So why do astronomers always compare the size of meteors to Volkswagen bugs?
Because, interestingly enough, the VW Beetle is the only current automobile which has a size which "The Size of Texas" is evenly divisible by. It just sounds better than saying 1/22349938th the size of Texas.
Ironically, they've probably never heard of the VW Beetle in Texas. You'd have to say "1/3 the size of a Suburban" there.
The point is that Hitler got SUPREME DICTATORIAL CONTROL OF HIS COUNTRY
Just FYI, the U.S. Constitution allows for the Constitution to be suspended in times of national emergency -- effectively making the President into a dictator. I believe Abraham Lincoln invoked this at some point? Anyways, it's conceivable that a terrorist attack of sufficient strength could lead a modern-day president to do the same, IMO.
...and he used brutality from the very beginning,...
I agree, we're nowhere near that. But there's still danger in that direction -- look at what some people would've been happy to have us do to extract info from that high-level Al Quaeda guy we captured recently.
...and his STATED goal was to overthrow all of europe.
We're also far from that. However, look at PNAC. And note that a good number of Bush's key advisors (e.g. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) co-authored a seminal report by them, published in 1997 (I haven't verified this from their web site yet, but I've heard it). While it sounds good to promote democracy, they also speak of "American leadership" in the world. Which implies, to me, not a desire to *truly* promote democracy in countries like Iraq -- which would necessitate eventually getting *out* of such countries, and letting them truly come to their own decisions, even if hostile to the U.S. -- but to maintain at least some level of control, as well. This makes me nervous.
As the poster of the article pointed out, the point of this exercise is to look at similarites to this previous example, so we know what we definitely need to steer clear of. I'd say we better keep our hands tight on that steering wheel.
There's been waaaay to much in the way of "talks" and "negotiations" prior to this war.
Yeah, and Bush did such a great job of it, didn't he?
Man, we could've been doing the same thing as we're doing right now, only with UN backing, if he'd've played the game right:
1. He should've shut up and let the inspectors do their work. Then, after a good long time of hindered inspections, he could've said "enough is enough", with some punch. Instead, he started complaining about the inspections within a few weeks of the start. That just clued everyone else in on the fact that he really didn't want to do this UN thing anyways. Made the other countries rather less willing to buy his arguments, no?
2. If he *really* wanted to kill two birds with one stone, he would've proclaimed: "a post-Saddam, American/UN-administered Iraq will honor ALL existing oil contracts between the current Iraqi regime and other countries." That would've A) silenced the critics that say this war is just about oil, and B) removed the economic incentive for France and Russia to resist kicking Saddam out. But Bush didn't do this, did he? Hmmmmm....
Step 7: Cultivate the area around the house into a wetland, then make sure every environmentalist in the area is aware that it's there. Then, get the EPA in to declare it a wetland. This is way easier than you might think. It makes it just about impossible for anyone to build anything there ever again.
Hmm.. I can see it now. Maybe it'll look like
this, or maybe
this or
this or
this
Oh, and you better remember to include one of
these!
The Romans used concrete extensively, there are a number of several hundred year old concrete buildings.
I've heard that the Colloseum used lead pins between blocks to resist earthquake damage. And it worked great too -- until people started stealing the pins for the lead content, around the Middle Ages. Now look at it.
That's the answer, my friend: reinforcing bars!
That's one thing that distinguishes a well-engineered concrete structure. They didn't use quite enough of them in Turkey, around where one of the recent big earthquakes hit...
In the future, perhaps steel bars won't be necessary: just mix in a bunch of extra-long carbon nanotubes! We have a ways to go yet on the nanotube length, but that would make for an interesting material!
When profits are down/slim, you can't afford to pursue everything you would like to!
However, it's the savvy investor who builds his/her business for the eventual recovery. Being well placed, with the products it requires is key to not being stuck ramping up while others grab your market.
Of course, positioning for the recovery does not necessaricly include hiring a lot of people. You hire a few "heavy hitter" types, if you can find them, even if they cost more. They'll get your products started off in the direction you want. When the economy gets a clear direction again, *that's* when you ramp up, and hire the larger number of more average-skill-level personnel.
