Well if we can still find fossils of dinosaurs many millions of years old that were not "crushed to dust" wouldn't a city leave some trace?
I find both the Drake equation and this hypothesis to be faulty.
The Drake equation outputs whatever you decide to plug into it. It is a fine mathematical example of manipulating non-scientific people since the input to the equation is the supposition. Any faulty supposition gives an erroneous output. We do not know what the input should be. Therefor we do not have an accurate output.
The supposition that an entire city would leave *nothing* when the bones of ancient animals can be found is a faulty presupposition.
Usually I'm not the person to gush over a public figure or cast strangely intimate condolences at a person I've never met.
In this case I'll make an exception.
Back in the day- it was Dr. Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" which drew me into a lifelong love of physics. Many books on the subject have followed. The basic knowledge of the universe learned form those books increased the quality of my life. Going to bed at night knowing what is true, what is not true, and what I do not yet know is a very comforting experience.
His life was an example of devotion to a principle called the "Scientific Method". Perhaps the ultimate measure of truth in a world everyone thinks they know everything without the knowledge of what they do not know. For all his brilliance, like Einstein before him, he admitted he did not know everything. He was simply an explorer through an environment which could only be experienced in the mind because it is beyond the human senses.
And he had to make a case for these truths to many people who would not accept his ideas. He did it only with logic, math, and a passion for finding what is true.
No man lives forever. Hopefully his inspiration of others will last forever. Hopefully we will learn his lessons of science, humility, and good humor.
He was such a good human, it was worth losing him, just to have him. Hopefully, his waveform continues elsewhere.
This seems like useful entertainment. Not only from the standpoint of seeing a very dumb person "press the button"- because there are many levels of both entertainment AND education here...
The entertaining part is watching someone dumb, do something stupid, and the resulting consequences. Some people say that is cruel. Which I'd agree with to some extent. But comedy is based on tragedy created by the butt of the joke.
Imagine if Basil Fawlty was a scientist....
Education comes from watching the guy blow himself to bits. Those who think the world is flat will have to confront the idea that a guy who blew himself up out of stupidity is capable of assessing the curvature (and spheroid nature) of the planet.
All in all... if he presses the button- we all win.
Well, I read the article and quite frankly... IT isn't the same merit based environment it once was.
Which essentially means I do not care. Having made the right moves in the 90s and 2000s I'm not worried about "today". I live in a rural area and work as a PC tech along side engineers who cannot hold a candle to my skill set. But... it's a better life. I'm 52 now. Did my first coding in 1979, first professional gig in 1984. I've accomplished everything I wanted to. I do not need to "earn"....
My career goals are now as follows:
1. Earn beer money. 2. Keep wife happy. 3. Play with my dogs. 4. Keep the weight off. 5. Remain technically skilled (because I enjoy it) 6. Maybe accept an engineering position at my employer when one opens.
Beyond that... if you are my age and still chasing the big bucks my opinion is that you are missing out on life.
My big plan for 2018? Combine my 30 years of IT and electronics experience with a FCC GROL and do some interesting work for the maritime shipping industry and aviation.
Quality of life is everything guys. I burned the candle hot until I was 45. Have an exit strategy in place so you can go live a life outside of the corporate weenie-sphere..
Yes Firefox has improved an amazing amount with the Quantum update. Yes- I moved off of Chrome.
But seriously... it's not like the messiah has returned. The hype surrounding this is unbelievable...
My experience is that Quantum is acceptably fast. Not impressively fast. It's only impressively fast when compared to previous versions of Firefox.
Why did I switch? Because Chrome causes problems with my audio subsystem which gets heavy use. I'd like to use my browser while the computer is routing audio streams. Chrome made that impossible (and was the only program which caused that kind of problem).
After 16 months of trying to solve the problem Firefox eeked out Chrome simply because it was no longer a "dog".
While I've got no idea whether this site is a reliable source for such information, it does seem like a step backward.
