Don't worry about NASA's funding...once the Chinese reach the moon in about a decade, and they start building their space station, NASA will get all the funding they need. The U.S. would not have rushed to reach the moon as quickly without the threat of Soviet domination of space. I suspect that the serious prospect of another nuclear power gaining superiority in the 'high ground' of space will get more money to NASA fast. Maybe if we're lucky, this new space race will lead to the permanent settlement of space, and not just another arena for conflict between the U.S. and China. Maybe.
Meanwhile, I just hope the Cassini-Huygens probe makes it to Titan in fewer than a million pieces.
And what is it that put America in the forefront of the nuclear nations? And what is it that will make it possible to spend 20 billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon? Well, it was good old American know-how, that's what. As provided by good old Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun.
Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun, A man whose allegiance Is ruled by expedience. Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown. "Ha, Nazi Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun.
Don't say that he's hypocritical, Say rather that he's apolitical. "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.
Some have harsh words for this man of renown, But some think our attitude Should be one of gratitude, Like the widows and cripples in old London town Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.
You too may be a big hero, Once you've learned to count backwards to zero. "In German oder English I know how to count down, Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun.
I agree, calling a TiVo "God's machine" is stupid. Anyone who's read the bible knows that only nuclear weapons can match God for sheer destructive power.
Besides, God doesn't need a TiVo; he already knows how this season of "24" is going to end.
George Bailey: Mr. Gower?
Mr. Gower: Zzzz...ehh, whuzza meh damn kid...
George: Uh, you put the wrong pills in the vial...
Mr. Gower: Uh? Ehh, aska drugbot, mumble mumble.
George: M-mister Drugbot?
DrugBot3000: SLEEP MODE
George: You, you put the wrong pills in the bottle...
DrugBot3000: INVALID COMMAND, PLEASE REPEAT YOUR REQUEST
George: I said, you put the wrong pills in the bottle.
DrugBot3000: INVALID COMMAND, PLEASE REPEAT YOUR REQUEST
George: The pills! You put bad medicine in the bottle!
DrugBot3000: INVALID COMMAND, PLEASE REPEAT YOUR REQUEST
George: Why, you're nothing but a big fraud!
DrugBot3000: ENTERING SLEEP MODE
Gower: Zzzzz....
George:...aww, screw this, I'm going to Martini's.
That's great, but I'm sure that no public office would accept a picture of your birth certificate, drivers license, house deed or car title for any official business. While I like the idea of 'the football', you should invest in a safety deposit box at a nearby bank, so you can store the originals safely.
On the other hand, I store all my documents in a box in my closet where the mice can eat them.
Unfortunately, bacteria can become resistant to bacteriophages as well. Occasionally a bacteria has a mutation in the receptor protein that the phage normally binds to during infection. Still, if I had a vancomycin resistant infection, I'd want to give phage treatment a try...
Re:Demand from him
on
Nosy Vendors?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I saw this on a outdoor survival show, using the car battery and some steel wool. It's a quick way to start a fire, if you can't find two Boy Scouts to rub together.
Hopefully your idea of what is worth saving won't change between when you take the digital picture, and when you want to look at it 40 years from now...
Welcome to Stranded! We've stranded each of our six scientist on a pre-technical planet full of hostile savages that eat organics and use atmospheric pressure oscillations to communicate! The scientists will have to deal with environmental disturbances such as open bodies of liquid dihydrogen monoxide, variable illumination levels, a dangerously oxidizing atmosphere, and omnivorous bio-forms! Each scientist will have to build the tools they need to survive and escape (like subsurface metal miners, autorepair nandroids, vacuum energy converters, and a working D'Drribsky shunt) using only native equipment (like iron-carbon alloy, polymerized pthalates, contaminated silicon aggregates, and osseous material from the bio-forms themselves.) They have only twelve teracycles to escape before we 'help' their sun go nova! The winner will be granted regenerative immortality by the Regulatory Council, and the losers will be vaporised into oblivion! Be sure to watch, won't you?
Venus has little hydrogen in its atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Carl Sagan is credited with suggesting the use of algae to begin terraforming Venus, but it was later realized that this, by itself, would probably not work.
The problem is that the atmosphere at the surface of Venus has about 90 times the pressure of Earth, and it is so hot at the surface that any oxygen produced by the algae would be burnt back into CO2 when they die and settle to the hot lower atmosphere. Even if we could magically remove 98% of Venus' atmosphere, I once heard it would take tens of thousands of years for the planet to radiate enough heat to space for humans to walk on the surface.
