A small city of 20k or so people wastes more wattage every day just in wasted electricity and radiative leakage than the SETI project has used during it's entire history.
If there are VN or alien probes of any sort in the solar system, they will likely be so stealthed we can't detect them* (consider the level of technology you're implying) - otherwise they would have deliberately revealed their presence already.
* Of course given the likely size of such probes they wouldn't have to do much stealthing for us to miss them
This is like the young earth creationists releasing their data to the public.
Since most of their "data" seems to be in the bible, wouldn't that be redundant? In any case they hardly make a secret of what "data" they have.
The SETI@Home project, from my understanding, has literally terabytes of data they don't have computer power to analyze, even with the hundreds of thousands or millions of seti@home installations working out there.
In answer to the bad or intentionally fraudulent processing problem, they could validate any spurious signal quite easily - by putting it in to their own software and seeing if there's anything there.
If they find nothing there, but contact the person analyzing the data and determine that said person probably has the smarts and honesty to have found something legit, then they can work with that person, request a copy of their code, etc.
I don't think that mistakes or fraudulent results are going to be quite the problem you think they are - and I'm sure that the scientists who do the SETI programming/analysis have likely already thought this through. If I can think of a few ways to do validation of outside results in a couple minutes they have likely thought of many more ways.
For some years now I've been getting what few shows I do watch - like BSG, Caprica, etc, from the web - no ads! (g( plus the advantage of being able to pause, restart, playback, snapshots, etc.
It's nice being in control one's own entertainment, wouldn't you agree?
No truer words were ever spoken; those from someone who had had a gutful of warfare, in it's worse sense - citizens killing citizens.
Perhaps the worse - sin, for lack of a better word - that we as a species commit is killing our fellow sapients over trivial differences, when the universe at large kills us because that's the way it is.
Bog help us if our politicians start declaring war on the universe at large. Because then we will know that they have gone completely past rational thought.
Wait, what say I? That such has not already happened? Fools, they be.
All thoughts of accommodation were instantly laid aside; the troops advanced forthwith into the town, and having first put to the sword all who were found in the house from which the shots were fired, and reduced it to ashes, they proceeded, without 'a moment's delay, to burn and destroy everything in the most distant degree connected with government. In this general devastation were included the Senate House, the President's palace,...Of the Senate house, the President's palace, the barracks, the dockyard, etc., nothing could be seen except heaps of smoking ruins."
He treated his slaves far better than most slave owners of the period did. He allowed blacks to serve in his military - from some accounts, 20-25% of his military was composed of blacks who had asked to serve.
I suspect you don't understand what things were like at that time. Rich white landowners were practically *required* to own slaves - if you did not, it was a black mark against you in a social and political sense.
I would suggest that you look up and read some of his papers.
As to his wife, just what, exactly, would you have done, if you had this estate, and slaves were necessary to the continuing function of it? The fact that he decreed his slaves be freed upon her death is an indication of just what he thought about the whole subject - few of his contemporaries at the time would have done so.
I don't have your experience, but I agree. In any case, it's already illegal, as far as I know, to misrepresent one's identity with intent of fraud. This is just another redundant piece of legislation, as far as I can see.
You clearly don't understand the mental workings of politicians.
Even if something already has a law against it, if someone finds a new way of circumventing that law, then CLEARLY we need to have a new law outlawing that particular form of circumvention!
After all, what else do they have to do? They know they can't solve the real problems facing society, and since the job of a legislator is to legislate, they can't be seen not doing their job, now, can they? If they did then the people who elect them might start to consider them useless.... think of the legislators! They have families to feed and multiple summer homes to pay off, too!!
A long time ago, I used to play the game Homeworld quite often. I used to "record" the games, mostly to play them back and see where I screwed up, but often when playing them back I'd sit and just enjoy watching it - like watching a movie in which I participated, in a sense. (Of course Homeworld is a damned beautiful game to anyone who likes space visuals, anyway) - and often I'd find the tactics and strategy used beautiful in the sense of elegance - both mine and my opponents. I get the same sense of enjoyment in playing back a particularly good chess game, or watching one (anyone who thinks that a well-played and executed chess game isn't Art just plain doesn't get it)
(see my last comment on this story as well regarding elegance of strategy and tactics)
Ebert should stick to movies. He is clearly out of his depth here.
No. Not war itself. War is ugly, not beautiful. Killing people and destroying things is not in itself an art form and is certainly not beautiful to anyone but a psychotic. The aim of any really good commander is to win the battle or the war with the minimum of casualties and destruction - on both sides.