Nuclear weapons are always a bad idea. The public relations cost of using them alone could devastate our country. They were always sold to the American public as a temporary weapons system due to the Soviet, then Chinese, threat. Today no country on earth will let lose with these armaments because the retaliation would be devastating.
Even North Korea must know that internally.
But it sure seems like a bad idea to have these systems on 24 hour alert. Especially since retaliation with nukes essentially destroys both sides.
Of course I'll take a lot of heat for taking this position. But after reading books on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with survivor accounts, and photographs- I could draw no other conclusion.
Nukes go way beyond military supremacy issues- into overkill. No pun intended.
This is rich- they'll survive about 24 hours (if that).
The hacktivists who use Tor are now gleeful that their attacks against the site cannot be traced. Even people who don't hack sites are going to be looking for scripts. IT guys who never hack are going to attack.
These people are not smart. If you dive into Tor or I2P you are in the deep end of the pool.
So after wasting a portion of my life reading his comments....
Who cares? So some over intelligent literalist has a contrarian view. Fine. Lock him in an office and pay him for his code.
There's three real problems here:
1. The guy likes to take intellectual short cuts through complex issues.
2. Some people at Google have very thin skin and are raising a huge stink.
3. Google fired him. Dumb move.
So while the morons on the left are raging the morons on the right have a martyr.
So what does it mean?
Some insurance company will pay for the settlement, Mr. Damore will become the moron of the moment in conservative circles, and we are all entertained.
Politics and intrigue have made their way into the internet at levels most of us old timers would not have suspected. Now we're seeing competition between state actors over who will be the most effective surveillance state.
If privacy is important to you- the internet is not a place to get it. My suspicion is that this will not change. Every product is suspect. Every company is suspect. Assume everyone can see what you do. Make that assumption even if you take steps to attain basic anonymity.
And if you use onion or garlic routing (Tor/i2p etc.) remember that those networks are targeted by law enforcement and state actors.
The best policy is to not do anything illegal or involve yourself in espionage while using the internet. No one cares about pictures of your puppies or your World of Warcraft character.
It's not Kapersky we have to be worried about: The political chess game is being played out with the internet being a full part of the drama. It is best to assume every company is involved- and act accordingly.
I had my last cigarette June 5th 2010. That's when I started "vaping" with the very primitive equipment available then.
It wasn't easy. Cigarettes create a cross addiction not only to nicotine, but to at least 4 chemicals in the smoke which are MAOI inhibitors (anti-depressants). So as a 30 year smoker I did have withdrawals, but not nearly as bad and quitting cold turkey.
I tried all the alternatives... Chantix cause major health problems.... Welbutrin made me manic.... Celexa put me in a state of mind where if not careful my behavior could be more reckless than my normal measured self. Patches and gums worked- but only if I were willing to use them to the point of nicotine overdose. Cold turkey was a no go.... roughly 10 attempts were made... impossible for me.
That being said vaping is not a vitamin. It delivers nicotine. And it's addictive. It's not a good thing.
But if you are trapped by tobacco and willing to work at it- it can be a good thing. For smokers trapped by the habit only.
Anyone else who is into vaping for "sport" or "cool factor" are just fools.
The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all.
ARRL has no enforcement power. It does have an Official Observer program. These operators do look for improper operation and can document this behavior. They do send out notices of improper operation to ham operators (amateur radio is usually called ham radio). There are no teeth behind this notice. An important part of their role is sending out notices when hams operate particularly well.
Documentation of improper operating can end up being forwarded to the FCC in hopes that they will act on it. It is only the FCC that has actual enforcement power. Many submissions never get acted upon. The ones that seem to get immediate action are if you interfere with another licensed service (interfering with police, emergency medical, aviation, commercial broadcast).
Lack of enforcement by the FCC is a problem. Many field offices have been closed down. Lack of funding is definitely making the problem worse.
