------------------- #!/usr/bin/perl while ($found eq () ) { $count++; print ("Reloading gmailmachine $count... "); @out = qx/w3m -cookie -dump_source http:\/\/gmailmachine.mmgn.com/; foreach (@out) { if (/font-size: 58px;\">(\d+)/) { print $1,"\n"; if ($1 eq "1337") { $found=1; open(OUTFILE, ">results.html") || print ("error: could not open results file\n"); print OUTFILE @out; close(OUTFILE); print @out; }}}}
What about people who bought acres of land on the moon?. Do we have any mineral rights? Propbably not, but I don't want them messing up my land digging holes all over the place.
I can't resolve unregistered domains even if I query VeriSign's root server itself, as per the most recent named.root file the server is 192.36.148.17 right?
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 A 192.36.148.17 ; operated by VeriSign, Inc.
I'm sure the camera is worth considerably more than the $11 you paid, they are counting on people returning the camera for re-use. If they actually thought the camera was never going to be returned they would charge considerably more.
I wouldn't be surprised if you had to leave a deposit or something.
...a clever individual figures out how to download the pictures and reset the camera at home? That way you could basically get a basic digital camera for $10. Is there anything that requires you to return the camera within a certain period of time?
The bulkhead without a door system is not 100% perfect, there has to be some sort of communications between the crew and the pilots and the hijackers will just use that system to threaten to kill passengers if the pilots do not follow relayed instructions.
At least they won't crash the plane though, so it has some benefit, it's just not perfect.
Who cares about a boot floppy anymore, many new computers don't even have a floppy drive, especially in a corporate environment (and my latest home system I chose not to put a floppy drive on it either). You can make a much better linux bootable CD with absolutely everything on it instead!
Does this affect Canadian CW?
on
C&W Bails Out
·
· Score: 1
Our pipe goes through CW in Toronto, I wonder if this is included? (Looks like my route to slashdot is also on cw) Traceroute to slashdot.org.... 1,2 removed 3. iar2-so-2-2-0.Toronto.cw.net
4. bcr2-so-2-2-0.Toronto.cw.net
5. dcr1-so-4-2-0.Chicago.cw.net
6. dcr2-loopback.SantaClara.cw.net
7. bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc8.cw.net
8. csr1-ve240.SantaClarasc8.cw.net
9. 66.35.212.174
Homer: Hey, do we get to land on an aircraft carrier? Pilot: No, Sir, the closest vessel in the USS Walter Mondale. It's a
laundry ship. They'll take you the rest of the way.
[shot shows frogs destroying all the crops] Homer: Hey, look! Those frogs are eating all their crops.
[everyone starts laughing]
Lisa: Well, that's what happens when you introduce foreign species into
an ecosystem that can't handle them.
[everyone laughs more]
[a lone koala holds onto the helicopter with determination] -- Imminent koala infestation of the US predicted, "Bart vs. Australia"
If anyone bothered to read through all 100 hoaxes you may have noticed and recalled that Hoax 43 (quoted below) was either repeated or actually tried in the year 2000.
#45: Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth
In 1984 Technology Review published an article titled "Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth" that described an effort by Soviet scientists to bring the woolly mammoth species back from extinction. The technique being used was the insertion of DNA from woolly mammoths found frozen in Siberian ice into elephant cells. The cells were then brought to term inside surrogate elephant mothers. The head of the project was said to be Dr. Sverbighooze Yasmilov. The story was widely reported as a factual event.
Slashdot Mirror
Shamefully adapted From "Alien/Nation" in the April 1991 issue of Omni Magazine.
"They're made out of silicon."
"silicon?"
"silicon. They're made out of silicon."
"silicon?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely silicon."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. silicon made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can silicon make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient silicon."
"I'm not asking you, I 'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of silicon."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a silicon stage."
"Nope. They're born silicon and they die silicon. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of silicon?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part silicon. You know, like the Weddilei. A silicon head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have silicon heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're silicon all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of silicon!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The silicon."
"Thinking silicon! You're asking me to believe in thinking silicon!"
"Yes, thinking silicon! Conscious silicon! Loving silicon. Dreaming silicon. The silicon is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of silicon."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out silicon. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the silicon have in mind."
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to silicon?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with silicon."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? silicon sounds. You know how when you slap or flap silicon it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their silicon at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their silicon."
"Omigod. Singing silicon. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with silicon?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, silicon. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special silicon containers, but they can't live on them. And being silicon, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and make
Why not have an Opensource Botnet that anyone can voluntarily participate in... "the collective" actions of the botnet can be submitted by anyone and voted on... only actions where greater than 50% of members agree on would be executed.
It's not free, but the best most scalable non-microsoft solution has got to be CommuniGate, it could scale to millions of accounts easily. Supports just about any OS and even includes almost any messaging protocol you can think of. Check it out at www.stalker.com.
Google maps image of the arms (retracted)
Extending 6 billion lives to 1000 years or more will just introduce massive world famine and the average person may not actually live much longer at all. Intead of dying of old age we'll just starve to death instead.
Not to mention the planet will be destroyed by 6 billions people driving Hummers to work. Car dealerships would start offering 100 year financing terms.