I think what Tzu was referring to was strategy and tactics - the methodology used to prosecute the war, and I agree with him there - a well-crafted and executed battle plan can have an elegance and beauty all it's own, especially if it achieves it's intended result with the least amount of mayhem possible....and yes, I've read it. Several times. The man was a genius.
I did that nearly twenty years ago - I watch less than five hours a month, if that; and I've been happier for it. Hell, most of the last twenty or so years I haven't even owned a tv...
Trying to watch almost anything nowadays drives me insane - the advertising is stupid, venal, and insulting, and there is way too goddamned much of it.
I get a lot of amusement from the looks on people's faces when I tell them that...
The real shame of all this is that the actual reason that the RIAA and MPAA are so hyped about "piracy" is they want to control the distribution channels, like they used to.
Indies putting their own works out there without resorting to going thru the companies that make up those two organizations are the real threat to their monopoly, and they know it.
Those who would control society are blind when it comes to understanding the people who make up society. Historically that has always been their downfall - not after much damage has been done, unfortunately.
The really fucked up part about it is that it can't be changed by anything other than the broad dissemination of knowledge, which is exactly what many of the people in power do not want. Thence hinders the advancement of humanity. ( Just to preemptively shoot down certain fundamentalist assholes: It's not a conspiracy, it's the broad spectrum of ignorance breeding ignorance, which is an entirely different problem)
I have to ask: do you see filesharing to be kind of like pot-smoking, in that "some other people say it's wrong, but it isn't hurting anyone else, so who cares?" Do you believe it's wrong, but participate anyway? Or do you actually believe it's a right that's being wrongly suppressed?
I'll bite.
If one looks at the history of this country and of humanity in general, people do not like being told that they cannot share information - any information, including books, music, etc, with each other. That actually goes a lot deeper than that, in to sharing of religious rites from centuries/millennia ago, but that's a whole book in itself.
Public libraries came about because there were, and are, people who believe that information should be shared freely. Now there are a lot of people out there who think that books shouldn't be copied, but that's ridiculous. The information, or stories, in a book can be remembered and shared, always have been, so putting restrictions on the information in books being copied is ridiculous.
Music... well, anyone with sufficient talent can memorize a piece of music, and reproduce it at will. Before the ability to make recordings of music came along, that is how music was shared and passed on. When the technology to record music and replay at one's convenience came along, there was a riot amongst those who felt it was their sole right to produce it.
Videos... well, the MPAA said many years ago that the VHS industry would destroy the movie making industry. Yeah, right. It revolutionized it. Ditto DVDs, ditto blueray, etc.
Pot smoking... despite well over half a century of legal suppression of pot, it still thrives.
There is a (sometimes) powerful minority of people, of many persuasions, who feel that they have to dictate to everyone else what is permissible, and what is not. There are, and always will be, hopefully many, many more people in the future who will tell those powerful (or not) minorities to stuff those ideological ideals up their ass.
Does the phrase "tilting at windmills" mean anything to you?
Indeed. External drive enclosures with SSD's are getting down to the size of a small paperback book. Easily concealable, and even more easy to dump in a garbage can somewhere without losing much, if it becomes necessary.
Maybe not as "convenient" for some people as broadband sharing is, but nearly un-prosecutable, given how common and how inexpensive drives of large capacity are becoming.
Once again, technology is bypassing antiquated business models and the efforts of those who hold to them to keep the status quo. Damned shame that the politicians are mostly ignorant of the ramifications of said technology.
That's an excellent analogy (antibiotics). Has anyone in the sociological fields, I wonder, ever thought of it that way? Because it makes a lot of sense when applied to human stubbornness;)
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A small city of 20k or so people wastes more wattage every day just in wasted electricity and radiative leakage than the SETI project has used during it's entire history.
You're an idiot.
SB
If there are VN or alien probes of any sort in the solar system, they will likely be so stealthed we can't detect them* (consider the level of technology you're implying) - otherwise they would have deliberately revealed their presence already.
* Of course given the likely size of such probes they wouldn't have to do much stealthing for us to miss them
SB
This is like the young earth creationists releasing their data to the public.
Since most of their "data" seems to be in the bible, wouldn't that be redundant? In any case they hardly make a secret of what "data" they have.