ARRL is a great organization. They do provide great training materials for proper operation. They do a lot of lobbying for the Amateur Radio Service. They work to protect the service from band encroachment. They watch for well intentioned but poorly worded legislation that impacts the service. For example: North Carolina has been considering legislation (SB 393) that would ban use of almost any electronic communication device in a vehicle. ARRL is organizing operators in the state to ask their representatives to amend the verbiage to exclude amateur radio. Mobile operation is an important part of the amateur radio service. Banning it would make much of the value that the amateur radio service provides impossible. In addition, amateur radio mobile operation has a stellar safety record.
ARRL cannot enforce, but it can educate and work to influence.
What you see in the above post is a mindless defense of an organization which I wasn't criticizing in the first place.
I'm a life member of the ARRL BTW. And still- the FCC has no budget to enforce. And the "Official Observers" send notices to stations who break the rules. That seems pretty "farmed out" to me.
What's next? If the FCC won't do enforcement maybe the ARRL should begin levying fines. It would be better than nothing at all being done.
First off, the FCC is underfunded and cannot enforce it's own rules. This is one of those cases where lack of funding leads to inept regulation. The FCC cannot set a rule and simply enforce the rule. They have to set a rule that is enforced in a defacto manner without them spending any money.
So by regulating what manufacturers can and cannot do- they get the "appearance" of responsible regulation. With the added side effect of stifling innovation, modification, or customization (within the law) of the equipment.
You can try to explain this to people.. but since the principles involved are nuanced and technical most eyes glaze over. But the short form is this: if you lock down the hardware you stifle innovation.
Another primary example of the FCC failing for lack of funding is the regulation of radio bandwidth which citizens have access to. That would be the CB, GMRS, FRS, MURS, or Amateur Radio services. The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all. The result being that the radio spectrum has become a cesspool of "pirate radio", free-banders (Illegal unlicensed operators), or licensed operators who break all the rules.
There are illegal operators across all the bands in the spectrum that are known by the FCC, the general public who use the spectrum, local law enforcement, and the defense community. But they are rarely enforced against.
They are not enforced against because the FCC has no budget for enforcement. They rarely enforce interference with government services first, commercial services second, and do nothing at all anywhere else. Very occasionally there is Amateur enforcement.
This means as a citizen FCC enforcement will come through any tangential avenue that has no cost to the FCC.
As I'm reading this story through multiple sources... I can't help being in awe of the sheer majesty of stupidity and willful ignorance on this guy's part.
Not to say I'm condoning illegal activity- I'm not.
This is what happens when an idiot clones an idea (an illegal darkweb marketplace) while not having an inkling of the implications of his actions. Not even considering that there have been multiple dark sites taken down by far more technically adept means. Not understanding that a clearnet e-mail address is completely traceable- sometimes even through a proxy.
The owner of this "site" was completely ignorant of anything network related... which means the use of any anonymizing network is useless.
A 27Mhz CB has no chance of transmitting in the FM broadcast band without a transverter. And even then the frequency stability would be so bad it wouldn't be able to interfere effectively with a 103 Mhz signal- outside of maybe some weird QRM. Additionally, to jam a station with 1000W and an elevated antenna- you would need maybe 3 kilowatts. Even then the jamming would be localized.
Slashdot Mirror
Well if we can still find fossils of dinosaurs many millions of years old that were not "crushed to dust" wouldn't a city leave some trace?
I find both the Drake equation and this hypothesis to be faulty.
The Drake equation outputs whatever you decide to plug into it. It is a fine mathematical example of manipulating non-scientific people since the input to the equation is the supposition. Any faulty supposition gives an erroneous output. We do not know what the input should be. Therefor we do not have an accurate output.
The supposition that an entire city would leave *nothing* when the bones of ancient animals can be found is a faulty presupposition.
There is far to little "naming of names" these days.
Without it... one cannot gauge the veracity of a conclusion.
Name names- or shutup!
This is totally manipulating the general public. Let's create more fear... rather than let the intelligence agencies do their job.
Of course there are listening devices in Washington. They exist in Moscow as well- and all other countries.