Version 2? wow... that's way up there, I still use the command line based pre-release version 0.00001 beta ;)
I have found that alot of great classic games were completely ruined by making them 3D. It ruins the playability. Sure it looks cool, but you forget about that after a few minutes and then are annoyed when things are hidden behind walls where your character should be able to see it but you cannot. I'm all for 3D games that make sense (ie FPS), but just making things 3D for the sake of it looking cool is not always so good. I think RTS and RPG's should almost always be top down view with no playability hampering 3D to screw things up.
>>"apart from Americans and Russians, no one has tried it, yet."
Ummm.. don't forget China has also managed it.
The website guarantees you'll have your skycar by Dec 31st, 2006 if you make your $100,000 deposit (and pay nearly $1M more on delivery).... except their not accepting orders yet.
I've been watching this for years, and the Freedom Ship. They should get together and then everyone could have skycars on the freedomship instead of needing that massive runway.
This should allow the Moller Skycar to be flown without a full license now.
Here's my script for continuously refreshing the page and watching for 1337 in the results. No guarantee this will work at all since I don't know what is actually required when you get the winning page. I just dump the winning html into a file and hopefully it can be used to claim the prize somehow. As of sometime today I don't seem to be able to access gmailmachine at all anymore, either I'm blacklisted for running this script or the site is down.e ($found eq () ) { ... ");
-------------------
#!/usr/bin/perl
whil
$count++;
print ("Reloading gmailmachine $count
@out = qx/w3m -cookie -dump_source http:\/\/gmailmachine.mmgn.com/;
foreach (@out) {
if (/font-size: 58px;\">(\d+)/) {
print $1,"\n";
if ($1 eq "1337") {
$found=1;
open(OUTFILE, ">results.html") || print ("error: could not open results file\n");
print OUTFILE @out;
close(OUTFILE);
print @out;
}}}}
Looks like Sally Atkins had this idea as well...
Domain Name: KINS.COM
Administrative Contact:
T, SA (30093608I) sally@kins.com
Do you mean this eye? (Dollar Bill Great Seal)
What about people who bought acres of land on the moon?. Do we have any mineral rights? Propbably not, but I don't want them messing up my land digging holes all over the place.
I can't resolve unregistered domains even if I query VeriSign's root server itself, as per the most recent named.root file the server is 192.36.148.17 right?
I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 A 192.36.148.17
; operated by VeriSign, Inc.
I'm sure the camera is worth considerably more than the $11 you paid, they are counting on people returning the camera for re-use. If they actually thought the camera was never going to be returned they would charge considerably more.
I wouldn't be surprised if you had to leave a deposit or something.
...a clever individual figures out how to download the pictures and reset the camera at home? That way you could basically get a basic digital camera for $10. Is there anything that requires you to return the camera within a certain period of time?
Assuming your value of 2 million blocks is correct. How do you figure it would take 20 years at 30 seconds a block?
2 million * 30 seconds = 60000000 seconds
That is only 1.9 years. You are out by a factor of 10, it would be about 300 seconds per block, which is still very quick.
>>Have you ever tried to write portable code with
>>only one machine to test it on? It isn't easy.
Try using VMWare and it becomes very easy to write and test code for multiple OS and configurations.
The bulkhead without a door system is not 100% perfect, there has to be some sort of communications between the crew and the pilots and the hijackers will just use that system to threaten to kill passengers if the pilots do not follow relayed instructions.
At least they won't crash the plane though, so it has some benefit, it's just not perfect.
Who cares about a boot floppy anymore, many new computers don't even have a floppy drive, especially in a corporate environment (and my latest home system I chose not to put a floppy drive on it either). You can make a much better linux bootable CD with absolutely everything on it instead!
Our pipe goes through CW in Toronto, I wonder if this is included? (Looks like my route to slashdot is also on cw)
Traceroute to slashdot.org....
1,2 removed
3. iar2-so-2-2-0.Toronto.cw.net
4. bcr2-so-2-2-0.Toronto.cw.net
5. dcr1-so-4-2-0.Chicago.cw.net
6. dcr2-loopback.SantaClara.cw.net
7. bhr1-pos-0-0.SantaClarasc8.cw.net
8. csr1-ve240.SantaClarasc8.cw.net
9. 66.35.212.174
I wager 500 quatloos on the newcomer!
(A Quatloo is the currency of the planet Triskelian in case you haven't been there)
Homer: Hey, do we get to land on an aircraft carrier?
Pilot: No, Sir, the closest vessel in the USS Walter Mondale. It's a
laundry ship. They'll take you the rest of the way.
[shot shows frogs destroying all the crops]
Homer: Hey, look! Those frogs are eating all their crops.
[everyone starts laughing]
Lisa: Well, that's what happens when you introduce foreign species into
an ecosystem that can't handle them.
[everyone laughs more]
[a lone koala holds onto the helicopter with determination]
-- Imminent koala infestation of the US predicted, "Bart vs. Australia"
If anyone bothered to read through all 100 hoaxes you may have noticed and recalled that Hoax 43 (quoted below) was either repeated or actually tried in the year 2000.
o th_9461.asp
http://www.enn.com/features/2000/02/02102000/mamm
#45: Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth In 1984 Technology Review published an article titled "Retrobreeding the Woolly Mammoth" that described an effort by Soviet scientists to bring the woolly mammoth species back from extinction. The technique being used was the insertion of DNA from woolly mammoths found frozen in Siberian ice into elephant cells. The cells were then brought to term inside surrogate elephant mothers. The head of the project was said to be Dr. Sverbighooze Yasmilov. The story was widely reported as a factual event.