I'm sure this doesn't apply in all cases, but where it does, I think it qualifies as "pent-up demand".
Interesting; this is exactly what the Salon.com article is talking about -- most of the tech job listings are for outrageously senior people. I'll bet a lot of that is greed, but a fair chunk could be the above reasoning as well.
The way I think completion should work is to match the shortest matching non-unique segment. ...
I should then be able to hit tab to choose one or the other, and then continue to type
Agreed.
But in addition, I have to wonder why they're making such a big deal with "machine learning" -- wouldn't a simple MRU (most-recently used) ordering do everything needed? That works *extremely* well on the tcsh command line, where I type the first few letters, then hit ^P repeatedly to look back up the list of commands that start with that -- in time order, from most recent on back.
I guess I can see that you might want a site you've visited a lot in the past, but not recently, to be near the top. So perhaps it should use MRU for the default selection, and then let the "machine learning" accumulate after that.
--There are some tools with no reasonable purpose besides evil.--
Please name one? I think you will have a tough time making that argument.
Weaponized Anthrax.
Re:'Because We Can' good enough reason?
on
The Space Elevator
·
· Score: 1
"What if it falls down?"
Obviously the big one. The answer is "not much". The structure is very lightweight (if you're picky about physics, very low mass), and with suce a realitively enormous surface area, it'll be akin to dropping a gigantic plastic grocery bag (except a similar structure made of plastic would have much higher mass)- it may not even impact the ground for a while, instead being blown about by the high winds in the upper atmosphere. When it finally does touch down, it may not even have the force to break through a glass window since it'll still be drifting down like an oversized feather. And if it somehow manages to pick up any decent speed, the atmosphere once again becomes our protector, heating it up and causing it to burn up like most any other piece of matter falling from space.
I mostly agree -- but you're not addressing the portion near the top. The worst-case scenario is, of course, that the cable breaks just below the counterweight. The cable is going to have some substantial mass there, since that's the highest-stress point. It's also going to be the fastest when it hits. I haven't read the book, but I did read the initial article by the authors, and it says some will in fact get though, though it only describes it summarily: "About 3000 kg of 2 square millimeter cross-section cable... may fall to Earth intact and east of the anchor."
Don't know how much of a danger that will pose -- the paper doesn't mention the kinetic energy that this surviving portion will have when it hits. I don't think anyone knows exactly how it would hit either -- yes, it's very flat, but it's going to have an awful lot of speed when it hits, and if somehow the dynamics work out that it'd go through mostly edge-on, it won't lose that much speed.
On the other side, I also don't know exactly how the orbital mechanics will work out -- would it's lateral velocity be such that it sort of "misses" the Earth, and bobbs back up? Perhaps it'd enter some sort of very eccentric orbit, if the lower portion of the cable burns off enough to "free" it.
Ah well, lots of possibilities. It'll need a lot of studies, with great big supercomputers to model the atmospheric dynamics, etc.
"What if it affects the Earth's rotation?"
Really now. Maybe if we lifted enough material to form a habitable ring around the planet, we might see it slow by a few seconds, but this is a rather farfetched possibility. If it really does get to be a problem, start seeding the planet with asteroid dust on calculated trajectories to speed things back up.
That is, actually, an interesting question -- the main method for damping out the oscillations induced by the lateral acceleration imparted to the climber as it goes up will in fact be to "steal" it from the earth's rotational inertia. But you're right -- not likely we'd be raising enough mass to have a significant impact, for the forseeable future. Long term, though -- and we're talking about millenia, or even millions of years here -- it might become a problem. But if enough net mass were raised to have a significant impact, you'd have an even bigger problem just due to the sheer loss of mass. The answer to both problems, of course, would be to prevent the imbalance from getting too large -- make sure enough mass goes down the elevators to keep it relatively even. Hopefully it'll happen naturally; but if not, we're going to have to remember to watch out for it.
p.s. Dude -- why did you post A.C.? You're missing out on the Karma points!
Re:'Because We Can' good enough reason?
on
The Space Elevator
·
· Score: 1
The real beauty is when you bring a vehicle back down. You get it all back! (again, ignoring efficency).