Here's how it works:
Make people dumb everything down. Then scare the crap out of everyone. Then hold an election.
Works almost always.
Might be nice if we made a decision, as a species, about whether we are a part of or separate from the earth's ecosystem.
This half-in/half-out status dooms both organisms.
There is no justice ... ... death is the only answer
I'm not welcome anywhere.... ... I give up.
Usually I'm not the person to gush over a public figure or cast strangely intimate condolences at a person I've never met.
In this case I'll make an exception.
Back in the day- it was Dr. Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" which drew me into a lifelong love of physics. Many books on the subject have followed. The basic knowledge of the universe learned form those books increased the quality of my life. Going to bed at night knowing what is true, what is not true, and what I do not yet know is a very comforting experience.
His life was an example of devotion to a principle called the "Scientific Method". Perhaps the ultimate measure of truth in a world everyone thinks they know everything without the knowledge of what they do not know. For all his brilliance, like Einstein before him, he admitted he did not know everything. He was simply an explorer through an environment which could only be experienced in the mind because it is beyond the human senses.
And he had to make a case for these truths to many people who would not accept his ideas. He did it only with logic, math, and a passion for finding what is true.
No man lives forever. Hopefully his inspiration of others will last forever. Hopefully we will learn his lessons of science, humility, and good humor.
He was such a good human, it was worth losing him, just to have him. Hopefully, his waveform continues elsewhere.
Putin wants military conflict with the US.
So he screws with the Olympics and maybe President Caligula does something stupid. Poof it's Arch Duke Ferdinand...
Or maybe Putin was just looking for porn.
Actually... it's the turtle doing to work.
While I'd not pay to see this...
This seems like useful entertainment. Not only from the standpoint of seeing a very dumb person "press the button"- because there are many levels of both entertainment AND education here...
The entertaining part is watching someone dumb, do something stupid, and the resulting consequences. Some people say that is cruel. Which I'd agree with to some extent. But comedy is based on tragedy created by the butt of the joke.
Imagine if Basil Fawlty was a scientist....
Education comes from watching the guy blow himself to bits. Those who think the world is flat will have to confront the idea that a guy who blew himself up out of stupidity is capable of assessing the curvature (and spheroid nature) of the planet.
All in all... if he presses the button- we all win.
If you are a live now, have been born from 1960 onwards, you are privileged. As am I.
We've seen the computer revolution, Internet revolution, and now a space revolution.
Jobs will be diminished, Musk will be remembered.
Well, I read the article and quite frankly... IT isn't the same merit based environment it once was.
Which essentially means I do not care. Having made the right moves in the 90s and 2000s I'm not worried about "today". I live in a rural area and work as a PC tech along side engineers who cannot hold a candle to my skill set. But... it's a better life. I'm 52 now. Did my first coding in 1979, first professional gig in 1984. I've accomplished everything I wanted to. I do not need to "earn"....
My career goals are now as follows:
1. Earn beer money.
2. Keep wife happy.
3. Play with my dogs.
4. Keep the weight off.
5. Remain technically skilled (because I enjoy it)
6. Maybe accept an engineering position at my employer when one opens.
Beyond that... if you are my age and still chasing the big bucks my opinion is that you are missing out on life.
My big plan for 2018? Combine my 30 years of IT and electronics experience with a FCC GROL and do some interesting work for the maritime shipping industry and aviation.
Quality of life is everything guys. I burned the candle hot until I was 45. Have an exit strategy in place so you can go live a life outside of the corporate weenie-sphere..
Yes Firefox has improved an amazing amount with the Quantum update. Yes- I moved off of Chrome.
But seriously... it's not like the messiah has returned. The hype surrounding this is unbelievable...
My experience is that Quantum is acceptably fast. Not impressively fast. It's only impressively fast when compared to previous versions of Firefox.
Why did I switch? Because Chrome causes problems with my audio subsystem which gets heavy use. I'd like to use my browser while the computer is routing audio streams. Chrome made that impossible (and was the only program which caused that kind of problem).
