I have read the paper and thing that is noticeable for an academic paper is that there appears to be no acknowledgement of the source of funding, which leads me to wonder who is paying for this and why they want that link kept quiet.
Aluminum foil will nicely block the 5.46-7.25 GHz (4-5 cm) radio waves used for this radar (as would a typical screen door). I wonder who will be the first to market RF-opaque sheet-rock, which would technically easy to make.
Well, the first stars with "our" metallicity formed in the Bulge ~ 11 - 9 billion years ago (and there were a lot of them, the same order of magnitude as the number of high metallicity stars out here in the arms. If life is at all common, and if we are any guide, then civilizations should have started arising 4 - 5 billion years later, or 7 to 4 billion years ago. I don't see any way around that - if civilizations are common, then there should be some very old ones about. (Of course, we might be the only one, ever, but otherwise I see the "old ones" as perfectly plausible.)
I really hesitate to ascribe motives to such creatures, or even to assume their motives remain constant over billions of years, and I am not sure they would be interested in new planetary environments as places to settle, but otherwise
Perhaps the most efficient way for them to "colonize" is not by sending out starships full of aliens, but "probes" which are actually well-targeted asteroids with [RD]NA or its precursors encapsulated inside, designed to withstand atmospheric entry and impact and deliver the seed of their brand of life onto the target planet. They scans us every million years or so to see how things are evolving here, keep us in an inventory list of places the original race might want to settle now that we have a nice atmospheric balance and ecosystem going, and wait for us to get intelligent enough to even comprehend them before contact (and most world like us die from natural or self-inflicted disaster before that point anyways).
If, as seems possible, the first civilizations in the galaxy arose billions of years ago, they presumably know about us, or at least our planet (as the galaxy can be inventoried in a billion years). If they cannot exceed the speed of light, they are also used to very long scale conversations and travel delays. My guess, and it is just a guess, is that they wait 5000 or 10,000 years before getting back to any new civilization, because that's how long galactic conversations take, and also to weed out the flash-in-the-pans; either way, we may have a while to wait.
As for where they are, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from astrophysics," so look around. As just one example, the spiral arms of the galaxy are more recent than the possible age of the first civilizations, so they might be engineering constructs.
The first time I saw ELIZA in action, I realized that the Turing test is basically meaningless, as it fails on two fronts. We are not good judges for it, as we are hard-wired to assume intelligence behind communications, and Turing's assumption that the ability to carry on a reasonable conversation was a proof of intelligence was wrong.
This is not to fault Turing's work, as you have to start somewhere, but, really, after all of these years we should have a better test for intelligence.
I have long thought that Snowden represents a surface manifestation of a fight within the "organs of state security" about the path things were taking, pre-Snowden. In this hypothesis, he is either a brave representative of or a fall-guy for those inside the complex who want constitutional controls and norms re-instituted. Otherwise, it is hard to see how he could have gotten so much material (and known what to look for inside that mass of material).
There is an aspect here not many seem to be picking up on. Originally, Snowden was a lowly sys-admin who just happen to have access to some big unencrypted file archive inside the NSA. OK, it is hard to see how all sorts of classified need-to-know material would be stored in a big mass like that, but it is just plausible, as a stupid mistake. Now, however, he claims to be a spy, flat out, trained for deep cover and all that. Do we have so many undercover agents, and so few sys admins, that the spies have to moonlight as computer geeks? I doubt that, so the cover he built to explain how he got so many documents is just not realistic. On the other hand, if, as I suspect, he was just handed the material by some NSA analogue of Admiral Canaris, it doesn't matter what he did on the job, just what he was willing to do once he left it.
I have been reading science fiction and watching A.I. research for decades now, and the pronouncements coming from A.I. research tend to have much less connection with reality.
Seriously. The last 20 years have seen British political life descend into the level of parody. Are we going to find out in another 20 years that the entire political class starting with Tony Blair was infected with some disease that ate their brains?
By the way, it is not the case that England has never had secret trials before. There used to be the Star Chamber, (prior to 1398 to 1641):
Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. Over time it evolved into a political weapon, a symbol of the misuse and abuse of power by the English monarchy and courts.
Indiegogo and Rockethub offer the option (Indiegogo) or have a model (Rockethub) where you keep what you raise (minus a cut, of course). Kickstarter is of course all or nothing.
For example, Rockethub's terms of service are described in their FAQ, which says
Yes, Kickstarter is roughly an order of magnitude bigger (in terms of participation) than either Indiegogo or Rockethub, but an actual take is better than a zero take.
