Re:Intelligent Life Elsewhere? Not Likely..
on
Lonely Planets
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· Score: 1
If, however, we drop the entry level for intelligent life to allow you to be considered as a candidate, then the existence of 'intelligent' aliens would be almost guaranteed.
Justify your airy figures, or give up.
And if it's a Creationist source, don't even bother with the justifications - give up anyway.
Hieronymous - please give Dawkins the credit he deserves!
I happen to agree with the quotation and the sentiments behind it 100%, by the way.
If you'd put Dawkins' name to it, you'd have had your fill of religious flaming by now, but as it is, the text is too dense, the concepts too hard for most religious types, so they don't realise what it is that they are unable to read.
Short, broken, or oddly punctuated sentences, such as this, may wrongly trip the rule.
There are 1,000,000s of examples, of which this is 1.
Still, it's ugly English, so should perhaps be condemned as such and consigned to the spam-bin anyway.
More serious is how to define a sentence - if it's a phrase terminated with a period, then random punctuation is likely to generate many short sentences, and a sufficiently dedicated spammer ought to be able to bias the 'random' punctuation to defeat a conservatively set rule.
I'm not sure that anything can be done 'quite easily' in Perl...
There's not a whit of wit to be found anywhere in your simple-minded whinge. There's a right way and a wrong way to spell English - why not use some of your underexercised neurons and learn the correct way to spell?
Perhaps we could have differential pricing for the passenger version - jessies wanting to sit near the centreline would pay business class fares, while those with steadier stomachs and stronger constitutions could get away with cheap fares in the window seats.
Personally, I'd prefer the more interesting ride - my favourite flights involve small passenger aeroplanes coming into windy areas.
But then I'm just an inveterate people-watcher who likes to laugh at his fellow passengers.
At last, someone who understands how the copyright laws work to keep people divided.
I like to see films from all over the world, but unless they are in English, French or German, I need subtitles - not some inferior dubbed and cut version hacked about by a bunch of incompetents in a cheap sound studio in the US (or in Britain, for that matter).
Films should be kept intact, as the director intended them to be released, and for some fat suit to think they have the right to restrict the purchase of the genuine product so that they can force their butchered version on us is deeply insulting.
Most commentators here in the UK seem to think that this capture will weaken the resistance to US/UK occuaption, and allow a speedier transfer of power to the Vichy^Wfriendly Iraqi government.
There is another side, though - one of the things that has been restraining the Shias is the fear that Saddam might emerge from any successful resistance stronger and able to retake power.
With the demise of Saddam as a political threat, the lid is off, and the Shias can now decide for themselves whether to organise an effective resistance to occupation, a decision that will undoubtedly be influenced by the mullahs in Teheran.
And if arrangements for a provisional government are seen as sidelining either the Shias or the Kurds, then there is no fear of Saddam's reemergence to coerce these groups to cooperate with whatever form of collaborationist regime is set up.
There - it's still a 'liberal' view, but not one offtopic reference.
Look, I know the dollar isn't worth much these days, but $1395 is far too much for a 20 gig 500 MHz with a piddling 20GB drive, even if it has got a WLAN included.
Perhaps the pricing is for when the dollar reaches its eventual value of around 0.65 Euros, but I wouldn't spend 1395 rupees on this heap.
I'm currently reading Mason & Dixon - as a Eurocentric type, I'd never come across Pynchon before, but he's almost Swiftian in his style and invention.
I'll be looking out Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland as soon as I've finished this one.
Thanks for the heads up - I'm always on the lookout for real authors.
Regardless of what Carter's Nobel prize was for, unless your IQ is in the high 160s, and you've had a lifetime of experience, then Carter is probably a good deal smarter than thou.
I'll take the Nobel prize winning chemist, with a track record of experimentation and success, over the self-aggrandising bullshit artist who has produced nothing but dead trees and wild ideas for the last couple of decades.
But that's just my point of view - I dislike Drexler's constant reference to Feynman, his total lack of any experimental pedigree, and his unwillingness to take on board the views of those who actually know a bit about what he spouts off about, because they have tried it.
Reading the article, it seems that Drexler in his second letter ignores the fact that he is contradicting what he says in his first letter, because the mechanisms proposed in the second would inevitably require the very same 'Smalley fingers' that he derides in his first polemic.
Drexler is just pissed that someone with credibility and experience has pointed out the holes in his arguments, and cast doubt on his percieved achievements (which are roughly on a par with other Sci-Fi authors, IMHO).