After 16 months of trying to solve the problem Firefox eeked out Chrome simply because it was no longer a "dog".
While I've got no idea whether this site is a reliable source for such information, it does seem like a step backward.
Nuclear weapons are always a bad idea. The public relations cost of using them alone could devastate our country. They were always sold to the American public as a temporary weapons system due to the Soviet, then Chinese, threat. Today no country on earth will let lose with these armaments because the retaliation would be devastating.
Even North Korea must know that internally.
But it sure seems like a bad idea to have these systems on 24 hour alert. Especially since retaliation with nukes essentially destroys both sides.
Of course I'll take a lot of heat for taking this position. But after reading books on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with survivor accounts, and photographs- I could draw no other conclusion.
Nukes go way beyond military supremacy issues- into overkill. No pun intended.
This is rich- they'll survive about 24 hours (if that).
The hacktivists who use Tor are now gleeful that their attacks against the site cannot be traced. Even people who don't hack sites are going to be looking for scripts. IT guys who never hack are going to attack.
These people are not smart. If you dive into Tor or I2P you are in the deep end of the pool.
So after wasting a portion of my life reading his comments....
Who cares? So some over intelligent literalist has a contrarian view. Fine. Lock him in an office and pay him for his code.
There's three real problems here:
1. The guy likes to take intellectual short cuts through complex issues.
2. Some people at Google have very thin skin and are raising a huge stink.
3. Google fired him. Dumb move.
So while the morons on the left are raging the morons on the right have a martyr.
So what does it mean?
Some insurance company will pay for the settlement, Mr. Damore will become the moron of the moment in conservative circles, and we are all entertained.
Are we not entertained?
Do the Tunisians get any of the electricity?
Or do we just throw a few beads at them and move in?
Politics and intrigue have made their way into the internet at levels most of us old timers would not have suspected. Now we're seeing competition between state actors over who will be the most effective surveillance state.
If privacy is important to you- the internet is not a place to get it. My suspicion is that this will not change. Every product is suspect. Every company is suspect. Assume everyone can see what you do. Make that assumption even if you take steps to attain basic anonymity.
And if you use onion or garlic routing (Tor/i2p etc.) remember that those networks are targeted by law enforcement and state actors.
The best policy is to not do anything illegal or involve yourself in espionage while using the internet. No one cares about pictures of your puppies or your World of Warcraft character.
It's not Kapersky we have to be worried about: The political chess game is being played out with the internet being a full part of the drama. It is best to assume every company is involved- and act accordingly.
I had my last cigarette June 5th 2010. That's when I started "vaping" with the very primitive equipment available then.
It wasn't easy. Cigarettes create a cross addiction not only to nicotine, but to at least 4 chemicals in the smoke which are MAOI inhibitors (anti-depressants). So as a 30 year smoker I did have withdrawals, but not nearly as bad and quitting cold turkey.
I tried all the alternatives... Chantix cause major health problems.... Welbutrin made me manic.... Celexa put me in a state of mind where if not careful my behavior could be more reckless than my normal measured self. Patches and gums worked- but only if I were willing to use them to the point of nicotine overdose. Cold turkey was a no go.... roughly 10 attempts were made... impossible for me.
That being said vaping is not a vitamin. It delivers nicotine. And it's addictive. It's not a good thing.
But if you are trapped by tobacco and willing to work at it- it can be a good thing. For smokers trapped by the habit only.
Anyone else who is into vaping for "sport" or "cool factor" are just fools.
The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all.
ARRL has no enforcement power. It does have an Official Observer program. These operators do look for improper operation and can document this behavior. They do send out notices of improper operation to ham operators (amateur radio is usually called ham radio). There are no teeth behind this notice. An important part of their role is sending out notices when hams operate particularly well.