Hey, I just realized: you'd start getting it back as soon as the vehicle passes geostationary (the counterweight at the top will be well past that point).
I havent even taken into account angular momentum either.
That might make for mostly a loss, I'd think. If you have an imbalance of loads going up vs. going down, what you'll get is the counterweight swinging back and forth -- slowly, but significantly, and with no real resistance to stop it. There will have to be some active damping done at the base station on Earth -- probably by reeling in the cable and letting it out at the right times, if it uses the good 'ol parametric exitation method. Might get it to balance out, but it'd still be mainly a source of loss, due to inefficiencies.
Hum -- in terms of energy cost (from all the inefficiencies), perhaps the elevator would eventually become self-sustaning. If enough solar collectors are built at the top, eventually we could have a power-supply laser beamed down from the top instead of up from Earth. No atmosphere to interfere either, once the climber is high enough. Then a trip up the elevator would get really cheap!
I have no idea what Big Dig is. Can someone enlighten me?
Someone who lives in the area can probably do better, but I believe it's this massive construction project in Boston, in which they're massively upgrading their subway system. It's taking a really long time (> a decade?) and a lot of money. I believe the reason is largely the fact that it has to not interfere with the living city above it -- AND work around currently-running existing subway lines.
There is a huge difference between plant and animal cells on the cellular level...
Obviously. But a very high radation dose would in fact kill a plant, would it not? Similarly, I'd expect a sufficiently low dose to be able to have mutagenic effects on animal cells without being fatal to them. As I said, I'd think the
difference could result in there being a window of radiation levels beyond animals' tolerance levels but within plants'.
...it will make flowers suddenly grow like mad.
That's interesting -- do you have any references?
Water actually will become radioactive from gamma radiation when it is constant and in large doses.
Ah, yes, that makes sense. So let me amend my comment:
In terms of the water itself becoming radioactive, this would only happen if the radiation were in the form of neutrons or gamma radiation. But from the article:
They conclude that the gas cloud both generates and attracts charged radiation particles.
That is, we're only talking about charged particles here, which by definition excludes neutrons and gamma rays.
radiations mutagenic effects is only a positive thing in plant cells. In animal cells it causes extreme decay
I don't think plant vs. animal would make much difference -- mutations in the chromosome are caused by particles hitting in just the right way to alter a gene. But there are many more ways that a passing particle can cause damage to a cell. So an occasional, single particle has some chance to mutate a gene, while the damage it is more likely to cause may be sustainable. Large numbers of these particles, however, will certainly cause enough damage to kill the cell.
The only plant vs. animal distinction I can think of is that perhaps plants are more tolerant, and therefore can handle higher levels of radiation before the damage is too severe.(?)
the amount of radiation pounding that planet is quite a lot. And water is not a good insulatory to radiation, the very water you would drink would be radioactive and extremely hostile to a living organism.
60km of water will block quite a lot of radation; I'd bet even the first few km would pretty much take care of it.
In terms of the water itself becoming radioactive, this would only happen if the radiation were in the form of *neutrons*. But from the article:
They conclude that the gas cloud both generates and attracts charged radiation particles.
That is, we're only talking about charged particles here, which by definition excludes neutrons.
I read "notebook" as "network" 3 times before I finally got it right.:)
But you know, that could be a potential use -- a case w/ no lcd; slap in a notebook-type mobo & hd, then you got yourself a nice little network server, w/ no loud fan, and that can slip behind your desk or something. Or stack up 10 of them
and you got a night stand / beowulf cluster!
Scary correlary: are humans with underdeveloped "thinking systems" (CPU, inputs, and outputs) not worthy of the right to exist? Is there some class-level exception to this policy (i.e., if one human proves itself intelligent, all humans are considered exempt)? If so, what is a class? Sub-species/species? Social grouping?
Yeah -- this underscores what I said at the top: that these definitions are pragmatic in nature -- inherently arbitrary, and case-specific.
I'd say hardly anyone would think that a person who has received brain damage, for example, should be just "discarded" if they now fall outside a definition of "sentience". Or even treated with less respect. Perhaps if for no other reason that the emotional satisfaction of those around him/her.