You basically cannot make a parachute big enough to land softly on Mars. The parachute is to slow you down (roughly) from Mach 2 or 1.5 to Mach 0.3 or so, and then you have to use rockets (or airbags, or both) to get down to the surface more or less softly. Viking, Phoenix and MSL used rockets, Mars Pathfinder and MER used rockets plus an airbag (and a willingness to tolerate 15 - 20 g impacts on the surface). In either case, the parachute is jettisoned while still a ways above the surface.
If you conclude from this that landing on Mars is tough, you are correct.
If you go the the second Waimea lookout on the road up the canyon (the upper one), walk all the way out to the lookout site, and look to your left, you can see the Navy VLBI telescope (a 20 meter dish) poking above the trees on the ridge above you. The Hawaii State Parks Department made the Navy paint it a light green to disguise it, and I bet not one tourist in 100 notices it's there.
Given that they have launched Polaris missiles from PMRF Barking Sands this isolation is a feature, not a bug. You can go to the Barking Sands beach there at the state park a little North of the base.
About 25 years ago there was big dustup when the Air Force planned some missile launches from Barking Sands that would have required closing the park during launch days, and they neglected to tell the State Parks Department about it on the Environmental Impact Statement. That was a very bad move, and cost the Air Force a good deal of time and money once it hit the press.
The PMRF at Barking Sands in Kauai is a very well instrumented range that is set up to observe navy exercises in the waters off Kauai, things flying overhead (such as missiles launched in California), and things launched on the beach at Barking Sands (such as this test), so it is not surprising to me that this test is being run there. There is a long history of NASA - Navy collaboration there - back in the shuttle days, the GSTDN station at Kokee Park (a NASA outpost in a PMRF enclave up Waimea Canyon above the beach) would routinely track shuttles coming in for reentry in California, and there is now a Navy VLBI antenna operated by NASA contractors there.
By the way, it is called Barking Sands because pebbles on the beach make a sound something like seals barking when waves hit them.
We therefore do not believe this source to be in outburst. Instead, it was a serendipitous constant source in the field of view of a BAT subthreshold trigger.
This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.
Slashdot Mirror
AT&T thinks that the Internet is an amusing toy, but real men use switched circuits.
I don't know why anyone would even consider having such products inside their house.
What, you don't turn your phone off and put it inside a metal box from time to time?
Seriously, what is wrong with you?
It may not cost anything, but it is most definitely not free.
I have read the paper and thing that is noticeable for an academic paper is that there appears to be no acknowledgement of the source of funding, which leads me to wonder who is paying for this and why they want that link kept quiet.
Aluminum foil will nicely block the 5.46-7.25 GHz (4-5 cm) radio waves used for this radar (as would a typical screen door). I wonder who will be the first to market RF-opaque sheet-rock, which would technically easy to make.
Yes, come back in a million years and let's talk.
And, if that seems like humor, you don't understand how galaxies work.
Well, the first stars with "our" metallicity formed in the Bulge ~ 11 - 9 billion years ago (and there were a lot of them, the same order of magnitude as the number of high metallicity stars out here in the arms. If life is at all common, and if we are any guide, then civilizations should have started arising 4 - 5 billion years later, or 7 to 4 billion years ago. I don't see any way around that - if civilizations are common, then there should be some very old ones about. (Of course, we might be the only one, ever, but otherwise I see the "old ones" as perfectly plausible.)
I really hesitate to ascribe motives to such creatures, or even to assume their motives remain constant over billions of years, and I am not sure they would be interested in new planetary environments as places to settle, but otherwise
seems quite plausible.
If, as seems possible, the first civilizations in the galaxy arose billions of years ago, they presumably know about us, or at least our planet (as the galaxy can be inventoried in a billion years). If they cannot exceed the speed of light, they are also used to very long scale conversations and travel delays. My guess, and it is just a guess, is that they wait 5000 or 10,000 years before getting back to any new civilization, because that's how long galactic conversations take, and also to weed out the flash-in-the-pans; either way, we may have a while to wait.
As for where they are, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from astrophysics," so look around. As just one example, the spiral arms of the galaxy are more recent than the possible age of the first civilizations, so they might be engineering constructs.
Mod this parent up. This statement from CIsco has nothing to do with net neutrality.
The first time I saw ELIZA in action, I realized that the Turing test is basically meaningless, as it fails on two fronts. We are not good judges for it, as we are hard-wired to assume intelligence behind communications, and Turing's assumption that the ability to carry on a reasonable conversation was a proof of intelligence was wrong.