We should concentrate our efforts on Terraforming our own planet. There are plenty of recently created deserts and other wastelands that our technologies (including algae!) could make more livable for us, starting today.
Manic flying car scene? The Fifth Element. Sterile white futuristic laboratory setting? 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...with strange lanky aliens? AI: Artificial Intelligence. Ewan McGregor wandering through strange alien environments (i.e. Scotland)? Trainspotting. Samuel Jackson kicking ass and taking names? Pulp Fiction. Scenic alpine picnic? The Sound of Music. Bounty hunters and high-speed asteroid chases? Cowboy Bebop. A wisecracking, yet loveable pair of robots? Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. The protagonist loses his hand? The Evil Dead.
Sorry, Mr. Lucas, but I already have all these DVDs.
The picture you describe of the singularity is prosaic, but here are two other options.
Maybe our machines will leave Earth to go someplace where humanity can't bother them, and leave humanity here to rot. The high atmosphere of Venus, or the asteroid belt, or the mantle of the Earth...the smart assemblers could quickly adapt to many possible different homes. Sure, the humans could eventually follow and start annoying the smart nanobots, but if they can think as fast as some people think they might, they could quickly evolve into something even further beyond us (Femtotech? Machines based on the strong nuclear force? WTF-tech?) and leave us mouth-breathers mired in molecular molasses while they colonize the core of the sun, or quit the universe altogether!
Perhaps more likely is the idea that it would deliberately disassemble the OLD biosphere as raw material to build the new one. I don't mean an accidental "gray goo" scenario, but rather a deliberate decision by the most advanced 'life' form to dismantle a collection of obsolete machinery to free up space. After all, we've consciously done something similar to countless other species in the name of progress, too.
I wouldn't hold my breath hoping that "we" will find out what's on the other side of the singularity...even if the first group to build nanotech doesn't use it to kill 99.99% of us because they want mansions with BIG front lawns, then it's possible our tools will simply 'get uppety' and decide that they simply don't need us anymore.
When I hear discussions about how we will all see a utopic future brought about by some future technology, I'm reminded of the Sci-fi classic "When Worlds Collide". I'm sure that many of the people building the rocket to take humanity to the new world (and away from the doomed Earth) thought they were going to get a seat for themselves. But in the end, almost everyone in the world got left behind when the fateful moment arrived.
-dexter "Two thousand zero zero, party almost out of time" riley
The dubbing on "Cowboy Bebop" is really very good! And having seen the series with the English-speaking versions of Spike, Jet, Faye, and Ed, I couldn't imagine anyone else doing the voices. (But I'll still watch the Japanese-language version, as soon as I find my damn DVD remote...)
I just wonder if they redubbed the voice of Ein for the English version? Woof!
Yours isn't a silly explanation for the great silence, but consider this. Several proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox assume that the aliens build utopias, or destroy themselves, or have a 'prime directive' preventing them from contacting our primitive world. The problem is, any one civilization could sweep through the entire galaxy on a time scale of millions of years. So any behavioral explaination of the aliens' absence requires that ALL the alien civilizations in the galaxy have one of these reasons for not spreading through the rest of the galaxy. If there are hundreds of thousands of other civilizations in the galaxy (which some 'optimistic' Drake followers have calculated) then the odds that NONE of them had the drive to have colonized, explored, or, heck, even eaten Earth (for you Greg Bear fans out there) Earth is very very low.
I personally believe that the development of tool-using, communicative intelligence is very difficult in evolutionary terms, and is thus exceedingly rare. Remember how quickly unicellular life developed on earth, and how late intelligent life arose. At most, there may be only a few civilizations scattered through our galaxy; but it is very possible that we are the first, the only technical civilization in the galaxy.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry about NASA's funding...once the Chinese reach the moon in about a decade, and they start building their space station, NASA will get all the funding they need. The U.S. would not have rushed to reach the moon as quickly without the threat of Soviet domination of space. I suspect that the serious prospect of another nuclear power gaining superiority in the 'high ground' of space will get more money to NASA fast. Maybe if we're lucky, this new space race will lead to the permanent settlement of space, and not just another arena for conflict between the U.S. and China. Maybe.
Meanwhile, I just hope the Cassini-Huygens probe makes it to Titan in fewer than a million pieces.