But then what about, say, a really smart dog that falls more closely within "sentience" than that brain-damaged person does now? Perhaps it could work like modding is supposed to work here on slashdot -- emphasize the Up direction, not the Down.
This gets into all sorts of fundamental morality questions -- ones which we already have contention over (e.g. abortion rights). Adding AI's that meet some standard for sentience into the mix would make things even more confusing. But it might ultimatley force people to think about it enough to finally come to some conclusions/compromises.
By the way, there's a whole other area that I've been completely ignoring: the idea of there being a "force of will". However you want to define it, it may be a necessary component of the various "sentient" categories I came up with -- perhaps even for the "complex adaptive system" category.
I have some ideas on "force of will" too -- but don't have time to go into them right now.:)
The same thing is happening with animals. We used to define humans as the only tool-using animals - then they found birds breaking open clamshells by dropping rocks on them. The definition changed to humans as the only tool *making* animals...then they found chimpanzees who strip the leaves from twigs before they poke them into anthills. So then it was 'self recognition' - that also failed with dolphins who can recognise themselves in a mirror. Now it's some other thing. Animals will never be labelled intelligent" because the definition of intelligence is that thing that humans have but animals do not.
I've toyed with the idea of an "abolute" definition. Yes, currently, we very much tend to use "intelligence", "sentience", etc. to mean "human". But you know what: any definitions we come up with are going to be inherently arbitrary. I think there's a whole spectrum of different "levels" of intelligence (if it can be linearized at all), and where we draw boundary lines is really more a matter of pragmatism than there being any absolute basis.
That said, I've tried to draw a few of those boundary lines, in a way that's more general than just equating with "human":
- At the very bottom level, there's the "information system". Basically, it's any thing that can be called a state machine. But this turns out to be meaningless, because you could take even a 1-meter cube of interstellar vacuum and say that it has inputs, outputs, and internal state.
- Then there are "complex adaptive systems" -- a definition I'm borrowing from the book "The Quark and the Jaguar". It's a bit vague, but it basically refers to something that can more actively "learn". i.e. as it exists over time in an environment, it accumulates information in response its interaction with that environment. A population of bacteria is one example - it can "learn" to resist an antibiotic, for exmple.
- Then there are information systems that can form abstractions about their environment -- and store them. I haven't thought of a term for this. It would basically cover anything with sensory devices and the ability to draw on memories of those sensory inputs. Most animals would fall into this category.
- Now we get to what I might call "Generalized Sentience". These are devices that can not only form and store abstractions about an environment, but also form abstractions of those abstractions. I believe the cerebral cortex that most (all?) mammals have allows for this. This part of the brain acts a lot like a RAM device -- or perhaps it should be called "AAM" -- Associative-Access Memory. Basically, when patterns of neuron firings across its area are applied, it can remember them; then when just parts of those patterns are triggered later, it will activate all the locations for the appropriate stored pattern, thus retrieving the "memory". This starts to allow for some advanced reasoning.
-Then perhaps there's something we can call "Linguistic Sentience". Basically, it's a "general sentient" device as described above, but it has certain language abilities added on. The reason this is significant is that it allows for an addressing mechanism for the memories stored in the AAM. When you remember the association between a word and another idea, the patterns for both are being stored in the AAM together. Later, when the word pattern alone is applied, the idea it's associated with can be retrieved. This allows for a much greater degree of "concreteness" of thought -- without it, the device can remember ideas, and form further memories based on them, but it tends to get muddled up, and too "fuzzy" to be as useful -- ideas can get lost in the AAM because there isn't a good way to retrieve them. The memory-addressing effect of language can solve this problem.
This boundary line is not specific to humans -- any device with the "generalized sentience" characterstics, and even a little language, can start to fall into this category. I would include not only humans, but other primates as well, plus dogs, dolphins, and elephants (and there could be many more).
In terms of how devices (at this level we might start calling them "entities" -- or even "souls", but I'll stick with "devices") should be treated, this kind of sentience starts affording certain rights -- e.g. to exist, and to not be molested. Details to be worked out later.:)
- Lastly, we get into that thing that we all really want: the definition that separates us humans from the rest of the devices/animals that exist today. I have an idea for this -- perhaps a name could be "Restricted Sentience". Basically, I beleive there is in fact a huge difference between the linguistic abilities of dogs/chimpanzees/dolphins and those of humans. Humans have made quite a leap in functionality in this area -- there are dedicated parts of the brain for grammar handling, and perhaps even associated logic functions. There should be a dividing line in there somewhere, though I don't know exactly how it would be defined.