Leave it to guys like Smalley - we'll end up with nanotechnology that works - maybe not the grand self-replicators in the first iteration, but at least we'll have technology rather than the PR puff and self-publicity that characterises Drexler's current output.
Sorry for the rant, but Drexler really, really pisses me off.
There's a certain rationale between his lumping together stone tablets and chips - both are relatively less portable than paper, in the sense that stone is heavy and computers need power to work.
In terms of function, stone tablets resemble paper scrolls, and computer chips resemble erasable scrolls.
Only a brain resembles a brain, no matter what BS the neural net propagandists would have you believe.
The real interest in the essay is further on, where the combinatorial possibilities offered by hypertext are explored (though to be fair, Eco has covered this subject just as well in the past).
1. Emphatically, yes! He tells a good story, and brings an academics knowledge of philosophy to his storytelling.
2. I'd start with The Name of the Rose (it's easily digestible in small chunks, while Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before demand more careful reading, and I haven't yet made my mind up about Baudolino, as I've only read it once). It is a classic detective story, entertaining, full of interesting titbits about the mindset of mediaeval Europe, and above all a damn good read.
3. I'd compare him with Jorge Luis Borges (the master of the short story, and another explorer of the possibilities of storytelling), Georges Perec (Life, A Users Manual is my favourite book after LOTR), and maybe John Fowles around the time he wrote The Magus. If you read him on a more literal level, Michael Chrichton is similar in some ways, though Eco is a bit deeper.
Until recently, the village of Aas, in the French Pyrenees, was known for a whistling language used by shepherds in the mountains.
Unfortunately, it seems to have all but died out, highly localised as it was. I'm surprised that it wasn't mentioned in the article - I thought it was as well known as the Canaries version.
Whistling is highly effective in mountainous terrain - the lack of trees and absorbent vegetation allows a greater range than would be expected in lowland areas. That's why hill walkers are encouraged to carry a whistle - in an emergency, it can be heard from a couple of miles away.
(gratuitous Beavis and Butthead) Hehe - he said 'Aas'
I think you should all be made to ride cast-iron 'boneshakers', with no suspension, and iron-spoked wheels (none of that wire shit).
Then you'd have to be intelligent rather than foolhardy in order to reach the finish at all.
But then route-planning is probably beyond the capability of the average downhiller, coming as they do from the milieu of the dope-addled snowboarders, BMX knobheads and skateboard queens.
If we can get one of these badges smart enough, I can forsee a new, improved version of 'Bullshit Bingo' - the game for management meetings, for techies of all ages.
Each player downloads a random collection of BS phrases from a central server, and the cards (using voice recognition, natch) automatically tick off each phrase as the management utter it.
The card will flash 'HOUSE' on completion of its list, confusing the management and providing a welcome respite to all players.
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Justify your airy figures, or give up.
And if it's a Creationist source, don't even bother with the justifications - give up anyway.
But they were, in general, quite tasty in a stew.
I happen to agree with the quotation and the sentiments behind it 100%, by the way.
If you'd put Dawkins' name to it, you'd have had your fill of religious flaming by now, but as it is, the text is too dense, the concepts too hard for most religious types, so they don't realise what it is that they are unable to read.
More power to you, mate.
Short, broken, or oddly punctuated sentences, such as this, may wrongly trip the rule.
There are 1,000,000s of examples, of which this is 1.
Still, it's ugly English, so should perhaps be condemned as such and consigned to the spam-bin anyway.
More serious is how to define a sentence - if it's a phrase terminated with a period, then random punctuation is likely to generate many short sentences, and a sufficiently dedicated spammer ought to be able to bias the 'random' punctuation to defeat a conservatively set rule.
I'm not sure that anything can be done 'quite easily' in Perl...
Mod me down if you like, but at least I'm prepared to put my name to my beliefs. I'd rather argue with you, honest.
I never touched another bloody computer until 1986 - that's how much I like DEC kit.
There's not a whit of wit to be found anywhere in your simple-minded whinge. There's a right way and a wrong way to spell English - why not use some of your underexercised neurons and learn the correct way to spell?
Anonymous knobhead.
The original bastardised BSD stack? Or have they got a new one that works properly?
Still, I'm sure it was a joke - only an Indian AC would use 'tip-top' seriously...
Personally, I'd prefer the more interesting ride - my favourite flights involve small passenger aeroplanes coming into windy areas.
But then I'm just an inveterate people-watcher who likes to laugh at his fellow passengers.
Too popular with Slashdot
Server dies again.
British Rail was split up and privatised years ago, and our railways became more efficient and punctual as a result.
Oh, wait a mo - perhaps that last statement was somewhat deficient in veracity...