And what is it that put America in the forefront of the nuclear nations? And
what is it that will make it possible to spend 20 billion dollars of your
money to put some clown on the moon? Well, it was good old American know-how,
that's what. As provided by good old Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun.
I agree, calling a TiVo "God's machine" is stupid. Anyone who's read the bible knows that only nuclear weapons can match God for sheer destructive power.
Besides, God doesn't need a TiVo; he already knows how this season of "24" is going to end.
Only if you're a woman.
i.e. If there are aliens, why the heck haven't they colonized the earth by now?
Here's a link.
But do fleas wonder if there is life on other dogs?
SCENE: Gower's Pharmacy, Bedford Falls
...aww, screw this, I'm going to Martini's.
George Bailey: Mr. Gower?
Mr. Gower: Zzzz...ehh, whuzza meh damn kid...
George: Uh, you put the wrong pills in the vial...
Mr. Gower: Uh? Ehh, aska drugbot, mumble mumble.
George: M-mister Drugbot?
DrugBot3000: SLEEP MODE
George: You, you put the wrong pills in the bottle...
DrugBot3000: INVALID COMMAND, PLEASE REPEAT YOUR REQUEST
George: I said, you put the wrong pills in the bottle.
DrugBot3000: INVALID COMMAND, PLEASE REPEAT YOUR REQUEST
George: The pills! You put bad medicine in the bottle!
DrugBot3000: INVALID COMMAND, PLEASE REPEAT YOUR REQUEST
George: Why, you're nothing but a big fraud!
DrugBot3000: ENTERING SLEEP MODE
Gower: Zzzzz....
George:
>Star Trek: First Contact (8)!?!
>You're kidding right? This was noticeably better than Star Trek 4? It wasn't even good!
Yes, but "Backdoor Sluts 9" makes "Crotch Capers 3" look like "Naughty Nurses 2"!
...gasoline, nails, backpacks, household ammonia, hexamine, car batteries, SUVs, glassware, growth media, gas masks, firecrackers...prostitutes....laboratory...killing ...gun...hospitals...Air Marshalls...scrapnel bomb...culture of bacteria.
I think your post just maxed out the NSA's internet keyword scanning software. Expect a knock on your door right...about...NOW.
Well, maybe not the part about the prostitutes.
That's great, but I'm sure that no public office would accept a picture of your birth certificate, drivers license, house deed or car title for any official business. While I like the idea of 'the football', you should invest in a safety deposit box at a nearby bank, so you can store the originals safely.
On the other hand, I store all my documents in a box in my closet where the mice can eat them.
...I was thinking of a giant anvil popping out of the chute moments before the plane, anvil, and coyote plummet to the desert floor below.
Unfortunately, bacteria can become resistant to bacteriophages as well. Occasionally a bacteria has a mutation in the receptor protein that the phage normally binds to during infection. Still, if I had a vancomycin resistant infection, I'd want to give phage treatment a try...
Neekid pictures of his wife with Ernest Borgnine.
Aaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! Bad visual! BAD VISUAL!!!
I saw this on a outdoor survival show, using the car battery and some steel wool. It's a quick way to start a fire, if you can't find two Boy Scouts to rub together.
-DR
Hopefully your idea of what is worth saving won't change between when you take the digital picture, and when you want to look at it 40 years from now...
Welcome to Stranded! We've stranded each of our six scientist on a pre-technical planet full of hostile savages that eat organics and use atmospheric pressure oscillations to communicate! The scientists will have to deal with environmental disturbances such as open bodies of liquid dihydrogen monoxide, variable illumination levels, a dangerously oxidizing atmosphere, and omnivorous bio-forms! Each scientist will have to build the tools they need to survive and escape (like subsurface metal miners, autorepair nandroids, vacuum energy converters, and a working D'Drribsky shunt) using only native equipment (like iron-carbon alloy, polymerized pthalates, contaminated silicon aggregates, and osseous material from the bio-forms themselves.) They have only twelve teracycles to escape before we 'help' their sun go nova! The winner will be granted regenerative immortality by the Regulatory Council, and the losers will be vaporised into oblivion! Be sure to watch, won't you?
Glover Ferguson, Chief scientist, Accenture;
I predict that Mr. Ferguson might need to find a new job before too long.
Helium makes you sound like Barry White. Anti-helium makes you sound like Tiny Tim.
Great movie! I only wish it were out on DVD. "You are leaving the mapzone database. You're on your own...Claire."