The SETI@Home project, from my understanding, has literally terabytes of data they don't have computer power to analyze, even with the hundreds of thousands or millions of seti@home installations working out there.
SB
In answer to the bad or intentionally fraudulent processing problem, they could validate any spurious signal quite easily - by putting it in to their own software and seeing if there's anything there.
If they find nothing there, but contact the person analyzing the data and determine that said person probably has the smarts and honesty to have found something legit, then they can work with that person, request a copy of their code, etc.
I don't think that mistakes or fraudulent results are going to be quite the problem you think they are - and I'm sure that the scientists who do the SETI programming/analysis have likely already thought this through. If I can think of a few ways to do validation of outside results in a couple minutes they have likely thought of many more ways.
SB
Masochist ;-)
For some years now I've been getting what few shows I do watch - like BSG, Caprica, etc, from the web - no ads! (g( plus the advantage of being able to pause, restart, playback, snapshots, etc.
It's nice being in control one's own entertainment, wouldn't you agree?
Cheers
SB
No truer words were ever spoken; those from someone who had had a gutful of warfare, in it's worse sense - citizens killing citizens.
Perhaps the worse - sin, for lack of a better word - that we as a species commit is killing our fellow sapients over trivial differences, when the universe at large kills us because that's the way it is.
Bog help us if our politicians start declaring war on the universe at large. Because then we will know that they have gone completely past rational thought.
Wait, what say I? That such has not already happened? Fools, they be.
SB
This is not necessarily flamebait.
The Tea Party says NO TAXES; well, part of what taxes support are libraries...
Oh, and as long as we're on that subject, I love this statement from the front page of the Tea Party's website:
Tea Party Patriots, Inc. operates as a social welfare organization
A What?
SB
It's entirely possible those books burned with the White House in 1814.
Quote from link:
All thoughts of accommodation were instantly laid aside; the troops advanced forthwith into the town, and having first put to the sword all who were found in the house from which the shots were fired, and reduced it to ashes, they proceeded, without 'a moment's delay, to burn and destroy everything in the most distant degree connected with government. In this general devastation were included the Senate House, the President's palace,...Of the Senate house, the President's palace, the barracks, the dockyard, etc., nothing could be seen except heaps of smoking ruins."
SB
He treated his slaves far better than most slave owners of the period did. He allowed blacks to serve in his military - from some accounts, 20-25% of his military was composed of blacks who had asked to serve.
I suspect you don't understand what things were like at that time. Rich white landowners were practically *required* to own slaves - if you did not, it was a black mark against you in a social and political sense.
I would suggest that you look up and read some of his papers.
As to his wife, just what, exactly, would you have done, if you had this estate, and slaves were necessary to the continuing function of it? The fact that he decreed his slaves be freed upon her death is an indication of just what he thought about the whole subject - few of his contemporaries at the time would have done so.
SB
I don't have your experience, but I agree. In any case, it's already illegal, as far as I know, to misrepresent one's identity with intent of fraud. This is just another redundant piece of legislation, as far as I can see.
SB
You clearly don't understand the mental workings of politicians.
Even if something already has a law against it, if someone finds a new way of circumventing that law, then CLEARLY we need to have a new law outlawing that particular form of circumvention!
After all, what else do they have to do? They know they can't solve the real problems facing society, and since the job of a legislator is to legislate, they can't be seen not doing their job, now, can they? If they did then the people who elect them might start to consider them useless.... think of the legislators! They have families to feed and multiple summer homes to pay off, too!!
SB
that's what pay phones are for.
If you can find one...
SB
In addition, he hasn't considered that for many artists of all stripes, "winning" can be defined as having other people appreciate your art.
SB
Oh, very, VERY well said, thank you!
Clearly Ebert has never played a game such as chess or any other in which elegant solutions can be beautiful...
SB
A long time ago, I used to play the game Homeworld quite often. I used to "record" the games, mostly to play them back and see where I screwed up, but often when playing them back I'd sit and just enjoy watching it - like watching a movie in which I participated, in a sense. (Of course Homeworld is a damned beautiful game to anyone who likes space visuals, anyway) - and often I'd find the tactics and strategy used beautiful in the sense of elegance - both mine and my opponents. I get the same sense of enjoyment in playing back a particularly good chess game, or watching one (anyone who thinks that a well-played and executed chess game isn't Art just plain doesn't get it)
(see my last comment on this story as well regarding elegance of strategy and tactics)
Ebert should stick to movies. He is clearly out of his depth here.