Call me stupid, but I thought patents were for useful inventions, not speculative fiddling.
Wankers.
At last, someone who understands how the copyright laws work to keep people divided.
I like to see films from all over the world, but unless they are in English, French or German, I need subtitles - not some inferior dubbed and cut version hacked about by a bunch of incompetents in a cheap sound studio in the US (or in Britain, for that matter).
Films should be kept intact, as the director intended them to be released, and for some fat suit to think they have the right to restrict the purchase of the genuine product so that they can force their butchered version on us is deeply insulting.
Thanks for making the point so concisely.
And only a day after his wedding, too.
Most commentators here in the UK seem to think that this capture will weaken the resistance to US/UK occuaption, and allow a speedier transfer of power to the Vichy^Wfriendly Iraqi government.
There is another side, though - one of the things that has been restraining the Shias is the fear that Saddam might emerge from any successful resistance stronger and able to retake power.
With the demise of Saddam as a political threat, the lid is off, and the Shias can now decide for themselves whether to organise an effective resistance to occupation, a decision that will undoubtedly be influenced by the mullahs in Teheran.
And if arrangements for a provisional government are seen as sidelining either the Shias or the Kurds, then there is no fear of Saddam's reemergence to coerce these groups to cooperate with whatever form of collaborationist regime is set up.
There - it's still a 'liberal' view, but not one offtopic reference.
Happy now?
Thought not.
Perhaps the pricing is for when the dollar reaches its eventual value of around 0.65 Euros, but I wouldn't spend 1395 rupees on this heap.
I'll be looking out Gravity's Rainbow and Vineland as soon as I've finished this one.
Thanks for the heads up - I'm always on the lookout for real authors.
But that's just my point of view - I dislike Drexler's constant reference to Feynman, his total lack of any experimental pedigree, and his unwillingness to take on board the views of those who actually know a bit about what he spouts off about, because they have tried it.
Reading the article, it seems that Drexler in his second letter ignores the fact that he is contradicting what he says in his first letter, because the mechanisms proposed in the second would inevitably require the very same 'Smalley fingers' that he derides in his first polemic.
Drexler is just pissed that someone with credibility and experience has pointed out the holes in his arguments, and cast doubt on his percieved achievements (which are roughly on a par with other Sci-Fi authors, IMHO).
Leave it to guys like Smalley - we'll end up with nanotechnology that works - maybe not the grand self-replicators in the first iteration, but at least we'll have technology rather than the PR puff and self-publicity that characterises Drexler's current output.
Sorry for the rant, but Drexler really, really pisses me off.
I certainly don't want a vehicle so orientationally confused.
In terms of function, stone tablets resemble paper scrolls, and computer chips resemble erasable scrolls.
Only a brain resembles a brain, no matter what BS the neural net propagandists would have you believe.
The real interest in the essay is further on, where the combinatorial possibilities offered by hypertext are explored (though to be fair, Eco has covered this subject just as well in the past).
2. I'd start with The Name of the Rose (it's easily digestible in small chunks, while Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before demand more careful reading, and I haven't yet made my mind up about Baudolino, as I've only read it once). It is a classic detective story, entertaining, full of interesting titbits about the mindset of mediaeval Europe, and above all a damn good read.
3. I'd compare him with Jorge Luis Borges (the master of the short story, and another explorer of the possibilities of storytelling), Georges Perec (Life, A Users Manual is my favourite book after LOTR), and maybe John Fowles around the time he wrote The Magus. If you read him on a more literal level, Michael Chrichton is similar in some ways, though Eco is a bit deeper.
He's not a bit like William Gibson ;-)
Unfortunately, it seems to have all but died out, highly localised as it was. I'm surprised that it wasn't mentioned in the article - I thought it was as well known as the Canaries version.
Whistling is highly effective in mountainous terrain - the lack of trees and absorbent vegetation allows a greater range than would be expected in lowland areas. That's why hill walkers are encouraged to carry a whistle - in an emergency, it can be heard from a couple of miles away.
(gratuitous Beavis and Butthead) Hehe - he said 'Aas'
Then you'd have to be intelligent rather than foolhardy in order to reach the finish at all.
But then route-planning is probably beyond the capability of the average downhiller, coming as they do from the milieu of the dope-addled snowboarders, BMX knobheads and skateboard queens.
Each player downloads a random collection of BS phrases from a central server, and the cards (using voice recognition, natch) automatically tick off each phrase as the management utter it.
The card will flash 'HOUSE' on completion of its list, confusing the management and providing a welcome respite to all players.