These linguistinc abilities start allowing for an "algebra" of ideas -- more ordely, mechanical ways for ideas to be combined, expanded upon, etc. We can see the results of such abilities.:)
Any AI device matching this definition would have to be called "fully sentient", and would have to be given the full rights of a human. If it is forced into employment of certain tasks, it should be called a "slave". et cetera.
So a Turing test is one that will help sort a computer program into that last category. Though perhaps more precise tests could be found, if my definitions are in fact valid, and can be further refined.
Slashdot Mirror
Ironically, they've probably never heard of the VW Beetle in Texas. You'd have to say "1/3 the size of a Suburban" there.
'cept maybe in Texas. There you'd have to say "0.3 Suburbans".
It says so in the license!
Just FYI, the U.S. Constitution allows for the Constitution to be suspended in times of national emergency -- effectively making the President into a dictator. I believe Abraham Lincoln invoked this at some point? Anyways, it's conceivable that a terrorist attack of sufficient strength could lead a modern-day president to do the same, IMO.
I agree, we're nowhere near that. But there's still danger in that direction -- look at what some people would've been happy to have us do to extract info from that high-level Al Quaeda guy we captured recently.
We're also far from that. However, look at PNAC. And note that a good number of Bush's key advisors (e.g. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) co-authored a seminal report by them, published in 1997 (I haven't verified this from their web site yet, but I've heard it). While it sounds good to promote democracy, they also speak of "American leadership" in the world. Which implies, to me, not a desire to *truly* promote democracy in countries like Iraq -- which would necessitate eventually getting *out* of such countries, and letting them truly come to their own decisions, even if hostile to the U.S. -- but to maintain at least some level of control, as well. This makes me nervous.
As the poster of the article pointed out, the point of this exercise is to look at similarites to this previous example, so we know what we definitely need to steer clear of. I'd say we better keep our hands tight on that steering wheel.
Yeah, and Bush did such a great job of it, didn't he?
Man, we could've been doing the same thing as we're doing right now, only with UN backing, if he'd've played the game right:
Navy commander tells sailors attack will be "unlike anything anyone has ever seen before"
Isn't that what Steve Jobs said about the new iMac?
Hmm.. I can see it now. Maybe it'll look like this, or maybe this or this or this
Oh, and you better remember to include one of these!
Yeah, probably because the designs are *reliant* on having the concrete contain steel reinforcing bars. And those rust eventually...
I've heard that the Colloseum used lead pins between blocks to resist earthquake damage. And it worked great too -- until people started stealing the pins for the lead content, around the Middle Ages. Now look at it.
That's the answer, my friend: reinforcing bars! That's one thing that distinguishes a well-engineered concrete structure. They didn't use quite enough of them in Turkey, around where one of the recent big earthquakes hit...
In the future, perhaps steel bars won't be necessary: just mix in a bunch of extra-long carbon nanotubes! We have a ways to go yet on the nanotube length, but that would make for an interesting material!
However, it's the savvy investor who builds his/her business for the eventual recovery. Being well placed, with the products it requires is key to not being stuck ramping up while others grab your market.
Of course, positioning for the recovery does not necessaricly include hiring a lot of people. You hire a few "heavy hitter" types, if you can find them, even if they cost more. They'll get your products started off in the direction you want. When the economy gets a clear direction again, *that's* when you ramp up, and hire the larger number of more average-skill-level personnel.
I'm sure this doesn't apply in all cases, but where it does, I think it qualifies as "pent-up demand".
Interesting; this is exactly what the Salon.com article is talking about -- most of the tech job listings are for outrageously senior people. I'll bet a lot of that is greed, but a fair chunk could be the above reasoning as well.
I should then be able to hit tab to choose one or the other, and then continue to type
Agreed.