This is not to fault Turing's work, as you have to start somewhere, but, really, after all of these years we should have a better test for intelligence.
The computer version.
I have long thought that Snowden represents a surface manifestation of a fight within the "organs of state security" about the path things were taking, pre-Snowden. In this hypothesis, he is either a brave representative of or a fall-guy for those inside the complex who want constitutional controls and norms re-instituted. Otherwise, it is hard to see how he could have gotten so much material (and known what to look for inside that mass of material).
There is an aspect here not many seem to be picking up on. Originally, Snowden was a lowly sys-admin who just happen to have access to some big unencrypted file archive inside the NSA. OK, it is hard to see how all sorts of classified need-to-know material would be stored in a big mass like that, but it is just plausible, as a stupid mistake. Now, however, he claims to be a spy, flat out, trained for deep cover and all that. Do we have so many undercover agents, and so few sys admins, that the spies have to moonlight as computer geeks? I doubt that, so the cover he built to explain how he got so many documents is just not realistic. On the other hand, if, as I suspect, he was just handed the material by some NSA analogue of Admiral Canaris, it doesn't matter what he did on the job, just what he was willing to do once he left it.
A three letter one, of course.
Oh, I think that the parents understand the benefits fairly well. They just realize that they don't accrue to them or their children.
I have been reading science fiction and watching A.I. research for decades now, and the pronouncements coming from A.I. research tend to have much less connection with reality.
Seriously. The last 20 years have seen British political life descend into the level of parody. Are we going to find out in another 20 years that the entire political class starting with Tony Blair was infected with some disease that ate their brains?
By the way, it is not the case that England has never had secret trials before. There used to be the Star Chamber, (prior to 1398 to 1641) :
That did not end will, and neither will this.
Indiegogo and Rockethub offer the option (Indiegogo) or have a model (Rockethub) where you keep what you raise (minus a cut, of course). Kickstarter is of course all or nothing.
For example, Rockethub's terms of service are described in their FAQ, which says
Yes, Kickstarter is roughly an order of magnitude bigger (in terms of participation) than either Indiegogo or Rockethub, but an actual take is better than a zero take.
You basically cannot make a parachute big enough to land softly on Mars. The parachute is to slow you down (roughly) from Mach 2 or 1.5 to Mach 0.3 or so, and then you have to use rockets (or airbags, or both) to get down to the surface more or less softly. Viking, Phoenix and MSL used rockets, Mars Pathfinder and MER used rockets plus an airbag (and a willingness to tolerate 15 - 20 g impacts on the surface). In either case, the parachute is jettisoned while still a ways above the surface.
If you conclude from this that landing on Mars is tough, you are correct.
If you go the the second Waimea lookout on the road up the canyon (the upper one), walk all the way out to the lookout site, and look to your left, you can see the Navy VLBI telescope (a 20 meter dish) poking above the trees on the ridge above you. The Hawaii State Parks Department made the Navy paint it a light green to disguise it, and I bet not one tourist in 100 notices it's there.
Given that they have launched Polaris missiles from PMRF Barking Sands this isolation is a feature, not a bug. You can go to the Barking Sands beach there at the state park a little North of the base.
About 25 years ago there was big dustup when the Air Force planned some missile launches from Barking Sands that would have required closing the park during launch days, and they neglected to tell the State Parks Department about it on the Environmental Impact Statement. That was a very bad move, and cost the Air Force a good deal of time and money once it hit the press.
The PMRF at Barking Sands in Kauai is a very well instrumented range that is set up to observe navy exercises in the waters off Kauai, things flying overhead (such as missiles launched in California), and things launched on the beach at Barking Sands (such as this test), so it is not surprising to me that this test is being run there. There is a long history of NASA - Navy collaboration there - back in the shuttle days, the GSTDN station at Kokee Park (a NASA outpost in a PMRF enclave up Waimea Canyon above the beach) would routinely track shuttles coming in for reentry in California, and there is now a Navy VLBI antenna operated by NASA contractors there.
By the way, it is called Barking Sands because pebbles on the beach make a sound something like seals barking when waves hit them.
... I'ld rather go back to Thermidor.
http://web.archive.org/web/200...
This has been withdrawn. From
http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/g...
We therefore do not believe this source to be in outburst. Instead, it was
a serendipitous constant source in the field of view of a BAT subthreshold
trigger.
This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.