Venus has little hydrogen in its atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Carl Sagan is credited with suggesting the use of algae to begin terraforming Venus, but it was later realized that this, by itself, would probably not work.
The problem is that the atmosphere at the surface of Venus has about 90 times the pressure of Earth, and it is so hot at the surface that any oxygen produced by the algae would be burnt back into CO2 when they die and settle to the hot lower atmosphere. Even if we could magically remove 98% of Venus' atmosphere, I once heard it would take tens of thousands of years for the planet to radiate enough heat to space for humans to walk on the surface.
We should concentrate our efforts on Terraforming our own planet. There are plenty of recently created deserts and other wastelands that our technologies (including algae!) could make more livable for us, starting today.
You're right. I desperately want a stick so I can hit George Lucas until he gives me my $7 back!
I have to remember...pretty trailer != good movie. I keep forgetting that, no matter how often George Lucas keeps reminding me.
Let's see what we get for our money...
Manic flying car scene? The Fifth Element.
Sterile white futuristic laboratory setting? 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ewan McGregor wandering through strange alien environments (i.e. Scotland)? Trainspotting.
Samuel Jackson kicking ass and taking names? Pulp Fiction.
Scenic alpine picnic? The Sound of Music.
Bounty hunters and high-speed asteroid chases? Cowboy Bebop.
A wisecracking, yet loveable pair of robots? Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie.
The protagonist loses his hand? The Evil Dead.
Sorry, Mr. Lucas, but I already have all these DVDs.
Maybe it's not so bad that you won't survive the singularity.
The picture you describe of the singularity is prosaic, but here are two other options.
Maybe our machines will leave Earth to go someplace where humanity can't bother them, and leave humanity here to rot. The high atmosphere of Venus, or the asteroid belt, or the mantle of the Earth...the smart assemblers could quickly adapt to many possible different homes. Sure, the humans could eventually follow and start annoying the smart nanobots, but if they can think as fast as some people think they might, they could quickly evolve into something even further beyond us (Femtotech? Machines based on the strong nuclear force? WTF-tech?) and leave us mouth-breathers mired in molecular molasses while they colonize the core of the sun, or quit the universe altogether!
Perhaps more likely is the idea that it would deliberately disassemble the OLD biosphere as raw material to build the new one. I don't mean an accidental "gray goo" scenario, but rather a deliberate decision by the most advanced 'life' form to dismantle a collection of obsolete machinery to free up space. After all, we've consciously done something similar to countless other species in the name of progress, too.
I wouldn't hold my breath hoping that "we" will find out what's on the other side of the singularity...even if the first group to build nanotech doesn't use it to kill 99.99% of us because they want mansions with BIG front lawns, then it's possible our tools will simply 'get uppety' and decide that they simply don't need us anymore.
When I hear discussions about how we will all see a utopic future brought about by some future technology, I'm reminded of the Sci-fi classic "When Worlds Collide". I'm sure that many of the people building the rocket to take humanity to the new world (and away from the doomed Earth) thought they were going to get a seat for themselves. But in the end, almost everyone in the world got left behind when the fateful moment arrived.
-dexter "Two thousand zero zero, party almost out of time" riley
The dubbing on "Cowboy Bebop" is really very good! And having seen the series with the English-speaking versions of Spike, Jet, Faye, and Ed, I couldn't imagine anyone else doing the voices. (But I'll still watch the Japanese-language version, as soon as I find my damn DVD remote...) I just wonder if they redubbed the voice of Ein for the English version? Woof!
Yours isn't a silly explanation for the great silence, but consider this. Several proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox assume that the aliens build utopias, or destroy themselves, or have a 'prime directive' preventing them from contacting our primitive world. The problem is, any one civilization could sweep through the entire galaxy on a time scale of millions of years. So any behavioral explaination of the aliens' absence requires that ALL the alien civilizations in the galaxy have one of these reasons for not spreading through the rest of the galaxy. If there are hundreds of thousands of other civilizations in the galaxy (which some 'optimistic' Drake followers have calculated) then the odds that NONE of them had the drive to have colonized, explored, or, heck, even eaten Earth (for you Greg Bear fans out there) Earth is very very low.
I personally believe that the development of tool-using, communicative intelligence is very difficult in evolutionary terms, and is thus exceedingly rare. Remember how quickly unicellular life developed on earth, and how late intelligent life arose. At most, there may be only a few civilizations scattered through our galaxy; but it is very possible that we are the first, the only technical civilization in the galaxy.