But in addition, I have to wonder why they're making such a big deal with "machine learning" -- wouldn't a simple MRU (most-recently used) ordering do everything needed? That works *extremely* well on the tcsh command line, where I type the first few letters, then hit ^P repeatedly to look back up the list of commands that start with that -- in time order, from most recent on back.
I guess I can see that you might want a site you've visited a lot in the past, but not recently, to be near the top. So perhaps it should use MRU for the default selection, and then let the "machine learning" accumulate after that.
Please name one? I think you will have a tough time making that argument.
Weaponized Anthrax.
Obviously the big one. The answer is "not much". The structure is very lightweight (if you're picky about physics, very low mass), and with suce a realitively enormous surface area, it'll be akin to dropping a gigantic plastic grocery bag (except a similar structure made of plastic would have much higher mass)- it may not even impact the ground for a while, instead being blown about by the high winds in the upper atmosphere. When it finally does touch down, it may not even have the force to break through a glass window since it'll still be drifting down like an oversized feather. And if it somehow manages to pick up any decent speed, the atmosphere once again becomes our protector, heating it up and causing it to burn up like most any other piece of matter falling from space.
I mostly agree -- but you're not addressing the portion near the top. The worst-case scenario is, of course, that the cable breaks just below the counterweight. The cable is going to have some substantial mass there, since that's the highest-stress point. It's also going to be the fastest when it hits. I haven't read the book, but I did read the initial article by the authors, and it says some will in fact get though, though it only describes it summarily: "About 3000 kg of 2 square millimeter cross-section cable ... may fall to Earth intact and east of the anchor."
Don't know how much of a danger that will pose -- the paper doesn't mention the kinetic energy that this surviving portion will have when it hits. I don't think anyone knows exactly how it would hit either -- yes, it's very flat, but it's going to have an awful lot of speed when it hits, and if somehow the dynamics work out that it'd go through mostly edge-on, it won't lose that much speed.
On the other side, I also don't know exactly how the orbital mechanics will work out -- would it's lateral velocity be such that it sort of "misses" the Earth, and bobbs back up? Perhaps it'd enter some sort of very eccentric orbit, if the lower portion of the cable burns off enough to "free" it.
Ah well, lots of possibilities. It'll need a lot of studies, with great big supercomputers to model the atmospheric dynamics, etc.
"What if it affects the Earth's rotation?"
Really now. Maybe if we lifted enough material to form a habitable ring around the planet, we might see it slow by a few seconds, but this is a rather farfetched possibility. If it really does get to be a problem, start seeding the planet with asteroid dust on calculated trajectories to speed things back up.
That is, actually, an interesting question -- the main method for damping out the oscillations induced by the lateral acceleration imparted to the climber as it goes up will in fact be to "steal" it from the earth's rotational inertia. But you're right -- not likely we'd be raising enough mass to have a significant impact, for the forseeable future. Long term, though -- and we're talking about millenia, or even millions of years here -- it might become a problem. But if enough net mass were raised to have a significant impact, you'd have an even bigger problem just due to the sheer loss of mass. The answer to both problems, of course, would be to prevent the imbalance from getting too large -- make sure enough mass goes down the elevators to keep it relatively even. Hopefully it'll happen naturally; but if not, we're going to have to remember to watch out for it.
p.s. Dude -- why did you post A.C.? You're missing out on the Karma points!
Hey, I just realized: you'd start getting it back as soon as the vehicle passes geostationary (the counterweight at the top will be well past that point).
I havent even taken into account angular momentum either.
That might make for mostly a loss, I'd think. If you have an imbalance of loads going up vs. going down, what you'll get is the counterweight swinging back and forth -- slowly, but significantly, and with no real resistance to stop it. There will have to be some active damping done at the base station on Earth -- probably by reeling in the cable and letting it out at the right times, if it uses the good 'ol parametric exitation method. Might get it to balance out, but it'd still be mainly a source of loss, due to inefficiencies.
Hum -- in terms of energy cost (from all the inefficiencies), perhaps the elevator would eventually become self-sustaning. If enough solar collectors are built at the top, eventually we could have a power-supply laser beamed down from the top instead of up from Earth. No atmosphere to interfere either, once the climber is high enough. Then a trip up the elevator would get really cheap!