Documentation of improper operating can end up being forwarded to the FCC in hopes that they will act on it. It is only the FCC that has actual enforcement power. Many submissions never get acted upon. The ones that seem to get immediate action are if you interfere with another licensed service (interfering with police, emergency medical, aviation, commercial broadcast).
Lack of enforcement by the FCC is a problem. Many field offices have been closed down. Lack of funding is definitely making the problem worse.
ARRL is a great organization. They do provide great training materials for proper operation. They do a lot of lobbying for the Amateur Radio Service. They work to protect the service from band encroachment. They watch for well intentioned but poorly worded legislation that impacts the service. For example: North Carolina has been considering legislation (SB 393) that would ban use of almost any electronic communication device in a vehicle. ARRL is organizing operators in the state to ask their representatives to amend the verbiage to exclude amateur radio. Mobile operation is an important part of the amateur radio service. Banning it would make much of the value that the amateur radio service provides impossible. In addition, amateur radio mobile operation has a stellar safety record.
ARRL cannot enforce, but it can educate and work to influence.
What you see in the above post is a mindless defense of an organization which I wasn't criticizing in the first place.
I'm a life member of the ARRL BTW. And still- the FCC has no budget to enforce. And the "Official Observers" send notices to stations who break the rules. That seems pretty "farmed out" to me.
What's next? If the FCC won't do enforcement maybe the ARRL should begin levying fines. It would be better than nothing at all being done.
First off, the FCC is underfunded and cannot enforce it's own rules. This is one of those cases where lack of funding leads to inept regulation. The FCC cannot set a rule and simply enforce the rule. They have to set a rule that is enforced in a defacto manner without them spending any money.
So by regulating what manufacturers can and cannot do- they get the "appearance" of responsible regulation. With the added side effect of stifling innovation, modification, or customization (within the law) of the equipment.
You can try to explain this to people.. but since the principles involved are nuanced and technical most eyes glaze over. But the short form is this: if you lock down the hardware you stifle innovation.
Another primary example of the FCC failing for lack of funding is the regulation of radio bandwidth which citizens have access to. That would be the CB, GMRS, FRS, MURS, or Amateur Radio services. The FCC either farms out the enforcement (Amateur Radio is farmed out to the ARRL) or simply makes no enforcement action at all. The result being that the radio spectrum has become a cesspool of "pirate radio", free-banders (Illegal unlicensed operators), or licensed operators who break all the rules.
There are illegal operators across all the bands in the spectrum that are known by the FCC, the general public who use the spectrum, local law enforcement, and the defense community. But they are rarely enforced against.
They are not enforced against because the FCC has no budget for enforcement. They rarely enforce interference with government services first, commercial services second, and do nothing at all anywhere else. Very occasionally there is Amateur enforcement.
This means as a citizen FCC enforcement will come through any tangential avenue that has no cost to the FCC.
As I'm reading this story through multiple sources... I can't help being in awe of the sheer majesty of stupidity and willful ignorance on this guy's part.
Not to say I'm condoning illegal activity- I'm not.
This is what happens when an idiot clones an idea (an illegal darkweb marketplace) while not having an inkling of the implications of his actions. Not even considering that there have been multiple dark sites taken down by far more technically adept means. Not understanding that a clearnet e-mail address is completely traceable- sometimes even through a proxy.
The owner of this "site" was completely ignorant of anything network related... which means the use of any anonymizing network is useless.
A 27Mhz CB has no chance of transmitting in the FM broadcast band without a transverter. And even then the frequency stability would be so bad it wouldn't be able to interfere effectively with a 103 Mhz signal- outside of maybe some weird QRM. Additionally, to jam a station with 1000W and an elevated antenna- you would need maybe 3 kilowatts. Even then the jamming would be localized.
But 3 kilowatts out of a car? Unlikely.
Um... the recent server offerings are pretty impressive. You should check it out.
And there I am... just past 50 years old thinking the only revolution I'd see was the internet.
And here we are... rockets, electric cars, and tunneling machines.
I hope I make it to 90!!!