SB
No. Not war itself. War is ugly, not beautiful. Killing people and destroying things is not in itself an art form and is certainly not beautiful to anyone but a psychotic. The aim of any really good commander is to win the battle or the war with the minimum of casualties and destruction - on both sides.
I think what Tzu was referring to was strategy and tactics - the methodology used to prosecute the war, and I agree with him there - a well-crafted and executed battle plan can have an elegance and beauty all it's own, especially if it achieves it's intended result with the least amount of mayhem possible. ...and yes, I've read it. Several times. The man was a genius.
SB
You forgot:
TURN OFF THE DAMNED TV :)
I did that nearly twenty years ago - I watch less than five hours a month, if that; and I've been happier for it. Hell, most of the last twenty or so years I haven't even owned a tv...
Trying to watch almost anything nowadays drives me insane - the advertising is stupid, venal, and insulting, and there is way too goddamned much of it.
I get a lot of amusement from the looks on people's faces when I tell them that...
Sigh :)
SB
"Oooh, oooh, they looked at me with their greedy eyes "
Fixed that fer ya. Great filking :)
SB
The real shame of all this is that the actual reason that the RIAA and MPAA are so hyped about "piracy" is they want to control the distribution channels, like they used to.
Indies putting their own works out there without resorting to going thru the companies that make up those two organizations are the real threat to their monopoly, and they know it.
SB
You put your best works out there and you take your chances.
That's how it should be. Nobody - and especially not the middlemen - should be guaranteed a living by law.
SB
A theory about how people are contrary?
Someone will deny it ;-)
Those who would control society are blind when it comes to understanding the people who make up society. Historically that has always been their downfall - not after much damage has been done, unfortunately.
The really fucked up part about it is that it can't be changed by anything other than the broad dissemination of knowledge, which is exactly what many of the people in power do not want. Thence hinders the advancement of humanity. ( Just to preemptively shoot down certain fundamentalist assholes: It's not a conspiracy, it's the broad spectrum of ignorance breeding ignorance, which is an entirely different problem)
I have to ask: do you see filesharing to be kind of like pot-smoking, in that "some other people say it's wrong, but it isn't hurting anyone else, so who cares?" Do you believe it's wrong, but participate anyway? Or do you actually believe it's a right that's being wrongly suppressed?
I'll bite.
If one looks at the history of this country and of humanity in general, people do not like being told that they cannot share information - any information, including books, music, etc, with each other. That actually goes a lot deeper than that, in to sharing of religious rites from centuries/millennia ago, but that's a whole book in itself.
Public libraries came about because there were, and are, people who believe that information should be shared freely. Now there are a lot of people out there who think that books shouldn't be copied, but that's ridiculous. The information, or stories, in a book can be remembered and shared, always have been, so putting restrictions on the information in books being copied is ridiculous.
Music... well, anyone with sufficient talent can memorize a piece of music, and reproduce it at will. Before the ability to make recordings of music came along, that is how music was shared and passed on. When the technology to record music and replay at one's convenience came along, there was a riot amongst those who felt it was their sole right to produce it.
Videos... well, the MPAA said many years ago that the VHS industry would destroy the movie making industry. Yeah, right. It revolutionized it. Ditto DVDs, ditto blueray, etc.
Pot smoking... despite well over half a century of legal suppression of pot, it still thrives.
There is a (sometimes) powerful minority of people, of many persuasions, who feel that they have to dictate to everyone else what is permissible, and what is not. There are, and always will be, hopefully many, many more people in the future who will tell those powerful (or not) minorities to stuff those ideological ideals up their ass.
Does the phrase "tilting at windmills" mean anything to you?
Damn kids.
SB
Indeed. External drive enclosures with SSD's are getting down to the size of a small paperback book. Easily concealable, and even more easy to dump in a garbage can somewhere without losing much, if it becomes necessary.
Maybe not as "convenient" for some people as broadband sharing is, but nearly un-prosecutable, given how common and how inexpensive drives of large capacity are becoming.
Once again, technology is bypassing antiquated business models and the efforts of those who hold to them to keep the status quo. Damned shame that the politicians are mostly ignorant of the ramifications of said technology.
They, too, are becoming antiquated.
SB
Burma Shave for the modern masses ;-)
SB
That's an excellent analogy (antibiotics). Has anyone in the sociological fields, I wonder, ever thought of it that way? Because it makes a lot of sense when applied to human stubbornness ;)
SB