Someone who lives in the area can probably do better, but I believe it's this massive construction project in Boston, in which they're massively upgrading their subway system. It's taking a really long time (> a decade?) and a lot of money. I believe the reason is largely the fact that it has to not interfere with the living city above it -- AND work around currently-running existing subway lines.
Probably due to those buttons that stick out next to the screen, thereby blocking the view from shallow angles... :)
OTOH, how much of an image can you really see from 7.5 degrees anyways?
Obviously. But a very high radation dose would in fact kill a plant, would it not? Similarly, I'd expect a sufficiently low dose to be able to have mutagenic effects on animal cells without being fatal to them. As I said, I'd think the difference could result in there being a window of radiation levels beyond animals' tolerance levels but within plants'.
That's interesting -- do you have any references?
Water actually will become radioactive from gamma radiation when it is constant and in large doses.
Ah, yes, that makes sense. So let me amend my comment:
In terms of the water itself becoming radioactive, this would only happen if the radiation were in the form of neutrons or gamma radiation. But from the article:
That is, we're only talking about charged particles here, which by definition excludes neutrons and gamma rays.I don't think plant vs. animal would make much difference -- mutations in the chromosome are caused by particles hitting in just the right way to alter a gene. But there are many more ways that a passing particle can cause damage to a cell. So an occasional, single particle has some chance to mutate a gene, while the damage it is more likely to cause may be sustainable. Large numbers of these particles, however, will certainly cause enough damage to kill the cell.
The only plant vs. animal distinction I can think of is that perhaps plants are more tolerant, and therefore can handle higher levels of radiation before the damage is too severe.(?)
the amount of radiation pounding that planet is quite a lot. And water is not a good insulatory to radiation, the very water you would drink would be radioactive and extremely hostile to a living organism.
60km of water will block quite a lot of radation; I'd bet even the first few km would pretty much take care of it.
In terms of the water itself becoming radioactive, this would only happen if the radiation were in the form of *neutrons*. But from the article:
That is, we're only talking about charged particles here, which by definition excludes neutrons.But you know, that could be a potential use -- a case w/ no lcd; slap in a notebook-type mobo & hd, then you got yourself a nice little network server, w/ no loud fan, and that can slip behind your desk or something. Or stack up 10 of them and you got a night stand / beowulf cluster!
Yeah -- this underscores what I said at the top: that these definitions are pragmatic in nature -- inherently arbitrary, and case-specific.
I'd say hardly anyone would think that a person who has received brain damage, for example, should be just "discarded" if they now fall outside a definition of "sentience". Or even treated with less respect. Perhaps if for no other reason that the emotional satisfaction of those around him/her.
But then what about, say, a really smart dog that falls more closely within "sentience" than that brain-damaged person does now? Perhaps it could work like modding is supposed to work here on slashdot -- emphasize the Up direction, not the Down.
This gets into all sorts of fundamental morality questions -- ones which we already have contention over (e.g. abortion rights). Adding AI's that meet some standard for sentience into the mix would make things even more confusing. But it might ultimatley force people to think about it enough to finally come to some conclusions/compromises.
By the way, there's a whole other area that I've been completely ignoring: the idea of there being a "force of will". However you want to define it, it may be a necessary component of the various "sentient" categories I came up with -- perhaps even for the "complex adaptive system" category.
I have some ideas on "force of will" too -- but don't have time to go into them right now. :)
Dangit, I meant "absolute". I *tried* to proofread, honest! :)
I've toyed with the idea of an "abolute" definition. Yes, currently, we very much tend to use "intelligence", "sentience", etc. to mean "human". But you know what: any definitions we come up with are going to be inherently arbitrary. I think there's a whole spectrum of different "levels" of intelligence (if it can be linearized at all), and where we draw boundary lines is really more a matter of pragmatism than there being any absolute basis.
That said, I've tried to draw a few of those boundary lines, in a way that's more general than just equating with "human":
So a Turing test is one that will help sort a computer program into that last category. Though perhaps more precise tests could be found, if my definitions are in fact valid, and can be further refined."Please allow 6e7 to 8e7 weeks for delivery..."